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songmingisthighs · 4 years ago

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[15.08] badboy!seonghwa × reader

⇀ had you known that's why he confessed, would you have accepted him ? Or smack his annoyingly perfect face with your laptop ?

⇁ part 1 / 2

⇁ prologue part 1 / 2 / 3

Things had gone great between you and Seonghwa. You and he would often meet at your dorm or at the diner at least three times a week.

You'd ask him why you both never hung at his dorm but his answer was that he doesn't want the boys to disturb your 'quality time'.

Normally you'd question answers like that, but the way he looks at you and holds your hand made you forget why you even wanna ask that in the first place.

But like all things, everything dissipates with time.

Nearing the end of the semester, group projects lessen and solo assignments accumulate which put a strain between your and Seonghwa's hangout time. You've tried convincing him that you both can hang out whilst doing your solo assignments but you remembered how his eyes trailed after a girl as you spoke at one of your last hangouts at the diner.

Seems like he's lost interest in you too.

Which, it sure hurts, but you both were never official and neither had verbally confirmed to the other about their feelings. It sucks.

But you power through.

You pretend that his silence during class's group discussion didn't affect you, you pretend that when he immediately pack up his stuff to leave the class and only throwing you a polite smile didn't make your heart wrench, you pretend that him ghosting you didn't make you feel both embarrassed and angry at the same time.

You're light and breezy.

Heck, you're so light and breezy, you still go to that diner every Friday all alone. And it's not because you had hoped to see one particular man.

Even though you did.

When he was on a date with some girl who's obviously very pretty.

On the booth you both had 'claimed' as 'your booth' without ever verbally saying it.

"Hi, excuse me," a voice broke your train of thoughts.

You look up from your book to see a really handsome man standing in front of you with a smile on his face. He looks very handsome, definitely mixed-race, and he has this chill aura on him that is honestly refreshing to you.

"Sorry to bother you, but can I sit here?" He asked. You look around to see that there are a lot of other places left in the library where he could've sat.

Sensing your apprehension, the man raised both of his hands, "I'm not a creep or a weirdo, I'm just very particular about where I work,"

He's got a point. So you just nodded, "sure, it's not my table or anything anyways, you could've just taken a seat without asking my permission," he shrugged as he put his things across you, "I mean sure, but you seemed like you don't wanna be bothered and this particular spot has the best walking distance to anywhere at all and plus the secret charging port? Genius," he said, grinning proudly.

You raised your eyebrows at him, "you seem to know your way around the table, mister..." you trailed off to which he immediately caught on, "Hansol, Choi Hansol, but my friends calls me Vernon," he held his hand out for you to shake, "(Y/N), (Y/N) (Y/L/N), and why Vernon?" "My english name, I'm half American,"

And with that, you got yourself a new friend.

Vernon is a computer science major, and the other thing major about him is his nerdiness. And his hotness. Which is a ridiculous combination.

Ever since that day in the library, you both somehow find the other popping up everywhere. Just a day after your first meeting in the library, he came into the café you part-timed at. He came in to order 13 drinks and several pastries, shocking you at first but then he told you he lives in a frat house with 12 other guys and that he's not a caffeine addict.

Then you both bonded over the many sessions in the library which eventually venture out to sitting together during lunch, and then suddenly you both started meeting outside campus.

And this did not go unnoticed by Seonghwa.

"Hey, Seonghwa, how well do you know (Y/N)?" Hongjoong asked, breaking Seonghwa's glare on you and Vernon from all the way across the cafeteria.

Seonghwa raised an eyebrow at him, "(Y/N) from my statistics class?" As if he hadn't considered you as something more at some point, "I'd say well enough as a groupmate, why?" He asked back.

Hongjoong nodded towards you and Vernon with his chin, "Vernon there saw you both working together and he wants to make sure he won't be stepping on anyone's toes when he's making a move on her,"

At that moment, Seonghwa almost choked on his fries. Too surprised with the fact that you've possibly moved on from him so quickly.

It's only been a month and a half since you both stopped hanging out outside of obligation.

Hearing that made his blood boil and he's pretty sure it's not jealousy. Most likely territorialism. HE took interest in you first waaaaay before Vernon did.

The smile and laugh you give Vernon was supposed to be for him. He used to make you laugh so hard at any stupid pun he concocted in his head. No matter how stupid it is nor how much it doesn't make any sense.

To be completely honest, he didn't know why he pulled away from you in the first place. He had been so comfortable with you, never once had he ever let his guard down and just be carefree, not even with his closest friends.

He needs to get you back to him.

No matter what.

So he made his move the next time you both had statistics again.

Unlucky for him though, the professor decided to not have any group discussion that day which threw Seonghwa's plan out the window. But thankfully he still remembered your schedule, you don't have any class after statistics which means you'd be grabbing a simple lunch before your part-time job starts until 8 pm.

So he waited patiently for the bell to ring.

Legs bouncing in anticipation as his eyes flit towards the clock every five minutes.

When the professor finally dismissed the class (10 minutes later than he's supposed to, as per usual), he immediately put all his belongings back in his bag and ran after you. Somehow you've mastered the art of cleaning up quickly over the month and a half without him.

"(Y/N)! Wait!" Seonghwa called.

You stopped in your tracks and turn your head to see Seonghwa jogging towards you with that stupid, charming smile on his face.

Damn his good looks.

"Yeah? Is there something wrong?" you asked him when he caught up to you. He raised an eyebrow at you, confused as to why you'd think there'd be anything wrong.

"Ah!" you suddenly exclaimed, "Is this about my part of the presentation? Don't worry, I'm close to finishing it, I should be able to compile it in the PPT tonight by... 9.30-ish? I have to finish my shift at the café," you explained.

He chuckled at you, deep voice that you oh so missed ringing in your ears, "wha- no, (Y/N), I'm not here to talk about our project, I just wanna... talk with you," he said, tilting his head to the side slightly. It somehow made him look both hot and cute at the same time. Which doesn't make sense.

Now it was your turn to raise an eyebrow at him while crossing your arms, "why? No offence, Seonghwa, but you've kinda been blowing me off for the past month and a half now, what makes you think I'd have anything to talk with you about?"

Those words coming out of your mouth shocked him. It's not like he didn't expect some apprehension from you, but hostility? Boy, you must've been really affected by his shitty doings.

"I-I- no, (Y/N), I haven't been blowing you off," bullshit, even he knows that, "I've just been really-" "really... what? Absent? Ghosty? Hot and cold? Whatever it is, Seonghwa, you don't owe me any explanation," you tried your best to not roll your eyes at him because honestly, how dare he blew you off and now acting like he didn't whilst hoping you don't notice what he has been doing.

What did he take you for? One of his brainless bimbos?

Surprised at your words, Seonghwa was left stunned. You waited for a solid 10 seconds for him to say something. Anything.

Literally, how hard is it to say sorry?

Realizing he wouldn't realize what he's supposed to do, you just shook your head at him, "I'll finish inputting and editing my part by tonight, I'll see you in class next week, Seonghwa," you said before walking away.

You would've thought that he'd take the hint and go back to ignoring you.

But now, of course not. He's stubborn and he plays by his own rules. It's an understatement to say that you were shocked when you saw him entering the café nearing the end of your shift.

Despite the shock of seeing him, you pretended like nothing's wrong and do what you're supposed to do to any other customer as per usual.

Heck, you'd give yourself a pat on the back, head, and butt for being so calm whilst handling Seonghwa. You managed to keep that "strictly professional" smile on your face as you take his orders, you didn't fumble when he made small talks as you typed in his orders into the computer (like really, who the heck said "good thing tonight's not cloudly, love the moonlight," ??), and you didn't flinch when your hands accidently touch as you hand him his strawberry frappucino.

Yes, the badboy strictly and secretly drink sweet, fruity drinks.

You'd thought that his presence was merely a coincidence. As he waited in his table, you had assumed that he's waiting for some girl (who isn't you, sadly) so all you wanna do is run out of there as soon as you can.

"Hey, Jaemin," you called your co-worker who's in the middle of sipping his 6 shot americano at 8 pm, "I'm gonna head out, okay? Think you can hold the fort until Yena's here? She said she has to turn in an assignment, that's why she's late,"

Jaemin just rolled his eyes at you, "(Y/N), I'm drinking coffee that's powerful enough to paralyze a horse, I can definitely handle the slow Wednesday night crowd," he said sarcastically to which you laugh.

After getting your things from your locker in the back room, you proceed to go out through the front door.

Unbeknownst to you, Seonghwa had followed behind.

You were only several steps away from the café when suddenly Seonghwa caught up to you and grab your hand.

Knowing that it's quite late and it's dark, Seonghwa should've known better. You honestly only feel slightly bad for punching his chest.

Slightly.

Like 2%.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Seonghwa you scared the devil out of me!" You exclaimed after realizing that it was just him, pulling your hand away from his grip. He coughed, trying to ease oxygen back to his lungs after you had brutally knocked them out.

"Guess I deserved that," he coughed out, but he was smirking as if he's amused by your attack, "sorry, I was just- I need to talk to you," he said, looking at you pleadingly.

"Well, it doesn't seem like that for the past month and a half, Seonghwa, you seemed just about done with me," you said while crossing your arms, your expression showing nothing but disdain at him. He seems to feel remorse after seeing how you looked at him. Never once did you showed any negativity nor hostility to him during the time you both spent together.

Seonghwa didn't really know what made him pull away from you. All he was sure of is that he felt something so strongly about you to the point that it scared him so much. He never felt the need to be with someone as much as when he was with you. He found himself thinking about you when you're both not together, he found himself only focusing on you and nothing else when you both are together, and he found his vulnerabilities open for you to access.

It scared him to hell and back when he realizes that there is a possibility of him wanting something more from you.

With you.

The man before you sighed, "I... Have no excuse for how I acted recently but believe me when I said that I regret pulling myself away from you because I'm scared, you're too good to and for someone like me, you deserve the best and I wanna be the best for you," he stepped closer to take both your hands in his, his eyes were genuine which rendered you incapable of being too mad at him, "I wish I could rewind the time and take back what I did, I never should have pulled away from you, I should have just told you the truth," he said.

For a second, he forgot about his image and he just let whatever he was feeling out, he wanted to make sure that you understand how he truly feels.

Both of you stood in silence, just staring at each other as he rubs his thumb on the back of your hand. With the way you're staring at him now, he was sure that your initial resolve had completely melted.

But suddenly from his peripheral vision, he saw Vernon coming out of a bookstore across the road and was looking around.

Remembering what prompted him to get closer to you again, he pulled you in close into his arms, a hand to your cheek and lips just centimetres away from his.

"So? Would you please give me another chance to show you how much you mean to me? Not as just some guy from your statistics class," his words made you chuckle and roll your eyes, "but as your boyfriend," he said before he could stop himself.

Your eyes widened, "m-me? With y-you? Boyfriend and girlfriend?" you choked out, not believing your ears in the first place. You wanted to make sure that he's not kidding, making a joke or making a fool out of you.

Instead of answering, however, he simply leaned in and places his lips softly on yours. The kiss was sweet, it conveyed how much he wants and misses you. For some reason it made you feel comforted, he feels like home and his arms makes you feel safe.

So then and there, you kiss him back as a form of an answer to him.

When you both finally pull away, you both could see dumb smiles decorating the other's face, proof of happiness over what just happen.

Remembering that you're in the middle of the road and there are people around you, you pulled away from his arms first but reached to tangle your hand in his.

"Come on, I believe I owed my groupmate my part of the presentation," you started as you walk, pulling him with you.

But as you walk, you turn your head at him to throw a flirty smirk, "boyfriend" you said, making him grin so wide, it could rival a Cheshire cat.

Maybe you and he isn't a bad idea at all.

All you can do now is hope that he won't break you.

#ateez #ateez scenario #ateez imagine #timestamp #ateez timestamp #ateez au #kpop boys #kpop scenario #kpop imagine #seonghwa #park seonghwa #smt #smt timestamp #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines #kpop au

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omg-im-such-a-masochist · 4 years ago

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THE CHOICE

Prompt: When Finn starts to act weird,Y/N has her suspicions as to why he’s acting like that. But the reason behind his acts might surprise her.

Word count: Long-ish

Pairing: Finn Bálor(Fergal Devitt) x Reader

Warnings: Angst, jealously, smut(implied), fluff

Notes: I love me some jealous/clingy/needy Finn 🥰 Y’all know the drill loves,sorry for misspellings,english isn’t my first language (bla bla bla),check out my other stories if you’d like to(it would make your girl here very happy 😊) and if you’re comfortable with it,please let me know what you think? Some feedback is always welcomed and appreciated ❤️You can check out my other stories typing ‘masochist writes’ on the search bar on my page and my newest story as a fixed post.Okay,now let’s get to the fun part,shall we? Hope you’ll enjoy 😉

I rolled my eyes for the 5th time, as I heard him knocking on my home office door AGAIN, for the 8th time, in a 10 MINUTES break! I swear to God, I’m gonna loose my fucking mind if this keeps happening every 2 minutes!

“Come on in” I slight angrily said

“Hey again love, I know I’m bothering ya,but I really need your help with something!” He sheepishly smiles

“What is it now Finn?”

“I was thinking about ordering some pizza for dinner what do you think? Also I wanted to bake some cake for us, but I don’t know where ya keep the measuring cups”

“You? Pizza?” I ask in disbelief and he just nods with a sweet smile on his face

“And a cake? For us? You don’t even eat sweets!”

“I don’t need sweets, I got ya” he gives me a cheesy smile

“You’re so corny” I laughed “I thought you followed ‘a strict diet that excluded sugar and carbs’ so you could ‘keep your abs in shape for the girls’ “ I said imitating the words he used to say to me,to make me jealous,so I would agree to go out with him on a date.

“Fine, those were poor choice of words from my part, but on my defense I was trying to impress ya”

“Impress me, by making me jealous?”

“Reverse psychology love. I had to make ya think that ya didn’t want me so ya could really want me and accept my dinner invitation” He proudly said

“What? That makes zero sense!”

“But it worked didn’t? Here we are, 4 years later!” He gave me that devilish smirk

“Whatever!” I responded holding my laugh

“My answer is yes for the pizza. And the measuring cups are at the top shelf,where I keep the wine glasses” I turned to my desk so I could continue to work.

“Do ya want to help me?” He asks, with an innocent voice

“Finn, I’m working babe... I have to finish this report ‘til 3 p.m.”

“Oh” he says with an upset voice “Is John coming over to get it?” His voice changed from upset to slightly angry

“Yes, he’s coming over by 2 p.m.” And I regretted those words as soon as they left my mouth.

“Why is he coming by at 2 p.m. if you don’t have to deliver it until 3?” I turned around to face him and oh boy, my Irish man was not happy at all! It took a lot to take Finn out of his smiley happy mood but one thing that it sure did the job perfectly was John, my ex-boyfriend!

The company that I worked for was used to make some freelance contracts with certified translators, and by the irony of fate John was a very high requested certified translator. So it was no surprise to me when I found out that the big boss wanted to sign a contract with him, but what I didn’t saw it coming was that I would be the one designated to work with him. As much as I would like to decline it, I have bills and I need them to be paid, so I suck it up and accept the very bad taste joke fate has put it in my way.

But Finn on the other hand was not having it! He was recovering from an injury, so he was home 24/7 not being able to do what he loves, but now he also has to deal with John coming over,always showing up earlier and leaving way later than he was supposed to, while in the mean time tried to flirt with me...4 times a week!

I wasn’t very fondly of it either but like I said, this is my job! I can’t just say fuck off to the big boss, I need to pay my rent damn it!

To be honest Finn was acting pretty weird ever since John reappeared from the ashes... I expected some sort of jealousy attack or something but he just.. I don’t know.... He wasn’t following his diet(which was very weird considering he took that very seriously even when he was injured)started to act all needy and clingy, like a little boy. He followed me around EVERY WHERE, always needing to be comforted, wanted to be kissed and touched as often as possible and kept interrupting me every 2 minutes to draw my attention from work to him. I’m not gonna lie, I was getting slightly annoyed. I just want to get this damn job done, so I can stop looking at my stupid ex boyfriend’s face 4 days of the week, but Lord give me strength, cause Finn wasn’t helping me,not even one bit!

“Finny...”

