#me: there's nothing new here [somehow manages to ramble for paragraphs]
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wotseries did a little article about the south africa filming which apparently officially started today, and there's nothing crazy in it but i'm so desperate for crumbs that i'm bringing the little tidbits i found interesting to you all!
they speculate filming will last about 2 months
they speculate some tanchico scenes may be filmed here as well as aiel waste scenes
crew members spotted include people associated with all of the season's directors (block 1&4, block 2, and block 3). which might mean the waste scenes (and/or possibly tanchico scenes) start as early as 3x01/2 and/or span as late as 3x07/8 (the director for blocks 1&4 is the same, so we can't say for sure whether they're there for both blocks or just one of them). wotseries does specifically say they believe they may be filming for material as early as 3x02.
they are confident that rosamund pike, daniel henney, madeleine madden, ayoola smart, and josha stradowski are involved in the filming. (actually, they said they were confident about the first 4 and assumed josha was also there since rand yknow has to be there, but i'm 99.9999% sure josha mentioned being part of this filming in the december interviews, so i'm confident.) so it does sound like exclusively the waste crew right now, and thus i'll take the tanchico speculation with a grain of salt, although of course it could be that there are tanchico scenes that are scheduled for later in the shoot and those actors may arrive at a later date.
now for some of my mini musings! first, season filming length. this would put s3 filming at april 2023-april 2024. s2 filmed july 2021-may 2022 and started airing in september 2023. the s2 film end date-air date gap would put s3 at august 2025, while the s1-s2 air gap (1 year 10 months) would put s3 at july 2025. could be we're looking at summer 2025, or could be that amazon wants to alternate septembers with ROP and will put WOT s3 at september 2025, or could be they want and are able to start getting seasons out a bit more quickly and are hoping for spring 2025. who knows! i'll be very curious to learn ROP s2's release date and potentially get a sense whether alternating septembers is their plan or whether they're aiming to start having a fantasy season out every 8-10 months instead of every 12.
second, The Mat Question, given the recent rumor that mat will be part of the tanchico plotline. donal is starring in hadestown which is happening right now, so he's obviously not involved in this filming - at least yet. possibilities are:
a) most/all of the filming is for the waste, and mat is not part of that plotline at all
b) mat is part of the waste plotline in some capacity, but all his scenes were already filmed in the studio and donal doesn't need to participate in the south africa shoot
c) donal does need to participate in a portion of the south africa shoot and an understudy will take over his part in hadestown for a bit while he's doing that (i know nothing about how long-running theater productions work, so i have no idea whether or not it's likely that he would take a theater job or be hired for a theater job if he already knew he wouldn't be available for a chunk of its run)
i don't really have any guesses at all here. mat is destined to be the most mysterious and hard-to-predict character of every season!
third, i'm thrilled to have unofficial confirmation that madeleine is part of this filming and i hope to soon see an end to the "egwene will go back to the tower instead of accompanying rand & co straight to the waste from falme" nonsense haha
fourth, the potential timeframe of the waste plotline. that it spans episodes 3-6 is totally unsurprising, so it's the bookend blocks i'm most curious about. arriving at the waste in 3x02 makes sense to me - this would give them a whole episode with the gang together in falme, and then everyone can split up to head off on their trips. there's also a bit of a possibility that the suspected 3x02 material could be just the end of the episode, and rand's group spends most of the episode in a different place such as caemlyn (a theory i love very much and will hold onto as long as i possibly can!). i thiiiiiink previous leaks placed rand's rhuidean visions in block 2, and in the books the rhuidean trip is just about the first thing they do upon arriving in the waste, so it could be that their arrival is sorta like the 3x02 cliffhanger and then we dive into rhuidean and such in 3x03.
then for block 4. again, we don't know for sure whether this director is here for anything to do with block 4 or only for block 1, so this might be a moot point. but the potential block 4 i can think of for rand's plotline is either a) they're still in the waste all the way through 3x08 as in TSR, or b) they leave the waste sometime in 3x07/8 and go to either cairhien or tear for a big battle. option B would probably still involve some waste scenes in this block even if they ultimately end in a different location, so i don't even know why i'm bringing up anything to do with block 4 because we're no closer to guessing the location of rand's crew by the end of 3x08 than we were before!
#me: there's nothing new here [somehow manages to ramble for paragraphs]#i'm just too excited! wotshow speculation is my favorite pastime!!#wot#wot on prime#the wheel of time#wot show spoilers#wot book spoilers
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Considering the votes were a unanimous yes heeere we go hereâs One of my little story concepts Iâve been rotating passively in my head (as put together by copy-pasting several paragraphs worth of my rambling and a few additional or summarised sections);
Podcast pitch for you! A radio show host gets accidentally shunted into an alternate reality which appears to be an exact replica of the âreal worldâ, except thereâs no people in it (and things are a little more⌠dream-like, abstract, strange and supernatural perhaps)
However, the radio show connects them to the real world - people can call in, and they can still broadcast, but most of their time is spent trying to survive and make sense of their new life, not to mention trying to figure out how and why this happened, and how to get back
Wouldnât it be fucked up if, in a season finale, they make it back to the real world⌠only to find it wasnât the *right* world?
Unsure of how it would be âwrongâ - perhaps some important person is missing and nobody knows what theyâre talking about, or something is fundamentally *different* about the world
Or perhaps itâs an instance of the classic âbeing in the wrong dimension is making me sick/glitch out/other fucked up symptomâ
Perhaps they never existed in this new world. Mm. Either way theyâre not making it out of this situation entirely human. Whether figuratively or not,,, up for debate
(Above paragraph provided by my dear friend Raz who enables me)
Ha wouldnât it be fucked up if their world never existed. They simply spawned into reality spontaneously at the moment that âshunted them into a parallel dimensionâ
Or perhaps their existence destabilised their dimension causing everyone to disappear rather than them disappearing from the world
I shall have to puzzle over itâŚ.. Was thinking of perhaps nightvale in terms of the strangeness of the âemptyâ world but thatâs a bit much
Mayhaps,
Perhaps theyâre wondering if the things theyâre seeing are *real* or simply some kind of isolation induced hallucination
I can think of several sad or bittersweet endings for the guy but I do also wanna come up with some nicer onesâŚâŚ
For the former, for example - whatever caused them to pop into existence was only temporary, and time and space corrects itself and smooths out the wrinkle of their existence, causing them to cease to exist. Or perhaps they could choose to end the pocket dimension themself, snipping it off of the ârealâ world for whatever reason
To elaborate on my thoughts up there;
Season One Storyline;
Radio Show Host (letâs call them Cam as a temporary name) kicks up the broadcast, only for some sort of event to occur - they dismiss it as weird, but harmless, considering it only lasts a few seconds and nothingâs really gone wrong as far as they can tell.
The episode goes as it should pretty much; they take calls from listeners, talk about whatever the show is meant to be about, just Regular Radio Broadcast.
However, things go sideways when they step out of the room to find that thereâs absolutely nobody else in the building. Maybe during a commercial/song break? Idk. Either way they come back unsettled and the episode ends on something of a strange, sour note.
Things kick into gear by episode two with them returning panicked, rambling about how everyone is gone and theyâre all alone. In the whole town, and nobody they know outside the town is answering their messages. Listeners call in, confused, because they live in the town and everyone is still there, which does not help with Camâs panicking.
From then on things devolve into some sort of chaos as strange things happen around town with Cam, while listeners remain confused if this is some sort of prank or interactive story or whatever.
Blah blah, somehow Cam manages to âget back to the real worldâ by the season finale, and things seem fine!
Season two!
This one is perhaps told through a different medium? Cam might be recording their own podcast or something like that, rather than a radio broadcast - unsure, might stick to broadcast. Either way it takes place a while after their âescapeâ but not too long, and theyâve noticed that people have no idea who they are. Thereâs no record of their existence, not even the few people they did know seem to recognise them, and theyâre stuck staying at a motel or something because their residence isnât under their name as it should be.
They come to the conclusion that this isnât their universe, and theyâre starting to feel off.
Season ends with them going to another dimension - perhaps back to the one they were in originally? - having come to the conclusion that rather than something transporting them to an empty dimension as theyâd thought originally, it might instead have been that something did indeed happen to the people in their universe. Something they might be able to undo.
Season three?
Iâm not sure what to put down for season three here but essentially, in this season, they come to the slow realisation that thereâs something wrong with their home dimension - and themself, by extension.
Turns out, that event that kicked off the whole story? That was the event that created them. That was the moment they came into existence. Everything before that was just the world changing itself to retroactively exist, or at least fill in the gaps of Camâs memory.
Thatâs like, all Iâve got. :)
#purples rambling#I donât really have a name for it#feel free to suggest one?#uhh maybe Iâll make a tag for these things. hmm.#story scribbles!#sure thatâll do
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admin đź here - happy first week of daily honakana except not really because we missed yesterday, whoops! iâll be trying my hardest to make an extra post (once i work up the motivation to)!!
anyway today im here to announce i figured out im bi and honakana was part of the reason why đ hereâs, somehow, a five-paragraph ramble about that! this doesnât really fit the blogâs usual posts but i figured iâd talk about it because i didnât want us to miss posting two days in a row, and i wanted to discuss how special these two random ass girls are to me <3 this is pretty personal but i thought id get it out somewhere and this blog seems fitting enough. if its too long then just know the moral of the story is that honakana changed my life
okay so i do like guys, which is something i cannot deny. i hardly even considered the possibility of me liking girls as well, though, until i downloaded project sekai on my phone. Yes, until I downloaded project sekai. i was already a huge vocaloid fan (not to the ridiculous extent i currently am, but it was still one of my most important interests!), so of course i became a huge prsk fan, too. i immediately grew attached to nightcord, and kanade in particular! why her? i couldnât tell you, but boy did i really like her. and i still do!
i was an active shipper of some characters from some different fandoms at this point, combing through google for ship art and reading tons of ao3 works and basically searching everywhere for scraps of content of them. all my favorite couples were straight, though - i was fine with gay pairings, but didnât care all that much about them. now, i was thinking a lot about kanamafu (who i still love too!). and then i wondered if anyone was shipping kanade with her housekeeper. i proceeded to go to ao3 and read all of skwakrâs works, and then all the few other works tagged with honakana, and then i followed the tag and looked everywhere for honakana fanart to save and honakana AUs and canon honakana moments and whatever other content i could find of them. somehow despite the fact they had hardly anything together in canon or fanon (at the time, anyway) they were my new obsession.
why? again, i couldnât exactly tell you. i think it had something to do with how sweet and uncomplicated their relationship was, though - it was easy to believe honami would always care for kanade, and kanade would always leave time for her, and both would unconditionally love the other with nothing stopping them. i also think it must have been because of how well skwakr portrayed that unconditional love (go read their works if you havenât, they express such great love in so few words and theyâre incredible!!!). it seemed so real to me, real enough i somehow managed to fall in love with honakana as much as each was in love with the other. oh yeah and this was while my first (male!) crush was raging on - i turned to a pair of fictional girls dating for comfort while constantly pining over him. that was incredible of me. i mean i still do that tbf
i eventually lost my interest in prsk itself and got rid of the game, but my interest in honakana didnât waver much. i didnât actively interact with the fandom or read every single honakana fic that was released - i didnât even find out about their wedding event until a few months ago - but i continued thinking about the two of them frequently. recently, i started the game again, for a reason i donât remember. i donât think i was planning on playing it much; then, i learned about the event and that it was coming to the EN server in a few months, and after not playing for so long, i suddenly had a goal waiting to be completed in those few months. i needed to rank high on the leaderboard, and i needed to do it for those two fictional lesbians i loved so much, for some reason.
a new, more agonizing crush is currently raging on for me. iâm pretty sure the object of that crush now thinks iâm a lesbian after having explained my need to tier in the event to him (and also having an icon of marcille donato on discord). itâs now a day since the eventâs ended and iâve been thinking a lot about my orientation - yes, mainly because of him, but also because itâs something i havenât really figured out about myself. iâve never liked a girl as much as those two boys, but i consider way more girls from fictional media hot than guys, and thereâs also ⌠all of this to consider. i donât know how else to say it: i do not think there is a heterosexual explanation for my two-year-strong obsession with the not-even-that-fleshed-out relationship of two girls who are not real and are not dating. somehow, theyâve been as much of a constant presence in my life as that first crush was! and so thinking about it today i have decided i do not give a shit if iâve only ever liked real guys and fake girls, i am bi and nobody gets to decide that except for me. who cares? no one should, except for me! thank you for reading my pouring my heart out about two random anime girls and good night. i need to go to sleep save me honakana
#daily honakana !!#not even tagging this as ship this is just me yapping#admin đź#Sorry i have mothing else to say about this except like . Big fan of them!
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Mayhaps a cool prompt??? Young Everett and Eli at home, sitting together, Everett comforting Eli through fears about future planning?
Hi hello I loved this, and also Iâm so sorry in advance for the second half of this drabble because it just kinda happened. Also apparently everything I write with these boys ends up being 2000+ words and a lot of dialogue
CW: Mentions of a neglectful parent
***
 Elias tiredly stared at the screen in front of him, reading and rereading the same paragraph several times, trying to will his brain to cooperate and focus for once. His eyes kept straying away though, glancing around the dark room, looking back to the screen and going over the several tabs he had open, occasionally heâd switch tabs to choose a new song to play on low volume, he usually wasnât able to focus without music- though right now, even that wasnât enough.Â
 He sighed and moved the laptop off his lap, setting it on the bed and tiredly rubbing his eyes. It was almost midnight, and he already dreaded school the next day because he knew he wouldnât be getting much sleep. He considered going to try and find something to eat, wondering if that mightâve helped him focus, but he already knew he wouldnât find anything and he didnât want to waste his time, not more than he already was anyway.Â
 He perked up when he heard the front door to the apartment open, Everett always tried to be quiet so he wouldnât wake their mom but the door creaked no matter what they tried to do to fix it. Eli liked the warning, liked not being startled when someone came home. It took all his self control to not leap off his bed and go to greet him, he was usually tired when he got home from work and he didnât want to bother him, though he knew Everett would say he wasnât. It didnât take long for him to wander back to their room though, coming in with a plastic bag from the store down the street hanging off his arm.Â
 âHey,â Eli said, looking up at him from where he sat, âHow was work?â
 âExhausting.â He sighed, reaching into the bag and taking out a can, passing it to Elias as he sat down at the desk between their beds, facing his younger brother. âWhat are you up to?â He asked, gesturing to the computer.
 âSchool stuff. Looking at colleges and all that, or, trying to anyway. My eyes keep unfocusing.â He said, popping the tab off the energy drink and taking a swig from the can. âActually, all of me keeps unfocusing.âÂ
 âYou should go to bed then.â Everett told him, though he had been the one to bring him more sugar to keep him up through the night, even getting a can for himself. âWhy are you worrying about schools and stuff anyway, arenât you like, only the second year in high school? You have time, right?âÂ
 âI guess I have time but, it canât hurt to start looking early. Itâs more wishful thinking than anything.â He shrugged, leaning over to the computer, switching tabs to turn off the music still playing.Â
 âWhat do you mean âwishful thinkingâ?â He asked.
 âI mean, itâs not like Iâm going to actually be able to go to any of them.â He shrugged.
 âWhat makes you see that? Youâre a fucking genius, Eli, you could get into any school you wanted.â He leaned forward, arms resting on his thighs.Â
 âItâs not a matter of intelligence or grades, itâs a matter of money. You know, that thing weâre chronically lacking in.â He snickered, setting the can he held on the desk beside him.Â
 âYeah, but arenât there like, scholarships and shit? I donât know, I didnât really get that far, but Iâm sure thereâs something you could do.â
 âThere is, if I could somehow manage going to school all day and working every hour that Iâm not at school, homework and assignments be damned. I donât know if I could even get a job though, and if I lost that job then Iâd be fucked.â He said, having already overthought every terrible scenario that could come to pass. He sighed, anxiously running a hand through his hair. âThereâs no way to guarantee that it would work out, and thatâs assuming I even got accepted in the first place.âÂ
 âDonât worry about the money thing, you know Iâll help you.â Everett assured him. âI donât want you trying to work and go to school at the same time anyway, that would be too much. Besides, you still have time, if you really wanted to you could try working in the summer to save up at least some money.â
 âItâs not⌠Itâs not just the money thing.â He finally admitted, staring down at his lap. âI already know where I wanna try to go, and Iâve already looked at scholarships and stuff, itâs just⌠itâs out of state, yâknow? So I would⌠I would have to leaveâŚâÂ
 â... Yeah? Isnât that a good thing?â He laughed. âI wouldâve fucking killed to get away from here when I was your age.â
 âWould you come with me then?â He asked, almost hopefully. âIf⌠if we could just⌠move there⌠if you were at least close by, then, I donât know, maybeâŚâ He said, slowly trailing off when he saw the look on his brotherâs face, he already knew what he was going to say.Â
 âEli, you know I canât leave, not for good like that. Mom needs me around, and⌠and I think it would be good for you to go out on your own like that. You donât need me around, youâre more than capable of handling yourself.â He told him, moving to sit beside Elias on his bed. He put his arm around his shoulders, pulling him close as he anxiously picked at the skin around his nails.Â
 âIt would be easier with you around though⌠Iâve never just⌠been away from youâŚâ Heâd always been anxious over the thought of being away from Everett, when he was little heâd even cry when he left the house. A part of him knew it was kind of inevitable, either Everett would leave eventually or he would, if only to get away from their mother. He didnât like to think about it though, the thought of it made him sick.Â
 âWell⌠it might be good for you to be away from me. Youâre a super smart kid, Eli, and I know you have big plans for your career and all that. You shouldnât hold yourself back just because weâd have to be apart. Itâll happen someday, might as well give it a try now- or, well, in two or three years that is.â He told him.
 âYeah, but- but what if something goes wrong? What-what if I get hurt, or sick, what if you get hurt? What if I need you?â He asked, rambling away as his anxiety got the better of him.Â
 âHey, hey youâll be fine.â Everett said gently. âWeâd still be able to talk, you would come home on breaks, itâs not like it would be for forever.â He told him.Â
 âBut it would still be a long time. Longer than Iâve ever been away from home, away from you⌠and thatâs even assuming I could get in. I still have a lot of work to do before then, I sure as hell have to keep my grades up-â
 âKid, Iâve seen your report cards, I donât think youâve ever had below an A.â
 âYeah but-but what if something happens?!â He cried, getting worked up all over again. âWhat if- I donât even know! What if I just suddenly forget how to do anything, what if I start messing up, what if I miss a few days and I canât ever catch up, what-what if-â
 "Elias.â Everett said sternly, and it was enough to shut him up, his brother hardly ever used his full name. âYouâre working yourself up over nothing. Just because you can come up with some wild scenario doesnât mean itâs going to happen, if anything, itâs really, really unlikely it will. I told you, youâre smart, you shouldnât let all your anxiety hold you back. You could do fucking anything you wanted, you have got to take advantage of that.â Elias groaned, pulling away from Everett only to hide his face in his hands.
