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valkyrie-8888 · 2 months

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the wilbur soot situation

im not a very big person on social media, nor do i post often, but i just want to get this out of my system. this post is just going to be a little rant and my take on the current situation. to anyone who is not yet caught up to the situation, i hope this can help a bit.

TW: discussions of abuse, domestic violence, death threats, etc

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when i first saw a video about wilbur soot's allegations, i thought it wasn't anything that bad. things like this happen to cc's all the time.

a while later, it kept popping up. i still thought it would go away eventually. i'm not proud of it in hindsight, but i cant change the past.

recently, i realized this situation was serious, and decided to catch up and investigate. what i was not prepared for was having my view of the world absolutely shattered. this will not go away. it will not be silenced by fanatics who believe their favourite cc can do no wrong. this is extremely serious.

a bit of backstory, so that my reasoning can clearly be understood:

i started getting into dsmp in around the start of 2021. i was immediately drawn to the dynamics of sbi as a group and started watching mainly their pov-s of things. the three quickly became a part of my daily life. i have been watching them ever since. went through some really bad times, especially after technoblade's death. after that, i started watching wilbur and phil more.

wilbur soot, i highly doubt you will read this, but if you do, i want you to know that I am disgusted by you, your behaviour, your response to said behaviour coming to light, and your sheer cowardice. you are a disgusting human being. there is no justification for your actions. no apology can undo what you have done. and from what i have heard and seen, shubble might not be the only victim.

as of my writing this, wilbur soot has not given any more responses besides the emotionless and frankly disgusting apology published on twitter/x

an overview of everything, my take on this situation, and just a little vent:

wilbur soot is an abuser and a manipulator. he ignored consent and a set safe word. as someone who heavily believes that consent and respecting it is common sense, i am disgusted, to say the least. i recommend reading more on the situation and watching an unbiased and neutral video

i looked for any possible justification, any way this could be misunderstood or redeemed. i have found none.

this man was my idol. i looked up to him, respected him, and admired him deeply. he was my comfort streamer and one of my favourite musical artists.

because of this, i will find it extremely difficult to cut him out of my life completely. however, i do not support him or condone his behaviour in any way. i don't think i will be able to completely sever all bonds to him. that's what abusers do, isn't it? they worm themselves into your life, make themselves irreplaceable, and, once their toxicity is discovered, they guilt trip you into staying, or make you think it's your fault or just paranoia.

the people who try to justify his behaviour, belittle or blame the victims of his abuse, or frankly any abuse, are absolutely disgusting. karma is a bitch, and i hope it hits them hard.

wilbur soot, it seems, has blown up his own career just like he did to l'manburg. i hope to never hear about him again, except to see him be brought to justice. domestic abuse is a felony.

my message for shubble:

you are incredibly brave. to speak up at all about anything like this takes a lot of courage. i despise the fact that the obsessive fans are threatening and blaming you. it is disgusting. but i am happy to see that you are still standing strong. your story has inspired others to come forward and take this man down once and for all.

EDIT: Insight a few days later

there have been more people telling their stories. the 'allegations' can no longer be referred to as such. i now add 'rapist' to the many words one uses to talk about this horrendous man.

i personally feel a bit gaslit myself. this person so many praised and referred to as this perfect man turned out to be an absolute incel.

one thing i noticed after looking through old clips is that there were in fact signs that seem obvious now. niki also mentioned the biting a few years ago. however, we all laughed it off as a bit. because we thought it was. because we were lead to believe it was. in one clip, wilbur tells niki to 'tell them how horrible i am to you,' and proceeds to start fucking hoovering. and everyone laughs it off. because that's his thing.

there are also signs in some of the songs in both ycgma and those released separately. especially your new boyfriend, soft boy, and the nice guy ballad. the last one is the most chilling. there are also some lyrics in ycgma, like 'abuse those i love/while i ostracize the ones who love me back'.

to end my little rant/essay, if wilbur soot is a manipulator, what is to stop him from (consciously or subconsciously) applying these behaviours to his online presence?

i genuinely hope he can get help and improve as a person, but that does not excuse his past behaviour. neither does his bad mental state during said behaviours.

#wilbur soot #wilbur mcyt #wilbur situation #support victims #shelby support #shubble support #shubble suport squad #shubblesupportsquad

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thisandthat-whatever · 2 years

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LMAO what is up with those antis in your inbox? its so clear they just want to form their own narrative because anyone (even people who don’t care about tom and z being together) could tell that they’re SO IN LOVE with each other during this press tour. Him buying a car in LA? The way Tom is looking at her and showing how much she knows him and he knows her? (“your superpower is the ability to calm me when im too far gone”). The man LITERALLY saying for like 5 times on print that he wants to start a family/be a dad/get married? Come on now he obviously knows that everyone knows he’s talking about Zendaya when he says that, and it’s obvious that if at the beginning of the year he was saying he’s not ready for kids and now HE is the one that can’t stop talking about it its because they probably had a talk about the future of their relationship and she told him she wants to have kids with him at some point. Also Z posting him on instagram? She has like 3 years of not posting anything remotely personal and she had NEVER posted a lovey dovey post for a man EVER. She would always make it seem as she was just friends with Tom. Especially now when a clear look at her insta it’s obvious she only uses it for promo. She wanted to let the world know how proud she is of him and how fine she is with being in a public relationship. Do you really think this woman would be doing this if they’re just having fun? If they were just having fun they would’ve had a fling during filming closed that chapter and decide to remain friends, but their pull and the love they have for each other is clearly so big that for a year and a half they couldn’t hold on to a relationship and ended up getting back together. Like look, i know there are obstacles for them but if they decided to get back together, they pretty much probably had a talk about the future of them as a couple, since they’re no longer 19 and at 25 is an age where you start dating people for marriage and kids not just for fun. They could’ve easily ignored those kissing pap pics and pretended that never happened and acted as friends, but they decided to embrace their relationship instead and seem happier than ever with their decision. They could probably have already discussed their living situations for the future for all we know, maybe moving to the suburbs of LA and having a summer house in London? Look we will never know because WE DONT KNOW THEM. We will find out eventually but not for now. All I know is love is very powerful, and if you want to be with someone and start a family with them (which we know they do) then nothing is going to stop you from it, besides they’re rich and rich people don’t deal with the same stress as us lmao Tom could live in the US and still visit London regularly cause he’s rich, i don’t think its that big of a problem for him. So for you, anti that i have no doubt will read this, take my advice and get out of that delusion and try to see things reasonably, they’re IT for each other and I’m not saying this as a tomdaya (cause I like to look at things realistically and I wouldn’t be saying they seem to want to get married if they’re actions said anything different) Im saying this as someone who’s just looking at their actions and words from a reasonable perspective. Save the trouble and just ignore them if you don’t like them, but if you’re gonna be obsessed with them then you might as well support them cause they clearly seem to be together for a long run.

One correction though because I know the way you worded it will make it be misconstrued. She doesn’t use her Instagram only for promo. She also posts Darnell, Noon, her mom etc. But yes, she never posted a bf as boldly as she did Tom. And it is because they are a publicly known couple now, and are not lying about or HIDING the fact that they are dating any more after those kissing pics; their rs is no longer a secret to the world, so of course there is more openness in claiming each other publicly as opposed to their version 1.0 where they used to do damage control left and right after a minor slip.

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superphlyduskull · 3 years

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some core and halfa physiology thoughts

found a page of notes from when i thought i was gonna rewatch dp (apparently i got three episodes in before i realized i just couldn't do it by myself lmao) and i found some interesting thoughts i had on how halfas work!

also look at the single note i took from one of a kind tho dfkhsldfk

One of a Kind

* tucker and danny snuggle…

also might be watching dp with my friends tomorrow so maybehaps ill take more notes when i do that!

ANYWAY

this post got away from me, so im gonna put the rest under the cut in case it’s a bit long lmao

now to the meat of this post!

so i surprised myself by having written this. i have zero memory of it:

* Cores: concentrated ball of ectoplasm inside a ghost, similar to a heart but more difficult to destroy or manipulate. has organelles as well, and there are some that are the same across all ghosts, but some that are different based on core type and ghost type. is kept strong by feeding the ghost’s obsession and/or by being in the ghost zone.

* with halfas, its a little different. there hasn’t been much (ethical) research done, but a halfa’s core is sustained both by continually feeding the obsession and keeping the human side healthy (mentally and physically, but mental health in particular). not keeping up with the obsession significantly weakens the core, but it also won’t kill the halfa, just weaken. Same goes for the human health necessities; if physical and mental health are not kept up, the halfa won’t die/end, just be weaker. Both sides have to be neglected in danny’s case, this gets difficult, as he tends to rely on his ghost powers to feed his obsession (protecting and helping others)

i havent thought extensively about cores and core types yet, but i picture cores with at least four organelles: one for holding the form together, one that determines what their appearance is like, one that contains energy for their element, and one that harnesses the energy they get from their obsession or other sources (like ambient ectoplasm or emotion). and some pretty standard core types ive seen around are ice, fire, electricity, plant/nature. also time and space

ive always had a hard time figuring out whether i vibe more with danny having an ice core or an electricity core; electricity bc of how he died, and ice bc of all that stuff with frostbite and whatnot. then i thought, maybe danny’s a weird case, because he is in every other way, isnt he? there are two other halfas, and he at the very least came about through very different means than they did. i subscribe to the hc that vlad isnt “as much” of a halfa/is less stable bc he didnt half die immediately/died less than danny, which makes danny even more different from him

and from that thought, i arrived at: what if danny has a multi-element core? like one element is dominant, but the organelle responsible for his core type just kinda grabs a little of an element if he has a strong enough attachment to it. like he is primarily an Ice core (for some reason? still don’t understand the choice for that in canon but what else is new), but because of his death, his core latched on to Electricity a bit as well. and it gives him the potential to have a bit of Time if clockwork mentors him. i also think Space would be plausible, both bc of his love of outer space and the fact that he died in a portal. this makes him incredibly op but like..... he was already, why not ramp it up a notch?

OH AND ALSO its like that because he’s A) a new ghost, which i hc are more susceptible to change as they get used to being a ghost, B) an adolescent at the time of the accident, which is a time of turbulent change for humans and C) was literally between dimensions when he died, which is as about as symbolic of change as you can get!!

now for my thoughts on halfa physiology! not sure i fully vibe with what i wrote before, but there are two hcs that i like:

- if he takes care of one form and then some, that “and then some” bleeds over to his other half and he doesn’t need to care specifically for it. like if he overfeeds his obsession, he doesn’t really need to worry much about eating or drinking or breathing depending on how much he overfed. if he can’t get to the ghost zone for the ambient ectoplasm or feed his obsession, overeating will do just fine

- the above, except that only works for so long. one half can only compensate for the other for so long. he can go a lot longer without than a full ghost or human, but eventually he’ll need food or ambient ectoplasm

- surprise third option: his ghost half can override his human half’s needs, but not the other way around. he doesn’t really need to eat or brink or breath anymore (even if it makes him uncomfortable) as long as he’s keeping up with his ghostly needs, but ignoring the needs of his ghost half isn’t sustainable and will cause great distress, madness, or death

i may have accidentally stolen these from the many fics ive read over the past year, but if anyone has any input i’d love to hear your thoughts!

#sorry if this is a nightmare to read lmao #just lmk if it is #im not sure how long the paragraphs will look on mobile #i can try to make it easier to read if anyone wants me to!#but anyway this post ended up waaay longer than intended #i was just havin a good time writing it #danny phantom #ghost core #ice core #clockwork #ghost physiology #halfa #halfa physiology #headcanon

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wxsuthorn · 4 years

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a sort of organised analysis of The Gifted characters

pt. 1: Pang

(this analysis includes episodes 1-13 of season one and 1-7 of season two, so it probably isn’t completely accurate, but i tried my best. also please excuse grammar or spelling errors that i might’ve made cuz i write these late at night when my creativity sparks lmao)

Characteristics and qualities in the beginning of season 1

Even in the very first episode, Pang already showed some idealistic qualities. He always thought that the school system wasn’t fair, and he always tried doing the right thing (or what he thought was the right thing). His idealism wasn’t as extreme in the very beginning of the show, since he wasn’t as confident in his abilities. He probably didn’t have much interest in changing the school system when he (and the people around him) saw him as a dumb kid from classroom 8. Getting into the Gifted Program was what affected his idealism to the point where it became a fault.

Before he discovered his potential, he was most likely very confused about his “academic rank”. He was in classroom 8, yet he was in the Gifted Program... but he hadn’t found his potential yet. I can imagine him questioning his worth and how significant he really was; he was also one of the first kids in the gifted class to outwardly express how they felt about the unfair treatment of the ordinary students compared to the gifted students. This was probably because he got to experience both ends of the unequal treatment, unlike the rest of his gifted classmates.

In terms of intelligence, Pang is street smart. In episode one he thought of a distraction to not get caught stealing the test. He also used the egg drop parachute to save his phone. He is innovative and can create ideas and identify problems. In episode one (again), he noticed that Wave was sweating and seemed weak. He also noticed Ohm’s bloody nose and Mon moving a locker full of weights. He was aware of shit... but he’s not very aware of other people’s feelings... at least not fully.

Pang’s friendship with Nac hits different after the pangwave fight but anyways... Pang knew that he didn’t use the cheat sheet, and he couldn’t tell Nac anything about the Gifted Program, so he probably didn’t fully understand why Nac was so upset when he technically did nothing wrong. Nac even said he wasn’t upset that Pang was in the Gifted Program. I think that’s why Pang never talked it out with him and just kinda exploded at him. Even though he may see himself as empathetic, it’s really just him being idealistic. He mistakes his ideals about equality for empathy, when, in fact, those are two separate things. When it comes to individual people, I don’t think he’s very good at understanding them thoroughly enough. Nac’s reasons for being upset with Pang are realistic and valid. He’s in class 1, Pang’s in class 8, yet Pang was the one who got into the Gifted Program. Nac gave Pang a cheat sheet, and even though Pang denies using it, he couldn’t really believe that he got in with the grades he has. And on top of that, Pang doesn’t even tell him what happens in the class. Nac feels used and excluded, but Pang wasn’t paying attention to that. He ended up blaming the unfair system, which was just a factor of the conflict, but never took a moment to look at what he himself could’ve done to help the conflict, or even what he might’ve done wrong. but issokay cuz pang is a smol bean and i love him

Characteristics and qualities in the middle - the end of season 1

Lets talk about Pang discovering his potential in episode 6. He first noticed it when he told Nac to bang his head on a metal bar. This wasn’t the first time he used his potential on Nac, though. In the first episode he used it on him and said something like “don’t talk to me ever again”, and so Nac didn’t communicate with again him until episode 6. This was when Pang used his potential on him saying “why can’t we just talk it out?” and Nac was finally able to communicate his frustration. Nac was blaming Pang for shit he didn’t do and it was unreasonable, according to Pang, but Nac didn’t know the full story. If you look at the way Nac sees things: Pang is in the Gifted Program, Pang used me to get into the program (because there’s no way he just got in without using my cheat sheet), I got punished when Wave provoked me and Pang tried playing hero, as if he was some perfect angel. Pang has new friends, he has no use for me anymore, I don’t need him either, I find new friends, Pang suddenly joins in, everything goes haywire, my anger and frustration towards him explodes, and he just ignores what I’m feeling and tells me that I’m wrong and that I’m an asshole. Like I did something wrong, and he’s perfectly innocent. Lmao Nac is salty af. And he has a good reason to be. Pang doesn’t understand Nac’s thinking, and on top of that, he makes almost no effort to understand. His beliefs blind him into thinking he’s done no wrong.

Now lets talk about his actual potential, and how it affects him. His ego and self esteem rises, but Pang doesn’t notice it. It’s explained in the end of season 1 that the reason Pang lost is because he wanted to do everything on his own because he thought that only he was able to defeat the director. His ideals and his ego are very closely connected. Pang teams up with Wave because he thinks that Wave will be the most useful to stop Director Supot. Now, I don’t think Pang doesn’t care about his friends, but his actions are neglectful. When Pang teams up with Wave, he tells none of his other friends about what he’s doing. He doesn’t tell Namtaan or Ohm, literally his two closest friends, and convinces himself that he’s doing it to protect them. News flash, he isn’t. He’s trying to be a hero. His ego rapidly increasing might be because of how he was constantly ridiculed when he was in classroom 8, and suddenly he gets this power that makes him “superior” to ordinary people. Another possibility is that his ego was already big, but we he only showed it/applied it when he was trying to take down Director Supot.

Now lets talk about the season 1 finale: Pang becomes aware of his ego through the director foiling his plan and humiliating him. This is a big part of his development as a character. Ofc in season 2 he still has a problem with neglecting and doing things solo, but he become a little more aware, and for 2 whole year’s he’s able to somewhat-effectively lead the gifted gang in their fight against the anti-gifted.

