#I want to write a whole essay worth of ramblings on the topic

[slothydaydreamer]

Me thinking about how the Devil can be connected to all three cups (Cuphead, Mugman and Chalice) in terms of narrative themes, personality traits, goals, etc. and how the Devil is ultimately just a reflection of themselves and their (negative) potential, their cruel/selfish/arrogant tendencies; but also how in turn the cups are what the Devil could be, and deep down a part of him craves to be, but never can be, because he can only be it while being distracted enough that he doesn't notice he's not evil in those moments and he would actively sabotage any attempt to be not-evil when he notices it:

[ineffable-romantics]

Some thoughts on why and how I believe Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship would incorporate sex/why I do not read them as wholly asexual:

This is something I've seen the most discourse about in this fandom, and I've had a few thoughts of my own that I really wanted to expand upon in a full meta/character analysis post. I do understand that this can be a contentious topic, so first, let me clarify a few things:

First of all, this is going to be long. Tbh it probably won't be that organized either. I ramble and I'm not very good at editing, so just... you know. Be warned. (*Hi, it's me from 2 days after writing this; I'm really not kidding, it's LONG)

These are all my own thoughts. They might not be hot takes, because recently I've seen more than a few people come to the same conclusions on a lot of these points as I have. But I've also had these notes in my drafts for about a week and a half now, and have been continuously adding to it as things have occurred to me. This post is essentially just somewhere for me to collect the separate but related meta I've been kicking around in my head.

I fully respect anyone who does see and prefer an asexual reading of this relationship. These are my own thoughts and interpretations as someone who is not asexual. I am in the LGBT+ community, so while I do know a few things about the asexuality spectrum, I am by no means an expert.

This is NOT something I expect, need, or even necessarily want the show (or, God forbid, Neil's tumblr ask box) to address. Tonally, it's just not that kind of show. Newt and Anathema's sex scene was very much played for laughs, and it worked for that reason. If the show found a way to address it in a way that was both appropriate for the tone of the show and ultimately satisfying, then great! But there is so much more to this relationship than sex, and I didn't need a kiss to confirm their love, so I certainly don't need a sex scene. As immortal beings (as I assume they'll stay) there is so much of the rest of their lives we'll never get to see. You can headcanon them as asexual and potentially be right. I can headcanon them as not and be equally potentially right. Again, these are just a collection of my own thoughts, because I think the question of sexuality (or lack thereof) is just as interesting a facet of these characters as any other.

Note: Tbh I've been second-guessing this whole post and debated deleting the whole thing several times for being silly or unnecessary, bc I don't want anyone to think that this is the only thing I care about when it comes to this story/characters. But if nothing else, it's inspired me to write in a way that nothing has in a very long time, so I've decided it's worth continuing, if for no other reason than that.

This is going to be a mixed bag of textual reading, subtextual reading, and a full-on reach or two. It's been a while since I've been in an English class, but if my teachers expected me to find a deeper meaning behind blue curtains, you can expect me to read too deeply into the symbolism of a loaded rifle or an ox rib. (This is probably not what my professors had in mind when grading my literary analysis papers but oh well) My point is, if it feels like a reach, I'm as aware of it as you are. I am in no way saying that all (or even any) of my points made were deliberate on the part of Neil or the actors or the writers or the directors. I am no longer the delulu Apple Tree Yard child of my youth, I promise.

If anything said here is in any way offensive or hurtful to anyone in the asexual community, please do not hesitate to message me or comment and let me know exactly what it was. I promise you it is not my intention to do so, and am happy to clarify or outright edit anything that reads that way.

With all that being said, let's talk about why I think Crowley and Aziraphale would absolutely fuck nasty incorporate sex into their relationship.

Note: I am out of practice with essay writing, so I think I'll just go down the bullet points of notes I have been making, and expand on each as best I can

Food

Where better to start than with Aziraphale's introduction to Pleasures Of The Flesh? (Just a heads up, this entire post may feel very Aziraphale-heavy, and with good reason).

This might be the least hot take here. We've all seen the Job minisode. We've all seen That Scene.

Whether this was intentional or not, the symbolism here is off the charts. Eve was tempted by an apple. So why not go a similar route and tempt Aziraphale with another fruit, or cheese, or bread, or literally anything else for his first experience with food? Instead, we go with a huge, glistening slab of fresh meat that he proceeds to absolutely go feral upon, moaning and gasping into his meal while Crowley watches with what definitely doesn't look to be disgust or even satisfaction with a good temptation. There's surprise at the ferocity of Aziraphale's appetite, certainly. But ultimately he looks to be intensely fascinated by it, while the thunder crashes, the music crescendos, and the earth literally shakes around them.

(It's also interesting to note how very little it takes for Crowley to tempt him with the ox rib. One murmured suggestion, a bit of unwavering eye contact, and vavoom Aziraphale immediately meets him in the middle.)

Cut to Aziraphale devouring the rest of the meat with Crowley splayed back on a makeshift bed, drinking wine and continuing to watch him indulge through half-lidded eyes. Outside a thunderstorm rages while they're learning secrets about each other in warm flickering firelight. It's cosy, it's intimate, and if they'd thrown in a bearskin throw blanket, it might as well be a post-coital scene straight out of Game of Thrones.

The next time (chronologically) we see them discuss food is when Aziraphale "tempts" Crowley with oysters in Rome. So Crowley first tempts Aziraphale with meat and then Aziraphale tempts Crowley with what is widely regarded to be an aphrodisiac. Interesting.

And then chronologically after that, the Arrangement begins to form, which has always reeked of a friends with benefits situation. Just to throw that in there.

It's What Humans Do

In the very first episode, we're shown Gabriel's obvious disgust and bewilderment towards Aziraphale eating sushi, calling it "gross matter" and being proud of the fact that he does not sully his body with it. Aziraphale initially tries to defend his own enjoyment in it, before passing it off as something that humans do, as something he simply has to do in order to blend in (which we know very well is not the case).

He does this again in season 2, passing off Nina and Maggie being in love as "something humans do". But it isn't, is it? Angels are beings of love, and can sense it, and understand very well what it is... up to a point. Even romantic love is obviously within their wheelhouse, given what we now know happened between Gabriel and Beelzebub (we'll come back to them).

What the "humans do" that angels wouldn't understand is messy, physical forms of love.

But here's the thing: Aziraphale and Crowley love doing what the humans do. They love drinking, they (or at least Aziraphale) love eating. They love music. Crowley loves driving and sleeping and watching rom-coms and sitcoms. Aziraphale loves reading and doing magic and earning little licenses and certificates for achievement in his various hobbies. They love to playact at being human so much that they've stopped playacting and started building a genuinely human lifestyle for themselves and with each other.

Once together in an unambiguously romantic sense, why do we think they wouldn't also want to explore one of the most prominent, intimate, powerful human expressions of love and desire with each other?

Angels, Demons, & Asexuality

Here's where I really want to clarify that in no way do I mean that sex is necessary for a healthy, fulfilling, and loving romantic relationship, or that the lack of desire for sex makes you any less human. Asexuality is a sexuality as valid and human as any. What I would say is that it is definitely in the human minority compared to allosexuality.

Angels and demons, on the other hand, are predominately asexual. Sexless/genderless unless Making An Effort. (Which, btw, is a concept introduced as early as the original book; why even bring it up as a possibility? Why not keep angels/demons being sexless/asexual as a hard and fast rule, if not to open up the potential for later use? Chekhov's Effort, if you will. And isn't that something that Aziraphale in particular is shown to do time and time again? He makes an effort in French and driving and magic, doesn't he?)

And this is why I don't believe Aziraphale and Crowley necessarily need to be asexual, narratively. There is already a huge amount of ace rep within the angels and demons (and no, not just the horrible ones. Muriel also doesn't "drink the tea" and has no reason or desire thus far to Make An Effort, and there are certainly other angels and demons who aren't horrible like the archangels seem to be who likely wouldn't Make An Effort either).

The central conflict for Aziraphale and Crowley is that they are on their own side, the ones who went native, the ones who are so different in so many ways from their respective hives. It would make sense for them to also break away from traditional angel/demon asexuality.

I say "traditional angel/demon asexuality", because I would also like to note that I would absolutely not rule out demisexuality for either of them. This post is being written to as a response to people who specifically believe that they (like the rest of the angels/demons seem to be) would be sex-averse in a relationship, and that it wouldn't be a factor in their relationship. I could easily read them as demisexual, but I do think there would be no real way of verifying this, because they've never been able to form as close an emotional relationship with anyone else but each other. Certainly not in heaven, and I can't imagine they would be able to form that kind of attachment with any of the humans, who they love and emulate but ultimately regard as the separate species they are. So yes, they could either be allosexual or demisexual, in my opinion.

Then again, now that I think about it, Making An Effort itself could be a great metaphor for demisexuality, since they would be entirely sexless/asexual until they have enough of an emotional connection with someone to consciously manifest otherwise. Since the other angels and demons don't generally form those types of emotional connections with anyone, there hasn't been a precedent for it.

Except...

Brielzebub

We do have a precedent for it now, don't we? Gabriel and Beelzebub fell in love. They are a direct foil for Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship, speedrunning right through their courtship and finding their happily ever after on the other side of things.

For being such a 1 to 1 comparison, it feels deliberate that they did not kiss. They held hands, they were gooey with each other, but they did not kiss. That feels like such a deliberate thing to omit when you know what's to come at the end of the episode between Crowley and Aziraphale.

And going back to the food = sex metaphor for a moment, let's notice how even as they fell in love over the years, even when pints and crisps were there on the table in front of them, they never felt the desire to reach out for them. They didn't need to. It's a date (love story) even if you aren't eating dinner (sleeping together).

Yes, I know Jim liked hot chocolate. No, I am not counting it because I don't consider Jim and Gabriel to be the same person with the same proclivities, and Jim was highly suggestible at the time anyway.

Gabriel and Brielzebub's big happily ever after moment (as of now) was one between two asexual supernatural beings. They did not need to kiss to drive the point home. They showed what Crowley and Aziraphale could have, if they would only acknowledge it.

Crowley & Aziraphale's Dissatisfaction

But they do have that already, don't they? If you really think about it, what do Gabriel and Beelzebub do with each other that Crowley and Aziraphale don't already? They hold hands, they spend time together, they create little rituals, they give gifts, they're visibly and verbally affectionate with each other, etc. They are more or less already in a romantic asexual marriage relationship with each other, aren't they?

And it doesn't seem to be enough for either of them.

At the beginning of the season, Crowley is immediately shown to be unsatisfied with the way things are. Obviously part of it comes from living in his car, but it seems to be more than that (especially since Aziraphale makes it clear that the bookshop is just as much Crowley's as his, implying that he could have been living there the whole time and is choosing not to, for some reason?). You could argue he's feeling unmoored without Hell telling him what to do, but isn't that what he wanted? Isn't that what he still wants, by the end of the season? All season long, he's never indicated the desire for a new job, or a new project. He stopped the apocalypse because he wanted the freedom to openly spend time with Aziraphale, to spend his time on Earth however he sees fit. Until Gabriel arrives, he has exactly that (minus a flat).

So where does the dissatisfaction come from? And if it represents anything to do with his relationship, what does he want out of it that he isn't getting already?

I think Crowley only really comes to the realisation of what he's missing when Nina names it for him, not only putting them in the category of romantic, but physical (outright asking if they are sleeping together). These two posts [1], [2] go into more detail about what I mean, but I think it really pushes him into acknowledging that their relationship is more human than either of them have stopped to consider, and what that might mean as far as everything a human relationship can entail.

After all, Nina and Maggie only advised that he should talk to Aziraphale, make clear his feelings. The decision to kiss him, to tip them over the edge from nonphysical to physical, that was all him. And no, kissing isn't sex, but I wonder how taboo even that might be in the kind of all-encompassing asexuality most angels seem to identify with. (If they're disgusted by food and drink, I can only imagine what they think of snogging, much less sex.)

Aziraphale doesn't have this moment of someone observing their relationship from the outside. He loves Crowley, and as of 1941 probably even knows he's in love with him in a way that Crowley doesn't understand yet. Which makes sense, since love is technically his job, he'd be more likely to recognise it for what it is.

However, Aziraphale's reference for romance and relationships is Jane Austen. It's chaste. It's dancing and dinner and doing sweet things for each other and roses and candles and handholding. He contextualises his love for Crowley in that soft fantasy sort of way, where it's there, it's obviously there, but it's neat and easy and unspoken. Not to quote Glee in this, the year of our lord 2023, but it's all very "the touch of the fingertips is as sexy as it gets".

Someone should tell that to Aziraphale's face, then.

I'm not going to pretend I know what Michael Sheen's script notes were, but there were definitely some Choices™ made. Because yes, there were plenty of moments in both seasons with Aziraphale looking at Crowley in a sweet, loving, smitten way. And then there were moments that were yearning.

But yearning for what, exactly? All of those sappy Jane Austen tropes already apply to the two of them. So why are there moments where Aziraphale is looking Crowley up and down like the last eclair in the window and licking his lips and visibly exhaling like he's trying to get in control of himself (see: Bastille scene + Crowley telling Muriel to ask him if they have any other questions about love)? Why is Aziraphale not only unconcerned when Crowley shoves him bodily up against a wall in s1, but staring at his lips and a beat too late in noticing Sister Mary's arrival? Why are some of his lines so suggestive? I'm sorry, but the car ride after the church explosion might as well have been the beginning of a Pizza Man porn with a really weird Blitz theme. If even my mother picked up on that vibe, I can't imagine it wasn't intentional on part of both the dialogue and the delivery.

(This section may feel like more of a reach/joke, but I'm really only 20% joking. These are writers and actors who are EXTREMELY good at their jobs; they know what they were doing here.)

More importantly, I don't think Aziraphale is even aware that there is more to what he wants. He lives in the Jane Austen fantasy and it never even occurs to him that he might be interested in anything further. It never even occurs to him that, as an angel, there is anything further to be interested in in the first place. Until Crowley forces it to occur to him. Just like I believe Nina forced Crowley to confront the idea that romantic love is what he's been feeling all along, I believe Crowley forced Aziraphale to confront the idea that physical intimacy is something he's been wanting, without even realising.

Aziraphale's Hedonism

Expanding on Aziraphale for a moment. We talked about his relationship with food, but we all know that Aziraphale is defined by his love of things that Feel Good.

It isn't just that he and Crowley love human things. Aziraphale loves the best of the best, or at least his version of it. He doesn't just love food, he loves going to fancy restaurants. He doesn't just love clothes, he loves soft, cosy, warm, plush clothes, or shiny, flashy, bougie fashion. He loves the warmth of tea and cocoa, loves getting drunk, and sitting in a comfy chair in the sunlight. He doesn't just experience, he indulges.

Given the emphasis put on things that Aziraphale loves just because they Feel Good, it feels narratively strange to assume that he wouldn't enjoy the feeling of being touched, or that he wouldn't be willing to try it, at least once, with someone he cared very deeply for. And just like the ox rib, I think that once he gets the first taste of things, he would absolutely tip over into complete and utter self-indulgence.

Dancing

I also think that dancing could be construed as a huge metaphor here. After all, we're told flat-out that angels don't Dance. Except one.

I would argue that Aziraphale, in fact, Made An Effort to learn how to Dance. He threw himself into the gavotte with delight (at a Victorian gay club; noted) and worked hard to be good at it. He's chomping at the bit to Dance with Crowley, working up the nerve to ask him with undeniably romantic intent and eagerness. So, angels don't Dance... unless they Make An Effort to do so.

We are told that demons, on the other hand, do Dance, but not well. Makes sense, since they're the ones who would want to encourage a deadly sin like lust, but have as little understanding of human love and physical intimacy as the angels. Crowley, however, is shown to be an excellent dancer at the ball, especially in his compatibility with Aziraphale.

(But Aziraphale WandaVisioned the ball so everyone knew how to dance! Yes, he did. However, the rest of the brainwashing doesn't seem to affect Crowley in any way, and they did actually live through the time period where this sort of dancing was a social norm; I'd be surprised if he never needed to learn. After all, the demons can't spell either, and Crowley is at least functionally literate, as far as we know.)

As of today, it's also been confirmed that when Aziraphale asked Crowley to dance, Crowley replied with "you don't dance." Not "WE don't dance". So going along with the metaphor, Crowley is just now discovering that Dancing is something Aziraphale is interested in at all, much less with him, and not denying that he himself is interested in Dancing. In his defense, I believe he was asleep for a few years while Aziraphale was learning the gavotte, so he wasn't exactly aware of Aziraphale's hot girl summer.

Love Languages

I want to expand on that; Crowley and Aziraphale's compatibility. Specifically in regards to their individual love languages.

We all know Crowley's love language is Acts of Service. I don't think there's any debate there. He loves it, Aziraphale loves it, they're both aware of it, we're all aware of it, God and Satan are aware of it, no surprise there.

You may disagree with me, but I believe Aziraphale's love language is Physical Touch, for a number of reasons. One of which being his aforementioned hedonism. Aziraphale likes things that Feel Good, remember? He likes soft clothes, and well-worn books. Neil himself has said that they like holding hands. And any time he is taken by surprise (Brielzebub getting together, the wave of love in Tadfield, etc.) what is the first thing he does? Reaches out for Crowley. He stops him with a hand to the chest in the pub. He leads him by the hand to the dance floor. He guides him by the waist in the graveyard. He reaches out during the entire Brielzebub scene, whether he can reach Crowley or not. Despite his own turmoil, he grasps at Crowley's back during the kiss.

The one time Crowley reaches out for him (not counting the kiss yet; we'll get there), he is aggressively pushed against a wall (by someone he loves and trusts) with a complete and utter lack of concern (and perhaps some interest, depending on how you read it).

And when he isn't reaching out for anyone, or there isn't anyone to reach out to? Well, he's wringing his own hands together, squeezing his own fingers, as if to find that physical comfort in himself.