“Don’t Finny me and just answer my question please”

“I don’t know why is he coming by at 2, my sunshine” I tried to remain as calm as I could

“Did you asked him to come by earlier?”

I turned to face him with a very annoyed look of disbelief on my face

“Are you seriously asking me this? Oh boy, I just hope that this is one of your bad taste jokes...”

“I am serious! Did you or did you not asked him to come by earlier? It’s a simple question!”

“You know what Fergal? I’ll just pretend I never heard that, because the last person I want to fight or lash out is you” I said as I turned to my desk again.

“Oh great, so you’re choosing him huh?”

“What?” I looked at him in shock

“If you want him back, then fine, go with him!”

“What the actual fuck are you talking about?”

“John! That’s what I’m talking about! I know you want him back! If you want to choose him and be with him go for it! I don’t care!” He screamed and turned away closing the door so forcefully I thought it was gonna break in half.

“Where the hell you think you’re going Fergal?”

He did not just accused me of wanting that asshole back plus started a fight and walked away! Well he should’ve known better, because now I was ferociously angry as I followed him to our bedroom ready to punch someone in the face!

“Fergal, don’t you even dare to lock that do-“

The motherfucker just closed the door in my face! And lock it!

“Finn, open the door!”

“Go away Y/N”

“Fergal don’t be so ridiculous!”

“I don’t wanna talk to ya”

“Finn open the door damn it!”

“It’s 12:30 ya should go and get ready for ya boyfriend”

“YOU are my boyfriend”

“I know ya don’t want me, ya want him, no need to lie! So don’t make this worst for me and just leave please...”

His voice sounded so sincerely hurt that all of my anger washed away

“Finn...baby, what is this all about? Why are you acting like this?”

He didn’t answer

“Finn?”

Still no answer

“C’mon Finny, don’t be so childish,love”

When I was left speaking alone for the third time I went to the bathroom down the hall and grabbed the spear key to the bedroom that I kept it in the drawer of the bathroom cabinet.

I opened the door to find Finn lying on the bed with his back facing the door.

“Finn” I tried to get him to talk, when it didn’t happen I walked to the bed and laid down beside him.

Solid 20 minutes had passed and he still didn’t said a word, so I gave up, got up from the bed and when I was about to go out the door he whispered

“Are you gonna choose him?”

I turned around and made my way back to my original spot.

“Can you at least look at me so I can answer you properly?”

He turned around and I had never seen such a broken look on those beautiful ocean eyes of his

“It’s ok if ya want him back, I understand it...”

“Finny, where did you get all these from baby?”

He shrugged his shoulders

“Finn look at me, I would never EVER in a million years leave you for John baby! What makes you think that?”

“I don’t know...he’s better than me in everything. He’s taller, prettier, more successful, more educated...I mean he match with ya perfectly...”

“Finny why are you saying such bad things about yourself? John’s got nothing on you babe! You’re my sunshine, my everything, the only man that I want, the only man that I need!” I cupped his bearded cheek and suddenly something hit me

“That’s why you were doing those things? The baking, the junk food, the being extra needy and extra clingy?... Is this your way to show me that you’re jealous?”

“Not really....this was my way to make ya choose me instead of him... I wanted to be the perfect man for ya.. so ya wouldn’t leave me...”

My heart broke with those words and my eyes filled with tears.

“Baby no...” Was all I could say before I pulled him towards my chest and let his head rest on my breasts.

“You ARE and ALWAYS will be the perfect man for me! I love you for who you are! You don’t need you to change anything, you were and will always be my perfect gift from the universe. My ray of sunshine”

He looked up and I couldn’t help but kiss him passionately.

“You promise?”

“How can you even ask that?” I smiled

“I’m sorry for the things I said before... I was angry and jealous..I was just so scared to lose ya..” He hugged me tighter and pecked my lips

“You’re stuck with me Devitt!” I chuckled

“I wouldn’t want it any other way love” he sweetly smiled at me

“So my baby boy is a jealous one huh? Getting all clingy and needy...” I teased him

“Ya have that effect on me babe” he laughed

“He needs constant proof that he is loved” I started to kiss his neck

“And wanted” my hands roamed his chest and abs

“And needed” my hands stopped at his crotch

“Hmmmm what are ya doing love?”

“Maybe” I straddle his hips “I should show you how much I love you” I started to hump him “Need you” I lowered my lips to his ears “And just how much you turn me on”

“That would be nice ya know?” He said with a low voice and placed his hands on my hips to establish a rhythm to our now dry humping.

“Yeah? Would you like that baby?”

“Mmhhmmm..that would be a great confidence boost for sure love” He started to kiss my neck

“And how could I help you with that?”

“Oh I’ve got a few ideas...”

“So tell me”

And my eyes closed to enjoy every dirty thing that beautiful Irish man wanted me to do with him.

And boy I was more than eager to!

#finn balor imagine #finn balor smut #finn balor x reader #finn balor one shot #finn balor fanfiction #finn balor #fergal devitt #wwe imagine #wwe one shot #wwe fanfiction #masochist writes

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gladiatortale · 4 years ago

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My DEPRESSION BEATING, fandom obsessing, shit-tastic FANTASTIC year in review!

TL;DR: I’m fixing my mental health and figuring out WHO THE FUCK I AM one fandom filled day at a time! Thank you to everyone who’s been there for me along the way. xoxo

what’s up HEATHENS.

stating the goddamn obvious here, it’s been a HELLUVA YEAR. One emotional rollercoaster after another but we’re ALMOST DONE. I know things aren’t gonna magically get better the second it flips to 00:01 on January first, but I’m excited to put this year behind me, and (SHOCKINGLY) a bit sad to see it go.

It was a year where the whole world completely stopped, we realized what is really important, what is really worth fighting for, and took a GODDAMN SECOND to just breathe.

For me personally, the year (which I’m counting off from November 1st) started out UNBELIEVABLY SHIT. I had just been kicked out of the country I called home for the last four years (thank you Brexit), I had ZERO job prospects, my depression was the WORST it had ever been, and I just didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. And in the beginning, the pandemic felt like salt in the wound, an extra kick in the teeth to my early twenties that had already “failed to launch.”

But I tried to embrace the madness, really take advantage of the world (that I always thought moved to fast) properly slowing down, and take time to try and become myself again. I wanted to figure out what I loved and try and become a bit more like the person I was before my depression got so bad.

I often say I became that Manic Trash Planet Lady™ you see in sci-fi adventure films; a bit zany to say the least, with a million ideas and a very eclectic fashion sense, but embracing the insanity as it comes...

*cough cough* audrey, get to the goddamn point!

Right. lol. THE POINT IS!

I’m not 100% “healed”, I’m not sure if I think depression is a “oh look you’re officially cured! hooray!” type of disease, but this year I let myself ENJOY SHIT for the first time in god knows how long. I still don’t know “wHaT i WaNt To dO WiTh mY LiFe”, but I’ve got a better idea and I’m heading in (what feels like) the right direction. And most of all, I can look back and say I am better than where I was a year ago.

So I wanted to say T H A N K Y O U to the mad lads on this website that introduced me to the fandoms, shows, movies, fics... THE SHIT that made me happy this year and were there to be one (BIG) piece in my healing journey.

AND SO, with out further rambling ADO! Here are the highlights of the year marked by my ridiculous hyper-fixations and OBSESSIONS. Thanks for putting up with me ya fiends, xoxox

November 2019 The Arcana (Visual Novel)

I had just gotten home and I was in a LOOOOOOW place. Randomly decided to download this app when it came up and it proceeded to ruin my life (and my bank account...) for pretty much the rest of the year. It was exactly what I needed to get me through a tough time and I was thoroughly, horse-blinders-up-to-the-rest-of-the-world, OBSESSED. These gorgeous magical fiends ruined me and all I could say was thank you.

Joined the fandom: November 2019 Obsession peaked: Late November Obsession faded: December 2019; I started a new job AND my bank statement came in and I realized I had accidentally spent over SIXTY BUCKS on this stupid app. No ragrets, but I definitely started to phase out at that point. Fandom friends: Velma, (@lanavxds on insta) miss you girlie xx Fanfics you NEED to read: ‘Second Mistake’ by DeathBelle on AO3, because DAAAAAYUM SON. Favourite moments: Basically the whole of the Julian arc. That gangly himbo OWNED my ass for a month.

December 2019 Hazbin Hotel (TV Series)

Y’ALL okay here me out. Am I proud of this one? No. Is the show crass as hell? OOOOOOOOHHHH YEAH. Did my angsty ass love it at the end of last year? DAMN STRAIGHT IT DID. Goes without saying, but this is NOT FOR EVERYBODY, but it definitely helped me along the way to becoming more comfortable with myself and being open about being the massive geek that I always was, and watching things I enjoy regardless of what people say about it.

Joined the fandom: December 2019 Obsession peaked: Shortly there after. Fandom friends: None. Dipped one toe in fandom discourse and then promptly YEETED the fuck outta there. Obsession faded: January 2019. Still curious to see the full series if A24 actually ever does produce the whole thing, but I have def moved away from it. Fanfics you NEED to read: Haven’t read any. Maybe I’m a pussy baby piece-o-shit, but I DID NOT want to go down that rabbit hole, NO MA’AM. Favourite moments:

Discovering the Hunicast podcast. These guys are a riot and Ashley is a flustered GEM. Even if you don’t watch the show, go watch an episode of these fucking LADS just dicking about and your day will get better.

Watching the first episode with my partner and watching him realize his girlfriend is a total freak.

January 2020 Lore Olympus (Webtoon Comic)

*Officially* discovered this one thanksgiving weekend in 2019, but my Arcana phase was still raging pretty strong at that point so I didn’t really get in to it until later. EVERYBODY AND THEIR MOTHER NEEDS TO READ IT. It has everything and handles the reality sexual assault and it’s aftermath EXTREMELY well.

Joined the fandom: Late November 2019 Obsession peaked: January 2020 Fandom friends: KELLEY. MA GIRL XOXOXO Obsession faded: June-ish 2020. I’m like 10 chapters behind now, but I still love this story so much. Fanfics you NEED to read: SO MANY ON MY ‘MARKED FOR LATER’ LIST AAAAAH. I have to get to that... NEW YEARS RESOLUTION lol Favourite moments: Having a drunk conversation on New Years Eve in 2019 with one of my oldest friends from high school about how much she loved it too. Helped me see how popular fandom and fandoms, are especially after feeling like I needed to hide my enthusiasm through high school and uni. (THAT WAS A MISTAKE BUT I’LL GET THERE IN A MINUTE).

February 2020 Versailles (TV Series)

SO FUCKING GAY Y’ALL. Oh my god everyone in this show is so gay. Even when they’re not they still are a little bit. AND BEST OF ALL!! it’s very historically accurate (except for the demon satanic nonsense in season 3, what was that???)

Joined the fandom: February 2020 Obsession peaked: Like??? The SECOND I finished episode one. Fandom friends: none... WHERE ARE ALL OF YOU??? Obsession faded: March 2020. It was a fast and passionate love affair, what can I say? Fanfics you NEED to read: IF YOU HAVE RECS, GIVE ‘EM TO MEEEEE. Favourite moments:

Showing the first episode to a friend of mine and the *ungodly GASP* that came out of her throat was... PRICELESS.

The ENTIRE throuple(???) relationship between the Chevalier, Philipe, and Palatine. PLATONIC/ ROMANTIC LOVE G O A L S.

March 2020 Yuri!!! On Ice (TV Series)

*deep breath* ...y’all knew this one was coming.

Was I ready for this show to ruin my fucking life? No. Am I so glad it happened??? FUCK YEAH.

NEVER IN MY LIFE have I fallen off the deep end so quickly with a fandom. HOLY SHIT. This blog didn’t have much of an “identity” before, but I you said that this is a Yuri On Ice blog now I wouldn’t even be mad (nor could I really defend myself to the contrary... bc??? like??? just go LOOK at my archive). Craziest thing is I watched the first two episodes like?? a solid TWO YEARS ago, but I didn’t continue watching because I was just not in the right head space for all the love and silliness and positivity.

I could do a whole separate post about how much this show and how this fandom has changed my life (DON’T TEMPT ME I JUST MIGHT). But I’ll stick with the highlights for now ;)

Joined the fandom: March 2020 Obsession peaked: Has it peaked?? Went straight up and it still going lol Fandom friends: Sandra, my mentor, my queen @aeriamamaduck, my fandom ride-or-die. Thank you for taking this internet bby under your wing. RACHEL @idancewiththefairies I TRAPPED YOU HERE. MUAHAHAHA xxx Obsession faded: ON GOING. CAN’T STOP, WON’T STOP. Fanfics you NEED to read: jfc, SO MANY.

‘Until My Feet Bleed and My Heart Aches’ and ‘Of Bright Stars and Burning Hearts’ by Reiya @kazliin -- Rivals AU companion pieces. Longest fics I’ve ever read and JESUS CHRIST these two fucking SENT ME. Most popular YOI fics on AO3 for a REASON.

‘Tell Me Where Your Love Lies’ by @aeriamamaduck -- Royalty AU, trope-breaking ABO. Ah sweet, TMWYLL, how you’ve killed me over and over again. This BEAUTIFUL wip has SUCH amazing world-building idk where to start (Congrats on passing 50,000 hits!) EVERYONE GO READ IT.

‘Blackbird’ by sixpences -- WWII/Coldwar Spy Fic. I don’t have enough words to describe how amazing this is. It’s elevated to a higher plane beyond fanfic. Just go read it. Thank me later.

‘Zanka’ by rinsled05 @dreaming-fireflies -- The geisha fic that ruined me. *deep breath* AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH *gasp* I’m fine. lol I sooooo not ready for this fic. Holy hell, Aoyagi had my heart in his hands from the first chapter. “’Please’ [...] ‘Don’t give me hope.’“ FUUUUCK.

‘Echoes’ by Reiya @kazliin -- Future fic. First fic I cried at... BOI. I was NOT ready for this. Shouldn’t be surprised given the author, but MAN. “‘A love like that, a love like what they had together, it never leaves completely.’ Yuri spoke again, eyes still staring out onto the ice, lost in memory. ‘There are always echoes.’” JUST FUCK ME UP.

Favourite moments: Oh good lord, where do I begin??

Having two (count ‘em TWO) main characters with mental health issues (Yuuri and his anxiety and Victor with burn out and depression) and NOT MAKING IT THE ONLY ASPECT OF THEIR PERSONALITY. CLAPS FOR KUBO AND YAMAMOTO!!

Everything about Yurio (ESPECIALLY HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH YUUKO AND HIS GRANDPA), that tsundere motherfucker is too pure for this world.

THE KISS. THE PROPOSAL. MY HEART WASN’T READY. AAAAAH!!

This fandom *properly* introducing me to smut on AO3...

Thinking I was going to get Rachel to like the show... NOT being prepared for her to fall off the deep end and START LIKING REAL SKATING TOO!!

Staying up waaaaaay too late waaaaaay too often to plan out plot points for TMWYLL with Sandra. Love ya dearie.

The warm fuzzy feeling I get every time I think about Victor and Yuuri.

April 2020 Bungou Stray Dogs (TV Series)

I had a hunch I was gonna like this show considering ALL of the characters are based off of famous classic authors from around the world... what I was NOT prepared for was just HOW MUCH I was going to love it. HOLY SHIT. The art style? Love it. The plot?? Bonkers, but so fun. THE VOICE CAST??? AMAZING. Highly recommend to anyone who wants to get in to anime, great place to start.

Joined the fandom: April 2020 Obsession peaked: Probably this summer? But we have DEF plateaued in a VERY high place. Fandom friends: FIJI. MA BOIIIII @lil-1nsane Obsession faded: Hasn’t. Hope it doesn’t Fanfics you NEED to read: So so so many. The smut in this fandom is *chef’s kiss*, but here are a few...

‘He Works Hard For the Money’ by CataclysmicEvent @cataclysmicevent2019 -- Sugar Daddy AU. FUCK MAN. I was not expecting to like this one, but bloody hell. This fic grabbed me by the throat and WOULD NOT let me go. Praying for chapter 16! But the author is working on another STELLAR fic so I’m okay for now.

‘Everything or Nothing’ by CataclysmicEvent @cataclysmicevent2019 -- University AU. FUCK THIS FIC. Started reading it as I was waiting for HWHFTM to update and BOI, this fic ROCKS. The alternating POV fits so well with the enemies/idiots-to-lovers vibe. Solid 10 outta 10.