Characteristics and qualities in season two (up until episode 7)

Lets discuss: Ms Darin. aka ms loser. Remember in the beginning of episode 7 where he trusted her cuz of what she said and he noticed her actions (oop remember this trait from before? he’s aware of shit!), but it turned out it was all lies. He eventually got back on track after Third showed him the truth, and was smart enough not to trust Ms. Darin after that. I wanna guess that the reason he started trusting Ms. Darin so easily (other than what she said and did) is because he was in distress from failing Korn and Time. He needed some support, and he wouldn’t let his friends support him because “im a hero blah blah blah i dont wanna worry my friends they dont need to help me with my burdens cuz i can do it on my own :D” season 1 Pang type shit. Ms. Darin was an adult who seemed trustworthy enough, plus Director Supot was gone, and he was the main antagonist in season 1, so isn’t everything only gonna get better now that he’s gone? Plus when Grace said that he sounds like the adults lksdjlkjslfjjsdf THAT HIT ME.

Now I wanna talk about him with Chanon. I’m praying that Chanon is pure and not corrupted because if he is he might’ve used Pang and might do so in the future too... but let’s not focus on that. Pang finally has a mentor-figure in his life that he looks up. Someone to balance out his ego and show him that he can’t do everything on his own. yeah that’s all i have to say about that.

Punn. “You’re done, Pang.” Yeah lets talk about that because holy mcnuggets. Punn knows Pang well enough to know how intensely idealistic and passionate he is. Once the director is gone, Punn is like, bitch u got nothing else to obsess over MOVE ON. He’s basically saying Pang’s existence was so heavily tied with fixing the school system that when eveything’s fixed, he’ll be “done.” It’s similar to Five from the Umbrella Academy, where his whole life was set on fixing the apocalypse that he felt that life had no meaning without an apocalypse to prevent.

Now let’s talk about PangWave... I truly believe that Pang sees Wave as his equal, as his friend, and as a person whom he cares for deeply. His ego and idealism, topped with all the stress he’s going through (by himself), are dangerous towards his relationships. Wave feels used by Pang, and explains how Pang only comes to him when he needs his help, and avoids him when he disagrees with what Pang thinks. Pang is so fixated on his ideals and beliefs that he will do anything to make sure they become a reality. He’s obsessed, and it’s sooooo bad for his relationships with others. It shows that even on Namtaan’s bday, he can only think about “doing the right thing”, because that’s his number 1 priority. PANG JUST GIVE URSELF A BREAK PLEASE TAKE A METAL HEALTH DAY JUST SLKJFLSDKJJD MEDITATE OR SMTH.

I could type for several hours longer but I think this is enough word vomit for this post.

Summary

- VERY IDEALISTIC !!!! TO A FAULT

- He has somewhat of an inflated ego, but uses his ideals and beliefs to cover it up and convince himself that he is a “good person”

- He overworks his brain by never thinking of himself or other people’s emotions and focuses on his idealistic goals and his idealistic goals ONLY.

- He’s very aware of the things’s around him, and is street smart, but he’s not as aware when it comes to other people’s feelings and thoughts.

- He cares for his friends, but his extreme idealism ends up hurting them, and in turn hurting himself and further encouraging him to self-isolate.

- Independent, but this is mostly due to him thinking that he can handle problems on his own and he doesn’t want to get others involved.

- He is becoming more aware of his wrong actions, hence him apologising to Wave about going after Korn without him, but not enough to actually prevent these wrong actions.

- didn’t talk about this much but GUILT!!! I can tell that he feels immense guilt (especially in the latest episodes) whenever one of his friends get hurt and he’s very involved in what got them hurt. However, when it comes to hurting people emotionally, his guilt is tricky to read. At least for me it is lmao. Cuz he doesn’t always fully understand his friends’ feelings because he can’t always admit that he’s done something wrong, but with the recent pangwave fight he definitely felt some type of guilt there. Or maybe it was frustration? idk skjdflajsdfl someone else step in on this one pls

- He needs rest and a mental break. And some therapy maybe? Like please can one caring adult help this poor child.

- His character is actually pretty consistent wow the writing in this show is great.

- a cute boi who needs a hug. Preferably from Wave and/or Ohm.

#the gifted graduation #tgg #tgg spoilers #the gifted #the gifted series #nanon korapat #pangwave #the gifted pang #character analysis #pang character analysis #the gifted character analysis

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sineala · 4 years

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I was going through an 2009 era livejournal post where it was mentioned that most of Tony's relationship were 'sexual form of self-flagellation'. With that out I love Whitney/Tony in a relationship, is there any way you can see that working out?

Oh, man, anon. This makes me regret that I have not yet posted the story that was going to be my Cap-IM RBB last year, because I literally have a 150,000-word answer to this question in the form of fanfiction. The short answer to this question is: no.

(The longer answer: HELL NO.)

If you want me to get more complicated than that, I will say that, in all fairness, there is an era of canon in which I could have seen Whitney/Tony actually working out. But that eventually ended, and for me there's a point of no return after which any chance of this being a good, healthy, or lasting relationship becomes impossible. And since then, Whitney's grasp on reality has gradually declined to the point where I don't think that she's currently mentally capable of seeing Tony as anything other than someone who could be a personal possession of hers, a thing, an object, a prize, rather than as a living human being with his own agency. (Basically, Marvel seems to have taken a look at her and thought, "Wow, she's crazy," and it's... kept getting worse. And worse.)

Let me now provide a brief summary of the Whitney/Tony relationship, because I went and read at least fifty issues so I could write the story that none of you have read yet. Anyway. This got long enough that I think I will use a Read More.

So Whitney first appears in comics way way back in Tales of Suspense v1 #97, and continues appearing in early Iron Man v1, where she meets Tony for the first time, but also has a bunch of feelings for Jasper Sitwell. (Note to MCU fans: Sitwell is not secretly Hydra. He is a big nerd, though.)

The Whitney/Tony relationship really kicks off in Iron Man v1 #17-19, one of my personal favorite arcs, in which a LMD Tony builds attempts to become Iron Man (this is always a good plot) and Whitney kidnaps Tony because she initially thinks he's the LMD, and she's working with Midas, who wants to use the LMD to infiltrate SI. It's great.

By this point Whitney has incurred her Tragic Facial Scars and has her mask, but Tony doesn't care about the scars and, as we see in #19, is clearly interested in her anyway. He's very sweet.

She appears a few times after that, basically leaves him for Sitwell, and then comes back in a big way in Iron Man v1 #91, posing as Krissy Longfellow, his new secretary. Whom he asks out, yes. Eventually Tony finds out who she is, and by Iron Man v1 #104 or thereabouts, they are definitely in love, Tony takes her to a house he grew up in, and also Whitney reveals that she knows that Tony is Iron Man. Which she is fine with.

Then they kiss very dramatically, and it is the most unintentionally-hilarious kiss I have ever seen, because neither of them take off their masks:

I like to yell CLANK CLANK whenever I read this.

By the next issue, #105, they are very seriously together:

They are together for about ten more issues, and this is the era of canon where I think it honestly could have worked out for them. Sure, Tony is contemplating abandoning being Iron Man and an Avenger, so he'd have to come around on that, but this is when they were at their healthiest, generally speaking. They were in love. They were happy. They were happy right up until #116, when Count Nefaria (Whitney's father) died, and she blamed Tony for her father's death and left him:

So I think that was pretty much it for their shot at having a stable, healthy relationship. Because after that Whitney basically... is evil. And I think there could be, as you say, an element of "sexual self-flagellation" in there, because Tony does still care for her as a person, although I don't see that he's necessarily interested in a romantic relationship with her again. He just wants her to be good again. He wants to help her be the good person he thinks she can be, but after this point she pretty much starts to lose her grip on reality, and I don't think she's capable of being that person.

Every subsequent appearance of Whitney in volume 1 was later retconned as being a clone (because comics gonna comics), but every time she shows up in it it's basically to seek revenge for the death of her father (who of course comes back to life, but that's comics for you) and also to get Tony back, because no one else could possibly love him as much as she does. She tries to kidnap Bethany Cabe. She works with Obadiah Stane against Tony. She tries to bodyswap herself into Bethany to get close to Tony. You get the idea. These are not the actions of a particularly stable person.

But one of the more agonizing things about Whitney -- at least, one of the things that I assume is most agonizing to Tony -- is that she could have been good. Maybe she can't be now, but at one point the capacity existed in her, and we know that because one of her clones, Masque, is in fact a very good person. Toward the end of volume 1, Masque actually ends up joining the Avengers. And I would think it's very hard for Tony to know about Masque and not think that Whitney could have been her, that there's some way he could have helped Whitney become that person, if only he'd known how, whether or not that is actually possible for him to do. (Hint: it's not.) I think he blames himself for not being able to save her. Maybe that's more of the same self-flagellation.

Meanwhile, Whitney does things like lock herself in a bunker in Nevada with a bunch of her clones, which does not strike me as a great move, sanity-wise. In The Nefaria Protocols in v3 (Avengers v3 #32-34, Thunderbolts v1 #43-44), she teams up with the Avengers to fight her father, but she's not sure whether she can trust them at first.

Avengers v3 #33 is actually really sympathetic toward her; the whole thing is narrated from her POV:

Eventually she ends up attempting to betray the Avengers and get them all killed, and she is stopped only when Masque shows up and sacrifices herself to prevent her doing so, at which point Whitney decides maybe she should save the Avengers after all before leaving. I think this is probably the nicest that canon has been to her in years, and she still nearly murders all the Avengers in the process.

After that she has a few other appearances, the most salient of which is probably World's Most Wanted (Invincible Iron Man v1 #8-19), in which, as we all know, she kidnaps Tony and is generally obsessed with him. Here in Invincible Iron Man v1 #16, Tony is in the middle of having his brain deleted and yet he still remembers that Whitney is not the best person, and she would really like to run away together with him because she apparently thinks that's a thing that's going to happen:

She shows up again in Bendis' run and as far as I can remember she's portrayed pretty similarly there. She's trying to steal magical artifacts. She and Tony meet up. She tries to kill him. The usual. There's a nice splash page in Invincible Iron Man v2 #2:

Her most recent relevant appearance is actually, if you can believe it, a few months ago, in Doctor Strange: Surgeon Supreme #5 and #6. Someone has been stealing magical weapons from Strange and selling them on the black market and -- surprise surprise -- it's Whitney.

(I was actually very surprised, yes. She is, uh, not typically one of Strange's villains.)

Whitney, you see, wants to be loved:

So she's selling all these weapons because, yes, she wants to be loved. By Tony.

What the hell, Whitney? How exactly is that going to work?

Anyway, Strange needs to neutralize the magical weapons, and to do that he needs to enter Whitney's mind to find the code that will do that, and, well, this is what the inside of Whitney's mind is like:

Her mind is one hundred percent made up of her obsession with Tony. This is it. This is her brain. She is a mess. She is out of touch with reality.

And you'll never guess what the code is. Or maybe you will.

She thinks that she's in love with Tony. And she thinks that this is what love is. And she is very clearly not okay.

Because Strange is a doctor and is determined to try to help people, he offers her a new mask that will heal her:

Whitney declines:

She runs away. And that's the last we have seen of her.

So, yeah. Based on all of this, I am of the opinion that Whitney/Tony cannot possibly work out at this point in canon, because -- although she still believes she loves him -- she is very obviously no longer mentally capable of understanding what love actually is, and she's not looking to change that. We have literally seen inside her mind, so we can in fact know what she thinks. She just wants to possess Tony. And that's not going to be good for anyone.

Would she have been better than this if she'd stayed with Tony instead of leaving him when her father died? Maybe. We can't know. A lot of her instability seems to revolve around her inability to possess Tony, and, well... she would have had Tony, so maybe that wouldn't have happened. Or maybe she would have become consumed by possessing him even more. There's no way to know. And given that she's capable of this kind of break with reality, it's also possible that if it hadn't been Tony, it might have been something else entirely as a focus for her delusional thinking, and at any rate she's clearly not interested in receiving the psychological help that she definitely needs.

Man, do I love reading about her, though. And someday I swear I will post this 150,000-word fic about why they should never, ever, ever get back together.

#Anonymous #replies

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mysteryofren · 4 years

Text

Better Luck Next Time, Space Cowboy.

Part 41 of So Happy Together

Masterlist

A/N: i just realized this series is gonna be hella long, and not a lot of people may read it bc of it sjbajslflj so i might cut some of the things i wanted in the story out, and make a few oneshots about everything i wanted to put in

warnings: for the love of god its so much fluff, like a sickening amount of fluff.

Tags: @wumboho @pylopenpolo @duty-isnt-always-honour

“Do you see it?” He asked.

“No.” You responded as you leaned over the bridge to get a better look.

“Careful, I don't want you to fall over the rail.” He said as he grabbed your torso to keep you from going over.

“Point it out again.” You said as you squint to see a little better. His hand came by your face as he pointed out where to look.

Following where his finger was going you finally saw it. A butterfly hiding on the floor of the exhibit. It was bright blue, but it hid in the shade making it hard to see. It wasn't too big yet, but it was already bigger than most butterflies. The longer you looked the more of it you saw.

“What was it called again?” You asked.

“Blue Morpho butterfly.” Ben said looking the beautiful bug with you.

“It can have a wingspan of 5-8 inches.” He said. You got down from the bridge railing, and walked over to the next plaque that indicated another kind of butterfly.

It had been a week since you had gotten home. It's been about 2 days since Ben got home. His parents made him drive home from Bracca for running off without telling anyone. When he got back he immediately made his way to your grandfather's house where you were. He didn't stay long. He asked you on a date, and then left before telling you anything else. The next day he told you about how the local museum was holding an exhibit on butterflies for only a limited time, and he wanted to go see it. He insisted on bringing you. Now here you were, walking along a little path that cut through the greenhouse that held the butterflies. He was always the first one to find them in the bushes and trees. Then he would point them out to you, and tell you about them.

“So what's up with you, and these things? You seem to know a good amount about butterflies.”

“My grandma. She had a bunch of books on them for her garden, and she used to read them to me. When I learned how to read I would read them myself.”

“That’s cute.” You said as you looked out again to see if you could find more. There was a small man made pond that sat in the corner. There were 2 turtles on the edge of the water. You watched as one slowly crawled into the water.

“Ok do you wanna find more? Or maybe we could go inside, and see the rest of the museum?”

“Find me one more.” You said.

“Im on it.” He responded as he looked into the greenery. It was a few minutes before he saw one, but when he did he pointed it out for you.

“Over there. Its by that cluster of those little white flowers.” He said.

You got yourself to his eye level, and looked at the flowers. Sure enough, on a small bundle of baby’s breath there was a yellow butterfly with a few streaks of black that started at the top of the wings, then faded away.

“What type is that?” You asked him.

“I'm not too sure. I know it's a swallowtail, but I don't know what type.”

“Can you check the pamphlet?” You heard the sound of him opening the small booklet. It flew off before he found it.

“Here it is. Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. Their host plants are Wild black cherries, tulip trees, and sweet bay Magnolias.”

“I feel like I've seen one before.” You said.

“You probably have. It’s one of the most common species of butterfly in eastern north america.” You stayed staring at the flowers it had sat on for a few minutes before walking away. You walked out of the humid greenhouse into the cold of the museum. Ben wasn't too far behind you. He came out, and looked around.

He suggested that you two go to the planetarium. On your way to it he told you about how him, and Matt went through a phase where they were obsessed with space. He told you about how this one time he had a space themed birthday party where he dressed as an astronaut. Han had made him a fake spaceship set up in his tree house. You laughed at the thought of a 6 year old Ben Solo dressed as an astronaut for a party. He also told you about the time him, and Matt got matching space outfits, and listened to old space launch audios while playing in the tree ship.

“What happened to the tree house? I've been to your house so many times, and I have never seen one.” You asked him as you both stood in line for the planetarium.

“It's not in the backyard. It's in the woods behind our fence. My mom doesn’t know about it though so don't tell her.” He said.

“Wait it's still there?”

“Yeah, the ship set up is still there, and everything.”

“Ok you have to take me to see this thing when I go over.” You said.

“I cant show you, sorry.” You dramatically gasped.

“And why not?” You said with fake shock.

“Space crew members only.” That made you laugh.

“Space crew members? Who's on your crew so far?”

“Me, Matt, Chewie, my Dad, and my Uncle Lando, and Luke.”

“And how does someone become a crew member?” You asked.

“You gotta prove you're worthy to travel the galaxy with.”

“Sounds like a hard club to get into.”

“Certainly is.” He said.

The doors for the planetarium opened, and you both turned your attention to it. You walked in with the crowd, and found some seats next to each other. He was so fascinated by everything, like a kid watching his favorite movie. Every now and then he would whisper a random fact to you about a planet, or star. You would be lying if you said it didn't make you happy to see him like this. The Ben you knew before was someone who didn't wanna do things like this. The Ben you knew before would think something like a museum was stupid. Turns out that was a front. The real Ben was a giant nerd who had a spaceship tree house. Soon the show ended, and he actually looked kind of sad about it. You even asked if he wanted to watch it again, and he didn't want to make you sit through it again. After some convincing you told him you would be more than happy to go again after lunch, and he agreed.