 âEvery time I think about it though, itâs⌠itâs fucking terrifying. Itâs so fucking scary, and on top of, well, everything else, the schoolwork I already have, and the chance of mom ending up in the hospital again, and you working all the fucking time⌠itâs scary, and thinking about whatâs gonna come after I graduate is even scarierâŚâÂ
 âYou donât have to think about it right now then.â Everett told him, putting his hand on Eliâs back. âIâm sure it is scary, so give yourself a break. You still have a lot of time to figure it out, at least for right now, just take a break.â He said. âAnd you know, you can talk to me if you need to. I might not understand everything you have to say, but at the very least I can listen, and try to help you the best I can.â
 âBut I donât wanna bother youâŚâ He murmured.
 âEli, you could never bother me. I donât think youâve ever bothered anybody in your life-â
 âMom would say different.â
 âShe doesnât count. Listen, I just want you to know, Iâm always ready to listen to you, Iâm always ready to help you. Iâve been with you this far, Iâm not leaving anytime soon.â He told him. Elias was silent for a while before finally lowering his hands, lifting his head to look at him.
 âPromiseâŚ?â
 âOf course I promise.â He smiled at him, reaching up and ruffling his hair before pulling him into a tight hug, Eli finally cracking a smile as he leaned into him.Â
 He could never figure out how he did it, but Everett always knew what to say to calm him down, to slow the frantic flow of thoughts that would make him panic when left unattended. He knew that someday theyâd have to exist away from each other, and he didnât know what he would do when that day came, but for right now, all he could do was cling to his brother, and be thankful he was here for him in the moment.
 ***
 Everett sat on his bed, staring at the card in his hand. It was early the next morning, Eli had just left for school and he was only awake because he always made sure to say goodbye before he left. He was alone now, staring at a phone number heâd been debating calling. The man who had given him the card wasnât as shady as his offer was, he was older, well dressed, he clearly had money and he seemed polite. He wasnât pushy, unlike everyone else who had offered him a shady job, which made him feel a little less uneasy about this.Â
 The man had told him if he changed his mind, he should call him, and heâd handed him that card. Heâd dismissed it at first, left it in his jacket pocket and almost forgotten about it. The job he had now was fine, but the man had offered more money, at the time though, he didnât think it was worth it to risk it, but the offer was starting to appeal to him more and more. Heâd gotten Eli talking the night before, and while his brother was in the shower heâd looked into the school he was interested in. Even if he had his tuition covered, there was still the cost of necessities, money in case of an emergency, the cost of getting him there and home on breaks. He couldnât blame the kid for getting nervous, it was a lot, but maybe, if this offer was as good as it sounded, it would be manageable.Â
He knew there was still a couple years until they had to worry about that, but even easing their current financial issues sounded good to him, and he knew it would take some stress off Eli. He knew their mom wasnât doing well, sheâd already spent time in the hospital twice that year and at this point he was the only one who could provide for them. He was just barely making enough to pay rent, keep their phones and internet going, only for Eli to be able to do schoolwork, and he knew they never had enough food- even though he knew he gave money to their mom. If he had the time heâd do the shopping himself, but he didnât, and he knew Eli didnât, and even though he felt guilty for it, he was angry that their mother was so unreliable, and that his brother was suffering the most for it.Â
 Heâd eventually reasoned with himself that it couldnât hurt to call, couldnât hurt to get more information. If this really was some miracle, if it was as good as it sounded, then heâd be happy he did it and things would improve, and if it turned out to be a scam or another desperate pervert, then he could forget it ever happened and go back to struggling like normal. It couldnât hurt though, so finally he dialed the number, and hoped for the best.
#not whump#my writing#my oc's#wren#Everett#this is comfort kinda but#it's comfort that made me sad#just cuz#we know what happens#is it obvious i never looked into colleges and stuff#probably rip#eli was listening to vocaloid in the beginning i dont make the rules#Anonymous
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Single Mothers Will Probably Cry During Every Episode Of  Queenâs Gambit - Episode 1
Iâll start this long piece with a quote by Toni Morrisson. She once said :Â âIf there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.â
After watching Queenâs Gambit yesterday I rushed to the Internet to see if someone had written all of the things I am about to write, all of the symbols I saw in the miniseries, all of the dog whistles, the references. Â I found articles about chess. About how the community had adopted the film, about which grandmasters the characters were based off of, about chess moves and theories, about production and the unexpected success of the series.
According to me, this is quite mediocre commentary. I eventually clicked on the New Yorker article that seemed to be a tiny bit smarter. After a couple of paragraphs I realized that the male writer was only going to rant about how the actress is âtoo prettyâ to be Beth Harmon, and this seems to upset him. A lot.
But no one talked about Bethâs mother. Or the name of the series. Or the embroidery. The chess board. The tranquilizers. The math. The flashbacks. The exchange of queens. The sacrifice of the queen. Did no one see it? Or is it again one of those things; where the world is so obsessed with single mothers and representing them as huge, massive, quite literal train wrecks, but no one actually wants to look at them in the eye, talk to them, help them?
Let me tell you, as a single mother, this miniseries had me in tears the whole time. Itâs really difficult to watch. Itâs downright triggering.
Single mothers like to keep their silence. Thatâs because we know the world doesnât like it when we start talking. It hurts. A lot. So instead, the world likes to make memes about how single moms are whores, how they are drunks or over worked. How theyâre psychotic. How they ramble. They donât make any sense. Bipolar. Crazy. How their children stare at the television all day, the way they microwave bad food. We laugh at them, and use them as comical relief in our ... what exactly? Cultural objects. Then we move on. We send a message to single mothers when we do this, and the message is important. You suck. Shut Up. Donât exist. Itâs your fault.Â
We make an entire mini series about a single mother who killed herself to save her kid, we put on the television images that hurt and harm single mothers and then the public responds with nothing. They donât even bat an eyelash. Miss the point entirely. Great series about chess! Except itâs not about chess. Not at all. Itâs about raising children alone, when the world hates you. Itâs about a trailer. In the middle of nowhere. A strong willed woman who was a mathematician in the 1940s. Who taught her daughter everything she could. Realized she couldnât do more. And made the ultimate sacrifice, the queenâs gambit. The riskiest, most reckless, bravest move of all.
So let me tell you about what itâs like to watch Queenâs Gambit when youâre a single mother. So that somewhere in the AI, itâs written. So that when our great grand children will try to understand our times, theyâll read it.
Iâll write an essay for each episode. And in each essay I will review the important lession that Alice passed on to young Beth, and how this takes her to Moscow, where she can live a much more fulfilling life than in the U.S.A.
Lesson 1 : Find A Two Dimensional Algebric Plane. Study It. Control It.
I recently learned from instagram user @itllbeokbaby and Amsterdam based artist and weaver Liza Prins that the words textile and text have the same origin as the word texture.Â
Text derives from the Latin textus (a tissue), which is in turn derived from texere (to weave). It belongs to a field of associated linguistic values that includes weaving, that which is woven, spinning, and that which is spun, indeed even web and webbing. Textus entered European vernaculars through Old French, where it appears as texte and where it assumes its important relation with tissu (a tissue or fabric) and tisser (to weave).
Women have been weaving, beading, sowing and stitching since the dawn of times. We also know that women used this technology not just to create clothes, tents or shoes. They used it as a container of information. As cultural DNA.Â
In South America, in places where writing as we know of it was never created, women would bead important tribal information into skirts. They would then use the skirts as a database of the tribe. To track births, deaths, epidemics, droughts and other important group defining events.
In modern times, women still use embroidery as a means of expression. My memories from childhood contain strong images of my aunts and grandmothers, sewing my name and date of birth onto pillow cases, bathrobes and bedcovers. They would do this by the pool, at the bottom of the ski slopes, on the beach or in the train. They would engage into conversation as they embroidered; as this activity required some concentration, but not their full attention. It was their way of being present; but also transcending into the past and projecting into the future. They sewed our lives into the cloth.
I once heard my grandmother counting the holes in the cloth she was decorating with her beautiful colours. I asked what she was doing. She said that to build the letters on the cloth, you needed to count the squares. Two to the top, four to the right, ten to the middle, etc etc. I was quite mesmerized. I was maybe eight at the time, the same age as Beth when she loses her mother. I had started learning some math in school but somehow the math in school seemed to be presented to me as the epitome of something quite different than this excruciatingly feminine passtime.Â
Math was presented to me as masculine, out of reach to us girls. And now I was disovering that these women in my family were geometry experts, fluent in linear algebra, and that at a higher level, they were database account managers.
In the first episode of the miniseries, in the first couple of minutes; we discover two Beths. The first Beth is in Paris, the beautiful, the chic; the glamourous Paris. Paris will always be the undisputed capital of Fashion.Â
Paris is the undisputed capital of fashion not because it is the home of polluting massive textile industries like the ones in Pakistan or Zaraâs empire in Spain. Paris is the capital of fashion because it is the capital of Haute Couture. And Haute Couture is custom made, sowed by hand, piece by piece, bead by bead, sequin per sequin. It is delicate. It is slow. It is sacred. It is what my auntâs did.Â
It is the opposite of industrial, the opposite of a sewing machine, the opposite of an engine. The opposite of yield failures, punching in and punching out. It is lace. Delicate, personal, eternal.
The second Beth we see is the eight year old Beth, that has just lost her mother. She stands on a bridge. Two cars have crashed into one another. And she stares on at the police officers. One says âNot a scratch on her. Itâs a miracleâ. The other says âI doubt sheâll see it like thatâ.Â
My theory is that the miniseries explain how Beth eventually begins to âsee it like thatâ.Â
The first time we see 8 year old Beth she is wearing a dress, with her name embroidered on it. It reads Beth, in pink. Feminine. Purple flowers surround it. The embroidery is delicate. Itâs on her heart.Â
We follow eight year old Beth as she gets sent to an orphanage. In the first couple of scenes at the orphanage, we think, for a minute, that maybe Beth will be okay here. The head mistress smiles, has nice hair. Shows her around. Yes, the bed is by the lavatory, but at least she has a bed, a roof over her head.
We only start despising this new mother figure when she takes Beth to choose new clothes. Beth takes off her dress, and stares at her name, written on the front. The headmistress selects a white shirt and grey dress for Beth. She hands to her these new items, symbol of her new life, of her integration within the orphanage and later mainstream society. The headmistress then grabs the dress with the name embroidered and looks at it with disgust. Then, she says âI think weâll burn this oneâ and disapears.
Beth then understands that she is no longer allowed to love her mother. That to fit in this school, this orphanage, to survive, she must let go of the embroidery and all of the things she associates with her mother. Her mother, in the words of the teacher was a âvictimâ of âa carefree lifeâ. A free spirited whore, a lesbian, a witch. Thereâs a lot of words we liek to use to describe women who donât conform. And Bethâs mother, as we learn, never conformed.
At night, Beth sees her motherâs eyes, she hears the last words her mother uttered before dying in the car crash. âClose your eyesâ. She said it with tears in her eyes and an air of great determination. She knew what she was doing, which is something Beth doesnât want to tell anyone. Not even her new friend Jolene. Bethâs secret is her mother wasnât crazy. She wasnât crazy at all.
Then, Beth discovers the board. One day, she gets sent to the basement and sees the janitor playing chess. Later in the miniseries, Beth tells the journalist from Life it was the board that attracted her. Not the pieces.
As the first episode unfolds, Beth learns that the squares have names. She learns the names. And at night when she looks up at the ceiling she sees the board. She visualizes the pieces moving on the 64 squares. She moves them in her mind and imagines all of the alternatives. What the board would look like if she moved this piece to that square. What would her opponent do then?Â
To the journalist of the Life magazine, Beth says that the Chess board was a universe of 64 squares, and that she could control this space. All she had to do was study it.
The board is much like the cloth that Bethâs mother Alice would sew information onto when she was a young child. You count the squares and move your material through it. As you go, you make shapes, patterns, motifs. Beth looks up at the ceiling at night and the first night, without the tranquilizers, she sees her mother say âClose your eyesâ which is too painful or such a young child. A young child doesnât understand yet why a mother would say âClose your eyesâ and then crash on purpose into a truck. A young child doesnât know about the world yet.
Alice aknowledged that she was about to do something extremely risky, that the outcome was uncertain. Alice told Beth that she was going to purposely provoke the car crash.Â
But when Beth takes the tranquilizers at night, and now that she knows about chess, she can transfer her love for her mother into her growing obsession with Chess. She looks up at the ceiling and instead of seeing Aliceâs last thoughts, she sees the Chess board. Which is the small piece of universe that Alice controlled, when she was alive. The cloth that she sewed her daughterâs name on:Â âSo that youâll always remember who you areâ.
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Ch 2 of "My life (but the better version)"
Warnings: Flashbacks, death mention, and bone mention in a metaphor for a pain that feels like stabbing
The guy came in and Tord took a bit to get used to the familiarity. There was no way though, right? What the fuck, you're supposed to be dead? Not that it was bad someone he didn't mean to kill was alive after all but there was no way, right? He was definitely dead. What the fuck are you doing here, Jon? Tord manages to blink the memory itself away in that split second.
It didn't take that long after Tord realized who that was, then there were words to start pouring out of Jon's mouth. He was talking about his condition, it seemed, or going over it somehow. Tord wasn't fully listening. He was focused on trying to just push away the memory, but whenever he blinked, there were flashes of red, of explosions- and something on his arm felt like needles that were not just stabbing into his skin, but really painfully digging into the skin there, almost like those needles were digging down to his bones. When he tried to reach over to grab that arm, he remembered that he was in fact an idiot and doesn't have that arm anymore. Ugh, those kinds of pains were the worst, especially when you couldn't get rid of them. He groaned in annoyance. The groan had gotten the attention of Jon and he immediately looked over and stopped rambling about whatever he was rambling about.
"Is there something wrong? Other tha-"
(Warning: Flashback start)
He didn't even LOOK like he was dead. And he was talki- No, nevermind, he was definitely starting to look like he was near dying. The blue button up with the Red Cross symbol soon had the symbol missing and was much darker. The white walls around them disappeared, replaced by the open sky. In the time it took for him to blink once again, he found himself back there, back at his old place. Where he loved for a good few years, left, and came back. back where he had hurt Matt and Tom physically, Edd emotionally, and Jon completely.
Blink
Shots. A destroyed house. "NO! MY EVERYTHING" "TOM! NO!"
Blink
Blue, Emerald Green "...not going to take over itself!" Red. "-And THIS IS FOR MY FACE" Magenta
Blink
Dark Green "-SAY SOMETHING YOU IDIOT!" Navy Blue "S-something. Ehe...he...he-"
(Flashback end)
"-ellooooo? Oh no- you're crying what do I do? Wait okay- um. Breathe, okay? 4 seconds in, hold for 7 seconds, out for 8. Got it?" Tord couldn't nod. Or do that. Who was talking? What was happening? The giant robot suit couldn't talk.
That didn't sound like Paul, or Patryk. Huh? 2 seconds in, 4 seconds hold, 4 seconds out. He probably messed that up. 3 seconds in, 5 seconds hold, 6 seconds out. Was that it? 4 in, 7 hold, 8 out. 4 in, 7 hold, 8 out⌠4 in, 7 hold, 8 out.
"Now you got it! Good!" Jon was now beside him, Catherineng his back. He wasn't dead? Tord wasn't there. It was over."
Why don't you hate me?" Tord asked. "Hate you for crying? There's nothing bad about that!" Tord looked at him, dumbfounded, blinking repeatedly again. "I killed you." "Huh? You just met me. And I'm alive! Maybe your brain's not fully awake. Oh, of course. I'm supposed to check what symptoms you still have. I'll write down concussion- how do you spell that? Cun cushion? I'll write it like that. Yeah"
He blabbered on while writing stuff into his notebook.
Then he gasped. "Oh yeah! I need your name! We didn't find anything to identify you. Nobody was able to come and see you because of that. Do you remember anything?" Tord shook his head before thinking. Jon looked thoughtful but then he nodded slightly. And just like that he was gone.
What the faen just happened? The Norwegian stared straight at the blank wall in front of him, processing all the new information. He was found in a river as if he had drowned, someone called the hospital, he has no identification, his old neighbor who he swore he KILLED (watched BLEED OUT) (he couldn't stop remembering it) was alive and had never seen him in his life. He had a different arm. His face had bandages again.
Well, whatever all of this was, he decided to think about his options. Maybe he was the afterlife and it was just weird dreams like these, he travelled back in time but at the same time both fully, he was experiencing some kind of pre-death hallucination, or those alternate reality movies are actually a thing. Jon didn't look remarkably younger or anything, so he could cross traveling back to the past out of his options. In fact he looked older, if anything. Maybe basing everything off of Jon was not reliable, but it wasn't like there was anyone else he knew conveniently around at this time.
Whatever the case, Tord realized something else. Jon is alive. Oh yes, such a new revelation. We didn't know that like over 10 paragraphs ago at all. But no, if Jon was alive and never met him, that's what it seemed like. So far, the alternate universe movies sounded very probable.
(link) First Chapter
(link) Next Chapter
(link) Masterpost
#eddsworld#ew#eddsworld fic#polyworld#poly eddsworld#ew polyworld#eddsworld tord#eddsworld tom#eddsworld edd#eddsworld matt#ew tom#ew tord#ew edd#ew matt#shipsworld#tomtord#eddtord#tordmatt#mattedd#matttom#tommatt#tord x edd#tord x matt#tord x tom#masterpost#tom x matt#tom x edd#matt x edd#ao3#eddsworld fanfic
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A/W 2020 Fashion Month: Before Vogue Went Blank (Part 2)
Hi to anyone reading,
I was going to start this post by jumping straight into Dion Lee and part 2 in general but there's been a lot going on the past couple of days-although this blog is primarily fashion, it wouldnât feel right to start talking about designers without acknowledging all the shit thatâs been going down.
^Photo Credit to @spiltcoco on Twitter
Yesterday, police footage came out of US police murdering yet another black man in broad daylight-George Floyd. He joins Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, and Alton Sterling, plus hundreds more named and god knows how many more unnamed African American citizens in the ever-growing list of victims of police brutality.
