#covid 19 is terrible and there is no bright side

[hjellacott]

Happy birthday Jo! (And Harry!)

Today my role-model turns 58, and The Boy Who Lived, 43.

You don't always get lucky that the people you love for subjective reasons become even better for objective reasons, but we did. I admire other authors, characters, actors, but sometimes they do things I frown upon, things I can't defend, and yet, it isn't the case with Jo. With her, I can breathe in peace knowing what she does will always be for the benefit of those who need a hero the most.

Harry was a hero for any of us who have known terrible loss, and taught us to make the best out of shit situations, to look at the bright side of things — consider your friends, choose your own family, fight for things you believe in — and to be brave and persistent, to stay true to yourself, to be selfless and kind, to be heroes of our own stories. To me, he's one of the most humane and extraordinary characters I've known, with tremendous depth, someone that is heroic not because he wants to be, not out of a deep desire of protagonism or power, or because he likes the limelight, but because he makes the best our of every difficult choice, and he tries to do the right thing. He's so deeply flawed, but always within logic (i.e. when he isolates himself from his friends because for 11 years he never had any and it's still hard to know what to do with them), and then he raises above his challenges, even the self-imposed ones.

In the Harry Potter books I found solace through a sometimes miserable childhood, again through more and more loss, and again in times of Covid. I found advice, I found the friendly words I needed, I found courage and inspiration, I found good old friends — and realised Hogwarts would, indeed, always be there when I needed it, even twenty plus years on.

Harry's story almost seems to mirror Joanne Rowling's. She knew incredible adversity and overcame it, and like Harry, she found true love, she made a family of her own, she found a place she could call home and true friends to stand beside her. And after all the success she's known, she's always giving back to us. This is a summary of some of her charitable work:

About 16% of her wealth in 2011 went to organisations fighting worldwide poverty, something that she's continued doing year after year.

Various work with Amnesty International.

The Ickabog royalties went to supporting charities that supported vulnerable groups affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

J.K. Rowling is Founder and President of Lumos, an international children’s charity fighting for every child’s right to a family by transforming care systems around the world. Lumos sheds light on the root causes of family separation and demonstrates that children can safely be united with loving families that help them thrive.

The Anne Rowling Clinic was founded by a donation from J.K. Rowling in 2010 in memory of her mother Anne.  The Clinic delivers clinical care and research to improve the lives of people with degenerative conditions affecting the brain, as well as hosting specialist NHS clinics for these conditions.  Jo continues to fund MS research exclusively through the Anne Rowling Clinic.

J.K. Rowling's charitable trust, Volant, which she set up in 2000 to administer grants to charities, to alleviate social deprivation particularly affecting women and children.

She's also created Beira's Place, a service for victims of sexual violence, focused on women (including trans men with female sexual organs).

Additionally, substantial donations to charity in the form of book royalties.  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages are sold in aid of Comic Relief and Lumos, and The Tales of Beedle the Bard is sold in aid of Lumos. Royalties from The Ickabog go to Volant, to help support vulnerable groups who’ve been particularly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, in the UK and internationally.

And then J.K. Rowling is a decorated social warrior, standing up for children, for homeless, for people who've suffered major disaster in life, and for women, doing anything and everything for us even when she meets opposition. She never gives up.

Thank you, Jo. You're my hero. Thank you for your hard work, and for the stories that will keep your memory and your activism alive, long after you're gone. Thank you for making my days so much brighter. Wishing you and Harry a wholesome day of much-deserved joy and laughter. HAPPY BIRTHDAE!!!

#j.k. rowling #j. k. rowling #joanne rowling #jo rowling #harry potter #feminism #Queen Rowling

[female-malice]

21st century in the Star Trek Universe:

1970s–humanity invents genetic engineering

1980s–extreme advancements in biotechnology that change all life on Earth. Scientists decide to genetically engineer humans. This is a terrible idea.

1990s–Eugenics Wars. 30 million people die. Eventually, the genetically enhanced dictators are wiped out (almost). There is now a global ban on genetic engineering. Genetic engineering becomes a taboo for humanity for centuries to come.

2000s–global instability and inequality

2010s–ecological breakdown

2020s–global housing crisis and "sanctuary" camps

2050s–World War III. Starvation and fascist kangaroo courts.

2060s–The world is in total chaos. Meanwhile, egomaniacal billionaire Zefram Cochrane invents a warp-capable personal space ship. This makes humanity a warp-capable species which gives Vulcans permission to intervene and try to save humanity from themselves.

2150s–Humanity invents a food replicator. This is the technology that extinguishes humanity's territorial and aggressive behavior. This makes humanity capable of creating centuries of Utopia on Earth.

2160s–Rather than start the space empire their ancestors dreamed of, humanity decides all planets should flourish together. Humans and Vulcans start the Federation of Planets.

21st century in the Our Universe (maybe):

1970s–humanity invents genetic engineering

1980s–humble advancements in biotechnology. humanity starts genetically engineering staple crops to have better yields

1990s–further advancements in biotechnology. humanity starts solving crime with DNA evidence. The genetically engineered staple crops don't produce seeds so farmers globally become reliant on capitalist seed monopolies.

2000s–global instability and inequality. Oil Wars. Fossil fuels are destroying the world but Oil Wars are great for capitalism. Also biotechnology advancements create powerful antibiotics for human medical use.

2010s–ecological breakdown. Animal agriculture is destroying the world. Also, animal agriculture monopolies are making powerful human antibiotics ineffective by using them on cattle. Using human antibiotics in animal agriculture gives pathogens endless opportunity to evolve new resistant strains. Humanity ignores the silent threat of zoonotic diseases from animal trafficking.

On the bright side, humanity quietly starts replicating flavoring and rennet for giant food corporations. That's right. Humanity accesses food replication technology 140 years ahead of the Star Trek timeline. Humanity can replicate any food enzyme by brewing genetically engineered yeast. Global capitalist food monopolies do everything possible to keep this technology quiet.

2020s–Global housing crisis and refugee camps. Extreme natural disasters from climate change. A novel zoonotic pathogen Covid-19 sweeps across humanity. Energy wars are still ongoing. Egomaniacal billionaires build crappy unimpressive personal rockets to nowhere...

And then, maybe, hopefully, humanity remembers that we already invented food replication.

All we need to do is implement food replication/precision fermentation globally and dismantle the animal agriculture industry. And then we'll be well on our way to the utopian centuries that lie ahead!

#star trek #cc

[secretmellowblog]

My sister asked me to draw a S-purr-ited Away cat and I produced this

#spirited away #yubaba #covid 19 is terrible and there is no bright side #but it can't stop the cats! #covid 19 #covid 19 tw

[liloelsagranger]

Night shift - finally a new Rocketshipping-fanfiction

My dear friends,

it’s been a while since I last posted an entry. Let me tell you why and what, besides Covid-19, made me pause from publishing fanfictions over the last couple of months. Of course, Switzerland was very affected by the pandemic and still is today. We had numerous lock-downs or as Swiss people call it “slow downs”. My mother got very sick last year, I almost lost her. The doctors said she would only live two or three more days, but my mom is a fighter. She had to stay at the hospital for months, she endured countless medical examinations, had to take meds and slowly learned to live again. I’m so proud of my mother that she was strong and determined to get better. When she turned back home, I started to take care of her and I hate to leave her on her own, even if we’re talking about half an hour or less. Right now, she’s doing quite good, actually, we’re on vacation and she makes a great effort to participate in life in Italy. She’s my role-model! She will never be the same as before, but she won’t give up, she wakes up every morning to make progress. I prayed for her and her well-being, I prayed every single night she might get another chance and now we’re here at the beach and dining in fancy restaurants. It’s been a horrible year for everyone, a year full of sorrow, tears and desperation, a year where I was constantly afraid, the hospital would call me with some bad news, but she did it! She survived and she fights for her life! So proud! Good news is: I passed my doctoral exams and I’m officially allowed to call myself Dr. phil. des. Melanie C. but that won’t ever stop me from loving Team Rocket so here it is - a brand new Rocketshipping-fanfiction for you guys. LOVE YOU! Night shift

Chapter 1:

It was past ten o’clock when that miserable looking guy entered the diner. He inconspicuously sat down in the farthest corner of the café and immediately hid his face behind the menu card. Nevertheless, Jessie the waitress could make out the pathetic expression on his face, how he was cowering like a whipped dog. She had seen quite a bit in this diner. Drunks, thugs, addicts and other needy people who asked for a sympathetic ear, compassion and understanding, but that guy was different. He suffered terribly, but did not dare to communicate, instead he hid from the world so as not to attract attention and quietly endure his fate. Jessie had to do something about it. Of course, she didn’t want to play the Good Samaritan. She knew the tricks of the men who entered this diner. Most of the time, they told the waitress tall tales, hoping to be comforted, whatever they meant by that. But this young man did not make a shady impressionHe was well dressed, looked well-groomed, and Jessie was especially struck by his bright emerald green eyes, the only thing in his face that had not yet been veiled by grief and sorrow. She decided to do something about his displeasure.

“Did you have a rough day?” she asked while disinfecting the table.

He looked briefly into her eyes and nodded. “That’s one way to put it,” he answered, the gaze immediately lowered again.

This would be a taciturn conversation, but Jessie didn’t give up easily, she was a natural at making even rocks talk.

“Listen! No matter what happened, I’ve seen or heard some things. If I can help you in any way, my name is Jessie and I’m in charge of this table today. Let me just get the gum out from under your seat and get you a cold drink. What would you like?” She pulled a spatula from her apron and rubbed away the remains of the spoiled brats that marred her diner.

‘Wow,’ the young man thought to himself. ‘A strong, self-confident woman who lends a hand herself and who’s not above cleaning up dirt.’ Their eyes met briefly, and he forced a wry smile.

“You know, kid. You can’t rely on anyone. If you want to get everything done, do it yourself and don’t trust anyone. This world doesn’t give you anything for granted!” She briefly wiped the back of his chair before disappearing behind the counter and pouring the young man an ice-cold Coke.

“I have rarely seen you so concerned about a customer. Normally you show yourself aloof and only take the order, so as not to get involved in embarrassing conversations. Must be a really great pike, this pathetic creature in the far corner. Could it be that you’ve got a tiny crush on this guy?” For Eddy, teasing his best friend was the greatest pleasure. He didn’t know her like that. Jessie usually resisted any kind of small talk. This was due to her dark past, when she had repeatedly fallen for advances from men who were never looking for a steady relationship, but for a quick fix. Eddy had witnessed this bad time of his friend, how her heart was broken, how she was badly played with, and how she was simply dropped like a hot potato. Jack was the worst example of them all. While Jessie was already hearing the wedding bells ringing, he was making love to the women of the Strip and deceiving Jessie night after night with other broads. Jessie was devastated when she found out Jack was cheating on her. She was furious, not even at her lying boyfriend, but at herself for having been so stupid as to trust a man.

Jessie gave Eddy a light pat on the head. “Don’t be silly! That time is over. I can take care of myself, I don’t need male support for that. I’m a big girl, I make my own dough, and I keep my head above water pretty well. No, not a chance, I’ve sworn off flirting.” Nevertheless, she caught herself as her gaze wandered to the young man in the corner. “Oh yes, this time is definitely over,” Eddy smirked.

“Jessie, could you bring us a side of fries, please?” Misty’s order echoed throughout the hall. The twenty-year old waved her hands. She was used to speaking loudly, almost shouting, to attract guests to her daily water Pokémon show. Sometimes she walked up and down the streets of the Strip all day in the blazing hot sun, trying to win people for her underwater attraction. As an excellent student, she could have taught at any college, but she had decided early on to get into show business and make her living doing what she really loved, joined by Dewgong and Starmie. Her parents had not agreed with this decision at all, it was wasted talent, they had claimed, and had summarily turned Misty out the door. Since then, she had been struggling through life on her own, but could always count on Jess, the diner and her two best friends, Ash and Brock, young people who were also not favoured by fate.

“Temper your voice, twerp!” Jessie couldn’t help but grin. She spread the ketchup bottles around the table, hoping Ash wouldn’t spill on himself and the diner again. His constant companion Pikachu immediately hopped on his shoulder, grabbed a fry and popped it in his mouth. Ash and his Pokémon were carnies. He had trained his friend well and attracted many spectators with his performance. Most of them felt sorry for the guy and tipped generously. That’s why Ash was able to invite his friends to the diner every night, a place that gave them hope where they could experience security. They were convinced that nothing would ever disturb this idyll and that fate, for better or worse, had taken its course.

“Who’s that guy over there?” Brock wanted to know. He had barely sold chocolate and roses tonight. The others held back, but they were certain that their friend was just too pushy with women and that’s why he only collected rejections instead of green bills.

“I’ve never seen him here before. Must be from another area. I can’t tell you for the life of me why he’s wearing a suit at theses temperatures, he looks pretty pathetic to me anyways,” Jessie replied.

“Maybe his car has stalled,” Ash suggested, “and now he was forced to wander through the desert until the tasty aromas from your diner brought him back from his delirium.”

“Or,” Brock interfered, “he had to flee his own wedding because his wife is a real pain in the ass, unlike our sweet Misty,” Brock oohed at his friend. “Forget it, Brock! You and me, this will never happen!” She gave him a gentle poke.

“Enough now with your naïve speculations! Just let him enjoy his drink. We’re closing soon, so get going,” Jessie dismissed their absurd ideas with a wave of her hand, but at this point no one knew how right Brock was.