The museum had a small outdoor dining area that you chose to sit at. You had talked about the day, and all the stuff you saw. He beamed about the planetarium, and how it felt like he was actually in space. Your favorite part was probably the butterfly exhibit though. You liked having him point them out for you, and tell you about them. It was like learning without all the work, besides he's already graduated, you would be a bad friend if you didn't help keep his brain active. Stars know it definitely wasn't active before. You stopped talking for a bit while you watched 2 birds battle over a chip. He even gave them voices, and names. The two of you went back and forth talking as them.

“You were the chosen one Garbanzo. It was said you would share the chip not keep it.” He said in a high pitched voice as the two stopped and looked back, and forth, between the chip and the other.

“I hate you!!!” You said in a gravely evil sounding voice. Just then the other bird grabbed the chip, and flew to a nearby light post.

“It's over Garbanzo. I have the high ground.” Ben said back. Just then the little bird had flown off with the chip, and the other hopped around to look for something else. You felt kind of bad for him so you grabbed one of Ben's fries, and tossed it to him.

“Hey! Why my fry?” He asked.

“C’mon Ben, hasn't Garbanzo lost enough?” He laughed before popping a fry in his mouth.

“I guess he did. Poor little guy just wanted his chip.”

“Hey, if he didn't want to lose the whole chip he should have shared with Q-tip.” You said as you took a bite out of your chicken tender.

“I still don't know why you named him Q-tip.”

“Why did you name the other one Garbanzo?” You asked.

“He was garbanzo bean colored.”

“You're telling me his little head didn't look like the end of a Q-tip?”

“Do you always name everything after the first thing it reminds you of?” He asked.

“Yeah, my first cat was named kitty.” You said.

You told him about how the little cat would go to your window. You would feed him, and play with him. Eventually your parents found out, and caught him. They took him to the vet, got his shots, and brought him back for you. For so long you just called him kitty so you left it at that.

“That poor cat. His name was probably Bruce or something.”

“Bruce?”

“Yeah. cats tend to hang out in little packs so his family probably called him Bruce before he was so wrongly abducted.”

“Abducted?!?! I did not abduct him! He was very happy for your information.”

“Oh yeah, I'm sure Bruce loved his life. Bows, and dresses, and constant unwanted attention.” You threw a fry at him, and he laughed.

“I was a good pet owner! I didn't dress him up, I just held him a lot.”

“Uh huh, so happened to him?” He asked. You shook your head then sighed in defeat.

“He ran away.” You said. He pointed his finger at you, and smiled.

“AH HA! So kitty wasn't too happy after all.”

“Watch it, Solo.”

“Man I'm gonna feel bad for our kids.”

Did he just say our? As in you, and him? Having kids? The two of you? You looked at him to ask about it, but noticed he looked a little nervous. He was blushing a bit too. You knew it probably slipped out by accident so you decided to pretend like you didn't hear a thing.

“You know what. I'm not taking this from a guy who hangs out in a spaceship tree house” You said as you continued eating. He gasped dramatically before you both laughed, and talked about other things.

It was almost unreal how normal everything felt. This was only the 2nd first date you had been on, and it felt like your hundredth. Even your first date with Cal was a bit awkward in the beginning. This felt so natural. Like it was meant to be this way. He started telling you more about his childhood. He told you about a summer him, and Matt spent with Anakin, and Padme. Him, and Anakin spent some days fixing up some old cars. Apparently it was an old hobby of Anakins when he was younger. He taught all the boys everything he could about cars. He told you him, and Padme would hang out in the gardens, and do random things together. They would read, or play board games, maybe even just talk, or listen to music. The way he talked about her gave away that you, and he had something in common. You both loved your grandparents more than your parents.

He loved Padme the way you loved your grandfather. Padme was Gentle, and patient with him. She spent time with him, and gave him more love than he knew what to do with. Your grandfather did the same with you. He made you feel love when you felt like there was none in the world. He gave you courage even when you felt like there was none in you. He gave you support when your parents could be bothered. He was your Padme, and Padme was Ben's, well, Ben. Soon it was time for the next show. Ben threw out the trash from lunch as you gathered your things. Both of you made your way to the line again. You waited for about 5 minutes when you finally felt like you needed to use the restroom. You told him you would be back, and left.

On your way back to the line you passed a small gift shop. Inside they sold balloons that looked like planets. You quickly ran in to look at them. You grabbed Neptune, and took it to the front to pay before running back to the planetarium. Just as you approached it the doors had opened, and people started walking in. you walked in with everyone, and saw Ben had waited for you by the door.

“C'mon kid what took you so long.”

“Don't scold me. I was getting something!” You handed the balloon to him, and he looked at it in awe as you went to your seats.

“So what other planets did they have?” He asked.

“All of em. Even Pluto.”

“Pluto?!?!”He tried to whisper, but not very well since people looked at you guys.

“Do you even know how to whisper?”

“Leia, and Han Solo are my parents, and you really ask me that?” You laughed at him, and sat back in your seat. He held the balloon towards you.

“Keep it, I got it for you.” You shoved his hand back gently, and he smiled. He put it between his legs so it wouldn't block peoples view.

“You're a much better girlfriend than Rey. I always got her stuff, but she never got me anything.”

You felt your face heat up. He just called you his girlfriend. Was it an accident like the kid thing? Or did he mean this one? Just as you opened your mouth to ask him the room darkened as the show started. He smiled, and wiggled a bit in his seat like a toddler. You smiled and looked back at the screen. Your hand was resting on your thigh when you felt something moving on it. You looked down and saw Ben's hand was slowly inching its way towards yours. He stopped right before his fingers touched yours. You tried not to smile He slowly moved his hand over yours, and gently wrapped his fingers around it. Your hand practically disappeared in his giant one. You flipped your hand over, and the two of you intertwined your fingers. He held your hand for the rest of the show.

The two of you walked out still holding hands. You insisted on seeing the anatomy section of the museum, and he happily obliged. When you got to the exhibit you were oddly excited. The entrance was in the shape of someone's mouth, and Ben smacked one of the top teeth as you walked in like every other teenage boy that was there. You laughed as you looked around at the education posters that lined the small hallway that led to the rest of the exhibit. The first thing that caught your attention was a life size operation game. You watched as Ben tried to take out the organs without losing. He managed to take out 2 things before he finally lost. You, on the other hand, were very steady, and you were able to get most of the items out except 1.

Eventually you started to feel a bit tired. Your legs ached from walking, and running all day, and you wanted to go. Ben understood, and asked if you would at least go get dinner with him. Before you left you wanted to see the gift shop. Ben had an idea for a cute little game where the two of you split up to find a souvenir for each other. He walked around for about 3 seconds before he found something, and made his way to the register. You searched for half an hour before you found the perfect little gift. You snatched them up, and walked over to the counter to check out. As the lady rang you up you saw something else that caught your attention on the counter. You grabbed it, and placed it on the counter as well. Once you paid the total you walked out to meet Ben.

“Hey kid! Took you long enough.” He said as you walked up to him.

“Shut up! I wanted to make sure I got the right thing.” You said as you finally made it next to him. He wrapped an arm around you, and led you to the car as you talked about where to go for dinner.

The two of you grabbed something quick, and went to a park. The sun was setting, but it didn't matter seeing as you two wanted to eat in the car. You both watched the sun go down as you ate, and talked about random things. He told you more about the tree house spaceship, which apparently had a name. The Millenium Falcon. Lando had come up with the name, but all the boys loved it so much they agreed on it. He told you about their days hanging out in it. Whether it was hotter than the sun itself, or colder than Neptune. Him, and Matt were always up there. He said they stopped using it as much when they got into middle school. It made you sad thinking of it becoming overgrown through the years. He assured you that he at least still used it, and took care of it.

“Oh hey our gifts!” He said as he grabbed his bag from the back seat. You did the same, and grabbed the small bag that held his gift.

“Ok who goes first?” He asked. You opened the bag, and grabbed the two pins you had bought him.

One pin was a Space Shuttle flying over earth, and the other was an astronaut's helmet with a cowboy hat on.

“Okay. close your eyes, and hold out your hands.” He followed your instructions. You gently placed them in his palms.

“Alright you are good to open your eyes.” You said. You watched as he slowly opened his eyes, and looked in his hands. His eyes lit up with joy, and a goofy grin spread across his face. He picked them up, and examined both pins as he laughed.

“No way, a space cowboy!” He said as he held it up to show you.

“I feel like you would be a space cowboy, so it's fitting.”

“Awe man these are so cool. I'm putting these on my backpack when I get home.” He lifted himself up, and put both pins in his back pocket.

“Ok there's one more thing, I don't know if you will like it or not, but I personally thought it was pretty cool.” His smile got wider as you reached into the bag, and brought the other item out. You handed it to him with the front facing down. He grabbed it gently, and turned it over. He let out a small gasp.

“Oh shit, I've always wanted one of these.” he ripped open the package, and took out the freeze dried ice cream sandwich. He inspected it closely as the crumbs from it fell onto his lap. He took a bit of the corner and closed his eyes as he took it all in.

“So? Everything you expected it to be?” He smiled.

“Definitely not, but I like it!” He snapped the small snack in half, and handed you the piece he hasn't bitten.

“It's yours, I got it for you.”

“What's the point of having this experience if I can't share it with my girlfriend?”

Girlfriend. He used it again. Maybe it wasn't a slip up after all. You grabbed the snack from his hands as he continued eating his half. You bit into yours as you thought. Nerves took over your body as you considered asking him about it. You were going to open your mouth to ask him when something hit your face.

“Hey!” you said as you looked at him.

“Where were you just now?” He asked.

“Im here,” you picked up the little napkin ball he had thrown.” being assaulted with napkins.”

“Oh yeah, then what was I just saying?” You stared at him for a second as you tried not to laugh or smile.

“See, now c'mon tell me what's on your mind.” He said as he sat against the door a bit. You sighed as you positioned yourself in the car seat to face him.

“That's the second time you’ve said that today.” You told him as you took another bite.

“Called you what?”

“Your girlfriend.” He tensed up as his smile dropped, and his eyes filled with worry. He clenched his jaw, and cleared his throat before asking.

“Do you…. Not want to be my girlfriend?” There was a hint of nervousness in his voice.

“No! I mean, yes. Well maybe I'm not sure, but I also meant no that's not what my issue is.” he relaxed only a little, but his shoulders were still tense.

“so , uh, what is the, um, issue?”

“I just didn't think you wanted this to be a serious thing. I thought we were just going to try it out, and see where it goes before making anything official.”

“Is...is that what you wanna do?” He still sounded a bit nervous.

“I think. I would rather us try it out first. You know, go on a few dates. See if there's something here. I don’t wanna jump into this quickly, and end up getting hurt like the first time.” You said looking at him. He bit his lip, and looked around before speaking.

“I told you things would be different this time, and I wasn't lying. I almost lost you to some random guy in Bracca, and I don't want to risk that again. You mean more to me than Rey, or any other girl before. I never want to see you cry, and know I'm the reason behind it again.”

Why did that make you want to cry?

“I know that you may not be ready to do this. But whenever you are ready, I will be too. I'll be ready to give you the world, and everything in it. Whether it's a week, or a decade from now. Just know I will ask after every date though.”

You laughed as tears welled up in your eyes. Were you being stupid for wanting to wait? You loved him. He loved you. The two of you knew it, but you scared it would be like before. You knew it was best to wait a while before starting something like this.

“So what were you saying before?” You asked as you wiped your eyes. He smiled.

“My gift absolutely sucks compared to yours, but when I saw them I thought you might like em.”

He held the bag out to you, and you took it. The first thing you saw when you opened it was something green. When you took it out you realized it was a big T-rex plush. It had little button eyes, and a tab on its little hand that said ‘squeeze me’. You grabbed its little hand, and squeezed it, and listened as it growled, and roared. You smiled as you kept pressing it to listen to all the noises.

“I felt like you were more of a dinosaur kid, than a space kid.”

“I was most definitely a dinosaur kid, good call.” You laughed.

“There's something else in there.” He informed you.

You sat the plush in your lap, and looked in the bag. At the bottom was a key chain. You pulled it out, and saw it was a butterfly. More specifically a Blue Morpho butterfly with iridescent blue wings. You grabbed your bag, and dug your keys out to put it on your keys.

“I love them Ben! How could you think this gift wasn't as good as mine?” you asked.

He smiled as he watched you put your keys back in your bag. You squeezed the T-rex's hand again and smiled at the sound it made.

“Alright I should probably get you home before my mom thinks we ran off together this time.”

“Good idea. Han’s probably gathering a search party already.”

He laughed as he started the car. The park you had chosen wasn't too far from your house so it didn't take long before he pulled into the driveway. You looked into the windows, and saw the lights in the den were still on. Ben stopped the car, and looked at you.

“So. What weird thing will you name your new friend?” He asked as he squeezed the plushies hand. It roared as you thought about it.

“You know what. In honor of kitty. I think his name will be Bruce.” The two of you laughed as you thought of your earlier conversation about your poor cats real name.

“I'm sure Kitty is somewhere proud that you named a toy after him.”

“Oh shut up!” You threw Bruce at his chest and he caught it as he laughed.

“Cmon, kid, I'll walk you to the door.” He said as he got out.

“You don't have to.” You called out to him as you got your bag. He opened your door, and held a hand out to you.

“Nah, nah, nah. I'm going to, and you can't say anything about it.” You smiled as you took his hand to get out.

He held your hand as he walked you to the front door. You two talked about Bruce, and you even jokingly called him your child. Ben laughed at your joke, and agreed that he could be his dad. You felt your face heat up at his words as you approached the door. You grabbed your keys, and unlocked the door, and noticed how your new keychain shined brighter in the light. You unlocked the door, and opened it a bit.

“So I guess this is goodbye.” Ben said.

“For now.” You responded as you opened the door a bit wider.

“Oh thank the stars you are home I was getting worried.” You heard your grandfather say as he walked over.

“Oh, Hello there, Ben!” He said as Ben came into his view

“Hey Obi-Wan. Sorry I got her home just now, we had a late dinner.”

“It's not a problem,” He said to you. “Next time just message me you’ll be home a bit later so I don't wait up for you.”

“Won't happen again.” You promised as you hugged him.

“Very well. Now if you don't mind I think I'll be going to bed now.” He said as he shuffled away. You, and Ben wished him goodnight as he walked away. Once he was gone Ben looked down at you.

“So uh. What are my chances of getting a goodnight kiss?” He asked you with a smug grin. You rolled your eyes as he tried to lean against the door frame, but accidentally slipped off a bit, and he stumbled. You covered your mouth to stop yourself from dying of laughter as you watched his try to recover from his slip up.

“Smooth move Han.” You teased. He smiled.

“Alright, you just missed YOUR chance to get a goodnight kiss!” He said. You feigned despair, and dramatically gasped.

“Oh no, whatever will I do now?” You both laughed at your little jokes, before you looked up at him.

You stood up on your tiptoes, and kissed his lips. This one was different from the ones you had shared before. This was gentle, and loving. Even though it wasn't as fiery as all the other, you still felt that same passion behind it. He smiled down at you before you pulled away from him. You stepped into the house, and put your stuff down.

“Goodnight, kid.” He said as he walked away.

“Night Ben.” You watched as he walked to his car. As dumb as it sounds, you wanted to make sure he got in safe. He unlocked the door, and put one foot in before he looked back at you.

“One last question, Kenobi.” He called out.

“Shoot.” You called back out to him.

“Will you be my girlfriend?” He asked with a smile. You rolled your eyes again, and smiled.

“Better luck next time, space cowboy.”

You closed the front door, and jumped up and down in happiness.

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azure-steel · 3 years

Note

What brought Nemain to this blog? : So many things! 1.) Your writing is eloquent, and does his character justic. For a character like Cloud, who for the most part isnt much of a speaker, descriptive and often times intercontemplative writing helps him to feel real, consistent -even with his quirks- especially when Canon divergence is present. You do this so well. 2.) Dedication. Because of the last reason, it was instantly clear that you are a longtime fan. And for FF7 [which has been a life long obsession of mine heh] Cannon and divergent RPs, I personally prefer people who have some background and understanding. I guess I would have to say I lean toward passionate fans when looking for co-writers. Simply because I have been writing as Seph for 12ish years, and he is my most influential muse in/out of rp... SO A CLOUD IS VERY IMPORTANT TO HAVE 3.) Your beautiful personality, honestly, seeing you buzz around other blogs before I followed you.... was a treat. And I was very shyly ogling your writing from afar because i was a bit intimidated by your talent, but it was you (ooc post-wise) that made me realize we just might click as muns and all would be swell. <3

what about my portrayal attracted you to my blog? if you would like to be more specific – what made you stay?

Nemain!!

