#I was going to treat myself because the past month has been fucking horrendous

[neonnoir-ao3]

Hey if you just bought the Gabriel vinyl figure off of eBay: I'm in your fucking walls. You have thirty minutes. (/ref)

(in other news: if you have one you want to get off your hands for a reasonable price, I am always ISO!)

[jackassbroadcast]

Hello im a Tommy enthusiast who watched that one stream where he monologued to foolish for like hafe an hour bc i heard it was a cool stream or wtv to realize how much amazing character moments it had that barly anyone in this damn fandom is talking about so ill fucking do it

(Only after finishing this i realized i wrote 1.7k words LOL OOPS)

If u dont know what in talking about its this stream (apologies for linking a clips channel the actual vod on foolish's channel is deleted by now)

Also heads up /rp /dsmp every time i refer to someone here by name is their character unless stated otherwise bc writing c! Before every name Is tiring LOL

Also // suicidal idealization , death mentions

The conversation starts off with foolish and tommy mining for Wilbur, and foolish questions how simply mining will solve the problem to which Tommy reponds with "they dont get solved, do they? It just ends uo with some madman screaming 'Hes solved it!' And now look at him." And how he wants to "prevent the problem before it goes outta hand" something that clearly references Wilbur and his destruction of lmanburg, which paired with him collecting stone for Wilbur as the way to stop said problems he believes if he does anything he can for Wilbur and support him by his side enough this time around, that he wont do anything like thay again, which as im writing this makes be realize by doing that we learn hes blaming himself for what happened to Wilbur in November 16th and pogtopia and a whole, by not being enough for Wilbur in his mind.

The conversation continues, foolish off hand asks why would tommy want to stop Wilbur? Weren't they friends at some point? To which tommy leads foolish to lmanburg and tells him the story of the nation (how it was him and Wilbur's nation, how they made it to espace dream's iron fist and how they held an election "which puts your life on the line, which is good- if you're confident but- perhaps we were too confident", how they lost)

Tommy: "You know the phrase: 'treat other how you wanna be treated', foolish? People dont ever listen to it. Wilbur- he decided he wanted to be treated poorly so he treated everyone around him poorly "

This Tommy quote, to me at least, so so amazingly strong in conveying how understanding he is? To the world around him. Like-

I have not seen one person bring this quote up, and yet its (at least to me) shows such growth and understanding in Tommy i saw little to nothing like it in other streams. It shows he understands, he knew Wilbur didnt change just because, he knows he was struggling, that he thought everyone around him were againt him, were going to abandon him the first chance theyll get- and he thought he deserved it. So he, as a last way to defend himself against that, hurt them first, abandoned them first, so theyll see how much of a 'bad' person he was and take him out- and tommy saw right through that, possibly understanding it more after exile.

This next qoute was talked about much more but i still wanna bring it up

Foolish: "Do you believe in second chances?"

Tommy: "Oh, no I don't really believe that its not really a thing for me foolish its just that-" *sigh* "- i believe everyone has a little bit of good in then and this is not about giving him a second chance or a third chance- its not about *chances* foolish. Its about not giving up on the poeple you care about. "

Which. I mean. I dont know how healthy that mindset is, but comign from Tommy it makes so much sense.

Techno, tubbo, eret, sapnap. These are all people Tommy used to be extremely close to, had either a war or had been betrayed by them, and yet still found it in his heart that he still cares for them, with all of these, they did horrendous things, that hurt tommy physically and mentally, while also not being once or twice, but a contentious thing, but while tommy is to this day still effected by their actions he still found it in himself to forgive, because he knows he fucked up too, a lot, and he knoes they learned from their mistakes just as he had (except c!techno FUCKKK c!techno mf doesnt learn SHITTT) and he knows, when the time comes he knows hed want the people he hurt to forgive him too. (And he wants Wilbur to do the same)

Next qoute i will cut to a couple parts because its really so good and full of character i had to bro

Foolish: "Do you consider yourself to be the good guy or the bad guy?"

Tommy: "It really depends who you ask, isn't it? Yknow? If you asked dream he'd say im *his little toy that he plays with* you know? It doesnt.."

This part really stunned me when i first heard it because, and correct me If im wrong, but i dont think tommy ever acknowledged how dream sees him, and  how right he has his viewpoint too. Just the fact tommy is so *painfully* aware of how dream doesnt even see him as a person anymore but just a toy to mess around with for a while than just throw it away when it get too boring really hurt me. Someone give this kid a hug

(Continued) Tommy: "...foolish, honestly? I used to consider myself 'the good guy', you know? The fuckin'- second in command! But these past- these past like six months or so, foolish, everything got so much harder than it was before. Because before it was just us vs bad guys, it was all so clear! But- its not been 'clear' for so long, right? It wasn't; 'these are the bad guys! These are the good guys!' Now it's : 'he's doing this and it makes him a bit worse-' i mean, it all got so complicated, so- i don't know. Depends who you ask."

He says this, in response to foolish asking if hes a good guy- but its awfully similar to if Wilbur asked him if they were the bad guys. Because foolish just asked about him, and yet in his answer tommy made sure to keep using the words "us, he's, guys" as if hes not really talking about himself, as if hes explaining how Wilbur was wrong. Which he was. Also something interesting ive noticed, he says "the last 6 months or so", which indicated that with Wilbur he knew better to follow his word and leadership- with Wilbur he was always on the right side but when he lost him he felt much more lost alone, and couldn't trust himself enough to be on the "right side" .

Foolish: "I dont know, it all seems strange because just from, you know- hearing from others and, you know, learing a little bit, its seems like you've been the hero, you've been the villain, the conqueror, the savior, and, even now, i have no idea what you exactly are."

Tommy: "that's up to you to decide, isn't it? Im just- *uh*  i dont know. These days, foolish, I'm a little weaker than i used to be"

Foolish couldn't be more right with what he said, another example of this we see where a character acknowledges tommy never sticks to one thing us Charlie when calling him "tommy fron nowhere" which shows more how he cant stick to one thing, during the course of him on the server he had been friends and enemy with nearly everyone, been on pretty much all sides, and while never really intentionally, being in the center of conflict. When foolish says he doesnt know who tommy is anymroe at this point and all Tommy says in return is that "hes a little weaker than he used to be" does to show he misses who he used to be, with lmanburg, with Wilbur, when he knew who he was, now he doesn't know who he is anymore, but still so desperately want to be more demonstrated by the lines coming rigth after that one:

(Continued) Tommy: "..I'm not- I'm now who i want to be, but-"

Foolish: "Being honest with you, Tommy, that's the same case for me as well."

Tommy: "...heres the thing, foolish, unlike you i dont really have a choice. I have to try and be who i want to be, because if i dont, very bad things are gonna happen in this server. And now that Wilbur's back i can't- quite frankly *no one* can risk that. So i dont really have a choice."

Tommy want's to change- he wants to be better than he is now, to be closer to who he used to be, no matter how impossible that might be, but he also sees it as an immediate thing, he wants to change now, or asap, which is why hes collecting stone for Wilbur in the first place- old him would've done that with ease just because Wilbur asked and he wants to have that back so badly, asap. The way he talked about this reminded me of when he tried getting over his trauma stream before he went in the prison to kill dream: he knew he wasnt the best but he tried getting over that asap to go kill dream asap. He didnt wanna take the long road of years of healing and instead thought he could get over it just like that, and that experience clearly didnt teach him anything because now hes trying to slide back to the relationship he and Wilbur used to have and ignoring the drastic changes they both had plus the bad moments that were the reason they feel out in the first place, or maybe he knows, but at this point, after everything that happened to him and the server, he doesnt care anymore? He knows hes not the same he was and he'll never be the same, because thats not how it works, but his mentor, president, big brother is back after so long tommy felt so lost and alone he thinks maybe, this time around, with Wilbur, he could try and be better again.

[my-never-ending-nightmare]

10/30/2021

Alright screw it - it’s about time that I pulled my head out of the proverbial sand and actually addressed what has once again become the root cause of all my suffering. I’ve spent so long hiding it from everyone that I think I actually even started to believe my own BS, but I’m long overdue in admitting that alcohol and my dependence on it has once again become the bane of my existence. So, in keeping with being so stupidly honest here that only my anonymity saves me from feeling the full extent of the cringe let me admit here to everyone and anyone that I’m an alcoholic who’s currently suffering through horrendous withdrawal symptoms. Because I’m going to have to admit it IRL soon enough when I finish writing this and work up the courage to do what I should have done a month ago - walk my ass into the hospital and admit that I need help.

I’ve done it before, so I know I can do it again, but it’s preciously the fact that I have done it before that’s making it so damn difficult to do again. It’s not easy for a guy like me to swallow his pride and admit they he needs help, but the fact that I already had the courage to do that once makes me so damn ashamed to have to admit that I need help once again. Like, it feels like those doctors and nurses that helped me the last time really helped me –  that they did more than just monitor my vitals, stick IVs in me or give me benzos to deal with the withdraw – they treated me with a level of compassion and understanding that made me feel like I wasn’t alone or judged. They weren’t just doing their jobs, they actually cared. One nurse in particular really went out of her way to just sit and talk to me and make me feel like I was being truly listened to. And I’ll never forget that. Which is what makes this so damn hard – knowing they did their best to help me and that I eventually threw it all away. I’m sure I’m overthinking it, I probably won’t even end up seeing the same people and even if I did I doubt they’d remember me. But knowing that doesn’t lessen the shame and embarrassment that’s consuming me right now.

Why the fuck did I let things get this bad?

I can’t even put my finger on when the problem started – it honestly feels like it crept up on me like a cat but I know that isn’t true because I’m the one who invited it to play. I thought I needed it, and I thought I had it under control, but in reality I was only doing mental gymnastics to believe my own lies and justifications. A month or two ago I thought I needed just a drink or two at the end of the day to take the edge off of any stress or anxiety that I might feel, but the more I relied on that crutch the more I needed it. Until eventually I ended up at the point where I haven’t been completely sober past 3pm in over two weeks save for one day. And during that one day I was practically crawling out of my skin with withdraw by 5pm and only humiliating myself by trying to act normal. But even then, I still believed I had in under control. While in reality all I actually had under control was my ability to completely hide my drinking from everyone by avoiding any and all interactions with people while I was drinking. I was so used to my words & actions while drinking causing the problems in my life that I overlooked the fact that my drinking was exacerbating existing problems in my life. I used to have a problem, get drunk and then try to deal with it. Now I just have a problem, get drunk, and then tell myself I’ll deal with it later when I’m sober. But later never comes, because I haven’t yet been sober long enough to think clearly again. So I may not have been making my problems worse, but I was definitely hiding from them and wasting the opportunities to fix them.

And I really thought that that was somehow better.

But the buck stops here, I’m done making excuses and letting my problems spiral out of control because I’m too much of a coward to deal with them. I need to take accountability for myself, I need to put in the effort needed to get better so that I can ensure that my future is better than my past.

I need to find the strength to face my problems head on – not just the strength to have difficult conversations or painful goodbyes – but the strength to actually endure how those things make me feel so that I can continue to grow and change as a person. And I can only do that sober.

I used to really struggle to accept the things in life that I cannot change, but now I realize that my new struggle is in learning how to accept how those things I cannot change make me feel. So bring on the pain and suffering - it’s been over 24 hours since my last drink and there’s no avoiding it anymore.

I’m done running from reality. 

[anxiety-trademark]

The week in review:

Raw 12/14 NXT 12/16 NXT UK 12/17 Smackdown 12/18 TLC 12/20 + Main Event 12/17

Raw:

“This Sunday at tlc, it’s gonna be you and me against Nia and Shayna,” Lana says to Asuka, as a quiet ‘woo’ can be heard in the distance.

Lana facing her fears and fighting Nia Jax makes her the bravest person Asuka knows. Rolling. Fucking Asuka. ASUKA. wwe, stop.

Why isn’t Asuka accompanying Lana to the ring?

I like Lana’s gear.

Joe just compared Lana to a mosquito, goodbye.

Oh snap look how fast Lana did that headscissors takedown. We’re witnessing her progression, ladies and gents.

You know, I knew Lana would win this match, I knew exactly how she would win this match, but jfc what a treat watching it myself. 

Nia’s face lmfao.

Shayna wrecking Asuka so she can’t save Lana from her inevitable fate. Still curious on whether or not this beatdown injured her, if she was injured going into the match, or if it was all really just a storyline.

Yikes this is sad.

Man that leg drop onto Lana’s ankle actually looked kinda wicked, ngl.

*distant woo intensifies*

Wow we got real tears from Lana. Points.

Becky and Charlotte have been gone, Alexa hasn’t been on tv, the Raw women’s championship has become a meaningless prop... what a dead period for this roster.

Hi why is this match happening?

I will never not be impressed by Dana’s entrance.

Is Mandy actually hurt? Why did they take her off tv for so long? Is Shayna the resident kayfabe shelver? “Hey this girl is actually injured, have her written off by Shayna” ?? Cuz I know they’re not splitting Dana and Mandy up, and Dana has been on tv every week since Mandy left. Must be genuine.

These 2 are running roughshod over the entire division at this point.

OH SHIT MANDY’S BACK WITH A KENDO STICK

Lmfao the babyfaces are fucking done with Nia and Shayna. Honestly that’s great, I love it when babyfaces band together to stand up to dominant duos. This has been going on long enough. They took out Mandy, took out Lana, were about to take out Dana. Totally fair.

Highlight: Lana getting a clean win over Nia & being taken out so my queen can return

---

NXT:

It’s a funny thing with Toni and Rhea. Toni says she’s the reason Rhea came to nxt, but she’s also the reason I became such a huge fan of Rhea’s. Heard they were having some big TakeOver match and everyone was always praising Toni. So I checked into Blackpool solely to see what the Toni Storm fuss was about, and I left that ppv solely impressed by Rhea Ripley. Then I took particular notice of Rhea in the Royal Rumble a few weeks later, and I’ve been watching NXT UK for her ever since (til she moved). To see her growth has been tremendous, and she’s so young. Such a bright future.

The music to this is great.

Toni says she isn’t scared of Rhea, as if Rhea’s mere theme music didn’t scare the absolute shit out of Toni the week prior lol.

Toni’s not even a terrible promo, but the timing of her blinks could not be worse. Yes, it matters.

I can’t stop laughing at how fucking intensely Shotzi started this interview.

She does pissed off interviews well. I can feel her annoyance.

Really don’t want to see a Candice/Shotzi feud tbh but okay, I’ll try.

aaand there’s the howl. Awful.

Lmfao Rhea called Toni a piece of trash. This is gonna be interesting to see with the alignments reversed.

I don’t remember who won this match, but I’m betting it was Toni. Which is fair tbh. Rhea is probably on the “put some peeps over before moving up to the main roster” path that everyone in the women’s division walks on. They always eat at least one monumental, or a couple meaningful, loss(es).

Oh man that is fucked up. To not only be forced to continue punching/kicking a human (fun fact: the person on the offense takes quite the damage doing so) but to have the defenseless victim bleed out and beg for you to stop. That’s rough.

This was shot really well. That music holy shit, I’m creeped out. It’s like a horror movie.

I see the point. Numbs him to pain and breaks his will, while numbing her to mercy. Ruthless stuff.

Oh are we finally done with Indi’s neck brace? Cool.

I can’t believe wwe invested in this upgraded tank. I still don’t think it’d work on the MR, but points to the boss for shelling out the cash.

Wtf was that stumble and “fall” by Indi lmao.

If Candice was a real bully, she’d distract Shotzi by fucking with her tank at ringside.

Indi does need a mentor, she’s a hell of a lot greener than my mutuals have made it sound. oof.

Shotzi looks like she has no idea how to work with Indi, and Indi looks gassed, confused, and slow as hell.

All Indi knows it going from spot to spot while Shotzi waits around for her to get there.

Lol Indi failed at getting a dirty win. I don’t really care if this is a part of her The Way storyline, what a mess.

The only redeeming part of this piss poor segment was Theory shaking the troll’s head at Shotzi.

I’ll give wwe an extra $9.99 if they let this match have a clean ending.

“[Rhea] was at one point the biggest superstar in the world,” that isn’t even close to being true because Becky Lynch exists, but I’ll let it slide and pretend you said “in nxt”.

Their paths will be so similar to Becky and Charlotte in the future.

Wow what a sequence. That would’ve received an applause on the MR. Traded headlocks for restholds, threw around their strength, then went into a battle of pinfall reversals. Instead of following that with some stalemate, they didn’t take a breath and proceeded to dance with each other and showcase some chemistry before rolling back into a battle of pinfall reversals. The sequence started with a kick by Toni to Rhea’s midsection, and it ends with a kick by Rhea to Toni’s midsection. Peep that match production, good stuff.

My, my, those slaps to Toni’s back. Whew.

Yeah actually it’s really fucking cool that these 2 get to main event nxt together, come to think of it.

They sell well for each other.

Rhea has the best dropkicks, lesbireal.

Holy shit Toni’s headbutts make my own head hurt. God I wish she wouldn’t. Most people put their hands between the heads so no contact can be made, but Toni’s just like “lol fuck it”

This is a great match. This duo works a lot better with these specific alignments. Watching face Toni try to chop down Rhea is not as good as heel Toni being impossibly hard for Rhea to put away.

Women’s matches and never having a clean ending. Name a more iconic duo. Winter of overbooked women’s matches continues.

Like I had guessed Toni was gonna win anyway, but fucking come on.

*Bonus* online exclusive: Toni says playing by the rules got her diddly and squat, but like... she was a champion lol. “It ain’t even Toni time right now, it’s party time.” Alright.

Highlight: Rhea vs Toni minus the ending

---

NXT UK:

I don’t know why we’re getting Isla Dawn vs KLR but anytime I get to see KLR fight, I’m here for it.

Hell even Isla’s song never kicks it out of first gear. Song has so much potential but it never goes to the next level.

Ahhhh my Scottish queen is here.

No, don’t compare Sasha’s basement meteora to the double knees Isla did. That was pitiful.

Anyway, KLR vs any of the 4hw would be fantastic, take my money. Sasha, Bayley, Charlotte, or the woman KLR wanted to face at TO Dublin, Dublin native Becky Lynch.

That back body drop is horrendous as a finisher. It’s like when Becky won her debut match the exploder suplex. Awful lmao. Imagine if KLR lost to a back body drop ffs.

You don’t get to be this frustrated for not being able to beat the champion when you’ve only been fighting for like 3 mins.

Isla’s pisspoor speed going in the corner, and her pisspoor roll off of KLR’s tornado ddt. Shame.

Such a clean transition from a failed pinfall attempt into a submission by KLR, whew.

This whole match was just a flex by KLR lmao.

There was a time where we had Becky Lynch, Bayley, Rhea Ripley and KLR as our champions. Wow, take me back plz.

The background music of this stupid recording is so unnecessarily dramatic, wow.

All for the delivery of a chair. Of a fucking chair. Piper... shut up and handle your shit.

For someone so much larger than the little man, Piper is insanely unintimidating.

Highlight: I got to see KLR wrestle

---

Smackdown:

Bayley does run her mouth a lot. She’s kind of the EST at saying dumb shit that gets her into trouble lmao.

