#I told her she can use that for her college essays because it makes her stand out

[femmienine]

Sometimes I feel like a boring person and then I remember I have have the most random lore that I never tell anyone

so here’s a list of things I don’t talk about, but actually prove I’m an interesting person:

At the age of 10, I spent a nearly year filming a game show where I competed against other 10 yr olds to see who was the smartest (I won, but I don’t remember if I actually won a prize anything and neither does my mother lol) I also had to take an iq test to qualify for the show.

I’m a published poet. I got drunk one night and decided to submit to a publishing company and they actually like it (I had never shown anyone my poems before then).

I once scammed my way into getting a job as a pet groomer (idk shit about pet grooming). It only lasted 3 weeks before they realized I was making stuff up as I went along.

I’ve worked in just about any industry you can think of (I was basically Trish from Austin & Ally as a teenager)

I’ve been on the news about 3 times for different things. (Including when people thought we kidnapped our friend but really she was just blackout drunk and wouldn’t get in the car. We had to call the police and have her explain the situation once she was sober, but at least it’s a good story)

I grew up doing theatre and got to perform for an audience of over 5,000 people when I was 18 because I competed at a national acting competition and came in first.

I’m a freelance choreographer and have won a few awards in last 4 years.

I studied film for like 4 years and have multiple certifications in it.

I’ve saved my sister from getting hit by a car multiple times (she got mad at me after the 1st time because I accidentally hurt her when I did it but she was small so I don’t blame her lol)

I own over 200 books and collect old books. The oldest one I have is from 1907 and I want to learn how to restore/bind books because a lot of my older books weren’t in the best condition when I found them.

I know the lead singer from Grupo Frontera because we grew up together

I’ve had a few videos on TikTok get over 20k views (rip TikTok I’ll miss you when you’re banned)

I’ve had 3 near death experiences (I’m immortal until proven otherwise)

When I was in high school, I posted a lot about theatre and dance and had a famous musical writer (in the broadway world at least) reach out about auditioning for a show he was doing because I had the “right look”. I had to turn it down because, no matter how much I try, I am not a singer lmao

When I was 11 years old my little sister was being bullied at school and the teachers did nothing so I found the 7 years olds after school and threatened to beat them up if she came home crying again (it worked even though I never have and never will look like I can beat someone up)

I was told by an adult “if you say something enough times people start to believe it” when I was a kid and I’m pretty sure they meant it about self image and such, but I took it literally and wanted to see if it was true so everyday I’d tell my sister she was scared of moths (she wasn’t) until eventually she started to believe me and actually developed a fear of them. We both completely forgot about it until 10 years later when she started crying at the sight of one and then suddenly the memory came back and I realized it was all my fault. I wrote some of my college essays about that and she tried to beat me when I finally told her, but I deserved it tbh.

[carbine55555]

random facts about columbine

(posting this for the 4th time since i keep getting termed)

* If Eric could change one thing about himself it would be his weight

* When Dylan was a sophomore, he volunteered at a day care. sue remembers him helping little kids line up neatly to take their turns on the swing

* Eric and Dylan's manager had a six year old daughter who was often there while they worked. She loved them and their manager said they treated her very well.

* When one of eric's neighbours lost her puppy, he looked for it and brought it back to her

* Eric would help his mom garden

* Eric and Dylan went to two rammstein concerts together. they were on december 8th, 1997 and may

* 1st, 1998. KMFDM opened for the first one.

* Dylan used the the Breman Bold font for his wrath shirt.
We're unsure what Eric used but it could potentially be
Massacre.
Dylan picked out his cat, rocky, from a litter of kittens when he was in 3rd grade

* Dylan's favorite baseball player was Roger Clemens

* At blackjack, Eric made $7.65 an hour and Dylan made $6.50 an hour

* Eric had $113 in his wallet at the time of his death

* For his english class, Eric chose these three books to read and write an essay about. Return from the stars was his favorite one.

* According to a Jennifer Harmon, a girl in Eric and Dylan's creative writing class, Dylan would pass out chips ahoy cookies during this class as an attempt to make friends. she said they were "the chewy kind with big chocolate chunks." During the basement tapes, Dylan pumped a shotgun and pointed it at Eric, who was filming, making him scream "jesus christ, put the fucking safety on!"

* During the massacre, Eric and Dylan had match strikers taped to their forearms so they could easily light their bombs. they are visible in this photo from the evidence exhibit. you can also see the tape on Dylan's wrist in the suicide photo.

* Eric and Dylan had other nicknames besides Reb and Vodka. Eric's were indigo, reverend, and war. Dylan's were green and death.
After they committed suicide, Eric had 18 9mm bullets and 14 shotguns shells left. Dylan had 3 9mm bullets and 14 shotgun shells left.

* On March 14, 1998, Dylan got a ticket for failing to stop at a red light. He had to go to court for it on april 29. he wrote, "red light court. dam ni**az better not take me license.

* Two months before columbine, Eric's dog was seriously ill. Dylan picked up Eric's shift at blackjack so he could stay home and be with his dog. Sue felt sad for Eric and told Dylan she was proud of him for being such a good friend.

* After the massacre, Kevin harris told friends he blamed himself because he went away to college and wasn't around to help his brother cope with whatever problems he was having.

* The morning after the massacre, Wayne Harris phoned the family dentist. Eric had an appointment on june 30th and he needed to cancel it.

* Eric was not Dylan's first choice for NBK. He originally wanted to do it by himself, with a girl, or with (presumably) Zack Heckler.

* Devon Adams said Sue wore Dylan's jeans after his death. The only person on their shitlists who got shot was

* Austin Eubanks. Austin was friends with Corey Depooter. He died in 2019 due to an opioid addiction.

* When Eric lived in Michigan, his dad was a scout leader and helped coach sports teams. he played basketball in their driveway with Eric and Kevin. His mom helped his 5th grade class make special shirts for halloween. Both his parents always attended the parent-teacher conferences

* A few weeks before the massacre, Dylan was banned from using the school computers because he called a librarian a bitch after she asked him to pay for printing over 10 pages. When told he was banned, he just said,
"well, you know, it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter."

* Dylan was friends with Rachel Scott's prom date, Nick Baumgart, between 3-5th and 7-8th grade (Eric was also friends with him 7-8th). In the basement tapes, Eric said he laughed too much and "those two girls sitting next to you probably want you to shut the fuck up too".

* Eric, Dylan, and Zach Heckler also targeted Nick's house during a Rebel Mission on February 7, 1997. Eric described what they did to his house and their reasoning for targeting him in his writings.

* Brandi Tinklenburg, the girl in the Eric In Columbine video, would study in the library every tuesday morning during her lunch hour. The only reason she wasn't there the day of the massacre was because she went to the tanning salon instead.

* The only reason cameras were installed in columbine's cafeteria was to catch students who left trash on the tables.

* Dylan's locker number was 837 and his combo was

* 19-37-9. And Eric's locker number was 624 and his combo was 16-48-30.

* V

* • Eric wrote "anniversary card" in his school planner under april 17, 1998 to remind himself to get his parents a card for their 28th wedding anniversary. When police arrived at Eric's house after the massacre and tried to go in his room, Kathy Harris tried to stop them. she said, "i don't want you to go in there." The officers persisted and she complied.

* Dylan's body was released to Horan & Mccontay funeral home. services were on april 24th, 1999 at 1:30pm.

8-10 people attended.

* Eric's body was released to aspen funeral home. No services were provided. It is unknown if the harris family had a private funeral for Eric or not.

* Eric got surgery to correct his pectus excavatum on December 16th 1993 at Fitzsimons Army Medical Centre in Aurora, co. He wrote, "when i got back from the hospital, i couldn't do anything that involved using my chest muscles. that meant i barely could even laugh."

* Dylan was going to major in computer science at the university of Arizona. Eric was almost positive he didn't want to go to a 4 year college, but he told a friend he might go to a 2 year college and "major in computer graphics or something."

* Eric knew he was rejected by the marines. Nate Dykeman said, "Dylan and I were the first ones Eric told about the rejection. He asked me, 'where do I go from there?' he saw it as a last option."

* Dylan's SAT score was 1210. He got 560 on the verbal part and 650 on the math part, putting him in the 75th percentile.

* During the massacre, eric or dylan (probably dylan) was heard saying, "today is the day the world comes to an end, today is the day we die," in the cafeteria. Eric and Dylan both dated the same girl, Sasha Jacobs.

* She went on 1-2 dates with Dylan and stopped because there was "something strange" about him. Then she went on 16-20 dates with Eric over a period of four months before also breaking up with him. After she broke up with him, Eric wrote in Chad Laughlin's yearbook about her. She also started to receive threats in her email which she suspected were from Eric.

* Eric's favorite magazines were Guns and Ammo, Penthouse, and Time.

* Dylan was born at the lutheran medical center in wheat ridge, co.

* Wayne Harris believed Brooks Brown was out to get Eric and that he was a "manipulative con artist." He wrote

"Eric is not at fault," him and Kathy felt victimized too, and they didn't want to be accused "everytime something supposedly happens."

* Eric scored a 46 on the marine recruitment asval test, which is an average score.

* Starting when he was 8 months old and until he was about 1 and a half years old, Eric went to the doctor at least 11 times due to a congenital leg problem. It wasn't elaborated on in his medical records, but his walk appears to have been bow-legged.

* Wilder Wien by RAMMSTEIN played in the original hitmen for hire during the scenes where Eric and Dylan were walking in their trench coats, but jeffco silenced the music (presumably) because of copyright.

* Mike Vendegnia (the guy in the white shirt in the Eric in columbine video) was friends with Corey Depooter.
Mike described Corey as "very bright and easy to get along with."

* Dylan tore off the bmw emblems on the front and back of his car. Zack Rissmiller said he did this, and after the massacre, police found the emblems in his glovebox. • A witness in the cafeteria heard Eric or Dylan yell

"check the window" and "one's coming in" as they were trying to detonate the bombs. They were likely anticipating that cops would enter the school at any second and were as shocked as everyone else was that they weren't coming.

* Eric's phone number was 303-762-1212.

* Dylan's phone number was 303-972-1131.

* Valeen Schnurr was holding hands with Lauren

* Townsend as she passed away.

* Dylan paid between $200 and $300 for his sunglasses.

* During the shooting, librarian Peggy Dodd told Brian Anderson, "i have to get out of here, they hate me, they're going to kill me." a few weeks before the massacre, Dylan called her a bitch when she asked him to pay for using the printer.

* Dylan told a classmate that the reason he wore a soviet pin on his boot was "just to get a reaction out of people.

* When Eric applied to tortilla wraps, he listed his english teacher, Mr. Webb, and Sue Klebold as references.

* One christmas, Sue fretted because Dylan wanted a collectible baseball card that cost as much as she had planned to spend on all his gifts. She worried about only having one gift under the tree. but that's what Dylan wanted, and that's all he got.

* Some of Dylan's favourite foods were scrambled egg, pizza, beef stew, lasagna, pumpkin pie spice cake and Dr Pepper as his favourite drink.

* Before Austin Eubanks left the library, he checked Corey Depooter for a pulse and detected no signs of life. Eric and Dylan threw a total of 31 bombs inside the library, but only 5 of them actually exploded.

