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etenvs3000w23 · 2 years ago

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Unit 6: Nature Interpretation Through History

"There is no peculiar merit in ancient things, but there is merit in integrity, and integrity entails the keeping together of the parts of any whole, and if these parts are scattered throughout time, then the maintenance of integrity entails a knowledge, a memory, of ancient things. …. To think, feel or act as though the past is done with, is equivalent to believing that a railway station through which our train has just passed, only existed for as long as our train was in it."

(Edward Hyams, Chapter 7, The Gifts of Interpretation)

Unpack this quote.

The first thing that came into my mind when I read this quote, was an entirely separate quote, that quote being:

“We must learn from the past or we are doomed to repeat it.”

Following this, I suddenly realised I had no idea who said this quote, when it was spoken, and where. So of course I googled it. According to google, this quote is credited to two separate people. The first is George Santayana who said “Those who cannot remember the past are conedemned to repeat it” in his book The Life of Reason. However, Winston Churchill is also credited with a similar quote: “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Similarly, Edward Hyams more complex quote states that “(to) act as though the past is done with, is equivalent to believing that a railway station through which our train has just passed, only existed for as long as our train was in it.” What all these quotes have in common is one singular theme: history is important and we cannot simply pretend it did not happen for our own selfish needs.

I think this message is especially important now, in a day in age where so many decisions are being made by people who don’t wish to confront our history simply because it makes them uncomfortable. One of the most engaging portions of the textbook this week was the section on interpreting history titles Controversy. It's no surprise why this is the most engaging section, as controversy is everywhere these days. You can’t turn on the news, access social media, or turn on the radio without hearing some form of controversy happening around us. The textbook briefly discusses how controversy surrounding historical figures who conducted horrible actions or had problematic views are often interpreted differently based on the audience. The example they used was Christopher Columbus, but he is far from the only controversial figure discussed in modern times from new angles that puts their actions in an almost centrally immoral position, which juxtaposes their previous heroic status.

The most recent example that comes to mind is the renaming of Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) after the discussion of actions taken by the school’s former namesake clashed directly with the university’s current values and stated mission statement. The decision to change the name was not taken lightly, as the student-led initiative expectedly received pushback from those who didn’t see the point in renaming the school. Except there was a point. In refusing to acknowledge Ryerson’s actions which we now consider not just to be wrong, but immorally corrupt on every level, it shows an ignorance to learn from the past and a lack of integrity for refusing to see the whole picture as Edward Hyams suggests in his quote. When someone says we should stop teaching about the Holocaust or American Slavery because it makes some people uncomfortable or makes certain groups look bad, they are completely missing the point. If the interpreter isn't making you uncomfortable discussing these histories they are doing their job wrong. The point is not to simply learn about history, but to learn from it, specifically the moral implications of the events so we do not repeat them ever again. Even if repeating dismal histories seems to be occurring more and more lately.

‌

Beck, L., Cable, T. T., & Knudson, D. M. (2018). Interpreting cultural and natural heritage : for a better world. Sagamore Venture.

Clairmont, N. (2013, July 31). “Those Who Do Not Learn History Are Doomed To Repeat It.” Really? Big Think. https://bigthink.com/culture-religion/those-who-do-not-learn-history-doomed-to-repeat-it-really/

‌“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Winston Churchill. (2020, May 15). Medical Confidence. https://www.medicalconfidence.com/blog/those-that-fail-to-learn-from-history-are-doomed-to-repeat-it-winston-churchill/

Toronto university changes name amid controversy over Canadian educator’s legacy. (2022, April 27). CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ryerson-toronto-metropolitan-university-1.6431360

‌

#wildlife #conservation #nature #animals #naturalist #writing

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gentrychild · 4 years ago

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BNHA chapter 291 reactions

That’s one adorable child and that’s also one horrible way to die.

Not that we’re sure that he actually die, since 1. He is here and living his full theater kid potential. 2. For anyone who is reading BNHA vigilante, you would know that it’s not the first time AFO grabbed a hero student who may or may not have died.

Now, my question is “Where do that lower jaw bone came from?” Can you still extract DNA from something that was practically cremated? If not, does AFO have a room with a bunch of bones that he can drop on his way out?

Also, how old is Touya here? I know he looks younger than he is but is he old enough to be in UA?

I. Need. Answers.

That’s the second kid who got white hair after a ridiculously powerful quirk appeared and I now have other questions.

Such as, will I get a white-haired-Izuku anytime soon?

By the way, can we consider that Tenko and Touya have quirk singularities?

1. I can hear half of the writing community weeping because Touya had red hair. And at least one other person grumbling because Touya changing hair color with the seasons.

2. It’s incredible how tiny Touya doesn’t look like the Touya we know. He had a completely different demeanor.

3. Good to know Endeavor was not always a dick.

Don’t mind me, I am just fascinated at seeing tiny Touya looking at Baby Fuyumi (while clutching my chest because them being twins is jossed). That’s the most adorable thing I have ever seen.

Also, very relieved to know that Rei agreed to have several kids.

Now, I need to know what happened to make that family collapse.

Touya is wearing different clothes than in the first image so that means he might have some resistance at first but his fire grew too hot for his body.

Now, my question is: how come he couldn’t regulate the temperature of his flames like fire users in his family?

Am I... feeling bad... for Endeavor?

Oh my.

You know, you might have been invited if he had known you were alive.

I love Dabi’s face here. He is such a little shit.

Reminder that they are all stuck here until Shigaraki actually tells Machia to move.

I don’t know about you but I find it absolutely hilarious that Gigantomachia picked them up, brought them to the most dangerous place in the whole combat zone as the number 1 hero and the craziest hero students around are here, and is now refusing to move.

Honestly? If Dabi wasn’t accidentally holding the floor, they would have been incinerated.

What are you trying to say, Harima Oji?

Are you a secret Todoroki family member too?

Or did you hear Shigaraki call Izuku little brother and you’re now trying to wrap your mind around everyone around here apparently being related and this war being the messiest Sunday family dinner ever?

I actually wanted to talk about that because this DNA test is absolutely useless. I can assure you that people probably can’t even read those pages and even if they can, it would be just so easily to fake.

Actually, you know what? If Dabi didn’t do that on his computer on his own, I would just be so disappointed because waving a DNA around is just pointless in this situation.

Especially as I don’t see when he had the time to get some blood from the Kyushu fight? He only had the time to take two steps in Endeavor’s direction before running like hell when Miruko arrived (which was a rare sign of common sense, so kudos to him, I guess.)

You hear that sound?

That’s the sound of Dabi destroying his family every chance at being normal once again. Forget all the progress they made, they will now be under public scrutiny forever, everyone having an opinion on their family.

That will wreck them.

And I am not even talking about Rei.

I see that at this point, Dabi is just ending for everyone’s career...

I am just going to stay there and stare at the wall as I am thinking about Dabi broascasting a murder on every screen of the country.

That’s just so disrespectful to Twice. He fought for his friends and instead, Dabi turned his last moment in him desperately pleading.

Also, that was a really dumb move.

Listen here, kids, when you throw a mind-breaking revelation at someone, you stick as close to the truth as possible because if people find anything that doesn’t make sense, your whole story will be doubted.

Also, casual reminder...

Hawks recorded what was going on.

That means that if this recording thing is found, they can discredit Dabi’s entire story.

At this point, I am just trying to see if he still has his wings. That’s all I am asking. A confirmation that his feathers will grow back.

Just... stay asleep, Hawks. Rest for a week or two so someone can sort this mess. That’s your best course of action because if you woke up now, you would probably crawl back into a coma.

Was that a bird pun?

Now, that’s just being mean.

I think I remember than in Japan, being related to a criminal is not good, but since BNHA is set in the future, maybe things changed?

If not, I am curious to see how this revelation will affect Hawks. You know, just for sociological purposes.

*hangs on to Izuku who is related to the worst villain this country had ever know, and who actually destroyed Kamino and almost murdered All Might not too long ago*

*squints as I am trying to know what they are advertising*

Dabi: “Think more critically! Try to see things through my point of view, right after I admitted I killed 30 people!”

Reminder that the OG group who fought Shigaraki sacrificed everything to stall him, they are half dead, and they are now facing the end of their society as they know it.

That’s what despair looks like.

Be careful what you wish for, Todoroki Enji.

Shouto is just breaking my heart right now. This is a nightmare. He is the boy who made sure that they were alone when he told Midoriya about his family history. He is the boy who was just started to consider forgiving his father, or at the very least, working so their family would be happy. Things were starting to get better, and now, he has to deal with imminent death, his, his friends and his father.

He isn’t even asking Endeavor to fight Dabi. He will do it. He must know that Nejire and him simply can’t win against the LoV and Gigantomachia but it’s not like there is anyone else.

Everyone is down and right now, the number 1 hero is too shocked to even blink, and if he doesn’t pull himself together in the next second, they are going to die.

Damnit, Shouto actually called him father.

Hey, remember that attack that incinerated a noumu with Regeneration? That attack that Endeavor had to use high in the sky or the collateral damage would have been hellish, in every sense of the word?

Yeah, they almost all died right there.

WE STAN ONE HERO.

BEAST JEANIST, BACK FROM THE DEAD, READY TO JUDGE DABI FOR HIS CRIMES AGAINST FASHION (and also the war crimes, if you insist).

THAT’S WHY YOU FACT CHECK EVERYTHING, DABI. SO YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE AN IMBECILE AFTER YOU ACCUSED THE NUMBER 2 HERO OF KILLING THE MOST FABULOUS MAN OF THE COUNTRY.

#bnha 291 #bnha spoilers #bnha #bnha reactions

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queenlua · 4 years ago

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You're a druid and an ex-evangelical, right? What does being a druid mean to you? How did you get from evangelicalism to where you are now? And of course feel free to ignore this if it's nosy. (sincerely, a Christian who wants to leave but who doesn't know what to do)

this is going to make me sound ignorant as hell, lol, but i'm happy to share

under a cut because this got very long, sorry, lol.

my personal progression was: "vaguely christian -> VERY christian -> christian agnostic -> agnostic/atheist -> agnostic/druid -> some sorta druid-neopagan-animist thing." i guess i'll just go through what made me switch between each of those, and close out with some high-level thoughts that may be helpful for you?

okay, so when i was

VAGUELY CHRISTIAN,

i went to Sunday school every week because That's What You Do, and because my whole hometown was very southern Baptist, i never questioned the veracity of its teachings much... until they ran a whole weekly series on "why [x] is wrong," where [x] is some other group

e.g., we had a week on why Mormons are wrong, and i didn't bat an eye because i hadn't even known Mormons existed until that moment

then we had a week on why Muslims are wrong, and that... bothered me, because i had a friend who was Muslim, and she was just objectively a better person than me, and i was like "any universe where she goes to hell and i don't seems really fucked up"

then we had a week on why EVOLUTION was wrong, and that just absolutely threw me, because while i hadn't thought about evolution much (i think i was in fourth grade or so), it seemed common-sense? scientists thought highly of it? "adaptation over time" just seems logical?

so i went to the public library every day after school for like a week, read some Darwin and some science books, and came back to my Sunday school teacher with, like, an itemized list of objections to the whole "evolution is wrong" thing. and he came up with some standard Answers In Genesis rebuttals, and i did more research and came back the next week with more science, and we repeated this a few times until he was like "lua, you just gotta take some things on faith"

which. lmao. full existential crisis time, because no matter how hard i thought, i couldn't *not* believe in the science, but i also didn't want to go to hell, so i was like "maybe if i believe SUPER HARD i will SOMEDAY be able to unbelieve the condemn-me-to-hell bits"

so i decided to become

VERY CHRISTIAN

and my frantic googling for shit like "proof of god" and "god and evolution" *eventually* broke me out of the Answers In Genesis circles of the internet, and into some decent Christian apologia, like, think First Things and various Catholic bloggers. and there, i found some way to square my gut sense that evolution was right, with a spiritual worldview.

like, i remember finding some blogger who said:

"young earth creationists get tripped up when they try to explain stars that are millions of light-years away, and end up basically arguing that God's tricking us somehow, and—no! my God lets you believe in the evidence of your eyes, my God does not demand that you make yourself ignorant or stupid, my God expects you to use your brain"

and i just started crying at my computer, because no one had ever said "using your brain is Good and part of God's will," i was like *finally* here's someone who won't tell me i'm going to hell for just *thinking* about things

(st. augustine does a much better riff on a similar theme, fwiw, but i only found him later)

still, it was an uneasy fit, because, the more i learned and read about world history, the more it seemed... weird... that the One And Singular Path To Salvation was... the successor to some niche desert cult... which didn't even occur at the *beginning* of written history, like, it was all predated by that whole Mithraism thing, etc... and like, sure, i could trot out all the standard theological talking points for why Actually This Makes Perfect Sense, but gut-level-wise, the aesthetics just seemed kinda dumb! and no level of talking myself out of it made that feeling go away!

so at this point i started referring to myself as a

CHRISTIAN AGNOSTIC

i mean, not aloud. i still lived in southernbaptistopia and i didn't want, like, my hair stylist to tell me i was a horrible person. but in my *head* i called myself Christian agnostic and it felt right.

and i started church-hopping, which honestly was really fun, would recommend to anyone at any point. i visited the fire-and-brimstone baptist church, the methodist church, the episcopalians, the universal unitarians, etc.

unfortunately, while this gave me *some* new perspectives, each of the places either had the same shitty theology as my old megachurch (i remember the *acute* sense of despair i felt when i was starting to jive with a methodist church... only for the dumbass youth minister to start going on about evolution), or, they just lacked any sense of the *sacred*. like, the Church of Christ churches, with their a capella services, *definitely* had it; i felt more God there in one service than i did in a lifetime of shitty Christian rock at the megachurch. but their beliefs were even *more* batshit, so. big L on that one.

having failed to find a satisfactory church, i was basically

AGNOSTIC/ATHEIST

by the time i went to college, but honestly pretty unhappy about it; while it was harder than ever for me to actually *connect* with the divine, i didn't like thinking that my previous experiences of the divine were total lies. because my shitty evangelical church, for all its faults, could not *completely* sabotage the sense of God's presence. there were real moments in that church where i do believe i experienced something divine. mostly mediated by one particular youth minister, who in hindsight was the only spiritual teacher in that church who didn't seem a bit rotten inside, but! it was something!

so when i happened upon a bunch of writings on the now-defunct shii.org (that's the bit that makes me look WILDLY ignorant, lol), i was utterly captivated.

said author was a previous archdruid of the Reformed Druids of North America, an organization that was formed in the 1960s to troll the administration of Carleton College (there was a religious-service-attendance requirement; they made their own religion; their religion had whiskey and #chilltimes for its services). however, this shii.org dude seemed to take it pretty seriously. he was studying history of religion and blogged a lot about his studies, both academic and otherwise. while RDNA had started out as a troll, that didn't mean they hadn't *discovered* something real in the process, he said.

this, already, was going to be innately appealing to me; i've got a soft spot for wow-we-were-doing-this-ironically-but-now-it's-kinda-real? stuff in general.

in particular, shii.org’s discussions on the separation of ritual from belief was really interesting to me: most religions/spiritualities have *both*, but like, you can do a ritual without having the Exact Right Beliefs (if there even is such a thing!), and it can still be useful to you, it can have real power. (he had a really lovely essay, speculating on the origins of religion as just a form of art, but that essay is now lost to the sands of time, alas.)

(note that i wouldn't really recommend seeking out *recent* writing by the shii.org guy; he kinda went full tedious neoreactionary-blowhard-who-reads-a-lot-of-Spengler at some point? sigh.)

the shii.org guy led me to checking out a bunch of books on the history of neopaganism & also books by scholars of religion in general, and the more i read, the more excited i became. and i started doing little ritual/meditation stuff here and there.

then i was fortunate enough to attend some events with Earthspirit (this was when i lived in Boston), which cemented my hippie dalliances into something more real. the folks there, being from Boston, were all ridiculously overeducated (a sensibility that appeals to me), but also, being the kind of folks who drive out to a mountain in the middle of nowhere for a spiritual retreat, they tolerated a full range of oddities (everyone from aging-70s-feminist-wiccans to living-on-a-farm-with-your-bros-Astaru to dude-who-started-having-weird-visions-and-is-just-trying-to-figure-out-the-deal to Nordic-spiritualist-with-two-phds-from-Scandanavian-universities-on-the-subject, etc), which gave me a lot of room to explore different types of rituals, ceremonies, "magic", etc.