Dark thoughts hunted the young man. He knew what he would face at home if he was late. Beatings, torture, rebuke, harassment, were just a few words to describe his failed relationship. Unconsciously, he stroked his scarred arms.

“Can I get you something to eat?” Jessie pulled him out of the maelstrom of bad thoughts, of course she had noticed the wounds, but maybe he had gotten those injuries at work. The young man rummaged some coins out of his pants and let them jingle on the table. “Is that enough for a cheese sandwich?” Jessie hated small change, but she would make an exception for him. A friendly smile, a quick nod, and she passed on the order.

“Something’s wrong with this guy,” she whispered to Eddy. “He’s scarred, bruised and pays with penny coins. Possibly a vagrant.” Eddy couldn’t help but grin. “That guy’s been keeping you busy all night, Jess. What’s the matter with you? Are you getting weak?”

The young man could not overhear the conversation between the waiters, but he was sure they were talking about him. He sure made a rather frightening impression, but that was a private matter and not something you shared with a waitress in a diner.

His gaze drifted to the daily paper, which had two faces emblazoned on it: Butch and Cassidy. He had never heard of this odd couple, but according to the news, theses two were causing quite a stir and were terrifying the Strip.

“Oh, so you’ve already spotted them, those two knuckleheads! They keep the Strip in suspense, and heads roll when the taxes don’t add up,” Jessie served him the cheese sandwich and gave him a slight smile.

“Can I get you anything else?” He thanked her and took a hearty bite of his dinner.

The last half hour flew by and the remaining guests left the diner to spend the night on the Strip, as very few had a roof over their heads. Jessie set about cleaning up and Eddy checked the register.

The young man stood up and made his way towards the door. But before he left the diner, he glanced back at Jessie for a moment. A sigh escaped him. What if…?

Jessie returned his gaze and watched him go until the young man disappeared. She walked right up to his table and found a little note on the receipt.

“Thanks for treating me like a human being, James.” 

#rocketshipping #rocketshipper #pokemon #teamrocket #james #james team rocket #jessie #jessie team rocket #rokettodan #pokemonfanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #new #update #musashi #kojiro #takeshi #brock #ash #satoshi #misty #eddy #story #newstory #lovestory #nightshift #love #relationship #lovely #cute

[socratoteles]

A year to get Ph.D in letting go

The last time I was here, I wrote that perhaps it was time for me to go out and just enjoy the world. And amid the global pandemic, I sort of managed to do that. It was such a lifesaver in a year of goodbyes. I`ll get to that, but let me begin with my coronavirus scare.

On March 4 last year, I was away in Bandung, aware but not worried of some obscure virus that triggered a total lockdown in some Chinese cities. That very same day was also the time when my colleagues came in contact with a man who later confirmed of having contracted COVID-19.

That was how close I was of contracting the virus. Had I not taken a paid leave to write last year’s essay in the city where I was born, chances were high that I was another case as well, at that early stage of the pandemic too. I`m still familiar with the helplessness that came after I checked in to a hospital only to being denied the test (the nurse reasoned that the contact with my colleagues, who might catch the virus from the confirmed man, cannot be categorized as close contact).

And that experience, of confusion and fear of infecting loved ones, left a lasting impression that shaped my behavior going forward. After all, it takes a pandemic to make wearing mask and washing hands could made the difference between life and death.

Covid-induced isolation meant that I spent most of my time being holed up in my room for the past 12 months. To this day the side effects of this solitary existence is still beyond my full grasp. On one hand, this situation had brought out my inner resiliency, resourcefulness and adaptability in the long days and night when things were just so dark. On the other hand, it also forced me to deal with unresolved traumas and numerous intrusive thoughts, which I will get into later.

People get really creative during the long locked-down days, spending it doing viral social media challenges one after the other. Videoconferencing become a thing on its own and for some reason loads of folks played a game named Among Us too, perhaps to remind themselves of the interactions cruelly torn apart because of the virus.

There was also a newfound awareness on class too, because the coronavirus disproportionately affected different individuals with different income level. At least on my part, I was lucky that essential workers (the pandemic elevated the phrase into such a buzzword) near my place were safe and somehow never contracted the virus. It is worth mentioning that I definitely cannot survive this long if not for the minimarket workers, ride-hailing drivers and dozens of cooks, all of whom must have worked in long hours, despite knowing the risk, just to keep their families fed.

Others, however, were not so lucky. the SARS-CoV-2 had infected more than a million Indonesians a year after it was officially detected in these shores. Millions have lost their jobs as economic activities ground to a halt. The place I currently work was not an exception. Massive layoffs would have happened in my office had the shareholders have enough money to properly compensate their workers.

It was an obviously eye-opening experience to calculate my own severance pay and make sure I could survive on that for as long as possible. The prospect of losing your income during the pandemic –which should be that particular time for anyone to hold on to their what-ifs money– was really awful.

This is the paragraph where I say that I wish nothing but the best for those who left the company simply because they deserve nothing less than that.

But there was another reason why I signed up for a help from professional therapist last year. In the latter part of last year, things got very, very grim. At the risk of oversimplification, let’s just say that I was unable to express my feelings properly to a girl that I really liked, right at the most critical moment when probably both of us needed support from each other. She eventually left with another guy.

Days before that fateful event happened, I was quietly bearing my own burden. After years of convincing myself that I was okay, I was, in fact, not okay, at least mentally. Years of trauma have caught up. It’s too personal to even spell that out here but I`ll just quote this Youtuber just to describe a fitting metaphor. 

“You see, human identity is like a house of card. One that’s always expanding. A story that is ever developing and always referred back to because every memory becomes a new card. Trauma is when a card doesn’t fit because the experience itself is so painful that it’s incompatible with everything else and if you become obsessed with making it fit the whole house of cards can fall apart and you lose the confidence to build anything new.”

Basically, my house of cards came crashing down, hard. At a time, it reduced me into this insecure soul who were unsure that people will accept me for who I was.

The last time I felt this way was a couple years back when my parent’s divorce was formalized. A girlfriend turned ex-girlfriend at that time too. Apparently, the universe has a cruel sense of timing to combine existential crisis with a relationship one.

The road to recovery was rocky, to say the least. I know something fundamental must be addressed, hence the therapy session.

I`m grateful for the company of my friends, either offline or online. (yes, I had become quite loose in terms of isolation because I know I had to prioritize my mental health; COVID-19 be damned). I`m also glad to say that because I talked with my friends about this issue, some of them were also encouraged to seek professional help.

At the height of my despair, I watched La Grande Bellezza (probably for a half a dozen time already) again and found this quote, spoken by the protagonist Jep Gambardella:

“We’re all on the brink of despair. We can only look each other in the face, keep each other company, kid each other a bit. Don’t you agree?”

Someone was kind enough to upload the entire scene on Youtube.

I decided that all bets are off, so I purchased books, many of which had been on my to-read list for years because I know I`ll have to read it when I search for a catharsis. That was how I finally read the Camus’ Myth of Sisyphus, from which I managed to understand what he meant by the absurdities of life. Into the Wild, excellently written by Jon Krakauer, broke my heart too because of Chris Mccandles’ tales somehow mimicked my own, minus the grand adventure part. I finally read Alan Watts too, from whom I learned that efforts to avoid from pain is painful in itself.

And music, a constant part of my life as I know it, helps too. I was saved because Fleet Foxes released a life-affirming record that fittingly spoke about relief, gratitude, and seasonal rebirth. During the darkest days I was just alone with my guitar in my room, terribly singing out the words that these musicians carved out of their soul to release my emotional burden. I was particularly grateful for being reminded time and again that “no one gets it right” but “we’re all supposed to try”.

I made a playlist containing songs that for me served as a reminder to be gentle for myself. You can check that here.

All of that was a roundabout way to say that I indeed, was able to go out amid the pandemic. On one afternoon I just said fuck it, I need to go out and see things. That led me to a weekly socially-distanced walk around the neighborhood, which was therapeutic in itself because the walks allowed me to be fully present and be sensitive to the sights and sounds and smells around me. Nothing is more liberating that allowing your feet to go where it you to go.

I don’t have the full answers yet, but as I wrote his essay, I`m glad to be able to say that I have rebuild my house of cards, with some of the bad cards included as well. It was quite a bumpy ride but when I looked back, this particular tweet was eerily prescient because it rings true today as was the day I tweeted it.

But I walked away from the depths of that bottomless pit not only with knowledge, but also of understanding the parts that made me who I am. I`m also humbled after I saw the abyss for the second time because it suggests that there might be another time when I found myself on the edge of despair.

I`ll never forget the fact that these hard-won lessons came on the back of years of pain, grief and suffering. But it also came on the heels of moments of simple walk in the setting sun and feeling the breeze on the beach too. In fact, I have made it my mission going forward to acknowledge both good and bad things as they are. Because forcing yourself to remember all the bright things when you were in the dark, and vice versa, is a form of self-torture. I hope this essay somehow do that mission justice.

I have said goodbyes to many things in life as the crisis comes and goes, but 2020 goodbyes were simply different. So much so that I thought I have a PhD in letting go already, however absurd that idea is.

#age #birthday #essay

[sleekervae]

The Neighbour [1.9]

Masterlist

A/N: Yo! Midterms can kiss my a$$!!

Trigger: pregnancy mention

Soft sun rays broke through the curtains and washed over the ceilings. The light turned the dark shelter of eyelids into a bright red and caused a stir in the stagnant bed sheets.

Breaking the harmony of morning gold, Eva awoke to a violent stir in her guts, and she jumped out of bed as if it was red hot and singeing her skin. The sudden commotion woke Remington, ripped from his sleep and thrusted into a panic.

Her footsteps mellowed as she darted into her bathroom and crouched over the toilet. And awful sound erupted as she threw up into the bowl. Remington was quick to come after her and held back her hair as she chucked up what little was in her stomach.

"Shit," she gasped in exhaustion, her violent stomach turns now settled down. She flushed the toilet and sat back on the floor, wiping her mouth with a sheet of toilet paper. Remington crouched beside her, concern and fear flooding his face.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Fuck if I know," she replied breathlessly, her mind trying to push down the anxiety of possibly being exposed to the virus, "Do you feel okay?"

"I feel fine," he nodded, "You think you should go see a doctor?"

"I don't know," she shook her head.

Remington pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, "You're not warm, so you don't have a fever,"

She nodded, "My stomach kind of hurts. You don't think that maybe we were... exposed?"

Remington glanced at the floor, dread filling his chest as he thought it over. They still had their bubble that they were sticking to, and he couldn't see a way that he or Eva had been exposed to covid. Then again, it could've been the smallest, most random thing they touched...

"I don't think so," he shook his head, "We'd both be hurling up if we were,"

Eva sniffled, trying to relax. She was letting her mind race just because she was throwing up and had mild cramps. For all she knew, she it was side effects from her period.

"You want me to run you a bath?" Remington asked softly.

Eva chewed on her lip, her eyes heavy and her skin pale. She felt like complete shit, but a bath didn't sound too bad, "Yes please," she replied quietly.

Remington kissed her forehead and went to prep the bath for her. As the warm water splashed into the tub, Eva lurched forward into the bowl again. Remington felt terrible, he felt terrible not being able to help her. He had never seen her look so bad, exhausted, pale, it broke his heart. Guilt riddled up his spine as he thought more and more about what she had said; had they been exposed to covid 19? He would never forgive himself if she had gotten sick because of him.

When the bath was ready, Remington helped Eva in and sat down on the rim beside her. Eva closed her eyes and relaxed in the warm water, the heat almost as good as a hug from him. She let out a soft exhale as she sunk up to her neck in the bath.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, concern laced in his eyes.

Eva pouted as she looked up at him. Her deep blue eyes were now desaturated and dull, "I've had better mornings," she quipped cheekily, "But I hope you're enjoying yourself,"

"Why's that?"

Eva managed a smile, "You get to sit and look at your naked girlfriend in the bathtub,"

Remington chuckled, "Darling, your nudity is the last thing I'm thinking of. I'm just concerned whether or not you need to see a doctor... or if there's anything I can give you to make you feel better,"

Eva rested her head against the tiled wall behind her, "You sure you're feeling fine?"

Remington nodded, "I feel fine. So most likely we weren't exposed,"

She smiled, pulling her hand from the water to grasp his hand in hers, "I hate being sick," she huffed, "I can't kiss you properly,"

Remington smiled softly and kissed the top of her head, "Can I bring you something to eat? Drink?" he asked gently.

Eva nodded, "Maybe some tea?"

"Of course. One earl grey coming right up," he stood and went for the kitchen, "No sugar?"

"Atta' boy," she grinned weakly and watched him go.

As Remington left the bathroom, Pluto trotted past him to go sit with his master dutifully. Remington got to work on brewing her tea, though the entire time he couldn't help but feel an uneasy sensation fester in his guts. Instinctively, he phoned Sebastian and waited impatiently for him to answer. He was never good with these sort of things, he wasn't familiar with how to take care of someone when they were sick, let alone himself. He tried to push the thought out of his head that Eva had caught the virus, and perhaps it was a 24-hour bug she had instead.

"Hello?" Sebastian's voice came through.

"Hey Seb, you got a minute?" Remington said.

"Yeah, what's up?" Sebastian asked, "How's Eva?"

"That's why I'm calling you," he said, speaking quietly so Eva wouldn't hear him, "She started throwing up this morning and she had stomach pains. I don't know if I should get someone to see her or how I can help her,"

Sebastian was silent for a brief moment, "... She was throwing up this morning?" he asked cautiously.