‘The City Where Wind Blows’ by @raven-rein -- Cancer Death fic. *pained shriek* AAAAAAGUUUUUUUHHHH *gasp* aaaaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHHH, FUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKK MEEEEE. THIS FIC. Only the second fic I’ve ever cried to but I BAWLED MY GODDAMN EYES OUT. FUUUUUUUCK. I was not ready, never would have been ready. This is so tremendously well done, it killed me so beautifully,

‘Haunted by Hatred’ by DeathBelle -- Canon compliant Soukoku. It is a CRIME that DeathBelle doesn’t have more BSD fics on her page, but this one is still brilliant.

Favourite moments:

THE CHUUYA-DAZAI MAFIA REUNION TEAM UP WHEN THEY FIGHT LOVECRAFT. Ooof. BOI. We love it.

The first three episodes. Soooo many break neck plot twists.

Every insane hypothetical conversation with Fiji.

Every time Atsushi or Tanizaki is on screen bc I LOVE THESE LIL BEANS.

June 2020 Trash Taste (Podcast)

Goddamn I love these chaotic lads so much.

As I became more and more comfortable with myself and my love for anime I stumbled upon these three goons, -- Joey, Connor, and Garnt, -- best known for there SUPER successful (mostly) anime YouTube channels. Even if you don’t watch anime, WATCH/LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST. The focus is mostly on their lives and the overall expat/immigrant experience, with a bit of anecdotal anime references sprinkled in.

This show is both wholesome and heathenous in equal measure, and after having lived abroad for a significant portion of my (admittedly still quite short) life, it was such a breath of fresh air to hear people talk so openly about how living outside your home country is both wonderful and terrifying. They’re wonderfully candid about the fact that even if you love a place dearly, no where is perfect, and you WILL hate somethings about your new home even if the majority of the experience is fantastic. I cannot rate this show highly enough.

Joined the fandom: June 5th 2020, loved it from the first episode. Obsession peaked: July maybe? I was RELIGIOUS about watching the episodes as soon as they came out. Still watch every week, but less “on time.” Fandom friends: None :( but I have tricked my partner in to listening several times :) Obsession faded: It’s dimmed from where it was, but still going strong. Fanfics you NEED to read: NONE. NEVER PLAN TO. Hard and fast rule, I don’t read fics about real people. Characters played by real people, even that’s a maybe for me. But real-real people? FUCK NO. (some of my) Favourite moments:

Any time Garnt and Connor get into a big-brain-monkey-brain argument and Joey is just LOSING his GODDAMN MIND in the corner.

Bringing a retired Japanese porn star in the show for an honest conversation about consensual sex work and showing people can have more than one career in life.

Everything about the, ‘Are Online Friends Real Friends?’ episode. GO WATCH IT, it’s brilliant.

Garnt making “chotto-THE-FUCKING-matte” an expression

August 2020 Great Pretender (TV Series)

Spent most of the summer marinating in my BSD and YOI bubbles, until THIS BAD BOI came up on my Netflix recommendations. HOOOO BOI. This is some Anime Of The Year shit right here. Has a pretty original concept (Catch Me If You Can by way of Oceans 11-ish) but generally starts out like most other shounen (sans the super powers). AND THEN EPISODE FIVE HAPPENS. Not gonna spoil it but they TOOK THAT SHIT UP A NOTCH. Brilliant, even with a bit of an insane ending. GO WATCH THIS ONE.

Joined the fandom: August 2020 Obsession peaked: Pretty much as soon as I started watching it. Fandom friends: What’s up Fiji ;) @lil-1nsane Obsession faded: Naturally faded, but so glad I watched Fanfics you NEED to read: None so far! Little scared about this one, heard mixed reviews, but maybe someday. Favourite moments:

Edamame’s “madness arc” at the end of season 2. HOOOO BOY.

Laurent getting fucking WRECKED when Edamame punches him mid way through season 2, kills me every time.

Introducing my partner to anime with this show.

October 2020 Attack on Titan (TV Series)

RETURN OF THE KING. lol

In my quest to find an anime that I can watch with my partner, I turned on season 1 of this bad boi. Holy hell I forgot how much I loved this show, NO WONDER everyone lost their goddamn minds when this show first aired. I NEED to catch up before all the season four spoilers come to get me...

Joined the fandom: Winter 2016 Obsession peaked: Basically as soon as I started watching it. Fandom friends: None yet, but I know you’re out there... Obsession faded: 2017, JUST BEFORE SEASON TWO... I should have stuck around longer I know, but it’s slowly coming back. Reeeeeally need to catch up on seasons two, three, and four. Fanfics you NEED to read: GIVE ME YOUR RECS HEATHENS. Favourite moments:

Watching my partner FREAK OUT about Eren’s “death.”

EVERYTHING ABOUT POTATO GORL! lol

Getting in a conversation with a die hard fan after I hadn’t watched it in three years and saying... “Who’s that blond bitch that cries all the time?”/ “Armin?”/ “THAT’S THE ONE!”

November 2020... kind of. Figure Skating (Sport)

Okay this one is a bit hard to explain.

I have been a DIE HARD figure skating for A LOOOOOONG time. My grandmother got me a hat from the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City and I remember watching even then. But I first became consciously aware of different skaters, my faves, etc. from about 2010. I vividly remember watching Plushenko skating in 2014 while on a school trip to Hawaii, and my friends laughing at me as I yelled at the TV.

But I didn’t TRULY get involved in the fandom side of it until this year. I had all this knowledge bottled up, but didn’t have any skating friends to talk to... UNTIL NOW. Super ironic that this happened in a year with almost NO skating, but I’ll take what I can get ;) Also did I stay up until FOUR-GODDAMN-THIRTY IN THE MORNING a few nights ago to stream Japanese Nationals on my phone??? YOU BET I DID.

Joined the fandom: Three times; 2002, 2010, and 2020. Obsession peaked: 2014? 2018? Idk it peaks any time someone does something amazing. Fandom friends: Rachel, my girl @idancewiththefairies, WHY DIDN’T I INTRODUCE YOU TO THIS SOONER??? Obsession faded: Hasn’t. Won’t. lol Fanfics you NEED to read: NOPE. NONE. NOT GONNA HAPPEN. No fanfics about real people. Never gonna change that. (some of my) Favourite moments:

Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir doing THAT routine at the 2018 Olympics.

Rachel sheepishly admitting to me that Shoma may have replaced Yuzu as her favourite, and me being SO DAMN PROUD of her for growing and developing her own skating opinions apart from me.

Yuzu’s 2012 ‘Romeo and Juliet’ routine and Worlds. THE RAW FUCKING POWER OF THAT SKATE.

Plushenko, cheeky bastard, changing his 2014 Team Event routine AS IT WAS HAPPENING.

The worlds friendliest rivalry between Yuzu and Nathan.

Any thing the Shibutani’s do, and all they do to break up the stereotype that all of Ice Dancing has to be rOmAnTiC and SeNsUaL to be good.

Watching my early faves become coaches and the D R A M A.

Honorable Mentions:

Coco (Film): I watched this the weekend I came home and I owe this movie a lot. It is so sweet an heartwarming, and it a roundabout way it brought me back to Tumblr (needed somewhere to vent my feelings considering I watched the movie a solid THREE YEARS after it came out, Tumblr seemed like the place to go lol). Watched in again in 2020 and it’s just as amazing.

Jekyll and Hyde (All media): Loved this book from the first time I read it in my first year of uni. But in December 2019, my fandom understanding reached its PEAK. The musical?? The comic?? YOOOOOO.

Dear Evan Hansen (Musical): I have BARELY engaged in fandom discourse, but the MUSIC. She fucking SLAPS.

Sirius the Jaeger (TV Series): This show is such an underrated gem. It literally has so much; "dead” family drama? Eclectic international group of monster hunters? Cowboys and vampires?? Yes, yes, and YES. And the main character has the same Japanese voice actor as Atsushi from BSD!

Studio Ghilbi (Films): My love affair with Ghibli goes back to when I was about 5 and BEGGED my mom to take me to the library so we could rent Kiki’s Delivery Service on DVD. But that love has been FULLY rejuvenated this year when I went to the Ghibli Film Festival in New York City (ironically in the last week in February). If you haven’t seen them, go watch From Up On Poppy Hill, Whisper of the Heart, and The Wind Rises. Spoilers, you’re probably gonna cry.

If you’ve made it this far, THANK YOU FOR READING!

And thank you to all the amazing people that made my 2020 not so horrible. Good riddance 2020, don’t let the door hit you on the way out!

#2020 #mental health #appreciation post #figure skating #studio ghibli #coco #attack on titan #great pretender #bungou stray dogs #trash taste #versailles tv #yuri!!! on ice #the arcana game #hazbin hotel #anime #fandom

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cardandpixel · 5 years ago

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RocketBook Flip - a rare review and it’s not a game!

Before I go any further, I feel I must point out that I don’t have any financial connection to RocketBook whatsoever – this isn’t a piece that was requested or courted by RocketBook or affiliates and I’m not receiving any reward or sponsorship either in product or direct payment for this article. I just like the damn thing and love it when an innovative piece of tech (in this case quite low key) just works. Hi I’m Paul, and I have a bit of a problem with notebooks – A4 lined, sketch, reporters, Black & Reds (ohhhh the sheer number of B&Rs), goofy ones, serious work ones, battered ones, pristine ‘for best only’ ones – and they all fill at an alarming rate. I make notes on everything. Working as a sound engineer and designer, there’s always mix notes, soundscape plots, ideas, VO notes and scripts, SFX ideas etc etc. At home it’s a very different story – it’s much worse. Game notes; blog notes; hurriedly scribbled quiz questions spurred by watching another episode of Mental Floss’ 500 facts about cheese; RPG notes and story ideas; my own script writing; world building; sketches; other creative ideas; song/music notes and ideas; and that’s before we get to to-do lists; and the dreaded ‘things I must remember’. So my journal life is many, varied and plenty. The usual issue is… ‘what frakking journal did I put that amazing idea in????’, and that’s way before we get to the utter horror that is possibly losing a whole journal or forgetting to bring one home from work. I’m 53, I forget more than I recall, and journals help bring some semblance of order to a massively chaotic and fertile brain. What I’ve needed for a long time is some way of organising all this info or centralising it in some way. Sure I’ve looked at apps – I used Things, Evernote, Notes, and One Note for years, and they are really, really good, but they relied on either having a charged device exactly when I need it (yeah – me too) or net access, which for a new-ish theatre, is surprisingly a bit of an issue at work. And the most important part – I actually enjoy the physical act of handwriting long-hand. I still write actual physical letters to people, it’s adorable and a bit creepy in this age, but I call it charming and leave it at that. Handwriting, for me, allows me time to think and process in a way that typing just doesn’t. Handwriting is slower, I rarely cross anything out, and so I always have the whole of the thought. So what I’ve ideally wanted for years, was a reliable way of organising all my notes and storing them electronically so I have access even without the actual journal, with OCR so they’re editable, and still being a tactile handwritten experience. I’m naturally a sceptic (I actually subscribe to Fortean Times – yeah – I card carry!) and so online ads and particularly FaceAche ads are a field day for critical thinking triggers. I don’t think I’ve ever received from Wish, exactly what I ordered from Wish. And so when an ad from RocketBook constantly kept popping up on my timeline a few weeks ago, I was naturally “it’ll never work” But their website looked legit enough – they had a dedicated UK shop, it was relatively steep to buy in but not so wild that if it didn’t work I wouldn’t be crying too much about the money wasted, and at the end of the day it was a 10th the price of a ReMarkable 2 which is actually what I thought would solve my problem. I’m furloughed at the mo and though I could argue the case for £300+ notebook (test me, I could), I just couldn’t justify it now. And RocketBook had a good summer intro offer. I ordered on the Wednesday, and the impressively glitzy and graphic-design-playbook poly package was dropped on my doorstep just 2 days later by my cheery postie who yelled up the drive “Package for ya, looks very exciting!!!!” I like that our postal service is still invested in the hopes and dreams of their customers. It was exciting. All the instructions for getting started with my new Teal RocketBook A4 Flip were right there before you even open it. The main body houses the pad and a cleaning cloth, and a clever little side pocket houses the supplied Pilot Frixion pen.

RocketBooks come in several models, all configured slightly differently. I have the Flip which is a top spiral-bound softback pad with 21 double sided ‘pages’ giving 42 pages in total. The Flip has lined paper one side, and dot paper on the reverse (great for D&D maps, impromptu tables, mixer channel plots etc)

DELIVERY & FIRST IMPRESSIONS The pads are nicely made, with sturdy covers (available in some really nice colours too) and a solid, thick plastic ring binding. Initially, The RocketBook does feel a bit odd. Its ‘pages’ are actually a synthetic polyester blend and feel quite shiny to the touch. The sort of surface you just instantly feel is not going to be great for ink! Each page is edge-to-edge lined or dotted with a heavy black border. At the bottom is a prominent QR code used for scanning and some very feint icons. These 7 icons are the key to the ease of use of the RocketBook series. But more later.

THE APP

The pads work with a companion app, that is absolutely free and available for Apple & Android. In fact, RB even do downloadable printable pages so you can try the whole system absolutely free before you buy – I didn’t, I just bought one, y’know. The app allows you to set up your destination locations, your preferences and does the actual scanning. Just one quick note, I have the app on both my phone and iPad and had to set-up the app the same for both, there appears to be no way of swapping preference settings between devices, though I can see why this may be intentional.

Currently, the RocketBook allows you to choose from the following locations to send files to: GoogleDrive, box, EverNote, DropBox, slack, OneNote, iCloud, OneDrive as well as simply to an email (or multiple) addresses and iMessage. Impressively, these are not fixed either, so you could choose your 7 destinations to be 7 email addresses of team members. These 7 locations are the icons at the bottom of each page. To select a destination for your file, you just make a mark in that icon box (tick, circle, something unsavoury) and that page will be sent to whichever you select. This makes the system very flexible indeed as not every page is necessarily sent to every destination. You always decide every time you fill a page. Change your mind on a second revision? No problem, add or change icons at any time and re-upload.

There’s a really handy table on the inside front cover for you to note what icon sends what where. This is also wipeable, so can be changed anytime.

I have mine set by default to:

Rocket > main email address (either as PDF, JPG, OCR embedded or as separate txt file)

Diamond > GoogleDrive (you can specify exactly what folder too)

Apple > iMessage

Bell > OneNote

That actually still leaves me 3 spare: shamrock; star; and horseshoe.

The app took me maybe 20mins to set-up, that included decision time for destinations and setting up a few target folders. It also included a few ‘test firings’. I didn’t get everything right first time and a few things didn’t send, but crucially, a tiny bit of digging revealed very simple troubleshooting (including the aforementioned issue with no sync’ing of phone and iPad), and all in I was finding the files in all the right destinations within about 30 mins. The website, FAQs and community are immensely helpful with any other issues as well. I had a tiny issue with OneNote seeming to take ages to sync, but I think that’s an issue with my OneNote settings, everything else was almost instantaneous. You can also handily set the app to auto-send as soon as it scans, or allow for manual review.

CLEAN UP ON AISLE ROCKETPAD The main reason I wanted to look at the RocketBook was the issue of reusability. My journal shenanigans are by no means the biggest ecological disaster on the planet, but if we are to believe Tesco (who probably issue as many receipts at our local Tesco Express in a day as journals I’ve ever used), every little helps. If I could find an ecologically better solution, I should at least take a look. The RocketPads work by partnering with Pilot pens called Frixion. The really clever bit is RB’s paper technology and how it works with the Frixion ink. At present, the pads only work with the Frixion pens – except the RB Colour which works with Crayola’s dry-erase crayons. When you write on the ‘paper’ with a Frixion pen, it remains wet for a few seconds and then dries pretty quickly. There’s no smudging whatsoever in transit, which is pretty cool. From then on, it may as well be permanent, until you have transmitted your page and decide you don’t want the text anymore. To wipe the page clean, you can dampen the supplied cloth and just wipe the surface clean, it’s weird but it works! But then damp cloth in your bag? So I use kitchen roll to dampen, then wipe dry with theirs. Others even have an adorably kitsch spray bottle in their kit. RB reckon if you are not going to use the pad for a few months, to clean the pages as the ink can get trickier to shift after a long time, but for day-to-day use, I’ve tried writing and wiping well over 20x and the page hasn’t become discoloured or tarnished at all. The only pad different in the range is the Wave which cleans by microwaving! Do NOT do this with any of the others, bad things will happen. The ink doesn’t take scrubbing or any time to come up, I clean my pages in about 10-15s. The page can feel a little tacky when it’s damp, but leave a minute or so and the page will be back to normal. RB do say that odd things can happen if the book is left near a heatsource or in a hot car, vis-à-vis, the ink can completely disappear horrifyingly enough. They say that putting the pen or the pad in the freezer for a little while will actually restore the ink, but I’ve not tried it yet so can’t confirm or deny how that goes. Handy for spies in hot countries though, so there’s another target market. If you are always going to send your pages to the same places, then don’t erase the marked icons, and the page is ready for new notes straight away, otherwise, scrub them too.