Nemain, omfg I have no idea where I’m supposed to start with this... you made me cry, AGAIN ;A;

I’ll respond to this via the list, like you have: 1) Cloud is a man of very few words, and those he does speak are rarely anything positive in a sense. I will admit that I’ve taken some artistic liberties with how I deliver my portrayal considering his general demeanour and how he interacts with the world and the people around him. So I suppose that can make my version of Strifey a little canon divergent in that sense. But yes, a lot of my rp’s usually centre around his thought processes and his actions as opposed to him speaking given that very fact that, well... he ain’t much of a talker, but honestly that actually works so well for me and the style I use for roleplay. My favourite part of the development of a thread is establishing how muse is feeling, building the world around them and such, So Cloud, I feel sorta suits me that way. It makes me so SO happy that you enjoy my writing though, because in actual fact I found Cloud quite difficult to adapt into a muse, which I will explain further in the next bit

2) Hahaha, yes, I am a long long loooooooong time fan of FFVII. It is my favourite game of the franchise even though it wasn’t the first that I played, it’s the one that really stuck with me. I’ve been madly in love with Cloud since he was made of blocks, bless him~ That being said however, I am actually relatively new to the FF RPC, regardless that I first played Final Fantasy VII about 20 years ago (showing my age here a lil bit lol! Just so you know, I’m OLDER THAN DIRT) Playing the remake is what prompted me into making Cloud into a muse, although I wasn’t even half way through the remake when I created the blog. And, I admit, I floundered... A LOT initially, because I’d forgotten a lot of the lore from the OG, hadn’t seen Advent Children in YEARS and hadn’t even finished the latest version of the game. So I was here just making shit up hoping against hope that it would just come back to me. A lot of my first days here were just me screaming I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING xD I ended up doing research for rp’s, looking up locations, character profiles and such just to remind myself of things and try and make myself fit into the RPC that already seemed so established already. I felt like a bit of an outsider for a while, but I kept trying and eventually Cloud became less of a stranger to me and he started to develop almost independently with every thread I worked on. Of course the longer I hung on to my dwindling hope that I could write Cloud well, the more I started to remember and I started to be able to relate more to my muse and to others. I know that it took us a while to really interact, and that first interaction was an OOC instance, but I’m so glad we left it that long because of the reasons stated above, lol.

3) This is possibly the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. You know I adore you right...? The fact that you were eyeing up MY writing fills me with so much joy, because, honey, the way you put Sephiroth into words is, in short, absolutely extraordinary. There’s no words I can use to describe how your writing makes me feel. I physically gasp and weep at your replies to Cloud, like you don’t even know. So I’ve no idea why you felt intimidated by my writing ability when you are just so much more superior in every way shape and form. And I’m not saying that as a disservice to myself. You really are so freaking talented, just... out of this world man. So good in fact that I’ve actually shown RL friends of mine your writing and they were just as blown away as I am each and every time I’m gifted with your amazing talents. And yeah, hahaha, we get on pretty well right? You should probably know that I am a massive dweeb IRL (ask @primalvessel who can defo verify this as fact) and I’m always so happy to see you in my IM’s. But you know this already~ <3

But I thank you, so so much for this, from the very bottom of my heart. You’ve no idea how happy you’ve made me today. I adore you, your writing, your muse. Just... all of it~

#{Mako stripped - OOC}#ask meme #answered #psympathy4devils #{what do you want? - asks}

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ruiyuki-archives · 4 years

Text

Star Tear AU - Momo ver.

This is an AU I wrote on the todomomo discord server eons ago. Anything posted to this blog will be transcripts of old original work and not really edited, save for formatting. I have no guarantees if I will ever finish these AUs either so these will only be kept as an archive.

Original transcript posted to tdmm discord: Aug 2020

Momo ver. Alternate timeline: Todo ver. Part 1 || Todo ver. Part 2 || Todo ver. Part 3

ALRIGHT YALL NEW TROPE ALERT ➡ STAR TEAR DISEASE

Basically the cousin of Hanahaki Disease. Unrequited love causes a person to cry star tears accompanied by the sound of twinkling and if the feelings are not returned said person goes colour blind

And I just !!!!

tdmm AU where Momo gets star tear disease and the first time she cries in front of Todo after the exam with Aizawa she cries star tears???

And she doesn’t know what it means and neither does Todo but maybe Aizawa does and recognizes what it means but idk

So Momo goes on this whole literary quest to research what it means. And Todo volunteers to help bc umm?? Even the pressure point in her foot doesnt stop this phenomenon so he wants to figure it out too

And along the way they dig through the UA library on study dates and dig through the bookstores and dig through the interwebs together

Spending more and more time together, Momo starts to realize she’s feeling something. that is until one night she finds it on the web what star tears mean

Its her unrequited love for Todoroki

And her realizing this just makes it w or s e

Bc the consequence of not having her feelings returned means she goes colour blind

Or you know what, im just gonna alter it and make it more angst. She goes fully blind, ya lets do that.

SO MOMO

Poor bby is grappling with this realization and coming to terms with it all on her own; recognizing that if she doesnt let Todo know after all this time spent together she’s come to love him....... she'll go blind

But ofc its Momo... poor bby selfless Momo....

Her feelings and her own and not a responsibility of Todo to like her back and cure her of this disease so there is NO WAY she’s gonna burden him with that

Plus they’re both too busy tryna be heroes and shouldn’t have this as a distraction

So ofc Momo's not gonna tell Todo

And she cries and cries even more star tears that twinkle in fill her room in the dark like galaxies in the sky.

Its really beautiful.

She'll accept that she'll go blind never to see the face of her loved ones again. Her parents. Her friends....... Todoroki.

And that potentially she might have to give up her dream of being a hero if the blindness compromises it.

But she'll accept that.

The next day she wakes up and cant see a colour

And slowly it begins.......

She loses green first. Its hard to distinguish green from yellow

Then yellow goes

Then orange

Then one by one colour fades over weeks and weeks

Ofc shes not telling anyone.

She fakes it in class, during hero training, during her internship

That when Ochako and Hagakure asks "isnt the colour dress cute?" holding up a lovely chartreus and gold dress, she lies and says yes even though she sees gray

Which breaks her even more

And so she cries alone at night some more star tears

And it keeps going

All the while Todo noticing from beside his desk......

something is off...

But he doesnt ask her. Not yet.

Because after weeks of spending time with her researching, he believes they’re close enough that she'll share with him what’s going on

He didnt question it when she told him "its ok Todoroki san, we can stop researching"

"Did you figure it out?"

"Yes. Its nothing to be concerned about anymore"

He doesnt question it when he notices her in the morning at breakfast,,, the little speckles of star dust glimmering at the corner of her eyes

And he doesnt question himself either when he starts to think the twinkling tears she cries when she thinks she is alone,, makes her look really beautiful

Its those some odd moments when he passes the classrooms on the way back to the dorms at sunset that he sees her alone by the window,, looking out,, as the sun paints the sky reds pinks yellows and oranges,,, that she stares out and star tears fall from her eyes, twinkling in the setting light

And he thinks to himself that she is really beautiful,, a shadow against the setting sun

So he watches and thinks some more

That shes beautiful even without the sunset. Beautiful in class answering the hardest question. Beautiful in battle when her tactics win over her opponent. Beautiful studying when he notices her little motions when shes concentrating.

But while Todo thinks that to himself, Momo cries. Little star tears in her eyes.

She cant see the sunset anymore.

He doesnt think its serious when she tells him to disregard the matter

But when he happens to run into her when visiting his mom at the hospital, and she’s on her way out from the optometry & ophthamology department to get this whole eye thing checked out, thats when he realizes

Oh. This is serious.

And he starts trying to get her to talk but she’s being all avoidy and tight lipped

Cuz from Momo’s doctors’ appointment, the doc told her there’s no cure unless she gets over the feelings herself or her feelings are returned

And really now, she still thinks its her burden to bare not his

So logically the only thing she thinks she can do to slow down the blindness from the tears is to shut down her feelings for him. Put them in a box. And become cold.

Todoroki hates that.

That she’s being avoidant and cold when he knows something is wrong and wants to help her but she is being so not Momo anymore

He wants the kind, loving, selfless, pure hearted, strong Momo he's grown to learn and respect and know back

And that’s when he realizes he really cares for her

Not just admiring her beauty. Or respecting her battle instincts and leadership

That he realizes he really likes her

Perhaps even loves her.

So thats that.

Until its mission time.

Cuz its not angst until someone gets hurt and the other realizes they’ve been keeping a secret all this time sooooooooo

Smth smth UA kids vs a new baddie or minor villian or idk it could be dabi for all i want bc i put dabi in everything lmaooo

But who they’re fighting is not important

The important part is tdmm are on the same team

Maybe deployed as partners even

And theyre fighting back to back against some grunts

And at this point Todo is frustrated he’s not getting through to Momo just after he shook his own world realizing he likes her

And Momo's being all cold but civil and she is completely colour blind.

Theres no undoing the damage in her eyes. She can see in muted muddy tones and grayscale.

So for plot convenience lets say the villain has some kinda colour distortion quirk that mixes up the perception of colour from the true colour in a form of illusion or smth idk

So when the grunts in all black uniform end up attacking them, to Todo and Momo, one looks dressed in red, another in green, others in blues yellows purples

tdmm do pretty well fending them off until Todo notices 3 of them in blue green and purple about to attack Momo at once

And she’s ready to fend them off but doesnt notice a 4th one in red coming in for a swift sneak atttack right behind the green one

But Todo does notice

And he shouts

"YAOYOROZU THE RED ONE"

But she cant tell

And the knife lands deep in her shoulder

And Todo burns the rest to a crisp

You can imagine what the conversation is in the aftermath, when Momo has her shoulder bandaged up and Todo tending his own wounds

"Yaoyorozu.. please be honest with me. Why didnt you avoid the red one when I shouted?"

Because, he knows, that the heroine Creati he's trained along side with for so long would have been able to anticipate the grunts assault

That she would have expected a sneak attack amidst a simultaneous attack

But the fact that she didnt. Couldnt. Avoid it definitely means shes been handicapped

And Momo, upon being asked, hurt and tired from their battle finally relents

She cant lie to him any longer.

"It was because... i couldnt tell. I couldnt distinguish their colours. I havent been able to for a few weeks now.... I've..."

A star tear falls from her eyes.

"I've lost my colour vision Todoroki-san"

Tiny galaxies fall from her eyes as she finally explains to him what these tears are

And Todo is speechless as she talks, only able to hear the twinkles against her words broken against sniffles and hiccups

And when sh’es said all she knows - that this is a disease that will turn her blind, that there is no cure and it comes as a consequence of loving someone who doesnt love you back, that she doesnt want to burden the person she loves with her responsibility, that she has been trying bury her feelings to save herself ...

He finally asks: "Who is it. Tell me who it is that you love Yaoyorozu"

"You. Its you Todoroki-san"

And his heart broke.

He pulls her into a hug,, so tight she thinks she might be crushed

And its his turn to cry against her

Because all this time she was doing this for him

"Im sorry Momo. Im so sorry. You dont have to suffer alone anymore. Because we're partners, long before I even realized it"

"Eh?"

He looks into her eyes, unwavering

"Im in love you too."

The tears that fall from her next are no long starlight.

Epilogue/trivia:

Momo loses her colour vision following the colour wheel starting with green ➡ yellow, orange, red, etc until blue is last to go

Shes most heartbroken about losing red and blue cuz those are the colours she associates with Todo (when she cant see the sunset anymore its when she realizes she lost red and that’s why she’s crying)

Since the damage of the disease cant be restored, she has to deal with greyscale vision for some years

Eventually Eri rewinds it for her once Eri can control her power

but for those some years Momo is so busy!! cuz she goes into genius mode and starts creating (and probably working with Hatsume) vision impairment accessibility tools? Yes

and bc I have an unhealthy obsession with the todofam, Natsuo probably ends up getting a case of the disease for some odd reason if he ever broke up with his gf and Todo upon hearing it is like NO GO TELL HER PLS

He’s not gonna let anyone else on the other end feel the guilt that he did for Momo

> archives masterpost

#todomomo #todoroki shouto #momo yaoyorozu #tdmm star tear au #ruiyukis unfinished aus #sorry not sorry #for spamming the tag #this ones my baby #im so attached to it #much like tdmm learning to love #angst with a happy ending #oops heres a bandaid for your heart

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johnnyutah · 4 years

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hi here’s the second femslash february “drabble”! this one is also ridiculously long, but i loved the idea so much that i might write a second part to it before i post on ao3. @ff-crystal-chronicles requested laegjarn/fjorm with the prompt:

“im reaching into my "laegjorm thoughts ive had" jar and im obsessed with the concept of fjorm dying of her Frost Power Illness thingy and then getting resummoned as a hero and in the time shes been gone theve summoned laegjarn and the two of them get to reunite and actually be together like laegjarn said she wanted before she died in canon”

this is about 2400 words, enjoy!!

---

No one lasts forever. It’s almost a comfort warm enough to ease the frost in her chest. Almost soft enough to banish the ice piercing her heart. This was an eventuality; after all, she had invited the ice in. She had begged for the power to quench the unquenchable and kill the undying, and in return, the impossible power had made her promise her own fate. Her end comes sooner than it might have reached her in another world, but no one lasts forever.

She cannot bring herself to regret it, even when breathing becomes so hard that Sharena cannot stand to be near her without bursting into tears. Even when breathing stops entirely. She dies with ice in her heart, thinking of Nifl and of her family. Of devotion.

She opens her eyes to see Kiran, holding a— ball of light. Fjorm blinks, certain that she is hallucinating. Sure enough the orb dissipates, and in the regular daylight she sees the Askran royals standing behind their Summoner, wearing matching smiles as bright as the sun. Startled, Fjorm remembers her death in vivid detail. But right now her chest is just warm, imbued with that same happy light.

“You saved me,” she begins to say, but her voice is quiet from disuse. She croaks out half of the first word before breaking into a fit of coughs— not frosty, chronic coughs. Just the noises of a very sore throat.

“Fjorm?!” Sharena darts forward, even though that goes against the protocol for summoning, and takes Fjorm’s hands in hers. “You look— are you ours? I mean, are you from our world?”

Fjorm stares at their hands. Sharena never holds onto her for this long, because the cold would make her uncomfortable. She takes in the princess’ appearance properly, noticing how her hair is longer than before. The scales on her armour are chipped and rusted, direly in need of repair. Behind her, Alfonse looks much older— there are new creases in his skin. He even looks taller.

“Wait,” Fjorm begins, low. “Wait. You. I. I died.”

Sharena’s eyes bug out of her head. She whips around to stare at Kiran, who looks just as lost as everyone else. “This is our Fjorm,” she yells. Alfonse’s jaw drops.

They dig up her grave, with Heroes standing by for assistance in case any funny business happens. One of them, a beautiful woman with silver hair too long to seem real, seems especially disturbed by Fjorm’s presence. Alfonse and one of the Shepherds from another world dig and dig until they’ve made a trench three times their height. Nothing turns up.

Finally, the silvery woman shakes her head and calls it. “You brought her back,” she tells Kiran, awed and terrified.

“…” Kiran drags their hands over their face.

The only one smiling is Sharena, who keeps clutching her hands. It’s downright alarming, but the warmth is still a precious novelty so Fjorm makes no effort to pull away.

In the coming days, Fjorm is properly introduced to Eir, and the Askrans catch her up on all the Hel business. Their best healers examine her every day but aside from the fact that a funeral was held and that many people saw her lowered into the ground, there is no evidence that Fjorm ever succumbed to her disease at all. Her skin is unmottled and unrotten, and she bleeds and breathes. She even has a pulse— it feels more distinct now than it ever had while she was alive.

She has some painful reunions; not painful for her, but for all her friends and family who watched her die, the news of her survival is unexpected agony. Hríd comes to visit from Nifl, the country he now rules. He doesn’t approach her when they first meet, keeping a safe distance. Niflese royalty has never been known for their physical affection, so this comes as no surprise. Still, Fjorm finds herself mourning a closeness with her family that she has never known.

“I thought maybe this was Alfonse’s idea of a joke,” Hríd tells her, struggling to breathe. His fists curl and uncurl over and over at his side, fidgeting even as his feet are rooted to the ground. “But it’s real, isn’t it? You’re back?”

“Kiran summoned me,” Fjorm repeats for the seventieth time this week. Her brother seems to melt a little, stepping toward her. “It was just chance; it could have been anyone. I was not meant to come back.”

“I know.” Hríd’s lack of reassurance is unsurprising— again, they’ve never been that kind of family. Still, his eyes are bright. Fjorm realizes that he’s happy to see her, and in turn, she smiles. “I can hardly believe it. Will you come back to Nifl with me?”

Fjorm chews her lip, thinking about ice sharp enough to slice and hard enough to crush and cold enough to burn. Her chest hurts in a phantom ache.

“I guess that’s a no.” Hríd folds his arms over his chest. He doesn’t look upset or angry, just still secretly relieved. “That’s a shame. You could have experienced our country at peace for the first time in your life?”

“Peace…?” Fjorm suddenly straightens as the war rushes back to her. “Múspell hasn’t attacked us since I… in my absence?”

