#but Completely Forget about it for literally 5 whole years i legit have no idea how or why that happened lol

[kdinjenzen]

Kdin's My Little Blog Along (PART 1)

MLPFiM Eps 1 - 5

So going into things this season, I believe, is the one I thought I remembered the most and had the most memories of.

That ended up being true so far but also not true.

Celestia starts off the series gaslighting everyone by cleverly rewriting history through the acts of a children's storybook.

I really don't understand how anyone can trust her at her word since she's basically PONY GOD and can just live long enough for people to just forget about stuff and then change history herself... but maybe I'm being too meta about this.

Celestia reading the story of Nightmare Moon and then transitioning to it being Twilight Sparkle is a great way to introduce her as Celestia's student.

Then immediately Twilight begins treating everyone, especially Spike, like garbage. I legit remember Twilight being a complete jerk in the first bits of things but she's pretty trash as a person/pony. It's established that she's been ignoring everyone around her for a long time and that people keep trying but they don't know why they bother anymore.

Celestia tells Twilight to touch grass and kicks her out to Ponyville where Twilight continues to be absolutely WAY more rude than I remember to everyone she interacts with... especially Spike.

The show moves way faster than I remember and by the time we meet everyone Nightmare Moon has already shown up and the first episode ends. Celestia was supposed to be there and just kinda no-showed, we have no idea why she never showed up to the party but likely because she knew her sister was gonna be there and Celestia is very much "lol not my problem" and is making Twilight do it.

Part 2 is basically "Part 1 again, but more focused and at night" - heavily reinforcing that Twilight has problems with people and that everyone who is following her have ELEMENTS about them that make them SUPER GREAT PEOPLE/PONIES.

Pinkie's "Laughter Song" is our first proper in show song and I remember it word for word which says the song is a great earworm and easy for folks to remember. PERFECT for a kids show and Pinkie is already racing to the front as "best pony" of the bunch with her mannerisms.

We get through the trials of "Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy could have easily got everyone through these with no problems" quickly and it's time for Nightmare Moon showdown 2.

SURPRISE the ponies are the elements of harmony because of the things they literally said on the way here but also TWILIGHT is the element of "MAGIC" ... which I swore was not magic when I first watched it, but I suppose that's a "it's magic...al friendship" that happens later.

One giant mega death rainbow later, Nightmare Moon has her evil blasted away and Celestia shows up fashionably late and is like "oh good it's over, anyway apologize to me Luna" and shock - Nightmare Moon is her sister whom she banished to the fucking moon and Luna apologizes.

A THOUSAND YEARS, CELESTIA! THATS A LONG TIME TO IMPRISON YOUR SISTER ON THE MOON!

Anyway, episode ends with Celestia banishing moving Twilight to Ponyville so she can stay away from her and give Celestia some fucking piece and quiet for three seconds learn more about friendship through her new friends.

Which immediately leads into Episode 3, "The Ticket Master" in which Celestia - WHO KNOWS TWILIGHT HAS 6 FRIENDS (I'm including Spike) - sends Twilight two tickets to the Grand Galloping Gala and says to bring a friends.

I like to believe that Celestia is either doing this just to fuck with Twilight or that she assumes Twilight is so annoying to deal with that she lost most of the other pony's friendship after that whole Nightmare Moon thing.

Everyone has their "VERY GOOD REASONS" for wanting the tickets and... the reasons kinda suck, but Twilight assures the audience that they are VERY GOOD REASONS and spends the rest of the episode yelling at everyone to stop doing her favors to butter her up which becomes the main pain point the episode.

Pinkie just outright says she's doing things to get the ticket, everyone else lies about it (Fluttershy does say the truth but only after Angel, her bunny, kicks her for lying). We also get two quick not-really-full songs from Pinkie again in this one and she's maintaining her lead as "Best Pony" so far.

Everything is solved when Twilight sends the tickets back and tells Celesia "I CAN'T PICK BETWEEN MY FRIENDS" and Celestia sends back a "Lol just say you need more tickets, stop being so extra" and sends everyone a ticket. Episode 3 ends.

Episode 4 sees the intro of Big Macintosh who takes the "Best Side Pony" slot immediately by being both reasonable in explanation, reasoning, and level of directness in dealing with issues. This will change later when he gets his own episodes, but for now he's the level headed thinker and basically says Applyjack can't handle the entire Applebucking season herself after he had an injury.

Applejack burns out faster than a pre-transition "gifted child" in high school and spends the rest of the episode in a daze between asleep/awake and starts doing incredibly dangerous or downright mean things.

Eventually, after days of pressure and constant asking, Twilight convinces her to ask for help and Applejack breaks and agrees.

During the ending "Dear Princess Celestia" letter we see everyone helping and then TWILIGHT BASICALLY DOING ALL THE WORK IN ONE MAGICAL MOVE AND WHAT THE FUCK? She literally just... could do all the work herself. We'll see this "heavily relying on magic" thing bite her on the ass later but there's literally no reason that she shouldn't have just talked to Big Mac and explained things. YES that defeats the purpose of Applejack learning the lesson but also holy fuck she almost died so many times this episode. Episode 4 ends.

Episode 5 is "Griffon the Brush-off" which I thought was WAY WAY WAAAAAAY longer into the season but no, I'm wrong.

The lesson in this episode is "if your friend is hanging with someone who is an asshole there's not a lot you can do about it, but you can control your own actions and how you treat people" which is a fine lesson except Gilda the Griffon starts outright antagonistic and kinda just... awful. So Pinkie is fully right to call out this shit to Rainbow and I think the lesson here is a little off.

Pinkie is helpful and kind the entire episode, constantly giving the benefit of the doubt, and ends up treated like garbage and SHE apparently is the one to learn the lesson this episode... not Rainbow Dash.

Episode ends with Twilight learning how to prank people because of the "pranks" happening all episode between Gilda and Rainbow (who's pranks are wrongly attributed to Pinkie) - she sends Celestia invisible ink and Celestia gets pranked ... I feel like Celestia takes this personally and will be making the remaining 200+ episodes a living hell for Twilight.

ALL IN ALL... first five episodes are still great, Twilight is way more of a rude bitch than I remember and I think she gets better later on but I also don't remember her being THAT BAD over all and I was wrong.

Voice performances ACROSS THE BOARD are great, lots of wonderful visual gags, and lots of charm throughout the entire thing. The animation just looks great and aged very well.

Twilight, both in story and voice performances, is the weakest link. The performances and characters of the other Main 6 are carrying this show so far. END OF PART 1

[dariadraws]

so a real throwback for this blog, but i was cleaning up my art folder and found this little relic of my homestuck days tucked away in a forgotten subfolder. @callmearcturus i know youre working on other things these days but Chamomile, rose water, and other unlikely intoxicants was deeply influential to me back in the day, and i still reread it from time to time, so i figured that since this was basically finished, i might as well set it free into the world.

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep12: Brand New Mokuba Just Dropped

My tumblr has decided that it can’t save drafts again. Which sure is a problem I keep having but no one else seems to have...but were back. Back and ready to talk about cards.

First off, lets address the best thing about this episode, it’s the return of The A Team animation team! Dunno if it’s the same ones that did the seasons before, but it is a pretty good team this episode, so there’s lots of that to look forward to. Everyone is now 2 feet taller (Kaiba is 4 feet taller) and there’s just some really nice shots going on. It’s not as shiny as other seasons, which makes me think it might be a different team or a different studio using a different method (you don’t really see them playing with line weights anymore which makes it seem like a different method to me) but still--it’s a nicer looking episode today.

So we start off this episode with Seto begging us all to forget the hell that just happened and just get on with it. Of course, no one’s gonna do that, because yo, what just happened was kind of weird.

And because there’s only like...I dunno...maybe 2 episodes left in this arc? (kind of a quick arc, honestly) Leon decides to do a complete personality reversal. Although, it’s really hard to do a reversal when you didn’t have a personality in the first place...so I guess this more Leon showing us A personality--and I’ll take it.

He’s a little jackass now, but it’s youknow...still Leon so it’s not really that bad. Like we deal with Seto on the reg, so I feel like Leon as a jackass is just like...well that’s just how you play cards in this universe.

Everyone speculates whether or not Seto actually did a crime, and a SURPRISING number of them said he did not! Weird! But hey...I’ve gone over a billion times before, their memory is like when you throw popcorn into the ocean--it just fffzt’s and then it’s gone.

Roland was THIS close to actually saving Kaiba corp a huge hassle for once. This Close, Roland. You almost did it.

(read more under the cut)

I love that Roland has decided to give all these teens maybe the uncoolest nicknames in the entire world, and the teens have not made any indication whether they do or do not appreciate their alliteration nicknames.

But despite the fact that although Roland uses these opportunities behind the microphone to embarrass them just SO MUCH, the Kaibas still persist in having him introduce most of the matches. It makes it feel like the Kaibas freakin love this. They love his Dad jokes. I cannot tell if they are like “yes, please embarrass my friends.” of it they’re like “yes. Roland that was so cool. Yeah Leaping Leon. Good one! You’re so cool!” Because they don’t know what fun is.

Also, look what I see in the sky.

Truly a sign that they have overcome their trauma of seasons 2-3.

Or maybe they had a lot of blimps laying around and this is a completely unrelated blimp? Either way, I’m glad they can still handle the sight of a blimp.

And then, just out of nowhere, Mokuba hit puberty.

Which I mean, it was inevitable. It was going to happen some day. Luckily, we will be getting a new Mokuba this episode to make up for the fact that this one has done A Flirt and it was probably a completely innocent turn of phrase he has no idea is a double entendre but do the writers know that?

And while we ruminate the decisions there, lets bask in the glory of purple staircase.

This is such a purple staircase!

On another, identical staircase walks Leon, who gets to have a discussion with Zigfried, who probably just stood next to the wall and just chameleon’ed in here without getting caught cuz coincidentally this staircase dresses like him.

Freakin Mai?

Anyway, lets start this duel where like...I dunno, it’s a little late to start stealing souls, but maybe Leon will do a stab? (He will not)

So glad the storyboarder is back to kind of flex. I don’t normally see Roland drawn with this much attention. Look at him go. That’s the stance a grown man takes when he’s ready to embarrass a bunch of teens.

Kaiba writes a speech introducing himself, or Roland just kinda made up a speech as if Kaiba hadn’t asked him to do that. Either way it’s kind of a big way to talk yourself up--but he is trying to talk up the theme park so people will actually like...go. So it makes sense.

Also what is this nonsense where people worldwide are watching a theme park opening match? Card culture is so weird because we’ve noticed in other seasons there are people that don’t play cards, and I feel like they’re not watching this for fun. It’s like when I watch news unfold--they’re watching to see if they have to raid the toilet paper aisle and the canned goods again to prepare for yet another onslaught of card nonsense.

Legit Mokuba was like “Look at my bro. Look at how he gave up dueling to throw this nice tourney for everyone!” and it’s like...Mokuba...he just dueled...Mokuba...he’s putting all the profits directly in your pockets this is hardly a martyr up here.

Seto Kaiba decided to inform the world that he would have won if he was actually playing and that was sure a statement he made after losing to Yugi like...3 times now? Several times.

Everyone else converses how Leon’s acting weird. I don’t know why they care all of a sudden, because no one acts normal playing this game, but the plot desires them to care.

Which is when we find out...

...the new Mokuba...

That’s right. He was a Mokuba the whole time. For once we haven’t abducted Mokuba, instead...we have too many Mokubas.

This Mokuba even has hella long hair, too. I imagine if Mokuba proper had a ponytail it would probably look just like this but black. It would have been just--so good if he whipped off that ribbon and shook out his hair and it fluffed into a horrible Mokuba mess, but you know, that’s one of the many reasons why I don’t write for this series. That and I was like in high School when this came out.

(Please admire Kaiba’s head of Security who looks like he’s about to drop a poop out of terror. It’s a really small detail, but I appreciate that the storyboarder had him kind of antsy in the background)

Seto insists that the only one to beat Yugi Muto will be himself and it’s like...I know. That’s why I keep expecting someone to get stabbed by this tiny purple haired Mokuba. But instead, Leon’s too busy feeling mad that he’s not necessarily playing the game for fun.

But he’s still playing the game though? so I feel like Yami doesn’t have many stones to throw here. Leon hasn’t even cheated yet. (As if Yami isn’t cheating basically all the time by being 2 people in one body)

I can’t BELIEVE this show would throw that at me after the number of times I have seen Yami Muto nearly murder other people (and sometimes literally do a murder) out of revenge. Yami is basically a revenge god...like...show...what? It’s season 5, I thought we’ve basically cemented this in. Occasionally the show will just be all “card games are supposed to be fun though!!!” and it’s like...these are the last children on Earth who are playing card games for fun.

If anything, it should be Leon lecturing them on how to have fun. They just murdered a Great Leviathan with cards. Before that they were dealing with Noah, with Marik, with Pegasus, with Bakura. The times that Yugi has just played a game for fun has been...This Arc.

So maybe Yami is just begging himself to have fun for once. Maybe he’s just mad that he can’t play a single tournament without someone getting possessed? Maybe his frustrations really aren’t about little Leaping Leon, and more to do with Yami sick and tired of being a protagonist.

But, youknow, it’s not an anime, unless the protagonist hypocritically can get away with every sin out there and everyone else gets punished for it. So lets find out just how far Leon fell from fun-having grace with a flashback.

This Belle cosplayer went off in like...one of the most hilariously bad accents I’ve heard in a while, it was just so much, I’ll probably cap it because lolol.

But since Leon wasn’t actually in line to inherit the company, he has to sort of hole up in his room for his entire childhood. It’s kinda weird, since we can’t assume that Zigfried will either a.) live forever or b.) have or adopt or raise children in any capacity. But they’re pretty sure Zigfried will live forever, and in this universe--maybe.

Also, I’m really not sure why they have to dress like it’s 1890, but they sure are. The Victorian era just never left the Von Schroeder house. Like these women are wearing corsets to be in that dress, and you can’t BUY a corset to match this type of dress, you have to make your own, and I know, because in Quarantine, I got really into historical sewing videos.

I can’t believe I spent an entire year watching historical sewing videos. Holy crap. I don’t even sew.

But then again...Seto is kind of drawn like he wears a corset...so maybe people are still wearing them in the Yugioh universe? Maybe that’s how their fashion just works?

Guys...I analyze Yugioh fashion a lot but the fact that the Edwardians never freakin left this worldly plane is just...that’s canon to Yugioh. I really just want to sit back and analyze Yugioh fashion with a moodboard and try to connect all the dots logically as if they aren’t just one-off jokes, but I don’t know how I’d fit that on this post.

And like, one of y’all brought up in a comment in the last post that what’s neat about this arc is we are seeing Zigfried as what Seto would have been like if he hadn’t like...gotten cursed by Yugi Muto. So, going off that idea, I think it’s kinda fun that Zigfried’s outfit is a bit of a younger take on Pegasus’ whole look with the wrist lace and a fusion of Gozaburos look of wearing a cravat with a smoking coat. It’s fun to imagine that this is what Seto’s inner gremlin dresses like (which...now I think about it...was a thing from S1 where Yami defeated a Seto gremlin but...I don't remember much about it) Of course, Seto would also be hella dead if he hadn’t gone through the Yugi cycle, but it’s still a fun road to think about.

Plus, when we go down that road, it really makes this arc look even more like it’s just about Seto Kaiba’s therapy sesh to recover from the last several seasons that he’s accidentally (or intentionally??) invited the entire world to watch and that’s very funny to me.

Bro has informed me you can make a deck out of Jerry but could not show me any receipts.

...I mean that is Dartz right?

Like I know all the characters have cards of themselves IRL and all the characters are also based on cards that were made before they were on TV (with the exception of our main cast that was...youknow, a horror manga) but like...

...what’s up, Dartz?

Anyway, our little Mokuba decides to sneak out the house and run around the world at the ripe ol age of ... what I’m guessing is like 10-12, and is pretty sure he can just get away with that. Luckily, the crimes he’s committing are exactly the type of crimes that Zigfried needs.

(Pretty sure their Dad died or is incapacitated but OK, dub, go ahead and pretend that plot point didn’t go down last episode.)

Also, I’m really glad we got a good storyboarder for this part who was like “Zigfried looks...like that?” and still managed to make this character design really work this episode. In some parts they even gave Zigfried those wide Marik Eyes that are kind of ubiquitous with Yugioh. It just needs the right hands to draw it, and then any amount of...this outfit...can work.

So, just like when we met Mokuba in S1, he’s gonna do a duel on Yugi to save his family and probably also like Mokuba, not give a damn for how this game is supposed to be played. Luckily, this time Pharaoh doesn’t have any star chips lying around for this kid to just run around and steal before booking it out the back gate.

Yugi over there with his twitter-brand hot-takes, not knowing the difference between actual brainwashing and blackmail/family pressure.

(WHY IS MAI HERE?)

Look at that hatching!

Ah this is the 00′s content I’m here for! Check out the soft brush! The dodge and burn! Ah! Man this sure was an era of computer art! and stuff like this cost a lot of money to make and it looked ... like this!

Now I’m pretty sure we can make art that looks this dated on like...a free phone app.

PS please do not ever shade your art like this. This is what you don’t do. Do not do this. I will shed a single tear shaped like the Photoshop symbols for dodge and burn.

Also...guys...

next episode is Ep 13. Every season so far this show has been like “we’re normal, everything is normal” getting us complacent until exactly Ep 13, when everything gets really effed up. So...

will that happen? Will they continue this tradition into S5 or has it been a coincidence until now? Excited to find out.

Anyway, if you just got here, this is the link to read these from the beginning in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[somestansomewhere]

Frank’s Dementia in 11a

Points to discuss:

Moments where Frank forgot.

Things he might be able to remember.

Other characters finding out.

Aftermath...

So to start of, I made a list of every instance in SEASON ELEVEN A, where Frank’s memory seemed a bit off, I’m not gonna analyze the whole series for this but I’m sure there’s more there. Now:

Moments Where Frank Forgot

11x01

1. Frank’s History of Chicago

While this does appear to imply just the opening monologue, there are actually several moments throughout the episode where Frank is talking about the Gallagher’s running Chicago to Alan. And while this seems like typical “Frank being drunk nonsense”, plus a spectacular opening to the season... I now see it in a different light especially after:

2. Frank’s Memory Elixir

Frank LITERALLY has a line asking for “memory elixir”, meaning booze, which Alan hands him. Ironic since he has ALCOHOLIC DEMENTIA. You can’t tell me that wasn’t intentional!

