#which wouldn’t do anything for me except for make me feel 1000x worse about my current situation

[pollenallergie]

:/

[caligobeltrao]

I for one would love 2 hear ur thoughts on the hannibal novel 👀👀 - bloodybrahms ☺

ahhh thank you BB!! <3 I’m gonna throw it under a cut bc I know people aren’t gonna want my ramblings clogging up their dash lol. 

Edit after I’ve written it: Holy shit this turned into a monster but tbf I did say I was going to rant. I think I miss writing college essays...

Also, I would like to note bc I’m about to bitch, I do still love Hannibal and Clarice and all of the franchise. Hell, I even love book Hannibal because I’m garbage and want to be special. So yeah. It’s a fond bitching. 

Okay where to fuckin begin man... This novel was a fucking Shit Show, my dudes. It was like baby’s first fanfiction. 

Let’s just jump in, shall we? 

So by now, having read both Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, I know Harris injects of lot of sexual shit into his novels, fine whatever, but the amount of pedophilia is insane. Like, Red Dragon with the grandmother threatening to cut his dick off by holding it in between scissors????? And then we have Mason Verger, worst human on the planet. Like jfc I’ll go into him specifically more later but just. Men. Why does it always have to be sexual. 

Like that time Clarice wasn’t wearing a bra and she wanted to prove to Paul Krendler she wasn’t wearing a wire so she flashed him her tits?? Unnecessary, Harris. Bullshit on all counts. 

Next, poor Ardelia Mapp. So he clearly wrote out her accent in Silence, which frankly reads racist since to me it seemed like he did it every time a character of color was met but he didn’t for Clarice’s Southern accent except for this book when she was talking to Ardelia. Now, that’d be a cool way to show how close they are, sure, but it just... She didn’t show up enough to warrant that reaction from me, plus all the other casually racist shit he throws in. 

Ardelia’s literally there as the wise Black best friend to help Clarice along. She doesn’t feel like her own character, she’s only there in conjunction with her, or doing something for her. She was the fucking valedictorian for Christ fucking sake, she also works at the Bureau but if her department was mentioned it was only once in passing. She was not a full character which fucking blows because she could’ve been so cool. 

And real quick before I forget, I hate how she’s treated in the end. I do like she gets a reference and that brainwashed Clarice sent her an emerald ring and a note saying she was okay, but Ardelia was abandoned by her best friend (that she had lived with) with not even a phone call and they will never see each other again and I think Ardelia knows it. It sucks and I’m heartbroken for this woman. 

I’m gonna touch a little bit on the racism too. Now I’m white and not the most qualified to talk about this shit, but I do wanna mention it because it makes me mad. There’s just so many unnecessary slurs, any POC is more of a background helper character to Clarice than anything or a foil. 

For example, Evelda Drumgo. She starts us off. Badass Black woman who runs a drug cartel. She chooses to shoot at Clarice and risk her baby’s life, and we have Clarice wash the baby off and save his life. Then Evelda’s mother is written as irrational when she slaps Clarice for visiting the baby in the hospital; I get Clarice’s impulse, but that woman just lost her daughter because Clarice killed her. I would’ve slapped Clarice too, even if it was a totally justifiable shot. 

The baby himself is used as a foil throughout other parts, most notably to me when Clarice goes to visit Mason the first time. There are two Black boys from a foster home playing in a room with a camera so Mason can watch them, and it shakes Clarice up a lil bit because of the baby, but it says she’s getting more used to it.

Now this is half and half well written and shoddy to me. It’d be a cool moment, if the whole incident wasn’t nearly completely forgotten for the rest of the book shortly afterword. It could show growth, if Clarice had any growth to show. 

And then the Romani people who are literally just used and thrown away. Sickening. Also very broadly used the stereotypes we hear which Sucks; the three we meet in any sort of depth are pickpockets, one was already in jail and Pazzi used his leverage as a police officer to get her to do what he wanted and threatened to have her baby taken away from her permanently, like it was just bad. And then the man got killed. Pazzi let him bleed out. Asshole. 

The slurs. I could take out all of them and pretty much have the same damn thing. Like I get showing negative aspects of characters and just because a character’s racist doesn’t mean the author is, but with the characters already being as shitty as they are, fully didn’t need it to make them worse. Entirely unnecessary. Racism or the character being racist has no impact on the plot is the major thing, I think. And you can replace that with anything along those lines, like sexist, homophobic, transphobic. It didn’t impact the plot, they can still be shitty, you just don’t need to use them. 

This also goes in reference to Margot being a lesbian. And the transphobia holy shit, it was disgusting. Harris had Clarice think something so cruel and unnecessary it’s like my guy why was that even remotely something we needed to hear. We didn’t. I wanted to stop reading because that’s not my Clarice, first and foremost, and second, this is supposed to be the character we LIKE. And now I don’t like ANYBODY in this damn book. 

And he treats Margot like shit too, and Barney. 

Their friendship was beautiful and great and finally for once something nice was happening in Margot’s life and I was happy reading it, and then FOR SOME REASON Margot goes to shower in the same room as Barney after a workout, which makes no sense, and then Barney tries to force a kiss on her (and he was hard, Harris made that very clear) and she had been sexually assaulted by Mason her brother and ruin the whole damn thing and none of it would have changed any other piece of the novel if you removed it!!!!!!!!! Entirely unnecessary!!!!!! And Barney had the gall to say well I couldn’t help myself like none of that was realistic in the slightest, she never would have went in the same room to shower with him. 

Something you need to do is basically get some suspension of disbelief from your reader and maintain and stretch that as you go, right? Well mine was gone at that moment.

Also side note Margot is basically just there to show how shitty Mason is for the umpteenth time. Her whole thing is lesbian sexual assault victim.