“No.” Hríd does smile now, relief openly shining through his features. “Laevatein is a brilliant and just leader. I don’t expect to be at war with Múspell for many years. In fact, they’re one of our most valuable trading partners and allies.”

“Allies,” Fjorm mutters. Even when they had felled Surtr, she had not truly expected the peace with Múspell to last.

Hríd steps forward again. “Much has changed in the year since you died,” he tells her, and then before Fjorm can properly prepare herself he’s hugging her tightly. For an awkward moment she has no idea what to do, and then she returns the embrace and hugs back just as tight. Her brother sighs and pats her shoulder, shaking his head. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me too,” Fjorm hears herself say. She thinks she means it, though. They don’t pull away for a while, and when they do finally part both have the decency and manners not to bring up the tears on their sibling’s face.

After her death, the Askrans had settled on a floating island, which is nearly as unbelievable a story as her death and rebirth. But Anna takes her there to see it with her own two eyes, and Fjorm is blown away by the strange place. That is, until she realizes it’s simply a magical resort.

“I don’t want you back on the battlefield,” the commander tells her. Fjorm starts to protest instantly— her hands ache with how much she misses her lance— but Anna interrupts. “Since you came back to us, morale has been at an all-time high. I’m not losing my newest source of motivation in some stupid squabble.”

“I can handle myself,” Fjorm retorts.

“Stubborn as ever, even after dying!” Anna claps her on the back. “That’s fine, and I’ll train with you. But until we know that evil frost won’t creep back in, I’m benching you.”

“Benching me,” she repeats in disbelief. “It wasn’t— I took the Rite myself—”

“That’s right. No more Rites, either.”

“No rights,” Fjorm repeats, grumbling under her breath. If Anna has a problem with her insubordinate behaviour, she doesn’t voice it.

The Aether Keep isn’t so bad once she’s come to terms with her limited freedom. There’s a place she can try on different weapons, and an inn with cozy beds and good company. Fjorm spends most of her time out in the field though, tending to the gardens and crops so that she still feels like a useful asset. When she tries to turn some of her ingredients into meals, that isn’t received very well by the other Heroes, so she quickly learns to leave the cooking to others. (Eir is bizarrely very good at it.)

It’s strange to refer to herself as a Hero, even though that is now her genuine title. Princess Fjorm of the Order of Heroes, although the ‘princess’ title seems to fit less and less each day. None of the other Heroes address her as anything other than just Fjorm, if they address her personally at all. It’s unexpectedly relaxing. With every new day spent at the Aether Resort, Fjorm’s overwhelming sense of duty ebbs away more and more.

Until she runs into someone who does know her by her title, who Fjorm never expected to see again.

One of the luxuries at the resort is a hot spring that Fjorm doesn’t visit for her first several days. After being raised in a kingdom of ice that prided itself on its frigidity in many ways, the concept of visiting a public bath filled with near-boiling water does not garner enthusiasm. Death has not stopped her natural revulsion to heat.

But eventually, she tires of standing idly around the Askran castle and watching others head off to battle, so Fjorm returns to the Aether Resort and makes up her mind to visit the springs. She ties her uneven hair up into a choppy ponytail and borrows a swimsuit from one of the Heroes hailing from another world.

Her first step into the water is almost painful, and the high temperature brings back parallel memories of the last time something hurt her. But the peaceful water laps at her ankle and does no damage, and after a matter of seconds, Fjorm finds herself relaxing into its heat. Treasonous. The stone steps into the pool are smooth and dark, and she chances another step in. Then another, and another, until finally her body is submerged entirely.

“Oh,” Fjorm gasps, rolling her head back. She had imagined bathwater— lukewarm, stale, meant to be washed off. But this heat is like nothing she’s ever experienced. It is not violent like fire, but relaxing. So unbelievably relaxing. “Oh. I’ve died, I have died again and gone to heaven.”

Someone snorts, and Fjorm opens her eyes and spins to look at them. When her gaze falls on a familiar face, her mouth falls open, jaw slack. This must be how it felt for the Askrans to see her summoned back from the dead.

Laegjarn is there, only a few feet from her. Her distinctive horns are still atop her head, but instead of armour, she’s wearing a swimsuit without straps. Or, at least, Fjorm assumes she is— her dark shoulders are bare. Most interestingly of all, she is alive. Breathing, heart beating, and staring at Fjorm.

Fjorm forgets herself, blurting out, “Laegjarn,” and then quickly says, “ah, General… General Laegjarn.”

The general raises an eyebrow. She’s leaning against the rock face behind her. At her elbow, a pink rubber duck bounces up and down in the water. “Princess Fjorm.”

Fjorm suddenly feels embarrassed for wearing her crown. Or perhaps her embarrassment comes from not having a title like general. While Laegjarn had commanded armies and ruled large areas of Múspell, the greatest thing Fjorm ever did for her country was dying. But then again, Laegjarn had died too… “Are you… you… you’re alive!”

Laegjarn watches her inhale, unfazed. “In your world, am I not?”

Now it’s even harder to breathe. Fjorm stares at the ducky, and then up at the endless sky. “… No. I’m sorry, I… when Kiran brought me here, it was… I’m the Fjorm from this world. They brought me back after I succumbed to the Rite of Frost.”

“Ah.” Laegjarn hums thoughtfully. “You never… well, in my world, if you took the Rite, I did not know.” She stretches out her bare shoulder, and Fjorm very pointedly stares at the duck again. “We were only halfway through our invasion of Nifl when Kiran summoned me to fight for the Order.”

Fjorm blinks. “But you still knew me?”

“Yes. I fought you. We were far from evenly matched, you’re an excellent fighter.” Laegjarn’s gaze drags across her neck and shoulders, and Fjorm shudders under the force of her eyes. This conversation is beyond surreal— she never expected to see Laegjarn again, let alone talk strategy. The compliment makes her flush more than the hot water does. “Did you defeat me in this world?”

“What? No,” Fjorm shakes her head furiously. “You… Actually, I don’t think you want to know what happened.”

Laegjarn raises her chin not out of impudence, but just high enough to meet Fjorm’s gaze dead-on.

“Fine.” Fjorm exhales, twisting her hands under the water. “It was close to the end… your sister was in danger, and you took the Rite of Flames to save her from your father. I thought it was…” She coughs. “Well, anyway, then… we found you, and you said you wish things had turned out differently.”

For some reason, Laegjarn smiles. “Between us.”

“Ah, be-between our countries,” Fjorm stutters. Laegjarn’s face falls. “And you asked us to ensure the safety of Laevatein.”

Now Laegjarn is the one avoiding eye contact, looking up at the sky and down at the water. Anywhere but at Fjorm. “I have yet to seek out the Laevatein of this world,” she confesses quietly. “I don’t know how she would react to my presence. But knowing that she’s alone without any family… I feel terrible about not reaching out yet.”

“She’s doing alright,” Fjorm says. “Hríd told me that she’s a good leader, anyway. Since I died Múspell and Nifl have remained allies, and apparently, they’re better than ever! I’m sure the Order kept their promise to your sister.”

Laegjarn stays still for a long moment. When she finally moves, she makes her way to the stairs out of the spring. Water drips from her swimsuit, arms, and legs— Fjorm averts her gaze, face burning. “Thank you,” the general finally replies, glancing at Fjorm over her shoulder before she leaves. “I’m glad you came back to life so that I might know this version of you. Don’t stay in heaven too long.”

Fjorm spends nearly another half an hour in the hot spring frozen to the spot, trying to decipher what Laegjarn meant by that. When she looks at her hands to see that they’ve pruned up she figures it out, and she smiles and ducks her head. If heaven really did exist, she would have gone there when she died. Fjorm resigns herself to the idea that this place of relaxation and reconciliation might be the best she’s ever going to get.

#fire emblem heroes #laegjarn #fjorm #laegjorm #fjorm feh #femfeb #fic blogging #my writing #fire emblem #long post #death cw

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wakasagayhime · 5 years

Text

very long, very personal post

tldr, im still not drawing but here’s a detailed account of everything that’s happened in case anyone is confused or misinformed

alright. let me start out by saying i’m not going back to art just yet. it still hurts to do anything art related and i’m still trying to find a way to heal from all of this. i need some kind of professional help first, and i don’t know how long it’ll take afterwards for me to begin feeling like myself again. i don’t even know if i’ll be able to get any kind of professional help at the moment; my university’s counseling center told me, in short, that i’m so mentally ill that their services would not be enough for me and i’d have to look elsewhere (which is reasonable, tbh, they’re almost always completely booked so it’s difficult to actually even talk to someone there in the first place, i only got to talk to them to begin with because i nearly killed myself one night after having the most intense panic attack of my life where i felt like i was actually in the process of dying) and as if that weren’t enough, if you follow me on twitter you’d know that my mom finally left my stepdad, but this means that we no longer really have a home to call our own and are now living with some of my mom’s friends. on the bright side, miso is a lot freer and gets to explore the house as he pleases, but on the downside money is tight and my mom is trying her best to find a place to live while working two jobs and trying to help pay for my tuition. long story short, i want some kind of professional help badly, but all the bullshit that’s been happening in my life makes that difficult.

anyway, i understand that i’ve worried a lot of people through all of this, and i’m sorry. i truly, genuinely am sorry for everything that’s been going on. i blame a lot of it on myself not being strong enough. if i were stronger, i wouldn’t care about some stupid internet trolls, or some random grown man in florida stalking all my social media. if i were stronger, i could take my life back. i wouldn’t feel the need to constantly contemplate suicide, or to torture my own body by starving because of my physical form feeling like the only thing i have left to be in control of. if i had only been stronger, like my old stupidly foolish overconfident 16 year old self who got into fucking STEVEN UNIVERSE DISCOURSE of all things, maybe i wouldn’t care. even when it first happened to me, after the initial shock and hiatus, i was pretty much back to normal almost instantly. but this kind of trauma is sneaky and will gradually eat away at you more and more while you pretend to be ok, and then eventually you reach a breaking point and it’s taken over your life. that’s why i’m still obsessing over that day two years later. that’s why i can’t be left alone on december 13th this year, or else i know for a fact i will harm myself in some way. (don’t worry about that though, burger is going to hang out with me that day and i’ll be fine.) still, even though i keep telling myself my past self was stronger, i do know that she really wasn’t. she was still struggling with depression, anxiety, and self harm issues. maybe it just manifested differently for a while. maybe she felt unstoppable at some point in time because she finally found a girlfriend and got a cat. i got into so many fights that weren’t worth my time or energy at all, and part of me wishes i could be that confident again, but i also know that was my downfall to begin with.

i have followers who haven’t been around for longer than a year or maybe less than two, so i might as well give everyone a true, thorough rundown of what happened leading up to that day, the day of, and after.

i’m sure a lot of you who are worried about me at the moment have seen the recent callout for colboh and his involvement in what happened. i’ll be honest--i don’t know the full extent of his involvement, and i want to believe his foolishness ends at not leaving artists who have blocked him alone and uploading their shit to booru sites when they explicitly state not to. so let’s just start there. i honestly don’t remember if it was before or after i first blocked him, but he uploaded one of my NSFW drawings to danbooru when i first shared my NSFW blog. (PROTIP: if you’re a minor, don’t share your NSFW art with anyone. don’t care if you’re 17, i was about to turn 17 myself. it will bite you in the ass. as such, some of this is my fault.) i quickly contacted danbooru asking them to delete it, and they did--but that artwork subsequently ended up on gelbooru as well, and i was unsuccessful in my efforts to remove my art from there.

fast forward to december 13th, 2016. it was a normal morning. i was getting ready for school, but also being dumb and lazing around in bed browsing tumblr. i saw a post from a blog that shares Funny 4chan Screencaps. my art was in it. the art was of a very muscular yuugi, a drawing i was proud of, especially in how much gay energy i thought it radiated--but this drawing was being used in one of those typical “here’s a touhou, i wanna fuck her! am i right guys? let’s talk about how badly we want to fuck her” threads. seeing my art used for this was appalling. my first mistake was reblogging the post and saying how it was wrong, and how my art shouldn’t ever be used for such a purpose. my second mistake was making a text post AND tweets expressing my disgust at the situation, thinking no one who frequented /jp/ would ever see, sure that it would be a big waste of their time to concern themselves with some random dumb “”sjw”” artist. i also probably shouldn’t have specifically called them “gross neckbeards,” in doing so i absolutely struck a nerve with basement dwellers everywhere. i got to school and during my second period class, suddenly felt a strange urge to look at /jp/. why i did that, i still don’t really know. maybe i was expecting hate. maybe i was trying to see if they used my art for something gross again. i don’t know. either way, that moment changed everything forever. i saw the screencap of my tweets posted for everyone in their circlejerk to see. even worse--i looked in the thread, and someone had also posted the NSFW art colboh had uploaded to danbooru, mocking it and calling me a hypocrite for drawing two girls having sex while also saying i don’t like my art being used for those kinds of threads. this is what truly ignited the amount of hate i saw directed towards me in the threads. i got called a bitch, a drama whore, got told to kill myself, and in one reply etched into my mind forever, someone said something along the lines of “we should all call her local gang and have them rape her, she just needs a good dicking.” there were multiple threads, too; i don’t know how many, but there was another one about me after the first one was deleted, in which someone edited a typical fat balding NTR hentai doujin style man into art i made of kagerou nosebleeding at wakasagihime. more disparaging comments were made. in both threads, people expressed their hatred and dislike of my art, some calling it garbage, some just saying it’s “bad,” etc. some people said the threads were unnecessary and rude, but they were a kind few in a cesspool of violence.

i don’t know who started these threads. i can’t assume anything about anyone, but whoever did this was definitely looking through all my social media out of bitterness and hatred, or perhaps even following me on both my tumblr and twitter considering the timing of the threads immediately after i complained. it eats at me that i most likely will never know who did this to me. i’ll never know who hated me so much that they decided to completely destroy my self esteem. if whoever it is who did all of this is reading this and feels any ounce of remorse, i’m begging them to reveal themselves and why they did it, but i know the chances of that happening are incredibly slim. someone, i can’t remember who, maybe it was queenly, told me they hope someday i reach a point where i don’t have to worry about that because i won’t care in general, but i still don’t know if i’ll ever reach a point where i stop caring about all of this.

like i mentioned earlier, after this all first happened, i was destroyed. the next day, my school’s GSA happened to have a vote for whose art would be on the club t-shirts, mine or someone else’s. mine lost. i broke down completely--anywhere i went, i wasn’t good enough, not for anyone. for days, there was a constant feeling of horror and fear in my chest, something i’ve only ever felt so intensely when one of these threads resurfaces or i suddenly relive my trauma due to other things triggering me. i took a hiatus that lasted a few weeks, i believe i came back sometime before the new year. i thought i was ok, and i pretended like i could go back to being myself. but as time went on, and i continued living with the weight of that day on my back, i became weaker and weaker. i stopped drawing as frequently as i used to. my final year of high school started and i ended up falling into such a deep depression that i constantly skipped school and eventually attempted suicide in november 2017. the suicide note i wrote cites that day as being one of the main things leading me to my decision, telling whoever did this to me that i hoped in my passing they’d have to live knowing what they did to me. my attempt only failed because i swore to take every pill left in the bottle and there were only four pills. had it been full, i’m not really sure what would have happened. i was sent to a mental institute afterwards for a week. being there was the absolute definition of hell. i was alone. i cried myself to sleep every night. they claimed to be a place where people were improved and got help, but i did not get any help at all. they basically imprisoned me for trying to kill myself. when i got out, i was only glad to be alive because i just wanted to be able to talk to my friends, my family, and my girlfriend again. it still shocks me that i was able to graduate from high school considering how much school i skipped before and after my suicide attempt.

sometime before that school year ended, i became extremely upset one afternoon and decided to run away from home. i had what happened to me and what was said about me that day running through my head. i tweeted that i hoped maybe in running away i’d end up being raped like they wanted, like how i deserved. someone who i considered a friend replied to this with, “fuck you.” after all of this was taken care of and i was safe at home, i responded that i was sorry, that i wasn’t thinking right when i made the tweet. she responded that i was, and blocked me. i tried to explain that i said what i did because of the threads about me on /jp/ and the one response threatening rape, but this was disregarded and, seemingly, ignored. a few days later, the former friend in question started sending me anon hate on tumblr, asking me why i want attention so badly, accusing me of making light of actual rape victims by saying such a thing. i explained myself, but to no avail. i blocked her on tumblr, and left it at that. but then, at the end of the school year, when i was proud of myself for finally getting through high school without killing myself or failing or anything, i stumbled upon the second thread. the date the thread was created lined up exactly with the time between me running away from home and me receiving anon hate. she can try to act like she didn’t make the thread all she wants, but i’m not an idiot. the replies were also eerily similar--people in the replies remembered me, a year and a half after the original thread. some replies mentioned me having attempted suicide months before. some mentioned my NSFW art again. i had a massive breakdown and nearly drowned myself in the pond down the road. it was a wet, rainy night, and i sat on a bench by the pond sobbing loudly, trying to find some way to want to keep living. but i couldn’t. i might have gone through with it if it hadn’t been for burger coming and talking to me and giving me a ride home.

