#like i have been drawing but everything feels really blah recently

[madaraservingcunt]

We lack madara with a mustache

[alex-thegiraffeboyy]

Chapter 2: From The Start

Summary: Maybe Vi is in love with you too. She just doesn't know how to tell you.

Words: 1.0k

Bewitched Masterlist

Everyone has noticed. Mylo, Claggor, Powder, Ekko. Even Vander and Benzo.

They've all noticed.

Except them.

Everyone has noticed how Vi looks at her when she thinks no one is around. How her eyes usually soften and a smile is almost always there in a subtle way.

Vi hasn't noticed how she looks at her on those evenings where the two of them are quietly just watching the sunset in each other's company (though they always end up seeing each other without them noticing). It's not like they've ever tried to figure it out. They don't need reminders that they don't feel the same (although they do).

It has become a custom among her siblings to bet on who will confess first, they have it divided into categories and everything. They find it fun, it's like having their own show 24 hours a day. Mylo really likes to tease them just to see them get angry and nervous. It's worth putting up with Vi's anger just to see it.

Vi definitely doesn't think it's funny. She's afraid that at some point the teasing will make you so uncomfortable that you won't want to be with her anymore. That's clearly not the case for you, but she doesn't know that.

Oh, The burning pain…

Recently a new event happened on Mylo's favorite show "Two sentimental blind women in love". It was supposed to be a conversation just between them, but he was passing by and couldn't help but stick around (with the intention of listening in to tell others, of course - more for the love of gossip, honestly). They were helping Vander fix up the bar a bit when she was telling Vi about a person she met while helping Benzo with the store. More specifically, a girl her age.

"Seriously Vi! She had it all curly with different colored highlights. She also likes to draw! She stayed a while to check out the store and happened to be carrying her notebook..." blah blah blah.

Vi listened to her in silence, turning her back to her as she cleared some tables (but more so that she wouldn't see her expression -which Mylo could see perfectly from his place). Feelings of insecurity and misgivings slowly growing in her chest. She would respond with little monosyllables like "yes", "great", “cool”, "no", "I don't know", etc. At some point in the story she noticed Vi's attitude, so turning to her, seeing her carefully cleaning the tables and chairs, she decided to ask.

"Hey... Are you okay? You seem a little irritated and... I don't know, you seem mad about the way you're clearing the table. You haven't been talking much this time either, and I know I've been talking a little too much so..." Mylo held his breath as he watched the scene unfold in front of him with wide eyes.

"It's nothing, just... Some hard spots to remove and I'm kind of concentrating on it. Sorry"

Mylo came close to letting out a strong laugh.

The rest of the conversation is history.

Vi would like, if this were reciprocal, for her to confess first. Vi feels she doesn't have the finesse. She knows what she feels, but she doesn't know how to express it, and that makes her feel insecure. She hates feeling insecure. But she feels it even worse when she doesn't know if you feel the same way. So she keeps silent while at night she wishes hard that one day you will love her like she loves you. That one day you'll wake up and tell her you love her, so and maybe only so she could tell you everything she feels.

Because maybe then she could tell you that when she talks to you she feels like her heart is abruptly pierced with all the love and peace that your presence gives her, and that when they are just both being themselves and sharing laughs and stories she feels like nothing she says has coherence and she sounds crazy. (Don't you feel it too?). And to be able to tell her, from the bottom of your heart, with your own butterflies, that you have been in love with her from the beginning.

But what can she do? She doesn't even know if she likes girls…

Sometimes she thinks about it before she goes to sleep. Lying in her bed staring at nothing. Not being reciprocated. And what would be even worse, that she would disown her for liking her, that you would push her away (even though part of her knows she's not that kind of person). She feels that her love is driving her crazy. She blames herself for worrying so much about it when she has much more serious problems to worry about. But she can't help it.

There are days when she feels that what she feels is too much, it feels like if she doesn't say it she might explode, so she builds up her courage and goes to look for her at Benzo's store. But as soon as she sets foot inside and sees her... she loses all his courage. She feels her heart racing, as if he wants to flee her chest so he can enter hers and curl up next to her own heart. She feels butterflies flutter nervously throughout her system, some reaching up to her head and screaming loudly words full of nervousness and insecurity. None of them ever dares to leave her system to tell you how she feel. So she makes up a silly excuse like Vander sent her to help when she was coming back from a job or something. Sometimes it even happens to coincide with her finishing her usual duties with Ekko, so they go for a walk or go to their usual place on the abandoned roof.

Benzo can only laugh silently after they leave.

She confesses to herself that she knows. She knows that she have loved you from the beginning, though not romantically, but she loved you. That from the moment you met her something about her managed to capture her full attention. Maybe it was the sweet way you empathized with her and Powder, maybe it was other things.

She confesses to herself and to no one else that she loves you and thinks of you every day.

She confesses for herself and no one else

That she has loved you from the start.♡

[avocadoraisin]

what are your Hoffstrahm werepire! au hcs??

i hope you're ready bc im basically gonna tell you most of, if not all of the sporadic details of their "story" thats been simmering in my head. theyre subject to change on any given day because, well, this is my imagination LMAO i can take this daydream wherever i want

one day parts of it could be a fic? idk. i dont think i have enough of a beginning, middle, and end of a real cohesive "story" so it might just exist as snapshots in the form of little comics forever.

and some of this is, in fact, alluded to in that really horny heat fic i wrote akjhfjb

pre-meeting

Hoffman:

-He and his sister were both vampires and have been for a little while. not sure for how long. the details of how they turned are also hazy

-but they were alone together and moved cities often, only having each other to rely on. they had to "restart" someplace new every few years. possibly because theyve been around too long and would start to arouse suspicion from neighbors noticing them not aging in 10 years. maybe they were in danger of aggressive rival vampires competing for hunting grounds territory, or anything else making them feel unsafe

-at last they settle on Sawville which seemed to be untouched by vampire drama. (as far as they knew at the time)

-Angelina always had too big of a heart and, as a vampire herself, wanted to believe in the good in people. wanted to believe in someone's ability to change. which is what she tells herself when she falls in love w that asshole Seth

-Mark is not trusting of him at all

-Angelina trusted in Seth too much, trusting him with the information that she was a vampire

-Instead of a slit throat she gets a wooden stake to the heart

-Mark is too shell shocked to leave Saw City i guess. he already distrusted humans in general but now he knew he could never, ever trust his heart in a human. not like she was able to.

-When Seth is released Mark cooks up the pendulum and gets caught by John just like in canon

-blah blah hazy details he and Amanda and Lawrence are stuck under John's thumb. i think in the fic i made it purposefully vague if Lawrence and John are also vampires, im now leaning toward Lawrence also being a vampire (i did draw him as a bat recently after all) and John is still undecided

-He knows werewolves exist, but never met one. He's not terribly concerned with encountering one but knows there's an eternal feud between the species.

Strahm:

-his early days are also hazy to me

-he's been a werewolf since i think teenagehood and it was something he kinda grew up with and learned to somewhat tame over the years

-great idea based on this anon (and everything else in the post, verbatim) but maybe he has troubles remembering his childhood or the time around when he first changed, so really all he remembers from early on is how he trained to control the power to be productive in society

-he can change at-will whenever but on full moons it is involuntary, and hes more prone to going wild. he still doesnt trust himself, so once a month he chains himself up to pipes in the basement.

-he also knows vampires are out there, and that they're bad news. Werewolves instinctually want to kill them for a reason. They have no souls and drain people of their blood, they're vermin to be exterminated. or so he thinks. he's never met one yet.

-maybe he decided to go the FBI route growing up for whatever reasons he did in canon. maybe it was a drive to learn more about whats going on in the undergrowth out there. on the everlasting hunt to find more people like him.

-what will he do when he does find one? what if they're not what he hopes?

-with his heightened senses, he knows he has a tactical advantage at work so he flies up the ranks. he's the FBI's most effective bloodhound, and they have no idea why. they dont question it. he gets shit done and thats all they need.

-some years into their partnership, he tells Perez the truth. She's the closest someone's ever been to him in many, many lonely years, and if there's anyone he can trust with the truth, it's the person he trusts with his life

-it took a lot of prying questions but she accepts him for how he is and they are more effective as a Human and Werewolf FBI duo as ever

-and as best friends, too. a tiny pack, if you will

Meeting:

-their meeting

-Hoffman made a frustratingly good point, and Strahm cant prove anything yet. But he's also just so damn curious. because he's never actually met a vampire before, and he secretly wanted to know which rumors were true.

-they also have an incentive to not immediately just out each other's species secrets. they dont want worldwide panic. they both know trusting humans is difficult and everything about that can backfire. its best that their species drama gets resolved privately.

-They both get a lil too curious about each other

-Hoffman keeps being annoyingly flirty with him too. like "arent u a lil curious lol 🧛‍♂️🍆 you can kill me after, ok? 😘"

-they settle some curiosities one night in a sleepover of discovery lol

-they secretly catch feelings a la most fics out there where they start out with a one-night hate-sex stand

-Strahm realizes that he doesnt really care that Hoffman is the "enemy" species, he seems like a normal guy. hes not soulless at all. he also has a sadness about him, just like him. and its so amazing to meet another creature, to meet someone else that he doesnt have to hide around. someone who isn't scared of him. he's not alone in the world

-Hoffman realizing he also doesn't have to be alone again, though a part of his heart is still guarded. and hes still got the jigsaw thing going on. strahm still suspects it.

-The two of them don't really want to kill each other. Like, imagine a cartoon scene with two characters super slow-mo punching each other like "Im gonna punch you! here it comes! yep! im so.. totally.. gonna punch you!" because neither of them really want to do it. until they're collapsed in each other's arms because they realize they dont hate each other, they need each other. because. im a sap.

-over at team Jigsaw, instead of infighting and killing each other to one-up each other like in canon, the apprentices realize they're all being manipulated and start to band together. vampires together strong.

-hoffman confesses the predicament hes stuck in to Strahm. their whole world is already so insane and wrought with otherworldly violence, he knows damn well that sometimes things are more than meets the eye, so hes more willing to hear him out

-Peter more or less accepts everything. he watches from the sidelines and lends a hand if needed, having grown sympathetic to their cause and seeing that theyre all just trying to escape this cult. but its also not his fight, he stays out of it, just helps them get away with it legally.

-if John is a human, they all corner him and idk probably drink all his blood. Scar vs The Hyenas style. if John is a vampire, maybe theres an epic fight if hes like a super strong elder type who just went deranged with power over centuries, Underworld style.

Post-Jigsaw Life

-when its all over, the vampires are kind of unsure of where they belong now. they scatter a bit but still keep in touch, kind of like a weird little family now, having gone through all of that together. maybe they can kind of help each other survive too. a coven of their own.

-Hoffman still isnt sure exactly of where he and Strahm fall now, now that the reign of terror is done. hes going to need to drink blood again to survive, jigsaw violence or not. will Strahm be okay with the kind of monster he has to be to live? he doesnt drain people dry, but he hates doing it anyway. and the doctor vampire of the group can only smuggle them so much blood from the hospitals.

-they realize theyre in love and can try to make this work, hearts fully open to each other. no more secrets between them

-One day when Hoffman is really starving, in an ultimate show of trust, Strahm allows him to try to drink from him. and they learn that while it tastes bad, it works, and they could have a symbiotic relationship.

-While bearing his throat and allowing Mark to drink is the ultimate display of trust for Peter, being in his extremely vulnerable bat form is the ultimate display of trust for Mark

-They tell Perez the truth about Mark, to loop one more friend into the circle of beloved, trusted people in Peter's life who know everything. Mark also gains +1 family, in a way, in addition to his coven. big emphasis on everyone realizing you dont have to be alone

-Mark helps Peter learn to control himself on full moons so he can fully control himself around the one other person he cares about, like this

-still have a lot of learning to do about each other, navigating their relationship together despite their species differences. thats been the subject of most of my art and the fic and other discussions in my werepire au tag lmao

-sometimes a pack can be a werewolf, a human, a vampire, and the two other stray vampires he kind of picked up along the way

[nukenai]

sorry this is just gonna be me talking a bit about my experience playing live a live vs how i feel about something that’s been dear to my soul since i was 5 years old (pokemon). Slight LAL spoilers I guess lmao.

The big word I can use to describe Live A Live is REFRESHING. Me, personally, I am such a fan of sprite work. I love sprites. Black and White I think are the most visually appealing Pokemon games. I really can’t even say I minded the XY style... I think ORAS really, really benefited from how beautiful it was, and I’m glad I was able to see Hoenn remade in 3D. The experience is unmatched.

But.

I think that the switch to 3D models loses a lot of style. I think it loses a lot of, let’s say class. I played a bit of the FF4 remake and ooh, boy. I get it. I get why they want to switch to 3D models. But I can’t even express how overjoyed I am that they did NOT do that with Live A Live. They didn’t go with chunky, clunky, ugly polygonal chibis or even worse, realistically proportioned 3D models. I can’t IMAGINE what a nightmare that would’ve been.

Instead they took a game that was sprites, and made it nicer sprites. They made the backgrounds deep and detailed. Extremely fucking cool. I remember being excited when I saw Octopath - but I don’t like JRPGs, and I have to be honest, I do NOT like the art style of Octopath. Every trailer I saw for that game... my big thought was WHERE ARE THE FUCKING COLORS? That’s even a complaint I have about the official art for LAL’s cast... I kind of hate it all. I hate the desaturation.

But LAL itself, the actual game, HOLY hell! I played Prehistory first which was a fine chapter, I’m pretty neutral on it but it was so COLORFUL! VIBRANT! Then I played Edo Japan which was darker, because it is night time. But I found myself constantly stopping, and saying, out loud, “Wow, this game is beautiful”. I tweeted some screenshots with that as a caption, which was the first LAL tweet I made that Tokita-san faved and retweeted.

This was the view that first made me really go, “Wow”.

I used to edit sprites when I was a kid. I couldn’t draw, but I loved editing Pokemon trainers into my OCs. With the switch to 3D models, I was dead in the water. I couldn’t do shit! It kinda sucked. I cried when I got to play with my Pokemon in Pokemon Amie. But for all we gained with the 3D models, I feel like we lost a lot, too. Legends Arceus is exempt from this discussion as it is a shining beauty of a game and I adore it. JUST WISH I COULD HEAR THE FUCKING MUSIC.

This is a disorganized rant but basically, I’m just saying I’m so happy that there is a market for games like Live A Live to be remade, to look like how they were always dreamed up to be. And that doesn’t mean 3D models, it doesn’t mean HD. Sometimes it just means a coat of love, and that so much feels like what this game got.

Recent Pokemon games don’t feel like that to me. I didn’t hate Sword and Shield, but boy, are they ugly and bland. Not once did I ever say “wow” or even FEEL any sort of awe or joy at the environments. The Eternatus fight was not impressive and I hated the entire plot of that game. The Crown Tundra DLC was ok because I got horses. But the whole place was just so fucking ugly. I don’t just blame the UK for that either. Shit was unfinished and looked like garbage.

Scarlet and Violet are giving me the same feeling. I’m not excited. The environments look maybe better, but I feel no style. I don’t feel love. It looks like everything else, but maybe slightly worse. It’s all the same. I also felt like that seeing every fucking Square game in the Direct today. Shit all looks the same, I can’t tell any of it apart.

But I see Live A Live, and it even looks so different from Octopath. My only memories of it, and from the sequel’s trailer today, are washed out browns and bronzes and dust and blah. But just look at the screenshot up there. It’s supposed to be night time and there’s purples. Reds. Oboromaru’s motif color is purple and it’s washed throughout the entire chapter. The insides of the castle are lit with candles and you can feel that.

And that’s just one chapter. Damn. I fucking hated the Middle Ages chapter but I can still say it’s beautiful. I enjoyed dipshitting around in the Dominion of Hate for a while, GRINDING UP MASARU’S FUCKIN LEVEL 2 ASS, cause the place was still so pretty despite it all. I felt welcome in that game and like it was happy to have me. Even if I’m some fake fan who didn’t play the original and had only heard of it, and only had a couple songs on my ipod because Yoko composed them.

Idk man. I’ve just got a ton of thoughts. It’s been a really, really long time since a game deeply affected me like Live A Live has. Legends Arceus having a couple bangers and also having Ingo in it is not the same. I loved that game but it didn’t hit me in my soul like Live A Live has. I’m hoping this game will stick with me and be at the front of my heart for the rest of my life.

And I want more people to enjoy it, too.

Anyways look at these fucking sick-ass sprites of Edgelord of Dark Oersted they fucking rock

[myidlethinkings]

So my girlfriend has been trying to have me read the Wheel of Time series since when she was just my best friend. I picked back up the second book recently but it's been a while since I read the first and she went on this massive "YOU WON'T REMEMBER EVERYTHING FROM THE FIRST BOOK, LET ME TELL YOU"

This led to her Wheel of Time in 5 Minutes ™ lecture/rant and... I had to share this with the world. Enjoy.

