#I aspire to that level of petty frankly

[essektheylyss]

I really should rewatch Heroes for the first time in like thirteen years and see how it holds up in my mind.

[hazel2468]

Evangelion Rewatch: Damnit

I just rewatched Evangelion 3.33 (Rebuild movie) and like... I’m having feelings about it? And Cyn isn’t awake so y’all fuckers are going to have to deal with me being angry right now. 

I recently ALSO rewatched a bunch of the original Eva and the End of Evangelion. Which is, of course, fucking great (Ano is like, a level of petty that I fucking aspire to on top of being a wonderful artist... How many of y’all can say you made an entire film to dunk on entitled shitty fanboys?). But watching 3.33 in anticipation of the next movie (3.0+1.0 or something?) just... kind of pissed me off. Like, the storytelling is all over the fucking place, and I found myself sitting there going “Holy fucking shit, if one of you fuckers would just EXPLAIN shit to Shinji, maybe he wouldn’t make reckless and stupid choices based on the fact that y’all are being dickwads to him for, as far as he fucking knows, no damn reason at all.”

Which brings me to my other issue with this- the way that Shinji is punished. Like, I get that he almost fucking destroyed the whole world in 2.22, and maybe it’s just been a while since I saw that movie, but as far as I recall he not only didn’t do it on purpose, he was trying to save his friend’s life and, as far as he knew, everyone else too. Like, Shinji didn’t say “fuck all of you I’m destroying the world”, Shinji said “Holy shit my friend and fellow pilot is in danger” and the Eva just tried to grant his fucking wish. 

And they get him back after 14 years and just... Treat him like a criminal? Put a death collar on him? Literally everyone treats him like shit, punishing him for a “crime” that not only does he not remember committing, that he had no fucking control over in the first place? I get being cautious about another impact but MAN- textbook way to make a character do reckless, stupid shit that fucks you all over is to treat them like shit with no explanation and blame everything on them, all while explaining nothing. People are just pissed at Shinji for making stupid choices through the whole movie- but frankly? Based on the knowledge that he has? His choices really aren’t stupid. I mean fuck, if you were told that you destroyed the world, then offered a chance to fix it, and then the people who had been treating you like shit, threatening to kill you, and holding you against your will told you “no, that’s bad!” would YOU listen to them? 

Had anyone other than Kaworu actually been fucking open and honest with Shinji in this movie, shit probably wouldn’t have happened the way it did. Had Misato and her fucking goons not decided “Okay, let’s wake this literal child up from a 14 year coma, slap a bomb on his neck, and then all make it SUPER clear that we suddenly hate him overnight as far as he is aware and also tell him that he killed everyone so he deserves this” and instead were like “maybe we should, idk, try to explain shit to the kid who has been in a coma for 14 years and was a pawn?”, then nearly-fourth-impact probably wouldn’t have happened. 

Literally the only thing that didn’t piss me off on this rewatch was Kaworu. The relationship between Kaworu and Shinji was on the top of my list of Best Things in the original series, and was also done very well in 3.33. If anything, Kaworu intrigued me more than anything else, because we’re getting all of these hints that not only has this happened before, but Kaworu is AWARE of what happened in the original series and is actively trying to get both him and Shinji some kind of a happy end to this story. He is a delightful enigma of a character and I am hoping (though I know this is unlikely) that we get some sort of confirmation of his weird awareness of other timelines, or even just a scrap of info about him in the next film. 

I also very much think that this is a sequel to the original series and End of Eva, and I have a feeling that the next movie will solidify that a bit more. Because otherwise? All of this makes even LESS sense, and the character breakdown that we see is even MORE infuriating. 

[nancydrewrings]

Every Nancy Drew game puzzle-leaver ranked from worst to best.

I was thinking about the ranking of ND suspects by @aniceworld (if you haven’t seen it then go check it out because it’s the best) and felt inspired to do something similar.

Methodology: I included characters who left us puzzles to solve. I judged STFD, CRE, VEN, TOT, and ASH as not having characters who met those criteria. CAR was the only game with two. I lumped all the Penvellyns together because ain’t nobody got time for that. If I forgot anyone, let me know. All rankings are personal taste.

28. J.J. Thompson (FIN) Does he count? Between fucking over Louisa Falcone and betting against Harry Houdini pulling off a trick, ol’ J.J. just can’t overcome his P.T.-Barnum-knockoff origin story.

