#I love the friendship and the fact that we jive so well as friends but though I may not seem like it in-person I AM A ROMANTIC HELP

[sailforvalinor]

In other news, my church sign has been hit by a car for the *checks notes* fourth time

[frodo-with-glasses]

Any questions you haven't yet answered for the Hobbit cousins‐ Frodo, Merry, and Pippin! Thank you!

Yesss, my bois! After a bit of discussion, we narrowed this one down to just a few questions, since I can’t recall anyone asking for these three as a trio before and I can’t answer all 15 in one go LOL

1. “When I think they became friends”

Well, I’ve already described how I think Frodo left a good impression on little Merry before he left to go live with Bilbo, setting the stage for their friendship later on; and I’ve also described how I think Merry and Pippin bonded over something stupid when they were young and have been inseparable ever since. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine that the three of them would’ve gotten to know each other over the course of several various family obligations—weddings, birthday parties, etc.—and hit it off, because of course you want to get along with family when you can, and Frodo just seems to jive perfectly well with kids who are a lot younger than him.

2. “My favorite scene of them”

Oh man, can I just say the whole Crickhollow chapter?? I mean we get Pippin splashing in the bath, Merry thoroughly schooling Frodo on how to keep secrets (and then everybody laughing at Frodo’s dumbfounded surprise), Merry and Pippin singing a song they prepared for the occasion—and that wonderful, heart-clenching line from Merry, “We are terribly afraid, but we are going with you, or following you like hounds.” The Crickhollow chapter is just one long fluff fic demonstrating the relationship dynamics of this trio—and Sam and Fatty Bolger!—and I just *clenches fist* love it so much

3. “A random headcanon I have of them”

Have I mentioned before that Pippin is incredibly ticklish? I feel like I must have. It just seems like too much of an obvious fact of the universe for me not to have said it sooner. Pippin is incredibly ticklish, and Merry and Frodo definitely know all of the worst tickle spots to get him thrashing on the floor within seconds.

Merry will sit back, cross his arms, and swear up and down he isn’t ticklish and you can’t make him laugh, no matter how hard you try, no sir, but that’s because he’s secretly protecting his armpits and the back of his neck. Frodo knows this. All he needs is a distraction, and a chance to lean over and brush the tip of a feather under Merry’s ear, and he’ll nearly jump out of his seat and start swinging fists at whoever’s nearby.

Frodo isn’t actually very ticklish, but the fact that anyone would try makes him laugh anyway, so he’s pretty easy to crack. Pippin finds this entertaining. Jury is still out on whether or not he realizes it’s basically cheating, and whether or not he cares.

4. “My favorite thing about them”

I think the beauty of the hobbits is that their friendships all start in very innocuous ways. “Ah yes, my second cousin once removed on his mother’s side, stand-up chap, gave me a gold coin for his birthday once”, etc, etc. And yet those mundane little relationships are so fierce and loyal when it comes down to the wire. Love doesn’t have to start dramatically to be real and true and ride-or-die. Merry and Pippin don’t decide to walk off into the possible jaws of death because Frodo is somebody extraordinary; honestly, aside from being a bit odd, Frodo is kinda just some dude. But they’re willing to risk everything for him, because Frodo is their odd dude, and they don’t want him to face this danger alone. I think that’s beautiful.

5. “A scene I wish we had of them”

Give me the Rivendell slumber parties and sleepy, giggly nighttime conversations or give me DEATH. Rivendell is lovely and homey, but you can’t tell me that the hobbits didn’t get a little lonely sleeping in those huge beds all by themselves for so long. I think there’s room enough on an elf-sized bed for all the hobbits to lie comfortably, lined up like sardines from the foot to the headboard; and I also think they wouldn’t get any sleep until very very late, because Pippin would keep waking everyone else up with some random thought that just popped into his head, and the giggle fits that ensue would take several minutes to calm down. And then another Pippin thought would come. Rinse, and repeat.

10. “A song that reminds me of them”

We’re back to Of Monsters and Men with “Your Bones”. No doubt this is one of the more obtuse of their songs, but I like it for a few reasons:

First, the contrast of the cheerful tune and melancholy lyrics fits the personalities of this trio. Pippin is the loud, cheerful face that you notice first, while Frodo and Merry are the quieter deep waters that you will only see if you take the time to look a little closer.

Second, I like that the song seems to describe a journey of some sort. “In the spring we made a boat/Out of feathers, out of bones/We set fire to our homes/Walking barefoot in the snow”; hobbits always walk barefoot, and the “snow” makes me think of Caradhras. Of course they didn’t literally set fire to their homes, but they did leave them behind, with full knowledge of the possibility that they might never return, and emotionally, those two things can feel much the same way. “Chasing leaves in the wind/Going where we’d never been/Said goodbye to you my friend/As the fire spread”; Merry and Pippin had to part ways from Frodo, and Pippin had to leave Merry (twice!!), and the trio is all separated by the time the final battle rolls around. But that just leads me into my next point—

Third, the chorus. The other lyrics in this song are strange and bewildering—like everything the hobbits encountered once they left the Shire—but the chorus is clear, simple, powerful, and rings out with clarity and purpose. “So hold on/Hold on to what we are/Hold on to your heart”.

Isn’t that the core of LotR? It’s in the relationships. No matter what strange and fantastical things the hobbits encountered on their Quest, what they needed to succeed was something they’d already had back in the Shire, something they’d always had all along. “Hold on to what we are; hold on to your heart.” When all hope is lost, remember your friendships. Remember you are not alone. Remember your purpose. Keep us close; even if we are not there with you, we will give you strength.

But on a less serious note, I also found THIS gem of a behind-the-scenes clip recently. It’s a song! It doesn’t have lyrics, but it’s a song! That counts, right?? 🤣🤣

FRIENDSHIP ASK GAME!

[an-aura-about-you]

Hi @an-aura-about-you 👋🏻 I love doing these Q&A things with my followers and those who I follow! So, I thought it would be fun to ask some friendship questions to you, as you seem like a very lovely person that makes me want to get to know you better, and the fact that we both follow each other! 🥺🥺

1. What is your favorite season and why?

2. What is your favorite genre of music and why? If you have one, what is your current favorite song/artist?)

3. What are your favorite ships and why? 🤔

4. What is your favorite book genre? (If you have one, what is your favorite book series/book/author?)

Thank you for taking the time to read this! ❤️❤️

*sees that I hadn't been following you and re-follows* That was probably an "I'm catching up on my tumblr backlog" thing. XD; But rest assured, should I unfollow someone, it is not out of malice or thinking we're not friends. (I've unfollowed irl friends before just because blogs didn't jive, y'know?)

My favorite season is a tie between spring and autumn. As I get older, I find I don't like extremes as much. The welcome warmth of spring and the refreshing chill of autumn are my favorite times. But honestly, there is some charm in every season.

My favorite genre of music is classical music, but more often than not nowadays I find I like music that tells stories. So not just opera and ballet but also concept albums. Covering all my bases on that, my current favorite song is Blood and Whiskey from High Noon Over Camelot by The Mechanisms and my favorite... well, not artist so much as composer is Tchaikovsky.

My favorite ships are: Jon/Martin from The Magnus Archives (I am not immune to office worker enemy to lover romance in my horror media, but also how they just genuinely become friends on the way to becoming a couple), Hamid/Azu from Rusty Quill Gaming (not just romantically but any way you could put them together, they're best friends and have such an instant rapport, like I swear Azu picked Hamid up and That Changed Him As A Person), Aziraphale/Crowley from Good Omens (I am also not immune to the opposites attract/not so different dynamic, especially when it's been going on for literal ages), and Mytho/Rue from Princess Tutu (so the thing both Mytho and Rue are missing for most of the series is agency but while Mytho's problem is he's a storybook character who literally lost his ability to make choices Rue's problem is coercion via parental abuse and I really fucking love that the first time she ever truly makes a choice on her own it's for his sake and hers).

Somehow I think my favorite book genre has become celebrity autobiography? I wasn't seeking this out as a genre, but my favorite book and some others I'm fond of can be called that. Right now, my favorite is The Disaster Artist by Greg Sestero with help from Tom Bissell. It is Sestero's account of his friendship with notable So Bad It's Good movie director Tommy Wiseau and how his magnum opus The Room came to be.

Thank you for sending these in! <3

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

May 2021 Wk 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs.

It’s a cray cray Friday when Vietnam gets its eng subs up before GMMTV Thailand. What alter-reality are we in? Well, the Vietnamese offerings are better right now anyway. (Oooo, feel that burn.) 

Ongoing Series - Thai

Top Secret Together Ep 2 - pulping it up in the best possible way. Sure sound and production values are pants, and in classic Thai fashion the editing in post is exacerbating (rather than fixing) pacing issues, but it’s still CUTE AF. I don’t even mind the added university storyline, because they’ve got good chemistry (and a confident gay fresher after a panicked gay hazer is an old favorite... what can I say, SOTUS was my first love). We aren’t spending too much time with any one couple, so it’s weighted a lot better than Brothers was, but also character development is slow. 

Siew Sum Noi Ep 2 - Unfortunately, it’s just too hard to find, plus no subs. I’m dropping it in the hopes it comes back on my radar some day. 

Y-Destiny Ep 8 - (Thurs) It’s rough having a ghost boyfriend, half your friends are scared, the other half think you’re crazy, and kissing shortens your lifespan. This was a cute couple even if I wasn’t wild about the surrounding story. 

Close Friend Ep 5: (Dear My Star/JimmyTommy) - about high school penpals. It had to rely entirely on voice over work as the actors only meet face to face at the end. It’s a good thing they are appealing screen presences on their own, with good vocal control. It’s hard to imagine any other BL pair carrying this kinda plot. It’s by far my favorite of the series so far, and I’m not even a big JimmyTommy fan. 

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 7 - no subs. Do we care? Not really. Because we have... 

Nitiman Ep 3 - currently my favorite out of Thailand. It’s the university Thai BL i’ve been waiting for since... when was the last good one? My Engineer? Yowza. Anyway we got: head on my shoulder, baby is a floppy drunk (but still wants to be in control), proximity alert, boyfriend’s closet, seme gets seriously jelly, and a cute twist on feeding him. There’s something fun and complex about Jin’s character. He’s not a panicked bi. He knows exactly what’s going on, he just hasn’t decided if he wants Bb or not. He clearly enjoys being looked after, the compliments, and the attention, but he’s not sure if he’s going to like what happens if he gives in. I like that twist on the usual tsundere uke archetype a lot, cautious rather than willfully obtuse or freaked out. We can see Jin realizing in stages: I like this person, I like that they like me, I like the romantic attentiveness. But in the background is... do I actually want to f*k him? It’s a dynamic we don’t often see on BL. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 10 fin - the most ridiculous show using BLs worst tropes in a sort of weird smoothie of bitter greens and too ripe banana. The ending was the sappiest cheesiest thing ever, like cheese syrup tapped from the cheese tree. So of course I loved it, but I’m pretty sure I giggled through all the bits meant to be profound. Because, in the end, to tolerate this show at all, you just can’t take ANY of it seriously. RECOMMENDED (with some SERIOUS reservations and trigger warnings.) Full review here. 

Be Loved in House: I Do (Taiwan) Ep 1-2 - I don’t mind a damaged seme character but this one is a bit weird for me. Like creepy Cheese in the Trap level weird. On the bright side, the story has given our tsundere uke good motivation for his angst and great existing friendships, loyalty, and likability. Plus I’m invested in the cafe owner/innocent puppy side dishes. So if it’s only the seme character I’m not jiving with, and he’s the most established actor, it should all turn out fine. I believe in you, Taiwanese BL. 

Papa & Daddy (Taiwan) Ep 6 fin - speaking of belief. This such a good show but they gave us a cliffhanger ending. Now we must hope against hope for season two. That’s never guaranteed with Taiwan tho. So, I’m docking a few points and saying, RECOMMENDED so long as you realize it’s a cliffhanger. 

Love is Science? (Taiwan) Ep 1-9 (BL subplot) - this is a good het romance, but the fact that the BL subplot is a beautifully acted disaster bi + confident gay means you’re hearing about it whether you want to or not. Plus they just added in some GL! Come on! I gotta support Taiwan normalizing queer to this extent. They are fighting the good fight and if I also have to watch a career lady and her much younger softest straight boi get it on, too? Twist my arm with that service sub subtext. Go on Taiwan, TWIST IT. It’s on Viki. Join the revolution.   * Incidentally if you actually like the D/s het dynamic of this show, I highly recommend Japanese Kimi wa Petto - career woman keeps a hot young dancer boy as a pet. Oh yes, an actual pet, that IS the pitch. Never doubt Japan when kink is on the line. It’s also on Viki. Go get your kink on, thank me later. (If it helps: That was not a request.)  

Most Peaceful Place 2 (Vietnam) Ep 2 (AKA 5) - love triangles aren’t my thing, but if you’re gonna do it short form, by all means bring in the lead’s other BL pairing so the chemistry is on point. Now I've no idea who I want him to end up with. Can’t they just be in a poly triad? 

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 7 - I’m still enjoying it a lot. It’s still unabashedly queer and the tension is ramping up. We now have secret identity, blackmail, femme fatale, faen fatale, and incoming seme confrontation. Best of all, the series is still airing, which makes it longer than any other Vietnamese BL I’ve seen (aside from Tein Bromance - which is just too weird to count). 

Gossip - Thai BL 

SEVEN PROJECT TEASERS

No one is entirely sure what Studio Wabi Sabi’s Seven Project/7Project will entail. 

It might be like Close Friend (1 episode per couple, no linking), 

or Y-Destiny (2 episodes per couple, loosely linked), 

or The En of Love (4 episodes per couple, linked but independent consecutive stories). 

They’re giving the couple’s arcs separate titles. So each one would be what? Seven Project: Once Upon a Time or the like? We’re in Taiwanese title territory people and NO ONE WANTS TO GO THERE. Anygay... 

Once Upon a Time is the BounPrem (og UWMA) anchor story, and seems to be the most dramatic and likely saddest. These two can handle most of what’s thrown at them at this juncture, so it should be good. 

Vs Love is a BoomPeak (og Make it Right) university vehicle. Since I thought Boom was done with our nonsense, I couldn’t be more thrilled and surprised this pair is doing another show together. I don’t think either of them are the greatest actors but I find Peak very endearing and Boom charismatic on screen, so I’ll watch. 