Obviously every spoiler for the first book. You've been warned.

_______

k, eye of the world in 5 mins.

begins in the two rivers, emonds field, is gonna be bel tine and everyones all excited. rand lives further afield with his father and theyre bringing in brandy for the inn. rands all omg someones watching me as theyre getting in, tams all i cant see anything, rands all mustv imagined it. they get there. they hear theres going to be a gleeman. meets up with his bestie perrin and LOVER mat I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP who are both like yeah we totes saw the figure too. they go we'll tell the mayor tomorrow.

they see the gleeman thom and theyre all omg a gleeman, omg. then the two strangers, moiraine, who is the best character ever to character in any universe fucking fight me on that and lan, who are asking questions about the area and people and moiraines like oh hi child to nynaeve the wisdom whose like im the fucking wisdom bitch who the fuck are you. she then says to the boys hey here have this coin which is totally a normal coin cuz i might have errands and shit and theyre like holy shit anything you want.

then he sees egwene and hes all like omg the love of my life will you dance with me tomorrow at bel tine and shes all yeah sure in the afternoon cuz i got shit to do in the morning and hes all like wut? and shes all GETTIN MAH HAIR BRAIDED YO and hes all like holy shit that means shes marriagable, holy shit man.

then the peddler paidan fain rocks up and gets everyone in a frenzy over war wherever and false dragons and logain or whoever else.

rand and tam go back to the farm overnight before the festivities begin. shit goes down. trollocs smash in, rands all OMG TROLLOCS ARENT REAL THO LIKE WUT and tams all, fly you fool and rand runs into the woods. but then hes all, i cant fucken leave my father so he creeps back and in the shadows he sees tam creeping around with a sword and rands like DAFUQ why does he have a sword, fighting ensues, tam gets hurt, is dying, rand manages to get him back to emonds field with a figure trailing them.

tams delirious, starts talking about rands dead mother and then starts talking about a battle and how they all poured over the dragonwall and that it was snowing but it was so hot, battle is always hot and she was a warrior even though she was pregnant and she gave birth and died and how he took the baby and rand was all WUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT. im gonna ignore that shit.

gets to emonds field. everything is in ruins. trollocs wrecked the shit there too. nynaeve is all like sorry dude, your dads gonna die. hes all fuck that, gets back to the inn where the gleemans like hey that ladys an aes sedai, she could heal him but i totally wouldnt because you never know what they ask for in price and rands all i dont care because HE IS MY FATHER. MY FATHER. HEEEEE. ISSSS. MYYYY. FATHERRRRR. thoms all, holy shit dude calm down hes your father. moiraine, the best character in the universe, heals tam, then shes all like look, you three boys need to come with me and rands all, well shit she makes sense and they go but then egwenes hiding too and shes all bitch im adventuring too and rands all AHHHH and moiraines all huh the wheel weaves what the wheel wills, whatevs, and they go on, with thom whose also like this place is boring asf, im coming on.

they head out, dragkhar fly overhead, moiraine like a mofo destroys them, they get to tarren ferry, cross on the ferry, then coincidentally theres a whirlpool and the ferrys destroyed when theyre on the other side and egwenes like HOLY SHIT YOU DID THAT and moiraines all cuz im fucking awesome and nobody can follow us now so stfu and they head on.

rand interrupts a lesson with moiraine teaching egwene the true source cuz egwenes got it. rands all FUCKING WTF and thoms all dude, leave it, you cant do a thing about it. Shes gone now. Why don’t you bang mat instead. I mean the mat comment never happened but I will ship them till my dying breath. moiraines all to egwene youll die if i dont teach you, there was another back in emonds who also had it but she managed to survive/channel in her own way.

egwene starts to unbraid her hair. rand has a crying fit. egwenes all fuck off man, i do what i want. mydraal and shit attack them, they get to baerlon safely. where the gatekeepers like the children of the light are around but they cant cause much trouble cuz the city watch hate them and the whitecloaks are little bitches. they get to baerlon. mat and rand walk around. they see a few of the whitecloaks, dane bornhold a young man leading the small group. mats like lol, watch this, enters a shop, climbs up the top and hurls a rock at them, loosening barels. rand has started to feel feverish and when the barrels nearly knock them over, rand stands there and doesnt hide and rands like lol and danes like dafuq are you looking at and rands like im looking at you what are YOU looking at and hes feeling really odd and reckless and danes like are you a darkfriend and steps forward but then the city guards turn up who hates the whitecloaks and they face each other off and mat hauls rand off all are you fucking insane, you faced him off and rands recklessness leaves him and he freaks out and they flee.

throughout this time and through the book all three have dreams but i cant be bothered to get into those, theyre basically all the dark one figuring out who is who, and they wake up after rats backs were broken in the dream to be all oh hey it was just dreams though, to find rats dead all over the place and other stuff. Moiraine told them early on to go to her if they have dreams and the boys talk about it and theyre like we should probably tell her but nah, she saes sedai and like, its just dreams yo, yeah a few rats end up dead but cool, its fine, we’re fine.

oh baerlons also where he meets min who can see things around them, like with him a sword that is not a sword and three women on his funeral pyre weeping and with perrin she sees wolves and mat dice and with lan seven broken towers and a baby in a cradle with a sword and blah blah. And she says she can see he loves egwene and egwene loves him too but theyre not for each other, at least not in the way they want to be.

then he returns and nynaeve is there and she is PISSED and is all like we're going home now and moiraine manages to convince her they are in trouble and nynaeves like ..... i dont trust you, but fine. and lans all how did you find us and shes all i tracked you bitches and hes all like, huh.

rand says to her later about MY FATHER HE IS MY FATHERRRR and nynaeves all awkwardly like er yeah totally, i totally dont remember when your father returned after adventuring with an outlander wife, that totally explains your red hair, er yea sure. but that above all they loved him as much as they wouldv loved any baby.

oh a bunch of times during the book people startle at him and him being so tall with red hair and grey eyes and say he resembles an aiel. oh, theyre also ta'veren, so extra special they draw people into doing stuff with their lives, they effect the pattern. moiraine also says the two rivers used to be manetheran, a fabled kingdom. that night shit happens and they run off. they run, fight, attack, fight, as they battle mat starts yelling out things in an old language he doesnt know, that moiraine says was a manetheran war cry and the old blood still sings.

theyre going to get outrun in battle and against moiraines judgement lan takes them to an old crumbling city shadar logoth which fell to the darkness and even trollocs and mydraal dont like entering it.

oh also tam gave rand the sword which is a heron marked blade and lans all like er only blademasters have these why did your father have one and rands all HES MAHHH FATHERRRRRR and lans all yeah but how and rands all he bought it from a merchant years before and lans all yeah that sounds totally legit.

they go into shadar logoth, the boys sneak off, meet mordeth whose all like lol here take the treasure and mats like cool but rands like holy shit he doesnt have a shadow and then mordeth goes all rahhhh and the three manage to escape and they return and ramble about what happened and moiraines like DID HE GIVE YOU ANYTHING and theyre all like no and mats like er totally didnt and moiraines like we have to move and they leave but then this shadow thing that can kill them separates them and theyre all separated and perrin and egwene fall into a river together, and nynaeve finds moiraine and lan and is all like I will cut you aes sedai for what you’ve done to all of us and moiraine is all lol, and rand and mat with thom end up on a ship, the spray, with bayle domon and theyre worried he’ll throw them overboard cuz of the trollocs that chased them but domon seems to think theyre after him.

moiraines like with the coins i can track them, but two of them have lost their coins (paying for passage on domons ship). perrin and egwene roam around a lot, finally meet up with a man elyas who can communicate with wolves. aes sedai once tried to gentle him because of it but it has nothing to do with the one power so it didnt do anything. theres hints he used to be a warder, but now he hangs out in the wilderness. he says perrin has the same thing, perrin freaks out. elyas is like ill take you to the next city cuz you guys are lost. they then meet up with the tuatha'an, the tinkers, who roam around and dont harm anyone even if theyre to be harmed. perrin cant reconcile that, hes all how can you defeat evil by that, but in turn they pity him as hes such a young, sad, violent man with his axe. his eyes start turning gold like elyas' and he starts to communicate with wolves like hopper and a bunch of them though he tries to deny it.

egwene dances with aram, one of the tinkers and perrins all wow what about rand and they eventually leave, though aram is restless for a tinker.

the leader asks elyas if hes found the song which is their formalities, elyas is all no we havent. the leader then tells him of a story he heard, of an aiel who crossed the waste and died, to tell them that leafblighter means to blind the eye of the world. then she died. they leave and then they then meet afoul of the whitecloaks who are fighting whatever and bornhold - danes father – and byar catches them. through the ordeal perrin kills two of the whitecloaks while hes being all half wolf in the battle and they take them in to be questioned.

nynaeve and moiraine/lan end up finding them, releasing them, the wolves assist, nynaeve gets left behind, lans all about to get her, moiraine reminds him of his oaths, nynaeve turns back up.

meanwhile rand/mat are at whitebridge and mats starting to get sick and suspicious. he had a dagger from shadar logoth. a mydraal finds them, thom hurtles his flute and harp at them, says to go, to leave. hes saving them because he once had a nephew who could channel and the red ajah gentled him, while thom was having an affair with the queen morgase of andor when he was a court bard and by the time he got to owen it was too late and hed not survived, which he always regretted and then because he left morgase the way he did she was pissed at him too. rand and mat run for it, rand sobbing that thom is dead.

they go from village to village to village, mat getting sicker and sicker, a young woman who ends up being a darkfriend tries to kill them, they escape. rand keeps thinking he sees padan fain the peddlar from home, whose actually a darkfriend.

moiraine tells nynaeve she has the power too, nynaeve has a mini breakdown. moiraine said it would have begun with a doing something she desperately needed then a few days later collapsing really ill and the illness disappearing quickly. nynaeve once said egwene had gotten sick as a child and shed healed her not knowing how, then gotten sick. moiraine says thats also how she found them to begin with, in the city, she could sense egwene.

rand and mat go to a poor inn, they try to rob them by locking them in the back. mats getting sick and even more paranoid. rand is terrified when he realises theyre going to sell them to a darkfriend and he prowls and prowls till the room theyre in explodes, the wall crumbling. rand doesnt know how but he thinks he did it himself. mat becomes blinded from it and starts sobbing.

they escape. on the run again. as mat is blind, rand takes care of him and mat in his illness is worried that rand will abandon him which rand would never do because mat is the LOVE OF HIS LIFE, rand ends up really sick, paralleling what moiraine said what happened to nynaeve.

they end up hitching a ride to caemlyn where they expect moiraine to find them, if shes still alive. the buggy driver talks about the queen. how elayne is the daughter heir and her brother is the first prince of the sword. its been tradition forever that the daughter heirs go to tar valon to train and the princes go be taught by warders. he mentioned tigraine who was the queen before morgaise, who disappeared mysteriously nearly twenty years ago, who left behind a son galad. morgaise married the husband and became queen and while she had elayne and gawyn, galad lives with them too, now the husband is dead. oh, also logain the false dragon is being presented to the queen as prisoner before the aes sedai take him to tar valon to gentle him.

they get to caemlyn, mats REALLY sick. rand leaves him at an inn, tries to go see the false dragon being brought in. he meets loial an ogier whose nice, whose like 90 but really young for an ogier to have left his stedding without permission. rand ends up thinking he sees paidan, but doesnt have a good feeling, tries to run off, falls into a castle garden. meets elayne the daughter heir who might actually be the most annoying character to exist, her brother gawyn. theyre like omg you look like an aiel. elayne then talks about gareth bryne the guard captain dude she ships hard with her mother. galad MY MOST PURE CHARACTER WHO I LOVE FUCK ELAYNE (not a spoiler, his name is of the most pure camelot round table knight) rocks up, is all, holy you broke into the palace. elayne whose a bitch is like how DARE YOU YOURE NOT MY BROTHERRRR and galads all we are siblings and my duty is to protect you and shes all you wont do anything with this rand ill invoke protection, then galad goes and tells the guards because theres literally a false dragon being brought in and tension is on the rise in caemlyn and hes taken to see morgase.

the red ajah elaida is freaked out by him, knows hes taveren, has a bit of a prophecy but it doesnt really mean much and morgaise is all look, we cant just arrest everyone, let him go.

he then races back to the inn, moiraine and everyones there, they all hug, then hes all like oh yeah mats sick btw. moiraine goes up and mats not just sick hes now tainted. she does the best she can but is all like he needs to get to tar valon to have the bond between him and the dagger properly severed. then moiraine meets loial who randomly talks about an event concerning the eye of the world. perrins all oh yeah thats like the dead aiel girl the tinkers spoke about. that changes the plans once moiraine realises the dark ones trying to get to the eye and shes like we cant get to tar valon yet we gotta leave now. they use the ways which loail knows how to use cuz ogier and male aes sedai made them together centuries before but now the ways are tainted.

theyre like the worlds between the worlds, can get to places quicker but it has the black wind thatll kill you. blah blah blah they use the ways, nearly die, but get to fal dara/shienar, which is sort of where lan is from. nynaeve confesses her love, lans all no i cannot, i cannot offer anything. it ends up that his parents had the throne but his ... there was scheming. His uncles wife wrecked everything, she escaped with her baby into the blight, lans cousin, nobodys seen or heard of them, moiraine suspects isam might be alive but GASP keeps it from lan. the seven towers crumbled, lan has a death wish, he believes hes the only one left so must die.

lord agelmar wishes lan would rise up the banner of the golden crane because everything about the blight is crumbling, lans like no, i have a new oath now with moiraine. lord ingtar is a fight me soldier who fanboys after lan. theres a battle going on in tarwins gap they desperately need help for, but lan says he cant. lord agelmar orders ingtar to accompany them to the blight and leave them cuz moiraines like we cant have anyone else come with us.

Paidan fain by this point has rocked up to shienar and tried to wheedle his way into the good graces of lord agelmar but hes all wtf you look like a creeper and throws him in a cell. Moiraines like I need to question him at some point.

moiraine then takes them into the blight to find the green man who can take them to the eye of the world. the green man rocks up, hes made of vines and flowers, takes them to the eye. two forsaken rock up. moiraine tries to fight, is knocked out, nynaeve and lan get knocked out, the boys run. the green man is destroyed by the forsaken. rand ends up destroying the forsaken, goes into the eye, channels the male source in there, realises he can channel, has a fight with the dark one - whose still bound under the seals, but rand believes he ended the dark one and its done. comes out, the others are recovering. brings out an old banner from the eye thats the dragons banner, broken seals from the dark ones prison, and the horn of valere. moiraine is all, we need to take these to tar valon. rands all, you do that, but im done with aes sedai, im not going to tar valon. im done. the dark ones dead and im going to do my own thing. he turns to egwene who backs away from him when he said he channeled, then she bursts into tears and hugs him and says shes sorry.

they return to shienar, fal dara, where there was a miracle in tarwins gap where they believed they saw the creator and that the light took on flesh - they saw an apparition of a man they didnt know as rand fighting the battle he fought. ingtars flipping his shit because he missed the battle while accompanying them, and then not even being able to accompany them the entire way. After all of his talking about going after a week rand is still there, finishing his sword practice with Lan in Agelmar's private garden and meets up with Egwene. He tells her that he will go away. Egwene asks him to come to Tar Valon with her and Nynaeve, itll totes be fun, I mean theres the red ajah and shit wholl attack him if they know but hey itll be fun, but Rand refuses. He says he'll never channel again. When she asks him if he'll be going home, he tells her that he'll never go home.

Moiraine is underneath Agelmar's private garden. She uses her blue teardrop thing she wears on her forehead to focus her eavesdropping on Rand and Egwene. Using it to eavesdrop was the first use of the One Power she had learned as a young girl in the royal palaces of Cairhieren.

Smiling, she says, "The Prophecies will be fulfilled. The Dragon is Reborn."

the end.

[emma-what-son]

(Echee post) Emma Watson gets drunk and scales a fence naked

Posted on March 20, 2014

In her new interview for Elle Emma admitted something that correlates a tweet from a witness from in July 2011 on location filming Perks of being a Wallflower From snitchseeker.com May 2014, "Among her exploits: She dated a costar Johnny Simmons, and she broke into a swimming pool at 3 A.M. "It was at a hotel," she reports happily. "It had a gate around it. My friends turned around and basically, I was gone. And the next thing they saw was me seven feet up in the air, scaling this fence." This, apparently, is not as out of character as we might suppose. Watson says coyly: "I shouldn’t be able to get away with what I’m getting away with." Here is the tweet from July 2011 and here is a POST I originally posted it in at the time "@_MarieChristine $*MarieChristine; Saw @EmWatson get so drunk that she got naked n climbed the fence to go into the swimming pool at my friend's hotel......http://twitter.com/#!/_MarieChristine." So it was true. I'm not posting the quotes here (I'll link the posts with them below) but to generalize this is a girl that claims to be shy and doesn’t like to party and doesn’t drink to have a good time because it makes her really sleepy and she’s just so boring she says and blah, blah blah. She sucks people in with these statements are herself that makes people like her. It's not just about drinking and getting drunk but everything. Nothing about her is genuine in any shape or form. She is a fraud.