27. ??? (CAP) To be honest, I spent this whole game trying to figure out how I could break up with Ned and ask Frank out, so I don’t remember who put the puzzles here. They were stupid, though.

26. Ezra Wickford (TRT) You can’t just adopt a kid and then disown him if he has behavioral problems. And I frankly don’t believe your claim that you invented chocolate milk. Enjoy your hidden sadness shrines, you sack of shit.

25. Lizzie Applegate (MHM) I guess I’m just not sure why she left the treasure in the floor instead of using it at any point. Sorry your outlaw husband ditched you, though. Dirk Valentine would never do a thing like that.

24. Trapper Dan (ICE) Apparently Lizzie Applegate is the one who told Dan to riddle the Lodge with puzzles: a pointless callback in an overwhelmingly frustrating game.

23. El Toro (RAN) The hourglass puzzle makes me cry, but he deliberately died in a ridiculous position so his corpse could trigger a booby trap, which I respect.

22. King Pacal (SSH) The scribe’s desiccated corpse has haunted my dreams for years, so while I appreciate Pacal’s level of loopholed pettiness, I hate him.

21. Ramses II (TMB) I’m not particularly impressed by anything Ramses set up to guard Nefertari’s tomb, but at least his actions were justified in-character, and I minored in classical civilizations so he gets an automatic bonus for Ancient Egypt.

20. Rita Hallowell (WAC) Her motivations are unclear at best, but she gains rank for clearly being an emo lesbian cat lady.

19. Kasumi Shimizu (SAW) Maybe just tell your daughters that they can leave the family business instead of making them solve a nonogram to find out. No wonder your family fell apart.

18. Kate Drew (SPY) Many parts of this game are beautifully, emotionally moving, but up until the new engine fuckery, Nancy’s mom being a spy was the dumbest idea HER has had since RAN.

17. Rolfe Kessler (CAR) I’m sorry that neither your wife nor your era could handle your mental illness.

16. The Forgery Ring (LIE) I love the culprit in this game, but everyone’s first clue that they weren’t a real theater troupe should’ve been their requirement to solve complex puzzles to do a goddamn set change. Hire a prop manager to keep all those dumb pieces in order.

15. Charlotte Thornton (GTH) The audacity of entrusting a vital clue to finding her will to an approximately five-year-old child just proves that Charlotte was not fit to run the family business. It’s hard to like her when all she does is murder me while I am actively avenging her.

14. Jin Soo Seung (MED) I don’t know how or why Sonny’s grandpa hid these artifact pieces all over this specific area of New Zealand. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who loves Sonny Joon enough to put up with a fair amount of bullshit.

13. Captain Lawrence (SEA) Like the Penvellyns, it is amazing that his treasure-hiding gambit was even marginally successful. However, that skeleton hands post helps him skate all the way to spot #13 on my list.

12. Brendan Malloy (HAU) His double-agent scientist backstory is the only redeeming thing about this absurd game.

11. Noisette Tornade (DAN) Great name, cool job, noble deeds, but did you need to lock me in the basement after I went to all the trouble of solving your encrypted clues?

10. Jake Rogers (SCK) Jake Rogers decided to be a blackmail kingpin at the age of 17. Minus points for being skeevy about Connie (her secret is that she can beat the shit out of you, dude, please have more foresight), props for sheer ballsiness. Is he the one who left all the weird rhyming clues everywhere in SCK1? Because if so he would shoot up at least five spots.

9. Penvellyn Family (CUR) Props for dedicating their lives to continuing this convoluted, pointless gambit. It’s just impressive none of them fucked it up over the last few centuries. However: if the point was for your family members to solve an elaborate series of puzzles to find the treasure, why trap them in a box to suffocate at the end?

8. Darryl Trent (CAR) He clearly made a lot of poor decisions in his life, but leaving his daughter a baffling robot to remember him by makes up for most of them.

7. Jake Hurley (TRN) I need a private sadness train with a mystical gemstone contraption, like, yesterday.

6. Bruno Bolet (CRY) What a fucking weirdo. If it weren’t for the crystal skull thing he might rank higher, because all of his other obsessions are positively delightful.