Would You be My Love is the hotly anticipated SantaEarth launch. They’re a (cultivated) IRL ship and Earth is an established BL actor. They have great chemistry and high energy so this could be lots of fun. 

We are also getting a GL from this series from established BL actresses Samantha and Pineare. Nothing teased yet on that, but I’m looking forward to this installment the most. Also curious to see how the ladies handle the branding and promo side, not to mention the culture. (Thailand variety shows gonna force *girls* to play the Pepero game?) 

Secret Crush on You upcoming Thai BL with no release date, co-produced by and featuring (but NOT staring) Saint and directed by Cheewin (sigh) with all fresh faces. (Previously known as Stalker the series.) It looks like pure pulp and I’m not wild about the plot but could be better than expected as it’s adapted from a novel. Cheewin is an okay director when he has an actual story to follow. 

Don’t Say No the series. Coming from the producers of TharnType this is the JaFirst vehicle many have been waiting for. Friends to lovers + a good boy/bad boy pairing on a sports romance foundation. It’s basketball so they tapped Meen as well (he’s semi-pro). The bad news? You get one guess as to who is writing the darn thing? Yep it’s MAME. So, ya know, expect some slam dunk kidnapping, a light dribbling of rape, and me turning into a basketcase. AKA... 

Will I have to live blog this series in order to survive it? That seems to be the only way I can. So probably. Which means the bad sports puns will continue. Look, if I’m suffering, SO ARE YOU! 

Rumors of a new YinWar vehicle The Best Story (mini series) coming in July. Also rumors that their previously announced Love Mechanics (full length series) has either been delayed, is facing money issues, or is moving studios, or all three. 

Breaking News 

DELAYED (I’m talking these three off the watch list until we get new airing dates) 

Love Area’s release was pushed out but it got a trailer. 

Golden Blood was supposed to drop Weds but comments in MDL report that it is delayed due to C19.  

Love’s Outlet (Taiwan) is supposed to have started a 50 episode run (only 3-5 min each, what utter nonsense). Sadly, this delay is due to a surge in cases in Taiwan which was doing so well, but also doesn’t have many inoculations. 

Bad Buddy has started workshopping at GMMTV actual. 

Kang Insoo’s BTS for Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding is SO FLIPPING CUTE. You have to watch it. Trust me, I don’t rec behind the scenes stuff often. 

Next Week Looks Like This: 

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

[fatefulfaerie]

Honesty Part 7 (Last One)

Part One here

Part Two here

Part Three here

Part Four here

Part Five here

Part Six here

Zelda supposed it was the adventurous spirit in both of them that led them to sit upon the roof, gazing at the stars and yet very aware of the person next to them. Sometimes they shared words, small talk about this or that. Sometimes they shared silence, just as comfortable, just as safe. Either way, Zelda found herself forgetting about her troubles in the company of Link.

“It’s hard to believe that it’s been a week already,” Link remarked, obviously attempting to strike up another bout of conversation. Zelda turned her head. “I feel like I just got here and now we are journeying to rendezvous with Urbosa early tomorrow morning.”

Zelda smiled to herself.

“You did sleep through a pretty big chunk of it,” she jived, Link offering a slight chuckle in reply.

“Damn mushrooms,” he said before their words faded again, Zelda listening to the chirps of crickets and the rattles of cicadas. 

She thought of the words of Link’s mother, the advice that the line between a deep friendship and a romantic relationship was farther away than she thought. Zelda knew she could cross over at any time, but it was that trepidation, that hesitation that seemed to drive them both to pure flustered anxiety when around each other, like one move would cross a line they could never come back from, that they would fall so deep in love that they would fall from a great height, and thus so would Hyrule.

Link’s mother reminded her that shutting him out because of that fear may be just as detrimental. There had to be a balance.

“Hey, Link?” Zelda prompted, keeping her gaze on the stars and her weight on the hands behind her.

“Yeah?”

Zelda didn’t know that Link had taken the opportunity to look over to her, to admire the way the pale light of the stars and the moon made her completely ethereal, the way she outshined them, captured their light and proved herself the better conduit for it.

“I just wanted to thank you,” Zelda said. “For this week...tolerating me, you know, the spoiled princess I am.”

“You’re not spoiled,” Link said quickly. Zelda smiled to herself and was glad the darkness of the night sky hid any blush. “I mean...you deserve a break just as much as I do. I’m glad I got to give that to you, and...well I like having you around.”

Zelda kept smiling. This felt more normal, and even better, it felt more natural.

“I like having you around too,” Zelda said in reply. “I think you...”

Zelda stopped herself. She had to temper her honesty, balance telling him how she felt without pouring out her entire heart and drowning them both in their dangerous love.

“I think you may be the best friend I’ve ever had,” Zelda said, Link hiding his surprise well. “I know you are under orders to protect me, but you were never under orders to forgive me for my prior immaturity, nor were you under orders to befriend me and support me like you have. No one has ever had my back like you do, no knight assigned to me, not even Urbosa or my father...oh gosh this is probably sounding horribly strange...I think I just want to let you know that I have your back too, no matter what. I...uhmm...I care about you a lot.”

She finally overcame her anxiety and looked over to Link, who was looking so intently at the night sky that it seemed quite the oddity.

“What are you doing?!” Zelda asked with a resummoned petulance. “Are you even listening to me?!”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m looking for flying pigs.”

“Goddesses,” Zelda said, playfully shoving him, which made him laugh. “I was trying to be sincere and you turn it into a joke! I can’t believe I li...”

Link looked over to her immediately as her intended word cut short and slowed down, hanging on the syllable as she tried to save it. Her heart burned with panic and embarrassment and somehow the brain she was often praised for failed her, Zelda forgetting every word she had ever learned.

“...ke...you,” she finally finished, closing her eyes filled with regret, and scampering off the roof quickly.

“Princess, wait!” Link said with an outstretched hand, coming to a kneel to watching her run across the bridge towards the center of town.

Link sighed as he followed suit, hopping down to the roof of the stable, as if it was a stepping stone downwards, soon meeting his feet to grass. 

He bursted through the door to his house, nearly scaring his mother half to death where she stood cooking.

“Link!” She said breathlessly with a hand on her chest. “What in Hyrule are you--”

“Do you remember where I put the sword?” Link asked, frantically looking everywhere.

“For goodness sake, Link, I’m sure it’s here somewhere,” Ruth said as Link ran upstairs. She furrowed her brow, looking up at the loft. “Would you calm down?!”

“Can’t,” Link replied, sword in hand and running back down the stairs. “I’ll be back for dinner.” Link slammed the the door behind him with as much haste as he had opened it. Ruth rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“Hylia, help that boy.”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Link knew exactly where she would run, and thus, his legs burned as he ran up the hill to Purah’s laboratory as fast as he could.

Knocking on the door, he panicked with worry. She could have been in danger and even if she wasn’t, she was likely ashamed for something she simply shouldn’t be. Link always assumed she didn’t like him back but now his mind overflowed with possibility that was once a fantasy. Most of all, however, he just wanted to see her okay.

“Linky!” He heard as soon as the door opened, the young Purah standing there with excited red eyes. Link gave a nervous and forced smile before return to his concerned expression.

“Is the princess here?” Link asked.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this serious Link,” Purah observed like she was studying him. “And your face is completely flushed. Tell me, do you have any other symptoms?”

Link sighed.

“Just answer my question,” Link demanded.

“She’s around back,” Purah said, Link immediately walking to find his Princess. “Wait,” Purah said, stopping him and prompting him to turn back around. “I thought you two were past her running from you.”

“We are,” Link said. “Well, we were...there was just a misunderstanding. I’ll fix it.”

“Well then I wish you the best of luck, young knight,” Purah said before closing the door.

Link tread around the lab, finding Zelda hugging her knees and staring out at the vast sea, lit by the moonlight. Link questioned whether or not she knew he was here, whether she would have run and whether he had the courage to make himself known.

“I was trying to bridge the gap without letting that out,” Zelda said suddenly, alerting Link to the fact that she did in fact know. He leaned casually on the outside wall of the lab, his ears penned for her next words. “I don’t want to lose you because of the distance I have to keep to not...get too close. I was trying to follow your mother’s advice to not let this get in the way of still being there for each other.” Zelda laughed at herself. “I did a great job.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Link said. “Besides, I get where you are coming from. When we talked about focusing only on defeating the calamity, I think we both had this in mind...of course thinking that the other person didn’t. And yes, Your Highness, that means I like you back, for better or worse.”

Zelda tried not to let her heart flutter with joy, not to jump up and into his arms. She tried to look at the ocean and forget that his eyes were the same, beautiful color.

“I can’t erase my feelings,” Link said. “Can you?”

Zelda shook her head.

“No,” she replied.

Link finally stepped forward and knelt next to her to match her eye line, Zelda looked over to him once he did. They couldn’t but smile at the sight of the other.

“This is insane,” Link said. “I mean you of all people like like me.”

“The irony is not lost on me,” Zelda said with a slight laugh. Link moved to sit on his heels and took her hands into his. Zelda reveled in the feeling, in the moments, in his touch, in everything about this.

“This is still a bit bizarre for me,” Link said. “And new and scary, but...I’m willing to wait for you until after the calamity is defeated...to wait to truly pursue this. I will support you and care about you sincerely until then but if you feel I’m not worth the wait--”

“You are,” Zelda said quickly with a smile. “You are.”

Link blushed, his head hanging down as he chuckled, filled with disbelief. He was almost tearing up at what he had found in her, how lucky he was. He raised his hand, pinkie outstretched.

“Let’s make a promise then, to pause this budding romance until we defeat the calamity once and for all, to still be there for each other with the same love, care, and support, but not risk our common sense because of it.”

Zelda eyed his outstretched pinkie.

“A pinkie promise?” Zelda asked with a raised brow. “That’s how we are going to seal this?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Zelda smiled as she brought her hands to his, clasping his pinkie back into his fisted hand and holding it.

“How about a kiss?” She asked. “Just this once...for now at least.”

“What?” Link asked, his smile fading and his face reddening as much as Zelda had ever seen it. Zelda laughed.

“Link,” she said. “It’s okay.”

“Are you sure,” Link asked. “I mean you’re royalty and I’m just--”

Zelda surged forward and met her lips to his, Link soon giving in, placing his hand on her cheek as something stoked with their very souls, their silent promise continuing. The passion of their blooming love was balanced by the hesitation of their first kiss.

“You better remember this,” Zelda said as she withdrew.

“Like I could forget,” Link said jokingly.

[j-reau]

There’s something I want to talk about that’s been sitting in my head for a few days now. I kept telling myself not to talk about because tumblr struggles with the line between feelings and drama, between change or growth and confrontation and vauging.

That’s not what this post is for me. It’s not drama or a vague post. It’s trying to work through how I feel, trying to talk to the community at large about stuff I think we can do better, or at least stuff I want for me and for my friends and writing partners. 

I think somewhere along the way, in its inability to wrestle with grey areas, tumblr as a whole lost the middle ground between self care and hurting others, and in doing so turned communication into confrontation. I’ll be clear about something to start this off; you don’t owe strangers on the internet anything. You don’t owe someone an explanation as to why you don’t follow them. You don’t owe a mutual an explanation as to why you write with someone else more or where your muse goes that day. You don’t owe anyone your time. You don’t owe anyone your mental health. Curating a safe space is important. Creating boundaries is healthy whether they’re for you or for someone else. I believe all of that to be true and I think that it’s important that on tumblr we absolve some people of the pressure put on them by themselves. I was once stalked by someone who I had never once talked to on this website who demanded to know why I wouldn’t write with them. I did not owe them explanation. Not for why I didn’t follow them and certainly not for why I eventually blocked them. And once they messaged me over and over from different accounts, my boundaries had been crossed and I felt very uncomfortable. So I understand the importance of making sure people know that that kind of pressure is fucked up. Because of my decision not to follow them, that person posted at length about how I was an elitist, unfriendly, etc. They even threatened self harm and guilt baited. And it is instances like that where I think it’s important that we make clear over and over and over that you don’t owe people an explanation. 

With all of that said, I think somewhere along the way we started applying all of those posts about how to deal with toxic people and strangers and started applying them to our friends. And that’s where things get uncomfortable for me and worth talking about for me. So I guess that’s what I want to do. Because to me, you absolutely owe your friends some communication. You owe your friends a reason. Even if it’s as simple as “hey I think I need some space, please don’t contact me for a while.” Relationships come and go and on a website like tumblr we get very close to some people fast, or we talk a lot and share a lot, not everyone is going to click. Not everyone is going to jive and that’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. But in relationships, communication is a crucial and important part of adult hood. Ignoring problems isn’t adult. Failing to communicate isn’t mature or conflict free. My best and closest friends are the people with which I can communicate. And in some relationships you’ll learn that your communication styles don’t match. And that’s okay too. But communication is important to any friendship, partnership, etc. Something as simple as “hey can we not talk about that? It makes me uncomfortable.” Something as simple as “will you do me a favor and blacklist your posts about _____ because seeing them makes me anxious.” Or even communicating needs for validation like “I’m feeling really sad and anxious today. It’s nothing you’re doing but could you give me a little reassurance?” Or “hey I’ve been busy this week. It’s not you but I need some space away from discord.” Communications don’t have to be arguments. They don’t have to be confrontations. They’re just expressing a feeling and allowing someone else to then accept the boundary or need you express and meet it, ask questions if they need to or whatever it may be. Like for example, “sure I can give you space. Do you want to just hit me up when you feel better or should I reach out in a few days?” 

I think maybe part of it is about how we place value on “friendships” and on partnerships writing on tumblr. And maybe that’s where some of us differ and I also think is an important thing that should be communicated. For me, I write with hundreds of people. I love writing with people. I love having tons of partners and writing with any of my mutuals who want to. When it comes to writing and people who I have writing partnerships with, my communication style is pretty straight forward. And it starts from jump, communicating if we want to ship or not, communicating what kinds of plots we like. And then later when someone has to say “hey can we drop this thread and start a new one?” Or “Sorry I vanished for a month do you still want to write this?” All of those things are communications and to me, come with trust that you will be honest and receive the other person in good faith. of course, in hundreds of people that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes it doesn’t go well, and that’s fine. These are writing partners and while my communication style will always be the same and be as honest and straightforward as I can give it, it may not mesh with someone else’s. But then there are friends -- good friends. And by good friends I mean the people you talk to frequently. The people you talk to about how you feel, about what’s going on in your life, about your insecurities or whatever it may be. The people you write with frequently or have built a relationship with, the people you tell with your words that you love or that mean a lot to you. Maybe some people on tumblr use words like that lightly. I don’t know. But for me those are meaningful things and the people I consider good friends are not the same as strangers and are not the same as casual writing partners. 

