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thatsjustrwde · 4 years ago

Note

For the RWBY character prompt thing: you gotta tell me about Ironwood for sure! And if somebody already asked, how's about Qrow? :)

OH BABEY A DOUBLE (I’m gunna put Qrow in a separate post to avoid making this too long) thank you so much!

Warning: This is a PRO IRONWOOD POST. I also go into team RWBY taking responsibility for their abuse towards Ozpin. Don’t read this if you don’t like it. You’ve been warned

My top three two ships for Ironwood

1) Ironqrow (Ironwood x Qrow) {Volumes 3-7}

I have loved the idea of these two since the fall of beacon. When they first interacted, I wasn’t too sure about them because it seemed like they didn’t really like each other.. but that scene where all the robots were turning on beacon and Qrow spotted ironwood, ran at him with his scythe, only to jump over him and save him from a Grimm, sold the ship to me. It was clear that they didn’t actually despise each other. Qrow wasn’t quick to point fingers; he knew that what was going on wasn’t James’ fault, and he even tried to add a little bit of comic relief to the scene. (When ironwood’s ship fell, and Qrow smirked “well, it won’t be much of a walk”)

My love for the ship was reinforced in v6 (yeah I know it was the fan service volume but I’m rolling with it anyway). Qrow knew that they HAD to get to ironwood in order to complete their goal. He trusted James, and he knew that he was a smart and capable leader who would know what to do (ah,, the good old days ;;)

And then in the early episodes of v7, their bickering that we once saw in v3 was non existent. They were happy to see each other, and James even initiated a hug. He was just so relieved to see him ;; it made my heart melt, I remember posting about this moment so much, all over instagram and tumblr. I loved them so dearly.

2) Ironwood x Glynda (idk if they have a ship name)

God,, I always loved them. that scene in v2 with Ironwood and Glynda standing together in the dead of night looking over the city of vale was so special to me. I love Glynda and her character, she is so dynamic. that scene with her and ironwood showed to us that she truly respected and cared for him and his well-being. She was worried for him as well. I just wish they had more interactions before his death. they would have been very sweet and POWERFUL together.

My three least favourite ships for Ironwood

1) Ironqrow {Volumes 7-8}

Oh boy. RT really knows how to take something good and just, ruin it huh.

I feel as though I don’t need to dive too deep into this (as I’ll be covering Ironwood’s fall from grace later) but yeah... The fight with Qrow and Clover was.. unfortunate. Everyone seemed to lose their braincells in that scene, and the moment it was over, Qrow was dead set on killing Ironwood for some reason even though he was the one who decided to side with a literal murderer, but go off MKEK you really did something there...

Yepp this absolutely killed the ship for me in canon (though I stilln love thinking about them out of the canon setting), I was an absolute wreck after this scene. they deserved better.

2) Ironwood x Winter

don’t worry I’m not about to pull the “IRONWOOD WAS AN ABUSIVE FATHER FIGURE AND GROOMED HER CAREERRHYUGGHR” no.

I always saw Ironwood as a POSITIVE father figure to winter, even before v7. We knew that winter was one of his best soldiers, and was most likely one of his students before then. I believe that Ironwood gave winter a chance at something great, to leave her actual abusive father and hone her skills as a soldier instead of becoming the heiress to a company that she did not want to be tied to. I believe Ironwood was a stellar father figure and role model to her, and that is the reason why I do not ship them. their relationship was so much deeper than that. it was found family.

3) Ironwood x Salem

What the fuck. Like actually what? This was a thing? What is it with this fandom and glorifying abusive relationships... I remember seeing a lot of people trying to justify it like “awh salem was so sweet with him she just wanted him to stop fighting. She would leave him alone after!!” Thats manipulation honey, we don’t fuck with that here. no. Absolutely not

My biggest criticism for Ironwood

See: the reason I made this side blog

It’s no secret to us in the RWDE community that his fall into the role of the villain was POORLY WRITTEN AND WE ALL HATE IT SO FUCKING MUCH. where the hell did this even come from? oh I know! TEAM RWBY LYING TO HIS FACE AFTER HE WAS NOTHING BUT KIND AND GENEROUS TO THEM. god I’m heated already.

I’ve talked about his stupid semblance before but it doesn’t even matter because his semblance wasn’t the cause of his descent anyway. We were all HOPING that it was but nope! it was him “losing his humanity” because he lost his other arm. How fucked up is that.

Shitty writing aside, I know James had flaws even before the shitshow that was v7-8, but honestly there was nothing he did that I can criticize harshly. He was a good and honest man with good intentions and a pure, big heart made of gold. Of course he made mistakes and of course he wasn’t perfect, but he was always trying to do the right thing to protect the people. He was a good man until MKEK decided they needed a reason to kill off another headmaster.

My favourite thing about Ironwood

his MUSCLES

His willingness to sacrifice himself to save others. During the fall of beacon he told the students that they didn’t have to stay, even though he could have used the help greatly. But he KNEW that they weren’t ready to handle a crisis like this, and he didn’t want to force them into a responsibility that could have left them emotionally/physically damaged, or worse.

During the Ironwood and Watts fight, IRONWOOD MANGLED HIS OWN ARM TO CAPTURE WATTS. He was so headstrong and brave and he wanted to do everything he could to prevent Salem, even if that meant hurting himself and losing another part of himself. God I miss him so much ;; I’m tearing up a little writing all of this...

A head canon I have for Ironwood

I love creating head canons for characters, it always makes them feel more real to me. one of my biggest head canons is that, in a peaceful world setting, he would enjoy sleeping in on the weekends. ;;. He is a headmaster AND a general which means he has to follow a strict schedule all the time. Maybe this is coming from my desire to take care of him and make sure he is happy and healthy and not stressed out.. But yeah, lazy Sundays, sleeping in late. pls let him sleep he needs so much sleep. What I would change about Ironwood if I were making a rewrite

Strap in kiddos I’ve been thinking about this for a very long time. I’m sure that someone has come up with a similar concept, but I will share my ideas anyway (: I am going to preface this by saying that for this rewrite to work, we need to have Winter receive the Winter maiden powers from Freya in V7. To start, we will have to go back all the way to v2 when Ironwood was first introduced. I would have Ozpin and Glynda share their concerns to each other about Ironwood bringing all of his ships to look over the festival, but I would take that time to thoroughly explain his semblance. His semblance is stupid, so I would make some changes. To start off, I wouldn’t make it passive. The way it is now is just,, a weird way to give him a mental illness without actually giving him a mental illness. Activating it would have to be a decision that he made if he knew that he had to make decisions that would be hard for him. This way if his semblance caused him to do something actually horrible, he would be directly accountable for it, instead of blaming him for something that he couldn’t control. Semblances are a representation of the user, so with time and with more stress put onto Ironwood, I could see him falling victim to his own semblance if he were to abuse it too much. This will help as we lead into a better way to write his fall from grace.

From there, I would keep pretty much everything the same until we get to v7. Team RWBY arrives in Atlas and gets arrested and brought to Ironwood just as they do in canon. This time, however, we have Oscar explain EVERYTHING. No lying. Salem cannot be killed. Oscar explains that Ozpin shut himself off after team RWBY forced the truth out of him, and while the truth is a lot for Ironwood to handle, he understands why Ozpin kept it a secret. He shuns team RWBY for their methods and explains why their actions were unnecessary and abusive, but agrees to help them anyway since he knows that they all need to come together if this is going to work. Hence, his arc kind of goes backwards. Instead of team RWBY having his trust from the beginning, they will need to work to gain it back.

He takes Oscar under his wing to try and draw Ozpin back out. He greets Qrow, they fall in love, he also formally introduces the team to the Ace Ops. The Ace Ops take an IMMEDIATE backseat in the story. We don’t need more characters. For the sake of this rewrite specifically, they are barely around. We are focusing on Ironwood and his growth/relationships. I would explore more times to show the deep connection between him and Winter. As I said earlier, I see him as a healthy father figure for her, so I would definitely focus on that for a bit. At this point, Winter would not have received the maidens power yet, so we could have a scene of him assuring her that she is a perfect fit for the role, and encouraging her and just,, you know, solidifying that he wasn’t pressuring her into doing it.

Carrying on with the main plot, instead of being left in the dark for the whole season, Ironwood is already aware that Salem cannot be killed. This gives him and the rest of the team a lot of time to work on a new plan to defeat her. They spend lots of time training, Ironwood takes care of them, offering his resources to them. Overtime the team do start to gain his trust little by little again, but this will all kinda fall apart when Salem arrives.

With stress levels higher than ever, he activates his semblance. Team RWBY and friends KNOW about his semblance and they understand why he is acting irrationally. Maybe they have different ideas than him, but they would not directly oppose him. This completely fixes him from becoming a cartoon villain. Team RWBY and friends would work WITH Ironwood at a distance to fix amity and get global communications back up safely. From there, Ironwood could deliver a message to the world about Salem. Since people know who he is, it will make the message more impactful. Just like he did with his message to Mantle.

Qrow and Winter are positives in his life. They keep trying to ground him and bring him back to reality, but he will not deactivate his semblance. He is too scared of what’s to come with Salem. They support him in this, and do not turn their back on him.

Winter receives the maiden’s power, and is told to open the vault to obtain the staff and raise atlas further into the sky to save his people. Winter agrees, why wouldn’t she? They have already evacuated most of mantle to atlas anyway. In situations like this it’s impossible to save everyone. RWBY could whine and bitch if they wanted to, but there is nothing they could do in this situation because, for the sake of this rewrite, they wouldn’t be as stupid as they are in the canon proper.

The vault is open and the staff is vulnerable. It is in this moment that the ACTUAL VILLIAN comes into play. Watts took advantage of the security from behind the scenes, giving Salem the exact time that the vault was open. And thanks to him overhearing everything, he knows that all she needs to do is use the staff, and Atlas will fall. Salem appears in the room, and the big finale battle would occur. They weren’t ready yet. They hadn’t finalized the plan to stop her without killing her. Team RWBY Oscar and Qrow would do their best to keep Salem distracted while Winter and Ironwood speak to the staff. Meanwhile, Neo could breach Ironwood’s office and retrieve the relic of knowledge for Salem.

The battle plays out, she keeps coming back, the team gets tired, Salem loses her patience and just PLOWS through them to get to the staff. She enters the realm and the mystical world around them begins to shatter and break. With that much concentrated evil in this place coming up out of nowhere, it would be sure to shift the balance.

She goes head to head against Winter and Ironwood for the staff. She knows that using the staff will cause Atlas to come crashing down, so that is exactly what she does. Since he is already out, she just gives him a command. It doesn’t matter what it is. Atlas starts to fall. She strikes a lethal blow to Ironwood (Keeping the theme of her killing headmasters) and flees with the staff. Qrow runs to his side, he and winter are crying, Team RWBY is upset, OZPIN IS UPSET. With his aura broken and his semblance down, he smiles at them all, says that he is proud of them for their work and he knows that they will find a way to defeat her. He tells them to get out and save themselves, save as many people as they can. They do that, but for further angst, Qrow stays with him, holding him and crying against him as Atlas falls. Team RWBY use the gravity dust keeping Atlas falling slowly to their advantage. They get as many people as they can into airships and send them to mistral. They then make their own way to Vacuo... Since global communications are back up, the world would know about this. This would give Shade academy a good chance to prepare. (damn I could write a fic)

What I think of Ironwood’s allusion and what I would change.

It’s dumb the way that CRWBY has portrayed it. In the story of the Wizard of Oz, the tin man doesn’t have a heart, but learns to love overtime. I used THIS aspect for helping my rewrite of Ironwood. He was hardened at the beginning, but managed to trust again and eventually smiled and said that he was proud of team RWBY and friends in his dying moments. It’s just more impactful that way I think.

#long post #ironwood #pro ironwood #ironqrow #rwde #rwby crit

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courtingstars · 5 years ago

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Notes for The Vanishing Prince: Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight has been posted! I don’t have nearly as many notes this time. (Which is good, because it took me a lot less time to draft this post. XD;) Still, I did want to bring up a couple of things that I thought might be worth mentioning.

And as always, I updated the inspiration board for this fic over on Pinterest, so feel free to check out the new images if you feel like it/have access to Pinterest. (The most recently added images are at the top, so when you scroll down, you’re basically going backwards through the story.) And with that, onto the notes...

(Cut for the ramblings of a writer who overthinks everything, and also some very important notes about omurice, because I LOVED writing that part…)

Akashi and His Mom, Plus Heian Poetry

This is basically just a note to say that I really loved being able to write the scene with Akashi and his mom. <3 I think it’s the first scene of them together that I’ve posted online…? (Though I’ve written lots of scenes where Akashi talks about his mother, or has a very brief memory of her.) I wrote something short about them for Mother’s Day years ago, but I never finished it, sadly. So it felt nice to finally be able to include a glimpse of how I see their interactions.

Also, the part about Japanese poetry is indeed a thing! A lot of the Heian-era poetry in Japan revolves around themes of courtly love, and because of how courting worked in that time period, they often feature various forms of pining-for-your-lover-from-a-distance. So like Akashi says, there was a folk belief that if you were missing your lover enough, you would appear in each other’s dreams, so that you could at least be together in the dream world. Like this site about the poet Ono-no-Komachi explains, “the intensity of one's feelings for one's lover could induce him to appear in one's dream or could cause one to appear in his dreams.” I always thought that was a fascinating concept. (Also the idea that Akashi would be studying those poems at six years old is just really funny to me? But anyway. //laughs)

Akashi’s Issues, Poor Guy

I don’t want to go into too much detail here, but I thought it might be worth mentioning… One of the things I really wanted to explore in this fic (and the series as a whole) is the reality that working on mental health problems can be a very difficult and often nonlinear process. While it’s not the only plot line of the story—and I definitely don’t claim to have done a great job with it by any means, though I try my best!—I felt like it was important to take the time to show how a person’s struggles with mental illness don’t just get solved overnight. Akashi has been fighting a lot of the same problems throughout the series, because these kinds of emotional hang-ups and coping mechanisms aren’t easy to change.

To be honest, it felt somewhat counterintuitive to me as a writer, because back when I was trying to publish original stories, there was this idea that you weren’t supposed to write characters “brooding” for too long or repeat the same issues/mistakes over and over. Basically, the characters needed to show growth quickly, and passages that could be seen as repetitive should probably be cut, because they weren’t “progressing the story.” While I can understand that idea in a writing sense, I tend to feel like it’s not a very fair representation of what it’s like to struggle with mental health. (Which also applies to a lot of other kinds of personal issues/growth as well, honestly. Change is just hard in general.)

So I’m definitely trying to walk a balance between not writing the same scenes over and over, while also showing Akashi’s struggles as an ongoing journey for him. The latter was really important to me, both as a writer, and as someone who’s had cycles and setbacks with my own mental health stuff.

Bokushi Is Still Kind of an Asshole, Lol

On kind of a similar note… I have no idea how Bokushi comes across as a character at this point in the story? //laughs But if anyone finds him to be kind of a jerk, I will say that’s an intentional choice, at least. Ideally, I wanted him to be likable but still flawed, and I do find him hilarious personally, but… Hopefully it’s obvious that I don’t think he’s a perfect person, by any means. XD;

I think I’ve said before that I really want to use this storyline as a chance to explore my view of his character—and the why/how of how his personality differs from Oreshi—in as much detail as possible. Hopefully it ends up coming across as nuanced in the long run… But if nothing else, I hope it’s at least fairly interesting to read! Because I do find him extremely interesting as a character.

Omurice!

So here’s my major cultural note for the chapter… I’m guessing a lot of people are already aware of the fact that Furihata’s favorite food in canon is omurice, since it tends to pop up in AkaFuri fics a lot. For anyone who’s not familiar with the dish, omurice (a borrowed compound word for “rice omelet”) is a Western-inspired Japanese dish that’s extremely popular as a comfort food. (This type of Western-inspired cuisine is generally called yoshoku. Which I think I also mentioned in Storming the Castle, but… it’s been awhile? //laughs)

So basically, omurice consists of pan-fried rice that’s usually seasoned with either ketchup (often considered the more homey/classic version) or demi-glace sauce (more often seen in restaurants). Like in a lot of fried rice recipes, vegetables and meat are added to the rice, and then the whole thing is served beneath a super-fluffy egg omelet. It typically looks like this, or this. I’ve made it before, and enjoyed it way more than I expected. So while I was writing this chapter, I couldn’t resist preparing one of my own (for research purposes of course, lol):

I’m not a good cook, to put it mildly, but I was proud that this one came out a little better than the last time I tried it. XD

To me, the coolest thing about watching someone prepare omurice is the part where they plate the omelet... This can be done a few different ways, and some take more skill than others. (I totally cheat, by making a single-layer omelet and just setting it on top of the rice as best I can. XD) The most difficult way (and the way Furihata does it in the fic!) is to layer the omelet on top of itself while you’re cooking it, so that it becomes a kind of pouch that you can slice open over the rice. There’s a great animation of this process over on my Pinterest board, and I also really recommend two videos on Youtube if you’d like to see more… This clip features an amazing chef from the most famous omurice restaurant in Kyoto, and this one is an iconic scene from Tampopo, a classic Japanese film. To learn more about the context of those clips, and about omurice in general, I also recommend this really fun article about it.