* Neither Eric or Dylan wanted to have kids. Eric said, "i don't think i would want to bring a child into this world." Dylan said, "i'm never having kids. kids just mess up your life."

* A total of 76 bombs were found inside and outside columbine high school. Only 30 of those bombs actually exploded.

[kiyomitakada]

okay im back and can explain this now thank you to my (at time of writing) three wonderful enablers. uhhh cw for vague discussion of grooming that does not actually happen

back at the start of eleventh (?) grade we were informed that we were getting a new counselor for college essay advising purposes. like typical evil high schoolers we immediately started cyberstalking him and my friend found what was probably his pinterest account which contained a lot of vaguely-suggestive pictures of asian girl students, which alarmed friend but to her credit she didn’t start rumors or anything she just showed me the account in confidence. i was like well i guess we will see what he’s like (already tired) (our school does not have a great track record for school counselors being, like, useful)

and then he actually showed up and turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to our school in terms of college applications? like i cannot explain to you how dedicated this man was to helping our nothing high school score the most high-status universities possible. he was kind of mean about it. not in the “teacher yelling at you” way he was just passive aggressive as fuck and visibly wished he could write our essays for us. at the start of term he interviewed all of us privately to see what we were like and i attempted to ask questions back about why he transferred here and lost miserably

anyway i remained suspicious of him and at some point also developed a life ruining crush on him (please note he looked like stale white bread and was in his thirties and also married) that in retrospect i think started when he told me that all of the most interesting things i said were when i went on tangents. something something you talk a lot but i think your best ideas are the ones you’re not aware of. in context this was about things i could write in my essay however since i was talking about Hyperfixation i was immediately like omg you think so??? and from then on it was probably over for me. i regularly fantasized about slamming him into doors via his tie. i am pretty sure i came across to him as "student who is pretty normal around everyone except me" due to aforementioned murder-suicide-inducing crush on him. like look he was the only person who ever criticized my writing in an actually constructive way what was i supposed to do?

at one point my mom gave me a gift to give him to thank him for his help with the applications and i went into a state of panic about it because everyone else was also giving him gifts from their parents but in like, a bribery kind of way, and i was worried i would also come across as an amoral conniving principle-less client (i was a high schooler.) which was confirmed when i worked up the nerve and he looked at me and was like "please don't" and my friend (the same one from before) was like JUST TAKE IT and shoved it into his hands and dragged me away before i could have a panic attack. shoutout to friend. you are a real one

anyway. i have not talked to him ever since graduation. i don't think he liked me very much and he probably doesn't remember my name. where is the unrequited lawlight crackfic about this so i can make fun of that serial killer loser instead

[queenshelby]

Yes! Mr Murphy (Rewritten)

PART FOUR: THE ESSAY

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Angst, Age Gap, Teacher x Student, Mentions of Depression, Anxiety 

PLEASE COMMENT AND ENGAGE!

PLEASE NOTE THAT I HAVE REWRITTEN THIS STORY AND PART TWO CAN BE FOUND HERE (rewritten).

A week had passed and you had settled back into drama school without any problem whatsoever which, to you and your best friend Emma, was a surprise.

You had told Emma everything. You told her about the night you spent with Cillian three weeks ago, you told her about who he was and you told her exactly how you felt about this man being your lecturer now. It bothered you and you desperately wanted to quit, feeling torn about the attraction you still felt towards him while being with James.

Luckily for you, however, Emma was the voice of reason. Like always, she supported you, retained your secrets and reminded you that it would just be for four months and then he would move on and so would you. The semester would be over by the end of November. It was your final one and you would probably not see him again after that.

“Don’t forget that you are on a scholarship. You need this and, no doubt, this class will help you with your acting skills” is what Emma reminded you of and, since you were grateful for the place you were in these days, you agreed with her. She was right. You needed this in order to leave your past behind as, just like Emma, you went through the so called “foster system” in the US which was nothing short of horrific.

Both, Emma and you immigrated to the United States without a family to support you. You arrived as refugees at the same processing centre when you were just ten years old, making you both unsuitable for adoption which was largely due to the fact that most families approved for adoption wanted babies or toddlers under the age of three.

As such, you both moved from one foster home to another and the last of them was the worst for you. Your so-called foster parents were strict and any time you did not obey to their rules, you were punished for it. Food was withheld from you and, on occasion, you were even beaten to the point where your skin turned blue. During this time, you had been to hospital five times and no matter how often you complained, nothing changed until you ran away.

You had nowhere to stay for a while and then, when you turned sixteen, you moved out into a home designed for girls like you. It was a home for young women who went through abuse and this was exactly where, after several years, you reunited with Emma.

The facility provided excellent care for anyone who needed it but, on occasion, you felt somewhat worthless and ashamed about having lived there. Thus, you eventually took not one, but three jobs while furthering your studies at night through a state-run school. You moved out shortly after that and the college you went through helped you and Emma to apply for a scholarship abroad.

Together with eight other students in the state, you received some funding to attend different universities and schools across Europe, for which the ones based in Dublin became your choice.

Unlike London, Dublin was affordable for you both. You were now sharing a tiny studio apartment, and the money you received alongside your scholarship helped a lot.

You were an excellent dancer and, because of it, you now only had to have one rather than three jobs to support yourself, making your life relatively easy in comparison to your past.

In accordance to James and Lorraine however, who were rich and entitled, you still worked too hard. You had nothing in common with them and, even though James had been dating you for years, he always criticised you and your life choices.

He criticised you for having run away from your foster-home. He criticised you for working forty hours per week and he criticised you for saving money almost religiously.

On occasion, he also criticized your looks and the fact that you dressed too plainly. Your clothes were largely second hand, a mix of denim, sneakers, and plain coloured shirts. You owned two dresses, both black and wearing make-up was a rarity for you and you were told by your boyfriend that you should be making more of an effort for him.

But then, why should you? He never made an effort for you and being with him made you wonder whether you could ever leave your past behind. He had no idea how good his life had been while the memories of your past kept haunting you, playing with your mind.

You reflected on your past quite often. It was what kept you grounded even when you were around people like James and Lorraine. But speaking about this pain was something you struggled to do ever since you opened up to James about your upbringing. It was almost like he was embarrassed by you because if it and this hurt more than the bruises you sustained all those years ago.

Unfortunately for you though, reflecting on your past was something you were required to do as part of your first essay in PRAC300. You had to write about yourself, in a creative kind of way, drawing parallels between any painful events you encountered and a fictional character you were reading about. You had to write about how you felt in the midst of a difficult situation and then describe how you would show your emotions about such events in front of others.

Why this was relevant to your acting skills you did not know, but you wrote down what you thought anyway without putting much effort into your work. You made something up and when you submitted the paper to Cillian, you also chose to ask him about the curriculum for this unit moving forward. Again, you were playing with the idea of quitting now, but you weren’t quite sure how.  

Until such day, you had largely ignored him and he had ignored you. In class, he pretended that you did not exist and rarely ever called you out to answer any questions. Without your knowledge though, this was his very own defence mechanism. It was his way of coping while he adjusted to the fact that he was meant to be teaching you now and by asking him about the essay and upcoming unit content, you took him off guard.

**

In addition to your questions about the curriculum though, today was also the day where, even if this particular essay was not in play, you could no longer have ignored him as, just last night, photos of him on a date with a fellow actress emerged on Twitter.

Of course, you took no interest in Twitter, but other disappointed students like Lorraine shared this information with you before class. The actresses’ name was Sophie O’Callum and she was currently filming in Dublin. Sophie was in her late thirties which, to you, seemed like an appropriate age for Cillian. She was blonde, skinny and incredibly good looking, creating a fair bit of jealously amongst your peers and this emerging jealousy quickly became evident to you during class.

Usurpingly, after hearing the news, Lorraine was rather upset about the date. She was now trying it on hard with your fellow lecturer and this, in itself, became amusing when Cillian shut her down.

It was obvious to you that he was annoyed by her and whilst you felt sorry for her, you also secretly enjoyed the fact that he retained his professionalism in class especially when Lorraine made advances towards him.

But, that’s not to say that you were not a little jealous too about Cillian’s date with an equally famous actress and you did not know why. You only ever slept with Cillian once and the fact that he was seeing someone else should not have bothered you. But did it. It upset you and, thus, when you finally walked into his office after class to ask him about the essay and unit content, you had to put on an act. You had to pretend that you did not care about his date and, for all you knew, he probably bought it.

***

“Hey Y/N, how can I help you?” Cillian asked after you walked into his office before shutting the door behind you.

“You look like you had a big night” you observed while watching him rub his eyes for the millionth time that day. He did this all throughout class and now he did it again, right in front of you.  

“What makes you say that?” he wondered.

“You look a bit dusty” you pointed out with a giggle in order to lighten the mood.

“I may have had a few too many pints, but don’t tell the dean, alright?” Cillian teased, knowing that you would not say a word to the school’s principal.  

“As if I would” you pointed out nonetheless before bringing up his date. “Although, you do realise that the pictures of you and Sophie O’Callum are all over the internet, right? You both looked drunk and knackered” you laughed but Cillian simply furrowed his eyebrows.

“Seriously?” he asked after picking up his phone and googling himself.

“Don’t you follow yourself on socials?” you wondered as you watched what he was doing.

“I don’t have social media” Cillian chuckled before telling you that he was too old for it, which was a comment that amused it.

“Oh please” you laughed which was when he quickly and somewhat unexpectedly addressed the rumours he was reading.

“Just for the record though, this was not a date. We went out for drinks and then we went our separate ways” he pointed out and, whilst you secretly felt relieved about what he was saying, you put on your acting hat and furrowed your eyebrows.

“And you are telling me this why?” you asked as if you were not interested in what he had to say and Cillian bought it and snapped out of it.

“Good question” he said before asking why you were in here to see him.

“I have a question about the essay which I handed in earlier today” you said before carrying on. “How are my emotions relevant to this class?” you asked and, before you could point out to him that you felt uncomfortable with the essay topic, Cillian began to explain.

“Well, learning how to act starts with learning about emotions and how to display them on screen or on stage. Often actors can draw from their own experiences and…” he said just before you interrupted him.

“But this stuff is personal” you blurted out to which Cillian simply shrug his shoulders.

“It’s part of the curriculum Y/N. I didn’t write those essay templates. I don’t even get to grade them” he informed you, causing you to sigh.

“But you will read them?” you wondered.

“Yes. I will read them and then pass them on for grading, with my comments…” Cillian began to explain and you interrupted him again.

“Fuck” you spat. “We slept with each other and I don’t want you to know about my past and my fucking emotions” you told him and, to your surprise, Cillian reacted in a gentle kind of way.

“Y/N, I won’t judge you for whatever happened to you in the past. What you write in your essay is confidential and whether we slept with each other or not is irrelevant. We both agreed to put this one-night stand behind us and that is what I am doing, alright?” he said and this was all you needed to hear before storming out of his office.

Three days later…

Three days had passed and, like most Mondays, you arrived at school early that morning. You had just been for a run, showered and sat down with your lunchbox, which is when you saw Cillian walk into the lecture hall with a cup of coffee in his hand.

He was surprised to see you there and, after putting down his mug, he approached you.

“Y/N,” he murmured almost nervously.

