#kinda insane how friends on the internet care about me way more than my entire family | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hana · 1 year

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*sigh* i’m blogging

do you remember that tweet from 2020, or maybe 2016, that was like

“i don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people”

? i feel like’ve ricocheted off of an attempt to explain why one should care about others every 6 months, my entire adult life.

my pattern of approach has been to try reading some ethics text or another for a few weeks, with growing embarrassment about my search for a concrete answer to something that i should just fucking get (as a human, because it’s not something that needs to be proven to be done), until i finally surrender theory for a direct-action nonanswer like buying groceries for old people.

it’s honestly not hard to get it and just do it. i’m sure this feeling is part of why some people do crazy shit like eat vegan, volunteer at hospice facilities, or go to med school to work in the baby ER. i think leaving it unexplored is fine, possibly even better than fine, because it would really suck to discover something that puts you off altruism. but, like, how can one resist thinking about it?

personally, my “reaching” of “maturity” has been the result of haphazardly staking out social and ethical boundaries that align with “values” i’ve found, inherited, or inherited but thought i found (secret third type). when i demonstrated to myself that i could pick them up and move them with me, throughout different social contexts, like a crinoline defining the shape of my character, i actually did feel quite mature. but i’m actually hugely naive and toddler-like in almost every way, even those in which i feel accomplished.

i’m kinda old-ish now (some scoff, some nod as if i am brave), and i’m not so easily embarrassed by myself any more, which is the first blush of boomer ruin, so i was thinking i could write about what i think, as i think it, publicly, on the internet. it sounds fucking insane as i type it.

although i loved reading smart adult’s blogs in the early 2000s, it is my firm opinion that nobody should ever post. horrifyingly, some of my smartest friends do it now. if it’s my fate now, as an adult, to debase myself, why not do it up?

i’m tagging everything i post with #longspoon, so i can: a) easily delete it all when i get embarrassed or cancelled; b) (with hubris) tag it all for RSS; c) (hubris fading to trepidation) keep this blog organized if i ever post other types of things.

why “long spoon”?

before i explain this, i want to just say 2 things.

that i don’t buy “heaven” or “hell” as scenarios. i believe only hell is real, we are all living in it right now, and it’s actually not as bad as you hear (but it still sucks a lot).

that this will not be brief so take a bathroom break now.

ok, that said: the long spoon thing is an allegory/parable/nugget of story-wisdom in many cultures around the world. see this chicago tribune headline:

not the onion.

there isn’t a single parable-form telling of it online that doesn’t reek of clinically uncool self-help language. here’s my version:

basically, imagine a banquet table laid with the most succulent soup-feast imaginable. we’re talking stew, soup dumplings, matzo ball soup, pot pie filling, everything good and hot you can eat with a spoon. but the people seated at this banquet are gaunt and starving. they are unable to eat the soup, because the spoons they’ve been given are too long to reach to their own mouths.

here you might ask, “why not simply choke up on the spoon handle so it functions as a shorter one?” shut up, and get out of my temple, that’s why! for some reason they cannot do that. neither can they reach the soup with their bare hands, or faces. maybe they get a few bites that way, but it doesn’t really work to nourish them.

“but why do they have these impractical spoons?” here is the moment where jesus or buddha or lord siddhartha twists his nasty little face into a grinch smile because you’ve asked him just the question he was hoping for. the spoons are not supposed to be used for feeding oneself. they aren’t meant to be used that way. in the 90s, don norman would have passed by and pointed out that the spoon’s long handle is clearly an affordance which telegraphs its purpose*. (nowadays he is either cancelled or explaining that it is actually called a signifier and an affordance is something else, thus justifying his book’s sustained $30 price tag.)

the guests at this banquet are too fucking selfish and hangry to read affordances. they do not understand that they are meant to use their long-handled spoons to feed the person across the table from them, who in turn is meant to feed them. i don’t think anyone is seated at the head or foot of the table. if so, they have extra special long spoon handles which are arched in some manner. this is not a fun banquet.

sometimes, in the parable version, the prophet and the idiot do a drive-by of a similar banquet where everyone’s actually having a great time and eating their fill because they figured out how to use the spoons. obviously that’s meant to be heaven, the one i described above is hell, and bill engvall goes “here’s your sign.”

for our purposes, we’re gonna stay away from that. i don’t think the heavenly version of the banquet exists. it’s more an architectural rendering of how a long-utensil-style banquet could potentially work, given enough budget.

i am naming these posts after the long spoon because, although i endeavor to pick the long spoon up and carry a precarious sip of soup to the lips of my fellow man, i recognize that in my human condition i am probably too stupid to use it right. i think about this often, and i wish to think about it more deeply, so i will write to pursue that wish.

#longspoon

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gamerwoo · 4 years

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[The Pack Next Door] Mingi: Friends with Benefits (Part One)

(photo edit courtesy of @songmingki)

Characters: Mingi x female reader

Genre/warnings: werewolf au, fwb au, friends to lovers au, fluff, a lil bit of angst but it’s so tiny it’s fine

Word count: 1,774

Summary: Growing up, you and Mingi were inseparable. You’d been friends your entire life and, as far as you knew, things were never any different. But what you don’t know is that Mingi imprinted on you when he was 15 and first turned into a werewolf, and he had been trying to keep it a secret ever since. And with the awful timing of mating season, he’s hoping he can somehow keep the facade up.

a/n: so reader is written to be taller and to be not straight soooooo yeah just a heads up lmao

Tags: @sakura-uji @xummie

Next | Friends with Benefits Masterlist

By far, Mingi was the first in his pack to imprint. Hell, he imprinted before he even found his pack. And he couldn’t tell if it was insanely good luck or absolutely shitty luck that his mate was right by his side the whole time.

You had known Mingi since you could remember. He lived across the street from you when you were both growing up, and you would often go outside to play with him. Your parents and his parents basically raised you together as friends, and you were inseparable ever since. You couldn’t even remember a time you didn’t know Mingi.

It was no surprise you grew up to be more of a ‘one of the boys’ type person. You tagged along with Mingi all throughout elementary school and most of middle school. His friends were your friends, and vice versa. Really, the only time you weren’t with him was when you both decided to go out for the soccer team, and you found out that there were separate teams for boys and girls -- you stuck with the sport while Mingi quit after one season because he was only put on the team because they needed the numbers.

It was middle school that your parents were betting you and Mingi would become sweethearts because it was around that time that kids started realizing that the other gender wasn’t so awful. People your age were bragging about holding hands and having their first kisses, and you were too busy kicking Mingi’s ass at soccer to really pay much attention to any of that. But Mingi was starting to get pressured by some of the guys he was friends with at the time because he was the only one of them who hadn’t kissed a girl yet.

“What?” you snorted when he told you. “That’s a dumb thing to be worried about.”

“Aren’t you?” he wondered, sitting in the grass beside you at the edge of the soccer field.

“No,” you shrugged. “Well...I mean, some of the girls have been being kinda mean lately and saying it’ll never happen.”

“Why?”

“I’m not girly.”

Mingi nodded. He already knew there were some girls who picked on you for being more masculine sometimes -- you didn’t get into makeup when everyone did, you didn’t dress in the same clothing that was considered ‘trendy’ or whatever, and you had more male friends than female friends. It was something he thought was stupid to get teased for, but both of you knew you couldn’t do much about it. You’d come to terms with the fact that means girls were just mean girls for no reason. Besides, what did you care what they thought?

Mingi stared at his knees as he thought. He was a little unsure of the idea that popped into his head, but he knew he could say anything to you and you wouldn’t think any differently of him.

“Well...” he began slowly, unable to look at you because of the blush that was suddenly rushing to his cheeks, “we could always...kiss each other...?”

You whipped your head around to look at him, “What?”

“What?” he asked defensively, squinting against the sun to finally look at you. “It was just a suggestion!”

You shoved at his leg before pushing yourself to get up from the grass, “You’re my best friend, though. That would be weird.”

“Yeah, but people would leave us alone.”

“But you also told Jaehyun before that you’d rather lick the bathroom floor than kiss me.”

“Yeah, but people would leave us alone.”

You scoffed, shaking your head, “Look, if your friends are bothering you that much, why don’t you ask Kim Naeun to kiss you? She has a crush on you.”

That definitely got him to brighten up, “She does?!”

But of course, it didn’t last. And neither did the teasing. By the time you were in high school, you had changed a little, those around you had grown up a lot, and feelings had changed -- specifically when Mingi turned 15.

You were still into soccer and you were still a tomboy, but you had also decided you liked wearing eyeliner. You typically dressed in ripped jeans and beanies, but you now wore those clothes to fit your body better rather than choosing the baggiest clothing you could find. And at first, Mingi thought maybe that was the reason he was slowly starting to see you in a different light. And maybe that was it at first. But while things were a little different for you, they were really different for him.

It was some random day freshman year that Mingi shifted. The problem was that his pack was nowhere near close to finding him, and Mingi was also somewhat of an ‘early bloomer’ since most werewolves didn’t first shift until they were 16. So Mingi was left to his own devices to figure out how to calm himself down enough to shift back, and then get some answers.

He was missing for four days. Search parties were out looking for him, you were spamming his phone and every form of social media he had, and his parents across the street had never been so distressed. It was the first time ever that you didn’t have Mingi by your side, and truthfully, you were lost.

But then you got a call that he was back, and you told his parents you’d be right there. You ditched school and ran all the way to his house, knocking on the door and practically bouncing on the balls of your feet as you waited for someone to open the door.

And there was Mingi.

As soon as his eyes landed on you, he felt the imprinting pull hit him like a truck. He’d never felt anything more than platonically for you -- well, other than the fact he might’ve been physically attracted to you before everything happened -- so the fact he suddenly felt this overwhelming romantic love for you was almost scary to him. It was like the world stopped and he gained tunnel vision where he only saw you. He wasn’t sure what it was, either, but he assumed it had something to do with whatever the hell was happening to him.

What he didn’t know was that you felt it, too. You just felt it at a smaller scale than he did. And maybe that was why tears welled in your eyes when you looked at him, because you were hit with how much you loved and cared for him, and you threw your arms around him and yelled at him to never scare you like that again.

And as he hesitantly and shakily put his arms around you, he mumbled, “I promise.”

Of course, Mingi did manage to find out he was a werewolf thanks to the internet. The websites he found seemed to be run by crazy people, only for him to realize that everything they said was true for him, at least. So when he read what imprinting was and what it meant, he realized that meant you were his soulmate; you were the person he was destined to spend the rest of his life with. And that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, there was just one teeny tiny issue...

You had a girlfriend now.

The summer between eighth grade and freshman year, you were a little confused about your sexuality and decided to explore some things. Ultimately, at the beginning of freshman year, you began dating a girl named Song Daehee who even Mingi got along really well with. So he couldn’t even be mad at your girlfriend for the situation because he liked her. The only thing he could be mad at was fate. But he knew you were meant to be with him, so he knew if he waited, you would come to him. So he waited.

And waited.

By the time you and Daehee broke up, you were already in college and he had found his pack -- who he introduced to you as his new friends from college, and you thought they were hilarious. And during that time that he was waiting, he had’t even told you what he really was. He never explained what happened when he ran away when he was fifteen, and he told his pack they couldn’t tell you anything, either.

“But she’s your best friend,” San had stated when Mingi first told them -- despite not being the youngest, he was the last to be added to the pack. “Why wouldn’t you want to tell her?”

“Do you tell all of your friends?” he quipped.

“But she’s your mate,” Seonghwa pointed out.

Honestly, at this point, it seemed too late to tell you. It had been so long since he ran away before that he wasn’t sure when or how to tell you now. He’d known for so long, so wouldn’t you be mad that he never told you? Not only that, but would you think any less of him? He was never afraid to say anything to you, but now he was so unsure of everything. He was some mythical monster now.

That fear hung onto him all the way up until now. The two of you were still friends, he was still tall, and while you didn’t play soccer for school anymore, it was something the two of you still often did in his backyard despite the fact he never got any better than he did in sixth grade. You were taller, you still never wore skirts or dresses, and you had perfected your eyeliner technique but didn’t really wear any more makeup than you used to.

And still, from that day he came home when he was 15, Mingi seemed to fall more and more in love with you. He loved how you always wore backwards baseball caps, and how you still made strange decisions without completely thinking them through -- like when you shaved half your head before high school graduation, or when you got your tongue pierced just to take the piercing out a week later because it gave you a lisp. He loved how you had slowly found yourself and he had gotten to see all of it ever since you two were kids. He loved how you were unapologetically yourself, and he loved that he had you as his best friend even if sometimes that hurt him.

What he didn’t really love, though, was that after all these years of loving you, you were still oblivious to everything.

So some things had changed, but most things hadn’t.

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badboyfriends · 4 years

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I love the dream smp, i watch all the perspectives like i do with the hermits... its just.. i cant bring myself to watch George, i mean i like him i do! It’s just.. he’s really bland and kinda boring to me

I’m glad I waited until today to post this, after a conversation I had earlier. But I... Full-heartedly agree

First off though? You’re INSANE how on earth do you manage to?? watch?? Dream SMP from all perspectives????

Wilbur’s alone is 26 hours worth of content. TOMMY’S HAD OVER 6 DAYS OF STREAMS. It would take Six days, back-to-back, to watch his stream. and now it’s probably at 7 days, because I did that math last month.

But onto the main point of your ask. George is... yeah. Now that I’ve found Sleepy Boi’s, Dream Team has kinda fell on the burner for me.

I love Sapnap, he’s chaotic and energetic and full of dumbassery. He’s skilled at PvP and enjoyable to watch.

Dream’s a skilled player and engaging to watch. He’s got an iconic laugh, and just generally a personality easy enough to watch, most days.

But?? George??? I don’t know. He’s fine. He’s?? cute??? but that’s like. the thing he’s got going for him. I like his voice, and I think he’s pretty good at the game. But most times he doesn't seem interested in what he’s playing.

This got long,, so for an explanation of my thought process and in-depth feelings on George and his relationship with his career, read more. Includes some major speculation and critic of his internet personality.

The thing that really.. kinda pushed me away from George, was what i realized seeing his reaction to the original Warriors animatic. He didn’t remember any of the important scenes he was in- he looked confused, and like he didn’t have a clue what was going on. He was there and he just.. didn’t remember shit. He might as well have been a complete outsider, watching it.

Legitimately it feels like?? George is just so completely uninterested in what he does. He missed the election. He missed the Festiva. He forgets what storylines he’s been apart of- and of what he’s involved in!

I actually have a memory disorder. i didn’t even know my own birthday, or days of the week until i was 12.

Even with that, I could sit there and tell you the entire plotline of an eight-hour-long roleplay from four years ago on Roblox. and... George??? isn’t invested enough to show up, or remember anything he did, or promised, or was promised, in Dream SMP.

If George just wasn’t interested in the roleplay aspect, and wanted to play casually on the server, that’s more than okay and chill. But no, he keeps siding himself with one part of it, agreeing to become what WOULD be a big important role. He then doesn’t show up, or remember jackshit about it.

If I’m being completely honest, I feel as if he’s the same way with content making. This is where I feel i’m getting into controversial take territory- if I weren’t there already- but if it wasn’t for Dream, and the influence, attention, and monetary gain brought from him- I don’t think George would be on YouTube.

George’s videos are fine. I watch them. But it’s never George that makes them enjoyable. They truly feel like just.. additional content for Dream fans.

While I full-heartedly believe Sapnap has the personality to hold his own on the platform without the contribution of attention brought to him by Dream, I don’t think George could say that.

You never really get to see George’s personality. George doesn’t do much. He’s there, sometimes making snide remarks, going along with what’s happening. but he doesn’t care, or remember, or interested in it at all.

Remember the Pizza Hut vlog? Yeah. That was George, meeting a friend. We don’t need to see it. He doesn’t owe fans anything. but instead of outright saying hey this isn’t gonna be posted, or hey this is happening i’m just not happy with how my editing on it’s been, he just isn’t doing anything.

My thoughts on why that might be? Because George doesn’t know how to edit the vlog in a way the fans would expect from him. His Minecraft videos follow traditionally the same style as any of Dream’s videos. but he’s with Wilbur, and it’s a vlog. And he doesn’t know what to do with that. That’s what my opinion is, pure speculation of bits and pieces I saw from Twitter.

I’ve seen the posts from George stans. I’ve seen the.. extremists, who take their fave cc’s and talk/treat them incredibly uncomfortably. And I’ve seen people who think that somehow, George can/should rise above, both Dream and Sapnap. And I don’t think that’s gonna happen, not ever.

Maybe George does have some big passion for video-editing and YouTube, but I certainly don’t see it in his general attitude, behavior, and the way he engages with his audience.

He doesn’t seem interested in having a relationship with boundaries and in-jokes, or making original and engaging content to obtain his own fanbase. He doesn’t portray a personality that can hold it’s own.

I think he’s here because he gets attention, and because he wants the money. and I don’t think that’s anything wrong. I’m not here calling him selfish or whatever else- I think he’s there for monetary gain, and that it’s fine. Because you have to make a living somehow. But he’s so set on being unproblematic, and following what’s expected or asked of him.

