#ive been here since 2012 ive watched in real time it all go to shit

[kiwibirdlafayette]

i wanna make it clear im not interested in fandom politics. im not interested in trying to play games to be apart of popular groups within fandoms. im here to draw old man yaoi and my stupid ass AUs and silly shit of my favs i quite frankly am disappointed to see how much a popularity contest it is even on whats supposed to be the website of weirdos . like yall know this is fucking tumblr right.

[thatlexplays]

Friday the 13th: Ranked

She's on Tumblr again? LONG POSTING? What is this, 2012?

Hi Tumblr. It's been a bit. But I decided it was the best place to talk unhinged shit that wouldn't make sense on other sites, so here we go again I guess. Last time I was here, I was straight. Now I'm uh...not.

ANYWAYS. Today's Friday the 13th, and it just so happens to also be OCTOBER (aka Halloween season). So y'know. Extra spooky.

I feel like there's only one REAL way to celebrate this day. To talk about the slasher of Camp Crystal Lake himself, Jason Vorhees.

I've had a fascination for horror movies since my edgy years from late 2009 through...honestly most of high school (I wore fingerless bike gloves to school every day--I didn't bike to school. I was CRINJ CITY). I remember watching the major slashers like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, one of my most cringe moments was making a YouTube video about the 2010 reboot of Nightmare on Elm Street and talking about how good it was (15 year old me, for the record, was an idiot).

I know for a fact that I remember watching the original Friday and Friday Part 2. But I'd never seen the other TEN films in the franchise. So earlier this year, I got together with a friend and over the course of a few weekends...

We watched every Friday the 13th film that currently exists (as of posting) and ranked them.

Our Rating System

This was our first time doing a ranking for horror, so we didn't come up with a fun system at the first go around, save for an exception.

For the purposes of consistency of our lists, we're going to use the following rating system: Actually Good. These are the movies that are actually genuinely good watches, with fun characters, good writing, and good sequences. These are the best of the best.

Fun Time 🎉. The movies in this category might not be amazing, but they are still a fun time and are still pretty good watches for the type of horror we're watching.

A Movie™️ . These movies range from almost fun to not boring or bad enough to be lower on the list. We'll explain these as we go.

Why? 🤷. There are movies that take things into confusing territories and make things more convoluted for one reason or another. If it makes us say "Why?" then it's here. No 🙅. These are the worst ones--reasoning will explain.

Caveats

I think it's important to note that while my friend and I love watching horror, we don't think the Friday the 13th franchise is particularly scary. But we were interested becuase the 80s slashers are known to be just fun, and that entices me more than anything. So while these aren't scary when you compare them to modern horror like Barbarian, we were looking for fun times.

Also, should go without saying, but these are subjective opinions.

So with that out of the way...let's do this in order from top to bottom.

Actually Good

Jason Lives! Friday the 13th Part VI

If you watch any of the Friday the 13th movies, make it this one. Part VI is not just a solid slasher movie with great production values, but it's also just a good movie in general.

Tommy Jarvis and Megan are the best duo protagonists we have, with great chemistry. The group of teens we have here are also just fun to watch. People are mostly likelable!

Also the guy who went on to be the voice for Disney's TARZAN is in this movie. Neat.

There's also a ton of great references to other Horror Media because Director Tom McGloughlin is a damn nerd and we LOVE IT. Watch the Dead Meat Kill Count on these. Ya learn a lot.

Friday the 13th Part II

So when it comes to the original canon (aka up through Part IV), this film is the strongest out of all of them. Mostly because of the fact that even though Jason Vorhees doesn't have his iconic hockey mask (which he gets in Part III), the film has straight up the best group of camp counselors/teens in the whole franchise. They're fleshed out more, more sympathetic, and it's just fun.

The only real reason this doesn't top the list is that Part VI is just a better movie overall. There are some weird shot choices, and the cold open is weird and has no pacing.

A Fun Time 🎉

Jason X

Ok, so hear me out. I know the conceit of this movie is WEIRD. It's literally Jason in SPACE. This should be ridicously bad, right?

It's absolutely wild, but the thing about this movie is that it FULLY commits to the crazy concept and it honestly just works. It truly has no right to be as good as it is.

It's not a masterpiece, and it's still objectively wild, but it's a good time.

Friday the 13th (the Original)

It feels weird that the original Friday the 13th movie is in this team, but while this movie is still very good, and still a fun time with great iconic kills; it's still a little anticlimatic and the other films have stronger thru-lines.

Still a good movie, and one that I'd argue that you should still watch because it's the original and iconic, but it's not the best one.

Friday the 13th (2009 Reboot)

So I remember as an edgy teen harping on this movie for being bad (had I seen it? No. Did it matter? Also no). But this is actually a VERY strong reboot. While it doesn't entirely meet the bar of the other movies thus far, it's a fun time that does act as a "best of" of the early films in the franchise.

The characters are also kinda fun.

A Movie™️

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Part IV)

This is the technically the end of the main story arc of Jason Vorhees--he does die here. Every movie from this point on has a Zombified Jason.

Part IV is higher than the other movies on this list mostly because of the kills themselves--someone gets stabbed while they're holding a banana -- it's wild.

Everything else is kinda meh. Most of the characters here are kinda sleezy and high key horny af, and they're all kind sex pest energy. They kind of suck.

Friday the 13th Part IV: A New Beginning

So Jason isn't in this movie, at all. There's someone else imitating Jason

It's aggressively sleezy and almost pornographic, which isn't

The one main positive this movie has is that it has some very solid characters that very much feel more interesting than most of the characters in the franchise. The kills aren't as good as Part IV, but it's still fun.

Freddy vs. Jason

So I was expecting this movie to be a lot better than it was (for what its worth, it's one of the better Nightmare on Elm Street Movies). It's fine. Not overly worth writing home about per se.

Friday the 13th Part III

So this is an important film that brings us the iconic hockey mask and was also in 3D (because we love gimmicks). Unfortunately, this movie recycles a few kills and the characters are way more one dimensional, and annoying, and there's also some fun problematic racism thrown in.

Why? 🤷

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

This was one of the first movies in the Friday the 13th franchise that BAFFLED me and my friend when watching. According to Dead Meat, they tried to reach out to New Line about doing someting with Nightmare on Elm Street; they refused. So they went, "Ok but what if Jason vs. Carrie White? This slasher franchise needs telekinesis."

Part VII tries to be both a Friday the 13th film and a Carrie film at the same time. It fails at being good versions of both. The teens are forgettable; the telekenetic plotline is interesting but that's kinda not really the point of Friday the 13th, so it's just baffling.

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Part IX)

Woof. This one is real rough.

This was a movie we kept pausing to see how long we had so we can say "We have NO IDEA WHAT IS HAPPENING".

The movie tries to streamline things but make things more complicated.

The effects are cool, the kills are ok, and the characters are fine. But the structure is bad.

No 🙅

Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan

Out of all of the Friday movies, this one is straight up bad. All of the characters are terrible and have no redeeming qualities. Half the movie doesn't take place in Manhattan, and once there, there's also a fun scene that's essentially SA and it's straight up upsetting. When you manage to make Jason look like a good guy, you know you've got a bad movie.

Final Thoughts

I'll go on record and say that Friday the 13th has more good movies than bad ones in my opinion. You don't watch these movies to be scared, you watch them to have a good time.

So go have fun and watch these movies!

[popculturebuffet]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 Review: Still Possesses Turtle Power After All These Years

Cowabunga all you happy people! I freaking love the Teenage Ninja Turtles. I grew up with it from Turtles in Time, which was my first video game, to the 2003 cartoon, which I covered the first three episodes of last month, and on to present day as I re-read the idw comics after finally reading the original eastman and laird run of mirage, and impatiently waiting for Shredder’s Revenge to come out after a LONG drout of no good TMNT games. I”m a fan of these heroes four, their dynamic as a family, the endless possiblities that come from it’s long history and ablitlity to go anywhere in any genre, and the wonderful goofy shit that happens when you have a franchise about mutant turtles learning ninjitsu from a rat and fighting a dude covered in knife covered samurai armor. 

So with me finally covering the guys after almost a year last month and with a new movie set to debut at some point this year, I had the bright idea to revisit the FIRST TMNT movie after way too many years of not watching it. This movie is anear and dear to my heart: When I first started getting into the boys big as a kid with the 2003 cartoon, I badly wanted more turtles. But back then it wasn’t nearly as easy to glom onto some more of the sewer shock pizza kings: Streaming sites with all the cartoons on them weren’t all that accesable, dvd’s were expensive for the 87 cartoon, Mirage wasn’t reprinting the comics in any meaningful way and my local comic shop didn’t have any at all and I could only play the SNES when my brother had it set up on occasion like at our Grandma’s farm. 

As you probably guessed though there was one exception: the original 1990 movie, which I got at Walmart for 5 bucks and haven’t let go of since. It was one of my first dvds and is still one of my most precious. Said film hit the spot just right as like my beloved 2003 series, it was a mildly goofy but still fucking cool adaptation that stuck closer to the mirage comics, even more than the 2003 series would, while taking a few queues from the 87 series. This film is as precious to me as the 2003 series and a with a brand new movie coming up, I figured it was the exact right time to dig into this classic: what makes it still good to this day, what’s fun to point and laugh at, and how the heck Jim Henson got involved in this. So join me under the cut as I take a look at my boys first theatrical outing and why I still love watching a turtle. 

No One Wanted To Make This: Before we get into the film itself some background. As usual I struggled a bit, but thankfully found some help in the form of this Hollywood Reporter article.  It’s a fascinating read worth your time, providing an oral history of the film from the people who worked on it. 

The film was the baby of Gary Propper, a surfer dude and road manager for the prop comic Gallagher, aka that guy who used to smash watermelons but now has instead opted to smash what little’s left of his career by being a homophobic douchenozzle. He found an ally in Showtime producer Kim Dawson who’d produced Gallagher’s special. I don’t think there will be more of an 80′s sentence than “Gallagher’s surfer dude agent wanted to make a teenage mutant ninja turtles movie”. Propper was a huge fan of the comics, and with Dawson’s help convinced Laird and Eastman to let them option it to studios. 

It may come as a shock to you but the road agent for a homophobic watermelon man and a producer at a niche cable channel wanting to make a movie based on an underground comic book about masked turtles at a time when the two most recent comic book movies were Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Howard the Duck, did not go well. Every door in Hollywood got slammed in their face, even Fox> Even the eventual backer of the film, Golden Harvest, a hong kong action film studio, took months to convince to actually back the film. 

Things did not get easier from there: The films writer Bobby Herbeck had trouble getting a story agreed on because Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s working relationship had deteroiated horribly from the stress so naturally the two could not agree on a damn thing and argued with each other. Peter Laird  made a tense siutation even worse by constnatly sniping at Herbeck and feeling he was a “Hollywood outsider infringing on his vision and characters”

Granted the script was apparently not great... but Pete still comes off as a pretnetious ass who views his weird indie comic as THE HIGHEST OF HIGH CALLINGS HOW DARE YOU SOIL IT. And continued to be kind of a prick like this throughout the rest of his time with the property. 

Thankfully the film found i’ts voice, vision and director in Steve Barron. Barron was a music video guy who knew the producers and while reluctant, eventually dove into the project rightfully thinking the film would need to be a mix of the mirage comics and 87 cartoon, keeping aprils’ reporter job, the turtles lvoe of pizza and their iconic color coding from the cartoon but adapting several stories from the comics as the backbone of the film. The guys liked barron MUCH better and things ran smoother. 

Barron also brought in one of the film’s biggest selling points and it’s most valuable asset: it’s triumphantly awesome Jim Henson costumes. Barron had worked with good old Jim on the music videos for Labyrinth, and while it took some convincing since the comics were violent as hell and that wasn’t Jim’s style, Barron eventually got him on board. This naturally doubled the budget, but given Henson’s costumes STILL hold up today and look better than the cgi used in the platinum dunes films... it was a good call. And this was brand new tech for jim, having to invent tons of new ideas and mechanisms just to make the things work, and said things still were absolute hell on the actors. Jim later ended up not liking the film for being too violent... which I find hilarious given how many muppets got eaten or blowed up real good on his show but regardless, I thank this legendary and wonderful man as without him this film WOULD NOT have worked. The costumes here look great, feel realistic, and you can’t tell the actors were dubbed much less horribly suffering in those suits. Much like Disney Land. 

The film would get picked up for distribution by New Line, and despite i’ts weird as hell origins and the long shot it had.. the film was a MASSIVE hit at the box office, owing to a combination of Batman 89 the previous year having proved comic book movies can work for audiences, the cartoon’s runaway sucess, and a massive marketing campaign. The film made it’s mark. So now we know how we got here let’s get into the film itself. 

What’s the Story Morning Glory?:

So the story for this one is largely cobbled together from some of the more notable arcs Eastman and Laird did before handing off the book to others full time as the stress of the company and the mounting tension with each other made it near impossible to work together on the book itself. 

To Save time i’m just going through what hte movie takes from the comics plot wise now to save me the trouble later:The movie takes elements from the first issue (The Turtles, Splinter and Shredder’s backstories, Shredder being fully human and the main antagonist, Shredder’s design and the final rooftop showdown that results in Shredder’s death), second and third, (April’s apartment over her dad’s old store and the turtles moving in when their home is ransacked and splinter has gone missing), the rapheal micro series (A tounge in cheek way of cashing in on the Mini-Series craze of the 80s, a one shot by modern standards and something that’s tragically been underused as an idea as only TMNT and MLP have used the idea at IDW, Raph meeting casey and their fight with one another), the return of shredder arc (One of the turtles being ambushed and mobbed by the foot and then thrown though a sky light (Leo in the comic and Raph here), the turtles being horribly outnumbered by them, Casey coming ot the rescue and metting the non-raph turtles for the first time, and them being forced to escape when the place goes up in flames), their exile to northampton (April writing in a journal, casey working on a car with one of the guys and one of hte guys looking over hteir injured brother), and finally, their triumphant return which was very loosely adapted as there are no deformed shredder clones and shredder not being dead yet in this version was not brought back by a colony of super science worms. 

