#once again my most listened to has called me gay and mentally ill

[looselipssinkships-x]

@pluggedintosaverockandroll honey revenge brain rot

[hanzi83]

Society in Mental Decline

I figured I would waste people’s time with another blog. Keep in mind you are not supposed to be consuming my blogs or podcasts if you are someone who is a very well together adjusted person, the good portion who consume anything I write or say on a podcast, but let’s be real, also my “private” thoughts I write in a journal can be hacked and monitored and when I am feeling irrational with the direction in where the world is going and seeing all kind of fandom and political angles going to complete and utter shit, I start to feel a certain way and since no one interacts with my shit and I am considered a red flag account and it is fine, because it is better to vent my mental irrational shit because for the most part no one wants part of it but people with powerful connections are often monitoring me and when they sense my mental is falling off a little bit more than usual, trolls from the past show back up and try to take advantage by misrepresenting what I say or what I do, put out dangerous rumors and instilling paranoia into me for almost a decade now and then when they can’t get on my good side, they will take it personally and dedicate their life to trying to ruin an already uneventful life, and then they try to accomplish multiple goals with this, first misrepresenting where my mind is and hoping I snap and also putting instilled fear in me in wondering who is making the call for this to happen and try to make it as personal as possible, whether it is with the political shit or the wrestling shit, and normally the people who are footing the incentive for these people to do it are normally people who pretend they have it all together because they have a cult online of fed like accounts who are designed to create chaos and make a little push for me to harm myself or others. This one fucked up troll by the name of Gorilla Bacon, is someone who, in my opinion, is an outsider and he has made photo shops of me attacking people and saying it is a gay couple or him repeating the lie that I got physical with my parents, and constantly interfere whenever I would become friendly with other people online, even at one time I believe he was sent to my house to knock on my basement window, or he would get other trolls to claim I did some inappropriate shit backstage at Stern Show even though I never was at the studio, maybe twice, once for a tour in 2008 and the other on air in a shitty segment. I am just writing this now because he is the one they really send when they want to push me off my rocker, so much so when I wanted to go away for a bit, he is so closely monitoring my life because I believe he is another paid agents, he wanted to be in the same hospital because he is a fucking creep. And if people in the “wrestling fandom” who don’t like me shitting on the fact that they are paid and funded shills by billionaires, or whether it is people in my life who are giving incentive, I hope whoever is funding this and trying to make me lose my mind, I really do hope the worst for you spiritually. They knew what they were doing and because this one notoriously would dedicate himself to posting my periscope videos and then misrepresenting what was being said and trying to constantly get me to engage, he will try to do it again because he takes pleasure in trying to drive me crazy because he can’t admit he is an obsessed cunt who can’t deal with his own mental issues and spends his time with far right wing mentally ill people and trying to troll and destroy people’s lives because he is told to do so. But I knew once I started bitching irrationally and getting thoughts off he normally reports my tweets and tries to get me censored and people who surround themselves with my trolls and get them to fuck with me, no one is forcing you to monitor my thoughts on certain issues or listen to my podcast. Not only have I been suppressed and made to feel completely useless, it is not good enough they want to cause me serious harm, if it isn’t this troll, it is the one who pretended he was driving to my house and broadcasted it on periscope or putting my tweets out there for nationalist people to have me on their list, these people have actively tried to put in my head they were kidnapping me and since no one has my back seemingly they would take pleasure in the thought of breaking me down. If they didn’t get my attention, they would get other people who would try to be friendly with me to start fucking with my mental to drive me fucking crazy. They sense weakness and predictably they come for blood and they act like vultures because they sold their soul to be mediocre obsessive trolls who want to socially climb off ruining people’s lives, whenever I was not around in online circles, their lives became boring and they realized the only reason they had online people to interact with was because when I was addressing them, no one gives a shit about me or my existence, but these people no one would notice if they fucking died and they spend time being told to harass a mentally ill person and drive them even more insane and if I act out and lose control, where do you think the attention lies? It will go on me because the aggression outward gets the most attention, they won’t talk about the tactics being done for the incentive of entertainment because mentally ill people have been given power to cause online chaos for personal gain and because they have nothing in their lives. So you want to spread that I am going more right wing since you hang out with a bunch of them because by discrediting what I am doing on my podcast, you are showing me that even though there are theories I express, it is making a bunch of people nervous that I might have an accurate description of what they are doing and what they are about. If you are the ones who are permitting this to happen and giving incentive, and even plotting and organizing to put harm on me, I will hope for the remainder of your days you will mental pain that you will not recover from because people will cross the fucking line and be the ones who start doing it on purpose so when I do fight back against certain narratives, they make it seem I am the one bringing this on, but a lot of you started this shit. You aren’t happy enough that no one on the surface takes me seriously but now for just existing in my own world and going off about the decline of society, it makes you feel some sort of way that you would opt to try and fuck with me even more. Even if you succeed and get whatever done, you will always be haunted by the fact that you partook and tried to ruin other people’s lives. I believe a lot of you are paid to do that and because I didn’t bow down to Pepsi Messiah like everyone else did and partake in a mentally ill campaign to have discredited legacy media members act like sports entertainers so that there would be a campaign to bring in new sports entertainers who are more “truthful” while completely tearing shit down purposefully to cater to one person’s ego and then get mad that the reboot “worked” shoot didn’t pan out with ticket sales, then to be so mentally ill to act like the smears is what did it when those were by design to make him look like a victim in all of this shit. I don’t mind online angles working out but when it comes to the detriment of a product that is growing, it feels backwards to me. Purposefully fucking shit up so a bunch of social climbers can act like geniuses for having a preset answer isn’t moving this shit forward, it took steps back to facilitate this. I don’t even know if it is the wrestling fandom shills that are doing it but they have partaken in piling on others who spoke out about stuff, it is their style, they constantly create chaos online, won’t cosign talent if they are not giving into social pressure online to be more “sexy” so the companies themselves don’t have to be the ones to do it. They didn’t want to evolve the industry, they just wanted their own version of WWE, like having so much organized chaos where it has to bring in a more militant approach of putting your foot down even though the chaos to me is organized. It could be people who hate me personally who have had a hand in destroying my life the last 15 years and making side deals and being allowed to use me as a guinea pig on display while undermining me and showing off about how your lives are better because of your aesthetic and making me feel like shit by denying anything shady you have done or won’t be held accountable for because the system protects you and if I dare show aggression, then it is all on me to “get help” in a fucked up world where everyone is losing their mind and going more to the far right and are help normalizing fascism via sports entertainment. It could also be in the political circles who are going more to the right and maybe they don’t like that I basically shit on certain narratives from alt media types whose sole personality is being anti MSM while normalizing new propaganda and never disclosing who is footing the bill for your “views” that are being propped up by very far right wing people and maybe a lot of you are mad because you would think with the shit I was consuming 10 years ago, I would have naturally transitioned into being part of this new right, but also capitalizing off the trauma mentally so I could call out Howard Stern but only under the guise of “Liberal Hollywood and Howard gone PC” type of narrative. If I had done that, I believe it would’ve still lead to me being on his side because I believe he is a closet right wing person and he is gonna go back to his roots that made him famous in the first place. I am trying my best to keep this structured as possible but when I am stressed and irrational, I want to go all over the place because a million thoughts are going through my head and the writing can never encapsulate the feeling of what I go through, but they knew sending the original troll who helped put me in a bad mental place and then gaslight me and try to make half ass peace and half ass apologizing but not feeling bad for what he put me through and completely denying it over and over. I don’t want you in my life and I don’t fucking like you and anyone who associates with you I will never like. That is why I don’t want to be here because the longer I am, the worse I will end up being and even if my aesthetic improved, I would never want to be on the same sicko wavelength as a lot of you who help destroy people’s lives. I don’t want to have my own cult that purposefully fucks with people and permanently fuck with their psyche, I would rather lash out on my own in self defense even if I have to cross the line with shit I said because these people don’t get the fucking hint. They will always insinuate they are watching and monitoring and even insinuate they will kill me, yet they are allowed to get away with it and constantly generalize me and put out that I am going to cause violence when I have no intention, nor do I have any weapons, or how to get access to the weapons. I am truthfully waiting for whoever is in charge to decide my time is up so I never have to think about these people ever again. It doesn’t help that this “conspiratorial” thinking is only kind of embraced on the right wing, people who are “left” always shit on conspiracies if it is being weaponized against the right wing. It feels even people who claim they are democrats will generalize so people have no choice but to be lured into right wing shit. Because there will be some truthful shit the right wing says but a lot of the time, they are the ones who are projecting while being the ones who can say on the surface they are bringing attention to it. We limit conversations because we are all trying to play fucking social media characters, there is no way to really have analytical conversation when everyone is working with a script they cannot get off of.  We reduce the villains to “America’s dumbest criminal” level of conversation and it doesn’t go anywhere, it normally ends with product placement discourse over real systemic issues that make people think the actual issue is not to be cared about because we define it by the sensationalism that takes up time. I will get into other things but I know now that my trolls are being given incentive to come back out etc, they won’t care if I make valid points or have legit concerns, they will just continue to misrepresent on purpose and they are knowingly pushing someone to lose their mind but then again, they are a product of Howard Stern’s cruelty and I am not the only one whose life has been fucked with but because the whack packers are so out of control and “low brow” no one gives 2 shits, it is kind of why it has so many similarities with the wrestling fandom because there are people who are literally employed to put people in bad predicaments not knowing the system will make you go through the exact same shit, you want to sell your soul and not realize that there will be a cost and when this shit happens to you that has happened to so many us, you will be portrayed as the worst version of yourself. I want to write a long blog because these people will be forced to read it since they keep track of every word, every mistake etc, they will have to constantly keep track and then because my words will affect them because I am bringing up what they are doing and what their incentive, they won’t know how to cope or deal with it, they will just double down with their shadiness and try to get my attention, maybe so my blog and podcast can revolve around them since they won’t leave me alone. These people know where I live, have spent years claiming they are following me and watching me. Maybe even organizing weird shit to happen to me when I go out. Why would you want to keep me alive? To torture so I can be a tragic figure you can make a documentary about and some people will shit on me, or others will pretend they care and they wish someone would’ve stepped in, but  alot of people with power sit back and watch. No wonder people turn to evil, there is more fun incentive to do evil shit and get rewarded for it while it seems like there is no incentive to do anything to save people’s lives or try to maintain positive change but because billionaire funded accounts get paid to create chaos and start constant negative shit because it seems more genuine and real, will then make it seem like any push for positive shit is the most sociopathic shit where they constantly have to gaslight people with their gimmicked negativity because it is their image as a “truth teller” that is more important. 

There is a reason why there has been this forced online push in politics and fandom in general where the discredited legacy media types are becoming more parody and when they do tell truth out of self preservation, you have people who think because they are online and the internet is some freedom of speech shit, when most likely it is a playground for billionaire funded gimmicks to push back on transparent errors so they can swoop in and spread their lies, like I am all for a rehaul of media if there was actual truth coming out from the alt media types and online personas but they already lie about shit and mislead people with their narratives, why would I want to consume more liars? It was never about real change, it was about them getting to be the leaders of thought after self sabotage and ruining people’s lives. Even with the small power they have, they have shown they are reckless and careless with whose lives they destroy and all you have to do is have the bare minimum “anti establishment” narrative, while being permitted by the establishment to play ball. Like with elections, it feels like the presidents and politicians would be different title holders in a wrestling company and even if they can cut dope promos to mesmerize the audience, ultimately it is the Vince McMahon’s of the world who decide where the trajectory goes. So it feels like people have a gimmicked way to blame whoever for voting for who they deem less credible. But even if by some miracle one of these funded third party types win you don’t think they will have to do shit they don’t want to do, especially if the system goes more into the right wing. Apolitical people who see the world being the same on the surface no matter who is president, you think they want to vote for a democrat. Maybe if there was honesty in what is actually different about the parties because judging it off of what goes on the surface, the overall shit always seem to be the status quo to majority of people, so you can’t really get mad at people who feel disillusioned by the system who don’t see a difference. Then if you strategize and want to vote for a democrat because you know what the reality is, if you give votes to people who plan to take whatever is bad now and expand it even more, then people will shit on you for not voting for their third party candidate. Maybe 5 years ago or so this would have resonated more but when people who are advocating for third parties are people taking right wing billionaires money then as a dumbed down guy I don’t have to really trust you about what your motives are.  If you are people who are constantly finding “sophisticate” the both sides argument with trans issues at a time where there is vitriol toward the entire community which ends up being product placement for a shitty product while amplifying dangerous rhetoric and then the companies who have gone “woke” will then capitulate to their needs because they want right wing shit to dominate, then I don’t have to trust your takes on politics like I used to, especially if you constantly just say “I am anti war” because just saying it doesn’t mean anything, it feels like you say it so no one can question your pro war narratives when it comes to weaponization against people in marginalized communities, by using tokens who lean more conservative to basically give you your talking points. Sports are always popular and there will always be coverage of it, but by now letting the political shit seep into it, it then gives a bunch of conservative leaning people who claim they are not political to chime in with a political take that just covers the most sensationalist. Like if you have purposefully put out shit against other communities through some sensationalist shit to help manufacture consent while laws are being passed to fuck with people’s lives, then why would I want another system stooge who is gonna do fundamentalist level shit under the guise of “keeping it real” to have more of a say in this world when there are a dime a dozen, but they get propped up because they did the system’s dirty work so now we have to put up with mediocre personalities with shitty takes but because it is better than MSM, we have to kind of accept it. 

Look at the online sensationalist shit you see for people to automatically want vigilante justice on homeless people because there is an uptick of subway attacks. I am of the belief and I know I am not allowed to get conspiratorial because apparently that is a right wing thing, but if these people on the far right can fund shit to go down with school board meetings and fund protests and counter protests to show up etc why wouldn’t I think that they would have a bunch of people funded to do these kinds of attacks so it goes viral and it fear mongers to regular people of these kinds of crimes, and I feel like even people who counter the narrative of tough on crime, I feel they limit themselves because if they explain root cause of what needs to be done to help people on a systemic level, the counter to that is always about how regular people feel about it now because they need a solution to feel safe. It goes in circles, but none of the parties involved don’t want to act like these things could be organized on purpose, so much so that even during one of her commercial breaks Ana Kasparian got a reader comment that insinuated that could be the case, she agreed but never mentions it on the main show. It is like people like that have doubled down on their rhetoric, so people in the system in the alt media can speculate on it technically but for their main audience, they will find themselves justifying the vigilante justice and judging this as it is a regular situation when I believe the system have people like Jordan Neely on their radar, and give incentive to do shit that will get them arrested because they will have some kind of way to make money off it if it goes viral, they spy on all of us and have us monitored, you don’t think they know which people who are homeless, who they can fuck with in a culminative way and then organize a fucking murder that will get used to demonize the person who was killed. People will be outraged that a “criminal” was let out after so many incidents, but did it ever occur to people they don’t want those people getting better and they make it seem that they don’t want to keep them in jail because of the claims of systemic racism, but it feels they do it on purpose so they are given incentive to create chaos or cause commotion. The right wing who normally doesn’t give a shit about minorities will then use a situation where a black male stabbed someone who slapped his girlfriend etc, I don’t agree with slapping someone and people will react physically but I don’t think you needed to kill him, or stab him etc, there are better ways to keep that person down until you can get to the authorities but the right wing will use him as an example so it doesn’t look like this is some racist shit because even the ideology of white supremacist can use diversity so it blurs the line of the overall thing. People who will claim the MSM has not covered stories then link to a MSM outlet that covered the story doesn’t fool people, it does fool people who believe they have woken up the “EVIL MSM” but dumb themselves down to believe an End Wokeness account because they said MSM has not covered it, even though online is another form of MSM. That is their only hope to say credible because we still view the world through a 1990’s lens and people want to reboot their favorite narratives and personalities they have consumed. You even have that uncharismatic shit head Charly Anolt aka Charly Caruso getting in on the grift praising Daniel Penny and acting like America is better than other countries because they kill people for being gay when she is adding to sensationalist rhetoric which is helping laws to be passed that is trying to eradicate different people from different communities from existing and don’t act like a lot of that fundamentalist shit in other countries are in line with the fundamentalists in the western world, it is like WWE is America, other territories get to practice the regressive shit, like doing hardcore and edge lord storylines to practice underground, until WWE starts embracing stuff they probably had a hand in to begin with, in my opinion of course, just like most of the shit I am saying but it feels like that is implemented with other countries the US has had a hand in making worse then they bring it to US or in Canada. So someone like that is adding in helping people feel less than so you can profit off putting people’s lives in danger. They are hyping up these fake viral moments or organized moments to then use it as a way to promote a product but also capitulating to right wing narratives. You got guys like Glenn Greenwald claiming Rumble doesn’t have a political ideology even though most of the people on it are funded by a right wing billionaire, and if you want to prove Rumble isn’t agenda filled, you wouldn’t be promoting Andrew Tate because they somehow amplified his views to get over 5 million, why would you want to promote a right wing rapist who is going to prison for sexy trafficking women, he will probably get off and it will be seen as victory because they hammered home the point of the powers that be targeting him, but he is still free to do live streams and still have lots of influence, it is like everyone is practicing the “Radio won’t even play my jam” method, like Eminem saying they are banning him from MTV and radio, yet I am seeing your videos on MTV and hearing your song on the radio and now they turned it into a right wing concept to gain favor by other people who think because they are reading it on the internet that they are tuning into some secret news they weren’t supposed to hear. There is more concentrated effort to organize the label of “diversity training” with corporations and because every corporation partakes in sports entertainment for online narratives purposes, it will come off as dysfunctional as a television show where a corporation looks incredibly dumb so they make it seem like diversity and inclusion is backfiring so they can capitulate to the right wing cause, which to me was always their intention, like that Starbucks story, and this is the latest I have heard, these stories change so many fucking times because it is more about people getting their narratives, 2 black men were escorted out by police because they had it called on them, but the woman who did it was a black woman, so the company didn’t want to seem like racist for firing her for doing that to people who were just legit waiting for their friend etc, so they then fire a bunch of white employees and one of them got a big payday? Is that the story but it is designed to make it look like they are bending over backwards to help minorities and protecting them when this puts more vitriol towards any claim of racism, it feels like in the 2010’s, even if it was not talked about what is going on with the core of the issue and still felt limited, it felt like we were moving toward exposing the system in a genuine way but it has now resulted in people who have felt socially more powerful to push back against any claim of racism that people don’t mind that there is a movement to ban books that discuss racism in it. They will use the corporations who probably fund the negative Nancy’s to push back against wokeness because they want that side to ultimately win. And the people who are countering it are also shills who will do it in a way where it comes off like an emotional and irrational response. It is like they want every sports entertainer who counter racism to do it in the style of Ben Affleck when he had an emotional break down because Bill Maher and Sam Harris were being racist towards Muslims in a sophisticated way so it made Ben’s response look like he was the one who can’t handle the facts and you could’ve had better people who could point out Bill and Sam’s lies, but whenever any liberal calls it out, it has to be this blind emotional response which makes the racist side think that these people can’t handle the facts, like Ben was not wrong. Bill and Sam were being racist, but there was more vitriol for him than the racists themselves. People often applaud Ben Affleck for that shit, but it is like you made the situation worse, it wouldn’t shock me if he did that on purpose to help that cause and now look at it on social media, they got a bunch of people to do that with these talks about the current issues via culture war whether it is racism of why a movie didn’t do well or whatever else product placement you will promote but act like by covering the social issue involved is really gonna fucking change anything. They make it seem like because we consume shit by alt media and online that being vitriolic toward the democrats is detrimental when literally every funded person out there is doing it 100 percent, they will claim they give it to both sides, but a lot of you buy into the America’s dumbest criminal shit with right wing and dumb down their threat and then you present shitty in fighting where it puts you in a position to have to play devil’s advocate for people with fascist aspirations. Tell me how are you better than the MSM again? I am not even saying don’t call out democrats, but to act like it is more detrimental to criticize them because they make it look that way is the worst narrative ever because everyone literally makes fun of the democrats. You’re not special because you do, because most people who started out like “we have to go at both etc” are now making excuses for far right wing people who have really shady ties with other fucked up people in that space. I never thought some of these people who claimed to be socialist, not all of them obviously, but the ones who get right wing funding, but I never thought their socialism shtick would be aligning more with the National socialists. It used to be easier to kind of escape politics with the entertainment even though entertainment has played a role in manufacturing consent for people to think in a more ignorant kind of way but for some reason if you point it out, they lump you in with the evangelicals who pretend to be against the entertainment when it is 2 sides of the same fucking coin, but it has really seeped into the wrestling community and they basically give Tucker Carlson and CM Punk the same booking elements for their characters. To me a situation that was created for the purpose of watering shit down just so it caters to one person’s ego like if I am not one of these people who think Punk was unprofessional, the guy clearly has mental health issues from people fucking with him over his life and also being in a mafia industry is not gonna help your mental no matter how many people will think it will because of money and fame, but some people get ganged up on for a long time but then when they become in a situation with power and having their own cult, then ti is like you are repeating the same shit to others that happened to you and that is when I stop feeling bad. I have nothing against Punk personally, the entire business was built upon unprofessional shit, but to me this entire thing could’ve been done better but instead his shills ruined the enjoyment and helped sabotage shit so they can get people on the pro Punk train because whenever anyone else in the industry get screwed over, it doesn’t matter. You can have misogynistic shit heads and racists pile on Swole for giving fair criticism but when Punk is affected, then I am supposed to act like this is the biggest travesty and the people who planned the smears so it could seem like his shills are fighting back, I felt it was done by design because they need to constantly market controversy around him. If you compared worked shoot shit to Sopranos, like at one time this shit changed the game and rewrote the rules that made a lot of money etc, but when you try to do a Sopranos copy in this day and age you better evolve it a lot more than redoing what the Sopranos was, which by now has been done by every show out there just like every company that falls for partaking in constantly creating worked shoot controversy. It doesn’t have the same effect and because ticket sales have not been that great outside of Chicago for this new show, instead of admitting this worked shoot shit didn’t have the immediate success you wanted, they blame the gimmicked smears about him as the reason when maybe the whole fucking thing made people sick of it. When life was more boring and it was not amplified with a news cycle 24/7 for every fandom, these worked shoot angles meant something because it was out of ordinary of what you would expect, but literally every day is something else with a celebrity or politics or some product that is constantly fighting nonstop that maybe people already have enough to worry about and consume instead of this worked shoot shit they are doing and as long as wrestling and other fandoms remain discourse products, then you will never have a great product 100 percent because it means we are going to have to do booking errors to facilitate real life angles so they can make money from you shoots and podcasts and documentaries, when everything revolves around that then nothing will ever be done correctly. There is more incentive to have the errors run wild. I will admit I get angry at other cogs in the system who are doing my level of “ride or die” for their favorites like I used to do which is probably why I get so angry about it because I was in that phase, but it feels more people will double down with it, and they will do worse shit by being let in the club and being allowed to cause destruction to someone’s image, thing is before I knew there were efforts on a grand level to make someone the butt of the joke, I would get in on it to some extent because I felt I was just some random person who is just making light of shit in the news that genuinely happened, once I found out people can organize you to be fucked with or lure you into a dark space of embracing far right wing shit, it changed my perception on the manner and now it comes off as really fucked up to play with people’s mental illness especially when incentive is given. I probably don’t have long to live anyways, because I am sure I have some sort of cancer or health problems that I won’t give a shit about until it takes me to death, but all the stress from the people who harass me and then it forces me to respond back because they are organizing an effort but their narrative will be to keep my mouth shut because they can’t control their mentally ill impulses and they use their power to fuck with one person’s mental health which is what they have done secretly the last decade, and they have gotten more people to partake in that, especially within the wrestling fandom. It is fucking disturbing that people cross the line over “entertainment” but they literally do that and do the billionaire bidding. They have the “Kill the rich” mentality but get turnt out by the billionaires who do far worse. 