Something is exchanged when we RP. I talked about this in my last post. I talked about how it’s not “just tumblr RP” how there are feelings and intimacy that is personal and terrifying in writing with people and sharing your creative work with them and opening yourself up to rejection and insecurity. When you RP, when you talk a lot, when you become friends with someone even if it’s on the internet, just as in real life, you’re exchanging trust. You are opening yourself up to vulnerability in expressing your feelings, in sharing your world with someone and they are doing the same by accepting that, caring for that, sharing their own, etc. To me, once you hit the point of having exchanged trust with someone, that’s when you owe communication of some kind. It can be as small as “hey I can’t talk today” and as big as “this thing you did yesterday hurt my feelings.” But it’s so important to do it. That’s important for a number of reasons. It’s important because maybe there is a misunderstanding that can be cleared up. It’s important because maybe that other person may not even know they hurt you and could apologize. It’s important because vocalizing your own feelings is an adult point of growth for you. And a number of other things. 

And I GET IT. Trust me, I do. Communicating is uncomfortable. What about how anxious it makes you? What about how you feel panicked and sweaty and your heart races and you worry that it won’t be well received. Trust me, we all have been there. It happens to everyone and it fucking sucks. But the only way that gets better is with practice. I can already hear the tumblr mentality that says “you shouldn’t have to feel that way if you don’t want to,” and there’s some truth to that. But any therapist will tell you that communication is the key to coming to the other side of that and that the more you do it, the better it’ll be, the easier it’ll feel. Having been in several relationships with people that projected their feelings onto me or held me accountable for their happiness, learning to communicate boundaries, learning to communicate feelings versus intention and all of that were huge for me. This isn’t something I popped out of the womb understanding. It’s something I’ll surely fail at a thousand times. But it’s definitely something important to me to learn. And I think it’s something tumblr can benefit from. Because while “let people block you” is an important mentality for strangers, for abusers, for toxicity, etc it’s not a good mentality for friendships and relationships. Ghosting your friends is really hurtful. Cutting people who mean something to you out with no communication or explanation causes a snowball of bad feeling and anxiety in allowing you to have closure on your terms and the other party to have none. Expecting people to handle hurt and confusion and sadness in private without ever talking about it to anyone is really fucking isolating. Tumblr mentality likes to push that we should be able to axe people without consequence, that they should not ever wonder why, that they can not talk about it to anyone else, or express their sadness. But isolating people in their feelings isn’t healthy and it isn’t adult. There’s a lot of hurt that could be avoided on this website by people learning to communicate and by accepting that sometimes conversations have to be had, even if we don’t like it. Or at the very least, taking ownership for the fact that if we don’t want to have a conversation, that that is on us and not on the other person for feeling confused and not knowing what happened.

So I guess where I’m at here is that I just wanted to talk about that area, and open the floor a little to remind people about communicating. And what I mean when I say friends vs. strangers vs. partners is that I think we also need to be honest with each other and ourselves about who our friends are. Because once you open that trust with someone, there’s responsibility there with what you do with that trust. So be aware of where you open that trust. Be aware of what you say and how you treat people. You don’t have to be best friends with everyone you run across on the internet. I certainly am not. Even people I love writing with may not be my close friends, but I make sure that those are people that I’m not being vulnerable with and sharing feelings about things with and expressing how important they are to me. They are of course still important, but it’s different. Don’t fake friendship with people. Don’t love people into the safety and security of trust and communication that you’re not willing to have. It’s okay if communication isn’t your thing, but understanding that and understanding how you treat people because of it is important. Because communication is important. To friendship, to partnerships, hell even to relationships with coworkers and family members. As a community, I think it’s really important that we encourage being more communicative, and that communication isn’t conflict, and that sometimes having a quick conversation about something where both parties get closure or can say their piece or clear things up is the absolute best way to handle things. 

[lihikainanea]

You know those moments in a relationship, when you're a little bit tired, a little bit annoyed and a little bit over it. You love one another, but you're working through that very natural phase of just not being that into each other. However, the sexual tension is still palpable, because in those moments it's sometimes easier in bed. It's easier to pretend at night time. Easier to just fuck your way through those natural arcs of frustration. How would Bill and Tiger handle those moments?

You know what I love about this? How absolutely, unbelievably, incredibly human this is.

People drift apart. Couples drift apart. Relationships tend to have this kind of natural ebb and flow--passionate at times, completely stagnant at others. Friendships are a little easier to navigate, we’ve all had friendships that are jiving at one point and stale the next but I feel like there’s always less at stake. Friendships maybe have less ties, they can recuperate faster from things like this.

Romantic relationships though? Oh, that’s tricky. When things like a legal marriage are involved, where leaving could mean that you literally lose half your income and your assets. When something like a kid is involved, where leaving could mean you only see them every second week and maybe you just can’t be a single parent. People stay for reasons that maybe they shouldn’t. People leave when maybe they should have just tried a little harder. These are real life decisions, and god it’s why I cringe so hard sometimes when I hear people talk about a couple. There are so many internal workings. People lie to their friends. They lie to their partner. They lie to themselves. Sometimes, one convenient reason to stay beats a million logical, desperate reasons to go and that’s...that’s life. Life is not always about choosing whatever option is best for you.

Life is about choosing whichever bad option hurts you less sometimes.

A side note, but I think some of the reason why I’m so critical of couples that I have no business being critical of (it’s never anyone’s place to judge), and why I roll my eyes at all of this GOALS!!!111 talk is just...like, what’s the statistic? 80% or something? 80% of couples fail. One of my absolute career heroes broke it down in a very logical way for me--this woman is extraordinary. You have seen her on the news. She is a powerhouse, she is fearless.

She is in a loveless marriage with a 10 year old son, and she’s staying because her kid is really sensitive and because being a single mother is just impossible for her, at the moment. That’s literally it. That’s why she’s staying with her husband. Because it’s practical, and because it’s the only feasible solution for her.

This is just....life. 

But look man, tiger and Bill? They’ve been here before. And I think the only thing that saves them is their deep foundation as best friends before any of the sex started happening, and the respect that comes with being best friends. I’ve ranted on here before but part of my resistance for labelling them as an actual couple is because of that exact fact: I have met far more couples who take this term of girlfriend or boyfriend as an excuse to seriously disrespect their other human. Couples, over time, just seem to develop this extreme distaste for one another.

Best friends though? Shit son, that bond only seems to deepen over time. I would never speak to my best friend the way that I have sometimes caught myself speaking to a significant other. I don’t know why, but for some reason, a lot of us seem to take some big liberties when romance becomes involved.

These two, though? Listen, they have had years of very frankly, very directly, calling one another out on their bullshit. I think that bond, that’s really the only thing that saves them. Because this scenario, this isn’t any extreme emotion. This is just....blah. Something that was hot and heavy before just hit its natural peak and now it’s...blah.

I love the way you worded it. That it’s easier in bed. That it’s easier to pretend at night time. Sexual attraction often has little to do with actual compatibility, with emotion, with commitment. And these two--man, they know their way around the other. Tiger knows all of his on buttons, and he knows every single one of hers. It becomes less about emotion, less about spark, and more just about...scratching the itch. Both are human. Both get horny. Both know the other is real easy for them, and for at least half an hour, it’s some good feelings. It’s some fire put back into their jive for just a few minutes.

I think though...I think both of them are so rooted in touch, and I think that ultimately it’s the kissing that ends up sealing the deal. Couples do that, you know? To me, it has always been the marker of the end of a relationship--when the kissing becomes routine. A kiss hello. A kiss goodbye. A goodnight kiss. These are the relationship equivalent of a handshake.

When the spontaneous kisses disappear--the passionate ones in the hallway, where they cross each other and he loops an arm around her and pulls her in as she giggles. The sweet ones in the kitchen, when he’s chopping something and she just ducks into his vision, stealing a quick one from his lips as he squeaks in surprise because he didn’t even hear her approach. The soft ones in the morning, when he’s still asleep and she’s just pressing her lips gently all over his chest.

When this stops, they both know they’re in trouble.

but like it’s impossible to tell when it stops you know? God this shit sneaks up on you like that. Neither one of them realize, but I think eventually...I kind of love that it’s tiger, that lays it out on the table. That calls attention to it. And maybe it’s one week on a Tuesday--because the sex nights have become Tuesdays and Fridays, every week without fail--I think maybe when Bill reaches for her, she sits up and stays his hands.

“You don’t kiss me anymore,” she says quietly. Bill stops.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure I was just about to,” he huffs.

“You know what I mean bud,” she says softly, “We don’t kiss anymore.”

And Bill, for all of his incredible traits when it comes to her--the Big Dude is still very, very defensive. It’s his Achilles heel. It’s his knee-jerk reaction to being the middle child in a family that is fucking drenched in talent. When someone calls him out--someone he loves, someone he trusts--his immediate reaction is to be defensive.

“Last I checked kissing involved two people kid,” he snaps, “I don’t see you starting anything either. In fact, why am I always the one who--”

“No,” tiger says calmly, and it’s so eerily calm that Bill just...shuts up.

“Cards on the table,” she continues, “I’m calling it out.”

“Calling what out?”

“Calling this out,” she says, “I miss you.”

Bill stares at her, wide and unblinking.

“I’m right fucking--”

A hand, gentle but firm, clamps over his mouth.

“You do not get to talk to me that way,” she says and it’s still calm, “We mean too much to each other. Bill, I miss you.”

Bill removes her hand from his mouth.

“Tiger,” he seethes, and god it’s that quiet anger, “I don’t know what the fuck--”

“I miss you,” she interrupts. And the more she’s saying it...god it’s like she’s admitting it to herself. Admitting that something changed, and somewhere along the way, they lost their way. A lump forms in her throat.

“What the hell do you think--”

“Bill, I miss you,” she repeats, and a few tears escape.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re going on about kid,” he seems angry now, but tiger knows him. She knows him well. And the more she pokes at this wound, this vulnerability--eventually, the light will shine through this crack. And he’s cracking. She knows he is. She reaches a hand out, resting it over one of his and he doesn’t pull away.

“I miss you,” she says again, as the tears slowly trickle down her cheeks.

“This is fucking unbelievable--”

“Bill, I miss you,” she’s a broken record, but Bill shoves the blankets back and swings his legs over the bed.

“Then you can miss me when I’m not right fucking beside you,” he snaps, reaching for his pyjama bottoms. Tiger reaches out, wraps a hand loosely around his arm, kisses his shoulder.

“I miss you,” she whispers against the skin of his back, and she feels him tense. His muscles, alert and ready to bolt, bunch under her hands. He stays still for several minutes, her tears wetting his skin, and he doesn’t move.

But eventually, he lets out a deep sigh. One that doesn’t at all deflate him, one that doesn’t even move his statuesque frame.

“This is not my fault,” he whispers into the darkness, and tiger’s heart breaks. It breaks at the fact that he thinks this is about blame, that he automatically thinks the blame is his.

“No it’s not,” she tells him, “It’s our fault. We both let it get this way, bud.”

He doesn’t say anything, he still doesn’t move, and tiger presses a gentle kiss to the back of his neck.

“But I want to save it. This. I want to fight for this,” she says, and she pauses for a hard swallow before she asks the question that she mildly dreads the answer to. “...do you?”

He’s quiet. He’s quiet for too long, or at least long enough for her to panic. She whimpers, sliding off the bed and crouching in front of him as she takes his face in her hands.

“Bill look at me,” she pleads, “Do you? Want to fight for this?”

His eyes drink her in. And you know, Bonehead Bill. He knows his answer, but it’s like his brain taps out and he forgets to articulate it to her. But this girl kneeling in front of him? She’s his world. His sun, his moon, and every fucking one of his stars. He would fight anything and everyone, for her. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do for her. And he knows this, he thinks this, but right now he’s so caught up in thinking that this is just...this is all his fault. He let her feel unwanted. He let this get to where it is. And with him so deep in his own head, he doesn’t even realize how silent he’s being to her questions and how much panic it’s triggering in her.

“Because if you don’t, it’s fine,” she’s starting to wheeze, her speech coming out fast and frantic, “But you owe it to me to fucking tell me, Bill. To end it definitively, right fucking now, because I--”

“Tiger,” he snaps out of it when his brain focuses on her wheeze, and he instinctively reaches for her inhaler in his nightstand drawer, “Yes. Yes, kid. I...I want to fight for this.”

Like a well coordinated dance, he cups her jaw and holds the inhaler to her lips. She puts her mouth on it and he times a dose with her next inhale, setting the device to the side as he brings his other hand around to cup her face. He strokes her cheeks, taking a long minute to stare into her eyes--her eyes that are pleading, filled with tears, and god he hates himself.

“This is my fault,” he murmurs, and tiger lets out a long exhale once the medicine is absorbed.

“No,” she leans her forehead on his knee and his hands thread into her hair, “Bill, this is us. We’re in this together. We both did this, and we’re both going to work our way out of it.”

He clutches at her, his hands fisting gently in her hair. He swallows around the lump in his own throat.

“How?” 

For the first time in their relationship, he’s just...he’s at a complete loss.  He doesn’t know how to fix it.

“Together,” she says, reaching out to cup his jaw and he places a gentle kiss on her palm, “Bill, together. With open minds. With honesty. We will talk it out. We will work it out. We will decide--together--if we need counselling for it. Or if we can fix it ourselves.”

He nods solemnly, running his thumb over her bottom lip. He tugs at her, pulling her up until she’s in his lap and she presses her forehead to his.

“But the first thing we need to do is decide--together--if we’re going to fight for this. I’m all in, bud. That’s where I stand. I want this, I want you, and I will give my everything every step of the way to make this right again,” she tells him. She holds her hand out, spread out in front of him.

“Where do you stand?” she asks quietly. His eyes flick to hers, and he holds her nervous gaze.

“I’m all in kid,” he murmurs, and he loops his fingers through hers, “When it comes to you? I’m all in. I want this. You have my everything every step of the way, too.”

She kisses him slowly, her hand clasped tightly in his as he hugs her closer to him.