Bianca is so friggin good at interviews and in backstage segments. She hasn’t received much of a chance to do promos in the ring, let alone obviously to a live crowd, but I hope she shines there, too.

Has Liv reverted back to being a dumb blonde, or is it drugs? Stop letting her speak.

Love Riott Squad’s everchanging gear. Wonder who makes it for them.

Billie Kay claims that she’s a ‘seasoned’ ring announcer, and somehow that would not surprise me.

Tamina “get the fuck out of my face until I get a nap and a vat of coffee” Snuka, everyone.

Lmfaooo Tamina fucking chucked Liv across the damn ring. What a good job by Liv.

Ruby is exceptional at running the ropes. She gets a good spring off of it.

Tamina’s hair is always so beautiful, she gets points there.

Dropkick into a faceplant. Billie Kay gets pinned rofl. She’s so bad at wrestling and yet here I am ridiculously entertained.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Carmella’s current persona, but man I wish she’d come out in a cut off tank top, camo pants, high tops and a printed hat.

I mean people are at home cuz covid, but go off.

Aye putting over Sasha. Good heel Mella.

Sasha has held the title for like a whopping 2 months and we’re already marking calendars. Sad.

In kf, Sasha is kind of mentally weak, so I’ll give Mella that. I’m not sure what it’s gonna take to shake that perception, either.

“Who is Sasha Banks if she’s not the Boss? Who is Sasha Banks if she’s not the best? It’s sad because that’s a question that not even Sasha Banks knows the answer too.” So I get that wwe are trying to help Sasha develop and fight off her past demons, but man these women are ripping her a new one. Sasha’s only 29 so she can grow and develop however she wants, but jeeze. Salt, meet the dagger Bayley stuck in Sasha’s back.

I like Mella cuz she knows how to hype her opponent’s accolades and strengths while cutting an immaculate heel promo where she hits them RIGHT where it hurts. She’s a pro. Heels should take notes.

This music is like the Jazz Vibes playlist I always listen to.

She just called Sasha cheap and frantic lmaoooo

Oh damn Sasha be out here looking like MONEY. That girl has style, even if it doesn’t always hit with me, she got style.

oof the crack of that slap to Reggie.

OOF the crack of the bottle shattering over Sasha’s poor back. rip.

Match at TLC should’ve been a champagne match. That entails whatever your mind comes up with; pouring alcohol on your opponent, dumping their head in a bucket of ice, breaking bottles over spines. It don’t matter.

“You don’t see me going around here bragging about how damn good I am,” lmao WHAT. Bayley is equal parts delusional and obnoxiously annoying.

One size heel does not fit all, but I think her version suits her beautifully.

If I were her I’d pick your brain too, but I’d also want a match, cuz people leave matches with you looking as good as humanly possible. Equal parts selfless as well.

She didn’t lie, this was absolutely her putting Bianca on the map on the main roster.

wwe: wants to strap a rocket to Bianca and make her a star. Also fucking wwe: “lol no we’re not gonna show you her full entrance, cry more scrub.” 

Bayley still looks weird without a title.

Bayley mocks Bianca’s entrance and then gets swept onto the apron lmao. Idiot.

Bianca is a lot of flash and showboating, which is great from an entertainment standpoint, but she needs to do a little... less.

Fantastic snap of the hand against the led board. Bayley wrecking Bianca’s arm gonna hinder the flips.

“I’m the ER. I’m BET-TER. haha.” lmao Bayley is such a fucking dork. Got sent into the ring steps for her bravado. Love that there’s always immediate repercussions for Bayley’s arrogance.

Bayley turned midway going down onto Bianca’s knee for that backbreaker, there. Hope she doesn’t have a massive bruise. Looked like it’d leave a massive bruise.

3 things I’ll apparently never get to see again: Bianca’s hair whip, Bianca’s full entrance, and Bianca’s 450 splash. I’m tired.

These stupid fucking squats while Bianca is dangling off the top rope rofl I swear Bayley is something else. Girl knows how to entertain. “Bayley got a bit cute and Bianca made her pay,” story of Bayley’s life.

Beautiful spinebuster by Bianca. At least SOMEONE in the women’s division will use it.

Bit of a miscommunication there it seems. Bayley goes for a B2B, Bianca tries to block it, Bayley drops down to dodge and go for a cradle. She rolls Bianca all the way back, stands up and hesitates before running at Bianca with an elbow - even though Bianca is not in position to receive it - which Bianca counters by rolling Bayley up, but it was super obvious Bianca was just scouting the next spot. Bianca goes to pick her up for a powerbomb but Bayley has to kick out twice to prevent herself from being pinned while Bianca tries to lift her. That entire sequence was super messy.

Then Bianca nearly drops her lifting her all the way up lol. Yikes. Gotta be pretty fluent to pull that off. Not to plug my fav (but I’m totally gonna plug my fav); it’s a move Charlotte does in almost every match against Asuka or Becky, and you gotta be not only built to pull it off, but you need to have impeccable timing to make the transition look smooth. Extra points if you lift them off the mat RIGHT before a 3 (which Charlotte usually does)

Anyway, good match with a messy last 2 sequences. Bayley did what Bayley does best.

Highlight: Bayley vs Bianca

---

TLC:

They really took Eva Marie and Sasha Banks’ characters and meshed them together while keeping Carmella’s obsession for animal print lol.

Really don’t like that gear. That’s a miss, Mikaze.

Beautiful arm drag. Sasha taking the idea of wrestling like a Lucha more seriously? Cuz she should, ain’t nobody else in the MR doing it.

Commentators say the trash talk is continuing, I say Sasha is quietly leading this match with a grimace. Peeped that “hit me”.

Carmella goes to suicide dive through the ropes just for Reggie to catch her, cept she got caught up and started turning in midair. Would’ve hit her neck and shoulder HARD had he not been there. Great catch indeed.

Sasha “rip my back” Banks.

Not to be douchey, but if you have to adjust your gear in the middle of a match and it’s not just to fill time or be used as character work, then you need to redesign your gear.

Sasha’s a great babyface once that bell rings man. I wish she could carry that energy everywhere.

Holy fuck that facebuster. SPIKED her head, oh my god. I have never seen anyone make a facebuster look so impactful. Points if intentional.

Oh the timing of Sasha blocking that superkick from legit connecting. God she’s good.

You know how I know this is a good match? I’m watching some of these near pinfalls and submissions knowing damn well Sasha’s gonna win, yet my anxiety is still spiking thinking Carmella might walk out with the title. I KNOW she doesn’t though lmao. Good sequences, believable offense, great near pinfalls. They work well together (I’m not surprised, Mella and Sasha both work well with almost anyone)

What a fantastic transition into the bank statement. Points.

That match should’ve ended by dq the second Reggie pulled Mella out. 

Sasha could’ve sold that double superkick pinfall attempt a little bit more.

Carmella having a breakdown. What does that mean? That means she’s about to lose this match lmao. There it is, not even 10 seconds later hahaha.

Sasha sells pain so damn well. Good for her. Good defense of her title. Points to Sasha, she’s phenomenal every time she has an actual match. Post-match and she’s already annoyed me though lol. Ugh. Maybe she’ll get it soon enough.

Nice “replay” wwe. Billion dollar company btw.

Billie, drawing a horizontal line is not how you write ‘clairvoyant’. 

“proficient in Japanese” aw Asuka was so excited for a split second lmao.

Oh no, she made a mask to match Asuka’s with a paper plate. Oh no no no. Travesty. 

Ugh I’m so excited. I’ve already seen this and yet I’m excited. Here we are, the whole damn reason I started catching up on everything I basically refused to watch since June 22.

SHE LOOKS LIKE MONEY, WHEW. The queen IS back. She’s so fucking beautiful man.

Love how annoyed Nia looks. This is your comeuppance tbh. Could’ve just faced a measly Lana, but no, you had to play too much.

Really Charlotte shouldn’t be in the tag division, and really she shouldn’t give half of a fuck about Asuka, but we’ll get to that more in the future since this is already nearly 2 months old.

Nia’s doing a great job selling Charlotte’s return, and she’s not even active in the match rn. She does good work.

Bad camera angle on Asuka hitting the ring post.

Asuka getting wrecked lol.

I really despise that the Raw women’s championship was tied up in all of these storylines that have nothing to do with the Raw women’s championship. The Lana crap, the Charlotte crap, the tag teaming in general crap.

In hindsight, I now find it curious that Ric Flair was in the back for this match. Very curious. I swear, if the past 2 real time months weren’t a part of some master plan the Flairs came up with together, I will be SHOCKED.

Charlotte’s fucking crazy for doing those moonsaults to the outside though, for real. I know she was a gymnast and an exceptional cheerleader, but MAN you could not pay me to do fucking blind back flips that high up. Crazy.

She should’ve given us a spear in this match. I wanna go rewatch her work just to see some spears.

Good match. They needed to not focus on destroying Asuka for as long as they did, pacing was off for a little bit there.

Love how Charlotte sticks her tongue out when she bridges up into the figure 8. She’s such an asshole lmao.

If I could’ve changed one thing about that finish, I would’ve had Charlotte bounce off the ropes before hitting Natural Selection. Other than that, it was great.

Charlotte looks good with a title, idk *shrug*

The way Charlotte looked over at Asuka though. I really don’t trust her in hindsight lol.

Like how this Firefly Funhouse is setting the spotlight on Alexa before Bray takes his leave of absence, only wish she hadn’t missed 2-3 wks of tv.

What a fun way of running a video package.

Inferno matches are insane and I’m not sure why anyone would participate in such.

Think it’s smart they’re both leaving their jackets on tbh.

Alright that was cool. The way Fiend called up the flames was fucking cool. It looks amazing aesthetically. They could’ve never done the set quite like this if there had been fans.

WE HAVE STRAPS?! IS FIRE NOT ENOUGH?!? Man. Randy is a fucking trooper.

Guys. Guys excuse me, that strap is on fire, can... can we not, please??

Man is swinging a god damn pick axe at Randy Orton, I--

I hope that wasn’t actually flammable liquid cuz otherwise Randy is now soaked in it, and that’s insanely dangerous. Oh that’s great editing. So it was flammable, but Randy was out of the chair before the fire rushed at him. Also covered the chair in blood. That was cool.

Orton just pull the damn string out of the jacket real quick lol.

Caught Orton’s attempt at an rko with a mandable claw. Points.

Can someone... put him out? Editing trick? Were the flames real? Am I real??

Shouldn’t the bell ring? Match is over, right??

The dummy was kind of obvious ngl. Not to sound like an asshole, but they should’ve made it a bit thicker and more solid lol. Doesn’t really take me out of it though, cuz even though I’m sure it was a stunt double that got lit on fire by the ramp, someone was on fucking fire, and that’s intimidating in itself.

Also the dummy is melting. I’d say they should’ve used pig meat, but I’m sure vegans and animal rights activists would’ve had a field day writing to Snickers about that.

Was a good match, for what it was. I was entertained.

---

*BONUS*

Main Event:

“Nasty Nikki” lol okay.

“The only reason people even know you exist is because you were Alexa Bliss’ best friend,” ouch. Truth is pain.

Ahahahah Lacey has hand sanitizer again. 

Love that submission Lacey jumped into through the ropes, plus an eye rake. Fantastic.

That’s curious. Lacey and Peyton are arguing over the hand sanitizer as Lacey wants to squirt it on Nikki, while Peyton is claiming it’ll get her DQd. Now I’m on Peyton’s side in the sense that it should absolutely be illegal, but Lacey’s done it in a match against Nikki before, sooo ???

I like how Nikki fell trying to get back into the ring before the 10 count. Adds credibility.

Haha Nikki gets the pinfall over Lacey because Peyton was being a nuisance on the outside. Lacey big mad. That’s great.

---

*Smackdown easily shined the brightest in what was a great week of wrestling. Utilized 8 women in 3 different storylines, couldn’t possibly complain about that.

[bodtabs]

reposting and pinning this

being a straight black trans guy is really weird. there’s so many intersections of experience, and not in the dumb “technically i can reclaim this axis of oppression” level of terminally logged in lgbt person i mean it in a “going about my life” way.

for starters, idt i ever “hated” being a woman, i don’t really relate to that trans narrative, i just realized it was an identity that became increasingly frustrating to align with and moved on to a label that finally fit me. being a black girl was cool, despite all the social toll that came with it, black girls have contributed so much to popular culture and even to our own communities, so there was no real reason for me to dislike it other than “it just doesn’t feel like me anymore” and i like it that way. i have a very comfortable relationship with both black girlhood and black manhood, if anyone asks i’d probably fall under that “i remember being convinced i was a little boy. not knowing why my parents didn’t see it too and insisted on treating me like a little girl.” narrative that seems to be the narrative a lot of "trans stories that won’t make cis people uncomfortably avert their gaze” media. i had (and still do have) genuine interests in a lot of traditionally masculine aesthetics, music, career paths, and hobbies, but i don’t recall ever feeling disgusted, embarrassed, or insecure parts of my life where i was identifying as / being coerced into woman aligned individuality, and the strained relationship i had with my mother because of these things, like a lot of trans guys (understandably) seem to be with theirs. this proves for disconnect occasionally, between who i want to be and who i actually am, but the more time goes by the less i give a shit about who thinks what. i don’t take shit from anyone as a guy because i didn’t do it as a chick, which leads for a lot of leeway in being comfortable with who i was and who i currently am.

i still have a lot of pleasant associations with being a gay woman, i probably wouldn’t be where i am today without a lot of the gnc lesbians and trans bi women, i still feel a sense of community with that identity (never to the point of being invasive, i hope.) i’m never not going to get sentimental about a woman being happy with another woman, comfortable in their own skin; that’s just how my brain is default-wired at this point. i’m not offended by women (cishet or otherwise) not wanting me in their spaces (it’s honestly more validating than being seen as a defanged token feminist boy who will bring no harm or whatever, i much prefer people hearing about me or holding a conversation with me and deciding what direction they want to take with me based on those things, like you would any other human being) but it’s still cool to know that i can have these feelings– still be deeply involved and still have feelings for this culture i’ve ingrained in myself from a young age– and not feel like an intruder or outsider, despite being a straight dude, i’m always going to have a pretty firm grasp of gay culture and won’t get freaked out by people putting the sex back in homosexual like a lot of cishets and even a lot of gnc tenderkweers tend to get every 3 months. it’s honestly been the side of gay culture that i’ve always preferred lol.

i call a lot of bullshit on this “toxic masculinity intricate rituals” stuff that’s come into public conscious in the last couple of years or so as well, not only was it mostly popularized by MRAs (around the same time as public concious on ellior rodger and incel/chad terminology as well…shoulda been a red flag from the beginning imo) not just because it frames men as the ones who suffer the most due to their own actions rather than the women and children they torture on a daily basis, but it’s also been used to racially pathologize the boundaries and mannerisms i have that my (racist) white partners have been uncomfortable with in the past. your weird entitled impulse to police my body and the way i present myself in a way i genuinely enjoy and am comfortable is not remotely subtle, and the mental gymnastics behind your desires to impress your frat buddies does not excuse you brutalizing women on a daily basis and shaming children to the point they have serious issues coping with a lot of hardships that face them later in life.

the most visible majority of the trans masc community is white dudes and they all fucking suck. they’re terrible to women, trans nonbinary and cis, are either extremely liberal in their political stances or simply never talk about anything relating to it at all (and they all have garbage taste in fashion and music, i know that’s kinda petty but i think i’m allowed to be rude to people who try to make wanting to transition into a humanstuck karkat gijinka a universal experience and hozier and constantly self infantalize and weaponize their own softness while expecting everyone else on the planet to wait on them hand and foot.) i’ve met maybe 3 good white trans guys in my life and one of them i’ve been friends with since high school, it really put me off transitioning all together because i was raised mostly by women and a lot of my idols have been women since i was a kid (and even if this weren’t the case, colonialist concepts of respect / equality / gender in general are very different from nonwhite cultures, so even if i wasn’t constantly in immediate proximity of women or didn’t have any “significant” woman figures in my life it would stil feel very weird and removed.)

none of this, of course, is to imply that black men aren’t horrendously misogynistic (especially towards black women. lbr, mostly towards black women, lol. this is another one of those weird intersections, knowing that misogyny is not exclusively a product of white supremacy but that colonialism has definitely catalyzed it.) or that black men won’t use their race to get out of being rightfully accused of misogyny similar to the ways a lot of white gay people use their sexualities as a get out of jail free card, but i really don’t understand white trans guys like this. i think they realize they’re oppressed and cling to it as a personality trait, and when anyone calls them on it they get really offended cus they have nothing else to fall back on, hence all the gatekeeping and regurgitated TERF rhetoric (which any and all TME people have been guilty of, at some point, and a lot of whom unfortunately are still doing as i write up this post) and truscum antics. this nonsense got so bad that it put me off transitioning for like 5 years.

i’m here now, though, and i’m content with it, so i try not to hold too many grudges about it even if it is a bit frustrating and put me behind a lot of my peers. i’m mosly just focusing on how many doors open to you when you’re finally comfortable in your own skin lol.

[girlfromthepast]

Hey future me,

Today is April 9, 2021 - 12:18AM and I am in my room, it’s kinda raining, listening to a Taylor Swift playlist and is honestly in the verge of crying. I really hope that your dumbass will not forget the password for this account and that you’ll eventually read this again in the near future.

Four months. Four horrendous months and everything that I have been through the past months felt something that would definitely kill me instantly. My mind is so clouded every time that I would try to write a journal or entry how’s my life been doing. There are so many things that I want to forget but I somehow also don’t want to forget them because I want you to realize that no matter what shit was thrown to me now you made it. You have been so brave that even if you want to give up, you didn’t.

I wanna say that I am so, so, so proud of you. No matter what or who person you have become I know that you worked hard for that and I know that you will use  it for the betterment of everyone. I hope that you are fine in all aspects because right now as I am typing these words, I am crying so much because I don’t know what future holds and I will entrust everything to you. I am so tired. I want to give up so much. My heart hurts every time I remember memories I really want to bury 12 feet under ground.

January 18, 2021 - around 7pm was probably the night you don’t want to remember but I want you to look back and remember how everything started. I want you to know that matter how much it hurts, it’s a part of a very unfortunate event in your life. It was probably one of the days that I have thought that after all the overloading crammed school activities are done, I want to treat myself and even hang out but none of it is happening until the day that I am writing this right now. There are so many things that I want to note but it will probably be too long but I just want to let this out for a moment because I will definitely burst any moment and I may not even notice that.

Lately I have been crying so hard. I cannot sleep without crying. Every time that there is something that would remind me of how ruthless this times are to me just pierces right to my heart and soul. My mother has been and always will be my anchor no matter what other people will tell. The memory of my mother crying just hurts so fucking much. Lord, I know you probably don’t need me to shout or even silently whisper the words I have been longing to say. You know Lord that at the back of my heart, there is a silent scream asking you why? I am so sorry for doubting you from time to time but it just hurts but I know that trials will never last longer and questions will eventually be answered because you know what is the best thing that should be placed in the palm of our hands. I would only ask for your guidance Lord, no matter what circumstance we will be facing I hope you will never leave our side.