5. Josiah Crowley (CLK) I have a bunch of nerdy internet friends who use nicknames for each other, so I appreciate his group of radio Mechanicals. Also disguising yourself in drag to mess with your friends and neighbors is hilarious. Truly a man ahead of his time.

4. Niko Jovic (DED) Turns out that he was kind of an asshole, but I’ve got to love him for the steampunk lair he built under a privately-owned facility.

3. Dirk Valentine (SHA) If I were Frances Humber, I would’ve left Shadow Ranch the day after I met Dirk and had like eleven outlaw babies with this king of romance.

2. Hilda Swenson (DDI) When I’m a bored widow, I hope I become so disillusioned with the rest of the world that I fuck off and force anyone who wants to talk to me to solve a bunch of puzzles I scattered around my old town.

1. Mickey Malone (DOG) All I aspire to be is a 1920s gangster who owns a private speakeasy under my cabin in the woods and hangs out with my four giant dogs whom I adore.

[softhaos]

SQUARE ONE

pairing – lee jihoon x reader  genre – fluff + humor + romance + demon!au description – he should be helping you take over the world but does the exact opposite instead. alternatively, he’s internally cringing at your evil plans and should get over it as fast as possible but decides to prolong his company, even if it ends up with even more cringing and banging heads against the wall. warning – includes my usual borderline crack stuff, this time in the form of aspiring villain!reader as tragic + petty as dr. doofenschmirtz and jihoon being the male counterpart of vanessa song rec – turtle | twice word count – 1,911 words author’s note – i swear the fic isn’t as much of a crack fest as the summary makes it out to be

When you presented your aim of world domination to him, Jihoon didn’t need to listen to your proposal twice to say yes.

He regrets it.

Jihoon doesn’t know himself what went through him when he sealed the contract with you. All he knows is that he was rash and dumb and not in his right mind at that time. Usually, he takes his time, weighs his options and ponders whether it’s worth it assisting the petty person who summoned him. Even though you were just one out of many petty humans who wanted a deal with a demon, it only took Jihoon those two simple words, world domination,  to make up his mind on a whim.

Before you, Jihoon had to keep up with blatantly idiotic teenagers who thought summoning wasn’t possible and middle-aged single people who wished for the downfall of their neighbor who happened to live a glorious life. What they wanted to achieve was quite saddening; saddening in a sense that they really needed to rely on somebody else to commit the deed. From causing their snobby classmate to end up in a scandal to vandalizing the rich neighbor’s mansion, everything was mere child’s play for Jihoon. Though it was his job to cause a ruckus on Earth, he wanted to wreak much greater havoc than just shaving off someone’s ex-girlfriend’s hair. If he could, he would’ve done something by himself, but there was this one tiny, ridiculous thing that prevented him from doing so: demons are only able to assist people, not execute the plan with their own hands.

Jihoon was so done with the childish and belittling goals he had to do; sometimes he had to do the same petty thing even more than once. So naturally, when you made him appear in front of your eyes and desperately raved about wanting to take over the world, Jihoon didn’t bat an eyelash with his immediate agreement. You even had proof showing that you tried overthrowing the world by yourself. (Those were some inventions that didn’t seem too miserable but backfired when you switched them on.)

After a few days of somewhat getting a grasp of you, he utmostly regrets his decision.

Though your plans sound like music to his ears, you surely aren’t. Because you don’t have what it takes to be an evil mastermind. Okay, Jihoon admits, your ideas are actually brilliant, but that’s just it. You don’t have the skills to be villain nor do you have the personality to be a proper one. Sometimes, Jihoon wonders whether your parents dropped you when you were an infant or else because wow, Jihoon has never thought he’d ever meet a person as clumsy and idiotic as you. Your type of idiotic is on a whole different level than the idiots Jihoon has ever met. Somehow, you always manage to get the most obvious and easiest things done in the wrong way and your mishaps on the dumbest motions make Jihoon want to return back to hell (or at least, make him bang his head against the wall and it hurts).

What physically pains him the most is how much sooner you would’ve fulfilled your world domination plan if it weren’t for your mishaps while tweaking on your inventions. Much to Jihoon’s dismay, you had to mess up during the most critical tasks even though the critical tasks were easy to do. The routine once you completed building the prototype of your newest invention goes like this: Jihoon figures out why it doesn’t work yet (assuming you didn’t switch it on and the machine didn’t blow up), tells you the faults and how to fix it (he would do it himself but sadly, he’s a demon and can only give you instructions) and then you do the exact opposite of what Jihoon tells you to do.

