#all because the real meanings have been so skewed that me even mentioning that i think that way will get me painted as a bad person online

[rickyyysaurus]

The more im on the internet the more I realize people don't care what words actually mean and they will simply misuse them to manipulate their audience and push their own personal agenda, and unfortunately it sometimes becomes mainstream and not only ruins the meaning of the words for everyone else, but also takes away the importance and weight behind other words by replacing them with watered down versions that became popular. Censorship also causes this fuck censorship

[merp-blerp]

A Gaylor Interpretation of "So High School"

Overblown Analysis Under the Cut ↓

Woo, I hope no one tries to throw hands with me on this one. I feel like I'm summoning demons and not the cool kind. Oh well, the block button is free—let's go!

"I feel so high school every time I look at you"

So it's a common Gaylor belief that this song is about TK, but not in a romantic or positive way. For most average people, high school is a moderate to terrible time period. You're body's changing and you're finding yourself still, which can lead to awkward moments. You're continuing to learn that the world is not as bright as you might've thought it was when you were a little kid. You might have to deal with the stress of school, other people's drama and bullying, etc.

The general interpretation of feeling "so high school" has been more in line with the romanticized made-for-movies version of high school. The well-adjusted every-girl gets the dream boy and lives happily ever after. But if one's high school years can be moderate to terrible, feeling so high school might not be so wonderful, especially since the made-for-movies high school experience isn't real. I went to a small, neurodiverse high school, so my experience might be skewed, but no one ever dated, and if they did it didn't last forever, no one felt like or acted like an "adult", not everyone got along, there were no real cliques, not many were nearly as horny as teens are in movies, etc. It wasn't terrible for me, but no High School Musical-type dream.

And I know Taylor had to deal with bullying when she was in high school. If Taylor feels so high school with TK, she might feel juvenile, vulnerable, uncomfortable, anxious, depressed, etc.

"I wanna find you in a crowd just to hide from you"

I was lucky to not be bullied in high school, but I was in elementary school. You definitely scope out where your bullies are and hide from them if you can when in the same room as them. Now I can't know if TK has bullied Taylor in any way, but he does have a temper like a bully. I mean look at his infamous blow-up towards a coach at the Superbowl.

The general idea is that this line depicts Taylor playfully hiding from her crush/boyfriend. But this line doesn't coincide with her other lines about being in crowds with her lover(s). "Love Story", "Timeless", "Dress", "Question...?", etc, mention Taylor and her lover meeting, flirting, or more in a crowd. She might leave the crowd or say she doesn't like them, but she doesn't hide in crowds in love songs. In non-love songs like "The Story of Us", she ignores her subject in the crowd, or at least doesn't interact with them, like here. And even then she might not be hiding from the subject in "TSOU" per se. If this were a love song, Taylor would be interacting with her lover in some way, not hiding, as is typical in Taylor's music. And the thematic motifs usually matter with Taylor. So this isn't a love song.

"And in a blink of a crinkling eye // I'm sinking, our fingers entwined"

So this bearding relationship happened fast it seems. In the blink of an eye. I know there are theories about Joe ending his business with Taylor early, causing her to clamor for a new beard for her fans to love even more than Joe so that whatever plan she might have could still happen the way she needs. Taylor also wrote this song before the narrative with TK began, so clearly this was planned for a while. Maybe since the Midnights MV trailer debuted during an NFL game more or less?

A crinkling eye often signifies happiness in body language, but who's to say she's the one with a crinkling eye? Maybe it's TK because he knows the setup will put him on the map.

Taylor also describes herself as sinking. Usually if one describes themselves as sinking, they are deep in a negative emotion. But the happy vibe of this song's surface masks all the undertones of these feelings. "Sinking" to the inattentive or blissfully ignorant ear becomes happiness. Just like with this bearding with TK. Taylor's unmoored or even anxious facial expressions at games become a "resting face", even though Taylor's never had a resting bitch face like that from what I've seen.

"Cheeks pink in the twinkling lights // Tell me 'bout the first time you saw me"

You can blush from being with your lover/crush, but you can also blush from embarrassment. Travis has definitely had embarrassing public moments that even people outside of Gaylor circles cringe at, like the Viva Las Vegas thing at the Super Bowl. The twinkling lights could be stadium lights or camera lights, as this bearding has been so public, cameras always in their faces as they frequently have publicized meetups, even some of their "private" ones having paparazzi photos most often from what I've seen.

"Tell me 'bout the first time you saw me" feels like a weird question coming from Taylor, as she's always been everywhere, so who can really remember the first time they saw her? It's like asking the first time you saw grass—it's everywhere. So this seems to be a part of the dream high school narrative, like when the guy first sees the girl walking towards him in slow motion, which is impossible in real life. Or maybe Taylor means the first time TK saw a good money deal in her.

"I'll drink what you think, and I'm high // From smoking your jokes all damn night // The brink of a wrinkle in time // Bittersweet sixteen suddenly"

Taylor was often seen drinking tons at TK's games, even helping advertise things like Casa Azul, an alcoholic drink he invested in (and the logo's facing out like a sponsorship, very Truman Show theory). Drinking what he thinks could be this. And as we've been over with all the Viva Las Vegas of it all, TK is arguably not funny in the way he wants to be. Even showmanship-mode Taylor looked like she wanted to squirm in the Vegas clip. I also know that, while I don't like to get too into speculating about this personally, some suspect Taylor of being on some kind of substance that could get her high when she's with TK. And if "TTPD" is really about Taylor, she smokes. She's certainly not uncomfortable with the idea/fact that she smokes. If she had to get through being with TK "all damn night" she might get drunk or high to do so.

According to this YouTube video, the phrase "a wrinkle in time" means "a distortion or alteration in the flow of time" (the video feels manufactured as hell, but it's what I got, deal with it). Taylor then mentions "Bittersweet sixteen suddenly". A prevailing theme in Taylor's music is the feeling/fear of never growing up and feeling like she's stuck at the age she was when she became famous, 16 years old. It's bittersweet sixteen because she got her dreams but at the expense of her having to mostly hide who she was and enter a draining industry. She feels like time is wrinkled and she's stuck, hiding who she is like she's a closeted country kid again. The bearding is helping her stay in the good graces of the public, but at what cost? In "Fifteen", Taylor mentions "Well, in your life you'll do things // Greater than dating the boy on the football team // I didn't know it at fifteen" and that she swore she was going to marry her first date but "I realized some bigger dreams of mine". This song is like the fantasy Taylor believed in when she was younger, but in "Fifteen" she warns that it doesn't happen that way. So why would it now? She's selling a dream with this bearding. Just like high school in the movies, this relationship isn't real. The sixteen is bittersweet because she's past fifteen and knows who she's "supposed to be", but acts like she isn't that with TK.

However, she's also on the brink of this wrinkle in time; usually, brink can mean the start, but it can be a crucial point as if maybe this beard is the beginning of the end with her closeting. Alternatively, Taylor could be saying that bearding with TK reminds her of the brink or start of her closeting when she was sixteen and in high school. (And I know A Wrinkle In Time is a book series too, but my memory of the book is very fuzzy, so I won't get into it since I'm not equipped for it)

"I'm watching American Pie with you on a Saturday night // Your friends are around, so be quiet // I'm trying to stifle my sighs // 'Cause I feel so high school every time I look at you // But look at you // Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah"

I've never seen American Pie, but I've heard it's a pretty crass film. I don't know Taylor, so I can't discern whether or not she actually likes American Pie, but it's worth noting that she can watch the film and not actually enjoy it. American Pie is also a high school movie, once again using the fake dream high school tropes. And while it might not be related, I can't help but think about the song, "American Pie" by Don McLean, a song that could be interpreted about so many things. But to me, in its simplest form, it's about the death of the kitschy, sweet '50s Americana in the wake of several tragedies in '59 and the '60s, starting with the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper in a plane crash, known as "the day the music died". There are so many little parallels between that song and Taylor's discography that I could probably make a post about that alone. But for now, the "American Pie" could be "1950s shit" dying, Taylor watching the death of bearding as she gets through the last act.

From a romantic point of view, I don't get why Taylor would have to be quiet around TK's friends. Shouldn't she be hanging with them a la "We can let our friends crash in the living room" or something? Maybe from this perspective, it's supposed to be a reference to public sexual activity. But I of course don't think this song's romantic, so maybe she's telling him to be quiet about fake relationship deal discussions so the friends won't potentially blab. And a sigh can be serene, but also apathetic, exhausted, or drained. There's so much wiggle room for everything in this song to be taken negatively.

"Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me? (Kill me) // It's just a game, but really (really) // I'm bettin' on all three for us two (all three)"

More dream high school references. Marry, Kiss, or Kill (which I'll call MKK) is a common game younger people play and it has many variations. If not played mindfully it can be dehumanizing; for example, it would be okay to play MKK with the options being fictional characters, but maybe not when you bring peers into the mix. Maybe MKK is like bearding. Is TK going to play the game and choose which one he'll do with Taylor? "Kill" I imagine would be to scuff up her rep by association. Taylor bets on all three. In the wake of Taylor skipping a game (against my city's home team—thanks hun! 😝), walking around NYC on the day of, likely causing breakup concerns I imagine, and the real or fake Full Scope leak, the kill might be happening/continuing now. TK and Taylor did their deal (kiss), there's the theory that the narrative might be that he proposed (marry), and she'll ghost, one of them likely going to be painted as the heartbreaker (kill). Wanting to be out of the bearding, Taylor emphasizes the "kill me" and "really" part before "all three". And like MKK, bearding takes random people and sets them up one way or another with limited options. It's a childish game.

"Get my car door, isn't that sweet? (That sweet) // Then pull me to the backseat (backseat) // No one's ever had me (had me), not like you"

I've gone on before about vehicles, primarily cars, in Taylor's music representing the closet, misbehaving/sinning, and the freedom in the closet/privacy, mostly in my "BDILH" analysis. TK is her beard, so he opens her closet door so she can reside inside. But she's in the backseat. Typically, it's implied that either Taylor's driving the car or in the passenger seat. I feel like her being in the backseat implies that this bearding is in such a way that she's not doing what she usually does, which is having the beard be more like the Ken/accessory to her Barbie. Some of her fans are so obsessed with this beard that it's like she's in the "backseat" of their minds thanks to him having his own very loud public persona that contends with her's. Or maybe it's like she's very deep in the closet with this bearding. No bearding has ever been quite like this, with how popular the couple is and how everywhere it's been. And saying "Isn't that sweet?" could be sarcastic.

"Truth, dare, spin bottles // You know how to ball, I know Aristotle"

Similar to MKK, Truth or Dare (TOD), or Spin the Bottle (STB) are young adult games that can be dehumanizing or scary for the players. STB especially sets random people up romanticly through a kiss, and usually the player must kiss someone they don't want to kiss in order for it to be "fun", like bearding. TOD forces its players to tell a true answer to a hard question or pick a dare and be forced to do a thing they don't want to do. Taylor having to choose between fake dating vs. telling the truth of her queerness is much like TOD.

Taylor points out why she and TK are opposite and why the relationship is so far-fetched. She is very academically inclined and he's a jock. It occasionally works in the movies. It's not impossible in real life, but reality is more complex than the opposites-attract trope in media.

"Brand new, full-throttle // Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto"

Reminds me of "Hand on the throttle" from "The Prophecy", which I took in several different ways in the second part of my analysis for it. I mention throttle meaning to control fuel on a machine, so in slang, it often means go. You can also throttle someone, meaning to kill them by strangulation. So here this could mean 1) Taylor is super-fueling this bearding, but it will die, 2) Taylor became a character that was unexpected when she started bearding with this guy who was different from all other beards, or 3) Taylor will become something brand new and kill the old Taylor after the bearding.

I've heard the words "Grand Theft Auto" aren't capitalized in the CD booklet. I'm away at college and didn't bring my CDs with me, so I can't check that for myself. But if this is the case, this line could be some kind of reference to TK's friends and their lack of responsibility, as Taylor has to direct TK in his role as "boyfriend". Or they could just be playing the video game GTA. If vehicles are symbols of the closet, TK's friends stealing cars (or playing a game where I assume you steal cars), that might signify that they are also in fake relationships. Outside of his teammates assumedly, I don't know who TK's friends are, so I don't know how to form an opinion on if that's the case. I know there's the joke (?) theory that TK is dating this guy that's always lurking around when Taylor and TK are on a "date". But just throwing it out there.