I was never the best person to begin with. I don’t know many people or even close as much as anyone else. I never really thought that moral support during hard times is really assuring. I hope you are surrounded right now by people you really trust and really cherishes you genuinely. I have probably cried for the people that I thought would hold me close and tight but has chosen to let go and be distant from me. It will always be the phrase that, “Ah I forgot. They also have their own lives and they must go on with it. While I’m here, stuck in a time loop of a nightmare that I can’t seem to wake up from.” I know that it’s selfish. It’s very silly but I hope and praying you are enjoying life now. You worked hard to achieve happiness okay? Not to burden more your heart. Let go of all the baggage that your poor heart is carrying because they will only fill the storage for more important ones. 

Closest people whom I really thought would be there isn’t with me right now. My friends are really limited and I don’t even know where to stand. It’s like I’m walking on egg shells because I’m afraid. I am so afraid that if I would create a simple mistake it would be so much easy to drop me like a stray cat. I am so scared that they would eventually leave too because of our situation right now. It may be an inevitable situation and I know if this will happen, I hope that you were able to take it no? I am the most awkward person I it triple the hardness of how to socialize with people. I am lucky to have people checking on my sometimes and would actually want to hang out with me. I hope you have become independent right now because it is so hard to be attached and be reliant to people. I seriously don’t want them to think that I am such a needy person. I have never thought that I would reach this moment that I am so scared people would tell that I am over reacting and so much emotional.

How are you? I really hope you have gotten fat and is seeing a therapist. I hope that you are happy because that is something that I would also like you to experience. Do you have a boyfriend? Probably not. You are probably living with cats and dogs lying somewhere. Could you afford corgi now? That is something that you always wanted to have right?

Is there another term more suitable to describe a person aside from being strong? Ah, brave. You probably are that person. You have been so brave and I am so proud of that because you are not  just simply strong. I am sobbing and even trying to smile to silence my cries from my two Aunts right in the next room. This will probably not be my last entry but this would be the first and I hope you will get to go through these letters and would laugh and still listen to Taylor Swift and you know probably cry since you definitely one crybaby. Breathe tefanie. Never forget your roots but let it grow into something beautiful

April 9, 2021

1:00AM

In my messy room

[dazais-guardian-angel]

A lot of thoughts about All Might, Izuku Midoriya, and My Hero Academia’s themes of empowerment and hope

So a few months ago I finally jumped on the infamous My Hero Academia bandwagon, and I’m finally getting around to talking about what it is about this series that has me so utterly captivated and emotional beyond belief, something I’ve wanted to discuss for a while now. MHA does a lot of things right, and at the same time, some things wrong, I can’t deny, (and man, I wish it didn’t do some of those things... alas), but there is one aspect of it in particular it (that expands into a few different things) that affects me more than anything else, that I wasn’t expecting at all when I first walked into it... something so special to me purely because of how so few other series focus on topics like these, and so beautifully and profoundly.

Below I’ll go into what I believe is MHA’s biggest strength, what makes it stand out from other shounen series, that resonates with me and so many others so deeply. This post is super long and rambling, with way too many pictures, and all of this has been said before by others, but hey, this is really damn important to me so I need to cry about it myself in-depth okay. Hopefully this all makes sense? lmao. Oh and lots of spoilers ahead.

It all has to do with our two main characters, and how they embody and exemplify more than anyone else the themes at the heart of the series:

First off, the main point: All Might is a disabled superhero.

I haven’t read/watched a ton, at least compared to many others, but I’m still confident in saying that, like other marginalized groups, finding disabled characters in media, main ones that are handled well, and don’t have their disabilities magically cured or made irrelevant somehow, is really fucking rare. And even in these cases, the disability is usually something such as blindness, deafness, muteness, an inability to walk, or lack of limbs. Which by no means am I saying that it isn’t important to represent those disabilities as well, far from it (I want more characters in wheelchairs, god dammit); I’m only saying that there’s even less chance of seeing more complicated disabilities, ones that might not be obvious from the outside, or on the flip side, ones that are very obvious on the outside (to the point that they might seem “unsightly”, disabilities that writers, especially in Hollywood, wouldn’t be eager to want to attempt properly, unfortunately), because of that.

All Might is arguably the secondary main character in the series, and he has a very specific set of issues due to the injury he received in the past: the blow to his torso meant they had to take out his stomach, much of his lungs were mangled and destroyed, and he had to have many successive surgeries just to get to a stable point, all of which left as emaciated as he is, and with a massive, ugly, bruised scar that caves inward like an impact crater, which looks like it hurts like hell. Losing his stomach means getting enough nutrition is virtually impossible for him (since he doesn’t have the time nor the discipline to eat as regularly as he needs to), making him even more dangerously skinny, and losing so much of his lungs wreaks havoc on his stamina and breathing, as well as causes him to cough blood on a regular basis.

...and All Might is the strongest superhero in the MHA universe, while still having all of these problems.

Now I won’t say that this is the absolute pinnacle of disability representation or anything, absolutely no way; All Might’s blood coughing is used for comedic effect, which I wish weren’t the case (though that happened the most near the beginning of the series; you don’t really see it anymore), and it would honestly be really nice if his disabilities were made more of a focus/point in the normal, mundane slice-of-life parts of the story, instead of just when the plot demands for it to be relevant, which so far has only been in the USJ arc, the Kamino Ward arc, and I suppose you could argue with the reveal of his death prophecy in chapter 131; it would be really amazing to see the other characters helping him when he needs it, and to see him using medical technology, even. Fanfiction is a blessing that I am eternally grateful for for doing this, but it’s not a replacement for canon. However, having said all that, it is incredible, something that I cannot even put into words how thankful I am, that Horikoshi has done even this much. All Might is not only the strongest of the strong, but he is simultaneously weak and sickly as well, he is both, and the best part of this is that when his “weak” side is revealed to Izuku, and later on everyone else, no one considers that part of him “lesser” or “inferior”: he is still strong, he is still “All Might”, to them, no matter what he looks like, and no matter what he can do.

In essence, having this in a Superman character is genius, because heroes are meant to be inspirations, beacons of hope, people who the characters, and the audience, watch, and are able to think “I can be strong and do good like them, too”, and one of MHA’s main themes is that heroes are heroes ultimately not because of what physical strength they possess, but because of their hearts... so how reassuring, how inspiring, how perfect is it for the top hero to actually be so ordinary, so human, underneath all the bravado and physical strength? Someone who is not some godlike entity on another level entirely, impossible to reach, but simply someone as normal as anyone else, filled with nothing but kindness and an entirely selfless earnestness to help the world, who worked as hard as he could to reach where he did, even despite all odds, despite everything he endured... someone that almost anyone can relate to, and feel like they can become. That is why everyone continues to love All Might no matter what he looks like and what he can or cannot do, and to have someone with so many physical disabilities be so beloved and considered so strong in the story?

That is powerful. That is the kind of character so many more stories need, who, again, people like myself can relate to, both in feelings of weakness and frailty and insecurity, but also in feelings of inner (and outer) strength and motivation and confidence, too. All Might is disabled: that’s just a fact of him, he is never going to ever recover any more, and no one faults him for his disabilities or treats him differently or delicately for it, except for Aizawa a couple times (out of concern). And I love him for it, because I can see my disabilities in him, I can easily picture him going through so many of the hells I’ve been through throughout my life, and god I’m just so emotional to have All Might. I was sobbing during the Kamino Ward All for One fight, seeing All Might be allowed to fight and WIN in his non-powered up, weak form, seeing everyone cheering him on because they held unwavering faith in him no matter what he looked like, to the very end. You never truly understand how important representation is until you are given some, finally. Could there be more to it? Yes, absolutely, and I wish there was. But it’s so wonderful to have a character like this at all, who is an endless sandbox of headcanons and art and fics, all of which are very likely based on what canon does tell us about All Might. It’s just... so nice to simply have a character like him there, shown positively. Thank you, Horikoshi.

However, it goes beyond just All Might; there is the other half of this representation (and relationship), as well:

In MHA’s universe, being quirkless is likened to having a disability; only 20% of the population do not have quirks, and being in that percent is considered strange, a tier below so-called “normal” people, and something to pity and sympathize, if the adults and kids around Izuku in his middle school years are any indication. It’s bad enough knowing that actual disabilities are often treated this way (All Might doesn’t want anyone to see his true body, out of shame, guilt, and fear that people will worry about his ability to continue helping them, even though he is the most beloved and strongest hero of all time, and proves for six entire years with these injuries that he can still work!), but the fact that this then happens to people without inhuman superpowers, something that no one had and wasn’t at all a part of society and everyday life generations ago, that not being cool (basically) will get you looked down upon too, is awful to think about. But that’s the situation Izuku is put in, and it’s because of this specifically that All Might has such an incredible impact on him: that is, not just because of what he does for him, and how he starts off admiring him from a young age, but also because of All Might himself (I’ll get to this).

Izuku admires and tries to emulate All Might as a child, dreams of becoming him when he gets older, just like any kid would; like many children probably did with All Might. But once he’s told that he won’t develop a quirk, clinging to that dream, clinging to All Might, becomes even more fervent and desperate and necessary and important, no matter how impossibly out of reach now All Might’s level may seem, no matter how foolish it is and how deep in denial he goes, because believing that he can become as great a hero as him, believing his heartfelt and motivational words and actions on TV, is all Izuku has to keep his spirits up, to still have any hope. Everyone around him loses faith in him ever becoming someone great, becoming as strong as others with powerful quirks will become, even someone with a pointless quirk means more in society’s eyes than someone like Izuku (ableist much??? ugh) but Izuku continues trying to shoot for his dream, though he has no idea how besides researching other quirks, refuses to give up on himself, despite the pitying, despite the constant, horrendous bullying (bullying that is, again, essentially the way a disabled person would be bullied for having a disability. Think about that. why is Bakugou painted as so forgivable in the narrative again), and I really do believe All Might’s existence for all those years before he met him was the only real reason for that. Izuku is stubborn, but it’s clear at the beginning of the series how badly everything has affected his confidence and self-esteem... if he had never met All Might, it haunts me to think about when Bakugou’s suicidal taunts might have finally pushed him over the edge, possibly literally.

But then, he does meet his hero. And who is it that he finds?

A depressed, broken, and unhealthy man, the complete opposite from the person he had known and looked up to and clung to all his life, who tells him that his heroic smile is no longer real, but rather a mask, and that Izuku should face reality: he can’t become a hero without a quirk.

Now, initially, of course, this utterly devastates Izuku, and one can’t blame him. He reacts exactly as All Might believes anyone would act if they saw his true form, true self, and then his hero rolls with the unpleasant mood and makes it worse, and deals the killing blow and shoots down his eternal dream, the scraps of hopes he’d been clinging to. And hearing it from the man himself, someone who is literally in the same situation Izuku is in, essentially, forces him to give up entirely, because if All Might says he can’t do it, then that’s the end of it, isn’t it? No more lying to himself, after this... not after his hero has basically just told him that everything he projects to everyone is a lie. All Might is the best of the best, and yet, still, he ended up like this, so how on Earth can Izuku think he can do even a FRACTION of what the number one hero has done, with no power at all, and come out of it alive??

All Might is depressed, and weak, and powerless (despite having so much power), just like Izuku is, but he has no inspiring words of comfort about pushing past boundaries or defying odds and expectations, because he doesn’t see himself as anything inspiring, anyone to shoot for, not like he is, doesn’t want anyone emulating him and getting themselves hurt like he is, and he’s not going to be cruel to someone and tell them that they can do things they won’t be able to just to make them feel better; he knows the harsh reality better than anyone. He doesn’t intend to hurt Izuku on purpose, he’s only trying to keep him from doing something reckless that will get him hurt (oh the irony, minutes later), and in his depression and self-loathing and guilt, he’s forgotten how he originally felt when he wanted to become a hero, way back when, the same way Izuku feels... he has lost all hope himself, so of course he has none to give to Izuku, someone sitting squarely in his similar, currently-hopeless position.

In short, all of Izuku’s insecurities and fears are confirmed by that first encounter, which is like looking into a mirror, (and, again, that is heartbreaking, for that to happen with All Might, of all people) and at that point, he’s ready to give up.

But then, the sludge attack happens soon after, and everything changes completely when they meet again.

My Hero Academia’s most beautiful and unique quality to me is how overwhelmingly hopeful and uplifting it is, the message it carries of realizing that you can achieve your dreams, in some way, in some form, no matter how out of reach they may seem and no matter how insignificant and lost you may feel; it is so positive and moving, heartfelt and sincere, wholesome, in everything that happens in it, even when “bad” things happen, compared to many animanga nowadays that steep themselves in darkness and depression (not to say they’re not good, of course I love many of them, but it’s still true), and that’s why it’s so incredibly refreshing and so beloved, I think, despite how very simple the story is. And all of that starts right here, in this scene where Izuku is first told that he can become a hero, that is probably one of the most iconic scenes in the entire series, if not the most iconic.

People like Izuku need to be given hope, encouragement, to know that they’re believed in, that there can be opportunities out there for them; on a most basic level, they need to be treated with normalcy and positivity, just like anyone else would be treated. Lying and giving false hope to unreasonable levels isn’t right, but neither is wallowing in and validating the utter misery, sorrow, and hopelessness the person is feeling, which is exactly what Izuku’s mother does; she doesn’t mean to hurt him, she’s still a good mother, but ultimately she does, unfortunately (especially when added to the school bullying that no one makes any attempt to stop, least of all Izuku himself, his self-esteem as low as it is). At the end of this scene, All Might offers to give Izuku his quirk, and the thing is that you can definitely say this is, in essence, Izuku’s disability being done away with, and I’m not going to say you’re wrong; I, too, was initially disappointed, because I had hoped that this was going to be a story of Izuku becoming a hero without a quirk, cliche as it might be (ideally with the support gear introduced later in the series that I didn’t yet know existed). What makes it more tolerable, though, is knowing that he doesn’t end up recieving One For All for a very long time after this, and even when he DOES get it, he has to work so, painstakingly hard to fine-tune it over the course of the series (reaching only All Might’s level will take him years, I imagine), harder than anyone else who had a quirk from an early age, to even reach a state where he can use it without breaking his body. But getting back to the point I’m trying to make: the focus of this scene is not on Izuku being offered a quirk (because, again, it hasn’t happened yet), but rather simply on the words All Might says to him. In this very moment, what impacts Izuku so strongly is being told that he can become a hero.

Simply those five words. That is all Izuku wants, what he needs more than any actual power itself. What he has been wanting someone to tell him for years upon years, to simply believe in him.

And this is where I’m extrapolating some, but I think that All Might’s condition/situation also has a hand in causing Izuku to react so emotionally to this: previously, All Might’s secret was devastating to him, coupled with his hero rejecting his hopes and exposing nothing but a bleak, harsh reality to him, with no hesitation at all, but here, when All Might completely turns around, inspired by Izuku’s actions and remembering that strength does not make the hero, but heart (”remembers his origins”, as it were), and finally tells him what he’s been craving from someone for so long, it is so much more powerful that it’s coming from All Might in his normal, human, sickly body, and not the heroic one everyone else sees. The “heroic” form of All Might might give off more confidence (especially in his own mind), but that is also the version of him that seems so much more impossible to reach, that seems so untouchable and as far away from the current Izuku as a hero can get, and not to mention is the version of All Might that is “fake”, that he doesn’t consider truly him, and able to convey his most genuine feelings; instead, All Might chooses to give Izuku his offer not as the beautiful hero the boy has idolized all his life (that, to him, is the only version of him he’d recognize, and like, especially since his normal form is the one that, just hours ago, told Izuku to give up), but as himself, as Toshinori, in all his weak, flawed, normal humanity, and it speaks volumes that Izuku is still so incredibly moved, so happy, to hear these words from this All Might that is so different from the one he’s always known. To other kids who have quirks already, powerful or not, they can easily look to the All Might that the world sees and be inspired by him (see: Bakugou), just like Izuku did all his life, be inspired by the power of that All Might, but this new All Might becomes infinitely more relatable to Izuku, just like a child in a hospital, who can look at Toshinori’s character (heart) and body instead, that is so strong despite being so frail at the same time, and can think “If he can do everything he does like he is, then maybe even I can, too.” And what makes it even more poignant to me is knowing that, ultimately, Toshinori essentially tells Izuku what he himself has been wanting someone to reassure him of for the past five years, too; he not only sees the younger, quirkless him in the boy, but also sees the him of now, who has been losing hope and confidence rapidly under crippling weakness for years, and hasn’t had anyone to convince him that he still matters and can do good for the world.

There’s a post I’ve seen that talks about the advice “never meet your heroes, because they’re sure to disappoint you” and how this ends up being subverted when Izuku meets All Might, and it’s absolutely true. What’s so beautiful is that meeting All Might, and seeing all of his many, many flaws, actually causes him to admire him more instead of less. Everything that Toshinori despises about himself, feels guilty over, are what leads to Izuku having an even greater amount of respect for him than ever before, knowing the human side of him, the person beneath the hero; his strength despite his physical ailments is already something Izuku is moved by, but then later finding out that All Might, too, started out quirkless, just like him, causes him to feel even closer to him, and more hopeful that he can become a great hero. He no longer remains simply a fanboy of All Might, but rather, someone who intimately cares about him as a human, as his savior, as his teacher, as his father figure, and finds so much in common with him. The “buff” All Might is everyone else’s All Might, but Toshinori is Izuku’s All Might, the person who told him he could become a hero, the person who shared his heroic spirit and dreams and lack of a quirk as a kid just like him, the person who is reckless just like him, and caring and strong (yet weak) and everything Izuku is and aspires to be. Izuku knows for the entire period All Might is still able to use One For All that his time is running out, that his era is rapidly coming to an end -- and he does cry when that end finally comes, mourns for the ending of the greatest hero he has ever known and the person he looks up to more than anyone else in the world, but even when that happens, his respect and admiration for All Might still does not waver one bit. Even when he can’t fight anymore, Izuku forever considers him All Might, and he’ll never stop doing so: from the moment he tells him he can become a hero, “All Might” and “Toshinori” blend together to him, and becomes someone he eternally loves and respects all the stronger, someone he wants to make proud, someone who he never wants to stop teaching him, and being there for him. All Might starts off as a vague, figurehead idol to Izuku, an image of someone that he loves from far away, and comes to him and becomes a person, and Izuku grows to love that normal, ordinary person more than he loves any other hero. It is the best and most touching version of a “meeting your hero” story that I can think of, where their flaws are embraced, and shown positively, and empowered, adding to their best qualities instead of taking anything away.

And Izuku’s love for Toshinori is, quite literally, saving his life.