The majority of these are just people going about their daily lives, a majority of them doing absolutely nothing wrong; even those we know to have committed crimes have been unarmed and non-violent offenders. That being said, their offences are beside the point when weâve seen the white perpetrators of mass shootings be calmly cuffed and escorted into the backs of police cars as if they were the ones selling cigarettes without permits. American police, given the amount of them that are armed, regularly become judge, jury and executioner trained for 8 weeks by an institution that originated from slave patrols. I cannot imagine how terrifying it is just to walk around as a PoC in America. I cannot imagine the collective trauma that has been suffered because of recent events on top of the intergenerational trauma that most likely exists because of centuries of oppression. I cannot imagine what itâs like to live in a country that was built to suppress you and was by law allowed to do so until very recently, those original structures still in place. I cannot imagine what itâs like to be made to feel like this is your fault. I mean, Boris Johnson is a useless, cold-hearted twat and I wonât defend him or this country for a minute (we have much blood on our own hands, and racial profiling is just as much a thing here as it is in America-I read earlier that youâre 28 times more likely to be stopped and searched in London as a non-white person compared to a white person), but I still canât imagine him publicly advocating for the mass murder of groups he knows to be primarily made up of black people via Twitter. This whole situation is so unimaginably fucked up; anyone who still sees America as one of the worldâs most developed nations needs to take a long, hard look at what is going on and reconsider that opinion.
Whilst we canât fix everything, we can all speak up and make our voices heard, and it is our duty to do so. Itâs not good enough to just ânot be racistâ, you have to be ANTI-racism, even if that means constantly reflecting on your own privilege and challenging your assumptions. Neutrality is complicity. Signing a petition isnât going to change the world, but itâs a start:
https://www.change.org/p/mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf_combo_share_abi&recruited_by_id=7ba70000-a127-11ea-87fb-d1ff0bf6ea96
As I publish this, thereâs less than 50,000 signatures needed to hit the target of 6,000,000 so if you happen to see it, get signing! There are lots of other petitions online but Change.org seems to be the only major one you can sign in the UK as the other are US based and require a zip code. I never thought Iâd close a paragraph by quoting Macklemore but the line âno freedom 'til we're equal, damn right I support itâ is at the forefront of my mind right now. Again, neutrality is complicity. Weâre never going to achieve a fair society by sitting on our asses and hoping things will improve. Letâs all do the best we can.
Sorry if that intro wasnât what you came here for, but I just think itâs so important to talk about. I know Iâve said in the past that fashion is supposed to be an escape from everyday life but there are some times when real life needs our attention and this is one of them. Feel free to unfollow if you disagree.
Anyway, onto the fashion. If this is the first post youâre reading, welcome! Thereâs a part 1! But I donât wanna be pushy so start here if you wish!
If you read part 1, welcome back!Â
I ended that post by practically falling at the feet of Dilara Findikoglu, and I so wanted to start this post by regaining a sense of dignity and go straight into what-the-fuck-ing at Dior, but I know breaking chronological order would really piss off those âOmG Iâm SoOo OCD, tHis BuzZfeEd aRtiCle WiTh DiFfereNt SiZed TiLes ToLd Me!â which is basically me minus claiming liking things to be organised means I have OCD-no, just dermatillomania and the denial that a compulsive skin picking disorder has anything to do with OCD because the neuroses club that is my brain doesnât have any space left. SO, I have to continue where I left off and star the post with Dion Lee, whose collections I am a big fan of.
I could ramble a bit more but I did enough of that at the beginning of part 1 and am sure Iâll do more than enough in this post anyway, so here it is, Dion Lee:
Considering we ended with the maximalism of Dilara Findikoglu, sliding back over towards the other far end of the scale with a designer that tends to pitch their tent on the borders of the minimalism camp feels correct. Dion Lee, fortunately, seems the perfect collection to open with. There arenât many other brands who do edge in such an understated and masterful way. If you want to be ready for combat and look like youâd fit right in at Vogue at the same time, look no further. This seasonâs collection is full of perfectly placed cut outs and immaculate tailoring and subtle street fighter-esque details as ever, and thatâs why it pains me to say it:
Not that this is enough in the way of critique to restore my dignity by any means, itâs not a patch on last season.
I donât think there was a single bad look in that show, and at times it felt like I was weeding through them here. When the looks were good, they were GOOD but a lot I found to be disappointing. Plus I have no idea why youâd put tie-dye in an A/W collection. I appreciate that itâs an Australian brand and that our winter is their summer, but theyâre presenting to the rest of the world at fashion week and anyone in Paris, Milan, London and New York is going to be freezing their tits off and looking like a twat in an orange tie-dye sundress. There wasnât much of a dip in quality for the menswear compared to last season, but honestly womenswear left a lot to be desired. Thatâs what happens when your expectations are high.
I used to think that if you assume the worst, itâs impossible to feel let down. And then I saw Diorâs A/W 2020 collection. Did a full 180 on that statement.
I suppose itâs a step up from haute couture, but then at least the styling in that was simple, and it just didnât look like anybody had tried at all; here itâs clear Maria Grazia chucked everything she could at this collection, every headscarf, every gingham print, every shallow feminist undertone, and it was still a fucking mess. At first you think some of the individual pieces are cute but have just been ruined by the styling, and then you begin to look, and realise that even those individual pieces couldâve easily been bought in a New Look Boxing Day sale.
THIS IS CHRISTIAN DIOR, SUPPOSEDLY ONE OF THE MOST LUXURIOUS BRANDS OUT THERE. WHAT IS GOING ON!?Â
I donât know, I included as many looks that I didn't mind as I could, but itâs like there always has to be a crappy, unnecessary detail in there. Everything is so literal. Of course the collection based around the divine feminine has the models dressed like basic ass Greek goddesses, so of course the collection based around the modern woman and equality has women walking the runway in ties and ill-fitting shoes too. Maria Grazia, here is a box:
Think outside of it.Â
Next is, thankfully, Elie Saab:
No, not exactly a trailblazer of a collection, but executed with poise and elegance as always. I mean, the styling is spot on. It looks like each part of the outfit was made for another, to contribute to a whole clearly envisioned look, similar to what we saw in the Alberta Ferretti show. Elie Saab is known for its haute couture shows where all the tiny details, the sequins and the silk and the embroidery come together to make something beautiful, and this is just that on a larger scale, with less âwowâs and more quiet admiration, more wishing you were the one wearing that outfit. If youâre gonna play safe, do it this well. The night dresses are stunning of course, but not even my favourite bit of the show. Itâs the casual looks, the pussy bows and the ruffles and the neck scarfs and the private girls school monochrome colour palette with the occasional pop of red or purple, a toned down version of what we saw at haute couture, any of which deserve to be worn whilst eating macarons in front of the Eiffel Tower before trip to Musee DâOrsay. Itâs Poppy Mooreâs school uniform grown up and made fit for a fashion magazine editor:
Somehow managing to cram an Emma Roberts early 2010s fashion moment into every post is my talent, who knew. Wild Child was really a gem.
Erdem was a mixed bag:
With a lot of the outfits, I canât tell if I actually like the garments that much or if I just like the look as a whole. I mean, without sounding too gluten-free Callie from the Valley, I like the VIBE, but there was a lot of outfits I almost included before I had to ask myself âLAUREN, do you ACTUALLY like this or do you just like the walking-into-your-sugar-daddyâs-will-reading-to-claim-his-fortune DRAMA of it all!?âÂ
It happened a couple of times, where once I took off my black and white, theatrical violin accompanied entrance filtered sunglasses, I realised that the actual print was ugly. A collection so cohesively ornamental and kitschy is going to lean too far into that at times, and they were a few overly-fussy moments where it seemed less nudge nudge wink wink and more like Erdem MoralÄąoÄlu fell into his grandmaâs wardrobe, stole some fabric, and called it a day. I donât want to sound like Iâm not a fan of the collection because overall itâs gorgeous, I just thought it was a bit much at times.
Continuing with the theme of clever seasonal continuity that weaved its way throughout this yearâs A/W offerings, Ermanno Scervino kept the core of his summer collection and made it just that little bit darker, added some weight to everything, and this is one of the rare occasions where I like the winter incarnation a lot more. Iâm not huge about either but thereâs a lot of things Iâd love to wear here, the coats especially.
Up next is a reliable favourite of mine:Â
Etro.
Was it REALLY necessary for you to include ALL those coats I hear you ask?
Alaska Thunderfuck as Gia Gunn voice: Absolutelyyyy.
When it comes to bohemian fashion, Etro is unbeaten. Everything is always exquisitely coordinated and styled. Like I usually fucking hate aztec print but I love the way itâs done here. Iâve never known a brand to make belts seem like such an integral, tasteful part of the outfit in a field where they so often seem like a last minute addition for the sake of accessorising; it pains me to say it, but Elie Saab, Iâm looking at you. Itâs your only fault.Â
Yes for bringing back embroidered jeans! Yes for all those high necks! Yes for the tapestry print! Yes for the Afghan waistcoats! Etro will keep fedoras cool forever and I love them for that; I donât know if she ever actually wore any of their stuff but I just know Stevie Nicks was in her prime wouldâve ate this shit UP and she is my style icon for the ages. Plus, I might be way off base here but a lot of the collection seems to be inspired by traditional Romani style and itâs a beautiful direction to take things, a treasure trove of layers upon layers and rich textures and opulent prints.
I canât wait til the phase of my phase of my life where I can swan around in maxi dresses and ponchos. I just hope those maxi dresses and ponchos are Etro.
Onto another brand which hasnât had a bad show since I started my reviews: Fendi. This season, they took their late 60s/early 70s wild child aesthetic and gave a millionaireâs high maintenance wife spin on it, and whatâs not to like about that?Â
I mean, Fendi is a brand which is always going to excel in its F/W presentations-the rich, bohemian prints (pro-tip: if you canât already tell, me mentioning the word bohemian in a review pretty much guarantees I like the collection), the furs, and the warm colour palette all perfectly translate into clothes suited for walks through a city going through a post-summer burnout, where it rains red and orange leaves. You can tell Silvia Fendi is in her element when sheâs got texture to play with, something that comes across in the gorgeous coats Fendi consistently puts out, and this season continues that trend. Plus, thereâs a lot of adorable details here-shoes that show off the decorative socks underneath, the cube shaped bags and those furry ear muffs which I hope bring about a high street muff renaissance because theyâre the equivalent of slipper socks for my ears and THEYâRE ACTUALLY REALLY PRACTICAL. The only thing Iâm not in love with is the mirrored glasses, and I canât help but think how replacing them with a pair of grandad style aviators would be the icing on the cake for the collection. Maybe I just need to see Miss Robyn Rihanna Fenty wearing them and then Iâll get on board. Usually works.
Ah, GCDS. I got so excited for it after last season but this time round, it was a bit of a disappointment. There were a few outfits that semi-matched up to how cutting-edge I saw their last collection, however a lot of the pieces looked pretty low quality. I get that streetwear is in the name, but itâs supposed to be a high fashion take on that, and a lot of the looks were quite pedestrian. Stand outs are the top 2 rows and the leather motocross style jumpsuit on the far right, third row down, but the quality of these pieces wasnât consistent across the board and I feel like I ended up having to convince myself I liked some of the others just so I had enough photos to justify including the brand. It really sucks when I look back on how ahead of the game last seasonâs collection was-weâre talking outfits that wouldnât be out of place on Instagramâs Tokyofashion page and as far as Iâm concerned thatâs the fashion holy grail. Some of these looks, especially the menswear, could be from a Boohoo TV ad and that makes me sad.
Meanwhile, Giambattista Valli put out a collection that looked like a virtual postcard of Parisian fashion; if a St-Germain-des-PrĂŠs streetwear themed Instagram doesnât exist already, someone should capitalise on that, stat, because if my typical vision of French feminine fashion is correct it would be full of outfits like this. I feel like this is what a fashion novice EXPECTS Chanel to look like. Trust me-these days the reality is much more disappointing.
Thereâs many things I'm happy to see here besides the tulle and florals and prettiness I expect of the brand. Obviously the berets and the bows and the elbow length gloves are the kind of off-duty ballerina style touches Iâve become accustomed to but there are also some nice surprises here: the military style white jacket, the unexpected snake motif on clothing thatâs otherwise overly delicate, and to my delight the return of the boater hat. IDGAF, this is the summer where Iâm buying myself one off Ebay and making this happen for me whether they become a âthingâ or not. I shouldnât squander having this little of a double chin; the opportunity may never present itself again.Â
I havenât watched Killing Eve in a longggg time since thereâs only so much of two women attempting to kill each other and then miraculously avoiding death you can watch but Iâd love to see Vilanelle prancing round a city in this kinda shit slitting some necks again. I hope that doesnât make me sound like too much of a sadist; only in a purely fictional world is this something I want to see, I assure you.
Givenchy was really, really great this season too, imo. Definitely a step up from the last RTW anyway. Aside from the drama of the exaggerated floppy brim hats and the quirky tassle detail dresses a la Schiaparelli, a lot of these outfits kinda remind me of something a Miranda Priestly/Cruella De Vil type would wear, and you know me; Iâm all for that kind of intimidating, about-to-either-slap-you-or-fire-your-ass bad bitch energy. The gathered leather gloves with the androgynous subtly checkered power suits feels CORRECT and if Giambattista Valli is the bottom in this relationship, Givenchy is the top. Am I allowed to reinforce sapphic relationship stereotypes as a bi girl? Probably not. Iâm sorry. Wonât do it again. Just this once. And you know Iâm right really xoxo
And OMFG Gucci. Another impeccable collection for me, honestly. Once again, itâs probably my favourite of the season. How it is that Alessandro Michelle gets it SO right for me despite his vision being so bold and different every time? He has this specific brand of strange, conceptual beauty which blends past and present trends in a way so supreme it should be considered art. Itâs not a term to throw around loosely but the man is a genius, and tbh Iâm still not over the human head props from the 2018 F/W winter show.
In my Haute Couture week review, I talked about the Viktor and Rolf collection (which I loved, donât get me wrong!) and said that pretty meets grunge is my fave thing ever-this is that, but much even more substantial and intelligent. The Wes Anderson-esque pieces or that late 60s/early 70s hipster aesthetic that I loved in last seasonâs show hasnât been done away with either-be it the level of detail or the colour scheme, it all somehow fits together. Never did I think Iâd see dresses fit for porcelain dolls through the lens of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen seamlessly slotted in between outfits that couldâve been put together from the clothing rack of Dazed and Confusedâs costume department. I want it all-opulent fur-trimmed coats, crucifix jewellery and pilgrim hats Iâm sure both Edgar Allan Poe and modern goths would approve of, and the tiered skirts that wouldnât be out of place in a Westworld saloon. The models were delightfully sad and almost creepy looking and I wouldnât change that for the world. To say 10/10 doesnât do it justice, so Iâm gonna have to open a reviewerâs can of worms and say 100/100.
Gucci is a tough act to follow, and Iâm sorry it has to fall onto the shoulders of Halpern. In the nicest possible way (as if there is any nice way of saying it), I donât think I any expected anything but a downgrade, so if anything, my standards will be lower so...Michael Halpern, you can thank me I guess?Â
That was really mean, Iâm sorry. Itâs not a bad collection, and I definitely like it more than last seasonâs. Itâs a slightly garish colour palette at times but an exciting one in spite of that, which when paired with the animal print dotted throughout makes this collection the perfect fit for a tropical beach party or at the very least, a semi-decent night at the Caribbean themed bar in your local town centre. The sequins and silk, a Halpern trademark, are as tastefully done as ever, and seeing them on the models, I canât deny these are some power fits-the kind of clothes you are bound to look and feel confident in; if you wanted to play queen of the urban jungle for a night, this is what you need to be wearing.
Ah, Hermes.
Generally not one to stoke a fire inside me. In all fairness, the tailoring here is really, really nice and French biker chic, and the pieces are perfectly crafted-itâs not that I donât like the outfits because I think that if I saw one of them individually in a natural, messier setting Iâd probably be impressed. These are classy, elegant winter looks and what more could you want when youâre looking for outfit inspiration for this season? Itâs just that itâs always a little too neat and uniform for me, and on the runway I like my fashion to be risky. This could almost be the sophisticated mother to a Tommy Hilfiger collection and whilst thatâs something I would probably wear if I wanted to look put together, itâs not what you get excited to see at fashion week. Primary colours all together arenât where itâs at for me either, the infamous colour scheme of the cheap plastic playhouses youâd find in the garden of every working/middle class British household back in the day. Yes, I had one. So did the after school club I was forced to attend whilst my mum was at work. Apparently the negative connotations are still too much for me (a boy I went to the after school club with did once fall off the back of one and crack his head open so maybe itâs justified).
Isabel Marant was pretty much exactly what youâd expect from Isabel Marant; if the Etro bohemian woman is one who rolls out of bed and chucks on the first thing she sees, the Isabel Marant bohemian woman is the one who claims sheâs done the same thing but who actually planned it all out the night before. She designs for the gluten-free, bikram yoga Kourtney Kardashian style âhippyâ who claims to be a free-spirit but would definitely not do acid with you. I was gonna say it was a collection for the Gwyneth Paltrows of the world but then I remembered Gwyneth proudly released a candle she claimed smelled like her vagina and changed my mind-sheâd definitely do acid with you.Â
Itâs definitely a cohesive transition from the summer collection; both have that seemingly laid-back, clean-cut vibe, and cater to the rich, impeccably groomed scented candle loving woman everywhere. Obviously the pieces are a tad more suited to an alpine lodge in Switzerland than a beach in Malibu this time round, but that same mild colour palette, pretty, naturalistic patterns, and generally relaxed fit persists. Itâs cute enough.
J.W Anderson is a bit of an enigma.
Despite the experimental silhouettes and the kooky details that you think would very âlook at me!â, the collections still seem to have a chilled, easy-going feel to them. They toy about with the strange but remain entirely sophisticated whilst doing so-I think itâs because aside from the little quirks that make the garments J.W Anderson, theyâre otherwise fairly reserved and simple; even the quirks themselves mostly tend to be exaggerated, more conceptual takes on more typical stylistic motifs anyway. Anderson has a knack for producing statement pieces that donât look like theyâre trying too hard to be statement pieces, a talent he expertly deploys at Loewe as well. Whilst Maison Margiela collections are like the fashion equivalent of that Jughead âIâm weird, Iâm a weirdoâ speech, J.W Andersonâs refusal to conform is quiet and modest. I like it. Itâs not generally my personal style but I can admire the thought behind the work, and there are still some things Iâd love to try. I have a few standouts-the shoes with the hoop detailing dancing from the ankle straps, the dress on the bottom right with what appears to be art nouveau typography on, the trench coat with the cape detailing and the gossamer dress to its right are all stunning, especially that dress. If I ever want to dress as the bubble Glinda the Good Witch descends in when she meets Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I know where to go, though I donât suppose thereâs going to be an occasion that calls for that any time soon. Can I just have the dress anyway?
Kim Shui is another new designer I found through blessed Twitter screencaps-thanks guys for doing my research for me. Much appreciated.