The thing I find the most interesting about omurice is that it’s such a popular comfort food, so it’s often associated with home and family life. That’s why in The Fast Train to Kyoto, I was inspired to have Furihata’s mom make him omurice when he’s having a bad day. At the same time, though, the dish can also have a bit of a “lovey dovey” connotation to it? Like how in this survey it was one of the top foods that Japanese guys said they would like their girlfriends to make for them. (Hence the trope of decorating the omelet with a ketchup heart, as Bokushi mentions, in his extremely Bokushi way. //laughs)

For all these reasons, I tend to think of omurice as the perfect favorite food for a character like Furihata. It definitely inspired how I write about him, especially when it comes to things like his family life as well as his romantic side. <3

So How About All Those Storming the Castle References Huh

This is just a quick note to say that if anyone happened to be confused by some of the references in this chapter, a lot of them were referring back to events from Part Two of Storming the Castle. (Like the first time Furihata saw Akashi’s dad, the huge portrait of Akashi and his parents in the ballroom, the butsudan altar, the secret passage with the stairs, the ghost, etc, etc… Also the character of Ginhara, since he’s the butler who runs the mansion in Tokyo.)

I tend to be pretty indecisive about exactly how much detail I should use to explain something that happened earlier in the series… Since I know some people might not have read the earlier fics, and at the same time, I don’t want to be too repetitive for those who have? In any case, if anything was confusing/unclear, it was probably a callback to that story. (Oh, and there was also a callback to The Fast Train to Kyoto, about when Akashi and Furihata talked about becoming friends!)

Well, that’s it from me this time around. Thank you so much for reading, as always. As I mentioned in more detail over on Ao3, I really hope everyone is staying safe where possible, and supporting each other in this difficult time. I will do my best to get the next chapter posted very soon. <3

#the vanishing prince #kat writes fanfic #long post #text post #akafuri #I'm so glad I was finally able to share all those omurice notes lol #and also share the omurice cooking scene!!#I never thought that Furi would end up preparing a rice omelet for Bokushi haha #and I was just really amused by his utter disdain for the ketchup lol #definitely inspired by all my friends who were like why would you fry rice with ketchup and I'm like IT'S BETTER THAN YOU'D THINK IT'D BE #anyway #this was also a tough chapter to edit because it was SO LONG #and I felt bad for Oreshi #and these boys have complicated feelings #but I hope it was enjoyable to read because I did have fun writing it <3 #kat writes about basketball dorks

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detransexual · 4 years ago

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Im bad at elaborately phrasing why i have a problem with rebligging vent posts but.... I think its essentially boils down to 1 out of 2 possible vibes

1: oh this is for me? You wrote this about you but its for me now <3 lol so relatable haha funny big same mood this is sooo me

2: haha look at the funny mentally unwell monkey banging its head against the bars lol

Because like idk if its just me but vent posts feel more like public diary entires than invitations for interaction and validation tbh. It feels more like just shouting into the universe desperately for someone to hear you, im here, i exist, im in immense pain, im not looking for sympathy or validation or advice or support or any kind of input really, i just want to be seen, i want to come a little closer to being understood, i want SOMEONE to know that i exist and that im struggling and that im trying but im still fucking unhinged and messy and not an easy to understand one size fits all representation of general mental illness. Human nature is complex but i feel like modern society puts too much emphasis on "haha relatable you are not alone i understand i feel you im the same!" because you're not the fucking same! None of usare! You dont need to try to fit into my shoes, you dont need to take an unfiltered string of words that i felt fits my current experience and pretend like it accurately represents your experience, because while it might resonate with you it's not about you and that okay, we dont always need to pretend like acceptance and normalization or whatever is always about relatability and applying someone elses words to your own experiences, sometimes its about going "huh other people feel similar to me, im not alone, but they're also not me, and my interpretation of their words might not necessarily be what they meant to the person who wrote them, but that doesnt mean i cant take comfort in feeling a belonging or understanding or feeling less alone"from a respectful distance. Idk man. The internet is weird but sometimes vent posts are just the modern equivalent of carving something painful into a cave wall, i was here, i existed, i had thoughts and feelings, im here, please see me, regardless of if its tomorrow or nezt week or in a hundred years, someone is going to see a mark i made and know that i existed, and they're never going to truly understand me just based on my unhinged cave scribbles, but they're going to get a peek inside of my brain and realise i existed as an individual person and that my experience or expression of that experience doesntneed to be able to fit over their own in order for it to have mattered.

Idk. We're all here, we can all tey to understand eachother a little better, we can try to find belonging and kinship and people who can relate to us, but we're still all individuals at the end of the day. I dont fucking know man!!!!! Life is fucking weird and im overly nitpicky and i should shut up but im simply not fucking going to!!! Live!!!!

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hydradrive · 4 years ago

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Go Hellnalysis (aka : hydradrive gets mad at the fanbase for ignoring go’s ongoing 2 season long breakdown for like, 5+ paragraphs)

We are talking S1 foreshadowing as it relates to the facts of S2. As already mentioned, I think it sucks of the writers to do it to him like how it sucks how they treated Emma and Aoi throughout the entire series and reeks of colorism like. having your two darkest skinned characters be actively antagonistic as s2 goes on is a bad fucking look.

But it’s there, and I am not happy that people defend Lightning weirdly when he treats people he knew for years badly, and then turn around and say wildly fucked up shit about Go.

I guess today is the day i Get Into It Again. I’ll be rehashing some of my points from my old thread on nac, so strap in i guess.

This is said to Playmaker in season two.

‘After i lost to you’.

So, by episode 4. And the text backs this up. The text in season one aligns.

In Go Onizuka VS Genome :

[ transcript for subbed text:

Dr. Genome : Did your defeat at Playmaker’s hands force you to evolver?

Go Onizuka : As much as I hate to admit it, yes. That was when everything changed.

/end text screenshot id ]

That was when everything changed.

Let’s look at the rest of it, then. How it affected him, in the long-term. The Go Analysis... Is here.

MASSIVE CWs for discussion of canonical weight loss, brief discussion of disordered eating in the context of that, and a whole bunch of other stuff re: the brain hack that I don’t even know how to tag, really. medical? Basically, if you have any triggers relating to that, please exercise due diligence because I will not pull any punches about the implications.

tldr version :

This is real dialogue from Go Onizuka’s first (and only) duel against Revolver.

No matter what he says trying to spin it a different way after this segment of text, that it’s about fighting for yourself, these statements exist, and they exist with the context given by his own words; that he was struggling, mental health-wise, when he said these words.

[ transcript for subbed text:

Go Onizuka : Until now, I’ve battled in front of huge crowds. (There is a single beat frame, to indicate silence.) But I realized I’m all alone. There are no fans rooting for me here. I realized... We always duel alone. We fight for ourselves, not for anyone else.

/end text screenshot id ]

But perhaps this isn’t compelling enough for people. Fine. Let’s go even further back.

[ transcript for subbed text for screen readers : Go Onizuka : It’s my fault that Makoto is in this condition. /end text screenshot id ]

Go has an easily seen habit of assuming the worst, and with regards to stuff like Makoto, blaming himself, to the point that if his manager hadn't said more on Makoto, he would've been going into VS Genome blaming himself for Makoto getting into duel monsters in the first place.

In episode 5 it was shown that with one loss he was entirely certain that nobody would care about him in any capacity:

But why?

... It’s brought up in one of the first episodes of the entire series.

[ transcript for subbed text for screen readers :

Go Onizuka’s Manager : That’s exactly it. It’s a winner-take-all world, after all.

/end text id. ]

And given an even more... depressing? Spin later, when Go thinks about it throughout S1 and S2 during his duel with Takeru:

[ transcript for screen readers :

Before I was placed in the orphanage, I only relied on myself. The world I lived in was all about survival of the fittest. “You must protect yourself” was my credo.

/ end text screenshot id ]

It’s genuinely that simple. He slipped back into his old way of surviving because the way he did in season one didn't. save him. it didn't save him from a duel he needed to win, not just for himself necessarily. he would have died if playmaker had lost. a lot of people would have. He was already starting to have these doubts about his entire reason d’etre for dueling, and his loss only further spurred it on.

It’s repeated, again and again:

[ transcript for screen readers :

Go Onizuka : For everyone to appreciate me, I must win!

/end text screenshot id ]

That sentiment. “People won’t like me if I lose.” “People will abandon me, if I lose.” In his own words, his losses, losses in duels that were important, rotted him. And it /is/ true. His manager said he’d leave if he went to try and stop the Tower Of Hanoi and lost. And he followed through with it, by all implications. He didn’t come back until season 3. Keeping in mind that Go’s self-hatred spiral regarding guilt over in his mind dragging Makoto into the mess that was season one-era Hanoi shenanigans was only cut off because his manager and other people talked him out of it... Yeah.

This is before we bring in the other complicating factor : a certain little company, who never did anything good for anyone. A man, who despite supposedly being well-intentioned, did very little to help, until it reached the darkest point.

[ transcript for subbed text for screen readers, since that’s the primary important stuff :

Akira Zaizen : But we don’t intend to acknowledge that the network was on the brink of destruction. So I ask you don’t cause the press to delve into this.

/end text screencap id]

People focus so much on him yelling at the press because they keep asking about Playmaker but with this context?

[ transcript text for screen readers:

Akira Zaizen: You’ll continue to be the focus of the press. /end text screenshot id ]

He’s not allowed to talk about how you nearly died.

He’s not allowed to talk about what really was at stake.

In fact, he’s not allowed to even act in a way that makes people even a little suspicious about what happened.

And yet.

‘But he could just ignore this advice’ . Not really. Go Onizuka’s platform was built in Link Vrains. Being the whistleblower about the actual danger of Link Vrains would not endear him to Sol, and potential backlash from Sol, from everything we know about the company? Hmm, gosh, wonder why that might be bad. Almost as if Go is basically a livestreamer who is at risk of having the video platform he exists on die.

It would be incredibly difficult to continue working under the public eye like that. The stress from that alone would start tearing someone to pieces.

Ergo, his decision to work for Sol Technologies as a bounty hunter. Both jobs now hinge on him currying favor with a horrible megacorporation, one just has less baggage from his past way of surviving and gives him the ability to talk a tiny bit more freely about things.

This is all the leadup, of course, to the ultimate lowest point. The duel chip. Brain hack.

[ transcript text for screen readers: ‘By implanting this duel chip, the brain’s thought capabilities expand.’ /end text screenshot id ]

[ transcript text for screen readers:

Akira Zaizen: You can always refuse.

Go Onizuka : Your methods are dirty. You guide me to the gates of hell, but you don’t care what happens afterwards. /end text screenshot id ]

Let’s talk about the physical side-effects of the brain chip on Go Onizuka.

Me, personally? I genuinely wonder what came first; the most severe physical side-effects or a worsening of Go’s mental health that made him stop eating.

It’s never stated what came first. We only see the mental health side effects of the chip in flashbacks initially.

I looked at one of the instances where Akira pulled go out of the sim wrt: the listed sys/dia ratios on-screen. They have those in certain shots, btw! They’re consistently really fucked up!

Here’s what those were, in one very notable instance:

... So, right off the bat, a heartrate of 195, huh.

And a sys/dia of 187/112 with a mean of 136. Wow! I wonder what that means for him!

I can tell you.

He statistically would be in the range of having a hypertensive emergency. Having rates like this can damage your heart muscle when you don’t literally have a heart attack, hypertensive encephalopathy, ( which can cause dizziness and altered levels of consciousness, if we are getting into it.), kidney failure, coughing up blood...

I don’t want to speculate too much about why the Duel Chip caused this, but I will note that blood pressures like this sometimes come about as result of issues with the neuroendocrine system. This would tie in with a loss of appetite and some of the other things Go seems to canonically have had from the getgo of having the chip installed, and probably added on to his already pre-existing mental health stuff which I personally parsed as depression.

... I think this mostly covers the main points of what gets missed. Aka, literally all of his arc. Just, literally every piece of his arc. People miss all of it.

Also, to reiterate : it is NOT GOOD the way this is framed by the writers. it is loaded to, in a series heavily informed by the main character’s trauma, have a teenaged darker skin character ( Go is 19!! ) be portrayed as more erratic, etc etc. I do Not care about Lightning. He is a little robot, and while there is probably some ableism in the way trauma is represented therein as a corrupting force, it is far more worrying how Go is treated in terms of representation, and I am not going to bat for the guy who treated Haru like dogshit lmao.

The fact that one of the two darker skinned MOC is given more obvious mental/physical illness signifiers in terms of symptoms to mark them as antagonists (when, again, Yusaku literally CANONICALLY HAS PTSD) fucking blows, and I’m going to personally fight the writers.

But. I am also laying the blame at the fanbase’s feet for this shit, too. They literally ignored this to coo over Lightning. I’m going to bite them.

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animation-recaps-by-sean · 5 years ago

Text

Steven Universe Future-Homeworld Bound/Everything’s Fine/I Am My Monster/The Future Recap

It’s over isn’t it? Spoilers below

Steven decides to go live with the Diamonds. The Crystals Gems can’t help him. Gee Steven it would be nice if you’d let them try. Before he goes he tells Jasper that he’s not taking her service. Do something better with her life. He walls off the Gems and warps to Homeworld as Garnet tearfully says that they’re his family.

Upon arriving in Homeworld we discover that the Diamonds have in fact stepped down since the movie and there is an election between the two Zircons from The Trail. The old throne room has turned into a museum.

Steven runs into Spinel who takes him to Yellow Diamond who is healing shattered Gems because she has domain of the body. Huh, guess it was mostly Yellow’s stuff that healed Jasper. And Yellow even mentions needing to heal the cluster. That’s good. But she can’t stop Steven from freaking out; that’s Blue domain.

So he sees Blue who is now making happy clouds. Insert drug joke here. But Steven needs real peace of mind not temporary happiness. So he sees White who is now letting gems control her. That’s.. Strange. She demonstrates with Spinel, which was horrifying. But Steven’s next but he doesn’t take it well; seeing himself as a diamond. He flashes back to the time White tried to kill him. He then makes White smashes her head, which smashes his own head. It’s not clear if he was just trying to hurt her or shatter her but it’s a dark place.

Scared of the diamonds and scared of himself he asks Spinel how she let her own anger go. It was Steven of course. Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.”

Steven flees, Blue pleading that they’re family. But he’s gone.

Steven returns to his home and he’s trapped in his pink form. The gems find him but Steven insists that he’s fine. Not wanting to scare him off again, they back off. Steven returns to Little Homeworld to help the school. He ruins Peridot’s class by creating planet monsters, he breaks Bismish’s anvil. We also see the Pearls. Yellow rocks the armor look, and they are still hiding Vollyball’s face.

After completely wrecking the place, Steven returns home to be confronted by the Gems’ Greg, and Connie. But Steven doesn’t want to talk. He helps people, he doesn’t lie to his family, he doesn’t get into fights with his Dad, and he certainly doesn’t shatter gems. But he did. He did all those things. He’s a monster. And thus, Steven turns into a monster.

Bismuth, Peridot, and Lapis show up around the same time the Diamonds show up with Spinal; they are shocked to find Steven’s a corrupted monster. The Diamonds' powers are useless on him. Steven bieleve’s he’s a monster, so he’s a monster. Amethyst blames herself for not noticing in time, Spinal blames herself for trying to kill everyone he cared about, White blames herself for treating Rose and the Diamonds so horrible, creating the situation that Steven had to deal with. She’s not wrong.

But Connie realizes that they can’t afford to make this about them. It’s about Steven. So Garnet has Yellow make her huge, and Garnet hugs Steven. Soon everybody joins in, Peridot crying that Steven never gave up on her so she’s not giving up on him. Connie comes in with another hug and Steven returns to well, Steven.

Steven awakes to his friends and loved ones, and the Diamonds. He finds himself naked and being slobbered on by Lion. He breaks down.

A few months later Steven is getting ready to go on a long road trip. He’’s also been going to therapy. Finally.

He gives gifts to everyone. He makes his own Cookie Cats and the gems treat Steven to their own cover of the Cookie Cat jinggle. Jasper has moved to Little Homeworld but is still calling Steven, ‘My Diamond.’ She tries to go with him to be his bodyguard, but Steven points out that he doesn’t need one. She considers and busts through a wall. As everyone says goodbye, Steven plants a kiss on Connie’s lips and FINALLY! I’ve been waiting for this kiss for six years!

But as he’s leaving, Steven wants to know why the Gems aren’t more sad. But they’ve been hiding it was Garnet saw a future where their tears stopped Steven from going. Garnet promises no matter where he ended up, they will always be a part of his life.

This gets a 3 ½ out of 4

I can’t help but feel that Rose got the short end of the stick. We get a tolkien mention of White being the source of her problems but we never got closure on Steven’s complicated feelings about her. Maybe that’s the point, that they keep being complicated. But it bothers me that the Diamonds got promoted to opening credits while Rose got her portrait shoved into Lion. And we never found out about her mystery chest of secrets. Maybe they’re saving it for a possible sequel a few years down the road or maybe it was just a mystery box they never figured out. Time will tell but still a little disappointing.

Future was a tough sit, watching Steven go with he’s worst impulses was really hard. But the stuck the landing, much better than the main show or the movie. The Steven POV worked a lot better because this was a mini series focused on Steven.