As I alluded to, after sustaining his injuries, it’s clear that Toshinori falls into a deep depression, and changes vastly from the person he was when he first started out and for most of his career. After Nana is killed by All For One, he momentarily loses himself to anger and acts selfishly over the selfless duties of a hero, and tries to murder AFO out of revenge, and nearly dies as a result. Besides the obvious ensuing terrible trauma and ptsd he would have had to deal with, and an excruciatingly long recovery period (with probably many relapses), on top of his continued grief over losing his master, not being able to work nearly as much as he could before is absolutely devastating to Toshinori. Being All Might, helping people, saving people, being a hero is what he considers his only real value, which is why he desperately and recklessly continues pushing himself to keep working for however many hours he can, even if it hurts his body, even if his “All Might” smile and jovial personality turns fake and becomes a facade only for the peoples’ sake, not something he genuinely feels anymore, because to Toshinori, if he can’t be the number one hero anymore, he is nothing.

Toshinori has never been in it for the fame or glory; from day 1, from the moment he told Nana about his idea of becoming a “symbol” for people to rely on to keep their world safe for them, so they don’t let their fear lead them into crime, he has always been incredibly humble about everything he does, and extremely self-sacrificial. Of course, a hero needs to be selfless, at least to a degree (Ochako might be doing it for personal gain, but her desire to help people is still 100% genuine, for example), but after the major turning point is his life is when Toshinori begins to take it too far. When he goes after All For One is the sole time that he loses sight of how a hero is supposed to act, and he is punished severely for it, and continues to punish himself in order to make up for his mistake and do what he believes is his necessary duty, having completely forgotten how it felt to want to be a hero, for himself, for his own dream. Being the Symbol of Peace no longer is something Toshinori feels truly passionate about, like he did in the past, but now something he does on autopilot, something that he feels like he has to continue doing just because he’s already done it for so long, been so famous and so relied on for so long, even though it’s utterly exhausting for him, exhausting on his body and exhausting on his mental state, to keep up his normal upbeat personality that everyone knows and loves, but he continues on because not being able to continue serving the people is worse than literally anything else to Toshinori. He doesn’t have anyone there to prove to him that he has value as a person, not just as a hero, let alone to tell him that it’s okay for him to finally stop and rest. As far as we know, it seems like Gran Torino and Naomasa didn’t try to dissuade him much, and though Nighteye tries, rather violently, his approach isn’t the kind that’s convincing to him, and unfortunately his revelation that Toshinori will die in five or six years if he continues working as a hero seems to backfire, and instead makes him want to continue working more instead of less; he most likely believes that he won’t be around much longer, anyway, with the state of his health, so he’s convinced that he needs to do as much as possible before accepting the inevitable end. And then, Nighteye leaves him, so Naomasa is essentially the only person to support him Toshinori has left (seriously, Nighteye, I know you care; come on!).

But this is why meeting Izuku is so important for Toshinori, as much as it is for Izuku; everything changes for him when he does. At first, all he sees in Izuku is another fanboy, trying to chase a dream that Toshinori knows very well is completely unattainable for him without any power, because of how he can do nothing, is nothing, when he runs over his time limit and can’t use his quirk anymore, and he tries to shut him down as reasonably as possible, even admitting how unfair it is (because everything about himself is unfair now, to him); he knows how he must look to a fan of his, and hates it, and doesn’t have the energy to give him any small amount of hope or comfort, because he hasn’t known what it’s like to have hope in years, so he cannot give out any in return, when to him, now, being a hero is only something that will get you hurt, get you guilt-ridden, and, for someone like Izuku, get you killed. ...But it’s when he sees Izuku in action, sees his pure, unadulterated, selfless desire to help (however foolishly), it’s like a light turns on in his mind again, because actions always speak louder than words, and Toshinori is finally, truly reminded of that feeling, that innate, original, burning desire to be a hero that he had had when he was Izuku’s age, and also quirkless, and Izuku’s passion ignites his own passion once more, after so long, and lets him see the light and inspires him to act.

And because Izuku moves him, awakens something inside him again, like this, he chooses him to be the next One For All inheritor, partly because, as I said, he sees his younger self in him, but also I think because he understands exactly how hopeless Izuku feels, and wants to do something to change that, since he can (since he believes Izuku is worthy); his own dreams have been long since crushed out of helplessness, he doesn’t want this child’s to be too, when he himself got a chance from Nana when he was just like Izuku, back then. The thing is, at first, despite the spark that Izuku initially ignited in Toshinori, he still believes that he is going to be ready to die when the fated time comes, however it may happen; he starts teaching at UA, but knows that his time with One For All is running out, and believes that once it does, or once he dies, whichever comes first, that will be the end of things, and he won’t regret it. He knows he is not a good teacher, not knowing how to help Izuku train One For All so that he doesn’t hurt himself, and he initially believes that it is simply good enough that he managed to pass on his legendary quirk before he died, the one true urgent thing he’d been worried about since he became injured.

But then, over time, Izuku starts changing him.

Slowly, without even realizing it, Toshinori is affected by Izuku’s presence, his admiration for him, his care for him even when he’s in his normal, “inferior” state. He begins to be reminded again, truly, of what it means to be a hero, why he does what he does, why he loved it, and grows to again find value, importance, confidence, in the ideals he created for himself all those years ago, that his master encouraged him to stick to, again, and shows pride in them again, despite his “shameful” and “weak” appearance. The battle at Kamino Ward is truly the turning point for Toshinori, because he goes into it believing that his prophesied death will occur there, while taking down the person who took everything from him in the process, but it’s during that battle that he suddenly truly realizes not only what I said above, but also that it’s not enough anymore for him to simply win here, it’s not enough anymore for Izuku to solely have One For All on his own: now, All Might wants to live. He wants to live for Izuku’s sake, to be there for him and support him and care for him, and for his own sake as well, because Izuku has become more than just his successor to him. He wants to live, wants to defy his fate, he refuses to die, and tells his sworn enemy as much, multiple times, has a true will to live that Toshinori has not felt so strongly ever since his injury, and it’s thanks to his students, his fellow teachers, but more than anything else, Izuku. Because Izuku never takes advantage of him, never takes him for granted, never scorns him, never makes him feel as weak as Toshinori always felt; Izuku looks at him as if he’s the sun in the sky, he respects him, trusts and wants his guidance, he loves him, and in the same way that Toshinori empowered him on that day by telling him he could become a hero, Izuku gives strength to him right back, every single day, simply by being with him, and letting him know how much he needs him, how much he can do for him.

yeah I just wanted an excuse to put these panels cause they fucking kill me bye Just as much as Toshinori no longer wants to accept death, is determined to fight against it, Izuku is determined to stand by his side and make sure he succeeds in that, by helping him and protecting him however he can. No matter how many years pass, and how much stronger Izuku becomes, and how much weaker and more “unneeded” for his training and guidance Toshinori becomes, Izuku will never, ever, ever give up on him, or stop wanting him and believing in him. It is for Izuku’s sake that Toshinori has come as far as he has, not just mentally and emotionally, but even physically: he’s making a conscious effort to wear clothes that fit him now (obviously, now he can, without his quirk, but I think it says something that he’s made the change at all, since he doesn’t have to if he doesn’t wish to), and he’s trying to get in shape as much as is possible for him; anything he can do to extend his lifespan even a little bit more, for Izuku, something he didn’t care about at all before meeting him.

And of course he doesn’t want to simply live; he tries to make a conscious effort to become a better teacher, that Izuku desperately needs, even though Toshinori knows he’s not good at it. He realizes how important it is that Izuku stop injuring himself, stop being so recklessly heroic, lest he get himself into a deadly situation just like he did six years ago (something that Toshinori had to have thought about initially, when he first turned Izuku down that day, but since became ignorant of after giving him One For All and not knowing at all how to handle the teaching/mentoring side of things), and implores Izuku’s mother to let him continue teaching him and helping him become a hero, not only because of how deeply he’s come to care about the boy, but because of how much he genuinely believes he can achieve his dream, and how much he wants to make sure things go right with him, after everything in his own life went so horribly, depressingly wrong. Wants to make sure that he doesn’t lose his precious mentor, his source of guidance, the way Toshinori did, doesn’t want him to have to struggle alone, wants to make sure he can have someone to share his feelings with, someone to lean on, so he never has to hide anything, someone he can get everything he needs from, because Toshinori, as the number one hero, has been through it all. Toshinori wants to pour his all into Izuku, protect him, raise him, lift him up, as his successor and who is basically like a son to him, after everything Izuku has given him in return, after he has done nothing but save him the entire time they’ve known each other.

And that’s ultimately the core of their relationship, in the end: two people who saved each other, are still saving each other, in the most poignant and moving of ways. Both of them acknowledge somehow that the other being there is what kept them going. For Toshinori, I most certainly believe Izuku is why he is still alive today, and I honestly believe the same for Izuku as well. Without All Might, Izuku would not have made it through the bullying, and the pitying, and the loneliness and despair, and without Toshinori, he wouldn’t have been blessed with the gift he’s been given, wouldn’t be able to being living out his dream and trying to achieve it, wouldn’t have found friends, best friends, people to talk to, happiness, encouragement, support, strength, and above all, a father figure who he adores almost as much as his mother. Without Izuku, Toshinori wouldn’t have been given someone to guide, and nurture, and protect and want to see grow, wouldn’t, I believe, have had the same relationships with the teachers and students at UA, wouldn’t have been given a family, a son, a reason after he lost One For All to keep getting himself out of bed every day and keep living. Izuku and All Might parallel each other in so many beautiful ways: both of them begin quirkless, but hopeful, with strong ideals, a desire to do good, and kind and earnest hearts, and eventually they lose their way, Izuku gradually and hesitantly, and All Might drastically, devastatingly, and messily, agonizingly and bleakly, though both of them retain their kindness despite their internal despair, and then they meet each other and... save each other, become each other’s world, give each other so much. They both look past what they consider to be their weaknesses, and see the beauty and potential in each other, and bring out the best in each other, make each other happy.

More than anything else, All Might must live to the end of the series. He must. At the beginning, he started off depressed, dying, and ready to die, but now he is hopeful, still weak, still disabled, still dying, in a way, but trying so damn hard to live, and he deserves it so much. His arc is all about him doing everything he can to make sure that happens; he “should” have died at Kamino Ward, if this were any other series, he would have, but he didn’t, because he knew Izuku needed him, just like he needs Izuku. I want him to live, I want him to age, and become old and grey, and to need more help and need technology to help him (give him a cane, give him a wheelchair, give him oxygen, give him everything), but still be alive, alive to see Izuku become a great hero just like he always knew he would be, alive to see him graduate and get married and have children, and see that for all his other students too. I want him to live, for himself, for Izuku, and for everyone in the audience who he touches, just like he does to me. I see myself in Izuku, in his emotional state and his insecurities and his tears and his uncertainty about what he can accomplish, and I see myself in All Might, in his body (so much of his body) and his pain and his frustration and his shame and his insecurities. Both of them represent what it feels like to be disabled, in different ways, literally and figuratively, and being shown that you still matter, that you’re still important and can do so much greatness, and are given the opportunity to do so, to go beyond.

That is why All Might and Izuku matter, why My Hero Academia’s hopeful, uplifting, and inspirational outlook matters. The two of them are each other’s heroes, not because of any grand spectacle, but because they made each other feel needed, important, and strong when no one else was there to give that to them, at their lowest points. That’s why they are, to me, one of the absolute best mentor/mentee relationships in anime and manga, ever.

All Might will always be there for Izuku in some shape or form... but please, Horikoshi, from the bottom of my heart, let him live. He’s still important, always will be. Don’t let him fade into irrelevance. Don’t let him die.

Izuku needs him. I do, too.

(and let him wear this outfit in canon, it’s so badass; look at those oxygen tanks! SO MUCH POTENTIAL)

“Between my inferior self, and the world that surrounds me, I form an image and try to grasp it, but it feels so far away.

That endlessly expanding sky held no clear destination, so I started to feel scared. But no matter how many times I stumbled, you were right there, smiling.”

- “Heroes” by Brian The Sun

“And when it gets too hard, and nothing seems to work, I think about the reason why you kept pushing forward. I’m meant to be the savior but you saved me instead, I tried to hold your hand but you just held me in the end.

But then what’s left for me? With no one else around, I’m stuck here with the guilt that I can’t be left alone now. But keep looking ahead because you know that you should, and don’t be sad it changed, because I’m happy that it could!

And when I feel like giving up and doubting myself, I think of every letdown, the pain that I felt. But the things that I have lost are now the weapons I wield, each one of them a flower that is always concealed.”

- “Long Hope Philia” by Masaki Suda

[thecloserkin]

fic rec: Dante’s Stars by Pretani

fandom: A Series of Unfortunate Events

pairing: Violet Baudelaire/Klaus Baudelaire

word count: 94k, complete

Is it canon: Yes

Is it explicit: Yes

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: I’m fucking crying it’s so beautiful

Bottom line: The one and only Violet/Klaus epic, read it and bawl your eyes out (def read the warnings first tho)

It’s a canon-divergence AU where the Baudelaires stage their own deaths to escape Count Olaf. In canon the three Baudelaire orphans—inventor Violet, bookworm Klaus, and baby Sunny—are hounded from guardian to guardian by cartoonish villain Olaf, who will stop at nothing to get his hands on their fortune. Olaf murders or incapacitates every single adult who spares two seconds of sympathy for these kids, leaving a wide swathe of destruction in his wake. In this fic the Baudelaires have decided to wipe the slate clean and assume new identities.

I have mentioned in the past how salty I am about the Baudelaires’ characters being sidelined for Snicket the narrator, Olaf the villain, and/or sundry other bit-players (in the Netflix show the Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender p much steals every scene they’re in). In canon we’re not really privy to the kids’ inner lives. This fic avoids that pitfall by sticking with tightly focused third-person Violet and Klaus POVs.

The thing this fic does really well is instill a pervasive sense of dread/paranoia which is remarkable because for the first 25% absolutely nothing ominous happens. The orphans get taken in by a slightly addled, very nice old lady and they just … live in her house. For free. While she cooks for them. And every morning Violet and Klaus hook up in her barn.

Ok back up so the ship they’re passengers on goes down in a storm, all hands lost, the Baudelaires are presumed drowned with the rest. Which is positively providential. The first event of any import to occur is that Klaus swipes some cash from a dead man’s wallet. Violet has ethical qualms but Klaus quashes them by pointing out that Sunny’s starving:

”I’d do anything for her,” he said. “Even become a thief or a murderer.”

Then his dark eyes found Violet’s. “I’d do it for you, too.”

So on the one hand I think this is rather extra. I mean, what possible use could a dead man have had for that money? Money that could put actual food in Sunny’s stomach. The Baudelaires are keenly aware that justice does not equal unquestioning obedience to authority and I think their exposure to a raft of tyrannical and unjust authority figures has hammered that home. They’re down with bending the rules because they know the rules are never even-handedly applied anyway (ie. the show trial at Hotel Denouement, the farcical final exam at Prufrock Academy). On the other hand I remember how uneasy they felt about stealing Hal’s keys in Hostile Hospital, and that was barely a misdemeanor! A friend of mine astutely pointed out how Violet is always trying to behave in any given situation the way their parents would have wished, whereas Klaus takes a pragmatic approach: do whatever keeps his sisters safe. And that is a very interesting contrast and one I want to see explored further.

They get on a train. Things that happen: Klaus notices when Violet is down in the dumps or angry or upset or in this case, wistfully jealous of other people who lead “normal” lives, bustling all around them. He’s not in love with her yet but noticing is the first step. Violet atm is super focused on being the elder sister, the adult in the room, the One In Charge. They get off the train and as soon as they blow into town Violet gets catcalled and propositioned. One of the themes of this fic is the horrendous baseline level of violence against women, some of it normalized and casual like the catcalling. The Big Bad Villain of the piece is literally a guy who’s murdered multiple girlfriends on account of them fridging his ass, since he appears to think that women owe him sex. And this man’s driving ambition is to add Violet to his list of conquests.

So often, men treated her as little more than an object … Klaus was different. He saw her, the woman she was inside.

HOW COULD SHE NOT FALL FOR HIM?? Is there another man she could learn to trust enough to fall in love with? However I’m getting ahead of the story. Klaus is still in the phase where he’s awakening to his attraction to Violet:

She was mother and sister, soft skin and tender strength, and he hid his face in her neck. Like a child, she rocked him gently, cradling his head.

I have to protect her, even if it’s from myself.

He couldn’t take this, his brave, beautiful sister, so near … the knowledge of what those men wanted to do to her. I”ll kill them … And what he wanted …

God but it kills me, Klaus thinking that his attraction to Violet is as noxious as those vile men and their rapacious stares. Klaus himself otoh is president of the Violet Baudelaire Fan Club. The contrast could not be more marked. Look at him building her up when she’s about ready to to give up on picking a lock because she’s lost her hair ribbon:

”I’m done, Klaus. I don’t have anything else to give”. ”Vi … “ he was pleading, willing her to believe in herself again, because he did. “You’re a brilliant inventor,” he told her. “It’s who you are. Nothing can take that away. You don’t need your ribbon.”

The unwarranted parallel that he draws between himself and a bunch of sexual predators is the source of so much angst and pining:

Is that what I am? A pervert?

She’ll blame herself for this

Well, well, well, if it isn’t ye olde I’m-Leaving-Her-For-Her-Own-Good-Lest-My-Perverted-Attraction-To-Her-Despoil-Her-Innocence. I am absolute trash for it every time, film at 11.

”I love you, Vi … I’m in love with you.” He said it like he was confessing to a crime, and she wanted to scream, to laugh and cry all at once.

THEIR LOVE IS A CRIME!!! Could these babies be more pure??

They’d always had an extraordinary connection. It was the reason for their seamless partnership, their ability to support one another … But now, the bond that had kept them alive was killing him. How could anything ever be right again?

”Vi, I’m sorry … I want to be your brother, but I can’t … I want to be more than that … I don’t know what to do.” ”Kiss me,” she said, “and be both.”

THATS IT THATS A WRAP I CAN NOW DIE HAPPY. That “kiss me and be both” is PERFECTION.

And she knew she’d never willingly give herself to anyone but him.

she’d loved him even then. Who could tell when they had crossed the line? It was already too late.

cross the line what line??? they were made for each other.

”You know, we missed the sunrise,” he said, nose to nose with his sister.

Violet and Klaus carve an extra hour out of their morning to go make out in the barn. I shit you not these kids spend a whole month without progressing past first base because Klaus doesn’t want to “pressure” Violet into anything she’s not ready for. Violet, for her part, is beginning to suspect there’s something wrong with her person; why hasn’t he even tried to take her top off? Thank you #Patriarchy for teaching us that desirability is the measure of a woman’s worth. God they are so thirsty. This bitch almost fell over the first time he touched her tits:

“Vi,” he spoke into her hair, voice breaking. “Tell me you don’t want this. Tell me to —“ But she only titled her head, to meet his mouth in a feverish kiss.

So Klaus and Sunny are having a snow fight and Violet tugs her glove off to tousle his hair and it’s THE SEXIEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN BYE. True story after I read this fic I legitimately thought that “Vi” was a pet name Klaus called her by in canon, and when I finally finished the books much much later and realized that it wasn’t—well, it should have been.

