#kinda funny how i was at the lowest weight i ever was when i just ate what i wanted. kinda interesting

[beach-bear-enjoyer]

“nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” WRONG. ch;eeto puffs,,,🤤🤤🤤,,,🤤🤤🤤

[alaskan-wallflower]

For the ask game: Butters! I can't decide on which questions so... all of them! (Or how ever many you feel like answering.)

oh this should be fun-

My first interpretation of them

Honestly I just felt bad for him. I basically knew him as the kid who got grounded all the time and he seemed sweet enough, he was actually one of my faves from the beginning haha

2. When I think I started to truly like him

Honestly the Fun With Veal episode. And in the Butters’ Bottom Bitch episode where he just kept going ‘do you know what I am saying?’ I just thought it was funny lol

3. A song that reminds me of them

(Kinda a joint one) but You and Me (But Mostly Me) from Book of Mormon is SO Butters and Cartman. Also The Weight of Us by Sanders Bohlke.

4. How many people I ship them with

I don’t really do ships lol, I liked him and Charlotte tho, they seemed cute.

5. My favorite ship of them

Probably him and Charlotte

6. My least favorite ship of them

Him and Cartman. Absolutely him and Cartman.

7. A quote of them I remember

“I’d rather be a crying little pussy than a faggy goth kid anyway.”

8, My favorite outfit on them

Professor Chaos or his Stick of Truth costume

9. My least favorite outfit on them

The bear suit Paris Hilton made him wear in Stupid Spoiled Whore Video Playset. I felt awful for him

10. Describe the character in one sentence

Sunshine boy with horrible family members

11. What’s the first thing I think fo when I think of this character?

His accent. I dunno, I just have a knack for remembering stuff like that lol-I could honestly just listen to his voice all day, it’s soothing for me

12. Sexuality hdc!

I’m torn between him being pan and being straight lol, but I do think he’s on the ace spectrum.

13. My favorite friendship they have

Him and Kenny. Definitely

14. Best storyline they had

Butters’ Very Own Episode. I felt bad for him but it’s one of my favorite episodes

15. Worst storyline they had

Probably in the earlier seasons when he was just used as Kenny’s counterpart for the shows punching bag. Idk, it just felt like he didn’t really have any character or personality back then

16. A childhood headcanon

He lived on a farm for a little bit when he was a baby. They moved from Hawaii to say Oklahoma, then to South Park when he was three. Hence the accent. He also had a pet chick up until he was 7 or so named Toast. His parents made him give the chick away tho

17. What do you think their first word was?

Probably just mama or something. I do have a headcanon he still calls his mom (or his unofficial mother figure) mama sometimes.

18. How do I think he was as a kid?

He was probably really hyper. He subdued when he got older tho because his parents kept grounding him for accidentally breaking stuff when he would run around

19. The most random ship I’ve seen with this character

Butters x Craig. Like ???? They never interacted in the show lol-

20. A weird headcanon

Butters has a huge sweet tooth and if there’s candy or sweets in his vicinity he’ll devour it in an instant and likely suffer from a bellyache later

21. When do I think they were at his happiest?

Probably when he moved out and went to college tbh. He was just happy to get away from his toxic ass family. Or when his grandma finally dies.

22. When do I think he was at his lowest?

I do headcanon that when he’s in middle school he finally snaps. He becomes angry and kinda becomes a bully because he doesn’t feel like he has anyone who cares about him, it’s probably only for a few days at most but he just snaps at everyone, makes fun of everything everyone does, but after a few days Kenny (and maybe Cartman or Kyle) kinda confronts him and he ends up apologizing and trying to find someone to talk to.

23. Future headcanon

I wanna imagine that he lives on a farm, he has a bunch of chickens and goats (his favs) and some cows, pigs, even ducks. He gets a pet dog (a Border Collie) named Waffles. He kinda owns a petting zoo of sorts where younger kids just stop by and he educated them about animals and stuff. He also owns a bakery. He names it ‘Buttery Bliss’ or something

24. What do you think i’d a secret they’ve never told anyone?

Probably the thing with his sphincter and how he has to wear diapers in school sometimes. He probably only told AWESOM-O because he thought it was just a robot. But after that he didn’t tell anyone because he would definitely get made fun of :(

25. When do I think he’s acted the most ooc

Probably in The Worldwide Privacy Tour. Kyle even said ‘this is really out of character for you, Butters.’ so probably that lol, or in Going Native. I mean he literally wanted to kill a bunch of innocent people

26. When do I think they were being “themselves” the most?

Honestly? Probably when he was singing the Loo Loo Loo song, it kinda just showed his cuter side. Or in Cartman Sucks when his parents sent him to the Pray teh Gay Away camp because he was just so oblivious to where he was but still stood up for himself and his friends in the end

27. If they could meet a certain character from a different show/movie/book, who would be the most fun for them to meet?

Hello kitty. This kid would be in HEAVEN if Hello kitty was real. Either Hello kitty or Tails the Fox. Him and Tails are pretty similar. Plus fluffy fox meets sunshine boy, they’d get along-or just him in the pokémon world. Yes.

28. The most unnecessary thing they ever did?

Probably when he was trying to get the Hawaiian tourists killed in war

29. How do I think they’d be as a parent?

Honestly? He spoils the shit out of his kids. He’s a huge pushover, but not to the point where his kids become spoiled brats. He probably exposes them to animals early so he could get them to know what’s good and what isn’t when on the farm. He supports his children, but he’s probably a very sheltering parent if that makes sense. Has no idea what he’s doing at first but eventually gets the hang of it. He loves playing make believe with them, would totally play dress up and such.

30. The funniest scene they ever had?

When he’s Professor Chaos and trying to be all menacing and Dougie has to keep telling him the Simpsons already did his idea and he’s just like ‘aw hamburgers :(‘

Hope this is good!

[cryingandhorny]

hopped on the scale this morning and im down a pound :p my lowest weight so far !!!

114.1 lbs

i am planning on a 2+ day fast and this is really motivating. plus my bf having eyes for random skinny girls on the internet helps too.

funny cuz my stomach was growling before i got on the scale and all of my hunger went away after i saw the number lol.

im really nervous for the fast cuz ive only ever gone 24 hours. i heard if you fast long enough you could lose two pounds a day???!!! im still gonna go to the gym at night and drink my green tea and water. maybe ill have some diet coke too >.<

sorry to talk about my bf again but god damn I’ll do anything for him thats why i want to leave him so bad lol. im literally self destructing just so he MIGHT love me again. im starving just so i will feel confident in myself because i know he looks and fantasizes over skinny more attractive girls. ALSO im pretty sure he wants me to starve and be smaller too because when i post about it on my anon insta he never says anything AND i brought it up to him for the first time ever and he didnt say anything about it… kinda makes me feel like complete shit but its really really good motivation. whats funny is ive never seen what he looks like because he claims hes big and says hes ugly and its funny because i always tell him he’s attractive to me no matter what and that i dont care what he looks like.

isnt it funny and pathetic how ive never seen a pic of him or met him and im letting him completely ruin me. lol.

[tumbling-down-the-hall]

Haven't posted in over a year. Surprise surprise. It's the end of 2021. It's been a wild ride.

I started off at my lowest of lows. Working an Americorps position that I knew wasn't going to be what I wanted to do.

I applied for admissions counselor positions but I knew those weren't for me either. I tried. Oh I tried. I wanted to stay in academia because I like learning. But that wasn't for me.

The beginning of the year brought sadness of a friend leaving my life (tbh for the best but I didn't realize that) but also brought a new human into my life. I don't think he realizes how much joy he truly brings me. We started talking when I was at my lowest of lows. He stuck with it. He stuck with me. I was surprised. I felt like I was very standoff ish with him. But he checked the three boxes that I wanted in a guy. Funny, nerdy and plays/played baseball. Our first date was 3 hours. And immediately after I sent my sister a message saying that the goltz girls do like their southern boys 😂. I knew he would be a keeper.

We started dating in February right before I went back to home to drive with my mother to PA. I don't like that we started dating in Feb. So we are moving our anniversary a little bit 😂. Not much. And it still falls within a month of when we started talking.

He is so nerdy and patient with me and all the things I didn't realize I needed. I am so appreciative of him and excited for what the future holds.

While I'm still working through this shit. I'm definitely in a better spot than I was at the beginning. I have a partner who loves me and we are looking forward to our future. I have a job that is wonderful and I am constantly learning and I don't really have a fear of my job becoming irrelevant. People are going to constantly be importing things. So I have job security. Even if it's not in tech like I initially thought. I still Google things constantly.

It's amazing to say but it does get better. I have my own apartment. I didn't think that would ever be possible (also kinda scary but I have a lightsaber to protect me 😂)

Yeah I could probably lose some weight but I can just blame the anti depressants on that. Camera angles are the worst for body image issues.

Despite the ups and downs of 2021 I feel like over all it was a good year. Definitely better than 2020. And I can't wait to see what 2022 has in store for me and my human. I think some traveling is in our future and I'm so fucking excited to travel on an airplane with somebody 😁😁

[jackedspicer]

a bio for my xiaolinsona! she’s a work in progress so i’m bound to come back and change it. trivia and more in depth information is under the readmore :)

continued trivia:

she’d show up somewhere near the start of season 4

she’s used a LOT for slapstick. in fact she’s mostly a comic relief character

she’s guided mainly by emotions, is right brain oriented, and is a hands-on learner

there is a running gag where she frequently has bandaids on her fingers, hands, arms, or anywhere really

she’s a massive funk junkie. LOVES disco. she’s also a great dancer

when she comes up with xiaolin showdowns, sometimes she’ll base it off of fun recreational activities or things that seem harmlessly mundane, like mini golf..... tic tac toe.....dance-off...... rock paper scissors..... the showdowns themselves obviously end up being high-stakes and lethal as they always are, except they’re based off of goofy premises

she’s probably musically accented by grunge that’s slightly funky

when it’s funny, she occasionally will use huge words or make jarringly philosophical statements, eg patrick star’s “the inner machinations of my mind are an enigma” cut to footage of milk spilling

shes a lot like charlie kelly. in general. any charlie moment is just. Her. she’s a wild card and screams every line and huffs glue and tries to get the honey out of a hornets nest outside of jacks house because she thinks hornets make honey and she likes ghouls and she genocides the rats in his basement and sleeps ass to ass with him and is illiterate

she likes to do arts and crafts but they almost always come out as abominations. she’ll occasionally borrow some of jack’s tools to construct her latest atrocity, and she’ll refer to them by a wrong/made up name while she’s at it. “the hacksaw duey”, “the electric hole puncher,” ”the automatic pizza cutter”, etc. yes the projects and the bandaids have a direct cause and effect relationship. please refer to this video (and this channel in general)

imagine her sitting at a table and just doing this in jack’s lair... this video alone can be used to sum up so much of her. the technique. the bandaids. the blatantly wrong information that’s said with such conviction. the dark turn towards the end of the video. “superfluous protrusion.” the way it ends

continued trivia pt. 2, taken from my instagram

(i’ll get into this more further down the post)

fighting style because this is xiaolin showdown:

she has a very nimble, disorienting style of combat. using pokemon stats as an analogy, her highest would be speed by far, followed by attack, with her lowest stats being defense and special attack. this combined with her unrelenting nature makes her an excellent distraction and a general nuisance, but she doesn’t fare well in prolonged head to head battle.

favorite shen gong wu: 

monkey staff, mikado arms, fancy feet, neptune helmet, hoduko mouse, woozy shooter (on herself), tongue of saiping, longi kite, indigo pyramid (on jack (cause it’s funny))

*the shen gong wu she’s most skilled with in battle are ones that trip up her opponents and cause status ailments. kinda like a prankster

backstory/analysis:

at her core, she’s a jolly, optimistic, humorous person, but her unruly, isolating childhood put a blow on her psyche. much like jack spicer, she’s been virtually alone her entire life - she was rejected by peers and adult figures alike since earliest childhood, and her home life was turbulent at best.

to ease the pain, at some point, she took on resenting and judging those around her as a means to cope. she has a holden caulfield-esque defense mechanism in play where if everybody sucks for this reason, or that reason, or those reasons, then she has justification for detaching herself from others, and she can derive her only source of self esteem from being better than them. this hurts far less than the devastating truth that she cannot connect with people on account of feeling so worthless and estranged from other human beings that she could never have the chance to be cared about by anyone. deep down, she’s in desperate, thrashing need of support and genuine human connection, and she has a warped perception of how she can achieve that.

she’s taken up evil as a hobby because it nurtures her desire to be destructive and, again, just like jack spicer, she engages in it as a way to feel seen. all press is good press, and the best way to make the headline is to cause some damage. what sets her apart from him in this regard, though, is that she takes all of her pain out on her enemies (in this case, the xiaolin monks) because she can’t stand how well off they are - instead, on the basis of their acceptance of one another, she sees them as goody two-shoes phonies who ought to be knocked down a peg. while evil to jack is both a means of getting much needed attention and a convoluted way of spending time with friends, to sid it’s a way to vent frustrations and a way to, well... still garner attention, but also spend time with a friend, except the friend is jack.

the other half of the reason she partakes in petty villainy is that it’s just... fun. she only got wrapped up in all this because she’d been restlessly putzing around somewhere remote, found a neat doohicky she planned on keeping, and when one thing led to another she wound up in a xiaolin showdown against jack. experiencing the chaos unfold revealed a golden opportunity she couldn’t pass up, so she asked jack to let her come with, debuting their partnership (i talk about this in further detail at the end of the post). goofing off and doing evil with him is so much fun to her! it makes her feel alive, a sensation and state of mind she never could fully achieve before.

noteworthy relationships:

jack: 

they have a team rocket thing going on. not in terms of their interpersonal dynamic, but rather their role in the story, how much of a threat they pose as, their schemes, and even their overall attitude are reminiscent of the iconic duo; they’re petty, recurring villains with hearts of gold who aren’t above occasionally siding with the good guys.

even though they both are on the same tier of comic relief and general foolishness, the metaphor i like to draw is that jack is the left brain and sid is the right brain.

