#characters with only 2 kind of weird interactions being my personal fairy tale is where i'm at nowadays

[roomba-mangga]

and for today's melini family brainrot i will now cry over how archetypal damsel-in-distress yaad recognized that his captor was just as trapped as he was if not more so and then proceeded to rescue him from their shared cage astride a horse

[otterplusharchive]

rey! do you have any recs for kdramas? i have never watched any, but i like lovable characters and romance ? thank you in advance!

I DO IN FACT HAVE DRAMA RECS HII not all of these will be kdramas, but ill start with the kdramas ive watched and enjoyed and ill include all the warnings for them that i can remember off the top of my head and a brief synopsis for u!

kdramas-

1. weight lifting fairy kim bok joo

this was probably one of the first kdramas i saw people post about in like 2015 and i watched a little bit of it in 2016 but then only just got around to finishing it last year. the basic gist of it is its about a young sports college weight lifter, kim bok joo, centering around her navigating through her life and trying to figure out who she is and what she wants in life and what she wants to be. her romantic interest in the show is a swimmer and they have a sort of rivals to friends to lovers, he is SO in love with her and its adorable. i absolutely loved the side characters in this show theyre all so fun and kim bok joos best friends and weight lifting team are especially delightful. my main warning would be that this show addresses eating disorders and theres a lot of mention of both weight gain and weight loss, theres also a plot point early on where kim bok joo has a crush on her eventual love interests older brother but it gets resolved and the older brother literally goes "i didnt realize you had a crush on me and if i knew that i wouldnt have been so friendly with you, it would be completely innapropriate for us to be in a relationship". overall its a really sweet and emotional fun show but if you have issues with weight talk id skip this one

2. tale of the nine tailed

this one is really recent from last year and i didnt expect to be so hooked by it but boy howdy did i get attached to all the characters and the wild plot. it feels hard to explain the plot but basically a nine tailed fox named lee yeon is living in modern day seoul and is working for the underworld finding paranormal spirits/creatures/other rogue foxes that are causing havoc on the world, hes resigned himself to living this life while waiting for his girlfriend who died tragically 600 years ago to come back to life because he traded his status as a mountain god in order to ensure that her soul would one day be reincarnated. a plucky investigative journalist named nam ji ah figures out that hes not human and shenanagins ensue because she looks exactly like his dead girlfriend oooooo whatll happen. the plot beyond that gets really wild and its hard to explain and is easier to just watch. if u enjoy paranormal adventures this one is good. my one big complaint and issue with this is that the immortal mountain spirit meets his original girlfriend when shes a child and she continues to visit him off and on as she grows up which is Hm I Dont Like That! but thankfully the present time romance our female lead meets him when shes about 30 if im remembering right. also warnings for general fantasy violence, references to child abuse, animal death, and abandonment issues

3. extraordinary you

HUGE unreality warning for this. if you have issues with feeling unreal or have paranoia/delusions about not being a real person id avoid this one just because of its premise

ok i know i said tale of the nine tailed was a hard plot to explain but BOY extraordinary you is even HARDER to explain. because its so wild but so good. its about a girl who realizes that she is literally a side character in a comic book, and the story becomes her trying to change the story to save her character from dying but it becomes a lot more than that. the romance in this is literally tooth achingly sweet and the show itself is very pretty, i loved the side characters in this one and the show was engaging and interesting to watch it became really layered and meta. super reccomend this one honestly. my main issues/warnings that i can remember off the top of my head were just one character being the classic controlling boyfriend stereotype, bullying someone specifically for being poor, unreality like i mentioned before, and then at the very end there was this love interest for a side character who got reincarnated from a past piece of writing that they had been in and put in the comic but she was a student and he was the school cook which is weird but thankfully they like barely interact at all and theres no real romance he just like recognizes her and its barely a thing at the end of the show but its still weird

4. mystic pop up bar

big warning for suicide, sexual harrasment (which is framed as being bad and the guy whos harrassing the girl literally gets thrown off a roof)

i havent finished this one yet and thats mainly because im not emotionally ready because this one makes me soooo emotional. if you like found family this is a good one. its about a pop up bar run by a woman whos been tasked with solving the problems of a certain amount of people in order to atone for her crimes in the past before dying, shes able to enter the dreams of people and solve their issues using the information she gets in the dreams. paranormal shenanagins ensue, she acquires a son and a husband and it kills me its so fun and quirky and fun despite handling dark themes and peoples problems. also very sweet the found family murders me

5. kingdom (netflix original)

i literally am not going to be able to watch any other zombie media because kingdom and train to busan are the best pieces of zombie media ive ever seen. warnings for gore and violence and just general horror aspects.

i absolutely love this one its so thrilling and well done, i love the acting and the way that this show looks its absolutely gorgeous. a zombie plague breaks out in joseon period korea where the emperor has died and then was brought back to life by the queen and her father in a ploy to try and keep their family in political power, the crown prince must find answers. a lot more happens and its very dramatic and good i love the characters in this one

cdramas

1. the untamed. if you follow me and you havent watched the untamed im begging you to watch the untamed. literally one of the most beautiful stories ive experienced in my life i am not joking when i say i cried multiple times over it. the main characters are canonically gay in love and have a son together please watch the untamed. handles a lot of dark themes, heres a tw guide

2. the sleuth of the ming dynasty

this is another one i havent finished but its fun so far, very gay, found family, food, and solving murder mysteries during the ming dynasty

3. hikaru no go (also known as qi hun)

havent finished this one, there is some propaganda about hong kong in the first episode but as far as i know thats the only instance of something like that in the show

this ones about the game go and so far its very sweet and fun, local boy awakens a ghost who was a master of the game of go hundreds of years ago and eventually is persuaded to learn how to play go with the aid of the ghost. im really liking this one so far its very cute and i love the characters in it. if youve watched the untamed nie huaisangs actor ji li is in this one!

4. the legend of yunqian

this ones very short and on youtube, all the episodes are about 5 minutes long and its a lesbian time travel fantasy adventure with a happy ending! funny and cute

jdramas

1. cherry magic

please please please watch cherry magic. the premise sounds very much like a weird yaoi kind of thing but trust me on this. trust me. it is so heart warming and sweet and i was so emotional about it and the growth of the main character.

adachi gains the power to read peoples minds on his 30th birthday based off a urban legend that if youre a 30 year old virgin that youll become a wizard. after gaining this power he accidentally finds out that his extremely popular and handsome coworker has a crush on him, and shenanagins ensue along with adachi having blossoming feelings in return. this show was really refreshing in a lot of ways, adachi is a main character who like.. is unsure of himself and insecure in a very kind of realistic way, he closes himself off and is afraid to reach out to people and through the course of the show we see him slowly come out of his shell and realize that hes likeable and lovable and that people want to be around him and its so nice to see. my main complaint about this show is that i dont really like the background couple, but otherwise this is a very sweet and refreshing gay romance that has a happy ending!

some others that i myself havent seen but that ive seen people talk about a lot and that i want to watch eventually:

- the legend of fei (cdrama)

- the wolf (cdrama)

- gaurdian (cdrama, not the kdrama one called goblin)

- healer (kdrama, i did watch some of this one but it was in 2016 and i never finished it so i barely remember any of it but i do remember liking it)

- nobody knows (kdrama)

- its ok to not be ok (kdrama)

sorry this is so long but i hope youll be able to find a drama u enjoy!!

[arsnovacadenza]

So I finally played The Wolf Among Us

 Being the big bad wolf fan that I am, I’d been dying to get my hands on the game after seeing images of Bigby floating around pinterest. Then I found out it was discounted around 50% yesterday and I knew I GOTTA have it.

Here’s a not-so-short rundown of my thoughts since no one’d read my full review anyway. Also, bear in mind that I never read the graphic novels so I’ll be judging the characters and plot solely on the first and (currently) only game. Spoilers under the cut!

The good:

Bigby. God I ENJOYED playing as him. There was great satisfaction being able to play this rough, potentially dangerous character and see him grow into this person that Fabletown finally grows to accept. During my first playthrough, I wasn’t able to play him as a brutal, full blown anti-hero because I need to keep him on the community’s good side. I’m definitely gonna replay the chapters and choose the more violent options and see him go full badass wolf on everyone. Speaking of badass, I constantly kept thinking to myself “Wow, I’d LOVE to play as him in an action game.” That one big fight scene against Bloody Mary made me go “You’re doing great, sweetie! Keep it up!” 

The story definitely got me hooked. There wasn’t a time when I wished a speed button was available unlike Hashihime in the Old Book Town where I got bored during a sex scene.

It didn’t remind me of Happily N’ever After and its forced self-awareness that borders on annoying. Mini rant: I love when stories are set in a world where fairy tale characters meet and interact with each other, but that doesn’t mean every work that does it interests me because the handling of  the theme may not quite work (for me at least). I haven’t rewatched Shrek, but I never rolled my eyes every time they make a joke about a fairytale character. I never watched Once Upon a Time but I feel it’s gonna be a pretty mixed bag? It’s just weird seeing all these adult characters taking the whole thing seriously and not in an endearingly self-aware kind of way. The Wolf Among Us kinda did it nicely in that yeah, these were fairy tale characters. Let’s see them work their way as poor people living in New York. I like how they take on the poverty angle because it kinda reminds me of my country, sorta. 

To my surprise, the fight scenes DID IT for me. It’s satisfying to be able to beat the shit outta people I wanted to punch from the very beginning of the game (the Tweedles and Mary. Boy I wanted to see them banged up real badly). To be honest, I never played these Telltale games and I had my doubts about the combat mechanics. Turns out they were done pretty well. Also, I can’t shut up about the final brawl against Mary because....Big Bad Boi.

The meh:

Most of the character designs didn’t wow me. I could name the characters whose design I liked: Bigby, Georgie, Flycatcher, Bluebeard. The rest? Not so much. Some characters like Nerissa were a hit-or-miss while the rest are predictable (Bufkin, Crane, etc) or completely forgettable (Faith and Vivian’s design. Faith’s was at least memorable because her introduction was). The worst one, to me, was Bloody freakin’ Mary. Her design was simply underwhelming. I absolutely adored her true form, but her glamored form was simply...not there. I understand they don’t  want to play the edgy up to eleven which was probably why they didn’t make her tattoo-ed up like Georgie (which is a shame because her emblem has a cool design. Imagine the cool tattoos she could’ve had), but her design was just half-assed (to me anyway). Not gonna lie, I actually was hooked up by her first appearance  —a tough looking enemy with big butch energy  —and then she opened her mouth and she sounds like fucking Bayonetta. This is probably just my personal taste, but I hate the femme fatale villain trope to death and I hate seeing this masculine lady sounding like a generic seductive villainess. Plus, I didn’t see her much during my playthrough so she ended up NOT coming across a real threat or a worthy opponent to Bigby, just a violent bully I need to get through. 

The love interest character’s development was a mixed bag. I didn’t hate Snow White (like some people seem to do), but I was disappointed that she drifted away from Bigby before she gets the chance to solidify herself as his equal and partner. I know she marries him in the graphic novels, but I didn’t quite root for them to be together in the game. Mostly because of the boss-employee dynamic they had towards the end of the game, but it’s also because I also started to see how she didn’t grow to be somebody who understands Bigby and the plight of the non-human characters of Fabletown (case in point being Mr. Toad and TJ). She keeps saying that she does understand what life is like for people like Holly and I did sympathize with her when she talks to Bigby about her wanting to make Fabletown a better place, but the plot cuts her development once she has to act as Deputy Major in Crane’s place. She eventually becomes affixed as a cog in the machine. Sure, she’s needed to keep the system running, but her insisting on going by the (outdated) book just didn’t work I kept getting reminded of Louis from Beastars and how got his character development was. In Louis’ case, he started out as an covert bigot who strongarms his way to obtain authority, thinking he’d be able to make the world a better place. He does make good out of it, but we also see him coming to terms with his vulnerability which leads him to reach out towards other people with the same goals. Simply put, he changed from a know-it-all who wants to change the world so they’d suit his own views better to someone who genuinely wants to make a difference for other people. This....kinda doesn’t happen with Snow White. It’s probably because the POV (who stays on Bigby the entire time) or they’re saving  her character development for the sequel; we can’t really tell until Season 2 comes out.

Speaking of which, how does being a giant, fearsome wolf in disguise reflect on Bigby’s relationship with other animal characters like Mr. Toad? I thought there was some potential in contrasting Mr Toad’s inability to afford glamor and Bigby having his lycantrophy knife handed to him by Snow. I imagine the animal townsfolk would take jabs at him having the privilege to remain constantly human without having to constantly return to the 13th floor but it never happened. 

The resolution of the Crooked Man’s plot felt rushed and I was disappointed with how they handled the organized crime plot. It was built to be a grand scheme beyond Crane and the murder of the girls, but they resolved it way too quickly. It’s probably just me, but when you have organized crime and financial exploitation by (persumedly) a mafia, do you expect the villain to have their ass handed back to them in two chapters after their buildup?I  mean, during Bigby and Crooked Man’s confrontation at the factory,  I kept expecting the  Crooked Man to make his escape after the battle against Mary  — him being immediately dragged to court was anti-climatic. Does it really take that short a time to take down a big, magical mafia boss? Shouldn’t he have other witches at his beck and call (the secret lab at Johann’s place definitely hinted at that!)

I won’t refute if somebody brings up the lack of diversity in the entire cast. As far as I know, there was only one black person and they didn’t do anything with her character. I thought It would be nice if we get to see POC characters like Aladdin or Yeh-Shen (or replace Aladdin with Sinbad or Ali Baba if we want to go for total accuracy). It doesn’t help that the predominantly white characters look generic. Heck, some of the girls could have some variety in body shapes. For example, why not make Holly be a big beautiful woman? If you don’t want to make her morbidly obese, at least make her look heavier. You know, because she’s a troll. No, her wanting to look beautiful by concealing her troll form doesn’t work. Her wanting to be her own kind of beautiful (especially according to Troll standards) can be contrasted nicely to Lily having to wear her human skin because she needs to cater to her clientele, thus further emphasizing her lack of choice in her employment to Guido (and by extent the Crooked Man). 

How long has it been since the exodus? Why is the Fabletown government still this terrible? I really want to be able to see the demographic at a bigger scope. For example, I’d like to see more of the dynamic between people like Bluebeard and the people at the Business Office. Also, what’s up with people with various problems going straight up to the Business Office? Do they not have accountants? How do they handle the legal stuff with the mundies? Who’s handling legal? The organization at the Business Office is just...weird. I thought they’d have some sort of higher council since I thought they’d need a bigger power to keep more powerful magic beings (like the witches) in place. Are things done better in the graphic novel?

Some of the animation lagged/look really janky on my Envy 13 laptop. Also, I encountered a bug at the beginning of some chapters where choices show up when they don’t need to, as well as some weird cuts during scene. Had to exit and reboot the game to proceed. 

That’s all I can think of now. Feel free to send an ask so we can gush about the husbando material that is Bigby Wolf if you have other opinions!

[venus-says]

Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GoGo Episodes 25-37

They finally changed that awful ending theme, YES!

I have this thing while watching Precure weekly where at some point during the third quarter I start to get tired of the season, this doesn't happen always but more often than not during this time of the show my fire starts to burn out. And I feel like if I had watched GoGo while it was airing this burn out would hit me for sure because I do think this is the weakest point of this season.

The feeling I had while watching this was that nothing really relevant was happening, even though we actually had quite a decent amount of events moving the story. It's that just most of these events were happening in episodes that weren't very memorable or eventful, we also didn't have a climax for this quarter which made it feel like most of the stuff was meaningless. Also, different from the first and the second quarter, this one didn't have an episode that stands out as a sign of this portion of the story and these are all things that make this the less interesting part of this season so far.

We didn't have a lot of fillers, but we had a lot of what would be considered important events happening in episodes where the main plot could be considered filler, and this is the feeling I have for this quarter, it was the "filler arc" even though we didn't really have an immense amount of fillers if we think about it.

Episode 25 introduces new villains and we have Queen Bavarois' departure, then we have the filler in the big city followed by a summer festival episode. Next in line, in episode 28, we're introduced to the next monarch, Princess Crepe, and the following episode marks the debut of another general. We reach episode 30 which is another fairy tale episode but that introduces the new toy that will give Milky Rose's power-up in the next episode, which also crowns Nuts as a rightful ruler since he finally gets to use the power of the crown. Then there's a couple of filler episodes, one to showcase the new general's power and one filler for Urara, and we're already saying goodbye to Princess Crepe in episode 34. Episode 35 is the "last" filler of this arc, and we close this quarter with the two-parter that serves as the climax for this section of the story.

As you can see, a lot happens, yet it doesn't feel like it, it doesn't feel like we had any significant progress outside of Milky Rose's new attack. Does this mean the show became bad and that I stopped enjoying it? No, one of my favorite episodes of this season is here, but again, in comparison with the previous 24 episodes, these 12 feel pretty week.

