#i wish i could've experienced it in theaters

[disaster-by-chance]

I finally saw Everything Everywhere All at Once with my family

And it was as beautiful, moving, inspiring, and amazing as people have made it out to be, and so much more.

What a wonderful movie.

After it was over and I went to say good night to my mom, I hugged her and we cried for a good ten or fifteen minutes. Well, more like she cried and I full-on sobbed, but same thing. Anyways, it was the most cathartic thing I've ever felt in my entire life.

My relationship with my mom hasn't always been the best, but recently it's been better than it's ever been. We barely acknowledged that growth though, at least not verbally. I would tell her in birthday cards and mothers day cards how grateful I was that our relationship was healing but that was it.

Today she told me she was so proud of me. Today she told me she sees me. Today she told me I'm safe. Today she told me she's so grateful for how far we've come.

How a younger me would've loved to hear those words. I cried because I love my mom. I sobbed because I mourned the kid I was, who never knew the things I know now.

Before, if you gave me the choice to go back in time to see my old self, I would've done so solely to have killed that self. Now? Now I would go back and hug that broken, scared, confused kid who wasn't all the things they thought they were.

Maybe it's stupid for it to have been a movie to heal things I've been ignoring, maybe some people will think I'm too sensitive or dumb to have changed my thinking because of a movie. But I could care less. I'm better now because of this movie. I'm finally starting to really heal because of this movie.

After all, cinema is art.

Art changes you.

As for me, I'll never look at hotdogs the same way again.

[autumnrory]

sometimes i really wish that i’d gotten into the mcu earlier just bc it’s so sad that i got to enjoy the excitement for like, less than four years, before viciously hating it

[fluffypotatey]

Do you ever wish you could sing in EPIC 😭 like, I'm sure Jorge isn't looking for college grads with 5 years of experience right? asdfghjkl, but I am not experienced at all 😔 a shame. Going to be working my boring job hoping I could've contributed to a fun artistic project instead :( when you're 30 years old Fluffy, some upstart 22 year old will probably make a musical on JTTW (its too controversial for a westerner to do it with all its religious themes I think so idk maybe someone in China) and you'll sit there at your desk job thinking....man, I wanna join in too! where can I audition?! bc all broadway musicals and anime VAs require stuff I KNOW you're not going to college for buddy.

i would, honestly, take any role that Jorge Jalapeño would give me just to be in that musical. let me in, coach!!!!! i’ll do whatever you want!!!!

if there’s ever a tour of Epic, i will be on my knees begging. do i have musical theater experience? not since middle school. do i have any professional sound equipment? nope! can i sing? yes :D i will be the chorus you don’t even have to worry about it Jorge

SAME WITH A JTTW MUSICAL!!! if that ever happens, i think the only way i would get a role is if there’s a world tour of it. or a local showing. again, i do not care what role i get, i will be happy either way

[mobius-m-mobius]

I finally actually watched that Loki s1 bts clip where Owen quotes the first line of Two Gentlemen of Verona and. WHAT DO YOU MEAN he doesn't have any particular connection the play he 'just' took a Shakespeare class in college. He's so clearly trying to laugh it off like it's not very impressive but that's sure not working on me Owen, I can barely remember which classes I took let alone verbatim quotes from plays I'm not even that into WHAT

Everything about this ask, yes!!! 💕

Thank you anon because that's something I've been going on about for years ever since the s1 Assembled ep dropped lol, the fact that Tom just casually mentions Owen knows most of Hamlet BY HEART is wild but of course he shrugs it off as usual insisting it isn't true before dropping that line from Two Gentlemen of Verona verbatim?? Like okay tell me more about what you don't know then 😳

He has very possibly the most literary mind I've ever experienced and it actually drives me a little crazy that somehow isn't a more well known or acknowledged fact about him. After the first season of Loki ended I thought I'd just be going through his many films I hadn't gotten a chance to watch yet but instead got just as captivated with interviews where he was detailing his home libraries, referencing lines from even the most obscure novels or scenes at the drop of a hat and falling even more in love with how that's clearly shaped his sense of humor and delivery.

It's also why I wish he didn't laugh off the idea that he himself could've played Hamlet, which he likely did since as we've noticed he's quick to downplay his skills and talent, but also because that's how most of the general public would react if the same question was presented?? And he isn't especially comfortable on live stages so theater probably isn't a medium he's considered in any serious fashion but for me at least it's far more fascinating to see the take an actor more well known for comedy would give a dramatic role of any kind and I don't doubt he'd be incredible at any he set his mind to 🥰

[baura-bear]

I have also not traveled internationally before so this is gonna be interesting! I'm going alone also cuz I have no one to go with but I'm super excited! How long did you go for?