[luminous-shifting-vibes]

actual fucking quotes from the shiftblr coffeehouse discord server

out of context of course, what do you take me for? a sane person?

"they made lightning mcqueen hot"

"inch resting"

"Nix: Cars (2006) several people are typing..."

"im evaporating"

"enjoy precipitation"

"tow mater is more attractive than lightning mcqueen/hj"

"lightning mcqueen looks like he would call me a slur"

"why did I come back to a discussion regarding the attractiveness of vehicles"

"lark is the braincell of shiftblr tbh"

"you all need some grass in your life"

"me over here simping for block men and now literal cars"

"didn't nick wilde commit fraud canonically"

"i have no strong opinions on whether or not nick wilde is attractive"

"I AM AROMANTIC AND I AM NOT IMMUNE TO NICK WILDE"

"I am bisexual and I. Am not into Nick Wilde based on a simple fact he looks like he will drink all my pepsi and call me names"

"What is shiftbkr but not a bunch of simps"

"cries in Bianca Monroe"

"listen i have a folder called gayass

it is mostly pictures of kyoka jiro and virgil sanders"

"Nick Wilde x Reader where he steals your car 📷 carjacker to lovers AU 📷"

"he says "mama i like to step on keyboard""

"MY MOM JUST WALKED IN AND I HAD TO TELL HER I WAS LOOKING AT LIGHTING MC QUEEN HUMAN FANART"

"crab walks away"

""Y/N..." Nick whispered into your ear. "Your car...is a Honda Civic, right?" You looked up at Nick with a baffled expression. "Nick, my beloved? Whatever are you talking about?" "Just asking..." He said as he let you out of his embrace. "Hey, wanna see a magic trick, babe?" Your eyes sparkled. "Really, Nick? Of course!" Nick smiled. "Ok, close your eyes!" You giggled and closed your eyes, waiting for Nick to tell you to open up. Instead, you heard the loud rumble of a car starting up, and you open your eyes. Nick has stolen your car, and he has driven off into the sunset..."

"did y'all know his name used to be canonically Montgomery--he changed it to lightning mcqueen to get rid of his past"

"That is my exit number"

"cars trauma arc"

"wait do y'all know about car jesus" "as if jesus wasn't a ford focus in the bible"

"oh yall do not want to know about the trauma in my cars dr lmao"

"Dewit tau style babey make Lightning McQueen outlive everyone and stalk their reincarnations"

"Do they baptize other cars in like gasoline then"

"there is a pope car in the cars universe which means car jesus died for cars sins"

"NOT THE BOOMER MEMES"

"-lays facedown on the floor while caramelldansen plays-"

"like im serious how many of you guys endorse me falling face down on my floor" (NOT THE SAME PERSON AS PREVIOUS QUOTE)

"I will be Tall and no one can stop me"

"is a soft floor?"

"stop I thought faceplant meant like a succulent in the shape of a face instead of falling onto your noggin for a solid 10 seconds"

"Touch some grass??? What about eating grass"

"what if for every employee of the month i just printed out really horrible boomer memes"

"what ab smoking grass /j"

"Can the grassdirt smoothie be a special in the cafe"

"PLEASE IM ROLLING ON THE FLOOR REWRITINH THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE WHIKE SPEEDRUNINT MINECRAFT"

"you have to get good dirt from like the middle of a pennsylvanian forest for it to taste good though"

"I ate a four leaf clover as a kid cause i thought it would make me lucky"

"guys how do i see the mee6 leaderboard"

"I used to think i was half dragon and I ate plants out of sidewalk cracks"

"i think i punched someone"

"my parents told me to stop doing that so I looked at them and ate a flower"

"I ate grass when I was 9 bc I read warrior cats and thought I was a medicine cat ....................."

"bees are just spicy flies"

"I had a mental breakdown when I was three cause I didn’t know how to turn off a phone"

"My mom drank a bee once"

"when I was a baby I kinned ink sans."

"bro who here find the yellow hat man from curious george fine as heck 📷📷📷"

"mY LUNGSSSSSS"

"no one topping Him"

"I like em big"

"I think Moto Moto has no game like move over hunky boy I could beat you 1v1 Roblox Arsenal 📷📷📷"

"If you didnt have a crush on springtrap, jeff the killer, or Underfell/Gaster/Error sans don't talk to me /j"

"LOOK THEY'RE BOTH DILFS WITH ABS THAT WOULD FIGHT GOD"

"ZORO IS BANNED"

"Guys please help I found my old fnaf fanart from when I was 8 I'm in literal tears"

"OH NO BOT MY FIFTH GRADE HAMILTON PHASE"

"The worst attraction ive ever had has to be Sombra Overwatch"

"My family is like "save all ur art so I can sell it when you're famous" I literally could not sell this if I tried"

"screaming puppet"

"I just remembered Ive drawn overwatch/hamilton crossover fanart"

"my hermit crabs ate each other again"

"we're cannibals ????"

"having me here is a curse you have inflicted on yourselves and I for one am glad for it <3" "scitters around like a crab in anticipation"

"CARB DAY"

"WE NEED TO HAVE A WATCH OARTY"

"hey y'all ill be right back i have to throw away a crab carcass"

"if I watch cars I'm going to start laughing in the middle of it nonstop just because the word cars is funny and also cars are funny like how do you move silly little metal box with rubber circles"

"Lark asleep post catboy pitbul"

"Mwista Wowldwide! Nya!" "hermit crab 2: electric boogaloo"

"Is that why your name is chaos"

"manifest the crab power!!"

"cool dex fact: i can't read 📷"

"sighs adds to worship these entities list"

"with a knife <3"

"yeah and if he betrays me I could probably throw him across the atlantic ocean"

"give me his eyes"

"my good citizen i am a- wait no im nonbinary nvm"

"it worked on a fish idk what to tell you"

"what is gender??? Is that a board game?? If so can I be apples to apples that one's my favorite"

"CHUTES AND LADDERS"

"anyways actually my gender is Candyland"

"Oh god romes the destroyer of friendships/j"

"i am a simple gay i see math i run in the opposite direction survival instincts 101"

"math my beloathed"

"algebra makes me want to rip open a bag of swedish fish and swallow them whole"

"cackles in they're au characters and this will be very fun"

"pog !!!! me too ksajgks one of my drs is a sanders sides au"

"Is that bipper"

"tumblr sexyman"

"Good because he’ll fuck u up if u hurt a child"

"I want a wing-suit"

"looks like a bean would poison someone"

"my hermit crabs are cannibals what can i say"

"sonic the hedgehog kinnie"

"get yourself a man who is capable of the most ungodly actions but won't do them because of their morality owo"

"tell him he can steal my wallet"

"eyes"

"idk about y'all but I need blueberry sweet tea to live"

"y'know the red souls from soul eater i really want to eat those"

"but like only respectable crimes like stealing from elon musk"

"You can go cultbashing with he!"

"He acts like a flamboyant gay man, but if a flamboyant gay man was straight."

"Simp Satan 📷"

"definitely arson"

"They look like they enjoy lemon squares and other lemon desserts"

"Satan is all-powerful but he spends most of his time building honeymoon locations because he is convinced that the protag loves him"

"bc shes the reincarnation of his dead wife or something i guess"

annd here's a quote from our very own dream (@shiftingwastaken) that sums this post up:

"shiftblr but context makes it worse"

[dramaticviolincrescendo]

Okay, what are your thoughts on Ian's relationships? With his family, his boyfriends, and Mandy (since I think that's the only friend he's had)

Oh, no. Ohhhhhhhh, no. Now you’ve done it. You’ve asked about my dear, darling favorite character on the show. My love for one Ian Gallagher runs deep, which means this answer is going to run super long. The good, the bad, and everything in between—Ian Gallagher lives rent free in my brain and always will. I derive so much satisfaction from seeing Ian interact with other people, in whatever capacity that might be. I admire and aspire to the compassion he has shown for others over the years, even and perhaps most especially those who arguably haven’t earned it. He tries so hard to be good to people, and seeing their love for him manifest when he’s reached such lows where he can’t even fathom why the love of his life would want to be with him forever? That’s powerful.

So, yeah. I said I could write essays on these characters, and that’s exactly what you’re about to get: five hours and 6k words’ worth of my thoughts. (I am so sorry. There will be text walls.)

Let’s dive into Ian’s many and multifaceted relationships—his family, his friends, and his romantic pursuits.

Ian and Family

Ian told us where he stood on this in the very first season, and it set the standard for his character for eleven years to come. Faced with a prospect that others in his position could only dream of—not being Frank’s son and having a wealthy father with a functional, prosperous lifestyle mere miles away—Ian refused to buy into it. He refused to do what might have been objectively better for his future by seeking a relationship with Clayton. In that household, he would have had access to a better public school, more financial resources, a tutor to help him where he was struggling, and less urgency for him to work so that he could enjoy being a kid. When he got sick, he would have had access to better healthcare, too. Perhaps he would have had a better shot at West Point from that background than he did at home. But that’s just it: home was with his family, and he was very clear that they didn’t live in that nice house. All he wanted—all he wanted—was to be with his brothers and sisters. He has never referred to them as only half-siblings or half-cousins; he has never even used the words, “you’re not my dad,” on Frank. That’s his family, the people he loves most in the world, and he’s always been at his best when he’s with them and at his worst when he’s not. Let’s look at each of them:

1.      Frank: It is so striking to me that Ian doesn’t appear to hold the outright contempt for Frank that Fiona, Lip, and Debbie have exhibited at different points over the years. Aside from the handful of instances where they’ve gotten into physical altercations (which Frank always initiated) and kicking him out of the house on occasion, Ian is simply indifferent to him. But there are these moments, these brief glimmers of mutual attachment and loyalty, if those are the right words. In the scene where Ian famously doesn’t count to three before using the pepper spray on him, Frank starts saying how his New Gallaghers weren’t his real kids—that Ian is his real son, and Frank is his real father. It’s a passing thought uttered while trying to manipulate his way into the house that neither of them think much of, nor does the audience…until you remember that biologically, Frank isn’t his father, and he certainly hasn’t behaved like one either. Ian has more right than anyone to comment on that, but he doesn’t because Frank is his father. He’s the father that Ian idly hoped wouldn’t come to his wedding yet sat joking about with Debbie rather than getting pissed off that he was making out with some lady in front of everyone. He’s the father who sat at the table with them eating breakfast in 11x03 and claimed Mickey was the man in their relationship without Ian saying a word to him about it, and who Ian saw no issue with taking Franny to school when no one else could. In s4, as far removed from his family as he’d been for a while, Ian still went straight to the hospital when he heard that Frank was at death’s door. We focus so much on his attitude towards Monica because of how obvious it was that we frequently miss these tiny moments and their implications. It would take an awful lot of patience, compassion, and love not to write Frank off completely after all he’s done. Not necessarily our standard definition of love between a son and his father, perhaps, but a loving soul.

2.      Monica: I have actually written a pretty lengthy post about his relationship with her because while their shared mental illness definitely plays a role in his feelings toward her, that grew complicated far earlier than his diagnosis. The first time we meet her, we see that he has a visceral reaction to news of her presence. He runs. When Ian can’t process strong emotions, that’s what he’s done in the past. I happened upon an interview Cameron did just after the end of s1 where he mentioned something I had already been thinking: Ian’s age when Monica left is extremely important. He was a kid in s1, but one who could roll with the punches, sometimes literally. She left them two years before that. Ian would have been in middle school, roughly as old as Debbie was when she still called Frank “daddy” and forgave him for everything he did. It’s an awkward age that once again set Ian in something of a danger zone—too old to accept an excuse or no explanation at all, but not old enough to process the situation in a healthy way. And then she’s back all of a sudden with no warning. Ian doesn’t cry like Debbie, and he doesn’t typically get explosively angry like Fiona. He can’t deal, so he runs. He hangs back. He only speaks when he has to and compartmentalizes: Monica wants to take Liam, and they need to stop her. It doesn’t have to be about her leaving. They have a goal—he can focus on that. And then she’s back a year later, saying she’s here to stay while Fiona seems to take her at her word and Lip isn’t there to ground everyone. Ian tries so hard to behave like Lip would with his biting sarcasm and attempts to stay emotionally distant in a way that seemed pretty exaggerated for Ian, but he’s also dealing with a fresh wave of guilt over Mickey going to juvie—and Monica gets it. She’s the only person to acknowledge that he’s in pain and actively try to make it better. She’s the only one who really knows at the time, but that hardly matters. This poor kid, whose mother left him when he still needed her, has her standing in front of him and saying she’s sorry and listening when he speaks and taking him dancing—just the two of them. Embarrassing as it was and harmful as it could have been, she tried to facilitate his dreams when no one else wanted him to go into the military. She was there for him when he went AWOL. She came for him when he was arrested and even wanted to make a place for him in her new life, unrealistic as it was. This goes so much deeper than them both being bipolar. Ian’s comment about her parachuting into their lives in s7 wasn’t about Mickey or her role in them breaking up. He trusted her. He wanted her. He needed her. And she’d convinced him that she would be there—until she left. Over and over again. She was there for him and unintentionally took advantage of how desperately he still needed his mother. She made him keep loving her, and that’s both a blessing that has him crying into a voluminous man’s arms when she passes and a curse that wrecked him more than once.

3.      Fiona: The trust these two have for each other cannot be understated. Fiona has discussed things with Ian that she never brought up around any of the other kids throughout the entire series. In the pilot episode, she tells him about feeling needed and takes his opinion on the matter to heart. At the end of the season, he’s the one she talks to about the car because she can trust him to give her an answer even without speaking. In s2, she tells Lip that the two of them are her rocks, and we see that time and time again. That’s part of what makes their falling out over the church hit that much harder: it’s Ian and Fiona. The only time they’d been on the outs in any serious manner up to that point was when Ian was adjusting to his new reality and they were trying to find a balance between sister and caretaker. Otherwise, that bond of trust had never been severed—not until Ian literally sold himself only for it to amount to nothing in the end because she had no idea the lengths to which he’d gone to get that building. That damage gets mended, thankfully, but what a powerful period of time when those two were the only ones who’d never really been at each other’s throats. There is a downside to that trust, though. As I mentioned before, Ian was so responsible and put together when he was younger that Fiona didn’t think twice about his situation with Ned or that he ran away. Not even seventeen yet, and she was telling Debbie that she didn’t like his decision to leave but trusted him. That is one of the things I love about this show—even something like trust that we always prop up as an important factor in our relationships can betray us in the most unexpected ways.

4.      Lip: I won’t go into it here, but the relationship they share is something that means a lot to me on a personal level. It’s part of how I knew that Ian would become my favorite character pretty early on. The way he simultaneously admires and envies Lip, loves and is annoyed by him, relies on him and is desperate to pave his own path in the world—what a beautiful and accurate depiction of what it means to be a younger sibling. Lip is the first person to discover that he’s gay and openly accept him for it. (I think what he tried with Karen came from a well-meaning place even if it was horribly, horribly misguided.) Lip is the one who tries to get him into West Point, hate it as he does. He helps Ian when Terry is after him, takes care of him in the aftermath of the wedding when he realizes just how deeply Ian feels for Mickey, searches the whole damn city for him when he finds out that Ian is in trouble, gets him a job, leans on him in his own time of need… He’s not perfect. He slips up, just like Ian does. Some things break my heart, like Lip insisting that he’s earned his own space when his little brother is asking him for safe harbor or Ian thanking him for being his brother outside the prison. But they love each other so much, and I just… I can’t possibly put into words how much I love their dynamic.

5.      Debbie, Carl, and Liam: I’m grouping these three together because they’re further separated from Ian in age, so we see a lot of the same trends with them as a whole. Ian loves taking care of people. We know this. We also know that Fiona and Lip don’t typically want him taking care of them—they’re the ones who take care of him when he needs it, specifically Lip. With the younger three, however, Ian can be the Big Brother. He can shake his head in utter bafflement at Debbie’s obsession with holding her breath for two minutes, walk Carl through what he needs to go camping, and promise his baby brother postcards when he leaves. The difference here is that his relationship with them is so much less fraught with conflict. We don’t see him fight with Debbie, Carl, or Liam the way he has with Fiona or Lip. While Ian tends to be the voice of reason during conflicts overall, I think it’s also because he relies on his older siblings in a way that he doesn’t with his younger siblings, and the latter don’t tend to rely on him as much as Fiona or Lip as well. There’s a lack of tension in most of their interactions growing up because that pressure isn’t there. Perhaps this is where Ian’s age and standing in the family is a bit more beneficial: young enough to have people he can rely on while too young for anyone to really rely on him for more than his share of the squirrel fund.

Ian and Friends

I’ve seen it mentioned that Ian (and Mickey) not having more friends is bad or lazy writing. I tend to believe that that fails to take something into account that, admittedly, most of us don’t really have to think about: having friends is a luxury. It requires time and effort to cultivate friendships, especially lasting ones. As a kid, Ian spent a lot of his free time working or helping to manage one family crisis after another. Going AWOL, losing his health, struggling to acclimate to his illness, trying to find a new career path, spiraling into the Gay Jesus movement, going to prison, adjusting once again to normal life, getting married, a pandemic… I’m sure he’s had plenty of acquaintances over the years, but having a family to support and constant upheavals would have made it extremely difficult to really forge strong relationships with them. I think that’s part of what makes his relationship with Mandy so special and valuable to him: she’s sort of the same way.

When we met Mandy in s1, she had other friends. We saw her meet up with them and go shopping; she told Ian a story about how one was mad at her for not sharing her make-up. As the trauma in the Milkovich household reached its zenith for her in s2 and she started thinking seriously about getting out of there, we saw those friends fall by the wayside—all except Ian. He saw her and let her see him early on. That’s a level of trust and respect that nobody else in their neighborhood would have displayed, certainly not to her. But then there’s this guy who defended her against their creepy, perverted teacher and treated her like a human being, not an object. It’s no wonder she developed an obvious, unrequited crush and sought physical comfort from him occasionally. It’s no wonder she tried to repay the favor by giving Mickey a hard time in s3 and s4, misguided and rather uninformed as we know it was at the time. (It’s also no wonder that she went for the closest Gallagher to Ian, either, but that’s for another meta.)

And Ian… Ian is loyal to a fault. We have watched Ian cut out his own heart and let the blood drip down his arm to pool on the floor at his feet if it would make a damn bit of difference for the people he loves. Like Fiona and Lip, Mandy immediately accepted him for who he is and suggested an arrangement that would protect him as well as benefit her. That is enormous where they came from. To him, that had to feel like the ultimate sign of friendship: he could trust her with a part of him that he hadn’t even entrusted to most of his family yet. From that point on, she was on the List of People Ian Gallagher Would Do Anything For. Finding out about Terry and what had happened? He held a bake sale, of all things, to fundraise for her. Seeing that his brother—his best friend—was treating her like garbage? He put him in his place. Her boyfriend was beating her? He brought her home and made it his goal to find a safe place for her to stay, even if it ultimately didn’t work. She was going to move away from all of her meager support with that boyfriend? He didn’t just rally his own arguments—he brought in outside help with Lip, who he thought might tip the scales. It’s usually just a saying that true friends will help each other hide a body, but Ian literally tried to do that. Lucky for him, he has a good head on his shoulders and used it.

No, Ian doesn’t seem to have a lot of friends. We’ve seen that he has spheres of influence, if you will, and acquaintances that he can call upon when he needs them. (For example, the guys that helped with the preacher.) However, Ian has always struck me as a “quality over quantity” type of person. Being a soldier or an EMT isn’t lucrative, but they’re meaningful for someone who sees them as vehicles for helping people. Seeing more parts of the world than just Chicago has appealed to him in the past, but he seems perfectly content to carve out a spot for himself right here at home. Having only three best friends—Lip, Mandy, and Mickey—doesn’t seem like much of a hardship for him.

Ian and Romantic Pursuits

I hate to say that there were five, but from Ian’s perspective, there were. So, let’s talk about all five. Even though…there weren’t five. There was only one. We’ll save the best for last.

1.      Kash: The first of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. I hope it goes without saying that I hate this man with the passion of a thousand burning suns. I hate him so much. However, their interactions taught me a whole lot about how kind and compassionate Ian really is—and how naïve. Of course, he would believe that Kash loved him. The man was buying him all sorts of expensive gifts, and that’s what we see on all the commercials and in so many movies, isn’t it? Grand gestures of affection through expensive gifts. Poor as they were, Ian still scraped together the money to buy him baseball tickets and CDs, convinced as he was that that was all part of what you did in a relationship. That desire to do things like a “normal” married couple in s11? Yeah, that starts here. Ian has always been a planner, and he’s always bought into certain stereotypes. We can see that here. What we can also see is Ian’s compassionate, kind, loving soul. He cares so deeply for other people, even ones that he doesn’t know very well, especially if they are living in circumstances that mean something to him. (For example, the mentally ill woman they tried to help at work and the shelter kids whose situations were so similar to Mickey’s.) Kash being a closeted gay man living in misery with a wife he didn’t love and two children he never meant to have clearly tugged at Ian’s heartstrings. Even after everything that happens, even though Ian behaves as though they’re awkward exes who just happen to work together, he still covers for Kash. He gives him that head start and takes it upon himself to break the news to Linda that he’s gone. He defends Kash to Lip when the latter finally says exactly what we all know: he was a pedophile who deserved to rot in prison for what he did. As with Fiona’s trust, Ian’s loving soul, compassionate heart, and desire for love outside his siblings are virtues that have done him harm in the past. This is one such instance.