And again, she asks him to put his hands on her (probably not in a sexual way necessarily—but then again there was that one beach ass groping pap photo and I think him doing the same thing at a party or something...) while people are around, acting like a couple in front of others so they're convincing.

"It's true, swear, scouts honor (yeah) // You knew what you wanted and boy, you got her // Brand new, full-throttle (yeah) // You already know, babe // You already know, babe"

One of the most laughable things about this bearding is that even the general public has to be convinced that TK and Taylor are a real couple. Here Taylor doubles down on the convincing, so much so that it makes it feel even more fake, which honestly might be the goal. It's sarcasm.

Taylor mentions scouts, as in Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, or Cub Scouts presumably (there are many types of scouts). There was never such thing as a "gender-neutral" type of the scouts everyone knows of until recently (apparently, I've never seen it in real life but I've heard about it on the news). They were always only girls in Girls Scouts and boys in Boy Scouts/Cub Scouts. They were usually separated by gender. So this line could almost be seen as a gay joke if Taylor's referring to herself as a scout or someone only around other girls. The actual hand symbol for "scouts honor" was (and still is I'm assuming) holding three fingers up on your right hand. When a person uses the term "scouts honor" when telling the truth it's usually to add humor and maybe even hint that they're lying, which supports the idea that this song is tongue-in-cheek. "Scouts honor" can also be a slang term for using three fingers on a vagina during sex. No, sapphics don't own fingering, but I feel like it's pretty associated with us and I've definitely seen straight people make jokes about how fingering needs to "come back" when it never left for a lot of sexually active sapphics. And as a few extra tidbits, the Cub Scout salute is what has also been popularized as the "lesbian salute", with two fingers being placed on your temple. And the Cub Scouts version of scouts honor is two spread-out fingers like a peace sign, very similar to all the peace signs/two signs during the TTPD era.

Even when first listening to this song on TTPD's release day, I couldn't help but find the "you knew what you wanted" line a bit... creepy from the "you" person's end. It doesn't have to be creepy, I know, but it feels somewhat cat-call-y to me for some reason. But if TK wanted to get more famous so bad, going to the lengths to get into a fake relationship, he knew what he wanted and how to get it.

"You already know, babe" is as if TK already knows his role as "boyfriend". I don't know if TK's been in fake relationships before Taylor, but I'm sure he knows what he's supposed to do.

"I feel like laughing in the middle of practice // Do that impression you did of your dad again // I'm hearing voices like a madman

As mentioned, this song was written before the TK narrative publicly happened and before the ever-changing lore behind them. Practice is likely Eras Tour practice. So if she's practicing the choreography for this very song, it might feel ridiculous and cause Taylor to laugh, especially since the choreo seems to be inspired by the rehearsed body language from TK's football games (or vice versa) Tay attends, she's brought the choreo itself to the games too, and outside of tour choreo she's been repeating movements from the first game to the latest (to date) one she's been to like she's bookending it. It's a performance.

@lavendergaaayze had an interesting take on the dad line. About how TK has these angry blowups and that it could be learned behavior from a father. I don't follow this man or his family, so I in no way can add to this take with evidence, but that'd be really personal on TK's end, so there theoretically wouldn't be any to find anyway, or at least it'd be hard.

Hearing voices isn't very romantic sounding to me. It goes along with all the asylum/mental illness themes with TTPD. I don't know why love or lust would make you hear voices. Maybe in a "you drive me crazy" way, but do people usually go as far as to say they hear voices? It could just be a thing I'm unaware of, but my point with all these lyrics is that they could be seen as romantic, but they can also be seen as not romantic on the flip side.

I admittedly don't listen to this song a ton (it's not terrible or anything, I just don't), but it's very masterful through this lens. Even the instrumentation of it screams high school movie, aka not real and parody-like. It's not like other high school-themed songs that feel more grounded in reality, such as "Suburban Ledgands" or "MAATHP". It feels very similar to other parody-like songs she's made.

Thanks for reading!

[foxufortunes]

Having a day, mostly because plotting out the back halves of some fics, where I think about my complicated feelings on how AFTG's main trilogy ended. And I don't mean Riko's death and everything surrounding that and the lack of falling action following that (I'm not a fan, I prefer a long period behind the climax but like, it's an author's choice, it doesn't ruin the series, plenty of my faves also do that) or at least, not entirely that. I mean, not so much the details, but the broad strokes, and in some ways going back to my post and some thoughts about how Riko starts as Kevin and Andrew's antagonist and ends as Neil's, how Nathan feels like an antagonist but is actually just a scary man here for torture and then to be killed off by a guy who's been mentioned a handful of times and never appeared before that moment, and how that's reflected in the order of the third books events even though logic would dictate the torture and murder should be the more serious threat and therefore the climax rather than the game with the mafia brat on live TV and that Andrew is basically Neil's antagonist for the first book.

And because, for some reason, I have to do this whenever I engage with this series in a critical way: I do not hate the series or Nora, this is not hate, I love AFTG, have read it at least a dozen of times and I in fact do not waste time engaging critically with series I do not enjoy. I find engaging with media critically and looking at its good and bads to be a good way to connect with it and improve my own work. If there's room for civilised discussion, great, if you're going to tell me "you're wrong" I don't care, one's personal reading of a series cannot be wrong, simply not the same as yours, go away.

So this is going to be a bit messy, so bear with me, but I always find it interesting that the torture and potential murder of Neil, and his reverting to Nathaniel, and the family connection is all treated as a simple stepping stone while Riko and the finals the grand climax. And I think it's sort of a symptom of how the blended reality of mafia and sports has sort of skewed the priorities of the story. Logic dictates that in a mafia (and most stories) the biggest threat to your life should be the biggest plot point and therefore the climax, while the sports drama ofc has the finals as the finale (and I could do a whole other essay on how for all AFTG is gritty and dark, it plays the actual sports drama narrative of underdog beats the champions and wins it all with surprisingly straight and by the book). So yeah, one would think that the life threatening and family drama would come as the real climax, especially since, as I said, Riko starts as Andrew and Kevin's issue while Nathan is Neil's.

But then Riko's attention shifts almost entirely to Neil. Now, there's an argument that Riko becomes the trio's issue, and in some ways that's true, but thinking about the last match, the climax where it all comes to ahead, Riko and Kevin are doing totally their own things, Kevin has already broken free of Riko via changing his tattoo. In many ways, this should be Andrew's real moment. As a sports drama, this is where Andrew gets control of the defence line and takes Riko down striker vs goalie, especially after the set up of the first match in TRK. But, instead he gets Neil in and Neil leashes Riko.

And now, I do sorta get this, it's not like I'm saying this is awful why did Nora do this, it's just a curiosity to me that I'm trying to think about and figure out my real thoughts and feelings on. Because by shifting Nathan to an overarching background "ooooh but my dad" threat, Riko is Neil's actual antagonist, and while this can work as a "he's our antagonist" and "Riko created his own weakness by training Neil", it doesn't so much for me because it's still Neil who takes him down. It's Neil who's there when he's shot. It's all Neil. (And loosely, I think this is related to how some parts of fandom, especially in fics, especially raven!Neil fics, make Neil either uwu so soft and sad and useless, or op as fuck to the point where he's the best boy at everything ever where even Riko and Kevin aren't, or both, but that's a different ramble.)

And here's the thing, Kevin and Neil should be up the other end of the court. Kevin is proving himself amazing, as he should, and Neil should be with him. This should be the moment Andrew and Riko finally face off, and that Kevin and Neil finally see Andrew do what Andrew does and trust him entirely to just shut Riko out (or yk, enough to win the match) because he's been practicing serious with Kevin (amazing striker and Raven) and Neil (fucking fast) and have him protect them from Riko, as he promise, by protecting that goal while they're busy. Neil has faced Nathan and come out on top, Kevin has faced his mental block and declared himself queen and is ruling the court. Riko is now nothing to them, they should focus on their goal ahead. It's Andrew's turn to face down Riko. But it's Neil. Now, there's an argument this is Andrew finally accepting help and teamwork, and that the narrative constantly undermining Andrew's ability to protect his people is actually about him letting go and trusting them, that his protection is more mental stability for them to stand up for themselves, and Andrew does protect Neil from Riko in the end, and I do get all that. But it's not a great example of team vs person, especially from a sports drama perspective, because exy isn't quite built for team vs person more line vs person and even then the combo plays aren't really there, and if you want to sport drama to be the central narrative, then maybe let them prove themselves in the sport?

I told you I have complicated feelings about this.

Which brings us to Nathan. While Riko is the sports drama villain who has fascinating depth and layers if you want to look for them, Nathan is a puddle of a character, only mildly deeper than Drake and only because he has more screen time (do not make me talk about Drake and Nathan as villains as how this fandom seems to criminally underthink them in favour of mwhahaha evilz, because evil for evil sake is not nearly as scary, do not because I will start talking about BSD!Mori and why he's terrifying) although with some interesting quirks to his personality one could dig into and draw parallels with if one wanted him to be more than scary evil torture guy. But the problem with Nathan is that he's such a big, looming terrifying presence, set up as Neil's antagonist but also not. Nathan is so big and terrifying, but he and his people aren't in Neil's life until they're one scene. He's a ticking clock until death. But the problem is, how does Neil deal with him? See, even putting the whole "isn't Nathan the bigger threat so why isn't he the climax" thing aside, Neil doesn't really defeat Nathan. Nathan is too big, too scary, too much, and AFTG too dark on the mafia side. So Nathan is defeated by a guy who's been mentioned a handful of times, turns up just time then, then disappears again until the finale where he mostly just stands there. And people can argue "it's a plot twist" or "it's realistic" but this is a narrative, not real life. Things mean things. And Nathan was set up as just too much and too strong, and too looming. Neil couldn't stop him. Neil didn't let anyone help him (something, I've talked about being and we see in TSC, Neil thinks Neil is always right and his way is best and doesn't tend to consider other options, again, not "omg so wrong" but Neil is a flawed character, here's how I perceive one of his flaws), and he didn't even tell anyone, so of course he had to be saved without warning by a guy we've never even met before.

And, like I said, I'm not saying "oh book bad" or "this better", just that I have a lot of mixed feelings about this, and that just because I adore the books as they are doesn't mean I can't also think about things that I might change (that's what fanfic's kinda for? you know, let Seth live, let Janie be a character, all those little things you might like to see but don't detract from your love of the books).

[tofautisawa]

Sorry for opening a can of worms, but you mentioned a certain lion indie project did damage on how people view lions and lion media. I was just curious on why you say that.

Hoo boy this is gonna be a long post. I was mostly vaguing on how it's a possibility that My Pride may have skewed people's perception on lion behavior as well as how and what people might people expect from lion media by smaller creators, especially if they are a younger audience who might take everything that happens in it as 100% accurate to lion behavior. Let's not pretend that it's creator didn't influence and inspired a lot of people.

It's a bit of a stretch, I know and I am mostly speaking through experience of what I witnessed in the comments of my own comic and what I have seen towards online media that happens to have lions in it. It has basically died down now, so what I am mentioning was when My Pride was pretty much in it's prime. Thankfully, I didn't get it the worst but I can't say the same for some others. From what I recall, My Pride advertised itself as "The Lion King but realistic", and even though I feel they messed up that "realistic" aspect part, it wouldn't bother me as much if people didn't act like lion media they discover afterwards somehow has to operate exactly the freaking same or that My Pride is the pinnacle of realistic lion behavior so if you step outside of what is portrayed as "Pride Law" in your own works, it's gets questioned or people will flat out say it's incorrect. Pride Law was even brought up when Silver and Gatura had their fight for example even though no such thing even exists in my comic, and a comment mentioned that males will fight til one of them dies which I have never seen in a one on one fight, even if it did happen most of the time the losing male will retreat. But it happened in My Pride so Silver running away is unrealistic I guess. And no, Pride Law getting some things right about lions at a surface level doesn't NOT count. Just because lions commit infantcide in real life doesn't mean My Pride portrayal of it is 100% accurate because the circumstances on WHY they are doing it isn't realistic nor does it make a lick of sense. Don't get me started when people referred to my male lion characters as "manes". Ugh...