I CAN’T READ YOUR WRITING – ARE YOU A DOCTOR? Initially, the RB pads send their files as scans of the pages in high contrast monochrome (colour is available) when you snap the page in the app (which auto-frames for you and takes maybe 10s to capture). The formats are either as images or PDF. If that had been it, I would have been quite happy, but the RB pads have another trick up their sleeve. Firstly, they have a function called ‘Smart Titles’ which allows you to name your files directly from the page by writing a filename between double hashtags ie ## this is my scrawl 24/8/20 ## and the file will pop up in your destinations with the filename “this is my scrawl 24/08/20” – this is insanely handy – there’s no protocol except your own and the hashtags, and it makes your files super easy to search. You can even send groups of pages as a single PDF. But the notebooks go even further. They actually offer full searchable OCR which the app can be set to send embedded in the PDF or image, or more usefully, as a companion separate .txt file. Now, my handwriting isn’t the neatest, but it’s not bad so I was prepared for some editing to be necessary, but impressively again, the OCR was about 90-95% accurate. In a page of text it missed maybe 3 or 4 words and even those not badly. This is all considering their full OCR is still only in beta! It gets confused with diagrams on the page, but that’s to be expected.

Text Generated by OCR: ## Blog post och test Aug 2020 ## This is a little demonstration of the OCR capabilities of the Rocket Book pads and app. I've told the lovely people that the hit rate is about 90-95% so please dant let me down here flip pad. Hopefully the file name will also prove another point further up in the section and not make me look like some charlatan or snake-oil salesman.Hope you enjoyed this demonstrahen, now go away and leave me to write the next great novella.Bye!

HOW MUCH? On average, I pay anywhere from £4-8 for a decent A4 notebook/journal, so at £30-37 (dependent on model), the RocketBook pads are not a whim purchase. That said, I get through a lot of journals in a year, and given that I would expect to easily get 2-3 years out of a RocketBook pad, then I’ve saved money. Will it replace all my notebooks? No. You need to be thinking of carrying this round as a kit: pad, Frixion pen (at least 2), and cloth. RB do a series of portfolio sleeves for the pads but it does push the price up a bit still, but for a rep, engineer or salesperson, this still makes sense. They’re less bulky than a normal A4 pad too. What I would say is Tesco and Sainsbury’s currently stock Frixion pens and at much better prices than buying them from RB directly, I just paid £3 for 3 pens on offer at Tesco compared to £10 from RB. You get one pen with the pad, but you’re going to want more soon, so stock up next time you’re shopping for truffle oil crisps. If you use whiteboards a lot, RB also have you covered. Instead of the pad, £16 will get you a 4 pack of ‘beacons’ – little self-adhesive triangles that effectively do the same thing as the QR code in the pad. You don’t have the icon options obviously, but if you’re looking to distribute quick meeting or group notes, this would be a boon. CONCLUSION Considering this was a fairly speculative purchase on my part, my early experiences with the RocketBook Flip have been really impressive. The flexibility, the ability to store every page in a different location if you really wanted to make it fantastic for organising my notes, which can save me hours of finding the right ^^$&^$&$ notebook in the first place, then scouring that for the one paragraph I was looking for etc etc. The searchable text facility, in-app history for re-sending etc and last but no way least, functional handwriting OCR, makes the RocketBook not only novel, but actually useable! Would I buy another? As a second notebook – yes. I look forward to seeing what the actual longevity of the product is once I come off furlough and start cramming my day bag with all my junk and a notepad again, but yes, I’d probably just have one at home, and one for work, but make the last 5 mins of each day, scanning and sending work notes so I have them with me wherever. Impressively, the RocketBook Flip just works and it works well. ‘Er Across The Table has already sold several folk at her work on the idea and she doesn’t even have one herself yet! I love it. It’s taking a little adjusting to, but it’s all good. The most important thing though is the writing experience, and I have to say, the combination of the Frixion pen/ink and the polymer technology of the Flip, again, just works. It’s smooth, doesn’t skip or smudge for me (I know some right to left users and left handers have reported some issues) and feels great to write on. If anything I have to slow down a bit as the contact is so smooth that your writing can get a bit ahead of you! RocketBook have produced a cracker of a product. It might not seem like much, but if practical working journals are your thing (ie not create and keep things) then I can highly recommend the RocketBook series.

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interesting-blog-name · 5 years ago

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LOOSE REVIEWS (It Looks Sad., Pablo’s Paintings, Vancouver Sleep Clinic, Steve Lacy)

Just a bunch of very quick, very throwaway reviews that I put together while I’m writing the Björk discography post (I’m currently at Vespertine, so this shit is gonna take a while). Mostly slightly underground bands, all very short projects and one of them don’t even have a project, but you should check them out. Anyway.

It Looks Sad. – Songs For Quarantine

Not much to say about this. It is a 9-minute EP, obviously not meant to be taken as a serious, ambitious release, but it’s from a band I wanted to check out: It Looks Sad.. They’re categorized as emo, but their style reminds the listener a lot more of shoegaze and dream pop, at least from what I’ve heard by them (right now, this and Drool, which fits cozily in my Summer playlist).

If you want some moody music for the quarantine (if it’s still going on by the time I post this) and you don’t care if the songs sound like they were recorded in an underwater cave, then go ahead and listen to this I guess. It’s average as fuck but whatever, that’s the point.

WORST TO BEST: Eyes, Love, Waves, Bug

bedroom music/10

“*insert shoegaze mumbling here*”

It Looks Sad. - Kaiju

2015 EP. Two tracks, one sucks and the other is tolerable. Like I really don’t know what the fuck the singer was trying to do with Creature, he’s hollering all over the place, and the delivery would be more at home in maybe some poorly-recorded punk song, but the instrumental is nothing like that, as it’s pretty much indie-rock 101; not to mention the lyrics, which are the blandest broken-hearted songwriting I’ve heard yet, probably. I now understand how truly emo they were.

For Nagoya, I can at least say the hook is pretty cool, but that’s it really. I guess I’m grateful they changed their style.

2.45/10

“Best friend this is terrible. You know it’s inevitable. I hope you come back, I hope he comes back.”

Pablo’s Paintings

Just wanted to give a shoutout to the underground Leeds, Yorkshire band Pablo’s Paintings. I had listened to Lizard a long while ago, and loved it, so I decided to check out the rest of their stuff today (May 25th), and it’s very solid. The track You’ve Got A Long Way To Go draws heavily from a psychedelic influence, while Paint’s Gone Dry and So Long (All Your Friends) sound like something The Beatles would maybe write.

I guess you could call them formulaic, but their mixing and distinct sound are all pretty good for a band that hasn’t gotten a song with over 2000 streams on Spotify. Their songs can be a little to bubblegum-ish, such as So Long (All Your Friends) which doesn’t really stand out as many others, but for the most part, they deliver. Can I Draw You Something? has a slight edge to it, in comparison, but still sporting cute lyrics about just drawing for someone, and Ghost In The Machine has a great progression to it, and a very cool cover art to accompany it. It’s clear the band has a taste for visual arts, from the lyrics to the band’s name.

In short, they do have a long way to go, and I hope they release an album soon, considering all but two of their Spotify singles were from last year; I’d be the first to listen to it.

WORST TO BEST: So Long (All Your Friends), Paint’s Gone Dry, You’ve Got A Long Way To Go, Can I Draw You Something?, Lizard, Ghost In The Machine

good band check them out/10

“I draw these lines and take them for a walk. I find that I say things better when I don’t need to talk”

Vancouver Sleep Clinic – Winter

Contrary to the name, the band Vancouver Sleep Clinic is from Australia. Led by ambient singer (a term I didn’t know existed until today) Tim Bettinson, from my understanding, the band have partly built their audience by reeling people into the music by putting having the songs feature in TV shows and movies and whatnot, since there’s a hefty list of times their songs have appeared in this type of media on their Wikipedia page. I decided to listen to Winter because I discovered Stakes from the fact that the $uicideboy$ sampled it on the song Sold My Soul To Satan Waiting In Line At The Mall, and liked it a lot. The EP as a whole, however, not nearly as much.

To start off with the main problem I have with Winter, the tracks are all the same. Seriously, I cannot distinguish one from the other; all the songs are soaked in reverb and mainly center around simple acoustic guitar chords and generic pianos, mixed with Tim’s head voice and sometimes the dumb decision to include a synthesized drumming track, like in Vapour, where the fast-paced hi-hats sound so out of place and clip so badly in your ears, it sounds like your earphones are having a mini seizure, but not in a cool way. Meanwhile in Flaws, there’s this unnecessary, wack finger-snapping that makes it sound like I’m listening to some techno song with around 3000 views on YouTube (I do like his backing vocals in the track though).

At its best, tracks like the opener, Collapse, offer an actually powerful passage, in that song’s case, the hook breakdown, where the 808 drum patterns are actually very welcome, and the synths under it are very beautiful and harmonize really well. The final track, Rebirth, also attempts a grand breakdown of sorts, but falls flat because the song is so unnecessarily stretched out and weirdly segmented, and it’s so unexpected: the song is a slow piano/guitar ballad as usual, and then, around 3 minutes in, after the song fades out almost entirely and tricks you into thinking it ended, the drum kicks start rising and all of a sudden there’s... something? I don’t even know what instruments are playing apart from the superimposed drums and what I think is an electric guitar, because it sounds like god knows what, an overheating computer mixed with some shrieking sound, which I assume is the guitar, way off in the background. And then Tim sings a last verse and the song suddenly ceases to exist. Same thing happens with the shortest track here, (Aftermath), consisting of 4 lines, your average piano and strings, and of course, the reverb. It builds up an epic instrumental, and after the brief singing section, just ends. No further instrumental work, just woosh. It’s gone.

I will give credit to Tim’s verses. Even though they’re always delivered with the same intonation, his lyrics are alright, and at least in Stakes, he employs some backing vocals that really make the track, and the hook is magnificent. They tend to blend into one another, with constant themes being metaphors for words he should have or regrets saying, the cold (obviously, given the EP title), sometimes drowning/large bodies of water, and of course, all tracks are about melancholy and heartbreak. But in some parts of the EP, his verses really do feel like some alright poetry, such as the awkward last verse in Rebirth (“I’m starting again, tearing my flesh, stripped to the bone, the all that I’ve grown. Leaving behind, breathe like a child. It’s taken the winter to find who I am”) or the already mentioned beautiful hook in Stakes. In most of the songs, however, I find his themes to be too repetitive and, I wouldn’t say uninspired, but run-of-the-mill.

So overall, the EP doesn’t amount to much. All the tracks attempt to go this emotional route, but they’re very repetitive, and that numbs them and robs them of their emotion a lot. Listen to it if you want to relax, or maybe even sleep to it if you want to take their name literally.

WORST TO BEST: Vapour, Flaws, (Aftermath), Rebirth, Collapse, Stakes

4/10

“I sunk in oceans blue, now they’re all frozen over. I should have took your hand, we should have crossed the border.”

Steve Lacy – Steve Lacy’s Demo

Member of The Internet, singer-songwriter, guitarist, bassist, drummer and producer Steve Lacy is an artist I’ve wanted to check out for a while. I have at some point in my life heard his song Looks, off this demo, but thankfully I forgot how it went so I can check it out again. It’s gonna be a quick listen and review, but I’m curious (and while looking him up I found out he won a Grammy with Kendrick’s DAMN., for producing, backing vocals and songwriting, so that’s cool, congrats Steve).

Right away, I’ll just mention this project is very lo-fi. As in, the drums and his voice are poorly mixed. I’ll give it a little bit of a pass because this man played all the instruments in here and I appreciate the fuck out of that, but anyway. You can tell right at the first track that singing isn’t Steve’s forte, at least in this album, at this time. The hook in that song is just bad, the good part are the instruments, the guitar riffs and the very dynamic bassline, plus the fun little bongos. However, just like all songs here except Dark Red, this is waaaaaaaay too short. It has two short hooks, the verse, and that’s it. The songwriting, I feel, is one of Steve’s more substantial talents; this song I just mentioned is mainly about how a relationship can’t progress because the two involved don’t like much about each other apart from their looks, and Ryd is all about taking a girl to your backseat, but even though these themes are very simplistic, Steve fleshes them out into something more interesting and melodically rich. In Ryd, his smooth vocals surf over the sunny riffs, but what takes away from it are the weirdly mixed drums, as they sound like they’re playing way louder than they should be. The track is groovy though.

The most focused song here, Dark Red, tells the story of a man who’s worried his girl might leave him soon. The instrumentals are nothing special, very basic, and same with the vocals, even though they’re more rooted and solid in this song. The next song, Thangs, emphasizes its bass way more than other songs, but once again, Steve’s voice is not pleasing to listen to, specifically his high-pitched backing vocals, they’re awful. The lyrics are the most basic here, and this song just goes by without leaving any impact after ending pretty abruptly.

Haterlovin is weird. The vocals are way too low, but I like how they differentiate themselves by not going the melodic route, instead Steve chooses to rap them, and his flow in the verse is impressive, but at the same time the hook is way too repetitive for the song to work, and even though it’s nice he switched up and focused the track on the drums, it still leaves it pretty bare.

To close it up, Some brings some promise, with a pretty funky bassline and hook, but then ends out of nowhere and starts a hidden track, Snaily, which I admit has nice falsetto vocals from Steve, but I don’t know why I couldn’t be a separate track. Overall, the album isn’t great, but I appreciate how organic and talented Steve is. Throughout the songs, his creativity is pretty noticeable, so I can’t hate his efforts, but unfortunately his ideas don’t find the right light to shine here.

WORST TO BEST: Thangs, Haterlovin, Looks, Some, Dark Red, Ryd

4.5/10

“Next thing I know she was feeling on me, and I was in the M double-O D when she said park my car down the backstreet”

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curtisandlewis · 5 years ago

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Recently, I read 2K to 10K by Rachel Aaron and 5,000 Words Per Hour by Chris Fox. To paraphrase, these books claim that by using their techniques to get into a flow state you could conceivably have word counts of up to 10,000 in a single day. Guess what? I believe them. The flow state they both described is what I used to feel every single time I sat down to write. I could get 5,000 words in a single session and have the time of my life while doing it.

After 2015, anxiety and OCD got in the way of me getting into that flow state and I figure it’s worth the try to get back to it. I had already planned for March to be the month I write most of the fanfiction I post here throughout the year. So, what better time than to follow the techniques while I do each phase of writing and document the process all right here in this post.

Zero Draft: A draft that isn’t structured enough to be a full first draft. I write it very fast and it’s the best way to get the story out. I write this using only Google Docs on my Ipad.

I know it’s only been two days but this turned out to be a real success. The process I followed was to meditate in the morning and spend the first ten minutes thinking about the fic and letting the scene play out like it would in a movie. This is how I applied their technique of visualization. I then give myself 5 or 10 minutes to prepare for my writing session.

I play music by Troye Sivan because that matches the mood of the scene the best for me.

The next thing I do is my own creation. I open a separate document (usually create a new note in Google Keep) and manifest what I want my writing session to be. I believe in the power of your thoughts to dictate your behavior and ultimate success if that’s not your thing feel free to skip that step.

The last thing I do before actually opening my writing document is open Google Sheets on my Ipad and fill out my Word Sprint Tracker. Tracking your progress is essential in both these books. It’s been pretty fun watching my word count speed go up with each session.