3. He Forgot Bars Were Closed

Now, I may be reaching here... BUT when Frank enters The Alibi for the first time this season (what a grand enterence btw) he says “I heard somewhere all bars were open again”. V responds by saying something along the lines of “three weeks ago maybe” and that the mayor shut them down again. Frank says “Well who the hell can keep track”. And okay, yeah maybe Frank genuinely didn’t know... but this is the bar he goes to EVERYDAY. Not to mention if they shut down less than THREE WEEKS AGO, Frank should know... idk this one might not count but I added it anyway. Kermit is unaware of bars being open/shut down in 11x03 so moving on:

11x02

4. The Alibi’s Secret Enterence

Okay, again REACHING! However, when Frank entered The Alibi through the Keg Zone door he forgot to use the “secret knock” and Kev had to remind him about it. Now in 11x01 he used the front door (and I’m not sure he knew to use the other door in that ep) but still at least he remembered to use the correct door in 11x02.

11x03

This is where it got noticeable.. strap in, here we go:

5. Taking Franny to School

He took her to the wrong school. This is the same person that knows the Southside perhaps better than his kids (lol), like the back of his hand! He not only took her to the wrong school but a middle/grade school. Franny is in elementary/preschool school. You can see in WHM’s face here that Frank was confused...

6. Uncle V and Aunt Kev

Maybe just a comedic slip up, but Frank calls Kev and V “Uncle V and Aunt Kev” as opposed to what they really are. Maybe he forgot? I’m reaching LOL.

7. Debbie Is Not Fiona

Frank talks about one of his favorite MEMORIES with Franny’s mom: Debbie, but “oh no, maybe that was Fiona”. Small moment, typical Frank but... nonetheless, poor memory. The writers are smart by mentioning Fiona in this scene... it’s “a Fiona mention”, we’re going to remember this, and that’s probably why they did it.

8. The Paper Store

Yeah, this was the first red flag for me and if I can recall, the moment EVERYONE knew something seemed off. Frank, walks out of the paper store with Franny and cannot remember where he is, or where they are headed. Once he is reminded of their “goals” for the day (by Franny, a five year old) he proceeds to head to the paper store... Franny once again let’s him know that they already went there and Frank notices the paper already in his (Franny’s) backpack. Ouch.

11x04

9. The Nation of Islam

Ooo this one hurt! After Frank suggests to visit The Nation of Islam in an attempt to get their help to get rid of the Milkoviches, him, Kev, and Liam do. We SEE them go there. It’s a whole scene, so later in the episode when Frank suggests to go ask them for help AGAIN as if it were a completely new idea, we as an audience know they already did that. As Kevin says they “JUST did that”. Frank forgot. Shit.

11x05

10. Mrs.McCurdy

Frank discusses with Kev about murdering Mrs.McCurdy, later he tries to murder her. We see it, we remember it becaue she grabbed Frank’s dick. It was funny, the scene evoked laughter, it forces the audience to remember it. Frank mindlessly walks into The Alibi and Kev asks Frank if he “did the thing”. Now at first Frank is confused. They were using “quotation talk” earlier so yeah I get it, but then when Kevin is more direct with Frank, Frank thinks Kev is implying that he had sex with Mrs.McCurdy... Frank is clearly confused. Only then does Kev point out that he meant MURDER. Frank takes a second, again if you watch he does not know what Kev is talking about, but then it hits him, and he remembers. Thus continuing the convo like nothing.

11x06

11. Monica

Now this one REALLY hurt. Frank’s first scene of the episode is a sex scene between him and Letty. She’s blonde, and Frank calls her Monica. He truly believes he is sleeping with Monica, only Monica is dead, she been since season seven. When Letty mentions that she isn’t Monica (thinking Frank calling her that was only a sex thing), we see WHM’s brilliant preformence once again. Frank doesn’t know what Letty means, he thinks she’s Monica. Then when he realizes she isn’t, he gets this lost dejected look on his face. He’s confused and knows that he keeps getting confused.

Frank says “I gotta get to work”. Letty asks him where he works and Frank is left bewildered.

12. Seven

Okay so remember Frank and Franny’s adventure in 11x03? Frank visits a dry cleaners to get some weed. They make a point of Franny saying that Frank will pay SEVEN for the weed. No offer is made and Frank must get it somewhere else. Throughout the episode Frank refterences SEVEN to Kev & V as the asking price to sell. We as an audience are forced to remember SEVEN. Also in 11x03, as Debbie frantically looks for Frank/Franny, she visits the dry cleaners where they were (retracing their steps). We as an audience have been there twice.

Now, in 11x06 Frank goes to pick up an order but like, we already saw him go there episodes ago. When the woman behind the counter literally tells him she has nothing for him and he argues with her, WE KNOW she is right. Once again, Frank forgot. I’m so sad. Not only that but Kev and V don’t have Frank going on runs anymore. Ian & Mickey are doing it... Frank is legit lost and forgot that he’s not doing that anymore, Kev tells him he’s not in 11x04.

Ms.G even says to Frank that she doesn’t need to write anything down to remember it because the “Mind’s a steel trap”. She doesn’t owe him... she can use her mind to remember where Frank cannot. The irony.

13. Pedestrian, Blue, Handlebar (abc)

a) Frank getting hit in the head results in him having a visit to the hospital where a nurse discovers that Frank has no clue how he got there and more specifically, how he got hit in the first place.

b) The saddest part, when asked his name he remembers FRANK. But has to look down at her sheet to know his last name is GALLAGHER. This is the man who walks around saying “It’s up to Frank Gallagher to save the neighborhood”. He forgot his last name.

c) The scene goes on, the nurse asks him to remember three words: pedestrian, blue, and handlebar. They discuss other things, then she asks him to tell her those words. It’s so abundantly clear that Frank just cannot. He doesn’t remember. He was told like 30sec ago and gets, for the first time ASHAMED. He’s the most shameless person ever (hence the title of the show) but now the tides have turned. He “doesn’t wanna play this game anymore”. Frank can recognize AGAIN that he is confused, only now he is forced to face it. The nurse noticed, she runs some tests and Frank learns that he has early stages of alcoholic dementia. This isn’t his liver, he can’t get a new one, this is his brain.

14. + 15. Letty & Terry

Just two bonuses, Frank wanders aimlessly into the Alibi again (like in 11x05) because it’s routine for him. Letty calls him over. Frank forgot they were supposed to meet there. :(

Frank and Terry on the porch: Maybe it’s just bad writing or they were trying to make a point but like a “Gallagher-Milkovich War” never happened??? We watched the show for 11 seasons... Also are the Milkoviches actually from Poland Frank? I’ll excuse that one cuz Ian mentioned it too, but I thought they wer Ukrainian. These seem like writing mistakes tho so oops.

Things He Might Be Able To Remember

Frank has his and Franny’s name tattooed on his body... he literally forgot his last name at the hospital. And if he forgets a bunch in 11b then that’ll be the payoff for the tattoo... he might not know why the tattoo is there or who the people are listed on his arm, or even what it means exactly, but he will know that Frank loves Franny.

Where he lives. Frank never threw out the paper with his diagnosis. He might remember his home, however the conflict comes in the fact that the Gallaghers might be selling it. He needs to be around people/places that are familiar to him. This could jeopardize his memory.

The Alibi is where Frank seems to just walk to or go to whenever he has no clue where he is or going but it’s subtle. I could see him getting lost and no one knowing where he is and Frank just being at the Alibi beacuse idk muscle memory? He’s on autopilot.

Early stages of ALCOHOLIC Dementia can improve. Like if maybe Frank were to tell someone and if he wasn’t removed from the Gallagher house, and oh I don’t know if Frank STOPPED DRINKING, he could remember. But I don’t think we’re heading in that direction, especially if the house is sold, and let’s face it... it looks that way.

Fiona? Will he forget her... this all feels reminiscent of 4x11.

Other Characters Finding Out

Franny, Kevin, and Liam, are the only people who have REALLY been subject to the possibility of noticing... but think about it. Franny is too young to notice anything, Kevin is not the brightest bulb, he doesn’t seem to realize it either, and Liam was exposed to it once, but at that time he was so scared about the Milkoviches that he didn’t notice it. Maybe if he saw it again, he would. Liam is smart enough.

I wonder if the Gallaghers will just find out the hard way (,like those stills from 11x08 are making me think,) or if anyone will begin to seriously pick up on it. I intially thought they would show Frank forgetting in front of each character until someone was able to notice but scratch that. They seem to be setting Lip up on the “alcoholic path” this season, (and I may go more into depth about that one another time, it’s another big post if I do get into it). But what will the Gallagher’s reactions/feelings be towards Frank’s diagnosis? Mickey and Ian had many Terry/Frank discussions in 11x06 literally setting up for it. It hurt when they all kept dismissing Frank because yup, they don’t know yet. They would have to help him in order to keep his memory maintained, but that’s the thing... Frank’s pride. He might deny their help even if they actually were to give it to him... Either way, I’m “looking forward” to see how this all unravels and how everyone finds out and what their reactions will be, which brings me to my final topic:

Aftermath...

So what happens? Will they sell the house, potentially causing Frank to forget? Will he not know his kids, his history? Will he die? Will Frank finally stop drinking... yeah I doubt that... So what WILL happen? Will the Gallaghers be left to take care of Frank? Will they even do that? Will he remember them?

What if in 1x01 Frank’s narration IS his memory? We see him talking about his kids to someone? It circles back? I don’t know, but either way I expect this whole thing to pull on our heartstrings. When the rest of the regulars find out... it’s gonna get real, and rough.

Interesting stuff coming up in 11b I’m sure. Let’s see how this plays out for our Protagonist and Patriarch: Frank Gallagher.

Omg, if you read through this, you are so cool and I really really appreciate you! Please send me an ask or write a note, I would love to get your take on the matter. 💙

Hope you enjoyed this analysis and I hope it didn’t go on too long.

[tazzykiki]

I’m tired, angry and bored so here we go! A messy list of fucked up Public School Things that may or may not be a universal experience:

The Lunches were a mix of good and horrible:

I was usually fine with the lunches because they were pretty decent and, like, yay food! But looking back they were just, so wrong????

Like in my middle school lunches AND breakfast were a mess. I got food poisoning like once or twice from the breakfast and the lunch was pitiful. At one point they just stopped cooking the pasta and left a bunch of uncooked, powdery noodles in a plastic box like anyone was gonna grab them and be like “mm yes! my favorite! hard noodles!”. Like what the actual fuck.

The pizza was also in a box, none of the toppings were labeled so it was a gamble on what type you would get, and most of the time they were burnt. In HS the pizza was fine but it tasted fake as hell and I’m pretty sure they just took some rubber and put cheese on it.  

My HS lunches were better but even then it was just, really concerning how limited and odd the food was. Luckily we didn’t have to pay except for like cookies and stuff smaller than your hand that costs like $2 cuz they want to “promote healthiness” despite feeding us what is basically prison food.

The class sizes were horrifying: I’m sorry but what person can teach 30+ rowdy kids and be perfectly fine??? Not to mention this was the norm the whole day! Imagine grading all those papers, keeping track of every student, and making sure they all shut up long enough to teach. And that’s just for the teachers who actually care.

Like a class size should be a max of 20 with a few exceptions. Do you know how stressful it is for everyone involved? Not to mention, 30 kids was considered SMALL!! Some classes had 40, even 50 STUDENTS!!!! WHAT THE FUCK.

We never had enough books, or supplies, or anything. Usually by the half point of the year, half the books would be missing or destroyed and it was a mess. In HS the Drama and Music teachers had to deal with like, one class of 10-20, and then like 5 classes of 40-50(all mixed grades too). And you know what’s even more fucked up? There was only one of each teacher.

There was one drama teacher. Who btw deserves the world and legit cares about her job and students. I honestly hope she quit and went somewhere better. She had to put up with 40+ screaming kids, grade all of those assignments, deal with insult and harassment(she was plus-sized and white. So she couldn’t talk back, would get insulted, and more.The only white people allowed to be sassy in that school were funny white men that were laid back), and had barely enough supplies to get by.

There was one music teacher. Who also deserves the world and legit cares about her job and students. She had to deal with 40-50, almost 60+, kids. The majority of them being sophomores and freshman, with bits of seniors and juniors. She taught music, taught band, and organized events and performances. She is, I believe, the first and only music teacher in that school and that’s just so fucked up. Like imagine being one person and having to manage hundreds of students like that.

There was only one digital arts teacher but I have no idea what they did since you can’t choose what class you attend. I just know it was constantly crowded, never really applauded, and they weren’t involved in a lot of things.

Oh yes how could I forget the art teacher! Yeah no there was no art class that involved drawing and painting. Apparently that class was scrapped years ago and has now turned into a JROTC locker! :D Speaking of JROTC:

JROTC and Sports had too much support and that’s a serious problem:

Hey maybe it’s because I’m an art kid and I hate exercising(because every attempt to do so was met with laughter, humiliation, and the ridicule of my body even though I can’t control how my body grows and changes), but man did JROTC and sports(specifically football) have way too much attention.

We had not one, not two, but FOUR ENTIRE JROTC CLASSES! Classes training you to be in the military, specifically Air Force. Classes you HAD to take unless you wanted to be in gym(never had the class but from what I’ve heard, there were about 50-70 kids, mostly male, filling up that class and they didn’t do anything but play ball or whatever. All of course, taught by one guy).

Somehow this program had enough support for uniforms, 4 different classrooms, supplies, several teachers(all of whom were in the military at one point[they were chill except for the freshman teacher who called you a whiny baby for being in pain]), and more. 

Not to mention, every so often military people would come by with pretty pamphlets and fun little strength tests and have kids to sign up to newsletters and shit and ask them to join the military when they graduate so they can get free college and happy fun times!! :D

Football was given way too much attention, even over the other sports, and I absolutely hate it. Every month was about  football, football, football. So much money went into football, so much support went into football. Yeah yeah yeah follow your dreams or whatever the fuck they tell you on Disney Channel, but there was too much support on this one sport that involved kids breaking their heads open. 

Please please give me ONE valid reason why this irritating-ass sport had so much attention while art students, craft students, theater students, music students, students who want to work in literally any other field that doesn’t involve science or sports had to fucking scrape every tiny little chance they could from the crumbs that were left behind. PLEASE tell me why I had to join a completely different program that was hella exclusive and restricted to Juniors and Seniors that had a certain skill-level just to have a proper arts class while football players got a cool fancy bus, a shit ton of gear, and praise every single day(seriously their pictures and trophies were everywhere). 

Why is it that they get scholarships and full rides for throwing a ball around and bashing their brains open while I had to fucking destroy my hand and scramble around for some shit like $200 which I wouldn’t even get because I don’t have the skill to paint the mona lisa or whatever. Anywayyyy~

Hey what the fuck was up with the rules? Sorry kids but if you’re reading this, everything they tell you on tv about high school is a lie. Unless you watched the Dora the Explorer movie, then that was actually pretty accurate.

Hey is it weird we had metal detectors and legit police officers(who were armed) in our school? Is it weird that we had to wear plastic, see-through book-bags, that weren’t even given to us for free and were so weak that they had to get rid of that rule because they would break after like 2 months? Is it weird we were all stuffed into a nasty, sticky, pest-ridden, staircase right in front of the main doors in the morning because we weren’t allowed all the way inside for whatever reason unless it was for a club(i.e. sports)? Is it weird that we were all trapped in the lunch room by security guards because they didn’t want kids roaming the halls even though they already did? Is it weird we weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom and were always told “you should’ve went your last class” when your last class didn’t let you? Is it weird we weren’t allowed to use the bathroom and were always told that “you should’ve went during the transition time” even though the transition time was only 4 minutes and the hallways were so crowded that it’d be time for class by the time you’d get there?

Is it weird that when we were allowed to use the bathroom, all of the bathrooms were locked and only one on the other side of the school was open, and the majority of the stalls were broken? And they kept the bathrooms locked, even after school, because they didn’t want kids skipping class even though they still did?

Is it weird that if you didn’t have a belt(if you were male), or a part of your uniform, you would be prevented from going to class if there were no more temporary uniforms?

Is it weird that if one kid did something bad, the entire class would be punished and class time would be wasted and the point of punishment would be lost because the teacher wanted a taste of power or whatever?(hey one time in 8th grade, both classes had to stand in one long ass line for about half an hour because someone was talking and it was treated like it was a joke. this took up our breakfast time too)

Other Shit: One time my HS got like $20,000 and instead of using it to fix at least one thing, they wasted it on useless flatscreen tv’s and SAT “tutors” that taught us 3rd grade english & math, how to annotate(I swear to fucking god one more person try and teach me how to underline a motherfucking sentence---) and did absolutely nothing to help us. Meanwhile the football players were living like kings.

We had a strange assortment of teachers, ya’ll know about my junior and senior english teacher. But did I ever tell you about the freshman JROTC instructor? She was so much fun~ I remember one time!!! ooh this is a good one :DDDD!!!! that I was in so muuuuuch pain that I was crying and couldn’t move! and guess what!!!!???? ooh! ooh! guess! She called me a whiny baby and said I was overreacting!!!! omg? She was so right tho, I was totally overreacting to being in immense, insufferable, pain that no one even attempted to be concerned about~~ 

Oh here’s another good one: I used to cry a lot! It was horribly embarrassing and not fun~ I was either sick, on my period(which according to the multiple doctors I had to be rushed to, was normal and the intense pain was hereditary), or having an emotional breakdown~ This lasted from 5th grade to Senior Year of HS! :D

One time I was in a lot of pain, 7th grade I believe, and cried for a whole hour straight. What did my teacher do? Have me sit in class while everyone went to like social studies or whatever, talked with some teachers, and then complained about how I “cried and cried and cried for an hour straight” with no concern whatsoever. BTW the nurse was never there and even then she was kinda useless.

Don’t even get me started on the several times I was on my period and was actually screaming in pain and was still looked down on because a student screaming and hollering in pain is no cause for concern obviously~ Really surprising how a lot of the male teachers and staff were more concerned then the female ones, especially the science teacher who has a uterus, has multiple daughters, and the audacity to say I’m ~overreacting~. I’m so happy our teachers and schools have our priorities in order.

Note: If you’re horrified by this. Good. You should be.

More misc things: My HS had a shit ton of roaches, water bugs, and whatever those long disgusting things that walk around on the walls and fall off once you see them. Art meant nothing to them. Teacher sanity meant nothing, student sanity meant nothing. The principal was great and I blame whoever’s “funding” schools and working behind the scenes.  I know this was more about personal stuff, but like a lot of things like large classes, lack of supplies, lack of empathy from teachers, constant pests, horrible food, stupid rules that hurt us more than helped, really weird exposure to cops and military, and too much focus on one subject is super common in public schools and I really really want it to stop.

