#anyways WAY more 113 art to come but FOR NOW | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

certifiedceraunophile · 4 years

Text

DISCLAIMER :

SMUT SMUT SMUT and FLUFF. (NSFW)

It’s basically a 5k porn smut-shot about dimples and dick. Mostly dimples but there’s gratuitous dicking too, because of course my brain saw a gif set of Mr. Klaus Forbes flashing his dimples and thought PORN.

ALSO,

Nominated for Best Smut Oneshot in the 2020 KC awards

(I mean I have been called an excellent homoerotic muse so I shoulda seen this coming)

Tags:

D/s undertones,

Dominant Caroline

somewhat bregrudgingly submissive Klaus.

——————————————————————————

TREAT AT MY BEHEST

The conversation was flowing smoothly, a little too smoothly, it truly was a sight to behold,

She doesn't find awkward bumps that the participants uncomfortably had to step over stilling the flow, no problematic cracks people either ignored or tried to tear open with their teeth, no blunt blows to the back off the head, or venom tipped words sharper than the fangs the Mikaelson family sported, Hell, even Kol kept his sexual innuendos count to an all time low of two per sentence, and it wasn’t tedious either, it was sunny honest conversation one that flowed and ebbed in tranquil warmth enveloping all those who took part in it.

But of course, the insufferable bastard she’s been calling her husband for the last handful of decades, and her last love for two centuries now, decides he’ll singlehandedly throw all progress out the backdoor.

Her husband, and his freaking audacity to flash those dimples, in that exact way, throw all progress out the backdoor if she’s being more accurate.

God he’ll be the end of her.

It’s no grand truth, that she’s very very closely acquainted with his dimples, and she means, ‘lick a sweet path from dimple to lip as per her wish’ closely acquainted, those perfect indents on his cheeks, make no mistake, they are hers for the taking,

But she admits, she has her preferences, she’s a bit finicky with her interests,

She’s not too fond of his shit eating ‘Yet again I’ve bested you, my love.’ dimples, or any other variant of that he flashes in the rare case he has the upper hand between the two of them.

She’s quite partial to the one sided dimpling the evil villain smirk has to offer, one she’s privy to during their hunts, or the ‘Ive got one word for you: run.’ smirk he displays before transforming into a walking talking guillotine, those are quite entertaining to watch bloom, and the customary thorough debauching of her body that follows any such murder work out is nothing dismissible.

Now the almost bashful and youthfully eager ones he shows her when he talks about his place in the world as an artist, when for once his hand can create instead of destroy, those are entirely just for her, that sit there pretty on his cheeks in the privacy of his studio, where they continue to relive a thousand different times in a thousand different places including Rome, Paris and Tokyo, that one day, when he thanked her for the first of many things he feels gratitude for, her honesty,

He still remembers it as the day he allowed the truth to be something he didn't particularly like for the first time in a long time, she however still remembers the day by the absolute fishing he did, standing there in his studio as he introduced his passions to her, patiently waiting in silent humility for her to notice these paintings were his and compliment him.

He still doesn't allow this truth to remain, she of course always knows better.

Then again she also loves the shy soft little ones he offers her and only her, the ones he gently picks from the buried bounded depths of his heart and places in her hand with such care, as he sweetly leans into her palm, moist plump lips pressed against her pulse. When he is so beautifully hers that the hybrid gold of his eyes is the sun and when directed at her is as warm and sweet as golden honey. Or when he nuzzles his nose into the curve of her neck, the swell of her breast, half laying on top of her, when he gathers her close pauses and then closer, as if he finds the flesh separating them offending, as though his very existence is meant to directly infect her soul unimpeded by skin and bone, as if he means to exist in her and through her, and live only within her.

He’s a bit pretentious with his love.

But she’s told him

‘Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.’

His simple response was to pull her to him and offer his neck,

“Drink.”

She’s never brought it up again,

His devotion for her, his raw thirst for her, it unnerved her at first when she finally decided after

The numerous ‘Sweetheart, they were not bloody staged’ run-ins in every continent she dared to set foot on,

The two times she needed his blood in the century she spent on her own,

The one night she needed his arms and scent to engulf her and his dead heartbeat to soothe her when Elizabeth Forbes passed at age ninety four,

The one time when she realised somewhere along the way between the sporadic meets and witch hunts, the werewolf venom and death counts, the art and music and culture their souls burgeoned to connect, the great cities they carved into their own stars, the languid conversation as they winded through both cobblestones and pink sands, underneath both fluttering snow of and steady stars, the silent moments of equal awe they both shared between the most downtrodden godforsaken places of hunger and poverty and the most lavish heavens, between all the beauty and filth in the world when they only had eyes for each other, amongst the scent of both death and life when they only inhaled a shared breath so sacred they locked it in and never let it out, when seas and continents and words couldn’t keep them apart, when neither his ego nor her stubbornness could count for any importance in the face of each other, when the one time she realised immortality for her wasn't the ungodly number of years she’s left behind still apple cheeked and smooth as milk, but was the ungodly amount of years still ahead of her that somehow always evinced his hand in hers,

When she finally, one balmy faultless Sunday afternoon, in the thick of Thanjavur’s humidity in India, sitting barefoot as per the town’s religious customs on the ground, sprawled carefully in the warm green grass that precedes the entrance of the glorious Brihadeeswarar Temple, that is almost as old as the man occupying her thoughts,

She finally finds her deviously elusive,

Oh.

moment, proceeded by the

Oh fuck.

Moment,

Realisation hits her with the weight of immortality and her acceptance that there was no other possibility but this, that this has been inevitable for the better half of the last century, carries the weight forward into her heart and fills it with such indisputable finality, that Klaus’s place is by her side and hers alone.

And after that, well, what else was there to do?

After all of that, it’s one knock on his door, and,

“Alright, apparently However long it takes only lasted a total of 113 years, 6 months and 25 days. I thought I’d last longer, but I’m not as stubborn as I wished I was.”

That night was the first time she realised it wasn’t the first time they’ve made love, slow and sweet and beautiful, But it was the first time Klaus with all the vulnerability of a little boy back in Mygradrir who wore a sterling around his neck tight as a noose because his mother loved him so much, asked, mouth against her skin, face hidden in her neck, a whisper that shook in the middle and dissipated at the edges,

“You’ll stay, not just tomorrow, but after?”

“Yes, yes I will.”

That was about two centuries ago, and apparently after did not mean the day after tomorrow.

But she hasn't had too many complaints, she admits the novelty of him has worn off, he’s a bit grating on the edges, the sides and the middle, he’s entirely too insufferable to put up with for an extended period of time, definitely is only enjoyable in moderation and bite sized doses,

But she did let him put a ring on her finger, and also stood there holding his hand as they were bound by a witch in supernatural matrimony, so she can’t really tell it’s wholly his fault, but she apparently likes him too, in addition to loving him, so she’ll stay.

But she digressed a whole lot,

Where was she again?

Yes, his dimples.

Correction, her dimples

Their appearances are continual and each unique situation had one kind assigned to it, but that does not mean they are repetitive, Klaus is many things but least of all predictable, So he presents her with new ones every now and then, dimples she’d like to kiss till they imprint on her lips,

She knows that even if she goes on to live twice the millennium Her husband experienced, and even if every glittering rarity becomes a hackneyed iteration, and every resounding wave of novelty is a mere echo she’s experienced a thousand times, even if there is nothing new as she leads time through this carousel world as the closest thing to omniscient, then she’ll at least know her husband’s smile will always catch her a tiny bit off guard. That she will always take a second to touch it and see it widen even further when she does.

But there was this one single type of smile he flashed from time to time, a rarity in its own right, that one smile basically threw all progress out the backdoor,

The smile is always characterised by the fact that it’s not for her, or for his siblings, or his enemies, it’s for the world, it’s a smile that he never intended to give but slipped out of his hand anyway, and somehow ends up smiling with his entire body, but he’s done that countless times for her, smile with his whole being, she’d say at least twice everyday, usually more, but when he does it for the world, she’s a bit unprepared,

She knows his hostility against the way of the world all too well, it’s why he’s so adamant on dictating it, she knows the millennium of undead life under Mikael’s hatred left him with a tight grip on the world but only because he was hanging on to the edge of it with both hands, his legs dangling, but he doesn’t show it that way, instead phrases it as ‘I had the world at my finger tips, Now I have it beneath my feet.’

He’s a bit flashy with his pretty words, that total honesty to this man is as difficult as love will never surprise her, but the fact that this same honesty sometimes slips out so easily, unfettered and ensconced in peace and content, that does surprise her, like for instance, right now, He’s sitting there ankle over knee, occupying an entire settee with the way he’s sprawled because of course he has to be the biggest being in the room, he needs to know his ego easily accomplishes that for him, holding in his hand one of the thousand sketchpads he’s still kept after paper was no more the norm nor necessity but became a relic of bygone ages for centuries now, and as he sits there sketching god knows what, in the same room as his siblings, their chatter as perfectly idle as a family’s,

He’s smiling, not at her, not to his siblings, hell not even at his drawing, she knows he’s not listening to the conversation, so it’s not something Kol said or Rebekah whined, he’s perfectly uninterrupted in his smile that just bloomed on his face with no given reason, and there as he bows his head a little closer to the page, not because he wants to hide the smile but because he simply wants to see the sketch closer, she knows he doesn't even know he’s smiling, but he is.

So wide and beautiful and honest, and just because, a smile directed at the world, and to think he doesn’t even notice, to know that it’s so whole and full, that there isn’t a place left in his heart or mind to remind him to restrain it.

She knows she’s smiling just as wide too.

God, the things this man does to her heart,

And not just her heart, apparently her body too if the heady arousal that rushed straight to her clit as if a phantom hand rubbed it is anything to go by, because of course, she’s never so aroused by him as she is when he dimples.

TO CONTINUE READING

AO3

ff.net

If you find this plotless 5k smutshot of my infernal sub Klaus fantasies doing things to you that are best not done in a church parking lot, please feel free to vote for it in the upcoming KCAWARDS under the BEST SMUT ONESHOT category.

Much love and peace

Srishti🤍

#my works #my edits #klaroline smut #KC awards #klaus x caroline #klaroline fanfic #klaroline edits #d/s smut #caroline forbes #kc fandom #klaroline #kc edits #klaroline drabble #klaroline fanfiction #klaus mikaelson #otp: i shot him and now he thinks we’re engaged #otp: caroline i’m not you’re british muffin #otp: caroline my love

60 notes · View notes

averytinyelephant · 4 years

Text

damn the heavens

Author’s note: This is my gift for @tog-secret-santa! (This is my first time participating in an event for a fandom, and it’s been really fun, so thank you to the mods!!!) This gift is for @pi-a-ia (who’s art is amazing, go check it out!!). I tried incorporating all of your wishes in this fic, so I hope you like it! [Contains spoilers for the anime and anyone who hasn’t caught up to chapter 193 (Season 2, Ep. 113) of the manhwa.] Fandom: Tower of God (Read the Webtoon here!) Pairing: Khun Aguero Agnis/The Twenty-Fifth Baam

Summary: After the end of the Workshop Battle, Baam stares at the sky. Khun may not have the courage to chase the stars, but maybe he can carve Baam a path of light to reach them.

Gif credits to @edo-taichou.

THE WINNING TEAM OF THE WORKSHOP BATTLE IS: TEAM SWEET & SOUR

There’s silence for one short moment. Then, an explosion of cheers.

Khun breathes a sigh of relief.

Finally, everything’s back as it should be.

—

There’s celebrations. Drinking, yelling, partying— Khun doesn’t really care for any of it. And from the looks of how he can hardly keep his eyes open, Baam doesn’t either.

“Baam, let’s go get some rest.” Baam blinks a few times at the proposal, likely not used to being called by that name again yet, but gives Khun a soft, grateful smile. “Okay,” he agrees simply, “please ask Rak-ssi too. He must be tired too.”

Khun clicks his tongue and rolls his eyes exaggeratedly at the mention of the gator, and it’s worth it for the bright peal of laughter it pulls from Baam. He agrees with a nod as Baam makes his way to their room.

They spread out a few blankets on the floor and gather three pillows to rest their heads. It’s makeshift and shabby, nothing like FUG’s luxury beds and the expensive bedsheets Khun can afford, and everyone’s still celebrating loudly in the other room.

All three of them are fast asleep in minutes.

—

When Baam wakes up, it’s to loud snoring and a heavy weight on his chest.

He blinks at the ceiling a few times before sitting up, gently sliding the still-snoring Rak off of his chest.

I… made it back.

He steals a glance at Khun wrapped up in his blanket. The way they both sleep suits them: Rak is splayed out and snoring open and carefree, Khun is turned away and closed into his blanket. Both of his hands are hidden under it as he holds the pillow under his head— does he still sleep with a knife in hand? His hair doesn’t look as disheveled as it should after sleeping for so long, so he must not have moved very much, which makes it possible that he does.

That... Baam feels a little twinge in his chest at that. What had Khun’s life been, before they met and these years they’d been apart, to make him so afraid? Suddenly, he wants to... Baam can’t really tell, but reach out, maybe, make Khun feel safe and happy— and wow, when did Khun get so close? Baam jerks his head back, pulling his hand from where it was about to land in Khun’s soft blue hair. Khun needs his rest, Baam decides, and he doesn’t want to wake him up.

He steps outside softly, checking his Pocket as he leans on the balcony and looks up at the false sky. He has a message from Endorsi that reads: Meet me at the gate by 2 PM. If you don’t, I’ll kill you.

Baam just laughs.

—

Shibisu and Wangnan drag everyone into the main room to play drinking games. Khun’s about to make his escape like the last time, but is dragged into it anyway when Baam asks him to stay, since it’s the last night before Shibisu’s team leaves for the next floor. That bastard knows what he’s doing right now, Khun realizes quickly: his eyes are shining with mirth after intentionally making a show of asking him to stay and play with them.

Khun sighs in defeat, sitting next to Baam on the floor in the crooked circle everyone’s formed. Baam gives him a bright, guileless smile and Khun suddenly has a very personal understanding of how much his own snark must irritate people (this, however, does nothing to curb how much he’ll be using it in the future). Khun’s not a fan of alcohol or getting drunk in general, and if he remembers right, Baam is a terrible lightweight. It doesn’t take much sleight of hand to swap the nearest bottle for a non-alcoholic substitute from Khun’s lighthouse.

Baam takes a sip and gives Khun a curious look, and Khun leans into him and whispers, “If I’m going to get dragged into this, I might as well get some good blackmail.”

Baam giggles and nods at him in agreement when Wangnan interrupts loudly, “Viole! Khun! You want to share what’s so funny with the rest of us?”

Baam blushes down to his neck and violently shakes his head, and Khun takes the bottle from him to take a swig from it before answering, “I don’t know, have you managed to pick a game for us to play or did you gather us all here just to watch you argue until we all get drunk?” Wangnan deflates quickly and Baam has to quickly hide a snicker (“Seriously, Viole?!”) before Shibisu snarks back, “Do you have one to suggest then?” “Unlike you, I spend my time doing useful things, not drinking myself silly.” “He totally just can’t think of one,” Prince interjects with a sneer. Hatz adds, “Earrings is just too much of a coward to admit that he doesn’t have any friends to drink with.” “You want to say that to me again, Hara-kiri?” “Do your stupid earrings keep you from hearing me properly?” “If you want me to kick your ass that badly, you can just ask.” “Can’t you two just drop this for one night?”

They eventually agree on Truth or Dare, and while Khun does get the blackmail he was looking for, he (along with Goseng and Baam) gets stuck with the job of ferrying people back to their rooms for the night so that they don’t just stay passed out on the floor of the main room (at Baam’s request). Baam laughs at Khun grumbling as he’s stuffing a snoozing Endorsi in his lighthouse, and Khun delights in Baam’s yelp as he hops onto the side of his Blue Shield without warning, causing him to almost drop Prince and Ehwa.

Khun has to admit, this was a lot of fun.

