#but i can picture the vibes in this!! It’s a bit of long suffering tortured james
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padfootastic · 1 year ago
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Tell us more about sugar daddy James pls 😏
sadie <3
so—this one comes wholesale from a random post i made a while back about sugar daddy james with a huge age gap b/w him and sirius. i’m talking, businessman james who comes into contact with sirius who’s just run away from home and is on the verge of homelessness. it’s about james being nice and kindhearted, offering sirius a meal which somehow turns into a place to stay which somehow turns into the spending a lot of time bonding with each other.
it’s about a little shit sirius who’s deliberately trying to seduce this saint of a man who refuses to look at him twice (spoiler: it’s not because james doesn’t want, it’s because he thinks it’s unethical. sirius is here to put all those worries to rest). just. a lot of back and forth, pushing and pulling, and getting together moments.
at least, that’s how i’d want it done lol
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chaotic-orphan · 10 months ago
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Haiiiii !!! Do u have character descriptions for the characters in intoxicating fear?? Would LOVEE to draw fanart if that’s chills ^_^
Intoxicating Fear Introductions
Hello yes I do!!! It is absolutely chill to do fanart for them!! PLEASE TAG ME IN IT I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE!!!
I can actually do a little reveal now for this of my boards for Hero and Villain WHO HAVE NAMES NOW.
Hero — Kit Mallory
Hero’s name is Kit Mallory and he has not been having a great time… his description?
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This kind of vibe, like a golden retriever but make it suffer. He’s tall— like 6ft, this kind of floppy light brown hair and his smile used to be so bright before Villain. He just turned 20 a month before Villain took him, and he wears oversized clothes and layers to make himself appear bigger and bulkier because he is a self-conscious little bean. Especially next to Superhero who seems to dwarf him.
Kit is look wise based off of Andrew Garfield in the Spider-Man movies. He is determined and always wants to do good and help others more than beat the shit out of bad guys, that’s why he didn’t debut for so long. However he has no trouble fighting when he is defending someone like Other Hero or trying to defeat a Villain, he holds nothing back.
Villain— Ambrose
Then of course we have Villain, my boy.
Villain’s name is Oscar Ambrose, but Hero only knows him as Ambrose.
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His looks are mostly based off of young Tom Riddle in Harry Potter, but with more ✨style✨ For example in the top left is his casual outfit and the kind of thing he wears around Kit’s house. He loves his suits and his shirt and pants combo because he can intimidate people dressed like that.
I think Young Tom riddle just captures Ambrose’s charisma and malice perfectly, because he is very boy-next-door, someone your mother would approve of you bringing home but there’s just something off about him.
He, of course, adores this. That he is unapproachable and he likes to show it off with how he dresses, speaks and presents himself. He lives off of fear day-to-day but having someone to satiate it around the clock is simply Christmas for him. Ambrose is older than Kit, he’s around 25, 6ft 4, towering over Hero and broader too. He is cruel and his eyes are dark and look into your soul, his lips just a little too red. My favourite sadist.
His hair is dark and almost silky looking, closer to black than dark brown but brown nonetheless, and he has his own board for his hair because he is meticulous about it. He also has a slight stubble that has been growing ever since he brought Kit back to his own house to torture him.
I must stress this is huge for him because he is so well groomed but he is just having too much fun with Kit to shave. His hair is more like the two top pictures below, perfectly styled and curled just behind his ears, but the same kind of cold perfection of the bottom two as well as a more similar colour.
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And that is it!!! I was going to just drop in the names on the next update but this ask gave me an excuse to fangirl for a bit over my boys!!! Again please tag me in whatever art you make!!!
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oreomonsterhunter · 4 years ago
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“I’m not wearing my sexy underwear tonight”
Pairing: Johnny x reader (or OC)
Word Count: 3988
Genre: fluff, not smut but they both really wanna toe the line
Warnings: language, some sexy kisses (cover your eyes kids)
Summary: Johnny takes his best friend on their first date
A/N: this has absolutely morphed into a long term couple, because apparently Princess has taken the reins 😂 if you like this, check out the rest of their story so far on my masterlist!
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You were nervous.  Friends with Johnny since diapers, and somehow you were nervous to meet him in five minutes.  You glanced at the time—make that four minutes.
Pacing back and forth in front of the door, you smoothed down your dress again.  All Johnny had told you was to dress up.  He might be a fashion king, but he wasn’t exactly the best at sharing details.  You’d teetered between twenty different outfits before finally settling on a happy medium.  Couldn’t show up to a museum in an evening gown.  Well, you supposed you could, if you even owned one.  So the little black dress at the back of your closet was the final choice.  Safe enough for just about every venue, since Johnny hadn’t told you where your date would be.
You sucked in a breath, fighting against the nerves tight in your stomach.  Your first date, oh my gosh.  How were you supposed to date Johnny?  You’d done practically everything together already, what made this different from going to the movies together last week?  Aside from the obvious—last week, you didn’t know what Johnny’s lips felt like on yours.
Then you groaned at your sudden realization.  Jeez, you couldn’t do anything right in this relationship with Johnny.  You were about to have your first date but you’d already had a hot and heavy makeout session at an unmentionable hour of the morning.  So much for “will I kiss him afterwards?”  Dating for five seconds, and everything was already out of order.  You wanted to scream, but before your thoughts could really start spiraling, you heard a knock at the door.
You were sweating, oh gosh.  Did you need to reapply deodorant?  You froze, staring at nothing.  Until another knock sounded, this time accompanied by Johnny’s familiar voice, “Yo, are you ready to go?”
You sagged in relief.  Nothing else would have snapped you out of the nervous cycle better than Johnny being….well, Johnny.  And when you finally convinced yourself to open the door, the sight of his easy smile was enough for yours to appear, too.
“Well, uh, hi,” he stuttered, making you giggle.
You slipped on your shoes, grabbed a small purse, and locked the door behind you.  Then you linked arms with Johnny, “Alright, where to, mystery man?  You haven’t told me anything.”
“That’s mostly because I didn’t figure anything out until today.”
Biting your lip to hold back a giggle, you tugged him down the hallway.  “No wonder you didn’t share much detail.  I should’ve known.”
Johnny tightened his grip on you when you stepped out of the elevator, leading you to the car.  He didn’t say much, which was a bit out of character.  Frowning up at him, you tried to meet his gaze.  He finally looked down at you when he opened the passenger door for you to get in.  “You, uh, you look really nice tonight.”
A small smile bloomed, “Not looking so bad yourself, hot stuff.”
* * * * *
Apparently Johnny had picked out a restaurant for dinner.  A fancy restaurant.  You read through the list of entrees with a barely-concealed grimace.  “Do you know what any of these words mean?” you asked him.
Johnny beamed at you, “Nope, that’s half the fun.”
A waiter walked by with a tray destined for another table, and you both gaped at the miniscule portion sizes.  “Those look like appetizers,” Johnny said, goggling at the tiny salad. “Maybe I can order several steaks. I’d need about five of them.” He started eyeing the menu again.
“As long as you’re picking up the tab,” you joked.
“Oh, I thought you were,” he said, all wide eyed innocence.  You smacked his arm with your menu, fighting a grin at his usual antics.  The couple at the next table shot you a look, and you hunched back in your seat.
“Don’t worry, I’m paying.  Order whatever you’d like,” Johnny said, still puzzling over the ridiculous dinner options.
You frowned, reaching for your water.  But shoot, it probably cost five bucks for tap, you thought with no small amount of horror.  You set it back down before you drained more of Johnny’s wallet.
After a few more minutes of torturous silence, trying not to fidget too much, you leaned forward.  “Do we even have a waiter?”
Johnny jerked upright, looking over his shoulder at the man in question.  “I don’t know?”
“I’ve been trying to make eye contact with the staff for five minutes and they’re all ignoring me.”
Johnny blinked at you.  “Wait, are you ready to order?”
“No, I wanna ask if they charge for water.”
“No one charges for water,” he chortled.
“I bet it’s five bucks a glass,” you said, crossing your arms.
Now Johnny was really laughing, and half the restaurant was staring at your table.  “Only if it’s imported from the crystal springs of Iceland,” he said, grinning.
“Wait, really?”
“Hell if I know,” Johnny said, making you snort some of your water.  You shrunk down in your chair, hiding your red face while he kept laughing.
“I don’t know this man,” you said to the people at the next table. They stared at you, whispering among themselves.  Pouting, you turned back to Johnny.  “I can’t believe you booked a table here,” you cocked an eyebrow at him.  “I thought we were burger joint people, not escargot snobs.”
“Do you really not wanna eat here?” he asked, propping his elbows on the table.
You opened your mouth to respond, but your waiter finally showed up to take your order.  “Good evening, can I interest you in anything else to drink?”
“Any Icelandic sparkling water?”  Now Johnny was the one snorting inelegantly.
The waiter laughed, despite not knowing the joke.  “Can I interest you in a bottle of red?  You seem like a red wine woman.”
You smiled politely, reaching for the wine list when he offered it to you.  “Sure, I’ll take a look.”
The waiter smirked, eyes landing on you.  “I’ll have to card you, miss.”
Your brows raised, but you complied, digging out your wallet.  Across the table, Johnny cleared his throat, “Do I look like a red wine guy?”  But the waiter barely glanced at him before his eyes were back on you.
“Your photo doesn’t do you justice,” the waiter commented, handing your ID back.
“No one looks good in those pictures,” you chuckled.
“I beg to differ,” he said, then nodded at the wine list.  “What can I get you?”
You glanced over at Johnny, who was fidgeting enough to shake the table.  Curious.  “What do you recommend?” you asked, twirling a strand of hair around one finger.
“You might be interested in one of our finer vintages,” he began, leaning over your shoulder to point out a few wines on the list.  You heard a subtle sound, and out of the corner of your eye, saw Johnny’s fingers rapping the table at a rapidly increasing pace.  You bit your lip, focusing on the wines again, but not before adding a little more fuel to the fire.  Time to test your theory.  You crossed your legs, brushing one foot up Johnny’s calf in the process.  The man jumped as if electrocuted, his knees banging into the underside of the table.
“How about this one?” you asked innocently, looking up at the waiter again.
“A lovely choice, though it is on the higher range, so I’m not sure—”
“We’ll take it,” Johnny announced, plucking the wine list from your fingers and shoving it at the waiter.
You raised an eyebrow, but the waiter simply smiled at you, apparently unbothered by growly Johnny.  “I’ll bring that right out for you,” he said, taking the wine menu and leaving you to suffer over dinner options.
Johnny cleared his throat, leaning towards you again.  “That waiter’s a bit weird, huh?” he asked, watching the man walk away.  “He didn’t even ask what I wanted.”
You donned your best sparkly-eyed expression, “But he’s being so friendly!  He really deserves a nice tip, he had some helpful suggestions.”
Johnny frowned, “He’s obviously flirting with you.”
“No way,” you laughed, waving him off.
Johnny rolled his eyes, “Trust me.  He’s flirting with you more than I am, and I’m the one taking you on a date.”
You leaned forward, resting your elbows on the table.  “Maybe you should start flirting with me some more, then.”
Johnny sent you an indecipherable look.  You wondered if your teasing had worked.  But Johnny seemed to have calmed down some, now that the helpful waiter was out of sight.  
You shrugged, sitting back in your chair.  You changed the subject, giving the man a break.  “Seriously, we don’t need to spend this much on dinner.  I feel bad.”
“I thought you’d like this place,” Johnny said, brows furrowing.
“I will literally go anywhere with you, it doesn’t matter, I just….I dunno, I feel like I don’t fit in here.”  You weren’t quite sure how to express your fear that people would call you a gold-digger or something, only dating Johnny now that he’d achieved success.  Even if the two of you knew better, it still made your stomach twist.  And not in the nice way it did while watching Johnny’s hands playing with his water glass.  Shoot, shoot, shoot, now his fingers were wet from the condensation.  You really didn’t need to know what that looked like.  Had his hands always been that large?  You shifted in your seat.
Johnny’s mouth twisted in a wry smile, “I don’t know if either of us really fit in with the rich old person vibe, but I heard the food is good.”
I’d rather have a bite of you, you thought to yourself, twisting the napkin in your lap.  You’d never seen him in a suit before.  Or at least, not in person.
Johnny coughed suddenly, staring at you with wide eyes.  “What?”
Oh shit, did you say that out loud?  Your cheeks burned.  “Um, I’d be, uh,” you stuttered, trying to cover your mistake, all confidence extinguished.  “We could get burgers, or something.”
Johnny sat back in his chair, eyes on yours.  He smirked, and you wanted to disappear into a hole in the ground.  Oh no, he definitely heard you.
“As long as I get to keep watching you,” Johnny said, voice low.  “You really are beautiful, not just tonight.  Every night.”
You opened your mouth, not sure what to say, but knowing that you wanted Johnny to keep looking at you like that.  Like you were the main course.  “Johnny, I—”
“Your wine, miss,” the waiter had returned.  You bit back a frown, knowing he was just doing his job.  But he seriously couldn’t have waited another minute?
“Thank you,” you murmured, sampling the first sip before allowing the waiter to pour both glasses.
“Can I interest you in any appetizers?” he asked, pouring Johnny’s wine.
You blinked, having forgotten the menu entirely.  Across the table, Johnny pulled out the menu, but before he could point anything out, the waiter was hovering over your shoulder.  “Might I recommend the cheese board?  It will pair beautifully with this bottle.”
“Might I tell you my order?” Johnny said.  His smile was sharper than before.  You might have teased him some more, but you got a bit distracted by Johnny’s jawline as he turned to speak to the waiter.  Honestly, you were having trouble tearing your eyes away from him all night.  It felt like seeing him for the first time, and in a way, you supposed you were.  You’d always known Johnny was attractive, since the time all boys started to look cute.  You’d just never let yourself think about it too much.  Best friend mental boundaries and all that.
Maybe if Johnny hadn’t said anything on that night, you wouldn’t have ever seen him like this.  You wouldn’t have allowed yourself to admire the column of his neck, or his long fingers as they unbuttoned the top of his shirt.  It would’ve been you and your stupid butterflies trapped in the friend zone forever.
Thoroughly distracted now, you bit your lip as you wondered what Johnny’s neck would look like with some new decorations.
“You realize they sell food here, right?  You don’t have to look at me like I’m an appetizer,” Johnny whispered across the table dramatically.  You startled, looking around, but the waiter had left at some point during your daydream.  Oh gosh, did you drool?  You pressed the back of your hand to your face discreetly, relieved to find nothing of the sort.
Then your brain caught up to Johnny, and you looked up at him with a smirk, “You’re too big to be an appetizer.”
Johnny choked on a laugh, covering his mouth to hide his smile when the other diners looked your way.  When he appeared to have himself under control again, he eyed you from head to toe—or at least what he could see from across the table.  He shot you a grin, “You’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?”
You watched him through your lashes, not quite sure what to make of him anymore.  You’d had your fair share of fun with other guys, but never in a million years had you imagined flirting with Johnny so blatantly.  Let alone in a fancy five star restaurant like this.
A sudden presence at your side startled you, and you jumped a little when the waiter reached over your shoulder to set a dish down.  “Sorry for startling you,” he murmured, moving away slightly, but not before brushing your shoulder in apology.  “Should I leave you with this for now, or are you ready to order?”
Johnny’s eyes flashed, and you bit back a curse at the waiter’s truly stellar ability to interrupt.  “We’re fine, thank you,” you said, unable to stop watching Johnny.  Or his hand, slowly tightening into a fist on top of the table.
“Would you like to hear the specials tonight?”
You donned a polite smile, nodding at the waiter to continue.  While he read down the list of fancy-sounding entrées, you turned your smile on Johnny, who was vibrating in his seat again.  You could’ve sworn your water glasses were shaking, and you held back a giggle.  You uncrossed and recrossed your legs, extra slowly to make sure he got the message when you “accidentally” brushed his knee this time.  The vibrations stopped, and his eyes burned into you.
“Thank you, we’ll keep looking over the menu,” Johnny interrupted the waiter, his voice deeper than before.  Your smile only grew.
Once the waiter was out of earshot, you leaned in.  “Can we leave?  I can’t even kiss you here.”
“Yep, yes, absolutely,” Johnny said, standing up the second the words were out of your mouth.  He nearly upended the table, making you snort.  “Right now,” he nodded, striding for the exit.
You scrambled out of your chair, rushing after him.  “Johnny,” you hissed, grabbing his sleeve.  “We didn’t pay yet.”
He came to a halt in the hallway, and you nearly ran into his back.  Then Johnny turned around, and you became very aware of the semi-secluded location as he moved closer.  You squeaked out a panicked, “Not here!”  You backed away until he finally reached out, one hand circling your waist to reel you in.
Johnny’s eyes moved over your shoulder, then back to yours.  He smirked, leaning in close enough for you to feel his lips brushing your cheek as he murmured, “Tell the valet to get the car.  I’ll grab the wine.”
You could’ve sworn you felt his hand brush down your back, lower.  Your cheeks burned hotter.  But when you turned, Johnny’s broad shoulders were disappearing around the corner, and the waiter was hurrying in the opposite direction.
* * * * *
You ended up ditching the car and walking around the neighborhood.  You only looked slightly out of place with your high heels and makeup when you ended up at a tteokbokki joint.  You’d played rock paper scissors between that and burgers, and Johnny won, as usual.
After dinner, you were reasonably close to your apartment, so Johnny offered to walk you home. It felt like another one of your late-night adventures, except you were usually in sneakers. When your feet got tired, you stopped in the middle of the block to take off the killer heels, sighing in relief.  You slung the straps over your wrist, prepared to keep trudging along, when Johnny swooped in.  One second, you were on the ground, the next, you were admiring the top view of Johnny’s ass from where you were dangling over his shoulder.
“Johnny, what the fuck,” you asked breathlessly, dying of laughter.  And from his shoulder digging into your diaphragm.
“Are you crazy?  You could cut your feet open,” he scolded you.
“At least there’s a nice view,” you sighed, reaching down to pat his butt.
Johnny put a little bounce in his next step, and you grunted at the impact.  You could practically feel his smug little grin.  “Hands off the merchandise.”
“How is that fair?  You totally copped a feel back at the restaurant.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Bull,” you said.  “You went all ‘alpha male’ with that nice waiter.”
Johnny huffed, “I wasn’t jealous.”
You grinned in victory.  “I never said you were, mister offering-up-information.  Now put me down, you caveman.”
Johnny’s grip on your thighs loosened, and his hands slid up to your waist, holding you tightly as he helped you back down.  You froze for a second when your feet hit the ground, not expecting to be face-to-face with him so suddenly.  “Wait right there,” Johnny said firmly, finally releasing your waist.
You blinked at him in confusion, watching as he slid his suit jacket off.  Your eyes widened when he reached for you, but it was only to wrap the jacket around your waist, tying the sleeves into a knot to hold it in place.
“There,” Johnny said, nodding at his handiwork.  Then he turned, crouching down slightly.  “Alright, princess, hop on.”
You beamed at him, not that he could see it.  It wouldn’t be a walk with Johnny if he didn’t end up carrying you at the end of the night, you chuckled to yourself.  You were fiercely grateful to Johnny for thinking of his jacket—you weren’t quite sure how long your skirt was, now that you were wrapped around him like a koala.
“Thanks, Johnny,” you mumbled, burying your face in his neck.  “You’re the bestest.”  You left a smacking kiss on his cheek, and he laughed, tightening his hold on your legs.
Finally, you arrived at your apartment building.  You slid your heels back on, balancing with one hand on Johnny’s arm.  “I’ll walk you up,” he said once you straightened.
But when you got to your door, you hesitated, unsure what to say.  Was this the part where you kissed him goodnight?  You were torn, so at odds with the way the night resembled your old friend dates, only now things were different.  What were you supposed to do?
“So,” Johnny drawled, leaning against the wall.  “Where’s my tip?”
You stared at him, incredulous.  “Your tip?” you repeated.
“Johnny’s chauffeur service isn’t free,” he said.  “And if I remember correctly, you still owe me for last time.”
You cocked a hip, smirking slightly.  “Any preferred payment methods?”
Johnny blew you an air kiss, and you made a show of catching it.  “I take cash or card,” he informed you.
“What a shame,” you murmured, dropping your purse in front of the door.  “I seem to have lost my wallet.”
He watched you carefully, barely blinking as you approached him, one slow step at a time.  “Apps?”
You stopped mere inches away, “Not a single one.”
He swallowed, and your eyes tracked the movement.  Your daydream from before came back with a vengeance—you bit your lip at the thought of marking him up.  Then you leaned in, resting one hand on his chest.  His heart pounded through the thin dress shirt.
“Will this do?” you asked, lips just barely brushing his.  Nothing else touched, aside from your fingertips on his sternum, but you could’ve sworn you felt him shiver.
Oh so slowly, Johnny reached out, hands ghosting over your hips.  You smiled against him, then melded your lips to his, bypassing whatever hesitations were holding you back.  What was the worst that could happen?
You felt Johnny teasing at the seam of your lips and gratefully opened for him.  He inhaled sharply when you inched forward, your chest brushing his.  You couldn’t hear anything but your heart racing.  And when his fingers dug into your hips, you fell into the kiss.  He pulled you in like a magnet until every part of you aligned with him.  Your limbs felt molten, burning at the contact.