I have gone to high school and like small town theater productions but never a national tour like this. This is probably a super dumb question but how does stage door work? I've only ever experienced high school ones where the cast comes out to mingle I'd love to meet even one of the cast but especially Ryan it's sounds like you had the best time im so happy for you! I hope you get to go again!

thank you!! I only went for 4 days because I was missing classes to go haha! but I wish I could've stayed longer gosh! I spent one day in Wembley exploring, the next day in London and then of course I saw newsies 3x (I was able to beat jet lag because for work I wake up at 5am EST everyday so I could wake up at a normal time and felt fine lol)

As for stage door it's really simple! when you're leaving the theater if you turn to the right and walk a little ways down there's a door that says "Stage door" and people will line up there and wait for actors to come out. After like 5-10 min actors start trickling out, some say hi and sign programs/papers (if you want signatures be sure to bring your own marker or pen) sometimes they don't mingle though because they have trains to catch and such! Everyone's super sweet and it's fun to talk to other fansies that are there :)

[becoming-who-ive-always-been]

(Please note - possibly NSFW and/or triggering material follows)

I wished I could've spent my spring breaks in high school and college like this with my best friend and classmate - and first crush...

I'd known "Chip" since middle school... in fact, he was one of the first friends I made when my family moved to west-central Georgia from south Florida... and when he broke his collar bone in a soccer match, I stepped in to help him with his homework and schoolwork... and the more we sat together and worked together, the more I noticed how much more I felt like the girl I'd thought I was... little did he know that I had developed a crush on him... but back then, in the mid-'70's, small town in the south, there weren't words or terms for what I was feeling and experiencing... though the guys we hung out with had the "expected" derogatory and hateful names they used for what I was feeling - "homo," "queer," "faggot," "sissy" - none of them really applied because what I was feeling wasn't "guy-for-guy" attraction...

In any and every event, I kept these feelings to myself - though I admit I did act on some of the "naming" activities, I never even broached the subject with "Chip..." In fact, I was more worried about being outed to him than to my family, his friendship meant that much to me...

And our friendship grew as we got older, too... beginning with just hanging out with the guys, we'd go the "show" at the one movie theater in town for the latest shoot-'em-up or laugh-fest... and I found myself, sitting next to him in the darkened theater wanting him to "make the first move..." to reach over and maybe take my hand, or stretch-n-yawn-and-put-his-arm-around-my-shoulder... though I knew he wouldn't... He didn't know I wanted to be more than just his (guy) friend, but that i wanted to be his girlfriend... and there wasn't any way I could tell him that because I didn't completely understand it myself...

Once we got our drivers licenses, we started "riding around" together... meeting at his house and just "cruising" to see what was going on, talking, hanging-out on wheels... he usually drove - partly because his Vega was "cooler" than Dad's Maverick... but, now that I think about it, perhaps it was the girl in me "deferring" to the norm of the day, and allowing the "guy" to take the wheel... and just like at the movies, there were times when I ached to feel him reach across the console and take my hand or put his hand on my knee... but he didn't - again, because I didn't (couldn't - didn't know HOW to), tell him what was going on with me...

Eventually, our junior year, his folks "allowed" us to go out to their fishing cabin across the county, along with some other guys... Chip and I went to fish, they went to... do other things... (okay, we did some of those other things, too...). I found myself in his johnboat, checking trotlines and exploring the creek that fed the pond, and enjoying his company in what didn't feel, to me, like "comradeship..." or "buddy-ness" I found myself enjoying watching him do things opening up the cabin, getting the boat ready, navigating the shallows and bringing the boat back in, casting his spinnerbait, showing me how to throw a fly-line... I honestly felt butterflies and weak in the knees sometimes with some of the things I watched him do, or heard him say... his laugh made me want to cry sometimes, it touched me so... and of course I worried that some of these things - these feelings - might show - but even unspoken they were better than nothing... that not being with him...

Of course, he noticed the (other?) girls in our class, and they, too, noticed him, and he began dating one in particular quite seriously... It didn't help matters that Betsy was one of the girls I wanted to be like, to be best-girlfriends with... and so the envy was doubled.