2.      Ned: The second of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. To be honest, I don’t believe that Ian would even characterize it that way. He seemed very aware that Ned was a distraction from his problems—from Mickey being in juvie, Monica falling into a depressive episode, the money in the squirrel fund being gone, Lip moving out, losing his shot at West Point, and getting denied for service due to his age. Again, though, Ian has always wanted to feel valued, and this rich dude was letting him stay in a fancy hotel room with anything he wanted readily available. This (disgusting predator) guy was giving him attention and a distraction with no strings attached. Then the complications roll in, and he’s once again faced with being the mistress to a closeted, married man. The difference here is that he’s not comfortable with it. He tries to tell Fiona twice, which is enormous for Ian when he has never been very good at communicating if it means burdening others with or even merely facing his own problems. But he tries to tell her. He rejects the GPS unit and tells Ned that he has a boyfriend, boxing him into a strictly sexual arrangement. (This, unfortunately, makes sense. It aligns with how Fiona viewed things: where Jimmy was concerned about it, she told him that it was “just sex.”) He is also visibly embarrassed to admit to Lip and Fiona what has been going on with Ned. By that point, Ian is a year and a half older and, while still scarred and warped in his views because of Kash, perhaps a bit wiser. Emotionally, he kept Ned at arm’s length most of the time. He used Ned not just as a distraction, but as a way to galvanize Mickey into taking their relationship a step forward. But Ian is still Ian, and Ian is compassionate to a fault. Ned played that card by asking if he could have a little understanding for a man whose life was falling apart. Sure, he can. He’s Ian, the Gallagher too empathetic for his own good at times. We know how that spirals out of control. It just goes to show that even when Ian was trying to maintain some emotional distance, his heart is simply too big and his perceptions too heavily impacted by the grooming he’d experienced with two different people by then, and so he [SPOILER ALERT] still feels enough of a connection to Ned after all these years to be mildly bothered that he passed away.

3.      Caleb: The third of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. Ian’s relationship with Caleb strikes me as being similar to what he had with Ned. While more age-appropriate, Ian was very much using Caleb, just as Caleb was using him. That’s why it was so easy for both of them to walk away. Ian was in a difficult spot when they met. He was grateful to the firefighters who saved his life, but he had also just saved someone else at a moment when he was perhaps at his absolute lowest. That’s what he’s always wanted, isn’t it—to be a bit of a hero and help people? So, he’s understandably drawn there, first out of gratitude and then to be surrounded by very attractive gay firemen who helped people, saved his life, and invited him to be part of a function they were holding. But he made himself pretty clear from the start: he was interested in sex with Caleb. That was the draw. He still hasn’t come to terms with being bipolar and losing Mickey, but Ian has never not been with anyone for any extended length of time. That’s just who he is: he’s always sought some level of outward validation—from the army, Kash, Monica, Mickey, and so many others. We’re seeing him struggle with that now as he deals with the opportunities available to him as a mentally ill ex-con felon. So, he pursues Caleb as a distraction just like he did with Ned, only Caleb is a predator in his own right and can smell that his interest is coming from a place of weakness. He immediately (and initially unintentionally) preys on Ian’s desperate need for structure and order by insisting on a traditional date where Ian is very much out of his element and even goes so far as to instruct Ian on how to be intimate. It’s no wonder he mentions Mickey in these moments, as Mickey never wanted him to change, and Ian leans heavily (even slightly hyperbolically) into the fact that Mickey wasn’t a paragon of order and stability like Caleb outwardly appears. 

And I think why Ian puts up with it so long—being taught like a child, being used to upset Caleb’s parents, being paraded in front of his friends to make them jealous—is because he was getting something out of it too, just like with Ned. A stable place to live when their home ownership was in flux, a place away from his family when they weren’t providing the support he needed as he adjusted to his disorder, someone who validated his desires to help people regardless of their ulterior motives, and a physical distraction from his own problems. All of these parallel his relationship with Ned very closely. It was never going to last, of course. Ian is a strong person who temporarily forgot how strong he was because he forgot who he was, and Caleb didn’t want to be cared for—he wanted a project, like all of his sculptures. Being a project, being something that others see as needing to be fixed? That’s a hard no for Ian. It always has been. There’s a moment I love later in their relationship where Caleb tells him to turn off the lights when he goes out and lightly reprimands him for leaving one on the day prior. Ian is in a better place at that point, having regained a lot of his sense of self, and stares after him with indignation at being treated like a kid. He’s then lied to and cheated on, but I think that to mention those things to Caleb when they break up is to admit weakness on his own part—that he stuck with Caleb knowing that he was being mistreated, and Ian is not one to be called a victim. So, while we know from his discussions with Lip and Sue that the cheating and distrust bothered him most, he merely focused on Caleb lying about his sexuality, which removed a lot of the emotion from the situation—just like he did with Ned. It ultimately turned out to be a bad move since Caleb, being a skilled predator, made him question even his own sexuality in return, but we’re starting to see that Ian isn’t here to be someone’s toy anymore. Not an older, married man like Ned, but definitely not anyone his age either. I’m glad this pseudo-relationship happened because it showed Ian how strong he really was and that he could be in control of his own life. Sure, it destabilized him a little in the aftermath, but he worked through it. He leaned on his family, specifically Lip, who has always been his rock without the blurred lines that Fiona represented between sister/mother-figure/caretaker. Caleb is a garbage person, but Ian was the one who pulled the treasure from the trash, not him.

4.      Trevor: The fourth of Ian’s perceived romantic pursuits that really wasn’t. Trevor is perhaps the first relationship where we don’t see Ian dive in. Whether that’s because of his confusion over Trevor’s gender identity or the fact that he was really beginning to fully mature as an adult by that point (ostensibly finishing his education, getting a career, being fully self-sufficient, etc.), he tried to take his time and not jump right in. They hung out, talked around the neighborhood, and yes, engaged in some casual intimacy at the club. Again, Ian might not be in a full relationship, but he’s never without someone for long. At that point in the series, all he was missing was a relationship when it comes to traditional, “normal” goals for people to have. But Trevor posed a situation he’s never been in before since, while gay himself, Ian has never been very interested in activism or engaging in the LGBT community. It’s just not in his culture or environment, so to be faced with someone he’s interested in that challenges a lot of his views of gender and sexuality is something he takes his time with. Unfortunately, Trevor is younger than him and not quite as mature, not quite as experienced. He tells Ian he has plenty of friends and doesn’t need another, which is an ultimatum that has never really sat very well with me personally because I’m generally of the mind that if a person needs time and you really care for them, you’ll let them have that time. I’m not unsympathetic to Trevor: he’s been burned before and has his own trauma stemming from responses to his identity, so it makes complete sense for him not to be patient in this regard. He shouldn’t have to be—but then, Ian shouldn’t have to rush into anything he’s not 100% certain he wants either. That’s exactly what he does, though, because Ian does for others without thinking of the implications for himself a lot of the time. They make great friends, but they don’t make great partners. Trevor treats Ian similarly to Caleb in that he’s a bit of a project. Trevor educates him on the LGBT community and incorporates him into his ventures for the shelter without ever really showing much interest in Ian’s life or family, which suits Ian just fine because for as interested as he is in helping with the shelter and as attracted to Trevor as he is, he seems to know they’re not compatible. Ian, who has been having sex since he was far too young, takes a step back from it when they run into compatibility issues. (And pushes back on the pressure to bottom with some of his own—neither of them were in the right on that.) He doesn’t ask much about Trevor’s family or try to be part of his personal life. They sort of embody the “friends with benefits” stereotype: they hang out, they have sex, and that’s really all there is to their relationship. 

The reason Ian doubles down on trying to make it work isn’t because there was a future for them before Mickey broke out. It’s because he thinks he’s lost Mickey forever, he knows he’s lost Monica forever, and he’s not going to get the support he needs from his family when they couldn’t stand Monica and Fiona told him what he already knew to be true, namely that Mickey being an escaped convict would destroy everything Ian worked so hard for if he got involved. So, he does what Ian does. He needs that distraction—he needs to run from these strong emotions he can’t process, so he bottles them up and unfairly hopes that Trevor will provide some of that comfort after cheating on him with Mickey. (Had Mickey been released, I think they would have broken up. Instead, that was the first match Ian lit, but certainly not the last.) Now, the thing is, Trevor said at the start that he didn’t want to be Ian’s friend. He’s also younger and less mature in a relationship, which means he threw the concept of love out there prematurely, just like Ian thought what he had with Kash was love. The death throes of their relationship were a back and forth where Ian was spiraling and seeking comfort, and Trevor was providing some while keeping their relationship pretty amorphous. (Were they exes? Were they friends? Were they people who shared interests and danced around each other? Were they going to get back together? They never officially broke up—it fizzled and resurged, then fizzled for good.) Ultimately, whatever it was that they had couldn’t survive Mickey, Monica, or Gay Jesus. Trevor wasn’t prepared to deal with a full-blown manic episode, and based on his hands-off approach with involving himself in Ian’s life even before the Mickey-shaped bomb got dropped on them, it doesn’t seem like he really wanted to anyway. He did what he’s always done: prioritized his shelter, which I’m not deriding in the slightest. By that point, Ian was too far gone to care that he disappeared anyway. Had the situation been different and he was getting the support from his family that he needed, it doesn’t seem like he would have cared much there either.

5.      Mickey: Finally. Only took over five thousand words to get here. I’ll preface this with something that anyone who knows me from other fandoms is already well aware of, namely that I don’t do romance. Ever. Never been interested. The relationships I’ve always been most passionately interested in are platonic ones, especially “found families” and siblings, which is probably obvious from the other five thousand words here. Ian and Mickey are the first relationship I’ve actively shipped or written for in a fandom. They’re the first I’ve been invested in to this extent. As such, one of the biggest pet peeves I had when I first joined this fandom was the saying, “Ian fell first, Mickey fell harder.” These two wonderful dumbasses face planted on the concrete in front of the Kash and Grab in s1 and never recovered. I could go on forever about these two, but that particular wall of text would probably be too daunting for even the most avid Gallavich stan to traverse, so I’ll keep it fairly brief. As we can see above, Ian has a very strict sense of what he “should” want in a partner. Someone who is moderately successful in their chosen field, makes enough money to at least live comfortably, and typically does something that helps other people (a doctor, a fireman, a youth counselor). These aren’t passionate people. They’re not men who operate on instinct the way most of the people in his life have always had to by virtue of their social standing. They have life goals and opportunities that he envies, and Ian has a great deal of compassion for them when they hit a roadblock or things don’t work out. The amazing dichotomy of Ian Gallagher is that he straddles a line most people can’t between the rough neighborhood that has instilled in him all of his values/behaviors and the middle-class mentality of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and aspiring to more. Ian has always aimed for what Lip said wasn’t possible for poor people: being successful without having to scam or steal. But as I said way back at the beginning of this manifesto, the South Side is his home. His family is his family. And none of the people he’s been with personify the South Side quite like Mickey—they don’t personify home like Mickey. 

And I think that’s where the initial draw for Ian is. (I’m going to focus on Ian’s side since he’s who your question focused on.) The other guys look great on paper, and Ian’s brain says that that’s what he should aim for. We know better, though. We know that Ian has an enormous heart that belongs first and foremost to his family and their home. His heart says that this person—this dirty, rude, mean, violent person—is home. His heart says this person is everything about himself that he denies having, just like Ian was everything about Mickey that the latter declined to openly acknowledge for so long. I don’t like relationships built on “making each other better.” I really don’t. The wonderful thing about this is that it’s never been that way. Ian didn’t change Mickey. He’s exactly who he’s always been, but he’s grown past the fear of his own emotions and Terry’s response to them. He’s still a thief, a con artist, violent, and rude. Mickey didn’t change Ian either. He’s still rigidly conforming to certain stereotypes of what he thinks he should want, seeking structure (to his own detriment at times), and not a great communicator. The point for them is that they complement each other, not that they make the other a better person—not even that they bring something out of each other that wasn’t already there. That’s what Ian’s other relationships did. They made him shave off his edges so that he could fit a square peg into a round hole, and that’s not happiness. It’s simply what he thought he was supposed to do—what “normal” people did. 

With Mickey, he doesn’t have to worry so much about what is normal or acceptable. He doesn’t have to worry about whether or not his life is objectively “on track,” not until fairly recently. Mickey is the only person he’s ever been with who has accepted him for who he is, faults and strengths alike, without the underlying insinuation that he should be aiming for something else or pretending to be whatever the other person needs him to be in order to care for them. Kash needed an escape—Ian provided it. Ned needed a very specific brand of toy—Ian played that role. Caleb needed a project to feel fulfilled—Ian went along with it for a bit. Trevor needed someone who accepted him as he was but did things his way—Ian did that. To care for Mickey has only ever meant being himself because all Mickey ever really needed was him. Mickey didn’t need an escape from his home—his relationship with his family is more complicated than that. Mickey didn’t need to be saved from his upbringing—it’s what made him the person Ian fell in love with and who he is happy to be. Mickey didn’t need someone to change who he is on a fundamental level because unless it is going to get him into trouble and separate them, Ian never wanted him to. (Even then, it’s about what he does, not who he is.) And yes, I’m sure that there’s a level of excitement that Ian finds exhilarating where Mickey is concerned, but I tend to believe it goes a lot deeper than that. What he finds exciting about Mickey is what Mickey embodies about the South Side—about home. About his own upbringing, but also Ian’s. About Frank and Monica, his siblings, school, work, ROTC—existing and surviving in an environment where it’s not guaranteed that you’ll have money to keep the heat on this winter or feed your family. They spent the early seasons living in a constant state of fight or flight. They couldn’t afford not to. And there’s excitement in that. Look at how many people say that the first seasons are their favorite! There hasn’t been a huge shift in the quality or direction of the writing, just the trajectory of the characters. They’ve gotten older, and their problems have been different. It’s not about survival so much of the time anymore, but those are the storylines that excite us. For Ian, that exhilaration in the constant battle of survival in their neighborhood is sewn into the fiber of his being just like it is Mickey’s. He saw his home in Mickey before they truly fell in love, and when that followed, Mickey became home.

In Conclusion

Ian has spent his entire life looking for the “right” path only to realize that it was laid before him: his family, his small circle of friends, and Mickey. I love that that is coming full circle this season, where [SPOILER ALERT] marriage has almost made him regress a bit to that place where there must be a right way of doing things going forward, and slowly but surely, we’re seeing him loosen up.

Good morning. It’s Ian Gallagher loving hours.

[oneweekoneband]

her Nebraska (1982)

In July I flew to Massachusetts with a plague on, and I felt that it was wrong, but my mother had begged and I’d been out of work for months. Mornings there I ran in long, uneven ovals on the same roads I’d memorized in high school. There’s no sidewalks, but the few feet of dirt between the craggy pavement and the open mouths of the fields serve all right for a single body in motion. When a truck comes up close from behind, the ground shakes, and I step away bouncingly from the street toward thigh-high yellow weeds and grass, and keep going. I was slowly picking my way back in that dirt, sweat-slick from only a plodding couple of miles in peak summer heat, and sucking the wet cotton of my mask in between my teeth on every inhale, when Taylor Swift announced she was releasing a surprise album produced by the guy from The National. Not the guy from The National, like, the voice, but the guy from The National whose photo was circulated on Twitter earlier this year as some kind of antifa super soldier, which isn’t the case, but would’ve been rad. First, I stopped dead to send some outraged, misspelled text messages, and then I ran home faster than I’d moved in years.

Tall, blonde, patrician pop star Taylor Swift is to me something like a cross-between a wife and a boogeyman. Bound we’ve been since we were really children. Time and its changes haven’t rid me of her, and what’s worse is I have never quite been able to wish they would, though I claim as much all the time. Countless hours of my one wild and precious life have been spent on endlessly analyzing the minutiae of Taylor Swift’s music, the mind that made it, the real world events which influenced it. And though all the while I have known she is only a person, and that people, while each strange and lovely in their own ways, are, in the end, mostly dull, needful in just the regular manner, the fantasy is better, the sick dream of a megalomaniac songstress, curious, thrilling, probably evil, and I choose that. I don’t know Taylor Alison Swift, born to this world in, I presume, the usual way. But my Taylor Swift? I’m a renowned expert. I’ve always eaten up stories—movies, music, celebrity news, the one my grandfather tells about falling off his bike once in Ireland as a boy and his face “cracking open like an egg”—like a starved dog. I’m obsessive about my interests, but not inclined to intense fandom, and certainly not fandom in the mode of the stan. For one, I’m too self-absorbed. But caring intensely for a famous person is falling in love with a ghost, and that’s all right—I mean, what the hell? We’re here together just dying... Let’s enjoy—but is an affair best undertaken with the knowledge that everyone alive has their own complex interiority, as unruly as your own, and that you, a stranger, are not in any real way connected to the lawless, blurry middle of that celebrity, and will never be. It’s freeing and fun to know this. I mean, these people are basically in your employ. Glamorous dollhouse dwellers. Acknowledging that uncrossable distance allows for a different, healthier closeness of pure imagination. My feelings, then, can comfortably be at once both fiercely intense and entirely silly. I am a foremost scholar in the art of the Taylor Swift who exists in my head. The real person raised in Pennsylvania I don’t know at all. I have some conjectures on the matter, and, as with all my conjectures, every hackneyed theory, each picky little opinion, I’m sure they’re perfect, brilliant, just absolutely right, but that’s still all they are. Taylor Swift, figure of the cultural imagination, is the Jodie Comer to my Sandra Oh in Killing Eve, annoying and pretty in frills, taunting me endlessly and holding us trapped together in a dance of most enchanting death. But the real Taylor Swift has favorite bed sheets and a social security number and a British boyfriend, none of which I have any desire to know about, and if I saw her at a restaurant I’d politely avert my eyes before, yes, dive-bombing the group text. There’s nobody on Earth I’d stand in line to speak to, but then I’ve been speaking to a certain figment of Taylor Swift for nearly half my life.

I went to a Taylor Swift concert the night before I moved into college in 2009. My father’s work friend, firefighter by day, near professional gambler by night, got comped tickets to the Fearless Tour stop taking place at the nearby casino, and he let me have them as a reward, mainly, for happening to be seventeen. Live in-person and performed acoustically, “Fifteen” made me cry. A few years after that, in the thick, sticky part of my first post-college summer, I wrote approximately twenty-three million words about her in these very pages.  (”Pages”) At that point, Taylor’s most recent release was 2012’s Red, and the work I produced that long ago July about Taylor and her career, writing I was fairly pleased with at the time, feels now, besides just being extremely clearly written by a twenty-one year old, strange to me for the way it favors the sweet over the sour almost uniformly. There is a wholesome kind of ardor in that writing which maybe I’ve outgrown the ability to hold. Or maybe Taylor just proceeded to spend the next half a decade plus releasing one bad single after another, and it was taste—and trespasses against taste—and not some shift in my nature which altered the tenor of our bond. I have real love for my particular image, gleaned from public statements and published art, of smart, bizarre famous woman Taylor Swift, and I admire the bulk of her output very much. I’m just no longer so inclined to fawn. This is not to say I am here to offer a Taylor Swift hate screed. I couldn’t swing it, and, anyway, I’m not a pop feminist-for-hire circa 2010. But we’re older now. Things are different. At twenty-eight, twenty-nine this month—Taylor will, also this December, turn thirty-one—I regard Taylor Swift warily, like an ex with whom you have a tentative friendship, perpetually on the brink of falling one way or the other into hatred or delight, only to wobble back the opposite direction again at the slightest provocation, but still, despite best efforts, even, I regard her all the time. 

folklore was released at midnight on July 24th 2020, but I was at a cabin in rural Vermont without Internet or cell service. I drank Bud Light seltzers with my mother while watching the eerie pandemic return of Major League Baseball, and when I got into a strange bed there I stewed, knowing there were people out in the world all over who were hearing Taylor Swift songs I never had, and that this was a fundamental wrong, a disruption in the balance of the universe. I listened to it the next morning in a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot. 

And folklore is great. That’s the terrible thing. Slightly less great, maybe, than some people have insisted, tricked, I think, by just the pronounced shift in sound. But it’s great. A little gift I asked for a thousand times and was still surprised to get, like a wife who didn’t expect her henpecked husband to ever follow through and buy the paraffin wax hand bath as-see-on-TV. For years, I’ve been halfheartedly insisting that Taylor had a great album in her. I’d say it even, perhaps especially, while she stubbornly fed me gruel. Or worse, gruel with the occasional whiff of something better. With a ripe, little raspberry dropped into the slop. The bright, villainous thrill of “Getaway Car” made me believe Taylor, my Taylor, was in there somewhere under the lacquer of sequins and synth, which, while not objectionable by default, seemed a costume, and an ill-fitting one. The lived-in world of “Cornelia Street” made those old scars sting. That gay “Delicate” video. When she did “Call It What You Want” on SNL and played guitar while wearing an ugly sweater. If the abominable “ME!”, lead single off Lover, was the stick, 1989’s “Clean” was the carrot. I was Charlie Brown, and Taylor my Lucy, yanking the football back again and again. Over drinks I still yelled that Taylor Swift’s next album would be, “her Nebraska”, referring to my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, and learned to live with that egg on my face for good. I suppose I even came to like it. There was something inherently funny in taking up, like, “blind faith in the as of yet untapped greater artistic potential of massively wealthy and popular singer Taylor Swift” as my totally inane personal cause du jour, and eventually it was a bit, a gag I performed to be obstinate and didactic, but way down somewhere awful near my kidneys I meant it the whole while. And then she did it. A pandemic befell the world and amid a sea of human suffering Taylor Swift remembered she can write. She wrote, and with a massive, crucial assist from Aaron Dessner, whose music on this record is sometimes so beautiful it actually angers me, as the last thing I needed in already perilous times was to be made to try and marry my uniquely perverse emotional responses to beloved divorced dad band The National and fucking Taylor Swift,  she made an album which, if not her Nebraska, per se (I’ve come to realize that a major part of believing Taylor Swift will one day make an album I find as quietly devastating and gorgeous as Nebraska is knowing that no album will ever actually be Her Nebraska... That each will, rather, to me, be more and more evidence that it’s coming still, more proof that the limit is untouched, on and on ad infinitum, or at least until the seas take us into a place of salty peace.) is a shocking credit to all my hard-fought and deluded confidence. folklore is great. This fact has made me feel almost equally as disoriented from my understanding of the world as the time-melting COVID-19 lockdowns have, and it turned my Spotify year in review annual collective AI humiliation kink thing into a glaring indictment of my mental state, but still, I mean... It’s great.