entering college, i thought things would be easier. in a way, they are. i have more freedom with classes. this semester, i attended almost all of my classes, almost every day, just with the exception of me being sick some days and me accidentally oversleeping once, and then one day when i just didn’t feel like it. but things continued to get worse for me--i developed an eating disorder for many reasons, one being the time i spent a year prior depressed caused me to gain a significant amount of weight, and the other being i had sworn off self harm in the form of cutting. i found that i was able to get the same gratification from starving myself. at one point, it turned into a game of sorts, where i tried to see how long i could go without eating anything. my record was a little over 72 hours. being constantly hungry or in pain this way felt like something i deserved in a way, but also something to distract me from the pain of realizing i was losing my love for art. i was in denial about it for months. i tried to keep drawing, but everything i drew upset me, saddened me, and even angered me. i looked at anything i made and only felt disgust. it was the one thing i used to love doing more than anything, and now i only felt shame.

in november, i acknowledged this and decided to quit for good. recently, i discovered colboh had uploaded more of my NSFW art to gelbooru, even though i specifically stated on my blog to never upload my NSFW art to image sharing sites, specifically right after he uploaded my art the first time. by the time i found this, i had already sworn off art for good, but looking at the comments on my art on gelbooru (and rule 34--i guess they’re connected upload-wise like danbooru?) filled me with so much sadness and shame, not because they criticized my art, but because they said horrible things about my depiction of kagerou. for those who don’t know, i headcanon kagerou as a trans woman, and one thing i do not regret about my time as an artist is how that depiction has helped numerous trans women feel good about themselves and their bodies. seeing so many disgusting comments deliberately misgendering her and making other transphobic remarks hurt me on a completely new level. my trans friends have been such a source of strength for me through all of this and seeing that made me feel disgusted, especially with myself. i felt like i had failed them. i had made so many trans women happy, only to see a man i blocked two years ago had uploaded my art to porn sites, tagging it with dehumanizing words like “f*ta” that i specifically tell people never to refer to my art with, displaying that art for the exact same crowds of people that ruined everything december 13th 2016 to continue to pick apart. one comment even told me to kill myself, effectively bringing back every memory of that day.

speaking of that, another thing i want to touch on now that i’m up to speed with the details of everything that’s happened related to the original threads two years ago, is kagerou. i’m positive you all know that i really love kagerou imaizumi, and that she’s my favorite touhou character. it’s embarrassing to say, but she’s brought me so much comfort through all of this. sometimes if i’m sad, i’ll imagine her giving me a big hug, or i’ll look at cute pictures i have saved of her, or something along those lines. it’s pretty cringy for a fictional character to make me happy, i know, but i’ve grown so attached to her and she really means a lot to me. and another thing that made me want to swear off art is because she’s loved by so many others that i don’t think my depictions of her do her any good. i’m constantly compared to other artists, and it’s never good. even in the threads, i’m told i should be more like those other artists and these things wouldn’t happen to me. i am not allowed to love kagerou imaizumi. i draw her as a hairy trans lesbian, and that disgusts people. hell, the fact that i draw lesbians in general disgusts people, which sure fucking sucks because i constantly hate myself for not being attracted to men and being able to draw happy lesbians made me feel better about myself. but i’ve ruined kagerou for so many people, especially with my stupid kagewaka bullshit. maybe that’s why those artists unfollowed me. maybe it’s a combination of that and my constant breakdowns becoming far too annoying. i think all the popular artists who used to like me and then unfollowed/softblocked me are really glad to see that i’ve given up. and that’s something else that saddens me too--even as an artist, in my own community of touhou artists, i often feel like i’m lesser, and that i don’t belong. maybe it’s because i’m so foolishly outspoken about my opinions that they dislike me. maybe it’s because i’m a woman, and a lesbian at that. i don’t really know why they hate me so much. i wish i could belong somewhere.

and i think that’s what it all boils down to in the end. i’ve lost all sense of belonging. when i was 14 and people started noticing my art for the first time, i finally felt like i had something. like i belonged somewhere. after being bullied through middle school and having to deal with abusive friends and an abusive dad, it meant the world to me that i finally had something. but it didn’t last long at all. it all came crashing down, not just because of others, but because of me. i was the one who was cocky, getting into fights that weren’t worth it. i was the one who provoked people and made them hate me. i was the one who complained about /jp/ posting my art in their threads. i know people want to believe that i’m a saint, but i’m not. i have myself to blame too. i at least want everyone to understand this, above all else. there was so much i could have done differently to prevent this all from happening, but i didn’t. i was stupid and naive. i was a massive fucking idiot, and now look where i am. i lost everything. i thought i had friends, i lost them. i thought i loved art, i lost that. i thought other really talented nice people liked me, i even lost that. all i have now is an empty shell of my former self. i don’t know what to do with it. i don’t know how i’m going to rebuild myself. it’s so painful to have to keep living like this. i don’t know if there’s any fixing me at this point. i’ve lost so much, i feel permanently broken.

but despite all of that, despite everything i’ve been through, i still receive so much love and support from my followers and friends and it means so much to me. it means the world to me and has kept me going through all of this. knowing that people care about me and want to see me get better and improve makes me want to try to fix myself even if i am broken beyond repair. i just want to thank you all for being that source of strength for me. these past few years have been so hard for me and time and time again i still get love and encouragement from so many people. from the bottom of my heart, thank you. there is nothing more precious to me than those moments when i feel like i do truly belong, when i feel loved, when i feel like i’m not alone after all. for those moments, i’ll keep trying. even if these threads keep continuing and breaking me further, i’ll keep trying. even if every last artist in this fandom comes to hate me and my shitty art, i’ll keep trying. it’s still painful to draw right now and i have a long way to go before i can share art with anyone again, but for you all, i’m going to keep trying my best. at the end of the day, i know everyone’s encouragement and love is worth far more than hate threads urging me to kill myself.

i’m sorry how long and personal and unnecessary this is, but i felt like i had to set things straight. if you read all of this, i applaud you. if you just kinda skimmed through to read the last paragraph, i also appreciate it. again, thank you.

#glub glub #suicide //#self harm //#disordered eating //#rape //

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earnestly-ernie · 5 years

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[ kj apa, twenty one, cis male, he/him ] ━ hey, I just saw [ ernie taera ] walking down the streets of crownsville. they’ve lived in town for [ one week ], and you can catch them around town working as a [ personal trainer ]. I hear they’re known to be [ loyal & passionate ] and [ gullible & possessive ]. if asked, they would say their aesthetic would be [ gym equipment, eating fastfood late at night in car park, varsity jackets, cologne, band posters, flannel, beaches ]

re-reading the rules to double check i had everything down and seeing the possibility of a second muse made my indecisive brain very happy ahhh

below the cut is ernie’s history, some personality tidbits and wanted connections!!

(i was gonna do sth like i did for blair’s intro post but im lazy sksks)

history

ernie was born as the second child of four in wellington, nz to a samoan father and a british woman

he likes to think he was named after ernest hemmingway or one of the kings of hanover but everyone jokes he was named after the sesame street character

his family growing up were super close and often did a ton of stuff together; this was seen as abnormal in the immediate community because both of his parents were high up business people and the stereotype was that they didn’t have time for family

ernie grew up with a stronger sense of his maternal heritage as his father lost his family when he was quite young and thus didn’t immerse himself in his culture; ernie, concurrently, is trying to explore his samoan heritage

growing up, ernie was your typical kid who liked video games; he had a particular love for pokemon, mario and nintendogs. he was also into the grand theft auto series but mostly driving about and not doing the missions

he got into rugby around the age of nine and proved to be fairly decent at it; he eventually joined the school teams for it and looked to have a promising career if he ever wanted to take it professionally

fairly popular throughout all forms of schooling; it took a dip when he was fifteen and was unashamedly open about his bi-curiosity

for the most part, however, he had a ton of friends at any given point in his life

at the age of eighteen he was scouted by one of the professional rugby teams in new zealand and became a professional rugby player

was pencilled in to join the all blacks but ended up being unable to due to a career ending injury; he had to become ambidextrous because of the injury

he ended up getting a degree in physiology and did a few courses in coaching and refereeing in rugby but ended up becoming a reputable personal trainer mostly because it paid a bit better

has moved to crownsville with the plan for it to be temporary. he always said he’d live in another country and the quaint town life was appealing to him.

though he has plans to move back to new zealand in about three or four years, he’s open to being convinced to stay longer

personality (starting with the four listed traits)

loyal - ernie is a fiercely loyal individual. whilst growing up he had a ton of friends, he had barely any close friends and he actively chose to be loyal to them in case they were to abandon him. spurred on further by his close familial relationships and the brotherhood of the rugby teams he was a part of, ernie is as loyal as any dog

passionate - one of the standout things is that ernie will always throw himself into things, whether that be a friendship, relationship, job, hobby - whatever. ernie always gives 110% and has a tendency to dedicate his life to his interests. he’s particularly passionate about dogs and rugby

gullible - whilst not pertaining wholly to the ‘dumb jock’ stereotype, ernie isn’t going to win any awards for his academic knowledge. he was able to excel at his degree because he knew a lot of it from the practical side of rugby, rather than raw knowledge. though his gullibility does mean he can sometimes be led to believe the wrong facts, it largely centres around his loyal nature. if a client was to tell him they couldn’t meet for a session and lie, saying it was because their hamster died, ernie would become sentimental and empathetic and offer all the support. likewise, if you tell him something’s written on the ceiling, he’ll look. every. single. time!!

possessive - for however loyal ernie is, he also can get possessive. largely thanks to having few close friends growing up, ernie is the type of person to feel threatened when he sees close friends get close to other people, largely out of a fear of being replaced. whilst this is largely centred around relationships, he can also get possessive over objects he owns, a notable example being the car he has because he retains he worked hard for it and thus nobody else can drive it. he’s trying to be less manically obsessed with things, but it’s a hard trait to shrug off overnight.

in a basic sense, ernie is the personal trainer who’ll hype you up and want to be your best friend. bright and nearly always smiley, it seems hard to dampen his mood

he’s a massive teddy bear and l o v e s cuddles!!! his favourite cuddle buddy at the moment is his german shepherd puppy, cato

always!! means!! well!!! is known to make a lot of social faux pas (he blames it on the american culture being different to the new zealander and british ones he grew up with) but tries his best

still always uses british english, though

sarcastic!! tongue in cheek is his favourite type of humour. he is partial to dark humour but is aware it’s not everyone’s cup of tea

very emotional in that he wears his emotions on his face; it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know when he’s feeling down

isn’t the type of person to vent without permission but, when you give it to him, he won’t shut up

he could talk for ages about literally nothing, let alone something he’s interested in

proud of his bisexuality, largely because he had wanted to be a role model in the rugby field for any fledgling players who felt the same way

having a career ending injury literally in his second year of his career is a sore spot for him, so don’t mention it often unless you want a sad ernie :(

honestly just a massive puppy, love him

fun facts!

is ambidextrous; naturally left handed but a rugby injury meant he had to learn how to write with his right hand (though it’s healed, he often finds that his left wrist is prone to aching quicker so he’s pretty much exclusively a right-handed writer)

does a mean english accent (specifically upper middle class just like his mum; think the crown-ish)

though his scottish and irish accents are pitiful, he could convince you that he’s welsh given a proficiency in his accent

has a german shepherd puppy called cato

is allergic to peanuts

has a big issue with the texture of food; would genuinely take the time to take the seeds off of a strawberry

isn’t a fan of diets; believes in the ‘eat what you want but in moderation’ style

wanted connections!

friends

a friend that’s taken him under their wing

hookups (m/f)

budding romances

clientele

workout buddies

rugby friends

literally anything im indecisive!!

i feel like i could’ve done more but!! that’s all i could think of ahhh

if you want to plot with ernie, like this post and i’ll come im you (or you can spam my inbox with any ideas you might have sksksks)!!

#crownsvilleooc #crownsvilleintro

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ladyofpurple · 6 years

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GIRL ITS BEEN MONTHS SINCE YOU UPDATED TPOY!! please tell me you haven’t given up on it )-:

I KNOW IM REALLY SORRY OMG

This took a bit longer to answer than it should have because I was trying to figure out how to reply, I guess?? The short answer is basically that writing bits of fic during my exams when I didn’t actually have the time to was super productive, mainly because I Didn’t Want To Do The Thing but my entire future hinged on Doing The Thing and anxiety-driven avoidance is excellent creative fuel, apparently. The problem is, of course, that once I finished and started getting my results back and actually had time to breathe again my brain kinda fizzled out and I never wanted to look at a Word document ever again in my life. Writing is really hard right now, for some reason. And not just TPoy — everything I try to write either gives me a headache, makes every idea I’ve ever had go flying out the window like magic, or looks like absolute garbage to me. (I’ve been trying, though, I promise!!!) There is more TPoY, though!! I swear to God!! It’s just coming along a little slower than anticipated.

The long answer is... a little more complicated and probably more than you’re interested in, and the main reason is the short one anyway. But I’ll put a long answer under a cut just in case (aka the entire history of TPoY lol), since I’ve lowkey wanted to post about it for a while now but didn’t quite know how to? May get a little very personal, I suppose.

Basically, TPoY is and always has been a garbage fic. I don’t say that to disparage my own writing or attempt to elicit praise from anyone: I have always considered it a glorious dumpster fire of experimentation, a ridiculous Frankenstein’s monster of all my favorite ML tropes as a practice run, since it had been so long since attempting to write anything at all. I’m thrilled that people like it, of course! Whenever people send me asks about it my answers always involve a lot of exclamation points and variations on “I AM CURRENTLY SOBBING ON THE FLOOR IN GRATITUDE” because I honestly have no idea how to express how genuinely teary-eyed I get when someone tells me how much they like it, or post a comment. That being said, it was always intended for my own amusement and/or therapy, and that it’s gotten so many bookmarks and kudos and comments is incredibly surreal, even after a whole year.

When I started writing it, I was working through a lot of stuff. My first boyfriend had broken up with me, and as we lived together in his hometown I was stuck there on my own for another year before I could move back home. 2016 was filled with a lot of horrifying shit that kept happening one after the other and I eventually almost had to drop out of school because I couldn’t handle it all. The relationship was pretty toxic but all I knew at the time was that I was scared and alone and heartbroken.

When I started writing, it was after 8 months of the worst bout of depression I’ve ever experienced, and I still wasn’t well, but I functioned passably enough to start hyperfocusing on things. I had an idea about a fic I suddenly wanted to write, and it would have a happy ending and all, but I could work through my feelings in a way I hadn’t tried to since before my ex and I got together. I pulled a lot of the start of the fic (the rejection, the miscommunication, the avoidance) from my recent breakup, yes, but also from my first rejection, aka the only other boy I’d liked enough to confess my feelings to. We were 17, and he admitted that he knew, and then suddenly we weren’t friends anymore. A year and a half later, I got together with my ex, and suddenly after three years of dedicating my life to “us” on his whims he was ghosting me without explanation.

I see a lot of myself in Marinette at that age. The awkwardness, the enthusiasm, the incredibly obvious lovesick obsession with a cute boy who’s nice to you. I wondered if maybe she would react the same, if put into similar circumstances as I had been. Focus on the self-doubt that would follow, based on insecurities she’s already shown in the show — coupled with your standard teenage hormone-fest —and you’d have a fabulous starter for angstfic and a free therapy session all in one.

The problem with that is nobody knows this backstory but me. People focusing on Marinette’s insecurities is nothing new. Other people are annoyed it’s such a popular trope. And the fact that I’ve chosen to focus on certain aspects of the main characters’ identities for the purposes of a story I started on a whim has been making me insecure for a long time because people in the fandom are tired of those characterizations. I’ve never gotten hate comments —I don’t even remember ever getting constructive criticism on TPoY. But I’m well aware that the plot is far from original and definitely lacking in certain places, and as the comments roll in and the hits go up my anxiety mounts because oh my God I’m that guy in the fandom.

I always intended on focusing on different aspects of their characterizations in different fics to suit the plot, y’know? Not ignoring parts of their personalities, but just... emphasizing other parts. But TPoY is the one most people have read. I have a couple one-shots where I tried to do something like that, with different aspects of their characters, but short one-shots can’t really compare to a 100,000+ word WIP, even if they even slightly compared in popularity (they don’t). So my only notable contribution to the fandom is TPoY. And that makes me anxious.