“Cillian. Good Morning” you smiled and, after engaging in a little small talk, he addressed the elephant in the room.

“After class, could we, maybe, talk about your essay submission please” was what he said and your heart immediately skipped a beat.

“Yes. Sure. I will see you at your office then? What time works for you?” was your response and, within seconds, you locked in a time while, the truth was, that you had no idea about what you were going to tell him. What was it that he needed to hear from you, you wondered? The truth? You weren’t going to give him that. He was better off failing you and get the professor to give you a bad grade.

So clearly, this was not going to go anywhere and, just as you were sitting in Cillian’s class again, you reflected on all the pain you felt when thinking back at when you were a young teenager.

It was this kind of pain you did not want him to know about so you sat there, awkwardly, like a pathetic loser, raising your hand, answering questions, to make up the credits that you would need after he failed your essay.

You put on act and, luckily for you, he never called you out that day. He left you be, sitting quietly at the back of the class room and then, without giving it any thought whatsoever, you were the first one out the door after a two-hour session, wanting to avoid him at all cost.

Yes, you needed to go and see him at his office. But you had no intention to actually do so, at least not now while your heart was racing and anxiety took over your anxious brain. You had no idea what to tell him and simply wanted to be left alone right now.

“Will I see you in ten?” Cillian reminded you nonetheless in passing as the students behind you were all hanging back, chatting and joking with the others. Lorraine, in particular, attempted to put on an act of her own, flirting with Cillian again.

“Yes, I will see you then” you confirmed nervously before you quickly made your way to the ladies room.

The lady’s lavatory followed a dull theme of light green. It was dated and made you feel a little nauseous.

You were nervous about meeting with Cillian about your essay and thus splashed some cold water on to your face before taking deep breaths. Then, when you looked into the mirror you saw the ghost of a girl who had died a long time ago.

Your face was gaunt and all your features were sunken in. Your eyes, once your best feature, were the only things that seemed to stand out now, as if you were just that, all vacant and lifeless. There was nothing else to look at. You were already disappearing and realised that you were all bones and baggage now, made up of shadows and secrets and nothing, nothing at all.

Then, you recalled what your dance coach had said to you just recently, telling you that you were one of the best dancers in class, but you lacked emotion. You lacked expression and you certainly lacked happiness. It was obvious to him, which is why he suggested an acting class to you. But perhaps acting skills were not what you needed. Perhaps you simply needed some happiness in your life, but felt as though you were not entitled to it.

Then you remembered, that, just a few weeks ago, you did feel alive and happy for one night only and this was the night you had spent with Cillian.

It was strange, exciting and sensual and certainly felt different to when you were with James who did not help the way you felt within your own body. You were insecure and, at least in your mind, there was nothing special about you.

Being with James was like a bad habit, just like smoking. You kept him around and went back to him simply for the fact that he provided something to you which you were familiar with. He provided structure, security and you adored his family.

But he did not excite you. Life did not excite you. It never did. It was painful to be who you were and, thus, you wanted to break every mirror in the bathroom. Every time you saw yourself you saw the sad little girl you used to be and still were, caught in this viscous cycle of negative thoughts. You were afraid to take risks because it had been enshrined in to you throughout foster care that taking risks was wrong. You lacked your very own family and love and often wondered whether your life would change one day.

Then, eventually, you locked yourself into a stall to get away from your reflection. You knew that you were nearing another mental breakdown any minute now and began to scream, quietly, but loud enough for others to hear.

It was quarter past ten now and you had been there, inside the lavatory stall, for fifteen minutes. You put your head in your hands, your fingernails digging into your face, wanting to scream but not having the nerve to do it.

Traumatising thoughts about your past visited you just like bad dreams did at night. You were losing your mind or maybe you have lost it already.

Some time passed, but you could not tell how much. You just let yourself slip away from reality for a bit but then, suddenly, the sound of the restroom door swishing open made you jump, startling you out of your mad, mad thoughts. A familiar pair of brown leather shoes came to stop outside of your stall.

"Y/N? Are you alright?" were the words you heard next and, suddenly, time slowed. Your skin burned and your voice was shaky when you spoke.

"Please go. You are not meant to be in here" you said although you were not even sure if you really wanted him to, but you said it anyways.

"But I am in here now and I am not leaving. Lorraine said that you have been in the lavatory for over half an hour. So, please come out before I tare the door open and embarrass myself in front of the entire school” Cillian chuckled, but with great concern in his voice. He knew that you were simply hiding in there and he was clearly worried about you and your wellbeing.

“Fuck. Seriously?” you stammered as you got up slowly and opened the stall door.

“Yes! Seriously Y/N! Clearly, you are avoiding me and I thought that we talked about everything that we needed to talk about. But, I supppose I was wrong as, first, you submit this ridiculous paper to me and now you are hiding from me…’ Cillian then said quietly as he was facing away from you in what you presumed to be an effort to give you some privacy, but his eyes then met yours when you looked in the reflection of the mirror.

You saw yourself too, standing in front of him with tears in your eyes.

“Y/N, fuck, are you okay? Did something happen? Should I call the student counsellor?” Cillian then asked anxiously when he noticed your tears and you tried to hold his gaze, but his eyes were too intense so you looked down at the tiled floor.

"God no, please. I just had a moment. I am okay” you stammered quickly but Cillian looked sceptical.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he then asked politely but you shook your head.

“I think I embarrassed myself enough already” you then told him but his eyebrows furrowed quickly.

“You are afraid of your own emotions and I get that. Most people are. But you know what I have learned throughout many years of acting?” Cillian said quietly again but, this time, with a warm and gentle smile.

“What?” you asked, wondering where he was going with this.

“That accepting and dealing with your emotions is an integral part of life. Unless you do that, you are not going to be happy and you most certainly will struggle with the line of work you chose. So, if you need to talk with someone about the way you feel, then talk to me. I am here to listen and what happened between us doesn’t matter, alright? I am not the kind of person who sees things superficially and, I don’t know why, but I do care about you. I want you to be okay” Cillian then explained while gently rubbing his palms over your upper arms and you were glad for his words and the way he spoke them, in a gentle and caring way.

“Thank you, Cillian” you cried before taking a deep breath. “Can I redo my paper?” you then asked. You still did not want to talk with him about your past just yet and hoped that he would accept your offer in lieu of an explanation as to why you were so anxious right now.

“I was hoping that you would and I want you to know that, when you do, I will not judge you or think any less of you for what you write” Cillian reassured you and, after you gave him a quick nod and wiped away your tears, he walked towards the door of the lavatory and held it open for you.

“Can you redo the paper by Wednesday? I need to pass it on to the unit co-ordinator” Cillian then said with a slight chuckle and unbothered by the fact that he just came walking out of the ladies’ bathroom with you.

“I can. And I am sorry for my slobby work” you then said and Cillian smiled. God, he was so beautiful and you stared shamelessly at him. He should not have become a lecturer at school full of young female students. Temptation was going to come knocking at his door, hordes of twenty something year olds begging to be noticed, to be loved, to be fucked. It was insanity and, just like Lorraine and some others, you wanted him and that was another form of madness.

 A few days later…

 Eventually, Wednesday came about and, when it did, your first stop was at Cillian’s office. You had promised to hand in your revised paper by nine and so you did.

This time, your effort was six pages long and included a large spiel about the foster care system in the US and how it shaped you from an emotional perspective.

It also included an array of emotions you believed many others like you felt when dealing with every-day life and you drew an analysis about them to the character you read about.

It was a paper which you had prepared with great care and thought and, in the end, the references to pieces of literature within your writing impressed Cillian so much so that, on Thursday evening, he sent you a message on the school’s online portal.

“I am impressed. This was certainly worth the wait” he said with an emoji on the end and his message certainly made you laugh.  

“I am glad, because it wasn’t easy to write knowing that you would be the one reading it” you responded quickly after you saw Cillian’s message pop up as a notification on your phone at around 10 o’clock that night and, the fact that he wrote to you that late made you wondered whether he was thinking about you.

Clearly, he had read the paper on Wednesday morning already before making his notes on it and sending it to the unit co-ordinator, so why did he only message you now? There must have been a reason for it, right?

Unbeknownst to you, there was most certainly a reason behind this message. Cillian had, indeed, been thinking about you and the truth was that he was taken by what you wrote in your essay.

He saw the care you took in writing down your every thought and your very own emotions and, whilst he could sense that you were hurt by the system, he did not consider you to be weak. To the contrary, he considered you to be much stronger than you thought yourself you were. You took matters into your own hands after the system had failed you. Unlike James, Cillian was impressed by your courage and soon realised why it was you who had been chosen for the scholarship.

You were determined and, whilst you struggled to come to terms with your feelings about what happened to you, you were emotionally intelligent. You knew what you needed to do and you knew about the bad influences in your life. You just had to act upon your desires, follow your goals and leave your pain and restraints in past.

As such, Cillian had nothing to add to your paper and thought about it every night since. There was something about you which intrigued him even more now and his thoughts about you were not just sexual anymore. His interest in you was on a different kind of level now and the feelings he was starting to have for you bothered him, causing him to supress his very own emotions.

He had to put on an act of his own, pretending that he was not interested in you but, every time he had a pint with his best mate Dermont, Cillian’s true feelings surfaced as, suddenly, the conversations they shared were about you.

Even though Cillian assured him that he had forgotten all about your short lived fling, Dermont did not believe him as his friend spoke about you with a lot of admiration.

In addition to that, Dermont also knew that Cillian was not the type of guy who would engage in one-night stands and then never think about them again. He must have liked you if he took you home, to his house that night. And he most certainly had not forgotten about you now that you were his student as every conversation about his work was also about you, your talent and the way you interacted with him.  

A few days later…

Eventually, Friday came around and it was another day where you had a lecture in PRAC300 before commencing your on-stage experience for which you were each given an on-stage character role and a script to read.

The roles were allocated randomly and when you were assigned the role of a mother who had recently lost her child, you could not help but sigh. It was not a role you were confident to act out and, yet, you knew that you had no choice. You had to take the role just as the other students had to take theirs. This included James who, also, ended up with a role that he was unhappy about but, unlike you, he spoke about it in Cillian’s class.

“Cillian, man, I think there is a mistake” he said in an arrogant way. “This role should be given to a girl” James determined, causing Cillian to furrow his eyebrows.

“Why?” Cillian asked, seeing that James had been drawn for the role of a character named Tina.

“Because Tina is a girl. I am playing a fucking girl” James laughed but Cillian did not think that his comment was funny and neither did you.

“Not exactly James. The role is non-binary” Cillian explained before telling him that this was an acting class. “It is important for you to step out of your comfort zone” Cillian furthermore said before pointing out that two female students in the class are portraying male characters as well.

“Now, if I can get everyone to schedule a time with me for the next week so that we can go through your role, one on one, that would be fantastic. I intend to allocate half an hour to each student” Cillian said and, of course, Lorraine and some of the other female students were quick to snap up the first available spots, leaving them with next to no time to prepare.

Luckily for Lorraine, she was portraying a young female teacher who was in love with her student. It was a role based on a book you had read quite recently and the fact that she got this role was rather amusing to you. She had an interest in Cillian and it was basically a matter of roles in reverse, if only Cillian had known.