Johnny pulled away, but not for long.  You gasped for air as his lips traced over your jawline, making their way to the delicate skin beneath your ear.  He pressed hot kisses there until your neck arched back obediently.  And when he nipped at your throat, you whimpered.  Thoughtlessly, your hips rocked forward.  Johnny gave voice to a deep groan, so you did it again.
Growling lightly, Johnny curled an arm around your waist to pull you harder against him.  All of the breath left your body at the feel of his growing hardness against your belly.  You fisted your hands in his collar, tugging him away from your neck.  You caught a glimpse of his kiss-swollen lips and blown out pupils, then dove back in for more.
While your mouth danced with his, your hands dragged southward.  Your fingernails caught on a button or two as you traced the muscle beneath.  Now Johnny’s hips were bucking into yours.  You grinned savagely into the kiss.  You’d just reached his belt when Johnny ripped his mouth away from yours.  “Woah, woah,” he gasped.  “Slow down, there.”
You panted for air, “What’s wrong?”
Both of you were breathing hard, and you were having a hard time ignoring the elephant in the room.  Er, hallway.  “You’re not trying to take advantage of me on the first date, are you?” Johnny asked with a breathy chuckle.
You laughed softly, tilting your chin back to get a good look at him.  “Is it really taking advantage if you want it, too?”  You smirked at him, rolling your hips forward to emphasize your point.
He watched you through half-lidded eyes, and you could’ve sworn you felt him throb.  But Johnny, ever the gentleman, smoothed his hand down your back, resting his head back against the wall rather than picking up where you left off.  “Cut me some slack, I’m not wearing my sexy underwear tonight,” he said with a crooked smile.
Oh no, now you had heart eyes for the man.  You pecked his chin to hide your cheesy grin.  “You let me know when you are, hmm?” you hummed, placing another kiss to the base of his throat.
“Princess, I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready for you.”
You giggled, leaning back in his arms.  “Am I so scary?”
Johnny sobered, meeting your gaze.  “I just don’t want to mess anything up.  Not with you.”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” you smiled at him.  “I trust you too much.”
“Oh yeah?  You still haven’t told me what you wished for on your fourteenth birthday,” Johnny taunted.
You tilted your head, thinking back.  “I didn’t tell you because I was hopelessly in love with you at the time,” you confessed.  “Now that’s out in the open, I guess you can know.”
Johnny blinked, taken aback.  “Even then?”
“Johnny, I think I’ve loved you forever,” you said, staring up at him.  “So of course I wished for the same thing every year.”
“What was it?”
Your smile widened, “Well, it already came true.  You said it, too.”
* * * * *
Masterlist
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transsexualhamlet · 4 years ago
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tg anime vs manga *sighs*
i have the power of hyperfixation and anime on my side! AAAAAAAA
Ok now that we’ve gotten the sins of re post out of the way we need to discuss this. And I just feel that this needs to be covered because I can’t ever get away from constant discourse on this, mostly fueled by manga readers who feel entitled to always think they’re superior for reading the manga, that the manga is the only real canon, that it’s more complex or better, I’m so fucking tired of it. I am also a manga reader, and I tend to get like that sometimes too with many series (for example no. 6 and the promised neverland.) I get it. It can be really annoying to see something butchered on screen to what the original is, changed or represented differently or given a different message or simplified. But just. Some people like the anime and it’s not a goddamn holy war for y’all to fight. It only makes anime fans not want to read the thing even more yknow cause manga readers are pretentious assholes, and I am aware of this as one of them.
(again ok i’d like to mention i know this fandom is basically dead but a certain p*nterest is always like 4 years behind on fandoms so i keep fucking running into Discourse that’s like, still current, whenever i want old random ass content) (and youtube, why do i look at youtube comments, because I personally enjoy being offended? yeah probably)
And that brings me to the point of this anime vs manga. 
This is a lot harder to compare than a lot of other series, because there are just... so many more differences not just in the style and vibe but the story itself.
Disclaimer, I’ve never watched the anime for :re and i don’t intend to, because I honestly have no earthly clue how tf you can get from the highly diverged tokyo ghoul root A to re and make it make sense, and I don’t really want A ruined for me. So you can call me biased towards the manga in the case of re, i guess (which makes my eventual conclusion even more strong I’d say) Honestly I just see them as two completely different stories, the manga’s version connecting with re and A just like... ending there. So how we’re drawing the lines is basically tokyo ghoul A versus the manga and :re. God, I know this isn’t a fair fight because I already hate re so much, but I feel like the manga’s story is much more intertwined with :re than the anime’s is, so that’s what we’re going with.
oh god also another disclaimer this opinion is coming from the biggest fucking kanehide whore, you can disregard anything i say if you ship The Straights and/or do not care for my boi hide
To be honest, if I can take my own conclusions and liberties to the story, I like both versions, each have their pros and cons and kind of a conflicting message. They can’t really coexist. Usually I’d consume all versions and then create one consistent canon in my head for what I accept as the true events (for example my main owari no seraph, first season of the anime is canon but after that we only follow the manga since those can come together and make sense.) but it’s very hard to do that in tokyo ghoul, since I must confess... I really like root A. Like of course, it’s a lot different from the manga, but tbh I think it’s super valid. (unlike most Fans TM like this Fan TM who i’m sending this post to just to spite their singular Youtube Comment Section Discourse, yes I did write this post for you and many others like you) But the ideas that make up root A conflict a lot with the ones of the manga, so I just have to accept that they’re separate things and treat them as such.
Now to break it down so people can understand where I’m coming from I guess? God this is already so long here’s a read more
The Case for The Manga (including :re manga)
More Lore + Plot Shit: One of the main reasons that manga readers are pretentious little bitches is a valid reason, namely that, as is the case with most manga, there’s simply more to it than people can fit into an anime. (Although people need to understand that’s because,,, it’s simply a different medium, so it will have different pluses and minuses, such as for example a soundtrack, color, moving pictures,,, you know, all that. Anime onlys don’t say that the anime is better by stating these things that a manga won’t have... because they’re fucking obvious. So manga readers should stop acting like an anime is inherently sub-par for being less in depth, but we digress.) I can understand that reading the manga is kind of important for wanting to understand the lore (though there are like so many other reasons ppl might want to watch it other than to get the lore) and without the explanation of how all this came to be and how it works, everything tends to be really mysterious, confusing, and seemingly random. It’s really nice to know what’s all going on, of course, and stuff like the washuus, rize’s backstory, the explanation for like, kaneki in general, all that- if you’re looking for like, plot shit, manga is definitely your go to. But like, sometimes, you like, don’t actually care about those things.
Haise: Of course one of the most important things about well, including re is that I fucking love Haise. Like he is my favorite Kaneki. He’s just so wonderful, look at him in he glasses and he floofy hair and he striped pants and he energy boxers and he s p i c e and he MOM. And I really like how they took Kaneki’s character and developed it more with Haise, you can see his turnaround from innocent--> Emo--> Trying To Be Innocent Again But Failing and I think that’s really sweet tbh. I rejected that at first because I didn’t understand it but once I actually read re I thought it made a lot of sense and was a logical thing to do with his character. (though, uh, moving forward, after his hair changes again i disagree with it, haise 1.0 is a good take and i love him and i want the best for him) I could go on I’ve already written a post of what I think is wrong with :re so if you want to hear my take on kaneki’s 37 pokemon evolutions that’s in there
Good New Characters: And of course there are my favorite bitches such as quinx squad, oh my god, there was a terminal lack of dumbass squad vibes in the original and ishida fucking gave it to us, I love them, I love them with all my heart and I think that if I wasn’t attached to them I’d probably just cancel all of :re but like this is just my personal problem. God I love them. Ishida always pulls through with characters I’m now too attached to.
Vore Lmao:Ok like hear me out. I just get a laugh out of it every time the manga has to remind me of this little fucking fact. Like ok I just. Cannot get over it. It’s so serious about it too and like I realize it’s a serious deal but o h  m y  g o d
Ok and now that we’ve got that little rant over I do want to say that it is like actually really important past the “lmao that’s pretty gay” bit, like??? In some ways it’s more fitting than the anime because well, ishida’s point always seems to be “what would mentally and physically hurt kaneki the most right now” and does it because that’s who this bitch is. But it just?? Kind of makes a bit more sense for the storyline if we’re being picky here, it’s so,,, painfully on point? Like the entire reason he gave in to Being A Ghoul and all was so he could save his friends and shit (i actually do not remember if this was a thing in the manga but like? when he was being tortured and he like imagined hide being really mad at him and getting killed by jason and shit?) LIKE AND THEN HE GOES AND HAS TO BASICALLY BE THE PERPETRATOR OF THAT HIMSELF, FUCK, it’s a lose/lose situation of “don’t do the bad thing and watch your friends suffer” or “do the bad thing and watch your friends suffer but like, later” ishida please
The meaning of Hide being alive: Ok this is just me crying over chapter 75 still but like. Instead of in the anime, where hide’s point seems to be that instead of letting kaneki sacrifice anything more he’d be the one to give his life up and such, and save kaneki, in the anime tbh he just really wanted to be with kaneki right then?? and like ouch but understanding that in the manga he wasn’t just planning on dying and leaving kaneki to deal with it afterward he wanted to go on and continue to try to help the guy no matter the shit he had to go through, no matter if the dude just like forgot that he existed for two years and all- LIKE UH CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW HIDE DOESN’T EVEN EXPECT ANY APOLOGY? like kaneki’s like “OH MY GOD I’M SUCH A TERRIBLE PERSON” and hide’s like lmao nah it’s cool i’m thriving- that his big motto was “live” rather than “peace out motherfuckers it’s been fun”. Cause. Fucking. Ishida. Can’t kill off characters well but like at least he made keeping this one alive justified. 
The D e t a i l s: Ok well I feel like this is something everyone knows but the anime is missing a lot of really,,, crunchy details that the manga throws in there, like, well, kaneki’s fucking,,, bones thing, and other assorted details, g o d like those are missable if you want to never understand half the memes but also like,,, sometimes you just gotta read that shit. It also like, makes more sense when you do but sometimes it’s just stupid things that aren’t important but are fucking hilarious.
The Flavor: In general I’d say the greatest difference between the anime and the manga is the general flavor of the thing, the vibe in the manga is a lot, to be frank, darker and grosser and bloodier than the anime, which is a lot more focused on being pretty and Tragic than “HOLY SHIT WTF” but like. That’s valid. With that comes it being a lot more, real, and although the art may not be as polished as the anime’s, sometimes that’s exactly what you need, and the really gritty sketchy shit that’s in the manga sometimes is exactly what it’s supposed to be for the manga. (in the anime, i’d say that the colored and polished style fits it better, so we’re good there.) It’s a lot more real, in the manga, when the anime hesitates to “go there” a lot (and well, sometimes that’s welcome, but sometimes it’s like y o u  g u y s  c o m e  o n  r e a l l y maybe i DID want to see that did you ever think of that)
So like, to sum it up i’d just like to say it’s more detailed, sharper and darker and is simply So Much. There is just More Content
The Case for Root A
ON THE OTHER HAND, (buckle up fuckers)
Depth of Emotion (that Ishida was too much of a pissbaby for): God like you know what I mean if you read the last post, we spent a whole episode on these gay fucks in root A, with backstory and dreams and drawn out suspense and emotion and GUYS LOOK AT THEM NO REALLY OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS whereas hide’s limelight in the manga is a whole... two pages, oh whoopee, and that’s mostly due to the fact of ishida putting himself in a spot of “oh fuck goddamn if i drew that in i’d get flagged for gay porn” but that’s his own fault, so he downplays the whole scene and really keeps it in the dark, whereas in this anime it’s understandably a lot less,,, like that, but how it plays out here is simply... really nice and makes you cry and shit, whereas in the manga I’d go “oh god oh damn oh fuck” *laughs my ass off because i really can’t take this seriously*. You get just... more here.
To elaborate on this, in the anime, as a gay fucking bastard, I can get practically an endless amount of content from episode twelve, and endlessly stew over all Those Things about it, every hard hitting line, the expressions, the music making it even sadder, the ways the VAs say the words, the cinematic beauty of the blood dripping on the floor and like how it’s supposed to make you think it’s kaneki’s, GOD I COULD FUCKING GO ON, but if we want to get that in the manga... 
we get three incredibly basic lines, a blackout, and then a “QUICK LET’S MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE BEFORE ANYONE NOTICES THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT HAHA”
So if we want to have more, we need to write it. (sadly) None of it is ever played out canonically so like,,, all we can do is infer and make shit up. It’s like, I am a writer so like that’s my whole job but I really would rather have more content, and have the content that’s there get to be emotional instead of *blank face* “this is plot that is happening, sadly” but like maybe it’s just bc i’m gay
Really Fucking Beautiful (aesthetically as well as story-wise): This kind of just goes hand in hand with the depth of emotion bit, and I think it can’t really compared to the manga here because I’m gay so I see pretty colors and cry so the anime is understandably appealing for me, but I’m also talking emotionally, yeah. There’s a lot of plotlines and implications of the story that are really well played out, I always love to watch the original because it does a very good job handling a lot of the harder topics and stuff that makes the whole thing worthwhile- like the whole point you’re supposed to see that the ghouls and humans are both just as monstrous when you break it down, that there are good and bad people on both sides, everyone just wants to live and feel good in their own life and perspective, everyone has reasons that justify their behaviour in their mind, sometimes you just can’t win no matter what, all that... they’re all really important messages and make the whole story, and they were handled much more delicately and with more expertise in the anime. 
It’s hard to pin down, but I feel like the manga was just based more on Fight Scenes Characters OoH Fake Science and kind of just gave kaneki infinite power ups after Trying Harder no offense, obviously those things were there and they were still very good in the manga it’s just sometimes they were cheapened a lot by ishida really not keeping track of what he’s trying to say with his story and sacrificing it a lot for “BUT WHAT IF KANEKI’S HAIR AND IDEALS CHANGED AGAIN” instead of making it a whole cohesive work. (and yes, I am VERY aware of your “well aCtuAlLy the hair represents his sanity” thing i know i know and i’m about to rip it to fucking shreds so)
Understandable Character Development And Staying True To It: Which brings me to this point, character development. This was another thing that was just... handled with more expertise in the anime, whoever was in charge of it. Mostly this has to do with Kaneki, since like, no offense but he’s the only one who ever gets much character development other than like, juuzou (asmr you only get character development if your hair color changes) oh and i guess there’s tsukiyama but he’s someone who shouldn’t have gotten character development. Touka gets character development only before re for some reason, and like tbh that’s kind of it. I do think Juuzou’s character development was valid, because well... it made sense? I complained about it before because I was like “well he just turns into spicy L” but i’ve since changed my opinion, he’s best boy. But Kaneki? They went way overboard with him in the manga, and generally? Calm tf down ishida.
Breaking it down, one of the main things that most of the tried and true manga stans seem to hate about the anime the most is Kaneki going over to Aogiri in root A. Since they’re much more acclimated to the manga, they don’t understand why he would do that (quoting a particular ‘probably made sense in the manga!’ yes i know that whole thing was poking fun at the show and i felt it lmao) and they just pin it to “ahaha he has now become Edgy for the fans ehehe time to make fun of him” and TO BE FAIR YOU’D BE COMPLETELY RIGHT. I love to make fun of Kaneki when he does his edgy bitch thing because that’s what he is. A basic edgy bitch who is just,,, such a main character. But like. He does actually have his reasons despite popular opinion and to be honest I think they’re a bit more valid than in the manga, where he’s just like “well I’ve been tortured, that was not pleasant and i kinda did a bad thing, let’s go back to anteiku but i’m just gonna Try Harder To Fight this time”. I can understand that, but like, it seems like in the manga every Character Development of kaneki is some form of “i will now be stronger” except for the singular “I will now be a different person” which, well, we’ll get to that. 
In the anime though, even if it seems like more of a basic edgy bitch move, it’s like?? It makes perfect sense to me, and to be honest more than the manga does? Obviously he doesn’t wanna be best bros with Aogiri, he realizes they’re all bad people who have done really terrible things, but the fact is he now sees himself as the same thing, he now understands their motives because in his mind he is also now Bad TM. His whole character development of being tortured was that peace wasn’t an option no matter how much he wanted it, he couldn’t live being a pacifist and the world was forcing him to give the “i am the only one that understands! we need to stop fighting!” bullshit up because there was no way to achieve it. He realized if he kept himself the way he was more people he loved would be hurt like they already had because he couldn’t, so he doesn’t just Decide To Become Stronger, he gives up his humanity. And that includes basically letting himself defend his own actions and try to do “the right thing”. 
Him then joining aogiri makes sense because well. They’re the people who are the strongest, who have the power, who are the same as he sees himself. He still wants to protect the people he loves, he just also realizes he can’t do it by working with them since he now understands that their more peaceful ways will by definition get them fucking killed. His understanding is flawed, of course. He’s not really right. But this is his understanding and from that it makes perfect sense for him to join up with aogiri and try to still do as much as possible from that standpoint, realizing that most likely the people he’s trying to protect will hate him for it. I think that makes sense to me, what do you not understand about it? (I also understand that may make some people mad because he’d Doing Bad Things but I point to you he’s so soft, remember when he was really nice to naki when he was literally the one who killed the guy naki was crying about? remember when he was doing a raid and he saw that guy hiding and he never mentioned it? remember like the seventy times he Cried TM, yeah he’s problematic obviously but if you want problematic I’ll point you to a certain fucking black reaper. Shironeki has nothing on that asshole.)
I think what Kaneki did in the manga was fine, but in general the anime (again) had more depth of understanding and emotion versus a steady Try Harder Get Stronger shonen deal, which, well, fair, but like, nah. Continuing why I think the anime dealt it better is the ending of A, which was a lot more well rounded then *kaneki gets stabbed and then there’s a lot of random plot shit going on in the background*. Here Kaneki then got to round out the end of his character development by realizing slowly through the second half of this season, him becoming a kakuja and then basically deciding like, not to
((kakuja kaneki was dealt with again different in the anime and manga because he basically stopped trying to use it in the anime bc he realized it was a bad fucking idea but this goes along with the ‘his character development of “i’m gonna do bad things for good reasons” --> “actually no wait that was a bad idea” was actually done in root A instead of being dragged out into :re and it’s appropriate for its own medium and the messages it’s trying to get across so manga loyalists hate it’ but we digress))
So in root A we got to see him actually develop and realize himself through the second half of the season starting with cochlea, his interactions with Amon, and ultimately through Hide, that he’d been doing the wrong thing by becoming more monstrous/fighting harder because what he did was ended up forgetting the most important thing, *smiles in gay* HIDE.(well, his humanity. yeah. i cite the terrible opening for root A with the fun ‘the hands taking off kaneki’s mask are hide’s’ bit.) He then remembered again why he wanted so bad to stop the war between humans and ghouls, he wanted to be able to live in peace and not have to be a monster- something that was not dealt with in the manga (though for understandable reasons of We Need To Fuck With Him In Re More, they then didn’t deliver on creating something like that later so I take this.)
That’s most of the difference between the original manga and anime, but I’d also like to discuss (briefly, I’ve already yelled about them) the ridiculous amount of hurdles ishida went through to fuck with kaneki in the manga, Of course there is the fact that well, the slower transition of his character does make some more sense for the manga because if you take :re into consideration, his eight billion character changes are more tolerable when they haven’t like, already happened before in the manga (just the anime). It makes more sense there for Haise to be tormented by past kaneki telling him He’s Too Weak because in the manga he hasn’t already had that development prior to “dying”, and he lost his memories still believing he had to be strong even if he did bad things, whereas in the anime it doesn’t track because at the end like i just said he kind of gives up his ghoulhood on purpose because he realizes that joining aogiri and fighting and shit was really wrong because, hide. So I can see why those character decisions were not made in the original when planning for :re, but... the fact remains that those previous decisions do not make up for how absolutely weak :re’s game ended up being with kaneki. 
So tldr this entire section, All the manga’s defense of how they handled Kaneki’s development is basically void because all those choices were buildup for development in :re which ishida then COMPLETELY fell down on. So the alternative is better.
And now comes my yelling about how exactly Ishida fucked it up: hair colors and kaneki’s 80 kanekis. If black is supposed to represent sane and white is supposed to represent insane or, whatever, i dunno, who tf thought black reaper kaneki was sane? Who tf would think kaneki in the end isn’t? I haven’t looked into this really, and I’d really love it if someone explained it to me the way ishida was going for bc I do not understand it. Like that tracks with Juuzou, and with Kaneki up to Haise Original, but they don’t really make a cohesive sense seeing as after Haise’s hair color changed again that whole deal kind of goes to shit. Not to mention... I just... they completely failed to make those character changes actually part of the story, I’m mostly complaining about black reaper haise, none of him makes any sense. What’s his deal? He wants to protect who he loves? Tracks with the ghouls but fun fact he abandoned his kids? He actually cared for them? What then, he wants to be the strongest as possible? Sure but then?? Why?? I don’t understand his motives at all.