In talking about folklore a bit this week, there are a number of specific topics I intend to cover—what a thrill it is to hear Taylor say “fuck”; Taylor’s terrifying birth chart; the astoundingly perfect bridge of “the last great american dynasty”; “because my ass is located at the back of my body”; the bit in last year’s “Lover” where deranged WASP Taylor Swift implies that to “leave the Christmas lights up til January” is some signifier of being a love-struck bohemian, when actually everyone who doesn’t employ domestic staff to take their lights down does this; how reputation is the best of the Taylor Swift records released in the latter half of the 2010s, actually, and the people who can’t see that are cowards—but intend mostly to let the muse move me where she will. Against the advice of my better angels, she—that tie-in marketing eldritch terror—always does.

[ardenttheories]

Homestuck's always been antagonistic and insensitive, but I don't recall seeing any of you try to dox Hussie? But please, continue to rationalise how cyberbullying lgbt people for not being nice enough and having opinions about a fictional character you disagree with puts you in the right. A story doesn't go the way you'd like and this is how you respond? You COULD have just not bothered reading it instead of CHOOSING to make your online life about something you hate like a toxic weirdo.

Hi, Kate. I’m so glad you could find my blog. (Edit: that was a joke. Apparently, some anons find it impossible to tell that I don’t actually think you’re Kate). It’s clear to me that you didn’t take the time to read through any of the content that’s actually on here, since you’re throwing around rather wild accusations, so let me take this down step by step.

Homestuck has only rarely been antagonistic and insensitive. Things like the Alpha Trolls - which were clear criticisms of fandom culture - were relatively few and far between, and when we complained about them, they actually stopped. Remind me, for instance, how relevant the Alpha Trolls were to the plot? How long they stayed as mockeries towards the fandom? Yeah, not long. I actually have talked about this before on the blog - alongside other things I thought were negative towards the fandom from the original comic - but the difference here is that... in the entirety of Homestuck, these things were outliers and inconsistencies. They stuck out because they were in stark contrast to the otherwise wonderfully handled content Homestuck went over.

For instance, Homesuck is critical of abuse - especially in terms of relationships. We see through a critical lense the shit normalisation of parental abuse can do to a child - with actual talk of triggers and of the mental and emotional scarring left behind, and the complexities of the child’s feelings towards the parent’s death through Dave - and we see how self destructive relationships can be, how harmful they are, and how hard it can be to leave them - such as Terezi’s very toxic blackrom with Gamzee, which was always portrayed as something negative and harmful especially with how worried Karkat was for her and how withdrawn she became during its run, and Dirk’s relationship with Jake, which goes very much over how communication can cause a deterioration in romantic relationships especially when the two participants have conflicting mental illnesses. 

It also goes over how men, though they can be mired in toxic masculinity, can choose to be good. How sometimes we’re not born as good people, but we can become good people through the love we have for the people around us, through frequent attempts to check what we’re doing, through the sheer willpower to be good. Dirk’s entire arc, knowing that he could very easily become Bro but deciding he doesn’t want to be, that it’s something he wants to work on, is so important and incredibly powerful. Mental illness in men is often just given as an excuse to make them violent with no attempts at betterment - so Dirk actually existed as proof that you don’t have to be that stereotype. 

In contrast, Homestuck^2 completely uncritically gave Jade, who was cis, a dog dick, made her, a bisexual woman, a sex maniac and the yaoi “woman who gets in the way of the gays” trope, made her a cheater and someone who forced her partner into the relationship to begin with, and made her a neglectful mother after having cheated with her best lesbian friend in something that has incredible recall to just about every futanari video ever - and they tried to claim that this was good representation of trans women, actually, and that the only reason we didn’t like it is that Jade is “a woman” who “has sex”.

Likewise completely uncritically, they made Gamzee, an anti-black stereotype, enter a relationship with Jane, a fascist, and then made the entire thing into a cuck joke wherein Jake being frequently drunk and sexually assaulted was funny because he wasn’t “man enough”. They then forced him to go back to his abuser after he left her in a scene that read very much like, “ridiculous man thinks woman is abusing him, go back and do your manly job”. 

This, of course, doesn’t even go into the travesty that is any form of trans representation in the comic. Roxy, a trans man, is barely even focused on as trans; they make no attempt to enforce in the fandom that he’s a trans man the way they do that June is a trans woman, and even then, they seem to think that just saying someone is a trans woman is actually good representation. Not, like, bringing it into the comic - just saying that it’s a thing. And of course, that’s not even going into the completely uncritical lense they have of Vriska, wherein her being a trans woman completely frees her of any and all blame for the past abuses she has comitted, and once again she becomes an amazing character to save the day without a single flaw - which in turn inherently associates trans women with abuse apologism, abusers, and the ideology that just because we’re trans we can get away with anything scott free. 

I honestly cannot think of one instance of good and genuine representation in Homesuck^2, nor can I think of any scene where negative content was actually treated as the negative thing it actually is. There’s no critical lense at all, not like we have in Homestuck; there’s just no fucking comparison. And this isn’t a one-off situation, either. Whereas Homestuck does do fuck ups - isn’t perfect - in between the otherwise brilliant content, Homestuck^2 is just founded upon these horrific takes. There’s almost no good content in between, and what is left is a slog to get through when surrounded by the thick slurry of shit that compromises futa Jade, abuse apologism Vriska, and victim blaming Jake. 

Of course, we didn’t “doxx” Hussie. Hussie actually listened to our complaints, for the most part, and worked with us to create something that worked well. The way Homestuck^2 was touted to work. You know, since it was meant to be written with the fandom in mind, influenced by the things we suggest and react to. We went into Homestuck^2 with the explicit idea that we were going to be listened to and taken into consideration when it was being written - the way we were with old Homestuck. I’m very sorry to say that, when you make these expectations, people are going to be a titchy bit upset when you then commandeer the entire thing and exclude the fandom from any of the process that you said they were going to be part of.

Additionally, it’s rather funny, isn’t it, that what you call doxxing is actually just people upset with how triggering content is being handled, and going to the people who actually wrote the content in order to voice their complaints? It’s almost as if social media exists to allow this communication between reader and author, which is a fundamental thing you’ll learn in any creative writing course, such as the one I’m on currently, wherein you’re actually taught how to respond to social media and to build up your image with your fans. 

Homestuck^2 is an ongoing piece of media. We’re well aware that we have a potential to change these uncritical takes and the horrific way they’re being handled if the writers will just listen to genuine criticism. This is, frankly, no different to the people who go to J. K. Rowling’s Twitter to tell her how harmful her transphobic comments are; because if she believes these things, they will work their way into her texts and will perpetuate harmful ideologies. 

The literal same thing is happening in Homestuck^2 - again, such as futa Jade, which normalises the point of view that bisexuals are cheaters and completely trivialises what it means to be trans, or Gamzee, which perpetuates just about every anti-black stereotype possible. Media does have a very powerful impact on what people see in the real world. This is why, for instance, positive black characters are so important in media; if they’re always portrayed as villains, then people will see real world black people as villains as the ideology is perpetuated to the point of fact. This is especially true if the people already believe in the ideology.

Fiction is one of the best ways that we can counteract this cycle. If you make a character that they like, and they happen to be positive representation, and then they watch more media that is likewise positive representation, it’s more likely to stick that these positive representations are the actual experiences of minority groups. Also? It’s important TO those minority groups. A black person, especially right now, doesn’t want to see an anti-black stereotype fuck a fascist, engage in sexual assult, and then enact pedophilia - only to die at the hands of a hero and be laughed at for the death. Surprisingly, shit like this is why we need to tell the writers that what they’re doing is harmful, that they’re perpetuating phobic ideologies, and that we need better representation - especially in a comic that is this widely read, and also has a very large minor fanbase. 

I shouldn’t need to explain why exposing minors to anti-black stereotypes, transphobic, homophobic, biphobic, abuse apologism, victim blaming, and the trivialisation of rape and sexual assault (especially towards men), might be a federal fucking issue. 

So, no, we’re not actually cyberbullying LGBT+ people. We’re trying to hold shitty writers accountable for the incredibly toxic and harmful ideologies they’re forcing into a text that has always been written with critical thought in mind. 

I should also point out how funny it is that you’re focusing on how some of the writers are LGBT+ - as if we’re not? I’m trans, I’m gay, and I’m ace. Yes, I can actually be these things and absolutely furious that a trans women is writing some of the most transphobic shit I’ve seen in a while into characters she then claims to be completely free of blame. We can be furious that people within our own community are enforcing negative stereotypes.

Being LGBT+ does not make them free from blame. We cannot give them a free pass to be racist, to be transphobic, to be homophobic, biphobic, to be abuse apologists, just because they’re LGBT+. Not only because that’s just a terrible fucking idea to begin with, but because it also reflects so, so badly on the community as a whole. As if being part of the community instantly means that you can do no wrong? As if there can be no toxicity within our own community, despite the fact that there very much is and it is still an issue to this day?

That is such an issue, one of the biggest issues even shown just in Vriska and the way Kate handles her as a whole - and, once again, is WHY we need to get them looking at this shit more critically. This view that LGBT+ people can do no wrong and cannot be criticised is shoved into Homestuck^2 and, once again, perpetuates the ideology. This isn’t something to be proud of. This isn’t something that’s actually okay.

Also, your point that the writers aren’t nice enough and that we disagree on fictional characters - well, I’ve already been over the second part. But for the first part, I would like to remind you that they aren’t just random LGBT+ people on the internet that we’re going to because we think their takes are a little shitty. They’re actual writers working on a piece of media. They are official content creators. 

Again, one of the first things you learn on any creative writing course is that when you become a writer, you gain a significant amount of responsibility for your interactions with the fandom. This is something that you genuinely have to expect, and if you don’t, then, unfortunately you just don’t know what it means to write something that thousands of people have a potential to read. As a writer, it is your responsibility to portray your image online; it is your responsibility to engage with the fans in a meaningful way; it is your responsibility to not cause drama and to listen when criticism is brought up, to have genuine discussion and not to perpetuate hatred - especially towards your own fanbase.

Consider, for instance, the way I’m talking to you right now. This is the sort of tone that someone should take when talking to a fan about genuine criticism. When things are brought up, you go over them step by step, you listen, you write back - you don’t go on a flurry of “fuck yous” to a minor who asked you why your team didn’t post anything about the BLM movement on the official Twitter, and you definitely don’t respond to every comment with genuine criticism with the word “pigshit”. You almost definitely don’t tell your trans masculine and masculine-aligned nonbinary fans that their opinions don’t matter.

As a writer, Kate and the rest of the team have a responsibility with their interactions with their fans. They aren’t just normal fandom voices anymore; they’re official fandom voices, voices that have more weight behind them than anyone else. They’re who people are going to turn to when it comes to anything regarding Homestuck^2. Their words now reflect literally everything about Homestuck^2, the future of Homestuck as an expanded universe, and the opinions of the group as a whole. They have to be careful with what they say. They have to be held to the same standards as industry voices because that’s essentially what they are - especially now that Homestuck is something you pay for. 

Also, this isn’t a point of the story not going the way I want. This is a point of many of people in the fandom being upset with how content is being handled, upset that their voices are being shut down, upset that triggering content is being laughed at or used flippantly and without care or respect. This is people being upset that trigger warnings were removed specifically to make the comic unsafe for them as a punishment for daring to say that something was wrong. This is people being upset that a piece of media that used to be so fucking good at portraying sensitive content in a critical light, that used to be so good at normalising LGBT+ identities and healthy representations of those identities, has suddenly turned to this. 

The story can go whatever way it wants - and frankly, that’s fine be my. What isn’t fine is that content is being used specifically to hurt and to incite.

And, of course, that final piece; nothing will improve if we don’t say that it’s wrong to begin with. Someone needs to voice the complaints of the fanbase, othrewise these toxic ideologies are going to go unchecked. One of the biggest things I’ve come to understand while making these posts is that a significant portion of the fandom feels isolated in their hurt; they don’t think other people feel the same way they do, and several people have mentioned feeling like they were going crazy because they were upset with things that the text and writers are normalising. It’s so important to make sure that these people know they’re not alone. It’s so important to make sure that our voices are heard. It’s so important to try and create critical discussion and debate over something that so many people still fucking love. 

The thing is, I don’t hate Homestuck^2. I actually really, desperately wish I could enjoy it. I wish I could read through it and theorise, could go in depth about how amazing the characters are, could write long and extensive posts on how creative and engaging it is - could even just go on about how interesting the Meat-Candy divide is, and all the points they’re trying to make about canonicity. But I genuinely fucking can’t. There is just so, so much wrong in the text that is completely unrelated to plot and to the overarching Point that makes it impossible for me to read, to want to read, to try to encourage other people to read. They’re things that literally don’t need to be in there, either; stereotypes and toxic ideologies and uncritical or badly handled sensitive topics that could be rectified so, so easily. 

Homestuck^2 could be amazing for a lot of the fandom. It could be something that we all rally around the same way we did for the original comic. For for a lot of people, it has ruined their fandom experience, has ruined their desire to want to read anything more to do with Homestuck, and has caused a significant portion of the fandom to just drop out entirely. That in and of itself should be a sign that this isn’t just a little fandom drama. That this is something much bigger and much more serious that, just maybe, needs to be looked into, talked about, understood - and, potentially, changed. 

[nbapprentice]

You said a while back that while Supergiant games (Bastion, Transistor, Hades) was mostly okay, you had some words about them. I was curious as to what those words were, since Hades' full release is soon.

okay. alright. ive been playing hades lately so i definitely want to give my two cents (or dollars by the size this is gonna get). but let’s go Step by Step

the good: i want to throw a whole Endorsement over supergiant games with the art direction and its characters, which is what keeps me coming back again and again, and what i can assume is that most people are attracted to. 

gameplaywise, they have a Format they stick to which has become their staple, not to their detriment but to their advantage, like... gameplay tropes, so to speak, that they stick to (such as the addition of special conditions that give a disadvantage in exchange for more long-term rewards)

i fucking adore that they take one concept per game, go for it, and when they’re done they are Done; they don’t bother with sequels, they don’t want to run things to the ground and i fucking respect that. They have their themes, and they stick to them (to various degrees of success).

that said, like every piece of media, they are not perfect and this has to be analysed and spoken about

CONTENT WARNINGS: genocide and ethnic cleansing, antisemitism, misogyny, homophobia, suicide, and mentions of incest, and a general Spoilers warning

bastion: touches on ethnic cleansing, and not in a way i’d say is satisfactory. our narrator and one of our Sympathetic characters is one of the men who worked on a world-ending weapon meant to use against the Ura (a group of people coded as East Asian) which after a bit of googling is literally called “the final solution” if there was ever a war between the Ura and the Cael (who feel like rly tan white people to me). jesus fucking CHRIST.

we also meet more Ura other than our two named characters and we have to kill most of them. so that fucking blows.

the game tries for “being a genocidal monster will get you fucked up and blown up” which duh, but i feel we shouldn’t have had a person responsible for war crimes be one of our friends no matter how bad he feels about the whole thing, or the people victim of war crimes become villains in the latter half of the game. zia’s father could’ve taken ruck’s role ez pz.

transistor: the weakest of their games, imo; the lore and writing are fairly flimsy and i did not come out feeling Satisfied, especially because it had this rly good build-up that did not pay off. not to mention... their villains? 3/4 were gay people. lol. two married guys (not even explicit, you only realize by their shared last names) and the ps*cho lesbian trope (iirc she wanted to kill the protagonist’s lover or something). the female protagonist also ends up killing herself to live forever in a digital paradise with her dead lover. it’s. god. 

very Aesthetic, GORGEOUS music, interesting gameplay; had potential, i do not feel like it lived up to it at least as far as the story goes.

pyre: now this one. this one’s BEEFY. where transistor felt flimsy, pyre is rich; lots to sink your teeth into, rich in lore and loveable characters, again w the beautiful music, themes of cooperation and togetherness. my favorite of the cast is volfred sandalwood, the only Black (or, well, Black-coded) revolutionary i’ve ever seen portrayed with this amount of sympathy.

onto the bad: they literally have a Class of character named “Savage”; there’s the “mystical mentally ill person” trope; there is an overwhelming amount of explicit m/f pairs (one of them being. a romance that formed in a single day and then both of the characters were somehow willing to risk it all for each other? PLEASE) while the only hints of gayness are... hints. especially when Jodariel (another of my favs) is teased to have feelings for the player regardless of gender then only gets an ending with a male character with whom she has nothing in common 🙃

hades: and now. this one. music: gorgeous. character designs: spectacular (aphrodite is straight up naked but it’s so... natural and casual, it doesn’t feel sexualized at all). voice acting amazing. character interactions charming and endearing. as a greek mythology nerd, it was nice to see them go for the obscure shit like Zagreus at all, NOT portray Persephone and Hades as a loving couple, AND portrayed the gods as the bunch of petty assholes (some more benevolent than others) that they are. imo they’re too generous with their portrayal of achilles but i’ll allow it.

and finally... it seems all those criticisms about having all the gay characters hidden in the shadows paid off, cuz we got (aside of patroclus and achilles) a bisexual polyamorous protag. Holy Shit! and it’s not even playersexual, romance whomever you want shit without the routes recognizing each other: he explicitly talks about how he’s thinking abt them both (though it’s like “yeah usually mortals take one lover but gods love many huh” polyamory is a human thing too bro!!!!!)

and this is where it all goes, well, at least vaguely downhill lol. ok so the incest warning i gave up there? well. it’s not... outright incestuous. but it has some ugly implications. i want to emphasize: the characters never refer to each other as siblings, nor do they treat each other as such (thanatos, in fact, only recognizes hypnos as his brother, and megaera only sees the other furies as her sisters), but they were all raised by the same woman, Nyx... zagreus and thanatos even grew up together (im assuming megaera didnt meet zagreus until he was fully grown).

this is complicated even worse by the fact that they tried to trick zagreus into believing Nyx was his mother. he realized pretty early on this was not true but like... adoptive mothers, anyone? granted i can believe that bc of the attempt at deception that probably ruptured any attempt at actual familial closeness, and it’s not like hypnos and thanatos saw zagreus as their brother at any point, so they were p much aware of the truth too. with the fact that thanatos even looks like goth miles edgeworth (im not kidding you can google him up right now its literally edgeworth in a cowl) i rly feel they were aiming for Childhood Friend Anime Rival Man than the “surprise kiss bc ur not actually related <3″ shit. zagreus never once refers to nyx as his mother in-game, and also refers to thanatos and hypnos as her sons, never his brothers.

so yeah, like. if one’s feeling generous, zagreus and thanatos are more of a “my father is emotionally closed off and neglects me so my best friend’s mother basically raised me” kind of situation... just pulled off in, perhaps, the worst way possible (why didnt they just say Zagreus was told Hekate was his mom, that’s such an easy fix? or that he was born of nobody other than Hades??? [gestures at athena])

but then, the gods. aaaaaaaahhhhahahahh the gods. demeter shows up! and she calls zeus, hades and poseidon... her foster-brothers. which somehow would make the persephone thing less fucking awful, apparently. they really. really really did not need to do that. she could’ve just said “my fellow gods” or whatever. or my “god-brothers” or something, to pretend it was just a weird god alliance thing??? i dont know but implying that foster family isn’t family is just... bro, the dynamics still exist.

Don’t Like That.

i even contacted supergiant games over this. they reassured me they were even trying to avoid the incest of the original myths bc they didn’t want to mess with such a heavy theme. i believe them... but i really think they didn’t think this through. compared to something like fire emblem fates this is nearly benign, but the implications don’t look good :/

tl;dr of the tl;drs: i admire their artistic philosophy and the heavy emphasis on fresh gameplay, characters and their relationships; i appreciate that it seems that they listen to criticism?; i don’t appreciate that they didn’t think to at LEAST talk to adoptees when making a game about family.

[bookfast-at-tiffanys]

‘I Don’t Speak Your Language’

A Rosander/Sobbe oneshot in which things get too much for Sander. I’ve never written angst before and this is my first try so here we go!

If anyone has any feedback for me that would be happily accepted and I would duelly note it and try to act on it! And if you see this and think it’s not a total mess and you want me to write a fanfic for you or you have an idea for one, please feel free to come talk to me cos i’m bored and honestly have nothing to do and i’d love to write a fanfic for you since i’m all in the writing spirit! I’m just going to tag @driesen-demaury @becca66667 @sh0tgun-shuts-his-cakehole @jazzkaurtheglorious @igonecrazy @anna-lightwxxd @lavanyalol @a-very-gay-spider for help and support in the whole process!! Love you all ❤️

Just a warning: This is quite heavy angst and there is a Self-Harm Trigger (both mentioning and doing it). If that affects you adversely then please please please don’t read it, I don’t want to upset or hurt anyone! :))

A faint light reflected on the medicine box. A green, clinical-looking medicine box full of red and white pills, pills that invite the sick to take them, to eat them, to feel calmer because of them. As inviting as they seemed, the pills in the medicine box were unfeeling, not carers of the ill, not a refuge, rather they were a threat. Threats of harm if they are not called upon, a threat of overtaking and destruction.

A hand travelled towards the medicine box, not on its maiden voyage. It was a familiar journey, one which was taken every morning and every night of every day. It was a doomed course, a journey that would never solve or fix anything, rather it delayed the inevitable. The hand shook slightly, encapsulated in small tremors. A hesitation hung heavy over it, a silent question in the air: Should I take the medicines or not? If the thought was forced to delve deeper, the question would really be: Do I really want to live my life like this? Do I want to be deduced to the evidence of my illness?

The question was answered. The hand retracted slowly, as if the medicine box was a scorpion and the hand did not want to frighten it in fear of being poisoned, poisoned further than it already was. Today the medicines would not be taken, Sander would not be taken over, he would not be controlled by the threat, he would not be controlled by the pills, he would not be controlled by the illness.