In a recent interview for Wonderland Magazine Emma admitted like she always has which has been one big lie that she's boring and doesn't like being the center of attention.

So in her Wonderland magazine Emma says she shy, socially awkward and a introverted person. For some reason I don't believe her. There are certain things about her that leads me to believe she is not shy or the least bit introverted. The first part of this question asked her straight out as she ever wanted to go off the rails and get drunk and she talked about getting a tattoo but never fully answered that question. The follow up question which is split below in two parts was, "But you’re not as puritanical as that, Emma" So let's look at some thing 1.) From wonderlandmagazine.com Feb 2014, "The truth is that I’m genuinely a shy, socially awkward, introverted person." Posing half naked

For years Emma has said she was shy. From topcelebrityheadlines.com June 2011, "I’m shy." From zimbio.com May 2011, "It's really hard to have a love story for me. I'm a famous actress. And I'm shy." From digitalspy.com October 2010, "Actually, I'm quite shy. I've never liked attention." From iheartwatson.net June 2011 “I still feel shy, but I feel more like I can accept it.” Her come hither looks which I limited for space reasons. There are many and I left out new ones from the Noah premiere. This is not a trait of shy and introverted people.

I doubt a truly shy and introverted people are going to say they'll strip to gain approval for anything. From mtv.com November 2010 (NYC Deathly Hallows) When we caught up with Watson just before she ducked into the theater, we informed her that 90 percent of our viewers had given her wardrobe choice — a specially made Calvin Klein gown — an enthusiastic thumbs-up in an MTV News online poll "Awww, really? Wow, that's such a high percentage!" she exclaimed. "Wow, I aced it, obviously. That's great." While 90 percent is definitely a high number, what might she do in order to get the full 100 percent of viewers' approval? "I don't know, take it off?" she quipped. Then there is her modeling which doesn't strike me as someone that is shy or introverted.

So shy and introverted she can tell a radio host some guy thinks she looks good naked From nudography.com 2008 'Harry Potter' film actress Emma Watson has said she would do a nude scene in a future film or stage role if the script called for it. Watson got on the topic of getting naked on BBC's Live Five radio "I think it's wonderful that Daniel is willing to be so brave for his craft. It's a big risk doing something like this while being so internationally known, but he's a true professional". When asked if she would ever bare all for her art, Watson replied, "Yes, absolutely. I would do it if the script called for it. I guess I would be a little nervous, but I've been told I look good naked, so I guess I've got little to worry about". When Shaffer asked Watson who thinks she looks good naked, she playfully said, "Now, now! I won't say. But I trust his expert opinion." Then there is her attention seeking along with her sultry poses and outfits she sometimes wears. Below is a series of photos from the Cannes for TBR. Everyone is walking up the steps arm and arm but Emma stops to grab the spotlight. Once she takes the arm of a cast mate she can't stop turning around smiling, giggling and waving. Once she gets to the top she hooting and hollering and then blows a series of kisses as her cast mates walk inside. This is not someone that is shy and introverted.

Claiming she wished she did more naughty things is yet another example of what a shy and introverted person would not say. From harrypotterfan.net Nov 2010, "I wished I’d done more naughty things. Three months ago I cut my hair and at that moment I felt I became a woman. I’m ready to start taking risks. I feel less girlish than ever." ... cough ... cough... From emma-watson.net September 2013 (GQ awards), “Given the perilousness in the journey from child star to adult, any award with ‘Woman’ in the title is frankly a relief!” <---- thought she, "I’ve never been in a terrible rush to be seen as a woman.” Then there is the choices of some of her outfits. If you're shy and introverted you're not going to show some flesh and you're certainly not going to show some flesh on TV or at a strip club. The last thing you want to do is draw attention to yourself. You'd be more than happy to dress modestly. There are just a few and I limited them for space reason as well. I left out her recent plunging neckline outfit from the Noah premiere in Madrid and many others like her famed 2009 HBP premiere wardrobe malfunction outfit.

From Elle magazine April 2011 iheartwatson.net, "Does having short hair make you dress differently? ’I think it’s made me bolder in my fashion choices. It’s allowed me to dress more sexily.’” cough ... cough... From omg.yahoo.com W magazine May 2013, “I’ve never wanted to grow up too fast: I wanted to wear a sports bra until I was 22! The allure of being sexy never really held any excitement for me. I’ve never been in a terrible rush to be seen as a woman.” Never heard of a shy and introverted person want o dress more sexually because of a haircut. Then there is her constant blowing of kisses which she does a lot of which all the classic pin ups like Marilyn Monroe ands other used to do. I guess it has nothing to do with shyness but introverted people are not going to go around blowing kisses at people or into the camera.

Then there are moments like this. Who does this? Shy and introverted? I think not. This is begging for attention and just plain weird.

Blowing kisses, posing, giving that sultry look and just enjoying all the attention is not the trait of a shy and introverted person.

Now the only thing I believe her on is the socially awkward part.

Now to the second part of that quote 2.) "At a big party, I’m like Bambie in the headlights. It’s too much stimulation for me, which is why I end up going to the bathroom! I need time outs! You’ve seen me at parties, Derek. I get anxious. I’m terrible at small talk and I have a ridiculously short attention span." I doubt this is true. She loves to be the center of attention on red carpets. She loves the attention. So why would parties be any different? At Coachella (bottom left photo) she was moshing at some points on stage.

This video shows her dancing on stage but there is another I lost of a video shooting down from the stage over Emma's head and you can see she's in plain view of the thousands in attendance. When I find it I'll post it. Shy and introverted people that can't take all the stimulation like she says would not put themselves out there amongst strangers and onlookers. If so, what kind of shy and introverted person is that? To see her drunk/leaving clubs and to read her contradicting quotes about drinking click these links below Emma doesn't like to party Emma never goes clubbing Emma can drink like sailor Emma lied about not drinking at Brown So basically like so much I covered on this blog by exposing her BS this is yet another example One more thing and it's a quote I've posted many times but she keeps on changing her tune In this new interview I started this post off with she also said From snitchseeker.com May 2014, "I was being offered roles that I didn’t feel were very complicated," she says. "Women that were a bit one-dimensional. Roles that required me to be one thing. Real women never are." So, rather than embrace mediocre work, she hid out in Providence, Rhode Island, emerging only for projects that would both stretch her muscles and challenge her public persona." But yet she said something different during her time at Brown From aceshowbiz.com November 2010 She tells U.S. magazine Parade, "I get some amazing offers to act, and sometimes it's hard to say, 'No, I'm going to stay here and do my homework.' People are like, 'What do you mean she's not available?' This college experience is really important to me, and I won't give it up." And yet it was not about roles at all two years ago. It was about her studying From nytimes.com September 2012, “Why hasn’t she done more films before now? “I think at first I didn’t because I was always either studying or filming, I didn’t have time to go off and do other films or other things to sort of show people that, Oh, she is not just Hermione, she is an actress and she can go and do these other parts and roles." So which is the truth and which is the lie?  So Sam in Perks and Nicki in TBR were complicated roles that she ended up leaving two Universities for? How about her small role in MWWM that took her a little over a week to film?

[elytrafemme]

SO EMBARASSIN

AKSKWLA THE WAY SHE WAS SO CASUAL AND KNEW THE WEBSITE HELP I WOUPDVE JUMPED SO FAR FROM MY SEAT

IT DOES SUCK BLEH!! but it’s alright. yeah it’s the same here, i was talking to one of my online friends but like we live in the same region so i assumed our breaks wud be in sync and i was v confused when it wasn’t. christmas break is usually 2 or 3 weeks i think? so feels like enough time :D tests come after break tho bleh

YEAHH ZIE LECTURE!!!1! yeah no yeah that’s fair me too, i have these bouts where i’m silent for like 6 hours and then i enter a call and everything just. spills. and i’m like constantly going “blah blah blah– are u listening?” “yes” “r u lying?” “no” “okay, blah blah blah—“

i also sometimes do this thing where i go “blah blah blah– wait. i don’t want to talk anymore” and i just stop and it’s a little funny. also sobs i have no idea how writing styles work holy fuck

i like psychology but sometimes it feels too smart for me to understand so i play it in the background and go “wow i totally understand their motive (lies)”. holy fuck i had to a fur trade presentation and it was a PARTNER PROJECT TOO rrrr it was annoying but it was last year so i’m over it smile

IDK HOW SHE KNEW IT LIKE. SHAKES HER SHOULDERS. WHY DO U KNOW AO3. she's in her genshin kick now so she's probably been on the site semi recently but that's strictly some theorizing.

my friend from turkey seemed very confused at the prospect that i had a fall break yesterday which reminds me i should probably text him and ask what his questions were about it. it's also been just complete hell trying to coordinate with my sibling in another state right now at college HAHA

KJFDHJKFSD FAIRS!!! ABSOLUTELY FAIR

for the record i'm not really that knowledgeable in writing styles either, i just have put some thought independently (as in i haven't thoroughly researched into it but have put a pin in that topic for later, though i have picked up some knowledge from the writing camp i went to last summer) in how different mediums and approaches to writing can really aid the story. like i think you can grasp a lot out of a character just by how the prose of them is written-- even the small technical pieces can draw the perspective closer or further from the protagonist (and in some cases it is definitely better to be further from the main POV for narrative reasoning but you get what i mean). and also like some stories use certain formatting (such as letters, entries, strictly dialogue, no dialogue, etc.) which can ALSO do wonders so like. things like that. i think there are a lot of things in stories that are purposeful even if they don't even occur to the author initially but they later look more into it. i just think it's a really neat thing in like any overall medium, be it like a story or a video game (GOD video games do this SO WELL) or even movies, though admittedly i'm a little less well versed in actual film analysis and with films i'm moreso just interested in like lighting/shots/music and how things like that play into the actual theme itself? like i was really obsessed with that when i was learning about macbeth and watching scenes from the movie because the differences in lighting could convey SO MUCH even if it was just 'done for aesthetics' like it really tied into different things, but all in all i'm not super great with films.

in hindsight it appears we've unlocked a topic that i could do a presentation on. Oops.

anyway NO THATS FAIR i say that i know a lot about psychology but i. Really Don't. and im glad that this was last year i was a little worried this was a current presentaion u had i was gonna feel. so incredibly sorry for u JHFDHJDF

[jadelotusflower]

November Roundup

Some writing success this month - I finished and posted a new chapter for Against the Dying of the Light, and made progress on The Lady of the Lake and Turn Your Face to the Sun. I didn’t work much on my novel, but I did do some editing on the first third so that’s progress.

Words written this month: 6647

Total this year: 67,514

November books

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo - joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize (with The Testaments by Margaret Atwood) this was an engrossing and interesting read. Stylistically unusual formatting and scant use of punctuation that is a bit jarring at first, but you quickly adapt as you read. There’s no plot as such - instead the story is formed by vignettes of twelve black women and their disparate yet interconnected lives. We have mothers and daughters, close friends, teachers and students, although the connections aren’t always obvious at first - we can be exposed to a character briefly in the story of another with no idea that she will be a focus later on. It’s very skillfully done, to the point whereupon finishing I wanted immediately to re-read (but alas, it was already overdue back to the library). There is so much ground covered that we are really only given a glimpse into the characters lives, but there is a diversity of intergenerational perspectives of the African diaspora in the UK, and I highly recommend.

The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett - after finishing The Pillars of the Earth I had intended to read the sequel, but this was available on the library shelf and I had to place a hold on World Without End, so the prequel came first. Set sixty years before the Conquest (150 before Pillars) it primarily addresses the growth of the hamlet of Dreng’s Ferry into the town of Kingsbridge, through the lives of a monk with a strong moral code, a clever and beautiful noblewoman, and a skilled builder, working against the machinations of an evil bishop. Sound familiar? This is Follet’s most recent work, and I do wonder if he’s running out of ideas as this covers very similar thematic ground.

Ragna is a compelling female character, but once again the romance-that-cannot-be with Edgar is tepid, Aldred is a very watered down version of Prior Philip, and there’s no grand framing device such as building the cathedral to really tie to all together (although things do Get Built, and it’s interesting but not on the level of Pillars). This is the tail end of the Dark Ages and it shows - Viking raids, slavery, infanticide - and while it seems Follett’s style is to put his characters through much tragedy and tribulation before their happy ending, I wish writers would stop going to the rape well so readily. But at least the sexual violence isn’t as...lasciviously written as in Pillars? Scant praise, I know. But Follett’s strength in drawing the reader into the world and time period is on display, made even more interesting in this era about which we know very little.

Women and Leadership by Julia Gillard and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala - I have a great deal of respect for Julia Gillard, Australia’s first female Prime Minister who was treated utterly shamefully during her tenure and never got the credit she deserved, perhaps excepting the reaction to her iconic “misogny speech” whichyou can enjoy in full here:

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was the first woman to be Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs in Nigeria, was also the former Managing Director of the World Bank, and currently a candidate for Director-General of the WTO.

This is an interesting examination of women in leadership roles, comparing and contrasting the lives and experiences of a select few including (those I found the most interesting) Ellen Sirleaf, the first female President of Liberia, Joyce Banda, the first female President of Malawi, New Zealand’s current Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and of course, Gillard and Okonjo-Iweala themselves.

November shows/movies

The Vow and Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult - I’ve been following the NXIVM case for a while now, when the news broke in 2017 I was surprised and intrigued that it involved actresses from some of my fandom interests - Alison Mack (Smallville), Grace Park and Nikki Clyne (Battlestar Galactica), and Bonnie Piasse (Star Wars). Uncovered: Escaping NXIVM is an excellent podcast from that point in time that’s well worth a listen. There’s been a lot of discussion comparing these two documentaries and which one is better, but I feel they’re both worthwhile.

The Vow gives a primer of NXIVM as a predatory “self improvement” pyramid scheme/cult run by human garbage Keith Reniere, from the perspective of former members turned whistleblowers Bonnie Piasse, who first suspected things were wrong, her husband Mark Vicente who was high up in the organisation, and Sarah Edmondson who was a member of DOS, the secret group within NXIVM that involved branding and sex trafficking. Seduced gives more insight into the depravity and criminality of DOS from the pov of India Oxenburg, just 19 when she joined the group and who became Alison Mack’s “slave” in DOS - she was required to give monthly “collateral” in the form of explicit photographs or incriminating information about herself or her family, had to ask Mack’s permission before eating anything (only 500 calories allowed per day), was ordered to have sex with Reniere, and other horrific treatment - Mack herself was slave to Reniere (as was Nikki Clyne) and there were even more horrific crimes including rape and imprisonments of underage girls.

Of course each show has an interest in portraying its subjects as less culpable than perhaps they were (there were people above and below them all in the pyramid after all) - Vicente and Edmondson in The Vow and Oxenburg in Seduced, but what I did appreciate about Seduced was the multiple experts to explain how and why people were indoctrinated into this cult, and why it was so difficult to break free from it. This is a story of victims who were also victimisers and all the complications that come along with that, although I’m not sure any of these people are in the place yet to really reckon with what happened and all need a lot of therapy.

Focusing on individual journeys also narrows the scope - there are other NXIVM members interviewed I would have liked to have heard a lot more from. There is also a lot of jumping back and forth in time in both docos so the timeline is never quite clear unless you do further research. I would actually like to see another documentary one day a bit further removed from events dealing with the whole thing from start to finish from a neutral perspective. The good news is that Reniere was recently sentenced to 120 years in prison so he can rot.

I saw value in both, but you’re only going to watch one of these, I would say go for Seduced - if you’re interested in as much information as possible, watch The Vow first to get a primer on all the main players and then Seduced for the full(er) story.

The Crown (season 4) - While I love absolutely everything Olivia Coleman does, I thought it took a while for her to settle in as the Queen last season and it’s almost sad that she really nailed it this season, just in time for the next cast changeover (but I also love everything Imelda Staunton does so...) This may be an unpopular opinion, but I wasn’t completely sold on Gillian Anderson as Thatcher - yes I know she sounded somewhat Like That, but for me the performance was a little too...affected? (and someone get her a cough drop, please!) 

It is also an almost sympathetic portrayal of Thatcher - even though it does demonstrate her classism and internalised misogyny, it doesn’t really explore the full impact of Thatcherism, why she was such a polarising figure to the extent that some would react like this to her death:

But I suppose it’s called The Crown, not The PM.