Anyway.... Given that Tau ( and by a lesser extent, Silver) get questioned on how they even have prides because they aren't aggressive who killed to get where they are, I can't help but wonder if this is just the standard now because every single male in My Pride ( if they weren't killed off) was a dick. And since "PRUYDE LAHW" states that a male lion's role in a pride is to lead and protect the pride, you couldn't POSSIBLY have a pride in your own works where the roles are reversed and the lionesses are the main protectors. Or that a lioness can simply have a male in a pride for no other reason other than she loves him and isn't just laying around having his cubs because of some "rules".

Speaking of lionesses, you'd be surprised at how many people now think that lionesses will in no way defend their cubs when another male shows up or hell, join in the fight themselves. I feel like people would not have criticized Tau's pride so much if HE was the aggressor and Ekene just sat being submissive because that is what is expected because something popular that claimed to be realistic portrayed it as such. As well as thinking that lionesses are completely weak pathetic creatures made out of wet toilet paper that even if they completely outnumber a single male, he could somehow beat them all without getting a scratch on his body. Nevermind that in real life, lionesses have been known to even turn on their males and kill them.

And some other things that probably escape my mind right now because this post is getting long, and I am just bitching at this point because I been holding back these opinions for quite a while now. Like I said, I know this is a huge stretch and most of it probably stems from my own bitterness. So I will be fair in this aspect, Even though I feel like the creator should not have advertised this as "realistic" since My Pride is HEAVY on the fantasy elements and tries to tackle issues like Homophobia- I know it's not 100% the shows fault and that people themselves should learn to separate different medias unless a creator flat out states that said media they are doing takes place in the My Pride universe or was inspired by it. My comic is definitely not inspired by My Pride, especially since I first started this comic long before it came out and while some thing have changed about my story over the years, the same major story beats were already planned and there was no "Pride Law" around to even influence that, not that it would have regardless.

[glaciertea]

Masterlist here

Tales the Songs Weave

Ch.18<< >>Ch.20

Notes: You reflect, you reflect on everything and nothing all at once.

Chapter 19: Entrapped Laments

Word count: 6.5K

That's it.

                     That's how it ends.

Grimly and anticlimactic.

You've been lying down, staring at the ceiling for what feels like hours, days even.

You tried not to be shocked; you should've seen this coming from a mile away, but here you are, sobbing your tear ducts dry until you wilt to become a stale zombie.

You can't even recall how you ended up in your bed in the first place. The last thing you remember was being in front of the door, allowing the dullness of damn all to consume your inner torments. 

Your apartment is buried in the shadows of the night, and your eyes are glassed with endless sorrow. 

Why? Why did he end it? You tried not to believe it was your fault. You trusted your instincts into thinking it was other factors.

Well, it was mostly you skewing your mind in a direction where it was something you wanted to hear, not needed. You only did it to make yourself feel better. To give yourself this distorted narrative that things are just in a rough patch, but with a little care and time, they'll go back to normal.

Well, as plainly vanilla as it could get with someone like he is. 

Was. 

Having to start thinking of him in the past will be a strange, unaccustomed response. To think back instead of thinking forward.

Which is funny—how many forward-looking outlooks were there? You try to remember if there was any deliberation about a probable future between you two. You certainly know you've voiced your desire to stay together, but now that you consider it, were there any times he mentioned a foreseeable life for you both?

You really tried to dig into your memory bank. There was that conversation you had about how you'd both raise kids if you were to have any, but was that more of a theoretical train of concepts? Rhetorical inclinations because of the tender and vulnerable moment shared before landing on that subject?

Would he have wanted kids with you? Every time you have… had sex, he has… had those primal urges to finish in you. It was very rare when he pulled out.

But that could mean anything. Maybe he has a fetish for nutting in his partners to stroke that massive, dumb ego. Some sense of accomplishment knowing the person he's with will allow him to go ahead and release in them because ‘he's just so hot,’  ‘our babies will look so cute,’ or ‘he would be such a good father to my future kids.’

You weren't projecting.

Did he really want a life with you? Everything that happened seemed so authentic and full of bliss. Did he really want to be with you in the first place?

Well, he was the one to make the first move, so that had to be something. Or maybe he did that because of the vulnerability shared before it.

Was anything real between you two?

Glancing over your alarm, the annoyingly lit green numbers sting your retinas as you hurriedly wipe away the pathetic tears for that man.

It's a quarter to six, and you have work in less than two hours. You thought about sneaking in some sleep. And if questioned about your fatigued state, you could make up an excuse that it was a restless night because you were so excited to come into work.

You would've won the best costume award for your zombie-like appearance.

The minute you stepped in the door and up to the counter, one could immediately see the appalling anger ready to burst just from Ronnie's gaze.

“I knew it! That fucker!”

“Ronnie, I didn't say anything. It was a long night. Couldn't sleep. It happens.”

“That has you looking like you just stepped out of a grave after many, many years?!”

“Rough nights can spring up on anyone, Ronnie. You've seen them on me before, so this isn't a first.”

She scoffed. You figured she wasn't going to buy into it. “I'm going to kill him. Where does he live? I know he works for some shitty tech corporation. Which one? Which building is it?”

She banged on the counter with her knuckles, trying to calm herself. “This fucker. I told his ass—I told his ass to not drag you down on his ship, but he did it anyway!”

Your head slightly tilted up at that. “What did you tell him?”

“I wanted to tell you about Sunday, but I held off for your sake, which I now regret doing.”

Your weary eyes peered into her choleric ones. 

“He came by with the box of materials you gave him when he first came here. Asshole attempted to return them during your break, but I told him not to even think about destroying anything that was built up and that he better get his shit together.”

You felt your body want to give in. Crumple to the ground and slowly dust away until there is nothing left. 

He was planning this.

He was planning on walking away, but for how long? How long was this on his mind? How long did he have that wrapped and tucked like a gift you're trying to hide from a kid before Christmas? There's a singe in your eyes as you feel them threatening to well up until you roughly dry them away.

“Did... did he say anything?”

Ronnie shook her head. “Told him we had no space, and he just swiped the box up and left without a single peep, like the bastardly coward he is.”

You didn't know what to say. What thoughts can you even conjure up after being told something like that? He came here and couldn't even face you. It didn't help that when he was visiting your job during the last week of his weird state, he only stayed for less than thirty minutes. 

Not to even mention how he would stroll into your place for an hour, barely say anything, and then depart until the next evening.

You might as well have had your eyes ripped from your sockets to have not foreseen this.

“And the fact that he broke up with you knowing you had work. I swear, the nerve of some people!” Ronnie snarled and turned to her shattered and dispirited employee and friend. “I hate what he's done to you. I should've just thrown in my two cents like I always do. I should've done it. Did he at least give a reason as to why?”

Even though all he bitterly spewed was incomprehensible for you to digest, you weren't going to expose his other life, no matter how much misfortune he battered you with.

“He merely told me it would be better to go our separate ways.”

Ronnie tapped her fingernails on her tablet; the only sound was the clacking against the screen. “And?”

“And that's it. He wanted a break, and here we are.”

That answer wasn't acceptable to her. “You know it's easy for me to find him.”

“Ronnie, please don't.”

“Don't have the last name, but I can go off the first. I have a face to the name.”

You're too tired to draw your boss back down to earth. She can be very petty when a discrete occurrence permits it. And her pettiness is telling you that this was one of those times.

“It was messy. He came in, didn't sit down, and just blurted out that we needed to break up. He went on a tirade about something that didn't make sense and told me…” a knot tangled in your stomach as you rewound his comments and synthetic, devastating explanations. Your eyes were slightly sheening before you wiped them. 

Ronnie was tight-lipped, patiently letting you take your time, but bearing that crazed wrath for Miguel.

“He told… he–he told me I shouldn't ex-exist.” Even just uttering those words made you want to vomit. 

A fracturing crack came from below as Ronnie involuntarily smashed her screen. She was doing all in her power to not go full ballistic, her face puckering to stow it shut.

“Why I can't stand some guys. Always, always the luscious ones, isn't it?” She glared up, as she could tell how sapped and worn you were. 

“I don't know what to do, Ronnie. I know it's only a guy. I shouldn't be getting this upset over him."

“No, if he was nothing but a pitiful lover, then yes, I would've said move on and much more, but this dude came into your life and was beaming these contagious rays, then randomly closed that curtain. He was the match to your firecracker, but he seemed to have gone excessive and hosed it down at full force.”

She could see the deflation with every word she snared. She hated seeing her favorite this way. “Go home and relax for the rest of the week. I'm visiting you tonight after work with comfort snacks and ‘so bad, they're good’ films. I'll also close up shop early Saturday, and I'm taking you clubbing.”

You staggered at the freely given vacation offer. Shaking your head, you began to place your bag down, taking out its contents to start working. “No, it's okay; I'll be fine. You don't have to come over or give me the days off.”

“No, you're getting the time off, whether you like it or not.” Ronnie tried to enforce it, but you wouldn't listen as you pursued your incohesive blubbering.

“And besides, the rest of the whole week? You would have to deal with Freya and Jax, and I know you can't stand them. They don't do much to help you out anyway. I just need a few pick-me-ups, that's all!” You gathered up some magazines that were randomly piled on the surface, pretending to fix and stack them. 

“I can handle them myse-”

“And besides, my day off is tomorrow, so there's my rest day. And you don't have to come; I'll be okay. He's just a guy; things like this happen; it's all a part of life. Life!”

Ronnie narrowed her eyes, observing your erratic shift in movements and tone. 

“You know what's funny about life? Life has paths that can weave and swerve without you realizing it! There's so many ways it can go! Not just one! You may never know when things can have you on top of the fucking world before it yanks you right down to the pits of–!”

“Y/N!”

You yielded. Your chest was rising heavily, everything pounding from your head to your toes. Your items were strewn across the wooden surface, and a magazine you held was crumpled with tiny rips on the edge of the cover. You dropped the paperback and entangled your hands, digging into your scalp.

“I'm sorry, I'll–I'll pay for it.”

“It's a magazine. We have multiples of this issue.” Ronnie woefully eyed your current nature and tightly embraced you. “I'm coming over tonight with the best junk food; you will be taking this week off, and we will have a damn good time clubbing. I'm not going to sit back and have you slip and decay away. I'm not.”

You stayed muted, your lifeless eyes beginning to seep out tears. You returned the hug; albeit lackluster, it was still comforting. 

You knew it'd hurt. 

You knew the misery would arrange a huge, pleasant resting nest right in your gutted heart, mind, and soul, needing the full capacity of every centimeter of your being. The more you disjointedly vented to Ronnie, still trying your best to exclude the Spider-Man business, the more sketchy his excuses became to you.

Ronnie eventually sent you off; her blood pressure was skyrocketing. She felt her own heart crunch, and she wasn't even the one who received his horrible comments and arguments. She was ready to find him, tear him apart, and beat him.

It was difficult walking back, especially when passing the gardens. You made your best efforts to speedwalk by it, but that misery made sure to slam its brakes, forcing you to gaze upon a now squashed and destroyed memory. You had to choke back many more cries, refusing to garner even a lick of attention. You turned a fifteen-minute trip home into nine. 

You didn't bother to change out of the clothes you were wearing when he dumped you. As you wallow in despair on your sofa, half listening to one of the albums you gifted him, your brain reeled itself into rewinding last night, no matter how hard you tried to veer away.

A physical wound won't go away the next day. Most certainly, a mental wound wouldn't pack its bag and leave when one wanted it too. For some, it can come with ease.

You thought of Ronnie, an individual who can seemingly move on from one relationship to another. If someone breaks her heart, she will twist and snatch the pain out, gladly replacing it with a new one until the pattern repeats itself. It wasn't a very… healthy coping mechanism, as you expressed your concerns about it, but right now, you envied that technique. 

