#my friends DO know me when they recommend the space western about hope in the desert after you’ve lost your entire world | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kayjayo1227 · 1 year

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Hello there, sorry to be interrupting!

I was curious about what issued you've personally encountered with Stampede!

I'm completely new to the series, I know there's an older adaptation also but supposedly it was very inaccurate to the story and I'd love to know the differences between iterations before sticking to one.

I am definitely 👌 close to just reading the manga and nothing else though, given that Stampede didn't really spark joy for me as I'd have hoped it would.

Thank you for your time either way!

Wishing you a stellar day :)

You asked so I’m gonna probably write a whole lot lol 😝

I am not by any means a Trigun 1998 purist or anything, I actually got some issues with it too later on once they deviate from the manga. Personally, I think between the three the manga is ABSOLUTELY the better version just in terms of storytelling and visual style and whatnot. I very highly recommend it.

Trigun 98 nails Yasuhiro Nightow’s visual style perfectly. It’s got absolutely iconic music, and it’s one of those animes that helped make anime a big thing in the US. Plus, I’ve got a lot of nostalgia for it personally because I watched it first and as a kid. It’s very good.

The problem with 98 is that the Trigun manga took a hiatus and was republished later under a different magazine, and from that point on is known as Trigun Maximum (if you do watch 98 this split starts to happen right after the stuff with Eriks and the little timeskip) so it misses out on a LOT of good stuff and makes up it’s own ending. But up to that point it’s a phenomenal adaptation.

Trigun Stampede is… it’s a weird case for me. Because while on the one hand I don’t hate the cg style here, I also feel like it’s wrong for Trigun. It’s so crisp and clean instead of gritty. They seemed to be leaning a lot more into the sci-fi side of Trigun than space western and it’s just a surprising choice?

They’ve done a great job characterizing Vash. I was actually very excited to see Knives using y’know KNIVES lol and (while I haven’t got there yet) I know the ending of the series plays into 98/the manga somehow. But it felt weird to me watching it when so many characters were weirdly different.

They made changes and I don’t get why? Like changing the planet’s name from Gunsmoke to No Man’s Land lol why? I personally was really hoping they would give us more accurate manga adaptations but instead they gave us something that was neither. It keeps a lot of that original Trigun peace and love to it, but every character change leaves me just looking at the screen and going “WHY”

Just for example about what I mean (and the biggest example of it)

One of my favorite manga characters is Livio. I love Livio. He isn’t in 98 at all. But he has a big part in the manga. The second he showed up in Stampede I was pretty annoyed. They took one of my favorite character designs and just…made it real bad. And so far the characterization doesn’t seem right either, although I’ll admit it bothered me enough I haven’t watched more yet.

None of these things make me consider it an abomination or anything, I do believe there s a lot of good stuff there. Just makes it hard for me personally to keep watching. It could be better!

Some comparison photos of Livio

And some comparisons of Knives

It’s just…it’s not bad but it’s not what it could have been 🥲 I don’t believe there is anyone out there that has read the manga that would think either anime adaptation is superior to it

Anyway, sorry for the novel! I love the manga and have been screaming at my friends to read it for years lol

Definitely check it out!

#trigun #trigun stampede #trigun maximum

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the-chihayafuru-landslide · 2 years

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Hi,hope you're having a good day! 😊

I just wanted to know your opinions on Akihito Sudo as a character, from Chihayafuru. He's my third favourite character after taichi and suo but I'm sad that I don't find anyone talking about him very much. Plus I was trying to find some fanfics and hc's of him and didn't find any either. >⁠.⁠< So if you know any,can you pls recommend..

Thank you🤗

Hello!!

Ahh you’re my first ever anon so I’m so very excited that it’s a nice message considering how contentious the fandom can be at times haha.

Anyways my thoughts on Akihito Sudo!! I actually love his character though I feel like at times I wish he was involved more in the plot because he was so funnyyyy. Not gonna lie I hated him at first cause he /the audacity/ while playing Chihaya but then I was like oh there’s more to it! Suetsugu did that to me with several characters 💀 Suou being one of them.

Upon rereading some chapters I find his relationship between Suou to be so interesting. Like he was clearly Suou’s friend before Taichi and yet the minute Taichi started to idk I guess we can say “cling” to Suou and they developpee a kind of mentor/student relationship friendship Sudo gets kind of jealous 😭 and when I say “kind of” I’m actually partly convinced he was out there being like WELL THEN IMMA STEAL YO GIRL TACIHI and that’s why he went behind Suou’s back and gave Chihaya the recordings (though I should say now I 100% HC Sudo as being gay lmao).

Also another actual favourite moment of mine is when he plays Taichi in the qualifier matches. That was peak Taichi vs. Sudo mind games 😭 Sudo trying to make Taichi sweat by mentioning Chihaya but then the second Taichi mentions a secret that Suou revealed to him (how for Suou the cards disappear before they are read) Sudo gets so flustered he makes a fault 😭 Fbdjfbdjdb

Taichi knew exactly what he was doing.

I’m not sure if you’re up to speed with the Chihayafuru news but in a recent Twitter live with Suetsugu for the Karuta fund calendar we western fans ofc were there and none of us speaking any Japanese so we were trying to translate the CC with google translate. However there was something v juicy BUT please take the following with a grain of salt but this is what we think was said:

Someone: Does Suout have a girlfriend ?

Suetsugu: no. But he has Sudo.

SO ANYWAYS SUDOXSUOU CANON?? DJBDDHDB. Again we have no idea who the voices belong to or even if that was really was what said so take it with a grain of salt.

Speaking of other dellusions:

I am waiting for my romantic spin off with Sudo and Suou with them being bad boys with sex appeal 😤

As for external content I don’t know of any but since there is so few fan content for Chihayafuru in general I haven’t consumed a lot because I’m spacing it out to keep the hole in my heart filled for as long as I can 😭

However sometimes you gotta be the change you want to see in the world! I’m writing the worst fanfic you have ever read for my own pleasure 😖 it’s rough cause I’m realizing very quickly that I am not a writer like at all djdhdjdj. My prose is so bad it’s not cute. But I’m having fun!

#chihayafuru #chihayafuru spoilers #Akihito sudo #sudo chihayafuru #charles rambles #anon #asks #chihayafuru manga

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manifestomode · 1 month

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Hello, I’m new,.to Japanese dating Don’t laugh at me. Here goes,.I’m a Synthesizer programmer and a Depeche Mode emulator + and I would like to make friends especially with a Japanese girl. Any suggestions without using dating sites?

I’m a big fan of Japanese people and some favorites like the man who created the company named Roland music Corp. as well as Yamaha and Korg and my first synthesizer was made by Roland. I also love some Japanese inspired prophetic animation like Robotech, The Transformers and ThunderCats, at least that’s how it comes across to me. I also believe that Japanese girls are of priceless value those that still value honor and love before anything. A quality of people that are worth getting to know if they value their respectful culture and politeness and kindness, which is lacking in western culture these days, so I wish to make friends as well as find my lover. & maybe Learn some Japanese and help someone learn English in return …

So also I believe much Japanese technology is superior as well as the mentioned companies prove it in my opinion, even though I have other favorites synthesizers as well, I tend to like more Japanese technology than any other and I’ve always been a fan of Godzilla 😆 and those types of movies,. and I believe Japanese women have a high beauty and they take care of themselves very well. Unlike western culture although I know people are people they seem to carry themselves in a more spiritual manner rather than with such narcissistic vulgarity of the western culture. I appreciate any suggestions. End of course the katana has always been my favorite sword of all time and I believe it has been proven superior as well. I am concerned about all the earthquakes and how everyone is doing over there and I am sending my prayers and I recommend to everyone to view my page for books. Suggestions in these Unstable times we do need spiritual guidance. And I should clarify I do not make any money off of any of the books. I suggest I simply do it because of the love I have for people.

I am honored to meet anyone with an open heart and mind to the spirit of love and compassion,.. and so I’m concerned for Japan and I wonder how things are holding up after the earthquakes because I have not seen any news as the United States isn’t on reliable unreliable these days to let us know properly about anything.

Please let me know, regardless of any shame that should not exist for we are all human and need help when these things happen and I will do my best to use my spiritual gifts to help if I cannot physically help now unless somebody needs a humble space to rent that is inexpensive next to me. I’m not the owner, but I can introduce you to the nice lady that is related to me in case you need to move away from Japan and are open to friendships as well, as you will be under the same roof sharing a close by space that can be fun if we make it that way. I hope everyone is being helped properly. If not, please let me know and I will pray and you could send me personal messages and I will pray for your situation whatever it is…

#beautiful Japanese #dating #music #tech news #food wars #news #depopulation government take over #bioweapon #health #natural

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slightlyrebelliouswriter23 · 4 years

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Writing smut without cringing the whole time? How do you do it.

Writing Smut 101: Overcoming Smut Shame

CONTENT WARNING: NSFW RELATED CONTENT BELOW.

The short answer, nonnie, is: you don’t.

That is to say, writing smut is always kind of cringe—especially if you’re new to it, or simply “not in the mood” to write.

But rest assured, feeling embarrassed is completely natural. The trick is learning how to overcome the cringe when it does happen, instead of letting it deter you.

I’m going to break this up into a few sections: 1) Why you might be feeling this way, 2) How I, personally, combat the issue, and 3) Some more tips that might help you get the ball rolling.

1. Why You “Cringe”

It’s important to find the root cause of any form of writer’s block so you can pull the weed out instead of just trimming it back. Smut writer’s block is its own special brand, and generally, the main issue writers have when it comes to smut is stigma.

Speaking openly and honestly about sex, in Western society, is still very much a taboo.

No matter how “progressive” we like to think we are, the inherent shame surrounding pleasure-seeking experiences, and the detailing/consumption of them, has been ground into us since we learned how to understand the concept of gratification.

And I’m not just talking about sexual gratification. This applies to everyday things, as well. Eating, shopping, relaxing (or doing virtually anything in capitalist society that does not directly contribute to capitalism).

So it makes sense that you would feel any amount of embarrassment, awkwardness, or “cringe” when writing smut. It’s something our society teaches us is wrong to want. Unfortunately, that shame translates to writer’s block when we sit down in front of the computer.

A lot of this blockage might stem from not giving ourselves permission to write the thing.

We’re staring at the blank document, knowing we want to write smut, and suddenly the thoughts start streaming in: This feels wrong, is this wrong? What if someone comes in and looks over my shoulder while I’m writing? Am I describing this right? Is this too unrealistic? I have NO idea what I’m doing, and everyone is going to know it.

These are all perfectly normal thoughts, and definitely ones I still have from time to time. But they’re also probably the direct cause of why you feel so blocked. Luckily, I have some bits of advice to give you on how to unblock yourself.

2. How I Combat Smut Block

✦ First, when the intrusive thoughts occur, instead of ruminating on them, think of each one as an impermanent object. You can use any metaphor, but I like to use the imagery of leaves:

Each negative thought is a leaf floating down the river of your mind. If you focus only on the leaf, you’ll exert a lot of energy running to try and keep up with it, consequently miss everything else around you. But if you acknowledge that leaf as a temporary part of the scenery, and let is pass, you can process and appreciate the beauty of your surroundings a whole lot better.

Remember: you are separate from your thoughts. You are not defined by them. The things you think sound stupid might be incredibly exciting to someone else.

If you can string a sentence together, you can write smut. This is all part of giving yourself permission to write the thing that makes you feel uncomfortable.

✦ Second, I’d suggest giving good thought to how you personally experience embarrassment, how you experience excitement (of the sexual variety), and how those two might sometimes commingle or feel similar.

For me, they are very comparable, like different shades of the same emotion—but there are differences which are important to note.

If I’m making myself blush from excitement, this is a very good thing for writing smut. It means that what I’m writing feels real enough to evoke something in the reader, even if the reader, like me, knows what’s going to happen.

If I’m making myself cringe, however, it may be time to take a step back and readjust my perspective.

✦ Third, ease yourself into it! Don’t jump straight in the deep end and expect to know how to keep your head above water if you’ve never swum before.

The way I eased myself into smut was first by writing “Steam”—a category of fic I made up because the current vocabulary lacked an efficient term for fics that straddled emotional romance and explicit content.

Essentially, steam is smut-adjacent but not explicit, and here’s a step-by-step example of how I transitioned myself smoothly from one genre to the next:

I first wrote my fics Wicked Game and You Are (both of which feature either a heavy make out session or teasing + lots of sexual tension) with this “steam” concept in mind.

I wrote the first chapter of Fine Line, which has brief but explicit descriptions of fantasies, framed by a very sexually charged scene.

