#october and november and i was barely on here bc i was REALLY going through it

[cheekblush]

actually so happy to be back reblogging pretty pictures <3

[guinevereslancelot]

currently hating and killing myself for leaving work early even tho i literally threw up within a minute of walking in the door when i got home

[chikkou]

ok i was waiting until my laptop got here to finally tell all the bullshit thats happened in the last like. 5 months lol. cause its a lot to type

im gonna put it all under the cut so no one has to read if they dont want. its a LONG fucking story.

tl;dr:

ok so for basic background, for the last two years or so, i was living with a roommate in connecticut. the roommate was my (now former) best friend since middle school. in july of this year his behavior totally shifted, and he started picking fights with me out of nowhere, told our high school friends a bunch of straight up lies abt me to make me look like a horrible roommate & person, and just generally became a two-faced dickhead. in the end, it turned out to all be excuses to justify his decision to move out (unofficially, name was still on the lease) so that he could live with his boyfriends and not pay any bills. at the time i was really devastated by this bc i felt totally betrayed by this person i had been close to since i was 12/13, but frankly after everything else that happened i barely fucking think about it now LMAO. this is set dressing more than anything else

so anyway, i had been living alone since about august, that was the last time i saw him in person. i wasnt handling the situation well because i had spoken to my high school friend and found out the extent to which hed tried to paint me as a slovenly, horrible roommate, to the point of telling actual lies about really dumb stuff (which didnt work btw - my friends, god bless them, were more concerned about my mental health than anything and thought i was going down a depression spiral, which my former friend told them he was helping me through. they believed me right away once we finally did talk). all that is to say, i was going kind of crazy lol, and i decided to go back home in october just for a short while, to recharge my batteries and all.

i was gone for a couple of weeks, not very long. i felt MUCH better after being with my family & friends in person, as i felt pretty isolated from everyone (my hometown is in new york, i was only 2 hours away by train but scheduling times to visit was sort of a hassle, so i only did it once every couple months). my grandfather and mom dropped me off at my apartment in early november, we were very lighthearted and discussing my next steps, since my shithead friend had been behind on rent more than 5 times (i always paid my half on time) and i was facing eviction because of it. we get to my apartment, i go to open the door, and it wont open. not that its locked, it just straight up WONT open. my grandpa tried to ram the door with his shoulder, and nothing. hes a strong ass dude, and this door wouldnt budge for anything.

my mom managed to get the kitchen window open and climb in that way, and it took both her and my grandpa pulling/pushing at the same time to force the door open. i wont even dress this up: there was mold. fucking. everywhere. on the floor, on the walls, all over everything i owned. i have pictures (had to take them for insurance) and im not even going to show them because they are beyond fucking disgusting. everything i owned was soaked in water and mold, and i do literally mean EVERYTHING. it was very warm in there too, like the temperature of a swamp. i was in a haze after that. i just remember sobbing, like genuinely heartbroken sobbing, as i wandered around looking at everything that was ruined. my mom & grandpa had to go and get maintenance because i was just utterly useless, and they were equally horrified & said they'd never seen anything like it.

i managed to save some items that were irreplaceable (journals, notebooks, etc) and whatever clothes werent utterly soaked in mold. all of my cookware, my books, my laptop & desktop (i cried the hardest when i saw the desktop) - it was all ruined. we found out later that the water boiler in my apartment had a catastrophic failure while i was gone, which caused it to constantly send water back through the pipes, empty, and refill itself. my bedroom was directly above the boiler downstairs, so it got the most significant amount of damage. all told, i lost like 95% of the things i owned. it is possible that i could have saved more, but the amount of mold in that apartment made it a genuine safety hazard for me to even be in there, so i had very limited time to grab what i could. the cruelest irony of all that? my shithead ex-friend's room, which was on the other side of the hallway, was pretty much untouched. he lost absolutely nothing lol.

so immediately, i had to leave the state. i moved back to ny with my family. my mother - who had a stroke last year following a diagnosis of an exceedingly rare neurological disorder, AND had two separate brain surgeries to improve her quality of life - was in the process of getting evicted. the landlord didnt give a fuck about any of my moms situation, not her being disabled, not her being widowed, not her having 3 kids under the age of 18 to care for - he just wanted her out so he could increase the cost of rent on our house. at the same time as all this was going on, i got saddled with a $600 electric bill (likely caused by the water heater's malfunction), which neither insurance nor the apartment would pay, so it came out of my pocket. in addition, i found out in december that i was also getting laid off.

we had nowhere to go and couldnt afford to live anywhere in the tri-state area. we had no choice but to move somewhere much cheaper, and since my mom already had a friend living in a mid-atlantic state, we chose to move there. the eviction went through in january and we had less than 2 weeks to pack all our shit, find a place to live, and get the fuck out. needless to say, we were not successful lol.

we stayed in my grandparents 1 bedroom apartment for about a week, then all of us drove down together to stay with my moms friend in her 3 bedroom apartment (she has 5 kids, 3 of whom live in the apartment). my moms apartment, which was supposed to have been ready by january 31st, still had people actively living there. the property manager kept promising us it would be next week for the entire month of february, to the point that my mom got fed up and chose to rent a small house instead. the reality of being essentially homeless for that time was beyond horrifying, and having anywhere between 8-10 people in that house (my cousin also moved with us, but he stayed in a hotel for the first week) was more taxing than i can express.

but things have gotten a lot better since then. i also found a cute little house to rent just up the road from my moms, and its very cheap for its size. i still havent found a job yet, but thanks to what was essentially the liquidation of everything i owned, ill be ok for a couple months more. im slowly but surely repurchasing all the things i lost and trying to acclimate to the new environment. things are still not totally stable right now, but they are slowing down, and at this point thats all i can really ask for lol.

so yeah. if u were wondering why i suddenly stopped posting after literal years of posting every day, thats why LMAO

[the-smiling-grinner]

dont read please part 2 😗 TW vent

im done. im just done. im done with everything. two things.

number 1. i hate school so much but i have to keep going. im in year 11 and will sooner than later be in year 12. the next few years could make or break the life i want. i dont know what to do. im scaired. im sick and im scaired. i want to run to God but im ashamed. im embarrased. im such a sinner and i hate myself for it and even that in itself is a sin! i just dont know where to turn. i want to talk to ppl but i feel bad about it. i dont want them to worry about me but im falling appart. the meds are kind of helping but they are incresing my paranoia a lot. i just dont know anymore.

number 2. im loosing my best friend. i can barely put this into words without crying. i feel tears in my eyes even now. im probably over reacting or whatever but i can feel it. we used to be so close. we would talk all the time and now we just dont. maybe they have out grown me idk. it wouldent suprise me. they have friends who are much better. who like the things they do and who know how to interact with ppl properly. i miss it. more than anything. i couldnt focus in first and second period during school bc it was all i could think about. im probably being selfish with this but i just need to get it out. i just need to scream it to the world but the world wont listen so im here. putting my shit into a post that no one will probaly see. and im glad no one will see it. its embarrasing. i hate it. i hate myself for feeling like this. i put so much effort into a scrap book for their birthday and i dont know if they even liked it. they just kinda laughed at the message i put in the front.. maybe they did like it idk. maybe im just an idiot, probably. bc i am. i want to go back to summer 2022. october, november and december 2022 were the best months of my life. i was happy. i had my best friend in the whole world and now im loosing them. i dont want to. i try to be a good friend i try really hard but i usally end up messing it up in some way or another. i cry looking at old pictures of us together sometimes. im crying even now writing this. we have been through so much together, i dont want it to end now. i dont want it to end ever. i bawl my eyes out listning to that song called Treehouse. that used to be our song. idk if it is anymore. i dont know anything anymore and im too scaired to ask. am i over reacting? probably. am i a dumbass? also probably. well yes, but a dumbass about this im not sure. i dont want to even post this bc im sciared if they see it it will make them sad. i dont want anyone to be sad. i just want everyone to be happy and everything to be ok again.

but i guess Thats Just The Way Things Go..

[plush-anon]

You worked at joanns? 😍 dream job

In all fairness, a large part (and I do mean a LARGE part) of why I enjoyed working at Joanns were the managers.

The store manager was a guy named Richard, one of maybe two or three men who worked there total, and this man was practically a saint as far as retail goes.

This was a man who would, with no hesitation, get on the floor to help customers, or hop on the registers to check customers' purchases out, or pop on to the cutting counter to cut fabric. He remembered the names of regulars, would chat and smile while getting shit done, and was the type of guy to speak slowly and softly when we had shitstains explode at us measly peons for not giving them the full cost of an item back in a return (ex $200) when they used a coupon to purchase an item to begin with and only paid a portion of the cost (ex. $150). No joke, this actually happened to me on Black Friday with a man who stood at about 6 foot with a crewcut and a snarl (the military Karen, if you would)

Richard, of course, stood at about 6 foot 5 inches, and reminded me of a ginger grizzly bear in some ways. Very few customers continued to be assholes when they asked to speak to the manager and Richard came over, smiling wide. He encouraged us to chat with the customers while we worked the cutting counter - it was a good way to learn about what they were making, encouraged general conversation and lent itself to a better environment for everyone, worker and customer alike, so we weren't just awkwardly standing in silence the whole time.

The assistant store manager (aka his second in command - we had two other assistant managers, but she wielded more power than both of them) was Farrah, and she was basically Cool Wine Aunt, but with weed. She was open about smoking it (but not in a pressure-the-underlings kind of way, but more of a 'yeah, it calms me down' kind of way) but never on the clock, and was just really chill in general. She was also a 'jump on the registers' type of manager, and on occasion would take the closing staff out to get a drink from the texmex place next to us in the shopping center, and cover one for each of us - particularly during the Holiday Clusterfuck of October, November, and December (their Frozen Kahlua Mudlslide was my alcoholic drink of choice - they also had these spicy chicken strips that were amazing with it, but I digress).

Both of them were amazing people who would support and back us up without hesitation (if they weren't dealing with corporate or stock trucks coming in), and both routinely worked 15 to 20 hours UNPAID overtime during the Holiday Clusterfuck so that we the underlings could get more hours without Corporate jumping up our ass about going over budget.

They were also refreshingly upfront in our monthly meetings about profits and meeting them, as well as why company policy was the way it was, and how to work within the boundaries so we got more hours. One of my favorite moments was when they said the fabric sales essentially covered their own cost (production and delivery); the rest of the cheap crap in the store was what covered our paycheck and electricity, so hawk it as much as you can if you want extra in the bank (paraphrasing here, but that's not that far off what they actually said tbh).

With some Karen-y exceptions, the customers were honestly pretty chill. There were two women from a nearby church who bought well over 200 yards of cut fleece to make no-sew fleece blankets for children and the poor in December (it took forever to do, but they were so cheerful about it and told some funny anecdotes in between, kept the counter clear as soon as they were cut, etc. Took them three carts to haul everything to the register XD).

There was the slew of quilters making everything from baby blankets to anniversary gifts to quilts for their grandkids attending the local university that they could wear to football games in the colder weather, while still showing team pride. They always bought quarters and eighths and the end of the bolt for half price, digging thru our remnants bin for something they might have missed they could get for half price. They always talked about what they were working on, and spoke in great detail on their kids or cousins or niblings or grandkids. I saw so many pictures on phones, in wallets, and they loved them to absolute pieces.

There were cosplayers making their first costume to comicon, halloween goers trying their hand at making their own outfits, and a few furries making custom suits for order or just updating their own personal outfit. There were the usual school and church Christmas plays that needed costumes, and folks making custom table runners and place settings for family holiday meals.

One notable young man bought out 30+ yards of our 65" inch wide bolt felt for JEWELRY projects he was making as a part of his business and as a part of his art program (you can major in art with a concentration in jewelry making, and he was using it for that). He didn't leave a card, but the pictures he showed us were STUNNING.

We had a few elderly mothers come in with their daughters, to pick out fabrics so they could make their own wedding dresses, or quinceanera outfits, or veils; they showed us the patterns they had, or the pictures they were basing the designs off of, and all of them were STUNNING. (One came back in with the finished dress in the bag, this intricately beaded poofy dress that had to have taken days, hot pink and shiny).

We had local restaurant owners pop in for re-upholstery projects and curtains and vinyl; same with teachers and deck dads and furniture restoration workers that would gush about the design, what they had planned. Some would bicker with their spouses on the pattern, but it felt good-natured on the whole.