—

Baam asks Khun to help him cut his hair. Khun agrees.

As Khun takes his long hair in hand, Baam sheepishly apologizes for not following Khun’s advice for talking proper care of his hair. It pulls a shocked laugh from Khun; he hadn’t remembered giving him that lecture at all until now, and he waves away the apology.

“I’m sure you have plenty of good excuses,” he reassures, “but I’ll be holding you to it from now on.”

Baam smiles brightly, nodding so vigorously that Khun has to remind him to keep his head still and then stifle a laugh at his embarrassment. Baam’s hair smells like blood and screams and tears and loneliness, eight years too much of it to ever be washed out, and when Khun cuts off everything below his neck all in one go, Baam heaves a sigh of relief, one Khun guesses is the first in years.

After it’s done, Baam looks up at the false sky.

—

A month. It’s been a month since the workshop battle ended.

Baam came back to the us. We passed the test without any problems, and earned the right to go up to the next floor. Everything seems to have worked out well, but in fact, this is only the beginning. Emily disappeared from the Archimedes. Where could she be now and what is Cassano planning to do with her? And most importantly… where is FUG? They tried to set me up.

Apple, Micheal,… …and Rachel.

“I want to hear more stories about… what the Outside of the Tower is like.”

I won’t let them get away with this. Even if Baam tries to stop me, I will get her.

—

Baam’s late to the meeting Hwaryun scheduled. Khun teases him lightly about it, but Ehwa tells him later that she found him looking up at the false sky, some nonsense about a fairy tale someone told him about the sky.

“You must be glad,” Hwaryun taunts him, “Now, you have more time to find Rachel.” Khun only turns his head enough to meet her eyes.

“Did you think I wouldn’t know that you’re making a team to find Rachel, behind Viole’s back? The reason why you calmly accepted my suggestion was that you thought it would be a burden to go up the Tower with Viole right now, right?”

“You are trying to kill the girl who used to be your best friend’s everything. If Viole finds out, how will he act towards you?”

He makes an agreement to meet in a year at Train City, a smile plastered on his face. He hides his teeth, because the backs of them taste like lies. That’s to be expected: he’s been cut and carved from lies— he learned how to make and break trust before learning how to keep it, to hide the truth with locks and traps and smoke and screens until it damn well doesn’t exist anymore.

When he offers his hand to shake, it’s a calculated risk: he may be made of lies, but people trust you more if you seem non threatening and vulnerable. As Khun shakes his hand, he keeps his other hand in his pocket to keep the decks of cards he has hidden up his sleeve from slipping.

They fall anyway, because of course they do.

They always have, whenever Baam’s involved.

—

Khun feels his skin crawl restlessly like a billion tiny sweetfish swimming through all of his cells, only getting more intense with each step he takes towards his room. He looks out of the open hallway at the false sky, Hwaryun’s taunts coming to mind, and he’s filled with rage so white-hot and primal that it almost surprises him.

Baam’s still chasing after Rachel, he’s known that — he didn’t even need Baam to tell him to know that because he understands, he understands that Baam’s doing what he never did. Hwaryun’s probably allowing it because it gives her an excuse to force him to grow stronger for whatever purpose FUG needs Baam to fulfill, and she was right, he needed the extra time in order to—

She’d called him Viole, she’d called Baam her god. Khun’s almost as disgusted at her as he is at himself, but he’s never claimed not to be a hypocritical asshole.

Khun knows that there’s forces much greater than him at play here; he’s made that mistake once: he’d believed that any floor test was simple enough to plan and slash his way through, he’d believed the Tower and all of its gods were small enough to contain in his hands.

He doesn’t care. He’d like to not ever have to hear that shit again.

False kings, false gods, false stars lighting up false skies — Khun’s sick of all of it.

—

Before they leave the Wolhaiksong resort that night, Baam checks his inventory to make sure he has everything he needs. He finds three large books he’s never seen before. They have similar fancy leather covers with elegantly minimalistic yet intricate engraving. They look like they’re very old, older than he can even imagine, he realizes on a closer look, since they look like that after being preserved with Shinsu. Out of curiosity, he opens one to a random page.

He’s faced with charts and diagrams of great clouds of light, explanations too dense for him to make sense of at the moment, but there’s lots of blue annotations in a handwriting that looks very familiar for one he’s never seen before. He opens the others to other random pages and finds that they’re all the same way, filled with the same familiar annotations in all kinds of colors, contrasting the old black print of the books. Baam realizes in awe that the books are about stars, pages and pages full of skies and stars, and they’re real.

”Stars are just a legend. Even if you go up, the only thing you’ll reach is this floor’s roof. That blue sky is created by shinsu, and the bright thing at night is just a light ball. I heard there are stars in the Outside world, but they don’t exist, at least, not here in the Tower.”

He can feel shock pricking at his eyes, and looks again at the covers of the book for a title, a name, anything—

and feels tears run down his face.

FROM THE LIBRARY OF KHUN EDUAN.

#i experimented a lot with my style here and i think i like it a lot #lots of scenes in tog are really really dense and you have to pick them apart a lot when youre reading so heres my process of doing that #plus some of my own stuff sprinkled in #and im sorry for how late in the day this is i had some personal complications with posting #khun aguero agnis #the 25th baam #khunbam #team baam #team sweet and sour #tower of god #vi writes #tog secret santa

44 notes · View notes

barrybluejeansandbestjeanist · 4 years

Text

Notes on the Artemis Fowl movie by yours truly.

Bear in mind I wrote these while watching the movie. There’s a lot of them.

1. If you think the police and/or reporters would ever be anywhere near fowl manor you’re wrong.

2. Mulch isn’t bad so far but he’d never be caught by police.

3. Is our first introduction to Artemis him running? I think not thank you very much.

4. Plus it looks like he’s going to do some water sport. Also wrong.

5. Surfing!!??!!?

6. Artemis doesn’t have even close to the coordination to do that.

7. I don’t even think he knows how to swim.

8. He doesn’t love Ireland.

9. Of course he doesn’t love school! Have you seen his teachers’ remarks on him? They aren’t nice.

10. It was a boys-only school but that’s definitely one of the smaller offenses.

11. He did do the chess thing if I recall correctly.

12. Same for the opera house.

13. He didn’t clone a goat or name anything Bruce.

14. Unusual is an understatement.

15. Dr. Po?!

16. Fake chair! Yeah!

17. That exchange from the Arctic incident wasn’t a bad choice to include. Too early though I think. We’ll see how the rest of the movie goes.

18. He’s got blue eyes. At least there’s that.

19. He doesn’t have a biography!

20. His mom isn’t dead! Disney is just scared of showing mental illness.

21. If you think Angelina Fowl can’t control Artemis you’re wrong. She calls him Arty for god’s sake. He loves his mom.

22. Mysterious absences my ass. He’s the one that should be presumed dead.

23. “This is a sensitive area doctor” sure.

24. Fake chair ftw.

25. The burden of his father’s name?! He’s proud of that name.

26. This scene wasn’t so bad. We’ll see how the rest of the movie fairs.

27. Who does he think he is? He Artemis freaking Fowl!

28. Skateboarding! I’m about to have an aneurysm.

29. Also, why is he wearing jeans? Get this man a suit!

30. He did not like being at home with his dad. Not in the first book anyway. His parent being out of the way allowed him to do what he did.

31. His dad’s actor looks good for the part.

32. His father is a criminal. World-famous. He did not just deal with antiques and rarities.

33. His dad also didn’t care for fairytales.

34. Music’s nice I guess.

35. Why is arty wearing a hoodie?! He would never!

36. Artemis was not taught about fairies. He discovered them himself with basically no help.

37. So much physical contact between Artemis sr. and jr. No.

38. His dad did not believe in any such legends.

39. They shared only a passion for crime and that didn’t even last.

40. He wasn’t determined about any such thing. See point 36.

41. He wasn’t preparing Artemis for anything like that.

42. Fairy stones? What are those?

43. There was no peace made between humans and fairies.

44. Tuatha De Danaan? What is that?

45. Artemis would want to get to the point I guess.

46. His work was not coming to an end. What is going on? Can we meet Holly soon?

47. I’m ten minutes in and suffering.

48. Artemis wasn’t really one to smile unless things were going his way.

49. You are a child! You are still a kid! You’re like a literal baby still!

50. The whole point of him being 12 in the books was that he could still believe in magic as well as science. Wtf is going on?

51. I do know the Hill of Tara.

52. I take issue with “all I really want is to believe in you” but I don’t have time to get into it here.

53. He’s still wearing a hoodie. >:(

54. Hugging his dad. No.

55. I will accept the helicopter on the front lawn if only because it seems one thing that could’ve happened in the books.

56. Where are the Butlers? Why are neither of the fowls being guarded? I need more Juliet and Butler in this movie NOW.

57. And Holly.

58. Pretty sure they don’t have a lighthouse. Also, pretty sure fowl manor wasn’t next to the ocean.

59. Might’ve been near a Forrest. I don’t quite remember.

60. Legos?! LEGOS?!??!!

61. Also, star wars? I don’t think Artemis has ever seen a sci-fi movie. He’s too busy making them a reality.

62. Artemis would also not sleep with a book.

63. Why did Butler’s name in the subtitles appear as Domovoi? You know there’s a whole thing about his name and why Arty doesn’t know it right?

64. So his dad disappeared. Not bad. A little late but okay.

65. Everyone has already aired their grievances about Butlers actor so I shall refrain from doing so as well. I’ll just say one word and leave it at that. Eurasian.

66. Also, fowl manor doesn’t look bad. I can accept this house.

67. No no no. No one should be calling him Domovoi. Only Butler.

68. Also, that isn’t the training he had.

69. He is the butler though? I mean. Only sort of but like. ???

70. No. You could not call him Dom or Domovoi.

71. Very large man in a suit is slightly acceptable.

72. He could totally snap you in half but not without good reason. Come on, guys. He’s a nice guy. Scary, but nice.

73. Like, the dude cooks and gardens and whatnot. How is that not nice?

74. Also, I’m still hung up on the goat thing. Like I don’t deny that he could clone a goat but why on earth would he name it Bruce. Is it a Batman reference or something? I don’t understand this movie.

75. World wide manhunt? Pardon my doubt.

76. Superyacht? Owl star?

77. I get it. It’s a stupid pun.

78. I guess the South China Sea is close enough to Russia.

79. Again. Not an antiquities dealer.

80. Robberies? He ran a criminal empire!

81. Not sure how one would go about stealing the Rosetta Stone or why but sure.

82. I’ve never even heard of Boru’s Harp.

83. Nor the book of kells.

84. Why are you calling Butler Dom???

85. Yes! He is a criminal mastermind! Thank you for slightly acknowledging that!

86. Also, Artemis is not that rash.

87. He’s your dad and a criminal.

88. Why must Disney do this to my boy? He was an incredible character, smart, cunning, and a criminal and now he’s just a sort of smart kid. Lame.

89. I swear if this “raspy voice” is opal I will be so disappointed.

90. What is this? Artemis is supposed to be kidnapping fairies, not the other way around!

91. What is this Aculos and why should I care about it?

92. Also, why isn’t it Christmas? You could at least set it in winter. For crying out loud.

93. That isn’t word for word Artemis. I know you can remember it exactly.

94. I’m starting to think Orion is better than this fool.

95. Why is he wearing a hoodie?!??!???!

96. Just going to have a secret basement full of whatever secret stuff shoved in there because of course.

97. Also. As if butler would know about any of this.

98. Bunch of bottles of water. Okay.

99. ‘Cause Artemis Sr. totally knew about the fairies.

100. This is a stupid basement.

101. I’m so done with this.

102. Ah yes! An important journal! Predictable.

103. Stupid poem. Stupid way of finding the journal.

104. That was opal I see. I’m dying.

105. Beechwood. Isn’t that guy related to Holly or something? Also, not from the books.

106. Yes, Arty fairies exist. Surprising no one.

107. I like how they made the city look I suppose. And they kept the name the same. Of course, it must be noted that not all fairies live in haven. There are other cities.

108. Why is holly a baby? She shouldn’t look like a child. Also, tons of people have already spoken on holly’s appearance as well so I won’t say anymore.

109. Koboi mentioned. It was totally opal.

110. The fairies don’t look bad either. Though I don’t know if the little things are supposed to be goblins or what?

111. I guess not. These goblins also seem way too smart.

112. “You and I would make a great team” foreshadowing.

113. I do think mulch being taller is kinda funny.

114. Briar Cudgeon looks about how I expected. Do you think he’ll get his face melted?

115. Opal and Cudgeon working together. Unsurprising if a bit early.

116. You spy or you die. The CIA’s motto.

117. L.E.P. Recon. Nice.

118. I’m also not going to address the changing of roots gender and the fact that Holly is supposed to be the first female officer because again, many people have spoken at length about that. Still upset though.

119. Kelp and Verbil are around I see.

120. What is the Aculos? Like I get that it’s a weapon by why should I care?

121. Also, I think Root should be smoking.

122. Holly’s father? Why should he matter or even be a part of this?

123. They kept Holly 84. Good.

124. Reinforcements? Juliet?!!!!

125. She’s 12? She’s supposed to be sixteen! No!

126. Niece!!!! She’s supposed to be his sister.

127. Also, screw Disney for changing the fairy alphabet so we can’t read it.

128. Artemis should be able to decode it though. He’s not much of a genius, is he?

129. Foals needs a tinfoil hat and should look way way nerdier.

130. Troll! Time! Yeah!

131. Yeah! Lava chutes!

132. Foaly’s CGI is a little wonky but whatever.

133. So that’s why Holly’s father is important. Stupid.

134. The executors. You mean the council.

135. Don’t just fly over the surface unshielded, you dolt!

136. Butler your camouflage sucks ass.

137. Butler wouldn’t complain.

138. Butler’s eyes are freaking me out. No one’s eyes look like that.

139. The LEP helmets are stupid looking.

140. That isn’t what a troll looks like. Stop it, Disney.

141. Time Stop. Not a time freeze.

142. The magic looks cool.

143. That’s not how a time stop works. But at least it looks cool.

144. I suppose I can accept that’s how they do mind wipes.

145. “This is a strange wedding” is the best joke so far.

146. Why are none of the fairies shielded?

147. Holly has such boring motivation.

148. You shouldn’t just read your dad’s journal Arty. It’s rude.

149. I’m so over arty’s dad already knowing about the fairies as well as this beechwood fellow.

150. Why does this Aculos exist? If it’s so dangerous, why not get rid of it?

151. Opal Koboi. Finally.

152. Like Arty would ever dress like that. He’d still be wearing a suit and be spotless.

153. “They’re real.” No kidding!

154. Fox!

155. I’m surprised they included trying and succeeding to shoot holly.

156. Kinda wish they’d kept the bury an acorn to get magic thing but small fish and all.

157. Now it’s starting to remind me of the real Artemis Fowl story.

158. Cudgeon is slimy and annoying and I’m here for it.

159. That’s a shitty looking cage.

160. “Not happy” I wonder why?

161. Reflective glasses! Yes! Give me the fowl crew in cringey reflective sunglasses.

162. The Mesmer is done nicely. Love Juliet’s glasses.

163. A flannel and reflective sunglasses. That classic Artemis fowl look.

164. So he did decode their language.

165. The acting isn’t terrible.

166. Most humans are afraid of gluten how do you think they’d handle goblins is a good line.

167. Again. Not how time stops work but okay.

168. So let me get this right. Instead of the fairy bible which Artemis poisoned a fairy to get they just replaced it with his dad‘s journal. great.

169. Don’t give Artemis a weapon! He’s gonna cut his own arm off!

170. The time freeze does look cool though.

171. I can appreciate them gathering on the beach. That’s kinda cool.

172. Finally a suit! Get this kid properly clothed!

173. Though that tie is a little sus. Why’s it so skinny?

174. That fight scene wasn’t too bad. Again Arty is definitely not supposed to be good at anything physical but it’s whatever.