George doesn’t want to be left behind by Sapnap and Dream. He knows that he’s made a name for himself, just by who he’s friends with.

He wants to make that into something, into something stable. But he’s doing that by making more videos of him with them. He’s not taking that, and using it to his own platform, like he could.

He’s not a super-talented and invested player, given his chance to shine. He’s a skinny, white, British boy with a silly laugh and passive enough to either not care- or be oblivious of- the fact that he’s essentially being fetishized as gay, and that’s what’s giving him a career & platform.

George is fine. I don’t have a problem with I'm. I don’t love him, but I watch him. I hope I’m wrong, but, I don’t think he’s on the platform for the longterm.

#PROBABLY BAD TAKE #seriously i won't die on this grave but also....man #mika-posts #discourse #just incase but like???#idk #dream team discourse #mcyt discourse #mcyt rant

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spectrumed · 3 years

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3. sadness

Don’t be like that. Be like this, or be that other thing. Be unique, but don’t be too unique. Fit in, but try to be a rebel. Be a renegade, but don’t rock the boat. Don’t know what you are supposed to be? What? Do you have imposter syndrome or something? Just be yourself, but, y’know, sand down the edges a little bit. Be friendlier. Be the kind of person everyone likes. Be the life of the party! Don’t be some shut-in, some crazy cat-lady with absolutely zero social life. Don’t be sad. Don’t burden others with your sadness. Work to maximise the total happiness of your community. A smile goes a long way. Can’t smile? You really can’t help but being a sourpuss all the time? Well, I guess maybe that if you can’t help but stay in a perpetual bad mood bringing everyone else down… then maybe you should just stay isolated? Better stay alone, away from others. You’re toxic. You’re just so damned sad. You really must be quarantined.

I am sad, a lot of the time. Are you? But, no, you can’t just admit that you are sad. Don’t be a buzzkill, try to inject a little humour into the things you say. You can admit you’re depressed, if you do so with a joke. Don’t let others know you’re being sincere. Ironic jokes work the best, don’t they? They let you confess your secret gloom to everyone around, but they’ll never know just how serious you’re being. With a wink of the eye, any candid expression of your inner turmoil can become a hilarious post-modern gag. Are they or are they not telling the truth? Oh, I’ll never tell! And it will all work out excellent, up until the day you commit suicide. But every comedian’s time in the limelight has to end at some point, right?

This blog is supposed to be about autism spectrum disorder, why am I suddenly discussing depression? Well, I suppose that it is time we bring to the table this little thing called comorbidity. Psychology is messy. Some would argue that it is barely even a real scientific field (I tend to think that it is the best thing we have, but I acknowledge that in places, psychology is fundamentally flawed.) You may have thought that you’d get just one diagnosis. One simple label that you can work through and overcome. You’re bipolar, now go deal with it! But instead, you find yourself with a whole fistful of diagnoses. What to hear my proud list of diagnoses? Oh, please, don’t think because I am listing them this one certain way, I put them in order of relevancy to me. I love all of my diagnoses equally.

My diagnoses are:

Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD)

Agoraphobia

Possible Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Asperger syndrome (AS)

No, I was never officially diagnosed with depression, but largely because, at the time I received these diagnoses, my depression was so blatant that it felt as if I was walking around with a cloud of miasma surrounding at all times. Imagine me as Pig-Pen from Peanuts, but instead of being covered in dirt, I was covered in the funk of melancholy. And whatever treatment I would eventually go on to receive (and still am receiving to this day,) would go about treating my anxiety first, and hopefully, the depression would give in alongside the anxiety. It has, for the most part, though, I still feel the presence of that black dog from time to time. I also got only a half-hearted potential diagnosis of OCD, but later, during a trial of an antidepressant that had a freakishly negative impact on my psyche, it blossomed into a fully-grown attention-craving condition. Turns out that OCD can be a real hog for the spotlight, really not allowing any of the other diagnoses to take their turn on stage. Thankfully, when I got off that particular antidepressant, those symptoms stopped, but it has led me to be far more aware of my internal obsessive-compulsive thought patterns. For me, OCD largely lacks physical compulsions, but my mind is ablaze with intrusive thoughts, and I will routinely force myself to repeat certain phrases in my head to make them go away. The funny thing is, I never realised that wasn’t normal.

Diagnoses are an attempt to map out a spiders’ web of problems. Things come hand in hand. While I’m no psychologist, I can speak from the perspective of someone who has been through the psychiatric process, which I suppose, lends me a certain kind of expertise, doesn’t it? Maybe it really doesn’t. Maybe I’m just throwing words out there, thinking that I could serve a good purpose, but instead all I am doing is contributing to this great onslaught of digital disinformation we’re all suffering under. But I’m probably just too doubtful of myself. I am speaking about myself, after all. I’ve got first-hand experience in being myself. I know exactly what it feels like to own this skin, these bones, this heart, and this mushy brain of mine. I’m not claiming to know everything. I’m just claiming to know about this one sad individual writing this hoping it might allow someone to reblog my posts with the hashtag “relatable” one day.

Anxiety runs in my family. The neurosis demon gets passed down from generation to generation, only occasionally skipping a beat. My mother and I share many of the same neurotic quirks, though, she has for the most part of her life not had it to quite the excessive degree that I have it. I really took that genetic predisposition for anxiety and ran with it. And while I’m the only person in my family to have gotten diagnosed as being “on the spectrum,” there are a few members that I kinda sort of in a way actually quite seriously suspect might also be here somewhere on the spectrum. Still, as always goes with diagnosing, there’s no point in doing it unless the person is in need of some kind of treatment. I wholeheartedly believe that most people on the planet belong to one spectrum, be it an autism spectrum, a bipolar spectrum, a narcissism spectrum, even a schizophrenic spectrum, but diagnoses should be exclusively reserved for those who need psychiatric care. The world is a spectrum, and it’s worth noting that the terms “sane” and “insane” do not alone capture the complexity of the human psyche. A person can appear perfectly sensible, yet at some point in their life, they may have been a real silly little bugger who thought that their pet hamster was the reincarnation of the Buddha. Just as with physical health, one can struggle with one's mental health for one period in their life, only to later on in life feel utterly and entirely mentally healthy. Or, well, sadly in a lot of cases, people who were perfectly mentally healthy may suddenly become diagnosed with dementia. But that’s really sad, so let’s not talk about that.

Is it all genetic? Well, no. Or well, maybe? In regards to autism, I am pretty sure that, yes, it is genetic. While, yes, I do admit that I’m just a dummy on the internet, so what do I really know? And the brain is such a complex bit of mushy meat, so I could always be proven wrong. Though, I tend towards thinking that there most likely is principally a genetic factor to conditions like autism, or attention deficit disorder (and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,) or things like bipolar disorder. But with anxiety, quite frankly, I can’t say how much of it is nurture and how much of it is nature. I mentioned that my mother and I share many of the same neurotic quirks, so that would imply that there is something in one's genes that can make some more prone to anxiety than others, but my mother does not struggle with agoraphobia, nor does she seem to have any obsessive-compulsive tendencies. In fact, in my family, even those that exhibit some element of heightened anxiety, they don’t seem to show any milder symptoms of this kind. I can’t help but feel as if these conditions I gained through that tortuous period of every boy’s and girl’s (and boy-girl’s) life is called puberty. I hate to conform to stereotypes but I did indeed hate being a teenager. Believe it or not, I wasn’t a jock, and no, I didn’t go to parties. I mostly spent my time crying.

The question that no doubt plagues every movie psychiatrist to no end is what kind of trauma must a person undergo to make them go mad? Abusive parents? Abusive uncles? Abusive teachers? Abusive dogs? Honestly, to be an adult raising a child must be rough, considering how any mistake you make might suddenly turn your little babe into a future serial killer. Now, there’s no doubt that there are some seriously terrible parents out there, and that a lot of people have mental woes that definitely came about due to their parents and their abysmal lack of parental care. But generally, how much can you actually blame on your parents? We know the cliché, let’s go sit down on the sofa and complain to our Freudian hack-shrink all about those times as a kid our dad missed the big game, or that time our mother embarrassed us in front of all of our friends. I have plenty of things to complain about my parents, like I believe we all have. Our parents are flawed, messy human beings, of course they occasionally made mistakes throughout our upbringings. But is that nearly enough to turn a person mentally ill? Putting up with an at times really embarrassing mom? No, I don’t think so. And of course, there are some real awful parents out there, I’m not doubting that. Trust me, I’m a fan of true crime, so I’ve heard some real grizzly stories of what some kids are forced to grow up with. But I am thinking that those instances are more rare than they are common. Most people with mental illnesses can most likely not blame their parents.

How ‘bout bullies? Yes, them bullies. Them awful mean bullies that made all of our lives so painful. It’s funny, it seems like every school had their own fair share of bullies, and yet no-one as an adult ever comes forward to admit that they themselves were the bullies. It’s almost like as if no-one ever thinks of themselves as being a bully, even when they are throwing rocks at that weird chubby kid with blonde hair who happens to be named Fredrik and who just wants to be left alone. Was I bullied? Well… yes. But I can’t say I got the brunt of it. I got bullied, but overall I’d say I only ever had it slightly worse than most people. I was still quite tall, typically taller than my classmates growing up, and for the most part I could roll with the punches. If you really want to talk about a kid I knew growing up that got bullied, let me tell you about this kid who knew all the right dances for all the right Britney Spears songs. He was gay, I think. Not quite old enough to have come out, I suspect, but, well... He liked all the female pop stars, but not in that way of wanting to kiss them and fondle their boobies, but in the “I want to sound just like them when I grow up” sort of way. I don’t know what happened to him (or them, or her, depending on how they identify now,) but that was real bullying. Like most folks, I found myself stuck in that limbo of seeing others get bullied far worse than me and being too cowardly to intervene, in fears that I’d end up taking their place. Yes, isn’t school just a marvellous place? It’s a wonder any of us turn out okay.

No, I think that, fundamentally, the problems I have arose with myself. This, blaming myself, is not something that I am unused to doing. I have a long history of blaming myself, that’s really the problem. As a teenager I knew that I was different, and I was frightened and scared of being exposed. I didn’t even really know what it was that was different about me, I just knew that I didn’t fit in. I felt as if I didn’t deserve to fit in. The older I got, the more intense these feelings got. And I started taking it out on myself. I started hating myself. And I really mean furiously hating myself. It wasn’t some casual self-loathing, it was searing self-hatred. I did not physically hurt myself, but I did engage with self-harm. I kept repeating the mantras of “I hate myself,” and “I am pathetic,” over and over again, with the ultimate goal of making myself cry. For a period, I couldn’t go to bed without making myself cry first. I began taking days off from school, pretending to be sick. Well, I suppose I was ill, but not physically. I began failing most of my classes, I only ended up doing well in art. I stayed away from school for whole weeks at the time. Once, when I shame-facedly returned to school some of the meaner boys came up to me and said that they were surprised to learn that I was still alive. They were surprised, but also a little disappointed.

This was a time in my life when I really needed psychiatric care. This became increasingly obvious to my parents, and my teachers. I was clearly suffering from depression. Not just some teenaged angst, but full-blown, wholly insidious, depression. But, well, I didn’t get the care that I needed. Oh, I did go to see a psychologist a couple of times, but she saw no reason for me to continue seeing her. I don’t know why she felt as if I wasn’t in need of help, frankly, I can’t fathom why she felt as if I wasn’t in need of help. I suppose I avoided telling her the truth of what went on inside of my head, but I feel like as if any good psychologist would have been able to tell that the kid sitting across from them was clearly suffering from something a tad more intense than just some common concerns about puberty. At most I was able to confess was that I was feeling ashamed over myself for getting so fat, but it should have been clear to anybody that I was only using that as a hook to hang my self-hatred on. There very clearly was some underlying condition that I had that should have gotten addressed. But it went ignored.

At most I can think to explain this is the fact that I wasn’t “problematic.” Not in the way some kids are, when they’re struggling with their mental health. I did not act out, I did not take drugs, and I was certainly not violent. Even to this day, though I have at many times suffered from suicidal ideation, I am a real low-risk for actual suicide considering my intense fear of dying (yes, that’s an odd combo to have.) So, I’ve come to realise that the only way I am getting treatment is if I actually seek out treatment. And back then, I was just as placid as I had previously always been. I was quiet and introverted, just desperate to get back home so I could go and hide in my room. Many teenagers are like that. And it is easy to ignore them, because they want to be ignored. They just don’t want to exist. When you are desperate to be left alone, eventually people will leave you alone. I would go on to receive psychiatric care later on my life, but only after several years passed. I did have a better time living in my later teenage years, but like with a bone that heals wrong, I needed someone to come in and sort me out. I was sad as a teenager, but I would become really sad as a twenty-something. Hopefully my thirties will be jolly.

#neurodiversity #neurodivergent #autism spectrum disorder #autism #aspergers #mental health

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botwstoriesandsuch · 3 years

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casual anon checkup how you doin

Let’s see, well we just breached 4am, and the sense of urgency to complete some school work has finally kicked in. I got my laptop propped up on the kitchen counter, and I just finished making some houseblend coffee that I loaded with milo powder for “health” purposes. Gotta finish up this AP Stat quiz while pretending I have some semblance of what the hell is going on in the class that I don’t pay attention to. I got my fancy bluetooth headphones that I connect with the wire anyway because I don’t like using up the battery, and I’ve had this acoustic cover of Solitary Warrior Revali looped for a few minutes now--I need those soft vibes to distract me from my thoughts about how the only reason I’ve been so sluggish with my work overall is probably due to years of ingrained perfectionism and inability to adapt my standards to the currently circumstances of the world along with my slightly declining mental health so you know--music’s nice.

Oh! And my dad got me this electric coaster (as pretentious as that sounds, I know. Leave me and my not-cold drinks alone ok) for the holidays and it matches with my favourite mug that I’m drinking from right now so, it’s the little things :3 Plus, not to derail myself from my school life intentionally, I’ve been working on this sheet music for one of my songs for a few weeks now and it’s starting to actually sounds pretty decent so yaay!! Probably won’t share it for a long time though...I’ve really been only working on it on and off again when I have “free time” [which may or may not just be my online class gym period hey you can’t prove anything to the cops]

Uhhh what else can I shove in here...”How you doin” pfft, I don’t really know how to make this ask funny or entertaining. Well I’ve nearly finished up this zine piece about the Royal Tech Lab so that’s fun (shameless plug for the Memorabillia Zine) aaand, I’m picking my kalimba again to learn Mipha’s theme. About time, cause I have to record shit for the [REDACTED] project I’m working on >:) heh. Oh fucking SHIT now that I think about it I have like three different secret projects I’m working on huh...haven’t even finish the script for that damn au...OK what it, right, “how am I doing” well, I’m doing everything and nothing currently, if that makes any sense. Your possible regrets about sending this to me aside, it feels good to just lay everything on a plate, shit out a post, and then never talk or acknowledge it ever again. It’s like birds, you know how they just take a ten pound shit in the mourning and never look back? (That way they don’t need to go during the rest of the day) That’s what this is, just a giant load of bullshit that I’m gonna set out at 5am and then never look at again.

You know as unhealthy as it sounds I really do dedicate a lot of time to this blog and this fandom. I mean sure not all of it (arguably any of it) is productive, but hey it’s something. The fuck else am I gonna do with my time...you wake up, you slam your keyboard awake to show up to online class, you take a nap, you spend a few hours keeping up the cishetallo gifted student appearance to your parents and then spend the rest of your time finding enough serotonin on the internet to make your brain work. Hell if I’ve talked to another human being in real life all year. Even my parents just kinda talk about the news and “how was class” during dinner which lasts like 10 minutes. My dad just kinda pisses off to work as soon as breakfast is made, and my mom just kinda stays in her office until everyone’s back and she makes dinner. Wait, that’s a lie, she does talk to me on Sunday mornings when she informs me of how I’ve ruined her day before church. So you know I do prefer it that way anyhow, why the hell would I want to talk with them when I got perfectly entertaining internet companions. What’s a “what scholarship programs are you doing?” to a *checks notifications*, “why are Rito fingers like that if they molt to they just lose the ability to--” god fucking dammit...

So! What were we saying--how am I doing? Welp. Guess it’s up for interpretation cause I sure as hell don’t know the answer to that. The hell would you do with the answer anyway. Pity points, praise points? I don’t particularly care for either. God I just realized you introduced yourself as “casual anon,” HA....apologies this is the opposite of casual isn’t it. Or, well maybe it isn’t. I’m the one just having a nice little chitchat with myself as I sip through my mug o’ caffeine. I might have to add a keep reading bar to this so I don’t blog up the dash, but also that would be ironically humorous to see for such a stupidly small question huh. Idk, contrary to popular belief I don’t have a spine so I’m probably not gonna unload all this shit on my followers like that out of the blue. Hell I’d be surprised if I actually posted this. Then again...5am and vibin with bad decision making.....plus the sentiment of putting something out to be seen is always nice.