Emma Corrin is wonderful as Diana, and boy do they take no prisoners with Charles (or the other male spawn). I was actually surprised at how terrible they made Charles seem rather than both sidesing it as I had expected (but perhaps that’s being saved for season 5). It does hammer home just how young Diana was when they were married (19 to Charles’ 32), how incompatible they were and the toxicity of their marriage (standard disclaimer yes it’s all fictionalised blah blah). The performances are exceptional across the board - Tobias Menzies and Josh O’Conner were also standouts and it’s a shame to see them go.

I was however disappointed to see that the episode covering Charles and Di’s tour of Australia was not only called “Terra Nullius” but the term was used as a very tone deaf metephor that modern Australia was no longer “nobody’s land/country”. For those who aren’t aware, terra nullius was the disgraceful legal justification for British invasion/colonisation of Australia despite the fact that the Indigenous people had inhabited the continent for 50,000 years or more. While the tour was pre-Mabo (the decision that overturned the doctrine of terra nullius and acknowledged native title), there was no need to use this to make the point, especially when there was no mention at all of the true meaning/implication of the term.

The Spanish Princess (season 2, episodes 4-8)- Sigh. I guess I’m more annoyed at the squandered potential of this show, since the purpose ostensibly was to focus on the time before The Great Matter and give Katherine “her due” - and instead they went and made her the most unsympathetic, unlikeable character in the whole damn show. (Spoilers) She literally rips Bessie Blount’s baby from her body and, heedless to a mother’s pleas to hold her child, runs off to Henry so she can present him with “a son”. I mean, what the actual fuck?

I’m not a stickler for historical accuracy so long as it’s accurate to the spirit of history (The Tudors had its flaws, but it threaded this needle most of the time), but this Katherine isn’t even a shadow of her historical figure - she’s not a troubled heroine, she’s cruel and vindictive, Margaret Pole is a sanctimonious prig, and Margaret Tudor does little but sneer and shout - the only one who comes out unscathed is Mary Tudor (the elder), and it’s only because she’s barely in it at all. It’s a shame because I like all of these actresses (especially Georgie Henley and Laura Carmichael) but they are just given dreck to work with.

This is not an issue with flawed characters, it’s the bizarre presentation of these characters that seems to want to be girl power rah rah, and yet at the same time feels utterly misogynistic by pitting the women against each other or making them spiteful, stupid, or crazy for The Drama. I realise this is based on Gregory so par for the course, but it feels particularly egregious here. (Spoilers) At one point Margaret Pole is banished from court by Henry, and because Katherine won’t help her (because she cant!) she decides to spill the beans about Katherine’s non-virginity. Yes, her revenge against the hated Tudors is...to give Henry exactly what he wants? Even though it will result in young Mary, who she loves and cares for, being disinherited? Girlboss!

This season also missed the opportunity to build on its predecessors The White Queen/Princess and show why it was so important to Henry to have a male heir - the Tudor reign wasn’t built on the firmest foundations and so needed uncontested transfer of power, at the time there was historic precedent that passing the throne to a daughter led to Anarchy, and wars of succession were very recent in everyone’s memory. At least no one was bleating about The Curse this time, which is actually kind of surprising, because the point of the stupid curse is the Tudor dynasty drama.

But it’s not all terrible. Lina and Oviedo are the best part of the show, and (spoilers) thankfully make it out alive. Both are a delight to watch and I wish the show had been just about them.

Oh well. One day maybe we’ll get the Katherine of Aragon show we deserve - at least I can say that the costumes were pretty, small consolation though it is.

[branwyn-says]

i just want to tell you that while i haven't read new sherlock fic in literal years and have no interest going back to that fandom or browsing the ao3 tag ever again, compatible damage is so important to me that i reread it regularly and if i ever got an e-mail notification saying you updated it, i'd drop everything immediately and check it out. this isn't meant to be a shitty please update ask though, i just want to say that i have a lot of feelings about that au and i appreciate your writing!!

You’re wonderful. I feel the same way about Sherlock fandom but sometimes I wish I could get back into that headspace just so I could finish The Silences, Here is how that story was going to go, if anyone cares: --The premise of the story was that it would mash up the basic plot of the Arthur Conan Doyle story The Abbey Grange (Holmes decides to let a naval officer off the hook for killing his friend’s abusive husband) and the Holmes backstory from The Adventure of the Gloria Scott (Holmes’ bff at college was a guy named Victor Trevor whose dog bit him on the ankle). --The same early 20th Sherlock Holmes pro fic (the Baring Gould book) that gave us William Sherlock Scott Holmes as his full name speculates that Mrs Hudson came into Holmes’s life via the Australian criminal named Hudson who blackmailed Victor Trevor’s father. --In my fic, “The Silences”, Victor Trevor and Mrs. Hudson have a close bond, because she was around his family when Victor was a kid and when her husband died it was good for both of them. He was abusive and Victor saw the ugliness and pain of all of that first hand. 

--Years later, after going into Ambiguous Spy Work following a naval career, Victor finds out that an old friend, Mary Foster, is now trying to escape an abusive marriage. He tries to help Mary get out, but when her husband finds out, Victor kills him, and the case is unsolvable by the police because Victor is MI6 and just that good. --...Yeah I am just now realizing that the plot of this story is basically John Reese’s back story from Person of Interest which explains a whole lot now I think about it. --Anyway, in the period between “I have to get Mary to safety” and “oops never mind, the abusive jackass is dead”, Victor writes to Mrs Hudson: “Do you happen to know if Sherlock is still alive because I would like to discuss A Situation with him.” Mrs Hudson gives Sherlock that letter, prompting Sherlock to reach out to Victor. --Victor has already committed the murder he wanted Sherlock’s help to avoid having to commit, so...he acts real cagey. But he’s a spy so, that tracks, and Sherlock is not that suspicious at first. --But Lestrade has been tasked to solve the murder of Sir Eustace Brackenstall because blah blah important dude unsolvable case, so he attempts to get Sherlock and Joanna in on it. Joanna is down. Sherlock is, “No, my one purpose in life is to tend to Joanna’s medical needs until she is fully recovered.” Joanna: Getting you out of the flat is a medical need that I have. On account of, you are suffocating me. Sherlock: That’s just the opiates I drugged you with talking. --This story was always meant to be the culmination of the <a href=“https://archiveofourown.org/series/13134”>Compatible Damage series</a> theme of “Joanna Watson has expert knowledge of how trauma and domestic violence cause people to behave in irrational ways that baffle Sherlock’s deductive logic” --Because Joanna is recovering from the serious injuries sustained in <a href=“https://archiveofourown.org/works/294574”>Let Sense Be Dumb</a>, she spends a lot of time chatting with Mrs. Hudson while Sherlock is investigating for Lestrade and getting reacquainted with Victor. Mrs. Hudson talks a little about her awful marriage (this was all plotted out long before there was any Mrs. Hudson back story in BBC canon) and thus, Joanna is very In That Headspace where she’s having trouble with the concept that healthy relationships can exist, especially heterosexual ones. (I am not sure if I ever made it clear but Sherlock and Joanna are both biromantic and slightly ace spectrum in my stories.) --Things are very tentative between Sherlock and Joanna. They’re both aware that they want intimacy with each other, of some kind, that they love each other, to the extent they understand what that means, but how the hell do they proceed? Joanna’s in bad shape, Sherlock is constantly anxious and overprotective and slightly smothering in his nursing duties, and is also terrible at nursing. Joanna is just tired of Other People and sometimes, Sherlock Specifically. --Mrs Hudson offers to cook a big dinner so they can have a small party and invite Victor and his new fiancee Mary over! This will end well. Actually, it goes great, and Victor is over the moon to meet Joanna and they bond over Sherlock’s baby pictures so to speak, and then Sherlock takes Victor aside for...idk, something, and Joanna and Mrs. Hudson and Mary all have an after dinner tipple and a chat... --...and by the time Victor and Mary are getting into a cab, Joanna knows for A Damn Fact that Mary’s previous relationship was abusive, and that Victor was trying way too hard to charm everyone. She doesn’t say anything to Sherlock because...it’s a friend! A Sherlock friend! She isn’t going to fuck that up! Please get Sherlock out of the flat, Victor, Joanna needs some space! But boy that was some suspicious body language and protective behavior she saw. --Lestrade is coming over a bunch, because he and Joanna are bros, and Sherlock is Unavailable For Detective Work Because Joanna is Hurt, so Lestrade gets Joanna to help him think shit over. So that’s how Joanna finds out that Mary Foster was Lady Brackenstall, until recently. 

--From the outside, there is no evidence of abuse in the Brackenstall’s marriage. Lestrade isn’t even looking at the wife as a suspect or a motive. The “gang of thieves in the area” thing from ACD canon is still his best lead.  --In the ACD story, Holmes stages a mock trial where he exonerates the naval officer, acting as judge, with Watson as the jury. He’s cleared and sent on his way to marry Mary and start a new life. Watson is not thrilled that Holmes is “taking the law into his own hands”, but as Holmes says, furiously, “I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies.”  --In this story, that decision is going to fall on Joanna. She is the only one who has figured out, or can figure out, that a) the murdered dude was beating his wife and that b) his wife had a close friend who was dangerous as hell and would do anything to keep her safe. Unless she makes that link for Lestrade, the case will just go unsolved. --And the thing is, she doesn’t even feel completely certain that Victor did the killing. The timing of the murder is off, for one. He would have had to show up at the Abbey Grange house and shoot Sir Eustace more less within an hour of getting back to England. It’s a really narrow time window, and it only creates a bare sliver of possibility, and she really wants to ignore it. --Except, then she and Sherlock have a moment. Joanna tells him that Mary’s husband was abusive, without drawing the connection to Lestrade’s murder investigation. Sherlock doesn’t put the pieces together until the next time he’s with Victor and Mary together. He thinks about what Joanna told him, and he sees how tender and protective Victor is toward Mary. It gives Sherlock a nasty turn, because 1) That is how he looks at Joanna, so does that mean that he and Joanna are supposed to be a couple like Victor and Mary are? and 2) He knows how he feels about the various people who have hurt Joanna, which is to say he wants very much to Kill Them All, and if Joanna got married to another person, and that person trapped her in the house and hurt her on a regular basis, then Sherlock would... well Sherlock would do what Victor undoubtedly did, and kill the fucker. --The resolution, as far as I had it planned out, was that Joanna confronts Mary (instead of Holmes confronting Captain Croker, as in the ACD story), Mary admits it, Joanna feels satisfied that the actual killing really was unavoidable self defense. She feels bad keeping it from Lestrade, but Mary and Victor are planning to leave the country and not return. So Joanna lets them go. --And then she tells Sherlock what happened, and what she did, and is prepared for it to be a Thing, except then Sherlock admits he made the same deduction at practically the same moment, and explains how he came to the conclusion, and they agree that after Victor gives them an all clear, they’ll give Lestrade enough information to close the case.

--And then Sherlock and Joanna awkwardly face down their big big emotions and it’s painful and weird but they smooch, and are a couple, and that is the end of the series.

[shardminds]

it’s yours, it’s mine (CSJJ DAY 11)

pairing: emma swan/killian jones rating: g but maybe t wc: 3276

Sometimes, Emma loves Killian Jones— well, all of the time, really. ‘Til death do us part and all that. Sometimes, however, in situations like these, as Whale pulls the thick glass shard from her palm, she really wishes he’d shut up.

He won’t. He never does.

if i’ve done my job correctly, this little number will warm up your january morning with a little bit of fluff and banter between our favourite star crossed couple! shout out to the @csjanuaryjoy​ team and discord server for all being such diamonds and a big back-breaking hug to my girl @thisonesatellite​ who's tenacity, support and mad beta skills encouraged me to polish this off, even when i was mostly dead (but still slightly alive).

tagging @itsfabianadocarmo​, @teamhook​, @kmomof4​, @superchocovian​, @darkcolinodonorgasm​, @artistic-writer​ (if you wanna be added to the list just shout up!) 

available on ao3 ♠

it’s yours, it’s mine

“Breathe through it, love. It’s just a routine extraction.”

Sometimes, Emma loves Killian Jones— well, all of the time, really. ‘Til death do us part and all that. Sometimes, however, in situations like these, as Whale pulls the thick glass shard from her palm, she really wishes he’d shut up.

He won’t. He never does.

Modern medicine fascinates him, in practicality and in fiction. It’s her fault really, showing him early on the wonders of Netflix. Storybrooke really isn’t as action-packed as it once was, leaving her plenty of time to hook (ha!) her husband on hospital dramas. They’re currently six seasons into a Scrubs marathon but his favourite is, by far, House. That Cameron lass looks an awful lot like you, love He says, every time she questions him on it. It’s gonna blow his tiny mind when he finds the sexy doctor outfit she has tucked away in her underwear drawer, complete with stethoscope and clipboard.

A slick squelch and nauseating drag as Whale slides the glass from where it embedded itself in her hand snaps her from her thoughts, drawing out a hiss she can’t bite back. It’ll leave a nasty scar, that much she knows.

“Fuck!”

“You did a real number on yourself, Emma, but the worst part is over.” Pressing an antiseptic gauze pad over the wound, Whale offers her a wink. Despite the land being free of curses and peace all around blah blah blah, he still manages to catch her last nerve with his cocky demeanour, pressing down on the now stained gauze with some force. It stings like a bitch.

“I’m pretty sure the worst is yet to come, Doctor.” Killian chimes in, leaning over to see the tools laid out on the sterile tray resting on Emma’s bedside table. She had protested the bed, claiming she could take the stitches standing or sitting or anything but laying down. The nurse looked as if she was ready to wrestle her down if she refused. The bed had been the lesser of two evils. “What type of stitch will you be using?”

“Killian—” She starts but isn’t able to argue with the fascination in his eyes. He’d seen hospitals before, of course, been on the receiving end of their services on more than one occasion, but he never held the same kind of enthusiasm then as he does now, watching as Whale inspects the gash on her hand.

“Actually, Captain Jones, your wife is lucky. I think it’s just shallow enough that a few steristrips should do the trick.”

“Thank God.” Emma mutters under her breath, not missing how Killian gives her non-injured hand a reassuring squeeze.

Whale applies the strips with practised ease, allowing each one to gently seal the edges of the wound closed. There’s a tension where the adhesive tugs at her skin on either side of the gash, uncomfortable but not unbearable. She’s dealt with worse.

It takes eight strips in total, each one taking less than a minute to apply. Whale talks through it, trying to distract from each uncomfortable twinge but it’s all background noise. Emma lets herself zone out, focusing only on the slow drag of Killian’s thumb across her knuckles.

Emma rolls her eyes at Whale and his insistence that she take it easy. “Take a few days off, Sheriff. Doctors orders.”

“Oh please,” She scoffs, flexing her palm and feeling the discomfort as she does so. Not that Whale needs to see that. Killian smirks, pressing a kiss to her cheek as the doctor calls him over. “I could use magic to heal this in a heartbeat if I wanted to.”

“Is that so?” He hands over a bottle of painkillers to Killian, nothing fancy, and a few extra dressings for the wound. Killian tucks them in his pocket, taking a look at the chart at the end of her bed. He’d look good in a lab coat, hair pushed back, glasses, using his authoritative voice to order two week’s bed rest… wow, now she’s the one with a fantasy.

“Then why don’t you?” Whale teases, one eyebrow raised. His hair is lighter than it had been when they’d first met. Someone had clearly discovered peroxide in the land without magic. It’s stupid. He’s stupid. The childish retort sticks in her throat.

“Someone’s got to check everything’s up to standard here, mate.” With a wink, Killian pats the doctor on the shoulder, the brace of his hook catching his shoulder blade with a dull thud. Whale winces away from it. He drops the subject of Emma’s magic and returns, grumbling, to disposing of the bloodstained gauze into the fluorescent biohazard waste bin.

Their whole trip to Storybrooke General had taken less than half an hour but, as Killian drives them home—a recent development, having only just gained his permit after years of pestering from David—exhaustion rolls over her in waves, encouraging her eyelids to flutter shut. She reaches her hand for his thigh, resting it there just to feel warmth beneath her palms. The heat in the damn car still doesn’t work, despite David’s attempts to fix it throughout fall. By October, he’d given up. She really needs to find a better mechanic.

“You okay, love?”

“Yeah, just cold.”

“We’ll be home soon.” He reassures, taking his good hand from the wheel to stroke hers atop his thigh, softly caressing her wedding band. “I’ll sweep up all the glass and you can curl up on the couch. We can watch Pride and Prejudice again if you’d like?”

In their time living together, without the pressure of being the saviour or magical prophecies or bad guys, he’d come to know her so well. Truthfully, she hadn’t expected him to adapt as easily as he did—she’d half expected him to miss the adventure and danger—but Killian had taken to domesticity like a duck to water, revelling in life’s simple things like electric blankets, text messaging and two for one offers on Ben and Jerry’s. She couldn’t be more thankful for her husband. She tried to show him whenever she could. With words, kisses and more.