175. Flair for the dramatic? This is hardly as dramatic as the book.

176. I hate opal’s voice.

177. Waged war on your people? That was 10,000 years ago!

178. Opal’s motives are also super boring.

179. I’m sad we don’t get to see arty practicing his evil smile in the mirror.

180. In one of those pots. From under the rainbow. Fun.

181. Glad they kept the whole while I’m alive stipulation.

182. Glad to see the goblins still have fire powers.

183. These goblins really shouldn’t be so smart.

184. I hope we get to see mulch unhinge his jaw soon.

185. I do like mulch.

186. This heart to heart is stupid. Artemis wouldn’t trust holly just like that me thinks.

187. I like that mulch is up on all the human pop culture. I do wish he’d make a Gordon Ramsey reference though since he likes him.

188. Mulch not wanting to be tall is excellent character motivation though.

189. Now this is the heart to heart I needed.

190. Is he gonna unhinge his jaw?! I’ve been waiting for this the whole time!

191. Yeah!!!!!!

192. Eat that dirt!

193. Mulch!

194. “What would your parents be?”

195. A really really big dwarf.

196. Sick safe. Nothing mulch can’t handle.

197. That definitely isn’t what I expected from mulch’s hair but that’s okay.

198. Yeah! Holly punched Artemis! Now there just needs to be a lollipop remark.

199. Is that the Aculos? It looks stupid.

200. Also, I do appreciate the inclusion of the iris cam.

201. Opal, you’re so boring.

202. Cudgeon is taking over. Kinda wish it was of his own will because that’s more interesting but whatever.

203. Troll time part two. I doubt butler is going to almost die fighting it. Maybe he’ll wear a suit of armor though. That’d be cool.

204. How is it we’re an hour in and only just now get a d’arvit? Surely many other scenes warranted that.

205. I do like that mulch pickpocketed butler.

206. Don’t just stand in front of the door when A Troll is about to be sent in!

207. The wings do look really cool though.

208. Also, Juliet really shouldn’t be trying to fight a troll.

209. I mean. None of them should but you know.

210. Mulch eating the Aculos is very in character. I’m glad Artemis’s bedroom is being destroyed. It was terrible.

211. While I don’t care for the way the troll looks (Far too human, not enough claws and venom) the amount of destruction it’s causing is appropriate I feel.

212. I guess that’s how the fight can go.

213. Also, Juliet is so smart and strong yet she can’t pull herself over a ledge? Pathetic.

214. Don’t move butler to a completely different room! He’s got a back injury! You probably just made it worse!

215. Butler isn’t going to die. This is stupid.

216. Trouble doing the lords work.

217. I told you butler would be fine.

218. One of the times Butler would nearly die. If we’re following the books then more should follow.

219. Also what is this room they’re in?

220. Butler would not be ashamed to cry.

221. I’m living for everyone’s reactions to where mulch stored the Aculos.

222. I like the way it looks when they get grabbed by the time stop.

223. She’s gonna save Artemis. Obviously.

224. I like the way it looked when the time stop broke.

225. “Breaking every rule in the book” we haven’t even seen your book! Just his dad’s stupid journal.

226. He and holly should not be friends yet. He kidnapped her!

227. Ooh, forever friends how sweet! Get fucked. Both of you.

228. Now are we in Russia?

229. Opal annoys me so much.

230. So are you trying to tell me that this Aculos is the movie’s version of the book? Holly’s saying that poem.

231. This isn’t how magic is supposed to work.

232. >:(

233. I will admit it looked cool. Begrudgingly.

234. Your dad isn’t dead.

235. He’s in the secret basement that still exists for some reason.

236. Also, I didn’t note this before, but I doubt Arty ever called his dad, dad.

237. Opal is thwarted.

238. Why she so ugly looking? Pretty sure she was supposed to be pretty.

239. This is so stupid.

240. Opals accomplices, you mean those two dunderheads she had helping her?

241. How are there still fifteen minutes of this torture left?!

242. Again. Butler would not be ashamed to cry.

243. Just wait until Artemis gets magic of his own.

244. I’m so tired. It’s 12:14 at night and I just want this torture to end. Please god just let the credits roll already!

245. And now they’re famous. Whoop de do. Just tell us how mulch gets captured and escapes and end the movie. That’s all I ask.

246. You know he hasn’t been referred to as Artemis Fowl the Second throughout this whole disaster. What a slight to him.

247. Ray bans.

248. Oh yeah. Brag to opal. Great idea.

249. Criminal mastermind. Juvenile Genius. Same difference.

250. Why is his tie so skinny?

251. Is he gonna fly the helicopter?! Finally something in character!

252. Now just let mulch escape and finish this godforsaken nightmare!

253. Fowls? Protecting us? Pardon me while I laugh.

254. They do the unhinging of mulch’s jaw nicely.

255. And now they mission impossible him out of there. Perfect.

256. I’m dying. Let it be over. Please.

257. No more!

258. Fly off into the sunset. Of course.

259. Thank god! Credits! I’m free!

260. And another thing! They didn’t have the follow-up scene with Dr. Po! That would’ve been a way better ending! And you can’t just have one scene without the other!

#artemis fowl #artemis fowl movie #artemis fowl the second #artemis fowl the movie #hate

70 notes · View notes

lost-in-the-spectrum · 4 years

Text

What is the Asperger-Syndrome?

Friends of the sun shine…

This is gonna be my very first tumblr post in English about a very personal and important topic I’d like to write about. You see the title and think ‘I heard of that, I know what it is’? Then f*ck you because you don’t.

First of all: My name is Helli, I am 25 years old and I’ve got the Asperger-Syndrome, now a days also known as Autism-Spectrum-Disorder. I’ve been suffering of bullying, misunderstanding, being let down and being unheard, being treated differently and badly just because I’ve behaved specifically during the spectrum and its issues. I was an introvert, a daydreamer, a comic- and video game geek... especially the last point might be an information where you go like ‘huh, that is actually cool’ but well... years ago it wasn’t. I was a nerd for others and nerds were meant to be uncool and unpopulare for a quite long time. Unfair? Yes, it is. But do you think anyone did care those days? No.

Anyways, before I start to tell you something about this syndrome – and before I do the same mistake as I did 5 years ago making a video for my German YouTube channel to talk about it – I’d like to mention that all I tell you in this post is only ABOUT ME. Every autistic person is DIFFERENT and not everyone got the same issues or strengths as me. So please before you drop every autistic person in one box which I accidently did in the video I mentioned before, please remember: THIS IS JUST ABOUT ME. Yet I will drop some general informations about that syndrome as well. And maybe you recognize yourselves or other people and friends, maybe you’re autistic yourself then let me know in every possible way you want.

What is the Asperger-Syndrom (medical)?

It is a profound developmental disorder with issues in social communicating, correct interpretation of facial expressions and gesturing. People with the Asperger-Syndrome are most of the time hardly interested in any topic but create a special huge interest in certain topics. Most of them are, like with me, video games and comics, computer and technology in general, sometimes even different kinds of science or arts. In some individual cases people with this syndrome are incredibly good at mathematics or speaking (linguistically gifted) but at the same time these people are not able to do other simple things. Me as an example: Never mind how much I practised, how good the teacher was, I always wrote bad exams in mathematics even tho I understood what I did in the homeworks before and even in some very simple exercises I do the one or other mistake. BUT even tho I’ve hardly read a book in my life because – I am not gonna lie – books (novels) are uninteresting for me I am very good at speaking, writing, formulating, describing things (...) I am pretty good at articulating myself. So I eventually belong to these people who are linguistically gifted. I can only tell that my dad – a former German teacher – is even kinda impressed about my way of speaking because I – as I have already told – hardly hold a book in my hands. I only remember three novels I’ve read in my whole life and those books where lucky to be interesting enough for me.

Anyways... those are the main signs and behaviors of people with this syndrome. Of course the Asperger-Syndrome is not the only disorder. The spectrum is pretty huge and includes many other Autism-Disorders. Not only other names but also syndromes with the same name but with some little deviations in behavior and ‘gifts’. So while I have not such a huge problem with maybe speaking with people and explaining them how I feel and see the world (as long as they give me the chance to do so) other people with the same syndrome might have big issues in formulating and ordering their feelings, describing them etc. While I really want to become an educater and work with children and teenagers to help them on the right way – I even want to work in special institutions for people with depressions and other conditions – other people with the Asperger-Syndrome completely avoid people and social contact or at least prefer jobs where they can be for their own.

These are only some examples for the issues or strengths people with this syndrome have to deal with. Other examples – where I can relate – are these...

Being not interested in other children as a child and prefering to play on their own.

Misunderstanding things and informations which are said because these people sometimes have an own way to say and describe these things.

Being unable to use the correct facial expressions to a certain feeling as well as misunderstanding them on other people. – almost the same issue which they have with told things.

Unable to be flexible and spontanious, prefering to know appointments and meetings at least one day earlier, even tho it is spending time on the beach with friends.

Mostly having a strict day structure and plan and having issues to change them.

Sometimes not interested in other people but in objects. I for example am more imperessed of a note book having a nice cover than of a handsome man.

Most of the time for their own and focused on their own life, problems etc. Which you can mix up very easily with ‘just being day dreaming’ Which seems egoistic to other people.

Sometimes not even able to show emotions or at least they have a limited number of emotions on stock.

They often do things everytime on the one and same way – Much alike this day structure thing – and while other people get bored very quickly by that people with this syndrom actually love it to know what’s coming next and that it is everyday the same. (This is because these people really want to have the ultimate control on everything they do.)

Now we come to the points which some autistic people can relate but indeed not everyone of them:

Having a bad ‘inter navigation’ which means that they’re pretty bad at reading maps, finding a simple way even tho there are signs and shields telling them where to go and even tho someone once walked the way together with them. (I am one of them. Other Autists are pretty good at navigation and geography.)

Reminding information or images by first sight (photographic mind, like the boy who flew over a city with a helicopter and drew the whole city down only by viewing it once.)

Being able to solve a mathematic exercise in their head within 30 seconds or less.

Having a higher IQ from 113 up to 200, also known as ‘extremly gifted’ (unfortunately not everyone... I’ve met some people...)

Being very tidy, ordered and hygenic. (also not everyone. For example me: I am captain Chaos.)

Being very sensitive if it’s about smell, flavor, feeling, light, noises etc. (I’ve got only some noises which freak me out and sometimes I can’t deal with the sun light because it is just way to bright for me. That’s why some autistic people always use noise-cancelling headphones or sunglasses.)

Having issues with being in a relationship including love and sex life. (Not me: I have got a boyfriend without Autism and we come along pretty well actually. We do also fight like ‘normal’ people. There is hardly a difference. Yet there are some other kinds of people.)

There are also autistic people who behave much more extreme than the examples I’ve written down. Some of them still ‘belong’ to the Asperger-Spectrum, others already drift into the ‘Kanner-Spectrum’ which is known as the ‘Autism’ which comes up to our minds when we hear about it. It’s the ultimate image most of the people still have when they hear about ‘Autism’: Swinging around on the chair or floor and not noticing anyone speaking to them: caught in their ‘own world’. Behaving uneasy, having no respect or not accepting distance. Some of them even’d like to touch your ‘private zone’ because they think it is interesting but don’t understand that it is not okay – or even sexual harassment – to do so. Hurting themselves by hitting their head against the wall – for example – if they’re told to do what they don’t want to. In general known as easily provocating people, aggressive and having no control over their own actions.

This is a completely other topic tho. So if you’d like to have a list with examples and definitions of different Autism-Spectrums, just let me know!

Now: What is the Asperger-Syndrome for me?

Even tho some ‘

social justice warriors

’ or other autistic people will hate me for that I tell you what it is for me: A disorder and a disability and also an other view of life.

Are disorders and disabilities bad for me? Is it bad and wrong to call Autism like that? No. Why? Because people are used to use these words as offenses or general in a negative point? Sry, that’s not my problem. If these people seriously yell at me calling my own Autism as disorder and disability, because they find it bad and discrimanting - because their definition of it is negative - then those people are discriminating – not me - because they think disabled people with a disorder are negative in some way and that’s why it’s wrong to call them like that. This is discriminating and hurting by these people and they do anything with this attitude except something good.

Autism is a disorder. Autism is a disability. This is a fact and this doesn’t make us to worse or less valuable people than others. If you really automatically think my disability makes myself less valuable to others it means to me that you think it is something negative too and this is discriminating! Never mind how you try to turn it.

So why is it a disability and disorder besides the medical fact that it is? 1st I am disabled in social communication. Never mind how good I probably am in articulating myself and formulating things, I still don’t now how to start a conversation, how to get to know someone, not even how to meet people. In fact I am even nervous about meeting new people, being in a room with strange new people with whom I am supposed to work closer in future is a bit hard for me. I am incredibly insecure, especially because of my bullying experience.

I hate having small-talk or being unnecessary ‘polite’ ... like not saying the total truth about something and lie a little bit instead to make people not feel uncomfortable which is wrong in my opinion. But that’s how society works. And while people without Autism know how ‘the cookie crumbles’ and they have no issues with behaving like this I feel uneasy about it and as honest I am with my words and thoughts, so am I with my feelings which means that I can’t hide it when I’m feeling uneasy. Society feels uneasy about me feeling uneasy because these ‘simple’ society actions. You see where this goes.

2nd I have issues with reading faces and recognizing voices. That means I can’t always tell if a person is angry, annoyed, okay or happy and I can’t tell by the person’s voice if he or she is angry, stressed, annoyed, sad, anything like this which is usually also a special key to some kind of social communication. All I can do is ask if he or she is okay or what’s the matter but I have met many people in my life and some of them think that it should be so obvious how they feel that I must be a silly cunt to not notice it. Or maybe worse: they think I don’t care and I pretend to care to make people think that I am a good person but in fact I am ignorant. Yes, that’s what some people once thought of me.

3rd I am disabled to have a normal everyday life in – for example - summer time when it is hot outside. It’s not like just being done because it’s so warm and I am sweating, no. People who know me well have seen me during hot summer times and I am absolutely useless. I am like totally done, almost dead if you really want to know. In case that I go outside because the temperatures are not too hot and I am able to move in the sun (and because I need food, you know, don’t wanna starve) there is an other problem: the sun light. I go out, the sun and its light burns down on me and suddenly I hardly see a thing, everything I watch shines in a horrible bright light and literally blends me. I need to wear sunglasses for that, sometimes even in the late afternoon when the sun light isn’t that bright anymore. Even then, because my Autism is also a kind of ‘high sensibility’ if it’s about sun light or certain kind of noises and sounds. In addition I am not always able to handle stress and busy situations. Stress knocks me out sometimes and it’s not like just being stressed, no. Sometimes I start crying. I’m having an overload, a so-called meltdown (which is also something I’d like to write about in an other post) which means I am crying for hours and having a mental and emotional break down. All the emotions I actually felt for a quite long time and which I’ve held back because I know that in these situations these emotions would make them worse... all these emotions, sometimes including emotions I think I didn’t even know that they exist, are coming out. It’s like me being a huge frozen mointain, completely made of ice, the emotions which come out because of the stress are getting hot and making my frozen shell melt and break down... I am literally a frozen vulcano who explodes with all its emotions. Now tell me: do you think I could work in a stressy job for eight or more hours a day without having these break downs?

To the question why it is a disorder: No person has got the right to decide what’s normal and what’s not. But comparing my issues and my behavior in certain situations because of my condition to the behavior of other people without this condition, it is definitely a disorder. When it comes to the situations I am disable to handle ... it is like me being a television which loses its signal right within a good television show. I have literally no signal in these moments. I am having a disruption. Do you say your television is not having a disruption then? ‘It is not having a disruption, it is just special.’ God damn, that sounds kinda discrimanting, doesn’t it?

I am disabled. I’m having a disorder. But that doesn’t make me to a bad person and less valuable than anyone else. You know, I can learn, how to communicate. I can learn, what to do in stressy situations. I can learn to read expressions, learn and study different expressions or the sound of voices in different emotions. I can learn this all.