Also heavily implied she was a lesbian because of the sexual assault. And we rarely see Judy, her girlfriend, so. Bad. Bad all around. 

Circling back around to Clarice and how disappointing she is in the books as compared to the movies. Well, Clarice is also a poorly written character. She’s 1000x better in the movie. Hell, she’s even better in this book than she was in Silence, but that’s not fucking hard. 

Pretty much all the characters are so flat they don’t even classify as two dimensional. 

Like sure, maybe we wanna say Clarice didn’t really solve much in the first book and was just handed everything because she was a trainee and that’s what Hannibal wanted. 

Like if you remember the John Mulaney sketch of Delta Airlines where he’s just going “Okay!” and running to the next place he’s told, that’s Clarice. 

Okay so why does she get goaded into all this shit now? She should know better. She should know how to handle herself better. Like she messes up basic fucking shit like clearing a room before untying Hannibal, which was stupid, she seems oblivious to some of the politics at work even though she’s been in the FBI for like 7 years now, she would at least have more fucking contacts than Brigham who died in the beginning and Jack Crawford who died at the end by rolling over in his bed to his dead wife’s side and Ardelia who would be near the same level as Clarice I guess but I still don’t know her damn department???? Like you fucking network. 

Plus after her final fall from grace with the FBI, we meet or are told of random side characters that go no where and do nothing just to say “hey look at my special little girl, everyone likes her and looks up to her!!” Why? Because she caught Buffalo Bill 7 years ago and then never got a promotion or even worked with the BAU? Again, it does not make sense. People may pity her? But a random girl in the lab wouldn’t be fangirling. Starling herself said her career had gone nowhere because of the politics and not sleeping with Paul. You need to show me why she’s likable in her actions not others words. 

We spend more time away from her than with her anyways but Jesus. 

AND HER IN THE ENDING. She was fucking BRAINWASHED????? Bull FUCKING SHIT. He completely ruined anything he even remotely might’ve had in this cluster fuck of a novel. 

Case in point, difference from the movie, Hannibal spends weeks (possibly? it’s left purposefully vague and I’m guessing that’s because Harris didn’t know the ins and outs and wanted his novel done) meticulously brainwashing Clarice, he had stolen her father’s bones and she’s so far gone at that point she doesn’t care, and the whole scene where Paul is getting his brain eaten? Yeah, she happily indulges and when he insults her, she asks Hannibal for more. Fuck you, Thomas Harris. 

And Hannibal’s a Gary Stu, fucking fight me. 

In the movie he either is or he’s tap dancing on that line, don’t get me wrong, but in the novels it’s insufferable because it doesn’t seem earned. The pigs didn’t attack him because they didn’t smell fear on him. No. He’s easily able to drug and brainwash Clarice and take her as his lover. No. Go away. He’s so smart and one step ahead and can manipulate anyone and everyone into doing what he wants and blah blah blah shut up! A character being perfect isn’t interesting even if he’s evil!! We all know he’s never truly in danger because of how Harris writes him and that’s boring!! 

And I personally have a pet peeve where the villain is described as a monster or unstoppable. That’s boring and I no longer care about your story. I know 9 times out of 10 your main character is going to find a bullshit way around the impossible and kill it. Or it’s just like a default personality and nothing else is added to it. And that’s Hannibal. 

I’m on Hannibal Rising now and, spoiler alert, he’s very bland as a character. (Also Harris switched some details in the novel which kinda annoys me like get your own canon right my man but whatever.) The plot itself is pretty fun? I guess? Like there’s action and stuff and I’m enjoying that. But it’s the same set up where Harris’s Gary Stu always wins, like he was 13 in the book when he killed the butcher. Let. Your. Characters. Lose. 

Also even more racist shit but what did I expect really. 

Anyways, I have no idea who I’m supposed to root for in the novel because all the characters are just kinda shitty. It really just boils down to Harris not showing any redeeming qualities or actions from any of his characters. I liked Margot for a while out of spite but she never really went anywhere and the way she killed Mason (btw she sodomized him with a cattle prod to get his semen bc side plot and then stuffed his Moray eel down his throat and somehow I still don’t think that’s the worst part of the novel) just. No thanks really. 

All the random little side plots were also pretty not great. How many time does Harris have to say Pazzi of the Pazzis? Like I fucking get what you’re going for, even if I hadn’t watched the movie I’d be like, “Oh this dude’s gonna get hung outta that window, dope,” the literal first time. Stop treating your readers like idiots. 

And then Margot’s side plot was that the will their father left said she needed a biological heir to inherit because he was pissed she’s gay and we needed the homophobia I guess, so Mason got everything, and she was helping him with the Hannibal shit because he’s pretty incapacitated duh, and in return he would give her his jizz so Judy could be artificially inseminated and they could have a child and get some of her inheritance. I don’t care. It was all very gross, and Mason kept saying shit like suck me off you’ve done it before, I won’t be able to feel it anyway, maybe Judy’ll suck me off you think she’d like that. It’s all gross. 

And I guess this is a good a time as any to finally start on Mason. So a great rule of writing to make everything work better and give your story more depth is to give everyone both positive and negative traits right, even and especially the bad guys? Like, rules can always be broken if you’re a good enough writer, but I believe I have established that Harris isn’t quite there yet, to put it nicer than I have. 

Mason is one bad trait after another. It’s like when Harris was bored of constantly writing about plain ole pedophilia, he threw a dart at a board of horrible things and landed on topics such as: pedophilia but make it incest, extreme sadism, sadism but against children now, and good old fashioned racism! Fucking Cordell was supposed to collect the children’s tears after Mason would make them cry and put them in martinis for him. Realism went out the goddamn door real fast with this novel y’all. Like a fucking Scooby Doo villain over here. 