When it was finally your turn to book in a time with Cillian however, you realised that your work schedule clashed with his remaining availabilities and it was at this point that he made an exception for you which was something that got you talking.

“I give dance classes from 3 o’clock to 6 o’clock each day and I cannot get out of them. It pays the bills and I am teaching ten teens for their upcoming dance competition in Cork so I have no idea what to do” you told him after the last student left the room and, sure enough, he remembered your passion for dancing.

“You teach dance? I did not know that. Are you enjoying it?” Cillian asked surprised and you nodded.

“Yes. I love it” you told him while he looked at his calendar.

“Alright, so how about 7 o’clock on Thursday then? It is after hours but I could come in and see you here” Cillian offered and you were surprised by his suggestion.

“Is that not too late for you?” you wondered, knowing that he had children as well.  

“Well, generally speaking, Thursdays and Fridays are good for me. My ex has the kids those days and, even if they were to come over, they are old enough to look after themselves for an hour or two” Cillian responded before telling you that they often do their own thing now that they are older, meeting up with friends after school and playing games at the local arcade.

“So, where do you teach dancing?” Cillian then wanted to know, being more chatty than usual.

“At the Dublin School of Dance. I teach contemporary dance and ballet” you told Cillian who, again furrowed his eyebrows.

“My daughter goes to that school twice a week” Cillian told you before showing you a photograph of her which he took during her last class.

“No way! I think I have met your daughter then” you said while Cillian was sliding through the photographs and you could immediately see the resembles of him in his daughter. They had the same pale freckled skin and light-coloured hair.

“Really?” he asked with great surprise and a hint of concern.

“Yes. She is in Miriam Mill’s class, isn’t she?” you asked and Cillian nodded before telling you that Miriam was leaving soon. She had an offer from another Dance School in London which she took.

“She is leaving, yes. But, your daughter will get another pretty awesome teacher soon, so don’t you worry” you then teased and Cillian furrowed his eyebrows quickly.

“Really? Is that new teacher good?” he asked without realising that you were going to be his daughter’s new teacher.

“She is the best” you joked before telling him that you would be taking on the classes for her age group in a couple of weeks.  

“Talking about awkwardness” Cillian then said with concern, seeing that this may become a little weird but, to you, it meant nothing. If anything, you were looking forward to meeting Cillian’s daughter properly and preparing her for the dance competitions.  

“Yeah, I mean, you could enrol her into another dance school if you like” you said nonetheless but he chuckled.

“And explain this to my ex how?” Cillian asked while cocking an eyebrow.

“Well, you could tell her that you slept with the ballet teacher who also happens to be your student at drama school. I am sure that would make quite a story” you joked and Cillian quickly reminded you to be discreet.

“Y/N, please…” he said while you laughed.

“God, relax Cillian. I am going to make sure that she has fun and excels with her routine for the finals. There is no bad blood between us and, like I said, nothing ever happened right? It was just sex, a one off, that is it. No one will ever know about it. My lips are sealed” you promised him and Cillian gave you a reluctant nod.

“Yes, it was just sex” he repeated quietly after ensuring that there was no one around. “So, Thursday, 7 o’clock then?” he then asked and you confirmed.

“Yes, 7 o’clock is great. Thank you. But I must go now. I am already late for training. Thanks Cillian” you said before grabbing your things and walking through the door.

To be continued… Please comment and engage. I love getting comments and predictions pretty please! Tag List

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[xelbleedsglitter]

Hey, I’ve been rereading SWAN for like… the 10th or more time and I’m still struck by how much I love it, even after all the times I’ve come back to it. It inspired me to try writing my own JtHM au and I was wondering how you learned to write the way you do. You got me so invested in the characters and story I love them so much!

Wow, thank you! I love hearing that people go back to it. I am extremely curious as to whether you're reading the original or the very superior please read it rewrite.

Either way, I'm happy you like spending time with my glitter garbage children; they are precious to me.

I am going to say I don't know how I learned to write in whatever way I do and then write a huge number of words about it, okay? You've read some version of SWAN, you know I am great at not shutting up.

I think one of the things that actually influenced this was that my grandmother is a professional storyteller. That was just her job title. She and my grandfather had a large hand in taking care of me when I was under ten years old, and she practiced her programs on me, and told me her tips and tricks. These were mostly geared toward public speaking, but a lot of it carried over to telling stories in social situations and making people listen to you in written form. I think this is why most of my stories start as just dialog exchanges.

Another influence was desperately wanting to be cool to my dad's friends who laughed at everything he said. I studied what they said and how they said it in order to dissect How To Be Funny like a Very Normal Child.

I told myself stories to fall asleep every single night for my whole entire life.

I liked musicals a lot, and how they constructed stories by calling back to other moments musically.

I internalized all the advice we got for writing essays around 7th grade. I had more than one teacher tell the whole class I was the only one allowed to turn in a first draft as a final because I was 'Wonder Woman'. In college I was asked why I was going into illustration because I was 'a natural wordsmith'. I was a little surprised by both of these things!

Assuming that you are interested more for 'Teach Me Your Ways' reasons, though, here is some stuff I am conscious of doing:

I never start with a boring sentence. I learned this from essay writing and my grandmother, who had to convince people to listen to her talk for an hour straight. ''The wind blew the curtains and the sun shined through the windows."? Oh my god, who cares, I'm not sticking around for that. "When he bothered to look, he saw three people in the mirror."?? Um, hello? What does the next sentence say about this? I will indulge you in a few more sentences, author. And then you just trick them into reading every next sentence.

A Cool Phrase you can use like a leitmotif in a musical. In reSWAN, it ended up being 'Trust Me', but I am guilty of something like it in everything, haha. Something I can invoke in tense moments after it's been used casually and cutely over and over or something that can be a surprise inversion later. Grandmother also used this technique frequently.

Ending on the Big Word. If I need to do a reveal, or I need something to stick like a gymnast landing, I save that word for last in the sentence or paragraph. Learned this from grandmother and the how to be funny research. Use some natural sounding twists around the topic or a synonym until you reach the dismount at the end. Takes a bit of practice and wrangling to get it to sound like natural speech and not deliberate avoidance, but worth it as payoff to have the last word that slams into the story recipient be the Emotional, Funny, Tragic, whatever word.

reSWAN in particular was written to be honest. I wanted to put ugly feelings in there. The way I feel about 'they wouldn't want you to be sad' and grieving and identity and relating to people and the stuff Hallmark wants you to stop feeling immediately because happy and generic is always better. I have to believe honesty is critical. All my asexual or demiromantic characters get reactions from that one other person going, 'oh god, thank you, my reality is like this too'. It means I get comments that hurt and make me feel like a monster, but the trick there is to decide to be the monster, I guess. I did not learn this from my grandmother.

I hope this is useful or entertaining, friend! I hope that you even see it, given that you are Anon! Thanks so much for reading and contacting me about it, and if you haven't read the rewrite, please do that~~~~ I'm so proud of it, it is so much more me and so much more Good. 💚

[expiationist]

just a little stem vs humanities student story, since that seems so be a controversial topic in the academic world:

as a language and business double major, i absolutely think stem majors are another breed. hear me out. my best friend of 10 years is a biochem major, and she has always taken the hardest calc/physics/chem classes. she would get As on bio tests like it was first grade math. her knowledge eludes me. i have to try exponentially harder than her in every class we had together, and we barely even had the same classes! she took regular calc freshman year, got an A pretty easily. i took business calc, got an A because i was so close to an A and my professor saw how much effort i had put in and felt bad. i have always thought stem was much harder than anything i was pursuing.

until i heard her pov.

she is also pursuing a spanish minor, and has been taking spanish classes since 8th grade (we took our first spanish class together). i took spanish in 8th, 9th, and 10th grade, then stopped taking it through classes and started self studying japanese my junior year of highschool. she continued to pursue spanish and has taken in every year and every semester since 8th grade. shes studying abroad next semester, and we thought it would be a good idea for me to pick up spanish so she would have an opportunity to teach me and talk in spanish together. however, i picked it up pretty fast after not taking it for four years.

i noticed she felt ~some type of way~ about it, which prompted a conversation between the two of us.

to spare the mundane details, she thought it was insane that i caught up to where she was within weeks, after not having taken a class higher than high school spanish 2. i told her i thought it was insane that she got an A in every calc, physics, bio, and chem class, which i was never able to get a single A in (until business calc in college). she has a 4.0, taking what i thought were WAY harder classes than what i was taking. hell, i couldn’t even get an A in astronomy. astronomy.

she then talked about how i had rarely EVER gotten less than a 93 on essays, even if i had written them the night before, while she has to spend weeks on essays to get a good grade on them.

the moral of this story, is that everyone has their own talents. science comes natural to her. languages and humanities come natural to me. i find her talents way harder. she finds my talents way harder because humanities tend to be subjective, and business requires a certain personality and being good with people, which she doesn’t see those qualities in herself.

personally, i think anyone who pushes the “stem is objectively harder” agenda is probably just insecure in their own abilities to do arts/humanities/business. a real mature student can see that everyone has their own talents and a field that is suited to them! there is no need to invalidate peoples academic pursuits. college should be about finding what YOU love and want to pursue, not invalidating everyone and making them feel dumber because they chose a different path from you.

do what you love, and study hard if you love it! just because someone studies humanities subjects doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of succeeding in stem. and just because you study stem doesn’t make you smarter than someone who doesn’t choose to pursue that.

HOWEVER. from my pov, stem is like actually shit from Mars that i will never be able to wrap my head around, so to be humble ill admit i could NEVER study stem subjects beyond general education requirements. kudos to you guys! but that doesnt apply to every a&h kid out there!

[star-on-a-beach]

Okay um. I really don't like doing this, like, ever

But

Tw for vent post, Bc idk, maybe it'll help if I talk about this where it'll be seen and not on a vent blog where I know no one sees it

So it's pretty obvious that pretty much everything right now is in kind of a shit state and I'm really at the end of my line trying to be optimistic about it. Presidential election, rp, guard, college, art, writing, all of this shit, even stuff I'm supposed to enjoy, makes me want to fucking shatter a rock because I don't want to do anything anymore other than scroll through social media on my phone which, I've probably developed an addiction, and of course that makes me feel even fucking worse bc I told myself I'd never get addicted and look at where I am now

So many things I'm unhappy with are really kind of tying back to me and I'm so angry at everything but especially myself now, but theres nothing I feel like I can do about it but try and break it all down I guess?