Disability is a medical fact for me. It describes or is a ‘name’ for the issues we have. I will always be disabled like – even tho this is an extreme example, don’t blame me for that, please – a person who’s sitting in the wheel chair because he or she lost his or her leg in an accident, in a war, anything like that. BUT as this person can learn to walk with a prothesis so they won’t be stopped at all, so I can and will learn to communicate and manage my life and find my place in this world. I will always be disabled but I’ll never be impaired. I don’t wanna be changed or even pitied, I want to be accepted and luckily there are people who accept and also love me the exact way I am.

I really want to mention again: please, don’t blame or hate me for comparing me with a person who lost a leg and has to sit in the wheel chair... I know this life is worse and it is horrible and not really comparable with my disorder. But I just want to make a point.

Autism is an other way of to be and even tho there are so many different autistic people everyone of ‘us’ is different and when you know one autistic person then you know exactly one. Only one. Meet more of us and you’ll know who we really are.

I hope you took the time to read it all and that I could explain at least a little to you what the Asperger-Syndrome is. There are some informations in the internet and in some books, medical facts and experiences as well as personal ones, blogs like this or even youtube channels. Feel free to check them all out but please educate yourself correctly and stop putting us all in a box.

Thanks for reading. Good bye!

#autism #autism spectrum condition #autism spectrum disorder #autism spectrum #asperger #aspergers #asperger syndrome #lost in the spectrum #enlightenment #education

8 notes · View notes

mysaldate · 5 years

Note

What are your thoughts on Gyokko? We didn't really get a backstory for him aside from the fact his art wasn't appreciated, so.... Do you have any hypothesis on his past?

I’m not sure if you’re asking for hcs or just a thought process but I’m feeling more into the later so if it’s hcs you want, please request again and I’ll get to you first so your wait is not prolonged.

Anyway, here goes my essay so buckle up, we’re getting started!

Edit: This got extremely long, so I’m adding Read More.

Out of all the Upper Moons, two in particular stand out as generally receiving as little attention as possible, those being Gyokko and Hantengu. Strange as it is in Hantengu’s case (since let’s face it, all his personalities aside from Urami are pretty damn hot), Gyokko might feel very understandable. He wasn’t given a human-like design and is about the collection of all weird things one could think of. But you know what, that’s exactly what makes him all the more interesting as a character.

First, let me get a proper look at his exterior. Because boy, oh boy, do I have a lot to say! Gyokko, in his usual form we get to see first and more, is all but normal. He’s a genie that comes from a pot rather than a lamp, eyes and mouths switched on his head and with a set of four tiny arms sprouting directly from the back of his skull, he certainly does look peculiar. His other form that has slightly more of what we appropriate as human but it still has some unsettling details to it. Aside from the whole... being a naga thing. His arms and hands in particular are monstrously large and there are webs between his claw-like fingers. His hair also grows longer and he sprouts what appears to be a beard out of nowhere. Then, of course, there is the fact that he has a snake tail with scales all over it. Right, his arms are also scaly. The particular difference between skin and scales as well as the fact that he’s missing both arms and legs in his usual form brought me to a simple conclusion – Gyokko’s human self must’ve lost his limbs before becoming a demon for one reason or another.

Given what we know about the Upper Moons, their ranks haven’t changed in exactly 113 years. We can assume that Gyutaro and Daki were the last ones to join them so Gyokko must’ve become a demon some time before that. Since KnY takes time somewhere between 1912 and 1926, that would bring us to the years 1799-1813 which is during the Edo period in Japan. By this time, the usual punishment in Japan was already tattooing but just about two centuries before, limb removal was a pretty common practise, even at the first offense. The Edo period started in 1603 and it took quite some time before the tattoo practise actually took off. Another interesting punishment to take a look at is what’s called fuzuke, a death penalty by drowning. That was in practise all the way till 1868. That would also be the period Akaza is from by the way. Either way, japanese law was fairly strict at the time and a lot of things could get you in serious trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised if an artist like Gyokko got himself into this sort of mess. Which brings me to my second point...

Gyokko is an artist whose art was not appreciated at the time. An artist who struggled to focus on the traditional way of art as it would seem based on how enraged he becomes just seeing how well Haganezuka can focus, although their respective art forms are very different. Now, here’s the tricky part. Impressionism, which is the style that seems most fitting to Gyokko’s portrayal (at least to me, I don’t really understand that sort of thing though so feel free to correct me), didn’t really spread until the Taisho period, that means 1912-1926. You may notice that this is exactly where we are in the current story in KnY so while that fits the current timeline, it tells us near nothing about Gyokko’s past, human life. And he’s not the only one who suffers from the timeline errors or oversights.

But unlike with Akaza, where his past is bound to a martial arts style that literally didn’t exist at the time, art is a tad more interesting. Since it’s been estabilished fairly early on that demons can shapeshift, it is entirely possible that Gyokko changes his form based on modern art trends. The only thing that seems to remain constant is his pottery since we know Muzan counts on it as a way to make money (bless the person who told me bits and pieces from the fanbook!!), thus it has to be a long-term thing. And then there is the goldfish thing...

Goldfish were first brought to Japan in 1502 and they were considered a very important symbol of wealth and a ward against illness and bad luck. They were originally reserved for important samurai families, later in the Edo period they spread among the aristocracy as well. Much like in China, the Japanese took their talismans very seriously and the goldfish were given the same treatment. If a talisman was proved to be fake, the seller of said talisman could be severly punished, depending on the range of harm done and the importance of the family harmed. But there was more to goldfish than just being amulets. Goldfish cultivation and the animals in general have always been linked tightly to japanese art. And not just paintings but also sculpting and literature. See where I’m going yet?

Gyokko has strong ties to both goldfish and art. The Muromachi or Azuchi-Momoyama time periods would both fit the corporal punishment being cutting off one’s limbs as well as the biggest goldfish craze when they were still being kept away from ordinary people. Goldfish cultivation is an art form that requires tons of patience and many errors before it’s possible to fruit some results. If there is also pressure from customers or if other art forms of a goldfish cultivator bring no money, the possibility of serious struggles is extremely high.

To sum it up, based on all of this, I believe Gyokko to come from the 16th or 17th century and I think he may have originally been a goldfish cultivator. However, not an awfully lucky one. Either he didn’t manage to breed the exact goldfish his customers demanded and was forced to steal to make his way through or, what I consider more likely, he’d sold a goldfish to a feudal lord who died or was met with misfortune soon after. He got blamed for this and was punished by getting his arms cut off. It could also be that his art of goldfish cultivation was considered insulting or heretic since there were very specific requirements for the colour of the goldfish in order for them to be considered good merchendise. If Gyokko chose to be just as striking and original as he is in the current timeline, it’s no surprise that he may have been considered a heretic. And that wasn’t really looked upon kindly as well. Either way, he kept his goldfish even after becoming a demon and even found a way to impliment them into his Blood Art, meaning they were clearly important to him even in his human life. I also believe he may have been sentenced to death by drowning based on the fact that it is literally a technique of his Blood Art.

I hope you’re satisfied with a response like this and I apologize for not citing my sources but at this point, I went through so many websites for this post alone that tracking them all back down would be a very time-consuming process and I’ve already spent a very long time on this. I hope you don’t mind it too much. It’s nothing hard to find if you know how to google though so I’m sure if there are any questions and you don’t feel like asking me, you can find everything out yourself!

Still, doing such a large analysis was tons of fun and I enjoyed it a lot! Gyokko is a very interesting character and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of him. If anyone would like me to analyse other characters in the future, feel free to hit me up but you may be on hold for a while!

#kny #kimetsu no yaiba #gyokko #kny gyokko #analysis #gyokko analysis

53 notes · View notes

theorynexus · 4 years

Text

113: In Which Our Perspective Logically Shifts Across Phone Lines.

So. We are now seeing what’s going on on Jade’s side of the call, I think.

That is an incredibly beautiful description. We also mayyy not quite be in the same time frame.

5.5/10. Maturity is not necessarily the most important factor in parenthood, though, and it can certainly come with the experience of actually beginning to raise a child, as well.

Dave would be more of a 3, but Karkat would be a 7, so this thinking does pan out. (Very interesting, the fact that Jade and Karkat seem to be getting along a little bit better, here.)

!!! Mustache!

How is this possible?!?!?! Also, referring to John as being pregnant and having a mustache makes for a very silly image of him with a baby bump, made funnier by the fact that Dave says he looks good.

Yes. This is the definition of screwed the heck up. Just think of how much of a child John was at the beginning of Homestuck and compare it to this new archetype of Manliness! ... Man, being able to see actual art of him like this and him acting as silly and immature as ever would be so great.

I agree. That is indeed very cute, seeing her do that to him, rather than herself. I choose to willfully ignore this subtext as well, in favor of getting back to the origin story of the previous conversation, in which Jade, Dave, and Karkat discuss having a baby for the first time.

... Yes, attempting to get genetic material from all three individuals and make a single viable offspring would have numerous “issues,” indeed. Or is she referring to all three of them raising the child, rather than definitively being the biological parents of it?

Wait, WHAT?! That is absolutely ridiculous, and highly dangerous to the interspecies peace and stability of their world! Having the potential of any of the races raising any of the others via adoption would be a really, really good way to ensure that you’d have less likelihood of hatred and violence breaking out in the future, and there’s really no reason to make such laws! I just don’t understand why anyone would think this is reasonable. @w@ ... Anyway, though, I will have to be going, now. Again, an awkward point to break things off, but it cannot be helped. Sorry!

#Adoption #Candy Epilogue #Homestuck Liveblog #Interspecies Politics #Reproduction

1 note · View note

mobius-prime · 5 years

Text

113. Sonic the Hedgehog #67

Tomb Raider

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Frank Gagliardo

So if the cover art wasn't enough to clue you in, this issue is one big Indiana Jones homage! With Nate's home destroyed and best friend cold in the ground (in an uncomfortably literal way), he's decided to come back to Mobotropolis with Sonic and Tails after all to upgrade the city with ring technology. However, after all their travel, Sonic's biplane is too low on energy to make it the rest of the way home. Thus, Nate has directed him to explore the Lost Temple of Stupid Names - uh, sorry, Shazamazon - in the middle of a jungle to find the special ring hidden within.

For whatever reason, he feels the need to recap the events of the past three issues, even though we literally just read them, and once he's done he overconfidently enters the temple.

Well, we all coulda seen that coming, bro. When the floor starts to slide out from under him revealing a pool of lava, he cracks his whip and swings over the pool to safety, even as his shoes catch fire. This paves the way to one of the funniest, most WTF pages in this era of the comic. Seriously, the narration here is downright nonsensical.

Oh, and another mysterious satellite is online. I'm sure that's a good thing!

Anyway, Sonic manages to put out the fire on his shoes, and then finds the Ring of Acorns, because apparently every mystical object in this universe has to be named after the cult-like Acorn regime. He steps forward with his own burnt-out ring to pull a classic idol switcheroo, and, well, anyone who's seen Raiders of the Lost Ark knows how this goes.

Yeah, those aren't walls, Sonic, that's the body of a humongous snake. By racing around it he manages to trick it into tying itself into a giant knot, but the danger isn't over yet as the now balled-up snake begins to roll toward him like a boulder. He runs away from it, noticing danger ahead as he sprints.

He burrows through the ground to safety, or so he thinks - once he comes back up outside the temple, he finds himself being chased by yet more Robians. Meanwhile, back at the biplane, Tails and Nate are having a pleasant conversation about how Nate created all the rings within his base in the Southern Tundra, when they're interrupted by a screaming Sonic.

Ah, of course, had to get one last reference in there! He flings the snakes out of the plane, and with the ring's power, they fly away to safety, ready to finally head back home.

Lupe and the Wolf Pack (Part 1): Shadows in the Dark

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Sam Maxwell Colors: Frank Gagliardo and Ken Penders

Lupe is getting ready to leave Mobotropolis at last. She and her pack feel they've stayed for long enough, and despite Sally inviting them to make their home here, they've received word that more of their number are still out in the wilderness, including Lupe's husband Lobo. Thus, they set out to find the rest of their kind, while Sally, on a hunch, prepares for Sonic's return.

Lupe reminisces about her family and about how she first forged her alliance with Sally years ago, and eventually she and her pack reach an unfamiliar river. They're confused, as the terrain seems strange and they don't remember a river being here before, but have no choice but to cross it. However, as they do, a storm begins to pour down.

Welp, I'm sure they'll be fine! Unlike a lot of secondary story with multiple parts, this one is actually spread out quite a bit, meaning we won't actually get a resolution to this story for quite some time, instead seeing a brief update once every few issues or so. So make sure you don't forget about Lupe and her pack in the meantime!

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 67 #writer: karl bollers #writer: ken penders #pencils: steven butler #pencils: sam maxwell #colors: frank gagliardo #colors: ken penders

4 notes · View notes

blog-in-a-corner · 5 years

Text

TSOTBL - Static

It was midnight, everyone had fallen asleep by now, everyone but Lucinda.

Although Lucinda had fallen asleep earlier, she woke up a few hours later and couldn’t fall back asleep.

“Irene! This whole damn trip has been exhausting and I can’t even get some shut eye.” Lucinda muttered to herself, tossing and turning in bed. “Ugh I just wanna fall asleep!” She said aloud, getting up and out of bed. “Maybe some nice hot tea might help me…”

Lucinda exited her room and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. She grabbed a pot from one of the cabinets, brought it to the sink and filled it with water. She turned on the stove and set the pot on it, then grabbed a mug and a small box of tea from one of the cabinets and pulled a packet out for herself. She set everything down on the counter as she waited for the water to come to a boil.

“Geez, this place is way creepier at night….but hey, it’s not like there’s actually anything out of the ordinary in this boring old town.” Lucinda thought to herself, looking around the kitchen. “I hope this tea will help me go to sleep, I’m tired and want nothing more than to go to bed, but...I don’t know something kinda felt weird up there when I was in bed, the atmosphere felt almost kinda...I don’t know, like static? I guess that would be the best way to describe it. But I don’t feel that anymore down here….perhaps I’m just thinking things.” Lucinda checked on the pot, the water still wasn’t quite ready yet. “Just a few more minutes and I can go back to my room…” She looked out the window, and gazed at what little she could see in the dark. “Gosh it looks like it’s freezing outside, how have the residents of this town not frozen to death by now?” She looked away, but then quickly looked back. “Funny, I thought I saw something move just now. I’m probably just seeing things. I can barely make anything out from here anyway.” She looked back to the pot, still not ready. “I hope Kim is okay. I haven't been able to get her to say anything about her strange behaviour, but I'm getting to know more about her now, that's for sure.” The water had finally come to a boil.

She poured the water into her mug, and dipped a tea packet into it, she grabbed a spoon to stir it. She left the kitchen and proceeded to walk back to her room. On the way to her room, she heard something odd.

“Huh? Is that...whispering? But where is it coming from?” Lucinda mumbled, stopping by the entrance of the corridor. She followed the whispers as they got louder.

“I don’t know…” a voice trailed off. “Is that…?” Lucinda thought to herself, passing each room.

108, 109, 111, 113-

“That doesn’t sound like….” the voice trailed off once more. “Garroth…?” Lucinda thought to herself in confusion. “Who could he possibly be talking to at this hour? Zane? Aphmau?”

115. Garroth’s room.

“It’s just.…no it’s not like that...” Garroth could be heard, right from outside his room door. “Who’s he talking to? I can hear his voice, but I can’t hear anyone else in the room…” Lucinda thought, stopping at his door. “I’ll just...check on him.” “But what if-” just as Lucinda put her hand on the doorknob, Garroth’s voice was cut off. “Huh? He stopped talking…” Lucinda uttered, hesitating to open the door.

Lucinda struggled to open the door, as it seemed to be slightly jammed, but she pushed through nonetheless. She opened the door to see Garroth in bed, reading a book.

