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jmdbjk · 2 years

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Oh, Jimin...

These are my personal impressions, thoughts, interpretations and opinions on Jimin’s solo FACE album. Some of the things I say here are built on things I know from past original content, interviews and what Jimin has shared personally. Some of it is just me reveling in my first experience with Jimin’s long awaited album.

It is such a serious album. Jimin said this is the story of what he was feeling, chronologically, 2020-2022, during the pandemic era. At the beginning of 2020, BTS was rising higher than any Korean artist ever had before and then all of a sudden the momentum came to a halt, and there was nothing. Having the life you’ve known suddenly jerked away from you is traumatizing.

Once the king of social media, Jimin almost ceased by the end of 2020 and never went back. “Oh, he just outgrew it.” No, the man was struggling with his issues and not only did he not need to see the extra crap spewed all over social media but he had nothing left to give, nothing left inside.

I noticed how Jimin looked physically back in 2020. He was downright frail y’all. The man was trying to give us what we wanted at the expense of his mental and physical health. That breakdown he had during the ending ments in Memories 2020 was too much. They were all stressed out, but Jimin... those that said he was being over dramatic... the man was struggling with his mental health.

I wrote this last June, 2022 but never posted it:

After Memories 2020 dropped, we’ve heard Jimin say he struggled after everything got canceled. Days upon days that turned into months upon months and more than two years passed before they finally returned to in-person performances. He stated that during isolation and lockdowns he wondered what was the purpose of his life, or that he had lost his purpose.

Jimin’s struggles were most likely much more severe than he let on and he 100% kept it to himself because he didn’t want us to worry about him. That sounded like solo delusional projection but think about Jimin and how he’s behaved in the past...always telling us not to worry. Always saying things to reassure us that he’s happy, he eats well, don’t worry.

There was no working, no performing, their lives and his life changed drastically overnight just like all of ours did. Would we ever get back to normal? What will happen in the future? When will all of this end?

Face-Off

The album opens with a carnival calliope, it was a little jarring and unexpected. The images it conjured in my brain as the notes played were of a worn out circus winding down. It made me think of the big wild circus that WAS his life, and it just wound down and keeled over.

Knowing the premise of the album, I think the title, Face-Off, implies Jimin is looking at himself. Speaking to himself. The lyrics could also imply he is speaking to someone else, like people he once trusted. But I don’t think so.

He was having a confrontation with himself. Reasoning and bargaining with himself.

Maybe he once trusted himself but in this time and place in which he finds himself, he questions what is he doing? and second guessing himself. Day in and day out, the days are all the same nothingness. Hiding his feelings, faking it, pretending it was all ok. It’s all cool. It’ll be all right. He has said many times he looks back at that time and thinks he could have done more for the fans. Being hard on himself. His own worst critic.

And then this enters the picture: using alcohol to self-medicate. Getting drunk. Numbing the pain. Forgetting. Drink all night. Oh, Jimin...

We know he has a very high alcohol tolerance. He once mentioned that he used to drink a lot. When he declined the champagne during the live after the Busan concert, we all made jokes about it and moved on. Oh, Jimin.

Face-Off feels like it could have been a purging song when he wrote it. A little primal, you know... just scream, get it out. Painful but cathartic.

This is the lyric that was scary: “tonight is a beautiful night, I think I’m close (or I think I have it all/I think I’ve found myself)” were chilling to me because they did not come across as optimistic, they came across as being at the end of one’s rope after becoming a shell of a person. He follows that line with “tonight I don’t want to be sober.” Oh, Jimin.

His vocals open very low and moody then transition to a plaintive cry, punctuated with anger.

Pour it down, pour it out... the anger, the emotions, the words, just pour it out.

Interlude: Dive

Like the calliope that sadly wound down, Dive opens with the melody slowly winding back up to speed. Another day starting. Someone knocks, voices, the ambience of a normal day, breathing, running footsteps. The crowd cheering and Jimin’s voice during his ending ments at the Busan concert, more sounds of people in his life. We hear Jimin’s footsteps trudging, it sounds like we hear him climbing steps, entering his house, closing the door, and first thing he does when he is alone in the quiet is pour a drink and drinking deeply. I am concerned.

Maybe it is supposed to represent the closing of Chapter 1, about a day in the past that was once a “normal” day, since it included the last things he said during that concert.

The music track is dreamlike, repetitive. Living in a dream. Every day. Same thing. Go home. Drink. Do it again. Dive means go deep. In deep. He’s in deep.

There is a very subtle line between drinking in order to make it through another day/night versus drinking to relax and wind down. A slippery slope to walk on every single day.

We’ve transitioned from the world changing overnight to living in a daze trying to pretend everything is ok. Coping.

Like Crazy

(I am going to express my thoughts using the English version of the song.)

Jimin has explained the song is influenced by the movie of the same name.

I have learned that the dialogue from the movie was NOT original to the movie but hired voice actors specifically for the song: “I think we can last forever.” “I’m afraid that everything will disappear.” “Just trust me.” And at the end: “How long again?” “What’s the point?”

He has said the dialogue that was used fit the message of the song. I have not seen the movie. I don’t think the song is a literal interpretation of the movie. I think the song’s basic concept is the emotional struggle trying to maintain a dream. But maintaining a dream is unrealistic no matter what you do to try to make it last. Jimin had to come to terms with that.

Jimin’s vocals begin very light and airy, very dreamy.

[God, he’s fine.]

The vibe of the song is sort of retro, very much evokes the artist, The Weeknd. It has a very 80′s synth beat. It is a very danceable song. Like I said, on the surface.... very dreamy.

Vocals transition and it still seems like he’s having a conversation with himself, or with a voice within himself. A voice telling him to “trust me, follow me... I will make it good for you.” Me: gives a side eye to that voice in Jimin’s head because now I know it’s not trustworthy. “I’ll take the pressure off, been reaching for the stars.” Chasing that high. Go easy, Jimin. Please be careful.

Yes, the lyrics are also very sexy... “give me a good ride,” and “Let me have a taste.” Yep, I’m with ya on all that... ahem...

[Wow]

[side note: I love the make up in the bathroom scene with that stroke of silver under his eye.]

“All my reflections, I can’t even recognize.” ...what he sees of himself is not reality. He doesn’t recognize himself. Don’t try to save me. I want to stay like this.

To me, the mud on the floor, the mud flowing down the walls, the mud on the hand that grabs his wrist at the beginning of the song, the mud on his hand at the end... could represent his perceived imperfections, flawed, therefore dirty: his struggle to cope, his less than perfect thoughts... substance abuse... the struggle that he needs to be perfect on the outside or the attempt to appear perfect on the outside but there’s all this dirt on the inside that he can’t hide any longer.....the huge pile of mud at his feet is out of place in the otherwise normal room of his life. Becoming overwhelming for him.

Some of the visuals of this song are, to put it bluntly, very, not heterosexual. Again, these are just my impressions and opinions. But a friend pointed out the photo on the front of his pants and I went looking for information about the art photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe. He was heavily involved in New York’s gay BDSM scene. Some of the things written about him:

“In a rapidly changing society, he fearlessly confronted taboos surrounding gender, sexuality and mortality, seeking to instill beauty and dignity into subjects that lay outside accepted social norms.”

“... a man who consistently brought his audience face to face with the unknown and the unseen.”

The song ends with him reaching toward the camera to smear it with the mud to hide his imperfect self. When Jimin puts his face in front of the camera, he doesn’t want us to see his imperfections. He wants to be as perfect as he can, he says it all the time, he wants to look pretty for us, but I hope he has realized we accept him as a real human being even with his very human imperfections.

Alone

The alarm clock goes off...yet another day...doesn’t trust the people even if they are nice to him...he’s lost...day in day out... passing out drunk and not remembering...what am I doing? am I the only one feeling like this? Alone, pretending to be ok...every day the same...how much more until I can go back to before? Feeling more and more isolated within his own mind, pretending to be ok but losing himself every day. Mayday. The cry for help. Telling himself it will be all right (we all told ourselves this back then). The small nagging voice that doesn’t believe it.

Realizing you’ve changed and you are never going back to the way you were before.

Not gonna lie, that line right there broke my heart. Gives new meaning to Set Me Free Pt. 2′s line: "raise your hands for the past me.”

He was in so much trouble and no one knew. He reassured us over and over that he was fine. Not to be over-dramatic but I don’t want to think about how close he was... I have seen a few people say this song really resonated with them. It is a very powerful cry for help.

Jimin’s vocals blew me away. The vocals start out very subdued, almost beaten down. His vocal fry squeezes my heart. He ends crying out “what do I have to do to end this darkness?” Bad twilight. Night’s can be hard.

Set Me Free Pt. 2

From my post on March 17, 2023:

Going insane to stay sane. Raise your hands for the past me. Now set me free. This is where I literally cried. Oh, Jimin.

Going crazy trying to fake being ok.

Now I know this song is about him saving himself, setting himself free from this prison he was in, the depression, breaking the chains of alcohol dependency, of telling the naysayers out there and his own internal naysayer to go fuck themselves, Park Jimin is back. Strong and beautiful and fierce. The light of the moon shining on us.

We know he still considers soju his joy. He sounds like he’s taken control, not totally abstaining, but in control. I only wish the rest of his days are happiness and stable mental health well-being.

Letter

So unexpected. I was in shock. My heart floated away.

People talk about how Jimin’s album has no collabs on it, unlike the previous member’s solo work. My opinion is, when you are sharing deeply intimate feelings and emotions and struggles about yourself you don’t want or need other people/voices on your song. It’s not appropriate.

The only exception to this was… Jungkook…not exactly a collab, but he’s there. The other songs used background vocalists who are not members of BTS.

This song was hidden. Yes, there have been other hidden songs. But come on...

Letter has a strong stroke of Promise in the “oh, oh.” And when Jungkook starts singing it is like the world is set right because those two voices blend like nothing else I’ve ever heard. And he comes in in the middle of the song gently supporting Jimin’s vocals. But unmistakably Jungkook. I know it’s up to interpretation, but for me, the lyrics from then on take on something a little extra in meaning with Jungkook there singing with Jimin.

You held your hand out to me and now I will hold on to you. So simple and beautiful. The sounds of the surf remind me of the song “Okinawa” that Jimin posted once. Which also reminds me of their pics at Santa Monica beach...

Letter seems to be an actual letter. When the members told him to write it down, put it in a song, maybe Jimin’s first impulse was to write it as if it was a letter. The lyrics are simple and very to the point and convey:

“...though I’m not good with words, I want to sincerely say let’s make each other happier. You who showed me I am bigger than my small self. You've been by my side and I will be by yours. I hope we stay together until the cold winter. Though the future is unknown and scary, let’s stay together. Never forget we’re together.”

There are references to past songs: Sea, Spring Day. Both of those songs were from 2017.

But Jungkook. On a Jimin song. That was hidden. Clever. That we had no idea about...even though Kookie knocked us over the head with it when he played the guitar for us, making sure we knew he’d only had one lesson. Who do you think gave him that first guitar lesson? Jimin... and Kookie blurting out some English in his last live... who do you think he’s been practicing English with? Duh, Jimin.

It was a hidden song AND the credits were hidden on the page in the book. They were printed in varnish only, which is basically shiny, clear ink.

You know what I think? Jungkook knew about this song since Festa dinner. The teasing about not being offered the chance to listen to the song. That little shit. I KNOW IT WAS THIS SONG!! I JUST KNOW IT!! This was the rumored subunit. Or at least one of them. I guess we’ll eventually see if there are any more between the others.

They sound so beautiful together. I love them. And as I keep saying, they are fine… they’ve been fine.

Last words...

Anyway, that was a lot of words. Maybe I got too deep. Jimin explained himself about how the album originated.

As I was telling my friend earlier...everything in this album has peeled a layer, or several layers, away from EVERYTHING I've seen and heard from Jimin and the group since 2020. I had written some things in the past, like last June and even before that, about how Jimin seemed not well mentally. Things that I had no business saying in public because who the hell am I to think I can say something like that about someone I have never met? So I never posted those words. I never thought I would be so close to the mark in thinking those things. He’s been through it, wrote songs about it, and moved on. And I am so proud of him and this album.

#jimin face #face-off #like crazy #i'm so proud of jimin #if they were trying to quash any ships this was not the way to go about it #i said that after hickey-gate too #also jikook #did i mention i am so proud of jimin?#and kookie is so funny

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blitzosicedcoffee · 1 month

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Might Regret this and delete it later but answering a question about my most traumatic experience made me want to list all the fucked up and just...weird as fuck things that have happened to me. Like I can't sleep til I do this. Maybe it'll be cathartic I dunno:

Tw: Sexual assault, all other assault?

-Age 3 force fed Tabasco

-Age 2 Thrown in pool by Stepdad

-Age 4-6 locked in room when parents screaming at one another

-Age 6 or 7 Witnessed mom throw a hairdryer at stepdad because he verbally abused her.

-Age 5 Fell off a table from dancing and broke my leg, my dad didn't tell my mom.

-Age 2-7 Forced to stay at the table (sometimes falling asleep) cause I couldn't finish my food.