their personalities have such chemistry and they’re both so goofy that they effortlessly sync up. everyone thinks it’s REALLY annoying

they’re best friends! they actually care very deeply for one another, even if they might have funny ways of showing it. they may be evil, but they’re mutually the only and closest friend the other has ever had, and with that carries a lot of weight. think of it - the first person you meet who hasn’t been nothing but awful to you likes you and wants to be around you. What a concept

while their relationship is platonic, there are several gags implying a romantic element, even though nothing is ever outright stated. kisses on the cheek, bashfulness, other characters making fun of them (“where’s your DUMB little girlfriend?” “..........she’s not DUMB!!!!!”), domestic references (“am i sleeping on the couch”)..... it’s left ambiguous because it’s hetbait plain and simple. somebody asks them what they even are and they say Partners In Crime wym. jack asks sid What Are We and she fist pumps the flat of her own chest twice, throws a peace sign and says We’re Bros

their nicknames for each other include but are not limited to “jackass, jacky-boy, jack-o-lantern, smarty pants, wiggles, spack jicer, spack, mr spack, spackle”, and “shortstack, pipsqueak, sid the kid, champ, funky monkey, foxy (in a funny way, he’ll say it like Whatcha Up To Foxy ? while she’s like making a mess doing an arts & crafts abomination or just vibing bein her weird lil self....  it comes from a place of playful sarcasm and affection) (champ, funky monkey, and foxy are courtesy of @currentlyfallingthroughspace)

to piggyback off of the left brain vs. right brain metaphor, “heart vs. brain is how they think, right brain vs. left brain is how they act, and two halves of a heart represents their natural dispositions” is how my aforementioned friend put it. they both have a lot of heart and are ooey gooey on the inside, but the difference is that sid can grasp the intricacies of emotional/psychological matters while jack can’t (actually knowing how to EXPRESS this is another topic). it’s in the same way that jack can effectively plan ahead, use logical reasoning, and know where to go and how to get there, but sid is shabby in this department. “one is aware but doesn’t address it until it’s too late, and one can’t see it and doesn’t ask until it’s too late.”  

another feature of potential conflict in all incarnations of them is the juxtaposition of sid actually being more down to earth than jack in the grand scheme of things. jack has the potential to go completely overboard, and whether or not he demonstrates the ability to catch himself on the event horizon will ascertain the outcome.

deep down, neither of them are truly evil, and they bring this out in each other as they ultimately contribute to the redemption of one another. how this actually happens is a lot rockier. sid has the intuition and self awareness to become increasingly cognizant of the fact that she engages in schemes as a way to bond with her friend, and, over time, she’s able to recognize that she’s simply been acting out, and she consequently softens up over time - but jack is much denser in this regard. he doesn’t consciously pick up on the same things she does and still believes that she’s drinking the koolaid as much as he is. the crucial dissonance in what matters most that had been incubating under the weight of things left unsaid emerges in a major falling out that challenges the nature of their entire dynamic and respective moral codes. i had a lot of help from the same friend with the following series of events and it’s really something that ought to be gone into detail on its own post, but a whirlwind brief summary is that jack becomes desperate from losing over and over so he comes up with this sinister plan that’s just too far, sid tells him to stop, they get into a nasty fight, sid leaves and makes it clear she’s not coming back, she goes to the xiaolin dragons for help, jack goes on an evil rampage but also loses his grip and has this mental breakdown because he lost the one person who’s ever cared about him (or so he thought), sid has the same brutal separation pangs but it doesn’t change the fact that jack is still doing what he’s doing, sid gets a firsthand view of a fight breaking out between the monks while she’s working with them and has a moment of clarity when she observes how they resolve it in such a healthy way, as they continue to work together and help her through the whole fiasco she realizes they’re not so bad, an entire excruciating series of events that’s genuinely too large to fit on this post unfolds and it ultimately ends with jack actually having to team UP with the good guys to stop what he started, and it ends with them breaking down, apologizing, and beginning their redemption BUT not without the illustration of several lessons that arose out of the complications of the entire thing...... the overarching lesson that’d been entrenched in their entire dynamic from the start, albeit corny, is that caring and being cared for was all they ever needed, and they learn to cultivate that within each other right under their own noses. it would be fun to have them stay as recurring villains forever, but seeing how much good is in their hearts is enough to make you wonder how they were ever evil.

xiaolin monks:

she thinks she hates them, but she doesn’t really. while her opinion of them is marked by resentment and distaste, she also holds them in high regard. a part of her wishes she could be friends with them, but the mental landscape she’s paved for herself doesn’t reveal that as an option. in her mind, she’s already been rejected by them. so why try?

the way she takes her pain out on them - people who had nothing to do with her traumas - can be summed up by the spinel su quote, “why do i want to hurt you so bad? i’m supposed to be a friend. i just want to be a friend.”

she gets chummier with them upon her redemption. out of the group, she gets along best with clay and dojo :) 

bonus origin episode

this would be the imaginary early season 4 episode i mentioned at the beginning of the post. it’s more of a loose string of ideas tied together with reckless abandon but hey. the episode would open with jack feeling lonely and down on his luck to establish the theme that he kinda needs a friend (”wuya’s gone, chase trained his cats to get surly with me if i show up, my evil dream team won’t answer my calls....”). his sulking is interrupted by a shen gong wu alert and he’s like. whatever. i don’t need them. i’m still gonna do this on my own. even if it’s. ˡᵒⁿᵉˡʸ. fastforward to the scene i described where sid is putzing around with her doohicky (which i’m considering might be the neptune helmet) all by her sad miserable lonesome when suddenly some flying bloke in a trenchcoat who looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in years shows up telling her she’s got something he needs. she of course responds with something along the lines of “you know what? why don’t you try to take it from me since you want it so bad, mr big stuff,” triggering a xiaolin showdown. this is around the time the xiaolin dragons show up too late - but they’re grateful for somebody having been there to fight jack in time, even if they have no idea who they are. she has no clue what’s going on, but whatever it is, she LOVES it. she goes buckwild. she has a time. jack, on the other hand.... well, understanding how badly he needs that wu is certainly throwing a wrench in it, but he can’t help but feel like he’s having a bit of fun too. well, up until he loses. post-showdown, the monks kinda count their chickens before they hatch so to speak and they rush over to this new kid with a shower of praise, thinking they have a friend on their side. instead, she cuts them off, shouts to the guy who’s gathering his bearings (or lack thereof) - “hey! jack was it?” - and playfully tosses her shen gong wu in the air, catching it. “you look like you need this thing way more than i do. tell you what! take me with and i’ll let you borrow it,” is what she follows it up with, implying she wasn’t really that invested and only saw the whole thing as a fun game. jack and the monks are flabbergasted. what’s more bizarre is she did in fact ask to join him, something nobody’s ever done out of their own volition before. she talks about how boooooooooooring it is here and how that was soooooo much fun and to pleeeeeeeease take her with. he’s really iffy about it and doesn’t know if it’s such a good idea. he tries to make himself look cool, telling her “as IF, shortstack..........im afraid The Jack Rides Alone................................................. but-” and ultimately buckling because he can’t deny that it would be nice to have someone around.

[crewhonk]

Only Happy Accidents (epilogue)

AN: This is it! This is the end! Thank you everyone for being so patient, and allowing for me to write when I’m inspired, letting me give you the best content I can. Thank you @nomadsgrogers​ for being the biggest fan and best friend I could ask for and supporting me in every facet of my life even though you're a huge pain in my ass. Grateful. Blessed. 

Warnings: Fluff, Smut

Summary: All loose ends are tied up. 

Songs: “Crystals”-- Of Monsters and Men

Masterlist

_______________________________

August 4th, Charlie is four weeks.

YN was nervous. For the first time in a full month, she’d gotten a full nights sleep, had time to do her makeup and hair and pick out her favourite outfit and actually had time to take a full hair-washing, body-shaving, rolling out your back muscles in hot water shower. This was bliss. Sure, she really, really loved her baby. She loved his eyes and his little birthmark on his bum and she loved how whenever Steve spoke he would kick his feet and smile. She loved how he would sleep for four hour intervals over the night, and she loved the she never had to package away breastmilk in the fridge because Charlie was nothing if not his fathers son. Neither boys had a bottom to their stomachs and it showed. 

But, when YN looked in the mirror, and saw her non-pregnant body, and nice hair and nice makeup and hairless legs, she didn’t recognize herself. In the best way, obviously. 

It had seemed she’d been waiting so long to meet her son, and even when she did, she continued to wear sweats and sweatshirts as to stay as comfortable as possible while she and Steve navigated the trials and tribulations of new parenthood and healed. This was the first time in ten months that she felt like herself and felt as if she could be normal for a while. 

“Baby?” Steve piped up as he climbed the stairs towards their room. “Charlie’s down for a nap while we wait for Nat and Buck to get here, so I’m going to shower— woah.” He cut himself off once he caught sight of his wife. 

“What? I something wrong?”

“You’re— you’re so gorgeous.” He breathed, leaning against the door and unabashedly checking his wife out as she turned to face him. Under the heat fo his stare, YN’s face lit up red and she shifted from one heeled foot to the next. 

“Yeah?” She whispered, peeking at him through her lashed. He pushed himself off of the doorframe and strolled over to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and bending over to mouth lazily at her exposed shoulder. They were going to dinner and ice cream— a simple date, but frankly, neither of them cared what they would be doing tonight. It was their first ever real, no baby date and they were thrilled. 

“I’m half tempted to cancel our reservations and just keep you here all to myself.” He half-growled into her ear and she scratched the back of his neck as her breath caught in her throat. 

“We still have a few more weeks before we can have sex, baby.” She reminded and he groaned. 

“We don’t have to have full sex. Kinda just want to eat you out until you can’t see straight.” He crooned, catching the skin of her throat between his teeth briefly. His hands wandered down her back and cupped her bum, squeezing her cheeks in his big, rough hands and making a thrill shoot through her body. 

“Later, Stevie.” She whispered, breathless. 

“Why?” He whined, raising his head to pout at her. She giggled and kissed his nose, patting his cheek gently. 

“Because if we don’t take this opportunity to get out of the house, I will go insane. And not a good insane.” She smiled and he straightened after kissing her lips sweetly. 

“Fine. But when we come home—“

“You can go down on me until I’m cross eyed and stupid, yes.”

“Nice.”

_____________________

YN was fiddling with her fingers in the passenger side seat as Steve drove to their dinner reservation. She’d been quiet the whole way, and not only were her fingernails ripped down to the bed, but her leg hadn’t stopped bouncing. 

“You okay, baby?” Steve asked, turning down the music to the lowest hum and looking over at her. He placed a hand on her bouncing knee and she offered him what could only be a shy smile. 

“I’m nervous.” She mumbled, avoiding eye contact. A flutter erupted in his chest and he repressed a smile by biting his lip. 

“For our date?” Steve asked, only so be answered with a tiny hum. “Sweetheart, we’re married. You don’t have to be nervous.”

She placed her hand on his, and he could feel her fingers shaking against his. “I know, I just— what if you don’t like me without a baby around me?” She looked up at him with wide eyes and he stopped the truck at the red light, turning in his seat to look at her full on. His huge palm caressed her cheek and she leaned into it, turning her face to kiss his wrist gently. 

“I married you for the baby, but I didn’t propose to you because of the baby. I didn’t drive across New York for your cravings because you had a baby. I didn’t lose my mind when you went into the Operating Room because Charlie was in danger. YN, baby, I love you. Sure, Charlie is my world but you’re my sun. Two very different reasons for my survival, but essential in their own right.”

“I’m your sun?” She whispered and he leaned forward until the tips of their noses were touching. 

“Brightest star in the whole damn sky.” He mumbled against her lips, kissing them lightly and making her shudder. “If it makes you feel better I’m nervous too.”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll make me a nervous puddle of mush for as long as we live, baby.” He smirked at the flush the erupted over her cheeks while he sat back and pressed his foot to the gas, hand still an anchoring weight on her leg. 

“I’m so in love with you Steve Rogers.” YN whispered and he grabbed her hand, raising it to his lips and kissing her knuckles. He pressed the back of her hand to his chest and she could feel the rapid thundering of his heart. 

“I’m so in love with you, YN Rogers.”

_________________________

“You okay, Sugar?” Steve asked, walking beside her down the streets of downtown Brooklyn, pulling YN close as to avoid a group of funny looking teenagers from careening into her on their tiny skateboards. YN hummed to herself, and licked her bright pink ice cream cone, eyes unfocussed in front of her. 

“What’s up?” She asked, snapping out of it and looking up at him, furrowing her brows. 

“You seem irritated.” He stated and her eyes widened and she begun to shake her head rapidly back and forth. 

“No I’m not irritated! I’m having such a good time!” She said, eagerness dripping from her words. Even so, Steve could tell his wife was nervous about something. 

“But…” He urged her to continue and she slumped, wrapping her arm around his waist and leaning her head on his shoulder. 

“It’s weird being without Charlie. You carry a guy around for nine months inside of you and you get a little attached.” YN joked half heartedly and Steve smiled, nosing her hair and kissing the crown of her head. 

“I’d like to think so.” He snorted, and grabbed her wrist, pulling her ice cream up to his lips, as he had finished his own within two minutes— the hot weather making him feel less guilty over it. YN only rolled her eyes and shook her head as she watched her husband bite half the cone off with his front teeth, making her shiver. 

“I hate when you do that.” She grumbled, glaring down at her half-gone cone. 

“I know.” He smirked, angling her face with his hand, ducking down to kiss her quickly with his cold, strawberry flavoured lips. “I do like this though— just us.” He whispered, and effortlessly skirted her around another group fo people, barely sparing them a glance. 

“I love this too.” She blushed, and walked in front of him, stopping him and wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a longer, thorough kiss, barely noticing the grumbled of pedestrians and the plop of her melted ice cream on the steaming sidewalk behind Steve. Steve’s hands gripped her waist tightly, pulling her closer to him and sighing. 

“What time is it?” He asked, pulling away from her and looking at his watch, raising one eyebrow and smiling. 

“We have five hours until we need to pick up Charlie from Bucks, how about we go home, huh?” He wiggled his eyebrows and she snorted, pushing his chest, but pulling him the way they’d come nonetheless. 

_______________________

They crashed through the front door, leaving a doorknob-shaped dent in the plaster behind it. There was no time wasted, Steve shut the door without pulling his mouth off of YN’s neck, marking her with his teeth and tongue. He pushed her into the house, pulling his own shirt over his head and meeting his lips with hers once more, walking her over the the couch. 

“Steve.” She whispered and he cooed, cupping her jaw and moving his mouth needily against hers, undoing the buttons of her loose blouse and pushing it down her shoulders, groping her tits with rough hands, making her gasp. 

“Not too rough, I’ll lactate.” She moaned, and he snorted against her. 

“Nice one.” He joked and she smacked his shoulder, pulling him on top of her as she lay down back against the couch. He sat back on his heels, unbuttoning her skirt and pulling the down her legs, kissing the insides of her knees before hovering against her once more. 

“I love you.” He hummed, kissing her nose an making her giggle. 

“Get inside me, Rogers.” She laughed and he nodded, unbuttoning his jeans and pushing them down to his knees. She was already soaked— the idea of having her husband buried deep inside her for the first time since she’d given birth was making every inch of her body ache with need. 