I "played" the role of supportive best bud - folks thinking I wanted to date Betsy instead of wanting to be in her position and dating Chip... I found myself noticing whenever they touched in class, or held hands between classes and ate lunch together... again, most of our friends thought I was trying to be the strong friend fighting "his" jealousy, when it was so much the opposite... and then, when on an away game bus trip, they took to the back of the bus as most dating couples did, and did what most dating couples do - in high school in the mid-'70's with chaperones - I could feel what I could only describe as heartbreak... I wanted to feel his hands on me, his lips against mine, his breath on my neck - I SO envied her in their dating relationship (though I did have multiple opportunities to see more of him than I'm sure she got to see, in the locker rooms of the soccer and basketball teams and PE classes we shared... 🤭)

All of which brings me full circle to where this started - wishing I could've gone down to the "Red Neck Riveria" with Chip on spring breaks... as his girlfriend... wearing what I wanted to wear... as his girlfriend... being able to lean in and lean on and hangout with him... as his girlfriend... to rest my head on his shoulder as he rested his hand on my thigh... as his girlfriend... and, as his girlfriend, experienced whatever might have come from those days on the beach...

...with more to follow...

[nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice]

I'm obsessed with Zuko having quality bonding time with the Gaang at his families Ember Island beach house in the days leading up to Sozins comet. I mean, they went to the theater, they had beach parties. The Boi is experiencing funtimes with real friends! I just wish Iroh could've been there....

Headcanons for stuff the gaang did at ember island: 

After the stuff that happened in the Southern Raiders, Katara wasn’t really in a place where she wanted to be around everyone else, so Zuko decided that since it was on their way back and they were planning on changing locations anyway, the Ember Island house would be a good place for her to chill out for a bit. 

It was there that she asked him why exactly he betrayed them in Ba Sing Se and they actually talked about Zuko’s decision. I think Zuko helping her find her mother’s killer showed her that he was actively trying to make amends, but they needed to have the conversation about why he did all the things he did in order for her to forgive him. 

When the rest of the gaang got to ember island, the first thing Zuko decided to do was burn all his family’s stuff that he didn’t the last time he was at the island. This time, however, they had a really nice bonfire and Zuko didn’t feel uncomfortable or sad in his family’s house for the first time in a long time. 

The house has many rooms and for the first night, they all split up to sleep in separate beds but found they were much more comfortable sleeping in the same room. Their solution was to take all the pillows, mattresses, and blankets, compile them in one room, and make the largest pillow fort ever.

Suki taught Sokka and Zuko how to catch crabs. Sokka got pinched many, many times in the process. 

Katara and Aang scheduled time to practice waterbending, but it mostly turned into them surfing using ice blocks and competing to see who could surf on the biggest wave (using bending to make the waves bigger). 

Toph enjoys Zuko’s company a whole lot and Zuko would do anything she wants because she can always pull the ‘hey remember when you burned my feet’ card, so they spend a lot of time bonding. 

There are a couple of Ursa’s old play scrolls in the house that Sokka finds and, being the cultured boy he is, gets super into them, much to Zuko’s delight. Sokka convinces Suki to join them in reading them aloud (”because that’s how you’re supposed to experience plays, you can’t just read them from the scroll”). She agrees but only on the condition that she gets to play the cool villain character and Zuko and Sokka have to play the lovers. 

Zuko found out that Aang had been frozen in the iceberg for 100 years and was not, in fact, in hiding like the Fire Nation had assumed for a literal century when he asked why the play was called “Boy in the Iceberg” in the first place 

After finding that out, Zuko just walked into the ocean and stood there for a couple hours 

Toph woke Zuko up in the middle of the night after they saw the play and decided to put his Blue Spirit skills to use. They vandalized the posters for the play all over town. 

Sokka found random bottles in a cabinet and decided that fuck it, if the world was going to end, he was going to get drunk at least once in his life. Zuko decided to not tell him that whatever was in that bottle was in no way alcoholic and just decided to see how Sokka would act ‘drunk’. 

This allows Toph to bury Zuko with sand whenever she sees fit

Zuko and Toph wouldn’t say it, but they really aren’t into Katara’s cooking. Toph may be a bad bitch but she appreciates high society cuisine. Zuko needs at least five spices for whatever he’s eating to taste good. They steal buy a ton of local spices to give some kick to their next few meals. Zuko is happy with it but Toph immediately regrets it (not that she’d admit that she can’t handle spicy food). 

Zuko helps Toph learn her way around the wooden house once he picked up on the fact that she couldn't sense her way around. 

Ember Island has a tattoo parlor and Sokka was planning on getting one of the moon (the only thing that stopped him was Zuko convincing him that it would get infected). 