-Age 7 Forced to eat chicken and dumplings and immediately threw it up (still can't eat It today)

-Age 7 Got laughed at by my whole elementary school class because we had to say our times tables in front of the class and I couldn't get past 5's. Sobbed in front of them all.

-Age 8 Moved across the country to a whole new state.

-Age 8 lived with a family friend for a year who had five other kids (add on myself and my three siblings) so there was not quiet ever for that whole year.

-Age 9 Cried in front of *that* class about math and being the new kid.

-Age 9 Got pressured by neighborhood kids into stealing from 7/11.

-Age 10 Got made fun of for having certain friends

-Age 11 Got made fun of in fifth grade for still playing pretend.

-Age 11, Almost lost friends cause I tried to convince them I was a real witch (damn you halloweentown and your influence).

-Age 12-14 Pervy PE teacher that made the girls all do squats and the boys do jumping jacks. Never the other way around.

-Age 13 A middle school science teacher is Arrested for child pornography.

-Age 13 Had a boy tell me that kissing me made him realize he was gay.

-Age 13: Become my science teachers' TA (different teacher than the one above). Mostly spend the time watching cash cab and Bill Nye in his room.

-Age 13 I received my first tiny acer laptop and start playing Webkinz online, club penguin, and Wizard 101. (Also looking for dates on there but I don't tell people that).

-Age 14 Got my first flip phone, add my friends' contacts for text. We don't have Internet yet.

-Age 14 Start playing around on Omegle. Where kids SHOULD NOT BE.

-Age 14 Met one of my best friends on Wizard 101 and cheated my bedtime and played more when I really should have been sleeping.

-Age 14 Read Twilight, got obsessed. Started my first babysitting gigs. Overpriced myself but they paid it so.

-Age 14 Best friend in person at the time was a really bad influence and decided to pretend she was possessed and drown me in a pool. I begged her to stop and she pretended that the demon in her left.

Okay it's about to escalate:

-Age 15 Tried out for my first play, it was hairspray. I wanted to be one of the leads. I could sing but I couldn't dance. I ended up a techy.

-Age 15 Had my first girl/girl relationship And I kiss her on Halloween and I like it and she says she likes it too. But then she has to break up with me cause she's Mormon and doesn't want to leave her church.

- Age 15 Gets into an online relationship with two British guys from Omegle who are definitely adults. Sent them underage nudes cause I didn't know better.

-Age 16 Said British guys decided to blackmail me with my nudes and threatened to post them online if I stopped meeting with them over cam. (I was regularly doing shit over cam with them. It was gross). Told my mom, she had no idea what to do. She just took away my phone and laptop for a while which??? Didn't do anything to help???

-Age 16 Started going out with my first in person boyfriend after we sang owl City at the same time and fell on top of one another on the theater stairs. LMAO it was so cringy.

-Age 16 Six months later I broke up with him over text by trying to scare him away by telling him I thought I was a fallen angel so he'd think I was crazy. (He was ignoring me a lot so I was done) Then I gaslit his friends and said he broke up with me. (I don't act like this anymore, teen me was WILD).

-Age 16 Pretended I was in a romance bdsm novel and handcuffed myself to my own dresser and had to make an excuse for my parents not to come in, so they wouldn't see me.

-Age 17 Met my current partner of 10 years over Tumblr, we started talking over messenger then skyping every day.

-Age 17 Parents kept fighting and stressing out younger siblings so I had to take them all to the park to get them out of the house.

-Age 17 Mom kept telling me that my partner over Skype was a 56 yr old man. (He looked 19 to me).

-Age 17 I finally got my own room.

-Age 17 I ended up trapped in my walk in closet while naked because there was a brown recluse in a power stance. I stayed in the closet for an hour until it moved.

-Age 18 We had to move to a house where we didn't have enough rooms for everyone so I was put into a makeshift room in the dining room where I had no privacy.

-Age 18 My partner visited for the first time.

That's where I'll stop. Holy hell. It feels good to go through it all. I'm sure there's more. But this is just some of the weird things that have happened over my childhood and teenhood lol. Not to mention everything that's happened in my adulthood. That'd be a whole novel. Maybe this is why I follow Loki because I've been through so much chaos 🤔

#childhood #childhood trauma #trauma #cptsd #eldest daughter #eldest daughter syndrome #queer story #personal story #personal post #personal #late night posting #might delete later #cringe

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yellowloid · 1 year

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my experience at am's show (accor arena, paris, first night - 09/05/2023)

SOOOOOOO since a lot of people have done this and i want to write down as many things as i can about the concert so that i don't forget them i've decided to make this post and keep in mind i'm writing this running on four hours of sleep and a cappuccino BUT i'm currently sitting in a very pretty parisian café, chilling and waiting for my train and it's all very aesthetic i feel like the main character of a chick-flick movie. also drowning in post-concert depression but that's another story

so now that we've set the mood let's get to the actual writing bc this post isn't gonna make itself and i still have ~five hours of waiting to do and a whole lot of things to say so let's go

(also disclaimer: this is gonna be very rambly i'm so sorry i'm just emotional)

• so we got to the arena at around 6:30pm bc we had assigned seats, and entrance was a whole lot less chaotic than i'd expected (which was good) + basically the place was almost empty bc it was so early, it really only started to fill up later and it was REALLY full only by the time inhaler was halfway through their set

• can't say anything about inhaler bc i know exactly zero (0) of their songs but i think they were nice and i actually feel like diving into their music a bit now bc some songs were pretty good

• and then once inhaler was done it was showtime!!!!!!!! i felt like i could DIE!!!!!!!!

• the moment they went up on stage i felt literal butterflies......... i just couldn't believe they were real, in the flesh, like they're ACTUALLY real they exist they're REAL!!!!! and we were breathing the same air and i was just so fucking mindblown by that concept i was fr having a moment

• setlist was the usual, i didn't get cornerstone NOR perfect sense (some of my all time am favourites.......) and tbh i still haven't forgiven them (HIM) for that like wtf boys. wtf. i get why they would decide not to play perfect sense but why wouldn't they play cornerstone LITERALLY a fan favourite and a classic smh (jk i forgive them but only bc they're cute 😔)

• also i got star treatment sooooo i mean i can't really complain can i. absolute magical experience, that song

• another thing about the setlist: they kept playing little melodies in between songs and i kept getting FOOLED bc every time it felt like they were going to debut a new song (hello you......jet skis........) but no i was just clowning real hard

• fo example at some point they played this random melody and i was like wtf and then they did nothing with it and just played high so yeah they were being sooo silly and goofy (i wanted to bite them)

• also the crowd was so ???? idek how to describe it bc during some songs they were so hyped (not only the most popular ones from am or 505; they even did a mosh pit during pretty visitors which was......okay i guess not really a song to mosh to but you do you paris keep speaking your truth). but then they were so dead during the car songs.... some girls next to us literally used mirrorball and big ideas to fucking sit down and have a break and that was so offensive tbvfh. meanwhile i was there vibing and singing along to the angsty car tunes and i genuinely was like "why am i the only one that's popping my fucking pussy rn". literally this

• diwk and sculptures are THE most powerful songs ever like hearing them live is a cathartic experience fr. diwk bc of how iconic it is, sculptures bc it's just so unique and they're so fucking powerful my ass was literally shaking. sculptures as an opener after the "countdown" intro they do is just The Right Choice TM like it just makes so much sense. it was born to be an absolutely epic opener and we love to see that. and well, diwk is a classic for a reason. the whole arena lost their shit when they hit the first notes, the floor was TREMBLING it was crazy

• the arabella fuckup moment was still so !!!!!!!! when he screamed FUCK bc he messed up the lyrics i honestly didn't even realise it was a mistake at first lmao considering just a couple of days earlier there was the "but it just doesn't fucking matter" moment or whatever he said during that part (i think it was one of the german shows? or amsterdam? idk i don't remember sjfhwhs). the point is, sometimes he's just silly and changes random lyrics and it all happened so fast one could have easily believed it was on purpose nsjcnennc but that just tells you how good they are. if you're able to make even a mistake sound so good and iconic then you're just so !!!!!!!!! yknow.

• also i heard people saying he was annoyed, a bit like during one of the amsterdam gigs, mostly bc of the arabella fuckup. but that's?? so not true?? like yeah he sounded super frustrated during that bit and his yelled FUCK is proof and rewatching that moment i feel so bad for him i wanna give him a hug </3, but for the rest of the night he was in a normal mood. pretty chill if you ask me

• apart from THE star treatment moment....... someone already mentioned it here but YEAH after the song ended he just went and whispered "it's the star treatment............" with the lowest saddest most heartbroken voice and i swear i heard my heart crack and crumble in a million pieces

• (btw yes he once again opened star treatment with "i just wanted a jet ski for the moat")

• he also sounded a bit sad and lost in his own thoughts during the closing part of iwby which reminded me of the same moment at lowlands 2022 and yes my heart broke once again

• but for the rest he was in a pretty standard mood!!! not overly chatty (when is he ever jskfke), didn't interact with the crowd that much but that's routine. just your regular banter: "what a night" "what a wonderful/splendid [can't remember???] night" and then before either pretty visitors or dancefloor he introduced the song like "it's [name of the song]... get down......GET DOWN" and that was just sooooo silly. in case it wasn't clear i was foaming at the mouth the whole time

• then during dancefloor he went "dirty dancefloors and dreams of naughtiness....AAAAAAAA"

• also he didn't really interact with the others members apart from asking the crowd to give it up for matt (cute bffs <3) and then at some point (i think during body paint) him and jamie were doing their thing. scissoring with their guitars

• after he was done scissoring with jamie he also went and hopped on matt's platform and then went towards nick too but didn't do anything lmao. i was hoping for the usual hand-around-shoulder action but no. okay you do you king

• at some point either nick or jamie fucked up a note and it was so audible and he gave them one of his Iconic Glares TM IT WAS SO FUCKING FUNNY

• btw he didn't speak that much french, i was expecting much more - i'd even say he spoke less french than he did at other french gigs over the years which ???? okay lmao. he just said basic stuff, yknow, the usual "bonsoir paris", "merci", and then at some point he said "incroyable" with, i must admit, a pretty good pronunciation. tbh it was so cute and yes my heart did a lil !!!!! yeah why do you ask

• also he sounded EXACTLY like he does in recordings and studio versions which is INSANE. he has such a wide vocal capacity and his voice is sososoSO powerful, at its best fr. he sounded so damn good and perfect and he's so fucking talented and i might sob bc who gave him the fucking right

• but at the same time i see why people were saying they thought his voice sounded a bit higher - he has moments when you can hear the "ghost" of his younger voice and it's honestly so cute

• but overall it's just crazy and remarkable how much he sounds like the studio versions. there's literally no difference. none at all. he's just THAT fucking good

• and the others too they were so !!!!! honorable mention to matt bc the way that man drums is absolutely mesmerising

• and then well..... can't really ignore the elephant in the room can we. they're all so insanely attractive it's not even funny they looked so good and alex was GLOWING. i was in awe. he has such a powerful aura - commanding and serious yet with a lightness and gentleness to him that you just can't help but stare at him the whole time. he's so charming and fascinating and ARGH literally breathtaking. hypnotising. never getting over him

• long story short when they finished he was sending big smiles and kisses at the whole crowd and the screaming and applause just kept going and going and and and. the whole concert went by so fast it was so intense and i couldn't believe it was already over

• i didn't want to go i didn't want to leave i never wanted to leave i wanted to stay there and do it all over again

• so now it's been two days since the show and hours since i started drafting this post.... and i'm already back home and i MISS THEM SO MUCH. i missed them from the very moment they disappeared backstage and the post-concert depression is so real i literally feel like i left a piece of my heart in paris. i miss them i miss HIM sososo much 💔

• i'm so sorry i'm being such a dramatic bitch but that's just who i am 😔✊️

• overall the whole experience felt like a fucking fever dream and i still can't believe it really happened. it was so magical and special and they were so perfect and ugh i just really fucking love them. i love them so much and i'm so grateful i got to see them and experience first-hand something so beautiful. i didn't sob during the show (tbh i thought i would) but i might do it now bc i'm feeling so nostalgic and emotional and </3 i'm a mess i love them so much there's nothing else i can say it's just That. simply that <3

i think i'll post some pics/videos but not many bc you can hear me screaming and singing my heart out + i was shaking + mostly it looks like i recorded using a potato so skckwjcej but yeah expect me to post something. idk what but definitely something

that's about it for now, but i'll try to add more things if i remember something else along the way!! 💖

#SO SORRY THIS IS A RAMBLING MESS LMAO #BUT YEAH OF YOU GOT HERE THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR #I JUST STILL CANT BELIEVE I SAW MY BABYGIRLS #💖💖💖💖#arctic monkeys #accor arena #alex turner #matt helders #jamie cook #nick o'malley #my show #ramblings

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gabenvrhappened · 7 months

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BooksOr... Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

Read my post about the movie;

Throughout the times I sat to read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (most of it when I was getting ready to sleep, but once in Primrose Hill), something inside of me screamed for the chance to put into a song all the love the book was making me feel. Just like the movie, living the story of Ari and Dante was incredibly cathartic. Unfortunately, until now at least, I wasn't able to write anything — which is shocking and definitely not usual. All that I know is that I felt the love in Benjamin Alire Sáenz's writing jumping from the page to my chest, in a warm and welcoming way.