“Soaked.” He commented brainlessly, pushing her underwear aside and rubbing two fingers over her core, gathering her slick and using it as traction to enter her. 

“Steve, please I want—“

“I know baby girl, I know. Need to stretch you out for me— it’s been a while, Sugar.” He husked and she threw her head back and moaned in frustration, but rolling her hips into his hand, breath catching in her throat when her clit caught the rough skin on the heel of his palm. 

“Come on, baby.” He urged, rubbing his palm against her as his fingers pushed inside of her quicker than the last stroke. “Lemme see you come for me, please.” 

YN needed no further encouragement, letting her eyelids flutter as her eyes rolled into the back of her head, mouth agape in a silent yell and back arching into his body. Her thighs clamped around his forearm, but he worked her down, slowing his motions until she stopped shaking around him. 

She gasped a breath, looking up as him and giving a breathless smile up at him. 

“I missed that.” She whispered, pulling his face down to hers and hooking one leg around his hips, making him grind against her through his boxers, making him grunt. “Missed that too.” She crooned and his eyelids fluttered and his forehead dropped into her neck, huffing a breath against her collar bone. 

“Forgot how much of a fuckin’ tease you are, Doll face.” He grunted, rolling his hips again, teeth snagging against her throat, making her gasp eagerly. 

“You’re the one humping me.” She replied and he growled, grabbing her leg and hooking it in the crook of his elbow, opening her up for him. 

“You wanna be fucked, huh, Ma?” He growled and YN’s brain stopped— no thoughts ran through her head as he raised a challenging eyebrow. Instead of making her brain sputter out gibberish, she nodded feverishly, and he pulled his hard cock out, using his soaked fingers to lube himself up and brushing the tip of his dick against her slit. 

“Words, baby.” He crooned and she made an inhuman noise in the back of her throat. “Come on, Sugar.”

“Steve, please, please, please I need— I want— please.” She sputtered, nails digging into his biceps, making angry red presents appear on his skin, only to disappear seconds later. 

He kissed her sweetly, before muttering ‘good enough’ and sliding himself into her. They both gasped, swearing into the others ears as he slowly stretched her out, feeling everything the other partner had to offer. 

“I love you.” He gasped, shoulders shaking with the effort to not plow her into the couch and make her shake for the rest of the day. 

“Steve, fuck me.” His wife begged and something in his chest snapped, all restraint going out the window as he pulled back far enough to exit her, and with well practiced precision, buried himself roughly in her to his hilt, pulling back and snapping his hips again relentlessly. She mewled into his shoulder, sinking her teeth into the muscle of his neck and cried out as he hit the spot inside of her that made her see stars when she closed her eyes. He took her other leg and mirrored the other, folding her nearly in half as he rut himself relentlessly into her, grunting like a feral beast. 

“You doing okay?” He checked and she huffed a moan, nodding and smiling. 

“Close.” She murmured, hand reaching down and circling her clit desperately. He nodded, sucking another mark into her neck, licking at it and soothing the beard burned area with kisses as he pounded into her harder and deeper, making her body jolt with each pass. 

“Where do you want me.” He grunted, thrusts growing more and more sloppy. 

“Inside.” She moaned, working herself harder before she snapped, pussy clenching down on him and making him moan loudly, blast tightening as he bottomed out, coating her with his ropes of come. The two shot for minutes longer, and shakily, Steve pulled the throw over their bodies, pulling out from her and letting her legs down slowly. He wrapped his arms around her middle and buried his face into her chest and the bra they’d both forgotten to take off. 

“Holy shit.” She snorted, and he laughed tiredly into her chest. HE set an alarm on his watch, and curled his arms tighter around his wife as she tried to get up and clean herself. 

“Nap with me, please, we still have three and a half hours.” He grumbled and she struggled for a few more seconds for dignity sake before she collapsed in exhaustion and ecstasy, curling her arms around her guy and running her hands through his damp hair. 

“Three an a half hours.” She nodded, and giggled when all she was met with was a snore and a huff of breath. 

__________________

August 10th

Bucky Barnes was a nervous person. He jumped at small noises, and he knew the positions of every person and animal in a room at any given point. He thought he was a nervous person until he fiddled with the thin band in his hand, and he came to the conclusion that he may just be a little bit cowardly. 

He couldn’t do this— not today, it wasn’t right. The breeze was wrong, and Natasha had woken up before him and showered alone, and maybe just maybe if the breeze was right and she waited for him to shower with her tomorrow morning, then he could propose to his girl tomorrow. 

Then, YN’s words filtered through his mind— ‘You are worthy of the love you receive, James.’

Damn her. Damn her. 

So he fisted the ring and curled his arm around his god son who gave him a seemingly encouraging gummy smile, and maybe, Bucky could do this. 

He walked out of the back of Peppers house— there was a small party being thrown for Morgan soon, and Natasha, being the lover of all things planning, was there earlier than anyone else. She was dressed in a dress that made Bucky almost drool and fall to his knees— it was nothing too crazy— and she would never tell him but the reason why she even considered buying it in the first place was the look on Bucky’s face when she’d walked out of the change room. 

But she was placing out closed food trays on a small table, turning her head when she heard Bucky’s heavy footsteps on the grass behind her. 

“Hey, you.” She smirked, turning and kissing her boyfriend lightly before turning to her god son and peppering kisses all over his face as he giggled and squealed loudly. “And how’s my number one man? Huh? How’s my guy?” She cooed, tickling his fat tummy and making his legs kick. She didn’t even think to read the words on his once before turning to her Bucky. 

“Can you pass me the napkins from the box, свет моей жизни?” She asked absently and he blushed slightly at the pet name. 

“Sure, can you hold Charlie for a second, though?” He asked, passing the baby off to her and turning around, moving slowly and waiting for her to stop him. He thought she’d never notice the onsie until he was just at the box of supplies. 

“James Barnes what the fuck is the kid wearing.” She asked, and he whipped around. Her eyes were wide as they stared at him, tracking him with her eyes until he was half a foot away. She curled her arms tighter around Charlie, his ‘Will you marry my godfather’ onsie getting crumpled in her grip. 

“Natalia, мой ангел. I can’t imagine my life without you. I’ve been holding on to this thing for long enough that I’ve almost called you fiancee out loud. I’ve tried to work up the courage to do this for almost a year, waiting for the right moment to ask you. But, someone I like quite a bit got mad at me about a month ago now, and I realized that maybe, there’s no such thing as the perfect moment, but the perfect person. You’re that perfect person Natalia— you know me inside and out and in a way nobody has ever known, and I cannot see a future where you’re not in my life. You don’t have to say yes right now, but I would very much appreciate it if you entertained this old man and said yes when I ask you this next question.” He murmured, not bothering to get down on one knee, but pulling the ring from his hand and holding it up for her to see. It was a thin band of golden vibranium— the same kind which was made from his arm. It was nothing special, but it was a part of him he hoped she would welcome. 

“Ask the question, James.” She whispered, voice low and thick with emotion. She clutched Charlie tightly in her arms and he squeaked happily. 

“Will you be my partner in crime for as long as we live? Will you marry me?” He whispered, voice breaking with nerves. His hands shook as he waited— an impossibly long minute passed before Natasha unfroze herself and looked up at him, a small smile blossoming into a beaming grin. 

“Finally. Yes, I’ll marry you.” She rushed, cupping the back of his neck and pressing her lips to his, sandwiching Charlie between them. 

“Wait, finally? You knew?”

“I’m the best spy in the world, Barnes, of course I knew.” She chuckled, her own hand shaking as he slid the ring onto her finger. “Plus I found it in your jeans when I was doing laundry.” She shrugged and he almost face palmed, only stopping because her lips were on his own once more. 

“I love you, James Barnes.” She mumbled against his lips, and he returned the phrase, wrapping his arms around the two people he cherished the most. 

Steve and YN watched from the back porch, YN’s hand gripping Morgans as they watched on with delighted eyes. Steve wrapped his arm around his girl, kissing her temple and leaning down to whisper in her ear. 

“I love you, Ma.” 

And maybe, one simple happy accident, one little miscalculation, one little lapse in judgement was the very best thing YN Rogers could do. Her life was nothing she’d imagine it to be— beautiful, kind, loving husband who gave her a healthy, happy baby and a group of best friends who became family quicker than she could have ever imagined. She never thought she’d be able to find peace, but peace came to YN Rogers when she wasn’t looking for it. 

One beautiful, simple, spontaneous happy accident. 

_________________

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[fanficsrusz]

Hi everyone.

I know I've been kind of gone recently and I feel like you guys deserve an explanation.

Over the past month(?) I have noticed a few people have been doing the same thing where they have been taking breaks and it's sort of funny to me how a lot of people can feel similar to me despite myself, at my lowest point, feeling like I was alone and no one understood me. So now I want to talk about it.

A year ago when I started this blog, I was this keen eyed 20 year old who thought that writing was a piece of cake and nothing would stop me from doing it. But now, despite only again by a year, my whole life and attitude has change.

My previous relationship that I thought would never end and would ultimately end with us getting married failed and it broke me for a while and since then my mental health has kind of been all over the place. That led me to having to move back into my family home because I didn't feel safe living alone in London (a young woman was broken into across the street from me and someone else stabbed on my street). I basically didn't sleep at night when I was alone because I was jumping at every noise. Additionally, it was coming too much to afford rent, bills and basic necessities and that was the final straw.

I know it's ridiculous but to me it felt like I had failed at being an adult because for some strange reason society expects you to be this strong independent person the second you turn 18. But that's not the case. Thinking about it now, admitting that I was struggling and getting the help I needed was probably the bravest, maturist thing I could ever do.

During that time of moving, I ended up getting together with someone else and I'm still with him now and we're currently going through our first sort of rough patch so that's kinda hard to deal with but I will survive.

Moving on, not only did I have this idea that my life sucked and was going nowhere, tumblr as a whole became this very toxic place for me not because of the people but because of the mentality it gave me.

Tumblr made me criticise my work and become resentful of my friends who were doing better than me and that's not someone I want to be. Therefore I took myself away from the situation and I'm finally feeling more optimistic about life.

Work was also killing me. I actually work 2 jobs and I'm not going to discuss that right now but from managers basically abusing their power to colleagues not wearing their masks before customers come in, it's stressful.

On top of all that, writing isn't as fun as it once was. Instead of being an escape from reality, I was forcing myself to indulge in the other things around me in order to get out of writing. It felt more like homework than a hobby. So I took a break.

That's basically the majority of it. Of course there were other things that I don't want to talk about right now but yeah. Don't take this as me trying to get attention, take this as me expressing my feeling and moods in a healthy way. Maybe once a month I will just write down how I feel because even just writing this out takes a weight of my shoulders.

Will I write soon? I don't know. Maybe tomorrow I will open my laptop and the words will flow from me or maybe it will be another month. I don't know and that's OK. But to everyone who has been here for me, thank you ❤️

[multiverse-in-archive]

GLaDOS and What She can Potentially Tell Us About Chell’s Character

((So decided to make an analysis, finally, after reading way too much into GLaDOS’s voicelines.

When it comes to blank slate videogame protagonist characters, admittedly I’m the type to analyze them based off of what you can and can’t do in the games they’re in without a consequence of some sort [like death or contradicting one of the few previously established character traits] as well as how the other characters react and interact with them. It’s really all I get to go off of.

Now, I know GLaDOS is not the most reliable resource to analyze Chell off of, considering not only her bitterness and bias, but also that not all of her observations of Chell are accurate. After all, Chell is not mute, just refuses to speak out of spite.

However, she’s the only character we have that has the most insight into Chell as a person, and with things that she’s either exaggerating or straight up lying about, we can distinguish that by what can be observed of her in the gameplay. Plus, with some of them, I doubt she’d bring them up if there was no reason for her to believe bringing them up wouldn’t hold some truth or exploit some sort of insecurity. She’s the calculating type that aims for weak points she sees rather than just throwing shit out and hoping she gets lucky, you know?

“But didn’t she write the files? Or lie about what was in them?”

She may have edited and/or exaggerated them, but I think at least some of the things were already there before she got her hands on them. After all, there’s this. Which would imply that the scientists themselves would have made those comments in the files.

And considering how uncooperative Chell was with her application process [refusingto even speak to HR, answering essay questions with nonsense in bianary] then they’d probably thought rather bitterly of her, and it would reflect in the file.

[Side note, don’t really agree with the Half Life Wiki suggesting that Chell signed up for this {at least, willingly} when everything in the Lab Rat comic pointed to the opposite being the case.]

Now with all that out of the way, let’s finally have a look at some of GLaDOS’s comments about Chell and how they reflect her based off of what we the players see of her in game or what we can infer her reactions are to them by how GLaDOS approaches them.

The Fat Jokes

"Congratulations. Not on the test."

"Most people emerge from suspension terribly undernourished. I want to congratulate you on beating the odds and somehow managing to pack on a few pounds."  - Portal 2, SIngle Player Campaign, Chapter 2, Test Chamber 3

"Hmm. This Plate must not be calibrated to someone of your... generous... ness. I'll add a few zeros to the maximum weight."

"You seem to have defeated its load-bearing capacity. Well done. I'll just lower the ceiling."

"Look at you. Sailing through the air majestically. Like an eagle. Piloting a blimp." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 9

“What, but Chell’s not fat-”

Yeah, I know, this is just more about what Chell’s potential response to it is.

And telling by how this tends to be one of GLaDOS’s go to's, it does seem like it’s something that at least annoys her.

Then again, though, it could also be just GLaDOS trying to poke at the most common insecurity among women. And I think GLaDOS even admitted to that being the reason she goes to it so often here and here. So it’s really up to interpretation.

Though personally, I think it’s something that annoys Chell but at the same time it doesn’t really get to her, if it makes sense? Just a nuisance at worst.

Comments on Chell’s Parentage [or Lack Thereof]

"It also says you were adopted. So that's funny, too." -Portal, Boss Battle, After Curiosity Core is destroyed

"Don't let that 'horrible person' thing discourage you. It's just a data point. If it makes you feel any better, science has now validated your birth mother's decision to abandon you on a doorstep." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 2, Test Chamber 3

"I'm going through the list of test subjects in cryogenic storage. I managed to find two with your last name. A man and a woman. So that's interesting. It's a small world." - Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 15

"I have a surprise waiting for you after this next test. Telling you would spoil the surprise, so I'll just give you a hint: It involves meeting two people you haven't seen in a long time." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 16

"I'll bet you think I forgot about your surprise. I didn't. In fact, we're headed to your surprise right now. After all these years. I'm getting choked up just thinking about it." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 17

Surprisingly the orphan/adopted jokes are actually fewer than I remember. With how Wheatley tried to imitate GLaDOS by throwing around “fatty” and making a comment about Chell being adopted that one time, I kinda thought that it was almost as common as the fat jokes.