I released my fic Crashing, which is probably more of a bridge between Steam and Smut, and features soft-focus fingering. Nothing in it is explicit—it focuses more on the emotions than explicit detail—but it’s very clear what is happening.

After I wrote those, I felt just confident enough to make that final stride over the threshold into smut. I wrote my fics Holy, King, and the second chapter of Fine Line all within weeks of each other.

And trust me when I say, once you get the momentum going and receive that validation from people who’ve read your work, it becomes SO much easier to sit down and start writing.

You just have to finish that first piece.

✦ Finally (and I know I’m going to sound cliche when I say this), just like any other skill, the more you practice the more confident you will feel and the better you will get.

So practice, practice, practice!

If you’re nervous about posting smut for the first time, have a trusted friend/mutual Beta read it for you. It’s the online equivalent to someone holding your hand before jumping off the cliff, and works wonders for the nerves.

3. Keep The Smut Rolling

Now that you have some tools to help get you past the blockage of writing smut, here’s how to keep the inspiration flowing.

✦ Start by incorporating smutty fanfiction/erotic fiction into your regular reading rotation-

Of course AO3 is a fantastic resource for smutty fanfiction.

If you’re a fan of TFOTA or ACOTAR and want some of my personal fic recs, visit my fic rec masterlist.

In terms of erotic fiction, my personal favourites are anything Anais Nin (specifically Henry & June and Delta of Venus), The Thornchapel series by Sierra Simone, The Godwicks series by Tiffany Reisz, and The Original Sinners series by Tiffany Reisz.

There are also sites like Literotica and sexstories.com, which play host to explicit short fiction (not fandom based).

✦ Next, I’d recommend having a designated digital space for smutspiration-

This can be a list of “smutty” words/phrases kept on a separate document on your computer, for those days when you just can’t think of the right way to describe something.

Or you can create a private side-blog or Pinterest board for your favourite smutty fanart or other kinds of visual smutspiration.

✦ For that matter, try following some smutty/18+ blogs (ONLY IF YOU’RE 18+) here on Tumblr-

Many of them have a plethora of what I like to call “lemony snippets”, a.k.a. short text posts that describe (usually in conversational language) explicit scenarios.

This is useful because it will normalise the concept of sexual fantasies in your brain, making it less weird for you when you try to come up with ones of your own to write into smut.

Not to mention, your dash will be rife with inspiration.

✦ I would also suggest checking out 18+ ASMR on YouTube (AGAIN, ONLY IF YOU’RE 18+).

My favourite account is Professor Cal Official, but Auralescent also has some good content.

Headphones are highly advisable for this, as their stuff is very dangerous for work.

So, nonnie, I hope this has provided you with at least one helpful tip. Whether you took anything away from this or not, just know that the feelings of embarrassment when it comes to writing smut are entirely normal. And the best way to keep those feelings at bay is to confront them head on.

-Em 🖤🗡

Writing Advice Masterlist

Writing Masterlist

2K Celebration!

#writing #writing advice #writing tips #smut #fanfic #writeblr #ao3 #writer things #em's 2k celebration #smut 101: overcoming smut shame #fluff #angst #writer's problems #asked and answered #em answers #nonnie #anonymous smut cringe

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akpaley · 4 years

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I love your art so much! you have such a cool style. the Falnorian fashion is really interesting, I was curios about the fabric patterns, would you mind sharing how you did it?

Sure! That project was a process of experimenting with the way brushes were textured in order to emulate the feel of different textures of cloth, but there’s also a couple places where I more explicitly crafted textures/brushes/etc. I’ll go through and show you the brushes used and any additional techniques that were relevant under the cut!

So a lot of this is just flat out instructions for how to do a thing in Photoshop. If you use different software, you may or may not have all the same layer settings and options. I don’t know how to post the brushes I use to the internet, but google around--there are a lot of cheap or free cool brushes for most drawing software. These are the ones I’ve accumulated over the ages.

Also I was gonna do all the outfits but I found I was repeating myself a lot, so you only get the ones with the most to teach you, which is like four of them.

An overall note- I worked in a CMYK file format which limits the available colors and in some cases majorly changed what colors looked like under relevant effects or when changing layer settings. I don’t generally recommend this unless you need your work to be printable because it constrains your palette, but there are definitely some things that are easier to make look cohesive with those kind of automatic color constraints, so. It’s a mixed bag.

This is one of my favorite texture brushes. It jitters color, and it has some fun texture to it that can be very different depending on how heavy you set the pen pressure and how long your strokes are. I used it as a baseline for both her dress and his coat and boots, to provide texture and also give me a set of varied colors to move around and blend and work with. I spent a while on her dress blocking out color more specifically from the set that brush provided before bringing in new ones. It’s fun too because when I do texture with it it feels kind of multicolored and blended.

His pants, and probably one of the most common brushes for the Western set. It’s got a somewhat more roughspun texture while also being able to go to just being flat and cover a decent amount of space between for light texturing.

A simple square brush which varies opacity by pen pressure, for shading him.

A mostly flat oval brush that I used for highlights on her clothing. Same deal--the opacity is determined by pen pressure. Helped smooth things out a bit, and with very bright lights helps make the cloth feel more reflective and satiny.

(It should be said I know nothing about fabric and satin just seems like the ting with that kind of reflectivity--I have no idea what the fabrics in my reference images are, they just look reflective and crinkle in certain ways.)

This is a brush that jitters saturation and brightness in a tad that looks a bit stripey, and I like it for his vest and their shoes because it feels a little rougher, and sometimes a bit knitted or wooly.

The base texture of both their main pieces of clothing is the same as brush number 2 from the last one, but this time with two colors overlapping one another to give it more depth and make it feel a bit rougher and thicker as material.

So this is brush 1 from the last set, but I’ve made it one color (the light green), copied it and changed the hue to a bluer shade, and then placed the two exactly one over the other, setting the bluer version to Vivid Light in the layer settings. Then you just futz around with the specific color and opacity til you’re happy with it.

The vest pattern is easy. Draw a row of shapes. Duplicate several times. Arrange in rows. If you need to, you can rotate rows a tad to get them to look good when they line up.

I have a celtic knot pattern. For his clothing I set one row of the pattern at the bottom, lowered the opacity, and used a soft brush with the smudge tool at 80% or 90% to pull the color from the top up over more of his clothing.

For hers, same deal but instead of using the smudge brush I set the layer to being some kind of color burn or linear burn in the layer settings and set copies of it in a line so it looks like a repeating texture.

You know all of these by now, they’re the ones that keep coming up and from now on I’m not going to talk about them anymore.

This brush looks like trees! And also I use it for weird cloud patterning on both these guys and the Lakeshore pair.

I made a brush that is dots! It is just a circle with the spacing settings turned up so that there’s distance between them. The dots brush is a fucking lifesaver. It can look like beads or coins or be converted into other patterning. It’s great. A+ don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier.

The last thing I have for you is mostly about layer settings, which I am very poor at explaining, so sorry about that.

I used a watercolor looking brush thickly for the Greyfen to give the cloth a kind of slightly iridescent silky vibe. How the colors work in the other points.

The difference between the blue stroke in the above version and the below version is that the bottom one is on a layer set to Pin Light. I’m not sure exactly what pin light does, but it tends to produce colors that kind of combine the feels of the relevant colors? It’s definitely one to use when you’re trying to make things shade in a way that feels iridescent.

The difference between the purple stroke above and below is the one below’s layer is set to Vivid Light. Vivid light tends to produce brightly saturated colors and I kind of have no idea how it works either. Just futz around with the hue of the Vivid Light layer until you like how things look.

Lastly, the bottom line of dots has been set as a Clipping Mask over the two stroke layers. Because of this, it only shows up where it overlaps those strokes, and I think takes on their properties? So it’s operating like it’s Pin Light over the Pin Light layer and making that weird gold color and acting like vivid light on the vivid light layer and making the yellow green. The Clipping Mask is your best friend because it saves you a lot of erasing and lets you make things transparent along with or otherwise fall in line with whatever they’re attached to.

I hope this was helpful and I’m sorry if it was confusing. Thank you again for your support and your interest!

#ask #askbox #art talk #tutorial #art tutorial #Anonymous

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baby-witch-eli · 3 years

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Quantifying my Craft

I found this lovely post by @breelandwalker, who I totally recommend checking out, and it inspired me. My cards and horoscopes have been pushing me to reflect on my goals lately so this is exactly what I needed right now! I decided I'd give it a go.

Broad Concepts

I like to follow western traditions; Celtic traditions in particular are near and dear to my heart. This is why I chose to focus my worship in the Celtic Pantheon, and I'm currently working on building a relationship with Brigid. I would consider myself an eclectic, although divination and nature magic are my two main areas of focus. While I like to ask others for advice while I learn, magic is something I prefer to practice on my own. I've only been practicing since late January, interestingly enough I started around Imbolc. So far I've found intentions are the most important aspect of witchcraft and it has helped me greatly to practice intention in all aspects of my life.

Working Space

I began constructing an altar to Brigid yesterday. Frustratingly enough, my mother is going to have me put away all my small little items and decorations tomorrow as we're trying to sell our house. We won't be moving for a few more months though. I'm hoping I'll be able to keep the altar up but I'll look into online altar options if needed. I already keep an online altar to myself on an app called #SelfCare that I would highly recommended.

Right now my altar to Brigid has a white candle in a green holder; a sailor's knot I wore around my wrist until it started to come undone; a silver bell for music and creativity; the first piece of pottery I ever painted; a picture book of the traveling I did around Michigan a few years ago; an empty journal I hope to fill with art and poems dedicated to her; and a beaker (cauldron stand-in) I dedicated by burning a sigil in that holds nineteen white rose petals and a whisker my cat lost. I'm charging a carnelian and working on a piece of fox, the spirit guide she sent me, embroidery to add to the altar. It's positioned on top of an organizer I have on my desk, which is pushed up against a window.

There's a spot under my porch I wanted to use for meditation but I discovered I'm too jumpy and distractible to meditate outdoors. I don't like having my eyes closed when out of the open and I have an exaggerated startle response. Instead, I find it better for me to meditate in the bath. Sitting in water at least ankle deep with the lights off, after everybody else has gone to sleep and when the moon can shine through the window, is the ideal place for me to sit and follow a guided meditation. I find meditations that take me on a journey through my astral space are the most effective.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to have my own space where I can freely spread my altars and workspaces throughout the house. I want to be able to fill it with plants and books and cards and candles. While I'm at home trying to avoid suspicion from my Christian family, I just have to make the most of what I have.

Tools

My first deck is on the #SelfCare app. I call it my "Familiar Deck" as that's the one I'm most connected with. It's brutally honest, which I love. My second favorite deck is the "blue-eyed" deck I use for my Daily Draw. Another brutally honest deck and one I find to be very accurate. When asking Brigid questions, I prefer to use the Yes/No deck. It gives you your answer and is also good at accurately conveying "secondary," not yes/no, messages. You'll notice all of them are online and that's because, once again, I live with my Christian family and must be covert.

I have a quite a few crystals as I, thankfully, was interested in collecting them when I was younger. The tumbled crystals I have are small and few; most of my crystals are raw. I keep forgetting to charge them when there's a full moon out. I'll have to set a reminder or something to that effect. At the very least, I'm happy that I don't have to bother with trying to obtain any without my parents becoming suspicious. One of these days, I'd love to start collecting rings and wear several. It's also silly little dream of mine to get an onyx pendulum someday.

As far as books go, I bought a beautiful journal I've dedicated as my grimoire. It's dark blue with shiny, gold space decals. I would love to collect witchy books but I don't have money and I couldn't get away with it while living at home. I hear there's an excellent discord that stores witchy books and I think it's something I'll look into. For now, my information comes from my internet research. Thankfully, I did debate for several years, so I know how to find sources from accurate cites, but it certainly takes a lot of work to find good information that way.

The Year

I’m interested in learning more about the Wheel of the Year and incorporating it into my practice. Imbolc is especially important to me, as I worship the goddess Brighid. I missed it this year but I hope to celebrate it in the future. I have yet to study the important of dates outside of astrology so I’ll have to make sure I study it more.

History of My Magic

Honestly, I’ve always felt a very strong pull towards magic. I was raised in a very religious family though so I was always afraid that answering the call would condemn me. I grew up reading as many fantasy stories as I could, connecting with any animal I was able to, and spending as much time in the woods or by water as I could. The woods and the water have always felt full of magic to me and inspired me to want to practice witchcraft. Ever since I was little, I’ve had a great fondness and affection for the moon and stars. I’ve also always felt very drawn to Celtic folklore, magic, and Irish culture. I have distant family ties to Ireland and even though it’s a relatively minor aspect of my heritage, it’s always felt the most important to me. Movies like Song of the Sea and Brendan and the Secret of Kells helped tighten my bond with it. I even started learning as much as I could about the Fae after some books I read piqued my interest. I’ve always been the kid who kept a firm belief in magic even after all my friends “outgrew” it.