I have three apps open on my Ipad: Google Docs, Google Keep, and Google Sheets. Docs and Keep are in a split screen so I can write while seeing my outline or I can look at my manifesting note when my motivation starts to get down (I also put random ideas on there if I don’t want them cluttering my document)

The next step has helped me the most HANDS DOWN. I take five or so minutes and describe the scene. What is it about, what are the emotions I want to convey, what does it mean to the characters, and ultimately what is the freaking point!

That five minutes has increased my word count from 125 in a half-hour session to a solid 500 in every session and no more staring at the screen hating life because the words will just not come.

Start Date: 3/1 End Date: 3/2 Word Count: 2,076

First Draft: The typical first draft. All the gaps have been filled in and I’ve decided where I want the story to go. I will be writing on my laptop for this draft using only the writing program Scrivener.

First, my process

Review outline

Have a split-screen view of Google docs (Zero Draft) and Scrivener.

Copy zero draft to Scrivener by typing word for word

I love typing up the document over again. The zero draft serves as a map for when I get stuck and I’m free to expand or cut as I go. As for the laptop, I have pros and cons.

PROS

I have my desktop free to play music, videos, or serve as a mood board for inspiration as I write.

The screen is bigger than my Ipad and the keyboard is a lot easier to type on

CONS

It may be portable but it’s still heavy-ish. I can’t exactly wake up and start typing away.

The battery life doesn’t last very long so I have to keep it plugged in most of the time.

I’m leaning towards using the desktop for projects that are 20K+ words but shorter than that I think the laptop would be fine. I really enjoyed working at night with the lights turned off and my diffuser running. It created a nice mood, especially when writing the romantic/ sexy parts. I don’t think I would have the same experience writing on my desktop. Also, I’m totally hyped it only took me two days to write the first draft!

Start Date: 3/4 End Date: 3/7 (A total of 2 working days) Word Count: 2,501

Second Draft-Developmental Edit: For this draft and all the way up to posting I will be working only on my desktop. Since I use my desktop for everything not related to writing I thought it would be good to limit it to revision. It’s the idea if you use your bed for activities other than sleep than you’ll have a hard time sleeping. During revision, I can take my time and not have to worry about word count. Also if I inevitably get distracted by the internet it’s not as disastrous as if I was drafting. This is the first edit and I’ll be trying out a new process for this referencing 2k to 10k.

Update the small outline I made before writing

Read the fic in Scrivener and make a comment for each thing I want to change (it’s similar to comment feature in google docs) this will be my to-do list (mentioned in 2K to 10K)

Open my second writing program Liquid Story Binder and start with the biggest problem on my to-do list

I’ll take the section of text that I want to change from scrivener and copy it to Liquid Story Binder where I will make the change and paste it back into Scrivener. Focusing on a small section of text at a time helps with my anxiety.

It only took about an hour or so to do this so I can’t say how I feel yet about using the desktop. I do think it was helpful having Liquid Story Binder to focus on a specific text, especially when working on pacing.

Start Date: 3/8 End Date: 3/8 Word Count: 2,553

Grammar Edit: This phase is pretty much how it sounds. Same as before I copy and paste small sections of text into the Hemingway editor and make the changes there.

This may be my least favorite phase of the writing process. It’s very tedious and I don’t like being reminded how much I abuse the word “just.” As for working only on the desktop, I feel the extra screen real estate helps a lot.

Here’s the resulting document

Start Date:3/8 End Date:3/8 Word Count: 2,628

Last full Developmental Edit: Working only in Scrivener I’ll read the whole story from beginning to end, make my to-do list and make all the changes directly in Scrivener.

This serves mostly as another read. Usually, if something is giving me anxiety I’ll take this time to see if I can change it while still being true to the characters and the story I want to tell. This time I just took twenty minutes and read through it, marking up a couple of more typos.

Start Date: 3/9 End Date: 3/9 Word Count: 2,647

Prepare for posting: This is the most tedious part of the process.

Write the summary

Hopefully, I can name the damn fic at that point

Add all the general information about the fic (Pairings, Warnings, notes, etc...)

Read the fic and list Somethings to Look Foward To

All the tags...

Start Date: 3/13 End Date: 3/13

Last line edit: I read through again going line by line fixing any typos or grammatical errors and really paying attention to how the words flow.

Working on the desktop probably works the best for this phase. I’m depressed and had to force myself to finish this fic. I’m not writing anymore in March or April. Luckily this experiment was only for one fic and I do have a better understanding of what process works for me. However, I won’t be able to test it out until May.

Start Date: 3/13 End Date: 3/13 Word Count: 2,392

Post!

#Writing Experiment #Zero Draft down!#I'll reblog and fill out after I complete each phase

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almondbiscotti · 5 years ago

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Stuff I’ve Watched this CB

Sorry, really got a lot. I’ve ranked them from most recommended to least recommended. And separated movies from series. And have included some shows I’m planning to watch!

Series

Kim’s Convenience S4 I LOVE APPA. Was a bit appalled I didn’t know S4 was out on Netflix because it’s one of my favourite shows on Netflix. It’s REALLY GOOD. So many laugh out loud moments, the characters are WONDERFULLY fleshed out and the chemistry between the actors is through the roof. Story telling is also amazeballs. 10/10 would recommend.

Dirty Money S1&2 10/10 would recommend! I really liked Dirty Money because I learned so so so so much from the show! I do think the producers had no intention of being unbiased and presenting a neutral stance on the “villains” because I wanted to punch every single “villain” every damn episode. If you’re looking for objectivity and “both sides of the story”, I don’t think this show is for you. But that said, everything presented is factual so I did learn a lot. Supplemented with additional reading post show, I felt like a whole new world was opened to me. :)

Kingdom S1&2 JUST WATCH THIS. IT’S SO DAMN GOOD.

Only issue I had was how damn ridiculous it was that whenever a horde of zombies were running towards our protagonists, they’d just stand there and do their typical Korean AISSSSSHEEEEBYEFUCK stance for like a full 17342154 minutes while the music and tension builds and the zombie horde comes closer and closer and closer and THEN they finally decide to run. Eh friend, what siah. Also, I concluded from watching Kingdom that if there ever was a Zombie apocalypse, I’m completely and utterly FUCKED. But I live in ridiculously hot Singapore surrounded by water... so I guess I’ll be alright? 9.5/10

Derry Girls S1-2 Irish Catholic School Girls, I’M SOLD. I mean, come on. How can I not LOVE this show? It’s HILARIOUS. And having spent 10 years in an all girl catholic school, Derry Girls really really resonated with me. The characters are laugh out loud hilarious, and all really likeable! The only issue I had with it is that the characters don’t really grow very much over the course of 2 seasons. So season 1 first episode vs season 2 final episode, it won’t matter even if you watched it backwards.

Because the seasons are very short, only 6 episodes per season and there are only 2 seasons so far, it doesn’t matter very much. For now. But I reckon if they had like 7 seasons, it’s going to get VERY repetitive. But at the moment, ISSA GREAT! 9/10

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency S1 8 Episodes of ABSOLUTE CRACK. It’s based off something Douglas Adams wrote so I wouldn’t expect anything less. Acting isn’t great but the storytelling is riveting. If you enjoy Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the book), it’s very likely you’d enjoy this. It can get quite frustrating sometimes though because it’s so ridiculous so if you’re looking for a detective series based on solid logic, look somewhere else. But if you just want some fun and silliness mixed with some smart, this is wonderful. 8/10

Never Have I Ever S1 I had a lot of trouble liking the main character but on retrospect, it might be because the character doesn’t even like herself that much to begin with. Had quite a few laugh out loud moments and the Asian family moments were very relatable. THE MOTHER. THE MOTHER IS EVERYTHING. She’s my favourite, I would watch an entire series with just her. The main problem with Never Have I Ever (in my opinion) is that it tried to do a lot of things to prove the same point. So it does get a bit frustrating after a while. By the 3rd episode, I’m just like GET ON WITH IT I GET IT. I GET THAT FAMILY IS MOST IMPORTANT, I GET THAT SHE’S NOT GRIEVING HER FATHER. So... it can get a little cliche and repetitive. To me la. But still funny, still good. :) 8/10

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt S1-4 The opening track really really grows on you. UNBREAKABLE! They’re alive, damn it! IT’S A MIRACLE! Created by Tina Fey, this show is silly and full of fun.

I really liked S1-3. It’s a very light-hearted show that makes you feel really good watching it because it’s just so positive and optimistic. S4 got a bit too ridiculous for me and the characters started doing some really weird shit that is a bit too incredulous (it was never a logical show based too much on reality to begin with but S4 was really a bit much). But if you like shows like The Good Place, I reckon you’d like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. 8/10

The Circle USA Can’t remember why Housemate and I started on this but it was actually not bad! I think it’s because the OG characters were really likeable! JOEY! JOEY IS A PRECIOUS PUPPY THAT NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS. It’s not very intellectual and I was never too invested in any of the characters or relationships. BUT! great if you don’t want to think too much and just watch some mindless TV that isn’t absolute trash. (TOO HOT TO HANDLE I’M LOOKING AT YOU.) 7/10

Tiger King S1 SIEOW ONE THIS SHOW. It’s an absolute MINDFUCK. I started with many questions, I finished with A BILLION more. I don’t even know how to describe or explain this show. IT’S MADNESS. There are big cats, gay husbands who turn out not to be gay, tiger queen who allegedly killed her husband and fed him to her tigers, crazy dude who tried to pay some other dude 5k (i think? or 3k? seriously it’s crazy) to kill tiger queen, big guns and expired meat and pizzas?!?!! Yah, Mindfuck. CRAZY/10

Cable Girls S1-4 Season 1 and 2 were BEAUTIFUL. The characters have so much depth, the acting is impeccable, the costumes are AMAZING, the cinematography is inspiring, the story telling was riveting. Then season 3 and season 4 happened and... I will pretend the show ended in S2. -_- Character development took a major hit from season 3 onwards. But I would still recommend Cable Girls because the acting, the acting is AMAZING. 10/10 for s1&2. 5/10 for 3&4.

Money Heist S4 Was quite hyped for this and was really quite let down. The beauty of Money Heist has always been structure in chaos, elegance in the mess. S4 was very frustrating because it didn’t have that. I felt like they were trying very hard to make you think the heist team was going to fail and started to fill in weird impossible things to ensure the plot was still able to proceed. Did not enjoy S4 as much as I thought I would. :( But if you have invested in the previous seasons, you know you’re gonna watch it even if it’s absolute crap anyway. 6/10

The Letter For The King S1 Ep 1&2 Premise was quite interesting, trailer was interesting enough. But DEAR GOD WAS IT SLOW. And also, literally ALL the characters were unlikeable! I don’t understand why anyone would make a show with entirely unlikeable characters. I couldn’t get past the 2nd episode but I went ahead to read a few reviews and recaps. Yeah, was a good idea to stop at episode 2. Would not recommend. 2/10

Movies

Game Night Rachel McAdams is QUEEN. A really loltastic film. Is a really good post dinner wind down to end the day film. And particularly because I can relate to how competitive our main couple was. :) Some parts don’t add up and there are a few times I think the story becomes a bit too much for itself, trying to layer upon layer of twists, but still a good fun movie! :) 7.5/10

The Half of It Heartwarming. :) Enjoyed it because i think the main protagonist is very likeable. And she’s so... plain and relatable. I hate to say this though but... I found the whole movie quite forgettable. Like, it didn’t feel very deep to me though it did touch on quite a few intense and deep topics of first love, family, self acceptance etc. But it’s just doesn’t reverberate through every cell of my being. The whole movie is just so gentle and because it is so mild, it becomes forgettable. Acting is good, character development is okay I guess. But generally... just mediocre to me. But not bad. I just wished it wasn’t so... light and airy. I wish it made me cry. 7/10

Cabin in the Woods Housemate wanted to watch it because it’s horror-esque. I was okay with it cos it’s horror comedy. And also Chris Hemsworth. :D Was quite loltastic. Though SPOILER ALERT Chris Hemsworth’s character dies a bit too early for my liking. I really liked the over the top inclusion of various different monsters near the end. Was fun trying to identify them. Fun movie! Not very scary but quite a bit of gore that’s peppered with lots of humour to make it okay. 7/10

Extraction LOTS OF CHRIS HEMSWORTH. But plot wise... hmm... Housemate enjoyed it because he said the fight scenes and the things our extractor does are very real and is what a trained professional would do in the high pressure situations he finds himself in. They probably had a great consultant to keep things realistic. I didn’t enjoy it as much because I felt that our hero was... too powerful and the bad guy was too bad. Almost caricature-ish. Difficult to have character development like that. But hey, I didn’t watch it for depth, I watched it for Chris Hemsworth’s face so... very much satisfied. :) 7/10

Other Stuff I’m Planning to Watch

After Life S2 I liked S1 so... just a continuation I guess. Typical English humour. Also, I watched S1 dealing with a death of a friend so the show does have some sentimental meaning for me.

Hollywood S1 New show seems promising! There are blacks, gays, sex, extortion, glitzy costumes, glamour and really blonde blondes. Also the guy who plays Sheldon Cooper in BBT. High hopes, I have high hopes!

The Victims’ Game DETECTIVE SHOW SOLVING CRIMES. I’M SOLD.

Whoa fuck, I really watch a lot of Netflix.

#netflix #NessaBingeLogs

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thesportssoundoff · 5 years ago

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“Conor McGregor is back! Excitement may vary. Excitement in this card may vary! Excitement is really yours to have and hold, folks” The UFC 246 Fight Preview

Joey

January 13th, 2020

The UFC kicks off its 2019 schedule after a few long weeks off with a card that will, with very little sarcasm in play, play a hefty part in defining the way 2020 rolls out deep into the year. UFC 246 from Las Vegas, Nevada is a weird card on paper but it's also very significant and significance can sometimes create card quality/card quantity. Conor McGregor vs Donald Cerrone is a significant fight, one that figures to ask and answer a lot of questions for both men. For better or worse, the future of two divisions could be mapped out in one night depending on the results of one which fight which again parlays to its perceived significance. The PPV main card is "fine" although it clearly lacks a significant co-main event and the televised prelims are actually respectably spiffy as they're essentially four well put together "prospect of note vs proven veteran" fights with some good early ESPN+ prelim action too. Again I don't know if this card is good or bad---just that it's a significant card of fights and by the time Friday comes along, that long term delay in high level MMA is going to be eating at us SO we'll be all in on this one.

2020 Stat-O-Matic:

Debuting Fighters (): Ode Osbourne, Aleksa Camur Main Event Exemption:

Short Notice Fighters (): Main Event Exemption:

Second Fight (): Askar Askarov Main Event Exemption: Vs Debutantes:

Cage Corrosion (Fighters who have not fought within a year of the date of the fight) (): Conor McGregor, Brian Kelleher Main Event Exemption: Conor McGregor

Undefeated Fighters (): Aleksa Camur, Maycee Barber Main Event Exemption:

Fighters with at least four fights in the UFC with 0 wins over competition still in the organization (): Alexey Oleinik, Justin Ledet Main Event Exemption:

Weight Class Jumpers (Fighters competing outside of the weight class of their last fight even if they’re returning BACK to their “normal weight class”) (): Donald Cerrone, Conor McGregor Main Event Exemption: Conor McGregor, Donald Cerrone

Twelve Precarious Ponderings

1- So what necessarily is the end game here for Conor McGregor? As has been the case since he broke out onto the scene and KO'd Jose Aldo, much of Conor's "plans" feel less like plans and more like thoughts he forces into existence. The good stuff like being a double champ and finagling a big money Floyd fight and the bad stuff like the Khabib lead up or believing he could just beat Nate Diaz up 15 lbs because it seemed like fun all feel like the decisions of a guy who sort of just decides he's going to do something and then does it regardless of the long term impact. Conor had the chance to fight Justin Gaethje and instead pushed for Frankie Edgar fight, ultimately leading us to the here and now where he'll draw Donald Cerrone up a weight class after a year plus layoff. In the time between Conor's LAST fight and this one, he's been arrested, accused of sexual assault, accused of fathering a child out of his marriage and feel free to fill me in on anything I may have missed. What sort of made Conor McGregor a superstar was that he flirted with the concept of being a character completely in control of everything he did and 2019 at the very exposed him as somebody lacking any semblance of control within his life. Either way, it's hard to say what the future holds for McGregor with a win. We know a loss means it's over as four losses in his last five pro fights (I'm counting Floyd here for completionist sake) would probably kill whatever credibility he had and whatever legitimacy he garnered over the course of three years running through the UFC ranks. A win? It's hard to say with a guy who when he's right has the ability to dictate what he opts to do next. A win? Conor McGregor would fight Jorge Masvidal in a big money fight, a third Diaz fight, a GSP fight where both fighters can cash out or go and chase down Khabib. If one truly wishes to get stupid, I suppose fights with Pacquaio, Floyd or Paulie Malignaggi exist out there as well. The first step isn't so much winning this fight but winning this fight and getting back to what made this whole act work to begin with.