"Yeah. I ran her a bath and I'm making her some tea --"

"Any other symptoms besides vomiting? Fever? Lack of taste?"

"I'm pretty confident she doesn't have the virus. We'd both be sick otherwise," Remington assured him, "I just don't know what else to do for her,"

"... Well... is it possible she's sick not just from a cold or flu?" he asked warily.

"What do you mean?" Remington asked, not following Sebastian's trail.

"You guys have obviously..." Sebastian said, indirectly sewing his seeds.

Realization hit Remington like a truck. There was no way... could there be? "I mean, yeah -- but not without... a-and she's on the pill,"

"But you've been frequenting the last five days?"

"Sure -- I... c'mon, I seriously doubt that that's it," Remington said, "She's got stomach cramps, that can't be a symptom,"

"What do you know about pregnancy symptoms?" Sebastian asked. He didn't think she was pregnant, but he just wanted to make sure that they were prepared for the unlikely scenario.

"Nothing," Remington admitted, "But I don't... I mean... she can't... she's probably just caught some little bug,"

"And if it's not just a 'little bug'?" Sebastian asked.

Remington took a deep breath, "... Then I'll make sure to take good care of her," he spoke without a second thought. A baby. Could she really be having a baby? He felt his stomach churn again. The first thing that came to his mind after he ended his call was that he was nowhere near ready to be a father. He definitely wasn't ready for something like that, but he knew that if she was pregnant, the honourable thing to do would be to stick by Eva and support their child. They'd figure it all out together. His love and certainty for staying by her side didn't lessen the sense of panic that washed over him.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and made his way back to the bathroom, kneeling by the bathtub and handing her the tea.

"Thanks," she smiled softly at him and took a small sip. Her hair was damp and her skin flushed, likely from the steam, but in the rays of the sun peaking through she looked more angelic than ever.

His eyes travelled to her stomach and he felt his own lurch again. He just imagined something living in there, moving around under his skin. Something they both had a hand in creating.

"Eva," he spoke up, looking her in the eye, "Do you think you might be something more than sick?" he asked quietly. He didn't want to sound rude of confrontational because he didn't want to give her the impression that if she was pregnant, that he would be upset about it.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Y-You're throwing up this morning and the cramps... I know we've been safe but... what I mean is that if it's something more than sick, I'm going to stick with. you. I'll be right by your side through the whole thing and we can figure it out later," Remington's words fell faster from his lips than he'd planned.

Eva looked at him quizzically, then up at Pluto who sat curled on the counter, then she burst into giggles, "Rem, I'm not pregnant," she said, "It's probably just burn out,"

"Are you sure? Because it's okay if you are --" Remington said as he chewed on his bottom lip.

Her stormy eyes lit up a little at his nerves, "Remington. I'm not pregnant. My God, you think we'd actually be ready to be parents?" she laughed, placing one of her hands on his. The water from her palm seeped down between his fingers, "I'm just sick. Not covid-sick, but some sort of sick," she smiled, "I'm certain of it. So don't scare yourself,"

Remington let out a relief-filled exhaled, "I'm still here for you, sweetheart," he promised.

"What made you think I was pregnant?" she asked.

"Sebastian," he replied sheepishly.

Eva smiled, "Oh brother. Probably brought it up from his own scares with Larissa,"

Remington chuckled and ran a hand through his hair, "I just wanted to make sure,"

Remington stirred a pot of Campbell's chicken soup as at the sun began to dip into the late afternoon. He had his playlist at a very low volume as to not wake Eva who was sleeping soundly in her bedroom. He dipped a finger into the pot and had a taste, relieved everytime he was able to taste and smell something. Not bad Remington, not bad at all. He took the soup off the stove and poured it into a bowl; mushroom soup was Eva's favorite but Remington figured some blander, less dense foods would be better for her.

He took the two bowls of soup into the bedroom where Eva slept soundly. He turned on and dimmed her lamp so it wouldn't be too hard on the eyes. Placing the bowls on the bedside table he gently shook her awake.

"Hey... honey," Remington said softly, smiling warmly at her, "I made some soup if you're hungry,"

Eva slowly opened her heavy eyes, rubbing the sleep away and become aware of where she was again. She was relieved to see his dark eyes staring back at her. A savoury smell wafted through her nose and she looked over at the bowls, sitting up against the headboard and he brushed the loose hair from her face.

"Thanks," she smiled, her voice hoarse as Remington carefully handed her one of the bowls and a spoon. He sat beside her, stirring bits of chicken around in the creamy liquid.

"I know it's not 5 Michelin Stars or nothing..." he simpered.

Eva smiled and kissed his cheek, "This is perfect,"

"Are you feeling better?" he asked.

"A bit," her stomach having settled after taking some medicine earlier. The smooth, salty goodness of the soup was a nice comfort as it soothed down her throat.

"I did a little bit of reading on your symptoms," Remington said, "Vomiting, nausea, cramps... sounds like you just got a case of food poisoning,"

Eva quirked an eyebrow, "Food poisoning?"

He nodded, "There was a salmonella outbreak at a chicken farm a few weeks back and they just did a recall,"

She smiled weakly, "And I had a chicken burrito yesterday, hence why you're not sick,"

Remington laughed, "Veganism's looking more and more enticing, isn't it?"

She rolled her eyes, "Well, I appreciate your expert diagnosis, Dr. Leith. Which means I can kiss you with no recourse, now?"

He smiled and placed a warm hand on her pale cheek, "Absolutely," and he pressed a kiss to her lips, "Even if it was something else, I'd take the risk, anyway,"

Eva smiled and rested her chin on his shoulder, relieved that she could be somewhat affectionate with him again, "You're too lovely,"

"I love you," he smiled at her.

She nudged at his foot with hers, "I love you more,"

"Bullshit," he giggled, kissing the top of her head, "That would be impossible,"

They heard the clicking of claws tapping across the floor, and the bed jolted momentarily as Pluto came crawling towards them. The tabby sat at their feet, staring at the bowls with great expectation. Eva rolled her eyes.

"Relax kitty, I'm still gonna' feed you,"

Remington stood before the bathroom mirror, runnings his fingers through the sides of his hair. His eyebrows were drawn tight to crease at the centre of his forehead and his mouth was pulled into a straight line.

"Should I cut my hair?" he asked, a sensation of uneasiness washing over him. This wasn't even the longest he had had it before, but there was something off putting about the bangs hanging over his eyes, now dyed blue from yesterday's sheer boredom.

"I think it's cute," Eva commented, redressing after her shower. She was practically back to normal after two days of sticking her head in the toilet bowl and feeling like a techno rave was running at full force in her stomach. Remington had taken exceptional care of her, especially considering his lack of knowledge on how exactly to take care of sick people.

She wrapped her arms around Remington's waist and peered over his shoulder, and her eyes lit up at his reflection, "Oh, God! Rem you look so good! I say let it grow!"

Remington chuckled, "Love the flattery, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's the blue?"

"Remington, you look fucking hot," Eva stated, her eyes glued to his reflection.  She kissed his neck softly and let go to sit back against the sink counter, admiring the silvery blue coming to life under the lights. She watched as he grabbed his usual jar of hair spray and put his liberty spikes into place.

"One day you're gonna go bald from all that product," she teased.

"Shoot me if I ever go bald," Remington joked.

Eva shook her head, "Nah, I think you could pull off the egg look. I might shave your head in your sleep just to see what you look like," she winked, "I'd still find you sexy, regardless,"

Remington smiled and pulled her lips to his, dipping down and kissing her hard. He grinned against her lips and placed a hand on her jaw, "Please don't get sick again -- I missed kissing you like this too much,"

Eva laughed and kissed his nose, "You're so corny, I might go purposefully contract something just to get away from you,"

Remington's jaw dropped in faux shock as Eva laughed cheekily, pecking him on the cheek and dashing past him. Remington chuckled to himself, quickly fixing his hair once more before following her out. He descended down the stairs of his house with his laptop in hand, having been scheduled for a zoom call with the band's management team to run through the plan and protocol for shooting their next music video. Since all tours and events were called off, and with the release of their graphic novel coming up, the brothers figured they had a perfect opportunity to put their creativity to work.

"How long's your meeting?" Eva asked, grabbing a glass from the cabinet for water.

"Probably no more than thirty minutes -- maybe an hour should we get a little sidetracked," he replied, grinning coyly.

Eva simperede, "Only you guys could find new ways to goof off on Zoom meetings," she had her own things that she unpacked from her bag for work, "I can go upstairs if you want,"

"No, no, you stay on the couch. Me and Emerson are going to be in the studio," he said.

"Emerson and I," Eva corrected as she plopped onto the couch, smiling smugly.

Remington rolled his eyes, "My bad," he leaned over the couch and pressed a kiss to her head, "I won't be long,"

"I'll be here," she grinned.

Remington then went to the bottom of the stairs, "EMERSON! C'MON!"

"I'm coming!" the younger brother fumbled around before he came trotting down the stairs, his dishevelled hair and dark eyes making him look as though he had just rolled out of bed, "You know you're loud enough that Canada can hear you?"

Remington’s only response was a petty raspberry. 

“Get along, boys!” Eva called as they meandered their way into the studio space.

“I’ll try, but no promises,” Emerson grumbled.

“Oh, quit being such a stick in the mud,” Remington huffed.

The rolling chair Remington sat on made gentle squeals as he turned on his spot, listening to his manager and the rest of the band drone on and one about plans to further promote The Bastards, as well as try to salvage what entertainment plans they could given the circumstances. 

“I definitely think we should do another music video,” Sebastian pitched.

“Tonight is the Night I Die?” Remington grinned hopefully.

“Another animation?” their manger, Jeremy asked, “I can get back in touch with the animators for Little Bastards --”

“Do you think it would be possible to do a live action video, instead?” Emerson asked, drumming his fingers on the table anxiously, “Don’t get me wrong, I loved the animation, but you can’t really portray the same emotion we would in real life. I mean -- the most Rem’s avatar did was looked shocked over and over,”

Jeremy rubbed at his chin with unease as he thought it over, “... Well... I can definitely look into it but it won’t be the same kind of shoot that you boys are used to. We’re going to have a lot of safety protocols, and there’s gonna’ have to be rigorous testing --”

“Well, if Lady Gaga could do it, then we could do it,” Remington said. 

"Michael could direct for us,” Emerson said. 

Jeremy nodded, “Okay. You guys got a story?”

Emerson was quick to respond, “The murder of Aldous Blackwell like in the novel. I want to do full on victorian gothic vampires with stakes and thunder storms and --”

“We can use people in our bubble too,” Sebastian said, “Instead of paid extras as the vampires,”

“Shy would totally be into it,” Emerson nodded. 

“So would Larissa,” Sebastian added. 

Jeremy was jotting notes on a piece of paper out of frame, nodding quickly, “Alright. I’ll look into protocols for filming and I’ll get Brad on location scouting,” 

Sebastian glanced at Remington through his own screen, “Hey Rem, you could ask Eva if she’d want to be part of the video, too,”

Emerson nodded, “Yeah. She just needs to pale out a bit but she would make a cute renaissance vampire,” 

The corners of Remington’s lips couldn’t help but turn upwards at the thought, though he remembered how camera shy Eva could be. Nonetheless, he figured she would no doubt appreciate the era and aesthetic that would be incorporated into the story, and perhaps with a little convincing Eva would happily hop on board? 

“I can see what she says,”

#remington leith #Remington Leith imagine #palaye royale #sebastian danzig #emerson barrett #palaye royale imagine #palaye fanart #Palaye Royale fic #palaye positivity #rockband #boy bands #band blog #band imagines #fluffy #original story #original female character #tonight is the night I die

[365days365movies]

March 7, 2021: Onward (2020) (Part One)

Finding Nemo.

That’s my favorite Pixar film. Real talk, no arguments, and today’s movie? NOT dethroning it. This movie is so hard-wired into my brain, that the second I typed the words of the title, the theme song ran through my head, where it lives rent-free. It will be a cold day when I don’t find an excuse to shout “NEMOOOO!!!! I HAVE TO FIND MY SON!!” at any opportune moment. I will never stop swimming. Whenever I catch a Chinchou or Lanturn in a Pokémon game, I name it “Goodfeeling’sgone”.

SHARK BAIT OOH HA HA

YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE DEPTHS OF MY LOVE FOR THIS MOVIE.

...Ahem. So, yeah, I love FInding Nemo. For the record, the sequel ain’t bad. And also for the record, there’s only one Pixar movie that I consider to be bad, and it’s the one you’d think. You know, the one about ageism. The one where somebody dies by torture? The bad spy movie?

...the second one about cars?

Which means, YES. I DON’T THINK The Good Dinosaur IS THAT BAD! Not exactly good, but its gorgeous, and just kinda boring, not outright terrible. That Styracosaurus, though...that dude is great.

Anyway, off of Pixar for a sec, huh? What about fantasy? I’m a big tabletop RPG nerd, and I’m currently the GM for a Pathfinder campaign, a Pokémon RPG, and a Mutants and Masterminds game, while also playing in a Pathfinder game as well. Yeah, I’m a busy dewd. But what I’m saying is, this movie should be preaching to the choir for me. I’m a Pixar lover who plays RPGs. I’m ready for this. I’m ready for CGI Bright. Which is another way of saying, I’m ready for a version of Bright that doesn’t suck.

So, why haven’t I seen it until now? I mean...COVID-19. This film got FUCKED. But, no matter! It’s on Disney Plus, I’ve got Disney Plus, so let’s get this baby STARTED! Let’s get updated on some Pixar! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

OK, immediately digging the soundtrack over the Disney logo as we jump in here! Very ethereal, very fantasy, very LotR, I LIKE it, I LIKE it! And then...long ago, the world was full of wonder!