“1995 or 2005?”

“Do you take me for a fool?” The smirk across his lips is the one she fell in love with. She would recognise it anywhere. “2005, of course.”

“Right answer.” She hums, content, letting her eyes slip shut for the rest of the ride.

//

The painful throbbing spikes in her palm, radiating through her wrist and falling short just shy of her elbow. It’s almost agony and the grunt it drags from her has Killian peering over her in seconds, a concerned furrow in his brow. Falling asleep in his lap, arguably, had seemed like a good idea at the time, with her brief nap on the ride home doing nothing to sate her tired yes. Now? Not so much. There’s a crick in her neck and a throb in her spine and her toes are cold from where the blanket hadn’t quite covered them.

“Painkillers wearing off, love?” He strokes the stray hairs from her forehead with the point of his hook, careful not to drag the tip against her skin. Anyone else would’ve questioned using his hook in such a manner, but she’d become accustomed to the addition in all aspects of their life—even the intimate ones—and, above all else, she trusts him. Killian’s been wielding the appendage for longer than she’s been alive, after all. It’s a part of him as much as she is.

“I didn’t—”

“You didn’t take any, did you.”

She shrugs.

He sighs, exasperated. “Emma—”

“I know, I know.” She leans up to kiss the frown from his lips, ignoring the protest from her aching back. This must be what ageing feels like. “I figured I’ll survive without them.”

“You’ll survive, aye, but you’ll be a misery arse the entire time.” He’s right, of course, Emma can already feel the irritability creeping in with each pulse of her hand. Why does he always have to be right? He smirks, meeting her with another soft kiss. “You’re pouting, love.”

“You’re annoying.”

“And you’re stuck with me.” He reaches over to the coffee table, bringing back the abandoned bottle of painkillers and a half-full glass of water precariously balanced in one hand. “‘In sickness and in health.”

Emma’s heart stutters, fluttering in her chest as Killian offers them to her.

Years ago, they’d promised no walls, no secrets. Then they’d promised forever.

Her walls are all but rubble now, he’d torn down each one with ease; each adventure, each endeavour, each loss and return, solidifying his place in her heart.

Their wedding day, despite the circumstances surrounding it, still stands true as one of—if not the—best day of her life. They’re working slowly on forever.

Well, maybe not as slowly as Emma had originally thought.

She’d done pretty well on the whole ‘No Secrets’ thing, for the most part, only vetoing the rule come birthdays and Christmas and the occasional anniversary, just to keep things exciting. Over their years together, the need for secrets dissipated the closer they got.

Until last week, sat on the floor of her mother’s bathroom with the fate of their future clutched in her fist.

The five-minute wait had been agonising. Mary Margaret paced, talking a mile a minute about nothing in particular as Emma clutched her knees tight to her chest, memories of the first time she’d done this flooding back. Back then she’d been trapped, alone and afraid.

Two thin blue lines.

She took three more tests, just to be sure.

Identical results.

The tears that came this time around weren’t ones of fear or trepidation, but happiness. A second chance.

Emma hadn’t been ready for a child the first time—pregnant too young in a situation too fucked up—but now, surrounded by love and trust and support, maybe she is.

Dark hair, blue eyes—or maybe green eyes, her cheeks, his smile—

“Swan? Anyone in there?” As quickly as it formed, the vision is gone, replaced with her husband’s soft smile. God, she hopes she has his smile. She? He? They? Does it matter? Emma shakes the thought away, pushing herself up on her good hand and tucking her legs beneath her. Her back doesn’t scream in protest which is a good sign.

“I was just thinking.” She shrugs, letting herself lean against his arm.

He rests his head atop hers, pressing a quick kiss to her crown. “That’s dangerous.”

“Shut up.”

“Sorry, go on.” He chuckles, warm and deep, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and letting his fingers caress the exposed skin between the strap of her vest and the edge of the blanket. At some point, he’d put the pill bottle and water back on the table, most likely when she was thinking of—

“There’s a reason why I haven’t used magic to heal my hand and why I haven't taken anything for the pain.”

He nods, the movement of it ruffling her hair slightly. “I figured as much.”

"It's just that it's a lot to take in and I wanted to think of some big extravagant way to tell you because I know you'd have done the same for me, so I planned out a nice evening; home-cooked italian food, a couple pints of ice cream and your favourite rum, which is why I was elbow deep in the glass cupboard trying to find the tumbler Henry had engraved for you before he left, you know, the 'world's best dad' one. I found it but I slipped and— yeah, you know the rest."

Silence rests between them for three heartbeats as she allows it to sink in, half confession, half explosion. She doesn't want to be the one to break it.

"Can I ask," He starts, voice husky and quiet. Emma turns to face him, taking in his features as he calculates what it is she's saying. "Why you'd need that particular glass, love?"

She smiles, letting the warmth of it radiate through her, pain in her palm almost forgotten. "Isn't it obvious?"

His eyes, hopeful and oh so blue, sparkle in the low light. Every time she looks, she finds so much love there, enough to fill them both so completely and she hopes so much that he sees the same in hers. Starting a family is something they’d talked of in passing; hushed conversations, wrapped in the warmth of each other, neither one wanting to surface back to reality as they discuss the fantasies of the future, both frivolous and not. It’s not something they’d actively pursued, but sometimes these things happen.

Accidents happen.

Maybe even happy ones.

"I'm pregnant."

It takes a few seconds for him to respond, the only indication that he hasn’t completely frozen is in the widening of his eyes and the lingering patterns his fingers draw on her shoulder — they slow, pressure barely there at all, but never stop.

“Are you certain? I thought— your protective pill?”

“I know, I was surprised too. I’m sure though.”

Emma hadn’t even noticed her hand sinking down to her stomach, resting over the place she would soon swell, until Killian placed his own hand atop hers. There are tears in his eyes, darkening his lashes as he tries to blink them away, and they’re soon mirrored in her own. God, she loves him. This man, who’d come into her life on the back of a hurricane, broken and hell-bent on revenge, had become part of her world and more, tearing down his own walls along with hers until they were nothing more than two bare souls, open and honest and joined by a love they’d both thought impossible. Who would’ve seen it coming?

(Mary Margaret says she knew right from the beanstalk. Emma always refutes it but, then again, her mother does have some kind of sixth sense when it comes to true love.)

“We’re having a baby?” His voice catches on the word, so impossibly full of love that her heart almost bursts. He’s not looking at her, only focused on where their hands are joined. She can see the thoughts running through his head, clear as day. Baby. Babybabybaby.

“We’re having a baby, Killian.”

“We’re having a baby.”

“Yeah.”

The smile that breaks out across his face seconds before he lunges for a kiss is one of pure elation, relief and joy and delight all at once, and it meets her lips in a ferocious kiss, not the gentle press she’d been expecting. Before rational thought can stop her, she’s straddling his thighs, injured hand resting on his shoulder as his hook caresses the length of her spine. Every time she breaks for air, takes a second just to register the response she’s getting, he looks at her with such adoration. Praises on his lips, promise in his eyes.

She hadn’t expected it to go this way but, then again, she hadn’t expected to spend almost an hour in the hospital awaiting a glass extraction after her original plan had gone awry.

Killian’s tongue in her mouth more than makes up for it.

“Wait,” He pauses, laughing as Emma chases his lips for another kiss. Instead, he offers her his cheek. She pouts, sitting back and wincing at the throb in her hand as she grips his shoulder with her injured one. Gently, he removes it from his shoulder, turning it over to look upon the bandage. The telltale inkblot of red casts a shadow on the dressing, she’d probably tugged it at some point, causing one of Whale’s magic strips to tear. Killian presses a kiss to her palm. “I’ve watched enough of your hospital dramas to understand the reluctance to take your prescription while in such a delicate state but why not indulge in magic?”

In the past few days, between finding out and confessing, Emma spent a lot of time worrying about the magical side of things. Despite Mary Margaret’s comforting and reassurance that everything would be okay, magic or no magic, the weight of her gift sat like lead in her stomach. If Zelena hadn’t skipped town for the Enchanted Forest with Robin all those months ago, Emma would’ve bombarded her with questions. Her next option, Regina, was either too busy to answer the phone or ignoring her calls, burying herself in work after Henry’s departure. Emma never felt like leaving a message. Pregnancy announcements are probably best not left as a voicemail.

She’d tried the library without much luck, only managing to find a few dog-eared copies of What To Expect When You’re Expecting and one horrifically detailed article on birthing techniques from Agrabah. She didn’t want to let slip to Belle either, not before Killian knew.

Emma had shouldered the weight of her doubts, abstaining from magic altogether. It’s honestly surprising that Killian hadn’t noticed sooner.

“I know how it sounds but I just— I don’t know how, or even if, it’ll affect the baby.” The admission comes with a wave of guilt, simmering just slightly below the surface. The first time she’d done this, there had been no one to tell, no one to turn to for comfort, nothing but the four walls and cot in her cell. Killian’s hand and hook, caressing her injured palm, pull her back from the edge of that thought. She’s not that girl anymore. She is no longer lost.

He is her true north.

“No one can blame you for being cautious, love,” He smiles and it makes every part of her ache to kiss him again. She doesn’t, instead, letting her free hand tuck his hair behind his ears. She wonders, with a soft smile, if the way he leans into her touch is intentional or instinctive. “But Henry turned out fine. Better than fine, in fact. Henry’s fantastic. Though your magic was dormant then, it was still there. Just like it’s there now, protecting our little one.”

“Do you really think so?”

Nothing settles her as much as Killian’s knowing smile does. He nods, certain.

“Aye, love.”

Any qualms she’d had about this earlier drain out of her in a sigh; each niggle of doubt, tug of anxiety, flash of fear. All gone. Here, with her husband by her side, she is safe. Whatever happens, they’re in this together. Whatever life throws their way; villains, monsters, tragedy, pregnancy— they’ve got this.

She’d promised him forever, after all.

Between them, her palm glows bright white.

//

Alice Margaret Jones comes, kicking and screaming—all 7lbs 6oz of her—into their lives and she is magical. Killian cries, of course, and Henry comforts him through it, both of them completely enamoured by the newest addition to their family. She’s pink cheeks and blue eyes and a shock of blonde hair but it’s far too soon to see which parent she’ll favour. Emma doesn’t care, too choked up with the love she holds for the angel latched to her breast.

She doesn’t have words for this emotion and can’t begin to even comprehend the gravity of it. Alice, for nine whole months, was her companion, her guide, her conscience. Reassuring her with soft kicks, heartbeat thrumming like a butterfly’s, always hiding from the ultrasound wand on their appointments. Now, she belongs to the world. Now, everyone else gets to experience the purest soul Emma has ever known.

Alice’s tiny hand clutching Killian’s finger in a vice grip is the last thing Emma sees before sleep finally claims her, truly content.

//

There is no scar on the palm of her hand but Killian kept the shard of glass, a reminder wrapped carefully in the velvet box in which he stores all his treasures.

[revasserium]

rain, I’m absolutely obsessed with your writing. do you have any more writing tips or tricks, to make a short story like your prompts flow easily? and some dialogue advice would be amazing too ? 💕

hi sweetums! i actually just created a writing advice tag ! so feel free to browse through that if you’d like too! 

but in terms of specifically short stories, i think it’s important to keep in mind that you don’t have to give the readers everything. have a little faith that they’ll understand the subtext and nuance. that’s why i like almost doing tiny little snippets and skipping around in time, because you can afford to do that. you have a vaguely limited amount of space (depending on what you consider to be long, like for me, anything over 1k words is like LONG LOL) to tell a small story. or a big story. and i like both! 

i think the beauty of short stories is that you can pick totally mundane moments, but it’s those moments that make the overall story amazing. i like to think of short stories as like.... macrophotography. you get to focus in on one thing, super super focused on it, or a series of tiny little things, that don’t necessarily make a full picture, but give enough bits of it that the reader can imagine what the full picture might look like. and it’s that that makes it so much fun, because you’re not giving them the full story, the imagined parts will always be a little different. 

another little trick i like is to think of short stories as a circle. you start with a concept, and you end on the same concept, in essence coming back to it, but only after you’ve expanded upon it.  

so, just to give an example of how i do this. in my recent tsukki “hate” fic, i started with the “i hate you” line. and i know i want to come back to this by the end of the fic. idk how, yet, but i know that i always want to come back to something. 

now you’ve got your baseline concept established. you can go onto give context to the concept -- all the stuff in the middle of the fic, the chat with akiteru with the interspersed flashbacks that provide a bit more of “the big picture”. but notice that i don’t talk about what happened before, like i don’t go over details on why tsukki’s actually pissy or how either of them reacted during the conversation. you can focus on just the words, which feeds into your question about dialogue. i’ll touch upon this again later. 

so now you’ve developed your concept a bit more, and the fic is getting to a place where now, something like a resolution would be nice. note that i don’t always give proper resolutions, and that coming back to a concept doesn’t always mean resolving it. i think more often than not, its more interesting to leave a few things unresolved. but for the sake of cleanliness, i was like. i want this to be fluffy at the end. 

so at the end, you see tsukki giving his shirt to the reader, and this again, is another subconcept i mentioned in the beginning of the fic. like drawing circles! u__u but it ends on him saying “i hate you”, but it’s not at all the same kind of “i hate you” as the reader said in the beginning. this tells us two things, that the reader has forgiven him (via her reference/teasing to his shirt and going somewhere this weekend blah blah blah), and that tsukki knows he’s been forgiven, hence the “i hate you”. but both of them know that he doesn’t mean it, in the same way that he’s signaling to her that he knows she didn’t mean it either. 

that’s the big circle for that fic. there were two smaller ones -- one for the shirt, the other for “lets go somewhere this weekend”. i like to have multiple “circles”, as i like to call them. but really they’re just motifs/concepts whatever you’d like to call them. threads you can trace through the fic. now in a proper novel, there would be like..... 20, or more. that’s why when u like sparknotes something, there’s always a “motifs” or “themes” section where it’ll show u all the major thematic things to track throughout the novel. 

haikyuu itself does this SUPER fucking well. like the whole concept of kageyama as “king” -- it’s established, and then expounded upon, and then again, and again, and again, like -- there are so many different moments at which the concept evolves throughout the length of the story. and that’s what makes each mention so fucking satisfying. 

in terms of dialogue -- i think the biggest piece of advice i have is read that shit out loud. if it sounds weird when you say it, then don’t write it like that LOL. dialogue is supposed to be what people say, so if you’ve written something that would be awkward for a person to actually say, then change it! 

manga is a pretty great example, cause a lot of it is dialogue based. so esp when you’re watching/reading the animanga, pay attention to what the characters say and how they say them. if they talk in short sentences or long ones. if they’re likely to stutter or pause instead. 

also just pay attention to when people talk around you. the kinds of words they use. what does it sound like when someone wants to say something but can’t so they say something else instead? often when im writing dialogue, i can physically hear the characters saying those words in my head. 

another exercise i like to do sometimes, which has really helped my dialogue is writing only dialogue between two characters without speech tags like ‘he said, she said’. or any kind of marker as to who is speaking. 

for kagehina it's pretty easy: “quit spacing out, boke.” “aaah, what? i’m not spacig out, i’m thinking.” “ha? didn’t know you could do that.” “what? what? bakayama you wanna go? huh? you wanna fight?!” “idiot, i’d beat you in a second. nah, less than a second.” “uohhhhhhhh -- nnnnnn -- fine! lets go! loser has to buy the winner gun-gun yogurt for a week!” “tch. fine. let’s go.” 

like i didn’t put any kind of indicator as to who was saying which line, but it becomes pretty obvious straight off the bat. of course, using words that the characters use like “boke” and “bakayama” are good lil “cheats” but in basic concept remains the same. 

this forces you to be really good at writing in that character's voice, so that it becomes obvious who is speaking. 

there’s a lot of other stuff, but these are the big things u__u i don't want this get too, too long lol. 

but i quite like dissecting pieces of writing (im the kinda person who writes essays for fun LOLOL), so let me know if you guys would be interested in seeing more of this stuff, or if you’d want me to like. dissect any of the fics i’ve written for thematic consistency and context and stuff. 

it’s a good exercise for me too, to look back at my own writing, and if it’s helpful/enjoyable to you guys, then all the better u_u -- it’ll be like, rain’s mini-lecture series on fictional writing LOL 

and if that’s the case, if there are specific fics that i’ve posted you guys would like me to go into depth on, let me know which ones <3 

[phoebehalliwell]

Hi! I’ve recently fallen down the Charmed rabbit hole again and I fount your blog, which is amazing btw !! I LOVE YOUR CHARMED NEXT GEN FIC!!!! I also really enjoyed your thoughts about Phoebe's kid! I wish they would have lived in the actual show. How do you think Phoebe’s child living would have impacted her relationship with Coop? And the whole twice blessed prophecy?

