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the--highlanders · 10 months

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choose violence ask game (loving the name of that btw) - 8, 16, & 23?

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

(this fandom is so small that I don't want to sound like I'm vagueblogging or @-ing someone or anything so I'm just gonna preface this by saying this also goes for plenty of licensed media)

oh man ok. at risk of sounding like a total killjoy who takes everything too seriously & looks too much into stuff. I'm pretty sensitive about. primitivism in the way jamie gets portrayed?? is the best way I can think to describe it?? anything that implies that where & when he comes from means that he's inherently less intelligent, or equates his lack of knowledge on some things with him being stupid. can't stand him being reduced to dumb guy who hits stuff. idiot who has no critical thinking skills or reasoning.

and like, I get that it's a fairly common assumption, the idea that people from the past weren't as smart because they didn't know as much (even setting aside the devaluing of /different/ ways of knowing & understanding) - but, say, victoria never gets this treatment. despite also being from the past. which then leads you to think, hey, why would people make that assumption about jamie and not about victoria?

and then you get to a bunch of ideas which have been kicking around since. before jamie's time, real-world-historically speaking. which depict the highlands as savage, as populated by 'wild' people, by - well - 'primitives'. speakers of a primitive language. violent, at worst, strong, at best, but never intelligent. & this is all starting to sound a lot like the ideas that buttress colonialism and biological determinism, isn't it?

idk. this is a silly 60s family tv show & a very very small online fandom. it's kind of not that deep. but any time jamie gets written off as being inherently stupid (often /because/ of where he comes from), and any time that idea is the foundation of a joke, it rubs me the wrong way, and this is why.

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

gfdhkjsg once again this is a v small fandom so 'so many people' is kinda like..... 2 people max probably. & also I've been sort of keeping more or less to myself for a couple years now in terms of actually discussing thoughts & headcanons (except you obviously and also @ettelwenailinon who is always right about everything despite not being super active in dr who fandom on tumblr anymore <3)

gonna go with shipping jamie and victoria tbh. absolutely no hate if you do bc I can definitely see where it comes from in canon/behind the scenes stuff but it is just,,, not for me at all, and so antithecal to how I write/interpret their characters.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

tenrose?? weirdly?? not that I'd say I actively ship it (there is one (1) tenrose fic in my ao3 bookmarks but it's really there bc it's a pretty charming magical realism au and the voices of all the characters are just so spot on rather than bc I ever crave reading about the ship) but. when I got into dr who in 2013 there felt like there was a pretty solid line between rtd fans and moffat fans. & I have always vibed with moffat's era more (neither of them are above criticism obviously, the scifi fairytale aesthetic/tone of moffat's era is just so so so so tailor-made for me personally).

and for some reason tenrose and elevenriver were kind of. bundled into that opposition?? not sure if that was just in my head or something other people noticed/experienced but I felt like if you were a moffat fan you had to ship elevenriver & if you were an rtd fan you had to ship tenrose, and they were like. rivals. (yes I did try very half-heartedly to enjoy elevenriver. no I never succeeded). so I always had this thing of like, I don't like ten, I don't like tenrose.

like I said I still don't actively ship it, I don't get any warm fuzzy feelings from their relationship, but I did go back into rtd's era looking to actively enjoy stuff (after being tired of really not enjoying uh. recent seasons ajhksglf) and found that I didn't hate the concept of tenrose as much as I used to. I genuinely believed they liked each other, I felt the hubris of their relationship worked and built well narratively. never thought that ship would get a redemption arc in my head but I've definitely gained more appreciation for its role in the narrative.