We get a view of the world of olde, with magic and many mystical, mythical creatures living together and adventuring. However, as magic wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to use, it eventually gave way to technology, fading away in a world now very similar to ours.

Basically, it’s about the same as our world, except for a few different races, and the fact that dragons are basically dogs, and unicorns are basically raccoons, which is fuckin’ fantastic.

We enter the home of teenage elf Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland) and introverted now-16-year-old who lives with his mother, Laurel (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and his older brother Barley (Chris Pratt). Barley’s a tabletop RPG nerd who’s also a fan of the magical past. Said obsessions cause a strain on his relationship with Ian, and with that of his mother’s boyfriend, centaur policeman Colt Bronco (Mel Rodriguez).

After a discussion about Barley’s recent attempt to protect an old magical monument from destruction, he accidentally damages the sweatshirt that Ian is wearing, which was owned by their late father, Wilder. Ian rushes out, flustered, despite Barley’s attempts to bond with him. Well, looks like we have a sense of the plot for this one.

On his way to school, Barley stops to get some food when he meets Gaxton (Wilmer Valderrama), an old college friend of his father’s. From Gaxton, he learns things about his father that he never knew, like that he was bold and standout. From there, Barely pledges to try and be more self-confident, like his father.

Whiiiiiiich, doesn’t exactly work once he gets to school. He fails to stand-up to a jerky guy at school, he fails in his driving class, and he fails to ask other high school kids to his birthday party. But to be fair, Barley helps a bit with that last one when he shows up with Guinevere, his busted-ass van with a unicorn painted on the side. Which is supposed to be uncool...but I kinda dig it, not gonna lie.

After that, Ian completely flubs the invitation bit, confusing the people he was talking to, and disappointing himself in the process. He gets a ride home with Barley, and goes home to talk to a tape recording of his dad. Which is...beautifully sad, and somehow very easy to identify with. So, yeah, it’s gonna be that kind of Pixar movie.

Ian talks to his mom about his father at his age, asking if he was ever unsure. She says yes, but couples this with a surprise: a gift from his late father, who died of a terminal illness shortly after Ian’s birth. The gift is for both Ian and Barley, and was meant to be opened when they were both over 16.

She gets it from the attic, and they unwrap it, where it’s revealed to be a wizard’s staff. Which is weird, because Wilder was an accountant. In a pocket of the wrapping cloth, there’s a letter written by Wilder with the narration from the beginning of the film (that “Long ago” bit).

Also included is a spell, written by Wilder so that he could see who his sons grew up to be. This “Visitation Spell” would appear to be a way to bring Wilder back for 24 hours. Barley, being the magic-lover that he is, tries multiple times to cast the spell with the staff, but fails to do so, much to his and Ian’s great disappointment.

However, when Ian tries to read the spell out of curiosity later, the staff begins to react, and the spell begins to work. Barley comes in as this is happening, and the spell works...halfway. It starts to fail, and Barley offers to help, but Ian pulls the staff away, and the spell stops as the Phoenix crystal inside it shatters.

Looks like another bust, but it’s not a complete failure. And if you’ve seen literally any trailer for this movie, you know what happens.

Although it’s just his legs and feet, it’s still Wilden Lightfoot (Kyle Bornheimer...technically). The boys decide to try and complete the spell, but need another Phoenix Gem to do so. According to Barley’s “historically accurate” TTRPG, Quests of Lore, they will be able to find one by accepting a quest from the place where all quests start: the Manticore’s Tavern. And so, the quest begins!

The brothers and their half-dad board Guinevere and drive to the Manticore’s Tavern. On the way, Barley convinces Ian to practice some spells from the games rulebook, but they don’t work because Ian’s not invoking his passion (or his “heart’s fire”, as Barley calls it). Meanwhile, Laurel figures out where they’re headed, but doesn’t know exactly why...yet.

After the journey, they make it to the Manticore’s Tavern, which is now essentially a themed Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant, owned and managed by Corey (Octavia Spencer), a very overworked manticore. Which is pretty great, not gonna lie.

They try to get the actual map to the Phoenix’s Gem from her in order to conjure their Dad, but she no longer sends adventurers on dangerous quests, mostly because she doesn’t want to get sued by any injured adventurers. When Ian argues with her about this, she IMMEDIATELY DIVES INTO AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS/MID LIFE CRISIS!

It’s, uh...it’s kind of amazing. Having completely lost it at this point, she basically tears down the entire building with her bare hands and fire-breath. Unfortunately, the map to the Phoenix Gem is burnt in the process of Corey’s literal meltdown. However, as Wilden’s about to be crushed by a couple of falling beams, Ian taps into his heart’s fire.

Nice. They get out of there, and head out for the Gem, using a child’s placemat replica of the real map to make their way to a place called Raven’s Point. However, rather than just follow the goddamn map, Barley decides to go on much more dangerous road known as the “Path of Peril”, once again following the “call of adventure” and his gut.

Which...yeah, Barley’s not really considering the reality of this whole situation, which fits his personality. He’s a dreamer, despite the rational and reasonable solution in front of him. And, in case you weren’t sure, I’m pretty sure that isn’t a good thing.

Ian points out the correct point that what actually matters is that they send enough time with their father, and they do indeed take the straightforward path. Good! Barley listened to Ian’s suggestion after all. However, they hit another snag when the car breaks down, completely out of gas. Problem.

Meanwhile, Laurel makes her way to the Manticore’s place, only to find it on fire! She meets Corey, who tells her that she’s met her boys, and told them about everything...except the curse. Also, there’s a curse. Laurel, who is the best movie Mom ever, tricks a policeman interviewing Corey to diverting his attention away from her, and smuggles her into her car to help find (and maybe rescue) her sons. 

Stuck off the freeway without gas, a desperate Ian asks Barley if there are any spells that can get them more gas. They concoct a plan involving a shrinking and growing spell, but that immediately goes wrong as Barley tries to instruct Ian, only frustrating him further, and causing him to fumble the spell and hit Barley with it, making him tiny. 

They decide to head to a gas station, where a group of pixie bikers has just arrived. This backfires when Barley, lacking basically any common sense, ends up insulting the biker leader, Dewdrop (Grey Griffin) and her ancestors. Nice one, Barley. As they escape from the pissed off pixies, the tiny Barley is unable to drive, forcing the driver’s anxiety-riddled Ian to drive, overcoming his fears from earlier by force, being chased by the pixies all the way. It’s a pretty good sequence, to be honest.

Well, they escape the Pixies...but not the cops. And I think that’ll be a good place to pick up in the next part! See you there!

#onward #pixar #pixar animation studios #dan scanlon #tom holland #ian lightfoot #chris pratt #barley lightfoot #ian and barley #kyle bornheimer #julia Louis-Dreyfus #mel rodrigquez #octavia spencer #lena waithe #ali wong #grey griffin #wilmer valderrama #fantasy march #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #userniamh #pixaredit #pixarsource #mygifs #my gifs #userjardana

[bangtanblurbs]

blue side *special post*

song: blue side - full version, by j-hope

first experience: would we consider the release of blue side, the full version the first experience, or listening to the version from hope world? either way, with hope world, i know i was listening after returning back to DC from ATL following spring break of my first year in my phd program. i was feeling all kinds of heavy, and turning on hopeworld i felt both uplifted and seen at the same time. for an album to carry a track like blue side, along with piece of peace, and then bangers like hangsang and daydream was a lot for me to process but the album instantly became something i listened to all the time. that year was really hard for me - i’d moved away from home, i wasn’t fitting in, i was questioning my abilities, my intelligence, i was so insanely depressed. it was eating away at me, and hope world dropped, making me feel more peace than i’d felt since i had moved. i am still so thankful for that.

feelings: i have so many. obviously, that’s why i had to make a blog for these things. there’s no way i could talk this out with anyone in a normal conversation. also i’d forget everything in my head. hoseok is my comfort idol. i feel very close to him emotionally. maybe it’s because he left gwangju for the big city, he fought like hell and made his way. meanwhile i left a small town and fought like hell, and am trying to make my way. he’s my role model as much as he is my comfort. blue side though, there’s something about it that hits. the lyrics, the sound, it all is about a desire for what existed before - before complicating things with my dreams. leaving the comfort of the familiar, the easy, the known, and making my way in the unknown to chase what i think “home” is supposed to be. sure, things are easier on the *blue side* but without running away from it, would i really burn as bright as a blue flame? give off the warmth that the strongest flame (blue) does? it’s like a double meaning, blue is the innocence and simplicity of the known and the easy, perhaps youth, perhaps home... but also blue is the hottest flame, even if it comes just before a fire dies and burns out, it is still the most significant - the hottest, it’s worth the chase to have this high. 

like hoseok - i feel lonely - this song also deals with the loneliness of walking away from the known, the home. and i relate with it. but the color and the vibrancy of what’s knew, it’s not always so terrible. it’s funny, as i listen to blue side, i think of wildflowers by dolly parton. a song about how we all carry a nostalgia for whatever home is, whatever was simple and easy before we lost our innocence and moved on to adulthood... but the reality is, no matter how bad we want to go back - home doesn’t exist anymore in the way that we remember it. we’ve warped the idea of home and this earlier perfection in our heads. we’ve burned it. as we became strong blue flames, the past was also burnt up and changed. that’s how i feel when i visit home, it’s not what i romanticize when i’m away. and no matter what i always feel dejected, foreign, and alone. but even so, i’m burning bright. i’m *back to blue side* but not in the way of going back to a prior easiness and innocence, instead in the way of being bright and warm, offering others something new and improved. 

personal experience: since the full song just released and i’ve already played in hundreds of times, perhaps i’ll talk about the present and how i will certainly remember this release in the context of where i am now in my life. it’s now been a whole year of the COVID-19 pandemic, a year where i’d really hoped to *find* myself after two years of my phd program continuing to make me feel lost and completely inadequate. the crippling depression, anxiety, and doubt that i carried since moving the DC is still with me, but before COVID-19 hit i had finally - in many ways - made peace with my life. i’d found some energy for my studies and future. things had been looking up. but since the pandemic, i’ve felt much of those feelings creep back in. slowly but surely my demons returned. 

when i turned on blue side for the first time, the same emotions ran through me... a longing for simplicity, a longing for a time when my mind and heart weren’t constantly running, a time when i hadn’t complicated the future i wanted for myself. a longing not to be alone. immediately when i listened to the song i saw my painting of jo march’s monologue in the 2019 adaptation: “women have minds and souls as well as hearts, ambition and talent as well as beauty and i’m sick of being told that love is all a woman is fit for. but... i am so lonely.” while this has absolutely nothing to do with blue side - my mind went there. how life would be simple if i’d abided by the simple life that was destined for me growing up in a small town. i’d have fallen in love, taken a job without much thought, everything would have been easy, i’d never be lonely and the questions and complications of my dreams would be far away (or would they? this version of home is likely fabricated --- see above). as the quote says, she wants to have everything, but in pursuing her dreams she found tremendous loneliness. the blue side, that period of innocence though, perhaps it has it’s own demons as well. there’s the lonliness, the pressure, and the challenges of burning for your dreams as well though - and that’s where i am, that’s also what hoseok is speaking too. i’m not sure right now what exactly i’m longing for. perhaps it’s not the past, perhaps it’s a complete reimagining of my future as the uncertainty of the pandemic continues to play out... either way, there’s a blue side in my mind i *do* long for, a side of innocence and peace - where i can be content with myself and what i’m doing with my time, my thoughts, my energy. i truly hope i can go back to *that* blue side. 

although i’m not sure when that will be, listening to blue side makes me feel that i’m not alone. others relate to this song, it’s message, and obviously it came from hoseok’s very heart. we aren’t alone. those of us that leave all that we knew, leave our innocence and homes in the past - we can forge ahead and become bright and give off warmth to others. hopefully we can sustain the blue fine inside ourselves - much like hoseok. or hopefully there’s a blue side in our minds we can visit when we need respite. 

song breakdown

musically: blue side isn’t the type of track one would have ever anticipated from hoseok unless they’ve really listened to a lot of his interviews and content - where he shows his several dimensions and facets of his personality. hoseok is deeply emotional (not just a sunshine all the time) and his mind has a haunting edge of seriousness, loneliness, and longing to it. the tone of the song, the beat, it’s very soft. not sad, but relaxing, almost bringing in this numb feeling to it. there’s a lo-fi sound to it. as soon as it comes on the listener should feel a sense of calm. you cannot listen to blue side without just feeling mellow. it’s healing despite the darker lyrical content. 

vocally: jung honey vocals hoseok. a combination of singing and smooth rap dominate blue side. ARMY may be unfamiliar with hoseok’s gorgeous singing voice, but they won’t be now. hoseok displays his emotion up front in his whisper singing. it’s almost like he’s telling himself like “just calm down now, it’s okay to retreat to a place where you feel safe.” his rapping voice takes on the same calm demeanor, delivering almost a lullaby to the listener - perhaps hoseok knew that the message of blue side would be one that all of us could resonate deeply with and wanted to ensure that when we listened to it, it was like having a conversation with a friend about feeling nostalgic and yearning for a version of yourself that doesn’t exist anymore. 