“Promises,” she murmurs against his lips, “I’ve got promises to keep.”

“And miles to go before I sleep,” he whispers back.

[grapefrutjuce]

Is it just me or is Dani looking more shiny and clean than usual in the rooftop clip haha

I have many mixed feelings on this story line. I’m an Arab Muslim but I’ve lived almost my entire life in the US, and I’m not very knowledgeable on the more religious accuracy aspects. Besides that, I’m just not sure what the takeaway of this relationship is supposed to be.

Long meaningless rambling under the cut.

I’ve only seen the OG SKAM before this, so I can only compare to that version of Yousana. But my impression was that Yousef and Sana were very strong on a few fronts - cultural context, history, and shared values. The conflict was over religion as a practice or moral philosophy. Things conclude on a fairly positive open ended note, despite this.

So how does that compare to Damira? Dani doesn’t have a shared cultural context with Amira, at least when it comes to her religion and background. Not much evidence he is actively trying to remedy some of his ignorance. Or at least, evidence that he is eager to do so.

He does have an established friendship and history with her, but I feel the show wants us to accept that as fact rather than show us many meaningful examples. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt there, though.

To be honest, I’m not sure at all if Dani and Amira have many shared values. Yousef made a point of taking a hit for Sana when it came to her parents suspecting drinking. So far, I don’t think Dani has taken any hits on Amira’s behalf, and that’s not for lack of opportunity. She continues to shoulder much of the burden.

Additionally, I really don’t jive with the concept of befriending people who treat others badly. It’s not even like most of his friends were respectful and polite, it’s that most of them were not. What does that say about Dani? That his concern is chiefly with how his friends treat him rather than how they treat others? What exactly does he value from these friendships? And as many people have pointed out, his joke about the kid still hasn’t been properly addressed. Does that mean we shouldn’t perceive this as a possible mismatch of his and Amira’s values?

Finally, the conflict aspect is different this time around. This is probably the only realm I think could be an interesting ‘benefit’ of choosing the Dani route for Yousef. In the OG, Yousef seems to have had his experiences with organized religion and definitively chosen to discontinue participation. For Dani, he has also had his own experiences with organized religion, but perhaps hasn’t felt any particular need to really commit one way or another. In fact, it seems that Amira’s own conviction in her faith is part of his attraction to her (note: they need to be very careful with this). Maybe he has found some sort of kinship with her on some level, in a way that encourages him to think about things differently.

So, where Yousef made a conscious decision to leave religion, here is a chance for Dani to make a conscious decision to join it. His relative ambiguity allows Amira to explicitly say that conversion would eventually be on the table, if they pursued a relationship. Why not explore this route, then? Not converting solely for Amira’s sake, but being inspired by her to start that kind of spiritual introspection within himself. I wish the dialogue would hint that maybe the reason Dani began to consider Amira in this light was because these were things that he did think about, but couldn’t share with other people he knew.

Some might say that this isn’t realistic. Why not? And why is Amira’s relationship confined to strict 'realism’? How many people in real life actually marry their high school sweetheart? Yet there are no problems with accepting other ships as 'endgame’ for all intents and purposes (within the show canon). I don’t think it’s fair that those relationships are portrayed as strong or developed enough to go the distance (these are still just a bunch of teens) but a Sana relationship is too challenging or 'mature’ to maintain.

If a lot of these ships can be fanfic-y or wish-fulfillment flavored, why not give Amira a relationship that isn’t painted as DOA (this is of course, notwithstanding the giant missed opportunity w/Kasim, but I’m not even going to go there)? Yes, Amira wants different things from a relationship than other characters. And perhaps she is satisfied being single. My issue is giving her the possibility of a loving relationship that respects her boundaries only to take it away from her, like she was asking too much. I know 21 year old white guys like Dani will have difficulties with this different style of relationship. But if it ends badly, to me it will almost read as a cautionary tale. If it’s so obviously an exercise in futility, why should I be invested at all?

I want the show to say that Dani believes Amira is absolutely worth it, not 'eh I was celibate for a few weeks and I’m not feeling it.’ That would also make both Dani and Amira look incredibly naive, if both acknowledge that they can only interact physically after marriage, yet still start dating now (doubt they plan to marry any time soon). So does the show mean to punish Amira for this naivety? I would much rather they provide a hopeful resolution, even if people say it’s 'unrealistic.’ 

Obviously pursuit of a relationship shouldn’t be the sole motivating factor of a major lifestyle or behavioral shift. But careful framing of Dani’s decision making and helpful insights into his mindset could avoid this. I know it would be perfectly fair for him to conclude he isn’t ready to commit to anything serious at this stage in his life. But…being that this IS a fictional story written by real people (with their own biases and preconceptions), there is a message that could be interpreted there…that Amira is, in fact, not worth the effort.

I’m also not sure what Dani’s expression meant when he was watching Amira take a drink from the bottle. I think it was a look of realization, but I’m not convinced that was necessarily realization of love or respect or something like that. I know it’s supposed to basically mirror the OG breaking fast scene, but the circumstances are different enough that I can’t assume Dani feels like OG Yousef did. Often times I get the vibe that Dani doth protest too much when he reassures Amira.

True, the season is only half over so my opinion could change. It’s just that, I don’t doubt that Dani and Amira have chemistry, enjoy each other’s company, and are very comfortable with each other. But I doubt the… substance? Content? Of Dani’s feelings for Amira. And I don’t even know if that’s intentional, or me being overly suspicious of the writing or what.

For me to think there is potential for real love at some point, I would need to feel that these two people very much want to protect each other and look out for each other’s well being. For Dani to merely accept or even admire Amira’s faith isn’t enough to sustain anything. It’s not just about being content in your own bubble, but about being partners and reinforcing that bond outside of it. I’m just trying to contextualize Dani’s approach to and motivations for this relationship, and at the same time validate Amira’s own wishes for herself and ensure that Dani is capable of fulfilling those needs.

I really like Damira. I am *really, really* rooting for them to work. I think they have a lot of untapped potential and a great tender affection for one another. That’s what makes me nervous that the show will pull out the rug from under me.

[silluuuu]

1, 7, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30 (putting you on blast lmao), 31, 37, 38 (ill let you pick just gimme the headcanons!), 40, 41, 49, 50

aer i love u LOL thank u for this gift. my brain is very wrung-sponge this morning so will have to answer the hc questions later 2day but i will answer the rest now. LOTS OF SPOILERS AHEAD!:

1. Who is your favorite character in the show? ok i have two answers for this, and both of them feel like they’re everyone’s answer but i can’t help it, these are my feelings!!!

objectively: catra. i love her story arc SO! MUCH! i thought it was done so well and she’s been through so much and i’m so proud of her. subjectively: adora. she is my people, i identify with her so much and she is so special to me and i will elaborate on this in #7 lol.

7. Do any characters remind you of yourself? Do you share any traits with a character? adora, 100%. she is Anxious and has such high standards for herself and takes responsibility for so much when she doesn’t have to!!! she’s been taught basically since birth to please others, to shoulder blame, to rise to others’ expectations, to be infallible - yeah, that all resonates with me a lot, haha.

23. Favorite episode? Corridors, hands down. if i had 24 minutes and 7 seconds to live, that is what i would watch. i wish i were exaggerating!! special shoutout to save the cat and white out as well. i can watch those episodes at ANY TIME, in ANY LIFE.

24. Did you cry at any point watching She Ra? the first time i watched, i only cried once - when mara says “you’re worth more than what you can give to other people; you deserve love too”. it felt like she was talking to me thru the screen and i just lost it. when i re-watch, i cannot watch Promise without crying. i didn’t Understand how important that episode was the first time, and now every time i watch, i cannot deal!!

26. Are there any characters you don’t like/find annoying? listen. i literally love them all. some are definitely more fleshed out than others, but i can honestly say i love every single one of these dummies with my whole heart. well. obviously i hate shadow weaver because like, she sucks. but as a character, i enjoy her immensely.

27. Are there any characters that you didn’t like at first but now you do? YES. seahawk!!! swiftwind!!! i didn’t properly appreciate mermista until season 4 (a tru crime).

28. Does Swift Wind deserve rights? listen, swiftwind redeemed himself in my eyes from that one scene where he imitates shadow weaver. shit was hilarious!!!

30. How many times have you watched She Ra? ... LISTEN. 😂 okay, so i’ve watched the entire show, beginning to end, about 6 times. three times by myself, three times with friends. my favorite episodes, tho? i’ve probably watched corridors/save the cat more than 20 times, at this point. listen. we know i have a problem. i have accepted this about myself.

37. Do you have any unpopular thoughts/opinions about She Ra? my most unpopular opinion is probably the fact that i love every single character, LOL. 40. Why do you like She Ra? it’s just... it’s so special to me. i guess i’ll split this into objective and subjective again, haha. objectively: the way the show discusses abuse, toxic friendships, its allegories to religion and guilt, the idea that you can make mistakes over and over and still, finally, after everything you’ve done, choose to be better? *chefs kiss*. there are so many important, nuanced messages in the show that people of all ages need to hear, and it’s BEAUTIFUL. also, the representation, duh. and the characters are hilarious and layered and charming and genuinely so incredible to me. subjectively: catra in a suit, catra’s outfit in season 4, catr-- ok i’m kidding (i’m not kidding) but the show also just perfectly jives with my brand of humor - a little dumb, a little tongue-in-cheek, i don’t know how to explain it. i just feel like, every emotion when i watch it, and it makes me feel a little more alive or something. 41. What do you not like about She Ra? i wanted/needed just a little bit more of some plotlines!!! my one major letdown from the show is the resolution on catra and scorpia’s relationship (give us a proper reconciliation, you cowards!!! scorpia deserved better!!!) i would have killed for a full 25-minute epilogue episode. speaking of scorpia, where are scorpia’s moms!?!?! also what the heck is going on with entrapta’s family? we got so much great development with bow and glimmer’s families, i just want more for the rest of the princesses!!! i know there’s only so many episodes but!!!! i need more!!!

49. What character is underrated? omg, easiest answer on this list for me. perfuma!!! her growth in the show is so under the radar, but the fact that she goes from treating vulnerability as a weakness in s1 to seeing vulnerability as her biggest strength in s5???? incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spectacular-- 50. What character is overrated? i understand that this answer is a cop-out, but: i love these stupid humans (also some non-humans) so much. i am the one doing the overrating. none of them are overrated. they are all perfectly-rated and this is the hill i will die on 😂 thank u so much aer, u are the best LOL

[thephonyones]

Korean Drama Series (K-Drama) Recommendations

I can’t say I’m an expert when it comes to K-Drama series because I haven’t seen a lot as compared to most K-drama addicts out there; but I guess I have seen a fair share of this phenomenon.

A little background, I’m in my 20s and I have heard and seen a number of K-Drama series since grade school days. There are few that I have seen during grade school and high school years and a couple, I guess, during college. Then this hiatus continued until early 2017, from then on I have watched more.

If I were to be asked what are my criteria in selecting a series to watch, I would answer – (1) from my friends’ recommendations, (2) genre (although I do not have a particular genre) and (3) actors and actresses involved.

Among all the K-Drama series that I have seen so far, here are my recommendations (in a slight particular order):

1.      Reply 1988 (2015)

Number of episodes: 20

Starring: Lee Hyeri, Park Bogum, Go Kyungpyo, Ryu Junyeol and Lee Donghwi

Where to watch: Netflix

There are five main characters, who are also neighbors, in this series and the story focuses on their friendship, families, romance, and growth, basically their lives, not to mention the 1988 setting and Korean culture it has shown.

It has the right amount of romance, drama, comedy and thrill. The story is quite slow-paced but take a deeper and closer look at the content. The way the story is delivered and laid down in this manner helped its viewers understand, absorb and appreciate the main plot and the corresponding life lessons, especially the family related ones.

I have seen this series twice and I still felt the same awe, while watching it again, and the same nostalgia, after the last episode. I will not forget the last episode and the last scene (having goosebumps while writing this) because this drama made me feel that I am with them throughout their story and that as it ended so is their company with me.

In terms of the technicalities of dramas, Reply ’88 is visually pleasing from the setting, the color, the MUSIC and of course the actors. The actors, from the ones acting as parents to the cute child ones, are so good on their roles which made the delivery of the story more effective.

Overall, watching this series is one hell of a crazy ride, because it’s too real and relatable, plus the lasting nostalgia and confusion after the last episode.

For more details 

2.      What Happens to My Family? (2014)

Number of episodes: 53

Starring: Yoo Donggeun, Kim Hyunjoo, Yoon Park and Park Hyungsik

Where to watch: Youtube

I watched this series because I became a big fan of Park Hyungsik. I wasn’t expecting too much but, boy, I did not know that this is going to be a pretty good one, considering that it has 53 1-hour long episodes and I only know Hyungsik among the casts. I swear, this is a must-watch!

The series is about this family (obviously) the father, his children and their own stories plus other branch of this family. Same with Reply ’88, this series has the right mix of every emotion you’ll need – love (in different forms), humor, pain and curiosity.

I am currently rewatching this series for the second time, no regrets, it is still this sweet the second time around.

I did not mind the length of this series because it is too entertaining, although I had to be mindful of the painful scenes. I would agree with most commentaries on WHTMF, “one minute you are laughing, the next minute you are crying.” No complaints though, because it is worth it.

I have to say, the story and the main plot is quite cliché, common and predictable but it did not suck, because delivery and timeline is well written and it is something that we should all be reminded of from time to time, not to mention the great acting the actors did. Again, they can make you laugh and cry and they feel so real. By the end of the show I loved not only Hyungsik but the rest of the casts as well.

This is another must-watch because of how real and relatable this drama is. Everyone, I am calling out everyone, should see this series as it can touch any family’s core while making you laugh with the company director-secretary love story.

For more details

3.      Hwayugi or A Korean Odyssey (2017)

Number of episodes: 20

Starring: Lee Seunggi, Cha Seungwon and Oh Yeonseo

Where to watch: Netflix

Cinematography-, acting/actor- and story-wise, this series is a bomb. It’s a fantasy series based on a classic Chinese novel. The story revolves around a girl with “sixth sense” and the supernatural entities (deities and demons) she has encountered, mainly the Monkey and the Bull Kings. Their main purpose is to eliminate evil in the human world. It’s a complicated story to summarize, but the series delivered it well.