But anyways! Like Charlotte Knowles, itâs clear sheâs still establishing her aesthetic as a designer, and thus far I love it. The whimsical, throwback prints on urban silhouettes that range from the androgynous suits of city dwelling cool girls to the amped-up sex appeal of nightclub dresses is gorgeous, especially twinned with dainty headscarfs and opera gloves-all in all I think this a very cool and wearable collection and Iâm looking forward to the next collection she puts out.
Next up is Lacoste, and IDK why I always include their collections to be honest, considering theyâre not really known for âhigh fashionâ. I guess itâs because my dad has collected Lacoste shirts since I was little so I kinda have a soft spot for it and feel obligated to include it every time presentation season comes around. Yes, the outfits are unbearably preppy and the colours are garish but I feel like thatâs kind of the appeal? So what if some of the tracksuits look like they couldâve been pulled out of a bad mafia movie? I see the argyle jumpers, with a bit of wear and tear, as a charity shop gem my sister would come across (she has the #Y2K Depop girl knack for finding old designer pieces in the shittiest charity shops without the audacity to try and sell them at a 70% markup) that I would then steal from her wardrobe to wear myself, contrasted with a ripped mini skirt, chains and and docs. I see the POTENTIAL of a look that is very fuck you to the rich middle age tory styling we see here. Itâs punk, okay?
Lanvin was STUNNING this time around. Maybe itâs because Iâve been watching Mad Men recently and it reminds me of the fashion on that-which I hope somebody won an award for at the time BTW, it is SO fucking good-but I just adore every look here. I canât even remember if I reviewed Lanvinâs SS20 show, and so clearly if I did it wasnât that memorable (no shade intended), however this collection is a different story. Every single one of these outfits is iconic movie moment worthy, a 60s Cher Horowitz plaid two piece equivalent that would get screencapped and replicated ad-nauseam, all the best looks of Betty Draper and Peggy Olsen and Joan Holloway and Megan Calvet brought together and refined for the modern day woman. I might even consider sacrificing my anti-royalist principles if it meant I could transport myself back in time and switch bodies with Grace Kelly so I could make this collection my princess-off-duty wardrobe and drive around Monaco in that Bella Hadid look, roof down, all the drama of the fur trim and the gloves and hair whipping about in the wind (but in this unrealistic vision I can actually see what Iâm doing and Iâm not choking on random strands and swearing at Mother Nature as if she is a real entity with a personal vendetta against me).
Loewe! More J.W Anderson! Iâm gonna try not to repeat myself by arsekissing too much all over again and get the good points out of the way quickly! So rapid fire: elegant! Delicious colour palette! Interesting shapes! I think Iâm seeing a Victorian/Edwardian influence there! Correct me if Iâm wrong! I like it! The coats are strong! Remind me of the suffragettes! But lets pretend in this case these Loewe style coat wearing suffragettes are not raging classists!
AH. Apart from that, it was a bit too austere for me. I definitely preferred Andersonâs eponymous collection; there were a fair few recurring details in this show that I couldnât get behind that I didnât include, in particular this bib-like black panel that just kept popping up on everything. Sorry J.W Anderson. But a 50% success rate is still good! And at the end of the day, having 2 collections on Vogue Runway at once is more prestigious than the accumulative total of every accomplishment Iâll probably ever have achieved in my life by the time Iâm on my deathbed so what do I know anyway? Sigh:( At least Iâll always have the honour of having the largest head by circumference of my class in year 4, right *sweats nervously*!?!?!Â
Louis Vuitton was definitely a downgrade on last season for me. There were for sure elements I liked-the Vera Wang-esuqe mixing of the tulle bustle skirts with the rougher, more masculine biker inspired vests and jackets was a cool choice, reminiscent of Gucciâs mixing of the lace dresses with harnesses. I enjoyed the baroque jackets and subtle nods to steampunk style too. Though weâve already seen it a lot this season, the wet look coat with fur trim I canât help falling in love with, and Iâm immune to the potential ugliness of the muted blue monotone look purely on the basis I can picture Ripley from Alien in it. So like I said-itâs not as if I hated it. I guess when it comes down to it, the collection wasnât bad so much as I just had higher hopes. I will say though, the staging was INCREDIBLE. As a history nerd, I never thought Iâd see the day when a Henry the 8th lookalike actor was part of the backdrop of a Paris fashion week show-and I always thought there was no interesting career path for me in the subject!
And another big name I donât tend to be so partial to, Maison Margiela. IDK, I did like last season but I wasnât a fan of haute couture and it took me a while to warm to this. Call it deconstructed, experimental, whatever, but you know when you canât decide what to wear and youâre in a rush so you kinda just throw all the shit you decided against into a pile? Well, my initial thought was that this season Margiela is kinda that, on the runway.
I will say, once I let go of my need to see a clear shape, a lot of the individual pieces were stunning (NOT the puffed up tabis though, I still canât even get behind the regular ones). I guess I just wish theyâd go for less is more with the styling because as it currently stands, it makes it hard to actually take the clothes in.Â
Ultimately, one thing you can always say about Margiela, like their clothes or not, is that it has a monopoly on being effortlessly bold.
Marc Jacobs I really liked again, though I will say it doesnât stand out quite like the S/S collection did. That was absolutely STUNNING-I canât remember specifically where I ranked it in my top ten but I know it was at least in the top 5. This, on the other hand, is...pretty. Itâs very pretty, and very put together, so Iâm not saying at all that I donât rate it. I suppose itâs just a lot simpler than I expected it to be-I donât have a problem with simplicity, at all, especially if itâs what a brand is known for but I feel like part of the appeal with Marc Jacobs is that itâs pretty kooky. I mean, not Thom Browne or Margiela kooky, but commercial kooky at least. I feel like the kookiness is lacking here? And thatâs where this feeling is coming from? And also, the fact that Lanvin tackled the same era and did it a lot better? So thereâs that, too. Plus, I adore Miley Cyrus but...why? Random celebrities waking the runway just doesnât do it for me-it always comes across as a publicity grab, as if the designer isnât confident enough in their collectionâs ability to get people talking on its own, and I suppose in this case that says it all really.
Margaret Howell was...well, Margaret Howell. Sheâs known for her basics, and theyâre always pretty non-offensive âregulation hottieâ in the words of the icon that is Damian from Mean Girls. Itâs been, what, four years? More? Since I last watched that film but Iâm pretty sure watching it about twenty times between the ages of 9 and 15 tattooed it on my brain. I include her because even though they donât get my pulse racing, I like these pieces; considering the fact that expecting straight white men to ever have style on the level of barbiedrugz (his instagram is my favourite thing ever) or Rickey Thompson is ludicrous, Margaret Howellâs menswear looks are probably are the best, realistic goal for any future partner. Because I like my men dressed like Paddington bear/a depressed Brown University English lit lecturer, okay? Or in other words, Will Graham from Hannibal.
Marine Serre had a few good moments-the looks that I liked were the ones that stayed within her lane of blending the weird with the visually appealing. There were a lot of cool things going on, and I like the utility vibe (the boot with the pouch detailing and the mask are perfect examples of this done well), but outside the fits I picked out a lot of it went over my head tbh.
Marques Almeida is a show I was looking forward to-it has such a youthful, experimental quality to its collections (itâs no surprise the designers said they were influenced by the HBO show Euphoria this year!), similar to Central Saint Martins, and you can tell the designers (Marta Marques and Paulo Almeida) are based in London too; we are talking about the birthplace of the punk fashion movement, and as a designer itâs probably almost a rite of passage that you incorporate elements of that into your work. Marques Almeida does that with a flair and consistency you can count on. Their clothes donât have the wildest silhouettes or anything like that but the fun they have playing around with print and colour and the ease and confidence with which they settle on those combinations always comes through-the black and white coat with the yellow furs trim is one of my favourite pieces from the entirety of this seasonâs offerings.
I wasnât so fond of Max Maraâs SS20 collection and I'm not gonna lie, this isnât THAT much of a step up for me personally. Itâs just one of those brands I feel obligated to include because itâs talked about quite a bit but Iâm not totally sure if itâs for me. Too monotone, but Iâll give it another season! And I mean, there is a slight improvement here-this collection is a lot more laid back than the stiff, austere feel of the last, and there are some very well fitted and structured pieces. A lot of the looks kinda remind me of a 2020, fashion take on The Breakfast Clubâs âBasket Caseâ, which is kinda cool, and just from looking at the clothes, the high price tag is palpable. Also, scruffy hair club unite! Though obviously itâs intentional here! Thatâll be my excuse for the next time I turn up at work looking like Iâve been dragged through a hedge backwards-Max Mara made me do it.
Ending on those words of wisdom, Iâm gonna bring this post to a close, because I canât fit any more photos in! Iâm desperately hoping that I can fit this all into 3 parts like I did with my last RTW review but even if I do have to make 4 posts, I still include my top 10 shows as I did before. I hope to get that post up within the next couple of weeks! After that, Iâve shot a Lana Del Rey inspired by each of her different albums and âeraâs though given last weekâs events Iâm on the fence about whether to post it or not, especially given her silence over the last couple of days. Iâm really proud of what Iâve put together and Iâll always love her art and music (I have 2 bloody tattoos, for fuckâs sake!), so Iâm trying to think how I can reconcile that with those awfully worded posts and just the general lack of awareness of bigger issues that sheâs displayed the last week. JFC, being a Lana stan has always been so chilled up until now. All the very valid and important takes aside, that âLana pls delete that post and apologise, we canât fight the barbz all your stans are depressedâ tweet is the only good thing to come out of this shitshow. He got a point. Breathing feels like effort lately:( IDK, if youâre also a Lana stan and you have any opinions on the matter, feel free to DM me, because Iâm feeling pretty conflicted rn.
Most importantly though, are the issues I opened this post by talking about, and I thought Iâd finish by including the thread of petitions I saw on Twitter. Like I said, a lot of them arenât available to sign in the UK but to anyone who read up until this point (thank you!) idk where youâre reading from so maybe some of them will apply to you:
https://twitter.com/yericvIt/status/1265801832930045953
Also, while weâre at it, because every tory voting twat seems to treat our country as if itâs some beacon of hope where racism is non-existent and love to tell PoC to stop moaning about their experiences, hereâs a thread of black British men and women who have lost their lives to police violence:
https://twitter.com/illh0eminati/status/1266441604170223617
Thank you for reading until the end. I hope that you enjoyed the fashion part of the post but also that if you did read this far, you read the other bits too if you didnât know what was going on already. It seems like everyone does but you forget that Twitterâs a bit of an echo chamber and that outside of it, thereâs a lot of ignorance, whether intentional or not. I know Tumblr has a similar audience to Twitter so I imagine thereâs loads on here about everything going on too, but ya know. I wanted to talk about it just incase.Â
Stay safe, keep fighting the good fight, and again, thank you for reading!<3
Lauren x
#fashion#fashionweek#fashion week#pfw#Paris fashion week#milan fashion week#nyfw#new york fashion week#lfw#london fashion week#aw2020#fw2020#style#styleinspo#style review#fashion review#high fashion#haute couture#dior#dion lee#max mara#supermodel#Bella hadid#marc jacobs#gucci#chanel#erdem#elie saab#luxury#designer
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Hello! Welcome as a new svenario/headcanon blog! Can I request headcanons for Shindo, Yukihiro, and Haiji crushing on a sweet and supportive classmate? Thank you!!
Thank you! I hope you enjoy these. âĄ
Sugiyama Takashi (Shindo)
There were few things that Shindo looked forward to on Friday nights. After morning practice and classes, he usually made it a point to find a quiet corner at the local coffee shop to finally work on the few assignments he had due. One of those Fridayâs were different, though, when he met you, his first words to you being
âExcuse me, could I sit here?â
The small talk the two of you shared quickly turned into full blown conversations, and the more he learned about you, the more he began to develop a (not so) subtle crush on you.
Shindo is extremely modest, and always makes it a point to not have the conversation be about himself, so when you mentioned that you heard about his recent 5000m run, he became something like a stumbling mess.
âItâs honestly nothing, y/n. Iâm just glad I finally made a time to qualify.â
âItâs definitely not nothing, Shindo!â You would nudge your elbow against his arm lightly, though you were 1000% serious. âIâm so proud of you, you should be, too.â
Hearing that you were proud of him meant everything in the world to him and then some. And since that day, he looked forward to telling you about his latest feat in long distance running. He had to admit to himself that he was being a bit selfish, but he loved how encouraging you were to him and how much you motivated him to do and become better.
When heâs running, and begins to feel his legs grow heavy and his gaze go a bit blurry, your voice pops in his head as if you were right beside him cheering him on.
âYouâve worked so hard for this, Shindo.â âI know youâre going to do your best.â
And so he does, your words giving him that extra bit of energy to make it across the finish line, and when he meets with your eyes for the first time, itâs nothing for him to drag himself over to you, his smile growing larger once he reached you.
âI did it, y/n.â âI knew you would, Shindo.â
Iwakura Yukihiko (Yuki)
Yuki at first made it a point to hide is affiliation with Kanseiâs track team from everyone, especially his classmates in his law courses. So when you, Miss/Mr Law-Prodigy (whom he has a bit of a one sided rivalry with), approached him asking about the teams fan club, he nearly died.
At first, he contemplated lying about it âOh, itâs just something I do for volunteering hours - Iâm not apart of that dumb team.â But he knew that somehow, you could always tell when he was lying, always. So he owned up to it, admitting that he was actually starting to like running and the freedom it gave him.
He tried to ignore the tightness in his chest as he continued explaining his history with the team, you taking in every word intently. He loved the attention that you gave him, but hated it all the same.
âAre you any good?â Youâd ask, raising an eyebrow playfully at him. Heâd scoff at you in return giving you the cockiest response he could muster up.
âI guess that means Iâll have to come watch one of these days.â
And so you did that same weekend. And the weekend after that. And the one after that.
And the day that Yuki finally qualified with his 5000m run, you were there cheering him on with the rest of his team. Again, ignoring the tightness in his chest heâd walk over to you after finally escaping the crowding of his teammates.Â
Taking the towel that you handed out to him, he gave you the cheekiest of smiles. âHowâd I do?â Shrugging, youâd smile at him, âI think you were one of the best.â
He sooo hated your smile and the effect that it has on him, but he quickly came to love it all the same.
Haiji Kiyose
Haijiâs attraction to you was always existent. From the first day he met you in the Intro to Lit class during your freshman year, he always thought you were beautiful/handsome, but it wasnât until your final year when you learned of his efforts for Kanseiâs long distance team that his crush for you developed (or he actually admitted it to himself).
He knew you were busy, a full time student, working part time to pay your way through university, so it meant so much more to him whenever you offer to lend a hand to help out the team. He accepted every opportunity, wanting to spend more time with you than he was able during lectures, and knowing that you were there during practice, watching him run, somehow made him perform better.
You encouraged him to be the best version of himself, even without saying so much as a word to him.
But whenever you did, he took every one of your words to heart, memorizing them for when he needed the extra encouragement and reminiscing on the smile that you always wore when you spoke to him.
âYou know, Haiji, you take such good care of the team,â youâd begin as you finished rinsing out the teamâs water bottles, dancing around Haiji in the small kitchen, âYou really ought to take care of yourself every once in a while.â You tried to not sound too worried, you didnât want to discourage him but his heart warmed at your concern for him, and at the fact that you notice what he does for his teammates. Heâd look over at you, undoing the apron that was tied around his waist, nodding his head as a soft smile played on his lips.
You always take the role of being Haijiâs voice of reason. Some nights, no matter the time, heâd text you without hesitation, a paragraph of him releasing all of the worries that he manages to hide from his team. His worried that he isnât doing enough, or that heâs pushing his teammates too much. His worries about his inadequacies as a leader and so on.
Youâre always able to put his heart at ease, though, reminding him all thatâs heâs done so far and everything that he will do in the future. He always knows that any and everything you say will calm him down, and canât help but like you more and more.
âThank you for always listening to me ramble, y/n.â âAlways, Haiji xx.â
#haiji#haiji kiyose#haiji kiyose x reader#shindo#shindo x reader#takashi sugiyama#sugiyama takashi#sugiyama x reader#sugiyama takashi x reader#kaze ga tsuyoku fuiteiru#kazetsuyo#run with the wind#run with the wind headcanons#Yukihiko Iwakura#Yukihiko#Yukihiko Iwakura x Reader#Yukihiko x Reader#Iwakura Yukihiko x Reader#Iwakura Yukihiko
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Hello, I apologize if you have already answered what I am about to ask. When you write a story how do you develop the plot? And do you ever think about plot holes? If so how do you prevent those?
Hi, Anon. Thanks for asking!
I start with my idea. Sometimes itâs as simple as âit would be hilarious if Maddie saw Phantom get hit with the Booo-merang when she knows it reacts to her sonâ. Sometimes itâs a paragraph or two or ten of random ideas smushed together(technical term)--this is more or less the stage my DPxML fic is at. Thereâs a lot of me going, âOooh, this would be funâ or âooh, or I could do thisâ, and Iâll actually talk to myself like that in my notes. Itâs long, ramble-y, grammatically incorrect, and basically the equivalent of me brainstorming some sort of initial idea, the root of the story. (Iâm already rambling, so the rest of the answer will be under a read more.)
I then start doing a bit of research on stuff Iâll need to write the story. Depending on how long Iâve been in a fandom, this can be very basic stuff (peopleâs names) to more specific things (what day does Adrien have fencing?) and will always include some sort of cheat sheet for myself if the characters use slang (like Randy. And Jake.). If I come up with any ideas--or potential ideas--while doing that, I jot them down. Even if itâs a couple lines of dialogue or a way to end a scene, at some point, if I can write that scene into the story (eg Gwaine saw Merlinâs eyes glow gold.) All of this starts in my initial fic document and eventually gets moved to a scrap file associated with that fic. Do not delete ideas/scenes/dialogue/anything even if you arenât currently using it. You might be able to recycle them into a different fic or later in the current story.
Then I start writing. To see if itâll work. Even if I donât have a very clear idea of where things are going yet, and certainly no idea of the end. Sometimes I need to try a few different ways to start a story (Reflections went through various iterations. Mockingbird and my DPxML fic are still in that stage) before I find one that seems to flow. Thatâs when I look at the situation the characters are in (or about to be in) and try to figure out their actions and reactions to the stuff Iâm putting them through. And then I try to let that drive the plot. Itâs something Iâve gotten better at over time--making it less obvious that the characters are doing that because thatâs the way I want the story to go--but my best plots tend to be character-driven. (This may or may not help you avoid some plot holes. Depends on what the plot hole is. Itâll hopefully help you cut down on the âwell, why didnât they do that like they always do?â sort.)