2- This is historically the sort of fight Cerrone doesn't show up for and gets forced out of his element but there's some things here I think that do tilt the scales slightly in his favor. For starters, I DO believe in ring rust and Conor hasn't fought in over a year and has fought just twice since the end of 2016. You can argue that wear and tear means Cerrone is shop worn but I feel as though he fights better the MORE he fights and the more active he is. For a fighter like Conor who lives or dies based upon how sharp his timing is, I think it's fair to wonder if the long layoff is going to shake him. We saw him struggle with his timing vs Khabib and while Khabib is on a whole different galaxy than Cerrone, I'd argue it's worse to be slightly off vs a dude like Cerrone who does have the starch in his strikes to do more than flash KD you. Also Cerrone is probably the first guy since Jose Aldo that Conor's had to be mindful of walking into smoke with the legs. Also Cerrone's been campaigning at 170 lbs on and off since 2016 and so you have to assume if this is about being comfortable at the weight class, he's got the nod over Conor.

3- Under normal circumstances, I'd say "I think Conor's defensive wrestling is somewhat understated and the idea that anybody can take him down and sub him is a fallacy" but I also have ZERO idea if he's actually done any serious grappling training or if he's just hoping Cerrone's going to play nice and strike with him for a bit.

4- Which fight is more undesirable for Amanda Nunes; a Holly Holm rematch where she can't realistically top what she did in the first fight or a Rocky Pennington rematch where she'll be tasked with trying to sell/expand upon one of her most boring fights ever?

5- I wonder who is more broken in theory between Holm and Pennington. Rocky looked to be on the verge of going from solid WMMA fighter to a damn good top 5-ish woman at 135 lbs after dominating Meisha Tate but she broke her leg, took a lot of time off, followed that up with a dud vs Amanda Nunes and then got stalled out by Germaine de Randamie. She rebounded with a win over Irene Aldana which almost felt more about Aldana being a putz and less about any sort of sign of a rebound for Rocky. It's worth remembering that the fight vs Holm was the one that got sort of signified that Rocky was better than people realized but it required her to pressure for fifteen minutes and that's sort of gone away for her recently. As for Holm? She's fought Rousey, Cyborg, Tate, Shevchenko and Nunes. She's pushing 40. She had an extensive boxing history that suggests she's taken plenty of damage. She just got KO'd for the first time in her UFC run the last time out and at this point it's fair to ask if Holm's durability is going to be shot. This fight is why Aspen Ladd figuring shit out is really important for this division.

6- Maurice Green and Alexey Olenik being on this main card is curious until you realize that this main card has two WMMA fights and a fight at lightweight on it. Sometimes beef gets called in to "bulk" up the main card.

7- Anthony Pettis sure picked a fine week to announce a UFC lawsuit, am I right?

8- Let's talk about how great these prelims are for a second. Sodiq Yusuff vs Andre Fili is a battle of exciting prospect and proven veteran with a multitude of ways to win. Nasrat Haqparast vs Drew Dober is a battle of exciting prospect vs proven veteran with a multitude of ways to win. Maycee Barber vs Roxanne Modafferi almost feels like the potential crowning of Maycee as a 125 lb contender by taking on a former title contender who STYLISTICALLY will at least give us a reason to double check her ability to do things such as defend takedowns and deal with pressure. Lastly I REALLY do love this fight between Chas Skelly and Grant Dawson as Dawson has slowly gone from somewhat awkward wrestling savant to a more well rounded pressure fighter while Chas Skelly is one of those ultimate gatekeeper types for young fighters. These are all great fights worthy of going out of your way to see on ESPN.

9- We're four years now into the Alexa Grasso project and I still don't know if she has the fight smarts to ever take the next step in her career. A good test vs a declining Claudia Gadelha who still has something to offer.

10- How much ya wanna bet Maurice Green allows Olenik to pull him down on top of him?

11- Justin Ledet's run at 205 lbs has been weird as his lack of athleticism for the weight class plus what feels like an odd lack of strength (How he was burly enough to fight at HW but gets chucked around at 205 lbs is a mystery to me) has made him go 0-2 in the division. After a lengthy lay off, he's back at 205 lbs against Aleksa Camur. Camus is a training partner of Stipe Miocic and he got in here off the Contenders Series where he had a crazy fight that exposed him to be a) wacky as all hell and b) a bit too raw for my liking in the UFC. This feels pretty winnable for Spirit of Truth lookalike Ledet.

12- Ode Osbourne vs Brian Kelleher is an early FOTY candidate to me.

#MMA #UFC #McGregor #Cerrone #Pettis #CDF #Holm #Pennington #Prospects

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ferns-garden · 6 years ago

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Girl Advice (Michael x Brooke)

Chapter 1 - Dating Girls

Read it on Ao3 here!

This was originally for @robot-anon‘s competition, buuuuut I took it too far and now it’s a multi-chapter fanfic. “Oops”

“Jeremy. Jeremiah. My heterosexual friend. My cishet pal. My dude,” Michael rambled, totally not trying to avoid whatever he’d called Jeremy over to talk about.

“You’re rambling, Mike. Just spit it out,” Jeremy mumbled in response. Michael nodded and took a deep breath before letting it out.

“I need girl advice. Like, dating girls advice.”

There was a short pause, in which Jeremy gave Michael the most confused look Michael had ever seen.

“Michael, you’re gay,” Jeremy stated plainly, causing Michael to suddenly shift forward in his beanbag and startle Jeremy.

“I THOUGHT SO TOO, DUDE!” Michael exclaimed, waving his hands. “Like- I’ve only liked dudes before. Jake? Hot. Rich? A solid maybe. But girls? Always been a pass for me! Until, like, yesterday-ish!” Michael flopped back into his beanbag, dragging a hand through his hair.

Jeremy cocked an eyebrow, grinning slightly. “So what you’re saying is… you have a crush on someone?”

“Yes!” Michael exclaimed. “Not just, like, some random gal either! I’ve known her for, like, a year now!”

“Oh my god, do you mean Christine?!” Jeremy asked, eyes wide. “You know she’s dating Rich, right?”

Michael made an exasperated noise in response, nodding. “Yes, I do,” he huffed, crossing his arms. “It’s not her, though. It’s Brooke.”

There was a moment of silence before Michael heard Jeremy snickering. Michael gasped, sitting up. “Traitor!” He accused in mock-seriousness. “I’m here in emotional distress and you laugh at me?! How dare!”

That just made Jeremy laugh harder before he got control over his giggles. “Okay, okay, I’m here to help, man. For real,” he said, giving Michael a soft smile. Michael smiled back. “But there’s, like, nothing I can do to help.” Michael stopped smiling.

“Damn. You’re, like, my go-to het friend,” Michael grumbled. Jeremy punched his arm playfully in response, chuckling.

“Shut up, man!” Jeremy joked, falling back into his beanbag chair with a giggle. “But for real- what made you notice? Like, what made you realize you liked Brooke?”

Michael blushed lightly, shrugging and sinking into his chair a bit. “I dunno, man, just, like… she’s just super nice and so smart and giggly…” He paused for a second, smiling at the ceiling. “I think I realized yesterday, when we were all at the mall together. Like, we were wandering around in one of those fashion joints and she came up behind me and told me to follow her. She showed me this display of patches n’ shit and said she noticed I liked patches so she thought of me.” Michael let out a big, happy sign and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I guess just kinda the fact that she thought of me solidified it? I dunno, man.”

Jeremy gave a soft “awww” and put his hand to his chest. “That’s super sweet!” He chirped. “Super sappy, though.”

“Shut up, man. You were the same way with Christine!” Michael protested, crossing his arms before looking back up at Jeremy. “Speaking of relationships, how’re you and Chloe doing? Still good?”

A light blush dusted Jeremy’s cheeks as he gave a shy smile. “We’re still doing great, yeah,” he replied, glancing away. “She recently started, um, started gymnastics! Well, she didn’t start gymnastics, but she told me about it recently!”

“Oh sweet! Have you seen her do it yet?” Michael asked, leaning forward a bit in his beanbag chair.

At that, Jeremy’s blush darkened and he gave a nervous chuckle. “Uh, yeah, she has! She’s, um, she’s super good at it. Like, it’s so beautiful how she’s just s-so, um, so confident i-in what she’s doing! She’s also just, uh, j-just, like… crazy flexible, a-and the costumes she wears for her performances, and-” Jeremy rambled, face progressively growing darker before Michael cut him off.

“Jeez, okay, ya perv. I get it, gymnastics are sexy,” Michael teased, smirking at Jeremy. The taller was instantly stammering, embarrassed.

“Gymnastics a-aren’t sexy, Michael!” Jeremy blurted out, flapping his hands slightly. Michael replied with a mumbled “Whatever you say,” which made Jeremy fall back into his beanbag chair with a huff. “I’m seriousssss,” he groaned, crossing his arms.

“I know,” Michael chuckled. “Doesn’t mean I won’t tease you for it, though.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes, huffing. “Whatever, man. Let’s just, like, play AotD or something. Enough feelings talk.” He paused for a moment. “Unless you have anything else to confess?”

“Wouldn’t call it a ‘confession’, but nah. That was it. Brooke’s pretty hot,” Michael hummed in response, earning a nod from the other boy.

“Gotcha. Level 10 of AotD it is, then.”

“You did what now?” Michael asked his friend, who shifted nervously across the shitty cafeteria table from him.

“Kinda sorta set you up. On a date. W-with Brooke, though!” Jeremy explained, fidgeting with Chloe’s hand in his. The brunette nodded, giving a small smile.

“Jer and I have been planning on going out to a movie or something for a while, soooo I thought, why not bring our best friends to help these nerds find happiness with each other?” Chloe explained. Michael was quiet for a minute before squinting at her. “Bringing me was originally a joke, wasn’t it?”

Chloe nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Well, I appreciate the honesty,” Michael mumbled, rolling his eyes. He stood up, tray and half-eaten lunch in hand. “So, when is this thing?”

“Tonight?” Jeremy offered sheepishly.

Michael shrugged. “Could be worse. I’ll see you there,” he hummed, turning around and taking a step before realizing his mistake. “Where is it, by the way?” He asked, turning back to face the couple.

Chloe shrugged, taking a sip of her iced tea. “We’ll figure it out later. Jer’ll text you the details.”

“Cool, cool,” Michael nodded, calmly turning around again and heading to the trash can. Little did anyone else know, Michael was anything but calm. He prayed his hands weren’t shaking as the realization hit him that he was going to go on a double date with Brooke. He was going on a date with Brooke.

“Tonight” couldn’t come fast enough.

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merlinthoughts · 6 years ago

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Season 1 Episode 5 - Lancelot<3

- YES BBG’s IT'S MY BOY LANCE

- he’s one of my fav characters u guys don't even KNOW

- like yah okay, i've only seen hiM FOR ONE EPISODE

- but he’s the light of my life

- and he may not even come back but he looks like a character that would come back especially if the fucking ep is named after him

- oh damn, i sure hope he does

- and goes into arthurs posse of knights or whatever, replacing val

- or what valerie was gonna be

- idek, lets get to it bc i could go on for days just picturing lance as a main character while continuously expressing my love for him

- BUT NOTHING ELSE OBVIOUSLY BC THIS IS NOW A CATHOLIC WEBSITE

- tumblrs trynna urge me to go with them nasty thoughts

- you wish tumblr

- you WISH you can ban me

- u can't live without sucking dick >:(

- wow slow down shev... wow okay sorry. christianism. i forgot

- it got the best of me

- back to the episode!

- omg it's buckbeak why he making a cameo in merlin??

- my inner potterhead(uwu) is coming out i hate this

- bet you can't guess which house i'm in ;)

- it's fucking slytherin, it's literally so obvious

- hissshiss motherfuckers

- ew guys

- this is so hard to type considering my fucking ‘-’ button (called a dash for u furries who only see a face) is broken and i have to literally smash it to make it work, so i'm just insanely typing up the next dash by screaming at my keyboard that i can't fucking fix

- and i have so many dasHES TO DO!

- that made no sense bc yall aren't living in my socks at the moment

- BUT I'M DYING IT'S SO HARD TO JUST GET IT TO PRESS

- fuck it copy paste, my best friend, you always come when the time is needed

- LANCELOT LOOKS SO BEAUTIFUL

- lowkey looked like that guy from the 100 though

- but better

- nothing against baloney of course

- lancelot literally just introduced himself, the camera panned in onto his chest, then he proceeded to faint or some shit with the camera still zoomed on his chest, and merlin reached up to grab his shirt, probably to yank it the fuck off and the opening credits rolled up. wtf was that scene.

- WAIT I REWINDED IT

- it's not supposed to be a zoom in of his chest lmao, my hoe ass thought we had a little fanservice for a second, but there's a big mushroom-looking blood stain on his shirt which i guess is supposed to mean he's fucking dead so it's not all that confusing anymore

- when was he stabbed tho?

- whatever. shit always goes down in BBC that's often unexplainable.

- “it had claws, wings…” arthur stops his sentence melodramatically while uther looks terrified. “and.. what?” WHAT UTHER?? WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?? YOU THINK ARTHURS GONNA BE LIKE “FANGS, STEVE BUSCEMI'S EYEBALLS, DANNY DEVITO’S HAIRLINE, TALKS LIKE JOHN MULANEY?? I JUST TOLD YOU WHAT I SAW, NOT WHAT I IMAGINED. FATHER”

- but no… livestock apparently

- that’s what uthers shocked by

- not that theres a fucking griffin living in his world

- wait theres magic, means theres magic creatures doy

- but still, even if we all had magic here, i think it would be a little shocking seeing a griffin come for buckingham palace randomly

- or i guess if youre reading this and are in america, in the white house

- oh and it took only people apparently

- i guess that’s a little more severe but i stand uncorrected

- they be having a wild time in the hippogriff’s house ;)

- honestly sounds like a fucked up hogawart house

- here we have slytherin, hufflepuff, ravenclaw and... *looks at smudged writing on hand* hippogriff

- okay, who tf has a dream of coming to camelot when it's the most feared place, with banned magic and an asshole king with his hot bitchy son and a sorcerer who just brings chaos to the land

- well i mean, me

- bc of the hot bitchy son but whatever

- camelot? more like cameNOT

- arthur calls himself the ultimate killing machine like the edge lord he is

- ARTHUR FUCKING KO’D THE BITCH

- knee to the nose and all wtf man

- this is probably foreshadowing smth with the “only noble blood can swoosh like a knight” thing, like somethings gonna happen and poor people are gonna revolt and uthers gonna be like “GEEZ fine, okay, no nobles can become a knight”

- merlins such a shit stirer, telling lance he can be a knight and telling him arthur would love him when we really know whats gonna happen bc of that rule

- and here’s gaius like uhh u liar wtf, crushing lance’s dreams while merlins just like wtf gaius, live in the moment, we can do anything, this is OUR show

- literally their such good friends and have known each other for a solid 10 minutes only

- i'm not that big into beards but id love to rub my face on lance’s

- HOMEWORK IS MERLIN’S EXCUSE, MERLIN UR LIKE 20 IN A WORLD PROB WITHOUT HOMEWORK

- haha little fault there, or like a minor inconvenience which isn’t important but i like to pretend to be smart: middle ages or well the show’s era was more in “AD” (476-ish is the start of middle ages, while the arthurian legend is supposed to happen in the 5/6th century so yeah, technically 400/500 AD), and homework supposedly only started up in 1095 so BOOM BBC GOTCHA

- no, merlin’s not gonna perform magic right in front of the librarian

- does he not know the wrath of librarians???