Talking about the fillers, Episode 26 was a bit weird, it was fine but I still don't know if by the end the people of that city really believed that precure were real or if it was a tv/promo thing for the parade. 32 was the pinnacle of filler episodes because by the end I was like "okay, seeing the girls shrunk down was fun, but why was that for...? What was accomplished here by doing this?". 33 was cute, it's good to see the girls interacting with other characters from school that aren't secondary characters, but by the end, it didn't feel very special. Then we have 35, that seems like it would be a strong emotional episode about the girls wondering about their future and everything, but that is kinda put in the background in order to give Bumbee of all persons a focused episode and it was just weird. And for last, there's episodes 36 and 37, that were supposed to be our climax for this part but that honestly are more filler than anything. They don't really add much to the story, it was just a game show thing for the sake of it, it didn't change the status quo, to be honest, it didn't even have to be a two-parter IMO, it was fun up until a certain point, but they dragged it way too much.

Thankfully, filler land wasn't just a bunch of mediocre stuff because we had the glorious summer festival episode where we can see the combo Komachi and Rin working together again and IT'S FUN AS HELL!! I gotta say, after Yes! Komachi didn't leave that much of a big impression on me, but in GoGo I'M LOVING HER! She was amazing in this episode, from being quirky because of her love for scary things to the smartness to find a way to walk through that world, to her kindness in trying to help Rin overcome her fears, she shined brightly. And once again, she used her Emerald Saucer in another creative way that brought a lot of fun to the fight and that reiterated how versatile mint is as a cure, Again, marvelous episode.

Going to villains, my opinions on Shibiretta and Bumbee remain the same, they've been consistent with what we've seen so far. The biggest thing for the villains was the introduction of not just one, but three new generals at this point of the story, given that we haven't seen much of them I don't have any strong opinions on Yadokan and Isogin, they seem pretty bland and I'm not invested on them but I like that they go all out and they didn't reserve what I believe is their fully beast form only for their final appearance. The more expressive addition to the cast is Mucardia, who's very different from all previous generals we had, I like how his approach is through using disguises and everything, it reminds me of Shitattare in this aspect, and I'm here for this. We also had a kind of a confirmation that the Director had something romantic with Flora or something on those lines from one flashback/dream sequence we had in one of the episodes. Now, the only thing I haven't enjoyed from the villains is Anacondy, I don't like how they're making her someone who's obsessed with a man, I think I was fine with her rivalry with Shibiretta because it could be something of the likes of her feeling threatened of losing her position, but here they made it more obvious that she has feelings for the Director and I really don't like that, especially since they also show her having some level of attraction to Mucardia, I think this goes too much to the route of "this strong woman NEEDS a man". And I think they could let the Mucardia stuff be present, but having her be in love for the Director it just feels like a cheap move.

With Queen Bavarois back to her kingdom, we're greeted with the monarch for this arc, Princess Crepe. And I have a lot of problems with her, to begin is her personality, she's the basic ojou-sama archetype but that is a bit extra delusional because of her love for Coco, she's also the monarch we spent the least amount of time with, I believe, and in this short amount of time we had very few instances where we could see her real personality because the show was more concerned in making her another rival in love for Nozomi and Milk, so it's hard to get to like her and because I don't like her whenever they try to make an emotional moment for her, it just doesn't work.

Now to close this post, let's talk Nuts. I'm glad the show addressed the fact that he was feeling useless, because well... he was, and I like that they gave him his mini-arc of about 3 episodes or so because he was really needing it. I just wish the groundwork had been set in a better way, the steps for his arc here are he sees a laptop in episode 26, in episode 29 we see him drawing the plans for the communicator, in episode 30 he finally builds it but he can't make it work, and then episode 31 is about him putting out there his frustration, showing his determination and being able to summon the power of the crown to give Milky Rose her new weapon and attack. My problem here is that it feels like it wasn't enough, like yeah those points were there, but we effectively only saw that affecting him in 2 episodes, it wasn't a good build-up.

And this lack of build-up also hurts Milky Rose a bit because we don't see Nuts and Milk/Kurumi having an extra bond, the only thing they had was when Nuts knew Kurumi was Milk before she revealed her identity, and again, that was only one instance of it happening. Also, the star of the episode is more Nuts than Milk, so for her to gain a new power-up from this sadly doesn't feel like it was deserved or earned. And I think the producers kinda knew that because instead of giving her something completely new that could make use of the Milky Mirror in the way it deserves, because it is a pretty cool weapon, they just made her old attack but with a different CG effect for the petals of her rose. It is a bit disappointing.

I think this sums up perfectly this third quarter, a bit disappointing from a series that was being consistently good, and I hope this quarter was just a fluke and that we'll end this season with a bang because I really enjoyed the first half of the series and it would be sad to see it sink down in my concept. But anyway, these are just my thoughts, I wanna hear what do you have to say about in the comments down below. Stay healthy, stay safe, never stop resisting, thank you so much for reading, and until the next time. See-ya~

[vuelie-frost]

F2: How do we cope?

So I’m someone who has a moderate dose of anxiety in her life, which is being combatted through therapy, medication, & learning healthy coping mechanisms. I’m no expert, but I have some experience dealing with strong negative emotions. One strategy I’ve been recommended is asking yourself, in any given anxiety-riddled situation, “What’s the worst-case scenario that could happen?” This brings you out of your own head- out of hypotheticals- and into the concrete.

Don’t get me wrong, it can be painful to think about. But it can be helpful to see where our biggest fears lie. And if you’re interested in alleviating those strong negative emotions, it’s a necessary step.

I’ve said before that I’m trying to stay open-minded and optimistic about this movie. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have fears and concerns. For me personally, my biggest "worst that can happen” theories for the ending of Frozen 2 are:

- The sisters never see each other again (with a heart-shattering goodbye scene that makes us all inconsolable) - Elsa loses her humanity to become a spirit/goddess, essentially intangible and immortal - Elsa is no longer called “Queen Elsa” in the franchise, invalidating a huge historic part of her identity - Elsa doesn’t attend Anna’s coronation because she’s “too busy” doing other shit - Disney+ makes a spin-off TV series with Elsa going on adventures (just please... no.)

(please don’t chime in with what you guys think about those ideas, at least in this post, whether they’re right or wrong... that’s not the point.)

So what if any, if all, of these things happen? What next?

Stuff not to do (I mean, do whatever you want, but these probably won’t be very helpful)

- oversleeping as a defense mechanism - eating your feelings - drinking/using substances to numb pain - stew and ruminate on the internet with people who only get your sadness and anger riled up - spend all day on the internet - engage in maladaptive compulsive behaviors (oh, hello dermatillomania. great to see you again.) - completely avoid feeling your feelings - making impulse decisions (don’t go buy a car just because “Frozen 2 sucks, the world is meaningless.”) - rant to Jen/Chris/the creative team at Disney on Twitter (which is different from an honest review of the movie, which I’m sure they’d be more receptive to)

Stuff to do

1) Grieve the movie we longed for. 

This might sound dramatic and my inner critic is constantly chiding me with “It’s literally a movie for kids, why are you so bonded to it?” But that’s totally unhelpful here. It doesn’t matter why or how, but most of us in the fandom feel a deep connection to the first movie. It’s not exaggeration to say that IF the sequel crushes us, it could be emotionally devastating. Grief is complex, individualized, and weird to work through... but it’s real, and if it’s something we need to face in order to move forward,  2) Decide how tightly to hold onto the franchise. 

Something being canon doesn’t mean we have an obligation to internalize it. How many franchises before have whittled their stories down to C-rated TV shows and average spinoffs? Do we accept all of them wholeheartedly?

Granted, this is hard to write about because there’s a slight cognitive dissonance that has to happen for us to disbelieve the sequel of any story.  But regardless, determining your relationship to the narrative is a deeply personal choice- one that can’t be decided for you. If my worst-case scenarios happen for F2, I’m probably going to maintain my complete love for the first movie... and pretend the sequel is an AU. Or extrapolation. Accept that it exists as the canon progression, but reject its meaning in my life.

3) Get off the internet. 

This is probably the best possible thing to do when the online world is causing you strife and stress. Tumblr has a tendency to be an echo-chamber; I actually only recently rejoined after a long loooong hiatus for that reason. Despite what boomers want you to think, the internet’s not inherently toxic. But despite all its good, it’s also highly curated, completely biased, full of half-truths, and a fantastic vehicle for rumors.

Also realize that until November 22, anything and everything Frozen 2-related that’s released by Disney is going to make you psychoanalyze the content for clues on how to feel. We’ll all become obsessed, deranged Sherlocks in our own right. Don't let it consume you.

4) Creatively output your thoughts & feelings

Headcanons, AUs, derivative work, fan fiction, fan art all serve us well (and are way healthier than like, downing an entire chocolate cake in sadness.) I’m an artist and you bet your biscuits I’ll be sketching Elsa for weeks and WEEKS before & after the premiere. It’s just how I process things.

Another thing I’ve decided I’m going to do if any of my worst-case scenario fears are realized is: write letters to the sisters as if they were real people. Talk to them about the ending. Jen Lee kept journals writing to/from the girls when they were conceptualizing the movie; I think there’s merit in letting the characters speak for themselves.

5) Employ your favorite coping mechanisms

These are personal to you, but could include:

- meditation - working out or exercising - yoga - writing/drawing (see above point) - making coffee or tea & relax in bed with a book - talk to someone about it, bonus points if it’s someone in the “real world” - take a walk outside - use breathing exercises - take a hot bath or shower - clean your room/house/apartment - put on music - cook - play with a pet - do something with a friend Note that all of these have to do with the external world. Distraction doesn’t heal us by itself (which is why denial is a poor way of dealing with shit,) but it helps our brains reset in the background. It sets the rest of the world into perspective, so that we can more effectively face our negative emotions later.  Remember, there’s nothing wrong with putting off processing until you’ve done something helpful or enriching. “Listen brain, we can cry later, right now I’m going to bake pumpkin cookies and you can’t stop me.”

6) Remember story is told to connect us with the real world

The idea of escapism is a bit paradoxical, because in pursuing a fantasy world, we’re only working to realize our desires in the real world. The reason we love Frozen so much is because we want that kind of love in our own lives... and the fairy tale reminds us that it’s real. Idealized and sanitized by The Mouse, sure, but it’s real. 

It may be painful to acknowledge but: we don’t need Elsa, Anna, Kristoff, or Olaf in order to flourish. Fiction exists to affect us in the real world. Frozen is one story among many- MANY!- that have the potential to sculpt your own personal future. That’s not to say it doesn’t retain a deep meaningful significance for us. I’m going to hold the first movie in my heart forever, that I know for sure. But its reasons for being great are because it plants us in reality. Can you imagine a beautiful young woman with the ability to freeze ice? Maybe that’s not plausible. But an undying, fiercely loyal commitment between two women? Hell yeah. 7) Recognize idolization & parasocial relationships where they may be... and start to heal them

This is heavy stuff that might require a professional to help you sort through- but if you’re truly suffering, paralyzed, or flung into a depressive episode due to any life circumstance (including a movie sequel,) it’s not silly to seek help in order to move forward. 

Parasocial relationships are perceived relationships where the other party (usually a celebrity, in terms of celebrity worship) doesn’t know you. Fictional worlds can fall into this category as well. It’s a one-side relationship that feels unbalanced when the other party does something we don't like. This is a studied topic I’m not super knowledgable on, but here are some links to more information if you’re interested: Why We Get So Attached To Fictional Characters by Kimberly Truong 

Parasocial Relationships with Fictional Characters in Therapy by Kathleen Gannon

Parasocial Break-Up from Favorite Television Characters: The Role of Attachment Styles and Relationship Intensity by Jonathan Cohen

Our fictional friends: Parasocial interaction and relationships in an evolving media world by Carri Romm - - - Also: I love you guys. <3 I love being in the Frozen fandom. It’s all going to be okay.

[singtheskyandfightlikehell]

Eurovision 2019 Opinions

Well, the 26 countries that will be participating in the final are official now, so here’s my in depth thoughts about each entry, ranked from least favorite to favorite along with explanations and a 10 pt rating system. honestly i thought this year was solidly mediocre. a few i really like, about 3 i can’t stand, and the rest are all smack dab in the middle of “decent”. of course, these are just my opinions and I totally get that people will disagree with them. i don’t really care. yeah there’s a few i’ll judge you for, but frankly my opinion shouldn’t matter to you. i’m just posting it for my own record and for anyone who might be curious

26. Slovenia (0/10) I know a lot of people like this entry, but frankly, I cannot stand it. It’s boring. It’s awkward. It’s uncomfortable. If I wanted to watch an m/f couple - or, you know what, any couple - stand really close to each other and mumble for three minutes, I - I don’t actually know where I’d go, because I can’t conceptualize myself ever wanting to see that.

25. Denmark (0/10) Again, why? This entry annoys me a lot, and the only reason I didn’t put it last was because I appreciate the use of more than one language. It’s my least favorite parts of all kids shows combined coupled with a message that honestly I disagree with. It feels a bit like she’s judging me for being upset at injustice in the world when I should just shut up and be happy about what I have. I’m sorry, but I don’t believe it’s acceptable to ignore atrocities just because my life is filled with good things. I could imagine this song being the welcoming number in a musical staged in one of those “everything is perfect on the outside but inside it’s the creepiest shit you’ve ever seen” towns that’s used to hypnotize the protagonist into not noticing the creepy shit

24. Estonia (1/10) I don’t honestly dislike this song, but it does bore me. He’s a mediocre singer with a mediocre song. Also I can’t get past the fact that he rhymes “this” with “this”. It distracts me and ruins the whole thing.

23. Czech Republic (2/10) I really didn’t like this one at first. It was irritating and the lyrics were weird. However, I surprisingly enjoyed the live performance. The lead singer has some charisma on stage. Good for him.

22. San Marino (3/10) No idea how he got to the final (I know it’s bc he’s a meme, but still), but I don’t hate the song. I don’t think it should win, but honestly, I think it’s fun. His voice is ridiculous, but I can stand it for three minutes.

21. UK (4/10) I definitely feel like this is the kind of generic song I’ve heard many times before, but he does a good job with it, and ultimately it’s alright. His hair makes me think of Finn Shelby from Peaky Blinders, but that’s neither here nor there.

20. North Macedonia (4/10) Honestly, I feel like I should like this song more than I do. She has a good voice, and the song has a good message. Unfortunately, it’s just never clicked with me, and I often find myself tuning out while listening to it.

19. Israel (5/10) I like his voice. He sells the emotion. Not a gripping song, by any means, but not bad. Some of the rhymes feel a little forced, like the lyrics were written specifically so that they would rhyme, rather than because they have meaning.

18. Germany (5/10) This one gets stuck in my head sometimes, but I’m okay with that. Tbh, I quite like it. Plus, the whole “sisters (but I’d say girls in general) are taught to tear each other down but need to build each other up instead” theme is one I wholeheartedly support. I spent too many years hating everything associated with girls because society told me to.

17. Malta (5/10) I go back and forth on this one a lot. Parts of it I like, parts of it I don’t. It feels a bit different to me, but not like, in a revolutionary way. The singer is strong, and it definitely gets the award for most colorful performance, literally!

16. Serbia (5/10) I feel like I’ve heard this entry before, too, but specifically at Eurovision. Still, she does a good job with it, and I like her armor-inspired jewelry. Plus, it’s not in English!

15. Belarus (5/10) Another one I go back and forth on. I find this is very good study music - energetic and repetitive enough not to be distracting. I don’t love it (I’m even hesitant to say I like it lmao), but people really ought to stop hating on her so much. She’s sixteen. Let her have her fun.

14. Albania (6/10) I really liked Albania’s entry this year tbh. I didn’t feel she sang as strong in the semi-final as she did in the music video, but otherwise I thought it was a very powerful song. The staging was pretty cool, too!

13. Azerbaijan (6/10) I loved everything about this except the refrain. The “shut up about it” bit starts to get on my nerves by about the second refrain. But the verses sounded cool and the staging was awesome!

12. Sweden (6/10) Not the most exciting song in the world, but he sounds good, the ladies sound great, and there’s nothing I dislike about the song or staging.

11. Cyprus (6/10) Not as good as the music video, sadly, but still catchy and fun. I didn’t really like it the first time I heard it, but it’s grown on me since. I felt bad for her being put on the spot with that one “are you mad about Cyprus losing last year” question.

10. Greece (6/10) Definitely grew on me. I tuned out of it the first time I heard it. Prior to the semi finals I thought it was alright. But she really gave us the lesbian dream, huh? Ladies with neat clothes and swords, plus a garden? What more can you ask for lmao

9. France (7/10) Feels kinda standard to me, but not in the worst way possible. Sometimes I get really into it, other times it’s just a nice song. I’ve been liking it a little bit more each time I hear it, though.

8. Netherlands (7/10) The favorite to win, and I’d be okay if it did. Not my favorite this year, but a solidly good song. I have to be in the right mood to want to listen to it, but when I am? Fucking amazing. Also, considering he never left the piano (and didn’t light it on fire), he gave a pretty good performance.

7. Spain (8/10) This song is so much fun, and it’s definitely going to end the competition on a high note. I’m also really curious to see the full version to know more about the life-size dollhouse and animatronic thing they’ve got going

6. Switzerland (8/10) I loved the music video more than the live performance, but regardless I thought this song was also really fun and, idk, snazzy? Love dancing to it while I fold laundry.