(polytheism in general lends itself well to this sort of easy plurality! i can believe other people are experiencing something real with their gods, and i can be talking to a totally different set of gods, and that’s just all very compatible, etc)

anyway, i started calling myself

AGNOSTIC/DRUID

around then, because i knew i'd found *something*, something that felt like all the realest moments i'd ever had in nature, and all the realest moments i'd ever had in that shitty megachurch, but i wasn't quite ready to put a theology to it.

but, idk, you do the thing for a while, and you start encountering some things that you may as well call gods, and you realize you're in pretty deep, and you ditch the "agnostic" bit and just throw hands and start describing yourself as

SOME SORTA DRUID-NEOPAGAN-ANIMIST THING

because that's the most precise thing you can muster. in particular, the druid bit resonates because nature's still very much at the center of my practice; the neopagan bit resonates because i'm not especially interested in reconstructing older traditions or being faithful to any actual pre-Christian traditions, and animist resonates because what i sometimes call gods seem to be tied pretty tightly to the land itself. it's all very experiential; all this mostly means i'm some weird chick who sometimes grabs a car and drives out someplace very lonely and hikes for a while and does some hippie shit to try and talk with the land or the god or whatever is there. and sometimes i come back from it changed, or refocused, or what-have-you, and hopefully i'm better for it. i'm aware this makes me look a little ridiculous, and is an unsatisfying answer, sorry!

WRT YOUR SITUATION

i don't know you or your situation, obviously, but if i wanted to give former-me some advice to save her some angst, i'd say

-> Christendom itself is far wilder and more diverse than many churches lead you to believe. if you still want to be Christian on some level, and it's just a shitty church that's convinced you the whole project is fucked, i'd honestly explore, i dunno, your nearest Quaker meeting. they're invoking the Holy Spirit with regularity but they're not raging douchenozzles about it.

-> if you're specifically interested in druidism, i found John Michael Greer's "A World Full of Gods" really nice. (caveat: Greer has *also* gone full right-wing nutjob these days, sigh, so like. would not recommend a great swath of his writing. but that one's good)

-> deciding that a just God wouldn't give me a brain and then ask me not to use it was hugely comforting to me. like, that was the start of the whole process, that was what made me feel ok searching for other churches and trying to find something that fit. obviously you should take this with 800 grains of salt, because obviously i'm no longer Christian, and thus maybe i'm just some poor misguided fallen soul, but... i still kinda believe that! maybe if you can make yourself believe that, it'll seem less scary?

idk, happy to answer more questions, sorry for the long ramble, hope it helped~

#druid stuff

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rachelkaser · 4 years ago

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Stay Golden Sunday: Flu Attack

Dorothy, Rose, and Blanche are brought down by the flu and fight like cats in a sack. Sophia observes.

Picture It...

Sophia is hemming one of Dorothy’s dresses in the kitchen as Blanche comes in with one of her own. They’re preparing for a big charity dinner on the weekend, and Sophia’s a little irritable that she hasn’t found a date yet. Rose comes in, feeling a little under the weather, which puts Dorothy’s back up. Rose promises she’s not sick and won’t get anyone else sick. Blanche sets herself up for one of the best zingers in the show’s history.

BLANCHE: Oh you don’t have to worry about me, honey. I never get sick. I take very good care of myself. I treat my body like a temple. SOPHIA: Yeah, open to everyone, day or night.

Cut to, presumably, a few days later, and Blanche, Rose and Dorothy are all camped out on the couch, sick as dogs. Rose feels guilty for bringing the creeping crud into the house, while even illness can’t stop Blanche from primping. Sophia comes in, upset because she still can’t get a date for the banquet, and begrudgingly answers the doorbell. Dr. Richmond, a woman in a snazzy blue blazer, arrives to tend to them. She does a very brief physical exam, palpating their throats and looking into their eyes for some reason -- Blanche is a little nonplussed about being examined by a woman, natch.

From this short appointment, Dr. Richmond determines they all have the flu (Sophia: “I told them that two days ago. Tell them something new for $50″). She encourages them to rest for at least a week, meaning they’ll miss the banquet, and leaves. They’re disappointed at this failure of medicine, and discuss home remedies. Sophia tells a story about Sicily’s Widow Caravelli, who would treat ear infections with a green salve that Salvador, the village idiot, later marketed as pesto sauce.

DOROTHY: Ma, you’re making this up. SOPHIA: So what? I’m old. I’m supposed to be colorful.

Three days later, Blanche and Dorothy squabble over the heating pad -- Sophia rightly calls them out for being so cranky. Rose comes in with a folk medicine book, and is inexplicably cheerful. When Dorothy questions it, it turns out Rose’s Hot Toddy recipe might be a little strong. Dorothy and Blanche continue to fight over who gets the TV, and even Rose’s Hot Toddies can’t keep her from getting snappish. They storm off to their bedrooms just as Sophia comes in an announces she has a date for the banquet.

In the kitchen, the Girls continue to bicker, over the orange juice, the Vicks VapoRub, and the Nyquil cup. When Rose bursts into tears, they start apologizing to each other, the stress of being cooped up and sick making them crazy. They hug it out, promising to get through it together. Sophia enters and tells them that, when she called to cancel their reservations to the banquet, the organizer’s disappointment led her to suspect either Rose, Blanche, or Dorothy won the Best Friend of the Friends of Good Health Award.

BLANCHE: Why, what’d she say? SOPHIA: It wasn’t what she said. It was what she didn’t say. ROSE: What didn’t she say? SOPHIA: How they hell do I know? She didn’t say it!

Immediately intrigued, the Girls start reciting what each of them has done to possibly deserve the award. Rose participated in a walkathon, bikeathon, telethon, and marathon. Blanche volunteered with senior citizens, at a daycare center, and as a volunteer dummy for a CPR class. Dorothy sold peanut brittle to raise funds for a new bloodmobile. Naturally, the competition causes them to turn nasty again, and they all decide to go to the banquet, flu or no flu.

At the banquet, Rose and Dorothy are at the table with their dates -- Dorothy’s doesn’t seem especially happy to be there. Blanche arrives alone and says her date will arrive shortly, and they continue to argue over who’s going to win the award. Sophia arrives with a much-younger man named Raoul, a flower vendor Sophia met at the dog track who can only say, “It’s a pleasure to be here” in English. Blanche arrives with a man named Tommy and tries to pass him off as her date, but he’s quickly revealed to be a waiter -- Blanche’s date didn’t want to be seen with her in her sickly state.

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The event’s emcee takes the stage, and tells everyone that Don Johnson, the celebrity guest, isn’t coming, but they have the clothes he was planning to wear. Sure enough, a presenter arrives on stage with a white blazer. The Girls get one last dig at each other as they wait for the award to be given -- Rose even preemptively removes her napkin from her lap. The presenter opens the envelope and announces the name of the winner: It’s Sophia!

Everyone bursts into applause, including the three Girls, as Sophia goes to accept the award (after getting two victory smooches from Raoul). In her acceptance speech, she says very pointedly that she’s lucky to have love and support in her home and wanted to pass it on -- the Girls exchange meaningful looks -- and flexes on everyone by showing off her handsome, young date. The other three Girls apologize to each other again and toast to friendship, sealing it with one final, explosive sneeze.

“The minute I found out you were contagious, I should have thrown you out on the street.”

Confession time: While I think some other episodes from Season 1 are structurally better, or are more touching in some ways, this episode is my favorite. Remember when I said in “The Custody Battle” that the episode was so lean on good singular lines of dialogue that I had trouble picking one for my mid-post header quote? I had the opposite problem here: So many lines of dialogue are great that I had to flip a coin to pick one.

DOROTHY: Blanche Deveraux can’t find a date? BLANCHE: Oh don’t be ridiculous. My only problem is trying to decide which of my many suitors to flatter with an invitation. After all, it’s the social event of the season. DOROTHY: I guess you’ll just have to break a few hundred hearts, Blanche. BLANCHE: I know. I haven’t had to disappoint so many men since Daddy tore down the tree house.

While this episode has no moral, no character growth, and no drama, it’s still the best if only because it has such a relatable story. Who hasn’t been extremely sick and cranky and miserable at least once in their lives? In any other circumstances, the Girls’ nastiness to each other would be shocking and disturbing. But under the circumstances, I can’t say I wouldn’t be behaving the same way.

The Girls spend most of the episode at each other’s throats, and yet in spite of that -- or perhaps because of it -- their friendship feels especially strong. It’s not like they want to be so horrible to each other -- they’re just radiating horribleness and get caught in each other’s crossfire, is how I look at it. And they’re still able to apologize to each other and get past it, twice. I think it’s a great example of how friendship can take a test like this.

BLANCHE: You really think selling candy is going to qualify you for that prestigious award? DOROTHY: Oh, excuse me. I didn’t realize that slipping my tongue to half the firemen in the county was the more lofty social achievement.

Still, message aside, almost every joke in this episode is a winner and lands perfectly, and for that reason alone I will keep this in a playlist of my favorite Golden Girls episodes forever.

There’s really no B-plot to this episode -- instead, there’s more like an A1 plot and an A2 plot. The A1 plot is Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy suffering from their flu while Sophia attends them. The A2 plot is all four Girls wanting to attend the charity banquet and being up for the same award. Since these plots are effectively twined together throughout the episode, it means that all of the Girls get equal screentime and lines throughout the episode.

Sophia does sort of hover in the background, and at first it seems like the episode is going to relegate her to funny lines rather than an important role, as has happened before. However, this pays off in a big way when she wins the awards over the other three Girls, and gives an acceptance speech that shows she was paying full attention to them throughout the week and knows what to say to remind them of what’s important.

I almost wish we knew what Sophia had done to win the award, given the other Girls got to brag about their accomplishments. But I think the fact that Sophia’s the person in the episode who behaves charitably, taking care of the other Girls when they get sick and never really complaining about how awful they’re being and not even mentioning all the things she’s done. It’s still cool to see that the Girls are so community-minded -- and it’s good to remind us of their good traits even as they’re all crabbing at each other.

SOPHIA: *about the Widow Caravelli* She was best known for this green salve she used to make to treat ear infections. One day she gave a batch to Salvador, the village idiot. He misunderstood the directions and put it on his linguine instead of in his ear. DOROTHY: I guess if you’re an idiot with a hearing problem, you do things like that.

Another reason I like this background story about charitable work and the betterment of the community is that it contributes to the feeling that these onscreen characters are people with lives that happen off-camera. I know that’s not really the case, but it’s these details that make them feel so three-dimensional. Everything they do is in keeping with their characters as we know them so far -- it doesn’t surprise me one bit that Blanche came up with a firemen’s CPR class and volunteered herself as the practice dummy.

I don’t think I have any complaints to make about this episode. Every moment is just great joke after great joke, and all four actresses are at their peak. I don’t think there are two consecutive minutes in this episode that don’t give me a giggle. Reportedly, playing sick was tricky for the Girls, as they couldn’t play it too over the top, and the whole crew began to feel ill after the week’s filming just from having watched them play sick.

BLANCHE: You know, this is the first time a female doctor’s ever examined me. Feels kinda strange. DR. RICHMOND: I hear that a lot. You know the truth is, despite the progress that women have made, medicine is still a man’s world. *sticks a tongue depressor in Blanche’s mouth* So, if it’ll make you feel any better, I used to be a man. BLANCHE: *flinches and pulls the depressor out of her mouth* What?! DR. RICHMOND: Just a little female doctor humor.

Part of me does wonder why all three Girls are spending their recuperation on the couch in the living room, as opposed to their own separate bedrooms, but I think at this point in the series they only have one TV in the house. One very minor nitpick is that Sophia seemed convinced, by what the organizer said, that one of her three roommates won the award, when she was the actual winner. I’m not sure what we’re meant to take from that: Did Sophia mishear Harriet McConnell, or was Harriet upset that Sophia’s daughter and friends wouldn’t be there to support her? But that’s a minor quibble at best.

Also, bit of trivia for you: Bea Arthur didn’t usually break out in laughter on set, and the times she did were notable. In Golden Girls Forever, she says she had a great laugh in this episode during the banquet scene when the presenters show off a hanger with Don Johnson’s clothes on it: “I’ve never seen anything funnier in my life.” She added that they eventually had to cut away from her because she couldn’t stop laughing, which tells me that we originally got a Dorothy Reaction Shot at that point in the episode, and I’m frankly sorry we didn’t get to see it.

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I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out this episode’s sudden relevance given the world situation. While the Girls being sick and fighting will always be relatable, them specifically fighting because they’re sick and cooped up together feels even more so given the pandemic and all the not-going-out we’ve all been doing for the last year. Not to sound sappy, but Sophia’s message to her daughter and two surrogate daughters in the final scene that they value the people they have around them, even in the not-so-great times, puts a smile on my face.

Episode rating: 🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰 (five cheesecake slices out of five)

Favorite Part of the Episode:

It’s really tough to pick out just one, but I have to pick the joke I didn’t get until I was an adult.

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#golden girls #stay golden #stay golden sunday #blanche devereaux #rose nylund #dorothy zbornak #sophia petrillo #the flu #s01e21 #picture it

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fics-not-tragedies · 5 years ago

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One Day in December: Chapter 4 🎇

one - two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight - nine - ten - epilogue

Words: 3696; Warnings: none, unless you want a warning for drinking then you have it; Summary: In another year Andrew tries to fix what he screwed up last year, but even though Bianca came through alone - she really isn’t.

Hozier tag list:

@letoursilencebreaktonight; @angelpeachamber; @sgt-morgan; @julessbrown;

December 2013

Andrew didn’t know what to do with himself this year. It was his first Christmas alone in over two years. He split with his girlfriend only few months prior… and since he was on the receiving end of the breakup, the wound was still fresh. He didn’t miss her really… well, he did… but it was more like he missed being with someone.

The thing was… the morning after he cried himself to sleep like a stupid baby… he woke up from a dream about Bianca. It’d been nearly a year again already, and suddenly, he didn’t feel as horrible as he had. Her face and the way she looked just before they were about to kiss under that godforsaken mistletoe, was the singular image that carried him through until two weeks before Christmas when he headed home to Wicklow. He was going to stay with his parents for awhile, hide away and let his mum take care of him. It was the main perk of being the only child, and also a mama’s boy.

For a week, he migrated from location to location in his parents’ house; his old bedroom… the couch in the sitting room… the kitchen table where his mum made him all his favorite meals… It was perfect. He did nothing but watch tv, eat biscuits, and think about her.

Maybe if he had some way to contact her, he would, but he still never found out who she was related to at the party. Then again, even if he did have her number, he was too chicken to call her; especially after how she left last year.

Instead of being an adult, he just made himself sick over her for a week, thinking about all the conversations they could possibly have this year… what he’d say… how he’d act… He was giving himself anxiety over it, and he had no idea if she’d even show up in the first place.

The day of the party had come, and he was going with Ryan and Cormac and even Rory. They’d all come home to see their families, and Andrew finally had someone to hang out with. They met up beforehand, just down the street, passing a flask between the four of them. It was silly and dumb, but it made Andrew feel loads better. The best part was, everyone made a pact to come alone so Andrew wouldn’t feel left out.

“How are you feeling Andy? Look like you’ve been sleeping well. Getting fed. Raine makes you all your favorite meals?” Alex asked, taking a swig from the flask and thrusting it in his direction.

Andrew chuckled, “Yeah… made my favorite biscuits, too. I’m a spoiled little boy” he coughed when the alcohol burned his throat and he handed it off to Rory, “I’m glad you guys are here. Getting lonely, actually.”

“Well… no one told you to run away to your mum, did they?” Cormac grinned, nearly finishing off the booze.