Then there’s the Frankenstein-like obsession with adding every trope I’ve ever wanted to write in a fic like this. I’ve mentioned before that the original plan for this was, like, 10-15 chapters at most. But every chapter I write I’m like, “But what if I did this???” Like I said, I never intended it to be even remotely popular. The only other fandoms I’ve written for are microscopic in comparison. I had no frame of reference for a pairing this big — all my previous experience was from Fanfiction.net, for Christ’s sake. I assumed I wouldn’t finish it, and even getting to chapter 6 was a surprise. But that hyperfocus somehow held on for dear life and I was banging out chapters like nobody’s business. And people were responding to it. And I think that kind of went to my head a little? Not like in an “I deserve all this attention” kind of way, but more like a “People like?? This thing I’m doing??? I cannot squander this opportunity, I must give them m o r e” kind of way. It was the best I’d felt since the breakup and I didn’t really think I deserved it, so I kind of wanted to... prove I did, I guess, by writing everything I’d ever wanted in a lovesquare fic in hopes that people would keep liking it and me and I’d keep feeling nice. (I mean, I’d planned to add in a ridiculous amount of tropes anyway, I just ended up adding a lot more than I’d planned.)

On the one hand, people go nuts for that shit. On the other, it’s getting harder and harder to justify cramming all this shit into the same fic. This compulsion keeps fucking me over by giving me spur-of-the-moment ideas for sub-plots I never wanted and certainly didn’t properly think through before posting the foreshadowing or setup for — yet at the same time they’re usually thought of and integrated several chapters in advance so I can’t just... leave them out? And part of me kind of doesn’t want to?? And I’m trying with every fiber in my being not to rewrite just the first 3 chapters, let alone the entire fic. A side-effect of my FF.net history at 13 was Never Edit Anything. Yeah, I’ll do some spell-check. Maybe some rewording here and there. Sometimes I’ll post a chapter and come back sporadically over the next few days to change out some punctuation or whatever. But if I don’t like a section after writing for a while? Throw the Whole Ass Chapter out. After it’s posted? This Is Your Life Now.

let’s not talk about how everything after chapter 27 was supposed to go very differently

Never mind that, after writing a hundred thousand goddamn words in a year, one’s writing skill tends to evolve and increase over time. Not just in regards to vocabulary, but with consistency and pacing and structure. This means, of course, that I can’t ever reread my own writing without the Evil Writing Goblin in my brain telling me to start the whole thing over from scratch. It’s fine.

I suppose I could get a beta, but I’m very bad at taking critique and as I’m even worse at talking to people than I am at posting on time I don’t think that would work out very well.

The point of this goddamn novel is that TPoY means a lot to me, probably a lot more than people realize. It’s kinda dumb and very cheesy and absurdly long, but it was the first real thing I did for myself after my whole life fell apart. I will finish it!!

But it’s hard to write it right now. I’m trying— I’m writing four chapters at the same time right now (a bit less than 10,000 words combined at current count). I don’t want to try to rewrite the whole fic or keep “mischaracterizing” the characters or lose the suspense I’ve tried to build (or, God forbid, try to keep interest so hard it hurts the rest of the fic) and risk alienating readers. I can’t stress enough how much these supportive comments mean to me, even on something as silly as a fanfic. But I also don’t want to force myself to write it or write something just because other people might or might not like it and risk alienating me. So I’m stuck at a kind of anxiety-induced impasse with myself that’s just made worse by the fact that I’m having trouble writing anything at all at the moment.

Jesus Christ this was longer than I meant it to be. Please don’t take this as a pity-party or anything. I don’t want sympathy or, I don’t know, reassurance or anything, I just wanted everything to be Out There because it really is the most in-depth response I could give and y’all deserve an honest answer. Some of you guys have been reading since the beginning and I can’t express how much that means to me. I feel really bad when I haven’t updated in a long time, because I know my fic makes some people really happy!

And PLEASE don’t take this as a “STOP ASKING ME ABOUT TPOY GODDAMMIT” because this is the opposite of that. I FUCKING LOVE IT WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME ABOUT TPOY. I L I V E FOR IT. But it sucks when the only answer I have is “I don’t know when it’ll be up, sorry :( ”

I mean, that’ll probably still be the answer I give, unless I by some miraculous (heh) stroke of luck) start hyperfocusing on writing again.

But at least y’all kinda know why now.

#did someone call for Too Much Information??#BUT THANK YOU FOR YOUR MESSAGE I LOVE AND APPRECIATE YOU #I HOPE THAT ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION #[SEVERAL HEART EMOJIS]#tpoy fic #anon good nurse #Lady answers stuff

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flowerpuffs · 7 years

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here's a little embarassing thing about me: i am! so! obsessed! with! my! gadgets! remember how i keep on telling you i've been really busy with my preps for CETs and how my parents imposed strict curfews and schedules to maximize the little time i have to study? yep, that's not exactly how it's been working out with my life right now. i do study but i occasionally check on my phone, respond on messages on tumblr, tweet things, watch 2 or 3 unrelated youtube videos after finishing like 3 or 4 academic ones and many many more! this is why as most of you might have noticed, despite being "busy," i still regularly respond to your messages, check on my tag, reblog your stuff, despite running a queue. it's equally embarassing as it is horrifying. and i feel terrible about it. although i must admit that i've had a pretty legitimate and respectable outcomes, at the end of the day, i know i can do better. and guess who's the culprit who keeps on distracting me? yep, that's right: my one and only treasured possesion- my cellphone. two, three, or four years ago, my mother began noticing this quite destructive addiction of mine. she will often times call me out, saying things like: "hey, you should spend more time with your family." or "i will definitely confiscate your phone if you still act like this in a week." and of course i was threatened as heck because i dont want to lose my cellphone. so, i will pretend i don't use it in the morning but later that night, when im all alone in my room, you will see my hiding under my blankets laughing all by myself because of dank memes™ or googling cute dog pictures. being the 'milennial' and 'god they're just being lame because they're obviously not from my generation' am, i did not know then the extent of my obsession. not until recently! there is nothing wrong with using technology or gadgets. if anything, they help us become more productive and practically make our lives way, way easier! however, like what they all say, a little much of something is not a good thing! and the same goes with my so-called gadget addiction. while scrolling through my feed one time, i stumbled upon this article written by emma on messyheads entitled "cant call, im in cuba" published two months ago. and i was frankly baffled. she opened her article with a scientific study concluding that an average person spends right about 300 times a day checking on their phone. yep, you got that right: 300 freaking times of checking on my emails, my twitter, tumblr, responding to messages, et. and while that figure might seem surprising to you. i've read another article stating that an average person spends right about 5 hours per day just doing their thing on their mobile! yep, that's right five freaking hours of looking on that lil bright screen! and just like what emma said on her article, there's way too many things that you could do on the span of just endlessly scrolling through your dash like finishing an entire course for my CETs preps/reviews, cooking 10 different dishes, working on my painting, working on my embroidery skills, finishing a harry potter book, etc! and you know what this literally made me realize? technology defeated the purpose of helping me become productive because instead, i end up being even more unproductive. and did achieve anything from all the things that i've been? absolutely nothing. the even funnier part is: i have absolutely no idea what i do with those five freaking hours! i mean, time flies so fast when you're enjoying something, that's true but i dont even know if im exactly enjoying what im doing because if anything, it only makes me feel even more guilty and terrible about it! i already have no idea where this text post is going but i guess while writing this i was able to realize a couple of things: my patience significantly declines and i tend to appreciate little things less once get too caught up with my phone. 1. patience: the thing about me is i am an incredibly, commendably patient person. i wait for my turn and i believe in its power and value that is fundamental in becoming an ethical person. however although this is very embarrasing to admit, i have realized that using my phone massively declined my patience. how did i know? well, it took me an entire day to write this post because when im done with like a sentence or two, i tend to get distracted with my notifications and wander off of my notepad and start interacting with people. i know there is nothing wrong with that because the world practically revolves around the internet right now. but unfortunately, when i became addicted with my mobile, i am no longer just using it because i have something important to accomplish; rather it became an itch that needs to be scratched and i use it just because i want to instead. 2. appreciation: this is quite frankly probably the saddest part about my cellphone addiction. you know how much i love the little things about people and the world, right? yep. however, due to this addiction, i tend to focus more on my cellphone screen and not the beautiful things around me. i mean, sure you can google #goals stuff or see even more aesthetic things on tumblr, but i think there is still nothing more beautiful than having the chance to see something magical first hand! furthermore, when im out with my family for dinner, i have realized an even more heartbreaking thing: we no longer converse the way we used to! because instead of communicating or asking for menu first, we ask for for the wifi password and live our social media life instead. i mean, sure we still talk but im not that stupid to not realize that it's not like it used to be when my brother and i were 11 or 10. it's an ugly realization that i hope would eventually change. i have nothing against the usage of social media as a platform to express yourself or to get friends from all over the world. i believe, as a matter of fact, that it is one of the most revolutionary things that this planet was able to create and i frankly believe that it will be for a long, long time. however, i think it is also still very important to shut out of it once in a while, give yourself a break, a breather, and just enjoy your life the way our ancestors or grandparents would even without the internet. try turning off your gadgets once in a while and i promise you will see a significant difference and feel more comfortable with your own skin! because although it feels good to live a life that's filled with so many notifications, attention, and validation from all over the world, it feels even better to just have a little space outside the boundary with fresh air, lots of trees, and flowers, where you could be yourself.

#y'all i loved writing this #like SUPEEEER!!!!

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whence-the-woody · 3 years

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2020

I used to do big, reflective summaries of my year and even tho I am feeling reflective today, I wasn’t able to do that last year and I actually really like the format I went with last year of just listing memz so I’m going wih that. Intention review etc will be in another post. So, my 2020 memories:

Jan

Gearing up to leave a job I hated, packing up my life to move away properly for the first time. Going flat hunting with my mum and my brother and having a literal choice of one

I did Home which I dont really remember so it was probably fine

This was the month the Gallavich wedding aired and gaslit me into believing there was still anything positive about that show/ship. Tbf at the time I was LIVING for it

Cinema kick with Mum including CATS. What a moment.

Feb

Last day at said crappy job (just weird and awks. I didnt really know how to feel) and starting a new one - everyone was so lovely from the off and even tho I was bored at times I was optimistic

Staying with my brother for a few days, him helping me move in which was all very nice.

My flat having no hot water for the first week - I only cried about it once. And me having nothing but an air bed for 3 weeks. Not ideal but grateful to have amenities and furniture by the end of the month

I think this was both kareoke night for one persons birthday and a 90s party for another - both excellent nights

People were talking about COVID by the end of the month but I was like pfft we’ve been here before with swine and bird flu, it’ll be all hyped up then go nowhere

I think I was getting my first allocations by the end of the month which I was grateful for because going from an insane workload to none at all was tricky and I wanted to get going

March

Oh March 2020. How we did not see you coming.

Before the lockdown even happened I remember people were panic buying. I stocked my freezer a bit, not because I was worried but because so many shelves were empty. All the shops starting looking apocalyptic and I was despairing over how silly everyone was being. You couldn’t get online shops anymore and there was no loo roll to be found - still think thats just so dumb. I had to go to 4 different stores to find oats and was so annoyed, weird little tidbit but I remember it.

I remember sitting down on my new furniture - eating a meal I had made, watching John Mulaney and feeling good in my new home - and seeing the Boris announcement. Other countries had already locked down so I had mentioned to my manager that I might have to go home to my Mums if it happened here - she had asked, I didn’t really believe it would. I had arranged for a friend to visit that month and when she cancelled I was like I think everyones being dramatic but okay. Then the 23rd, they announced a lockdown from midnight and I straight away messaged everyone to say I was panicking, asked my manager if I could leave and packed to drive back to Mum’s the next morning. I was in my flat about 6 weeks.

I know for a fact that March felt like the longest month to ever happen but now I cant remember anything else from it - the announcement was so late in the month, I wasn’t working from Mum’s for that long before April. I think we were told to WFH if we could mid-month but I didn’t. Cant for the life of me now think why it felt so long. I know for those last 2 weeks I was refreshing the news constantly to see what was happening. I was still skeptical and thought the numbers were too low for such drama

April

WFH for real. Excruciating daily calls “to check in”. Working my first cases from home, only on the phone, with no idea what I was doing. Taking turns wearing headphone with Mum because we were both having confidential conversations.

Walking my pup to get my alloted hour of exercise. Taking regular breaks to go outside - I think this was when there was a heatwave. Eating lunch outside. Sometimes doing weights or yoga during my lunch break - that part was actually pretty great

Discovering podcasts - especially FDRF. They were the real MVP.

Still constantly checking the news for updates. 3 weeks turned into 6 and so on and so on.

I came back to my flat for one of the long weekends. I had accepted that it was going to be longer then 3 weeks and I needed more stuff. I went for a very hot walk through a ghost town - at the time it still seemed like there were too many people about. Still picnics in the park happening.

Everyone flinching when they say each other and steering well clear. It made you feel tainted even though its what we were suppossed to do.

Clapping for carers - absolute bullshit placating, hated it.

Always being left off the list of keyworkers.

Still feeling like yeah its bad but ?? This cant go on forever

A year of build up to a move then the rug was pulled out from under me, I tried not to complain because others had it so so much worse but it was hard. Is hard.

We watched all of Location, all of Marvel, Bake off etc etc. I cried when Tony Stark died.

I went back through my ENTIRE tumblr. I realised how little had changed really, it was very existential.

May

I had to come back to my new city because I was on a duty rota for 2 weeks. I was actually very excited and had a good time. I got to see people IRL!! Including some I was working with. It was definately a heatwave at that point - we were swealtering in our cars and full PPE but I was so glad to be out and about and back in the city. Putting a face and proper clothes on again was very weird

I dont remember anything else from May specifically. I think March and April lasted 10 years but then May June July were a blink. I think I had accepted how bad everything was by that point, I had stopped looking at the News for updates. I think this is where zoom started to be a thing maybe.

June

Honestly not a clue. I was between My place and Mum’s because of the duty rota. I don’t think I came back FT until end of June. I know things were starting to open up again and it was all moving far too fast - I definately wasnt going to run out to the gym or pub but alot of people were. We were suppossed to go on holiday for a week this month, with my brother and the dogs but obvs that was cancelled - it was such a lovely place as well, shame.

Yoga was still random but I did a weight workout every day this month which was great

July

Turning 25. I was definately back in the city FT, going back into work. My Mum came to stay in my place for the first time. My brother came over too. We went for a walk, had a picnic in the rain then ate cake back at mine. My Mum got me a microwave for my birthday because Im AN ADULT

For my birthday also me and my Mum watched Hamilton for the first time. This then took over my entire life and was played at all hours of the day

Kept going with daily weight workouts, moved up another set. I think this is where I re-did Revolution

August

Ready to start socialising again. More restrictions were being lifted too quickly which I knew but also I had to GTFO

A friend came to stay with me for the weekend. Hes not very mobile so we couldnt do much - went for a short walk into town, sat by the river and got severely sunburned. We went to a restaurant for the first time in 6 months - I had pancakes. I made him watch Hamilton which he did not appreciate enough. Also watched Truman show for the first time while eating burritos - what a mindfuck that movie is I mean really

Went for a very long very hot walk with a friend all around the fields surrounding the city. We stopped for a drink and cake halfway, more drinks were then had in her garden. This was our first time hanging out alone and it was really lovely, we spent much more time together after that. Shes probably who Ive seen the most this year.

A couple of weeks after that we went for bottomless brunch, followed by I think 3 or 4 other bars. The joys of getting day drunk.

I think this was the month I started using friend/dating apps and got OBSESSED. They’re just so silly and judgey and fun, I love it.

My 6 month tenancy ran out which I chose to renew. I started negotiations with my landlord for a pet agreement.

I think this is where I re-did Dedicate. I think weight workouts fell off a little bit because I was pretty busy. Instead of running started doing 3 walks a week which was nice.

September

First time hanging out with more then one person - did a Hamilton viewing party with 4 of us. There were american themed snacks, it was great. Not a boozy night which was needed. I think I then went for coffee with 2 of the girls this month.

First time meeting up with 2 girls I met on an app - I’m still friendly with one, not the other. It was mostly a good time and I’m very proud to have done it but then drunken politics came up and it got AWKWARD.

Nagging and nagging and nagging my landlord until she signed the pet agreement and LET ME GET A CAT

My obsession with apps was replaced with a cat shelter/app obsession. It was very frustrating because I wanted to rescue and they make it very hard so I eventually found a for sale ad and contacted them - it was a rescue though as far as I’m concerned, she was in a horrible situation for an “owner” who had no clue and had only had her for a couple weeks before giving up and putting her up for sale. I rescued her okay. I think it was 3 or 4 weeks after getting agreement that I went to pick her up. So getting everything ready for her was a big part of this month

I did manage to fit in a 5 day holiday. It was suppossed to be solo travel abroad but ended up being a Mon-Fri with family. We did some NT walks it was nice.

Then it was literally that weekend my brother drove me to Wales to pick up my new fur baby. Instantly fell in love obviously and my whole life became about her from that point on. They told me she was really timid and scared, she had been hiding in her current place, but I was so impressed with how curious and confident she is. She was wary at first, a bit flinchy, didnt like being petted with 2 hands, didnt like loud noises, wouldnt come on the bed or sofa, wouldnt come into the living room really. I put child locks on alot of doors but shes not mischivous so its never really been an issue. She loved to play from the get go and did come to me for a fuss from day one. I adore her basically. The first time she jumped on the sofa, sat next me on the bed, slept on my bed, let me stroke her with 2 hands, her first vet trip, every little first and win has always been a massive victory, Im a v proud mama. She was no name for a few days but quickly somehow became my Myshka (the whole long list I had went quickly out the window somehow)

Did some more regular yoga. Tried to do 5 weight workout a week but it was a bit random. Walks fell off because of anxiety over leaving the cat.