There's shit going on with color guard and, other than the friends I've made within it and the actual performances, I don't fucking enjoy it anymore because our coach is apparently super fucking shitty and a liar and unfair and argumentative and never sticks with the drill she writes and doesn't give us the resources to put it together correctly, WHEHN SHES LITERALLY OUR COACH AND THATS HER JOB, IVE TRIED SO HARD TO STAY KIND TO HER BUT WITH EVERYONE AROUND ME TALKING SHIT AND TALKING ABOUT WHAT A BAD PERSON SHE IS IM STARTING TO DO IT TOO AND I HATE IT

And then obviously there's the actual schoolwork that needs to get done, I thought I had not one, not two, but 3 FUCKING ESSAYS DUE ON THE 11TH, WHICH WERE ASSIGNED TO US ON WEDNESDAY, AND EACH HAD TO BE 700 WORDS LONG. Granted it doesn't actually have to be like that but teachers are talking about finals now and I'm going to have SO many essays for that and I have a whole debate too. I'm tired and sick of waking up at ridiculously different times for classes and not being able to have a goddamn nap bc I'm either working, procrastinating with the screens addiction again, or I don't have enough time because god knows I can't take power naps for SHIT, and I'm not fucking paying for coffee in this economy

I can't even relax how I normally want to because I'm so tired from everything, too. Writing big things for TAOCC or drawing feels like a chore, and then I feel obligated to draw others characters or I want to actually do so but I have no energy for it, and I can't get my art to look how I want it to perspective-wise, no matter how many tutorials I look at, and it never ends up the way I want and I haven't even finished TAOCCTOBER or Memoryquest, both of which I feel shitty for, because then they're both more things that I'm giving up on, and I give up on so much shit so easily unless I'm being pushed over and over and over and over, although rn I really wanna just say to hell with it and kill both of them entirely

And with taocc as a whole, I don't even know where to begin. I mentioned in my earlier post that I'm struggling to be assertive and actually say what I want with RP, which results in me feeling really unsatisfied with it a lot. I feel like people aren't interested in my characters and I need to be the one trying to build the characters' connections by asking questions, which. I love when other characters ask mine questions, because so much would be revealed if PEOPLE JUST ASKED. I know you guys don't mean it in this way but I feel like I'm trying to push all of this out, but I barely get anything back except for maybe one question or comment or smth, but it feels like the characters aren't interested in my characters' pasts, and that means the mods aren't either. Which, is really no fault of yours, whether you are or not, it's my fault because I can't bring myself to get off my high horse and actually say "hey, are you willing to have your characters ask about mine?" because I have the firm mentality of "if they wanted to, they would", and I'm trying to make other characters feel important while also craving mine to feel important, but the moment they do, I wonder if I'm taking the main-character roles too much and I need to even it out so I immediately divert the attention back to yours and feel shitty about it. Once again, this is no one's fault but mine, and this is partially why my relationship with my last rp partner, aka my ex bsf, ended, because I wasn't assertive enough and kept wondering if I was hogging the spotlight any time focus did switch to my characters which just isn't enjoyable for anyone. So I'm angry and terrified that these patterns which are repeating are going to lead to a similar outcome.

It isn't even just that though, I just really hate how I write as a whole rn. I used to be so poetic and good with words but now they read difficult unless I'm writing a great wall of text, and my characters aren't acting the way I want to, partially because I'm trying to morph them to get along more with other characters and diminish their flaws so they're liked by others, but it just takes away from who they were originally and I hate that as well. It's easy to get caught up in the heat of the rp but for fucks sake I expect myself to be a better writer than this.... and I haven't even gotten around to fixing the fucked-up-with-a-side-of-cheddar timelines, which have been NAGGING at my mind for FUCK KNOWS HOW LONG, but once again, I don't even want to do anything anymore and I get mad bc the only things I wanna do are just self indulgent shit and like hell I'm asking for that from anyone (see, that's part of the problem, right there.)

I think the only thing I hate more than not being assertive with rp is the fact that I'm an adult among you all. Yes, being 18 now while the majority of you are minors is a massive fucking deal to me, and I'm realizing why exactly adults generally avoid friendships like this, because I'm constantly worried about being a good example to you all. I have to have the good advice, I have to be available, I have to be good with assertiveness and boundaries, hell part of the reason I try and avoid venting so much is because you all do not fucking need to have that burden. Every time I do something like this post I immediately think "these are kids and I'm an adult, it's kids trying to help an adult who should not be saying this stuff or laying this burden on them", as if I'm some kind of weirdo. I really try my damndest to not be one of those adults who dumps all their problems on adolescents in order to feel better about their own shitty life, I don't want to be the adult who their younger friends are comforting all the time and have that burden on them (yes, I am completely aware this post contradicts that, and yes, I am very ashamed but I feel Im at rock bottom and you guys deserve to know (but don't deserve the burden of it)). I don't feel like the example I want to be to you guys, I'm incredibly dense, and half the time, I feel like an oblivious idiot for the simplest fucking things in rp even when no one says anything that implies any of you guys think that. I get so annoyed as well, and that's another part I especially hate, it's that I get annoyed with the smallest things so damn easily, whether it's someone saying something random in call and breaking silence, or someone talking about a subject after we've moved on, or a rant that's gone on for a really long time. All of those are ridiculous things to be annoyed by, and I'm completely aware of that. I'm not proud of it whatsoever. It might also be the weather, but I'm so, so, so annoyed by so many tiny, insignificant things nowadays that it's ridiculous, and I've snapped on call a few times which I feel horrible about. I'm trying so hard to be a good, strong role model for all of you, because that's what you deserve and I want to be like that for you. But, both here and in real life, my own idiocy and density and emotions make me feel like I'm never going to escape being a dense, emotional, spacy child who keeps trying to catch up. And as an adult, I'm really, really, really upset that I feel like this because once again, you guys are the minors, not me. I'm not saying you guys should feel like that (I really hope not, no one should feel like that), but it feels even worse since I'm trying to be the adult for you guys to look up to, but I'm looking up to all of you instead. And then, even worse, I get jealous. Not of the bad shit you guys go through, but like. Insignificant things. Art styles, friends, activities, actually having your family around. I really hate myself for being jealous of that and always comparing and trying to match it since it's completely hypocritical of me otherwise.

I'm closing up this vent, but tw for some darker themes in the next paragraph

I'm really just kind of sick of life as a whole. I'm done being an adult, to hell with this, just let me be the younger friend again so I don't have to see myself as an old baby. I'm tired of all of this and the dark jokes I make, they're horrible, but they're becoming more common and I think about the content of them a lot. I'm so tired of this shit and feeling like this and I'm mad and ashamed that I'm making this post because of everything I said above. I'm so done with everything. To hell with this country, to hell with my future, to hell with drawing and writing and trying to put stuff out. At the time of writing this I'm crying, because I'm really really missing my dad. I want to hug him and be with him. I want my family overall to be okay. I want to feel happy and content with myself and my life like back in summer. I'm so sorry for having to say all this but it's the truth and, again, this is my last resort for trying to feel better because hell knows I don't have the initiative to make an appointment and talk to a therapist on campus. Ik this will go away later but ffs i don't know if I can wait until later.

Ok, heavy vent part is over

I've said a lot so I'm ending it here. If you choose to ignore this, that's fine. I'd appreciate some kind of acknowlegement, tbh, whether it's a like or a comment or something, or just a kind word (whatever you do, please don't just put *hug* and leave it at that, hugs dont really feel like they have much more meaning at this point). It feels ridiculous to ask you for comfort especially after kinda dumping all of this here for you guys to see but I might as well try ig. Idk, I'm gonna just try and not delete this out of shame.

I hope you all know that I love you guys so, so, so, so much. This community has brought me so much joy and leaving is the last thing I'd ever dream of unless I had to. I hope you guys don't mind me doing this too much. Logically Ik you probably don't but, really, none of what I just vented about is based in logic regardless.

Thank you for reading, whether it was skimming or fully reading it. Kind words are appreciated but obviously not forced and I love you guys so much. Goodnight ❤️

[judysxnd]

Hello! Can you write one where Pedro surprises his girlfriend at her masters graduation? (She studied psychology if that has any importance :)) It doesn’t have to be a long one! 🖤

I actually have no idea how the ceremony for the graduation in America is like, I’m French and we don’t get anything when we graduate in college.. I just know how it goes at the end of high school, so my bad if it sounds similar even if in reality it probably isn’t. I actually remembered one that I saw in the show “my wife and kids” (that I love sooooo much), but it’s pretty old so idk if it’s still the same!

Also I’m trying not to use the same pics on my fics, but it’s hard to remember the one I used, and I’m running low 😂

——————————————————————————

Today is a big day. It is your graduation. You’ve been pretty nervous but also extremely excited. There were a few ambiguous feelings forming in your stomach, but all for a good reason. After years of hard work, studying on a passion subject that you always loved and will always be loving: psychology. It’s always been a big part of you, you’ve always been interested in psychology and a lot of people told you that too.

At first you had been very hesitant to go back to college. You had tried a few years back, but it didn’t really work. Also it wasn’t the same degree. You feared it would do the same thing this time. Luckily, you close friends, family and your boyfriend were supporting you. You had a lot of phone calls with your mom, lots of texts with your dad, and it was Pedro who helped you go on campus, to meetings and stuff before actually making the move to go there.

Pedro has been a huge part of your decision. If he hadn’t been here supporting you, you didn’t think you would go through this alone. It’s a big decision, change in situation to go back to college after working and earning money. A lot is aspects change. But Pedro didn’t care, of course he didn’t. He can support you financially, even if you don’t like it. He insisted, said that he was here for you, either emotionally, or financially. That’s why you were so thankful for him.

He also helped you a lot during your studies and researches. Hell he even could graduate with you, that’s how much he helped you. He loves to learn new things, so he remembered and learned a lot of your stuff. For your exams he helped you study until 2am, he helped you correct and edit your essays, he really supported you in every way possible.

That’s why you’re also pretty nervous for you graduation. Because he can’t be here. Unfortunately your graduation happens the same day he films the first part of his latest Gladiator movie, in an entire different country, so he really couldn’t be here. So you had to go through without him, and you didn’t like it. Your parents are going to be here, but it’s not the same without him.

So here you are, waiting in line, surrounded by the other graduates, looking for you parents in the crowd. You knew they were in the front rows, they wanted “the best sits for the best moment”, that’s what your dad said. When you finally found them, you recognized another person next to them. One less person in front of you, still two and it’s your turn. You look again, as you got a step closer, and as unbelievable as it was, Pedro was next to them, smiling and waving at you. Wide eyes, tears forming, there was a feeling of relief when you realized it was him. You blew a few kisses at him. Still one person.

“Y/n Y/l/n” your heart started to beat very fast, your legs were moving by themselves. Next thing you knew, you were on stage, holding your diploma, looking rapidly at the crowd and then at your parents and Pedro with a big smile, before walking on the other side. Your foot barely touch the ground that you ran in Pedro’s arms.

“What are you doing here!!!” You said excitedly, still holding him tight.

“I wanted to surprise you cariño” he said kissing the top of your head. Feeling his touch, smelling him, just little simple things were what you needed. You needed him.

You parted, looking at him with nothing but love.

“I finally did it” you said, showing him the paper you had in your hand. He couldn’t stop smiling either.

“I’m so proud of you princesa, we all knew you could do it” he said, glancing at your parents. You let go of Pedro to hug your parents.

“You worked so hard honey, we are so so proud of you” your mom said, playing with your hair, some tears forming in her eyes.

“Thank you. I couldn’t do it without you guys” you looked at the three persons in front of you.

“All credits to you, we were just supporting you” Pedro added.

“Now we have a free psychologist” your dad joked

“Be careful, it’s not always a good thing” you added, you all laughed.

“How about we go to a nice dinner, so we can celebrate properly?” Pedro asked

“That’s a great idea!” Your mom said.

So you all left, very happily, and had a nice dinner, with a few bottles of champagne. You were surrounded by the people you wanted and you accomplished what you wanted the most. A new chapter is coming for you.