Innocent and pure is the best way to describe it. The words that follow us through the reading, that come from Ari, are just as simple as you could expect them to be from a 16-year-old, but they hold so much weight and sincerity. It's not a mystery why this book is famous because it blew my mind how the author was able to capture the essence of growing up so perfectly, that it became an arrow that could look deep into my soul and fish my inner secrets to the surface. Just like the movie, reading the story unfold made me come back to many moments of my life, but, mostly, made me reflect on where I am right now. Made me hope for the simplicity of falling in love.

As we grow up and discover the power of attraction, everything tends to become a road to the finish line. We look at people on the street (or at the gym) and wonder what it would take to have this person in bed with us. We forget to create connections, we forget the moments that could lead to a kiss, because we have our eyes on the prize. I wonder if that's just me, or if we really lost that sensibility. I won't lie; I always pictured how cool it would be to live an enemy-to-lovers story, but reading this book made me want to live a friend-to-lovers experience because, after all, that's all we should want in a partner: a friend.

Here, Ari has a special friend in Dante. The book, of course, runs more deeply into their friendship than the movie. I love, for example, how they are always laughing and repeating each other's sentences. I loved reading the small clues of Ari's hidden love throughout his thoughts. The book does a good job in building up his character, and I found it fascinating how his parents helped him understand his love for Dante, making him, in a special way, come out. It was different and touching, and it felt so right. I wished Dante had the same development, but it was infatuating seeing all the love and affection he shows towards life and his parents (something I missed in the movie).

However, nothing, I said nothing, prepared me for the chapter where Dante asks to bathe Ari (page 145). Nothing and I can't stress that enough. I had to read that chapter twice (maybe even more) while I was drunk at a bar in SoHo. I never had read something so honest and touching. Again, innocent and pure. It was the most beautiful thing in the world, and I don't know why exactly, but that chapter, of only two pages, will be forever marked in my mind. One of the desert chapters, though, comes really close, where they are smoking pot (page 273). When Ari says he wouldn't know what he would do if Dante touched him while they were laying naked on Ari's truck after running around in the rain, was like the fist on my throat had grabbed my heart.

It's impossible not to draw parallels, especially because I saw the movie first (and rewatched it as soon as I finished the book). While the book brings more into Bernardo's drama, it's in a way that feels more palpable than the movie. And, just like the part where Ari beats up Julian, the book gives more context of why there weren't any consequences. These two things made me see this storyline in a better light than the movie did and made it feel more real and understandable. And even though the movie failed to do justice to Dante's letter — which is acceptable —, it gained more depth with Aunt Ophelia's presence. Overall, the adaptation was amazing (but I wish we could see the 2:47 hours cut the director mentioned one time on her Twitter).

The thing is that, in London, my creativity flows in so many different ways (at this Tumblr, at the gym, in my acting classes) that my songwriting started to become less current than it used to be, and, even though I understand that, I hated it because I wanted so badly to write a love song about this book. It's so insane to imagine that I didn't roll my eyes at this book not once when I'm constantly doing that throughout some passages in Adam Silvera's books, for example.

That's why I'm so excited to read the sequel to this, and I couldn't be happier to know that it has more pages than the first one. I'm also scared because sequels tend to have less magic than the first project, but I'm glad that I'll be able to dive into the story as it goes, something I missed while reading this because I already knew everything. I wonder what will take my breath away in the second book, just like the thought of Dante dying took mine during those minutes in the theater last December. I'll let you in on this secret of Ari's and Dante's universe when I delve into the waters of the second book. Thank God it's being delived in two days.

#BooksOrGabeNeverHappened

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lord-radish · 1 year

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I'm gonna expand on some earlier tags about end of evangelion, from a post that's like "self recognition from the weird fucked up media you consume" or something. Tagging as messyposting, but I'll keep it as light and as brief as possible.

---

When I saw End of Evangelion, I had been bullied for about six years. I hit that point where the bullying had broken me, and I realised the profound way it had changed my self-image and my relationship with the world.

I was also somewhere around 12. I'd been bullied since I was about six. And watching it was a profound, cathartic experience, because it was the first thing to really capture how fucked up it all felt.

The thing about coping with trauma and self-image and like self-hatred at that age is that there isn't anything aimed at your demographic that really goes into that, or represents you. Avatar: The Last Airbender and shows with more heady writing came later; adolescent media tended to depict basic cookie-cutter stories about some generic adversity with the same basic, overwrought platitudes that didn't actually touch on the reality or the baggage of what was happening. It was just the same self-terminating rhetoric in everything, ever.

And like I get it; go too far, and you risk alienating/traumatizing well adjusted kids. Don't go far enough, and you don't reach the kids who need the most help. The shows and movies aimed at my demographic always chose the former - which I understand, even if I needed the latter.

And as far as more mature movies or TV shows went, it felt like the stuff with the high age ratings came down to action scenes and gunfights. There was nothing that actually said anything or spoke to me. If anything, it spoke to the message of "fight back", which I'd been told for years and couldn't really do.

I caught just over half of End of Evangelion - so no, I'm not talking about the part where Shinji jerks off in a hospital room. The first thing I really saw was Shinji in Unit-01, screaming after seeing some mangled remains of something that had been killed. Then the credits for the movie rolled, and the movie came back with a replay of the part with the fucked up remains again, and then there was a naked girl whose fucking ARM sloughed off the bone and fell on the floor. So like clearly I had to keep watching right

And the point of reflection was where after the movie descends into surreal, fifth-dimensional horror - there's a giant psychedelic Kabbalah and a TON of people die in one of the most dissonant and eerie ways ever - it all stops. And the movie shifts into a live-action segment that depicts suburban life in Tokyo.

There's a cat on a swing, there's a shot from inside a moving train, there's a slow pan across a movie theatre's audience. It's set to the only version of a Bach song I think I can ever sit down and listen to. And it was probably the first time since I was like eight or nine years old that I felt there was still some good left in me.

All the while, the characters - who I didn't know except for Shinji - are speaking with him as he asks about the nature of dreams vs reality and what it means to be human. And on paper it's all animu drivel, haha how pretentious, but it's during this moment of peace and reflection, where you're looking at the real world and how amazing it is, that the sentiment really begins to soak in.

End of Evangelion is an ugly movie. You watch something get disemboweled at one point. It's violent and graphic and transgressive. For as emotional and resonant as the last quarter of the movie is, the last scene is one of the most bleak things you'll ever see. And it reflected everything that I felt about myself back at me, while showing that there was still something underneath all of that that was preserved and could be nurtured.

Like call it corny and cliched, but everyone has a garden within themselves y'know. That live action part is the garden. All of the evil, incomprehensible, fucked up stuff is everything else that's wrong about the world and which has hurt you, but even with the abject fucking horror of it all - you have the cat on the swings, and the sun coming up, and everyone else on earth who's living their own lives every day. It's all there. The fact that it's there is just as immutable as the abject horror of the rest of it.

#messyposting #spoiler: the post is neither light nor brief #end of evangelion

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lubdubsworld · 3 years

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物の哀れ ~ ( the sadness of things )

( Note : This is just a personal post for myself. I’m trying to just make a record of how the fic was conceived and all that I experienced, writing this fic )

Inspiration :

So, I ran into an article on Japanese words and I was incredibly fascinated by the phrase , Mono no aware or the pathos of things : Basically the sadness of things. It was a very unusual concept to me because it could be interpreted in so many ways.

A little bit of digging around made me realize that some people linked it to the cherry blossom season where the flowers come into full bloom and add such a delicate beauty to the landscape. But of course, being seasonal, the beauty lasts for a very small time. The flowers die and their life ends .

its fleeting and passes by quite soon. So the sadness of things is basically how, the fact that something is fleeting or seasonal or about to end, should not take away from our enjoyment of things. Because yes the cherry blossoms die but people still flock to watch the cherry blossoms.

The phrase came to me at a very troubled time in my life.

My mother’s sister passed and she had raised me for a few years. I loved her deeply and she was only a couple of years older than my mother. Death was a thing that I had always viewed in abstract. The loss of a loved one was not something I had experienced on a very personal level, so it shook me.

And of course, being the person I am , I did what I always do when I get overwhelmed : Research.

I combed through reddit forums on grief, through blogs written by people who had lost loved ones , through blogs by psychotherapists, through online websites offering grief counselling and everything I could think of.

What fascinated me were two things :

1. ) The non linear nature of healing ~ the stages of grief is a myth. Nobody goes through stages of emotional turmoil and then magically becomes better.

By the way the whole stages of grief was formulated with reference to a terminally ill person coming to terms with their own death .

So, it couldn’t really be applied to people dealing with the loss of a loved one. At least not directly.

And the second, one,

2.) The very personal nature of grief ~ depending on how the relationship with the lost one is, grief varies. I realized then that only someone who had lost a loved one would know what its like. No one else could ever possibly understand the grief and pain that comes from loss.

As Heejin says in the sadness of things,” I would never know what his loss was like, because I would never know what he lost.”

It gave me a whole new perspective on how grief at the end of the day has to be a personal journey of healing , one that no one else can help you through. You need to live and hurt through every excruciating second of it.

There’s still so much I want to say about this but I’ll stop here. I’ll probably add to this as days go by. But yes, this wasn’t a fic that i wrote on a whim. It was something of a research project for me. An exploration of grief and healing.

Thank you for joining me in this journey. It was definitely one of the most fulfilling ones I’ve ever had.

The Story :~

You can read it here :

⋆⋆✵ 物の哀れ ( ‘the sadness of things’.) ✵⋆⋆

Chapter 1 ⋆ Chapter 2 ⋆ Chapter 3 ⋆ Chapter 4 ⋆ Chapter 5 ⋆

Chapter 6 ⋆ Chapter 7 ⋆ Chapter 8. ⋆ Chapter 9. Chapter 10.

Extra Drabble

Completed.

Alpha! Jungkook x Omega ! OC.

ABO Dynamics.

Genre : Arranged Marriage / Temporary contractual Marriage.

Warnings : Non- Con/ Extremely Dubious Consent . High functioning alcoholism. Genre related consent issues. Implied suicidal thoughts.

Summary : A recently widowed Jungkook agrees to a contract marriage to keep his company afloat. His grief overwhelms him and it is hard to look at his new wife as anything other than an intruder .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The characters :

Oh, boy.

I could go on about these two for years.

Jungkook and Heejin.

Let me start with Jungkook :

Jungkook in the fic came to me as a very troubled young man. In the fic he starts off as a very depressed young man. The opening scene of him staring listlessly into a bowl of cereal while his friends talk to him and Heejin just watches if from my own experience with depression in 2017.

I would be numb in my body and mind with no idea what was going on around me and it seemed like everyone made all the choices for me while i just flowed along. It was a battle getting up in the morning. I had nothing to look forward to. Nothing to hope for.

So Jungkook , depressed and confused and reeling from loss is our hero.

Our main man.

The one I wanted you guys to root for.

The one I wanted you guys to see yourself in, in those moments when your pain and trauma changes you.

When you’ve always been a soft spoken, kind hearted person but suddenly the pain overwhelms you and you just want to scream the place down. You want to hurt and hurt and hurt because you’re hurting and you don’t know how to process it.

Jungkook’s journey is fraught with pain, endured and inflicted . He loses himself and his identity.

He’s a CEO, a father and a husband and he can’t be any of those things, because of his grief. So there it was the three things I wanted him to find and love and enjoy by the end of the fic :

His career doing something he loves :

Fatherhood raising the daughter he was blessed with : our lovely mina who I modeled on my own daughter ( and loved just as much )

and finally,

A Love that was unconditional and beautiful. That maybe new and different from what he had lost in his wife but just as, if not more fulfilling.

And so I stumbled into the woman who forever changed the way I perceived myself : Lee Heejin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Writing Heejin in this fic is so cathartic for me.

For years, I’ve been her. The voice of reason, the one to compromise. I would be the one every single person in the family would call , anytime anything went wrong.

Kind. Smart. She’ll know what to do. She’ll never say no. She’s always laughing. So witty. She’s so funny.

The phrases just blur in my head. I’ve been this emotional punching bag for people for so long. I had a very abusive father and honestly no one was there to listen to me talk about him. If i tried, they would always ask me what I did to make him behave that way.

So , if you think Heejin is a pushover, that she’s giving too much of herself to people who don’t deserve.....just know that sometimes, saying no and standing your ground is a privilege not everyone can afford. And because I’d been there i understood her.

That isn’t all she is though. She is also someone who knows that she doesn’t deserve to be treated that way. At no point in the fic does Heejin see Jungkook’s actions as anything other than the abuse it is and for that i will always be proud of her.

Heejin’s healing is much more complicated. She isn’t really healed at the end of the fic...because to be honest , I’m not healed and I don’t know what its like to be ....But she is on the path to it, and that’s what matters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

#the sadness of things

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speutschlish · 4 years

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Promising Young Woman (tw: abuse, assault, r*pe, trauma)

Two days ago I saw Promising Young Woman at a drive-in theater, and it was the most cathartic film experience I’ve ever had. I was bawling, ecstatic, and deeply triggered all at the same time. It was beautiful. I couldn’t even stand up afterwards because I became nauseous and light-headed. In therapy I’ve been learning how to reconnect my body sensations to how I’m feeling. Watching this obra maestra made me feel all the feelings, and I had such a powerful physical reaction in response to that - it was a good learning experience in that way as well.