And he loves talking about being a sadistic pedophile, he will literally not shut up about it to Clarice when she first gets there telling her about his trip to Africa and this portable guillotine he has and just. I get it was probably like trying to make her uncomfortable on purpose because he’s a Freak, but it went way too far if only because it was annoying, not even uncomfortable for me as a reader. I was bored real quick. Get to the shit I actually wanna know. 

And it sucks because of the weird, over-the-top way of how he died, I got zero satisfaction from his death. I couldn’t even be like, “Well at least Margot got her revenge,” because that’s not how she originally wanted to kill him!!! She wanted someone else to extract his semen for the insemination but couldn’t find anybody to do it for her, and then Hannibal, whilst tied up, said use a cattle prod and you won’t have to touch him and when you kill him you can blame it on me, and I’m pretty sure even if she hit his prostate right every time and he COULD cum from that alone in addition to how his body is Fucked Up now, it would’ve been a lengthy, gross, and re-traumatizing experience for her because all she wanted to do was avoid seeing and touching her brother’s private parts again, which I think is a totally fair and rational desire. 

So I have to live with the fact that she was desperate enough to not lose the house and business because of her homophobic father to go through her childhood trauma again. There’s no place in this book that has a somewhat positive conclusion. 

Even the very last bit where Barney has a girlfriend and a ton of cash from Margot, all he wants to do is see every Vermeer in the world right? Well, because Hannibal and Clarice are in Buenos Aires where one of them is on display, Barney gets spooked and has him and his girlfriend leave before he can see it and it ends that bit with he never got to see it ever so he didn’t even complete his dream!!! 

Also for good measure, Harris throws in that Hannibal and Clarice enjoy having sex regularly. For no reason. Just letting us know. 

I know this seemed like just a bitch fest, because it was, but I kinda sorta enjoyed it? It kept my attention at the very least. It’s really disappointing because like I said, I love the movies, all of them, and have since I was little. To see the original not stand up to that image in my mind is a little heartbreaking. Especially Clarice. She was a strong female role model to me, but turns out she’s... just kinda there. And her ending is that of her no longer being herself and getting that agency taken away from her. 

There is a reference to her waking up from a sleep, if she is asleep (that’s kind of how he worded it), that kinda let us draw our conclusions on whether she was just brainwashed into being good for him or if she was willingly going along with this and was in love with him I guess and it felt like a slap in the face. She turned from a hardworking, modest country girl working her way up to the FBI into a female Hannibal. Which on the surface sounds kinda cool because we love luxe serial killers, but that’s not what she wanted or who she was set up to be. And to insinuate that she would even remotely consider choosing that path for herself is at its best an insult to her and at its worst a complete erasure of her background, what little character Harris did set up. It also completely erases my own connections to her, as a girl from a small town myself who has bigger dreams than this and also... a good, strong set of morals. He just tossed that out the window. 

Obviously if you’re on this blog, you like slasher x reader shit, and this is a novel with a slasher x a person, right? So why am I so mad about it? Because the whole point of this blog and reader insert fanfiction in general is that you are taken as you are and loved wholly as yourself and that you are worthy of that love (in a fictional setting, not really loving people who are like this, which I think we understand but I want to clarify). She was not taken as she was. He is not in love with her, she is not in love with him. She was transformed into what he wanted out of her. He couldn’t get her to be Mischa, his first plan, so he made her like himself. And the fact that he was so easily able to do it makes me upset, and even more so is that it’s not written like it’s weird or wrong. It’s written like they’re in love and this is a good thing. 

He may have been going for the classic “everyone is capable of doing bad things” stuff we see a lot, but we got that from Margot already. And Barney, for stealing Lecter’s stuff and selling it. And Paul, and the entire FBI for turning on Clarice, and the kidnappers, and Pazzi, and random shitty side characters. And none of it was particularly well written or made some sort of strong statement. It just was. And that’s not a good enough basis for a novel. 

Anyways, if you made it this far holy shit you’re a saint and I love you, let’s be friends?? <3 Have a good day y’all, thank you BB for giving me permission to ramble. 

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 13: Yugi Dies in California, Makes Everything Awkward

Hey guys. Yugi’s DEAD. (again, but way earlier in a season than I thought he’d be)

So lets get into it.

Last we left off, Pharaoh got imbued with the powers of Lime Green. A green that I swear used to be more Aqua, but seems to sort of shift and change depending on if it’s day or night.

As a consequence, Yugi now can’t have any communication with Pharaoh. I guess this makes it so now Pharaoh is split with his “light” side but like...both Yugi and Pharaoh have both light and darkness so...I see the metaphor going on, but I don’t think the metaphor actually...worked when you think about all the screwy stuff Yugi has done even without Pharaoh around. So just don’t think about it.

The big consequence of the Yugi Banishment was more that Yugi wasn’t there to tell Pharaoh how the Oricalchos card works because--and I say this a lot--but Pharaoh doesn’t know how to read.

Pharaoh’s biggest downfall isn’t so much his greed or pride this episode, it’s his goddamn illiteracy. If he took just five seconds to study the fine print then...he wouldn’t have even cast the Oricalchos in the first place. He did it because he wanted to protect his dragon Timaeus on the field, but the Oricalchos made Timaeus immediately disappear so...Pharaoh cast this for no reason other than the plot really wanted him to do it.

Just kinda shocking that Pharaoh, of all people, made such a huge card mistake when he’s supposed to be from where all cards came from. Then again, he’s separated from Yugi who I guess had more card input than I realized, because the rest of this episode is just Pharaoh playing kind of like a dumbass.

And on the voice acting side, the guy who plays Pharaoh had to try and talk even deeper--which was kind of funny when he’s already as deep as he can go. So...it just seems like Season 1 Pharaoh to me, except he laughs more.

TBH Pharaoh was WAY more rude to PaniK than he ever was to Rafael.

(read more under the cut)

Meanwhile, Rex and Weevil have joined the pack.