If you need a character to do something thatâs not in character for your plot to go the way you want, you need to give them a reason to act out of character (eg Danny not telling Jake his secret because thereâs a paranormal studies/ghost hunters convention in town--and because Jazz keeps ragging on him). If you canât give them that reason, then you need to find another way to achieve what you want to happen without them doing that--or change your initial idea for the plot. Even if you start with a plan in mind, you will probably have to tweak it at some point. This is normal. Youâre just adapting to your story. Sometimes, a story will get away on you--itâll write itself in a direction you werenât expecting or past the point where youâd initially figured it would end (hello, Treachery)--but, at least in my experience, if itâs the characters driving the story that way, and you let them, it can actually turn out to be a better story than what youâd initially planned. (Again: Treachery. The unplanned part ie second half is much better than the planned part.) Itâs just a matter of keeping them reasonably in character so that things donât get too out of hand.Â
I only think about plot holes once I notice them. Honestly, Iâve gotten good at patching. If something doesnât occur to me, I canât prevent writing it in. Itâs not so much plot hole prevention for me as adaptation of the story to make it more acceptable once I realize itâs there.
Sometimes, when Iâm editing a chapter or rereading something to remind myself of the story thus far/whatâs happened, Iâll see something that doesnât work that Iâd missed before. (Random note on the âremembering whatâs happenedâ bit: if you plan a long fic taking place over multiple days, do yourself a favour and make a timeline for yourself in your scrap file. So much easier. Thatâll allow you to make accurate references like âlast weekâ and âthree days agoâ. I did this with Shattered and regretted nothing.) Once I notice a plot hole, I consider the damage. Have I posted something where itâs already stated? If I havenât, repairing it typically isnât that hard, though of course it depends on what it is--you just need to give it some justification, shaky or otherwise, or do a bit of rewriting to patch it up. Once itâs firmly written in and you donât notice it until chapters later, your best bet is writing in justification for it later. In some cases, this involves you turning your plot hole into a plot point. It may be a small plot point or it might be a significant one that will actually shift your intended story a little bit. I did this a lot with my earlier Doctor Who crossovers. I got quite good at retroactive patching there, and my plot hole turned into foreshadowing, although in all fairness all of those involved time travel to one degree or another so that made things a bit easier; I didnât have to stick to the rules of the actual universe.Â
So hereâs a plot hole of mine thatâs recent that you might have noticed if youâve read Down the Rabbit Hole: the note on Tobyâs bed. Why...why are they communicating that way? Why go to the trouble of sending a note to him that way? Why not just phone or text or email? I missed that initially. And now I see it. And now I have justification (that hasnât yet appeared in-fic) for not communicating by normal 21-century means. Depending on how things go, it might be hinting at something bigger, or it might just be a small one-off thing.
Now, in case youâre interested in my disaster of a âplanning paragraphâ, this was how Masks began--and please bear in mind Iâd seen ten episodes, subbed, at this point and wasnât entirely sure on what stuff was called:
Blademaster. Fights with knives. Unless itâs someone fromAdrienâs fencing class; the transformation could make that thing deadly sharp.Thatâs better, actually. Go with that. Marinette actually beats Adrien to thetransformation because she was skulking around waiting for him to come outafter class/lesson/club/whatever it is is over (to just âhappen to be thereâand try to ask him to catch a movie or something in casual conversation) andheard the commotion, while he got caught up in the fleeing people beforemanaging to sidestep and transform. Ladybug hasnât managed to get the swordaway from Blademaster in the meantime and nearly gets the cord of her luckycharm thing cut for her trouble. Chat Noir shows up and pretty much fences withhis quarterstaff thing until Blademaster starts to cheat, at which point hevaults over him and tags him from behind, hoping the distraction is enough forLadybug to free herself from whatever she ended up in. Evil moth guy isdemanding the gems, so Blademaster starts trying to take a slice out of ChatNoir, who evades rather than parries, trying to draw Blademaster awayfromâŚsomethingâŚand Ladybug takes over when heâs backed into a corner and needsto turn to scale the wall. She yells at him to get the something away if heâsfigured out what Blademaster is afterâshe hasnât, yet; just that the blade isprobably what the akuma is inâand Adrien, being there for the transformation,knows exactly what happened and can oblige. But he isnât long out the door whenhe hears Ladybug scream; Blademaster had either grabbed another blade orsomehow acquired something sharpâIâve never fenced; Iâm not entirely sure howsharp those things areâand while avoiding one blow, she jolted off the courseof the other and got her earlobe sliced off/the gem ripped out. Blademaster hasa gemâmoth guy is rejoicing and demanding he now get the other oneâandMarinette, with one hand clamped to her ear, has to get out of there despitethe pain because as much as she needs to get Tikki (?) back, she doesnât wantto risk her identity andâmore importantlyâsheâs not sure how much longer shecan remain upright. She hits the change room or office or something, aiming fora first aid kit or at least a wad of toilet paper, and Chat Noir is shocked theLadybug is gone. He manages to defeat Blademaster and retrieve her gem, but itis inactive, and while he manages to catch the dark butterfly in a fencingmask, he doesnât have the means to banish its evil OR to erase the ill that hashappened here; thatâs Ladybugâs turf. But how is he supposed to return hergemâreturn herâwhen he doesnât knowwho she is, and his own transformation is wearing off? (Marinette will bepulling a new hairstyle or modelling a hat or just plain skipping schoolâifthere IS school; what day was fencing class again?âand getting Alya to coverfor her with her parents on the pretence that sheâs trying to work up thecourage to do something with Adrien, perhaps, and she really doesnât want tohave that conversation with her mom,when in reality sheâs just trying to find Tikki. Not sure what happened withTikki, exactly. Needs to regain energy, which Plagg (?) would know and informChat Noir accordingly, but with them trying to keep secrets from each otherâŚ.)
and that will give way to notes like this:
Tikki, PlaggMiracle Stones/MiraculousHawkmoth
Ladybug â lucky charm at end, always ends up with somethingshe doesnât know what to do with at first and then figures it out; yo-yocompact; BOTH EARRINGS for the miracle stonesâŚbut maybe ripping one out woulddeactivate the other. She is the ONLY ONE who can cleanse the akumas. Chat Noir â (allergic to feathers), ancient destruction/cataclysm; batonYeah, if that ring comes off, the Kwami is forced out and the detransformationis right awayPlagg is SUCH a glutton, heâll even chase after stuff he thinks is food
----
Okay. Adrien picks up Tikki and Miracle Stone, so Marinettefinds nothing and tries to track down Chat Noir, but Tikki, once recovered, canjust tell Adrien who Marinette is. Problem solved. Thatâs not fun. Unless Tikkidecides to respect Marinetteâs wishes?
Or maybe they each find one earring, and Tikki isnât wellbecause theyâre divided?
Adrien and Marinette can both find nothingâMarinette because she hasnât achance to look, Adrien because he doesnât know TO lookâbut unless Tikkiâstrapped there, she gotta be able to get out.
Wait, Adrienâs chivalrous. Heâll respect Ladybugâs wishes.Even if he hates it
----
If Plagg canât see, when they transform, Adrien wonât beable to see, either.
âWhat do you mean, I canât transform?ââIf we transform, this thing would get sucked in, too, and you wonât be able to do anything.â [lines from the Rogercop episode]
Statue set on green stone (granite?) with the top edgejutting out about chin height for Adrien
-------------------------Nope, gonna have to go back and change Blademasterâs restoration to Phillipebecause that DOES seem to be after Ladybugâs restoration. [turns out I was right the first time with this, but Iâd checked with someone else and theyâd thought no one changed back until after the Miraculous Ladybug bit, so Iâd changed my initial plans here, and a few months later we got an episode that confirmed that, no, the magic link just needs to be broken, things donât need to be fixed yet.]
#ladylynse#asks#my writing#writing advice#kinda#the don't delete your scrapped ideas is writing advice#my writing advice#for what it's worth#Anonymous
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Twin Skeletonâs Part 1
Trigger Warnings: Swearing, Death, Gore, Unreality, Murder, Being Watched?
Masterpost, Next
Please tell me if I have missed a trigger, and I will be sure to add it, if you want to be mentioned when I post a new part, ask, and if oyu want me to tag this with anything else, tell me.
This is a new series,hopefully shorter than Knockin' On Heaven's Door, it physically wouldn't let me work on it until I had wrote at least part of it. I should hopefully be able to work on it next week, but if not, expect another part of this.
Word Count:2909
I HAD BEEN dead for 6 years when they arrived. Unwilling to leave the hotel after the horrors they saw and the near-death experience they had. I watched as their friend took their last breath, just like I had so many years ago, albeit in a more... bloody way than mine. Almost reminded me of Psycho with the amount of blood that poured out of them, spilling on the yellowing carpet, pooling around both of them. However, this time I wasn't fully fixated on the dying people-not this time. No, I managed to dial 911 and somehow get an ambulance for them (I'm as surprised as you are) and made sure to memorise the perpetratorâs face in case I saw them again. Anyone willing and able to kill is bad in my books. Especially after that, but I refuse to talk about it. There's no point dwelling on the past anymore.
For the event that happened, it was quite a sunny day. Surprising since deaths almost always happen in the rain. (Yes, I'm looking at you authors. Why? Oh, and hi to the audience I suppose. Who knows why you are using my life for your entertainment, but who am I to judge? Still don't like you, but I guess I'll put up with you.) Anyways, where was I? Right, honestly, I didn't mind that day, for the life of a ghost is a lonely one- we are rare. Only people with unfinished business become ghosts. Surprisingly only a small amount of the population. Most say "I want to do X before I die", but most of those desires aren't strong enough to cause them to become a lost spirit. And even then, most leave within a few years, or their unfinished business isn't necessarily needed to be done on earth. The rest of us are doomed to stay in one room for most of eternity, invisible to almost all. Almost being important. There are a few who can see through the veil of death, but it is rarer than ghosts themselves. Imagine my surprise when I found out that 1) they are created, not born, and 2) when one found their way into my room. Are you imagining it? That's you audience. Yes? Ok, now times it by 100. Yeah, I was shocked.
It was a month later I found out. You see I believed that both of them had died. I only saw one of their souls leave, but I assumed the second's wounds were just as severe- severe enough they wouldn't survive. I was wrong. They stumbled in 4 weeks later, discharged but clearly not out of the wars. Way too many bandages were on them, almost excessively. Their entire body appeared to be covered, save for their head and hands, despite only one wound being present. And it was on their chest. They didn't need half of them. But, oh well, better safe than sorry I guess? Who knows. All I know is they were followed by one of the staff members- clearly to make sure they didn't get hurt. However, they ignored their aide to stare straight at me. Yes, that's right. At me. Not through me. In the background the aide started. âHere you are,â he announced. âIt hasnât been changed beyond the clean-up and we made sure it stayed empty the entire time,â he launched into a full blown speech- I could tell he would. I cautiously stepped to one side, sure that they couldnât see me, and were just staring off to the distance. Their eyes followed keenly. I knew I had to react before they told the staff member. Quickly I put my finger to my lips, saying out loud. âThey canât see me, act like normal.â I saw them nod slightly, before turning to the staff member, pretending to be interested in what he was saying. But the whole time, they carefully cast sidewards glances at me, as if I would disappear if they didnât constantly look at me, while trying to decipher if I was actually real or not. It appeared they couldnât decide.
Only once the other human had left did they talk. âWho are you? And how can I see you?â they said tentatively.
âWho I am does not concern you as of yet. And I donât know how you can see me. Probably something to do with being stabbed made you able to see through the veil â you can see through the divider that separates our world and yours, automatically making me visible to you.â I replied curtly.
âWait, so are you a ghost or something?â
âYes, I am.â
âSo, I can see ghosts now?â
âYes, you can see ghosts,â I replied, annoyed âyou can also see angels and demons in their true form, though why anybody would ever want to do that, I donât know.â
âAnd you saw me get stabbed?â
âWho dâya think called the ambulance sweetie?â
âAnd Iâm gonna ignore how you managed that. Despite saving me, you donât want me to know who you are.â
âOf course not. You might get attached and do something stupid âto be with meâ or worse, I might get attached and have to watch someone else die. No way am I letting that happen. I canât do that again. I donât think Iâd last. Plus, the first thing is a fast track to hell- it wouldnât work. The only reason Iâm still here is unfinished business. You have none. And you have the rest of your life to live out. I donât want to infringe on it."
âFine, keep your secrets then. Iâm staying here and talking to you anyway, whether you like it or not.â
âGreat, just what I needed. A companion. I have been fine for the last 10 years, I think Iâll be fine for 10 more, or however long it takes for my spirit to disintegrate.â
âDonât be like that. I might not be that bad.â
âFine, you have one chance, donât waste it. You have a month to earn my trust. If you donât, you leave me and this place alone. If you do, I might let you stick around for a while. Deal?â
âDeal.â
The first day was relatively annoying. For some reason they decided to pester me until I gave them some information about myself, whether on accident or on purpose to shut them up. That and gushing about how they have always wanted to meet a ghost and asking me to explain how everything in the new world they discovered worked. I didnât mind telling them that much. Why wouldnât I when they would have to get used to it, and fast? Despite being a minority, they would soon see us everywhere. Well, us and angels and demons. God forbid they meet a Guardian. Thatâs why I donât mind. They opened up a world of just new, unfamiliar and dangerous things. I kinda owed them an explanation of what was going on. How the world truly worked. I started with two concepts that most people already knew of: heaven and hell.
âSo, what do you know of heaven and hell?â
âJust the religious speculations people came up with. Heaven is said to be a safe haven of angels you reach when you die- if you have done good deeds that is. Hell is supposed to full of demons, and where you get tortured for eternity for all the bad things you have done to others. I always hoped it would be the other way round cause everyone says Iâm going to hell.â
âFirst, none of that is really right. Second, what do you mean by youâre going to hell?â
âBecause Iâm a demigirl and a lesbian, everyone says I should be in hell.â
âWell, weâre all going to hell- only those of pure heart or are naive enough to be manipulated go to heaven. There are few exceptions to that rule. The rest of us end up in hell for having too much personality. Itâs better for us anyway- you donât want to go to heaven. It is a dictatorship, ruled by one person with a hive mind to enforce their laws. Highly corrupt, anyone who even slightly misbehaves or shows opposite ideas to the leader has their soul removed and their shell is sucked into the hive mind- an army of ruthless soldiers with no feelings or general consciousness. All actions are controlled by the leader. Hell is much better. It is more of an anarchist government type thing, with no rules. What you can do is only limited by the strength of your moral code. Only those who are deemed the worst of the worst are punished- mostly the ones likely to disrupt the relative peace too much or are general pieces of shit. For example, genocidal maniacs, and the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. From what Iâve heard, there is a special place in hell for those two to suffer. Plus, demons can come to earth, whereas the angels are trapped in heaven from the second they step foot in there by the guardian angels and the border guards.â I rambled on, forgetting who I was talking to, and the fact that most readers and listeners prefer to have shorter paragraphs.
âWow,â they said once they managed to recover from the information overload, âSo, technically I was right about the role reversal.â
âI guess.â
âOh, yeah, I forgot to introduce myself, IâmâŚâ they started before I cut in.
âRuby-May Johnson, but you prefer to be called Bee. You are 30 years old, and have been single all of your life. You were born on the 19th of May, which is likely where your double-barrelled name came from. You are an extrovert and sister to Lily August Johnson-Kennedy, who died in the attack.â
âHow do you know all that?â
âYour passport says a lot. The rest are assumptions from watching and listening to you before, I had nothing better to do, so I watched you.â
âRight, OK. You still not willing to tell me about you?â
âNope.â
âAlright. What should I call you and refer to you by? Iâll go first. Iâm a demigirl, I like she and they pronouns, but prefer they to she. With relationship terms, I prefer the gender neutral terms, but Iâm still fine with the female ones.â
âOk Bee. Try not to refer to me. Nobody else knows I exist, and I'd prefer to keep it that way. If you have to use she/her or youâll get she/hurt. If you need me, use Spectre. Everyone else does.â
âThank you Spectre.â
âItâs late, sleep now.â
âNo, I wanna know more.â
âNo,â I announced, forcing them into their bed, âI refuse to tell you any more until you have slept.â
âFine, but only because you leave me no choice,â they agreed begrudgingly, âGood night.â
âGood night,â I replied, making myself invisible to all- including veil-seers- and turning off the lights.
âWait! Please stay until I fall asleep. And, can you turn the light back on.â I heard, their voice cracking slightly.
I made myself visible, flicking on the lights before inquiring, âAutophobia, nyctophobia or somniphobia?â
âA bit of all of them.â
âOk, Iâll stay. Iâm pretty sure in the bottom draw of the dresser, there is a night light if you want it.â
âReally? And yes, thank you.â They climbed out of bed, making their way towards the dresser grabbing the night light and pushing it into the wall. It illuminated the room nicely, I remembered that from when I had to use it. I simply answered her first question: âYeah, I know what itâs like. Now, sleep. You are safe as long as Iâm here- I will be watching you and making sure you donât get hurt.â
âThank you.â Bee whispered, closing their eyes and falling asleep.
âSweet dreams. I hope.â
The second they fell asleep I turned invisible and ventured as far out of the room I was able to go. Here, the barrier between the possessed areas of the world were thinner, allowing me to talk with the nearest spirit to me. Or at least, what I believed must be the nearest spirit. And he probably wasnât actually a ghost, but good enough for me. I called out to him, knowing he would most likely be there. âAshton, are you able to talk?â
âYeah, sure, nice to talk to you again Spectre. How long has it been? A month or two at least. Anyway, what did you need?â
âWhat, no, I donât need anything,â I said. You know, like a liar.