[em-harlsnow]

I'm taking a break from my essay, so I thought I would go over my opinions of Fiona.

The thing is, most of the time I understand her. I understand her wanting Debbie and the others to stop relying on her so much, I understand her leaving, I understand why she tried to convince Debbie to get an abortion and most importantly I understand why she wanted to avoid blame for Liam's coke incident. I'm not saying any of it is right, but I get her.

I'll go over my main points with her, good and bad.

The stuff I defend her on:

she supported Lip thru his alcoholism and he did not do the same for her, instead yelling and blaming her when if anyone, he should understand

she tries to convince Debbie to get an abortion because she fully knows Debbie is not emotionally mature enough to handle a baby (no hate, no 15 year old is) and doesn't want to have to deal with it, which is fair because she's accustomed to dealing with kids that aren't hers. I have friends who have to essentially parent their siblings, and I know they would definitely stay away if any of them decided to have kids of their own.

she tries to convince lip to go to college or at least stay in school because he can, despite how he's so adamant against it. despite how it means she has even more burden over the children

she leaves because she needs her own life (there's more on this later, don't worry)

However, I'm against her on these:

Fiona, babe, stop using being a Gallagher as an excuse for everything you do it's getting tiring. "I'm a Gallagher" I KNOW.

Fiona, if you dole out advice left right and centre to all your siblings, take some as well. she should have heeded people's advice about all the property stuff, she should have been more careful, but at the end of the day people make mistakes.

Fiona, take responsibility for your shit. You were Liam's legal guardian, I know she didn't intend to, but it was her responsibility to look after him. It's her fault. If Frank or Monica did the same by accident, I have no doubt she would blame them

Tell me, why does she hate the Milkoviches so much. Actively hating on Mandy, when she's just as much of a slag??? Not hating on slags, I am a proud one myself. But don't hate on others, don't be so fucking rude when Mandy simply wanted a place to feel safe. Also, I don't accept her Mickey-hate AT ALL. she didn't know him, told him he needed to admit Ian to a psych ward because that's what she knew, when realistically there can be other, better ways to help those with mental illness. Psych hospitals are for those at risk to themselves and others, but Ian hadn't become a risk until he stole Yevgeny (we don't know enough about whether he was suicidal or not). Also, let's not forget Molly. I can't comment on whether Molly was actually trans or not, because it's suggested that her mother just forced her to be a girl. Even so, no fucking need for the amount of transphobia.

Finally, she was Liam's legal guardian. For all her talk about how Ian's like Monica, she abandoned him which is a 'full on Monica move' to quote Fiona. She agreed that she would take care of him until he was an adult, and didn't make sure someone else would take over if she left. Also, she could have taken him with her.

Anyway, very mixed feelings about Fiona. I'm never sure how to feel about her, because like I say half the time I understand her. I get why she didn't want to admit to being responsible for the coke thing, because it made her feel guilty and worse, it made her feel like her parents. I def prefer her pre-season 4

[bekolxeram]

Sorry for the whining lately, I'm gonna talk about other unrelated things for a while to get out of the dead end that I seem to have drilled myself into.

Here's an absurdly ridiculous story from my past.

I've brought up here before that one of my best friends dated an absolute asshole for around 6 months.

The first time we talked was over text. My bestie mentioned that I majored in European Studies in college, so he kept making his girlfriend ask me questions, as he was a "fellow European history enjoyer". My field was more about modern politics in the EU and France, but fine, I was familiar with a basic level of historical background for context, so ask away. My bestie eventually got tired of constantly passing messages back and forth so she gave him my number for direct contact.

You know the kind of guys who would ask a woman to name 3 Joy Division songs after seeing her in an Unknown Pleasures T-shirt? Talking to asshole felt exactly like that, it was more a test. He would constantly cut me off and "correct my mistakes", when in fact I just didn't get to finish my sentence. He would also "educate" me on varies topics: military history of different empires, descriptions of ethnic groups that are all based on stereotypes, or Francisco Franco using his favorite club Real Madrid to oppress the people of Catalonia. (Yes, I've read Fear and Loathing in La Liga by Sid Lowe. This is a simplified myth, the real history is much more nuanced.)

Once, he asked me for French music recommendations. He was probably expecting accordions and Edith Piaf, but I just sent him some songs I was listening to at the time, you know, some rap, some electro-pop, some Stromae. (I might've done that intentionally because asshole refused to refer to anyone non-white as European.) One of them is J'aimerai by Johan Papaconstantino:

He told me he couldn't tell I would be interested in Algerian pop, so I said, "oh, it's actually Greek."

Oops. I shouldn't have brought up Greece. That man was obsessed with Greece, as you can imagine. He once asked me for my opinion on the North Macedonia name dispute just to write a 1000+ word essay about his love and admiration for his personal hero, Alexander the Great, and how the "Slavs misappropriate the name of Macedonia, they should come up with their own, of Slavic origin."

But it was too late, the conversation went like this:

Him: Wow, I never expected you to like Algerian pop.

Me: Oh, it's actually Greek.

Him: No, it's not.

Me: Uh... he's singing in French and Greek? I actually do listen to some Arabic pop if you're interested, I quite like this Lebanese band called Soap Kills.

Him: It's clearly Turkish. It's not real Greek music, it's the music the Turks forced upon the Greeks during years of subjugation! (Insert 3 hour rant about Greeks living under the Ottoman Empire.)

Me: Um... so you're familiar with Turkish music?

Him: Of course! I know the Turkish March.

The

Turkish

March

Me: You know Mozart is Austrian right?

Him: Well, it's Turkish style

This Turkish style?

Eeeh🤷🏻What do I know? I'm just a dumb woman.

Maybe he should educate me on this classical Turkish music extraordinaire:

[yellowjacketslesbian]

hi jo! i saw someone shit on the idea of van as a nonbinary butch today and as one myself it made me upset. I love your fics and how you write van so I was wondering if you had any headcanons about van being gnc / nonbinary?

hey! first off, I'm really sorry you saw someone reacting negatively to the idea of nonbinary butch Van. I know it can be really frustrating and upsetting to see someone getting offended at the idea of a fictional character possibly having a similar identity as you. it's like "what's wrong with my identity that makes you deny this character I love and relate to could also be a nonbinary butch lesbian?" (spoiler alert: nothing is wrong with being a nonbinary butch lesbian, some people are just very loud and very wrong)

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! it truly means a lot to know that people like what I write. I'm especially glad that the fics I've written dealing with Van's gender have been well received, and that people could feel seen by them!

I could write multiple essays on Van's gender and why I personally believe they're nonbinary (and why they're already canonically butch), but I'll confine this to just my top nonbinary Van hcs lol

if they had lost states and never gotten on the plane, Van would've gotten a scholarship to NYU and double majored in film and women's & gender studies. They would've become aware of Gender Trouble and Stone Butch Blues through their major, and they also would've met more gnc people in NYC. This would've led to their realization that there are other people like them who share similar experiences. I personally think it would've taken them a year or two to talk to Taissa about it because they didn't want to "burden her with it" (typical Van), but Tai would've been really accepting and went out of her way to read about gender identity and try really hard to understand Van's experiences once they told her. I don't think Van would've been out as nonbinary to anyone besides Tai and close friends until like the early 00s though.

in "canon" where the crash happens, I think it would've taken Van a lot longer to realize they even could be nonbinary. like they had so much trauma to work through, and just surviving was probably a struggle for them. I can really see them spending at least a decade just ignoring any dysphoria they had. they probably also didn't have the same exposure to information about being nonbinary back in the late 90s / early 00s, especially if they weren't living in a very queer area or around academia. I think one of the queer college kids who helped out around their store eventually came out to them as nonbinary in the late 00s. then Van researched being nonbinary so they could be there for them, and that's how Van finally realized they're actually nonbinary.

I think Van would've spent some time exploring what pronouns felt right for them after realizing they're nonbinary, but they would eventually use they/them or they/she by the present day.

I think Van had top surgery in the late 00s in the no crash universe and in the mid-2010s in the "canon" universe

I think that Van's dysphoria is mostly social dysphoria, but I do think they have top dysphoria. I personally read Van's boob jokes in S1 as using humor to deflect from some dysphoria they may have been experiencing at the time. (as a nonbinary lesbian, it reminded me a lot of how I personally dealt with my own dysphoria when I was about Van's age and hadn't yet realized it was dysphoria)

Lastly

important note: all of this is purely my own hcs and opinions, and I am not claiming to know what they will or won't explore canonically on the show. that being said, I am a nonbinary butch lesbian and personally see a lot of myself and my own experiences in Van, and many other nonbinary lesbians also see themselves in Van. we all have every right to hc Van as nonbinary. if you don't like it, you can politely fuck off

[imgibbon]

Narrative in Shadow of the Colossus

since someone asked: here's my first Shadow of the Colossus essay I wrote back in college like 15+ years ago (gah)

---

Shadow of the Colossus is a story about a young man who travels to a distant forbidden land and braves the challenges of a forgotten god in order to bring a young woman back to life. Wander, the young man, is assisted by his steed Agro, as he travels the forbidden land. The young woman, Mono, was sacrificed because she was believed to have a cursed destiny. The god, Dormin, sets Wander to the task of defeating sixteen colossi that wander the forbidden land, so that Dormin will have the power to resurrect Mono.

The game uses a rather different form of storytelling than most epics told today. Instead of explicitly telling the player all the little details of the characters and the story, the game provides all the elements and detail necessary for the player to infer the relationships between characters, the motivations for their actions, and the deeper meanings behind actions taken. The implicit nature of the storytelling also helps to accentuate the fact that there is no clear cut villain in the story. There are protagonists and antagonists, but no one is explicitly evil or explicitly good. I believe that if the story were told a different way it would not be as impacting or entrancing, making it a less good story than the magnificent one it is.

Characters

WANDER – Wander is the aptly-named protagonist of the game, as he spends the game wandering the far corners of the Forbidden Lands. He is a young man in possession of a specific holy sword that is known to Dormin to have the ability to open the way to the forbidden land and destroy the colossi. Throughout the narrative it is shown that he most likely stole the special sword, possibly from Lord Emon, and that he is doing something potentially dangerous in interacting with Dormin. His premise appears to be that everything has a cost. There can not be death without there first being life. And, conversely, in order to restore life to Mono he must first sacrifice the lives of the colossi. There are consequences for his stealing the sword. There are consequences for releasing Dormin. Everything comes with its own price to pay.

AGRO – Wander’s horse. Judging by his size and muscle, he is a steed bred for battle. From the way he interacts with Wander, he is clearly the young man’s companion of some time, as is apparent by his gentle demeanor and faithful behavior towards the protagonist.

MONO – Mono, the suffix denoting that the word is a “person” in Japanese, is the name of the dead maiden. She was sacrificed because she was believed to have a cursed destiny. Wander seeks to revive her.

DORMIN – An ancient god with the ability to revive the dead. It is for this reason that Wander sought him out. Dormin was sealed away in the forbidden land, his power drained away and stowed within the colossi. Dormin’s voice acting is two voices, one male and one female, laired over each other, representing his duel nature of life and death. Deeper meaning in Dormin’s actions can be found when one realizes that his name is Nimrod spelled backwards. Nimrod was a hunter & king who was opposed to God in Hebrew texts. In the game, Dormin is sealed within the Tower, the tallest point that is visible anywhere in the land, an allusion to the fact that Nimrod was the one who ordered the construction of the Tower of Babel. Nimrod’s body was also supposedly severed into several pieces after his death, further linking to Dormin’s power/soul being trapped within the 16 Colossi after he was sealed away.