We had some elderly men come in to peer over our sewing machines - "How much it run for? My wife's birthday is coming up and her old machine's about done, and I want to surprise her. She had a Singer, but she hates the electronic screens on some of these newer ones, they hurt her eyes." - and moms coming in to sew some custom bed sheets for their kids - "My son really likes the new My Little Pony show, but he's a little shy about it. Do you think the blue's okay? Only he like yellow more, but they don't have any back there and he doesn't MIND blue really but - Actually scratch that, how wide is the fabric? My pattern says it needs to be at LEAST 22 inches wide, does it say on the box?" - and people coming up with some WILD craft ideas that were always a delight to hear them gush about - "So this MAY seem crazy, but I can turn these plastic pumpkin trick-or-treat pails into SNOWMEN heads with felt like this. We fill them with treats for the kids since we don't have a fireplace and they like it fine, but someone said I should sell these on Etsy and people really like them! But I've run out of pumpkins, and you have NO idea how happy I am that you guys still have some left."

The group we had to work with was also pretty crafty; a few were chronic call-outs, some a bit lazy, some perpetually done-with-this-nonsense, but we were mostly on the same page on shift, and all of us were crafty as heck. The employee discount was a blessing AND a curse, lemme tell you.

Stock was the best part, for me. Hours before the store opened at 9 AM, we would rip open the boxes and stuff everything onto the shelves, organizing anything the closing shift missed the night before along the way, updating new stickers or shuffling pegs over for new product arrangement, etc. We could listen to music or podcasts as we worked, and I ended up impressing some of them bc of how fast I tore through everything some mornings (the music definitely helped out there).

I was actually about to be promoted to assistant manager after 6 months, but then I got my job with the university, and they had federal health benefits AND dental, so... yeah, no contest there. Richard actually laughed when I told him I'd been hired at the university and was giving my two week notice, since it meant he didn't have to do the slew of paperwork that accompanied new assistant manager hires. He congratulated me on the job, especially the health benefits - he said that was a perk worth leaving any job here for. I nearly cried with relief that he wasn't mad.

He and Farrah chipped in and got me a small music box that plays Man of La Mancha's Dream the Impossible Dream on my last day. It still sits on my desk at work.

It was honestly my favorite retail job out of the bunch I've suffered through. Surprising at first, since I initially received a rejection email bare HOURS after my interview with Farrah, but about a month later (as I trawled endlessly through interview after interview, desperate for anything those first few months ), I got a call back from them asking if I was still interested (which I was, bc hey a job!). They remembered me specifically bc I had missed my bus to the interview, called ahead to let them know I would be late, then walked the whole way there in the rain to get there. (It was only about a mile and a half away, so not a terrible journey, but flooding is an issue in our flat-ass city; I looked like a drenched afghan hound holding a useless umbrella, so enjoy that imagery).

They were particularly impressed by the calling-ahead part.

Unfortunately, both of them ended up moving on to different paths over the year after I left - apparently they had been friends with benefits (? I say hesitantly, since I ran into one of my coworkers at an art show later on and she spilled the beans there - she was a bit flighty in nature though, and got caught up in gossip a LOT, so who knows. Lovely brocade custom projects though), and his ex girlfriend had called corporate on them and got both fired.

I think Farrah came back some time later, but the damage was done after that - the new manager came in and operated SOLELY to corporate policy. A LOT went to pieces in terms of store cleanliness, order, and general camaraderie after that - the new fabric counter folks look and sound dead inside, and barely interact with customers (not even a 'whatcha making' in passing, which is kind of sad - the stories I got helped to pass the time, and kept me from using up all of my Set Conversation Phrases for customers that actually WOULD leave us standing in silence). Corporate also stopped some of the smaller store policies that made our job easier and gave the customers a little something extra (the 'end-of-the-bolt' discount - if, after the customer orders say, 2 yards of fabric on the bolt, and there's say, a half yard "remnant" left on the bolt, we can sell them the remnant for half-price. A LOT of quilters LOVED this, and we did too, since it saved us from filling out the remnant tag and printing a sticker later on).

Just goes to show how important good management is in a business; especially when it can kick a store previously part of the top 50 stores in the NATION (while being a medium store at that - smaller place, NOT Hobby Lobby size like the Large stores) to something much less pleasant. I could be rose-goggling the situation thought - retail is still retail, no matter how nice some aspects are - but it still sticks with me as to how good he experience was even taking into account that it WAS minimum wage retail.

Food for thought, lads, food for thought.

[phoebehalliwell]

If someone wants to start writing a next gen fic, where would be the best place for them to start in writing the characters with less discernable personalities? Like rewatching parts of the show or looking at comics or other fics?

i mean,,,, okay. so like. so here’s the thing with the next gen (& why i love writing them so much) is like they’re all basically ocs. like even wyatt & chris still have a lot of wiggle room bc wyatt barely got a personality and the chris we saw grew up in the dark future surrounded by like death and destruction, so like any modern / normal / altered future chris will end up being different than the one we saw. so like. my first piece of advice is to stop thinking of them as children of the charmed ones and start thinking of them as your own characters, because that’s basically what they’re gonna be. so that being said: here’s some advice on building characters in general:

a) media is always a great piece to start. you can rewatch charmed, or if there are fics you really like, you can read those, but i would recommend going even beyond that. this is kind of a two parter bc the first thing i’d recommend is like rewatching shows (or rereading books!) with your favorite characters, and then like dissecting what exactly it is you like about them. what about them makes them your favorite, what about them ranks them above everybody else in your mind? and just start like earmarking certain traits and sort of keep them in a reserve bank in your mind to dole out later. the second part is more of a worldbuilding thing if you’re unsure what to do about characters with magic (either gained or raised with). watch and/or read things that have environments similar to what you’re shooting for. note what you like about it. note what you don’t like about it, then do a little introspection as to why you don’t like it. if you find yourself falling into a similar pitfall in your own work, trying pumping the breaks and taking a step back. don’t think about how you are going to fix your own world, think about how you’d fix that part of that show you didn’t like. i think it’s easier to diagnose breakdown and repair these issues if you’re from the outside looking in, bc like, idk, it just is. whatever solution you find, see if you can warp that to fix your own issues.

b) introspection. who doesn’t love it. great for life just in general. breakdown how you feel. why you feel that way. best words to describe it. makes life better, but like also makes you a better writer. the more you understand yourself, how you react in certain situations, how you form relationships, etc, the more you can sort of start to deconstruct yourself. so like you have you, and this is how you’d be in a certain situation. but what if you were raised a really powerful witch. how would that change you. you would react differently. would magic still be your go to solution, or would you go for a mortal one? would you be braver with magic, or would you be more scared bc you know what’s out there? you can sorta even build your own flow chart of the different people you’d be and use the little husks you make as the basis for your characters.

c) friends. you like these people. that’s why they’re your friends. and you repay them w ur friendship so ur free to steal some personality traits from them. just a couple. for funsies. & this sorta build off the introspection part bc i’m really expecting u to have enough personalities to fully stock a story that’d be wild. so for a couple core traits, why not borrow from your homies? this also helps with voice. i would go on ahead and Not recommend that you based voice off a fictional character bc you don’t speak with those fictional characters also they’re not real they’re being acted. but if you’re struggling with how a character should sound, how casual how formal how loud how soft how brusque how polite, it can be helpful to just pick someone you know and see if you can hear that dialogue in their voice. if you can’t, adjust, figure out what’s not clicking, take another stab at it. especially when writing, you don’t get actors who go in and make the characters their own with their own unique sound. it is you voicing every single character. so bringing in a couple sidekicks can help you from having a cast of characters that all sound the same

d) final piece of advice: organize things. like the stupid, simple information. the next gen has like nine members in it and that’s just like family. you’re gonna have to put some other people in there, so you’re gonna wanna be able to remember what exactly is what. since it’s charmed, a power graphic organizer will help. the first couple times writing my fic for the life of me i could not remember who had what powers i had to keep the doc open in a separate tab. it’s the same with birthdays and ages just so i can figure out where exactly everyone is in their life. there are certain landmarks in modern society that you sorta wanna get a handle on (i mean, depending where your characters are at). from the youngest to the oldest of the next gen there’s about a decade split, so if you want them all in high school, i mean do it tbh who gives a shit about canon this is just for fun, but like, if you want them all in high school canon compliant that isn’t gonna work. so like. who’s graduate high school? who’s graduated college? who can legally drink? who can legally drive? these are all sort of landmarks that are used to measure growth, so like. where’s everybody at? when’s your story at? if it’s set in october, there’s a two year split between chris and wyatt. if it’s set in november, there’s only a one year age difference. how’s time moving? keeping everything organized in documents just sorta helps you keep your head on straight (and of course things are gonna slip through the cracks but like it’s fanfic man so it doesn’t really matter that much)

[s-nh]

Heaven literally gained an angel yesterday.

His name is Miguel Ángel Ramos. He grew up in Jalisco Mexico and in his early 20’s came to America to see what the fuss was about living here. He lived with my uncle Ramon and my mom and dad in a one bedroom apartment before he met a girl and they had a beautiful baby girl. My now 23 year old cousin, Celeste. At the age of 27/28, my uncle was in a car crash. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt and he went head first out the windshield when a drunk driver hit him, his girlfriend and Celeste.

Celeste and my uncles girlfriend were okay for the most part but my uncle was not.

He was in a coma for 3 months. Doctors didn’t believe he would make it. But he did. And slowly but surely they helped him gain his mobility back through physical therapy. He didn’t remember anything or anyone for a while. He had to relearn a lot.

His life was sadly and unfortunately never the same after that accident. My uncle Miguel was not all there mentally and could no longer work bc of all the brain damage he had suffered and so his girlfriend left him. My uncle Miguel pleaded to her, “Look, you’ll be able to have more kids some day. I might not. Please, let me have my daughter. Please.” So his girlfriend agreed and 3 year old Celeste and my uncle left to Mexico where my grandparents would take care of the both of them.

Uncle Miguel later on in life suffered from seizures almost all the time. He was on loads and loads of medication and took frequent trips to the hospital.

My grandparents dedicated 20 years caring after him and making sure he was on top of his medication and on time to his doctors appointment.

He had severe migraines. Every. Single. Day.

But I swear he was always smiling despite the fucking actual bullshit he was going through. He always had jokes to crack, a story to tell or stop to tell you how much he loves you.

Sometime at the end of October, he was coming downstairs, took a wrong step and fell down the flight of stairs.

He was so fragile. Imagine accidentally dropping a glass cup and having its pieces shatter once it’d hit the ground.

He was immediately taken to the the hospital and spent all of November being just there. In the hospital.

My grandma couldn’t go see him. She was afraid of being exposed to COVID and Celeste would stay with her to comfort her and take care of her when my other uncles were going to make their way to the city to go see him.

He would tell my uncles “I just want to get out of here to see my mom and Celeste.”

They said he was doing better. That he would be discharged this thursday.

But something happened. I still don’t know what but he fucking died.

I injured my knee on Sunday morning, we got the bad news on Monday afternoon.

I was in the room with my sister and we heard my mom scream “NOOOO!!” After she answered a phone call from my other uncle, Ramon.

My sister and I immediately sprinted out of our beds. She got to her first since my knee was too messed up for me to move fast.

“What happened mom?!”

Half way down the hallway my heart shattered.

“Your uncle Miguel died!”

This time I found myself screaming No.

“No! You’re lying! It’s not true!!!! Mom, stop it’s not true!”

Her wails and sobs wouldn’t let her speak. My uncle Ramon pleaded over the phone to calm her down and that he would be on his way.

My sister and I sat there in disbelief. It felt like an actual joke.

They said he was fine. He was gonna go home this Thursday.

It didn’t hit that he was actually gone until my moms aunt and uncle called her.

As soon as her uncle said “I am so sorry, Sonia.” After my mom answered, Hello, did I burst into tears myself.

My uncle Ramon came and I’ve never seen this man cry before in my life.

He hugged us Hello, his blue eyes were blood shot.

He cheeks were wet.

Seeing him walk into my moms room to hug her broke me.

Realizing that this brother and sister are embracing one another in pain over the devastating news that one of their little brothers has died.

“We’re going to Mexico today. Pack your things.” He told her.

We asked him if there was anything we could do.

“No, nothing. You guys are fine, really. But the only thing I’d want one of you to help me with is finding flights to Guadalajara for today.”

I immediately hopped on it and found them a one way flight to Mexico for midnight.

My mom kissed us all goodbye and left with my uncle.

Tío Migue. You were a miracle. You were actual walking love and acceptance. You were an honest to god loving person. A fucking good man who was sad that he couldn’t provide for his daughter and mother.

He loved Celeste so much. He would say that she was his whole fucking world. And he kept telling my uncles that he couldn’t wait to go home to see her and my grandma.

And now he’s gone. I wish we had more time.

He loved to dance. He loved to buy music. He would always hug and kiss you and say he loves you. He was so fucking kind.

If anyone deserved a fuckinng DO OVER it was HIM. He didn’t deserve to be in that car accident. He didn’t deserve those seizures, hundreds of pill intake, monthly hospital visits, just not being able to live a 100% normal life.

He was 27/28, barely starting his life and family, and at 48, gone.

Te amo tío. You didn’t deserve this. You fucking didn’t. I hope my grandpa received you with the biggest fucking hug and kiss.