This was the last show that was already going when I started this blog way back in 2014. I’ve been watching this show since episode one back in 2013. AWhen I heard that one of the storyboarders on some of my favorite Adventure Time episodes was getting her own show I was excited. It’s been a big part of my life for awhile and has always been a part of this blog. It’s hard to see it go.

It was far from perfect. The pacing was frustrated especially in the later seasons. Not helped by why too much human episodes compared to the slow developing plot. The loss model style hurt way more than it helped, making it hard to tell when they were trying something funny or just an off day for the artist. The hiatus’ did not help but that wasn’t the crewnverse’s fault. That was a network thing.

But it had the strongest character writing of any show I seen and a world I loved seeing. It tackled issues that few other cartoons did. It showed a frank depiction of mental illness. And it’s LGBTQ representation was second to none. It kicked open a door that allowed countless kids see themselves in cartoons for the first time. It handled gay characters and issues with more maturity than most shows aimed at adults. There is no doubt in my mind that we would not have as many gay characters in childern’s enetertament hadn’t Steven Universe hadn’t been what it was.

Goodbye Steven Universe. I hope we meet again.

#steven universe #su #steven universe future #suf #steven universe spoilers #steven universe future spoilers #cartoon network #animation recaps by sean

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txladyj-blog · 5 years ago

Text

This Time Around - Chapter 17

A Daryl Dixon x OFC collaboration written by @xmistressmistrustx by request of @txladyj-blog

Rating: Explicit

Relationship: Daryl Dixon/Original Female Character

Tags: Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Awkwardness, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Crush, Fluff and Humor, Angst and Humor, Mild Smut, Strong Language, Eventual Sex, Eventual Romance, Slow Burn, Canon Divergence, Some Canon Scenes and Dialogue

Chapters 23/?

The next morning saw Jess making her way to Deanna’s place via the pond. Bypassing hunting for one day meant she could take the time to wander casually around the town before many of its residents had risen and therefore, she could enjoy the peace and quiet. The Pond was usually occupied by those who needed to take some time out and just…be. It was the quietest part of town and was frequently host to smooching teenagers and individuals needing to mourn a loss which unfortunately, had become the norm in the apocalypse.

On that particular morning, Jess happened upon the lonely figure of Carl. His checkered shirt and sheriffs’ hat being the main giveaway. His hunched over stance lured her over to him, something wasn’t quite right. Whistling a subtle tune from behind him alerted him to her presence and he smiled broadly when he twisted his body on the bench and set eyes on her. His youthful, innocent face could have fooled anyone into thinking he’d not been exposed to the horrors that lurked beyond the walls. But Jess knew better than that. Carl was a smart kid, brave too. A little too brave, his father might say.

“Hey Carl” She chirped as she plonked down next to him.

“Jess, hi.” He grinned as he studied the attire she dressed in that seemed to intrigue him so much. He was sure he’d played computer games that mimicked her apocalyptic style and as much as he knew she only wore it for practical and defensive reasons, he thought she looked pretty cool.

“How’s it going?” She asked with a light pat on his knee.

“Good” He replied with a lingering look. Jess wasn’t buying it. The fact that he was occupying the most somber spot in the town all alone proved he was lying. Having been the one to encourage her to reveal her identity to everyone, to Daryl, meant that she felt she owed him one. The world hadn’t imploded and she still had her home and her life. She just got to look at Daryl a whole not more than before. Deciding she wasn’t giving up on the conversation any time soon, she threw one leg over the other and settled down beside him.

“Right. Of course. Because when I’m doing good, I like to come and sit out here all alone at the ass crack of dawn.” She challenged with a sympathetic expression as she looked down at him beside her. “C’mon, kid. What’s up?”

His eyes moved round to cast over the pond. Dragonflies and bees flitted in the air, going about their daily business and creating a hive of life over the body of water. Yellow and white flowers decorated the edges amongst the bright green hues of the foliage. A small piece of paradise in a rotten world.

“I talked to Enid.” Carl whispered. His hands fumbled in his lap, his fingers not quite sure of what they were supposed to be doing. Jess thought it might be a physical representation of what was going on in his head. She could relate. It was how she felt whenever she was near Daryl, but she wasn’t about to admit that to anyone.

“Oh, you did, huh? How’d that go?” She pressed.

“Alright, I guess. We played some video games. I think we’re friends” He explained.

Jess was confused. To her, there was nothing bad about what he’d told her.

“That’s a good start.” She commented.

Carl side glanced at her, unimpressed but curious to hear her reasoning.

“It is?”

“Sure. They say that friends make the best lovers” she winked. Worried she was treading on dangerous territory with such a topic and having used the word ‘lovers’ she considered that she should just cut the conversation short there and then. But he looked too distracted and conflicted for her to just walk away and leave him with his thoughts without an attempt to help. The damage was done, so she opted to just roll with it.

“Who’s they?” He wanted to know, the corner of his mouth quirking up into a smile.

“I don’t know… people that were once friends and are now lovers?” She reasoned without a clue as to what the correct answer might be.

“Yeah. Right. I don’t have a chance anyway.” He dismissed as he adjusted his hat. It still seemed too big for him, even after he’d grown considerably. It was a reminder of his innocence and vulnerability.

“Sure, you do.” She encouraged.

Then, he turned his body to her and she prepared for the punchline.

“No, you don’t get it. She has a boyfriend.” He told her.

Her heart dropped.

Shit, kid. I bet he’s a douchebag too.

“Oh, dang.” She said, her words a little more PG than what was running through her head.

“Yeah. It sucks.” he complained

“Well, maybe she’ll get to know you a little better and she’ll realize you’re way cooler than the stupid boy she’s with and you’d make a better boyfriend” She offered with a genuine sincerity. All too often, the nice guys finished last and she wanted to urge Carl to be the exception to the rule.

“I don’t know about that. But Thanks, Jess.” He sighed.

“No problem. I gotta go. Keep me posted, OK?” She requested, getting to her feet and straightening her clothing.

“Jess?” He croaked. She halted, looking down at him still sitting on the bench. “Has it ever happened to you?”

“I’m sorry?” She asked.

“Have you ever had a friendship that turned into something more?”

What followed was a long and uncomfortable silence while Jess weighed up her two options; lie and give him hope or tell the cold, hard truth about her lack of dating experience. Lying wasn’t one of the skills she possessed, that much had been proven when she eventually caved in and admitted who she was to the group. After witnessing Daryl’s rage at her mistruth, she promised herself she wouldn’t lie again. Not to him and not to anyone else if she could help it.

“No.” She confessed. “But, I’m just not the kind of girl that guys want to date.”

His features fell into a truly baffled expression and he smarted at the statement.

“What? Why?”

Truthfully, aside from the fact that bigger girls were always overlooked in the dating pool and she thought herself to be nerdy, awkward, clumsy and clueless about relationships, she didn’t have a simple, clear -cut response that wouldn’t induce hours of trying not to sound like a self-pitying mess.

“I don’t know” She shrugged “But I’m OK with it.”

Yeah, maybe that was a small lie.

Carl still looked confused, but seemed to accept her interpretation. He nodded a couple of times and peered up at her.

“Well, I think you’re awesome.” He wanted her to know.

Jess’s heart swelled at his attempt to boost her confidence and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was Rick or Lori that had instilled such a fierce need to see people happy in him. Carl cared about other people and often went beyond the limits to try and inject a dash of positivity into their lives. She remembered how he’d begged her to come clean to the group, because they needed it. They’d been through so much, he truly believed that being reunited with Jess would make his father, Carol and Daryl happy.

“You’re a good person, Carl. You deserve some of the light that you try so hard to give everybody else. If she means something to you, fight for her…” She quickly checked over her shoulder, sweeping the area and mentally ticking off the list of routes to the pond that could potentially hold someone that could overhear her. Seeing no one, she turned back to Carl. “…But don’t you dare take any shit, you hear me?”

He giggled and held her gaze. “I hear you.”

She reached out and tugged his hat over his eyes, hearing him laugh from beneath. When he tipped it back again, he caught sight of her vanishing around the corner.

The furniture on the front porch of Deanna’s house was frequently used as a place to touch base, to make plans and to relay ideas and concerns. Deanna was clear that whether it be day or night, the inhabitants of the town were permitted to use the front porch at any time.

After the weekly meetings, those involved in the supply runs schedule would often meet here to sip lemonade and plan their next move, which was exactly what Jess, Rick and Abraham were doing under Deanna’s watchful eye one sunny morning. With a straw situated in her glass, thoughtfully provided by Deanna with no questions asked, Jess sipped Lemonade under mask and rocked back and forth on her chair with her boot planted firmly on the wooden fencing in front of her. Occasionally, she coughed and fanned the air in an attempt to rid the air of the smoke from Abraham’s cigar.

Rick and Deanna were hashing out the details of what type of vehicle would be required of such a run and what weapons could be checked out of the armory while Abraham made faces at Jess across the table, some crude, some goofy and some downright weird. In the street, Carl played with Judith, gently kicking a bright blue ball back and forth with her. Her innocent chatter and laugher were a welcome sound to everyone, grateful to hear anything but the growling beyond the walls. By all accounts, it was a normal Monday morning.

“Good morning Mr. Dixon.” Deanna called out, attracting Jess’s attention from blowing bubbles through her straw into her drink.

“Mornin” He muttered back.

Jess couldn’t help but do a small double take. Something was different about him but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it straight away. She wanted to laugh but in an ill-tempered way at how annoying it was that no matter what he was doing, Daryl was always extremely nice to look at.

This is ridiculous. How is he getting hotter? Now, what the hell is going on here? That’s me not concentrating for the rest of the day.

Biting down on her straw, she pondered over what could possibly be different. Ripped pants patched up at the knees? Check. Leather vest with dirty angel wings? Check. Messy, ruffled and wavy hair that obscured his eyes most of the time? Check. No, she couldn't figure it out.

“Hey Daryl, we were just discussing clearing a five star hotel for supplies. We’re after another couple of generators too.” Rick conveyed “We need them, now the population here is growing thanks to you and Aaron recruiting.”

“Plus, I like those chocolates they give you with coffee and the mints they leave on the pillows.” Jess shrugged as she collected her quiver from the floor beside her and started to count her arrows.

“She’s lyin’.” Abraham droned from across the table “She just wants to be alone with yours truly in the honeymoon suite. Aint that right, Angel?”

Jess slowly looked up the big, red-headed military man that was winking at her shamelessly in front of everyone.

“Oh yeah, so I can drown you in the bathtub.” She shot back nonchalantly.

Daryl witnessed their exchange with a mild impatience. It wasn’t in his nature to converse with anyone like Abraham Ford did, least of all a woman. Therefore, his efforts to understand the motivation of such talk when the endgame wasn’t to pair off were all but failing. If he wasn’t interested in her in that way, why would he persist?

“When we goin?” Daryl asked, involving himself in the run without bothering to ask permission. Larger groups were always beneficial. Or, that’s what he would say if anyone asked. The real reason masked behind his stoicism; he just wanted to be near Jess.

“Oh, you’re not invited” She joked and he could see the smile behind her mask portrayed in her eyes.

“Today.” Rick replied with a more polite response.

“A’right. I’ma leave the bike here, sit up front." Daryl expressed "We can toss her in the back seat like a burger wrapper”

At that, Abraham chuckled loudly and extinguished his cigar on the sole of his boot. Deanna offered her a sympathetic smile but quite obviously found the whole thing highly amusing, having never seen Jess, or ‘Parker’ as she knew her in such a relaxed and social environment before.

“Hey!” Jess complained.

“Can dish it out, but ya can’t take it.” Daryl mocked with a slight curl to the side of his mouth.

“Easy you two, or I will turn the truck around and we will come right back here” Rick told them with a chuckle, as if he were a fed-up father taking his kids out on a trip to the beach.

“Want some company in the backseat?” Abraham asked Jess as he got to his feet and shuffled past her on the porch. His nose was turning pink from the sun. Jess merely rolled her eyes in response, meaning he only chortled louder and lowered a big hand into her shoulder, giving it a squeeze as he passed.

Daryl’s chest tightened. He wasn’t sure why he was faced with such feelings, but the playfulness that had developed between Jess and Abraham made his temper flare and his mood turn irritable. It was strange to him despite knowing that now, she was just as likely to engage in such mockery and teasing with him as well as Abraham and in public as well as when they were alone. It just wasn’t flirtatious. Jealousy wasn’t something he’d had to contend with in the past, having never had any real feelings for anyone in that capacity. Did this mean his feelings towards Jess were changing? Was he experiencing something akin to a romantic attachment? He wasn’t quite sure. But he did know what when she smiled, she lit up a room and with it and sparked a fire inside him that left him unable to deny that he thought she was the prettiest creature he’d ever seen.

“Be safe.” Deanna intercepted as everyone started to filter down the stairs and over to the waiting trucks that could be borrowed “stick to the route on the map. Please let me know when you return. Oh, Mr Grimes?”

Rick stopped and handed the map to Abraham.

“Yes?”

“No diversions, no changes of plans. You are all our best fighters; I can’t have you all away for too long.” She requested

“You got it.” He accepted, looking at Daryl and nudging his head towards the trucks.

“Parker, a word before you go?” Deanna called out.

Jess stopped in her tracks, already suspecting that whatever ‘word’ Deanna wanted to have with her was likely to exasperate her after a certain topic hadn’t been mentioned in a while. She hung back, sliding her quiver onto her back while Deanna waited for the others to move out of ear shot.

“Any particular reason you’re around here so much these days?” She asked.

Jess’s brow furrowed, she thought that if anything, Deanna would be pleased to have her around after being pestered so much to join the community, then to live among it.

“Any particular reason you’re asking me?” She retorted.

“Because it’s nice. I like having you here. I know Aaron and Eric do too.” Deanna expressed.

Ah, here it is. A few weeks of peace and she’s back at it.

“Annnnd here we go again.” Jess groaned

Deanna placed her hand over Jess’s leather gloved hand and peered at her with pleading eyes.

“Please reconsider. You would never have to give up the fairground. It’ll always be yours. But you’ll be so much better off living here with us. I know you and Mr, Dixon work well together and I always see you and Abraham laughing. Since their group arrived you’ve been happier.”

Not wanting to seem rude or cagey, Jess stepped back slightly, breaking the physical contact and clearing her throat as she tried to think of yet another way to decline an offer which had been put to her many, many times before.

“I just like being kept busy. This new runs schedule has me out almost every other day.” She mumbled in a tone that came across as less than interested.

“It’s more than that. I know it is.” Deanna pressed, managing to catch her eye.

“Your observation skills still remain unrivaled, I see.” Jess challenged with a smirk that could be detected even with her mask as a barrier. “Look, I’m not moving here. I like my life as it is. But thank you for yet another offer and I have to hand it to you, you’re one persistent woman.”

The Wyndham Grand Hotel was a five-star establishment, nestled into the woodland that surrounded a town that was a two-hour drive from Alexandria. As soon as she arrived, Jess was impressed by the grandeur of it all and couldn’t wait to get inside and start sweeping the rooms for luxury items and non-perishable food stuffs.

The lobby boasted marble flooring and pillars with a sweeping, oval desk and a plush, red carpet. Couches and cushioned armchairs filled the space and in the corners were what must have once been large and colorful exotic plants. Jess was glad they’d managed to make good time so navigating the building with be easier without the use of a flashlight. Having parked the truck in the loading area, Rick and Abraham made their way to the reception desk to collect keys and sweep the place for generators that could be removed and fit onto the back of the vehicle.

“I’m going to leave you guys to the technical stuff and heavy lifting. I’ll be clearing the rooms, see if I can find anything useful.” Jess announced over her shoulder while heading to the stairs.

“I’ma go with her unless you guy need me?” Daryl asked.

“No, it’s OK. We’ll be fine. You go with Jess, none of us should be wandering around alone.” Rick told him. He signaled to Abraham to follow him from the reception desk to a set of double doors with a sign above them which told them they were heading to the Kitchen.

“They could use some more alone time together.” He mused.

“What, Jess and Daryl?” Abraham questioned in surprise. “That’s a thing? He’s into her?”

“Think so” Rick confirmed. “Let's just say it has potential.” He stopped and positioned himself on one side of the door while Abraham did the same opposite, both with knives drawn and held up, ready to defend themselves.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Abe chuckled.

Getting a head start on Daryl, Jess breezed through any open rooms she could access, eventually finding a large designer suitcase on the bed in the penthouse suite which from the window, provided views of the mountains for miles across the canopy trees. So far, she’d found the maids trolley in the hallway and taken a series of miniature bottles. Shampoo, shower gel, soaps and spare toothbrushes.

They’ve thought of everything. She thought.

Pulling her mask down, she felt a trickle of perspiration run down her temple and decided to lose her hood along with it. It was hot in the room, mainly from the daylight hitting the windows and creating a greenhouse effect. She used her knife to crack the small and relatively useless padlock on the suitcase and flung it open, rummaging around various boxes of make-up and clutch bags until she spotted something she really could not bypass.

She gasped as she pulled out a huge box of tampons and stared down at them with her mouth open like they were the most precious thing in the world.

“Oh, sweet baby Jesus, thank you.” She said to herself.