There is a fairy tale about a princess who disguises herself in the skin of a donkey to escape the attentions of her lecherous father the king. Violet and Sunny discuss it. Violet points out that rape is wrong because rape is rape, because it is coercive, not because it’s incest. I love it when fic highlights the fairytale parallels to the Baudelaires’ situation, and I feel like Donkeyskin was such a spot-on choice because it’s all about surviving sexual assault and learning to make oneself vulnerable again afterwards? Klaus is the prince who sees through her disguise and falls head over heels in love with her CHANGE MY MIND. On the subject of happily ever after:

”Is that what you think I want? A fairytale? A walk down the aisle in a white dress?" He felt a lump forming in his throat. "Most girls think about those things, don't they?" "I don't," she told him. "I prefer not to. And as for children…well…I love them. That's why I don't want any of my own … how selfish would I be, to bring another little life into this? Another hostage they could use against us. Imagine how awful it would be if…" She shook her head. "No children… not ever. I couldn't protect them." And she turned to him with a soft look. "It's no sacrifice, Klaus. Not for me. I've already been through a… a wedding, you know." He felt her shudder, and she averted her eyes. "I won't be sorry if I never see another wedding dress again."

My dudes, when you have children each and every one of them is a hostage to fortune because of course they are. Also, Violet’s traumatized by the whole idea of being a bride, after going through the wringer of her fake wedding to Olaf. Olaf put Sunny in a cage to compel her compliance, and that’s what the Big Bad in this fic does too. He says things like “You’re a sick little bitch, aren’t you? Spreading your legs for your own brother” which turns their beautiful relationship into this ugly depraved thing to be ashamed of. I mean, this guy was literally a voyeur who would watch them from his hidey-hole while they were being intimate?? My god I would feel so unclean. And the worst part is, he overheard them calling each other by their real names not their aliases, so now he knows who they are and since the Baudelaires are still on the lamb this is bad. It gets pretty dark pretty fast.

“He won't want you anymore! No one's gonna want you when we're done!"

So he kidnaps and rapes Violet. Klaus and Sunny rescue her, dispatch the villain (Klaus’s earlier “I’d do anything” for his sisters, including becoming “a thief or a murderer,” acquires sudden resonance), and that’s when fucking Count Olaf shows up!!!! These kids just cannot catch a break. Turns out the Big Bad was actually working for Count Olaf all along. Olaf’s plan is still the same plan from The Bad Beginning where he plotted to steal the Baudelaire fortune by marrying Violet. Since Count Olaf has never in his life paid a henchman a salary, he was keeping the Big Bad sweet by promising to let him ravish Violet first. Let the full enormity of that sink in. Oh wait a minute Olaf isalso bent on knocking Violet up asap so the union can’t be dissolved on non-consummation grounds, or somesuch:

"You look at me as if I were a usurper, boy, about to steal something of yours. Tell me…" He gestured at Violet. "Is she yours?"

Why would you do this to me??????? This is so, so painful. Olaf uses an electric cattle prod on Klaus and makes Violet watch??? It’s ok though the Baudelaires prevail in the end, and emerge from the bloodstained ordeal as the family they are. My kink will forever be Violet and Klaus praising each other’s bravery and resourcefulness. They! Are! So! Proud! and! Supportive! Of! Each! Other! This line from earlier in the fic gets me every time:

I’ve failed them. This was his greatest fear, worse than death or any torment fate could devise. In his head, he imagined the struggle, saw his girls beaten and shot, felt each blow and bullet as if his own body were the target instead.

Klaus Baudelaire laying down his own body between the world and his sisters is really the only thing I care about:

And then her gaze fell to the marred canvas of his body.

I bet his back is a mess of burn marks ugh. Four weeks after Violet’s discharged from the hospital (practical Violet made sure to get the green light from the medical professionals) they finally have sex again, which is a relief—after the rape they were both hesitant to initiate sex because she thought she was damaged goods and he thought she wanted space? Silly kids. Oh and and here they are being mistaken by strangers for a pair of lovebirds:

One of the women sighed dreamily. "Did you ever see a more likely pair of turtledoves?" "Of course not," Mr. Poe sputtered, dabbing his brow with a handkerchief. "The very idea!" And he excused himself hurriedly, to make some phone calls. "Don't be silly," said the other. "They're siblings. Haven't you heard? … They're the Baudelaire orphans." "Well, I daresay," the first one went on, "anyone would've taken them for sweethearts."

I CANNOT WITH THESE TWO

The Baudelaires finally, finally come into their fortune free and clear. They put on their parents’ wedding rings and move to Canada. A cat (!!!) leaves baby Beatrice II in a basket outside their front door, and that completes their family. Nobody deserves good things more than these kids, and this fic ends exactly where it ought, describing “a rural life of moral simplicity.”

I read this fic years ago and it was w i l d rereading it again, thanks for coming along for the ride. If anyone wants to scream/cry about this fic in particular, or Violet and Klaus in general, feel free to send me an ask or message me ANYTIME

[favouriteentertainer-blog]

Chapter 1 - Never Seen Me Coming

“And what if love is lonely”

“Hmmmmm,” I replied to what Daniel was saying, I hadn’t been listening, but I knew he’d been rambling about something unimportant.

“Are you even listening to me?” He questioned, noticing that I was more enamoured with what was happening outside the cafe, rather than the words falling from his mouth.

I turned away from the window and smiled curtly, “of course I am babe.” I reached over and reassuringly brushed his knuckles with my thumb. I was good at lying, I had been good at lying for almost 3 months.

He smiled back—genuinely. A familiar sense of sadness panged in my chest—I was hurting him, and he didn’t even know it. Was I cheating? No. Was I thinking about cheating? Definitely not. I just wasn’t happy and I wasn’t investing my time in him. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d made me laugh or the last time I’d properly listened to what he’d had to say. We had drifted apart—we wanted different things and neither of us was making any effort to change. But I was the worse of the two parties, at least he was still trying to love me—I was a horrible human being and I wanted so badly to change.

I was too busy focusing on myself and the regret I had for treating him like shit that I didn’t even notice he’d started talking again. “Daniel—"I interrupted him, I decided it was time to finally do the right thing. “I have to break up with you.” My cheeks were flushing red as all the blood in my body rushed to my face. My heart was beating a mile a minute and suddenly the wool sweater I was wearing was the itchiest it had ever been.

“What?” He blinked a few times and I watched regretfully as the colour drained from his face.

The waiter who’d been cleaning the table next to ours winced—Daniel didn’t notice, but I did. I hung my head in shame, he’d probably seen us there at least twice a week.

“I’m sorry,” I spoke the words so quietly they were almost inaudible. “I just don’t love you anymore and I’ve tried but I can’t, I don’t want to live this lie anymore.” I was such a horrendous person I couldn’t even bring myself to cry—but not him, no, he was on the verge of tears.

“You don’t mean that do you?” He reached out for my hand.

“I’m sorry—“ I pulled away with lightning speed, “I do.”

He looked so ashamed of himself—but it wasn’t his fault, it was mine, wholeheartedly mine.

“And what if love is lonely.” He shook his head in disappointment as he recited one of his favourite quotes. “God,” he pushed the seat away from the table, he was still shaking his head “fuck.” He muttered as he fumbled for his coat, “I have to go.”

I didn’t try to stop him I just nodded. “I’m sorry,” I repeated myself, it was all I knew how to say in these kinds of situations.

The waiter who had been ardently polishing the table for way longer than he should have been looked towards me. “Is he going to be okay?” He asked boldly—as if it were his business.

I scoffed, “I don’t think so.”

“You’ve wanted to do that for months.” He said pointedly, “so why didn’t you do it earlier?” Again, he was asking questions he didn’t need the answers to.

“I’m sorry but that’s none of your business,” I retorted—who did he think he was?

“I’m sorry,” he shook his head, “I know it’s none of my business, I’ve just been watching you two for months now. You’re the only couple who ever come in here regularly, it’s hard not to notice the way you’ve changed over time.”

I was struck by his comment, “that’s really fucking weird—“ I squinted to take a look at his name tag “Zayn.”

He smiled, “not as weird as you think—I’m a behavioural science major, it’s kind of my job.”

“Sounds like a fake degree.” I joked it was better than my media communications major.

“Oh yeah? And what do you study then?” He arched an eyebrow.

I bit my lip nervously—I’d shot myself in the foot. “Media communications.”

“Ha!” He cackled, “yeah, my degree is definitely the fake one.” He shot a cheeky wink my way.

I couldn’t help but laugh—I’d just broken up with my boyfriend and I was laughing with the waiter of my on campus coffee shop. I slapped my palm to the middle of my forehead. “I am a horrible human being.” I groaned. “Horrible, horrible, horrible.”

“Look—if you want my opinion, not that it matters. I think you broke up with him mentally a while ago. You’ve already been through all the stages of guilt, you’re not a horrible person for not feeling bad about it. Take your time out now to figure out what you really want from life.”

I blinked in surprise, he’d really made some sense of it all. “Fuck, you really are a behavioural scientist hey?”

“I should fucking hope so. Look if you wanna sit for a bit that’s cool, but when you decide to leave don’t worry about the bill, it’s on me.” He gave me a genuine smile and finally stopped pretending to polish the damn table. “I’ll see you around.”

—

I lay still in my bed, staring up at my bedroom ceiling. The ominous glow from my salt lamp was keeping me awake, but I didn’t have the energy to get up and turn it off. The weight of disappointment was running me dry—I was so damn upset with myself. Not because of what I’d done to Dan the poor soul, but because I’d spent my whole afternoon thinking about the damn barista.

Zayn had made a good point, I had already broken up with Daniel months ago in my mind. Each day I spent with him was out of pity, not love. As bad as it sounded I knew it was true—but I also knew it was wrong to have another guy on my mind so soon after.

I kept trying to tell myself that it was okay—it was perfectly reasonable to find people attractive, but he was just—just not what I needed. I mentally tried to shut out the thought of him, but I couldn’t. His stupid brown eyes and unnecessarily sharp jaw line kept popping up without notice.

I picked up a pillow from beside me and shoved it into my face, letting out a little scream in the process—why was I like this?!

I made a mental note to try and avoid the cafe. I needed to make sure that I drummed it out of my head, even if that meant walking a few hundred metres extra to get some coffee.

My phone chirped from beside me, I reached down to get it from my bedroom floor. I hadn’t gotten round to procuring some bedside tables so there was an extension cord running from one corner of my room to the bed so that I could charge my phone.

“Aj: Come and watch a movie with me I am bored.”

I sighed and rolled over. It was only 10pm and there was no way I was going to sleep before 3am—not to mention I really needed a distraction. I also hadn’t told AJ about my break up with Dan yet, so I was going to have to do that and the odds of him having made food were high. I was damn hungry, I’d been too upset with myself to bother doing anything when I got back home—so I did what I do best and I just lay in my bed.

My best friend was lovely, but what he lacked was empathy. I could tell him that my granny died and he’d just nod and say “gosh why do people have to die?” and then start telling me about his last male conquest—it was indeed something. He did, however, have the talent of being honest with you no matter how sorry you were feeling for yourself, so I knew I had to see him.

I didn’t bother to change, he was only two flights of stairs away and security had seen me at my ugliest, so I was fine. I shoved on a pair of slides and grabbed my house key before trudging out the door.

-

“You look like shit,” AJ spoke bluntly as he opened the door—he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxers, a yellow t-shirt and a blue robe.

“Fuck you.” I pushed past him and made my way towards his room. “Your apartment smells like crap—“ I gagged, it honestly smelt like someone had died.

“Yeahhhhh—“ he sighed heavily, “I was only gone for the weekend and someone left raw chicken in the bin and now Andrea is refusing to take them out because she’s a vegetarian.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “so I guess you’ll have to take them out then?” He was always pulling the weight for his flat and that’s why they took advantage.

“Like always,” he rolled his eyes, “everyone in this damn apartment is useless.” He ushered me into his room and away from the putrid smell.

“You give them the upper hand” I shrugged, “it’s your own fault.” I shut his room door behind me before plopping myself down on the edge of his bed.

“Sooooo.” I waited for him to sit down at his desk.

“Mmmm?” He hummed in curiosity as he opened his laptop and loaded up Netflix.

“I broke up with Dan,” I spoke so fast it sounded like I had verbal diarrhoea.

“Wait—“ he snapped his laptop closed, “you finally broke up with that boring piece of crap and what it only took you TWO years?” His mouth hung open as he stared at me intently waiting for the gossip.

“Stop!” He didn’t deserve AJ trash talking him, especially because he did nothing wrong. “He didn’t do anything bad, I just fell out of love.”

“What is love?” He raised an eyebrow in question. “We’re only 21, I doubt we know what it means yet.” He grabbed his water bottle to take a sip.

He was right, I don’t think I was ever entirely in love with Dan. If I were I imagine it would’ve felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest right now.

“I dunno, I just feel bad—like I can’t fault him. I broke up with him in the damn coffee shop.” I decided to omit the whole bonding with Zayn part afterwards, he’d make a big deal out of it.

“You can’t but I definitely can. The guy was boring, he always told you off for wanting to go out and have fun, he never joined in and he ALWAYS stared at other girls’ asses.” He slammed his water bottle down dramatically.

“Well—“ I looked down at my sad excuse for a bum, “I don’t blame him!”

“Oh my God!” AJ rolled his eyes, “he was gross, you are much better off now.”

“Bleeeeeh,” I let myself fall back onto his bed. “I’m not even sad, I should be sad.” I still couldn’t get over how emotionally drained I was.

“Can we stop talking about this—“ he silenced me, “there is no need to be sad and I want to watch my movie, so can we get on with it?” There it was, his lack of empathy and brutal honesty, rolled into one.

I waved my hand in the air, motioning for him to proceed. “Do you have any food?” I asked meekly, my poor soul was in need some of some charity.

“Yeah I made chicken curry and rice, you need to heat it up yourself tho.” He loaded up The Avengers and I literally rolled off his bed.

“God bless you.” I patted him on the head, “you are a golden child.”

He smacked my hand away, “by the way.” He stopped me before I could go into the kitchen. “My cousin is coming to stay this week, his girlfriend kicked him out two weeks ago and he hasn’t found a place to stay.”

“Shame, but what do I have to do with this?” I asked curiously. Too bad for the guy, I guess it was the season of breakups.

“Well number one, you can’t sleep here this week, and two we’re going out for dinner on Wednesday.” I was sad about the sleeping part. Whenever Dan wasn’t staying over at mine, I’d take refuge on AJ’s blow up mattress in the corner of his room so that I wouldn’t feel lonely. I had very bad anxiety when it came to being alone. I always needed to be with someone, but I was trying my best to work on it. I think that’s why I stayed with Dan for so long, because I was afraid of being alone.

“Yeah whatever, just tell me when to meet you.”

—

“Oh God—“ I spoke with my mouth full as I stared down at the caller ID on my phone.

“What?” AJ paused the movie and stared at me.

“Look who it is!” I swallowed the barely chewed food and motioned for him to look at the phone that was vibrating against my thigh.

“Ugh.” He shot me a look of disgust as Dan’s name flashed across the screen. “I always told you, you weren’t suited to him.”

“Why?” I rolled my eyes, he just couldn’t understand that it was me, not Dan that was the issue.

“Because he is an overly sensitive white boy who likes to silence you when you explain your culture to him, he wouldn’t even try seeing things from your perspective.” He aggressively unwrapped a mini milka and shoved it in his mouth.

“Okay so I tried explaining cultural appropriation to him once and he didn’t get it what’s the big deal?” My phone was still ringing.

“I think that in itself says a lot. Let alone him playing the ‘I’m not racist, my girlfriend is Indian’ card, fuck that.”

“Okay,” I admitted, “that was wrong, but he wasn’t racist—he was just ignorant.” Saying that out loud made me realise how wrong I was. “Oh—“ I paused “I see what you mean! But I honestly don’t think he ever meant harm.” I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but there were definitely times where he said things and I had to pause for a second and think “wow, what should I say?” Like when he said refugees were lying about why they wanted to enter the UK and that’s why we needed to leave the EU—I almost had an aneurysm explaining that situation to him. Or whenever he would tell me that he loved that he was dating me because I didn’t look Indian, I looked “exotic.” At the time it didn’t seem weird but reflecting on it made me really uncomfortable.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “You had to fall out of ‘love’ for a reason.”

The phone stopped ringing.

[brutalmeows]

This is just my rant.

I have been manipulative, when I met James, Josh had asked me to marry him a few days prior to meeting James. I dropped everything for James and things were pretty good. I told him if we ever broke up, I would kill myself NOT because I didn't want him to leave me or that I needed him to stay but because I was so sick of getting so invested and losing myself in a person. That was manipulative of me but at the time I had no idea that it was. I was used to things being like that from my family being the way they are, especially my mom.. come to find out, that was just part of my BPD diagnosis. I began having to walk on egg shells with him because he would accuse me and question me and therefore (due to BPD) become defensive and upset. This continued over the last year, year and a half of our relationship. He treated me poorly, ranging from yelling at me if I was few minutes late getting off work, not even attempting to communicate in my love language like I tried his, telling me I was stupid, purposely ignoring me, gaslighting me, confusing me and not even attempting to understand my mental health issues. He broke up with me one night while we were watching Ghost Adventures, and as I sat there crying asking him why, telling him that love was enough, to give me a chance. He told me you make me want to kill myself. And thats when I lost all respect and trust for him, I don't care how mad, over, or done you are with someone, I'd never do that to someone I even care about, let alone someone you know is literally being ripped apart. I spent weeks trying to get him to come back, and it worked. He was still putting minimum effort, and thats when I met Jarod. Jarod is a super manipulative person. He has a past of splitting up relationships including a marriage, cheating, and overall being a horrendous person but the one thing that he had going for him is that he knew how to treat me, and still treat me better than James did. He essentially raped me the first night after me repeatedly telling him no, please no. But a sick part of my mind continued to allow him over because he was giving me the attention that James couldn't or wouldn't even though it made me so physically sick that I was hurting James like this. People continued to encourage that, told me to be with Jarod, and so I did. That night I left James, I told him I was done. I was crying so hard that he didn't hear me, I ignored him for days after that before realizing he still thought we had a chance and then I wanted to give him that chance.

So everyone wants to talk about horrendous I am, needs to understand I'm fighting a mental illness that I had no fucking idea about until a few months ago, a mental illness that in the state of Florida they allow you to be euthanized for it because it so determental to your health and to the relationships of those around you.

Teila is a whole another story. I needed to escape from her, and I fucking loved her. She told me she was done, so I moved on and come to find out she had been moving on that entire time that I was struggling and trying to work things out with her. People who cheat or whatever mind you tend to project their issues on to you. Our entire relationship she was the most insecure and needy human being on the planet. And her true colors really were shown this past week. I'd never hurt someone in the ways she hurt me and allowed me to be hurt, not only that but she talked shit on me to everyone. All I was doing was working on myself without the stress of her. So I am glad that she doesn't get to see the sweet loving part of me that she got to in the beginning again. And

All I want is to grow and heal from damage that nobody fucking cares about or believed anymore. And thats fine, I don't need validation. I just want to be left the fuck alone. So, please. Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone. Please.