#replies #galacticlamps #oughfkdj the first answer here is like #something that's been simmering away in my head for literal years #& i don't think i've ever actually posted #just whined to bára about repeatedly fhjkdslgjhdkg

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raisinchallah · 2 years

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curious about your thoughts on the kirk drift essay genuinely would love 2 read them

hah well get ready for a word wall thank u for asking anon and pushing me to um actually collect my thoughts sorry for the utterly massive word wall that is gonna lie under the cut jklka;jldskfjda im a little crazy i even had to give it paragraph breaks to make it comprehensible its that long so read at your own risk i guess

um i do want to say i find the essay very interesting and though im about to be quite negative i do really like he analysis of like characters that are based on kirk and her analysis of like the cultural perception of him and i do also think her analysis of the positive aspects of his character are pretty accurate and so on and the entire premise of the essay open up a lot of interesting discussion because star trek has had an absolutely massive cultural impact and i do think its super interesting to look at how perception of the show and of kirk himself have changed with it but i think in her effort to push back on the accepted narrative of who kirk is she perhaps goes too far in the opposite direction and erases a lot of the shows and the characters flaws in ways that make it hard to really use it as a baseline for analysis ok so without further ado my critique also warning for sexual assault mention

my first critique is just like structural that i really disagree with her reading of tos as a single unified text with a singular goal and message like tos was made in a very different era of tv and a large percentage of their scripts were submissions not crafted by the shows writing team obviously the scripts were polished and rewritten to fall in line with characterization but like its pretty obvious when you just watch a few random episodes especially in the third season when gene coon and dc fontana were no longer around that the character writing is often not super consistent and can be pretty wonky themes conveyed in one episode are often directly contradicted in another there are plenty of pro war stories as there are anti war stories the man trap which says we must kill this alien to save our lives is in the same season as devil in the dark

i also really question how she sees the womanizer archetype that it would be a character just enthusiastically jumping from one woman to another with both characters having full agency when more often than not its something like say a james bond type or the entire archetype of the femme fatale the women often are portrayed with more power or as dangerous in the beginning of an encounter and she must be subdued and charmed by a man and her poor woman brain breaks and shes unable to go forward with her nefarious plan which i think we can definitely see the parallels to certain star trek episodes from that description ultimately we must view things i guess from both a what is happening to each character way which is very much what the essay and most fan interpretations of the character go with and yes in fact a lot of those scenarios i described above as a character experiencing them would be somewhat of a dubiously consensual situation for both parties but the language of film and way they are presented within the narrative always work to show the woman as like losing in this scenario her power is taken away and she loses far more than the man does who is free to go on his merry way and i think ignoring that framework at the very end and trying to excuse the obvious misogyny in the entire scenario that clearly leads to how people interpret it feels dishonest the reason people see these as conquests is because the woman is left with nothing at the end and has what power she had taken away like she cites catspaw as an episode one would have to twist themselves into pretzels to see as a conquest which i do agree with to some extent but its also one of the clearest demonstrations of the differences between how men who are villains are treated and women who are villains are treated that sylvia immediately after kissing kirk starts losing her confidence and power and wants to run away with him compared to korob who can just be normal evil and defeated in a standard manner retaining his dignity and thats a consistent pattern with female villains or henchmen in star trek like in what are little girls made of kirk forcibly kisses the android andrea until she short circuits essentially because he unlocked her emotions through forcing himself on her like yes in both situations hes very much in danger but when you compare how the female villains are taken down in both episodes compared to the men its pretty stark and kirks the vessel for each of these moments and like theres the ways you would analyze this if they were like real people and the way you would analyze this if you are discussing the meaning and what fictional characters are trying to symbolize and i just think um the layers of this are like more complicated than how they are portrayed in the essay i am also just genuinely baffled by her read on the scene with the slave woman in bread and circuses saying well its implied he feared for his life if he didnt sleep with her so hes equally a victim here but again the power dynamic and the fact shes like literally a slave it feels like such a reach to brush it aside as just yet another time when kirk had no power but like i think the woman had um even less here no point was made theres also just like the fact kirk always has a young female yeoman around that sometimes has like an air of he could be with her i know it was floated to have a kirk and rand romance at one point and theres definitely subtext of that in like miri and at the end of mirror mirror marlena appears as an ensign or the fact that in shore leave his yeoman just jumps to give him a back rub its like weird as hell this is something that is never used again in other star treks and for good reason again these dont necessarily have to impact your personal interpretation of kirk as a character but these are all things that kind of circle around him and hinge on him and became part of the persona in the same way that the script will sometimes give spock quite bigoted lines about a supposedly “primitive” culture or about women being foolish and emotional to try and validate such beliefs by putting them in the mouth of the smartest character similarly these plots hinge around kirk because he is the leading man or the writer sees him as a self insert of some kind which gene roddenberry has definitely written about