5. Australia (9/10) Australia’s staging was everything! I had them in the upper middle rankings until the semi-final, but honestly that looked cool as all fuck!! Her song is weird, but in a way that I can dig. Plus seeing her soar around like Glinda in space with two fellow witches is one of the highlights of Eurovision this year

4. Russia (10/10) Sergey is back and just like in 2016, I absolutely love him and his performance. I’ll admit, the shower thing was a bit weird, but the song sounded great live! Plus, he had a leg-up for me by going with fairy tale imagery in the music video.

3. Norway (10/10) Initially, I only liked the joiking. The other two singers have grown on me, though. This song is fun, the staging is cool, the singers are great, and then it gets quiet and the joik part comes in, and it’s so fucking cool!! Love it, love it, love it!

2. Italy (10/10) My favorite for a long time, only bumped out because I made the fortuitous mistake of watching Iceland’s interviews. I love the song. I love the message. The thing that impressed me most, though, was that this song is about something that isn’t even remotely close to anything that’s happened in my life. I do not relate to it at all. But despite having no personal connection to the topic, I could feel the emotion in it. For a brief three minutes, I could feel something that isn’t my reality but is the reality of many other people. And an artist who can do that is powerful indeed.

1. Iceland (10/10) If you couldn’t tell from the everything about my blog, I have firmly joined the camp of Hatari stans. It may surprise you, but I didn’t really like this song the first time I heard it. Then, I found out the meaning behind it and gave it another chance. Lo and behold, I liked it! It rose in my rankings from lower-middle to the number one spot between listening to it multiple times and watching all the Hatari content I could get my hands on. I totally understand the music being too far for some people, but as a metalhead during the not-Eurovision parts of the year, Hatari isn’t too far of a leap for me. I love the song. I love the staging. I love the costumes. I love the message. I love the band. I love how they interact with each other and everyone else. I love the bits on Iceland Music News. I love their trolling and sarcasm in the interviews. I love the anti-capitalism. I love their websites (seriously, check them out. they put a lot of effort into them). I love the way they approach issues that are important to them. I love the fact that they aren’t afraid of the tough subjects. I especially love that they aren’t trying to walk the popularity line (you see it all the time - for example, queerbaiting, where a tv show wants to appeal to all sides of an issue, so they make characters nearly lgbtqia+ but then throw in enough straightness to please conservatives). Hatari picks their side in each issue instead of trying to cater to everyone, and I respect that a lot. My reactions and emotions aren’t usually prominent or even necessarily visible, but there’s a chance I might actually cheer if they win.

Finally, the honorable mentions, aka countries that didn’t make it to the final but that I would’ve loved to see:

Hungary (in my original top 10) - loved him last time, loved him this time. Beautiful song, beautiful voice, beautiful staging

Georgia - my hopes weren’t high but that doesn’t mean I didn’t love it. There’s nothing quite like a good dramatic song, and this was as dramatic as they come

Portugal/Poland - the two most people were really miffed about in the first semi-final; I think they’d’ve been alright in the semi-final, but both depend entirely on my mood. sometimes I love, sometimes I hate

Croatia - the song was ‘meh’, the singer was fantastic, and the staging was Eurovision in all the right ways

Armenia - one of my early favorites. could’ve used some other people on stage, but otherwise I thought she did wonderfully

Romania - what can I say that hasn’t been said already? she brought everything! that was an experience and an amazing one at that. so disappointed she didn’t make it

and of course,

Ukraine - catchy, badass, wacky, and wlw? sign me the fuck up. So sad to hear what happened to her. I know people are saying this is why politics should be kept out of music, but that’s ridiculous. The real issue is when the issue/message isn’t coming from the artist. It should always be up to the artist’s discretion what they do or do not promote. Propaganda and censorship go hand in hand, which is why I am so bothered by the blanket statements I hear thrown around about Ukraine’s fiasco this year

And that’s all! I think I’ll be happy with anyone scoring a 7 or higher for me winning on Saturday. I wouldn’t be upset about a 6 winning either, I suppose.

Anyways, off to bed so I can make my snacks tomorrow lmao!

[awfully-sadistic]

{{ Book talk: Friend Request

I finished Friend Request by Laura Marshall today.

I don’t quite remember when I bought it but it was sometime during the beginning of the month of December. Jeff and I went to Fry’s and scanned the book section looking for any more Kay Hooper books, especially her Bishop novels. Anyway, there wasn’t any though I did see Christine Feehan! A few of her books, I saw Dark Fire and one of the Leopard books? I know I went and told Dot about it when I got back.

Here is the summary for this book: 1989. When Louise first notices the new girl, Maria seems to be everything the girls Louise hangs out with aren’t. Authentic. Funny. Brash. Within just a few days, Maria and Louise are on their way to becoming fast friends. 2016. Louise receives a heart-stopping email. Maria Weston wants to be friends on Facebook. Long-buried memories quickly rise to the surface: cruel decisions made and dark secrets kept, the night that would change all their lives forever.

As she tries to piece together exactly what happened that night, Louise discovers there’s more to the story than she ever knew.

I’m going to dive into the book but I’ll keep my thoughts below a cut just in case anyone who stumbles upon this doesn’t want to read on spoilers and stuff. I’ma be spoiling things. That’s the point of these talks. I want to TALK ABOUT THE BOOKS I READ AND SHIT.

First off, I don’t care about Louise. She’s a freaking weak character. She has a group of friends she hung out with in high school. She wasn’t too much of a popular kid but her “best friend”, Sophie, was even though Sophie was the one that seemed to be on the fringes of that popularity herself. Claire and some other chick were the true popular girls and Sophie used to be close with Claire until they started to push her out because you know, Sophie became a third wheel... in a group of girl friends. As you can imagine, it was a cliche catty thing. I didn’t care for that aspect but I guess it showed how terrible girls can be to one another.

Another aspect I should mention is that this author is British and this book, you can tell, is British. I didn’t mind it and although some terms/slang went over my head, it wasn’t hard to tell what things meant through the context and it was very little I ran into this problem as an American reader. Further, what caught my attention about this book was the genre of suspense and mystery. Maybe a little horror. I thought it would be like the horror movies with social media and being online, in book form. The cover looked interesting.

The tagline says “Maria Weston wants to be friends. But Maria Weston’s dead. Isn’t she?” And that’s the sort of premise of the story. Louise gets this friend request from her after many years after high school on Facebook and it’s so strange, as someone who is constantly on the Internet but over the whole “Facebook” phase to hear people talk about it like it’s this... Idk, cool thing to use when in actuality, the people that seem to use Facebook are the older generation and it seems that this is where the author fits the mold. She does hit the nail on the nose where she describes Facebook as this community where people put all of their business on it, but only the storybook and fairy tale aspects what everyone is happy to put on display for their friends and mutual to brag to. I think nearly everyone can attest to their family members using Facebook for things like this. My family does it and I think Dot’s does, too. The author does a good job emulating this in her universe. 

So, Louise gets this friend request from Maria who had been killed back in 1989, during prom night. The mystery about this is whether Maria is alive or not. Louise is a divorced mother by now, having married and had a son with a guy she loved in high school, Sam. But Sam cheated on her and eventually had another kid with the woman he left Louise for. One of the things that bothered me about this aspect is that it is never quite explained what the text message said Louise kept bringing up that caused their marriage to splinter. Things like that aren’t explicitly said but seems to be a very important detail. I get that he cheated on her, she read something that she wasn’t supposed to... or however it was described, but the fact that she never writes that detail in makes it an itch I couldn’t scratch. It bothered me. I wanted to know. I never found out what that stupid text message said.

I do like Louise’s son and the relationship she had with him. Henry was an adorable little child and I adored the way she described some of the scenes between mother and son. It gave me better insight on how to write interaction with children, something I don’t quite run into despite wanting to write interactions for Dot and her children.

Going back to Louise, I found it hard to sympathize with her because like I said before, I didn’t like her. I found that she was weak and always had been since high school. She was making decisions that would have me all “Girl, WHY” and wishing she had done things differently instead of the route she had taken. She wasn’t UNBEARABLE like some female protagonists, but she was... stupid. But I get that she was also fearful. She had been carrying around this “secret” of hers since high school, feeling responsible for Maria’s death.

I felt sorry for Maria since I brought her up. She was a new transfer to Louise’s school and at once was ostracized. The summary made it sound like she and Louise were friends but I felt that hardly happened. What happened was that she and Louise hung out about two major times; one was when Louise had been ditched by Sophie (who went to hang out with one of the popular girls and wasn’t even a real friend to her but Louise wanted so bad to fit in with these girls) at lunch and Louise and Maria hung out. Louise, in a sense, used Maria whenever she couldn’t hang out with Sophie. 

Maria had these rumors surrounding her as soon as she moved to a new school In actuality, she had a stalker. This stalker put out horrid rumors about her that ruined her reputation at her previous school and somehow, this new school. Some kid that went to that school had a cousin that attended this new school and that was how these rumors seemed to persist with Maria. It’s quite sad. She was the type that stood up for herself even though she was being treated horribly. She mouthed off to Sophie for treating her like shit and she was kind to Esther, an old friend of Louise that she ditched in order to hang out with Sophie and the popular kids. Maria was a character that you could have liked, instead, we got weak ass Louise and her inability to stand up for herself. In all fronts. The only time she did something that was strong was 1) when her son went missing and 2) when she was being choked near the end of the book. BUT SHE FAILED ALL THE OTHER TIMES TO BE A STRONG CHARACTER. I guess it’s meant to display a whole, every-day jane or something, but like... c’mon. How many chances do you get to rightfully apologize to someone for being a little shithead in your youth? She’s had so many times to apologize to Esther with how she treated her, explain and come clean with so many things, but she kept thinking of herself. She kept saying she felt bad and sorry and regretted everything she had done and how she treated people but it wasn’t until her ass was cornered and she had no other path to take that she RIGHTFULLY apologized or explained herself to the people she should have in the beginning. I felt if you were really that remorseful, you would have done so earlier.

So I didn’t quite blame Esther for feeling distrustful of Louise as she did throughout their encounters. I just thought Louise was a weak protagonist and hard to relate to. Or perhaps I felt too much sympathy for the characters who were done wrongly and came to resent Louise. Sophie was too fucking ridiculous to outright hate; I knew she was a bitch and didn’t care too much for her. She was awful. But Louise was supposed to be the main character you were supposed to be sympathetic towards. I COULDN’T DO IT, lmao.

I suppose I should talk about what I liked about the book. I mean, I only read it on my spare time--which was anytime I wasn’t doing things on my computer which meant cooking and occasionally sitting down with it. I wasn’t in a hurry to read it until that last stretch where Louise went to her high school reunion. I guess that meant it was sort of like a slow build or that just may be because I had been reading slowly. I wasn’t bothered by it, though. I wasn’t taken out of the story, I was able to dive back into it every time I picked it back up. The author’s writing voice seemed good too considering it was her first published book. It wasn’t quite my favorite type of writing style (the book was written in first person, too) but it wasn’t bad. Not at all. Just different. And there wasn’t too many romantic points in it; the romantic aspects I guess I could count were when Louise would speak about her marriage to Sam. How much they loved each other (how much she loved him because she honestly gave him everything). Sam was... something else. I won’t delve too much into his story; I mean, for as involved in the book as he was, I just... didn’t get too much of an impression of him. I didn’t like Sophie more than him and that’s hilariously weird considering the outcome.

The italic chapters, portions where it was written in someone else’s POV, were confusing and I can’t think... why it would be part of the story. I mean, from what I can remember and gather about those small chapters was that... it was in the past. They were hints, I’m going to assume, but they just felt out of place and distracting to me. I didn’t care of those small chapters.

The hints of BDSM also threw me a little. But that was probably because it was mingled in with abuse. So it wasn’t quite real BDSM practices. Just that... Sam was a piece of shit and there was signs Louise couldn’t see and she mistakenly pegged it as BDSM.

I honestly... don’t know what else to talk about this book now that I’ve expressed the little things that were bothering me and how I overall felt about it. It was a pretty... okay read. Not GREAT but it wasn’t bad either. It wasn’t what I was expecting but I wasn’t quite disappointed with what I got. 

[myvoicenottheoneyougiveme]

1 of 3 Sept 4

[not talking about the person I work with and see every day, just FYI, though this last round of rage is certainly disconcerting... no it’s the pull me aside and tell me everything you believe I want to hear on top of some things yesterday that have been lobbed my way which I didn’t put much thought to at the time. And in that tell me what I might want to hear, true or not, it was the added bit to the overall theme since the other day, putting a gun to someone’s head. An “or else”. It was out of character, and even if I don’t like the guy (and he’s given me plenty of reason) who would be displaced, going that extra distance for effect as a play like the timing of some of these "encouragements”, it’s like what are you trying to say right now? On the whole over a long period of time a pattern seems to have emerged, and this breach has tipped me to wonder about a lot else. This was all set against the backdrop of my sentiment concerning what’s happening to me. Here, let’s be super encouraging and simultaneously “incept” a reason for you to not set your sights on wanting to sign on here in this line of work. Whatever the case, cause there’s always some angle, always some game being played (just a few other dots since them came in to actually reframe that exchange) the following stream of consciousness has got nothing to do with choice of job or career or what might be miserable or not about this or that. The problem I have, has got nothing to do with any of it or with anyone in particular but rather the person creating “this” “storm” in the first place in the blank spaces between people directly out of sight. It’s the “game” I have a problem with. It’s how not what. It’s the antithesis of communication. I’d refer back to that video about toxic relationships where coercive/manipulative ways of interacting create confusion. Actually post 3 of 3 incoming.]

From the edge of consciousness something has clicked and I am now awake 2-3 hours earlier than normal without actual incident or old attempt to simply deprive of sleep for god knows why...

And where I was at a moment “encouraged”, I now read the situation decidedly differently.

It’s low. It’s all of it so very very low. But still I know better than to blame any one person. ...You scream “to arms” or “crisis” or simply allow a thing to run its own course and maintain that you’re only here to “help things go right” while pretending to be very hands off.

Where do the lies end and the truth begins? And even with any actual standing with any one person or group of persons being in such a state of decay, it’s still far better than every new stranger you read into “this”. You still pretended to give a damn about the truth or finding the truth when I first came to this state. Every new person or group of persons or... you know it wasn’t the absolute destruction to isolate and control or to have me for yourself or whatever the hell you want to call “this”.

I’m getting closer to the point here and how you’ve adeptly completely sidestepped the issue to make it about something else and get the whole world to follow suit to further and deepen the schisms and create further dependence on you to “intervene” for the lot of us.

“Spit it out”, I, me, or anyone would say to me at this moment, but I’m completely taken back by this. But now I can reframe the instance in light of many other weird coincidences involving this person, and not know what’s bullshit and what’s not. ...I just, I’m at a loss for words. Am I someone you have to tell grandiose lies to? For what reason? “For what reason” might suggest an answer to what’s just happened. It’s the string from which I’ve reverse engineered the entire thing now, even going back months.

...Speechless, and not knowing what goes out the window with it. Do I even bother addressing what you’ve just managed to do here in the null spaces between everyone?

It’s no matter of pride or ego (as the story probably reads) as much as false hope or anywhere near as much ...believing that despite everything and all this time ...it’s got nothing to do with a job or careers or ...anything. Just a rapport, a relationship of sorts, what might have been “friend”, feels to me like something built of rotten wood that isn’t anything I once believed it to be.

And I suppose, I still suppose ...though quite faintly, whatever rotten state of decay anything is anymore, it’s nothing compared to every new person indoctrinated without my own person as a frame of original reference. And you sit there “ready to take me back”, after the world has been mean to me just like you planned it. [insert image]

After you’ve done your absolute best to destroy and burn down and leave ruin, you stand there around the corner or over top of me with a satisfied smile on your face, the kind of glee of someone in absolute control over a life and who is salivating at finally getting everything exactly the way she wants it. And he’ll crawl back to you, and you’ll live happily ever after. After you’ve broken him, his soul, his spirit, like an animal to be tamed, to be owned, you will finally have the horse you always wanted for your fairy tale ending.

...I don’t even know where to begin because it’s so large and spans so much time now. I’ve been touching the edges of it, but this deflection, this latest suggestion, it’s an adept sidestep, an evasion of responsibility, and a pinning on me as the one with a problem and how unfairly --how wrong I am to hold anyone responsible for the part played in what’s happening.

We’ve been round this block before. If the message was “if you don’t like it here, you can always go somewhere else” I didn’t think much of it because we’ve already been round this block before.

Truth is, I’ve never demanded or expected anything from anyone except the simplest of common decency. The actual problem however obscured now has been sidestepped and we’ve made this all about something completely different. Oh, how you’ve managed my life for me. Gonna tell me what I want. ...getting off track here. ...Off track, too many threads over too long a time involving too many instances and people.

I’ve never demanded or expected anything except common decency. Let’s just leave telling me what I want or what I can have or should have in life and a career and whatever else aside, ...that may sound misleading, but fact is there are multiple layers to this from many different directions. I made a resolved decision, for myself, cause I’m a big boy now, you came back with “why are you gonna do that if you don’t really want it?” I responded with “because it’s my best option, and seeing also how you’ve barred every other path forward or every other space I’ve ever tried to exist in, my own skin and own personal space for fuck’s sake, I don’t have time for aspirations. This is about survival”. I went on to say, “and what’s more... you know I’d do just about anything if it freed me from your grip.”  The unanimous callback was in essence, “if you’re so miserable here and feel so trapped, why pin all of your hopes on a make or break of any kind here at this institution?” adeptly sidestepping the actual issue at large, as though there were absolutely nothing wrong with what’s been done to me in my life for 11 years.