- our librarian at school literally kicked everyone out of the library once for the whole semester because there was an apple core on the bookshelf. this was during exam week. do u know how much i wanted to kill the person who didn't admit to their mistakes and let everyone suffer. WE COULDN'T ENTER TO EVEN STUDY

- OH GOD, HE'S DOING IT MERLIN IS A FUCKING MESS

- gwen and lancelot are my favourite thing, i literally want them to be together by the next episode

- or the next one with lance

- WAIT LANCELOT IS SUPPOSED TO BE A MAIN CHARACTER ISN'T HE BC I KNOW VAGUELY THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND AND LANCELOT WAS A KNIGHT WASN'T HE???? HE WAS A FUCKING KNIGHT AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT NEXT TO LIKE IDK BEDEVERE OR SMTH THIS IS AMAZING NEWS GUYS I LITERALLY COULD BE A DETECTIVE

- !!!! the only heto ship on this show i actually adore !!!!!!

- i mean i only love two things: merthur and glance

- idek what gwen and lance’s ship name is so its now glance

- merlin would be the best wingman for them by being gwens bestie

- “you can start by cleaning out the stables” *lance looks to merlin while merlin gives him the biggest smile and thumbs up* this fuckING DORK

- harry potter au where everything is the same but that grim reaper looking human creature in the prisoner of azkaban executing buckbeak is actually lancelot in the future

- for symbolism purpose, not saying lance is like an animal killer but yknow

- same thing with the griffin yknow

- the two prettiest dudes in my world fighting against one another while sweat is glistening down their forheads is my new favourite aesthetic

- BUCKBEAK HAS COME

- oh wait no, people having been attacked by buckbeak have come

- netflix fucked up by subbing arthur as “orther” and i never laughed so hard

- don’t make me fucking laugh when there’s an ambush, netflix, this is not christian

- annd arthur’s pride is gone, and he goes up to chop lance’s fucking head off

- OH SHIT THAT TRANSITION THOUGH

- i'm so proud of my bb like genuinely so proud, lance deserves so much and here is is!! a knight!!

- MORGANA APPEARS THE LOML

- the three lomls in one room?? seriously bbc?? you really doing that to me?? for once im actually impressed and happy

- he's gonna get caught, i mean i KNOW that, but like it's still stressing out

- ewewewewewewewewewew

- arthur called morgana “isn't she so beautiful??” with a lovey dovey face pls don't lead this to that stepsibling porn bullshit i'm going to fucking puke

- i hated that shadowhunter bullshit like they seriously going to hit me with the indirect incest?? i was so done. i hated jace and clary, idc if theyre like the most popular couple, like wheres my raphael lovers at bc that's a boy i can enjoy

- “so if you could choose one... lance or arthur?” merlin subtly asks gwen like he doesn't have an answer himself

- it would have been so perfect geez, gwen and lance, merlin and arthur, myself and morgana

- i really wanna know what lance, merlin and arthur look like drunk bc that's a hell of a hangover they got the next morning and they probably cut out most of the soiree so like what did they do?? was there any drunk dancing and flirting??? bc i literally want to see that happen

- ik it's a bad thing but those drunk tropes where someone confesses their love to the person they like while under the influence is my favourite thing bc it's both hilarious, genuine and the other person often helps them to their feet and gets them to a safer place to rest and that's fricken adorable guys!

- not the drinking obviously, thats like a thing you can enjoy if you want but ya girl does not like drinking. or, well, she likes drinking with a limit. you can tell who likes to be the designated driver lmao. people here be drinking flat out whiskey and i tried it once and it burned by fucking throat

- merlin fucked up

- and this is technically his fault

- THEY GOT CAUGHT LMAO IT IS HIS FAULT

- hungover and caught this won't bode well

- “not worthy of a knighthood”

- hey so how do you retract a knighthood?

- do you like reverse the shoulder tapping

- like if you're christian, bc you know, we, as a christian group on this tumblr site, should already know about it... but when we do that cross thing on our shoulders, it means like a direct call with god or some shit. and if we do it the opposite direction it's considered the antichrist so is it the same for knighthood?

- OMG I JUST HAD AN EPIPHANy

- okay with christianity it's tapping the head the stomach, shoulder then shoulder, right? but the reverse is the anti cross like shoulder to shoulder, stomach and head. but… what if it were tapping the stomach, crotch, hip to hip? it would make sense right??? since the cross is upside down… it would lead to the dick and not the head. THAT'S WHY IT'S AN UPSIDE DOWN CROSS. BC YOU AINT SUPPOSED TO GRAB THEM BALLS UNTIL MARRIAGE!!! I SEE OMG I SEE YOU JESUS, TRYNNA HIDE UR FLOURISHING SEXUALITY

- omg guys, don't grab ur fucking balls in this blog post, it's considered the antichrist

- “you never will be” lmao he's gonna come back, he's lancelot, that's a main in the og legend

- how pissed will lance be with merlin

- i hope big time bc like... angry lance *dries off sweat with hands*

- aw damn lance isn't mad he's like “this is my punishment. mine to bare, mine to bare alone. stop blaming urself. i put this on me” this fucking goof is making me swoon once fucking more

- NOW BUCKBEAKS BACK

- he's a real goat x3

- buckbeak can literally fuck shit up in the air, camelot has nothing on him

- ARTHURS FUCKING DEAD LMAO

- oh wait he aint, just a few of his knights

- imagine being an extra and playing as one of those knights. having to fight next to bradley james, and have him look at you when someones doing something stupid like you can mentally agree with him and then pretend to die on camera. that would be my dream. make-a-wish better do me some good when i get diseased that will prob be named after me

- hoephagus

- stupidolis

- nah thats stupid

- ;)

- i now understand mulans will to pretend to be a guy and join the army bc i would literally do that if i could stay with arthur fucking pendragon

- aw it's called a griffin not a hippogriff

- i'm saddened

- harry potter has taught me WRONG

- this looks to be the climax where merlins like “fine guys, geez, i'll kill the griffin bc i'm magic!! wow!!! but arthur obviously knew, and i thought gwen was gonna know but she shocked me even more when she didn’t like fucking hell everyones oblivious. but since you can only kill buckbeak with magic, sigh, i'm exposing myself ig” even if it's like halfway through season 1 with 5 seasons altogether, this looks to be the right time

- this really sounds to be what we are waiting for, what kilgarah said about the destiny merlin will have

- WAIT WE HAVEN'T SEE THAT BITCH IN A WHILE

- wheres the dickwad gone lmao like was the actor busy the last few episodes or what?

- OMG ARHTURS BREAKING LANCE OUT OF PRISON SO HE CAN BE A KNIGHT

- how is the “arthurs pretty gay” theory not popped up more times on here

- like we all know merthurs pretty great and all

- but CANON wise arthur seems super gay to me

- like he just told lance to get up his ass because “i need… uhh... camelot needs” like he was just about to say he needs lance in his life

- have you not seen the glances??

- fucking hell

- arthur slowly comes closer to lance pretending to talk about what he knows about the creature

- lance also coming closer to ask if he truly believes that, with a raised eyebrow

- thought this shit was only in books and fanfics

- but no guys, we got a gay eyebrow raise

- bc we all know only the gays are capable of eyebrow raises

- fucking hell this is gay i cant even explain it

- like its subtly gay, but out of context youd think this is something out of a fansite

- and merlins not even in this scene

- “take the horse and never return to this place” OKAY NO FIRST OF ALL SECOND OF ALL FUCK OFF LMAO THIS ISNT GAY ANYMORE

- i mean he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart, saving him from prison and all but lance wants to like… be a good man and you aint letting him do that

- OMG LANCE IS SAYING GOODBYE TO GWEN

- LANCE BETTER FUCKING KISS HER

- I LOVE GWEN AND LANCE TOGETHER #STAN

- fucking kiss you fucking bafoon

- THEY DIDN'T FUCKING KISS WTFUCKINGFUCK

- merlin looks so dumb holding his dagger as if he doesn’t know what to do with it but i love that for me

- WAIT I THOUGHT LANCELOT WAS LITERALLY GONNA GO YEET OUT OF CAMELOT NOT TO FUCKING SACRIFICE HIMSELF AND FIGHT THE GRIFFIN

- bafoons, all of them

- big bouncing bucking bafoons

- arthur looks so scared i've never been so in love and want to PROTECT

- omg for all merlin and lance know, that scream was arthur fucking dying- OMG IT WAS ARTHUR

- HE'S FUCKAN DEAD

- nvm he's alive but like yall not think to check for some arterial wounds bc he could be alive now, but in 5 mins he could legit not make it

- slow music means death

- lancelot you were the best husband i've ever had, rip

- i would be crying more if i didn’t know what happened, but since i already spoiled myself on the first season by watching this about a year ago, i'm not that sad but its still getting to me slightly

- hahahaha so happy everyones okayyy

- ARTHUR AND LANCE TiME!

- arthur looks so happy for lance literally crack ship right there

- why does nobody talk about this wyd

- and here’s arthur defending lance’s honour

- but uthers being a bitch

- omg that transition from lance being told to wait outside, the camera following him out of the room and the doors slamming behind him just in time to hear uther yell at arthur from next door is what gives me chills

- uther better fucking accept lance

- “the law is the law” yeah but the law also says to stop being a stuck-up bitch, uther

- literally lance is the only fucking person to not see through merlins blatant magic tricks

- like he saw that shit, called it out and was not like “oh what its a trick of the wind, surely”

- and he's not fazed at all, u see merlin it aint that bad to tell some people

- the only thing he is worrying about is the credit he says he doesn’t deserve bc merlin killed the griffin and not him

- see how fucking great my husband is, guys

- he better not be like “sucks to suck, i lied again! it aint me, chief” to uther and arthur

- NAH OKAY HE’S JUST BIDDING HIS FAREWELL IM GONNA FUCKING CRY IN THE CLUB

- he better fucking come back soon >:(

- seasonal guest star at least

- main characters, big bonus

- we barely saw morgana this episode and i'm not okay with that, but at the same time it was more lance-centric so i'm aight actually. we got all the time in the world for my baby girl, but lance :’( good luck man

- literally everyone is so gay for lance

- gwens into him for sure, and i love that the most (guess thats not gay but whatever, beggars can't be choosers)

- arthur has a little crush ngl

- and merlins full out in love with him

- not to mention MY FUCKING SELF

- i mean, i won't deny that he’s literally perfect in every way and i've only known him for one episode, but i agree whole heatedly with these crushes

- “till next time, sir lancelot” merlin whispers with a smile

- yeah that's me right there

- BC I'LL BE SEEING HIM IN THE FINAL EPISODE OF THIS SEASON!

- greeting us all with the news on being cast full-time for the show, being the best guard around and a lover boy to all

- guys i feel like i'm on aphrodisiacs but instead of desire for sex, it's love for lancelot

- send help

#this is a long one yall #maybe bc i found a new crush but yknow #merlin #merlin bbc #merthur #s1 #s1ep5

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captainameriwoman-reviews · 7 years ago

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A Review of ReBoot: The Guardian Code

As this got away from me a little, I’ve put the majority of this under a read more. Here’s a TL;DR though:

Essentially, ReBoot: The Guardian Code is your run-of-the-mill kids show. It’s fun and doesn’t take itself super seriously. The big-bad is called the Sourcerer, and Vera is, well, Vera and I love her character. If you don’t care about the original show, I would say watch it if you’re running out of other shows in your watchlist. But ReBoot: The Guardian Code should have been it’s own show, separate from the original cartoon ReBoot. It’s a reboot that really shouldn’t have been, and having it be has only hurt it’s chances at getting more seasons.

All the reviews I’ve seen for Netflix’s new show ReBoot: The Guardian Code say essentially the same thing: it’s a bad show regardless of who you are watching it. As a new viewer, it’s got the same old tropes that every other kid’s show does. As a fan of the original, it’s basically sacrilege.

I can’t help but think differently, at least as someone who’s new to the whole thing. Sure, it’s not the greatest show I’ve ever seen. But considering the market it’s aimed for, ie kids and younger teens, I think it’s done fine as a show. The characters are all okay, the plots are the usual for any serial scheme-of-the-week show, and the animation is pretty darn good to me. The biggest problem The Guardian Code faces is the first part of that title, ReBoot, but I’ll get to that in a sec.

So I feel the need to highlight a couple of pretty big things about who I am as a viewer of this particular show. First and foremost, I’m 18. I’m 18, and 50% of my Netflix watchlist is children’s shows (an odd variety of stuff, as shown below). I like watching silly, light-hearted shows considering the other stuff going on in the world.

The second thing is, if you haven’t guessed already based on the first, I haven’t seen much of the OG ReBoot. I’ve got a solid 30-ish minutes of watch time, between the very first episode and very last. The excessive computer puns put me off, what can I say? And that 30-ish minutes came after I was a few episodes into the new one, so I came into The Guardian Code basically blind.

The first episode was a very blunt introduction to the setting of the show and it’s main cast. I’m starting to get to a point with shows that maybe I should just start skipping the first ep and just get into it before coming back once I’m invested in it. But that’s at least not a point off for The Guardian Code, seeing as it’s just keeping up that delightful trend of “adults can’t write teenage dialogue worth a damn.” I honestly had to pause the show at Lame-O Meter because no one talks like that.

Anyway…

The rest of the season is, like I said earlier, okay. It’s got the basic team-building episodes, the learning to be a leader ep, the “if you just talked to each other this wouldn’t have been a problem” ep, etc. So it’s nothing special exactly. I’ll admit, It took me seven episodes to remember Austin’s real name. Out of a ten episode season, that’s a bit rough.

But there’s two sides to every coin and all that. I absolutely loathe Trey’s dad -- as someone who’s only just graduated high school myself and also has a healthy appetite for video games, his behavior really irks me for reasons I won’t get into. However, I would die for Vera. AI learning how to be human is one of my favorite tropes, and Vera is an amazing example of that. The Alyx episode is great. The hurricane episode that follows directly after is not so great (yes, hi, hello @Netflix writers: that’s not how the weather or cloud seeding works). I find Judy’s character a little odd in that she’s opposed to new technology despite the fact that her husband was a tech and coding genius. I enjoy Tamra because of her vlogging and I liked learning why she first got into it. I like how Megabyte acts. I like the slowly unfolding plot of it all. The big thing is to save cyberspace, but there’s the whole thing with Austin’s dad and the Guardian Program and I’m a sucker for that sort of thing. The plot is fairly fun and the characters have a lot of potential.

Basically, I think The Guardian Code is pretty decent show. Yeah, it’s like a weird combination of Power Rangers and Code Lyoko, but I like both of those so I guess I don’t much mind that. It’s the kind of show you can dig through in a day and, yeah, I want a second season because this one felt very set-up heavy. Yet ReBoot: The Guardian Code is a different matter.

ReBoot then and ReBoot now are two very different things. The OG show was about a virtual group of people like a Guardian named Bob, a diner owner and over-all leader Dot, her little brother Enzo, and a bunch more other characters fighting baddies like Megabyte and Hexadecimal, while also dealing with the ever-present threat of “nullification” (basically death but worse from what my 30 minutes have gathered) via a game. Heavy stuff for a kids show, but hey it was the 90s and that’s just how it was. The new show is four real kids that get ported into cyberspace to fight off Dark Code.

That is a very big difference in plot lines, to say the least. It also doesn’t help that ReBoot ended in a massive cliffhanger that’s just not addressed in the new show. It’s basically like someone kicked your puppy, quickly pointed somewhere else and went “look over there!” and then proceeded to switch it out with a kitten while hoping you wouldn’t notice. So while I’m not exactly invested in the original, I can absolutely see why old fans of it are upset with what The Guardian Code turned out to be.

There is virtually no other mention of the original cast, other than episode 10 which feels out of place with the rest of the season. Megabyte mentions Bob once and never again. Bob and Co. seem totally fine in episode 10 despite the absolute disaster in which we last saw them. At least, the three that are there do. There’s no mention of Matrix, AndrAIa, Phong, or anyone else for that matter. Megabyte, and now Hexadecimal, are the only real links to the past and with Megabyte’s redesign even that’s minimal. Knowing what ReBoot was like, and knowing how it ends, it genuinely seems to me that the creators of the new show saw Megabyte and just wanted to have him in their show.