i suppose and i guess then jumping off from well the yeoman thing theres of course probably the most vile way kirk ever acts on the show in the enemy within ive seen people attempt to dismiss it as well he wasnt in his right mind but both kirks are portrayed as each half of the regular character and “evil” kirk literally attempts to rape yeoman rand and “good” kirk tells her shes lying about it a genuinely fucking unwatchable episode frankly and i feel like not addressing it leaves kind of a huge hole in the argument kirk is entirely a soft feminist who enjoys philosophy i dont mean to just like list out literally every single awful trait about this character or try and create a list of all his evil ways and say you cant like him its just to say this is a far more complicated picture than the one the essay wishes to paint and especially that the fandom who parrots this essay likes to paint and i just wish again to my first point we could understand that there is such wild variation in tv characters because television is a collaborative medium and there is a whole wide variety of things kirk is used to represent and he can at the same time be the kind and gentle man you see in certain episodes with interesting and balanced relationships with high powered women he respects and be part of all the things i listed above and that what each writer emphasizes and values shows something about the moral and values of the episode and of the writers themselves tbh what i find so compelling about kirk as a leading man and what makes him stand out compared to so many others in the sci fi genre that have followed after him is his humor and the way he can subvert situations and take the power out of nonsense bureaucracy with comedy and that hes not worried about always appearing dignified or powerful and can fake being stupid for an advantage and play with expectations and honestly just doesnt take himself too seriously i think that really take the wind out of the sails of any kind of macho bravado people might try to push on him and well it just makes for entertaining television and truly i know this whole thing feels like suuuper negative but like literally as a fan of star trek i think its completely fine to totally ignore the nastier sides of a character and like just say for example no spock wouldnt say anything bigoted i dont want that even tho he does sometimes say quite weird things as “facts” in canon we can understand these are the agendas and beliefs of writers and as writers and viewers of a character you can reinterpret them and have your own spin on things and i think a similar take can be had with kirk and all the aforementioned shit you dont need to like make this part of his character its awful i am glad we can attempt to excise it but when we are discussing a work from like an analytical angle or critically that just doesnt fly in my opinion and i think this has gone almost too far in the other direction as a reaction to reactions to kirk

also i know i have been like ceaselessly negative here but i do want to add i do actually find like the concept of the essay extremely interesting and i do actually agree a lot with many of her points because like despite everything ive said its like completely a choice what does and does not get emphasized about the character and i havent seen much futurama but i find her assessment of zapp brannigan and like various permutations of the kirk archetype to be quite interesting and seems pretty accurate like you can see the through line into like aos where well if the creepy womanizer idea of kirk remains within public consciousness here are the new ways hes used in a reinterpretation hes an audience insert as the voyeur he makes super creepy comments to uhura in the bar these are like active choices to pick from the wide swath of the character and i do in many way agree with her takes about like why thats ignored and ideals of masculinity and all that its a very interesting essay that can open up a lot of good debate and discussion but i feel like if you start from a place of smoothing over too many rough patches we cant really understand like why there are so many takes on the character or how to hope you can course correct i guess and what fandom can do with all that jfaklds ok sorry this is probably nearly unreadable sorry for the length if u read this far you are so strong thank u for taking the time

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seijorhi · 4 years

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asks :)

Y’all know the drill

Ok I just read ur Kuroo zombie drabble (which hello... Sinful. Delicious. I would read a whole book abt it), and I think I finally understand what I love abt ur fics? It's that awareness that someone NEEDS YOU. And what they do to get there. To keep you. All the lines they would cross. God, I've never experienced that in real life, only fiction, and you draw it out of these volleyball goons SO WELL it leaves me reeling and with butterflies in all the dirty, wrong, bad places. Just... Thanks. <3

Ahh you’re so sweet!! But yeah, that’s why I love the concept of yanderes so much - it’s that ‘love’ without boundaries, without rules, at the expense of anyone and everyone else which is of course super fucking unhealthy but also hhhhhh

omg going back to that zombie apocalypse au w/ kuroo... how would he react if reader did get bitten or died? let’s say reader shoved someone in their group out of the way from a zombie and ends up getting bitten