Te amo. Te amo. Te amo.

We lost you both in the month of November. I still can’t fucking believe it.

Nov. 22nd, 2016 and now Nov. 30th, 2020.

Isn’t it crazy? We literally pass every year the date in which we will die.

I wish we knew when it would be the last time. At least to make that hug last longer, make every “I love you” count, squeeze ones hand a little tighter and just have a couple seconds more of a glimpse of the person.

I wish I had that with you tío Migue.

I can only imagine how Celeste and grandma feel.

Celeste not having her mom wanting to be around in her life and not giving a fuck about her and my uncle who literally wanted to give her the world even tho he physically couldn’t but with his love and actions spoke louder than fucking money.

And to my grandma. Having lost her husband and then her fucking son????

Visiting won’t feel the same.

There was already a weird feeling inside that house when my grandpa passed and now that my uncles gone and now it’s just my grandma and Celeste...idk anymore.

And to my mom and her now, four brothers rather than 5.... I can’t even.

He was too young. 48?!!??! Life is so fucking unfair.

I’m so sorry tío. And I love you more than you know.

Till we meet again you literal angel.

[kjmellow]

I posted 429 times in 2022

That's 428 more posts than 2021!

14 posts created (3%)

415 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@dyonisia96

@nightscavalry

@johannesviii

@alyona11

@lelelego

I tagged 391 of my posts in 2022

Only 9% of my posts had no tags

#yes - 5 posts

#babies - 4 posts

#wow - 4 posts

#also op your board game q made me sad bc i've literally never played any of those and only heard of like two this girl had no childhood - 3 posts

#doctor who - 3 posts

#owo it's all of dem space-time blorbos!!!! - 2 posts

#the stars don't come out because they never left - 2 posts

#omg - 2 posts

#except i didn't play fnaf but have binged playthroughs from like five different people aaaa - 2 posts

#why am i in love with leela's outfit - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#if anything they barely interact with the tardis in what i've been reading and i've read like twenty-five books all about different doctors

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Seeing Sandman posts on my feed is so confusing because for such a long time the only Dream I saw shit about was that Minecraft guy and every time I see Dream my first though is The fuck that smp guy did this time and my brain takes a fucking minute to process that it's a wrong fandom

3 notes - Posted September 23, 2022

#4

WAIT DID THEY REALLY JUST

Did they just take THE SAME Bee and Puppycat and make it LONGER for Netflix??????

Does that mean I didn't have to rewatch it twice in a row to comprehend at least a lil bit what tf was going on???? I had to just wait for a normal show?????

Not like I mind, the cartoon is gorgeous either way (I'm on ep one btw and I think at least the first of Bee's weird dreams looked cooler in the og show) BUT MAN

I never thought I'd actually see the day

6 notes - Posted September 11, 2022

#3

Petition for Dana Terrace to leave our boi Hunter the fuck alone. Our blorbo has suffered enough.

7 notes - Posted October 16, 2022

#2

Hey hermits of tumblr here's a fun challenge for you:

Describe your character quirks i.e. list out habits and traits you have that would make you stand out if you were a character in a work of fiction. This is an exercise in finding something unique about each of us. And also a possible help for writers looking for something to add to their characters ;)

Here's my ✨ character quirks ✨

Hates wearing makeup but likes the process of someone applying makeup on her or doing her hair

Actually uses a set of like a hundred aquarelle pencils instead of eye liner/lipstick/masquerade makeup when she feels extra fancy (usually ends up making rainbow eye liner)

Sometimes acts like a cat around friends she's comfortable with (rubs head, lies with head on knees, purrs when receives pats)

Has a comedic amount of cats (four) and wants more

Has zero coherence in clothing style a bunch of fandom clothes being the only constant thing

Wears exclusively converse spring through autumn (as long as the weather is good enough)

Carries a book around most of the time; in fact spent her prom reading and tuning out the music (which she is extremely proud of and will tell everyone at the first opportune moment)

Swears a whole fucking lot

Quotes memes/films/TV shows a lot or at least really wants to with the only thing stopping her the fact that she knows a quote she has in mind is too niche to be understood

Absolutely cannot sleep with the lights on or during the day; will wake up at dawn if the curtains aren't drawn

Grandma friend: will try to feed you everything there is in the house if you come visit

Some people spend tons of money on clothes; others can't walk past a make-up shop; this bitch has no self-control when entering a bookstore (in fact she would refuse to spend too much on food but then she goes near a bookstore and wakes up an hour later with two bags of books)

Compliments friends in fairly smooth pick-up lines at any given opportunity

8 notes - Posted September 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

19 notes - Posted November 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

I want (need) you to expand (tell me everything) about that post about It and the 2016 Creepy Clown Crisis. (Really, if you have anything else to say about it I want to hear it)

Yes, take my hand and join me in what will probably be an incoherent ramble about something that is most likely not true, my love.

OKAY, SO:

I’m sure we all remember those #iconic Creepy Clowns™, but as a refresher- Creepy Clown sightings are actually something that have been like, an urban legend phenomenon for Y E A R S. Like, a very long time. I used to do a lot of reading on the subject seeing as I was that kid™, but now you just get a million and one results from 2016 and I’ve had too much wine to wanna bother fighting through that. But anyway, this has always been a thing. Just, like, sometimes you’d see a creepy clown in the dead of night, but the clown doesn’t fucking do anything and you move on with your life. I actually saw one in like, 4th or 5th grade? Didn’t die, it wasn’t a huge deal. But anyway, in 2016 things just SPIRALED THE FUCK OUT OF CONTROL. Personally, I maintain what happened was that your average urban legend phenomenon was happening but since social media is so prevalent now a lot of creeps got inspired and the whole thing got blown up because of that…but that’s not the theory we’re focusing on in this post, so whatever. 

Now, as I’m sure you’ll also remember, there were HUNDREDS of conspiracy theories swirling around the whole clown crisis- everything from demonic possession, to a ‘clown purge’, to people thinking Hillary Clinton had hired the clowns to freak out America even more so she could get fear votes. I’m not shitting you, those were all things I heard daily. But another, tamer, theory was: this was all a mass promotional stunt for the IT reboot. 

The IT reboot was highly anticipated and very debated- fans of the work were well aware that they had been trying to get this movie made for years but kept running into issues. When they finally started filming, they shot from June to September in 2016. The clown sightings ran from August to October 2016. This theory made sense- it’s not hard to believe that a studio would pull something like that, thinking it’d be a fun publicity stunt but then not really wanting to take credit once it got out of hand. That’s literally happened before, like the Montauk Monster and that Dear Charlie ghost thing.  Anyway, a lot of people thought this couldn’t possibly be a coincidence- like, I’ve even seen the actors asked about it in interviews (like they’re on the marketing team??), but none of them had much to comment. This will be the theory we focus on…just with a bit of a twist. 

Now, if your reading this and you’ve only seen part one of the 2017 movie and don’t know much about the book or miniseries 1) you’re a valid fan, I love you bitch, and 2) I’m sorry, but spoilers are coming immediately and every time I try to put one of those ‘read more’ cut offs my screen glitches and I loose all my writing bc someone out there is against me. So read at your own risk. 

Okay, as part of the ‘adult’ storyline, they go back into It’s lair in Derry and find out that It has laid eggs and set to work destroying them. There’s a whole fuck lot going on with this plotline, like Eddie and the Turtle™ are dead and Bev’s barely doing shit and Ben’s smashing babies while Bill’s trying to get inside the monster and Richie mourns his bf, it’s all a Mess okay, but the point is: eggs. 

Now, the notion that not all of the spawn were destroyed is actually…not new at all and somewhat debatably relevant in some of King’s other novels, but stick with me here. As far as the Losers know, they killed everything. The scars on their hands go away. It’s all very symbolic and they forget everything, whatever. 

But.

The 2017 reboot wasn’t exactly…that close to the book. Like, they kept enough in there, and they had a bunch of really small things that were Fun Little Call Backs For Book Fans (all the turtle stuff, Bev throwing that rock in slow motion with awesome precision, Pennywise taunting Richie with that decaying doll, stuff like that, you know?). But so it’s not completely out of left field to assume that Chapter Two would be very different as well? It’s not crazy to assume that the movie would end with like, a dramatic ass lingering shot of a few hatching eggs…Or even, say, a subplot that sounds like ‘the eggs hatched around the same time It woke back up out of hibernation and now there’s crazy attacks all over the place instead of Derry, but maybe if we kill the Main Beast that’ll kill them all’ (like a hive mind. you know what I mean.).

It’s not crazy to assume that. My wine glass and Shitty Writer Imagination That Never Lets Me Rest And Makes Me Over Analyze Works Of Fiction have 100% assured me of that. 

So, remember that theory that the clown sightings were just a fun promotional stunt that got out of hand…? What if- it was a promotional stunt, and setting the scene for the sequel (that still got out of hand bc humans are garbage people actually got hurt)

I don’t think anybody getting hurt was ever in the intention, but making headlines because Creepy Clowns are lurking outside schools, in cemeteries, seen trying to lure people into the woods, going out of their way to scare people and be seen as threats even if they don’t actually do anything wrong?? I can absolutely buy that as a promotion stunt…and I can absolutely see, oh, I don’t know, maybe the movie including some recycled Actual News Clips covering the events, taking advantage of all the crazy videos people posted online, stuff like that. Like, in the book and miniseries and 2017 part one, no one outside of Derry knows shit about what’s going on…but you can’t really justify something like that flying under the radar in the age of social media. You can’t. Kids would start turning up dead left and right and you’d sign onto tumblr and see a fucking ‘since the media doesn’t care enough and no one’s talking about this, let me tell you what’s going on in my town’ type post. You’d absolutely hear about it. There’d be twitter campaigns and all types of shit, there’s just no way around it. That Creepy Clown Crisis went viral for a reason. 

But Molly, you say, It didn’t always appear just as a clown! People weren’t harassed by anything other than the clowns in 2016! 

Well, my love, let me point something out to you- It is millions of years old. It’s got shapeshifting and fear manipulation down pat. Could you possibly hold new born babies to that standard? No. Do we know for a fact that It literally prays on children and likes to take the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown simply because it’s easier? Yes. 

People weren’t that afraid of the clowns when the sightings first started. But then more and more kept popping up, and do you know what we had on our hands? Mass hysteria. Mass hysteria sounds like a perfect way for a bunch of inexperienced little hive mind monsters to get the hang of the hunting with fear thing. 

Not to mention Georgie died in September/October…which means It probably usually wakes up out of hibernation around then…I’m just s a y i n g. And the sightings mysteriously stopped around November…a good timeline for the Loser’s to have killed It and thus stopped the clown crisis…I’m just s a y i n g.

Like, can I definitely prove that the studio was behind that mess as a means to set the stage for the sequel while getting some fun promotion out of it? No, I can’t, and honestly I doubt it’s true, this was just a fun thought that came to me lol. But honestly…it’s so easy to see how well a type of plotline like that would work with the film, so at the very least, if they don’t take advantage of the Clown Crisis…I will severely Judge Them, because like, it’s all right there. It’s writing itself. Damn. 

The end, until, 2019, I guess. 

[bartsugsy]

can i add my voice to the people wanting to know what the bartsugsy theory is... I have my own theory which involves vic volunteering to raise the baby so it'll be interesting to hear what other people are thinking

Ok. Ok. I’m gonna write this bc Lena @stolemyhheart keeps taking the piss out of me for having written more Rebecca meta since Thursday than Robron meta lmao.

It’s not so much a theory as it is an observation (gotta love the Drought). This really was all constructed entirely with @itwasjustmisplaced and so is at least 50% hers too.

(Although it does delve into theorising too bc why not, at this point)

This also ties very closely into the idea that all of the stories that started with SSW are starting to come to a close - because that’s where this started.

“This” being - for this entire robron storyline - both Robert planning to propose and Rebecca’s interference.

But beyond that, and where this theory comes into play - Adam and Victoria have been consistently involved in the story, on the fringes of the action, even in the ways that don’t make sense, whilst at the exact same time ultimately having a very similar story of their own play out. 

Which, to me, is suspicious.

And it started with SSW.

A pre-warning: this is so Extra that I feel like I should be embarrassed about it but whatever, I’m gonna live up to my URL and my love of reading too deeply into things so just… humour me, I guess.

Here we go:

The Bartsugsy Theory

The general gist of the Bartsugsy Theory is that Adam and Vic have been not just involved in Robert and Aaron’s storylines, while also having their own very similar storyline running parallel and will soon be on the sideline of a storyline that directly parallels a past Vadam storyline (the Johnny/Vanessa baby daddy swap). The ultimate purpose is to say that there are too many similarities in play for this not to be purposeful on some level and as such, potentially leading somewhere in-plot.

There’s a lot of different threads to this, so let’s take it one at a time.