You ever watch Bojack Horseman? Fantastic show, it’s just on a whole ‘nother level when it comes to writing. And yeah, I probably should have been watching it in the first place, BUT.............yeah ok there’s real excuse I probably shouldn’t be watching it/have watched it. But there’s this one episode in Season 4 I think? It’s where Bojack gives a eulogy for his mother’s funeral and the entire episode is just that, it’s just this giant monologue of him giving his eulogy. And that episode always facinated me because it is probably the most interesting episode in the entire show and one of my favourites, and like...how did they do that?? How did they make twenty minutes of talking so engaging and entertaining? I mean, yeah, I could probably analyze the pacing and structure to find the answer, and hell if I’ve watch my share of youtube video essays on the subject. But like, just the entire concept that someone had the idea to make 20 minutes of talking an entire episode....that’s just insane (forgive the language).

It’s one thing to want to talk about yourself for a long time and be interesting, but to pour all kinds of energy to make some made-up fictional character talk about THEMselves for a long period of time...is that sad? Or maybe it’s respectable. /to make an audience care more about something that’s not real rather than you. Well, perhaps that’s selfish thinking.

Oh! You know what, I just got this super nice message from someone the other day about a Raybands giveaway. Obviously, I’m not in the need for sunglasses during this day and age so I kindly declined and ignore the offer, but it got me thinking: how liked to you have to be in order to sway someone to clicking a random link. Like I’m talking about your friends or something, but like, if you opened your door oneday and Mr. Rogers was there selling clementines, would you buy them? Or if Lin Manuel Miranda offered you a vaccum, would you buy it? What’s the standard of known niceness that constitutes to you complying with what they’re asking? I sure would like to know....not for manipulation purposes but just for...idk, just having that tangibility of something.

Ah well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw how am i doing. Well I’ll tell you what I’m doing, I’m procrastinating. Procrastinating on work and wips and conversations and dilemmas. You don’t fail all the shots you don’t take afterall *wink wink* aaand for legal reasons that was a joke. Idk, you tell me how I’m doing, fuck if I know. According to this empty mug, I’m doing well, but I also will be doing a piss in the bathroom probably.

#not botw #rant #or vent #idfk #it's weird #i guess it's ok to rb tho sldkfj #god fuck me and my pretentious ass I really did write more than two paragraphs for this huh

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zirkkun · 3 years

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you don't have to post this if you don't want, i just wanted to let you know I support you. maybe I'm just not in the right headspace to understand, but i truly don't get the mentality that you not wanting to create 18+ content for an au you love, even one that's specifically 18+, is somehow censuring. you are the owner of your blog and you create for you and how you're comfortable doing it? just because you personally aren't publicly making nsfw content doesn't mean other people can't/you don't like them. the only thing I sorta understand is the name thing and how, out of context, it could seem you weren't happy with the original, but even then that's a valid perspective. not everybody has to like an AU, and if someone wants to do their own version there is literally no excuse for sending them hate. this is a fandom of AUs and derivative content, to get mad at someone else for following suit is hypocritical. you aren't in the wrong here, and the people spreading misinformation about you with the intention to hurt (even if they feel thReAtEnED by your PERSONAL AU INTERPRETATION THAT RHEY ARE FREE TO CURATE OUT OF THEIR FEED SHOULD THEY NOT LIKE IT ...) are absolutely being horrendous. I'm here for you if you wanna talk, you can DM on discord or here. I hope you're okay.

I mean, in a way I can understand taking it as censoring, especially after talking to a few people about it directly, since it was a bit of a combination between both the interpretation of the name misunderstanding as well as ULR not being 18+ leading to the conclusion that it was censoring Underlust. But after I explained it, the couple of people who approached me about that specific issue understood pretty quickly, too.

And, in all honesty, if I don't really like something, I wouldn't go through the effort of trying to make anything based off of it. The closest example that I can think of where I did something akin to that is when I once tried like, writing an AU for Fire Emblem Fates, because I love the concept of the games, but thought the execution couldn't have been worse. (I've done insane amounts of research on how it truly was so bad, and honestly, the dev team was a complete mess, so I don't really blame them for how it turned out despite them being the ones that made it lol. They barely could come to a midway point for it, so the fact they released it was a miracle.) Sure, there's points of Underlust I don't like, but as I've said before I could say that about everything I like. Except maybe Promare /j (but it is a good movie)

It's also probably really weird, but like, even with things I know I don't like, I'm willing to read or look into sometimes. Like, I don't like Dreamtale at all, but I've gotten myself fairly invested in More than one fic about it and do like some people's works based on it. I'm between unable to handle and yet can tolerate yandere fics nowadays thanks to Alch's fics and them just being a generally wonderful human being, but like, before that they just sent me into a panic attack lol. Ragnartale is also a weird one I am somehow invested in, since it's like, on the surface, it looks like something I wouldn't enjoy, esp since. None of the ships showcased I'm really into at all. But I'm very invested in it ;w;.

Anyway, my point with this part lol is like, I love seeing different interpretations of the same thing, and it's absolutely wild to me walking into this fandom from every other fandom I've been in where like, and AU is just the same characters in a different scenario, while here an AU is literally a whole separate world based off of either Undertale itself or a different AU entirely and the cast is really varied and even if characters are of the same origin from one AU to another, they're so distinctly different that some of them are unlinkable to the character they originate from. And y'all made a multiverse out of it!! With consistent lore between said multiverse!! Wh?? Like I said I've been on the internet a long time but this is genuinely the only instance I've seen this happen, and while I've been told it used to be worse, y'all are super respectful about stuff here too (and like, notably on YouTube with AMVs and MEPs, people actually credit where they got the fanart from in the description?? It's not all of them, and some may be without permission, but this is still the ONLY fandom I've seen do that and that's one hell of a leg up on everyone else.) It's like weirdly, to me, like... an ideal way art should be? Like, a world where anyone can make whatever they want, and people work with each other and from different things, taking inspiration from each other with credit and care and love and not slamming people in the face with a big copyright button for so much as thinking about making something off of their content (coughnintendocough). Obviously Toby's a chill guy too, for not only allowing this to all happen, but based on that message he left in i think the 5th anniversary vinyls, adores it just as much.

So yeah, definitely being slapped in the face when I step in with my idea after all of that openness before me definitely kinda hurt LMAO. It does feel nice to finally like. Actually talk about it instead of holding it in though. Even if it's actually almost two months later now (cause this happened on like December 5th and i was like already having an awful week with a real bad birthday so that was fun avdbwvsn)

I don't know that the original intent was to spread misinformation, because from what it seemed like, they merely read one post, blocked me, and then told everyone about the information they got from said post, but from there it became misinformation, because that one post is probably the oldest post about ULR and doesn't properly summarize anything about it at all it just has character faces and rules for the ask box lol. And frankly, before I updated it, it was out-of-date and inaccurate as well, cause i never thought it would be necessary to change. But that info that i have is also from like one or two posts my friend snagged off of twitter (cause, well, they blocked me lol), so I'm not really 100% certain.

But even so, thank you for the support man, I think I'm good for now, but I really appreciate your offer and checking in on me like this, it really does mean a lot💕💕

#zircon answers #owl bones #and i dont rlly mind posting at this point tbf #also being on mobile you cant really reply privately which i hate lol #need an xkit for mobile so it functions like desktop sometimes honestly lol

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baconpal · 3 years

Text

talkin bout fuckig manga

hey it’s me, haven’t had internet for over a week and i’ve been sick and uni and blah blah blah time for a rant about manga

this time its about "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru", tl;dr, good manga read it idk

lots of bullshit below the cut

Before anything I say gets too confusing or I go off on an insane tangent, just know my recommendation is that you read "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru". It's not very easy to find online since it has an official English release (which my recommendation extends far enough to suggest I might pick up in the future, just to have it, but I am very stingy), but there's an alright torrent of all the volumes on your local anime torrenting website, and is at the very least worth the trouble of reading as such. There is also an anime that gets better as it goes, but the manga is my primary recommendation. Beyond this point I'm not gonna give much regard to what I write, so get ready for anything, read the manga and see if you agree with me, or don't and see if I care:

BOUT THE ANIME: The SoreMachi anime is one of those rare comedy anime you find where the animation and overall production is just really extra the entire time. Hopefully you know what I mean because I won't really be able to explain it any other way, it's simply one of those shows where the jokes are decent and it's a fun time for the most part. Unfortunately, the anime makes a couple of critical missteps that kept me from getting far into it when I first tried watching it about a year ago, and in retrospect seem even less reasonable.

Starting with the good, as an adaptation it does a good job with most chapters it covers, it properly sources where each chapter comes from incase you intend to read the manga and skip around to catch up, and the anime adapts some sections to have additional jokes that fit very naturally in to the story. It also covers up some of those problems only manga can have like having a concert segment without any actual music involved, until they invent mp3-paper it's just something we'll have to live with. Translation work was pretty good (I watched the [WhyNot] release for those who care), which is extra important for something as difficult to translate as jokes from another language. The set of episodes they chose to end on was very good, and was expanded to be a lot more impactful in the anime. If it wasn't for the last episode being as strong as it was I may have given up on finding the manga when I saw it wasn't super easy to read online.

As for what the anime fails in, some episodes feature some really blatant over-acting that doesn't really help make characters believable, and there's this obnoxious gag that continues the whole where through where most scenes have a few seconds long line from what is essentially a forced mascot character, which usually mean nothing and only serve to harm the pacing of many episodes (there isn't even any sort of equivalent bit in the manga so I really don't know why they did it, most of the anime original jokes are pretty good so I just really don't get it). The biggest issue the anime faces is that the source material is about 140 chapters, while the anime is only able to cover 24 chapters. This comes with a LOT of problems, the first being what I'd call the "required reading". SoreMachi is not a 1-note simple comedy where you can skip to any chapter and be completely okay; There are many small but meaningful subplots lying beneath, and characters have a fair bit of development throughout. What this means for the anime is that the first 3-4 episodes are just the first few chapters of the manga, which are a bit rough and not as good as the majority of the work, which is true of a lot of comics (god fuck I promise there will be more than a first chapter of my comic I promise it'll get better fuck). In terms of the anime by itself, I'd say episode 1 is decent, 2 is middling, and by 3/4 their still taking a while to introduce members of the cast, and I didn't immediately want to finish it. I put the show down for a long time until my internet started dying and I wanted to watch something fun. Slapping it back on at episode 5 I immediately had a great time and watched the rest of the show pretty soon after. While I understand the reasoning behind doing this, the anime does not pay off this structure, as beyond the first few episodes, the chapters start being presented out of release order and out of chronological order, kind of destroying any consistent throughline. This decision in and of itself isn't the worst, since the comic isn't always chronological, and the volume ordering is a bit different from the release ordering, but the inconsistency makes the first few episodes feel lessened without reason. The other large failure that comes with only animating about 1/7th of the entire work is that many themes and concepts that are core to the manga are not represented in the anime well at all. One of the biggest is the rare but unnerving supernatural chapters, of which only one is animated, and not a particularly good one. In order to talk about these themes I'll have to transition into talking about the manga itself, since they aren't part of the anime.

DA MANGA: So one last recommendation that you read the manga, the whole damn thing. Cus we're gettin into themes and character moments that take a long time to pay off, and obviously is all part of my interpretations, so if that stuff means anything to you don't let me ruin it for ya.

The title of the manga is, in essence, the entire manga's "punchline" in that every chapter could meaningfully end with simply the text "And yet the town still turns..." (My translation of the title, fuck "And yet, the town revolves" or "But the town moves"); by this I mean most chapters end in an anti-climax where a mystery is left unsolved, or a mystery is solved and undercut by the realization that life simply keeps on going without much change. This is used to essentially force your eyes open to all possibilities when reading, as the main character spends her time acting like a detective, and these mysteries end up as either misunderstandings, secrets, riddles, and sometimes something out of the ordinary happens that makes you unable to pin anything down firmly. Similarly, these endings aren't always read-and-forget scenarios. Several chapters come back in the form of a continued joke, a continued mystery, or contribute to some greater purpose later. Readers are properly rewarded for keeping everything they can in mind, while also tormenting such people with loose ends.

I enjoy Hotori as a protagonist due to her character being defined not in flaws and strengths, but in mindedness. Hotori seems like a simple "haha she's dumb" character to start, but consistently throughout she proves that her strengths are in memory, observation, and deduction, while lacking in some more common sense and abilities. Her brain works in strange ways that some people may or may not understand, such as her need to think through even the most trivial fictional scenarios, which I relate to deeply.

The art and paneling throughout are wonderful. Ishiguro Masakazu is one of those artists who draws very simple characters, but knows how to use details and depth to breath so much life into the artwork. He also clearly uses the occasional supernatural happenings as an excuse to draw what he loved, as all sorts of artistic depictions of the supernatural come out that simply look satisfying. These parts obviously meant a lot to him since he's been working on a primarily mystery-action manga that has a lot more of that stuff in it. (Also, as hindsight is 20/20, if you've read any of his new work you'll notice that the main character of it is eerily similar to a character who shows up very late in SoreMachi that the author obviously fell in love with, cus she just keeps coming back and even ends up with a really unsettling end to her character arc despite only being introduced as a component in a harmless mystery. Feel free to call me out for the same shit 30 years from now when I'll probably do the same shit)

I'd like to get into some of the major themes of this work, as a lot of them hit very close to my mind (which I guess is true of any theme you recognize for yourself, you wouldn't really "get it" if it didn't mean something to you...).

The simplest theme, again, comes from the title. The main character, Hotori, expresses a desire that the town she lives in continues going on, unchanged forever. This is obviously a fear of change, which ya know, same, but also an exploration of what it means to fear change. Hotori actively tries to keep businesses from closing down, keep friends from leaving, and keep relationships from changing, while simultaneously making all sorts of new relationships and solving mysteries. Hotori even comes to realize that simply learning the truth about something changes the world through your own perspective, and that such changes can't be undone. In spite of this, Hotori mostly gets her wish, any time she fears that a large change will impact the town, its resolved about the same as any other issue. Whether its a message that even time can't keep you from your loved ones and that change isn't worth fearing, or a concession that large changes to the setting would be a bad idea in terms of humor, I can't really decide. This theme reaches it's conclusion in what is one in a series of "ending" kinda chapters at the end of the series. Hotori is faced with a supernatural ethical situation, save her town from destruction at the cost of her existence, or live through the disaster, knowing her town and the people in it will forever be changed. While the actual result is that nobody disappears and nothing is lost, and the event may have simply been a strange dream, Hotori confidently decides that sparing the people in her town from a life altering event is worth giving up her memories with them. A kind of bold spit-in-the-face to the idea that change is okay, where we find that Hotori didn't fear change for herself, but rather for the people around her.

There's another major idea in this manga, which takes a very long time to pay off, and completes its arc at the very very very actual end of the series, the idea of "leading someone to be something". A character that rides that line between main and side character, Shizuka, is a writer of detective novels, who feels the best person to judge her works would be a version of herself without the bias of being the author. She tries to achieve this by leading Hotori to be interested in detective works (including her own) and generally be just like her, starting from a young age. The end result is a young girl dead set on being a detective herself (or at least another novelist), while Shizuka keeps her identity as an author secret. She then uses Hotori as a scapegoat for herself, attempting to see how she would solve various mysteries and use that as inspiration, and this is depicted as though Shizuka were some sort of villain, which she may feel like she is. The end result of it all, though, is that Hotori was likely already a detective-minded person, and that even if Shizuka pushed her down that path, it was Hotori's decision to continue down it, and the very end of the manga is a scene revealing that Hotori figured out Shizuka's secret at some point, and even still respected Shizuka and aspired to reach her, and the two accept each other for who they are. I enjoy this ending a lot, since as an artist I've worried that some of my love or aspirations for and from other artists came with an ulterior motive of wanting a better community for art to exist in, but people are people and will make their own decisions, and some day everyone may be able to become equals in a truly meaningful sense, where everyone is inspired by and guiding each other together.

So that probably didn't mean shit to nobody and I didn't even really talk about anything in the comic like most of the main characters or any of the shit goin on but ya know fuck you go read it, and thanks for reading this.

#long ass post #also gonna have finals on my birthday this week so awesome #im having a good time this year h-haha

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thefreakishmuffin · 4 years

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Hetalia is coming back, and I have some thoughts...

Alrighty everyone, here we go! As if 2020 couldn’t get more insane...

(This is a longer post, so I’ll add fun gifs to separate the walls of text so it isn’t so exhausting to read).

So, if you’ve been on the internet since the early 2010′s, you’ve most likely seen, or at least heard, of an odd show called Hetalia. This anime, with the manga originally created by Hidekaz Himaruya, was later adapted into an anime. For those who are either new to the internet or have been living under a rock for the last decade, Hetalia, first going under the name Hetalia: Axis Powers, is a show about different events in world history and world politics, all being portrayed by people who represent different countries. Each country - or character, you could say - is essentially the embodiment of all their respective country’s stereotypes.

For example, Germany is extremely strict, loud, militaristic, and often angry or stubborn. Italy is an absolute coward who is obsessed with pasta and beautiful women. And America is an over-the-top, loud, bombastic, arrogant dork who is constantly downing fast food and calling himself a “hero.” The list goes on and on, but you get the idea.

Hetalia was, and still is, an extremely weird show. And with season seven on the horizon, coming to us in Spring 2021, I feel like I ought to talk about it. And why am I taking the time to talk about it?