It took me a long time to finally answer the call to magic. Like I said, I was raised in a religious household. My grandparents even accused me of being a witch when I went through my Harry Potter phase! It actually made me rather pleased. There were a few times I came very close to beginning practicing witchcraft but I shied away for fear of Hell. It wasn’t until I finally was able to distance myself from the church earlier this year that I decided to start practicing magic behind my parents’ back. I’m very glad I did.

Progress

I’ve only been practicing for a few months. I’ve been very busy with college so it’s been pretty lax so far. I’m trying to build some sort of consistency. The end of the semester is a bad time for that, for sure. I’ve really connected with astrology and tarot-reading. Learning about the symbolism of different bugs and animals has also been something I’ve honestly also done, so it’s nice to be able to incorporate that into my practice. Dragonflies have always been signs of good luck for me (or bad omens, as the one time I saw one dead was one my Grammy found in her garage; she showed it to me a month or so before she passed away from cancer).

Recently, I began meditation. I met my spirit animal, a brown-eyed fox, who I ended up learning was sent by the goddess Brighid to guide me. I contacted Brighid about twice and set up an altar for her. The first time I heard her speak to me was when she was telling me I don’t drink enough water (I haven’t met with her since I pulled an all-nighter for college and I’m sure she’s not particularly pleased with that). I’m hoping to get back into my meditative practice soon. I’ve also needed to meditate to ask about a crow or raven that my sister and I kept crossing paths with while going out to lunch together. I’m not sure if it’s a sign of something or if the Morrigan wants to contact me. I’ve also heard the name Cernunnos repeated in my head lately so I’ve wanted to look into him too. I didn’t think I’d have anything to do with deities after my experiences with Christianity but Brighid quickly changed my mind.

Final Notes

I actually started writing this post a week or so ago but life got crazy. I’m in the last few weeks of my Freshman year of college, so it’s hectic. Right now I’m staying at a cabin in the mountains over the weekend, so I’m hoping this will give me the chance I need to wind down and reconnect with Brighid and my higher self. I’m hoping to get a daily routine going for my practice over the next few weeks.

#green witch #baby witch #witch tarot #witch notes #witch life #witch journey

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natalieironside · 3 years

Text

Find The Word

oh yeah @by-the-grace-of tagged me in another tag game, that’s what’s up

My words are Powerful, Prime, Push, and Puddle. Let’s see here.

Powerful showed up in Chapter 2: Doubts of my as-yet-untitled sequel to The Big Job:

“IT says that you’ve been doing a combination of very interesting searches, Dr. Wingfield.”

Upon hearing the words, Kelly’s growing panic was subdued by a feeling much more powerful than fear: Professional pride. She made herself meet Dr. Light’s eyes, and she muttered, “You erased by doctoral dissertation.”

“We were going to debrief you on that once your current project had been concluded, but I suppose you’re too smart for that. That book in your hands is the only copy of Uncertainty and Entanglement in existence.”

“You fucking redacted my life’s work.”

“Dr. Wingfield, what is the motto written above the door to Practical Research? The one you walk through every day?”

“’We will die in the dark so that others may live in the light.’”

“The Foundation has never lied to you, Dr. Wingfield. We die in the dark so that others may live in the light.”

“Ma’am . . . My theories could’ve changed the world.”

“No, Dr. Wingfield. Your theories would’ve destroyed it.”

Prime showed up in Chapter 1: Family Values of my wip Voidsong: Rise of the Warbringer, though this kinda feels like cheating since “Prime” is part of the name of a place.

“Hmm. Though it has been twenty years since last we spoke, Helga, and though much has changed in that time, still is it plain for me to see when there are further details you aren’t telling me.”

“You are no fool, then. I will tell you, for you ought to know before things out in the wider galaxy progress any further. I wish to continue my raiding, but it is only a means to an end. I plan to focus my raiding on the frontiers of Carolian space, but that too is but a means to an end. I come bearing grim and terrible news, father. Saoirse and I are witches foresighted and we have seen it in our dreams, and Nirtovi there has seen the proof of it with her own eyes. Another crusade is coming. We do not know when it will come, but it will be soon, and it will be the biggest crusade the Carolian Empire has yet launched since human ships first sailed from Nicaea Prime three thousand years ago. It is only a matter of time before cohorts of Sword Brothers are storming every independent system beyond the moons of Beacon. I should like to do something about that.”

“Oh, horseshit. First off, I don’t give a frostwolf’s knot what Carolians do in the galactic core; no Carolian ship has been seen in the halo since Grimm Fellhand made planetfall here two thousand years ago. This crusade means nothing to me, and if you were wise, it would mean nothing to you, either.”

“I thought you would say that. I assume that appeals to altruism will fall on deaf ears.”

“I am a child of the ice and I keep to the laws of ice and steel. I would expect for she who calls herself my daughter to be of like mind.”

I found Pushed in Chapter 1: Aftermath of the untitled The Big Job sequel:

Kelly blinked in surprise. “Oh. Uh . . . yes, ma’am. When I was first assigned to the project, I recognized how dangerous she was and how difficult it would be to contain her; it was obvious that she was only here because she wanted to be. At the time, I recommended that she be terminated before she could attempt a containment breach that would inevitably cost a lot of lives and do a lot of damage to the facility—which is what happened. After a few interviews with her, though, I changed my mind. SCP-[REDACTED] is dangerous, but designating her object class as ‘safe’ was the right call. Things went to Hell because she was being improperly contained. With the benefit of hindsight, if I could go back and do it again, I would recommend releasing her.”

Dr. Light arched her brows and pushed her glasses further down the bridge of her nose. “That’s interesting. Please elaborate, Dr. Wingfield.”

“Yes, ma’am. Though she was always very vague, we did manage to learn that the skip’s ‘family’ fits the typical profile of a Proto-Sarkic community to a T. They’re insular, conservative, xenophobic, tiny, and probably harmless. If we’d released the skip, she would’ve led us right to them, and I think standard containment protocols would be effective. SCP-[REDACTED] knows how to make herself a hard woman to find, but prior to the incident we managed to get a lead. Her most interesting self-alteration, to me at least, is her teeth.”

“Her teeth, Dr. Wingfield?”

“Similar to a shark’s; she has a lot of them, and can discard them and grow them back as needed. Mineral analysis of one of her teeth indicates that she’s spent several years drinking well water in the Bitterroot Mountains. Our Sarkists are headquartered somewhere in western Montana.”

“Hmm. Good work, Dr. Wingfield. Very good work.”

“Oh. Um, thank you, ma’am.”

And I found Puddle in Chapter 3: In the Family Way of same. The word “puddle” occurs twice so far in the document and both of them are references to people being turned into puddles of red paste, which I guess is what happens when one of your characters is a Type Red KTE.

Nix blinked. “It’s 2021.”

“This means nothing to me.”

“Katya, what are you talking about?”

“Oh! A thousand thousand apologies. I . . . I do not believe that I am Katya. Tell me, ah . . . who is it you think you’re speaking to?”

“Karcist Katyamina Nisureika, of the Order of the Red Root.”

Katya laughed long, hard, and loud. “A karcist of the Red Root! Oh, how delightfully rustic! I hope she hasn’t been boring you, prattling on about cattle bloodlines and the price of millet.”

“Um . . . I believe Katya said her family runs a cherry orchard.”

“Oh, moved up in the world, have they? Ah, in any case, I believe I knew this Katya’s ancestors, and they were good people, if a bit provincial. Um . . . are the two of you . . . Mekhanites?”

“We are.”

“And, based on the fact that you have not been turned into puddles of red paste, I infer that the two of you and this karcist must be friends. That is very, very interesting.” She turned to Dr. Farkas. “And you. I recognize those markings. You are an Archivist!”

Dr. Farkas blinked. “Uh . . . that’s a very archaic term. I’m an agent of the Serpent’s Hand. But, yeah.”

“What a strange place the world has become. You say it’s the year 2021; by what reckoning?”

***

alrighty! I’m gonna tag uhhhhh @ashen-crest and uhhhh @zmlorenz whoms’t tagged me in the last one of these and uhhhh @arty528

And your words are Inscribe, Terror, Star, and Joyous

#writeblr #word find #long post

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astrovian · 4 years

Audio

Richard Armitage interview on BBC Radio Northampton for Uncle Vanya (26/10/20)

Full transcript under cut

So he’s won awards for his role as Lucas in Spooks, as the dwarf prince Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit, and earlier this year he had us on the edge of our seats as the lead role in the brilliant Netflix series The Stranger. I love The Stranger. Did you see it? I thought it was absolutely brilliant. He’s brilliant in everything he does, I love Richard Armitage. Such a nice guy as well. Well with the pandemic interrupting it’s sold out West End run, Richard is part of an all-star cast bringing Chekov’s iconic play Uncle Vanya to our cinemas and homes as part of a brand new production. Ahead of today’s show I spoke to Richard about the play, and a bit about what it’s like to be a stage actor in Covid Britain.

---

How you doing?

Very well, thank you. This is an absolute honour to speak to you. Congratulations on a wonderful production.

Thanks! Did you see it?

I did! I did! Um-

Amazing.

-if I describe my morning to you, I woke up with a slight whisky hangover pondering my place in the world, and the first thing I did was open my laptop and watch Uncle Vanya, and *laugh* I have to say it was quite-

Oh, how was Vanya on a hangover? That’s probably like most of the characters in the play have a hangover, don’t they?

*Laugh* Well this is the thing – I found myself thinking ‘this is quite life-affirming’, because I was reflecting how human experience hasn’t really changed that much since 1897, and I just wondered as an actor whether Chekov’s understanding of human feelings – it must appeal to you, hugely.

I think that’s why actors go to Chekov, and actually he wrote so few plays compared to other playwrights that what he did do was really define how we approach character. Really, I mean he worked with Stanislavski, it’s the root of, of Western theatre and, and how we construct characters because he’s focused on the lived experience, rather than the plot so much. So most people kind of say “what’s Chekov about?”, and it’s really hard to describe what it’s about. But it’s about human beings and how they – how they bounce off each other and how they attract and how they repel.

Is it completely mad for me to say that, that watching it, it was my first introduction to the play and my first introduction to Chekov, I, I found myself thinking ‘well, this is almost like Big Brother’. It’s like watching a group of people relate in various ways in a claustrophobic lockdown, getting on each other’s nerves, and digging into old wounds, and then I found myself thinking this is, this is so timely for the, the Covid world we’re living in. Did that strike you?

It’s – uh, I, I guess until we started to experience what lockdown was like, suddenly again the play took on a relevance. I mean the last week of performing, when the, the sort of talk of the virus was, was emerging y’know in, in our world, and y’know I’d been speaking these lines for ten weeks as the doctor talking about a pandemic, and he’s turned to drink and he can’t deal with the trauma of losing patients, and suddenly the relevance was, was very high. But also in lockdown, I suddenly realised ‘now I understand what these characters have been going through’. So the – the chance to come back and, and sort of bring all of that experience into y’know, the re-staging of the play film was, y’know, it was really special to be able to do that.

It was really moving at the beginning, because you see your fabulous co-cast members returning to the theatre in face masks, and it was quite easy to find yourself a bit choked. What it a very emotional reunion?

It was because I was not able to be there. *Laugh* ‘Cause I’d just flown in from New York like with, with literally hours to spare before I had to lockdown for two weeks quarantine. So I couldn’t do that, I – I had to join a read-through on a computer via. a Zoom call, so I felt like I was being held back away from my friends and fellow actors. Which was useful for the doctor, ‘cause when he comes back into that house, that’s sort of what’s been happening to him. But every moment there was something to hang on to in terms of the emotions and, and what we’ve all been through.

The – the dialogue is so brilliantly natural, especially from a, a newbie to this world. And I, I think you describe yourself at the beginning, as Dr. Astrov, as feeling a bit wonky-

Yeah.

-and then we hear Toby Jones’ Uncle Vanya complaining about various people wanging on, and-

*Laugh*

-it’s brilliant, it’s moments that make you giggle, and I just wondered how important you think these linguistic touches are to help the drama engage a new audience?