Sander was sat on his bed with his legs stretched out in front of him, a contrast to the pent up darkness within him. The light from the window poured into the room, illuminating the greyness and perhaps sending sparks of hope into Sander. The sunlight struck his face, almost blindingly, and provided its divine, yet harsh, rays onto his face, tugging at the sharp emerald in his eyes. He could have been handsome if not for the dark rings under his eyes and the deepest weariness in his eyes. A weariness that reflected many previous battles, most of them won however some defeated him. His arms lay collapsed on his lap and he turned them to reveal his wrists - now these, these were his battle scars. The sign of defeat, the loss of will, all contained in the slits on his arms. They were red and raging, another threat in his life. Blood threatening Sander, a slow drip down his arm, relief flooding him, blanketing the pain. The feel of defeat - sweet and salty, playing together.

A sharp ringing pulsated throughout the room, a painful sound almost. Sander was harshly pulled out of his somewhat calming thoughts and began to feel what he knew to be identified as panic. Panic. Panic was the cat and Sander was the mouse; forever being chased by it and then, trapped. He was always being trapped, it was beginning to become predictable, if not inevitable. The shrill ring of his phone became more aggressive, more persistent, and Sander knew he had to answer to its beckoning. He snatched his phone off the bed, desperate to end the shrieking of the ringtone, a ringtone which he actually loved, a song by David Bowie, a song he was fond of. Now it had become a siren, yet another warning, another threat, however this time it was a threat of communication, a threat of others infiltrating the sanctity he had so carefully created for himself, the one thing that he had control over - however even that was sometimes overtaken. Sander turned his phone over to see a familiar name, a familiar name on a distant device.

Robbe. The deer-eyed boy he loved so much. The boy who accepted him and reciprocated his love, knowing who Sander was, what he was. Sander felt his fists unclench, the entirety of himself relax; each and every muscle singin Robbe’s name in a harmonious choir. He listened to the song ring one more time, the familiar tone of David Bowie washing through the room.

‘Rebel Rebel you tore your dress, Rebel Rebel your face is a mess’

Sander picked up the call, still humming along to the song slightly, a smile tugging at his lips, the sunlight now picking up the beauty in his face: the cupid’s bow of his soft pink lips, the bottom lip slightly plumper than the top one, the grassy green in his eyes like the hue of new spring growth; reviving and warming. The sunlight formed a silver halo on his bleached hair giving him the look of an Italian statue of an angel. He was lovely; a face lit with a heavenly glow, radiating all of the innocence that he had once had, and all the love he had felt from Robbe.

Sander yearned for Robbe’s voice and his soft tone that brought Sander back into his body, threading his soul into him so that it could never leave him again. Robbe was the core of Sander’s body, the life in him, the peace in his soul. Sander marvelled at Robbe sometimes; wondered why Robbe loved him, and what Sander had done to deserve him.

“Sander, love, what’s wrong?”

The melody of Robbe’s voice broke Sander out of his reverie, for what seemed to be the second time that day. All the affection and tenderness that had overtaken him was suddenly replaced with his earlier shaking and despair. The tranquil state that Sander painstakingly created was demolished just as as easily as a bomb detonated and destroys buildings. Wrong? W-What? Has Robbe finally realised that Sander has so many things wrong with him; that he’s toxic? Has Robbe realised that Sander destroys everything that he touches? Sander could not respond and so instead let out a low groan and a contrived mumble of Robbe’s name. He felt as if a bag full of bricks had been dropped onto his chest with no warning, making his body feel heavy - restricted, trapped. The trapping was inevitable and Sander had finally become vulnerable enough to be enveloped in the beckoning hands of the trap. It hunted him, and he succumbed to its desires.

“Sander just wait for me, okay darling?”

A distant whisper had Robbe’s voice become. Sander’s thoughts consumed him as Robbe’s voice faded away and his focus shifted until everything become one, a haphazard jumble. Sander’s eyes snapped closed, tighter than tight, a last attempt at holding onto the light, not being completely engulfed in the darkness, the shadows pulling him into a cold, emotionless embrace. He would then be clawed down, under the ground, further and further, losing any chance of rescue. He would soon be too far gone to be prised back to the light. Sometimes the darkness was too strong, the dark could overtake the light. It was a fact that had to be accepted.

Was it wrong that some part of Sander felt an overwhelming want to be taken away, so far away that the light couldn’t reach him, so that he couldn’t corrupt the angels of the light? So he couldn’t corrupt his angel: Robbe?

Sander’s brows were knitted firmly together and his hand, encapsulated in few lies felt around on the table beside his bed, smacking the medicine box away, trying to find the handles on the drawer - and finally finding it. He ripped the drawer open and rifled through it, eyes still sewed together rigidly. Sander sighed deeply. Relief flushed through him as the tip of the object nipped at his thumb. Sander knew that he had found what he was looking for. He pulled the knife out of the drawer and before he had time to comprehend what he was doing, Sander dug the tip into the inside of his wrist. He dragged the knife across it, blood blooming on his arm. Old scars re-opened, mentally and physically however all Sander was able to feel was a light relief. The feeling of being destructive was drowned by the blood dripping down his wrist, first slowly but then picking up a quick yet steady rhythm, a cold stream trickling down, down, further and further.

Sander felt....somewhat at ease. He found solace in the slashes he was making, enjoyed watching the blood run persistently down his arm, the only constant he could find in his life. It was a sick type of enjoyment that Sander could reach for at any moment. A ceaseless enjoyment that seized Sander and pulled him away from the world, further into the darkness, and Sander found himself going willingly with no hesitation.

Although Sander was lost in the depths of his mind, the knife, however wrong it should have felt, kept him more alive, more alert.

Sander’s arm was a scarlett mess, and he kept the knife hovering over his wrist, the handle held in a vice grip. Overwhelmed, confused, tired, but most of all: wretched. These feelings whirled in Sander’s mind and made it throb. A deep sob ripped through Sander’s body, making the entirety of him shake. The sound reverberated through the room, a sound of melancholy and sorrow; the last war cry of a soldier before the final defeat. A river of unshed tears poured down his face, unable to stay encased in Sander. She wept. He really, truly wept. What was he doing? Why was he doing this to himself? The light that had once illuminated Sander’s face had now filled, casting harsh shadows on Sander’s face; the look of clear misery etched itself on him. The look almost matched that of an angel fallen from grace, the despondence being unmistakable. The tears spilled quicker, rushing down Sander’s face.

Nobody spoke his language; the language of tablets and therapy, medicine box after medicine box. Nobody understood how it felt to be damned.

[im-not-a-joke]

Mmh... All the field

the whole- the whole field....

thank you for asking, this is going to be one long post

Alisons: Sexuality?

asexual, unlabeled/queer romantic

Amaranth: Pronouns/Gender?

they/them or he/him, nonbinary

Amaryllis: Birthday?

february 4th

Anemone: Favorite flower?

bleeding heart

Angelonia: Favorite t.v. show?

steven universe

Arum-Lily: What’s the farthest you’d go for a stranger?

probably offer a place to sleep overnight

Aster: What’s one of your favorite quotes?

“Do you think God stays in heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he’s created?”

Aubrieta: Favorite drink?

strawberry lemonade

Baby’s Breath: Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

my gf? yes, absolutely.

Balsam Fir: Have you ever been in love?

i’d like to think so, yes

Baneberries: Favorite song?

currently “better than me” by the brobecks

Basket of Gold: Describe your family.

a mess, i have three siblings, and two of them are currently living at home, we also have two large dogs

Beebalm: Do you have a best friend? Who is it?

yes! my best friend anna, and her brother bryan!

Begonia: Favorite color?

purple

Bellflower: Favorite animal?

mantis shrimp

Bergenia: Are you a morning or night person?

night person

Black-Eyed Susan: If you could be any animal for a day, what would it be?

dog, i want the constant love and affection

Bloodroots: When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

first a botanist, then a geologist

Bluemink: What are your thoughts on children?

i want to adopt some someday! sometimes they suck, but i want to be there for someone who doesn’t have a family to lean on.

Blazing Stars: What are you afraid of? Is there a reason why?

abandonment, because i’m annoying

Borage: Give a random fact about your childhood.

i shared a room with my little brother until i was like 12.

Bugleherb: How would you spend your last day on Earth?  

visiting all the people i love most, all of my friends, my gf, i’d call my sister

Buttercup: Relationship Status?

taken!

Camelia: If you could visit anywhere, where would you want to go?

france

Candytufts: When do you feel most loved?

when people take the time out of their day to talk to me

Canna: Do you have any tattoos?  

nope, i do want some someday, though

Canterbury Bells: Do you have any piercings?  

yes! i got my ears pierced twice because it ripped my earlobe the first time

California Poppy: Height?  

~5′8″

Cardinal Flower: Do you believe in ghosts?

yes, and if i die before any of my friends, i’m coming back to haunt them

Carnation: What are you currently wearing?  

a floral tank top, my favorite sleeveless cardigan, and jean shorts

Catnip: Have you ever slept with a nightlight?

yes, my little brother was afraid of the dark and insisted on having a nightlight on

Chives: Who was the last person you hugged?  

my mom

Chrysanthemum: Who’s the last person you kissed?

my gf

Cock’s Comb: Favorite font?

architect’s daughter

Columbine: Are you tired?

yes, very

Common Boneset: What are you looking forward to?

tomorrow i get to leave the house all day to drive across the state and it’s going to be a lot of fun

Coneflower: Dream job?

language teacher! either english to people who don’t speak it or german/french to english speakers

Crane’s-Bill: Introvert or extrovert?

introvert. i’m on tumblr all day

Crocus: Have you ever been in love?

yeah, i think so

Crown Imperial: What’s the farthest you would go for someone you care about?

i’d actually die for multiple people in my life

Cyclamen: Did you have a favorite stuffed animal as a child? What was it?

yes! a stuffed white dog with a plaid scarf and matching antlers! my friend got it for me because it reminded her of my big white dog.

Daffodil: What’s your zodiac sign?

aquarius

Dahlia: Have you done anything worth remembering?

once i came 3rd in my age group for a 5k i ran

Daisy: What do you feel is your greatest accomplishment?

i successfully kept a frail axolotl alive for an entire summer

Daylily: What would you do if your parents didn’t like your partner(s)?  

i dont care what my parents think about stuff like that, they cant tell my who i am or am not allowed to date

Dendrobium: Who is the last person that you said “I love you” to?

@byler-obsessed literally like, maybe 15 minutes ago as of writing this

False Goat’s Beard: What is something you are good at?

i’d like to think i’m decent at singing

Foxgloves: What’s something you’re bad at?

staying awake during the day

Freesia: What are three good things that have happened in the past month?

i saw my gf for the first time in months! i came out to the girls team for xc! i spent a lot of time with one of my closest irl friends!

Garden Cosmos: How was your day today?

decent, i had coach practice, which was nice

Gardenia: Are you happy with where you’re at in your life?

yeah, i’d say i’m pretty happy where i am

Gladiolus: What is something you hope to do in the next year or two?

learn guitar

Glory-of-the-Snow: What are ten things that make you happy/you’re grateful to have in your life?

my best friends anna and bryan, my older brother, the girls on the team, my ukulele, my therapist, my dogs, the creek in my back yard, my grandma’s amish apple dumpling recipe, random internet memes, books

Heliotropium: What helps you calm down when you feel stressed?  

listening to my spotify playlist

Hellebore: How do you show affection?

reassurance and/or talking about things that i enjoy, i’m really insecure so if i’m talking about something i like, that’s me trusting you. 

Hoary Stock: What are you proudest of?

the mental health progress i’ve made

Hollyhock: Describe your ideal day.

i lay in bed until like 11, then, i spend the rest of the day out with my friends, we get sushi for dinner and stay up until like 3am

Hyacinth: What do you like to do in your free time?  

be on tumblr

Hydrangea: How long have you known your best friend? How did you meet them?

i met them both in 6th grade, anna nad i were in the same science class and i met bryan at lunch, he didn’t talk to me for at least the first half of the year.

Irises: Who can you talk to about (almost) everything?

bryan, he always knows just what to say, and knows that he doesn’t have to fix my problems to be a good friend.

Laceleaf: How many friends do you have?

like, 13?

Lantanas: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?

my friend once told me that they couldn’t tell if i was a boy or girl upon first meeting me and it made my day.

Larkspur: What do you think of yourself?

i’m a mess, an anxious, depressed, gay mess

Lavender: What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

my hair, it’s really fluffy and soft, and just about light enough to dye bright colors

Leather Flower: What’s your least favorite thing about yourself?  

my chest, it’s always been a huge part of my dysphoria and i want it gone please

Lilac: What’s something you liked to do as a child?

i would play dress up with my dog, he had to suffer through wearing all my old dresses, but he got treats so it was ok

Lily: Who was your best friend when you were a kid?

my friend ry, we met in second grade, we’re still on and off friends, currently off

Lily of the Incas: What is something you still feel guilty for?

in 5th grade i used the word “suck” in class and got yelled at

Lily of the Nile: What is something you feel guilty for that you shouldn’t feel guilty about?  

see above answer

Lupine: What does your name mean? Why is that your name?

carson: christian. it’s my name because i like how it sounds, and anna really liked it too, she picked it for me.

Marigold: Where did you grow up? Tell us about it.

white, suburban ohio. all the kids had cliques by the second day of kindergarten, and if you were knew, you generally had a pretty good chance of being picked up by the popular kids.

Morning Glory: What was your bedroom like growing up?

i had bunkbeds with my little brother, i slept on the bottom.

Mugworts: What was it like for you as a teenager? Did you enjoy your teenage years?  

so far, not really. i’m just mentally ill and closeted, it’s not great

Norwegian Angelica: Tell us about your mom.

she likes to dye her hair crazy colors, and she used to be a beekeeper, even though she’s allergic to bee stings.

Onions: Tell about your dad.  

he rides his bike almost every day, and supports my mom in whatever she does

Orchid: Tell about your grandparents.

on my mom’s side, the kindest boomers i’ve ever met, my grandpa used to take us on “adventures” to the park and just watch us play

on my dad’s side: my grandpa loves seeing us but doesn’t get out much, my grandma laughs hysterically at every family gathering, and has all the best amish recipes

Pansy: What was your most memorable birthday? What made it be so memorable?

when i turned 13, i went ice skating for the first time and fell and sprained my wrist

Peony: What was your first job?

mowing lawns

Petunia: If you’re in a relationship, how did you meet your partner(s)? If you’re not in a relationship, how did you meet your crush/how do you hope to meet your future partner(s), if you want any?

we had mutual friends and slowly ended up being close, we were in school plays and track together.

Pincushion: How do you deal with pain?

i bite down on my finger to simultaneously distract myself, focus on something else, and hold myself back

Pink: Where is home?

my best friends’ living room at 1 am, with the golden girls playing in the background

Plantain Lilies: If you could go back in time, what is one thing you would stop/change?

i’d go back and stop current president from becoming president

Prairie Gentian: Who is someone you look up to? Describe them.

my sister, she has always been driven and passionate and talented, and she makes everything seem effortless and still gives it her all.

Primrose: Describe your ideal life.

me and my spouse and my kids amd my dogs all live in a decently spacious house in europe, my job is stable and i love my work, my students think i’m cool and come to me if they need help, i am doing well.

Rhodendron: What is something you used to believe in as a child?

i used to believe that the smoke from fireworks was where clouds came from

Ricinus: Who’s the most important in your life?

my best friends

Rose: What’s your favorite sound?

the sound of rain on my roof at night

Rosemallows: What’s your favorite memory?

when my sister, dad, and i all climbed to the top of a mountain in california

Sage: What’s your least favorite memory?

throwing up in the car on the way home for visiting my sister in new york

Snapdragon: At this moment, what do you want?  

a hug from anna

St. John’s Wort: Is it easy or difficult for you to express how you feel about things?

it’s hard because i don’t trust people

Sunflower: What is something you don’t want to imagine life without?

the internet

Sweet Pea: How much sleep did you get last night?

like 5.5 hours

Tickseed: What’s your main reason to get up every morning?

to run, it makes me feel better and i love cross country

Touch-Me-Not: How do you feel about your current job?

lmao i dont have one

Transvaal Daisy: What’s your favorite item of clothing?

my binder!

Tropical White Morning Glory: Describe your aesthetic.  

the record player song but a boy

Tulip: What would be the best present to get you?

a list of reasons why you deal with me/things you like about me

Vervain: What’s stressing you out most right now?

the fact that this is taking a lot longer than anticipated and i don’t want people to think i’m ignoring their asks

Wisteria: How many books have you read in the past few months? What were they called?

actual books? only 2, Catcher in the Rye and the Night Circus

Wolf’s Bane: Where do you want to be in life this time next year?

out with my friends

Yarrow: Do you know what vore is?

yes, and i regret it

Zinnia: Give a random fact about yourself.

i’m double jointed in my left pinky

[the-sappho-of-lesbos]

Honesty it seems like for most of my life people have just never been able to take my loneliness seriously. In HS I had a “friend” who was a gay man. We were both out to each to each other and he actually had like 3 long term bfs in high school while the most I had was a text based “relationship” with a woman who was in hospital for the entire time we were together and I saw like once and was also probably too old for me at the time but no one wanted to care about that. He would come to me and talk about how lonely he was, and I would listen, I would tell him how sorry I am he has to go through that, I told him I know how painful it is but I have faith he’ll find someone. I told him it’s okay to be upset and angry. I told him I’m always here if he ever needs to talk about, if he even has to repeat the same thing over and over. I told him I know loneliness is painful and I’m sorry he has to feel that way. I try to talk about being lonely??? “It’s different for you. It’s just not the same.” EXCUSE ME????? At the time I never said anything because I thought he was just dealing with his own struggles that way and I didn’t want to make him feel bad. The bets part is even now, he has long term boyfriend m they rent an apartment together, and last year, when I thought maybe we could fix things, I mentioned that loneliness again, and you know what, he shut me down and pushed my issues aside. He was in and is still in a happy relationship but he couldn’t even give me a slither or compassion. But it seems even now when I talk about it people don’t want to take me seriously. I talk about it with my family and they either walk away, brush me off or just don’t respond. I don’t know why people always want to push aside my pain. Loneliness is painful for me. Not having anyone around me is painful. I’m so touch starved it’s crazy but I’m called annoying at home when I ask for hugs. Yet people still wont just acknowledge it for some reason. As if telling me I’m not lonely will suddenly make me no longer feel that way. I’m allowed to be upset over being lonely. I’m allowed to be scared of the future because I think it holds nothing but loneliness. The sadness I feel leaves we with constant heart ache. I wholeheartedly genuinely do not believe I’m going to find someone, but I keep looking because I’m so, so desperate for just that one percent of a chance that I don’t have to feel this way anymore. I know for some people it isn’t a big deal. But it’s a big deal to me. It’s easy to just look at me as being sensitive and a crybaby when you have someone. But I don’t have someone , so it is a big deal to me. I can complain about my loneliness, you can tell me it’s not a big deal, and then go be with your partner while I’m still alone. I’m tired of my family just dismissing how I feel. Loneliness is a disease, and when you feel unlovable, when you feel ugly, when you feel worthless, when you have mental illnesses and physically bad health up the wazoo, it makes it worse. So much worse. I feel like I’m just running in circles at this point, trying to escape something I’m tied to for life and I just wish people who listen to me when I talk about how damaging, debilitating and outright painful this loneliness is. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say this loneliness is killing me. This loneliness makes my ED worse, this loneliness makes my depression worse, this loneliness makes my self harming worse, this loneliness makes my OCD worse, this loneliness makes my agoraphobia worse. This loneliness dwindles my will to live. This loneliness is both physically, emotionally and spiritually slowly killing me from the inside out and making all my problems that much worse and I just wish people would listen to me and believe me when I tell them that. Maybe loneliness isn’t something that really affects them, but it affects me and it’s painful

[she-is-tim]

I love hating you | Elu enemies to lovers AU | Ch. 7

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6.5

Lucas is an angry, closeted and frustrated gay teenager, while Eliott is the handsome, smart and popular guy in school. They hate each other… but not forever.

I didn’t mean to hurt him

When Lucas heard that Eliott came to school, he felt like throwing up. It was Emma who told him, because she heard it from Alex. Lucas was hiding in the bathroom, trying to calm himself down. He so wasn’t ready for this. Since tuesday he barely could eat, his mind couldn’t focus on anything, because he kept thinking of Eliott. His chest was hurting more than ever and he couldn’t do anything to make the pain stop. His eyes filled with tears, body shaking uncontrollably. He got startled when his phone started ringing. He swiped the sweat off his palms and pulled his phone out of his pocket, answering the call without checking who it was.

“Hello?” his voice was a bit shaky, but he tried to sound as normal as possible.

“Bro, where are you? Class is starting soon.” Arthur said worried, reminding his friend of his upcoming biology class.

“I’m coming, I just had to come to the bathroom.” he explained, telling the half-truth. He haven’t talked to his friends much about Eliott, they just knew that he had something with him, but this was much more complicated.

“Okay, I’ll tell Imane to stop worrying then.” Arthur said now and hung up. 

Lucas was glad that he had friends like him, who could understand that pushing the boy to speak won’t help the situation. When he feels like he need to talk, then he will know where to find his friends. He thought about Yann, they talk on monday and he felt like he should at least tell him what happened between him and Eliott. He deserved to get some answers to all those questions he probably has, but never dared to ask. 

He flushed the toilet, making it look like he was doing something in there and walked out of the stall. He washed off the tears from his face, trying to breathe evenly. When he left the bathroom, he walked into someone and the sudden force pushed him back. He thought he’s going to fall to the floor when a strong arm grabbed his wrist, pulling him forward until he found himself pressed to a warm chest. This whole situation felt so familiar and his heart skipped a beat when he recognized the smell of the person. He looked up, meeting with stormy grey eyes, a handsome, but tired looking face and that beautiful, messy hair.

“Watch out next time, Lallemant.” Eliott said, voice bitter as he let the boy go and took a step back, avoiding eyecontact. The bruise on his cheek was slowly fading away, but it still made Lucas feel guilty about it. 

“I-I’m sorry...”

“Whatever.” Eliott said, shrugging off the boy and walking away like nothing happened. 

Lucas was watching him disappear in the crowd of students. His heart cracked yet once more. It was one thing to think that Eliott hates him, that he doesn’t care anymore, but seeing that dead look, hearing those bitter words were so much more painful. He clenched his fists and swallowed back his tears, walking to biology class. This can’t break him, not now. 