!!!!!!!!!!! thank you!! and i’m so glad you like my fic (which i promise i am still working on)!!

as far as phoebe’s kid + the twice blessed prophecy, i have written on that au here, but i think if the baby really had been born it would not be the twice blessed but i do think they would still probably give that plotline to wyatt just bc. i also think that having a child and being a single mother would really further the need for coop bc dating as a single mom while still having a career is hard enough but dating while you’re a single mom with a full time job and a magical half demon baby who was lowkey the antichrist for the better part of the first trimester is a whole new can of worms. i think she still would have had a relationship with jason dean but i think it would be very short lived as i don’t think that he would be ready to commit to a family. and then by the time we hit season six and piper and leo have broken up and jason has left phoebe and yada yada yada phoebe would really be like huh. love isn’t real. we’re all gonna die alone.

and so she’s sitting at a cafe with paige at the end of love’s a witch and is completely ranting about how love is dead or whatever and paige is just like yeah. uh huh. yep. totally. yeah. yeah. i know what you mean. yeah. uh huh. bc it’s totally Not the time to bring up the fact that she has a date with richard on friday and phoebe’s just going on and on like “okay bc look at olivia! she was doing what she was doing out of love!! and she was killing people!!! just an evil, sad, lovesick, ghost. like me. you know cole was my longest relationship? that was like,,, the most successful relationship i had, and it wasn’t even remotely a success!! he turned me evil, paige. i became evil. because that’s what love does. it bring out the worst in people.” and paige is sitting there like jfc i think i need to bring in a shrink or something when all of a sudden the dude pulls up a chair at their table and is like “hi hate to interrupt but i couldn’t help but overhear and you’re wrong” and phoebe’s like who the hell are you and paige is like yeah fuck off buddy private conversation here and this guy’s like “look. love is the strongest magic we have” and paige is like “ehh i think other, stronger magic” and phoebe’s all like “okay, i don’t know who you are, but you don’t know me and you don’t know what i’ve been through okay so you don’t get to sit down here and try to talk to me about love. bitch.” and this guys just like “actually, i do. my name’s coop. it’s nice to meet you, officially.” and he holds out his hand for a handshake and phoebe’s looking at him like imma judo flip u motherfucker but then something catches her eye and she snatches his hand and flips it over, staring at his cupid ring and she’s like no. she grabs her coffee and storms out leaving coop and a Very Confused paige sitting at the cafe table. she turns around at the exit and gestures to paige like come on let’s go get out of here so paige grabs her croissant and purse awkwardly and leaves and coop’s like “i hope everything goes well with richard!” and paige is like????? so she pulls phoebe aside like Who Was That and phoebe’s like “that was the most annoying, pesky, interfering magical creature there is out there. that was a cupid.”

and later that night phoebe would be tucking her child asleep (who in this story is a little girl named prudence) when she hears “you love her, and it doesn’t seem to bring out the worst in you.” and she whips around to find coop leaning in the doorframe and she’s like “you better leave before i vanquish you” and coop sorta just laughs softly and he’s like “i get it. you’ve been burned before. but actively fighting love? it’s not you, phoebe.” and she’s like “tf do you think you know about me” and coop’s like “i know you believe in love. true love. the kind that takes your breath away, where it's the first thing that you think about when you wake up in the morning. you wanna know how i know that?” and phoebe just glares at him in a very defensive stance like yes i want to know but no i will not play into your stupid little monologue and coop’s like “i read your column. not many people could write like that. you help people find love every day, you help them reach out, take risks, open up their hearts-” “okay you know what i’ve had enough of your little sugar coated soap opera speech. go bug someone else.” and phoebe pushes her way past him and beelines for her bedroom, slamming the door and coop’s like :|

and the next morning phoebe’s eating cereal and by eating a i do mean just pushing wheaties around in a pool of milk while dency and wyatt play in the playpen and piper comes in with a mug of coffee like “good morning how are-” “am i a cold hearted cynic?” “...you doing this fine friday morning??” “i’ve got a cupid on my ass” “i’m going to hope you mean the magical kind and not some bad tattoo situation” “i mean, yesterday i was saying that love brings out the worst in people and now i’ve got this 6′2″ cupid with a square jawline following me around. but like,,, don’t i have the right to say that??? all love has done is hurt me. i’m allowed to bitch a little about it!! like! mind your own business??? goddamn! and you know-” “phoebe i just woke up save the onslaught until after 10am please” and phoebe just sorta pauses and goes back to pushing her cereal around and piper says “and i’m not calling you a cold hearted cynic but... you have changed” and phoebe’s completely ready to rant again like “pfft of course i’ve changed you think you can be married to the source of all-” “zp! not til after 10!” and phoebe slumps back and watches as dency draws a small pattern in frost on the tile floor and you can tell she’s sorta mulling over what coop said blah blah blah this episode is the vortex demon she gets knocked into a world based on her innermost desires and in it she’s happily married and in love in an apartment of her own raising her daughter and writing her column blah blah blah she takes one look at her finger that very much has a wedding band on it and is like “cupid!!!! cupid u fuckin bastard get down here!!! cupid!!!” and no response and she’s scowling like “coop??? coop!!!!!!!!” and he’s no where to be seen and she’s like wait shit i think this is the alternate whirlpool vortex things i gotta find my sister blah blah blah chris knocks paige into phoebe’s world and paige is like “okay what’s the catch” and phoebe’s like “what catch” and paige is like “you know, the catch! what makes this not reality. like in my world, magic was practiced openly, and everyone knew about it. come on, chris said the realities were shaped my like our fantasies or wants... is anything different here??” and phoebe’s like “oh you know uhh not really everything basically the same um but you know i have my own apartment here where i live with dency...” “oh my god wait where is she now who’s taking care of her?” “oh uh well that would be my husband.” “cole’s alive????” “no! not cole! i don’t know who he is actually but he seems nice :)” and there’s a beat where you can tell paige really wants to Get Into What This Means and phoebe really Doesn’t Want To Talk About It but then they both seem to agree that they’re being hunted by a demon so maybe this can take a back seat rn blah blah blah they kill the demon and the end of the episode paige is about to go on her date w richard and her and phoebe have a little heart to heart and paige is like i think you should talk to the cupid bc i think maybe your whole hating love thing might just be a front like i think you’re trying to convince urself of something blah blah blah and phoebe’s just like :/ maybe so.

alright blah blah blah next episode phoebe’s like “coop?” and coop, suddenly appearing behind her is like “yeah?” and phoebe’s like “i give up. so uh work your little cupid magic or whatever and i guess let’s do this thing.” and coop like lights up he’s like so happy and he’s all like “great! let’s get started!” and phoebe’s mentally preparing for a series of really boring dates but then coop surprises her by not doing that??? like he doesn’t set her up with anyone at all bc he’s all like you need time to heal and find urself again???? which honestly phoebe isn’t complaining about and like phoebe will be feeding baby dency in the kitchen and coop will pop in like “what are your thought on taking a pottery class?” and it’s happened before where she’s been so swamped with work that she doesn’t have time to pick up supplies for dency so coop will just go out and like buy diapers?? and gradually phoebe feels herself opening up more and more and one night she’s at p3 and this guy come up to talk to her and she doesn’t just scowl him away and she finds herself having a great conversation and she see coop wink at her from across the bar.

and you know things go well with this guy yada yada yada but one night she goes out on a date and her sisters weren’t able to watch lil dency for her so coop was babysitting and she comes back home to see coop sending out small pink glowing projections from his ring and her baby just laughing uncontrollably trying to catch them and phoebe gets why she has been ready to dive fully in to the guy she’s been going out with. coop says it’s just nerves bc of her past relationships and that it’s completely fine and understandable but phoebe knows better. or at least now she does. she’s in love with coop.

[onthevirgeofdestruction]

Dreaming While I Wake

Sanders Sides Foster Care AU - Roman-centric Angst & Hurt/Comfort & Abuse Recovery

Roman tries to be upbeat and hopeful despite all the shit that’s happened to him. And a lot of shit has. Luckily, his new foster home is with two literal rays of sunshine (and a sarcastic asshole).

Words: 3,888  Triggers: spoilers.  Characters: Roman, Thomas, Minor Characters Universe: Dreaming While I Wake Genre: Power Angst

Chapter 12 (Check end notes for trigger warnings)

chapter 1 for new readers - ffn mirror

   Melatonin was bullshit and didn’t work in the least. Roman had tried it ages ago. It’s not like he didn’t have internet access. He could google home insomnia remedies. Melatonin, 5-HTP, valerian, kava kava, blah blah blah. Lavender, Milk and honey, Sleepytime tea, bloo bloo bloo. None of it worked. Roman always laid awake for hours. It’s not like he liked being stuck awake in bed. He definitely didn’t like wasting his hard-earned money on sleep remedies that don’t work. Kava kava was too damn expensive and it gave him stomach cramps and he was still mad at it. It’s not like he wasn’t trying. And he really was tired. His muscles were screaming for a break. He just wasn’t sleepy.

   Roman glanced at the clock. It was a little rough to read in the shadows cast by the night light, but it looked like it was closing in at 1 AM. Roman was so fucking bored, and sick of being tortured by his head with regrets and memories. He shot a glance at his desk. He could probably keep a journal next to his bed and not get in trouble. If he angled himself the right way he could hide that he was drawing or writing even if someone entered the bedroom through blanket piles. He had enough money to buy a journal, but he could just use one of his old school ones if there was room. His sketchbook would be way too obvious that it’s not a dream journal or something.

   He could use that by the nightlight or a little flashlight Roman had from an old home until midnight and try to sleep then. Roman hadn’t fallen asleep before midnight- not counting naps induced by soul-wrenching emotional bullshit- in years. Roman could remember watching the clock with Remus even before his mom died. It’s why they used to make up stories together. It would almost be like keeping the tradition alive. But it was already after midnight, and Roman was bored now. He tapped his fingers against the mattress and rolled over again. Roman wished he had a DS or something. Maybe one of those relaxing farming games one of his friends at his old school liked. That would be nice. The older one he could afford if he found a new job. He could ask them tomorrow if he was allowed to.

   It still didn’t solve right now, of course. But thinking about things he could be doing was better than thinking about all the things he’d fucked up recently. And there were lots. All those times he pissed off Patton. He ran away from Thomas multiple times. Talked back. Was rude. Stayed up late. Slept in. Said stupid shit. Made multiple scenes in public. They bought him things he didn’t deserve. Not that he deserved any of this. He probably deserved a shitty home since he was a shitty kid. The Finley’s were right to kick him back. He probably wasn’t taking care of their kids well enough and doing a shit job of taking care of their house on top of being a general disappointment. They needed somebody better who could help them with their math homework and was more on task. The Sanders will see sense soon and kick him back, too. They all do. The Sanders deserve somebody nice and focused and impressive and gets good grades and stuff.

   Not that he thought he could survive another… Jet situation. Literally. But there had to be a middle ground between the Sanders and the Halls. One where he didn’t get guns pulled on him but also didn’t have all these things he didn’t deserve around him, reminding him of how much of a failure he was and that he was a piece of shit. And how much all of it Roman wasn’t supposed to have. He didn’t earn any of it. Roman wasn’t supposed to be here. Roman’s breath hitched, and he rolled over again. He felt really trapped and got up out of bed, starting to pace the room and trying to breathe. There was even space to pace in here. Holy fucking shit, he didn’t deserve any of this. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

   Roman crossed his arms and rubbed them, his nails digging in, shuffling back and forth across the bedroom floor. He didn’t feel safe. He didn’t belong here. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He had to get out of here. He couldn’t leave though. Could he? Roman shook his head and violently ruffled his hair as he paced. He could try to hide, wait this out, wait till he felt better. But he couldn’t sit still. He wanted to run. He wanted to run so badly. He didn’t deserve to be here, and it hurt so bad. He felt like screaming as he yanked his hands through his hair again. He paced fasted and shook the hairs out from between his fingers before bracing his arms tight again.

   He had to run. Running helped before, right? And everything was screaming at him that he should run, that he fucked up and he needed to get out of there. Roman choked on his closing throat and paused in the middle of the bedroom, looking around again. He felt trapped in this room. It was so easy to block the door. Second-story window. They could find him in the closet. He had to go. He had to go. He couldn’t breathe in here. He had to run. Roman grabbed the door keys off the dresser and hurried down the stairs. He had to go. He had to leave. Roman locked the front door behind him and bolted across the lawn and down the street. He didn’t know or care where he was going, he just knew he had to run. He had to get out of there and he had to run.

   Roman panted as he bolted farther away, his vision blurring slightly down the dark streets. He dodged the street lights and kept his distance from fences, just like they taught him. It was easy. It was the only easy thing. He was pushing his luck not wearing all black, but he grew out of all that stuff. And he had to run. He didn’t have time to change. He had to go. He needed to keep going. Running made sense. Running was right. It hurt to breathe, but he could breathe out here, and he wasn’t trapped anymore. Roman kept running. His bare feet pounded, his lungs burned raw, and he kept running. Roman kept running until he couldn’t keep going anymore.

   Roman’s throat burned and the sharp night air cut into him as he sprinted down the streets. Hide. He had to hide. He couldn’t keep going right now. He had to hide and take a break. He must have been far enough to be safe. He just needed somewhere easy to escape, to hide. Roman vaguely recognized the high school and headed that way, jumping the chain-link fence and headed over to the unlit bleachers. It would be dark and there would be crevices, but he could easily bolt from it if he had to. He sped towards them and ducked under the support bars, skidding to a stop and tucking himself under a low row where it was the darkest. Roman could barely make out his hand in front of his face. Hidden. Safe. He curled into a ball, and broke down quietly, sobbing into his pajama pants instantaneously.

—

   “Hey, what are you doing under there?” A voice called loudly and shook Roman awake. He looked up blearily from his legs and looked around for the source of the voice. “Come out, right now!” It shouted. Roman’s breath hitched from the loud noise waking him up. He didn’t realize he had fallen asleep. He was crying for what felt like hours. Roman exhaled and crawled to his feet, holding his hands up as he ducked his way out from under the bleachers. “I asked you what you were doing here,” The police officer coming into view in the pale morning light reiterated.

   “I, uh, I don’t know,” Roman admitted quietly, still holding his hands up and stopping under the bleachers with enough height to stand but keeping a safe distance from the officer.

   “Louder,” He demanded.

   “I just ended up here! I don’t know!��� Roman said, louder and freaking out a bit. “I’m sorry!” The officer spoke quietly into his walkie.

   “Show me your ID,” He ordered Roman.

   “I don’t have any,” Roman replied quickly, his heart pounding and his hands starting to shake in the air.

   “How old are you, son?” He asked, pointing a blindingly bright flashlight into Roman’s face. Roman squinted his eyes and recoiled from the light, but kept his hands in the air.

   “15. Am I f-free to go?” Roman stammered out. Jet taught him this stuff. He knew what to do. It didn’t make it any less terrifying.

   “No, you are not. Turn out your pockets,” The officer demanded.

   “I do not consent to a search,” Roman said as passively as he could manage, but his voice was shaking along with the rest of him. It hurt to from exhaustion hold up his arms like this, but just seeing the officer was enough to send him straight back into panic mode.

   “Are you hiding something, boy?” The police officer asked.

   “No,” Roman croaked. He had nothing worth hiding. He just couldn’t be searched. He couldn’t. Even carrying nothing he couldn’t be searched. Roman’s heart pounded painfully in his throat while the officer stared him down.

   “Step out from under the bleachers, now,” The officer said, stepping back. Roman complied, ducking under the support bar and stopping with his hands still in the air right as he walked out. The officer stepped forward and patted Roman down. Roman swallowed heavily and stayed still.

   “What are these?” The officer asked, tapping on the lump in Roman’s pajama pants pocket.

   “H-house keys, sir. Am I free t’go now?” Roman supplied, unable to shake the weakness and fear from his voice. His feet kind of burned and stung, but he couldn’t look down to check at them. He was too frightened of the cop to look away from him.

   “No, you have violated curfew laws,” The police officer said, stepping back.

   “The sun is up, s-sir, curfew is lifted at 5 AM. I h-have not,” Roman refuted him shakily.

   “How do you know so much about curfew law, boy?” He asked, shining that bright-ass flashlight right in his face again. It strained the hell out of his eyes and his eyebrows were so furrowed they hurt. He could almost feel every hair.

   “It’s every citizen’s duty to know the local laws,” Roman parroted, swallowing heavily. It was easier when he had a script. His arms felt like bricks and they were so hard to hold up. It was so hard to breathe. It was so hard to keep standing.

   “That it is, boy. But you’re still trespassing on school property,” The police officer said intensely. Roman recoiled slightly and coughed, trying to open back up his throat.