We also didn’t get to see him get his memories back either, which I was actually very much looking forward to, it just,,, like all of a sudden he’s talking with eto about yoshimura and i’m like bruh when tf did that happen? It’s bad, and although chapter 74-76 is super valid, and his change back into white hair kaneki makes sense, I also have the complaint about how haise basically disappeared just like he was worried he would. I think that was bad and I’ve said that already, it doesn’t make sense, he just literally throws those entire two years away to go back to the way he was before he was with the CCG and just forgets everything he’s wanted for the last few years? Fiction logic test fucking failed, and you’ve also broken my heart. Love Haise. You got rid of him. I love kaneki too but like. Why don’t they just. Like. Merge. He is one whole complex person, not one and an imposter, god. 
This is a big negative for re and the manga, so automatically a positive for root A where I simply Do Not Have To Deal With That Bullshit and the character development actually makes sense. I can understand the decisions in the original manga could have set up for good development in :re, but they completely failed to deliver.
root a didn’t fast forward to re at the end god damn let us process this shit first before you try to connect it to something else: The thing with this point is that it’s really difficult to separate the original manga from the continuing story in :re because the thing intertwines so much and immediately moves us forward with a ton of plot points for the next part of the story before we’re done with this climax and the end of this story. Sometimes that’s ok and I can see doing that from an author’s perspective because you want people to continue reading your story instead of taking that as the end but it’s really annoying on a reader’s end, because I’m picky and I want to be able to just be able to enjoy my original canon without it like, metaphorically touching :re on a plate. It’s something that I don’t even do with my own longer stories, like for example I have like a trilogy of >100k fics that like, well i’m technically not done with them but like. 
People really like the first one because it’s more focused on a more popular ship and basic elements people like about the thing, and then by the second book it moves on to talk more about the plot and lore and brings in more secondary characters. And so I knew that a lot of the readers of the first one wouldn’t want to have to deal with a lot of the “oh well stuff is happening elsewhere that will effect stuff later!!!” random plot shit that none of my readers actually cared about. So I kept it to wrapping up the points of the first book and then leaving the introduction of new characters and plot for the people who actually wanted to read it. Ishida didn’t do that, and of course it’s within his right to like?? Want to promote the next series but I’d have enjoyed it more if we ended it at kaneki’s “death” and wrapping up the deals with the rest of the characters instead of quickly shoving in the beginning of seventy more plotlines before the book ends. Like honey I simply do not have the reading comprehension for that. In the anime we get something that... makes sense.
In the anime, however, it’s quite the opposite, for example the reveals like Eto=owl=takatsuki sen were pushed before that and they saved episode twelve for, well, the end bit. Like what was actually the ending. There were detriments to this I had to say (LIKE GUYS I GET IT HE’S CARRYING HIDE HE’S CARRYING HIM I GET IT YOU’VE BEEN DOING IT FOR HALF THE EPISODE NOW OK I UNDERSTAND CAN WE MOVE ON) But like, I prefer the concept of a simple idea with as much emotion squeezed out of it as possible to a ton of confusing and contradicting ideas that are touched on for a second before moving on. So the *cries for half an hour* ending was much more appealing to me, and I can keep that separate in my head from any of the ideas that :re creates, letting me pretend it doesnt exist and imagine that’s the end and there’s nothing else to worry about. If we want to move forward and hear more, then we can, but it isn’t necessary like it is with the manga.
No Bad Takes that are hard to pry apart from good plot and characters:This is basically the downsides of the new characters, which is well, if I had to make a whole ~keep reading~ post about how problematic everything in re was that does have to count as a downside. I love the new characters, but they also come intertwined with a thousand really bad takes on like, everything, and of course I can ignore it and just act as though they were written in like, to be perfectly honest, a non transphobic way, it’s a real downside when the original anime was pretty pain-free in the way of their takes on their characters. They fucked everyone up in re and I will not elaborate, we’ve talked about this, it’s just the anime, and which i mean season 1 and root A, don’t really have any bad takes I need to try to get rid of, it’s surprisingly something I have little complaint about at all and I ALWAYS have complaints.
Hide!!!!: Obviously, you can tell that a lot of my opinions are going to be hide based because he’s the only thing I ever think about. But we have to take into account just how... hide???? This goes a lot into the depth of emotion bit but it also offers the other side of the argument for Hide’s part in the :re manga, which well. Was mostly chapter 75 if we’re going to be perfectly honest here. He doesn’t get any other limelight. Even in the chapter where Kaneki meets him again he gets a whole what, three pages? In the manga, he has an extremely valid deal about basically, living, keeping going no matter what, and that is a fitting part for the manga, considering the rest of the points there ride more on Keep Fighting instead of Think About Your Emotions And Morals, but honestly chapter 75 was really valid. So why do I still think the anime’s version where he like (ok I don’t know about the re anime we’ve discussed this, i don’t even know how they choose to explain that) he like, dies in kaneki’s arms is better overall? Again, I would have totally accepted that deal if it was made a part of the story because it made me cry, it was super valid, and if they’d continued in that way I would have agreed with it completely over that. But the fact is again that they failed to deliver, and Hide got largely ignored, suffered so much with so little outcome. There was so much buildup and it was incredibly valid, but when the time came for them to meet again and basically show... why it was important that Hide lived in the end? 
They didn’t. They straight up didn’t. Kaneki’s like “oh sorry bro... glad you’re alive and all...” *goes off and fights* and like? Honestly? @everlastingspiral is right, if that’s all they’re gonna do with him what’s the point of keeping him alive? I love every single panel of him and I wouldn’t have read re if he didn’t, but hide gets absolutely NO payoff. For letting kaneki literally vore his entire mouth off, leaving him disfigured and unable to talk, then kind of disappearing for two years and doing seemingly nothing but trying to help kaneki even though he’d forgotten the guy existed, risks his life like a thousand fucking times, eventually gets back to him and the dude’s running a fucking anti-human organization, helps him like Not Be A Volitile Pile Of Flesh Anymore and then what should have been a very important moment of them meeting again gets completely overshadowed by touka and random plot shit and more fights and they barely interact, they don’t even hug or anything, they barely talk, and at the end hide is still there but to be honest he’s gotten absolutely no thanks for all he did and ishida acts at the end as though he’s done very well with hide and gives him a tiny bit at the end throwing in a tragic backstory for fun (which hot take he really didn’t fucking need on top of it all) and... there’s no real hint that Kaneki is better off with Hide there, even though there should be. In 75, in his dream, kaneki is sobbing and crying and all like i’m so lonely without you but when they actually meet each other again? “yo” “hey” “uh sorry about,,, the thing,,, you know” “nah man it’s ok” “let me talk about myself for a bit” “yes you always do do you want to hear what I’ve been up to” “not really” “that’s fine i’m only here to support you”
...So you can understand why I’ve gone a bit sour on that. If that’s all you’re going to give him? Hot take? Let him die. Hide deserves better. (and i will deliver that in writing, but for the purposes of canon.)
In the anime, however (not counting re again... although he still gets the short end of the stick just in the original manga too compared to the anime) he’s properly dealt with! he gets his proper limelight and he gets acknowledged for what he’s done thusfar in the story, which is already so much. Kaneki then realizes that, but it’s already too late (or it isn’t, and they like negotiate with the ccg and then they get to live happily ever after) either way he gets appreciated and he gets hurt, but it’s properly acknowledged. And after all that, after saving kaneki and getting him to the cafe and doing it all while bleeding the fuck out, he gets to spend that time with kaneki and die in kaneki’s arms. And frankly? That’s all I think he’s ever needed. It’s really poetic and pretty and brings kaneki’s character around full circle, and even if it’s overly sappy, cliche, drawn out... he gets the attention he’s due and he gets a fucking break. He wanted to show Kaneki he wanted to do something for him and save him instead of the other way around, but then HE GOT ACKNOWLEDGED FOR THAT, instead of just well, tirelessly working towards it forever and having to be content to be a background character with practically no value to Kaneki anymore.
Keeps The Same Vibe: The big thing about this is that with the manga and with re, shit just goes all over the place, and I feel like I’ve amply showed that already through this essay or whatever this is. Again about the consistency and the professionalism, It’s a concise story that makes more sense than the manga while also being simply neater and more deep, making sure all the points, themes and messages work together and make sense to create a cohesive deal even if it’s not as long. (the manga is like ishida had a TON of good ideas for an essay but then fleshed out the thing ten minutes before deadline and managed to completely lose what his original thesis was even if the thing was 10 pages long.) Basically. yeah. That kind of sums it up, my last point concerns the ending.
Not Cheap Ending: If you want to hear my take about how absolutely terrible re’s ending was, check out my The Many Sins Of Tokyo Ghoul :Re post, and we’ve discussed how the original’s manga ending was bad and well not really an ending, it just leaves you unfulfilled and takes you into “well I guess I have to start a whole nother sequel series ig...” but root A like? Actually ends it? If a reader didn’t know that there was any content after that, they could pretty much infer that hide’s death or almost death whatever you inferred out of that ending (again we’re ignoring re) allowed Kaneki to finish his character development and realize they needed to stop the war, which basically tracks with what’s going on in everyone else’s perspective- eto’s problem with the world because of what happened with everything, is basically like, all of aogiri, juuzou and shinohara, amon and akira and kaneki and they can realize all they have to do is just sit down and fucking stop it because none of them want to be fighting, hide is the catalyst for that because the CCG can see how Kaneki cares for him? And it’s so open ended that you could just like literally believe that and there’d be no way for that canon to tell you otherwise, or you could go onto re and whatever if you wanted to. I think that’s the best thing. 
In conclusion, both have valid points, and in general I’d say that the manga goes better with :re and the anime is better as a stand alone but if I had to choose overall, this particular anime is better (taking into account only seasons 1 and 2), for mostly the reasons of favoring a simpler story taken with much more care and depth versus a more complex story with many, MANY imperfect elements, and I am aware I will get shot on sight for this opinion. So sue me.
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joe-maristopher · 4 years ago
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«WandaVision»: 6. Send help
When I look at the WV's rating,  I start smirking. Let's say, um, we won't see cuted heads with blood,f looding from the arteries, as well as the violent mating of all the people available for this, and we won't hear bad words, but the eye twitches often Because WV is creepy. Because it can be creepy to see, or because certain parts inside resonate with what is happening, and it becomes very uncomfortable.
As I said in the opinion for the first two episodes — those who have lost someone significant or gone through a traumatic situation have every chance to understand Wanda's feelings. And those individuals, who were so traumatized that at some point they FORGOT a terrible moment, because the human psyche is trying to protect itself, they probably nod.. and I hope these people are okay.
After watching the series... I sat and thought about it... And I got a panic attack. I think. I was personally affected by Wanda's state of mind. Her words about loneliness and emptiness are very clear, because I know what it is, and I really hope not to experience it again, being familiar with the spectrum of this feelings’ combo. It's really horrible feel like you're in a vacuum and you can't breathe.
I'm not surprised (at all that) Monica responded warmly. She also understands Wanda. She's good, no kidding. Once again, can she replace Carol as Captain Marvel? Please! And I want to see her continue to interact with Jimmy and Darcy. A wonderful trio. Humane. I also like how they performed in the episode.
Monica wants to help Wanda, and nothing will stop this woman, even if she needs to climb back into the perimeter.
Jimmy knows when to hit someone, and in general, quickly navigates the situation, calculates and makes a decision. No snot.
Darcy also takes a risk and meets the expansion of Wanda's territory, and before that, she wants to help Vision (hello, panic attack number two), and I would see what would happen if she wasn't stopped
As a bonus for their courage, all three now know that Hayward is plotting something behind their backs, his goal is to kill Wanda and, as a result, get Vision back. Vision's body. Otherwise, why track it? Hayward is an outright asshole, but you know what? He and Zemo would have gotten along. Well-well...
Inhale-exhale, continue.
I.
I will touch on the topic of pseudo-Pietro very quickly, because I said the main thoughts last time and I do not want to repeat and click my teeth like a wilf wolf. I will not repeat the theories as wel;, let the series explain them ITSELF, and I am not made of vibranium to spoil my nerves, but I will write something for the story here.
He behaved throughout the episode as if he intentionally wanted Wanda to detonate (or wake up?). I don't need to be told how he behaved in the comics, I remember this, but it's not a comics issue. No loving brother would provoke a scandal like that. The pseudo-Pietro was DEFINITELY  looking for  pain points, or rather, he was going through them, and then he found it, and Wanda quickly shut him up.
In the dialogues with pseudo-Pietro, we learned more about the childhood of Wanda and Pietro. Poor kids. At the same time, Wanda's and pseudo-
Pseudo-Pietro knows TOO much. Don't you think that's suspicious? I do.
II.
The ad's eerie vibes — I´ll miss those cute bits of subtext when the series end — faded, when the picture of Vision, trying to find out what is going on, came together in pieces. Vision did not forget the quarrel with Wanda, took the moment and decided to clarify something for himself.
The edge of Wanda's perimeter reminded me of one Rick and Morty's episodes. Where Rick, Morty, and Jerry ended up in a simulation, and Jerry ended up there by mistake.  It was decided not to spend all the resources on him, so part of the simulation was lagging, sometimes very funny. Vision isn't in the cartoon, so he got the dark version. I still believe that people suffer not because Wanda's hex are so terrible, but because her pain is broadcasting. Let it  be my personal headcanon. I still don't know how to interpret the scene with Agnes, it also seems suspicious to me, something is wrong with it, but it only strengthened Vision's determination to put everything in its place.
I'll repeat myself. Marvel, what's your problem? What is this kink on Vision's death? How to beat it out of you, tell me already?! Fuck you, this is technically the THIRD death or attempt to kill Vision (it depends on what we see in the future episode), mixed with an allusion to people scattering after Snap. Will you pay psychotherapists for us?
Sorry, but Vision, agonising, Darcy, shocked, trying to help... I don't defy the truth: it was intense, and Vision's dedication is so Vision, but it still sounds in my ears. People with the same level of empathy, I feel very sorry for you if you are also still in a trance. Like me.
But yes, we now know for sure, Vision can't live outside the perimeter. In the comics, if you don't know, Vision also died... a sufficient number of times, there was a moment when he was dead for a very long time (if you heard a creak - it's me,  I gritted my teeth), but one of his advantages is capability of healing/restoring. A Vision from a very distant future, with the frightening, I must say, look, said to present Vision, what is the advantage of synthezoid is: by replacing the organs he can live INDEFINITELY. But what will happen to Vision from MCU, I don't know.
Folks, we are preparing for his long death, or new tortures from Marvel. I don't know, I don't want to think about it. If Vision combines the memory of his past and his present, then he will have an interesting experience, nothing to say.
Darcy is now inside the perimeter, I believe she will explain him everything he must know (if she can) like Hayward's plans, and I HOPE  there will be no silence that could lead to another disaster. And I also hope Vision will not accumulate a conflict that will also be disastrous, but for his relationship with Wanda. And my third hope is this: I hope Vision won't go into " this is all a simulation, I'm dead, do my feelings for Wanda and the kids exist, or have I been made to think that they are exist? Are they artificial?" thing, because this will turn out to be a disaster for everyone. For Vision. For Wanda. For children. For the entire perimeter. For the shippers, after all.
P.S. I see, this is the last episode in sitcome style? P. S. S. Wanda is a sad kitty.
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angelicallydevilish · 5 years ago
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Human!AU High school!AU because I’m trash
    Crowley attends speech therapy, not by choice mind you but because several months ago his father cornered him in the car after school saying something along the lines of “Really, Anthony, a 15-year-old shouldn’t still have a speech impediment, this is humiliating” then, instead of driving them home, dropped him off to the dreadful office without even a magazine rack to peruse where he has to wait anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half for the person ahead of him to finish up[1], only to then be subjected to more torture in the form of a series of exercises no doubt designed for 6-year-olds, and he has the honour of suffering through this twice a week for however long it takes pronounce S’s correctly[2].
    Having nothing to do while he waits[3] he’s taken to observing the waiting room, taking it all in. On this particular day there are 3 potted plants in desperate need of attention, 2 receptionists one is an older lady who refuses to look him in the eye or even acknowledge he’s there while the other, is a much younger girl not much older than himself[4], Mary he thought her name was,  always greets him with a very cheerful “Good day, Mr. Crowley!!”[5] Crowley isn’t quite sure which treatment makes him more uncomfortable, and 1 other person in the waiting room.
    This newcomer, who has been there for every session for at least a month, is there before Crowley arrives every time and he always has a book[6]. He appears quite proper with his fresh-pressed slacks and a pristine button-down with a sweater vest and some sort of winged emblem over the left breast,  perhaps he attends a private school? Regardless it's rather drab for someone who appears to be a high schooler himself.  His perfect blonde curls bounce as he nods his head whenever he agrees with the author and, on the rare occasion when he looked up from his book to check the time, Crowley gets to see his stunning blue eyes; somehow still radiant despite the dungeon-like lighting of the waiting room.
    The person whose appointment is before his own is always the same, a short girl black hair, my chemical romance vibes, never smiles. She storms past the receptionist desk ignoring Mary’s up-beat call of “see you next time, miss”. Occasionally she’ll bark a quick, “We’ll leave without you, Zira” at the boy reading, pushing through the doors without waiting for him. Zira, what an odd name odd but intriguing something he could get used to hearing. Crowley is torn between laughing at Zira scramble to gather his things, and feeling mildly annoyed by the aggression directed at the poor guy.
    After witnessing this many times now, Crowley has decided he hopes they aren't dating. Only because it’d be an unfair relationship, of course, and not because the boy is gorgeous and he wouldn't mind having a go himself. Maybe they were siblings? Crowley doesn’t care, really, but thinking about it does make the wait feel shorter, so on his next visit rather than re-count the number of scuff marks and dents in the ceramic flooring, he slides into the seat next to Zira instead of giving him the usual 3 chair gap to avoid conversation. “Zira, is it?, Crowley attempts to sound suave but the waiting room’s narrow chairs force his gangly limbs into an awkward position, and the ‘is’ gets far too drawn out making it sound more like “Zira, issss it?” Crowley curses his apparent serpentine ancestors.
    Aziraphale visibly jumps engrossed with his book and not expecting an interruptions so soon, stumbles over his reply, “Yes uh rather, Azriaphale actually, I don’t quite like my name shortened[7],” he pauses momentarily gently placing today's book[8] in his lap using his thumb as his makeshift bookmark his face now baring an adorable frown, “how did you know my name, good fellow?”
    ‘Good fellow’ Crowley can’t help but smirk a little, “Apologies, that’s what your sister calls you after her appointments so I just assumed, bit tetchy isn’t she?” he curses his speech impediment more and more as each word leaves his mouth; any microscopic hope that Aziraphale would find him cool enough to talk, maybe even exchange numbers, was completely dead.
    “Goodness no! She’s not my sister.” Aziraphale almost looks offended.
    Crowley’s heart buckles a little of course she’s his girlfriend and he even called her “tetchy”, what an idiot. He tries to swallow his grimace before speaking once more, “ah yes, girlfriend then? Sorry about the tetchy comment she-”
    Aziraphale nearly retches at the implication, “Dear boy, you really must stop assuming things.” He adjusts his tartan bow tie[9] and continues, “if you must know Beelz is my brother’s girlfriend and I am only here because he refuses to wait and promises to stop driving me home from school if I’m not here when she gets out.” He lets out a small sigh, indicating irritation, but from the look he gives the door, it's directed more at the girl behind it than his new companion.  
    "Right, she doesn't seem like the type who'd need a babysitter though" Aziraphale smiles at the babysitter comment, a truly angelic sight; something Crowley hopes to see more of in the future.
    "If left unattended she, well, doesn't attend, says it's far too childish for someone her age," Aziraphale grimaces[10],  "I don't mind though it gives me plenty of time to read." and there it is again; the beautiful smile.
    Before Crowley can even consider replying, the slam of the speech therapist's heavy door echos off the nearly empty waiting room and a mass of black is shifting quickly in then out of his line of sight, indicating the end of the girl Crowley now knows as Beelz's session. 
    "Come on, Zira, you can talk to your boyfriend on Friday," the girl shouts, already halfway through the door as eager as ever to leave.
    "Right, yes," Aziraphale is quickly but kindly shoving his book into his messenger bag, "I do suppose I will be seeing you on Friday then, Mr. Crowley, I quite enjoyed our talk." 
The tables are reversed for Crowley is now the one confused as to when the other acquired his name, Aziraphale catches on to this and quickly adds, "Miss Mary greets you every time you come, that's how I knew" blessing him with one final radiant smile, before making his usual quick exit.
    Crowley sinks deep in his chair[11]. Friday, he can't help but think how soon yet far away it is all at once. For the first time since starting Crowley is glad his father drops him off early; and is even a bit excited for his next session, despite the current one not even beginning yet.
     [1]His father couldn’t be bothered to drop him off at the time of his actual appointment he’s a busy man of course. [2]Or until his father stops being embarrassed by him which is far less likely to happen. [3]There is only so much you can do on your phone before it gets boring. [4]This is probably just an after school job for her. [5]She tried for several weeks to start conversations with him upon his arrival but eventually decided he mustn’t be the talkative type and now leaves it at the greeting. [6]A new one each visit, thick and old but well-loved; not a page out of place.