And lastly, the prototype explodes and Jihoon saves your ass before he a) screams at you, b) tries to contain his frustration and cringe it off or c) bangs his head against the wall.

It stings his non-beating heart even more when he figures the root of your mistake.

“I told you to cut off the red wire, y/n, not the black one!”

“I know! But the red and the black one were so close to each other I accidentally cut off the wrong one! It- hey, I’m not done yet. Jihoon, where are you going?!”

Another prime example, and frankly, probably the moment that takes the cake is the time you mixed up left and right: “What was so hard to get under left and not right? I said left a dozen times!”

“Well… I thought you meant the other left!”

“There is only one left, you dimwit! Besides, I even drew you a picture so you wouldn’t make this mistake and- how in the world did you manage to place the instructions upside down, y/n? The words are upside down the way you read this!”

Honestly, it’s a miracle that your house hasn’t broken down yet for some unfathomable reason and Jihoon doesn’t complain about that. Nonetheless, it doesn’t help his unease. The fact that you add the suffix ‘-inator’ to a random word to name the creation certainly doesn’t help either.

With time, he still winces at your fatal mistakes, still cringes and goes through an internal debate and still bangs his head against the wall when things don’t run smoothly, which is basically every single day. But when he cools down, he suddenly isn’t too affected by it and though he sighs because wow, another day of cleaning up the mess hooray, there lies an undertone of amusement in those things.

He finds himself rolling his eyes at you in a playful manner when you whine around and indirectly apologize for ruining your own invention and therefore, also postponing your ultimate goal of world domination as well as prolonging Jihoon’s attachment to you as your demon assistant. He lets out a snort whenever you refer to your machines as ‘lazer-inator’, ‘fogblast-inator’ and various other inators due to the stupidity of those names, but also because it was hilarious and softening and bewitching seeing your eyes glimmer with expectation and hope.

Long story short: You don’t physically ache him as much as before (because Jihoon refuses to admit that he is in the process of becoming a lovesick demon crushing on a wannabe villain).

Much to his dismay – he’s pretty sure some angel or so is responsible for this – you started learning how to get things right. It worried him when he saw you the first time spending all night reading a pile of books and digging out old sketches to pinpoint the errors in them. His distress shouldn’t be justified, Jihoon knows, but he doesn’t want it to happen yet. He’s selfish, sure he is, he’s a demon after all, but causing trouble should be more important than chasing after someone, or in his case, staying at someone’s side. Jihoon is glad there is no rule book for demons. Otherwise, things would’ve taken a bad turn long before.

But when he finds fewer mistakes in your prototypes, fewer complaints and whines coming from your mouth and fewer mentions of inators on a daily basis, he grows desperate.

Jihoon knows better than to prevent you from trying to rule the world, yet he still does it. The only reason he does it – aside from preventing the contract to expire because once you reach your goal, it’s a trip back to hell and a waiting game for Jihoon until another person strikes him up with their so-called evil masterplan – is that he knows it’s not really your life devotion. He's grasped enough of your personality to know that you’re not actually evil, that you don’t hold any serious grudge against the world and that in the end, you’re just another curious idiot who wants to see if the impossible is possible.

(The last part is only partly correct. You’re not just another curious idiot, you’re his curious idiot. An idiot nevertheless.)

Jihoon doesn’t know how you feel about him exactly. He often wonders if you like him just as much as he likes you or even more or sadly less. In any case, he certainly knows that contrary to your words, you don’t want to get rid of him as fast as possible. Otherwise, you wouldn’t cling to his sleeves whenever you are being a whiny annoyance even though he has expressed his bitterness or draw doodles of him as a stick figure on his corrected sketches. The latter doesn’t necessarily amuse him because you just ruined his corrections and your drawing skills equal to those of a toddler and Jihoon finds toddlers a pain. But he still acknowledges your attempts.

He has hoped the day would never come but it came: the day where there isn't a single flaw in your umpteenth prototype invention branded with the name ‘snow-in-summer-inator’. Being the demon he is, he purposefully adds a hefty mistake into the sketch and hands it back to you, hoping you’d just take it as it is.

“Jihoon, you sure this is wrong? I double and triple checked with all the other plans.” you look up from the sketch and shoot him a suspicious glance.