Tampons and sanitary products, like medication and food, were becoming increasingly scarce and coming across such a find felt like a major triumph to Jess, who, like many other women, despised using old school, washable products that created not only a level of self-consciousness from such an adjustment, but a lot of getting used to.

“Hey, you find anythin’?”

At the sound of his voice cutting through the air so unexpectedly, Jess jumped. Everything seemed to kick into slow motion as she tossed the box in the air, widening her eyes in horror as the contents created an explosion of tampons all around her, rotating as they spiraled out of control and careered to the floor. Time jolted back to normal when they all scattered onto the carpet like a million grains of sugar, each tiny, little thud like a gunshot as they hit the floor. Jess stood with her hand’s half risen, still poised as if she was holding the box which was now at her feet. She slowly looked up to see Daryl stood completely still in the doorway with one eyebrow raised.

“Uuuuuh…” She tried. “I uh, I, I-found some of the mints I like.” She stammered “Aaaaand then…it started…” her eyes lowered to the floor at what felt like a sea of offending articles “…. raining tampons.”

The corner of Daryl’s mouth quirked up as he stepped into the room and nudged his head up at her

“Okay” He replied quietly and she could tell it was taking every single bit of his self-control not to burst into fits of laughter.

Jess sighed and grit her teeth, offering him a bizarre and strained smile as she pointed to the floor with one hand.

“Just going to…pick those up.” She uttered, bending her knees, staring in total embarrassment at the floor and feeling unwaveringly certain that her face was now a deep shade of crimson. Her hands started to scramble across the carpet, collecting the tampons and shoving them in the box. Daryl knelt down and started to assist her. “Oh, you don’t have to.” She said.

“Gonna be here all damn day if I don’t.” He pointed out. She had to admit, he was right, there was a lot of them. Or maybe it just seemed like there was because of the painfully awkward nature of the situation. Jess reached out to grab the last two which lay next to one another near the bed, unaware that Daryl also had his sights set on them. Their hands collided and Jess withdrew as if she’d just shoved her hand into a furnace. Dread engulfed her and she was sure her entire body had now turned red and not just her face. “Uh, sorry.”

“My fault.” He grunted, avoiding her gaze.

“No, it was mine. I’ll just-”

“-Let me”

Once again, they both reached out, this time stopping half way.

“Ooookay” Jess breathed, taking a minute to decide who she was going to pass her possessions onto when she died of humiliation "I’ll get them”

“Yeah. K.``he murmured, quickly withdrawing and scratching the back of his neck with his head low.

When Jess got up, she braved a quick look in his direction and noticed him staring right at her.

“It’s the end of the world. These are like the holy grail. I’m still expecting a pig to fly past the window at any moment.”

“Right” He nodded, straightening up. “You um, you want me to bring some back for ya if I see ‘em when I’m out?”

Not expecting such an offer, for a moment she was rendered speechless. Until it occurred to her how useful and thoughtful his offer was.

“That would be great, thank you.”

“Sure.” He nodded “So, uh…you just want the little bullet-shaped ones or are they like a ‘one size fits all’ thing?”

Feeling her skin literally crawling at the awkwardness of it all, Jess let a small uneasy laugh escape her and wished the ground would open up and swallow her.

“Hah. Um, that is not a conversation you and I are going to have. Just, bring back anything you find.” She told him, turning her back and exhaling the large breath she’d been clinging onto and letting it flare out her cheeks and blow tufts of her hair upwards. She set to work removing the sheets from the bed and trying to put the last few minutes in a box in her mind so she didn’t ever have to re-visit it.

“Ya ain’t already got sheets?” he inquired, confused by her actions.

“Daryl, these are Egyptian cotton. I could never afford sheets like these before. But I can now”

Just about having enough with the topics of discussion so far, he reached out to help her remove the folded quit cover from the bed. His hand brushed against hers and it makes her skin tingle and her eyes closed. Her body froze and he noticed her still beside him briefly. He said nothing, only licking his lips and stifling a smile. If he didn’t know better, he could have sworn that she enjoyed the fleeting contact of his skin on hers.

From the risen bar area above the lobby, Daryl and Jess sat at a table by the window, watching the trundling mass of Walkers pass by outside. Trapped until the way was clear, Abraham and Rick played cards on the reception desk while Jess drew patterns on the table with a marker and Daryl watched her carefully. She glanced out of the window to what looked like the endless line of dead people below. Each one with a past, an identity. She scanned their vacant and pale faces, spotting one in particular that held her attention.

“Huh. He looks like Ben” She said to herself, forgetting for a moment that she was in Daryl’s company and was speaking aloud.

“Who’s Ben?” He questioned.

Having backed herself into a corner by absentmindedly voicing her thoughts, she accepted that Daryl was about to find out that when she lived in the city, she reached a whole new level of crazy.

“My pet Walker from the city.”

Sure enough, he looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“Your what?”

“It’s not as weird as it sounds.” She began to explain “I found him trapped at the bottom of the elevator shaft in my building. He was wearing this janitor’s uniform with a name tag. Ben. I tried to figure out how I could get him out of there and put him down. But as time went on, I changed my mind.”

Daryl lit a smoke as she was talking and sat back in his chair, throwing a leg across his knee and resting his cigarette between his fingers, which were perched atop of the chair’s arm.

“Why?” he wanted to know.

“He became a kind of listening post for me. I stopped journaling and started telling him everything. He kept me sane.” Saying the words for the first time gave Jess a kind of clarity about the situation. She had indeed credited the Walker with helping to keep her sanity after spending so long alone and slowly learning to feel the fear and use it to her advantage.

His expression was unchanged, a wary disbelief in his eyes. Jess felt like a fool trying to explain her strange relationship with the dead janitor but worried that if she didn’t finish her story, the half truth would be much worse.

“Eventually I realized that he had the keys to the elevator grate in his pocket. Long story short, I managed to get him out of there and tied him up on the roof.”

“Why didn’t ya just get rid of him?” He furrowed his brow and tilted his head back, finding her story interesting. Having made out that she was better off solo, she was now proving to him that she did, in fact, need somebody when she’d left all alone.

“Because he taught me things. Like how the dead detect sound and how much they can see. How they move and how they deteriorate with time. He’s the reason I’m better at dealing with Walkers than with live people.”

Daryl thought it over while he checked the progress of the herd wandering by below. It was one of the smellier herd’s he’d seen, but it still meant they’d been waiting for almost an hour for it to pass.

“I dunno if that’s smart or stupid.” He eventually said.

“It was smart. Y’know why?” She asked.

He shrugged and smiled thinly, enjoying their conversation more than he cared to admit. Aside from the dead beyond the doors, and the uneasy quiet, it was like they were sat in a bar as friends, or maybe even on a date, swapping anecdotes over a beer. Only the beer in reality was in the form of his hip flask and her plastic bottle of water and the only date Daryl had ever been on was having to hold back a crack head’s hair in a parking lot after Merle had given her too much booze.

“Because if it wasn’t for him creating a distraction. I’d have been caught by those assholes we encountered in the woods. I’m sure they were from the same group that tried to capture me in the city. Ben bought me valuable seconds to make my escape. He saved my life”

It didn’t bear thinking about; Jess being caught by the gang and never walking back into his life. He held up his hip flask “In that case” He rasped, tilting it slightly “To Ben.”

Jess raised her own water bottle and gently touched it on the metal flask.

“To Ben”.

She grinned and took a sip. Then, out of nowhere came memory that she’d been mulling over for a while; The fact that he kept her T-shirts. She felt guilt come creeping back into her mind.

“Daryl, you know I’m sorry, right?” She blurted out, albeit quietly. A hushed whisper on her tongue.

“Thought ya wasn’t good at apologies.” He pointed out.

“I’m not.” She admitted.

“That explains the weird timin’ I guess. What’cha sorry for?”

In truth, she was sorry for a lot of things but didn’t want to ramble on for too long and make herself too vulnerable. It was only now, after getting to know him again and learning to trust him that she felt reasonably comfortable with bringing the topic up.

“Leaving the quarry without saying goodbye. Lying to you. The note I left. All of it. I realized I never really apologized. Not properly.”

He was peering up at her through the wavy strands of his hair, his blue eyes fixed on hers. She expected him to speak, but time passed and he said nothing. She tried to divert her vision but found that it just didn’t feel right.

“M’sorry too. Didn’t mean to be such an asshole to ya” He confessed.

“It’s OK. So, we’re cool?” She grinned.

“We was cool anyways.”

“I just wanted you to kn-“

“-I know. You can quit yabberin’.” He teased, provoking a subtle giggle and a playful slap of his hand.

Some time later, Rick interrupted an intense game of I-spy when he thundered up the stairs, calling both of their names and pointing to the fire exit. When Daryl shot up and asked him what the racket was, he simply yelled “They’re inside! Move!”

Jess could hear the sound of hundreds of Walkers pushing through the glass doors on the ground floor, shuffled steps and groans striking fear into her chest. Without hesitation, Daryl grabbed her wrist and hauled her out of the bar and to the fire exit stairs, following after Rick. Behind them, Abraham was racing to reach the door with his M4A1 Carbine gripped in his hand like a relay baton. When he caught up, he slammed the heavy metal door behind him and flew up the steps.

On one of the floors, which one Jess wasn’t quite sure, Rick flung open the doors to a lounge area with floor to ceiling windows, plush couches and heavy, gold and cream drapes. He hurried everyone inside, breathless and panicked, just as the mass of Walkers began to appear at the end of the hall.

“There’s a hell of a lot more than we thought, they’re moving up the hotel, right on our tails.” Abraham told them while behind him, Rick set to work securing the double doors with a fire axe slid through the bars. “There I was thinkin’ we were going to have to bed down here for the night. Shame. Looks like you’re going to miss out on a steamy night in a hotel room with me, honey” He prodded.

“Oh my god” Jess muttered to herself between labored breaths “shut up”. She shoved him in the arm and he laughed as he tried to catch his breath, clocking Daryl’s unimpressed expression.

Deciding to steer clear of winding Daryl up any more, Abraham aimed at one of the huge window panels and fired off a few shots, shattering the glass and leaving a whistling, gaping hole in the side of the building.

“OK. No guns unless we have to. We’ll just attract more” Rick instructed, quickly holding up a hand to stop anyone else getting ideas “We need to figure out how to get out of here before they break through that door.”

Daryl edged closer to the glassless window and peered out of the gap. Jess heard him sigh and her heart started to pound even faster.

“Can’t jump this” He said “It’s way too high.”

Jess, Rick and Abraham all joined him at the edge, agreeing that it was indeed too high for a human to jump and walk away with no injuries. But Jess knew they had to do something and fast.

“If you lower me down as far as possible, I could try? Go get hel-”

“No” Daryl interrupted loudly “you’ll break ya damn legs fallin’ that far.”

His tone was firm and stern but if there was a chance that she could make it then that was good enough for her. She charged back to the couches, lifting one of the cushions from the frame. The doors heaved with the Walkers outside and the fire axe clunked in its place.

“We could throw these down there, it’ll cushion my fall.” She suggested.

“No, Jess” Daryl replied without giving anyone else a say.

“We have to do something or we’re all going to die here!” She cried, stamping her foot like a child having a tantrum “I’m chunky but I’m the lightest out of us all. I can do this.”

“It is an idea” Rick admitted

“The only one we got” Abraham agreed

“I have to try”

Daryl crossed the space between them and stopped inches from her face, causing her to raise her eyebrows so she could look up at him.

“You not hear me or somethin’? I said no, Jess. We’ll find another way.” He scolded.

When he spoke, it was like there was no one else in the room and she couldn’t deny that his bossy refusal and need to protect her from injury was an unsettlingly attractive trait in him. Rick and Abraham swapped knowing glances before Rick took Daryl to one side and Jess wandered around the room and looked for another option.

“You got another idea?” Rick asked.

“No. But we ain’t lettin’ her go out that window. She ain’t gonna get outta that without an injury which means she could get bit. I ain’t riskin’ that.” Daryl confirmed. It was non-negotiable, there was only one way Jess was executing her plan of going out of the window alone and that was if Daryl couldn’t stop her. For that, he’d have to be dead.

“There are enough couch cushions in here to take a few feet off that fall, Daryl.” Rick tried.

“Gotta make a decision people!” Abraham announced from the door, the doors were splitting open, rotten hands with nails hanging off were slithering through, grasping at the air and leaving coagulated blood stains on the woodwork.

“It ain’t an option.” Daryl growled at Rick “She aint doin’ it. Over my dead body. Ya gonna have to shoot me because I won’t let it happen.”

“Uh, guys?” Jess said “I think I have an idea”

The three men all turned to find Jess sat on the floor, clawing bedsheets from her bag and testing their strength by trying to rip them as best she could.

“Can’t set up camp in here, sweetheart” Abe commented. But Jess ignored him and started knotting them together and pulling them tight. “Rick, give me a hand.” She instructed. Rick was on the floor beside her in seconds and she handed him the corner of a bedsheet while she took hold of another, a tight knot connecting the two in the middle. She got up, handing the other end to Daryl “You’re physically strong. Both of you pull each end, as hard as you can, try and rip it.” They nodded at one another and engaged in a tug of war. The sheets went taut as both men became red faced and failed to even dislodge the knot. Jess emptied the rest of the sheets from her bag and dumped them on the floor. “Great. If we tie all these together and attach it to that pillar over there, we have a rope.”

“Not just a pretty face. Let’s do it!” Abe cheered

“It’s a little ‘Cartoon Network’ but it could work.” She shrugged, picking up more sheets and tying knots. “Means we can all get out of here together”

Tying the crisp, white bed linen around a pillar and fastening it with a hefty knot, Jess, Rick and Daryl all applied their weight to the makeshift rope, pleased when it failed to break.

“OK, it’s holding” Rick declared “Good job, Jess.”

“I’ll go first.” She told him. A hand clamped down around her wrist, halting her before she could even take a step.

“Like hell you will.” Daryl cut in “You’ll go second. Looks clear down there right now but it might not be once ya hit the deck. Pass me those couch cushions”

Swallowing her pride and allowing Daryl to have his protective moments, Jess began throwing parts of the couches to Daryl and Rick, who tried to drop them as strategically as possible to the ground outside. Before she could protest, Daryl shot her a warning glare, picked up his crossbow, slid it across his torso and grabbed a hold of the sheets.

“Alright, stay aware” Rick told him, holding onto the white rope himself as well as relying on the pillar for stability. Daryl slowly backed through the window and Jess was sure she was going to throw up from worry.

“Gotta hurry this up, guys. This door aint gonna hold much longer. This is makin’ my ass itch!” Abe informed them.

As Daryl worked his way down the rope, Jess appeared at the top with her bow aimed in case any Walkers appeared on the ground.

Don’t you dare fall. She thought, over and over again.

Her stomach lurched and her heart almost exploded when he slid at least two feet down unexpectedly, but managed to regain his grip by using a boot on a window ledge to halt the momentum. She was sure the two other men could hear her practically hyperventilating. When he was safely at the bottom, he equipped his crossbow, stood balanced on the cushions and beckoned for Jess to go next, followed by a finger pushed to his lips that urged them all to keep quiet and not attract any more attention.

Jess descended the rope under Ricks careful instructions, slowly working her way down and crediting herself for building up her upper body strength. She could hear Daryl below, encouraging her quietly and informing her of the distance she had left to go.

Back up in the hotel lounge, Rick quickly left Jess once she was a few feet above Daryl and shoved a couch over to where Abe stood with his back now pressed against the doors. The two of them worked to push the heavy piece of furniture into place, knowing it wouldn’t hold for long due to the shiny surface on the floor. Abraham was ordered to get to the ground next and Rick monitored the barrier they’d created between them and the dead as it threatened to release. When it was finally Ricks turn, he scaled the outside of the building as fast as he could, hearing the doors slam open above him and the snarling of Walkers filling the room.

The four of them ran through the trees and around the building to the loading dock, which by some stroke of luck, only continued a dozen or so Walkers. Jess started firing off arrows alongside Daryl, the two of them working together to take them down, while Abraham and Rick secured the generators and started up the Truck. Arrows and bolts criss-crossed in the darkened, warehouse like area and with each thud of a brain being penetrated, an echo sounded out, making the experience even more visceral.

Daryl yelled at Jess to get behind him as the second wave of Walkers closed in around the truck, when she didn’t comply, he moved in front of her and gradually stepped back, all the time firing and eliminating the dead in front of him. Eventually, Jess was forced to retreat to the vehicle and Rick hit the accelerator, ploughing into two corpses and allowing the archer to grab a hold of the truck and climb in as it passed.

Inside the truck cab, everyone tried to catch their breath with the hotel becoming smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. Daryl leaned over to Jess in the back seat, pulling her coat to one side.

“You hurt?” He demanded.

“No. I’m fine. Are you?”

“Naw.”

“Good” She panted, turning to lean her head against the cold window. “Good.”

The aftermath of the hotel supply run was almost non-existent to Rick and Abraham, who arrived back at Alexandria and unpacked the cargo without the bat of an eyelid. For Jess and Daryl, the events of that day were entirely more lingering. Jess had chosen to be the one to relay the happenings of the run to Deanna, who listened in horror as she recounted the sheer numbers of Walkers they had to contend with and their close brush with death, had it not been for her quick thinking with the bedsheets. She made no bones about accepting the credit for the idea, it had been one of her better ones and she knew from her time in the city that she was resourceful and smart.