So. With that theory in mind, we have Aziraphale (Physical Touch) + Crowley (Acts of Service). Throw in 6000+ years of deep love, cherished companionship, and forcibly repressed longing, and there is a very real potential of this combination resulting in fierce sexual compatibility. Where Aziraphale would want to touch and be touched, to indulge in physical pleasure with someone he adores, in the same the way he indulges in every other fine thing in his life. And where Crowley would want to indulge him in return, to give him everything he wants, and to take pleasure in Aziraphale's pleasure, in the same way he enjoys watching him take joy in food everything else.

So Aziraphale is an angel who is insecure about his own less-than-holy desires, who would want to treat Crowley like a luxury to be touched and cherished and adored. And Crowley is a demon who has, over the millennia, been unhappy about how they've been forced to deny even their friendship with each other, who would want Aziraphale to feel comfortable and safe and encouraged to indulge in earthly delights. That sounds like a stunning recipe for sexual compatibility to me.

"You said 'trust me'" / "And you did"

Just like the Job minisode, the Blitz is RIFE with symbolism (intentional or otherwise). This one will be quick, but I did want to touch on it because I thought it was interesting. Maybe I'm reaching at this point, but I'm assuming you read the tin.

First of all, Crowley not wanting to admit to never firing a gun before; comes off as someone who very much does not want to admit to their crush that they're a virgin ("You must have done this lots of times!" / "Umm.... yyyyyeah.")

(You could make the argument that Aziraphale having a firearms license and a Derringer in a hollowed-out book is symbolic of him not being a virgin while Crowley is. I disagree, for reasons I'll go into later, but it's a valid reading. However, I see it more like keeping a condom in your wallet; it's there in case you need it, but the opportunity has not yet risen no pun intended.)

More importantly, the theme of this entire minisode is trust. We already know they trust each other with their lives against the rest of Heaven, Hell, and the world. But specifically, this is about the importance of having complete trust in your partner in a charged, physically vulnerable, intimate moment, where the only danger is between the two of you.

Aziraphale needs to believe Crowley would never hurt him if he can help it. Crowley needs to trust Aziraphale's unwavering blind faith in him. Frankly, it all feels very symbolic of two people deeply in love losing their respective virginities with each other.

The trick is a success, and they share an intimate candlelit dinner in which they reaffirm their faith in each other. Aziraphale also begins to voice his agreement with Crowley, that maybe Heaven's rules shouldn't have to be as black and white as they are, and that there are benefits to... blurring the lines, shades of grey, wink wink (at which point even my mom was like, whoa guys, this is a family show).

Btw also: Can we all agree how much it looked like Crowley was getting ready to get a lapdance in that one scene? You know the one.

Also also: "Aim for my mouth"? Come on.

The Birds & The Bees

Now that I think of it, there's also something to be said for the fact that Crowley and Aziraphale are both obviously familiar with where babies come from (how they're made and how they're born) while the other angels aren't.

Something something Aziraphale and Crowley fundamentally understand sex and reproduction in a way the other angels (and probably demons) very much do not, nor have any desire to.

Probably not important. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

The Kiss™ & Religious Trauma

The Kiss. Where to even begin?

This has definitely been the hardest one to start, because there is so much going on here that I definitely won't be able to cover it all, and will certainly miss a few things here and there.

Aziraphale's reaction to the kiss afterwards is the most interesting to me. And I don't mean directly after, I don't mean the "I forgive you" part. I mean the way he touches his lips when Crowley is no longer in the room and he no longer needs to save face, when he is completely alone. Had it been directly after the kiss, it would have been rightfully read as horror, or disgust, a shield to discourage further action.

It's not. It isn't just a touch, it's a press. As desperate and angry and unexpected and imperfect as the kiss had been, Aziraphale is pressing it into himself, recreating the feeling as best he can. Beneath all the poor timing and shock and hurt from their fight and fallout, I think it's fair to say that it was something he enjoyed. Something he doesn't think he should enjoy, something that Feels Good that he only allows himself to indulge in when completely alone.

Remember, Aziraphale's idea of love is Jane Austen and gentleness and courtship and fantasy. If he'd ever even considered kissing an option, it might have been gentle pecks, cheek kisses, forehead kiss, hand kisses. Soft, safe, chaste affection.

Crowley's kiss turns all of that on its head. He introduces physical intimacy in a very real, very messy, very human way that I don't think Aziraphale ever even considered could apply to them. Considering what other angels are like and what they look down on, even Aziraphale's Jane Austen fantasies probably would have been considered taboo.

So for their first kiss to be rough and desperate and passionate in the way it was, of course he was confused and in shock. It was deeply physical, and as overwhelming and awful as it was in the moment, it Felt Good. Enough that he grasped at Crowley and kissed back, if only just for a moment, before stopping himself. Enough that he actively pressed it into his lips afterwards, in private, to remember.

I adore how Neil has decided to evolve these characters past the first book/season. More so in this season, Aziraphale and Crowley have both become such interesting allegories for queer people on either side of the spectrum of toxic religion. Aziraphale in particular obviously, because he is the side that so desperately wants to believe, to make a difference, and to unlearn all of the propaganda he's been fed over such a long time. Just like so much of organised religion, there is so much that he is told, time and time again, that he should not want, that he is silly or stupid or outright wrong for wanting. It reminds me so much of the severe Catholic guilt one might feel for wanting/engaging in sex for the first time, and the stigma of being queer layered on top of that.

What is so critical to Aziraphale's character is that he goes on wanting, and more than that, actively pursues. He was convinced to go up against Heaven and Hell and stop all of Armageddon because he wanted to go on listening to music and eating lunch and reading books and enjoying the simple company of the person he cares most deeply for, even if that person is supposed to be the enemy.

All this to say that if angels are as generally asexual/sex-averse as I believe them to be, narratively speaking, it would make sense for Aziraphale to be singular in that regard as well. Mirroring his first experience with food, it would make sense for Crowley to be the one to first introduce this new messy, physical, human dynamic between them, for Aziraphale to hesitate (obviously we are at the Hesitation phase at the moment), and then (eventually) for him to dive in wholeheartedly, to absolutely glut himself on this new thing that Feels Good. It would make sense for his character development to show him overcoming his metaphorical Catholic guilt and pursuing the sexual intimacy most (if not all) of the other angels would scorn.

(I can't help but remember that plot idea Neil described from the unwritten sequel, with Aziraphale in a hotel room trying to watch a full porno by way of the free 2-minute teaser clips so he wasn't technically sinning by paying for it. I so hope this is used in season 3, because gosh, I wonder why Aziraphale would suddenly be so interested in observing human physical intimacy after 6,000 years. Lonely and doing a little surreptitious research there, angel?)

Crowley, on the other hand, is the queer person who has broken free from his toxic religion. He prides himself on being his own person, on their his own side. He doesn't have the hang-ups Aziraphale does. He doesn't worry that he's going to be judged or cast aside for wanting things he's not supposed to. So it only makes sense for him to be the first one to suggest/initiate physical intimacy. It makes sense for him to be the one who "goes too fast" (another fantastic example of this dynamic beginning as early as s1; what is that conversation in the car meant to represent, if not Aziraphale being overwhelmed by the intensity of their relationship, and his fear of succumbing to it when he believes he shouldn't? It's also interesting that this is the first conversation to take place in Soho, just after watching Aziraphale realise he's caught feelings for a demon, with the red glow of lust serving as the backdrop).

Do I think the kiss in and of itself was sexual? No. I think it was a passionate and devastating last-ditch effort on Crowley's part to convey the way he feels for Aziraphale. Not just that he loves him, but that he loves him in the most human way possible. But I do think that the kiss represents how they can move forward from here, and what they might want to explore with each other once they feel free enough to do so.

In Conclusion

I am sure, deep in my bones (unless we are explicitly told otherwise), that this was both of their first kisses no, I'm not counting the gavotte, and that neither of them have ever thought to do anything else physical with the humans while they have been on Earth. Like I said before, they adore the human race and lifestyle in general, but ultimately view them as a separate species altogether, and they seem mostly happy to keep to themselves and each other, unless otherwise necessary. I just can't see either of them being drawn enough to a human to pursue anything close to sex. If Crowley in particular has had anything to do with sex in the context of temptations, I'm positive he would be inciting lust amongst the humans themselves, not involving himself directly. At least not that directly.

So, like every other human experience they've had on Earth, sex is something new that they could explore together, just the two of them, on their own side. A deeply intimate, tangible declaration of their love and everything they've gone through to earn it. A visceral finger to give both Heaven and Hell. A renewed appreciation for their corporations and for each other's. A enjoyable method for immortal beings to simply pass the time in each other's company. A new and exciting way to Feel Good, and all the variations that come with it.

You might agree with this post, or you might not. Whether this is something that is ever addressed or not, it doesn't matter to me. This is a brilliant love story either way, and I genuinely feel so privileged to witness it.

But I just can't find it in myself to imagine, given everything we know about these two characters, that sex isn't an experience they would both consume with wholehearted enthusiasm, curiosity, and profound, ineffable adoration.

___________________________________

Bonus feature: the very silly notes I made to myself that inspired this post

[ssinfulprayers]

To my DLSU girl, Historia.

You're the reason why I lived my life. It was short but I lived it. For once in my whole entire life of surviving, I finally lived. I regret not marrying you before I went away.

You're worth everything, and I'm worthless. You were the Sun, I was the moon. We're completely opposites and yet we still match. Remember the time when we first saw eachother? It was 5 years ago. I vividly remember how the leaves were dancing and you were dancing to nothing at Marikina Heights. You looked beautiful and you still do. I remember that I was lost that time, speaking broken Tagalog because I just came to the Philippines and yet you were patient with me. 

Remember when you confessed to me? That was 4 years ago. I remember you were rambling about your crush and how I hurt because I thought it wasn't me. Then you slipped, you told me “She's you” I thought I was hearing things. I thought maybe you were joking. So I ran, I ran out of your house while crying. When I did eventually stopped, I saw you behind me. You're such an idiot for chasing me, you're such a stubborn idiot. You had a bike, you could've rode it but you wanted to chase me by foot because you remembered that I hate it when people do half assed things when doing something.

Remember when you met my parents? That was 3 years ago. You wore a red shirt with stars and pants that had red stars. You looked breathtaking, my parents thought that too. They praised you on how you did all the right things when meeting your partners parents. You gave them a fruit basket, it was full off tangerines and apples because mom and dad liked those. You tried talking to mom in mandarin because she didn't understand Tagalog well, I remember your broken mandarin trying to tell mom she was gorgeous. Long story short,  you became her favourite. 

Remember when you came running to my house just because I was scared of the dark? That was 2 years ago. You came knocking loudly and when I opened the door, I saw you. Your face looking worried and relieved at the same time. Then you kissed me, you told me how you were relieved that I was safe and I was there hugging you back shocked. Did it really take you that long to kiss me on the lips? You're so dumb. I hated you for that.

Remember when I needed to go back to China? That was a year ago. I remember crying everynight about it. I remember crying and begging to my parents to not let me part with you. I remember pushing you away and yet you were so stubborn to not leave. I remember making you a song while you were sleeping. I remember leaving you tons of letters I began writing ever since I saw you. I remember leaving you my journal from when I first saw you so you can read it. I remember going on dates everyday and in one particular date you bought me a journal so that I can write about my day and about you while I was in China. I remember kissing your lips in the airport like it was the death of me. I remember crying to your arms like no one was there. I remember loving you in the bathroom of the airport just because I wanted a little taste of you before I go.

I remember when you left. It was 8 months ago. Yet I still have hope that you're still alive and well. I remember going home to the Philippines because tita told me you passed. I remember writing an essay about the loss of you and submitting it to my professor because our topic was love. You were and still are the definition of love. I remember crying to tita and saying sorry that I left you. I remember reading our chats before you died. You were so stubborn and dumb you decided to die on my birthday, you decided to die on Christmas eve. 

You still are the love of my life. I'm sure I won't be seeing other people because you're the one I want. 

 I loved you ever since I saw you. I'll love you even more each day. I love you for an eternity, Jiminez. I love you so much. 

- M.Y.G.S

(sent by Anon)

[reidsvest]

(gif is not mine,credits to @hotch-girl )

Hello!I'm completely new to this so first things first.My name is Avra,my pronouns are she/her and I am 21 years old.I'm currently on my third year of college, studying away from my home which sadly means traveling a lot, so i'm not sure how much or often i will be able to upload fics but I will be trying my best.Also my native language is not english and while I will be proofreading my fics before posting,I apologize in advance for any mistakes.I have a really big rambling problem as it has already become evident.That will probably be showing in my fanfictions and in the actual rambles i wish to post about whatever episode of criminal minds I'm watching so I feel like I want to apologize in advance for that too and I hope that it's not too boring/annoying.I promise my thoughts follow a logical order😂

Like I mentioned in my description I love everything spencer reid (and cm in general), jay halstead (same for cpd) and charles leclerc (you guessed it roughly the same applies to f1).Honestly what I'm trying to say is that I love most characters on chicago pd,criminal minds and many many drivers from formula 1 but the ones I mentioned are my top favorites.I have watched almost every single film that matthew gray gubler has acted in,i pride myself for making it through some really weird scenes but at the end of the day it was worth it for more mgg content to feed the obsessive monster.I also absolutely adore elizabeth olsen/wanda maximoff but i will not be writing for her.This is also a great moment to state how much i love Taylor Swift and her music!I am tho completely open and would love to talk with anyone about wanda or any of these topics.

My fanfictions for starters will be of the above mentioned characters (mostly spencer reid as he is my current biggest obsession) and will be female reader x character fics.I will be writing angst and nswf content (probably a mix of both) so minors please do not interact but I will also be writing fluff too. I'll try to post my first fanfiction soon-ish but I just wanted to write a quick introduction to my blog and say hello!If you read this whole essay,thank you so much!I cant wait to start!🧡🌼

[thebluntstudent]

a little introductory .☆•°. chaos babble #1

(Will be doing a few different types of blog posts and content here- when I want to vent current study progress for my own motivation in an informal rambling drabble, you can expect a chaotic babble. When I finally set up my blog theme, I'll create a little directory for post tags)

honestly this is an alt blog to give me some motivation to get my academic sh*t together once again so I can become the philosophy queenie I always wanted to be ~ so a little academic context (if you want more personal info then go stalk my main blog and excuse the fallout thirst):

For a whole load of reasons and context I don't need to provide, by the time I finished my first year of university at 20 in 2022, my mental health was at an all time low and a variety of family issues present at the time caused me to decide to take an interruption year.

I had for the first time in my academic history outright failed an exam despite revising for hours on the topic due to constantly feeling overwhelmed and not looking after myself physically due to over-commitment to societies and hall committee roles; I had also for the first time gotten to a point where I had missed handing in an essay completely- which for somebody who's self-worth had for my entire life been centred around my grades and academic abilities was a hefty blow to my self-efficacy.

I was intending to work on my mental health and begin to resolve my trauma on my interruption year, and up until April 2023 this was going quite well; I had begun volunteering at a group for adults with disabilities that my older brother attended, I was keeping up with my academic studies by exploring areas of philosophy I hadn't yet had the chance to without the time pressure or expectations an educational institute mandates, and was preparing eagerly for resits and deferrals from the end of my first year.

Between April 2023 and August 2023, I lost my last remaining grandparents, and one of the two cats I had grown up with. The grief also worsened existing family circumstances that had begun to heal slowly over the prior few years, and due to failing an exam that summer for a second time, once again having to defer an essay, and visiting a doctor about my anxiety a month before I was due to return to university only to be told 'well not much I can do when you're going to be 120 miles away in a few weeks'- I wasn't quite prepared to return in 2023 either.

As of writing this it is May 2024. I did a lot of mental healing through winter- and despite the fact I had to cope with a lot of chaos the first few months of this year, and despite the fact my hormones have been protesting agaimst me for the last two months in what so far is looking to be PCOS, I handed in my last remaining essay from year one and have one last exam to do, in seven days from now.

It is the only module I have failed to pass an exam for. It is the only thing left (well aside from the potential PCOS, and finding a place to live in London in this economy as a working class lass, sigh) between me and finally returning to my dream degree at a university I took an extra year at college to make sure I would get into- between me and breaking a chain, and defying a stereotype about broken homes and council estates. I have to remind myself of my motivations, so that when I am hopeless I remember what got me this far, and what I have left to prove. That is what this is all about.

where I am at right now, in this moment:

The topic is intermediate logic, and I hate that for me. I signed up without realising that however fabulous it is to be able to understand inductive reasoning through the power of symbols, this is essentially maths in disguise. It is for me the chocolate-covered sprout of the modules I chose: sweet on the surface, definitely good for you, but a stinky experience for the senses when you actually get into the thick of it.

I'm 2 out of 9 topics down in terms of reviewing content with active recall, and tonight I'm going to keep going for a couple of hours- I've not been able to sleep much more than 6 hours recently, so thankfully a couple late night study sessions are honestly a distraction from the general nuisance my body is hurling my way at the minute.

Plan for the next session is to get through at least one more topic review, two at a push depending on how long the first takes (so many formulas. so many.) and also to create a little reminder on my break for me and anyone out there in the void of ways to compromise study and self-care in less than ideal conditions <3

[luv-again]

Reblogging this again because I needed to have a good long think about my life </3 and because I need to ramble at length, as per.

For me personally, I haven't felt a drop in engagement with my works as a writer, as it's difficult to gauge when there never was much of an incline in the first place.

Recently, I've had a small increase of engagement on my latest work, but it's hard to say why that is because I simply don't know what grabs people. I write for fun, to sustain my sanity, to send a message about a particular topic. Most of it is tailored to me, I primarily write for my own enjoyment and so I don't know exactly what grabs other people, hence why a lot of engagement on my works are minimal — because I'm not appealing to a specific audience. I also think it's because I'm garbage at tagging, summaries and promoting my works as a whole. I think I'm just too niche or boring or something ?? Again, I don't know what attracts or repels people with my works.

Another thing that doesn't help is being fairly new to a fandom. You're going it alone, with no support system, just hoping you might reach someone. I experience a lot of 'lost at sea' moments with that. You're just grabbing at straws in desperation most of the time.