Well it’s always gonna be a translation because we’re not performing in the original Russian, and y’know, that depends on which playwright decides to tackle it, and we were so lucky with Conor McPherson, ‘cause there’s a little bit of the Irish kind of glint in his eye that comes through that dialogue um, so these, these little touches make it feel like we’re just – it’s just us, it’s not y’know, characters a hundred years ago in a stuffy drawing room. These are, these are – it’s us y’know. We’re still the same, and we’re still dealing with the same problems, um weirdly within the state of – within the space of three months those same problems seem to be sort of really prominent, and rather than watching people dealing with a pandemic in a collapsing environment and thinking ‘Oh, that was an interesting history lesson’, it feels like ‘Oh, this is now, these are still things that we are having to, having to navigate right now’.

Whilst I’ve – I’ve read that you don’t necessarily identify as purely a, a method actor, you have talked in the past about how deeply you try to embody the characters you play, and I just wondered how difficult it was to come back after the break and once again put on this skin of the frequently despairing Dr. Astrov?

Um, I came back with, *laugh*, with a taste for vodka that I’d-

*laugh*

-I’d maintained from doing the play, um I came back with no haircut, so y’know, I was – I was sort of *laugh*, I hadn’t put him down really to be honest. I’d, I’d thought about him a lot, and during the course of my research I’d found this diary of a doctor who had worked through his life and through various epidemics, and was really at the end of his tether as to what the point of medicine, and uh, I used a lot of his references to, to sort of try to understand what maybe our NHS workers were going through, and still are going through. Y’know, how do you – how do you go home at night after seeing people in such, y’know, such extreme circumstances without a cure. Y’know, that’s something that we find very difficult to get our heads around because there’s always a pill for something, there’s always a remedy. And these Russians were – were dealing with tuberculosis, for which there was no cure, and typhoid and, and having to, to y’know, having to deal with the fact that most of the time they were death sentences, and we – we have lost that, y’know, we – we have quite luxurious existences compared to them. So to, to be living with something which people don’t have answers has, has really shaken us up I think, and that’s contained in the play.

At the end of the production the matriarch, uh, Anna Calder-Marshall’s Nana, blows out the candles that light the stage and it, it felt to me as though she wasn’t only putting the – the play to bed, she was almost putting theatre life to bed in some way until this bleak winter is over. I just wonder how sad it is for you to see the way the arts are suffering in this pandemic.

It is really, really sad, and I – I, y’know, I’ve been able to carry on doing various kinds of work, but I, I know that there are a huge amount of people out there who work in those theatre buildings that only work in theatre, that can’t go back to work right now. But at the same time, I’m – I’m an optimist, and so I look towards Sonya’s speech about work, and we will endure this and we will come back. Y’know, it might be the middle of next summer, who knows, but I think when we’re – we’re all waiting to have those dust cloths pulled off us, y’know. Um, and we will see diamonds in sky and it, it will come back to us. But in the meantime we’ve just gotta find a way to survive this period, and most people that work in the arts do have ways of doing that, because there are periods of time where you find yourself not working and you have to be very resourceful. And I just hope people can hang on and they’ll – they’ll return when we all do.

Richard Armitage, I – I’m not surprised the run was sold out, Uncle Vanya, and my first experience with the play, my first experience with Chekov. It was absolutely brilliant and I loved every minute of it. I’m, I’m going to get my – my wife’s gonna watch it this weekend, and uh – I hope everyone takes the time to experience it, and just thank you so much for being on the program.

Thank you for having me. And just let me say that it’s the 27th of October and thereabouts for various screenings in your cinema, and going to the cinema is not a terrifying experience, I’ve done it. It’s – if you play by the rules and wear a mask, it’s, it’s actually like a little bit of normality.

Perhaps even sneak in a vodka *Laugh*

*Laugh* Absolutely.

Thank you, Richard.

Thank you.

---

Ah, Richard Armitage, such a legend, lovely guy to speak to. And I’d really recommend it, I’d, I’d heard of Uncle Vanya, and of course I’ve heard of Chekov, but forgive me being a bit of a film philistine, it’s not something I would’ve taken the time to investigate. It’s REALLY good. It’s really funny, it’s really fresh, it feels like a – it’s not a history lesson y’know, it feels, as Richard said, like you’re enjoying character speaking to each other now, and all the issues that they raise feel very current and contemporary. I loved it. Um, you can go to unclevanyacinema.com to find out where it’s playing, but it does certainly look like the Odeon Kettering and the Savoy in Corby will be showing it.

#going to see it tomorrow!!! so excited #richard armitage #uncle vanya

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thewooreview · 6 years

Text

how to smoke clear (aka smudge...)

Smoke has long been used as a form of alchemy to amplify your intentions. Incense burns and lifts prayers on altars in temples, mosques and churches everywhere. Burning sage has become so en vogue that you can buy bundles next to cell phone cases in large chain retailers.

Smoke clearing is often referred to as smudging by Westerns, but they’re not the same thing.

smoke clearing is not the same as smudging

While smoke clearing is ancient and universal, it’s not the same as smudging, a traditional Aboriginal practice. Calling your practice smudging if you are not Aboriginal is disrespectful.

Smudging involves a specific ceremony and treatment of the plant medicine, including keeping it away from alcohol and intoxicated people as well as menstruating women, who overpower the medicine while embodying their ability to bring life into the world. My close Metis friend of Cree heritage explained that she would never buy this medicine from a store, because she wouldn’t know how it had been treated or by who and was taught to give an offering to receive it (suck it consumerism).

On a visit to local spiritual shop the Good Spirit which sells sage and sweet grass, I was lucky to have a passing conversation with shop owner and 2013 National Aboriginal Entrepreneur of the Year Savannah Olsen when I asked for her perspective on the cultural appropriation of smudging. She mentioned that she’s First Nations and that the cultural appropriating of ‘smudging’, which Aboriginal people’s have been persecuted for and evicted from apartments for practicing, is comparable to white women wearing braids after a history of marginalizing black women for theirs. (Solange sings ‘Don’t touch my hair’.)

Savannah also referenced the difference between smoke clearing and smudging illustration, which I had serendipitously found shared in the comments of a post about DIY smudge bundles (again, problematic naming convention but is that only depending on who creates the bundle?)

ethical harvesting of white buffalo sage

I’ve also read contradicting arguments that white buffalo sage is over harvested and now endangered. There was an excellent Strange Magic podcast episode on creating an inclusive tarot practice in which Many Moons author Sarah Faith Gottesdiener discussed why she no longer uses sage in her practice.

Cultural smoke clearing practices use herbs native to their regions. The commercialization of sage for global consumption has caused problems of over harvesting due to the demand for it. I’ve also read that Aboriginal peoples had free access to the plant medicines which were abundant to their regions, so threatening its livelihood due to unethical harvesting is also an issue.

Honestly, I burn sage in my practice and intend on selling it at a flea market next year; however, I burn one leaf instead of an entire bundle. This is all you need (and thank you to Betsy Lafae for teaching me this through her always uplifting Instagram account.) You’d be surprised how much smoke one leaf creates and how long it will take you to use a small amount if you practice this way.

when to smoke clear

Here are some recommended time to smoke clear:

when moving into a new home/space

when starting a new job or venture

before / after guests are in your space (home and office)

before / after a yoga or healing session (I burn it before I go into a float pod)

before meditation (my goal is to do this every morning, starting with a sage leaf makes it extra special)

post argument or any illness

when coming home from crowded spaces

free your mind first

If you’re going to send your hopes and dreams out into the universe, you want to clear out your own energy and the vibes in the space around you to prevent anything unwelcome from creeping in.

Be sure to smoke clear with intent. Decide why you're taking this ritual time to be present with yourself. Are you clearing your space of energy or giving yourself a reset, focussing on your intentions and goals for the future, or simply enjoying a meditative moment?

Before you begin, take some deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth, clear your mind of any worries, and imagine connecting yourself to the earth with roots growing from your feet or the base of your spine before beginning. You can also meditate before the ritual.

tools you'll need

At the very least, you'll need some dried plants or herbs to burn and a way to light them on fire. Some people use a shell bowl to hold the lit element, and a feather wand to fan the smoke around into all of the corners, closets and crannies. These tools represent all four elements - earth (plant matter), air (feather), fire (lit ember), water (shell).

herbs to burn

Choose an herb that has properties to support your intention, you can also combine to amplify specific intentions.

sage - clearing energy (remember: one leaf will do it, you don't need a bundle)

palo santo - blessing, healing, calling in guides

cedar - evergreen and strong, use for security, structure and support

juniper - clarification, protection and purification

mugwort - to signal arrivals and departures, or to create movement

lavender - to clear and uplift, or to relax

rose - for love, luck, grief or healing intentions

sweet grass - for peace and healing

If you want to do a thorough clear and protection of your space, start at the front door and work counter clockwise through the space, moving the smudge smoke counter clockwise at any doors. Focus on clearing energy in this direction. Repeat going clockwise around the space and again at each doorway to welcome in new energy and intentions. You can also say this cleansing prayer, either in thought or out loud.

enjoy the vibes you’ve created

I made the realization today that almost everyone I'm close with in my life at this point is spiritual in some way. The link between happiness and connection to something greater has been scientifically studied. I like to give a podcast a listen for inspo after a smoke clearing session. It's a great way to fill your space with positive vibes and intentions.

My fave podcasts to listen to for good vibes include:

Dream Freedom Beauty by Natalie Ross

Strange Magic by Sarah Faith Gottesdiener, Amanda Yates Garcia, + Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs

Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations, featuring a huge range of talented people talking about their connection to spirit

Tarot for the Wild Soul with Lindsay Mack

Photo by Brit Gill

#energy clear #ritual #energy cleanse

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bffsoobin · 4 years

Text

Windflower

01| 02|03|04|05|06

↳ after a heartbreak you find yourself in a small town looking for purpose. you find employment with Choi Soobin and his impressive ancestral home. when you start to fall in love again, there’s no way for you to predict what you find in the depths of the home and Soobin’s mind.

➤ hanahaki au, fluff, angst

Word Count: 2,438

Warnings: Light swearing, Soobin being a cutie pie, me not proofreading. I think that’s it??

A/N: This does include the writing that was part of the preview post I made, but it is the first official chapter of Windflower! Please know that genre and warnings will change with every chapter I post! I also don’t quite have an upload schedule, sorry about that!! Hope you all enjoy nonetheless!

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•

Your car groaned in protest as you turned into the parking lot of the quaint diner. Giving the dashboard two loving yet harsh hits with the palm of your hand seemed to do the trick. Now silent, the beat up blue car seemed to quietly thank you as you settled between the white painted lines of a parking space and shut off the engine. It was a gray, overcast day but humidity hung in the air wherever you went, making your hair puffy and the back of your legs stick to the cracking leather of your driver’s seat. Heaving a sigh at the uncomfortable stickiness, you pulled down the mirror from the roof of your car to survey the reflection staring back at you.

It’s a startling thing, to look at yourself in a mirror and barely recognize your face. Your skin was dull and starting to break out, the bags under your eyes had seemingly never been more prominent than they were in this moment. Your fingers danced over the darkened skin, wondering at what point of your trip you began to look so worn down. Was it the moment you left your apartment? The twelve hours of mindless driving with no destination in mind? Or had this degeneration begun the moment you found yourself completely alone in life?

You snapped the mirror back up against the roof and rubbed your hands over your face. Mindlessly, you pushed through the items littering your passenger seat until you clasped the familiar quilted fabric of your wallet. As soon as you stood up outside of your car, a wave of dizziness sent you grasping at the top of your car for support. You needed food more than you had originally estimated. Your legs were still a bit shaky from disuse as you walked toward the small white building. Portions of the paint had peeled off in jagged strips to expose the tightly stacked brown bricks waiting underneath. The simple clear door displayed a sun-faded open sign with handwritten hours of operation. As soon as you pushed the door open, the smell of grease and fresh apple pie invaded your senses and your face involuntarily shrunk up in disgust. Another thick paper sign attached on a tarnished metal stand boasted a cheerful cursive that read “Please Seat Yourself!” You could hear a radio playing faintly from somewhere in the building.

Almost every booth in the rectangular dining area was vacant, save for one elderly couple sharing a plate of fries. The floor was sticky under your feet as you made your way to a booth, and whether the texture was a result of the humidity or a lack of cleaning, you couldn’t tell. Sliding into the booth was familiar, almost comforting as you thought back to all of the times you had slid into booths with your friends at dinner, or slid yourself into a booth at the coffee shop near your apartment to work on a paper. Well. Your old apartment. The thought of adjusting to past tense created a scowl on your face as an unsuspecting waitress approached your side. She cleared her throat and caught your attention. To your surprise, she was fairly young, maybe in her late 30s; and she stood in her bright blue blouse and skirt uniform with a cock to her hip and a serving tray tucked under her arm.