Badly. He’d definitely kill the person you were trying to save just out of spite, go on a bit of a rampage, but i also wouldn’t put it past him to keep his bitten darling chained up because he just can’t let you go.

your recent bokuto drabble is fireeeeee 😩😩😩 i love your content so much especially when you talk about the captains

i love my captains sm 🥺

yo yo yo YO THAT ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE KUROO DRABBLE WAS GREAT. I mean, who would ever suspect the charming Kuroo? He'll be nice and easy to get along with, a person in a midst of chaos and madness that everyone grows to trust. And he'd be a great leader, so no one ever doubts what he says, making it so much easy for him to manipulate others into thinking someone has to be sacrificed to get them out of a sticky situation. they'll think he's doing it for them but no, it's all just for you. - @bitterlavenderwritings

Ahh thank you, bby! It’s one of those things where morals and stuff are already skewed in a post apocalyptic world, but instead of just being selfish for his own sake, he’s selfish for yours as well and there is literally nothing he won’t do to protect you. But yeah, no one would believe he’s actively out to hurt them (and he’s not - until it’s the difference between you getting hurt and you coming home safe) so it’s easier for him to do what he has to - lie, manipulate, outright kick somebody out of the way and into the waiting arms of a walker - whatever. Everyone looks up to him and trusts him, maybe there’s even a few in the group who think he’d made a better leader full stop 👀

i think i just felt my soul ascend from my body. your ushi's sister drabble WAS HOT AND HAD ME SALIVATING YOU'RE SO AMAZING PLS NEVER STOP WRITING- (or if you need a break, pls don't hesitate to do so!! god knows how tiring writing can be so i'd rather you have enough rest🥺🥺) - @bitterlavenderwritings

rest is for the weak (no but seriously thank you you’re very sweet) 💕

ONGMG OMG meet the parents part 2 was everything I needed and MORE! I know the reader will probably not get away free but FINALLY some parents/guardians with some sense!

Three cheers for the one adult I’ve written about who’s not entirely a piece of shit!!

hey! i’m not sure if anybody asked about this yet, but i just read your blindsided aftermath, and i loved it! i was wondering if you would ever consider continuing that story? if you do, i would love to read it one day! keep up the great writing-i can’t wait to read the slasher bokuto, akaashi, and kuroo fic you’re working on. @glaringlights

Thank you sm!! I’m so glad that you guys like it, it’s on of my fave pieces but as far as continuing it - probably not? I might write some more drabbles at some point but it likely won’t be a full fic.

This is a rambley thought but I love your soul mate au so much.

It obviously all my dubcon noncon kinks but it's so well written but so terrifying too. These are people the universe has decided belong with you, the people you deserve. The fact the mum in the twins one was so eager to accept them in is just horrible. I love that despair aspect of it. That no one is likely to believe you if you tell anyone. (Except dad!)

OK sorry for rambling. I just adore the whole au and i can't find the words to describe how much! The whole au is Kinky and scary. I love it

It’s a fun trope to play around with - I’ve tried to make each one a little different and the next few I’m working on are even more so - I’m probably gonna keep writing them until you guys beg me to stop lmao. But also in all fairness to the mother (actually all of the other parents), if she actually knew what was really going on she wouldn’t be acting the same way. It’s more that they’re willing to look past any kind of sign that things aren’t okay because they want you to be happy, and your soulmates make you happy, right?

That concept is 👌👌👌 but hav u considered the reverse? Oikawa would be a total ass about his lil sis going to Shiratorizawa. He’d have the pettiest sibling rivalry- of course his little sis would capitalize on it

Semi and Tendou would take one look at Oikawa’s sister and just go :D but in the worst possible way lmao.

can you make a little part 2 of blindsided(that inarizaki fic)🥺 like she ran way with ichiro but they found her somehow? or they found her during finals or some match?? idk i just really liked that fic🥺 literally one of your best !!!!

so my requests aren’t open but I’ve written a drabble about the reader escaping with Ichiro here and an extra snippet with Kita here

#BD answers #fic q's

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ayankun · 4 years

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Agents of SHIELD Season 1 Rewatch Update

Ok so I’m having a difficult time remembering what it was that made me hate this show so much (aside from the unforgivable Minecraft reference) and stop watching in Season 1.