So as for how this all comes together: Our story takes place in New York: A crimewave is high with muggings mysterious. There are a ton of phantom thefts going around and at most people have been seeing teens responsibile. And the police.. are at about this level of useful:

The only person doing something is April O’Neil, played by Judith Hoag. Hoag is easily the standout of the film, giving us a strong, confident woman with a wonderful sense of humor. She honestly might be my faviorite April O Neil, and given we’ve had some great ones with 2003, 2012 and Rise, that’s not something I say lightly. I honestly wish I’d recognized her in more stuff as she was both on Nashville and the mom in the Halloween Town films, and most recently was on the ScFy show the magicians. She’s a talented lady and i’m glad she’s still goin. 

April is a reporter for Channel 3 like the cartoon, though for some weird reason her boss from the cartoon is replaced by Charles Pennigton, played by Jay Patterson, whose currently dealing with his troubled son Danny, played by Micheal Turney. Pennington is horribly useless at both jobs: At work he tries to ease April off calling out Chief Sterns, who refuses to listen to April’s evidence gathered from japanese immigrants that the crimes resemble similar ones in japan in favor of trying to get charles to shut her up. Danny meanwhile is a member of the foot becase his dad thinks shouting out him and talking about him like he’s not there and generally being a dipstick will actually do anything to help him. 

I love the concept for the foot here. In addition to being a Ninja Violence Gang as always, they now recruit new members by finding kids without families or with troubled family lives and giving them a sense of family with the foot, and sweeting the bargin with a giant cave filled with arcade machines, a skate ramp and general late 80′s early 90′s kids goodies. Is it rediculous? Yes. Is it also clever as it gives Shredder an easy army of plausably deniable theives that he can pick the best out of to put in his elite that will be tirelessly loyal to him and him alone? Also yes. 

So April being public about this stuff gets her attacked, which naturally leads to our heroes coming in, first in the shadows and later directly when April wont’ give up on the case and Shredder sends some ninjas to go shut her up.. which he does weirdly as the guy jsut slaps her and tells her to cut it out like he’s on a domestically abusive episode of Full House. Raph saves her, and we get the turtles origin.. though weirdly they cut it in half. We get the ooze portion but Splinter’s past with Saki, Saki’s murder of his master and his master’s partern Tang Shen is left for later in the film and the fact Shredder’s saki is treated as a big twist despite the fact the biggest audience for the film would be kids... and kids would’ve been familiar with the cartoon where the giant brain monster routinely screeches out saki at the shredder. Maybe Barron just thought he was an alcoholic I don’t know. It just would’ve made more sense to have it all at once and let the audeince put it together. 

April becomes good friends with the turtles over a night of frozen pizza and camradrie, but the Splinters return home to find it ransacked, Splinter kidnapped by the foot, and are forced to Stay with april. Charles meanwhile tries to get April to backoff because he made a deal with the police to clear Danny’s record, without TELLING her any of this mind you, but I will save my rage on that little plot point for in a bit as Danny who he drug along sees the turtles and tells the Shredder. 

So we get the return of the shredder arc as Raph goes through a window, our heroes fight valiantly, and Raph’s friend Casey who he met earlier shows up, the two having bonded as all true friends do.. by beating the shit out of each other ending with raph shouting DAMNNNNNNN really big and dramatically into the sky for some reason. The Turtles and friends escape with an injured raph from April’s burning second hand store. She had a second hand store it was poorly established and only there because she had it in the comics. 

Our heroes retreat to a farm April’s grandma owned in Northampton, Massachutes, where Mirage was located at the time the original comics where they were exiled to the place were written and a location that has been a staple of the turtles ever since. The turtles slowly recover, lick their wounds, talk about who hooked up with who on gilligans island etc, before Leo connects with Splinter via meditation, who tells them to come back. Splinter also starts to connect with Danny and convinces him to swtich sides.. or at the very least squat in the boys old home. 

The boys return home, find danny, and prepare, Danny goes back and ends up giving away the Turtles are home.. but the turtles are ready and in an awesome sequence kick the fuck out of the foot squad sent for them with some well prepared steam vents. Casey goes to get splinter since Danny told them and with Danny’s help, finds him, since Danny found out they were gonna kill him. Casey beats up Tatsu, shredder’s right hand man, and they get him out. 

We get our final fight which is awesome up until the climax.. which is splinter casually tripping shredder with nunchucks and thier bloody history being kind of rushed and unsatsifying. Casey crushes shredder with a garbage truck, April gets her job back, more on that in a moment, she and casey hook up, and we end with the fucking awesome song T-U-R-T-L-E Power by partners in cryme. Seriously check it out it’s fucking triumphant. 

The song is just good.. cheesy? Sure but that’s half the fun. It’s the gold standard for movie theme songs for them and stacks up handily with the various animated series themes.. all of which slap. Okay... ALMOST all of which slap. Fast Forwards is aggressively medicore, which is doubly suprising to me since 4kids was REALLY damn good with theme songs. It was one of the three things they were best at along with finding VERY talented voice actors and setting japan based works in america because merica dammit.  

The plot is very solid: It skilfully packed half of eastman and laird’s run on TMNT into 90 mintues while adding things like April’s job at channel 9, the way the foot recurited kids etc. The plot flows well for hte most part and apart from one annoying subplot we’ll get to never has a moment that feel unecessary or dosen’t pay off later. And the stellar plot and fun pacing of it helps boilster the characters that do work... and help paper over the ones that are so thin the’yd fall down a grate...

Our Heroes, Villains and Annoying Middle Aged Guys:

Yeahhhh character is hit and miss here. Some are rather strong, others are the bare basics for the character their adapting and most are just to serve the plot but some work some don’t,  So let’s talk about it starting with our boys:

Raph is the most fleshed out of the turtles, being the main focus of the first 2/3 of the film, and having his anger be part of what SHOULD be a character arc, learning to temper it. And while granted MOST TMNT properties do this, to the point that Rise Raph is so loveable in part because his boisterous bruiser big bro attitude is a refreshing break from the usual grumpus we get. But at the time this hadn’t been done in every version but the 87 cartoon, so exploring it was valid.. but despite saying this should be a thing htey just forget about it and the most plot relevance he gets is going thorugh a window. He dosen’t really get a resolution.. his arc just kind of stops dead for the final half and it’s one of the film’s weaker points, one I only just now noticed on this rewatch. He’s still the most entertaining. 

Leo is the weakest of the turtles. He really lacks a personality here mostly just being leader and while his spirtual side is touched on, it’s  mostly a plot device. He’s just kinda the leader because he was in the comics to the point Partners in Cryme called Raph the leader. His role in getting taken out by the foot was taken by Raph, so he just has.. nothing to do for most of the film other than gripe at raph ocasionally and say orders. He’s probably the worst Leo i’ve seen outside of Next Mutation. I prefice that because after watching Phelous’ review it’s VERY clear those four are the worst versions of the characters, and no personality is still better than either having your team do nothing or yelling at them as your personality. I chalk this up to the Mirage Leo, and the mirage turtles to a poit being kind of bland. Not TERRIBLE characters, especially for the time, but not nearly as fleshed out or individualized as they woudl be in other adpatations, and with most traits LEo DID have, like his badassery flat out gone, he’s just.. nothing here. 

Mikey and Donnie are a double act here with both sharing a brain. Interestingly instead of his normal genius character, Donnie is Mikey’s best friend and the two simply trade jokes and schtick together. The two are interchangable.. but easily the best part of the film and a lot of the most memorable gags and lines, from Ninja Kick the Damn Rabbit! to “Do you like Penicllin on your pizza”, are from them. Thier there almost entirely as comic relief but it works, with both clealry being more modled ont he 87 cartoon turtles, a move that helps lighten the mood in darker moments. Their just genuinely charming and it’s intresting to see such a diffrent version of Donnie, and other incarnations, specifically the 2003 and Rise versions, would retain the sarcastic edge. 

Splinter is splinter. That’s about it, he’s peformed well and the puppet is amazing but he gets kidnapped a half an hour in and outside of influcencing Denny, more on that in a moment, and finishing Shredder he dosen’t do much but spout exposition. He’s not bad or anything, but he’s essentially a rodent shaped plot device. He was also puppeted by Kevin CLash, aka the guy who does Elmo. So there you go. 

April on the other hand.. is truly excellent. This might be my faviorite April. Judith’s april nicely blends the cartoon and mirage versions: She has the cartoons energy and job, but the comics sheer will and casual nature. Judith just oozes personality and her April is just a joy to watch, from her breezy chemistry filled interactions with the guys to her confrntation with Chief Sterns, knowing she’ll get thrown out by the asshole. She’s confident, and even when afraid dosen’t back down to her attackers and even helps out during the sewer ambush. I mean it’s a pot on the head but still it’s neat. She’s easily the best part of the flim and the most fleshed out of the cast. The worst I can say is they kinda shove her store from the comics, Second Time Around, in there for no other reason than it was in the comics: It dosen’t come up until it’s needed for the foot’s assault on her place. But overall.. she’s just fantastic to watch. 

Speaking of fantastic to watch, Elias Koteas is fantastic as Casey. Seriously he’s only second to the 2003 version in my eyes, getting the concept of a testorone filled average guy who decided to just go out and hit people with sports equipment after watching too much A-Team.. I mean that part of it’s not in this version but it’s implied, just right. Like judith, Elias is just really funny to watch and his big scenes, showing up just in time during the foot assault on april’s place and his fight with Tatsu are some of the best parts of the film, the former taken directly from the comics. This version isn’t without problems: His friendship with Raph, his most endearing aspect and one that has been carried throughout eveyr version Casey’s important, with the only exception so far being rise and we have a movie to fix that, is absent here. HE does save the guy, but they don’t really bond or anything. In fact he disappears for about half an hour after his big fight with Raph. But... again he’s just so damn entertaining, down to his JOSEEEEEEEEEEE Conseco bats (There was a two for one sale!).

Shredder is just a LITTLE better than splinter, if only because his actor projects a true aura of menace and I feel this version had some influence on the pants crappingly terrifying 2003 version. And the idea of the foot recurting teenagers like I said is a good one: He gives them home and a cause, they give him plausably deniable backup. And his fight with the boys in the climax is really awesome... the conclusion sucks but otherwise h’es okay. Not the deepest villian, but he has enough presence to be enjoyable.

His right hand man Tatsu, whose been adapted ocasionally since this and reimaigned as Natsu in the IDW comics, a female version, is also fine. He’s your standard grimacing goon but has enough presence to work. 

So that brings us to the penningtons. Charles, april’s boss at the station and his son Danny who’s joined the foot as he feels his dad dosen’t love him. Charles..is about as interesting and likeable as a dog turd and is the worst aspect of the film. No debate there, he just sucks. He sucks so hard he’s classified as a black hole.  The film wants you to see him as a put upon wokring dad whose frustrated with his son’s increased moodiness, skipping school and crminal undertakings and just wants to help him and loves him deep down. The problem is his actor’s delivery instead of concerned.. is just pissed. He just seems pissy and upset about the whole thing and comes off like he’s only mad about Danny doing this because he’s embarassing him and not because you know, it’s bad. When confronting Danny about stealing, he dosen’t consider MAYBE he’s part of a gang or needs help, but just wonders “Why are you stealing when I give you stuff”. Because, Dipshit, sometimes kids do crimes not because they need the stuff but because they WANT to, and because they want to act the fuck out. 

The most he does for the kid is agree to try and get April to back off the police when Cheif Sterns offers to let Danny go and not put him on record in exchange for it. The problem.. is this makes him even MORE unsympathetic. While I do get wanting to help your child, I do and it’s a sucky position... he again should be sympathetic.. but he handles the thing so badly it sucks. He just tells april to ease off, with no reason given, then fires her when she SHOCKINGLY dosen’t give up taking the guy whose refusing to take her hard work seriously or actually solve the crime wave problem to task for his shitty behavior as ANY person facing a shitty, corrput cop would. She just wants to hold him acountable and get him to actually do something. He clearly knows her on a personal level too as he talks about his issues with his son freely with her, something you don’t do with an employee unless their also a friend on some level. 

He could have TOLD april what was going on. She’d be furious at Stern’s naked corrpution and prioritizing shutting her up over actually solving crimes.. and thus put at least some of that energy into shutting him down or finding a way around it, going to the papers or something like that. Even in 1990 pre-internet, there were ways to get around Sterns blackmail and expose him so someone who’d actually do the job could get the job. Instead he just comes off as a selfish coward who rather than try and fight the guy blatantly abusing his power and using Charles own son as  barganing chip, goes along with it because it’s the easier option to simply bow to him instead of TRY and stop this. And it’s not like he’s even going after a beloved public figure or someone who could hide behind his rep: Sterns was blatantly failing a crime wave, April had called him out on his failrues and coverups multiple times. The public was against sterns.. finding out he tried to blackmail the media into shutting up about him would PROBABLY end him... I only say probably not because the public wouldn’t skewer him, but because police tend to escape consequences for blatantly murdering someone on a daily basis and Andrew Cumo is STILl mayor over in new york, the same city this movie takes place, 31 years later, depsite EVERYONE asking him to resign over a long history of sexual harassment and a more recent but still horrible history of hiding death numbers. I don’t doubt people being stupid enough to ignore this or the bilaws with cops being stacked enough for him to get away with it, but just because someone gets away with a crime dosen’t mean you shoudln’t try and go after them in the first place. Fuck. Charles. Pennington. 

Danny on the other hand is FAR more interesting and I think gets way too much flack when it comes to this subplot. Unlike his dad, whose dead weight, Danny is intresting: He provides a POV character for the foot’s MO in the film of taking in wayward teens, and his character arc is pretty engaging, slowly realizing the foot dosen’t care and that hte turtles are the good guys. HIs actor does a great job and while not the biggest presence, he’s not a bad addition to clan hamaoto and I wish other adaptations would find a way to use him. The pull between doing the right thing and his found family is a good struggle. My only real issue with his plot is the moviies flawed aseop about family. It tries to contrast shredder and his using the kids blatnatly with Splinter and Charles really loving their sons. And it works with Splinter and the kids because despite being a tad strict, Splinter clearly loves his sons and works with them to help them. The problem is ENTIRELY with Charles and Danny. As I said Charles love comes off as transasctional: He either thinks he can buy it or just expects it because he shot a bunch of goop into Danny’s mom after two minutes of disapointment. It dosen’t work with them because neither option is good for Danny. His father is neglectful, chooses throwing his jounralistic integrity out the window over talking to his son or his best friend about another way, and abrasive. Danny is no saint, he does do crimes, but it’s clearly a result of a shitty upbringing and the shredder and co actually offeirng him the love he desperatly craves. Danny goes to the foot because his dad is bad at his job but the film never adresses that and just expects Danny to go back to his dad because the plot says so. Danny would HONESTLY be better off with Splinter. No really. Sure he’d have to live in the sewers.. but he did so for a few weeks in the course of the movie. He’s fine down there. Splitner actually cares about him and took an intrest to him and knows how to raise a child. Let him become the fifth turtle. An aseop about family is not a bad thing: Loaded subject that it can be given how many outright abusive families exist, i’m one of the lucky ones who dosen’t have that issue, family is an important thing and can be a source of comfort and support. But this film tells you you should love and respect someone who does not love, respect or value you because he spent a minute in your mom’s vagina and that’s not how family should work and is outright dangerous to kids in an abusive situation. Love the film otherwise but fuck this aseop skyhigh. 