Point is, what I do is maybe what's separating me from actively interacting in the fandom. Perhaps people can't relate to what I write, or perhaps I write too much broody introspection instead of something more fast-paced, entertaining and full of action.

I know I'm a good writer. I've always written works attributed to someone much older (so I'm told). But when all I have is to watch my stagnant statistics on AO3, I start to equate those numbers to my worth as an artist (not good thinking). It’s discouraging and disheartening and I'm genuinely led to believe that my favourite hobby, the one thing that really defines me is absolutely meaningless and I should just stop doing it altogether.

Lately, I have received a few really really kind comments from people, saying they did love what I made, that doing those hard yards weren't in vain. My favourites have been a handful of bulky paragraphs — comments that could have been essay length; those who said they could relate and those who quoted specific lines from my fics that struck them in some type of way. Those ones have honestly been the most uplifting. It's actually allowed me to interact with my readers, which is so important to me. The praise is always lovely, of course it is, but most of all, I love knowing about the people who found my work and how it impacted them. It makes it all worth it.

So please, I implore everyone to like, reblog, leave kudos, comment — whatever. Even if it's not much. Even if it's just to say you enjoyed their creation ! If you loved it so much that you want to write a ten paged review in response — do it. Being an artist of any kind is hard, let's lift each other up as best we can. Love and appreciation should be abundant for every creator that's giving their all.

Okay, I was chatting with a friend, and they have been feeling so demotivated in regards to writing lately due to the (seemingly sudden) lack of engagement. Honestly, I've heard this from multiple other writers as well. I don't blame them, and feel very similarly.

So I figured I'd throw a poll up to see how others are seeing engagement.

This can be for any fandom.

Feel free to comment/reblog with your fandom and your view of how engagement has changed. Did it seem to happen suddenly?

[helliontherapscallion]

(Y/n) and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week: Thursday (Part 2)

Monday     Tuesday     Wednesday     Thursday (Part 1)     Friday     Saturday     Sunday

Spotify Playlist (collaborative)

Warnings: panic attacks, swearing, puking, concussions, mentions of injuries/bullying, homophobia

Word count: 5,138

After school, you were sitting on the couch as you furiously typed on your keyboard at an extremely fast pace. You were on a roll with these essays, they were probably going to be finished by the time you had to go back to the school to get on the bus with the team. You figured that you could even finish Annie’s essay and get started on Sammy’s US history presentation on the sociopolitical climate of the United States in the mid twentieth century to today. However, instead of covering a variety of topics like the rubric requested you to do, you were only going to talk about the significant events that happened to the LGBT+ community starting with Stonewall and going to Obergefell v. Hodges. You were also going to go in depth about how even if there are more opportunities available and more laws set in place to protect for LGBT+ people in the present then there were in past, members of the LGBT+ community still suffer heavy discrimination in the workplace and in the public. With receipts of course, the assignment required a minimum of three pictures per slide, and the group chat was a perfect source.

After that was done, you would email Sammy’s teacher (you had her last year for US history and you knew that she had a son in the grade below you currently transitioning from female to male) that you were the one that did her project and send screenshots of Sammy calling you slurs. Luckily for you, you had receipts of her being transphobic in the past that you could also send. Everything was effortlessly falling into place for you today. 

As you were typing, the front door swung open and two overly excited fifth graders ran into the house and up the stairs. A tired Schlatt followed them. “I will never know how the hell Phil keeps up with them.” 

“I dunno, maybe because he’s already raised three kids before.”

You watched as your uncle jumped and whipped his head over towards you, his hand clutching his chest. He lightly glared at you, “christ kid don’t do that, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

You smirked at him before turning back to your laptop to continue typing the essay. You were almost done with the conclusion paragraph on Annie’s essay and you wanted to get to Sammy’s presentation as fast as possible. As you were typing, you felt a warm air fan across your neck and your uncle’s voice right next to your ear, “whatcha typin?”

You lept off the couch and almost fell into the coffee table before steadying yourself and deadpanning at Schlatt. “I was typing an essay before you interrupted me.”

He snorted, “it looked like you were on a roll, just thought I’d see what my beloved niece was writing. Can I read it?” 

Your eyes lit up as an excited grin split your cheeks, “yeah, but lemme catch you up real quick. Adrian, Sammy, and Annie got mad at me a few days ago and wanted me to do some homework for them as a sort of payment. But after they pulled that little stunt in the lunchroom yesterday, they decided to be little bitches to me and call me slurs. So naturally, I decided to change the essay prompt into an in depth analysis about discrimination LGBT people face from their peers on the daily. My english teacher’s really against homophobia and the project’s worth twenty five percent of our overall grade, so it’s perfect.”

While you were rambling on and on about your detailed plot for revenge, Schlatt couldn’t help but be proud of the person you’d become. A major part of him was impressed that you came up with a detailed plan so quickly, that meant that his cunning nature was rubbing off on you and that made him ecstatic. Sure you mentioning not being straight was new to him, but he was prepared to accept you for whatever you identified as. He didn’t care how people identified, he just cared if they were good people. And his niece was one of the best kids he knew. He’d let your slip up slide for now until you felt comfortable enough to properly come out to him. 

“That an amazing plan, fuckin brilliant. Though, you could do more.”

That piqued your interest, “I’m listening.”

“Do you have any blackmail?”

Your eyes glinted with sudden understanding, “why yes I do, uncle dearest. I just so happen to have thousands of texts from them talking shit about each other and basically the entire school. And them being incredibly racist. They would be destroyed if that came out.” 

“Two things. One, never call me that again. Two, perfect. Keep it as leverage if they try to do something. You don’t pull out all the good cards in the first round, you wait for the right moment to strike so you can win. You need to constantly defend yourself against other players and anticipate their every move. If you leak everything right now, you won’t have anything to use against them if they have something up their sleeve you didn’t know about. Patience is key in things like this.”

You absorbed every single word that came out of his mouth like it was the holy gospel. Although he was your uncle and you loved him with all your heart, but he was a sly bastard when he wanted to be. He knew his way around fighting and manipulating people just right, so you were incredibly happy that you were on his good side and he absolutely adored you. Though questionable and morally gray, he was giving you advice because he cared about you and you’d be an idiot to not heed his advice. 

“That’s genius, Uncle Schlatt. What would I do without you?”

“You’d get along just fine without me, you would’ve gotten there eventually. You’re smart. I’m just givin you a little push in the right direction.”

“I honestly would’ve never thought about waiting, I was so dead set on getting revenge that I would’ve just leaked everything all at once. I want them to feel how I felt when they were around me. I-” you paused. Would this make you the same as them? You’d be screwing up all their grades, Adrian’s job, and Sammy’s athletic career. You came to the chilling realization that you’d be the same as them. You’d be as manipulative as they were. “...Uncle Schlatt, would that make me the same as them?”

“Fuck no! You’re always gonna be better than them no matter what. When they’re at their best, you’re always gonna be a whole lot better than them. They deserve what’s happening to them, it sounds like they put you through so much shit the past few years. I actually think you could do a whole lot worse to them if you’re willing to put more work in, but it’s your plan and if you think that what you’re doing is too much,” he darkly chuckled, “you wouldn’t like my idea.”

“You’re right, they deserve everything I have planned for them. God, I don’t know what I was thinking, ‘would that make me the same as them,’” you mocked what you said earlier, “what a load of shit. Anyways, thanks Uncle Schlatt. I’m gonna get back to writing this. They’re due tomorrow and I wanna finish as much as I can before I have to go.”

“Alright, whaddya want for dinner? Phil’s gonna be like thirty minutes late from work so I’m cookin tonight.”

Oh no. No, no, no, no. That man can barley cook boxed mac n cheese, let alone anything else. He’d burn down the house if you left him alone in the kitchen with the stove. “On second thought, why don’t I help you with dinner? We can make some chicken alfredo.”

“Awe, you’d rather hang out with me than finish your homework? Ya really do love me. C’mon let’s start.”

The process of making dinner was… interesting. Multiple times, Schlatt almost spilled boiling water on himself and he even managed to burn the pasta while it was in the water. How he even managed to do that you’d never find out, you had your back turned cutting up vegetables and herbs at the time. That was when you subtly started to take over in the kitchen, giving him smaller tasks while you handled everything else. You felt bad for Tubbo, his father can’t cook for shit. 

By time you finished, about an hour passed and Philza had come home and changed out of his work clothes. The two adults sat at the table discussing something that you didn’t pay attention to while your brothers and cousin were in the living room waiting for you to finish dinner. Finally, you set the table and it was time to eat. 

Because you couldn’t have many fatty foods before any matches or practices, you had made a separate plate for yourself that only had plain pasta, chicken, and broccoli. You were surprised with how well it turned out, you were following an iffy recipe you found on the first link Google brought up. 

After dinner, you went upstairs to put your uniform on and pack a little bag full of things you might need: a small blanket, some snacks, a water bottle, and a portable charger. Oh, and fuzzy socks and a pair of crocs. You could never go wrong with fuzzy socks and crocs. Feeling a vibration in your pocket, you pulled out your phone.

Hales : )

(Y/n), I’m omw to your house

Gonna give you a ride to the school

(Y/n)

Hales you don’t have to give me a ride, I can drive

Hales : )

Don’t care

Omw, be there in like 7 mins

You swiped out of yours and her conversation and opened up the family group chat

(Y/n)

I don’t need a ride to the school, Haley’s giving me one

She’s gonna give me a ride home too

Dadza

Alright, thank her for me

Tell her I said good luck too!

Uncle Schlatty Patty

Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do

Dadza

(Y/n), do everything he wouldn’t do

Uncle Schlatty Patty

Fuck you I’m a good influence

Dadza

You’re really not

Wilby

^^^^

Technology Sword

^

Uncle Schlatty Patty

Fuck all of you 

You heard Haley’s car pull into the driveway and dashed out of your room with your bag. Just as you put your hand on the doorknob, a hand stopped you.

“Coat.”

You grumbled as you reached past Philza to grab your coat. After you slipped it on, you were pulled into a hug. “You’re gonna do great out there. I know you’re gonna win this, we’ll be watching in the stands.”

“Damn right she’s gonna do good, she’s my niece after all.”

Schlatt pulled you away from your father’s hug and tried to ruffle your hair before you swatted away his hand, “don’t. You have no idea how long it took me to get a perfect ponytail. I have an ungodly amount of hairspray and bobby pins in my hair right now.”

“Fine. You’re gonna kick their asses tonight.”

Tommy and Tubbo pushed past Schlatt and both tackled you into a hug making you stumble slightly back. 

“Kick their asses good (y/n)!” Tommy cheered, making you crack up before one stern glance from Philza completely stopped you. “Tommy, don’t say that. (Y/n), not funny.”

“Alright, Haley’s waiting for me. I gotta go, love you guys!” As you turned to walk through the door, you could hear your family following you and shouting “good luck”. You felt heat creep up on your cheeks as Haley rolled down her window and wove at your family with the biggest grin on her face. 

“Thank you! We’re gonna take home the gold for sure!”

You hopped in her car as she rolled up the window and chuckled. “I love your family, they’re always so full of energy. It’s refreshing to see compared to how boring my family is.”

You glanced at your entire family gathered on the front porch. Tommy and Tubbo were practically vibrating with excitement, Wilbur and Techno calmly smiled and wove at you, Philza was grinning widely at you as you saw his mouth forming words that you couldn’t hear or read, and Schlatt was grinning cheekily at you. You raised your hand to wave at them as they vanished from view when Haley pulled out of your driveway. You smiled softly, “I love em too.”

The car ride was relatively quick with the same soft indie pop music floating from the speakers and an easy going conversation with Haley about the match tonight. You both thought that you could beat the other team if everyone focused 100% and played exactly like you guys did in practices. If everyone did that, you would be unstoppable. 

Luckily for you and Haley, you were the first ones in line to board the bus so you two got the back seat with Zara and Jazzy sitting across from you guys. The hour long bus ride passed quickly and lively with you four passing around your phone and playing some mad libs, you were sure that by the end of the last game you four were laughing and crying. Sometime in the middle of the trip, you noticed that Haley would start to lean on your shoulder and continuously glance at you as she laughed. You desperately wanted to believe that it was because she liked you, but she was straight and she was your best friend. She was probably trying to make sure you were having a good time. 

When the team had gotten to the opposing school and left the locker room to stretch in the gym, you could hear your family start to scream your and Haley’s names from the front row next to you, Tommy and Tubbo being the loudest amongst them with Philza trying to get them to quiet down so you could focus. You felt your cheeks heat up as you smiled at them and Haley wove enthusiastically back at them. Zara was laughing at you two. Stretching went by in a flash and before you knew it, you were on the court facing the opposing team. 

The first match was won by the opposing team by five points. The second match stretched on and on until it was won by your team narrowly by two points. The team was going to have to shape up in the third match if you guys wanted a chance at winning, the opposing team was good. Before the third match started, Coach Williams called for a time out so you guys could talk about strategy. Before Haley could go back onto the court, you pulled her aside.

“Hales, we need to do what we practiced. The other team won’t be expecting it at all, I’ve been setting you up this entire game. They’re never going to expect you setting me up for a spike.”

“When are we going to do it though? We need a better plan.”

“I’m sure the opportunity will come and both of us will recognize it. We just can’t do it too early in the game though, that’ll ruin their surprise.”

“(Y/n), I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“When do I not Hales? We gotta get gold this year.”

The third round went by with both teams constantly swapping places until you both were tied fifteen to fifteen. You saw the ball flying towards Haley, giving her the perfect opportunity to set you up for a spike.  “HALEY NOW!” 

You watched as her face hardened in determination as she pretended like she was going to spike it by jumping high in the air and stretching her arms back, making the opposing front row players all gather in front of her. Much to their surprise, she launched it towards you as you leaped up and went for the kill. The stinging of the ball hit by your wrist and the smack sound the ball made when it slammed onto the open gym floor was something you’d never forget as the crowd around you went wild over the unexpected play. You could hear the high pitched screaming of Tommy and Tubbo over everybody else. Glancing at them over your shoulder, you saw them jumping up and down on the gym floor and looking at you with awe filled eyes and gaping mouths. The rest of your family looked at you with similar expressions, their cheers echoing in your mind. Winking at them, you turned back to your team and went straight to Haley. Clapping a hand on her shoulder, you pulled her into a quick hug, yelling over the raving of the crowd. “HALEY WE NAILED THAT!” 

“HOLY SHIT I DID NOT THINK THAT WAS ACTUALLY GONNA WORK!”

“You have such little faith in your setter! You wound me Hales.”

“Well, I would have more faith in you if you weren’t chaotic on the court, sweetheart.”

You felt yourself surge in happiness at the nickname, but you couldn’t afford to focus too much on it. Your team only needed one more point to win best in the state and go to nationals. It would be the first time in your team’s history if you reached national level, and you’d be damned if you were the one to screw it up for them. 

The last rotation went on for a while, each team fighting tooth and nail for the state championship title with clashing determination. You tried your best to block every hit and try to set Haley up for a spike, and you were successful for the most part, only missing a few blocks. You saw the setter adjacent to you set the spiker up for a spike and jumped up in time to try to block it, your arms stretched upwards and your palms out. Only, the ball didn’t hit your hands. It collided painfully with your nose, ricocheted off your face with a thwack and sailed over to the other side of the court. Your head whipped back as your body followed suit and flew backwards onto the floor. Without giving you any time to react, your head bounced back and cracked against the polished hardwood floor of the gym. Everything went black. 

“...(y……”

“..(y/n)......”

“(Y/n).”

You faintly heard someone calling someone’s name over the continuous ringing noise. Was it your name? It felt right, so it had to be your name. You peeled your eyes open to see a blurry figure hovering over you. It was swirled with tans, browns, and backs. After a while of the figure repeating your name, it slowly became more recognizable, albeit appearing twice in your vision. It took you a while to figure out who this was before your muddled brain recognized Haley.

“Hales! There’s two o’ya. Twice as beautiful babe…” You slurred out as you attempted to smile at her.

“Oh thank god, PLEASE WE NEED A DOCTOR SHE HIT HER HEAD!” Her usually angelic voice gritted against your brain like sandpaper making you cringe as pain exploded in your head.

“God babe you’re so loud, why’s so bright? I-wha's goin on?” You blearily tried to move your head to look around only to be stopped by a pair of large hands on each side of your head gently holding it in place. You moved your laggy eyes around to look at the figure. He was a blonde man with blue eyes and a hint of stubble on his chin. His eyebrows were knitted together and he looked… he looked… your brain worked to figure out why he looked how he looked. Who was he?

“Please don’t move hun.” His muffled voice was baritone. You squinted at him trying to figure out who this man was.

“Who th f-fuck… why?”

“I’m your dad hun. Do-do you not recognize me?” You made a noise in the back of your throat as your stuffy brain finally put a name to the face.

“Dad- wha’s goin on? I’on feel so good…”

“Shh, I know, I know. Just stop moving and talking. Everything’s fine. I’m here. You’re okay.”

“Mmk… Dad, where are we? I’ont know- you’re so quiet.”

“Stop moving so much. You’re on the floor in a gym. You just won your team the state championship. Now stop talking please.”

Huh. So that’s why everybody seemed to appear from above you. You strained your eyes to look around you, but you could only see your dad’s face hovering above you. “Shit I- who’s aroun’ me? Where’s Hales?”

“I’m right here sweetheart. I got the doctor, Mr. Minecraft.”

Your dad’s face moved away from your vision so fast that it made your head spin and your stomach twist. Another face appeared above you that you once again didn’t recognize.

“I’m Doctor Martin, can you tell me your first and last name?”

“Uh, (y/n) Minecraft?”

“Good, what month are we in right now?”

“Nov-November?”

“Close, it’s late October. Can you tell me who this,” he pointed to your dad, “is?”

“S’my dad Phillip.”

“That’s your dad Philza.”

The questioning stopped as he suddenly shined a blinding light into your sensitive eyes. You hissed as you tried to move your head away from the offending light only to be held in place by your dad’s hands. Your head spun as you moved too quickly and a wave of nausea hit you, making you groan and move your arm to cover your eyes. Your hand was stopped by something warm and soft wrapping around it and holding it tightly. Everything was so overwhelmingly and painfully bright and loud. You wanted to make it stop. 