I know people want me to die and I'm really about there myself. I keep holding on to the hope that maybe I'm not of bad as a person as these people say... because if I was this bad of a person, I wouldn't be sobbing my eyes out wishing things were different, that I handled things differently, and that I hope every person I have ever loved is doing well despite what they might think of me ♡

[takaraphoenix]

Hellooo I read some posts of yours under the hashtag “Riordan Critical”, and I really liked your opinions. I was curious, what do you think about Magnus Chase’s serie and, more importantly, about representation in his books?

Warning: The following text will contain high levels of salt that will make the dead sea seem sugary.

This turned out longer than intended, so I decided to shorten it here. Klick and read all of it, but seriously, I am overly salty in this, as a heads-up.

Well, what I mainly think about Magnus Chase is that it’s a cash-grab.

Riordan had one really huge hit with Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

He wrote the Kane Chronicles about the Egyptians and they were… not as popular as that. So he decided to crossover and tie-in and essentially try to convert PJatO readers into “Look, here is your Percy! Check those stories out and discover that you might like Carter so you will buy my other books!”.

Then he tackled the Romans, but straight-up went sequel to PJatO with that, because he saw that non-Percy material wasn’t working as well.

And with the Norse he essentially clickbaited.

“Magnus CHASE. Look at that name! What could it mean? Is it perhaps next gen about Percy and Annabeth’s son? But oh why would he have Annabeth’s last name? Oh, I simply NEED to know!”

That… is literally the only purpose that Magnus being Annabeth’s cousin fulfills. To make really-very sure PJatO readers would also read Riordan’s new series.

There is virtually no other reason why those two are cousins. It would have splendidly worked if it was just about Magnus Hunt, or whatever kind of alternative last name you might like. Just something that doesn’t tie it together with PJatO.

So, that was kind of a turn-off for me.

Additionally, as you did notice due to reading my other Riordan Critical posts, I’m not exactly a fan of Heroes of Olympus. It had a lot of potential, but the author didn’t feel the need to explicitely write even half of said potential. It also showed that while Riordan was great at writing kids and dealing with them, he flat-out sucks at teenagers because inexplicably all they seem to care in his mind is romance.

So the idea of a book-series where we right away start off with teenagers already gave me a mighty migraine caused by Riordan’s shipping history.

Another turn-off.

Lastly… please call back your bald eagle and roll up that star-spangled banner, Riordan, America is not the center of the universe.

PJatO was written during a time where yes, America was very centric and even respected. 90s and early 2000s, yes, I agree, America was basically the center of the world. So to have the Greek gods move there, okay. I’m buying it.

But to have the Greek gods live in New York City and then tie the Kane Chronicles also into the same universe and also have the Egyptian gods sit in Brooklyn, New York…

And then add the Romans, who - hey, wow, San Francisco and not New York! What a shock. Such surprise.

Yeah, no, that’s still the US. You could have, at the very least and to make it at least a tiny bit realistic that you’re retconning Romans in, have them be seated in Europe. Instead of also the US. Because sure, totally, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans never-ever run into each other while they all got their home-base in the same damn country.

And now, what a shocker, the Norse gods also moved to the United States of America.

Newsflash: America really actually isn’t the center of the universe and, this might come as a surprise, America is not that popular anymore either.

The sheer egocentrism of having Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Norse gods all abandon their original continents to move to the US kind of makes me nauseous at this point.

No. No, America is not that great. No, not all the gods of the entire world want to move to the country where trans people aren’t allowed to use restrooms anymore, where unarmed black people are shot by the police, where children have to march for the right to not be shot at school, where women have to travel to another state to maybe get an abortion.

No, your country is not that great, Riordan, please stop acting like it.

It’s quite frankly very insulting that Riordan treats Europe like a pesky, underdeveloped little thing that’s not worthy its own gods attention.

I could buy one pantheon moving on the US. I don’t buy four.

If you want to write US centric god stories, how about you give native Americans some rep and start writing about their gods. Who, you know, would thus also just stay in their own country for a change.

I just really can’t accept the fact that he now also moved the Norse gods up to the US and that oh my such coincident, Frey fucked the sister of Annabeth’s dad so now the Chases attracted two different pantheons.

That’s just too much bullshit, click-baiting and things that make me weary from experience with his last series.

So. Yeah. I haven’t read it and nor do I have plans of reading it, because literally not a single thing about it seems worth reading and all the things I just listed make alarm bells go off in my head.

Also, just one more salty add-on: Personally, I think that his representation in Magnus Chase is also click-bait. He realized there is a huge audience for LGBTQ+ characters when he made Nico gay so he is now focusing more on representation for popularity’s sake.

Look, I know that last part in particular is really very bitter and everyone who reads the books and is happy about the representation given in them should. Of course. We don’t get enough rep in YA novels.

Nico di Angelo was handled horrendously. In my opinion.

I loved House of Hades and the plot of Nico coming out to Jason. Don’t get me wrong, not everything Riordan does is awful, obviously I also like a lot of his stuff, otherwise I wouldn’t have read it.

I one hundred percent believe that Nico was intended as gay from the get-go, because the evidence for his canonical love for Percy is all over PJatO. It was good writing. It was a brilliant set-up.

The level of angst Nico dealt with in HoO was good. Realistic, especially for a kid from the 30s.

But then Blood of Olympus ended and Riordan, I don’t know, panicked. He completely rushed and butchered everything that he had been setting up for years now and it is... At its very core, this was the moment where he lost all of my trust, really.

When Nico flippantly confesses to his feelings for Percy in public. A week ago, he couldn’t even admit it in front of Jason and a god, even with high stakes, but all of a sudden he has the confidence to confess not just to being gay but to his feelings for Percy.

And then this utterly rushed job of “Well, he was in love with Percy for years, but over the past five days, he totes 100% got over it and now he has a crush on Only Other Gay, whom he spoke a total of about 5 sentences to”, just because Riordan can’t live without shipping.

Nico had been through so much. Give the boy time. Yes, okay, let him bond with Will, but there was no need to rush the “suddenly over Percy” shit and the coming out of the closet thing.

Riordan’s middle-aged straight man was showing hard there and as a lesbian, who went through the spiel of denial, hiding and coming to terms myself, I felt... I was genuinely emotionally crushed for weeks by what a shitty job he did with Nico’s coming out.

It’s not even about the ship. I never expected Nico and Percy to get together at the end, I’m not an idiot, I know he’d never break his OTP up.

It’s solemnly about the fact that Nico coming out to Percy was handled like a fucking joke. Flippant and fun and “You’re not my type haha now I’m off with Only Other Gay”.

He could have had Nico bonding with Will. He could have had Nico getting over Percy. He could have had Nico confessing to Percy.

But it all needed more time. The book was ending though, so he rushed through it and slapped a shotty, shitty ending to Nico’s coming out arc and it still makes me so intensely angry.

There is just no way that Riordan didn’t know he’d force another sequel outta those books. So there was absolutely no reason to rush it all.

He could have just had it end in the infirmary. Even with Will making his comments and even with Nico being flustered. But end it there.

Give us a Nico who is more settled at Camp Half-Blood and who is more settled with his sexuality and who would have then come out publically and confessed to Percy. Months after that book, in the next series. Time that would have given Nico the chance to fully embrace himself before opening up to others.

But that’s not possible for Riordan. Riordan needs a happy ending and both PJatO as well as HoO proved that happy endings only work with romance. The great happy ending of PJatO was less about the end of the war but had to be celebrated in an overly cheesy underwater kiss between his OTP. The great happy ending for HoO was that Piper and Jason were happy, Frank and Hazel were happy, Percy and Annabeth were planning to go to college together wtf how is that even possible Percy just missed an entire year of school he ain’t graduating high school any time soon, Nico and Will were going off into the sunset together and the grand finale was literally Leo and Calypso flying into the sunset together. Not a single friendship or family based happy ending. It’s all about the romance and everyone has to be in their one true love best by the age of 14 because that is so wildly realistic.

Riordan has so completely lost my trust over the course of Heroes of Olympus that I can’t help but wonder about the actual motivation behind the things he chose to do there, because many of his past decisions really can just be tracked back to money and popularity.

Many of his decisions made in Heroes of Olympus themselves, for example, directly reflect him rolling over onto his back to try and please his readers (-> spoiling the finale of HoO over a year prior to the final book being published by tweeting how none of the Seven will die in the finale. Thanks for taking out all of the suspense). It’s a habit of his and it keeps getting worse and I’m just… not there to stay and witness.

I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t want to continue being dragged down by something when it’s shitty. When something loses quality so drastically, I do the healthy thing - and quit. And I quit after Blood of Olympus and I have absolutely no intention of ever touching another Riordan book again, unless it’s PJatO for rereading purposes - because that was still actual quality.

Now, lastly, on the matter of representation. Well. It’s a bit pathetic?

I mean, PJatO had Charles Beckendorf, who’s black, and Ethan Nakamura, who’s Japanese, and… literally every other character who was in any way or shape important, was white. And the only two POC were killed off during the Titan War.

Then he wrote the sequels. Leo - Latino. Reyna - Latina. Hazel - black. Frank - Asian. Piper - native American.

It was… Let’s be real, it felt like he was trying to cram as much representation in there as humanly possible to make up for how white the first series was. But I wouldn’t particularly call it representation, because aside from stating their ethnical backgrounds, he didn’t really do a lot with it. It had very little effect on the books and on the characters themselves.

There was like one tiny scene of Piper in a flashback with her grandpa and for a second there I thought he was using that to set up the next spin-off books about native American gods, tied in with Piper’s family, but that didn’t happen.

Reyna being Puerto Rican only… came into play when they were in Puerto Rico, but that was also… not really of actual importance. Like, the scenes as they were could have as well happened in Miami with a white girl.

The thing is, I recently watched One Day at a Time and it’s about a family with roots in Cuba and their Cuban heritage is important. They’re by no means reduced to being Cuban, but it’s integrated into the story. It’s important to the plot and it’s important to the characters’ personality. Now that is what I would call representation.

To actually go and do something, work with the ethnical backgrounds you give your characters.

Traditions, language, pride in their heritage. Cultural clashes, maybe.

Like for Hazel, who is a black girl from the 40s and from whom I would have liked to see more wonder or maybe even anger upon what has changed and what hasn’t changed since her childhood. Riordan teased it, a little, in the flashback about Hazel and Sammy, but in the end, that was only mainly for more love-drama too because it wasn’t enough that this 13 year old girl had Frank in love with her and Leo crushing on her, no, it was vital to add some past romantic drama for her.

And that’s just not something Riordan does. He slaps an ethnical background onto the characters and that’s kind of… it. He writes romance novels by now, where everything else has gotten rather secondary.

I can’t speak for Magnus Chase because I haven’t read it. I’m aware there is a Muslima lead, a genderfluid lead and a character who is mute or deaf, I’m unsure about that one I just know ASL is represented in the series in some way.

All of those can be good. If he actually does a good job with it. If it’s just sub-plot stuff that’s tagged on and not worked with, well, that’d be a shame. Personally, I don’t trust him to prioritize any of those things over his shipping, but I’ll hope that it’s good and at the very least, it seems satisfying enough.

Then again... I don’t read too much critical thinking in this fandom and too much blind love for “Uncle Rick” who can’t do no wrong, so... I don’t trust that to reflect how the books really do.

[someonetotaketheedgeoff-blog]

15.09.2018 - Journal

(Some of this was written when I travelled with my family in America in the last 2 months)

4.07.2018

I picked a good time to quit comedy… just moments before Nanette. Maybe I’ll actually do something good if I make music instead of making jokes about fucking myself with an ex-girlfriend’s dildo.

I wont stay up late waiting to go on. Or be brutalised by Open Mic magazine on Facebook. Anything not to upset my fragile sense of self-esteem. There’s not much that's funny to me anymore… oh well… who gives a fuck anyway…

… So Liam goes into his little room and quietly dreams up his last open mic set…. hahaha… comedy can get you pretty fucked up! ... who gives a fuck anyway…

9.07.2018

Whenever I’m in a big city all I hear is it whispering (or perhaps screaming) to me - ‘can I just have some fucking money?!’  

I wonder how much I’m a product of my own fear. And also how much of what I make is a response to that fear.

It’s mostly been about death for me for the last 3 - 5 years. All I’ve done is use death to explain everything. I’ve used it to draw a line under certain things within myself and the exterior world. Seems lazy to me now.

Is laziness the fear of pain? Is a lack of motivation due to fear? A fear of failing?

It seems fear’s only a good motivator when you’re aware of what you’re afraid of and why.

23.07.2018

Travelling in America/being in America’s like being in GTA but you’re not any of the main characters.

24.07.2018

Not doing anything or not trying IS FAILING!

25.07.2018

Saw a guy stop in the subway, put his bag on the ground and re-adjust himself to get out a camera so he could take a photo of some graffiti on the wall that said ‘I love porno’.

Being in an all black neighbourhood I feel as if the black people are annoyed at me or my presence.

I keep think about the word ‘nigger’ and I keep thinking about the word ‘cracker’.

The current most popular, agreed upon philosophy on slur usage is do not say any word that has negative history associated with it and do not say ‘nigger’ if you’re not black.

Recently ‘retarded’ has been considered more offensive than it used to be and if you happen to use it you’re now accused of being an immoral person and presumably you think people that suffer mental deficiencies are bags of shit and you want to set them all on fire.

I have no problem with discussing words and I’m not even so much of a Doug Stanhope/iDubbbzTV nerd that I think the best world is a world where you say everything all the time in every context.

What I have a massive problem with is the presumption of hate and the pompousness of people downright attacking people that slip out ‘x’ word when a word is still in the process of being fazed out. It’s bloody political correctness gone quickly without open discussion and kindness!

Words are simply the end point of a vortex of shit and ideas and slang and culture. They are the bookend to a concept and when people get really caught up with words it kinda scares me.

The problem with these kinda bullshit discussions (especially on the internet) is that when you argue or discuss this shit the assumed reason for your questioning is that I want to be able to say ‘nigga’ with my friends for some unknown reason. But I don’t and I don’t understand why anyone would want to other than the fact that they’ve been told they can’t or they’re at a Klan meeting.

What I’m confused about is if words hold so much apparent power and evil due to their history then isn’t simply being white the most offensive and on the nose thing you can do? Probably, kinda, yeah.

Yet black people don’t fucking loose their shit when you walk into a room being all white and whiting the whole place up by being white. They simply get on with their lives. I believe the same shit could be applied to words. At least in a reactionary sense… it doesn’t make sense to berate a stranger with venom for saying that the fact that none of the self serve screens in Macca’s were working was retarded. I don’t know if this metaphor works. I’m just slightly confused as too why I get all my information on how to best treat minorities forced onto me from young well off white people in beer gardens. I just sit there and listen for a bit and then I stare into the reflective glare coming off their nose ring.

1.08.2018

Saw a full American fat guy in a servo. He was so fat I had to focus on not double-taking at him by staring intently at the fridge at the Dr. Pepper selection.

He looked beyond human.

13.08.2018

For some reason I am smoking again. It’s a never ending battle. Oh well. Strangely I don’t mind.

I smoked a cigarette I crafted from all the butts I could find in my parent’s house. Something I’ve done probably over 100 times in my life.

I find that I clench my jaw all the time. I’ve only noticed it recently. Through meditating and not doing drugs. I’ve noticed it. I thought I had neck cancer but the strange feeling of ache comes from my constantly clenching my jaw.

I worry that maybe I’ve done drugs and drank for so long now and started at a young age that the tracks within my brain are a little fucked. Or maybe I just have too high hopes for a sober life to be a more peaceful, and mentally stable one. Maybe the only thing I’ll gain is a healthier body.

I’m just afraid of all the horrible shit that’s inside my head. I’m afraid of being unlovable because of my desires and my personality. I don’t want to face in fear of losing Tash and revealing to her that I’m evil.

This seems to be the crux of all relationships. All of them. In the whole world. You know that you need to face the truth to get to the next stage. But it seems it will be so lonely, so terrifying and so cold… we don’t want to see the monsters that might lurk within us.

The thing is it’s almost impossible to have an honest relationship and never have turbulence. You can have a dishonest relationship with turbulence but the turbulence will be about bullshit like - ‘you said you were going to clean the extractor fan in the kitchen weeks ago…’ or ‘stop leaving your guitar on the couch…’ and such things might blow into massive arguments.

Relationships are designed to be a nightmare. Not by anyone in particular but by our hope for them and isolation and alienation we all experience internally in this society.

A relationship is a small life within your life.

Dependant on the extremity of a relationship (and obviously that is a relative thing but for sake of argument we’ll say a relationship where you truly considered that you would commit yourself to this other person until you or they or both had died) it could possibly be an interesting simulation of life after death (at least in an abstracted way).

When a relationship of said extremity begins to fall apart (for whatever reason) it’s interesting to note that you feel as if you’re dying and that there’s in fact no perceivable life to lead after the break up or if their is one it will be hellish and a subhuman existence not worth living.

When you survived a relationship that you’d committed everything to how did you feel?

I assume it was horrendous. But assuming you’re still alive and reading this… you must’ve started to feel somewhat normal once again.

Like awaking from a vivid dream it fades away rapidly. You played a different character, you lead a different life. You feel a horribleness deep inside. Not about the person but about the situation. Is this how it has to be? That the people you commit so intensely to, that you fuck and spend countless hours with then have to perish abstractly and then repressed as they fade into the background sometimes never to be spoken about or spoken to again…

I have a girlfriend now. And it terrifies my to think that the pattern may repeat.

***

We believe the internet is everlasting. Whether we research it or not, whether we know it consciously or not.

As much as we might make comments about Facebook and say things like- ‘be careful uploading those photos of your arsehole… you know that stuff will be up there forever’ I believe we’re secretly subconsciously screeching with joy at the fact that these photo’s will be up forever. As much as people have a disdain about Facebook and social media we adore it’s implied permanence. We believe that Facebook will be around after we’re dead. I say ‘believe’ because do you know how the fucking internet works? Do you know how a website is created? I fucking don’t. I don’t know if the internet would still exist if all the power plugs in the world were pulled out of there sockets. I’m a fucking idiot! A fucking idiot that has faith in the permanence of the internet… I mean… obviously… I write a blog mostly about death and existential dread and it put on… the internet.

The internet is now our saviour. It is the modern sleek titanium, bomb proof, indestructible, deathless park bench where you can scratch ‘L.D. was here’ and have a more solidified faith that it’ll be around for a while. And the longer it hangs around the more eye balls will see it, eye balls connected to a concious brain that’ll have no choice but to think ‘hey that guy was there’… and even if it’s just for one second your existence has been stretched just a tiny bit longer.

(People that love us are what we all orbit around all of our lives. If they happen to reject you at some point or disappear we then break away from that orbit and hurtle through abstract nothingness).

17.08.2018

Going to the pub was a bad idea. I went there thinking - ‘well… I kinda want to have just one drink’. The legs were aching and my poor sense of personal entitlement to some kind of ‘treat’ was raging within me. A very problematic thing for anyone that isn’t fulfilled in the work that that do (i.e. most people). I felt as I for some reason I deserved a beer. Also it was freezing cold. My feet were soaking wet and frozen due to my old decrepit shoes. I continued walking up the street. I noticed I had all these thoughts swirling in my mind. They all flew past me whispering - ‘it’s OK to have a beer’.