October

Alot of WFH to be with the cat. Definately obsessed.

We had our team day on a farm, that was lovely

Saw my friend for Halloween - watched Hocus Pocus for the first time, had cocktails, watched a boring horror movie then Rocky Horror which is just exceptional. Lockdown 2.0 was announced but we were tipsy and over it.

A very stressful month work-wise, lots of deadline, threat of Ofsted, management changes, admin changes, not getting enough sleep because work stress and struggling with productivity. My health suffered a bit too because I didnt have time for lunchtime exercise anymore.

November

Technically there was a lockdown but it felt no different because everyone was still in school and work, I dont think people even tried this time.

The election, refreshing the results constantly. I fully expected a T win and was happy when he didnt but still disappointed at how close it was, as was everyone

I bought my first Christmas tree and my own decs. Christmas shopping obvs.

I downloaded Tiktok and started to question far too much about my identity. its ongoing.

Most important was SUPERNATURAL. I had alot of feelings, it was an absolute rollercoaster my god. What a time to be alive that was.

A couple of outside coffees in the park which is always nice. I went to a new friend’s house for tea and met their dog, also nice.

I did a SV for the first time in a very long time and it reminded me of everything I used to hate about my old job, so happy to have left there

Test weekend taking the cat to stay with the family dogs, she did great, shes a champ

December

Pretty standard Christmas month. Had a christmas movie night with themed snacks and hot chocolate with one friend. Had another friend come for the day to do the same - first time I had seen her in a year after 3 cancellations, that was very lovely

Constant restriction changes and crappy government pissing me off but it didnt affect my plans luckily

All the Tier 2, Face Hands Space signs feeling very dystopian

Brother’s 30th plans got cancelled coz COVID. Back up NYE plans got cancelled got COVID. Actual NYE was fine tho the normal show/song/crowd was cancelled coz of course COVID

OVERALL

Not so good shit

I mean the whole thing in general yknow

Alot of plans couldn’t go ahead - various groups I wanted to join, a new gym, more nights out with more people, more chances to meet new people ETC

My diet has been an inconsistet shit show BUT TFB there were months where you couldnt predict what was going to be on the shelves, you couldnt get orders and the whole world felt so pointless and dark like why even care about that shit yknow

My exercise also wasnt consistent though I dont feel too bad about it. I was always doing something I feel like even if it was just walking

Ive ended the year with the same amount of savings I started with which isnt exactly bad since I moved and furnished a flat and got a new pet but it isnt great

I hate WFH with a burning passion and im worried the world has accepted that as a new normal and im not okay with it

None of this shit is over yknow

Just a general hopelessness is the face of big world things yknow. Theres really nothing we can do about it, just gotta ride that wave and vote when ya can

No travel - I had such plans!!

Good shit

My new fur baby who I love and adore beyond sanity

Starting a good job in a great city with lovely people

Growing so much in confidence because Fuck it, everything is pointless anyway and theres no point in planning or caring so imma just do me

Exploring so much of who I am through new relationships, my own environment, little things like exploring my style, picking up old hobbies, trying new routines and habits

Strengthening some friendships and maintaining others despite the insane obstacles

Maintaining a positive relationship with My Mum in particular, and my whole family

Trying new things in my new city. Still managing nights out, a somewhat proper birthday and a short trip

No actual mental breakdowns which this year feels like a win. My mental health is actually in such a better place then it was this time last year. The job was killing me, thank fuck I got out when I did

I redid more then 1 30 day programs and did 2 straight months of weights

My family, friends and I are all safe and well

Music of the year:

Hamilton

An awful lot of Panic!

Anyone - DL

Partition (idk dont question me)

Basically alot of drama while trying to hold on to both my emo and club days - fuck I miss clubbing yall. I dont even like clubbing.

Media of the year:

I should acknowledge Shameless even though I came full circle on it and have now fully abandoned the whole thing and prefer my own AU where Milkoviches get what they deserve

Schitts Creek

Supernatural

Hamilton obvs

Marvel technically, it was alot of hours

Staged

Derry Girls

Pose

The Old Guard

Pride - which is not new but we watched it on Christmas eve and I cried in my mums lap okay

Ship of the year has to be Destiel I mean standing ovation for that rage inciting moment followed by a solid month of absolute chaotic good, it was glorious in its destruction.

2021 INTENTIONS TO FOLLOW

#new years #late as ever

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years

Text

How Japan Created the Modern American Bourbon Market

It was 1975 and bourbon sales in America were tanking. The brown spirit had hit its peak just five years earlier, selling some 80 million cases in 1970 — but it all went downhill from there.

Baby boomers coming of drinking age were rejecting the stuffy-seeming whiskey their parents drank, instead favoring beer, cheap wine, and, most especially, clear booze like vodka and tequila. The American whiskey industry was reeling and running out of ideas.

“This was a daunting task since the market was totally Scotch-taste oriented,” William Yuracko, then head of Schenley International’s export division, told the The New York Times in 1992. Japanese people mostly drank Scotch — the country had lifted all restrictions on imported spirits in 1969 — or their own homegrown whiskey, which was likewise based on a Scotch flavor profile. “Bourbon was unknown and a total departure from the taste pattern,” he wrote.

Remarkably, within a few short years, Yuracko (who would would become Schenley president from 1975 to 1984) and others would create a frenzy for bourbon in Japan. In fact, the country’s desire for very well-aged, high-proof, premium-packaged, limited editions and single-barrel bourbons helped Kentucky survive when the American bourbon market was dead as disco.

The U.S. would, in turn, follow Japan’s lead and, as the world entered a new millennium, start latching onto these trends and introducing products that helped revive America’s fervor for the once-humble spirit, ultimately and unwittingly turning it into something now rabidly pursued by connoisseurs the world over.

A Critical Mass of Bourbon

Yuracko first started taking reconnaissance trips to the Far East in 1972 and quickly realized that getting Scotch-swilling Japanese old-timers to switch to bourbon would be nearly impossible. He decided to instead focus his efforts on Japan’s youth, the “post-college consumer,” he told The Times, “whose tastes were not yet formed and who was attuned to Western products and ideas,” like Coca-Cola and Levi’s.

“They were having their own youth revolution, [like] what we had gone through in the ’60s they were going through in the 80s,” explains Chuck Cowdery, author and bourbon historian. “Rejecting their parents’ generation, including what their parents’ generation drank. They were open to trying something new.”

Enter bourbon. Then, as now, it was very hard for foreigners to make headway in Japanese business. Yuracko knew he’d need a local liaison, so he offered a distribution partnership with Suntory, the Japanese whiskey brand that already controlled 70 percent of the local market. Brown-Forman, another American whiskey powerhouse and Schenley’s best competitor, would eventually offer Suntory the same deal.

“I cannot overestimate the importance of the decision taken by Schenley management to place their most important brands in the same house with their major competitor,” Yuracko explained in a paper he wrote for the Journal of Business Strategy in 1992. “This would be tantamount to Ford and General Motors giving all their top models to Toyota to market in Japan.”

It was a major gamble for everyone involved. Suntory could, of course, intentionally torpedo all bourbon sales to assure Japanese whiskey would never again have a competitor; or it could favor one bourbon brand over the other. The fact was, however, neither Schenley nor Brown-Forman had much to lose. If they didn’t take the gamble, bourbon might not even exist by the end of the decade.

Suntory didn’t want to simply do a trial, either. According to Yuracko, Suntory wanted a “critical mass” of bourbon, “a product for every taste and price level … and each brand was given its own identity and market niche.” Schenley offered Suntory Ancient Age, J.W. Dant, and I.W. Harper. Brown-Forman handed over Early Times, Old Forester, and Jack Daniel’s.

Since most drinking in Japan was done outside of the home, Schenley and Brown-Forman together began setting up bourbon bars all over the country. The bars had “an unsophisticated atmosphere that would appeal to young people already attracted to American clothes, cars, and customs,” Yuracko explained, playing country music and serving American food like hamburgers and chili, and only pouring Suntory’s six bourbon brands.

Instead of buying single glasses of bourbon, young customers purchased bottles, stored in cabinets along the bars, each adorned with a neck tag denoting whose was whose. In an era before TikTok, it became a youthful challenge to see who could drink the most personal bottles. Thanks to heavy advertising from Suntory, one brand quickly began to rise above the others.

“I.W. Harper was the eye-opener,” explains Cowdery. A bottom-shelf product in America, it was naturally able to be sold at much higher prices in Japan, before Schenley eventually fully repositioned it as a premium, 12-year-old product. If it was only moving 2,000 cases internationally in 1969, I. W. Harper eventually became the largest-selling bourbon brand in Japan at more than 500,000 cases per year by 1991. Cowdery explains, “It was profitable to buy cases of I.W. Harper on [the American] wholesale market and privately ship them to Japan.”

Eventually, the U.S. had to take I.W. Harper off the market stateside in order to satisfy demand in Japan. Soon enough, other brands took notice and decided to see if they, too, could become “big in Japan.” By 1990, 2 million cases of bourbon were headed to the country every year.

More Brands Head to Japan

In a sleepy Osaka suburb, a three-story building that has been everything from a hotel to a brothel is now a bar styled like a western saloon. It serves American food like fried chicken, thumps Dylan and the Beatles on a vintage jukebox, and mixes up classic cocktails like the Mint Julep and another called the Scarlett O’Hara. This is Rogin’s Tavern in Moriguichi, a bourbon bar that opened in the 1970s that remains a shrine to Americana and its governmentally protected spirit, stocking more and arguably better bourbon than pretty much any single bar in America.

“I tasted my first bourbon in the basement bar of the Rihga Royal Hotel, a famous old place in Osaka,” claims Seiichiro Tatsumi, Rogin’s owner since 1977. He quickly became obsessed, reading everything he could about bourbon via literature provided by the American Cultural Center in Osaka. He finally visited Kentucky for the first time in 1984 and fell in love, driving its country roads, stopping at off-the-beaten path liquor stores, and acquiring numerous dusty bottles to bring back to Japan. He now owns a second home in Lexington.

Over the years, Tatsumi claims, he has probably “self-imported” some 5,000 bourbons from America back to his bar. “I stop at every place I pass, and I don’t just look on the shelves,” he says. “I ask the clerk to comb the cellar and check the storeroom for anything old. I can’t tell you how many cases of ancient bottles I’ve found that way.”

It wasn’t only Tatsumi. Japan gave these old bourbon brands a new lifeline. For example, Four Roses had long fallen out of favor with American drinkers by the 1970s. In 1967, Seagram’s turned the once-venerable brand into a dreaded blended whiskey, cut with grain neutral spirit and added flavoring.

“[B]y the time the ‘90s rolled around it was just an average blended whiskey,” the late Al Young, Four Roses’ former senior brand ambassador who worked at the company for 50 years, told VinePair contributor Nicholas Mancall-Bitel last year. But in Japan it was legitimate straight bourbon whiskey, packaged in sleek Cognac-style bottles with embossed silver roses, and it was a big hit. Just as Schenley and Brown-Forman had partnered with Suntory, in 1971 Four Roses struck up a partnership with Kirin, Japan’s top beer brand.

If brands like I.W. Harper, Four Roses, and Early Times were saved by Japan, others were specifically created for it. Blanton’s, for example, was spawned in 1984 by two former Fleischmann’s Distilling execs, Ferdie Falk and Bob Baranaskas. The two had acquired the Buffalo Trace distillery (then known as the George T. Stagg Distillery), as well as Schenley’s key bourbon, Ancient Age. Believing, like Yuracko, that the future of bourbon was overseas, they called their new company Age International.

“[T]he brand chased the profitable high-priced segment,” writes Fred Minnick in his book “Bourbon: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of an American Whiskey.” In this case, that meant introducing the world’s first commercial single-barrel bourbon, specifically designed for Japan, and packaged in a now iconic grenade-shaped, horse-stoppered bottle.

Blanton’s was such a hit in Japan that by 1992 Japanese company Takara Shuzo had purchased Age International for $20 million. It immediately flipped the actual distillery to Sazerac, while retaining the brand trademarks for Blanton’s.

Aged Bourbons Claim a Price

Accustomed to Scotch, once Japanese consumers “moved onto other types of whiskey, they already had these expectations built in for 12-, 15-, 18-year age statements,” explains John Rudd, an American who formerly lived in Japan and runs the Tokyo Bourbon Bible blog.

Bourbon in America had typically been released after about four years — it got too oaky if it aged much longer, it was believed at the time — and few consumers particularly cared about lofty age statements. Not so in Japan and, luckily, the glut in America allowed many bourbon distilleries to unload what they thought was over-aged junk.

“With a depressed market in America, lots of bourbon, especially extra-aged bourbon, was shipped to Japan where it could command a higher price,” Rudd says.

There was Very Old St. Nick, specially created in 1984 for the Japanese market, some as old as 25 years. There was Old Grommes Very Very Rare Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, which in the late 1980s started sending Japan bottles as old as two decades. A.H. Hirsch, aged 15, 16, and eventually 20 years, landed in Japan as early as 1989, and is still some of the most coveted bourbon of all time (so much so that Cowdery wrote an entire book about it).

Heaven Hill, today the largest family-owned and operated distillery in the U.S., specifically bottled an Evan Williams 23 for the Japanese market and created new brands like Martin Mills 24 Years.

“Japan considered bourbon a prestigious, highly coveted consumer good,” says Jimmy Russell, Wild Turkey’s master distiller who started visiting Japan in the 1980s. Every year he returned with special bottlings from his company, some as old as 13 years, a lofty age that never existed in America. “Back then, you’d see private bottle programs at prestigious bars where high-level executives would have their own bottles of bourbon designated ‘my bottle.’”

Rogin’s Tavern, for one, started tapping distilleries for its own private, cask-strength bottlings. Willett provided a 25-year-old labeled “Rogin’s Choice.” Julian Van Winkle III, scion of the soon-to-come Pappy dynasty, offered a 12-year bottling. Van Winkle III, in particular, kept his nascent company afloat in the mid-1980s and onward by providing special bottlings, many under a name you could easily now call the entire Japanese whiskey marketplace: Society of Bourbon Connoisseurs.

Van Winkle III first released Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve 20 Year in America in 1994; by the mid-2000s, Pappy had become the most coveted whiskey in the country, regularly selling for thousands of dollars per bottle.

“Bourbon became popular here [in America] again,” explains Rudd. “And people quit thinking it needed to be young.”

The American Bourbon Revival

America’s bourbon malaise would last nearly three decades, reaching its nadir in 2000, when a mere 32 million cases were moved stateside. Of course, it’s always darkest before the dawn, and, thanks to Japan’s example, things were already being put into place for bourbon’s homeland revival.

Like at Four Roses, where Jim Rutledge took over as master distiller in 1995 and made it his mission to get the company to start letting American consumers finally taste the high-quality bourbon Japan had been enjoying for decades. As Mancall-Bitel explained, however, “The bourbon was performing too well overseas and the company didn’t want to rock the boat — until it was rocked from within the company.”

Seagram’s collapsed and started selling off its assets. Rutledge convinced Kirin to buy Four Roses, and the eventual Japanese CEO, Teruyuki Daino, moved his offices from Tokyo back to the distillery in Lawrenceburg, Ky. By 2002, once again, Four Roses bourbon was sold in America. Today it’s one of the bourbon world’s most revered brands, introducing geek-friendly products like Single Barrel in 2004 and the Small Batch series in 2006.

Japan proved that well-aged, premium bourbon actually had a place in the world. Bourbon didn’t have to be Scotch’s economical, bottom-shelf brother. Blanton’s, when it was finally sold in America, was priced at $24 a bottle — then a massive price point — and was advertised in such upscale places as The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and Ivy League alumni mags. Around the same time, Japanese drinkers were gladly paying $115 per bottle.

Bourbon’s rebirth in America has caused many brands to pull back their products from the Japanese market and raise prices on the little still sent there. Japan’s taste for bourbon has dwindled. At the same time, American tourists were heading to Japan to clear shelves of old stock.

“It all corresponded with the American bourbon boom getting out of hand,” explains Rudd. He believes Japan is no longer the bourbon oasis that it once was, even as recently as 2014, when he lived near a liquor store that stocked rare bottles like Society of Bourbon Connoisseurs, gold wax A.H. Hirsch, Van Winkle 1974 Family Reserve 17 Year, and Buffalo Trace Antique Collection offerings from the early aughts.

Rudd says he’d buy a few bottles here and there, always resting assured that more would be there any time he returned. “Then one day, I went back to the store and nothing was left,” he says. “I asked the owner what happened and he told me, ‘Some American guy named Alex came by and purchased all of it.’”

The article How Japan Created the Modern American Bourbon Market appeared first on VinePair.

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