“Look, it’s either you believe me or not. If you’re oh-so-confident about your skills then go through with it. Just remember the countless other times where you thought you got it all right but turned out you weren’t.” Jihoon shrugs in response and pretends not to care. All he hopes for is that you are dense enough to buy his words.

To his luck, you are that dense. A part of Jihoon wants to make him sicker through the floor because how on Earth did you manage to win over his attention with that blunt naivety?

The rest follows the usual routine. You fix it up (this time, you tamper with it), switch it on, the block of metal makes a weird noise and Jihoon brings your ass away from the danger zone before it blows up.

Once the black smoke cleared up little by little, you swat his hands away and unlike the normal cycle, you’re the one who screams at him. “See? I was right, Jihoon! I! Was! Right! Hah- wait a sec mister, we aren’t finished yet! Hey, don’t you dare leave, you have to help me clean up your mistakes–”

It should frustrate Jihoon that you are back at the beginning, back at square one to the ultimate goal of world domination. After all, his purpose and passion are to wreak havoc and cause disorder in the world. But in a sense, he does cause turbulence in the world; not on Earth, but your little world makes the cut.

Long story short: World domination is all fun and such, but Jihoon prefers to simply cause you some chaos (because Jihoon is the type of guy who shows his affection by pissing his crush off).

[tartlette1968]

Okay, so this has been growing since FINA did their thing. I'm feeling heartbroken for anyone that this ruling has impacted, and I'm certain it isn't just aspiring athletes.

I don't know what needs to happen, but it certainly isn't whatever FINA think they're doing.

Full disclosure, for a lot of my school years I was not "normal", not in the statistical sense, nor in the societal sense. Frankly I was on the receiving end of "weak", "girl", and "sissy" far too many times. "Girl" I can handle, now, because it is a label of strength, pride, lack of nasty pettiness. But "weak" and "sissy", yeah they almost break bones in a way that isn't going to heal.

I mean there was a costume competition at Primary School, where Mum had the amazing idea of dressing me up as a bunch of grapes (balloons and green crepe paper, amazing) and the teachers who were judges, who apparently couldn't recognise me, awarded me girl's best costume. That was just strange, nothing more. i mean you do have to understand this costume basically covered me from head to toe, with only my face showing.

So I've been as aware as anyone of the really really narrow definition of being a "boy" or "man". As much as I love motorsports, watch Australian Rules footy, and "Pour Some Sugar on Me" has always been my go to sensual seductive guy dance--well at least when I'm home alone (I don't do stripping in public). Well there is that party where Huntress hypnotised me to strip every time a friend of ours said the "F" word. And this friend tends to say that word a lot. But I'm getting off topic.

Gender definitions do violence to all of us. They are of no benefit.

FINA has fumbled around, as have the rest of the elite sports bodies, and this latest effort is a mess. The way things are going, and the direction the conversation is going, testosterone levels are going to play some part in formulating these rules. Here's where I have to stop, because I know so very little about what manipulating and altering testosterone does to athletic performance. There are some significant studies, but not an extensive wealth of research to call on. For the most part, the insistence on a male/female demarcation is tradition based on no actual difference in performance.

Banning trans athletes is not the answer.

And that thing about the Nazis coming for everyone else, and so when they came for us, there was no one to help??? Yeah, well, that's exactly what's happening, because this is so much not about sport. Stand back and look at the people who are literally cheering this, not just agreeing, and you should feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up in alarm.

[cindaay]