[calsyee]

I'm feeling spicy today so I'm just gonna lay out my star wars the last jedi opinions:

1) I like that Rian Johnson definitely had a theme he wanted to make clear. Movies that know what they're trying to say make my job easier as a viewer and also allow me to create nuanced critique of them

2) literally the only reason people can legitimately have to hate rose tico is racism and frankly I disavow any supposed TLJ critical person who thinks she was a bad character. In my heart Rose will go on to be best friends with Finn and thats just facts.

3) I don't like that Rian Johnson prioritized his "nothing will go the way you think" theme over consistency with previous characterization, as the choices he made, especially for holdo, luke and poe, didn't work for me.

3a) the conflict between holdo and poe reinforced stereotypes about Latino men and also reinforced the white feminist White Women in Positions of Power = Always Good And Correct When In Conflict With Men trope

3a1) poe's characterization in tlj is pretty poorly handled, as the movie forgets that everything about his character in tfa was pure good hero; he was paralleled with Leia from the jump and his priority was always the good of the resistance and his friends.

3a2) with regard to holdo, everything about her characterization implied that she was shady; making her Not Shady for a twist and to punish poe's valid suspicions of her is unsatisfying as far as twists go, because it's obviously being done to further reinforce Rian's intended theme at the expense of reasonable audience expectation and conventional cinematic language.

3a3) he could have done something really compelling with a conflict between poe and holdo instead of this weak-ass twist by giving us viewers a reason to trust holdo; some insight to her side of the story. This way, as viewers, we understand both why she appears super shady to poe and her new crew, but also why she feels she needs to do what she's doing. But he didn't, and I dont like what he did do.

3b) I just don't get the idea of Luke coming anywhere near murdering his own nephew. Like, this is the man who brought his fascist father back to the light side of the force; it seems incongruous that he'd ever think Ben Solo could be irredeemably bad.

3b1) this also means that Kylo Ren's entire motivation for becoming Kylo Ren — the betrayal of knowing his uncle and Master considered (and very nearly carried out) killing him — feels forced and awkward, which is really bad when the narrative is trying to set up the meat of his redemption arc.

4) I really, really like the twist where Kylo Ren kills Snoke. That was fucking baller as a scene and as a plot choice.

4a) That said, I don't like that JJ took this fact and basically tried to replace Snoke with Palpatine in tros, but that's for another post; I think it would've made more sense for the narrative arc for Kylo to become the big bad

5) I was a Rey Kenobi theory stan so like, I was initially disappointed by the reveal that Rey's parents were, at that point, nobodies, but I've since come round to the idea way more than what they eventually went with in TROS

6) I think the third act was messy as hell both structurally and thematically

7) Luke's transcendence into the force was completely perfect and I have no criticisms.

8) Also Rose & Finn wrecking that casino was fucking inspired and was maybe my favorite sequence of the whole movie

9) Reylo is not to my taste as a ship, so the forced Force connection between them annoyed the hell out of me and still kind of does four years later. It just bothers me to see a hetero romance between a villain and a woman he literally tortured getting used as a lever for his redemption arc; I'm not going to fight people about it though because I'm tired and I think that one sentence basically is my whole argument. I don't like that he hurt her and then got set up as her love interest, and thats all.

10) I think the fighting that still goes on online about whether tlj is A Masterpiece of Blockbuster Cinema or The Worst Movie Ever Made is...misguided at best, as its pretty much neither. Its a movie with some really interesting ideas that I think were implemented super badly, and it suffers from that fact quite a lot in my estimation of it. So i'm always kind of confused to see people making hating or defending it uncritically the centerpiece of their discourse, though I do feel for anyone who really loves the movie because it spoke to them and what they wanted/needed and feels as though the mainstream discourse is Set Against Them as a result. I've been there, as a Batman v Superman stan in 2016-2017, and straight-up, I have the legit trauma & triggers to show for it. Y'all deserve to be able to like a movie that means something important to you.

So yeah those are my spicy takes about star wars the last jedi. I'm not looking to spark any discourse or anything, I just wanted to express my take on the internet.

[dangerliesbeforeyou]

HIStory’s ranked (no one asked, but here i go)

so i was sittin here, talkin to myself about the HIStory series’ and was like ‘hey, i should rank them’ (which i’ve seen a few other people do, but mines a lot more rambling than there’s because i can’t shut up lol) 

so here’s my views lol (ordered from worst to best, imo):

6) My Hero (HIStory1) -

probably universally acknowledged as the worst episode, and i’d be inclined to agree with the masses on this lol... not only is the tone and humour of this series so weird and disjointed, but the entire story line literally makes no sense lol?? it’s unclear who the audience should be rooting for (especially as it goes out of it’s way to paint our protagonist as really unlikable lol, not to mention the love interest is the dullest character ever conceived like ???), as well as this the ending feels completely unrelated and bizarre... 

i think this concept /could/ have worked if the guy the woman was inhabiting (which sounds weird without context, but like she’s dead lol) was somehow also inside his head? or if she got to see his memories or whatever & tries to adjust her personality to match the guy’s, causing love interest!dude to fall in love with the guy... (like i could go into more detail, i basically hav an entire au written in my head lol, but yh...)... that way, her letting go of him in the end would feel so much more well set up? especially if she was generally more understanding and likeable.. 

i think overall this series just fails in telling a decent story lol... & the cringe is even beyond what i can handle lol

5) Obsessed (HIStory1) -

people might be surprised to see this one so low down, especially since i know a lot of people really love this series (& if u do, no hate to u btw, ur allowed to like whatever u want idc), but i realllllly don’t like this series... like at all ...

the plot is weird anyway, which isnt inherently a bad thing, but then u add on the really bad couple and it’s just...... bad lol... like everything about their relationship is built on lies and deceit, and even more so than that it’s built on a lack of mutual respect and fundamental trust for each other! tall guy (i don’t know names soz) feigns memory loss in order to get closer to short guy (btw, the scenes with them being domestic were really sweet, & i firmly believe this could have been an alright series for the actors if the story line wasn’t so bad), short guy’s whole existence in that universe was a lie lol (like i know there’s no easy way to tell someone ‘lol well i’m technically from the future’ but still), then there’s the whole resolution at the end & it’s just so ??? frustrating lol!

nothing bugs me more than seeing conflict in relationships (on screen or irl) that could be solved simply by TALKING TO EACH OTHER GODDAMNIT & isnt lol... my other issue with this series is the fact tall guy 100% forced himself upon short guy in the tent & like we’re just supposed to accept it cos ?? he’s saying no and pushing away but actually he wants it because he loves tall guy ?? like fuck no i’m not accepting that lol! 

basically, bad & bizarre story & characters, & gross tropes just makes this hard for me to watch and enjoy lol... i think, like in my hero, this could’ve done with being a different story altogether lol... (maybe tall guy actually did lose his memory & he falls for short guy all on his own with no predatory intentions?? idk something like that)

4) Right or Wrong (HIStory2)

this one & my number 3 are very much tied tbh, but this one is just slightly lower just because i’m not as big into the couple as i know a lot of people are... & it’s not necessarily the age gap, cos i dont actually mind age gaps in pairings (just as long as the younger one isnt a minor, obv... and also i think any gap that’s 30+ years is a bit weird lol..).. i think my big problem with this is i dont really see why younger guy (again, i have no idea of any of these characters’ names lol) would fall for the older guy? like the older guy is obvs going thru some issues, and hasnt been taking care of himself or his kid properly because of them, but like we dont rly see a lot of why he’s a great guy? like we get the sense young guy is attracted to him, but like love is more than just thinkin they’re hot lol... idk lol this might just be me tbh i just couldnt see why he’d be interested lol

i did like the whole family side though, and showing how a man who was previously with a woman can still end up with a guy (bisexualityyyyy (or some variation of that thereupon)) is something you dont always see in media, so i thought that was pretty cool! (even if the ex-wife thing was kinda lame lol...) 

i think overall i see what this series was going for, and that it actually did an alright job in some parts... the biggest problem is that it’s kinda just forgettable lol... maybe that’s why people like obsessed so much lol? maybe it was a train wreck but ohh boy at least u wont forget it in a hurry lol!

3) Stay Away From Me (HIStory1) -

i’m a bit torn about this one, cos there are parts of it i actually really like (them going from rivals/enemies to being good friends to being more), and other parts i really didnt (the stereotypical squealing yaoi fangirl friend)... & tbh, i kinda wish this had just been a show about the budding friendship between the 2 guys... it almost feels too forced to me that they’re made to ‘fall in love’ when i actually think them both becoming less selfish and learning to respect each other as step brothers & friends is actually already a really great story (& i know that it doesnt fit with the whole ‘HIStory’ thing, but stories of platonic brotherhood/’bromance’ are just as important as gay representation... isnt a /substitute/ for representation, don’t get me wrong, but it’s always so beautiful to see decently portrayed non-toxic friendships between guys... ok this is a rant for another day tho shhh)

i think maybe why i like this one more than the other HIStory1′s is because kinda nothing happens lol... it’s not overly complex with weird unexplained magic things happening, it’s just a simple story lol... is it still tropey as hell? of course lol! but i think the ‘realism’ of the world really helps, and i def think this was incorporated more into HIStory 2, which i’m really glad about...

overall, this is a relatively harmless series & is actually quite sweet at times... the kiss is awkward as fuck tho (there, i said it lol...)... it suffers the same forgetability as right or wrong tho... 

2) Crossing the Line (/Boundary Crossing) (HIStory2) -

ok, so here’s a series i 100% love & totally agree with the hype around lol! i hav no interest in volleyball (or any sports tbh), but the way this show handles the friendships and dynamics between the characters is really well done, especially for a series that’s only 8 episodes long! i also really love that none of the characters really fall into any stereotypes (which is a great improvement from HIStory1 i can tell u lol), and are given the space to actually have some growth & nuance at times?! 

(nuance? in MY HIStory series?? it’s more likely than you think!)

the main couple have really amazing chemistry, and the way they get together doesnt feel too out of place or that it’s going to fast, it just sorta flows really nicely... even the side couple are pretty well done (though i wasnt that big into them on my first watch, just cos the whole overbearing older brother thing was kinda annoying... i liked them more as the series went on tho...)

i kinda dont have any major complaints? which is bizarre cos i always hav complaints about things lol... maybe my complaint would be that they all look way too old and attractive to be whatever teenage age they’re supposed to be lol... (but tbh that doesnt take anything away from the story so i’ll forgive them lol...)... i think maybe i wouldnt consider it my favourite because the story line didnt grab me like the number 1... but i really cant fault it in terms of what it delivers lol, legit such a well put together series!

1) Trapped (HIStory3) -

lol i think anyone who’s been following me for the past few months aren’t in the slightest bit surprised this is my number one... i just love it too much lol!

from the incredibly well written and well acted characters, to the interesting and engaging (even if a bit ridiculous) plot, to the beautifully told romance , it really has it all doesn’t it!!! & i think even if this wasnt an enemies to lovers thing (aka one of the most godtier of all fanfic tropes), there’s so many things going for this series that make it worth watching! i have a few complains about editing choices and a few bad trope plot points which were just unnecessary (plus the fact we missed out on a lot of background info on some major characters lol...), but like despite everything this series rly struck a chord with me deep down in my soul lol

i could go waaay more into detail (and maybe i will one day lol... tho not rn, i’m v tired), but the gist of the matter is: i really love trapped lol

(conclusion)

Even though i’ve complained quite a bit here, i am so grateful for the HIStory series’ for bringing really interesting, and a little mad, stories with gay characters and story lines, with a big emphasis on happy endings! there are so many lgbt stories/characters in things that end up dying or just have bad endings, which just sends this horrible message that lgbt people aren’t worthy of having happy endings, which is completely untrue! 

So i look forward to future HIStory’s, even if some of them are gonna be bad (& maybe none will live up to the trapped!shaped bullet firmly lodged in my heart lol)

fin~

[vorefluff]

if anyone is curious

This is legit how I come up with new storylines and things. This is just a copy/paste of something I sent my girlfriend when I was in the middle of Figuring A Thing Out.

Featuring a new character, Hue and a drawing of him! Mostly this is about Blaze tho, and some stuff about John too. It sorta goes all over the place - the moment it seems like ‘oh this is what this post is about’ it switches on you.

Warnings: Lots of “so anyway”, no proofreading, completely filled with lowercase sentence starters, fragments, cussing, a couple vague s*xual references. It’s a brain barf. 

[day 1]

This is Hue. He's a werewolf boi-o and one of the shortest characters i've made so far, clocking in at 4'10". you can just barely see his bite scars under the arm hair I decided that John shouldn't be entirely partner-less because Blaze decided to be stubborn and not embrace the gay. Cause that's just unfair to john. Like, Blaze said no, John respects that, so John moves on. 

No matter how much I rlly rlly want the two to be together. 

so anyway is seems that John has a Type. smol grumpy and easy to fluster I mean, in terms of potential romantic partners. in terms of Hotness and potential one-night-stands and such he's more physically attracted to guys in snappy suits and confidence like raknu but also not raknu himself because it'd be weird to bang your boss.

[day 2]

[insert some Spoilery Things about Alchemy Brothers from my World Of Glass And Bone and my character I’m basing Hue off of. This is also a first - usually I don’t base one character off of another. I did it in this case to absolutely make 100% sure that Hue’s personality doesn’t end up being like a Blaze2.0.]

[....] cause like, yeah, I made him with the intent of finding an Actual Partner for John, but I don't want that to be his Entire Personality. I don't want him to just be off-brand discount walmart version of Blaze. I've never done this before k. Like, usually I make characters, and then decide relationships to other people, not the other way around. And now I'm just Worried and low-key Freaking Out that he won't be seen as anything more than a Blaze-wannabe.

[day 3]

so THIS is how love triangles get started, huh - throwing in Hue threw a wrench into things. so like we got John and Blaze, right? they're like. bestest buds. John is like, the only person that Blaze really actually feels completely comfortable around. and like, a big part of the reason why Blaze doesn't want to be in an Actual Official Relationship is a lot of smaller very valid reasons. 

 1) he's in denial that it's even a thing he wants at all. All relationships end in Bad Things - either death as Blaze outlives them, or breakups, or deception and misunderstanding, or other Fun Things like that. So why the fuck would he want to put himself through that again? 

2) he still gets nightmares about Alex and not over that 3) all past relationships have been either abusive or at least a little bit Toxic - including alex (just as the nature of the culture, and the social power difference between people and vampires, toxic masculinity, just straight up assholes with a pretty face, ect) and that's just sorta the standard, normal thing that Blaze expects to happen with relationships in general. So it's showing a little bit of growth on Blazes part by saying no to the perceived toxicity, but still misunderstanding what a normal relationship is. 

 4) he's still not sure he's part gay. Like, he was Trying Out A Thing with Alex and he didn't get enough time to process it or really tell if that's something for him.

5) Blaze is asexual and sex-repulsed, and John is Horny. Not that John would do anything that Blaze is uncomfortable with - just the idea that Blaze is holding John back from something that he really wants to do while simultaneously being really stuck on the idea of monogamy and being uncomfortable with the idea ofo John being with anyone else sexually if they're in a relationship. 

 6) and fear that if he says yes then He's Stuck. can't back out, can't break off, without losing John completely as a friend (which is not something John would do even if they did break off for whatever reason). but it's still intense fear, and strongly supported by the idea of 'history repeats itself'. 

 7) he's also still low-key weirded out by the thought that John was assigned female at birth and while he's Getting Better at that and normalizing it. Being closer than friends before he's finished sorting things out in his head properly only brings up those weirded out feelings more intensely and more frequently until it becomes a potential point of conflict. If they were to ever be a thing, it'd take a lot of time before it started up, for Blaze to be 100% okay and Chill and properly sort through his head around John being trans. Not that Blaze would ever insult or weaponize that against john or anything, just personally working through centuries of stigma/sterotypes/ect and trying to get to a point where that thought isn't weird or bad anymore.

and a few other little reasons here and there but those are the big main ones in the way between a Blaze and John relationship. and I've been trying to keep that in mind when writing stories between them, cause John would totally go out with Blaze, and if Blaze didn't have those blocks, then he'd totally be open to a relationship with John too. 

Like, blaze low-key has a crush on John too. And I ship is so hard. And I want it to be a thing but I feel it's unfair to Blaze's character and all the stuff he has to work through himself before he's mentally stable enough to be able to have a healthy relationship with anyone. 

 and like maybe if no one else existed, yeah, sure, they'd get together at some point but like John isn't going to wait years for the possibility of a relationship with a person who already said 'no'.

So anyway, Hue comes on scene, right? 

John is spending more time with Hue and due to the nature of time being limited and the fact that often John operates seperately in Hero Team Missions (he's a spellcaster where the others aren't - he can do a lot of behind the scenes things that the others can't) 

Blaze finds himself really really wanting John's company more which makes him question why the fuck and therefore come to the realization that yeah okay fuck fine he's part gay but what the fuck ever John's with someone else already so.

so he's trying to shove down those annoyin' fckn feelings of jealousy, and also starting to distance himself from John and also throwing in some self-hate for missing his chance because Everything Blaze Does has to be low-key toxic (bad blaze stop it-) 

and once there's something you Want that's out of reach, suddenly you start forgetting about the reasons why you didn't go for it in the first place when it was available which means at least some of the other barriers are temporarily forgotten - at least, until John is available again, then they'd re-surface with vengeance and more self-hate because now-is-you're-chance-what-are-you-waiting-for - 

so anyway Blaze is a (valid) Dramatic Bitch who can't make up his goddamn mind

And right now I'm trying to figure out the new dynamic, and how things end there. 

 I'm like maybe 20% sure that they might end up turning it into a poly relationship instead of a love triangle 

John would be down for that Hue would be down for that 

it all just depends on Blaze and his dumb stupid (meant lovingly, they're still valid) limitations and quirks and trauma and shit.

there's nothing solid yet but the idea of it being turned into a poly relationship is rlly appealing to me

also 

blaze needs a therapist

I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've said that and I don't know why I haven't said it sooner but Blaze needs a therapist.

vampires getting therapists isn't something that ever happens for lots of stupid and dumb (not valid) reasons but maybe maaaayyyyybeeeeeee Raknu can pull some strings, talk to some people, ya know. Maybe try and find a therapist who's willing to come in and try and talk to a vampire with hundreds of years of Shit.

raknu can claim it's for the good of the team, and teamwork, and shiz. I mean, having a vampire on a hero team at all is a New Thing, Blaze was one of the first. So obviously, there'll the other New Things that arise from this, that can bypass stupid rules

well I guess for Blaze to see a therapist Blaze would have to actually be willing to ya know. 

see the therapist 

that's more unlikely than raknu being able to call one in that's open to it 

Blaze does not have a very good opinion on therapists. Blaze thinks they're all quacks and wishy-washy idiots 

siiiiiiigh 

blaze why why do you have to be this way like, you've got a whole bunch of Good Things that you could've had why do you have to be stubborn 

all of these good things literally just hinge on you.

it's okay though 

blaze is just taking the scenic route the long way around to Good Times.