1. Vadam currently have a storyline that directly mirrors Robron’s storyline

Now, we know that robron often have storylines that are basically vadam storylines amped up to 12 (like the wedding and impending trial, for instance), but never have we seen them run simultaneously. 

Upon examination, it’s like looking at the robron storyline through a funhouse mirror - it involves babies, break ups, drunk cheating with an ex, miscommunication from the start. 

Victoria wants a baby and Adam gets slowly, sort of reluctantly on board. Adam finds out he can’t have kids and flips out. He and Vic try to work through it and really struggle with the idea. Adam and Vic sort of break up, get back together again and then break up again, and then Adam gets drunk and kisses an also drunk Vanessa, who he has cheated on Vic before with. She looks horrified and he immediately backs off and apologises. Adam literally sort of just loses the plot a bit, Vic finds out despite Adam’s efforts to keep it secret and she breaks up with him.

Aaron is in jail and Robert is finding it hard (and doesn’t realise that Aaron is finding it harder). Aaron develops a two week spice addiction, Robert is unable to see him for 24 hours and then when he finally does, sees a person who is not Aaron his husband. Robert flips out, gets drunk, tries to destroy their future home by trashing the mill and then tries to destroy their future by sleeping with Rebecca, who may or may not also be drunk we just don’t know. Rebecca gets pregnant and Robert tries to keep it quiet, and then when he eventually succeeds, tells Aaron anyway because he feels guilty, because character development (for another post this is gonna be long enough as it is) and they stay together.

There are a lot of similarities, and that has helped the robron plot move along in numerous ways. 

Which brings us to:

2. Adam and Victoria have been on the fringes of this Robron plot since it started with SSW.

Because it’s not just that we have these two storylines running concurrently, which in and of itself is weird but not cause for actual suspicion, it’s that they’re also so entertwined - and only in one direction.

So, we start at the beginning. This story started with Rebecca -

(Well, no, technically it started with Andy, but we don’t have all day and he’s largely irrelevant to the story at this point - the biggest catalyst for most of the things that have happened in this storyline, outside of the proposal and wedding, is Rebecca)

Robert wanted revenge on Chrissie, so he called in secret weapon Rebecca White. A super solid Robert Sugden plan, I think we can all agree. He’s so great at plans. What a Star Planner.

Rebecca arrives at the village in her plotcopter on 11th October and her arrival starts the set up of a number of things - mainly, the fact that she and Robert used to be in a relationship and clearly still wants to be, the fact that she is easily manipulated by Robert, the Lachlan/SSW stuff and the fact that Robert is being… somewhat open with Aaron about why Rebecca is in town, but isn’t disclosing the fact that he got her there and is keeping her around by flirting heavily with her and playing with her apparently still present feelings for him.

Two days later, on the 13th, its Holly’s funeral. A few notable things happen here - Aaron and Rebecca meet for the first time and Rebecca sees Aaron and Robert together for the first time. Robert becomes markedly less kind to Rebecca where Aaron is involved. 

This also happens to be the episode with the first ever Bartsugsy scene - a scene that literally sets up SSW and Robert’s plan to propose to Aaron.

Skipping ahead just a few days (although Vic is still very much involved as Robert’s one confidante as he plans to propose) - during SSW we have Vic and Adam coming to the aid of Robert and Aaron (because Vic had wanted to help Doug look for Ashley). It’s immense, it’s the most epic bartsugsy stuff in existence (not that there’s much competition smh) and it continues into the hospital scenes throughout the week and then in the Monday aftermath episode.

So… all this to say, Victoria and Adam were embroiled in Robert and Aaron’s storyline at the same time as Rebecca came along. Quite literally at the start of the storyline.

Rebecca’s function in the storyline? A catalyst for Lachlan to try to take his revenge on Robert, leading to the kidnapping plot, and tying in the continuing plot of the Sugdens vs The Whites.

Let’s flash forward some time, to the past few months, where this storyline obviously took a turn into what it’s become now. During this time, through November and December, as things are being set up, Robert and Aaron are having difficulties with Rebecca and jealousy and Robert’s manipulations of her and Adam and Victoria decide that they want to start trying for a baby.

I’ve said this before, but I’ve been sort of looking at this current leg of the story as being pillared by two arguments - the January argument just before they were about to get married and the reveal argument, with the midway turning point being the Incident.

Here are some ways in which Adam and Vic continue to be present throughout the story:

In the january argument, Victoria is the one who interupts, who tries to talk both Aaron and Robert down and who ultimately sees Aaron beating up Kasim.

We have more bartsugsy scenes during the wedding and as Aaron goes off to prison and then, in our first instance of one of Vadam being a part of Robron’s story even when it doesn’t make sense, Adam gets roped into doing up the Mill. Adam, who is running the Scrapyard by himself (yes ok with the help of Robert, but he also has Liv and his own business and an impending breakdown to deal with) while Aaron is away, still finds time to help Ronnie refurb a whole house.

And why? What does it do, beyond put Adam in Robert’s orbit? It allows Adam and Ronnie to bond but they could have done that anyway. It makes no sense, why Adam would be given this particular role.

What it does mean is that, on the night of the incident, Adam is there to witness Robert have his meltdown and report back to Victoria, in hearing range of Rebecca (presumably as a way to make her ditch Ross as soon as she can, to go take care of him, because she’s still in love with him.)

In the second instance of Vadam being where they don’t belong, we have Victoria’s sudden friendship with Rebecca, which is only just now coming to a head, now that she knows about the baby being Robert’s. She has acted as Rebecca’s emotional mouthpiece, the one person who was championing Rebecca keeping the baby - likely coming from a place of suddenly not about to have her own. Given how supportive Chrissie has been, she could have played that role and it would have made far more sense - but instead, we have Victoira. Suddenly Rebecca’s best friend.

And agian, for what purpose? Because character-wise, it makes no sense? I think we really have yet to see how Vic might be used in this plot, but she’s very much present.

Even in the reveal ep, we get Vic and Adam helping Robert and Aaron move in, entirely seperately now that they’ve split. We have Aaron using Vic’s current situation to make an unknowing slight at Robert and make things harder for Robert. Then later we have Robert relying on both Adam and Victoria to look out for Aaron.

Vic and Adam see first hand the toll that Aaron being in prison takes on Robert, we have them playing a much more active role in keeping him calm than Chas does, for instance, or Diane (who is absent almost entirely). Since Aaron’s been out, we’ve had numerous sweet scenes of Aaron and Victoria talking - the two wronged spouses, in a way (although both contributed to the problems in their marraige as well, I’d argue)

They are everywhere, all over this story. On the flip side, Robert and Aaron have barely even dipped their toes into Vadam’s story, despite there being opportunity and reason. 

Now, again, none of this is particularly unusual - Vic and Adam are typically individually Robert and Aaron’s go-to confidantes. It doesn’t tend to happen all that regularly though - and Vic and Adam are linked to the story through the Whites (or Ronnie, in Adam’s case) as much as they are Aaron and Robert.

Taking into consideration the big similarities between this story and Vic and Adam’s current story and just how closely everything is entertwined and has been since the start makes me think it was absolutely deliberate, though.

Which brings us to the final point:

3. Robert and Aaron are reliving Victoria and Adam’s past and no one has said anything

So, I’ve saidbefore that Aaron and Robert tend to live through stories that Vic and Adamhave already dealt with (and usually in ways that carry more narrativeweight). 

This though? Thissort of takes the cake.

A refresher on theJohnny storyline, for those who may not remember:

Adam and Vic argue(about their engagement, I believe), they sort of break up don’t break up but vic does break off their engagement (ah fact checking), Adam bangs Vanessa,VIctoria and Adam get back together immediately afterwards and Vanessa fallspregnant. Vanessa also happened to be sleeping with Kirin at the same time andso did not know who the father of her baby was. Victoria finds out about theone night stand during hers and Adam’s housewarming party, which takes place onthe day they move in together. It seems as though it’s Adam’s and Victoriaultimately decides to support Adam in becoming a father to baby Johnny untilultimately, they discover that the baby was in fact Kirin’s all along.

This storyline?

Robert and Aaronargued, they sort of but defintiely don’t break up, Robert bangs Rebecca,Robert and Aaron make up immediately afterwards and Rebecca falls pregnant.Rebecca also happens to be sleeping with Ross at the same time but apparentlyknows exactly who the father is. Aaron finds out when Robert tells him, Roberthaving cancelled their housewarming party, on the day they move in together.Aaron is, according to spoilers, going to try and support the idea of Robertbecoming a father to this baby.

Now…. if nothingelse, even if you don’t think the level of involvement Adam and Victoriacurrently have in this storyline is unusual, or the fact that Vadam’s fertilityissues have almost provided the backdrop to it - this, it’s pretty damn clear,is intentional.

The thing that really gives this credence, for me, is the housewarmingparty. For Aaron and Robert, that plot point is entirely unnecessary. Theydecide to plan a party a few days after they come home from a 5 week trip, onthe day they’re due to move into their house, when they don’t seem to evenstart either packing their things or planning their party until the day before.The party is cancelled so that Robert can come clean – and it feels like adirect shout out to what Adam should have done and the fact that these twostorylines are incredibly similar.

Saying this, the one difference – the thing that I’ve convenientlyskipped over so far?

The Johnny story revolves around a DNA test. Adam thinks he’s Johnny’sdad because Kirin’s dad Rakesh changes the DNA test results to make it so (ashe doesn’t want his teenage son to have to take responsibility of an infant).

In this story? One of the biggest complaints is that the show made adirect and very clear point to say that Rebecca and Ross slept together on the dayseither side of the Incident

(and probably more than that? They’re two young adults with no ties, whyshouldn’t they be spending their time boning – but canon very clearly statesthey banged at least those two times)

But that Rebecca seemed to just know that the baby was Robert’s – and everysingle person has believed her so far.

But of course, you know Vic and Adam have been going through their ownfertility story – as a consequence, both of them have brought up Johnny andAdam’s feelings towards him on multiple occasions. That story relates closelyto their current story, as we now know that Adam couldn’t have fathered Johnnyat all.

Adam and Vic, who are very much engrained in Robert and Aaron’s story,one of whom are always there during the big moments.

Adam and Vic, who are now going to know about the situation.

You see, my instinct is that all that needs to happen to get Robert toask for a DNA test is for either Adam or Vic to talk about it – and why wouldn’tthey? Why wouldn’t this be their first concern??? It literally only happened tothem last year.

Victoria, who is now about to have pointed issues with Rebecca for lying.

And Adam, who we know is going to be sharing scenes with Robert andAaron going forward, who, it’s hinted, might crash at the Mill for a bit whilehe has nowhere else to go.

I’m not saying that it’s not true,that Robert isn’t the Dad. I’m just saying that it’s suspicious that this isthe one big detail from Adam’s storyline that is absent and glaringly,incredibly so. I mean, I just can’t understand why we’ve never seen any medicalprofessionals in this story, why every piece of information we know about thepregnancy is straight from Rebecca’s mouth. It doesn’t make sense and it makesit feel unreliable.

And I don’t know how they could have this storyline continue and not haveeither Victoria or Adam talk about their experiences with Johnny – where theycouldn’t trust the DNA test but ultimately it came through.

It’s suspicious to me, as many things in this storyline are.

I feel like Vadam going through a similar situation, having the abilityto very closely emphasise with Robron in a number of ways, gives me hope thatthe four of them will help fix one another, that they can play sounding boardin ways that make sense, that they can bond over the similarities of thesituations they find themselves in.

And that ultimately, Victoria and Adam can use their experiences toshape the future of this storyline. Because honestly, why else would they be socontinually involved?