“He’s got a point” Alex muttered through the collar and scarf he’d pulled up tight around his ears, “Are we fucking done yet? I’m freezing out here.”

“Right…” Rory finished the flask and tossed it back into the car and the four of them trudged through the muddy snow to the house.

The party was already in full swing; seemingly much more loud and rowdy then it had been in years past. They shuffled through the front door single file, shaking off the cold as they waved and nodded to friends they hadn’t seen in ages. It was a good welcoming… everyone happy to see their hometown heroes. And it was rare that they were all together for a change in the same place.

They barely removed their coats when someone passed them a shot and Andrew wondered what kind of night this was going to turn into. He’d thrown his coat over his arm until he could make it to the backroom, knocking back the shot with the guys before going off in search of a beer to wash it down. He entered the kitchen to find the fridge wide open, someone bent in front of it. He stood back a little, not wanting to be rude and push through.

“What kind did you want?” The voice called to a girl standing just behind her.

Andrew raised his eyebrows, the girl’s voice behind the fridge sounding awfully familiar. She popped up a second later, and Andrew gasped.

Bianca.

She was here.

She hadn’t seen him yet, her back to him still. He momentarily contemplated running out until he was better prepared to talk to her, but it was too late. She was already peering back at him with those pretty hazel eyes of hers. She looked… so good. Better than his memory served him.

“Thought you weren’t coming this year?” Andrew blurted suddenly, and he felt the blush creep up his neck to his cheeks.

Of all the fucking things you planned on saying…

“Nice to see you, too” Bianca grinned, leaning against the fridge, “Can I get you something while I’m in here?”

“Em… yeah… just… a beer… whatever’s…in there…” Andrew stammered, brushing his hair back feeling like a complete fool. Two months worth of anguish over this girl, and this is how he behaves.

Bianca pursed her lips, raising her eyebrows before ducking back into the fridge and grabbing one for each of them. She opened both their bottles and handed one to Andrew.

“Cheers, love” he murmured and she grinned before taking a sip.

Bianca studied him over the top of the glass, how different he looked this year as opposed to last. His hair was longer, fluffier, and the front strands framed his face so adorably. He wore a maroon sweater, tight-fitting with the sleeves pushed up, and jeans so worn in she felt like reaching out to touch how soft they were.

“How you’ve been?” She finally asked, once they’d stared at each other long enough before the silence became uncomfortable.

“Alright… you?” He said softly, unable to take his eyes off her. Here she was. Live and in the flesh. Standing across from him in the same kitchen they’d stood in at least once every year. Her hair was done up in a purposely undone bun on top of her head, her bangs grown-out and swept to the sides of her face. Little wisps hung down like flyways… and his fingers twitched from wanting to tuck it back over her ear, to let his fingers linger down her neck…

“Better than last year” she grinned, her bright smile stretching across her face.

“Last year…” he murmured, taking another sip of his beer, “That year was a bit shit, wasn’t it?”

Her eyes widened and she smiled, “Yes. Yes it was. But this year seems to be shaping up to be better already.”

It was Andrew’s turn to smile now, and he mirrored hers, “Yes. Yes it is.”

They were right.

They were able to talk for once, hanging around in the same little clique. All the boys were together, and they were all in good spirits, telling jokes and stories. Bianca listened with wide eyes, fully enthralled in every tale. They made her laugh and being with Andrew made her feel as if perhaps last year had never even happened.

He sat perched on the arm of the couch, pushing his sleeves up as they kept slipping, telling a story quite animatedly with his hands flying about for emphasis. Bianca was staring, she knew it, and when he caught her eye, she bit her lip and bowed her head; he’d caught her. He smiled almost bashfully and stuttered a second as he lost his train of thought. He scratched his head, ruffling his hair until the thought came back around and he picked up where he left off.

He was beautiful she decided.

The Christmas tree was just behind him, back-lighting his profile and she squinted a little, making the lights behind him look blurry in her vision. It was like a rainbow glow hummed around him and she secretly wished she could sneak her phone out and snap a picture of him; to remember him just as he was right now. But it wasn’t worth it.

The camera could never capture how perfect he looked.

The karaoke was back.

When the regular party music was turned down, everyone groaned, but it quickly became as popular as it had been last year. Every drunk partygoer took a turn, and everyone laughed egging them on. Even Alex had a go with Rory singing backup to some silly Christmas song.

Bianca and Andrew were tucked away in the corner, talking quietly, getting warm from the outdoors. She’d followed him outside earlier for a smoke, getting lost in the way he looked when he puffed on his cigarettes… the way the little clouds curled up around his head, and the way he held it between his fingers. She was mesmerized all night by him and who he’d become. She found herself getting lost in his gentle muddy eyes, admiring the long lashes and the way they brushed against his cheeks.

Andrew had caught her staring again, for the hundredth time that night. It made his stomach twist in knots, and he felt like he could spend the whole night just hanging out beside her. She was wearing a cute little knit dress, always a dress, and stockings with tiny hearts. His own heart ached at how adorable she was. He knew he should make his move, but… he honestly didn’t know the move to make. He didn’t want to screw this year up as bad as the last. So he chose to do nothing. He would let the night play out and see what happened.

The party was dying; many of the guests had gone home or were idling about talking in clusters throughout the house; just hanging on to the evening as long as they could. Andrew had imbibed just enough beers to make him a bit bold and a lot romantic. He was sitting beside Bianca, their legs touching completely, watching some horrible rendition of ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by someone very drunk who assumed they sounded much better than they did. They giggled, trying not to poke too much fun at the very serious performer.

“Honestly, I thought that’d never end” Andrew muttered, arms crossed over his chest when the last notes faded away.

“Mmm,” Bianca smiled, “you should go up there. Show everyone how it’s done.”

Andrew seemed to shrink back into the couch, trying to disappear altogether, “Em…”

“Come on. I’ve never seen you sing before” she countered, batting her eyelashes at him.

“Do you live under a rock?”

“Noooo… I meant live, silly. In front of my own eyes!” She teased elbowing him.

He chuckled, “You should come to one of my gigs then. Can work out a triple A pass for you, if you want.”

“No, no, no!” She exclaimed, shoving him, “Sing me a Christmas tune, like… here at the party. I’m in the mood for a cliche holiday song.”

“What… that last one didn’t do it for you?” He joked, sitting forward and pushing up his sleeves again.

“Absolutely not. Get going.”

“Alright, alright” he smiled, hauling himself off the couch and over to the laptop that was set up with an open playlist. He stumbled a bit, tugging at the hem of his sweater while he scrolled the list finding one could do properly. He grabbed the mic, spotting the one he wanted.

Clearing his throat, he mumbled, “Em… I’ve had a couple of drinks so… dunno how well this’ll sound… but…”

He didn’t need to watch the little screen, he knew the lyrics well. When the tune kicked in Andrew started off shaking a bit even though there weren’t many people watching. He didn’t really care who was present anyways, because he only had eyes for her.

Bianca sat tucked into the couch, holding her drink with both her hands on her lap. Her full focus was on him, and he smiled shyly at her, making eye contact.

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful

But the fire is so delightful

And since we've no place to go

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”

Bianca’s heart pounded so hard in her chest, she swallowed back the sound, hoping no one could hear it. She was melting, melting down right into the couch because he was singing not just for her, but to her. She glanced around to see if anyone else was paying attention, and there were a few, but when she glanced back, his eyes were still on her.

“It doesn't show signs of stopping

And I brought some corn for popping

The lights are turned down low

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow”

She sucked in her breath, the way his fingers pushed up the sleeves of that maroon sweater, and the way he gripped the mic, his nose just skimming the top of it. He had a scrap from a silver tinsel garland hanging haphazardly around his neck, and it made him look so much sweeter.

“When we finally kiss goodnight

How I'll hate to go out in the storm

But if you really hold me tight

All the way home I'll be warm”

Bianca worried her bottom lip as his eyes closed just for a moment to croon that particular line. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and hug him; to cover him in kisses. Maybe they could run away together, and then they wouldn’t have a reason to come back to this silly party ever again…

“The fire is slowly dying

And my dear, we're still goodbying

But as long as you love me so

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow”

Andrew wanted to be with her; to see her again outside of this little bubble. The notes faded out, and he stared at her intently, making sure she knew. He clicked off the mic and set it aside, pushing up those damn sleeves again as he made his way back to the couch. He rubbed his palms on his jeans, his hands sweaty with nerves before he settled back in beside her.

“Hey…” he murmured, his body angled towards her, his arm on the back of the couch, so close to her now he could smell her perfume and he breathed in subtly to remember the notes forever.

Bianca’s heart was beating fast and she put her hand over it to calm it down. This… this wasn’t what she’d expected tonight; didn’t even think she’d still feel this way after all this time, but…

Andrew didn’t know if it was the right thing to do or not, but he did it anyways. He placed his hand on her thigh. She was soft and warm, and he knew she was going to taste sweet when he finally-

“Andrew… I-” she began, her voice small and timid.

“Bianca… I screwed up last year… I’m sorry… I, em… shouldn’t have let it go that far… I ruined your night… em, and it’s destroyed me ever since” Andrew admitted, getting out some of the words he’d practiced so many times over, “And then I let you leave… and, em… it’s crushed me ever since.”

He squeezed her thigh just above her knee, and she looked down at his hand, covering it with her own, “Andrew… it’s… it’s okay. That was a long time ago… I just think you should know…”

But Andrew wasn’t listening. Instead, he was leaning in towards her… his muddy eyes nearly falling closed as he licked his lips in anticipation. Bianca whimpered, the smell of him intoxicating her, his hand so soft and a little bit rough as he squeezed her. She could do it. She could close her eyes and do it. Just let it happen.

She gulped, watching him tilt his head in preparation and she gripped his fingers tight; hoping he’d understand, “Andrew, stop.”

This time, he heard her.

He halted, hovering so close to her, only pulling away just slightly. His eyes were full of confusion as he searched hers, “What? Do you, em… should we go somewhere else?”

Bianca shook her head, the tears prickling behind her eyes. How many times was she gonna cry at this stupid party anyways?

“No. I can’t… I can’t go anywhere with you. Not tonight.”

“But Bianca… I thought…?” Andrew’s heart sunk, unsure of what was happening exactly. He’d put himself out there… read all the signs… all the signals she’d sent…

“You’re going to hate me. I hate me.”

“Tell me” he said quickly, needing an immediate answer. After these last two months of torment and anguish from losing one girl, and then pining after the next…

“I have a boyfriend, Andrew.”

What.

Andrew’s heart sunk into the pit of his stomach and when he fully took in what she said, he retracted from her so fast it was as if he’d just scorched his hand on a hot iron.

“A boyfriend?” He sputtered, his head a complete mess. “But why would you…? Where is he then?”

Bianca gulped, the expression on Andrew’s face breaking her heart into a thousand pieces, “He couldn’t make it tonight… he wanted to, but…”

“And you’re serious?” He asked her softly, raising his eyebrow in disbelief, “You’re not just having a laugh because of last year?”

“I’m not lying to you. I’m… so…” she didn’t want to simply say sorry because, it was too insensitive. She’d already crushed him, she couldn’t do it again, “I… apologize for… leading you on… honestly… I was enjoying your company so much… I just love being around you… and if-”

“Don’t say it” he struggled trying to get off the stupid couch, wishing he could literally disappear right then, “Don’t fucking tell me if he wasn’t in the picture, because I don’t want to hear it.”

“But it’s true, Andrew!” Bianca cried in a whisper, sitting forward as he stood up. She ruined everything.

“That was a shit thing to do. You should know that.”

She’d never seen him upset. Ever. This was new. And it was eating her alive. She scrambled off the couch and after him as he turned to leave. “Wait!” she exclaimed, much louder than she’d intended. A few people turned to look at them, including Alex and Rory who’d come back into the room after all this time. She bowed her head sheepishly in front of their audience.

Andrew turned back to her, lowering his head as he stepped closer, “Bianca. Listen…” he waited for her to look up into his eyes and it felt like a thousand knives stabbing him in the gut. Rusty mangled knives, “We’ve gotta stop doing this to each other, yeah?”

A tear slipped down her cheek as she stared into those beautiful eyes of his, his soft, fluffy hair falling across his forehead in waves, “Last year you were seeing someone. And it killed me. What you’re feeling right now is exactly how I felt.”

“So you did it on purpose? Led me on so you could… just, em, embarrass me like that? So I would hurt as much as you did? Like payback?” He scoffed in disbelief.

“No! Never! I never meant to…” she sighed, “Andrew. Listen to me. I have liked you since the moment I met you. I’ve thought about you every single year since… and I thought… well… I can’t sit around and wait forever, so… I did something about it.”

Andrew sighed, “It’s just… never been the right time, has it?”

“No. It hasn’t” she told him softly, exhaling heavily.

“I don’t have anything else to say right now… em, so if you’ll excuse me… I’m gonna go.”

She grabbed his large hand, stopping him, “Wait…” he looked back at her, and she stood on her tiptoes, cupping his face with her other hand before placing a gentle kiss on his cheek.

He looked down at her with so much sadness in his eyes, her soft lips tearing his heart right out, “I hope you have a good holiday, Bianca. I’ll see you around” he squeezed her hand once before pulling away.

Her hand dropped to her side when he let go, and she watched him sulk away, her legs like jelly. It was over. She’d literally ruined everything. Again. She should’ve just let it happen. What harm would a kiss have done?

Well, it ruined your last relationship, so…

“What just happened? Where’s Andy going? Why does your face look like you’ve seen a ghost? Too much to drink?” Alex’s slightly drunk questions were relentless.

“He hates me.”

Alex laughed, “Why’s that? You broke his heart or something?”

“As a matter of fact, yeah. I did. I told him I have a boyfriend.”

His face fell, “Oh” he watched Andrew escape through the front door, “That’s unfortunate… He erm… just broke up with his girl not too long ago, so… he’s feeling… sorta down right now. You know like, a gaping wound where his heart were before?”

Bianca closed her eyes. Maybe one year she wouldn’t fuck up royally, “Perfect. Well… I tried to apologize, but” she sighed, giving up, “He forgot his coat, Alex.”

“I’ll get it. Don’t worry” he patted her back, “It’s gonna be fine. He’ll be fine.”

She nodded as he too left her. And once again; she was alone.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, breaking her out of her trance. Some small part of her hoped it was Andrew… but then she realized, they’d never bothered to exchange any information.

I miss you. I hope you’re having fun. x

She sighed deeply at her boyfriend’s text, sending off a quick response, unsure even of what she said. The only thought on her mind now was Andrew, and the face he made just before he left.

“Merry fucking Christmas, Bianca.”

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lesbian-peanut-writer · 5 years ago

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Meal at Work

So... here’s a little piece that I never actually got around to posting on my old blog. Nothing wrong with a little bit of Stingue, it’s amazing how much my writing had changed from when I first wrote this to now. Had to rewrite some bits because they were just horrible but hopefully, you all enjoy this. Also, pretty sure this was spurred on by @cheeky-kitsune when I first wrote it.

~Lesbian Peanut

It was a day just like any other, everything was as it should have been within the confines of the great Sabertooth Guild’s walls and honestly, that’s how most people liked it to be first thing in the morning. The sound of casual laughter could be heard out of the main hall, the result of various mages telling tales of their grandeur and the things they had encountered on their adventures. Tired smiles could be found all around the expanse of the hall on the faces of Mages not long returned from their jobs, while others left the Guild with a spring in their step and enthusiasm in their hearts. It was unusual for people not to have a spring in their step when it came to the Sabertooth Guild, unfortunately for two souls this morning this just wasn’t to be the case…

Tucked away in the cramped darkness of his own office, Sting Eucliffe the designated Master of the Sabertooth Guild was extremely busy. He had been taking every measure possible to avoid contacting his office for quite some time now and because of it, the paperwork had begrudgingly piled up on his desk to the point of overflowing. There was nothing more on this great earth that the Dragon Slayer despised more than the endless flow of paperwork that hit his desk every day. There was a mixture of mission requests, damage repairs and legal documents from the Magic Council in the piles, as well as various other forms the man had to put his signature to in order to keep the guild functioning properly. To Sting, it felt as though his life revolved around signing documents at his desk all day long and nothing else, he missed being able to take missions as he pleased.