Though, to be fair, the adoption comment goes back as far as the end of Portal, and GLaDOS actually did a whole bit where she pretended that she found Chell’s parents. So it left more of an impression on me than the fat comments actually did.

As for whether or not it’s true? It’s most likely. After all, the adoption/orphan comments are protocol for specifically dealing with orphan test subjects. Also in general Aperture seems to have it out for orphans in that test subject type listing thing. [credit to the-wheatley-core go check them out cowards-]

"But Chell’s a daughter from bring your daughter to work d-"

The file said she’s adopted, so ye. Adopted daughter is still daughter.

Furthermore, the Bring your Daughter to Work Day incident probably orphaned Chell all over again, so she’s like. An orphan twice over.

As for Chell’s feelings on this? I think from what GLaDOS says here that Chell probably did not take the surprise very well. Granted, she probably wasn’t expecting it to actually be anything good. She probably didn’t have her hopes up. But she was probably seriously pissed that GLaDOS went through all that trouble just for it to lead to... nothing. All for the sake of mocking her.

Further implied by GLaDOS rubbing salt in the wounds.

I think this would mean that this is a bit of a sore spot for Chell in general and that this was one of the few moments that genuinely upset her.

Calling Chell a Horrible Person [and a Loner]

"You're not a good person. You know that, right?"

"Good people don't end up here." -Portal, during the later part of the Escape

"All your other friends couldn't come either because you don't have any other friends. Because of how unlikable you are."

"It says so right here in your personnel file: Unlikable. Liked by no one. A bitter, unlikable loner whose passing shall not be mourned." -Portal, Boss Battle, After Curiosity Core is destroyed

"Well done. Here come the test results: You are a horrible person. I'm serious, that's what it says: A horrible person. We weren't even testing for that." -Portal 2, Single Player Campaign, Chapter 2, Test Chamber 2

GLaDOS really goes into calling Chell a bad person. There’s like. So many instances of this.

Though I don’t believe that Chell’s a bad person necessarily, there can be some things that might make one believe she is [outside of bias and clear guilt tripping/gaslighting].

If you’ve read my Chell headcanon shit, you might remember that I state that I think that Chell’s a rather spiteful person. Not only does she stubbornly refuse to speak purely to spite Aperture as a whole, but it’s implied from her file that she gave the scientists a lot of grief, to the point they recommend not ever testing her [it’s stated to be her tenacity, but tbh I think for Chell spite was at least a major motivatorfor her tenacity. After all, what else did she have?]. And once again, it seems that they view her rather bitterly if GLaDOS didn’t put that in the file herself.

Not to mention that GLaDOS manipulates her into destroying the Morality Core by appealing to her spite. After all, it’s not possible in game to simply do as she says and return it to her. You have to destroy it.

Even Wheatley caught onto Chell acting out of spite. He tried appealing to that when trying to convince her to get onto the conveyer belt to the mashy spike plate.

As for the loner bit, that seems to hold true to, considering how well Chell took the isolation she had to suffer. As far as she knew in the first game [at least at first], she was all alone and didn't so much as crack.

Not to mention in the second games the other characters' reactions imply that she's rather standoffish overall.

That combination can lead to someone being rather... difficult to work with...

But to be honest, I think she’s also capable of compassion, or at least mercy, and can be cooperative if she finds you trustworthy enough.

For the compassion [or mercy depending on how you view it] I have some examples that I’ll elaborate on in the Companion Cube and Wheatley sections, but there’s a couple of others I can get into.

Remember when I said I partially judge a blankslate character based off of what is and isn’t an option gameplaywise that doesn’t result in consequence.

Not only is it optional to save the Oracle Turret without consequence, but it even rewards you with an achievement and some neat foreshadowing from the character.

Then there is the time that Chell found GLaDOS at her lowest; a potato, being eaten alive by a bird.

Now, gameplaywise, you can’t advance without PotaTOS, hell, PotaTOS sits on the switch in the nest you find her in, but story and characterwise, Chell could have just went on her way, let her suffer the her fate at the hands [or talons/beak] of the bird. And yet she scared the bird off of her.

And it’s not like she knew that the place was going to self destruct or that she needed GLaDOS to survive, because that wasn’t brought up until after Chell scared the bird away.

As for the cooperativeness, I want to elaborate more on that when I get to Wheatley’s section, but I will say, she did work pretty well with GLaDOS in the later half of the game, despite how shakey their alliance was. Even risking her life to disconnect Wheatley from the chasis long enough for GLaDOS to fix everything. Just going off of the slim chance that she could survive it with GLaDOS’s intervention. It was no guarantee, she probably would have thought she was dead either way if she didn’t have at least a sliver of a thought that GLaDOS would pull her back in to safety.

Now imagine how well she'd probably work with you if she genuinely believed in her partnership with you.

It may have gotten a bit off track there, but my point is that GLaDOS is not completely unfounded with her being “unlikable”. It’s clear that she holds a lot of resentment for her situation and reacts spitefully because of it, and that combined with her being a rather distant person can make it hard to deal with her [and in fact might be a deal breaker for some], but at the same time, she’s not completely unreasonable and bitchy just so long as you’re either harmless or have good intentions.

Chell’s Sense of Fashion

"That jumpsuit you're wearing looks stupid. That's not me talking, it's right here in your file. On other people it looks fine, but right here a scientist has noted that on you it looks 'stupid.'"

"Well, what does a neck-bearded old engineer know about fashion? He probably - Oh, wait. It's a she. Still, what does she know? Oh wait, it says she has a medical degree. In fashion! From France!" -Portal 2, SIngle Player Campaign, Chapter 3, Test Chamber 15

Now, this is probably the shortest one because this is the only instance [that I know of] where GLaDOS pokes fun at her sense of fashion. And since it never comes up again, this is probably something that she sensed did not bother Chell one bit.

Though telling by how Chell had the upper half of her jumpsuit folded down and tied around her waist to expose her tops, it does seem like she cares about fashion a tad [probably favors both fashion and function], but doesn’t seem to care what other people think of her tastes, just what she likes.

The Companion Cube

"While it has been a faithful companion, your Companion Cube cannot accompany you through the rest of the test. If it could talk - and the Enrichment Center takes this opportunity to remind you that it cannot - it would tell you to go on without it because it would rather die in a fire than become a burden to you."

"You euthanized your faithful Companion Cube more quickly than any test subject on record. Congratulations." Portal, Test Chamber 17

"Oh. Did I accidentally fizzle that before you could complete the test? I'm sorry."

"Anyway, here's a new cube for you to project your deranged loneliness onto."

"I think that one was about to say 'I love you.' They ARE sentient, of course. We just have a LOT of them."  Portal 2, SIngle Player Campaign, Chapter 2, Test Chamber 7

Ah the faithful Companion Cube, everyone’s best friend. And an instance where GLaDOS tries to emotionally torment Chell while still trying to pass herself off as a automated voice back in the first game.

Is the cube truly sentient? I don’t know.

Does Chell care about it? I don’t think GLaDOS would have brought them back in the second game and taunt her with them if she didn’t believe it would cause Chell some distress.

She even gives it back to her after setting her free.

Whether or not it can talk or feel anything, I think it’s clear that Chell is rather fond of it.

Side note, I swear to god throughout Test Chamber 17 in the first game I heard like. Soft, faint humming whenever I held it. Am I just crazy? Did any of you guys experience that too? help-

Wheatley

"I have only met one other team closer and one of them was an imbecile I had to destroy."

"The other? Well..."

"I don't think I want to go through that again." -Portal 2, Co-op Campaign, Unlocking Course 4 for the first time

I don’t know about you, but I’m fairly certain the team she’s talking about is Chell and Wheatley. There is literally no other pair that would fit that description that we know of. Sure, she didn’t destroy Wheatley [literally, anyways], but he is her definition of an imbicel that she had to deal with. And Chell has not worked with anyone else before Wheatley [Not directly anyways], and it’s pretty obvious that “the other” is who GLaDOS was referring to.

And while she didn’t get to see all they did together, she witnessed Chell put enough of her trust in him to follow him to escape, even despite her best efforts, and she bared witness to the fruit of their labor later.

I think she sensed a sort of chemistry between them, noticed how well they worked together. She even felt the need to ask permission to kill him. She probably wouldn’t have if she didn’t have reason to believe that Chell was at least at one point close to him.

So that begs the question; does she really believe Chell actually did all the work?

I don’t think so.

Again, she witnessed Chell faithfully follow Wheatley, so it’s reasonable to assume that she was following his lead. Not to mention that this is not a type of strategy that Chell has attempted on her own before. Chell’s strategy in the first game was to simply to bide her time, portal in and out when the opportunity arises, destroy shit, and just wander until she got results, basically [she was kinda following Rattmann's directions, though]. This strategy was too subtle, too quiet, to be Chell’s. She even said so herself; "And now I'monto all of your little tricks." And she'd recognized that this is not how she do.

Not to mention that they all know that Wheatley knows Aperture and all its inner workings better than Chell, so even if she wanted to sabotage anything, she wouldn’t know what and where they were.

I believe she saw an opertunity to split them apart in the form of Wheatley’s betrayal. More specifically to turn Chell against him. After all, she was very quiet until he lowered the lift back down.

Of course that backfired into her turning Wheatley against Chell and Wheatley promptly turning her into a potato. Opps-

“But if they were as close as GLaDOS believed them to be, why didn’t she catch Wheatley? After all, it’s not an option to catch him in game.”

Well remember, Chell has only just met him at this point, so it’s fair that she doesn’t immediately trust him with what she’s been through. Not to mention that the last time that a core was dropped, it was a trap.

Though, I believe after that, she realized he was sincere and steadily warmed up to him. It’s never an option to drop him whenever you pick him up, after all. Now granted, you can’t progress if you could drop him down a pit, but I think characterwise we can assume that she’s just unwilling to do so, regardless of how useful he was to her in those instances.

Furthermore, I think she grew to trust him throughout chapters 3, 4, and 5, as again, she very willingly followed his lead and had faith that he would help bust her out, waiting patiently for him to do so.

Sure, she diverted a bit to flesh out his plan some [although if you wait long enough at the turret assembly line, he does tell you what to do, so this could be another instance of her following his lead without question, though I like to think because of her problem solving skills that she does it herself, but either way!], but it’s still his plan that she’s trusting him with regardless.

Plus, I think Wheatley being as casual with her as he was during chapter 5 is implication that they both felt safe with each other at that point. At least, as safe as you can feel when hiding from a pissed off over powered blood lusting AI while being forced to wander around in the dark with only a flashlight to guide you.

And yet she kept him at arm's length by not speaking to him. I doubt it was anything personal against him though, so much as it's become a long time habit and way of protecting herself at this point. So long as they were both still in Aperture, anything could happen. So to her, keeping an emotional distance from him and not verbally responding was probably the safest bet.

That, however, was what made it so easy for GLaDOS to destroy their partnership. The lack of communication would ultimately lead Wheatley to believe that Chell did not appreciate all his help, that she agreed with her even.

Chell's shutting him out ultimately led to a self fulfilling prophecy.

Welp, this took all fucking day to write, but here we go. Hope this made sense. This is just my interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt. Hope it was a fun read either way, and if I’m mistaken on something, feel free to let me know. ^^

Edit: Fixed some grammar and other mistakes, elaborated on some points, aaaaand gave credit to the little snippit of the low risk human acquisitionthing siiiince I did not get that myself-))

[thefloresgarden]

Sad tales of a 20 something.-Part: That one teacher

When I was a kid I wasn’t the most outgoing, nor the most charismatic and I was such a cry baby nobody wanted to be friends with me. Sure, I had some friends in kindergarten, you know how kids are they come and go, especially when Miss Cuqui made them sit with me, which was pretty cool, at least i had some people to be around with.

Then, elementary school. First grade and I was that chubby shy girl that was overly emotional (still am) that would STILL cry about everything. So needless to say I had no friends, until Miss Faby made a call (without me knowing) to a girl’s parents, she was as shy as me, but very friendly and had some more people around her. She became my friend as a favor from her parents to my teacher, and I didn’t even know about it until years later. I wanna thanks that teacher to let me meet one of my best friends in the world and teaming up with our parents behind our backs to make us friends.

Junior high, in my last year I was finally not overweight anymore. The first P.E class of the year was finally not going to be horrible when the teacher screamed my weight in front of everyone, even when i begged him with eyes full of tears to not do it. But I guess if it wasn’t me the most embarrassed he still had to do it to others anyway.

High school, I actually had more than a couple of teacher I really liked, starting with the history teacher. Super smart, satirical and as a fellow “former nerd” she gave no shit to the so-called cool kids(ew). She was so passionate about history that even made me want to consider majoring on it for a good half minute, then i remembered i actually hated that subject when she wasn’t my teacher. And I’m pretty sure she wasn’t going to be following me around to make sure I wasn’t slacking off my whole major, also she told me not to do it because I was either going to end up as a teacher or being poor, or as she said she was, “both”.

Another teacher in h.s. Was an english teacher, very young. She started when she was 18 and when I was 17 she was 24. She got married at 19 and went to live at my hometown with her then husband. She was bright, young, funny and a really great teacher. I always looked up to her and thought of her as a friend, or at least more approachable than regular teachers. I remember around mid semester she started to be a but grumpy and students were talking bad about her, I still defended her and still thought she was cool. Then we had a school trip which she wasn’t attending to the capital. I remember we all went to mall and it had a music shop where i saw a Brandon Flowers vinyl album and since I knew she loved him i decided to got her that. Simple as that. Never thought it was a big deal, so I never understood why she almost cried when I gave it to her. She left school a couple of weeks after that, she got a divorce and wanted to get back to her hometown.

Many years later, and to be honest not thinking much about her, I got a facebook messaged that still makes me emotional just by thinking about it. It was her, she said she was hesitant of sending me a message since she thought i wasn’t going to remember her (of course i did). She told me that she wanted me to know that the day I gave her that album she felt in one of her lowest points and receiving that from a student that just thought of her in a school trip really made her decide to turn her life back. She told me she still listen to the album and makes her feel like she wasn’t so bad, she told me I was one of the biggest reasons she still woke up and went teaching everyday. I never thought I had any sort of effect in anyone, less in someone I looked up to. I guess we need to cherish people more and show them we do.

Ever since that message if I think of someone by looking at something I just get it as a random gift, hopefully they don’t find it to intense of my part, but I just want people to know they matter to someone.

That makes me want to talk about someone too important to me, you know? THAT TEACHER.