Too many layers and angles, I should just state where I stand and not try to address any of the implications and seeming attempts to make the real problem about anything other than what it’s about.

My life, is not my own. It’s hers. I have been enveloped. My lived experience of it, it’s an iron maiden. It’s a person shaped chamber with inward facing spikes or knives or protrusions. I can’t put it any simpler than that. ...And if I may zero in on it, your queen, our queen has made it abundantly clear to me ad nausuem that it doesn’t matter where I go, she will get there before I do.

What is my aspiration in life? What drives every decision I make? Taking back the life stolen from me in every way shape or form by whatever shred or scrap of it that I can.

You can’t just make this about me like what’s happening to me isn’t actually happening to me, while shoving off and evading any responsibility in the outcomes I’m ever reaching for to that end, that aspiration.

It doesn’t matter if it’s here, another school, another job, another state, another videogame, another show, another computer, another house, another room, something without networking capability, life out in the middle of nowhere where at least I know it’s physically impossible to follow stalk me digitally... It doesn’t matter where, it doesn’t matter who, “THIS“ will remain the same. What’s being done to me will remain the same.

I already moved across the country for a lot of good reasons but a plus being leaving all of “this” behind. “This” bled out like ink, like a stain, like blood on paper, corrupting and contaminating slowly but surely as you played more of a saint to work your way in initially. A helper, healer, whatever the hell, your aggression has always been proportional to the amount of power you feel you have. Always. When you feel like you’ve got the knife in, you can never help showing the glee with which you would twist it despite what you need to maintain in the mirror before your audience. Your civility and goodwill goes about as far as you feel you have to. Tentative, you have to make sure not to let it show through at least initially. Secured, the act gives out for what you’re actually here to do... aggrandize yourself at my expense and to exert power over me.

It doesn’t matter where I go. This is the literal translation. I mean let’s just refer to that one content creator who went out of his way to say it. Oh, man, these Skoolies these bus conversions are so cool. And as I really started to sink my teeth into the possibility of freedom from my present living situation, the message next was in essence, “this isn’t going to solve your problems.” “You can’t get away from your problems.” “You won’t solve anything with this lifestyle.” The lifestyle in question here was what most do with a “home” of this variety and that’s travel while working from “home”. Telling me what I’m actually trying to do or trying to tell me what I want, and then coming back with what was in word and has been 100% in action over the course of “this” the message to me...

it doesn’t matter where I go.

Every action ever taken is to send the message to me, that you’re in control, and it doesn’t matter where I go. It doesn’t matter what I do. Give up

Every action, every orchestration. Surrender. Surrender to you.

I already moved across the country and found “this” waiting for me, already here, but not initially. It happened in the blank spaces and slowly over time. You like a worm, eroding--consuming--weaving yourself into the ether.

You can’t now say there are lots of other places and opportunities and paths in life.

Places and opportunities are one thing, that’s the external--the world. Paths in life is internal, between self and state of being. Not only are you out there salivating, ready to wrap yourself around whatever you can like a great snake, but you’re in here, in my personal space ready to punish and exert control over my very being.

Everything you’ve ever done, everything, everything, everything, everything... has been to this end. This person or that person or you oh, Queen, you don’t get to come back now and shove it off onto me like I’m being unreasonable to hang all my hopes like “this” were a final stand. ...Because it is.

It doesn’t matter where I go. If it’s here or it’s there or somewhere else. “This” will remain the same. And if I ever thought “this” was bad with anyone that had an initial chance to see some shred of me apart from the person you paint of me, every new person, every new relationship, every new friendship, the verdict has already been cast. You’ve accelerated. You have accelerated the ways and the means and the number of strangers to whom I am nothing but what you say I am. Every new semester and class of peers has illustrated this absolutely. Where at one time you feigned “science” and people were given the chance to come to their own conclusions, those interactions went too well for me and you didn’t get the result you wanted. Some even completely rejected the shit you were trying to sell because they could see for themselves that you were full of it. You don’t allow that possibility anymore. They come armed for bear shooting from the hip from the first second as you probably say something along the lines of what a devious and crafty and manipulative person I am. It’s right back to master manipulator secret agent spy that can pull the wool over anyone’s eyes as you totally project that onto me despite that being everything you ever do here.  You don’t allow the possibility anymore, for me to ever seem or appear to be anything but what you want me to be. There is a narrative and it’s indoctrinated and drilled into a person before ever even meeting me now. And you’ve done everything you can since to corrupt and destroy whatever other connections I had made here with any of the tentative others who were read in while you were still feigning objectivity and even handedness in your “investigation”.

It doesn’t matter where I go. It doesn’t matter if it’s here, or somewhere else, another job, another career, a different place, different people, different personal space, different computer, air-gapped computer, ...you can’t now say as some kind of evasion of responsibility that there are lots of other places and opportunities and paths in life and that if I don’t like this or that or what you’re doing to me that I can just go somewhere else.

No. I can’t. I can’t go anywhere.

And I can’t aspire. I’m not even allowed the personal space to exist, much less feel anything anymore that isn’t absolutely shutting down in the face of a never-ending assault from every direction at the same time as though the purpose were to ensure destruction, much less allow the room to breathe even in the slightest.

How much more so the gauntlet with every new “jury” (as you all are to her in effect) than in a place where there still exists (at least I believed and am believing it less all the time) a measure of good will and (at least in terms of employability) where I’ve made a good impression or earned a reputation that becomes me in a particular line of work.

This is my final stand because “this” situation, the one where I am enveloped and owned by the god-queen, remains the same regardless of location, regardless of my own presence in my own shoes and in my own skin, and regardless of relationship (friendship, work, life, romantic, or generally).

How many times should I just start over? How much of my life do I have to surrender? How much has to be destroyed before I’m shown abundantly that it doesn’t matter what I do or where I go or who I meet, that “this”--she--is already there waiting for me more aggressive and more destructive all the time?

This fight, this stand, is every stand. And it’s the last. I hold no expectations about possible advancements or whatever ruses are on the menu today. I’m simply going to make decisions for myself to better myself and to put myself on firmer or more solid ground financially so as to secure greater independence at least in one small but large aspect of my life. If that’s remaining at my current station or finding a new door open up over here or over there, understand that every decision I’ve made has had one motivating factor, and it’s been to the securing or reestablishing of the simplest of basic human needs...

...the peace and safety of a home, in whatever form that may take. A place where when I shut the door for the night, a psycho stalker has not already invited themselves in. If I can’t have the simplest of basic human rights in this regard, to not be abused in this way in at least one small shred or space in my life... absolutely nothing else matters. Absolutely nothing else matters. The homeostatic border between me and my attacker is punctured and rended and I don’t even have room enough to breathe much less thrive and lead a life.

What’s being done to me is cruel, and it’s criminal, and I will not spare you that reflection in the mirror I am holding up--the reality of my lived experience that I will not surrender ever again. 

This fight is the same fight as every fight in every place. My last stand is here. There are no more lines in the sand for me to surrender. To abandon one hostile environment for an even more hostile one in another place with people you’ve indoctrinated like you’ve never indoctrinated before... This is the cliff, this precipice, you will own me oh, Queen, have me for yourself, how you want me, the way you want me, having your way with me and everyone around me as you stir up and create drama about and around us, or I can just take a long walk off that short cliff. If I don’t like it there’s the door.

...duly noted

[c-odonoghuecom]

‘Once Upon a Time’ Star Colin O’Donoghue on Season 7 and Rethinking Captain Hook

At its core, the ABC drama series Once Upon A Time is a story of hope, but now in its seventh season, it’s also in a new town (Hyperion Heights) run by a new villain (Gabrielle Anwar as Victoria Belfrey), and there’s a new curse that’s taken the memories of the former residents of the Enchanted Forest. And to overcome it all, a young girl named Lucy (Alison Fernandez) has to convince a grown-up Henry Mills (Andrew J. West) that his true love, aka her mother, is actually Cinderella (Dania Ramirez).

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor Colin O’Donoghue (who plays Captain Hook, aka Killian Jones, aka Officer Rogers) talked about reinventing Hook, working with all of the new cast members, how bittersweet it was to say goodbye to so many of his fellow co-stars this season, whether he ever considered leaving, what kind of cop Rogers is, what life is like in Hyperion Heights, how he feels about where Hook and Emma’s (Jennifer Morrison) story was left, and what it’s meant to him to be a part of this show, for so many seasons. He also talked about juggling the series with making movies and what drew him to What Still Remains.

Collider: It’s great to talk to you, but kind of surreal to talk to you about the seventh season of a show that also sort of feels like the first season again.

COLIN O’DONOGHUE: It’s been great trying to reinvent Hook and figure out who he is, in this realm.

What’s it like to be in Season 7, but to look around and see different cast members on set than the ones you’ve shared scenes with for the last six seasons?

O’DONOGHUE: It’s been great, to be honest. Obviously, we miss all of the old cast members. Nobody can play the characters the way that they played them. But it’s been nice to get to work with new people, as well. One thing that I’ve actually always enjoyed doing on this show is getting to work with so many different people.

When you got the news about the cast departures and the big changes for this season, what was your reaction to that?

O’DONOGHUE: I was happy for the people who wanted to try new things, and I was happy that they got the opportunity to do that. I knew that I would miss working with all of them. It’s a catch-22, to be honest with you. The show needed to go the way that it’s gone for it to continue. It needed a change. It needed to mix things up. Plus, you can’t go back and repeat the first season, for Season 7. You have to change direction, move along and try to progress the stories, or try to make new ones. It was bittersweet.

When they told you that this shift would be happening, did they also tell you what the shift would actually be?

O’DONOGHUE: I had a good idea, as to the general direction that we were going to go in, so that was good.

Had you ever considered leaving the show, yourself, or were you always game and on board for what’s next?

O’DONOGHUE: To be honest with you, I still had time left on my contract, anyway. I’ve loved playing Hook and I’ve loved working on this show, and it’s an amazing opportunity to get to play a character and investigate a character for so long. I’m just happy to be able to have the opportunity to continue to explore him a little more and see how that goes. He’s a great character and I’m blessed to have the opportunity to get to play him.

Has this season felt like the biggest reinterpretation that you’ve had to go through with him?

O’DONOGHUE: Yes and no. Over the seasons, I’ve managed to play four or five different incarnations of Hook. I’ve been lucky to be able to have to many interpretations of this character, but it’s definitely a different take, this season.

Are you approaching your performance any differently, this season, because he is the most different version of the character, even in name, or does he still feel like the same person, at the core?

O’DONOGHUE: At the core, he kind of feels the same. He feels similar to some parts of previous Hooks that I’ve played. But I am approaching it differently because the world and where he is, is very, very different, so you have to come at it slightly different.

He’s gone by Hook, Killian and now Rogers. When you’re playing the character, what name do you think of him as?

O’DONOGHUE: This season, I think of him as Rogers. In the first episode, you saw that he’s a cop and he tries to be the best person that he can be, within the confines of what his personality allows him to be. So, I think of him as Rogers, but he still has elements of Hook.

Could you ever have imagined, when you started playing Hook, that you’d be here now, with him as a cop, of all professions?

O’DONOGHUE: No, I would not have pictured that. To be honest with you, I’m not sure I could have pictured people relating to the character as much as they did. The fact that I’m even on the show is amazing to me.

Did you ever think that he might turn out a little bit more evil and sinister, instead of being the relatively good guy that he actually seems to be?

O’DONOGHUE: Definitely the first season, he was a villain. What I liked about the way that the writers have pitched him, and it’s what I think they do really well with the villains on the show, full-stop, is that they make them far more complex than a black-and-white villain. He was more tormented and conflicted. In Season 2, when I came on, I wanted people to feel sorry for him more than hate him for what he was doing. That was the impetus behind that. But, I didn’t expect him to become quite the hero that he became.

How is he, as a cop? He seems to want to help and to do good, but he also seems like maybe he’s willing to make some compromises to further himself. Will some of his old ways start to filter through?

O’DONOGHUE: That’s always been the fun thing about Hook. It’s difficult for him not to fall back, a little bit, into whatever pirate ways he had. As Rogers, he wants to be the best cop that he can be and the best person that he can be. He has a very definite agenda and case that he wants to try to follow. Even though he doesn’t want it to be the case, lines can get blurred sometimes when he’s investigating stuff.

How would you describe life in Hyperion Heights compared to Storybrooke? What’s it like to live in a town run by Victoria Belfrey, as opposed to living in a town run by Mr. Gold?

O’DONOGHUE: The main thing is that it’s a far more urban environment. It’s gritty. It’s everything that you would expect from city life. The things that a cop sees and does are definitely more relatable to being in a big city.

We pick up the story this season, in a way that very closely mirrors what happened when Henry showed up on Emma’s doorstep and tried to convince her that fairy tales are real, and now we get to see Lucy try to convince Henry of that. Even though they don’t know that they have a past, Killian and Henry have a history. How would you describe the relationship that Rogers has with adult Henry?

O’DONOGHUE: It’s difficult to say, at this stage. Obviously, they don’t know who they are, essentially. They definitely interact, but they don’t know that Hook is Hook, or any of that stuff. It’s more complicated than them just falling back into their previous relationships. This version of Hook that we see in the fairytale past has quite a different relationship with Henry than we’ve seen before.

How has it been to establish a bond with Andrew West, as Henry?

O’DONOGHUE: It’s been fantastic. In many respects, it’s a whole new character. Jared [Gilmore] did such a fantastic job as the younger Henry, and Andy is an incredibly actor. He wants to put his spin on who Henry is, and I think that he really has done an incredible job. It’s been really good fun to explore that relationship.

Who are Rogers’ friends or allies, in Hyperion Heights?

O’DONOGHUE: He has some, but I can’t tell you who they are until a later date. He’s very much a person on his own. Over the course of the next few episodes, you will see his acquaintances. A lot of his relationships are very, very interesting.

Were you satisfied with where Hook and Emma’s relationship was left, when Jennifer Morrison returned for Episode 2?

O’DONOGHUE: Yeah. I think it’s a great reminder of everything that Hook and Emma went through to get to that point. Hook and Emma very much love each other and are happy.

You’ve made it to Season 7 on a TV series, which is a huge deal these days. What’s it meant to you to be a part of this family, have your own action figure, and to have had some of the incredible experiences that you’ve had, being a part of this show?

O’DONOGHUE: I came on in the second season and, even though we’re in Season 7, I still feel like the new guy because I wasn’t there for the first season. I just feel very lucky and I count my blessings to be a part of something that’s meant so much to so many people. As an actor, it’s hard to get work. Sometimes you have to make do with the jobs that you get. I’ve been lucky with this one because I landed a character that I love playing on a show that I love being in and I get to be a part of an incredible journey for a lot of people. We take for granted, when we shoot the show, that people actually watch the show. We’re so busy [shooting it] that we don’t think about that. It’s only when you go to things like Comic-Con or D23 that you realize the impact that the show actually has on people. It’s really quite humbling, to be honest.

Has anyone in your own life made the most fun of you, for having an action figure?

O’DONOGHUE: No. Sean Maguire wants to get together, so that we can play with our action figures together. My son plays with it, too. It’s kind of weird. It’s crazy!

You’ve also recently made a film, What Still Remains. How challenging was it to juggle making a film with doing a TV show?

O’DONOGHUE: Since I started the show, I’ve done three movies, in between. It’s difficult to try to get to do something else, when you’re working for nine months on a TV show, but I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do it. You have to really try to manage your time, as best as you can. Obviously, you have to make family time, as well. It’s been a challenge juggling that, at times, but it’s been nice to get to play other characters.

What was the appeal of that particular film for you?

O’DONOGHUE: With the few movies that I’ve done in between, they were characters that I just really wanted to play. I wanted to see if I could figure out how to wrap my head around these different characters, and that’s been good. Hook is such a big part of my life that it’s nice to be able to play around with something else.

Source

[drundertalescum]

11 Questions... x3

I was tagged by @sharada-n @audaciousanonj and @esmiden in that order

If anyone else tagged me, tag me again because I missed it!

1. Which are your favorite hot and cold drinks?

Cold drinks: Usually either milk or vanilla coke. I also like birch beer, root beer, and peach-cranberry juice, but usually I just stick with the milk and coke.

Hot drinks: TEA. Specifically this nice vanilla black tea that I've cracked the code on preparing in the microwave so it's both hot and very convenient. This is my go-to drink of any type.  Also coffee, hot chocolate, matcha, and just various types of teas. I prefer hot drinks over cold.

2. What’s your favorite color scheme/combination?

Usually I kind of default to dark turquoise/cyan and lighter orange/gold. It's the most common gradient map I use when I'm being lazy with coloring and also evident on my main blog's colour scheme. Toss in some red and you're in for a good time. I also really like maroons and pale greens but I don't use it that often.

3. Windows or Apple?

PC FOREVER

4. Do you believe in astrology?

Nah, I do find out kind of funny sometimes since my sign (Capricorn) is such an over-the-top dethawing ice queen in anything relating to “what the signs do when ___”  My Smart-People Astrology Sign (my Meyers-Briggs) turns up very similar content. I mean, granted, that runs truer than a hyper happy bubblegum type but it's still a bit boring.