LORD EMON – A shaman from the land Wander and Mono hail from. He follows Wander in an attempt to stop him from releasing Dormin and performing the ‘forbidden ritual’ to revive the dead.

THE COLOSSI – These gigantic creatures of stone wander the forbidden land. Some are docile. Some are aggressive. Some are bestial. Some are bipedal. They are the creatures that Dormin’s power has been sealed within. If one examines another Hebrew myth, as we did with Dormin before, you can gain some interesting insights into the nature of the colossi by taking into account the story of the Golem. The Colossi, like the Golems, are tremendous creatures made from the earth & rock. The Golems are activated by inscribing special symbols on their persons, and deactivated by rubbing out those symbols; the colossi are defeated by destroying the strange glowing symbols situated on their bodies. Most telling would be that the Golems could only be created by a holy personage, “one who was close to God.” This casts insight to the fact that the Colossi are apparently the key to Dormin’s imprisonment, and that Lord Emon, an apparent holy man or shaman, is in opposition to freeing him. Finally, on a more literal note, the word “golem” is a Macedonian word, meaning simply “big” or “large”, further linking the so-called Colossi to the Golem myth.

Breakdown

The tale of Wander’s journey through the Forbidden Land actually begins much much earlier than the start of the game. By analyzing the Jewish folklore associated with various aspects and characters, we can piece together some deeper meaning and backstory for the setting and some of the characters. Next, by examining the Forbidden Land itself, we can come up with some conclusions about its histories and its inhabitants, which doesn’t contribute directly to the narrative of the game, but does add depth and breadth to the world and the narrative’s place in it. Lastly, by examining the interaction between central characters, as well other of their aspects, as they progress through the stages of the tale, we can surmise deeper meanings behind some of their actions as well as making connections that may not have been readily apparent. All of these aspects, those that exist within the world of the game without being explicitly handed to the character, coalesce to present a deeper and richer layer to the already well-told story that appears on the surface of the game.

The game is layered in references and parallels to various Hebrew folk-tales. By examining them and how they correspond to aspects of the game, we can draw a sharper picture of the history of Dormin and the Forbidden Land than is explicitly stated in the game. Firstly, we can surmise some of Dormin’s history by examining the tales of the great hunter-king Nimrod, whom Dormin shares a name with in reverse. Nimrod was a great hunter and king who was in opposition to God and a rival to Abraham in some stories. It was he who ordered the construction of the tower of Babel, and after his death his body was severed in to several parts. In the game, Dormin’s soul is confined to the Shrine of Worship, a great spire in the center of the Forbidden Land. The Shrine is the tallest object in the Land, visible from even the furthest corners of the map, and is a nice parallel to the Nimrod’s Tower of Babel. We can surmise from this correlation that Dormin was in some way responsible for the construction of the Shrine, and that its purpose was somehow heretical to the higher powers-that-be, possibly having something to do with his command over life and death and may have been a contributing factor to the reason he was sealed away as he was. Like Nimrod, Dormin’s soul/power was severed into multiple parts, and sealed away within the sixteen colossi that roam the Forbidden Land. The colossi themselves are a parallel to the Hebrew Golem. Golem itself is a Macedonian word meaning Big or Large; an excellent parallel with the title name of Colossus. Like the Golems of myth, the Colossi are beings made of the materials of the earth. Also like the Golems, the Colossi can be “killed” by destroying the symbols on their bodies that give them life. The humanoid Colossi even have the symbols on their foreheads. Folklore tells us that a Golem can only be created by a holy personage, “one who is close to God.” From this we can surmise that it was a holy person or person of some standing, presumably representing a higher or more good power than Dormin, that sealed his powers away within these Colossi and forbade entry to the lands.

The Forbidden Land itself bears some examination beyond its myths and gods. Scattered throughout are the ruins of vast cities and areas. At one point Wander comes across and battles Colossi in a vast subterranean city area, a multi-tiered colosseum, a grand set of burial mounds, and several smaller shrines, mimicking the symbols and etchings in the Shrine of Worship. From these we can surmise that it was a fairly religious society from the number of shrines and the intricacies and shear size of the burial mounds for the area. There are also several parallels of size. The smaller shrines scattered throughout the land are the Shrine of Worship in miniature. The non-humanoid colossi mimic the animals that can be found in the Land, salamander-like lizard colossi, colossi in the form of turtles and snakes, two avian colossi, etc. Wander actually comes across and can observe these smaller animals on his travels, and it can be seen that the larger Colossi have the same mannerisms of their natural-born counterparts. The Shrine of Worship also has smaller, though still fairly large by our standards, statues in the form of effigies of the sixteen colossi that roam the land. All of this further establishes the history of the land, and furthers its religious nature, while establishing that it must have been something dire that would cause a culture of such magnitude to just up and leave, locking the doors behind them, so to speak.

Finally, by examining the actions and interactions of the characters during the main bulk of the tale itself, as well as other of their aspects, we can draw conclusions about the characters that are not explicitly stated within the pages of the manual or within the script of the game. The game begins with a long collage of scenes of Wander traveling by horseback through many strange locales, eventually coming to the giant doors of the Forbidden Lands. This establishes his conviction, having traveled for at least a fairly extensive distance, with plenty of time to have second thoughts about breaking so many taboos of his culture. Inside the Shrine, Wander reveals to Dormin his mystical sword, which is known to Dormin, letting us know that the sword a) probably does not actually belong to Wander, and b) is suitably ancient and powerful. Wander wants Dormin to revive Mono. He is willing to defy the taboos surrounding life and death for her. Dormin explains that he first needs for Wander to take that sword and defeat the sixteen colossi that wander the land, as their existence is the source of Dormin’s imprisonment. When he is free, he can revive Mono. As the player leads Wander through the lush and empty Forbidden Land, defeating Colossi, we get scenes of Lord Emon following Wander’s trail across the land and eventually arriving in the Forbidden Land. Lord Emon and Wander wear similar garb, though Emon’s is more elaborate. We can surmise that Wander and Emon are from the same culture or group, and that Wander held a lower position in the social structure. From the way Emon speaks accusingly at him, as well as some other cues, we can probably say that Wander stole the sword from Emon. The symbols on their garb are very like those that appear on the Colossi, meaning that the culture Wander and Emon hail from is probably descended from those who once lived in the Forbidden Land. After Wander has killed all of the Colossi, it is revealed that Dormin is released because Wander is now housing all of his power, Wander is killed in order for Mono to live, the Forbidden Land being sealed away again by Emon. Wander is reborn as a baby in a concealed garden in the Shrine, possibly an allegory to the Garden of Eden, though he bears a mark of his dark possession, a set of horns sprouting from his temples, which we know his descendents will bear due to this game being a prequil to the designer’s first title, Ico. These horns could also be seen as a metaphorical “mark of Cain,” showing that he broke the taboos of the society, and now he and his descendants will be marked because of it.

In closing, all of these lead to a deeper and richer meaning behind the surface-level story of the game. The various links to Hebrew folklore and mythology serve to broaden our understanding of the background of the world as well as deepening our comprehension of the exact nature of the ‘god’ Dormin. The various elements scattered throughout the world serve to tell us about the society and civilization that our principle characters may hail from. And the non-explicit aspects of the interactions and aspects of the principle cast of characters serve to tell us much about their backgrounds without actually having to take the time to tell it to us. All of these implicit storytelling aspects serve to give us a look at the deeper meanings behind the various aspects of this already wonderful story.

Lessons

Storytelling doesn’t have to be explicit. You, as the author, don’t need to spell out every facet of your story in order for it to be rich and deep. Shadow of the Colossus shows that you can have a rich, engrossing story and world without actually explicitly feeding it all to the player.

There don’t have to be clear-cut “good guys” and “bad guys.” While Shadow of the Colossus does have cut-and-dry protagonists and antagonists, neither are necessarily good or bad.

The story does not have to be complex in order to be “deep” or “rich.” Shadow of the Colossus is a fairly simple tale layered with depth and background, should you choose to look for it. The fact that is as simple as a young man with a magic sword trying to revive a dead maiden does nothing to diminish the richness of the world-building or the storytelling.

Summation

Shadow of the Colossus employs a unique method of storytelling to bring new life to an old story. The story is not a new one, but is a new take on an old trope, “young warrior saves the life of a maiden.” While the bigger picture is fairly simple, it takes advantage of the implicit nature of its world-building and storytelling methods in order to bring a level of depth and richness into the fine details of the tale that is rarely seen in today’s games. While a majority of titles of this age of impressive graphics merely use their visual capabilities to make things pretty or impressive, Shadow of the Colossus actually uses all that raw graphical power to bring life to its characters and world as well as using it as a storytelling aid. The nature of how its story is told, and the richness of the story itself are why Shadow of the Colossus is worthy of this analysis.

[straycatboogie]

2023/05/30 English

BGM: The Police - Synchronicity II Today I worked early. I read Yoshio Kataoka's essays again. He tells us that we should learn proper basis of English for learning it. We tend to think that we can learn English "automatically" without any efforts. You shouldn't try anymore, but just get soaked into English then it "naturally" becomes a part of yourself... Kataoka, however, says it's wrong. He says that languages "artificially" become a part of ourselves. In other words, languages become like that by the efforts we make day by day steadily. I agree with him. As I write this, I believe that we shouldn't rely on our talents to learn English. We just have to learn step by step. For example, memorizing words and making sentences actually. They would bring us a certain progress. At least, I am doing those things to improve my English... Even though I have learned English literature at a university, I still make mistakes in English. So this wouldn't move your mind. By the way, I am really living a selfish life. I am never trying to become a chief or a big boss. I don't work so hard to become a good business person. I am living as a stray cat and looking for my favorite or interested things. Partly I live as an employee who works for my company to get money, and partly I am digging my own interest and walking my way. It might be unserious from other people's eyes. Egoistic? But I want to say that kind of lifestyle must be accepted from the spirit of diversity. Since I was a kid, I couldn't join any groups my classmates made. I just liked looking for what I liked. It's the same even now. Learning English and enjoying communication. From them, learning a lot and facing various people's several opinions. That's my life, my way. It might be lucky that I could have found that "my way". Now, even though I am not completely stress-free, I am living really freely. A person who I had met on clubhouse recommended me to join in her online salon via Facebook. It will be held tomorrow. It's the one about English and seems really an international one with foreign members. English always helps me like that... Recently I started joining various groups on clubhouse and trying to make practice of speaking and listening. Sharing funny stories, and also learning the global news. Not trying to become a comedian and share "super cool" topic. You should be yourself and that's enough. Don't apologize your "poor" English. Me, my English is terrible. It's really Japanese broken one... In addition to that online salon, I'm going to attend the English conversation class from next month. I can feel that I am enjoying various activities about English. I should use reminder function of my smartphone for not to forget them. I repeat this again and again... I have never studied abroad. Even though I was a college student, I wrote my papers in Japanese. And also, it is really recent that I started learning English seriously like now. Since then, I just had disappointed about my life. I had been soaked into alcohol losing any hope in my life... But I met my teacher, and she told me that there is the English conversation class Shiso International Association holds. Indeed, I worried to go there because my English is really "too Japanese", but I decided to go there. After that, I got various connections from that... that told me that you can begin your life from anywhere. You can begin yours from any stage. Now, through learning English, I have been enjoying communications and connections. I am going to entering my 50s and 60s. I'm certainly getting old. I see my face on mirrors. It tells me my face gets aged bit by bit. But, I feel that I am getting younger than the past days. I am far from any "mature" people who have peace of mind.