That paragraph may sound too contradictory to make sense, but it makes perfect sense to me, and if you want to read more (with spoilers), you can expand this post.

If you don’t want to read spoilers, then let me just say that as someone with C-PTSD caused by childhood abuse (sexual, emotional, psychological), r*pe and sexual assault who is finally in a safe enough place to look back and face it all in the hopes of healing, this movie SAW me, and that means A LOT.

PYW is a realist film. There is an unreliable narrator in Cassie (though there is no narration that happens, just that Cassie’s is the only vantagepoint through which the plot progresses). She is perfectly imperfect. She is drowning in her trauma, and as I’ve learned through uncovering and attempting to heal my own trauma, I know intimately how the trauma brain distorts your actions and reactions and feelings, so is Cassie doing “the right thing™”? No. But she’s doing the only thing her trauma brain can tell her to do - keep Nina close, keep Nina alive, don’t give up, don’t let them win, don’t move on because Nina can’t, so why should you?

The thing is, this movie shows that the only one who ISN’T crazy is Cassie.

Cassie is the only one who cares as much as someone should care that a woman was drugged, raped, mocked, discarded, demeaned, dehumanized into suicide.

Let’s look at everyone else’s response:

Nina’s mom: obviously traumatized, grieving, but has compartmentalized and wants (needs) to “move on”

Cassie’s dad: expresses sympathy, is one of the few characters who mentions Nina without Cassie’s prompting, but ultimately takes no real “action” to help Cassie, and most likely did not take action to help Nina (sympathy without support)

Cassie’s mom: desperate for Cassie to “move on” so that her family life can seem perfect again

Madison (ex-friend of Nina and Cassie): victim blames, repeatedly calls the r*pe of Nina “gossip” and admits she laughed at the video

Ryan (Cassie’s snuffed out love flame): after seeing video evidence that he witnessed the r*pe of Nina, he says he did nothing wrong and proceeds to attend the wedding of the r*pist like it was all normal

Cassie has long ago tired herself out screaming “LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED! THIS IS AN INHUMAN ACT! THIS IS A CRIME! NINA IS SUFFERING! WHY AREN’T YOU DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT?” And at the point of the movie, years later, Cassie lives in the theater of the absurd, where no one wants to remember Nina or take any action on her behalf. Was the path that Cassie took the best path? The healthy path? No. But it’s not a stretch to understand why she thought it was the only one she could go down and still live with herself.

It hit me when someone called Cassie crazy, and she says, “No, I really don’t think I am.”

It hit me when Ryan tells her “Can we think about this for a second?”, and she says “You have NO idea how much I’ve thought about this.”

It hit me when she wrote “In the event of my disappearance...”

It’s so clear to me - Cassie didn’t want to die. Cassie didn’t even really want “revenge”, per se. She wanted the world to make sense. She wanted the gravity of Al Monroe et al’s crimes to be recognized and treated as the horrendous, inhuman, vile acts that they were.

The movie is real - Cassie can’t have that. She can’t have that because there are r*pists sitting on the highest courts of the land. There are Presidents who support, applaud, and participate in r*pe. There are terrorists who blow up bombs in public, but not before torturing and abusing those closest to him at home and the authorities do nothing after he is reported. There is a man living his normal life out there after r*ping my mother, molesting and r*ping me as a child, and turning the other way after his son r*ped my sister.

If someone is so monstrous that they can drug and r*pe a woman - they have already shown that they have no regard for the personhood of girls and women. They will not hesitate to wretch her personhood away from her, do as he likes with it, and choke the last bit of life-sustaining air from it. It is no surprise that Al Monroe is capable of murder, and it’s no surprise that his friend laughs when he finds out she’s dead.

Lately I’ve been feeling some regrets - why didn’t I fight more? Why didn’t I scream at him, find a weapon, run away, something, something to show him how deeply wrong he was to do those things to a girl, to a woman?

This movie was a peek at an alternate path that I could have taken. It showed me a part of my life unlived, a part of my life that I could have had in another universe. It didn’t look away. It gave viewers the thing that Cassie was searching for - the recognition that (Nina / I / all victims) matter and that what happened to (Nina / me / all victims) matters. It has weight. It takes up space. The evil of what happened to (Nina / me / all victims) dripped and oozed and infected everyone that it touched. Cassie wasn’t wrong to recognize that, and if we all did, the world would be a better place.

#promising young woman

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onthecrosslook · 3 years

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Reverse, esreveR

Tw: S*ic*de Attempt, Dr*g Abuse

Sherlock Holmes was an arsehole. He knew that he was, he felt it- deep inside, a sort of gut emotion that clenched and twisted and made him feel all the more wretched. He really couldn’t control it at this point. It was a habit that had formed from years of keeping every awful thing that had happened to him pent up in his mind. So many years of abuse, so many bruises and scars, and so, so much hurt that left no marks on anywhere but the mind. He knew it was wrong to take it out on those he loved- and even those he didn’t- but it kept resurfacing in the forms of snide comments and manic volatility.

It started one quiet night at Baker Street. It was nothing much, a snappish comment too far, perhaps? Whatever it was, it was the last straw for a livid John Watson, who stood up and kicked over the coffee table in fury. Words bounced off of Sherlock, who heard without listening. Eyes closed, chest feeling empty, Sherlock felt John’s innate rage. Until he didn’t.

When Sherlock opened a single eye, he saw John holding a small box that had been concealed under the table. Sherlock heard a roar in his ears, he could hardly breathe, he was crushed by an overwhelming feeling of guilt- it all just hurt.

John’s steady fingers brushed over the syringe that the box contained. The flat was silent, except for the pounding of Sherlock’s heart- or was he the only one who could hear that?

Glass shattered at his feet. John was yelling, now. Sherlock was pretending to listen.

Sociopath. Liar. Machine.

John was saying those words as if they held no value to Sherlock. Of course, that had been the impression Sherlock had made, so why wouldn’t he say those things?

Sherlock was used to feeling hopeless, but this? This was it. This was all he could take and more. And worst of all? It was cowardly, and Sherlock couldn’t even have the decency to properly listen to John.

Possibly in the middle of John’s sentence, he stood up and mumbled some sort of excuse- that he had to use the loo, maybe? He wasn’t sure.

Dazed, Sherlock walked to the loo and left John alone in the living room. Thoughts were rushing through his head. He couldn’t take this. Not anymore.

He clicked the lock and slid down the door onto the cold, hard tile floor. His hands were shaking, his vision blurry with held-back tears. He didn’t want to do this. Yes, he did. No, he didn’t. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he?

Trembling fingers pulled open the medicine cabinet. They pulled out a bottle of painkillers. They opened the cap. They poured precisely ten in Sherlock’s other hand.

Ten, because Sherlock had measured the dosage during a particularly bad night. He knew that each pill had 500mg of acetaminophen in them. Over 5000 in one go would certainly kill a man. It had to.

Shaking, crying- although he didn’t realise it, and he never would have admitted it otherwise- Sherlock popped a pill into his mouth one at a time. It was hard to swallow. His throat was rejecting it, so each pill took longer to take. He was shaking his head, not wanting to finish, but knowing he had already taken at least six.

After number ten, Sherlock broke. The tears came freely, now. He mumbled a shattered apology to his mum and dad, to Mycroft, even, and most definitely to John, whom he didn’t want to leave.

With each whispered name, Sherlock popped another pill between his lips. Now he had taken…what, fourteen? Fifteen? He didn’t really care, even though he did. A small part of him was screaming for someone to care, to stop him, to save him- but to no avail.

After a few choked-out sobs, Sherlock regained some of his composure. He wiped his eyes, which were shamefully red, and stood up. He was going to go about this bravely. The toxic shock wouldn’t kick in for at least a few hours, and by then, he would be asleep. A peaceful death. An easy one.

Sherlock unlocked the door and walked back out to the living room, where John was pacing furiously. He looked pale and frightened.

John must have asked something along the lines of “what did you take?” in a worried tone of voice, but Sherlock shook his head. He probably told him that he took nothing. John still looked concerned. He asked him again. Still, Sherlock shook his head. He felt guilty for lying to John.

John relaxed. He nodded, he sat down. He offered Sherlock dinner, but Sherlock politely refused.

Sherlock lied about something or other and said he had a stomachache, that he wanted to go to bed. John reluctantly allowed him to.

At approximately nine o’clock, Sherlock laid down in bed and wrote a short note in his pocketbook. It told whom he wanted his things left to, even though he knew it wasn’t entirely legal. He trusted Mycroft to sort all that out.

His stomach was already starting to ache. He needed to fall asleep.

And so he did, praying that he would never wake up.

Unfortunately, life was decidedly quite cruel.

By the time the clock read midnight, Sherlock realised he had made a terrible mistake. He woke up gasping for breath as his stomach burned. His face felt hot, and his head was pounding. It was as though his insides were tearing themselves apart.

Dazed, he tried to move, but instead fell out of his bed and hit the floor with a groan. Sherlock was so weak that he could not find the strength to move. He threw up, even though he didn’t want to. It meant that the drugs might not work. Mind racing, chest heaving in mild panic, Sherlock wondered if this was how he would die- suffocating on his own vomit and in horrible agony.

Spirits broken, Sherlock whispered John’s name. It hurt too much. He needed John to save him, or else he was going to die.

Sherlock kept whispering it- his lungs wouldn’t allow him to speak up. But John was already upstairs. He couldn’t hear him. Maybe Sherlock didn’t want him to.

He choked out something along the lines of “I don’t want to die”, but slowly, agonisingly, his eyes closed and he faded into unconsciousness.

You could imagine his surprise when he woke up the next morning, every inch of his body aching. His chest burned, and he kept needing to throw up every few minutes, but he was unmistakably alive.

And in some of the worst pain of his life.

He staggered to his feet and made his way to the loo. He threw up again.

For a brief moment, he felt better. He dreaded another racking dry heave that would take hold of his body.

No dice.

After typing a few things onto his laptop- perhaps updating his website with a few unintelligible entries about the side effects of acetaminophen overdose- he went back to the loo and threw up. He hadn’t eaten anything, so it was just stomach acid that burned his oesophagus and made him nauseous. The pain was growing steadily worse, and John wasn’t even awake yet.

For the next hour, Sherlock allowed the poison to simmer in his body, silently attacking his liver and slowly killing him.

John eventually woke up. Of course he did.

When he saw Sherlock’s pale face, he said nothing. When Sherlock nearly tripped down the steps in delirium, John was concerned, but said nothing.

When Sherlock’s knees buckled beneath him, he said something.

What did you take?

Sherlock slurred a half-hearted response, his head aching and his stomach twisting itself inside out. He felt like he was dying. It was probably because his organs were failing.

He clung onto the banister of the staircase as John desperately shook his shoulders. He couldn’t breathe. His brain was shutting down but his eyes and ears still worked. Everything hurt.

Sherlock saw John pull out his mobile and dial Mrs. Hudson’s number before swearing and pulling him outside.

Sherlock faded in and out of consciousness.

He was in a car.

Then a waiting room.

Then an urgent care.

Disappointed, disapproving, and endlessly pitying. Nobody would stop staring.

A nurse said he would be out of their care the same day.

His liver began to fail.

And then he was in an ambulance. He made a hazily rude comment to the EMT.

They stuck a needle in his arm. They did it wrong. It hurt like hell.

I’m clean, he wanted to tell them. Saying he didn’t do drugs anymore would be a flat-out lie.

They put him in a hospital.

His liver reached critical condition. The levels of acetaminophen in his bloodstream were lethal, yet he was somehow still alive. (It would be a case study for months and months to come.)

Sherlock was in the worst pain of his life.

They gave him morphine.

John sat by his bed during the entire ordeal.

He didn’t say a thing.

He didn’t know what to say.

Sherlock almost died.

John looked like he’d aged many years.

Sherlock felt regret.

John held his hand.

Sherlock wished he could turn back time.

John did, too.

༺═──────────────═༻

(Author’s Note: Based on a true story, sad enough to say. It’s sort of my way of giving past experiences a bit of closure. Imbuing writing with pain and anguish is rather cathartic. To tell you the truth, the fact that I’m alive now puzzles doctors and professionals alike. A case study was written on me. I am one of only eleven cases to have ever survived several doses of acetaminophen- enough to kill multiple grown men- at the age of twelve. I’m an anomaly and the fact that I’m here today writing this only proves how strange I am. I can’t say I’m better now. But I’ve learned my lesson. I’m sorry if it was so intense. If you or a loved one are having suicidal thoughts, please tell someone. Don’t make my mistake. And please, for the love of God, if you’re considering it, don’t kill yourself. It would be the biggest and final mistake of your life. People care about you so much. Much love, - AE.)