You envied the ones who could deal with heartbreak with such ease. That vicarious sense of seemingly disregarding the instigator as if they were just another snotty-filled tissue made you jealous.

Why must this hurt? Why can't you just let him go? You both barely dated for a year, so why was this such a difficult feat to handle? Why did he have to make every day feel so special? Was that simply the honeymoon phase? Was any of that true love or just a quick and simple fling?

Your hands found your face as you whimpered before bawling your eyes out. Your shuddering breaths filled the air as you rocked back and forth, trying to cool yourself as much as possible.

It was impossible. 

It's still too fresh. Straight-out-of-the-oven fresh, that will sear one's tongue if they bite into the meal. You thought about the five stages. Denial is the first, and you certainly can feel it raging within. Then your brain had an idea. Maybe you can speed up the process. 

You said it yourself with the advice you gave him when he broke down to you about all the wrongdoings in his life. 

The ones you took the time to hear out and accepted them because you didn't care. You did care, but in a way where one can acknowledge that humans make mistakes. You took them with so much propriety. 

You aggressively shook your head, not wanting to drive yourself down an irrational, winding mental rampage. 

Does healing begin with yourself? Does it come with time? Your previous relationships eventually did, so it has to, right? 

Right?

You stood up and stomped into your bedroom, knowing exactly what particular thing to grab. Scanning the room, your eyes landed on the vase with rosy, pink tulips and snowy, white daisies that sat perfectly healthy and radiant from the day he surprised you with them. 

You took extra time caring for them. You wanted to see them keep their beautiful colors. You wanted to see them strive and keep that potential they had in their lovely fragrance and presence. You took every second, minute, hour, and day to make sure they knew their value and worth. You wanted to be there for them. You wanted to be there for him—them. 

You wanted to be there for… them.

You hastily yanked it up, making your way back to the kitchen, and ripped them out of the vase, dumping them right into the trash bin. This was certainly a faster way to get to the second stage of grief. You were speeding up the healing process by beginning it with you.

But then you found yourself immediately pulling them back out, washing any food off them, and muttering apologies about how they didn't deserve the treatment that he caused. How they don't deserve to suffer the fate you’re going through. You tried to rearrange them neatly and prettily. It wasn't as plausible, but it was still decently okay.

You sank to the damp floor, clutching on the vase, slumped yourself on a cabinet, and stayed there. Even when the record ended, you didn't budge an inch. Not even when there was knocking at your door and a call of your name, not a speck of movement. The knocks eventually became banging, with Ronnie exclaiming it wouldn't be her first rodeo entering a locked place with only a credit card and bobby pin.

You stumbled up and wobbled to the door swiftly to prevent your irrepressible employer from having the cops gang up on her. She held up a giant fast food bag in one hand and desserts and snacks in the other. She did seek to interrogate you about the vase you held, but held off as this was a night for you to ease some burdens.

That night, you and Ronnie laughed and yelled at your TV at the ridiculousness of the films while stuffing your faces with fries and your favorite ice cream. You talked about everything under the moon, excluding him, even though he lingered in the corner of your mind. You shoved it there, but he was hidden in plain sight.

Ronnie made herself even more comfortable by spending the night, cuddling, and chatting in your bed. 

“You know, I haven't been in your place in so long. I have forgotten how much stuff you got from the store.” She stroked your hair, scanning the cozy abode you had made throughout the years.

“They are interesting. And besides, it's fun digging into things from the past. Remember that one time I dressed up in clothes from those Leopard Tunes magazines?”

“My God, how could I not forget? You did look good in those camo pants.” She wanted your mind anywhere else. 

Eventually, you began to quietly weep until you dozed off. It felt nice at the moment, but even with the rest of the week off, you were still alone.

You mostly slugged around your place aimlessly, letting your music override your endeavors to forget him. It wasn't easy at first, due to the fact that you purposely kept choosing the records he was supposed to have, looping them non-stop, when you finally found the strength to shove them back into his drawer.

You remember the first present you snuck into it. It was a gift card to a restaurant you discovered that made killer empanadas and other delicious cuisines. How he swung himself to the establishment and purchased a week's worth of food, as you playfully chastised him for spending it all in one day, as he munched on the fried pastry with muffled praise. 

“Stop it!” You nearly snapped your own personal vinyl before carefully placing it down next to the turntable.

You prefer silence now.

The couch was your only security. Or that's what you like to tell yourself. 

The only time you got up was to use the bathroom or grab another bag of fruit gummies. You didn't even realize Saturday night had rolled around when you heard the shout of your name and the thumps on the door once again. Ronnie nearly keeled over when she registered that you haven't changed out of your clothes since Tuesday (you caved in and told her the exact day)  or how the ghostly stagnant space never left.

After using her work hierarchy, she had you take a nice, hot shower. She dolled you up with makeup and picked out some tight jeans and a red tank top she brought for you. She wanted to accentuate your figure, and it surely worked. She boosted you up with all sorts of compliments all the way to the club. At the moment, it was nice, but he was still there.

The entire time, you tried to have fun. You didn't want to ruin Ronnie's efforts at cheering you up, but it was difficult. The strobing lights and new-age techno music didn't exactly match your solemn mood. You tried to follow along to the tunes, but nothing came of it. 

You observed the scene, eyeing your boss hitting on some guy before she pointed to the booth you sat in. You clutched your drink as they made their way over. With another man in tow. 

You considered giving the ‘moving on quickly’ a chance.

It didn't help.

The two dudes were overall jerks. It started off with normal conversations asking about how you and Ronnie met, your job, and how long you've stayed in Nueva York. The basics. Then it started to snowball when every other word out of their mouths was how you and Ronnie were lucky to be “the winners,” as they skimmed over all the other “fine babes” for you two.

It only made you think of the first encounter with Miguel. How awkward he was, but still so pleasant. Well, as pleasant as one could be after being lunged up onto a bed that's less than twice his size. 

Ronnie snapped you out of your daze and took a hold of your wrist, irate at the now overly befuddled guys, practically screeching about how they're being pigs and not one woman would sleep with them even if they were the last ones stranded on earth. You were just as hazy, but you took the spontaneous escape with a stride.

“The two were such bastards. Fucking lowlife degenerates!” She dipped and weaved you both out into the cool and humid bustling outside of partygoers trying to enter. “And I saw him in your eyes.” 

You didn't mean to make it obvious. You didn't want to. 

Ronnie offered to take you home. You slowly nodded, with no other words exchanged, and made your way to her car.

Your head was against the cold window glass the entire ride, viewing the twinkling lights as the city passed by. Ronnie spied on your deteriorating state, suggesting that she spend the night again. You deny it, thanking her for all that she's done for the past week.

“These scars will just need some time, you know?”

“Just… I'm here for you; remember that, alright?” She parked in front of your apartment building, the pitter-patter of rain plunking against the vehicle's roof.

“I know. Thanks, Ronnie. I'll see you on Monday.” 

“Here, take my umbrella.”

“I'll be okay.” You opened the door, wishing her a good rest of her night and a farewell.

You went straight to your bed and laid there. Time will heal all. It has to. It must.

Days turned to hours. Minutes into seconds. Hours into days. Everything has merged into one. 

You would come into work late, appearing frail and worn. You would make up for the lost time by overworking yourself to consume your brain with other insignificant images and thoughts. 

You would go until you were dead exhausted, go home, sleep in, come into work, labor away, and repeat the process until you decided when you were feeling better. You have to heal. This was the only way. 

You were managing. Lies. 

You were fine. Lies.

Ronnie was severely worried about your mental health, but you were surviving. You were okay. Lies. Lies. Lies.

It was going smoothly. You had your routine. Nothing was going to break you from it, and nothing was going to deter you from this healing.

Then one night, right as you were ready to fall asleep, a slew of cash was randomly deposited into your account. Perplexed, you texted Ronnie, pleading that she doesn't need to boost your pay and that you'll send the money back. She was confused, more so when you told her the price, and then she was really flabbergasted.

And that's when it popped up. That's when his face appeared.

‘I’m sending you this for the bedsheets and mattress. I hope you've been doing well.’

This bastard.

You wanted to throw a fit. Nearly two weeks. You were doing so well for that long. Now he has the nerve to arbitrarily become this mindless ‘sugar daddy?’ He was arrogant and dense. You directly sent it all back, along with a message stating you don't want or need his money.

‘I've already replaced the sheets and all. I've survived before you, and I can continue on without.’ You didn't replace the mattress.

‘Right. I'm sorry.’

‘Yeah.’

You needed some fresh air. You had to get away from it all. Why? Why would he randomly text you? Especially when the first message back is him sending cash for something so fruitless as linen? Why did he mosey along, ruining these moments of alleviation? Why couldn't you hate him? That would make things much smoother. But here you are, heart drumming unevenly after seeing his name and stomping out of the building to escape from it all. From him.

Rain. How fucking cliché.

You began to wander aimlessly until you found a destination. 

Why does the sky shed its lament for you? You didn't want it to pity you. You needed it to pity him. He’s the root. He's the one who put you both through this.

You released a shaky breath. Who were you fooling? Why couldn't you be angry all of a sudden? Why couldn't you scream? Kick? Anything?

The rain was masking your tears, as you couldn't tell the difference. You felt so numb. Lying and suffocating all these thoughts because you didn't know how to open up the lid.

Is this how he goes about life every day? Suffering from your own inner demons all because one can't face them? You knew you certainly couldn't, no matter how much you toiled on convincing yourself.

You continued your walk when you began the descent into that hellscape rabbit hole. You slithered back to that night, triggering everything he threw at you unanticipatedly instead of the usual waves. You hated how that endless loop occupied your mind. You tried to bluff your way through, but you knew you were trapped.

You shouldn't exist because you're not ‘part of his canon?’ You need protection? From what? Him? Others? Yourself? That whole canon debacle?

You didn't necessarily get a full answer. All those reasons he dropped didn't add up. You don't understand his Spider-Man drivel; you never could, but you withhold the judgments because that's who he is. Though he seemingly couldn't separate or differentiate the two lifestyles.

He lied to you. He lied to both of you. You contemplated if he was forced into a corner to bite that intractable bullet. You desperately craved to believe that, but from how it deteriorated, he made an unbending choice for all, the royal we.

You tried to make sense of the logic behind it, but every turn was a dead end. 

You're an anomaly? You shouldn't exist?... Why were you born then?

You debated if that was existential. You concluded it was, and that was the last thing you wanted when attempting to solve a puzzle with different pieces from an overflow of different boxes. You can't make it work.

Or maybe you can, and it'll be this beautiful, monstrous amalgamation.

The rain picked up; maybe it understood something you couldn't feel. Your clothes were heavily drenched as you journeyed onward, but you didn't care. Ronnie offered that you show up during later hours for the next week or two after demanding that you participate in more self-care activities. She's sympathetic to the ones she loves and takes pride in helping them. 

You don't know how long you've been going, but you came to a halting stop in front of a certain bench. You desired to venture to the gardens but didn't want to take the risk of explaining your situation to an employee or passerby about why you were soaking in your pajamas.

Yeah, your nearly seven-foot-tall now vampire ex-boyfriend dumped you, hollering how you essentially shouldn't exist and that you'll only be there to self-reflect on your true purpose in life. 

Surely it wouldn't raise any concerns.

As you sat, the raindrops were sticking to your rear, dousing your already ruined bottoms. A flash of lighting and timid rumbles of thunder settled into the skies. You wrapped your arms around yourself in a feeble hug, discovering how alone you truly are in this moment. You appreciate your boss, but there's only so much she can feasibly accomplish on your self-guiding voyage. 

You can't casually go into a full, unambiguous conversation with anyone. This is an inescapable burden you have to face by yourself. How you must bear that information that you were going to be the cause of the world seemingly perishing away. 

How he left all that on you.

You were the reason, not him; even though he was in the relationship too, it was somehow your fault. 

When a star dies, it explodes into a supernova, turns into a black hole, or can create new stars.

This one became a black hole.