I watched them all swirl around in my head. I crossed my metaphorical arms and tutted. As I tutted I looked at the swirling thoughts and said - ‘fuck off… are you serious? You know this’s absolute bullshit. We don’t ‘deserve’ a drink… we don’t even probably technically want one… why are we actually going to do this?’

‘Yeah but we’ll only have one! Not even a pint mind you and then we’ll write a new to-do list and then maybe we see someone maybe we don’t and then we head off home and get down to work for a couple of solid hours before we go to bed’ said one of the thoughts.

‘Well OK… when you put it like that… that sounds nearly OK… but don’t you think there’s a chance that we might throw all that shit out the window and because we actually weren’t planning or trying to get drunk…. you’re going to use reverse psychology on me and then we actually will get drunk and most likely indulge in more heavily than if I’d actually planned to indulge…’ I replied.

‘Look don’t read into it just get into that pub… get a beer… have a cigarette in the beer garden, get out you’re little notebook and it’ll be just a quick little pop in, no worries, blah blah, etc, tomato tomato’ ’

‘Well alright then you’ve swung me round, but surely just like a small drink, like a ten ounce… you know we’re trying to focus on money and we’re only starting to face the fact of how much money we piss away on alcohol and other similar shit…’

‘Yea, yea, yea don’t worry just a ten ounce… don’t you worry about that’.

I walked up to the bar.

‘Yes what can I get you?’

‘Ah… could get a ten ounce of Little Creatures?’

‘Ah it’s actually $5 a pint right now and $10 dollars for a jug?’ she grinned slightly.

‘Ah…’.

I turned to the floating thoughts. I gave them a warning look. They all looked back at me like a pack of hyenas.

I began drowning internally - ‘Ah fuck! Na, na, na, I knew some bullshit like this was going to happen… action stations… we gotta think of some other shit… what else do they have on tap… maybe a stubby? Fuck!’

‘Hey this is great news! What a bargain! Don’t worry about it we’ll just drink that one pint and leave… no worries’ cackled the hyenas.

I ended up drinking maybe 5 pints. A bunch of my friends turned up and I talked a bunch of shit for a long, long time. It was as if ‘the plan’ had been completely erased from my mind like the bar lady had men in blacked me with the shine of her bar blade and I was back in the drinking business and also the business of not following my dreams and the business of having no self control.

The arguments in the pub got very heated. I have a few friends that can get heated during argument, (I mean who doesn’t) but I have to say it stresses me out a bit but even more so it confuses me. Every time an argument gets to that stage I don’t really trust anything that’s happening anymore. Your/my emotions are taking over and also everyone’s pissed. I think it’s interesting to me to watch people’s attention spans disintegrate at the pub. The more everyone drinks the quicker a group conversation subject topic can change hands. It’s not hard to do, barely anyone notices it and you can do it in a matter of seconds. You could be having a super intense discussion about anything and if you just interrupt everyone enough and interject a barrage of some current novelty bullshit topic that’s circling you can derail shit very quickly.

21.08.2018

Last week at the pub a friend told me that he basically waits for inspiration. He felt he should never force himself to create anything. Recently I’ve been getting back into the Stephen Pressfield way of thinking that he explains in the book The War Of Art. A book that basically shows you how to be a professional whatever, artist, musician, sports player, whatever. It’s a book that gives tools to fight the part of you that doesn't want to sit down and do the work. In other words it fights the notion of ‘waiting for inspiration’.

Very, very few times in my life have I been struck with overwhelming flaming inspiration to do anything. It happened more when I was a child. When I’d wake up early on a weekend I’d have the inspiration akin to fucking Michelangelo to go and make Lego spaceship car things out of all the see- through green pieces of Lego.

But when you get to around 7, 8, 9, 10 and beyond I think (I’m not a psychologist) you begin to second guess all that shit. You begin to be your own worst critic. Because fascinatingly nearly every kid up until that age will be happy to do a bit of drawing or play various characters in a fictional story they create on the spot. And then it all stops and this horrible awareness kicks in.

I define it as the point where you used to play with toys as a kid in your room. Each character having a crazy back story and way of speaking. You’d play, alone and be completely immersed. Your mum or dad would pop there head into the room to ask if you wanted cornflakes or some shit and you’d be like a focused director waving off an intern - ‘yea yea, sure, just have it on my desk, I’m working right now’. But then something changes around that age and when one of your parents pops their head into the room you freeze and quite your voice. You suddenly feel cripplingly self aware, maybe even stupid. You tell them to go away maybe or wait for them to leave before you get back into to the action.

Then one day you go to the studio (aka your bedroom with a mat on the floor resembling a city that we all had) and the juice is gone, the mojo is gone, you pick up the toys and you try to croak out their particular voice and you just feel stupid, looking quickly back at your bedroom door, making sure no one heard.

All of this stuff reminds me of a Picasso quote [R.I.P. 25.10.1881 - 19.06.2018*] - ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up’.

I’ve always found it interesting. I think encapsulates what I’m saying. Most people have some kind of creativity or at least blissful ignorance of expression at an age and then their brains get bigger or something and they become pimply teenagers that struggle to even walk down the street without worrying about everything detail about themselves and then they learn to just manage that shit as they enter adult life.

*I’ve chose Picasso’s death date to be the release date of Nanette. I can’t really be bothered explaining why that is right now so I guess if you really want to know you’ll have to watch Nanette.

30.08.2018

I’m often confused as to why everyone has an opinion and why you seemingly have to have an opinion.

’I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing’ - Socrates

In my college years I used to be a bit of an air headed stoner art wanker and I still am but the difference is now I have opinions on things. Back then I didn’t really have opinions. And I did it on purpose because I knew that I didn’t know anything. However it didn’t really help me socially and it didn’t help in my relationships and it didn’t really help with my self-esteem. Not initially but eventually I started to feel like I was just drifting away into an abstract world of nothingness. People don’t really take you seriously when you don’t have any solid opinions. It’s probably not a ‘masculine’ trait.

Reminds of a Dylan Moran bit:

‘Men; strong opinions with no information’

[cyanidefilledcandy]

So,

A month or so ago, I had finally made the decision to take my best friend up on his offer to move in with him and also maybe even take a break. In all honesty, it’s something I should’ve done a while ago; like.....3 years ago awhile ago. But, I was holding out the hope that my hard word would be rewarded and that I would at least have the opportunity for a promotion I honestly deserved. Not the case...

The past few months at work have been horrendous. Not just because we’re short staffed, but from the way I and others have been treated. 

I spoke briefly on the situation with my boss. Not only was he falsely accused of sexual harassment with evidence that proved the contrary; not only did he lose pay and it’s costing him money he uses to take care of his house, sons, and mother; but they wouldn’t even let him take over the store he wanted. It’s a store he’s wanted for a while that is close to home, instead making him take one that’s TWICE the drive the other two stores were. This is how he’s treated after 23 years of PHENOMENAL service. That’s not even an exaggeration. This man worked so hard and made SO much money for these people. Typically, in any given Kroger, the meat department make up about 2% of the store’s total sales. Ours made up 12% on average and it was steadily growing. Doesn’t matter... When this incident first happened, I had wondered if it was some kind of conspiracy against him to get him fired. Our grocery department has been at odds with us ever since we kept bringing up to management our concerns about literally being harassed and verbally assaulted by their frozen lead (a guy who should’ve never gotten the position any way considering he was insubordinate and doing the exact same thing to his deli leads when he first started (all women). So, they gave him a promotion...) Well, with the new store manager, allegedly, something was going to be done about that....and they didn’t like that. So, why not frame the guy who is causing them trouble, a man who has been a dear friend to them for over 20 years, for something horrible like sexual harassment?

So, right after, I had to take up the mantle, which I honestly didn’t mind. I hated the situation with a passion, and I honestly wouldn’t have taken a promotion anyway. I had been talking about seriously leaving the store (maybe even company) behind since before this incident. I’ve should’ve left long ago, but my mind was made up the day my store manager put me in the hospital from a panic attack. 

So, we’re GROSSLY understaffed (we always have been), despite having good numbers, doing a ABSURD amount of work by hand, and most importantly, doing absolutely ridiculous things for customers that most stores just outright refuse to do (hell, they won’t even do simple things). But, we soldier on and do the best that we can. Again, I don’t mind as much because I love the chance to showcase what I can do, especially with a promotion around the corner. 

Wasn’t given the opportunity. Instead, I kept getting sent people to “show me what to do” like I haven’t been there for 3 goddamn years (all men, btw). And what these men do is come in and disregard me completely and fuck me and my coworkers over with their bullshit. Because of them, what should have been a relatively simple holiday turned into a disaster for me, my coworkers, and our customers because these guys came in and left everything in disarray. And to make matters worse, management looked at me like it was my fault when I TOLD them this would happen. Furthermore, when they DID finally stop coming, it still left us GROSSLY understaffed, and we did all we could do.

Wasn’t good enough. Everyday, we got talked down to, treated like we were incompetent, and that anybody but us could do the job better. And to make matters worse, the new store manager got some kind of bug up her ass about me. I originally thought it was because I wasn’t all happy and smiley like when she first started. And why would I be? 

We lost our leader and good friend due to a bullshit conspiracy, we’re being treated like dirt, the district meat manager is outright refusing to give me a chance, we’re short staffed and working ourselves to death to try and keep this department going and on top of all of that, my car is still down. I’m paying $200 a week and actually living in poverty to work here. So yes.....I’m not smiling. 

But apparently, she took it personally, and ever since then goes out of her way to make sure I’m always overrode on decisions, make sure to always ask others opinions on my department when I’m it’s leader and have been for over 3 years now. I won’t get into every little thing, but basically she treats me as if I’m incompetent, ignores any hard work I do and finds something to complain about. 

Meanwhile, my mental health (which is already like a thread’s worth there) is steadily getting worse. I’m stressed from not being able to do a good enough job because I don’t have health, depressed from how me and my coworkers are being treated, depressed that others are getting all of the glory and being treated better than me and like THEY’RE the one keeping the department going when they’re clearly not (a white woman), and depressed that I not only am not getting a chance for a promotion, but that I never WILL get that chance for a promotion. 

The district meat manager has overlooked me time and time again, and I always knew me being a black woman was a key issue in that. I’ve been repeatedly denied even to take classes to become a manager of my own department. Any time there is a chance for me to prove that I can do a good job, I am denied that opportunity and some man is brought in to show me how to do my job. I knew it then, but for some reason hung on to the hope that if I kept pushing and kept doing my job that I could prove myself and get to run a market. I was being dumb. This time struck me harder. My old manager told me that he REALLY wanted me to become a meat manager because none of the women he ever trained became one. ....I have no idea how it hasn’t hit him, because it hit my like a bag of bricks. Let me tell you something about my manager....

He’s good. He’s extremely good. And he’s a great and knowledgeable teacher. Every backup he has has been promoted and moved on to run their own markets within a year. The one who didn’t was literally because he had a learning disability. But, he kept working with him, and now that man is at a corporate level in the company. That man...

He’s had his fair share of female backups, and none of them have EVER made it past that position....and none ever will. I remember going to a meeting with all of the meat managers and backups and just curiously looking around at the demographics. There was ONE other female backup there, but no female leads.

I’ve always known this about the man who sits at the head of our district’s meat department. He’s sexist, plain and simple. Maybe even a tad racist. But, he constantly talks to me (and other women) like we’re incompetent children. One day, he came in and was explaining a VERY simple business concept to me and kept repeating “Oh, you probably don’t understand this. You probably don’t understand this,” like I’m just fucking stupid. 

My BIGGEST pet peeve is for someone to treat my like I’m stupid and/or that I’m beneath them, and I get both from this guy, and it takes everything in my power not to slice his fucking neck open with the myriad of knives available in my department (or to just snap and tell him about himself). I KNOW my IQ is WORLDS higher than this guy’s. It’s not my fault I wasn’t born with a silver spoon up my ass.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Kroger as a whole is sexist or racist. This seems to be an occurrence that’s isolated to this department (maybe even JUST in this division). And if you’re wondering about the female backups, well, that decision belongs to the meat manager of that particular store. Whether someone becomes a lead, however, depends on this fat, sexist fuck who is at our corporate level. And if that wasn’t apparent enough, it became even more apparent once the market opened up....

So, the guy they ultimately gave the store to (a young, white male) comes in and management is a COMPLETE 180. They assure that he has help at all times. They give him the utmost praise for the smallest accomplishments. And when they grade the department, it’s ALWAYS favorably. The grades for the department has steadily been nothing but B’s since he got here. When I was running it, I was lucky to get a C+ and this was even before manager got fired. I can see him doing the same amount of work and the department looking the same as when I would get a C+ and they would give him a B+. And to top things off, the manager made a HUGE fucking deal about assuring he had 2 days off a week. I worked myself to EXHAUSTION, 24 fucking days in a row, 7 days a week, usually for 9-11 hours a day no matter how sick I was, and got told “Why isn’t the department perfect? Why do you have overtime? Why aren’t you smiling?” And what’s worse, our numbers are steadily getting worse, and is he getting in any trouble for it? No. They could come in and we’re out of product because he wants to order “by the skin of my teeth”; customers come in looking for things and it’s not there, even past the time we’re supposed to be set up. Does he get into any trouble for it? No. And I’m not mad at this kid. I’m not. He’s only doing what I was trying to do. He has nothing to do with how I’ve been treated, and I’m not the type of person to take out on someone what someone else did to me. I’m not that person; I’m never going to be that person.

And each day it cuts deeper and deeper. I should be over it by now (I AM moving and made it very well known that I was leaving), but it still really fucking hurts. I’ve given SO much to work at that job. Not just physically, but I put myself through so much to stay there. I lived in poverty, worked my body to the point where I don’t think I’ll ever recover, kept myself in a dangerous situation and wound up being ATTACKED from it, when I could’ve been living with my best friend, at least semi-happy and safe. And why? Because I’m ambitious and wanted to work to get to a better position. Money was a factor, but a very small one. I’m just the type of person who always wants to move forward and do better. Ambitious and perfectionist. 

Doesn’t matter...

I could go on and on and on about all the bullshit I’ve been through at Kroger, as well as witnessed other people go through. (Believe it or not, but this is just scraping the VERY recent surface.) But, it doesn’t matter because I had set a date and time to move away and join my friends. They decided to move to Arizona, and while I’m not in LOVE with the idea of going THERE in particular, I am in love with the idea of getting away from this place that brought me nothing but misery and just starting over and....trying to get myself together. I’m in SUCH bad shape and have been for a very, very long time; mentally, physically, and emotionally. So, my plan was to get my car back in decent working order, start back my second job so that I can end with them on a good, professional note, start packing, and then just....leave by the 20th on next month. Simple. Obtainable.

Not happening...

This weekend, my car went out completely... It’s...just done...

And I want to kill myself because it was because a stupid, simple mistake on my part. Something I was unaware of, but simple nonetheless. I won’t get into it. I don’t want to hear comments about how I should’ve known that and blah blah blah.... I feel bad enough about it. 

And the timing is just AWFUL because I’m just three payments away from paying the car off completely. My second JUST got in contact with me about filling out rehire paperwork (but it’s right behind my other job, which is a city away). And worst of all, just when I’m only 3-4 weeks away from moving and trying to get my life back on track...

Furthermore, this is going to put me back into the cycle of spending $200+ a week to get to work, and....I absolutely REFUSE to do that... It’s not worth it. It has NEVER been worth it. I stayed for my manager and my coworkers....to make their lives easy, because they’re people I genuinely love. I can’t afford to dish out that kind of money, and am considering just quitting and finding something closer until I can come up with a down payment on a new car...

That being said, even though it shouldn’t take me a long time to find a job....it just might, and I’m already still very far behind on bills, and I can’t NOT have income. And Unemployment Benefits criteria is SO nitpicky here, that I’m afraid I won’t be able to receive benefits, even though this IS a work related problem.

So, I’m stuck. Stuck and depressed and stuck...

I have no idea what my move should be. I don’t know if I should just quit Kroger and look for something around here. Or try and tough it out at Kroger until something becomes available (which....I’m going to be honest, it was hard enough trying to stay there until the end of the month. Going there day after day is slowly chipping away more at my mental health that I feel like I could snap at any day... I was only trying to hold on so that I had a job when I moved to Arizona, even though my friend told me it was fine to just take a month off and THEN start looking for work.) So....*sigh* I just don’t know...

....besides just swallowing a bottle of pills. It sounds like I’m being melodramatic, but....it’s honestly the best option at this point. And not just because of this. Because of everything...

I’m tired. I’m tired of everything. I’m tired of the world I inhabit. 

[fitnesshealthyoga-blog]

New Post has been published on https://fitnesshealthyoga.com/a-beginners-guide-to-dating-yourself/

A Beginner’s Guide to Dating Yourself

Who is Valentine’s Day still fun for, really? If you’ve got a partner, the pressure to plan a flawlessly documented night of perfect romance can be crushing. And if you’re single? By omission, you’re pretty much told the best you can hope for is getting through the holiday without wanting to die. (Well, that, and a February 15 trip to Rite Aid to buy a big chocolate shark that says “You’re Jawsome” for 75 percent off sticker price.)

At this point, The Love Holiday just feels like a dog-pile of brands trying to convince you they’ve got the key to the perfect life—and that key is A Perfect and Hot Relationship Where You Inexplicably Spend Half of Every Day Scootering Around Manhattan (or whatever). Movies, commercials and those fucking Instagram ads for customizable engagement rings that keep coming for me—they’re all hell-bent on assuring us the only worthwhile way to go through life is with someone within smooching distance at all times. We’re barraged with the message that being alone is a shadowy half-life, spent deprived of all the fulfillment, adventure and inexplicably clearer skin that being in a relationship offers.

I’d like to take a moment to reflect: Why is being alone such an awful fate? Aside from the distant potential for choking to death on a chicken bone in your apartment (and there’s a nonzero chance this is the exact reason I only eat soft, non-threatening foods), what makes spending time by yourself so horrendous that a menagerie of companies make billions a year just helping you avoid it?

“

What makes spending time by yourself so horrendous that a menagerie of companies make billions a year just helping you avoid it?

”

One of my favorite brain wranglers, a clinical psychiatrist named Dr. David D. Burns, M.D., drew a pretty good bead on the psychology of wretched loneliness in his book Feeling Good—a work that I have shoved down the throats of several of my beloved pals over the years. Dr. Burns has seen his fair share of miserable singles, and he found one thing they all had in common: They hated being alone, because they never did anything fun when they were alone.

It’s a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, Burns says. If you expect to be bored and sad when you’re alone, then that’s exactly how you’re going to be. He started suggesting that one of his divorced patients go to museums, take dance classes and cook meals by herself—and she soon realized that being happy and being by herself weren’t mutually exclusive concepts. There’s a science behind investing in your own self-life.

“

She soon realized that being happy and being by herself weren’t mutually exclusive concepts. There’s a science behind investing in your own self-life.

”

Even though I’m in a relationship, I find it absolutely vital to take time to remind myself I’m fun to be with. I owe it to myself to keep doing things with and for me to demonstrate that I’m still a complete person and that my boyfriend doesn’t have to be my sole source of happiness. How depressing would that be?