Daryl refused to leave the front porch of Deanna’s house until Jess reappeared and he smoked in a brooding silence, offering a feeble wave to Aaron when he rolled back through the gate, returning from recruiting. Rick tried to check on his welfare when he passed the porch on his way back to the house but Daryl simply told him he was good and that he’d be home later on.

Jess left Deanna’s place and descended the stairs without even checking the porch. She wanted to get back to the fairground and sleep, the adrenaline that pumped through her veins and aided her to come out of almost being eaten by a heard but now resulting in a crashing, heavy tiredness. Daryl sprang up when he saw her walk straight past him and to the gate, deciding to follow her.

“Hey” He called out. The gate closed behind him but Jess continued on her path.

“Oh, Hi” She sighed “Look, I’m exhausted, I gotta get home. You’re welcome to walk with me but I’m not exactly full of conversation.”

Wordlessly, he followed her, matching her pace and witnessing her check her distance from the town before she lowered her mask. He reached out, gently touching her arm which stopped her in her tracks.

“What is it? Are you okay?” She asked, concerned by the downcast look on his face.

“Maybe you should opt outta these runs” He suggested.

“Why would I want to do that? I like going on runs.” She turned her body to face him, shifting her weight to one foot as if she was preparing to be there a little longer than she’d expected.

“You could have died today, Jess.” He said sadly.

She studied his features, the way he nibbled at his lip when he was trying to say something revealing or awkward or out of character. His eyes were tired but still bright enough when he looked at her. Well aware that she could have met her demise, she’d tucked it away in her memories and counted herself lucky that she was with a strong team who took a chance on her idea. But as Daryl stood before her and refused to break their eye contact, she realized that what she was witnessing, was how deeply he cared for her.

“But I didn’t” She whispered with a small smile “Tomorrow is never promised for any of us.”

“I know.” He nodded, stepping back and digging his toe into the dirt. “S’why I don’t want ya to go no more. I um…” He grunted quietly and Jess waited, not wanting to interrupt his train of thought or distract him to the point that she would never find out what he wanted to say. He risked a look at her face, relieved to find she was still with him and waiting patiently. His head buzzed with thoughts, things he wanted to say but didn’t know how. He rubbed his chin and sighed and then, at the sight of her shy smile the words were there.

“…I can’t lose you. Not again. Not for good. I just can’t.”

His voice shook as he spoke, cracking at the end of the sentence and Jess had to close her eyes and take a step back to stop herself from doing one of two things; crying or kissing him. She slowly licked her lips, thinking over his intent. How exactly did he mean that?

To Daryl, he’d just spoken a very secret and emotional truth and was way out of his comfort zone. He hadn’t considered the true ramifications of his admission and that was that Jess now knew that her cared about her enough to follow her halfway home and beg her to take herself off of the supply runs team. That he cared so deeply, he’d taken longer than anyone else to admit it.

“I’m not going anywhere, Daryl.” She attempted to assure him.

“You don’t know that.” He countered. She didn’t. She didn’t know how much longer she would survive in the world. She knew that some people left Alexandria’s gates and never returned. She’d attended funerals inside the walls and even helped Aaron to retrieve bodies. She’d felt the heavy weight of loss and that was the people she didn’t even know that well. She tried to imagine the pain Daryl would endure if she were to never return. Based on what she could see in front of her, it was clear that it would destroy him.

“I’ll compromise with you.” She suggested “I’ll only do the local supply runs.”

Her offer seemed to placate him and he nodded subtly, mulling it over and eventually taking a deep breath.

“A’right. Thank you.” He mumbled.

“I’d ask where this has come from, but it's been a rough day.” She grinned. Her effort to lighten the mood and make him more comfortable fell flat when she noticed him suck his lower lip into his mouth once more. She braced herself for yet another one liner that was bound to silence and stun her.

“I know I was a dick today.” He acknowledged “I care about you.”

Now he was refusing to lift his gaze, his eyes focused on the dirt under his boots. It was not lost on her that Daryl was the kind of man to show his feelings through actions rather than words, which explained his snappy and bossy demeanour and refusal to put her in harm's way at the hotel. But hearing him actually say the words to her had stunned her. She couldn’t believe what she was experiencing. It was a big first, a man so unusual and unique, a man so attractive and unattainable was declaring to her that out of everyone, he had some kind of feelings for her. It may not have been outwardly romantic, or even romantic at all. But it was enough to make her nervous when she contemplated that no matter how much Daryl cared about anyone else; Carol, Rick, Michonne, he never asked them to step away from their duties in order to keep them safe. Up in the lounge of the hotel, it wasn’t the thought of Rick or Abe being hurt that drove him to his defiant comments. It was her. Jess dipped her head, managing to encourage him to lift his vision just enough to see her return the sentiment.

“I care about you too, you idiot.” She told him. When his head raised enough for her to see his face, she beamed at him and saw him smile back for the first time.

“I’ll uh, let ya get home.” He moved back, shoving his hands into his Jeans pockets. His crossbow clanked against his back with the movement and he adjusted his shirt at the collar.

All at once, Jess had an epiphany.

“I know what it is!” She cried, the second time in one day that she’d thought out loud.

“What?” Daryl was baffled.

She held her breath and thought that in that moment she probably looked as awkward as she did when he’d walked in on her throwing tampons around.

“Ah. This morning, I thought there was something different about you. I know what it is now. You got a new shirt.”

Daryl huffed and glanced down at the plain, black, button down shirt beneath his leather vest. She was right, it was new, dug out from the mass of clothing they’d fetched from the Cherokee Club. But he never expected her to notice, he never expected anyone to notice. It was just a shirt, after all.

“Um, yeah. Carol made me.” He shrugged. Jess laughed at the thought of Carol ordering him to get himself a new shirt. If Carol told her to do the same, she wouldn’t argue, the woman could be terrifying. “Why’d ya notice that?”

“Because you look great in it.” She said without thinking.

Oh god. I just gave him a compliment without thinking it over a million times and taking into account every possible consequence. Shit.

He sucked both lips into his mouth and gave her a slow and uneasy nod and she was sure, beyond any doubt, that she witnessed his ears and the tops of his cheeks turn pink.

“Thanks” came his gravelly response.

“Isn’t it supposed to have sleeves?” She asked as she squinted at the frayed edges around his broad shoulders.

“Cut ‘em off.”

“Why?”

“’Cause it’s fuckin’ hot here.” He shrugged as if she should know the answer to her own question.

Her mind delved into the gutter and for an indulgent moment she wondered what it would be like to slowly drag her fingers over the taut muscles of his arms and shoulders. She emitted a long sigh with her tongue tracing a line along her lower lip and her eyes shamelessly fixated on his skin.

“You’re right. It is…fucking…hot.” She breathed.

Daryl narrowed his eyes at her, wondering what the change in her signified and then it hit him; he’d seen this expression before. A long time ago, back at the quarry, stood in the water while she insisted on teaching him how to use rocks to clean clothes.

Is she…checking me out?!

“What?” He said loudly, snapping her from her delectable daydream.

“What?!” She quickly exclaimed back.

“Uh, I’ma head back now.” He smirked a smug sensation filling his body.

“Huh. Um. No problem. Yeah. I should go, too. I’m tired and hungry and I have mints. From the hotel”

You’re rambling! Shut up!

“See ya” She chirped, throwing him two finger guns.

“Sure. I’ll see ya tomorrow” he chuckled. Walking away, he tried to remember if he’d ever met anyone like Jess and came up with nothing. Not a single soul he’d come across in all his years was as delightfully awkward, funny and genuine as she was and when he wasn’t around her, he craved her presence and the ability to see her contagious smile and pretty features. Yes, he did care about her and the thought of her not being around anymore was just too abhorrent to comprehend.

Turning rapidly on her heels, Jess looked down at her finger gun hands and curled her lip in disgust.

“Such a loser” She whispered to herself.

Next Chapter

--- tagging as requested --

@lilred254

#daryl dixon #daryl fanfiction #twd daryl #the walking dead daryl #daryl x oc #daryl #twd fanfiction

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baddieromanova · 6 years ago

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The bore four ships will be Riverdale’s biggest downfall.....

I can promise you all that. The amount of potential the Riverdale writers are currently flushing down the toilet in order to put the two incredibly boring and emotionless relationships known as B*ghead and V*rchie is truly tragic and I bash my head into a wall every time I think about it.

So I present to you a list of characters/ships/potential the Riverdale writers are unknowingly destroying or have already destroyed by shoving these couples down our throats:

1) Valarchie - A beautiful relationship crushed as soon as it started. Do you know how groundbreaking it would have been to have the leading white boy have black love interest? All that potential flushed, and for what? The most forced ship to ever disgrace the CW? Other than B*ghead of course.

2) Jughead’s asexuality - I’m certainly not the only person in the fandom that has spoke about this already and how problematic the erasure is so I’ll keep this brief. Asexual representation is scarce in the media and Riverdale had a huge opportunity here. Unfortunately, they decided erasing a half century old character’s asexuality, in order to sexualise him and sell him as a product to 13 year old straight girls who are obsessed with Cole Sprouse so they can live vicariously through this ship, was sadly more important to them.

3) Betty and Veronica’s friendship - Can we even call them friends any more? They’re rarely together doing regular BFF activities and spend more time with their boyfriends. To make matters worse they had multiple petty arguments this season, over the drama between their boyfriends, and of course they ended up taking Jughead and Archie’s sides. What happened to not failing the Bechdel test? What happened to not letting boys get in the way their friendship because it’s sexist? What happened to their friendship representing ultimate girl power?

4) Archie’s character - Everything about Archie’s character was ugly in season two. He became absolutely intolerable and general pain in the ass, and all just to impress Hiram so he’d accept him as Veronica’s boyfriend. And look at where it got them, the clown really came back to bite huh?

5) Betty’s character - She honestly went from the sweet girl next door who just wanted to help her sister and get her family back together to this annoying brat with her head constantly up her boyfriends ass willing to strip in a room full of middle aged men & get a tattoo just to be a part of the gang he’s in, along with black mail her suicidal cousin with the video of her other cousin being murdered just to get her boyfriends father released from jail.

6) Veronica being bisexual - I know a lot of the fandom already head canon’s her as bisexual but let’s be realistic for a second, the writers will scrap any possibility of her being bisexual and just establish her as straight because pushing V*rchie is clearly a priority to them

7) Episodes centred on the everyday experiences of the marginalised characters -

I’m pretty much referring to Josie, Cheryl, Kevin, Reggie and Toni here. In other words, 2 seasons in, we should have had episodes that solely focused on each of these characters and their sexual/racial identities and the struggles they face in society and in Riverdale because of them. I would have loved to see an episode focused on Cheryl’s coming out story and confronting her demonic mother about her homophobia. I would have loved even more for there to be an episode solely focusing on the death threats and hate Josie’s Mother received as mayor seeing as this is common issue a lot of black women experience as we all know, seeing as it’s happened with a certain actress from a certain group of people. Also, I think we can all agree that the Uktena storyline should have had Toni at the centre rather than Jughead and his white saviour complex, that episode would have been more impactful if it did.

9) Episodes that focus on tackling or highlighting prevalent issues that affect people daily and using them to raise awareness - I’m mainly referring to the deleted scene between FP and Fred. I was so disappointed when I came across this scene. Do I even have to explain how progressive and ground breaking it would have been to have two men admit they need help, open up to each other and be honest with each other about their substance abuse on prime time television?! Along with that there’s Betty’s mental illness, Archie’s PTSD, Cheryl’s attempted sexual assault and gun control. All of these prevalent issues that could/could have been addressed and instead they were either half assed or completely dismissed, never to be acknowledged again. To be fair, there’s still room in season three for the writers to address any PTSD Fangs may experience after being shot or at least having Mrs Klump charged with attempted murder so he can at least gain some closure, but I highly doubt it will ever happen.

10) Every single characters/ships story progression and development and screen time - I’m sure by now we’ve all seen the deleted scenes from season two, most of them at least, and do you know what I find really interesting? Almost everybody has said the entire disc of deleted scenes was better than season two. You what else was interesting about the deleted scenes? There were next to none V*rchie and B*ghead scenes, you know why? Because every single one of their scenes that were filmed were kept in the final cut while scenes such as Cheryl and Toni’s ENTIRE developmental arc, Alice’s emotional scenes that explained her back story and addressed the death of her long lost son and FP and Fred discussing their substance addictions together were scrapped. I can’t stress enough how important all of the aforementioned scenes were. Along with that, there was so much content that featured other characters and ships that could have progressed their stories that were on that deleted scenes disc as well and honestly, the more I think about it, it just makes me sick.

#riverdale #anti bughead #anti varchie #choni #cheryl blossom #toni topaz #josie mccoy #fred andrews #fp jones

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melodrqmas · 6 years ago

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This isn’t a call out post or anything but my back literally aches just thinking about the mental gymnastics it must take to see what happened in season five with Memori and to write it off as toxic, while still shipping Murphy/Raven.

Tl;dr: the biggest problem for me in this fandom, is not in fact the relationship between Murphy and Raven, but the fandom appreciation and oversimplification, along with the hypocrisy that comes with it.

Far be it for me, as an able bodied person, or anybody for that matter to tell anyone that it’s wrong or gross to ship Mur/ven. In fact, ship whoever the hell you want, regardless of their past, I don’t care. Murphy is not abusive towards Raven. Abuse implies that it is a continuous violence (either physical or emotional) is occurring repeatedly, which it is not. Thus, the relationship between the two is not “toxic” (as much as I hate the word) for that reason in itself. There’s been healing and forgiveness and they are even at a point where they can joke about what’s happened between them. I’m not saying they should, but more than once, much to my dismay, has Murphy made a few quips about her leg and Raven was visibly amused. She could get together with him if she so pleased, nobody in canon would bat an eye.

That in itself, is grounds for the fandom wide rule of “ship and let ship”. Shipping is taken way too seriously as it is. It’s cool to vibe with a dynamic, want them together romantically and even prefer them over a currently canon relationship (I’ll touch on this a bit later). The amount of interaction between these two is certainly enough grounds for a solid ship; I guarantee you are not alone and that there are plenty of transformative works for you to get your fix (some of my all-time favourite fanfics have Murphy and Raven as the main pairing). I personally don’t see it, but I’m not here to tell you what you are seeing on screen isn’t romance and you’re all delusional. I might have used to be that way, but I decided that I was a part of the problem I’m now trying to address. Like I said, fandom experience is so much more pleasant when you stop giving a shit about who disagrees with you (but if you asked I could redirect you in the ways of some A+ meta, debunking why a certain line/glance between the two, was not in fact code for “I love you. Have my children.” I digress.)

So we’re settled then. Mur/ven is not a toxic relationship, I’m baring it out because I don’t want to step on any toes in their tag, not because it disgusts me to even spell it out (if it did, I’d think of a not-so clever nickname like the rest of this fandom loves to do). A part of me, and I don’t think I’m alone on this, will always be unsettled at the idea of Raven cozying up to the person who disabled her; I hate the Shaw/Murphy/Raven cave scene a hell of a lot. But the relationship is not toxic, and it wouldn’t be even if they did hook up. I can’t use that as an argument. Fandom culture tends to label things they don’t like as unhealthy and toxic.

And that’s where I’m going with this. Memori.

I’m going to be the first person to admit where they were said to be within those last months on the Ring was Not a Good Place for a relationship of that magnitude. They were together over 5 and a half years, these problems could have been brewing for ages. In fact, I’ll even argue they have. 4x08-4x12 established their extreme codependence (”your home is with me” used to be a big favourite of mine but it has since left a more sour taste in my mouth), and 4x13 set up Emori’s enthusiasm about space contrasted against Murphy’s disdain subtly, but effectively. Both key factors in this big messy breakup.

But this notion that (M)Emori (because, misogyny.) is toxic has been around since 4x07, ever since she “put” fake!Baylis in the radiation chamber, under the pretext that “she’s a bad influence on Murphy”(uhhhhhh, lol..?). What happened previously to this same episode, you ask? Well, it was the climax to our new angsty, enemies-to-friends-to-hopefully-lovers! I’m not even going to pretend like this ship is baseless, because I do get it. They have history, baggage and their relationship is so! compelling! And it doesn’t hurt that Murphy and Raven are both very attractive and have excellent chemistry. What gets to me, though, are these manufactured, fandom wide mentalities, that make out one female character to be the villain, in order to boost another female character/ship, when the narrative is clearly showing us she’s not quite in the wrong.

You may not like Emori, her relationship with Murphy might not resonate with you. That’s okay. But throwing around big words such as abusive and toxic is not right. Memori are too on and off for you? Okay! I get that. There were a few missteps in their arc this season. That doesn’t make it inherently unhealthy, though. Emori “only wants Murphy when he’s healthy and happy”? That’s complete and utter bullshit. Point to me in the script where she’s ever said that. Interpretation is one thing, but don’t ignore canon when it’s right in front of you (that flies in fanfic; not meta). Because, as far as I’m concerned, she did not just drop him the minute his mental illness caught up to him. She says in 5.06, 24 minutes and 48 seconds in, that Murphy “pushed her away again, and again, and again.” So, clearly, she made efforts to help him and love him, but he was unable to accept it, thus causing a painful split for the both of them. The fucking thesis statement in Jasper and Octavia’s arcs have been “you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.” Tell me how this is any different.