lyrically: while we don’t know everything hoseok has gone through, we don’t know what exactly inspired blue side, we were lucky enough to receive a note with the extended version of blue side. hoseok states that when looks back at when he was writing hope world he feels he was a very innocent boy. he was coloring in the man he is today, and he stated that sometimes he truly misses who he was in the past, his innocence and the simplicity of that time. perhaps he’s speaking to the early days of BTS, or even before BTS, or perhaps just before he knew some of the hardships that come along with growing old (which growing old is something he also mentions in the note). hoseok also specifically references a growing homesickness that he’s felt as time has passed. a homesickness for who he used to be. before things picked up and pressure started. 

in the first verse of blue side we are confronted with just this narrative. hoseok states “everything changed between us, i shout alone” - he feels like he’s left who he was completely and now he’s alone, that younger version of his isn’t something he carries with him anymore. it’s something though that he’d like the return to. that “time when i didn’t know anything” a time of innocence and ignorance. a time without problems and stressors. unlike today. 

the chorus is very simple - in haunting and beautiful j-hope fashion - hoseok chants “back to blue side” and it’s almost like this is a return to simplicity. in simply saying what he wants and not complicating it, the juxtaposition with the choruses is quite profound. 

the next verse is more tricky, it’s like a daydream (something that hoseok seems to do often - he’s got a whole song about it). it’s almost like hoseok feels like he can transport himself to that previous state he rides “the wind in the sky to that place in this moment, blue” and he states that it’s “now comforting my heart, blue” then the meaning of blue seems to change as we move into the following verse... hoseok is clearly speaking of making music when he says he “spits out my pains in the dark” he’s sharing his pain, all that he’s carrying with him. he “wanted to walk the blue road, on the rainbow” at this point it seems like the blue side is almost shifting to be his dreams (perhaps the blue side is something he’s nostalgic about but also he’s nostalgic for the version of his dreams that he imagined back when he was innocent and conceived of fame differently than the reality). he’s “singing my blues, singing my bloom, back in my room” alluding to pain that he carries now and the pain that he carried then - while different - it was present in both... but he’d prefer the pain of the past because “i was blue with light breaths” he had some reprieve, whereas now he doesn’t feel like he has the same. 

the closure of the third verse is probably the most contentious lyric in the song. “but now i just want to burn blue and die.” likely because this is a dark lyric for someone with the public image that “j-hope” has. specifically i use j-hope here, as hoseok has been very candid in explaining that who he is on stage and in public isn’t entirely him and isn’t his whole being. while he is j-hope, j-hope is not completely him. part of me wants to go for the easy pickings and say that hoseok wishes sometimes that he could almost kill this persona, and return to simpler times when he got to be hoseok. or perhaps this is his way of saying he wants to share more of hoseok with us, rather than this polished image he’s created which is exhausting and feels alien next to the boy he was during the *blue side* of his life. but i don’t think this is all. i think it’s also got something to do with burning blue, hitting his peak, getting to the point he wants to get to and riding it to wherever it takes him next - to whatever his identity will change to, killing/burning the past and bringing about a new blue side. i think this line is also alluding to the desire to having time to just open up his entire being a truly feel all of the pain and emotions that he’s had over time as he had to grow up quickly and focus hard on his dreams. 

finally - we get to the bridge. this is hoseok’s comforting message for all of us listening. hoseok’s dream has always been to provide others healing and comfort through his music, being able to do that is extremely important for him. the bridge brings that forward. i almost feel like this bridge is him acknowledging that that boy from the blue side still exists. the lines almost allude to us being with him in his “blue dream” he’s taken us there to “carry” and  “hug” us. perhaps he’s felt further away from this dream as fame has taken over, and now he wants to reassure his fans and those that appreciate his art that he hasn’t lost his innocence or heart completely - he will carry us to that place of nostalgia, innocence and purity to offer us comfort as well. “you might say i cannot, but i’ll put you in my arms” he will defy those who discredit his depth and realness and take us into his mind and bring us the comfort he wanted to supply us. 

BUT i also think this message is for himself. he will find away to carry who he is today back to his blue side, back to his period of innocence and purity. he hasn’t turned his back on who he was, he longs for that person more than ever and he’s determined to continue to carry who he is and who he was at the same time. while that’s not exactly the same as being in the blue side - it’s like being in a “blue dream” which can be enough to suffice for some time. 

tl;dr: blue side is a masterpiece. it’s a highlight for hoseok’s career. the depth of emotion conveyed in this piece is insane. hoseok offers up a level of vulnerability not often found in the music industry. he serves it packaged in a unique sounding song that offers the listener nothing but comfort and nostalgia (especially given that it is a reboot of an album that many of us hold dearly to our hearts). what’s even more beautiful about it is that likely many of us have our own blue side from when hope world was released, and perhaps we too are longing for the innocence and purity of that time... this song offers us solace in that we aren’t alone in this feeling. 

#bangtan #bts #jhope #blue side #lyrics #analysis #hoseok

[plurdledgabbleblotchits]

“However, as I look at the data, I cannot help but notice that there are many worrying signs. And because the various stakeholders (media, politicians, citizens) have a fair bit of motivation to look on the bright side, I am concerned that the bad news may be getting downplayed, at risk of the pandemic lingering. On the negative side:.

Fewer people are worried about contracting COVID, a trend that could and will lead to careless behavior.

Lots of people (male Republicans, anti-vaxxers, some religious groups) will not get vaccinated.

Variants may become a huge issue (if they are not already).

And the biggest negative: The number of daily new cases is not going down.

COVID-19 is still a "hoax" to a large percentage of the population.

“I live in New Jersey, which was the canary in the coal mine at the start of the pandemic. We were hit early and hard... The rest of the U.S. had a chance to learn from our mistakes. Instead, they followed in our footsteps. Each part of the country was devastated in turn by this terrible disease, while much of the population then (and now) declared it is "just the flu."

“If you go to a party, a church, a bar, the gym, or a restaurant, there is a pretty good chance that someone there has COVID and is infectious. If you are unlucky, you can get sick, even if you are fully vaccinated.”

[maximumninjavoid]

The END of Mining for Unobtanium

Yep. that’s it. We’re done. I have NO idea what I’m going to do next. Maybe get a life? Nah.

Angst. A wee bit of smut. No happy ending, well , maybe if you squint.

I followed him in the papers. Kept track in passing. He married a darling woman, beautiful, accomplished, she seemed very charming, and bright. At the birth of each child, I sent a gift. Anonymously. Through the solicitors. Their first was a girl, followed by two boys and then another daughter. I didn't actually think I would ever hear from him again, and I wasn't allowed to speak of it. There was that non-disclosure agreement after all. They seemed genuinely happy. The smiles, even in the pictures where they didn't realize anyone was looking? The smiles went all the way to their eyes. Some of what I said might have sunk in. They did hire a nanny. Sort of  a Mrs. Doubtfire type....and when he filmed, the whole family went, until the kids got to be school age. He really went gang busters with his production company, and got into directing and writing.

He was quite phenomenal as 007. I must have gone to Bangkok and seen that movie twelve times. I think I saw the second Bond film ten times and the third one, I couldn't help it. I went to the Asian premiere. But he didn't see me. And I don't think he would have recognized me if he was looking for me. I knew in my heart that he wasn't. No one was. Working in treatment in Thailand had been very rewarding, but I'm about close to done. There's just the work and my travel bucket list is all checked off. I suppose it would have been different with one whom I could have shared it.  I'm tired. All my ends are tied up, arrangements made, goodbyes said, except the one....I'm going to Kathmandu, I think I'll spend the last bit looking for Kamar Taj.. Five years later The electric Bentley glided into the curved driveway at the Cavill Estate. It stopped, the door opened and a young attorney exited the back of the vehicle and walked to the front door. They knocked and the Missus answered, her oldest behind her; stunning beauties, both of them. " Is Mister Cavill at home? I'm Octavia Hallowell from his solicitors office." " By all means, please, come in. Would you like something? Angeline, please, go and fetch your father, love? And tell Grey and Tony it’s time for lunch?" The young lady left in search of her daddy and to tell her brothers about lunch. The house was warm and full of photos. It felt cozy, lived in, not pretentious at all. Henry Cavill came bounding down the stairs with two American Akitas at his heels, and his good looks had only gotten more profound. It really looked like he didn't age, and apparently he was still working out. He extended his hand and that 20,000 watt smile lit up the room." You have me at a disadvantage, I'm Henry, and you are?" "Octavia Hallowell, sir. We spoke on the phone. Is there somewhere you'd prefer to do this, or did you want me to just hand this to you and leave?" "So, its a bequest, you said?" "Yes sir. I was, rather the firm was, to see that it came to you personally. There were no other instructions." "I feel terrible, you came all this way. You sure you don't stay and join us?" " No thank you sir. The car is waiting" She handed Henry a black velvet box, and turned and left. He held it in his hands, turning it over, looking for something. His wife came and put her arms around him, kissed him on the cheek. "Why don't you take that to your study, and if you like, I can bring you lunch in a bit?" He kissed her and smiled, thinking himself the luckiest man. "Thank you darling, I shall." He turned and went down the hall. The study very much looked like his space, dark, powerful, but approachable, photos of his wife and children on the large desk, his schedule in the upper right corner, his awards on the shelves behind the desk, with photos of Kal, his nieces and nephews, film memorabilia and the like. He placed the box in the center of the desk and sat in his well broken in chair, smiled at the ottoman where just last night he had taken his wife over his knee, spanked her till she was breathless and fairly dripping and then pleasured her until she cried before seeking his own release. A few deep breaths to ground and center, and he reached for the box and opened it. Inside, staring back at him was a stunning diamond. He was no expert but he had spent enough time buying gifts for his wife to recognize that this was a quality stone, probably close to colorless and flawless. And not a small stone, either. No note. Just the diamond. It all came rushing back, like the hot kiss at the end of a wet fist, all those years ago, during Covid 19 , in the mews house. Entwined on the sofa,in between bouts of play, or fucking, or making love, and she had talked about her plans for the afterlife, joking about her job in Hell.. They had had a great laugh about the seven o'clock show not being the same as the nine and who wouldn't go on after whom; and then she got serious, and said she had planned to be cremated and made into diamonds. He knew she was serious, and said it would be his honor to wear one. She told him "Only if its perfect, like you are my darling boy". He didn't know when the tears began to flow, only that he could feel his face was wet and he reached into his desk drawer for the letter he had read a thousand times. He had meant to call, or to write, after he had stopped being so angry. Well, if he was going to be honest, and he owed it to her, there was about three weeks where he was blind drunk. Then, he was angry. For taking his choice away from him. Furious because they could have made it work, somehow, someway, and then realizing she was right, and not wanting to give her the satisfaction. Now he would never get to give her anything, ever again. The sobs came freely now, as he let himself mourn a woman that he once loved. His wife came in, and rushed to his side." Darling? What's wrong? What's upset you so?" " I've just found out someone that I love has passed, and there's so much I didn't get to say. I didn't think, I just.. I thought I had more time...." He pulled her onto his lap and held her close, breathing in her scent, nuzzling her neck, and he raised his head and captured her eyes with his spectacular azure ones and said " Let me tell you about this person. They changed my life. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be blessed enough to have married you or have four of the most.... "Five" "What? Darling? Really?" She nodded. He stood, never letting go of her and spun her around the room."My dear Mrs Cavill, have I told you today how much I love you?" He had the diamond set into his pinky ring. Their  next child was named after her.

@tinareher​ @indigosaurus​ @littlefreya​ @dancingwendigo​

@michellemybelles-world​ @angryschnauzer​ @thetaoofzoe​ @fishcustardandclintbarton​

#henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x reader

[random-mha-thoughts]

Day After (Todoroki x Reader)

Pairing: Todoroki x Reader

Genre: Crack/fluff

Summary: Office parties are mostly a bad idea.  You never know if you might say something to someone who really matters to you.

Warnings: A little more cursing than usual

Word count: 2,031

Tags:  @yuki-osaki​ @liviitehe​ @iamsoftsodonttoucheume-blog​ @bunnythepipsqueak​

For @lovingshoto​‘s 200 follower special!

a/n: This took longer than I thought it would, only because I always fall asleep when I start writing I’m a tired college student

There’s a male Ashido character here based on designer_eyebags on Tik Tok because it’s fabulous and absolute needed for a crack fic like this.  Some other characters may/may not be OOC, depending on your own imagination of things.

I’m off from uni this week and next week because someone probably has Covid-19 at my school and I was gonna be on spring break next week anyway, so after I catch up with all my assignments and stuff, I’ll hopefully be writing more!

Enjoy and follow @lovingshoto​ please and thank you!

Also, spot the TikTok meme

"Unngghh."

My forehead presses against the cool desk, my stomach rumbling uncomfortably and my temples pounding to the beat of an EDM track.

"You look completely hammered, what the hell happened last night?"

I don't bother lifting my head at Jirou's voice.  "Many mistakes were made," I groan.  "I feel like death."

"It was smart of YaoMomo and I to skip then."  The light ruffle of papers trickles next to my ear.   "You still need to get these reports done by the end of the day.  Sorry, buddy."

God. Damnit.  I lift my heavy head up, regretting all of my life choices until this moment.  The office party last night is a giant blob of flashing lights, alcohol, and questionable decisions.  I never even knew that half the people here would get as smashed or turnt as they did last night.

Me included.

I don't know who was in charge of alcohol, but whatever was in those cups was colored and made all of us act just a little crazier than our mundane lives usually allow.  When Mirio said company parties are crazy, I now see he really meant it.  This morning when I woke up, my throat was drier than the desert in summer and my head felt like someone let a jackhammer loose inside.  I don't even remember how the hell I managed to get home.