I believe that the main plot of this series can be analogous to the real world in terms of the good and bad deeds, karma, god, heaven and hell concepts. I find this analogy meaningful because it generally applies to our world right now. Aside from this analogy, I like the fact that this is a romance series, but it is not too emphasized, although the story revolves around this. I like the frenemy relationship of the two kings as well as the stories of the side characters. Humor is also well inserted.

As mentioned above, cinematography is great since this is a fantasy series. Actors are all well-rounded ones, especially the two kings.

If you are looking for a good fantasy, romance, light comedy K-drama series with real life application, please include Hwayugi.

For more details

4.      Goblin or Guardian: The Lonely and Great God (2016)

Number of episodes: 16

Starring: Gong Yoo, Kim Goeun, Lee Dongwook, Yoo Inna and Yook Sungjae

Where to watch: Netflix

Goblin, another fantasy, romance, drama, comedy series, made me go back to the K-drama realm in 2017.

This drama tells the story of this immortal guardian and his mortal bride and the struggles they faced within their love story. The concept of reincarnation is present and the twists are commendable. There are also notable side stories and unforgettable friendships. I like how each character, despite the differences jived well.

Visually speaking, Goblin is too pleasing from every angle, not to mention the good-looking actors and actresses, who are also very good in their roles. Soundtrack is also very catchy and beautifully incorporated.

I believe, most K-drama watchers have already seen Goblin, but for the new ones try starting with Goblin since this worked for me because this is absolutely a breathtakingly unique series.

For more details

I realized that there are two categories in my recommendations, one is the realistic ones and the other the fantasy ones. I should say, I prefer the realistic/relatable ones over the fantasy concept. Both Reply 1988 and What Happens to My Family are very holistic – complete package. As for the fantasy ones, Goblin’s complexity and concept are actually quite similar to Hwayugi, but watch them both as they have different impact.

Special Mentions:

1.      Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (2017)

Starring: Park Boyoung and Park Hyungsik

This one is too cute and fun to watch. If you are looking for an entertainingly light romantic comedy, try this series.

2.      Lovers in Paris (2004)

Starring: Park Shinyang and Kim Jungeun

Before all these series mentioned above, I have seen Lovers in Paris through my young eyes and I can’t explain more. It’s a must watch classic K-drama series.

I have made these recommendations based on their story and overall impact – the values they have shared with me. I hope I can impart with you the same values as you run through my recommendations. 끝

- TPO

[sailforvalinor]

Oh yeah, I finished S1 of Bia—here’s an update:

So I forgot to mention this, but throughout season 1, Chiara had been taking cooking lessons from Pietro, and their friendship was very cute and they got up to all sorts of hijinks. (She also gets him to start a YouTube channel with her, it’s a long story in which he’s conflicted because he doesn’t know how well that would jive with going on to be a lawyer and people taking him seriously in the professional world, which I have to emphasize is a legitimate concern?? But it kinda gets swept under the rug, so whatever.) Chiara realizes that she’s developed a crush on him, further complicating the love triangle (square?? Pentagon???). Don’t ask what the age gap is, the show does not volunteer this information.

Daisy and Jhon crash and burn when Daisy’s birthday rolls around, and Pietro and Jhon both give her their gifts. She doesn’t know whose is whose, opens one and it’s one of those music sampler pad things and she’s like “??? I have no interest in music, who would get me this???” And Pietro jumps in at the last second to save Jhon and is like “haha, that was me, I got it as a joke, I thought it would be funny 😅.” And then she opens the gift that’s supposedly from Jhon but actually from Pietro and it’s a famous prima ballerina’s pointe shoes (HELLO??) that it probably cost an arm and a leg to get, and she’s absolutely overjoyed that her boyfriend knows her so well! Until she finds the receipt for the pointe shoes with Pietro’s name on it. She confronts him about it and is like “bro you have never gotten me a joke gift in your LIFE you take picking out the perfect gifts for people so seriously, how did I fall for that,” and he’s like “haha yeah 😅.” And the thing is, Helena had said earlier about the pointe shoes that “only someone truly in love could have picked out a gift so perfect,” and Daisy goes “man, Helena was COMPLETELY wrong, huh!” And Pietro is just like “Ha. Haha. Hahaha. Yeah. 🥲” THIS POOR GUY. Anyway Daisy confronts Jhon about it and breaks up with him because he really doesn’t know her very well, and the thing is she’s right but you do feel bad for Jhon, he’s clearly heartbroken—he’s just not the most mature guy ever.

In true Disney fashion, Chiara writes a song to express how she feels about Pietro, and then is like “hey Pietro will you listen to this song I wrote and tell me what you think?” And he says that he likes it a lot, and that it reminds him of someone that he likes but that he’s not sure will reciprocate his feelings, and Chiara is like “sure she will!” thinking he’s talking about her, and then he confesses that he likes Daisy. Yowch.

Meanwhile Jhon has been asked to go on tour with a famous YouTuber and is going to leave in a couple of days, and Celeste has just managed to admit to herself and her friends that she does like him, but wasn’t going to do anything about it because he was still with Daisy. But since they’d broken up, when she goes to say goodbye to Jhon, she kisses him. IN A BATHROOM. Like, I get that her arc was about overcoming her anxieties and learning to talk about her feelings, but girl???? Anyway we don’t see the aftermath of that, but Celeste is just happy that she could work up the courage, so…okay, I guess

Manuel’s mom, Lucia, shows up from Spain on the pretense that she missed him, but actually she came to confront Manuel’s “uncle” about the fact that he promised he would tell Manuel that he was his father but still hadn’t. Manuel’s “uncle” (Antonio, I’m just gonna start calling him by his name) is a lying liar who lies, and keeps promising that he will, but doesn’t seem to ever have any intention to. Meanwhile, Manuel’s aunt is not pleased because she of course hates Lucia’s guts, but then it comes out that when Antonio had an affair with her, HE TOLD HER HE WAS SINGLE. HELLO?? Manuel’s aunt then leaves him and asks for a divorce. But then she comes back? But I think she still wants the divorce. I’m confused.

I cannot emphasize more here that Victor and Alex truly have no idea what is going on or why their parents are fighting.

Manuel’s aunt and uncle confront Bia’s parents for some reason (I genuinely do not remember why—oh wait I think it was because Alex did a video with Bia?? It’s complicated and it doesn’t matter), and it did not go well, Manuel’s aunt somehow accidentally pushed Bia’s mom and injured her arm. (I cannot overemphasize just how unhinged that woman is. She desperately needs psychological help.) Bia’s parents do seriously consider calling the police on them, so I guess the police do exist.

Because of all this, Lucia doesn’t want Manuel living with them anymore, and tells him that he’s coming back to Spain with her. He is of course not a fan of this, he’s all like “BUT MOM I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND” (and there’s Victor, he is concerned about Victor). He and Bia really had JUST gotten together, but after a lot of convoluted stuff he works it out so he can live in the apartment building that Thiago owns. I’m skimming over a lot of stuff here, mostly because it’s nothing to write home about, but it must be said that the chemistry between Manuel and Bia is off the charts. Have you ever seen a fictional couple so cute that you wanted to throw up 😂

Oh yes it must be said though, there’s this running thing in the show where sometimes we get what I’ll call “Bia-vision,” where we’ll see the environment drawn over with her drawings and doodles as if it’s how she sees the world? Anyway, she has these little anthropomorphised hearts with faces that she draws a lot, and whenever Manuel is in the “Bia-vision” the little hearts start blushing or have heart-eyes. It’s absolutely adorable.

The acting across the board in this show is pretty good, but I feel like the guy playing Manuel is a notch above the others? He’s very gifted in subtlety. Gets this kid in more projects.

Oh yeah also Thiago kissed Helena, but then tried to play it off as him getting caught up in the spur of the moment or something. It wasn’t very convincing. Anyway, he later confesses that it wasn’t spur of the moment, he loves her, he’s loved her for a very long time, he’s probably loved her since the first time he saw her (OKAY), but tells her that she doesn’t need to give him an answer right away. We love a gentleman! Anyway, Helena is conflicted.

There is a lot of plot stuff with the YouTube channels that I’m skimming over here because I don’t care about it all that much, but the last major thing that happens in the season is that Bia actually runs into Helena in the park. And you’re like “GASSP they’re gonna reunite???” And then you find out in the beginning of S2 that Bia didn’t recognize her. Just…ouch, that’s devastating.

[dolcetters]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; mun & muse - meme.

TAGGED BY: @hyaciiintho​ ( ;-; AAA THANK!!! )

TAGGING (don’t feel obligated to do it!): @forsakenflora , @avadite , @yinseal , @inseparabilum , @reigningsniper , @tsume-awase​ , @canisfuria​ & YOU if you wanna!

FILL OUT & REPOST ♥ this meme definitely favors canons more, but i hope oc’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. multi-muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

----------------------------------------------------

MY MUSE IS:   CANON / OC / AU / CANON-DIVERGENT / FANDOMLESS

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES  / NO / IDK (he’s fetishized a lot; thanks, i hate it)

Is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / IDK (i’d lean more toward no)

Are they underrated?  YES / NO

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO / MAYBE (stares into the abyss)

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO / MAYBE

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL (true neutral, my boy)

HOW STRICTLY DO YOU FOLLOW CANON? ♠ || i have an ongoing joke that “canon is a slab of meat that we slow-roast at 475 degrees and carve for the juicy bits” but at the same time it’s not a joke at all, i’m being perfectly serious. i’m definitely a lot less strict than when i started for writing canon characters way back yonder, but i also DO like to keep within an array of canon boundaries because i’m not writing for an OC in this instance, i’m writing for an established character. ...it also doesn’t help that my character’s handled differently in the 4 types of media he shows up in but. i grew up reading DC comics and writing for beast boy, so i’m kind of used to “multiple takes existing for singular character”. 

that being said, my take on dol is clearly canon divergent (since... he’s alive and my default verse takes place after the nest raid) but it pulls primarily from brotherhood/manga with a couple dashes of 2k3 series (since that’s the only media that gives us a length of time that he was in the labs). but given that i follow along with just about every scrap of information provided in the manga on this clown, i’d say i follow canon fairly strictly... but there ain’t a lot to go off of, so my reins are pretty loose no matter how you look at it. my city now.

SELL YOUR MUSE! AKA TRY TO LIST EVERYTHING, WHICH MAKES YOUR MUSE INTERESTING IN YOUR OPINION TO MAKE THEM SPICY FOR YOUR MUTUALS.   ♠ || (*￣3￣)╭ well, hello, there. aware of dog? yes. this is he: dolcetto mcgrouchyboots, and he is not happy to be here at all. he is traumatized, sassy, wants to throw hands with teenagers, has no sense of self worth, and will absolutely use himself as a meat shield in order to protect any and everyone he cares about. he is spliced with: dog. his favorite weapon: sword. if you listen carefully, you might hear dog-song rising on the east wind as he approaches (don’t tell him axel taped a cassette player to his back). he comes from a found family of complete and utter morons with a lot of damage, they live in a partially underground bar, work as information brokers, and are all DEFINITELY fully functioning adult people. they say gay and trans rights. if you like angry boys with a sense of humor semi-on-par with griffin mcelroy, this is the boy for YOU!!! 

NOW THE OPPOSITE, LIST EVERYTHING WHY YOUR MUSE COULD NOT BE SO INTERESTING (EVEN IF YOU MAY NOT AGREE, WHAT DOES THE FANDOM PERHAPS THINK?).   ♠ ||  he’s only featured in a handful of episodes/chapters across all media, doesn’t have a significant amount of dialogue, and we only ever see him lose to the protagonist(s) despite that he seems more than capable of fighting anyone else. easy to brush off as a “aw he died and that’s sad but we didn’t really know him, moving on”. from what i’ve seen in my years, people are more interested in him being a cog in the machine of “greed is sad” and less interested in... HIM. which is fair, i guess, but hhhhhh

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO RP YOUR MUSE?   ♠ || i don’t know if i can pin-point any ONE thing, but i’ve always been drawn to characters with some sort of connection or bond with animals (example, once again, being beast boy from teen titans). i also have an IMMENSE weakness for the found-family dynamic. so when the devil’s nest appeared during my first watch through of brotherhood, i was pretty much... hooked. immediately. and devastated. immediately. as for what drew me to writing dol, specifically... probably his loyalty, his drive, the fact that he WOULDN’T FUCKING STAY DOWN no matter how many times someone knocked him flat on his face. i vibe with that. grew up very much in the mentality of “fall down 7 times, get up 8″. also, he had a sword... which always beats guns on coolness factor. and i loved his fire. ...and that he was a complete fucking idiot who’s really bad at kidnapping i mean HOLY SHIT THAT’S HOW YOU TRIED TO GET HIM TO COME WITH YOU, DOLCETTO, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING--

WHAT KEEPS YOUR INSPIRATION GOING? ♠ ||  dol has always been a great source of ...venting for me? <xD ever since i started writing him, i’ve always found his muse--specifically--to be extremely cathartic and comforting. i dunno if it’s because he lets the more... jaded side of me come out, even when we’re both trying to be optimistic? 

because i’ve been in 2 emotionally abusive friendships. i definitely have some left over hurt, pent up anger that hasn’t been given closure, a hell of a lot of underlying bitterness that i never got the opportunity to confront those people, BUT i still try to be. y’know. welcoming, friendly, supportive, despite a voice in the back of my head being paranoid?? i think dol continues to give me outlets to expressing that. somehow. not that i use him as an excuse to do it, more so i have more opportunities to do it when i’m writing him as opposed to writing someone like beast boy, who’s usually more on board with keeping the peace than picking a fight. i’ve also invested SO MUCH TIME and ENERGY into his background and headcanons and things that i kind of can’t quit him now, nor do i want to.

... and aside from that i just want him to have a happy ending god, fucking damnit. 

SOME MORE PERSONAL QUESTIONS FOR THE MUN.

give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO ( or i certainly hope so )

Do you frequently write headcanons? YES / NO

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES  / NO

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day?  YES / NO

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO ( definitely have moments but eh! ) 

Are you a sensitive person?  YES  / NO ( kind of... varies. i’d say i’m more hyper aware)

DO YOU ACCEPT CRITICISM WELL ABOUT YOUR PORTRAYAL?   ♠ || i definitely like to think i do when it comes to pre-established things in canon. but when it comes to what i’ve built on my own over my years of writing for dol (and the nest members as a whole), it’s kind of my sandbox and i’d appreciate you not stomp around in it. 

unless i need to be learned a thing, like... one of the nest members, vi, is a trans-woman. i’m a cis-woman and i try to do as much research as i can and educate myself, but if i ever fuck something up please tell me, i’m doing my best but i’m more than willing to listen. i want to grow.