Can you imagine how hard this was on Emori? The one person who she thought she could rely and depend on, turn on her when she was at her peak, without fully being able to explain it himself? You’ve heard all of the defence for Murphy, so I’ll spare you all of the sympathies about his mental illness, because I do love him and I want him to get better. But notice how there’s not a single person calling his behaviour towards her toxic. No one’s boycotting Memori because of how he mistreated her. You did not need flashbacks to see how he would berate her, (ha! actually that all goes away because she snapped at him and said something that hurt :( his :( feelings :(, right?) in front of everyone, how he was jealous. And we only got a tiny glimpse of that, a few minute segment. I’m proud of her from stepping away from that situation. She’s not the toxic-partner here, in fact, that’s the fucking opposite of toxic. That’s self-care. So rare is it on TV that we see this kind of positive representation, that loving yourself is more important than loving your SO. It’s raw, messy and real.

And of course, fandom has ruined it.

Basically, moral of the story is as follows: Murphy and Raven have come such a long way, have overcome their issues and are now in a place where the majority of the fandom can ship them guilt-free. Who would’ve thought two seasons ago, huh? So, why is Memori so “toxic” and to the point of no return in regards to their relationship, despite that clearly not what canon is trying to portray?

#good and fresh hot take i thought up of in class today #the 100 #the 100 meta #memori #john murphy #emori #raven reyes

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knightofbalance-13 · 8 years ago

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http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/158821156544/rant-on-yangs-nonexistent-recovery-arc

I wanna preface this before I begin: I really do think yang needed more screentime this Volume. She got shafted in Volume 1 and 2 and here it was a souring experience to see her sidelined. Now I am not blaming Jaune: That guy had about a third of the screen time to himself than Yang. If I were to blame someone in the series, I’d blame Blake for hogging an entire episode to herself or Tyrian for taking up ending time that could have been used for Yang. But my honest opinion? I’m optimistic: If the writers show that Yang ahsn’t gotten over the PTSD in latter Volumes I will actually be very happy. Nothing is more insulting than underplaying the lasting effects of a mental illness, making it seem easy to get over. I didn’t get that vibe from Yang considering she had to be depressed for around nine months considering it was fall when we saw her after Beacon, it was winter after that and a minimum of six months have passed since that point. It’s entirely possible for Yang to recover in that span of time, especially if Volume 4 was told out of order.

I am saying this now to put what I am about do in context: I am a Yang fan, my main complaint with V4 was that she got too little screentime and I have an aversion to mental illnesses being downplayed. By all rights, I should agree with @Dudebblade right?

Well...

IF YOU WERE TO USE THE SAME TECHNIQUES SHOWN IN RWBY ON A PTSD VICTIM, YOU WOULD BE CALLED OUT ON YOUR INSENSITIVITY!

This isn highly hypocritical as Dudeblade has in the past said that Taiyang was wrong for breaking down after Summer’s death....his team leader...and the mother of his second daughter and caretaker of his first...after losing Raven, his first love and mother of Yang...all in about four years time...leaving him a single widower of two, a job meant for to people at minimum. It’s hard raising a kid I know, I’ve been hearing my mom state the hardships for years. And quite frankly, I wasn’t that hard of a kid I didn’t go around challenging demonic wolves or attacking bars and as much as I love my mom, Taiyang is a better parent than both of them and suffered even more than her. And Dudeblade calls this insensitive but not a widower. Yeah, he’s not allowed to talk.

I don’t give a shit if the arc was “Too hard” to write. You set yourself up to make a recovery arc. You should deliver. If it wasn’t as easy as you thought it was, then you should tough it out, and do it. Otherwise you failed to deliver on something that you promised.

You promised to be my friend and then betrayed me three times. Again, Hypocriticial.

It’s like if the RWBY writers promised that there would be LGBT representation, but refuses to point them out… Oh wait… That’s actually what’s happening right now.

You now, I have an LGBT friend named @mageknight14 and he’s just as sick of this as I am. I am starting to think they SHOULDN’T have an LGBT character if you keep bitching. You don’t hear me bitching for Asperger’s representation even though Autism is synonomous with “Brain damamged” in the world and the closest thing I have to a representitive is Sheldon Cooper.

Alright, something I’m going to have to do, is to compare this show’s PTSD recovery arc, with another show’s recovery arc. Not to be a dick or anything, but the only other well-known show that did a PTSD recovery arc well, was Legend of Korra. Not to compare RWBY to a show that has had an entire team of writers, professional animators, a previous series that was well-received, and an epic premise to undermine it or anything, but hey. Miles did say that the Season three of LoK missed the line by an inch, and found it “Meh” (Yep. Bringing that one back.)

Oh so people’s personal opinion is something you are allowed to judge them on? Okay then, you like Raven ergo anything you have to say about parental characters ever is disregarded. And unlike you who has stated their opinion as fact, Miles stated his opinion as ONLY that. And if you’re gonna pull that, how about I start comparing your DB chronicals to Miles’ writing? Let’s see: Pandering to LGBT demographic with Tifa and Yang, crappy reasoning for not using Goku or Superman which hasn’t been addressed, under usage of the Villians, under suage of Vegeta, directly copying and pasting Godzilla Vs. Gamera ect. Doesn’t feel to good huh? Maybe next time you could learn some empathy?

Hey, if Miles wants to criticize a show, and claim that “missing the mark by an inch” makes the finale “Meh”, then I can say that missing an entire plot by a light year is INFURIATING.

And I can point out the bullshit in your crap without an inch of regret or remorse. Funny how that works.

It’s almost as if it was the most insulting piece of shit that I have had to watch since reading poorly written fanfics that were clearly meant to troll people.

You emna like basic pandering, random and lazy fourth wall breaks, expecting us that Deadpool would be friends with you, under using 90% of your cast, making some deity look after you and making Yang and Guts look similar when they share like three basic things together? Or how about yang remembering Carolina ahs Pyrrha’s voice but the snarky AI in her suit that sounds like her father? Nope, nothing to see there. Also, TYang knows RT but doesn’t know a single person from RvB because...plot?

I’m getting off-topic here. Legend of Korra Book 4 handled PTSD with an ENORMOUS amount of seriousness, respect, and time. Not only was this a case of a timeskip being used in a manner that was actually the right way of using it, but they showed that Korra was struggling. While she could always blame it on the mercury poisoning, it showed that Korra wasn’t merely “moping” (I will never let that line go), it showed that she was terrified. She wanted to get better, but she had to go at her own pace.

Yeah and tehw riters of Korra had a shit ton more experience, payment and less pressure considering they could coast off of the original’s success. Which they kind of did seeing as I have heard a shit ton of non-LGBT people call bull on Korrasami.

Okay then, I will never let anything yousay go then as well. Have fun with that: My specialty is turning one’s words against them.

In fact, she had to be the one to decide to get the mercury out of her system. She wasn’t guilt-tripped into doing it, she did it because she was ready. It had nothing to do with someone calling her a burden. It was because it was at that moment, that she had recovered. There’s a reason why this episode stands out from most. It was because, through the help of Toph, Korra managed to overcome her fears and doubts, and remove the mercury herself.

Okay...is Yang Korra? No? Then they will NOT handle this situation the same way. Unless they are carbon copies of each other or at least have the same basic experiences, your point DOES NOT stand. And since you just expect us to take your wrd for it after insulting Taiyang, Miles and later on you will use Shane and Monty to attack RT, I have no good will.

Hm, let’s go through this again shall we?

Terrified...Guess that Adam dream or the PTSD flash never happened...

Choose to get the Mercury out of her system...Not how the body works...And taiyang didn’t stitch it on neither did Yang have to deal with her fault at letting her sister be in danger. Yeah, If Taiyang is a bad father for breaking down, Yang is a worse sister because she broke down longer, with no one to help Ruby, over less pain and had support all unlike taiyang.

And is RWBY over yet? ... No? Then I’d bet you’ll be eating your words sooner than latter.

RWBY just rushed it. Yang wasn’t given time to actually decide to put the arm on, her father heavily implied that she was a burden, she overheard it, and felt guilty (Seriously, how did she hear that? Is she some kind of rare half-breed or something?).

Like all children are: it’s a fact of life get use to it. Whether or not the child or parent think that way, iyt is a fact. Just as well: We only have your word on that. You, who have proven you are projecting your own parental problems onto Taiyang. yeah, you are the definition of Unreliable Narrator.

But hey, let’s take a look at Berserk. Let’s see what would happen if we were to use RWBY’s techniques on Casca. Hey, Casca! I know you got assaulted by the man you used to love romantically and everything, and that he violated you in ways that we probably couldn’t even begin to comprehend, but how about you get over it? - And now, I have been bifurcated by Guts for saying something like that. Why? Because Casca from Berserk has PTSD! She’s not going to magically get better by getting some heals or shit like that! She has PTS FUCKING D! You either treat it with respect, or don’t set yourself up to write it out to begin with.

Pardonnez-moi, mais vous n'avez aucune idée de ce que vous dites.

Okay then, let’s use your method of parenting on Guts shall we?

HEY GUTS! DUDEBLADE SAID YOU’RE A TERRIBLE FATHER FOR BREAKING DOWN AFTER TEH ECLIPSE AND CASCA’S RAPE, THAT YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO YOU, THAT YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO BE CONSIDERED GOOD AGAIN AND THAT YOU ARE WORSE THAN YOUR OWN FATHER AND GRIFFITH!

Oh look, he’s pretty pissed. Hope you enjoy having a crossbow shoved up your neither regions.

Also: Is Yang and Casca the same person? Have they faced the same troubles? Do they even share one event in the past? NO. So how about you stop using stupid examples and I might stop Guts from shoving his sword up your uretha?

Then Tai said, “Looks like you lost some brain cells along with that arm of yours.” Keep in mind that both Port and Oobleck were shocked at this. It shows that Tai crossed a line there, and in all honesty, if Yang hadn’t laughed, they would have been scared shitless for Yang’s mental health. Something that they didn’t really consider. These are supposed to be her teachers and parents, but they don’t do anything to actually help Yang get better mentally. Not to mention that Miles and Kerry said that writing the PTSD recovery arc was “too hard.” is rather insulting considering NOTHING HAPPENED! I don’t give a shit about that. I don’t give a single shit if it was “Too hard.” or not. You have to do it in a respectful manner, or you become one of the most insensitive people ever. to the point where I think that this becomes appropriate:

Oh so you’re insensitive for telling one joke but not for directly insulting someone when they are trying to help you? Because Yang did EXACTLY that! remember this line?

“I lost a part of me, it’s gone and it’s never coming back. You can’t possibly understand how that feels.”

She says this to man who lost both of his lovers, lost his team, nearly lost his kids twice with one comatose and the other depressed and hurting him for trying to help, had to wake up every day for six months wondering if his brother in law, daughter and friends were all dead. It’s like bitching about a hangnail in front of Guts: Not comparable in the slightest. If I were Taiyang I would have walked up to her, got in her face and recounted everything that I have lost to her and make her see just how much she actually lost.

Not enough? How about Ruby, her younger sister who lost more than her, was comatose for it and preserved still? Or Qrow, who lives with misfortune over his head 24/7? By far: Yang is the BEST one off so by your logic, she has no right to complain and neither do you!

Yeah. People who treat PTSD as insensitively as the writers did should be fired from breathing.

... You are telling them to die over a fictional character...

You know what is even more insulting dudeblade? Using suicide baiting right in front of a formerly suicidal person. Fuck you in every sense of the word.

Before anyone says any bullshit about how Red vs. Blue had the character ripping on each other, so that this is “okay.” - I’d like to point out that in the scene where Doc’s split personality O’Mally, roasts Grif for having to take care of his sister because his father left, and his mother was in the circus. Nobody really laughed. And when Doc snapped out of it, he apologized. None of the Reds or Blues ever hit that close to home, and when it did happen, they treated it seriously. It wasn’t a joke, it wasn’t a punchline, it was an actual serious thing.

Yes itw as a joke. It’s called Black humor and the narrative treated it as afailed attempt at Doc’s peace which was the real punchline. And the same guy also insulted his own sister several times throughout the BGC.

And what about getting shot by a tank, being told you’re worthless, being said you won’ta mount to anything, being forced off to die several times and take the blame for everything? That’s the entirety of the BGC’s thing.

And it was treated seriously as a way to break the ice and unlike Grif, YANG WAS OKAY WITH IT. And unlike Doc, Taiyang KNOWS YANG. HE RAISED HER! How convenient for you to not mention these factors huh?

The really infuriating part was the fact that it started off so well. Yang nearly had a panic attack when she dropped the glass, she was having nightmares about Adam, she openly said that she felt as if “A part of her was missing, and it wasn’t coming back.”, she had gotten used to using only one arm- It was going so well! At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if the current writing team for RWBY would be unable to write a respectful, and realistic PTSD Recovery arc to save their lives. The writing’s become shit since they booted Monty’s wife, Sheena and Shane off the team. I’m sure they REALLY appreciate it.

(Growls deeply)

You wanna know what is really fucking sick, as in, I can NEVER forgive, that I have deemed people horrible for, that has truly made me hate them?

Using a person’s death or mental illness for their own gain, usually attacking friends and family with it.

Like you have done with Monty and Shane.

I hoep you’re happy because you have crossed so many lines. I hope you’re happy being hateful and pessimistic because you know what? You are no better than those people at Yang Haters Haven for threatening Ben and Chad’s lives. In fact, you are WORSE than them. You are essentially digging up Monty’s corpse to beat his friends, his grieving friends who shared so much with, with it. Congratulations, you are what you hate. Except they can always say “I never used a dead man for my own gains.”

I have no respect for you, no hope for you, no kindness for you.

You are worse than most people in the rwde tag and that is saying a lot considering their suicide baiting and death threats.

Enjoy the fucking hole you dug for yourself, I’ll be sure to fill it up and put you out of your misery never.

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whorchataaa · 5 years ago

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Podcast: Divorced Couple Hosting a Mental Health Podcast

What if a divorced couple decided to make a podcast about mental health? What would it be like? Well, wonder no more, because here it is. Grab a cup of hot tea and tune in to the first episode of the totally revamped Not Crazy podcast with Gabe and Lisa, a couple of divorcees who didn’t like each other’s cats.

What was their marriage like? Why talk about mental health? And what happened to the cats? Find out the answers to these questions and much more on today’s show.

(Transcript Available Below)

Subscribe to Our Show! And Please Remember to Review Us!

About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Lisa is the producer of the Psych Central podcast, Not Crazy. She is the recipient of The National Alliance on Mental Illness’s “Above and Beyond” award, has worked extensively with the Ohio Peer Supporter Certification program, and is a workplace suicide prevention trainer. Lisa has battled depression her entire life and has worked alongside Gabe in mental health advocacy for over a decade. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband; enjoys international travel; and orders 12 pairs of shoes online, picks the best one, and sends the other 11 back.

Computer Generated Transcript for “Divorced Couple- Mental Health” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a psych central podcast hosted by my ex-husband, who has bipolar disorder. Together, we created the mental health podcast for people who hate mental health podcasts.

Gabe: Hello, everybody, and welcome to the first episode of the Not Crazy Podcast. My name is Gabe Howard and I live with bipolar disorder and I’m really excited to be here with my producer and co-host and ex wife, Lisa.

Lisa: Hi, I’m Lisa.

Gabe: Wow.

Lisa: You didn’t plan. You were you were supposed to tell me what to say. I don’t know what to say.

Gabe: It’s not a scripted show. I’m not supposed to tell you what to say. You’re supposed to say whatever you want. I’m not the boss of you.

Lisa: Well, I want to say, hi, I’m Lisa.

Gabe: All right. That’s, that’s a very fair point. We’ve been doing this work for a decade. Not the podcast. We’ve just been doing mental health advocacy for a decade. But yet, all the trophies have my name on it, but I always thank you from the podium.

Lisa: Yes, you do, you’re very good at that.

Gabe: Very good at that.

Lisa: You do a good job with that.

Gabe: Why do you always want to be behind the scenes? What about the spotlight bugs you?

Lisa: It’s not so much of the spotlight bugs me it is just what’s wrong with behind the scenes? Why does everybody act like the only people who count are the people in the front? You know how they have those things at the end of movies where this supported 15,000 jobs, right? Yeah. Like, five of them were the actors. Why does everyone always act like they’re the most important part? They’re not the most important part. The person in the spotlight isn’t necessarily the most important part.

Gabe: I get what you’re saying, but visual representation is important. Like, for example, I know that I could not have gotten as far as I’ve gotten without you. For one thing, you have produced and edited the podcasts. I mean, you find guests for the Psych Central Podcast. You are production, engineering, audio. Obviously, all of those things are just incredibly important. But I think it might be a chicken and the egg thing, right? If there was no Gabe, there could be no Lisa. And I guess arguably, if there was no Lisa, there could be no Gabe. But this was my idea. I put my ass on the line. So if the whole thing failed, nobody would be like, oh, hey, Lisa screwed up. But they would be like, do you see that redheaded idiot?

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: That’s it? That’s all you got?

Lisa: I don’t know, what do you want me to respond to that?

Gabe: You hid behind me. That’s what I’m saying. You rode my coattails.

Lisa: No. That’s not fair.