I think what would be required for Blaze to see a therapist would be for someone he sees as similar to him - not wishy-washy, negativity and toxic central, similar opinion of therapists in general - to go in and see one first, and actually be helped and have their life improved. 

then maybe blaze would give it a try and-  

ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 

heheheheheheh 

AHAHAHAHAHAHA 

this is where it comes full circle!!! 

This is perfect!!!! 

Hue! 

it all comes back to HUE! 

Hue goes to therapy which then convinces Blaze to accept therapy which means Blaze can actually Work Through Some Of His Shit 

and then we can have a valid Poly Relationship with John and Blaze and Hue and it wouldn't have been possible without Hue which low-key starts them off in a positive relationship, which is bolstered by John really liking Hue, and therefor Blaze has someone else he can Really Actually Enjoy And Feel Comfortable Around instead of being stuck on just John 

Bonus Little Story Thing For Making It This Far:

Blaze tentatively kisses the top of Smol John’s head, giving a hesitant little smile. John blushes and grins, leaning against the vampire. 

Glancing up though, Blaze sees Hue with a raised eyebrow and a an amused smirk.

A very intense possessiveness washes over Blaze. Blaze makes direct eye contact with Hue. 

“aAURG!! wHAt the HECK!!!” John exclaims as Blaze’s teeth firmly rest on his back, pressing him into the tongue protecting him from the vampire’s bottom teeth. 

Blaze lifts John up from his hand like that, pulling his tongue in and bringing John with it. John fumbles for an oxygen tank from his pockets. 

Blaze maintains eye contact with Hue the entire time, swallowing the small form. 

Hue is amused, a little disturbed, but mostly confused. 

Finally Hue breaks the silence. “Couldn’t resist such a snacc, huh?” 

[thefloatingstone]

I really like your blog! I specifically like the stuff you reblog because it's so in tune with my interests that I can browse for hours while forgetting that this is in fact NOT my dashboard! I hope you're feeling better and talking to someone.

Thank you very very much, Anon! That’s really flattering, and I’m really glad you find my blog so enjoyable. Sometimes I worry I reblog too much and that people may only be following me for my art and become disappointed by my blog as a whole. So it’s really nice to hear.

It’s been a couple of weeks, so I am feeling better, thank you. And I am talking to somebody, I promise

Thank you, anon

It’s really rough, I won’t lie. And it’s been rough for a very long time. But I do hear you on the “it’s impossible to NOT find somebody who’ll click with me.” But I do sometimes fall into the thinking of “how is it possible that there are 7 billion people out there and I seem to struggle in finding anyone irl to even have a conversation with.” But that’s a thought pattern I don’t really want to entertain right now.

Also, it sounds weird to say, but thank you for saying it’ll get worse before it gets better. Because that kinda.... makes it feel more real, you know? It’s way too easy for my brain to just think nice things people say are “empty platitudes”. So when something feels a little more down to earth, it hits me a little harder. So thank you.

Thank you so much @under-the-dragonz-tail. Things are better now. At least for right now. But thank you for sticking with me while I was in a really bad place, and for reach out.

Thank you Anon.

thank you

Thank you @nina-thegamergirl And thank you for the good vibes and sending me some kind words. Nothing has changed yet, but I’m hanging in there a little better now. Thank you for messaging me and making me feel less alone and isolated

@torrikor We may not talk a lot but I still consider you a friend

This legit made me crack a tiny little bit the first time I read it.

Thank you Anon

Thank you @vass-junk It’s really difficult to try and fight feelings when they punch down that hard, but things are better now, at least for now. And thank you for caring about me, even if just in a tumblr fandom sense.

Thank you so much @sin-cognito Things are better now.

While I was trapped in a pit of depression and literally could not keep up with tumblr and did nothing but stare at youtube for 2 days straight, I couldn’t remember who said these things, but somewhere in that pit my brain was clinging onto the things you mentioned, specifically “nobody can predict what tomorrow brings” and how you pointed out that all my negative thoughts all started with “I feel”. So while in that terrible mindset, those two things really hit me and gave me some sort of grounding, and I remembered them clearly despite the rest of those 2 days being kind of a blur.

So I sincerely want to thank you very much for that. It definitely helped, probably more than you realise even after hearing me trying to explain it.

Thank you for being there, and for sending me this message, and for looking out for me and showing me that in whatever way, I’m not completely and utterly alone, even if I am all by myself.

oof. I know that feel. That’s been happening a lot lately.

Thank you @readingatdawn7. And thank you for writing something even after tumblr tried to sabotage you! The move was really hard coming off the back of a year of really hard things. I’m still not sure if it will be alright in this town, but I’ve been making plans and taking steps to change things and I hope they can come to fruition soon.

@legademacinderheart It’s more than just consolation, believe me. And even if online connects can’t replace ones in real life, they do a TOn just to let me know there ARE people out there who actually exist in real life who actually do care, even if just through fandom or because I can draw.

I don’t think I fully realise how lucky I am to have that, and how much worse it could have been if I didn’t.

@xxtc-96xx Thanks TC!

Thank you @itmestine and honestly? Even if it took a year and a half, it’s somehow comforting to hear it happened at all. I still don’t know if it’s even possible for me to find some form of irl friendship here, but I am trying. It’s difficult, but I’m making an effort not to spend all of my time in my room working. Even if it’s just driving to the mall to get groceries or going to a favourite place to eat. I am making a large effort not to just sit by myself all the time.

Somebody suggested getting into a DnD game which can be a good way to meet people. But I haven’t tried it yet. I’m concerned about asking on the town’s facebook page because I’m worried I’ll get marked as some sort of “““satanist”““ for wanting to play DnD. But I’m also worried about starting my own game and inviting people to it because I don’t know how to DM and I feel I’m too awkward and shy to be the person heading a game.

I’m going off topic now though. Thank you for sharing with me. It does give me a little bit of hope.

@54viruses Have I told you how jazzed I am that you’re on tumblr now? Because I am really REALLY jazzed to see you on tumblr!! I was REALLY happy and excited when I saw your avatar pop up on my notifs here! And I’m super happy to see you around

And thank you so much man. And I legit can’t even believe you remember the mayo rice balls. Holy shit.

(I still love them)

@sketchehkimmeh Honestly? that whole “go to a coffee shop” thing just to be around people even if not directly interacting is a really good idea. A coffee shop I really like is moving to the mall around the corner from me, and I’m hoping once they open I can start spending a lot of time there, if only to write fanfics or something. (I’m hoping a change in environment might help the writing thing)

And don’t worry, I am seeing a therapist and he’s helping me with stress management and anxiety problems. He can’t really help me meet other people, but it’s at least one extra person I can speak to.

Thank you for sending me some words of encouragement.

And thank you to everyone else as well. I know I’ve had bad spots in the past before, but this was.... probably the worst I’ve had. I certainly can’t remember being that low before. I’ve never reached a point where I literally shut down and couldn’t do anything but watch youtube while lying in bed for 2 days straight.

Your messages did help though. I read them on my phone as I was notified of them, even though I didn’t have the energy to scroll through tumblr. I don’t know if I fall into that headspace again if I feel they’d be as effective as I do re-reading them while I’m feeling better, but I remember in my fugue state that your words and messages and just the very very simple fact that people cared enough to SAY things to me helped an enormous deal, even if it just meant it chased away dark thoughts and the adrenaline pumping through me for 5 minutes, it was 5 minutes feeling better than I had been previously.

So that you again. I’m sorry I took so long to respond. I was in no condition to do so when you guys sent these, and when I started feeling better I just wanted to ignore those feelings and try get back to normal again.

But thank you.

[rainbow-squirrels-7]

!!ENDGAME SPOILERS AHEAD!! Since I did it last year with Infinity War and now that I’ve seen Endgame twice here are my ramblings:

But before we begin apparently I accidentally predicted Endgame’s title during my IW ramblings and then completely forgot about it...

-so like that friggin beginning tho poor Clint like the entire movie. Agreeing with a favorite YouTube movie reviewer of mine, this was really Clint’s shining movie despite his uh- downward turn for a bit there -but on the bright side I’m glad his older kids’ names are canon now; like legit I thought those (Cooper and Lila) were made up by the fanfictioneers. Maybe they were and the writers were like ‘huh okay less work for us- yoink’ -then Nebula and Stark playing table football that was adorable. The shiny paper reminded me of that one Chris Hemsworth gif you know the one of him making a face at his reflection? -and heck yes Carol coming in hot to save the day what a legend -woohoo go get Thanos time -and he’s just in a frickin farm in a T-shirt (a T-SHIRT?!?) collecting some fruits and starting a new YouTube cooking channel -“what’s up half of the universe today we’re making weird bumpy fruit stew” -but heck yeah Thor cut off that guy’s head -and then just like whoa five years later. I usually can’t stand time jumps but it’s alright. It really gives a perspective of ‘yeah the world isn’t better with half its population. Everyone’s so sad’ -good job of Steve starting a therapy group tho even if he doesn’t take his own advice -I can’t believe a rat saved Scott talk about lucky -unless that rat was actually Loki -just sayin -and the bike kid: “wouldn’t you like to know weatherboy” -I forget how old Cassie was in Antman and the Wasp but +5 years to that I guess. She looks a bit too old to me but what do I know. I’m very glad she didn’t disappear though cuz I love Scott very much and I don’t want him to go through that -tbh Scott saved everyone cuz he had the time travel idea in the first place. I love an optimistic boy -UHBUHH I HAVENT TALKED ABOUT CAROL’S HAIRCUT YET UM HECK YEAH -it’s very good I’m very gay -anyway -I liked Nebula’s prominence in this movie she’s growing on me but of course it doesn’t take a lot on account of me loving robots (cyborgs?) so much -getting the band back together! -baby Morgan Stark/Potts was Very Good -ohmygod Thor -so chub -I was annoyed being without beefy Thor the first time, but rewatching it though I thought his Look was maybe not only reflecting his depression (cuz yeah) but maybe mythological Thor? Like I’m just throwing spaghetti at the wall but maybe in actual Norse myth Thor was (well, actually a redhead) that chub/beef combo but he did have the fluffier beard that MCU Thor had this time. Idk, like I said- spaghetti -Valkyrie’s back! Love her -they call her that though? Isn’t that what she is- like her job? Does she not have a name? Could have sworn it was Brunhilda or something -and Korg and the sharp bug guy are back too! Love them -friggin playing Fortnite -jokes aside though I do love that deep look into Thor’s guilt throughout the whole movie. Like he thought killing Thanos would just make everything better but it didn’t and just couldn’t deal and would rather drink to forget -Clint’s guilt was also interesting, like showing that ‘oh god he could really go there, he could get this bad given the circumstance’ -just Blade Runner-ing all around Tokyo -I haven’t seen Blade Runner but it has neon lights and rain right? -but yeah I do like the “the Snap took away good people and bad people but like it could have just took bad people and since it didn’t I’ll have to instead” -sad boy -he was very uh ‘Magnus rushes in’ if you will, during this movie. Not caring for a lot of it if he lived or died cuz he’d lost so much -god he was good in this movie -anyway -I also called the time travel:

-it still doesn’t completely make sense to me though? Like time travel is confusing enough but adding in a multiverse just makes it even more so -I loved the revisiting the old movies! -low key wanted an Age of Ultron revisit so we could have OMG we could have seen Pietro again -still on the #bringbackpietromaximoff train guys -but anyway we could have seen some good Wanda scenes and also my boy Vision again -but it did make more sense to get the three in NY at the same time -it was real cool to see the bald wizard lady (Minerva from TAZ Amnesty) defending the wizard building during 2012 Avengers- like that is so believable and now we can watch 2012 Avengers and be like “oh hey the wizards were there” -“that is America’s a**” I love how much Scott hero-worships Steve like we saw that in Civil War and yes it’s so funny and I love it its great -Steve vs Steve fight?? Great -“I can do this all day.” “Yeah yeah I know.” -And again, we can totally watch 2012 Avengers again and be like ‘yes meeting with Secretary Pierce and the other Shield guys- this is totally believable, it’s exactly what would have happened we just didn’t see it.’ -the elevator scene! I thought for sure Steve was gonna do the “now before we begin does anyone want to get out” but the “hail hydra” was just as good -“they’re hydra but we don’t know that yet” “they Look like bad guys!!” -and I guess Loki using the Tesseract to escape during that scene is setup for a... tv show? He’s gonna be wreaking havoc through time and space I guess?? Glad he’s back though -anyway revisiting more movies -friggin Guardians 1 -Quill singing Come and Get Your Love really badly cuz all we heard was the actual song and OhmyGOD that was hilarious -I’m glad Rhodey and Nebula got on a team cuz they can be prosthetic buddies -but did Nebula just not tell Clint and Nat that one of them would have to die for the Soul Stone? Or did they know and just not wanna talk about it till it came up? -TBH I though the ‘lose someone you love for the stone’ requirement would have been filled by both Clint and Nat already cuz Clint could have been like “um my dude do you even know how much I’ve lost already??” -apparently not though -Nat’s hair was great for the time travel parts I liked the red fade to white -though it was a sad and intense moment with Clint and Nat deciding who of them had to die it was also sweet cuz you can see how much they care for each other -and I was- well not glad but I really wanted Clint to see his family again -not that The Avengers weren’t his family -that friggin line “did she have family?” “Yeah. Us.” GOD -and then there’s that whole rigamarole with double Nebulas and oh Gamora’s back too -again time travel/the whole multiverse thing apparently doesn’t make sense to me so I’m just gonna gloss over it as much as I can until I can get more into it later -anyway the other time travel to the 1950s! -cool callback to Winter Soldier like you could see Zola going into the bunker -like So many people were there at the Camp Lehigh (idk if that’s how it’s spelled) like Everybody was there -good good moments with Tony and his dad -I thought it would have been cool for Tony to have given his dad the inspiration for his own name but oh well. Maybe that wouldn’t have even worked with time travel and all -Steve’s prank call to Hank Pym that was funny “um the box is glowing” -but oh geez the scene where Steve finds Peggy oh god when he goes in the room with her name on the door my roommate and I were watching it together the first time I saw it and both of us went “ohhhhhhh oh nooooooo” -cuz like that’s the first time he’s seen her since he went in the ice! Or at least seen her how he remembers and not old in Civil War hhhhhhhh GOD -I think seeing her there was a factor in his decision later but I’ll get to that later this is a long heck movie -oh and the OG human Jarvis showed up! I like him, I only saw season 1 of Peggy’s show but I remember liking him a lot -but yeah back to the present unless- well I’m sure I missed something -OH FRICK THOR’S BIT -I can’t Believe they went back to The Dark World -tbh I actually like The Dark World I think it’s a good movie but it’s not universally liked -callback to the scene with Loki tossing the cup in the air ahaha that one was always good -so if they had Rocket’s pokey device during that movie the whole plot of that movie could have been avoided? -anyway um Frigga?? What a queen. Literally -I loved “I was raised by witches I can see with more than my eyes” -she’s really what Thor needed there but god the “she dies today” poor boy -she’s so good though -I loved that ‘measure of a hero is being who you are not who you’re supposed to be’ Yes -and the “I’m still worthy!!!!” Thor needed a win -“eat a salad!” -Now back to the present -Stark-Tech can apparently channel Infinity Stones? And doesn’t need a special heart of a dying star and giant dwarfs to forge a special gauntlet um okay -“what do I have flowing through my veins right now?” “Cheese whiz?” -Bruce is so good though so strong I loved the “I was made for this” -so sweet when Laura called Clint! Yes! Everyone’s really back! -and double Nebula just Had to ruin everything tho -before I get into the final battle- I wonder how much of the time travel scenes were reused from old footage and how much was reshoots with the same actors/costumes/sets? -anyway -um rude blowing up the compound -and god the water scenes were so stressful the first time. Water/specifically-about-to-drown scenes always freak me out. Also trapped under ice and squished under something scenes -Clint finding the gauntlet and getting away from Thanos’ cronies! Every time anyone was running with the gauntlet all I could think of was that one goof from TAZ Balance in Petals to the Metal- Taako’s “Grab the Gauntlet and don’t look back” friggin