DO YOU LIKE QUESTIONS, WHICH HELP YOU EXPLORE YOUR CHARACTER?   ♠ || pretty sure everyone does! >xD but yeah! i FUCKING love it. especially since i’m writing for a minor character. =//o//= it shows people are interested in him despite his overall lack of content.

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES TO A HEADCANON OF YOURS, DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?   ♠ || i’d definitely be curious as to why but i doubt i’d be offended or take ... any personal harm from it--y’know? it’d be more of a “let me hear your perspective and maybe it’ll expand my own understanding, or i might not agree after the explanation and that’s cool”! 

an exception would be for an obviously shitty one that’s shitty for no reason, like... acTUALlY, he’s TOtaLLY hom///o///pho//bic, to which i’d be like “bitch, no, get away from me; no one in this bar is straight, die mad”.

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH YOUR PORTRAYAL, HOW WOULD YOU TAKE IT?   ♠ || again, it’s cool! there’s not a lot of canon material so you can take his portrayal a variety of places. if we don’t jive, it’s pretty whatever. 

my one exception to this is probably people who, in the past, have told me i write him being “too mean”. which will never cease to confuse me. because even after al straight told dolcetto he was 14, dol was still like “I REALLY WANNA SMACK HIM but i’d just hurt my hand so you’re off the hook”, he’s angry like 85% of his dialogue in the manga... i’m just confused. where are you seeing the “uwu pupper~” persona. you can write it, that’s fine, i don’t care, just don’t get irritable when i don’t write him like a cute puppy. because here he is. suggesting we just kill izumi because she’s being troublesome. yeet. ...he’s an asshole.

IF SOMEONE REALLY HATES YOUR CHARACTER, HOW DO YOU TAKE IT?   ♠ || whatever, just don’t be a dick or speak badly about me or him in my presence because, flawed as he is and while i won’t make excuses for him, i’ll stand up for him. go somewhere else, my dude. i, personally, don’t have the energy for your negativity. nor do i have the patience.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PEOPLE POINTING OUT YOUR GRAMMATICAL ERRORS?   ♠ ||  i’m more okay with people correcting my spelling (gently). because of the way i taught myself to read, i’d be FUCKED if auto-correct or spell-check didn’t exist. i also google correct spellings constantly. so spelling, yeah, i already know that i’m terrible at it so feel free to correct type-os or spelling mishaps, it ain’t no thang. 

grammar i’m a bit... pickier about. because sometimes i’ll purposely do a “grammatical error” because the punctuation or otherwise further drives the pacing or mood i’m trying to give my writing. i may not know ALL the rules but i break them from time to time... FOR THE ART.

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE EASY GOING AS A MUN?   ♠ || i wanna say i am?? while i definitely do want to seriously explore and flesh out and grow dol as a muse and character, i’m “not above” goofing around, poking fun at him, or just being plain silly on the dash. RPing is escapism for me and i strive to keep my blog a peaceful safe haven on the dashboard, both for myself and my followers. 

i try to communicate to the best of my ability and despite my anxieties, and while i may not be able to follow or RP with EVERYONE (for obvious reasons) i’m open to interacting with ... pretty much anyone who throws me a bone. i’ll speak up if i’m not down for a plot or interested in a certain relationship or interaction, but i’m certainly not going to be rude or dismissive about it. i know what that feels like. i’d say yeah, though! i think i’m pretty chill. e-e you tell me.

[ruin-cain]

001| good omens? :3c

Fav character: Aziraphale

Least Fav: Tbh War. I dont see why the fandom loves her so much

5 Fav Ships: Ineffable Husbands, MaggotHusbands/Love Bugs, what ever the ship names for Anathema and Newt are and Tracy and Shadwell, and Ineffable Bureaucracy

Character I find most attractive: Probably Aziraphale tbh. 50% is how Michael Sheen plays him lol

Character I would marry: ^^^^ see previous answer

Character I would be best friends with: I think I would get along well with Aziraphale, and to an extent Anathema. Sit inside, read books, learn things, and drink tea/cocoa? The dream man.

Random thought: Shadwell so so gay for Crowley in the 1960s and no one talks about this enough, man.

Unpopular opinion: I really dint see where the fandom's obsession over War is coming from? Like, they talk about how hot she is after the controlled panel room scene and I just? Hate? The way the make up looks for that scene and then the one in the open with everyone else. I am not hating on the make up artists, but I took it as meaning to be harsh and ugly like how the horsemen are? Ya know? And I saw a bunch of 'I just turned lesbian' and 'please step on me' and I'm like?????????

Canon OTP: OKAY, we could sit here and talk about Ineffable Husbands but I wanna look at fuckin Newt And Anethama for a hot moment. The dude who brakes systems and a girl who was born into a system of her family and her last name is Device?! That is poetic af and, in the show, the amount of 'Respect Women' juice that Newt is chugging is amazing.

Non-Canon OTP: I think I would have to go with Maggot Husbands/Love Bugs and 95% is because of @rysttle and how they portray Hastur and Ligur and everytime I see their stuff and remember that Ligur is actually not alive anymore... I get real sad man

Most Badass: I think I gotta go with Crowley. NOT because he is a demon and the serpent of Eden. NOT because he has a badass car. But really because he got SO fucking low when he thought Aziraphale had died and then as soon as he had any sign that Aziraphale was still alive, he pulled himself together and fucking went forth and helped stop the end of the world and every once and a while I just need to be like 'If he can do that then I can get out of bed today.'

Most Epic Villian: The fact that Humanity is our own greatest enemy and we will be the cause of our own downfall but we might also pull through and save ourselves and that is the greatest toin flip.

Pairing I am not a fan of: I cant really jive with the whole Adam and Warlock thing? A big part is they are kids but I also just see them as being super close friends but being platonic in a nontoxic masculine way when they get older.

Character I feel like the writers messed up: I dont really think there is one I can think of tbh. I mean, I am focusing mostly on the show for simplicity's sake but book Newt wasnt great? But he was fine. And I am sure a lot of people might call out Shadwell for being sorta shitty but I think his character is meant to be like that and sometimes the shitty people have an important role to play, ya know?

Favourite Friendship: I am not even sure if can be called a friendship, but I loved the scenes where Tracy and Aziraphale were interacting in one body. Also just the Them in general is perf.

Most identify with: Crowley for a lotta reasons a lot of them down to personal taste and even, somewhat, personally trama.

I wish I could be: Fucking Crowley. Have you seen is car? *Pepper's voice* I want to be a snake!

[prettywordsyouleft]

Aerobatic // AIRFORCE7

Summary: All Yugyeom wanted to do with his life was dance. But when he was drafted into the air force, he wasn’t expecting to find new ways to do just that.

Pairing: Kim Yugyeom x reader (ft. GOT7 as AIRFORCE7)

Genre: pilot au / 1940s era / romance / friendship au

Warnings: Due to the era it’s set in, this will contain minor war conflict in some of the stories. I will not be making the war-zone my main focus in this series however. 

A/N: Welp, the final puzzle piece is now being shared. I really liked how this story comes full circle with the kind of connection and feelings in the first one with Mark. I look forward to see how everyone puts the stories into the correct timeline now that they’re complete!

Word count: 3923

Thank you everyone for supporting this series. 

When the music was played just right, there was no stopping him. Yugyeom would turn up to every social event rain or shine for a feel-good time. With the war overseas robbing the youth of their freedom, he was persistent on enjoying his for all he could. His eighteenth birthday was looming upon him and he knew he would have to register for service to his country soon after. Yugyeom hoped to be one of the lucky ones who didn’t have to head in for training before he was twenty-one. He was a dreamer, and not very realistic. He didn’t have any clue of what war meant passed what they showed on the cinema reel before the movie started on a Saturday night. And by the time he was at the dance hall afterwards, he was too busy dancing to have a care about anything else in the world.

Most of his friends would turn up to meet ladies in hopes they’d find their Mrs Right. There was a focus on bringing people together just in case the distress overseas found its way to their nation. Falling in love was all that seemed to be talked about in his circle of friends, or at least, falling in love with the female body. Yugyeom wasn’t exactly forthcoming in these conversations. It wasn’t that the body of a woman turned him away either. In fact, finding the right partner was just as important to him as it was his friends. But he was looking for someone who could move in rhythm with him, who would dance the night away.

He hadn’t yet tried anything that required taking off his clothes yet.

“Where are you off to?” Youngjae asked, chuckling at Yugyeom’s eagerness to get onto the dance floor. “Don’t you want a drink yet?”

“I’ll drink when I’m thirsty!” he called, listening to the band before launching into his own movements. Sure, he could dance like most others could. Swing was in and he could expertly dance to jives, hops, shags and other types of dance as well. It was if the music of the band possessed him and Yugyeom would dance to their beat as well as his own all night long. Sometimes he would be invited up onto the stage to dance and those were the nights he held out for during the dreary daily grind of working at the wood mill and listening to those who already served their time during the first world war brood over the happenings overseas. Dance was an escape, and was the one thing Yugyeom was the best at in this town.

When Yugyeom saw you step out onto the floor, he made a beeline for you before any other man could. You grinned and took his hand immediately. “You again.”

He nodded; a shy blush crossing his cheeks that he hoped was masked by the exertion of dancing for twenty minutes already. You giggled as he pulled you close and it was as if you had just added to the atmosphere, improving the sounds echoing around the hall.

“Didn’t you have enough of me last weekend?” you asked and Yugyeom spun you about, shuffling his feet before bringing you back to him. You moved in sync with him, sliding across the wooden floors with ease. “I heard all the men were rather put out.”

“Should I share you then?” he wondered and your grin grew wider. “Fancy that, wanting to dance with someone else. Though I suppose they might be less enthusiastic than me.”

“Do I match what you like in a dancing partner?”

He nodded and you giggled again, his insides fluttering just as much as your yellow skirt was with your dance moves. He looked around at the sea of women in navy, red, white and black before glancing back at you. He decided you liked to stand out and that yellow was now his favourite colour.

For two more songs, there was little chatter between you and then you gestured for a break. He led you over to his table, Youngjae glancing up from the conversation he was having with a pretty brunette to tip his head in greeting at you both. You took the drink Yugyeom offered and then smiled at him.

“What is it?”

“I’m curious about you,” you admitted, resting your head on your hand that you had propped up on the table. “How old are you?”

“Almost eighteen.”

“Ah, you’ll be a soldier soon.”

“Not necessarily,” he said pointedly and you laughed in response. It frustrated him. “Why, must I be a man of the military for you to keep dancing with me?”

You shook your head, your smile still warm. God, he could stare at you smiling all night long. “What do you want to do with your life, Yugyeom?”

“Well, I want to dance.”

“Every day?”

He nodded once again, growing shy. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? To perform for a crowd one day would be absolutely the best. I could travel the country, from stage to stage until I wind up on Broadway.”

“Broadway’s a big stage, are you sure you could handle that?”

“Don’t you dream big too?” he wondered and you shrugged, taking a sip of your drink. “I think a big stage would suit you just fine.”

“I’m not so sure I want to be the centre of attention like you. I want a quiet life. So far that’s not really been a thing for me. My Mama says girls in our gene pool are destined to make men miserable around them. You shouldn’t try to add me into your dreams, Yugyeom.”

“Well, why not? You’re the best dancing partner I’ve ever had,” he told you honestly and your smile faded, your gaze now hard and unwavering. He felt the heat rise up his neck with your stare and broke away, blinking rapidly. He lowered his head. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, I think that’s the sweetest thing a man has ever said to me.”

He glanced back at you, blinking again since you were closer now. He reached out to grab a hold of the hand you had upon your face, brushing his fingers lightly over your cheek before taking your hand away. You were back to smiling once more. Without saying anything, he helped you onto your feet, pulling you back out to the dance floor. But this time, instead of bouncing around energetically, he held you close, swaying slowly with the rhythm you both created together. Yugyeom then bent his head down, capturing your lips softly with his.

When you pulled away, you smirked, placing a hand on his chest to settle yourself. “Your moves are as smooth and your dancing, Kim Yugyeom.”

“Well, I can’t have you thinking you’re unlucky, Y/N. You’re the best woman I’ve met yet.”

Over the next two months, Yugyeom met with you regularly. He took you out to eat, to the cinema and of course, went with you to countless of dances. He hadn’t ever experienced love before but he believed this was it. His mind was full of you.

His birthday finally arrived and you had baked him a cake to surprise him with, blowing out the candles together before kissing him passionately. “Happy birthday, Yugyeom.”

“I’m eighteen,” he stated and you nodded, bopping him on the nose. He chuckled. “You can’t do that to me now, I’m no longer a child!”

“Is that right? So you’re legally a man now?” you asked, coy, intentional. He licked his lips and followed you as you turned to the record player in his small apartment, grabbing you around the waist and pulling your back firmly against his chest. You threw your head back over his shoulder, swaying to the music playing softly. Your hands reached for his, running them slowly over your body, each curve caressed more by his hands the longer you encouraged him. Eventually, you turned around, not losing any rhythm, still swaying with him as you stretched up to kiss him, his mind swirling with passion. He didn’t think he needed any extra gifts for his birthday but after you were both spent from sharing your bodies with one another, Yugyeom decided that this was possibly the best day of his life. He had danced with you all the way to euphoria and he was certain he didn’t want to come back down from such a high.

You reached out to cup his face in your hand, smiling when he drew your body closer to his. “I love you, Yugyeom. If the big stage is your dream for us, I’ll follow you towards it.”

Six months later the only stage Yugyeom had in sight was the small one the Corporal stood upon to give out orders to the men standing before him. He had no desire to get up on that stage or for anything that happened in his daily life now. The high he had felt with you had come crashing the day he was drafted into the air force.

“Do I have to go?” he had asked as you tidied his uniform, smiling weakly up at him. You held such a power over him and if you said no, he would evade it as much as he could. Of course you nodded, knowing it was compulsory now that the war was growing bigger, and threatening the peaceful times of this nation. He could tell you didn’t want him to go, for you to dance alone after all these months of doing so together was breaking you as well.