[7]His brother and everyone associated with him insist on calling Aziraphale various nicknames to annoy him. [8]The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. [9]An item of clothing Crowley has yet to see him wear before today and plans on teasing Aziraphale about his old-fashionedness should the other choose to continue speaking to him after making such a fool of himself. [10]Possibly recalling the incident which resulted in his new position of 'babysitter', which consisted of Beelz not going to her session at all and choosing to instead smoke a pack of cigarettes in the parking lot, and flick the butts at her therapist's car. [11]He refuses to get up until the therapist specifically asks for him.
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phanmellow-blog · 7 years ago
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Consequences
Summary: When Dan falls for his best friend who didn’t give Dan his heart back, Dan has to deal with the consequences that come, as a punishment to falling for the wrong one. Based on Camila Cabello’s single titled ‘Consequences’.
Genre: Angst with no fluff.
Word count: 3241.
Warnings: Swearing and sad ending.
Notes: This fic is based on the author’s true story.
No matter how much you despise a person, you won’t be able to stop yourself from falling for them, if your heart decides to. You won’t be able to control it, to stop falling for them, because you don’t want to. Because you know that you and them would never end up together, or because you two are toxic towards each other. You would never be able to click on a switch off button, to switch off or turn on your feelings towards that specific person whenever you feel like it. Logically, as any mature human would think, this is how human’s bodies are supposed to work. This is how they wished they worked. But at the end of the day;
The heart wants what it wants.
Which is how Dan finds himself in love with Phil, his long time best friend. And he hates it. He knows, and knew, since the first day that they would never have a chance together. Because Dan knew that Phil loved him, if not as a friend, as a best friend. He knew that Phil was into other guys, not Dan, hence the multiple times he’s dated some of Dan’s friends, not Dan. Hell, Phil has even once dated Dan’s best friend, Nick, who has known him for four years, longer than he has known Phil, which was only a year.
Nobody knew, and nobody should know, but for one person, and that is Louise. The only person Dan trusts, and is convinced won’t judge him, no matter what. But it’s the fact that he told Louise after ten months of being in love with Phil, whilst the entire time, not a person on earth knew but Dan, because it is embarrassing. Very embarrassing, fuck, to be in love with your own best friend.
Phil is very nice, sweet, funny, handsome, sympathetic, loving, to everyone and Dan. And that was the issue, this is what made Dan fall into this entire useless mess, an unasked for, and unwanted one. His light, calming blue eyes that Dan is jealous of whoever gets to look at them for so long, whenever they want, to just stare at them on the bed after a long and tiring day and feel relaxed. His jet black, smooth hair that he dreams about gripping and combing his fingers in when Phil dances his tongue with Dan’s one day. His pale, soft skin that contrasts Dan’s tanned one. Only Dan can dream, and fall for the dreams, and get his hopes high, thinking that maybe, just maybe, Phil will fall for him slowly, a bit longer than usual, and Dan would forever wait. But he’d shake his head, and open his eyes to reality, the sad, bitter reality that no one ever fantasizes about living in. Dan’s only wish in his God forsaken existence is to just have control of one thing, just one thing, that will help him escape the torture he goes through every single fucking day.
*
“He was staring at me in class this morning.”
“Oh,” Pause. “Are you sure?”
“I think so,” Dan says, as he looks down, facing his thighs. “I don’t stare at my friends for five straight minutes, Louise.”
“Five minutes?!” She chirps.
“Probably. And when I made eye contact with him for a split of a second, to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, the look he was giving me sent shivers down my entire body.” Dan explains, hesitantly.
Lousie’s eyebrows are raised. “Wow,” she says after a minute, clearly taking in Dan’s words slowly. “I’m just, really worried about you, Dan.” She looks him straight in his eyes. “I don’t want you to think this is all real, or whatever you think it is.”
“I know,” he smiles sadly. “Everything he’s doing now, even if it was only platonic, can never compare to that time in June.” He looks back at her, still smiling.
“Yeah,” she exhales, looking away, knowing exactly what Dan is talking about. “I know.” Remembering when Dan would send her screenshots of when Phil would suddenly text Dan after ages of not texting him, simply just saying “I love you.” And “I miss you”.
She remembers how surprised she was when Dan texted her in the very early morning, clearly being awake since, which is very unlike Dan, telling her about when they called for the first time, stating it was Phil’s idea, and how giggly and happy he sounded while talking to Dan, and remembers how Dan didn’t shut up about it for a complete week.
She remembers when Dan showed her the chat between him and Phil, where one morning Phil texted Dan randomly a long, very long paragraph, telling Dan how much he loved him, and how much Dan means to him. It was strange because Phil sent it out of the blue, but Dan never complained, he also didn’t shut up about it for a complete month.
She remembers when Dan told her that Phil told him he “looked perfect tonight”.
She remembers when Dan told her that Phil texted Dan a few hours after they had just hung out together, telling him he already missed him, and that he hadn’t had enough of Dan, and that he wants to see him again.
She remembers when Dan told her that Phil said that Dan had the most beautiful smile ever on his profile picture.
But at that time, they were only best friends. At that time, it was June, the summer of June.
Unfortunately, she also remembers when they broke their friendship after. When Dan surprisingly didn’t talk about it again. When Phil had traveled to Australia and completely distanced himself away from Dan and most of his friends, only barely ever texting Dan.
She remembers how they went from barely texting to not texting at all.
She remembers how she thought about how their friendship started from texting every two seconds, to two hours, to two days, to two weeks, and then to two months.
And that was all in July. The darkest of July.
And from there until October, they stayed like that, not enemies, but complete strangers. Even when school started in September, and even when they shared all of their classes together, they were strangers. Like they never said “I love you” blankly to each other before.
She felt happy, kind of, when they reunited again on October the 12th, the same day they first became friends one year ago, making it their anniversary. It was cute, Dan was happy again, he got closer to Phil now, but she wished it was the same Phil back in June.
*
“He told me he missed me today,” Dan says quietly. “As a joke, I think.”
“In class?” Louise asks.
“Yeah,” Dan nods. “He said it had been two periods since he hadn’t seen me.” Dan giggles.
Louise laughs. “He’s so silly.”
“He’s like that with everyone.”
“He’s not like that with me.”
“He’s still not in love with me, Louise.” Dan says. “Don’t try.”
“I know.” She turns away. “I know he has a boyfriend.”
*
January is so cold. So freezing. So snowy and rainy and it’s Dan’s favorite month. He thinks it reflects him, calm, relaxing and breezy. It gives me sweet vibes, and even though Dan is a human, he doesn’t really feel cold in January.
You don’t shy away from things you love.
January is also the anniversary of Dan crushing on Phil, one year anniversary.
Because Dan knows he doesn’t have a chance with Phil, and because Phil has a boyfriend, Dan thinks he should confess to Phil. Not because he thinks Phil would turn out to be secretly in love with Dan back, only angels can hope, but because he feels like he should just let it out. He feels like he should put Phil in his place after he confesses to him, to make Phil stop being nice with Dan, so Dan can stop getting false ideas. He wants Phil to feel creeped out by Dan, and as much as Dan would hate it, he wants Phil to stop being nice to him, so Dan can finally stop falling for nothing.
Maybe if you let go of that only thing that’s keeping you alive, you will suffer so badly in the process of dying, but you are going to find yourself, and feel alive again.
*
Loving you was young,
And wild,
And free.
Loving you was cool,
And hot,
And sweet.
Loving you was sunshine, safe and sound, A steady place to let my defenses, But loving you had consequences.
- Consequences, Camila Cabello
*
“I told him.” Dan says.
“What did he say?” Louise asks.
Dan looks up, at the dim sky, dotted with pretty stars, like those little freckles on Phil’s face. “He said he still loved me as a best friend.”
“And?”
“And my plan failed.” Dan sighs. “He’s still nice to me. He’s not creeped out by me.”
“Shit.” Louise mutters.
“Yeah,” Dan laughs. “Shit.”
Louise just looks at Dan sadly, feeling sorry for her best friend, the one who’s done nothing to her but make her happy and cheerful. Who made her laugh every single second.
That was back in June only. When Dan was happy himself.
“You know,” Dan says after a while, “Even if he did like me back, I don’t think I would’ve dated him.”
“Oh,” Louise says. “Why not?”
“Because I would’ve only dated Phil in June.”
*
“Phil,” Dan moans, fingers burried deep in Phil’s hair, as Phil licks a long stripe from Dan’s collarbone till beneath his chin. One of of Phil’s hand travels up and down Dan’s side, sending electric shocks to Dan’s body, the other holding Dan’s jaw carefully, mouth still attached to his neck.
Dan arches his back, a loss of contact between his skin and the smooth duvet. Phil reattaches his lips from Dan’s neck to his lips, softly biting on Dan’s bottom lip. It feels so good, everything Phil is doing to Dan, and everything he’s done to Dan, feels so fucking good.
“Phil,” Dan says breathlessly, breaking the kiss. “What are you doing? You don’t love me.”
“Shh,” Phil says softly, his thumb creasing Dan’s bottom lip. “Wake up,” he says, kissing Dan’s jaw. “Dan, wake up.”
“Dan!”
Dan jolts awake, covered completely in sweat, not only his face is red, but his entire body as well. He looks around, gets his phone from besides his pillow and checks the time. It’s only 3:29 A.M in the morning. He throws his phone away, and sighs, covers his face with both of his hands and starts tearing up. Why is this, all of this happening to him? Why does his heart react and feel differently than what his body and mind want?
He hates this, he hates it so much. He hates the fact that only his heart is inlove with Phil, not the rest of Dan. He hates that his heart is the reason he was dragged into this mess. He hates the fact that his heart is still attached to June Phil, the dead Phil.
*
Phil: Lmao screw it
Phil: I don’t really care
Dan: okay
Dan: can I tell you something?
Phil: Yes sure
Dan: please don’t get mad, and keep in mind that this was kind of a hard decision
Phil: What is it Dan
Dan: idk how to say it phil it’s so hard
Phil: Just say it Dan
Dan: i think we need to end this. our friendship i mean. i know we had a really great one, but u know why im doing this phil. i can’t do it anymore. i can’t keep on thinking that there will ever be a chance, even though we both know this is a lie.
Dan: please know this isn’t somethig im happy about. but it’s for the best.
Phil: It’s okay Dan, I get it
Phil: I know why you’re doing this
Phil: And yes you are right. It’s best for both of us
Dan: thanks
Dan: um
Dan: any last words i guess?
Phil: No
Phil: Just bye
Dan: me too
Dan: okay
Dan: bye
Phil: Unfollow me on both of my accounts
Phil: Bye
Dan: okay.
Seen.
*
“I ended it.”
“Finally?”
“Finally.” Dan smiles at Louise.
*
“I think I have a new crush,” Dan says suddenly, biting into his salad.
“But Phil?” She asks in shock.
“It’s okay to fancy two people.” He says. “I’m still more madly in love with him though.”
“I know.” She says. “Who is he? Your crush?”
“It’s a girl, actually. She’s cute I guess.” Dan says in disinterest. “Her name is Sidney.”
“Oh,” Louise says. “Have I met her before?”
“I don’t think so, no,” Dan mutters. “She’s American by the way.”
“Is she in our school?”
“No.”
“Okay. Good luck, Dan.” Louise says, the lies flying out of her mouth circling around her statement. She knows Dan is not over Phil, not in the slightest of bit, and she doesn’t think he is going to be any time soon.
You can’t get over someone you cried thinking about more than you smiled thinking about.
*
Dan intertwines his fingers with hers, as their walking together on the beach. “I think I have something to tell you,”
“Say it,” Sidney says softly besides him.
“Let’s date,” he spits out. “I think we look cute.”
“Really?!” She exclaims from happiness.
“Yeah, really,” he say, his mouth going very dry, and his stomach twisting from the dislike of the idea.
“Of course, Dan!” She says as she laughs. “I can’t wait to have our first kiss,” she blushes.
He looks at her. “Me too,” he smiles, a fake and a disgusted smile. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Poor girl. Dan starts to feel a bit guilty.
*
When you’re so madly and obsessively in love with a person, their flaws and mistakes would never make you think any less of them, because their perfections and pretty features have you too distracted to glance for a split second at the bad side. Even if you did, the good side is more than enough to make up for the bad one.
Not that you’d care about their flaws anyways.
You love them, you love them so much it hurts so much when you see them being nice with other people. Even though they could only be friends to them,
Just like you were to them.
Seeking attention from them is suddenly your goal everyday now, you just want to show them you have less flaws as well, and you’ve got perfections to show them that nobody has ever really seen them in you before.
But inside you’re insecure and you know it.
And when you’re distant away from them, you might not miss them, themselves, which you might think is a good thing, but you miss the memories.
You miss when they made you feel like there’s a reason to be alive.
You lock yourself up in the school’s bathroom the day you find out they are dating your close friend, and you’re not crying because you’re jealous, but you’re crying because you wish you were emotionless, heartless and cold hearted, so you would stop sobbing in the bathroom, your sobs muffled with your hands, too embarrassed of the fact if by chance a person heard you, they’d find out you are weak.
You were never strong anyways.
And because of all of that, there’s no way in hell you’d ever get over them, no matter how attractive another human being occupies your heart forcefully, your heart will always and forever bleed from the pain that they caused, not the occupier.
Because your heart is weak as well, and that is a matter of a fact.
*
Loving you was dumb,
dark,
and cheap,
Loving you will still take shots at me,
Loving you was sunshine, but then it poured,
And I lost so much more than my senses,
'Cause loving you had consequences.
- Consequences, Camila Cabello
*
“Are you sure he loves you back?” Morgan asks.
“I am, but why?” Loren asks with concern.
Morgan smiles and takes Loren’s hand between hers. “I don’t want what happened to my dad to happen to you.”
“What happened to your dad?”
“He fell for a man, whom never gave him his heart back,” Morgan begins. “For two years straight. That man was dad’s best friend, and loved dad as a best friend, but dad was fallimg for him without his control.
The man was so nice with dad, it seemed so hard for him to stop falling, because dad is sensitive, so sensitive. He thought he was going to marry that man, and live with him. That man even jokingly said he was going to adopt a cat, because dad loves cats more, and a dog because that man loved dogs more. But  dad believed him, and thought he was serious. That man would stare at dad in class for five straight minutes, and dad would pretend he’s seeing things, because he knew that that man was not in love with him. That man had dated and slept with almost all of dad’s friends, but dad himself. But dad loved them all equally still, because they didn’t know, they didn’t know that the reason he would be crying every while in the school’s bathrooms were because of that man they slept with. One time my dad and that man broke their friendship, after they were so close, and told each other "I love you” every single hour, that man replaced my dad with another guy, to be his best friend instead of dad at that time. Even when they reunited after it, that guy was still in dad’s place. But dad didn’t blame him, because that guy was also dad’s friend, and he was amazing.
Dad fooled himself always, and a lot, and thought he was over that man, and even married my mom, thinking he was going to forget that man that way. My dad has lost everything since he lost that man, Loren, a few years after he graduated from high school, he lost his only best friend at that moment, her name was Louise, I believe. The only person who was in his life besides his family was my mom. Even after 15 years now, I know my dad doesn’t love my mom. He buys her flowers and gifts, but he doesn’t kiss her goodbye or good morning. He doesn’t hold her in his sleep. He doesn’t touch her in public, he even barely ever touches her inside our house.“
Morgan wipes her eyes, realising she was crying the entire time, and her vision clears, she sees Loren’s swelled red eyes. They both smile at each other sadly.
"Every love song still reminds my dad of that man. Every romantic movie still reminds my dad of that man, and every love story in a book he reads reminds my dad of that man. Everything reminds my dad of Phil, Phil Lester.
Make sure he’s the one, Loren. Make sure you don’t go through what my dad went through. My dad hadn’t seen him in 21 years, Loren. I don’t think you want that.”
Morgan wipes Loren’s tears away from her cheeks, and then wipes her own.
“Make sure he will love you like my dad loved Phil.”
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mirkwoodshewolf · 7 years ago
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Chapter 3; My transformation
Alrighty so this will be the last chapter I do because I gotta turn in my hw but I may post some more chapters later today but this is it for now, you guys don’t have to wait long for either this story or the sequel since both are technically done. I do NOT own any of the pictures or video that you will see, I am using them for entertainment reasons only, they belong to their respectable owners.
Warning: Human and animal experiementation which I do NOT support, it is inhuman and vile, torture, pushed to the limit, angst, and eventual animal death.
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When I woke up, I found myself in a tiny cell-like cage.  I slowly sat up and looked around to see nothing else inside the cell with me just the stone cold ground and the cold air whipping at my skin making me shiver uncontrollably.  It was then I heard someone opening the doors to my cell and soon two men wearing the same black outfits like the men who killed my tribe gripped me underneath my arms and dragged me out of the cell and took me to another room.
Frightened and confused I tried to struggle as best as I could and run away but their grip proved to be as tight as a python’s grip. 
Soon I was now in a room with tons and tons of different lab stuff.  There was also a steal table with straps and bonds on them for arms, legs, head and chest and unfortunately I was forced onto that table and strapped on tightly. I tried to fight back but a few men in white kept me down while the men in black continued to strap me down.
Once I was strapped in minus my head, I then took notice of a familiar figure in a square glass cage beside me.  His grey form pacing back and forth nervously as he whimpered and growled at the same time, I turned to him and I muttered.
“Grey”. At the sound of my voice, Grey stopped pacing and just kept his eyes on me as he whimpered and tried to get to me pawing at the cage.
“At last, you’re awake”. A voice said.  I saw Grey lower his head defensively as he snarled and I turned to see a man in a full white lab coat, he had on glasses, short blonde combed over hair and he looked a little stout as well as a bit short but he was still taller than me no mistake but compared to the soldiers and other men in white lab coats he was short. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t wake up”. His accent sounded a little funny but also thick as he spoke.
“Who are you?” I asked him hoarsely.
“A medicine man. I am here to make you better”. He said.
“But I’m not sick”.
“Oh I am afraid you are fraulein, but don’t worry I am here to make you feel all better”. He stated as he began to pet my long (h/c) hair.  I couldn’t help but get this creepy vibe from this man with glasses then without another word to me he turned to the other men in white and soon they surrounded me.
One of the men gripped my hair tightly making me cry out in pain while another man began to place the head strap around my forehead leaving me completely motionless.  It was then another man came up to me with needle and injected me in my neck.  I hissed out in pain and soon my body began to shut down.  But the scary part was that I was still aware of all that was going around me, I could still see, hear and feel what was happening around me, I just couldn’t move nor do anything about it.
It was then I was released and taken to sit down on a chair where a female in a lab coat came up and began cutting off all my hair.  Now I had never cut my hair back at the village I had allowed it to grow out all the way pass my back which would allow me, my mother or any of the other women back at the tribe to braid or style my hair in any way they wanted to, but now all those memories were being snipped away with each cut the woman was doing. Even when my hair was cut down to as short as it could be, she went ahead and shaved me till I had almost little to no hair left.
I was then branded on my right arm with name. BW23174611. After that I was then dragged back into my cell and thrown in there like I was trash.  Once the injection was starting to ware off, I curled up into a tight ball and wept softly wishing that my mom and dad would come and save me.
Meanwhile in another part of the facility the man who had brought me here Colonel Karpov stood looking over the facility and the Doctor who had claimed he was going to cure me walked up to Karpov and the Colonel asked.
“You are sure she is the one you need?”
“Yes, you brought me the right girl I needed to complete this project”. Karpov then fully faced the doctor and sneered.
“If I am wrong about you, if your project fails me one more time—”
“I can assure you Colonel. I will not fail you. After all did my father Arnim Zola not create the Winter Soldier to shape the fate for Hydra’s future? Unfortunately he died just before he could once again create a new project to really bring fear into the hearts of men, but I as his only son will complete what he couldn’t. For the world doesn’t fear machines, what they fear are Monsters. And my Bad Wolf project will be successful with this child”.
“You have one month” was all the Karpov stated before he walked away but not before Zola’s son Felix stated to him.
“Hail Hydra”. 
The next day I was once again dragged back into the same lab as before but this time I saw Grey forcefully being strapped down onto his stomach with tubes and wires injected into various parts of his back with his blood being sucked out of the tubes.  My eyes widened in horror at the sight of my friend like this and no one was doing anything about it to help him, just collecting is blood and mixing it with other stuff.
“Ahh Miss (y/n), are you ready to be cured?” The man with glasses stated as I was forcefully being strapped back down onto the metal table and he stood over me.
“Please, I just want to go home. I want to go home with Grey, we won’t tell anyone about this place we promise just please take us home” I begged to him almost to the point of crying. But my pleas fell on deaf ears as he only stated back to me.
“But if you leave, then you won’t get better my dear, you want to get better don’t you?”
“I already told you yesterday I’m not sick! I never was sick!” I maybe 8 years old but I know whenever I feel sick and right now the only thing I was feeling was anger, sorrow and fear all mixed into one. I just wanted to go home with Little Grey.  The doctor sighed solemnly and he said. 
“Fraulein I really did not want to use force but you leave me no choice. If you don’t allow me to help cure you, then we will kill your little friend over there while you sit there and watch”.  It was then my seat was forced upwards and I saw and heard several guns being cocked and aimed for Grey.  Grey snarled as my eyes turned to fear and I cried out
“No!”