He was destroying it all. He did destroy it all. You shouldn't have fallen in love; then what were his actions conveying? It doesn't make sense. If life is basically predetermined, why did he start a meaningful connection with you? Wouldn't he also effect that canon event situation? How did your existence become an inconvenience to him?

You don't belong here. You still couldn't cloak your head around that; in fact, you couldn't do it for none of it.

You were his scapegoat. How he blamed you for doing normal, everyday things. You aren't some form of destiny, and you aren't a puppeteer. You're just an individual who wanted him to be okay, to have him forget about his worries, even if it was for one measly day.

Or maybe he was right. 

Maybe your relationship wasn't meant to be. It doesn't excuse him tacking all the blame on you. He was going all in as well. You sink your back on the bench, knowing you're going to catch a cold, but you didn't care. 

Your eyes start to scan the scenery. The burnt orange dims from the streetlights, the pond with no animals, the shrubs with blooming flowers being pelted with water to keep them going, the trees sweeping alongside the battering rains, and...

And a familiar figure in a Spider-Man suit sitting on a bench across from you. 

Miguel appeared as a child with his hand in the forbidden cookie jar. A deer in headlights. The night you accidentally first saw him in that get-up.

Despite the heavy rain, you both managed to catch each other's gazes. Your heart nearly blasted out of your chest. Not even the speediest racecar could compete with how fast it was racing. You closed your eyes, then pinched your arm, breaking a bit of skin, hoping you were just dreaming, and once again overslept. But when you opened them, he was still there, visible as can be. 

With a stroke of horrible luck, the rain began to let up, seemingly mocking you. You hated how clearly you could see his face now. He was gawking, his mouth agape, like he was trying to speak to you. 

You wished for him to say something. You dared him to express anything with the blazing leer you directed towards him. You refused to remove your inhospitable attitude.

You wanted him to do it. You desperately wanted him to call out for you.

You're still staring. Why is he such a coward? Ronnie was right. Yet, you're one to speak if you couldn't do what you wanted him to do. 

His lips move once more, but he catches them. You wouldn't know what to say or what questions to ask. Well, you did, but you didn't have the willpower to achieve it. 

You doubted that you would both move. You learned that you're both very headstrong, unbending to crack, and will hold your stances. Rather, it was for something as simple as spoiling one another while the receiver tried to deny it or as big as someone who would try to wedge in between you two.

How ironic that the one who did successfully wedge in between was the one you trusted most.

You both were stuck in a staring contest as your eyes started to sting. Was it from not blinking or the tears threatening to well up because of him?

Say something. Say anything.

You could tell his talons were digging into the wooden seat; you surveyed that knee vigorously judder. You gripped onto the edge of the bench, repulsed that your own hand wanted to help soothe and rub the troubles away.

His lips were pursed firmly as the rain stopped. You could hear the grating emitting and the sweeping winds whooshing in your ears, but they were also stinging at your eyes. You fought to keep them open, your eyelids twitching uncontrollably. He wasn't moving. He was straining himself, and you knew. You wanted him to break first. You needed him to.

But you broke and shattered all over.

You yelled out and slammed your eyes shut, rubbing them fiercely. Blinking rapidly at the wet, muddy ground as you attempted to get some moisture back into them. You jerked your head up as a scowl formed on your face.

He was gone. 

You hated how he continued to prove Ronnie's point over and over. He is a coward. Running at the first signs when things go downhill.

You refused to cry. You refused. You stayed seated for the next twenty minutes, until you finally opted to just go home. 

When you made it back, you stormed straight into your bedroom, not even remembering how you grabbed one of his shirts, but you did. You hugged it close to your chest and fell asleep.

Unbeknownst to you, he was still there. He was there, making sure you were safe and okay. That he will still care for you even when he's not there with you.

As another week passed, you lazed on the couch swiping through online dating profiles, another attempt to rush the healing business. This was a way for you to get some control back, whatever that may have been.

It hasn't been the best of luck, especially when you jumped the ship for the first guy who swiped right on you. He wasn't that bad-looking, and the conversations you held were decent, so you decided to meet him at some restaurant downtown. 

And it was a horrible time. 

It didn't help that you technically didn't really get to know him. It was only enough to clear your mind after the park incident, but you regretted your poor intuition and lack of judgment due to being desperate.

He was more of a talker, which didn't seem bad at first, but he wouldn't allow you to get a single word in, and he nearly ate all the food off your plate. You couldn't remember the rest as it was a blur, but you recalled texting Ronnie to save you from it.

She rescued you after paying for your meal, and you both went to get ice cream fudge sundaes. You didn't mention him at all to her. Rambling about everything, how it was a silly date, and you'll discover a better pick.

But you didn't want to pick another. You didn't want to mindlessly search over and over because he still lingered. No matter how much you persist in trying to remove him from your thoughts, he always finds a way back.

You needed something back. Stumbling up to your feet, you slogged through the clumps of candy wrappers and bags from cheap snacks, clothes you mindlessly tossed on the floor, not even bothering to pick them up, and several empty soda cans and half-finished or barely touched water bottles.

In your room, you eyed the flowers, whose petals began to fall off. Grabbing a water bottle, you poured the liquid into the vase, gently stroking a tulip.

“It's okay. Just because I'm withering doesn't mean you have to as well.”

Satisfied with the given amount, you flopped to your knees and eyed a certain drawer you left untouched. Taking a hold of the handles, you wrenched them open and absently glared at the clothes and objects, daggers of grief and solemnity cascading on your heart and mind.

Pulling each item out one by one, you ridiculed yourself for reminiscing. Have you forgotten the words he spoke to you? What all he threw at you that night? The actions he took upon himself that led him up to those final moments?

You needed something back, and you were going to get it.

Gathering up all the records, fabrics, picture frame, and the lavender spray bottle, you marched out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, right up to the bin. You were ready to take it all back. You were prepared to sonic boom your way to a mended soul. You are ready to take back that control. You needed this.

You were ready.

Suddenly, you were back on the couch, his contents left sitting on the coffee table as your thumb hovered above his name. You were dazed as you clicked it and began typing.

‘Hey…’

Don't. Why are you doing this? You know this is wrong; you didn't want to.

‘Hey.’

Why did he respond so quickly? Don't, don't. You needed to take back that control.

‘I forgot you have a bunch of stuff still over here. Do you want to pick them up?

Stop. Stop. You know what will happen, so why are you trying to give in?

‘I will come by and grab them. And I'll drop off the key and your things.’

Fuck. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck you. You shouldn't be crying; you can't, but you couldn't stop the endless, flowing streams.

‘Okay, just text me when you're coming by so I can have them ready.’ Your eyes darted up to the table, then back down on the screen.

You remembered during your schooling days when you learned about the dark, blue parts of the ocean. If you accidentally fall into one, you get sucked into an abyss. They warn you about avoiding them by staying in the light, crystal-blue parts. But those parts have been tainted. Why would you ever want to be near a singular spot of transparency if you know that there is more out there to be discovered? Even if that small section is open and clear, what about the others that are purposely hidden?

He's still texting. The three dots have been going on for over a minute now.

You shouldn't be curious. You shouldn't care. You don't want to care. You won't care.

‘Okay, I will.’

Your phone slipped from your hands as you gripped your hair.

“Please tell me, Miguel. Please tell me your true thoughts. Please tell me you still love me; even though you never spoke those words, every action you displayed said it for you.”

You can't feel your face anymore. Was it from the tears? Or the lack of emotions?

At this point, that split second of control you audaciously acquired was snatched. Snatched away like a thief to a jewel.

What have you done? What devastation have you scorned upon yourself?

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

@ella-janehaven @prozacgooble @sanguwuxyoonbummy

[laz-laz-ace-pilot]

All this “everyone has the Force” stuff reminds me of when people wanted Rey to have a low midi-chlorian count. The idea was that midi-chlorians were not the sole indicator of Force-sensitivity, but that the Jedi used high m-count as a criteria for recruitment because it was quantifiable and measurable

I'm not a purist when it comes to force-sensitivity and I see what you mean, but it feels less like a change for the better of the narrative, and more like wish fulfilment on Filoni's part.

There's always been dodgy lore when it comes to force-sensitivity; I've never been a fan of Lucas' comment that Vader lost some of his sensitivity after losing limbs and the whole 'he's more machine than man' thing. Same with the idea that the clones couldn't be force-sensitive because Jango wasn't. Midi-chlorians have never been popular, and a quantifiable measure of the Force seems opposed to its flexable nature.

But this change not just messes with canon events, but also with the themes of other star wars stories. The High Republic - a personal favourite - is about the best years of the Jedi and Republic and this is characterised as a time of cooperation. Whether that's the Jedi working together, Jedi working with ordinary civilians to save lives, former conflicting states (Shili, Eriam, E'ronoh) working together - its about people doing what they can to help, force-sensitive or not. The implication that everyone can equally access the Force with enough training just undermines how people bring their different skills and experiences to help in the story.

These stories also explore other Force related groups and how these operate with or without Force-sensitivity. The Guardians of the Whills, Church of the Force, even the Path of the Open Hand have interesting philosophies that explore life without sensitivity and they deserve better than to be ignored.

And the Jedi have always been characterised as a closed group that have faced persecution (like many real life groups). The implication that them not being open to everyone is the reason they failed (?) sits wrong with me on so many levels.

And maybe the show will address this - we're only three episodes in at time of writing. Maybe it will explore the idea that Ahsoka is wrong to believe this and its part of her own trauma and skewed memory of the Order and that actually being trained by Mr Anakin Attachment-and-Resentment Skywalker was the problem, not the Order itself.

But I don't have faith that will happen. Filoni's past comments about the Jedi, his general misunderstanding of how they worked and how their philosophies worked, and his own attachment to his favourite character don't give me much hope (not to mention his racist and antisemitic history). The show has yet to brush on any actual Jedi teachings, but has demonstrated that yeah, Ahsoka is no Jedi, but that might not be the good thing it seems to think it is.

Sorry, I hope that kinda answers your ask, I got a bit carried away. I don't want to hate on the show, and I hope fans get something from it, but Filoni's approach really rubs me the wrong way!

[mobius-m-mobius]

I know I am wildly late to this observation, but I just rewatched Thor for the first time in a very long while, and. I'd genuinely forgotten that at the start Thor is headed down a path at least as dark as Loki's? I mean Loki is making very extremely bad choices, but Thor isn't exactly less horrifying with his whole jumping straight to the 'lets "break the spirit" of an entire realm by murdering as many of them as it takes' shtick. And it's just so clearly laid out that the divergent paths they are on by the end of the first film isn't illustrative of some inherent difference in their natures or predetermined by choices they'd made before the film started. The difference is that Thor gets the opportunity to love and be loved by people outside the skewed and insulated world he grew up in, to be loved without strings attached, and discovers that the friends he had all along loved him more unconditionally, aside from his power and conquests, than he'd realized. While Loki learns that their father attaches all sorts of strings to his love, and 'learns' (somewhat truthfully with regard to Odin I think, though not with Thor or Frigga), that the love he had from them was always conditional, mitigated, based on lies and offered to a version of himself that never existed.

And I just—my point isn't 'you can't blame him for his war crimes 'cause he was sad', just that. Man it really was about love from the very beginning!!!

(P.S. I sent you an inordinately long series of messages about s1 Loki a couple weeks back, and your response was delightful, and added excellent points—just wanted to say that you; that was lovely of you, and I really appreciate how kind you always are on this blog!!)

Hey there anon, lovely to hear from you again! Thank you so much for your own kind words and taking the time to send another message! Your previous ones were a wonderful read as is this and as far as I'm concerned there's no such thing as being late to anything that isn't already scheduled, especially regarding media or fandom when there's a chance to discover someone/something new around every corner 💖💖

(Case in point how unexpected getting this captivated by a Marvel series was for me, which I only bring up because, well... quick disclaimer, I have an understanding of everything that happened in phase 1 but haven't exactly seen any of the Thor movies or until a few weeks into the airing of Loki had any real exposure to anything Marvel/Loki related between the original Avengers movie and then, which ironically I love because the moment S1 kicks off Loki's journey is where my perspective starts as well!)