Final thoughts:

Overall though.. the film is bodacious. It’s funny, well paced, has an awesome cast, and outside of a certain bald asswipe... it’s a really good superhero film. Is it the best i’ve seen? Nope. Not even close and character wise most of them are as thin as a wet paper bag covered in ranch dressing. But it’s still a fun as hell with awesome corepgraphy, a killer soundtrack, seriously the soundtrack is damn excellent and only didn’t get it’s own section because I didn’t have enough to say and some of the best effects work i’ve seen in a film in the turtle suits. If you haven’t seen it I urge you to check it out: it’s a breezy 90 minutes, it’s on hbo max and it’s a shell of a time. Will I do the next film? 

We’ll see how this one does like wise and such, but I will be doing the rise film whenever it comes out this year. So look for that and keep possesing turtle power my dudes. If you liked this review subscirbe for more, join my patreon to keep this blog a chugging, comission a review if you have more turtle stuff you want me to cover, and comment on this. What do you think of the movie, what are your thoughts on the review, what can I do better, what other turtle stuff would you like me to cover/ Let me know and i’ll see you at hte next rainbow. 

[mrfutureboy]

I would like to know when you started drawing and where your passion for fanart started 😊

Oh FUCK dude i did not see this i’m so fucking sorry this is so late 😭 damn you, tumblr, for not fucking notifying me!! Anyway buckle up this is gonna be much longer than you asked for <3

Honestly ive kinda been drawing all my life! I hope that doesnt sound dumb cuz obviously almost everyone drew pictures when they were kids, but i know that it’s been a consistent hobby for me since i was little. By the time i was in 3rd grade I was hoarding notebooks to draw in. Cuz that’s something fun about me: i had a real huge habit of drawing in things that werent sketchbooks. Through middle school and beyond I did buy/receive sketchbooks, but I started out with various kinds of notebooks. One I had from like 2nd grade was like a hardcover, stationary-type notebook that I drew cats in lol, and I have 2 velvet lisa frank notebooks from 3rd grade. In high school and college I had a really bad habit of drawing in the margins on my notes and on handouts the teacher/professor would give. Those classes where the prof just prints out all the notes beforehand and gives them to you to follow along? Oh man, I spent so many classes barely listening while I drew on them! I also used to draw on my physics homework and tests and sometimes I even got extra credit for them (thank you jeff :D). I actually have a folder of various drawings I’ve kept from that 8yr time period and a lot of them are on classwork 😂

Obviously, I’ve been doing a lot of digital art lately, which I’m sure is what u were more curious about rather than the shit about drawing on my homework. I got a surface pro as a graduation gift in 2016 bc prior to that i had a wacom tablet and a janky ass laptop, so the gift was kinda a 2-in-1: i can do schoolwork AND art easily! i like digital art a lot and honestly im still learning new things abt it every time i draw. I use Leonardo currently (i’ll skip that story) but I started out doing digital art on sketchfu WITHOUT the wacom tablet in maaaaybe 2012??? 2011??? does anyone on this site remember sketchfu? Honestly couldnt even tell u how i found that site hahah the internet was just full of wonders back in the day. RIP sketchfu. Once i got the tablet tho some time later i used sketchfu still (i think) but also gimp and krita i believe.

Oh i suppose I should mention that i took art all four years of highschool and also minored in it in college! So it’s something i did academically as well as for fun. I keep thinking about going to art school for realsies but idk. I’m already $$$ in debt from my first degree i dont feel like adding to that 😅😓

Ok now for the second part of your question: I’ve also pretty much always done fan art! Ive never really been one for OC’s, EXCEPT for the self-insert superhero double life “comics” i wrote about a poodle named Sassy when i was in third grade. And then the knock off “comics” i wrote at a later time which honestly it was weird that i did a knock off of my own thing rather than just adding them to the original or making it a spin off with at least one of the og characters. Cuz it wasnt a spin off!! But anyway there wasnt really much to any of these characters; i just needed vessels to get my weird ideas out.

So anyway yeah most of what ive ever drawn has been fan art or self portraits, because its just easier for me to take characters that already exist and bend them to my will (artistically). Well excluding art assignments in school i guess because i would usually have to draw something specific and therefore not something self indulgent. But yeah ive drawn for lots of fandoms like the earliest i remember is warrior cats. Then theres things like pokemon and warriors and random other books i read thru middle school (i used to read a LOT but now im practically illiterate); spn, sherlock, and marvel through high school; and then marvel and bttf thru the end of hs and beyond. Idk i also have always loved looking at other peoples fan art and so im like “shit i wanna do that too!”. Tho i will say marvel was my biggest fandom and the one i had the longest interest in, so that was probably where the passion REALLY came from cuz I was drawing marvel stuff for such a long time (tho not posting shdjsk u have to trust me), but ive been doing fan art forever :)

(Of course, a lot of the fan art i was making prior to recently was drawn in lined notebooks or on homework sheets or what have you, and I wasn’t posting really any of it, but i was still making it and a good chunk of it still exists. Oh i should also mention most of it was with pencils or ballpoint pens like i wasnt doing anything too fancy. There was some digital art in the highschool-college time frame but it also really wasnt…much. Honestly i barely posted any of it here but I know some of it’s on deviantart)

I cant pinpoint the exact time I started getting more “serious” about my art in general, but i know the first pandemic lockdown gave me more free time and i was less stressed about schoolwork so i just kinda had a good outlet. (Tho i will say that prior, I had been in a life drawing club for a short while, and i had also been working on a personal sketchbook project that had me pretty ~inspired~ to do art. Also i watched twin peaks around this time and it inspired a lot of Feelings and i was making funky collages and other art pieced that were sometimes related to that. Some of those are on deviantart)

Honestly I think the Big thing with my digital art was coincidentally getting back into BTTF the summer of the 35th anniversary bc the fandom here was THRIVING and i was like “oh shit wait i want to contribute!” But as i kept drawing i kept wanting to improve and that leads us to right now where im constantly trying new things (whether subtle or obvious) and challenging myself to do full body drawings with different poses, and doing screencap redraws and what have you for various reasons (backgrounds, proportions, pose, etc)

So yeah :) Basically I’ve been doing fan art forever (I didnt even get into all the mediums ive tried but that’s another conversation bc this is already so long and convoluted) and it’s kinda coincidental that ive suddenly really gotten back into it and have improved dramatically in such a short time. Thank you so much @rovermcfly for the ask and again im really sorry you had to wait so long for a response! Stupid tumblr

[ap-sadistics]

of all the things i expected u to get into rottmnt wasn't one of them, but it's real cute.

ROTTMNT IS A REAL GOOD SHOW AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT FOR FREE SERITONIN 

ok now that thats out of my system ive actually always been a turtle fan!! since childhood!! i watched the 2003 series on saturday mornings in elementary school and man. im pretty sure that show had the Stuff that i enjoyed very much as a baby sadist before i even knew what a sadist was. shit was formative. although i dont remember much of the show now it still made me love tmnt till today and also i watched the 2012 series but i dropped off at some point and dont remember it too well also. but ye turtles ive always been here

but like to talk about how i actually got into rottmnt is like. typical jem bullshit behavior. the bullshit is that it was entirely fanfic motivated jhbthgrejkfhr. i was going insane. i was going made because i had nothing to fucking READ bc i had completely drained the promptos fat ao3 tag (which is a feat) and lost most of my interest in reading for him and my current fandom at the time (tales of hearts) has literally FOURTEEN (14) FICS TOTAL. I WAS GOING CRAZY ON TWITTER WHERE ACTUALLY 100% OF MY TALKING ABOUT FIC VOMIT GOES. i was like. man do i resort to reading batman fanfiction bc fic author i liked wrote for it. but then i was like.... hang on.... tmnt............. what if i revisit it after years................ then started reading fic...... some were rottmnt........ i watched clips on youtube..... it looked really FUCKING GOOD. and it was all over from there.

really tho the animation is fucking amaaaaazing and aaaaahh. the comedy is well written too. good lighthearted show thats so visually stimulating.... anyways this is a very long response to something that wasnt even a question. im hooked. rottmnt is a genuinely wonderful show. im not done with season 1 yet tho because ives been so fucking busy with art school...... but watching one ep every so often actually keeps me sane during these trying times. this is the most paced out ive ever watched a show. bc i dont have the time to binge it all at once. i wish i could tho. and i wish i could binge it twice in a row so i can look for my fav leo smug face to potentially make an icon. dont have the time for that tho unfortunately. anyways. i love these turtles. they are such good fucking boys this series and im love and they are all my sons

[letstalksymphogear]

Symphogear, EP. 4 (Cont)

The gremlin challenges Tsubasa, a Symphogear, whose entire shtick is to sing to channel power, to sing.

It dawns on her, however, that Tsubasa is part Greninja. Tsubasa used Shadow-Weaving! It’s super effective.

“tell me, you jellyfish looking weirdo...”

“hey- hey, time out. are you gonna do what i think you’re gonna do. this is gonna like, kill you. you know that, right? that you will literally die? you do understand you can just retreat now or- or just take hibiki away, right? i even told you that was the whole point of this... uh... oh shit.”

“ARE YOU READY TO JAM”

“tsubasa please i will literally lend you my remaining brain cell to stop you from this really stupid mistake”

Dad has entered the server.

“oh my god. oh my god. oh my god. oh my god. o- ryoko. stop breathing on me. this isnt helping my anxiety over my adopted daughter figure literally preparing to kill herself over my commands.”

“sorry babe its just the asthma, forgot my inhaler”

“i cannot FUCKING believe of ALL the opponents i had to fight i had to fight the DUMBEST one on the goddamn block, you idiot, you absolute dunce, RETHINK THIS”

“OH GOD SHE’S DOING IT! SHE’S DOING IT! THE ABSOLUTE MADWOMAN- FUCK- FUCK! GET ME OUT OF HERE! FUCK! FUCK!”

“just used up my last brain cell for this attack, pal. you’re through.”

“NAH, EAT ASS YOU- YOU GODDAMN MANIAC”

“HAHA YEAH, GOT YOU NOW, SLOW WALKING, DRAMA INDUCIN’, PURPLE RAIN CHANN-”

“OH GOD! YOU TELEPORTED! YOU’VE GOT SV_CHEATS SET TO 1, DON’T YOU! NOCLIPPING LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS GET OUT OF MY FACE”

“WHOA WHOA WHOA WHAT THE FUCK WHOA I KNOW I CRACKED SOME JOKES BUT WE LITERALLY JUST MET AND I- I GOTTA KNOW PEOPLE FIRST BEFORE THIS SHIT AND- OH GOD PLEASE STOP”

“OH GOD! THIS... RAW, GAY, REPRESSED ENERGY... IT’S... TOO STRONG...”

The gremlin could not begin to comprehend Tsubasa’s intense love for incredibly well-built redheaded women.

Hibiki can, though.

“SO......... MUCH........... SAUCE...................”

“.................................................”

The gremlin retreats after getting her licks. This scene subtly implied something; the Nehushtan armor she wears regenerates over time, which means no matter how much damage it sustains, it will always return in one piece. The same can’t be said for the user, though.

Hibiki runs to Tsubasa, checking if she’s okay, totally oblivious to the gravity of what just happened.

“i came just as i could and ive brought happy meals for everyone”

Genjuro asks if Tsubasa is okay.

I dunno man, this is a pretty tough judgement call here. I mean, is she okay? Pain is a pretty subjective experience, after all.

“oh my god i get it. i get the joke she implied. she wanted to jam. she’s jammed! cause it- it looks like jam! no, wait, its more like sauce...”

It dawns on Hibiki that people actually do die during this job.

Tsubasa, as it turns out, survived her Swan Song. It makes sense that she would because she was naturally receptive to her relic, Ame-No-Habakiri. Still, the injury comes with great gravity. She’s benched for the next season, and it’s likely she’s gonna miss the playoffs.

Stuck on a respirator on the edge of life, Tsubasa will probably look back at this and go, “Gosh, I was such a wild child. Haha. Almost dying and all.”

Hibiki wraps her single braincell around the idea of death. Most main characters aren’t familiar with the concept of death, you see, because most don’t die. But this is Season One Symphogear. Flirting with death is common.

Ogawa comes in to comfort her.

“dumbass had her opponent bound and the gremlin still escaped anyway”

Ogawa then explains shit we already know. Thanks, Ogawa.

“in summation: i get where you’re coming from, but stop fucking saying ‘im gonna replace kanade’, please, im begging you”

Hibiki FINALLY gets it, and naturally upon realizing, feels really bad for it. A real right and true asshole.

“oh thank god i was worried not even that was going to get to you”

Meanwhile, in Tsubasa’s mind...

“ah fuck me. im trapped in metaphor limbo. see, im falling because i clipped my wing, cause i nearly died, you know, like icarus and shit”

“hold up my gay senses are tingling”

Her senses confirmed. Kanade is in her mind, in probably the most romantic metaphor possible. There is absolutely no way to interpret all of this platonically.

Tsubasa is literally submerged in a sea of her own emotions...

Involving Kanade, and how she strives to be like her and honor her memory.

SHE LITERALLY DROWNS IN THOSE EMOTIONS, SUBMERGING DEEPER INTO THE WATER.

Tsubasa, in her Symphogear Brand Medical Cocoon for the Dumb and Beaten Down, quietly slumbers in her semi-comatose state as she wrestles the water metaphors of her own sexual identity.

The poor thing just misses her girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Hibiki sits and thinks more than usual. In a flashback, Genjuro muses about how The Gremlin wanted to kidnap Hibiki.