Because I am a veteran Hetalian.

(Me laughing but slowly dying inside)

You read that right. Throughout all of middle school and the first few months of high school (almost four years), I was an absolute obsessive Hetalia fangirl. Outside of the internet, I was the biggest fan I knew, along with the guy who was my best friend at the time. We’d binge watch the show, read and write fanfiction, bring others into the cult fandom, talk about it almost constantly, draw fanart, watch the funny mmd video compilations on YouTube, delve really deep into world history, quote and reenact all of our favorite scenes - we even cosplayed England and Prussia one year for Halloween! This was the show that made me the HUGE history nerd I am today! I even got a book on the complete history of Prussia one year for Christmas.

Yep. We were those kind of fans. (Not gonna lie, as a now twenty-year-old woman, I still kinda cringe looking back at my middle school years. But I was having fun, so who cares?)

So when I heard we were getting another season after a five year hiatus, you’d think I’d be super stoked that a show I was once madly in love with was coming back from the dead, right?

(The part of me that is thrilled about Hetalia returning)

Well... It’s a little complicated. I won’t lie that I am really excited for this new season, and I’m of course gonna watch the entire series over again in preparation for it. But I have some hopes, worries, and mixed emotions about everything happening, and everything that may or may not go down when the season eventually airs, including the time leading up to it. I even have a particular topic I want to get to, but you’ll see that later in the post.

To address my worries, we first have to go way back to the early days of the fandom. For the most part, the Hetalia fandom was just really weird, fun, nerdy, and quirky. Nothing wrong with that. I feel like the fandom already had an odd reputation, but at least it wasn’t a bad one. That is until we had some... How should I say... Toxic behaviors and incidents start to take place.

Allow me to explain. How I see it, every fandom has some kind of toxicity level. The toxicity level is from the fans who are, well, toxic. We all know who they are, and you’ve likely met at least a few here and there. And the toxicity levels vary from fandom to fandom. In some it’s very low, and in others it’s very high. I wouldn’t say the Hetalia fandom’s toxicity level was super high, but it wasn’t incredibly low either. We had the usual problems, like some intense shipping wars and people debating on different ideas and headcanons, but the Hetalia fandom had something a bit different going on.

(My two personalities trying to coexist in peace)

You see, a lot of people didn’t like - or even hated - Hetalia, because they saw it as racist and offensive. If you admitted you liked Hetalia outside of the fandom, you ran a definite risk of getting either shunned or degraded for it. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you had a group of fans - a rather small group of fans, mind you - who did some pretty insensitive things that ended up landing the fandom in some serious hot water.

You’d have people in that small group of fans who’d openly do the Nazi salute while cosplaying Germany at conventions, and there was even the incident where you had fans cosplaying as Nazi Germany to the holocaust museum, where they decided to pose doing the Nazi salute. I even saw a cosplay of Germany and Prussia pointing guns at the Star of David, which is a well known symbol of the Jewish faith. Not to mention the fans who seemed to fetishize Nazi Germany and Prussia. Now, I may not know about everything these people did, as I was pretty good at staying on the light side of the fandom, but these were some pretty well known and disgraceful problems that everyone would find out about sooner or later.

Sadly enough, it was that small, tiny percentile of the fandom that did things that were so offensive, so wrong, that it was greatly magnified by others, thus giving the fandom its toxic, even cringey reputation. And I really hope we don’t have to relive that all over again.

(Me singing songs about punching Nazis and eating pasta)

So what I hope is that we are able to leave all of that behind us. Though I’ve already seen some Twitter users try to start drama all over again by reposting the offensive cosplays, and Tumblr users getting their panties in a wad because they apparently have nothing else better to do. But because a vast majority of the Hetalia fans are like me in that we’ve grown older and matured, I’m hoping we can help guide the younger, newer fans in the right direction.

And I won’t deny that I am very worried about the newer fans getting harassed and bullied on social media. I don’t have a lot of advice when it comes to the haters, other than the usual ‘ignore them and don’t respond’, tactic. But just know that if they don’t leave you alone, you can always block them.

And here’s another bit I want to touch upon. While I can completely understand why people see this show as racist and offensive, I honestly don’t think it is. If anything, I think it actually teaches us something. And no, I’m not talking about history right here. I’m talking about the stereotypes, and how they are portrayed. I think this show helps us to understand that all of these different stereotypes we have about different people and countries are all stupid and silly.

Do we actually know a German who is exactly like Hetalia’s Germany? No. Do any of us know an Englishman who is identical to Hetalia’s England in every way? Of course not. This series helps us to understand that the stereotypes so many of us hold onto today are nothing more than just stupid, silly old ideas that have been blown far out of proportion over the years.

Many people try to claim that this show is overtly racist and tries to divide, but in my opinion, I think it ties us together.

(My last two braincells writing up this post at around midnight)

At the end of the day, I’m incredibly excited and eager to see the new season of Hetalia, and everything that it will have in store for us. And it’s fun too look back on all the nostalgic memories I have of this show. This is all I have to say for now, but I may or may not be coming back to this topic in the future. Might even make another blog for Hetalia while I’m coming back to the fandom. After all, this is known as the fandom you can’t escape from.

Now if you excuse me, I’m gonna go press play on Hetalia: Axis Powers episode one, and let myself spiral into insanity once again!

#aph #hetalia #hetalia is back #hetalia 2021 #aph thoughts #hetalia thoughts #hetalia analysis #aph analysis

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jade-tnn · 4 years

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Okay, post-s8 Klance time

You’d think the Paladins would become like, insanely famous, right

So naturally, people from all over the world want to know more about them

This leads to people requesting interviews with the Paladins/Atlas Crew/Garrison etc

Lance obviously loves all the attention cause he’s not depressed (frick you farmer life) and convinces the team to do interviews

They do a big group interview talking about their journey in Space and their experiences in war etc

The interviewer asks if any romances blossomed within the team and everyone just kinda looks at Lance

“I might be the only one, but I definitely fell in love during our time out there.”

The interviewer nods and is like “So you’ve come to terms with your past love for Allura?”

And he just kinda blinks and he’s like “oh, right, I guess I liked her too”

And everyone just stares at him

He’s like oh wait I definitely shouldn’t have said that

Pidge and Hunk are already sharing evil looks that definitely mean they’re going to torture him for information later

Shiro clears his throat and he’s like “well, uh, although we really only had one couple form throughout our journey, many friendships were born that we will always treasure”

Hunk then is asked to talk a bit about his and Shay’s new relationship and Lance is just sitting there blushing the whole time because he realized what he said

After the interview Lance is asked to come back another time for a solo interview which he reluctantly accepts

He comes back a few weeks later and it’s mostly about his view on the team dynamic and how he felt about some decisions people made throughout their time in space and eventually they ask the dreaded question of “so who was this other person you mentioned having feelings for?” Cause the internet/world needs to know

“Uhhh, well, I don’t want to share specifics, but they were incredibly brave and I was constantly in awe of their abilities”

Lance ends up raving about them for most of the interview but people still can’t figure out who it is because he’s being incredibly vague

“Did you meet this person or alien in Space or did you already know them?”

Lance knows he can either lie or tell a vague truth, and he chooses the latter just for the sake of not having to keep up the lie in the future

“I, uh, already knew them, but not too well. We grew closer in Space but were often separated, so I didn’t think it would ever go anywhere. I surprised myself with my love for them. It was so sudden and completely uncalled for that I didn’t think it would even be possible for them to even view me as more than a friend”

The interviewer is picking up what lance is trying not to put down and shares a knowing glance with the cameraman/woman

“So you and him had more of a friendship dynamic?”

“For sure. He-“

Lance realizes he just revealed the gender on accident by agreeing with the interviewer who looks very smug

They end the interview soon after and Lance barely makes it back to the Garrison before all the calls from friends and family start coming in

They’re all trying to get him to tell them who it is but he refuses

Pidge and Hunk find him in a lounge and started hassling him with questions

He doesn’t answer any of them but his expression reveals enough

The two share a look and then walk off, Pidge saying “I guess I’ll just have to tell Keith you’re in love with him” before she disappears around the corner leaving Lance to scramble after them and try to prevent Hunk and Pidge from telling anyone

They run all the way to Shiro’s office to tell him, who already guessed as much just from watching Lance interact with the other boy

When Lance catches up word has spread to a lot of people who all said they already kind of knew

Lance runs to find Keith, finally locating him after a while of searching on the roof where the Garrison trio had once watched him break into the place Shiro was being held

Lance asks him if he’s watched the interview, to which he just nods and gives him a small smile

“They must be special, huh.”

“You have no idea”

(Sunset scene parallels anyone??)

Lance tries to be slick and convince Keith that it’s some alien they met even though that makes no sense

Keith just believes him because man his heart has been broken enough times by Lance what’s one more time

Slowly realizing that Keith seems to becoming more and more distant the longer Lance talks he asks him if he ever had someone special while they were in space

Keith softly smiles and nods

“He didn’t feel the same, though. And I made some pretty stupid mistakes while we were out there. We grew apart, and it was all my fault.”

Lance doesn’t even care that he’s not the person Keith is talking about he just wants Keith to be happy

So he grabs Keith and hugs him, telling him he’s sorry

He pulls away to look at Keith who has tears in his eyes, but he’s smiling

“It’s okay, Lance. I think he’s happier now, his life here on Earth being everything he wanted while were out there fighting. He missed the ocean, his family, his people... he’s home.”

Lance kisses him right then and there, because he just wants Keith to feel loved

Keith pulls away and stares at him for a bit looking shocked

“Why...?”

“Because this person must’ve been stupid not to fall in love with you. Or maybe I was the stupid one, loving someone so clearly more incredible than me.”

“You deserve the world, Keith. The entire universe. I wish I would’ve told you more when we were in Space. Even if it was unrequited, you still should’ve known that someone loved you.”

Keith pulls him back in for another kiss and then whispers

“It wasn’t unrequited.”

Quiznak, that got long- anyways, apologies for rambling for so long but I wish this would’ve happened and wanted to write it out as a hc :)

#voltron #klance #headcanon #lance mcclain #keith kogane #keith x lance

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facelessxchurch · 4 years

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What we’re your thoughts about the book?

Some asks were answered already in this post already so I just smacked those asks in here at the part where I talk about the topic in question, which is why the answer may not 100% fit the question.

Massive “Seasons of War” spoilers below the cut:

First off, of all, this book read like GoT/any zombie movie ever. With the necromancers being like the white walkers, Vile is the night king and daugar are the wights. even with the necromancers crumbling away after Vile got killed Tell me I’m not the only one seeing that.

I think there was a lot of fanservice and some confirmed headcanons in the book, which I really liked. Saracen magic got revealed, there was a return to the Leibniz dimension, the Vile vs Vile fight so many wanted finally happened (tho that was kinda underwhelming) and the Dead Men returned which I’m sure made a lot of people happy.

Ravel poisoning Saracen during the war and Vile being so powerful bc of being dead were two popular headcanons that got confirmed. And I am personally so happy that this book killed the ‘there is no sarcasm in the Leibniz dimension’ headcanon bc I bloody hated that.

Finally, Landy tries to please the old fans instead instead of what feels like purposefully pissing them off. I guess the phase 2 book sales weren’t that great so far (nice try blaming it on the pandemic, but no).

I’m also glad that the romance in this book was kept to a minimum bc The Val/Militsa kiss in the beginning, yikes, fanfiction has better written kisses than that. And the the dialog for the lesbian love triangle (bc for some reason Ms.Wicked aka Laura’s self insert is Militsa’s ex??) was cringy and stiff as hell, it felt more like first graders trying to do a dramatic play and not natural at all.

Surprisingly enough Mevolent’s and Serafina’s relationship seems to be the most healthy and romantic in the entire series and I have no idea if that was on purpose or if Landy just has twisted views on relationships.

I however am actually kinda happy with how Mev was written. He was sympathetic and charismatic, tho some of the stuff he did doesn’t fit to they way he’s characterised when he’s on screen (I know he is probably lying 90% of the time he speaks, but still). Like, banning all languages apart from English doesn’t seem like something a man who cares about culture, literature and art would do. It also seems kinda stupid bc those languages will be forgotten eventually and if they need an old text translated no one will be able to do it. Also, why English? Isn’t Mev old enough that his first/original language should be Gaelic? So weird. I have the feeling this was mainly done so Valkyrie (and with that the audience) can understand what the people on the continent are saying bc I very much doubt she understands/speaks any languages apart from English.

But I loved that Mev was also shown as insanely smart. He managed to outsmart Val multiple times. And I love how he doesn’t need his magic to fight, how quick and agil and skilled he is. So I take it that his fighting style is more based on agility and not getting hit, and he uses brute force only when forced into it (by Darquesse/the Unnamed). I was wondering about that bc his armor is made of leather and chainmail instead of metal plates which is considered light armor and not something a tank type of fighter would wear.

What really rubbed me the wrong way tho was when he was talking Tanith and Skul and more or less stated the war wasn’t a challenge anymore ever since Skul died. Or when he was talking to Val being like ‘you’re more powerful than I could ever hope to be’.It bothers me even more knowing that Val is based on girlfriend!Laura. Does really everyone and everything in-vers, even a big bad like Mev, rub Skul’s/Landy’s and Val’s/Laura’s ego? Big yikes.

Crespular Vies is surprisingly fun. At first I thought the two men going after the Obsidian Blade were hired by the Unnamed, but since that wasn’t the case, I think Crespular Vines hired them that so he could show up in time to save Omen and his friends. I think him opening up to Omen about being Skul’s former partner came too unprompted, too quickly and that he is trying to gain Omen’s trust so he can get close to Skul through him. I think another giveaway that that’s the case is bc one of the men Omen had to meet to get his brother back wore a Cleaver outfit and Vies gave that man probably the same reasoning Omen gave him.

That said Omen’s chapters were surprisingly enjoyable. By what I had heard of others I expected a sad sack that can’t fight worth a damn.

I’m not found of the Temper/Kierre stuff, it came out of nowhere.

Val is overpowered AF, it seems that she can get on Darquesses level with more practise/learning how to keep the doors open. She certainly needs to be nerfed.

Also I skipped the Darquesse chapters bc I’m giving negative fucks about her and the plague doctor.

The last 10% of the book were too rushed and felt like half finished thoughts.

Also I was kinda really bothered by the citizen of the Leibniz dimension. They were cartoonishly racist and it was very pretty black and white for the most part AKA everybody good is in the Resistance and all other sorcerers are evil/corrupt. That is also shown by there being children in the Resistance camp while there was no mention of children in the mage cities. In reality, most people are fairly mellow and it’s just a small percentage that is either really good or really wicked. I would have liked to see more racism towards mortals in form of apathy or ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations’ like I’ve seen it from Serpine in DotL. You know, make it a little less black and white.

Also, I understand the mermaids, but the bats in Europe were random AF. Like, I would understand it if they were just in Romania/Transylvania as a nod to the Dracula-typ vampire legends originating from there. As a plot-device they weren’t really needed to keep the protagonists from flying bc the danger of getting spotted by necromancer by doing so should be enough of a threat to keep them on the ground. This might seem nit-picky of me, but the bats just seemed so bloody random to me like wtf????

And also bc I’m a slut for magical creatures, I would have really liked to see more of them than just daugar and giant bats. Some undead cut together and resurrected necromancer experiments would have been pretty cool tbh. Like whatever the hell this is.

Something like zombie bears would have also been acceptable, I mean, bears are fucking terrifying on their own, let alone when undead and decaying.

I’m kinda pissed at China that she wanted Skul to kill Nef, but it does seem in character. Of course I still don’t like it bc I headcanon as Nef, Eliza and China having been besties during the war (no matter what canon says, I’m keeping that headcanon). I’m surprised Skul didn’t let Wreath have Nef considering that. Then again, he thought Nef might still be useful. And he was right. I loved how Nef actually had an essential part in saving the world by throwing the bomb. So proud of my boi <3 But Skul refused to kill him even after that. Could it be that Skul is finally getting character growth and development? 👀

Aaaand, China’s continuing to be a tyrant. With Tanith’s sense of justices flaring up shown when he killed the city governor, Erato, and Nef being shown to go after people that betray him (Lorien) I think those two are being set up to go after China to kill her (and to probably kill Creed too). Imagine Eliza joining the team bc she want a piece of China too.

I feel sorry for Baron, but at least he got a few speaking lines this time around. Still, I really wanted Nef to save him. :C Like, he suffered so much before he died too considering he spend a year alone starving and thirsty with broken legs in the middle of nowhere wft, why is Baron getting fucked over like this? #BaronDeservedBetter2020 he is the only honorable person of all faceless followers and he’s the one that gets screwed over in every book he shows up in, why tho- 😭

Speaking of Nef, I absolutely loved him in this book, he was a delight and stealing the show whenever he was on the page, despite being used as punching bag through pretty much the entire book. If people have always treated him that way I can see why he turned evil jfc that poor man. Despite that, he was still being such a clever, funny and relatable bae <3 He’s described as ‘cynical, and nasty but also kinda cheerful’ and as liking to ‘needle’ people (aka trolling and roasting) by Val and that essentially describes every shitposter on the internet ever. And I so loved the way he roasted Saracen lmao

And how he’s so clever, like the Lorien part was my favourite scene closely followed by how Nef essentially talked Remus Crux into getting himself killed, just 👌 smart snek boi, I love him <3 Also I hope he keeps poisoning everybody thoughts against Skul like how he had already been doing it to Tanith, he’s poison in human form and that’s just my jam.