I don't really buy too much into any of that sort of thing.

5. Would you punch me for 10$?

Wait are you paying me to punch you or am I paying you to be punched by me? Either way no.

6. Do you have any guilty pleasures?

HONESTLY in my main online community my guilty pleasure that I hide from the world is being Undertale trash.

To a lesser extent: my guilty pleasure that I hide away from this community is that I’m reality show trash. Specifically one particular reality show. It's 17 years old and Actually Very Good, but no one will ever believe me.

7. What’s your favorite flower?

We grow snapdragons sometimes. They're really neat! Otherwise it's hit or miss with me and flowers. Despite the main blog name that I've been using for like 10 years I've only recently started to kind of like roses. Mostly for the a e s t h e t i c.

8. What would you name your theoretical kids?

I change my mind on this one a lot. I usually like names that aren't common but also could sort of fit in in an old novel. Like Orville or Evander or something like that. I had a list once but I lost it. I also like Emily or Alma.

Some angry part of me wants to name a child November even though I know the awful fate I would be leaving them to by doing it.

In the end I am almost definitely not having kids so the most likely name I'm gonna pull out is naming a pet Papyrus someday.

9. Sweet or savory?

Depends, but I usually go for savory. Sweet drink-savory snack is my go-to.

10. Do you wear socks in bed or nah?

I don't wear socks at all unless it's very, very cold.

11. Could a horse fit through a window?

If you removed the panes from my windows a horse would just barely make it through. Probably needs to be a smaller horse though. It can't be too wide.

1) What’s your favorite holiday?

THIS IS HALLOWEEN THIS IS HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN HALLOWEEN

But truthfully i haven't been feeling it the last few years. I can't think of any holidays I have.

2) Loose clothes or tight?

As loose as possible. Though I'll take tight underlayer loose overlay.

3) Chrome, Firefox, or Safari?

I had a weird bug a few years back where my computer was constantly freezing up and crashing. I knew it was some sort of graphics issue but the word thing was it never crashed when I was playing a game, which lead to me using Portal 2 and Skyrim as ways of keeping my computer from crashing whenever it was idle, bumping up my times in both games to a ridiculous amount (though I still play both a lot). Turns out it was Firefox causing the crash, but I didn't realize because if I don't have a game open, I always have a browser up.

I had to switch to Chrome at that time and now I'm pretty settled on it. I do miss some aspects of Firefox though.

4) Favorite style of humor?

I love humor that's based around people and their habits. Not necessarily observational and I don't like it to actively mock people, but I like humor that's based around people and their attitudes and interactions, especially if it makes people feel more like characters or caricatures, but not stereotypes. I have a sort of dry sense of humor but that's not really required for this. It's hard to actively explain and I'm blanking on any great examples.

This definitely plays into the previously mentioned guilty pleasure.

5) Fluff or Angst (Reading)?

ANGST. Angst got me into this fandom when I solidified my terrible obsession with this game by reading I'm Feeling Fine, Kid and since then I've read close to every Papyrus-centric angst fic this fandom has put out.

Pretty much any I haven't read yet are in my read later list because I haven't been in the best heavy-angst mood lately.

I always take recs.

6) Fluff or Angst (Writing)?

Writing angst is so much easier for me. I think it's because I have a very introspective style which lends itself better to letting the sadness flow. It usually works out to angst with a side of fluff. But with art and comics, it's a lot less introspective so it ends up being fluff with a side of angst.

7) Do you make -sonas?

I kind of actively dislike making -sonas. It never feels right. I made one when I was about 16 (which I now dislike) and haven't really made one since. I generally just stick with a blob or stick person to represent me. Maybe a seahorse.

8) What are you gonna dress up as for Halloween?

A patient recovering from a cholecystectomy. Maybe one that also has spoopy face paint on and blogs about Undertale.

…I wish I was doing something for Halloween ;;;

9) What are you pickiest about?

Food and fonts. It's the ultimate irony that I fell so far for Undertale.

10) Have you seen my au Name the Fallen and if so what was your favorite part?

Save him Flowey, before he falls too far.

11) Papyrus is cool?

That's not a question. Nothing has ever been less of a question.

1. Favorite literature or movie genre

Hmmm… I really like mystery novels! Other than that, I’m a big fan of dramedies. Anything that mixes comedy or fantasy and feels is great.

2. Top five animated cartoons

This is going to be my knee jerk list and not necessarily accurate. It’s also not in any particular order.

Moana

The Incredibles

Wall-E

Lilo and Stitch

The Princess and the Goblin

3. If you could choose a fantasy land to stay in for the rest of your life, which one would you chose? Ps. You won’t be able to get back to the real world.

I would honestly head down to the Underground and let some monsters try to steal my soul. I think it’s the perfect blend of interesting but also not everything-trying-to-kill-me(-forever).

4. Favorite song at the moment?

Hopes and Dreams played backwards. Also Frozen Pines by Lord Huron and Ground Control by All Time Low and Walk Off The Earth’s cover of Heya

5. What is good design for you?

Oh man, this is a tricky question. I’m actually a designer but I’m very much a master of none. The most important thing in any design is readability and ease of use, though. No point in having a product you can’t use because the A E S T H E T I C is in the way. No point in a document or website you can’t read. No point in a gallery you can’t view. Good design should make things MORE usable, not less. Functionality should ALWAYS be the number one goal.

At the same time black and white helvetica minimalism is boring and terrible for most things. Gimme some COLOR, some LIFE. I don’t care if it’s cheesy or weird or quirky or outdated. I want things with detail and personality. 

(Note: you can totally have black and white minimalist helvetica and still hae personality. But I’ll take a “bad” design with some life to it over a mediocre design that follows all the rules)

6. What’s your favorite color scheme/combination?

I am a blue/orange shill, but theres a lot of schemes i like. Usually Cyan + any warm color

7. Which feelings effects you the most in literature/music/film etc.?

Tricky! I actually get the most into films about the connections between people (usually not romantic) or about identity (or loss of identity) and insecurities. I dunno why, they just effect me the most. They just do.

8. Favorite game?

Undertale (2015 Video Game). But also: Portal, Skyrim, the Fallout games, Kingdom Hearts, Bully, 7 Days to Die, The Forest, Friday the 13th, Stardew Valley, Reigns, Alto’s Adventure, Pixel Dungeon, Plague Inc, Life Is Strange, Tabletop Simulator, The Long Dark, What Remains of Edith Finch, Tropico, The Stanley Parable, The Flame in the Flood, Contagion, and The Sims.

I like Games.

9. What’s most important for you in a good movie?

I’ll enjoy any movie with well-concieved characters but the real gold medal goes to anything with post modern reality fuckery and/or magical realism. I like movies about movies or about storytelling. Big Fish, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Truman Show, Stranger Than Fiction are some of my favorite movies that sort of adhere to that. Gimme all the post-modern plotlines with likable characters and let me pretend there’s a happy ending. That’s all I’m looking for.

10. What’s your favorite time of the day and why?

Dusk. Everything cools down, the sky turns gorgeous colors, but it’s still not considered weird to go walking around or running errands. It’s just nice!

11. Extra because I’m out of ideas, if you got a painting. What would you want on it? XD

Nice colors and a good subject. Like Papyrus with huge biceps.

Here’s my questions! I’m going to tag the 3 that tagged me if they feel like doing this, plus anyone who wants to do it. Just tag me on the post so I can see!

1. What was your favorite fairy tale growing up?

2. Were you ever traumatized as a child by a movie or TV show?

3. Whats the weirdest dream that you can remember?

4. If you could be or do anything you wanted for a single day, anything at all, what would you be?

5. What is your favorite anecdote?

6. Have you ever painted your nails? If so, what’s your favorite polish/color?

7. What is the scariest thing you aren’t afraid of?

8. Are there any snacks that you like that most people probably haven’t heard of or tried?

9. Have you ever gone stargazing?

10. Tell me about your favorite idea you’ve had, whether it be a story or a game idea or anything else along those lines.

11. Whats your least favorite color?

[fyrapartnersearch]

Rainclouds & Thunderstorms

Contents

Before I begin, here is a bit of a “table-of-contents” section so you know what’s to come since this post is quite long!

Introduction & About Me [self-explanatory - an introduction to myself and some points on me and my writing style]

What I’m Looking for in a Partner [again, self-explanatory - a description of what I’m looking for in a partner]

Roleplay Information [a brief blurb on how I set up the following areas (which role I would prefer, what some little symbols mean, types of relationships, etc.)]

Fandoms [not many, but fandom pairings I would be willing to write]

Fairy Tales [again, not many, but fairy tale pairings I would be willing to write]

Pairings/Plot Points [again, self-explanatory - quite a long list of pairings and plot points that I’d be willing to write]

Plots [again, not many, but one plot of my own that I’d be interested in writing]

Characters [a list of characters and summaries of each that I already have the ideas for and could be fit into any other pairing/plot idea (i.e. you can choose one or multiple that you like and would want to write against and then we can build a plot from there, almost like a build-a-bear but with a story)]

Contact [my email and contact information]

Introduction & About Me

Hello! My name’s Rain, and I’m a 21-year-old who has been roleplaying for approximately 6 years (but only in the most recent 4 or 5 have I really been “serious”). After being dragged by the ankles (although not without a struggle) into a hellish chasm of personal issues that has kept me from writing, I’ve finally managed to work everything out and am now itching to get back into the roleplaying-game! I’m hoping that I can find some good partners to satiate my cravings, and hopefully I can satiate some of yours too. If you emailed me in the past and I didn’t respond, shoot me another email! Like I said, I had some things get in the way, so I’d be up for rekindling a past roleplay or picking up planning where we left off.

I can write replies ranging anywhere from 500-1200 words average - I know that’s a rather big window to call my “average”, but I don’t want to make it sound like that’s my strict length. This equates to around 3-8 paragraphs, but that obviously will vary depending on the size of the paragraph. I can certainly go upwards from 1200 and have gone on to posts with 2000+, however that’s usually too much for most people. Essentially, I’ll write the same amount you write so that it’s not over or underwhelming. Let me know your range and I’ll adapt! Although, if you would be willing to write 1500+/2000+ words a post, then you’d earn quite a bit on bonus points from me.

In terms of writing style, I write third person, past tense, multi-paragraph to novella. HEREare some samples of my writing! The first was an intro so it’s quite long, and the second is from the same roleplay as the first. The third is from a separate one.

I’m also putting this up front - my schedule’s a bit wonky. There will be some days where we can go back and forth multiple times with multiple posts each and there will be some days where I can’t reply at all. I’ll try my best to let you know in advance if there will be a period of 2+ days where I can’t reply, but things happen. My activity rate is partially dependent on interest level as well - if I’m really into and excited about our roleplay, I’ll be able to reply more often!

On a similar note, I’m on the east coast (EST) if that’s an important factor for you.

I’m open to playing multiple characters if that suits your fancy, or, if you’d rather just play one each, that’s fine by me as well.

For relationship pairings, I do all different kinds: romantic/sexual, platonic, familial, and antagonistic. I think it’s fine to mix and match all these different kids because they can make for some interesting character interaction! As for the gender pairings of the characters, I'm mostly looking for m/f, but depending on the idea/character I may do m/m (but please, make sure you ask first!).

Regarding the above, I very much prefer the female role in m/f pairings but of course in m/m pairings I will play a male. I don’t usually double in terms of each partner playing one male and one female, either - I know that is a deal-breaker for many, so I apologize for that. I may be willing to double in certain cases, but I’m not easily convinced - however, if you think you have mastered the arts of persuasion, then by all means, try to persuade me. I’m open to it.

I’m smut friendly as well and don’t mind including it in my roleplays, but it’s really dependent on the content of the story itself. I don’t necessarily want a story that is focused solely on smut, but I wouldn’t mind having it play a part (whether it’s small or large, that’s for you to decide). Going along with the NSFW theme, I’m all for most kinks - you name it, and more likely than not I’ll be willing to write it, but I would still rather you check with me first. The only ones that I won’t do and can’t be convinced to do are pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, anything with body fluids, feet, pregnancy/lactation, vore, and gore. Everything else is fair game. Note that of those, gore and only gore is fine when not employed sexually (i.e. if the characters are fighting or in battle or are doing something violent of the sort, then it is totally fine). If you’d like to include smut, ask me for my list of kinks and share yours with me as well!

I use face-claims for all of my characters and only use realistic images.

I'm only interested in roleplaying over email at the moment. My email is ofliliesandfoxgloves@gmail.com.

What I’m Looking for in a Partner

Now that we’ve got those basics out of the way, there are certain things that I would like out of a partner that hopefully someone can provide!

Be 18+, please. I know I’m technically on the younger end of the adult spectrum but I still feel uncomfortable roleplaying with minors (especially because some of my plots can contain smut).

I would prefer if you were female, just because I am more comfortable roleplaying and writing with someone who is the same gender as I am, but that isn’t a requirement, as I don’t want to totally limit the partners that reach out to me and potentially miss out on a fantastic male, nonbinary, etc. partner just because they aren’t female.

I’m looking for someone who can at least mirror or match my minimum post length, so no fewer than 3-4 paragraphs or 500 or so words. Again, if you want to write longer replies that span the 1500+ word range, than that would be even better!

I would like if you wrote in the third person. Tense doesn’t matter - write present or past, that’s up to you. But I won’t roleplay with anyone who writes in the first or second person, as it is a little weird to me.

If you can get me at least one post every other day, I’d be happy! If you can get me more than that, even better! Also, let me know if you’re not going to be able to reply for a prolonged period of time so that I’m not sitting on my hands wondering where you went.

Likewise, if you want to drop the roleplay for any reason, just let me know! I won’t be mad if it’s not working out, I just don’t want to be ghosted by someone who doesn’t want to continue and instead never replies again.

If you can play multiple characters, that would be wonderful, but again, it’s certainly not a requirement.

Use realistic face claims for characters, please! No anime or cartoons, but if you are an artist that has a more realistic style and would like to use your own art, then that is fine by me!

When you email me, let me know which things listed below interest you/you would want to include! Tell me a little about yourself and the way you write as well (including whether or not you would like to include smut in the roleplay as well as your limits if it’s the latter).

Also, if you have an idea that I haven’t listed, ask/tell me! I’m very open to suggestions!

Roleplay Information

On to the part that you’ve actually wanted to see! I have a variety of things that I would like to include in a roleplay. To set it up, my preferred role in a pairing will be italicized; if neither are italicized, then I will write either. I’ll also note what type of relationship I would be interested in writing for a particular pairing/plot (romantic/sexual, platonic, familial, or antagonistic); we can also combine some of the four (like a romantic/sexual and antagonistic would be fun). Additionally, we can combine pairings if you’d like by writing more than one character each. Anything with a carrot (^) means I have a plot in mind if you’d like to hear it, and anything with an asterisk (*) means that I am willing to write either m/f or m/m (which means anything without one means only m/f). I’m up for fluff or action or anything in between, so let me know what you want!

Fandoms

Harry Potter

Hermione Granger x Draco Malfoy (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

Ginny Weasley x Draco Malfoy (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

Lily Evans x James Potter (romantic/sexual and/or platonic)

Lily Evans x Sirius Black (platonic)

[Your suggestion] x [Your suggestion] (romantic/sexual, platonic, antagonistic and/or familial)

Fairy Tales

Note: if any animal-esque character is involved in the following pairings, any romantic/sexual interactions will occur when that character is in human form, and/or the character will be replaced with a similar human mythical creature (ex: werewolf).

Little Red Riding Hood

The [Boy/Girl] Who Cried Wolf *^

Beauty and the Beast *^

Pairings/Plot Points

Royalty x Royalty (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic) *

Royalty x Peasant (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Royalty x Knight (romantic/sexual or platonic)

Kidnapping/abduction

Vampire x Human (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic) [note: I have done this one a lot of times, so if you’d like to do this one, make sure your plot is interesting and/or unique!]

Demon x Human (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

Overprotectiveness/possessiveness [note: I love this relationship element, especially overprotectiveness!]

Demon x Demon Hunter (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

Artist/Photographer x Model/Dancer (romantic/sexual, platonic, or familial) *

Superhero x Superhero (romantic/sexual, platonic, antagonistic, and/or familial)

Superhero x Supervillain (romantic/sexual, platonic, antagonistic, and/or familial)

Biker/Biker Gang x Civilian (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Rich x Rich (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

Rich x Poor (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic) *

Rich x Servant/Maid (romantic/sexual)

Genie x Human (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic) *

Fae/Fairy/Pixie x Human (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Plots

I only have one pre-thought here, but I’m really open to your suggestions! If you’ve been dying to write a plot but haven’t found someone to write it with yet, please tell me! I’d be happy to satiate your craving.

A florist and tattoo shop are located across the street from each other, and the tattoo artist comes in every day to buy flowers/look at flowers to practice drawing, but both he and the florist are very much attracted to each other.