Just got through ep 14 and holy cow, I’m honestly not sure whether the storylines for seasons 2, 3, and 4 were planned this far in advance, but if they were then these folks did such an overwhelmingly good job of keeping their eye on the ball.

Best I can figure, I’m having a good time on this attempt thanks to prequel-goggles. I already know where this story is going, who these people will become and what’s going to make them into what they will be, and I can appreciate this older storyline in light of the circumstances it precedes -- rather than for what it is without that context.

(It certainly helps that some of the dumber stuff is already starting to be replaced by the better stuff, like it’s ep 15 and the “night-night gun” was just replaced by the much more palatable “icer,” and they haven’t tried to call the individual dwarves by name for ages now)

Also there’s some pretty good cinematography, the graphics are really respectable, watching this found family slowly realize how much they love each other is sooo charming, and the affectations required of a MCU-spin-off-sci-fi-spy-show are really well balanced with the character drama which is its true heart.

I know ep 1x08 (”The Well”) is six and a half years old so maybe spoiler warnings are not necessarily required but here we go

Remember when Thor 2 came out and then this show had to earn its stripes as co-existing in the MCU so they had to address the fact that aliens ripped up London and the whole world knows about it?

Not being able to afford the likes of Chris Hemsworth was something they obviously had to work around, and plopping in that rando dweeby Asgardian as a twist was definitely one way to do it.

But the real showstopper is that the through-line of the episode is the examination of the similarities and differences of Ward and May, especially once they both come in contact with the Asgardian rage-stick.

Seeing Ward nearly incapacitated by his traumatic childhood memories serves two important purposes. First, it makes some good strides towards humanizing the man, who until now has been that hot-and-cocky kind of character that just expects to appeal to an audience but hasn’t yet earned any appeal whatsoever. By now, we’ve had a reference to his toxic dynamic with his older/younger brothers, and seeing him reliving his experience with the well suddenly opens him up and gives some dimension to that tall-dark-handsome cardboard cutout.

Second, those experiences are a really good twist!! When it’s revealed that he’s not remembering being tortured in a well by his brother, he’s remembering allowing his brother to torture his other brother down a well and not having the guts to do anything about it. It’s a good one-two punch because you weren’t expecting to pity the guy, and now that you’ve spent twenty minutes pitying him for being victimized, you get to grapple with the much more complex emotion of the kid!Ward not knowing how to get out of this lose-lose situation and understanding that his current character must be in some way informed by this regret and guilt.

THIRD, after seeing Ward go through all this and barely hold it together, we get to see how May handles this level of relive-your-worst-trauma-and-incinerate-yourself-with-unbridled-rage when she has to pick up the rage-stick and .... instead of it leaving her on the ground like it’s just done to Ward, she somehow experiences 0.00000% change in personality or capability WhatSoEver.

She not only isn’t affected, she summons all the broken pieces of rage-stick and effortlessly wields the fully formed berzerker staff to defeat the rest of the baddies single-handed. It says so much about her character, about the depths of the trauma that sent her to the place we met her in in the pilot. We still don’t know what happened, but this her “my secret is I’m always angry” moment, and it’s a level of anger has been repeatedly and thoroughly cataloged throughout the episode so far.

It also gives these fools something to bond over. And while I’m seriously disinterested in their weird little Thing that didn’t go anywhere and didn’t really impact much, it was a nice way to avoid progress in the “Skye’s falling for her SO” storyline that I don’t care for either.

But Skye makes her move in this episode! She and Ward dance around the possibility that maybe they’re into each other and they could possibly move from antagonistic strangers to folks who are a little into each other. But he does the gentle thing and turns her down! (without closing the door entirely, I must add) And then he wanders off on his own and ... May’s wandering off on her own ... and they share some micro expressions and then, seriously you guys this sequence is so tasteful and understated, just look:

Ward leaves Skye at the bar with a parting “I’m beat, another time, maybe,” and off her wistful look we cut directly to this chiaroscuro hallway.

Ward enters the frame, starts unlocking his hotel room. He's just another monochrome shape in this monochrome place.