That obedience bracelet was kinda fucked up tho.

Why does this thing even exist? Aren't electro shocks or any other form of pain enough instead of shutting his nervous system down/rendering him completely defenceless? I feel like some messed up mage 100% used it to keep himself (sex) slaves at some point in time :/ Landy might have gotten that idea from some fucked up hentai. Even the implications of the name "obedience bracelet".... I can’t be the only one that got creepy perv vibes from that thing, right?

Btw what the fuck happened to Harmony? You know, Leibniz Serpine’s girlfriend. She hasn’t been mentioned again. Did she die? She didn’t seem too found of him in DotL, was she plotting against him and he found out about it, killed her and fled the Resistance? Or did she die prior to him leaving and it was part of the reason he left bc she was the only thing that had tied him emotionally to the Resistance?? Or Landy just forgot she existed. I would not be surprised.

Of course my biggest issue with this book was how he retconned Nef’s magic and how he took his trademark, his red hand, away, but more about that in a different post.

TL;DR: Nef was a delight even though he was done dirty. Mev’s scenes were a 50/50 split between good and bad. I actually liked the Crespulare and Omen chapters. The Unnamed was a disappointment. The last 10% of the book were to rushed and the final fights that were supposed to be the biggest were underwhelming. The rest is meh, didn’t really care tbh. Let’s be real here, I only bought this book bc Nef played a bigger role in it, anyways.

#skulduggery pleasant #seasons of war #seasons of war spoilers #review #book review #I hate 'read more'#but this got so bloody long #RIP mobile users #long post #Anonymous #answered

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rpausandwhatifs · 3 years

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Jayde's Secret Santa Gift (AU) 2020| Matt + Kristen

A/N: It’s a gift that’s SUPER late for my buddy @nevergoodenoughforthetruth and I hope she enjoys this! Love you boo!

Kristen couldn’t believe the insanity of Shayne. She had spent the night in holding, her hair never went back to its usual lay no matter how much she tried to finger through it so she wet the whole thing and threw it into a ponytail. Matt had risen out of his bed at three in the morning from Kristen’s only phone call, even though they hadn’t spoken in about two and a half years at this point. He threw a hat over his messy wavy hair with only a hoodie and old baggy skinny jeans and skate shoes and didn’t bother with putting in his contact lenses. He questioned everything about the call while he drove 3 hours downstate from his apartment in Nevada to Flagstaff, Arizona.

Matt knew from her voice this was the side of Kristen he usually didn’t see, but had heard what she meant. He knew that as much as she fought, she wouldn’t fight to come up empty-handed. She didn’t want anyone to tell her that she fell for the wrong one, even when it became blatantly apparent. Shayne picking up work with Smosh after they graduated was a godsend, the honeymoon phase in their relationship had been in full swing and her fight to keep their happiness shone brightest then. She wasn’t exactly there for Matt when Suzy finally dumped him to take Arin back, and for that he had held a grudge; however, it was Shayne who created the wedge. All of the sudden her brother was a burden on her happiness because her happiness was her relationship with Shayne. The blonde had made Kristen believe that no matter what Matt was trying to say it was a lie. If he could be comfortable lying to Gabbie, and he and Suzy lying to Gabbie together, which should have caused their severance before, what was to stop him from lying to her the entire time and being someone who’s just trying to get with her because she’s got a lot to be used for? It lit Kristen up to hear it from Shayne that Matt had been manipulating her like he had Gabbie and Suzy. She trusted him, but it twisted how she trusted Matt.

Kristen couldn’t believe that she trusted Shayne. He’d not only been cheating on her, but manipulated her and isolated her, using her aggression and fear of feelings to protect herself and being used by others against her. Now she had been used, now she had been wrong. Coming home to hearing those noises that she was familiar with, her Chicken Muffin barking profusely from the bathtub in the locked bathroom before her wide-open bathroom door.

Courtney Fucking Miller.

Kristen welcomed her into her life and, unknowingly, her relationship. The girl seemed so sweet and innocent, she liked her energetic appeal and her commitment to caring for someone. It was always too perfect that she took care of Shayne while working on set, but Kristen couldn’t while she was working on her own stuff, so maybe she was right to let it slide. She will never make that mistake again. Her style spoke volumes to the hours of conversation and lies she had with her that tainted her purely artistic mind and the other girl’s pure need to create and to be inspired to create.

Beating the absolute shit out of her made all of it worth it. All it took was for them to get sloppy with their lies. Red is usually never wrong. Red was the only thing that she could hear once Matt was gone even though she would hear them then, Blue would be louder:

She’s totally looking at him like that.

Friends don’t hug friends like that.

You’re fucking digusting for believing this scummy ass guy and his bitch.

You’re letting THIS...this fucking thing touch you.

Matt was a damn dog, you’re better off getting fleas than looking like the fool you are now.

She doesn’t respect you.

You should slap her in her stupid head.

Fucking stomp her out, you fucking idiot.

You’re going to end up alone, just because you’re so fucking stupid.

You’re a fucking idiot, I don’t even know why you bother.

You are doing the absolute WORST that you could do.

Moving in? Really?! You’re actually going to think this is worth it.

You deserve to be alone.

Kristen began taking more medications, prescribed to her by a bad therapist, to soften Red to a whisper. He said that it was simply an inferiority complex that branched out of her low self-esteem, so with time she will no longer hear it and it wouldn’t cause her such issues. She left the Youni with so much more and had healthier solutions

“So..what-”

“I fucking punched her. And kicked her, brother…” she laid on Matt’s couch, wearing an oversized wrestling t-shirt of his, some cute socks she was already wearing because she refused to get anything more from the larger man and not much else.

Why must you be so resistant? At least he answered your call.

He’s so sweet, taking pity on us. It’s the least he could do.

“I saw the police report and the release forms I had to sign had a pretty detailed section about your mental health state..I want to know what that asshole did to you,” Matt said gruffly, standing over her, smoking heavily through a pack of cigarettes.

“I thought you quit…” she said, watching the billows of smoke before holding her fingers up to take the cigarette.

He’s kinda cute with that rough look, the cigs are a nice touch.

Still no style, but that means a blank slate!

He’d be a great model. Maybe you two should do look books together.

“I thought we weren’t friends,” he said while exhaling and handing it to her, “You can finish that.”

“We aren’t...I just needed someone to post my bail-”

“You remembered my number..You didn’t call your parents..” he sighed, going over and attempting to bend down to pick up the girl’s legs as he sat as a way of excusing himself, but Kristen flinched before allowing him to take her ankles up and place them in his lap as he relaxed into his couch, “But sure, I’m not your friend.”

“You’re not…” Kristen said quickly, turning over. Her head beginning to fog up while her body was slipping, to keep it awake, she shifted and turned her body to the side, smoking lightly and ashing on his coffee table, “I did what I had to do...you know…”

“All I see that you did, Kristen, was get arrested for assault and battery..It wasn’t even on Shayne, it was on-”

“DOn’t...just don’t..please..” she begged, whipping her head to look at the man.

When did his beard get so long?

Gabbie had a point about his beard really complimenting his face.

When we model he’s going to have to cut it down, but it’s just so distinguishing.

“Fine...are you hungry?” he asked, lighting another cigarette.

“No..Too sick,” she responded.

“Guessing your buff prince charming wasn’t all he was cracked up to be-”

“GOD I said shut up, brother!” she snapped, yanking her legs and curling into a ball, allowing some tears to fall, “I know I’m fucking stupid…”

“So even though you had enough vulnerability to call me, you don’t want me to help you, feed you, take you back to your apartment, comfort you, or even know what happened? You do understand that you called me in the middle of the night-”

“I could tell you in the morning, I’ll have a plan in the morning, brother,” Kristen held her hand out for his other cigarette.

“Kristen..I’m worried..I’ve been worried. I don’t wanna see you like this..” he began meekly.

“You think I want you to see me like this?!” she snapped as she smoked and pushing her fingers through her hair for the 8th time.

“Well, you called me for a reason..you could at least tell me what you were thinking…” he said, looking at her as he handed her the cigarette after his puff, leaning over and sipping from the beer he left on the table. His heart was breaking while it sat in his stomach acid eroding it away. This was something he got to see a glimpse of when they were going to graduate, before all of this was an issue and Kristen was there for him. It was so welcoming and just what he needed, it was only fair to give it to her, even if she wasn’t going to tell him directly what was going on.

Kristen was in such a battle. Blue called Matt, Blue remembered his number, Red was silent but agreeing. She had proved that was going to handle herself for literally everyone. This is probably the plan: she was going to lay low with him for a few days while the media and the internet died down. She didn’t turn her phone on yet, so her family and friends couldn’t get to her. She gave herself until the morning to tell him or not, but she was going to have to tell him eventually. There was just something that still didn’t add up. Gabbie would have easily drove to get her. Ro would have done it no questions asked. She’d be more comfortable with them. Hell, she could call Mari or Olivia, or any woman she knew and they would have come and got her. Red had been the one who had needed to calm down and had made her ears ring to the point where she was nearly deaf. She had never been so angry and blacked out so quickly or so long. Now her heart was beating out of her chest. Now she was sweating and looked a mess. She was fine in holding all night and on the ride over to the police station. She didn’t care how she had looked, but now she’s stuck looking like all hell hit her in her ex-friend’s apartment during sunrise in southern Nevada. The sun was shining bright red-orange through his windows and curtains, and the girl was bathed in it as the man turned on the news.

Matt got up and went to his kitchen to start making breakfast, "You work today or anything?" He asked while he pulled a pan out of the cabinet and started cracking eggs into a cup, "You want some breakfast?"

"My phone is turned off..I had appointments but-" she started before sighing, still trying to curl into herself, realizing how much she always hated how cold Matt keeps his place, even in Nevada.

"Turn your phone on and cancel your appointments, Kristen… handle your business so you're clear-"

"It's fine brother-"

"Kristen I fucking swear to god," he snapped, slamming his fridge door, the drawers and his trash can lid.

"Can you make breakfast like you have neighbors and stop worrying about me so much…" She was starting to get frustrated with Blue and surprised that it could be so loud as just one voice when she usually wouldn't get above normal speaking volume, always getting drowned out by Red.

“Can you actually let me help you like you called me and asked me to do? I can just take you home, dude..I don’t need this,” he said exasperated. Matt knew how hard it was for Kristen to let someone help her, but now he didn't really care what her attitude and pride were trying to save her from.

"I..I dunno what I was thinking okay?!" She got up rushing to the kitchen nook, "You'd be up at 3-"

"You woke me up outta my sleep. I wasn't awake, dude..This isn't the Youni anymore!" He cut her off, then took a breath as he started to brew his coffee, turning around and leaning on the counter to face her, "Kristen. I know you're hurt and that you're kicking yourself for this, but...it's time to face facts: you fucked up. I know back in the day it was you telling me that I fucked up all the time, but life goes on, man...and you wanted yours to go on without me.."

"I shouldn't have said that," Kristen finally admits, trying to hide herself to avoid his gaze, "Sh...he made me do it..he told me that you'd screw me over just like Gabbie and like Suzy did...That you were just bidding your time until I'd end up like them..I didn't mean anything to you."

"Heh. Figures," Matt scoffed as he pulled another cigarette from his ear and lit it on the stove, "He had everyone fooled. I really thought that you'd been stronger than that, honestly..that isn't the first time something convinced you to see and believe something like that."

She walked closer with a shrug, rubbing the back of her neck as she held her hand out to take the cigarette, but instead she was met with the tall man's open arms. She fell into them for the first time in years. The girl could count on her hand how many times she hugged Matt and every time it was because of something she was wrong about. He was always so patient and welcoming, he took the time to understand her boundaries and knew when it was high time he passed through them. "I'm sorry...and thank you again..for...you know.."

"Anytime, darlin.." Matt said by accident, feeling his wife beater getting wet with her tears, knowing that she probably didn't care at the moment, closing her in and putting the stick out on the counter behind him, "I know...I know it hurts...so listen to me, okay?...You don't have to turn your phone on today, but tomorrow I need you to at least call your mother and your clients so you don't have to lose business." The girl nodded as she sniffles, whining quietly.

Kristen felt so safe in his arms, and she never got here unless she told him she wanted to be there.

You can’t act like this forever. He’ll just take you home.

He’s so considerate, and he’s got a point. However, you gotta do something.

Things are better already; you even stopped crying since you got out of the car.

Just tell him you’ll get to it after breakfast.

The fact that he knows about your business after you told him to kick rocks and suck a fat dick even if he doesn’t have one says a lot.

Matt broke away to start getting eggs and cracking them to scramble them in a bowl, “Now, I know it’s not the avocado toast with prosciutto you usually get for breakfast when we used to go out, but I hope eggs and bacon is fine.”

“You have sausage links?” she asked almost automatically, not realizing that she let herself speak.

“Uhhh does Italian sweet or hot work? I ran out a couple of days ago.”

“It’s fine. I’ll take the bacon,” she shrugged, then sighed as she jumped onto the counter, then scoffed, “You’re usually the one I’m taking you to breakfast. Since I usually get to my matters after that, then that’s...that’s what I’ll do.”

“Yeah, I know..even down to the tea spilling,” Matt said, then sighed at the realization, “Sorry for yelling at you.”

“It’s cool. I’m too stubborn for my own good,” Kristen replied, staring at him, “Sorry for making you get up in the middle of the night to pick me up.”

“Look, even if you don’t know why, you needed me. Not anyone else. That means something about our friendship..which has now survived some real war.”

“You called that war? I wouldn’t call it that. I’d call it..uhh...me getting swept up into this dream that some muscly guy tried to sell me and then use...very unsavory levels of manipulation to...isolate me and make me look like a fucking fool..what are you even doing in Nevada anyway?” she asked, trying to gesticulate as he handed her a complete cup of coffee and allowing her to smell it and take in its scent.

“Just kinda ended up here. Wanted to stay close to LA to try my hand at direction and stuff, then my channel fucked me over when it got hacked, so I’ve just been doing work for other people...and I took your advice and been mostly riding solo and commuting to work here and there and sold my channel and I still get some profit from letting techies run it,” he mentioned while he continued to cook.

“Wow..just your main channel?” Kristen asked, shocked.

“Yeah, but I have a whole second channel for blogs and I work on a few other peoples’ channels so it’s not like I’m broke,” Matt shrugged sounding exhausted, “I’ve been kinda circling in your realm at times and people referred your services to me, but I just knew that I was the last person you wanted to see.”

They shared a isolated giggle while he plated their food and handed her a plate. Matt leans over and kisses the girl on the forehead, but feels something pull on his wifebeater before pulling away. He looks down to see her hand gripping the fabric, then looks back into the girl’s eyes, “Thanks for breakfast..and I’m thirsty so do you have orange juice or something?” The look makes him weak, but he refocuses himself.

“But..I just made you coffee,” he says with a nervous chuckle.

“Oh..uhh..yeah, you’re right..maybe it’s too hot and I need a tall glass of orange juice..” she says with a shrug.

Not what I had planned, but are you actually doing what I think you’re doing?

You’re flirting with him, but why?

You’re desperate. You’re not thinking straight. You know that he feels a certain way about you, maybe you should think about this a little more.

On the other hand, he does look really nice and he’s been an absolute peach this entire time, and he smells so...

“Kristen, uhh..maybe you should-...are you feeling okay?” Matt asked, taking his hand up to remove hers from his shirt. To his surprise she contorts and intertwines her fingers with his, “Your food’s getting cold, now, maybe you need to-”

“You’ve always been so nice to me, even when I’ve been an absolute bitch…” she says, finally making her voice softer, revealing how vulnerable he actually made her as he brings her hand down to the counter.

“Yeah, I mean, I know what I signed up for..but you’ve been through a traumatic experience..I-I don’t think you understand-” he attempts to let her down gently.

“I don’t think I’ve..been..completely honest with myself about what I need you for..” she sighed, looking down at her hand and pulling his fabric again with more force, bringing him closer between her legs, “How I feel about you..what I think when it came to..how...fucking angry I was when Suzy played you..the fact that I allowed Gabbie to fuck up your life like that...Like I just..I dunno...but that hug was so...and every hug you’ve given me..it’s different.”

“Different..?” he asked, eyes darting down and back to her eyes as she explained, then shifting as he furrowed his eyebrows, “Different how?” he brought his hand up to caress her cheek, which she leaned into and and wrapped her legs around his waist, “Oh..that different..uhh..I don’t...I really wouldn’t...I don’t think I can handle this..I thought I was your brother to you..we’ve...always been siblings to you-”

“I know...but siblings don’t look at me the way you used to look at me. I ignored it. I just...I thought it would go away-”

“Can we like..drop this incest thing because...because uhh...it’s not right and it’s kinda classist given that I’m from the south and would never fuck Holly or Raven,” he said quickly as he finally decided to lean into her caressing her hand with his thumb. They share a giggle, “So...you do like me like that?..I thought the idea disgusted you..”