A grunt of protest let Sting’s lips as he was smacked on the top of his head harshly, his mind had wandered away from him halfway through signing one of the many important documents before him. He looked up at his silent partner as he stood next to his desk, a thick stack of papers held tight in his head as he looked down at Sting with a look that bordered on infuriated and boredom. Though Sting loved to have the man’s company while he was trapped in his office doing his work, his partner made things a little stressful when he was constantly shoving papers in his face. Sure, he was aware how tiring this whole ordeal was for the man but it wasn’t like he asked for him to stay by his side while he worked on the paperwork.

To say that Rogue Cheney was not in the mood to be standing at the edge of his partner’s desk was an understatement, but doing this was the only way to ensure that the blonde man kept on top of the work he was supposed to do. Rogue narrowed his eyes in annoyance as he realised that Sting was watching him, the pair of azure blue eyes filled with boredom and the was something that Rogue could fully understand. He knew that there wasn’t a single bone in his partner’s body that wanted to be here doing paperwork, being restricted to his desk wasn’t something he enjoyed but it had to be done! He sighed in resignation as he shook his head, handing another piece of paper over to Sting as he continued to spur the blonde on.

“You know, it’s not like you have to be cooped up in here with me Rogue, go out there and get one of the many job requests that’s on the board.” Sting said as he took the singular piece of paper from his partner, laying it down on the desk in front of him before running his eyes over it thoroughly.

Rogue could help but to scoff as he looked down at Sting, his face twisting into a look of disbelief as his eye twitched and he restrained himself from hitting the blonde man for his idiotic comment. “Do you happen to remember what happened the last time I left to go on a job and you said you’d do the ‘paperwork’? I do, I came back to find that you were tucked up under your desk fast asleep, while the paperwork looming over your head had managed to triple in the time I was gone. The Lady almost killed us both for that incident alone.” Rogue muttered, an involuntary shudder passing through his body and stealing what little breath he had as he recalled the incident. “Besides, we are the Twin Dragons for a damn reason, remember?” He added as a smirked pulled at the edges of his lips and he watched Sting for his reaction.

Sting couldn’t help but to grimace as the reminder of the near-death experience had glimpses of it flashing through his mind. It had been one hell of a day, well more accurately a week after Minerva had managed to chase them both all over the Guild before subduing them and forcing them into getting the paperwork done. It had been a hellish week for them and it was something that Sting had no sudden desire to ever relive anytime soon or in the future! He frowned as he placed his pen down on the paper, signing along he designated line at the bottom as he tried to focus on the task ahead of him. Sting’s stomach churned as he ground his teeth together, a silent demand from his body to be fed.

Rogue turned his back to Sting, knowing full well that the looming threat of Lady Minerva was more than enough to settle him back into his task at hand and get the damn paperwork done. He moved about the room, picking up the next stack of papers and carried them over to the desk and placing them down where he could find the space. He sifted through the papers diligently, making sure to bring the more urgent papers to the top of the pile and get Sting signing them first. Some of the papers within the pile had already managed to obtain the signature of the blonde man, so the Shadow Dragon Slayer was simply setting those aside in their own pile to be sent off later. Rogue smiled as he handed over the first important document he came across to Sting, only to have it ripped out of his hand. He did a double take as Sting held his hand out for the next document to be handed down to him, causing Rogue to eagerly thrust the next one into his outstretched hand.

There was dead silence in the room as the same thing happened to this piece of paper and the manner others that followed it, each one being torn out of Rogue’s hand before he could even process it. Rogue stepped up his pace of handling the documents to Sting as he demanded them, their pace quickening at times and then slowing right back down to a crawl as the blonde subsided in his speed or a lengthy document appeared before him. Rogue wouldn’t lie, he was rather impressed with the speed at which his partner was managing to get the work done, probably meant that the man wanted to get out of his office or he feared facing Minerva’s wrath; Rogue was leaning towards the latter. The procedure continued for well over two hours, neither man speaking a word to one another and thus ensuring that the work was being done quickly. That is until Rogue picked up the final pile of papers and plonked them down on the edge of the desk, handing the top onto to the outstretched hand that was awaiting it.

“Wow, I’m seriously impressed by you St…” Rogue’s praise for the blonde was choked in his throat as he turned to face his partner, his crimson eyes glistening dangerously as he watched the scene unfolding before him.

Rogue’s crimson eyes zeroed in on the small corner of white material that was sticking out of the side of Sting’s mouth as he sat in his chair, nonchalantly chewing on the substance that filled his mouth. He was no stupid man; he knew precisely what that small piece of white sticking out of his partner’s mouth was and it made him angry to have fallen for the smoothness of the work flow. The silence that fell between the two Dragon Slayers in the room only lasted for a split second before being overcome by a suffocating tension. Rogue was pissed, he wanted in that moment to reach his hand out and strangle the life out of the blonde but he knew it would be pointless. Come time for Lady Minerva to come check on the work load, they would both be dying at her hands and that was something that only served to stoke the flames of anger within Rogue.

“R-Rogue…?” Sting’s voice wavered in fear as he mumbled around the paper that he had stuffed into his mouth, his eyes trained on his partner’s trembling form. He understood Rogue wasn’t trembling out of fear, this was something he knew well and this trembling meant that Rogue was seething in silence, just waiting to burst!

There was a sense of death that washed over Sting, the dense feeling radiating off the Shadow Dragon Slayer standing next to his desk and if looks could kill then Sting was certain he would already be dead. His face drained of all colour as he instantly sucked the last bit of paper into his mouth and chewed on it cautiously before gulping it down. Sting bolted up out of his seat, moving his body just in time to avoid being hit by the shadowy mass that his partner’s fist had become. It wasn’t often that Rogue struck out towards Sting, especially not while using his Dragon Slayer magic; it was something he thought irrational.

“STING! TELL ME YOU DIDN’T JUST EAT ALL OF THE PAPERWORK WE WERE DOING!” Rogue oared in anger as he turned his head to glare over at the blonde, his pupils thinned into slits as he ground his teeth together.

Anger flared in Rogue’s eyes as Sting’s lips twitched before his stupid and aloof grin spread across his face, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he grinned back at him. He knew for a fact that the paper Sting had just been chewing on and quickly swallowed was the very same one he had handed him just moments beforehand. He couldn’t believe that this moron in front of him had thought it perfectly fine to eat the important paperwork he had been doing, making it impossible for them to send it where it needed to go. A dreaded feeling washed over Rogue as he spun around, taking a thorough look around the room in order to assess the damage inflicted by his partner. Almost all the paperwork in the room was gone, Rogue was willing to bet that it had all been inhaled by the blonde and was now residing in the stomach of the White Dragon Slayer of whom his growing fury was directed at.

“Aw come on partner, you know what I get like. When I’m hungry and my body starts complaining, I just have to eat!” Sting whispered as he stepped towards Rogue tentatively, cautious of how the man in front of him would react to his comment. “There’s just one thing that I can’t figure out though…” Sting continued as he frowned and scratched at his cheek in a manner of showing that he was thinking to his partner.

“Would it have anything to do with how you are going to come up with a way to replace all the documents that you just shamelessly guzzled down? Did you seriously not think about the consequences this was going to have on the both of us before you opened that cyclone inducing mouth of yours? You, idiot of a blonde bombshell!” Rogue growled in frustration as he stood to his full height and looked over at his partner, his eye twitching from the built-up anger.

Sting’s eyes widened as he looked back to Rogue, chuckling as he shook his head and his grin spread further over his face. “No way, who cares about any of that anyway… No, I was really just trying to figure out why in hell it has taken me so long to realise that all the paperwork I’ve been avoiding all this time was actually edible!” Sting concluded cheerfully as he clicked his fingers as if he’d just discovered the best thing ever and pointed towards Rogue in his excitement.

Rogue’s face dropped as he stared at the man in front of him, his anger simmering as he tried to find a way to make the man see just how stupid his actions really were. As much as he loved the imbecile that stood in front of him, there were times much like this one where all he wanted to do was reach out and do nothing more than choke the life out of him! Of all the things his moronic partner was worried about, he chose to worry over the length of time it had taken him to realise his work was edible. Rogue was beside himself; he knew that Sting could be dense but he had never thought he could be this dense when it came to his life being on the line.

Rogue growled as his anger reached its boiling point, launching himself at Sting and tackling him over the desk. “YOU MORON! Of all the irresponsible things… you, out of all this, you’re only concerned about the fact that it took you this long to find out that paper was food? Sting, you have eaten all the documents that were from the Magic Council and therefor had to go back to them!” Rogue stressed as he pinned the blonde down beneath him, glaring down into his eyes as he ground his teeth.

Sting smirked a she looked up into Rogue’s crimson eyes, a sudden and undeniable desire washed over him as he gazed into the fiery orbs above. “Who cares?! It was the best friggen meal that I have had in a long time!” He chuckled mischievously before leaning up, kissing Rogue firmly on his lips and smirking as he pulled his head back only for Rogue to chase after his lips momentarily.

Rogue’s eyes narrowed dangerously, aware of the fact he had just chased after Sting’s lips subconsciously. He growled as he lowered his head down towards the blonde, his eyes locked with his as his hands tightened around his wrists securely. “I guess I’ll just have to punish you then for having down the stupidest thing in this world!” He teased as he moved his leg between Sting’s pressing his knee up against him as he bared his fangs at the moron.

“Rogue, baby… you know it’s not punishment if I end up enjoying whatever it is that you end up doing to me.” Sting said triumphantly before moving his body, reversing their positions as he rolled with sting, pinning him on his back securely. He smirked in triumph as he pressed their hips together, rolling his lazily against his partner’s and creating friction between their dicks.

Rogue blinked in surprise as his body stiffened beneath his partner’s, a low groan rumbling in his throat as his hips involuntarily rolled up to meet his. His eyes locked with the azure ones above him and a shudder travelling down his spine as his dick stirred to life. His breath hitched as the insides of his Kimono were breached by Sting’s wondering hands, travelling down over his chest and finding their way to his stomach. Rogue let out a low moan as Sting laced his fingers into his happy trail and pulled on the delicate hairs partly, lowering his head down to nip at his sensitive ears.

“S-Sting… I said I w-would be the one to punish you.” Rogue stammered as he moved his hands up into the blonde’s hair, cording his hands through the messy blonde locks. He bit his lip as he tangled his fingers deep into Sting’s hair and pulled on it roughly, his Kimono being pulled down off his shoulder and exposing much of his chest. The cool in the office quickly becoming an annoyance for Rogue as it contacted his much warmer skin, sending violent shivers through his body as it tried to maintain its temperature. He moaned low as Sting bit down along his neck, pulling his Kimono further down his body and almost revealing his hips as Sting uncovered his happy trail.

Sting smirked as he felt the shivers run through Rogue’s trembling body, finding satisfaction in knowing that he was anticipating what he knew was inevitably coming his way. He moved his head down further, biting along his neck and leaving marks as he made his way down to Rogue’s chest. Sting took pleasure in leaving behind marks on his partner, making sure to cover as much skin as he possibly could in his teeth marks and let the world know that Rogue was taken! He ghosted his lips over the expanse of Rogue’s abdominal muscles, biting into the flesh a couple of times before moving his attention to the man’s nipples. Rogue’s chest hitched under Sting’s lips as he sucked in a quick breath, his eyes widening as one of his nipples was sucked into the warmth of the blonde’s mouth. Rogue moaning low beneath the blonde as he sealed his lips around the delicate bud and rolled it between his teeth, rubbing his tongue against it roughly as he smirked in satisfaction.

Rogue whined softly as he arched his back off the ground, an involuntary moan slipping past his lips and encouraging the blonde to keep at his act of violating his sensitive nipple. Rouge bit down on his bottom lip as his eyes slid shut, trying to focus on keeping himself from making any more noises that may entice the man to go further than what he had already dared. Rogue gasped, his eyes flying open as Sting rocked his hips down, one of his hands slipping down between their bodies and palming his dick firmly, causing Rogue to buck his hips up into his hand. He moved his legs on instinct, wrapping them around the slim yet well-defined hips of the man looming over him and secured them there by locking his ankles together.

“STING…” Both men froze in their places as the door to the office was thrown open and an all too familiar figured loomed in the door way. The tone threatening as it reached their ears and the glare that accompanied it was nothing short of a personification of death!

Sting lifted his head from Rogue’s nipple, releasing the tender bud with a loud pop and meeting the narrowed eyes of Minerva as she stood glaring in at the blonde man. He smiled tentatively as Rogue moved about uncomfortably beneath him and removed his legs from where he had just wrapped them securely around his waist. He flicked his eyes down to peek at Rogue, smirking as he saw that his cheeks were ablaze and that he had became extremely frazzled. Sting was aware that Rogue was a very private person and didn’t like making public displays of affection, no matter who they were around.

“My Lady… what a surprise…” Sting whispered as he shifted his eyes back to Minerva and smiled over at her tentatively, his voice cheery as he tried to make light of the current situation.

“The hell Sting?” Minerva growled as she stomped into the room, promptly making her way over to the two men and grabbing a hold of Sting’s ear roughly. “Where the hell is all the paperwork that was in here this morning? There is no way in hell that you could have already finished all of it, much less sent it off already. And more importantly, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING TO ROGUE?!” She screamed as she looked down at the bewildered man beneath the blonde, pulling on Sting’s ear harder as she tried to get him to his feet.

Rogue took his chance as Minerva pulled Sting to his feet, slipping out from under the man and moving away from the two that could explode at any moment. His cheeks felt as though they were on fire as he pulled one side of his Kimono back onto his body properly, covering up his happy trail and attempting to gain himself some semblance of decency. Rogue turned his attention over to the pair that had locked eyes in the middle of the room, knowing full well that they could break into a fight at any given time. He took a steady breath as he pulled the other side of his Kimono back on his body and fixed his gaze on Sting, narrowing his eyes at the moronic blonde.

“He ate the paperwork that you wanted us to do, all of it within the last 2 hours…” Rogue grumbled, disgruntled by the fact that Sting had done such a stupid thing and that they had just been busted by Minerva.

The silence that was in the room could have suffocated the average person, the stillness of the air was uncomfortable and it was making Rogue regret saying anything. The silence was shattered as a loud crash resounded around the room and the once beautiful desk was shattered into pieces, Sting’s body slamming into the wooden fixture. Minerva seethed with anger, heaving as she lifted her head to glare over at Sting, her rage radiating off her like heat.

“YOU…You ATE the paperwork! ALL OF IT!” She screamed as she moved after their supposed Guild Master.

Rogue stood back as he watched the two of them exchange heated words with one another before Sting took it upon himself to flee from the office. He stood there alone in the office for a moment, his hand hovering over his chest as his heart raced and felt as though it would shatter through his rib cage at any moment. Rogue gathered himself together slowly and moved to walk out of the office in time to smack straight into Sting’s body. He blinked as he lifted his head to look into the other man’s eyes, instantly regretting his decision as the blonde’s lips crashed against his own.

Sting smirked as he pulled his head back and looked into the crimson eyes before him. “Just in case… you never know what she’s going to do to me, but just in case I don’t survive; know I love you baby!” Sting said calmly before taking off again, running away just as Minerva made her way towards them.

Rogue stood there stunned as he stared off at nothing, he could hardly believe what Sting had just done to him. He hated displays of public affection and he knew his boyfriend was aware of that, yet he had just kissed him in front of the whole guild. Rogue’s face was flushed crimson as he stood there frozen, his mind racing amidst the thunderous cheers of his Guild-mates. The crowd fell silent as the sound of a petrified and shrill scream reached their ears from in the direction of the front of the Guild, indicating that Minerva had won her fight. Good, Rogue wanted to have words with his supposed Master and those words might include him pounding some sense into the incredibly thick blonde!