“Hi, hun. My name is Melissa, what can I get ya?” the woman’s tone was deceivingly cheerful, given the slow restaurant and heavy air. You heaved a sigh and looked down at the thin paper menu. It wilted in your hand as you picked it up and you soon abandoned the idea of even trying to read through it.

“Hi. A vanilla milkshake and fries, please.” The order was so simple that Melissa didn’t even write it down, just nodded and turned to head into the kitchen to relay your order. A dull buzz warned you of the beginning of a headache but you expertly pushed the feeling aside and decided to ask for a glass of water when she came with your order. Mindlessly, you began searching your phone for places to stay in the tiny town you had stumbled upon. This hadn’t been the kind of place you expected to end up for the summer, but you were never one to plan anything. Enthralled in your scrolling through motel listings, Melissa scared you as she set your order down in front of you. She caught a look at your phone and your face flushed in embarrassment. How much of an obvious tourist could you be? You asked for a glass of water in an attempt to shoo her away, but when she came back with a glass covered in condensation she didn’t leave.

“Not from around here?” it was a rhetorical question, but you gave her props for trying to ease you into the conversation. You shook your head, not really caring to elaborate on where you came from as you shoved a few fries into your mouth.

“I don’t usually talk to customers like this, but; well, we’re dead today and I saw you looking at places to stay on your phone. I don’t recommend any of them. Especially not to a young pretty girl like you. Most of them are way too pricey for their rooms. And the Moonlight motel is literally run by a druglord. He’d gobble you up,” she shivered at her own words.

“Well, where should I stay, then? Unless I missed a Best Western on the way in, I don’t have many other choices,” you deadpanned, hoping to hide the nervousness that was rising in your stomach. If you didn’t stay here, where would you go? But then again, why do you want to stay here so bad in the first place? You took a slurp of your milkshake as you contemplated.

“Look, it’s sort of a town secret, but you remind me of my niece, so I’ll just tell you now. There’s this estate- gated, two story house, old timey stuff, gorgeous garden” Melissa waved her hands around as she spoke, chipped red fingernails putting on a show of their own. “It’s called the Flower House, actually. It’s been passed from generation to generation, since the town was founded. The boy who owns it now is just about your age, but he’s been living there alone since his cousin moved away for college years ago. He’s a lovely boy, we love when he comes into town, it just isn’t often.” you raised your eyebrows at her, trying to figure out how this mysterious boy and his ancestral house had anything to do with your housing predicament. “Long story short, he came around a few weeks ago looking for anyone who would be willing to help him keep the house and yard clean. No pay, but it’s free living in a beautiful home. And he’s not bad looking either.” she winked suggestively. “If you want, I can give you the address and you can go talk to him?”

You looked into her eyes, sparkling with hope of giving you a helping hand. “Okay, yeah. Sure, what have I got to lose?” Melissa hurried away to get writing materials as you continued eating with renewed vigor.

As Melissa cleared your minimal dishes away, she set a ripped piece of paper in front of you that simply read;

“Choi Soobin, 476 Gardenia Dr.”

After paying and being sure to leave your helpful waitress a generous tip, you hopped back in your car and began your journey to discover the mysterious Flower House.

The drive through town was oddly peaceful, even with the grumbling of your car to accompany you alongside the pop songs on the radio. Air whipped into your windows as you drove by houses, small restaurants and one single chain grocery store where everyone seemed to be shopping. Stopping at an intersection with a single blinking stoplight, your phone instructed you to turn left. You passed the town’s schools, elementary and highschool; all huddled onto one campus with a large parking lot separating the two. The electric sign posted reminders of the last day of school for the students as you sped by. The farther you got away from the school, the older the houses became. Some were rotting apart, others covered in creeping vines. The street gradually slanted upwards as you continued to drive towards your destination. At the end of Gardenia Drive stood a towering home with a multitude of windows circling the entire building. A large chimney stood out on the top, one of the only signs of the home’s age; as the outside was wonderfully kept. The most impressive feature was of course the garden, for which the house gained its nickname. Your mouth hung open as you tried to fathom the sheer amount of flowers that were in full bloom on the front lawn. Blues, pinks, purples, reds and whites all stitched together in a beautiful quilt of florals. Some ivy was growing up the old wrought iron gates and the trunks of a few towering trees. While the growth made other houses look dated and worn down, the ivy here only added to the elegance that took your breath away. With your car parked on the road right outside, you exited your car to approach the gates.

Fumbling with your hands, you navigated over the brick path leading up to the intimidating 10 foot tall gates. Despite the obvious history of the metal, a modern doorbell buzzer and camera system was installed just to the left of the entrance. It was harder than you’d like to admit to raise the courage for pressing the button. Your mind blanked as you performed the action, not knowing what to expect. A voice crackled through the speakers and made you jump.

“Who’s there?” a smooth voice inquired. Suddenly you were unsure of what to say.

“I, uh. I’m Y/N. A waitress at Russ’ Diner told me to come talk to you about an um.” your mouth was suddenly going dry. “A living arrangement?” A small exclamation of understanding was music to your ears.

“Okay! Hold on, I’ll be right over to the gate!” The static disappeared with the voice. You looked down at your phone out of habit and realized you had no reception. Figures, as you were sort of in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t matter right now anyway. You put the device in the back pocket of your shorts just as the gate began creaking open and welcoming you onto the property. You could faintly make out the shape of a body making its way toward you through the dense trees.

When he stepped into your line of sight, sunshine managed to peek through the thick blanket of clouds that had been permeating your entire visit and bask him in a wash of gold. He was tall, with long legs covered in the material of light wash skinny jeans. The knees were a bit dirty, and you recognized the stains as a mix of grass and dirt. He was wearing a simple white t-shirt that clung perfectly to his wide shoulders and showed off his defined waist.

Not only was he dressed in a way you definitely didn’t expect, but his looks threw you even farther into surprise. His face was evenly tanned, and not a single blemish could be found. Suddenly, you became all too aware of the dismal state of your own complexion and fought the urge to bring a hand up to cover your face from him. Dark, hooded eyes examined your form as you stood awkwardly on the path and waited for his next words. He seemed amused by your lack of introduction, and chuckled a little as he asked, “Y/N?”

Hearing your name broke the spell that his beauty had put you under and you nodded. His face lit into a smile as he beckoned you further onto the land with a waving hand. You followed him closely and caught his words as they floated in the wind back to you. “I’m Soobin. This house belonged to my great-great-great uncle and his wife. Well, wives.” He chuckled to himself as he led you into a gazebo. Soobin settled into one of the wooden chairs situated around a matching table and gestured for you to sit in the one across from him. A pit of nervousness built in your stomach at the close proximity between the two of you. The table was only three feet wide, and Soobin’s long leg stretched in front of him and decreased your distance even more. Up close, you could see the permanent upturn of the corners of his mouth, and the sparkle in his brown eyes.

His honey brown hair ruffled in the breeze that passed you by and he closed his eyes at the feeling for a moment. “So,” he began suddenly, “you were at Russ’? Who sent you my way for the job?” He clasped his hands together and rested his chin on the new structure. He blinked owlishly as you took a deep breath.

“Yeah, I just came into town for the summer. Melissa served me and she told me that all of the motels here are pretty shit,” Soobin laughed and nodded at that, and your heart skipped a beat. “So she gave me your info. Said you might be able to give me a better place to stay if I helped you out.”

“Ah, I see. Melissa is right, though. Those motels are awful. I definitely wouldn’t want to see you staying there.” He appraised your face for a second while he paused. “If you want the job, it’s yours.” He stated as if it were the most casual thing in the world. You sputtered.

“Wait, what? That quick? You don’t even know anything about me! I could be a murderer!” He laughed openly at you now, and the sound stirred an emotion in your stomach you hadn’t felt in months.

“Well, are you? A murderer?”

“No! Of course not.” Soobin nodded and crossed his arms over his chest.

“So, can you clean? Cook a decent meal? Drive to the city for groceries? Water some plants?” You nodded at every question he raised and watched as his smile upticked more with every bob of your head.

“Then you’re perfect. Welcome to the Flower House.” He stood, frame towering over your still sitting being and offered you a strong looking hand. Ticking his head toward the massive home behind him, he grinned. “Tour?”

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stranger-who-writes-fiction · 3 years

Text

Alright HERE WE GO...SOME PRESS!

By which I mean, Tom King was on ComicPop discussing Supergirl! So we have CONTEXT AND BACKGROUND INFO! WOO!

Gonna get into it below, but my recommendation, as always: the best way to have an informed opinion is to get the info firsthand, so don’t just take my word for it! Go forth! Watch the thing! (Language advisory, though. There is some swearing.)

Okay. With that out of the way, LET’S GO!

Gonna lead off with a summary of the Supergirl bits, as they discuss a variety of things, from Strange Adventures to Batman/Catwoman to the canned New Gods project:

How Tom King came to be the writer of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow:

King’s longtime editor, Jaime Rich, was moved from the Bat books to the Super books.

King, historically, likes to take on characters that ‘need help.’ He cites the example of Kirby who, upon coming to DC, asked what their lowest-selling title was, which is how he ended up on Jimmy Olsen.

So, when King asks which character needs help, Rich, to King: Supergirl. We have trouble selling that book.

King, describing Supergirl: ‘She’s singular in a way Mr. Miracle and Vision are not.’ Says that if you ask any four year old who Supergirl is, they know.

Editors asked him, ‘what’s your take? what are you gonna do with her?’

King then discusses the difference between his approach to Bat people vs. Super people.

Bat people: It’s a deconstruction approach. King brings up Kite Man from his Batman run. You tear the character down and build them back up, a la Dark Knight Returns

Super people: It’s not about deconstruction. Let them be themselves. They’re wonderful, let them be wonderful.

But he does mention sort of stripping down the character to their purest form; he describes it as chiseling off the barnacles that have built up on the character, over the years.

Additionally, he says ‘evil doesn’t work for the Super family of characters.’

He mentions Superman: Up in the Sky. He says that there’s deep stuff in Up in the Sky, but the theme of every page is simply: Superman is awesome.

King: “I don’t want to make Kara mean or sad. I want to test her.”

The host compares ‘angry Kara’ stories to ‘evil Superman’ stories in that there are many of them, such to the point that people think Kara is relatable because she’s miserable and angry all the time.

The host: I don’t get that.

(Same dude, same.)

King talked to Steve Orlando

They discussed the fact that Supergirl knew her planet; the people who died were her friends, family, classmates.

King summarizes Kara’s original Silver Age origin: she witnessed three huge, traumatic losses of life. First, when Krypton exploded. Then again when the Kryptonite started killing Argo residents, and then again when the meteorites destroyed the lead shielding that was keeping Argo safe.

King: “That’s some f-ing trauma! I don’t know if you’ve read my books, but I love the trauma in characters.”

King thus describes Kara as world-weary, she swears, ‘she has seen some sh*t’.

On the new character, Ruthye:

She’s a child on a vengeance quest.

She’s named after King’s niece, Ruthie.

The pronunciation for the comic character, though, is Ruth-Eye.

One of his sons told him to add the ‘e’ on the end to make it look cooler.

Further discussion of Kara herself:

King noted that there’s sometimes a tendency to be very precious with the character.

King: ‘Let’s not be precious with Supergirl.’

This is not the story of a sixteen-year-old girl discovering the world; King says that Supergirl has been that sixteen-year-old for a long time now.

He describes it more as a move from Supergirl to Superwoman.

Art and Influences:

Talking about the red sun planet that Kara visits for her twenty-first birthday, King says he was reading a lot of Conan, which influenced the look of that portion of the story.

The impetus for getting Evely on the book: King said his editor emailed him, ‘Hey, how about Bilquis?’ King: “And I did a happy dance!”

Evely sent King a mood board of the types of things she wanted to draw; Moebius, Kirby, Wally Wood, landscapes in particular.

Also, King says Evely is fast! She’s already halfway through the book, art-wise, and King is confident the book will release on time.

The host asked him, following up on King’s description of the book as a fantasy/western, ‘Is this True Grit?’

King: “It’s True Grit inspired. The novel AND the movie.”

If asked to give the Hollywood pitch: ‘It’s True Grit in space with Supergirl as Rooster Cogburn.’

Details about this book, as compared to Other Tom King titles:

He’s using captions on this comic--he’d thrown out captions as a storytelling device after Batman, but he found a ‘good voice’ for this comic.

King was prepared to do his usual twelve issues, but they said no one buys Supergirl comics, so it’s eight issues.

King says that Strange Adventures, Rorschach, and to a lesser extent, Batman/Catwoman, were written at a time when the world felt very apocalyptic.

He considers them to be angrier books; they are about what happens when evil is in our life, and how we deal with that.