“Mr. Minecraft, your daughter appears to have a concussion. I don’t have the tools on hand to determine the severity of it, but it’s worrying that her pupils are asymmetrical, she’s delirious, and has slight memory loss. I understand you live about an hour away from here, and it’s alright for you to take her to a hospital closer to your house. Make sure you keep her alert.”

Your delirious mind only registered about half of what came out of the doctor’s mouth. You mumbled gibberish as you once again opened your eyes to look around. You were only briefly able to crane your neck to the left. Several figures large and small were standing behind your dad. Your family, your mind supplemented. Slowly, your mind was starting to recognize your surroundings even if there was currently double of everything and everything was blurry.

“I’m going to help you stand up. Do ya think you can do that?”

“Yeah Dad.” You lifted your upper body off from the ground with a gentle hand on your back helping you sit up. Fighting the wave of nausea that slapped you in the face, you reached up to rub at your eyes. A hand once again stopped you. You peeked your eyelids open and lightly glared at whomever stopped you. “Hales you’re lucky you’re so cute I woulda slapped you. I like holdin but you’re bein annoying. Stop.” You attempted to make your voice sound firm, but the words that came out of your mouth were slightly slurred.

She was silent as she helped her dad haul you to your feet. Once on your feet, you saw the room spin and felt yourself start to sway slightly. An arm wrapped itself around your shoulders and pulled you close to them so that your weight was supported. They were a little taller than you were making it easy to lean on them. 

“...Can you walk?” A deep, monotone voice rumbled the chest of the person you were leaning against. 

“Mhm. ‘M not weak.” Though your limbs felt like they were made of molasses, you placed one foot in front of the other slowly. The person moved alongside you, “you’re doing so good, keep going.” That sparked familiarity in you as you stopped in your tracks and tried to look up at the person you were leaning against making the person tighten their arm around your shoulders when you almost fell over.

“Tech?”

“Yeah, it’s Technoblade. Just focus on walking. You’re almost out of the gym.”

When you realized that you were out of the gym, you sighed in relief. It was so much quieter and darker. Though it was still relatively bright, it was better than the gym. 

“S’better.”

“When we get her to the car we can give her some sunglasses or something if it’s still too bright for her.”

“Wilbs-”

“Focus on walking.”

You huffed in irritation, “don’ tell me what to do bitch.”

You felt Techno’s body jolt slightly as he chuckled, making your head throb at the sudden movement. “Just walk.”

When you walked outside, you shivered as you felt the cool air nip at your exposed skin. Right, you were in your volleyball uniform. “I’ll go pull the car around, you guys stay with her.” 

You saw a tall brunet start to walk away from you. Uncle Splat? Uncle Schmat? Whatever his name was, you were sure he was your uncle. You tried to snuggle closer to Techno, craving warmth but never being satisfied. Where was your uncle? 

After a while, you saw a car moving towards you and blinding light pointed right at you making you cringe away and groan. Techno started to slowly walk towards the car. “C’mon (y/n), you’re almost there. When you’re in the car you can relax.”

“Tommy, Tubbo, and Techno, you’re in the back row. Schlatt can drive and Wil, you’re taking the passenger seat. I’ll stay with her in the middle row so she can have some room to lay down.” Tommy and Tubbo were with you? Why weren’t they talking, they usually were very vocal.

“Tom, Tubbs didja like the game?”

They didn’t say anything as they climbed into the car. Did they not hear you? 

“They’re just… tired (y/n).” Your dad’s voice reassured you as he took Techno’s place holding you up. 

“I wanna nap. ‘M so tired.”

“You can’t sleep yet. We gotta get you to a doctor first.”

“Mm. Makes sense.”

“Let’s get you in the car hun.”

As he helped you climb into the car, you felt an overwhelming wave of nausea wash over you making you lose your balance and almost faceplant into the cloth seats. You felt yourself being gently, yet urgently taken out of the car and led to grass as you felt your esophagus shorten. Something burning made its way up your throat and spewed into the grass. You felt someone rubbing your back as you puked up your dinner. 

When you were done, you reached up with a shaking hand to wipe your mouth. “You feelin better? Think you can get back into the car or do you need to sit down for a bit?”

“Car.”

After some difficulty, you were successfully in the middle row of the car laying down with your head on Philza’s lap. Soon enough, your shoes were taken off and a blanket was draped over you. 

“(Y/n), what do you remember?”

You scrunched up your face as you squinted at Philza’s face. “I remember playing volleyball with Hales. She’s so pretty, she’s straight though. I remember the other team hitting the ball, me jumping, then nothin. Wha’ happened?”

You watched as Philza winced, “well, you got everything right so far. You got hit in the face with the ball so you fell and hit your head on the floor. You were passed out for a minute before you woke up. It was a pretty nasty fall, we’re going to the hospital now. How’re ya feelin?”

“Head hurts, ‘m seein two of everything, an I can’t think.”

“Do you know what a concussion is?” You nodded in his lap slightly, “you probably have one.”

After a while of talking, you were slowly starting to come to your senses and your speech was clearing up, but your head was still too stuffy to think about what you were saying before you said it. You didn’t have a filter.

“Do you wanna tell us about your week so far? Do you remember most of it?”

“Mhm, it was shit. On Monday I had a panic attack and Adrian, Sammy, and Annie were being bitches to me all day. They fucked up my back. On Tuesday, they got mad at me for ditching them and they had me do their homework, had another panic attack, and Haley told me that someone took pictures of our boobs ‘n stuff and they were gonna leak it to the school if Haley didn’t stop hanging out with me. Haley and I almost kissed, but she’s straight. Pulled an all nighter and Wednesday I accidentally came out to Tech and Wil and had another panic attack. Annie, Adrian, and Sammy took more pictures of me through my window, Annie outed me to the entire school and slapped me. Another panic attack, skipped the last two classes and felt like shit the entire practice. Today Adrian and Sammy told me to kill myself and I had another panic attack. ’S about it.”

As you were going through your week, the hand that was previously gently stroking your hair had frozen as the car was enveloped in a tense silence. Luckily, Tommy and Tubbo were passed out in the back seat so they didn’t hear how bad your week was. Everyone awake knew that you had a few bad days this week, but they didn’t know the full extent of it. You watched as Philza’s expression had turned downright murderous, but you didn’t really care. You were busy talking about your week.

For the rest of the car ride, Philza asked you simple questions like what your favorite color was, your favorite animal, basically your favorite everything. Eventually, the car pulled into the hospital parking lot and Philza helped you get out of the car. “Schlatt, can you take the boys home so they can get some rest? I’ll stay with her.” 

“Yeah, I’m on it. Don’t cause too much trouble (y/n), we all know you can raise hell.” He watched you for a reaction, but when you didn’t react, he coughed. “Well, I’ll see ya later kid. Good luck.”

The car drove off leaving you and Philza at the front of the emergency room building. “It’s gonna be a long night (y/n).”

“I gotta finish Annie’s essay and Sammy’s presentation though.”

“No you don’t, I’ll email your teachers.”

You two checked in with the front desk before moving to sit on the uncomfortable chairs. It was going to be a long night. You were so tired.

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[mallowstep]

I just thought about this

Do you think the Clan cats might ever have some form of PTSD from eather witnessing another cats death in any form like in battle or another disaster or even killing another cat themselves

I really do want to expand on this

okay matthew from the end of this post here it turns out i have a lot of thoughts and talked for like, almost 2k words about this. sorry. there's a tldr at the end.

hmmmmm

my official answer is, "sure, anything is possible, especially if you want to explore that."

my more rambly answer is...kind of.

we're just going to jump straight in with serious cat talk here, but cats? those mofos are killing machines. they are highly efficient hunters. kind of like people and creating things.

on the other hand, cats are also huge cowards who don't like to fight. hence cat and mouse: the cat doesn't want to go in for the kill unless they're sure they can execute it.

i like to think of them as a very krav maga idea: "we don't fight unless we absolutely have to, but once we go in, we go all in."

so...on one hand, "do cats experience ptsd from killing each other?" feels kind of like asking, "do humans experience ptsd from making things?", and yet, that's clearly extremely reductive.

it's also worth talking about what ptsd is. it's easy to think of ptsd as equivalent to trauma, but it's not.

trauma is, well, traumatic events, ptsd is one possible response. most people who experience trauma do not develop ptsd.

(there's also c-ptsd, but i'm getting to that.)

ptsd is, basically, an overactive adrenaline response, basically. it can look similar to depression and anxiety, but it's not the same. things like flashbacks and triggers are not exclusive to ptsd, or even any specific mental illness. it's normal to experience ptsd-like symptoms after a traumatic event. that's a traumatic response.

ptsd is, instead, the unhealthy extension of that, in time, and possibly severity.

before i go any farther, i just want to say, this is not to say you need to have ptsd to have trauma, that you can't have ptsd/trauma if XYZ, etc., so please, give me the benefit of the doubt here. it's always tricky to word these things in a way that is both clear about what i mean and not harming people.

mental illness is always a tricky subject. trying to fit a sum of many symptoms into boxes will never work, but i am going to lean on it as a tool to categorize and discuss experiences in a general sense.

i also want to mention c-ptsd, or "complex post-traumatic stress disorder." this is a debated diagnosis, in that where it fits into mental illness boxes is argued and it's yet to be included in the dsm, but for now, it's sufficient to think of it as ptsd's fraternal twin.

c-ptsd develops when trauma is prolonged, and there's little/no chance of escape. think kidnappings and child abuse.

it shares a lot of symptoms with ptsd, but it has its own unique cluster of symptoms, especially surrounding relationship issues.

right. we can rule that off for things cats typically experience from battle. but i still want to talk about it.

but ptsd is in reference to human reactions to trauma, which is fine! all warrior cats are at least a little anthropomorphised, or it wouldn't be fun to read about.

okay, before i lose the thread, circling back to my point, the conditions for ptsd are a prolonged response to a traumatic event. i, personally, don't think that your everyday warrior is going to experience this. some amount of battle is normal for cats, yeah?

but i do think ptsd/ptsd-like conditions are quite possible. i'm going to move into a discussion of various characters, now, and i'll put that under a read more.

okay, let's examine a few different cats, starting with mudfur.

why mudfur? because he chooses to be a medicine cat specifically because the battles of being a warrior are too much for him. does this mean he's experiencing ptsd? no, i don't think so. we never see any indication of him having flashbacks or hypervigilance. mind, i have

okay sorry you uh

i took a break to read mothwing's secret

see i've been putting it off bc i knew it was going to make me feel things and lord it did

phew

well i was going to talk about mothwing but first, back to mudfur

i can now confirm that we don't see any evidence of ptsd in him. trauma, maybe, but not ptsd.

which...checks.

next cat, ivypool.

but my ivypool, not canon ivypool, because i gave ivypool ptsd.

if you haven't read it, hedera helix is my canon compliant ivypool series, and you can get the Deets there, but i think "fair is the night" is the piece to focus on here. specifically,

The dark is the same, and the heat, and the way she slinks through the shadows, trying not to take notice. The way every pawstep is echoingly loud, and how she can't catch her breath or find her thoughts over the noise. All that's missing is.

Him.

Maybe Ivypool does still dream.

She hisses, her belt bristling, tail lashing, and raises her paw, claws extended.

what's going on here is that she mistakes tigerheart for hawkfrost.

yes, she has ptsd.

she also has c-ptsd in my writing, but i don't want to talk about this at the moment, because ivypool is complex, and i don't feel like bringing dovewing into this. but no, this is her having ptsd from her (dark forest) mentor trying to kill her. a cat she, at least on some level, trusted turning on her and attempting to kill her.

so for ivypool, it's the unexpected that traumatizes her.

which i think makes sense: cats don't generally expect to be attacked by those they trust. which leads me into...

character three: bluestar.

now, bluestar is complex because of the dementia, but i think it's pretty easy to say: tigerclaw (a cat she trusts) betrays her, she gets hypervigilant and stops trusting people.

i'm deliberately going short on this because i'm at almost a thousand words and uh,, i just want to talk about mothwing.

mothwing. my baby. my beloved. my beautiful.

fuuuuck okay so i should not have read mothwing's secret because this is going to turn into me writing mostly about that, but i actually knew 90% of what was contained in it through moonkitti videos + doing research for various mothwing related projects.

i think the only thing i learned was the moonkitti scene about bees is actually completely canonical, as written, and that it was possible for me to love mothwing more than i already do.

usually, i'd want to also talk about willowshine, but i'm going to keep my focus on mothwing. willow my love is going to come up, but i'm keeping my focus tight.

mothwing! onto my purpose: mothwing and c-ptsd and religious trauma.

she will get her own essay i have a document titled "mothwing and religious trauma" but with trope-bingo i've been writing the essays less, so bear with me.

anyway. i'm not waffling, i'm just trying to set up a good starting point so i don't ramble past the purpose. and i think...the scene with mudfur and mothwing near the end is what i'm honing in on. (spoilers, duh, but also, you don't need to have read it.)

so mudfur comes to mothwing after the battle, and she turns him away. he doesn't understand, but i do.

religion has been used against mothwing her entire life. her clan used it (inadvertently) to keep her from her purpose, hawkfrost used it to maintain his control over her, and mistystar used it to again keep her from her purpose and passion. (and yes, i have strong feelings about what this does to willowshine, but i'm trying to stay on-topic.)

and then, the first tangible proof she has of starclan is the dark forest. and her brother. attacking the nursery. and her.

and then mudfur has the audacity to say, "yeah sorry we don't know anything! but like why are you still rejecting us?"

(makes me want to rewrite the ending of "if you love me any, let me know it now" actually, i'm angry. not going to, but i want to.)

adfskjl mothwing is my new purpose for existing. i may actually consider changing my blog title from "in this house we lovewing dovewing" to something mothwing themed. i love her. expect a mothwing focus sometime soon-ish.

right, so, i don't think mothwing's perspective needs to be explained here. but...she is very self-aware of her position. she struggles with it. she doesn't want to talk to willowshine about her beliefs — she's grateful when willowpaw just accepts it and doesn't discuss it with her.

mothwing as a character has always been appealing to me. but. again, trying to keep focused, her brother is manipulative and cruel.

(i'm not saying abusive because i don't know if he really is. i'd want to do a proper analysis for that, not just ramble in a blank document for a while. he's toxic, but i try to reserve abusive for abusive characters. i think he is, but i don't know how i would defend that, ergo, i'm avoiding it for now.)

just. her whole life.

she spends a long time trusting others, looking to starclan for answer and salvation, and it keeps letting her down, and others keep using it against her, like a weapon. there's a lot to mothwing, but i'm really trying to stay on topic.

before i get to my closing arguments, some honorable mentions for characters i didn't talk about, but could have:

squirrelflight

feathertail, stormfur, and mistyfoot

dovewing

briarlight. okay she's such a good honorable mention i just have to explore this for a second, but the scene in bramblestar's storm where she's afraid of falling trees is good. i don't know, she seems fairly functional, but she's definitely not "over it."

anyone captured by twolegs.

tawnypelt

bramblestar. before you gasp, he too trained in the dark forest and was manipulated by hawkfrost and tigerstar.

probably a lot more.

so anyway, if you hung around for nearly 2k words to listen to me talk about cat trauma, here's my closing statement:

i think ptsd in clan cats is definitely going to be a thing, but i think, more often than not, it's not going to come from the battle. we looked at several examples where the incident happened during a battle, but i think it's the betrayal that's more shocking than the actual fighting.

i didn't address ptsd from cats killing each other, other than mudfur, and that's...frankly that's because i don't know. it is very hard for me to sympathize with those characters long enough to think critically about it.

like, i can write villain pov, but i don't think i can actually say, "what if XYZ feels bad for killing someone?" even if i was going to write about like, firestar killing scourge, i don't think i could.

not in this context, anyway.

similarly, i think a lot of what we'll see is trauma. cats are already extremely vigilant, and while it's possible to get hypervigilant cats, i'm not sure how often it's going to come out. cats are good at hiding physical pain, ipso facto, i imagine they're good at hiding emotional pain.

which isn't to say that they...you know what? you know what? if you want to come argue with me about human ptsd, you can do that on my main. but i'm talking about cats, and i say that they probably don't experience ptsd because they probably shove away a lot of the external symptoms, and that's mostly how we identify ptsd. this is not an end-all be-all, nor does it apply to people, but i don't know how to begin couching this, and i'm tired.

alright, well...

tl/dr: yes, trauma and maybe ptsd occur in clan cats, but i think it's more likely to be from betrayal than fighting.

dkjl this was a lot if u have follow up qs or just wanna discuss this my ask box is open! <3

[chocosvt]

(below is a mix of rambling/more discussion/some updates on where my blog is heading, read if u wish)

to be frank, at this point, i don’t think an apology statement is in sight. pledis has proved time and time again how manipulative and apathetic they are as a company. even the bare minimum - making a small edit in the clip which would have removed the offensive segment - is ignored. no matter how vocal this fandom was, pledis chose to do absolutely nothing. they would rather preserve clips of their artists normalizing an abhorrent, discriminatory song than issue a simple statement, leaving south asian carats to ruminate in this nauseating uncertainty and exhaustion. and it seems to unearth the question: “is this a space i want to be in?”

it’s not anyone’s place to dictate one’s opinion on whether or not they feel comfortable in this fandom. this name doesn’t just encompass kcarats. it’s global. it’s everyone whose decided to support the group so dedicatedly. the way svt have adapted the term “global idol” is questionable when taking into account the ignorance that has been demonstrated. this is nothing new or nothing that hasn’t already been voiced, but seriously, idols shouldn’t expand to a global platform if they’re going to be selective with their respect. 

around 2018-ish, i couldn’t keep up with any group apart from svt, nor did i truly want to get involved with other groups. since their debut, svt has been such a lovely source of happiness and comfort. even when i had to endure some of my toughest moments, i could always turn to them in order to regain strength. so admittedly, observing the complete silence from their end was disheartening. i’m not part of the affected culture, so i cannot begin to imagine such sentiments of disappointment. i do feel a strain on the relationship i once had with svt. 