This was kind of my second year of college, my first semester in my recently switched major. I wanted to have my best semester yet, I was doing my schedule and since I was new to the major I had a very shitty orderly turn to get it done, my most wanted class with my favorite teacher (and the one that made me switch majors) was completely filled. Oh my god, i literally cried because my semester was going to suck, I had to attend to Narrative structures with the new teacher nobody knew about. 

First day of class and I was early to the class and sit in the front, then this cool-ass redhead chick wearing a whole monochromatic outfit and dr martens was sitting in the teacher desk and I was already obsessed, I mean how could I not if the teacher of my most wanted class was wearing what is to this date my favorite thing to wear. 

The class started and me and everyone else in the classroom (except maybe for that kid “brian” who was obnoxious and kinda mean) were in awe with Lore, just fresh out of Tisch under a scholarship in the screenwriting department, looking like the smarter and even more enthusiastic version of Kimmy Schimdt. Telling us about her cool life in New York and her passion for screenwriting, maybe she doesn’t know this but she really got me to do that. Create, write and direct. We got this awesome but really hard group project for the semester, making a web series, my dream project. I had thought about it all summer before classes and I was going to do it. One problem though, my idea was bizarre and if you haven’t tell yet, besides lacking in melanin, I really lack in confidence. Back was the chubby kid too scared to raise her hand to answer questions or even going to the bathroom. But within that class, I felt powerful, I really felt worth it. She made us all feel like that, she encouraged us, never making us feel small, correcting us in what we needed to be corrected, excited in participating in creating. I think is the only class in college I didn’t want to miss for anything in the world. I had her in another class too, and to say i was excited is too little. This time my passion for witting was even bigger, and my admiration for her grew too. She helped me through so many times of fears and of doubts. She unstuck me from my own head and mentoring crossed in some friendship (wishful thinking).

When I had my worst semester, my big depression semester, her class was the only one I was attending, my best safe space. I told her I was taking the semester off while crying and making her cry too. What I didn’t tell her is that she really made a way to my brain and to my heart, maybe to her I was insignificant as Brandon Flowers album was for me, just something she had to do as a teacher. But to me, she really made me a bit stronger and made me enjoy parts of me I thought were weird, like my thick accent and weird wardrobe that she said she liked. She made me believe that is worth it to try in a men’s industry, to be creative, to not be confortable and to be vulnerable in what I write. I think she is one of the main reasons i write this blog-diary, to feel is to create and she thought me that.

And one of the things I am the most happy about her, is the she is actually doing it, making her first full length film in a country where is already hard to make films and to be a woman, but she is proving wrong in both. I might be a little intense but I really admire her and wish I made a little bit of an impact in her life since she really did change a big part of mine.

Sometimes some people are really destined to change lives ad I am very grateful for all of them and hope one day I can be that for someone too.

[bitchesbees]

Im doing this all rn cause ill forget lmao

Day 1: stats

CW: 115.6 lbs

Day 2: height

Im 5’2 rn and I like my height. I could be shorter tho like 5ft even. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Day 3:

Ah ribbies and small calves

Day 4: greatest fear about weight loss?

Honestly not much lmao. I got a wide ribcage and shoulders tho so theyre rlly gonna stick out.

Day 5: why do you wanna lose weight? Is it for you?

I wanna look like sailor moon bro. Im just here to look like a lil anime girl dats it

Day 6: do you binge?

Obviously bro dats called eating like a normal person LMAO

Day 7: do your parents know you wanna lose weight? How do they feel abt it?

Im a whole ass adult its nonw of their business

Day 8: workout routine?

Sometimes I go outside to walk my cat

Day 9: do people ever make comments abt your weight?

My best friend literally said I was their thinspo so thats great?

Day 10: whats the hardest thing u gave up?

Nothing lmao. I still eat what I want when I want

Day 11: fav thinspo blog?

Mine

Day 12: what do you normally eat?

Breakfast:

one of these: yogurt but I dont like it so I dont have it a lot, toast+sunflower seed butter+honey, black coffee (eww), breakfast fried rice, or nothing

Lunch:

Usually nothing or I might go out with friends n eat with them if they invite me

Dinner:

Last night I had curry and rice :) . Its rlly just whatever I or my partner makes. I jus dont eat too much

Snacks:

Naan, kimchi and rice, avacados, fruit, stuff like that

Day 13: are you losing weight in a healthy or unhealthy way?

I like to think im doing it in a healthy way :^)

Day 14: whats your UGW (ultimate goal weight)?

First UGW: 105lbs

Second: 90lbs

Last: 80 lbs

Day 15: are you vegan/vegitarian? Would you ever be?

FIAJJFJAJF N O. like yeah meat has a lot of calories but I live for salmon and pork its tastey :)!!! (If u are vegan/vegetarian dats great!! You do u <3)

Day 16: when did you first decide to lose weight?

Idk but ive been anorexic since middle school so 7th grade ig

Day 17: do you have an eating disorder?

Got diagnosed with anorexia in 2018 and I had been diagnosed with bulimia in 2015(?) but I dont have bulimia sO

Day 18: what food is your weakness?

Poke bowl, curry, denjang jigae (idk how to spell it in english lmao), canolis, any fish. I like food n stuff I just dont like eating ://

Day 19: when was the last time you ate fast food?

Last weekend with my partner :0 it was mcdonalds and I got nuggets and fries. I didnt finish it tho cause I felt bad :^/

Day 20: favourite diet?

Remember back in like 2016 when everyone was talking abt the alice and wonderland diet? Thats was WILD CISJJFJAJFJ I think that ones really funny and weirdly specific

Day 21: clothing sizes?

s to xs but I like wearing oversized things bc when I run I look funny. Like an oompa loompa

Day 22: what was your lowest weight? How n why did you gain?

I actually hadn’t seen a scale in like six months (bc I wasnt allowed to >:0 ) until last weekend and I was 113 :))!! I know I got p small at other points but I cant remember the number. Ive been binging all week which sucks and I gained 2 lbs but its whatever

Day 23: did media play a role in wanting to lose weight?

Yeah. Remember 2015-16 tumblr? WILD TIMES

Day 24: how do you feel abt the terms pro-ana/pro-mia

Its DUMB FJSJBFJAJF. Like come @ me if u want but its so stupid to be pro [mental disorder]. Like imagine someone saying their pro borderline or pro bipolar. Wack shit n im not here for it. And you can say this whole list is me being “proana” but im not a big fuckin creator. This is not the blueprint LMAO

Day 25: have you ever purged? What was your first experience?

Yeah I was diagnosed with bulimia (not bulimic anymore). First time I ate spaghetti and I has noodles coming out my nose >:00 its was NASTYYYYY

Day 26: what exites you most abt reaching ur UGW

Being able to be thrown across the room easily :> possibly break a bone on the way :> sounds like a fun time deadass :>

Day 27: how do you deal with being around food?

😑 i am helen keller

Day 28: do you want a gap between ur thighs? Why or why not?

Yes and no. Yes because I kinda already have one and I think it looks cute :). No because my phone would fall though my legs into the toilet when im using the bathroom :( also thick thighs are kinda sexy ngl

Day 29: your definition of beauty

Yall ever seen a woman? Gorgeous. Beautiful. Perfect. Believe it or not women is what peak performance looks like

Day 30: 10 facts abt you!!

- my partner has a mullet and I love it :^)

- im going to cosmetology school

- I hate black coffee >:( I keep saying I like it bc its zero calories but its literally worse than spaghetti noodles coming out my nose. N a s t y

- I dont like soda either.

- I have a cat :)

- my favourite season is winter bc I can slide on the ground like a penguin

- I dont talk abt my anorexia a lot to friends n ppl around me cause its such a mood killer :// dats why im sharing it here lmao

- I cant count to ten

[joeypacelli]

Five Qualities

Hi. Hello. I never write in here and no one ever reads it (but I bet Lukas will!). I don’t know how many posts I could go through that make it sound like I’m starting again, but I guess that’s part of the journey. 

A couple of months ago, a friend online convinced me to try out Noom, a weight loss program I’d vaguely heard of in passing. It’s a little hokey, but I decided to check it out, and pay for the first few months to see what happens. I started at around 281 lbs (my highest yet...) and have hit my lowest weight of around 264 lbs (though today I’m 267... ah, fluctuations). For something I’ve been doing for about two months, that’s not so bad.

Anyhow, this week my “lessons” are giving my writing prompts where I am supposed to reflect on certain aspects of myself and my journey thus far, and I originally thought of writing them down by hand... but, why not do it here, where I can be more clear on my thoughts. I actually was supposed to start doing this last Friday, so a deluge of separate posts may be incoming shortly within the span of an hour or so.

My first prompt is: write about five qualities that I am proud of having. These have to be the same regardless of my shape or size. In other words, things I was proud of even when I was at my heaviest. So, we’ll see what I can conjure up...

1) I’m bilingual (ish). Though I struggle to ever fully commit, I do know that my level of knowledge in French far outpaces that of a beginner. It’s taken a lot of hard work just to get to where I am today in learning a second language especially considering like so many of my peers, I haven’t had the benefit of coming from a French-speaking family.

2) I’m a hard worker. This is something I’ve shied away from in the past couple of years. But I know I’m a hard worker and I know I can accomplish something if I set my mind to it. It’s my anxiety that roadblocks me the most often. It’s something I really need to start believing in again.

3) I’m funny. Or, at least, I think I’m funny. It doesn’t always seem to hit home and maybe I have a specific brand of humour, but I like to think I’m funny.

4) Perseverance. Okay, this may kinda go hand-in-hand with being a hard worker, but I do think I am able to persevere. I don’t think I quit very easily at all and I’ve put up with a lot of bullshit to get where I am today.

5) I have nice eyes. A simple one, but an inarguable fact. I’ve been told this by enough people now that I can’t not believe it.

So, yeah, that’s five qualities I have that I’m proud of, I guess. All things considered, I am going to have to put that hard work and perseverance to good use for the next little while, possibly forever. 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #250

"you’re so pretty, dripping sin.”