Gabe: To success.

Lisa: Or I propped you up.

Gabe: You lift me

Lisa: Yeah, that kind of thing,

Gabe: Up. That is, that is.

Lisa: Is so I can stand on mountains.

Gabe: It is fair and it is interesting. What made the switch? After all of these years, what made you decide, hey, I want to tell my story? I want people to know more of my opinions. Have I gotten it wrong the last decade? And you’re just like, man, I got to correct him?

Lisa: You know, good question, Gabe. It actually annoyed me the last time we talked about this. That’s not what happened. You know, that’s not what happened. You were desperate for someone to fill this role. And I was the only one who would do it. And so here I am. You act like, oh, gee, after all this time, your confidence has finally increased. You’re blooming. You’re a flower in the sun. I finally brought you out of your shell. No, that’s not what happened. I was perfectly happy with where I was. And then you’re like, hey, I’m desperate. Will you do this with me, please?

Gabe: That’s so mean.

Lisa: And so that’s what happened.

Gabe: That’s, that is partially what happened.

Lisa: That’s 100% what happened.

Gabe: Yes. It’s really, really hard to do a podcast. People think

Lisa: Which is why I’m so excited to get to join in. Great. This is just great because I would like to point out that all the other things that I do for the podcast, still there. Didn’t hire anyone new for that. Just mentioning

Gabe: I like you less.

Lisa: Don’t look at me like that.

Gabe: I didn’t like you a lot before this started. I like you less now. But it is true. People don’t realize just how much time, energy and effort goes into the podcast. And I don’t mean the production side of it. I mean, you know, how many hours go into when the recording is over, but how many hours go into getting to the point that you can record? And I’m not I’m not talking soundchecks and audio checks with which

Lisa: Although that took a really long time.

Gabe: That does take a long time. I’m also talking about, you know, getting the topics down and getting everything down, and especially since we’re talking about mental health. And one of the things that I’m so excited about having you on the show is a lot of people don’t realize that Lisa was also our lead researcher. So previously Lisa would do all of the research and hand it over to Gabe and company. And now Lisa does all the research and you’re just going to mention it on the show.

Lisa: I know, exciting right? This way, you won’t mess it up.

Gabe: This way I won’t mess it up?

Lisa: You do, you always mess it up.

Gabe: I do, I tend to work more on feelings, whereas you tend to work more on facts. I think this is why our marriage didn’t work out, because I felt that you were an idiot and you knew that I was.

Lisa: Yes, yes,

Gabe: So

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: There we are. Let’s talk about that for a moment. What makes you want to work with your ex-husband? I am sincere. Just

Lisa: I don’t know.

Gabe: It is fascinating to me.

Lisa: It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Gabe: Ok, stop it. Nobody wants to listen to a podcast with all this garbage.

Lisa: How do you know?

Gabe: I, I don’t.

Lisa: You don’t know.

Gabe: It’s a first episode.

Lisa: Maybe this is going to be good. Maybe this is gonna be the most success. Maybe it’s the secret sauce. This is going to be the most successful episode you’ve ever had. You don’t know. It could be.

Gabe: Lisa, you live with depression.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: You live with depression.

Lisa: You’re changing the subject.

Gabe: You were suicidal for much of your life. You’ve had you’ve had massive emotional and mental issues. And I can’t help but notice that the way that you handled that was to marry somebody who was way sicker. So that standing next to me, you looked sane.

Lisa: That was not the original goal, but that is what happened. And it actually wasn’t until we were preparing to start doing this show because I kept thinking, well, this is Gabe’s thing. This is Gabe’s thing. This is Gabe’s thing. And then I started really thinking about it. I thought, huh, this is my thing. I am actually really qualified for this. Wow. Like, I totally didn’t realize because I’ve just been comparing myself to you this whole time. But just on my own merits.

Gabe: I hate that you think that you got here because I was desperate. There was an opening for a co-host, but there’s a lot of people that want to co-host a show like this. It’s an extraordinarily popular show. It’s on the Psych Central network.

Lisa: Psych Central does a lot.

Gabe: It’s big. This is this is what I do for a living. I make a full time living as a podcaster and a public speaker. I think that sometimes people hear you and they’re like, well, Gabe was desperate. He couldn’t find anybody. And I’m afraid that I’m gonna get a thousand letters saying, hey, if you want to ditch your ex wife, which is reasonable,

Lisa: Hmm.

Gabe: Then, you know, hey, why don’t you bring me in here? You are qualified to do this work. And one of the things that I’m most excited about is during every show, Lisa, factors in heavily, as are many other people at PsychCentral.com.

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Who, like you said, fifteen thousand jobs.

Lisa: No, there’s a lot of people involved, which is one of the reasons I think people don’t understand how much work it is. Because it’s so much passing back and forth and you do your part and then the next person does their part. And it just leaves a lot of room for error, frankly.

Gabe: Well, it does leave a lot of room for error, and I’m impressed and surprised at how little error we have.

Lisa: Yeah, we’re doing pretty well.

Gabe: And that pretty much describes how the Psych Central Podcast works. The biggest, best and longest running podcast on PsychCentral.com. It’s a great show. It’s very educational. I highly recommend it. But

Lisa: At PsychCentral.com/Show.

Gabe: But this is why we wanted to do Not Crazy. We wanted a lived experience show. And I want people to know that you have lived experience. You have your own lived experience. And you have the lived experience of helping me. You were you were my peer supporter back

Lisa: Aww.

Gabe: Before it was called peer support, all the way back in 2003 when I was diagnosed. If it wasn’t for you answering my questions and telling me what was reasonable and what was not reasonable, helping me navigate a horrific mental health system. And I had insurance, I had

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: Money, I had resources. I don’t think that I would have gotten to this point. I don’t want people to think that you’re just in front of the microphone because you have nothing to share. And Gabe needed a woman’s voice and I

Lisa: No, I like I said, until we started doing this and I had to write my bio and stuff and I was just like, whoa, I’m way more qualified than I thought. Hey, the other thing that was kind of annoying is when you said, hey, Lisa’s gonna be my co-host and people said, but she doesn’t have mental illness. And I thought, screw all of you people. One, wow, you people don’t pay attention or listen to me at all. Or you would know that I do in fact have mental illness. But then the second part was really, is that how I’m perceived? Is it just because I’m standing next to you? Or am I passing that well?

Gabe: And should that be?

Lisa: I mean, what’s happening?

Gabe: That’s an interesting thing that you brought up. You’re upset that people don’t realize that you’re mentally ill

Lisa: Well, I.

Gabe: And the whole rest of society is upset when people perceive them as mentally ill. So it’s a little bit bizarre, right? Like,

Lisa: Well, it’s both.

Gabe: Do you really want people to think that you’re a mentally ill person? Because I’m positive that would offend you.

Lisa: Well, it’s both because on the one hand, I thought, how do you not know about my own history of mental illness? Who do you think you are to tell me that I’m not mentally ill? I have the street cred on this people. But then when other people look at me, they don’t see someone with mental illness, but I see it in myself. So that’s kind of interesting. And I guess feels good. I’m not sure. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I go both ways.

Gabe: Let’s switch gears and talk about why we’re still friends.

Lisa: Ok,

Gabe: People are fascinated by this, and I want to point out that we did not have like a Britney Spears marriage. When I say we’re exes, I don’t mean we got married in Vegas for the weekend. We were married for five years. We were together a couple of years before that. This is a seven, eight year romantic relationship. We were in love. We bought a house. We talked about having children. This was a real relationship. And I don’t know why I feel the need to state that. But I think when people see that we’re friends and they find out that we’re exes, they think, well, the marriage must have dissolved quickly. And that’s not the case. Why? Why are we here? We don’t have children. There’s nothing to tie us together. We don’t own a business together. Why are you here?

Lisa: You know, I don’t know and I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the last couple of weeks. I don’t know. Why is that? Why did that happen? Maybe.

Gabe: I have many, many theories. But one of the things that I think about is why? Why do we need a theory? Like isn’t this a plus? Like, if I was driving my car and my car ran off a cliff and I walked away without a scratch. Now, that is unusual, right? But I would just be happy. I’d be like, hey, I lived and I would just be pleased that it happened. But it’s weird because people aren’t pleased that this happened. They don’t think, oh, my God, that’s fantastic. Wow. They’re like, why? Well, you can correct it now. You don’t have to talk to her. We have family members that still to this

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: Day, 10 years later, they’re like, well, you don’t have to be friends. And they’re actively discouraging it. Again, go back to the car flew off the cliff analogy. People aren’t like, you know, you can go back to that cliff and try again. You could. You could jump off the cliff. And I bet the second time would kill you because rightfully you should have died. So you really need to. Why isn’t it just a good thing? Why isn’t it a good thing that two people corrected their relationship and don’t hate each other? Because we have many things to hate each other for. We did not have a.

Lisa: We did not have a good marriage.

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: No.

Gabe: And as evidenced by the fact

Lisa: That we are now divorced.

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: It actually makes me sad to say that that we didn’t have a good marriage.

Gabe: Why?

Lisa: I don’t know. I

Gabe: It ended in a divorce.

Lisa: I know. I know. It just it always makes me sad when you say that.

Gabe: Well, I mean, admitting failure is hard. But to stay on track, just to stay on the topic. Obviously, this worked out OK. We’re both remarried. The love of our lives. Your husband, Viroj, is awesome. My wife, Kendall, equally awesome. Everything is fine. We don’t need to, but why are people so focused, so focused on the fact that we are exes? And why do they think it’s weird? And what does that say about a greater society that if a romantic relationship or a marriage doesn’t work out, you’re supposed to be enemies?

Lisa: Well, you’re not supposed to be enemies, you’re supposed to be arch enemies. It’s your deepest hate.

Gabe: I’m surprised when I’m up on stage and I tell the story of of me being suicidal.

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Of going to the emergency room. And people find out that you are my ex-wife. And that’s all they want to talk about.

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Everything that I’ve achieved, everything that I’ve done. And what they want to know is why? Why are you friends with your ex wife? And they say, well, you have kids like that, OK?

Lisa: Yeah, that’s always the thing.

Gabe: You’re modeling the way for the children. Yeah. No, no.

Lisa: One hundred percent of the time people go, oh, children.

Gabe: No, no kid. Then they’re like, well, you had pets together. We did, but we hated each other’s pets. I brought in a cat that Lisa hated and

Lisa: I didn’t hate him.

Gabe: Lisa brought in a cat that I hated.

Lisa: Yeah, you did hate him. I didn’t hate him. He just wasn’t my favorite.

Gabe: When we got divorced, you got rid of him.

Lisa: No, I do no. Take that back. That is not true.

Gabe: Did he live with you after we got divorced?

Lisa: At first. My husband, Viroj, is deathly allergic to cats. I didn’t believe him and made him go get an allergy test, and yeah there was just no way. Once we moved in together, that was just not feasible for me to keep the cats. But it’s not like I got rid of just him and kept the other cats.

Gabe: You know, your favorite cat. Let’s say that Viroj was allergic to that cat?

Lisa: See, that would have been a problem. That would have been. That cat had passed away by the time Viroj and I lived together.

Gabe: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: I actually did think about that. That would have been a problem. I don’t know that I would have been willing to give up that cat for a relationship. And people said that to me. I got a lot of flak on that, actually. People like, oh, my God, you’re getting rid of your cats? That’s horrible. One. I found them a very good home with my best friend. So I knew I could see them whenever I wanted. And they were perfectly well taken care of.

Gabe: I thought I was your best friend?

Lisa: Well, you know what I mean. I found them a very good home where they were very happy. And they lived in little kitty paradises.

Gabe: I’m really surprised that you did not go with the you didn’t take them either, Gabe, and you just said he was your favorite cat.

Lisa: No, I don’t know why this matters, because the cat has long since died.

Gabe: But, through no fault of our own.

Lisa: No.

Gabe: The cat lived another eight years.

Lisa: No. No. He just got old.

Gabe: We visited the cat all the time. We loved the cat. Cat was fantastic.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I mean, Lisa did love the cat. I love the cat.

Lisa: I don’t know why this is bothering me, that it’s bothering me. As if the dead cat is going to be listening to this and will be offended because Mommy didn’t love him. So I don’t know why this is bothering me, but don’t say that. Don’t say that. I did not get rid of the cat. That’s a terrible thing. Don’t say that.

Gabe: Daddy Gabe had to move into a very small apartment, which is all he could afford because I had just reached recovery with bipolar disorder and then my, you know, ex-wife got rid of my cat. That’s how I tell the story.

Lisa: Ok. No, the cats continued to be with me for the next two years, and then we found them a kitty paradise house.

Gabe: Kitty paradise house? And people are surprised to hear that I lived with three cats for our marriage. I think that’s what did us in. And it’s

Lisa: It’s always the children’s fault.

Gabe: Always the? No, it’s not. It’s never the children. You’re

Lisa: That’s why it’s funny.

Gabe: You’ve got that backwards. You were a great cat mom. And obviously, we’re really, really glad that our friend had taken the cat and it worked out at a great time for her, too. And obviously the cats loved her. She was their aunt their entire life. And it made sense for all of us where we were going because,

Lisa: Everyone was pleased.

Gabe: Yeah, I mean, right. Life changed a lot. But it is interesting, our different perspectives on it.

Lisa: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Announcer: Interested in learning about psychology and mental health from experts in the field? Give a listen to the Psych Central Podcast, hosted by Gabe Howard. Visit PsychCentral.com/Show or subscribe to The Psych Central Podcast on your favorite podcast player.

Announcer: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.com. Secure, convenient, and affordable online counseling. Our counselors are licensed, accredited professionals. Anything you share is confidential. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist whenever you feel it’s needed. A month of online therapy often costs less than a single traditional face to face session. Go to BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral and experience seven days of free therapy to see if online counseling is right for you. BetterHelp.com/PsychCentral.

Gabe: The first episode of the Not Crazy Podcast continues now.

Lisa: I was worried about what we were going to talk about at first, but now over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about all the things that I have to say. And you’ve all been listening to Gabe for years. And so you’ve all heard his version of various things that have happened. But now you can hear the real one, which is also known as my version.

Gabe: I love how you are trying to insinuate that I am a liar to our audience.

Lisa: No, you just frame things incorrectly. I can tell the story better.

Gabe: You know, that’s very interesting, though, that you bring that up because it’s gonna be true. Two people standing, watching the exact same thing, having the exact same experience, experience it differently. And that’s one of the things that I think that maybe the medical establishment, you know, psychiatry, scientists, etc., that they leave out and talk about, like here are the symptoms of bipolar disorder or anxiety

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Or schizophrenia, or psychosis. And you get this idea in your head that everybody experiences them the same way. You are right, Lisa. The way that we experience our marriage, our breakup, even different arguments that we had along the way, even different successes. You know, your favorite vacation is not my favorite vacation. And people understand that husbands and wives do not experience their relationship in the same way. Yet we live in a world where people believe that everybody with bipolar disorder experiences in the same way, everybody with major depression experiences the same way. We’re all exactly the same. And I hope.

Lisa: That’s a really good point.

Gabe: If nothing else, that this show just obliterates that idea and gives people the power to stand up and say, you know, I’m not like every single person that you read about on the Internet. But we do have things in common, just like married people have things in common. We don’t disagree on everything.

Lisa: That is a very interesting point, I had actually never considered that.

Gabe: I know. I’m wise.

Lisa: Everyone always does make it out like your mental illness experience should be exactly in a certain way. It should follow this step, then this step, then this step. And the thing where it really gets you is when they feel like, hey, you tried the medication and it didn’t work or you were diagnosed X number of months ago and

Gabe: You should be better by now.

Lisa: Be better by now, right. Yeah.

Gabe: Well, why should I be better? Well, I read on the Internet that you can be better in four months. Well, there is this one guy on the Internet that he did yoga and he’s better. This one woman on the Internet, she started eating watermelon seeds, which she chewed up the seeds. But she chews them on her back to eat, not her front teeth. And then she did yoga and then she walked a mile a day and then she got a dog and that cured psychosis and she no longer has zits on her butt. It’s like that.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: And it’s everywhere.

Lisa: It is everywhere.

Gabe: And our stories are valuable and they’re valuable because they’re different. That’s why a show like this needs to exist. And that’s why we started it.

Lisa: That was very profound, actually. Nice. Good job.

Gabe: I know. It’s almost like I do this for a living. Lisa, welcome to the show. And welcome to your first day as a professional podcaster.

Lisa: Aww, thank you, Gabe. And that’s true. I’m a professional Podcaster now, I can tell people that,

Gabe: Yeah, you’re very

Lisa: Yea me.

Gabe: Welcome. Now, for the rest of your life, when you tell people that they will assume that you live in your parents’ basement.

Lisa: But that’s because those people didn’t have podcasts as good as our podcast,

Gabe: I mean,

Lisa: Which is actually the best of the podcasts.

Gabe: We have the best of the podcasts?

Lisa: Exactly.

Gabe: Like, like Marc Maron is just gone? That UFC guy? I mean, just. Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa: Anita Sarkeesian.

Gabe: NPR?

Lisa: Well, NPR, I mean.

Gabe: I mean, we’re better than all of

Lisa: Not NPR.

Gabe: Than all of those podcasts? Yeah, yeah.

Lisa: Better than most podcasts, just not all the podcasts.