[why-rock-look-tasty-if-no-eat]

I was a good and obedient kid, though I did have an imagination and a small mischievous streak. (Keep in mind, all of the examples were when I was under 10)

I was told to eat something? Already ate it, thanks for the food, can I have some more please?

Told to stop doing something? Are you sure I can't keep doing it? No? Alright, I'll stop.

Go be quiet and wait for the next hour? Looks like it's time to play make believe with any small objects around me and keep the game in my head.

Do your homework/hand write the essay? Already did it during school lunch/recess/class

Pick an instrument to play? I wanted flute and piano but the clarinet is perfectly fine to

Do (competitive) ballet, modern dance and baseball? How come I can't do gymnastics? Or why not both ballet and gymnastics? I don't want to do dance but alright. Though why can't I do soccer instead? Because you said so? Well, alright

When it came to concerts, theaters, movies, and plays I would sit still the entire time and pay attention to it without a fuss

But gods forbid that I get upset about having to wear clothes (literally only overalls and skirts) that I hated. Or just acting like a kid in general and not a miniature adult. As a seven year old I was doing the families dishes, laundry, and cleaning inside and outside the house. I also had to mediate between my family and grew up catching food to eat when we ran out money. During clothing store trips I used to hide in the clothing racks because I rarely got to go shoping, but I got yelled at everytime that it wasnt cute and is bad behavior.

Later on my 'teenage rebellion' was literally just me going to college during my last two years of HS and walking through the woods to get home. I never left the house after curfew and I never snuck out, simply because I never wanted to. The degree I was working on? It was science related and would have given me a strong foothold into my dream job, forensic science. The reason why I didn't get my associates before I graduated HS like I was supposed to? My mother didn't want to drive me to the second year campus, even though it was free college paid by the HS. Literally paid in full by the HS, and all that was needed was transport on my end.

Every school year I'd place in the top percentile of national tests; 1% English, 18% science, and 27% math. Those were my last test results because I remeber crying about my mothers response. Her response? An eyeroll and the papers being tossed aside and told that could do better at math. My Senior year I just gave up because I did all of that to get her recognition, and experiencing that broke me.

I got reccomended for scholarships when I was in Sophomore year. I was taking AP, Advanced, Band, Choir, and college classes while working 35+ hours part time with little to no transport for the last two. To get to my job I'd walk 40+ minutes or take the bus and waste money for an easy walk. The busses stopped after 10 pm so I would have to walk home, after midnight, by myself in a city that had plenty of nightlife. I also (unpromted) paid for my own food, entertainment, school supplies, and clothes since my Junior year.

For almost my entire school life, I'd go straight home and just learn more from NatGeo, encyclopedias (I ran out of books to read), science journals, KhanAcademy, hell I even watched college classes on YouTube, back when Berkeley still had them up, during middle school. I wouldn't go outside after curfew or sneak out, I'd be watching documentaries. The most trouble I got into was staying up watching documentaries at 1 am, I had headphones on to.

Then I got into a small job industry that's highly competitive, and I scored among the highest applicants and could pick from hundreds of jobs except for two? I must have cheated, because there's no way I'm that smart. My mother to my older sibling, almost verbatim.

Now what would my mother do when she was my age? Go out with her friends and get into trouble, eat as a group, sleep over at each other's places, and not take school seriously. She didn't get a job during HS, she wasn't in any AP or advanced clases, and most certainly didn't have a job during HS or college because her parents paid for it all. Which didn't matter since she dropped out of college to take care of my older sibling.

My mother went back to college during my Sophomore year and was complaining about how hard her classes were. I ended up helping her with her homework because I already did those classes during MS or Freshman year.

She would get impatient if I took more than three minutes to get out the door, but then I would have to wait fifteen for her to get everything. I found it easier to just run a checklist before we left so we wouldn't have to waste more time by turning around.

I would have a city/state/tristate competition for marching/choir/jazz band/ballet/modern dance/baseball (last three were droped before MS, but I still did compitions for ballet and dance) and if it had provided transportation then it was a toss up on if my family would be there. But if my mother or older sibling had a public event? Then I was dragged along and scolded if I complained about it.

Meanwhile my older sibling was staying over at friends houses, skipping school, doing drugs, drinking alcohol, sneaking out at night, smoking cigarettes, and not helping six year old me clean the house. But it was alright for older sibling to do it because they were older than me. OS didn't have to worry about curfew, and OS didn't worry about helping me out around the house.

OS got to eat as much food as OS wanted, but yet I got yelled at for asking for more food. Like I wasn't a growing kid and one serving was enough to tide me over. OS did have to get a job during HS though, because by that point our mother was raising us without child support. Even with OS helping with money we were still below the poverty line, and I had to stop doing many extracurriculars to save money.

Because my family were in dire straights monetary wise for my entire life, I was also worrying about money my entire life. When I was eight I was worrying about losing our home, which did happen a few years later so it wasn't unfounded lol. By the time I was twelve I was cutting back on my allowance to save money for food since catching it wasn't an option anymore at that point.

Suffice to say, whenever my mother talks about her childhood it's like getting whiplash. The differences are so crazy. I don't think my mother truly understands just how easy and nice she had it. Like, what do you mean you had a happy childhood that wasn't spent doing everything but what you actually wanted?

What do you mean you got to hang out with your friends whenever you wanted? What do you mean my MS math class was your HS class? What do you mean you didn't have to think of family before you even as a kid? What do you mean your parents went to every event you and your siblings had? What do you mean you didn't have to catch food for your family as a kid? What do you mean college's didn't require a 3.5 GPA, 25+ ACT score, and four years of foreign language?

Nowadays my mother is just pestering me about why I'm not in college and making a big fuss about how I can't be burnt out from my old job because I'm still college age. My old job where I would work up to 18 hours for two weeks. Every other month. For years.

TLDR: The stark difference in two generation's childhoods is real and it's really depressing

Maybe this is the wrong platform to pose this question given the average tumblr user but

Is it just me or did our generation (those of is who are currently 20-30 ish) just not get the opportunity to be young in the 'standard' sense?

Like, everyone I talk to who's over 40 has all their wild stories about their teens and 20s, being young and dumb, and then I talk to my friends and coworkers and classmates, and we just... dont.

[charsdreams]

Living in spite of Nov. 5-6 Day 1.

I have all of 1 follower rn so this is more of a for me thing but I hope this helps people who may find this in whatever way they need help. (I think that makes sense)

Yesterday I let myself be angry. I let myself cry and be hurt and mourn a great loss. I posted a ton on here, more than I had in months, because this platform is really the only safe one I have, where the far right people in my life can’t find me and see the truth about how I feel. I’m usually pretty outspoken about my politics, but I’m going to have to change that. Lord knows how 🍊 plans on handling “the enemy within.”

I also learned yesterday that my own sister was happy that 🍊 won because she truly believed that Kamala doesn’t support Christianity. I asked her to cite her sources. The only thing she could say was “well I don’t follow that sort of thing, but people I know…” and that’s all I needed to hear. My sister is happy the man who wants to take my, no, OUR, rights away won because of a lie she was told.

But that’s not the point of today. The point of today is to live in spite of the people who would see me lay down and die. Today is for getting back up and staring down adversity and not allowing them to see us suffer. Today is about finding resources to help those who will be impacted more than me. Today is about mending my own hurt and learning to keep my head down. If the 🍊 supporters can move in silence and then come out with full force, so can we.

Today I got out of bed. That’s what I did out of spite. Instead of getting up and asking my mom to let me stay home claiming my head hurt something fierce, I got up and got ready. I snapped my boyfriend and did not hide my tears. Instead of being nonchalant about my despair like I sort of thought he would (yes, I know that says a lot about my relationship) he simply asked what he could do to help. And he didn’t pout when I said that I wasn’t in the mood for the sort of help he had offered (although it was tempting, I knew if I did that I’d make myself late for school) he just offered me some virtual cuddles. And that’s exactly what I needed. And for that I’m grateful.

Today I will keep my head down and act like I’m not as upset as I am. I will start to read the handmaids tale like I told myself I would weeks ago and I will work on my college essay. If anyone asks what’s wrong, I have a pain in my knee that I can’t explain and it’s bothering me. That is what I will tell them. I will not tell them how I watched the despair of a girl realize her fears had come true yesterday after I mentioned Kamala’s loss. I will simply say that I don’t feel good

And I will live in spite of what happened. That’s my little protest, my small revolution. My act of defiance. And if you read this far, I hope you do as well.

All the best,

Char

[vxnsa1234]

8/14/24

Did you know that Van Gogh's "Starry Night" was the view from his asylum room window? I feel as if people often make a joke of his condition. I am sickened by how light hearted him cutting his ear off seems to be to some people. In any case, he is my favorite artist, and I have made him my profile photo now.

Today I was supposed to wake up earlier so I could meet up with O but I was having an incredible dream. I wish I remembered it. From what I can piece together, I was in S's basement-- she doesn't have a basement, but it made sense at the time-- and all of my friends were partying. It felt really good and then I woke up.

In order to convince my mom to let me hang out with O I told her that her dad has cancer, which is true and is also partly the reason why I wanted to see her. Not that I wouldn't have wanted to see her anyway, but now it is even more urgent that I am there for her. I felt guilty telling my mom, like now she has to like my friends because they are struggling. Often she takes sympathy when it is too late.

I had a great time with O. I wanted to go far, far away from my house, but that couldn't be done knowing my mother. We hopped around a couple stores and it felt great having her by my side. My favorite was the guitar store, where I played an electric guitar for the first time. It felt like I reached an epiphany. I so desperately want one but I worry it will be a waste. But it felt so natural in my hand.

I had to go home early because my family planned a special dinner for before my sisters leave for college. The dinner wasn't that great. There was a guy at the table right across from us who kept looking at me. He had wonderful eyes and I would have liked to talk to him. Another life.

After dinner I went straight to my room and called my friends. I hate myself for doing this. It's just what I'd rather do than spend time with my family, and I can admit that here, where no one else will see. I have always felt like an outsider to them. I figure they like me better when I'm away, but then I always feel bad, knowing my mother misses her baby. I just don't know how to act.

On the phone I felt weird, like I wasn't there. They were speaking to me but I was someplace else.

Tomorrow I will try to be there for my family more. In the meantime I have been revising my essay on birth and I have made it more poetic. It is now a letter from my mother's perspective to me, before I am "born". My own words made me cry. My actions when they are written make me look like a villian.

I am excited for Friday to go to the fair for the first time with O and S. I haven't seen S in a week and she isn't even sure if she can go with us. Today she mentioned she is highly considering joining the army. I am panicking thinking about this. For some reason I assumed we would always be together.

No hashtags, as you know.