For the past year or so, I’ve been in an on-and-off relationship. It started online and very very quickly became something much deeper than I ever imagined. We never honestly had a “friendship,” we dove almost immediately into a full blown relationship only having known each other two months. We got along really well. I mean, insanely well. We are also very different people with very different lifestyles and goals and world views.  Our proper relationship really only lasted about a month before our big explosive argument in the middle of the night that sent me home in tears, thinking I was never going to see him again. Low and behold, two weeks later, maybe less, we were back to seeing each other, but, we were “taking things slow”. “Starting over”. Nothing changed. For months we continued to hang out and make out and “not be serious” but be, basically, in a relationship.  For a number of reasons I won’t get into now, we had a very turbulent relationship.  No communication skills whatsoever. Both of us have our own very prominent mental issues and pasts that haunt us and make us lash out on one another instead of trying to talk things out. We knew it, though, and most of the time we would have an argument about something and then by the end we were laughing at each other and agreeing that we were both being fucking insane and it, honestly, felt like it made our connection stronger. But, it still felt like we were miles apart on so many things. And we were. We still are. Break up, stay friends, get too close, fight, break up, stay friends, get too close, fight again... it was always the same endless loop. And it made me miserable. That being said, growing up being the middle child in a relatively unstable household and being bullied for this and that, I grew to master the art of hiding my feelings. Burying them. Distracting myself with anything to avoid confronting my problems.  This has carried over into all of my relationships, unsurprisingly creating a lot of problems for me and my partners. Our inability to communicate properly and to level with each other on the real, the gritty, the uncomfortable created and maintained a wedge between us. He also has a daughter and an unstable relationship with her mother - who hates me, simply because I was next after her. That complicated things. I don’t want kids. I don’t want to raise anyone else’s. That’s a huge part of his life that I really ...didn’t want to be a part of. He’s a drunk, too. He’s gotten better, but, it’s such a deeply rooted habit that stems from his upbringing. His politics are on the opposite side of the spectrum as mine. Huge deal to me. His career (or lack thereof) goals were not in any way similar to mine, and frankly I think he felt threatened that I have such high aspirations and very nearly the means to attain them. I say very nearly because the only thing really stopping me from achieving my goals is myself (thanks, depression!). He got a DUI two years ago and hasnt gotten his license back. If we’re going to see each other, it’s up to me to make it happen. Everything always took place on his turf - never mine. I know all his friends. They love me. He doesn’t know any of mine. Never showed any interest in being a part of my life. Only wanted me for himself. Even to present day, he gets hostile at the very mention of me doing something other than hanging out with him. And I know, I know it’s not just that. I know it’s months and months of miscommunication and perhaps broken promises and neglecting issues until they boil over and erupt and cause basically irreparable damage to the both of us.  Also, I’m a gemini and he is a scorpio, so, let’s just consider that as well. Anyway, we broke up again and for the final time in, March, maybe? I cant even quite remember when it was but it was several months ago. We decided to stay friends, because, old habits die hard (or not at all). We did pretty well for a while. It was weird at first but we sort of managed. But simply just erasing the intimate, physical part of a relationship overnight is lets face it, impossible.  So it wasn’t long before we were you know, snuggling and holding hands and sharing quick smooches. We continued on like like - “not together” - for a while. We hadn’t slept together in a long time before the break up anyway. We were, I guess we were friends. We got into the habit of not kissing anymore for a while. We got along pretty well, but would still have our tiffs and our blowouts when he would get drunk and be mean to me and do all kinds of petty things just to piss me off. I guess I should say that he’s also a heavily right-leaning Libertarian facebook troll who likes to argue with people and always thinks he’s right. He’s insensitive to “progressive” ideas. Makes lots and lots of jokes at other peoples’ expense and says a lot of really shitty, racist, sexist, elitist things. Calls Donald Trump “Daddy Trump” and thinks its hilarious to fly a flag with his ugly mug standing on top of a tank with fireworks and American flags in the background. Seriously sometimes just a very heinous person. Not the kind of person I would ever associate with. But I didn’t really know these things about him until it was too late. I had already fallen for the parts of him that fit so perfectly with parts of me. I was never looking for a relationship when I met him. I wish I had never gotten into one with him. Honestly. If we didn’t jump straight into intimacy we could have been great friends I think. I mean, hell, I kissed him the night I met him (I had also had 8-9 Bud heavy’s because I was so nervous and out of my element). I really set the bar. It had been four years since my last relationship ended -- and it did not end well -- and I was honestly excited that I had met someone so similar to me and so interested in me. I was leery of the situation from the get-go and knew, KNEW, that I should tread very carefully and make my intensions known from the start but... lust is a hell of a drug. Lust that turned into love but a very confusing love and a not-certain-if-it-really-is-love-love. To be fair I think all love is relative and no love is alike, in that something that is a deal breaker for one person might not be for another. You can’t define love is all I’m saying. When you love something or someone, it is for your own reasons and not because you checked every box on the “Is It Love?” list. But I digress. What I’m trying to get at is that two nights ago, very nearly exactly 48 hours ago, we were approaching an ice cream stand when suddenly it all came out and it all fell apart. I’d tried to end it with him a few weeks ago because I’m literally exhausted from trying to keep up with the whole ugly thing, but, through tears and compromise we decided (again) to remain friends. Since then, though, I’d been distancing myself (like I said I wanted to in the first place) and he just sort of ...lost it. I guess. I couldn’t handle the pressure of trying to be friends with someone who clearly wants to be more. I’d been fantasizing about finally telling him off and driving off into the distance, free and confident that I was going to get my life back. Now I’ve done that. I’ve cut ties. I blocked him on Twitter, on Facebook, Snapchat, even by phone number. I’d never blocked his number before. Even through all the other bullshit, I’d never blocked him.  