But then there’s May entering the shot at the far end of the hallway, and her motion and his turning to look at her frames her monochrome shape in this nice little white triangle between him and her door.

And there’s a tasty little rack focus that pulls the instant she passes in front of the door, making sure our attention is on her and the little white label of her bottle that really pops in the sea of black.

By this point in time, we’ve been shown, graphically, intimately, a dark shadow in his past, and we’ve been shown the physical and emotional toll its taken on him (an insight provided by the magic alien macguffin, btw). We haven’t been told anything, we experienced his experiences with him via the power of cinema. Her specific trauma is still a mystery at this point, but we’ve been given enough information to understand and appreciate its effects on her character. So not only can we sympathize with Ward now, we can sympathize with his empathy for May in this moment.

She catches him looking.

I mentioned micro expressions and screenshots do not do these performances justice. How does one catch in a single frame the millisecond that an eyebrow ticks in asking a silent question?

Typical for her, May’s answer is also communicated through body language.

From that canted, inviting look, we pan down as she unlocks her door and enters. She passes through the frame and disappears inside, after giving us a reminder that her plans are to apply alcohol to her issues. (Remember that Ward turned down Skye’s invitation at a bar of all places)

Oh, and what has our framing left us to contemplate? Is that a bed I see in there? (Remember that Ward turned down Skye’s invitation) Let me point out that this shot of just the bed after May walks by is on screen by itself for maybe a fraction of a second. Just a suggestion of a thing, really.

Ward contemplates.

I love returning to this shot because it’s literally the same set up, and my instant reaction is that it’s another insert, a POV shot, and I fully expect to return to the single shot on Ward to discover his decision the second he makes it.

INSTEAD. Ward walks immediately into THIS FRAME, too, black-shape-on-white-shape in the same way May was introduced to this scene. And we stay here as he closes the door behind him ...

Letting us know everything we need to know without a single word needing to be spoken.

Another fraction of a frame dwelling on that shot and then immediately fade to black. Credits. Show’s over, folks.

And not that there’s any particular meaning in it, but they were super careful to minimize what colors were allowed to appear in this sequence? Like there’s a particular sort of green in that weird armchair, which sort of matches the green-glass of her bottle. And there’s the red of the fire alarm fixtures which more or less matches the red of his, y’know, fresh facial wounds. EVERYTHING else (other than, I guess, their skin tones) falls somewhere along the white-black spectrum. NICE. BEAUTIFUL. I LIKE IT A LOT.

And the Netflix synopsis for this episode is “In the aftermath of the events chronicled in the feature film Thor: the Dark World, Coulson and the S.H.I.E.L.D. team try to pick up the pieces.” 1) I’m realizing that they literally go around picking up pieces of the rage-stick and that’s hilarious but mostly I mean to say 2) this MCU-tie-in episode could have met the brief being as vapid and non-impactful as that blurb makes it sound. But it took the opportunity to open up its characters for us to see their gooey insides, and hell they picked two of the best characters to dig into for this one, considering Ward’s tragic backstory plays as both a misdirect and actual inciting incident for his betrayal of SHIELD, and May’s tragic backstory feeds a couple of B-plots this season as well as being the major catalyst for a lot what happens in season FOUR. SEASON FOUR, PEOPLE. THE SEEDS ARE WAY BACK HERE IN SEASON ONE.

REMEMBER HOW THESE CHARACTERS WERE INTRODUCED THOUGH?? I DO, I JUST WATCHED THE PILOT LIKE YESTERDAY. WE MEET WARD FULLY ENSCONCED IN HIS GUISE OF SHIELD BADASS SUPERSTAR; HE IS LITERALLY ASKED TO EXPLAIN WHAT SHIELD MEANS TO HIM, AND WE GET TO HEAR THE FIRST OF HIS MANY LIES. WE MEET MAY IN HER OWN PERSONALLY-DESIGNED WHITE-COLLAR HELL, TURNING COULSON’S OFFER DOWN THE SECOND SHE HEARS HIS VOICE BECAUSE SHE’D RATHER STAPLE DOCUMENTS FOR ETERNITY THAN BE OUT IN THE FIELD WHERE SHE CAN MAKE ANOTHER MISTAKE LIKE THE ONE SHE CAN’T FORGIVE HERSELF FOR.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This show knows how to weave a character-driven story, and it’s done it for six seasons straight, juggling constantly evolving -- grounded, nuanced, impactful -- character arcs with the external factors (Thor: The Dark World, for one) that force certain narrative decisions.