“Hey Garroth, are you alright? I thought I heard you talking,and I wanted to be sure everything was fine…” Lucinda asked quietly, staying in her place, holding the door open. “I’m….fine. I couldn’t sleep, so I figured reading something might help, but I haven’t been able to put this book down since I started reading it! Kinda the opposite effect than…what I was hoping for...” Garroth giggled nervously, holding his book close to him. “I see…” Lucinda muttered, slightly doubtful of Garroth's explanation. “Then again, it is Garroth…” She thought, before returning to the conversation. “I haven’t been able to sleep either. But do try to get some sleep okay? We’re going to be busy for a little while longer.” “Yeah….sure. Don’t worry about it.” Garroth muttered, placing the book beside him. “Alright then. Goodnight.” Lucinda said quietly, closing the door and walking back to her room.

Lucinda went back to bed and snuggled into her blankets. She took a sip of her tea, it had cooled down enough to drink.

“I should try to fall asleep, hopefully this tea helps me get over this...weird, static feeling.” She mumbled to herself. “That book Garroth was reading though….it did look...awfully strange. Then again, it’s from an old as hell library so....perhaps I’m just looking into things too much. This place does nothing but give me the creeps. I can’t wait till this trip is over and we can all go back home…”

Lucinda finished her tea and fell back into bed. She was able to fall asleep, eventually.

___________________________________________________________________

It was five in the morning. Not many people were awake at this hour. Who would want to be? It’s freezing and dark as pitch at this hour.

“Ugh why do we have to take in the stock so early?” Michi groaned, desperately trying to warm herself up. “Because we have to get back to the store in time for opening!” Liochant reminded, carrying one of the crates sent to the liquor store and setting it inside his truck. “No one even goes there!” Michi argued, throwing her hands up in the air. “That’s not true! We still have an average of about, 5 or 10 people a day. Besides we’re getting paid we might as well be getting paid to do something.” Liochant insisted. “How is that liquor store even still open?” “Well you see-” “I changed my mind, Michi doesn’t care.” “Oh alright then. Now c’mon help me get this last crate into the truck so we can go open.” “Okay...” Michi pouted, helping Liochant lift the crate into the truck.

Liochant and Michi went inside the truck and drove back to the liquor store. They took down the crates and left them in the back of the liquor store. They then entered the front of the store.

“Ah, what a beautiful morning!” Liochant sang, turning on the open sign. “Yeah, sure…” Michi rolled her eyes, standing at her place at the register. “Oh c’mon Michi lighten up!” Liochant insisted cheerily.

“I’ll lighten up when the sun decides to lighten up this ghost town for once. Did the sun ever actually exist here once or is it a foreign concept to this place.” Michi snorted. “Oh great, our first customer is that weird guy in the cloak.” Michi groaned, looking out the store doors. “He’s not weird! He’s a regular customer here! Besides you know his name, its-”

Liochant was interrupted by the jingle of the door opening.

“Hi! Welcome!” Liochant cheered, turning to greet the customer. “What can we do you for? The usual?” “No, no...I need something else today…” the cloaked figure explained, grabbing an assortment of items. “Wow that’s uh...odd assortment of items you’re buying there. What’s it for?” Liochant commented, as Michi rung everything up. “...Something I’ve been meaning to do for a while….” the cloaked figure responded quietly. “Ah….”

Once he finished paying, the cloaked man left the store without another word.

“Have a nice day!” Liochant shouted, waving the man goodbye. “That guy will never not give me the creeps…” Michi muttered, looking at the man walk out of sight. “He’s not creepy!” “Didn’t you see what he was buying? That guy is totally going to murder somebody.” “No he’s not! Sure a knife, a lot of rope, and a bunch of cloth is a weird assortment of items but hey! Maybe he does arts n’ crafts!” Liochant argued. “Nya~, whatever you say. Michi is staying away from him.” Michi stated mockingly.

But that would be for better or worse.

#aphmau #mystreet #fanfiction #writeblr #aaron lycan #garroth ro'meave #lucinda #zane ro'meave #kim #tsotbl

5 notes · View notes

maplestreetsims · 6 years

Photo

get to know me tag!

so, i came to catfish you all with my updated simself, also i made her with alpha cc bc why not?

I saw @galaxsims did this and i thought it might be fun, so the point of this is to make a simself and answer some q’s so people get to know you better

I’m going to tag anyone who wants to do this, Just go crazy

- trash under cut -

1. What is your full name? Constanza

2. What is your nickname? most people call me coti, i had a few friends that called me constance tho

3. Birthday? July 1, 2000

4. What is your favorite book series? i dont read as much as i used to so i dont have one

5. Do you believe in aliens or ghosts? aliens yes, ghosts...maybe? just for the spookines of it all tbh

6. Who is your favorite author? i dont read dont come for me

7. What is your favorite radio station? i never listen to the radio, mostly spotify

8. What is your favorite flavor of anything? anything cheese flavored, or like pizza? idk im thinkin chips here

9. What word would you use often to describe something great or wonderful? amazing, cool!

10. What is your current favorite song? literally queens entire discography??? like i saw bohemian rhapsody last week, i liked queen before but now im like on hyperdrive or something

11. What is your favorite word? chaos

12. What was the last song you listened to? Somebody to love, by (you guessed it) queen

13. What TV show would you recommend for everybody to watch? hmm... i dont know, skam, maybe freaks and geeks

14. What is your favorite movie to watch when you’re feeling down? pride (2014) always makes me feel happy when i watch it, i really like it

15. Do you play video games? yes

16. What is your biggest fear? Ending up alone, but not romantically, more of like no friends, or family

17. What is your best quality, in your opinion? i dont know... i just try to be a good person?? like i put myself in others peoples shoes and treat them how i would like to be treated i guess, bc i know how its like being treated like shit and i wouldnt want that for anyone lol

18. What is your worst quality, in your opinion? my socializing skills? or lack thereof

19. Do you like cats or dogs better? i like them both the same

20. What is your favorite season? i dont like any season sjdjsdk

21. Are you in a relationship? nope

22. What is something you miss from your childhood? just.. happiness?? not only my own but like everyone in my family (yikes) also my innocence

23. Who is your best friend? haha ha

24. What is your eye color? brown

25. What is your hair color? Dark brown

26. Who is someone you love? no one honestly, maybe my pets?

27. Who is someone you trust? literally anyone who is nice to me, that’s bad

28. Who is someone you think about often? my friends, classmates

29. Are you currently excited about/for something? nothing currently

30. What is your biggest obsession? The sims, life is strange and detroit become human.....also queen?, weird combinations

31. What was your favorite TV show as a child? Art attack! also the cocodrile hunter??? that was my shit!!

32. Who of the opposite gender can you tell anything to, if anyone? I know i just said i trust everyone but like....i dont open up, like ever

33. Are you superstitious? No

34. Do you have any unusual phobias? Elevators?? and cars...are those phobias?

35. Do you prefer to be in front of the camera or behind it? Behind

36. What is your favorite hobby? Editing, playin sims... u know

37. What was the last book you read? I cant remember fghjkljhg probably something for school

38. What was the last movie you watched? Bohemian rhapsody rip

39. What musical instruments do you play, if any? i wish i could play any musical instrument, but i suck tbh

40. What is your favorite animal? cats and dogs™

41. What are your top 5 7 favorite Tumblr blogs that you follow?

@pollinationqueen @cosmic-espie @omiscanking @bloomlet @gunthermunch @cowberrys and @mellocakes ♥♥

42. What superpower do you wish you had? telekinesis??? um hell yeah why would anyone want anything else

43. When and where do you feel most at peace? this is weird but when im riding the bus home, listening to music

44. What makes you smile? my simblr, youtube videos...

45. What sports do you play, if any? i wish

46. What is your favorite drink? coca cola beech!

47. When was the last time you wrote a hand-written letter or note to somebody? I dont even remember, but i had to write something like that around this year at least

48. Are you afraid of heights? yes

49. What is your biggest pet peeve? it used to be hearing people chew, but i think im over it

50. Have you ever been to a concert? no, never

51. Are you vegan/vegetarian? No

52. When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? a vet

53. What fictional world would you like to live in? idk sis

54. What is something you worry about? my future, and my life

55. Are you scared of the dark? sometimes

56. Do you like to sing? yes, only when im alone

57. Have you ever skipped school? yeah, but i tried not to, it felt like i was missing out and that kinda made me feel like shit??

58. What is your favorite place on the planet? i dont think i have one, but more like a bunch of them? and only at specific times if that make sense, like the outside of that theater at nightime when i went to see a play with my friends a while ago

59. Where would you like to live? mmm maybe the usa? or anywhere where i could get to speak english all the time

60. Do you have any pets? a cat and a dog, Mercury and Candy!

61. Are you more of an early bird or a night owl? Night owl, def

62. Do you like sunrises or sunsets better? Sunsets, im never up for sunrises anyways, unless i stayed up all night

63. Do you know how to drive? no but i hope that i do at some point, although im scared of cars

64. Do you prefer earbuds or headphones? headphones

65. Have you ever had braces? nope, my teeth are as straight as me

66. What is your favorite genre of music? rock, indie...maybe pop rock?

67. Who is your hero? i dont have one

68. Do you read comic books? not really

69. What makes you the most angry? myself sometimes

70. Do you prefer to read on an electronic device or with a real book? Real book all the way, when i do read that is

71. What was your favorite subject in school? cinematography class???? idk how it translates properly but that was my fave, although the teacher fucking ruined it for all of us tbh

72. Do you have any siblings? nope

73. What was the last thing you bought? a bus ticket

74. How tall are you? 4′9...yikes

75. Can you cook? not at all

76. What are three things that you love? this blog, my family and my pets

77. What are three things that you hate? hooo boy

78. Do you have more female friends or more male friends? i have 0 friends what does that mean? jk i actually would say its pretty equal

79. What is your sexual orientation? yes

80. Where do you currently live? Uruguay, montevideo

81. Who was the last person you texted? my dad

82. When was the last time you cried? last week

83. Who is your favorite YouTuber? jenna and julien, and probably every sims youtuber(seriously)

84. Do you like to take selfies? not so much

85. What is your favorite app? tumblr, or youtube

86. What is your relationship with your parent(s) like? its alright

87. What is your favorite foreign accent? portugeese

88. What is a place that you’ve never been to, but you want to visit? mmm all of them

89. What is your favorite number? 7

90. Can you juggle? Nop

91. Are you religious? no

92. Do you find outer space or the deep ocean to be more interesting? The ocean

93. Do you consider yourself to be a daredevil? hahah no

94. Are you allergic to anything? i used to be allergic to a bunch of shit when i was a kid but im not allergic to it anymore?? like chocolate, oranges....cats, and dust

95. Can you curl your tongue? Yes

96. Can you wiggle your ears? Yes

97. How often do you admit that you were wrong about something? always hopefully

98. Do you prefer the forest or the beach? Forest

99. What is your favorite piece of advice that anyone has ever given you? i dont really ask for advice that often so...idk

100. Are you a good liar? No, but i try

101. What is your Hogwarts House? Hufflepuff

102. Do you talk to yourself? i used to talk to myself all the time, but now i barely do it, thats a good thing right?

103. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Introvert

104. Do you keep a journal/diary? no, i used to when i was a kid but it was pure garbage

105. Do you believe in second chances? Depends

106. If you found a wallet full of money on the ground, what would you do? look for an id to see if i cant turn it in, if not....well

107. Do you believe that people are capable of change? Yes, but only in certain things

108. Are you ticklish? i dont even know, probably not

109. Have you ever been on a plane? no

110. Do you have any piercings? yeah, my ears

111. What fictional character do you wish was real? idk

112. Do you have any tattoos? No, but hopefully i will some day!

113. What is the best decision that you’ve made in your life so far? i dont know....

114. Do you believe in karma? yeah

115. Do you wear glasses or contacts? no

116. Do you want children? yeah why not

117. Who is the smartest person you know? honestly i don’t know

118. What is your most embarrassing memory? doing a cindirella theatre play for my school when i was 12, i was cindirella, i dont wanna talk about it njxkcfxf

119. Have you ever pulled an all-nighter? not that i remember, i always end up falling asleep, dosent matter if its like 10 minutes

120. What color are most of you clothes? green.........i dont even like green

121. Do you like adventures? yeah maybe, depends on what it is

122. Have you ever been on TV? yeah i have actually lmao, it was on a kids tv show

123. How old are you? 18

124. What is your favorite quote? “We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents”

125. Do you prefer sweet or savory foods? savory!!

#tag game #saviorhide #me stuff #non sims #simself #get to know me tag

33 notes · View notes

kittykatzvillage · 6 years

Note

🔥 + the last video game YOU played!!!

Thank you for giving me an excuse to gush about Hollow Knight because I am in love with this game!!! I never thought I’d get so emotional over a game about bugs but here I am crying over my bug friends! So anyway, here’s my spiel:

This game is SO hard! Like yes some parts are easier than others but overall this game is a real challenge. But like not in a frustrating way (usually) because pretty much all the enemies have their patterns/tells to let you know how their attacking it’s just a matter of figuring out what they are and then applying that knowledge to practice dodging and attacking and when it’s safe to heal. And when you finally defeat a boss you were having trouble with it feels SO satisfying and you feel SO accomplished! Its great!

I LOVE the art style for this game! I’ve always been partial to 2D so I guess this wouldn’t come as a surprise. But this game hits a particular niche that I just love! While the overall mood of the game is pretty somber the art style itself is really rather cute I think but it somehow meshes really well together?? I just really like that a lot

The music for this game is so so nice~ Each of the bosses have their own distinct themes that really get you pumped up in most cases! Meanwhile the music that plays while you’re exploring can be really calming and chill, that is until you hit a section of difficult platforming in which case the music picks up with a slightly more intense version of the area music that you’re in and the shift into that is so flawless!

THE CHARACTERS! I just! Love them so much! Most of them anyway. I just really want them to be happy and healthy and just BE OKAY! But apparently that’s just too much to ask for in most cases. I’m just going to take a page from Scout’s book and say if it wasn’t on screen, it didn’t happen! So sure, it might have looked like Myla was getting infected but I never visited her after that so I never had to kill her if it just so happened to be true SO she’s probably just fine once the infection is gone right? Right. And yeah, sure, Quirrel may have left his nail at the Blue Lake but he probably just wandered off in a direction opposite of the water and just forgot it. Yeah, I’m sure that’s what happened. He’s just fine and nothing bad ever happened to him EVER! ;-; THIS IS WHAT I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE AND NOTHING ANYONE SAYS CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE!!! Glad we all agree on this

Also this game is SUPER cheap for the quality and just how MUCH content it has! It was very much a $15 well spent! Like, just the base game by itself was so so much but then Team Cherry releases three FREE DLC over the two years it’s been out! And one of those DLC comes with new endings if you can manage to beat it (and one day I will!!!) According to my save file, I’ve spent 113 hours on this game with 112% completion which should mean I’ve done everything! But I haven’t. (I technically haven’t completed the hunter’s journal with just the menderbug and the maggots left but I’d feel bad about killing them so meh. And I still have the 5th pantheon of Godhome to beat which will grant me that new ending. I am slowly, painfully making my way through this boss rush and one day I come out victorious!!!) And now Team Cherry is working on a Hornet DLC, which isn’t free but I’m willing to pay whatever they want for it b/c 1. I just adore Hornet and 2. Team Cherry deserves it for how much work they put into this game

I feel like I pretty much just talked about good things about this game but I guess that just shows how much I love it that my honest option holds this game in very much a good light! I guess my real only complaint about this game is that it can get really sad (too sad) and then I cry a lot thinking about it!