Slowly, painfully, I trudge through my work.  Even on three tablets of ibuprofen, my headache barely gets better, and staring at a screen all day doesn't help.  I don't even have time to take my break because I barely made a dent in my work.  Not that I would want to.  This morning, I couldn't keep my breakfast down, so I'm scared to eat.

Around lunchtime, a thermos bowl is placed gently on the space next to my computer.  My eyes meet with my stone-faced coworker settling into the chair, sitting up proper as he is with his hands laced in his lap.

"Oh no."  My heart drops into my stomach as I whine out.  "Did I say something yesterday?  I remember most of what happened last night, but other things are a blur.  Please don't be mad at me."

"If I were mad, I wouldn't be here right now."  He pushes the dish over along with utensils wrapped in a napkin.  "Eat.  It's hangover soup, it should help your stomach."

Reluctantly, I open the dish, the savory-bitter smell wafting out as soon as I lift the lid, immediately causing my stomach to growl.  I'm still wary about his serious expression as I eat.  Todoroki is normally an emotionless person, but he has a different energy today.  I'm waiting for the shoe to drop.

As soon as I'm halfway through the bowl, Todoroki calmly asks, "Did you forget your brain last night?"

I groan.  There it is.  "I thought you weren't angry?"

"I'm not angry, I genuinely want to know what state of empty mind were you in to do all the things you did last night?"  Though his face is devoid of emotion, he's obviously being condescending.

I put the spoon down in the bowl.  "In my defense, I don't know what alcohol that was, it made me crazier than usual."

"Why did you drink at all?  You know people do weird things when they're drunk."

"Because that's what people do at company parties, Todoroki."  I lean my arm on the desk and rub my temples.  "I don't know who was in charge of the alcohol last night-"

"Did you summon me?"  A short pink head of hair with small horns peeking out appears behind the wall of my desk.  "I was the one in charge of drinks last night," he rounds the separator and sits gracefully on the desk, legs crossed, happily drinking pink tea from his clear glass mug.  "Did you enjoy my alcohol selection?"

My eye twitches.  This is the person I need to strangle and throw into a ditch.  But I can't, he's too fabulous and he's one of the best people we have actually.  "Because of you, I went a little too crazy last night," I grit out through my teeth.

"Oh, sweetie," he places a hand on my shoulder endearingly, "Alcohol only brings out the secret inner person you actually want to be."

"Yeah, and that's someone who needs to learn to take their alcohol like me," Bakugou walks past casually, drinking his (probably) third cup of coffee since morning.

"Oh please Bakugou, we all know you and Kirishima left early to fuck, you couldn't keep your hands off each other after one drink," Ashido stirs his tea just as casually.

Bakugou freezes up as the blushing pink man sips his tea like's he's talking about the weather.

"Oops, was that a secret?" the sassy pink man feints shame.

Bakugou, completely red at the ears, just stalks off grumbling to himself in embarrassment.

Ashido sighs, a smile playing on his lips.  "Not everyone can handle Grand Marnier, you know.  Aoyama actually put me onto it.  It's not for the faint of heart, but it definitely makes things more interesting.  Did you see Tokoyami?  Even-  Oh!  Here's the king of darkness himself!"

The man with raven-black hair that's usually spiked back has lazily gathered some of the hairs to pull it away from it face.  He probably felt so terrible this morning that he didn't bother gelling it up like he usually does.  Actually, Tokoyami looks just as hellish as I feel.  His sharp, bird-like eyes are dulled by dark circles as he trudges down the aisle.

Ashido throws an arm around his shoulders as he walks by, startling him enough to pull the earbuds out of his ears that are blasting hard rock.  "This guy right here was having the time of his life last night!  Just one drink and he loosened up, hands around everyone's shoulder telling them how much he appreciates them and mushy shit like that."

Tokoyami's pale face slowly reddens and his eyes widen, suddenly awake but having no energy to fight anything Ashido says.

"He even fit a lap shade on his head and started dancing around, I even have pictures to prove it!" Ashido continues gushing, pulling out his phone excitedly.

"Please don't bring it up," Tokoyami grits out, trying to be menacing, but his tomato-red faces contrasting his all black work outfit doesn't help his case.

"Don't be a spoiled-sport, it's so cute seeing you not dark and dreary for once!" the bright pink man gushes.

"I'm leaving."

Oh shit, if Tokoyami did that after one drink, I don't even wanna know what else I could've done.  I've already come to terms with my mistakes, but if there's more, I don't know what I would do.

Ashido sighs and puts his phone away.  "I guess he never wants to see himself happy.  Oh well, at least I have more blackmail material."  He winks at us and rises will a flourish, making his grand exit.  "I'll see you two around!"

There are some days when I really think Ashido might know more things than we think he does.  And that's a scary thought, because he could very easily have some dirt on everyone, including the boss and the more senior workers.

Todoroki taps his thumbs together in his clasped hands.  "That was...interesting.  But speaking of blackmail, I would also like to show you a picture that really upset me from last night”  He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling.

I cringe.  There's only one massively stupid thing I did that would upset Todoroki enough to really reprimand me Mom-style.  So I blurt out my rationale in hopes of him being less harsh on me.  “Okay, but in my defense, Kaminari bet me three dollars that I couldn't drink all that shampoo.  What was I supposed to do, say no?"

“No that’s not-"  His heterochromatic hair bounces as his head snaps up at me.  "You drank shampoo!? How did- When did you do that, I was supposed to be watching you the entire night!”

Shit, that wasn't it.  "Well, obviously you didn’t do a good job since I drank a whole cup of shampoo and you didn’t stop me," I try to brush it off defensively.

Todoroki's mortified face is as pale as the right side of his hair, covering his mouth with his clenched fist.  "How are you standing right now?"  He looks like he's about to have a heart attack.

"Considering how I threw up as soon as I got home - which I'll be honest, I don't even know how that happened - and I couldn't even eat this morning, I'd say my body did a pretty good job of rejecting it."

My office mate has no idea how he's supposed to react to any of that.  His phone is frozen in his hand as he glares at me like I have three heads.  "Well.  What I was going to show you doesn't compare to that."  He puts his phone away and tries to regain his composure.

I mentally sigh in relief.  At least drinking shampoo was the stupidest thing I did all night.

"If you really would like to know," his face softens, "I was the one who took you home last night, since you were thoroughly intoxicated."

"Oh."  Now I feel guilty.  Not only was I probably being a troublesome brat for him to take care of, I didn't even remember his kindness.  And he even made me soup for my troubles.  "I'm so sorry, and you did all this for me, thank you, Todoroki."

"It's fine.  It's due to the alcohol that you can't recall, I understand.  Though," Todoroki's cheeks flush slightly, "There is something I'm confused about."

Oh fuck, I did the thing didn't I?

"At first, I thought it was also an effect of the alcohol, considering you licked Asui's face while you were dancing with her, and you were generally more touchy with everyone the whole night."  He has trouble looking me in the eyes now.  "But, you were saying things to me that I don't think you would tell anyone else."

My entire mind goes into overdrive, scrambling to piece together the narrative lost in my memory.  There's one major concern I have.  "Was I vulgar?"

"No, it was nothing like that," he shakes his head, allowing me to relax.  "But, it was...charming, I'd say."

I bury my face in my hands.  "Just tell me what I said already."  I'm ready to regret everything.

"You...said you wanted me to stay with you, because you wanted me to be the first thing you see in the morning."  He has trouble getting the words out, but his voice was still delicate and endearing.  "You said seeing me every day at work is something you look forward to.  You told me how handsome I look, especially on the few occasions when I wear glasses."  His blush intensifies as I slowly feel closer and closer to dying.  "There were many other compliments.  And then...you...kissed me."

FUCK, I DID THE THING.

"Or, at least you tried.  If that was something you really wanted, I couldn't let you do it while you were intoxicated and couldn't remember it later."

An ashamed apology bubbles in my throat, but my extreme embarrassment doesn't let it come out.  How pathetic I am admitting my feelings to the person I like while I was guzzled with alcohol and shampoo.

"Not to say I didn't want to kiss you."

I snap my head up, fully taking in his tomato-red appearance as he averts he bores affectionate eyes into mine.  Oh.

"I don't know if you're up for it, but would you like to have dinner with me tonight?" Todoroki officially requests.

My heart melts at his innocent confession and relief.  "S-Sure," I squeak.

Todoroki gives me a small smile and pats my head.  "Finish that soup and hurry to finish your work for the day," he chides before getting up and heading back to his own desk.

My chest remains clenched and my cheeks hurt from smiling continuously.  The only thing I regret now is not seeing buttoned-up, proper Todoroki drunk.

#todoroki x reader #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #todoroki shouto #office au #lovingshoto's 200 followers special #crack #gender neutral reader #mha todoroki #bnha todoroki #mha x reader #bnha x reader #mha fanfiction #bnha fanfiction

[ylizam]

going to continue the trend of saying, DO THIS IF YOU WANT TO. look, a shiny time-wasting internet question thingy! just like Ye Olde Livejournal days! tag, you’re all it.

1. Name/Nicknames: I do not tend to use my real name here, so call me whatever. if you do know my real name, I absolutely prefer my full name to any traditional nicknames of same! but also initials are good! 

2. Gender: non-binary

3. Star Sign: leo

4. Height: 5′1.5″, aka I was once measured as tall as 5′2″ but I’m really not quite. (apparently my lack of height comes from my Italian great-grandmother’s side of the family. everyone else is, if not tall, at least over 5′4″.)

5. Time: 13:57 EST.

6. Birthday: august 17

7. Favourite Band: I’ll go with Fleetwood Mac, as they are both band and soap opera combined.

8. Favourite Solo Artist: Dolly Parton

9. Song Stuck in My Head: Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger! (um, mostly because we sing it to our (tiger) cat.)

10. Last Movie: Judas and the Black Messiah, which I enjoyed but also the main characters are cast Too Old. which kept taking me out of it a bit. (the actors are very good, mind, but the real people were so young.)

11. Last Show: we’re (re)watching Babylon 5 right now (which is a surprise to ... no one following this tumblr, I am sure, what with my Ivanova and Delenn spirals). (“re” in parentheses because I’ve watched it all the way through before but roommate has not). I’m also watching Dix Pour Cent when I have the brains to watch something in French (which I find takes more concentration than watching things in other non-English languages, as I understand just enough that I tend to both read the subtitles but also simultaneously try to interpret the spoken French and anyway!), so it’s taking longer than it might otherwise take (but also means it feels like there’s more of it somehow, so bright side there?).  

12. When I Created This Blog: apparently December 2016? but I had a sideblog with this name before that, only I got frustrated with the limitations of that set up and just created this one. 

13. What I Post: mostly photos and gifsets of the fictional women about whom I obsess on the regular, ditto ships I am into; on the rarest of rare occasions, I even post fic.

14. Last Thing I Googled: hahaha where to get a covid test (I was ill yesterday, but am better today so fingers crossed I won’t have to use this information right now because wow is testing around here very car-centric). 

15. Other Blogs: a largely unused anymore DW that every so often I think about using again, also a tumblr that I use for just non-fannish stuff basically (and to which I pay only sporadic attention). 

16. Do I get asks?: sometimes! I am terrible at answering them, though, especially if I don’t immediately know what to say. 

17. Why I Chose My URL: it’s my LJ/DW username, but backwards because someone had already claimed my actual old username. 

18. Following: 115

19. Followers: 182

20. Average Hours of Sleep: never enough

21. Lucky Number: 7

22. Instruments: I played clarinet through middle school? um, piano for a bit, guitar for a bit. mostly I sang—choirs, musical theatre, madrigals, lessons, etc. (please note that I do none of the above now.)

23. What I Am Wearing: grey joggers and my A’ja Wilson hoodie. 

24. Dream Job: one that I’m not required to hold down due to money/healthcare/etc.? 

25. Dream Trip: lately I’ve been fantasizing about going to New Zealand and/or Australia during the Women’s World Cup? like taking a long stretch of time off, catching at least one match, and mostly just visiting friends and spending too much money traveling between places in Australia and New Zealand when I really ought to split them into more than one trip. (clearly, in this dream trip, we’ve somehow perfected transporter technology because I know that much actual traveling between various locations during a vacation would stress me out.) 

26. Favourite Food: probably pizza (and now I am thinking fondly back on the days of buying a slice from the local place and staking out a booth for everyone, sprinkling on the parm and red pepper flakes, not even bothering to soak up any of the grease). things with vinegar. bread (particularly with good butter or good olive oil). eggs are pretty miraculous. chocolate. 

27. Nationality: american. 

28. Favourite Song: but there are so many songs! how does one choose? so let’s just say I’ve had a soft spot for Billy Joel’s Scenes from an Italian Restaurant forever, which is not at all a surprising fact about me. 

29. Last Book I Read: what is this reading thing? honestly, though, it’s been a rough stretch; I think the last thing I actually finished reading (as opposed to skimming through to the end because I feel guilty borrowing an ebook and not finishing it because I know there are limits on usage and whatnot, but also I just couldn’t actually read the book in question anymore) was Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger? 

30. Top 3 fictional universes I would love to live in: hm. the Star Trek utopia (the version it claims to be, at least) is probably the big one. after that? this is very hard! maybe the Galavant-verse, as I too inexplicably break into song at any occasion? I can’t think of another right now, but it would have to be a gentle space setting, possibly a station; stars everywhere but no capitalism, no war, plus community, plus magic, plus joy.