[zangse]

(1) AAAHH HELLO IVE MISSED YOU MAHI!! 💕🌹💖🌸💝💐 im sorry about the late reply, i just got on summer break!! my responses should be more timely now though hehe anyway!! oh im sorry to hear that you didn't get to make bubble tea aww )): omg wait WHAT !!!!! so does that mean you get break for 5 months?? that's almost half a year.... omg that's so amazing,,, Love That ! but wait pt 2 does that mean, depending on your level in school (like high school or university), you end/start school at

(2) different times??? that’s so interesting! oh omg i hope you had fun on your trip!!!!! where did you go and how was it!!!! ✨🌿 oh yes hsksjsk i was asking what you like to draw/make gifs/gfx of!!! omg please you’re great the way you are already, you don’t need to be looking for perfection!! 💕 but yes i totally agree? like i haven’t put much thought into it, but like you said, it’s pretty likely for other life to exist?? like hm it’s ??? to think that out of the WHOLE system and 9+ (plus bc they’re finding more right??) planets, we’re the only planet with life… Hm. hssnsks omg no that’s not weird, that’s really interesting!! i feel like anti gravity is definitely really interesting esp since we’re so used to gravity, like how would it be without it you know? like how would it affect our lives and what kinda changes would we have to make?? oh wait can you exblain the invisible atmosphere? like why would you want it to be that way?? (sorry im like SUPER bad at science i(4) barely know anything about it but i do find it interesting dkdndksm) oh but yes, being able to see planets with our own EYES would be so so cool!!!! like we’re so used to seeing them in pics and all but like?? ACTUALLY seeing them??? like we can see the moon and stars in the sky, but can you imagine just casually seeing like. jupiter in the sky?? and also aren’t some of the planets super big?? so like being able to see them like that would be so!! amazing!! dhskdj omg no none of this is(5) weird at all!!! it’s really nice to see you really passionate and curious about these kinds of things!! esp because these are subjects concerning the system we live in like that’s really great that you want to learn more about it! and it really is amazing, all of this information and what we can learn about it!! ✨ AAAHHH FURUBA!!!! omg im so glad to hear that i LOVE hearing people talk about furuba and how much they love it omg it makes me so happy 🌹✨🌟💕💞💐💝🌸🌼💖💜🔥🔥🔥 omg yes

jklfdjsdkj  HIHIIIIIIIIIII honeyyy ily how are u??!! u started summer break omggg that’s great!!! IM GLAD I GET TO TALK TO U MOTRT JA B ifdhgd im anoying omg no not always!! only for this year and the last year of high school!! school usually starts in june and ends in april with a vacation in either november or october (diwali vacation) and then christmas vacation durign yk christmas sdjhfbdhj but this year my school started in june, had my two tiny vacations and then ended in jan with the whole of feb free then exams in march for the entire month and then summer vacation!! junior college (last 2 years of high school and prep for uni) 11th grade starts in july and ends in april 12th grade starts in june and ends at the same time as 10th!! dsjfhsjdf OH YEAH THAT WAS ONE FUN TRIP XXNGJFG i went on the 1st with my parents  only to sikkim!! it was so pretty and nice and we didn’t roam much just rested and relaxed in the cool place also!! my first snowfall!!!!!!! lovedddd it fjnwjfnf i got a cold afterwards gjrtnejt the 2nd time was with my entire family cousins and all to mahabaleshwar and damn wasn’t it fun it was too hot in the afternoon for my liking but we went to the pool then so it was okie! then we went to a garden and irritated the adults there because that’s what we’re best at jggfsduhs (not realy we just drank a lot of free drinks and stuff)  I like to make gfx/gifs of anything basically!!! i used to make kpop edits when i was into it and now i make anime edits!!! i lie to draw human/anime characters sfshfjn seems to me like i can only draw them sad emojii but to be not humble i think i’m good at shading osfjsdfjsdk IF U SAY ANYTHIGN LIKE THAT IM GOING TO BLUSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH NFOITHJMIOSM have mercy anon i’ll have a stroke next /(/-/3/-/)/ omg yeah like. their physical form is best left to imagination but isnt it like. we’re in the goldilocks zone? i think thats what its called but it means that this is the only area where it’s suitable for humans to survive but like. there must be other goldilocks zones right… it’s not like there’s only one galaxy there’s many but only too many light years away for us to explore sad and crying emoji omg i mean like. i want to touch clouds gndgndfkgndfkg YES THAT’S THE ONLY REASON I DONT’ WANT GRAVITY im so embrased nmgjtgytyu YEAHHH that’s exactly what i meant like woah dude today neptune is in pisces let’s just all go to sleep or shit fuck mercury hasn’t moved it’s time for us to hibernate *hibernates* yk? hgdnjdf it’s okie everyone is bad at science!! OMG yes jupiter is like hugeeeee it just used to roam around in space collecting dust and air from the big bang so like!!! it’s like. HUGEEEE but it looks tiny in pics compared to sun (obviously) because the sun is huger fjgdfg FFFFUUUUUUUURRRRRRRUUUUUUUUBBBBBBAAAAAAAAAA i litterally cannotttt stress enougj on how mych i love hatori like. how dare a character be that. THAT good can i like giv e him a hug or something pls. pLS s it’s soooo good like yes. i’ve said this before i will say it again i love. how there is so much importance of yk women as a whole and so far no one has any romantic thoughts about the other (imo) and can u belive ??? wowww actual teenagers are being potrayed here i akin to tohru have never thought of romance with any of my male freinds                   and i really teaches u things society has stored away in the depths of mariana trench like “it’s ok to be selfish sometimes” WHO SAIDDDD THAT??!!!?!?!? IRL?!?!?!? WH OOO O O no one that’s who because being selfless is so overrated pls bye i will not go off rn when it’s been oonly 10 episodes but wait. wait till episode 20 i will stand atop tardeo twin towers and profess my neverending unconditional love for sohma kyo through a microphone i take my leave thank you all

[ohh-kaye]

2020 Resolutions

oh god this year was a disaster

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

fuck this. let’s just go through my failures this year bc tbh i haven’t looked at this since i posted it and i’m positive that i didn’t actively attempt to achieve whatever’s on here.

1. Keep reading! (YES)

THANK GOD. Here’s my Goodreads 2019 Reading Challenge for you.

I’m writing this post in advance and it’ll be up on the 31st. I’m reading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin right now and I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it and therefore read 22 books this year (I hope I do though). I’m glad I read this much but also disappointed. Glad because I read 17 last year and disappointed because I read 22 2 years ago and that was during the hectic year of nursing school.

21 is not bad though. The Lord of the Rings set me back because it took me almost 3 months. Was it worth it??? yes. pls go read it. it’s great.

2. 200 stars on Duolingo? (EH?)

Duolingo had an update this year and they’ve replaced the stars with crowns so I don’t know what to make of this. Are they equivalent values? I don’t know because I have 188 for German, 167 for Spanish, and 134 for French. So are these equivalent to stars??? I don’t know.

I did write on my note about this from last year that i don’t think I’ll make it past a 200-day streak and look here bby

so maybe I should’ve trusted myself more and actually put “Maintain streak for a year” like I should have.

3. Collect puzzles. (YES)

I’ve finally bought a 4x4 and a 5x5 and I bought more tangles this year and I bought a little metal wire connect puzzle. I’ve been meaning to buy more but I can’t afford them bc I’m unemployed woohoooooooo. Everytime I go to op shops, I immediately go to the kids/ toy section first to look for puzzles because that’s where the gold mine is most of the time.

4. Prepare for the GAMSAT. (YES)

No excuses. I’ve been studying daily since August for the March 2020 sitting. I’ve also been recording a weekly update of my study experience which I’ll collate, edit, and upload when I do get into Medicine because there’s no point in doing a full weekly study vlog if I don’t get in. I’m sparing myself from embarrassment and saving the experience of recapping this adventure when (if?) I do get accepted.

*fingers crossed*

5. Watch more musicals! (NO)

This is sad. I did go to Aladdin and Book of Mormon because I bought those tickets last year but those are the only musicals I saw this year. I couldn’t afford to go see any shows even though I really wanted to. You don’t realise how many times I’ve frequented the Adelaide Theatre Guide website just to browse through any shows that were running. I was going to go see Les Mis, Miss Saigon, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, West Side Story, and so many other shows but I passed because I couldn’t justify the purchase because I didn’t have a steady income. Yeah, I could’ve watched as many shows as I could but also... couldn’t.

6. Travel. (NO)

I’ve decided that travelling sucks and I’d rather be home.

7. Therapy. (NO)

I don’t know why kid myself with this. I can’t afford therapy. BUT! I feel like this gap year from work has helped a lot. I’ve been non-stop working since I arrived in Australia and by the end of last year, I was exhausted. This year off was so relieving because I finally had a chance to breathe. I’m still not the best, mentally, but I’m energised and looking forward to opportunities now whereas last year, I would’ve told you that I will kill myself. I still have not-so-very-nice thoughts and they’re few and far between these days but oooo boi when they’re there, I’m ready to go. I’ll tap out. Not thinking so much helps so maybe we’ll keep trying this next year.

3 - YES

3 - NO

1 - EH????

Not bad. Half and half and one outlier. I honestly thought I’d fail miserably. The ones that got no with, I’m surprisingly not too devastated by.

Moving on to 2020 resolutionsssss.

I’m thinking of this on the fly because I’ve yet to prepare anything.

Maybe we’ll keep it achievable?

1. KEEP YOUR FRICKING NURSING JOB THIS TIME!

I wrote a post earlier this year about losing my grad job. I was conflicted with my feelings. I’ve always hated nursing and I still do. When I got that first job, I was horrified because I knew I didn’t want it because I didn’t want to be a nurse anymore. I’ve mentioned this several times on here about my feelings for this profession and they haven’t changed. If God chose to listen to me this time, he went all out and took away what I hated the most. That was really extra for Him to do but thanks I guess. The thing is, I HAVE to be a nurse now. Not because I want to but because I can’t be unemployed forever while I wait for Medicine to turn out. I’m never going anywhere with just staying at home and feeding off of the limited resources we have as a family. No bullshitting this time. We have to do a good job now. I’m ready.

2. Read. read. read.

I’m putting this in every year. My Reading Challenge goes up by 1 book a year so we’re at 15 books for 2020. I’m worried about this because I have job now so I’m going to be okay if we at least complete it. I won’t be aiming for 20+ next year. It’ll be great but I’ll but myself some slack.

3. Buy a car.

Honeeeeey. We’re putting this on here. Let’s be crazy and put this on here.

I hate driving but also owning a car is another step in independence. I need this. I really do.

4. Pass the GAMSAT.

I’m expecting a lot from myself with this. If I’m being truthful here, I don’t think I’ll pass the March 2020. I hope I do. Flinders Uni consider 50 scores for all sections and I’m holding out on hope that I get the bare minimum. I’m working hard and I hope it goes well.

Optimism is not good for me because I’m setting myself up for disappointment.

I know I won’t get it thought. Is it still optimism if I optimistic about not passing?

Seriously though, I’m willing to take the September test if that’s what it takes. However long it takes Medicine. I will get you.

5. Be acne-free???

I went to the doctor this year. He’s so fucking hot btw. HAHAHAHAHAHAH no srsly he is. He put me on antibiotics which I’m finishing the last round of before I go on to just using spot cream. Then if that goes well, I go back next month and he’s thinking of putting me on Accutane. I’m acne-free with the antibiotics but as all health professionals know, we can’t be on this forever. It’s not good for me goddammit. So I saw Accutane coming. But if he decides to go through with it, I know my face will light up like a Christmas tree before everything gets better. But I have a job now that requires me looking at people and people that have eyes and can see me and can see that my face is cystic for 6-8 weeks (?) before it gets better and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i’m scared.

I just want clear skin boiii. Adult acne sucks.

6. HAVE A HEALTHY BMI.

I’m going through an emotional time as I type this. I’ve been pretty good with food this year. I haven’t weighed myself because I thought that I didn’t need anymore and that I was somewhat satisfied with where I am right now. But now, I’m worried that the thoughts are coming back.

This whole eating problem has been brewing since I was 10 and would show itself by me being terrified of weighing myself or seeing how much I weigh. THIS particular thought is scary to me these days because I know that this is how it presents itself and it’s back. And I feel uneasy and insecure again.

I feel a strong urge to start starving myself again and I thought I was done with this.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

this really sucks man.

This morning I literally put WEIGH SCALE on my fucking to buy list because I was conjuring up scenarios in my head where I’m weighing myself in secret every morning.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

So let’s frame this in a healthier mindset. I want a Healthy BMI. NOT BORDERLINE HEALTHY (which was where I was when I stopped starving myself the last time this happened) BUT ACTUALLY HEALTHY. And not through the lens of insecurity this time.

Please be good to yourself this year.

7. SEE KATYA AND TRIXIE LIVE!!!

Let’s end on a less crazy way.

YOU WILL MEET KATYA AND TRIXIE THIS YEAR AND HUG THEM AND TELL THEM THAT YOU LOVE THEM AND THAT THEY’VE MADE YOU SMILE AND LAUGH AND BE SO FUCKING HAPPY THROUGH ROUGH PATCHES. YOU WILL TELL THEM THIS BECAUSE YOU WILL DEFINITELY MEET THEM. YOU MUST. YOUR FIRST PURCHASE WITH YOUR FIRST PAYSLIP IS THE MEET AND GREET TICKET TO SEE THEM. YOU WILL MEET KATYA AND TRIXIE. I REPEAT. YOU WILL MEET KATYA AND TRIXIE.

Final notes as we put this year to a close.

2019 was a challenge and there were some trying times in there. I spent January waiting to start my job and relaxing as much as I could to prepare myself for it. Come February and all of that went away and I lost my job. We went to Sydney during the same month (which the vlog has yet to be edited). March and April were spent studying for the PTE and I aced that shit. May was sad. June through to July was spent moving houses. August (to present day) was spent fixing the new house and attempting to make it somehow presentable AND MY GAMSAT REVIEW BEGAN. The end of September through to the beginning of October, I did a Hospitality course and met Complex and I found out that I got offered the same job I lost for next year. November was nothing special. And here we are right now. December. 