“It’s your choice fraulein, you either cooperate, or your wolf pet dies, take your pick”.  I looked between him and Grey until I finally gave in.  I hung my head low and muttered sadly.
“You promise he won’t be hurt if I do this?”
“You have my word”.  With our agreed terms, my table was then forced back to its original position and I was forced into several tests throughout the rest of the day. 
First I was injected with another needle this time with a purplish liquid into my veins but when I didn’t know was that the mixture was Grey’s blood mixed with blue liquid that Hydra had used to create their super soldier serum.
Once it was done, my body suddenly felt like it was on fire.  My heart was pounding against my chest so fast and so hard it felt like it would burst out of me any second. My muscle’s burned from the inside out like someone was taking a hot iron and twisting it through my stomach as slow as possible.
I let out painful, agonizing screams but no one was there to hold me, no one was there to tell me that it was all going to be okay or to kiss my pain away, all they did was just back away from me and stare at me as I suffered in agony and had seizure after seizure. 
After what felt like an eternity of pain, I was forced out of the table and taken into a separate room.  It was big and soon coming out from the ground was wall after wall that soon formed into a maze.
“Now then Miss (y/n) there is some food hidden within this maze, if you can find it then the food’s all yours and one more additional thing, you have to rely only on your nose”. It was then the room went completely pitch black and I grew scared.
Though my body still felt like it was on fire I surprisingly managed to stand up but even as I tried to walk I had no idea where I was going even with my hands in front of me.  I would either keep falling down on my face, tripping over my own feet in the dark or end up missing a point where the maze would turn and end up losing my balance.  I don’t know how long I was in the dark for could’ve been a few minutes maybe even hours all I know was that I cried out.
“I can’t do it. I’m not smelling anything! Why am I even doing this? How does this cure me of my so called sickness?” When the lights suddenly came on my eyes burned like fire from the sudden light as the maze and the food which was just a few more feet away from me to my right disappear. 
When I took notice of the food I tried to run towards it but I was taken by two men in black and taken to another room.  This one had a variety of objects ranging from small glass cups to large tanks and cars.  When I was alone the doctor’s voice came out again just like the last time in the maze room.
“Now then (y/n). Here we have several objects for you, we’ll start you off small do you see that glass cup?”
“Yes….”
“All I want you to do it to place it in front of you on that table behind you and howl at it like a wolf and don’t stop until it breaks”.  Okay now I was confused as I placed it in front of me.
“What?”
“Do it or Grey dies”.  I flinched at his threat if I wanted Grey to live I was going to have to do this.  I took a deep breath as I stared at the cup in front of me then I let out the strongest howl I could.
I tried and tried repeatedly to make the glass break with my howls but nothing happened.  I would howl until I was faint and out of breath then I would try and do it again this time louder.  He even told me to try barking at it repeatedly but even with my strongest barks and howls those too failed.  I would keep going until my throat went hoarse and burned begging to be put on rest but I had to keep pushing myself to try and break the glass but I just couldn’t do it.
And you can only guess what happened after that? Yep I was taken to a different room dragged by my arms.  This time I was in a large field with a track but this time I wasn’t alone.  Held by a chain and muzzled was Little Grey trying to escape and run towards me the minute he caught my scent. I too tried to run towards him but the men holding me kept a strong grip on me as well.
“Release them both, let them unite with each other” the Doctor’s voice said.  It was then Grey was unmuzzled and released from his chain and I was put down on the ground as we ran towards each other.  Little Grey pounced on me and grunted lovingly as he licked and nuzzled underneath my chin while I nuzzled into his dark grey and black fur and wept softly.  “Now we shall begin the final test of the day,”
Grey turned to the doctor and snarled defensively as he stood in front of my protectively. His ears lowered back and teeth bared out.
“All I want to see is who would win in a race between you and your wolf friend”.  Grey stopped snarling then turned to me but turned back towards the doctor glaring at him.
“It would be him hands down, wolves can run faster than any human can run” I stated remembering how Chief Waya would tell me facts about the wolf and how they hunt and interact with each other.
“I just wish to see though, you both will run this track as fast as you can until I give out a small flash of light meaning stop, understand?” I looked down at Grey and he looked to me as I reached out for his fur and guided him to the start of the track field.
The doctor and the other men in white he had with him exited the room while the men in black guarded all the exits with their guns in case Grey and I got any ideas of trying to escape.
“On your mark, get set, go!” It was then Grey and I took off running.  Like I said, Grey easily surpassed me running, he took off like a bullet while I kept lagging behind.  
When he would pass over me again, he would turn to me and stay at my tail but I had to whisper to him to keep running forward and don’t slow down for my sake.  Because back home whenever Grey and I would have a race, he’d always come up on top and flaunt about it by bouncing around like he was mocking me but whenever I was so tired that I would collapse onto the ground, Grey wouldn’t brag but come over to me and help me sit up and just lay his head in my lap to comfort me while I was trying to catch my breath, or if I was lagging so far and couldn’t breathe, he’d let up and just run next to me.
Grey whimpered but he went on ahead as I suffered from intense muscle’s burning in my legs, my breathing becoming faint and my body just begging to stop and rest.  Suddenly I tripped over my feet and skidded across the track crying out in pain.  Grey immediately turned back towards me and came up to me whimpering and sniffing me.
I weakly turned revealing my leg to be all scrapped up and it was then Grey sniffed my knee and licked it lovingly trying to heal me like he would do for another wounded member of his pack. I was tired, hungry, thirsty, and I was in pain not just from my knee but everywhere else. If he was trying to cure me of being sick he’s doing a very, very, very, very horrible job at it. I feel like I’m just getting worse and worse with each test and I just couldn’t take it anymore!
Sensing my sadness, Grey nuzzled me and whimpered softly while I hugged him and wept into his neck.  His head nuzzled and rubbed behind my head as he tried to comfort me but sadly our moment was interrupted when the men in black came and chained him up by his neck and muzzled him once again.
“No. No Grey! Grey! No leave him alone! No! NOOOO!!!” I cried out as they forced Grey out of my arms and another pair of men picked me up and forced me out of the room. 
I was then thrown back into my cell and the doctor stood at my cell and sneered venomously.
“You failed me today (y/n)”.
“Some medicine man you are, all these tests aren’t making me better they’re making me worse! You call yourself a doctor but you don’t even know the first part of taking care of your patients! I’m tired. I’m hungry, I’m thirsty and I’m in pain from all these tests you’ve put me through! And now you took away my only friend away from me!”
“SILENCE!!!” His voice echoed throughout the hallway then the doctor sneered out as he got closer and closer to my cell forcing me to go up against the wall fearfully. “You and your wolf are not leaving this facility until I get what I want! And if you don’t cooperate not only will I kill your pet, I will kill you as well!”
“Why are you doing this?” I said to him.  He only smiled wickedly and stated.
“I work for an organization that will make the world a better place. The organization will take the world one step closer to a perfect paradise, unfortunately there are people who will stop at nothing to stop us. So to ensure our protection we need a monster. A monster that has struck fear into the hearts of men for centuries in movies and folklore. We as the researchers of Hydra tend to recreate the legend of “The Big, Bad Wolf””.  It was at that moment my heart sank.
The Bad Wolf was what drew the imagination of man into thinking that wolves were nothing more than mindless killers that will kill any human or child on sight. The legend drew humans to believe that wolves needed to be terminated and put to extinction once and for all, and for a time it did work that was until some good humans brought them back into the world, but even still they are hunted for their fur, meat or just for the fun of it and it mainly goes towards the latter of the fun of the hunt.
“No. You can’t do this!”
“I’m afraid fraulein we already have, and we won’t stop these tests until you become that legend. Sleep well Bad Wolf” it was then he walked out laughing wickedly leaving me to cower in my cell in fear. 
For weeks Grey and I were submitted to the same tests over and over again, they would take his blood, force him to run and train me until the point of exhaustion and when he didn’t cooperate, the men in black would beat him until almost death and leave him there to suffer in his wounds.  
I was refused any right to see Grey unless it was training wise and if I would even try to touch or hug him, my spiked collar I had received on my second day of training would shock me and wouldn’t stop until I was at least a few feet away from Grey.
For hours until the point of exhaustion I would be forced to train beyond my 8 year old limit and I would either collapse of starvation or exhaustion and when I didn’t cooperate, I was beaten until I could stand back up and got at it again.
It felt like I was in Hell suffering from the cruelty of man and I was their prized animal who only received treats when I could barely move just to keep me alive other than that I was never fed or given water. 
But one day would change everything forever. 
Felix Zola’s deadline was fast approaching in just 3 days and my body still refused to change into what he wanted the most.  He was running out of patience, he knew Karpov would be coming in three days to see if Hydra’s Bad Wolf was ready and he couldn’t show Hydra an empty handed dream and he refused to shame his father’s dream of creating the perfect weapon that could even make their prized Winter Soldier tremble in fear. 
Well another day of testing I went to as I was dragged into the lab, I saw Little Grey on the table lying on his side, I thought he was asleep at first but as I looked closer at him I couldn’t see him breathing.  There was also no more tubes sticking out of him and his straps were taken off of him leaving him with only his scars and wounds. He didn’t even bother to look up at me knowing that I come here every single day at the same time. 
It was at that moment I refused to believe, my only family left, my bestest friend in the whole wide world, the wolf I’ve raised since he was a pup my Little Grey was dead.
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“Grey, Grey. Wake up Grey! Wake up! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!!!! AHHHH!!!!” My body suddenly began to feel like it was on fire as I lunged forward and cried out in pain.
“Something’s going on!” I heard one of the men in white say.
“Her blood pressure is off the charts!”
“Pulse is dropping fast!”
“I’m getting kidney and liver failures!” As I kept screaming in agony from this immense pain, it was then Zola observed me from the upper levels.
“Strip her and get her into a cage now!” He cried out. 
 It was then my lab dress was forcefully ripped off leaving my completely naked and I was then put in Grey’s old cage and it was there my body began changing.
As my screams went silent, my eyes suddenly changed from my normal (e/c) to wolf gold. My teeth were slowly growing out into long sharp canine fangs, my nails were growing long and black as I also notice black hair growing out from me.  My screams soon turned to snarls and growls as my nose extended outward into a muzzle, a Wolf’s muzzle.
I kept thrashing and hunching myself forward like I was going to puke my body still kept changing as my hands turned to paws, my skin turned to fur and my facial features became more wolf like. The scientists’ all just stared in horror as my transformation was almost complete and Zola was the one most amazed at my transformation.
It was finished.
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In my place stood a very large black and grey wolf with eyes so black they weren’t even there.  Large fangs baring out angrily that gleamed like the moon’s rays. Large paws that paced back and forth, if a grown man were to stand before me, I would reach up to his chest in height but easily overpower him in a flash. 
It was done. Hydra had finally created their prized pet.  They recreated the most feared legend known to man, and that Legend was me. 
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redfreesias03 · 5 years ago
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Sugar pianist
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“Melting sugar candy, a pianist who shouldn't be there. Drowning in the sound of fortissimo, let me forget all sensation.”
OR: A girl meets a mysterious, six-fingered pianist who seems to know her from a past life and immediately decides to go with him despite (maybe because of?) all the murdery vibes being given out.
nagaku utsukushii REESU ni mi wo yudanete kitsui biyaku no you na toki ga sugiru calando hiroi yashiki no oku no virtuoso no heya furui gakubachi no shashin shiroi shoujo
Succumbing to the long, beautiful lace Time like a strong aphrodisiac passes by, calando A virtuoso's room, inside a large mansion A girl of white in the photo of the old picture frame
marude kagami no you na detail koe wo ushinau katagoshi ni 「natsukashii」 to warau are wa watashi? sou ja nai demo wakaranai nee    naze naiteiru no?
The level of detail is just like looking in a mirror Over a speechless shoulder You say "How nostalgic!" with a laugh Is that me? No, it isn't, but I don't understand Hey, why are you crying?¹
kieteiku ritardando kaichuudokei wo kowashi decorate allegretto no mori wo kakeru senshoku wo tomerarenai
A fading ritardando Smashing the pocket watch to decorate the floor Running through an allegretto forest I cannot stop being dyed in color
nagaredasu ano senritsu anata kara wa nigerarenai jellybeans ni umoreteiku shuuchaku wo kobamenai waza to demo kurushimasetai
That melody that flows out– I can't escape from you Buried in jellybeans I'm unable to refuse this attachment Even if it's on purpose, I want you to make me suffer
hibiku neiro ni sasoware deatta delicato sono hitomi wa watashi wo mou shitteita tsumabiku amai egao iki wo koroshi otoshita tebukuro yogitta kioku tashika ni ano toki sou sasayaita 「osokatta ne, EMIRIA」 to。
Lured by the color of the notes ringing out, I met you, delicato Your eyes already knew me Your sweet, plucked smile stole my breath away Dropped gloves, a flash of a memory– I'm certain, at that time, yes, you murmured "You're late, Emilia."
roppon yubi no himitsu dare mo anata wo shiranai manekarete shimau hayaku koko wo sarou kaerimichi wa dokodemo shuuchaku wo kobamenai
A six-fingered secret Nobody knows you You offer me an invitation despite myself Let's leave this place quickly, I'll go back with you anywhere I'm unable to refuse this attachment
mata nagaredasu ano senritsu kanpeki na gakufu wo tsumiageteiku arpeggio ni makikomarete shinshoku wo sakerarenai
Once more That melody that flows out Builds further on a perfect score Swallowed up in its arpeggios I cannot avoid corrosion
toketeiku konpeitou iru hazu no nai PIANISUTO fortissimo no oto ni obore kanshoku wo wasuresou
Melting sugar candy A pianist who shouldn't be there Drowning in the sound of fortissimo Let me forget all sensation
waza to demo kurushimasete akai yubi ga koboreochiru mayakashi de shiboritsukeraretai
Even if it's on purpose, make me suffer It spills over and falls on your red fingers I want to be smothered by your deceptions
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¹This is a vague line that can either be “Hey, why are you (the pianist) crying?” or “Hey, why am I (the female narrator) crying?” and I translated it as the former because this song is already creepy and dark enough without it being a mutually tortured relationship but the latter is probably more valid.
This song uses various musical terms in Italian that actually coordinate quite well with the lyrics, so for the non-musically inclined: calando=quietening/dying away (volume gets softer and tempo gets a little slower) virtuoso=a highly-skilled musician (in this case, pianist) ritardando=speed of music is getting slower allegretto="a little bit joyful", a light-hearted "springy" sound (but still a little restrained as opposed to a full-on allegro) delicato=music played "delicately" arpeggio=notes of a chord played in order, either up or down, (Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is a famous example) fortissimo=very loud volume (music at this point has generally reached its peak)
Also, the “perfect score” mentioned in the song is a perfect musical score (written piece of music).
Finally, since colorpointe are a ballet-themed group, this song samples Tchaikovsky’s famous theme of Swan Lake.
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batslime · 7 years ago
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So on Circus of the Dead ( now that I’ve actually watched it )
Content warnings ahoy for lowly-to-moderately detailed discussions of acts including rape, torture, murder, cheating, ableism, reproductive violence, cannibalism, necrophillia, and general violence. That’s right, all that in more in one clown movie! Also pretty long.
 I've talked about this briefly but as a sake of an example, even if he tortures them Pennywise isn't genuinely "evil"..... it literally exists to consume, it was created that way, it's not BETTER but humans are like day-old ants to this timelessly old entity. I don't know if I can really even find the focus on preying on mostly children since it's easier prey for it, and in nature, the young aren't spared. Because Pennywise ISN'T human, it's a primal beast that far PREDATES humanity. It only tortures them because it says it makes them taste better, and it feeds off their fears, not their bodies. It doesn't kill just to kill, and I'm kind of even on the fence about being able to call it malice. IT isn't good but I still wouldn't consider IT evil. This stuff is genuinely just its nature.
 Papa Corn from Circus of the dead is what an EVIL character is. Papa Corn kidnaps, rapes, physiologically and physically tortures people before murdering them, sodomizing their corpses, and mutilating them, or letting one of his other clown goons eat it. And he does it all gleefully, he LITERALLY gets off when meditating it, he jokes it off because he doesn't even see it as more than a day's work ( "What are you gonna DO to her?" "I'm gonna do what I always do. I'm gonna rape her, I'm gonna slit her throat, I'm gonna feed whats left to my clowns." He starts this reply out shrugging, and uses a tone talking about his plans for the day going on a walk or mowing the lawn ). 
 One thing early in the film that fades in comparison to all this but that still sticks out to me is when Don, the main character who's held hostage by Papa Corn and the clowns at the expense of his family, is backstage with them after having his seat drawn for a prize. He doesn't actually suspect anything is wrong yet, but Papa Corn already slipped in a chipper "I'm going to kill your ENTIRE family!" that the clown brushed off as a mishearing, and is putting off creepy vibes. So in his discomfort Don makes a short joke about one of the other clowns played by a little person. Papa Corn goes off on a little passive-aggressive rant at this, using language not only that would be considered "politically correct" but actual medical terms. "Ah! I see, you've made a JOKE at my coworker's expense based on the fact that he's OTHERED from you! Well, I will INFORM you that Mr. Jumbo suffers from a genetic hormonal deficiency called DWARFISM. However, his sense of humor is quite intact, so I'm sure he'll still be able to appreciate the joke." That's heavily paraphrased, but what he says here is undeniably recognizing and chastising Don for mocking somebody's disability and going to the length of teaching him about it. This is even what I'd call a very good way to point out bigotry in a way to not start a scene, had it been in earnest- because Papa's next line after Don apologizes and tells him shamefully he didn't consider how disrespectful it would be Papa says "But he's a dwarf, so who gives a flying fuck what he thinks." And then forces out a very theatrical guffaw straight into Don's face.
 Again, that bit is insignificant to all the shit that comes later in the movie ( and even some scenes beforehand ) that this character isn't "craaaaazy" or just saying and doing whatever, he's FULLY aware of right and wrong even to an extent a lot of people in our society aren't; the thing is he really DOESN'T care and really DOES find dehumanization and faking people out, misleading them to think they're safe or he's not evil, funny.
 This is kind of solidified again in a pretty early scene where he's broken into Don's house and caught his wife, Tiffany. Tiffany is screaming "let me go! I wanna go!", and Papa Corn actually puts on this calmed down facade and the panicky music stops, in a now very average tone, "Oh. You wanna go?" "Y-yeah, let me go!" "Oh. You want to go. Well, I'm feeling generous today." He actually SHOOS Tiffany away, doing so again when she glances back several times in disbelief, before abruptly screaming and running after her again. He then laughs as he waves his crotch around in her face, sticks his gloved fingers up HERS to scold her on her cheating, then slicing her neck open in the following scene. This really solidifies two things: 1, Papa Corn really does just fucking love giving his victims a tiiiny bit of hope then just yanking it away from them, and 2, the writer is SOMEHOW aware of some horror tropes and manages to challenge them in a genuinely funny way, just to be totally unconscious of all the others he shoves into the rest of the movie. 
 And what makes this a BAD character ( not a bad person, he's already that and more ) is that despite practically BOASTING all this, when his hostage who he's forced into a night of watching him do all this shoots him at the first chance when the two are finally alone and Papa Corn is about to violate another random teenage girl who got dragged into this shit at the blink of an eye, Papa Corn pulls this "you're just like me" bullshit that I hate sooo much.
 "Don. You shot me. Were you just going to leave me here to die? You tried to kill me... I'm so proud of you." Nothing makes a villain I hate more, and not in a good way, than being untouchable. I hate that he's written to still be smug and have the upper hand even after taking bullets through the chest ( and somehow lives, presumably without going to the hospital? To my further infuriation ), I hate when villains who are so PROUD of their villainy until somebody finally raises a hand against them try to use the "but I'm not that bad, because you are too". T's SO lazy, it's SO out of character, specifically for this guy who laughs in people's faces as he skins their face or watches his goons gut a pregnant woman or fuck a guy's wife's mutilated head in front of him while he talks about how she'd been cheating on him.
 Papa Corn is a villain who's a prime example of a horrible, irredeemable, inhumanly EVIL person, who does what he wants not just with no regard to others, but to revel on their agony on every level he can possibly inflict. It's far, far overdone and this makes the film cheesy and almost even LAUGHABLE despite all the awful content, but this is what makes him a good VILLAIN- somebody who IS evil, not just really doing what they were made to. 
 And then he defends himself as "not that bad, because who isn't?", which shows total incompetence on the writer's part, and that that entire concept of what's actually evil about his character has gone totally over the guy's head, that it really is just all shit that he wanted to film people doing.
 It's not the low budget, poor sound and picture quality, the admittedly ( slightly ) better than expected writing, and mostly amateur cast that makes Circus of the Dead a bad film, to me, it's all that shit. It's that all in all the "psych challenging message" here that it tries to play is that even people who admit they're evil and have fun doing it aren't ACTUALLY evil because everyday average people who do good and bad as part of their life do bad things sometimes too, but they're still going to suffer at the hands of the evil-not-evil characters BECAUSE of their wrongdoings.