Likewise, Toph was very close to getting her ears pierced just because it was something her parents didn’t want her to do (she didn’t give a shit about jewelry but if someone thought she couldn’t handle the pain of getting her ears pierced, she was 100% going to do it no matter what). Likewise, Katara talked her out of it with the argument that with the amount of dirt Toph is constantly covered in, there was no way it wasn’t going to get infected. 

Suki was put in charge of cooking one night. It posed a bigger fire hazard than any bender that lived there. She is no longer allowed in a kitchen ever again. 

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Speaking about disability in fiction, would you say Toph from a:tla is one of the best written disabled character? Is there anything that could've been improved about her character?

DEAR FUCKING GOD do I love Toph.  I would humbly submit to have Lady Toph “The Blind Bandit” “The Runaway” “Greatest Earthbender of All Time” “Inventor of Metalbending” Beifong harvest my organs to achieve eternal life if such a thing were possible.  There are a ton of things that Avatar: the Last Airbender does really well when characterizing Toph, and a few I wish they’d done differently.  [PLEASE NOTE: I am nondisabled, so if I err, please tell me so.]

Is she one of the best-written disabled characters?

She’s certainly a damn cool character whose disability informs but does not define her.  I can’t really say if she’s “the best” or one of, because I haven’t read everything, but I can say that I really like her.

First of all, her story is intersectional AS FUCK.  Toph’s gender, her disability, and her social class are so inextricably linked that there’s no analyzing any single element in a vacuum.  She’s all about being tough and independent.  Partially that’s about being underestimated because of her disability.  Partially that’s about being commodified because of her gender.  Partially that’s about being privileged due to her upper-class upbringing.  All three interact to inform her identity.

“Tales of Ba Sing Se” shows that blindness bars Toph from certain aspects of femininity — she can’t perform the traditional motions of making herself up, attracting young men, being pretty and delicate — which causes her to embrace a more accessible masculine identity.  “The Runaway” shows that Toph enjoys femininity as well as masculinity, but that she struggles to build nurturing relationships when she’s concerned with appearing weak, and that that sometimes leads her to cross ethical boundaries.  “The Chase” and “Bitter Work” are all about how Toph values her independence above all else — because she’s had to struggle against her gender and disability influencing others’ perceptions, but also because she’s had the privilege to avoid helping others due to her social class.  In “The Ember Island Players” she loves being represented by a big tough strong man, but she also clearly associates masculinity with power in a way that becomes troubling when contrasted with Aang’s horror at being played by a woman.  Etcetera.

Even the whole Earth Kingdom’s role as a sort of middle rung of imperialism – less powerful than the Fire Nation, more powerful than the Water Tribes and Air Nomads — informs both the relative strictness of its gender roles and the ability of individual Earth citizens to subvert those roles.  Toph’s identity, like the identities of the other Avatar characters, is inextricably linked to her position in society.

Secondly, Toph has a lot of the features of a complex and agentic character, and her disability is neither ignored nor centralized.  She’s often right, as when she becomes the first person to trust Zuko and the only person capable of making Aang an earthbender.  She’s often wrong, as when she tries to justify theft with a “they started it” argument or belittles Sokka for being a non-bender.  She’s often somewhere in between, as when she chooses to let Appa get taken by sandbenders in order to protect her friends or gets into screaming matches with Katara over matters of procedure.

There’s also the fact that Toph interacts with certain environments differently based on her blindness, drawing attention to (in)accessible aspects of those environments the others wouldn’t have necessarily noticed.  She finds sand and wood flooring inconvenient, she hates navigating water and ice, and she initially avoids walking on metal.  Although she’s not a big fan of flying, she mostly adapts as long as her friends actually remember that she can’t navigate when they’re on Appa’s saddle.

When conflicts do occur with the environment, Toph puts the onus on the environments and on other people to adapt or help her to adapt.  She’s amused and annoyed when Sokka tries to fake correspondence between her and Katara, or stupidly asks why she doesn’t like libraries.  She rips the bottoms off of her shoes.  She calls attention to her inability to do things like scan the ground while flying when her friends are at risk of forgetting.  She plays into others’ assumptions to try and get onto ferries or get away with breaking the law.