“I’ll do what I can to be transferred to where you’re stationed, hm? We won’t be apart for long.”

“Even a day without you is too long,” he whined and you gave him a look for being so petulant. But he didn’t care. He didn’t dream of this kind of uniform.

“You’ll be fine. Now go make me and this country proud.”

Knowing that his best friend was also stationed at the same base made Yugyeom feel somewhat at ease.

“Don’t look so low,” Youngjae chided and Yugyeom glanced up at him. “It’s not so bad being here.”

“You came willingly before me though. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Planes can be fun, you know.”

“I don’t want to shoot things out of the sky, I just want to dance.”

“Well here, dancing boy. Why don’t you jive your way off to see the Major, he wants to see you,” a fellow airman announced and Yugyeom rolled his eyes, taking the note sent for him and headed out of the bunkers to the office. Despite his reluctance, he wasn’t a bad cadet. He did all that was asked of him. You had been adamant that he continued to put his best foot forward. And for you, he was doing just that.

He didn’t have to like it, however.

When he arrived in the office, the Major beamed at him. “Son, I hear you have some magic feet.”

“Uh…”

“We’re thinking of putting on a show and we want you to help us put it all together.”

“A show, sir?”

The Major nodded. “Yeah, we’re bringing in a couple of top guns from another base; one of them is pretty decent up in the skies. Aerobatics is the new wave of fun the men can have so they say. If we build them up well enough, we might just be able to encourage others to join us. Now, that fancy female Captain training you doesn’t like to think of men flying in the skies for fun all the time but I don’t see any war coming our way, so what do you think? Reckon we could pull it off?”

“A show with music? With an actual band?”

He chuckled heartily. “Son, we could have an orchestra for all I damn well care. I just want the men to have a good time, invite some women to dance the night away with them after this Wang pilot shows off up in the skies. We have a couple of men here already that could join him. They reckon we could make a team force out of them. Are you in?”

Yugyeom nodded. “I can organise some music and dancing but I would need some help. There’s someone who I think would be able to make this a hit but she’s a town over, sir.”

“What and who do you need? I can make it all happen.”

Preparations for the gala began and Yugyeom was finally thrilled to get some time away from training drills to plan it. And when he saw you arrive on base for the first time, any ill thoughts he had about this place went away. “Are we really putting on a show?”

“Well, you’re here aren’t you?”

“They put me up in some nice lodgings too,” you said with glee, looking around the place in awe. For the first time then, Yugyeom saw the air base for what it really was. He grinned and dragged you over to the hangars, showing you inside.

“This is what I fly at the moment. They say they’re building a newer version of this plane that could very well be the best fighter in the skies yet. It’s called a Mustang.”

“I like how freeing that sounds,” you mentioned with a smile. He showed you around the base until you stopped at the site for the gala, discussing what would be needed for the show to be a success.

“Ah, and here’s the other star of the show,” Yugyeom mentioned, pointing to the runway that a plane was preparing for taking off. Jackson Wang would always come out to play and run through his segment for the show around this time of the day and Yugyeom angled you so you could watch on. Yugyeom grinned as the pilot took to the skies. “See, he’s really good.”

As Jackson ran through his routine, Yugyeom watched on in awe. He hadn’t done anything quite like that yet in a plane, but to him, it definitely seemed more to his liking than all the combat training he was often subjected to. And whilst he found Jackson had no qualms doing that either, he was certain the grin on the fellow cadet’s face only came about because of the rush playing so far up in the air.

“Why he’s dancing!” you cried as the plane rolled over and Yugyeom glanced at your excitement. You clasped your hands together and nodded in Yugyeom’s direction. “Don’t you think?”

“The Major called it Aerobatics.”

“Well, to me it looks like he’s taking on the clouds and moving with a beat up there that cannot be heard from down here. Listen to the way the engine sounds too. It’s like it’s having fun.”

Yugyeom watched Jackson with renewed interest. Could he really continue to find a way to fulfil the tempo in his heart up in a plane? Once Jackson landed, you ran over, congratulating him for putting on such a show.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” Jackson stated smugly, slapping Yugyeom on the shoulder.

“Nothing? Then I can’t wait to see what something is,” you replied, and Jackson chuckled at your response.

“I like this one, is she the girl you don’t stop going on about?”

Yugyeom flushed with colour and then distracted the shorter man with a request instead. “Do you think you could teach me how to do some of that?”

“Do you have stable basics in a plane, cadet?”

“Well, some.”

“Talk to me when you can fly a plane better than BamBam. Then we’ll see how good those dancing feet can be up in the air.”

In between the gala preparations, Yugyeom took his pilot training more seriously. When his Lieutenant approached him after training, Yugyeom was amazed to be given another hour of coaching by him. Jaebum seemed impressed with his skills and soon Yugyeom was smiling all the time on the air base.

It wasn’t unnoticed by you. “Do you know how handsome you are when you smile?”

“Do you know how beautiful you are, period?”

You rolled your eyes but the smile didn’t erase from your lips. You nestled into his side, grateful that he had been given permission to stay with you over the weekend. “Flying means something to you now.”

“I’m really close to being trained by Jackson on how to do some of his aerobatic stunts. Another pilot, Mark, he said I’m the fastest learning cadet they’ve had at the air base. Isn’t that something?”

“It sure is,” you agreed, kissing him fondly. “And with only a couple more days until the gala, your dancing feet will be itching to put on a show, huh?”

“You bet!”

“I have some good news. The ladies in the office told me that I might be able to become a typist for the base. I just have to pass a couple of tests and if I do, I can stay here in town.”

Yugyeom gasped, scooping you up into his arms and placed kisses all over you until you were giggling in his embrace. When he was done, he stared at you. “What about dancing?”

“I can still dance,” you told him, nodding your head. “There’s the hall in town and we’re doing this gala are we not?”

“It’s still not the biggest stage,” he murmured and you cupped his face in his hands. “I don’t know how long I have to stay a pilot for either.”

“I’m happy though, Yugyeom. I’m really happy here. Can’t we look for the bigger stage later on in life?”

He thought over it for a moment before nodding, kissing you again. He could wait as long as you were by his side.

“So we’ve got something to run past you.”

Yugyeom glanced up as the men all sat down beside him, placing down their food trays. Whilst he spent a lot of time with the elite team now that they were training him, he wasn’t exactly privy of sitting with them often. He then noticed one pilot was missing. Jaebum shot him a solemn look. “Mark’s out.”

“What, the show is tomorrow! Out how?”

“The fool got mad at a cadet and broke his hand. No flying for a month for him,” Jinyoung mentioned, shrugging softly. Yugyeom hadn’t spent much time with the elite pilot, but he did know he was pretty knowledgeable about planes. He had turned to him a couple of times when the lessons hadn’t made much sense. And even if Jinyoung had complained in doing so, he actually made everything seem a lot easier to understand for Yugyeom. His bristly persona was really only an outer façade.

“So, we want to know if you’re in,” Jackson asked, slinging an arm around the back of Yugyeom’s chair. “I know you’re still learning but it’ll be good for the men to see a protégé in the making.”

“Eyyy,” Yugyeom responded, shaking his head and blushing at the title. “I’m just learning ways to make this journey enjoyable whilst I’m here.”

“We need you. I’m not going to do it and Jaebum-hyung has other commitments. Jinyoung-hyung claims he can do some aerobatics-”

“And I can,” the pilot firmly concluded, BamBam rolling his eyes at the interruption.

“But doesn’t see the value in doing them so it’s up to you. What do you say?”

“Will I have enough time to do my part of the show still?” Yugyeom wondered and all four men nodded. Yugyeom’s smile spread across his lips and Jackson whooped ecstatically. “I’m in!”

It was tight, but Yugyeom managed to fit in a final training in the skies before running through the show programme with you on the ground. He knew he was now relying on you to do more than you had initially signed up for but you assured him you would be fine and to enjoy the new element for the day. He couldn’t help but feel nervous. On stage, he had no issues with performing, but up in the skies, well, it was new territory for him.

“You’ve got this, Kim, just don’t flake on me,” Jackson encouraged, slapping an affectionate hand on his back before heading over to his plane. He had spent little time flying the newer Mustang, the older styles being what he had trained in. Now with the Rolls Royce Merlin engines in them, Jaebum said the Mustang was as wild as could be. And Yugyeom had experienced that earlier in the week. He wasn’t so sure a wild horse would be the best partner for his debut stage, but it was all he had to work with now.

Their Captain prepared them both for take off, giving them the signal to get up into the skies. Yugyeom had no troubles doing that and the unique engine rumbling sounded like the beginning of a song. Once up in the air, he laughed, whizzing around the base with speed, just like Jackson had taught him. As he listened to his cues, Yugyeom also focused on the sounds around him. Ever since you had mentioned the sky was like an amphitheatre for the planes, he had started to envision it like that. His performance anxiety shifted and Yugyeom prepared for a basic loop. He wasn’t able to execute the move as gracefully as Jackson, but he did it and it energised him to carry on with the remaining elements to his performance, landing his plane and hopping out to see the crowd of fellow pilots, base personnel and the public all applauding him and Jackson. He glanced at his friend, Jackson laughing heartily as he bowed and soaked in the feeling. He then pointed to the stage you were standing on.

“Shouldn’t you hurry, you need to get up there and join Y/N for your other performance.”

“Right, thanks, Jackson.”

“Oh uh, I know it’s a saying for good luck, but don’t break a leg. With your newfound flying ability and Mark out of action, I’m going to need you up in the skies at my side, you hear?”

Yugyeom grinned and nodded before dashing off to meet you for the next performance. You held out a hand for him and when the music started, he launched into the prepared routine. After that, the floor was open for everyone to dance upon and the final rays of the sun soon were out, the night sky filled with twinkling stars. Yugyeom looked up at them and wondered what it would feel like to fly amongst them.

You smiled knowingly. “How do you feel?”

“Everything went according to plan.”

“Yes but how does this feel?” you asked, pressing your hand over his heart. “It wasn’t Broadway.”

“No, you’re right, it wasn’t the biggest stage.” He grinned, leaning down to kiss you. “But I shared it with you.”

“You know, I think your dream is now bigger than Broadway. Who needs that stage when you have all that up there to perform in? The skies the limit isn’t it?”

Yugyeom gazed up again, reflecting on your words. If someone had asked him if performing as close to the heavens as he could was ever part of his journey, he was certain he would have laughed at them. Now, as a pilot who could dance down here with you and up in the clouds in a plane, Yugyeom realised it wasn’t the size of the stage that mattered.

It was all about who he performed with.

_________________

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[psychomoxxie]

Don’t Say You Love Me (Falling For A Psycho Girl)

So if you read the last post, you know i’m just dragging myself by the teeth and unkempt nails out of the dumpster fire that is my so-called “heart”;

I.e., yet another relationship bit the dust. The first one in 4 years. It was new, but i fell hard, because he was different and not an abusive fuck, was super-sweet, and had the brain-cooties too (not like mine, but still), so i could relate to him on a deeper level than most. But turns out, he’s already into someone else, if his FaceBook memes are any indication (which they almost certainly are), which makes me feel incredibly stupid and naive that i didn’t see it coming. He was probably talking to this girl romantically before things ended with us. Which puts things in a whole new light.

 That light being — i am, and i reiterate, incredibly stupid and naive.

 Which brings me to the next bit.

The very next day after things imploded in my face with this guy, a friend – a male friend – talked to me for three hours on the phone to cheer me up, make me feel better about my stupid little heart; and after we hung up, he messages me to confess to me that he’s in love with me.

 Here’s the thing. It’s not that I don’t “love” this guy friend. In as much as I can feel love for him or anybody else. That sort of thing is reserved for a very small pool of people, and I’m not very good at it. Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you. I will disappear off the face of the earth for weeks at a time, and expect you to be ok with that. I have a hard time being emotionally available for most people.

 My capacity for being In Love with a capital “L” is severely limited, and probably not defined in the way most people think of the word. I’ve experienced real, actual, true Being In Love probably twice in my life. Where it hit me hard, and i was both viscerally and emotionally affected by it, and wanted to put that person’s needs before my own and all that sort of thing, where i felt that gut-wrenching emotion when it ended for whatever reason. Where i felt emotions that had to do with THEM, and not just ME. Not just the selfishness of “romantic love”, which mostly has to do with how that person makes you feel, and less to do with the actual person. But when I did feel it, I felt it all the way. And crawling out of it is certainly no easy feat. In fact, I still love my first True Love — but he died many years ago, so there’s not much I can do about that.

 I’ve certainly developed feelings, even felt love for a couple people I’ve dated — which evolved into true friendships, which I consider to be a type of love that’s different from being In Love, though still very worthy and much more likely to occur in a person’s life multiple times. Those instances of love are the people that i still speak to, despite whatever pain it cost to get us here, because we still actually had a real connection after the romantic bit ended. (The guy in the photo being one of those).

 Of course, the question is, was it genuine Love ™ i felt for the Guy I Fell For if it wasn’t actually reciprocated? If he’s already moved on to someone else, then clearly it was one-sided on my part since i still have feelings, and he clearly does not.

I don’t know. The thing is, I can’t transfer my feelings from one person to the other so quickly. Or at all. Because for me, I rarely feel them to begin with.

 Oh, in the past i’ve felt serious infatuation. When i was younger and unmedicated, i was capable of obsessive infatuation. Of course that ended when that person’s flaws came to the light, or they disappointed me. I see this one’s flaws quite clearly and still have the feelings. I hate it, but there it is. Maybe that’s the problem. For him, it was just infatuation.

 Part of the problem of being a Psycho bitch — like, literally, I have ASPD (Anti-Social Personality Disorder, my secondary diagnosis, and it’s not severe, but it’s significant enough to be problematic. This is the first time I’ve talked about it, because the stigma surrounding it is so fucked up) — is that it’s not easy for me to connect with other people. Not in any genuine way. It’s considered to be, in my and many cases, the result of certain childhood experiences. It’s a fairly common reason for this fairly uncommon disorder. A protection that the brain constructs as a result of physical and psychological trauma. I recognize it, and i try to work on it. It’s not easy.