âYou only talk to me if you need something, whether information or more physical, you cannot fool me.â
âFine. I managed to somehow end up with a veil-crosser.â
âSeriously? Cool. How did you manage that?â
âI called an ambulance.â
âYou know weâre not meant to interfere.â
âIt was them, they struck again. I couldnât let it happen again.â
âI understand, but you still know the rules. If anyone found out youâd be doomed to stay there forever, unable to interfere anymore. Youâre lucky that Iâd be a hypocrite to tell them, if I was anybody elseâŚâ
âI know. And I need help. What can they do that I need to know about, and what do I need to teach them?â
âFirstly, you need to teach them about all of the aspects of death.â
âHow am I meant to do that when I donât know all of them myself? You refused to tell me more than angels, demons, ghosts and veil-breakers.â
âThere are more, Iâll get my human to take the book to your room, and see if I can get him to talk to them, and teach them a bit. As for abilities, they depend on the person, you just need to wait for them to figure it out themselves. They only find them when they need them the most. It works on instinct, donât force it.â
âOk, thank you. It should be helpful. How are you getting on with yours?â
âTurns out he can give us temporary physical forms.â
âIs that how I could call the ambulance? Usually I canât touch anything.â
âProbably.â
âTell him thanks, if it was him. Also how is the asking out thing going?â
âBadly, I have tried so many times and it never worked. Heâs just really oblivious.â
âHimbo?â
âYes.â
âAsk him out straight. Well, since youâre gay, it wouldnât be straight, but you know what I mean. Tell him outright that you want to date him.â
âIâll try.â
âKeep me updated, I want to know if he accepts.â
âI will. I suppose Iâll speak to you later then?â
âYes, of course.â
âBye then.â
âGoodbye.â
I stayed in the bathroom a few minutes before making my way back into the bedroom. The first thing I noticed was that they were still asleep. âGood.â I thought, âAt least they wonât be sleep deprived.â Then I noticed it- the door was ajar a crack. âStrange.â I thought. âI was sure I made them lock it.â Thatâs when I saw it. A singular eye, peering at them through the door, filled with a malicious intent I noticed instantaneously. I shivered. Bright blue with red streaks running through it- easily distinguishable and recognisable. It was the same eye I had seen 1 month ago, and again 10 years ago. They were back to finish the job. Gently, I used whatever power I could muster to push the door closed and lock it, leaning on it to make sure they couldnât get in- I knew whoever it was had the keys. Quickly I remembered something Ashton had given me a while ago in case of a situation like this. Carefully, I fished a small silver charm with wood beads in white and yellow out of my pocket, and tied it around the door handle. Hoping it would work, I stepped away form the door. Their key turned in the lock, unlocking it again. I prepared for the worst, standing by the telephone- next to the door in case I could apprehend them.
âBang! Bang! Bang!â screamed the door as they tried to force their way through the door, quickly realising it wouldnât open by the handle, after trying the key in the lock a few times. Despite it being just wood, they were failing miserably. Glad to know Ashtonâs charm worked. For he believed it was a protection spell, given to him by a god looking like a crow, but at the same time, he could tell it wasnât really a crow. Why wouldnât a god choose a crow to parade around as- I mean, itâs jet black, sleek and pretty, and supposedly very clever. As I always say, who am I to judge? At least I knew the charm worked, and we had something to protect us until I could convince Bee to but some more security stuff for the doors and windows- especially the hinges that have a pin to lock them so it doesnât pivot. Those would be a godsend. Then weâd only have to worry about the strength of the glass and the door- easily fixable with the charm. With that plan set, I sat in the corner, next to the bed, and with a clear view of the door. I sat, planning out a security plan for next time, before eventually losing consciousness- something I didnât know ghosts could do.
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About Me
I bet you already knew from my Twitter (twitter.com/elnado108) that I posted shits on daily basis. Recently, or maybe should I say "usually" , my tweets consist of rage, sadness, questioning myself, questioning the world, practically self doubt and self loathing almost all the time.
Finally, I snapped. Even Twitter can no longer support my overwhelming feelings. "Feelings? Why you use Twitter for feelings?" That's probably what logical people said. Yes, I can use Twitter for good purpose, to share interesting and useful stuffs, knowledge, information, etc. Then what? You see, I am a logical person too. In fact, I use logic almost all the time in real life, so logic that I start to doubt and questioning human nature and their beliefs (I still belief in Allah SWT as God, I simply question the system itself). Then after all these logic starts to bored me and problems come and go, I finally need to rest. I realize I have no one to share all of the pain and happiness other than myself.
Can't believe what I just wrote? First, let's put "parents" and "God" out of equation. Let's become an egoistic being and focus on me for a while. Focus on you. Focus on one single entity, yourself. Try, try to understand my point of view. Let's analyze the last sentence in my last paragraph.
"I realize I have no one to share all of the pain and happiness"
Yes. Let's analyze it (or let me analyze myself) using 5W+1H.
1. What do you mean by you have no one?
-> I do have friends. Most of them are men. I don't have that kind of charm like some of my friends (unsurprisingly, they all are extroverts) that can talk their way with girls, without making myself weird or vulnerable.
As a man, 22 years old, in a third world country that is closer than ever to conservatism, it is very difficult for me to share my problems with my peer. Toxic masculinity, or to put it simple, expectation for a man to always be strong, independent, having huge willpower, and never put themselves in a sentimental/emotional position in front of public. How many of you that told your friends to "don't cry! Boys don't cry! Steel yourself! These are nothing, there are worse things out there!" ?? Even in my campus, my department, my close friends circle, it still happened most of the time. Not only men, most women here expect the same thing. There is nothing wrong with being a tough guy. But it is impossible, yes I declare it with all money on the table, it is IMPOSSIBLE for any human regardless of gender to be tough and badass all the time 24/7. Now when I became vulnerable, when I am down, when I am sad, where should I go? To whom I should talk to?
TLDR, my friends, which almost all of them are male , can't accept my ramblings. Most of them simply give "logical" answer, like how men should, without understanding the underlying problems. The psychology part. The feeling part. Is my logical capacity is too low that I need to ask for others logical answer to my own life? HELL NO. Like I told you from the beginning of this post, I do think logically. And I am fucking bored with it, because no matter how hard I toughen myself up, no matter how delicate my problem solving skills, LOGIC can't solve it. Still not understand what I meant? Huft. It's easy. Every logical answer that most of my friends gave me is something that I ALREADY think about/consider/act upon it. It's not a new or brilliant answer that I looking for.
In the end, I have no one. I do have one/two women that probably can solve my problems, but they've been listening to my problems all these times, that it is simply sickening for me to keep asking for their help.
"Why not solving it yourself?" Some of you may ask.
Next time you are in a deep shit, even if that shit is your own mind, you may fuck yourself. Or you know, you may just kill those psychiatrist and therapist , or blow up psychology department in uni. The next time you meet someone with certain psychological disorder or mental problems, why don't give them a fucking AAA robot that can solve their problems with 100% accuracy. Or maybe, you are weak in science and start to spewing God this and that, you know what? You may be right. Try to ruqyah all of mental patients in mental hospital, give me shoutout if they are "cured". Better quit reading this post rather than trying to give your "number one answer to everything" answer to me. You are not my friend. You are not even on my level, you are low and don't even have rights to see me. Begone.
2. With whom you want to share your pain and happiness?
-> Is it obvious? Human. People that can connect with me not only on logical level , but also understand my feelings. Men and women are all the same. As long as you are not gay.
DISCLAIMER - Skip if you don't want to see me reasoning with SJW feminist gay activist liberals
"Wait! Why gay? You hate LGBT?" Even if my head is full of desire for freedom and happiness, I still can't tolerate LGBTQ++ or whatever that shit is. I do share values with both liberalism and conservatism (in this case, Islam and eastern culture). In short, I trust my own judgement and I don't want to put myself under liberalism/conservatism. I need to be higher than that.
3. Why you can't share with no one?
-> It sounds impossible. No one? For real? I can simply talk to strangers and explain to them all of my life and problems, can I?
If you look back to question number one, you already know the answer. But I do have additional things, that I want to... Add.
It's because even if I do have people to share, people/I might not have enough time. I am busy. Fifth year student in a top 5 campus in Indonesia. Then, even if somehow two/more unique individuals managed to find time to talk, do they actually care?
Several weeks/months ago I have another episode of depression. I share with one of my friend. A woman, as expected. Because man don't have time for these shits. That woman is actually a good woman. But sadly, she is bad in terms of talking on a deep, understanding level. Except when she talk about her love interest. When I shared with her about my personal problems, she seems "fine" until I slip a little detail about her crush, then the whole topic shift to satisfy her desire. It's okay, it is understandable. But at that moment, when I truly need help and in a 100% serious mode, she simply change the whole topic, disregarding the previous conversation completely, not even bothered to talk about it again until I decided to tease her about it. In the end, it will hurts more if the person that I try to trust with my vulnerabilities is simply a wrong, don't-give-a-damn person. In fact, being fake itself is already disgusting.
Yes. I need someone who actually care. Care doesn't mean they instantly become a mother figure. Let's put another example. Back when I was with Nita, she did care. She looked for me when I am missing, she noticed something different in me, she listened attentively. Oh you think I haven't moved on huh? In high school , I spend much of my time with no girlfriend. But I do have friends who missed me when I am gone. Or even if they too are busy with their life, when I am back, they are curious with me.
Now? I no longer have those attention. No warm welcome I always got (not always but yeah) when I entered the class like I used to be in highschool. No more stupid random calls. Indeed, today it's not that bad. But for some reason, I crave for human emotions. Sadness, happiness, love,hate, etc. My life is not like hell now, but it's like a calm water. Nothing happened. Nothing. Nihil.
4. When is all of these happened?
-> By the time problems hit me + the 8th semester (now I am on my tenth). It hits really hard due to my procrastinate habit plus loneliness that happened since I no longer have classes.
If you notice, actually I knew the problems within me. In the last paragraph, I mention "procrastinate". So yeah, stop thinking "Ah now you already understand the problem, why don't you act!". I am too genius. I simply want to talk.
5. Where...
-> err actually I dont know how should I analyze it with "where". So skip this W.Â
6. How you deal with this, until now?
-> With all of my previous answers, I decided to share it via social media. I KNOW it is spam for some people, I KNOW it is uncomfortable for some, I KNOW it is weird and shameful for me,but what choice do I have? I also plan to do charity stuffs, because I find happiness in other people happiness. Hopefully I am not BS-ing.
It's either I talk/write, or I die of suicide. You think there is another way? Remember, that I ask you readers to put away parents and God, since I believe it is something that I alone should think about, and I am not in the mood to listen/read any kind of suggestion that "use" those things.
But if for some reason you do think there is another way, give me a comment or shoutout.
Meanwhile I know most of you do not know me deeply. I put this introduction at the last paragraph, as a sign of gratitude for your patience and willingness to read this post.
My name is Liu Nado. I am a student in Mechanical and Biosystem Agricultural Engineering department in IPB, Indonesia. I am 22 years old. Male, straight, combination of both Chinese and Lampungnese. Probably ugly, but probably I am smarter than the average human. 170cm tall, 70 kg weight. I am INTP-T, based on 16personalities.com
Thank you for reading my posts. I hope we can be friends. Even if not, if you know someone who are in these situations like mine, please. I beg you. Do not leave them alone. All they need is a place to share. A person to understand.
Oh yeah... I haven't tell you about the problems right? I don't want to make people bored with long wall of text, so I will write about it tomorrow/next time. In the next posts, I will explain to you the trigger of these unnecessary dramatic depression stuff. It might not be the biggest problem I got, but it is the one that push the correct button within me. A "self-destruction" button.
Of course, all of those cocky attitude of mine is just for a joke.
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((A quick SubaTsuka fanfic I wrote at dinner, under the cut. Post MMSF1 fluff.))
A quiet and muggy atmosphere seemed to settle all over Dream Island. Tsukasa gripped his Wave Scanner tightly, staring intently at the blinking vertical line in the message box. He had tried to sum up his emotions in a quick three word message, an âi love youâ, but that left too much to the imagination. Heâd had to delete paragraphs of rambling text that was clearly trying too hard to be casual. It was nearing his fifth attempt to compose a love letter of sorts that could stand on itâs own and get across everything he wanted to say.
âhey subaru, i just wanted to get something off my chest ive been meaning to tell you for a whileâ
Tsukasa stared for a moment, before Hikaru spoke up. âAre you gonna go through with it? If you arenât willing to go through with sending it, then thereâs no point in writing it.â
âim sorry im not able to tell you in person, but i dont know when iâll have the courage to tell you againâ
Pausing, Tsukasa looked over it again. Everything seemed okay so far. âIâm going to tell him, Hikaru. I have to tell him.â
âi dont know how you feel about me, i know we havent been on the best terms since hikaru and i betrayed youâ
Tsukasa flinched, there had to be a way to say that less explicitly. âItâs true, though.â Hikaru chimed in. Tsukasa erased that part and tried again.
âi dont know how you feel about me. i know we havent spoke much since you came back from space, but i wasnt lying back then about wanting to stay friends.â
âFriends, huh?â Hikaru teased, to Tsukasaâs embarrassment. âYou wanna be friends with him, right? Friends that happen to bang sometimes?â Tsukasa felt his face grow warm, and tried to ignore him and focus on the text.
âbut for a while now ive realized that ive been misunderstanding my own emotions, and i dont want you to feel pressured to reciprocate, butâ
Tsukasa hesitated. Almost done. Just spell it out, then hit send. Nothing more.
âim in love with you, subaruâ
His thumb hesitated over the âSendâ button. Maybe this wasnât the right time. Maybe..
Tsukasa blinked, and looked down. He had sent it. What..? âYou canât back out now, Tsu.â Hikaru said, grinning.
âN-no..â Tsukasa felt a chill run up his spine, and his stomach turned. âHikaru, I wasnât ready! What if he ignores us from now on?!â Tears were forming against his will, and he threw his wave scanner onto his bed.
Tsukasa sat in silence for a few minutes before slowly picking his wave scanner back up and checking his notifications. The âsentâ message next to his text was replaced with âseenâ. He felt as if his heart stopped. âOh my god.â He whispered, a hand over his mouth.
He watched the three dots along the bottom of the screen, signifying that Subaru was replying. âOh god, oh god. You shouldnât have sent it. Oh my god, heâs gonna hate us.â
âStop asking for me. Iâm right here.â Gemini replied, though Tsukasa wasnât in the mood to deal with his awful humor.
This continued for over twenty minutes, with occasionally the three dots popping back up, then disappearing again at random intervals. This had to be the worst kind of torture imaginable, Tsukasa confirmed. His stomach was twisted into a knot, and he felt his heart rate increase every time he got a notification, only for it to be a spam email or news alert.
He didnât know how heâd done it, but apparently, he had nodded off during his waiting period, and slept through the night. The moment he awoke, he immediately realized his mistake. It was morning, a half hour before class started, and Subaru..
Tsukasa checked his wave scanner, but to his horror, it only showed âno batteryâ on a black screen. âNo..â He bit his lip, he didnât know what to do, he had to see if Subaru had responded. He plugged in the scanner, but the light that usually indicated it was charging didnât turn on. The damn cord had frayed.
âAgh.. I donât have time for this! Gemini, iâm going to school!â He slung his bag over his shoulder and crammed his MP3 player into his pocket before hurrying out, leaving the FMian behind.
He sprinted to the nearest bus stop, barely managing to catch the bus to get to school on time. He began to get lost in thought during the ride, with the weight of both potential romance and Hikaruâs constant teasing on his mind. When the bus reached the stop, he hurried off, nerves frayed. He checked his MP3 player.. 12 minutes until homeroom. He felt some relief at not being late on top of it all, though he hadnât yet found the one reason he even bothered coming to school.
âAh-! Tsukasa!â Of course. Tsukasa tensed up instinctively and turned around, only to see Subaru jogging toward him. He felt himself blush, and steeled himself. âShowtime.â Hikaru mumbled, no longer joking.
âSubaru⌠Um..â Tsukasa began, but Subaru held a hand up to stop him.
âIâm sorry for whatever I said.â Subaru spoke, looking away, anxiously. Â Tsukasa could only stare, confused. Seeing this, Subaru elaborated. âYou never replied back, so I panicked.. I didnât know if I said something wrong.â
Tsukasa stared another moment before snapping out of it. âNo, I.. I fell asleep waiting for your reply. And my wave scanner died overnight.â He laughed nervously, and looked down. âBut.. Um.. What did you think? I.. Didnât see your reply. SoâŚâ
Subaruâs eyes widened, and Tsukasa noted that he must have been walking with Luna and her âfriendsâ, since they were slowly approaching now, watching the two curiously. âYou didnât? Oh, well..â Subaru reached over, grabbing Tsukasaâs hand and smiling. âI feel the same way, Tsukasa.â He noted a faint blush on Subaruâs face and grinned, still in disbelief.
âR-Really? I.. Iâm glad..â He replied weakly, now suddenly too embarrassed to speak. Subaru laughed gently and tugged Tsukasa along. âLetâs head to class.. You wanna come to my place after school?â
Unable to speak at the sudden offer, Tsukasa nodded quickly, squeezing Subaruâs hand gently and smiling. Hikaru was making some sort of lewd joke about the two, but somehow, it was easier to ignore him now.
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Lost Lullabies - Chapter Thirteen
Description: Mickey Milkovich, former child star turned action movie star, runs into his old co-star, Ian Gallagher, out on the street in the middle of a winter night. When Mickey takes him in, he doesnât realize that Ian has the power to completely turn his new life upside down.
Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Read on AO3
Mickey had his phone out and his agent dialed before he was two steps off the set. He waited impatiently through the ringing, very aware of the fact that Ian was following him. Voicemail.
      âPick the fuck up,â Mickey snapped. He waited a grand total of two seconds before he added, âGet the director fired or get me the fuck off this set.â He hung up.
      A few steps later, Ianâs hand came down on his shoulder. Mickey whirled on him quick enough the Ianâs hand fell, that his touch didnât have the chance to calm him down. âWhat are you fucking following me for?â Mickey said.
      Ian held up his hands. âJust wanted to see if you were okay.â
      âOkay? You wanna know if Iâm okay?â Mickey almost laughed, but settled for shaking his head instead. âThat director just fucking outed me to the entire cast of extras without blinking a goddamn eye.â
      âHe didnât sayââ
      âIt doesnât matter what he said. What he said was enough. Extras canât keep their fucking mouths shut and the rumours will be flying by morning and itâs worse now because you followed me.â
      âWhat?â
      âWhat do you think they think weâre doing, Ian? The director just gave us two options.â
      Ian licked his lips and lowered his eyes to the ground. âSorry. I didnât think.â
      âYou never do.â Mickey stormed off before he had a chance to feel bad about that. He tried to call his agent again and still got voicemail. Then he called his publicist and, giving as little information as possible, told her to get ready for a scandal to hit soon.
      He barged into his dressing room and slammed the door behind himself. He stopped in front of the mirror. He didnât think he had fucking puppy dog eyes. Several times in his career heâd been told he was incapable of looking at someone like he loved them. More than once, someone had joked about getting him a facial expression double for the romantic scenes in his movies. Who knew the secret to fixing that problem was putting Ian Gallagher in front of him?
      Mickey sighed. He screwed up his face in the mirror and then did his best to put on a completely neutral expression. He ran though his old exercises from acting class â happiness, anger, sadness â and then shook his head fast. Looking himself in the eyes, he thought, think of Ian. He didnât notice his expression change one bit.
      It had been longer than five minutes, but the asshole deserved to wait after what heâd said to him. Mickey checked his phone to find a text from his publicist â what kind of scandal â and he replied, a gay one. Then he shoved his phone into his pocket and walked back to the set slow, ignoring everyone who shot him furtive glances on the way.