“All of this..everything..ever since you didn’t fight about Sh..him...I realized I might have been going about this differently wrong,” she shook her head when she corrected herself, and went back up to those eyes bathed in the desert morning light, “Maybe I should have..given it more thought..”

“You’ve given it more thought?” he asked, waiting and beginning to tremble at her words, becoming more nervous at the realization that he might be getting setup until she pulls him by his neck to kiss him on the lips, deepening quick.

Kristen leans over and lights his last cigarette as they laid together on his couch, kissing his head, “You should go back to quitting,” she said as she finished her drag.

“Then you’ll be the reason I quit..cus that’s my last pack,” Matt chidded as he kissed her forehead.

“I’ll gladly be that reason...so...what now?..I didn’t exactly...plan for this. This changes a lot of things,” Kristen said as she expressed her dissonance in her glow.

“I’m gonna guess you haven’t planned anything for the past like..week. And..this doesn’t have to change anything if you don’t want it to..” he said, shifting so that he sat up and she straddled his waist, taking the cigarette, “I gotta tell the girl I’ve been seeing to buzz off, but she’s been super flighty anyway, so that won’t be that hard..uhhh, there’s a reunion party-”

“Oh fuck! I forgot about that! I’m supposed to be helping submit the theme next week to Ro-”

“Right..there’s that and you’re supposed to show up with..not just me, but..honestly I don’t feel like going-”

“You’re going, brother.”

“I’ve been fucking you for 2 hours, can you not call me brother?”

“Matthew! Whatever! Ugh, I completely forgot about that…”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve gotta go back to Arizona and work out all of that legal shit and PR about the fact that you got arrested for aggravated assault..if you want I can contact you with my lawyer..she’s really good,” he said ashing and covering her with the throw blanket lazily.

“Wait, your lawyer’s a woman?”

“Yeah. I have a woman lawyer, she got the job done and won my family’s case for me…”

“Speaking of...why aren’t you with them?”

“They don’t really need me. I’d been away and getting better for so long that my auntie just took over custody and Holly is turning 18 soon, so she said she’d take over for Raven with an emancipation stipend...it was a lot of paperwork and I already did my appearances in court...You don’t have to go with me for Thanksgiving or Christmas or anything..” he explained.

“Okay..so yes to the lawyer..yes to the holidays…”

“Don’t forget that you still have to tell your clients you’ll be taking a little longer with your consults given all of this- and you never got to breakfast-”

“What time is it?” she asked, looking around for his phone and picking it up off of the coffee table, “Fuck..”

“Just tell your clients today and you can deal with everything else tomorrow...your coffee’s cold and I’m already thinking about lunch,” he mentioned.

“Yeah...so..you’re not busy today?”

“First day off in a few weeks...and I’m spending it getting your life together..” he said, causing her to slap him and he leans up to grab her face gently and kiss her on the lips, “Kinda worth..I was just gonna play games all day..and go food shopping..”

#matt #kristen #au #future

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puckinghell · 5 years

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Home | Tyson Barrie

Summary: A new city to call home means a lot of people to leave behind Word count: 2k Note: Thank you to Tyson Barrie for being the mess we all needed in this team. We will miss you, but not as much as Gabe and Nate will. Yall can catch me crying about this until trade season next year despite the fact that he got traded to my other favorite team. I listened to More Than Words by Little Mix while writing this cause it’s the kinda emo song this trade calls for.

You find out through Twitter.

It’s not Tyson’s fault, not really; he’s hanging out with Biz when he gets the call and when Biz knows something, it takes approximately 0.3 seconds before the entirety of the internet knows.

But still, there’s something surreal about the situation. You’re sitting on the couch watching Nailed It! when your phone starts buzzing and ringing and going absolutely insane.

The first text you see is from Mel.

I’m so sorry, babe.

You have no idea what she’s talking about until you see a Twitter notification, staring at you from the small screen in your hand. The words are simple, yet they are impossible to comprehend.

Tyson Barrie and Alexander Kerfoot traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs

Nothing else even registers with you; you wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what the Avs got back for them.

For Kerfy. And your boyfriend.

It’s almost comical, the way your world crashes and burns within seconds while Ralph doesn’t even lift an eyelid. Outside, the cars are still driving. Someone honks. The rain is softly ticking against the window.

You have no idea how long you sit there, waiting. Thinking. A thousand thoughts whirl through your mind.

Most of them come back to the fact that it’s not freaking fair.

Not when Tyson has been so adamant about wanting to be in Colorado. Not when his best friends are here. Sure, he knows Morgan Rielly, likes him, but he’s not Nate. Not Gabe. Not EJ.

God.

It’s not fair either, that Tyson was really starting to pull his life together. He mentioned that he wanted some stability. He started looking at houses to buy. He got a puppy; the proof is currently sleeping at your feet, happily oblivious to the fact that everything is going to hell.

He even mentioned moving in together, a few weeks ago.

There were no concrete plans; he hadn’t officially asked you yet. Just kinda casually threw into conversation that the house he was going to buy was going to have to have plenty room for two people, while he was cooking some stupidly healthy vegetable stir and simultaneously eating ice cream straight out the carton before dinner.

“Why, is Nate finally moving in with you?” you’d teased, and he’d smiled his typical lopsided smile and said, without even blushing:

“No, but you hopefully are.”

You were left speechless and in shock and he just started rambling about how nice it would be to have a pool - apparently he’d forgotten about the fact that it was winter for 10 months a year in Colorado - and the subject was dropped, but it had been circling in your mind.

You know you would say yes, if he asked. You would say yes to just about anything Tyson asked, and it isn’t just because his big brown eyes look suspiciously like Ralph’s.

It’s because you know that for you, it’s always gonna be Tyson. Perhaps it always was, since the very first time you met him all those years ago, all starry eyed and bright smiled at a festival. Since he tripped over his own feet and bumped into you, and apologized profusely while Nate laughed so hard he nearly threw up.

You’ve never loved someone as much as you love Tyson, and you don’t think you’ll ever be able to love someone like that again.

But now he’s leaving. Ripped from your hands, slipping through your fingers like sand.

It’s not that you haven’t known it could happen, not with the rumors surrounding Tyson like they’ve surrounded nobody else, but it’s a bit like the boy that cried wolf; after a while, the rumors faded into the background, because hey, it didn’t happen last time either, did it?

You let yourself fall into a comfortable sense of peace, and that was your first mistake.

No, second. First mistake was falling for an NHL player.

Your phone rings again and you barely glance at it, the ringing sounding muffled in your ears - you don’t know how it feels to be in shock but this might be it - but then Tyson’s face flashes across the screen and you reach for it quickly, startling the puppy at your feet, who jumps up and starts whining.

“Tys?”

It’s quiet, for a second, on the other side, and you wonder if he meant to call you.

But then he speaks and his voice sounds a little muffled, sounds thick with emotion and empty at the same time, somehow, sounds upset, and that’s the worst.

“Are you still at my place?”

“Yeah,” you breathe out. “I’m here.” Of course you are; he asked you to watch Ralph while he went out and you wouldn’t leave the dog alone, not at this age when he still needs to go outside every ten minutes and likes to eat shoes for entertainment.

“Stay there,” Tyson says. “I’m coming home.” He pauses and you figure he has the same thought as you are having.

Home.

But not for long.

“Stay,” Tyson repeats, a little sharply, as if he’s expecting you to run off before he gets there.

You don’t even think you could move if you tried.

“Okay.”

He hangs up then and it takes him barely fifteen minutes to get there, even though you know the restaurant he was at was at least a 25 minute drive. He burst through the door looking disheveled, looking sad, too.

His shoulders are slumped and he suddenly looks much more tired than he had when he left this morning. Normally, Tyson is the easiest person to read, but now there’s not really a hint of any emotion on his face.

He doesn’t even smile when Ralph runs up to him and that’s how you know everything is so very, very wrong.

“Tys,” you start, but then his eyes meet yours and it’s like all the words leave your mind, and all you can do is walk up to him and collapse in his arms.

He catches you easily, as you knew he would. His arms are tight around your waist, so tight it almost hurts but it’s exactly what you need; to feel him, to know he’s still there, at least for now.

“I know,” Tyson whispers. “I know, babe.”

You’re not quite sure what he knows and he’s probably not either, it’s just that there’s not much to say when your entire life gets ripped apart.

You stand there for what feels like ages. Tyson moves you to the couch at some point, pulling you down with him as he falls backwards into the pillows. You can feel his heart beat under your ear with your head on his chest and the steady rhythm is the only thing keeping your mind from spiraling out of control.

But however bad this is for you, it’s so, so much worse for him, so finally, you force yourself to sit up and smile.

“So, Toronto, huh? I guess I could be a Raptors fan.”

“I’m actually gonna play for the Leafs,” Tyson says dryly, and suddenly you’re both laughing, hysterically giggling with tears in your eyes and it’s better than crying out of sadness but only just.

When silence falls over the apartment, Tyson grabs your hands, his face serious again. “Hey, you know I love you, right?”

You swallow and nod, not trusting your own voice.

“I love you too much to ask you to wait for me.”

His words sink in slowly, then all at once, and panic washes over you as the quietness of the apartment becomes deafening.

Wait for you. Wait for him here, in Colorado.

He’s not planning on taking you with him.

Hurt must be written clear over your face because his eyes soften, a soft “babe” passing his lips right before you yank your hands away from him, scurry away from him until your back hits the arm of the couch.

“You’re breaking up with me.”

It’s not a question because you know the answer.

“I don’t want to.” Tyson’s voice is a little shaky despite the fact that he’s gritting his teeth in order to control it. “I don’t have a choice, Y/N. I’m going to move to Toronto. That’s not just a different city, that’s a different country.”

“And you don’t want me there.”

The crease on his forehead deepens. “I can’t ask you to leave everything you have behind. You’ve got a job here. Friends. Family.”

You jump off the couch, now in full hysterics; tears are pushing against the back of your eyes and you feel your lungs constricting.

“But the only thing I’ve got here that I care about, that I wouldn’t wanna leave behind, is you.”

Tyson stands up too, although he’s not moving.

“I can’t ask you to leave behind your home,” he croaks and it’s the first time you can fully see how much this is hurting him, how much this is killing him inside, breaking his heart into little pieces with each word he’s uttering. It’s the first time you forget about your own misery completely.

So you step forward, one hand coming up to cup his cheek; he leans into your touch as if it’s the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth, his eyelids fluttering shut. His cheeks are red, like they always are when he gets upset.

You know him so well, know every single piece of him.

“Home can be everywhere,” you mumble. “Home can be wherever you are.”

“I don’t want you to give up everything for my dream,” Tyson all but whispers. “I chose this, not you.”

“But I chose you.” At that, he opens his eyes, deep brown orbs locking with yours. You can tell he’s searching for a sign, anything in your expression to tell him you’re not telling the truth.

He won’t find any.

“I knew that being with you would include this. But I chose you anyway because I needed to. I need you, to be with you. Wherever that might be.” You pull a face. “And at least it’s Toronto. Can you imagine if you were traded to like. Montreal? I don’t speak French.”

He laughs, and it’s music to your ears; then suddenly his lips are against yours in a feverish desperation unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before.

It’s like your touch is the only thing that could keep him from drowning, meanwhile you’re getting lost in his lips against yours, his hands against the bare skin of your back. He starts pushing you towards the bedroom and you know you’ve not really talked about anything but you let him anyway.

This is what he needs, right now, to feel you with him, to know you’re there. And you’re gonna do whatever he needs because so many times, he’s done that for you.

Time seems to stand still and speed up at the same time and it’s dark when you’re laying tangled in the sheets, facing each other, his fingers intwined with yours.

He’s staring at you fondly as he speaks. “I was going to ask you to move in with me, you know. When I found a house I loved. I was gonna bake a cake and put the key in it. Gabe helped me come up with that.”

You would have laughed at the idea of possibly choking on a key as you tried to enjoy Tyson’s famous lava cake but now you can’t, because at the sounds of Gabe’s name Tyson’s face falls.

The Leafs don’t have a captain right now and maybe that’s better, because you know there’s nobody that could do for Tyson what Gabe did, nobody that could replace Gabe in that special place in Tys’ heart.

No more wine nights with Mel, walks with Zoey and Ralph. No more Nate crashing for dinner, no more Josty exclaiming he’s the better Tyson, no more teasing from Z or sarcastic remarks from EJ or Colin, telling you he doesn’t know how you put up with these guys.

You’re gonna miss them, but it’s something you can deal with. Something Tyson has to deal with.

But not alone.

“Ask me,” you say, and Tyson doesn’t have to ask for clarification.

“I don’t think Toronto can be home without you. Will you please come with me?”

He seems a little nervous to ask but your answer was decided a long time ago, long before the rumors really started, maybe even the second you met him.

“Of course I’ll come with you.”

He wraps his arms around you and he’ll do the same thing in a month, when you spend the first night sleeping on a mattress on the floor in an empty apartment in the center of Toronto, the city lights illuminating the room cause you didn’t have time to buy curtains and the hot summer air crawling up the walls.

He wraps his arms around you and you’re home.

#tyson barrie #colorado avalanche #or toronto maple leafs????#no it hurts too much we'll deal with that later #don't have time to unpack that now #tyson barrie imagine

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aintyourlove · 4 years

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All the kdramas that I’ve watched (2020 - part 1)

Disclaimer: I already made another two list that you can find here.This a part one, I decide to split so the post wouldn’t be so long. hope u guys like!

Revenge note 1:

It’s a high school one

It’s about this girl that will have to deal with a first breakup-, bullying, insecurities, first true love, friendship and also some revenge, why not right? lol

SOFT kdrama although the name suggest more dramatic things

a lot of farts jokes (like for real)

To the beautiful you:

If you like that movie “she’s the man” then you going to like it

Goo-Jae-hee decides to live in a dormitory as a boy and live with the one who gave her strength in the past and now she is determined to support him like he (unconsciously) did in the past

TOO MANY clichés that if it wasn’t so over do it probably wouldn't work so well, kinda of the charm of this dramas is bc it's too innocent and old

some things bothered me while watching, like: the main character just liked her bc he knew that she was a girl?it was that? I had this impression and I didn’t see much of his personality besides the obvious guy who don't care about nothing but will care forf her (of course)...

The best friend was funny and actually way more supportive than the other one; him didn't know that “he” was a girl and had to deal with this for a long time and for me this is huge and important even tho they joke about the whole time

Tempted:

Joy from RedVelvet is the main reason for me go to watch this one

Basically it’s a fanfic lol (but I mean all the kdramas are in some point :p)

It's about these three best friends; Choi Soo jin, Kwon Shi-hyun and Lee Soo-jo that comes from different but all them chaotic family's and as a form to build a wall from the pain and everything they become used to play with people who were in their way, for them it’s fun doing little revenges ... Nothing matter to them, except them. It’s in one of these “games’ that Eun Tae-hee(Joy) becomes the target. She is a victim to be seduced, to be tempted by Shin-yun. But thing about games and people are that they don’t stay the same, and everything could happen, everything can change, even the feelings, even the people, even the solid bonds.

Lee Soo Jo it’s a sweet one, I feel bad for him sometimes

Tae-hee is a mood, she is mature and have this force idk she wouldn’t let her head down and I love strong characters that just don’t buy some bullshits and literally go talk to make everything clear.

8/10

Itaewon Class:

It’s based on one webtoon what is pretty cool

The stories it’s about Saeyori, a guy that is convicted in his principles, his dad taught him to live his life as he wanted and to be a good person besides everything. When Sayeori dad’s pass away he swears to God a that it won't be for nothing and those who wrong him would it pay when the times come. So he carries for more than ten years a life plan to get back at the ones that wanted him to get on his knees.

Jo si yeo well: I was sometimes disappointed with her (and you will see why) but besides that she a character that I personally like, she is not just a girl, she has personality, and she stands for that; they said to us that she has a tendency to sociopath and a lot of her comer from that, I really really like her, she is what she is and not a boring girl that will always do the right thing that is BORINGGGG please more roles like that like people that can be good but have personal traces that are unique.

Has so many good choices of topics to be discussed and are relevant to not only young people but society in general; talks about trans gender, racism, bullying, like how you can change your life if you really put effort on it and that everybody has a choice to make it your own destiny

Cheese in the trap:

It’s about this girl, Hoong-Seol, she is the only one that suspect about the “generous, sympathy and handsome” guy of the university, he is the senior that everybody likes and despite all the weird things that surround him nobody seems to know him really well. But Hong Seol feels that something is strange and bc of that their ways started to inter-wise more and more and the doubts become a sign of...love?

Honestly even though it explained why he is that way I was kinda of “shocked” sometimes, and when she was accepting things (like really scary things (that in my personal opinion are NOT health but ok) bc of love I was like girrrl?? Get out of there now)

THE SECOND GUY CURSE I don’t even have to say that for most of the times the seconds guys are the best ones (the ones at least that shows more charisma or personality ...) but you know that they won't be together, in this case I thought that was insane...

Baek In-ha honestly? I love her uahuahuaauh best scenes best phrases she is indeed an icon.