Supergirl is the start of the ‘next generation’ of titles.

It was written during the pandemic, but King hoped that by the time it was released, the pandemic and this very dark time in our history would be past.

He says it’s a ‘roaring 20s’ book. Not about anger, or trauma, it’s about stepping into the future and kicking a**.

THUS CONCLUDES the Supergirl portion of the interview.

Okay, so! Now that we’ve been objective and presented the information in a straightforward, unbiased manner...SOME THOUGHTS AND OPINONS!

The thing I was most curious about was how King got the book, so I was EXTREMELY PLEASED to get the full story.

This wasn’t like. King desperately wanting to do a Supergirl book, nor was it DC coming to King like, ‘Take Supergirl!’

Sadly, it was, ‘which book needs the most help right now? In the Superman lineup?’

He even said that Supergirl was kind of just sitting around, no one was doing anything with her/there were no plans.

(So the idea that King stole this opportunity from a woman is not true. There were NO PLANS.)

(Also it’s not based on the FS stuff, I suspect they gave the FS team some ideas from his pitch to work with, as that entire event was sort of a stop-gap/fill-in as they hurried to relaunch their line.)

Anyways!

My initial thought that this is DC’s attempt to sell some dang Supergirl books? Not that far off! XD

Boy, I hope it works.

(Important to note: This is not news. Supergirl has historically always sold poorly. I’ve heard from actual Supergirl writers that the trades do not sell, which is a huge problem.

So King, who is KNOWN for having really good trade sales, is as solid a gamble as they could probably hope for.

He said Superman: Up in the Sky is his third best-selling trade. A WAL-MART BOOK! Is just behind Vision and Mr. Miracle!

Basically: If this doesn’t work, I don’t know that anything will.)

As for the specifics of King’s take in particular!

Again...I really want to see it, before I pass judgement on it.

I liked the Andreyko run! And that was pretty edgy!

Also, we have never seen a twenty-something Kara, post-Crisis. She’s always been a teenager. Thus I’m pretty willing to go along with this approach because it’s entirely new territory.

And it does seem like King is enjoying leaning into the idea of a Super who swears and kicks butt and is just a little ‘done’ with it all.

It might not mesh with my ideal Kara but again. I need to see it, before I come to any firm conclusions.

Honestly the thing that gives me the most pause? Is that King says this book really focuses on Supergirl, not Kara, which is a more recent identity for her.

(That is somewhat true! The ‘Kara Danvers’ identity is wholly new to the show; she’s always been Linda Lee, Linda Danvers, Kara Kent, or Linda Lang, when she has a secret identity. Sometimes she doesn’t.)

(Also of note: Tom pronounces it ‘Care-a’, like the cartoon.)

(PERSONALLY I like KAHr-a, like in the show, because it creates a phonetic consistency with ‘KAHl-el’ but that’s not really relevant to a comic book. You can mentally pronounce it however you choose! XD)

So, yeah, I like the Kara Danvers part of her identity, I like earth-bound Supergirl stories, but. This isn’t that. Which I’ll need to make peace with, I guess. XD

Otherwise? Tell me a story, Mr. King. Even if I hate it, Evely will draw it beautifully, Lopes will color it masterfully, and that’s half the battle, right there.

I’m sad King didn’t mention the Gates/Igle run! But I also understand he’s probably been looking at more recent stuff; those Gates/Igle comics are fifteen years old, oh man, oh geez, how are they that old already.

King did confirm that this is 100% in-continuity, and will affect the character going into the future.

But, IDK, given the sort of. Grim beginnings of how this book came to be, what with the reminder that the Supergirl title doesn’t sell well...who knows what the future will look like, for Kara!

I stand by my guess that Kara will graduate to ‘Superwoman’ and the Supergirl mantle will pass to someone else, maybe Ruthye? She might be a bit young, though.

Mmm. What else, what else?

Oh, this is pretty funny, IMO: when King first teased the new character, Ruthye, a bunch of SG fans rushed to google to see if there was any clue as to like. What it could mean.

And they freaked out over some obscure connection where that name appears but hey, turns out! It’s just a made up name! Based on King’s niece!

It’s funny because SG fans never learn, man. Just chill out, read the dang book, then get all upset and huff and puff and blow your twitter house down.

They briefly mentioned the Peter David run; King said the PAD stuff was great.

He’s already teased that ‘treat’ and, okay. Time for some rumination on that specifically.

I’ve read the whole PAD run. It wasn’t my cup of tea, I don’t really like the DnD, angels and demons stuff. Also, it wasn’t Kara; it’s an entirely different character who uses the name ‘Supergirl.’

Also, stuff from that run didn’t age well.

And on top of that, PAD turned out to be...kind of a jerk! As so many folks in the comic industry are.

There’s also...an extremely weird, mean-spirited vibe through the whole back half of the run; I thought maybe I was imagining it at the time, but I recently went back to “Many Happy Returns”, the final story arc of the title, and David’s introduction in the trade...it doesn’t read like a guy who was in it for the love of the character, you know?

All of which to say! I’m not excited about connections to the PAD stuff.

But I know a lot of fans who love that run, love that version of the character.

So like. Eh! Not for me, but to the folks who enjoy it, I hope it’s cool/fun, whatever it is.

(Still think it’ll be a variant or an easter egg or something, but we’ll see.)

(Oh, hmmm! Evely *did* post a WIP of like. Some creepy skull gate that they presumably encounter...hmmmmm.)

Okay, this is crazy long, and there’s no fun art or anything to go with it--OR IS THERE?!?!?!

BOOM. From Bilquis Evely’s twitter today. (GO. FOLLOW. HER. FOR THE GOOD ART.)

(LIKE!!! I look at this and I just! Can’t! Bring myself to not be hyped as all heck! LOOK AT THIS! AND iT’S JUST THE PENCILS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

God, wish that Supergirl sold better, so we could get a full year of this. HNNNNGGGGGGG.

Oh! That was another thing King discussed in detail; that 8 is way different from his usual 12, in terms of pacing and story. The beats fall at different places (obviously) so it was a bit of a challenge for him.

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it...maybe 8 will be good. Issue 10 just dropped for Strange Adventures, and wow, it has felt LONG. (I mean, the last four? Three? issues are also bi-monthly so that doesn’t help but. Still.)

(Superman: Up in the Sky was twelve issues but half the length, because it was a Wal-Mart book, so it was more like six.)

OKAY! For real, I’ve gone on long enough. XD

SOON. Soon. June 15th, to be exact. Mark yer calendars!

#stranger speaks #supergirl: woman of tomorrow #long post #LONG!#dc comics

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letterboxd · 3 years

Photo

Found Family.

Riders of Justice writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen opens up to Aaron Yap about grimly funny fairy-tales, woke teenagers and creating an accidental Christmas movie with hunky muse, Mads Mikkelsen.

“Genres, that’s just a sales tool really. That’s to give people, show people, ‘are we having sushi or are we having Italian?’ Sometimes I like it when you don’t know what you’re getting.” —Anders Thomas Jensen

It’s stupidly easy to sell writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen’s new film Riders of Justice on its thirsty pulp appeal alone. Who can resist the promise of Danish acting force Mads Mikkelsen finally getting a decent John Wick-ish vehicle of his own, stoically meting out anguished, bloody vengeance to a cadre of underworld thugs? Certainly not, among many Letterboxd members, Harlequinade, who was moved to write this ode:

“MikkelGod sporting a bushy beard MikkelGod wearing a military uniform MikkelGod wearing a suit MikkelGod having this whole silverfox daddy thing going on MikkelGod killing a man with his big beautiful bare hands MIKKELGOD 🤗🙏🏻😍”

But to dismiss Riders of Justice as another entry in the seemingly endless slew of action-revenge pics would also be to undersell its other layers. Much more than Wick, your average Liam Neeson thriller-of-the-month, or even the recent avenging-dad flick, Nobody, Riders positions itself in a more emotionally and psychologically rewarding space, one perhaps closer to its tonally fluid South Korean counterparts. “What lingers,” Douglas Davidson writes, “are the questions Anders presents and the strange hopefulness that flickers upon the credits roll, burning like the embers of a dying fire in the darkness of night.”

It’s of a piece with all of Jensen’s directorial work thus far. A prolific screenwriter who’s penned everything from soulful early Susanne Bier heartbreakers to the recently misfiring The Dark Tower adaptation, Jensen, as a director, has found a sharply honed groove in the form of grimly funny, genre-defying modern fairy-tales populated by oddball characters forced to contend with the chaos of the inscrutable cosmos around them.

Causality plays an even more pronounced role in Riders. The film’s unlikely heroes—hard-bitten special forces soldier Markus Hensen (Mikkelsen) and a trio of bumbling data wizards (Lars Brygmann and Jensen regulars Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Nicolas Bro)—are drawn together to take down a vicious biker gang, but also preoccupied with processing the hows and whys of grief and trauma, and of course, the value of revenge.

Amid the terse blasts of gunfire, the film foregrounds scenes of connection and healing between its characters, an assortment of progressive teens and bumbling middle-aged men whose unusual found-family dynamic recalls Jensen’s previous dark, offbeat comedies like Adam’s Apples and Men and Chicken. As More_Baddass writes, the film gifts us some “Christmastime therapy of an unorthodox family”.

Over Zoom, we spoke about whether it’s possible to make Mikkelsen less handsome, why Denmark won’t be getting a sci-fi blockbuster anytime soon, and the time that Jensen and a friend tried to break the Guinness World Record for movie-watching.

‘Riders of Justice’ cast members Lars Brygmann, Andrea Heick Gadeberg, Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Nicolas Bro.

Riders of Justice is one of your more action-packed films. Did you watch any other action flicks, or were there any specific movies that inspired you while you were designing and creating the action in this film? Anders Thomas Jensen: It’s funny, because it’s always subconscious. I never look for inspiration directly because for me, that would be weird to do because then you’re just copying. Definitely in the back of my mind, there’s a lot of action movies and a lot of revenge movies that I’ve seen in the past that will work their way in there. The process for me is very, how do you say, unconscious? What’s it called?

Intuitive? Intuitive, that’s the word. Thank you. First of all, a revenge movie is not easy, but it always has a strong lead and it has a strong will, which is obviously really good if you want to do a script that moves forward. Hamlet is a revenge story, right? I love Once Upon a Time in the West. I love that. The Searchers. The Sting, I guess, is also a revenge movie. Also, there’s so much identification in people who are wronged.

Wish fulfilment. Yeah that too. It’s one of the obviously basic human feelings. Revenge, love. There are these emotions that you’ll do dramas based on long after we were here.

I understand that you took a break from directing for a while and you were spending time raising your family. I’ve noticed, with Men & Chicken and Riders of Justice there’s a lot of attention paid to parenthood, and the role of the parent. Was that intentionally woven into these narratives and something you were thinking of? Yeah. I don’t do it on purpose, but I can definitely see that every movie I ever made I’m very much a part of it. So the whole father story is part of my life in this movie. I have a teenage daughter who I sometimes feel like … I don’t at all have the emotional tools that she and her friends have. This new woke generation that I’m aware of; every single feeling and the environment and everything. I was brought up in a different way. So that’s quite personal in the story, the whole ‘father who has to learn how to communicate through feelings when he’s not very good at it’.

Mads Mikkelsen and Andrea Heick Gadeberg in a scene from ‘Riders of Justice’.

Would you consider Riders of Justice a Christmas movie? Well, it’s so funny because I didn’t see it at all before one of my editors said. No, I wouldn’t because I didn’t pay attention to it at all. The only reason it ends on Christmas is because that’s the perfect coming together of a family. I needed it in the end, but it could have been Easter, but it wasn’t. Perhaps it is a Christmas movie now because it does have Christmas in it.

What was the first film that made you want to be a filmmaker? There are several, but I think the first time I had was Lawrence of Arabia. I saw that when I was very little, when I perhaps shouldn’t have seen it. But when I was around ten, I got a bootleg copy of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. VCRs were a brand new thing and we got a VCR. I saw that film every day for half a year and I still know every line in it. It’s not getting out of my head. I love that film and I think from there on, I knew that I wanted to do films.

As a screenwriter, do you have any other screenwriters that you respect and admire? I have many. Billy Wilder is one of my favorites. Also, Ingmar Bergman, the Coen Brothers, Robert Towne, but many others also. There are a lot of good screenwriters.