-also when Steve, Thor, and Tony all go to confront Thanos who is waiting for them, there’s a specific song playing in the background: https://youtu.be/H_9mnO_NOjk?t=120 (it starts at around 2:00) and you’ll hear this series of deep bell sounds? For the life of me- that specific sound sounds SO FAMILIAR and I can’t friggin place it. I can’t decide if it just reminds me of the Wind Dance song that plays in TAZ Balance whenever the Hunger shows up (which is fitting tbh)? Or if it sounds like some boss battle music that I can’t place? Maybe from Pokémon or Mystery Dungeon? I just can’t remember. It sounds real cool tho -but uh yeah UM -STEVE!! WORTHY!!!! -I mean we all be knowing but! -such a cool scene. I started clapping the first time I watched and others in the theatre joined in -not as cool as when Vision lifted the hammer but I’m biased -but things look dark at this point and I can’t remember if it’s at this part or one one next but there’s this real cool wide shot, this real nice tableau of Steve on a hill or something and this light behind him as he faces Thanos’ army and yeah it just looks real good. Like a good computer background I’d like to have or a poster -but yeah then! -“ON YOUR LEFT!” -Yay!!! Portals open and ‘oh yeah! Everyone’s back now! We have friends to help us fight!’ -gave me some good TAZ Balance episode 68 vibes. Could have called for a cool Lup-esque speech tho from Steve since he’s so good at that- “You see this? This is scary. But we can do this.” -EXCEPT -now we reach the part of my rambling where it turns into somewhat of a rant -because I’M annoyed but only for a specific reason that won’t affect the average moviegoer since Apparently not everyone’s a fan... -cuz Literally the only person who doesn’t show up -is my boy Vision -I mean Yes -I Know he was one of the people who died before Thanos snapped -but my hopes were Way Way Up that he’d come back somehow -and UHHH APPARENTLY I WILL JUST HAVE TO BE DISAPPOINTED -everyone Else came back??? Why not my boy?? -he wasn’t even mentioned despite being So Important in IW -except vaguely when Wanda pulled a real Taako in Balance episode 67 “You f**king took everything from me!!!” -she could have took out Thanos on her own for sure like he had to call in the big guns just to stop her from doing just that -strongest Avenger heck yeah -and Carol came too! -friggin Star Wars Episode 8-ing up in here shooting through Thanos’ spaceship that was So Cool -and the Girl Squad! Girl Squad! part!!!! Yes!!!!! So good!!! Protec small Peter! -somewhere, Nat smiled -Spider-Man’s instakill that was great -I loved the ‘pass the gauntlet’ part though -when Clint handed it off to T’Challa, T’Challa called his name and that was good cuz callback to Civil War when Clint said “we haven’t met yet. I’m Clint.” And T’Challa was like “I don’t care”. He does care now! Lol! -Carol just friggin Beast mode Thanos can’t even touch her he had to pluck the Power Stone from the gauntlet to even knock her back! We stan! A legend! -and oof Tony to Stephen Strange “14 million and one we win? Is this it?” “If I tell you it won’t be” -cuz oof -it really was a good ending for Tony though -he started it all way friggin back in 2008 -and the “I am Iron Man” Yes -and also I think it was in Age of Ultron that part when Tony was talking to Fury and it was like “I saw them all dead and that wasn’t even the worst of it” “the worst was that you didn’t” -so it’s very fitting and so so good -lining up with and going against Howard’s earlier “the greater good rarely outweighed my personal interest” and proving that Tony really was so heroic -so like it’s sad but it’s fitting and not like an unsatisfying end for his character -and it’s not like he won’t be friggin mentioned ever again or anything he’s friggin Iron Man he’s already in the new Spider-Man trailer -(no shade at all in the ‘not begin mentioned at all’ category...) -anyway oh wait -oh god Peter Parker tear my heart out again sad boy he’s so good at making us sad when he’s sad about Tony -yeah anyway again -loved the “proof that Tony Stark has a heart” disc from the first movie that was good -oh and so like the camera is moving through all the different groups of people on the dock and moving towards the house -(just an interlude but CAROL IN A SUIT UM YES) -there’s a shot of some random kid! And I didn’t know who it was until I was leaving the theatre and another guy heard me and my dad talking and he told us! It’s the kid from Iron Man 3! Now That was a nice throwback -but yeah then it gets into the I guess TAZ Balance Rebuilding Year-esque scenes -which were all Very good! Good family scenes; Hope and Scott and Cassie, and T’Challa and Shuri and their mom, and that scene with Wanda and Clint was very good BUT -would it have been So Hard to do just a small scene of maybe somewhere in Wakanda like Shuri helping to rebuild Vision with all that vibranium while Wanda was there watching? Maybe even from his old body?? Would that have been so hard?? Just Something to give me hope?? -why are all these movies So Against Wanda being happy??? -but yeah almost to the end -more time travel with Steve going to return the stones! I’m glad Sam and Bucky got more lines I love them both -but what I really loved was that Steve got his Magnus ending -not in a “how does Magnus die” way but a “how does Steve live” way -love me a good happy ending esp if it involves dancing like that’s All he wanted -like I said earlier, I think just seeing Peggy again was enough for Steve to be like ‘oh it doesn’t matter if I can’t live without war action (a la what Ultron said in AoU) i do really want that life with Peggy and I can do that now’ -it was just Good -but it does raise a few time travel questions -like if Our Steve went back to the 1940s (he did go to the 40s right?) does that mean that there’s another Steve still stuck in the ice? I would say there can only be one Steve at a time but that was proven wrong in the very same movie. There’s gonna be something to do with multiverse in the next Spider-Man which will of course just make everything all the more confusing but still... I guess if I don’t think about it too much it’s not such a big deal -it was also very fitting that there weren’t any after credits scenes. It reminded me of the end of TAZ Balance with the announcer (Junior) not announcing the final episode since he said in 68 that we’d have to see what happens in the last one together. Idk but I liked that -and I liked the signatures of all the OG avengers! That was like them signing off on this huge thing they did, which is really what happened! This huge friggin 12 year thing! -wait was that what the 12 meant all along?? The 12%, the 12 minuets? We may never know -but anyway back to the most important part to me -my boy Vision

-I was so naive  

-like I’ve been told there’s gonna be a tv show or something but like -come on -you could have given me Something -I feel like Griffin in the Fallout 4 Monster Factory after Roachie despawned “nothing?!? You leave me nothing!?!” -so like all in all it was a good movie a Really Good movie I liked it a lot -that Time Heist- I love time travel plots. I already had some of my next DND campaign planned with time travel being a big part- I hope my players don’t think I’m stealing lol -it was very enjoyable and so so good to wrap up this huge thing and put a bow on this story arc. Which I guess can open the door for experimentation now? Which would be kinda cool -Scarlet Witch movie maybe and my dreams can come true??? I can be happy??? Please -I just- one little scene could have left me less disappointed and given me just a little hope but anyone who’s not in the ScarletVision boat will not be disappointed by this movie (cuz the deaths [Tony and Nat] are heroic and satisfying to me, so I’m not not satisfied by that) -it wasn’t Their movie but still. Let me complain -It really was really good though -And I guess I only get motivated to write fanfic like once a year (or whenever new ScarletVision content is in a movie though um the Vision part of that was uh nonexistent) so like my Complements fanfic is in the process of growing a fourth part so look out for that I guess -and if you’re still here reader, I hope you enjoyed my long long ramblings

-and in conclusion:

[hellobengski]

THAILAND: POST COLLEGE ADVENTURE 2017

The last time I felt clouds in my presence was in the year 2012, month of December, in which the airplane landed to Hong Kong. The dilemma of life and death in an open space was merely forgotten, where everything you could see was tranquility. I never wanted to stop looking at cottony clouds. They made me feel safe. It was 5 years later when I felt it again.  I remember how it feels to fly without wings, appreciating the beauty of nature beyond what I imagine.

           Thailand was the next stop on my travel bucket list all over Southeast Asia. It was a place that had similar atmosphere with my very own country. EDSA was the first thing that came into my mind when I walked outside the airport. I heard various honking of buses and cars, but in a more disciplined way, I guess. But more than that, I had a view of a new horizon of tradition and culture.

My mom, sister, and aunt had to travel 2 hours away from the airport so we could check in to the hotel where my sister booked through the online. I was assuming somehow it could be near a quiet place, or maybe a road of consecutive coffee shops, but I failed. It was entirely different than what I anticipated. Khao San Road was a place where small bars and party houses were all located. Abstract shirts, different items with elephant designs were displayed along the narrow road of which tourists could experience a good bargain with merchants. I have seen discrete races all over the world who stayed for quite some time in their respective hotels. I could turn my head 360 and whichever direction I bumped into, I could always see unfamiliar but lovely faces.

We met Ms. Nancy, our tour guide for the 1st day. She had a medium short hair, showed a very long glittery eyelashes in her face, and a pale pink lipstick on her mouth. She had a pleasing personality, I could say, or maybe she needed to be because it was part of her job. She was shorter than me, maybe an inch, and was in her typical shirt and pants with Chuck Taylor shoes to stay comfy.

I only had 2 hours to prepare and fix my baggage before I travel with Ms. Nancy. I swiped the card through the doorknob, allowing me to embrace a very relaxing and convenient 1 single room with 2 large soft beds and pillows. I put my sister’s make-up kit in front of the mirror with a hairdryer beside it. My personal hygiene necessities were located just outside our bedroom, in the midpoint of two comfort rooms, so it would be easier to grab just in case we’re in a hurry to take a bath. My aunt placed some leftover biscuits all the way from Philippines next to the huge flat screen TV. My mom being my mom, tried to clean some of her stuff, but there was no enough time left. Angela, my sister, did some of her retouch on her face to make her feel fresh even when she already felt exhausted. We left the room and ate one of the most popular Thai food called, “Pad-Thai” along the road.

The value of respect of Thai people for their King was the very first thing I ever noticed. As I was riding in an outsized van, I spotted some black and white colored curtains hanged outside the gigantic temples of the individual kings who passed away, and for the royals who are still living. Ms. Nancy shared some of her ideas about Thai’s history, telling us that these long curtains represent grief and condolences for the King who died due to his old age. And this will last for a year, until they go back to the feeling of relief.

I went inside historical temples of different images of Buddha, taking pictures for a remembrance to my relatives when I get back home. I tried eating coconut ice cream for P50 baht, which savored my starving throat into something refreshing. Tuk Tuk, a classic Thai vehicle, impressed me with its three wheels, although Ms. Nancy recommended us not to ride on it. Even if I wanted to stay longer in a certain place, we only had limited time to grasp some of the stories that were in there.

Alarm clocks in our own phone woke up us too early. I didn’t have enough sleep. Maybe because of too much excitement, or maybe because of the extreme coldness inside our room. I woke up at 4 in the morning holding my phone, checking some news and updates in the Philippines. It was a never-ending extra judicial killings on my newsfeed, letting me feel the frustration and agitation for my government’s administration. And few days from now, ironically, I would be home in a place where I wouldn’t feel safe. I didn’t want to think about overthinking, so I tried to wake up my mom. I went directly to the bathroom, thinking about the plans and places Ms. Nancy listed for us the day before she left us in the hotel. Everyone else seemed to be freaking out when I finished taking a bath, considering the only time we had to eat for a buffet breakfast. I chose to wear an orange shirt and shorts with floral design, supposing it would match the places we would be visiting.

Just by the time the restaurant open its door, I hurriedly walked into the different kinds of food. I was truly overwhelmed seeing complete set of breakfast that made my stomach perfectly full.  Sausages on my left, croissants and toasted bread on my right, a problem of choosing between fried rice or pasta, and slices of watermelons and pineapples were put into my plate. I wasn’t even contented at all, I made my own coffee to match my croissants, even bother to get cucumber juice just in case coffee wouldn’t give me satisfaction. The question of time never crossed my mind when all these food were prepared in front of me. Although it was a must to rush, a Thai man, who works with Ms. Nancy in the same travel agency, fetched us. It was a group tour, consisted of two couples, one from America, and the other from Malaysia.

The tour started by introducing Mr. Thai’s name. I forgot, though. He considered making jokes out of telling stories, associated with historical Thai’s exotic food too. He is a 55-year old man, who has 3 kids. All I could remember was every time he gets to see me smiling, the memory of his daughter blissfully retains in his mind. He shared about how he got involved into a travel agency, which I think a lot of Thai people are working at. He was not as chatty as Ms. Nancy, nevertheless, he was entertaining. He showed us the famous Floating Market in Thailand, where tourists needed to ride on a boat to purchase some stuff. I have seen amazing paintings in all sizes, carved vases, coconut ice cream with nuts for its toppings, “lansones” which was sold by an 85-year old woman, weaved hats, and a lot more. The biggest Eureka moment was, all I thought Thailand has only one floating market. By the time we had to leave the place, Mr. I forgot-the-name actually revealed that in every town, has its own one. Well, not a thing was bought during the boating experience, all I know was my heart was fulfilled seeing people enjoying moments that could only last once in a life time.

The magical performance in theater happened at night after the tour in Floating Market. We entered a huge closed room with people wanting to witness such beauty in arts and entertainment.    Siam Niramit, is a state-of-the art theater yielding one of the largest stage productions in the world. It’s a captivating adventure through Thailand’s history and culture in high-flying fashion, with live elephants, acrobatics, pyrotechnics and stunts – all performed by a troupe made up of thousands  of performers adorned in great costumes. I would never forget my mom’s unexplainable reaction and experience throughout the entire show. She wanted to cry out of joy most of the time. It’s as if she didn’t want to go home in the hotel. I never saw rejection from her face, telling me that next time she comes back, it would be with my dad. We captured moments with several actors and actresses after, leaving us a souvenir with elephants, making this as her favorite art of the travel.

Off my bucket list was also riding an elephant. One of the many animals I have always wanted to experience, carabao was supposed to be the first. I think elephants were made to listen closely to everything, to everyone. They were made to be friends with people most especially when you treat them with care and respect. They love watermelons and coconuts. They like being splashed with water after taking us into a routine. They were also trained to take pictures with various poses of their trunks, and that’s how they get to be attractive for locals and foreigners.

The famous Thai massage will never be forgotten. So my brother’s friend who happens to work in Bangkok accompanied us after a very long day in market. This has got to be the most effective massage in my whole life. At first I thought it was brutal, since it was my first time the legit Thai massage. I was taking it easy for the first few minutes but later on, it kinda felt horrible. In a matter of seconds, the compress became weapon and I was literally cringing under the pressure. I actually found myself concentrating on regulating my breathing. The way they provide Thai massages are with entire body. They leverage their own body weight with certain movements in order to provide enough pressure to the body. I did fall asleep several times but still ended with a very soothing cup of tea.

Of course, our vacation wouldn’t be complete without the “party.” Prior to shopping in Chatuchak Market, my sister and I had been planning to socialize with people. We were really after drinks and fries, although it wasn’t our first time doing this, we wanted to make sure to at least meet good-looking guys from Europe. Our mom was subtle with her words but still she allowed us to explore. By the time we went down from our room, that’s when the party started. I thought we were courageous enough to do things beyond our control, but surprisingly, we were like high school students who just stayed in a corner of the street to observe how a street party works. There were people who literally danced as if it was their last day on earth, girls and guys French kissing each other while tossing their drinks, Asians and Americans twerking as if they’re showing off to every person they’d bump into. There was also robbery that happened in 7 Eleven Convenience store, unknowingly grabbing sodas and fresh milk from the fridge, to ease their drunkenness. After all, I saw emptiness. I felt emptiness. The superficiality of society where people wants to fit in to get accepted because after all, no one wants rejection. The façade of being proud “in” but in reality, they’re slowly dying. And for me, street party seemed to be an outlet of frustration, sadness, anxiety, and depression. People always long for something in the end.  But life should be more than a night of drinks and smoke. It should be more than meeting temporary people.

Four days and three nights was a short term goal achieved in knowing and living the life in Thailand. More insights were added to my unending learnings in life. It was more than the feeling of being grateful of what the life has more to offer for people like us who seek for journey mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Life is really full of surprises and adventures and I couldn’t wait for my next destination. Until next time, Thailand!

[evenstevensranked]

#1: Season 3, Episode 5 - “Band on the Roof”

ANNNND... “BAND ON THE ROOF” TAKES THE CAKE!

I cannot believe I’m publishing the #1 ranking. Next month will mark two whole years since I created this blog and now, after countless hours spent on 64 reviews, we’re finally here! Never thought I’d see the day. I never anticipated that I’d be this emotional about it either. I’ll save the mushiness and some final thoughts for the end of the post. 

When The Twitty-Stevens Connection gets back together, Tom shoots a documentary -- excuse me, “rockumentary” -- detailing the highs and lows of the band’s reunion! What we get is a rollercoaster of an episode featuring (almost) all of our favorite characters, the most legendary quote in the entire series, a mockumentary approach to filming that was ahead of its time, a heartwarming plot for our two main siblings, and one hell of a catchy song to boot. 

For the last time... 

Let’s get into it!

I know I throw the word "Iconic" around loosely sometimes but this is genuinely an iconic episode for the series. I feel like everyone remembers this episode. Even if you didn't watch the show too often, you still remember this episode. This one kinda makes me wish that Even Stevens was one of the first popular American comedy sitcoms to pioneer the mockumentary style gimmick for the entire series. (i.e. The Office, Modern Family, Parks & Rec) Because it works here. Really well. I’ve mentioned a few times before that The Office is my other all-time favorite comedy show, so I absolutely ADORE those strong vibes here. 

According to Wikipedia and their list of “Mockumentaries” (which includes this episode!) -- as far as the genre in television goes, it seemed to become a big thing in the UK first and then spread to places like Australia and Canada. The United States mockumentary television format boom started in the early-mid 2000s, specifically at or around 2003 with Arrested Development and then in 2005 with the humble beginnings of The Office. "Band on the Roof” premiered in 2002. Hmmm. Very interesting! Not sayin’ Even Stevens was ahead of its time once again but that’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s almost like this show trial-runs ideas before they take off. First with “Influenza” and then this. Even though this episode was definitely more of a spoof of VH1′s “Behind The Music,” it still totally falls into that mockumentary TV category. 

It opens with the introduction to the documentary, narrated by Tom in a super unnaturally deep voice with a little reverb slapped on there for dramatic effect: “First, there was The Alan Twitty Project... Then, there was The Louis Stevens Experience... The coming together of these two musical forces begat the supergroup The Twitty-Stevens Connection! ...But the band broke up temporarily when bassist Artie Ryan’s mom made him take pottery lessons.” 

Tragic.

Tom introduces himself as “Thomas Gribalski: Rockumentary Filmmaker.” Wow, he’s wasting no time loading up his IMDb page. You document one Junior High band and it’s all uphill from there. He goes on to explain that when The Twitty-Stevens Connection got back together, Louis Stevens asked him to capture those “little moments” for them to look back on once the band becomes “rich and famous.” But, of course, no road to stardom is without its bumps. 

I wanna know how Tom, a 14-year-old, got this swanky studio to record in...

It cuts to band rehearsal in the Stevens basement where they’re jamming to “Crazy” from the Battle of the Bands episode!! Everything’s fine until the band randomly stops playing in the middle of the song and Louis goes off on a never-ending drum solo that he refers to as “a groove.” It always bothered me how the music just… stops. Why did everyone but Louis decide to stop playing for seemingly no reason?! Whoever was in charge of audio here couldn’t be bothered to make it sound more organic lol. It’s really weird and abrupt. Sorry for the nitpicking there. 

I love how Tom got that shot of a messy hamper in the foreground. It really amps up the grittiness. 

It’s pretty great how Louis subtly changed roles from the band’s manager to the band’s drummer. For once, this was an arc in Season 3 that actually aired in the correct order. In Episode 2, Louis became interested in playing the drums and was gifted a drumset. In Episode 4 he started taking lessons, and here in Episode 5, he’s officially the drummer of the band. Shia is playing for real here as well! So that’s very cool. 

While Louis is drumming his lil heart out during his self-indulgent extended solo, it cuts to shots of everyone killing time and I love it. 

Tom, lol. 

Ren eventually rips the drumsticks out of Louis’ hands and the two start arguing. Tawny reminds them that they promised to get along if the band got back together. Just then, we hear that shrill, annoying and unmistakeable voice chime in: “Can I say something?” The camera searches around until it lands on Beans just chilling there like he owns the place. Oh my god. 

Louis: “Where is he? BEANS! HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE?!?!” -- Why is that mockumentary style sooo funny though?! The shaky camera looking around and zooming in is what makes this.

I seriously wish every episode was filmed this way. But honestly, just getting this liiiittle glimpse into what a mockumentary version of Even Stevens might’ve been like is enough to make me feel #blessed. If a reboot ever happened, I’d definitely looove to see it reborn à la Modern Family for at least an arc or one special season. I know the gimmick is a little outplayed at this point but I mean, the Stevens are an eccentric enough family for a documentary crew to follow! Am I wrong?! All of the flagship American mock-doc shows have already ended or are ending soon. The door’s open for a new one. Just sayin’. 