Characters

I’m not quite sure what to call this section, but it’s essentially a summary (more like bullets) of some characters that I already have ideas for that can be used in various different scenarios and plot-lines. They are in no particular order. If you are willing to let me use one of these, that will earn you major bonus points with me! Let me know if you are interested in any and I can elaborate. Most of them don’t have names yet (and the ones that do are subject to change) because I am very picky with names, aha, but I’ll think of those later. There obviously aren’t many of these at the moment, but there will likely be more of these added in the future. Anything with a plus (+) is one I am really dying to use! If you have an idea for/an already made character that you think would pair well with any of these, please describe them to me! Or, alternatively, if you have any characters you’ve been dying to use, let me know! Perhaps I can create a character to write opposite them.

i. signe // female // mid twenties // heterosexual // caucasian // danish-american // + // literal; intelligent; serious; anti-social; absent-minded; can be insensitive or inconsiderate; collected; judgmental; blunt; articulate; rarely smiles or laughs; doesn’t have much of a sense of humor nor finds many things funny; too straightforward  to lie; fluent in english, american sign language, spanish, danish; physics and mathematics double major, english minor; likes books and academics; doesn’t much like crowds; virgin; physics professor.

ii. olson // male // mid twenties // bisexual, prefers men // caucasian // american // bitter; sarcastic; serious; aloof; intelligent; private; defensive; lost hearing in his early childhood, received cochlear implants in late adolescence, speech still sounds “different” from a hearing person’s; knows American Sign Language (ASL) and English; film/television production and mathematics double major, art history minor; likes maps; doesn’t particularly like physical contact; photographer [note: would prefer to write him against a character who is hearing and able to talk rather than another character on the mute/hard-of-hearing spectrum; you can find his full character sheet HERE].

Contact

That’s all I can think of at the moment! Again, if there’s anything else not listed that you’ve been dying to try out, let me know! More likely than not, I’ll say yes and jump right on board. Shoot me an email at ofliliesandfoxgloves@gmail.com with your interests and a little information about yourself (ex: average post length, activity, etc.). If you shoot me a message just saying a pairing you were interested in without telling me about yourself, then I won’t be as inclined to reply since I don’t know if our styles would match up! So please, tell me about yourself - I promise I won’t bite!

[morshtalon]

My Top 5 Video Game Intros

Since I haven't posted in a while and since I don't have any ideas for full-fledged reviews, let's do something different today and talk about my 5 favorite intros to video games I enjoyed in the past. Please note that this is a very personal, opinionated list; I have somewhat deliberately avoided really obvious picks (consider Metal Gear Solid 3's and Final Fantasy VI's openings, among others, to be hovering around in spirit somewhere around here). Furthermore, I'm not limiting myself exclusively to that very first, usually pre-rendered opening scene of a game (like, the attract mode before you even press start), because most of the time those are kind of devoid of any meaning and without context, I'd just be judging them by coolness or whatever, which isn't very interesting or inducive to commentary. Anyway, without further ado, here are my top 5 video game intros:

#5: Wild Arms 3's evolving opening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvoueEiVyWE

At first, Wild Arms 3's opening is just a standard anime thing. It's fairly animated and stuff, and that's fine as far as that goes, but there are two things I find quite special with this opening; one that was always there from the start and one that was a product of the localization. First off, there are actually four versions of the opening. You see, the game is separated into 4 chapters, each with a different main villain which is somewhat related to the last, with varying levels of directness. In that way, as has been said before, it feels like seasons of an anime, and I think the game struck a good balance of making itself both a cohesive experience and a sort of episodic narrative simultaneously. To reflect that, the opening "evolves" as you progress through the game, changing key scenes to reflect the current "season" villain. I find that to be pretty awesome and an idea I haven't really seen repeated anymore; I believe mostly due to the fact that WA3 has this sort of unique story direction that lent itself to the evolving intro. Still, more games should adopt this style. They might have, I dunno, this is the coolest example out of the games I've played anyway. The second thing that impresses me is how well the localization performer fared singing the english version of the opening theme, Advanced Wind. I think it's actually better than the original. There's a certain sweetness and determination in her voice that is so fitting with the game's main character, I could almost trick myself into thinking it was actually Virginia hollering those lyrics. Pretty good opening, not higher on the list because it -is- just a pre-title opening I guess, but still. Also, Wild Arms 3 itself is alright, check it out if you're a fan of this kind of stuff.

#4: Cave Story's first taste of gameplay

What makes Cave Story's introduction interesting is that it... sort of doesn't exist. You're just dropped straight into the action with no real clue what's going on besides a brief interaction between two characters that makes completely no sense at that point. Every plot detail is up to you to find out in an immersive manner that doesn't barrage the player with endless backstories and setups and information you don't really need. Even Dark Souls, one of my favorite games and the one I perceive to be closest to the ideal of gameplay and story integration, feels the need to weigh down your mind with stuff before you start. Don't get me wrong, I understand why Dark Souls and many other games need it, but the fact that Cave Story -doesn't- is rather admirable, in my opinion. I love games where you start out without knowing what's going on, solving challenges just based on the fact you're playing a game and need to go forward, to only then start piecing together the great scheme of things from in-game data collection. What's even better about Cave Story is that there's no limitation at the start: you're dropped into full gameplay conditions, without bumbling around a peaceful area while the backstory is exposed to you by an NPC or anything "cinematic" like that. You're just left to figure everything out on your own. Pretty cool.

#3: Dragon Warrior II's extended prologue https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OlHofpQ7LA

Dragon Quest 2's original Famicom version started out pretty shitty. It was basically only a slight alteration to the previous installment's intro: you're in a throne room (this time you're actually the prince, sitting on the queen's throne for some reason), some guard from the faraway kingdom of Moonbrooke comes along and warns the king of impending doom before collapsing from his wounds, the king gives you some brief words of encouragement and sets you off on an adventure with minimal financial backup and a crap sword (admittedly, a better deal than in DQ1). For the international version, by some divine intervention causing a brief miracle shining in the face of Nintendo's then-oppressive censorship, an extensive prologue scene was added depicting the events that befell Moonbrooke prior to that guard setting off on his journey. What makes this scene special, however, is how brilliantly it expands on the tropes established by the localization of the previous title. Dragon Warrior 1 had this faux-Elizabethan translation for some reason, which was pretty charming but otherwise just a strange quirk they added for the overseas release. The extended prologue added here actually runs with that theme and frames the story as some kind of fairy tale; a narrator intercepts the dialog message boxes to preface each character's next line, there is some opening text that feels as if some elderly gent from Shakespeare times was weaving a tale in front of his audience's eyes, and it even goes somewhat into detail pretty much leaving no room for the player to doubt that the people of Moonbrooke flat out died. Also, the guard that makes the voyage to your kingdom is given a tiny little bit of characterization, just enough to wrap up the scene pretty much as best as they could have. Overall, this makes Dragon Warrior II have the most engaging start of the original trilogy; it was something they didn't have to do at all, but they did it and actually made the game better for it. At least until you get to Rhone and it starts its genocide of the player's happiness, soul, and reasons to live.

#2: Suikoden II - Reminiscence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WLyjRex0ac

Suikoden II's emotional storyline and comparatively grounded narrative offer a nice contrast to the PSX's library of jRPGs concerned with elevating their epicness to ridiculous degrees. The game really cements this approach on the introductory flashback scene that functions as the opening credits. To me, the reminiscence scene is pivotal, serving a variety of functions that cause ripple effects lasting even beyond one's playthrough of the game. The setup is simple: The main character and his best friend run afoul of a ploy to abruptly terminate a cease-fire between two nations; they are pursued by some knights and cornered at a cliff above a river. You and your friend, then, etch a marking on a spot in the cliff wall and jump into the river below, planning to return to the etched spot should he and you get separated. While you are being carried by the currents, the scene itself begins. It's simply a flashback montage showcasing glimpses of the life you and your friend led leading up to your enrollments in the army and departure for the sabotaged expedition, accompanied by a relatively simple piano piece. However, it's a scene that is central to the themes of the entire game. It provides, first and foremost, a contrast between a perceived bright future with an everlasting bond of friendship and the tragedies that will soon occur in these characters' lives. It's a window into the will and emotions of the main character himself in his comfort zone; the life that he will so clamor to return to as the game progresses and things get increasingly more unwieldy for everyone. It sets up everything you need to know about the relationship between you, your best friend, and your sister on a 2-minute scene with no dialog; conveying all it needs only on its fantastic sprite work and score. It lets you know that this is, first and foremost, a game about feelings and about interpersonal relationships, using the war that you expect to happen from having played Suikoden 1 more as a backdrop to explore introspective consequences and how it affects people's visions. Most importantly, however, is that it serves as a reminder of what it was like for you, the player, when you come back from having completed the game. I literally cannot watch this scene anymore without shedding a tear or two. It happens every time. I actually prefer the normal version with the sepia filter, but I couldn't find it on its own like that, so here's the full-color version of it that you get from doing some ludicrous stunt before you jump into the river or whatever. Either one's fine, really. By the way, get the bad ending. The good one completely ruins the message and weight of the entire story, almost making the game meaningless.

#1: Vagrant Story - Climax of the Graylands Incident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4m42OmAczo

Vagrant Story is an odd game in many aspects. Its gameplay is a crossbreed of roguelikes and rhythm games, it has yet another strange Shakespearean localization, the characters are dressed all weird and BDSM-y and showing a lot of skin... Anyway, one of the game's odd quirks is that it has tons of stuff that you can miss by pressing start at an inopportune moment. One of them is the simply amazing opening; an epic 11-minute in-engine "cutscene" (with occasional gameplay sections that transition very smoothly because it's all done with in-game models and graphics) jampacked with plot detailing the events leading up to the game's start, with even the music trying its best to synchronize itself with the cutscene's many shifts in mood and intensity. You can easily miss all this because it starts with a long wall of text that most players would read faster than the time it takes for it to disappear and press "start" because they think they're done with it and there's nothing left to see. A shame, really, because to me this one part of the game almost manages to outshine the entire rest of it. There's just such a density of things happening here; this urban gray rainy moody setting is more fitting to the localization's flowery prose than the things that happen in Léa Monde, and it's all just done so well with the PSX's limitations. While pretty much every other game ever opts for FMVs or an otherwise pre-rendered solution for its openings and important moments, Vagrant Story does it all with the same exact rules (well... excluding the vapid meaningless pre-opening that happens before the title screen shows up but just forget about that one), and the result is that everything feels like it has much more weight to it. Also, as I said, there is the advantage of transitioning smoothly into gameplay, which the game -does- go on to use a few times later on for short "boss appearing at the boss arena"-type cutscenes, but those all lack the juice and meat of this glorious opening scene. It's just a meticulously created, awesome example of Video Game craftsmanship, outside of just being really awesome to watch as well. I absolutely love it.

Here are some runners-up: Wild Arms 2's Disc 2 cinematic (US version); Fire Emblem: Thracia 776's opening (before title screen); That part in Actraiser when you descend into Fillmore stage 1 and go into the statue and that kickass track starts playing; The brief scroll down on the dark forest scene in Tales of Phantasia (Super Famicom) before the title screen shows up (really fascinated me as a kid); Lufia: The Legend Returns (odd pick but it has a pretty charming intro with some nice artwork for the GBC); Probably many others that I'm forgetting right now.

Anyway, from this list you can sort of tell what games I like to play so I can excuse myself from writing a dreaded positive review of something for a while. Also, I noticed that things that are done with the in-game engine tend to impress me more than things that aren't, even though it's technically actually more work to do an anime FMV thing I guess? Well, whatever, I'm a hypocrite and stupid so make sure to share your own opinions too if you want I guess I dunno.

[sugasugasuga]

mvs im kind of in love with (a wip)

#wyd by ikon - i love this one because i feel like with boy band mvs they often fall into the weird “6 boys (sometimes literally) chasing the same girl which proves most writers and directors and stuff are male because any woman would know that said girl would be scared for her life)” trope and this mv is the complete opposite, and portrays romance, or rather the cutesy precursor to romance (yes things aren't/shouldnt be inherently romantic but the vibe and interactions and overall feeling of the this song/mv hints at romance so well, i’m more than okay with it. it’s romantic, but this kind of romantic i support) so well. it’s rarely dramatic (or at least not the mv type of dramatic) and there’s not usually a GROUNDBREAKING moment where you confess your undying love for each other and live happily ever after. those kinds of stories can sometimes feel like more of a caricature of real life, whereas this feels like a snapshot of real life. it does an excellent job of showing those small little moments in the honey moon phase that lead up to romance. the characters are tiptoeing around each other and there’s nothing explicitly romantic but the combination of the music and visuals are enough; nothing needs to be explicitly romantic. one of my favourite things about mvs like this is that i don’t feel like i need to know the words theyre singing in order to understand. it just sort of speaks for itself in its own way and it portrays the emotions its trying to show so well since it doesnt solely rely on the lyrics.   airplane (which i also really like, but not enough for it to make it on to the list “officially) does a similar thing,  and i like that it has more of an arch than this one, but i do feel like looking up the lyrics for that made a lot more sense. at first i felt that the third wheeling/””friendzone”” (for the lack of a better word) thing felt a bit out of place and like they were trying to tell 2 different stories at once but now i feel like it’s just trying to portray a more fleshed out relationship 

i am you, you are me by zico - this is my favourite music video of all time (i love the entirety of inu/run/the prologue etc more but that counts as more of a ‘mv series’ in my mind and you cant compare the two since they’re trying to achieve such different things). i feel overwhelmed by how much i love this mv every time i watch it. i genuinely can’t handle it and i have so many thoughts, starting to talk about it is kind of intimidating and i’ve been putting it off for ages.  several months later: OK I REWATCHED IT LETS DO THIS. every time i watch this mv i am overwhelmed by how much i love it. every time im like “it cant be as good as i remember” but then it is. watching it just makes me feel so soft and warm and quiet. there’s nothing in the whole mv that feels out of place. i love the clothes, i love the hair, i love how natural everything feels. the set is phenomenal, it creates this strange, distant, otherworldly, completely independent little universe. the products that are perfectly lined up and the lights and the way colour and the flickering of the light/the tv is being used makes it feel a bit like a dream. the sparkle at the beginning also gives it a fairy tale kind of vibe. it just feels surreal, blending reality and fantasy in a really god way. the close ups of the people/the sets are being used in the perfect moments, it just creates this beautiful balance that just works so well together. there’s a lot going on, but it never feels like its too much. i love love l o v e the two characters interactions. the mv feels like a whole story that says soooo much without having to say anything at all. the exchanged looks and the gradual development and the interactions are just so perfect. its one of those things where things dont need to be explicitly romantic to be romantic, the combination of the visuals and the song just conveys this very specific feeling extremely well. i love the way they toe around each other and test each other a little bit, how it feels very careful and new at first but then gets more familiar. i love how they look at each other.  i love the parts where they sit back to back and the camera spins around them. i love the part where you have a red close up of zico and she's layered above in blue. that could have looked strange but it works extremely well. everything in this mv feels like it happens or is there for a reason. it feels very intentional, but in a casual way, if that makes sense. i love the pace. i think this is partly caused by the fact that it looks like everything is just slightly slowed down, so it feels more relaxed and gives off this “we have all the time in the world” vibe, and also similar to the otherworldly feeling i mentioned earlier. i love how the sign went from opened/closed to opened/opened.i just dont even know how to say it but from 0:16-0:22, the way the perspectives are shown is just wonderful. i love the way its blurry for a split second  at 0:12. i just love all the details. i love how this mv makes me feel. i want to live in this. 

sentimental by winner - ngl i just love the way this is shot and the colours and the styling and chilled and lazy and careless atmosphere that the visuals and the song create, but also how it somehow shows this underlying frustration? looking up the lyrics helped with this one - i kinda guessed the whole “i miss u” thing because of the title and it has this bittersweetness to it? i just think that this is a great example of a series of seemingly borderline nonsensical/weird/”random” things (eg. the lobster, the bathtub, the guy dancing around with the cat or the guy riding the bike whilst lying on the floor) but it made sense, somehow? it felt like all those little details just showed the frustration and boredom and that they’re not quite sure what to do with themselves and how missing someone can drive you a little bit crazy. not to mention that the cat is a metaphor for “im going to die alone with 18 cats” and the bike thing reminds me a little bit of carousel by melanie martinez, in other words just feeling like you/a relationship is going nowhere. i also love the repeated use/portrayal of musical instruments (even/especially the ones where they go a bit crazy) because it feels like that shows working through your feelings through creativity and expressing yourself. and i also love the couple making out in random places because that’s essentially what it feels like when you like someone who likes someone else, them being with that person is always just sort of... there... i like the almost intruder-like portrayal of it here. i also love the separate rooms because they’re such a cool way to show the characters’ isolation and give them a bit of individuality, whilst still tying it all together with the band/kitchen sequences. 