I’m feeling anxious but hopeful and I’m trying not to think about things too much because I get overwhelmed and it leads nowhere.

I just want things to start getting better so that I start feeling okay.

Maybe 2020 will turn out to be that way.

:)

[waveyyvibess]

I hate how much you paint me out as this terrible person.

I know i have such a good heart, i know how much i do for you, i give you my all. I literally would do anything for you. The only thing i get in return is being called abusive, over dramatic, controlling, crazy and more. All i get in return is you using my past against me. I never get any recognition.

I never wanted us to turn out like this. I feel like deep down we are so right for each other. I dont know if we just have a lot to learn before we can end up with each other or maybe the college life is changing you into this person i dont recognize. But this shit is not the same and i feel like im trapped and i cant escape and even if i could i know i would feel so lost without you.

I can see how much we care for each other. I wont deny that from you, i know you have love for me. But do i think you truly love me like you think you do? No.

This is what happens when i fall too deep. I gave you my virginity. What he doesnt understand is that, my virginity is literally so precious to me, and if i really give that to you, you are special. I told myself millions of times to wait till marriage I FUCKING HATE MYSELF for being weak in the moment. I hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself i hate myself. I just want to cut every inch of my body because i feel so disgusting. But YOU, your fake words and actions led me to believe that we were there for each other till the very end.

You’ve done a couple things i never thought you would do. One of the reasons is because ive been with you for two years now and you have never acted in this kind of manner. You went to a girls dorm at 4am, your intentions may have been good. But the principle of that is so wrong. You are attracted to this new girl but you claim you wont do anything with her, you just want to be friends. God please help me. This shit feels so wrong now, every time i replay this in my head it feels like im drowning for hours and im suffering. “Damn she curved me” you said to your friend. You claim it was about her not snapping you back when you wanted to start a streak with her. Like that makes it any better. “Lets go see if she’s on the 9th floor” you claim you just wanted to go talk to her and become friends. But god we all know thats bullshit. You are so stubborn, the evidence is all right here. Please just STOP lying to me, it feels like a knife is stabbing my chest. We both know your intentions even if it wasnt to cheat.

I wish you only had eyes for me, but i know i not that special to you anymore, maybe i never was.

You delete your messages now, claim its nothing really you just “dont wanna start a fight” i peeped the conversation you had with your friends right before we started dating. You told you were talking to another girl right before me and dropped her once you met me because you wanted us to get serious. But i found out that she had found out about us because your friend told her and she was actually the one who had left you. You had never left her for me.

I want to fucking throw up, when you touch i dont feel anything anymore, we are sooooooo far gone and i fucking hate it, i dont want us to end, god. But the truth is it already has.

When i look at you, i dont even see you anymore. You say this relationship has always been toxic and that i was fake in the beginning, but you stay. You know, you can see how mich i care about you. You realized how much shit you can pull off and get away with and ill still be with you, and still wanna spend every waking second with you, even tbought this shit aint the same, the sad trut bc is you have a part of me now, and if i leave im not going to be whole ever again. Knowing i have my virginty to the wrong guy, makes me a terrible person and i cant bare to live with myself.

You’re with me because we have history but you go around with other girls to satisfy your needs. I know im not enough for you and im not the girl you thought i was.

I have been sick for over a month now. No joke. From the first week of october and now it is the second week of november. You think i like to argue with you for fun but what you dont see is the hurt i am in what you will never understand is how much pain i am going through right now.

I want to be able to feel you, touch you, connect with you but we are never on the same page

I am falling apart and i fucking need help.

[maysoper]

A Book Tour

This isn't a Teebz's Book Club entry, although it may soon be if I can get my hands on this book before October 30th. In any case, today's piece is more about the events surrounding the book to the right, namely Born Into It by author, actor, filmmaker, and Canadiens fan extraordinaire Jay Baruchel, and published by HarperCollins Canada. Jay is probably best known for his work in She's Out of My League, his voice work as Hiccup in How to Train Your Dragon and its eventual sequels and TV show spin-off, and for being Seann William Scott's over-the-top best friend in the movie Goon. Jay's new book, as stated above, is due out October 30, and it's all about the ups and downs of being a die-hard Habs fan. After growing up in the Montreal neighbourhood of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, I'm going to say that Jay probably has a pretty good idea of what it's like to be a Canadiens fan. From the HarperCollins page,

It's no secret that Jay Baruchel is a die-hard fan of the Montreal Canadiens. He talks about the team at every opportunity, wears their gear proudly in interviews and on the street, appeared in a series of videos promoting the team, and was once named honorary captain by owner Geoff Molson and Habs tough guy Chris Nilan. As he has said publicly, "I was raised both Catholic and Jewish, but really more than anything just a Habs fan." In Born Into It, Baruchel's lifelong memories as a Canadiens' fan explode on the page in a collection of hilarious, heartfelt and nostalgic stories that draw on his childhood experiences as a homer living in Montreal and the enemy living in the Maple Leaf stronghold of Oshawa, Ontario. Knuckles drawn, and with the rouge, bleu et blanc emblazoned on just about every piece of clothing he owns, Baruchel shares all in the same spirit with which he laid his soul bare in his hugely popular Goon movies. Born Into It is a memoir unlike any other, and a book not to be missed.

Sounds pretty good, right? I'm not here to help sales of the book, but I'm thinking this will be a pretty funny look at the success and struggles of the Canadiens through the eyes of a guy who lives and breathes Les Habitants. In any case, the real reason I'm writing this piece is because you could potentially meet Jay Baruchel! Jay will be going on a book tour to help promote the book, and that's where you come in! If you go to one of the events listed below or on the HarperCollins page, you can meet Jay and have your book signed by the hockey fan! Cool, right? Here are the dates:

November 6: Westminster Books, Fredericton, NB.

November 9: Indigo, St. John's, NFLD.

November 13: McNally Robinson, Winnipeg, MB.

November 16: Indigo, Oshawa, ON.

November 20: Indigo First Canadian Place, Toronto, ON.

If you glanced at the other dates, there might be a chance that Jay sticks around and autographs books, but it seems like he's there for an appearance more than anything. Somehow, he misses the west coast altogether on this initial run, but I'm hoping he'll get out to BC and Edmonton on a future trip. In any event, he'll be in my neck of the woods on Tuesday, November 13, so I've already cleared that evening and don't care what may be planned because I'll be going to see Jay speak and scribble in his books that night! If you can't make it, I'll shamelessly plug that you should buy his book. Again, Teebz's Book Club is going to review this book, so if you want to wait for the review, that's fine too. Just make sure you support good Canadian authors whenever you can! Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice! from Sports News http://hockey-blog-in-canada.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-book-tour.html

[kaitlinmcandrews]

Hello again!

So, to continue where I left off, the next season I want to showcase is winter. Winter is a lot shorter here than in Canada and it starts a lot later as well. As you may have noticed, my last blog was talking about Fall and it went into December. Maybe my memory is terrible, but I’m fairly sure that there are no Autumn leaves in December, back in Canada.

Okay, side note: Let’s talk about Canada’s winter (well, like northern BC and Alberta since I haven’t lived in the rest of the gigantic country I’m from. It’s freaking huge! The weather in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal are probably 20394848x better than it is where I’m from, but let me vent for a sec).

I swear that winter goes from October to May. By winter, I mean that there is a presence of snow. When I was a kid, it often snowed on my birthday. My birthday is at the end of September. Usually, it would melt right away, then it would warm up again and it would snowy again by the time Halloween rolled around. Also, I remember mid-November being the time of year when the ski hills open. So, that basically means that you can expect the snow to be there to stay from that point forward.

However, In the last couple of years, the snow comes and goes basically starting in November and we don’t get consistent snowy weather until Christmas or early January. The ski hills now seem to open in mid-December. So, uh, to all those that don’t think global warming is a thing, you are wrong. My Northern Canadian life is proof enough, in my opinion.

That being said, I don’t think the Autumn leaves stick around until December. That just seems absurd. Well… I also feel like the weather where I’m from is incredibly volatile and sporadic. I mean, it literally will go from 20C and sunny, to 10C and rainy, to -10C and snowy, and back to 20C within a 2 day span. I’m not kidding. So, if I was a leaf on a tree, I’d jump ship early on in the year, too.

Okay, okay, you aren’t here for crazy Canadian weather…

Back to Japan!

So, Japan is pretty diverse, just like Canada, surprisingly. I think I had a misconception about the size of Japan before coming here. So, because of that, remember that everything I say about weather is not really about the entire country. I can only speak about our experience in Kyoto, Kanagawa aaaaaand, Nagano!

Winter in Kyoto, Tokyo, and Kanagawa is pretty tame. I’d say it snows once or twice throughout the year and doesn’t stick. In the Kyoto area, it seemed to stay a little bit longer, especially in Northern Shiga (where me and Pat used to work).

Okay, the moment I’ve wanted to talk about since we went there.

Nagano Prefecture (長野県)

In mid-February, we headed Northwest to Nagano prefecture. It is not that far from Tokyo, yet it has quite a different climate. It is a pretty mountainous prefecture with many ski hills.

Okay, let’s get out the good old Google Maps screen shot!

As you can see, it is a pretty big prefecture. As you can probably also see, I have starred the area that we went to.

Since this area is pretty rural, for the most part, the options for getting out there are a bit limited. I think going to Nagano city first is the best option, depending on your destination I suppose. Basically, from Tokyo, you have 2 options (unless you can drive of course). You can take a shinkansen, which is the high speed bullet train, or a highway bus.

The Hokuriku-Shinkansen takes about 2 hours and costs about 8,000 yen. My coworker told me that this shinkansen line is fairly new, so not too long ago this wasn’t even an option. Interesting.

As for bus, this is where there is a lot of discrepancy with times and price. We went through a company called Willer Express. I used this website: http://japanbuslines.com/en/ to find all the buses that went from Tokyo to Nagano and picked the best option for us. It was significantly cheaper. I think it was like 3,000 yen or something. The downside was that it took twice as long. I believe it was about 4 hours.

For us, we took the Shinkansen to Nagano on our way there and took the bus from Nagano on our way back.

So, we decided to have a pretty late night when we left. We decided to make the most of a regular 2-day weekend. I sorta based the timing of going on the activities I wanted to do, rather than wait for a long weekend. I wanted to go skiing and I wanted to go to a monkey park. I had to figure out the best timing for both the ski season and if the monkeys would be out. If the weather was too warm, the monkeys wouldn’t be out in the onsen (I’ll get into this more, later) and if it was too cold, the skiing experience wouldn’t be as fun.

**Also, sorry for the lack of photos, I didn’t take as many as usual. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.**

We requested to leave work a bit early and we were able to take the shinkansen out to Nagano around 6pm or so. We had a bit of a hectic time at the shinkansen gates (which I have ranted about enough times on this blog…) and barely got onto the train we paid for. Since we didn’t book ahead, there wasn’t too many options for sitting together.

It was actually a bit frustrating because it seemed like many business men were taking this train (seems to be the norm from 5:00 -7:00), and they all book the window seat. So, basically, every pair of seats was taking by one business man. Like, c’mon man, by you single travellers wanting to sit alone, you make it incredibly irritating for anyone that is travelling with someone. It just seems selfish. If you are a single f’ing person, you shouldn’t have reserved seats. You should just be put with all the other business men. Ugh.

So, it wasn’t terrible, but a bit frustrating. The ride was only about 2 hours so it wasn’t too bad. When we left Tokyo, it was actually one of the warmer days that it had been in awhile. It was pretty crazy how different the weather was when we arrived in Nagano city. I found the temperature on the accuweather website. For reference, we left Tokyo on Friday, February 17th.

Tokyo:

Nagano:

So, not only was the temperature much colder, but it was also one of the nicest days in a long period of time in Tokyo.

Darn.

We arrived pretty late so it was even colder. Also, it was raining (well, like wet snowing) when we arrived so it was pretty chilly.

So, unfortunately for us, our final destination was not Nagano city. As soon as you get off the beaten path, transit becomes sooo difficult and confusing. I did a lot of research on ski resort websites to get as much information as I could. I found that there was a bus that went basically to our hotel. For some reason, the times for this bus were really bizarre. Luckily, I was able to get the following bus schedule, to confirm what I read online.

For whatever reason, the bus times out to where we needed to go ran every hour until 5pm and then nothing until 9pm, which is the last one of the night. It was a little bit stressful. Knowing that we had to get the one and only bus out there was not comforting. We had an hour and a bit to spare when we arrived in Nagano, but my first priority was to find out where on Earth the bus stop was. I was so stressed about missing this bus. I swear that the internet just said “go to East exit. finished”…. ugh, not helpful. I don’t think I can make it any more helpful, though, to be honest.