#krisseycrystal #I can go on and on about this game but I'll just stop now #anyway thanks for coming to my ted talk

2 notes · View notes

ahouseoflies · 6 years

Text

The Best Films of 2018, Part I

I’ll associate my moviegoing this year with two things: subscription models and superhero films. Realizing that I was the target audience, I signed up for Moviepass in March, then canceled just before they started extorting people in July. (I’ll remember you all semi-fondly, conniving alarmists in the Moviepass Reddit thread.) Thanks to Moviepass, I took full advantage of my free time over the summer, and I found some nice surprises that I wouldn’t have checked out otherwise. From there I joined AMC A-List, which is the rare corporate service that I cannot complain about in any way. Moviepass always felt like some kind of drug deal, whereas A-List is as easy and inviting an experience as possible. I get to seek out Dolby, IMAX, or 3-D showings instead of getting locked out of them, and the electronic ticketing helps with my last-minute availability. (I’ve mastered the art of lovingly putting my daughter to bed, only to desert her and my wife five minutes later. “You know, there’s an 8:10 showing of The Predator, which means 8:30 after previews...”) My overall viewing was up 11% this year, which I have to attribute to these subscriptions. Perhaps I saw too much though. After a self-righteous five-year ban on superhero movies, I caught up in 2019 like the madman completist that I am. On the plus side, I enjoyed Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy, and I vaguely feel more connected with the culture-at-large. But I could have been more selective. The diligence required to watch X-Men: Apocalypse late on a Thursday night took away from, say, my Orson Welles project or...reading books. To get some of the business out of the way, I haven’t seen Burning, Shoplifters, Destroyer, Cold War, The Sisters Brothers, Tomb Raider, The Wife, or The House That Jack Built. Not all of us get screeners or care about seeing The Wife. Mostly for argument purposes, I list everything I saw and divide the movies into the categories of Garbage, Admirable Failures, Endearing Curiosities with Big Flaws, Pretty Good Movies, Good Movies, Great Movies, and Instant Classics. Hey, speaking of superheroes: GARBAGE

123. Venom (Ruben Fleischer)- Venom was first announced as an R-rated film until it was neutered into PG-13 at some point in the development road. That was the right choice because this is a movie, in all of its broad, careless storytelling, for children. "So he's going to get married to her but then he looks at her email and then he interviews the guy and he gets fired so then she leaves him and he drinks now?" This is a dummy's version of what a journalist is or what a scientist is, and it never shades into more subtlety than exactly what is on the expected surface. I guess that Tom Hardy gets to jump into a lobster tank if that floats your boat, but the story is stuck on fast-forward for the whole movie, never relenting to develop character or do anything other than communicate information that we don't really need.

Venom is almost--almost--interesting as a new branch in the superhero economy. Why shouldn't Tom Hardy and National Treasure Michelle Williams trade the equity they've built for caring about their work into this trash? I don't begrudge them that for a second. I hope they make more money for the sloppy sequels. 122. The Equalizer 2 (Antoine Fuqua)- The first Equalizer was flat and pointlessly long with pedantic dialogue too, but at least it had the Home Depot sequence. This one makes very basic stuff incoherent and dawdles all the way to the end. Your boy is now an expert hacker too? I guess it's too late for Fuqua to start caring about scripts.

121. Mandy (Panos Cosmatos)- I need somebody to explain to me why, dramatically, this is good without something like, "It's so metal! What a midnight movie! Chainsaw fight lol!" If you want to talk about the visuals that are stylized within an inch of reality, then I'll listen. But there's nothing to hold onto dramatically. I think I've developed an overall irritation with revenge films, but this filthy dirge of a movie felt empty and endless by any standard. 120. Fifty Shades Freed (James Foley)- Its intentions are too guileless to upset me, but Fifty Shades Freed uses up the goodwill I sort of had for the first two by tugging the viewer relentlessly through conflict that always seems temporary. Part of the fun has always been how bizarre basic human interactions seem in this universe. (Has anyone ever returned from a vacation to be surprise-promoted?) But this entry expects way too much from its viewer's loyalty. 119. On Chesil Beach (Dominic Cooke)- There's supposed to be a disconnect to the behavior of the couple in On Chesil Beach, a movie that asks us to harken back to a time when newlyweds were so sexually innocent that they had trouble figuring out how to consummate a marriage. Their fumbling seems foreign to us, which is the point. But what's the excuse for none of the behavior in the movie ringing true to any human experience?

I'm talking about Florence refusing to tell her string quartet that she's engaged because she thinks they'll assume that her marriage will break up the group even though she's sure that it won't. I'm talking about her father, who feels the need to humiliate his son-in-law in tennis because that would prove that he's dominant over the boy in some way that being his employer does not already prove. I'm talking about a plot that literally would not exist if the characters had just engaged in one conversation that it seems like they would have had in the flashbacks, which frame them as a kind of open, reasonably affectionate, easy-going couple. But by all means, McEwan, change that whenever it suits you. 118. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (J.A. Bayona)- I reject the whole premise of this deliberate lowering of stakes that never rises above obligation. To paraphrase a Griffin Newman joke, it makes Jurassic Park 4 look like Jurassic Park 1.

While we're here though: Can I have a movie about the guy who compiled the guest list for the dino auction? I want to see a guy looking at a spreadsheet--or is it an Access file?--and getting to, like, Mark Cuban and weighing the options: "He probably has the $27 million to spare on weaponized recombinant DNA. He would definitely appreciate the wow factor of having his own Indoraptor. But is he more of a neutral evil or a chaotic evil? I guess I'll reserve a seat for him and send the invitation. If he says no, then he says no. Okay, we're still in the C's..."

117. Tag (Jeff Tomsic)- Tag is going to show up on a lot of "worst movies to ever win an Oscar" lists when Jeremy Renner wins an Oscar for it. 116. A-X-L (Oliver Daly)- This is a melodramatic movie about a weaponized robotic dog and the dirtbike kid who befriends it. Nothing wrong with that; a ten-year-old boy might like it, and there aren't enough movies specifically for that audience. But what's weird is how nonchalant the main character is about the whole thing. He immediately starts training this one-of-a-kind "war dog" android and imprints it with his DNA like this is a regular Tuesday. It's one of many things that is just kind of off in this picture.

This being a cheap genre film, you do get treated to those L.A. locations that have been around the block. I think the nondescript complex that houses Craine Industries is also the one from Sneakers and The Lawnmower Man. You know, Craine Industries, the company that is working on a $70 million prototype for the military but, because this is a cheap genre film, seems to have two employees.

I do think there's an interesting movie to be made about motocross. The movie kind of works when it's just about an underdog father and son fixing bikes, before it gets into all of the robot stuff. ADMIRABLE FAILURES

115. The Little Stranger (Lenny Abrahamson)- Dr. Faraday: "Wanna marry me?" Caroline: "Maybe. Do you actually love me?" Dr. Faraday: "Probably not." Caroline: "Hmm, I think I would marry you only as an excuse to go to London to get away from my dying mother and this crumbling house that probably has a ghost." Dr. Faraday: "Oh. Well, glad we're discussing it now because I want to marry you specifically to give me a reason to stay in this crumbling house that probably has a ghost. I'm drawn to it for some reason." Caroline: "Is it because you grew up poor?" Dr. Faraday: "Yes. All dry, cold British stuff ultimately comes down to that.

114. Damsel (David Zellner and Nathan Zellner)- Had I done my research, I wouldn't have watched this Zellner Brothers follow-up to Kumiko the Treasure Hunter, one of my least favorite films of that year. Like that movie, Damsel is a story of two halves, punctuated by a shocking moment that happens halfway through. Unfortunately nothing interesting happens before, and nothing interesting happens after. 113. Suspiria (Luca Guadignino)- This is a movie about duality that gets extended. English, German, and just a sprinkle of French. Six parts and an epilogue. A dual role (and a bit part). Personalities that clash until one pulls ahead. There are ideas here. But, especially considering I don't like the original Suspiria, I didn't find much to hold onto as a visceral experience. It's a long, foreboding sit. Guadagnino knows how to end his movies, but he still doesn't have much to say for the long middle parts. Shout-out to Amazon; I hope that, in some circuitous way, betting on maximalist Italians helps them to sell paper towels or whatever.

112. Early Man (Nick Park)- I still love the Aardman aesthetic, but this material was thin. It's too juvenile for adults and too adult for juveniles. 111. Beirut (Brad Anderson)- The screenplay takes an hour to set up what should have taken twenty minutes. Some of that time is dedicated to developing Hamm's burnt-out alcoholic wheeler-dealer, but he's a character we've seen a hundred times before anyway. Some shorthand would have done some good. Once the plot gets going, it's serviceable, but I was bored by that point. Pike and Hamm need to fire their managers. 110. Upgrade (Leigh Whannell)- I'll admit that I owed the film more attention than I gave it since I was nodding off the whole time, but nothing in the gloomy programmer interested me enough to want to go back.

109. Red Sparrow (Francis Lawrence)- Good as a steamy blank check provocation from the director and star--not much else. I'm sure people will take down the easy target of Jen Larry's Russian accent, but they're ignoring just how much she tries in something like this. She is a gargantuan Movie Star who commands the screen, and a lot of that presence comes from the commitment of, say, learning how to ballet dance for what must have been months. She hasn't slept through a performance yet.

I didn't think this endless movie made much sense, especially near its conclusion. Perhaps it's my personal distaste for the way that spy movies introduce major plot points without so much as a music sting to guide you. As soon as anyone says the term "double agent," my brain turns off.

108. Hot Summer Nights (Elijah Bynum)- If you want to direct a music video, just direct a music video. I like all of the actors in this, but the filmmaker has nothing to say. 107. The First Purge (Gerard McMurray)- Even James DeMonaco seems to be admitting that the bloom is off the rose a bit, since he only wrote this entry in the franchise--and his direction is missed in the action scenes. Just enough of the political subtext remains, (The New Founding Fathers get funding from the NRA, and a character uses "pussy-grabbing" as an insult. Thankfully, a Black church getting shot up by men with Iron Cross flags happens off-screen.)

But there are more characters I didn't care about than characters I did care about. Since its prequel setting doesn't reveal much about the world that we didn't already know, the film needed to do a bit more with the survive-the-night scenario that we already saw in the second film.

106. Vox Lux (Brady Corbet)- A movie that, up to and including the last minute, keeps promising something better than it actually is. Everyone here is making...choices… 105. Madeline’s Madeline (Josephine Decker)- I'm glad David Ehrlich liked this as much as he did. There are some intriguing ideas, most notably the suggestion that a mentally unstable person would be better suited for acting than a healthy person. What a debut for Helena Howard as well. But for it to add up to something by the end, I think I needed it to have more dramatic structure--the sort of fall of the Molly Parker character feels invented and insincere--or go all the way into experiment. 104. Shirkers (Sandi Tan)- One of those "you won't believe what happens next" documentaries that positions itself as an example of truth being stranger than fiction. But removed from a festival context, does it ever rise above its logline? Is it really even that odd?

#film #lists #movie reviews

2 notes · View notes

aleatoryalarmalligator · 6 years

Text

Life Story 113

Following that strange night with Josh was a series of other strange nights, where we would talk quietly to one another and stare down each other's eyes until the room became dim and strange. It didn't feel like there was anything else that existed besides us in that room on those dark lonely nights. I would spend long hours washing dishes in the dish pit at Zany's with the backdrop of a busy restaurant and then the eventual dying down which lead to men talking about their sex lives and their favorite video games (generally a sad set of affairs). I felt like I was living two lives a lot of times, one life was kind of simple and individualistic and lonely. I was friendly with everyone but had no real friends. I would joke around with the kitchen men, sometimes have moments of sadness and longing that I no longer felt connected with my sister, brother or Sarah – but then there was always Josh who was my second life, who would generally pick me up after work – and he was always there for me and open with me – even when he wasn't all that good about letting me be open. He didn't seem capable of resenting me the way the others had – there was this sense that if I did something terrible Josh would understand me and know why. He might even have predicted my doing it. There was a strange and unique comfort in that.

Of course I knew he would destroy me. I had started to realize this as the weeks drew on into months. I would look myself in the mirror and I could see it even if nobody else could. I could feel something in me being destabilized by him, but it was a price I thought was worth paying for this new life. I had come so far in life to get to be the person I was standing in front of my mirror. I was too invested to back out now. If I tried to draw away from Josh now, I would only be more mangled than I was now, and quite likely I wouldn't be able to escape anyway. It was better for me that I just let go. The relationship I had felt real. It felt realer than anything else I had ever done or felt up to that point.

On the outset to most people, I probably didn't seem like I had a big life – and indeed I did not. Nobody knew how deprived I had been as a teenager, or how my father had prevented me from having a life till I was twenty-two, or how hard I had to work to stay remotely thin, or to just be able to talk to people. It was a hard balance for me. My equilibrium was always in jeopardy. But to most people I was just a simple small town girl, a little strange. I was just a dishwasher and after work I smelled like greasy kitchen water, I didn't own a vehicle – I walked everywhere. There might have been a small bit of mystery to me that would wash over people every here and again, but I gave very little away, I had no idea what people would want from me.

I had no prospects for the future – I made only as much as I could manage to live on, buying apples and eggs and the occasional discount dress I managed to find. My artwork was so-so – I was not very prolific anymore and it wasn't professional or marketable exactly – and it seemed the older I got my aesthetic became more and more discomforting and niche. I didn't even seem to have friends or family – and we all know the story there. Nobody wanted to know me, even while I often was complimented by people in stores about how beautiful I was, sometimes multiple times a day in both respectful and not so respectful manners. At times I suspected there was something wrong with me socially or physically that pushed people away. I was coming to realize fully how hard it was to really connect to people out in the world. It didn't just seem to be happening to me. How do you go about making real friends? I had always imagined that I would find 'my people' so to speak when I got out in the world and started working, that they would find me like a magnet. But it didn't seem to be happening, and it could very well have been because Lewiston was/is such a small place – but there had to be people sort of worth knowing who weren't Josh surely. So where were they?

. Despite these things though that might have made me seem dull, nothing could be further from the truth. It was the first time in my life where my life seemed more my own. My existence had taken on this vibrancy and color and depth that might not be explainable in words, but in feelings and vibrations that are hard to place. I was finally living within this beautiful cloak of love that I had always longed for since I was young enough to contemplate that sense of longing and emptiness people have and had up till then, had always been denied. I felt some kind of wild little flicker of something in my thoughts, something that felt familiar from times when I was too young to know anything else. I was beginning to actually feel this sense of calm joy and happiness. It wasn't that I hadn't been happy ever throughout my early years, adolescence and young adult life. I had to some degree. But I never felt like I could let go, or let myself transform and if I did so it felt both too profound and like I had to do it with some level of secrecy. So much of who I was built around my social structure. Josh to some degree replaced everyone else, but he took a convenient little amount of interest in how I lived my life day to day and for this reason I was able to live two lives that played off one another and complimented one another quite well.

And love I guess, it was and is very important to me. I can and definitely have lived a life without it, but I prefer not to – it comes out in other forms if I cannot place it on a person. Perhaps at a very early age, perhaps in retrospect, the love I had once had for Zack all those years ago, it burned a hole through me that forever needs to be filled – long after he came and went there would always have to be something seemingly as grand as he had once seemed to me when I was young and naive. I will always have a private duty to elevate my existence to compensate for that gaping hole in my heart. I will never be complete. I have learned to accept my incompleteness as completeness and I experience most days with this in mind. Once you have been filled with that beautiful and pure light as a feather love and connection with someone, it takes a lot to fill that space – it changes your DNA. It's possible to fill that emptiness with passions or good habits, I am not saying it's not – I have done it for years. The world is a big place, there are a lot of ways to fill the void, with good films, books and conversations with people. The world of people is one meant to be connected with, and if you look for outstretched ideas and emotions, you will surely find them. You can learn to become someone who wants to make a difference in the world, you can make art, music, or you can write – there is so much out there to fill that void that love burns out of you. Some of it isn't even positive. You can be destructive, manipulative. You can become addicted to drugs or whathaveyou. But even with all that awaits us out in the world, we can rarely find the real thing. We all want that indescribably beautiful and perfect place, it is what we are all looking for, in one another and in ourselves. And most everywhere you go, you see the residual trail of love – like it is there, or will be, the hints that it was here, but you have just missed it or came too soon. You have to keep looking – and days become dull and life becomes pointless. You find ways to validate yourself just waiting for that perfect something. I suppose a great deal of people never find it. They never fill that void. Maybe due to fear and or misfortune. You just get used to reminding yourself that love is just around the corner, regardless if it is or isn't. It's a crazy thought, but it keeps you going.