Do you plan on having children in the future? No. How big is your house? It's very small. Two bedroom, one bathroom. Do you believe that the world will actually end? Humanity, yes. The planet being inhabitable, probably at some point. The universe itself, life itself, won't, though. Describe your handwriting: Very fancy/fluid, a weird mix of cursive and print. Can you speak any other languages than your first language? Some German, but not a lot by now. I've lost a lot of memory of it. If you could speak another, which would it be? I wanna be fluent in German, but it's not something I pursue 'cuz I guess like... why. I don't think I'll ever really apply it to my life, nor is it something I'm DYING to do, so paying for classes just seems. Idk. What is one trend you think is stupid? I don't care. Let people enjoy things. Do you ever watch any soap operas? No. Do you ever get goodnight or good morning texts from people? Not usually. If I do, it's only ever Sara. When did you last go to the doctor and what for? I'm assuming you mean a general doctor, in which case, I think it was just a regular check-up a month or so back. Are you socially awkward? To a painful degree that I'm incredibly sick of. Can't be in a social situation and not feel uncomfortable even if it saved my ass. Would you rather watch a comedy movie or horror movie? It would depend on my mood, but horror would usually win. Do you know where your family came from? Europe. If you could choose to be any mythical character, which would you choose? Realistically, probably like, an elf or something 'cuz they're pretty unlike me so it'd be a nice change. :^) Where are both of your parents right at this moment? Mom's at church, and Dad is probably at home 'cuz it's Sunday. Have you ever seen a movie so ridiculous you couldn’t watch the rest? Yep. Does it make you angry when people text short messages back? If I'm seriously trying to have a conversation, it doesn't make me *angry*, just aggravated. What is your favorite animal and why? Meerkats. I could write a damn essay on why, but I'm not up for it, so basically, they are just extremely interesting animals with serious fire in a foot-tall body. Are you satisfied with your gender? Yeah. Have you ever kept a successful diary before? Not really. Well, I guess for short periods of time. I'd call them just "journals," though. It was something to do every time I stayed in the hospital, a good, insightful thing even, and just really at my lowest times, it helped me, but I never stuck to it. Are you good at admitting your problems? I think I'm very honest about them, really. Have you ever had a hangover? No. What is something you’re looking for in the next three months? I don't know. What’s something you normally cannot spell on your own? I have trouble with certain words where "e" or "a" could both easily be used (ex., "independEnce"), so I rely on spellcheck with words like those a lot. Looks or personality? Which is more important to you? Personality. Do you know any strippers? I don’t think so. How many times have you dyed your hair? Holy fuck idk. What is something that reminds you of your childhood? Cranium games. Do you think you eat healthy? I think I eat decently. Since I started paying attention to calories, I improved a lot. How would you describe your style of speech? Are you a fast/slow speaker? Do you stutter often? Generally, I think I speak quietly (but sometimes actually too loud, according to Mom) at a pretty normal pace, sometimes kinda fast, but I stutter a lot. When was the last time you’ve visited a family member’s house? What was the occasion? I haven't been to anyone's in a while... I think the last time was when I went to Ashley's to babysit my nephew a few months ago. Have you ever tried to construct a language? How do you feel about fictional languages (such as Dothraki and Klingon)? Not really. One of my old RP friends and I kinda-sorta had this "ancient meerkat language," but it was faaaar from developed. I don't feel any particular way about fake languages. Were you born and raised into a certain religion? What was it and have you changed your religion? Yes, Roman Catholicism. I've changed my religion quite a few times... Well, I don't like "changed." It just developed away from what was instilled in my head as a little kid. How do you usually feel when one of your favorite television or book series end? This doesn't apply to me really, because I haven't been involved in those things for a long time. The only one that I really cared about/was watching when it was current content was Meerkat Manor. I was sooooo so bummed out. That show had such, such, SUCH a colossal impact on my life. What do you like most about your town or neighborhood? Nothing. Well, it's small. Are you looking forward to any upcoming events? I'm obviously anticipating Mom starting chemo this week, but also very nervous. I don't want to see the physical toll it takes on her. What were your first impressions on your current best or closest friend? Lmao it's still funny to this day to me, our start... I just didn't like her. I thought she was over-dramatic and attention-crazed. What would you do if you knew a person that you were not fond of or even disliked, but they considered you as a friend? Would you confront them, avoid them, etc.? "I wouldn’t confront them unless something happened that made it come to a head. I’d try to be civil yet non-committal. It would also depend how I knew them and how much I had to interact with them." <<<< This. It doesn't seem necessary to just randomly walk up to this person and be like "hey you know you're not my friend, right?" Just leave it be unless something occurs where it seems more relevant. What are some things that you do to make you feel relaxed? Listen to music, nap... How often to do go to concerts? What was your favorite experience so far? Not even nearly enough because 1.) I'm not in a position where I can afford tickets and 2.) NO good bands like, ever come here. We only ever have country bands. The only concert I've been to was Alice Cooper, which was great. What is your newest and/or current passion? Newest, uhhhh. Idk man. I have a lot of current passions, but none surpass the Blazing Inferno of Love in my heart for Mark Edward Fischbach. Do you still have a fear that you had held since childhood? If not, how did you overcome one or more of your childhood fears? Yes, dolls. It's really mild now, but still, I really don't like porcelain dolls. What is your favorite type of weather? In general, a moderate snow. To actually be in, ohhhh man, gimme that cool, crisp fall air with a partly cloudy sky, very little to no breeze, depending on how cool it is. Do you watch documentaries? If so, do you have a particular favorite? I love animals docs. Meerkat Manor is of course my favorite. Is there a particular sentence or line from a book that carries a deep meaning to you? What is that sentence/line and why does it speak to you? I'm sure there is, but none immediately come to mind. When's the last time you ate bread? A couple days back for a sandwich. What's the last movie you watched on your own? UHHHHHHHH I think it was The Shining. Great movie, so glad I finally watched it. What about the last movie you watched with another person? Now this I'm unsure about, but I want to say The Lion King (live action) with Dad. What about the last movie you saw at the cinema? Was it good? ^ It was fucking great. I mean maybe I'm biased because it's my favorite movie, but either way, the hate it got shocked me. I know people were upset about like "oh they looked so emotionless" but like... they're animals made in the most realistic portrayal possible. I thought that was very cool. Do you attend school, college, or uni? I'm a college student. What do you study, wherever you study? Photography. What industry do you want to be a part of when you’re older? At least SOMETHING with art, or even animal rescue and conservation. How many girls can you trust? Like, two. What about guys? Also probably two, maybe three. How do you earn your keep? I don't. I don't/can't work (at least right now) and my disability case was just denied for the second time, so, y'know, I'm basically a leech. If you could speak three different languages fluently, what would they be? Not including English? German, Japanese, and Spanish, for convenience's sake. Who do you usually text the most? My mom or Sara. Baths or showers? Showers; baths gross me out. Cheese or tomato? Noooot a tomato fan, so. At least I like some cheese. Shaved legs or shaved arms? ??? I mean I think shaving your legs is more noticeable, but I don't care. I'd only ever shave my legs (I mean unless I had a good reason to shave my arms?), but shave whatever you want, dude. How many coats do you own? One winter coat. What about shoes? A handful, though I only ever wear my sneakers or flip-flops, lol. One word to describe your most recent ex? A soldier. Fried, poached, boiled or scrambled eggs? I will only ever fully eat scrambled eggs. Boiled, I'll only eat the whites. Fuck yolk, shit's gross. Have you ever been surprised with breakfast in bed? No. Where, in your current cournty, would you like to live, other than where you do now? Western NC, in the mountains. It's beautiful. Where wouldn’t you want to live? Several places, like North Korea. Do you like snow? I'm a kid when it comes to snow, I love it. Have you always got good grades? Up until college, I did... Do you like sheer clothing? With something under it, yes. List four things about your facial appearance: 1.) It's this really weird mix of dry as hell and oily; 2.) I have blue/gray eyes; 3.) I wear large, black-rimmed glasses; and 4.) I have a vertical labret in my bottom lip. List four things about your general appearance: 1.) I'm fat even though I've worked my fucking ass off to keep losing weight for two years now :^); 2.) I have some but certainly not enough tattoos and piercings; 3.) I'm very pale; and 4.) I have very short, brown hair that needs to be dyed immediately. List four things you like about yourself: 1.) I'm extremely empathetic; 2.) I care a fucking LOT about the people I love; 3.) I'd say I let myself fall kinda easily, yet I'm resilient as shit and will always get back up; and 4.) I'm extremely open-minded and capable of considering a whole lot. List four things you dislike about yourself: 1.) MY GOTDAMN WEIGHT; 2.) my teeth are too yellow for my liking (I've been exceptionally self-conscious of that lately as I've used whitening strips); 3.) I'm extremely impulsive with what I say and do when I'm seriously upset; and 4.) I will, without fail, jump to the worst possible conclusion in any and all situations. List four of your favorite TV programs: 1.) Meerkat Manor; 2.) That '70s Show; 3.) Fullmetal Alchemist (+Brotherhood); and 4.) Deadman Wonderland. List four of your favorite foods/drinks: 1.) Mountain Dew Voltage is my absolute worst enemy; 2.) I will ANNIHILATE the spicy shrimp fritas from Olive Garden; 3.) the shrimp & cheese quesadillas from Mexican restaurants are not safe either; and 4.) pizza is, of course, rather gucci. Cats or dogs? Idk, I really like both. Have you ever seen anyone famous in the street? Hunty I live in NC, that doesn't happen here. Are you hungry right now? No. What do you think of couples who have entire albums just for them, with pictures of them just randomly at home, doing nothing that really requires a photo? Dude, I love that. Cherish every moment with each other. Make memories, freeze them in pictures. Can you work the microwave? Well, considering it's the only thing I cook in and we've had the same one my entire life (ours is extremely old/can't be bought anymore and is SERIOUSLY durable with time, apparently, as it works perfectly), I know it well. Can you work the washing machine? Heh. Not really... embarrassing as that is. My mom does both of our laundry together, so... but I should seriously still know. She's shown me a few times, but with how abominably horrid my memory is, I forget again and again. There's too many options. Do you like your photo being taken? NO. Have you ever got into a club, whilst being underage? Never been to a club period. How many magazines do you buy a month? None. How many of them are car-related? "If I did, they certainly wouldn’t be car related. That doesn’t interest me at all." <<<< Big same. What about fashion? Well, I'd like ones that offered alternative clothing choices that you could order. Any celeb gossip ones? Ew. What pets do you have? We're about to have only two: my snake Venus and cat Roman. With Mom's cancer diagnosis and both chemo and surgery coming along, she simply can't handle our dumb dog anymore. He's needed to go for a LONG time, so we're trying to find a new home for him. Last gig you went to? Still Alice Cooper. Next gig your going to? Should Ozzy still have his concerts like he wants to after his treatments in Sweden or wherever it is, most likely him. Mom and I planned to, and we will absolutely go if he reinstates them. I'm completely understanding if this doesn't happen though; he has to take care of himself, the poor 'ole man. Bless him. Life's a cruel bitch, giving a legendary singer Parkinson's (it's going to disable him from singing with time). Favorite color? Pink! o: Are you regularly tired? Only always, my friend. Are you excited to live on your own? Completely alone, no. I know it would be extremely unhealthy for me with depression and becoming so easily lonely and unmotivated without encouragement and companionship of some sort. I'll have to live with a spouse. Even then, I'm nervous about it. Living with Jason and our friends in that apartment was both a good and very bad experience; it taught me a good deal of independence, but I still found it very stressful. When do you plan on moving out? When I've been in a long-term, healthy relationship. Do you daydream? Only all the time. Do you dream at night? More like have nightmares/terrors almost nightly. BUT! They've actually chilled some the past few days!! I don't recall what the dream was (but I'm 90% sure Mark was in it, A SHOCKER), but I woke up laughing hysterically recently, Mom told me. So that could only be a good sign. When you’re sick, do you like to be pampered, or left alone? A mix, but mostly the former honestly. Halp pls. But I also want my time to sleep. Are you superstitious? Nope. How many pictures are in your wallet? Ohhh I'm actually not sure. I know I have a handful of my nieces and nephews. I need one of Emerson now. If someone cries while watching a sad movie..do you laugh at them? ???? That is so insensitive???? No???? How often do you change your sheets? I'm... not sure, actually? I know at LEAST once a month (which probably isn't enough), but possibly another time? Idk, I don't pay attention. I just do when I feel it's time to. Is you bedroom upstairs or down? We only have one floor. Is it true blood is thicker than water? Nope. If you could wish someone out of your life... who would it be? Well, he's not *literally* a part of it, but Jason, as far as in my head. Remembering him, sudden memories, flashback prompts, all that jazz are very much daily events. Truly, it doesn't *really* affect me much anymore, it's just so "normal," but it would certainly be grand if he wasn't the most staple person in my head. If you could be with anyone in the world..famous or not..who would it be? HUNNY SWEET CHILD- Are you high maintenance? Nope. If you could change one thing in the world... what would it be? PEACE. JUST PEACE. No war, no violence in general, just. Handle shit like mature adults. If you could star in any movie... which would it be? None. I'm too self-conscious of myself to be in a movie, and I'm a horrible and extremely awkward actress. If you could live in a fairy tale..which would it be? "Alice in Wonderland." <<<< 100% 100% 100%. If you could live in the past..where would it be? The '80s, baby!! If you could see only one person right now..who would it be? Ugh, Sara. I've missed her to death and desperately wanna hang out. Do you wear shoes in the house? No sir. Do you dream in color or black and white? YO! I only recently learned this is a thing with some people, but I dream in color. What is your favorite accent? British. Do you write poetry/songs/stories? Poetry, occasionally. Stories, well, you could easily consider RP that, as we're all collaboratively writing many. Do you wear socks with sandals? gtfo of here with that shit Would you marry for money? HA, no. Do you have any “in the mood” music you like to listen to? AHAHA YES I'M SORRY. Would you vote for a woman president? "If she was a good candidate in my own personal opinion, yeah." <<<< "This. I want to vote for someone who I feel can do the best job. Their gender has nothing to do with it." <<<< Ditto. Are looks/appearances really important? For me personally, not really. Like yes, it's nice to feel physical attraction towards your love interest, but it's a very, very little factor for me, if at all. When you die, do you want to be cremated or buried? Please just cremate me. I really don't wanna be buried. Just taking up space. Do you like to play video games? Yeah, but not as much as I used to, though I wish I did... I think I've watched way too many let's plays to where I can enjoy just fine watching YTers I like experience the game, and I do secondhand while getting some good laughs. Do you like Final Fantasy? Which one do you prefer of all? Oh my god, I wish I was more involved in that series, as I know how madly beloved it is. I used to be obsessed with the demo for FFVIII; my sister, brother, and I would play it like mad, but only Bobby could beat it. The final spider-like boss of the demo was fuckin impossible. I did play a lot of FFVII, which I adored, it was just... so long and by maybe over halfway through, I just drifted from it. I need to watch a playthrough of it, honestly, because the story was so captivating and I genuinely would love to witness how it ends. Have you ever caught on fire? WOW no thank fuck. Do you have a YouTube channel? Yeah, but I don't really make stuff anymore. I don't have Vegas on this computer and honestly I'm just not motivated to really make videos. Do you ever go to video game arcades? No. :( Do you care what people think of you? In most cases, VERY MUCH. Not always, though, but it STRICTLY depends on the situation, big time. Like, I'll walk into Wal-Mart in my pj's np, but there are just a lot of things where I will seriously care too much. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher? No. I had one teacher that ALL the girls thought was super attractive, but I definitely didn't have a crush on him... and then later he got fired for sexual relations with one of the students. OOF. Do you like Lady Gaga? I don't mind her, usually. She's got some good jams. "Bad Romance" is legendary. Do you think you have been in love before? Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaadly in love, friends. Do you like Edgar Allan Poe? Love him! Have you ever gotten hit on by some creeper? Oh god yeah and it was awful. Do you bless random people when they sneeze? Yep. Do you have a short temper? No. Have you ever had a yard sale? Yes. Do you go to Barnes and Noble for books, the library or someplace else? I go to Books-A-Million. Do you have an iPad? Nope. Are you scared to die? Yes and no. It's the unknown of what comes after that makes me apprehensive. Do you go to church every Sunday? I never go. Do you think you draw well? I honestly think I draw decently. Have you ever wanted to be a meteorologist? No. Do you like Taylor Swift? Not really, and DEFINITELY not newer stuff, but I will rock hardcore to "Picture To Burn," "Safe and Sound" is positively beautiful, and "Love Story" used to be my favorite song at one point.

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Liked About RWBY Volume 2

(Top 5 Dislikes)

I’m gonna be honest, I think that V2 is a pretty good volume. Sure, it doesn’t have much in terms of story and that’s its biggest weakness as well as having no true accomplishments. But what it makes up for is it’s character writing and development. V1 was our intro, and V2 begins to flesh out many of them. If someone like say… Weiss didn’t appeal to you in V1 cause of her being mean, this one puts her in a much more positive light, for example. I was worried that I would dislike the volume more upon rewatch… but my opinion is pretty much the same as when I watched it in 2014: I really enjoy it.

I had to stretch hard for the Dislikes post. I did not, however, have to stretch at all for this post. So let’s waste no time and go over the Top 5 Things I Liked About RWBY Volume 2~

#5. Improved Pacing/Runtime

One of the biggest problems with V1 was it’s pacing. It could feel all over the place, and the reason why was due to chapter runtimes. With a few exceptions, the majority were under ten minutes. This could cause storylines that in the current standard could have been done in one or two episodes, like Jaune’s Arc. But since it got stretched out for four weeks with short runtimes… yeah, it annoyed people, to say the least. CRWBY got the hint since I remember before the volume began, they mentioned how the extended the runtimes. It came at the cost of fewer episodes, but honestly? That was for the best?

Volume 2’s runtimes range from 12-15 minutes on average, with the longest being 17 minutes. This has essentially been the standard ever since for the most part, and it was a very good change. It also helps that instead of going for a more episodic approach as they did in V1, they told one continuous story. It can be divided into three sections with the first four episodes, the Dance Arc covering 5-7, and Mountain Glenn covering 8-12. But they all connect with each other and flow together much more naturally. As such since unlike V1 I watched V2 episode by episode, I never felt like it dragged or anything overstayed it’s welcome. It’s one of the best-paced volumes, to be honest. 

I’m pleasantly surprised that it flowed so well. Pacing in recent volumes have been an issue, mainly with 4 and 5, but that’s due to the split storylines. Something that I think that Miles and Kerry have learned was maybe a little too ambitious afterward and have gone back to this kind of formula. They pretty much use this three-act structure in V6, and it worked amazingly there. T seems to be what works best for RWBY, and this volume is what kicked it off. So yeah, good work CRWBY~

#4. Jaune and Pyrrha Relationship

I love these two. They have always been my favorite ship in RWBY, and still is despite… certain events. While I was kinda harsh on Jaune in the last post due to how cringey he was regarding Weiss, his relationship with Pyrrha is what saved him. He’s gotten a lot of flack in the past for not noticing Pyrrha’s feelings, but… I don’t really blame him. Pyrrha never tried to tell him herself or really let on that she had romantic feelings for him. Jaune isn’t a mind-reader, he can’t just magically know if Pyrrha won’t say anything. Nora practically points it out when Pyrrha advises Jaune to just go and ask Weiss out without any stupid gimmicks and just speak from the heart. “Practice what you preach.” indeed. That’s not to be harsh on Pyrrha because it’s clear why she doesn’t. She knows that Jaune likes Weiss and wants him to be happy, so she tries to be content with just supporting him with his pursuits and his training. She’s just that nice of a person.