(until they decide to ignore those factors altogether, lol, I’m looking at you, season 5, you wacky maverick you)

#agents of shield #aos #the well #grant ward #melinda may #a long rant about things I love #it's nice to rant about positive things for a change

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the-vinedresser · 6 years

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Confession #1

Told you I’d eventually do this — it’s story time.

So here I am, just studying for my final tomorrow morning. All of a sudden, Minus the Bear’s “Pachuca Sunrise” comes up for the millionth time this week and I skip it just like the other time. But this time I’m angry because why should I skip a song because some shitty guy ruined it for me. Why should I automatically register pain and hurt just from seeing the title and the cover art show up on my screen.

High school senior year (yikes). Wait but before that happened, my friend Rebecca told me that this boy Mike liked me during freshman year. She’s close to him, so it must’ve been true. And it was. But he got angry that she told me and didn’t do anything. I immediately looked him up on Facebook when I got home and to my surprise we were already friends. I guess I must’ve added him at some point. Being the new girl in a small town, I kind of lost track.

Fast forward to summer of junior year I start to grow feelings for this person I didn’t know because I am a vain human being and he showed interest in me at one point, so it shouldn’t change a few years later, right?

So I don’t know how but we started talking to each other through text. Someone must’ve set us up and exchanged our numbers. He was very charming through text. Super charming. He seriously knew how to use words which blows my mind even now just thinking about it. I would get so excited seeing his name light up on my phone even if it was a simple “hey.” He would playfully make fun of me, open up about stuff, was unapologetically witty and sharp. I kept wanting to meet in person at school and some days we did before class, but it was just awkward. The same witty person I would speak to didn’t transfer in real life. We would hug awkwardly sometimes. He was taller than I imagined and super lanky and his voice was very low. But I still enjoyed his mind so I was still smitten even though it felt unnatural to talk to him in person.

What started out as innocent conversations got not so innocent very quickly, as you can imagine. All of a sudden he was inviting me to his pool and the conversation would somehow end up with sexual innuendos. Red flags, right? Young Megan was so vulnerable back then. But more than that, she was excited about this new feeling of, well, excitement and infatuation.

I’m going to keep it blunt. We started sexting a lot and Snapchat was a bigger thing back so we exchanged photos once. I felt absolutely disgusting the morning after I sent those pictures. How did I get talked into doing that? But I figured he must’ve liked me because he always talked about hanging out. I didn’t know it back then, but the feeling I had was the realization that I’ve been exploited.

My friend at the time started receiving attention from him as well and was not hesitant to tell me. The bad news is it wasn’t out of concern, it was a competition now. I don’t do competition so guess who got hurt. She would tell me that he’s so gross while showing me the texts and they were different from what he sent me, but I would’ve liked to hear them directed towards me nonetheless. She was insecure about her body but he incessantly complimented her about it... and also invited her to his pool.

For the longest time I didn’t want to be near this friend. If I liked something at a store but I couldn’t wear it because it was a size extra small, she would try it on and buy it on purpose to somehow get back at me. I can’t be around ill-intentioned insecure people anymore. (Lol or so I thought. It still somehow happens.) Anyways, when my friends would get together during break in college I could never hang out if she was there and people definitely noticed.

So anyways back to this shitty excuse of a human being, I ended up caving. It was senior year, I was discontent and stressed and needed to rebel. I went over to his house one day after third period. We’ve been planning for a while but his parents were always home and same with mine. But that day ended up working out and a couple of his friends saw me sitting in the passenger seat when we pulled out of the parking lot.

I remember admiring his view. He had the most beautiful view that he didn’t seem to think was a big deal. I thought it was cute how he couldn’t keep still and would move around a lot when we would talk. Before we started he asked if I ever did anything with anyone before. I said I did a couple weeks ago. He was older and went to a different school. But secretly, yes, it was my first time. I ended up telling him a couple years later in college when I was home one break.