So, when you get out of the East exit, we went down a small escalator, and down the stairs. There was 2 bus stop areas. One looked like it was for city buses, and the other looked like it was for highway buses. I assumed we would need the highway bus, but I really had no idea. I gave up and asked the gift shop lady. The bus stop was basically right by the gift shop. So, I guess it was a city bus?

Don’t trust me… I think this is the stop, but my memory is not great and I didn’t take any photographs… That’s what I use to trigger my memory.

I think it was even more stressful since it was so dark and cold outside. Like, not only could we be stranded, but nobody is outside, things are starting to close and I still wasn’t 100% sure where to catch the bus. Thank goodness for the bus stop lady. Having this bus schedule helped as well because I could just show it to her and she knew what I wanted.

Once we knew the bus stop, we went to eat and get some starbucks. We took the bus without any problems. We had to tell the driver what stop we were going to and pay for our ticket before going on. Since it was so late, there were maybe 10 or less people on the bus. It was a pretty quiet busride. We were on the bus for a little over an hour.

When we got off, we then had to walk to our hotel. This particular hotel had a pickup service but I really didn’t want to bother them so late at night. (Actually, at this point I was emailing them back and forth letting them know our arrival time and such since it was such a late check in.

The bus stop seemed to be in the middle of a ski lodge town. The place we chose was pretty far away actually. We started walking. It really isn’t a long walk, but remember, it was like 10:30pm.  It was so rural that there were no street lights. It was also in the mountains so the roads were just like they are back home: icy and snowed over.  And, we were dragging our suitcases behind us.

Well, after about 5 minutes or so, a vehicle passed us, which was weird since it was so dead. Well, that vehicle turned around and it was the owner of the hotel! I don’t know if he was driving up and down this road, or if we had lucky timing since I was emailing him our ETA. So, he picked us up and drove us to the hotel.  He was so sweet.

We checked in and got ready for our big ski day the next morning.

  Shiga Kogen mount yakebitai Ski (志賀高原焼額山スキー場)

We woke up pretty early to make sure we would get to the mountain and have enough time to get our ski rentals. Since our ryokan provided breakfast we decided to grab some before we left. We had the choice of a Japanese style breakfast or an American/Western style one. We opted for the Japanese option just to take in the culture.

Well, to be fair, I don’t really like any western breakfast items. I hate bread, muffins,cereal, oatmeal and yoghurt with fruit in it. The only breakfeast food I like is bacon and eggs. We didn’t know what the western breakfast would include so not worth the risk for me, the picky eater. That being said, for most people, that is definitely the safest option haha. Who knows what will be in the Japanese breakfast!

It was quite nice to have a Japanese style breakfast. When we had a home-cooked breakfast in Korea, it was an experience that I think will always be with me (if you can’t remember, we had freaking bulgogi for breakfast and it was the best bulgogi I have ever had, ever).

So, to our relief, the one breakfast item that I definitely did NOT want (natto, ie, fermented soy beans) were not part of it. Lucky! We had a fish, miso soup, some tofu, some fruit, salad and rice. To drink, we had tea! Not exactly what we would eat for breakfast in North America. It was pretty good. It was really filling and really well-rounded.

After breakfast, we saw that many other guests were getting ready to head out. Since this ryokan is just ran by a couple, they would only be driving one vehicle out to the bus stop. Me and Pat were impatient, and a bit anti-social, so we just walked. It wasn’t a long walk. It was slightly uphill, but it wasn’t bad. We were wearing our jackets, and brought our toques and gloves. We were going to rent the rest of our gear so we didn’t need to carry much at all.

Since we arrived in the dark the night before, we really had no idea how much snow there was. It felt like we were back in Canada! It wasn’t too cold out and was actually a pretty nice walk to the bus.

The bus stop was pretty easy to find. The busses out to the ski hill was actually free since it was a shuttle bus. I was pretty surprised. You cooouuuld take a fancy highway bus, but it wasn’t free. It didn’t run too often, so we ended up leaving a lot later than we had expected. Using that bus timetable from before, everything under the pink was free.

We missed the first bus, but made the second one. As you can see, they don’t really run too often so we had to wait for a bit. Luckily, there was a little bus stop shack that was heated and had benches and a vending machine. So, it was not terrible.

Once the bus came, the lady that worked at the bus station let us know and we got on. Since we were only the third stop, the bus wasn’t full yet. It filled up really quickly. We were so lucky that we got to sit down the whole time (although, I felt kinda bad since we didn’t have any gear and we got to sit, yet some people had their skis, helmets, boots, etc. and had to stand…).

The first thing we did when we got to the ski hill was go to the rental shop. Since this ski hill has a fair amount of foreign guests, they carried a pretty good range in sizes. We were able to rent ski pants, board/ski and boots and jackets. We didn’t rent jackets since we had our own. I was hoping that they would have goggles, but they didn’t. I could have bought a pair, but they were soooo expensive. This was the first time in my life that I went skiing without goggles.

Now, back in Canada, I have my own gear. I haven’t had to rent anything in a loooong time. But! Every time that I have been to a rental shop has been a terrible and long process. This guy was super quick. There wasn’t a line at all, which is surprising since I can’t imagine many Japanese people have their own stuff. I mean, unless you live in Nagano, where are they going to go skiing?? Maybe we went early/late enough? Who knows.  I don’t remember how much the rentals cost… I wonder if I can find that out.

http://www.princehotels.com/en/ski/shigakogen/rentals.html

Found it! Looks like its about $30 for the board/ski and boot set. Since the only snow gear we rented was the snow pants, I don’t think he charged us $40… I really don’t think we paid that much. At that point in time, we were thinking of doing a night ski. This made it a bit complicated about returning out rentals. They shop closed basically at the time of the last chairlift, which was hours before the night ski started.

The rental guy was pretty understanding, and perhaps too nice/trusting. He said we could return them in the morning OR just leave the stuff outside the shop. What the heck? Just leave it there? That is way too trusting, Japan! We weren’t sure what we wanted to do, so told him we would return it in the morning (Even though this is the most inconvenient option for us, especially since our hotel is so far from the ski hill and now we would have to lug all of our stuff back to the hotel and back).

After we got all the stuff we needed, we bought some tickets.The full day pass costs $50. I wish we had arrived a bit earlier to make that cost worth it, but it wasn’t a terrible price. We also got our night ski tickets for about $20 at the same time. Our passes were really interesting. They were like hard plastic cards (they reminded me of our train cards) that were used to beep into the chairlifts/gondolas. Isn’t that cool?

I tried to take a photo, but the line was moving pretty quickly. So, I have a fancy ski pass holder in my jacket’s arm so it was really easy for me to beep in. Pat took the card out every time.

Y’know, sometimes Japan really is high tech. Usually it isn’t, but sometimes unnecessary technology pops up where you’d least expect it. We were given two cards that look the exact same so we had to put our night ski cards separately from our day lift cards. Finally, we were off to the slopes!

I didn’t take my fancy camera with me skiing, obviously, so I don’t have many photos. I took a few photos on my phone, so let’s go with what I got….

As you can see, they mountain isn’t really that big, but it has decent amount of runs with an okay variety. Me and Pat tried (and I thiiiiink we succeeded) to go down every single run.

The snow was nice and powdery at the top, but a bit icy near the bottom. There was a good mix of groomed runs and natural. The runs that weren’t groomed had some pretty fun naturally formed moguls. As a boarder, moguls are pretty difficult, but I personally think they are a lot of fun. The trees were different that I’m used to back home so that was kind of an interesting difference that I never even thought of.

We were pretty lucky with the weather. It wasn’t too cold, there wasn’t much wind chill and the sun came out quite a bit. I had a hard time without goggles, though. I could barely keep my eyes open because of the sun reflecting off the snow and having the wind go into my eyes. I decided to wear my glasses and that seemed to help a little bit. Sunglasses would have been much better. Oh well!

It wouldn’t be a Pat and Kaitlin adventure without a mishap…

So, it you are going to this mountain (yakebitai) be aware that it connects to another ski hill (OkuShiga).

Now, I was under the impression that the ShigaKogen ski hills were all covered by the day pass, so I actually wasn’t too concerned when we ended up over there. Well, I  must have read something wrong or misunderstood something…

When we arrived at the chairlift at the other ski hill, our cards wouldn’t beep in.

sigh….

Luckily, right by the chairlift was a small rest stop where you could by the ski pass for this hill. When I talked to the front desk lady, we were hit with dissapointing news. She said to get back to the other hill we had two options: take that bus that we took on the way up (but, remember, it runs like once an hour…) or buy a pass to go back up the chairlift. Before talking to her, I thought the only option was the full day pass, which would have been another $50, or a half-day pass, which was around $30…

That’s an expensive mistake!

I’m pretty glad that the lady at the front counter spoke English and understood our situation. We were able to get a one lift pass. She told up how to properly beep in and what to do with the card when we were done. Phew!

I can’t remember how much they cost, but they were significantly cheaper. It was kind of an interesting idea, especially if you were staying near the hill. I dunno, I kind of liked the idea of just paying for a few runs. Probably not worth the cost, but interesting…

It was one of those situations that really sucked at the time, but was easily rectified and didn’t really cause too many issues. It was a small blip in an otherwise nice ski day.

When we were at the chalet for lunch, I started looking at information on how to get back to the hotel. It wasn’t until then that I noticed that it might actually be in a bit of trouble. Let’s look at the bus timetable again:

Do you see the problem?

Well, just to remind you, we were planning on going night skiing. Night skiing started at 6:30.

…..

Lame.

So, the LAST bus back to our hotel leaves at 5:10. The last run is over at 4:30, so it actually doesn’t give you much time. It was kind of disappointing because we don’t really like taking the last bus because it is so risky, but the bus before left so early!So, I guess night skiing is only available to the people that are either staying at the Prince Hotel or driving. Oh well.

Luckily, we were able to return the passes and get our money back. I’m sure that we weren’t the only ones to make this mistake so it was a fairly easy process.

I feel like we did take the last bus since we wanted to stay as long as possible. We were able to return our rentals, so that saved us some trouble. We waited at the bus stop near the hotel and got back safely. We were pretty hungry at this point. For whatever reason, the restaurants at the ski hill ALL closed before the last run. Isn’t that strange? The ski hill and all the amenities turned into a ghost town as soon as 4pm hit.

Once we got back to the bus stop, we realized that were no places to eat. Seriously, there was nothing! It seems that every person out there ate at their hotel? There wasn’t even a convenient store (they are literally everywhere in Japan, so it was pretty strange).

We headed back to the hotel and hoped that we would be able to get something to eat there. As I mentioned before, these hotel owners were just a sweet old couple. We could have arranged for them to pick us up at the bus stop, but we just walked back. It wasn’t really a long walk.

They were really accommodating and it wasn’t a big deal.

I got a pasta and Pat got an udon (a Japanese noodle soup). Of course we had beer!~

After dinner, I really wanted to go into the onsen. I’m usually not allowed in one because I have tattoos. I thought that I booked a room with a private hot spring bath, but the website was a bit misleading. The Ryokan itself had a “private” onsen, but it was for the entire hotel… This wasn’t a very big hotel and didn’t seem to be full of people or anything.

I decided to risk it. Pat was not interested and stayed in the room. They were separated by gender so we couldn’t be in the bath together anyways. I was pretty lucky and nobody was in there and no one came the entire time. So, I guess I did have a private bath after all! If you didn’t know, you go into an onsen naked. If anyone came in, not only would I be embarrassed about my tattoo, but also that they would see me naked!

In this onsen, you put your clothes in the pink basket, shower yourself off (not shown) and finally you can relax in the natural hot spring. It felt really great after a ski day.

We had a pretty early night and didn’t really do too much. We didn’t have to wake up so early the next day, but we did so we could get the breakfast.

The breakfast was similar in some ways, but obviously had different types of food. The one kind shocking/strange things were the fish that you can see at the bottom. I initially took a bite from the stomach area and it was FILLED with fish eggs. I googled it to figure out what the heck I was eating. I found out we were to eat the whole thing, except the head and tail. I ripped of those parts and ate it. It was… ok… It definitely wasn’t my favourite dish. I would never order it.

We went back to our room and packed up all of our stuff. We only went skiing for the one day so we were off to a new adventure!

  Jigokudani Monkey Park (地獄谷野猿公)

The next day, we headed to a monkey park in Nagano. It was actually only 3 bus stops away from the hotel. I don’t want to show that freaking bus timetable again, so just trust me. The monkey park isn’t part of the free bus section so we had to pay at the bus stop before we left.

As soon as I found out about this place, I have wanted to go. When we lived in Kyoto, I was willing to travel all the way there. To put that in perspective, here’s another Google Map image!

Here’s a tip if you ever want to go somewhere sort of rural in Japan: Look at directions to the nearest train station and go from there. When I tried to find out how to get to this Monkey Park, I couldn’t find anything! To be fair, I couldn’t find directions to the park from Nagano using Google Maps either. There was a lot of extra Googling from there on and finding local bus stop timesheets that needs to be done

Japan: The Future….