      Ian was already back on set, hands in his pockets, walking in circles as he whispered his lines under his breath. Mickey stopped a few feet away to look at him. He arranged his face in a calm manner, breathed until he was sure he had everything back in control, and then walked up to his mark. Ian stopped pacing to look up at him, his green eyes soft, questioning. Mickey almost broke his resolve on the spot. Almost.
      âWe shooting or what?â Mickey said.
      The director gave a shrug that seemed to imply ready when you are and Mickey looked to Ian with his best expression of disdain. Ian jumped on his mark. The director called action. They got through three lines of dialogue, then five, then seven, and Mickey had to resist the urge to shoot the director a snotty glare. Instead he focused on Ianâs nose, gave the impression of looking into his eyes without actually doing it.
      Three minutes in, the director called cut. Mickey guessed he couldnât have asked for a fucking miracle.
      âNow you look like you hate each other,â the director said.
      âWeâre having an argument,â Mickey said.
      âBut youâre still friends. Can you do friends for me, Milkovich?â
      Mickey wanted to punch the guyâs smug face in. He glanced over his shoulder at Ian, who shrugged, and then gave the director his nastiest smile. âSure. We can do friends. After all, weâre friends, right, Ian?â
      Ian said nothing, just looked down at his shoes.
      Mickey rolled his eyes and stepped back onto his mark. He was going to have to give Ian a lesson in growing a fucking backbone, but that could wait until the scene was finished. They had to get through the thing three times perfectly for all the camera angles before they could move onto the next section and, at this rate, theyâd be there until two in the morning. Maybe having a co-star who wasnât as bratty as him would actually prove to be an advantage.
      They went through half the scene again and then again and again. Every time the director let them go just a little bit further and Mickey wondered if that meant they were improving or if the director was just a dick. He preferred to think it was the former.
      He messed up his first line somewhere around the ninety minute mark. When he did, he asked for another five minute break and the director gave it to him, begrudgingly. He didnât storm off set. Instead, he sat down in one of the empty chairs and pulled out his phone. Three texts from his publicist asking him to explain and a long paragraph from his agent about how this was the original director from their series, a man Mickey had worked with for many years, and he was important to the shoot. The company had gone through a lot of trouble to get him back. Mickey replied, itâs him or me.
      Two minutes later he got a text from his publicist again that said, more likely weâll have a scandal about you being a diva. Mickey didnât deign that worthy of a reply. He shoved his phone back into his pocket, took a breath, and went back to his mark. Looking at the ceiling, he ran through his lines in his head to make sure he had them down. Ian came back to set a minute later, sipping a coffee. He handed it off to the first PA who asked for it.
      âYou okay?â Ian asked.
      âPeachy.â
      âI just meant...â Ian shrugged. âAre we okay?â
      âWere we ever okay, Ian?â
      Ian opened his mouth to reply, but the director called them to attention. Mickey felt his heart drop a little further in his stomach, weighed down by his own nastiness. He couldnât help it. Seeing Ian again was hard. Harder than he had expected it to be. And, yeah, heâd done his best to forgive the guy and move on â after all, he couldâve gotten out of it if he had really wanted to â but having those green eyes in front of him again just made him feel like a teenager with a bad crush.
      They got through the whole scene on that run and the director praised them for finally, finally hitting the right note between friendship, anger, and platonic love. Mickey flipped him off. Then they had to do it again without messing up. And again.
      It was noon by the time they finished and broke for lunch. Mickey almost let Ian walk away from him. He should have let Ian walk away from him. Instead, he clapped him on the shoulder and headed the same way. âGood job,â he said.
      Ian met his eyes with a small smile. âThat took forever.â
      âYeah, well. Itâs not our fault the directorâs a jackass.â Mickey meant to leave it at that, but Ian was still looking at him, and he rambled on. âPlus, youâve got your lines down, which is more than I can say for most people Iâve worked with. And you can still fucking act after all these years, so kudos.â Ian still stared. Mickey cursed. âWhaddya want me to say?â
      Ian shook his head. âNothing. Youâve just been so hot and cold on me all day.â
      Mickey didnât have anything to say to that, so he occupied himself playing with the hem of his t-shirt. He knew if he pulled the threads out the costume department would throw a shit fit, so he only let his nail catch against the threads for a moment before pulling back.
      âI get that I kind of forced you into this and that youâre pissed youâre here and the directorâs a dick and itâs kind of my fault, but...â Ian trailed off. Mickey risked a look at him. Ian smiled. âThink we can do it? Be friends like he asked?â
      Mickey thought about it. On one hand, all he really wanted was a good excuse to hang out with Ian as much as possible. On the other, friends was the last thing he wanted to be with Ian. He pulled on a thread too hard and broke it, cursed under his breath. He could feel Ianâs eyes on him, the question in the air, and knew he wasnât doing a great job at hiding what he was thinking. Some benefit to being an actor.
      He met Ianâs eyes finally and said, âYou left my life at fifteen, came back at twenty-four just to fuck it up, disappeared some more, and somehow wound up putting me on the set of a movie I hate? Does that sound like a recipe for friendship to you?â
      Ianâs eyes fell.
      Mickey wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed him tight. âFucking kidding with you, Gallagher.â He pushed him away, but not before getting in a good noogie. âJesus, youâre easy.â
      âYou havenât managed to get in my pants yet.â
      Mickey laughed, tried to hit him but Ian dodged. Real happiness bubbled over him to see Ian smile, laugh. They walked to lunch together making bad jokes and ripping the script to shreds. At one point, Ian said, âIf they really canât stop us from eye-fucking, they could just make our characters gay.â Mickey laughed so hard he almost fell over in his chair.
      They went on to the next scene and the next and the next. The director had found a spray bottle somewhere and now spritzed them whenever they looked like they wanted to fuck. The only thing that held Mickey back from murdering the guy on the spot was the goofy smile on Ianâs face whenever he was dripping with water.
      Mickey was careful with his expression, careful to keep his eyes off of Ianâs. If they were going to be friends, like Ian wanted, then he had to get control of himself. It wasnât like Ian was Godâs gift to gay men or anything. He was just a guy with a serious drug problem, a hint of alcoholism, a screwed up family, and a smile that could light up the fucking sun.
      Mickey found himself laughing more often than not when Ian tripped over a line or forgot what he was going to say. Heâd be lying if he didnât throw in an eyebrow raise here or there to crack him up, if he said he didnât like seeing Ian flustered in front of the cameras. The director grumbled something about the blooper reel being âgay as fuckâ but Mickey ignored him as he got water sprayed in his face.
      They got back in rhythm. By the end of the day, their last scene took them an hour to film. It was only seven by the time Mickey had packed up his stuff and was heading out the front door. Ian caught up to him on the way, a smile and a yawn on his lips at the same time.
      âYou headed back to Fionaâs?â Mickey asked.
      âNah, theyâve got me in a hotel closer to here.â
      âA hotel?â Mickey wrinkled his nose. He nudged Ian with his elbow. âFuck that. Come back to my place.â
      âA comfy five-star hotel bed or your couch?â Ian clicked his tongue. âHard choice, but Iâm going to go with the hotel.â
      âWow. Respect the couch, Ian. Itâs older than you are.â
      Ian laughed. âIt feels like it.â
      Mickey shoved him and stepped towards the car waiting for him. âYou got a ride to this hotel?â
      âBus.â
      âCome with me.â Mickey didnât wait for a response, just started walking. But like earlier, he knew Ian was following him. They slid into the car together and Ian gave the driver the name of his hotel before resting back on the seat. Mickey liked the silence between them, but he decided to ruin it anyways. âYou like being an actor again?â
      Ian shrugged. âIt pays the bills.â
      âSo still not your lifeâs calling?â
      âNever thought it was your calling either.â
      âLike you said, it pays the bills.â
      Ian was silent for a moment, staring out the window at the streetlights as they flashed by. âTo tell you the truth, I never really had much fun on set unless I was filming with you. Donât know if I would have kept up with it even if I hadnât gone off the rails.â
      Mickey made a noise somewhere between a âhmmâ and a âyeah.â Then he said, âDonât know if I would have kept up with it without Mandy. I donât know that Iâve ever had much fun on set.â
      Ian elbowed him. âNot even with me?â
      Mickey smiled. âI have fun with you. But thatâs not really about being on set, is it?â
      âNo. Guess not.â
      The driver pulled up in front of Ianâs hotel and the two sat there for a moment, warm in the silence. Mickey shot Ian a look, a small grin, as he felt the awkwardness of the moment closing in. âIâll pick you up tomorrow?â Mickey said.
      Ian nodded, forced a smile. âGoodnight.â
      Mickey waved him off and watched as he exited the car. He didnât tell the driver to go until Ian was safely inside.
<<Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen>>
#gallavich#shameless#Ian Gallagher#mickey milkovich#ian x mickey#mine#chapter thirteen#lost lullabies#3outof10 fanfic
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My Funny Valentine
âIâll sing a sweet serenade whenever youâre feeling sad And a lullaby each night before you go to bed Iâll sing to you for the rest of your life The way Iâm feeling I canât keep it inside.â
@emwatsonxx
My dear Watson,
Do you know how long itâs been since I last wrote you a letter? If you donât know, Iâm not even going to tell you, because itâs been far too long, and, quite frankly, Iâm disappointed in myself. I suppose part of it is because I sometimes feel like Iâve told you everything already, and sometimes twice, and I hate being all repetitive and rambly and soppy and lame. And then I remember that you seem to love all of those things about me, so maybe I should write to you more. So, with it now being Valentineâs Day - and two years since I asked you to marry me, it feels like a good time to have a go at one of these things again. So brace yourself, sweetheart, because I have absolutely no idea what to expect.
I admit, to prepare my mind for writing this, I had a glimpse at some of the letters Iâve written for you before. You know, to sort of refresh my memory on how the fuck Iâm supposed to go about doing this. Itâs weird - like, a cool weird - how my perception of you has hardly changed. Perhaps the words Iâve used to describe you have changed, but not much else has. I remember the first time I wrote you a letter was when we were both in Toronto for TIFF. When you ended up in hospital, and I ended up befriending Aerie. Iâm not sure exactly when the letters we wrote slotted into that timeline, but it was around then. I already felt like there was something different about you. I mean, it was after the shot glass incident, but before the me visiting you at your mumâs nearly every day thing. It was like an emotional limbo, or something like that. And there we were, telling each other what we liked about one another. And I donât think we took it wholly seriously, because we often donât. But there was a bit in it that Iâd quite like to share in this letter, because of reasons that Iâll explain afterwards: âYou manage to keep me sane by, most of the time, being completely insane. I feel like I befriended you at just the right time, because itâs been a hectic few months, so itâs nice to have somebody to talk to. Thatâs what I like most about you; one minute youâre being an incredibly good listener, the next youâre cheering me up by being ridiculous. I really needed that. I still sort of do, so I hope you donât plan on going anywhere anytime soon. I certainly wouldnât want you to.â Here we are two and a half years later, and every single word of that is still true. Like Iâve always said, youâre my best friend, before anything else. Youâre the one person who just seems to get me, like nobody else does. We laugh at stupid things together, cheer each other up when weâre feeling down, support each other through everything the world throws at us, finish each otherâs... sandwiches - we always just seem to have worked well together. I feel like weâve always made one another better in some way. And, you know, itâs funny that I said I didnât want you to go anywhere anytime soon, because thatâs still obviously true; itâs mad to think I said that nearly two and a half years ago, and now weâre here, and weâre married, and about to have another baby, and itâs all just been amazing.
That paragraph got quite long, didnât it? Iâll try not to let them get that long. I had a lot to say, and it didnât feel right to start a new paragraph in the middle of the rambling, so I just went with it. Sorry. But yeah, in essence, what I was trying to say is that those core feelings that I had for you, never really went away, they were just added to. I remember I wrote you another letter, it mustâve been only a few weeks after we actually started dating. I had to try so hard not to just blurt out âI love you.â Itâs amazing because, in hindsight, I wouldâve said those three words to you much sooner. I certainly wanted to, and I donât really know why I was so scared to tell you. And I also sort of wish that the first time I told you hadnât been via text. Although, come to think of it, I sort of told you I loved you that night when I couldnât stop texting you, whilst you were... occupied. It was... what, 48 messages? And in it, I remember talking about the famous last words of that parrot for the first time, and him saying âyou be good. See you tomorrow. I love you.â And how I wanted to end with that, but I was scared to, because I didnât know what you wanted to happen between us, and I didnât want to freak you out, and weâd only kissed a few times, and... well, the list went on and on. Silly, now that you think about it, and think about how much has happened since then. And I was too scared to tell you I love you. Then the next day, when we talked, I still didnât tell you, even when you were kissing me, or falling asleep in my arms. Even when I was thinking to myself that I never wanted to spend the rest of my life with anybody other than you. It was really, really silly of me.Â
Which reminds me of another letter I wrote to you. One where I went on this very long ramble about soulmates, and how I never really believed that they existed outside of fiction, until you came along. How you were the Watson to my Sherlock, and it feels like the universe was always just trying to bring us together slowly, one step at a time. And I remember being scared of admitting that to you, too, because weâd only been going out for a couple of months, and saying something like that is a really big deal. But, again, I still feel like that. I still feel like you are my soulmate. Like, Iâm genuinely convinced that if we hadnât met when we did, and weâd both found other people to fall in love with and spend our lives with and have families with, somewhere down the line weâd inevitably meet - because our meeting has always felt inevitable - weâd have instantly been friends, and gradually fallen in love, and realised that we were meant to be together, and everything weâd ever felt about anybody else could never even compare. It all just feels like it was inevitable, even if it doesnât whilst the inevitable moments are happening. And then I wonder again why Iâve ever felt scared to say that I love you, or felt scared to tell you that I think weâre soulmates, because I know that sometimes youâve struggled in saying that you reciprocate those feelings, but Iâve also always known that youâve felt them, too.
Thinking about it all, though, I wouldnât change any of it. I would live through the heartache, and the being apart from you, and the arguments, and the tears, and everything, because all of it has always been worth it. Because having to live with all of that means I get to call you my wife, and I get to call myself a dad to three beautiful children, and I get to feel like the happiest and luckiest man in the world from the moment I wake up, âtil the moment I go to sleep, every single day, for the rest of my life. If you had told me 3 years ago - when I was pining over a woman who was in love with somebody else, and was doing a good job of trying to drink myself to death, thinking that Iâd never be happy again - if youâd told me then that, in 3 years time, Iâd be where I am now, I wouldnât have believed you. I know Iâve said this before, and I sound like a broken record, but you have made, are making, and always will make my life better, in every way imaginable, and even in a few ways that arenât imaginable.Â
Okay, Iâm getting a tiny bit soppy, so Iâm going to try to reel that in a bit, and try to be a little bit less soppy. So I thought Iâd tell you a few things that I love about you. Since I never really did a letter where I told you the things I love about you, I may as well do that right now. Or, at least, list some of the things I love about you, because listing everything would actually take a lifetime. I love it when you laugh. I mean, I love it when youâre laughing or smiling or enjoying yourself in whatever way, but I especially love it when you canât contain your laughter, and your nose crinkles, and itâs just the cutest thing Iâve ever seen a grown woman do. I love how you are with the kids, which I think goes without saying; I mean, Iâm still convinced that half the reason I fell in love with you so easily was because I watched you be the most incredible mum ever, and all I could think was âthatâs the mother of my childrenâ, and, for the record, I still think that, because itâs true. I love the way you look at me in the morning, when youâve only got one eye open, and thereâs probably a screaming child in the background, and you just look at me in a way that just makes me feel like the most loved man ever, and itâs the best way I can start my day. I love it when you stand in the doorway and listen when Iâm reading a bedtime story, and look at me acting out scenes and putting on silly voices, and somehow you still give me that exact same look that you give me in the morning. I love how supportive you are, not just with me and my crazy job, but with the kids and their weird hobbies and ambitions, and your friends with everything else, and, honestly, just watching you be like it not only makes me love you even more, but it encourages me to be more supportive, too, and I think thatâs awesome. Also, rather selfishly, I love the way you kiss me. I mean, Iâm not shy in admitting that I have kissed a lot of women, and none of them can kiss like you do; itâs the kind of kissing that always leaves me breathless and wanting more and, you know, I thought that sensation would eventually go away, but nearly two and a half years later, that sensation hasnât faded even the tiniest bit. I especially love it when your lips find my neck, and your fingers get all tangled in my hair, because, fuck does that make me feel all sorts of things all at once, and I could be having the absolute worst day ever, and then you could just do that to me, and itâs like nothing else in the world matters anymore. I love when we spend half our evenings doing our own thing, even in the same room, and we just sit sending each other silly texts, and I love it when you say something that you know will make me smile or groan or whatever, and you just look at me whilst waiting for that reaction. I really, really, really could go on forever, but I wonât, because then I wouldnât be able to spend time with you and find new things to love about you, like I do every day.
Itâs funny because I remember, in the first few months of our relationship - when we were super loved up and everything - people kept saying that, you know, that feeling would fade. The whole âhoneymoon phaseâ sort of thing where the passion and desire fizzles out, and youâre left with sort of... not a lot. Iâve definitely experienced that before with, well, you can probably guess who with. But that just hasnât happened yet with you. How long is the honeymoon phase supposed to last? Because for most people, it seems to only last a few months, or maybe a year at the most. With you, it feels like itâll never stop. Even when Iâm 80 and have a bad back and hip and can hardly see anymore, I think Iâll still want to press you up against a wall and kiss you like a 17 year old feeling completely consumed by all sorts of unrepeatable thoughts. Even if I didnât feel like that, though, and I just wanted to hold your hand, or go to bingo with you, Iâd still love every second of it. Because, like I said forever ago, near the beginning of this letter, youâre my best friend. Even when weâre ancient and our bodies are failing us, Iâll never want to stop being with you, and going on silly adventures with you, and talking about the silliest things with you, and making endless faces at you.
So, I think, what Iâm trying to say with this stupidly long letter is this: I love you, Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson-Cumberbatch, even with your stupidly long name, like mine. And I look forward to spending the rest of my life asking you to marry me over and over again.
Love,
Your Sherlock x
P.S. Happy Valentineâs Day, sweetheart.
#Emma#letter#sssappreciation#//this is such quality writing from me tbh#//we're talking A++++#//also shoutout to anybody who's mobile and has to scroll past this essay bc I've legit written uni essays shorter than this
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So yall remember how I promised I was done with Sherlock like five years ago oh you do good because I made a word vomit about s4 click here or donât because Idk how this happened I donât have anything new to add itâs literally all the same crap that we have all seen already from mofftiss. Or at least was until the third episode because boy was that really fucked up or whaaaat?????????????? Â
 under the cut also spoilers or whatever. â sorry mobile users :^)
I procrastinated 4 weeks watching the new eps. Yesterday I saw new cute fanart and was warmed and energized by my love for Sherlock Holmes *stops to wipe a tear* and found the willpower to sit through them. Initially I hoped that Iâd be able to just enjoy the shittiness of it all. That Iâd finally managed to break my emotional ties with this series (burning love for season 1 to deep disappointment in the rest)Â Still wrote a rant nobody asked for. And to the person who convinced me to finish this: fuck you this took me all night now im tired and feel stupid abt this but itâs too late to backpedal so fuck it.