   “Campus is open to students as soon as administration gets here. There are cars in the lot,” Roman supplied, glancing past the officer to the parking lot. He could do this, right? It had to be almost over. It had to be. He couldn’t take this much longer.

   “You seem to know a lot for somebody who doesn’t know why they’re here,” The officer said suspiciously.

   “I was out for a run and wasn’t paying a-attention to where I was going. I was taking a b-break under the bleachers. Am I free to g-go?” Roman asked again after trying to explain himself. And it was the truth, as difficult as it was to spit out.

   “Do you have an ID for this school as a supposed student?” The officer asked, raising an eyebrow.

   “I didn’t bring my w-wallet for a r-run,” Roman replied. He actually didn’t have an ID yet, but he didn’t need to incriminate himself any further. The officer was clearly grasping at straws, and Roman just wanted to get out of here. The officer stepped back and talked into his walkie again, leaving Roman to stand there silently. His arms drooped slightly, but he kept them up, powered purely by adrenaline at this point.

   “What’s your name, boy?” He asked after a few moments of talking to the quiet walkie strapped to him. Roman was close enough to hear the garbled noises coming from it, but his heart was pounding so loudly in his ears he couldn’t make anything out.

   “Roman Reinhart,” Roman responded, shaking. This couldn’t be good. Roman swallowed thickly again and tried to stop shaking so obviously. He wasn’t sure it was actually possible with all the adrenaline pumping through him. He’d probably be shaking for days. If he had eaten or drank anything in the past 10 hours he would have thrown up already. The officer talked more into his walkie. Roman’s throat tightened even worse as he waited patiently for the cop’s permission to leave. He just wanted to run. He wanted to run so badly, even worse than before.

   “Your parents are looking for you. Seems you didn’t tell ‘em you went out for a run, huh?” The police officer said angrily and put away his flashlight. Holy fucking shit. They were awake? It was too early for them to be awake, right? Oh god, oh god, oh god- “You’re coming with me to the station so they can pick you up,” The officer demanded. No! No, No!

   “I can walk home sir, it’s only a few blocks away,” Roman objected, feeling like his knees were about to give out. He could feel the cold sweat dampening his back and he just couldn’t breathe deep enough.

   “That’s not how this is playing out, boy, follow me,” The officer ordered harshly and Roman’s head swam and there were spots in his eyes. No, no, he can’t go with the cops. He can’t go with the cops. He’d be in so much trouble. It was the most important rule. He needed to run. He can’t move, his legs won’t work. Why won’t they work? Why couldn’t he feel his legs? Roman barely registered as his vision dropped to the ground and he gasped for air. He can’t go, he can’t, he needs to run, he’s got to get out of here go go go go go- Roman’s vision faded and he watched a pair of work boots come up to him. He couldn’t hear anything other than the screaming objections in his own head. Things went black.

—

   Roman’s eyes opened, and the room spun. He heaved for a moment and tried to blink some sense into himself. He wasn’t sure what was going on or why everything was so distant. His ears were ringing, and his vision was completely blurred. Something felt hard underneath him. Did he fall asleep in the closet again? He rubbed his eyes to try to get his vision back. Everything was still blurry. He looked around and was blinded by fluorescent lights and saw men in uniforms and his breath immediately hitched. He was arrested. He was caught. Jet was going to kill him if his foster parents didn’t first. He was going to go to jail. He was going to get way worse in jail than the Halls would do to him. This couldn’t be happening. Roman choked and gasped in panic.

   “Holy shit, holy fucking shit, no no no-” Roman started to ramble objections incoherently and curled into himself. An officer turned to look at him on the floor and Roman grasped his own head tightly in a panic, not sure what to do. He had to get out of here. He was already caught! They already knew! He had to go. He was trapped in here! Roman’s heart pounded like it was trying to explode. No, no, no no-

   “No, No!” Roman screamed and balled into himself as tight as he could and tried to breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he was going to die, this was it, he was going to die, thank god, he couldn’t do this anymore, he couldn’t, he couldn’t breathe. His blood was on fire. His heart was pounding violently, thudding everywhere he had veins. He was caught, he could feel his blood running, everything hurt so much. The police had him. He couldn’t breathe. Roman’s throat closed in on itself and he gasped for air and his lungs and eyes burned like there was wasp venom in them and it was all over. He was so tired. He couldn’t take it anymore. He squeezed himself as tight as his burning limbs would let him as his vision crossed and things went black again. Finally.

—

   Fucking shit, everything hurt so bad. Damnit, he wasn’t supposed to get hit by the party bus, but he fucking was. There was an odd beeping. Does hell have incessant beeping? That seems pretty tame. It was really annoying though. It’d probably wear on him pretty quick with how loud it was. Roman groaned and tried to open his eyes, but it was just so fucking bright. Everything glowed a burning orange-red, even behind his closed eyelids. This was definitely hell. Huh. The Miller’s were right. If he saw Jack Miller here, he’d still fucking clock him, though. He’d show them fucking devil child. Maybe he could come back as an actual demon and haunt their asses for trying to ‘save’ him. Roman tried to raise his arm to cover his eyes, but it was so heavy that it took some genuine effort. He covered his eyes, but it was just still so bright. How was everything so bright? An arm should be thick enough. What was in his arm? It was cold.

   “Roman?” A hopeful voice asked. What the fuck? That can’t be right. This was hell. What’s with the nice in hell? “Roman, are you awake?” A kind voice asked, and there was a loud shuffling noise. God, they were too loud. Was he being punished by somebody who pretended to be nice? Because that’s really sick, Satan. No wonder god banished him. Roman tried to hide from the light again but there was no angle his arm could take to save him, especially with that thing in it. And that beeping! Why was it so loud?

   “Brightness and beeping are really fucking weird torture methods, dude,” Roman groaned, feeling his head pound from his own words. “The pain makes sense, but I was told there’d be boiling blood and shit,” Roman grumbled.

   “Roman, what are you talking about?” The kind voice asked, sounding confused. That was clearly a trap. Devils don’t act nice or confused unless they were fooling someone.

   “Nuh-uh, you’re not tricking me into no bullshit, satan,” Roman grumbled, slowly curling his finger to flip him off.

   “Hello, good to see you awake!” Another voice chirped, and it was so loud Roman flinched and god that hurt worse than before. Holy shit.

   “Go away, loud she-demon,” Roman grunted and slowly flipped off in the noise’s direction with his other hand.

   “Does he normally act like that?” She asked, sounding concerned.

   “No, he’s pretty quiet and polite, I think, other than a bit of attitude,” The kind guy said along with more loud shuffling. Ugh!

   “Listen, the beeping is plenty of torture, stop with the loudness already,” Roman hissed. The beeping really was wearing on him. He could swear he could feel it in his teeth. Props to lead torture designer or whatever. He regretted ever questioning the beeping’s validity as a torture method.

   “I’m going to check your blood pressure,” She said. That’s a fucking weird thing to do.

   “Fuck off already,” Roman muttered. She lifted his arm, and he wasn’t quite capable of doing much other than mildly failing, and she wrapped something around his upper arm.

   “Sit still, Mr. Reinhart,” She said, holding his arm in place. Roman stopped fighting it. He was too damn tired. He was here forever anyway. The world had ended and all that, no coming back from hell.

   “Hey, hell’s at the end of eternity, right? I don’t remember what I was running for Jet. He didn’t, like, get fucked over, did he?” Roman asked weakly. He hoped Jet was okay. If Roman was running something valuable, it would have been a colossal fucking problem for him.

   “Do you think this is hell, Mr. Reinhart?” The voice asked as a ton of pressure built up on his upper arm. It pinched and stung.

   “Yeah, it’s not like I’d go to heaven, the shit I’ve done,” Roman chuckled slightly, trying to laugh off his guilt, but there was a sharp pain on his ribs. “Son of a bitch,” He hissed and tried to move to put his free arm over the spot, but even a little more light filtering through his eyelids burned and he couldn’t take it.

   “Do you think you’re dead, Roman?” The kind-sounding guy asked. What was with this? Was the confusion part of the torture? Was the nice tone? Devils are supposed to know about you and your sins.

   “Thank god. Or whatever you’re supposed to say here. No, fuck it, thank him. My foster parents would have fucking killed me for getting arrested in a much more painful method than my heart failing. I got my ass beat for taking an apple without asking, they’d fuck me up! And prison? I’m glad I was saved from all of that,” Roman grunted. There was a pause as the pressure on his arm released.

   “Roman, how old do you think you are?” The kind voice asked, sounding perplexed.

   “13. Duh. They always say live fast and die young,” Roman said, trying to throw up the horns but giving up partway through.

   “The police officers said he had a panic attack and passed out just before I got there,” The guy said.

   “Man, how is anybody supposed to react? It’s a first-degree felony. They would have tried me as an adult, dude,” Roman grunted.

   “What is a first-degree felony?” The guy asked.

   “What am I, a narc?” Roman scoffed. The dude didn’t answer about Jet. Why should Roman say anything?

   “His blood pressure is elevated, but within an acceptable range, and he shouldn’t be dehydrated anymore. Does Roman suffer from mental health issues you didn’t mention on intake?” The lady asked.

   “Not that we were told. We’d only had Roman for 6 days,” The guy sounded nervous. “He… has implied concerning things, though,”

   “Let me go get the doctor, Mr. Sanders,” The lady said.

   “Boo, no doctor torture! What kind of second-rate horror B-Movie is this? Where’s the fuckin’ scorpions and shit?” Roman jeered.

   “Roman, do you know who I am?” The guy asked carefully.

   “Satan,” Roman said resolutely. “And I’m not opening my eyes to look at your devil dick or whatever. I’m a fucking minor, you filthy pervert,” Roman stuck out his tongue. Hell was weird. 

Taglist: @bunny222

[tippitv]

SPN 15.02 “Raising Hell” - TippiTV Recap

Welcome to the recap of episode 2 of the final season! As with the first episode, I will be providing descriptions of graphics I would have made if I didn't have a shitty pain-wracked upper body. I tried making graphics with my feet, which feel great, but it was... too artistic...

I didn't want to set such a high bar for myself.

Okay in the intro bit Belphejack describes his warding spell on the town as a mile-wide circle where "ghosts can't get in or out." Now I'm confused because the cemetery from which all the ghosts/demons erupted like a Dr. Pimple Popper compilation video is outside of this circle. Isn’t it? All the evacuees are also outside this circle. What's keeping all the people at the shelter from getting possessed by ghosts that didn't happen to be in the town? Wouldn't it have made more sense to get everyone into the shelter and then make the circle around that? All they've done is created a Venn diagram where the warded circle doesn't touch either the cemetery or the shelter.

[Graphic: just a terrible drawing of the above to illustrate my point.]

Actually screw it I need to make this graphic.

Or wait... Are they saying this bustling town AND the cemetery fill up a space of only 1 mile and are warded together?

And that somehow the majority of ghosts are in this area for some reason and that they hadn't managed to go much further than that after they were freed?

OH MY GOD WHY AM I THINKING SO HARD ABOUT THIS?

Anyway we now move to the present day, which seems to be soon after the evacuation. I'm actually slightly pleasantly surprised that they picked up here instead of moving on to the other three billion ghosts that need dealing with.

A woman sneaks around the supposedly deserted town, covering her nose and mouth with a scarf. Ah right... the "benzene." I actually did live through a few benzene leaks and you can smell it. The CDC describes it has smelling something like gasoline but to me it smells like... a certain kind of bandaging. Medcinal and rubbery. It seems unlikely that nobody in this town would know this and point out that there's zero benzene smell in the air. The woman runs into her neighbor, who's acting like a stone cold weirdo. She's wary but keeps chatting right up until the moment he stabs her a bunch of times.

A ghost pops out of him. He somewhat resembles the prophet who lost his soul so I was mildly confused for a moment. Also throughout this whole episode it's like he can't decide what his accent is and it's very annoying. Hell, he goes through like three accents just spelling the word "disembowel" here.  Because the neighbor lady had been chatting about spelling bees.

At the high school, Castiel tells Sam about the neighbor lady going missing. For some reason, Sam has trouble getting everyone's attention. Did this town only have forty people in it? The cafeteria isn't  remotely full. Sam reminds everyone to stay out of the quarantine zone. "Any questions?" Everyone raises their hands.

Sam's face makes a bunch of faces that can be summed up as "uh oh spaghettios."

Dean and Belph are in town bonding (not really) over being good soldiers who just wanna do their jobs. The mixed-accent ghost tries to make an escape through the warding whe Dean blasts him with rock salt. Belph points out they're not dealing with regular ghosts. "That was Francis Tumblety." Oh no the inventor of Tumblr!

[Graphic: Dashcon as Hell]

Turns out Francis is more famously known as Jack the Ripper. When Belph explains this Dean is like, "Cool," which seems like a weird reaction for him to have. Also wouldn't the soul of someone as bad as Jack the Ripper have become demonic by now?

High school shelter. They picked a really weird building for their exterior shots. It looks like a cross between an Alpine chalet and a city hall. Some of the antsy townsfolk with strong Canadian accents decide to escape back to their Kansan homes.

One of the homes is currently being used as a meeting hall by the ghosts. I cannot overstate how much I hate seeing ghosts in full daylight. The makeup looks straight out of a school play. Like Sam earlier, Francis has some difficulty getting everyone's attention. What kind of parallel is this supposed to be? He gets the other ghosts to agree to mount an attack against the hunters and then they can put on a production of The Importance of Being Earnest and Dead.

Two of the townsfolk sneak back home only to encounter two of the ghosts. They look terrified even though the ghosts look absolutely comical.

[Graphic: Photoshop these two ghosts into a Scooby Doo scene]

Sam and Castiel argue about what and when to tell the evacuees. Rowena walks in on them and acts like she just got a Samstiel idea for Whumptober.

After some exposition about God and his sister and the soul-bomb that Rowena made back then, Sam says he needs her to make something similar that will trap the ghosts. She says it will be very difficult and will take her until nearly the end of the episode.

Then Sam gets called away to join the other plot line. The two people who slipped out of the shelter are now possessed and oozing some CGI out of their eyes. Man, daylight really is unkind to everything except like Jensen Ackles's complexion.

Francis Tumbledore materializes and demands they erase the warding or the ghosts will start killing people. To make his point, the two recently possessed people get their innards turned into Hamburger Helper by the ghosts inside them. Someone offscreen shoots them with a confetti gun!

Ugh. It's that wanker Ketch, which I believe is his full name, and the confetti is actually a bunch of "iron flakes." The flakes just gently tickle the skin instead of penetrating and thus damaging it, which doesn't seem like it would harm ghosts. I mean, we have iron in our blood and that doesn't seem like a deterrent to ghosts but whatever. Even Ketch's dumb pocket square is annoying me. I don't remember why he annoys me but I feel it deep in my soul.

Everyone reconvenes at the school for a stand-n-chat. Rowena and Ketch reminisce and flirt. Oh, Rowena. You can do so much better. Ketch gets around to being surprised to learn that Jack's corpse is now being possessed by the demon Belphegor, even though he's currently on a mission to kill Belphegor. He had to be momentarily ignorant so we could get some clunky exposition. Blah blah blah a demon named Ardat was the one who ordered the hit but neglected to mention what Ketch would be looking for.

Cut to Reno where Amara is in her well-appointed hotel suite getting a temple massage from a masseuse named Kimiko. Kimiko's hands disappear to be replaced by slightly more masculine hands.

Amara sits up, startled and displeased to discover her brother. I don't care if y'all are billions of years old it's gross to show up in your sister's room when she's only wearing a sheet. Also it's rude to smite a masseuse in the middle of an appointment.

"Sooo how about that Game of Thrones ending?" Chuck small-talks. "Pretty great, right?"

[Graphic: Screenshot of my post about Supernatural's showrunner comparing the show's finale to GoT that inexplicably has 35,000 notes]

Amara, naturally, is suspicious of her brother's sudden appearance and wants to know why he's there.

You know, it's too bad Castiel doesn't have that power where he could touch someone on the forehead and make them sleep. Instead of dealing with all these angry evacuees he could just tap them all into a short coma.

Rowena wants Dean to tell her more about Ketch like he's the village matchmaker instead of a guy with three billion evil souls to deal with. He's nice enough to warn her away from him, but it just seems to make her more intrigued.

Time for Dean and Castiel to hash out their feelings. I mean the feelings where Dean is mad at Castiel for not telling everyone about Jack losing his soul, not the feelings where they keep staring at each other like "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel is playing in the background but they can never act on it because they live in a very heteronormative universe. Generally speaking, Dean is also just mad at this whole thing where free will is an illusion and they've been playing God's games. "Nothing about our lives is real."

[Graphic: Screencap of the Scoobynatural episode]

Dean dramatically stalks out of the room while Cas, his back turned like they're in a soap opera, calls out to him. They face each other. "You asked what about all of this was real... we are." Dean doesn't say anything to that and leaves the room heterosexually.