watching ww’s live, it was unsettling and there were many moments of stiffness. i want to believe that ww would have apologized (dk + vn too) if pledis were not the complete control freaks they establish being, but truthfully i don’t know what’s up in his head nor his heart. nonetheless, this idol coddling is so toxic (i could really write a whole essay on this). they’re not some fifth graders, they’re matured men in their twenties who are more than capable of understanding any cultural insensitivies and how their actions entailed hurt. i was relieved to see so many fans actually holding them accountable, to a point where the original artist himself released a statement and even the damn news got involved.

i wish that we could have got even an inkling of closure. just that tiny, tiny moment where ww briefly mentions the song being cut out. many people have suggested to remain persistent with emailing (not just the pledis accounts, but the bighit accounts as well) and i’ve seen others suggesting to opt from buying tickets to the online caratland event. i can’t see this ending in a manner where any action will be taken. unless someone manages to sneak this topic into another online fs or something along those lines where there’s direct contact, i have no idea what’s gonna happen.

this was a mentally and physically draining week. i hope all south asian carats who had to yet again watch their culture get shaved down to these harmful stereotypes take the time to look after themselves, nurture themselves, step away from this train wreck and prioritize things that are fun and healing!! it’s not your responsibility to educate ignorant people when so many resources are easily accessible. getting into kpop comes with an unhealthy cost. the industry is blanketed with casual racism and it moves slower than molasses when it comes to addressing the layers of disrespect and indifference. 

i also need to question if this is something worth my energy. i’ve been writing on this platform for five years now. i need to decide if this is something i want to keep putting effort into. i’m beyond tired of witnessing pledis brush any serious concern under the rug while scrambling to make amends for insignificant matters that no one legit cared about apart from a few disgruntled kcarats. right now, i’m not in a mood where i want to post svt content or write svt related stories. until there is an apology that suggests actual remorse, growth, and willingness to be evolve in the event there are other blemishes (which seems highly unlikely) i won’t be as present as i used to. 

overall, i’m not sure the direction of my blog. i think i need to step away from chocosvt for a few days so that i can really process. my plans are definitely not to abandon my main. and as time passes maybe i’ll feel less hesitant. 

of course, i’m going to continue my admin position on caratwritersclub because i truly do love writing! i love reading the different works and seeing how galaxy brained you all are! in terms of my own writing, it’s most likely going to come to a standstill. i might finish my massive kmg fic and post it (as well as the yjh and ljh fics in my drafts) but like i previously mentioned, i need to question if keeping up with svt as adamantly as before is worth my energy. i’m not saying i’ll NEVER write or post about them again. writing is one of my only mental escapes that legitimately works. rather, i might ease off and ponder what’s the best road to take, and how involved i should remain as their fan. 

whew.

to end off this gigantic scripture, i’m going to mention that i made a new personal blog. my old one is too cluttered. it’s not completely ready yet but i’m  thinking that i’ll make a smaller post which summarizes some of my ending points. i’ll link it there. i think some kartists will still make an appearance (and there will absolutely be mr. moon wen junhui), but mostly other things i’m interested in!! feel free to drop a follow and mutuals i’ll fb as soon as i can!!! if you read this entire thing then i hope it wasn’t too disorganized. if any part of this comes across as over speaking or invalidating pls let me know! i can really freakin ramble when i’m just sitting here w my thoughts. 

anyways, I’M DONE NOW.  

[ititledit]

@flowerlygirls I was going to reply to your question about librarian degrees with basically this ^

I have so many frustrations and opinions about this topic, so apologies if I'm rambling. I have been in a hiring position for the last 7 years of my career, and I have seen this happen even in that short time.

We receive hundreds of applications for positions on my team. I can't read them all, and HR (who manage the applicants process) don't have the subject matter expertise to decide which CVs I should read. So they use "killer questions" to reduce the number of CVs that will come through to me - in some industries that "killer" becomes a degree, or a specific degree, sometimes it's work experience, sometimes its down to a key word. Sometimes its a tickbox on the application website - "have you ever done X" and all the "no's" are culled immediately. It is a process with no tenderness or care.

The University's also contribute to it - the more people have degrees, the more specialised they become to make them "marketable" to prospective students, the harder it is for those without the specialism to compete in that industry - even if the degree doesn't give the candidate additional relevant skills.

The whole cycle is perpetuated by biases in the application process about what makes a good employee - you are using their CV, their writing ability, and how they present their experience to decide whether or not you will see them. Those who know "how" to apply are more likely to get interviews. Just going to university gives you opportunities for CV workshops, four years of essays and debates and placements and socialisation that all help make the way you apply "better". You know the keywords, you have the one week of unpaid work experience, you've shown you're "commited" to the subject area - and then the bias of the employer tells them that these things will make this candidates "better" at the job, even though when it comes down to doing the job they are as inexperienced as the 22 year old who didnt go to uni. The graduates get interviews and one of them is hired.

So then next time the employer stops even looking at the CVs of those who didn't go to university - CVs with less on them, less prestigious work experience, less use of the "correct" CV language, no matter that it's a candidate with as many life skills and experiences as the graduate.

It means entire industries no longer have entry level positions.

And even apprenticeships, which were meant to be the "alternative" to degrees have fallen victim to this - in the UK, graduates are allowed to apply for apprenticeships. And a 22 year old tends to have a better CV than an 18 year old, their age alone is an advantage even without all the benefits of further education. The first time I interviewed for apprentices, none were graduates. This year, the majority who made it through the first phase before I saw their CVs (I have no idea what that process involved) already had degrees.

And the entitlement of many graduates means that they will apply for jobs they are under qualified for, or schemes they are not eligible for - all the "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take" type mantras.

It also means that some will apply who don't even really want this job, but they're just trying anything, or think the company is cool or will give them prestige or be a stepping stone to a job at another company. So employers tighten the requirements to "weed" them out.

I want to be clear, I am fully supportive of higher education. But higher education needs to be for learning and growing, for exploring the world, yourself, ideas and critical thinking. The capitalistic mindset that has overtaken society is what creates this problem. The students pay fees for uni. Therefore the degree needs to get you a job so it's "worth it". Therefore the degree must set you apart. The uni wants your money, they don't want you to go to another uni, so their "graduate employability statistics" become part of the marketing process. And so they include things that will make you "employable" in the course. They subcategorise their courses so your skills are either more specialised, or cross pollinated with other courses that are more "employable". Students get the things on their CV that employers "want", that they believe proves the candidate is "able to do the job". So the workforce is awash with graduates all competing for the same jobs.

My employer is really big on "fair selection process"

A fair selection process consists of judging people on the their ability to do the job not on the basis of one's race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, genetic information, disability, or EEO activity.

And while I support this method, I believe that for many the elevation of education as proof of employability undermines the intentions of "fair selection". The barriers placed on some applicants by society, barriers that prevent them from going to university, or getting an MA or a PHD, have already prevented the employer from seeing the CV and the candidate from reaching the interview. The "judgement" is now "if you have the right qualifications/experience, then you have the ability", whilst absolving the employer of any guilt over having biases. "we're not prejudice, we do fair selection".

I don't really have an answer to all this.

My employer has a lot of schemes to target different under represented groups. In the past few years we started accepting video answers, rather than just written, for the questions we ask applicants. We are partnered with lots of outreach organisations to provide work experience and invite applicants who wouldn't usually feel able to apply.

But its not enough when the biases are built into the structure of job application processes.

the process of inflation of the minimum credentials required for a given job and the simultaneous devaluation of the value of diplomas and degrees.

There are some occupations that used to require a high school diploma, such as construction supervisors, that are increasingly requiring a bachelor’s degree. 

Some jobs that formerly required candidates to have a bachelor’s degree, such as being a history tour guide in a historic site, now require a master’s degree. 

Some jobs that used to require a master’s degree, such as junior scientific researcher positions, now require a PhD. 

Also, some jobs that formerly required only a PhD, such as university professor positions, are increasingly requiring one or more postdoctoral fellowship appointments. 

Often increased requirements are simply a way to reduce the number of applicants to a position.

[near-seth-experience]

This Pride Month, I’ve been thinking a lot about my relation to Gender.

Before I get too deep into this post, I just want to preface this by saying I am not well-informed on the matter. At least, not anywhere near as informed as I’d like to be. I don’t know which terms (if any) may be offensive. If I make any broad statements about gender, I am referring to it specifically in regards to the topic of MY gender. That is to say, if I write something like “gender is insignificant”, this should be read as “my gender is insignificant to me.” It is not my intention to diminish others in any way, and I’m not trying to provide any hot takes or spark debates and conflict.

This post is just for me to lay out my thoughts with the hope that someone who actually has a clue what they’re talking about might help me figure out where my gender identity might lie. This is a long post of personal rambling, so sorry in advance, thanks for reading, and here’s a “Keep Reading” cut for the sake of your dashboards:

Truth be told, I’ve never actually sat down and seriously thought about my gender before now.  Heck. I didn’t even know Aromanticism was a thing until last year, and I didn’t know that it (or asexuality) had their own spectrums of varying identities. This past year, upon realizing that I’m Aspec (I’m still trying to pinpoint where specifically on those spectrums I stand tbh) I’ve focused most of my LGBT+ related internal reflection in that area. This past year, I’ve been pondering attraction:

Who am I attracted to?

Do I experience attraction?

How do I experience attraction?

Are there any prerequisites in order for me to experience attraction?

Am I actually attracted to someone or am I just really freakin’ lonely?

Am I actually attracted to someone or am I just really freakin’ horny?

Things like that.

Frankly, I won’t exactly know how to identify in that regard until I actually have romantic and sexual experience, and I’m a big ol’ 26 y/o virgin who has never even had a relationship or first kiss (lmao I know, right?) I can’t say for certain how I respond in those situations, so I can’t say with certainty that I’m one thing or another. So, anyways, I’m at a bit of a standstill in that department, so like I said at the beginning of this post, I’ve been thinking about Gender recently.

Gender!

So, I’ve always identified as a (cisgender) male. I’ve got the corresponding bits, and until recently I did not recognize the dichotomy in definitions between Gender and Sex. I thought the two words were interchangeable because that was what I was raised and taught to believe. But now that I know better, and recently I’ve been thinking “oh, so I’ve been identifying my gender on the basis of my sex, but is there a gender identity that is more applicable?”

I don’t have any issues in regards to accepting my physical attributes, but I do not like gender (or at least the binary) as a concept, and I cannot stand the idea that this stuff should have any sort of influence or bearing over my behavior and interests.

Like a lot of people, I grew up having to put things back on the shelf. The only time my mom bought me something that was a “girly color” was when I got a necktie to match my friend’s dress for a school dance (She was wearing a hot pink dress, so I was in all black with a hot pink tie, we looked fresh af). My childhood wasn’t mine. I grew up playing soccer, wrestling, baseball, football, hunting, and fishing, all because my ancestors ate up some ancient rhetoric that declared boys shall be athletic outdoorsmen, and any who aren’t are deemed lesser.

I never liked being told I couldn’t have or do something because it was supposedly intended for a different type of person, and similarly, I didn’t like being held to the standards and stereotyping of conventional masculinity.

I don’t want to write an essay about every instance and aspect of my personality that goes against the notions of gender and society’s expectations of me in regards to gender, so I’ll leave that there, but as things stand now, I just.... don’t care?

I don’t care if I’m sharing a bathroom with a transgender individual because it’s a bathroom.

I don’t care if I’m wearing a feminine color, because it’s a just color.

I don’t care about what pronouns people use for me, because they are referential. If people are referring to me with pronouns, I’m probably not around to hear them. Pronouns are for talking about me, not to me. Even if I’m in a conversation with multiple people where I can hear myself being referred to, I’m not gonna jump in and correct people because I just don’t care.

If someone see’s me out in public, they’re gonna talk about me with he/him because they see I have a beard most of the time, and that’s a very visible and predominately masculine feature. It’s my understanding that pronouns are frequently assumed because it is up to the speaker to convey their subject clearly to their audience.

I think it’s for this same reason that I will continue to tell others that I am a man despite not personally identifying based upon that which it entails. A lot of people haven’t wrapped their heads around the whole gender vs sex thing. I don’t want to cause any unnecessary confusion because that’s just more trouble than it’s worth for me. I’ll still say I’m a cis male online and on dating sites because if people want to find a hairy person with male hardware, that’s what they’ll search, and I do want to be found.

My gender doesn’t really matter to me, so my gender shouldn’t really matter to you. I’ll say I’m a man because it’s easier for you, but I’m not gonna think less of myself for going to college to write poetry while others expect me to be doing something macho. I’ll say I’m a man because, if you must know, I’ve got a penis, but I’m not gonna think less of myself for ordering a fruity drink while the rest of the guys get their beers.

I’ll say I’m a man, but really, I just don’t care.

“Male” isn’t my identity. Seth is.

I’m still learning, and so there might be something that is more fitting, but I suppose I’m actually something like Agender, Non-Binary, or Gender Non-Conforming???

anyways thanks for reading I love you

[mystic-kitten-writer]

You’re so sweet for being so reassuring and not minding at all how I ramble about astrology 🧡 I’m very flattered with how you said how observant I am, thank you for that! But oh my gosh, please, there’s nothing to be jealous about. I personally feel like I get bogged down by details that at times I get too caught up and the bigger picture gets overlooked. (1/9)

And Zuko really is the poster child of a Mars man, you summed it up perfectly!! I am far from being an expert, but I love the validation you shower me with 🥰 Though I actually would love to reach a level where I can offer chart readings to anyone interested and have it be some kind of little side job one day. But ahh, there’s still so much I have to learn, from traditional to modern, it’s a discipline really worth getting into. (2/9)

I’ve never really thought about Azula’s nor Mai’s sign. Now I really want to think + look into it! It would be fun to analyze how that affected their dynamic with Zuko. I’ve been meaning to do a rewatch of the entire series due to quarantine, but even with staying home, there’s still school. And I find myself more stressed and not in the proper headspace to do a whole rewatch + be able to appreciate it properly. Idk if that made any sense, but hopefully I get over it soon. (3/9)

I’m hypothesizing that Azula has strong Leo/Scorpio to her, though she shows the negative qualities. She’s very loud, loud as in she makes people take notice of her + seeks praise/basks in any praise given to her, feeling entitled to all of it. Though I have to give it to her, she has this compelling vibe to her, so her entitlement is valid. She’s also cunning + manipulative and is a master at being so. Though none of that is her fault, she just really didn’t know any better. (4/9)

I would associate Mai’s no bull-shit attitude with Capricorn/Aquarius. I actually haven’t read the comics but her no bull-shit persona shines in the series and it’s fantastic! She’s not upfront with her feelings, but blunt with everything else. At the same time, she didn’t have a problem with stepping up when needed, such as stepping up to Azula. All of which fit into the archetypes of Cap/Aqua. And I agree communication between her and Zuko would be crucial for understanding between them. (5/9)

Those are my best guesses, I’ll get back to you more on how their signs played into their interactions with Zuko when I get to rewatching the series later! Yue’s gentleness comes from her Venus energy, and it’s wonderful how it allows Zuko’s inner Cancer to be visible. I also just realized Yue’s Libra energy and Zuko’s Aries energy play a part as to why they’re so appealing to each other too. They are opposites that just absolutely complement each other! (6/9)

Oh, I’m a Taurus + Libra moon + Sagittarius ascendant! Thanks for being curious ☺️ Going back to how you said you’re a Scorpio and your sister is a Taurus, I can relate. My mom is a Scorpio, and similarly, it took growing up for me to understand where my mom is coming from because we used to disagree on a bunch of things. I don’t have a proper explanation for it tbh. Other than the fact that Taurus and Scorpio are naturally opposites, so misunderstandings can easily arise. (7/9)

Though funny enough, I have a lot of people in my life that have Scorpio in their chart, and I’ve read a few times that if signs that naturally oppose each other make the effort to connect, then the connection is extraordinary. And as a Taurus, the people who positively affected me most are people with Scorpio energy, so I guess it’s the universe’s way of bringing balance. (8/9)

Omg, all of my asks basically make up a whole essay on astrology, and I really can’t believe I typed all that out. But thank you for sharing my enthusiasm for it 💓 I promise I can talk about things other than astrology though, aha. The next time I send you a message it’ll be on a different topic for sure! Also, I have no idea if any parts duplicated/are missing because Tumblr made me wait an hour before I could send everything. So I hope everything shows up properly! (9/9) - 🌻

I don’t know if it’s just me – but it makes my DAY getting long asks.

I love reading people’s words because you can tell how much effort and joy the person has while writing something (whatever the topic is). Like high-key, I wait for your asks because they’re always so long and in-depth, and as someone who suffers from word vomit – I can appreciate the passion and overall love. So, you better not send me short asks – I will hold it against you 😂 LOOL I need an essay buddy~! 😉

I AM CLAIMING DIBS ON BEING YOUR FIRST CUSTOMER. You can read my whole soul damnit because while I totally agree with you that Astrology is a broad discipline with much material to learn and cover, you have a vast knowledge on the topic already. I can totally see you doing it! You explain things very well, and as I read, I find myself learning stuff, and as someone who loves learning – your attention to detail and how clear you are is much appreciated.

Trust me, I get that feeling of stress. Like even though I finished school, and I can relax for the summer because my summer classes got cancelled, being stuck at home is starting to get to me. I’m very much an ambivert (leaning towards introverted), and usually, being alone is my fav zone. Still, I do enjoy going for walks and staying active (even if it's solo activities #Idontdoteamworkandusuallyendedupplayingsoloevents). But the weather has been poor, and I think all my family and friends are starting to get cabin fever 😅. Are you done your classes for the semester yet, or do you still have time to go?