It cuts to Louis ranting about Beans in the first interview portion or “talking head” of the documentary. This is the greatest thing. Holy crap. He says: “Beans is like that policeman in Terminator 2, you know who I’m talking about? I swear, he goes liquid! He can fit through cracks in windows... under doors... through little keyholes!!” And right on cue, Beans appears outta thin air -- “I’m hungry. Let’s get a sandwich!” Again, the camera work makes this 10x funnier and Shia’s face is just too good: 

Note: “Terminator 2″ is yet another completely solid reference to make! 

Something I’d like to point out before I forget: While reviewing the series, I couldn't help but notice that the show could be even funnier if there was no background music all the time. (I tested that theory with this edit and was proven correct, tbh.) If you pay attention.. you'll notice that there's some sort of background music during almost every scene. Sometimes it works if it's heightening a moment or adding some flavor comedically. But during scenes where there’s just dialogue, I feel like it would be much better with silence -- because 1. It's more raw/realistic, and 2. the performances/writing is already so strong, it doesn't need extra sound clogging the material. And that's one of the reasons why this episode is so great! It's dead silent the entire time except for the Twitty-Stevens songs of course and some transitional music for the documentary. I love it. 

So, yeah. Turns out Beans is a bassist?! He walks over to Artie and tells him “you’re horrible. Read my lips -- take a lesson!” Artie quits on the spot and leaves in a fit of rage (”I don't have to take this! I’M ARTIE RYAN!”). Beans backs up his insult by showing off his sick bass skillz to the gang, immediately earning himself a place in the band as Artie’s replacement. I love how Beans isn’t even touching the neck of the bass at all at one point. Seems legit. 

It cuts to an interview with Artie and it’s so good: “I was thinking about quitting the band anyway. I didn’t like the direction it was going... NOWHERE. Since then, I’ve started my own band. Artie Ryan and the Funky Kats. I had some promotional materials made up!! Tom, you want a free one?!” 

Tom (off-screen): “N.. no, thanks.” 

Also... A frisbee?! LOL. I had to write out that whole Artie quote because it’s the last we hear from him in this episode and Artie is the best.

Next, it cuts to an interview with Twitty who claims that there was a whole new energy after Beans joined the band. It’s hilarious because Beans is this tiny, annoying 8-year-old, yet Twitty’s talking about him as if he’s some amazingly respected bassist who helped take them to the next level. He goes on to say that the ~revitalized spirit~ Beans brought to the table motivated everyone to work on new material... Including Louis & Ren, who teamed up to write a song together!! Ahh! It shows us the two of them writing out the skeleton of “Another Perfect Day.” I always laughed at how they’re not just writing lyrics like most middle schoolers would do... Nah. They’ve whipped out the staff paper and suddenly know music theory like it’s nothing. They’re literally transcribing their ideas by ear. I’m a Berklee grad and I still struggle like hell with theory. 

Donnie happens to walk by and notices that his brother and sister are getting along for the first time, like, ever... and calls for Steve and Eileen to come quick and bear witness to it themselves!! 

This show throws in some great little lines here and there that are easy to miss sometimes. When Steve and Eileen come running, Steve shouts “Donnie! Hang in there! You still have 5 minutes left on that hot oil treatment!!” thinking Donnie desperately needed help with his hair. HAHA! I never paid attention to that until recently. We get interviews with Donnie as well as Steve and Eileen here. 

Donnie: “It was just... the sweetest thing. I wanted to hug them!! But I didn’t wanna ruin my hair. Wait!!! That sounded stupid. Don’t use that, ok?” 

Gotta love the trophies as a backdrop lol. 

Eileen: “It was amazing! It was as if the music brought them closer together.” 

Steve: “Those were the happiest days of our lives. It was bliss! Sheer bliss!” 

Hey! This is real stuff, though. Never underestimate the power of music!!

One of the funniest things about this episode is that Tom prefaced the documentary by saying the reunion happened a mere TWO WEEKS AGO! These interviews are so extra, as if they’re recalling something that happened years ago when it literally just happened and is fresh in their memories. It’s great. 

We get a voiceover from Tom elaborating on Steve and Eileen’s sentiments, telling us that Louis and Ren had “reached a new level in their relationship” over corny footage of them casually playing freaking cat’s cradle like a couple’a besties! hahaha. 

At their next rehearsal, the band starts working on “Another Perfect Day.” Once they have it down pretty well, Louis decides that they have a hit on their hands and need to do something big to get the word out. He comes up with the idea to hold a free concert on the school roof. Twitty interjects “Ya know, that’s not a bad idea because The Beatles did a free concert on the roof once!” Tawny adds: “So did U2!” and Louis finishes: “And now... The Twitty-Stevens Connection.” -- As if they’re anywhere near the level of either of those bands and should easily be mentioned in the same breath. That always cracked me up. (Speaking of The Beatles, the title of this episode is supposed to be a play on the Paul McCartney song “Band On The Run.” Or at least, that’s what I’ve always assumed.) Also, take a look at their single art. Amazing. 

Things start to go sour now. Everyone’s on board for the rooftop concert except for Ren. That’s a shocker! She’s totally against the idea. She agrees that free publicity is great as long as you’re not violating any rules. She even double checks with Wexler who confirms that students on the roof is “strictly forbidden.” 

At lunch the next day, Louis is super excited about the concert and giving Twitty and Tawny a rundown of his plans to set everything up. He says they should “get there early. Really early. Like... before school starts early” so they can get all the equipment and set it up on the roof. Another little exchange that’s easy to miss here is between Twitty and Tawny. Twitty says: “Sweet. What if we wore camouflage?” And Tawny sarcastically bites back: “That is a brilliant idea. What if we dressed up as giant metal vents to blend in with the roof decor!” HAHAHA. I’m just imagining that in my head right now and all I can picture is them looking like Eric Matthews dressed as a couch. Oh, yeah. They’ll blend in, no problem. 

When Ren starts approaching their lunch table, Louis invites her over yelling “Hey, sis!!” Awww. Since we all know that Ren is practically Vice Principal, he asks her for help and advice on how to get up to the roof and such. But then it does a hard cut to Tom:

This needed to be gif’d. 

Ren starts blabbing about how they’re forbidden to step foot on the roof and that she got a permit to perform in a public park instead, but Louis cuts her off before she can ramble any further: “Ren. You’re chickening out.” Ren protests and insists that she’s not a chicken and is just being smart about the situation, but Louis ain’t having it and explodes: “JIMINY H. CRICKETS THE THIRD JR., REN!!! We’re not robbing a bank or anything!! We’re singing on the roof!!!"-- I love this so much. He tells her to take a risk for once in her life. But, Ren being Ren, decides that she doesn’t want to get in trouble and essentially quits the band. As Ren storms away from them, Louis stands his ground and shouts at the top of his lungs: 

Possibly the single most-quoted quote of the entire series. Actually iconic. I have this quote on my Facebook, it's my © footer quote on this very website, people have used this quote in their high school yearbooks. Yeah. It’s a big deal. Plus, it’s a pretty great quote to live by if you think about it tbh. 

Ren leaving the band was only the beginning of their downfall. I love this photo the ‘documentary’ uses to illustrate the in-fighting lol. 

There’s super melodramatic music with an ~emotional~ guitar lick playing here. It always gets stuck in my head. I’m humming it right now. As hilarious as the music is, it actually does make me feel a little upset... 

And just like the ending of an America’s Next Top Model episode, Ren disappears from this photo of the band: 

At home that evening, an instrumental knock-off of “Kiss Me” starts playing in the background of the doc while Ren contemplates the meaning of life. Tom does a voiceover saying that Ren’s decision to leave the band would lead her down a path to “self-discovery.”

She ends up having a heart-to-heart with Eileen about why she’s so reluctant to take risks. We get a glimpse into Ren’s childhood with “home video” showing her being a total caution freak at her 8th birthday party. She ate a single potato chip so she waits an extra 20 minutes before going into the kiddie pool with her friends. I’d like to point out that Young Ren is played by Alexa Nikolas, who would later go on to be a regular on Nickelodeon's Zoey 101. 

Eileen assures Ren that she’ll find something worth taking a risk for someday and go for it!

CUT TO THE DAY OF THE CONCERT! Ren’s decision to leave the band causes everyone else to rethink the rooftop performance as well. Twitty decides to back out because he has one too many detentions already and can’t afford another. His initial poor attempt at an excuse plays out in the most hilarious way possible. (”TWITTY, I WROTE THAT NOTE FOR YOU LAST WEEK!”) Tawny just agrees with Ren. She decides it’s not a good idea and peaces out. And lastly, Beans calls at the eleventh hour and says he can’t make it because he has a hamster cage stuck on his head -- which amazingly, is not a lie. In the end, Louis is the last one standing. Or as Tom says, “A man without a band.” 

At lunch, the sound of someone drumming starts to fill the air, leaving everyone confused for a minute. It’s Louis, of course. He’s up there drumming away and singing his background vocals alone and fully intends to perform the whole song that way. His determination to continue with the concert as the lone remaining member of the band is so admirable and badass honestly. It really shows how bold he can be and how he’ll always try to see his ideas through. Not only does this highlight Louis’ fearlessness, it also leads to an amazing moment for Ren as a character. As everyone runs to get a view of Louis, Ren starts remembering what Eileen told her. She slowly realizes that this could be her chance to seize the moment. 

One by one -- Twitty, Tawny, and Beans join Louis up on the roof! They pick up their instruments and jump right in, each one building and building on the song. All leading up to Ren being the last one to finally run up there as the final piece of the puzzle! It’s a cheesy and predictable climax, but it’s still amazing. Seeing Ren take a chance like that always makes me emotional, not gonna lie. You can FEEL the happiness radiating off of everyone here. It makes me beam every time. 

This gives me legitimate goosebumps. God. Watch this and tell me it isn’t freaking epic and CLASSIC. The final interviews paired with that tasteful background music always tugs at my heartstrings, too. 

The gang ends up facing the consequences of their stunt and are punished by Wexler putting them on trash pickup duty. ^ That ending (seen in the video) is probably my favorite Louis/Ren bit ever. Seeing them both secretly admit to the camera that they had a great time together just warms my heart. I love how they say the same exact thing at one point too: “Don’t tell her/him I said that” lol. It’s so simple but so effective and really sums up their relationship. Two siblings who are always at odds, but at the end of the day, they’re family and have that unconditional sib love whether they want to admit it or not. I love the little slideshow of photos from the rooftop gig to wrap everything up. 

...and the very last frame of the episode is this picture of THE GREATEST DISNEY CHANNEL SIBLINGS OF ALL TIME and it’s so precious. This photo is so genuine. You can tell it captured more of Shia and Christy than Louis and Ren. It's just so nice:

I would have this framed and hanging in my house somewhere if I were them. Wow! Also... What could possibly be a better final shot for the episode that’s concluding my specific project?! Tell me. I’ll wait. 

And that’s it.

This is one of those ~special fun plot~ episodes, but it’s not super wacky or zany. Like most of the schemes Louis pulls, they somehow manage to make it seem like a couple of middle schoolers could successfully put on a school rooftop performance like this irl. There’s super solid humor, great dialogue, some incredible character moments and plenty of heart to top it all off! It ends on such a satisfying and happy high note. And even though I prefer Comedian Louis over Musician Louis, this episode is just too damn fun for me to care. It sort of benefits from the “Influenza” effect. If you add a song to an episode, odds are it’ll automatically make it that much more memorable. The only difference between this episode and “Influenza” is that it has a lot more going for it story-wise. 

This episode has everything for me. The way it's filmed is unique to every other episode in the series. The humor is extra dry and a little different for the show here, but still feels very distinctly Even Stevens and stays true to what we love about the show. This episode includes practically every major character, too! Let’s round up everyone who makes an appearance here: Louis, Ren, Twitty, Tawny, Tom, Beans, Steve, Eileen, Donnie, Coach Tugnut, Principal Wexler, and even Artie Ryan! My only complaint is that Larry and Ruby should’ve made appearances. Like, just a little scene of Larry taunting Ren about not having the guts to go up on the roof or something would’ve been cool.

Just adding some extra photos from the episode to break up this sea of text.

This is the only episode other than the finale that actually manages to make me shed a tear. But the tear this episode squeezes outta me has more meaning behind it imo. In the finale, I’m pretty much solely crying over the resolution to the Louis/Tawny saga and the fact that it’s the last episode of the series. Here, I’m crying over the pure relationship between brother and sister (the root of the show) as well as the gang’s friendship. No other episode gets me in my feelings like that across the board. It honestly feels like a finale in its own right and I can’t think of a better one to wrap up this countdown with. 

Is this the best episode of Even Stevens? You tell me. Is it one of the most memorable, iconic, hilarious, unique, and feel-good episodes of Even Stevens? Absolutely. Is there even a way to determine what episode is "objectively" or scientifically proven to be the best? lol who knows! If there's anything this whole project has taught me, it's that perhaps this show is just so good, there simply is no "best" episode. In which case, this whole blog has been a complete waste of time. 

SIDE NOTE: It was brought to my attention that this episode shares similarities to a Saved By The Bell episode titled “Rockumentary.” While the overall outline is pretty dead on (the rise, fall, and rise again of a garage band) the actual episodes themselves are extremely different. Annnnd Even Stevens did it better. No surprises there. So, WHO CARES?!

Aside from this being my personal favorite episode of the series and meeting my ranking requirements, I have a few little bonus stats to back up my decision to deem "Band on the Roof" worthy of the top spot:

It's the highest rated episode of the entire series on TV.com, boasting a 9.6, which I wasn’t aware of until a few days ago and was honestly surprised.

Back in 2003, while the show was still popular/on-air, some fans held a march madness style poll for the Best Episode of All Time and "Band on the Roof" was the winner.

This episode has popped up on various nostalgia articles as one of the greatest in the series. One of my favorites is by a published author and screenwriter in the biz who also ranked it #1 on her Top 7 favorite episodes of Even Stevens list. [article] 

In the comments of this episode on YouTube, (which I probably should’ve saved before Disney recently deleted the video... ugh) the general viewer consensus was that it's a widely beloved episode and one of the greatest/solidly written/most memorable. Easily Top 3 or Top 5 in the opinion of others.

I've gotten quite a few comments across the socials for the blog from readers asking about where this episode will be ranked and/or simply randomly stating that ‘Band on the Roof’ is the greatest and iconic.

Basically, there is massive love for this episode. No matter what, there’s a good chance you'll consistently see this one mentioned as one of the best or at least in someone's personal favorites -- Myself included. Obviously, me being a musician and loving the mockumentary style/drier humor here has contributed tremendously to my favoritism -- but the general fan love and praise, mixed with the actual solid content of the episode, makes me feel like ranking it #1 is justified. As objective as I tried to be throughout this process -- I created Even Stevens Ranked to get some personal thoughts and opinions out of my system. Well, that, and to do my best to highlight how fantastic this show is. Please remember, at the end of the day, this is my list. So. :)

Now that I’ve finished the project, I’m honestly quite satisfied with the outcome here. Not only am I so unbelievably proud that I actually saw this thing through to the very end -- I feel like my Top 10, in particular, (or the Top 25 on a larger scale) is the most solid crop of episodes I could’ve ever come up with. I think they all include nice and important moments for all of the characters, some of the strongest humor, and capture the spirit of the show the best. They’re objectively pretty darn good ones to subject a newbie to if ya ask me! 

This project was extremely difficult. It was time-consuming and stressful, but it was also such a blast and only solidified Even Stevens as my favorite show of all time in my heart even more than it already was. When I started, I always knew that “Band on the Roof” would be #1, “In Ren We Trust” would be dead last, and “Influenza” would be #15, but other than that I made countless changes to the list as I went on. The closer I got to the end, I was worried that I’d look back and hate my list, but I’m so relieved to feel very confident in my final decisions and reasons for those decisions. If there’s anything I’d change, it’d probably be to rank “Stevens Manor” sliiiightly higher. But still, I don’t even wanna say that because I have no real problem with placing it at #17. It’s not a bad slot. As I’ve said many times, anything in the Top 25 is pretty much top notch to me.

So... What else is there to say? Here we are. 65 episodes down. 0 to go. The entire series ranked and reviewed. Mission accomplished. From the moment I posted my very first review, I always hoped I’d make it to this point but for whatever reason, I never thought I actually would. I talked about this a little bit when I hit my one-year milestone. Milestones like that are what kept me going, though. Even the littlest ones. I’ll seriously never forget when I completed 5 reviews and hit #59! It felt like the greatest accomplishment ever. And so on and so forth...

For years, I felt like I was some weird, lone fan of this show. I thought that maybe 5, 10 people tops, would care enough to read this blog. I am shocked at the decent following Even Stevens Ranked has garnered over the last two years across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and right here on Tumblr. My strange urge to rank and review every episode of this fantastic show has somehow turned into a ~community~ that is 1k+ strong if you combine all four social accounts. That is staggering. Meeting other fans of the show through this blog has been so, so awesome and I plan on keeping Even Stevens Ranked alive because of that. I can’t just leave it behind. I have some cool ideas moving forward, including a pending podcast. :D

I can’t thank you enough if you’ve actually bothered to read even just one of my reviews and found it the least bit interesting. We went on this weird little journey together. So thank you! Truly.

I’ve completed what I initially set out to do, but you can definitely expect a bonus video review for a change of The Even Stevens Movie sometime in the near future. I mean, how could I do a project like this and NOT discuss the big finale film?! 

Just a reminder that there’s a Twitty-Stevens Connection design up on Redbubble! Available in black text and white text. 

Thank you sooo much for reading. You know the drill! Please, journey into the Disqus comment section below if you’re so inclined. I’d love to hear any of YOUR thoughts now that this crazy project is complete. Ahh.