you’re the best by mamamoo - i like this one because it’s a great example of “we all like the same person but not in a way that suggests we want to kill them and wear their skin”. also, i love the song and the styling (mamamoo are the only people in this world that can pull off bootcut jeans) and the colours and the choreo and the set and the retro/vintagey vibe it all gives off and how the music video perfectly compliments the song and every things so bright and wonderful and i love the dorky moments and i love the scenes under the white sheet (one of the weirdest things ive said in a while) but theyre just so radiant and soft and i love the little animations, they’re so subtle it took me aaaages to see them and theyre so small and cute and fit really well (its not like lalaland floating galaxy dance that feels out of place) and its overall just such a wonderful experience to watch the mv and also i am in love with every single one of these girls 

why so lonely by wonder girls - this one borders on including random things just for the sake of including random things, but it does it so well, i honestly dont care. you do need subs, i think? but its overall just so good that it doesnt matter too much. it just has this “i dont give a shit” in such a classy, controlled, badass lana del rey way. i watched this for the first time when it first came out, i think, about 9 months ago? and i still haven't stopped thinking/forgotten about it, simply because it was so unlike anything ive ever seen before and i honestly wasn’t even sure whether i like it or not. but i do. i love the blocky colors and the styling and the set and the actual format/size of the video and how you have the black borders on the side and how they all fit together perfectly to create this vintage/retro/strange different reality or its own world. the fact that they all perform/sing with this deadpan face and intense eye contact is also that perfect kind of strange that just goes really well with the entire mv. i love the ending and i love that it has this little arch to it, even if its kind of a crazy one, but i love that it’s not wannabe badass (like me lol) or cutesy, it’s just so fucking cool and well made in its own way.  

fine by taeyeon this is the one. the mv that will be the death of me. i love how simple this was and that the way it was shot and the variety and the colours and how pretty it was in a soft, subtle way made it really really interesting or ’’’moving’’’’ i guess. (i always say the same thing, i know, but these are just the things i love about mvs??) the underlying theme/repeated use of photographs and that type of imagery to indicate the passing of time and memories was just stunning and perfect and added this feeling of nostalgia and missing someone/something and perfectly complimented the song. i love that this is another one that just feels really sincere and real and not dramatic at all, all the interactions between the couple are just really really cute and i love that one moment where she's just in the kitchen drinking a glass of water because (at least i think that) it’s this strange relatable feeling of being a bit lost and just thinking and wandering around the house and drinking a glass of water and thinking about stuff. it’s just overall wonderful. 

never ever by got7 - this is just beautiful. that’s the only way to describe it. all the scenes are gorgeous and well balanced, if that makes sense? i love the colours and the contrast between the white and the bluish black with just enough vibrant colours to make it interesting and the smoke thing and the outfits its all just well rounded, somehow. id be OBSESSED with this band if they were on spotify  

fxxk it by bigbang - this ones slightly different bc i saw the mv a while back and i thought it was alright but then i went to hoho’s k pop shop in london and picked up 2 like, credit card sized poster type bigbang things so i was like “guess i should give them another try” and i listened to more of their stuff and i really really really like this song (and a lot of their other songs, actually?? i had no idea that they’ve recently been making so much chilled music?? i guess i just kept thinking of fantastic baby when i heard bigbang) and i think its just another instance of the mv matching the song really well. and i love the styling and colors. i say that every time bUT JUST LOOK AT IT ITS SO COOL 

crooked by g-dragon - i just kind of assumed ive already talked about this because its one of my favourites and it has been for like a year or something?side note before i rewatch it and give my detailed opinions: coup d’etat reminds me of a very specific couple of weeks of my life. it basically just feels like walking to the my best friend’s place in may or june in the evenings last year and its still light and really nice and warm and im wearing ripped jeans and doc martens and my leather jacket and me and my best friend hang out and watch a movie or walk around while we’re ”””””studying”””” and its just a. lot.  but ANYWAY i just love this so much. i love the song and the music video s o m u c h. not just because i have this weird sentimental connection to it. i just feel like it conveys this feeling of helpless, reckless, careless, self destructive badassness so strongly that there is no doubt about it, regardless of the lyrics. i looked them up once and i forgot and im sure theyre good but i just really feel like the sound and the visuals combine so well that theyre a bonus rather than something you need to understand. it just makes me feel this strange sense of pity and it has that kind of underlying sense of sadness and despair and loneliness and not being sure what to do with yourself and not quite belonging but covering it all with this appearance of not caring even though you care so much at the same time and i just love it so much. all i know is that walking places whilst listening to g-dragon is a very unique, specific feeling that i love 

she's a baby by zico - since i am you, you are me is basically my favourite mv ever i put off watching this for like 2 weeks. i was kinda nervous, ngl?? idek know why tbh? i guess i didnt want to be disappointed? but maaan. i was not disappointed. of course i dont like it as much as i am you, but i love love love that it has the same gentle pastel vibe and it just made me feel all soft inside and it made me smile and i just love it. im not gonna go on about how much i love the colors and the way its shot and stuff bc i say the same thing every time but jusT LOOK AT IT. its GORGEOUS. 

rumor by kard - this looks cool as fuck on your phone, i really really like the song and just generally love that kard always does completely new, different stuff and does it super well. (i just love their music in general bc their lyrics mean soooo much to me whenever i feel A Lot) 

neverland by holland - boy where to even start with this one. to begin with, i want to take the first 30 seconds and hang them up on my wall. tattoo them on my body. they’re just so quiet and pretty and perfect. i love the yellow neverland font. and just the contrast between the dark scenes where he’s alone and the brightness of the beach and the sky when they’re together???? SO damn good. the combination of the two makes the mv feel like it’s like a memory - when you think of someone you used to like, you think about all of it. it’s not just the good and it’s not just the bad, in a way, you’re brain smashes it all together. it just does such an excellent job of making you feel something. and the interactions between the two boys. they’re so cute and soft together but the mv also manages to give their relationship a bit of depth and it’s just great to watch. and their kiss might be my favourite “tv” kiss ever? i usually just find kisses in movies and tv shows (especially dramas) very “whatever” but this one was just so cute. they’re so cute. it’s just great. and i love the sound of the actual music so much? i’m usually not into soft music but this is actually so damn good????? im honestly just dying for holland to make more music 

[hookedmom]

Collider Interview with Colin

Oct 2017

At its core, the ABC drama series Once Upon A Time is a story of hope, but now in its seventh season, it’s also in a new town (Hyperion Heights) run by a new villain (Gabrielle Anwar as Victoria Belfrey), and there’s a new curse that’s taken the memories of the former residents of the Enchanted Forest. And to overcome it all, a young girl named Lucy (Alison Fernandez) has to convince a grown-up Henry Mills (Andrew J. West) that his true love, aka her mother, is actually Cinderella (Dania Ramirez).

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor Colin O’Donoghue (who plays Captain Hook, aka Killian Jones, aka Officer Rogers) talked about reinventing Hook, working with all of the new cast members, how bittersweet it was to say goodbye to so many of his fellow co-stars this season, whether he ever considered leaving, what kind of cop Rogers is, what life is like in Hyperion Heights, how he feels about where Hook and Emma’s (Jennifer Morrison) story was left, and what it’s meant to him to be a part of this show, for so many seasons. He also talked about juggling the series with making movies and what drew him to What Still Remains.

Collider: It’s great to talk to you, but kind of surreal to talk to you about the seventh season of a show that also sort of feels like the first season again.

COLIN O’DONOGHUE: It’s been great trying to reinvent Hook and figure out who he is, in this realm.

What’s it like to be in Season 7, but to look around and see different cast members on set than the ones you’ve shared scenes with for the last six seasons?

O’DONOGHUE: It’s been great, to be honest. Obviously, we miss all of the old cast members. Nobody can play the characters the way that they played them. But it’s been nice to get to work with new people, as well. One thing that I’ve actually always enjoyed doing on this show is getting to work with so many different people.

When you got the news about the cast departures and the big changes for this season, what was your reaction to that?

O’DONOGHUE: I was happy for the people who wanted to try new things, and I was happy that they got the opportunity to do that. I knew that I would miss working with all of them. It’s a catch-22, to be honest with you. The show needed to go the way that it’s gone for it to continue. It needed a change. It needed to mix things up. Plus, you can’t go back and repeat the first season, for Season 7. You have to change direction, move along and try to progress the stories, or try to make new ones. It was bittersweet.

When they told you that this shift would be happening, did they also tell you what the shift would actually be?

O’DONOGHUE: I had a good idea, as to the general direction that we were going to go in, so that was good.

Had you ever considered leaving the show, yourself, or were you always game and on board for what’s next?

O’DONOGHUE: To be honest with you, I still had time left on my contract, anyway. I’ve loved playing Hook and I’ve loved working on this show, and it’s an amazing opportunity to get to play a character and investigate a character for so long. I’m just happy to be able to have the opportunity to continue to explore him a little more and see how that goes. He’s a great character and I’m blessed to have the opportunity to get to play him.

Has this season felt like the biggest reinterpretation that you’ve had to go through with him?

O’DONOGHUE: Yes and no. Over the seasons, I’ve managed to play four or five different incarnations of Hook. I’ve been lucky to be able to have to many interpretations of this character, but it’s definitely a different take, this season.

Are you approaching your performance any differently, this season, because he is the most different version of the character, even in name, or does he still feel like the same person, at the core?

O’DONOGHUE: At the core, he kind of feels the same. He feels similar to some parts of previous Hooks that I’ve played. But I am approaching it differently because the world and where he is, is very, very different, so you have to come at it slightly different.

He’s gone by Hook, Killian and now Rogers. When you’re playing the character, what name do you think of him as?

O’DONOGHUE: This season, I think of him as Rogers. In the first episode, you saw that he’s a cop and he tries to be the best person that he can be, within the confines of what his personality allows him to be. So, I think of him as Rogers, but he still has elements of Hook.

Could you ever have imagined, when you started playing Hook, that you’d be here now, with him as a cop, of all professions?

O’DONOGHUE: No, I would not have pictured that. To be honest with you, I’m not sure I could have pictured people relating to the character as much as they did. The fact that I’m even on the show is amazing to me.

Did you ever think that he might turn out a little bit more evil and sinister, instead of being the relatively good guy that he actually seems to be?

O’DONOGHUE: Definitely the first season, he was a villain. What I liked about the way that the writers have pitched him, and it’s what I think they do really well with the villains on the show, full-stop, is that they make them far more complex than a black-and-white villain. He was more tormented and conflicted. In Season 2, when I came on, I wanted people to feel sorry for him more than hate him for what he was doing. That was the impetus behind that. But, I didn’t expect him to become quite the hero that he became.

How is he, as a cop? He seems to want to help and to do good, but he also seems like maybe he’s willing to make some compromises to further himself. Will some of his old ways start to filter through?

O’DONOGHUE: That’s always been the fun thing about Hook. It’s difficult for him not to fall back, a little bit, into whatever pirate ways he had. As Rogers, he wants to be the best cop that he can be and the best person that he can be. He has a very definite agenda and case that he wants to try to follow. Even though he doesn’t want it to be the case, lines can get blurred sometimes when he’s investigating stuff.

How would you describe life in Hyperion Heights compared to Storybrooke? What’s it like to live in a town run by Victoria Belfrey, as opposed to living in a town run by Mr. Gold?

O’DONOGHUE: The main thing is that it’s a far more urban environment. It’s gritty. It’s everything that you would expect from city life. The things that a cop sees and does are definitely more relatable to being in a big city.

We pick up the story this season, in a way that very closely mirrors what happened when Henry showed up on Emma’s doorstep and tried to convince her that fairy tales are real, and now we get to see Lucy try to convince Henry of that. Even though they don’t know that they have a past, Killian and Henry have a history. How would you describe the relationship that Rogers has with adult Henry?

O’DONOGHUE: It’s difficult to say, at this stage. Obviously, they don’t know who they are, essentially. They definitely interact, but they don’t know that Hook is Hook, or any of that stuff. It’s more complicated than them just falling back into their previous relationships. This version of Hook that we see in the fairytale past has quite a different relationship with Henry than we’ve seen before.

How has it been to establish a bond with Andrew West, as Henry?

O’DONOGHUE: It’s been fantastic. In many respects, it’s a whole new character. Jared [Gilmore] did such a fantastic job as the younger Henry, and Andy is an incredibly actor. He wants to put his spin on who Henry is, and I think that he really has done an incredible job. It’s been really good fun to explore that relationship.

Who are Rogers’ friends or allies, in Hyperion Heights?

O’DONOGHUE: He has some, but I can’t tell you who they are until a later date. He’s very much a person on his own. Over the course of the next few episodes, you will see his acquaintances. A lot of his relationships are very, very interesting.

Were you satisfied with where Hook and Emma’s relationship was left, when Jennifer Morrison returned for Episode 2?

O’DONOGHUE: Yeah. I think it’s a great reminder of everything that Hook and Emma went through to get to that point. Hook and Emma very much love each other and are happy.

You’ve made it to Season 7 on a TV series, which is a huge deal these days. What’s it meant to you to be a part of this family, have your own action figure, and to have had some of the incredible experiences that you’ve had, being a part of this show?

O’DONOGHUE: I came on in the second season and, even though we’re in Season 7, I still feel like the new guy because I wasn’t there for the first season. I just feel very lucky and I count my blessings to be a part of something that’s meant so much to so many people. As an actor, it’s hard to get work. Sometimes you have to make do with the jobs that you get. I’ve been lucky with this one because I landed a character that I love playing on a show that I love being in and I get to be a part of an incredible journey for a lot of people. We take for granted, when we shoot the show, that people actually watch the show. We’re so busy [shooting it] that we don’t think about that. It’s only when you go to things like Comic-Con or D23 that you realize the impact that the show actually has on people. It’s really quite humbling, to be honest.

Has anyone in your own life made the most fun of you, for having an action figure?

O’DONOGHUE: No. Sean Maguire wants to get together, so that we can play with our action figures together. My son plays with it, too. It’s kind of weird. It’s crazy!

You’ve also recently made a film, What Still Remains. How challenging was it to juggle making a film with doing a TV show?

O’DONOGHUE: Since I started the show, I’ve done three movies, in between. It’s difficult to try to get to do something else, when you’re working for nine months on a TV show, but I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do it. You have to really try to manage your time, as best as you can. Obviously, you have to make family time, as well. It’s been a challenge juggling that, at times, but it’s been nice to get to play other characters.

What was the appeal of that particular film for you?

O’DONOGHUE: With the few movies that I’ve done in between, they were characters that I just really wanted to play. I wanted to see if I could figure out how to wrap my head around these different characters, and that’s been good. Hook is such a big part of my life that it’s nice to be able to play around with something else.

Source

[ladysiuanraine]

ONCE UPON A TIME’ STAR COLIN O’DONOGHUE ON SEASON 7 AND RETHINKING CAPTAIN HOOK

At its core, the ABC drama series Once Upon A Time is a story of hope, but now in its seventh season, it’s also in a new town (Hyperion Heights) run by a new villain (Gabrielle Anwar as Victoria Belfrey), and there’s a new curse that’s taken the memories of the former residents of the Enchanted Forest. And to overcome it all, a young girl named Lucy (Alison Fernandez) has to convince a grown-up Henry Mills (Andrew J. West) that his true love, aka her mother, is actually Cinderella (Dania Ramirez).

During this 1-on-1 phone interview with Collider, actor Colin O’Donoghue (who plays Captain Hook, aka Killian Jones, aka Officer Rogers) talked about reinventing Hook, working with all of the new cast members, how bittersweet it was to say goodbye to so many of his fellow co-stars this season, whether he ever considered leaving, what kind of cop Rogers is, what life is like in Hyperion Heights, how he feels about where Hook and Emma’s (Jennifer Morrison) story was left, and what it’s meant to him to be a part of this show, for so many seasons. He also talked about juggling the series with making movies and what drew him to What Still Remains.

Collider: It’s great to talk to you, but kind of surreal to talk to you about the seventh season of a show that also sort of feels like the first season again.

COLIN O’DONOGHUE: It’s been great trying to reinvent Hook and figure out who he is, in this realm.

What’s it like to be in Season 7, but to look around and see different cast members on set than the ones you’ve shared scenes with for the last six seasons?

O’DONOGHUE: It’s been great, to be honest. Obviously, we miss all of the old cast members. Nobody can play the characters the way that they played them. But it’s been nice to get to work with new people, as well. One thing that I’ve actually always enjoyed doing on this show is getting to work with so many different people.

When you got the news about the cast departures and the big changes for this season, what was your reaction to that?

O’DONOGHUE: I was happy for the people who wanted to try new things, and I was happy that they got the opportunity to do that. I knew that I would miss working with all of them. It’s a catch-22, to be honest with you. The show needed to go the way that it’s gone for it to continue. It needed a change. It needed to mix things up. Plus, you can’t go back and repeat the first season, for Season 7. You have to change direction, move along and try to progress the stories, or try to make new ones. It was bittersweet.

When they told you that this shift would be happening, did they also tell you what the shift would actually be?

O’DONOGHUE: I had a good idea, as to the general direction that we were going to go in, so that was good.

Had you ever considered leaving the show, yourself, or were you always game and on board for what’s next?

O’DONOGHUE: To be honest with you, I still had time left on my contract, anyway. I’ve loved playing Hook and I’ve loved working on this show, and it’s an amazing opportunity to get to play a character and investigate a character for so long. I’m just happy to be able to have the opportunity to continue to explore him a little more and see how that goes. He’s a great character and I’m blessed to have the opportunity to get to play him.

Has this season felt like the biggest reinterpretation that you’ve had to go through with him?

O’DONOGHUE: Yes and no. Over the seasons, I’ve managed to play four or five different incarnations of Hook. I’ve been lucky to be able to have to many interpretations of this character, but it’s definitely a different take, this season.

Are you approaching your performance any differently, this season, because he is the most different version of the character, even in name, or does he still feel like the same person, at the core?