OUUU, I see that mix of Leo Scorpio. Gosh, you're so good at this stuff. I can ask you questions all day LOOL. Like that manipulative aspect is, no doubt in my mind, a Scorpio thing 🙈. Like I’m a Scorpio, and even I can admit it – we’re master manipulators (for better or worse). But I’m surprised by the Mai one! Not because I don’t agree, but because I couldn’t pin one down for her, but I think you nailed it. I’m excited to see if you change your opinions once you watch the show. Because something I notice that happens naturally as you age, is certain traits of the zodiac signs become more prominent or disappear. Because, unsurprisingly, first episode Zuko to comic books Zuko are pretty much two completely different characters. He went from ‘don’t touch me’ to starting every single hug in the comic books with Aang and Sokka, etc. (Soft Zuko does things to me 🤭).

SO, QUESTION – how does Yue’s Venus influence Zuko’s cancer, and how does Yue’s Libra’s energy influence Zuko’s Aries? Like I know, they influence each other, but I’m trying to find the right words, or examples, of it happening. Or ways to describe how they affect each other. I’m sorry if I’m not making any sense. I just – there’s so much to learn, and I want to know more and more 🤯

HANDS DOWN, I would not label you as a Taurus!

I was going to label you as a Libra (so I’m happy I got that one right, kind of), but I’m so shooketh about the Taurus. But I can’t agree with you more on the fact that while Taurus/Scorpio’s are opposites, if they put effort into the relationship, it's incredible. Because I think a lot of it stems from miscommunication. Like I believe communication is vital in any given relationship, obliviously, but certain signs need an extra sprinkle of it to work.

My sister just had a second baby, and her first baby is a Libra/Scorpio cusp, and the second girl is Scorpio, and her husband is also a Libra/Scorpio cusp. I had to laugh and say good luck raising two mini-mes! She’s like I shot myself in the foot LOOL 😂😂😂

And don’t worry about it, hunny! If I ever miss a part, I’ll send a post right away in search of your missing ones because I need your words 😉

[amphtaminedreams]

50 Films You’ve Got to Watch

Hi to anyone who’s reading,

I thought I’d take a break from the fashion posts to ramble on about something else that I’m really interested in for a hot minute. And I say ramble with intent, because I do go ON. 

The topic is film and I thought that I’d make a list of my 50 must watches. These are movies that I feel had the biggest impact on me which means, yes, I do have tattoos referring to a couple of them, lol. My genre of choice is usually horror and although there has been a bit of a “horror renaissance” and a shift towards prioritising good quality storylines over jump scares in recent years, on the whole, they typically aren’t the most highbrow films out there, so there aren’t THAT many on this list. Most of the horror films I listed are just genuinely good quality rather than a straight-up gorefest or anything too terrifying, however, I’m not that easily scared so if you did fancy watching any of the films I mentioned, take that with a slight pinch of salt!

Also, this isn’t anything to take too seriously. I really like movies and cinema but I’m also not a movie critic and this is more of a hobby than something I want to pursue. Like, I’m completely aware of how unrealistic working in TV or film is as a career if your family isn’t loaded. Very aware. Painfully aware you could say (imagine me sighing as I’m writing this). That being said, part of me does want to do a ranking of every film I’ve seen in 2019 at some point this year, so if anybody else is interested in this kinda thing let me know! 

Lauren x

50 Films You’ve Got to Watch:

1. Black Swan (2010)

“I felt it. Perfect. It was perfect.”

I watched Black Swan years ago now and I still remember how disturbing I found it and how exciting that was to me. I was probably a bit too young (young enough that my mum felt it necessary to cover my eyes during the Natalie Portman/Mila Kunis sex scene, lol) but even then I could recognise that it was a beautifully haunting film and Darren Aronofsky has gone on to be one of my favourite directors.

2. Jennifer’s Body (2009)

“And now, I'm eating your boyfriend. See? At least I'm consistent.”

Engrave it on my tombstone: JENNIFER’S BODY DESERVED BETTER. I fully believe that if this movie was released in 2019, it wouldn’t have faced half the criticisms it did back in 2009. It genuinely was ahead of its time. Megan Fox? As a boy-eating, demonic cheerleader? And Amanda Seyfried? Some of the most ICONIC DIALOGUE EVER? It should’ve invented a GENRE. Instead it got paid DUST. Yes, when I write in caps lock, my internal voice is YELLING. I feel passionately about this, okay?!

3. La La Land (2016)

“I guess I'll see you in the movies.”

Again, maybe it’s a basic film bitch opinion to have but I adored La La Land. I saw it at the cinema and spent the last 20 minutes of the film sobbing, only to find my mum and sister distinctly underwhelmed. I indignantly ranted back then to them how perfect a film it was and I’m going to do the same thing now so if you are reading and you didn’t like it, then you should probably just move on because I wouldn’t want to read myself banging on about Emma Stone again for several paragraphs either (don’t worry, I’ll try and keep it to one). I can’t help it. This film was just TOO REAL! Like, in every way but the actual plot and characters, La La Land has the dreamlike quality of a fairytale. The colours are rich and thick and always complimentary, the musical sequences are either like Disney songs or lullabies, and Emma and Ryan Gosling are made for each other. But then life and ambitions and resentments get in the way. And that’s the real part! That’s why it’s so bloody good! 

4. Easy A (2010)

“People thought I was a dirty skank? Fine. I’d be the dirtiest skank they’d ever seen.”

And so we arrive at the movie that actually began my love affair with Emma Stone. Iconic. Iconic in every way. The bad reputation montage is cinematic excellence. For real, though, this is so underrated as a coming of age movie. Like don’t get me wrong, Mean Girls is everything (I easily could’ve included it on this list but I feel like it’s just a given that anyone who grew up in the noughties loves that film) but Easy A deserves just as much credit. It has Penn Badgley, one of the few celebrity males I care about! Amanda Bynes! Aly Michalka! Lisa Kudrow! Did I mention Emma Stone?

5. Kill Bill (2003)

“Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the fucking time!”

If I had to put any of these films as my singular favourite, it would probably be the first Kill Bill. Controversial, I know; even my dad introduced it to me as the weaker of the two. To list any Quentin Tarantino movie as the one that inspired you to want to be a director is probably a very cliche film student thing to say BUT I’m not a film student and I’ve put my directing pipe dream permanently to one side, thus, coming from me it’s not as hackneyed a statement. Or so I tell myself, lol. Basically, I was in awe of Kill Bill from start to finish. The colourisation is a dream, from the crazy 88 scene to the final fight between The Bridge and O Ren Ishii, and I particularly remember loving the animation sequence despite that not really being my kinda thing. I was just so impressed with how seamlessly something so out of place, considering the live action format of the rest of the film, fit in with everything else; even the scenes that should be absurd instead work with the comic book style narrative. Uma Thurman is of course amazing and iconic af but Lucy Liu as O Ren Ishii is my favourite thing about this film and the line I chose gave me all the bad bitch energy I need to, I think, get me through the rest of my time on this planet. If not, the tattooed version of this still I have on my arm should hopefully do the job. Yep, I truly ascended to a divine level of basic film hoe with that life choice.

6. Marie Antoinette (2006)

“This, Madame, is Versailles.”

The first Sofia Coppola film on this list, I love this woman’s work to death. Regardless of the content she’s working with, the end result always gives me the feeling I’m watching an extended music video. They always have this almost dreamlike quality to them and everything from the colour palette to the camera movements to the soundtrack in Marie Antoinette is tied together perfectly.

7. Mother! (2017)

“You never loved me. You just loved how much I loved you.”

I was tense throughout the entirety of Mother. As a socially anxious, obsessively tidy control freak, this whole film was like something from one of my nightmares; think unwanted house party on crack. I was mentally screaming along with Jennifer Lawrence for all of those people to get out, whilst simultaneously just staring at her face because she is so fucking gorgeous! Even when she’s completely lost it! Totally unrealistic but it makes for some really pretty shots! And then there’s the ending which left me kind of like “what the fuck did I just watch?” Which is what Darren Aronofsky films do best. They’re terrifying but also quite beautiful and Mother is no exception.

8. Gerald’s Game (2017)

“Everybody's got a little corner in there somewhere. A button they won't admit they want pressed.”

I finally got round to watching this for the first time the other day and I absolutely loved it. It probably helps that the last Stephen King adaptation I saw was Pet Sematary, so despite the praise this got at the time, my expectations weren’t super high, but I think this really is a perfect horror film. It’s clever, doesn’t rely on jump scares, and the creepy scenes that are in there really get under your skin. It drags a little in the middle though it’s beautifully shot, acted and has one of the few “body horror” scenes in a horror that’s actually made me cringe.

9. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

“I think that's what it's like with all our dreams and our nightmares, Martin, we've got to keep feeding them for them to stay alive.”

I don’t want to say too much about this film and spoil the plot, so I’ll just say that it’s incredible. Devastatingly sad but also wonderfully hopeful at the same time, and solidified my interest in psychology! I could watch Jennifer Connelly all day.

10. Alien (1979)

“This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off.”

As a horror fan, I don’t think I need to explain why this film’s on the list. It’s been raved about and video essayed and called a pioneer of the genre ad nauseam. Again, not that this is really anything new but part of what I love about this movie is the context of its release and success; before Sigourney Weaver’s portrayal of Ellen Ripley, it was a rare occurrence to have a female protagonist in an action-based movie. Alien really paved the way for women to take up space in a previously male-dominated genre.

11. 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

“Crazy is building your ark after the flood has already come.”

I saw this for the first time at the cinema and pretty much went in blind. I hadn’t seen Cloverfield but I love Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destination 3 was always my favourite of the franchise, lol) and there wasn’t really anything else on worth seeing, so my sister and I chose this and it was an experience. Like, of all the films on this list, this is probably the one that had me most on edge and I’m not sure watching it on your laptop on Putlocker will do it justice. You need the curtains pulled to, the volume way up and complete silence.

12. American Psycho (2000)

“Try getting a reservation at Dorsia now, you fucking stupid bastard!”

There isn’t a dull moment in American Psycho. Every line is quotable and every scene is straight to the point. I feel like this film is a masterclass in that Stanley Kubrick quote about editing where he says he liked to get rid of everything that was not absolutely vital to advancing the plot or the audience’s understanding of the character in any way. Plus, the ending is trippy af! Or maybe I’m just a bit oblivious to something that was quite obvious throughout, who knows. Either way, what the final scenes really mean are fun to think about.

13. The Descent (2005)

“I'm an English teacher, not fucking Tomb Raider.”

Okay, so I literally just watched this the other day and had to begrudgingly remove Silent Hill to make space for it (I KNOW it was critically panned and I KNOW the video game is better but I liked the visuals, OKAY!?) because The Descent is truly one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen. Before we even get to the supernatural element of the creatures, which are genuinely creepy for once, there’s a party bag of other phobia-inducing sequences that had me emotionally exhausted within the first half hour alone. Claustrophobia, darkness, heights, actual cringeworthy body horror, The Descent has something for everyone. The way it utilises space (or lack of for that matter) and darkness and panicked camera pans makes you feel as if you are really down in the cave with the characters. To add to that, I was actually rooting for all of them too; it probably helped that they were English rather than the typical American slasher cast but I found them to be a believable and likeable group of women. I truly did want them all to get out alive *spoilers*, which only made the ending all the more devastating and although the general narrative is quite predictable, the way in which things get wrapped up left just the right amount of shocks and questions to leave you reeling.

14. Eighth Grade (2018)

“Gucci.”

No film has ever captured what it’s like having social anxiety during “high school” (it’s called secondary school here in England, I know, but you get me) better than Eighth Grade. A tribute to the feeling of never quite fitting in and wishing you knew how to do what everyone else seems to be able to do naturally, it encapsulates that awkwardness with an accuracy that is really impressive considering that 1. it’s Bo Burnham’s first film, and 2. he’s not...like...a 13 year old girl. It is just as funny as it is sad and Elsie Fisher is great and so, so believable. Girl should’ve won some kind of Oscar.

15. American Beauty (1999)

“I don't think that there's anything worse than being ordinary.”

I wavered on whether or not to include this film on the list due to the Kevin Spacey controversy and decided that I had to with the disclaimer that I watched it quite some time before the stories about him came out and won’t ever watch any of the new things he inevitably ends up doing (because Hollywood has a notoriously short memory when it comes to the actions of disgraced male actors, lol). You can’t deny the amount of talent and skill that went into making a film so graceful and elegant and yet in equal parts unnerving, and I don’t think we should refuse to acknowledge the achievements of everyone else on that set because of Spacey’s behaviour. 

16. Bandersnatch (2018)

“The past is immutable, Stefan. No matter how painful it is, we can't change things. We can't choose differently with hindsight. We all have to learn to accept that.”

As I was watching/playing through Bandersnatch, I didn’t necessarily love it. I think I’m echoing a common sentiment when I say that I was kinda confused. I was desperately trying to *spoiler* avoid the option of the protagonist murdering their dad (he seemed like a nice guy!?) but somehow always ended up there by their logic. So I watched most of the endings and then I went on and busied myself for the rest of the evening. AND I COULDN’T STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. One minute I was completely deluding myself into believing the whole parallel universes thing was true and that I should test it out (don’t ask), and then the next I was thinking how disturbing it was that we’d been basically been inside the head of a person experiencing a mental breakdown severe enough for them murdering their dad, who had only ever wanted to help when you think about it objectively, to seem rational. The confusion started making sense within the context of the experience of the protagonist and our role as the audience and though I hadn’t realised it at the time, I’d been completely absorbed in the episode. Maybe the confusion wasn’t intentional, maybe I’m giving Charlie Brooker too much credit based on the recent couple of series of Black Mirror BUT I can’t deny that Bandersnatch left a huge mark on me, and after all, this is the man who wrote White Christmas. 

17. Get Out (2017)

“White girls. They get you every time.”

Going into this film, I was cocky. I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting what’s going to happen in things, probably just because I watch too much TV, but from the trailer I was sure I knew exactly what was going to happen. And then, I was completely blown away. The ending was SO SMART, in terms of both the within universe storytelling and also the metaphorical narrative/commentary on the way our society treats black men and women. Like those early episodes of Black Mirror, it had me like “how the fuck did Jordan Peele think of that!?”. I can only dream of being as creative in my writing one day. Even little plot points like where the “police” car turns up at the end and your stomach sinks and you realise the intention of that is most likely to help you empathise with what the average African-American person feels in their day to day life when police make themselves present, what with institutional police brutality and racial profiling; it’s clear so much thought went into this script.

18. Ghost Stories (2017)

“It's funny, isn't it? How it's always the last key that unlocks everything.”

I don’t have all too much to say about this one apart from that I love a well-constructed English horror. I feel like it’s something we don’t do all too often and to be honest, I’m struggling to think of many English horror films in the first place. Ghost Stories is a great example of why we need more; it’s smart and spooky and folky without hitting you over the head with all those elements and Andy Nyman is a perfect lead. Love a bit of Martin Freeman too.

19. Girl, Interrupted (1999)

“Crazy isn't being broken, or swallowing a dark secret. It's you, or me, amplified.”

Maybe this is the 13 year old black and white Tumblr girl in me jumping out but I still adore this film. I know it’s not necessarily the most critically well received but Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie and Brittany Murphy are 3 of my favourite actresses and I do love the script. I also like the way that Borderline Personality Disorder was characterised in Winona’s character Susanna (I’m wavering on whether to call her a character as if I recall correctly the book was based on the author’s real experience) in that it was quite subtle and that she wasn’t portrayed as manipulative, or aggressive or basically, as the villain, which I feel is usually the go-to. It focussed more on the mood aspects and the way that people with BPD tend to latch onto and idealise others, as Susanna does with Lisa, and these are both things that I have personally struggled with in the past.

20. Hereditary (2018)

“All I do is worry and slave and defend you, and all I get back is that fucking face on your face!”

It was hard to find a quote that encapsulated what makes Hereditary so great because so much of it is about what isn’t said, if that makes sense. It’s a lot of pained silences and resentful looks and horrified screams, and doesn’t that sound like a fun time? Honestly, it’s not necessarily, lmao. Shocker. It has you feeling like something awful is about to happen the whole time, deep in the pit of your stomach, but I like that in a film, when it does make you properly feel. Ari Aster gets slow-burning dread just right in his exploration of dysfunctional families and grudges, with a few heart-sinking shocks thrown in for good measure all without overdoing the jump scares. There are a lot of deeply unnerving “supernatural” moments but there are just as many horrifically realistic familial conflict scenes that give you that whole “something is wrong” gut instinct in equal measures. It’s been a year and I’m still so angry that Toni Collette didn’t get an Oscar nomination for her performance, because it was really the perfect opportunity to break down the invisible wall between horror and critical recognition. On a more positive note, I loved Midsommar too (not as much as Hereditary but it was still a trip) and I cannot wait to see what Ari Aster does next. Once again, I’ll be in the cinema on opening night.

21. Heathers (1988)

“Dear Diary, my teen-angst bullshit now has a body count.”

Heathers is iconic in every way: the outfits, the cast, the lines. I mean, the acting can be a bit iffy at times but I honestly think that without Heathers, Jennifer’s Body might never have existed and that’s a world I wouldn’t want to live in. There was so much choice when I was picking a line to summarise why I like it so much and of course, “fuck me gently with a chain saw, do I look like Mother Theresa?” deserves an honourable mention. You almost made it bby. The TV remake? We don’t speak of it.

22. Hot Fuzz (2007)

“The way we see it, it’s all for the greater good.”

It might not be the “artiest” movie ever but I’ve seen Hot Fuzz so many times and it never gets old. Though I used to love it when I was younger purely for the PG-13 gore, now I appreciate it for the absurdity and the ridiculousness and to be honest, the total believability of the plot when it comes to towns ruled by low-key hostile, doddery old white people. I should know, I live in one.

23. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

“You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business. We in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin’.”

I wish I wasn’t a hoe for Quentin Tarantino films (I’ve felt personally attacked by many a poundlandbandit starter pack) but I am. The breakneck pacing, the tongue in cheek dialogue and the gore all make this one of my ultimate favourites. Also, I have a huge crush on Melanie Laurent. Yes, it’s the French accent. No, I don’t know the mechanics of how that works. I hear someone speak French and I want to marry them! I can’t help it!