#sting eucliffe #eucliffe sting #rogue cheney #cheney rogue #sting x rogue #eucliffe x cheney #rogue x sting #cheney x eucliffe #stingue #scenario #fairy tail #ft #ft imagines #fairy tail imagines #lime #death by minerva #dom!sting #lesbian peanut writer

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lokiarsene · 6 years ago

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like yesterday, here's a bullet list of my thoughts for episodes 18~21

thoughts on episode 18:

oh no, it's the beach episode.

-- i really like how they show the way the PT take care of futaba. ren patiently cleaning up her room in between hours at the florist, them playing vidya with her, or just having lunch together in montage moments is very sweet. it makes me wish the anime had much slower pacing, more slice of life-y kind of drama.

-- watching yusuke, ryuji, and futaba lose their freakin minds over good curry is VERY relatable.

-- i still don't understand why ann and makoto thought that a two piece frilly bathing suit was the way to go with futaba. a one piece that she could wear under a long wrap or a hoodie would've made so much more sense... but >male gaze

-- have i told y'all how fucking tired i am of the sexualization of the teenage girls in p5 yet, and how it is one of the several things that fuckin ruined this game for me

have i?

well here it is again

none of the previous games were as bad as this b t w and p4 had one of the dungeons be a STRIP CLUB.

-- yusuke and his lobsters are wonderful.

-- oh god i forgot COMPLETELY about the whole 'mental shutdowns' thing in this game's plot. i think because it's all so pointlessly convoluted. p3 had something similar but even there it was just people turned catatonic for weeks on end when the monthly boss-shadows drew near.

i think the reason i find this so hard to understand is because from p3 to p4 the rules of shadows didn't really change so much. p3 had the persona users go up against shadow bosses; p4 had people confront the shadows within themselves, either accepting them completely (which then turned into persona), or the shadow 'absorbed' the person and ran rampant as a monster. neither of those rules really contradict each other, but in p5 personal shadows for persona users are gone completely, and how you deal with other people's personal shadows doesn't even involve them being present to complete the merge.

mona says that persona users can't have palaces, but persona users in 4 could and DID have 'dungeons' within the shadows' worlds. these dungeons dealt specifically with what was at the core of the shadows' emergence--a deep secret and a hidden truth that caused the shadow to grow, a place that was a replica and a distortion of reality based upon that suppressed truth. so that sure sounds like a fucking palace to me.

so....................... unless there's like, multiple realities folded into our own, and persona users can only access certain ones.................. i'm just super confused.

like, i know it's because the rules change game to game, but p3 to p4 didn't have any contradictions, and p2 didn't contradict anything in p3, either. it just went from a full party of wild card users to a singular one.

-- i'm glad ann's getting a little screentime here. i was just thinking about how other characters' development was lacking after makoto and futaba got so much focus.

-- mona's so sweet to ann ;-; now that he has a human form in p5r, i hope they become really good friends. she needs a kind guy friend that'll be reliable~ plus he makes her laugh.

-- sojiro talking about the anniversary of wakaba's death is......... really interesting........ considering that screenshot of futaba sitting next to a woman with the exact same haircut as her "deceased" mother.

-- ren reassuring mona that he absolutely has to be human, that he will return to who he used to be once they figure out what's happening in the metaverse is jsut jdfklasd

AND HIS LIL ROUND OF APPLAUSE WHEN MONA TALKS ABOUT ALL THE THINGS HE'S GOING TO DO TO KEEP THE WORLD SAFE ;-;

AND THAT SHOT OF HIM SLEEPING CURLED UP ON REN'S STOMACH

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

-- listen i know mona isn't rly a cat but he's the BEST cat

thoughts on episode 19:

oh it's the hawaii episode.

-- man what the hell kinda budget do these school's got that they can just go overseas with dozens of students on a yearly basis? that's impressive.

-- ryuji: "whoa, awesome! ..... i don't really get it, but awesome!" fjdsafds okay that got a laugh outta me. good one, ryuji.

-- ren: "i'm excited, too." (said in a monotone) fjklsadsl BLESS THIS BOY

-- ren's FACE when he learns that futaba installed a spying app on his phone and can hear him/see pictures he takes is...... kind of hilarious. especially if you have the headcanon that he and akechi send dumbass snapchats to each other a lot--which i do. and which you do now, too.

-- mona's depression is ten times more sad because he's a cat okay :c why they gotta make the cat so cute

-- ren, ryuji, and ann's lil sleepover is adorable. especially since ann chastises ryuji for not knowing one of the basic rules of a sleepover: if you start talkin' about your crushes, you gotta start with your own~ thems the rules lads

-- rip principal bloatneck.

-- honestly that truck shoulda at least TRIED to stop.

-- "A LO HA." goddammit that's adorable

AND HE GIVES THE LEI NECKLACE TO MONA FJDSKFJDSKL ren you're so SWEET.

-- I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT MONA CALLS SAE "ONEE-NO-NIIJIMA" FJADSKLFJDSKL ahhhh it's so cute.

-- the PT targeting okumura, who is essentially the dave thomas with political ambitions of the persona 5 world, is far funnier now that i phrase it like that.

-- ANN, OF ALL FUCKING PEOPLE, SAYING THAT THEY PROBABLY BROUGHT THIS RECENT TROUBLE ON THEMSELVES, IS A FUCKING STUPID WRITING DECISION. I CAN'T BELIEVE SOMEONE DIDN'T LOOK AT THAT AND GO, "ANN WOULDN'T SAY THIS. ANN HAS NO REASON TO SAY IT." god. lmao PLEASe let p5r be a goddamn second draft.

-- mona's totally right that ryuji's just concerned with getting popular and his dick wet. like,,, that's why this argument only made me hate ryuji more than i already did. he gets pissy when mona points out the truth.

god he sucks lmao

I'M SORRY I'M SO SALTY YOU GUYS

LOOK I'LL SAY SOMETHING NICE: SAE AND AKECHI ARE COOL

-- i really like how guarded akechi's face looks in his conversation with sae, and how off his guard he looks when she tells him that she's not going to hold back, especially since the culprit is doing such dire, awful things. he's not exactly surprised, but he's definitely uneasy and shaken by what he hears. which makes me wonder who he’s really concerned for--himself, or for ren (and the PT by extension, but akechi only really seems to care about ren, so).

the reason i like that is because the okumura arc in p5 is really where akechi's mind starts its downward spiral. principal kobayakawa's death obviously rattled him, especially since the only reason the principal died was because shido saw him as useless and disposable, something akechi is desperate NEVER TO BE. and it's that + what happens with okumura that really kicks him over the edge.

i hope p5r will give us the chance to pull him back from it. he deserves a better chance than the game's subpar writing gave to him.

thoughts on episode 20:

-- ren wakes up in a panic because he thinks he sees mona on his bed ;___________;

-- goro snoopin' on the PT's LOUD, TOTALLY CONSPICUOUS conversation in front of okumura foods' HQ is kind of adorable if you remember he clearly loves star wars (HE HAS A LIGHT SABER), and the camera cuts to his face right as they're talking about big bang and outer space lingo.

-- oh, haru. i really wish you were the black mask. that would've been so much cooler--and an actual twist. her total hopeless panic about being a beauty thief could still be a thing (because it is actually endearing), it'd just be an act. but that's me talkin' fix-its again.

-- i really like the scene of haru defending mona to the PT on the rooftop, then cutting to show just how strained her relationship is with her father. she exists to be useful to her father's ambitions and nothing else, and that scene really drove home just how painful that is for her.

-- REN TWIRLS HIS HAIR BETWEEN TWO FINGERS WHEN HE'S DEEP IN THOUGHT. AHHHHHHH I FORGOT HE DID THAT

-- oh hey remember how the game went through the trouble of showing how haru's fiance is a sexist, violent, animal-hurting piece of shit and then promptly failed to actually separate her from him in game (i think you only can do that in her s-link?? the s-link you can barely finish in your first run of the game??), and in t hEN SHOWED HER IN THE CAR WITH HIM LATER, LOOKING HORRIBLY UNCOMFORTABLE?

god this story makes me so fucking mad lmfao STOP PUTTING GIRLS IN PHYSICALLY OR SEXUALLY VIOLENT PERIL AND NEVER ACTUALLY ENSURING THAT THEY'RE SAFE, YOU DAVID CAGE LEVEL OF HACK BULLSHIT WRITERS.

-- ryuji running into the attic, all worried about mona, with a first aid kit, is..... very good. very good and endearing. good on you, ryuji.

-- haru gently encouraging mona to tell the truth is also really good. idk if i just missed it in the game or what, but i really like how she's presented in the anime. she's like a counterpart to ren--soft, sincere, observant, patient, yet she's made of pure steel beneath all that.

thoughts on episode 21:

-- WHY WAS HARU'S GRANDFATHER GIVING COFFEE TO A FIVE YEAR OLD

-- haru, the reason your father's heart grew twisted is thanks to capitalism. you gotta change the heart of capitalism.

-- not to be all poochie here but whenever akechi isn't on screen, all i can ask myself is whERE'S AKECHI?

-- HOW CAN I TAKE THE EVIL DAVE THOMAS SERIOUSLY WHEN HE'S DRESSED LIKE FUCKIN MEGAMIND?

-- okay see this is where i'm thrown completely out of the story or even really liking haru. haru just listened to her dad's shadow saying he would PIMP HER OUT TO HER FIANCE WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT. and she still is just like ~no i want him to go back to being kind~

bitch are you nuts

are you NUTS

youR DAd SHOULD DIE AND YOU'D BE BETTER OFF

CONSIDERING HOW THE GAME GOES, YOU ARe BETTER OFF

god. i'm getting so mad again lmao

-- ren approaching haru to point out that if the truth of her father's crimes comes to light, she'll forever be associated with him (and with all the harm and ruined reputation that brings) is, once again, further reminder of just how... damn good ren is. he doesn't hesitate to speak from the heart nor does he ever fail to listen to someone else speak from theirs.

-- also not for nothing but uh

how did the cops not like

figure out how the PT phan-site was set up within the first few months and track it down to mishima? was that ever addressed at all?

-- honestly another reason why i get so fucking mad about this okumura stuff is the game goes SO FAR OUT OF ITS WAY to make you feel BAD that he died, when he was by all rights a fucking shitheel monster, yet when akechi dies it's like 'oh well. that sucked.' fuck off, atlus. the death of a greedy, heartless CEO isn't more sad just because his gaslit daughter is conditioned to be sad about it.

i understand that a large part of the shock after okumura's death is because the PT don't know if they did anything wrong. but okumura was in no way a good person. he was in no way a person whose redemption overruled all the hurt and harm he did. that has been the case for EVERY PT target before this, so why the fuck is okumura suddenly so different? why SHOULD he be?

the difference between him and, say, akechi is that okumura et. al. all made those choices on their own to do terrible things. they delighted in it, they enjoyed it. but akechi, much like futaba, was forced into a cycle of self-destruction--it’s just that in futaba’s case, her self-destruction targeted herself, and akechi’s was quite literally weaponized and used against others. he approached shido as a young teenager and was then used by him for years.

a teenage boy being used as a magical hitman by his shitlord father is far more deserving of sympathy and redemption than grown adults who willingly make the decision to harm, abuse, and prey on others. but no, the game didn’t want to do that.

this is another big problem i have with p5's second and third acts: it's so tonally dissonant and sloppy. it's like they didn't try to actually be as rebellious and hellraiser-y as the first act WANTED to be, and it all ends up being such a limp-dick shriveled mess of "let's fight against this rotten society!! ......... as long as it in no way actually upsets anyone or does any REAL change." fuck off lmao

that's not me even commenting on the "twist" and how it needed to be explained MULTIPLE TIMES to the player for it to make any sense.

and it still doesn't make sense to me btw.

so that's another thing i hope p5r fixes.

-- rip evil dave thomas megamind.

-- akechi floating the idea to sae that the phantom thieves had nothing to do with okmura’s death is............................ interesting.

#this is the ask tag #p5 anime #some slight salt in this post y'all

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peachyteabuck · 7 years ago

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loving him was red

summary: you’ve never had sex on your period, but when you find yourself heated during aunt flow’s visit while at an event with steve, the perfect opportunity arises for you to try it out.

pairing: steve rogers x reader

words: 2381

trigger warnings: menstruation mention, some graphic descriptions of blood, smut (oral, fingering, vaginal sex), lots of swearing, the lords name in vain a few times

notes/other: HI PLS READ THIS ESP IF YOU NORMALLY DO NOT i based this p heavily on my own experiences with menstruation + other accounts i’ve heard. it is very important to remember that there is never one singular way to experience a period NOR is there a WRONG way!! all ppl who have periods are individuals with intersecting health/economic/work statuses. this has been ur daily menstrual health psa from lukis peachyteabuck.tumblr.com

ask box / masterlist / faq / ko-fi

Pro: you currently look fine as fuck, and are on a date to some Very Important Thing with Captain freaking America.

Con: He’s horny (because you look so hot) and won’t leave you alone about it.

Pro: He’s horny (because you look so hot), and you’re horny (because he looks so hot).

Con: You’re currently on your period. Not only that, but the heaviest day of it is today, meaning your current tampon is acting as a floodgate to the Red Sea. Aunt Flow. Blood Moon. Red Scare. Hellstorm. Bitch in Red. Crimson Tide. Shark Week.

You get the picture.

When he thinks no one’s looking, Steve slides his hands down to your ass. You tense and squeeze your eyes shut.

“Babe, stop,” you hiss through your teeth, but you don’t sound very convincing. A waiter comes by with glasses of champagne and you grab two. You’re gonna need them to get through the next few hours, both because the...whatever you’re at is boring as hell and because all you want to do is jump your boyfriend’s bones.

“Why?” Steve says lowly into your ear. You take another sip of champagne, trying to quell the desire in your stomach. “You look so hot, your tits and ass look so good. Can’t wait to get home and give you all the bruises you want. Can’t wait to make you cum under me. Just wanna fuck you until you can’t remember you own name, until you’re begging me to stop.”

You grab the table in front of you and moan, other patrons be damned.

“Babe,” you whimper. “Stop, seriously.”

He laughs a little. “What? Can’t take the heat, should’ve expected this. In that dress? You know, I can’t tell what’s hotter, you in or you wi-”

You take a large drink from one of the glasses and turn to face him. You use your babysitting voice, the one you use with Peter when he pulls some dumb shit and no one has the courage to shame him. Damn Tony, doesn’t want to grow a spine and discipline Peter for fear of making him hate the man. “Steven Grant Rogers, I am on my period, and unless you want to beat your meat on the couch tonight, I’d recommend you cut it out.”

He’s stunned, a little. You snapping at him is extremely uncommon, you’re normally a total sweetheart with him (Who wouldn’t be?). Steve’s mouth hangs open a little as you turn back to face the crowd.

You engage with the rest of the Avengers who came - Sam, Tony, Pepper, and a few other people who you’d been wanting to talk to. A designer, some singers, a movie producer. You have lively conversations and Steve’s hand stays safely above your waist the whole time.

This time, it feels awkward. Not...sexual, like usual.

Now it’s just supportive, a way to tell you know he’s there. That’s it.

You feel bad, so bad. He was just telling you how attracted he was to you and you literally snapped at him like he was a petulant child! God, what’s wrong with you? Why were you so angry out of nowhere!

Oh, you’re in your period.

Right.

Once you’re too tired to stand in your heels, Steve moves you into the limo that’ll take you back to Stark tower. He holds your hand the entire way back, even carries your heels for you once you make it through the entrance.

He’s so amazing. And sweet. And kind. You want him to rearrange your guts.

You’ve been together long enough that he knows the minute you get into your shared apartment you want your dress unzipped so you can hunch over a take a deep breath. He guesses (correctly) that you need it undone even more so now that you’re bloated. When comes behind you to grab at it, you sigh.

“I’m so sorry for losing my self control earlier this evening...it’s just…”

You turn around, facing him. He looks so sad and you feel like you’ve kicked a puppy. Or stepped on a flower. Or thrown a fire blanket over the sun. Or slammed a baby’s hand in a car door.

In short, you’re a horrible person and all you want to do right now is cry dramatically surrounded by roses and candles. Or maybe while you stress eat banana bread.