Gabe: Yes. I like to tell people that when it comes to personal journals, mental health, education, extra, we’re in the top 10.

Lisa: You know, that’s a good point. I do that all the time when I’m trying to get people in the Psych Central Show. I’ll say, you know, the Psych Central Podcast is in the iTunes Top 10. And people would be like, oh my god. Really? You’re an iTunes Top 10 podcast? Yes, in the health and wellness category.

Gabe: One of the interesting things I think about being friends with your ex. You know me in a very intimate way, but you’re gone

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Now, people say that we bicker like brother and sister and we’re like, oh, we’re exes.

Lisa: We get that a lot.

Gabe: And they’re like, oh, I saw that.

Lisa: Well, no you didn’t.

Gabe: Like, no you didn’t. You thought we were brother and sister. Do you think that it’s good? Is this a mentally healthy decision for us? Like, should you just be the crazy woman I divorced 15 years ago? Or like, is it good that you’re still coming over to my house and hanging out with my wife?

Lisa: You know, I don’t know. And people ask me about this all the time. We have actually when we’re out in public or when we’re doing professional meetings, etc., we’ve actually stopped telling people about this aspect of our relationship. Because it immediately becomes the only thing anyone can focus on.

Gabe: This is going to help. I think having a podcast

Lisa: You think?

Gabe: Where we do nothing but talk about mental illness, mental health and debate things and of course, tell people at the top of every show that you’re my ex-wife and that I’m your ex husband? That will definitely make people ask less questions. Definitely.

Lisa: I thought you were serious.

Gabe: You know how popular things on television nobody talks about? Like we won’t get e-mails, we won’t get social media posts. No, this will take care of the whole problem.

Lisa: It’s annoying. It’s as if it’s the most important aspect of our lives that we used to be married and we’re now divorced. It’s not. And going back to when you said the whole thing about do you think this is a good thing? I realize that this sounds stupid, but it never occurred to me that we would lose contact. You’ve written several blog posts, you’ve spoken before about how you just always assumed eventually we would drift apart. You know, when once we sold the house, the divorce was finalized? You know, at a certain point you just feel like, oh, hey, I haven’t talked to her in forever, okay.

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: I never thought that. And I don’t know if that’s just because I was really unrealistic. But I honestly never did. It never occurred to me that would happen. It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t always be there. I don’t know. Maybe that’s mental illness. I don’t know

Gabe: Then why did you divorce me? If you wanted me around?

Lisa: Exactly right.

Gabe: Why?

Lisa: That’s what.

Gabe: Why? You discarded me

Lisa: That’s. Oh, come on. Don’t do that.

Gabe: Like garbage.

Lisa: Stop it. I understand that these two things don’t go together because, hey, if you wanted to make sure he was around all the time, we should’ve stayed married. But,

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: Yeah,

Gabe: That’s definitely a symptom of something.

Lisa: Well, probably.

Gabe: I don’t know what it is. But I guarantee you it’s hard to pronounce.

Lisa: I, I don’t know. I feel like, it’s hard to say because of course it’s hard for me to remember how I felt then because I can only relate it to how I feel now. But it never occurred to me that we would lose contact. I don’t know that it occurred to me that we would be this close. We’d still be talking daily, etc. But it’s never seemed odd to me. It’s never seemed like a weird thing that I need to explain to other people. But apparently everybody else thinks it is because I need to explain it and justify it constantly. But it never seemed to me like something I should have to explain or justify.

Gabe: It’s interesting that a couple of mentally ill people who have really just been through the wringer when it comes to our mental health have figured out how to have a, we’re going to go with a marginally healthy relationship, whereas all these well people. I make an air quotes, all these healthy and well adjusted people literally just sit around screaming,

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Screaming about their exes. They’re just they’re so angry at them. And they, I’ve been in these parties before where one person just spends the entire time talking about their ex, whom they hate. And I’m like, there’s clearly something there. You have spent four hours talking about this person. It’s all negative,

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: But nobody can get you off of that subject. That person is controlling your life in a very negative way. And hey.

Lisa: It’s often amazed me that if you, like you said, went on and on and on and were completely focused on this intense hatred you feel for this person that you haven’t seen in months or years. And for some reason, that’s a better choice. That indicates that you have a better emotional wellbeing when you just go nuts and hate this person forever.

Gabe: I like that we can keep our intense hatred and our friendship like co-occurring. That’s

Lisa: It’s definitely the healthiest way to do things. Yeah.

Gabe: That’s really good. Lisa, I am excited for this podcast. I am excited for all the things that we’re gonna discuss. I’m excited to explore mental illness in pop culture. I’m excited to explore. I’m just excited to explore because there’s so much to talk about and we’re excited for the guests that we’re gonna have on the show. We’re excited for the topics and we’re just excited for the questions that we’re gonna answer. And if you have suggestions, topics, questions, hit us up. It’s [email protected] and tell us about them. Lisa, do you have any parting words before we head on out?

Lisa: Well, I don’t know, I feel it. I just thought there’d be more discussion. Shall we talk about more stuff?

Gabe: What do you want to talk about?

Lisa: I don’t know?

Gabe: So you think I’m doing it wrong, but you don’t have a solution?

Lisa: Well, I don’t. I don’t know. Should we talk more about how our relationship ended or like how we got together or something like that?

Gabe: She gave me a fake name. We should have known it was doomed. When the day that we met, you told me your name was something different than Lisa. Like that was.

Lisa: Well, no reason to give you my real name.

Gabe: If we were writing a book.

Lisa: It’s not like we were ever going to talk again.

Gabe: That would be foreshadowing. And yet truth is absolutely stranger than fiction. We can’t give it all away on the first show.

Lisa: Oh.

Gabe: People have to have a reason to tune in next week. We also need to let people know this is not all we’re gonna talk about. Obviously, it’s going to permeate everything because, well, we can’t choose where to go to eat without getting in a fight about something that happened in 2005.

Lisa: Well, you were wrong.

Gabe: I was not

Lisa: No, you so were.

Gabe: I don’t even know what it was. But I was not.

Lisa: It doesn’t matter. You were wrong.

Gabe: Lisa, I’m excited to work with you. I’m very glad you’re here.

Lisa: Aww.

Gabe: All right, everybody, here’s what we need you to do. If you love the show, please subscribe, please rate, rank and review. That is very important for new podcasts. Use your words. Give us as many stars as possible. Share us on social media. Email all of your friends and email [email protected] and tell us what you want to hear more about. We will see everybody next Tuesday.

Lisa: See you then.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to the Not Crazy Podcast from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. Want to see Gabe and me in person? Not Crazy travels well. Have us record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details.

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ashley-unicorn · 5 years ago

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Podcast: Divorced Couple Hosting a Mental Health Podcast

What was their marriage like? Why talk about mental health? And what happened to the cats? Find out the answers to these questions and much more on today’s show.

(Transcript Available Below)

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About The Not Crazy podcast Hosts

Computer Generated Transcript for “Divorced Couple- Mental Health” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Lisa: Hi, I’m Lisa.

Gabe: Wow.

Lisa: You didn’t plan. You were you were supposed to tell me what to say. I don’t know what to say.

Gabe: It’s not a scripted show. I’m not supposed to tell you what to say. You’re supposed to say whatever you want. I’m not the boss of you.

Lisa: Well, I want to say, hi, I’m Lisa.

Lisa: Yes, you do, you’re very good at that.

Gabe: Very good at that.

Lisa: You do a good job with that.

Gabe: Why do you always want to be behind the scenes? What about the spotlight bugs you?

Lisa: Ok.

Gabe: That’s it? That’s all you got?

Lisa: I don’t know, what do you want me to respond to that?

Gabe: You hid behind me. That’s what I’m saying. You rode my coattails.

Lisa: No. That’s not fair.

Gabe: To success.

Lisa: Or I propped you up.

Gabe: You lift me

Lisa: Yeah, that kind of thing,

Gabe: Up. That is, that is.

Lisa: Is so I can stand on mountains.

Gabe: That’s so mean.

Lisa: And so that’s what happened.

Gabe: That’s, that is partially what happened.

Lisa: That’s 100% what happened.

Gabe: Yes. It’s really, really hard to do a podcast. People think

Gabe: I like you less.

Lisa: Don’t look at me like that.

Lisa: Although that took a really long time.

Lisa: I know, exciting right? This way, you won’t mess it up.

Gabe: This way I won’t mess it up?

Lisa: You do, you always mess it up.

Gabe: I do, I tend to work more on feelings, whereas you tend to work more on facts. I think this is why our marriage didn’t work out, because I felt that you were an idiot and you knew that I was.

Lisa: Yes, yes,

Gabe: So

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: There we are. Let’s talk about that for a moment. What makes you want to work with your ex-husband? I am sincere. Just

Lisa: I don’t know.

Gabe: It is fascinating to me.

Lisa: It is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Gabe: Ok, stop it. Nobody wants to listen to a podcast with all this garbage.

Lisa: How do you know?

Gabe: I, I don’t.

Lisa: You don’t know.

Gabe: It’s a first episode.

Gabe: Lisa, you live with depression.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: You live with depression.

Lisa: You’re changing the subject.

Lisa: Psych Central does a lot.

Lisa: Hmm.

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Who, like you said, fifteen thousand jobs.

Gabe: Well, it does leave a lot of room for error, and I’m impressed and surprised at how little error we have.

Lisa: Yeah, we’re doing pretty well.

Lisa: At PsychCentral.com/Show.

Lisa: Aww.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: And should that be?

Lisa: I mean, what’s happening?

Gabe: That’s an interesting thing that you brought up. You’re upset that people don’t realize that you’re mentally ill

Lisa: Well, I.

Gabe: And the whole rest of society is upset when people perceive them as mentally ill. So it’s a little bit bizarre, right? Like,

Lisa: Well, it’s both.

Gabe: Do you really want people to think that you’re a mentally ill person? Because I’m positive that would offend you.

Gabe: Let’s switch gears and talk about why we’re still friends.

Lisa: Ok,

Lisa: You know, I don’t know and I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the last couple of weeks. I don’t know. Why is that? Why did that happen? Maybe.

Lisa: Yes.

Lisa: We did not have a good marriage.

Gabe: Right.

Lisa: No.

Gabe: And as evidenced by the fact

Lisa: That we are now divorced.

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: Yeah.

Lisa: It actually makes me sad to say that that we didn’t have a good marriage.

Gabe: Why?

Lisa: I don’t know. I

Gabe: It ended in a divorce.

Lisa: I know. I know. It just it always makes me sad when you say that.

Lisa: Well, you’re not supposed to be enemies, you’re supposed to be arch enemies. It’s your deepest hate.

Gabe: I’m surprised when I’m up on stage and I tell the story of of me being suicidal.

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Of going to the emergency room. And people find out that you are my ex-wife. And that’s all they want to talk about.

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: Everything that I’ve achieved, everything that I’ve done. And what they want to know is why? Why are you friends with your ex wife? And they say, well, you have kids like that, OK?

Lisa: Yeah, that’s always the thing.

Gabe: You’re modeling the way for the children. Yeah. No, no.

Lisa: One hundred percent of the time people go, oh, children.

Gabe: No, no kid. Then they’re like, well, you had pets together. We did, but we hated each other’s pets. I brought in a cat that Lisa hated and

Lisa: I didn’t hate him.

Gabe: Lisa brought in a cat that I hated.

Lisa: Yeah, you did hate him. I didn’t hate him. He just wasn’t my favorite.

Gabe: When we got divorced, you got rid of him.

Lisa: No, I do no. Take that back. That is not true.

Gabe: Did he live with you after we got divorced?

Gabe: You know, your favorite cat. Let’s say that Viroj was allergic to that cat?

Lisa: See, that would have been a problem. That would have been. That cat had passed away by the time Viroj and I lived together.

Gabe: Mm-hmm.

Gabe: I thought I was your best friend?

Lisa: Well, you know what I mean. I found them a very good home where they were very happy. And they lived in little kitty paradises.

Gabe: I’m really surprised that you did not go with the you didn’t take them either, Gabe, and you just said he was your favorite cat.

Lisa: No, I don’t know why this matters, because the cat has long since died.

Gabe: But, through no fault of our own.

Lisa: No.

Gabe: The cat lived another eight years.

Lisa: No. No. He just got old.

Gabe: We visited the cat all the time. We loved the cat. Cat was fantastic.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: I mean, Lisa did love the cat. I love the cat.

Lisa: Ok. No, the cats continued to be with me for the next two years, and then we found them a kitty paradise house.

Gabe: Kitty paradise house? And people are surprised to hear that I lived with three cats for our marriage. I think that’s what did us in. And it’s

Lisa: It’s always the children’s fault.

Gabe: Always the? No, it’s not. It’s never the children. You’re

Lisa: That’s why it’s funny.

Lisa: Everyone was pleased.

Gabe: Yeah, I mean, right. Life changed a lot. But it is interesting, our different perspectives on it.

Lisa: We’ll be right back after these messages.

Gabe: The first episode of the Not Crazy Podcast continues now.

Gabe: I love how you are trying to insinuate that I am a liar to our audience.

Lisa: No, you just frame things incorrectly. I can tell the story better.

Lisa: Right.

Lisa: That’s a really good point.

Lisa: That is a very interesting point, I had actually never considered that.

Gabe: I know. I’m wise.

Gabe: You should be better by now.

Lisa: Be better by now, right. Yeah.

Lisa: Yes.

Gabe: And it’s everywhere.

Lisa: It is everywhere.

Gabe: And our stories are valuable and they’re valuable because they’re different. That’s why a show like this needs to exist. And that’s why we started it.

Lisa: That was very profound, actually. Nice. Good job.

Gabe: I know. It’s almost like I do this for a living. Lisa, welcome to the show. And welcome to your first day as a professional podcaster.

Lisa: Aww, thank you, Gabe. And that’s true. I’m a professional Podcaster now, I can tell people that,

Gabe: Yeah, you’re very

Lisa: Yea me.

Gabe: Welcome. Now, for the rest of your life, when you tell people that they will assume that you live in your parents’ basement.

Lisa: But that’s because those people didn’t have podcasts as good as our podcast,

Gabe: I mean,

Lisa: Which is actually the best of the podcasts.

Gabe: We have the best of the podcasts?

Lisa: Exactly.

Gabe: Like, like Marc Maron is just gone? That UFC guy? I mean, just. Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa: Anita Sarkeesian.

Gabe: NPR?

Lisa: Well, NPR, I mean.

Gabe: I mean, we’re better than all of

Lisa: Not NPR.

Gabe: Than all of those podcasts? Yeah, yeah.

Lisa: Better than most podcasts, just not all the podcasts.

Gabe: Yes. I like to tell people that when it comes to personal journals, mental health, education, extra, we’re in the top 10.

Gabe: One of the interesting things I think about being friends with your ex. You know me in a very intimate way, but you’re gone

Lisa: Right.

Gabe: Now, people say that we bicker like brother and sister and we’re like, oh, we’re exes.

Lisa: We get that a lot.

Gabe: And they’re like, oh, I saw that.

Lisa: Well, no you didn’t.

Gabe: This is going to help. I think having a podcast

Lisa: You think?

Lisa: I thought you were serious.

Gabe: You know how popular things on television nobody talks about? Like we won’t get e-mails, we won’t get social media posts. No, this will take care of the whole problem.

Gabe: Right.

Gabe: Then why did you divorce me? If you wanted me around?

Lisa: Exactly right.

Gabe: Why?

Lisa: That’s what.

Gabe: Why? You discarded me

Lisa: That’s. Oh, come on. Don’t do that.

Gabe: Like garbage.

Lisa: Stop it. I understand that these two things don’t go together because, hey, if you wanted to make sure he was around all the time, we should’ve stayed married. But,

Gabe: Yeah,

Lisa: Yeah,

Gabe: That’s definitely a symptom of something.

Lisa: Well, probably.

Gabe: I don’t know what it is. But I guarantee you it’s hard to pronounce.

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: Yeah.

Gabe: But nobody can get you off of that subject. That person is controlling your life in a very negative way. And hey.

Gabe: I like that we can keep our intense hatred and our friendship like co-occurring. That’s

Lisa: It’s definitely the healthiest way to do things. Yeah.

Lisa: Well, I don’t know, I feel it. I just thought there’d be more discussion. Shall we talk about more stuff?

Gabe: What do you want to talk about?

Lisa: I don’t know?

Gabe: So you think I’m doing it wrong, but you don’t have a solution?

Lisa: Well, I don’t. I don’t know. Should we talk more about how our relationship ended or like how we got together or something like that?

Gabe: She gave me a fake name. We should have known it was doomed. When the day that we met, you told me your name was something different than Lisa. Like that was.

Lisa: Well, no reason to give you my real name.

Gabe: If we were writing a book.

Lisa: It’s not like we were ever going to talk again.

Gabe: That would be foreshadowing. And yet truth is absolutely stranger than fiction. We can’t give it all away on the first show.

Lisa: Oh.

Lisa: Well, you were wrong.

Gabe: I was not

Lisa: No, you so were.

Gabe: I don’t even know what it was. But I was not.

Lisa: It doesn’t matter. You were wrong.

Gabe: Lisa, I’m excited to work with you. I’m very glad you’re here.

Lisa: Aww.

Lisa: See you then.

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