- Brittany

Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Redbubble

[fanta-ceo]

SF9 on the Bachelorette

Zuho

-Always makes the bachelorette laugh -The "cool guy" who's obviously a softy -Not afraid to make a fool of himself (somehow looks cool while wearing a dress and reciting Shakespeare through his laughter?) -No one and nothing can make Zuho less cool, after all -If bachelorette doesn't have a sense of humor, she eliminates him around week 3 because he’s so weird -He gets rlly confused but doesn't let it get him down -If Bachelorette DOES have a sense of humor, he sticks around till week 6 because she sees to his good heart -Begins to show a soft, gentle side that melts the bachelorette -Still, she doesn't see him like that -So when his feelings deepen and he confesses to her -She starts crying cuz she cares about him so much as a friend -But she has to let him go -He is so sweet about saying goodbye -Is crying but wishes her the best and he means it

Youngbin

-The guy who is way too direct and honest to be sexy -Steps seamlessly into overly helpful brother, not a boyfriend -Gets friend zoned but doesn’t realize it -Fun and super competitive with other guys -Plays by all the rules -Sees it as his responsibility to talk to (confront) the douche bags in the house -Consequently gets caught up in drama -Tells bachelorette the secret house drama no one else wants to because he believes it’s his duty to be honest -Gets stuck on a two on one -Wins -Gets eliminated next ceremony anyway -Is super confused by it (“she’s making a mistake, we had so much going for us”) -Even tho he isn't sad at all to be eliminated -(Which should tell him why he got eliminated: he had no real connection with the bachelorette lol)

Taeyang

-Super sweet and sincere -Cheesy charming and flirty, always says all the right things -Other guys are intimidated by how suave and sexy he is -So the other guys complain about how young he is -Gets first impression rose and is an obvious front runner -He takes bachelorette dancing on their one on one -He looks so happy and carefree for the first time all season -His interviews are never shown because he won't trash talk anyone so they’re too boring for America -Gets caught up in drama he hates cuz he’s just too perfect -Won't fight back and makes the other guys look like douchebags -Gorgeous and cute and sweet but takes a rlly long time to actually open up -Because he takes too long to open up, bachelorette falls for other guys quicker -Taeyang starts panicking on the second to last week that he's not so sure about all of this -Gets eliminated right when he realizes his feelings -Breaks hearts all over America when he cries in the car, looking broken and confused -It's like kicking a freaking puppy -Why would anyone ever do that -Becomes next Bachelor

Chani

-Instant chemistry with Bachelorette -Witty and charming, always making her laugh and making her feel at ease -Never had a serious relationship before Bachelorette -So the Bachelorette REALLY wants him to fall in love with her -It’s like some kind of game to her I guess -And everyone else is like "he's so young????" (he’s like 23) -Their love story feels kind of high school in the best way possible -Except the bachelorette wants to get MARRIED asap so -She randomly backtracks once he starts falling for her tho -She’s like "THIS ISN'T RIGHT"  -It’s kind of the first time she's actually thought about their compatibility -instead of her compulsive need to get him to fall for her -She sends him home after a one on one -But he reacts rlly well -He doesn't cry -Gets shockingly sweet and kind and wishes her the best -And you realize he was one of the most mature guys on the entire effing show despite his young age -Bachelorette sobs with regret

Jaeyoon

-The guy who gets really far in the Bachelorette -But you have no idea why -Because the producers thought his love story was boring compared to the drama of the show -So they showed a bunch of dudes fighting -Instead of showing the reasons why the Bachelorette kept him around -So when she ends things -And he's crying but saying really kind things -And she's sobbing -You're just wondering why -Why do you know nothing about this guy -And the bachelorette is like "He was the best of us and he deserves SO MUCH" -And you have no idea why -He shows up on Bachelors in Paradise tho -And every girl wants him -And the fans adore him -And he finally gets what he deserves (the world)

Inseong

-Shy and soft spoken -Gets first one on one because she wants a safe bet for the first one -Has an instant chemistry with the leading lady cuz he's so sweet -He's too passive to assert himself and steal time from other guys tho -So his relationship drags behind the other guys -All sweet and no spice, making him perfect husband material -But the bachelorette is too busy trying to get in other guys’ pants to notice how quality Inseong is -Has a bromance with literally every guy cuz he’s so easy going and fun -Bachelorette legit forgets about him for awhile -Keeps him around because she remembers the spark of their first date -Around week 5 tho, she checks back in and realizes the spark died -Because of her own neglect but she claims “we just aren’t right for each other” -She lets him go -Inseong is nothing but sweet about the rejection -He's rlly, rlly sad tho -Doesn't cry

Dawon

-Guy who falls so fast and hard -Passionate and direct and so romantic -Sweeps her off her feet from the get go -First guy to get a kiss -Gets so mad when guys cut into his one on one time -Constantly stressing about not getting enough time with her -First to say "I love you" which buys him another two weeks -Gets super stressed and in his head the longer the process goes -Starts a few fights and always says other ppl aren't there for the right reasons -So those guys are always saying "Dawon's not here for the right reasons" in their own interviews -Actually has a GIGANTIC fear of rejection so this show is his worst nightmare -Youngbin and Dawon hate each other but act really chummy so it's this weird passive aggressive atmosphere -Their interviews are all ”That guy’s such a fake” “He’s not here for the right reasons at all” (but rlly they’re just super threatened by each other) -Always acts so perfect on the dates tho -When she sends him home, he goes completely stone faced -Gets pissed off and angry -But he doesn’t lash out at her, just gets rlly cold -But he starts crying anyway in his exit interview and it gives away how hurt he is -Won't say anything in the car (feels like he's already embarrassed himself enough) -You wonder if he’ll open up again (spoiler: he will) -On the Final Rose, he makes peace with Youngbin and acts happy and friendly with the Bachelorette to show there’s no hard feelings

Rowoon

-So ridiculously, incredibly hot -Everyone feels threatened when he's in the room -All the bachelorette wants is to tear off his clothes -He's basically a piece of meat to her -This makes him wildly uncomfortable because Rowoon is looking for an emotional connection -Connects with Chani more than the bachelorette -Ppl are always starting drama -Rowoon is just a sweet, kind guy tho -He literally just walks away because he hates drama so much -He didn't ask for this kind of objectification -He has a one on one pretty fast -They connect -But Rowoon still retreats in his head from the competition right after -Rowoon also doesn't like dating a girl that other guys are dating -Finally decides to remove himself from the toxic situation -First guy to leave voluntarily -The bachelorette cries while he lets her down gently -He cries because he’s that soft and rlly wishes her the best -Bachelorette feels piercing self doubt ("I just, idk if this is going to work now--")

Hwiyoung

-So effing gorgeous and confident -Cool and calm and reserved, but unexpectedly gentle with bachelorette -Chill with everyone in the house -Everyone loves him and just gravitates towards him -No one brings up his age for some reason (prob cuz everyone loves him so much) -Starts to ease up and relax and show how fun and sweet he is  -Mediates during drama without getting caught up in it -Completely focused on Bachelorette at all times and never loses his cool -Starts to wonder if he can actually commit at the end of this tho -Will he propose???? -Her family loves him so much -Everyone really wants him to win -Everytime he’s with her, he’s so tender and makes her (and the world) swoon -Bachelorette confronts him before Final Rose: “are you ready for marriage??” -They both start crying because they don't know how to fix this -He assures her that he cares so much about her -That’s not good enough but she loves him too much to let him go -That night he finally realizes he loves her -He cries a lil while proposing because he can't help it -Bachelorette has been rooting for him the whole time -Hwiyoung never strays -Two years they have a kid and are still together

a/n: wanted to write an sf9 bachelor story. What’s the next best thing to a story?! lol

[kingsofeverything]

Annual Writing Self-Evaluation

*All answers should be about works published in 2017.

1. List of works published this year: 

In the order that they were posted

Fall At My Door 

Collide

Mercedes Boy

The Oldest Magic Word 

With a Word (part 2 of FAMD)

Possessing All of Me (part 2 of MB)

It Had To Be You 

One of Many 

Stranded in a Dream

How Fast You Fall

Soft Wings

Has The Ocean Lost Its Way 

Splish Splash 

Don’t Want Shelter 

Wasted Like A Memory (part 2 of DWS)

Just Around the Corner 

Find You Home 

Sweating ’Til My Clothes Come Off

Number 84 

Let Me In (part 3 of DWS)

Admission

Intention

Resolution

2. Work you are most proud of (and why):

Don’t Want Shelter, definitely. The idea for it came to me over a year ago, and that was basically exes to lovers stuck in a hurricane together. I tried to write it earlier in the year and scrapped it. It was a completely different story and they were actually exes, but it just wasn’t working. RIP those 10k words. But I set out to write something with more emotion and I wanted to write something different and I feel like I succeeded. I’m very emotionally attached to their characters in DWS too. It’s been hard to get my head out of that universe.

I’m putting the rest under a cut because this got really long.

3. Work you are least proud of (and why):

Soft Wings. It was soooo hard to write at that time. I was just struggling to write anything at all and every single word of that fic was a giant pain in my ass. It was a bday gift and I actually decided not to do gift fics anymore because of how hard it was to write. The last gift fic I wrote was DWS and it was like 2 months late-- sorry about that @justafatbirdonaboat <3

4. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

So, this was actually difficult and I would rather include the sex scene I mention below in question 7, but it’s long and... it’s smut and I feel like dropping it in here with nothing leading up to it or after it takes a lot away from it. This is from DWS:

If he keeps himself busy enough, which he’s fairly successful with, he doesn’t have time to think about Harry and how once again he practically laid himself bare for absolutely no reason. It’ll fade, he knows that, but at the same time he doesn’t want it to. It’s how he finds himself going out of his way to some specialty store to find Harry’s organic cinnamon toothpaste. It’s why he bought some fancy vanilla candle for his bedroom. He’s fighting with himself over trying to forget and wanting to remember, because he knows that eventually it’ll be gone no matter what he wants. The toothpaste will be empty and the candle will burn down, and it’ll all become a distant memory.

5. Share or describe a favorite comment you received:

i got a super long and detailed comment on FAMD from one of my favorite drarry authors and bloggers that came at the perfect time when i was feeling really shitty about writing and also life in general. it was such a surreal thing for me because i was reading the comment and it was just super lovely and the whole time i was reading it i was like OMFG and fangirling lol

all of the comments on DWS from people who read it as a WIP. they were like some sort of super fuel for me. and it was... idk a special thing for me. i’ve never done a WIP before and idk if I ever will again. it just worked out with that fic because of the chapters and betaing etc. but every time i posted a chapter and people would comment on it, it was just... idk it meant a lot that anyone would follow along, i guess.

6. A time when writing was really, really hard:

Writing Soft Wings, so late May, and then again after I posted DWS, I struggled with Sweating ’Til My Clothes come off. That was Reason #14 and literally NO ONE wanted to write that prompt, so I took it. Mainly though, my struggles have been with fics that either I’ve abandoned (the old version of DWS) or my unfinished sci fic au.

7. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

i feel like everything i write surprises me. i’m constantly shocked that i write anything at all. i think that most of dws was surprising to me. i had a vague idea of what i wanted their personalities to be like, but the way they ended up was so much better than i thought they’d be. I MEAN, i legit thought that the entire fic would take place over 3 days and would end when the storm ended! and then the storm ended and i was like... wtf i’m not anywhere near finished with this. and then a scene specifically, umm... there’s a sex scene in ch 7 of dws that ended up being wayyyyyyyyyyy more emotional for me to write and it still makes me sad to read it. and i’m like 99.999999% sure if you’ve read that fic, you know what i’m talking about. i wrote that and immediately was messaging nic like “i’ve made myself sad with smut! what is wrong with me?”

8. How did you grow as a writer this year:

i’m much less messy, though i’m still messy. i think i was easier on my beta this year. less cliche (unless i’m cliche on purpose) and better at getting the emotions across? I DON’T KNOW @louandhazaf is better at this stuff. she answered a different question about this earlier in the year actually.

wait. also. i think i’m better at conceptualizing a story BEFORE i start writing. i still suck at it, but not as badly as last year. 

9. How do you hope to grow next year:

i’d like to write another long fic. i’d like to get better at developing secondary characters. i’d like to write more emotion into my fics. i’d love to be better at outlining and planning fics, but idk if that’s who i am lol 

tbh i’d like to be better at the part of writing that, up until this point, and to a certain point, come naturally to me. i don’t think about my character’s motivations or what they’re separate stories are or backgrounds and shit like that until i’m writing and sometimes i do it and don’t realize i’m doing it? i guess? I DON’T KNOW. coming from a math background and never having written or even taken a creative writing class or anything like that, like... some of the most important aspects of writing, i have no clue about them. at least that’s how i feel. a lot of what i do is just................. like me flying by the seat of my pants. 

10. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

this is my answer from last year and i’m just going to leave it because it’s still true.

NIC @louandhazaf​ my friend and forever beta. one day we’re going to take over the world. just depends which one of us is in charge of the brain that day as to whether it’s for good or evil.

however, i’ll add to this a bit. nic is the best cheerleader and beta and all of that. bouncing ideas around with her is always fun and always productive. we laughed so hard when we were talking about ideas for DWS. like... i think we both laughed so hard we cried. 

having writer friends -- so all of you -- has been such a positive thing for me. knowing that we all sort of go through the same shit makes it easier when it’s my own lol. 

specifically, i’ll say that @phd-mama influenced me with her fic ‘feels like coming home’ because i read that fic and when i finished i decided that i needed to write something with more emotion behind it, something with a really great (though not necessarily good) back story. the history between her characters in that fic..... idk a lot of it hit home for me. and because of that fic, i wrote DWS. so, thanks <3 

11. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

ummmm... yes. let’s just say.......... yes.

12. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

yes! write what makes you happy, even if that means writing something sad and depressing. but also try to challenge yourself to write things you’re not used to or things you haven’t done before. also, just write. you can edit later. put words down.

13. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

my near misses fic, which is what i’ll call it until i title it, that i am super excited about (this one just came to me yesterday)

moodboard fic - it’s anon, so i can’t say anything other than that. i started it, but i think i’m going to start over. 

2 time stamps for ‘don’t want shelter’. one that takes place the summer they’re 13, and one that takes place between chapters 8 & 9, but before ‘let me in’

my sci fi au - it’s been kicking my ass for most of this year 

i have a fic idea where they go from friends to lovers, but it’s a long long road to get there. idk if i’ll get to it. it would be loooong. 

i want to do a valentines fic but idk if i’ll have time. i’d like my near misses fic to be for valentines, but that’s a lot of pressure on me and then on my beta.

28 proposals with jess @someonethatsfunny and if we want to do it for an advent fic for next year, i need to at least write a proposal per month. 

i want to do the new relationship travel the world fic with nic @louandhazaf that we’ve talked about co-writing, but we both have so much going on......... 

oh and the tiny penis fic series. which is 5 short fics that are not connected, but one of them has a tiny penis in each fic (it switches around and also maybe they both do in one fic)

14. Tag three writers/artists whose answers you’d like to read. ;)

I would like to tag all of my writer friends, sooo you’re all tagged. Also, this is more than 3, but idc

@dinosaursmate @allwaswell16 @letsjustsee @gaycousinlarry @goodmorningtoyouuniverse @assisreal (writing or art, saori! or both!) @prettytruthsandlies @someonethatsfunny @phd-mama ok i’ll stop tagging so that y’all will have people you can tag lol

[cuntess-carmilla]

This is just an extremely long vent post sparked by my brother. ^_^

(Reclaimed r slur by the end in reference to myself)

Someone explain to me how my brother can be so smart yet always soooooooooo fucking wrong in everything other than thinking cops and Piñera are scum.

Actually? I know exactly why! It’s because in his colossal immaturity coupled with his trauma of having always been told that he’s dumb because he’s autistic and the combination of mostly STUPID awful teachers and bullying was the actual reason why he did so badly in school after like 3rd grade. Which I get! But the way he ~copes~ with his inferiority complex is by being possibly THE most arrogant person I’ve ever known!

Ok, no, the most arrogant one was my ex-boss who sexually harassed me, but my brother (being actually a good just really frustrating person) comes 2nd. Besides that insecure arrogance, he’s way too driven by his gut feelings without supporting those gut feelings with reason or proper sources. Sometimes AGAINST proper sources. He ESPECIALLY doesn’t inform his gut feelings with other people’s opinions to form any sort of balanced collection of ideas to consider!

Given that he also has really bad anger issues (I’m fucking uncle Iroh post-war crimes compared to him) and represses every emotion that isn’t Wrath, a lot of the time his gut is just going by whatever position, POV or idea causes him the strongest emotional reaction - again, without proper research - that aligns with his like, misanthropy and sense of The World Inherently Sucks, so a lot of the time it’s motherfucking conspiracy theories! And he sticks to the position that took 5 minutes to convince him no matter what anyone says if they don’t passionately agree with him.

AND when someone doesn’t passionately agree with him, or innocently asks questions that could make his position be exposed as wrong or unfounded, he takes it as the grandest personal insult meant to make him feel stupid and if we try to tell him that disagreeing with him or even just not being sure what we think of the positions he adopts, he literally, legit says we’re just saying that to demonize him and make HIM out to be the psycho.

I love him but he’s wrong a lot of the time EVEN compared to my very fascist parents when it doesn’t come to specific local politics (ie. hating cops and Piñera). Don’t get me wrong, they’re fascists so I disagree with 99% of their views (the ones I agree with being stuff like “rape is bad” and “femicides shouldn’t happen”), my mom herself makes up a lot of insane fascist conspiracy theories, and both of them source their information from right-wing mainstream media.

But like... At least they try to form opinions based on (the sadly biased) information they can get rather than immediately making up their minds with NO space for questioning anything based on what aligns with their emotions?

Ok, my mom not so much but she’s only like that when it comes to subjects she thinks she knows well. When it comes to subjects she knows she’s ignorant of, she doesn’t do that. She’s open to asking questions, being corrected and thinking things through in those cases.

My dad is generally capable of all those things that my mom does when she knows she’s not knowledgeable enough in the subject at hand, and actually has a pretty decent capacity to admit he’s wrong when he’s proven wrong by undeniable facts! He knows too that a lot of his own ideas and perceptions can change through time and he’d rather be properly right instead of clinging to past ideas and perceptions just to never admit he was ever wrong. What’s more, he fully accepts that people aren’t always going to agree with him on everything and that’s not a fucking hate crime! What a concept.

So like, yeah I think their politics are wrong almost entirely lol. But I can at least... Think of them as relatively functional adults when it comes to that shit even if they’re wrong and stay very wrong? My mom does take some things more personally but never to my brother’s level.

Just minutes ago my brother was spouting conspiracy theories about COVID (you know the shit, virus was human-made, it’s a conspiracy by some secret society to kill people, etc) like it was objective fact. My dad has stayed away from watching or reading any news for the sake of his own sanity so he doesn’t actually know all the facts, BUT with the facts he didn’t know, he asked him where his information came from in a very neutral way, or filled in the spaces with reasonable logic and distrusting things that are obviously conspiracy-mongering.

Just that my dad didn’t immediately agree with him and put the things he was saying to question my brother started fucking yelling and victimizing himself. I was so fucking annoyed that I committed the crime of interfering not regarding the subject itself, but regarding how my brother was handling not being agreed with. He word by word said “OH, SO YOU AGREE WITH HIM?" I told him I wasn’t agreeing or disagreeing with anyone! Because I wasn’t! I was just trying to calm the dude down and TRY to teach him, for the billionth time, to learn how to take CONSTRUCTIVE gentle criticism and to handle others having a healthy minimum of skepticism regarding the extreme ideas he proposes out of the blue! You know. Like a fucking (by tomorrow) 22 years old guy SHOULD. Ah, yes, he’s not a fucking teenager! HE’S TURNING 22 IN 23 MINUTES FROM NOW.