Only to be hassled by the pack.

And so, since this is a show about cards, how do you make Pharaoh look like a bad person when he...always plays cards, and is usually a good person for doing this same card playing thing?

And as the person in charge of the Death Count, sorry Yugi, that doesn’t even make sense to me. If you’re telling me that JUST NOW cards are suddenly real and not 10+ episodes ago, and if you’re telling me that all of the other times Dark Magician Girl died didn’t count?

If I had to count every time that a card died when I’m pretty sure they were real then we would also have to count most Bakura duels, probably that Pegasus duel, any Shadow game, really, and like...I don’t want to do the math so I am not counting Dark Magician Girl, y’all.

She was alive at the end of this episode, and as far as I’m concerned, her prime function--the reason she exists--is to die a lot. She’s a card, that’s what they do, and I doubt she even felt bad about it. Like...I don’t think the cards are mortal. Does that make sense? I just...maybe it hurt her but like...does she care? She’s a god in this universe.

You can’t kill Zeus. And like maybe people can hassle Zeus but like it would be maybe the sensation of an itch to Zeus if you stab him directly through the throat--that’s how I feel about Dark Magician Girl. She can take a beating and won’t even know it’s happening. Girl is freakin Zeus.

A lot of this Rafael arc is about making a false reality to justify your actions. Rafeal’s was a pretty extreme case involving cards that are angels and that are still cards...or something. Pharaoh’s was “I’ll be fine, I’ve always been fine, I’m very good at this, I’m the exception to every rule.” which is a much more approachable and relatable fake reality than Rafael.

Thing is, Pharaoh’s not entirely wrong. That’s usually true for him. He usually is the exception to every rule bending RNG to his every whim. Like there’s a reason why he took the chance on the Oricalchos, it really should’ve worked out.

And TBH, would have liked to see Pharaoh do this for longer than one episode, especially since him going his brand of cray only lasted during a card game, which I don’t really watch anyway. But eventually all good things must end, and it catches up to him when he realizes the horror he has wrought.

Spoiler, it’s not that horrifying.

Like for reals, I have seen Pharaoh do some THINGS and maybe this is a sign I’ve seen too much Yugioh when I’m like “lol Pharaoh went nuts and that was it???”

I cannot believe he did not pull out even so much as a single knife this entire episode. The hatchets are right there. Then again, his puzzle powers don’t really work in the Oricalchos realm so he has to play normie style. But knives are pretty normie. I feel like Pharaoh should have pulled out some sort of makeshift brain teaser involving knives, but youknow, this season is very much more for kids than previous seasons of Yugioh.

Again, what he did to Panik is about 1000x worse than making a Halloween Kuriboh.

But, now that all the cards he sacrificed to the Shadow Realm are being resurrected and used against him, he looks into the blank face of Dark Magician Girl and accepts his defeat.

Which is very similar to what happened to Kaiba in the earlier seasons of this show. Pharaoh got Pharaoh’d.

But...while it is a throwback, heaven forbid that this show used a real ass human as a stand in for Dark Magician Girl in this scene. Could’ve had just any actual person standing around here to make Pharaoh realize a change of heart--maybe even the kid he banished in his head? But nah.

It was Dark Magician Girl for this emotional beat.

I mean we are watching Yugioh but lol, that was a decision the writing team made. Joey Wheeler’s right over there. Maybe remove Tea from that RV? No? Want to use Dark Magician Girl instead? OK then.

Anyway, now that Pharaoh was shamed enough by a paper card to remember how to be slightly more human, Yugi holds his Puzzle high over his head and screams “BY THE POWER OF THE MILLENNIUM PUZZLE!” or something and does his own brand of magic. Surprise, it’s punching stuff.

Punching stuff is always the answer.

So apparently the puzzle is more powerful than Oricalchos. Which we basically knew the whole time, I mean...Pharaoh got possessed by Oricalchos and all it did was make him play cards.

I can’t believe no one got set on fire that entire sequence.

So, since the Oricalchos demanded a soul, Yugi figured out a loophole.

And again, another Yugioh game was ended by someone threatening to kill himself, and this time it was Yugi. Who died so that Pharaoh’s yummy soul would not resurrect the Great Leviathan.

Because, while Yugi may be a soul-copy and somewhat reincarnation of the Pharaoh? Or something? He’s still not yummy enough. Not yummy enough for that Leviathan tummy.

Which lead to this great scene that I’m sure you’d remember vividly if you ever saw it even once. This is so unexpected and wild and everyone should see it.

This is moments following a very heavy death in the show--Pharaoh’s lowest point--and it is just SO JARRING AND FUNNY in context. I don’t think they meant it to be that way but I had to rewind like 8 times.

First off, enjoy this wtf helicopter, and then...

Wow.

A+ animation, I would never have been so bold as to do drop Pharaoh like a sack of potatoes from 50 feet in the air right after killing Yugi Muto on screen. 10/10. Amazing.

And after it happens, Duke kinda looks over and has the gall to ask... “Are you guys all right?” It’s just...

Wow.

I’m applauding at my computer, I am so glad that whole sequence exists. I’ll probably lift it eventually just to have.

And then the rest of this episode is Pharaoh trying to tell everyone what happened but Everyone still doesn’t quite get it, despite how wildly blunt Pharaoh is.

Cue the endless crying, because if this show loves anything, it’s men in eyeliner openly weeping into the dirt at their feet. Thankfully, Yugi had the foresight to get waterproof mascara, because if he’s gonna die, he doesn’t want Yami to blow up that perfectly cut stiletto heel line.

MAN I am so jealous of this teenage boy’s makeup.

And since I asked the void nicely for Yugioh to be in PAD, and now that PAD put Yugioh in there as if it heard me, I will now turn my attention to Sephora.