8/10 :)

I Started Following Romance:

Super sweet and well-made it as a short drama

Only 10 episodes and it’s only 7/8 minutes each one

Modern and lovely way to represent how the youth deal with break-ups and social medias by these days with all the technologies and stuff

It’s about a girl that broke up but still see how her ex-boyfriend is doing by following him in social medias, that makes her really anxious and sad so move on it’s more than necessary. Social Medias could it be a way to not only meet people but reconnected them with themselves too

You should watch it like right now

10/10

Is it you, my girlfriend?:

it’s about a girl who accidentally declares herself girlfriend of one of the most famous guys on her school, he is totally the opposite of her, and even tho he is known by the entire school she doesn’t acknowledge him until he approaches her asking if is she the one...the one who is his girlfriend

it's a high school so has all that we love, its sweet and funny and there’s a season 2 which is good as well

8/10

link to watch on youtube

A-TEEN - Rumors Spread About ME:

it passes in high school so the story goes around between this two girls who are friends with each other and has the same name, but are opposites in personality. Even though that wasn’t a problem for them the rumors that start to spread in the school makes the friendship collapse and a name maybe is not the only thing that they share

it was pretty nice, I really like some actors in there, the story’s cool, they talk about bullying, friendship, first love and they have season 2 that is pretty cool too!

9/10

link to watch on youtube

LIKE:

the story starts with main girl selecting people for her new project, a project that she is doing to prove to herself that be at the art school was the right choice, but more than discovering herself she may be aware that not only her senior, who was her crush since the beginning is watching her but another two guys, that are closer than she would it expected

talks about friendship, about felling demotivated sometimes, first love, sexual harassment with minor in schools...

The girl from heart signal 2 is there :) (which I thought it was really cool bc I'm too into heart signal these days)

8.9/10

link to watch on youtube

Romance talking:

This one was one of my favs bc I kinda like more when they’re in college;

it's a story about a girl who was super into a guy whom host an internet talk show where he mostly talks about romantic topics. Besides that unilateral interest she lives a normal life, almost boring by her point of view. She works at a bar and in one of common day her ex-boyfriend appears there, and she listens to him badmouthing her, even though she doesn’t care about him anymore it hurts, so she gets back on him, which could be a bad idea later when she was alone if wasn’t for someone... someone that she doesn’t believe its out of her computer screen...

the girl is so real, like sometimes we really feel angry, bored, deeply in love or jealous/envy I think that the actress did a great job here

10/10

link to watch on youtube

Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo:

I saw that Jisoo was here and later I discover that the main actress is the iconic one who did Baek-In-ha in Cheese in the trap (Jisoo doesn’t have a big role tho..) but my other fav Kang Ki-young otherwise has a role as Bok-joon’s uncle heheh

Kim Bok Joo is an weightlifting girl, who is proud of her sport and department in college but sometimes she feels insecure when comes to sensitive topics as love or how guys sees her. As a way to hide those insecurities Bok-Joon doesn’t let anyone says nothing to her and deal with provokes, becoming known in campus bc of her temper. But when a certain guy shows kindness towards her all she wants is become girlie and delicate. What she doesn’t know is that this guys is the old brother of an old childhood friend that she meet again on campus and likes to “mess” with her making her going crazy...

its funny, sweet, the main actress is awesome, the main couple is lovely and you should watch it now

Sorry if wrote anything wrong. All the dramas here are awesome, hope you guys find some new ones to watch it!

Use the mask and don't forget to clean yourself properly, we are still in a pandemic but this will pass!

All love<3

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hermitologist · 4 years

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My 20 Favorite Records of 2019

Lists! Everyone loves them. Here’s another one.

These are the records I liked the most this year. That doesn’t mean they’re the *best*, that means I liked them. You might not. That’s fine! You might be livid that Porpoise Corpse’s neo-classical folk prog double LP isn’t on my list because it’s an easy top 5 record for you, but maybe electric mandolin solos, blast beats, and harpsichord runs aren’t my thing. That’s fine too! It’s infinitely cooler and far more productive to let people enjoy the art they enjoy rather than wasting precious minutes of your life trying to convince the entire internet to have the exact same taste in music.

That said ...

This years list is chock full of the usual, if you’re familiar with my taste at all -- tons of super heavy bummer jams, a handful of Radiohead-adjacent mid-tempo rock of the indie or emo variety, some hearty post-rock, some tried-and-true vets doing the thing they do very well ... again, and a few outliers. The honorable mentions list gets considerably more eclectic if you’re looking for stuff that sounds less like a soundtrack to various stages of the apocalypse.

As always, I welcome your suggestions for records and podcasts I might’ve missed the boat on. There’s way too much good stuff out there to keep up with, so PLEASE help me out.

Also: When I am not being a lazy pile of crap, I try to haul my dadbod around town for a run a few days a week and will listen to/briefly review a record in the process. Almost every record on this list has been a part of one of those posts, so if you’re interested in such a thing, please check out my Instagram.

BONUS: I put together a playlist on Spotify of my favorite song from each of my top 20 records, and a separate one for the 51 other records I liked this year, so if you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, just needle drop a little and see if anything grabs you. And if anyone’s feeling productive and has time to do an Apple Music playlist, I’ll link and credit you.

Top 20 Spotify Playlist

Top 20 Apple Music Playlist -- Thanks, Austin!

Other Faves Spotify Playlist

But before we get to the Top 20, a couple of records that deserve a nod ...

Record I Listened To The Most In 2019 Whether I Wanted To Or Not

Angel Du$t - Pretty Buff

This is my four-year-old son’s favorite record, and while I’m trying to round out his musical palate by throwing on all sorts of different bands while we’re hanging out, he insists on either “no music” or “The Basketball Song” (which is “Big Ass Love”). I have no idea how or why his little amazingly weird brain equates the song with basketball (a sport he doesn’t really play or watch or think about ever, to my knowledge), but it does. He LOVES IT. I’ve got to admit, I didn't care for the song all that much when I first heard it, but it’s an earworm, and some 3000 plays later, I love it, and I love the record. Funny how that works out.

Record That Came out in 2009, But I Didn’t Discover Until 2019

Self-Evident - Endings

Endings was neck-and-neck with my favorite record of 2019 for spins this year. Coincidentally, the it was recommended by someone from the band who made my #1 record, and it has moments where it sounds a whole hell of a lot like my #1 record. Blows my mind that a band that was/is so incredibly in my wheelhouse sonically, that has released nine LPs over an 18 year career, and operates in circles incredibly close to a ton of bands I love and respect and nerd out about music with somehow managed to elude me for the better part of two decades. At any rate I’m incredibly stoked to have finally found them, absolutely love them, and honestly might’ve listened to this LP 20 times in a matter of a few days when I got my first taste. It’s that good.

And now for the list ...

20) Remote Viewing - It’s Better This Way

Super nasty, dark, sludgy, well-crafted noise rock out of London that fits somewhere in between KEN Mode and early-Kowloon Walled City sonically. You’d think it was pretty crazy to have a band be so locked in and fully formed as early as LP2, but then you find out they’re ex-members of Palehorse, Million Dead, and I Want You Dead and it all kinda makes sense. Unfortunately, the song on the playlist is from a previous LP (because the new one is inexplicably not on Spotify), but you can and should get the new record on Bandcamp.

19) From Indian Lakes - Dimly Lit

I’ve been a big fan of FIL for years, but have always been at a bit of a loss when it comes time to describe them. It’s hazy and dreamy, but not quite shoegazey ... it’s insanely infectious and pleasing to the ear, but not really poppy ... it’s forward-thinking and experimental, but not quite art-rock or groggy at all. It’s just excellent. Full stop. If you dig anything from Tycho, to Radiohead, to The Cure, to Slowdive you’ll enjoy this.

18) Stray From The Path - Internal Atomics

Furious, mathy, riff-heavy hardcore from Long Island that sounds like a reformed Rage Against The Machine had spent the past two decades doing steroids, mainlining Red Bull, and studying the finer points of Moshology. The breakdowns are massive, the drumming absolutely mental, and the vocals pissed as hell. At my advanced age, it’s rare that a record makes me want to pit and/or try to deadlift cars, but this one’s got that magic.

17) Glassing - Spotted Horse

Mostly spazzy, occasionally dreamy, black-metal sprinkled post-hardcore that fits in very well with bands like Portrayal Of Guilt and Respire in the rebirth of traditional screamo. It’s fits and starts of chaos and beauty, and it all sounds and feels like it could completely go off the rails at any time which is what made bands like Orchid and Majority Rule and Saetia so great back in the day.

16) La Dispute - Panorama

It’s no secret that I’m a big La Dispute fan (Thrice has toured the US with them twice in the past decade), and I love all of their records, but I’m pretty sure I can say with full confidence that this is the best record they’ve ever made. Everything is firing at peak performance, and the way the record is arranged and sequenced makes it feel more like a film score than a collection of songs. It’s a complete work -- meant to be listened to as such, which is a daunting artistic task, but they pulled it off in grand fashion.

15) Russian Circles - Blood Year

This band has been in the upper echelon of post-rock bands for as long as I can remember, and Blood Year is another incredible addition to their already stellar discography. These guys are all absolute monsters at their given instruments, and one of the best live rock bands on the planet, so getting to hear them do their thing on a record that manages to actually capture that live energy and ambience really does the trick for me.

14) Greet Death - New Hell

This one kinda came outta nowhere for me, as I (ashamedly) was not familiar with them prior to giving New Hell a spin. It blew me away. I’m a total sucker for bummer jams, and this record is full of top-quality sludgy, sad, shoegazey goodness. If you dig Cloakroom, O’ Brother, or Pianos Become The Teeth this is gonna be right up your alley.

13) Sleep Token - Sundowning

Another record that came out of nowhere to knock me on my ass. I downloaded it before a transatlantic flight on a whim (after hearing about 30 seconds of the opening track), hoping that it would be a nice, mellow companion to ease my in-flight anxiety. And it was, but whoa was it so much more than that. It kinda sounds like a collab between Active Child and Deftones -- poppy, melancholic piano ballads, brought to crushing crescendos via super heavy drop-tuned sludge -- which sounds like a mess, but it works so well. It’s a killer record and probably would’ve landed higher on this year’s list if it hadn’t come out so late in the year.

12) Big Thief - UFOF

This one’s a bit of an outlier, and a damn good one at that. I came across UFOF via a friend’s recommendation before the hype train had left the station, and honestly didn’t know what to expect. Said recommendation simply said that it was good and infectious and probably a few other things that I can’t recall, but didn’t mention the folk thing (which is great because I probably would have passed). The friend was right. It’s good (maybe even great), incredibly infectious, and gave me a nice reprieve from the heavy stuff I tend to listen to on the regular.

11) Cave In - Final Transmission

I’m beyond thankful we got any new music from Cave In after Caleb passed. They owed us nothing, and had every right to walk away, but managed to rally to release a killer record that is heavy both sonically and conceptually, and still manages to give me chills despite being live demos recorded in a rehearsal room. There are few bands on the planet who’ve inspired me like Cave In have, and seeing them pull together to grieve and forge ahead to continue to build their legacy is even more inspiring. What a band.

10) Pedro The Lion - Phoenix

My favorite singer/songwriter of my generation decided to revive the project that made me a fan of his in the first place. That project put out a record for the first time in 15 years, and I had unreasonably high expectations for it. Phoenix delivered and then some. I remember sitting at my kitchen table, weeping into my cup of coffee the first time I heard Phoenix, the same way Control used to make it seem like the inside of the Thrice van was getting a little dusty during cross-country drives back in the early 00s. It blows my mind that David Bazan can be such a prolific artist, write such insanely powerful music, and seem incapable of writing a dud song.

9) Coilguns - Watchwinders

This Swiss noise-rock band kicks unbelievable amounts of ass. Their Millenials LP made my favorites list last year, and when I heard they had a follow up coming out a little over a year later, my gut reaction was to worry they’d blow it with a new record that was either rushed and/or half-assed, or lose the plot and take a hard left turn and make something markedly un-Coilguns. They did neither. The made an absolute monster of an album, that was apparently written in the studio, and is full of live energy in rawness that is pretty tough to capture in a sterile atmosphere like a studio. Watchwinders dropped in late October, and if I’d had a bit more time with it, I could see it moving up to my Top 5. It’s that good. I find myself going back to it constantly.

8) Blessed - Salt

This record kinda defies description, but it reminds me of everything from Pile to Menomena to Interpol to La Dispute to Devo at times. As scatterbrained and incongruent as that might sound, I assure you it rules. It was in verrrry heavy rotation this year -- mostly for the utterly filthy drum groove on the final track. If you like your music catchy, but slathered in weird, this is definitely gonna do the thing for you. It’s an incredible record.

7) Herod - Sombre Dessein

I hadn’t heard of this band before they popped up on a Spotify playlist early this year, and when “Reckoning” hit, it absolutely flattened me. You know that nuclear apocalypse scene from Terminator 2? That’s what “Reckoning” did to me. It was undoubtedly my favorite ultra-heavy track of the year, and while it’s my favorite song on the record by a pretty large margin, the rest of Sombre Dessein kicks ass too. It’s 42 minutes of crushing heaviness that kinda sounds like a blend of Cult Of Luna, Meshuggah, and Gojira. Heavy. Pissed. Unrelenting. And Outstanding.

6) Pile - Green & Grey

Every time I try to describe Pile to someone I fail. On Wikipedia they’re described as “indie rock”, which ... sure, I suppose? There’s a little post-punk in there, a little post-rock, a little noise-rock, nods to classic rock (maybe?), a little of that southern magic that made Colour Revolt so great (but Pile’s from Boston so hmm ... ), some country even? Do you like weird guitars? Freakish musicians? Melancholic crooning? I dunno. It’s all over the place, but in the best ways possible. They’re a singular band, and so damn good. Green & Grey is stellar addition to a discography that is already full of incredible music ... even if the album cover gives makes me want to fold those blankets and put them away.

5) PUP - Morbid Stuff

Was this the year that PUP broke? Definitely seems like it, and rightfully so. Morbid Stuff is my favorite thing they’ve ever done, but I’ve absolutely loved everything they’ve ever put out, so that’s saying a lot. Per usual, it’s insanely infectious and anthemic without being traditionally poppy or relying on tropes to burrow into your skull and take up residence there. It’s uplifting musically, but kinda depressing lyrically, which does this weird push/pull thing in my brain that makes it impossible to stop listening to. The musicianship is fantastic, the guitar parts especially -- like the guitar line in “Scorpion Hill” wow. I really needed a record to fill the gaping void between the metal/sludge/noise and the ambient/downtempo electronica I listened to this year, and Morbid Stuff fit the bill perfectly.

4) Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear

These guys belong on the Mount Rushmore of Post-Rock/Metal with Neurosis and Isis. Nobody has done it better than them over the past two decades, and A Dawn To Fear is arguably their best work to date. It, like any Cult Of Luna requires a great deal of patience, but man if they don’t make the wait worth it. They’re the masters of the slow build to an absolutely crushing climax, the dynamic shifts that leave you feeling like you got hit by a freight train, the nuanced instrumentation that tells a different story each time you listen to a certain section of a song. They’re absolute masters at their craft, and this record is them at their peak.

3) Big|Brave - A Gaze Among Them

Another record that came out of nowhere to completely floor me. I hadn’t heard a single note from this band until a friend recommended I check out the opening track, “Muted Shifting Of Space”. I did ... and that plodding drum and bass pulse with dark, swirling, ethereal guitar swells/feedback and soaring vocals building into a huge release of sludgy, drop-tuned goodness checked off all the boxes for me. I was hooked. The atmosphere and dynamics Big|Brave have built their sound around give every song a cinematic feel -- if you close your eyes, can you see drone footage of landscapes too? . If you dig post-rock/metal that is experimental around the edges, moody, absurdly heavy, and has both feet firmly planted in sludge, this is a must-have record.

2) Cloudkicker - Unending

If you’ve been following me on social media or reading these year-end lists for a while you’re probably pretty familiar with Cloudkicker by now because any time we get new music I can’t shut up about it and the record invariably ends up on this list. This instance is no different. Unending is the first LP we’ve gotten from Ben Sharp in four years, and it’s worth the wait and then some. He’s managed to pull from every era of CK and turn it into a masterpiece mash-up of styles without it ever feeling rehashed or uninspired. I’d go far as to say this tops Beacons and Fade for me, and comes awfully close to challenging Subsume for my favorite Cloudkicker record of all time and space. There’s soooo much progressive and djenty masturbatory metal garbage floating in the ether right now. Hearing the one of the kings do the damn thing properly is incredibly refreshing.

1) Town Portal - Of Violence

No surprise here. I’ve been crapping my pants about this band ever since my good friend Scott Evans shared their music with me a couple years ago. I’ve been unhealthily obsessed ever since. The magical progressive rock/metal these three guys are capable melts and massages my brain in a way few bands ever have. Of Violence is incredibly mathy without ever feeling awkward, it’s melodic without being conventional, it’s discordant without being abrasive, it’s heavy as shit without being overloaded with distortion, it’s progressive as hell without ever coming remotely close to devolving into a wankfest, and it’s damn near perfect in every way. Songwriting? Great. Tones? Phenomenal. Musicianship? Otherworldly. Execution? Flawless. Mix? Perfect. Replayability? (Not a word, but ... ) PUT THIS RECORD ON A GODDAMN LOOP AND NEVER TURN IT OFF. Can you tell I like it? You might too, so give it a listen. And if by chance you do not like it, please see a doctor. You’re broken.