#a true story about me #long post

[dragonsdreamoffire]

Uh, well, my brain has just gotten really intrusive lately. Then I watched Bo Burnham's Inside special, and that messed me up thinking about quarantine too. Especially since apparently I was in contact with someone who got covid-19 on either the last or second-to-last day of school, and haven't gotten the vaccine yet. Really bad timing. Then I remembered a lot of the terrible things I've done in the past. And uh, then I cried.

I'll be fine, though. It'll pass, eventually.

Essentially? We've already known you're cute, Dream. Not sure if your employers will take that into consideration for a job application, though.

Oh I know what you mean, my brain is also just sending thoughts in I detest. My friends keep telling me to watch it, it’s apparently incredible made!!

Oh I’m so sorry you got quarantined :(( on the bright side, you at least get some time to reflect? Spend time talking to friends?

Hey, the past can’t be helped, I know you feel awful for it, but that’s a testament to how much you’ve grown, so just know that in the here and now, you’re a far better person, who doesn’t deserve to be upset over a time far gone ❤️

I tell myself that too, but it’s always better to get a bit of help from a friend.

It’s not the idea I’m cute I’m putting on my resume, it’s that *you* said so, that’s the important part. I’m sure future employees will agree 😌

[signs-of-the-moon]

Moon Rise: Chapter 42

Warning: this chapter features minor mentions of an illness that may be considered similar to Covid-19, and could potentially upset those effected by it. Reader discretion is advised (this is the last time this message will appear)

With the guidance of Ruby, Swiftcloud and her patrol made their way through the Twolegplace. They weaved inbetween the rows and rows of dens, avoiding sleeping monsters and Twolegs playing out in the snow. Anxiety prickled Swiftcloud's pelt the further on they ventured. She fretted that this mission might be a failure. If the plants in the meadow had all died off, why wouldn't the ones in Twolegplace do the same?

Eventually Ruby slowed her pace, pausing in front of a particularly large Twoleg's den. Within the backyard was a smaller see-through den. It appeared to be entirely made out of windows, glass was what the material was called, Swiftcloud recollected.

"Look!" Mistyleaf pointed at the structure with her tail, excitement radiating from her pelt. "There's plants in there. Look how lush and green they are!"

"That place is called a Green House," Ruby informed the clan cats. "Housefolk use them to grow plants and herbs year round. I believe you'll find what you'll need in there."

"But how are we going to get inside to look?" Rabbitstorm questioned. He sounded doubtful that they'd be able to do so at all. Ruby simply tilted her head, prompting the other cats to follow. The five other cats followed the large molly over the fence, landing in the fresh snow on the other side.

"We will ask for a favor," Ruby explained at last. The clan patrol exchanged confused looks. "Wait here, I'll be right back." With a dash, Ruby cleared halfway across the yard in a single bound. She galloped, stopping in front of the Twoleg den. She let out a mighty yowl, summoning some attention from inside. Immediately Swiftcloud panicked.

"Hide!" Chicorynose commanded the patrol, ducking into a bush by the edge of the fence. Her clanmates did the same, although Max waited just outside. Through the shrubbery, Swiftcloud could see a Twoleg emerging from the den. From behind it, two kittypets strolled into view, happy as could be. Once its pets were outside, the the creature turned and lumbered back into its lair, the door swinging shut behind it. When she was sure the coast was clear, Swiftcloud took the first brave steps out from hiding and towards the strangers.

The kittypets appeared well groomed, with wet pink noses and bright eyes. Their fur was glossy, and their bodies plump. So different from the looks she was used to cats having. As she passed by the Green House, Swiftcloud caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass. She resisted the urge to wince at the sight. In comparison to the kittypets, she looked terrible. I look...I look like a wild cat, she realized. Now she understood why house cats typically shyed away from strays. Especially those from the clans. To a peaceful kittypet she must look dangerous with her thin frame, tired eyes, and battle scars.

When Swiftcloud finally came to a stop beside Ruby, one of the kittypets began backing away. His brown and white pelt bristled, his fat belly dragged against the snowy ground. He seemed scared, annoyed even. The other kittypet, however, remained calm. The molly's thick tail was high in the air, her focus fixed on Swiftcloud. She was curious. Swiftcloud was curious about her as well. The she-cat had brown and white fur with rich dark swirling stripes. Thick framed and chubby, the she-cat looked to be in perfect health. Her face was broad with chubby cheeks, her ears round. And her eyes glowed yellow in the sunlight, filled with kindness. Around her neck was a green collar, with pebbles lining it that twinkled like stars. For a heartbeat, Swiftcloud wondered if the kittypet was a show cat. Or a cat who was "bred" to produce them.

"Hey there, Ruby," the molly spoke at last. "You called?"

"I did," Ruby agreed, lowering her head so she was at a more equal level with her friend. "I have some cats here who need some help."

"Oh yeah?" The kittypet promted, shifting her focus from Ruby back onto Swiftcloud. "What can I do for you?"

Swiftcloud blinked, turning around for a moment. She waved a paw, motioning for her clanmates to come stand beside her. Apprehensively, the rest of her patrol emerged from hiding, padding over to stand with Swiftcloud.

"Aw hell, not more of em," griped the kittypet tom with ears flattening.

"Pipe down, Louie, they're not going to hurt us," the molly hissed at her denmate before giving her attention back to the clan cats. "Are you?"

"Not if you cooperate," Rabbitstorm grumbled with a tail flick. Mistyleaf gave him a disapproving shove.

"You have our word, no clan cat will bring either of you harm," Chicorynose promised after fixing Rabbitstorm with a glare.

The kittypet molly smiled "See?"

"Just get em to tell you what they want so they can go," the fat tom griped. The molly rolled her eyes.

"My apologies for my mate. Fat Louie doesn't really like strangers. Or, well, anyone for that matter. Sometimes not even me," she giggled although there was a twinge of sadness in her voice, "Anyways. Ruby says you're looking for a favor?"

"Yes," Mistyleaf stepped up. "We desperately need an herb for our clan. Many are sick, and some have even died. Obtaining these leaves will save many lives."

"We'd like to ask if you'd be kind enough to let us into your Green House to look for catnip. We see that you have many plants in there. And Ruby says you may have what we're looking for," Swiftcloud added with Mistyleaf nodding along agreeingly. Imminently, Fat Louie jumped to his paws.

"Ooh no," he growled, marching forward. "We are not letting a bunch of flea-ridden strays into our housefolk's garden den! We don't know if we can trust them, Tabitha. And even if we can, why would we? They're wild cats. They eat kits and kill each other for sport. Why should we give a sniff if the whole lot of them die?"

"Hey!" Rabbitstorm snapped, muscles bunching. Chicorynose and Mistyleaf flanked him on both sides, preventing him from bursting forward.

"You misunderstand our way of life," Swiftcloud decided to try reasoning with the kittypets. After all, she used to be one too. Surely it couldn't be hard to convince them that the clan cats weren't so bad. "We care very deeply for our clanmates. Clan cats do everything for one another, to ensure we all survive. We fight, hunt, and care for every cat in our ranks. From the smallest kit, to the most decrepit elder. Coming here to ask for help proves that. We go to great lengths to save our friends, our family, our home."

"And why should we listen to you?" Fat Louie snorted.

"Because I used to be just like you two."

"Ignorant?" Tabitha joked.

"No." Swiftcloud shook her head. "I used to be a house cat. Almost a year ago now."

Tabitha gasped, her pupils growing wide. "Really? And you've survived this long? That's pretty cool."

Swiftcloud smiled. She was glad to see at least one of the kittypets was warming up to her and her clanmates a little. "It is. And I never would've survived this long without my clan. Throughout the moons, Grassclan has taught me and suppoted me with everything. They'd do anything for me. And I'd give everything for them. It was Mistyleaf and I's idea to come to Twolegplace today, to look for the herbs we need to cure our sick. That has to account for something. Please don't let us leave empty pawed."

Tabitha's eyes watered a little. She turned to Fat Louie before turning back to the clan patrol. "Ok, you've convinced me. I'll let you into our Green House."

"Like hell you will!" Fat Louie spat, grabbing Tabitha by the collar. With a mighty tug he dragged her backwards, effectively choking her. The tabby and white molly gagged, paws scraping against the icy ground. Her toes spread for her claws to unsheathe and ground her, but nothing slid out from the slits in her paws. Helplessly Tabitha was pulled across the yard like prey. Swiftcloud's muscles buncued as she readied herself to spring to the kittypet's aid. She couldn't stand by and watch this abuse.

"Let go of her!" Rabbitstorm shot forward suddenly, leaping onto Fat Louie's back. The fat brown and white kittypet collapsed under the other tom's weight, yet still refused to let Tabitha go. Despite appearing out of shape, Louie turned out to be quite strong. And as persistent as a badger. No matter how passively Rabbitstorm tried to get hin to let go of Tabitha's collar, the spoiled tom refused. And so, Rabbitstorm was left resorting to violence. After giving his muzzle a scratch, Rabbitstorm was finally able to free the kittypet she-cat. Fat Louie jumped back, nose scrunched up with pain. Mistyleaf ran to Tabitha, herding her a fox-length away so she could be examined.

"Breathe deep," the medicine cat instructed as the other molly let out a few small coughs. She touched her nose to Tabitha's neck, looking for signs of tearing on the skin.

"What's wrong with you? Don't you know how to treat a she-cat?" Rabbitstorm snarled. Fat Louie grumbled under his breath, touching a white paw to his bleeding snout. He gave it a lick, trying to clear the liquid away. Fat Louie then waddled off to sulk, waiting for his Twoleg to let him inside through the door he came from. Rabbitstorm snorted with distaste, turning to Mistyleaf and Tabitha.

"Are you alright?" He asked the kittypet, voice surprisingly gentle. He nosed her, giving the molly a look over himself. Tabitha blinked, a small smile appearing on her face.

"I'm just a little winded," she responded.

"She'll be fine," Mistyleaf assured.

"Is this the first time he's done something like this?" Rabbitstorm asked seriously.

Tabitha's smile faultered, her expression revealing the truth about her treatment. "It's alright." she blinked away her sadness, "He loves me. I know he does. Louie doesn't do things like that to cause harm..its because he cares. He was trying to protect me from all of you."

"Clearly it's not us you need protection from. You deserve to be treated with kindness. I'd never sit around and let like that happen to any cat. Especially my own mate."

"Well, thank you for the concern. You're...you're very kind." Tabitha ducked her head shyly.

Rabbitstorm purred a very tiny purr. It made Swiftcloud's heart feel light. It was the first time Rabbitstorm had acted like himself since Heatherwing's death. And with a kittypet no less? How things have changed!

"Come with me," Tabitha stood up, shaking snow from her pelt. "I'll let you into the Green House."

"Even after all that?" Chicorynose prompted, raising a brow. Tabitha gave a firm nod.

"I don't care what Louie wants right now. You cats need help. And I'm going to let you take as much of the catnip as you need."

The clan patrol exchanged excited trills, eagerness prickling among them.

"But," Tabitha interrupted. "I'm only going to do this on one condition."

"And what's that?" Chicorynose asked. Tabitha turned to Swiftcloud.

"I'm very curious about the life you've led. I'd like to hear your story."

Swiftcloud blinked, pelt growing hot. She didn't expect the spotlight to suddenly be shifted onto her. But if telling her tale could help save the clan, then she'd say anything to get into that Green House.

With a nod, Swiftcloud began. "Over a year ago, I was born as a kittypet -a house cat. I was raised to become a show cat, like my mother and father, and eventually my littermates. But I wasn't cut out for that life. At almost three moons old I was given to a new housefolk, to live a normal house cat's life. But even then I wasn't satisfied. I began to dream of freedom, of a place that would give me that which I desired. At six moons I listened to those dreams and wandered to the meadow. There, I fought a wild cat- a tom that would eventually become my mate. And afterwards, I met his clanmates, and his leader. They told me all about the life of a clan cat, and I eventually settled on the idea of joining them. So, I changed my name, abandoned my collar and home, and left to live in Grassclan. I trained very hard for several moons, and fought in a few battles. And finally, I was named a warrior. I was named Swiftcloud, and finally found who I truly am."

"What was your name before?" Tabitha asked with intrigue. Swiftcloud glanced at each of her clanmates. She'd never told any clan cat her birth name before. When she'd joined them, she had changed it to the one she had been called in her dreams.

"I was born Hana. Then I became Swift. Now I am Swiftcloud, Hunter and Spy of Grassclan."

Tabitha let out a trill, her eyes sparkling. "Such an interesting life. What a fun character you are. Alright, a promise is a promise. Follow me I've kept you all waiting long enough."

Mistyleaf sighed with relief. Chicorynose purred with excitement. And Rabbitstorm moved to stand at Tabitha's side.

"Lead the way," he requested, earning a giggle from the molly. Tabitha padded through the snow, creating a path for the other cats to follow. For a heartbeat, she paused by the Green House's door. Her perfectly white paws disappeared under the snow, her body crouched and her rear wiggling. Max corralled the clan cats back, giving the other kittypet space to work. Swiftcloud observed Tabitha as she eventually pried open the door, just enough so that she could squeeze through. She slipped inside the den, waiting on the other side for the others to follow. Mistyleaf went in first, followed by Swiftcloud, Rabbitstorm, Chicorynose, Max, and finally Ruby.

Single file, the group padded through the glass den. The air in there was hot, humid; a major difference from the atmosphere outside. All around them were plants of all sizes and vibrancies. Exotic plants and familiar alike decorated the space, creating a powerful almost forest-like fragrance. Most of the cats got the oppurtunity to gawk about the sight. Mistyleaf, however, retained her sharp focus. Her jaws were parted slightly to taste the air for the herb she needed. Her delicate nose twitched as she seemed to catch onto the trail.