It’s not like Jaune is careless regarding Pyrrha either. We see in Chapter 5 that he appreciates Pyrrha helping him train and in Chapter 7, he is shocked that no one asked her out. I mean, is everyone blind? Pyrrha is an amazing person? How could no one ask her out? Well… it’s because she’s Pyrrha. She’s a world-class fighter. Too many, she’s out of their league. Remember in Chapter 5 when Mercury calls off the fight, saying that Pyrrha’s out of his league? We all know that was a lie, it was because he got the info that he wanted about her Semblance, but you can see how much that hurt her. It reminded her how she can’t really be normal or form real relationships because of her fame and status. The only person to treat her like a real person? Jaune. He didn’t even know her name when they first met. And it’s after that when Jaune pretty much throws his own needs out the window, puts on that dress with no shame, and dances the night away with Pyrrha.

These two have such a beautiful relationship. Pyrrha helped Jaune find value in himself and grow not just as a fighter, but as this volume shows as a person. Pyrrha got to find happiness and a sense of normalcy through Jaune, which let her form friendships and find love. Even if she still can’t say it out loud, she got to be with Jaune, and that was enough for her even right to the end. Jaune still doesn’t know that Pyrrha has feelings for him and IDT he fully realized his own feelings, but he was still willing to be humiliated just to give that girl a good time at the dance. Because she earned it more than anyone else in that moment. It makes their relationship that much greater, and their ultimate end that much more tragic. But this volume really demonstrates them at their best. It shows Jaune mature and recognizes his friend’s feelings, hence why I can forgive his cringe. It’s painful to see, but he got over it. I just love it so much, and it’s still a bright spot of this volume.

#3. Blake Development

I love Blake. She’s gotten so much hate in recent years because of utterly stupid reasons. While I had issues with her in V4, I’ve always loved her and her story. V1 got me interested in her story after the final two episodes, and this one made me love her even more. You can tell that the White Fang is getting to her, and it makes sense why. We don’t know the whole story, but we do know that the WF was a peaceful group when she was younger, and when it became a terrorist group she broke away. So seeing them act with a human, something that she knows that they would never due, would understandably catch her attention and make her obsess over it as well as reawaken any negative feelings.

In V1 while she was reserved, she clearly was capable of opening up and clearly did want to be friends with these three girls. Some say that she was OOC in The Badge and the Burden, but I disagree. She was trying to form a new life and tried to adjust to her new teammates, so yeah her being a little light-hearted and silly makes sense to me. But with the WF back in her life, it puts her back in a bad place. It makes her obsess over what they’re panning because it can’t be anything good. She tries to close herself off until Weiss reminds her that she promised to open up to them. She does, and her friends are on board with her pursuits.

Then we get the Dance Arc, where the WF obsession is actually affecting her health and performance. Her grades are slipping. Her attitude is at it’s lowest. She doesn’t care about the dance because she’s worried about the WF doing who knows what with them all utterly unprepared. Her harsh dismissal of Sun and her rejecting her team’s help despite them assuring her that they’re going to make sure that everything is fine demonstrates this. Blake feels guilty for her involvement int he WF and doesn’t want anyone to get hurt. To her, she feels like she has to stop them and like it’s her weight to bear. And this is before we know anything about Adam, which she starts to open up about him as well as why she left the WF to her team in Mountian Glenn. But we’ll get to that later.

It’s why Yang’s interference is so important. Yang understands that Blake is getting obsessed to an unhealthy point because she went down the same road. She and RUby almost got killed because she made a dumb decision and went out on her own when she found out about Raven. When talking to her one-on-one doesn’t work, she makes Blake realize that her unhealthy state means that she can’t fight before finally hugging her and essnetially asking her to stop and to trust her and the others. It’s a really beautiful scene that really does make Blake see reason. While I myself don’t see anything romantic in this scene, at least no more than Blake and Sun’s scenes in this arc, there’s a reason why so many care about the Bumblebee ship. Yang genuinely tried to reach out to Blake because she understood where she was coming from, and wanted to help her when no one else could. She didn’t have to, but she did because he wanted to. They’re teammates. Partners. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

This was when Blake truly began to trust Yang. To trust her team. She goes to the dance and has a fun time. It makes you wonder how long it had been since Blak ever relaxed. How long it had been since she laughed. She got to have one night where she could just have fun,  makes  By the end of the volume, she’s in a better place and is clearly happy with her friends. Even though they don’t stop the WF or uncover their overall plans, she’s okay with what they did manage to do and isn’t obsessing or driving herself to exhaustion anymore. Without that progress, then who knows if she’d have been able to bounce back after what happened in V3. Blake here is great, and I loved seeing it again… despite how much it hurt due to what happened next. But that’s a tale for another day.

#2. Mountain Glenn Arc

This arc was fantastic. By far, the best part of Volume 2. First, it has Doctor Oobleck. We saw him once in V1, but all we learned is that he talks and moves fast. This volume gives him much more character. She’s certainly quirky and not the image of a badass Huntsman, but he’s freakin’ great. One, he’s funny and really adds to the RWBY dynamic to the arc. He’s intelligent and knowledgable on history and tracking. But most of all, he’s insightful. He’s clearly a good teacher as he subtly gives guidance to these girls and gets them to question their motivation and dedication to the paths that they’re on. He may not be teaching them cool fighting skills, but he is teaching them about life essentially and prepping them for the harsh life of being Huntresses. With what happens later down the road, that was a good thing. He’s just great. Also his coffee urn weapon? Best.

But speaking of motivations and dedication, that is what makes this arc so great. It answers an important question and was one that I was surprised by when this arc started, why did the RWBY girls decide to be Huntresses? And we find out here. Yang did it for the thrill, Weiss did it as she felt it was her duty, Blake did it to do good in the world, and Ruby… well… she actually doesn’t get questioned. Why? I’ll go into that in a bit. But having their motivations questioned really shakes up WBY quite a bit, making them reflect on their reasonings on choosing the paths that they took. Which is good, because it allows us to learn more about them and their characters.

We see WBY talk about their motivations deeper. Weiss chose to be a Huntress because she recognizes how much her father has ruined her family name and the company and she wanted to change things, but not in Atlas. She decided to do it as a Huntress. Blake opens up about Adam and how she felt that the WF fell, so she became a Huntress to do good. But she hadn’t thought past that and is afraid of not being able to make up for her mistakes and end up running away again. Yang doesn’t really have anything driving her, she just wanted to have the adventurous lifestyle that being a Huntress would give her and didn’t really think anything else of it. Safe to say, none of them I think really expected Huntress life to be the way that they experienced it here.

But where does Ruby factor into this? Well as I said, Oobleck never questions her motives. We do hear about his though. He became a Huntsman because when he looked at history, he saw lives that could have been saved. He wants to pass that history and knowledge onto his students so that more lives can be saved and not end the way that Mountian Glenn did. As for Ruby herself, she’s always wanted to be a Huntress, Even as a child, this was what she wanted. She didn’t do it for thrills. She didn’t do it to redeem her family name. She didn’t do it to make up for any past sins. She did it for one simple reason: to make the world a better place. Her dedication has always been clear and later volumes have shown this. Even after V3, she got up and pushed on anyway. During V6, even after all the secrets and The Apathy messing with her mind, she remained dedicated to the cause. Why? Because her dedication has never wavered. He chose that life, the other three needed to understand what they had chosen as well.

The arc offers really good character insights and makes the girls more three-dimensional. It is what made me love all four of them. It showed that they were just more than their anime stereotype. They felt like real people who were trying to figure their lives out and what it is that they truly wanted. Ruby may have known what she wanted, but the other three weren’t 100% sure. This is when they began to understand. V6 would more solidly solidify it when it became even more than anyone bargained for, but this was still a very good step. It was such a joy to rewatch, and it is still a highlight for me.

There were me other great things too. First, Zwei! Zwei is best~! We got some good info on the Grimm and how they aren’t just brainless monsters. The Goliaths especially are fascinating with how Oobleck describes them, but also terrifying because the waiting just for the right moment to strike. We get word building in how Mountain Glenn was a disaster but shows how people tried to make lives within the world of Remnant and deal with Grimm. There were fantastic fight scenes and the train battle was especially super fun. Especially with how we got our first taste fo Raven in it. The finale is... well, not the best-received thing in the world, but was still fun to watch. Just an overall super enjoyable arc with plenty of comedy, badassery, and most of all heart.

But speaking of Team RWBY!

#1. Team RWBY Becoming a Team

V1 is when Team RWBY formed, but it’s V2 is when they actually felt like a team. It might be because while half the volume was on the forming the team and the other half on school hijinks, this one keeps the four center stage. There’s a real sense of friendship and sisterhood that comes off them in this volume, and I love it. There’s the food fight, the card game in CHapter 2, them all devoting themselves to investigating the White Fang, them trying to get Blake help, the Mountain Glennmision, a lot of things. Even just their interactions show off their comradery so well. They all play off each other very well and are honestly at their best when together.

It was just so much fun to see the girls working together, laughing together, supporting each other, etc. From the team attack names to just silly banter, you get the feeling that these girls are friends. That they’re a team. After how long they were separated in recent volumes until V6, it was so much fun to focus on just them. As I said, this volume is what got me to love these four as their own characters. It’s also true int hat it got me to love them as a team. After how much RUby and Weiss bickered in V1, they feel like genuine friends here. Weiss kept her word about improving herself as a teammate and not caring about Blake’s Faunus status. Blake started to open up more and trust int hem. Yang acted motherly and comforting to everyone. Ruby pretty much acted like the little sister of the group, but also acted as the leader when it was necessary like coordinating the previously mentioned team attacks.

It just works so well. The chemistry between the four is fantastic. I think it really was something that we missed in V4 and 5, and I’m so glad that we got it back in V. I expect that V7 won’t be lacking in that area either. Seeing Team RWBY again during the simpler times was really nostalgic and got me to appreciate them so much. For that, this will always be my favorite thing about V2~!

Okay, so… I’m supposed to do Likes/Dislikes for V3 next. But… well… check back tomorrow cause lets just say that it’s gonna be slightly different with that one.

[elizas-writing]

Spoilers Galore: Avengers Infinity War

So I was going to delay this post for a while to allow enough time for most everyone to see it, but I also got swamped with midterms hence why it took so long to get to this.

Nevertheless, the spoilers are worth talking about given how much happens in this movie, and I really wanted to get this out before Deadpool 2 premiered, so Happy Birthday to me (seriously, I’m now 22) for putting my procrastination to an end.

If you haven’t seen my spoiler-free review, you can check it out here to get my general opinion of the film.

So that’s a hell of a body count, huh? I knew from the get-go of this story line that characters were going to die, but holy freaking shit! A lot of people, myself included, figured that at least one of the older heroes would be the first to go, so it was quite the shock when most of the side characters and newer heroes were offed after coming off the heels of their successful solo films.

And I know despite what the Russos and Marvel executives are saying, it is glaringly obvious that not everyone could be permanently dead since sequels are still in the talks and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 just got a confirmed release date (c’mon Marvel, you’re not that slick). On top of which, the Infinity Gauntlet is more or less a giant deus ex machina which can put everything right in a heartbeat. Regardless, these are still heartbreaking scenes to sit through with everyone being brought to their lowest points and losing their loved ones. Some deaths are little rushed, but the music, cinematography and performances sell on the tragedy, and the emotional weight carries throughout the rest of the film. I never recovered after Gamora’s death; that was just too much after she and Peter finally verbalized their love. Even characters like Scarlet Witch, Vision, and Doctor Strange, who I didn’t care too much for, really sell in their drama to show the high stakes, both to the universe and their psyches as they make the ultimate sacrifices to try to save everyone.

It seemed really weird at first that most of the new characters were killed off, but I figured that most of the older stars like Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr are probably getting one last hurrah in Avengers 4 before their contracts are up and make way for the next phase/generation of heroes for MCU. And I imagine when these guys have to bid the franchise goodbye, it’s going to wrench our hearts out even more.

As I said in my spoiler-free review, the most fun interactions are with the Guardians of the Galaxy. I like seeing Rocket and Groot help Thor to create Stormbreaker while the rest of the gang runs into Tony Stark, Doctor Strange and Peter Parker, and Gamora... well... see two paragraphs before. I think her coming back is going to be more tricky since she didn’t disintegrate like most of the rest of the characters, but part of me is really hoping we’ll get something because she’s a great Guardian and one half of the only stable power couple in the entire MCU. But still, it’s fun to see the Guardians, who were mostly off doing their own thing, finally get involved with a much grander battle. And hey, we finally got Rocket asking Bucky for his arm, and it made me giggle like an idiot.

I know a lot of fans will give me backlash for this, but Loki is one of the few characters who I hope stays dead. Yes, him pulling a knife against Thanos of all people makes no sense, but you can see the panic in his face as he’s pulling every trick he can to distract Thanos as long as he can. It’s a well-deserved redemption after years of not knowing what he wants and the extremes he went to, and after all this time, he still can’t bear to see Thor perish and makes the ultimate sacrifice to ensure his survival. It’s a genuinely heartbreaking moment which leaves Thor visibly shaking. It’d feel like cheating now to cop out his death again after the strong reaction Thor had.

I love seeing Tony Stark being heroic again with impressive updates to the Iron Man suit with continuous 3D printing for repairs. Doctor Strange, although I’m still annoyed they never gave him a complete character arc in the first place, has a lot of fun banter with Tony with some visually wonderful sorcery and fighting. Peter Parker, as usual, is fun and naive and still wanting to prove himself, and he’s best when he gets to be a team player in these ensemble films to form strategy. But what Tom Holland does best as Peter is reminding us of his young age and emotional vulnerability, which is why his death is the most gut-wrenching as he’s clinging to Tony for dear life and pleading to not go.

The rest of the characters are more hit-and-miss in their development, especially as most of them haven’t been seen since Civil War. And they try to bring up the Sokovia Accords again, but that gets cast aside quickly to get the Mind Stone out of Vision. Steve Rogers and T’Challa shine as leaders as the battle comes to Wakanda, and I can watch that scene where all the warriors chant “yibambe” over and over again. It’s relieving to see Rhodey and Bucky back in action after the physical and mental turmoil they went through, and Sam still has plenty of fun one-liners. Black Widow, Okoye and Scarlet Witch make a fun girl power team. And when Thor, Rocket and Groot come in, words just escape me in how intensely fun that battle gets.