EP 1:
And there went my fun bc the first episode ended up being so... bland. Plot was rushed and pointless. I laughed at one joke. The rest of them were so embarrassing, oh my god. The âlol sherlock is awkwardâ gag is so old and tired. And his characterization is all over the place. Like.... I donât even know what to say. Iâm not a film critic, Iâm not here to say what I just said, I came here to laugh at stupid shit and be offended as a Holmes fan.
But I started a rant and so I shall do because the second half of the episode actually gave me two reasons: There is one thing that I judge harshly in every Holmes adaptation, and that is how they treat their Watson. And thereâs one thing that really bothers me about this series, and that is Mary. All of her. This had both problems.
Summary: So Sherly is off the hook for shooting a guy in the face in the last episode bc heâs needed to solve shit for the government. He then proceeds to be a huge dick to everyone. The Watsons successfully have a baby and itâs small and cute and all. The three (four) of them go off to solve crimes but everyone keeps shitting on John and we get this really weird Mary x Sherlock episode. Then one of Maryâs ex-co-assassins turns up wanting to kill her because of some misunderstanding. That crap is solved (with guns) and we are again assured that her history as a secret killer agent is in no way a problem and everyone loves her unconditionally. Then at the conclusion of the case some more guns are involved and Mary jumps in front of a bullet to save Sherlock and kicks the bucket. rip.Â
I admit Iâve never had much interest in Mary in any adaptation. (Dumb personal preference. please I donât wanna fight anyone over this, I do understand her importance.) Not because I think her a ship breaker or anything. Iâm fine with her being involved. But she usually just kinda exists in the background. And ends up being disposed at some point This show tried to involve her properly but they made it so complicated. Thereâs no way to make her backstory fit comfortably into the setting. Not with John and Sherlock being more or less regular people. I donât want to sympathize with her assassin ass. Again, my personal problem probably. But watching an episode centered around her was not fun.
I donât mind them being a trio, but with this Mary the group is unbalanced. Sheâs too sassy and smart. Like having two Sherlocks. And considering what a charmer he is in this show...... brings us back to the problem I mentioned first. Which tbh existed before. Everyoneâs really terrible towards John all the time! Still, after 4 seasons. I get that heâs supposed to be the normal dude who reacts to all the crazy shit happening around but.... Heâs constantly being lied to, kidnapped, dismissed, manipulated and provoked into violence. My enjoyment of all things Holmes comes pretty much from the beautiful broship. But nooo, thatâs too lame for this series, no homo.
I donât wanna go too deep into that, it was talked about enough last season (âIs everyone I know a psychopath??â, âWhy is everything always my fault??â & other Moffatty Stories). They do kinda try to convey how shitty this all is for John but it falls really flat. And that is so weird and frustrating because this show doesnât actually suffer from a bad Watson like many others. They just donât let him be a competent character. Meanwhile the person Sherlock is being besties with is Mary. Idk if they were trying to pander to the female audience or make her inevitable death sadder, but that was really weird.
I was happy to be rid of her in the end. Again, not in âhated the bitchâ kinda way. Thatâs just the best course for the story to take. In that moment I had hope in the writers of this godforsaken mess. (Then her ghosting and becoming the fucking narrator later on ruined it.) It was dramatic and sad and all but they made that too all about Sherlock. And his angst. Johnâs been completely pushed aside?? Â And as rare as it is, I actually really like the single-dad-watson -trope. But you gotta let the man have some screen time
I just spent several paragraphs politely rambling when all I wanted to say was that Mary is terrible and I donât like her and Sherlock is being a dick and I donât like that either and the episode was boring
Time to list the good thing eyyyyy:
1. They gave John a new hairstyle for the season and it looks really good!
2. Yet another shitty dingy plastic skeleton in a serious crime drama. I 100% unironically love these to death no pun inteded
3. I was gonna write that I still actually really like Cucumberboy and heâs still very pretty but it took the episode 15 seconds for Sherlockâs personality to be too annoying for that to help lol
4. Yeah thatâs all, it wasnât great.
EP 2:
Now, looking at my summary you probably would not believe it, but God help me I had so much fun watching this one. Looking back, the plot is garbage. But how this was shot and acted out was exactly the kind of âso weird itâs funnyâ content I had been waiting for. I was in tears by the end if it. Most of it might have been late night hysteria I admit, but now afterwards it doesnât matter. The episode is ridiculous, loud and energetic and idk how Iâm gonna express that in a positive light the middle of a long ass complaint post. Iâm not gonna say that this was the best episode off the three, Iâll just say I had the most fun watching it. Biggest minus points are for having to look at sherlockâs ginger teenstache through the entirety of it.
Summary: John is sad bc his wife is dead. And he keeps seeing and hearing Mary everywhere he goes. And we need her ghost to narrate the plot for us. But thatâs not important. Because Sherlock is even sadder cos he feels responsible for her death. John wants nothing to do with him so Sherlock angsts alone, does a lot of unspecified drugs and spends the rest of the episode shouting at things coked off his tits. Then he makes a big show from trying prove that some rich famous old dude is a cereal serial killer, because the old bastardâs daughter visited Sherlock to tell him about her suspicions. But she was also sad and suicidal so they spent a lovely night walking out and talking about feelings. Or did they??????? *dun dun dunnn* Donât do drugs, kids. Nobody believes him because heâs weird and high. Sherly is then convinced that heâs actually going mad, then tries to murder someone again, then gets beaten up by John again, then almost gets mudered again and somehow the bad guy still gets caught they get a happy ending from all of that.
And in the end it was ~all part of a plan~ bc mary told sherlo that if she were to die, he had to make himself as miserable as possible to guiltrip john into saving him to make him feel better about himself or some shit because we canât have john having any control over his life now can we what the fuck.
Now, I understand that a drama about a super smart people like has to have some elaborate plotting going on that is all revealed in the end, but this show has a really fucked up obsession with it. Everything is according to plan, everything that is going to happen Sherlock already knew weeks ago. That really sucks the fun out of the story and makes the actions of all the other characters meaningless. Previous episode even had a whole thing about how predeterminism is bad, you are not listening to your own advice!
Yeah the original story of the Dying Detective was kinda fucked up. Culverton Smith (the shitty old dude) was some asshat who went around poisoning people. Holmes pretended that he became one of his victims and that was dying in order to get a confession from Smith. Then he lied to Watson about this all because reasons and used him as a just pawn in the plot. Not his finest moment, but in right hands has lots of potential as fuel for some angst. I donât know why Iâm bringing this up. Itâs not like team mofftiss knew how to use any of that. Gotta say Iâm not really feeling the canon references anyway. Either they are relevant to the plot, meaning they make the stupid twists even easier to guess, or they they are just awkwardly forced in âwe just wanted someone to say this name, look at us we read the booksâ Â kinda of things ://
I took a lot of notes while watching this but now that I look at them I canât really separate single things comment on. The show is trying too hard at everything it does and ends up being an all around fuck up. Middle of the night is also not the time for writing these, Iâve got nothing.
MMMMmmgood things listing!:
1. I really appreciate them hiring that one weird looking fucker to play Culverton! He keeps popping up in films and such and Iâve kinda wanted to see him play a holmes villain! He was fun!
2. Had some fun cinematography, especially for sherlsâ deduction making pantomime
3. Sherlockâs a fun character to beat up and make cry ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°)
( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°) ( ͥ° ÍĘ ÍĄÂ°)
and no no no no no no please donât bring irene back
.....oh good you just needed to mention her because no homo.
(actually I canât leave my jab at that. because that wasnât a suble no homo, that was sherly straight up gettin told straight dude to another -talk how he needs to get together with her specifically in order to be happy. and that was the most forced and desperate scene Iâve ever seen and Iâm not gonna let that slide)
4. irene didnt do a comeback
EP:3
Summary:
*takes a deep breath*
Sherlock finds out he secretly has a younger sister who is a total psychopath (hi moffat). She looks like the creepy woman from The Ring and sheâs locked in a super secret mental hospital slash prison in the middle of the sea because she did terrible things when she was a child and is supernaturally intelligent and super dangerous because sheâs able to take control of anyone who talks with or gets too close to her. So sheâs secretly in control of the whole facility of course. We had already seen her in several disguises in previous 2 episodes (Iâm so bad at remembering faces, I fall for all twists where they have one actor play several roles) and Sherlock doesnât remember her because he was so traumatized when she killed his beloved dog when they were little kids. We get some flashbacks about the Holmes siblingsâ childhood and then the sister locks Sherlock, John and Mycroft in a Jigsaw kinda game / psychological experiment, which they have to pass by solving puzzles and killing several people. And it was all because she was so much smarter than everyone else in the goddamn universe so she was lonely and saaaaad.
........
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
I... know this show was not supposed to be a crime drama anymore but.....
whaaaaaaaaaa...?
that was straight up a shitty horror flick. how.... did this happen....? who was it that was so salty that they didnât get to work on Saw? I hope all the east wind references to the last Holmes story and the name of the episode actually mean that this show dies here because where do you fucking go from there? Like.... not to add to their charming mental institution plotline but that was absolute insanity.
2/10, have read better fuck or die fics before. with much less no homo. (I swear I didnât even watch this shit in search of homo, this show has started overcompensating. hard.) spent half of this giggling madly like the 2nd episode and half barely looking at the screen out of secondhand embarrassment for the shitty âshoot meâ âno shoot meâ dialogue
(though: not gonna lie, really liked the reveal at the end when it turns out it wasnât actually Sherlockâs dog the sister had fucked up, but lil six year old Victor Trevor )
(oh my god! Remember how people used to joke about the âold friend of mineâ skull above the fireplace being Trevor??)
fucking hell
Oh yeah and of course no one important dies and then the whole thing ends with âAll the sister needed was love and then everyone is friends again and itâs just like the good old times *coughseasononecough*. John and Sherlock are back to living together and now they are dads no homo tho and they gonna go and solve fun crimes and do detective shit again. A pretty violin cover of the theme song plays and we all ignore ghost maryâs terrible cheesy narration over itâ all of which should have happened three episodes ago!!! this whole season was pointless.
#i dont fucking know this seemed like a good idea in the middle of the night#bbc sherlock#sherlock s4#the six thatchers#the lying detective#i dont wanna tag this the final problem. that's a canon title and I feel bad for it
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Letter #15: The Person You Missed Most
Dear SL,
The decision to dedicate this letter to you may be an odd one, considering that you are a PM away. Most likely you may not be reading this, or you may be but not knowing that this post is for you. The fact that Iâm writing this to someone who may have a chance of reading this, is my heart slowly reaching towards sanity and truth now?
Ramblings aside, the reason why this letter was dedicated to you is due to three reasons: a) you fit the current letter challenge requirements, b) perhaps youâre one of the rare few that I donât mind if youâd found this letter but that may be just a temporary courage and I might delete this, who knows and c) your simple question has continuously haunt me despite the fact that itâs been a while weâve spoken:
Why do I write?
Itâs a very broad question that I donât know where or how to start, because Iâd written for a multitude of different reasons: to rant, to roleplay, to fangirl/express my thoughts on something, to share my views which may hopefully bring some new insights or positive influence... Perhaps I should say, every work of mine was born for a reason, may it be a challenge from others or for self-satisfaction and self-amusement or out of desperation because thereâs simply no one I could fangirl to. For example, I am writing this letter to you because a) I miss you, b) after a break, I am ready to arrange my thoughts and tackle your questions properly, and c) itâs in a âfill the gapâ entry for things I couldnât express verbally earlier today, things that Iâd hoped to express here, which may form some clarity on whatâs going on in the mess of my life AND perhaps provide you some answers of why Iâd stop PMing you (in which Iâm really, really sorry for being such a terrible friend and hope you didnât think itâs your fault because it really, really isnât).
So, Iâve been reflecting this âwhyâ question on my Three Simple Pleasures: writing, reading and gaming. Why do I read? Why do I game? At this moment, I hate the current stressful lifestyle of my job, and so had hope to deconstruct myself in order to understand myself better, and in turn, be able to understand the bits and pieces that I like, and then find said bits and pieces in the current job and things that I hate. Perhaps a futile effort, but Iâm working on it.
At the moment, I still canât find the bits and pieces I like in my job. Maybe it just doesnât exist, or maybe itâs an undiscovered gem, I donât know. What I do know is that, Iâd continue to stay because there are things to learn. Iâm not talking about accounting skills, but more like personal/soft skills like time management and communicating with clients. Maybe payroll does interest me a little, but it isnât fun whenever I screw up. And Iâve screwed up a lot in tons of different area these days...Â
But letâs not stray into the negativity because itâs going to be a deep, endless pool.
Instead, letâs talk about what Iâd discover!
If one were to ask why I love reading, I think my answer would be a typical âOh I love to immerse myself in different worlds!â or âitâs a productive way to kill time! to de-stress! etc.â. That is not to say my answers are a lie, but... it just isnât what I want to express. But then again, Iâm never really good at expressing myself, and always feel extremely befuddled when people claimed I am. In fact, two people have said I expressed myself extremely well for the past week, and one of them even said I speak like an academician... hearing and remembering this never failed to send me into fits of giggle. But sidetracking aside, I think I love reading because I am never confident with my way of expression, and every new things I read increase my self-expression. For example, I would have odd feelings that do not know how and what to describe... and reading people describing exactly how I felt makes me feel... less lonely and weird.Â
Perhaps itâs one of the reasons why I love talking to you, because you can re-word sentences that I do not have much confident on when we chatted, and turn it into something that is so natural and beautiful, like itâs normal and okay to feel that certain way, that Iâm not odd at all.
But again, my reason to read is like my reason to write, meaning there are a multitude of reasons why I read. For example, I read fanfiction to scratch away the cravings that said game/book/anime had left me with, I read certain books because the synopsis resonated with something in me or because of a friendâs recommendation, and more recently, I read to either immerse myself as a form of de-stress, to find the balm that soothe some pain and troubles, or to gather some form of knowledge and courage. So, again, the answer I give is dependent to my current mood... but social awkwardness is most likely going to make me answer the same two sentences on two paragraphs above. Ah wells.
So, why do I game? This is perhaps a question I have mixed answers to, because this is still a question I ponder. The simple answer is âItâs funâ, to dig further, itâd be... actually, never mind, I realise all three of my so called Simple Pleasures carry certain similar themes, so the answer Iâd give is most likely going to be similar with reading and writing. And I love a lot of different games due to many different reasons as well (ie. story and gameplay).
... But if thereâs one answer that is different from the other two, itâs the... personalised experience I get when it comes to gaming? Games like Dragon Quest 9, Etrian Odyssey, Monster Hunter or Pokemon always fuel my creativity and imagination despite the silent heroes/characters. Perhaps, due to my sheltered lifestyle and my love for all things creative, being able to go on an adventure just lit this weird flame in me... >_>â
So, um...
Remember the last time we spoke, I told you that I just hate everything Iâd written at that moment? That feeling was like a disease that actually managed to latch its arms on my other simple pleasures as well, except, fortunately, the other two were rescued on time, but I still need to pick up the pieces of my writing. To describe how I currently feel, itâs like I am trapped in a vortex, a vicious cycle. You see, my rationale and intuition has been warring these days (as it always does), which in turn affects my work performance and lifeâs views.Â
There are many things that I lack, which in turn makes me want to work on fixing/improving my weaknesses, and yet the content and tasks fill me with so much abhorrence that I would turn away to the things I like instead, which in turn got nothing done... So in order to punish myself, or to force myself to go against this great adversity, my rationale had decided to forego the things I like (one of which includes talking to you) in order to focus on what needs to be done...Â
The lack of escape, the harsh punishment I inflicted on myself, and the constant throes of failures led me to this current disastrous mess: loss of Self, confidence and direction. Oh, and P.S. I still got nothing done.
It was a moment I felt like withdrawing from the world, simply because I am ashamed of who I am. That I am undeserving of anything, everything good because I canât even accomplish what Iâd set out to do. It was the lowest of the low feeling, one that Iâve been struggling against with a mixture of success and failure. And each time I stop and breath, I canât even see the light at the end of this tunnel.
While there is an option of climbing out of this tunnel of doom, there is also the fear of changes, of what to do next, of whether what I want would be accepted by people who are important to me. That is not to say these fears are new, but... itâs something Iâd thought time and again, and perhaps what prompted me to stay and suffer.
But, well, this may be just the negativity speaking... Maybe it isnât so bad, maybe I just need to put a little more effort to learn and whatnots... but recent mistakes may have made a dent on my confidence, which in turn led me to tons of âdoubtsâ. Which, in turn, made me feel a little disgust at myself because am I attempting to run because Iâm in a current stressful position?Â
Iâm tired of pondering questions that have no answers. Perhaps these âdoubtsâ are but groundless fears, or perhaps itâs trying tell me something. For the past week, Iâve spoken to others for opinions and received plenty of alternative road maps. Iâve received two advices of similar nature: work on your strength instead of fixing your weaknesses (which in turn reminds me so much of competitive Pokemon battling, because we pick Pokemon for their strength and have a mishmash of team to cover each Pokemonâs weaknesses bla bla bla).Â
I...
Iâm sorry if youâre reading this, and Iâm sorry if it worries you. Iâll honestly say, at this current moment, Iâm not feeling too good, which in turn leads me to withdraw because I have this terrible habit of not wanting to burden others with my woes... and yet, ironically, what made me feel better was actually the contact with human beings, because I have an excellent friend whoâs been trying to dig and pry and help, and knowing the limitations of her capability, introduce me to others who I can connect to, which in turn leads me to discover a little more about myself and help me vocalise my current thoughts.Â
Things should hopefully be fine. The fact that Iâm writing this, with a sense of honesty, should mean that Iâm on the right track unless Iâd somehow change my mind when I wake up tomorrow and become ashamed of what Iâd written and delete this post, hah.Â
I can say that, after a long time of doom and gloom, I can see a faint glimmer of hope. There are still, of course, plenty of fears and kinks to iron through... but Iâd like to talk to you again someday, because I do miss chatting with you. It wasnât a lie when I said chatting with you was a highlight of my time despite the timezone difference. So... Iâll most likely be throwing you a PM sometime this week, unless youâd somehow beat me to it.
And, perhaps, by talking to you, by slowly regaining my sense of Self, perhaps I can finally overcome those old baggages I have, which would in turn gain me some courage to do whatever I need and want from life.
Now, that wouldnât be so bad, would it? :)
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