“I’m so fucking horny when I’m on my period, and I’ve always just...I know guys find it so gross and frankly, I guess I unders-”

Steve tilts your chin up with his knuckles. It’s a sweet gesture, grounding. You stop talking, enchanted by his beautiful eyes. “I don’t find it gross at all.”

You gulp, remaining silent as he spoke. What?

“Let me fuck you, please. I find you so beautiful, and a natural and healthy body function isn’t going to change that.” The dress slips down your body and he first kisses down your chest, then your stomach, then lands on his knees right in front of your pussy. The dress, with its deep, wide neckline didn’t allow for a bra, so he skips right down to your panties. Menstruating had made your lips extra sensitive, so you told your stylist specifically to give you a simply black cotton panty.

Steve, someone who has seen you in much fancier, much more expensive, and/or much sexier lingerie, doesn’t seem to mind. He still pulls them down with his teeth, and massages your inner thighs. You want to look away so badly, so worried about what he’ll say when he finds the string of your tampon, or if he sees your more pronounced belly due to bloating.

When the panties hit the floor, you want to scream. Why is he doing this? Why does he find you sexy?

“Okay,” you finally get out. You immediately regret your response. Okay!? What was he asking you, what he was getting for dinner? You could at least say please!

You try to breathe, to calm down. But you can’t. You absolutely cannot calm the fuck down.

“Open your legs a little for me, babe,” he whispers. It’s low, calm. The kind of voice you’d use if you’re trying to pet a stray cat on the street. He’s trying to get your heart to stop racing, for your palms stop sweating.

You follow his orders, opening your knees a little bit, attempting to relax your muscles in the process. He coaxes the tampon string down from where you tucked it in, pulling it out slowly.

When he pulls it away, it’s a deep, ugly brown. Not earthy, or some deep coffee-like brown, or a beautiful oak in a desk at Ikea.

It’s gross. Just plain gross.

You wince a little at the sight, and he tosses it into the trash can under your desk.

“Now that we have that out of the way,” he inches his strong hands back up your legs, digging a little into the sore muscles.

Right before they can ghost your clit, you sigh.

“Wait,” you say. Steve hands stop and you close your eyes.

You can’t look at him, you’re so embarrassed.

But you want to do this, and you want to feel good while it happens. “Lean me against a wall, it feels better on my lower back if I have something to lean against...also I’m really sensitive right now, so going slow would be appreciated.”

Steve nods, standing up and pressing you into the closest wall. “Anything else, darling?”

He’s eye-level with you now, and fuck you love him so much.

You shake your head. “No...just, thank you...for this.”

He descends again and smiles. “Anything for you, my love.”

First he circles a thumb around your clit, inserting some of his middle finger into you. It feels so good, especially since you haven’t gotten off at all this week.

You blame it on being too busy, but you know why.

It’s never something you could understand, why you were always so ashamed of being on your period. Maybe it was societal influence, maybe it was because once a kid pulled a tampon out of your purse in high school and called you a she-demon, maybe it was because once your period started while having sex with your most recent ex-boyfriend and he called you a nasty bitch and then broke up with you...while you were both still naked.

Whatever it was, you knew three things:

One, you have the best boyfriend in the world.

Nope, scratch that, the universe.

Two, your boyfriend cares for you a lot and wants you to be happy.

Three, whatever he’s doing is incredibly erotic and you love it.

It’s absolute ecstasy, the way he pumps his fingers in and out of you in rhythm with circles around your clit. You knead your breasts and moan lewdly, and it only drives Steve to work harder.

When you cum, you cum hard. He fucks you through it with his fingers, smiling at the amount of pleasure coursing through your veins.

“Fuck,” you mumble. “That was so good.”

He chuckles. “Glad I could be of service.”

You laugh a little, running your hands through his hair. It’s thick, golden, warm. He’s like the sun.

You bite your lip, preparing to speak.

But he does so before you can. “Want to go to the bed?”

It’s sounds like such an innocent question, but you know better.

You nod, letting out a deep exhale. “Just be warned, changing my center of gravity is gonna...it’s gonna be weird...”

Steve laughs a little again. “Babe, I know what I’m getting into.”

He then picks you up and carries you to the bed. The second he lays you down, you start to feel that familiar feeling you can only describe as a stomach ache, but if it was also a waterfall.

The second you start to look how you feel, Steve becomes concerned.

“You okay?” he asks, eyeing you up and down to look for injury.

You squeeze your eyes together. “Yeah...just feeling weird.”

Steve laughs a little. His hands were stained with your blood, and since he had picked you up, smudged handprints riddled your body. You thought you might be disgusted, or he might be disgusted.

But it was beautiful, art. A painting made with you, by Steve, on you.

A masterpiece.

Steve seems to have the same thought. “Should draw this and sell it to that damned museum we were just at...hang it up for all the world to see just how beautiful you are…”

You think Steve is about to just fuck you, and you’re totally okay with that.

Not expecting to get fucked and then getting fucked is a wonderful surprise, one you welcome.

But then he kisses down your navel again, and lightly licks and nips at your clit.

The minitrations illicit loud and broken moans out of you. Your fingers fly to the back of his head, pulling him impossibly closer to you. His blood-stained hands hold you hips up, keeping them from bucking. It’s good, it’s so good.

He removes one, and begins to fuck his fingers in and out you. It’s good, your clit in his mouth, his fingers in your cunt.

You cum with a cry. If the first time made you see stars, this time you’re able to identify the Big Dipper. Before the orgasm was surprising, almost juvenile. It reminded you of getting fingered on the bleachers, or in a bathroom.

This one makes you feel like an adult. An actual, real life adult woman with actual, real life adult woman desires.

“Fuck,” is all you can muster.

Steve crawls up to you, resting part of his body on your chest, which is still heaving. He places a hand on your hip, his thumb rubbing supportively.

“Was hoping you’d say that,” he says, smiling. God, you want to hit him.

Not in a sexual way, though. Not right now, at least.

You groan a little at his gloating. He looks like a cheshire cat. “Shut up and fuck me, you insolent bastard.”

“Yes ma’am,” he says before positioning himself at your entrance.

Despite his sarcastic nature, he watches you for any sign of discomfort while he slowly enters you. It’s sweet, and sickeningly slow.

You moan, wrapping your legs around his waist to give him a better angle. This is exactly what you needed to make you feel less shitty, some good ole fuckin’ with your exceptionally attractive boyfriend.

By the end, you two are a moaning mess. You finish again, your hand on your clit and Steve kissing your neck. This time, the crystal clear pleasure is gone, and you feel like a giant fuzzy cloud of “holy fucking Jesus H Christ that was amazing.”

While your pussy pulses around him, Steve cums inside you. When he pulls out and collapses next to you, you’re finally clear-headed enough to take in the scene around you.

It looks like you should section off the bed with caution tape. Steve’s dick, hands, and face are absolutely covered in blood, as is the bed.

That’s when it hits you. White sheets. Deep red and brown clumps of your uterine lining. An absolutely perfect but sometimes forgetful boyfriend.

“Steve, babe?” you question, attempting to pry him away from the edge of sleep.

“Mmmrf,” is all he says, face down, head resting between your breasts.

“Did you forget to pull a towel down before we fucked?”

He lifts his head, smile sated. “Maybe.”

You sigh, and let his head fall back down. Finding a way to non-suspiciously change your blood sheets is a problem for tomorrow-you. Right-now-you just wants to run your fingers through Steve’s hair, his light snores filling your room and giving you something to fall asleep to.

“You know I’m gonna make you do this next time, too, right?” You ask, suddenly just as tired as Steve looks.

He nods a little, then turns his head so you can hear him. He kisses your breast before he speaks. “Of course, baby. Would do anything for you, especially when it comes you makin’ love to ya.”

You smile. “Good. Because after that, there’s no way I’m ever letting you go.”

Steve chuckles. “Ditto, babe.”

#steve rogers x reader #captain america #marvel fanfiction #marvel fanfic #steve rogers fanfic #captain american fanfic #lukis writes stuff #captain america x reader

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motorcyclegirlfriends · 7 years ago

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What is the bechdel test?

Also relevant:

@lena-in-a-red-dress replied to your post “youngbloodbuzz: [me seeing everyone reblogging that post claiming how…”

With the Bechdel test, I couldn’t remember if it was a total conversation test (where any dude talk took the convo out of the running) or a time test (which the scene would tech pass), so I admittedly have research to do. But I do wish men hadn’t been mentioned at all… from a storytelling/performance perspective, they could have easily hit all the same plot-necessary notes elsewhere in the plot-necessary notes without infringing on girl time at all.

(Bare with me, I’ll also be addressing some other recently popular fandom opinions in this break down.)

Application of the Bechdel Test:

The Bechdel-Wallace test is simply, “The movie has to have at least two women in it who talk to each other about something besides a man.”

It was inspired by the writings of Virginia Wolf in which she observed that women were rarely portrayed in ways other than in relation to men, with particular note that this weasels it’s way into fictional female friendship.

I think I’ve seen individual studies expand upon this by specifying that it has to reach some designated length of time (one minute, for example), but I’ve never seen it interpreted so that men being mentioned earlier in the conversation negates the fact that they were afterward talking about something other than a man.

If it were so, it’d seem rather arbitrary a rule. Would the second half of the conversation suddenly pass if they had cut away to something else in the middle, making it a separate conversation? How does that method tell us anything about the quality of the show or the characterization of the women?

Furthermore, the Bechdel test is not meant for singular scenes, it is meant for entire works. In this case—entire episodes.

Sometimes whole conversations between women will, in fact, be about men. And that’s okay, as long as there are also conversations between women about things other than men within the text. In this episode, there certainly were. There will be more episodes in the future with multiple women interacting without mentioning men at all.

Something that people seem to be forgetting is that there’s nothing innately wrong with women talking about men, it’s when it’s made to be the entirety (or majority) of their characters that there’s an issue.

The point of the test is not to stop women from caring about men or having any storylines to do with men, it’s to make sure that there’s more than that. That they aren’t reduced to only that.

So people’s issues with the scene actually have little to do with the Bechdel test, and more to do the fact that these women got together on a girl’s night and, for about half of the portion of it that we saw, they talked about guys.

People are upset about it as a sort of… girl’s night trope in a feminist way, and—more strangely to me—in a queer activism way.

The Queer Activism Way:

Recently (the past few weeks or couple months), I’ve seen an alarming number of posts with regard to Supergirl in which people forget that their experiences are not universal and that their personal discomforts do not necessarily equate injustice.

Perhaps the mere mention of relationships with men makes you uncomfortable because you headcanon the character speaking about it as a lesbian or it reminds you of how alienated you felt growing up and not being attracted to men, but that does not actually make the mention of relationships with men homophobic.

First, the writers are under no obligation to make their characters the specific sexuality that you desire, especially when there is no lack of lesbian representation within the text. Moving forward with the romantic and/or sexual attraction that they have chosen for a character is not a violence against you, and believing that it’s a move designed just to hurt you comes off as rather paranoid and egocentric.

It’s also worth noting that the writers stating that a character is attracted to men in no way prevents fans from shipping the character with a woman. Because, idk if you know this but… bisexuality exists!

Saying “we get it, you’re straight!” every time the character mentions having had a relationship with a guy is reductive and inaccurate.

(And I think it’s also worth noting that you’re probably making your local bisexuals uncomfortable when voicing how horrible it is that your headcanoned wlw is mentioning her relationships with men.

It may be coming from a place of “but we were attached to her being a lesbian! I was attached to her representing me, and having projected myself onto her, I feel uncomfortable when she is attracted to men,” but fans acting as if it is not simply a personal discomfort but an injustice that the character is made to be attracted to men? As a bisexual, it’s not a fun message to receive.)

And with regard to lesbian alienation in the face of discussion of relationships with men, Alex and Maggie were not uncomfortable hearing about their friends’ past significant others.

That is your personal trigger that you are projecting on two characters who are not at all left out in that situation, and who are actually—as the only characters in the room in a relationship—in a more enviable place than those there who are attracted to men.

This was a group of friends talking to each other about their past relationships. Just as it wouldn’t be wrong for your straight friends to talk about their past relationships in front of you, it is not wrong for the writers to have Alex and Maggie talk to their friends about their past relationships.

(Also, It’s likely that if Maggie were not there, they probably would have had Alex talk about her relationship with her.)

The Feminist Way:

It’s a bit of a cliche to have girls get together and talk about guys, but is it really that bad a thing?

“But the scene perpetuates the stereotype that women get together and just talk about men!”

But the presence of stereotypical behavior within characters is alright, as long as there is enough representative content so that viewers do not get the impression that the stereotype is true for most/all people or most/all situations.

To compare, if there is a show filled with primarily bisexual characters and one of them cheats, it’s within the context of a group of bisexuals who have not cheated and thus can’t be mistaken for being representative of all bisexuals.

(This is why token characters can be so harmful.)

So if there is a show in which female characters regularly get together and interact in different ways and with varying topics, one half of a conversation in which they talk about their significant others who happen to be men is not indicative of negative representation of women.

This is why we use the Bechdel test, as low a bar as it is—to judge the discussion of men against the rest of the work. If it were not important to judge it against the whole of the text, the test would simply be “The movie has two have two female characters who never talk to each other about a man.”

Could this all have been avoided?

I really don’t think there is a different, natural way to bring up all of the elements that they wanted to bring up in this scene without mentioning significant others.

These are the topics they likely wanted to touch on:

1. Faith as a theme (“he asked me if I was baptized”)

2. Alex’s want for kids vs. Maggie not wanting them

3. Sam’s struggles with Ruby

4. Kara’s depression

Bonus: The tangible dynamic of Alex and Maggie being fully in the know with Kara, Lena knowing the half truth, and Sam knowing nothing

I’d be interested to see if any of you can actually come up with an alternative script for this scene in a way that isn’t too heavy or addressed later in the episode.

(Using mothers as the link between these topics would work logically, with Kara’s depression being linked to the loss of her mother, but it’s a Heavy topic in a way that can’t be moved passed as easily as Kara’s “break up.” Not to mention Lena’s issues with her mom… It’d screw up the tone of the scene, and would be just a bit too on-the-nose with Alex’s current predicament.

It’d also effectively skip through Sam’s storyline this episode right to the climax, because Lena would logically have given her the “my mom sucked, you’re doing pretty well” speech right there. (And again, that was a heavy scene that has no place at girl’s night.)

I also don’t quite know how you’d introduce faith as a theme or have Lena tell a funny story that doesn’t make everyone mildly uncomfortable if the topic is mothers.)

Perhaps you can figure out a way to have them avoid mentioning men at all, but you’re also more focused on that than the development of a natural and effective character interaction.

I think there’s a certain point where this becomes less about feminism and more about an intolerance to hearing about men.

And it’s understandable that this tolerance has suffered after last season’s focus on Mon-El to the detriment of Kara’s characterization and the Danvers Sisters interaction, but if you’re expecting them to actively avoid mentioning him or other men, you’re simply expecting too much.

#supergirl #kara danvers #lena luthor #alex danvers #supercorp #sanvers #long post #Anonymous #analysis: you're gonna suffer but you're gonna be happy about it

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willtasker · 5 years ago

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November 7, 2009 - All Things Are Worse In The Dark

It had been a lifetime since I last heard from her. I'm not sure why we stopped talking in the first place - no, I take that back. We stopped talking because I was thick-skulled; thats specific enough while still being mere insinuation. But it had been a long time coming, and the cold, lingering fear that I would go on with my life without her would send me into panic attacks. They were so bad that I would sometimes shake uncontrollably, as if being flash frozen.

Rewind to this past spring: I had a meltdown. It was unlike anything I'd ever felt in my life, an absolute overwhelming constant of emotion. It was like someone reached into my gut and turned a dial so high on the emotional register than the knob snapped off. I felt everything at once, things bottled up emotionally and mentally for over ten years came roaring out uninvited in the matter of minutes. It was every sad, horrible, wonderful, happy, painful, ugly moment in my life revisited at once. I'm still processing it, especially considering what triggered it which was so embarrassing I can't even write about it here.