O’DONOGHUE: At the core, he kind of feels the same. He feels similar to some parts of previous Hooks that I’ve played. But I am approaching it differently because the world and where he is, is very, very different, so you have to come at it slightly different.

He’s gone by Hook, Killian and now Rogers. When you’re playing the character, what name do you think of him as?

O’DONOGHUE: This season, I think of him as Rogers. In the first episode, you saw that he’s a cop and he tries to be the best person that he can be, within the confines of what his personality allows him to be. So, I think of him as Rogers, but he still has elements of Hook.

Could you ever have imagined, when you started playing Hook, that you’d be here now, with him as a cop, of all professions?

O’DONOGHUE: No, I would not have pictured that. To be honest with you, I’m not sure I could have pictured people relating to the character as much as they did. The fact that I’m even on the show is amazing to me.

Did you ever think that he might turn out a little bit more evil and sinister, instead of being the relatively good guy that he actually seems to be?

O’DONOGHUE: Definitely the first season, he was a villain. What I liked about the way that the writers have pitched him, and it’s what I think they do really well with the villains on the show, full-stop, is that they make them far more complex than a black-and-white villain. He was more tormented and conflicted. In Season 2, when I came on, I wanted people to feel sorry for him more than hate him for what he was doing. That was the impetus behind that. But, I didn’t expect him to become quite the hero that he became.

How is he, as a cop? He seems to want to help and to do good, but he also seems like maybe he’s willing to make some compromises to further himself. Will some of his old ways start to filter through?

O’DONOGHUE: That’s always been the fun thing about Hook. It’s difficult for him not to fall back, a little bit, into whatever pirate ways he had. As Rogers, he wants to be the best cop that he can be and the best person that he can be. He has a very definite agenda and case that he wants to try to follow. Even though he doesn’t want it to be the case, lines can get blurred sometimes when he’s investigating stuff.

How would you describe life in Hyperion Heights compared to Storybrooke? What’s it like to live in a town run by Victoria Belfrey, as opposed to living in a town run by Mr. Gold?

O’DONOGHUE: The main thing is that it’s a far more urban environment. It’s gritty. It’s everything that you would expect from city life. The things that a cop sees and does are definitely more relatable to being in a big city.

We pick up the story this season, in a way that very closely mirrors what happened when Henry showed up on Emma’s doorstep and tried to convince her that fairy tales are real, and now we get to see Lucy try to convince Henry of that. Even though they don’t know that they have a past, Killian and Henry have a history. How would you describe the relationship that Rogers has with adult Henry?

O’DONOGHUE: It’s difficult to say, at this stage. Obviously, they don’t know who they are, essentially. They definitely interact, but they don’t know that Hook is Hook, or any of that stuff. It’s more complicated than them just falling back into their previous relationships. This version of Hook that we see in the fairytale past has quite a different relationship with Henry than we’ve seen before.

How has it been to establish a bond with Andrew West, as Henry?

O’DONOGHUE: It’s been fantastic. In many respects, it’s a whole new character. Jared [Gilmore] did such a fantastic job as the younger Henry, and Andy is an incredibly actor. He wants to put his spin on who Henry is, and I think that he really has done an incredible job. It’s been really good fun to explore that relationship.

Who are Rogers’ friends or allies, in Hyperion Heights?

O’DONOGHUE: He has some, but I can’t tell you who they are until a later date. He’s very much a person on his own. Over the course of the next few episodes, you will see his acquaintances. A lot of his relationships are very, very interesting.

Were you satisfied with where Hook and Emma’s relationship was left, when Jennifer Morrison returned for Episode 2?

O’DONOGHUE: Yeah. I think it’s a great reminder of everything that Hook and Emma went through to get to that point. Hook and Emma very much love each other and are happy.

You’ve made it to Season 7 on a TV series, which is a huge deal these days. What’s it meant to you to be a part of this family, have your own action figure, and to have had some of the incredible experiences that you’ve had, being a part of this show?

O’DONOGHUE: I came on in the second season and, even though we’re in Season 7, I still feel like the new guy because I wasn’t there for the first season. I just feel very lucky and I count my blessings to be a part of something that’s meant so much to so many people. As an actor, it’s hard to get work. Sometimes you have to make do with the jobs that you get. I’ve been lucky with this one because I landed a character that I love playing on a show that I love being in and I get to be a part of an incredible journey for a lot of people. We take for granted, when we shoot the show, that people actually watch the show. We’re so busy [shooting it] that we don’t think about that. It’s only when you go to things like Comic-Con or D23 that you realize the impact that the show actually has on people. It’s really quite humbling, to be honest.

Has anyone in your own life made the most fun of you, for having an action figure?

O’DONOGHUE: No. Sean Maguire wants to get together, so that we can play with our action figures together. My son plays with it, too. It’s kind of weird. It’s crazy!

You’ve also recently made a film, What Still Remains. How challenging was it to juggle making a film with doing a TV show?

O’DONOGHUE: Since I started the show, I’ve done three movies, in between. It’s difficult to try to get to do something else, when you’re working for nine months on a TV show, but I’ve been lucky enough to be able to do it. You have to really try to manage your time, as best as you can. Obviously, you have to make family time, as well. It’s been a challenge juggling that, at times, but it’s been nice to get to play other characters.

What was the appeal of that particular film for you?

O’DONOGHUE: With the few movies that I’ve done in between, they were characters that I just really wanted to play. I wanted to see if I could figure out how to wrap my head around these different characters, and that’s been good. Hook is such a big part of my life that it’s nice to be able to play around with something else.

Once Upon A Time airs on Sunday nights on ABC.

[fyrapartnersearch]

Contents

Before I begin, here is a bit of a “table-of-contents” section so you know what’s to come since this post is quite long!

Introduction & About Me [self-explanatory - an introduction to myself and some points on me and my writing style]

What I’m Looking for in a Partner [again, self-explanatory - a description of what I’m looking for in a partner]

Roleplay Information [a brief blurb on how I set up the following areas (which role I would prefer, what some little symbols mean, types of relationships, etc.)]

Fandoms [not many, but fandom pairings I would be willing to write]

Fairy Tales [again, not many, but fairy tale pairings I would be willing to write]

Pairings/Plot Points [again, self-explanatory - quite a long list of pairings and plot points that I’d be willing to write]

Plots [again, not many, but one plot of my own that I’d be interested in writing]

Characters [a list of characters and summaries of each that I already have the ideas for and could be fit into any other pairing/plot idea (i.e. you can choose one or multiple that you like and would want to write against and then we can build a plot from there, almost like a build-a-bear but with a story)]

Contact [my email and contact information]

Introduction & About Me

Hello! My name’s Rain, and I’m a 21-year-old who has been roleplaying for approximately 6 years (but only in the most recent 4 or 5 have I really been “serious”). After being dragged by the ankles (although not without a struggle) into a hellish chasm of personal issues that has kept me from writing, I’ve finally managed to work everything out and am now itching to get back into the roleplaying-game! I’m hoping that I can find some good partners to satiate my cravings, and hopefully I can satiate some of yours too. If you emailed me in the past and I didn’t respond, shoot me another email! Like I said, I had some things get in the way, so I’d be up for rekindling a past roleplay or picking up planning where we left off.

I can write replies ranging anywhere from 500-1200 words average - I know that’s a rather big window to call my “average”, but I don’t want to make it sound like that’s my strict length. This equates to around 3-8 paragraphs, but that obviously will vary depending on the size of the paragraph. I can certainly go upwards from 1200 and have gone on to posts with 2000+, however that’s usually too much for most people. Essentially, I’ll write the same amount you write so that it’s not over or underwhelming. Let me know your range and I’ll adapt! Although, if you would be willing to write 1500+/2000+ words a post, then you’d earn quite a bit on bonus points from me.

In terms of writing style, I write third person, past tense, multi-paragraph to novella. HEREare some samples of my writing! The first was an intro so it’s quite long, and the second is from the same roleplay as the first. The third is from a separate one.

I’m also putting this up front - my schedule’s a bit wonky. There will be some days where we can go back and forth multiple times with multiple posts each and there will be some days where I can’t reply at all. I’ll try my best to let you know in advance if there will be a period of 2+ days where I can’t reply, but things happen. My activity rate is partially dependent on interest level as well - if I’m really into and excited about our roleplay, I’ll be able to reply more often!

On a similar note, I’m on the east coast (EST) if that’s an important factor for you.

I’m open to playing multiple characters if that suits your fancy, or, if you’d rather just play one each, that’s fine by me as well.

For relationship pairings, I do all different kinds: romantic/sexual, platonic, familial, and antagonistic. I think it’s fine to mix and match all these different kids because they can make for some interesting character interaction! As for the gender pairings of the characters, I'm mostly looking for m/f, but depending on the idea/character I may do m/m (but please, make sure you ask first!). However, if we decide to do a m/m roleplay, I am not interested in top/bottom dynamics at all. I am especially not a fan of really cutsy, weak males either. Shy is fine, scrawny is fine, just not the trope of a typical “bottom” character. If I agree to an m/m roleplay, it means that both of our characters will not fit into either of those roles. They will just be who they are. It really peeves me when I do m/m roleplays and the character I write mine opposite is shy and blushy all the time. There is a time and place for that, and if that is part of who your character is, then fine. But there is a very clear line between being okay and realistic and being overboard and too much/exaggerated.

Regarding the above, I very much prefer the female role in m/f pairings but of course in m/m pairings I will play a male. I also find it interesting to write against more dominant male characters for heterosexual pairings, but that’s certainly not required. I can totally get behind a shy sweetheart of a guy as well! In the end, it’s your character, so it’s up to you! I don’t usually double in terms of each partner playing one male and one female, either - I know that is a deal-breaker for many, so I apologize for that. I may be willing to double in certain cases, but I’m not easily convinced - however, if you think you have mastered the arts of persuasion, then by all means, try to persuade me. I’m open to it.

I’m smut friendly as well and don’t mind including it in my roleplays, but it’s really dependent on the content of the story itself. I don’t necessarily want a story that is focused solely on smut, but I wouldn’t mind having it play a part (whether it’s small or large, that’s for you to decide). Going along with the NSFW theme, I’m all for most kinks - you name it, and more likely than not I’ll be willing to write it, but I would still rather you check with me first. The only ones that I won’t do and can’t be convinced to do are pedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality, anything with body fluids, feet, pregnancy/lactation, vore, and gore. Everything else is fair game. Note that of those, gore and only gore is fine when not employed sexually (i.e. if the characters are fighting or in battle or are doing something violent of the sort, then it is totally fine). If you’d like to include smut, ask me for my list of kinks and share yours with me as well!

I use face-claims for all of my characters and only use realistic images.

I'm only interested in roleplaying over email at the moment. My email is ofliliesandfoxgloves@gmail.com.

What I’m Looking for in a Partner

Now that we’ve got those basics out of the way, there are certain things that I would like out of a partner that hopefully someone can provide!

Be 18+, please. I know I’m technically on the younger end of the adult spectrum but I still feel uncomfortable roleplaying with minors (especially because some of my plots can contain smut).

I would prefer if you were female, just because I am more comfortable roleplaying and writing with someone who is the same gender as I am, but that isn’t a requirement, as I don’t want to totally limit the partners that reach out to me and potentially miss out on a fantastic male, nonbinary, etc. partner just because they aren’t female.

I’m looking for someone who can at least mirror or match my minimum post length, so no fewer than 3-4 paragraphs or 500 or so words. Again, if you want to write longer replies that span the 1500+ word range, than that would be even better!

I would like if you wrote in the third person. Tense doesn’t matter - write present or past, that’s up to you. But I won’t roleplay with anyone who writes in the first or second person, as it is a little weird to me.

If you can get me at least one post every other day, I’d be happy! If you can get me more than that, even better! Also, let me know if you’re not going to be able to reply for a prolonged period of time so that I’m not sitting on my hands wondering where you went.

Likewise, if you want to drop the roleplay for any reason, just let me know! I won’t be mad if it’s not working out, I just don’t want to be ghosted by someone who doesn’t want to continue and instead never replies again.

If you can play multiple characters, that would be wonderful, but again, it’s certainly not a requirement.

Use realistic face claims for characters, please! No anime or cartoons, but if you are an artist that has a more realistic style and would like to use your own art, then that is fine by me!

When you email me, let me know which things listed below interest you/you would want to include! Tell me a little about yourself and the way you write as well (including whether or not you would like to include smut in the roleplay as well as your limits if it’s the latter).

Also, if you have an idea that I haven’t listed, ask/tell me! I’m very open to suggestions!

Roleplay Information

On to the part that you’ve actually wanted to see! I have a variety of things that I would like to include in a roleplay. To set it up, my preferred role in a pairing will be italicized; if neither are italicized, then I will write either. I’ll also note what type of relationship I would be interested in writing for a particular pairing/plot (romantic/sexual, platonic, familial, or antagonistic); we can also combine some of the four (like a romantic/sexual and antagonistic would be fun). Additionally, we can combine pairings if you’d like by writing more than one character each. Anything with a carrot (^) means I have a plot in mind if you’d like to hear it, and anything with an asterisk (*) means that I am willing to write either m/f or m/m (which means anything without one means only m/f). I’m up for fluff or action or anything in between, so let me know what you want!

Fandoms

Harry Potter

Hermione Granger x Draco Malfoy (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

Ginny Weasley x Draco Malfoy (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

[Your suggestion] x [Your suggestion] (romantic/sexual, platonic, antagonistic and/or familial)

Fairy Tales

Note: if any animal-esque character is involved in the following pairings, any romantic/sexual interactions will occur when that character is in human form, and/or the character will be replaced with a similar human mythical creature (ex: werewolf).

Little Red Riding Hood

The [Boy/Girl] Who Cried Wolf *^

Beauty and the Beast *^

Alice in Wonderland

Aladdin

Pairings/Plot Points

Royalty x Royalty (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic) *

Royalty x Peasant (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Royalty x Knight (romantic/sexual or platonic)

Kidnapping/abduction

Vampire x Human (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic) [note: I have done this one a lot of times, so if you’d like to do this one, make sure your plot is interesting and/or unique!]

Demon x Human (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

Overprotectiveness/possessiveness [note: I love this relationship element, especially overprotectiveness!]

Demon x Demon Hunter (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

Artist/Photographer x Model/Dancer (romantic/sexual, platonic, or familial) *

Superhero x Superhero (romantic/sexual, platonic, antagonistic, and/or familial)

Superhero x Supervillain (romantic/sexual, platonic, antagonistic, and/or familial)

Biker/Biker Gang x Civilian (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Rich x Rich (romantic/sexual and/or antagonistic)

Rich x Poor (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic) *

Rich x Servant/Maid (romantic/sexual)

Genie x Human (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic) *

Fae/Fairy/Pixie x Human (romantic/sexual, platonic, and/or antagonistic)

Plots

I only have one pre-thought here, but I’m really open to your suggestions! If you’ve been dying to write a plot but haven’t found someone to write it with yet, please tell me! I’d be happy to satiate your craving.

A florist and tattoo shop are located across the street from each other, and the tattoo artist comes in every day to buy flowers/look at flowers to practice drawing, but both he and the florist are very much attracted to each other.

Characters

I’m not quite sure what to call this section, but it’s essentially a summary (more like bullets) of some characters that I already have ideas for that can be used in various different scenarios and plot-lines. They are in no particular order. If you are willing to let me use one of these, that will earn you major bonus points with me! Let me know if you are interested in any and I can elaborate. Most of them don’t have names yet (and the ones that do are subject to change) because I am very picky with names, aha, but I’ll think of those later. There obviously aren’t many of these at the moment, but there will likely be more of these added in the future. Anything with a plus (+) is one I am really dying to use! If you have an idea for/an already made character that you think would pair well with any of these, please describe them to me! Or, alternatively, if you have any characters you’ve been dying to use, let me know! Perhaps I can create a character to write opposite them.

i. anny // female // early to mid twenties // heterosexual // asian // american // + // laid-back; quiet; passive-aggressive; collected, sly; manipulative; understanding; charming; grew up wealthy, still is wealthy, doesn’t bring up financial situation much; has danced in various genres since she was little, still does; english major, cognitive science minor; plays the violin; dislikes uncleanliness; editor.

ii. olson // male // mid twenties // bisexual, prefers men // caucasian // american // + // bitter; sarcastic; serious; aloof; intelligent; private; defensive; lost hearing in his early childhood, received cochlear implants in late adolescence, speech still sounds “different” from a hearing person’s; knows American Sign Language (ASL) and English; film/television production and mathematics double major, art history minor; likes maps; doesn’t particularly like physical contact; photographer [note: would prefer to write him against a character who is hearing and able to talk rather than another character on the mute/hard-of-hearing spectrum; you can find his full character sheet HERE].

Contact

That’s all I can think of at the moment! Again, if there’s anything else not listed that you’ve been dying to try out, let me know! More likely than not, I’ll say yes and jump right on board. Shoot me an email at ofliliesandfoxgloves@gmail.com with your interests and a little information about yourself (ex: average post length, activity, etc.). If you shoot me a message just saying a pairing you were interested in without telling me about yourself, then I won’t be as inclined to reply since I don’t know if our styles would match up! So please, tell me about yourself - I promise I won’t bite!