As Loki mentioned many times previously, Thor truly wasn't ready to rule back then (not that Loki was either, lol) and you're not only exactly right about them both going down dark paths but I see Thor's view as worse considering he grew up surrounded by a level of confidence in companionship Loki never knew. The attack on Jotunheim pretty much says it all when Thor didn't hesitate to use hurt pride as an excuse to kill as many Frost Giants as possible, then after getting an entire war kicked off all Thor's friends were actually angrier with Loki for letting news of their visit get back to Odin despite the fact that they would've all been killed otherwise 🙃

Odin not being the best father to either of them is an understatement but there are unspoken conditions to his interactions with and love for Loki specifically due to his birth that (by nature of what an imposing figure Odin is) would almost subliminally impact everyone within range so I can't even imagine growing up in the midst of that and having no idea of the real cause, though I don't doubt Frigga's love for him or that the Thor of now wants them to be equals. It really does all come back to love from beginning to end, and makes it all the more important that Loki finally found that love and acceptance beyond his wildest dreams in Mobius so here we are now just waiting for them to find their way back to each other :')

[rawliverandgoronspice]

Hello.

You and gay-jesus-probably have successfully made me question everything with your view that Tears of the Kingdom is imperialist propaganda, so that's been fun.

Anyway, I decided to share this discussion with the Zelda fans on reddit, and perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of them disagreed. Here is what they said (I'm Alarming_Afternoon44):

So what do you think? Have I and all these other people just been duped by the game's manipulative framing? Or do they actually have a point?

And if you'd rather not answer this, or would prefer if I censored the usernames, just tell me and I'll delete this.

Hey! Thanks a lot for reaching out, and I'm glad it made you think stuff through!!

Honestly, as I mentioned in this post, I am not super interested about in-world conversations about who oppresses who, because what can be assessed from the game is super vague and more vibes-based than evidence-based. Within the text, of course that the Good Zonais are good and the Bad Ganondorf is bad! But that's my whole point! The narrative has been deliberately crafted so that the zonais and Rauru (and Hyrule) are as blameless as possible (and it's not doing a great job at it overall to be frank; we would not be having these conversations about how offputting it all feels for a non-zero number of people if it did do a great job). More importantly, I want to focus on what sort of real-life narrative it all parallels. Because people make stories, and people live in the real world.

Not going after everyone's throat here, gamedev is hard and the hydras that are AAA game production do end up doing super weird stuff, especially since the thematic ramifications are absolutely never prioritized (and it's also always the same kind of people who make the final calls and push out what can and can't be talked about also). And as fans, we tend to have trouble stepping outside the lens of lore and take a look at the bigger picture sometimes; not as an attack on any individual part of that decision-making process but to just pause, stop, and question our standards, our priorities and the kind of reality (or skewing of reality) the stories we tell each other reflect.

Again: do we want to take videogames seriously or not? If we do, then we need to accept they are a vehicle for ideology, just like any other artform. And sometimes, you push out questionable ideology, sometimes without meaning to, because you didn't unpack your own biases as you did. And it's even fine to do it, nobody is perfect, a 300+ people team spread over 6 years certainly will not be that. But that it wasn't prioritized is, in my opinion, a problem. As a narrative designer, I want games (at least the narrative side) to be held to a higher standard than this. It's literally my job to work with the industry so it can hold itself to higher standards of quality --so the whole TotK situation is quite frustrating to witness from a very pragmatic, work perspective where I already spend my days trying to convince people that things mean things. I have a vested interest here in not having the companies I work for being given a free pass by gamers to do literally whatever as long as it's fun, especially when we're talking about a billion-dollars company suing its own fans left and right for any perceived slight. Nintendo are not underdogs here. It's fine to point out they cut corners and maybe promoted messy ideologies, voluntarily or not.

So long story short: no I don't believe anyone here has a point in regards to what I think is actually important, which is why these choices were made in the first place. If you look at an imperialist text expecting the text to tell you that it's imperialist instead of recognizing a framing used for propaganda by yourself, you're never gonna find any imperialist text ever, obviously not!! I'm sorry if I sound a little gngngn here, but I don't know why audiences have, at large, this feeling that lore and story beat decisions materialize themselves already formed and without any human bias, meddling, intervention, internal politics or approximations (it seems that people can only conceptualize this part if they have actual names to attach to the story, but without clear authors it's like there are no authors and so no bias, which is... a very strange bias in itself). I can promise you that it does not work that way in practice: every narrative department on every big game is a battlefield --some nicer than others, but all of them very emotionally draining either way.

So yeah, I guess that on these grounds, I disagree with every point raised here. Sorry Reddit :/

But thank you for the ask and sorry if I didn't go more into details as to why. The big Why I Dislike Rauru Post and the Gerudo Post might have some more specific rebuttals, but I am not super interested in debating small detail stuff tbh. I feel like it's no use if the frame of reference isn't being understood in the first place.

[henrysglock]

Does the VR game contradict TFS or the filmed canon?

Both, but some of the contradictions may be, in part, due to the fact that the Henry-memories that we experience are fed to him by the Shadow. Some parts, like his relationship to Brenner, might be a little skewed by that as the Shadow tries to convince Henry to join it.

Contradictions per TFS:

VR Henry was 12 when he entered the lab, and he's characterized as "obedient" and "eager to please/show off". Henry in TFS is 14, neurotic, rebellious, and prone to Shadow-fits.

There's also no mention of Patty in the VR game, as far as I've seen.

Virginia in TFS had blonde blonde hair, VR Virginia has brown hair.

Nevada/the caves/Henry's flaying haven't been mentioned, and I'm heading into chapter 6 of 9 after finishing the lab memories arc.

Henry doesn't recognize the Shadow...at all. He doesn't recognize Dimension X, either. The Shadow is trying to possess him and take him into the hive. If he were flayed, that wouldn't be necessary.

A couple things that are consistent:

The Shadow keeps trying to get you to kill a bird, and TFS Henry goes after animals first to avoid killing humans. But that's contradicted by the plot point where you kill a person rather than the bird to rebel against the Shadow, so...

The Shadow takes on multiple forms to try and convince Henry to join it, but it never does any of this stuff:

There aren't any visions of the future, everything is purely coercive (threatening or non-threatening), and the Shadow never drops any helpful hints the way TFS Henry's shadow-visions do. I'm here wondering if this game should be the thing called "The First Shadow", because Henry here very much seems to be the first iteration.

Contradictions per filmed canon:

While the ages match up, the temperaments don't. How is Henry, 12, an obedient people-pleaser while also having killed his mother to escape Brenner? The game contradicts itself on this one ^^ Henry was supposedly a good subject, but you're given the option to murder a man in your first run through the "kill the bird" experiment set. In fact, if you're resisting the Shadow, you're supposed to kill the guy rather than the bird solely to rebel against the Shadow. Makes me wonder how reliable the characterization is overall/how much is the Shadow trying to convince Henry he's obedient and eager to please.

Young Henry and orderly Henry alike call Brenner "doctor", even in private. The mentions of Papa come from the Shadow as far as I've seen.

Henry and Brenner in VR seem to have had something of an amicable working relationship/Brenner seems to have at least attempted to act like he cares about Henry, even though Henry supposedly never does his chores/slacks off. Again, though, not sure what was real and what was manipulated by the Shadow to try and coerce Henry.

Virginia has brown hair, not bottle blonde.

The Creel house layout is entirely wrong.

See what I mean?

You'd have to be facing the mystery door in the family room to be able to see the stairs that way, which would make Victor's study the dining room.

So...somehow they swapped the family room (the lumax piano scene room) for the parlor and Victor's study/the front room for the dining room. Here's another way to see it:

And there are some things that fit weirdly...overall.

Henry supposedly threw a kid off playground equipment when he was 10...this has me staring at Henry in Nevada and wondering if the kid whose arm was broken was different than the boy Henry put in a wheelchair.

The Shadow was not in spider form, you as the player shape it while playing as Henry. This contradicts both TFS and Filmed Young Henry, both of whom already seemed to have the Mindflayer...in mind, if you will.

The Shadow taking the form of Brenner does make sense irt TFS, though, since Brenner has all these weird "trying to get back to Dimension X" and "being overlaid with the Mindflayer" moments.

Fun to note, not necessarily within the bounds of the ask: Henry has yet ANOTHER!! House of leaves moment. I've talked about Haunted by Poe before and its status as a companion piece to HoL.

Well. Henry at one point, when subjugating the Shadow, says something along the lines of "While you were playing Doctor, I was taking over/taking control". And my brain went "Huh. I've heard that before, right?"

I sure had :) Control by Poe, on the Haunted album.

There are multiple others in the game but I don't have time to lay them out right now.

[jimblejamblewritings]

I am not a Snape defender

I'm sorry but I really don't understand the "Snape defense, james & sirius are the worst" in relation to each other...

Snape wasn't a randomly innocent victim of Potter and Black's bullying. Being in with the future Death Eater squad isn't exactly innocent. Also, it's stated that James and Severus were always at each other's throats. That's not the marauders were big bullies and Snape was an innocent victim.

Side note: people saying that James was a dick to everyone. That's fanon. We only know he hates Snape. And he hates Snape specifically because he's into Dark Arts.

And we are seeing all of this through Snape's vision. Our own opinions and memories of ourselves can be skewed. Severus only joining the baby Death Eaters after he calls Lily a mudblood and she pushes him away isn't believable. He was friends with the baby Death Eaters at school before they became Death Eaters... I'm sorry but I don't believe in our real world that a person can be friends with racists but because they have one minority friend I should assume they aren't racist. So I can't believe that in this world either.

Need I start with he had no problems using what is effectively a slur in their world. Or is the whole mudblood thing just a one time outburst at Lily? Ain't no damn way a slur just rolls of the tongue in frustration unless it's something someone says on a daily basis.

He goes to apologize and she's like well you call every other muggleborn that so why not me...

(side note: lily wtf? why would you be friends with him when you know that? I'm not staying friends with someone that would regularly call black people the n word. anyway...)

That means he's been using that slur against muggleborns and harassing them. So he doesn't just become a bully after the marauders tormented him in school. He's been one.

Snape and his friends also try to do something apparently evil to Mary MacDonald. That's someone who wasn't James or close to him like the Marauders. She didn't do anything and they tried to/ wanted to hurt her anyway. That's a bully.

Like I'm sorry but this man was a Death Eater and only turned to the good side to beg for Lily's life because he was obsessed with her. He didn't give a shit if Voldemort killed James or Harry who was like a six month old. He only wanted Lily to live and when Voldemort didn't spare her that's when he went to the good side.

And when people bring up "James sexually harassed Snape by using Levicorpus that exposed his underwear" ... my guy, Snape invented that spell. So are we to assume he never used it? Cause I don't. So you better bring that energy for Snape as well if this is the road we're going down. And he doesn't take off Severus' underwear.

The text mentions that after taking off his trousers you can see grey underpants. When it says pants, it still means trousers not the common use of pants the way most British people say it. Most because certain parts of the UK don't, fun fact. And again, Snape came up with the spell. It's oh so convenient that we only see James use the spell against him but not Snape using it against other people to what we can assume is the same extent as James.

Also the whole werewolf thing... I'm sorry but if you suspect someone is a werewolf and confront their friends about it, the people you don't like and who don't like you, why the hell would you go on the night of the full moon. Sirius telling him how to get past the Willow honestly doesn't change much. Lily tells Snape she already knows his theory after he points out that Lupin disappears every month at the full moon. The dude knew or stongly suspected that Remus was a werewolf. And still decided to see if his theory was correct, putting himself in the line of fire of a full grown werewolf.

Like I'm not necessarily absolving Sirius because he should have known that the boy who hates them would be arrogant enough to still go after them even if he thinks Remus is a werewolf. But still, that means Snape was arrogant or stupid enough to do that despite his suspicions before confronting Sirius, which he did on the night of the full moon so at this point Snape knows he has all the facts. But even if we only blame Sirius...

Snape still calls people mudbloods, bullies children that aren't Harry (not that that's okay) at his grown ass age, and didn't think Voldemort was wrong until he killed the obsession of his life. Like that enough I'm good on him.