I wrote to her, desperate for something in return. A response, a kind word, a phone call. The living fear within consumed me for weeks and I was left wringing my cold hands as I waited with growing unease. The reply came much later - so much later I was wondering if she even read it to begin with - and the reply filled me with such grief that no one had ever felt before. One friend in South Africa stayed up with me the whole night via AIM; I had to be held by a close friend for hours the next day. In the days following, I didn't eat and sleeping was sporadic at best; I only spoke when asked something. I continued to exist in that dumb, grey shock and still do - but came to realize that through the whole cancer scare, I wasn't afraid of death so much as dying and her finding out too late.

The mind wanders in such a state and all the things it finds are torturous. The first time you saw her, the first time you talked, her hair against the autumn wind, the first time you had the best sex of your life with the woman you felt beyond-the-instinctive should have your children. And then the imagination takes all those memories and plays with them - leaving her in the picture, but replacing you with someone else. It made me sick beyond anything anyone has ever felt, as all grief of this type is singular to each person and thus is the worst single thing any one human has ever experienced. It transcends all. But the worst was yet to be discovered.

And here it is: It is the very basic element that all this abject horror and animalistic shame I carry within me is based on. I have kept so many words from her - emails, notes passed, cards, a book inscription that still smells like her, random things she said over the phone and I quickly scratched down on paper to save - and there is such gentle care with how each thing was said. Each one had specific, clear purpose of an overwhelming quality. I've kept them all - they're under lock and key in a nondescript box sitting on my bedroom dresser. (I wonder if she did the same?)

I keep them there because in my fear there is an absolute certainty she would take them away from me. That she would deny them or tell me she never meant it or didn't mean them as much as I thought or perhaps the worst of all - turn around and say them to someone else. Or she would tell me they were dead, that those words were no longer viable, that she had moved on and those few intimate-of-intimates I had kept were no longer from her. Even the very insinuation that they were from the past and not living, breathing gasps of possibility would hurt more than I dare think of. So I keep that box hidden, desperate to keep it safe because I know I would die if even one of them was taken from me. I don't think she'd do such a thing - but they form a religion inside myself of which I am the only priest, and so they must live through me.

And amongst that religion there are prayers unspoken and understood. How that years ago (and I doubt she remembers this) one conversation somehow took a strange turn. We had started to make plans to go out to a nice restaurant, coat and tie style. I told her I couldn't dance which was somehow more amusing than I expected but she made me promise that the first slow dance would be with her. Embarrassingly, I admitted I'd never even had so much as a slow dance before, and she was then even more insistent. I'm keeping that promise; thats not something undone or refuted anymore than that was something she said on a whim.

There is still so much to say with only the rest of my life to say it in; I may never get to say it to her and I curse myself each day that passes where I do not. I will never be able to play for her that bit of Lee Holdridge that makes me think of her so strongly its as if she is in the room with me. I'll never be able to try to cook for her after we had joked about it for so long. And that promise we'd take long drives in the dark under the night sky may very well never happen, not even in another life and the absoluteness of grief and shame from this seems to chain me to immortality.

Despair drives everything from me - shapes and forms, light and dark. All things are lost to the void and everything is made equally worthless as I grope towards nothing. That quiet form, that gentle voice - how I need it more than ever and am now denied it. How much I have lost because of who I was, how much have I suffered because of who I am now. Even after writing this, I see it describes only the smallest measure of suffering I feel any waking moment.

I am yours. Command me.

#Very Old #Ancient even #From the Elka era #2009 #breakdown #depression #I'm mostly better now #but only mostly

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28-11s · 5 years ago

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i’m going to start off this post with an apology for disappearing again, especially before valentine’s day. i was trying to hold back from doing it so i could spend the 14th with you and finally ask you out on a date but my need to ghost prevailed and well. yeah. it’s been rough like it hasn’t been in months, (and i think you understood it since i haven't posted here in days) but i guess it is because i’ve been dealing with constant uneasiness? i’m actually not sure what’s wrong, though. do you ever feel anxious even when things are going well? like, you cannot sleep or focus on your work or do anything really because you’re too busy feeling overwhelmed? it’s horrible, especially when you cannot pinpoint the reason and so you end up just locking yourself away. we're going to blame mercury retrograde and not my mental health, tho. especially since sun and mercury are in pisces. 🤕 🤢 i’m sorry for being so distant both physically and emotionally and just... not being there for you. the worst thing about me ghosting is in fact not knowing what to say once i feel better. i can write here rather easily but the moment i have to dm you i feel awkward and guilty and i never know how to act... i’m not good at saying sorry but appearing randomly after days without saying anything makes me feel even worse, so i never know how to be. but anyway, that’s not what I want to talk about in this message. i needed to feel better the other day so i checked the padlet and found the message that you wrote a month ago… it hit me a lot and kinda really resonated with me. it sucks how late I saw it and I feel really bad since you opened up to me so well and idk, it’s like i looked down at your effort by not replying immediately, even though it was involuntarily. but i cannot just ignore it so here’s my (late) reply to all of that. first of all, let me tell you how much i appreciate the straightforwardness of that message. it gave me an input on how you have been feeling and it also made me feel closer to you, especially considering the fact that i can strongly relate. not gonna lie, I hadn’t cried (like, actually cried with sobs and all that shit) in months but i couldn’t even reach the middle of the message because i literally couldn’t see SHIT. knowing you have been struggling with these emotions is… devastating? to try and explain: it’s like the whole world came crashing down. this whole ghosting thing isn’t something i can actually get mad at you for, because i know how exhausting life can get and how comforting being alone can be. as you can see, i do that a lot, too… which is why i make “excuses” for you. of course, when it gets to three weeks it stings and i do get annoyed at times . but it’s not something i will crucify you over? especially because it would be super hypocritical of me. so, please, don’t ever think that you’re “taking advantage of me” or whatever, because you’ve been nothing but amazing to me for the past years and i literally /know/ that i couldn’t do better than this even if i tried to. you’re one of the few good things in my life rn and if i haven’t gone completely insane yet is thanks to you too. and while i'm happy you do know that i sincerely treasure you a whole lot, i can't help but get worried because of you being insecure. you're human and like everyone else, you experience lack of confidence, and honestly i'm glad you told me about it. more than insecure, i’d say i’m way too paranoid for my own good. i often get ugly thoughts that try to make others look like they’re out to get me and i always have to stop, take a deep breath and remind myself that not everyone is trying to hurt me, but i also get those moments of "what if". what if i say this and sound weird or what if i talk too much about myself and make royal uncomfortable by coming off as vain. and there are times where i hesitate or straight up don’t post on the blog because i don’t want to burden you with /my/ emotions, so i understand that too well. but we've talked about this so many times: we both have to fix these problems, but you know it won't happen overnight and every single little step counts, even if it requires lots of courage and trust. i don't think you realize how happy it makes me when you reach out randomly or open up to me directly. it makes me feel trusted, worthy and useful, so please don't villainize yourself for being human and wanting to share your feelings with others. you're far from being toxic and you need to finally understand that you're not putting any kind of pressure on me and being able to help you, even if just by listening, helps me as well. we deal with situations and feelings that are similar and i've found a solution to my problems the times we've opened up to each other. but lol. that part right there about you being self serving pissed me off so fucking bad, you have no idea. when i say i cannot find a single flaw in you, i mean it. i know it might sound fake or exaggerated but it's true. you’re one of the kindest and most selfless people i know and it's hard to even imagine you as selfish or “self serving”. i want you to think for a minute. do you think you’ve ever done anything to me to get you the title of self serving? i have a really good memory when it comes to you and i can assure you are far from being that. you have NEVER asked for anything, you have NEVER made me feel wrong or treated me badly. obviously i don't know what happened in your previous relationship and even after * dmed me to befriend me and then ask me to deliver you that message, i’ve been meaning to ask you about your dating history since i don’t think i have ever seen you as upset as you were those times, but it felt like i was being nosy and out of place so i just sucked it up and moved on. ngl though, i have been curious about it. both because i want to learn something new about you and because i want to be prepared. i told you about keo and how he mostly affected my self-esteem, so i kinda feel bad for not knowing about what has affected /you/ in the past. folds hands. let me also add something. me being scared of confrontation isn’t an excuse for us to avoid talking directly about certain things. if we keep on avoiding any kind of serious talking 1) i’ll never learn how to deal with it 2) i think we’ll be missing out on a huge part of relationships and on the long run it will show. and i’m not exactly scared of confrontation. i’m scared of hurting you by saying something wrong. i get so defensive /and/ passive aggressive for no reason when i feel the mood shift and it makes me say really mean things just to get a reaction out of people. but i’ll never be able to fix it if i don’t start talking with my own partner. but still. you’ll have to be the one to bring it up if you want to because i’m still a scaredy-cat after all and i’ll never start anything. <3 you have also talked about me deserving better and it reminded me of all the times i’ve said you do deserve someone better and you said that you don’t care because i’m the one you want. it goes both ways, really. there is someone out there for me, even more than one person, but just like there is someone else out there for you too. but it literally does not matter to me if someone is waiting, because i don’t want them. i want You. you're the love of my life and my best friend and i seriously cannot imagine my life without you. i can promise you that i will be here by your side. we can be scared of being vulnerable together. LMFAOOOOO WHY IS THIS SO LONG I'M SO SORRY FUCK AND I AM NOT EVEN DONE SINCE YOU POSTED ANOTHER MESSAGE ON THE PADLET AND I WANNA REPLY TO THAT TOO. yes it takes me days to reply to one (1) singular message yes i live like this. anyway the latest message put me in such a good mood. your care package isn't here yet but i can already tell that it is going to work perfectly. but?! your hobby is literally naming pets after food or things and honestly? i respect that life. i still remember when you talked about wanting to get a cat to name it pancake. 🥺 i hope you took pictures of your friend's dog, though. 😡 and on god i knew something was gonna happen to you. kisses your wrist and puts a bandaid on it. the fact that you're still running around sleep-deprived and with a sprained wrist is so You. fucking sagittarius sun gemini rising headass. but OMFG I USED TO LISTEN TO THAT SONG WHEN I WAS A KID. you brought back so many memories. </3 while my baby was being a busy bee, i was busy being Lazy. my week has been kinda ok? i've been spending my days watching stuff on netflix but now i'm sad because i saw a possible spoiler of the drama that i am currently watching aND . I DIDN'T SPEND THE LAST FOUR DAYS CRYING FOR THEM TO PULL THIS SHIT. also since there is straight up a coronavirus outbreak in my region, all the schools are closed and the shops have to close down at 6pm so i don't have to work at the office this week! a win! kinda! if we ignore the reason why i can stay home! will that stop me from going out though? absolutely not. x today i went to the gym despite the warnings lolz and i even passed out so fr who's doing it like me! then i went grocery shopping and i napped for like 6 hours. i had an appointment with my old school's head master scheduled for tomorrow since we have to talk about uni and stuff but they cancelled it :/// so i'll spend my day maybe doing some work and Sleeping. anyway. this message is a big mess but i mith you so bad and i feel so shitty for disappearing and i'm over being a ghost so! we're sleeping together tonight. :)

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thomdunn · 8 years ago

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On “Hamilton,” Brexit, and Irish Independence

In June 2016, my wife and I headed to Ireland for a week-long vacation. It was my first time on Emerald soil, despite my unabashed affection for my cultural heritage. While I certainly wish I’d had the chance to visit earlier, there was also something poetic about making the trip during the centennial celebration of the Easter Rising, the first major conflict in the struggle for Irish Independence.

For those who don’t know their Irish history, the Easter Rising was actually kind of a massive failure. But that horrible defeat is also what made the rest of the soon-to-be-Republic wake up and realize that their sovereignty was no longer optional. In a way, it was also the beginning of the end of the British Empire — Ireland was the first major colony since the United States to fight for its freedom, and over the next half-century or so, the crown would its relinquish its rule on pretty much everywhere else.

(Admittedly, Ireland is still not entirely free, but that’s a whole other complicated topic. Tiocfaidh ár lá, as they say.)

My wife and I did not intentionally plan our trip around this centennial celebration, but it did add a certain heft of historical importance to the whole thing.

On that same note, we didn’t expect to hop on a plane to Ireland the day after the Brexit vote, either.

Ireland is now comfortably a part of the European Union, of course, so Brexit didn’t impact most of the people we met on our journey across the southern half of the island; indeed, most of them heard our American accents and immediately asked, “Are yourselves from the States? Sure, sure. What the fuck is up with Donald Trump?” to which we both replied with eyerolls, shrugs, sighs, and “I’m gonna need another pint for this.”

But the talk radio and newspaper headlines told a different story: Brexit had the potential to radically change the relationship between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, since they share the only physical land border between the UK and the EU. See, while the fight for Irish Independence began in 1916, the battle wasn’t over until 1923, and the conflict between the the Republic and the British-controlled North raged through 90s (though there are some who are still fighting war today). The border there was heavily militarized until 1998, when the Good Fridayagreement was signed, marking an endpoint to a long and complicated peace process —in which, coincidentally, the Clintons played a small but not unsubstantial role.

Also coincidentally, that trip to Ireland was the first time I listened to “Hamilton.”

We spent 2+ hours in the car every day, alternating between “Hamilton” and The Pogues because relationships are built on compromise (but it was mostly “Hamilton” because I understand and accept that Shane MacGowan’s toothless drunken ramblings don’t appeal to everyone in the same way).

Between “Hamilton,” Brexit, the Easter Rising centennial, and all of the other stunning history we saw as we made our way across the Irish countryside, this got me thinking about politics and revolution, and the roots of where we today—which of course is the kind of stuff I tend to think about anyway, but especially as we enter the third month of Donald Trump’s presidency and celebrate Irish heritage along with St. Pádraig’s Day here in the United States.

As someone who has spent their life in liberal New England, “State’s Rights” had always seemed like something the South made up in order to pretend the Civil War wasn’t about slavery (it was).

More recently, “state’s rights” have been used to block any efforts to curb gun violence, and also to punish trans* people for having to poop (yet somehow not weed?). But listening to the story of our nation’s founding as so eloquently rapped by Lin-Manuel Miranda while driving around Ireland, I came to realize that perhaps the original intention of “state’s rights” was to essentially create 13 separate countries on American soil that had pre-established trade, border, and immigration agreements.

In that context, states like Massachusetts and North Carolina could be as radically different as Germany and France, each with their own unique culture and language or dialect. State identity would not just be an arbitrary moniker; Rhode Islanders and Virginians would almost be separate nationalities, with their shared label of “American” being almost as vague and non-committal as it is on, well, any other continent. The United States would be less of a “country,” in the sense that we know it now, and more of an economic union.

The US then would have been what the EU is today.

An EU citizen can live, work, or travel in any EU nation. They share the same currency, and observe the same charter of fundamental human rights, but other than that, each country is pretty much free to do what it’s going to do, with culture and traditions and other specifics of living that remain unique to them and them alone.

That’s pretty much what Thomas Jefferson argues for in “Hamilton” when the eponymous immigrant first tries to establish the national bank. But it’s not at all what happened — for better, or for worse. Our governors today are not at all comparable to European Presidents, and the power that is currently yielded by Donald Trump is vastly different from Donald Tusk’s authority and influence.

The question of state’s rights could have changed our trajectory 250 years ago. But that didn’t happen.

If the United States had actually been setup to recognize the cultural autonomy of each individual nation-state, we probably wouldn’t be where we are today. We probably wouldn’t have grown as fast as we did (also for better or for worse; remember, our early growth and success was also intrinsically tied to slavery), and the distribution of our wealth and economy would be even more radical than it is right now, reshaping the domino chain of events that we currently know to be the foundational moments in the story of our nation.

Because of this, it’s almost impossible to imagine what this alternate history version of the US would be like today, with 50 separate nation-states working together while also forging their own paths (assuming that we still “collected” those nation-states the way we’ve done with our current spread of states, which may or may not have happened).