#sherlock #bbc #sherlock holmes #john watson #johnlock #benedict cumberbatch #post reichenbach #angst #sad ending #ambiguous ending #angsty #based on a true story #jalexandria #writing #fics #fanfiction #tw suicide i guess?#drug addiction #writing angst to make people suffer

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papabigtoes · 3 years

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I'd like to know your take on Mr. Salacia's backstory.

HOHOHOH

In my neanderthal head, I imagine Salacia before he became a Half Man to be someone that worked in the Press from the 50’s, like a journalist of sorts (his most recent human form.) The little picture of him Crozier and Ravenwood had made me see Salacia before he had to live underground as someone that knew very well how business and how people in communications and industry work.

i know its rlly silly thats why i like it cuz its so silly

He could’ve had a passion for learning about music. The arts are a universal language, music especially, it’s a field someone that researches it can have a blast exploring. You have to dedicate your life to it in order to keep getting that buzz, and perhaps he did that. So much so, when he learned about death-metal and cathartic sound, he ate, slept, and drank it. Until obsession made him walk away from friends and family, him discovering new ways around the world of how music worked.

Finally, he found both literal and figurative “Underground Sound”, and was eaten alive by the power, and the prophecy. No longer was the man who he was- as he became the Half-Man. Once human, now consumed by the essence of brutality. And what a better way to voice the energy than screaming it in metal?

The prophecies the non-human half knew of described the figures of the Metalocalypse to him, where all pain and terror could eat the world alive. Chaos and pain run the world, and it’s been time for a metallic reboot so things can start fresh again.

He watched underground - the pressure below kept him from growing massive and revealing himself to the world. He could briefly go above, but needed human flesh to keep the darkness at bay. He tried to cross through water, but certain marine prophets prevented him. They were the control between the Chaos and Metal, and when evil touched the seas, they vexxed it with fury. If he entered the waters, he’d enter an unknown terror.

The brief times he surfaced wouldn’t only be for emergencies. It was also to make sure the prophecy went as planned. Maybe it was to invisibly aim the redneck’s car into the school instead of an off-ramp once he was shot, maybe it was to make love to a Miss Sweden and prevent anybody from taking the guitar by Odin, keep her occupied so one day Skwisgaar would experience hopelessness and run to it, did little things so Seth could get his way in order for Pickles to find his freedom and run to it, made the chainsaw in Fatherface’s shed reflect the sun into his eyes while he was outside and angry, and left a certain doll of straw in a snow hole in case a child was ever left inside it.

All he had to do was wait, however, a certain manager of the prophecized five kept him worried. There was something about him. The shape of his ears and nose. The way when he smiled or grimaced, dimples would poke through, like someone he once knew. But his humanity was long dormant, and no longer knew how to be woken up.

thas jus a fan fart idear tho! Any chance I get to say it THF is supreme of the headcanons and delicious and your Salacia origins are so investing and *riffing* badass AF.

If I had to use a song for Salacia, I think it would be The King of Oak Street for his human side. Idk why but my brain folds smell it

#cloudchaser2000 #mr. salacia #crack headcanons #thank you for the ask m’dood!

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tlcwrites · 4 years

Text

Little Things

Summary:

“Maybe this is cosmic payback for all the shit he’s done in his life. Maybe this is the galaxy reminding him that he doesn't get to fight a war, have unmeasurable blood on his hands, and get to live happily ever after.”

Word Count: 2058

Tags/Warnings: Poe Dameron/Female Reader, SFW, pregnancy, traumatic labor/childbirth experience, preterm labor, Dad!Poe, pre-eclampsia, premature birth, NICU warning, a big fucking pile of angst.

Author’s Note:

So, @paper-in-ashes-fanfiction changed her avatar recently (see below). A normal person would have gone “Aww, what a nice picture of Oscar.” Me being me, went... well, let’s just say the reaction resulted in this 2,000 word angst-fest you’re about to torture yourself with read.

Even though it wasn’t my intention when I started, writing this was pretty cathartic for me. I (evidently) still had some trauma from the preterm labor and birth of my twins that I needed to work through. Which leads me to this:

I cannot emphasize enough, this work deals with preterm labor, premature birth, and traumatic labor/childbirth circumstances. PLEASE do not read if it will be triggering for you. I have been there. I do not want to put you there. Okay?

If you’re still with me, I sincerely apologize for torturing poor Poe like this hope you don’t murder me after you’re done enjoy.

(Continues in the same universe as Worth It.)

When Beka was born, Poe was stunned by the brutality of childbirth. Yeah, childbirth is a miracle and biology is fucking amazing. But it’s also brutal and bloody and terrifying and it’s one of the only times he’s ever seen you cry in the entire time he’s known you, and the two of you have lived through a war together.

He’d never felt as useless as he did then, watching you labor to bring his child into the galaxy. His fierce, strong wife; he’s known you are a badass ever since the very first time he’d met you, when he’d walked into the training facility to see you flip Finn backwards with one strike like it was nothing. But after witnessing you give birth to his child- you’re his warrior queen.

It’s not until Leila’s born that he realizes how easy Beka’s birth actually was in comparison.

You’d gotten very lucky; both your pregnancies had been relatively easy. It’s still several weeks until your due-date with Leila that you start to feel ‘off’, as you describe it to Poe. He’s concerned (“overbearing and overprotective” is how you phrase it), but you ask him to trust you to know your own body. He’s never carried a child, and you have. So he redoubles his efforts to make you as comfortable as possible, even recruiting BB-8 and Beka, in all her three-year-old energy, to help keep an eye on you.

The first sign is the nausea returning. Then the back pain. Then the headaches. By the time your hands and feet start to swell, you’ve settled Beka with Kes and are on your way to the hospital. You grip Poe’s hand tightly. It’s far too soon and you both know it.

Poe hovers anxiously as the medical droid takes your vitals, the doctor explaining what you’ve already suspected. Your blood pressure is skyrocketing, and they have to deliver the baby now or both of you will be at risk. Poe’s face is ashen as they prep you for surgery. You try to smile reassuringly at him, but you’re shaking so hard it’s not convincing.

They make Poe change into scrubs. He feels ridiculous with the bonnet covering his curls. He can tell you’re trying to force your laugh to sound sincere. He has to hold you steady as the droid administers the spinal block. You’re both glad that you at least get to stay awake during the procedure.

It’s barely a few minutes after the doctor starts before Leila is out. Poe hardly gets a glimpse of her before the doctor instructs the nurse droid to get her in the incubator and on breath support immediately. You grip his hand and tell him to go with the baby.

He presses a kiss to your forehead. “You sure?”

You nod. He knows you want him to pretend he doesn’t see your tears.

He squeezes your hand and then follows the droid out of the room.

The doctor in the neonatal intensive care unit explains what each tube and wire is for- feeding, breathing, monitoring her little heart, so many- but Poe is hardly listening. She’s so small.

“It’s really her lungs and her ability to feed that we’re most concerned about,” the doctor is saying. “Currently, she’s not capable of doing either on her own.”

Poe presses a hand against the cover of the incubator. She’s such a little thing. Her body is practically the size of his hand. “How long will it be before she’s okay to come home?” When the doctor doesn’t respond immediately, he glances at her. “Doc?”

She looks supremely uncomfortable. “Mr. Dameron- every child is different, and milestones don’t have specific timetables...“

It takes a moment for the implication to sink in. There are no guarantees here.

Poe has never felt so helpless.

He watches Leila. Tiny, so tiny. Her namesake was tiny too, he reminds himself. And look at all she did.

The doctor is talking again, something about those milestones she’ll need to meet and how they go about helping her reach them, but she might as well be speaking Huttese for all he’s comprehending. It’s okay. He knows you’ll want to hear all of this, too, so he’ll ask them to repeat it once you’re stitched up.

Kriff, you’re still alone in the OR. He thanks the doctor, and with a last look at his tiny warrior princess, he heads back to the surgery wing.

When he reaches the hallway that leads to the OR, a burly nurse is waiting in front of the entrance to the operating theater. “Ah, Mr. Dameron. We need you to wait here.”

“What’s happened?” He tries to see around the nurse but he’s still blocking the doors. “Where’s my wife?”

“Mr. Dameron-”

He has to stop himself from shoving past the man. “What is happening and where is my wife?”

The nurse hesitates, and it’s enough.

Something has gone very, very wrong.

“The doctor will be out in a moment, Mr. Dameron, please, if you’ll just-”

Poe does shove past the man then. He doesn’t make it very far, of course, since the nurse is twice his size and quickly grabs him, but he gets close enough to see through the window set into the doors. He has a perfect view of you, still on the operating table. He has a perfect view of the doctor, administering chest compressions. He has a perfect view of the defibrillator droid. He has a perfect view as your body jolts from the current running through it as they try to restart your heart. He has a perfect view of the monitor that still displays an irregular, not-at-all normal heartbeat.

Then the nurse is dragging him away, and someone is screaming, and a second person, maybe a security guard, who knows, is helping pull him down the hallway away from the doors. And he realizes he’s the one screaming, and someone is urging him into a chair, and he misses the chair and drops to his knees, his forehead touching the floor. There’s a hand on his shoulder, and a voice telling him there were complications, that it’s going to be okay, but how can anything be okay because you weren’t moving and his child is fighting for her life and what the flying FUCK could possibly be okay about any of what is happening.

He grips his hair, not feeling the pain on his scalp, not feeling the tiles under his knees, not hearing anything else the nurse says. He can’t hear anything but static. He can’t see anything but you. Unmoving. Then Leila, hooked up to tubes. Two thirds of his world, fighting for their lives in the space of an hour. He vaguely wonders if this is what going insane feels like.

Maybe this is cosmic payback for all the shit he’s done in his life. Maybe this is the galaxy reminding him that he doesn't get to fight a war, have unmeasurable blood on his hands, and get to live happily ever after. Maybe this is what happens to cocky assholes who marry out of their league and who dare to think for half a second that maybe, even after everything, that life might look kindly on them. Who the fuck is he, to think he’d get the love and the family his parents had? What’s that old adage, an eye for an eye? Fuck. FUCK.

He thinks he must have passed out, or maybe he just hopes he did. His cheek is pressed against the floor. He heaves himself back to his knees, scrubbing a hand down his face. It comes away wet.

“Mr. Dameron?”

The doctor stands in the doorway. Poe vaguely recognizes that he’s got blood on his scrubs. Your blood. He wants to throw up.

“Mr. Dameron, your wife. She’s stable.”

Poe forgets how to breathe.

The doctor is helping the nurse lift him off the floor. “She’s stable, sir,” he says again.

His knees aren’t working right, and he sits heavily on the chair someone has thoughtfully shoved behind him. “She- she’s okay?”

The doctor smiles now. “Yes, Mr. Dameron. She’s going to be okay.”

The tears, this time of relief, stream down his cheeks. He doesn’t wipe them away.

Several weeks later, Poe leans against the doorway of your bedroom. You’re in the bed, both of your girls sprawled out with you, Leila on your chest and Beka curled up under your arm. All three of you are asleep. He can’t stop beaming at you all.

His pop calls a soft ‘good night’ from down the hall, and Poe answers with a nod. Kes had been the lifeline Poe needed as you and Leila both recovered from her birth, already so many weeks ago it feels both like a lifetime and like yesterday. He can’t think about how close he came to losing both of you. Maybe someday. He’s sure you and he will both have some things to work through. But for right now, enjoying his family is the only thing on his agenda.

He had come to take Beka back to her own bed, but snuggles with his family sound like a better plan. His smile widens as Beka yawns one of those precious toddler yawns. Gently, he slides onto the bed next to you, carefully shifting the elder Dameron daughter off of your arm, smoothing a hand over her tousled curls. She snuggles into his chest as he presses a kiss to her cheek. “Love you, sweetheart.”

She sighs contentedly as she burrows further into him. “‘luff you, Daddy.”

You rouse, blinking languidly at him. It’s adorable and stars, he’s never taking anything as mundane as your yawns for granted again. “What time is it?”

“Late.” He props his head on one hand, gently stroking the other down Leila’s still-impossibly small cheek as he smiles at you. “How’re you feeling?”

“Fine.” You return his smile drowsily. “You look happy.”

His chuckle is soft. “Happy’s one word for it.” He moves his hand from Leila to your hair, twisting a strand around his finger. “Feelin’ like the luckiest asshole in the galaxy is another.”

“Language,” you admonish without any real venom, leaning into his caress.

On your chest, Leila whimpers. Ten weeks ago, when he first (finally) held her, Poe had struggled to believe the doctor that there would come a time when she’d breathe on her own, let alone have a set of pipes that could- and would- send BB-8 racing for cover. But she does. His little miracle, amazing, warrior princess is healthy, whole, and, based on how she’s rooting around your chest, very hungry.

As you drowsily help her latch to your breast, Poe watches, beaming as Leila starts to nurse. Witnessing you feed your children will always rank in the top five of the most intimate moments you’ve shared together.

Almost as if you feel his gaze, you glance up, smiling sleepily at him. “Credit for your thoughts.”

He shakes his head slightly, a grey-peppered curl falling errantly across his forehead. “Just still in awe.” He glances down at Beka (snoring slightly, just like her daddy), his grin widening as he looks back to you. “In awe and so, so in love.”

You reach out and brush his curls back. “Love you too, handsome.”