Lucas almost ran away to hide in the bathrom again when he realized that his next class just before lunch break is literature with Eliott. He haven’t had to worry meeting the boy so far, cause it seemed like he was avoiding Lucas, which was just as relieving as painful. He was standing a few steps from him classroom, trying not to freak out, control his breathing. He had no idea if Eliott was already inside or not, but he couldn’t just skip his class. 

He sighed and looked up from the floor when he saw that just across him was standing Eliott, staring at him with those piercing eyes. He was holding onto the strap of his backpack on his shoulder. He looked exhausted, eyes sitting in dark shadows, skin pale and his whole appearence screamed that he haven’t had a good sleep in a while. Lucas knew the feeling too well, he spent most of his nights watching stupid tv shows with really low volume on the couch, wrapped in a blanket. 

None of them moved to walk into the classroom. Eliott seemed like someone who saw a ghost, he closed his eyes for a few seconds, looking away from the short boy and then he walked in without saying anything. Lucas bit his bottom lip strong enough to make him feel the pain before walking after Eliott. He was sitting at their table, leaning over a book, probably the one they are gonna talk about in class. The short boy took the seat next to him, clearly feeling the awkward tension between them. Eliott had a pen in his right hand, slowly knocking on the table with it, like he tried to focus on that one sound. Lucas took a deep breath and put his own book on the table too, making sure he doesn’t make any more physical contact with his classmate.

When the class was over, Eliott basically jumped up from his seat and ran out of the room. Lucas felt like shit, not knowing what he could do to fix this. His feelings for this tall boy rooted so deep inside that he couldn’t just get rid of them. Not sure if he actually wanted that. This was something that never happened to him before, falling in love with someone. Before he tries to give up on it, he had to make sure that Eliott wants nothing from him.

He spent the whole week looking up bipolarity online and in books. His brain felt like it’s going to blow up from all the informations. Knowing that Eliott had to live with something that makes his life ten times harder broke his heart. All the sources said different things about mania, depression, episodes, suicidal thoughts. He was scared, afraid of what Eliott would do to himself when he’s feeling so low, but he couldn’t just call him to make sure he’s okay. 

It was wednesday afternoon when he decided to call Sofiane. He could only hope that the boy has some information on how Eliott is doing. Although he was asked to leave the apartment on that damned tuesday, he couldn’t stop thinking of Eliott’s face when they talked. The single tear on his face, his robotic voice as he told Lucas to leave. All of it was haunting him day and night. 

“Yes?” he got startled when a soft voice spoke from his phone. He totally forgot that he was calling someone. This often happened with him lately, forgetting about the outside world, diving into his thoughts. 

“Sofiane, it’s me, Lucas.” he said, trying to normalize his heartbeat.

“Lucas, are you okay?” he asked, sounding genuinely worried which warmed the short boy’s heart. He couldn’t believe that after everything happened Eliott’s best friend was still worried about him. 

“I am fine. I actually wanted to ask about Eliott.” he explained, fighting with the nervous feeling in his throat. He heard a soft sigh from the other side of the line, which made him even more nervous now. “What is it?” he asked, surprising himself with the demanding tone.

“He is in a bad place right now, Lucas. I don’t know if you guys talked...”

“He told me about his illness.” the boy cut him off quickly, he had no time for pep talk, he wanted to know if Eliott was okay. 

“Okay, I wasn’t expecting that.” Sofiane said surprised. “He usually doesn’t talk about it... I mean, he is pretty ashamed of it, although we keep telling him that he is just like any other teenager...” he explained and let out another sigh. “His life is not easy, Lucas, he had to go through a lot of shit in the last few years.”

“But is he okay?” he asked again, feeling his eyes filling up with tears.

“He will be. Lucille came back to Paris and she’s taking care of him now.” he explained. “She knows how to handle this.”

“But he didn’t... try to... you know...”

“Hurt himself?” the boy asked, sounding really serious all of the sudden. “Lucas, you probably read that on the internet a lot and it’s not impossible for him to feel such low, so deeply hurt that he would do a stupid thing like that, but... I trust him, you know. And we all making sure he can’t get so deep into this shit.” he said on a softer tone now. “Listen, I don’t know when he will go to school again. His episodes always different, some goes down in a few days, some takes a week, sometimes he needs much longer time, but I know for a fact that whatever he said to you, he still cares about you. I saw him after a breakup before, but he has never been like this. His feelings are serious.”

“So are mine.” Lucas said now, surprising himself with the confession, but he kept going. “I don’t care that he is mentally ill, Sofiane. I spent my afternoons looking up bipolarity instead of studying, I can’t have a decent sleep since I left his place and I certainly not gonna give up on what was between us, because it was real to me. More real than my first year at school, pretending to be someone I wasn’t.” he said, pouring out his heart through the phone. The rocks were slowly rolling off his chest, making him feel like he can breathe again.

“In that case, I am hoping you can reach out to him.” Sofiane said and he could imagine that bright smile on his face as he was talking. 

“I will try my very best.” Lucas said and hung up. He went back to his search on bipolarity, visiting some phychological blogs and forums. 

After school he decided to go to the common room, just hanging out there before going home. It was a bit more calming for him to sit on the armchair there, staring at the piano in front of the terrible mural. He remembered how he played the song on it, how Eliott clapped when he finished the piece. His face as he got closer and closer to Lucas until he could feel his breath. He was a bit mad at the girls that they interrupted them that day, but was a bit glad too. Their first kiss at the bus stop, in the pouring rain was something he could never forget. It was burnt into his brain, every single moment of it. 

“Don’t you think, Lucas?” a soft voice dragging him out of his dreamy thoughts. He’s shaking his head, looking at the girls. They were sitting on the couches facing each other and talking about something, but he couldn’t recall what was the topic.

“Sorry, I wasn’t listening.” he said honestly. He just noticed that he was holding his phone in his hands, like he was hoping to get a message from Eliott. 

“I said that the common room looks almost perfect, but we still have to get rid of the mural.” Daphné repeated her words with a bright smile on her face. “Wouldn’t you like to help us with it? You did a great job with the chairs.”

“Daphné, chairs and a whole wall is two different thing.” Imane said, looking up from her book. 

“Plus Lucas shouldn’t do such an exhausting task.” Manon added, looking worried at her flatmate, which made Lucas let out a frustrated sigh.

“I’m not a fragile doll, just because I’m sad.” he said seriously. “And I guess you don’t want me to start painting right now.”

“No, of course not.” Daphné said, being excited that the boy seemed like he’s willing to help them. “I thought about next friday, after school.” 

“Okay, I’ll gather the boys and we’ll do something with it.” Lucas nodded and laid his head back in the armchair, letting the girls continue talking without his presence. 

The weekend passed fairly quickly. Lucas spent his days doing homework with Manon, cleaning the flat and watching tv with Mika and Lisa. No one asked him about Eliott and that was okay. He needed time before he could tell them about his feelings for the boy. It was enough that they knew he was gay, it was a big relief to get rid of the fake Lucas, his lies and stupid excuses. He had the chance to be himself finally. 

On monday morning, he decided to start trying to reach out to Eliott, but he wasn’t sure how to do it. The boy would probably just ignore his messages, so that was a dead end. He thought for a second and remembered how much Eliott talked about Love, Simon when they were together. He looked for a picture of the Ferris wheel from the movie and added a quote to is as the caption: “Sometimes I think I’m destined to care so much about one person it nearly kills me.“

He sighed after posting the picture. He knew Eliott wasn’t following him on insta, but he admitted that he was always stalking Lucas, checking his posts and stories, so he really hoped that this haven’t changed after their fight. 

He felt his phone endlessly buzzing in his pocket as he walked to school, probably his friends asking about the post, people liking and commenting on it. He was glad that most of the students calmed down, not bullying him, but those glancing eyes were still following him everywhere. Like they were waiting for Lucas to start making out with a random guy in the middle of school. He rolled his eyes, knowing the only person he wanted to do that with was actively avoiding him.

When he got to his locker, he took a deep breath. His mind was spinning around Eliott, trying to think of a good way to reach out to him. Lucas no.36 was probably already talking to him, Lucas no.53 was hiding in the bathroom, crying like a baby, while Lucas no.95 was making out on the hall with Eliott no.95. He wished he could be doing that too instead of feeling nervous all the time, not knowing how to fix the shit he created around themselves. He opened his locker, but something fell out of it. He thought it was probably just a note, since he had so much shit stuffed in that tiny space, sometimes papers and books just fell out. He leant down to pick it up, it was a piece of paper, carefully folded. He opened it to see what’s on it and his heart skipped a beat. 

It was a drawing of a raccoon sitting on a couch, drawing something, while there were a lots of crumbled papers around him and a dark cloud above his head. Lucas knew that this was from Eliott. His eyes filled with tears and pressed the paper to his chest, trying to lock it into his heart. Even if the drawing was sad, showing that Eliott wasn’t feeling good, he still tried to reach out, making sure Lucas knows that he still wants something. 

A single tear rolled down his face and he looked for his phone quickly. Lots of thoughts running through his mind at the same time, but he wanted to be just short and simple. He opened instagram and went to his DMs, looking for the chat with Eliott. It was so weird to see their soft and endearing texts there, so he tried to ignore those, starting to type.

lucallemant Thank you for the drawing, If you wanna talk, I am always ready 

He gasped when the word “seen” appeared under his message, but he got no replies from Eliott. He put away his phone, ignoring the texts and notifications on the app. He made sure he has the right books and notes for the upcoming classes, having a stupid smile on his face. 

It was lunch time and Lucas was sitting with the boys, staring at his phone screen, not even touching his food. They were talking about Yann’s date with Chloé this weekend, but he wasn’t really paying attention. He was looking for Eliott in the crowd all day, checking his phone every 5 minutes if he got a message, but nothing. Since he got the drawing, Eliott showed no sign of being in school or wanting to talk to Lucas and it was slowly killing him. 

He grabbed his fork and poked a broccoli on his plate a couple times, still holding the phone in his other hand. It was agonizing to wait. He wanted to send millions of texts to Eliott, but he knew that wouldn’t make the other boy respond. He was desperate, sad and lonely without him. He barely noticed when his friends started talking to him. He shook his head when Yann threw a piece of corn at him. 

“What?” he asked, pulling his phone to his chest now.

“We asked you a question.” Arthur said, raising his eyebrows. “Are you okay, bro?” 

“I don’t know.” Lucas said honestly. “I wanna talk to Eliott, but I don’t know how...’

“Why are you making things complicated? Just go to his place after school and demand a talk.” Arthur said, shrugging it off easily.

“It’s not that simple...” he sighed. “Eliott is not doing well... and that is my fault. I hurt him, because I’m an idiot.” he looked down at the food on his plate.

“Well, that is not news to us.” Yann said, trying to tease his friend a little. “Look, we all can see how much you care about the guy. Are you sure he wants this too? Because it has been a week since you guys had the fight and he haven’t talked to you at all.” he said on a serious tone now. Lucas looked up at him, seeing the concern in his eyes, but he was also worried. They probably never saw him being so affected by another person, and that just confirmed how gone he was for Eliott.

“He put a drawing in my locker.” he said and sighed when the boys looked confused. “He’s an artist, it’s his way to communicate.” he explained.

“Okay, what was on the drawing?” Basile asked while he stuffed some greenish looking pasta into his mouth. 

“It was just... him being sad and drawing with a lot of crumpled papers around him.” he explained and started to poke his broccoli again.

“So that means he was thinking of you, isn’t it?” Basile said, surprising his friends with his intellectual question. “I mean he probably tried to draw something that could express his feelings, but it was so hard that he decided to show you how he can’t find the right words.” he continued, shoving more pasta in his mouth and chewing loudly on it. 

“Looks like our friend here still have some leftover braincells to use.” Arthur said with an impressed smile. “Nice speech, Baz.”

“This pasta is fucking good.” he said now, still munching, Lucas chuckled a little. 

“By the way, Daphné asked me to help her repaint the mural in the common room. I thought we could do it together.” he offered with a soft smile, making his pasta-eating friend beam to the news.

“Daphné asked? We will help! Of course! I will paint something for her and she is going to fall in love with me.” he said excitedly.

“Yeah, that’s a great idea. Some fun time together wouldn’t hurt.” Arthur added and he started to eat his food too.

“Sure, bro.” Yann smiled at his best friend. “You can always count on us.” 

“Thanks, guys.” Lucas said with a grateful smile, still not touching his meal.

Tuesday went by slowly, Lucas was suffering without knowing what’s up with Eliott. He didn’t see him at school, he wasn’t on literature class, he didn’t text back. It was hard not to contact him again, but after that drawing, he knew that Eliott probably needed time to think and collect his thoughts. He decided to text Sofiane instead, hoping that he will have some information on his beloved, tall boy. 

lucallemant Hey You have any news on Eliott?

sofalaoui I am not supposed to talk to you

lucallemant Come again?

sofalaoui Eliott asked me not to talk to you

lucallemant Now THAT is bullshit

sofalaoui He needs time Believe me, I want you guys to be back together more than anyone But the health of my friend is much more important  He suffered a lot because of you

lucallemant I didn’t mean to hurt him

sofalaoui I know, but it happened Just make sure you won’t screw it up again

Lucas couldn’t say anything to that, he just locked his phone and sighed, leaning back on the couch. He stared at the ceiling for long minutes before closing his eyes. Memories of Eliott were haunting his brain, making his chest hurt yet again. He didn’t even try to fight back them, he deserved to remember those, even if it caused him to feel pain. 

They were laying in bed, arms wrapped around each others, legs entangled. Afternoon sun warmed their skin, lighting up their faces. Eliott’s eyes looked even more beautiful in the bright sunlight, his eyelashes were so long, his hair seemed almost gold. Lucas slid his hand up to put it on Eliott’s face, rubbing his cheek with his thumb. The tall boy shot him a soft smile, moving his head a little so their foreheads touch. He chuckled, giving him a soft peck on the lips, then he pulled back, but Eliott didn’t let him, chasing after him to have a much more passionate kiss. 

Lucas smirked into his lips, sliding his hand into Eliott’s soft locks, grabbing them a little to pull him closer. Their tongues were dancing, making sloppy sounds. The boy made sure their body is as close as possible. As they separated, Eliott started to shower his face with soft kisses. One on the forehead, one on the nose, on the cheeks, on he jaw, under his eyes. Lucas couldn’t help, but let out a little giggle.

“What are you doing?” he asked, circling his fingers on the other’s neck.

“Kissing you.” Eliott said with a playful smile and bit his lip gently. “You are so beautiful.”

“That’s just so fucking cheesy.” Lucas mumbled, burying his face into Eliott’s neck now to hide his blush. They were doing this since almost a day now, laying in bed, kissing, cuddling, but the soft compliments still made his heart race like a crazy horse. 

“Yeah, I know.” he said smiling, planting a soft kiss on Lucas’ hair. “But I love how you react when I say something like that.” he chuckled and put his hand on the boy’s neck, caressing his skin. “The way you just bury your face into me, the little whining noise you make... I wanna make sure I remember all these moments, because I’ve never been so happy before.” he whispered softly, right into Lucas’ ear. He felt shiver going through his spine, making him feel things he never did before. His face was still pressed to Eliott’s neck and he wasn’t planning to pull back anytime soon. He tightened his grip around the other’s body, holding him close, breathing in his soft smell, enjoying the warmth of him. Eyes closing slowly, as he let himself drift off into the sea of happiness with this gorgeous man in his arms. 

Wednesday came as fast as an old lady crossing the street in the early hours of the day. Slow and painful. Lucas felt like every move he does required twice the strength that it did before. Getting out of bed, brushing teeth, dressing up, going to school. When he was standing at his locker, he felt ten years older, or even twenty. He let out an exhausted sigh, packing his stuff in and out of the locker before going to his classes. When he was finished, lock on the door and everything, he turned around and almost dropped his bag in shock. 

A crowd of people entered the halls, being loud, asking questions, making weird sounds, mostly girls to be honest. But the thing that catched Lucas’ eyes was the boy in the middle of them, Eliott. He looked fairly okay, hair messy as usual, eyes looking tired, surrounded with dark circles, the bruise on his left cheek fading away. He had a smile on his face as he looked at all the girls around him, trying to keep his pace slow, so he won’t be knocking over any of them. Lucas could tell that even if he was smiling, he wasn’t happy at all. He knew it, because his eyes looked sad, exhausted even, not a bit of happiness reaching them. 

He leaned to the lockers, trying to catch his breath as the crowd passed by him, when suddenly, like a lightning struck him, Eliott raised his head, looking at his direction. The boy was sure that his brain stopped working, his heart gave up on pumping blood into his body. He froze right then and there. The face Eliott made was painful to watch. He looked sad, longing in his eyes, but he pursed his lips, forcing himself to look away, bringing his focus back on the girls around him. 

Lucas felt tears bundling up in his eyes, he slid down to the floor, hugging his bag to his chest. As he tried to normalize his breathing, he noticed his friends walking to him, Yann immediately kneeling down to his friend, putting a hand on his shoulder, looking concerned.

“Lulu, what’s wrong?” he asked worryingly. Arthur and Basile stood behind him, also looking corcerned.

“He’s here...” Lucas mumbled, rubbing off the tears from his cheeks.

“Eliott?” Arthur asked surprised and looked around. “Did he talk to you?” 

“No.” he shook his head, almost a bit too intensely, feeling dizzy after it. “He just walked by with some girls...” 

“Girls?” Basile raised an eyebrow.

“He’s the most popular guy in the school, remember.” the blond friend said and he helped Yann to scoop Lucas up from the floor. He was still shaking, so his best friend kept holding his arm. 

“I wasn’t ready for this.”

“I can tell.” Arthur said, smiling just a little. “Listen here, Lulu. We know how much you like him, but you can’t let these emotions take over your life, okay?” he said softly, rubbing the boy’s upper arm. “Whatever happens next, whatever he says when you talk to him, just remember that you are not alone.” 

“There are millions of Eliotts out there, Lulu. But you? You are unique!” Basile said seriously, pointing at his friend like he won the lottery just now. Lucas felt warmth spreading in his chest, making him happy. He opened his arms and pulled all three of his friends into one big group hug. They hugged back immediately, almost crashing his bones in the process. Lucas laughed, his friends laughed. It was a wholesome moment for them. 

He didn’t see Eliott anymore that day, but he heard girls talking about him on the halls. It was slightly infuriating, hearing them saying things like “He smiled at me” or “I think he likes me” or “Isn’t he gay?” It made him pissed, so he decided to join the girl squad at the common room after school. The place looked much better than before, there was a table soccer, multiple board games, a computer, nice carpet on the floor, the pink chairs Lucas painted for the girls, the big table, couches and armchairs to chill and a huge chalkboard that was filled with funny messages and little drawings. The only thing that was off his the ugly mural, but that will be fixed soon, so the room can look the way Daphné imagined. 

He flopped down in the armchair, after he dropped his bag on the floor, joining to the girls. They all smiled at him fondly and he returned the smile. He pulled up his legs and listened to them, talking about some vacation. He couldn’t really focus, his mind kept going back to this morning, when he saw Eliott on the school hall. It felt like an eternity since they last met, but it was only a few days ago. 

“So, Lucas.” Daphné said suddenly, dragging him out of his thoughts. This girl never let him sink into his mind, she just had to talk to him, which was sweet, but also a tiny bit annoying. 

“Yes, Daphy?” 

“What is going on with you and Eliott?” she asked suddenly, casually, like it’s not a big thing for him. Lucas felt his blood froze in his veins, his brain stopped working and he was just staring at Daphné in disbelief. 

“Are you serious?” Imane said now, sounding really upset. “You can’t ask something like this out of nowhere.” she said, looking really disappointed in her blonde friend. 

“Why not? I was just curious and they would be a lovely couple...”

“Daphné, stop.” Imane raised her hand, but looking at Lucas now. “Don’t answer her. We get that you need your time.” 

“Yeah, just don’t feel like we wanna push you into talking.” Manon added with a soft smile. 

Lucas sighed, finally able to breathe again. Daphné’s ignorance shocked him a little, but seeing how much Imane and Manon cared about him helped to get himself back into the real world. As the boys told him, he can’t be worrying about Eliott all the time, he can’t chew on this for eternity. He had to let himself enjoy his life and talk things out. The girls were his friends and friends talk to each other about problems.

“We haven’t talked in a while...” he started and looked at the ceiling. “We had some serious thing going on between us... before I got outed.” 

“Is that the reason why you didn’t come to my party?” Emma asked curiously, catching the opportunity to talk openly. 

“Yeah, he was with his parents for a week, he texted me that he’s back... I went to meet him and things happened.” he let out a deep breath, looking at the girls now, regretting immediately. All of them turned towards him, eyes wide open, ready to take in everything he says. “We spent the weekend together.” 

“That explains a lot of things.” Manon said with a knowing grin and Lucas giggled. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry about that. We were just... well, lost in each other, I might say. I totally forgot to check my messages.” he said, feeling a slight blush taking place on his cheeks. The girls laughed, softly and fondly.

“So, you like him, right?” Daphné asked, making Imane slap her shoulder gently, but still enough to let her know that she was being inappropriate yet once again. Lucas chuckled. 

“Well, yes. I like him a lot.” he said honestly. The girls smiled at him widely, but he got distracted by the buzzing of his phone. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw a message from Sofiane, but as he opened instagram, something else catched his eye.

srodulv liked your post

He gasped. It was the photo he posted on monday morning, with the Ferris wheel from Love, Simon. And that fucking quote. He suddenly felt embarrased, knowing that Eliott actually saw that and he even liked it. All of this was so sudden, he didn’t know what to think about this. Eliott was making small moves towards him, despite the fact that last friday he was cold as ice whenever they met. He was still shaking when he got another notification.

srodulv started following you

[4in1combo]

So remember when Remus brought up Jeffrey Dahmer?

Warning: gore, murder, thoughts about harm, loneliness, necrophilia, mutilation, dead animals, mental illness, drugs, pregnancy. I am NOT trying to make you sympathize with Jeffrey, he is a murder and deserves to be scene as a horrid monster. I am simply doing an analysis, please do not continue if you are easily triggered.

I love true crime. My most listened to thing on Spotify is a true crime podcast. So, as weird as it sounds, I was interested when Remus brought up Jeffrey Dahmer. In the beginning of the episode I was prepared, the warning told me what was going to be in the episode so I thought nothing of it. Till Jeffrey was mentioned.