He tried to contact me throughout that night but I wasn’t having it. I was excited, I’d finally done it. I didn’t want anything to do with him anymore.  He actually impressed me by sending me an e-mail the next day, something I did not expect. Just begging me to talk to him and to hear him out and that he would “settle for being friends,” “as long as [I] make it clear that that’s all it is”. He had a friend of his text me and ask me if I could just speak with him because he is so devastated. Eventually I did give in and I contacted him and I told him I was sorry things ended up this way, if I could go back and change certain things, I would. But my decision remains. Too many times have I gone back on the promise I made to myself that ‘this is the last time’. I need, for myself, to abstain from having any kind of relationship with him. I would love for us to be friends. I think. But it is not an option at this time. We never had a proper break up. He never got over me. I suppose I got over him, but I never truly made my feelings clear to him. I do understand that I lead him on in a lot of ways, and I don’t feel good about it, but, I think I led him on so much because he had manipulated me to the point where I didn’t think I had a choice. Our whole relationship was just sort of this cause-and-effect mind-fuck that both of our bad habits and inabilities to confront our issues perpetuated. It was all so messy. It was all so ...degrading on a lot of levels. Even though I genuinely cherished his company and the way we could say and do the same things at the same time so often and how even when we were fighting, we managed to make each other laugh. But I guess maybe it was my propensity to over-romanticize that kept me coming back.  I hated how he lived. His bed is as old as I am, it’s not comfortable. He eats steak with his hands sometimes. Only eats carbs. Never cleans up after himself. Wears dirty socks several days in a row. There were always CRUMBS and DIRT in the bed and it would freak me the fuck out to the point where I had to brush off my side of the bed before getting in it and he would strike and attitude with me because he thinks I’m being fussy but in fact I am literally having a hard time breathing because your MESS freaks me out SO MUCH. His CHILD sleeps on a tiny mattress on the floor surrounded by literal garbage and guinea pig feces (because she would kick it all out of the cage and he could never be bothered to change her bedding or sweep the floor). He is always in a bad mood. Something is always pissing him off. Work, family, lack of money, “libtards”, you name it. Something. All the time. And supposedly I was this magical creature that could *cure everything* except that wasn’t the case. He would still be just as miserable with me there than if he was alone or at the bar complaining with other drunks. Nothing you say to him (of any real helpfulness) will change his mind or put him in a better mood. It’s useless. And he’d always apologize after doing or saying something fucked up if he knew he pissed me off. And I’d tell him “you have to stop doing that,” and he’d say he would, but he never did. And we just... we got too close. Everything the other person did was somehow a dig at the other. There was no trust. No real “friendship”. Just a couple of months worth of great memories that were only great because we had no idea how fucked up the other person would end up being. He always says he can change. He’ll do anything just to keep me around. I’m his best friend. He’s driven away all his other friends. But that’s too much for me to carry. I can’t be the sole reason for you to want to be a better person. I can’t be your sun, your moon, and your morphine. I want him to be happy. I want him to have a good relationship with his family and have financial security and have a place of his own and I want him to have a life he can be proud of. Unfortunately I don’t think that I really fit into the equation. Not if this is how we’ve ended up anyway. Having him in my life is not conducive to my goals either. It sucks to say it but he has been holding me back for nearly a year and a half.  He has drained me of my energy and of my confidence and of my desire to rise above the bullshit. He has only furthered my belief that telling people how I feel is only going to get me laughed at or yelled at. He has shown me just how destructive drinking can be. And how crippling to any kind of relationship technology and social media and the internet can be.  He has also taught me that some guys do know where the clit is. And that 24 is one of the greatest shows of all time. And that despite how unhappy I am with myself, nobody else sees me the way I see me. I’ve wanted to text him a dozen times today. Everything reminds me of him. I’ve had to scratch out a few things on my calendar since Monday, which was unexpectedly sad for me. I know that he is miserable. I know that he thinks he can’t live without me. But he has to. Tough love, right? Part of me thinks that we could just not see each other but continue to text but... most of me knows that in order for us both to heal and move on we have to draw a line and stay behind it. I literally didn’t know how to function on my own after my last relationship ended. We spent every day together for two years. We lived together. We went to school together. We did EVERYTHING together. He was all I knew. When that ended I was lost. We tried to stay friends but things were too sour and we soon accepted that we had to step out of each others’ lives for the better. Eventually, I learned how to walk again and I could fill the void with things of my own, experiences, friends, you know. To my knowledge though he is probably in a worse state now than he was then. I don’t want that for him, I never did. But it’s out of my control. In the end, the most important thing is me and my well being and my happiness. If desperately clinging to a friendship that never really quite existed just for the sake of the other person isn’t making me happy... I need to stop doing it. It sucks being sad. It sucks knowing that the things I want to say to him have to go unsaid. That he is at home or at work or wherever miserable and thinking only of ways to get me back into his life. I don’t want to make him more miserable than he already is. But I think that me stepping out of his life is going to eventually give him the push he needs to get his own life back on track. And when that happens, and when I am comfortable in my own skin again, maybe we can reconnect and build a friendship. But right now everything is still too hot to handle. I don’t know how long this hiatus will last. It could be years. But we cannot be friends with this amount of tension and fresh hot emotion between us.  Still I find myself second guessing my decision. Damn my critically high level of empathy. I wish I could just sleep it all away. Wave a wand and make it all better. Go back to last year and tell myself to quit while I was ahead. But alas, I am only human and this is only a blip in my still-young life. Heartbreak sucks and it is every bit as draining and tormenting as it is said to be. But this is not my first and it is surely not my last. Anyway, I feel a little better after putting it all into words outside the realm of my stupid broken brain.  The worst part is that all I want to do is talk to him now. Wish me luck.