“i dunno maybe The Gremlin’s super lonely or shit”

“i mean if thats the case ill just adopt her too”

Since Tsubasa is away, Hibiki has to pick up the quota for teenage angst in the 2nd Division. Unfortunately, she has very big shoes to fill, but Hibiki isn’t one for slacking in the misery department. She blames herself for everything.

“im really going to fire the therapist we have around here for being pretty damn useless”

“can i be the therapist?”

“ryoko i am absolutely begging you to filter your bad ideas given the several teenage crises we’re dealing with right now”

Hibiki then yells out, for what is possibly the third time, out of the blue:

“I HAVE PEOPLE I WANT TO PROTECT”

The flashback ends.

And speaking of girlfriends.

“there is no force on this planet stopping me from having some quality fucking time with my girlfriend damnit”

Miku points out Hibiki has been pretty lonely. Says she heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it from another she was messin’ ‘round.

Unfortunately, Miku is a goddamned chad.

Immediate handholding. Make no mistake. Behind those soft-spoken eyes lies an absolute master.

“o-oh, my hand, you’re holding it, so smoothly”

“hibiki, you’re my sunshine. i want to soak up your rays so hard that every piece of flesh of my body is horribly mutilated from skin cancer.”

“jesus christ miku at least use sunscreen in your metaphors”

“ill use them just for you, hibiki. just for you.”

Their relationship is interesting. When one of them is sad, the other sorta acts as an angst vacuum. You’ll see them flip flop with their points of misery with each other, but when together, those problems always melt away.

Of course, emphasis on being together. Season 1 is the worst with keep them away from each other.

“Just Be Yourself!” Miku Kohinata, Symphogear, 2012.

“fuck me, you’re right. im the protagonist. i cant just eat shit here the whole time. i gotta do protagonist things!”

“was that an invitation?”

“another time. but now... let’s just catch up.”

And so, they laugh together about how the recorded footage of the meteor shower was all black. Truly the greatest couple of all time.

It is this realization of being her own self, coupled with her renewed gay energy, and new perspective on what she must do, that causes everything to go uphill for her from here. Take note.

Here is where a God is truly born.

Tachibana Hibiki.

The end of this episode cuts to a specific dojo.

Genjuro’s dojo.

“i dont fuck around with training, even though i probably should have trained you sooner. you sure about this?”

“dadman either you do this or i will most definitely die next time”

Part of their training involves watching action movies, because Genjuro is so unreal that he should frankly be a fictional character in the very universe he exists in.

Fucking adorable.

“im so conflicted its so clear she’s part of /fit/ now but i cant help but imagine her washboard abs”

Hibiki balls even harder at karaoke now, due to her Symphogear training, and not because she’s secretly Aoi Yuki playing a recolored version of Madoka.

Her significant other is mildly terrified at the superhuman that is slowly unfolding her powers before her eyes.

In the end, things all reach their logical conclusion.

Hibiki becomes a Tekken character, just like Genjuro.

Of course... Miku pushes the fact very subtly that she would never hide anything from Hibiki...

Turmoil brews in the worst way... soon...

[shidiand]

How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

[teddy-the-queer-wizard]

Ive got some issues and all I got was this stupid personality disorder label

Hurting myself isnt an answer.

Substituting physical for emotional pain doesn't work ive tried.

But half the time it seems like its the only way to prove things are tearing me up inside and it matters you know?

People dont take your pain seriosuly if youre not an active danger to yourself and others.

How ever since 2012 - we wont get into the shit in 2011/2010 - i have wrecked my car intentionally at least twice to get out of something,

I have cut my arm open and made up a ridiculous story that everyone bought (and still tell people because it is sort of funny and totally something 'I' would do) because it makes more sense then what really happend - I was trying to get out of a conversation i didnt want to have

I ran away to Pittsburg without a word to anyone because it was the first flight leaving that was going someplace that didn't make sense for me to go

I commited fraud - actually for the second time in my life though this time was much different and kinda a fluke - pulled all my cash, took a bua ride to virgina where I was on the street for two days before finding the homeles shelter

Didn't talk to anyone I knew for over a year with one exception that I dont want to get into

Agreed to come home to a place I didn't want to be, to go to school despite not wanting to because it was the 'right' thing to do

Stopped going to classes no matter how.hard I tried to force myself

While for a while i DID get a shrink I stopped going to see her too even though that did make every thing more bearable

I literally find it unsafe for me to drive because the urge to wreck is constant, with some minor urges to just drive away and never come back

I DID wreck my moms car because I was rushing because going to work is such a trial I will watch the time approach until its too late or almost to late before going despite WANTING to be there

Ive lost my job because I simple stopped going because I couldn't STAND them saying nice things about me when I felt like I was fucking all the things up

At my current job I sometimes do go hide in the bathroom to calm down, or have vauge out days where I'm not really there even though Im there.

Ive been really anxious when I do just about anything except when Im not and then I think I'm just psyching myself out for the attention - even though EVERYTHING in me says ANY attention is bad attention

I basically only want to sleep. Get up. Go to work. Come home. Sleep. Get up. Dinner time and or shower. Back to sleep.

Only i dont always just sleep sometimes i just lay there very much not present while I scroll through tumblr because its the only medium i dont actually have to focus on.

I dont read or write or doodle or play games or do much of anything because it makes me uncomfortable. I cant focus. Feel guilty. I should be doing xyz. Bored despite really wanting to do this.

I dont talk to my friends much and part of that is the schedule - im up at five so im usually going to bed when people are free or at work.

But honestly I can feel how much time I somehow lose or waste like a sweater thats shrunk in the wash.

I shower only once to twice a week which is about the time I finally notice im gross and realize I have to do something about it or people will care

I know some of my current issue is the season but this isnt a new thing or even a dramatic worsening of the state of affairs in my life.

This is the norm it just feels worse right now.

And that's kind of terrifying.

I have very casual disregard for my wellbeing

Im apathetic or angry or want to die...

I want to suffer in a way that's physical and people care about so I can feel valid and not broken

But i dont want help because nothing is wrong

Im being dramatic

And any attention is bad attention

Because i cant explain yes I'm suffering and this is hard for me why must you go out of your way to make it worse dad - without also feeling like oh I dont tell or show him how im hurting at all and when I do its not in a way that makes him take it seriously and never has he ever changed

And it's not just him though its hard to focus on not being upset at him because every thing I normally DONT deal with comes flooding up whenever something new happens

It's... How I don't need people to treat me like I'm glass. To be sympathetic or sad at me. But itd be nice to be able to call in because I'm too scared to go to work. Or leave early because I can't hold it together this long.

And its terrifying to know that maybe my brain just doesn't handle stress well enough to work a full eight hour shift, or five days straight of work. That it takes a full day to recover from stress and during that time Im basically useless and not going to do much in the way of chores or what not.

And though I will on the second there's also a chance the doldrums will set in and going to work will feel like an impossibility the next day.

I'm not making enough money working what I am. I cant afford to cut back.

Just like I can't afford surviving another car wreck.

Just like going to a mental institute or a hospital because I cut my arm open or stabed myself in the leg or a dozen other things or just decided to draw red lines on my arm with a paring knife because even though it doesnt help it might make me feel like my pain is real even though doing it would instantly invalidate it because its for attention that I dont want not only wouldnt help but would make my life worse.

Im just. Sick of my own bullshit. And even if I could find another shrink I like, I couldnt garentee Id keeping going - hell I dont want to go right now even though I want to - and I sure as hell couldn't afford it.

Im tired of being a burden.

I dont want to be here - I shouldnt be here - and laziness and avoidance of conflict is the only reason I havent worked on going anywhere else.

I do bad on my own. Emotionally and in the taking care of myself department. But I also cant say I'm reliable for any stretch of time. Short bursts yes but not consistantly cause brain likes to avoid and run and panic and fall apart. So it also seems pointless to plan to go anywhere because I'll fuck myself over before too long.

I'm just not okay.

And I'm tired of not being okay.

And I'm upset and emotional and maybe just maybe

If i write enough of this down Ill drown it out in the senseless rambling of my own thoughts.

[rogueshipagogo]

god i reblogged that post abt being harsher on men that go after teenage girls earlier and ive been thinking abt this shit all day i gotta make a post abt it so i can stop holding onto these thoughts. lmfao this is what happens when u dont have a vent blog lmao wont be too intense but tw i guess anyways, literally nobody is obligated to read this ever

so i pretty much drifted away from all my high school friends and everyone who knew me irl before ~2012 bc i just couldnt stand the idea of going back to face all of those people and know that they just watched me spend 6 years, since i was 14 years old, in explicit and serious long term romantic and sexual relationships with men over 18, over 20, over 21, and never once Say anything abt it, who were in the same boat of supporting it with me; like i know that I could have been the one to be like ‘no, that was wrong, what just happened to me, all that time you, my peers, could have known better and done better by me,’ but also the idea of doing that was so like..... Shameful??? i couldnt go back to being ignorant of what had been done to me but i also couldnt be their example and their lesson. like my entire lifes meaning up until that point was to be the one time main character of a very special episode of a sitcom about high school girls going out with college boys. i didnt want to have to be the one to start that conversation and have everyone either not get it, or just scream at me for falling for it, or treat me like i was being silly, i had always been supportive of my partners despite them being pedophiles, like it was Out Of Character for me, Juliet Capulet, to suddenly start caring when little girls date 20 year olds. i think that was the scariest possibility. it was easier to let that version of me just die, and all of my friendships i had made since 6th grade with it

but a few months ago i agreed to meet up with one of my old best friends again, someone i’d known since i was 12 and who was there the whole time and had met my ex, the adult man, a few times (we were already kinda drifting apart by that time anyways but still hung out infrequently)

and it was honestly mostly fine but at one point she asked me if i was still with him and i had to be like ‘no, he moved out 5 years ago’ (feels good to say that!!) and she literally was like 

‘awwwww how come? you had been together for so long ):’

and i just had to be         like                 ‘oh you know it happens haha!!! we just fell out of love i guess :3′

but i was just like. she’s literally been married and had a child since we stopped talking btw so like she’s very much a mature responsible adult woman now. and that was her reaction. ??????????? it was literally the reaction i was willing to cut her out of my life for 7 years because i was so afraid of and she fucking went for it. like.... i guess it just makes me proud of myself. because i’ve come so far and some people haven’t. and might not ever. even people i loved. even witnesses. even mothers and wives. and when i sit here and think ‘oh all i do is, sit here, and be an sjw, i’ve never had a real job or a car or a family or gone to college’, i just have to remind myself that emotional work, the work that goes into ComPleTely reinventing your entire worldview and the kind of shit you’re willing to put up with from society and your peers and your loved ones, is just as valid and just as tangible and deserves just as much recognition. still not very motivated to try getting back in contact with her or anyone else from my old friendgroup tho for a while lmfao sorry lads

edit: i didnt want to make another post just to say this but lmfao i looked at the post i reblogged abt this topic earlier today that made me think abt this again and im losing my mind at how ‘transparently fucking pathetic and selfish and utterly undesirable and know that women w more life experience will recognise those things about them immediately‘ could and should be engraved on my exes tombstone

[cheswirls]

a quick sum-up of che’s future career plans, bc reasons

im halfway through the dive!! anime show that came out this summer season, and i’m having a lot of thoughts, and plus i finished going through all the footage i missed today of skate america while i was at a bball game, and it’s made me realize different things i guess? 

it might be mid-long length so its going under a cut, but to gain intereststart off, this is all about my desire to be an athletic trainer for the usa olympic center at colorado springs, co !

ive been an at(now when you see that abb. you know what it means hah!! not assistant teacher hmm) student since my freshman year of high school, and i’ve loved it a whole bunch. back then i was set on going to columbia U for their writing program, and i wanted to major in graphic design afterwards/during/it wasnt super planned out i was a fr. i didnt know what bfa or mfa stood for yet. it wasnt until end of sophomore year than i thought about being an at for realsies.

but i also still loved gd. so there was a confliction there.

junior year i took a break from working volleyball in the fall and did my one and only year of football and it was terrible primarily bc the team i worked with didnt know how to function as a group and half the group were selfless bitch whores but like thats another storyyy, secondly bc i jus really discovered i didnt care abt football at all. it was mostly for the experience and i gained it and i liked it bc i hung out w a lot of people from helping out w varsity (i was one of two our of the five juniors that had been there since my fr year and was only on jv bc it was my first year w football, but one of the seniors had to work a bunch so when they needed an extra person i was the one w the most experience so i was w them a lot,) point was it was fun!!! and you have fun w ppl you like that you dont work w all the time and i shouldnt say fun bc lots of times it was awful,

basically! it was fun being w the varsity trainers which were the seniors and the other junior that had been around since fr year. volleyball was fun but it had always been a one-at-student-per-team sport , so it was different jus being w other ats that shared the same team and not the same sport(which in the us is made up of at least three different teams, a fr,jv,and varsity). it was a more open environment and so it inspired a lot of talk with the at grad students we had that semester (we got 3-4 every semester in a partnership w the D1 uni in town, it was always cool to hear stories from them!) and anyway i remember talking w a couple of the grads one practice and we were discussing all the different occupations athletic trainers could have, and what they wanted to work with in the future, and the topic veered towards professional sports and the olympics.

i thought it was really cool when we were talking about it, and then we got busy and it flew out of my mind. i dont remember when it came back and became a focus, but sometime before my senior year, i had decided i wanted to work at the olympic level.

real quick i mentioned gd and the struggle, so to bring that into focus, my junior year i took a whole bunch of different tech classes (gd&i, compsci, webtech) and in one of those, i had the opportunity to go to a ... i cant remember what the term was for it, but it was kinda an event for gd students and it had a little competition and stuff, and it was really fun! nd you got a lot of info abt the community college hosting it and i learned their program was really good, so the gd versus at internal struggle continued, and i remember talking to my sponsor teacher (she actually taught all three of my tech classes that year aaa i loved her) about how i didnt know what to do and shit and i dunno what she told me but like, i think she was trying to be encouraging but she basically said it was up to me, like she didnt try and nod me into a direction, that i can recall.

so SOMEHOW bc i honestly cannot remember, by senior year i’ve decided that im gonna jus fuck it and pick BOTH and double major in gd and athletic training. AND i had it all planned out, where i was gonna get a degree in gd and open up an online business, and then go into a masters program for at and then enter into the olympic field. 