If you haven’t heard of him, or know him well. here’s a quick thing you should know. Jeffrey Dahmer has a terrible childhood. His mother was taking copious drugs during her pregnancy and when he was born she wouldn’t feed him. When he was a child, her mother was too mentally ill to take care of him and his father was always at work. He grew up to become a serial killer that mainly killed gay men(he was also gay), would do the gross butt stuff, and kill them. And sometimes cannibalise the bodies. Remember after Remus brings Jeffrey Dahmer he mumbles,” acid-brain sex zombies?” That was because Jeffrey literally tried making sex zombies. He would (skip to next paragraph if your triggered easily) drill holes in their brains and pour bleach into their brains.

Good job on the research, that must of been gross to read. After that intro to the killer Thomas called Jeffrey, destructive. Which is correct. Jeffrey began to have intrusive thoughts at the age of four. He was interested in animal bones. His father didn’t mind the fact that his son would help him clean dead animals, he thought it was just kids being kids. Another time where his fascinations became real was when his father let him put chicken bones in bleach, believing it to just be curiousity(again Jeffrey’s father was a chemist)

Remus also says this: repression can be...very bad, indeed. I mean, just take Jeffrey Dahmer. He used to have these pretty funny thoughts about torturing animals. But ya know? He hated them. He thought they were horrible and he TRIED TO FORCE THEM OUT. Lot of good that did him.

Who knew Remus was such a nerd for true crime?? Because that’s literally facts. Jeffrey became obsessed with dead bodies, men, mostly dead bodies of men when he was 14. This was also the same time where his parents divorced, so maybe he snapped. Jeffrey began to drink to suppress his thoughts, it was said that by the time he got to high school, he was a full blown alcoholic. He began to isolate himself, having no one to talk to about his thoughts. At the age of 16, he would have thoughts about doing the gross butt stuff to a jogger he saw. He once even went out with a bat and waited for the jogger, but the jogger never came. However, I don’t get what Remus’s means by ‘force them out’. We know Jeffrey drank to repress, but he never saw treatment. He continued to collect animal bones for ‘research’. Unless he means drinking, than that’s false. And the last part is sadly right, that totally did him good. But honesty he became to be one of the most horrible killers in the US. He killed 17 men during his killing spree. And one last note, remember when Remus pointed to Virgil saying it was his fault that Thomas had all those ‘bad imaginations’. Well apparently the reason to why Jeffrey would eat the bodies because he had bad anxiety about feeling alone, so he would eat the bodies because it made him feel like that they were still with him. Yikes.

I’m still shocked that they brought of Jeffrey, but I can see why it works with intrusive thoughts. He’s literally the example of ‘please deal with your really bad thoughts or this might happen.’ Also I’m really sorry if I ruined someone’s day, I put warnings up in case and I get it. Jeffrey is a terrible human being and tbh, really brave for Thomas to mention him in a series where things are usually light hearted. Just wanted to rant about how Jeffrey’s correlation related with the topic for those that dared to want to understand why Thomas and his team put him there.

[revengeisalwaysanoption]

[Skam Italia] Ficlet: Flawed 2/2

And that’s it :D Again, it’s an unbetaed&unedited VERY LITTLE story I am writing to cope… I hope you will like it as well :) ! Edited to add:  I’d like to dedicate this to Ibisco and @annefraid The first, with her wonderful story (Resilience: go and read it if you understand Italian, it’s so good HERE ) I am a sucker for the boy squad taking care of Nico, so… Another reminder that THEY - both Nico AND Marti - are not alone was due ;) ! And Anne… wow, what an insight on Marti’s deep rooted insecurities in “try and evolve”! I mention them here but it’s all thanks to amazing fic for making me realize how Marti might see Niccolò!

******

Martino knows he screwed up. He isn’t that much of a ‘disaster gay’ – no matter how often Filippo (and his own friends, those jerks!!) likes to address him as such, to rile his Rose up – not to notice the way Nico’s mood plummeted as soon as he sat down at the table this morning. Regretting having to deal with how grumpy Martino can be, before he had any caffeine in him, already? That’s understandable… But quite unlikely. They aren’t really living together, yet, but they are past those petty fights. Who cared if someone seemed always to be too tired to do the dishes or to mop the floor? They never even discussed such trivial things, to be honest: taking care of Nico, making sure he lives in a spotless and tidy environment, is not a chore and Marti really doesn’t mind. Besides, they have a clashing definitions of order and totally different perceptions of how dirty the flat can get before it has to be cleaned. They easily met halfway, agreeing to let Niccolò do things his way and at his own pace, without having to talk about it.

So… if it wasn’t about Martino’s charming decaffeinated personality… What made him run for the hills? Was it something he said? It must be. Fuck. Why does his brain-to-mouth filter always fail him when he needs it the most? And yeah, there is a niggling voice in his head going like ‘You shouldn’t have to overthink every word you say, in fear you’re gonna hurt Nico or something. You should be free to be yourself, including who you are at your worst.’ but he’s not listening to that. What’s wrong with refusing to settle for the person he is now, and striving to become a gentler and more considerate one in the future? What’s so bad about Niccolò inspiring him to give it a try, at least? Nothing; you can’t change his mind. Moreover, he has to make up for the complete lack of any talent whatsoever… Like, okay, compared to Nico - who excels at everything he does, and it’s a lot- he can be dull and boring but at least he’s great at owning up to his mistakes - the whole ton of them - and learn. And it’s more that can be said for so many people out there, including dad, so… Lesson of the day: do not speak until you had your coffee, Martino, and a kiss from Niccolò so that you don’t forget how lucky you are to have this - HIM - to come home to. That no matter how awful you day is going to be - and no, you can’t really know beforehand, so stop being so damn negative and over dramatic… - there are always going those moments with Niccolò that will brighten it.

Okay? Okay. Now, let’s get back to the matter at hand. After the unfortunate comparison of an obsessive-compulsive disorder to a penchant for loving neatly written notes, and finding out that Martino still his that awful word – ‘psychopath’ – in his vocabulary… It wouldn’t be too far for Niccolò to persuade himself that he was belittling his efforts (as well as his mother’s) to get out of bed in the morning, on his darkest days. That’s not what he meant, of course.

’Well, you know none of your friends meant it when they said they wanted somebody to kill them, or that they were going to jump off a bridge because of school. They don’t do that anymore, because they know it reminds you of the bad place Nico’s mind can go sometimes… but some other classmates still throw those words around like it’s nothing, like they are really clinically depressed because their shitty most beloved show got cancelled or their favorite character died.’

That’s it: that’s exactly the point. He knows and it still hurts. It still makes him want to stand up and scream ‘SHUT UP, YOU IDIOTS! YOU KNOW NOTHING, YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT!’ at the top of his lungs. He can’t blame Nico for being so disappointed with him that he had to leave…

Well, all this mulling and self-deprecation won’t fix anything. He’d better think how to show him that even though he quite an asshole, he never acts out of maliciousness. He might have hit where it hurt out of anger, in the past, to drive people away… He wouldn’t do it, now. Not even as a last resort. He can only hope it will be enough, for Nico.

So… What should he do next? Should he run after him? Leave him some space? Should he really let Niccolò believe that he forgot what tomorrow means for them – for Martino himself - not to spoil the surprise? He had even persuaded Sana to let him be the main speaker, for once… He had a Spotify playlist ready to play, to let Niccolò know what he cannot say with words and sometimes fails to show with his actions…

He… He has no idea, like, his brain is fuzzy static and he’s pretty sure he will start hyperventilating soon… He needs help. Yep. If there’s one thing he got out of those hell months back in 2018 is that he doesn’t have to deal with any kind of crisis alone. Luca reaches out to them when he can’t find the right outfit for his dates with Silvia, when he doesn’t know if it really would be wise to eat that last piece of sushi even though he’s about to puke… And they should be aware that Niccolò might need them as well, even though he doesn’t dare to ask.

“Marti. First thing you gotta do is calm down…” Giovanni writes in the chat, as soon as he listens to his frantic voice message. “Don’t die on us, man. Oxygen is your friend. Even if it’s being a bitch now, being so heavy and shit…” Elia adds, making him smile. “Deep breaths. In. Out. Picture yourself lying down in a field… Feel the grass. Be the grass.” Luca joins in, earning rolling-eyes emojis and thumbs down.

“Is this something you heard from Silvietta, Lu?” “Actually from our yoga teacher…” “Well, stop it because it’s making me long for some weed and we have to stay lucid and sharp here for Marti and Nico.” Giovanni says in the chat, before calling Martino. “Listen. I’ll be quick: show up at school, because we can’t do much over the phone. I know you probably want to send out a search party for Niccolò rather that sit behind a desk for so long, but you have to trust that he knows how to take care of himself and that, like any of us, simply needs a couple of hours to cool down. It’s not like you killed someone, come on…”

“Yeah, but… what if he doesn’t forgive me?” He forgave him so many times, ever since that morning in the boys’ restrooms, what if this is his breaking point? “Then it’s his problem for holding you up to impossible standards, man, not yours. Don’t even try to fight me on that. You’re my best friend, Marti, and I won’t allow anyone to talk shit about you. Not even yourself.” “I’m far…” “… from perfect? Who isn’t? And don’t say Niccolò. Nope, I hate to break it to you, but he’s some major flaws too. And so do I, and so do you, Eva, Sofia, and anyone out there. Trust me: I call you out when you’ve got your head so far up your ass that you forgot how sunlight feels like and THIS is not the case. Don’t make me come over and drag you all the way to 5B’s door.” Martino is aware that it’s just an empty threat, that Giovanni would hardly ever pressure him into anything, and yet he sighs and promises he is going to be there for nine o’clock. Perhaps, if he gets out, Niccolò will feel like it’s safe to come back…

To Nico: Leaving for school, now. Hope I’ll get to see you, later.

It takes him the whole ride to school to decide that no surprise is worth having Ni thinking he doesn’t hold dear that 11th of October, that the day he felt an immediate and unprecedented connection to a nameless boy could ever be insignificant.

To Nico: Can’t wait for you to hear what I’ve got in store for tomorrow

As he expected, Nico doesn’t get back to him. It’s fine. He can wait.

*****************************

Alright: he might have overestimated his patience. He doesn’t know how much longer he can take, before he leaves no stone in Rome unturned while looking for Niccolò.

Thankfully, he’s got a plan to stick to. Sana’s. Who will most likely make him regret the day he was born, if he steps out of line. It’s not ideal, as it relies on too many factors – Nico having his phone on, reading his text messages, being in a place where he can listen to Radio Osvaldo – but it’s the best they’ve got.

“Well, thank you, Ivano… Sharing with us how it’s life with a bipolar disorder must have been hard, but I’m sure that many of our listeners found comfort listening to how you got your happy ending with Sax… To some of us things look so bleak we don’t even see the point of anything, but your story goes to show that it does get better, when you start building bridges instead of burning them. And Martino, you must be so proud of our special guest today. A woman who was brave enough to come and talk to all of us about she is dealing with her depression. Unfortunately she had to leave early, but thank Teresa on our behalf. We hoped to have a former student of this school to conclude this special feature on Mental Health Day, as they are dealing with one of the most stigmatized illnesses… Unfortunately they couldn’t join us. If you are listening, however, remember that we’re here for you. All of us.”

“I am. My mom truly is the best. Yeah, I can hear you all groan, but that’s a fact. It took me ages to see it, so maybe you should cut your parents some slack as well. Unless they’re abusive jerks, of course. And I couldn’t be prouder of that person you just mentioned as well. They keep on being strong, kind, and compassionate in a world that constantly tries to tear them down… They- ”

“Martino, if you keep on going like that you might just as well say their name.” Sana warns him, shooting him a reproachful glare. Too bad she can’t stop him. He just realized how he can make Nico understand he treasures every second they spend together. The best and the worst.

“They are who I want to spend my life with: Niccolò Fares, will you marry me?”

“YES!!” The door barges open, he’s swept off the seat and carried to the nearest secluded corner. What the fuck? He’s not complaining, but really: what the fuck has just happened?

*****************

They would later agree that the marriage is not going to happen for another couple of years, that a proper and more romantic proposal is order from them both… and Martino finds out that while he was busy with Sana, ‘contrabbandieri’ and ‘matte’ joined forces to delve into Nico’s past. So that they could call Niccolò’s old friends to the rescue. Together they managed to locate Nico and then Gio – of course it was him: the love wizard - and Michi talked some sense into him.

“So, tell me… What exactly have you got planned?” He sounds a bit hesitant, now that the euphoria of the impromptu proposal has worn off.

“I was thinking about a tutorial on how to grow weed in your closet. Followed by a cooking show hosted by the famous chef Niccolò Fares, a ten step guide to on how to break in a deserted pool, a top five on the most romantic spots in Rome… Can’t quite decide who’s gonna get the first place, the bins had their charm but so did the toilets…”

“… well, it can’t be a fair ranking until you’ve seen my favorite spot. Come on, Marti. Keats and Shelley are waiting for us!”

“Lead the way.”

[laniakeabooks]

Free to Fall by Lauren Miller, A Rant Review by Laniakea

Hello. How are you?

It’s been a long ass time. Why? My dumbass decided to take summer courses. You know those super condensed ones? The ones that make you want to rip your eyeballs out? Yeah... I took three at once. What was I thinking, right? I couldn’t tell you. I regret it. 

BUT. I still managed to read. And in July I read this gem of a book dubbed Free to Fall, written by Lauren Miller. And oooooooooh boy do I have shit to say about this... shit. So, brace yourselves, because this is a long and angry one.  

So, this is how this review is going to go:

       The major issues I had with this book and its narrative (when I say major issues, I mean MAJOR ISSUES… like, dare I say, problematic aspects of this book).

       Because it’s me, the deplorable excuse for science/neuroscience that Lauren Miller apparently didn’t find the need to take five minutes to google-check the concepts she was using.

       The little things that just kind of twisted the knife of annoyance

You may be saying: “Wait a second, she isn’t going to be talking about anything that the book did right.” And to that I say: “The things that the book did right? Nothing, IN MY OPINION. The thing that Lauren Miller did right, though, was write in a style that jives with my personal tastes. She didn’t beat around the bush to say something, she just said it outright. WHICH I LIKE, because, I don’t have time or the patience to suss out all of those little details and symbolisms just to get to the point that (for example) it’s a beautiful day.” There. Positive point. Hey, I didn’t rate it one star because it had a lot of positives.

So, let’s get started, shall we? (Shout-out to Corrine and Rob because damn, they’ve had a tough year.)

Issue #1: This is the biggest issue I had with this book. It has nothing to do with the plot or the characters or anything like that, but it’s what bothers me the most. What is it, you may ask? Well, it’s the simple fact that everyone in this book (and I have to assume Lauren Miller too) refers to the mentally ill as “crazy”. If you don’t understand my issue with this, let me explain. Calling someone who is mentally ill “crazy” is equivalent to calling a black person a “nigger” or calling a gay person a “faggot”. The word crazy is used as a slur to put someone beneath you, to make them less believable or trustworthy… to dehumanize them. It’s derogatory and offensive. It’s time that we stop using that word when talking about mental illness. It’s 2019 (2014 in the book’s case). Unacceptable.

So, when do we see the mentally ill referred to as crazy in Free to Fall? Throughout the entire book pretty much. It’s just said over and over and over again. But the worst instance? Here it is as a direct quote from page 127 (Oh, and mind you, the character saying this is a psychologist teaching a cognitive psychology class. Let that sink in.):

“You’ve all been given limited access to the Department of Public Health’s medical records database,” Rudd said as he returned to the front of the room.

(*record scratch* Wait a second, high school students having access to medical files? Absolutely not. Would never happen. You usually can’t even get your hands on medical records unless you’re the patient’s doctor. So that’s a technical issue with this book… one of many. Again, five minutes on Google, Lauren. Okay, back to the whole “crazy” thing.)

“Your login has been coded to the research topic you selected, allowing you to review the med records for patients who suffered from the mental illness you’re studying.” He picked up his tablet off his desk and tapped the DPH icon. The app launched on the screen at the front of the room. “Now, I know what some of you are thinking,” he deadpanned as he logged himself in. “You’re hoping this means you’ll be able to prove once and for all that your frenemy in a certified nut job. But, alas, your access is limited to dead crazies, and this particular database is anonymous anyway, which means the only identifying information you’ll have are gender, ethnic origin, and birth and death dates.”

That’s right. Lauren Miller had this character say, “dead crazies”. Dead. Crazies. The note I wrote in the margin right beside this passage? Word for word: FUCK YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT. Not sure if I’m directing this at Lauren Miller, Rudd or both, but I stand by it. In reality though, I don’t think there are any words to describe how disgusted and offended (and it’s VERY hard to offend me) I am by those two words. At this point, page 137 out of page 469, I decided this book would get a 1 star and a damning review.

“Oh, you’re being so petty.” Yeah bitch, I sure fucking am.

“It’s just a word.” No bitch, it fucking ain’t.

“You shouldn’t read books that say things like that.” Well bitch, I didn’t know books written in 2014 would use derogatory words like crazy. And I’d rather it be me who reads it and warns people about it than have someone who is vulnerable read it and take it seriously.

I am a huge advocate for mental illness and destigmatizing it. It’s time we stop using this disgusting derogatory word when talking about mental illness. And a good place to start is right here in the media.

Issue #2: Rory and North are preparing to roofie someone. That’s right. Roofie. As in drug them against their will. Assault them. Violate them. And to make it worse, they’re planning to administer it intravenously, because the whole assault thing wasn’t despicable enough. BUT DON’T WORRY YOU GUYS! North says he’ll get some legal drugs from a pharmacist because that makes it okay.

He objects for 0.5 seconds… but it doesn’t last. Here’s how the conversation goes:

“The only question is, how do we take Liam out of commission for a couple of hours?” North asked.

“We roofie him” I say without hesitation. “It’ll incapacitate him without killing him, and it’ll screw with his memories.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll just grab the bottle of date-rape pills I have in my medicine cabinet.”

“Not pills,” I corrected. “Has to be injectable. There’s no way we can guarantee that he’ll drink whatever we put it in.”

North gave me an incredulous look. “You’re actually serious?”

“What? It’s what the society uses. And it’ll do exactly what we need it to do.

North tugged at this Mohawk. “I know we don’t have time to get into this right now, but, holy crap, Rory, this shit is seriously messed up.”

“You’re right. Not the time. We have to go buy roofies.”

“Where, at Walgreens? I’m sure we’ll find them right next to the Advil.”

I crossed my arms, irritated by the sarcasm. “You’re a guy with a Mohawk and tattoos. Don’t you know people?”

“People with Rohypnol?”

“So, you don’t know anyone who can get it?”

He started to shake his head but seemed to think of something. “One of my clients is a pharmacist in Greenfield. I could probably get a prescription sleeping serum from him. Something potent but legal. I can message him from my apartment.”

North said it, this is so messed up… but is surpasses the “messed up” title and deserves the “fucked up” title. By the way, they never talk about it again. Getting “legal” drugs does not make the act of drugging someone okay. Ever. And on top of that Rory wants someone that will mess with Liam’s memories? I guess assaulting him and revoking his control over his own body wasn’t evil enough for Rory, she had to fuck with the essence of who he is.    

Moving on to the… “science”. Listen, I get it, this is fiction. It doesn’t have to be 100% in line with reality. But do you know what isn’t fiction? Neuroscience. Science that has already been researched and accepted. Why does this matter so much to me? I hate misinformation. It leads to fear and people doing stupid shit. Also, I am an aspiring neuroscientist myself and would like for people to understand how the brain works on a physiological (and psychological) level. That way there will be less of that “vaccines cause autism” and “sunscreen causes ADHD” crap, because they don’t, by the way.

Lauren Miller latches onto the term “synaptic pruning”. This is a real thing. During your first few months of life, unused/rarely used neurons will die (don’t worry, this is perfectly normal and an essential step in neurodevelopment). How does Lauren Miller incorporate this into her story?

“Now we knew that the inner voice was nothing more than a glitch in the brain’s circuitry, something to do with ‘synaptic pruning’ and the development of the frontal lobe.” (p.13)

My response went something like this: NoOOoooOOOOoOo! It’s only page 13 and I’m being subjected to poorly researched scienceeeeeeEEEeEEEeeee.

It would have taken five minutes on Google to look up: Which areas of the brain have to do with hearing voices? Answer: temporal and frontal lobes. Done. Next: why do people hear voices? Answer: potentially neuronal death in said brain regions (not synaptic pruning, very different concepts). Why? We don’t know yet. Anyway, the voice they are talking about here is “The Doubt” which is basically intuition so that would most likely relate to the hippocampus (and other memory-storing regions) and the prefrontal cortex. But then again, “The Doubt” is supposed to be altruism… but it’s written as intuition, so I’m just confused.

Next in bad (neuro)science, Lauren Miller claims that enzymes for memories (this relates back to the whole roofie scene where Rory wants to mess with Liam’s memories too). Basically, neurotransmitters are responsible for memories, namely glutamate and dopamine. I’ll be talking about glutamate here because dopamine forms the “do that again because it made us feel good” kind of memory, and glutamate forms the kind of memory Lauren Miller is referring to. You need to glutamate for LTP (basically a memory) which, in short, is strengthening the connection between two neurons. If you’ve ever heard the term “Neurons that fire together wire together.”, that’s exactly what I’m talking about here. So, no, enzymes do not form memories. (P.S. LTP is really interesting... if you’re interested in brains, so check it out!)

Onto “SynOx” (synthetic oxytocin) which is really, from what I understand, simulates oxytocin but activating oxytocin receptors on neurons (Lauren Miller doesn’t go into this much detail on how SynOx works, but I’m just trying to understand by talking through it so bear with me). First of all, Lauren Miller describes oxytocin as the “love drug” which isn’t exactly true… it’s more of a bonding “drug”. Love is a little but more complicated than oxytocin release. Not that big of a deal, but I thought I’d point it out.

Unfortunately, SynOx has a major role in the plot… and it doesn’t… work. Basically, the big bad corporation is relying on SynOx to make consumers trust their products unconditionally by injecting people with SynOx nanobots under the guise of a flu shot. That way the nanobots can get into their brains and they can be forced to trust everything Lux suggests. Essential mass mind control. Theoretically that could actually work… BUT the nanobots would never be able to cross the blood-brain barrier to actually get into the brain, and therefor wouldn’t be there to allow Gnosis to control people. Did that make sense? Basically, SynOx is the soldier, the brain is enemy headquarters. But enemy headquarters is so highly reinforced that the soldier can’t get in to do its job, so it’s left out in the cold with no power. Maybe I just confused you, but what I’m saying is that this SynOx would never work as a mind control device unless it is injected directly into the brain (or even spinal cord)… through the skull and everything. That being said, the evil plot would have failed form the get-go.