OTHER STUFF I REALLY ENJOYED THIS YEAR

HEAVY JAMS

METZ - Automat

Buildings - Negative Sound

Helms Alee - Noctiluca

Minors - Abject Bodies

Periphery - Periphery 4: HAIL STAN

Employed To Serve - Eternal Forward Motion

Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocero

Defeater - S/T

Pelican - Nighttime Stories

Spotlights - Love And Decay

Great Falls - A Sense of Rest

Baroness - Gold & Grey

The End of the Ocean - -aire

Vous Autres - Champ du Sang

Brutus - Nest

Torche - Admission

Glose - The Second Best of Glose

Throes - In The Hands of an Angry God

Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

meth. - Mother of Red Light

SECT - Blood of the Beasts

Kublai Khan TX - Absolute

Seizures - Reverie of the Revolving Diamond

Dead Kiwis - Systematic Home Run

Norma Jean - All Hail

Refused - War Music

Chamber - Ripping / Pulling / Tearing

MIDRANGE JAMS

Jimmy Eat World - Surviving

Elbow - Giants of All Sizes

Raketkanon - RKTKN #3

Bad Religion - Age of Unreason

The Appleseed Cast - The Fleeting Light of Impermanence

DIIV - Deceiver

Idiot Pilot - Blue Blood

Microwave - Death Is A Warm Blanket

Low Dose - S/T

SWMRS - Berkeley’s On Fire

Self-Evident - Lost Inside The Machinery

B. Hamilton - Nothing and Nowhere

MELLOW JAMS

Trade Wind - Certain Freedoms

Square Peg Round Hole - Branches

Great Grandpa - Four of Arrows

Local Natives - Violet Street

Rhone - Leaving State

Shlohmo - The End

Tycho - Weather

Bon Iver - i,i

Drowse - Light Mirror

Bonniesongs - Energetic Mind

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough

GoGo Penguin - Ocean In A Drop

Bent Knee - You Know What They Mean

THE PODCAST QUEUE

The Deadcast (RIP) - sports, culture

Chapo Trap House - politics

The Rich Roll Podcast - health, wellness, endurance sports

Hang Up & Listen - sports

Effectively Wild - baseball

The Gist - current events

The Downbeat - drums, humor

To Live & Die In LA - true crime

FilmDrunk Frotcast - movies, culture, humor

The Modern Drummer Podcast with Mike & Mike - drums (duh)

The Trap Set - also drums

Song Exploder - songwriting

#music #AOTY #endoftheyearlist #topalbums

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okietrish · 5 years

Text

Darling. Chapter 1.

This is chapter one of a fic I’ve been messing around with lately. I’m obsessed with it already and have many MANY ideas and theories in mind for how this could go. I’m proud of this. Please enjoy and LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.

I love you all, thank you for you kindness and support.

Please enjoy.

____________________________________________________________________

Your morning started out with the usual blasting alarm sending you quickly into the normal routine. You know the drill, it begins with an exasperated groan, then you get up and get dressed, makeup, hair, the usual “simplistic but kinda trying” look. After you’re finished, undoubtedly rushing after procrastinating on the internet for far too long, you get picked up and head to your interview of the day to talk about your new single and what you have in store. The fact that this is normal now, mind boggling, but normal... Extremely new, but this is what your life has become. Writing music, playing music, talking about music, and you get paid to do it! The thought alone brings butterflies into your stomach. This is all you’ve wanted for so long.

The drive to the radio studio was simple, an iced coffee was placed in your hands to perk you up; the sheer excitement coursing through your veins was enough for you to get going, but turning down a coffee is sacrilegious, so you accepted the caffeine kick with a smile. You were giddy, to put simply, there’s no other way to describe it.

Being guided through places like this, a very professional environment in the center of the music world, was always fascinating. The walls were lined with pictures of rock legend after rock legend, you couldn’t help but gawk as you walked by. The people you idolized staring down at you judging as to why you’re walking the same walls as they once did, intimidating. They most likely have sat where you are about to sit. Your ass will be where many rock god’s asses have sat before. Giggling aloud at the thought caused a few people in front of you to turn around with a questioning look. You shrugged it off and continued to appreciate the intimidating place around you, trying to forget how crazy you seemed for giggling at the walls...

The room you were placed in was set up with two large desks pressed against each other creating a giant table in the middle of the room. Chairs were littered among the many sides, microphones stretched out like tree limbs, one landing right in front of the seat you were instructed to sit in. The large, two monitor computer faced away from you. The walls were lined with sound buffering fixtures and small trinkets and decorations. You only felt at home in this room. An apparent ease washed over the room as James, the man who was interviewing you, walked in and greeted you and the room of people.

James, a kind man much older than yourself, most likely in his mid 60’s, was a rock fanatic who was well listened to across the country. A man well respected all around; his opinion was impressionable. Without any hesitation James eased right into the interview by welcoming the listeners and introducing you with passion and a shocking amount of energy for 8am.

“Good morning Los Angeles! You’re listening to 98.5; a rock station for old ears.Today we have an up and coming artist, one of my personal favorites in the scene right now. She has a single out now called “Exposition of a Lonely Man,” which we will listen to in a little bit. It’s a psychedelic vibe, sounds as if Janis Joplin and Stevie Nicks had a love child and it produced a song. This is the wonderful and very talented Y/N Y/L/N. Good morning Y/N, how are you feeling today?”

“Morning James! I’m feeling wonderful, you’re throwing me some very kind compliments plus I’ve got a coffee, so I can’t complain much.” You couldn’t help but smile at the realization of what’s going on. As you leaned into the microphone more you discovered the faint smell of lavender filling the room, it was naturally calming.

“Coffee is the key to my heart! Now Y/N you’re fairly new in the public eye, so let’s get some background info. You have a sound to your voice that is, well, seemingly archaic these days, and yet you’re only 20 years old, what influenced that?” James looked at you kindly, evident in how much he loved his job and took pride in his skills. His smile brought a sincerity to the conversation, like you were talking to an old friend, confiding in a loved one.

“Being completely honest, and I’m slightly ashamed to say it, I grew up listening to bubble gum, pop 40’s junk...” James’ jaw physically dropped in shock.

“What?! How does that make any sense?” He laughed as he spoke. Conversation was seemingly effortless for him. You noticed he picked a good career.

“I know, I know. And I loved it too...” You laughed along. “I can pinpoint the exact time where my love for ‘good’ music blossomed. I was 12, in the car with my dad when he finally got fed up with my pop B.S. He demanded to have the aux cord. I complained, but quickly shut up when he played this long, chaotic song that I was having a hard time keeping up with. I remember thinking ‘how does he know all of these words?! This is insane!’ That song ended up Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen!” You laughed at the memory, how seemingly ridiculous it sounds to not know anything about rock music, specifically the arguably most well known song in history. You took a deep breath before watching James intently as he laughed.

“That’s amazing! So did you both just start listening to old music? How did it develop after that?” James was obviously intrigued by the odd beginnings of your life. You continued with a nostalgic smile.

“It became our thing, ya know? Every time we got in the car he would play different artists ranging from Queen, The Beatles, Sinatra, The Temptations, he even had a crush on miss Etta James! We would play this game, he would play a song and I had to guess who was singing, then we would switch and he would have to guess. My dad was a lovely man who had a passion for music and the history of rock and roll. He didn’t play any instruments, but he sang at the top of his lungs with passion and love. My musical ear began because of him. I owe a lot to him.”

The smile you showed was genuine, though the memories of your dad still ripped a whole in your heart. No matter how much time has past, losing him was the worst thing to have ever happened to you; two years felt like it lasted a lifetime, but only five minutes at the same time. He was the most important person in your life, your confidant. Life without him was normal now, human beings are creatures of inept adaptation skills, so you got use to it. It’s bizarre to think about, but it’s how life works.

You continued talking to James about your double EP that was going to be released in a week’s time. You spoke with passion and electricity while describing your life’s work and the meaning behind it all. The fire within you was enchanting. Music was the reason you lived. It is everything you do, everything you think, you’re even convinced your breathing pattern has a good rhythm to it.

Interviews were some of your favorite part of the whole music industry ordeal. Getting to discuss your dictations, other artists you adore, and being able to just sit for a few minutes and sit in the success you’ve made for yourself was always a breath of relief.

Signing off of the interview, you said goodbye to the listeners and to Jame’s as well, quickly followed by a genuine goodbye off the record.

“Y/N thank you so much for coming in, you’re a kind soul. You’re not just honest in your music, you were so open with everything. You’ll make it far kid, no doubt.” James gave you a quick hug. He reminded you of Santa Claus a bit, his rosy cheeks were quite the contrast to his stark white hair and stubble. What an adorable old rock enthusiast.

“Thank you, that means so much. And thank you for having me, It was so much fun!” You spoke with him for a few more moments before getting called away by your manager Chelsea. With a final goodbye you found yourself walking quickly through the maze of hallways once again. The rock legends staring at you from the walls seemed to have a softer look to them now, perhaps they welcomed you into their exclusive club of wretched rock history shenanigans after your interview. You smiled at the thought of being a rock star, but just singing was enough for you. The idea of actually having music out there in the world, having an effect on other people’s lives, it made you nauseous in the most exhilarating way.

Pulling you out of your thoughts, a fresh iced coffee was placed in your hands as Chelsea began her daily speech.

“Okay Y/N we have one more interview across town in about 2 hours and then you’re done for the day. I know you’re friend Matt is throwing a party tonight, just please be careful and mind what you post.”

You stared at her as you sat down into the backseat of a black Ford Explorer, shocked by the lack of expectations coming from the trusting New Yorker sliding in next you you.

“Mind what I post? What do you think I’m going to do Chels? Get on his kitchen counter and flash the room?” You snorted a laugh at the idea. Quickly cut off by Chelsea snapped her head in your direction giving you a wide eyed look?

“Really? Like that is so unlike you?” She laughed as she continued to glare at you. Your cheeks perked up as you smile seemed to take up your entire face.

“You’re right, sounds like something I would do...” The cackling from the backseat was uncontrollable now. Chelsea was 27, a little older than you, but much more like a sister than anything else. She was kind, knowledgeable, but most importantly didn’t put up with your bullshit. It was a lovely friendship.

Chelsea took a deep breath before beginning again as the car began to drive through the streets of L.A. “Also, I have a phone meeting tonight with potential tour options for you.” She smiled proudly at your shocked look. “And before you even ask, I’m keeping it to myself for now. It’s a late meeting due to time zones, but I’ll call you as soon as I can if I hear anything worth sharing.” You stuck your pinky out for her to grab, an undeniable childish way to stick to your word, but it was a habit you couldn’t break.

Chelsea grabbed your pinky smiling at your confusing nature. An old essence of life radiated from you; an old soul was the basic way to describe your mantra, but it was far more complex than that. You carried yourself with strife that was disassociated with people your age, but at the same time you did things like make pinky promises in the backseat of a car while sitting with your legs crossed and having the childish smile plastered on your face. The balance between innocence and spirituality was enticing.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Matt’s party was in full swing. All of your friends were here, the four of them sticking to one corner in the massive house, your small circle stagnant is the chaos. Nonetheless, the house was full. Alcohol was flying into shot glasses, people forgetting their lives for a few hours, apparently forgetting their limitations as well.

You were feeling good, properly drunk, but still very much in control. Music was blasting through the speakers, though muted by all the noise coming from the mass crowd of young adults. A few hours had passed since you first arrived. Matt was sprinting around like a mad man attempting to keep some sort of organization in this madhouse. He was a loud guy who loved everyone, a perfect host for a memorable party, or a black out party depending on what road you chose for the night!

You were sitting on your Jack and Dr. Pepper combo while talking with your friend Em when you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket. You quickly glanced down at the name, trying not to be rude to Em while she told you all about the girl she is talking to and apparently in love with. When Chelsea’s name showed up you had to excuse yourself.

“Em I’m so sorry! This is my manager and I have to take it. Excuse me.” Em smiled at you and gestured that it was fine. You began to quickly move through the crowd, bumping into what seemed like every single person; maybe you were drunker than you thought. After moments of being lost in the forest of tall college boys you finally made it outside. It was quiet in the backyard, a few people gathered around a fire, but nothing too distracting, so you accepted the call.

“Chelsea! What’s up bitch!” You screamed into the phone while pulling some surfer/LA local accent. A giggle suppressed from the other end of the call.

“Jesus Christ Y/N. Sounds like your having a good time!” There wasn’t any judgement in her voice, only amusement.

“Of course darling, I know how to party. Anyways, what’s up? Why are you calling at...” you pulled the phone away from your ear to check the time, “...1:00 AM? Woah! How is it one already?! That’s crazy.” You trailed off immediately forgetting what you were even going on about. Chelsea caught on to your drifting mind.

“Okay. Y/N. I have good news. You know the band Greta Van Fleet?”

You scoffed at her question, suddenly becoming extremely sassy, “Do I know about Greta Van Fleet... psshhhhh.” You continued to babble, your New York accent coming out in your quick words. “Girl I talk to you about them all the time! We stan Greta in this house bitch. Iconic legends with that good hair... Becky with the good hair... WATERMELON!”

“Fucking hell Y/N stop babbling!” She snapped at you, obviously suppressing her laughs at this, or at least what was suppose to be, business call.

“My bad. Okay, but Chels why are you asking me about Greta right now? Did you call to fangirl?” Genuine confusion flooded your mind as you began walking along the side of Matt’s pool. It was nice out, a cool brisk breeze was cooling down your Alcohol induced heat.

“Y/N I just got off the phone with their management...” she drifted off towards the end, waiting for you to cue in.

“Okay, how was that?” You asked, more confused than before. You slurped the end of your drink, obnoxiously shifting the ice around at the bottom in attempts to get every last drop.

“Fucks sake. You’re going on tour Y/N. Greta wants you to open for them for 2 months. If it works out well, then they will sign you for longer.” She was yelling into the phone at this point.

A numb feeling rushed through your body quicker than anything you’ve ever experienced. The red cup previously holding your liquid crutch was discarded to the ground, forgotten about completely. You began pacing even quicker, grabbing your hair in attempts to ground out self in some way.

“Jesus Christ.... oh fuck. ARE YOU SERIOUS?!” You were shouting now too, distracting the people around the fire from the joint they were passing around.

“Yes. Completely serious. You’re going on tour with Greta Van Fleet!” She screeched into the phone, obviously excited about the whole ordeal as well.

“Chelsea they are a real rock band! They have the stage lights and the tight jeans and the screaming fans and mysterious ways about them! How am I suppose... how did I... WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW?!” You were shifting your feet back and forth, some sort of happy dance naturally possessing your limbs.

“Y/N I love you, alright? I’m so beyond proud of you. I’ll talk to you more about this tomorrow Okay? I just wanted to tell you tonight. Have a safe night, call me when you wake up?” You smiled even wider at her words.

“Alright. Okay. Ummm thank you? Thank you for this. This is amazing. Absolutely sick. I’ll call you in the morning! Jesus Christ... Okay. I love you, bye!”

“Bye!”

To say you were a bumbling mess was an understatement. The news you waited for arrived. A tour, you were going on fucking tour! A tour with a band you idolized and admired. Your shock faded a bit as pride took over. Music was the one thing in life that you made for yourself, an industry you ventured into alone after your dad’s death. You did this.

You shoved your phone back into your back pocket, picked up your discarded solo cup, and sprinted into the house. Slamming the sliding glass door drawing attention to yourself by both your friends and the strangers scattered around the room. There was a quick pause in conversation as all eyes turned to you.

You took a deep breath before making eye contact with Matt from across the room, a look of concern present on his face. You broke out into a giant grin before shouting at the top of your lungs.

“I’M GOING ON TOUR BITCHES!!!” Matt looked at you in shock and began sprinting towards you. Your other friends escaped from the corner of the room and ran as well. Matt grabbed you by the waist, picking you up and pulling you into a death grip of a hug. Everyone cheers surrounded you. Friends, strangers, some folks who just walked into the party and had no idea what the hell was going on, they all cheered and poured some drinks. Any excuse to drink right? Except this was the start of something insane.

You looked around at everyone who were still buzzing with energy. The bottle of Jack Daniels was passed to you. Taking a giant swig from the bottle, you lifted it into the air and screamed out in a mix of excitement, terror, nervousness, but mostly happiness. You’re life was changing, you felt the shift in the air during the rest of the night. This is it. The rest of your life is beginning.

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Tag list (to be added just shoot me a message!):

@dontumisfire

@myownparadise96

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Thank you for reading! I appreciate and love all of you!

-Trish

#Greta Van Fleet #Greta Van Fleet Fic #Jake Kiszka #Josh Kiszka #Sam Kiszka #Danny Wagner #gvf #original piece #im so excited over this you guys have no idea.

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