He goes out on patrol with Ketch and gives him an iron necklace to keep from getting possessed. Ketch wants to know more about Rowena.

[Graphic: I mean... can I do something with Dean as Bea Arthur in Fiddler on the Roof?]

Luckily he gets word about trouble down at the ol' abandoned meat-packing plant. Two hunters have gone missing. Ketch gets thrown into a concrete wall in such a way that would kill him or, at the very least, leave him with a spine made of oatmeal. Lizzie Borden aims to kill them, but a new, unseen ghost shouts at her to leave.

Aw, it's Kevin Tran. I like how he moves the plastic doorway strips with his hands instead of just blinking his way into the room. Turns out God sent him to Hell instead of Heaven, but at least it's given him sort of a badass reputation among the other ghosts so that they do what he says. Ohh I bet that gets pissed away pretty soon.

Reno. God is watching something on TV where the CC says "a sexy pastiche of fragrant tripe" which is often the tagline of Buckleming episodes. Amara is trying to get her yoga on but he wants to talk about taking a vacation together. She figures out he needs her for something. She zeroes in on his shoulder wound that mirrors Sam's. "You're not complete," she says. "You're not at full strength."

And this, my friends, is where I began to get this tingling discomfort that made me wonder if Sam is going to become the new God by the finale.

The switch from night to day to night to day is so weird in this episode. Or maybe it always is and for some reason I'm noticing it more. Anyway while Kevin is off doing recon on the other ghosts, Sam and Dean fret about the warding starting to fade. "We're gonna need you to charge it back up," Dean says to Belph. "Sorry guys it was a one-time thing," Belph says. And nobody asks any followup questions like "WHY?"

Belph also says, in regards to Kevin, that the default setting on Heaven is souls can't get in once they've been to Hell. God made exceptions for John and Bobby but he doesn't exactly like the Winchesters anymore. I feel like y'all really ought to talk to Billie about this. Also, doesn't that mean Sam and Dean would never get to go to Heaven? This just lends further credence to a Samgod hypothesis.

Ghost meeting. One of the ghosts logically points out that all they have to do is wait for the warding to fail completely and then just stroll out. Random ghost would be excellent at snarky recapping. But Francis Tumbledry is the Veruca Salt of serial killing ghosts.

[Graphic: Screencap from Willy Wonka where Veruca is saying she wants and Oompa Loompa right now except it's Francis and he wants to break through the warding]

Kevin pops up and tries to act tough but immediately gets found out as a spy.

Rowena and Ketch flirt and make rather strained sexual innuendos for a scene while working on the ghost vacuum. You can't make me transcribe any of it! Luckily she gets called away before anybody's pants come off.

And then she apparently goes, on foot, from the high school to the warded town some five miles away. Either that or she needlessly parks really far away from her destination. Either way, it gives Francis Tumbleforya a chance to intercept her and tell her the ghosts have Kevin. Oh and Ketch gets his ass ambushed.

She meets the Winchesters in the middle of the street to deliver the news. I mean, Kevin is in the same room with the ghosts but how do they "have" him? He could blip away. This was a dorky plan from the start but I guess I relate. I, too, took a lot of AP classes in high school and I can't plan for crap.

The Winchesters meet with Francis. He sticks his hand through Kevin and turns on his heart light. 

They let this go on for a weirdly long time instead of pretending to negotiate until Rowena runs into the room. She brandishes a Himalayan salt lamp at the ghosts and shouts, "Capare!" A couple get sucked in but the rest blip away. Only Kevin remains.

Everyone runs off to where the ghosts are planning to attack the warding in a mostly invisible, budget-friendly manner. Ketch shows up, too, but everyone's too busy dreading the imminent breach to notice he's not wearing his iron necklace anymore.

[Graphic: A catalog ad from GOOP dot com selling the iron necklace as a belt to keep your nethers from getting overrun with evil spirits]

He lets Rowena vacuum up a few ghosts before knocking her out. He reveals himself to be Francis Tumbleweed and says he's going to use the crystal as a bomb to knock out the warding because bad guys always talk too much about their plans. Indeed, Dean quickly shoots him in the arm and the crystal goes flying.

Dean catches it and hands it back to Rowena so she can finish Dirt-Deviling the ghosts.

Denouement. Castiel tries to heal Ketch but can't for some reason. Did he get some kind of cooties from trying to heal the godly bullet wound in Sam's shoulder? Is he just tired? Does he just hate Ketch as much as I do? Time will tell.

The Winchesters say their goodbyes to Kevin, who's decided to wander the earth like some kind of phantom Dr. Banner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33izVlIOgnQ

"I love you guys," Kevin says. They smile at him. Like dang, say you love him too! I mean just give a guy a moment of happiness before he leaves to gradually lose his sense of self and his soul fades to nothing. Also maybe hug him. He's solid-ish.

Man, what a bummer.

In Reno, Amara is saying her goodbyes, too, but in a much sassier and satisfying away. She gets to tell her brother off and wear magenta lip stick. She mentions that he's lost so much power that he can't even leave this world without her help. Oh honey just punt him into Apocalypse World, then. Leave his ass to flounder.

We end with a bunch of ghosts (red glowing nuggets of light) trying to break into the town from the top. But like... why? They have the whole rest of the world. Why are they bothering with this mile-wide circle of real estate? The Winchesters and associates fret about how they're going to stop all the ghosts.

It's a shorter season, so they better hurry...

***

If you enjoyed the recap and are able, please visit my virtual tip jar: paypal.me/TippiBlevins or https://ko-fi.com/A4017DA

[its8simplejulesblog]

It’s Been 17 Days

Since I’ve written anything on here..I’m sorry. I think I just got caught up in the monotony of quarantine (and also I did a lot of tanning/ subsequent falling asleep on my porch outside) that took up a lot of my time. However, the pessimistic side of me says that no one really reads this anyway, so maybe the timing isn’t as important as I thought, and this really is just for me. No matter, I find that I can’t force my writing. I really only do it when there is something pressing on my mind and there definitely is tonight. 

(idk why the only gifs on tumblr are anime girls, but honestly I’m not that surprised) 

Quarantine has tested me a lot in terms of how I deal with my view of myself. I’m sure that’s true for everyone. When I have absolutely nothing to do I’ll sit on my bed and think about what my values are. I know that first and foremost, knowing my worth is something I value a lot. Sometimes I have to peel myself off of tik tok because even though I feel the best I ever have, it’s still impossible to not be disheartened by the appearances of some of the girls on that app. It’s so sad too because you can clearly see the affects that that kind of content has on its audiences. 

I think that something I’ve come to notice as well is that modeling was a really healthy thing in my life before the pandemic started. That seems really backwards, but I think that it boosted my spirits so much. I think it’s because I never went into it with the mindset of “I want everyone to feel like shit looking at a good picture of me,” but moreso, “I’m actually really happy with myself right now and I want to capture that feeling.” Working with Dom has been a highlight as well, because even though we’re promoting her business, it’s just fun for us. We put on Disney music and laugh and she makes me feel like I should be proud of myself. And, the beautiful thing about it is that everyone has something that makes them feel like that: whether it’s singing or dancing or acting or programming or mechanical engineering or drawing etc etc. 

Another thing I’ve noticed on tik tok: everyone..and I mean EVERYONE is obsessed with love. For obvious reasons, haha, but the level of toxicity is crazy. It’s almost like no one knows how they really should be treated and the bare minimum is a shock. The amount of tik toks that are about girls getting texts from their crush or being left on read or their body counts or makeup to impress him is exhausting. Honestly, I feel fatigued :) And it is nearly always followed by tik toks of girls crying and their makeup is running and they’re saying they hate men or they’re screaming about how their ex is a piece of shit and “look at me now.” 

I get it, I understand everything they’re saying. Getting left on read sucks, and it hurts, and you overthink it and think you did something wrong. But, at the end of the day, do you SEE yourself? You look ridiculous. One of my biggest lessons in quarantine is quite simply to let that shit go. Did I cry to my mom at 4am because I guy stopped talking to me for a day? Yes, but did I reflect on it and recognize that that was probably a waste of time (and sleep) also yes. 

In all of my blog posts the central message ends up being essentially the same, perspective. Recently I’ve chosen to see the world in as positive a light as I possibly can. It’s SO hard to do, especially in these times, but I’m holding out for good. Good attracts good. I like to think. If you sink yourself as low as you can, and believe the worst in people, then that’s what you’ll attract, and you’ll end up hurt. It happens everyone time. I know that a lot of stuff I write sounds so cringey, but it is truly stuff I have come to believe during quarantine. You almost feel lighter when you treat life like a gift instead of a curse. 

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about my future. Not in an unhealthy way, because I like to be as mindful to what is in front of me as possible, but as something to get excited about. I can’t wait to (possibly) go to grad school. I can’t wait to travel and do good for others. I can’t wait to learn as much as I can about as many people as I can. I can’t wait to meet my best friend and get married and blah blah I’m just excited. I just wish more people would embrace the uncertainty of the things to come instead of back away from it (disclaimer that I recognize that this is a privilege I have as I notice that there are many factors that lend to my opportunities in this weird world we live in) 

So, when things don’t go my way in the present, I’m not going to say it’s not hard. Being an empath, I get close and attached to people really quickly and when it’s not reciprocated in the same way it really really stings. The key is not taking that to heart though. I know what I’m worth and while I always give people the benefit of the doubt, I also need to recognize that it’s just a fact that not everything will work out in my favor. And if someone is not jumping at the chance to talk to you or be with you or make you feel like you’re not worth their time then you need to recognize that that’s not a reflection of your value. 

I always knew that :) That was nothing new. Putting it into practice is harder though, but every night I feel better. (I also say this every time) but the people you surround yourself with tend to be a reflection of how you feel about yourself and I’m happy to say that that is true for me. 

Of course, there are times when some things just make no sense and you take it out on yourself; but let me be the first to urge you not to do that. You never ever know what is going on in someone’s life or mind. We’re all innately, primally, selfish, so of course we would think that we did something to provoke someone or make them hate us. Chances are though, it doesn’t involve you. The more I grow up the more selective I am in the battles I choose. Most of the times, playing games with people is not the move. If you’re upset, please god be upfront about it. You don’t want to spend your time on someone or something that doesn’t make you better. 

The second, and more important part of that though: leave it alone. This is something I struggle with. If I’m upset with someone I’m usually not “mean,” I’ll just make a lot of passive aggressive jokes about them. Again, not my finest moments. It’s something I’m working on leaving in the past. There’s no use bringing someone else down. I’m not a hypocrite. 

Anyway, in conclusion, I know that quarantine can be pretty lonely. I think I’m more lonely now than I was before solely because people are starting to go out and hang out with friends now (which is something that my family has definitely been more cautious about). At the end of it all though, I think I made the best friend I’ve ever had during quarantine (it’s myself, if that wasn’t clear) 

It’s so difficult to sit with yourself and be content. I’m definitely not there, but I’m a lot closer than I was. And even though I most definitely fo not talk to my friends 24/7, I know they’re still there. That trust is something I really value. And, while I appreciate it, I’m excited to carry my own weight a little bit better when this is all over. 

You’re all Valuable (Yes I mean ALL of you) 

-Julia 

[empowermentstrategies]

Feeling Out of Phase?

Well friends, here we are solidly into 2020, a new year and a new decade! Whether you were raring to go or felt blindsided by the trappings of wrapping up the old year, time marches on. Like a lot of people, I spent the transition groggy with a nasty cold, and I feel like I’m only now finally starting to wake up again. Maybe you’ve already hit the ground running with exciting new ideas and plans, and if so, well done! Whatever your experience has been so far, remember that your personal timing doesn’t have to line up with everyone else’s to be valid. Sometimes we all get a little (or a lot) out of step with where the world seems to be headed. You may experience this in small ways, with a sense of being out of synch in your closest relationships or in your local routines. For much of human history, the local was most of what we had to worry about! However, now, with the advent of the Information Age and the 24-hour news cycle that must be filled, no matter how low-quality the programming, we are bombarded with so much more than we can ever participate in, and much of it is fear-mongering. The split focus and temptation toward constant worry that this constantly induces is confusing at best and utterly overwhelming at worst. And this is not just experienced on a personal level. Our new normal is affecting the genesis and reaction to mass events the world over. This time in history is in many ways chaotic and shot through with layers of rudderless conflict. We’ve hit multiple tipping points that require us to change on a global scale if we want to have a planet to live on at all in another decade or three, and the majority of the world’s leaders seem convinced that childish, self-obsessed stupidity is the way to go. I actually think a lot of our issues come down to failures in educational systems. That’s not really surprising, since education used to be only for the wealthy, and only quite recently has there been an effort to scale it up to cover everyone in cultures across the world. This effort has revealed a whole new set of challenges that are not easy or quick to solve with our current level of experience regarding the effective transfer of information and skills in group settings. And just recently, the number of readily available distractions has exploded. It used to be that for those with the luxury of free time, one of the exciting things you could do was learn, and expand your horizons in self-motivated ways. Now so much is handed to us, even foisted upon us, that learning is less a joy and more of a constant drudgery as we try to keep up with everything that a cacophony of questionably valuable tastemakers tells us we must. I don’t mean to sound like a grumpy old person here (“It used to be that everything was just great, blah blah blah”), because there was never a time when everything was perfect on planet Earth! What I’m hearing from so many people right now, though, is that the fight against constant overwhelm is becoming more and more consuming and exhausting. If you feel like you’re bogged down in a cycle of just getting through each day and recovering from it, you’re in good company! Here are some ideas that may help you as you begin to construct your vision of this new year and begin to set it into motion:

Acknowledge that this world is a challenging place in which to live, and don’t be so hard on yourself about it. You have to balance yourself and your needs, the needs of those closest to you, and your relationship with the wider world, all of which are demanding, and these demands are constantly shifting. Give yourself some love and credit for keeping up with all of this. Some people like to make their lives look effortless on social media. Don’t believe that #*%~.

Reaffirm that only you can be the source of the most high-quality information about you. By all means, consider feedback from others as you chart your path, but if their assumptions are wrong, reject them. Only if you retain the right to be the arbiter of your opinions about yourself, and choose to make self-compassion a guiding principle, will you have access to the constant stream of creativity you need in your daily efforts to make your life the best it can be.

Have a written list of your priorities that you refer to daily. Focus is key. You can imagine far more than you can ever accomplish in the flesh! You must prioritize your highest values and connected projects if you ever want to get anywhere. Do you have this? Almost no one does. If you don’t, make a list now in your phone or somewhere else you can easily refer to it. Have you done this yet? Seriously, do it now!

Unless you are a writer or other passionate content producer by choice, focusing on living your life in the real world is far more crucial than narrating your every move in the twittersphere. Yes, stay in touch with important people in your life in the most convenient ways for you. Just don’t confuse running in endless circles online with accomplishing your goals. Simplify and focus.

Carve out the time you need to take care of yourself physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. If you think you’re too busy, start with small steps. If you fall off the wagon, get up and keep trying. You can’t sustain an optimal life if you always put your basic needs last.

Get clear about the ways in which you want to contribute and give, the ways that feel appropriate and exciting for you. If you’re not sure, get out there and practice donating some of your favorite skills. Be careful to corral your giving into this mission statement so that you don’t start behaving as though you owe all things to all people. We all need to exist within a give and take dynamic with the societies we live in, but doing too much will exhaust you and deny the world the best version of what you have to give. Give joyfully, and when you can’t, plot your rest and rejuvenation, and then get back to your chosen areas of giving.

Keep an eye out for ways to make your life fun. If something isn’t fun at all, you’ll tend to quit, because there are limits to human reserves of willpower. Enjoyment keeps us motivated in healthy ways. It also draws us toward activities we’re good at, which helps nurture our effectiveness and deeply feed our life vitality.

It’s fine to be influenced by the timing of the world and the people around you, but remember that those who have invented some of the best solutions in history have been considered eccentric-to-outright-crazy because they were not following the pack. In case you haven’t noticed (you probably have if you’re reading this), the world is desperately in need of creative solutions to a wide variety of problems. Paradoxically, you may be better able to help by refusing to have your timing and your activities dictated by conventional wisdom, immediate imperatives that you’re not the right person for, and public opinion.

Treasure the people you trust. Friends who have your best interests at heart as well as their own, and who have demonstrated the ability to maintain relationships characterized by a balance between giving and receiving, are one of the best things in life. Appreciate these people at every opportunity!

There are times when we need to meet life with a warrior spirit, and no matter what you’re attempting to do with your life, it seems to me that now, this moment on this planet, is one of those times. I don’t mean that we need to be combative, but rather suffused with a courageous willingness to do what is necessary and appropriate in order to meet the challenges we face, both personal and collective. Find someone from any time in history who inspires you in this direction.

I wish you courage, focus, friendship, ease, and joy as you face whatever may unfold for you in 2020. Be awesome!