 All in all, after everything I've heard about Circus of the Dead, it didn't really challenge the low expectations I had for it, nor did it challenge all the bad horror/ "mindfuck" genre tropes it set itself up for. It feels like a chore to watch with little to no reward ( Don and his whole family DO all end up dead, and the whole clown gang gets away more or less unharmed. A 2nd one is confirmed to already be written but I really hope for at least the sake of realistic forces at least one of the clowns are killed in the next one ). If I do have anything to praise, it's definitely Papa Corn's snd Pepe the mime's designs, I really do love them and it makes up for the other clowns being ass ugly and tacky. Quite a few of Papa Corn's lines really did make me laugh too, when he's not the filthy example of the lowest form of shat you can still call a man, and even admittedly when he's killing actual assholes, he is pretty funny in his total indiscreetness. 
As a sidenote though, genuinely, HUGE props to Bill Oberst Jr. for his sensational portrayal of this role. I've read a lot of reviews before seeing the film describing him as having a "switch" needed for playing Papa Corn's fickle and unpredictable sense of calm before the storm, and I agreed even just seeing the trailers, but there are some parts of the film it really feels so RAW and it kind of yanks you around in a sense. I've seen interviews with him and he's such a down to earth, proudly and happily religious guy with so much obvious humility and sense of bettering himself, it's kind of awe-striking hearing him talk about how he looked through the script and said "I NEED to play this". He's a phenomenal actor and even if not necessarily for this film I hope recognition for him skyrockets.
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viralhottopics · 8 years ago
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‘Rugrats’ Characters Ranked By Betchiness
For this weeks TBT, were going to take a look into the lives of the most influential baby friend group of the ’90s. Im talking, of course, about the Rugrats and, most importantly, how betchy or not betchy each Rugrat is. Is it polite to rank toddlers who have not yet learned to speak based on arbitrary social categories? Probs not. Is it fun? Fucking duh.
1. Cynthia
Heres what we know about Cynthia: 1) Shes a really cool dancer, 2) Shes got cool moves (as long as you move her arms and legs), 3) Shes movin out on the floor, 4) Shes ready to break some eggs (make an omelette Cynthia!) How do we know all this? We know it from her workout tape, which I am shocked has not been sampled by Avicii or Kanye or someone yet (dont listen unless you want this song stuck in your head all day).
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Cynthias resting bitch face is on point, and she manages to look great in her belted orange dress despite the fact that she is missing of her hair. Cynthia didnt say or do shit for all 9 seasons of, yet she is still one of the shows most memorable characters, and it is her ability to do no work and remain popular that has earned her the number one slot.
2. Susie Carmichael
Susie Carmichael is cool AF. Did Susie need to appear in every episode? No. Susie had other shit to do. Shell check in every once in awhile to see what the babies are up to, teach them about Kwanzaa and generally let them know whats good, before going back next door to hang with her real friends. Whenever she does come over, the babies flip out because theyre like, obsessed with her (everyone is). Shes also the only person who has absolutely no time for Angelicas bullshit, probably because Susie has better hair, a better outfit, and wears a cool red bangle, which is more than Angelica could ever hope to have. Susie is three, which makes her older and wiser than most of the babies and probably accounts for the sheer lack of fucks she has to give. Did Susie get her ass lost in the woods when Dil was born? Fuck no, she was chilling in Paris getting turnt up with her older sister! Did Susie almost die with the Rugrats in EuroReptarland? No bitch, I just told you shes already been to Paris! Susie Carmichael always comes correct, and thats what earned her the number two spot.
3. Tommy Pickles
Tommy Pickles is the star of the show, which virtually guarantees him betchiness. Tommy also has the whole dressing like a slut thing down and spends all nine seasons of wearing nothing but a crop top and booty shorts. His outfit never stops him from leading his friend group on adventures, and you know once he can talk and operate a phone hed be the person managing the group chat, suggesting what clubs and parties to go to, making sure everyone is getting the free shots they deserve, and seeing you into your Uber at the end of the night. The thing holding Tommy back from the top spot is that hes too fucking nice. Hell let any baby with shit in their diaper come hang with him (cough CHUCKIE cough), and that means his friend group is riddled with duds (HI CHUCKIE). Be a little more discerning about your friend group, Thomas, and maybe well see you up at the top with Cynthia.
4. Angelica Pickles
We cant talk about Cynthia without getting to her BFF and designated Rugrat BSCB, Angelica Pickles. Angelica spent most of torturing the dumb babies (who were really only like a year younger than her) and making them miserable, yet still somehow being invited to all the group hangs, play dates, and brunches. Angelica spends a lot of time telling everyoneincluding the adultshow beautiful she is and is absolutely desperate for attention, probably because her rich AF parents never pay attention to her. Shes your friend who cries and starts shit at the club anytime she feels like shes not the hottest girl there (and she frequently is notthanks Cynthia!) Also girl, lay off the cookies.
5. Charlotte Pickles
Charlotte Pickles is Angelicas mom who is literally always on her phone. Like, always. Even in a time before cellphones could fit in your pocket, Charlotte is always on the phone with her assistant Jonathan (Cheban? We dont know) and ignores basically every member of her family to do so. When phones dont work, Charlotte straight up makes her husbands brother carry a fax machine around so she doesnt miss any important texts. Charlotte alternates between a power suit and workout gear, always accompanied by an Ariana Grande level high ponytail. In , Charlotte displays clear signs of some seriously botched cosmetic surgery, which is what has dropped her down to slot #5. Never try to cut corners on botox, Charlotte! Itll always go wrong. Honestly, Jonathan should have told you that.
6. Grandpa Lou
Grandpa Lou is another character who gives absolutely zero fucks and is down to hang. Much like Corinne, Lou loves naps and often falls asleep halfway through finishing his stories. Despite his old age, Lou is still a fuckboy, and is often seen hitting on women and generally trying to find ways to get laid. If had taken place in 2017, Lou would have definitely had a Tinder and that Tinder definitely would have had a picture of him from 20+ years earlier. Lou is eventually successful in finding a new wife, Lulu, who he moves in with pretty fast after they start hooking up (risky choice, Lou!) Outside of his strangely active love life, Lou also has many frenemies, including his own cousin Miriam; his bowling rival, Billy Strike Maxwell; and some other wrestling guy named Conan McNulty. This proves that when push comes to shove, Lou is just not very popular and kind of an old perv. Sixth place for you, Lou.
7. Phil And Lil Deville
Okay Im sorry, but Phil and Lil are fucking gross. Their diet is a mess, always eating fucking worms and mud and shit. Do you know how many calories are in a ball of worms, kids? Do you? Seriously. There is a episode where Phil and Lil drink straight-up toilet water. What the fuck is that? Is that something babies do? Phil and Lil also have no creativity when it comes to fashion, and instead just dress alike every damn day in greena color that is flattering on exactly 0 people. Their mom is a hardcore feminist, which is cool, but maybe the twins have been empowered to do a little bit too much. Like sure, Lil can do whatever she wants with her life, but maybe eating a giant pile of shit should not be one of those things? Idk. Seventh place.
8. Stu Pickles
Good Lord is Stu Pickles a sad man. Seriously. You have a beautiful house, two healthy babies, a cool Jewish wife who has managed to maintain her pre-baby body, and youre still fucking complaining! Look around, asshole! You have all this shit despite the fact that your dumb ass hasnt invented one successful toy. In fact, you havent even invented one toy that didnt explode and almost kill your entire family. You are literally #blessed but youre too blind to see it! The only thing keeping you from the bottom slot is this meme which, in the current political climate, is legit all of our lives right now:
9. Chuckie Finster
No. Just no. Im sorry, but again, its gonna be a hard pass on Chuckie. Here are all the things Chuckie would have to improve if he ever even wanted to hope to be betchy. 1) His voice, which is terrible. Do you have a cold, Chuckie? Go to the damn doctor. Its the ’90s. Hillary Clinton has passed the State Childrens Health Insurance Plan. You can go to the doctor. Go. 2) Grow. A. Pair. Dude. You know when Chuckie gets older hes gonna be your friend who calls the cops on his own party for getting out of hand. Hes gonna be that guy who side eyes you for doing molly at Coachella, making weird comments under his breath about how you never know whats in that stuff and generally bringing bad vibes despite the fact that Beyonc is literally pregnant and dancing in front of you. 3) The hair is a problem. Comb it. Dye it. Do something. Its a problem. 4) Tie your fucking shoes, dude. 9th place.
10. Chas Finster
There was no character on television from 1991-2004 that was less betchy than Chas Finster. He has all of Chuckies problems, but he is a fucking adult which means he has literally no excuse for being such a narc. Chas seems to be suffering from whatever health problems are affecting his son, and despite being a bureaucrat, apparently has no ability to get his ass to a doctor either. Like many sad old nerds, Chas must travel to a foreign country to find a wife, eventually convincing a way-too-hot-for-him Japanese woman to fly to America and be his Melania. Chas also has a double-Hitler mustache, which is 100% unacceptable, no matter what decade you live in. Sorry, Chas. Last place.
Read more: http://ift.tt/2mavumx
from ‘Rugrats’ Characters Ranked By Betchiness
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amuelle · 5 years ago
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Hello 2020…
I don’t believe in love at first sight…I do however believe in love at first click.
First click: the moment you realise that you just enjoy being around someone, you don’t need anything else other than their presence to be happy.
23:00 I caught myself mesmerised. The world was absolutely still as if it was the witching hour. Looking out over a packed dance floor in a dimly lit night club I knew I was in trouble. He was drunk dancing with this big goofy smile on his face. Everything that had mattered before this moment didn’t matter anymore. All my deal breakers, insecurities and doubts had vanished. I had stopped thinking rationally days ago. Rules didn’t exist anymore. All I knew was I was here and it didn’t matter how I got there. The walls had crumbled and I couldn’t remember the last time I had any sense. I knew this feeling. I had felt it once before. It scared me and I wanted to contain myself but I couldn’t. I was caught up and it was incredible.
It had been four days since I felt the sense slowly leave my body. He had forced me to take his number and I had no intention to use it but something told me to. He love bombed me day and night. Video calls, check in texts, random calls two minutes apart and we always played you hang up first. I thought it was all in my head. Till the night he was on my stoep and said he wanted to be with me then asked me what I wanted and I rolled my eyes and responded “You”.
The first time we met I had been offish and bruised his ego before I caved because he was persistent. He asked me where I lived and like the idiot I was clearly becoming I told him. He called to say he was coming but got lost and I had to fetch him. There, wearing daisy dukes on what felt like the hottest day of the summer, sweating through my t-shirt. I went to find a man at the Pot Shack on the corner. He was on the phone when I found him and my whole body froze when I saw him.  I had forgotten how tall he was. He got off the phone, apologised for not bringing me any chocolate but hoped that the bottle of wine he brought would suffice. He grabbed my little hand and from the pit of my stomach came the stupid butterflies. That was the last moment when I had sense.
I had over thought it six ways from Sunday and today was Tuesday. I was heading to Afro Punk with my girlfriends. He had sat in my living room as I showered, ironed my dress and put on my makeup. He had been pleasant and got along with every visitor who passed through my apartment that day. The time came for us to leave and head to the first stop on route to the concert. There he would meet more friends and cuddle up with me on the couch and express repeatedly that I should have tried to convince him harder that he should get tickets for tonight.  The thought to change my plans for the night crossed my mind. I didn’t budge. If he was worth it, really worth it then I could live my life unapologetically and he would be right there if here is where he wanted to be.
The time came for us to part ways, he had already confessed that the reason he hadn’t left and endured the torture of 5 women getting ready to go out was because there was nowhere he would have rather been. He just wanted to be with me and it was a ploy to spend time with me. He offered to pick me up when I was done but since my original plan hadn’t included him I wasn’t going to change it or potentially ruin a fantastic experience. After a lengthy, drawn out good bye we parted ways. Perhaps we would see each other again or this was the last day we had been given to enjoy each other’s company. Either way it had been life changing.
Afro Punk was incredible. The outfits, the vibe, the food everything about it was what I had needed to usher in the New Year. As 2020 approached I took my phone and started deleting all the unimportant people in it. Granted Masego was on stage and I should have been watching him mix a brand new song on stage. At that moment however shedding the dead weight meant more. 2020 was going to catch me on a clean slate with no secrets and half interested people in my phone. Someone had reminded me of something I had lost faith in and I was running with it.
31/12/2019, 23:55 Chocolate Daddy: Happy New Year Babes
31/12/2019, 23:58 Chocolate Daddy: Its 2mins left
31/12/2019, 23:59 Me: Happy New Year handsome. Lets do great things in 2020
01/01/2020, 00:11 Chocolate Daddy: Maphorisa playing now
01/01/2020, 00:11 Me: Kenzhero this side
01/01/2020, 00:37 Chocolate Daddy: Keo hopotse hle Mme
01/01/2020, 00:37 Chocolate Daddy: Blind
01/01/2020, 00:38 Me: Im so glad you said it first. I didn’t want to crack first.
01/01/2020, 00:39 Chocolate Daddy: I want to see you.
We ended the chat shortly after because Solange took the stage. I can’t describe it. It’s an audio visual experience worth the ticket price, people stepping on your shoes and trying to walk past you when they can tell there is no space. It was just worth it. After that life changing Solange moment, having learnt from the night before we stuck around, trying to get an uber at that time was going to be a mission. He kept asking if we wanted to be picked up but the party was too good. So we kept calling, texting and it felt like I was with him where he was and he was with him where I was. Even though we were on opposite sides of town. After riding around in an uber van feeling unsafe, we made it to the after party. Who goes home at 2am on New Year’s Day? My feet hurt when I left constitutional hill but because God is good all the time and cranberry red bull is delicious. I found myself dancing alone. My phone hadn’t died because Chocolate Daddy had blessed me with a power bank.
01/01/2020, 05:03 Incoming Video Call – Chocolate Daddy
I was in the clurrb and so was he. I couldn’t fathom why he was calling but I knew I would regret not answering. So I answered. He knew I couldn’t hear him and he couldn’t hear me. He had called just to blow me kisses and look at me as he sat at the bar where he was. Have you ever seen how foolish someone looks on a video call in the club? Pure ridiculousness! That dose of affection was exactly what I needed. There is was. First Click….
Eventually….we called it a night
I haven’t made it home at 6am in a long time. My house guest, The Diplomat sat up with me and we talked about everything and nothing till 8am when we both passed out on the sofa. What a fucking fantastic way to usher in the New Year.
The Diplomat headed home later that day. I was sad to see her leave because she is an awesome spirit. Everything about her vibe is a vibe, a mood and a way of life. She is adventurous and thoughtful. Loving and cautious, basically what yin and yang really are. Around lunch time as I cleaned up my place and started cooking Chocolate Daddy woke up and tried to make plans with me and I explained to him I had plans. He told me he had met my friends and they didn’t hate him so, whatever I was doing he was doing it with me. That’s the night I caught myself mesmerized. I stopped watching him dance with his goofy smile and joined. They had turned the house lights on in the club but the night/morning had felt so perfect that the concept of it ending did not agree with me. In the corner huddled up as he was feeding me frozen strawberries Goldlink (one of my favorite rappers) was standing less than 5 meters away from me and I didn’t even want a picture. I was soaking up every bit of this moment.
So what happened next???…
Since those days, there hasn’t been a day that has passed where we haven’t spoken and I love it. He’s told him about his past heartbreaks, future desires and current struggles. Me, being the open book that I am I have kept the same energy. He doesn’t sweat me, I know he will hit me back when I shoot him a text. It won’t be days, kapo tunte tsa mapantsula. I’m lucky enough to have met someone where I was. Another almost old person who just wants to have fun and share a few pages of life. It’s great! It’s what it should be! He will make weekend plans for us and pitch with bottles of wine. I’m not worried about what could be because I am so caught up in what is.
This feels super different. I’m listening to love songs I couldn’t stomach six months ago. Smiling and engaging in small talk with co-workers. I wanna lose 5kg, step my wardrobe up, learn a dead language while wearing matching underwear with my hair and nails did. I wanna drunk dance, be fed frozen fruits and make out in public. Good God I’m ready to do things I haven’t been doing. I can admit that I’m high on affection. But if you aren’t with someone who makes you feel like you can take over the world, then is it worth it? I’ve been chasing this high for the better part of twelve years and it’s better than I imagined. It was absolutely worth the wait. Everything about it is RIGHT! I am the woman ready to receive. I have the ability to communicate my deepest desires, willing to compromise but unwilling to settle. I’m at my emotional best. I’d love to give him all the credit but a woman has been taking care of herself. The good vibes I’d been parting with are home to roost and it feels better than someone unexpectedly giving you a large sum of money. The universe confirmed in the last days of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, that I’m going to be better than good.
Who knows, anything can happen between Chocolate Daddy and I. I’m hoping for the best and leaving no room for disappointment. I’m not saying I’ll stay and suffer but I’m pretty sure whatever happens it will make for interesting pages in my book.
People will lie and make it seem as if the crazy shit you want you don’t deserve. Don’t let them fool you, you know what you deserve and I know through and through that if the person next to you won’t give it to you, they are blocking the view of someone who will be more than willing to give it to. Remember who tf you are!
Happy 2020!
Get to the nasty business of living, the occasional spanking won’t hurt!!!!
Bisou…bisou
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ongames · 8 years ago
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How One Woman Finally Overcame Her Lifelong Anxiety
For decades, Monique Barry was tortured by incessant anxiety (her daughter’s rough day at school? proof the child’s life was ruined) and baseless guilt (choosing a bad restaurant? a hanging offense!). Then she learned that her garden-variety neuroses might be something else: the trauma of her ancestors, passed down through the generations.