I think the weakest part of this section is probably the romance between Scarlet Witch and Vision. It is one of the few parts where not much is explained what happened to them in between movies and how Vision was able to deceive Tony for so long. They were kinda just thrown into the mix in Age of Ultron, and I don’t think they ever figured out what to do with them aside from finding a way to work in an Infinity Stone. But once again, what pulls them through is the performances by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany to bring the weight of the unavoidable situation these two are in where only Scarlet Witch can kill Vision via destroying the Mind Stone.

Part of what makes the heavy-handed tone work is how inconsequential everything feels. Even for all the gritty and depressing moments, MCU always finds a way to end it on a hopeful or even funny note to keep spirits up. This time, they’re not fucking around. Think about it-- every film from Doctor Strange to Black Panther in the grand scheme leading up to Infinity War doesn’t matter anymore. Stephen learning to be humble, the Guardians learning to trust each other and move past trauma, Peter Parker learning responsibility, Thor becoming a great hero without his hammer, and T’Challa opening up Wakanda to the world? Yup, none of it fucking mattered cause most of them were either killed by Thanos or disintegrated anyway. And the worst part is that they were playing by the book and most of their plans worked out, but Thanos still found a way to one-up them anyway and win.

A lot of people mentioned this already, but what makes Thanos fascinating as a villain is that the film almost frames him as the hero to his own self-deluded ideas. He has a backstory, a goal, an arc, the whole nine yards. He doesn’t hesitate to kill whoever to get the next stone, he’s incredibly manipulative towards his own children (which is best depicted in how he “adopted” Gamora), and he’s so far gone beyond reason to believe genocide is what is right to fix and over-populated universe. Even more wild is the fact he doesn’t want the glory or credit, and he’s perfectly content to retire on some remote planet to watch the sun rise-- as seen at the end of the film. However, I do question why the Soul Stone regarded him killing Gamora as an act of love when it was always, always manipulation, but hopefully we’ll get to see that explained in the next film cause, c’mon folks, that ain’t love.

There’s also some things left unclear like what exactly happened on Xandar, and why Bruce can no longer bring out the Hulk, but we still got a couple more movies to look forward to in the year until Avengers 4. And I guarantee the Russo brothers had a shit ton more scenes they wanted to add in but couldn’t due to time constraints, and if they were to release an extended cut, I would not mind at all.

Like I said before, this film had so much going against it, but paid off tremendously well with a consistent dramatic tone, bringing together characters for the first time and reuniting others, and always keeping the audience guessing on what to expect next. And it succeeded in emotionally screwing us over with an always brilliant cast who know how to wrench our hearts out.

One of the best of the MCU without a doubt.

If you liked this and enjoy what I do, buy me a Ko-fi to say “Job well done!”

[mirandathephan]

Dan’s Depression Video and my depression experience

I mean, just wow. This video just really hit home for me because I struggle with social anxiety (which I just discovered I’ve had my whole life but thought it was normal), but this summer I had my first real struggle with depression, and this video helped me realize it. 

 At the time, I felt like something was really wrong with me and I felt terrible, but I didn’t think it could be depression: 

 I felt like crying so often, but simultaneously felt too numb to do so. 

I had been someone who appreciated the little moments of life the most, such as the sun shining through the leaves of the trees, the wind blowing softly through a window, the feeling of the sun on my skin. But I could no longer appreciate those things. It was like there was a fog over my whole existence, like the color was drained out of the world. 

I could still laugh when I watched something funny, I could distract myself to some extent, and that would help, I forced myself to go out and exercise, which also improved my mood a bit. Because of these things, I thought that I couldn’t have depression. I could still feel happy, and I definitely wasn’t suicidal. I just had to wait for it to pass. 

 But still, everything just felt... off. And no matter what I did, no matter how well I distracted myself, the grey, dull, sadness  would always come back. 

Oddly enough, despite how bad most of the day was, by night time my mood would improve quite a bit, and I hoped, every night, just like Dan did, that tomorrow I would be back to normal. That everything would be okay. But it never did. 

Every morning in that month, I felt down, when I realized that my depression wasn’t going away, it got worse and worse. I was worried that I would never come out of it,  and it led me further down into both depression and anxiety. I stopped hoping that things would ever get better.

 And that’s when you lose, when you stop hoping. There’s no reason to live if there’s nothing to look forward to. I noticed that I was having morbid thoughts. I never considered suicide, but I had no life to look forward to anymore.

 I felt like I was at a dead end, but there was no desire for me to end it all either. It’s like a part of me was holding onto hope. A slim chance that eventually, things would get better, even if I didn’t believe it in that moment. 

 This wasn’t the absolute lowest point in my 19 years of existence, but it was pretty darn close. 

Even thinking about telling anyone often put me on the verge of an anxiety attack because I felt like no one, even my own family, would believe me. And I love my family, they are some of the most supportive people I’ve ever met, but I had had some experiences in the past in which my mom didn’t understand how I felt, so I was projected that she would act like that again, and I didn’t want to face the same rejection. 

 Eventually, after researching about depression and seeing so many people saying that reaching out to someone is worth it even though it may be scary, I decided to bring it up to my mom.

 It actually took many tries. There were situations in which we were alone and I knew that I should’ve brought it up, but I could never do it- it just never felt like the right time. 

One day, when we were having a conversation in the car, (I don’t remember exactly what it was), but there was an appropriate opening for me to bring up my depression, and I did it. It was super casual too, I said it like it was nothing, just “I’ve been feeling kinda down lately, and I don’t know why, and I’ve been keeping myself busy and I’ve been exercising, so I don’t think it’s due to idleness. I think there may be something wrong with me.” 

 She thought about what I said for a moment and said, “well, we can try to arrange an appointment with a psychiatrist if you want, so we can get to the bottom of this.” I just nodded, and that was it.

 I felt SO RELIEVED after bringing it up, and a giant frickin weight was lifted off my shoulders. I had no idea that it would be that easy, that I could just open up, and someone would offer support. It blew me away. 

 So, back to Dan’s video, he is totally right. If you think that you are struggling with a mental illness, or anything for that matter, tell somebody. They don’t even have to do anything, maybe just having them know is enough. Or they could be practice for when you tell someone important. Regardless, opening up is important, and in the moment, it’s not as scary as all the buildup (Gotta thank the anxiety for that one).

 Ask for help, even if you don’t know exactly what’s wrong with you, especially if you don’t know what’s wrong with you. I didn’t want to tell people that I thought I was depressed because I had never been diagnosed before, and I didn’t seem like the kind of person who would have depression. Even though some of my symptoms matched, a lot of them didn’t, so I was unsure if my feelings were legitimate. 

BUT YOUR FEELINGS ARE LEGITIMATE. No one can tell you that what you’re going through isn’t real or isn’t serious, because if you think something is seriously wrong, then it probably is. Ask for help. It seems scary, as someone with serious social anxiety, I get it. But if you can gather the courage to do it, that’s great. I can’t speak for everyone, but after I told my mom about my depression I was so relieved. It didn’t make it go away, but the anxiety that surrounded me about it started to dissipate. Now that someone finally understood, I didn’t have to put up a facade about being alright all the time. I could be honest that my day was a bit crap, and even though I never really said what I was truly feeling because I couldn’t express myself well (I still can’t), it was at least a start. 

I eventually did have a few genuinely good days, when I was at peace and actually happy for a bit. Eventually I fell back down again, but it wasn’t terrible. 

Now, as I’ve been away at college, I haven’t had a depressive episode since then. I don’t exactly know why. It could be a mixture of constantly being around my friends, being really busy, and feeling very motivated (i think that’s probably it), but I feel really good. 

Dan making this video made me finally realize that what I experienced was truly depression. As I said before, while in it, I kept doubting myself and my own feelings, like what I was going through wasn’t real, or that I was making a big deal out of nothing. But I think it takes being out of a situation/mindset to really understand what you were going through. And matching my own experience with Dan’s description of depression helped me to realize, “wow, I actually had depression.”

And even though I feel stable now, I know that I still haven’t solved the problem of my summer depression. When summer approaches again, I’ll probably  fall into depression again. So that’s why I need to get help. I can’t do this on my own, and wait for it to pass, because it always comes back. And I take so much inspiration from Dan’s video, because he said he’s in a good place right now because he does all these things to keep himself in check, and I want to be able to say that as well. That I kicked depression in its stupid face. And even though it will probably come back, and I’ll get knocked down again, what matters is that I get back up.

So, to those of you struggling with anything: try to ask for help. I hope that you’re having a good day and that you’re able to get better, that every day is better than the last, and that you never run out of hope in yourself, and for your future. 

And thanks to Dan for making this video. It will help me for the rest of my life. Thank you. Love you, you giant dork. :)

[hagiographically]

summer qtr review/thoughts

buckle up kiddos its gonna be long -- this is mainly for my benefit tbh (tw for ed talk but as usual, no detail about behaviors)

but i feel like i tumbled less this summer and tbh i think that is ?? probably good

anyway

the quarter started off horrifically bad because i deteriorated a lot in florence. like, im so happy i went to florence and i experienced so many things and got so much braver and more confident, but i didn’t realize those positive effects until many weeks in, and they didn’t develop fully until i’d left

but i lost like..... at least 15 pounds without trying to or even realizing

surprise! italy is triggering for eating disorders....who knew....not this stanford-educated bitch right here....

anyway i was half dead when i got home to new jersey. i figured this summer i’d have to Actually Recover, and i’d dropped out of my program in south africa to be at stanford, catch up on my major, and get my shit together health-wise

That Did Not Happen, Unsurprisingly

having a disorder means.....the worse u get.....ur brain cares less about recovering....so I hit my lowest weight ever a couple weeks after getting back to ol’ stanf

it sukked cuz summer is triggering because it’s so beautiful and warm outside and like !!! shorts!!! crop tops!!! but anyway i hauled ass to the doctor to make sure i wasn’t going to die

she said “libby you are going to die very soon if you keep doing this”

but!!! that was the go-ahead i needed to flip the switch into Recovery Mode(tm) and i went to cvs the next day and bought hundreds of dollars worth of vitamins and supplements and safe foods because it was an Investment or whatever

and like......it’s been rocky. I’ve slipped up countless times. I gained 10 lbs in the first week and that was super scary lol so I relapsed, and then half-recovered from that, and since then it’s been a tug-of-war with the mental illness goblin

BUT that being said, the whole process has been kind of fun/motivating in a weird way, like I was a scientist and my body was the experiment, and I was just throwing data points into it and seeing what worked.

and ????? Some Things Worked !!! and it really awakens my sense of curiosity to see what things help me-- the nutrition and supplements helped my mood, energy, relationships (kinda? who knows what it would’ve been like otherwise), academics (same as relationships), confidence, etc. it even changed my personality i think, or at least minimized the things i didn’t like about myself and let me cultivate the things i like

like for example, i’m actually.....not an introvert i don’t think? i was talking to my mom about this yesterday -- she thinks she’s a 60/40 E/I and I’m the opposite, so we’re both ambiverts with different leanings. I identify as an introvert because I like solitary activities bc I’m used to being alone, but I realized this summer that.....being alone isn’t always good for me because it awakens mental illness goblin, but also I ??? really like talking to people and I’m good at conversations ??? I met lots of non-Stanf people from going out so much and it was always really refreshing and cool and I got energy from it....definition of an extravert

had conversations that really cemented my current values - got to talk about my classes and how much i loved them, how much the shallowness of bay area tech bothers me, how much i loved italy (florence is so hazy to me rn!! bizarre), regional differences in psychology (my passion tbh) and it just feels so good to care about things wow !! is this what it’s like to be neurotypical? no wonder yall are out there doin it

so I am not recovered in any sense of the word but I am so. much. better. I reduced a hella lot of behaviors, rarely felt depressed, and achieved pretty much everything i wanted, even though this was my sixth straight quarter of college and if i hadn’t done this self-imposed health regimen i don’t think i would’ve died, but i would’ve eroded and probably dropped out of school to go back to residential

should i be getting professional treatment? i think a lot of recovery blogs or experts would say yes, because they’re of the mind you can’t half-recover, and treatment comes before education, etc. and i don’t completely disagree and maybe once i graduate i’ll agree. but. i know that right now i want to be in school. i cannot fully recover on my own, but on my own is the only way i can get pieces of everything that i want. 

i’m healthier and happier because i made the best grades i’ve ever gotten at stanford (easy-ass classes for sure, but i’m still glad i performed as well as i possibly could. it’s a point of pride for me that even though my illness can get really severe, it’s never impacted my grades.) and i still did lots of really fun things! it was less social than last summer, where i went out every other day, but i still went to santa cruz beach boardwalk, an ed sheeran concert, a gay club in SF, SO MANY bars in downtown palo alto (at the point where multiple bartenders recognize me), a play in redwood city, coffee shops and dinner dates and sunlit morning walks to class listening to jukebox the ghost and happy-buzzed from green tea.

i’ll just say it, my fashion was kinda lit this summer....i was very physically confident, which is mixed because i might be romanticizing unhealthiness even though i am healthier than before. who knows. i am in transit

i feel like i didnt socialize as much this quarter with my actual close friends but instead met lots of one-time people and like, it was really nice meeting new people, bc when the people are always changing, i can see which elements of me stay the same. and getting to know who i am now is so interesting because tbh?? ive been through a lot this year (and also with, like, life) it’s so weird thinking of myself As A Whole when anything more than a year ago feels like a fever dream or made up story....anyway!

i did get to see my friends fairly frequently and i’m grateful for every time i did because i’m v lucky to have anyone in my life when i change as much as the fricken weather

my friends who loved stanford before are more over it now, and its funny bc i used to hate it but now im used to the school so i dont anymore. im a senior, i know the school well, ive been a member of so many clubs, been to so many on campus houses, explored the area extensively, taken a variety of classes….im not totally out of FOMO but its so reduced that im confident with what ive done there, and my ego isnt as threatened by other people bc i know i have my own kind of value. it doesnt matter if its objective or not bc how i feel is ultimately what matters

like its not all about what i feel if i dont do anything about it. but ive done some stuff! and im trying to make the shitty interpersonal stuff better! its going!

was able to read and write a little bit which is neaterino ! and i liked my job at the library, it was fun and easy

anyway if i think too much about it i’ll trip out because thinking about life sends me into existential despair, but this was a good quarter. up there with sophomore spring for my favorite/happiest/best feeling quarter? probably even better than soph spring because i was sick for most of the spring. every quarter has ups and downs and this was no exception but the downs didn’t feel as debilitating and the air didn’t feel like a fire blanket for once, and now that i have some strategies under my belt i can’t imagine things ever really getting that bad for a while