If almost losing you and Leila taught him anything, it’s to cherish each and every caress, kiss, smile, and toddler yawn. After all, he reasons, catching your hand and pressing a kiss to your palm, it’s the little things that make up a life. Right? The big moments are wonderful, sure. But life is lived in the details. They’re not glamorous or noteworthy. How many times has he kissed your hand just like this over the course of your relationship, and thought nothing of it?

No more living without intention. Not for him.

Beka mumbles in her sleep. He pulls her closer as you yawn again, curling into his other side as Leila continues to feed. He wraps his arm around your shoulders and leans back against the headboard with a contented sigh.

The birth of a child is momentous. But birth simply marks the start of a life. And the life to be lived- he looks at his life, gathered here, in his arms, and smiles- that’s where it’s at.

#poe dameron x reader #poe dameron #poe dameron fic #poe dameron x female reader #poe dameron imagine #my writing #angst #poe dameron angst #seriously so much angst #pregnancy #childbirth #dad!poe #dad poe dameron #dameron family #please don't kill me

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mc-critical · 3 years

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your analysis of selim? i think he's hated way more than he deserves. hating him for valid reasons is fine but telling that he's gonna be such a bad sultan is really stupid [and especially because only now do they bring out history & say selim was bad which is historically inaccurate as well]. out of all of suleyman's sons, it was only mustafa who was loved by all & talented [show only cuz apparently mehmet was also extremely talented & selim wasn't a bad sultan] enough for the throne. bayezid was extremely hotheaded and you can't tell me that a prince who can't control his emotions, especially in front of state officials, will be a good sultan. everyone tells selim was extremely selfish & the instigator of all their fights, when they were younger & older. siblings are always like that?? mustafa obviously wasn't like that because he was way older than mehmet, mihrimah, selim, bayezid & cihangir to get into stupid fights w/ them. mehmet & mihrimah had frequent & annoying arguments because they were closer in age. selim & bayezid had frequent fights because they were closer in age. this is a thing with many siblings; the elder provoking the younger & the younger disrespecting the elder. why do people point out their sibling fights as evidence for selim's personality? i feel sorry for bayezid as a kid but i feel less remorse for him as he's older. i don't say he deserves execution, especially at the hands of his own father, but he did rebel against his father's order & then proceeded to flee to another empire; like, the punishment for that is execution, what did he expect after rebelling? i feel extremely sorry for all his sons though, they didn't deserve this fate when they were just victims of their father's rebellion. also, unpopular opinion but bayezid is lowkey overrated pls don't cancel me i love him but he's annoying at times like all characters & no one really acknowledges it back to selim, he was honestly very underrated. he was really slandered in the series and he didn't have any real support w/ him until nurbanu & sokollu. although hurrem did vouch for him to go to manisa, it was literally only because he was 'peaceful' [we can read that as untalented as well] and no harm would reach him because he wasn't a threat [i actually really liked this plan of hurrem's, tough & clever; only if she was actually supported in this]. even mihrimah, till the end, is quite unfair to him. he had a problem w/ alcohol & people telling him to just stop? like, it doesn't work that way? people have to suffer so much in order to stop their addictions & they're actually restricted from their addictions; selim was a prince, no one around him could restrict him [his parents could but they weren't w/ him in his provinces]. he did become politically active w/ nurbanu's growing ambitions & he took smarter, more cunning & dirtier measures than bayezid to win the throne. the battle for the throne was bloody; resorting to honour like mustafa did was obviously not the best decision & people insult selim for being cunning enough [or being influenced by cunning people] to win the throne. let's also keep in mind that selim didn't even have much of an interest for the throne until manisa & nurbanu. i also like his relationship w/ nurbanu. it paralleled suleyman & hurrem's w/ the concubine arcs but selim did end up being monogamous to her in the show. their chemistry was fantastic [props to engin & merve for their acting] and although i don't really enjoy the 'a woman makes a man strong & influences him in everything; good or evil' kind of take, i did enjoy their relationship [he also sometimes looked at her like she was this ethereal type miracle, appropriately so w/ her courage]. i like what the show did w/ bayezid's execution a lot, the whole scene was such a wonderful cinematic experience; the music, bayezid's agonizing screams, his sons falling one by one, selim crying because he didn't want it to end up this way, bayezid falling & his screams ceasing, selim's heartbroken face because he was always a soft person & he always loved bayezid;

ahh, what a scene, so much love for it. anyway, that's just my opinion; i think he's hated way more than he deserves, especially in comparison to other characters & he's actually one of my most favourite characters from s4 [but i honestly love all characters w/ their good & bad, mc has many complex characters & i live for it]. what do you think about selim? sorry if you got annoyed at the long ask, i can get really heated when talking about selim [especially in reference to his historical figure], hope you don't mind if❤ [if it is annoying i'll stop it]

(okay, I'll talk strictly about the show, since I don't feel like delving deep into historical waters. There is still stuff we don't know for sure and I do want to keep the line between show and history in my head, except for the similar themes.)

While he isn't particularly my favorite character, I appreciate MC Selim and he is a very interesting subject when it comes to analyzing him. I'm actually amazed with what the show did with him in the span of a season (and something, counting some S02B and S03B moments) - he was one of the most fleshed out characters in S04 and we could get a clear picture as to why he does what he does.

Some people consider his debut to be an insult, for it immediately showed some of his weaknesses, putting him in a bad light right out of the gate. But all I can see in this debut is a showcase of his predicament of the prince no one sees as a capable heir of the throne. It’s as if he sleeps with women and drinks as a coping mechanism he’s delved into, with Mihrimah having to do effort to snap him out of it. The Selim we see in the beginning of S04 is a hopeless person. He doesn’t have dreams and ambitions, it’s as if he’s a already a lost cause and he has no one to truly support him. Even Hürrem wanted to send him to Manisa not because she deemed him as worthy, but to use him as a shield in order to deceive her enemies and protect the actual favorite. That may seem like a clever plan, but in actuality, it failed spectacularly - not only did her enemies not get confused for a second and didn’t attack Selim at all, but she forgot to tell Bayezid why she did it and made Selim confused to the point of demotivation, because none of his brothers were truly happy with this decision and they were all opposing it, directly and indirectly. And while he may not show it that much, because of his more composed and pragmatic nature, Selim is sensitive to the opinions of his brothers and the people around him and their prevailing disapproval may be a part of why he became so different than the rest. It’s like no one wanted to get to know him.

Nurbanu’s entrance in Selim’s life is very cathartic in this aspect, for she actually worked with him and gave him the needed motivation and ambition to fight, awaking sides of him that were dormant for a long time. And yes, I do think that Selim’s pragmatism is something he always had, if the whole arrow incident in S03B where he sabotaged Bayezid’s arrow, which caused him to lose is any indication.

{I don’t think that the quarrels Selim and Bayezid had when they were little are so much indicators of Selim’s personality as they are foreshadowing of their future conflict. Right, these quarrels are normal for siblings and Mehmet and Mihrimah also fought like that (heck, even little Mehmet and Mustafa had a fight once in S01 and that fight was used as the conflict of the remainder of that one episode), but they weren’t as frequent as the ones of Selim and Bayezid. I don’t know, it’s just the atmosphere of these scenes was different and hinted at something more. It could be because we know the historical events and we could see every tiniest bit of early sibling rivalry between them as build-up, but still, I always felt there just was something else. Like the whole arrow incident I mentioned, a presumably harmless little situation gains a whole other meaning later on. It sets up neatly Süleiman’s opinions of both of them (his reaction to apparent disobedience and the making of a scene by someone he doesn’t expect to, by which I mean Bayezid), Hürrem’s retroactive ignorance of a possible bigger enmity and the roots of the whole conflict. It’s not Selim deciding to sabotage Bayezid’s performance as a last resort, maybe knowing that he surely won’t do better than his brother (doing a pretty typical ,,prank’’ for a little, naughty kid) that is exemplary of his cunning later, it’s his validation and him getting away with it that eventually becomes it, just like how he ends up getting away with stuff in the next season. Selim definetly isn’t the instigator of all the fights, especially because Bayezid, thanks to his more impulsive nature, is much more likely to start a fight in the first place and contrasts to Selim’s overall better composure. Provokations among them were mutual and both were consistently throwing darts at each other, one after another. Their conflict is a very nuanced issue: while people try to play right and wrong, both sides were at fault one way or another. The conflict between them is mostly caused by insensitivity, favoritism and ignorance and the desperation of both to try to prove themselves to their parents and win their support, at the end of the day. Why did they always calm down in front of their mother? Not only because of their joint respect for her, but also because of these same attempts to earn her support. Even Bayezid, who obviously had to be sure of her support, wasn’t completely certain of it after Hurrem turned it on Selim for a while. Selim, on the other hand, obviously never felt her support, it’s like something was missing right from the start. Combine that with their completely opposing personalities and the whole system encouraging competition for the throne and there you have the inevitable ultimate conclusion. That’s why I also love the set-up, the pay-off and the aftermath of Bayezid’s execution. It may be historically inaccurate that Selim, not Süleiman, executed Bayezid, but when you think about it, it was the most logical thing that could’ve happened, ending their conflict with a heart-wrenching bow. I love the scene of the execution itself, too - the action, the dialogue, the direction, the character moments, the themes... I don’t know whether Selim loved Bayezid by that point, per say, after all they went through, but it was clear that he knew that he had to do it, that it couldn’t have ended any other way, but he was broken over it. He was aware that it was, ultimately, a sin, which would continue haunting him. He couldn’t catch a break afterwards, he couldn’t stop. All was solved, but at what cost?}

I love his dynamic with Nurbanu - they balanced each other off so well, their chemistry was amazing, such a power couple. Nurbanu’s biggest contribution is hiding some of his flaws and mobilizing him to fight. Her cold pragmatism ,,grounds’’ Selim’s softer side, she’s there to always remind him of the stakes of the game and to shut off the last ounces of his vulnerabilities after Hurrem died. He sure is influenced by her, but that doesn’t mean that he blindly takes her word for everything - he is always ready to call her out when necessary and assure her that there are lines she shouldn’t cross. Despite of her pleas, he kept having affairs with other women (that is honestly a trend with all the men of the show, but still..), he got mad at her after what happened to Huricihan and most notably, after he found out that she possibly stole his mother’s ring. A part of why their dynamic works so well is precisely this strenght of character and their awesome compatibility.

I have heard affirmations that Selim doesn’t care about Mustafa, which... simply isn’t true? While they have the least scenes together and Selim is the one that considers him most as a rival and his most dangerous competitor for the throne (which would explain his startled reaction after Musti saved him from the janissary), it’s precisely Mustafa’s death that is the turning point of his character arc. He was upping his game slowly but surely and before then, but he didn’t do much in terms of attacks. Neither Selim, nor Nurbanu once considered attacking Mustafa, the supposed biggest danger to them, which I find respectable and admirable. The bomb with the death drops and then every hope about a fair game is abandoned. Selim gets the realization that being honorable won’t work. The only way to win is bend the system and play dirty. There’s no time for sitting around or looking nice. And even though Nurbanu realized this, too, as well as Selim, Nurbanu was always more inclined to act this way than him and now the righteousness of her methods were only getting confirmed. It was Selim that had to reach this end. Discovering that he is no longer allowed to show any kind of weakness. Every chance that appears on the horizon, he’ll take it. That brings him to his first true dirty plan - the trap he set through the fake Mustafa rebellion.

Speaking of which, the worst deed of Selim’s for me is connected to that rebellion. I know I may be very biased in this regard, since it affects my personal favorite character and isn’t as recalled as others, but I hated when, in Selim and Sokollu’s attempts to wash their hands from the pulled off stunt, Sokollu, his man, told SS that Mahidevran was giving money to the rebellion. Okay, it’s not said outright whether is this directly tied to Selim or it was something Sokollu himself came up with out of desperation or something (though it was hinted that both thought something through in a scene where both were saying that they should come clean out of this all somehow) and it’s not outrightly confirmed whether Mahidevran gave the money or not (I highly doubt she did it; not only because it would destroy her whole S04 arc and she would become, well... MCK Gulbahar, but also because after the messenger told her of her alleged blame in E129, her eyes widened in surprise.), but all it does is be the only explicit case where Selim indeed looks bad, for his proposal to return Mahidevran in the castle doesn’t seem to stem from genuine guilt and remorse, but rather a late and empty attempt to placate his own conscience. Oh, not to mention (for the upteenth time, sorry in advance) how the scene back in E58 where Hurrem tells Mahidevran that her kids will be there taking care for her when she’s alone, which was treated as some big foreshadowing in the show, as well, by both the voice of the S02B narrative and the fandom alike, loses its value even more with that framing, because Selim and Sokollu themselves brought her to this state in the first place!!! Despite it making sense anyway, it’s still such a disservice to Selim as a person both inside and outside of the writing.