Maybe that’ll change if Netflix gives The Guardian Code a second season, but as it stands now, it’s a bit of a nightmare. The Guardian Code is a fine show. ReBoot: The Guardian Code isn’t. My big thing is just that The Guardian Code shouldn’t have been a reboot. Standing alone, it would have been like any other kids show -- campy, poorly written at times, a few stellar characters here and there, and a fun gimmick. But with the ReBoot label, Netflix was attempting to pull in an older fanbase in an effort to make it succeed. A built in fanbase is perfect for any content producer, and a big name like Netflix is no different. With all the changes, though, all they’ve done is shoot themselves in the foot. Alienating the audience you’re depending on isn’t a fantastic idea, but it’s what Netflix has done.

I would say watch it, if the trailer seems like something you’d enjoy. In the end, it’s just another kids show even if it does have an old brand name tacked onto it. And I, for one, am a fan of lots of “just okay” kids shows.

#reboot the guardian code #reboot cartoon #reboot #review #show review #netflix review #my reviews #mine #look i just have a lot of thoughts about this show for some reason #you know its important when you make a new blog to babble about it

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junker-town · 5 years ago

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The Lions getting hosed is the latest black mark for NFL refs

Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images

Detroit got worked by Aaron Rodgers and the refs. More so than usual. Can the NFL do anything to fix this?

The Lions had held down Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay offense throughout much of a rivalry game on Monday Night Football. With a combination of solid coverage and Packer red zone mistakes, they’d overcome a handful of stalled-out scoring drives to lead their NFC North rival 22-13 with 10 minutes left in the game.

And then Rodgers roared back — with the help of some flags and no-calls from the officiating crew that ranged from questionable to outright destructive.

The Packers rallied to a 23-22 victory in Week 6 that put them atop their division while casting Detroit to the bottom. It didn’t come without controversy. The Lions found themselves on the unfortunate side of four different late calls that made the home team’s comeback a little easier and enraged Barry Sanders in the process.

That is sickening... the @NFL needs to look at a way to prevent that from happening. Two phantom hands to the face calls really hurts us tonight. Yes, we could have scored TDs, but @Lions played too well to have the game end this way. #DETvsGB @espn

— Barry Sanders (@BarrySanders) October 15, 2019

Two phantom illegal hands to the face calls were the headliners for Monday night’s officiating ineptitude, but those weren’t the only decisions that derailed the Lions’ road to victory. Detroit’s inability to turn early drives into touchdowns left the door open for a Packers comeback at Lambeau Stadium. Some bad calls served as the powerful wind that kept it from swinging shut.

There was a long list of iffy calls throughout Monday’s game, but none were as costly as the ones that gutted the Lions in the fourth quarter. Here’s how it played out.

Detroit was actually hosed by four different calls in the fourth quarter

The decisions ranged from questionable to completely unacceptable,

1. The debatable incomplete pass (that was probably the right call)

It started with 12:26 to play. The Lions faced third-and-2 from inside field goal range when Matthew Stafford fired a quick pass to a streaking Kerryon Johnson out of the backfield. Johnson secured the ball, appeared to take three steps with it, and then fumbled it out of bounds as a defender approached. The pass was ruled a catch and then a lost ball, granting the Lions a first down at the Green Bay 30.

Packers coach Matt LaFleur challenged the ruling, and it paid off. While the ESPN announcing crew suggested a catch had been made, the shifting of the ball in Johnson’s hands as he moved it to his outside arm made the play anything but cut and dry. The replay official saw enough movement to rule the play an incomplete pass, and Detroit settled for a field goal that made the score 22-13. That was a possibly unlucky call for the Lions, but an understandable one.

2. The first drive-sustaining hands to the face penalty

The refs’ next gaffe against Detroit was much less forgivable. Rodgers crumpled to the ground on a third-and-10 sack for a loss of 11 yards that almost certainly would have set up a punt. In the process, the umpire threw his flag into the mix. He called illegal hands to the face on Trey Flowers — giving Green Bay five yards and an automatic first down.

A quick review of the play would show Flowers had a firm grasp on left tackle David Bakhtiari’s shoulder pads and, with the exception of possibly a small slip upward toward the end of the play that had no bearing on the actual outcome itself, stayed there.

here's the first non-existent hands to the face that turned 4th-and-20ish into a first down (and, later, a Packer touchdown) pic.twitter.com/nHnIEFI76B

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 15, 2019

Three plays later, Rodgers hit Allen Lazard for a 35-yard touchdown pass that made this a one-possession game.

3. The blanked deep-ball pass interference

Still, the Lions led after that touchdown and could salt away the game with a sustained drive. And it looked like they might, until some dicey coverage on second down knocked away a Stafford deep ball that should have put Detroit in field goal range.

Safety Will Redmond got beat off the line of scrimmage by Marvin Jones, but recovered in time to get back to his assignment and make a play on the ball. Except he recovered too quickly, making contact with Jones and impeding his progress toward the pass before it could get to the eager receiver.

No pass interference flag was thrown on the play. Lions head coach Matt Patricia didn’t challenge the no-call, probably because he knew pass interference challenge flags had resulted in just one reversal in 21 reviews between Week 3 and Monday night’s game. Instead, he chose not to risk a timeout, took his chances on third-and-6, and then punted the ball back to Rodgers when that failed to pan out.

4. The game-deciding, second phantom hands to the face call

Rodgers drove Green Bay back to Detroit territory when he faced third-and-4 from the Detroit 16 with 1:45 remaining in the game. After facing some pressure in the pocket, he uncorked an incomplete pass to the corner of the end zone ... only to be bailed out by the same official on the same phantom hands to the face call.

oh my god the refs bailed out Green Bay with a nonexistent hands-to-the-face penalty on third-and-long FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS QUARTER (both on Trey Flowers, good lord) pic.twitter.com/Hg3k0OxS3L

— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 15, 2019

Coincidentally enough, Billy Turner — No. 77 on the right side of that clip — is doing the exact same damn thing to defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson by grabbing a hold of his collar. He wasn’t called for hands to the face or holding in the aftermath.

“They saw something different than what actually happened,” a frustrated Flowers, who’d never been called for hands to the face in his five-year pro career before Week 6, explained to the media at his locker after the game. “They called what they thought they saw. So ... yeah.

“I didn’t think hands to the chest was a penalty.”

Instead of settling for a 34-yard field goal to take the lead and hand the ball back to Stafford with roughly 90 seconds left, the Packers were able to milk the clock before Mason Crosby kicked a game-winning 23-yard attempt as time expired. The Lions had no opportunity to mount a comeback in a game where Stafford had averaged 14.7 yards per completion, and the blame for that falls directly on the officiating crew’s shoulders.

So where do we go from here?

The Lions have the same case the Saints had after losing to the Rams in last year’s NFC Championship Game, albeit with much smaller stakes. Bad calls directly impacted their ability to win, which is not an especially foreign feeling on Monday Night Football or against the Packers. See: the batted ball game, and the nonexistent facemask that gave Green Bay an untimed down and led to Rodgers’ legend-building Hail Mary in 2015.

After getting the benefit of the doubt on an unclear Kerryon Johnson goal-line dive in the first quarter, Detroits fortunes shifted considerably. While Rodgers may have been able to work his magic and beat Detroit without any help from the men in stripes, there’s no denying his job got a lot easier thanks to a pair of free first downs — the same amount of first downs taken away from the Lions in 50/50-ish calls that same quarter.

If referee Clete Blakeman was questioning his crew’s decisions after the game, he sure wasn’t telling the press about it.

Pool report on the hands to the face penalties by Trey Flowers pic.twitter.com/qKGLdEshlU

— kyle meinke (@kmeinke) October 15, 2019

But changing the rules for one high-profile example of incompetent officiating seems like an overreaction, especially given the impressive waste of time 2019’s reformed pass interference policies have been. Time-burning challenges don’t seem like a viable path forward for the league, either. Maybe a dedicated replay crew — a group of officials headquartered in New York City who review every flag thrown in real time and buzz down to appropriate referees to signal when a flag should be picked up and dismissed — could add an extra layer of protection in situations like these.

The good news is the league’s fall meeting starts Tuesday, and the Lions’ latest loss will be fresh on the minds of owners and executives. The bad news is any meaningful reform will take a lot of work and have to go through several bureaucratic layers of discussion and voting to have a shot at becoming protocol.

So all we really learned Monday night is that we’ve got a long, long way to go before NFL teams can feel like their best efforts in a season where every play counts won’t go to waste because an umpire can’t tell the difference between someone’s shoulder pads and their facemask.

And that the football gods still hate the Lions.

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kipaia · 8 years ago

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Long Post Full of Suck and Also Awesomeness

So I’ve been a bit overwhelmed the last few weeks because of Life and also The Suck and things have been incredibly Not Great. I’ve had like a solid week of level 9 on my scale for mental health (where 10 is that someone needs to call 911 for me) so it’s been pretty scary.

When I get this bad, I struggle a lot with feeling like the feelings I have are all in my head, are all my own fault, that I’m a burden on literally anyone and that no one in their right mind (platonically or otherwise) could possibly care about me in any real way. Rationally, I know that’s not true, but it’s really hard to fight constantly against your own brain when physically you’re exhausted and mentally you’re exhausted and you’re constantly in contact with the thing that started your Suck in the first place. So I have been losing my internal battle against The Suck.

Here’s where things stood as of last week; I was waking up at 3:15am and getting ready for work so that I could be out the door by 3:45am so I’d be on time to work, since work is a 45 minute drive from my house. My road kills my bike’s tires, so no bike, and I haven’t had a car since November. It’s cold. Right now, it’s also very wet and often below freezing and I’ve been doing this for four months, ever since my mother took back the car I’ve been driving for five years to give it to my sister for her 16th birthday. I would work from 4:30 to noon-ish, walk an hour to school, have my classes, walk an hour to an hour-fifteen to the high school to coach swim practice, and then usually I’d be able to get a ride home from there. It has been Exhausting.

Over winter break, I also experienced a mental health crash. This is not unusual for me at this time of year, since I have prolonged forced exposure to my abuser and this year was especially bad since I was a fucking idiot who decided I wanted to try to repair things with them. Thought it was going ok until Christmas; turns out they were playing hook/line/sinker, and I sunk like a rock. Self-loathing for putting myself in that position on top of anger that they are still shitty on top of much general brokenness because they went full-tilt back into mental/emotional abuse once I was beginning to feel safe again.

It’s been almost two months since then, and I still haven’t been able to climb out of this stupid hole I ended up in and it’s really frustrating on so many levels to want to be happy and to want to be ok and to want to be a functional person and to just . . . not be any of those things. And knowing all the ways I suck at being a person makes me feel like less of a person and it’s just not a very good cycle to be stuck in, especially when you know you’re in the cycle, you can see it, you just can’t seem to get out of it.

So I don’t feel like much of a person, and I don’t feel like anyone can possibly care for me.

Fast forward to this week; one of my best friends in the world is getting ready to move to LA for a two year school program. As weird as this might sound, I’m not really bothered that he’s left because he’s one of those friends where we’ve known each other for twelve years, and he knows me probably better than almost anyone on this planet, and we’ve gone years without really seeing each other before and when we do finally see each other again we’re still just there and we get each other and it’s just amazing and I love him dearly.

Anyway. So Monday night we got the chance to hang out for the first time in a few years, and up until this time I hadn’t really had the chance to tell him all of the stuff that went on with my abuser or what’s going on in my head, but because he knows me so well he pried and managed to get me to basically word vomit everything that’s gone on and the whole time I’m terrified that him finally knowing what a train wreck I am will make him never talk to me again, that he’ll go to LA and think “wow glad I’m away from that Mess,” so I’m scared shitless while having this conversation and I end up telling him about my name change which not a lot of people around here know about still and he just-

First off, he listened to absolutely everything I said and (me being me) I cried, and while I cried he didn’t try to touch me or hold me cause that makes me overwhelmed and I tend to shut down when that happens so I was able to calm myself down so I could keep talking and he just sat and listened patiently until I was done. Once I was done, he asked if he could hug me and since I was done I was ok with it, and so he held me and I cried like a baby and he just held me and it was So Nice and then he asked if I wanted him to call me Alyx instead of my other name, and I said he didn’t have to since he knew me by my other name and it was ok if using that name was easier but he just gave me A Look and asked again if I wanted him to call me Alyx and I started crying again and was like “I’d actually really love it if you called me Alyx” and he was like “Ok Alyx!” and was like totally cool with it and also didn’t let me get away with hiding behind what he wanted or what someone else would prefer cause that’s literally always been a problem of mine, I don’t know how to and am not generally comfortable with telling people what I want because I feel that that’s really selfish but he was having none of my shit and it was Amazing.

So after I calmed down he drove me home and then Wednesday is the day he leaves. Now, I work for his mother who runs a daycare and since the whole family was going with him to drop him off in LA, I’m taking over the daycare for the afternoon so they can fly out. So I get there, he’s there, he comes over and we have our whole goodbye hug and I’m just like “don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry” cause there’s kids everywhere and they’ll all wanna know what’s wrong and I don’t want to deal with that and so I somehow manage to keep it together when all the sudden he’s like “Crap I forgot something!” and goes running back to his room while I’m laughing cause they’re supposed to leave in like ten minutes and he was supposed to have all his stuff packed like three days ago when he comes back and he looks at me very serious and I’m like “Shit somethings wrong what’s happening” and he just stops.

Keep in mind this is someone who can basically be qualified to say he knows me better than I know me sometimes, and he just looks at me super serious and holds out a fucking set of car keys.

So I’m floored, because he can’t actually be doing what I think he’s doing, and he’s like “So this is for you to borrow for the weekend -” and I’m like ok that makes way more sense until he finishes and is all “-and then when mom and dad get back on Monday they’ll talk to you about the title transfer and everything.”

Cue complete bawling. Complete, can’t-hold-it-in-because-shit-like-this-doesn’t-happen-to-people-like-me bawling. And so he’s hugging me again, I’m crying so hard I can’t breathe, the kids are all asking why I’m crying which kinda makes me cry more until I’m like “Cause my friend’s an idiot” which his mom hears and so she cracks up and meanwhile I’m holding the car keys and shaking and crying and my friend is holding me and he’s telling me how he just wanted me to know how loved I am and that there’s people in the world who cherish me and that he knows I haven’t really felt that way and so he’s basically not giving me the option to let my head get in the way of what is fact. And I’m like he just gave me his car and people don’t fucking do that for other people, like maybe for family but I’m not family and he knows exactly how much of a Mess I am and he still did it?????

I can’t even handle this. It’s been like four days and I’m still completely overwhelmed. I keep feeling like people as amazing as him don’t just do stuff like that for people as shitty as me, but then I look outside and there sits the damn car and I’ve got the keys on my lanyard and then I start crying again and so like, physically, I won’t be as tired, because not only will I not be walking everywhere, but swim season also ended yesterday, and mentally I’m short-circuiting a bit because there is Evidence that for some reason there are people who must still like me even though I’m A Mess, and not even just “like” me cause this is not just a “like” kind of thing, this is like a “love” kinda thing and me and him are and always have been and most likely always will be a completely platonic love, but this is totally still a “love” thing cause HE JUST GAVE ME HIS CAR. THE FUCKING SHIT, BRO.

I don’t even know how this is going to affect my current mental health things because my brain still hasn’t figured out how to function since this bombshell happened, but I have actually laughed out loud to things I’ve seen online the last day or so, which I haven’t done in months. I have a car. Now that I have a car, I can move out of the house I’ve been living in which has not been helping my mental state at all. I can get a new job if I want, I can go to fucking Chipotle if I want (cause it’s in the next town over T.T ) and I don’t have to worry about rain of freezing temperatures or the fact that I rolled my ankle like three weeks ago and it wasn’t getting better cause I was walking so much.

I don’t want to get too excited past how overwhelmed I already am, but I’m pretty certain this is one of those things that that literally changed my life in such a way that I will probably tell this story to anyone who’ll listen for the rest of my life as a time where things got Better. And, it’ll be super funny if my friend gets famous someday (his thing in LA? Crazy big acting/singing/dancing thing that feeds Juilliard and spits out famous peeps all the damn time and he’s ridiculously talented and works hard and has a heart of literal gold) cause then I can point at super famous person and tell this story and people might think I’m Cool ^.^

#super long post #mental health stuffs #idk though give me a few weeks to sort myself out after this #i might actually be getting better this time #i just #i can't believe this actually happened #it was so amazing

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