  Nobody likes me, said my daughter, Elyse, inhaling dry cereal as she bopped to Taylor Swift on the car radio. It was the end of her first week at a new school. “I’m sure that’s not true,” I said, gripping the steering wheel. My heart rattled. My breath went shallow. Tears fell on the pile of snacks on my lap. “Who are these kindergarten bastards? If she doesn’t make friends with them now, they’ll shun her all the way through high school. She’ll be so depressed, she’ll turn to drugs or cutting. And whose fault will it be? Mine, all mine.” “Can I have some more Cheerios?” Elyse asked. “You can have the Oreos!” I blurted out, handing her the tear-soaked plastic bag. “Ew, it’s all wet,” Elyse said. She looked over to see my streaked cheeks, and her sweet face was gripped with surprise, then fear. “Mama,” she said, “what’s wrong with you?” I’ve had anxiety for as long as I can remember. As a child, I never wanted to go to school. Would I have anyone to sit with at lunch? Would Bridgett Markham steal my pencils? (No and yes.) I was so nervous around other kids, I hardly spoke. In addition to being overweight, I was the only Asian kid, the only mixed kid (my mother is Chinese; my father is white). I had a few close friends but nursed a constant terror that they would realize something was wrong with me—I wasn’t normal, wasn’t cool, wasn’t something else that I could never quite identify—and leave me in the dust. Unlike most kids at my Los Angeles junior high, I came from a family that struggled financially. My dad was a teacher, and my immigrant mother worked long hours trying to start a cosmetics business. My parents didn’t worry about my happiness or lack thereof; they were busy trying to keep our house from the creditors. Their worry became my guilt. Maybe if I hadn’t asked Mom for that Barbie, they wouldn’t have fought. Maybe if I weren’t fat, I could be in commercials, making money to save our house. I found ways to medicate my fears; my chief strategy was to eat. A latchkey kid, I’d come home and dig into a jar of peanut butter studded with chocolate chips. By my teens, I was obese. Then I found a less fattening way to cope: I replaced the drug of food with actual drugs. A friend who came from money could afford cocaine. For a while, I loved it—what anxious kid wouldn’t? It was confidence in powder form. But then that friend became an addict, and I became terrified of the stuff. In my 20s, I built my life around my anxiety. I started a business designing handbags, which I could do at home, safe from the hell of other people. I didn’t live; I functioned. I had a few friends, a prescription for Xanax, and my familiar habit of binge-eating when stressed. I assumed I’d never marry or have kids—who could accept someone who had to take drastic measures to get through a life that wasn’t even difficult? But time proved me wrong. I met Rick, who is now my husband, and he loved me in spite of my demons. Then I got pregnant and spent nine months in an excruciating state of terror. How could I care for a child? How could I steer a little life through this scary world? Hell, how could I even give birth? (”I just don’t think she’ll fit through,” I’d cry to my obstetrician.) After I had Elyse in an emergency C-section (see? I was right!) and fell in love with her, my anxiety multiplied. I felt as though my heart was beating in this child’s body. The thought of her suffering haunted me. And of course, my fear of her suffering made her suffer. “We have a normal kid,” Rick said one particularly rough afternoon a year ago, “and sometimes she’s going to have a bad day. Your stress makes her stressed. It makes me stressed.” He looked at me. “You’ve got to do something.” He was right. I was sick of my neck aches, my knotted stomach, seeing my dread reflected in my child’s eyes. So I finally did the one thing I hadn’t: I asked for help. My internist, whom I’d told in vague terms about my anxiety, enthusiastically referred me to a woman named Angelica Singh. She would change my life, he said. On her website, Angelica calls her profession “embodiment process and counseling.” Her woo-woo job title didn’t concern me much; this is L.A., where psychics and healers are as ubiquitous as In-N-Out Burger. I was even less concerned when I read Angelica’s description of what she could do for me: “My healing work is designed to facilitate your moving from a constricted place of judgment and self-criticism to an open ocean of self-love and compassion.” That sounded downright blissful. When I arrived at our first session on a hot Tuesday afternoon, Angelica greeted me at the door of her cottage. She was beautiful—sexy, really—with piercing dark eyes and long black hair. I’d been expecting a soothing, beatific type; she had more of a Kali, goddess of destruction, vibe. She led me to a small room, where an array of crystals and oils sat beside a massage table, and motioned toward a love seat covered in Indian-print pillows. I sat. “So, I have a bit of anxiety,” I began. “I can see that,” she said, her face unsmiling. She perched on a stool, her legs crossed. She wore hip camouflage pants, Converse sneakers, and a stunning white crystal around her neck. For some reason, she held a pendulum. “You’re not breathing,” she said. “You’re not even in your body.” “I’m not?” “Start by feeling the ground beneath your feet,” Angelica said. “Take deep breaths.” I closed my eyes and inhaled. This interaction was causing me stress, not reducing it. I didn’t like being looked at. I didn’t like being judged. I did not want to fail spiritual therapy. But I kept breathing and eventually found a rhythm, my breath smoothing, deepening. I am safe, I thought. I am fine. I am here to get help. Angelica smiled faintly, then leaned in, looking not into my eyes but at the area around my head. There’s so much drama in your energy field,” she said. “I see war all around you, fires and bombs and screaming. Were you or your mother in a war?” I thought I must have misunderstood. What did my mother have to do with anything? “Mom and I did fight a lot when I was in my 20s—” “No, I mean a literal war. You have all these souls clinging to you. You feel guilty about them.” “I do often feel guilty, but it’s about irrational things.” What was your grandmother like?” Angelica asked. She abandoned her husband and kids for a general in the Chinese army. She never saw them again. She had three more kids, including Mom, with her new lover.” I rattled this off easily; the mythos of my grandmother’s life, though grotesque, had over the years lost its sting. As Angelica kept asking questions, she knelt on the floor, arranging crystals and rocks around her—a jagged amethyst here, a hunk of hematite there. I didn’t ask why. When there were no more crystals and rocks, she pulled a few pencils and erasers from her desk. Then I noticed her arrangement was wider at the top than at the bottom. I finally got it: She was building my family tree on the rug. She picked up a rock. “This is where your anxiety comes from.” My grandmother? I only met her twice.” “You have epigenetic trauma.” I nodded as though I understood. “Your grandmother had to live in survival mode,” Angelica said. “She passed that stress onto your mother. Your mother passed it onto you. Look at your lineage.” She pointed at the floor’s sad tableau. “Can’t you feel the grief, the abandonment?” I gazed at the glassy obsidian and pink eraser that represented my forsaken cousins, and I began to cry. I told Angelica, as politely as possible, that I had no idea what she was talking about. “Would you like to get on the table?” she asked in response. When I did, she laid crystals on my body and swayed her pendulum. She put her hands under my head, and I fell into one of the most relaxing states I’ve ever experienced—similar to the moments just before sleep, when dreamy images arrive but never quite coalesce. I had to book another session. I had no idea whether I was carrying the burdens of some long-ago war, but I was certain I needed another brilliant nap. That night, I Googled, hard. Epigenetics, it turns out, is the study of the mechanisms that switch genes on and off, affecting our brains and bodies. This gene flips on, and we may develop diabetes. This one switches off, and we are likely to get cancer. What we eat, the environment we live in, the chemicals we are exposed to—all can influence how our genes express themselves. One site I read compared DNA to a film script; in this scenario, epigenetics is the director, cutting lines or scenes, influencing the whole picture. Recent findings suggest that epigenetic changes can be inherited. In other words, as parents’ genes are altered—thanks to their experiences, environment, and habits—so are their children’s. Angelica’s philosophy hinged on this notion. She had told me I had what she refers to as epigenetic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which she says I inherited from my mother and my mother’s mother, just like my almond eyes and black hair. In essence, the traumas of my forebears, however little I knew about them, had wired me for anxiety. I told Rick what Angelica had said. “It turns out I have PTSD. That’s why I overreact to everything.” What, from trauma that was self-inflicted? You’re saying you have SIPTSD?” Silly Rick. “I inherited the trauma from my ancestors.” My husband, an MIT-educated atheist engineer, looked skeptical. The more I read, though, the more this seemingly loony idea appeared to have some basis in reality. Recently, Rachel Yehuda, PhD, director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at New York’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, led a study comparing the genes of Holocaust survivors and their children with those of other Jews of similar ages; survivors’ children are known to be at increased risk for anxiety, depression, and stress disorders. The researchers found alterations in the same gene associated with depression and PTSD in survivors and their children. The gene changes in the children “could be attributed to Holocaust exposure” in their parents, Yehuda wrote. Still, I struggled to believe that my grandmother could have such a profound influence on my life. When I’d met her, she seemed jovial, plainspoken—and other, a woman from a different time who spoke another language. My most vivid memory of her is when we were all sitting at dinner one night when, without preamble, she began belting out Chinese folk songs. I was 9 then; she was 80.
When I arrived at my next session, I sat on the love seat opposite Angelica. Again, the weight of her gaze unnerved me. “Did you metabolize what we last talked about?” she asked. “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that my anxiety is all from Mom’s family.” She shook her head. “It’s not just your lineage. What was your conception like?” I had to laugh. “I don’t know.” She sidled up to me. “You had a hard time in utero. There’s dark energy there.” “My mom was happy to be pregnant with me,” I said. “And who were the other kids I’m seeing?” “Oh, my half sisters. Mom had them during her first marriage in Taiwan, when she was really young. She left them there when she moved to the States.” “How old were they when she left?” Angelica asked. “Twelve and 14,” I said. Angelica visibly recoiled. “Can you imagine doing that to Elyse?” “God, no, I can barely leave her to use the bathroom.” I cracked the joke, but inside, I bristled. What seems horrid in modern California is worlds away from desperate measures taken in misogynistic Taiwan 60 years ago. My mother had been young and alone, with few options. “I know it sounds bad,” I said, “but it wasn’t like she was a negligent mother—she was thrilled to have me. She thought getting pregnant again would be impossible after all her abortions.” Angelica’s face twisted. “That’s what I’m seeing, then,” she said. I felt defensive, and strange for feeling defensive, and oddly close to tears. I reached for humor to deflate the shame that seemed now to be filling the room. “Abortions were like a form of birth control then. Sometimes she and a friend would get lunch and have an abortion, like a spa day.” Angelica didn’t laugh. “Your mother loves you. But she also lived her life in survival mode. And it changed her.” I said nothing. “No wonder you have anxiety,” Angelica said gently. “Your first days were in a womb filled with the energy of unwanted souls.” I began to cry—deep, body-quaking sobs. I felt gut-punched by the idea that my mother was as heartless as Angelica seemed to think. I felt grief for those unwanted children. But mostly I felt guilt. Why had I been the lucky one, the wanted daughter? It seemed so arbitrary, so unfair. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Angelica. “I feel like I did,” I said. These hurt souls are holding on to you because you accept that guilt,” she said. “You need to set them free.” “How?” “Tell them what they’ve been waiting to hear.” I looked to my right side, where I thought the tiny souls might be, and said, “I’m sorry Mom didn’t want you.” And then I sat and cried for a while. I was overcome by a calm sadness. I lay down on the table without being asked to. Angelica placed crystals on my body. The moment her hands cradled my head, I fell asleep. I woke up unable to recall the specifics of my dream—just that it was full of people and a profound feeling of reckoning, of truth. I felt peaceful, as though I’d been lying on an exquisite beach. That night, as we sat on the couch, my husband flipped to The Walking Dead. I hate The Walking Dead. “No,” I said. “I want to watch Parts Unknown.” (I have a thing for Anthony Bourdain.) So we did. Even a day earlier, saying no would have consumed me with guilt. This time it felt like something I could do. It felt right. At our next session, Angelica asked me to write out as much of my family history as I could. This only served to show me how little I knew. When my mother came over for Sunday dinner, I decided to ask her about when she was a young woman. My mother, in her customarily breezy tone and broken English, walked me through her early life—one of fear and grief, of horrific decisions wrought by limited choices. She told me about the herbs she took, the pot she sat on as she waited for a fetus to be expelled. She told me about the time, in Taiwan’s rural south, when a snake shed its skin beside my half sister’s crib. She told me about how years later, she left that child and her sister behind. I asked about her own girlhood, about the war in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s—surely she didn’t remember it? “I live in a small village,” she said matter-of-factly. “When Japanese bomb Chengdu, whole city rush out. Come by my village. My friends and I run outside. We all watch bomb go off together.”
  She told me about how, in those years, she fought with her brothers for shreds of meat. Most times, all they had to eat were the pumpkins and lima beans they grew. I was stunned. My mother and my grandmother had indeed been exposed to war, just as Angelica had intuited. When I saw her next, Angelica told me, “The person who reacts to everything with fear is the child you. It’s my job to awaken adult Monique, who can care for herself.” We set out to do just that. I learned to step outside my body whenever anxiety threatened to overtake me, to watch my behavior as though it were someone else’s. I recognized my anxiety in real time, noting how it affected me physically. Again and again, I saw reactions that made no sense. Putting the wrong kind of crackers in Elyse’s lunch didn’t warrant a spike in my heart rate. Choosing a lousy restaurant on date night didn’t merit a roiling stomach. Without as many “emergencies” to react to, I became more patient. When Elyse was stressed about running late for school, instead of mirroring her anxiety, I gave her a long hug. When Rick forgot to buy milk, I shrugged and poured Elyse a glass of water. When Rick’s brother came over with his pug and it rubbed its chronically itchy butt across our rugs, I put a sheet down and laughed at my daughter’s delight in the dog’s antics. Before, when I seemed stressed, Elyse had often asked me “Are you angry, Mommy? Are you frustrated with me?” She had seen my anxiety, absorbed it, and taken responsibility for it, just as I once had with my mother. Now she wasn’t asking me that. She had no reason to. As I grew more convinced that I had inherited my anxiety, my relationship to it changed. I became more accepting of it. I was able to stop judging myself for finding life so unmanageable. The thing about not judging yourself is that it lets you actually start to like yourself. More and more, I felt that happening. In my next session with Angelica, I told her this. And I told her about the strides I’d been making—walking around in the world as though I belonged there. “That’s a victory,” she said. “I still worry about Elyse’s feelings getting hurt,” I said. “That’s normal,” Angelica said. “She’s your kid.” Later, I asked Rick, “Do you think I’m better?” He paused. “Well, I did notice you didn’t tell me which lane I had to drive in to get to the movies last night,” he said. I am better. I know it—I feel it every day. I feel it when I wake up and don’t assume that everything that can go wrong will, and when I make plans with people without worrying about whether I’ll be entertaining enough for them. I feel it when my daughter runs to me, instead of away, when she’s had a hard day. Delving into my ancestry let me face my own turmoil and finally see myself clearly. I am my grandmother’s sadness and my mother’s fear—but I am also my grandmother’s strength and my mother’s resilience. And I can see my anxiety for what it is, too: a series of reactions I can choose to breathe through. (Believe me, I pat myself on the back every time I do.) Whether my pain was inherited or not, my life was defined by it. I was forever looking backward, stuck in familiar fears. I was living history—and now I’m creating a new one. Illustrations by Gracia Lam.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
How One Woman Finally Overcame Her Lifelong Anxiety published first on http://ift.tt/2lnpciY
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yes-dal456 · 8 years ago
Text
How One Woman Finally Overcame Her Lifelong Anxiety
For decades, Monique Barry was tortured by incessant anxiety (her daughter’s rough day at school? proof the child’s life was ruined) and baseless guilt (choosing a bad restaurant? a hanging offense!). Then she learned that her garden-variety neuroses might be something else: the trauma of her ancestors, passed down through the generations.
  Nobody likes me, said my daughter, Elyse, inhaling dry cereal as she bopped to Taylor Swift on the car radio. It was the end of her first week at a new school. “I’m sure that’s not true,” I said, gripping the steering wheel. My heart rattled. My breath went shallow. Tears fell on the pile of snacks on my lap. “Who are these kindergarten bastards? If she doesn’t make friends with them now, they’ll shun her all the way through high school. She’ll be so depressed, she’ll turn to drugs or cutting. And whose fault will it be? Mine, all mine.” “Can I have some more Cheerios?” Elyse asked. “You can have the Oreos!” I blurted out, handing her the tear-soaked plastic bag. “Ew, it’s all wet,” Elyse said. She looked over to see my streaked cheeks, and her sweet face was gripped with surprise, then fear. “Mama,” she said, “what’s wrong with you?” I’ve had anxiety for as long as I can remember. As a child, I never wanted to go to school. Would I have anyone to sit with at lunch? Would Bridgett Markham steal my pencils? (No and yes.) I was so nervous around other kids, I hardly spoke. In addition to being overweight, I was the only Asian kid, the only mixed kid (my mother is Chinese; my father is white). I had a few close friends but nursed a constant terror that they would realize something was wrong with me—I wasn’t normal, wasn’t cool, wasn’t something else that I could never quite identify—and leave me in the dust. Unlike most kids at my Los Angeles junior high, I came from a family that struggled financially. My dad was a teacher, and my immigrant mother worked long hours trying to start a cosmetics business. My parents didn’t worry about my happiness or lack thereof; they were busy trying to keep our house from the creditors. Their worry became my guilt. Maybe if I hadn’t asked Mom for that Barbie, they wouldn’t have fought. Maybe if I weren’t fat, I could be in commercials, making money to save our house. I found ways to medicate my fears; my chief strategy was to eat. A latchkey kid, I’d come home and dig into a jar of peanut butter studded with chocolate chips. By my teens, I was obese. Then I found a less fattening way to cope: I replaced the drug of food with actual drugs. A friend who came from money could afford cocaine. For a while, I loved it—what anxious kid wouldn’t? It was confidence in powder form. But then that friend became an addict, and I became terrified of the stuff. In my 20s, I built my life around my anxiety. I started a business designing handbags, which I could do at home, safe from the hell of other people. I didn’t live; I functioned. I had a few friends, a prescription for Xanax, and my familiar habit of binge-eating when stressed. I assumed I’d never marry or have kids—who could accept someone who had to take drastic measures to get through a life that wasn’t even difficult? But time proved me wrong. I met Rick, who is now my husband, and he loved me in spite of my demons. Then I got pregnant and spent nine months in an excruciating state of terror. How could I care for a child? How could I steer a little life through this scary world? Hell, how could I even give birth? (”I just don’t think she’ll fit through,” I’d cry to my obstetrician.) After I had Elyse in an emergency C-section (see? I was right!) and fell in love with her, my anxiety multiplied. I felt as though my heart was beating in this child’s body. The thought of her suffering haunted me. And of course, my fear of her suffering made her suffer. “We have a normal kid,” Rick said one particularly rough afternoon a year ago, “and sometimes she’s going to have a bad day. Your stress makes her stressed. It makes me stressed.” He looked at me. “You’ve got to do something.” He was right. I was sick of my neck aches, my knotted stomach, seeing my dread reflected in my child’s eyes. So I finally did the one thing I hadn’t: I asked for help. My internist, whom I’d told in vague terms about my anxiety, enthusiastically referred me to a woman named Angelica Singh. She would change my life, he said. On her website, Angelica calls her profession “embodiment process and counseling.” Her woo-woo job title didn’t concern me much; this is L.A., where psychics and healers are as ubiquitous as In-N-Out Burger. I was even less concerned when I read Angelica’s description of what she could do for me: “My healing work is designed to facilitate your moving from a constricted place of judgment and self-criticism to an open ocean of self-love and compassion.” That sounded downright blissful. When I arrived at our first session on a hot Tuesday afternoon, Angelica greeted me at the door of her cottage. She was beautiful—sexy, really—with piercing dark eyes and long black hair. I’d been expecting a soothing, beatific type; she had more of a Kali, goddess of destruction, vibe. She led me to a small room, where an array of crystals and oils sat beside a massage table, and motioned toward a love seat covered in Indian-print pillows. I sat. “So, I have a bit of anxiety,” I began. “I can see that,” she said, her face unsmiling. She perched on a stool, her legs crossed. She wore hip camouflage pants, Converse sneakers, and a stunning white crystal around her neck. For some reason, she held a pendulum. “You’re not breathing,” she said. “You’re not even in your body.” “I’m not?” “Start by feeling the ground beneath your feet,” Angelica said. “Take deep breaths.” I closed my eyes and inhaled. This interaction was causing me stress, not reducing it. I didn’t like being looked at. I didn’t like being judged. I did not want to fail spiritual therapy. But I kept breathing and eventually found a rhythm, my breath smoothing, deepening. I am safe, I thought. I am fine. I am here to get help. Angelica smiled faintly, then leaned in, looking not into my eyes but at the area around my head. There’s so much drama in your energy field,” she said. “I see war all around you, fires and bombs and screaming. Were you or your mother in a war?” I thought I must have misunderstood. What did my mother have to do with anything? “Mom and I did fight a lot when I was in my 20s—” “No, I mean a literal war. You have all these souls clinging to you. You feel guilty about them.” “I do often feel guilty, but it’s about irrational things.” What was your grandmother like?” Angelica asked. She abandoned her husband and kids for a general in the Chinese army. She never saw them again. She had three more kids, including Mom, with her new lover.” I rattled this off easily; the mythos of my grandmother’s life, though grotesque, had over the years lost its sting. As Angelica kept asking questions, she knelt on the floor, arranging crystals and rocks around her—a jagged amethyst here, a hunk of hematite there. I didn’t ask why. When there were no more crystals and rocks, she pulled a few pencils and erasers from her desk. Then I noticed her arrangement was wider at the top than at the bottom. I finally got it: She was building my family tree on the rug. She picked up a rock. “This is where your anxiety comes from.” My grandmother? I only met her twice.” “You have epigenetic trauma.” I nodded as though I understood. “Your grandmother had to live in survival mode,” Angelica said. “She passed that stress onto your mother. Your mother passed it onto you. Look at your lineage.” She pointed at the floor’s sad tableau. “Can’t you feel the grief, the abandonment?” I gazed at the glassy obsidian and pink eraser that represented my forsaken cousins, and I began to cry. I told Angelica, as politely as possible, that I had no idea what she was talking about. “Would you like to get on the table?” she asked in response. When I did, she laid crystals on my body and swayed her pendulum. She put her hands under my head, and I fell into one of the most relaxing states I’ve ever experienced—similar to the moments just before sleep, when dreamy images arrive but never quite coalesce. I had to book another session. I had no idea whether I was carrying the burdens of some long-ago war, but I was certain I needed another brilliant nap. That night, I Googled, hard. Epigenetics, it turns out, is the study of the mechanisms that switch genes on and off, affecting our brains and bodies. This gene flips on, and we may develop diabetes. This one switches off, and we are likely to get cancer. What we eat, the environment we live in, the chemicals we are exposed to—all can influence how our genes express themselves. One site I read compared DNA to a film script; in this scenario, epigenetics is the director, cutting lines or scenes, influencing the whole picture. Recent findings suggest that epigenetic changes can be inherited. In other words, as parents’ genes are altered—thanks to their experiences, environment, and habits—so are their children’s. Angelica’s philosophy hinged on this notion. She had told me I had what she refers to as epigenetic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which she says I inherited from my mother and my mother’s mother, just like my almond eyes and black hair. In essence, the traumas of my forebears, however little I knew about them, had wired me for anxiety. I told Rick what Angelica had said. “It turns out I have PTSD. That’s why I overreact to everything.” What, from trauma that was self-inflicted? You’re saying you have SIPTSD?” Silly Rick. “I inherited the trauma from my ancestors.” My husband, an MIT-educated atheist engineer, looked skeptical. The more I read, though, the more this seemingly loony idea appeared to have some basis in reality. Recently, Rachel Yehuda, PhD, director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at New York’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, led a study comparing the genes of Holocaust survivors and their children with those of other Jews of similar ages; survivors’ children are known to be at increased risk for anxiety, depression, and stress disorders. The researchers found alterations in the same gene associated with depression and PTSD in survivors and their children. The gene changes in the children “could be attributed to Holocaust exposure” in their parents, Yehuda wrote. Still, I struggled to believe that my grandmother could have such a profound influence on my life. When I’d met her, she seemed jovial, plainspoken—and other, a woman from a different time who spoke another language. My most vivid memory of her is when we were all sitting at dinner one night when, without preamble, she began belting out Chinese folk songs. I was 9 then; she was 80.