One aspect of Selim’s pragmatism I find most interesting is his ability to turn his enemies into allies, knowing exactly how to amass them and get them on his side, be it through giving them more money and promising them the world. These alliances are all opportunistic in nature and may not be as loyal as those of Mustafa’s or of Mustafa’s people (like Atmaca) with Bayezid, but I think Selim knows this and wants to keep them steady enough for the common goal. As for what kind of a padisah he’ll be.... I believe that state matters would be the least of his concerns, since he was shown to not care so much about them, compared to his other brothers (but then again, the show itself doesn’t put the political capability of the princes at center stage - their personal virtues are always the determining factor of what makes a good padisah and what doesn’t, more of a psychological outlook, if you will.) and he perhaps won’t plan as many campaigns or conquer as many territories, maybe he won’t be that successful at all, but his cunning would bring him advantage in front of his people, he will be at least a bit careful of who he’s choosing and won’t simply lose it in front of everyone, compared to Bayezid’s impulsive temper.

[I love Bayezid as a character, but the shadier aspects of his personality sure tend to be overlooked. While his anger is directed mainly at Selim and Suleiman, it often reaches such extremes to the point it becomes destructive and affects everyone. He doesn’t deserve his execution at all and most of his actions stem from a very sympathetic place, given how SS never truly gave him a chance and he went on the inevitable path, because he, just like Selim, realized that honor won’t work in this war, but took the opposite approach from Mustafa, direct rebellion. And predictably, both approaches didn’t work since Bayezid, too, was taken advantage of. While he didn’t get justice, the lead-up to his execution is a character arc of his and there are many reasons and events linking it all together and showing us why it took place the way it did.]

Selim’s dynamic with Suleiman is proof of how you can be presumably favored, but you have to work to get there. The reasons Suleiman favored him are very telling and sad and we see that he also doesn’t favor him because of any and all capabilities he may have, but because of his self-imposed distorted view of loyalty Selim has to do a lot to preserve, actually. He constantly has to make it so it looks like he’s loyal and obedient and doesn’t work behind his back. He doesn’t get the fullest appreciation from his father, as well, and I certainly feel it impacts him, in a way.

I agree that Mihrimah could be unfair to Selim. They weren’t that close and she had this open preference to Bayezid. Most annoyingly is when, in their confrontation in E139, which highlights even more their parallel sins, Mihrimah doesn’t seem to face that sin of hers when Selim calls her out on it. She has a reason to deeply resent him after what he did to Bayezid, but was offended when he reminded her of the crime she also committed. More solidarity on that front would be a bit better, at least a hint of like recognizing like even for a moment. (but maybe then her scene with Mahidevran later wouldn’t be as impactful? Huh.)

And lastly, about his drinking - Nurbanu tried to restrict him, but it’s true that such habits aren’t easy to give up on, especially knowing how his drinking is a coping mechanism as much as it is something he enjoys. He knows he shouldn’t do it, he’s told he shouldn’t do it, but he can’t help it. He doesn’t drink when he’s planning or scheming, but he keeps on doing it more and more with every problematic action of his. It’s an attempt to supress his otherwise strong conscience to the max, seeing how after his brother’s execution he apparently always took a drink when he was alone at night, fighting an inner conflict with himself. I don’t think there was a way he could stop doing it permanently in the show. It was a part of who he was, unfortunately or not.

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #muhtesem yuzyil #sehzade selim #ask #mihrimah-sultan-can-rail-me

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fandumbstuff · 3 years

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The Star Wars Saga, ranked best to worst.

1. The Empire Strikes Back Directed by Irvin Kershner

Upon close consideration, I’ve come to the shocking conclusion that Empire is the best Star Wars film. There’s a wealth of world-building and character development here that in many ways makes Star Wars the living breathing universe it is now. A richly complex melodrama lies at the heart of Empire, giving a whole new meaning to the term “space opera”. The performances here are some of the strongest in the entire franchise. Mark Hamill not only fleshes out Luke’s character, but in his training with Yoda and his duel with Vader he establishes the profound nature of the force, and how every future character interacts with it. As Han and Leia, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher create authenticity to their characters’ relationship. Often misinterpreted as playfully hostile or sassy, there’s a real and endearing sense of affection between them, particularly in the infamous “I love you”/”I know” line- shedding their previously petty flirtation and affirming their true feelings. The emotional crux of Empire lies not in the most memorable twist, but in the moments immediately following it - In Luke and Leia reaching out to each other, reconnecting a relationship that was lost, rekindling hope in the force after we thought it was lost.

2. A New Hope Directed by George Lucas

I’ll be the first in line to make fun of dorky George Lucas and his woeful attempts at writing dialogue or romance. However, it’s pretty damn impossible to ignore what he achieved with Star Wars in 1977. The sheer audacity of his vision and his determination in executing it despite the naysaying from producers and supposed friends. Lucas had the bold idea of using cinema for it’s absolute worth- more than just a storytelling medium but a theatrical one. A cacaphony of sight and sound that could draw mass audiences and create a lasting impression. It’s a formula that every Hollywood and Bollywood blockbuster strives and more often than not fails to follow. It’s hard to dissociate A New Hope from the cultural phenomenon it helped create, but when you do, it stands as an impressive film on it’s own. Groundbreaking in terms of it’s visual effects and nostalgic in the simplicity of it’s sci-fi serial story, Star Wars ticked all the right boxes for so many people. If I was to boil Star Wars down to an essence, i think it lies in 2 scenes: Luke looking out at the binary sunset on Tattooine, and Han Solo yahooing after the Falcon saves Luke in the Death Star trenches. Those two scenes, Wistfulness and Exuberance, are the two sides of one concept- Adventure. Star Wars ignited those emotions in every child’s imagination, and it’s a flame that’s likely to never go out.

3. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Directed by Gareth Evans

Hard to believe this is a Disney movie. While the house of mouse may have a reputation for emotional gut punches in kids movies, it’s never felt quite so... permanent. Rogue One is an unrelenting emotional journey barelling towards surefire tragedy. We spend moments with characters that seem to be carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. The sense of desperation that permeates the movie almost overpowers any sense of heroism. It’s so unlike anything we’ve seen in a Star Wars movie. Their courage comes from a place that is wholly genuine and believable. We see the rebellion for the despondent group that they are. Sorely outnumbered by the Empire, their actions in this movie show a reckless, darker side to them and makes the morality of Star Wars so much more complex. The first time we meet Cassian Andor- the stand out performace of the film by Diego Luna- we see him kill another rebel to protect their secrets. It’s a movie that reframes the original Star Wars trilogy, making it a richer, complex universe and more intriguing as a result. Also, the last five minutes might be the best five minutes in any Star Wars movie.

4. Return of the Jedi Directed by Richard Marquand

The one sore spot in the original trilogy for me are the Ewoks. I realise it's ridiculous for me to complain about kid-friendly creatures in a kid's movie, but Star Wars has done this a lot more tolerably in the form of Porgs and Baby Yoda. Just something about these furry, Tibetan speaking monsters who somehow have the wherewithal to defeat an elite and well equipped empire rubs me the long way. Anyway, other than that, the movie's pretty fantastic. The culmination of Luke's journey comes to a head in an extremely emotional and effective climax. John Williams score crescendos to operatic heights and Mark Hamill's stellar performance sells Luke’s torment. It’s also worth noting that in those final moments of moral dilemma, Darth Vader is silent- it’s David Prowse’s performance entirely that sells this. His incredible presence throughout the trilogy builds to this moment and you can feel the weight of it in those closeups on Vader. Every other cast member rounds the story out perfectly- from Lando and Han’s playful rapport to Leia’s more militaristic side in planning the rebellions final moves. I still bemoan the fact that they changed the final song- an opinion that I’m apparently a minority on- but it’s a pretty incredible ending altogether and wonderfully cathartic to watch over and over again.

5. The Last Jedi Directed by Rian Johnson

With Last Jedi, Rian Johnson analyzed the universe Star Wars inhabits, and what drives it’s characters. The characters that we love are pushed to their limits, struggle against insurmountable odds and their own innate flaws. And we see all of them fail in turn. It is remarkably bleak, but not without purpose. It is out of this failure that the Resistance needs to recoup and come back stronger. The performances here, are arguably the best you’ll find in the entire franchise. Daisy Ridley has to break down Rey’s naivete and find a deeper sense of self actualization. Adam Driver hands in some of his best work, by swerving the audience into believing Kylo Ren and then creating a desperate plea in THAT throne room scene, and eventually turning him into a snivelling villain, all in the same movie. Mark Hamill’s performance here is heartbreaking- revealing the bleakest version of Luke, and struggling to find his redemption. Last Jedi is a bold deconstuction of these characters, of what they stand for, and what makes Star Wars beautiful.

6. The Force Awakens Directed by J. J. Abrams

In many ways, a safe movie to announce the return of Star Wars. But it’s hard to fault this. Disney’s decision making was shrewd here, bringing on J. J. Abrams to pay homage to George Lucas’ original vision, returning the franchise to it’s roots of practical effects and shooting on film. There was something truly special about experiencing this film in theatres, so much so that I did it eleven times. It captured a sense of wonder for fans new and old- hearing the scream of Tie Fighters, John Williams herald the return of the Millenium Falcon, and the look of awe on Rey’s face as she clutches her destiny in her hand. I’ll be honest, the film loses some of this magic without the shared experience of an audience, and it’s flaws are more noticeable. But being swept up in the excitement of adventure felt so darn good in 2015, and that’s so key to this franchise.

7. Revenge of the Sith Directed by George Lucas

This movie has risen so much in my opinion, entirely due to the animated Clone Wars series. Revenge of the Sith depicts the overwhelming tragedy that frames the original Star Wars. Watching Clone Wars explains explicitly what makes this film so tragic. But it’s more than that- it’s a catastrophic failure on behalf of the Jedi Order. Ignorance and pride allow evil to fester and grow. George Lucas took the simplicity of the moral struggle he established in 1977 and tried to give it depth and complexity with the prequels, and it pays off in Revenge of the Sith. It leads into the original trilogy quite brilliantly, with a promise of hope and resilience.

8. The Phantom Menace Directed by George Lucas

It has not aged well. While the advent of CGI I’m sure felt exciting at the time, and you almost can’t fault George Lucas for his insistence on staying at the forefront of VFX innovation as he has always done, it’s his reliance on so much of it that fails horribly. Like a kid in a candy store, Lucas stuffs the pockets of this film with so many bizarre effects for absolutely no reason. That sea monster scene is one of the worst displays I’ve ever seen and it’s absurd that it sits in a Star Wars film. Add to that the boring political plotline and ridiculous midichlorian dilemma and there’s very little redemptive about this film. However, it does have podracing, and Duel of the Fates, and it’s remarkable how much that salves the wound.

9. The Rise of Skywalker Directed by J. J. Abrams

Alright, well obviously this film has been problematic. However, I’m not about to bemoan the idea that Disney has ruined Star Wars and I have nothing left to live for. So let’s all just calm down. Ultimately J. J. Abrams was faced with the impossible task of wrapping up the Skywalker saga, with very few Skywalkers to work with. I firmly believe this would have been a very different film if Carrie Fisher was around to complete her performance. But left with nothing but the new cast, Abrams is caught between summing up the past while also looking to the future. It forces an awkward plotline with Palpatine- despite Ian McDiarmid's solid performance, the writing here seems wildly derivative of the franchise. There are some truly beautiful scenes, most notably the chemistry that Adam Driver gets to share with Harrison Ford, and Joonas Suotamo’s critically emotional outburst as Chewbacca. Some of the production design and score is so entirely different from the rest of the franchise it's inherently intriguing. But there’s very little here to save some of the poorer choices the film makes: the open plot hole with Finn, the derailing of Rey’s character development, and most crucially, the deeply perturbing culmination of Rey and Kylo’s relationship. The audience literally went “ew”.

10. Solo: A Star Wars Story Directed by Ron Howard

The biggest problem with Solo is that it operates under the presumption that people will be enamoured and invested in it. Not just in one movie, but in an entire series of movies. Solo clearly operates as a setup for further sequels. As a result, many plot lines remain unresolved, and Qi’ra winds up being a completely under-baked character. Her motivations make no sense, and a twist ending that I assume was supposed to be exciting is instead downright confusing. There’s a lot of unnecessary exposition into Han’s past too. As an origin story, I don’t need to know every aspect of Han’s past- especially not cute winks at inane things like “Why’s he called Solo?”. All this being said, The movie features some solid performances- Donald Glover is expectedly phenomenal as Lando, and Alden Ehrenreich excels as Solo, adding some welcome flavour to the character- particularly his friendship with Chewbacca, and a brilliantly executed final scene between him and Woody Harrelson’s Beckett.

11. Attack of the Clones Directed by George Lucas

How in the world this film made it all the way to production and into filming, with no one pulling Lucas aside and saying “Hey George, those kids have no chemistry” is beyond me. And I’m not going to blame Hayden Christensen or Natalie Portman on this one, because the whole damn love story makes no sense. Maybe falling for a dude who admits he murdered women and children isn’t such a great idea? Then there’s the increasingly convoluted political climate set up in Phantom Menace, and the machinations of the dark side that would take the entire Clone Wars series to fully explain. All this being said, Temuera Morrison, Samuel L. Jackson, Ewan MacGregor AND Christopher Lee are all in this movie. And they’re pretty damn fantastic.