But wherever I went now. I didn't need to worry about that anymore. I had Josh now. He filled that void within me.

About four days after Josh asked me to sleep with him and I wisely refused, I came home after working my night shift as the dishwasher, showered and dressed, and then joined Josh upstairs for another session of intimate conversation and eye contact and whatever else we did together those strange nights in 2012. He was sitting and watching the television that night. He didn't seem to be taking in much of what he was seeing. When I came upstairs and sat down, he didn't look at me, but he paused the television and then he looked at me lovingly. It was disarming. He got up to do something in the kitchen, and as he did so he passed me. When he walked back into the living room, he looked down caringly at me as I looked up at him standing above me. My hair was drying from the shower, and I have naturally curly hair. He had a softness in his eyes as he looked down at me with my bangs drying in my eyes. I felt loved. He reached down and tucked one of my bangs behind me ear. It might have been the most intimate thing anyone ever did to me. I almost choked. I could barely believe that just happened. I sat there shocked.

Josh walked back over to the couch. He looked at me in the eyes, and he began to essentially tell me that he was a dangerous person for people to be around. That he would destroy me. Not a single girl had ever come and went through his life that he had not psychologically wrecked in some fashion. He explained to me in full that he ruins people. It was what he does. He could not help it. He looked me in the eyes, as to relay a clear message. 'Renee, I would be a bad boyfriend. I would hurt you. I will ruin you. People like you should be with nicer people who won't drag you into something dark and empty'. There was more than one emotion running through him at that moment, and more than one running through me. On one hand, he seemed sad, but he also seemed amused. I was disappointed and intrigued. It was very sudden, and it took me off guard. I didn't like hearing it, but at the same time he had such a soft expression of love for me in his eyes. Did that look not say more than his words? Was this what I wanted? I had never asked him to be my boyfriend. But then again, it was what I wanted wasn't it?

I didn't say a word. I just listened to him talk about how he was a broken person, how he was comfortable with the way he was, that nobody could fix him, that he didn't want to get better. He was telling me he would be a bad boyfriend to save me the grief I imagine. But he also didn't intend on changing the dynamic that was imerging between us either. So what was with all this talk if he was going to keep the dynamic the same? If we kept crawling together at this rate, sooner or later we would be a couple. It was his most earnest and honest attempt to let me know what I kind of grave I was digging for myself by being in love with him, and that I needed to somehow find a way to get away from him for my own sake – was what he told me with his words, but with his eyes he was fond of me and never wanted me to leave him, and maybe this warning was as close as it got to a selfless act of loving me – which didn't that in and of itself only represent the kind of love that would endear me to stay?

He was trying to tell me the truth. A part of him wished he could be my boyfriend, he said. Had Josh not been so complicated I am sure he would have dated me. I could see it in his eyes. I realized that him tucking my hair behind my ear was him saying goodbye to a strange small story that was never to be between him and I – or maybe it was meant to give me hope? It didn't make a lot of sense. It made me sad. It didn't seem very fucking natural either. If he loved me, and I loved him, then why not give it a try? Life was inevitably going to be filled with pain anyway. It seems a well established truth that at times there could be no right decisions. Why ruin something special simply because it may ruin itself later on? It was the price of living a life of meaning. Surely Josh understood that I wasn't interested in anyone else but him too, I mean? I couldn't imagine another person taking his place. Josh was forever to me. I suppose I knew on some intellectual and base way that life could proceed without him – there seemed to be a very vacant voice in the back of my mind that new that there would be a before and after to this whole thing, but it would be meaningless and passionless to give up on what I loved. I wasn't just going to go about the business of 'finding someone else'. I had found that someone. I knew it. I had never been so certain in my entire life. And he knew it – he was in denial but he felt connected to me as well – I was making Whitney obsolete, someone he had wanted to die on behalf of that he had spent the last seven years with. I hadn't known Josh that long and already I was more important than she ever was. We both felt it. So why was I being rejected? Why reject what could be such a wonderful thing?

I just listened though. I nodded, but my eyes intently disagreed. I wasn't going to give up at this point. I could see that he loved me. Why couldn't that be enough for him? What else did he want? I felt somewhat rejected. I wondered that maybe I wasn't pretty enough or awesome or strong or surprising enough. Perhaps there was something fundamental in the way I walked or talked that was causing him to have misgivings. Him just telling me these things was justification enough for me to know he loved me enough to where he would warn me about the realities of who he was and, if he could let himself be vulnerable and let himself open up to me, we could be a couple – and it didn't matter what he was trying to say now. He was just trying to feel like he was in control. If he meant not to be a couple with me, he wouldn't spend nights like this with me. He was just afraid. I realized that he probably felt more comfortable with the idea of dating someone he either couldn't have, or someone he knew was diminished in such a way he never would have to feel bad about being the heel in the relationship, like Whitney had been. What we potentially had together might have been too good for him – likely too he may have felt a little frustrated with my inexperience, with me jumping in with my heart in my sleeve, and very naive about the consequences. Josh was older than me, and if you thought about it, at twenty-two I was as naive as a teenager in areas of love and romance. What prior real life experience did I have to go by? But that didn't seem fair that I couldn't be lead by my heart – why should I have to feel jaded and bitter and uncertain of myself simply to fit his whims? It was how I lived. How could he simply expect me to give up? Why should my inexperience make me less worthy of being loved?

Josh then started speaking on behalf of me personally. He told me that he could see me in a way that nobody else could. He didn't see the one dimensional character that most people knew me as – I was in fact underestimated and overlooked and quite a bit more special than most people realized. I was a challenge. In many respects, I was a different person to everyone I knew, he had watched me transform accordingly to whomever I was around, so he knew I was to some degree, and by second nature, acting. But Josh knew who I was behind the vale. I had been overlooked my entire life, and he knew things about me that other people had never bothered to see. In his eyes, I had always been ahead of everyone else, just a little bit. I was born just a tad bit smarter than the rest of my family and friends. It was second nature for me, he assumed. I was born into a world that didn't admire my character or my intelligence or my output. He actually saw it, even if nobody else did, or ever would. He could relate to me in a lot of ways, he told me. It was a lonely existence, and it's hard to explain just how, being the types of people we were. But we had each other didn't we?

I went down to my basement room once again, once again not knowing how to feel about what we had talked about that night. It was beginning to be a bit of a routine, feeling wounded and perplexed and enchanted all at once as I went to bed alone on my mattress laid out in the corner on the floor. I tried to sum it up the best I could, and I did this by writing letters to Sarah, more in my head than in reality any more. Though I occasionally sent emails to Sarah here and again more often then not she wouldn't answer them, and it made me upset. But I wasn't allowed to be upset with her anymore. Sarah in real life had failed me in so many regards, but the version of her in my mind was still very much alive and well – clear minded, ready to listen. Sarah would have been there for me if she could have. I tried to remind myself whenever I felt betrayed or neglected. As shitty as she had been, I knew that she had dug herself in so deep that she couldn't simply go back on it now. And if she had been thinking clearly she would still be there. I still tried to explain things to Sarah to myself. Explaining the connection I felt with Josh was simply something she could not understand. It was confusing for her for one. Sarah's relationships didn't revolve around psychoanalyzing someone to the wee hours of the morn. It was hard to know if it was very healthy or not. Was her way of connecting with men the healthy way? Or was mine? What had I gotten myself into?

I chose not to accept Josh telling me he would make a bad boyfriend in the end. Labels were relative I figured. I was completely invested and there was no turning back, even against better judgment, and even against whimsy at this point I could find nothing better in my life to be whimsical about. At that point, had I wanted to leave the situation I knew I couldn't – this was apparently where the universe had placed me, for whatever reason or lackthereof. If I had money or a new city maybe I could get away, but it wasn't in the cards at that moment. And if I woke up the next morning completely out of love with Josh for some inexplicable reason, I knew for a fact he would fight to keep me anyway. He wouldn't want me running away. He would be mad if I found someone else. He didn't want to date me, but he still wanted me there for him just the same. I figured this meant that on some level he did want to be my boyfriend. I just had to wait around till he figured it out. He still looked forward to seeing me everyday after work. He still loved me. Wasn't that enough? I knew where I belonged.

If I left out into the cold indifferent world outside of the madhouse, I would fail. I had no real family, friends or resources to turn to. I wasn't pretty enough to get by on looks alone, I was not demanding enough or certain enough to get my way in life. There were so many obstacles and personal flaws on my own behalf that made the out-outside world a fearsome place. If I marched out of that house and decided to make a new life for myself elsewhere, I knew I would only get myself broken – I wouldn't be able to pay my rent or get a job in a new city. I wouldn't have much success impressing people. I had to face the facts that I was not a strong person in some ways – at least when it came to common sense and survival. And then if I fell to pieces, who would come to my rescue? Josh would of course be there to pick up the pieces. I needed him as much as I wanted him with me. There was, granted, a side to me that resented that fact. I felt weak and pathetic. I didn't know what else to do. Josh often times told me that I was weak too. He was very much on board with me being highly aware of my inadequacies with the outside world. The whole Zack fiasco had really broken me up. What would have become of me had Josh not stepped into my life? I might have been dead.

And as for Josh's resolve. He hadn't said he wouldn't be my boyfriend. He essentially said it was a bad idea and that in some way he couldn't. Wouldn't and couldn't are very different. They imply different things. Wouldn't implies that he would cross the street on his own accord. Couldn't implies that crossing that street is impossible even if he wished to cross it. Should the intent not be taken into account here? What if the obstacle was removed? I knew better than anyone too, that we don't always know ourselves well enough to know what we truly want. Josh was probably afraid, and after everything in his own life, who could blame him. I really loved him. Josh had once told me that we accept the love we think we deserve. He probably got that from a Tony Robbins video on youtube, but it was nonetheless true. Josh's low self worth might have clashed with my adoration of him. Perhaps we just needed more time together. It had taken a very long time to get to this point with Josh. Six months ago he was behaving as though he didn't even like me as a person, and look where we were now. If momentum continued, all would be well. When I felt weakened and sad by the things that prevented us from being together, I reminded myself of this. It would be well regardless if I fretted about it, or I let it go. There wasn't a step we could take or not take that wouldn't strengthen the chains between us that held us together, resistance would be pointless, as would be forcing a feast. It wasn't decided by us, I reasoned. I figured that fate had brought us together. Because it was so obvious to me how well we fit. I couldn't see it any other way. Best react to the whole thing with elegance.

Sarah came up to me about a week later while we were both at work. Her belly was beginning to look quite round. We were passing one another in the bathroom hallway. I had just left the bathrooms, she was just walking in. She smiled at me in this peculiar knowing Sarah way, and asked me out of the blue, no hellos or anything, 'Did you and Josh have sex?'

I was taken aback, and I jumped a little bit and denied it. I wanted to know why she had asked. Because it felt connected to the vibes and tension in the room when I was around Josh, and how things had changed between us over the course of those weeks. It felt like we had, even though we hadn't. But Sarah hadn't been around Josh or me for some time. So how could she know??? Sarah's dreams always seemed to mean something. I had told her next to nothing after all. She wasn't around him and I at all, outside of seeing me washing dishes in the dish pit. She probably hadn't seen him and I together in the same room for several months.

I asked her to explain her dream. I was very curious. She proceeded to explain the dream. She had walked into the madhouse, and Josh was there, as well as me. She somehow knew that we had been sleeping together. It was just the feeling in the room I guess, the walls seemed to give it away. The essence of every shared space in the house. I guess the details of the dream and the meaning was intrinsic with Sarah's personal psyche and her interpretation of emotional symbolism in her personal dream land so explaining how she knew is somewhat pointless because it was of course, her dream. I guess she just knew. In her dream though, she explained that we had had sex – she saw it both in Josh's eyes and in my own, but then in her dream I eventually left Josh. I don't know how that came to pass. She must have just switched in her dreams to a new individualized conversation with me in Sarah-dream-world. In the dream, I explained to her that I left him because he was unnatural and was separating me from nature. So I left Josh to go live and be close to trees. I don't remember all the details concerning that. I stood there in the hallway and listened to her explain this. It felt very viscerally real to me, and hearing it from my fallen but still smiling with fully dimpled knowingness that could only be Sarah and very much pregnant former best friend was pretty weird.

I guess what got me was this feeling she explained about wanting to go to something natural and pure. I felt that pull towards nature. At this point I could ignore it. I would not let it come out and destroy what my life was, but would it someday raise it's head in my life and cause me to walk away from all this? A part of what drew me to Josh was the very things I often found unpleasant about him, and explaining that is difficult. There was something that undeniably upset me about Josh. I felt at times like by nature he was very far removed from something natural about being a human being. In so many ways, he seemed honest but everything he did also seemed very shame based. It was hard to say if it was a push towards personal growth on my own behalf or no, but since I had moved in with him, I felt this sense that I couldn't simply be myself. I had to play a game. I was at once more myself then I ever had been, true, and I had been playing a game or course my whole life. But Josh made me feel unnatural when I got to close to him. The connection I had with my own spirit seemed tampered with.

It made him beautiful I guess. It made him horrible. I saw it in certain respects as a rebellion against tribal small mindedness. I saw Josh as innovative and his perspective as very postmodern and fresh if not a little eccentric. Maybe I was just more of a hippie than he was. Josh resented hippies, partly because he was jealous of them, partly because he found them illogical. But even as well as he seemed to know me, sometimes I knew that he didn't know me. He had no appreciation for so much of what I was about. I could tell myself these things didn't matter, but someday, maybe they would. For one, it was and had always been very important to me to be alone around nature and to take walks – it was important for me to have dreams and to decipher their meaning. I liked to sometimes look at big spaces, miles of open land and just drop all thought and stare at the desolate aspects of everything, seeing that same desolation within myself. It was very much integrated with my imagination and my ability to be an artist. I let my mind go and I just let myself feel the world around me without thought – and things came from that. It was in that place that the seeds of who I would become and what I would do next would occur so in many respects my whole life was based on being 'one' with the world so to speak. This meant very little to Josh. Josh only cared about me in terms of my relationship to him. He saw these elements of my personality to be fraudulent and in some small way, an assault to him.

He didn't really care that I had lost weight either. I guess I couldn't imagine being around someone and knowing they had lost seventy pounds on their own accord, their personal drive, and not felt impressed. Josh simply didn't care – he had no motive to do that himself and since he naturally didn't put on weight like my body did he really wasn't interested in what I did. Josh spent his spare time sitting in front of his television. He would judge me if he didn't think I looked good of course, but the amount of work I put into looking trim didn't affect him at all. There was something kind of dehumanizing about it. I wasn't looking for a pat on the back, but the indifference he could sometimes show towards someone's hard work, well, it came off as piggish. He didn't see it as an accomplishment of mine – and the few times he did talk to me about it he tried to tell me that I didn't know anything about losing weight and he did, even though I had lost seventy pounds, much of that before having known him. He just didn't respect it. If he could have taken credit for my weight loss he would have. But since it was my accomplishment and not his, he was insulted by it.

There was something so fundamentally dishonest about him too when it came to his assumptions about women. He came by it 'honestly' and I don't mean to imply that Josh was not so removed from nature as to be some kind of cyborg or something alien to how he saw people. It's just that Josh seemed very disconnected from something primal and honest. At the time it seemed like an asset. He wasn't as doggish as I knew men could be, particularly after having closed a kitchen with a group of them for most nights at the restaurant as I overheard them talk. He was curious about things other men were not and this often times drew women to him. They felt recognized in some way their oafish cap wearing boyfriends had not. He couldn't seem to let go of his ego at any moment though. It seemed edgy at times, and entertaining. He seemed highly aware of himself and it gave him this very witty perceptive sense of humor sometimes, but the notion of letting go of his ego held no interest for him either. In fact, the more and more I was around him, the more I realized that, while he knew me well, I was an extension of his ego – and he could only know me through his own ego. He didn't want me to have a mind of my own. At first that seemed flattering. I was still flattered to some degree. And every blue moon he would take in what I had said or suggested. It livened up our friendship, and it might have been what I saw as most challenging between us. But could I live with that forever?