And that’s the thing: that divisive tension of potentially-50 different countries, and the fractured state of our collective national identity, are intrinsic parts of America. When Trump supporters opine that we need to “come together as country,” they’re willfully ignoring the fact that we’ve never been together as a country. And that fact has shaped everything about the United States. (To be fair, Trump supporters tend to willfully ignore all facts in general. Ba-dum-tisch!)

How much time, energy, and resources have we spent trying to define and lock down a singular vision of “America the Beautiful Abstract Concept?”

Guns. Religion. Marriage equality. Whiteness and race in general. Immigration, and the overall influx of Spanish language and culture. Taxes. Welfare. Healthcare. Crime, Free Speech, and Policing. Education and “choice.” Basic science. Environmental issues. Land rights. Public or private services? Innovation! Are we a society that looks out for each other, and the individual choice embodiment of everyman-for-himself? Do laws exist to protect the people, or to serve businesses? What would my personal sense of abstract identity be then, as a Nutmegger by birth and a Masshole by choice (and soon-to-be-New Yorker)?

American identity is intrinsically fractured, because it’s always been fractured, because that’s how our country was formed, regardless of the original intention. By this point, we’re too large and unwieldy to steer ourselves smoothly as we bumble towards the future. And so these divisive socio-political issues are trapped in a constant state of tug-of-war, and it’s only made worse by the fact that our cultural obsession with binary thinking (perhaps the only thing we’re unified on) has forced us all to conform to one choice, or the other, jerking back and forth forever. Whichever side you’re on is socially expected to dictate your concept of American identity for you.

There are two ironies to this situation that both stand to sting the most adamant Trump supporters:

According to that traditionally reductive left-right spectrum of America, liberals are the ones who are supposed to favor centralized or “big” government. This is demonstrably untrue, but I digress. Because now under President 45, Blue States are finally reaping the residual benefits of the same state’s rights that we once found futile, for perhaps the first significant time in US history.

I’m still not sure how I feel about that, though it certainly makes me appreciate the Devil’s Advocate arguments I’d been hearing from my Libertarian friends for years. For the most part, I’ve always thought that those who most adamantly insist on flying the standard of “state’s rights” were fighting a losing battle, and only ever using it to hold onto power. I certainly don’t think US states will ever enjoy the same autonomy as the countries of the European Union; but I still think it’s something worth noticing, and thinking about.

The other irony is of course the overlap of Brexit and Trump campaign in their shared appeals to economic strife and xenophobic philosophy. Despite the fact that the British Empire literally ruled the majority of the world—and thus, that any immigration or cultural mix that they might be facing in the UK is their own doing—Nigel Farage and company were somehow still able to convince people that the European Union (and by extension, all countries outside of the British Isles) were bad, evil things.

Trumpers share a disdain with their Brexit Brethren for “The Establishment” and “New World Order,” as embodied by NATO, I guess, and the UN as a whole (and also Muslims, and false flag psyops, or something). And yet, for Trumpers, particularly in the South and Midwest, the autonomy of the European Union actually represents everything they’d supposedly desired for years: cultural autonomy. Except that the EU also expects all of its member-nations to uphold the same respectful standards of equality for all people regardless of race, religion, gender, creed, or sexual orientation—which, sadly, is not an agreement that half the US would be willing to uphold.

This is not to say that all Trumpers and Brexiteers are homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, misogynistic jerks, of course; just that the politicians at the forefront of their respective campaigns capitalized on these qualities and fears, and that even in the absence of any conscious intent of discrimination, it’s not hard to follow the path from all their other rhetorical arguments and end up right smack in the middle of Bigotry Road.

(Best case scenario, it was an appeal to their basest, animalistic instincts to preserve the self at the sake of others, and they all fell for it.)

And that brings me back to 1916 Ireland.

Pádraig Pearse was among the men who fought and died in the Easter Rising. He was a poet and a thinker, who believed in democratic socialism and feminism, and who struggled to retain his indigenous tongue in the face of colonial oppression.

He also had a gun. (It didn’t help him, but still.)

Hamilton had a gun, too. So did George Washington. Hercules Mulligan had pants and some dopeass rhymes, and presumably a gun as well.

As we drove through Ireland last June, I was reminded of how these revolutionary leaders were all philosophers, sensitive souls who still fought physically for freedom because they saw it as their only choice. It’s not unlike the great Sioux leaders such as Sitting Bull, who walked with a chanunpa in one hand and a skullcracker in the other, always offering the peace pipe first, but keeping his club handy, just in case.

And yet, in the modern day United States, guns and militarization have been almost exclusively associated with right-wing culture and violent white extremism…until now.

Suddenly we’re debating whether it’s okay to punch Nazis. Antifa is starting to get the same news coverage as the alt-right, and gun sales are up among liberal women and minorities, but down across the rest of the country (it’s almost like…all those right-wing gun sales were previously driven by irrational fears of crime and racial paranoia?).

Now the same people who used to tout their Second Amendment rights are more upset about property damage than human rights violations. Now they’re willing to outlaw the rights of the people to assemble and subject citizens to arbitrary purity tests before those same people are allowed to defend themselves from violence, all because they think it helps to uphold some semblance of “order”—or at least, order as it serves them.

The implicit message here is that our American exceptionalism is the central rule of the land.

It’s as if to say that the fight for Civil Rights was won some 50 years ago, and now things are totally different and will still that way forever so every historical example of self-defense or armed insurgence is irrelevant. It’s okay for “real” Americans to stand their ground, but everyone else is just disrupting the “natural” order of things, just like they have at every other point in history.

Except that sense of status quo order has only ever worked to keep a chosen few people in power. Or, as Sinclair Lewis once prophetically said, “It can’t happen here.”

But it can happen here. The only thing exceptional about America is that it hasn’t happened recently in our collective cultural memory.

Europeans understand the serious dangers of fascism, violence, and war, because they’re constantly surrounded by reminders of its horrors. In the United States, anything that predates World War II is practically ancient history. Our American grandparents went off to fight in Europe, then came back to unprecedented levels of prosperity—because Europe was ravaged, and not for the first time, either. By the time the US was born, most European countries had seen their centuries-old landmarks ransacked and destroyed several times over.

Barring a few horrifically tragic but isolated attacks, the US has not.

So what seems so distant to us is a natural part of their lives. The ruined remnants of feudal castles dot the Irish landscape with little preservation or oversight, for example; the woman we stayed with outside of Dublin had a grandfather who was killed in the Easter Rising, and kept a photo of him hanging over the stairs next to a copy of Forógra na Poblachta.

Sure, we have American Civil War re-enactors. But that’s all about false sense of nostalgia (a distinctly American psychosis, to be sure). In Europe, on the other hand, the wounds are genuinely more fresh, the historical damage all within eyesight.

Yet for some reason, here in the States, we think history is settled; that any seemingly-important moment will be remembered and preserved forever, even though we can barely remember what happened when our parents were teenagers. Our political system is great and all, but that doesn’t make it the One True Way that perseveres without question or conflict.

The only thing exceptional about America is our size, and that we’ve had the same identity crisis for 250 years, taking two steps forward and one step back.

Our insistence on being so “exceptional”—on being naive enough to think that we’ve somehow evolved to the point that we’re immune to the same failings of every empire and revolution that came before—is exactly what prevents us from seeing the patterns of history staring back at us.

But “The past isn’t past; it isn’t even over;” “As above, so below;” “This has all happened before;” et cetera, et cetera. Basically this is all a long-winded way of quoting a 30-year old Billy Bragg song:

“The cities of Europe have burned before, and they may yet burn again. But if they do, I hope you’ll understand that Washington will burn with them; Omaha will burn with them; Los Alamos will burn with them.”

None of this is to say that I’m condoning (or condemning) insurrection of any kind. This is all just to say that we should not ignore history.

Let us not conserve or recreate the past, but learn from its lessons, and expect that we’re all inclined to fall back into its worst patterns — then do everything we can to make sure we don’t make those mistakes.

#political discourse #politics #history #america #American history #irish #ireland #hamilton #state's rights #civil war #gun violence #guns #revolution #independence day #brexit

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rueur · 8 years ago

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Morning Pages #33 (13.02.2017)

Monday 13th February - 11:49 a.m.

I think they’re taking Manasha off life support today. I didn’t write my three pages yesterday because I was at the hospital, from about 9 in the morning until 3 or 4 p.m., I mean I probably got home at around half past four. I remember finally sitting down in my room and looking at the time and it being 5 p.m. or maybe a little past five. I realise that when I don’t have anything to talk about or I don’t want to talk about anything, I just end up talking about what time it was when I was doing the something that I don’t want to talk about. Speaking of not talking, I tried calling Malith yesterday and he said he didn’t want to talk. First he said that he didn’t want to talk about the audition he had on Saturday and then I said ‘we can talk about ANYTHING then’ and he said he didn’t want to talk. He’s mad at me, I think. It doesn’t really matter though, I mean I’ve had a very weird weekend. I think I’m really in shock, I don’t know. It still hasn’t hit me entirely that Manasha’s dying. Or dead, brain-dead. It feels so weird. I just could not connect the person I saw lying in that hospital bed to the girl that I spent Saturday afternoons trapped in classrooms with, poking fun at everyone around us and spending our dwindling lunch breaks running up and down corridors and splitting up our food. She was such a huge part of my childhood, my one true Lankan friend. It’s so weird. I haven’t spoken to her in two years or so now and I just always assumed I’d see her again soon, like we’d just catch up at some later date and everything would be like it had been. Now that’s never going to happen, and I just...I don’t know what I’m feeling, I really don’t. I didn’t eat too much yesterday at all, or sleep too well last night or the night before that. But today I’ve already had a little bowl of ravioli and a yoghurt icy pole, and two or so spoons full of that golden gaytime ice cream tub that they make that only malli loves so much so thathi keeps buying it and malli keeps having to eat it all by himself and now malli’s complaining about his gut but still keeps eating the ice cream.

I also found out Martin sent me an email, but to an email address that I rarely use so I only just got it despite the fact that he sent it to me on January 31st, so now I’ve been panicking about how I’m going to reply to it. Should I read his essay first and then send him a reply with my feedback or should I just send a reply letting him know that I’ll send him feedback from my current email address? I DON’T KNOW, so I’m just not doing anything at this point. I’ve been reading my horoscope like crazy just because I want a bit of outside direction, because I really can’t trust myself right now. I can’t talk to anybody, because I don’t know what to say. I really don’t know what to say, I knew none of Manasha’s friends and none of them know me and so I was basically sitting alone for most of yesterday, too nervous and too distraught to strike up conversation with anyone else because obviously they were all probably in just as much grief as I was at that point. It just seemed easier for them because at least they have each other. I was on my own.

Sometimes I feel like I have just grown accustomed to comforting myself, but even so I still seek out other people and confide in them maybe because I feel like that’s the right thing to do, even though I don’t need it. Other times, I feel like it might be a defence mechanism: that I actually do need other people and I need that outside support, but I know that I won’t always have it and so I’ve trained myself to feel no real difference whether I speak to other people or not. I don’t even know who can help me right now though, like this grief feels so singular and I’m just really worried about how it’s going to treat me, especially when the semester starts. Goodness, all of my concerns feel so pathetic next to what’s actually happening right now. You know today is also the day that Bugger died in 2011. Or 2012. Probably 2011. I really can’t be bothered verifying that right now. I miss Bugger quite a bit. He was the best pet I’ve ever had. Yeah it was 2011, I’m pretty sure. Because that was also the year we got Jasper so it has to be 2011, and I was in year nine and we were in the upstairs locker bay, on G Block. I broke up with Marcus outside the drama room, I think that was G1 or something. There’s a very wide window on the side of G Block, you can see the sunrise from there, I’m fairly certain. In the morning before school starts, in winter when it rises late enough for you to see it around 8-ish.

I’m watching this show on netflix right now, called ‘My Crazy Ex-girlfriend’. It’s a little endearing. They have a lot of original music that also happens to be pretty hilarious. First episode in now and they had a song called ‘The Sexy Getting-Ready Song’ and it’s about the trials that women must endure to look nice before they head out. I can’t be assed right now. It’s a nice show, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do today, what to do this week, this weekend. I don’t know when to go and get my schoolbooks, I don’t know. I went swimming yesterday, no not yesterday, on Saturday. I went swimming on Saturday with my sister and when we were at the pool, these two Asian guys just started talking to me whilst we were swimming laps. I would swim first and then wait for my sister to swim to me at the end of the lane. These two guys would then have a good thirty or so seconds to talk to me at the end of each of my laps. After one lap, the older guy straight up said that I was beautiful, which was weird. Before that they were asking me where I’m from and what I’m studying and all that intimate yet somehow simultaneously ‘small talk’ stuff. Then when my sister came back, they asked me if I was looking for work and then...they kind of offered me a job. They sell exercise equipment or something at Westfield near my house. So my sister took their contact information and then they asked me if I wanted to send them my resume, come in for an interview some time and see if I fit the vacant position: part time sales assistant. Anthony said that they’re probably just looking to establish a business here, put up enough of a front to establish an ABN and then reap all the tax benefits that comes with owning a business here. They really weren’t that great at speaking English, so they were complimenting that in me. It felt a lot like talking to employers at Thailander, really. The whole thing feels like it’ll come back to bite me in the ass, but for the time being it would be kind of nice to have some money.

I’m on the third page now, and it’s been about an hour. It’s 12:42 p.m., and I really don’t know what to do with myself. Evan texted me about an hour ago, saying that he hopes I’m having a good day. I told him I was even though I’m not, I don’t know how to speak to him about what’s going on right now. Really, I want to talk to him in person. I always want to talk to him in person. I feel really good around him. The last time I saw him, he had my hands in both of his hands and he just kissed them. It was so lovely and I just could not help myself, I just called him ‘cute’ immediately upon him doing that, but I just loved it. This is the first relationship (it’s kind of a relationship, I guess) that’s been openly affectionate from the beginning. ALSO I feel like a bunch of times he’s already referred to me as his girlfriend. On Friday night for instance, after that guy aggressively tried to dance with me whilst Evan was dancing with me, and right before we had both endured enough that we decided to leave the bar entirely, he took me aside and apologised for that guy’s behaviour and the fact that I have to deal with stuff like that, and then said he was on the brink of actually saying something; saying something like ‘what are you trying to pull on my girlfriend?’, or something like that. I’m just really looking forward to seeing him again. I just want to keep talking to him, I really like talking to him. I hope that when I’m back in Northcote this weekend he might stay over at Emily’s for a bit, like we can just sit and talk on the couch or something. I really just want to talk to him for a while. That night we spent in Johnson Park, I really just enjoyed his one-on-one company, connecting with him. I just want to do that again soon. I feel like we have so much more to know about each other, I mean of course we do!

Jasper’s sleeping right next to me on the couch, in akki’s red fluffy blanket. He looks like a little soot ball, as he does. It’s adorable and I love him very much. I was scratching his head a little while ago, like before I started typing this paragraph, and he was giving me his very sleepy attention, but his eyes are entirely shut right now.

Sometimes I feel like Evan and I are too similar, because I have a feeling that he’s very much like me, I mean perhaps in character but more in disposition. We both seem to be rather shy and somewhat self-conscious, maybe too respectful of the people around us, too respectful meaning that we place ourselves second. He has an eye for the natural world, and he makes a connection with the space that he occupies. I feel like maybe HE also feels like whenever he talks to me, he’s bothering me. Because I feel like that all the time, I feel like whenever I speak to him I’m bothering him. I don’t know, maybe I just want him to be sharing my pain here but honestly, I also don’t want him to. Because it’s horrible. Maybe it’s just me. I think it’s just me. I’m a deeply insecure person. I’m wearing a singlet right now and my lacy green bra, and the rose sweater crossover thing, and my black asos pants. I’m essentially wearing an outfit around the house that I’m far too self-conscious to ever wear out. And the thing is, is that I feel like I look good right now. I just don’t allow myself to feel that bold outside. I don’t know. I’m on my fourth page so I’m going to stop now. I wasn’t feeling this morning’s attempt from this morning. It’s 1:45 p.m.. Fuck.

#morning pages #33 #13.02.2017

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