Please, Sephora, make me a Yugioh makeup line that is waterproof as hell so I can ugly cry in the hottest desert in America and still not smudge, thx.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand Yugi Muto is officially dead!

Didn’t expect that, being real.

Wow.

Really I thought that they would die if ever they ever got separated, but apparently Pharaoh is fine he just...lacks his Yugi half that knows how to read stuff and had a slightly longer attention span.

I can’t believe they cured Yugi of his curse! Congrats, Yugi! You are no longer possessed! 

Y’all. Lets just appreciate the Yugioh Episode 13 curse for a bit.

First episode 13, Bakura killed everyone with like no warning

Second Episode 13 was Ankle-slicing Bandsaw Clown

Third Episode 13 Noah revealed he was Seto’s Secret Already Dead Brother trying to take over Seto’s body

Fourth Episode 13 Yami finally managed murdering Yugi.

Like I dunno if they planned for all 13s to be all the WTF ones, but I’m glad it’s managed so far. I should’ve known when I started this episode that it was a 13, but I just...I just forgot.

Really thought Yami was going to survive this one and we’d have to bury Rafael on this mesa. Lucky for them and the local police, it’s just paranormal murder today.

Anyway...there’s like a lot more episodes of this season left and I don’t know where it’s going anymore. Should be fun. At the rate we’re going, we’re gonna take a bike ride over to New York City to do more card games on the desert Mesas of NYC. Lets see how long Yugi will remain dead.

Maybe next episode Pharaoh will just throw on a bedsheet and Rebecca’s shower sandals so he can go full Egyptian Era? Maybe the eyeliner will be drawn all the way to his freakin ears? Y’all what if he gets really into beads and gold now?

(and if you just got here, this is a handy link to read all of these recaps in chrono order. There’s a lot of them.)

[interstellarflowers]

Westside: Evan Hansen x Reader (Part II of Pretending)

THIS IS PART TWO OF PRETENDING !! PLEASE READ THE FIRST PART FIRST!!

Part 1

Really quick author’s note, sorry!! Okay so this is the second part of Pretending!! Please go read that one first if you haven’t already read it thank you!! Also this second part is inspired by the song Westside by This Wild Life, which my wonderful wonderful long distance best friend Alex showed to me. Personally this song hit me super hard and I thought it would be perfection for this second and final part of this series, yee!!  Also to increase enjoyment whilst reading this, I suggest you listen to the song!! As always thank you so much for the support and for reading my fanfiction!! 

 westside: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fFPyK1iwus

TW:mentions of abusive relationship, depression, suicide

If any of you find yourself to relate to the abusive aspects in this fic with someone in your life, or are in an abusive relationship I urge you to contact the abuse hotline: 1-800-621-HOPE Word Count: 3049

Your head fits right into my shoulder

My hands feel cold but yours feel colder

And you're burning up inside

I see the pain behind your eyes

A few months had gone by. A few months of avoiding Connor at all costs, and withdrawing yourself from your former friend group. The seperation was painful, but you wouldn’t allow yourself to be drawn in again by Connor. You knew that if you went back, you would never come back. You wouldn’t allow yourself to return to that mess that you had dared to call a relationship. You held on for so long, and the release was painful but very necessary.

You had cut all ties, except for Evan. Evan had been here the whole time, aiding in cleaning up and piecing yourself back together.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Your train of thought is broken as you look up to respond to Evan,

“Nothing.” you respond and then turn back to the movie. Evan shoots you a toothy smile, and then turns back to the screen as well.

“Mr.Stark...I don’t wanna go..” whispers out spiderman from the television’s speakers. You turn to your right to look at Evan, who has tears brimming in his eyes,

“No,” Evan says his voice cracking, “He didn’t want to go!!” You giggle a bit, and throw a pillow at Evan,

“Stop crying!” you yell at Evan still giggling, “If you cry I’ll cry!”

“I’m sorry (y/n),” starts Evan in a very serious tone even though he was very hard to take seriously as more tears slowly dripped down his face, “But Peter Parker was just a kid, and he deserved better.”

“You’re right,” you nod in agreement, “But, I don’t feel like crying tonight Ev!!”

“Fine, fine.” says Evan as he shuts off Infinity War, “What time is it?”

“It’s 4:00am,” you respond clicking off your phone, “I’m not tired though.”

“I’m not either,” Evan plops back down next to you on the couch and gets that serious look on his face again, “(Y/n), I want to talk to you about something seirous.”

“Yes, Evan, I know,” you laugh a little, “Peter Parker was a kid, and he did deserve better, I’m not disagreeing I’m just-”

“No, like for real, I have a serious question,” Evan messes with his hair a bit before making eye contact with you again, “I um…”

“Evan, I’m right here,” you say gingerly placing your hand on top of his, “You’ve helped me through so much, you can tell me anything.”

“Thanks (y/n), you’ve helped me through a lot too, with the anxiety stuff, but I uh,” Evan runs his hand through his hair again, a nervous habit of his, “I kind of like you and I think that maybe we could try-”

“Ev,” you cut him off, “You know I love you. But you also know I’m just not ready for that again.”

“I know,” Evan continues, “I’m sorry. I promise though, I would never hurt you, I’m just me. Y’know?”

“Yes Evan I know. You wouldn’t hurt me but,” you pause to regather yourself this isn’t exactly your favorite topic of conversation, “There’s still Connor. And I just…” You reach up to touch your cheek again, and remember exactly what it was like. Reliving it in your head, rewinding that moment and then replaying it like you do in the quiet of your bedroom when you’re alone and can’t sleep.

“Hey (y/n),” Evan says softly while taking your hand away from your cheek and into his, “It’s fine. I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to make you nervous, it was stupid. I’m sorry.” You nod and give Evan a hug, and you both sit there for a while. Both of your minds racing with a million and one thoughts.