I can see elements of those writers coming through your work, especially the first three. You’re really good at blending elements from different genres and putting strange characters together. Are there any other genres you want to explore that you haven’t yet? Well, it’s funny because every time I open up a new streaming service, I look for sci-fi movies first. I’m part of the Academy and when I get the screeners, I’m always checking for sci-fi. I have a love for sci-fi, but unfortunately I’m born in a country where doing a sci-fi film would just be insane. It’s never been done. If you have a really big budget, you have five to six million here. So it’s just something that won’t happen. But of course, you could get ambitious and write a sci-fi movie and hope you could do it somewhere else. I hope one day [to] do a good sci-fi movie, or at least something within that genre because it is a favorite.

But I also have to say, basically, I love all genres. Perhaps not rom-com that much, but I really like Westerns. I like war movies, revenge movies, dramas. I love to mix genres. Every time I do a movie, I get this from the distributors: “What are we going to call it?” Because it is this mix of genres. Genres, that’s just a sales tool really. That’s to give people, show people, “are we having sushi or are we having Italian?” So people don’t get confused. But I think sometimes I like it when you don’t know what you’re getting. That’s also what I love about the Coen Brothers and other directors that play with genres, is that I never know where it’s going.

‘Riders of Justice’ writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen.

Let’s talk a little about Danish cinema. You have your Lars von Trier, you have your Vinterberg and Susanne Bier. Is there an older Danish film that you would recommend that people should see? I actually thought about it and it’s going to sound arrogant, but I couldn’t find one. Not when I compare to what else is out there of American, French, Italian, British, German, Russian and Asian. No, there isn’t. Of course there’s Carl Dreyer. He’s an icon in early, early cinema. That’s the obvious thing to say, but no. For me, Danish cinema starts in the ’90s. Also, I haven’t watched many Danish movies before that, because there aren’t that many. Some people will hate me for saying this, but that’s how I feel.

Are there any recent Danish films or filmmakers that you can recommend? This year I saw a film called Shorta, which was great. It was made by two directors with no budget, about two cops venturing into this Muslim part of Copenhagen where there’s a riot. That was really a promising debut. Also, I really like the idea they had. They made a lot of great stuff visually and for almost no money.

What are your movie-watching habits? You said when you turn on a streaming service, you look out for sci-fi movies. Do you have any other weird behaviors? It’s crazy, but if I really like a movie, I see it many times. I also see it many times where I do not look at it. I hear it. I will just lie with my back to it and just hear the movie. Actually, if the movie is really good, it also works without the picture.

I think that’s [as] weird as it gets, otherwise I’m pretty much normal. I used to binge-watch. Actually, I tried to get into a Guinness Book of Record with a friend when I was fifteen, where, for five days continuously, we watched movies. I can’t remember if it was 107 movies. We watched movies and we had a video store sponsor us. We were lying in an all-night video store, and just saw films until we collapsed. That’s the craziest thing I’ve done, but we never got into the book because there are people that are better at not sleeping, so somebody else beat the record by far.

Do you have a list, or a record of what you watched? No, but there was a journalist that asked us what number afterwards. He asked me, “What film was the film number? 47, 46?” I remember him being very impressed that I could differentiate them.

It would have made a great Letterboxd list. Preserve it for eternity. The funny thing is years after I would actually see a film, and I would get an hour into it and I would go, “Oh, I’ve seen this one.” It was because when I saw the last 30 films, I was unconscious.

I need to ask about Mads Mikkelsen because he’s massive with our community. You’ve worked with him for quite a long time now, so you’ve got a pretty solid working relationship. Having just watched a number of your films in a short period of time, it was impressive that you found that range in him that maybe other filmmakers haven’t tapped into. Is there a type of role that you want to see him in that he hasn’t had a chance to play yet? Yes. There are many roles, but I don’t know. I could put a job description or a feeling on it, but it’s much more complicated with Mads, I think. We have this common thing that we love exploring people who lie to themselves, whether it’s comedy or drama. People who are not being honest with themselves and people who have this screwed up self-image, which in all the films we’ve done together, his character has. There are many other characters I would love to explore with Mads.

His looks are quite specific in each film. He just looks like a different person each time, which is great. You just want to see how he is going to look in the next one. His wife is like that too. She’s always excited and she was so happy this time because he wasn’t ugly. Normally he doesn’t look very well, like in The Green Butchers. Because he’s so handsome, so I try to do him not so handsome.

Riders is the hunkiest he’s been in your films, I guess. Definitely. The competition isn’t tough, though. You’re up against a guy who masturbates and a guy with a bad receding hairline. But it is by far his most hunky.

Related content

Softspacedad’s annotated rundown of 46 Mads Mikkelsen films, and ‘Mads Mikkelsen movies ranked based on how good of a father he is’

‘Mads Mikkelsen is filled with rage and has only one eye’, a list by King

Onebear’s lists of all Danish movies released within each cinematic year since 2009

Anders’ list of films by Danish directors or in the Danish language

Leyner’s list of Danish films nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Film

Mikkel’s list of Danish Christmas films

Follow Aaron on Letterboxd

‘Riders of Justice’ is screening now in select US theaters and available on demand. Images courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

#anders thomas jensen #mads mikkelsen #mads #danish cinema #danish director #danish film #riders of justice #revenge movie #revenge film #action films #action film #denmark #the green butchers #men & chicken #letterboxd

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maidenof-thesea · 5 years

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Snakes & Butterflies | Part VIII

Pairing: Jimin x Reader

Genre: Soulmate Au!, Fluff, Angst, Smut (in the future)

Words: 2.9k

Warning: minor swearing, angst lots of it, sorry:(

Note: Part 8 is here! This whole thing with Coronavirus has been insane! I hope you guys are safe in these hard times! I may not be able to do much but I’m here to talk if any of you need to talk. I’m sorry it took so long, I’m trying to code again and it takes up a lot of my free time, plus Netflix is my life right now. Hope you enjoy!

Reminder: * conversations in Korean *

Jimin

Do you know that feeling where you're afraid of what you're about to hear? It's like your heart just dropped into your stomach. You feel yourself begin to sweat and your hands are shaking? Well that’s what it feels like, I wouldn’t recommend it.

"What do you mean?" I asked feigning a smile, in spite of the overwhelming emotions swirling in my mind. "What exactly do you remember?"

Almost as if she was snapped out of a daze, Y/N swiped at her eyes. Confusion swirled in her eyes. She looks up at me and gives me a trembling smile.

"I'm sorry Jimin," she says, looking back at her arm where there were now multiple butterflies. "For some reason, l keep dreaming weird things , I'm sure they're just a mixture of memories and desires."

"Desires?!" I said loudly, earning a couple of glances. Her eyes widened in surprise and her face was blushing furiously.

" N-NO!" she stutters loudly herself and now people are whispering and walking away, giving us space. They must think we're arguing. "What I meant was that some of these dreams are just dreams, they don't make sense, but some feel like memories but some aspects are just impossible to be true."

"Like... have you ever had a dream where it feels so real?" she asks, not even waiting for my reply. She's rambling and it's cute. I had forgotten that she tends to do that when overwhelmed. It was endearing. "And then like something impossible happens, like the freeway becomes a rollercoaster?"

This time, she looked up at me and her eyes were pleading, almost as if she was begging for me to understand. Even though I knew exactly what she was talking about, I decided to tease her. I smirked and her face turned white.

“That depends on what you were dreaming about…” I drawled, raising my eyebrows suggestively. “What exactly were you ‘desiring’?”

She just about whined in frustration and she cutely stomped her foot. I couldn’t help but laugh at her expression. She crosses her arms and starts tapping her foot.

“I remember you and Kookie walking me home,” she mutters standing off to the side, sticking her finger out so a butterfly could land on it.

“What’s so bad about that?”

“Nothing,” she replies and it seemed as if she was going to drop the subject but she sighs dejectedly and continues. “In my dreams, for some reason I have a Mar- a different Mark. A butterfly Mark. That’s where the desire part comes in I guess.”

I clenched my fists and I felt anger burn in my chest.

The desire for a different Mark?

“Butterflies are really pretty,” she continues not sensing my anger. “Animal and weapon Marks are rare, I guess I wish I had a prettier one, rather than this sword..”

A pretty mark? As if her scarred Mark was such a burden for her. I wonder what she would think if she saw my Mark, what she did to me!

“Are you okay Jimin?” She says and she reaches out to hold my hand but I flinched away from her. Her eyes flash with hurt but they immediately show concern. Now she’s concerned? “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, you just been qui-”

“Excuse me,” I said coldly, not even giving her an explanation. I walked away heading towards the restroom. She stays frozen on the spot, her mouth opened in shock, a part of me felt guilty but who am I kidding there was a bigger part of me that felt smug. A dark part of me that wanted her to feel hurt, hurt for what she did to me.

I watch Jimin walk briskly away and I could have sworn, he left icy footprints on the ground, or maybe that was my vision going blurry from the tears pooling in my eyes.

“Hey Y/N,” Namjoon greets me. I furiously blink to keep the tears at bay, hoping he doesn’t notice my state. If he did, he made no comment. “Did you know that Monarch butterflies actually migrate along the western part of the US?”

“Really?” I said, wincing at how my voice wavered. “From where?”

“Mexico!” He exclaims excitedly. “Can we go-”

His phone chimes a weird sound and his eyebrows furrow.

Namjoon

There was a message from Jimin in our group chat, but it was our old group chat, the one excluding Y/N.

Chimchim [4:32pm]: Hey let’s go clubbing.

Taetae[4:32pm]: YASS

Maknae[4:33pm]: ...why are you using the old group chat?

WWHandsome[4:33pm]: I thought baby girl was gonna grill barbeque for us?

Hobi[4:34pm]: Yea, I saw all the meat in the fridge, she took it out to thaw…

Yoongi[4:38pm]: Maybe baby girl wants to go as well?

Only me and Jungkook noticed that Jimin sent the message to the old group chat. I take a quick glance at Y/N and she stood patiently waiting for me, her eyes glazed over as if she was in deep thought.

Me: Ill ask her right now.

Me: *I’ll

“Hey,” I said and she looked up at me. “So the boys were wondering if we could go clubbing?”

“Oh,” she said shrugging. “That’s fine! There’s lots of good clubs here in L.A, I could google some real quick for you guys.”

“Oh thanks, wait” I said in realization. “I meant to ask if you want to come along with us.”

“Oh, no thanks,” she says rubbing her arm. “I’m not a fan of clubs. And you guys don’t have to ask me for permission or anything…”

I stare blankly at her, cocking my head to the side. I have been asking her if we could go to places a lot. I guess I just wanted her to come along…

“Noona!” Jungkook says with a grin and a laughing Taehyung follows him, the rest of the hyungs following more slowly. “Are we gonna go clubbing?”

“You guys can go clubbing,” She smiles as she ruffles his hair. His smile is gone but before he could ask, Taehyung starts whopping excitedly and runs towards Jimin who was waving goodbye to a girl. Y/N’s posture goes frigid, and she looks away. “Do you guys want to go home so you can get ready?”

We all hum in agreement and she leads us to the car. Jimin and Taehyung talked excitedly, mostly Taehyung was excited. Jungkook walks next to Y/N and keeps glancing at her warily. I think most of us were feeling nervous.

“So who was that girl Jiminie?” Jin asked, his tone a bit teasing, but we all glanced at Y/N to gauge her reaction. She kept walking, but her pace was a bit faster.

“Who?” Jimin asks not really paying attention, texting on his phone.

“The one you were talking to,” Yoongi says and his tone has a hint of annoyance.

“Oh,” Jimin says with a smirk. “She just asked for my number. She was pretty huh?”

No one says anything, not even Taehyung, and that was strange enough as it was.

“She’s gonna meet us at some club,” Jimin continues. “She gave me the address, it’s actually more towards the beach house, it’s like some rave.”

I cleared my throat, I could literally feel the tension in the air. Jungkook’s fists were clenched, even in his pockets I could still tell. Jin looked as if he regretted asking in the first place. Yoongi, ever so blunt, was literally staring daggers at Jimin.

“Y/N,” Hobi says skipping ahead and hooking his arm with hers. “Are we still gonna have barbeque?”

She gives him a forced smile and nods. She unlocks the car and before Jin hyung could ask, she hands him the key and she jumps right into the very backseat, bringing her knees to her chest after putting her seatbelt on. Jungkook sits next to her and surprisingly, before Yoogi puts the seat back up, Taehyung also hops into the back next to Jungkook. Jimin’s eyebrows raise in surprise and just before he’s about to ask, Yoongi ushers him into the car and we start a very quiet ride back to the house.

By the time we arrived back at the house, Jungkook had fallen asleep on me, his nose tickling my neck everytime, he breathed in deeply. Taehyung on the other side of Jungkook was listening to music, in spite of Jimin turning around to talk to him.