Also, it’s worth acknowledging that there are some activities that are infinitely better when done alone. Have you ever taken yourself to the formal section of a department store just to try things on that you can’t afford, or gone to a bar just so you can leave the absolute second you want to without getting caught in 20 minutes of goodbyes?

Just last weekend, I went to the zoo by myself, because I had a free pass and none of the people I texted were free. You might think that sounds sad, but guess what? It rocked so much I’m considering exclusively going alone from now on. I got to get straight to the lemurs and snow leopards, zooming right past all the animals that nobody will admit actually kind of suck despite their popularity.

As someone who has struggled for years with admitting that I’m a full person who deserves as much love and care as anyone else, taking myself out on dates has become an important part of my self-care. The practice serves as a reminder that I’m worth doing nice things for, and that my experiences matter even when I go through them alone. 

“

As someone who has struggled for years with admitting that I’m a full person who deserves as much love and care as anyone else, taking myself out on dates has become an important part of my self-care.

”

Sergey Causelove/Shutterstock.

I asked a few people about their relationships with alone time, and they agree that self-dates are where it’s at. 

Shelby, 24

Shelby works as the associate director of multiple after-school programs and says self-dates are vital for her work/life balance. “Being an introvert doing an extroverted job, I have to take a lot of time to myself after work to recharge,” she explains. Sometimes, Shelby can’t manage to put more effort into her alone time than a little TV therapy after work, so when she’s got time and energy for herself, her strategy is to really make it count. “As much as I love my job and the kids,” she says, it’s important for her to remember all her other loves.

Shelby spends her alone time on interests that nobody else in her life necessarily shares, including some pretty eclectic stuff, like learning Russian and watercolor painting. “With the time I do make for myself, I try to be intentional about my interests—crafting and reading and history and languages—because the things I enjoy take a lot of brain power I don’t always have,” she says. Shelby loves that she can disappear into these interests without having to get anyone else caught up in them, or without having to worry that other people aren’t enjoying themselves.

Some of Shelby’s favorite self-dates:

Getting dressed up and going to a coffee shop downtown, where she can read and eavesdrop on other patrons

Traipsing around used bookstores to “gift shop,” i.e. pick up a copy of a Jane Austen novel she already has

Picking up ingredients for a solo make-your-own pizza and margarita night, while screening her current favorite movie

MRProduction/Shutterstock.

Stephen, 25

Stephen makes time at least once a month to take a little retreat from work, school and general stress. “I tend to get stuck in my own headspace, and I have such massive anxiety issues that it’s nice to take at least an afternoon—if not a whole day—to treat myself to something I normally wouldn’t do,” he explains. A few weeks ago, when the weather was nice, Stephen went to the zoo and then post-gamed with a nice lunch—just to give himself a break from the horrors of apartment hunting.

A big element of Stephen’s self-date routine? Intentionally making himself “inaccessible to others,” putting his phone on Do Not Disturb and taking some time to go completely off the radar. “I literally talk to no one, other than the barista or server,” he says. Stephen finds that taking some time to hang out with himself while cutting out everyday stressors gives his mental health a boost.

Stephen says his self-date routine got something of an upgrade recently, when he moved to D.C. “I [go out] more now that I have access to public transportation,” he says. “[Something I’m trying to do more] is to pick a metro stop, go to it and just see what weird stuff I can find.” Stephen uses self-dates as a way to treat himself to breaks from the challenges he faces, and the joy of spontaneity really appeals to him. “The first time it snowed while I was [in D.C.], I literally just walked around in the snow until I found a nice coffee shop to get some hot chocolate,” he says.

Some of Stephen’s favorite self-dates:

Finding a new hiking spot or visiting a familiar one he loves

Turning his phone off and finding a new BBC Earth or 30 for 30 documentary on Netflix

Heading to the driving range to blow off some steam

Mimage Photography/Shutterstock.

Maggie, 25

Maggie takes herself on dates all the time. She says it’s often about letting herself have what she wants without waiting for someone else to want to do the exact same thing at the same time. “I think it’s important to ask yourself why you need someone with you to do the things you want to do. Of course having a friend or partner along is fun and can add to an experience,” she says, “But if you’ve been wanting to go check out the new collection at your favorite store or see that indie movie your favorite actress is in, why wait?”

Maggie says investing in spending time alone has helped her learn to pay attention to herself. “Going on dates with myself has become a really important part of my mental health,” she says. Investing in a relationship with herself has enhanced her ability to love and take care of herself.

Some of Maggie’s favorite self-dates: 

Going to Target to try on clothes she doesn’t need

Buying herself earrings “just because”

Going to a movie nobody else wants to see as much as her

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[sjtv]

Lay it bare.

Here we are in 2019...and it’s about time I started writing again.  As usual, I’ve been toying with whether or not to share this; but balls to it.  We’re seeing a lot more traction surrounding advancements in mental health; which is absolutely flipping brilliant.  Thanks to all of us speaking up and all of us making waves.  But we still have so far to go.  

I wrote here nearly 4 years ago about my battle with my own mental health; and since then, it’s certainly been a journey.  But I’ve not shared where I’ve been at - it’s been shitty and I’ve felt embarrassed.  I’m at a stage in my life where I’d spent a lot of time hiding away from my feelings, hiding my feelings away from my family & friends and it’s time to put an end to that.  I have no intention of sharing the details of ‘why’, but I’m keen to spread more awareness (and as ever, not for sympathy) and if I can help at least 1 person to open up a little bit more or take a little more care of themselves, my job’s done.  

My brain has been what I will happily describe now as a bit ‘squiffy’ since I was around 10 years old.  I didn’t realise the trends until much later on in life when I started to connect with myself a little bit more.  I was 10 years old for goodness sake.  Exposure to some pretty horrendous things growing up meant that I was more susceptible to bullying, to depression, anxiety...you name it, I had it or I did it.  Sorry Mum, I was an absolute terror.  I mean, who in their right mind sends a message to their mother whilst at a festival telling them they’re about to drop some class A drugs??  Mother may be liberal, but I think I may have shaved a few years off her life with some of my antics.  

“Is that Mrs Valentine?” 

“Yes” 

“This is the Thames Valley Police, we have your daughter.” 

I mean, seriously.  

I have absolutely no doubt that what I’ve been through is nothing compared to a number of others in the world; but it’s not about the facts of what happened, it’s about how we then rationalise, process and ultimately deal with what happened.  Let’s be clear; I don’t actually regret anything I did - because I was just coping, learning who I was, and at times, just being a standard twat of a teenager.  

This past 18 months have been an absolute rollercoaster.  Upheaval in both my personal and working life meant that I was left feeling like I was running a marathon against 70mph winds.  I was living out of a suitcase, drinking far too much, living it up and then BOOM, it hit me.  Again.  Straight back down to the depths of absolute misery.  But this time it was different.  I stopped eating.  I couldn’t sleep.  I lost all interest in things.  I would do something for 30 minutes and then need to take a nap.  My anxiety was at such a peak that I could barely have a conversation without feeling like something would go wrong.  I’d never really had physical symptoms of anxiety before; but I consistently felt like I had a lump in my throat, like someone was sitting on my chest...and the teeth grinding....oh the teeth grinding. My friends were having to wake me up in the middle of the night to stop me.  

In October, I made a call to an advice line through work and had an ‘initial assessment’ (I’ve honestly lost count of how many of those I’ve had).  But it came back that I was scoring 19/20 for both anxiety & depression, but a functioning level of 2 - so extremely high functioning.  This confused me.  I was able to carry out my work (even if I was genuinely exhausted at the end of a day), I was able to interact with people as though nothing else was happening and the scariest thing...I had become so good at hiding how I truly felt that no one knew the internal battle I was facing every day.  I was then referred back to my GP.  We all know a 10 minute appointment with your GP is standard; I was in there for 45 minutes.  Within another few weeks, I had been made an appointment at the hospital for a psychiatric assessment.  

At the end of the year, I could feel the intensity of my emotions picking up.  I tried to ignore it.  But they crept up on me.  I spent most of my time off over Christmas in bed.  Then it hit me like a sack of shit.  I couldn’t hide it anymore.  I was having dinner with a friend and I just turned to her and said “I think I need to go to the hospital”.  I called 111 from my car after having a horrendous panic attack in a multi-storey car park.  Once they had calmed me down, I was able to get my head together to get home.  But it got even worse when I arrived back.  I became terrified of my own thoughts; as though the last 18 years of my life had just been dumped on top of me and I genuinely didn’t know what to do.  Within an hour, the crisis team had called me and told me to get to A&E, where I spent the next few hours being assessed.  I got home in the middle of the night and spent the next day in bed.  Don’t ever think that mental exhaustion doesn’t contribute to physical exhaustion kids, because it really does.  

I then finally opened up to my family.  Which I had been petrified to do for years.  I didn’t really have a choice given I was back in my hometown.  Through that I felt worse for a time, but now, the relationship I’ve built with my little Moomin over the past 6 weeks has progressed faster than we have in the past 28 years.  I’m really proud of that.  

The day of the appointment comes.  Lovely to bring up the last 18 years of my life in the space of an hour.  Suffice to say, I spent the remainder of that day in a heap.  But through the haze, I had at least one positive.  A diagnosis.  Fluffy though it was, a diagnosis nonetheless.  Borderline Personality Disorder; or, as it’s now known: Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder.  Both are pretty shitty ways to put it, I gotta be honest.  For all of y’all that don’t know (because I certainly didn’t know), it means that my reactions to things are completely disproportionate - that is in my own head.  For example, where other people might feel slightly nervous, I will go in to full panic mode.  Or if someone else feels sad, I will feel grief.  And there are triggers to those emotions.  Mostly when something happens that leads back to things from my past that I was too young to resolve.  There are a number of other things that display themselves as a result; if you want to read more...Google is your pal.  

Along with all of this, they’re treating anxiety and depression separately.  But both of which are heightened by BPD.  And that’s alright, because at least now I know.    

What the diagnosis has given me is a better understanding of my mind and where these feelings come from.  It was almost like a light bulb moment...”oh so THAT’S why I feel like that...I get it now” - and even with a treatment plan not yet in situ, I’m able to take a step back & think about how I’m reacting - and this isn’t reactions to other people, this is my own reactions that I don’t share.  

It’s a confusing place to be, but with more clarity than I’ve ever had.  I’m finally ready to get back at ‘em with a clearer understanding of who I am; and I’m not ashamed of my diagnosis.  It’s a byproduct of all of the shit I’ve had to withstand over a very long period of time.  So in my opinion, that makes me a warrior.  I say every year that I’ll ‘transform myself’ but truly, I don’t need to.  I’m easing in to my own being; and those that are in my life love me for that version of me, not someone with a mask.  I’m proud of who I am.  And if you’re reading this and living (not suffering) with any form of mental ‘instability’, I’m proud of you too - because it takes a fuck load of effort sometimes even just to get out of bed.  

My mission in life has always been to help people; and my writing is one of the ways I’ve decided to do that in 2019.  Watch this space...I’m scheming like a squirrel after another squirrel’s acorns to bring something big.  I appreciate that this metaphor is a little bit unimaginative, but I’m rolling with it.    

I suppose the moral of the story is twofold:

1) Don’t ever assume that someone has it together just because they ‘seem’ to - we’ve all got our own battles.  Don’t be a dickhead.   

2) If you’re struggling, speak up.  It doesn’t have to be to a friend or family member.  Call your doctor.  Call a charity.  Call an advice line.  Just speak to someone.  

As ever, I’ll sign off with a lyric...

“What it all comes down to; is that I haven’t got it all figured out just yet.  ‘Cos I’ve got one hand in my pocket; and the other one’s giving a peace sign.” 

Take care of yourselves; and in the words of Ru...if you can’t love yo’self, how in the hell are you gon’ love somebody else?  

STV xx 

[yoongisgoawaydoormat]

Is it Harry you don't like or how he's been branded since the early 1D days? How the media pegged him as the front man when clearly there 5 great guys in the band? I'm just curious because I like Harry and the four other guys equally in terms of music, even before they started making solo music.

im gonna kinda combine this answer with an anon i should have responded to weeks ago “i've noticed you dislike harry, especially recently with him promoting his new music, but i'm not sure how/why it started exactly. could you explain??”

for me now it’s that i don’t like harry and that’s a position i’ve come to over the course of the past 2-3 years and i think i can break that evolution down into two broad categories: his relation to zayn (both pre- and post-march 2015) and how he has approached going solo (again both pre- and post-1d going on a break). 

and what’s most important about these two for me is that it is hard to explain away his actions in these categories as Harry Styles™; these are HIS choices, HIS words, HIS actions thus forcing me to dislike harry styles the person

for the sake of people’s dashes i’m putting a read more, but for those interested i’ve written a novel explaining these categories in more detail below (deadass i just copied it all into word and it’s 1500 words long..... im-.....)

1) how harry relates to zayn

i list his relation to zayn first because i truly believe this says something about his character. he has done things specifically re: zayn that have nothing to do with how he’s been branded in 1d or how the media has portrayed him; his actions that im going to discuss and that have most negatively affected my view of him are all on harry styles the person

it really started in the summer of 2014 when he waved the inflatable hammer of israel around at a concert during a time of heightened tensions between israel and palestine (and by heightened tensions i mean more war crimes and atrocities committed by the apartheid-esque occupational regime of israel). he asked those fans for that hammer, he is the one who has multiple zionist connections and could easily be considered a zionist himself. that’s on harry styles the person. meanwhile zayn tweets #FreePalestine shortly after that and is abused off of twitter. i recognize that the (racist) double standard here is not coming directly from harry but he benefits from it (and always has) and he plays into it and i can’t even imagine how zayn felt as a muslim man having to sit and watch his bandmate get a free pass for supporting a genocidal regime while he is eviscerated for one tweet of support. harry’s role in all this was the first moment i truly began to dislike him as a person

then we have his actions after zayn left. i will never claim to know what went down. im not sure we will ever know the whole ‘truth’ of zayn leaving and i’ve always said there’s shades of grey, no clear right and wrong, good and bad. it was messy but the bottom line is that zayn left (at least in part) because he was in an unhealthy state both mentally and physically and no one deserves that. so for all that the remaining four may have been justifiably hurt, confused, angry, etc. at things we can’t even possibly know about or understand re: zayn leaving, zayn deserves to be happy and healthy and people need to respect that. i do not think harry (nor his fans) respected that or zayn himself at all in the wake of him leaving. harry’s actions during mitam promo was, in my opinon, the most egregious and blatantly disrespectful. all four of them demonstrated sadness and/or bitterness at times but harry’s behavior (such as saying the ‘paperwork’ was the hardest part of z leaving, kicking a z mask off the stage, etc.) came across to me as petty, immature, spiteful and mean-spirited. it was not a spite that i saw in the other three. as a ztan (and also just a decent human?) i lost a lot of respect for harry in those months. i think these actions showed his true colors and those are not colors which i like very much.

also i’ve discussed this a bit on this blog but with the benefit of hindsight i do believe that a lot of those bitter actions re: zayn came from a selfish place of anger at zayn for ‘beating’ him to the solo game and from a place of ‘i’m going to villainize this person in order to make myself look better now and down the line.’ i think that was ‘proven’ for me when the build up for harry’s solo material included a LOT of very intentional mentions and comparisons to zayn. obviously that was something the media and people were going to do anyway but it was to a degree that felt sanctioned and encouraged; i think that comparison and that emphasis of ‘zayn as the evil judas who left, harry as the one who stayed until it was time’ was part of harry and his teams promo strategy (that backfired when SOTT flopped compared to pillowtalk, hence why i think those comparisons in big outlets have ceased, but i digress)... that’s a lot more of my own interpretation and my own reading of the info i have so it’s not as concrete as the stuff above but it does factor into my personal view of harry annnnnd it also connects nicely to my second point

2) his solo approach

now this is a more complex issue, and more of it *could* be attributed to Harry Styles™ but im going to preface my discussion by saying that harry chose his team. he’s been hanging with the azoffs on his personal time since 2013, his friendship with jeff has always been in our faces, he’s very clearly in the driver’s seat of his career at the moment, just as niall and liam appear to be (louis is a different and extremely nuanced conversation). he’s been angling towards his solo career for YEARS and while i don’t necessarily think that in and of itself is a bad thing (everyone in bands esp boy bands does that kind of forward thinking), i think the way he has gone about it is by stepping on his four bandmates in one way or another and i think that’s really fucking shitty. he has leveraged the existing Harry Styles™ frontman, standout image to catapult himself into this weird realm of ‘im above everything, im too cool, im already a legend’ promo.

on top of that kind of broad stroke stuff, some of his specific actions are just......... eye-roll worthy. i mean think about what the FIRST thing he did was after 1D went on a break? yachtgate. you can brush that off as a stunt all you want (and obviously in many ways it was) but it was a stunt that encouraged a certain solo harry narrative. it helped solidify him as the a-lister of the band hanging with jenners on fancy boats. it helped solidify him as a ‘star in his own right’ signing contracts and paperwork with jeff. it was a stunt that HELPED harry.

this is kind of a digression but i do think it’s important to note the nuanced difference between harry and louis’ ‘stunts.’ totally disregarding conversations of ‘real or fake,’ if we look at the major ‘stunts’ harry and louis have undertaken in their careers (and within this im including anything that could be construed as their ‘personal life’ being projected publicly i.e. eleanor, danielle, babygate, taylor swift, kendull jenner, etc.) harry’s stunts have always boosted his public image while louis’ have always hurt his. i know that’s an EXTREMELY broad and generalizing brush to paint with and im not trying to say that harry’s image has always been ‘good’, i remember the womanizer days i cant even imagine how much that hurt him and it sucks. but basically harry’s stunts have always made him more famous, putting him in an increasingly better position to convert Harry Styles™ into solo success. louis’ stunts have consistently done the opposite, giving him a SERIOUS uphill battle when it comes to the general public and mainstream media acknowledging his solo endeavors.

this is a discrepancy that exists between harry and ALL the boys, not just with louis (though the gulf between them is the most... extreme i’d say). harry has always been positioned above liam, niall and zayn too, and what i have a problem with is how that is being leveraged and leaned into rather than dispelled. harry could easily take the approach niall has which is constantly recognizing the good that one direction did for him. even if he didn’t want to be so overt he could have at least tried to be as polite and gracious as zayn was, who while recognizing that he wanted to do his own thing and his own music was very conscious to acknowledge the good bits of 1D. instead we have this weird almost antagonistic approach in his (sparse) interviews wherein it feels like harry treats 1d as this thing that was holding him back, something he is now free of. it’s a pretentiousness that i dont appreciate

the final thing i’ll add in this section is in how he and his team are treating the fans that he does have. i am not one of those people but at times i feel quite bad? and sorry? for harries who are investing their time and money and effort into an artist who seems hell bent on ignoring them. this aloofness is demonstrated on his social media, i mean has he taken time to interact with or thank fans once????? the whole tour ticket debacle sounds horrendous and im sorry for fans that don’t get to go because harry and his team bungled it. there’s just a distinct...... disrespect for the fans he was bringing with him from the 1D days and that’s frustrating.