24. Ingrid Goes West (2017)

“Are you actually insane?”

This seems like a random choice to have on the list seeing as it was never really that hyped up, nor did it receive masses of critical acclaim. It did get positive reviews but that was about it. However, as soon as I saw the trailer, I knew I had to see it. Months, and an £8 purchase from HMV later, I finally got to watch Ingrid Goes West and I loved every moment of it. Whilst Aubrey Plaza’s character, I feel, is an exploration of a lot of young women’s insecurities and self-doubts and fears, blown up to monstrous proportions (or maybe just mine, lol), and a 90 minute film about that doesn’t sound all that revolutionary, this one is as intense as it is stylish and darkly comedic and that’s what puts it on the map for me. 

25. Insidious (2011)

“I like to call them travellers.”

So this film scared the ever-living SHIT out of me when I was younger and though I now consider horror my favourite genre and watch it on the regular with absolutely no qualms, 13 year old me was (not to use the world lightly) mildly traumatised. I genuinely couldn’t be home alone by myself or sleep at night without thinking the old woman ghost from the beginning was outside my room for a good 6 months or so. Like it literally exacerbated an already present sleep disorder to the point where my understandably frustrated-at-being-woken-up-nightly-by-her-panicking-daughter mother got me referred for CBT (to reflect on a time when I didn’t know what CBT or CAMHS was is…blissful, lol). And maybe because of that, in my mind, I still conceptualise it as one of the very few horror movies that has actually scared me, hence its place on the list. That scene where we first see that Star Wars looking red faced devil? I’d probably still nope out even now.

26. It Follows (2014)

“It could look like someone you know or it could be a stranger in a crowd. Whatever helps it get close to you.”

There’s not too much to say about It Follows, other than that it’s a good horror film and more importantly just a really good film. I feel it’s a crucial, early part of this warmly welcomed horror renaissance we are now fully in the thick of where writers are focussing less on making people gasp and more on actual good quality cinema. It’s a simple concept that leaves enough room for you to ask your own questions whilst still feeling somewhat complete, and not annoyingly open-ended. The shots are good, the characters are normal enough to be believable, and the colour palette is Fincher-esque; the muted tones perfectly complement the feelings of dread that run throughout. Whilst you don’t need to be concerned with what the whole thing is a metaphor of in order to enjoy the film, the possibility of there being that second reading of the narrative, for me, elevate it to a higher level. In other words, it’s got *Shrek voice* layers.

27. Juno (2007)

“I'm just gonna go ahead and nip this thing in the bud. Cuz you know, they say pregnancy often leads to…you know...an infant.”

I love Ellen Page. I love Michael Cera. Together they are the best thing ever. See, I’m not really much of a rom-com girl but I see this as less of a rom-com and more of a coming of age film with romantic snippets and great one liners. It’s sweet and whimsical and funny but also really fucking real in parts, and it’s definitely what I would consider a modern classic. If you haven’t watched it already, do!

28. Suspiria (2018)

“Love and manipulation, they share houses very often. They are frequent bedfellows.”

Witches! Ballet dancing! Decapitation! Tilda Swinton! What’s not to love? As soon as I saw the trailer for Suspiria, I knew I had to see it. Creepy but also beautifully shot and scored, it was worth the 8 month wait from the Venice Film Festival and eventual caving and watching on 123Movies after I couldn’t find the DVD on Amazon; I finally got to tick it off my watch list only to like it so much I had to add the original Suspiria back on.

29. Mulholland Drive (2001)

“I hope that I never see that face, ever, outside of a dream.”

Another film which had me like WTF by the end, I really recommend Mulholland Drive for anyone who wants to be vaguely creeped out and extremely confused at the same time. See, I really love a film where you spend the next few hours after watching researching all the different interpretations and reading interviews with the director. That sounds sarcastic, but honestly, I love it. It’s a moody, film-noir style mindfuck of a movie and even after doing my research I’m still quite baffled. That’s the best part. 

30. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

“Purple in the morning, blue in the afternoon, orange in the evening.”

It took me a while to get on board with seeing Marlon Wayans in a serious role (I’ve seen White Chicks far too many times, clearly), but once I did, I was into it. To be totally honest, I don’t think there’s a single happy moment in this film; it comes up quite frequently as one of the most disturbing of all time, which I’m sure Aronofsky probably thinks of as another notch on his belt. Whilst imo, that’s quite a grandiose claim, Requiem for a Dream definitely stuck in my mind after I watched it. Even if you’ve never watched the film, the ending sequence is notorious for how fucked up it is and I do think it’s earned the infamy. What stuck out more to me, though, was how purposeful every shot and sequence felt in terms of trying to let you into the character’s states of mind, the short lived bursts of euphoria and the panicked downwards spirals.  I think it will always be one of the most compelling films about addiction for highlighting how terrifyingly out of one’s control it can be.  

31. Room (2015)

“No one is strong alone.”

This film made me cry buckets. Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay are wonderful, and everyone involved deserved all the Oscar hype. Every line was so heartfelt and emotive, and I loved Tremblay’s voiceovers. To translate the stream of consciousness of a kid from page to screen in a way that it remains believable in spite of its wisdom (not like those tweets where people try to make out their kid just casually made some off the cuff scathing political jibe at the dinner table) is quite the feat and similarly, I’m in awe of how the director managed to communicate the pain and confusion of the characters on a level that transcended the physical confines of said room. The escape scene had my heart in my mouth. All this being said, I should really read the book because it’s supposed to be even better. 

32. Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (2010)

‘When I'm around you, I kind of feel like I'm on drugs. Not that I do drugs. Unless you do drugs, in which case I do them all the time. All of them.”

Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are two of my favourite actors and so it’s a given that Scott Pilgrim is one of my favourite films. It’s such a fun, easy watch and the video-game inspired directorial style makes it, in terms of cinematography, probably the most memorable Edgar Wright film on this list imo. The concept, based on the graphic novel, is quite a simple one but that doesn’t stop it being entertaining from start to finish. The rest of the cast is great too: Brie Larson, Anna Kendrick, Mae Whitman, Aubrey Plaza and Alison Pill (Ivy from American Horror Story, anyone?) All make appearances, plus Chris Evans. He’s Captain America or something, right?

33. Scream (1996)

“No, please don't kill me, Mr. Ghostface, I wanna be in the sequel!”

The Scream movies were my absolute favourite when I was just getting into “horror” as a 13/14 year old because they were always pretty tame in terms of scares but nonetheless, always a trip. Though, controversially, I’d probably say I enjoyed Scream 4 just as much as the first one (I am a bit of an Emma Roberts stan), I chose the first one purely for how iconic it was and how ahead of its time. It mixed satire and horror in a way that hadn’t really been done in such a mainstream way before and made it possible for films like Cabin in the Woods and The Final Girls to do so well.

34. Shaun of the Dead (2004)

“Take car. Go to Mum's. Kill Phil, sorry, grab Liz, go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all of this to blow over.”

I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead way, way, way too many times and I’ll still probably watch it again the next time ITV decide to show it too. It makes me laugh, it’s got lots of good gore and it’s easy to follow. The perfect film to put on whilst eating a take away, as long as you’re not too squeamish, lol.

35. Silence of the Lambs (1991)

“Well, Clarice. Have the lambs stopped screaming?”

Jodie Foster’s portrayal of Clarice Starling makes her one of my favourite movie heroines of all time; quietly courageous, she was the type of female lead that really hadn’t cropped up all that much in the films that came before Silence of the Lambs. And despite its problematic handling of certain issues, it’s a fucking incredible film. The thing about Hannibal Lecter is that they don’t have to tell you that he’s always one step ahead, you see it for yourself (the elevator scene!) and so it kinda feels like he’s looking into YOUR soul too. The confrontation at the end between Clarice and Buffalo Bill is one of the most nerve-racking 15 minutes or so of film I’ve ever watched, and if I ever get asked to justify why I’m scared of the dark again, I’m going to point straight to this scene. Yes, I’m a baby but my fears are VALID!

36. Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

“I do this! Time after time after time! I do all this shit for other people! And then I wake up and I'm empty! I have nothing!”

As you can probably tell from my inclusion of Mother! on this list, I love Jennifer Lawrence, and this is probably my favourite drama film of hers. The way that she and Bradley Cooper portray two people struggling with mental illness is refreshingly honest in that it shows it can make you quite an unlikeable person at times, albeit someone who is just trying their best to survive. That being said, in spite of the subject matter it’s still a relatively light and easy-to-watch film. The diner scene in particular is a masterclass in realistic conflict and reaction, and I hate to be “ooo, edgy” but several of the lines did strike a really deep chord.

37. The Babadook (2014)

“Sometimes I just want to smash your head against the brick wall until your fucking brains pop out.”

The best thing that the Babadook does, much like It Follows, is instils a sense of deep seated dread in you before you even see the supernatural forces at work. The washed out colour palette, apparent emotional disconnect of Jennifer Kent’s (who also directs!) character, and the disorienting movements of the camera all help to create a lingering unease that is just as effective as the grossly uncanny appearance of the monster/ghost/creature/whatever-you-want-to-call-it himself. It’s obvious that Kent had a very clear vision of the story she wanted to tell and even more so that she is a very talented woman; I hope to see even more female directed horror films in the future if the Babadook is anything to go by. The way this film blurred the lines between the inner struggles of a grieving family and the outside supposedly paranormal influence was unsettling as fuck and to get into the psychology of a mother left on her own to raise a small child and how terrifying that might feel is something only a immensely intuitive and empathetic woman could do. Props to her.

38. The Craft (1996)

“We are the weirdos, mister.”

Not to sound all halloween-is-the-only-day-of-the-year-I-care-about VSCO girl (although that might actually be quite an accurate description of me to be honest), but if there’s one thing that sticks in my mind about the craft, it’s the aesthetic. It’s kind of what I aim to emulate in every aspect of my life, NBD. Seriously, when I was trying to pick a still, I was spoilt for choice. The rituals, the outfits, the witchy interiors; there’s this one GIF of Nancy, Rochelle, Bonnie (and maybe Sarah?) lighting all these gorgeous candles and if I could walk around with it permanently looping on my forehead, I would. And ignoring my shallow reasons for liking The Craft, it’s just a really good film. Nancy Downs is probably one of the most interesting female villains of all time and I’m obsessed with anything that explores magic and the occult. It’s equal parts dark and girly, not to use that in a derivative way at all, in that not only does it teeter on the line of being scary, it’s also a gritty exploration of female friendship, power and jealousy. If you are a halloween-is-the-only-day-of-the-year-I-care-about VSCO girl, definitely watch it; more power to you.

39. The Favourite (2018)

“All I know is, your carriage awaits and my maid is on her way up with something called a pineapple.”

I’d seen The Favourite twice within, like, a month of it being released in British cinemas and I do not have a single regret about that; well, maybe a minor regret in paying over £12 to see it in the Leicester Square Odeon with the assumption that the extra price meant fancy seats (it didn’t), but on the whole, I’m pretty happy with my life choices. Emma Stone, Olivia Colman, and the period Mean Girls comparison drew me in but I came back the second time for the costumes, the dialogue, the editing and Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough. Or Rachel Weiss, in other words. See, The Favourite is superbly casted in that Yorgos Lanthimos must have known we can’t help but see Emma Stone as the “good girl”/protagonist and so it took me a whole second viewing to see her character for what she really was, and realise The Favourite is in some ways less a story of Abigail Masham’s rise to power and more the tragic disintegration of Sarah and Anne’s relationship. I’m sure you can view the film both ways but to view it as the latter brings a whole new dimension to it and the ending, imo. I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t go into the film expecting some vaguely historical lesbianism and that definitely made for a slightly awkward birthday viewing with my family BUT I wasn’t at all disappointed.

40. The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

“If you dig a hole in the yard, better make it a big one.”

This film is slow-moving, weird and the acting can be stiff at the best of times, and yet somehow all these things add to the (take a shot every time I say-) dread that builds throughout. You don’t know exactly how things are going to end, but you do know it’s not well. Like in his latest directorial entry of The Favourite, Yorgos Lanthimos excels in the realm of the strange and vaguely fantastical through his script, score and cinematography, and so even though the settings are quite mundane, The Killing of a Sacred Deer kind of feels like some macabre modern fairytale, the moral of which I can’t quite work out. I can’t imagine anyone playing Martin more unnervingly than Barry Keoghan and I’m never going to complain about Nicole Kidman, but it’s the imagery of the tears of blood, Steven’s children dragging themselves along the floor and the ending scene that stuck with me long after the film had finished. If you’ve got the patience and you enjoyed the style of The Favourite, there’ll definitely be something positive for you to take away from The Killing of a Sacred Deer.

41. The Orphanage (2007)

“Seeing is not believing. It's the other way around. Believe, and you will see.”

When I was first told by my year 11 Spanish teacher that we were going to be watching The Orphanage in class, I definitely didn’t foresee myself including it in a top 50 films list 5 years later and yet here we are. I mean, I shouldn’t have been surprised really as she did tell us it was good and I had frequently seen it included in lists of the best horror films but as with pretty much anything our teachers would put on as an excuse not to teach for a few lessons (I’m really NOT complaining here, they deserve the break and I would definitely do the same, lol), my expectations were definitely low. Side note, I also since found out that Bilbao seems like a pretty cool place and there was a reason she kept banging on about that too, and so moral of the story, teachers do sometimes have some decent recommendations BUT my assumption was that The Orphanage must be pretty tame for her to show it to us. Parents-even of 16 of year olds-love to complain, lol. And to be fair,  it isn’t so much in your face scary so much as it is kind of tragic with an undertone of spooky but I really enjoyed it. I want to say that part of what I enjoyed about it so much was the mystery element but honestly I think a lot of that comes from the fact that it’s in Spanish so I had to work to follow what was actually going on. 

42. The Ring (2002)

“I can't imagine being stuck down a well all alone like that. How long could you survive?”

The Ring does visuals better than any other horror. The contorted faces of Samara’s victims, the infamous tape and the shots of the well all have a staple in pop culture for a reason. Whilst I don’t find Samara herself particularly frightening, the lore and mythology surrounding her feels so authentically creepy; the tape in particular reminds me of the kind of weird YouTube video you might stumble across when you’re supposed to be trying to get to bed late at night and instantly hate yourself for watching. Naomi Watts is a compelling lead and though I was probably rooting for Sarah Michelle Gellar in the American remake of the Grudge more (I still low-key associate her with the live-action Scooby-Doo and I have no shame), to compare other noughties horror classics, on the whole The Ring is definitely the better quality movie.

43. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

“I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

The Shawshank Redemption is just an unequivocally good film. On paper, it doesn’t necessarily have any of the things that draw me to a movie in it, but it’s brilliantly acted, written and shot. It’s frequently cited as one of the greatest movies of all time and I think that’s a very fair statement.

44. The Shining (1980)

“Wendy? Darling? Light of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just going to bash your brains in!”

I love The Shining. In terms of scares, not all that much happens in it, but what we do see (the corpse in the bath tub is fucking horrifying) undoubtedly leaves an impact. The score is so unnervingly perfect that I can still hear the sound that’s made when we see those 2…puppets? Costumed people? Basically some kind of weird furry activity-which believe me, makes sense if you’ve seen it-going on. And I only need to see a still of the Overlook Hotel and I can immediately feel the sense of claustrophobia and growing tension that Stanley Kubrick so effectively communicated. A lot of people shat on Shelley Duvall’s acting at the time and whilst she obviously didn’t match Jack Nicholson’s energy, she did come across as a woman genuinely traumatised which is sad when you do consider the effect that shooting the film had on her. With that aside, The Shining is a massively pivotal part of horror history and I’m very excited to see Doctor Sleep this year!

45. The Virgin Suicides (1999)

“Obviously, Doctor, you've never been a 13-year-old girl.”

It really is a toss up between Marie Antoinette and The Virgin Suicides when it comes to Sofia Coppola’s best film, and so of course I had to include them both. See, whereas Marie Antoinette could be the visual incarnation of an album like Marina and the Diamonds’ Electra Heart or Charli XCX’s Sucker (if you ignore the less than fortunate ending, lmao), The Virgin Suicides plays out more to the tunes of something less bubblegum pop and more breezy and mellow, maybe LDR’s Ultraviolence or Honeymoon. You could say in a way that this film romanticises suicide and you’d definitely have a point, but I think considering the fact that it’s based on a book and was made in a time when we were less aware of the damage popular media can do (I think there’s a similar point to be made about the way the villain of Silence of the Lambs’s gender is portrayed and linked to his motivation), I give it a pass. It does also kind of make sense for the film to take this approach; the Lisbon girls are viewed through the eyes of a group of boys who are infatuated with them but also ultimately know nothing about them. In a way, it’s almost a critique of the way these boys think and a commentary on just how stifling and confusing young womanhood can be. I think it’s a beautiful film and a perfect adaptation of Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel.

46. The VVitch (2015)

“Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”

Is it sad that I have this quote tattooed on my back? Is it biased for me to say no? Because for me, just as much as the Virgin Suicides is about how stifling society’s expectations of young women and how they are supposed to think and act, The VVitch is about the demonisation of girls who go against this and how liberation and sexual freedom for so long were perceived as the result of some kind of satanic and deeply disturbing force at work rather than individual expressions of freedom and femininity. The ending is HAPPY, okay, and if you take away the misty, barren landscapes and the isolation and the paranoia and the baby eating witches and the accusations and the demonic goats, it’s kinda a dark feminist fairy tale to go against puritan panic. I mean, let’s be honest, *spoilers* Thomasin’s siblings were annoying AF. Not that I’m condoning child murder on any level, but you know. In a narrative context was it really so much of a loss when those little shits got the chop?

47. Thoroughbreds (2017)

“At the end of the day, I have a perfectly healthy brain. It just doesn't contain feelings. And that doesn't necessarily make me a bad person. It just means I have to work a little harder than everybody else to be good.”

I love Olivia Cooke. I love Anya Taylor-Joy. I love concise, cutting dialogue, the idea of middle class American social politics, and a little bit of (fictional, of course) murder thrown in there for good measure. Thus, I really love Thoroughbreds. If you watched it with the sound off, it’d be a Polo Ralph Lauren promotional film that gets really dark at the end, and what’s not to like about that?