And everyone else has a skewed story but Snape? No. That's not how that would work. We also only see a few incidents and nothing about what happens in between or even what leads up to them. It's just as skewed as anyone else's memories we see in the book. Like remember when Tom Riddle's diary only showed Harry certain moments to make it look like it was Aragog and Hagrid knew.

And to anyone that recognizes Snape being friends with the baby Death Eaters but saying that we don't know if he was a bully.... It's giving, "I can excuse racism but animal cruelty is where I draw the line."

Some other things I've seen, I'll discuss in little bullet points:

An 11 year old James saying who wants to be in Slytherin or Hufflepuff and Snape overhearing isn't James being a bully. It's an 11 year old not wanting to be seen as lame cause everyone calls those houses lame (or evil in Slytherins case).

Saying that James and Sirius are rich doesn't suddenly make them bullies. There's not a power imbalance that they use against him. They don't make fun of him being poor. They hex him with spells he came up with. I don't think they would only bully Snape for being poor, nobody else, and then ignore the Death Eater part. They were hating him for the Dark Arts, not cause he had no money. We don't know about Remus or Peter's financial status but considering they are never mentioned as rich then at best they're probably middle class to poor. I don't think they'd be around for that type of bullying.

Y'all siding with the wizard racist, obsessive man who is a dick to kids at 30, I can't be convinced about Snape. Sorry. I also don't get the Snape deserves a redemption arc storyline but not Draco. However that's a different story. Like JK writing him bullying children and then saying but it's not that big a deal is skewed. She also had Harry name his kid after Dumbledore and the entire fandom agrees that the man doesn't deserve it.

[ducktracy]

I'm not sure if this has been brought up yet, but as I caught myself doing it, I realized it was very likely a good chunk of others are also - I think having the racist parts included in the poll is going to heavily skew the data anyway because people will, very likely, not feel able to vote for something racist in good conscience, and so the votes the racist screams would have gotten if they weren't racist are lost, thus making the data unusable due to personal bias. not even considering the number of people abstaining completely, dropping the pool of data further! I'm not aware if this has been broached yet, but I think it's definitely worth noting that the data for the racist clips will always be untrustworthy, even if the scream itself is good. On top of all of the other reasons why they should be omitted ofc!

GOD YEAH. i feel so dumb going “🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 well gee you make a good point there 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔” all contemplatively because i’m realizing that was my intent too, in that “well hopefully they’ll whittle down as the rounds go further and further” has been constantly harping on my mind. but that absolutely feeds into everything you laid out too, which, again, i DEEPLY appreciate.

i’ll be doing that, then, in that i think it’s the safest and SMARTEST course of action. it’s likewise been pointed out that the setting is a little different here than if i were doing one of my analyses, in that i’m still making it available to vote for one of those options, and that interactive element innately delegitimizes the harm/makes light of it under the guise of a poll.

i was conflating that perspective with my analyses, which IS often a more objective presentation of “okay: this is it. here is the historical context. here is how a more modern perspective impacts how it currently stands” and forgetting that polls are polls. you’re voting on them. they’re going to get spread around and viewed as a game. and they are! and i was viewing the polls from the same archivist lens as the rest of my blog, when, due to the intrinsic nature of how these polls works, you can’t really do that. it’s not the same presentation. i do view this as a historical archival of the progression of these cartoons, how Mel Blanc’s voice changes and adapts through voice direction and even the impact of history on these shorts (like, the shorts made during the WWII years are much more energetic than the domesticity of the post-war cartoons. there’s more yelling to be found in the WWII era shorts for that reason) and i was getting too lost in that and sticking to my guns of “all of this is history and deserves to be acknowledged and accounted for fairly, if/especially describing how well or poorly something has aged, otherwise it’s not history” and that doesn’t… really… work… for these polls.

i can’t believe it’s taken weeks for me to come to this realization and again, i sincerely thank you and everyone else who has called me out on this or offered other means of perspective. it was pure ignorance on my behalf, and i do want to make it known that it was never my intention to perpetuate these stereotypes and caricatures further nor harm anyone. but, obviously, prefacing it with “my intentions were good!” doesn’t negate the very real and serious harm these caricatures and i myself have caused by spreading them in such a leisurely context (or lack thereof).

as mentioned before, i take the safety and comfort of my followers and readers incredibly seriously, ESPECIALLY with the nature of these cartoons. and it’s exactly why i’m so adamant about asking people (such as yourself) to speak up and call me out, let me know what i’ve done wrong, so i can apologize, take accountability, and move forward. those disclaimers aren’t a way to avoid accountability or make it seem like i have a free pass to discuss racism. i really do mean them with every ounce of my heart, so i deeply, deeply, deeply appreciate people such as yourself acting out on those messages. thank you.

i will be excising any future deplorable examples that come up (that, thankfully, have been very few and far between, i’m up to 1948 in logging these and have “only” run into 2 that would apply) and am just going to cut any of the winners out that survived and are going into Round 2. it’s not worth it. none of it has been, but definitely, if i’m constantly thinking to myself “it’ll whittle down!” then maybe we ought to restructure our thinking now haven’t we. funny how that works.

thank you again and my deepest and most sincere apologies. i feel like a complete and utter heel for my negligence—especially because the gut instinct of “just don’t put them in there” was there all along. but, again! these exact situations are why i stress the importance of calling me out on my BS. i’m likewise deeply aware of literally just how silly this entire thing sounds, because none of this should have ever been a problem because i just shouldn’t have included them in the first place! but i did, and i take full accountability, and the harm has already been done. so i just ask and thank you for your patience, understanding and forgiveness, but completely understand that nobody—especially those harmed by my ignorance—is entitled to give it to me.

nobody ever deserves to be confronted nor harmed with such egregious stereotypes, even/especially if said stereotypes are peddled under the guise of objectivity or historical preservation. a poll is not a history site. likewise, nobody deserves to be alienated over cartoons. i post what i post because i want to share the same overflowing love and passion and joy i feel for animation history with others. i love learning new factoids. i love being educated. i love feeling like i’m learning, like i’m indulging in an intimate slice of life from a bygone era. i want to share that same love and passion and joy to my followers. i’m here to make people laugh and to make people smile. i’m here to remind people of long buried memories, or to inspire them to make new ones and investigate these cartoons themselves. i’m here to preserve the history of these cartoons within their proper contexts, and do what i can to ensure i’m doing that safely and smartly and in a way that benefits everyone. and i’m not going to accomplish any of that by slipping needlessly horrendous caricatures in something as inconsequential as a poll on which clip sounds funnier or more impressive or whatever and causing the harm.

so, sincerely, thank you.

[acourtofthought]

There’s a poll about Elain and Lucien’s mating bond and how it’s going to get rejected or how it’s fake or how it’s really Elain and Az who are true mates. So far the “SJM didn’t talk about rejecting mating bonds for no reason” option is winning but the poll is totally skewed towards E/riel because the creator didn’t even tag the other ships. Come on, how is that even fair? Why even do a poll? 😂😂

On that note, I don’t think SJM speaking about rejected mating bonds is because she plans to do it in the future. I think she’s thinking about it more in the past. Thoughts?

🥰🥰🥰🥰 thanks so much, your blog is a gem!

"Stay with the High Lord, and live to be everything righted."

"I told you - to stay with the High Lord. And you did."

It's warning to me that first time we'd met. "You - you meant Rhys."

Gee......it's really too bad SJM has never mentioned something where we all thought it's initial meaning turned out to mean something else in the end. 🤦

E/riels are right, SJM didn't mention it for no reason. But where they're wrong is their thinking that because she mentioned it in regards to Elucien breaking their bond it means Elucien will break their bond. That's not SJM's style. To literally say, "geee........I wonder why Elain and Az weren't Mates" and lo and behold Elain and Az are magical, wonderful, MATES!!! SHOCK AND AWE, WHAT A SURPRISE!!!!!

I think there's a chance she could have been referring to a past couple (LOA and Helion) but I also think she could be building up to the reveal that Mor and Eris are Mates. To me that makes sense because eternally feeling the tug to one another wouldn't be as much a burden knowing that one (or both) prefer same sex relationships.

And yeah, it's so easy to manipulate a poll in the fandom. I think the only real way to post one is to do it across all platforms (Twitter, FB, IG, Reddit, etc), make it accessible to all shippers and see what the combined results are. That's still not going to be a guarantee of anything because readers opinions still won't change what SJM decides to do but at least it's a step in a less biased direction.

[gakupo7]

It's so unbearably easy to mistake "I like this" for "I am this"

I think that's one of the biggest problems of "figuring out your identity". You can't base so much of your thinking time around YOURSELF and expect the resulting thoughts to be honest and down to Earth instead of terribly skewed. My big problem as a teenager. Nowadays I really dislike trying to perceive myself through an outside lens or figuring out an identity and making that my whole thing because that's just indulging in vanity and setting yourself up for self-deception.

Of course there is also the old saying "know thyself" or however it is in english Γνώθι σαυτόν and this puts me to thinking. Do I know myself? How can I get to know myself, without falling in the pits previously mentioned? And why?

I always think I know what kind of person I am but many times I end up surprising myself. I thought I loved people and being around them, meeting new people, talking to them and listening to them and all, but nowadays I've been getting annoyed, at some point I could barely look them in the eye through my contempt. Now I think I like them again. We have the same structure after all... Though I love animals too

When people tell me what they think of me or rather, how I appear to them, it's a kindness, and I appreciate it for that. But that also doesn't quite help me to understand myself, I'm afraid. I can't think of myself having a certain personality, I think a personality is something that someone outside might perceive, and call that a personality, but for me it's existing, doing and saying what feels most natural (whether it is what I should do or not) and sometimes stopping myself from acting naturally, either in an active effort to be better or due to some deep underlying complex (probably makes me worse). In that sense I think I do indeed have a vague idea of what I am like. But it's not something to think about either. It's not thinking about MYSELF per se, but rather exploring certain ideas, and they, or maybe the way I approach them, end up shaping how I am... Or rather, how I might think and act and feel next

I don't understand my personality and I don't know if I could list you many personal traits of mine if you asked me to. And I don't think I would like to. And I don't care for an identity besides what is actually and genuinely wholeheartedly important. But that is not stuff like "I'm left-handed" or "I can like women" or even what country I'm from and love, because someday I will die and all that will mean nothing and have no use or meaning anymore in the slightest. But I like being alive right now and having a body, and through it experiencing the world just like the animals except we are very different, but we do have bodies with similar structures and functions and the need to breathe and be warm etc. I actually really like that because it's so simple. In that manner I do know myself... Somewhat. I like it... Although I'm not exactly likeable all the time. But there's more meanings to the self besides such a thing. Overall it's good to take one's eyes off the mirror and start looking around the world. Well, I like to look at my hands also 😊

I'm always wondering this... At what point does the superficial end, and at what point does the real begin? Can they be so deeply intertwined, that they're near impossible to distinguish? What is honest? What is genuine? It's difficult to find it in myself, but I'm happy to have good examples to look to, and I love them. Think of this: There is the genuine, and there is the love and longing for the genuine. This love and longing comes from the heart of someone covered in many thick and frustrating layers of fakeness and uncertainty. However the love of the genuine manages to penetrate all those layers of mud and actually reach the genuine and kind and honest person. Since this love is of the genuine, and it reaches the honest person, does this bring upon the uncertain and dishonest person even the slightest amount of honesty and truth? I think it does. I'll show you the math:

Dishonest person + (admiration of honesty, strong) = Dishonest person + love of honesty + the heart of someone honest = ...Slightly less dishonest person? Since both the kind person and the admiration of them are genuine. This means something genuine came from the dishonest person . This makes them less dishonest. And life becomes more worth living as well

[localvoidyeller]

The real truth about the infinite money glitch

Is that it all basically boils down to believing that God has your back financially. I’ve been working on the artist’s way for the past 4 or so weeks and I’m on week six, recovering a sense of abundance, and coming from chapter five’s potency, i had high expectations for week 6 and it did not disappoint. The chapter basically talks about our relationship with God and money and how redefining luxury can lead to an increased sense of abundance. The surprise i encountered was that i still had a wounded relationship with money that was limiting its flow to me. I wouldn’t necessarily say i was consciously and singularly focused on improving my relationship with money, but i was aware that i had a less than stellar relationship with it, and it needed improving. I half assed a MindValley course by Ken Honda and all that managed to stick with me was aregato in aregato out, but i abandoned that pretty soon anyway. What i hadn’t realised, until today was that load bearing turd issue surrounding money was where i was receiving support from, or rather, who. I’d always subconsciously suspected there was something wrong with my father’s money, but i guess that was a rather superstitious way of perceiving the issue, see, i had grown up with a miserly father who is increasingly so as he rapidly approaches retirement, a few weeks from now as i type this.