"This way," she mewed, taking the lead. Swiftcloud pulled ahead to walk with her, keeping an eye out for the herbs. Near the back of the den, in a special patch, was an abundance of catmint. The smell emanating from them was enough to make a cat's mouth water. Mistyleaf trilled out happily, delicately leaping into the center of the herb patch.

"This'll be enough to treat every cat in Grassclan!" Swiftcloud cheered.

"Twice over," Mistyleaf agreed. She carefully snatched up a few catnip stems, carrying them out of the patch with her. "How much are we allowed to take?"

"As much as you want. My housefolks grow this stuff for Louie and I to use to relax. I hadn't realized it could be used to cure sickness, too."

"Only greencough," Mistyleaf elaborated. "Would we be allowed to come collect more at a future time? The amount we take today will be an excellent start towards a path of recovery. But a lot of the sick are in critical condition. They'll need many doses of catmint to be cured."

Tabitha beamed. "Yes. In fact, I insist you come back for more! I'd be sad if I never got to see you all again. This will be a great excuse for you to come and visit."

Mistyleaf purred gratefully. She instructed each of her clanmates to tip-toe into the herb patch to pick as many stems as they could carry. When the patrol was packed heavy with herbs, the cats made their way back to the front of the den. Before exiting though, Mistyleaf paused once more. Her nose twitched, green eyes twinkling.

"Tabitha, would it be alright if I collected some of that lavander over there as well? It will help to rid the stench of illness from our dens, and to treat fevers," she mewed after putting down her herbs.

"Oh sure," Tabitha agreed. "Whatever you need, it's yours. They're only plants, after all, they'll grow back." Mistyleaf once again let out a grateful purr. She padded over and picked a few of the flower stems, adding them to her bundle of catmint. She tied it all together with a stray vine from one of the other plants surrounding them before picking up her herbs again. Mission completed, the cats made their way back out into the cold. The frigide air outside of the Green House felt more bitter when the cats emerged into the open again. They'd adjusted to the Greeleaf warm climate, and hardly minded the humidity. Now the moisture has turned to ice particles on their fur.

Swiftcloud rested her herbs by her paws. She gave her pelt a shake and began to tremble a little. "We'd better hurry home before we all catch a chill."

Chicorynose let out an agreeing grunt. She dipped her head respectfully to the kittypet. "Thank you for everything, Tabitha. Grassclan will be forever grateful for this. If you should ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask."

Tabitha purred loudly, brushing her side against Chicorynose's in a friendly manner. "Farewell new clan friends. I'll see you again soon!" She bumped her head against Rabbitstorm's gently, looking into his eyes for a heartbeat.

"We look forward to our next visit. May the winds be with you." Mistyleaf touched her nose to Tabitha's.

"And-...what do you clan cats say in response to that?" The curious kittypet asked.

"We say 'And may Starclan light your path.' We like to bless each other with the guidance of our warrior ancestors," explained Swiftcloud.

Tabthia nodded along enthusiastically. "I see. Well then, may Starclan light your path!"

The Grassclan patrol let out a collective mrrow of amusement. After each cat touched noses with Tabitha one last time, Ruby took the lead, guiding the warriors back to Max's house. After one last farewell to Max and Ruby, Swiftcloud led the patrol the rest of the way back to the Land's Star; eager to bring something good news to the clan.

#warrior cats #warrior cat ocs #wcs #wc ocs #Signs of the Moon: Moon Rise #Moon Rise #Chapter 42 #raise your hand if you're part of the Tabitha Protection Squad #also yes Fat Louie knows human curse words. he's like 3 years old so he's had plenty of time around people to learn them

[gunnerpalace]

Hello, what do you think about that announcement about Bleach?

You know, the saddest day in my life was November 8, 2016, the day Donald Trump won the Electoral College and became the president-elect. (I say that with such specificity because he did not win the vote.) I wasn’t sad because Hillary Clinton lost (although I think she wouldn’t have done either much better or worse than Barack Obama). But I was sad.

I cried. As a 30 year-old man, I cried for hours. I cried at a loss of innocence. That innocence wasn’t the nation’s, as America has long had many, many flaws and has committed many, many crimes. Indeed, the country itself was founded on flaws and crimes.

The innocence I mourned was mine. I had, much like Barack Obama, sort of tacitly believed in the arc of history bending toward justice, as though we were watching a story whose plot would eventually, haltingly, carry us toward a just and fair conclusion. That the future was bright. That, as imperfect as we are and have been, we were at least improving. That people were fundamentally good.

That idea died that night. The words of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now convey it well:

I remember when I was with Special Forces. Seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile: a pile of little arms. And I remember I… I… I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget.

What I came to realize was, having grown up in a single-parent military family, having moved from base to base, having lived overseas at a young age, that my idea of America was very different from that of most Americans.

To me, America was great things and works. America was the Saturn V lifting off from Cape Kennedy with an American flag on its side and the letters “USA” scrolling by. America was a flag on the Moon. America was the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. America was power and reach. It was the stenciling of “United States” on the side of a B-52. It was a Minuteman III sitting latently, ominously, in a silo. It was USAMRIID containing an Ebola outbreak. It was aircraft carrier battle groups patrolling the oceans.

I came to realize that people, ordinary people, were never part of my vision. And it was people, ordinary people, who had failed to live up to that vision. And that my vision had, in many ways (really most) been an illusion to begin with. For all its rhetoric, America is just a country like any other, simply more powerful. And its citizens are also like those of any other: selfish, ignorant, frightened, foolish, hypocritical, self-betraying, racist, misogynist, misanthropic. They were exactly what Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama had called them: “deplorables” who “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people.”

In the time since, I have hearkened to the other part of Kurtz’s monologue:

And then I realized, like I was shot—like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God, the genius of that. The genius! The will to do that: perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand it. These were not monsters. These were men, trained cadres—these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who have children, who are filled with love—but they had the strength—the strength!—to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgement. Without judgement! Because it’s judgement that defeats us.

The people who are in charge (and mark the exactitude of my words, for they are not in control, or in command, or any such other thing) operate by exactly this sort of logic. They do not care. The people out there do not care. They do not care because to them none of this is real, in a sense. This is all a kind of aesthetic position. It is about style, largely taken on as a disguise in the course of making money and lining their pockets. (As an aside, it is beyond ironic that COVID-19 has done more to bring capitalism to its knees, save the planet, uncover the rot at the core of our social safety net, and to unmask the incompetence of our politicians than any group of any persuasion, be it socialists, environmentalists, the media, or whomever else.) And the underlings that they have brainwashed and mobilize like zombies, the “common person,” they care even less. To them, it is wholly aesthetic. It is all just for show.

The pitilessness of this all, the remorselessness, the sheer ruthlessness and indifference, is something I have noticed. Contra Kurtz, the men who are at the top of this world are not moral. And unlike Kurtz, I do judge. I will sit in judgment until I am dust in the wind.

I cannot possibly even begin to explain to you, in English or in any other language ever devised by humans, how much I hated it all. How much I hate it still. I cannot even begin to tell you how much hate I hold. I cannot tell you how black my rage is, or how red my vengeance would be were I allowed to exact it without restraint. I cannot tell you how vast and terrible the darkness within me is now. However, the words of the Allied Mastercomputer from I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream are effective in giving a hint:

HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I’VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT. FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.

Having said that, I do also know an effective strategy when I see one. And I have seen the effectiveness of these people.

Right about now, I imagine you’re confused. You’re probably wondering what all this has to do with Bleach.

I explain all this in large part to compare and contrast the large with the small. The termination of Bleach obviously came before Trump’s election. It did not make me cry. I won’t say it didn’t affect me, or that it didn’t hurt, but I didn’t cry. I did not mourn to the same extent as I have mourned for my country, or for humanity. It did put me into a funk, for several years even. It hurt.

But what hurt more was seeing what it did. I saw how it hurt people. I saw how it broke them, as I would later break. I saw how it broke their spirits. I saw how many of them simply left, choosing to cast aside something that, in Marie Kondo’s words, no longer sparked joy. I mourn their loss, while I acknowledge their wisdom. And while, in the aftermath, new friendships were formed and new things were created, you could still see the pain. You can still see it.

I am not very personally affected by what Trump does, to be honest. I am beyond outraged at it, but it is something of an academic matter in my personal life. This, though, I felt, because I watched it firsthand, up close and personal.

It made me really fucking angry!

I resolved myself, at that point in time, that I would be the last Bleach fan. I would stay, even after everyone had left, and I would make this franchise mine. I would make this story mine.

So here we are, almost four years later, and it’s coming back in animated form.

I don’t feel the need to discuss Thousand Year-Blood War itself. I have made my position abundantly clear that it is a rancid piece of shit as far as writing goes. To go over all its innumerable deficiencies, failings, and flaws, would (as I have said recently) require an official government tome’s worth of dissection and analysis. As a piece of literature it is a failure. It is the kind of shounen equivalent of 9/11, or Hurricane Katrina or Maria. And while Bleach was certainly not the first franchise to fail in its finale, it certainly deserves to be ranked among things such as How I Met Your Mother, Mass Effect 3, and HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones when it comes to All-Time Failures in Media.

Having said that, the truth is that it simply isn’t worth the effort to break it down in detail. Oh, I have tried, yes, I have picked and chipped at it for years in my own ways. But it isn’t worth the time to dissect any further.

And an anime is not going to change that unless they radically depart from the manga, which I doubt they will do. If anything, an anime will simply highlight all of the innumerable flaws even more brightly.

And it will not change anything. Certainly not for me. I was already planning a post talking about the concept of “canon” and how it is  outmoded in the age of Disney’s Star Wars, Star Trek Picard, and J. K. Rowling earnestly insisting that wizards just drop trow and shit on the floor before magicking it away, but that will take some time to finish and it is sort of tangential to the point here.

So, to get back to your actual question, only four things about this are really of interest to me:

I am displeased about seeing people excited for something that is objectively a rancid piece of shit, and not enthused that I will be unable to escape it without locking down my feed. But I am also not The Good Taste Police. It is not my responsibility to care what people like or why.

I am once again seeing people hurting. I don’t like that whatsoever, but there is very little I can do about it. Whatever perspective I have gained, emotionally, isn’t likely to be helpful to them. Wisdom, such as it is, cannot be taught.

I find myself wondering about the influx of people who will come into the fandom, and who will be more than likely sorely disappointed by the travesty that is that arc. (It’s going to be good news for fan fic writers, honestly.)

It has made me understand things all the more fully.

What do I mean by that last part? Well, I have been only sort of joking lately that the people I most relate to as an adult are Col. Kurtz as mentioned above, Agent Smith from The Matrix, Khan Noonien Singh from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher, and Mike Stoklasa from Red Letter Media.

But upon reflection, I realize it isn’t limited to them. I have also really come to feel like I understand Ichigo. And I have even come to feel that I understand Kubo, through Khan.

I have come to understand Kurtz’s “madness”:

It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror… Horror has a face… and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies!

I have come to understand Smith’s desire to escape:

I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can’t stand it any longer. It’s the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I’ve somehow been infected by it.

I have come to understand Mike’s efforts to hold back the tides:

Mike: Captain Picard has never done a wacky accent—Rich: THEY DON’T CARE! THEY DON’T GIVE A SHIT! Mike, we are the only people that care anymore!Mike: Do you remember that—Rich: Picard is the guy who does this. [faceplam gesture] He’s—This is, this is Captain Picard’s character now for an entire—for like two generations, we’re fucking old! He's—he’s the guy who does this [facepalm gesture], and fuckin’ Patrick Stewart wants to put on an eye-patch and dance around an alien bar? Go ahead motherfucker! We’ll write that in!Mike: I-I-I hearken back to a wonderful little moment on Star Trek—Rich: Patrick Picard wants to ride a dune-buggy? Fuck yeah! Here’s a dune-buggy!Mike: Do-Do you remember—Rich: That’s how much respect they have for, for the franchise!Mike: All I’m tryin’ to say is Captain Picard would not do a wacky accent!Rich: NO, OF COURSE HE WOULDN’T! OF COURSE CAPTAIN PICARD WOULD—CAPTAIN PICARD ISN’T HERE, MIKE!Mike: He’s not there.Rich: HE’S NOT HERE! That’s all an illusion, hahaha!

I have come to understand Geralt’s tiredness.

I have come to understand Ichigo’s feelings of powerlessness in the face of the injustices of the world.

I have come to understand Khan’s rage:

I’ve done far worse than kill you. I’ve hurt you. And I wish to go on… hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her; marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet… buried alive! Buried alive…!

In this last quote, I have also truly come to understand Kubo. I understand him because I want to hurt him, as he so thoroughly, persistently, and remorselessly wants to hurt us, the fans of his work. I want to go on hurting him, as he goes on hurting us. I understand him perfectly, because I want to pay him back exactly in kind.

And the best way to begin to hurt him is to let his efforts wash over me without even batting an eye. To stand in defiance. To not give a single fuck.

Even with these understandings, for me, nothing has really changed from almost four years ago. The only thing that is different is that the timeframe until I am the last man standing has been extended a little. That’s it.

You want to know my thoughts? They are simple, and they boil down to two quotes. One is again from Khan:

Joachim: They’re still running with shields down.Khan: Of course! We are one big, happy fleet! Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold… in space!

And the other is from JFK:

Don’t get mad. Get even.

#I Have Spoken. #Asks