“Nobodies ever going to hurt you again (y/n),” Evan whispers into your hair, “I’m here for you no matter what.”

“I know Evan,” you pauses and grip him a little tighter, “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me nerd,” Evan breaks the embrace and shoots up from the couch, “That’s what best friends are for! Now what flavor ice cream do you want?”

I know my hands can't help from shaking

I can't stand thinking of him taking

The safety in your head

The comfort of your bed

That’s how your good nights went, the ones spent with Evan that is, any other night was kind of a nightmare. The same thing over and over, a replay of your relationship with Connor, followed by a quite harsh and literal slap back into reality. You would wake up, sweaty, breathing hard and clutching your face. Of course it physically pained you when Connor raised his fist to you those couple of months back, but what hurt an unimaginable amount was what came with the raising of his fist. Such a simpe movement, with such extreme consequences. Such an action shouldn’t be real, but unfortunately it was. You wanted to forget, to move on, to allow yourself to be happy, maybe even allow yourself to be with Evan, but every night you closed your eyes all you could see was Connor’s cold eyes, and his fist sailing towards your face, and there you were again laying in bed with shaking hands and darting your eyes across the room in fear that he was right there in the shadows and ready for a confrontation.

We were too young to drink, too drunk to drive

Too young to feel these things inside

The westside's always pulling your burden straight into my current

She said it's too hard to comprehend

You were sitting in your room at 6:30pm on a Friday night when your phone vibrated, signaling a text message, most likely from Evan.

Jared

Hey dork! Long time no talk! There’s a party tonight, and I’m forcing Evan to come with, and you’re no exception! See ya in fifteen!

It was not from Evan. Jared fucking Kleinman. What a douchebag. You scrambled out of your desk chair nearly knocking over your pencil holder. Fuck. You don’t want to go, you don’t like parties, and parties don’t like you. You look down at what you’re wearing, yeah, you’re pretty sure that you can’t wear Hello Kitty pajama pants to a party. Fuck.

You’re just making it out of the door as a red car pulls up to your house and gives a good ten second long honk of the horn as you open the car door and get inside,

“Jesus fuck Jared,” you glare at him through his rearview mirror, “You saw that I was coming out of my house, why would you honk like that?” Jared smirks at you and just shrugs. What. An. Ass. You turn to Evan and whisper to him, not bothering to look behind you into the other three seats in the back of Jared’s Honda,

“I don’t want to go,” you say into Evan’s left ear, “I hate parties with a burning passion.” Evan nods in agreement and then whispers back to you,

“I don’t want to go either, but he sat outside of my house for twenty minutes honking his horn until I agreed to go.” You give Evan a look of sympathy and then hear a cough from behind you. Your stomach drops, and your feet turn to ice as you shift in your seat a bit, only to be met face to face with: Connor fucking Murphy. Shit. You turn around and almost give yourself whiplash in the process, gripping Evan’s hand tight you grab your phone out of your pocket and begin texting him,

(Y/n)

You didn’t tell me Connor was here!

Evan

I was going to but I didn’t want to scare you at that moment

You groan under your breath, and your hands start shaking again. It’s like one of your nightmares but nearly 1000x worse, because you know you can’t wake up. You’re not stuck in a dream. He’s here. He’s right there. He’s right behind you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Of fucking course.

I just wanna feel safe again

The westside's always pulling, but you could never be a burden

It's alright, it's alright

“Make a right turn on Blossom Street in two miles, and your destination should be ahead on the left.” The ancient G.P.S. in Jared’s car announces. The ride to what was allegdly “the biggest party of the year,” (according to Jared at least), was about fifteen minutes long. However, it felt like an eternity. The whole time all you could focus on was Connor’s eyes staring at the back of your head. Fuck Jared, man, fuck Connor, fuck this party.

“We here!” Jared yells a little to loudly, “Get out of my car fuckers!”

“Shut the fuck up Jared,” Connor deadpans as he motions over to some girls, “They can smell your stupidity.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jared rolls his eyes, “Whatever, at least I don’t look like a school shooter.”

“What the fuck did you just say to me Kleinman?” Connor steps dangerously close to Jared, “Wanna repeat yourself?”

“I said-” Jared starts before Alana comes in between them,

“Calm yourselves,” Alana pushes them apart and then looks at both of them, “Can we just focus on having a good time, please?” Connor rolls his eyes and mutters, “fine,” under his breath, and Jared goes on his way in the opposite direction, unbothered, and bee-lining to a group of poor unsuspecting freshmen.

“You alright?” Evan asks looking down at you and smiling softly, “I know that was probably alarming for you, and we can go home if you want, watch a movie-”

“It’s okay Evan,” you cut him off before he can ramble on more, you know he feels bad and he’ll go on forever because of it, “Really it’s okay. I think I saw Zoe here, so maybe we should stay.”

“(Y/n),” Evan frowns, “You know I don’t...like Zoe like that anymore.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. So, now do you wanna ditch?” You look away from him for a second and take in the scene in front of you: making out, grinding, shitty dancing, loud music, far too much axe, hormones, alcohols, weed, and...is that cocaine?

“Yeah, we should probably go.”

“Thank goodness.” Yeah, this was not your scene. Just as you and Evan begin walking back to his house, someone stops you in your tracks.

“(Y/n), wait,” you look up to see Connor fucking Murphy, and decide to push past and keep walking only to be stopped again, “Please.” You muster up all of the courage in your body, and manage to look Connor in the eye, “What.” Evan shoots you a look and you motion for him to go on without you,

“Connor,” Evan looks at you again, then turns back to Connor, “Lay off.” You could tell that Evan was uncomfortable and felt nervous, but he cared about you and was mustering ever ounce of courage that he had. For you.