[tiny-librarian]

muffinsandmatriarchy:

tiny-librarian:

vivelareine:

tiny-librarian:

If you ever need cheering up, think about how Louis XVI walked around Versailles after his eldest son was born, looking for excuses to say “My son, the Dauphin” in conversation.

Because he did that, and it was adorable.

Feel free to picture Antoinette following behind him and trying not to laugh while shaking her head because he’s being such a dork but it’s cute and she loves him.

I’m imagining it in the most ridiculous ways

“Oh, you have a new hair ribbon? My son, the dauphin, also has hair.” “Ah nice to see you’ve still got those 10 fingers and toes like my son, the dauphin.”

I could see it, I won’t lie. Along with a scowling Provence getting increasingly exasperated and Antoinette just looking smugly at him.

I love this because it’s cute but it’s missing some historical context that frankly makes it even better.

Antoinette didn’t have kids till really late into the marriage, so there was a long time where people thought she and Louis straight up wouldn’t have an heir at all. It was rumored (and likely true) that both Louis and Antionette had, like, a ton of affairs behind each others’ backs. It was, of course, more negatively aimed at Antionette, who was not well liked at court for quite a while.

So, to bring this back around, Antionette gets pregnant and everyone’s like, “oh shit… poor Louis has been MAD cuckolded lololol” and everyone low key thinks the kid is someone else’s

And of course, Louis’ response is probably, “are you KIDDING” because at first they’re mad his wife won’t make an heir and now that she did.

So this makes the fact that, after birth, Louis toted around his new son and bragged to EVERYONE all the more petty. “My son, the DAUPHIN,” in every conversation possible. A reminder that whatup bitches, I’m the KING, and what I say GOES, while also being a proud dad, while also being lowkey sweet to his wife by 100% rejecting the idea that the kid was illegitimate.

I aspire to those levels of courtly pettiness

Except for the fact that neither of them ever had any affairs so it’s not “Likely true” at all.

It wasn’t Louis being petty, it was him being a genuinely proud father who was thrilled his beloved wife had a son. The wife he’d taken extra precautions to protect this time, since when she had their first child the tradition of so many people in the room watching put her in serious danger.