I gently woke Jungkook the moment Jin started turning into the driveway, he whines and stretches, almost punching me and Taehyung in the process. I ruffle his hair and we patiently wait for Hobi to let us out, but before he could Jimin had already adjusted his seat so that we could get out. He had his sunglasses on but I could still feel his piercing gaze.

“Thanks,” I muttered, getting out and walking towards the front door, not really expecting a reply. Once in the house, the boys all collapsed onto the couch, Jin tucking Yuki onto his lap, in spite of how disgruntled she looked. Jimin headed straight upstairs. I proceeded to the kitchen and started to prepare for the barbeque. It was about six o’clock, which gave me two hours before my meeting with Minho.

Once I had season the meat and grabbed the meat Jungkook advised me to buy, I headed outside to the grill. Despite my protests, Jin had already started up the grill. We were by ourselves, a light ocean breeze and the sound of the waves lulling us into a comfortable silence. He didn’t try to initiate a conversation, to which I was grateful. I felt like there was a giant elephant in the house and I was confused to the unfamiliar emotions swirling through me.

It was clear as day to me that I was jealous, but I was confused as to why I felt that way about Jimin. Is it because we were childhood friends? From the daydream earlier, I remembered just how close we were, could it have been possible that I had a crush on him? Even so, to feel the same way about him now would be ridiculous. But still, I was jealous and another emotion swirled into my chest, causing my heart to ache.

“You’re burning your carne asada, baby girl,” Jin whispers into my ear and I jump about 3 feet into the hair. My face blazing in embarrassment, as I quickly flip the steak. He laughs and grabs a green bottle and pours himself a shot. It must be soju, no wonder he was being flirtatious. “Something on your mind?”

“I’m fine,” I say, clearing my throat loudly. “Are you sure you should be drinking? They should have beer or liquor at the club.”

“Oh,” Jin says, putting the now empty glass down. “I’m designated driver, I just thought I could have a shot since I was feeling a bit sad.”

“Sad?” I asked regarding him with confusion and with a bit of a pout. “Why are you sad?”

“Same reason as you.” Jin says flipping the strips of pork belly. “I’m feeling a bit lonely.”

“How do you know I feel lonely?”

“Earlier,” Jin explains. “When Jimin said that girl was pretty, I think we all were feeling a bit lonely, maybe not Yoongi or Hobi but I can’t wait for someone to call me pretty.”

I couldn’t help but laugh as he cracked a smile. I’m not gonna lie, he had me in the first half. I didn’t realize that I was that much of an open book. Jungkook and Taehyung then come out to proceed to start eating the pieces of meat we had already managed to grill.

“What’s so funny?” Taehyung asks with a bright smile as I slap Jungkook’s stingy fingers from my carne asada.

“Jin wants to be called a pretty girl,” I giggled and Jin starts to bat his eyes at Taehyung whose expression was of horror and amusement. “Are you all ready to go to a rave?”

“Yea!” He says but not with a lot of enthusiasm as I expected.

“Noona,” Jungkook says as I gave him a piece of carne asada. I hum in acknowledgement. “So you’re not coming with us?”

“Oh,” I say with a sigh. “Parties aren’t really my thing. Plus I have to meet someone tonight.”

“Who?” Taehyung and Jungkook both asked.

“Hey,” Jin scolds. “A lady never kisses and tells. Mind your business.” He then winks at me as I stare at him in shock. Before Jungkook or Taehyung could press me any further on the matter, the rest of the boys came outside.

Both Yoongi and Hobi wore some dark long sleeve shirts from Dior with halters and chains hanging from their belt loops. Namjoon wore a similar outfit but with a black leather jacket and bucket hat. Looking at Taehyung and Jungkook, I just realized they were also dressed in what I would call an eboy look. Wow. They all had an incredible fashion sense. I should take some notes.

“Wow,” Jin said in awe and I was nodding in agreement and I dropped the tongs after seeing Jimin.

His outfit was simple and yet he pulled it off like no other. He wore a simple white long sleeve with black jeans and a Dior belt. Before I could even open my mouth, Jimin’s phone rang and he answered with a smirk and flirty greeting. I felt a sour taste in my mouth and I started coughing, realizing Jin had stuck a lemon in my mouth.

“Don’t stare too much,” He whispers with a wink and I quickly take a drink that Jungkook poured for himself. I started coughing. Jin then started patting my back as they all laughed at me. “You okay princess?”

“I’m fine,” I stuttered as I quickly drank a bottle of water Namjoon handed me. “You drink Kookie?”

“Of course,” Jungkook says. “I like wine every now and then too.”

“Wine hits a special spot for him,” Taehyung says nodding. “What about you Noona?”

Jimin stiffins on the seat next to him. He quickly glances at Taehyung, but Taehyung ignores him and cocks his head at me.

“I don’t have a high tolerance,” I mutter. “So I don’t drink a lot.”

They all start to coo and commence to get me to take a shot. I quickly scramble up to escape but Yoongi captures me and forces me to sit on his lap as Hobi places the shot in front of my lips.

“I really can’t y’all!” I whine and move my face. “I have to drive so I can’t really drink.”

“Oh,” Namjoon says. “You don’t have to drive us there, we can go by ourselves.”

“I wasn’t talking about that,” I said leaning more into Yoongi’s lap, hoping to slither from his hold.

“Oh,” Taehyung says with a hint of mischief. “You have that date tonight..”

“Date?” Hobi asks with wide eyes. He quickly glanced at Jimin, who was clutching his phone. “With who?”

“It’s not a date!” I whined as I finally managed to wiggle free from Yoongi. “It’s just something for school.”

“But you graduated.” Yoongi says not really being helpful.

“Oh!” Namjoon exclaims. “You’re gonna meet that professor?”

“Yea,” I said, shifting my feet nervously. The back of my neck was burning. “I’m gonna get ready, have fun guys and drink lots of water!”

I quickly made my way inside before they could question me more. I quickly picked out a simple dinner outfit and placed it on my bed. I played some music on the stereo and started to take a shower. Or at least I tried. It was like the moment the first spray of water hit my body, the tears just wouldn’t stop. I crouched on the shower floor with sobs escaping the very core of my being. I was grateful that the music was masking my grief.

Why did I think things would be the same? But most importantly why did I want things to be the same?

It felt like a part of me that I thought was long gone, came flooding back in. The part of me that came together with the agonizing emotion of loneliness. In school they teach us that humans are social creatures, they were not meant to be alone, and yet here I am. A creature meant to be alone for the rest of its pathetic existence. A freak of nature. It took me years to accept it, but maybe I never did accept it, maybe I just became numb to it.

I want someone’s hand to hold, I want someone’s eyes to gaze into, I want someone’s embrace, I want someone’s lips to kiss. I want someone to love, someone that I don’t have to share with anyone and that I could call my own. I don’t want to be with someone who lost their Soulmate or hasn’t found them.

I know I’m not worthy of anyone, but that hopeful little girl who refused to let go, is still here. The little girl who refused to let go of Jimin, the little girl’s first love. The little girl who was coming to the realization that things won’t go back to the way things were. She can’t hug him, she can’t hold his hand, she can’t kiss his cheeks, she can’t be by his side anymore.

He was never hers.

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Masterlist

#jimin #park jimin #bts #soulmate au #reader insert #jimin x reader #my work #bts soulmate au #soulmate!au #bts angst #bts fluff #bts smut #RM #jungkook #kim taehyung #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok

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khaleesiofalicante · 4 years

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(Anon with AnnaxAriadne wallpaper) I barely talk to my dad. Or at least, spent time together. Growing up, he was always in the computer, always working or doing something and we only saw him when he was eating or the rare times he accepted to watch a movie with us. When i was maybe 13 or 14, he tried to amend it, to be more present and make jokes, but it was just plain awkward because we didn't know how to being around to him like that instead of hearing him talk about work. I'm 17 and (part 1)

(Part 2) and while it is better, there are times when he makes jokes that it's still jarring because it's not the sour face he almost always had. And now with quarantine, both him and my mom are almost all week working on their computers, even on the weekends. I changed the wallpaper two weeks ago, absolutely no noticed, and the only he now knows was because my phone was malfunctioning and he was the only one who could help. I nearly had a heart attack when i gave him the phone and he...

(Part 3) made a noise of surprise and i realized why exactly he could had seen. I wanted to hide on the spot. And the asked loudly why i have to women kissing which fantastic because now my mom knows, and she is like him. She scoffed when i tried to explain genderfluid people, since there's a character like that in the book she's reading, that i recommended, and i won't ever forget when she suggested going to therapy when i tried to tell her about never feeling sexual attraction...

(Part 4) when i was testing the waters to see if i could tell her about being ace. That shut me up real quick. My point is, if i now tried to explain my dad about Anna and the rest of the TSC characters, it would had to be with my mom there and even if she wasn't there, i don't know what, exactly, i should say. They are the kind of people to tell me "i haven't meet the right guy yet" or say i can't be ace since i right now i am liking a boy i meet from school. Asexuality doesn't work like that!...

(Part 5) So yeah, i am doomed. I don't know what to do. I should had changed my background before giving my dad the phone, i should had done a lot of things different. They say they are not homophobic because they believe gay people shouldn't be oppress but i nearly exploded when my mom asked why they call bisexual people like that instead of gay since it is the same thing, less of a headache. She also said that the lgbt+ just keeps making up labels to feel special, please kill me now.

Hello, again.

I just want to quickly say thank you for telling me all this. It’s not easy to talk about things that trouble you and make you feel bad - even online and even on anonymous. So, thank you. I have always admired people who are able to talk about their pain as it is something I have never been able to do.

And I am sorry. I am really sorry that you have to live in a space where you have to explain your existence. The ignorance on asexuality is staggering - but it is not surprising that we don’t see people talking about it. Honestly, other than people here on tumblr, I don’t see people discussing asexuality at all. I work with lgbt communities and even they don’t talk about it. So, it is really difficult to start conversations about sexuality - especially with parents as the idea seems completely alien to them.

But I really really appreciate you trying to make an effort. I cannot tell you how happy it makes me that you are trying to talk to your parents. The fact that you accepted your sexuality, despite growing in such a restrictive environment - that in itself is an incredible milestone. I am so proud of you. I hope you know that.

My 17 year old self can relate to everything you shared. My family doesn’t talk about sexuality at all since we are just not that kind of people. At least we weren’t a few years ago. I think about where we are now and it seems like we are completely different people. Of course, my mom still has the whole ‘you can support lgbt people and be friends with them but gosh I hope you are not one of them’ attitude. But comparing to who she was five years ago, this is a massive improvement. And I am hoping it will get even better in the future.

What I am trying to say is that as long as you don’t give up on your family and yourself - you can always make it better. It is not easy at all and sometimes you just get so frustrated that you want to give up - because fuck why do we need to tell an adult how to be kind and respectful and accepting? But unfortunately it is our battle and we must fight if we want to win.

From what you said - I kind of gathered that your parents want to make an effort. Despite their mistakes in the past, they want to make it better. They are trying too - in their own way. So, I really do believe there is something that can be done here.

It’s okay if you can’t sit down and have conversations - I didn’t get here in a day either. It took me years. So, think of what will work with your family. I think you should make use of all this time you spend together in isolation.

For example, something that might work is having a movie night once a week. Talk to your parents and ask if you could all watch a movie together - just once a week. Figure out a time that works for every one of you and you must all commit. It’s not a demanding thing to ask and it might be fun. I hope your parents agree to this.

Every week, each person in the family can get to pick a movie they want to share the rest of them. So, week one your mom gets to choose, then your dad, then you. This way, you are making it equal so that the family time is not dictated by one person.

When it is your turn to pick the movie, I would suggest you to pick one with queer representation. But you have to go easy on them. Baby steps, okay? Do not pick movies with sex scenes or too much angst. Something very breezy. Actually, start with movies where queer people are side characters - try to avoid cliche movies and stereotypes and had bad writing. You have to ease them into it. Then you can slowly move towards movies that have queer couples are the mains.

For example, my mom and I watched BoRap last year and she fucking loved it - she wouldn’t have if we watched five years ago, but she does now. Also, try to find movies that represent your own culture since a lot of parents think that being gay is a western thing.

I know this sounds like an assignment - and I am sorry about that. But it worked for me and I hope it will work for you. I am reminding you again that this is a lot of work and patience and effort and compromise. But I love my family and I want them to be a part of my life. So, I made an effort and it made all the difference in my life.

So, don’t give up on them and don’t give up on yourself. I am not saying ‘oh you are so young it will get better with time’ - it fucking doesn’t, not unless both parties are willing to work on making it better.

So do your part - and I hope your parents do their role too. Good luck, brave annie. I hope it works out. If it doesn’t, we can always figure out something else :)

#dani talks #lgbt #asexuality

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