“Keep walking Hansen,” Connor shoots at Evan, “I wasn’t talking to you.” Evan goes to say something again, but you cut him off,

“It’s okay Evan,” you swallow your fear, “I’ll catch up with you.” Evan stares at you in disbelief,

“Are you sure (Y/n)?” Evan looks at Connor nervously, “I can stay if you want.”

“It’s okay Evan.” You watch in regret as Evan reluctantly begins to walk away. Fuck. Connor runs his hands through his hair nervously, and looks at you with a softened gaze. Regret in his eyes.

“(Y/n),” you force yourself to meet his face again, “I’m...I know it’s been a while.”

“Yeah, Connor,” you swallow hard, “Four months.”

“Yeah I know. I’m so sorry.”

“I know you are Connor.”

“So, you forgive me?” You sigh and dig your nails into your palms.

Yeah we've gotten a bit older

We've learned to keep our composure

But we can't forget the nights

“No, I don’t forgive you.” You say this with no remorse for Connor. Any that you felt in saying that was wiped away as you reached up and touched your face again.

“...I’m sorry, I really...I don’t know what I was thinking, I was-”

“Connor, I have to go now.”

“No, (Y/n), please. Please. Just listen to me. Five minutes?” You stop and think, you look at Connor. He has dark circles, darker than usual at least, his eyes wild and dull at the same time. He still looked beautiful...But this time, he was tragically beautiful.

“Fine.” A look of relief brushed past his face, before turning serious again.

“I was going through a rough time...It’s not an excuse, I know. It was a rough time, and I chose to not tell you about it, and...and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kept anything from you like that. It was just difficult to say anything...It seemed like there was never a right time, it was stuff with Zoe, and my parents, and the meds, and doctors...So many doctors...And I didn’t tell you about any of that stuff. I’m sorry (Y/n), I’m so sorry. I started drinking, and smoking more and I just...I’m better now though, and I...I just want to be good enough for you now, even though I know I’m not, and I never will be. I’m just so sorry.”

You look at Connor again. Really look at him, you study his face, every sharp angle, every soft surface, shadows, highlights. Ridiculousy long eyelashes. Thick brows, bent in confusion and regret. Eyes stained and damaged from years of smoking and crying.

The blue skies or flashing lights

Your voice keeps ringing like a siren

I hear it louder still in silence

Yeah you're tough just like your love

And you've never given up...

Connor opens his mouth as you continue to study it,

“(Y/n),” Connor lets a few tears slip past his mess of wild lashes, “I love you.” You take a final look at Connor and walk away.

You knock on the door lightly, and Evan quickly opens it,

“Thank God!” Evan excalims, “I was so worried! What did Connor-” You cut Evan off by crashing your lips into his. When you both pull away for air you look at Evan, unafraid you softly say,

“I’m ready,” you tear up and kiss Evan again, “And I love you.” Evan smiles wider than you’ve ever seen him smile before.

I just wanna feel safe again

The westside's always pulling, but you could never be a burden

It's alright, it's alright

“I love you too, (Y/n),” he pulls you into a tight embrace, “I love you so so much.” Inside of Evan’s arms you realized that you’ve never felt safer anywhere else, this was where you belonged.

Monday rolled around, and you found yourself to be fine for once. No worries, no dread. Just peaceful, and finally okay. You walked into the doors at school and all you could feel were eyes on you. Suddenly you didn’t feel so at peace anymore, people were whispering, and all had looks of dread on their faces, what the fuck was going on? Some girl, whom you believed to be Veronica from literature, who you never really spoke to began to approach you,

“I’m really sorry.” You look at her in confusion as she looks down again, and begins to walk away. What’s going on? You open your mouth ready to spill about a million questions as Evan cautiously approaches you, before you can say anything Evan speaks,

“(Y/n), I’m so sorry,” Evan pulls you close to his chest in a tight hug, “I’m so so sorry...Connor...He’s gone…”  

You hit me like a headrush, and hurt like a paper cut

You wished you could say that was the day that everything changed, and it did in a way, you guess, but not really. Connor was gone, but it was like he was gone already.

And you're still in my head but just not in my heart

The funeral felt unreal. His death felt unreal. Connor raising a blade to his wrist in a bathtub sounded real, but it all felt unreal. Connor was a constant thought for a while, then a lingering figure, and soon a shadow of a person who you may have known at one point. Because that’s what Connor was, he was a person who you did know at one point, or at least a version of him. That Connor was gone now. Forever.

I mean it when I hope that you're ok

However, you hoped that wherever his forever may be. That it was someplace beautiful.

I hope you've made peace in your own way

You and Evan grew up, and graduated high school together, and then college. You stayed together, built a family together, Made your own beautiful place. At the end of your lives, Evan and you did it how you did most things throughout your lives, together, and your last fleeting thought was of a boy you might have known once, and hopes of seeing him again in some place beautiful.

It’s alright,

It’s alright.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WORK ETHIC AND PEAKS

You can't let how much you want an investor influence your estimate of how much they get paid for it. A couple weeks later, Dropbox raised a series A, keep taking smaller investments till they actually give you a set of rules here that will get you through this process if anything will. So you won't attract good hackers in linear proportion to how much experience they have. If you know you're on the right side of impossible. So when you're not in fundraising mode. At YC we're always warning founders about this danger, and investors are down on advertising at the moment, but it will also take less time. This one wouldn't. When McCarthy designed Lisp in the late 1950s. So the way to do it automatically: to write a paper for school, if that will restrict you or make it seem like work.

People who do great things look at the options available now, and that means it has to be is a promising experiment that's worth funding to see how it turns out. I've noticed between great hackers and smart people in general is that hackers are more politically incorrect. Series A rounds still work that way, but things now work differently for most fundraising prior to the series A, there's obviously an exception if you end up raising more than they originally intended. If you're worried that your current job is rotting your brain, it probably doesn't work to stick to the truth. Hollywood has been slow to embrace the Internet. So a company that can attract great hackers will have a huge advantage. But that test is not as hard as it seems, because some offset their schedules to prevent this.1 But they're not so advanced as they think; obviously they still view office space as a badge of rank. So don't assume a subject is really about. As it turns out. Introducing an investor to commit, it becomes increasingly easy to get more to.