Anyways, as you can see, the average trip from Kyoto would have been almost 4 hours just to get to Nagano. If our jobs weren’t so crappy and we actually had time of like real people, I may have made Pat make this trek with me.

Luckily for us, I suppose, we moved to Kanagawa and were able to make it there in a much shorter trip. Since we were already in the area to go skiing, it was a pretty quick trip to the monkey park.

We had already checked out of our hotel and had to bring our luggage to the monkey park. The bus stop had “Monkey Park” in the name so it was hard to miss. When we arrived, it seemed that everyone was going the same way. Not only that, but there were signs along the way. I think it took about 15 min or so to get to the entrance.

I looked up details beforehand so I knew that we were able to store our luggage at the office/gift shop area. It wasn’t too expensive to store our stuff so we were happy to do that instead of finding a locker or anything.

I really didn’t know what to expect going into this park. I was reading online that in order to see the monkeys, the temperature should be pretty cold. Before we left Kawasaki, the forecast was supposed to be super cold. I was sad that skiing would be terrible, I was excited that the monkeys would be awesome.

  Regardless of the forecast, we actually experienced the opposite. The weather was quite nice and skiing was definitely more pleasurable (especially since I didn’t have any goggles), but I was worried about not being able to see the monkeys.  From the entrance, we had to do a bit of a hike until we hit the park. I did not know that. I thought that the ‘entrance’ was the monkey park ‘entrance’….

hmm…

Seems like it was falsely advertised OR falsely assumed by me.

There were quite a few foreigners on the trail, which is always so surprising. I mean, we are in rural Japan. Foreigners are about 1% of the population, so to see another foreign person is always shocking. To be fair, the amount of foreign tourists that are in Japan is sooooo mush higher than the foreigners that actually live here. Sorry, that was a tangent.  What I wanted to mention was a small, blonde haired girl that was with her family, was talking about how disappointing she was. I remember saying to Patrick that I didn’t think we would see any monkeys…

It was a pretty nice hike so I wasn’t too disappointed at this point. The weather was nice and the scenery was actually really nice. I don’t think you can tell, but the sun was shining through the trees and gave such an amazing view. At this point, I was wishing I would have seen the monkeys, but I was enjoying the hike regardless.

Until….

… A freaking monkey walked by us!!!

I was so excited, but I was actually a bit scared. I didn’t think I would be, but, like, I have no idea what these guys are capable of! He didn’t seem to care. He walked on by like nothing.

I really didn’t know what to expect so I thought that THIS was the monkey park. I thought that we were already in the area to see the monkeys. I’m glad that I was wrong. There was a little office at the end of the hike where you could buy tickets into the monkey park and get souvenirs. The tickets weren’t too expensive. I believe they were under $10.

We actually hesitated about buying the tickets. That little girl that I eavesdropped on really faltered my confidence. Also, when I read about this place online, I heard that if the weather is warm, the monkeys won’t be in the hot spring. Since the weather was actually really nice, I really thought that buying those tickets could be a waste of time.

Man, I must have misunderstood what I read. I also think that poor little girl’s family didn’t pay to go in. Because, there were definitely monkeys! At first, we just saw some playing on the mountain. They were soooo cute!

Yaaaay~

I was pretty excited. They were actually playing around together like human children. It was really adorable. We ventured our way down to the hot spring (the main attraction) and continued to see monkeys scattered around.

There were a lot of ups and downs and quite icy. At one point, Pat almost wiped out really bad. He slipped down this huge hill and it was like a cartoon. Luckily he was able to gain his balance and a man at the bottom was ready to catch him if he was to wipe out. Point is: if you go here, wear boots.

Once we got to the hot spring area safely, we got to see so many monkeys!! Photo time ^^!

And finally, the main attraction~ The hot spring!

Like I said earlier, the weather was fairly warm so the monkeys weren’t really interested in hanging out in the hot springs. It was just the mama and her baby, but I was so happy to see ANY monkeys in there!

It was pretty amazing how close you could get to them. They weren’t scared or curious. They just walked around and didn’t mind the people at all. It was a pretty cool experience.

We headed back home after we finished at the monkey park. We had a really great weekend and were pretty happy to be able to experience a “true” Japanese winter. It was nice to see snow again, believe it or not.

The 4 seasons of Japan – Winter Hello again! So, to continue where I left off, the next season I want to showcase is winter.

[bidickgrayson]

i’ve finally almost gotten to the place in persona 3 where i stopped playing a couple years ago. just got to october, and i stopped some time in november in my first playthrough

it’s interesting to revisit shinjiro’s death a couple years later, because that death was one of the few things i remembered with any kind of detail. i remember being very angry at the storyline that had a ten-year-old kid plot revenge for the death of his mother. couldn’t really understand that urge/the fact that that kind of storyline was coming from a TEN YEAR OLD

and i’m still not a fan, but i am a little less directly angry with ken. the first time, i wasn’t expecting it, and so i was just angry that ken got shinjiro into a situation where he was killed lol. i had a lot more sympathy for ken this time around, when i knew what was coming the whole time, and could remind myself more rationally that ken didn’t actually kill shinjiro

really where i disagree with the writing around shinjiro’s death the most is around the aftermath, primarily around akihiko’s reaction. first of all, BULLSHIT on the fact that akihiko was like “we need to stop treating ken like a kid” because HE IS A KID!!!! what are you talking about!!!! “he needs to make his own decisions” like OKAY i get that you want to respect his autonomy but....he was just a kid who plotted a revenge-murder of a high schooler who killed his mom in front of him, only to watch in horror as that high schooler THROWS HIMSELF IN FRONT OF A GUNSHOT TO SAVE THE KID’S LIFE and then died in front of the kid. there’s no acknowledgement of the trauma, because they’re trying to treat this precocious ten-year-old like he’s an adult, when frankly, no adult would go through that without some trauma!! it’s just dumb. and i can forgive the sees members for some of it, because this is a bunch of high schoolers dealing with some heavy shit with no good adult supervision (lol @ ikutsuki), and they’re all just kids themselves, so i can’t really blame them for not knowing the best way to handle it and stumbling through on their own

also, what makes it worse is that it was literally just revealed that ken was suicidal/wanted to die like, just a while before, and tbf none of the other sees members knew, but i knew as the audience, and so to have akihiko go like “well, he’s gonna do what he’s gonna do” was so jarring and distressing. GET THIS KID SOME HELP! but. whatever. and then ken of course decides to come back and has a new resolve, and it’s treated as though that’s the really strong thing to do and not a definitely unhealthy lack of concern for mental well-being. “i’m strong so i’m not going to let the multiple traumatic events/my suicidal ideations (as a ten-year-old!) distract me from our mission”

also, back to direct reactions to shinjiro’s death, and maybe this is more personal preference, but i really Cannot Relate at all to akihiko’s resolution in the face of it. i remember that disconnect was jarring to me when i first played it years ago too. because he’s sad, and then very quickly he’s not sad because “it’s what shinjiro would have wanted”. and i just can’t relate to how quick he came to terms with the death, because this was literally akihiko’s oldest friend. and when the other’s express sadness, he’s like, don’t be sad, it’s what shinjiro wanted. LIKE WTF it is still sad??? i just think a better balance between acceptance and grief could have been found, because i really feel like they jumped over the majority of the grief that i would expect from shinjiro’s oldest friend, which is very jarring. but. i mean, who knows, maybe that would be realistic to some. it feels like a shortcut to me tho. i like akihiko, but this particular instance really disconnected me from his character

i’ve heard that with the female protagonist in p3p, you can do a social link so shinjiro doesn’t end up dead. and i’m really curious how that plays out (/why the social link changes it). i just wanna be able to say “YOU’RE A HIGH SCHOOLER, YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE YOUR DEATH IS THE BEST WAY THINGS CAN PLAY OUT ( :( )”

anyway, some other thoughts while i’m here:

my vague recollection of p3 having some social links with ppl who weren’t really good people was correct. or maybe i should say, weren’t people i really found sympathetic. like, the devil link with the shady businessman (which i still haven’t completed), or the magician link with the classmate kenji (he has called me SO MANY TIMES, and i have turned him down every time, because if there’s going to links i don’t complete, i am fine with one of them being his. i just.....am not interested in his quest to fuck his teacher, i don’t enjoy it. i know i completed his in my last playthrough, but i can’t remember how it resolves but....god i could not care less about kenji). then there’s the hermit link with the teacher online (she’s so annoying lol, and i hate that she tells protag that she has a crush on the irl him, like, fuck off. also, she’s such a bad/unsympathetic teacher, it made me really miss kawakami, who had flaws but was ultimately a good teacher imo). oh, then there’s the emperor link with hidetoshi on the student council who....lol, that’s another link i completed last time but have barely touched this time, because i really dislike him. i kinda remember him softening towards the end of the link, but so much of the first part is just about enabling him being a tyrannical class council member which is not fun. and i ultimately like the tower/monk link, but he’s another character who....doesn’t really seem like that nice of a person. but i do like him because he likes the protag

the other links for the most part are good. it’s interesting the differences between p5 and p3 social links, because p5 had a definite theme to all of the links (/the whole game lol) where they were all ultimately good people who were misunderstood/unfairly judged/treated somehow (altho i haven’t done the iwai link all the way through, i imagine it ends up similarly because he’s a somewhat decent person “doing evil to combat evil” iirc). but there’s no real theme for the p3 links as far as i can tell. which makes sense, because in p5 there is a specific reason to have links with them all because they end up helping you, and they all end up as accomplices to all of the crimes the thieves commit lol

i really dislike that you have to romance all of your female classmates in order to complete their social links. what is friendship lol. really really really makes it feel a whole lot cheaper, and really makes it hard for me to care. very glad they stopped making that a requirement in p3p and beyond

what also make it hard for me to care?? the blank and unemotional p3 protagonist lol. i really have a hard time connecting to him, because he doesn’t really do much?? he’s just a blank wall for all of the social links, and it really disconnects me from the emotions of it. some girl will be confessing her feelings to him, and i’m just like, hm, fascinating, who cares, he’s gonna go on a date with another girl tomorrow. it doesn’t feel real to me at all. maybe i’m just totally unfairly biased toward p5 (and i don’t want to compare endlessly, bc p5 is newer and clearly they’ve made many improvements over the years, but it’s the easiest comparison at hand), but when someone talked to joker about how much he meant to them, i bought into it a lot more than i do with mr. low energy, the p3 protag. joker felt like an actual character to me, that i could care about, who i could understand/imagine his feelings and reactions to things. but for the p3 protag, it’s a lot of, well, i GUESS he COULD care about shinjiro dying, but you sure as heck have to read a whole lot into it to get to that conclusion, because the strongest reaction you can make him have to it is to have him tell the callous students at the assembly to “shut up.” which is nice, but hardly anything at all lol. i just find him difficult to project my emotions onto him in the game, unlike joker, who i didn’t have as much trouble believing in his genuine feeling for the people he talked to. i think also, people reacted to joker in a much more specific way that made him more real than the p3 protag, who kind of feels like a ghost most times, except for his social links where he shows up just to say exactly what the other person wants to hear lol. idk, i’m looking forward to replaying p5 and paying more attention to joker this time

(my feelings on the p3 protag are gonna be interesting come end-game, because if i understand correctly from the vague spoilers i’ve gotten about p3, the protag is gonna sacrifice himself to save the world. i keep trying to remind myself/play with that in mind, because i don’t think someone would sacrifice himself if he was actually as unemotional and detached as he sometimes comes across as)

80% of my rage at this game comes from being unable to control my specific party members in battle and so they do things that i don’t want them to, 10% comes from enemy advantage attacks (especially when i swing at them, but they hit me first), 9% comes from this game challenging me/punishing me for being underleveled when i’m playing on easy and don’t want any challenge at all because i want to get past the silly fighting business and back to social links/story, and a special 1% goes to the sleeping table boss in tartarus, which definitely was a primary punisher for me being underleveled and caused me to yell angrily at my screen yesterday

oh, ikutsuki. it’s funny, because p3 was the first persona game i played, and very early on, i was like, i don’t trust ikutsuki at all, so when the reveal came that you should not, in fact, trust ikutsuki, i wasn’t at all surprised. but it’s funny to replay it, knowing that persona likes the “this guy is not what he seems” trope, and realize that...there wasn’t really a specific giveaway instance where ikutsuki said something that was off (a la pancakes, or adachi showing up to a private conversation with interesting timing), it was just a sort of feeling i got about this weird adult who was having these high schoolers be responsible for saving the world, apparently. he really is a terrible terrible advisor though, lol, even knowing he’s evil. it’s sad to realize that the only adult help these kids have got is someone who is absolutely not on their side, and they’re truly on their own