by this point creative writing is still cool and a great hobby but i couldnt possibly double major AND have a minor that’d be too much. id still love to take a cw course tho one day.

basically a buncha crazy stuff happened that first semester but by winter break i had an acceptance letter to a uni a couple hours north of home with a good accredited undergrad program (accredited basically means you graduate w a masters in four years so its fasttracked which woulda been great but uh..) and by the time i found out that next semester that they were doing away with the accredited program i was already too emotionally invested to consider panic-switching(panic bc it was february and id already been admitted hah...) but i decided it’d be okay. basically if you dont remember/werent around one of my school’s head ats died in a car crash died around early october ‘16. she went to undergrad where i go now, and i’d talked to her about it september that semester wondering if she knew anything abt their program and uh surprise, she’d done the same program small world. after the funeral in november and a ton of thought i applied there. (november was.. crazy in general last year. rly crazy)

may was when i started adding on sports to the future olympics job, bc i started thinking about it and after finally getting a friend to watch yuri on ice, he started making his was through all of sochi’s figure skating stuff, and then the 2010 vancouver olympics, and i decided i wanted to recap a bit on that too.

the 2010 olympics was really my first experience with figure skating. i’m a west texas gal and so theres not a lot out here to get exposed to, so seeing these best-of-the-best class sports was fun, and the earliest experience i can remember of such. i was in fifth grade so i dont remember a ton, but i do remember being captivated by korea’s yuna kim, who won gold that year in fs. shes an fs legend at this point, so if you’re into figure skating and don’t know who she is, go look her up. you wont be disappointed.

in 2012 was the london olympics. i remember a lot from it, like watching the opening ceremony with my parents and seeing the queen jump out of a helicoptor(which is like,, still cool to this day wow) and being fascinated my michael phelps and all the swimming he did so grandly. it was also my first real exposure to diving. the oldest i could recall anything abt the sport was at a pizza hut somewhere.. in town i think, and i was w my best friend at the time and my mom was there so i think maybe we were on the way back from the lake??? sounds right, i think. and we were talking abt how i always held my nose when i went underwater bc i didnt know how to not get water all up my nostrils and be underwter(and i still dont to this day aha) and she mentioned like, joining a diving team would be cool! would help me get over it and all! and i like recalling it dunno what she was talking abt bc we lived in dirt city nothing so i highly doubt there was or is any sort of diving sport happening. swimming, yeah maybe, there were lessons at pools and bodyworks areas around town, competitive teams im not sure tho, but not diving like at all so??? dunno.

so my next and technically first real experience with it was watching the london olympics. and i thought, wow, this is so neat!! i watched from that one day like the opening events, and i think i was old enough to search online like yea i had a laptop by then so i looked up the schedule for the things i wanted to see most of, and i ended up watching i think most of the diving events (i missed a couple for.. archery, i think? maybe?) and absolutely loving it. iunno what it was, maybe something i never thought i could do?(bc not hold my nose?? while i dove???????? scaryy) but i enjoyed it a bunch.

i was older when sochi was a thing, my 8th grade year. i was able to appreciate things a lot more. when i tuned into events, tony hawk and snowboarding were the main focus, but figure skating was on a lot as well. i had a tv in my room by that point, so if i didnt like what was playing on the main tv, i could go watch another event. i learned a lot of names and faces through that, and so while my bff was watching it our senior year if i was with him id point out skaters and their nationalities and stuff, like yuzuru hanyus always been a modern day household name w figure skating, but i leanred abt him BECAUSE of the sochi olympics, and he was one of the ones i’ve never forgotten. i really really liked it, so much that i watched worlds after, and around the same time my fr year, i tuned in to just the worlds championship again. i didn’t pick up trying to watch grand prix(which is their regular season, for those unaware) season until my junior year, and most of it was day-or-two-late videos from youtube, since the ice channel i think it a paid-for thing (i still dont know much abt it hah) and nothing was on tv otherwise, aside from the skate america event. but since that first time after sochi, ive always been around watching worlds fs near the beg of each year. i’d familiarized myself by senior year with the fs world, and actually,

early (i think march?) of my junior year, i searched up trying to find a figure skating anime at the time. and what did i find?? ginban, the only figure skating anime at the time. i watched like maybe all of one episode, it was abt a girl who shared her body w the ghost of a former figure skater while she was competing in events, and it was.. okay? lackluster, in the animation dept, but it was a 2005 show so.. yeah.

so after that i was like kk that wasnt good lets find another. and i didnt. not yet, anyway. instead, i found an announcement for violet evergarden’s animated adaptation, and yuri on ice, a realistic adaptation of the sport of figure skating. thats bolded bc its important. i found that shit abt yoi before it even had a promo poster, certainly before the pv came around that got everyone hyped up. i found it bc i was looking for figure skating in the first place. in fact, i think when the pv came out and got popular, i didnt even relate it to the upcoming fs anime i’d read about previously. it took me a bit to connect the dots. 

watching yuri on ice at the same time as the gp 2016 season was surreal, but really interesting. i got my bff into it before the second to last episode came out, and i only remember that bc he finally showed any interest when he found something on twitter abt it being gay (newsflash/// hes gay, and before yoi his fav show was no6 bc that was as close as it got. he still rly likes it, we both do, but his solid favc is now definitely yoi. representation matters and all) and was like well now i HAVE to watch it and i was all yes it ends soon so pls. and he watched it twice in a weekend, and thrice before the finale came out, and then a few more times after that, iunno how many times but certainly more thn i have(i went back after the .. maybe ep 10? w/e ending had the after party reveal that changed everything, so i went back to analyze everything before the next ep) and between the week of 11 and finale 12, he started watching the sochi fs competition, and then the 2010 after the show ended w ep 12. 

seeing this great fs show and getting a friend into the world of figure skating really renewed my love for it all. before the semester went out i went back and watched the reruns of the sochi fs stuff. and by may i’d decided i wanted to cosider that to be the sport i worked with.

with diving, it took a similar twist. in the form of the rio 16 olympics. i was all over that shit, i downloaded an nbc app on my phone so i could watch events live while i traveled with volleyball to a tournament in dallas and while i was at practice w them at home and generally jus away from the house and a tv. i planned that shit out had a schedule and everything for what i was watching live, and a lot of it was swimming, but a whoooole lot of live stuff was the diving. 

in the hotel room in dallas the tv would always be on to w/e olympics events were airing at the time, either track or diving tho, one or the other, or recaps. quite a few girls ended up in the room in the evening and we’d all do stuff and watch in passing at the same time, and it was suuuuuper fun. watching the chinese women perform flawlessly and walk away w all the gold was fun, but finding a good commentator to actually say such was a disheartening challenge( one of the most memorable moments w live commentary that year was hearing a woman say of one of the chinese ladies that she’d done better before, after they revealed her personal best score ever like rly cmon be unbiased and jus passionate abt the sport youre covering pls.

ive always been super fond of the diving scene. it may not be as much as fs, but honestly, i wish i grew up in an area w a diving team now, or wish i could try it out now, bc thats how much fun it seems. i still wanna go up to the big city like 30min away from uni and learn to ice skate in the civic center there, but hands down if i had to pick a sport to join tomorrow or die i’d pick diving. 

so also by may, and throughout the culmination of senior year, diving was the second sport on the olympic to-train-for list. you get a five-year contract w the olympics, now i think it’s usa as a whole and i think its by center so say, if i get a job in colorado springs i cant apply in another five years to chula vista or even like lake placid, but iunno for sure. the five-year thing is involved somehow bc i’ve heard it from a physical therapist and trainer-that-works-in-a-sports-med-clinic duo in one body named sarah, who’s been contracted out from the clinic by my high school since junior year also, bc she knows people who’ve worked w the olympics, and then another from church that worked w olympics that knows my family uh iunno how well but i know of him, i think he also works in the clinic as some sort of on-hand surgeon but a diff person than who sarah knew. so its five years somehow and then i’ll take my bfa in gd and open my online business and do that from a studio at home and look after my owl/cat pet combo.

since may, it had been ‘olympics, with either figure skating or diving’. and it stayed that for a long time. now, since a couple weeks ago, and this is again while gp season is happening for fs, its diving. i wanna work w the usa olympic diving team as their team athletic trainer, and i cant do it this summer bc i have to have completed two years of uni, instead of a certain standing, like be a junior, but so NEXT summer, before my senior year of uni, (i came in a sopho so 6 sem only ah) i’m applying for an internship at the center in colorado springs, and that’s the team i hope i work with. 

now i tell people, diving, but if i get offered figure skating, i’ll take it, but diving is the goal now. if i love it and wanna continue professionally, great, i can do that and have an online gd shop. and if i decide i want something different? i’ll work olympics and then join w a professional-level figure skating i actually dunno how it works. coach, and their skater in turn. coach, with multiple skaters under them. a culmination of diff usa skaters. w/e, something in the professional fs world.

and thats uh, thats it! dive has been so much fun to watch, and i realize i talk a lot on here about working w basketball and being an at student in general and the vast majority have no idea what i mean, so hopefully this clarifies. thank you!!

[joohyuk]

 hi, hello it is i

im back, kinda, lol idk watch me disappearing again since im so good at it. anyway, so my week has been pretty uhhhhh shiteeeeee. continuing from my last update, i ended up missing most of my lectures (yo) + the ones i did attend were hellaaaa triggering (excuse me nelly why did you pick to study psychology with the unit of psychopathology). i’ve been in a so called ‘episode’ since tuesday which is lowkey worrying because .... it’s the longest one. anywho, i’ve been binging a lot which yooooo a girl with an ed (mostly good ol’ anna but now her friend bul is here with a vengence) so you can probably see how that is working out. (also like ive been thinking about it a lot but i have no idea what is wrong with me, like it’s easy to talk about my ed, anxiety + depression but the ‘ego death’ + ‘psychosis’ is harder, because it has been my whole life, maybe i will write about it + someone can tell me what this shit is)

the thing is, ok i love how i deleted my previous account mostly because of the girl who shall not be named, but one of the reasons why i ended up making a new one was because of the community. like let me let you in on a secret. i have no irl support (shocker) so tumblr was pretty much my only form of support (but then i got scared like o h god im being toxic great ok kkk). but you know what, my last tumblr which i created in 2012 wasn’t the greatest. somehow in such a short time from creating this new account, i have made??? amazing friends???? that are so loving ??? and actually ??? exisit??? (how???)

anyway, usually i use tumblr through my laptop + phone, but since i deleted the app on tuesday i’ve missed all the lovely people i know on tumblr. 

i have no support system in real life. just a few days ago my mother + i had an argument (because i wanted to go to a friend’s bday party) + it ended up with me in tears, her rolling her eyes + tearing me apart. you know, apparently im playing the ‘victim’ that i take things ‘so seriously’ that in this rate i won’t ‘survive in the world with this shitty mentality’ only for it to be reinforced by my brother who called up (also i would love to point out this dude went to his morning lectures, went to his club activities + ALSO went mini golfing with his friends...like how/?) saying i was only worsening my life because of my mentality + the choices i make, + that i should get over myself. 

the point is. there is no point im just rambling. but yeah, hi. + thank you for those who have been sending me so much love, i don’t deserve it + you are all too loving. i wish i could all send you some care packages with my shitty poetry + some chocolates. 

[kindofsharethat]

so last night people were sharing stories of how they became larries and i thought i’d make a big (emphasis on big) ol list of them because i found them really fun to read

I've been a 1D fan since 2013 and my sister and i always thought that l&h looked so good together but only the bromance and we're like "omg larries destroyed their friendship poor eleanor 1!1!1!", then in 2015 the "i'm gay pretty unfortunate isn't eleanor ?" happened and i was like WHAAT???? and i ended up searching more and more about larry (bc it was the only thing that came to my mind) and i found the videos and then i told my sister and then here we are.

I became a larrie because someone in my dash who rarely post about 1D posted the first louis/fred pic and tagged it babygate. So I went looking into the tag and found everything. I had doubt but then i saw the moment where H touch L arm and i was in! I actually became a fan of the music after. I've done everything in reverse with this band! But when i entered the fandom in feb2016 and i was hopping to see it all end like a month later! But hey, still here! And loving it mostly! End it!

it was 2011 and my friend told me she had found a really good song and the singers were so cute, she showed me wmyb video and i spent the whole day listening to it and then in the evening i wanted to find out more about these 5 guys. i started watching video diaries ans i was looking for the next one but i accidentally clicked "best larry moments" video aaand the rest is history

I became a larrie after aimh tweet hits 2m and everyone on all of my social media started freaking out even though I didn't follow any 1D blogs so I started search about them and now I'm here also at that time I was kinda homophobic 'cause I live in russia and grown up in middle eastern family and now I'm proud lesbian who knows a lot about LGBTQ+ history so thank you to my larents and 1D for making me gay lol 🌈💕

i was a fan since 2011 but didnt know about larry bc i was young and didnt have any social media but around 2013-2014 my friend showed me the "are you and louis dating" vid and i was like the mr krabs meme bc i just couldnt understand why larry would have to be covered up so i went home and watched "why elounor is fake" videos and my eyes were open and ever since that day ive been a larrie and i regret not knowing sooner but im here now !!

i saw the daddy daddy cool tweet and was like dude that's the wrong type of daddywtf? & I hadn't heard about a pregnancy? then a week later I had read the treatise and had a side blog and watched all the freddieismyqueen videos & was in way too deeeep lol. I've never been around when they weren't on the break even, I'm so confused about how I got here but now I can't escape 😝I had never even listened to their music before but then I also did that and was like damn they're so good?!

I just remembered going out once and being quite tipsy when DMD video came on so I pointed to Louis and Harry and said 'they're in love, but shh nobody can know' and one of my friends looked at me with a WTF?? expression on her face and said 'but I thought that was common knowledge'. Mind you, she still doesn't even know their names, let alone anything else. That was around the time bg was still a fresh wound and I'll never forget it bc it was so nice to hear it and also my hangover was a bitch.

I got interested in 1D right after their last concert, like right on Halloween. I became a Larrie that very same day too, right after i read Dan Wattpad's infamous "Harry and Louis hate each other". I saw articles floating around saying how they were enemies, reason for Zayn leaving...blah blah. I was sceptical, then i came across the famous OTRA hug, and i was like, no fucking way they hate each other, not with how they are hugging. I then delved into YT and discovered freddieismyqueen. Bless.