When I arrived at my next session, I sat on the love seat opposite Angelica. Again, the weight of her gaze unnerved me. “Did you metabolize what we last talked about?” she asked. “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that my anxiety is all from Mom’s family.” She shook her head. “It’s not just your lineage. What was your conception like?” I had to laugh. “I don’t know.” She sidled up to me. “You had a hard time in utero. There’s dark energy there.” “My mom was happy to be pregnant with me,” I said. “And who were the other kids I’m seeing?” “Oh, my half sisters. Mom had them during her first marriage in Taiwan, when she was really young. She left them there when she moved to the States.” “How old were they when she left?” Angelica asked. “Twelve and 14,” I said. Angelica visibly recoiled. “Can you imagine doing that to Elyse?” “God, no, I can barely leave her to use the bathroom.” I cracked the joke, but inside, I bristled. What seems horrid in modern California is worlds away from desperate measures taken in misogynistic Taiwan 60 years ago. My mother had been young and alone, with few options. “I know it sounds bad,” I said, “but it wasn’t like she was a negligent mother—she was thrilled to have me. She thought getting pregnant again would be impossible after all her abortions.” Angelica’s face twisted. “That’s what I’m seeing, then,” she said. I felt defensive, and strange for feeling defensive, and oddly close to tears. I reached for humor to deflate the shame that seemed now to be filling the room. “Abortions were like a form of birth control then. Sometimes she and a friend would get lunch and have an abortion, like a spa day.” Angelica didn’t laugh. “Your mother loves you. But she also lived her life in survival mode. And it changed her.” I said nothing. “No wonder you have anxiety,” Angelica said gently. “Your first days were in a womb filled with the energy of unwanted souls.” I began to cry—deep, body-quaking sobs. I felt gut-punched by the idea that my mother was as heartless as Angelica seemed to think. I felt grief for those unwanted children. But mostly I felt guilt. Why had I been the lucky one, the wanted daughter? It seemed so arbitrary, so unfair. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Angelica. “I feel like I did,” I said. These hurt souls are holding on to you because you accept that guilt,” she said. “You need to set them free.” “How?” “Tell them what they’ve been waiting to hear.” I looked to my right side, where I thought the tiny souls might be, and said, “I’m sorry Mom didn’t want you.” And then I sat and cried for a while. I was overcome by a calm sadness. I lay down on the table without being asked to. Angelica placed crystals on my body. The moment her hands cradled my head, I fell asleep. I woke up unable to recall the specifics of my dream—just that it was full of people and a profound feeling of reckoning, of truth. I felt peaceful, as though I’d been lying on an exquisite beach. That night, as we sat on the couch, my husband flipped to The Walking Dead. I hate The Walking Dead. “No,” I said. “I want to watch Parts Unknown.” (I have a thing for Anthony Bourdain.) So we did. Even a day earlier, saying no would have consumed me with guilt. This time it felt like something I could do. It felt right. At our next session, Angelica asked me to write out as much of my family history as I could. This only served to show me how little I knew. When my mother came over for Sunday dinner, I decided to ask her about when she was a young woman. My mother, in her customarily breezy tone and broken English, walked me through her early life—one of fear and grief, of horrific decisions wrought by limited choices. She told me about the herbs she took, the pot she sat on as she waited for a fetus to be expelled. She told me about the time, in Taiwan’s rural south, when a snake shed its skin beside my half sister’s crib. She told me about how years later, she left that child and her sister behind. I asked about her own girlhood, about the war in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s—surely she didn’t remember it? “I live in a small village,” she said matter-of-factly. “When Japanese bomb Chengdu, whole city rush out. Come by my village. My friends and I run outside. We all watch bomb go off together.”
  She told me about how, in those years, she fought with her brothers for shreds of meat. Most times, all they had to eat were the pumpkins and lima beans they grew. I was stunned. My mother and my grandmother had indeed been exposed to war, just as Angelica had intuited. When I saw her next, Angelica told me, “The person who reacts to everything with fear is the child you. It’s my job to awaken adult Monique, who can care for herself.” We set out to do just that. I learned to step outside my body whenever anxiety threatened to overtake me, to watch my behavior as though it were someone else’s. I recognized my anxiety in real time, noting how it affected me physically. Again and again, I saw reactions that made no sense. Putting the wrong kind of crackers in Elyse’s lunch didn’t warrant a spike in my heart rate. Choosing a lousy restaurant on date night didn’t merit a roiling stomach. Without as many “emergencies” to react to, I became more patient. When Elyse was stressed about running late for school, instead of mirroring her anxiety, I gave her a long hug. When Rick forgot to buy milk, I shrugged and poured Elyse a glass of water. When Rick’s brother came over with his pug and it rubbed its chronically itchy butt across our rugs, I put a sheet down and laughed at my daughter’s delight in the dog’s antics. Before, when I seemed stressed, Elyse had often asked me “Are you angry, Mommy? Are you frustrated with me?” She had seen my anxiety, absorbed it, and taken responsibility for it, just as I once had with my mother. Now she wasn’t asking me that. She had no reason to. As I grew more convinced that I had inherited my anxiety, my relationship to it changed. I became more accepting of it. I was able to stop judging myself for finding life so unmanageable. The thing about not judging yourself is that it lets you actually start to like yourself. More and more, I felt that happening. In my next session with Angelica, I told her this. And I told her about the strides I’d been making—walking around in the world as though I belonged there. “That’s a victory,” she said. “I still worry about Elyse’s feelings getting hurt,” I said. “That’s normal,” Angelica said. “She’s your kid.” Later, I asked Rick, “Do you think I’m better?” He paused. “Well, I did notice you didn’t tell me which lane I had to drive in to get to the movies last night,” he said. I am better. I know it—I feel it every day. I feel it when I wake up and don’t assume that everything that can go wrong will, and when I make plans with people without worrying about whether I’ll be entertaining enough for them. I feel it when my daughter runs to me, instead of away, when she’s had a hard day. Delving into my ancestry let me face my own turmoil and finally see myself clearly. I am my grandmother’s sadness and my mother’s fear—but I am also my grandmother’s strength and my mother’s resilience. And I can see my anxiety for what it is, too: a series of reactions I can choose to breathe through. (Believe me, I pat myself on the back every time I do.) Whether my pain was inherited or not, my life was defined by it. I was forever looking backward, stuck in familiar fears. I was living history—and now I’m creating a new one. Illustrations by Gracia Lam.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
from http://ift.tt/2lLO9IL from Blogger http://ift.tt/2kMuAAk
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imreviewblog · 8 years ago
Text
How One Woman Finally Overcame Her Lifelong Anxiety
For decades, Monique Barry was tortured by incessant anxiety (her daughter’s rough day at school? proof the child’s life was ruined) and baseless guilt (choosing a bad restaurant? a hanging offense!). Then she learned that her garden-variety neuroses might be something else: the trauma of her ancestors, passed down through the generations.
  Nobody likes me, said my daughter, Elyse, inhaling dry cereal as she bopped to Taylor Swift on the car radio. It was the end of her first week at a new school. “I’m sure that’s not true,” I said, gripping the steering wheel. My heart rattled. My breath went shallow. Tears fell on the pile of snacks on my lap. “Who are these kindergarten bastards? If she doesn’t make friends with them now, they’ll shun her all the way through high school. She’ll be so depressed, she’ll turn to drugs or cutting. And whose fault will it be? Mine, all mine.” “Can I have some more Cheerios?” Elyse asked. “You can have the Oreos!” I blurted out, handing her the tear-soaked plastic bag. “Ew, it’s all wet,” Elyse said. She looked over to see my streaked cheeks, and her sweet face was gripped with surprise, then fear. “Mama,” she said, “what’s wrong with you?” I’ve had anxiety for as long as I can remember. As a child, I never wanted to go to school. Would I have anyone to sit with at lunch? Would Bridgett Markham steal my pencils? (No and yes.) I was so nervous around other kids, I hardly spoke. In addition to being overweight, I was the only Asian kid, the only mixed kid (my mother is Chinese; my father is white). I had a few close friends but nursed a constant terror that they would realize something was wrong with me—I wasn’t normal, wasn’t cool, wasn’t something else that I could never quite identify—and leave me in the dust. Unlike most kids at my Los Angeles junior high, I came from a family that struggled financially. My dad was a teacher, and my immigrant mother worked long hours trying to start a cosmetics business. My parents didn’t worry about my happiness or lack thereof; they were busy trying to keep our house from the creditors. Their worry became my guilt. Maybe if I hadn’t asked Mom for that Barbie, they wouldn’t have fought. Maybe if I weren’t fat, I could be in commercials, making money to save our house. I found ways to medicate my fears; my chief strategy was to eat. A latchkey kid, I’d come home and dig into a jar of peanut butter studded with chocolate chips. By my teens, I was obese. Then I found a less fattening way to cope: I replaced the drug of food with actual drugs. A friend who came from money could afford cocaine. For a while, I loved it—what anxious kid wouldn’t? It was confidence in powder form. But then that friend became an addict, and I became terrified of the stuff. In my 20s, I built my life around my anxiety. I started a business designing handbags, which I could do at home, safe from the hell of other people. I didn’t live; I functioned. I had a few friends, a prescription for Xanax, and my familiar habit of binge-eating when stressed. I assumed I’d never marry or have kids—who could accept someone who had to take drastic measures to get through a life that wasn’t even difficult? But time proved me wrong. I met Rick, who is now my husband, and he loved me in spite of my demons. Then I got pregnant and spent nine months in an excruciating state of terror. How could I care for a child? How could I steer a little life through this scary world? Hell, how could I even give birth? (”I just don’t think she’ll fit through,” I’d cry to my obstetrician.) After I had Elyse in an emergency C-section (see? I was right!) and fell in love with her, my anxiety multiplied. I felt as though my heart was beating in this child’s body. The thought of her suffering haunted me. And of course, my fear of her suffering made her suffer. “We have a normal kid,” Rick said one particularly rough afternoon a year ago, “and sometimes she’s going to have a bad day. Your stress makes her stressed. It makes me stressed.” He looked at me. “You’ve got to do something.” He was right. I was sick of my neck aches, my knotted stomach, seeing my dread reflected in my child’s eyes. So I finally did the one thing I hadn’t: I asked for help. My internist, whom I’d told in vague terms about my anxiety, enthusiastically referred me to a woman named Angelica Singh. She would change my life, he said. On her website, Angelica calls her profession “embodiment process and counseling.” Her woo-woo job title didn’t concern me much; this is L.A., where psychics and healers are as ubiquitous as In-N-Out Burger. I was even less concerned when I read Angelica’s description of what she could do for me: “My healing work is designed to facilitate your moving from a constricted place of judgment and self-criticism to an open ocean of self-love and compassion.” That sounded downright blissful. When I arrived at our first session on a hot Tuesday afternoon, Angelica greeted me at the door of her cottage. She was beautiful—sexy, really—with piercing dark eyes and long black hair. I’d been expecting a soothing, beatific type; she had more of a Kali, goddess of destruction, vibe. She led me to a small room, where an array of crystals and oils sat beside a massage table, and motioned toward a love seat covered in Indian-print pillows. I sat. “So, I have a bit of anxiety,” I began. “I can see that,” she said, her face unsmiling. She perched on a stool, her legs crossed. She wore hip camouflage pants, Converse sneakers, and a stunning white crystal around her neck. For some reason, she held a pendulum. “You’re not breathing,” she said. “You’re not even in your body.” “I’m not?” “Start by feeling the ground beneath your feet,” Angelica said. “Take deep breaths.” I closed my eyes and inhaled. This interaction was causing me stress, not reducing it. I didn’t like being looked at. I didn’t like being judged. I did not want to fail spiritual therapy. But I kept breathing and eventually found a rhythm, my breath smoothing, deepening. I am safe, I thought. I am fine. I am here to get help. Angelica smiled faintly, then leaned in, looking not into my eyes but at the area around my head. There’s so much drama in your energy field,” she said. “I see war all around you, fires and bombs and screaming. Were you or your mother in a war?” I thought I must have misunderstood. What did my mother have to do with anything? “Mom and I did fight a lot when I was in my 20s—” “No, I mean a literal war. You have all these souls clinging to you. You feel guilty about them.” “I do often feel guilty, but it’s about irrational things.” What was your grandmother like?” Angelica asked. She abandoned her husband and kids for a general in the Chinese army. She never saw them again. She had three more kids, including Mom, with her new lover.” I rattled this off easily; the mythos of my grandmother’s life, though grotesque, had over the years lost its sting. As Angelica kept asking questions, she knelt on the floor, arranging crystals and rocks around her—a jagged amethyst here, a hunk of hematite there. I didn’t ask why. When there were no more crystals and rocks, she pulled a few pencils and erasers from her desk. Then I noticed her arrangement was wider at the top than at the bottom. I finally got it: She was building my family tree on the rug. She picked up a rock. “This is where your anxiety comes from.” My grandmother? I only met her twice.” “You have epigenetic trauma.” I nodded as though I understood. “Your grandmother had to live in survival mode,” Angelica said. “She passed that stress onto your mother. Your mother passed it onto you. Look at your lineage.” She pointed at the floor’s sad tableau. “Can’t you feel the grief, the abandonment?” I gazed at the glassy obsidian and pink eraser that represented my forsaken cousins, and I began to cry. I told Angelica, as politely as possible, that I had no idea what she was talking about. “Would you like to get on the table?” she asked in response. When I did, she laid crystals on my body and swayed her pendulum. She put her hands under my head, and I fell into one of the most relaxing states I’ve ever experienced—similar to the moments just before sleep, when dreamy images arrive but never quite coalesce. I had to book another session. I had no idea whether I was carrying the burdens of some long-ago war, but I was certain I needed another brilliant nap. That night, I Googled, hard. Epigenetics, it turns out, is the study of the mechanisms that switch genes on and off, affecting our brains and bodies. This gene flips on, and we may develop diabetes. This one switches off, and we are likely to get cancer. What we eat, the environment we live in, the chemicals we are exposed to—all can influence how our genes express themselves. One site I read compared DNA to a film script; in this scenario, epigenetics is the director, cutting lines or scenes, influencing the whole picture. Recent findings suggest that epigenetic changes can be inherited. In other words, as parents’ genes are altered—thanks to their experiences, environment, and habits—so are their children’s. Angelica’s philosophy hinged on this notion. She had told me I had what she refers to as epigenetic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which she says I inherited from my mother and my mother’s mother, just like my almond eyes and black hair. In essence, the traumas of my forebears, however little I knew about them, had wired me for anxiety. I told Rick what Angelica had said. “It turns out I have PTSD. That’s why I overreact to everything.” What, from trauma that was self-inflicted? You’re saying you have SIPTSD?” Silly Rick. “I inherited the trauma from my ancestors.” My husband, an MIT-educated atheist engineer, looked skeptical. The more I read, though, the more this seemingly loony idea appeared to have some basis in reality. Recently, Rachel Yehuda, PhD, director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at New York’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, led a study comparing the genes of Holocaust survivors and their children with those of other Jews of similar ages; survivors’ children are known to be at increased risk for anxiety, depression, and stress disorders. The researchers found alterations in the same gene associated with depression and PTSD in survivors and their children. The gene changes in the children “could be attributed to Holocaust exposure” in their parents, Yehuda wrote. Still, I struggled to believe that my grandmother could have such a profound influence on my life. When I’d met her, she seemed jovial, plainspoken—and other, a woman from a different time who spoke another language. My most vivid memory of her is when we were all sitting at dinner one night when, without preamble, she began belting out Chinese folk songs. I was 9 then; she was 80.
When I arrived at my next session, I sat on the love seat opposite Angelica. Again, the weight of her gaze unnerved me. “Did you metabolize what we last talked about?” she asked. “It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that my anxiety is all from Mom’s family.” She shook her head. “It’s not just your lineage. What was your conception like?” I had to laugh. “I don’t know.” She sidled up to me. “You had a hard time in utero. There’s dark energy there.” “My mom was happy to be pregnant with me,” I said. “And who were the other kids I’m seeing?” “Oh, my half sisters. Mom had them during her first marriage in Taiwan, when she was really young. She left them there when she moved to the States.” “How old were they when she left?” Angelica asked. “Twelve and 14,” I said. Angelica visibly recoiled. “Can you imagine doing that to Elyse?” “God, no, I can barely leave her to use the bathroom.” I cracked the joke, but inside, I bristled. What seems horrid in modern California is worlds away from desperate measures taken in misogynistic Taiwan 60 years ago. My mother had been young and alone, with few options. “I know it sounds bad,” I said, “but it wasn’t like she was a negligent mother—she was thrilled to have me. She thought getting pregnant again would be impossible after all her abortions.” Angelica’s face twisted. “That’s what I’m seeing, then,” she said. I felt defensive, and strange for feeling defensive, and oddly close to tears. I reached for humor to deflate the shame that seemed now to be filling the room. “Abortions were like a form of birth control then. Sometimes she and a friend would get lunch and have an abortion, like a spa day.” Angelica didn’t laugh. “Your mother loves you. But she also lived her life in survival mode. And it changed her.” I said nothing. “No wonder you have anxiety,” Angelica said gently. “Your first days were in a womb filled with the energy of unwanted souls.” I began to cry—deep, body-quaking sobs. I felt gut-punched by the idea that my mother was as heartless as Angelica seemed to think. I felt grief for those unwanted children. But mostly I felt guilt. Why had I been the lucky one, the wanted daughter? It seemed so arbitrary, so unfair. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Angelica. “I feel like I did,” I said. These hurt souls are holding on to you because you accept that guilt,” she said. “You need to set them free.” “How?” “Tell them what they’ve been waiting to hear.” I looked to my right side, where I thought the tiny souls might be, and said, “I’m sorry Mom didn’t want you.” And then I sat and cried for a while. I was overcome by a calm sadness. I lay down on the table without being asked to. Angelica placed crystals on my body. The moment her hands cradled my head, I fell asleep. I woke up unable to recall the specifics of my dream—just that it was full of people and a profound feeling of reckoning, of truth. I felt peaceful, as though I’d been lying on an exquisite beach. That night, as we sat on the couch, my husband flipped to The Walking Dead. I hate The Walking Dead. “No,” I said. “I want to watch Parts Unknown.” (I have a thing for Anthony Bourdain.) So we did. Even a day earlier, saying no would have consumed me with guilt. This time it felt like something I could do. It felt right. At our next session, Angelica asked me to write out as much of my family history as I could. This only served to show me how little I knew. When my mother came over for Sunday dinner, I decided to ask her about when she was a young woman. My mother, in her customarily breezy tone and broken English, walked me through her early life—one of fear and grief, of horrific decisions wrought by limited choices. She told me about the herbs she took, the pot she sat on as she waited for a fetus to be expelled. She told me about the time, in Taiwan’s rural south, when a snake shed its skin beside my half sister’s crib. She told me about how years later, she left that child and her sister behind. I asked about her own girlhood, about the war in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s—surely she didn’t remember it? “I live in a small village,” she said matter-of-factly. “When Japanese bomb Chengdu, whole city rush out. Come by my village. My friends and I run outside. We all watch bomb go off together.”
  She told me about how, in those years, she fought with her brothers for shreds of meat. Most times, all they had to eat were the pumpkins and lima beans they grew. I was stunned. My mother and my grandmother had indeed been exposed to war, just as Angelica had intuited. When I saw her next, Angelica told me, “The person who reacts to everything with fear is the child you. It’s my job to awaken adult Monique, who can care for herself.” We set out to do just that. I learned to step outside my body whenever anxiety threatened to overtake me, to watch my behavior as though it were someone else’s. I recognized my anxiety in real time, noting how it affected me physically. Again and again, I saw reactions that made no sense. Putting the wrong kind of crackers in Elyse’s lunch didn’t warrant a spike in my heart rate. Choosing a lousy restaurant on date night didn’t merit a roiling stomach. Without as many “emergencies” to react to, I became more patient. When Elyse was stressed about running late for school, instead of mirroring her anxiety, I gave her a long hug. When Rick forgot to buy milk, I shrugged and poured Elyse a glass of water. When Rick’s brother came over with his pug and it rubbed its chronically itchy butt across our rugs, I put a sheet down and laughed at my daughter’s delight in the dog’s antics. Before, when I seemed stressed, Elyse had often asked me “Are you angry, Mommy? Are you frustrated with me?” She had seen my anxiety, absorbed it, and taken responsibility for it, just as I once had with my mother. Now she wasn’t asking me that. She had no reason to. As I grew more convinced that I had inherited my anxiety, my relationship to it changed. I became more accepting of it. I was able to stop judging myself for finding life so unmanageable. The thing about not judging yourself is that it lets you actually start to like yourself. More and more, I felt that happening. In my next session with Angelica, I told her this. And I told her about the strides I’d been making—walking around in the world as though I belonged there. “That’s a victory,” she said. “I still worry about Elyse’s feelings getting hurt,” I said. “That’s normal,” Angelica said. “She’s your kid.” Later, I asked Rick, “Do you think I’m better?” He paused. “Well, I did notice you didn’t tell me which lane I had to drive in to get to the movies last night,” he said. I am better. I know it—I feel it every day. I feel it when I wake up and don’t assume that everything that can go wrong will, and when I make plans with people without worrying about whether I’ll be entertaining enough for them. I feel it when my daughter runs to me, instead of away, when she’s had a hard day. Delving into my ancestry let me face my own turmoil and finally see myself clearly. I am my grandmother’s sadness and my mother’s fear—but I am also my grandmother’s strength and my mother’s resilience. And I can see my anxiety for what it is, too: a series of reactions I can choose to breathe through. (Believe me, I pat myself on the back every time I do.) Whether my pain was inherited or not, my life was defined by it. I was forever looking backward, stuck in familiar fears. I was living history—and now I’m creating a new one. Illustrations by Gracia Lam.
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from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2lLAHEX
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