And yes, I do hate being this rational sometimes because suspension of disbelief is very difficult and makes it very hard for me to enjoy some works of fiction.      

Now the little things.

In the synopsis: “Rory Vaugh: a brainy sixteen-year-old…”. She’s also a “hepta” which means she shows aptitude in all seven liberal arts at Theden and makes her the smartest kid at school. Well, she sure doesn’t act it.

She can’t tell the difference between Arabic and Hebrew writing. I mean… are you serious? Have you seen them? They look nothing alike.

Doesn’t see the value of experiments in ethics such as the Trolley Problem. I mean, one of the liberal arts is philosophy and she’s supposed to be naturally gifted at it… but I guess not.

Proudly states she took human anatomy in grade nine (and considers herself an expert from that one class in middle school)… but doesn’t know how ABO relates to blood. I guess she forgot the mention she failed the class.

Also seems to consider herself an expert in genetics but never thinks to ask herself as to why she and her father share zero genetic traits.

She can’t figure out a simple riddle (You know that one about the letter e? Yeah that one)

It takes her forever to figure out who her biological father is (should be glaringly obvious from a certain physical description and all the other evidence Rory gathers)

Doesn’t know what a USB is or what it does (Oh, I’ll get to that in a minute)

There’s so much more… but the review would have to be a whole book if I were to list them all. Basically, if you’re going to call your character a genius, MAKE SURE THEY ACT LIKE ONE.

It seems that Lauren Miller forgot Rory’s blood type (little detail, I know), but instead of going back to look at what she wrote, she just gives her a new blood type. Rory goes from being A+ at p .226 to being AB+ at p. 237/238. That’s just lazy.

When Rory finds out the man that raised her and loved her doesn’t share her genetics, all of a sudden, he’s no longer her dad. Imagine being a vulnerable teenager who is being raised and loved by someone who may not be biologically related to you and reading that a character you may look up to goes through the same thing and says that that makes that parent’s love irrelevant. They aren’t related to you, so they’re not your dad/mum. How sad. 

Now, the USB thing. This book is set in the mid-2030s and they don’t use USBs anymore. Basically, they’re obsolete technology. And that’s fine! There will come a day when this is a reality. Here’s the thing, though: Rory the “genius” doesn’t know what it is or what it does. You expect me to believe that? When I see a floppy disk (which I have never used), I know what it is and how it works. Even a telegraph! I’ve only ever seen pictures of telegraphs, but I know what they are and what they do.

Page 229. North says (in response to Rory talking about research and science):

“Whose research are we talking about here?” He scoffed. “’Science’ with a capital S? The same geniuses who said the Earth was the center of the universe?”

Um… the church actually said that. And then they murdered anyone who dared to say otherwise. Wrong “geniuses”, genius. (Also, scientists rethink their beliefs all the time, and are more than willing to accept discoveries that overwrite their previous beliefs as long as there is evidence. Just saying.)

Rory goes from relying solely on Lux to make her decision to criticizing everyone who does the exact same thing within a few pages. Hypocrisy, not my favourite.

Hershey is described as a naturally beautiful woman who wears makeup to highlight that beauty… but the tone of the narration suggests that that’s a bad thing? Gross.

When they are preparing for the final boss fight, Rory wants North to write an algorithm that will reverse Lux’s algorithm. North says that it would take weeks for a professional programmer to write an algorithm like that… than proceeds to do it overnight. And manages to get some roofies to assault Liam.

North gifts Rory with a necklace that contains a tracking device and a camera… and she thinks that’s romantic and sweet because hE cArEs. I… have no words for how creepy (and honestly bordering on abusive) that is.

So, in conclusion, I feel that Lauren Miller wrote an offensive mess that didn’t know what the hell it was talking about, topped with despicable (and flat) characters that think drugging someone against their will is okay as long as the drug you use is legal.

The end! 😊

Oh yeah, 1 out of 5 stars!

[bd-handystand]

Callout Response

(Contains reference to many triggering items including mentions of pedophilia, transphobia, homestuck, racism. I am simply trying to make amends and clear up miscommunications. If you are okay with continuing....)

I am going to go through all the things mentioned in the call out and give my defenses, apologies or other statements on the regards to these. I am sorry if my wording is very poor here, as I started this at 1 am and worked on it across a few days with review from friends. I had asked for someone to also get me a list of my offenses from someone I know is a part of the callout but they didn’t get back to me with it so I may have missed things.

"Aging up a Minor for NSFW Content" and "Transphobia"

I can understand how me making NSFW content of a character build off of/inspired by a minor would make people extremely uncomfortable. When this was brought to my attention, I deleted the art in question on my main. I have no interest or intent on making further lewd art using Oe/Oeya, or any lewd art at all for that matter. (Should merevent return, I will likely create a new event muse entirely). After having it brought further to my attention, I feel nothing but regret for making it at all. I had thought that establishing him as much more different than his inspiration and making his age clear would keep this from being a problem but it appears that I was mistaken.

The transphobia I can also understand how people could see it, as I was toying with their shape shift ability in one of my first attempts at NSFW art. I deeply apologize if this experimentation made anyone reading this uncomfortable: know that it will never happen again. I am not transphobic.

To whoever in the ring of callout anons is distributing one or both of the deleted pieces of art, please stop.

"Homestuck Crimes"

I acknowledge that Homestuck has problematic elements. I understand that to some or even many that the negative outweighs the positive aspect. Homestuck also has a lot of creative elements that I like exploring. I properly tag Homestuck and those of the Homestuck AU I used for Bethesjo with "-character name- (HS)", to try and make it easy to avoid. If I mistag, I am open to people telling me so I may add the desired tags.

To repeat: I do not support many of the views expressed in Homestuck, but find some of the positive core aspects enjoyable, inspiring, or simply fun to mess with. It is something I enjoy, even with its problematic points and I apologize for making continual use of it for inspiration and ideas.

"Racism in making bestial / feral event versions of a PoC muse"

I, again, am very sorry for this. I tend to go wild with ideas for these events and create things without thinking of major implications.

When I made CnC Okuyasu an orc, I simply felt that it clicked. I always enjoyed Orcs aesthetically! The uncontrolled magic played into a favorite fantasy trope of mine, so I decided to use that too. When I created Oe, I, in all honesty, was just trying very hard to avoid drawing fish in any capacity or arms and had recently watched Moana. (Once again, I will likely create a new muse should merevent return for round 3) Magical Girl event Okuyasu was inspired by the combination of Tokyo Mew Mew and part of Magical Girl Apocalypse (that too having problematic things but I could not overlook them in their quantity, causing me to drop interest in the manga itself but not its concept). The Okuyasu embedded with the flesh bud (Okuyasu (Dio) in my tagging) was spawned by an art meme, but I grew to enjoy the idea. His minimal time shown due to lack of asks for him also paint him in a low point that does not reflect their state most of the time. When I created Nijimi, I wanted to play off the idea of deities being shaped by the human idea of them, using Okuyasu's money imagery to create a deity of charity turned into a beast of greed. (Should the deity event return, I will try and create a new muse for it: not only in light of this, but because I am unsure what else I can do with them and Nicho.) WoF Okuyasu was born from my interest in Mr. Nijimura's condition in context of undeath, wanting to do something similar with WoF Okuyasu while also playing with other tropes. The former Stand Infection event Okuyasu, now dubbed Ghost in the Machine, was meant to be a play in the unpredictable nature not only of glitches but someone hyped on caffeine. He also was the result of working with dio-theshitpost-brando and I was pulling too from their concepts. The new Stand Infection Okuyasu being identified with a number as shown in a few art memes was inspired by the SCP Foundation, not the holocaust or anything of the like. I know no one mentioned this in any call out material but I know that it would likely be used out of context too should I avoid acknowledging it.

As I hopefully go further into the future, I will try and think more of the implications of this, under all of the AUs, is a PoC minor. Again, I am sorry for causing any offense.

"The Cow Incident"

I will say that I should have been more firm but I will say that I view the general idea of adding horns, ears, and tail does not inherently make something negative, mostly the context or the content being made with this concept. The blogs, from my understanding, made multiple references to the act of milking, which then makes it awkward and uncomfortable. Making a direct comparison between PoC and cattle is also bad. Doing it simply for a cute design or without ill intent, in my eyes, is okay. I'm sorry if my stance still remains unclear or poorly worded or if you disagree.

"Comment Deletion and ignoring asks"

For those commenting on my YouTube channel, I did not do so because I was afraid or being overly defensive. I had stated my stances, apologies and regrets in other replies and felt like I was not being listened to and hounded. I deleted these comments and asks for the sake of my mental health, as I had fallen into a depressive episode at the large wave of angry anons.

Comments and asks deleted in the beginning of the cow incident were deleted to keep the discourse off The Hand blog and to minimize further asks on the matter, as it was 2 am at the time and I was getting very stressed over it.

“Headcanoning a Minor as Ace”

The funny thing is, I don’t headcanon Okuyasu as ace. As for saying that having headcanons of this nature is sexualizing minors I will say this: it depends on the age. Headcanon, say, a 6 year old as bi or gay or what have you seems a bit off but the teenage years are often when one discovers the labels for themselves and grows to be comfortable with them. Understanding your orientation is not inherently about someone having sex, but understanding what you as an individual find attractive in one way shape or form. I, myself, am ace. I used Okuyasu as my icon on my main for a long while now. I put Okuyasu with the ace flag for my main blog’s profile pic because I am proud to be ace and Okuyasu is who I associate with. Not to turn the gun, but the suggestion that headcanoning a character as ace is seen as worse than any other orientational headcanon is rather aphobic.

I am trying to improve myself every day. I want my blogs to be nice places, not just for me, but for the visitors. I had no ill intent when doing anything, but I also was unaware of the severity of the implications of my work. I am open to criticism and reminders to tag or rework things, but please be mindful that I’m only human and prone to human error and lapses in judgement. I also can try my damndest to fix what wrongs I have done.

I am going to let this circulate for a few days and then hopefully I can turn on anon once again without large waves of anger. I am sorry and I hope WE won’t have to do this again. - Z

[jamieisnotrich]

Heathers UK: A Review by an OG Heathers Fan

Some of you may know this already, but the Heathers UK Cast Recording came out recently. I have been a fan of Heathers since the original Off-Broadway version in 2014 and after listening to this new cast recording, I have some OPINIONS. If you are an original Heathers fan then you probably remember how weird it was to go from almost everyone knowing what Heathers is (pre-Hamilton) to no one knowing anything about it (during Hamilton) to having a whole new ‘generation’ of people who love Heathers (post-Hamilton). In this review I will be breaking down each individual song and character portrayal in the new-ish version of Heathers and giving my overall opinion at the end. 

Beautiful

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 9/10

Now, of course, the original song is iconic. Not just because it introduces each individual character and future concept, but also because it has the iconic line “September 1, 1989.” It’s filled with laughs and relatable lines galore. We start by feeling bad for this main character while at the same time being intrigued by what is going on in her life. I feel like the West End does a great job at respecting the original song while at the same time giving their own flare. My only complaints are, of course, some of the language used. Not only is it painfully obvious that Heather Chandler can’t do an American accent for shit, but it’s also slowly revealed to us that they have changed some of the lyrics. Now, of course, it is expected, given that this is a whole new production, it’s just that some of the lyrics that they chose to change make no sense. It’s a great song, and I love Carrie Hope Fletcher’s energy toward the end, but it does not in any way compare to Barrett’s original performance. 

Candy Store

OOBC: 9.5/10

UK: 7.5/10 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I LOVE the original Candy Store, I just believe that in some ways, it could be improved (VERY minor). However, the West End’s rendition of this song is frankly not great. This is the first song where the Heathers really get to shine, and I feel like they’re more a little dull in this song. The belts aren’t great, the American accents are very noticeable, and let’s be honest, Jessica, Alice, and Elle are the best Heathers ever. A very minor complaint that I had that you cannot even see in the cast recording is that they switched Duke and McNamara. It really messed me up while looking through pictures of this production. I appreciate the drama and energy put into this song, but it’s just not as strong as the original. 

Fight for Me

OOBC: 8/10

UK: 7.5/10

Personally, I never really enjoyed the original version of this song. It’s a great song, but it doesn’t really stand out amongst all of the other songs in this musical. To me, it seems just like some kind of love-sick song that doesn’t really mean anything in the end. The West End does a great job of mimicking the original song, however, the arrangement of the music is not that great compared to the off-broadway production. 

Freeze Your Brain

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 6.5/10

I freaking LOVE Ryan McCartan’s original production of this song. No matter how many JD’s I watch perform this song, no one is as good as Ryan. When looking at a picture of Jamie Muscato, he seems like the kind of guy who would be perfect for the role of JD. In other words, he ticks all of the boxes, almost like an off-brand Ken doll. However, his rendition of this song is absolutely terrible. He sounds like he’s trying, he really is, but he just BARELY has the range for this song. This ultimately translates into him sounding more like a weird theatre kid and less like a mentally ill teenager. I appreciate the effort, but the payout is not great. 

Big Fun

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 7/10

When thinking about all of the obligatory ‘party’ songs in theatre (Halloween, The Dual, Revenge Party) ‘Big Fun’ almost always turns out to be my favorite. The energy, the craziness, the feeling of no regrets coming off of these teenagers. I just love every minute of the original song. However, this version does not in any way feel like the original. It starts off with the chords from the original that we all know and love, but they are being sung by the cast. Instead of just having the orchestra play them like a normal musical, they have the cast practically scream them at the top of their lungs. Although most of the original dirty jokes are still in the song, the high voices coming out of the cast through the entire 3 minutes and 42 seconds sound like they tried to make a Kidz Bop version. They really did try to create a good song, but it does not convey well at all. 

Dead Girl Walking

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 6/10

I love, love, love Carrie Hope Fletcher, but this was nowhere near her best song in this musical. She tried to do her best, but it’s really not a good song. They changed several of the lyrics from the original song, which are very awkward for the energy of the song. Jamie Muscato does a terrible job at acting like a teenage boy who just a (kind of) random girl bust into his room through the window. The harmonies are almost ear-shattering and compared to Barrett and Ryan’s original chemistry, these two have close to none. This song was not as bad as it could have been, but I just had very high hopes going into this song.

The Me Inside of Me

OOBC: 8.5/10

UK: 8.5/10

Believe it or not, I don’t particularly love the original version of this song. It’s a good song, I just don’t find it to be one of my top favorite in the musical. In my opinion, the West End production does a great job of keeping true to the original song. There was nothing that really stood out to me as being worse than the original song. It was pretty much the same as the original.  

You’re Welcome/Blue

OOBC: 2/10

UK: 9/10

I know this may not be the most popular of opinions, but I absolutely LOATH ‘Blue’. Frankly, it makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, and it doesn’t really add much to the story in the long run. The West End version replaced the dumpster fire of a song with a little number called ‘You’re Welcome’. Now I LOVE this song. It’s a perfect replacement for the original song, and it does an amazing job of showing the personalities of Veronica, Kurt, and Ram. I fell in love with Veronica’s new diary entries, and I believe that they did a great job of making it clear that Kurt and Ram are just two dumb white men. This song is the first in the musical that they completely replaced/added and it shows that maybe they should have just replaced the entire musical. The musical style is vastly different than all of the previous songs and, while the original musical is a classic, this song is absolutely amazing. 

Never Shut Up Again

UK: 8/10

This is the first song in the musical that is completely new. It’s a glorious number that really truly shows Heather Duke. Now, I don’t particularly love the casting choice for Heather Duke; T’Shan Williams’s voice is not what I imagine for Heather Duke, but I do love the energy she puts into her performance. I love how this song gives Heather Duke a small spotlight for a moment and really puts a light on her opinions about her friendship dynamic. I also love how in this song we also get to see Veronica’s slow descent from her short moment of fame. Another thing that I noticed is that the style of this song is very similar to that of ‘You’re Welcome’, which just further proves my point about maybe just completely re-writing the musical. The style is similar to that of another West End musical ‘Six’, which I’m not complaining about, given how good that musical is. 

Our Love is God

OOBC: 9/10

UK: 7.5/10

How much do I have to say this? I DO NOT LIKE JAMIE MUSCATO. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he’s a great guy, but I cannot stand his performance as JD. He tries his best, he really does, but Ryan McCartan is just 100 times better. The original song leaves you with a feeling of, ‘oh shit, what’s gonna happen next?’, but this version just kinda makes you think ’huh, cool’. It’s not completely terrible, but I just wish it were a little bit better. 

My Dead Gay Son

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 9.5/10

This song is actually surprisingly really good. It just feels kind of awkward in some parts, but it’s pretty dang good compared to the original, despite the massive lyric change. 

Seventeen

OOBC: 9/10

UK: 9.15/10

Yup, you read that right. I actually think this one is better than the original. Even though I absolutely adore Barrett Wilbert Weed and think that she is still the best Veronica of all time, Carrie Hope Fletcher makes this song just slightly better than the original. The passion and energy she throws into her performance makes Muscato’s performance bearable and is even better than the original. I don’t particularly love this song, given how boring it is in some ways, but this song made me truly believe in Veronica’s view on everything that had been going on. Carrie made me want to just help these poor teenagers and take them out of this terrible situation before it gets worse. Now, if Ryan McCartan were in this instead, I might consider making the rating a 10 (MIGHT). 

Shine a Light

OOBC: 8/10

UK: 6.5/10

I don’t really like this song in the first place. It’s kind of awkward and makes me feel kind of uncomfortable. However, this does not mean that I don’t have some small part of my heart saved for this song. The West End took this song, completely ruined the arrangement, and added an actor who does a slightly okay job at playing an awkward high school teacher. This song kinda made me hate this song more than I already did. 

Lifeboat

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 2/10

I had to listen to this song on repeat for like 10 minutes and I honestly don’t feel that great about that. I LOVE the original of this song; it shows that not all of the Heathers were completely terrible, and it’s absolutely beautiful in the long-run. I could listen to the original for hours, but I could barely listen to this song once. Sophie Isaacs’ rendition of Heather McNamara is really bad, and I’ll talk about that later, but I just really hate how she did this song. Heather McNamara is supposed to be the quiet, unsuspecting one, but Sophie Isaacs tries to make a big show of this character’s personality. I loved how in the original song, you could feel just how lonely Heather M felt, and in this version, felt none of that. 

Shine a Light (Reprise)

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 5/10

I absolutely LOVE the original. It’s perfect in showing just how far Heather Duke has gone, and while this song does certainly show that, I just do not like this rendition at all. There’s something OFF about it that I don’t really like, and I really wish that they didn’t ruin this song. I mean, how do you ruin a 40 SECOND song?

I Say No

UK: 10/10

I FUCKING LOVE THIS SONG!!!! I’ve been listening to this song ever since they released the single weeks ago, and it’s absolutely perfect. I love how it shows Veronica’s personality, it gives her a voice, and it is just a REALLY good song. I love Carrie Hope Fletcher’s voice. I love the beat. I love the lyrics. Everything about this song is perfect for the story being told in this musical. I could listen to this for forever, and that’s not an exaggeration. This is yet another song that was added to the musical and is somehow perfect in every aspect. 

Kindergarten Boyfriend

OOBC: 8.5/10

UK: 8.5/10

Frankly, I don’t really love the original version of this song. I don’t really have anything against it, it’s just kind of boring. Jenny O’Leary does a really good job at mimicking the original song, while also making it her own. The arrangement for the music is a great tribute to the original as well. To me, it doesn’t really seem all that different from the original. 

Yo Girl

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 7.5/10

WHY??? WHY DID THEY REPLACE ‘MISERABLY’?? What was the point of that??? The original line is pretty freaking iconic and does an amazing job at lowering Heather Duke’s voice and staying within the original language. That lyric replacement was so random. The song overall feels kind of like a joke compared to the original. Even though it still gives the same feel as the original, I believe that the original feels a little creepier. It isn’t a great rendition, and honestly, the original is MUCH better. 

Meant to be Yours

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 5.5/10

Have I mentioned how much I hate the UK’s JD??? This was actually my favorite song when I was listening to the original cast recording, and this version is just so bad in comparison. Muscato is really trying to seem creepy, but it feels really forced. If anyone in this goddamn song could act for two seconds, then maybe I would take it a bit more seriously, but it’s so bad. 

Dead Girl Walking (Reprise)

OOBC: 10/10

UK: 7/10

What the heck, Carrie? I had so much trust in you! I’m sure a lot of other people feel this way, but the original version of this song is amazing. It does a great job at conveying just how frantic and vital Veronica’s actions are. I love Barrett’s original performance, and I also really love Carrie’s previous performances, but this is not her best. At all. I’m not even completely sure what’s wrong with it. It’s almost if the entire song is flat. 

I Am Damaged

OOBC: 9/10

UK: 8/10

I’m really confused about all of the lyric changes in this song?? None of them make any sense whatsoever. The song isn’t all that much different than the original other than the fact that I still hate UK JD. 

Seventeen (Reprise)

OOBC: 8.5/10

UK: 8/10

Eh, it’s not that bad. I don’t really like the original in the first place, just because I’m not usually a fan of the final songs in musicals, but the UK version isn’t that different from the original. It was fine, but not really what I expected. It’s a pretty fitting ending for this musical production. 

Characters

Alright, so now I’m going to give my opinion on each individual character. This is not necessarily a criticism as much as it is a criticism of the way this production portrayed this character. This is assuming that all of the original characters are a 10/10. 

Veronica: 9.5/10

JD: 3.5/10

Heather C: 8/10

Heather D: 7.5/10

Heather M: 5/10

Kurt: 8.5/10

Ram: 8.5/10

Mrs. Sawyer: 6.5/10

Final Verdict

8/10

While I did not really like this production, I did appreciate all of the time and effort they obviously put into its outcome. Just from watching their social media, you can tell that the entire cast does have some kind of chemistry. The new songs may even be better than the originals. This does not, however, excuse the fact that the original is still much better. Nothing can every replace Barrett and Ryan’s chemistry on stage or Jessica, Alice, and Elle’s perfect comedic timing. As much as I’d like to say that this production did a great job at honoring the original, it was in and of itself its own thing. And that’s not really a bad thing. It just gives the production a weird feeling at the end. I enjoyed revisiting this musical and seeing just how much my opinions have changed on some of these subjects. Overall, this entire cast recording is one major bit of nostalgia for the original fans and something to scream over for the newer fans.