I joined july 2014 (2 months after they 've passed my country ouch) and was instantly hooked because this shit is like crack. Today I'm the darkest larrie that exists preaching the word for everyone who'll listen. I can WAIT for their CO because I have a party prepared? I literally have a wine since 2014 in my cellar that I'm only going to open the day they're free, I have nauthical theme stocked for the party. My friends just know that they have to come and that I'll be crying the whole month!!

weirdly enough i became a larry cos of that stupid channel 4 documentary id never heard of larry or gay shipping or whatever before that and i saw that and i was very mr krabs meme and i looked into it saw that it wasn't evil and gross like they were portraying it and never turned back

I joined the fandom in late 2012 and I wasn't a larrie but I wasn't an anti either i just hadn't looked into it but then i remember during the confirmation of bg on gma i felt bad for harry and i didnt really know why and I was surprised by my own reaction. Then with bg going on I started to realise that none of that could be real I did my research and I've been a larrie ever since :)

I joined the fandom in 2012, used to think Elounor was real but just because I never looked into it and I knew some people thought Larry was real at the time so I checked this insta page that debunked Elounor and I have no regrets 💙💚

When I become a 1D fan, in 2012, I liked elounor and I liked Eleanor unfortunately. I was not that into fandom things so I wasn't paying attention to details. But my whole view changed in 2014 when they came to South America for the WWAT and all those rumors in Argentina with the hotel room and Brazil that was an experience and I was like "ok something is happening here between them" and here I am, 4 years later and going strong as a larrie. I'm on the winning team 😌💅🏼

I became a larrie when my friend first introduced me to fanfiction. I read a larry one and was totally amazed by it. After that, I switched between het ones and larry ones, but always came back to larry. After that, I simply became obsessed with the pair, something that made me fall in love with the band and all of them. I watched the dairies and everything, and just saw how clear their infatuation was. Tumblr and a lot of other sites just simply proved the theory even more. No regrets ❤

i became a larrie late novemeber after a month of being in the 1d fandom. i watched freddieismyqueen videos and other proofs for hours everyday (especially over thanksgiving break)

I wasn't even a fan of 1D, but while I was looking for pictures of them to do a collage for a friend, I found one in which Louis and Harry were looking at each other and, damn, I can't explain what I felt, I just knew it. So, I was trying to figure out if I was the only one thinking there was something between this two, and it turned out I wasn't! I discovered tumblr, and I spent 3 days reading post, watching videos and proofs and...here I am, 3 years after, being the larriest larrie

I became a 1d fan when uan tour had just started and like. I watched all the damn youtube videos in about a week and I noticed that in the video diaries on the stairs they were so ~cozy, and they were so Extra™ on stage and hl weren't like that with the other boys. They just emanated the feelings I suppressed: Ultra Gay. And yeah. That's how it Began for me

I became a larrie when I watched the behind the scenes of wmyb and Louis was saying "I've gotta say it" and Harry was all over him and hid his face in Louis' shoulder and said "no!"

Same like that previous anon i hadnt even considered two guys being more than friends bc of where i grew up. But just watching proof videos of them for a while i kind of realized how in love they were. Thats when i started thinking about how different and colorful the world actually is compared to what I've learned from the people i grew up around

I became a larrie when my friend and I would watch their video diaries together, and I would see the way h&l acted with each other. I mentioned it to my friend and she was like yeah, Larry, and she showed me one YouTube video so I spent weeks watching every single one I could find, all these years later and I've come to accept theres no way to crawl out of this 😂

are we sharing larrie stories? my friend became a fan early 2012 (and a larrie) and was adamant on making me on too, and I finally gave in summer 2013. I rmr the day after TCAs that year, niall tried to do a twitcam and idr how but some article got written abt the twitcam that included a link to those 'you just have to pay attention' videos. I marathoned them all, and it was that arm moment that zayn failed to hide that #sealed it. though my friend gave me the skinny on haylor back in 2012~

i was like a super casual fan since their first album. my friend introduced them to me cuz she was crushing on zayn. i just knew their music but not actually them. i became a larrie during weedgate. weird timing, i know. i saw it on the news and got curious about what was going on. saw the video then got to know about the boys individually through past vids. i started from the very start from the xf vid diaries. those two, not subtle AT ALL. and well, the rest was history.

i was in entirely different fandom back in 2014, but one of my follower turns into a liam stan and starts to post about 1d and there was a post about how harry and louis can't touch each other and i thought that was really weird weren't they bandmates?? then i started digging around and stumble into a treatise blog. here i am now hahaha

I got into this fandom because of my best friend. She showed me week 4 diary video... and I was like are those two in a relationship?? I pointed at louis and harry and she said no why? And I was like I don't know they seem cozy together and I pointed out that harry was staring at louis lips... she didn't believe me first but now she is a larrie😂 So basically I got into this fandom knowing larry is real

I became a fan of the boys 4 years ago. I read about Larry and that fans believed they were together so I went on YouTube and saw some videos and read some stories (I think it was here on tumblr??) and I immediately believed they were together. There wasn't a particular moment for me, it was a lot of things. Probably, above all, the way they looked at each other. They never looked at someone else so fondly. And 4 years later I keep saying the same thing 💖

for me, i always thought louis was gay from way back in 2011 but i didn't really think of harry's sexuality cause i wasn't like a stan i was just a casual fan [which is why it confuses me when people say that if larry isn't real, louis is straight and horrible, no...he still gay as hell babe]. anyway i became a larrie cause i used to really follow celeb gossip and when the news dropped, gossip sites/tabloids kept mentioning harry and larries everywhere so i decided to investigate and...here i am

[thelastspeecher]

In Another World - Chapter Ten: Neither Brute Nor Human

Prologue   Chapter One   Chapter Two   Chapter Three   Chapter Four Chapter Five   Chapter Six   Chapter Seven   Chapter Eight   Chapter Nine Chapter Ten   Chapter Eleven   Chapter Twelve   Epilogue   AO3

Dang, I took forever to update this fic.  This was fun to write.  I’ve been reading fairy tales and fairy mythology since I was very small, so it was fun to utilize a bit of that knowledge.  Anyways, this chapter takes place in the Neverhuman AU, created by @notllorstel.  They have some pretty rad art for it, and I recommend the multichap of it, “A Thousand Natural Shocks”, by @dubsdeedubs.  There’s some good shit for this AU all around.  

I’ll stop promoting other people’s stuff and get to the writing now.

“They are neither man nor woman/They are neither brute nor human/They are Ghouls.” – Edgar Allan Poe, The Bells (IV.)

Date: July 25, 2012

Dimension: AL-18/89*Fb

Location: Greasy’s Diner, Gravity Falls, OR

Weather: Partly cloudy

 Observations:

This is the first reality I have arrived in where Stanley has found me.  I am still astonished by it.  Upon my arrival, I took to the woods, as they are relatively safe from prying eyes in my reality.  However, I somehow managed to get lost, and found myself in a deeply dark clearing, being watched by hundreds of Technicolor eyes.  I would have likely lost my life, had Stan not intervened. But it is not a Stan I recognize.

This Stan has not two eyes, but six

These six eyes are not normal human eyes.  Rather, they glow green, and, unless I am mistaken, emitted a small hum.

He bared his teeth at me upon seeing me, which allowed me to notice his enlarged canines.

He knew the Fae in the clearing by name, and spoke to them as he would an equal.  He even flirted with a few of them.

The clearing was filled with roots and other means of tripping up trespassers.  I may have imagined it, but it seemed as though these obstacles moved out of Stan’s way when he arrived.

Stan made repeated references to a “gift” that he claimed I possess.  I have made little interaction with the Fae of my own universe, so I am unsure as to what he meant.

 However, from my travels, I have learned that the Fae come from other dimensions.  Strange.  Stan associates with dimensional travelers, and is also related to one.  

He appeared to have some knowledge of dimensional travel, but a different understanding than I did.  It was similar to the method the fair folk utilize.  

 Conclusions:

The appearance of this reality’s Stan is evidence enough that he is not human.  As for what kind of being he is, well, that was fairly obvious.  Fae willingly interact with only others of their species.  This reality’s Stan is a changeling: a Fae infant placed with a human family.  

 Notes:

My encounter with this reality’s version of Stan was surreal.  He asked who I was, and upon my answer, reacted only by insisting I leave the forest. Clearly, he was furious with me. But he didn’t try to fight me. Perhaps he has higher priorities?

Why was he so protective about the forest?  He even called it “his” forest.

What happened to the “real” Stanley Pines in this dimension?  Is it like the faeries of yore; was this dimension’s Stanley raised by faeries, in exchange for one of their children?

Or is any discussion of a “real” Stanley effectively moot?  For all accounts and purposes, this Stanley is the real one.  He has never known any other way of life, and was raised as Stanley Pines.

I should not go down this particular path of thought; it will only lead to headaches and heartaches.  

----- 

               In the old days, parents adopted a series of security measures to protect their newborn children, or children of any other age, from the fair folk.  Abduction was prevented through a number of means, from leaving a pair of open iron scissors near the crib, to surrounding the crib in a circle of salt, to hanging a pair of the father’s pants over the crib.  Everyone grew up knowing the tricks of how to avoid faeries: wear red, wear clothes inside out, carry salt or St. John’s-wort, and do not wander into faerie rings.  

               These tried and true practices were eventually abandoned as people ceased to believe in the fair folk.  Forgotten along with them were the methods of determining which humans were born with the Gift, also called the Sight.  Among the knowledge lost was the fact that those who have the Gift are special targets of faeries.  The Fae will do anything to keep humans out of their world, particularly those who can see them as they truly are.  

               Some of the groups of humans who tend to be born with the Gift are those with heterochromia, twins, those born on a solstice or equinox, and polydactyls.  Needless to say, these particular humans are often blinded or even killed.  In rare cases, they or a close family member may be abducted, and a faerie replacement left behind.  This replacement, called a “changeling”, may or may not know they are Fae.

               To humans, this entire process may seem cruel.  But to the fair folk, it is just their way of life.

----- 

               “Thanks for visiting the Mystery Shack, come again!” The last tourists of the day walked out of the gift shop, laden with tchotchkes Stan had sold to them at an exorbitantly high price.  Stan counted out the cash with a smile on his face.

               Damn, I’m good.  He put the money away and carefully slid out a book from underneath the cash register. It was the one his brother had thrown at him two years ago.  He sighed. Not good enough, though.  He flipped through the pages idly, not paying attention, just relishing the feeling. Until he saw something he didn’t recognize.

               “What is this?” he muttered.  He read the pages.

               I have made contact with the Fae of the Gravity Falls forest.  They are strange and unwilling to interact with humans, but have made an exception for me.  They say it is because I have “The Gift”, and to deny audience to a human with “The Gift” is to ask for secrets to be exposed.  I asked them what they meant by “The Gift”.  They say it is an innate ability to see the fair folk and their world as it is.  It is something I, as a polydactyl twin, have inherited.

               I have consulted them multiple times on their origin, and they remain tight-lipped about it.  But I convinced one of their changelings to tell me. Yes, they have changelings! Apparently, when faeries kidnap human infants, they get attached to the point where they keep the child, and raise it as their own.  Incredible!

               …Regardless, the changeling told me that the first Fae came through a weak spot in our dimension’s “walls”.  Could the fair folk be able to assist me on my mission to view other dimensions?  

               Stan slammed the book closed.

               “Bingo.”

----- 

               “All right, fairies, or whatever the hell you’re called, come out!” Stan shouted.  He’d been wandering in the forest for a few hours by now, and hadn’t seen any fairies yet.

               Saw some tree giant monster thing.  And…living facial hair.  But no fairies.  Where the fuck are they?

               “I’m a twin,” he said, trying to sweeten the pot. “I’ve got the Gift or whatever.  You should come talk to me.”  As if cued by that, a bright blue light suddenly appeared. It hovered to the left of Stan, about three feet off the ground.  “The fuck is that?”  He began to walk toward it, but stopped.

               It leads me off the path.  Should I follow it?  Another of the same hovering balls of light appeared, a few feet past the first one. Fuck it.  Stan stepped off the path and followed the new one.

               After ten minutes, the forest began to get dark.  Five minutes after that, Stan felt a prickle on the back of his neck that he recognized: someone was watching him. Fifteen minutes after that, he tripped over a root.  Quiet tittering filled the darkened clearing he was in.

               “Yeah, yeah, yuk it up,” Stan grumbled, getting to his feet. “But you dorks just slipped up. You can’t pretend you’re not there any more!”  The clearing became dead silent before getting illuminated by hundreds of eyes. Stan blanched and took an instinctive step backward.  “Fan-fucking-tastic.  What did you get yourself into this time, you knucklehead?”  The tittering filled the air again.  Stan looked around at the eyes, which were in colors that spanned the entire rainbow.  

               You can do this.  Just bluff your way through it.  Fake confidence, don’t let them know you’re terrified.

               “Who do I talk to about dimensional travel?” he asked clearly.  The laughter stopped once more.

               “How do you know about that?” a deep voice rumbled.  Stan scanned the area, but was unable to discern where the voice came from.  

               “My brother knew you guys.  Stanford Pines.  He had the Gift.  And so do I. I’m his twin, after all.”  

               “No you don’t,” another voice said, this one with a higher pitch.  “You don’t have the Gift.”  Stan’s heart fell.

               “What- what makes you say that?” he asked.  

               Dammit! If they can’t help me, I won’t be able to get Ford back for years.

               “Only humans can have the Gift,” a third voice said. “You aren’t human, Stanley.”  A chill ran through him.

               “How- how did you know my name?” he asked.

               “We know our own,” the first voice thundered.  

               “What?”

               “We recognize our own, and call them by their names,” the second voice said.

               “Are you- are you saying that I- that I’m-?”

               “One of us,” the third voice said.  “You are Fae, Stanley Pines.”  Stan blinked.  

               “What makes you say that?”

               “Look at yourself,” the three voices said in unison. Stan rummaged in one of his pockets until he dug out his flask.  It was metal, and he kept it polished well enough that he could see his reflection in it. He held the flask up to his face and looked at himself, as he was told. Glowing green eyes reflected back at him.

               There was only one proper response.

               “Well, shit.”

----- 

               Stan approached his twin.

               “Finally!  After all these long years of waiting, you’re actually here!  Brother!”  He didn’t expect the punch.  Stan winced, surprised by the strength behind Ford’s fist.  He could feel his grasp on his human guise grow tenuous.  