 Here’s where the Mental Illness Education Bit comes in, folks. Because yeah, we’re doing that now. ASPD is a relatively new diagnosis – or rather, TERM for a diagnosis (in general, and also for Yours Truly), and it’s often interchanged with Sociopathy, which is often interchanged with Psychopathy. It’s not a Mental Illness, per se, but a Personality Disorder. Which might be wrong, for me, since it’s co-morbid with Schizoaffective Disorder which has some symptoms in common, and they gave me my ASPD diagnosis several years ago for what they thought previously was Bipolar – which is fairly obviously not my problem. I don’t have mood swings, per se, but i do have impulsivity, and lack of empathy, and other things that jive with the ASPD diagnosis. Apparently, my being slightly Sociopathic makes more sense. Honestly, i sometimes think they just liked slapping the label on a woman because it’s so rare.

 On the other hand, it does kind of fit, if i’m going to be honest. I’m very good at the whole social mask thing. And i don’t feel things normally – haven’t ever, really.

 I’ve never murdered anyone (yet), but i will certainly admit to having a lack of conscience or empathy where many things are concerned. Or, perhaps just a lack of emotion in general. My psychiatrists say it’s due to severe PTSD and trauma. As is true for many people with the disorder, as i mentioned.

The misapprehension people have, however, is that people with the disorder NEVER connect, or are incapable of it. This isn’t true. When we do connect, it’s definitely genuine and deep. We just don’t do it with many people at all. Mainly this is because we’re basically self-centered and pretty selfish. And not very “nice”. We have to work at it. We aren’t “empaths” or any of that new age crap. We don’t connect with the outside world very easily, or well. We can be manipulative. And in some cases, fairly narcissistic. Definitely overly-logical when being emotionally sympathetic is clearly called for.

 But every once in a while, i really connect with somebody. And when that happens, it’s really not easy to let go. But when i finally decide it’s time that i do, it’s like that person never existed. It’s very black and white. Again, a protective thing my brain does, i suppose.

 And God knows what I did to fuck things up with The Guy I Fell For, because that’s just it — i will do things out of my inability to be empathetic sometimes. Or patient. People will tell me that I’m sweet and kind, but really I admire those qualities in others, and try very hard to emulate them. I think I have those qualities in me sometimes, but I have to work at them. The very few people I do love bring them out in me. But even so, I fuck it up. Often. I didn’t have anything to model it after growing up, you see. So my version of compassion and normal love and affection looks rather like Helen Keller’s version of trying to describe the color blue, I rather suspect, sometimes.

 But, i digress.

So, this friend – we’ll call him The Limey (because oddly enough, he’s also living way the fuck in another country) confesses his love for me, and i realize off the bat that my emotional response is all wrong. The wheels in my head are turning in all the wrong directions. It’s a welcome distraction, and an ego boost, and i latch onto it like a drowning woman for about a day. In some ways, he’s a perfect match for me. We’re good friends. He’s single, a talented musician, whipsmart, witty, kind of an asshole in all the right ways; he’s willing to come right out and tell me how he feels. He’s incredibly attractive, and sexy as Hell. He wants me to leave the damn country with him, for fuck’s sake. All the things i so desperately want. And, yes, i do like him, a lot.

 But do i Love ™ him? No. Which comes into stark relief when he pisses me off by being a jerk to one of my friends – someone i do love (not romantically, but definitely love) and my first reaction is FUCK this Limey. I don’t even give him the benefit of the doubt.

 My emotions are so shut down at this point that i can’t even conceive of giving the Limey a chance. Him, or anyone else for that matter. Because i’m done. I’m done connecting with people for a good while. I have the very few people in my little Universe of Discourse, and that’s all i need.

 Clearly, the point here is that i’m damaged, but i’ve always been. I don’t think it means i need “help”, and i certainly am not asking for sympathy. I’m perfectly aware that i am fucked up. In fact, on one level, i’m happy to know that i’m still capable of falling for someone, as misguided as it may have been, and as hurt as i am from the way it all ended. It shows me that i do, in fact, still have a soul. That i’m capable of actually feeling something real, as opposed to my usual screwing around with abusive men — which is not love, but some weird head game i put myself through out of some need to torture myself.

 Soooo, this post digressed wildly.

 The point IS, i was flattered and moved by this friend’s declaration of love for about 48 hours before he pulled some crap that made me want to beat him over the head with a tire iron, and then i responded in my usual unsympathetic and offhand fashion because that is my default.

I’m fairly convinced at this point that i should just avoid romance altogether. I’m obviously bad at it, i pick the absolute wrong person nearly every single time, and then wonder why i’m miserable. Then i spend the next 3-4 years perfectly happy all by myself, which is just long enough to forget how miserable relationships make me. Rinse, repeat.

 Plus there’s that whole thing where i have to explain that i’ve got the Brain Cooties…or Brain Worms (thanks, Jay, for that new term), which is never a fun conversation; like, “No, dear, i’m not going to knife you in your sleep, and no, i don’t hear voices telling me to roast your spleen with a nice Chianti. At least, not usually. NO, BABE. THAT WAS A JOKE…”

 I just…i can’t.

 If i end up like one of those old ladies with her cats living with her female roommate in the boondocks collecting furballs and molding them into puppets and selling them on Etsy, then so be it. Right now, it seems like the sane choice.

 *photo of me and The Samurai – dear friend and fellow artist

[its-ashleyreads]

FInished: 05/05/2020

Love at First Like by Hannah Orenstein

Rating:  ★★★★★

Okay, so to preface this review I feel like I need to say that I don’t typically rate romance novels highly. Not because I believe that they aren’t deserving of high ratings but more often than not there is some problematic element that I just don’t jive with. That being said, this book definitely had a problematic element to it but it was dealt with in such a way that enhanced the characters and their development instead of being problematic for the sake of shock value.

Also, just a warning that I had a LOT of thoughts on this book so the review is quite lengthy. I’ll put little headers on each paragraph so if you’re only interested in thoughts on certain aspects you can scroll down and find them easily.

Summary

“Love at First Like” by Hannah Orenstein, is about Eliza, a 20-something jewellery store owner in New York who sells happily ever afters but can’t seem to find her own. One night after a train wreck of a first date she scrolls through Instagram and finds out that her ex-boyfriend, who said he wasn’t the type to settle down, has gotten engaged. Eliza does what everyone does after finding out their ex has moved on, she gets drunk. After drinking through the better part of a bottle of whiskey Eliza thinks it’s a good idea to go into the jewellery store, she co-owns with her sister and take pictures of engagement rings on her finger.

The next morning, she realises that in her drunkenness she accidentally posted one of the photos on Instagram and her 100K followers now believe that she’s engaged. Her first instinct is to take the photo down but after seeing the influx of sales, at a time when the business sorely needs them, she decides to milk it a little longer. With so many questions surrounding who she’s engaged to and no man in sight, Eliza and her best friend Carmen, decide to hold an audition of sorts for someone to play the groom-to-be. The audition turns out to be a complete bust but shortly after Eliza meets Blake. Blake is everything a girl like Eliza wants, he’s attractive, charming, and he owns a men’s luxury watch company; they’re a match made in heaven. They start dating because this is someone who Eliza can really see herself settling down with, but she hasn’t told him that she’s fake engaged, or that she’s planning to stage a fake wedding to drum up even more sales for her business. Throughout the book Eliza struggles with whether to tell Blake the truth, or risk losing him for good.

 Review *Contains Spoilers*

Eliza

When I first picked up this book it was in one of those 3 for £10 sales and I needed a third. The premise sounded ridiculous and unrealistic and I thought it would just be an easy read that I rolled my eyes at, like most chick-lit. I was so pleasantly surprised by this book. I thought this was going to be a 1/5 but somehow, I’m giving it a gold star and a 5 out of fucking 5.

The main character, Eliza, is not someone I totally relate to, in fact her impulsivity is one of the qualities I hate most in anyone. As a dedicated planner and organiser, it’s one of my biggest pet peeves, but despite that I actually really liked Eliza’s character. Her bad/irresponsible choices in the beginning mostly just seem like a way to get the plot moving but I can still see how her character got to the place to make those choices. We’re given just enough backstory to understand how much her jewellery store, Brooklyn Jewels, means to her and how she would do anything to keep it from going under. Which is why when sales go up after the accidental engagement photo, I totally understand why she didn’t delete it, even if I don’t agree with it.

Secondary Characters/Friendships

I also absolutely loved that side characters like Carmen, Sophie and Raj all got to be real, fleshed out characters. Often, I find that secondary characters, in romance especially, don’t really get to have arcs or personalities other than whatever stereotype or trope they’re based on. Carmen in particular I thought was really well done. When we’re first introduced to her I thought she was just going to be a fun BFF that serves up one-liners to get laughs. Yes, Carmen can be a funny character at times, but that’s not who she is. Despite us only having small glimpses into this character, as we only see her through Eliza, Orenstein uses Eliza’s history with Carmen to show us how she’s evolved over the years in her career goals particularly. The second encounter we have with Carmen is almost entirely centred on her and her idea of an app that she wants to launch, where Eliza intones that previously “[Carmen] said she’d rather do excellent work for a company and collect a steady paycheck. [Eliza] never thought she'd strike out on her own.” (60) The rest of this encounter is spent with Eliza offering to provide business advice and support to Carmen as she knows how hard starting a business can be.

I absolutely adore Eliza and Carmen’s friendship because it doesn’t revolve around Eliza and her boy trouble. Their friendship is a two-way street where they lift each other up when they doubt themselves, like when Carmen was nervous about making a presentation to investors and Eliza went through it with her until she’d perfected it. And they ground each other when they’re becoming too idealistic, like when Eliza keeps stringing Blake along and Carmen reminds Eliza that he’s a person with real feelings who doesn’t deserve to be played with. Their friendship is so authentic and true to real life experience that I honestly want another book about just the two of them living it up in NYC.

Eliza as a friend in general, I found was quite refreshing. In a lot of romance the heroine tends to be quite selfish and shitty towards their friends, if they have any at all, but Eliza hit the perfect balance of caring for her friends and caring for herself; not being a martyr, but also not being greedy. I loved how excited she got about her friends lives and achievements, and how when she saw that Raj, a web engineer, was bar-tending between gigs she hooked him up with Carmen who was in need of exactly what he had to offer. I also like how it was mentioned that Carmen paid Raj because I think sometimes things like that get reduced to a friend doing another friend a favour, instead of the fact that Raj is a trained professional and deserves to be paid for his time and expertise.

Sophie

However, someone who did not deserve to get paid, was fucking Sophie. Let me clarify, Sophie deserved to be paid for the work she did at Brooklyn Jewels, but she did NOT deserve a $15K bonus right as their business was going through a tough time financially. This made me unreasonably angry, I had a full freaking meltdown because it was so ridiculous to me that she would even ask and even more so that Eliza said YES. Sophie needed the money to go through IVF treatments because she and her wife wanted to have a baby, fair enough. I personally don’t believe in going through that kind of treatment when there are so many kids in the world without families but whatever, to each their own. But what really irked me was the fact that Sophie, who is in her early thirties, had already attempted this method of conception and it didn’t work. So, she was willing to take a gamble with money that was greatly needed to help keep their business afloat because she couldn’t just wait a fucking year or two. Not to mention the fact that if she did get pregnant and has this baby only for her business to fail, then she wouldn’t have a steady income, health insurance, maternity pay and she would have also screwed her sister out of her dream. Luckily everything works out for the best, Sophie gets pregnant and Eliza saves Brooklyn Jewels, but it so very easily could have destroyed multiple lives. The fact that Sophie is meant to be perceived as the ‘responsible’ sister astounds me. When Eliza was trying to save their business by offering solutions Sophie kept shooting every idea down and her only contribution to that conversation was that she wanted to fire their only employee who got paid shit-all anyway. Honestly, I could write a fucking essay on why I hated Sophie but I guess I’ll settle for a really long paragraph.

Love Interests

The problematic element in this book was definitely the ridiculously elaborate plot for Eliza to lure Blake into marriage to cover her fuck-up. As I was reading I marked three places where Eliza could have told Blake the truth in an organic way so that it wasn’t just like she was dropping a bomb on him. Despite my frustration with Eliza, her internal monologue again, made me understand why she wasn’t doing things how I wanted her to. Although, even though I understand her reasoning, it still doesn’t make what she did to Blake right, and I absolutely love how he couldn’t trust her again and that they didn’t get back together. I hate the ‘love concurs all’ trope and I’m glad that the author showed how Blake, who was clearly way more in love with Eliza than vice versa, couldn’t get past the fact that she used and lied to him. Part of me wishes that was how the romance in this book ended, with no happily ever after, maybe Raj pretending to be her fiancé to save Brooklyn Jewels, but no happy couple at the end.

The other part of me feels all warm and fuzzy because Raj and Eliza are unbelievably cute together. Orenstein could have fucked this romance up so hard, especially because it comes in so late in the story and Eliza was (kind of) on the rebound. But she takes the readers thoughts of, ‘Did Eliza really not notice her feelings for Raj until now?’ and ‘Is Raj just second place because Blake dumped her?’ and turns them into questions Raj uses to stand up for himself. Raj has clearly liked Eliza since they first met and I loved that he was willing to fight for what he believed he deserved. Raj and Eliza have such great chemistry as characters, but they were ultimately their own people who made their own choices, even after getting together. The way Orenstein wrote both Blake and Raj was a breath of fresh air. To see two male characters not being aggressive, but still standing up for themselves and not blindly bowing down to what the female love interest wanted, was something I don’t think I’ve ever read before. I think that comes from the fact that yes, Eliza is the heroine of this story but it’s not just about her. Like, I could tell while reading from Eliza’s point of view that there were other things going on in this world that just didn’t include her. So, while she was our main character, she wasn’t the main character of the world she was living in.

Representation

One of the things I loved most about this book was the casual representation. This was the truest to life representation I’ve seen in a romance novel thus far. Orenstein doesn’t make a big deal about her minority characters because they’re not minority characters, they’re characters who happen to be minorities. This book isn’t about race or LGBTQ+ rights so there’s no real need to dwell on those things, but she does acknowledge those parts of her characters in small ways throughout. This is how more fiction should be, because the more we normalize diversity in the media we consume, the less we’ll think of minority groups as ‘other’ (or so I hope).

Rating

Ultimately this book was not perfect. I definitely had problems with it (mostly named Sophie) but it was a fun read from beginning to end with some thought provoking themes which will stick with me for a while yet. Honestly, this book could have been complete garbage, but Orenstein’s writing and character development made me connect to almost every character (except for Sophie of course). I can’t wait to read her other works. 5/5. Brava!