12. The Clone Wars Directed by Dave Filoni

It’s inexplicable that Dave Filoni would go on to have a hand in some of the best Star Wars content ever made in Clone Wars, Rebels and the Mandalorian. And yet he got his start in the franchise by putting up this piece of junk. And junk is being a little generous. The humour is so juvenile it’s insulting to even the youngest of audiences it’s intended for. The plotline feels way to thin to warrant a feature film, and if this was in fact intended as a pilot for the TV series, they sure picked to most uninteresting story to pique our interest. Skip the movie, watch the show.

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justjstuff · 4 years

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Ramblings for a SK fic I wanna write

. Amaru isn’t all bad, she’s evil and conniving but she’s also smart and resourceful. Kate learns with her.. She hates how much she enjoys the power, her previously innocent confidence sharpened into something meaner and that allowed her to be better.

. Kate cries for the girl she was but what keeps her up at night is the fact that she doesn’t want to go back to that.

. It takes a bit of time for Seth and Richie to get used to it. Seth wants to give her life back, but doesn’t quite understand how she could want this life with them.

. Richie understands the freedom that comes with being burned alive and reborn from your own ashes.

. Amaru taught her body how to fight, how to entice and command—and Kate was already bossy before, a natural leader when needed, a great liar always—she taught Kate how to take what she was owed.

. Kate has nightmares most of the nights except they’re not dark images her mind came up with, they’re real memories of what she had done when Amaru was in charge of her body.

. She had been tired. Kate had been tired and Amaru loved to play games. It had started with simple things, let me have this night to do what I want without you fighting me every step of the way and I’ll never bring up the memory of you shooting Seth full of poison again.

. Amaru was many things, but she wasn’t a liar and she always kept her promises. Kate couldn’t help but learn how to play the game. Watch your cues and adapt, Seth had taught her once in their car just before a heist and Kate had always been a stellar student.

. The thing with a mental bond like the one they had is that it’s never just one way. Whatever Amaru had managed to glimpse from Kate’s mind, Kate could see right back in hers.

. In six months, Kate has lived millennia. She had watched the dawn of day and the dusk falling all around her and even when Amaru was gone, a part of it remained, it had already shaped her body and mind into something else.

. Her muscles were strong from months of training, the register her voice fell in no longer the sweet tilt her Daddy and Momma had always preferred. It was now lower, huskier, like she wasn’t used to talking anymore. In a way, that was true. Kate had screamed during those six months and nothing much else.

. There was still light inside of her, she knew. It wasn’t the purity that Professor Tanner had been obsessed with, no. It was something sharper, more potent in a way. It was like a beam of light sharpened by the Sun God himself; Kate could say that with certainty because she had him in the palm of her hands once, at her mercy. Kate was strong.

. Time spent with Richie was calm and she could truly be herself. The words of anger and hurt she had spoken to him as she bled out at his feet were long forgotten, influenced at that time by the dark, heavy magic of the sacred ground she had died on. That anger and resentfulness was gone, she never really blamed the brothers even when she probably should have, but there was still a restless energy that demanded she take back what was taken from her that he could understand.

. Time spent with Seth was… unsettlingly hard. It had never been quite like this between the two of them, even back then on the dirt roads of small Mexican towns. Back then they had clashed and fought but found that they fit in a way that was both unexpected and comforting (maybe too comforting and that had made them both push back and build already crumbling walls between them).

. Now… Seth was afraid. He was afraid to have to lose her again, to see her walk away from them when she got tired like his mother had done. He was afraid to fall back into their same routine because he had gotten comfortable with it once only to lose it, lose her and experience had only made him wary.

. That grated heavily on Kate’s already irritable personality, only this time Seth took a step back every time the tension between them became too much. It took three weeks of constantly being circling around each other for Kate to find just which buttons to push to get him to come back to himself.

. Their fight could be heard all the way up in Jacknife Jed’s bar. It was massive and explosive like their usual fights during their four months alone, only this time it felt cathartic and didn’t leave either of them regretting their words.

. This fight ended with a kiss, because of course it did, it was always leading towards that between the two of them, and Seth looked for a second like he would step back and give her an out. Kate’s eyes told him clearly and without room for interpretation that she would fucking kick his ass if he backed out at that moment.

Post S3, Seth/Kate, The Tres Geckos and how they left Matanzas. I haven’t finished rewatching the series (I watched it as it was releasing lol) and there’s probably a lot wrong here but I just wanted to put it out there bc these two won’t leave me alone and I’m so interested in how Amaru affected Kate and how the Gecko Brothers dealt with it all.

I have so many headcanons for it it’s insane. Someone help.

#sethkate #seth and kate #SK #from dusk till dawn: the series #FDTD #Seth Gecko #Kate Fuller #Richie Gecko #Amaru #PTSD I guess #fanfiction #fanfiction ideas #los tres geckos #the three geckos #FDTD Post S3

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tigerdrop · 4 years

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hey i just wanna say the long posts genuinely make my day. also can you talk more about gordon freeman character because the way you write him makes me quake in my gay little boots

i would love to talk about gordon freeman. thank u for the opportunity

the first thing i need to communicate about gordon is that this dude sucks. and i say this in the fondest way possible. he is a bitch from the moment he drops into the world until the moment he goes out. if you dont believe me, give it another watch! gordons mouthy and rude for no real reason, at least so far as “being a regular dude on his way into work” goes, and this dude goes around calling his coworkers names with zero provocation. (of course, we all know that the reason is because its a funny guy improv stream that borrows a bit from freemans mind, but im talkin from a character sense.)

but my argument isnt just that gordon freeman sucks. its that he sucks in a very specific way that i find insanely endearing. i love this dude. i love to hate him. hes awful in a very mundane sense - weve all known a guy like this, at least if youve spent too much time online - and its cathartic to watch him suffer because of it.

gordons a smart guy. as written, hes gotta be - hes a recent MIT grad, on his way to work at a top-secret research facility to do weird shit with crystals and theoretical physics. but the thing about smart guys is that theyre often......selectively intelligent. we can see this in the way that he has a hard time navigating his surroundings, and needs the science crew to guide him through it and keep him alive.

this is one of those things that is a natural consequence of somebody going through the game for the first time, but that i am interpreting as “gordon is kind of stupid sometimes”. its uncharitable but its not like he doesnt deserve it. he likes to boss around the crew as if he knows what hes doing, when he often very much does not, and is fond of demeaning their intelligence. hes real bad about this with tommy in particular, treating him like hes a kid whos playing at being a scientist when tommy is actually a decade older than him. all i am saying is that gordon ought to stay humble. hes awful cocky when he perceives himself as better than others.

which, i think, tracks with how cocky he gets when he gives up on the whole “well-meaning citizen” thing and just unloads bullets into people. he puts up a front of being a Nice Guy, you know, just some dude caught in a bad situation who doesnt like seeing his companions obliterate every NPC they come across, but that doesnt stop him from cackling like a fucking madman and mowing down aliens (and soldiers) every once in awhile. when he stops seeing himself as helpless and starts seeing himself as the one in control, the gloves come off. he gets mean. and i think thats very sexy of him

this, among other things, is why i am insistent that gordon freeman is a control freak. he desperately wants to be in control of the situation at all times, shepherding around the science crew primarily by bitching at them, but its of limited success. its futile. sisyphean. tommy, coomer, bubby, and benrey exist almost to torment him with exactly the thing that would make him suffer the most: a gaggle of people running around causing problems for him, but he cant go anywhere without them b/c hes reliant on them to make it out alive.

its perpetual suffering, and its cathartic to watch. and funny, too. and if youre a little weirdo like me, its very, very enjoyable. how twisted up he gets when nobodys listening to him! how sweaty and frazzled he must look. its cute, and it also makes me want to reach through the screen and shake him and tell him to just be a little nicer. he wants control but he doesnt know how to attain it, he doesnt know how to play nice like a real leader. i think its a neat contrast to gordon freeman as we know him in HL2, where he literally is the leader of the resistance and has to live up to it. this is gordon freeman but if he was moe through helplessness.

“helpless” is, i think, a great way to describe him. a core bit of imagery in half life is this sense of railroadedness and helplessness, with gordon freeman being put into play like a chess piece and having no choice but to move forward. and this iteration of gordon leans into that by being totally dependent on the science crew in order to make progress and Not Die. and hes also subject to the whims of benrey, local eldritch weirdo who has basically made it his life mission to fuck with gordon.

gordons anxieties dont help with that. if he wasnt so fun to stress out and fuck with, the science crew probably wouldnt do it so much! too bad for him that they like fucking with him so much that he was driven into a panic attack (multiple times, even, depending on your interpretation). hes got that real neurotic mindset. always worrying about shit that could go wrong, and attempting to exert control over his surroundings in an effort to control the anxiety.

IMO the real way to nail the Neurotic Gordon Freeman Experience is to combine the ever-present anxiety with his pervasive sense of self-loathing. he openly states that he has no friends and nobody seems to like him, and to that, i really gotta say, i wonder why. he doesnt really seem to factor in that hes kind of a bitch, and has way too high an estimation of his own intelligence relative to everybody elses. its really one of the worst ways to be: aware that people dont like you, but unaware of exactly why. if he was like, 10% nicer, he probably wouldnt have had half as many issues getting through black mesa, but also, its funny to see him squawking his way through the game. so, you know.

its stuff like that that makes me headcanon him as a dude with low self-esteem in general. convinced that hes not likable, not attractive, out of his element......impostor syndrome, except that theres some truth to it. this is a guy who truly does not realize how good he has it: he really is just an average shitty dude, and yet, somehow, benrey took a shine to him. some poor motherfucker out there actually likes him and wants to suck his dick. thats dedication

also, i keep bringing up “repression” when i talk about gordon. and hopefully, what ive been talking about helps explain why. he has a strong desire to be a regular dude, not just murdering his way through black mesa, but if hes pushed hard enough he leans into it. gets bossy. picks up a cigar off a dead soldier and takes a long drag, before smacking forzen around with a pistol and ordering him around. gordon freeman is a regular, kind of anxious guy who likes competitive swimming and streaming on justin.tv and making anime references, and he is also a guy who takes a filthy pleasure in making a trained soldier his bitch. and i didnt make up any of this shit - this is purestrain canon, baby. this is a guy with problems

to me, this screams the kind of guy who represses a lot of shit b/c he doesnt feel like its morally decent. you run into this guy a lot online: the wokeboy, the online leftist, the guy who spends too much time on social media websites. (like reddit. i think he would actively use reddit and he would never get any appreciable amount of karma but he never stops posting. its sisyphean! cathartic.) from the way he talks about “bootboys”, i think it tracks. he knows about imperialism, he knows about feminism, but at the end of the day hes your average american white dude who struggles with internalizing it.

a lot of those dudes struggle with sex and gender issues. (dont we all.) when youre trying to be a Good Person(tm), you spend a lot of time thinking about your own relationship to sex and kink and all that shit. and i maintain that a too-online dude who buries a lot of his control freak tendencies would also try to bury a lot of weird sexual shit in an attempt to seem Normal and Well-Adjusted and not like a little freak. i justify this by the sheer number of times gordon blurts out weird sex shit as a joke. there are only two outcomes to making that many piss jokes: either youre secretly a piss guy, or you lathe-of-heaven yourself into becoming one. i will stand by this

ive talked a lot about why this dude sucks. now, let me talk to you about what makes gordon so much fun to write. first things first: hes funny! a subjective evaluation, yeah, but both in- and out-of-character, hes aiming to be funny. and being the straight man to everybody else plays into that whole “helplessness” thing.

secondly: underneath it all, there is a good dude under there. gordon worries when his companions get hurt, he tries to clean them off and patch them up, and hes got his lil leftist heart in the right place. you could even read a lot of his bossy, bitchy demeanor as him wanting to make sure everyone gets out okay and doesnt hurt themselves. when it comes to animals and anti-imperialist sentiment, gordons a pretty good guy.

hes the kind of guy who would probably see a dog on the street and get excited and play with it, but would get really prickly about the correct way to put dishes in the dishwasher. control freak tendencies.

finally, subjecting such a miserable, tormented guy to even more psychological anguish is really, really fun. you feel a little bad for him, but he kind of deserves it. so many problems he goes through are purely of his own making, and if gordon would just relax and quit trying to hard to maintain control - of himself, of the people around him - and own up to having Problems and Issues, he would be a happier guy. but thats why its fun to bend him until he breaks. being a little control freak myself, putting gordon freeman thru psychosexual torment is cathartic.

when it comes to writing his thought processes, the fact that he is canonically some kind of psychotic (yes, i am boldly claiming this. suck me) and i am also canonically some kind of psychotic makes it easier to write what i think his thought processes are. i just give him my brain issues of “getting lost in thought” and “overthinking fucking everything”. a touch of paranoia helps. even if i dont explicitly label him as schizophrenic please know that i am writing him as a paranoid little nutcase at all times because, uh, you write what you know.

paranoid. anxious. of the mindset that everyones out to get him (which isnt helpful when everyone is out to get him). repressed and deeply Not Normal but trying so very fucking hard to be normal and well-adjusted. a control freak with sadistic tendencies who also really, really likes getting bullied by his best frenemy. a hapless little nerd who sounds really cute when his voice starts to break from nerves. and, most importantly, a dumb jock. do not ever forget this.

thats gordon freeman, babey. hope that helps

#asky #careposting

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