Another thing I like: the art style for Toph avoids the trap of “draw sighted person, change eye color, call it a day.”  She doesn’t turn to face people most of the time when she’s talking to them, but also doesn’t seem totally clueless as to their relative locations.  She gets the lay of the land by stomping her feet or pressing a hand against the ground, not turning to “look” in various directions.  She doesn’t bother to keep her hair from blocking her eyes, because her bangs don’t interrupt any sight lines.  She’s neither a comically blind character who apparently can’t navigate at all with sound or touch, nor a dramatic “blind” character whose every action comes off as those of a sighted character.  Toph repeatedly mentions that she doesn’t get the value in sight, clapping back at the assumption that of course she’d want to be nondisabled.

[Image description: A screenshot from “The Chase,” which shows Toph shouting at Katara, with her face turned away from Katara.  Toph is pointing in anger, making it clear that she’s addressing Katara and that she knows Katara’s location relative to herself based on Katara’s voice.]

One last small but important victory for Avatar: it passes the Fries Test.  It has two or more disabled characters — I can explain why Zuko counts as disabled if anyone’s not sure — who survive to the end of the story without being cured, and who have their own narratives rather than existing primarily to educate nondisabled characters.  As a bonus, they have at least one conversation with each other about something that isn’t disability-related.  The Fries Test is meant to be a minimum standard for representation, much like the Bechdel Test, but it’s still nice to know that Avatar passes.

[Image description: A screenshot from “The Ember Island Players,” which shows Zuko and Toph sitting on the floor in a hallway of the theater, talking about the play and about Zuko’s uncle.]

Is there anything that could’ve been improved about her character?

If I ruled the world, or at least the Avatar writers’ room, I’d start with two changes.  One’s small-ish, one’s big and controversial.

The small-ish change: tweak Toph’s narrative to make her earthbending super-abilities less directly counter to her blindness.  As it is, she has shades of a superpowered supercrip: a disabled character from SF whose superpower primarily acts to nullify their disability, thereby giving them the lived experience of a nondisabled person for most or all of the narrative.  Toph is definitely not an egregious example — she’s not Daredevil, who can use his superpowers to read handwritten papers, navigate unfamiliar environments, “feel” colors, detect tiny gestures, and shoot guns.  She does embody experiences with blindness like disorientation when flying and frustration with hanging posters.  She just also has several instances of not experiencing blindness when she (as she puts it) “sees with earthbending.”  I’m not sure what that tweak would look like, precisely, but I’d like to see one all the same.

The bigger change: I’d cast a different voice actor.  Jessie Flower is, based on what little I can find on Wikipedia or IMDB, not blind or visually disabled.  Disability rights activists are right now fighting hard against the trend of “cripping up,” wherein nondisabled actors use mimicry or makeup to pretend to have disabilities on TV and in the movies.  Avatar doesn’t go that far, because it doesn’t have Jessie Flower onscreen in (for instance) contacts that mimic blindness.  However, it nevertheless does not cast a blind actor for the role.  The issue here is that disabled actors are almost never allowed to play nondisabled roles… and disabled actors are also almost never allowed to play disabled roles either.  By failing to find a blind voice actor, the show denied that opportunity to a less-privileged talent.

The Guardian compares the issue to the way that cis actors of the wrong gender are too-often cast in trans roles, men used to play female characters onstage, and white actors used to play black characters in American movies.  I never know how much those comparisons make sense, because among other things they completely ignore intersections of those identities.  But I also think that it’s sometimes the best way to help people understand why excuses like “but it’s haaaaaaarrd to find blind female actors of Asian descent” don’t hold water.

And here’s where I go from “slightly controversial” to “extremely controversial” and might have to enter Witness Protection.  Avatar is getting a live-action adaptation in a few months.  I predict that it will cast a nondisabled actor to play Toph.  And I predict that the same voices which (rightly!) raised such a cry against “racebent” white actors playing Aang and Katara will be completely silent on the topic of “abilitybent” actors playing Zuko and Toph.  I’m saying this on Tumblr partially to get this statement out there:

I am an Avatar: the Last Airbender fan who will ONLY support the live-action show if it casts disabled actors to play disabled characters.

I’m saying it partially because I hope to be proven wrong, either because a blind actress will be cast as live-action Toph or at the very least because Avatar fans will object when a sighted actress is cast.  I’m also saying it because I think that fans can and should protest responsibly when marginalized voices are erased by beloved works of fiction.  Will casting a blind actress require more “work” to make the set accessible?  Probably.  Will casting a blind actress perhaps necessitate more CGI for fight scenes than using a sighted one?  Maybe.  Will it be worth it to cast a blind actress anyway, so that a girl with the lived experience of Toph can portray her on screen and actually get the chance to break into an industry that bars most blind girls from participating?  YES.