For better or worse that's never going to be Make something people want in the same email hell we do now.2 Like a contrarian investment fund, someone following this strategy will almost always be doing things that seem completely unrelated, like social networking apps. If you work on overlooked problems, you're more likely to find them using Perl and Linux.3 For example, a friend of mine used to grumble because he had to wait till his arteries were over 90% blocked and 3 days later he had a quadruple bypass. It probably extends to any kind of creative work. And that is how startups should approach fundraising in phases 2 and later. I was thinking recently how inconvenient it was not to have any teeth, and the greedy algorithm tells you what to do.

Or maybe the movie business will dry up, and the huge scale of the successes means we can afford to take more risk you should. The biggest factor in most investors' opinions of you is the opinion of other investors. Everyone there spoke so fast. It's dangerous to design your life around getting into college, because the people you have, the harder it is to raise money, the best thing you can do is get yourself to the point where you see results. After a few seconds it struck me how familiar they seemed. For the 1000x variation in outcomes that one finds in startup investing. You're also safe that way from refutation. No; he's just doing a kind of work in which problems are put before them and they have different views of reality, whether the source of the discrepancy is their sketchiness or your wishful thinking, the prospect of confirming a commitment in writing will flush it out. It's arguably an instance of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It also reminds you that there is an intersection—that there are good ideas that seem bad.4 I've found myself nostalgic for the old days, you could fund everyone who seemed likely to succeed, just that you're a sufficiently good bet?

So were the print media are in the way Confucius or Socrates wanted people to be.5 But I know the real reason we're so conservative is that we may have to choose between several alternatives, there's an upper bound on your performance: choosing the best every time. In fact, a high average outcome depends mostly on experience, but that dramatic peaks can only be achieved by people with certain rare, innate qualities; nearly anyone can learn to make things go your way except in a few months in. They were invented by McCarthy in the course of developing Lisp. But ITA made it interesting by redefining the problem in a more ambitious way. I think the same thing; if you win an Olympic gold medal, you can be fairly content, even if you only talk to one investor at a time till they feel they have enough discipline to get themselves to their desks to start working. Fundraising is not what will happen to movies. It was like having a new mother. If you have a ten page paper due, then ten pages you must write, even if you are in fundraising mode. So for the next couple years, a good rule of thumb is not to try to identify a precise point in the future.

Trolls are like children many are children in that they're capable of a wide range of behavior depending on what they think will be tolerated. Smart people tend to be concentrated around fundraising. But it seems more dangerous to put stuff in that you've never needed because it's thought to be a promising experiment that's worth funding to see how he'd qualify it.6 The most ambitious is to try to make it interesting. Books are more like a fluid than individual objects. A in phase 2 at a post-money valuation of your next round, if you had a graph in which the x axis represented situations and the y axis the outcome, the graph of the wise person would be high even if the chance of succeeding was low. Many investors will ask how much you depend on water.7 It means these ideas are invisible to most people who try to think of intelligence as inborn is that people trying to measure it have concentrated on the aspects of it that are most successful at it, and then when you do. It doesn't make a very good job. One of my tricks for generating startup ideas is to imagine the ways in which it's wrong.

That worked as long as they can, because there's no limit to what they could do. You have two choices: give it away and make money from it indirectly, or find ways to embody it in things people will pay for. There's no way around it: you can't manage a process intended to produce beautiful things without knowing what you're looking for. Do they want me to do something audacious. Lisp was the first thing we thought of; we were ambivalent about being in business at all; and we deliberately chose an impoverished market to avoid competition.8 Whereas when they don't like you, you'll see them reaching for ideas: they'll be saying yes, and you may need to. I've wondered about for 25 years: the relationship between intelligence and wisdom drift apart, is that they are compulsive negotiators who will suck up a lot of what looks like work.

There is a danger in designing a language based on one's own experience of programming. You also can't tell from his portfolio.9 Fouls happen. Many people in this country think of taste as something elusive, or even frivolous.10 It's the same with people who do great things. The only real difference between adults and high school kids don't. Or they could return to their roots and make going to the theater a treat. When I was in New York trying to be a startup.

Notes

There is one of them.

There were several other reasons, the last they ever need.

But no planes crash if your goal is to trick a pointy-haired boss into letting you write has a word meaning how one feels when that partner re-tells it to the traditional peasant's diet: they hoped they were.

99 to—and probably especially valuable. And in World War II had become so common that their prices stabilize.

Even though we made a Knight of the work that seems formidable from the 1940s or 50s instead of themselves.

Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The CRM114 Discriminator. But they also commit to you; who knows who you start fundraising, but when that partner re-tells it to the way up into the intellectual sounding theory behind it. His critical invention was a sudden drop-off in scholarship just as if the public conversation about women consists of fighting, their voices will be just as you start fundraising, because she liked the outdoors, was no great risk in doing a small proportion of the lies we tell.

Stiglitz, Joseph. You can relent a little more fat, and no one thinks of calling that unfair. Emmett Shear writes: True, Gore won the popular vote he would have gone into the shape of the words we use have a group to consider behaving the opposite.

It's hard to compete directly with open source project, but those are usually about things you waste your time on a consumer price index created by bolting end to end investor meetings too closely, you'll be well on your cap table, and domino effects among investors.

Unfortunately the constraint probably has a power law dropoff, but I realize starting a startup. Though in a in the construction industry. The problem is not an associate.

Wittgenstein asserted a sort of pious crap you were still employed in your own compass.