I wasn’t as nervous because I made it seem like I had the advantage. Before I used to think that it wasn’t bad for my first experience, but looking back at it now, oh it was. We did a lot of stuff, like 10 pornos in 10 minutes. He didn’t cum and was obviously flustered.

Afterwards. Oh man that part still kills me. We layed down on our sides and just looked at each other. He stroked my hair and kissed me while I commented on all the knick-knacks and collectibles he had in his room. We got up, he showed me the cool illusion in his bathroom mirror, and I saw mascara smeared all over my eyes. He drove me home and that was it.

Ok, actually that wasn’t just it. Freshman year he’d text me a lot. During the most convenient times when I was studying or at a party crossfaded. It was on my Snapchat story so he knew. I remember complaining to my friends that I just want him to leave me alone, while secretly enjoying the attention and the entertaining thought that I was so good in bed he wanted more. Like I said, super naive back then.

I ended up sleeping with him again one more time at the end of fall semester freshman year. The first time we drove out to the pond near my house just to hang out and talk. We went to a diner in Brewster, New York and talked about... I don’t quite remember.

The next time we met at the pond again and I brought a bottle of wine with me. I asked him if he wanted some and he declined. That’s when I told him he wasn’t my first and I think it made him happy but he also said it bummed him out because he wanted it to be special.

We started kissing awkwardly and I knew by then that the awkward kissing wasn’t just reserved to him, a lot of guys seemed to be good at that. After we made out for like 10 seconds we walk back to his car and hold hands. He joked about how his arm is so much longer than mine and he was right. It felt weird like my arm was being stretched to go lower, even though he was taller than me.

We go into the backseat of his car and it’s cramped. He’s a little more aggressive this time and I yelp at one occasion. He comes early. I’m bummed. He said wait wait it’s ok, jacks it a couple times and no more than 5 seconds later he’s ready to go again.

Afterwards the windows are all fogged up and it’s dark outside. I draw things on the window while i stroke his head, which is laying on my shoulder. He told me he didn’t want to hurt me like he did earlier ever again (the yelping part, not the emotional damage ha ha ha).

We got dressed, opened all the doors and he sprayed some air freshener and was convinced his mom was going to find out. He drives me home again with the windows open and it feels nice. I looked out the window all pensive and disappointed like my stupid 19 year-old self and he tells me how good it was for him. He asked me how it was for me, and I bluntly tell him it was just ok. He drops me off making sure to stop at the very bottom of my driveway so my parents don’t see.

At one point way back in senior year of high school I texted him what I really felt. I was angry with him for being stupid and he had to know. He responded saying something like he knows he’s an asshole, he doesn’t know why he is this way, his brother yells at him all the time for not understanding social cues and norms and for hurting people’s feelings all the time. To this day I still think what he told me was honest. Usually I’d call bullshit but it seemed like just a bit too much detail, which meant it had to be the honest truth.

I still hate him. Just now when I was studying I pictured him going off on one of his little nature escapades in the mountains and him falling off a cliff and dying.

I remember I was in Canada with my family in high school at some point and the sky was orange and beautiful and I was listening to that Pachuca Sunrise song and I was just thinking about being happy with him. Instead of enjoying family vacation. But the daydream made me a more pleasant person than what I usually am on family trips.

But now I hate him. He somehow convinced all these girls 2 years younger than us to sleep with him. My friends told me they hated him and didn’t like him and thought he was gross but I did not listen. Every one of my friend groups seemed to be aware of my weird obsession with him and told me stuff about his greasy hair and loud breathing.

I want to take up kickboxing because of him and the couple other shitty people in my life whom I resent. I feel like the idea of religion and Christianity was holding me back from experiencing these strong emotions. I don’t want to bring them to God because I haven’t let go of them and processed them myself yet. Doing it in partnership with God was something that didn’t work for me, I just kept pushing it away and saying I forgave them because I gave it all to God, when I really didn’t, no matter how hard I tried. Forgiveness is the right thing so I should do it. That’s what I kept reassuring myself.

I refuse to forgive until I understand what it actually is and soak in it for a little bit. People are shitty the end. I embrace the shittiness of life!!!

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