               Shit! Can’t lose control now.  Not in front of the kids.  

               “What the heck was that for?” he asked.  Ford responded with yet another blow.  Stan fell to the ground.  He whipped his head around to face Ford at a speed he recognized as inhuman.  Ford gasped and took a few steps back.

               “St-Stan?” Ford said.  Stan stood up and squashed down the instinct to bare his teeth at Ford.  

               “That’s my name,” he said, taking off his glasses.

               It’s pointless wearing ‘em right now.  The four extra eyes don’t exactly have their own pairs.

               “What happened to you?” Ford asked.  Stan shrugged.

               “Eh, apparently when you get chosen as the guardian of the forest or whatever, this sorta stuff happens.”  Ford shook his head.

               “That’s impossible.  Only Fae can be forest guardians.”  Stan looked at Ford.  “…Oh. Stan, you’re not-”

               “Whoa, whoa, what’s going on?” Mabel interrupted. Stan turned.  She and Dipper gasped.  

               “Dude…” Soos said in a low voice.  

               “Wh- how- are- what the heck is going on?!” Dipper said, his voice squeaking slightly.  Stan turned back to Ford.

               “This is why I didn’t wanna fight in front of the kids! I lost control, and now they’re scared. Way to go, Poindexter.”  

               “I- You didn’t tell me there were children down here, Stan,” Ford said softly.

               “Well, there are.  And now they know I’m not human.”

               “What are you?” Dipper asked.  Stan shrugged.

               “Changeling or Fae or something like that.  Not important.”

               “Wait wait wait.  Like a fairy?” Mabel asked.  Her eyes sparkled.  Stan chuckled despite himself at his niece’s excitement.

               “Not the kind you’re thinking of, sweetheart.”

               “When did you find out?” Ford asked Stan.  

               “A coupla years after you went…wherever you went. Wandered into the forest looking for help to start up your machine thing, found faeries, got told I was a changeling.  Then a little while later, they ‘summoned’ me or whatever and made me the guardian of the forest.  Got these extra eyes when I got the gig.  Saves me money on Summerween makeup, I’ll tell you that.”

               “Grunkle Stan, are you gonna introduce us your brother?” Mabel asked.  Stan rubbed the back of his neck.

               “Right.  I think it’s best if I start from the beginning.”

----- 

               “So I never actually had a twin?” Ford asked Stan.  Stan nodded.  He, Ford, and Dipper and Mabel were sitting in the basement lab.  Ford had insisted on running tests on him, and the kids had insisted on watching.

               “Apparently, sometimes when they leave one of their faerie babies behind, they don’t bother taking a human in exchange.  And something about you made them nervous, so they wanted someone to keep an eye on you.”  Stan winked with three of his eyes.  “Or six.”

               “HA!” Mabel laughed.

               “Thanks, pumpkin.”  

               “Why did they choose you as forest guardian?” Ford wondered. Stan shrugged.

               “Beats me.”

               “So you don’t have any wings?” Mabel asked.

               “I already told you, no.  I don’t.”

               “Oh, poo.”

               “It’s okay, Mabel, magical creatures aren’t what we assume they’ll be,” Ford said.  “Faeries, unicorns, mermaids…no, wait, mermaids are fairly kind and considerate creatures.”

               “What’s wrong with unicorns?” Mabel asked, upset.  Ford scoffed.

               “What’s right with them?”  

               “So, Great Uncle Ford, what are you doing now?” Dipper asked eagerly.  Ford showed him the device he was currently holding.

               “When I point this at someone, it reveals that they are Fae, no matter how good their glamour, or human disguise, is.”

               “How does it do that?”

               “It picks up on energy waves broadcast by Fae auras. When it registers them, it makes a high-pitched sound.  Like so.” Ford pointed the device at Stan. It began to emit a high noise. Stan winced.

               “That’s annoying.”

               “Yes, it is,” Ford replied matter-of-factly.  “Now, when it’s pointed at a human, it stops.”  He pointed it at Dipper.  It continued to make the noise.

               “Oh, it must be broken,” Dipper said.  Ford frowned.

               “It shouldn’t be,” he muttered.  He turned it to face himself.  The noise stopped.  They all looked at Dipper.

               “It’s just messing up or something, right?  It’s wrong,” Dipper said quickly.  “I’m not- I can’t be- I’m a human, I know I am!”

               “Kid…” Stan said softly.  

               “Dip-dop, it’s fine,” Mabel said gently.  She patted her brother on the back.  “So what if you have glowing orange eyes?”

               “What?!”  Dipper closed his eyes tightly and rubbed them.  “No, I have normal eyes.  I’m human!”

               “Dipper,” Ford started.  

               “You’re wrong!”  Dipper ran out of the lab.  Mabel got up to follow him.  

               “Mabel, don’t.”  Mabel sat back down.  “Give him some time,” Stan said.  “It’s rough, finding out you’re not human.”

[d4isy-pusher]

All of them :}}}}

WHY DO YOU HURT ME IN THIS WAY

Let’s start with a tricky one; what is the real reason you are confused right now?

i dont know whether to get rid of certain people or not

Do you ever get “good morning” texts from anyone?

sometimes

If your significant other smoked pot, would you care?

eh. id disapprove but i wouldnt go off the rails

Do you find it easy to trust others?

no LOL

What were you doing at 11PM last night?

playing stardew valley on the xbox, i got an iridium bar be proud of me

You’re drunk and lost walking down the road; who is with you?

I AM 13

What would you do if you found out you had been cheated on?

i just get really pissed and cut off the person

Are you close with your dad?

yea

I bet you kissed someone last night, right?

...no

What are you listening to?

You can only drink ONE liquid for the rest of your life - what is it?

Do you like hickeys?

i wouldnt know

What time do you go to bed?

it varies

Is there someone who continuously lets you down?

yeah😔

Can you text as quickly with one hand as you do both?

no

Do you always answer your texts?

sometimes i get overwhelmed but yea i try

Do you hate the person you fell the hardest for?

iiiiiiiiii dont think so?

When was the last time you talked to one of your best friends?

todayayaya @quackbug

Is there someone that makes you happy every time you see them?

@katmeeliaz no homo💖

What was your last thought before you went to bed last night?

...I DONT KNOW??

Is anyone else in the room with you?

im on my couch rn so yea my dad's in the living room

Do you believe what goes around comes around?

depends.

Were you happier four months ago than you are now?

no, i was pretty miserable

Is there someone you wish you could fix things with?

yes, but i dont know if they would care if i tried

In the past week, have you cried?

ive come close, but no

What colour is the shirt you are wearing?

bl00

Do people ever call you by your last name?

never. HAHA

Is anyone ignoring you right now?

oh for sure </3

Do you have a best friend?

@quackbug heyyyyyyy

Would it be hard seeing someone else kiss the last person you kissed?

i cant even remember the last person i kissed so @katmeeliaz 💋 and no

Who was your last call/text message from?

bug sent me this and they were also my last call

Are you mad at anyone?

multiple

Have you ever kissed someone older than you?

yea

How old will the last person you kissed be on his/her next birthday?

rainy gon be 14 wooooooo

How many more days until your birthday?

273. LMAO

Do you have any summer plans yet?

yea im goin to hawaii bitch

Do you have any good friends of the opposite sex?

julian n russell

Are you keeping anything from your best friend(s) now?

😐

Do you have a secret that you’ve never told anyone?

i thought everyone did??

Have you ever regretted kissing someone?

yea

Do you think age matters in relationships?

depends on the mental age of both people, and whether or not its legal so i dont know

Are you available?

...i suppose? i dont know the context

How many people have you had real, strong feelings for since high school ended?

sits in middle school

If you had to get a piercing (not ears), what would you get?

im a pussy i hate that stuff so i have no idea

Do you believe exes can be friends?

yea! although it depends on the terms you left on

Do you regret anything?

many things

Honestly, what’s on your mind right now?

my dumbass read that and my mind went "DICK" so now i gotta say dick i hate it here

Did you ever lose a best friend?

mhm

Was your last kiss a mistake?

nop

Why aren’t you pursuing the person you like?

i dont have one thats why

Has the last person you kissed ever seen you cry?

heard, yes

Do you still talk with the person you LAST kissed?

yes

What was the last thing you ate?

dowitos

Did you get any compliments today?

got called creative,, so yea

Where are you going on your next vacation?

not sure, we'll see

Do you own anything from other countries?

yea i have some stuff from ireland, im in the us

Are most of your friend guys or girls?

gals

Where have you lived most of your life?

i aint ANSWERIN THAT SHIT CUZ I STILL LIVE THERE

When was the last time you took a long drive?

god knows how long ago sweats

Have you ever played Spin the Bottle?

no and i dont think i ever will bc haha that shit scary

Have you ever TPd someone’s house?

ive watched and thought it was funny

Who do you text the most?

@katmeeliaz we have like 900 messages a day

What was the last movie you saw?

ffffffffuck uh I DONT REMEMBER OOPS

What’s preventing your current boyfriend/girlfriend from going back to their ex?

my what now

How many boyfriends/girlfriends did you have in 2011?

i was deadass 3 years old

Is the last person you kissed younger than you?

cuz of our birthdays yea

Do you curse around your parents?

yeah LMAO

Are you happy with where you live?

oh yeah for sure i love it here

Picture of yourself?

i dont think ive ever seriously taken a picture of myself so have my bird

Are you a monogamous person or do you believe in open-ended relationships?

ive only been in one relationship so idk

Have you ever been dumped?

in a way

What do you most like about making out?

never kissed someone romantically irl before so shrug

Have you ever casually made out with someone who you weren’t seriously involved with?

i personally think that shit's gross i would wanna save that for someone special :(

When you kiss someone for the first time, is it usually you who initiates it or the other?

iiiiiiiiiii do not remember

What part of a person’s body do you find most attractive?

idk i guess eyes? i like eyes in multiple contexts

Who was the last person you talked to last night before you went to bed?

i believe it was bug i do not remember

Had sex with someone you knew less than an hour?

😐

Had sex with someone you didn’t know their name?

😐😐😐😐😐

What makes your heart flutter and brings a big cheesy smile to your face

im super weak to people telling me they look up to me n shit that makes my heart die

Would you get involved with someone if they had a child already?

what fuckin 13-15 year old am i gonna know who has a kid

Has someone who had a crush on you ever confessed to you?

yes and my response was hazbin hotel memes, we still talk about it cuz it was funny

Do you tell a lot of people when you have a crush?

i dont ever really have crushes like i rlly think i might be aromantic

Do you miss your last sweetie?

as a friend? yea. as a partner? nop

Last time you slow danced with someone?

in a past life i guess

Have you ever ‘dated’ someone you’ve never met?

my friends' ocs yea

How can I win your heart?

i dont know myself well enough to say

What is your astrological sign?

fis- pisces

What were you doing last night at 12 AM?

still playin that stardew valley

Do you cook?

yea!

Have you ever gotten back in touch with an old flame after a time of more than 3 months of no communication?

yeah LOL it was like 9 months of no talking and we just saw each other like ":0000 BRO IS THAT YOU"

If you’re single right now, do you wish you were in a relationship?

no, i dont need one to be happy

Do you prefer to date various people or do you pretty much fall into monogamous relationships quickly?

cant say

What physical traits do you look for in a potential interest?

nice hands,,,u gotta have nice hands so i can hold em

Name four things that you wish you had!

i cant name four, but

i want this. like pls. can i just have this on my desk or something i want it im begging

Are you a player?

no

Have you ever kissed 2 people in one day?

no?

Are you a tease?

yea :]] in a friendly way tho

Ever meet anyone you met on Tumblr?

not yet but someday i will go to ihop with @quackbug and get cupcake pancakes

Have you ever been deeply in love with someone?

yea! its a nice feeling

Anybody on Tumblr that you’d go on a date with?

@katmeeliaz platonically

Hugs or Kisses?

hugs..i havent been kissed enough to prefer em

Are you too shy to ask someone out?

i dont really ask people out anyways

The first thing you notice about the opposite sex?

for some reason manly guys dont interest me i want a small sweetie that i can cuddl so i guess that i mean why u think he exist

Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you babe?

"bae/babe" makes me want to crumple into a ball so no

If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was in relationship, would you go for it?

no because if they're being unfaithful to their partner i doubt they're very smart

Do you flirt a lot?

in a jokin way yea

Your last kiss?

@katmeeliaz platonically

Have you kissed more than 5 people since the start of 2012?

no

Have you kissed anyone in the past month?

mhm

If you could kiss anyone who would it be?