THEN he started victimizing himself, WITH ME.

ME! THE ONE BITCH IN THIS HOUSE WHO ALWAYS ADVOCATES FOR HIS ASS, HAS ALWAYS TRIED TO LISTEN TO WHAT HE HAS TO SAY WITHOUT DIRECTLY SHUTTING HIS IDEAS DOWN WHEN I THINK HE’S WILDLY WRONG BECAUSE EVEN THEN I MAKE SURE TO DISAGREE WITH HIM IN A WAY THAT HE DOESN’T PERCEIVE AS ME THINKING HE’S A STUPID PARANOID IMBECILE (paranoid he IS by the way!).

I’M THE ONE CUNT WHO’S ALWAYS TRIED TO MAKE THE REST OF THE FAMILY UNDERSTAND WHERE HE’S COMING FROM WHETHER HE’S RIGHT OR WRONG, WHO’S TRIED FOR YEARS (AND SUCCEEDED A LOT OF THE TIME!) TO TEACH THE REST OF THE FAMILY HOW TO ACCOMMODATE FOR HIM, HIS DISABILITY AND HIS TRAUMAS WHEN HE DOESN’T RETURN THE FAVOR TO ANYONE, SOMETIMES ASKING FOR MAYBE MORE COMPREHENSION AND PATIENCE FROM THE REST OF THE FAMILY THAN IT’S FAIR TO ASK FOR!

HELL. EVEN WHEN I TELL HIM OFF WHEN I GET PISSED AT HIM AND SAY PRETTY HEAVY THINGS TO HIM? I MAKE SURE TO ARTICULATE WHAT I’M SAYING IN A WAY THAT SHOWS COMPASSION AND IS COMPLETELY CODDLING IN TONE SO HE DOESN’T FEEL PERSONALLY ATTACKED. EVEN HE SAYS I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO “LISTENS” TO HIM.

THIS EMOTIONALLY REPRESSED DUDE WHO BREAKS FURNITURE AND DESTROYS OUR FOOD WHEN HIS ANGER OR ANXIETY TAKE OVER, WHO DOES NOT LET ANYONE SEE HIM VULNERABLE UNLESS HE’S HAVING A MELT DOWN ONLY BECAUSE THEN HE CAN’T STOP HIMSELF FROM CRYING? HE USUALLY TRUSTS ME ENOUGH TO HAVE CRIED ON MY SHOULDER MANY FUCKING TIMES.

AND HE ACCUSES ME OF JUST WANTING TO MAKE HIM SEEM LIKE HE’S THE INSANE DUMB DELUSIONAL AWFUL PERSON, SO I CAN SOMEDAY USE THIS INSTANCE AGAINST HIM IN ANOTHER “FIGHT”, WHEN I’VE NEVER FUCKING DONE THAT EVEN WHEN HE, TO BE HONEST, DESERVED IT? SERIOUSLY DUDE? FOR FUCKING REAL?

I’M THE ONE YOU’RE GONNA ACCUSE OF THAT WHEN I SPEND MY WHOLE FUCKING LIFE CODDLING YOUR PETTY ASS, PROTECTING YOU, BEING A SECOND MOTHER AND CHARGE FREE SHRINK TO YOU?

OR PULLING ALL-NIGHTERS TO HELP WITH YOUR COLLEGE HOMEWORK WHEN I’VE HAD CLASSES TOO THE NEXT DAY? SOMETIMES DOING THE WHOLE COLOSSAL PROJECT ALONE THE NIGHT BEFORE IF I REALIZE YOU’RE TOO BRAIN FOGGED, FATIGUED OR TRIGGERED TO DO ANYTHING WITHOUT GETTING SUICIDAL OR SOMETHING? SENDING YOU TO BED WHILE I DO YOUR SHIT AND DON’T SLEEP AT ALL? SOMETIMES GROUP PROJECTS WHERE YOU WERE GROUPED WITH LAZY ASSHOLES SO I’M DOING THE WORK OF 4 PEOPLE ALONE THE NIGHT BEFORE? FOR FREE?

M E ?

BITCH, I DON’T EVEN WANT A MEDAL OR TO BE THANKED BECAUSE BEING THANKED FOR ANYTHING MAKES ME UNCOMFORTABLE! BUT COME THE FUCK ON. I’D JUST APPRECIATE NOT BEING SLAPPED ON THE FACE IN RETURN, YOU KNOW?

*insert gif of Disney’s Hades exploding in red fire then calming down 2 seconds after*

Like you just! Can’t fucking have an adult conversation with this dude if you’re not validating him without question! You can’t! You can’t have any level of healthy friendly debate with him! You can’t beg him to be reasonable! YOU CAN’T!

He was saying “BUT IT’S OBVIOUS”, my dad asked CALMLY “With what proof?”, then it was “WELL, IT’S OBVIOUS TO ME”, then “That’s an opinion, not a fact. We can google the number” and OH MY GOD!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!

Then to ME he was all “YOU JUST LOVE TO BE RIGHT, DON’T YOU?” calling US immature and saying WE are the ones who don’t want to listen to a different opinion!!!!! When I told him he fucking loves being right he victimized himself again with a “WELL, FOR ONCE I’D LIKE TO BE!”

I was about to tell him, with the last dying bit of my patience, that yeah, like most people I do actually like to be right and I like it a lot! But that being right requires actual fucking work and THINKING rather than just going by whatever supports your misanthropic Kill Society angry feelings, and the moment you’re proved wrong YOU HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR POSITION IN ORDER TO BE RIGHT, BECAUSE IF YOU CLING TO YOUR DEBUNKED FIRST BASELESS CONVENIENT OPINION OUT OF PRIDE THEN YOU’RE OBJECTIVELY WRONG AND A PISSBABY.

But I didn’t get to say that because something else interrupted it and then things cooled off while, like a good Scorpio Mars, I’m still endlessly ruminating on and won’t forget about the rest of my life as much as I’d actually LOVE to be able to forget this instance of him being an idiot. 8)

Like, does this motherfucker not fucking get that unless I already know the subject thoroughly and have a fully fleshed Opinion, I don’t often give opinions out loud BECAUSE I try to first shape my thoughts properly and THAT’S why I tend to be fucking right? That that’s why I always have a lot of arguments and am so certain of what I think, because I’m so insecure that I only fucking talk when I’m 99.999999% confident in what I have to say, rather than it being because I’m an inflexible asshole who thinks is better than him!

And he’s seen it. He’s fucking SEEN ME acknowledge when I’m wrong!!!!! Including the times I’ve been wrong TO HIM.

In all honesty I don’t enjoy admitting when I’m wrong (in big part BECAUSE I put a lot of effort into articulating the ideas I’m standing by!), but when I realize that I am, just out of a minimum of maturity and sense of DIGNITY - because I’d find it so fucking humiliating to not acknowledge being wrong when it’s obvious that I am to everyone involved and I can no longer defend my point - I still do it!

Bitch, you said it yourself, I LIKE TO BE RIGHT. I’m going to side with what I genuinely think is right even if I used to think it was wrong! There’s a motherfucking reason that as a teenager I was a Pinochet apologist, Gays Go To Hell, Communism = Evil / Capitalism = Freedom, pro-life, Catholic and now I’m THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE OF ALL OF THAT.

Does he think it didn’t hurt my pride to discover one-by-one that my views were absolute shit? IT DID AND GOD KNOWS MY PRIDE IS SENSITIVE AS HELL. Does he think it wasn’t depressing to have my whole world views destroyed? I NEED TO STAND ON FIRM GROUND ON EVERYTHING OR ELSE I LOSE MY SHIT, IT WAS AWFUL TO SUDDENLY HAVE MY WORLD VIEW WRECKED. Does he think I didn’t try to argue for my WRONG ideas for as long as I still thought I had decent arguments to back them up? OF COURSE I DID, I BELIEVED IN THEM FOR A REASON, AS WRONG AS I WAS.

But I changed! I changed when I no longer had any space left to think I was right! And I operate the same way with my current positions and ideas now! Dude, I tend to be right over you BECAUSE I don’t immediately get set on the first thing that makes me feel emotionally Validated, unlike you! You ARE smart but you’re SO driven by your own colossal yet insecure ego that you don’t even BOTHER to be critical of your own thoughts and all your potential goes to waste.

I ruminate on every single little thing obsessively, to my own detriment, being my own Devil’s advocate having an ruthless debate against myself in my mind, starting off COMPLETELY insecure about my own thoughts, paranoid trying to imagine in what way I could possibly be proved wrong by someone else if I said my ideas out loud and how to hold my stance in case it happens. I NEVER say my ideas out loud to people who I think know more than me or are smarter than me, to not make a fool of myself in front of anyone because I’m a coward and I was also bullied into firmly believing I’m a fucking retard!

All of that pathological effort because I actually don’t think I’m better than you or anyone else! I think I’m really fucking stupid! So I overthink it all endlessly and by PRINCIPLE I distrust and question my own thoughts and perceptions at every single second. For hours, days, weeks, months, EVEN YEARS.

That’s why when I do speak I’m one of those annoying bitches who have an answer to everything! BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU’D TRY TO PROVE ME WRONG ON THAT FRONT ALREADY AND I DON’T WANT TO GO THROUGH THAT HUMILIATION SO I ALREADY HAD THAT SHIT COVERED BEFORE I DECIDED TO SAY ANYTHING.

And nothing in that exhausting, paranoid process guarantees I’ll be correct! So even when I firmly think I’m right I keep it to myself some more in case that maybe two years later or something I’ll discover a flaw in my thought process.

It’s so tiring, it’s so fucking tiring how EVERYONE who knows me from afar or from very FUCKING close, thinks that any and every one of the fucking things I achieve just fell into my stupid hands out of the sky by mere luck because God felt like giving me an easy ride that day. They ALL think I’m some arrogant bitch for the very few things I don’t doubt anymore when I try my best to be humble as long as I don’t humiliate myself! But I’m SURE they all think I’m a conceited lucky show off!

EVERY TIME I’m for fucking once proud of anything I achieve, people tell me to my fucking face that I’m just naturally and inexplicably talented, taking away any merit of my fucking own.

Like it’s a FUCKING compliment that, supposedly, everything I’ve achieved by pushing myself to my limits despite being at a disadvantage in so many areas, destroying my already ill body and breaking my autistic little brain, barely sleeping for days, having panicked crying fits where I self-harm because it’s not good enough and I don’t know how to make it right... What I finally accomplish by putting in all that effort, self sabotage and sacrifice?

Oh, it just fell into my hands because I’m THAT blessed, apparently! It’s all just LUCK AND TALENT I DIDN’T DO A THING TO EARN! I’m SO lucky and effortlessly talented! I feel SO fucking flattered!!! :) Thank you SO much! :) I’ve never EVER doubted myself also! :D

[noxrynne]

i dont really have the highest hopes for making the goal i had for school odds are i fail a class, do poorly in another or two, and maybe get by decently in one of them i really regret doing online courses since it always goes back to “oh i missed that because it wasn’t posted,” “oh the professors don’t use the news alert system when new stuff is added with a concise explanation of what I need to do in that post blurb that’s 3500 words of bs,” “oh i didnt realize this awkward and uncomfortable ‘post your personal assignments here that are about yourself so a bunch of strangers can also read and criticize it’ was required,” “the syllabus is written out of order, it’s messy and has a bunch of color code usage that’s never explained and makes reading it harder and, oh, they want me to print it out too bad i dont have a fucking printer and looking at it makes me want to throw up since it’s literally just everything put up on a page and i just start panicking because its so much stuff and it immediately overwhelms me” i also fuckin hate the professors who’ll say like “if you’re here just to get a degree you’re in the wrong place” b/c it’s like college costs a lot of fuckin money and you can bet your ass the only reason im here is to get a degree so i can eventually have a job that lets me be financially stable. trying to say “oh it’s just for funtime education” is bullshit when it costs what it does and isn’t even accessible to everyone from the get-go. i could learn the exact same shit for free from a fucking library and the internet, and talk to people i know if i have questions about material. but that doesn’t give me the piece of paper i need. idk i wish there was more of a “oh i can go do this and be fine financially” rather than needing to spend years in a university because i really hate it. i *wish* i hadn’t fucked up before and been as suicidal and couldve got through it *before* its used as a “yea we can’t have you here cuz you dropped out in the past” *even when* it’s an associated school with the one i *did* drop out of and they told me they *would* re-accept me when i was healthier. no im not a great student. i get overwhelmed really easily, i stress out over everything too much, i break down if i miss one assignment. i dont do well on the shit i actually try really hard at. i dont participate in class because it’s a terrifying experience to be called a fucking “idiot” again by a professor (ty philosopher dickhead at uwgb im gonna fucking punch you if i ever see you) i *forget* about assignments a *lot* and *yes* that’s a *my* problem thing but it’s something so extremely difficult to work around without having someone telling me about it, or just having a visible schedule written down about what’s due on a front page that always pops up. which i mean yeah it’s extra work i guess for the professor to just copy paste some info that’d really help me out, and no i dont have this issue as much in a traditional school b/c i actually *go* to the classes to sit in and be reminded through that. and yea im probly gonna fail out unless the other university sighs and says “well she did try and it was online” and ngl i probably would be *fine* in a regular classroom oriented thing *now* it’s more organized and there’s a schedule i can keep to and get into and when i get *into* a schedule i stick to it 100% b/c i derive a sense of security, existence and safety from having schedules. but if i fail out and they dont sigh and say “okay” then im kinda fucked. i mean, i could probably attempt to get through another year there and maybe go to the actual school instead of the online bullshit and *maybe* then i’d actually meet the reqs. but idk if that offer is gonna stand after this year. and idk im just back to feeling really fucking hopeless and empty. i mean ive been feeling this way all this month. i feel like nothings fucking worth it because i feel like i just cant do it. and that ultimately im gonna end up fucked. and i *know* im 90% of the problem. i *know* my thinking of “what’s the point” is screwing me over. i *know* accidentally falling asleep an staying asleep for a whole day is a fucking issue. i *know* i shouldnt forget important shit i need to do. i *know* i should participate no matter how fucking uncomfortable and frightened it makes me. but it feels fucking *impossible* to work with 0 energy. it feels terrifying to be asked “write an introspective piece about yourself and reflect on the events of your life that made you who you are today” BECAUSE i dont talk about THAT STUFF to people I DONT KNOW i *BARELY* covered those topics in *therapy* because of how uncomfortable they make me. and I DONT need a bunch of strangers in a class knowing the shit that happened to me. and fuck i feel like the entire idea behind the writing assignment was “oh this’ll be fun haha” but it’s like... remembering *most of the shit hat directly impacted how i am today* is one of the most fucking difficult things for me to do, especially publicly. i *regret* online schooling. i didnt realize how much i dont work with it until i thought about it this year. i get overwhelmed. i get stressed. i get depressed. i get suicidal. i get hopeless. i feel useless. i didnt realize i *need* to actually *go* to a class because it helps with the isolation i put myself in. because i straight up actually understand shit when someone is actually explaining it to me and not just handing me a textbook and saying “read it that’s it that’s the entire class, but oh, write an informed paper structured off what you read and if you dont understand the material well go fuck yourself i guess.” and in actually *going* there to a physical room it becomes easier to do things like homework and assignments *because i can walk over to the library*. what *really* shit on my previous school ability was like i was overwhelmed (we *just* moved to a *completely* different state and environment, i *just* had a series of panic attacks in italy b/c i thought i could handle it on my own) and the first school didn’t have a/c and it was fucking 101 outside every day and i dont do well in heat, and by that, i mean i hyperventilate, i get dizzy, i get lightheaded, i get emotional and frightened and stressed and cant sleep. the professor who asked if we read the chapter (I DID) and then pointed at me to explain what i read (I DIDNT FUCKING UNDERSTAND IT), and when i finished he just laughed and told me to sit down and pretty much called me an idiot in front of everyone and i started crying. (i also got a 0 so i failed the reading since he didnt believe i read it). at *that* school there were no therapy or counseling or offers like that. the art building made me cry and feel unsafe (i couldnt control it), having to walk *all* the way back to my dorm building at 12AM b/c that’s when my one class ended was *terrifying* then in a different school it was just i had a class that made me physically uncomfortable to be in. i *hated* being in the freshman course for feminism so much. not b/c i hate the material, but i felt so “other” and uncomfortable b/c im a trans woman being asked about my male perspective on shit and i just. i remember leaving because i just felt upset and depressed and i couldn’t get over the really bad dysphoria i kept having in that class (the professor there was the reason i went to counseling on campus, she’s the one who referred me to it in the first place). on top of that, the dorm i was told id be getting was a fucking lie. i was supposed to have one or 0 roommates. i got 5 roommates. beds didn’t fit me b/c of my height (i slept with the back of my feet on an iron bar). the food was straight fucking garbage. one of my roommates just randomly touched me all the time. hugged me, put arms around my neck, *kissed my cheek*. another was always drunk and loud. another talked about making bombs incessantly. one of them seemed actually concerned about me and he came in once or twice when i was face down on my bed just not moving b/c of therapy sessions and talked to me once or twice to make sure i was still alive. friday mornings in winter id be up at 5AM, trying to get ready without waking any of the 5 other people, then walk outside with no access to breakfast/coffee/anything (b/c too early) to get to a class across and off the campus i had to walk to (and when snow was present my feet were numb b/c of all the water that got into my shoes). and then there was the legit getting 4 hours of sleep if that a week. eating basically nothing. extremely suicidal and getting to the point where i was having days where i legitimately could not discern what was real and wasn’t. and then i left ‘cuz my other option was to be hospitalized. from there its just been attempts at online schools. which i already tiraded about above. i mean fuck id be happy if i *could* just go work in retail and make a decent wage and not have to work every waking hour of my life to make it work. like. i *wish* i was lucky enough to be one of those “i had no degree but x really liked my resume” stories i always read about. i *wish* writing and publishing a book was considered and *was* a viable career option without needing to get really fucking lucky. im passionate about writing fiction, but in order to do that professionally, i need a 4 year degree from an institution. i can technically publish something, but if no one ever hears about it or cares, then it doesn’t become a job to have and it does little else. and then there’s also just a lot of irl shit i keep worrying about and dwelling on and nearly making some really fucked up or stupid decisions in the interim. and idk i just i wish i was one of those ppl who felt like they had a future and aren’t likely to die before age 25. or one of those people who just *does* something and it works out and they get to exist.