48. We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

“What are these people watching, people like me?”

I still haven’t got round to reading the book this film was based on and I feel like that’s something I need to get on top of ASAP, because it’s been sitting on my shelf for a long ass time. However, based on the little I know about how faithful a film adaptation it is, I think Ezra Miller and Tilda Swinton were a wonderful pairing, and this is a film that’s all about the characters, so it’s a good job they were so well cast. Miller does a great job at getting right under your skin and answering a lot of my questions about what leads someone to commit the kind of horrific crime that his character, Kevin, does. Arrogance, done subtly, is hard to pull off but he nails it, and Swinton is very, very believable as a haunted, grief-stricken mother wrestling with the natural question of the part she played in her son’s actions and the scrutiny that comes with it. Not only that but from the offset, every part of the cinematography helps to convey the feeling of impending doom that builds right up until the climax. The colour palette in particular, which for the most part doesn’t stray too far from the mundane greys and bleak washed-out tones perhaps reflective of Eva’s state of mind, does a great job of foreshadowing what to come when it quite purposefully does take a diversion. It’s all about the red, apparently. Take note.

49. Whiplash (2014)

“Any fucking moron can wave his arms and keep people in tempo. I was there to push people beyond what's expected of them. I believe that is an absolute necessity.”

You honestly wouldn’t believe that a film about drumming could feel like a horror and yet here Whiplash is, leaving me on the edge of my seat and wincing for, like, 2 hours straight. Tonally it couldn’t be more different from the other Damien Chazelle film on this list (La La Land), and yet it flows just as seamlessly and has his same impeccable rhythm; every word, yell and snarl slots perfectly into place and every swivel of the camera is flawlessly executed. If you’re looking for an intense and fast-paced drama, I can’t recommend Whiplash enough.

50. Zombieland (2009)

“Twelve's the new twenty. Gun please.”

Zombieland has only one fault: that Jesse Eisenberg’s character wasn’t played by Michael Cera. But it has Emma Stone and Woody Harrelson so I’ll let it slide. Not much to say about this one other than it’s a wild ride from start to finish, but simultaneously easy to watch and probably the most lighthearted zombie film out there. Almost like The Hangover or something along those lines, but with the addition of the undead. It’s a hard film not to enjoy and I’m just really hoping they don’t fuck up the sequel.

DISCLAIMER: 90% of these stills are from Filmgrab, it’s an amazing website!

[adhdtoomanycommas]

Emotional Abuse and ADHD

Ok, first real post on the ADHD sideblog, so lets dive straight into the heavy stuff.   TW/CW for emotional abuse, gaslighting, and probably some other things too (please feel free to let me know if I should add additional tags).

I had trouble sleeping last night because my brain kept insisting I needed to start this blog, like immediately, despite it being clearly not an opportune time to do anything of the sort. Or at least, it insisted, I needed to jot down all the essay/ramble/whatever topic ideas I had complicated thoughts on so I could start the blog today. I managed to resist doing both of those things, and get to sleep eventually, but here I am.  The first topic that brought this on was wanting to talk about my experience in an emotionally abusive relationship and how many aspects of that were exacerbated by various symptoms of my (then undiagnosed) ADHD. 

I’m going to assume a certain amount of baseline familiarity with some terminology and whatnot here, if you’re confused by any of the ADHD terms I use here I recommend heading over to theadhdmanual.com and reading their very helpful “three pillars” articles which do a great job of explaining Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and emotional hyperarrousal (also elsewhere called emotional disregulation, I’ll be using both terms interchangably but won’t be abbreviating the latter for hopefully obvious reasons).  On the emotional abuse terminology front, there’s a couple great articles on gaslighting on everydayfeminism.com that I recommend seeking out. 

It is possible I am slightly stalling here by providing all this context.

At this point damn near ten years ago, for most of my senior year of college and for a good few months afterwards (I don’t remember how long exactly since adhd brains suck at timelines and I don’t feel like logicing it out right now) I was in what I later realized (with help from the aforementioned everydayfeminism articles) was an emotionally abusive relationship.  My then-boyfriend, who I will call Al, was insecure and jealous. I had more sexual experience than him going into the relationship, and he used that as an excuse to guilt-trip, manipulate, and ultimately control me.  I realize now, that the primary weapon he would use against me was my own RSD. 

Whenever I did something that upset Al, (typical infractions included things like accidentally mentioning one of my exes, correcting him about something,  “flirting with” --read: talking to-- any of my friends who were more my friend than his, or singing along to music) he would generally make his displeasure known by ignoring me--withdrawing all physical affection, coupled with the silent treatment.  If you’re familiar with RSD, you can already guess how effective this was.  If you’re not, then for comparison you should know that ADHD people can spiral very quickly into completely irrational “they hate me, don’t they?” thought spiral from something as small as a delayed text.  Al would almost never tell me what I did to upset him, and in my guilt-spiral I would usually tearfully beg forgiveness for everything I could think of until I guessed correctly and/or he arbitrarily decided I’d had enough. 

As an aside,  he would often do this silent treatment toward me in public while being perfectly cheerful and whatnot with our other friends, often making it seem to others like he was just joking or messing with me. On one memorable occasion he refused to say anything to me but the word “spoon” with varying inflections for the better part of a day--a pretty skillful gaslight because to everyone else around this just seemed like goofy ol’ Al being his silly self, but from context I knew this was part of a punishment, and I couldn’t express any kind of being upset about this, even annoyance, without looking like I was overreacting to a dumb joke.

Ultimately much of what he actually did (or didn’t do) in public didn’t look like much to an outside observer, but he knew my (RSD fueled) insecurity would make it hurt, especially when I wouldn’t be able to address anything with him until we were in private later. 

Also (and I intend to write a whole different post about this later) my particular brand of emotional disregulation takes the form of crying extremely easily.  I cry when I’m sad, when I’m tired, when I’m happy, when I see something too cute to handle, and (most importantly, in this instance) when I’m angry.  Because of this, every time I tried to address some relationship concern I had with him, whenever I tried to call out some of his shitty behavior or bring attention to my own emotional needs, it was extremely difficult--nigh impossible--to do so without crying.  This gave him a massive amount of gaslighting ammunition--it made it very easy for him to say I was overreacting, overemotional, irrational, trying to manipulate him, et cetera.   And it was hard to defend myself against that, even to myself. After all, lacking the ADHD diagnosis and resources about emotional disregulation that I have now, I had pretty much internalized the idea that I’m just “oversensitive” when it comes to crying, so I rationalized that I was also being oversensitive about whatever concern I started with in the first place. So every time a conversation started with me telling him he hurt me some way, it inevitably ended with me apologizing to him instead of the other way around.

Just to add to the already nasty cycle, Al also considered crying over something he didn’t deem worth crying over a punishable offense, so it often triggered the previously discussed silent treatment. 

A third aspect of ADHD I haven’t discussed yet also played a major part in how I was abused--Memory.  I don’t have a good resource to link on this one (I’m pretty sure there are some good howtoadhd videos on it on youtube but I’m not going to go dig for them right now), but ADHD people, on the whole, have terrible memories, especially short term/working memory.  Mine in particular might be even worse for some kinds of things  for unrelated reasons (aphantasia, which I might write about later but this is already really long and it’s not actually that relevant here).

Al was perpetually convinced that I was cheating on him, and any time we were apart he would quiz me afterwards on where exactly I was, what I did, for how long, and in what order.  Any inconsistency in my account, or any “I don’t remember”s would mean he would accuse me of lying about the whole thing.  I am pretty sure I have in common with most ADHD people that between time blindness and bad working memories, giving a consistent and accurate account like that is basically impossible, so this rarely went well for me.  Just to further complicate matters, being accused of lying when I’m not is practically guaranteed to make me cry, and trying to keep from crying (to avoid angering him further) means I swallow a lot, and somewhere Al had heard that excessive swallowing is a sign that someone is lying, so again these various ADHD symptoms would combine to just make everything worse.  

 I eventually got out of that relationship, and not too long afterwards got together with my now-husband, who is wonderful, so that’s a happy ending. Getting diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago, learning about these symptoms, and figuring all this out has made this make much more sense to me than before.   But in addition to my ADHD symptoms making me more vulnerable to these emotional abuse tactics,  I’m pretty sure the leftover baggage from the emotional abuse may have made those very same ADHD symptoms worse, and while my new meds seem to help immensely with the executive disfunction aspects of ADHD, they don’t do a damn thing about RSD spirals or emotional disregulation.  Healing and processing it all is slow going, but it has gotten a lot better over the years, and knowing now that even another aspect of this isn’t my fault helps too.  And taking my meds today did help me motivate myself to write all this out, so maybe that will help as well. 

I’m not sure what the takeaway is here, other than I strongly suggest everyone learn what gaslighting and emotional abuse in general looks like, but especially if you have ADHD or suspect you might have ADHD because we might be more vulnerable to being on the receiving end of it than most people.  If anything I talked about here sounds a little too familiar, I strongly recommend reading up on gaslighting, and consider getting the heck away from anyone who sounds too much like Al.  Maybe us ADHDers will inevitably get into some nasty thought-spirals or bad emotional places sometimes, maybe we’ll cry over nothing or worry too much that something we said will make everyone hate us, but if anyone tries to use any of that against you, uses it to get you to do what they want, or intentionally makes you feel worse, they’re not someone worth being around, and I promise you deserve better.

Not sure if anyone will read this, much less any fellow ADHDers because yeah, it’s a big ol’ wall of text and I get that can be hard, but if you made it this far, thanks for listening and I’ll try to go not quite so heavy with my next post, (assuming, of course, that I have a next post and this blog doesn’t become yet another started-and-abandoned project).

That’s all for now.

[bnfbc]

Whole Earth Discipline - by Stewart Brand - June 2020 - selected by Tommy

Andy: “Stewart Brand is definitely an interesting fella. I vibed with a lot of what he was talking about, particularly the use of nuclear energy. Although I found the topics and ideas interesting, I just really wasn't feeling Stewart's writing style.” B

Gabe: “While I appreciated the somewhat contrarian (or counterintuitive) environmental perspective, I don't think this book was very well written. Brand assumed too much background knowledge, and then used too much of what felt like paragraphed bullet points throughout the book. That said, I did find my opinion somewhat swayed by his chapter on nuclear power, so I appreciate that he challenged me in that way.” C+

Jachles: “This book definitely made it even more apparent how dire a situation we are in because of climate change. I appreciated the arguments and topics covered in this book, and he really sold me on nuclear energy being the future. The other topics weren’t quite slam dunks, but he definitely made me more open to genetic engineering and the benefits of urbanization. Stewart Brand seemed like a cool and interesting guy...anybody who’s a friend of Wavy Gravy is a friend of mine. While the content was interesting, and the arguments were pretty effective, it read at times like a mix between a college essay and a blog post. I can definitely picture him sitting on his tugboat after a long day of hacking away at invasive plant species and banging out 20 pages in like half an hour, without editing or even re-reading what he wrote. I’d give this book an A- for its information and a C- for the writing style. Let’s average that out to a…” B-

Paul: “The ideas presented in this book were fascinating, and it definitely moved my thinking on nuclear energy and genetically engineered food. Also, Stewart Brand - in all his OG hippie, LSD-loving, tugboat-living, invasive species-destroying glory - seems like a genuinely great dude. Unfortunately, this is still not enough to guarantee an enjoyable reading experience. It sort of seems like Brand kept a Google Doc of quotes from other books and articles on these topics, then just started copying and pasting them while adding his own rambling analyses as he saw fit. Most of the people quoted seem to be friends or associates of his, so it reads like a literature review of old hippie environmentalists that’s desperately in need of some editing and improved story-telling. A missed opportunity for sure, but still sort of worth it as a provocative and forward-thinking approach to the future of Earth.” B-

Tommy: "Brand details some contrarian ideas about how to save the planet and has my buy-in, but the overall flow of the book was a bit of a disaster. The ideas that are presented seem to be more of a collection of essays rather than a cohesive whole. Brand references dozens of resources at the beginning of passages and it really interrupts the reading experience. He also seems to have used the book as an outlet to air personal grievances and grudges. Maybe the original publications didn't want to run his op-eds? I appreciate that Brand challenges the current thinking of his fellow 'green' friends and colleagues and takes a truly pragmatic approach to solving our climate challenges. Unfortunately, the book did leave me with a sense of despair as the means to Earth's sustainability seem impossible in our current political environment." B-

GPA: 2.67

[shades-of-grayro]

Question: Could non-sam aro be the same as quoiro? Does this fall under greyro? How or why would one choose to use one over the other? (Also, as opposed to just simply aro or arospec) I'm always indecisive about what label to pick from when I need to clarify to someone. (I don't have a decided label for myself.) All of these labels feel about equal to me, I can never decide, so I end up on just aro for simplicity's sake, but I also change my mind sometimes? Idk

(I really enjoy thinking about words and their meanings, so this is a fun question and I am looking forward to answering it lol.)

So, the phrase non-sam* aro typically refers to someone who is aro and who also opts out of identifying with a sexual orientation. Which I don’t think is what you’re getting at, though I could be wrong. It seems like you are referring to opting-out of romantic orientation, which if you are ace would be non-sam ace (if you’re not ace I’ll get to that later). Non-sam is basically a label that says “I don’t have a label.”

Quoiromantic is a label that basically says “the concept of romance/romantic attraction doesn’t make sense to me/isn’t useful for me.” (Here’s a history that goes into more depth.) Some people who identify as quoiromantic see that as opting out of a romantic orientation much like non-sam (ace) often describes**, and may not see it as either alloromantic or on the aromantic spectrum, but rather something else entirely. Others who identify as quoiromantic do see it as an aromantic-spectrum identity. It’s up to the individual. (Here’s a post on the “does quoiro count as aro” question.)

Non-sam not typically used with sexual orientations besides asexuality, as not using the split attraction model (or rather not using separate romantic and sexual orientation labels) is generally the default with those, so I’m not sure it would convey the same “opting out” that non-sam ace would convey.*** If you are allosexual, quoiromantic might work a bit better for this reason.

Personally, I’m in the “romance makes zero sense to me” camp, but I identify as grayromantic. Grayromantic can include experiences that fall under what “quoiromantic” would describe, but it is also broader, and can encompass anything that is “aromantic but not quite.”

There are a few reasons I choose to identify as greyromantic as opposed to any of the other terms. First, it’s a catch-all, which makes me feel comfortable because I don’t have to figure out the specifics of what’s going on. I could be demiromantic, I could be quoiromantic, I could be idemromantic, or maybe romance as a concept isn’t actually real. Any way you cut it, greyromantic would describe me. Second, I see my confusion with romance as a fundamentally aromantic experience. I have more in common with aros than alloromantic people, even when I’m engaging in ““romance”“.

I actually really like the idea of opting-out of a romantic orientation, though. I like the idea of my romantic orientation being schroedinger’s orientation - ace people might be aro and they also might be alloromantic, so if I don’t say anything, they won’t be making any assumptions which would invariably wrong (theoretically). I don’t know whether or not I experience romantic attraction, and really I just would rather people stop assuming one way or the other whether I do, and that’s definitely a downside of identifying as greyromantic - people make that assumption.

Doing the amount of aro and ace advocacy I do, and participating in the aro community as much as I do, I don’t really feel like I can identify that way, unfortunately.

As far as the word “aromantic” goes, I identify as aromantic as well, though not all greyromantic and quoiromantic people do. I actually used to identify myself as aromantic more frequently, but now that I’m in a partnership I often find myself identifying more specifically as greyromantic from the start to avoid people going “how can you be aro and be in a ‘‘‘‘‘romantic’‘‘‘‘ relationship?” Idk I’m fairly positive I don’t experience a unique type of attraction that is inherently romantic, but I’m also not convinced that anyone does, which would mean that I am feeling what other people are feeling, y’know?

As far as “aro” goes - anyone on the aromantic spectrum can use that, including people who identify as something other than “aromantic” spelled all the way out. “Arospec” is simply a synonym of “aro” and I hate it, though it is often used incorrectly to mean “people who are on the aromantic spectrum but not what I am arbitrarily deeming to ‘not be aromantic enough’ to count as ‘aro’“. Or in other words they use “arospec” where the word “greyromantic” used as an umbrella term would be more accurate. Arospec, short for aromantic spectrum, includes aromantic people. (sorry for the brief, slightly irrelevant rant)

Also - nothing’s wrong with switching up the word you use to describe your romantic orientation. The most common ones I fluctuate between are “aro,” “grayromantic,” and “aromantic,” with “‘just’ ace” (what some would call non-sam ace) being an occasional one as well.

Anyway, I hope you find my rambles helpful. Followers, feel free to chime in with why you identify with one over the other, and anon be sure to check the notes to see if anyone else had thoughts! I’d also recommend the blog The Ace Theist if you’re looking for a personal narrative that contrasts mine on this topic. (I’ve linked a few relevant posts throughout.)

*There are some issues with the term non-sam and I generally don’t use the word unless referring to someone who self-identifies that way. Though for this answer I used it because it would have been way too confusing otherwise - I may have done some word gymnastics in places where I though it may have been offensive to entirely just use non-sam though. I generally use “aros without a sexual orientation” if I need an umbrella term, though other terms such as “unit aro” and “non-rosol” have been proposed to convey basically the same concept. Neither have really caught on, but “unit” is probably slightly more common.

**non-sam can be broader than quoiromantic. Quoiromantic is specifically that “romance doesn’t make sense” idea and other related things, but non-sam is more like schroedinger’s romantic orientation - you could “technically” be alloromantic, aromantic, quoiromantic, or anything else, but ultimately it’s not as important to you as your sexual orientation and you don’t see it as worth divulging to others.

***This is all conjecture and I probably could write a whole essay about this. Moral of the story: I’ve never heard someone who wasn’t ace use “non-sam” in place of a romantic orientation the way aces (and aros) do, and I’m not sure they’d want to for a variety of reasons.