Do you know who you’ll kiss next?

shrug

Does someone like you currently?

maybe, i wouldnt know

Do you currently have feelings for anyone?

nah

Do you like to be in serious relationships or just flings?

shrug again

Ever made out with just a friend?

virtually yeah but it was more of a joking thing HAHAH

Are you happier single or in a relationship?

a relationship is just a nice thing to add into your life, it wont bring you happiness, your life can be just as happy without someone if you live it correctly

[orgasmicstrawberries]

1:49 am

maybe i feel out of it lately because everything is about to change. im afraid of the future and whats coming and it makes me constantly nostalgic of like 2012 and it makes me want to go back just for a second, when things were good back then, before everything went bad. i knew id make it here one day, this just isnt how i pictured it and it’s kind of hard for me to deal with that in some weird way. part of me didnt think id make it, so that part of me feels even more isolated because it doesnt even know what it’s doing or where it’s going from here.

i feel like i know what will help bring me back to reality but unfortunately they are out of reach, as now it seems they will always just somebody i used to know, as much as i don’t want it to be. seeing it so close but so far away is one of the most frustrating feelings in the world and it makes me feel helpless. 

everything makes me feel helpless. there are so many people i want to know or people i have known that i want to know again that i won’t be able to be close to, since everybody is living their own lives. there are so many things i want to do that i will practically never be able to do with a stupid barely over minimum wage job. there are things i will never be able to learn because i don’t have enough time in my life, and i don’t even know how much time i have.

but throughout my 18 years of life, i feel like i have been through a shit ton, and although i have so much more to learn, i still feel accomplished because of the amount of suffering i have endured and what i learned from all of it. here are some things ive learned up to 18 years.

speak up. as somebody who is constantly anxious, i definitely have held my tongue in some situations because i was either too worried of what they would think of me, or i second guess myself. i learned that i have to trust myself, and trust is the key to my anxiety, whether it be trusting me or other people. i still have issues with this trust but im getting better.

continuing the last paragraph’s topic, trust. without trust, there is no foundation to anything. people seldom talk about how we should all trust ourselves, and i feel like it’s because it’s something that is so hard to do. how can you trust yourself when you don’t know who you are yet? how can you trust yourself when it feels like your mind and brain are working against you because of all of your mental issues? constant second guessing is something i struggle with everyday, but i’m continuing to progress on immediately following my gut in certain situations, and it’s fulfilling. i need to know what i want and go get it. sometimes i feel like i have subconscious trust issues because of shit that happened in my adolescence, because i used to trust myself. now i am too afraid of being wrong and too afraid of even slightly upsetting anybody; confrontation gives me anxiety and i fucking hate it. i just need to trust myself.

acknowledge it. even if it doesnt seem important in the moment, it may be in the long run. ESPECIALLY if it is something that bothers you, as it will fester and make you sad and anxious over something that may be much smaller in real life than in your head. 

accept relapses. recovery doesnt have a timeline; i still ache over things that happened in 2014 sometimes, and thats okay. it happened. things are bigger and better now, but that doesnt mean im not allowed to feel sad. pay attention to your own patterns, notice when things aren’t going as well as usual. self-care is something that should be paid more attention to by all humans. when things get bad, try to focus on the good that happened beforehand and how things will be better. baby steps help: cant get out of bed? take a short walk. crying your eyes out? watch movies at a friends house. it’s okay to struggle. what’s not okay is to not try.

recognize toxic thought processes. half of the bullshit i would try to wrap my head around would be ideas that i made up in my head. i felt like i was genuinely losing my sanity and i was so stuck in my own head that i couldn’t even distinguish it from reality, and i think that is the worst psychological experience i have ever gone through. i felt like i wasn’t even in my body and i was just this shell that walked around doing ‘isa’ things. it felt wrong and i felt like i didn’t belong on this planet. the smallest things would be twisted into these massive issues, and i unintentionally hurt people because i couldn’t navigate any of my thoughts and feelings. i still think about this experience quite often and hurt quite a bit, and i’m still trying to come to terms to the facts. it’s a strange and difficult feeling to have to convince yourself of facts, and the whole process is exhausting and frustrating. if it’s fucking true, then why do i have a million reasons in my head as to why it wouldn’t be? a million invalid reasons. it’s almost as if my brain tries to prove anything that makes me happy wrong, as if it’s trying to sabotage me. it’s incredibly hard to push those thoughts back. but it has to be done.

write. even if you don’t know what to write about, write about something. i write in a journal and nobody even uses tumblr anymore so nobody’s gonna fuckin see what i post here, so i thought typing it out would be faster and less painless (literally, my hand) for me. i guess i’ll use tumblr the way it really is supposed to be used, as a BLOG. huh? just find what works for you. 

i know nobody is going to read this, but it helped me lay out my thoughts a little bit because they’ve been all over the place lately and it will be nice to look back at this post if things ever get bad again. thanks tumblr

[samanthasroberts]

‘I know their vital stats, their romantic histories’: how Sunderland AFC saved me

For this Chinese Jewish Texan, England was a difficult place to feel at home. But all that changed when she discovered football

Thats shite, man! the man behind screams. The discontent in the crowd is reaching a critical mass. Useless twats, snarls a father below, opening a packet of crisps for his nine-year-old son.

I stand frozen, wrapped up in a scarf and down jacket. Who are we yelling at? Why are we so angry?

Its Boxing Day 2012 and Im at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland for my first ever football match. Its freezing cold; it begins to rain. And then it happens. A Sunderland player fires a shot that creeps past the Manchester City goalkeeper and into the bottom corner of the net. The stadium thunders as a sea of 46,000 bodies fall over each other, total strangers hugging their neighbours, while simultaneously jumping up and down. The man next to me screams so loudly in my ear that Im momentarily deaf. Then he turns me towards him, grabs my shoulders, locks eyes with me and shakes my body. Ahhhhhhhhhh! he screams, in happiness and disbelief.

Ahhhhhhh! I scream back, in fear.

***

When I moved to London, I got a job as a junior editor on a luxury lifestyle website. The site was run by a flamboyant man from Croydon named Carlos, with coiffed salt and pepper hair. Never one to pass up an opportunity to show off, Carlos liked to introduce me to visiting VIPs as our New Yorker who speaks fluent Mandarin and went to Harvard.

None of these things was true. I grew up in a small town in Texas: Amarillo. For some reason, Carlos didnt think this as impressive as being from New York (despite Amarillo being the helium capital of the world and the home of Tony Christies sweet Marie). As for fluent in Mandarin, my dad is Chinese, but I speak only broken Mandarin after living and working in Beijing for a few years. I didnt go to Harvard I was rejected but I did go to a university an hour away. None of these things made sense to Carlos, so he went with his own version.

My exchanges with Carlos were stilted. Our interactions ended in awkward silences. He was twice my age and we had nothing in common. But he was well known in London media circles and I was desperate to get him on side.

After Beijing, I assumed it would be a breeze to assimilate in a country where I no longer faced a language barrier. In China, I had spent a good amount of time miming my interactions. I also had to get used to Beijing locals asking me how much money I made, or telling me I was looking fatter than usual. But it was a bluntness I came to embrace: at least I knew where I stood.

Not so in London. The city was so rife with passive aggression that I didnt know when people were being rude or kind. A woman thanked me on the train for moving my bag and I was almost certain what she was really saying was too fucking right. A man squeezed by me on the escalator and the pitch of his seemingly polite May I? was so snide, it nearly brought me to tears. Carlos asked me if I want to do something for him at work and I wasnt sure if it was an order, a helpful suggestion or sarcasm. The words themselves were unfailingly polite, but it was all in the tone. Other Americans I knew suffered the same way. I genuinely dont know if my colleagues are making fun of me or being nice, a friend from Chicago confessed one night over drinks.

London can be a tough city for newcomers to crack. Compared with the US, people prefer to keep to themselves, especially in public. Im shy, so this was wonderful at first. No one approaches you to chat. I once fell in a crowded street in broad daylight and began the, Im fine, Im fine, honestly protest. But no one had stopped. I lay on the ground, impressed with peoples dedication to not getting involved with strangers. I began to think that I might never find a way to break through the famous British reserve. Would I ever find common ground with Carlos? If only there was some magic key.

And then one day, I witnessed a man bite another man on live TV. This happened during a football match that was on in a pub I happened to be in. I was immediately intrigued: by the biting, the drama, the getting caught, the primal emotion of the incident. I didnt realise it at the time, but this was it: my in.

On a bus, I sat with a couple of friends who were discussing live scores; soon, the entire upper deck had joined the conversation. It was like a portal to another dimension in which everyone was chatty, friendly and open on public transport.

Football was everywhere, it turned out. Once I noticed this, I began to absorb football facts, though only certain things stuck. I loved it when footballers cried. Maybe it was the persistent myth of the stiff upper lip but seeing a player moved to tears, to me, showed he cared more than anyone else. It wasnt like watching an actor pretend to tear up. This shit was real.

I loved any sort of drama on and off the pitch. Family tensions, love problems, scandals, shoving matches; before long, I became a reliable source of useless, soap opera-esque information about players.

I also became a fervent Sunderland supporter. Why would a Chinese girl from Texas living in Highbury, north London, become a Sunderland supporter? Because I had married one. Ian, born and bred in Sunderland, talked about his teams players as if they were his family. That made them my family, too. I knew their names, their shirt numbers, their vital stats, their romantic histories. I was also a natural fit for Sunderland because I love an underdog and by God, I had chosen the underdog of underdogs. The big clubs, with their expensive superstars, were boring to me. Our wins were rare, but they were so much sweeter for it.

I watched televised matches, sometimes without Ian if he was busy or out of town, something that had my friends and family baffled. During visits home to Texas, Ian and I zealously woke early to catch the Sunderland game. My father would observe me, puzzled. My mother, who is Jewish, was also bewildered but said, Well, you were the most athletic of our family of klutzes. It was my childhood best friend Jori who called me out. We were in a Waffle House diner surrounded by grassy plains. I asked Ian if he knew how Sunderlands relegation rivals had fared in their six-pointer, when she interrupted me. Are you talking about British soccer? Who are you? I told her the truth: Im just a girl, standing in front of the TV, hoping a footballer scores a winning goal in the last minute of a high-stakes match and then weeps about it.

A young fan lets rip as Sunderland take on Man United. Photograph: Getty

Do you know who really liked football? Carlos. We soon developed a rapport. Every Monday, hed rush to my desk and wed discuss the weekends matches. He was obsessed with playing style, formations and league tables. Meanwhile, I was the expert on the fights, the crying and the hissy fits. Suddenly, we were friends. He wasnt just my scary boss who got annoyed that I didnt know who Lynyrd Skynyrd were. We were bonding.

They say that to assimilate in a foreign country, you have to speak the language, and now I finally did. Did I make friends from learning about football? I would go out on a limb and say that yes, I did. I made friends with Dave at the Three store when I sat there for two hours after accidentally flushing my phone down the toilet. I bonded with a Ghanaian driver as we discussed a former Sunderland player from his country. In a hotel in the Lake District, there was a communication breakdown with a concierge that ended happily when we both agreed that Diego Costa was a jerk and Jermain Defoe a great goal scorer. When cab rides were too silent, no problem. Lets talk about the match, driver.

***

Dinner in the north-east of England is different from dinner in Texas. Here the food is cooked well-done, the weather is colder and greyer, the company more polite, the table quieter.

Ians dad, brother and uncles are lifelong Sunderland season ticket holders. Ask them a question about what they want to eat, or their favourite movie, or their preference for boxers or briefs, and they will reply, Im easy. Suggest that Jack Rodwell is a decent footballer and they are unleashed animated, passionate, opinionated. I enjoy bantering with Ians brother and dad about football, but we argue a lot mostly because there is one thing I havent been able to wrap my head around since my first game.

After that first Boxing Day match, on the walk from the Stadium of Light to the car with Ian, his dad, his uncle and his brother, I ask the question thats on my mind.

Why do we yell mean things at our own players?

Silence. And then: They just didnt show up. For most of the match, they were bloody awful, Ian says. Good use of we, though, he adds.

But shouldnt we be supporting them? Encouraging them?

Ian shakes his head and sighs.

You know, like being positive and lifting them up? I was still trying to make sense of why 46,000 people would call themselves supporters when they gave the most vitriolic, abusive commentary on their own players. Their support was downright terrifying.

This was your first match, Jess. Weve suffered years of pain while watching players go through the motions. Ive been enduring this for 25 years, Ian says. Twenty-six years, Ians older brother says. His dad: Try 60 years. And finally, I understand the British subtext: You are a wide-eyed idiot.

You got me into this: Jess with her husband, Ian. Photograph: Pal Hansen for the Guardian

At my high school in Texas, there was a club called Senior Spirits. Senior Spirit members met to boost the egos of our sports teams and rally other students to support those teams. To quote from the yearbook, their mission was to make posters and give our school spirit. In the photo, a group of 20 girls wearing matching T-shirts and ponytails, grin at the camera, 100% heartfelt.

These werent cheerleaders. And they werent affiliated with the Steppers, the ultra-serious dancers who performed at pep rallies, the hour-long ceremonies dedicated to whipping up school spirit. Nor were they the student marching band that played during football matches to help stoke, yes, even more team spirit. Team spirit was like an elusive ghost permeating the school and we all had to worship it.

That spirit was partial to posters with marker pen and glitter, to ponytails, to cakes shaped like American footballs and prayers before the big game. It revelled in exclamation marks. It did not like folded arms and booing and sarcasm. It did not like being called a useless twat.

Apparently team spirit isnt a thing in north-east England. So how do English secondary schools pump up their sports teams? I imagine the halls of these schools are lined with posters of a different sort: You better not screw this up, Jones! and Dont do any of that long-ball shit, Gibbons.

I still struggle with this complete inversion, but it unlocked something core in the English mentality how ingrained the cynicism is, as well as the tendency to proceed from a position of cautious defeat. Expect to lose so it hurts less when it happens, and if we win, no harm done.

Diehard football fans remain sceptical of me. At matches, I ask questions. I get looks when I yell cheerful encouragement. I cant stop shouting, At least you tried! every time a player takes a shot but fails to score. Some have the gall to question my passion for football until I do well at the pub quiz football round. If you love something, does it matter if you love it for all the wrong reasons? Apparently, to them, yes. But one thing was for sure: I was emotionally committed.

In May 2016, at the end of that years season, Sunderland were on the brink of doom, as we are every year. Hundreds of fans gathered at the Old Red Lion in Angel, north London, for one of the last matches of the season. I am 5ft 2in, so I left Ian and his friends and waded through Mackems to get to a good vantage point to watch the match. We were playing Everton, and this would seal everything: would we stay up and relegate bitter rivals Newcastle in the process?

Awaydays at the Drayton Park pub in north London, before taking on Arsenal at the Emirates. Photograph: Pal Hansen for the Guardian

The first time we scored, someones pint of beer, spilt in jubilant joy and shock, doused my head. On the second goal, the shouts were deafening. On the third, a man threw his arms around me and together we jumped up and down and screamed with pure joy. I left the pub dazed, half-deaf, hair soaked in booze and my face aching from smiling.

I became a UK citizen last year. At a city town hall, I swore my allegiance to the Queen and stumbled through the national anthem with 17 other newly minted UK citizens. But that moment didnt come close to the buoyant feeling of pure joy and belonging I felt in the arms of a stranger as we celebrated the victory of our beloved team. If the root of football passion is said to be a sense of family and place, then this Chinese Jewish Texan has found her new home.

Unfortunately, that home is sometimes a den of pain and despair. By the time you read this, we will have played three Championship matches in the new season. Ian assures me we will not have won one: Sunderland havent won a league game in August or September for four years in a row.

In April this year, we were finally relegated from the Premier League with four matches left to play.

Useless losers! I yell at the players as Sunderland fail to score even one goal. Its all over. Nothing to hope for now, no Match Of The Day to look forward to.

As I shout at the players, Ian pats me hard on the back. Well done, he says. I look at him, confused. Now you know what it feels like to hate your own team.

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Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/17/i-know-their-vital-stats-their-romantic-histories-how-sunderland-afc-saved-me/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/i-know-their-vital-stats-their-romantic-histories-how-sunderland-afc-saved-me/