[queennvirgo]

reflecting on old writing; 1.11.17

January 11, 2017

I wish you were the one. Sometimes I tell myself that if things were different and if I was younger, you'd be the only one I'd want, even knowing full well you only understand how to be my friend or break my heart. But that's okay, wishing otherwise puts way too much pressure on you to be what your not. What you can't be yet.

I love you, but even if you felt the same it wouldn't be enough. Don't tell me for one moment that you know how to love me or how to treat me the way I deserve. How to treat me like a man should. You can't do that because you're not one yet. Everyone is in such a rush to grow up, sometimes they forget there's still things they haven't experienced. I'm an adult and there's still things I haven't experienced, and I know that. But I can't expect the impossible.

I can't expect you to relish in being an asshole, and then not expect you to be one to me. And I can't wait around to see if you'll grow out of things. Because even though I think jumping from girl to girl hoping they don't catch feelings is immature and dangerous business, guys in their 20s do the same thing. Right now you are the way you are, and I can't predict how you'll be in the future, and although I love you, I know that that's not something I could deal with emotionally.

When you sent me that one of your current needs was love, I know it was half a joke, but is that really one of your needs? You don't have to worry about that. One day you're gonna find a girl when you least expect it and she's gonna feel lucky to be with the funniest, most attractive, thoughtful, and talented guys around and she's gonna love you for you and you're gonna love her for her. She's gonna understand you better than you understand yourself and it's gonna scare you, but not enough that you'll ever consider leaving her. That's going to come, but it's not something you need to think about right now. You should focus on yourself and spending time making weird memories with your friends. Because before you know it it's gonna be over and those moments are gonna be the ones you remember. It's the little things.

I would give anything to go back to the moments messing around in children's theater playing trivia crack, or getting wasted then attempting to walk around pig on the pond, or the football games, or the nights in legends. It's going to random community service but actually having a good time because the guy you were with made it fun, or dipping out of the theater to chuck plates at each other hoping the other one would catch them. The stupid moments you don't pay attention to are the ones that will matter, the ones that make you who you are.

It kinda sucks because you don't even know how much I love you, it's really kinda pathetic and hopeless. But even though you're basically my dream guy, that doesn't mean you're my right guy. Reality has a way of catching up with us in the end. And I may be pathetic and hopeless, but I'm learning, and more importantly, I'm trying.

November 23, 2017

It's been almost a year since I wrote this. I was speaking my peace and no matter how many times I did that, I still ended up coming back to you in the end. Some energy I don't understand draws me to you. I used to think it was lust but I've dug and seen the darkest parts of you and I would not still be here if it wasn't something deeper than that. I used to think I was just in love with the idea of you. While I am idealistic, I feel as if I've come to know the real you and as previously mentioned it has to be something deeper. Is this love? Love is an agreement and commitment between two people and I don't thing that best describes us either - but I do know that I love you. And the fact that I'll never stop loving you hasn't changed.

To address my actual writing, I'm not even sure how to start. I was talking about if things were different. I was thinking "what if in this alternate perfect world we could've been together? And what if that's not achievable?" But to be honest, someday I'd love to give US a shot. When the timing is right and no matter how long that takes. There has to be a reason that I can't let you go try as I might've.

Timing. It's so important. I struggle finding a balance between "if it's meant to be, it will be" and "if you want something, make it happen".

I definitely sometimes forget that we're not the same age because you are mature on so many levels. It's two years gap, really not that steep in the long run, all things considered. But you've had to be mature, your life has forced you to be. You teach me things about life that you shouldn't of had to learn yet and things I'll never relate to but that nevertheless are important to me. The harder lessons. But in lighter times when I spend time with you and your friends your age, I see it more. You still are younger than me. These times are sweet and pure and something that it would be selfish of me to take away from you. I have to live in adult world, you have time. But I love you and if you ever decide that I'm your person, your person is what I'll be.

But I will not stoop into being what I'm not for you as I have in the past. I can tell that you still like the "chase" and the games and that's not what love should require. You never go for girls unless something is at stake..unless you could lose them. I think half the reason you've never went for me is because I've never challenged you like that. It's never been an ultimatum. I'm always there so I'm boring or predictable and you're not interested in that right now. There's still hope in me for you though.

I hope that one day you will tire of the games and see that there isn't anything in the world I wouldn't do to make you happy. I'm always looking out for you, worrying privately about you, praying for you. You are a priority to me. I hope that one day you'll see this for this. You'll see yourself the way I see you. You'll see me for me. Who I am and who I can be for you. That is when everything falls into place.