It totally skewed how i perceived money, how I thought it worked and how i felt was the only way i could get it. I believed that i could only get generous or substantial amounts through my father and no one else. I believed that 6,7, or even 8 figures were incredibly hard to get and could only be earned through gruelling amounts of physical and emotional labour. Funny enough, my first job abroad as a waitress mirrored this perfectly. I made my first thousand dollars by overworking and my legs and feet were swollen from the effort for a whole day afterwards. What i was making on regular shifts and work hours was meager and had i less financial support from my father i would have struggled immensely. I experienced controlling behaviour before i even began to fully understand why i was miserable around fiscal discussions. I was rushed and pushed and emotionally guilted for having financial needs. For twenty three and a half years, i was fathered by what i can effectively describe as the most financially fluid broke man. The money is there, but do you know what else he could be doing with the money you’re asking for? And not to mention, he has 3 other people who need the same money for their needs or desires. Fucking hell, it was pathetic to be honest with you. Having a provider that struggled with managing his provisions.

Anyway, my journey has been somewhat interesting, In working with the emotions that were typically triggered due to fiscal discussions, i effectively wound up dissolving my money blocks ina round about way. It’s quite splendid now that i stop and think about it. By acknowledging that there was no point in having or using money if i wasn’t also budgeting for treats and fun experiences, i learned how to manage my personal finances a LOT better than when i was told what to do with the money i was given. Making that thousand dollars from waitressing also radically shifted how i perceived myself and my work ethic, which was crucial given that i had grown up being called lazy because of adhd. I also discovered that waitressing is not a sustainable means of income because i need to work more hours to make a livable wage but also my physical and mental health were steadily declining as i worked more hours. It turns out there’s more to doing nothing and enrichment time than was previously impressed to me by my elders(parents and society) and i think that was a serious failing on their part (given that they’d been around longer than i have and therefore empirically know more stuff). I had to found out the hard way that one’s mental health suffers when they glorify work over play.

Off topic but, I knew i was right for not wanting an office job.

So anyway, 4 years later, here i am, in my parents house dropped out of university (Thank God) and still reliant on their resources to ease the load on myself. I have to say, that sentence is a lot more refreshing than my lived experience but i deserve to enjoy my newly minted perspective shift. God IS the ultimate provider and everyone and everything else is just a middle man, an intermediary. Granted, God and i are pretty close, given what I’ve mean through psychologically and spiritually so i do acknowledge that where i am with my relationship with God is somewhat privileged (but the best part is that anyone can get here, just prepared to do some internal sifting. It may be heavy it may not be. It may feel like passing a kidney stone, it may feel like breathing a sigh of relief, but you will sit lighter afterwards so it’s worth whatever you have to surrender first)

Realising that ultimately what my issue was with money is effectively how it felt getting it mattering more than having it and trusting that like most things, there is a solution around it, and it basically turned into jettisoning the wrong people (middlemen) out of my flow of money in my life. I dont get money from people, i get money from God, through people. If you dont like the people God is using, ask for new ones, if relying n people to give you money is actually a crutch for yoou not giving yourself an enriching life with what you DO have, you need to reconsider your choices and ask for guidance, which is what I’m in the process of doing right now. Also, consider the Helen Hadsell approach, follow your intuition and see where your guidance takes you. Above all, trust and believe in the Higher power that has taken care of you, is taking care of you and will take care of you always.

You’ve got this queen!

[a-whisper-in-the-closet]

Ramble beneath the cut for the few people that follow me and are up at this time of the day.

There's something I've come upon recently and it's just that the original words don't matter in a retelling. If you're retelling a fictional story for the fun of creating, the words that were used in the original don't matter. Historically, even, it hasn't really held all that much weight. The original theme doesn't matter, either!

Sure, if your retelling is being used to claim a factual version of a real-life person's politics or philosophical view or whatever, it would, but if you're just talking about the story, what difference does it make?

We have rewritten Heracles and Theseus and Dionysus and Loki and Hades and Thor and so many other stories for centuries. Even the Bible itself has been completely rewritten over its tenure. The original text doesn't matter until you're making it factual.

I just think it's important to remember that. The author created an idea but ideas aren't copy written nor are they tangible. It doesn't matter what the author thought when reading something. It matters what you think while reading it, and it should only really have to hold weight to you.

Interpretation isn't a moral judgement and I think it's honestly just a shame to make it so that an author's intent is the only meaning a story can have. It's boring, even.

I have retold probably dozens of different versions of the story of Hades and Persephone over the years, many with entirely different themes, and it's just fun. Oral history is, and always has been, super enjoyable because written stories aren't the same and it's stupid we don't give it credit.

Idk, it's just bothered me since forever how overlooked the prevalence of oral history has had in so many cultures since the dawn of humanity to this exact time and space. Stories of Vietnam and fishing trips from your grandfather or your dad's childhood ARE oral history and it's fun.

It's also just extremely overlooked that there are millennia only written down by specific cultures and so much of our understanding of history MUST be skewed due to that.

The reason I mention this is because so much of literature and even history have been rewritten time and time again and so I don't understand the purpose of saying that someone can interpret something wrong.

They can miss the point, they can misuse an argument, they can misunderstand what the author meant, but that doesn't mean that the interpretation is wrong. It also doesn't mean that retelling the story to fit their idea of it is wrong, either, no matter what it is.

Stories aren't timeless and they never have been, they are just ageless. In the end, it's an exercise of Theseus' ship and it's honestly pointless to argue the morality of that because, as far as I can tell, humans are always going to retell things.

How humans grow is by expanding upon an already existing idea.

I love thinking about this and I love arguing the prevalence of it but I don't understand why people care so much about the Death of the Author debate. The author only matters in the tangible parts of reality. Stories aren't tangible.

Anyway.

[s-the-seething-songbird-2]

Logs for Thomas, Part 2. Log #2

Song stuck in my head: "On & On" by Cartoon (ft. Daniel Levi)

Disclaimer: Some (a lot of) details will be omitted/skewed both in this log and any upcoming ones because, however unlikely it might be, I don't want one of my abusers to find this blog and trace it back to me (and because of how personal this blog is, I'm not sure I want ANYONE to find this except for you (and, honestly, maybe not even you either, because if you really do hate me, you might use whatever you read here to hurt me)).

I'm a fucking mess.

I've turned 26 very recently, and while things have been mostly good--I got a free pastry and drink from a restaurant I frequent, I'm going to get sushi with my family tonight, and I was even able to stop at a holiday-themed store I really like, meaning I got to collect some things for my Halloween costume!

I'm not terribly focused on my costume this year compared to previous years. Instead, I've taken to decorating our house and making that look very spooky. I suppose I've become old enough that I'm become accustomed to the giving end of Halloween instead of receiving, which does make me a little sad, but it's a thousand times more practical considering how my life is built lately. I feel doubly old because the thought of seeing all of my neighborhood's kids in their cute lil costumes and how excited they'll be when they see how much candy they can get from us (we're going to be LOADED this year) sound infinitely more appealing to me than dressing up and going door to door.

So, anyway, there I was, at the holiday-themed store mentioned earlier. Someone very close to me really wanted a giant, fuck-off sword for our local RenFair, and I found the perfect one in the weapon props section. I had already collected some parts for my costume, and I was just double-checking to make sure there wasn't anything I missed that would be useful.

I was crouched down, looking at one of the dark black cloaks for sale, and then, as I reached out for the price tag, I heard a familiar melody on the radio.

Dun, dun, dun, DUN-dun-duh-duh duhhh, duh… dah, dah, dum, DA-DUM…

Oh no. No, no no no! No, fuck this, no, stop it brain, it’s just a song, don’t pay attention, just get your shit and go, just get your shit—!

I like that you’re broken, broken like me Maybe that makes me a fool

But I was already frozen. I was frozen, and my fingers were so cold.

Before I could stop myself, I closed my eyes, pulled all of my items to my chest, and held them tight. And then I relived everything.

November. Doing laundry. You call, I answer. Talking, dreaming, promising. Connecting, laughing, smiling. I could feel you in the room, but I knew you weren’t there. Secrets, fears, mistakes. I could feel you in my dreams.

I let myself feel the joy, the warmth, the closeness, pretending the fabrics and plastic packages were your arms.

I like that you're lonely, lonely like me

I could be lonely with you

December. Excitement, hope, terror. Do we tell him? Do we come clean? But what if I lose you? I won't, you said. We'd never lose each other. We loved each other. You said you wouldn't leave and I believed you.

I met you, late night at a party

Two days before Christmas. Confusion, desperation, betrayal?

Worry. Pain. Fear. Self-hatred. Hatred for him her. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Gone.

Gone forever.

Gone forever, but I still know the lyrics.

Some trust-fund baby's Brooklyn loft

I couldn't let myself cry in the store. I especially couldn't let myself cry about this. Not again. So I didn't.

But I closed my eyes harder and held you tighter, fighting against reality for just a couple of extra seconds.

November, laundry, call, talk, love, dream...

Talk, love, dream, smile, warm...

Warm...

And then I let go.

Gone.

And then I was in the real world again, and I realized how silly I must have looked. No one near me said anything, though, so maybe they didn't notice.

Stupid song. Stupid pain. Stupid long line at checkout. Stupid stupid stupid.

Just buy it and leave. Buy it, act normal, thank the cashier, stay normal, smile, and leave.

Smile...

It's all so blurry now. Like all other memories from my childhood, it only exists in a series of white-hot snippets filled with emotional whiplash.

I hate that it's all that's left. I hate how strongly it still makes me feel, and how little of it I remember. I know there are things I saw, heard, and thought that are permanently lost to time.

I'm so angry. I'm so fucking angry, Thomas. I'm so angry that this still hurts, and I was getting so much better, and then Shay came back, and I thought maybe it would all be okay again, and then it wasn't okay, and the wounds reopened, and god, I wish I was never born.

It hurts, it hurts, it fucking hurts, JUST COME BACK, fuck, fuck, fuck

I'm not asking that we be together again! You guys are happy together, and I'm happy for you, I really am! But spending all of this time believing that you missed me and still cared about me and were proud of me was helping me move forward.

And then...

I can't cry about this again. I can't. This is so unbelievably embarrassing.

It seemed like Shay was developing some kind of crush on me, and I thought the most recent pictures of her were pretty attractive, too, and she wanted you and I to talk again, and... At worst, maybe things would be weird between you and I, but over time, the weirdness would dissolve, and maybe you and Jack would even start to talk again, and you'd apologize to him, and he'd forgive you, and my son could get closure, and... At best, maybe... maybe you and I and Shay could have become a thrupple, with my partners' permission? And then I'd learn about everything that happened while we were apart, and I could help you two heal, and we'd cry and hug each other, and I'm crying again god fucking damn it!

I MISS YOU. I miss you, Thomas. The things you've said and done over the years have really hurt, but I've never stopped caring, even when I thought I had. Do you realize that I still think about you every day? Wondering what you're up to, if you're okay--

Hang on, sorry, my girlfriend called.

Sushi plans for tonight have been confirmed! Yay!

I'm not asking to be with you again. That's not what any of this is. I just want you to be fucking nice to me again! That's all I want, that's all I want! Why? Why is that impossible?

Look, I have to go. This thing is long enough as it is, and I'm going to try and enjoy the rest of today.

I hope you're okay. I hope you're happy. I really do.

- S