He couldn't appreciate me outside of the framework of himself. When I went out for a walk, to him I might as well not exist for those hours away – he didn't want to know what I had seen on my walk, he didn't want to know what my favorite music was, or who I talked to at work. He had no curiosity about how my day went when I wasn't around him. It was very bizarre. And he would I am sure argue that it was my ego at work for being bothered by this. How egotistical of me was it to secretly wish someone wanted to know these minuscule and egotistical trinket facts about me that were more or less of no consequence. Josh would argue that he saw me as a piece of art in the making in some deeper way, and these little fragments and ideas I had about myself and my aesthetic were mindless and indulgences of my own ego that bore little resemblance to who I actually was underneath it all. And maybe he was right. But he almost seemed annoyed when he was at times reminded that I liked things he didn't – like The Smiths, Neil Young, or American Psycho or that I loved Smoked Oysters. He was amused that I had these differences in theory, but he seemed to actively never want to be reminded that I had passions or interests that went outside of his box he had made for me. He didn't care if I liked them so long as it was out of his sight. He wasn't interested in controlling me. But by default I couldn't really express my love for other things around him, so in that way, it did become somewhat controlling.

It made me feel funny at times about having a life outside of the madhouse. I didn't feel shamed or anything about taking walks. I didn't let Josh stop me from connecting to the outside world in that way, but it did make a big difference in my ability to make friends. And I felt like that same indifference about me was connected to the indifference he felt about connecting to the world around him. So in order to connect with Josh, I had to disconnect from other people. Josh only cared about himself and his own domain. I happened to adore Josh for who he was and didn't mind his domain so much, but suppose he was someone else that I was not in love with? It was not a positive personality trait to have.

Also, while Josh wanted me in his life, very closely, he also would always resent or push away some other part of me. Did he fully accept me for what I was? If I truly felt that way, then why did I spend hours on my make up everyday? Sure I loved looking good, but I was driven also by this frantic insecurity and fear that Josh would notice me and realize I was flawed. It was creating this strange self hatred within me that was beginning to spiral out of control. I tried to remember myself from two years ago. I had been broken and unhappy. I never wore make up. I was pretty heavy. I was very flawed, and nobody looked at me with the exception of maybe Sarah, and saw a beautiful person. But that girl that I was – the one that never got the love she needed but had to pull herself up from her bootstraps was probably the coolest version of me. Her resolve and clarity of thought were the reason I had lost the weight to begin with, she was the one that made art, the one that decided to escape her father's house. And who was I but some broken sad girl hiding behind a man who most likely wouldn't even save her in the end? Compared to my old self, I was a joke. I probably needed to look back and love that girl more – find her again. She was the one that had fought for a better life, the one with the vision and clarity. But that girl was incompatible with Josh, and the big world. I was the result of making compromises with reality, and in the complexity of life's downfalls I had become quite lost. I was in love with a hiding spot. The version of me that I was becoming was intriguing and exciting. But did she actually have a basis for existing?

Sarah's dream had it right. It could be summed up with my love of being balanced with nature. Deep down, was my relationship with Josh balanced? For the moment it seemed to be balancing fine and I found a great thrill with the imbalance – and maybe there was a sense of balance in that there was chaos in me that needed feeding and Josh could provide a certain level of stable chaos that wouldn't result in yelling that I could live with. But would I always feel this way? And would Josh like me so much if I did something willful for myself without expressing apology to him for having done so? For instance, he didn't seem to like it when other people chose music to listen to. He especially would get mad if I chose to listen to music It went unsaid, but he would get angry and passive aggressive if I took any kind initiative. Sometimes he would get mad if I put my food in a certain place in the fridge. He never yelled, but he would toss things around and you could practically see the steam coming off his head. I tried to console myself with the fact that this was just how people learn about one another. I blamed myself. I promised to myself to take up less space in his life, or in anyone's life. I would become lighter, more compact, more self sufficient. I didn't want to make Josh upset. If Josh came downstairs to do his laundry and he overheard me listening to music in my own room, I quickly shut it off. Things like that would even annoy him. For some reason, I didn't think this was weird and instead I just adapted myself to please him.

When he got this way, I would immediately feel insecure about myself. I would take the smaller piece of the pie, or flat out let him have the whole pie when something upset him. I already felt embarrassed and half ashamed when I expressed myself fully sometimes – which would be impulsive and would happen by accident. But Josh made it really easy for this insecurity of mine to fully develop into full neurosis. I hid how it made me feel, so he never knew he was inconveniencing my self worth – that would by extension inconvenience him of course which I was unable to do. Sometimes I would be walking down the sidewalk even alone and guilt would wash over me, that I didn't even deserve to be there taking up space in the world at all. It didn't matter where I went or what I did, how much weight I lost. I was a piece of meat that had no rhyme or reason to be there. I felt like I was too much when I tried to express myself. So it was a full time job holding it in. I felt strange moments of disconnectedness at times, like I was going to have a nervous breakdown. And everything that Sarah and Allison and David had rejected me for, it all made sense. I was bad. Josh was merely nice enough to point out what they hadn't been able to do. And I was lucky to have him there. Because if he didn't accept me for how awful I was, then I wasn't going to get it anywhere else.

This of course created a deep seated insecurity in me. What if I lost Josh somehow? What if he got bored of me, or decided to focus on some other girl? Allison, Whitney and Sarah had gotten out of the way – but suppose one or all three came back. Josh might toss my aside. He would and could do it, and it would make me look crazy. Because he could easily say I was just his obsessive roommate. That he had no hand in being close to me, and I had wanted a relationship and he had let me know there wouldn't be one, even though he was also stringing me along – nobody saw that or really got what that was about. And without Josh I was nothing. It would be like someone tore my skin off. I would be absolutely vulnerable to any and everything. I felt this scary insecure sense that if I didn't have Josh, I would lose all sense of myself and I would go into something dark that would take me years to come out of. It fed into some deep dark fear that was hard to articulate. Like willingly letting myself fall off a high rise. By instinct, my life's objective was to not let that happen.

The next day after Josh had talked to me about not being my boyfriend and whathaveyou, he came in on his break. He was feeling chipper, his eyes dilated and blue behind his spectacles, he had a glow to him. He danced about the room a bit, as he often did odd and sometimes funny things when he got off work for a time. He went into this abstract thing where he said that even though he wasn't going to let himself get into any relationships – a hint towards our previous conversation the night before, he was going to accept all the love that was given to him. Essentially, he wanted me to continue loving him. He wanted me to throw myself into this thing with my heart on my sleeve like we were making wedding vows. He didn't think he had to reciprocate of course – at least not in the sense that he wanted to commit to anything per say, but he would gladly accept all love that was given to him. He made it sound so healthy – Buddhist even. He made statements implying that he had such a great well of love within him for me, that it transcended anything that a relationship could ever do for me, that some meaningless label could ever do. And we could be close, and intimate but as long as we never touched he was committed to nothing with me. And he was gleeful about this. I tried to be gleeful with him. Maybe I was. It's hard to say. I was crazy back then.

PART 112 - https://tinyurl.com/ycwx7be7

PART 111 - https://tinyurl.com/yc2sc37j

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-110 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far).

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-110

#text #life story #long text #writing

22 notes · View notes

pcurrytravels · 6 years

Text

Las Vegas: A Love/Hate Thang (Chapter IV - A Question of Love, Pride & Knowledge) (Part II)

Hello once again. So in Part I of this chapter I started off talking about having Love, Pride AND Knowledge in/of Las Vegas, but I had so many things to say about the love and pride parts that the post grew way too long for me to talk about the knowledge part. Here, I will be talking more about that part, let us begin:

As I’ve already stated a few times, there’s a number of things I tend to envy about other cities both within and outside of the U.S. Like how just about every other major city in the world has some sort of rail system and we don’t (that stupid monorail doesn’t count). Or how everyone else seems to appreciate variance in their architecture while we use the same set of five bland and generic blueprints for any structure that isn’t a casino here. Or how history and culture can almost literally be felt in the air in most places versus here where all that can be felt is corporate, commercial and trendy modernity. Or how most other cities like to identify their neighborhoods and we don’t.

Yeah, more about that last one: Now, I understand that Las Vegas isn’t really a big city and that it’s also relatively new. Then again, a metropolitan area of two-million people (and still rapidly growing) is pretty far from what I’d call a small town (even if the rule of six degrees of separation is very much in effect mode here *groans*). Also most other cities in the Southwest and West Coast aren’t all that much older than we are. Matter of fact, this place was officially settled in 1905, i.e. 113 years ago, so it’s not like we haven’t had time to naturally develop, define and identify districts and neighborhoods like other places do. So really, what’s the excuse?

Oh wait scratch that, our city is divided up into distinctive neighborhoods: There’s DTLV, which further consists of East Fremont, 18b Arts District, The Naked City, John S. Park and Huntridge. The Eastside can be divided up into the University District, Cambridge, Paradise Palms, Francisco Park, Sunrise and so on. The Westside has Charleston Heights, Rancho-Oakey/Medical District, The Old or “Historic” Westside, Berkeley Square and The Lakes. We also now have a Chinatown (which is more of a Pan-Asian district really) in addition to slowly emerging East African, Central American, Caribbean Latino, South Asian and Pacific Islander enclaves. Ask the average Las Vegan about all of this however? Chances are they’d probably have no idea what you’re talking about.

So, how would the average Las Vegan describe this city, you ask? Simple: The Strip, Downtown, Summerlin, Henderson, Westside, Eastside, Northtown, Southwest, Northwest/Centennial and that’s it. Occasionally, some will refer to Spring Valley, Green Valley and Aliante, but even those are slowly becoming obscure. Spring Valley has more or less been (ignorantly and lazily) divided into three: the older, more working-class portion that’s east of Rainbow is considered Westside, the newer, more affluent portion that’s west of Rainbow has been merged with Summerlin, and anything south of Trop on either side is part of the Southwest. Green Valley and Henderson are more or less considered one and the same these days (they aren’t). As for Aliante, given its location and, ahem, demographics if you will, many will insist to you it’s just an extension of Northtown (the classism and closet racism runs thick in these parts).

As a writer and general “web-worm” if you will, with all of the extensive research I’ve done on various topics, one thing I’ve come to realize is how much everything “reflects” so to speak. Language? Culture? Fashion? Politics? Societal Roles? Music? etc.... All of these things and more influence and are because of each other more or less.

You may be asking what I’m getting at here, yes? Well, I’ve already indirectly alluded as to how the identity and culture of my city has been buried beneath a shallow, vapid and artificial shell in the previous posts of this series, which is where we come to a theory: The reason why so many of these neighborhoods aren’t regularly referred to/identified, let alone even known, whether due to being forgotten over time, laziness or the long-standing, stubborn insistence on sloppily dividing this entire city into five or six primary quadrants, is because acknowledging these areas would show that something actually happened organically and naturally in Las Vegas, thereby betraying the “fantasy” of being a place where everything was made/built overnight.

The honest truth of the matter is, artificiality is HIGHLY valued here. The majority of our populace just simply doesn’t place value on anything that wasn’t created with the “build it and they will come” philosophy in mind. I mean, the High Roller is widely regarded as an icon of our city and it hasn’t even been around for five years for goodness sake. You see, unlike just about everywhere else in the world where people actively give things meaning on a daily basis, here, we have to literally be told how to feel about them. (Hate to sound petty, as I am a legit fan, but I honestly wonder if the Golden Knights would have even been as successful as they have if it weren’t for them being explicitly marketed as hometown heroes by local media long before they even hit the ice, just saying) Otherwise, we either don’t know or don’t care. This right here is what we have to blame for the messy situation in regards to neighborhood identification, and by extension, why so many locals don’t even know their own city.

Even I will admit to you there’s many things about my city I simply don’t know. Granted, I don’t have much of a social life beyond my day job and the internet so that could be a big part of why I’m out of the loop in certain areas, but still. Example: A few months ago, I remember talking with a former coworker who happened to be of Indonesian descent. She gushed to me about the large Indonesian community in town and all the cultural offerings and I was just sitting there like......where?

Given a number of circumstances, so to speak, Las Vegas’s population is skyrocketing with no end in sight. The thing I fear most is, aside from increased rent (the valley only has so many housing options), lack of housing stock (the valley only has so much room for expansion) and how much harder it’s gonna be to find a job (the valley never had that many great jobs to begin with), is our city’s identity getting buried even further. If the trends I’ve observed throughout my life are anything to go by, 90% of people relocate here because of one sole arbitrary reason (be it cheap housing, The Strip or The Raiders) and that’s it. 90% of pre-existing locals (well, prior to Oct. 1, 2017 and the Golden Knights anyway) simply don’t know or care about their city. For this city to be growing at the rate it is, this is a deadly combo yo. Things are changing once again in Vegas, but I’m not sure if I can really say they’re good or bad this time.

A pro to all of the people moving in is more diversity and culture. That being said however, would it really be our own? Although people from literally all over the world have moved here over the years, the vast majority of transplants, past and present, have been from California, and it doesn’t look like that’s gonna stop anytime soon. I mean, when it’s $500k or more to buy and/or $2000 a month to rent rundown houses, condos and apartments in the GHETTO, I certainly don’t blame them one bit for fleeing to a town where one can easily find a fairly new home in the nicer parts for $200k. The issue lies in the fact that as time goes on, Vegas becomes less like Vegas and more like a miniature L.A. This is going to sound VERY provincial and xenophobic of me, but frankly, I’m tired of Californians making this place a carbon-copy of California. I’d prefer to take the 4-hour bus ride/road trip and/or 1-hour plane ride so I could have the real thing, thanks.

Okay, I got a bit off track there, lol, but anyways, given that it appears Vegas Natives are going to remain a minority in their own city, it will most likely be outsiders who will identify and define things for both the foreseeable, and unforeseeable future. Ironically enough, I honestly don’t think I have a right to feel very upset about it when so many of my fellow natives and locals have simply allowed this to happen thanks to their apathy and lack of knowledge in regards to their own city. In countless other places, such circumstances would cause quite the uproar, but here, it’s whatever. So all I can do is shrug and keep it moving at this point.

After all, it appears I really have no choice but to simply accept this paradox. Our culture is one very much based on trends and the material. Our local identity is one of people and things that all come from somewhere else. Our image is one of fantasy and imagination. As one person, I just don’t have much control over it. Over the next ten years, Vegas is going to be more different than ever. Maybe the next generations of new arrivals and natives will be the ones to finally ground things in place. Maybe the Golden Knights and the Raiders will assist in strengthening the local community. I don’t know. All I can really do is hope. Otherwise (note that I’m cringing as I’m writing this), I’m just going to have to learn that it is what it is. Until next time.

#a love hate thang #Las Vegas

1 note · View note

troutfishinginmusic · 4 years

Text

Interview: Tim Kinsella (2012)

In 2012 my life was chaotic. I was working on my degree at Wayne State University and working two jobs. I was also going through some trauma in my personal life, which I’ve only recently sorted out. During all of this, I interviewed one of my favorite artists. Tim Kinsella has been a part of numerous musical projects (most notably Cap N’ Jazz and Joan of Arc). I was lucky enough to interview him when he did a limited run of living room shows at the time. I wrote an article from the interview for my college newspaper. I really don’t like how it turned out. This interview appears on another Tumblr page I made at the time and have since forgotten all the login stuff (including the email). Joan of Arc recently concluded after over 20 years, so I thought it would be fitting to post it again with a bit of light editing. The interview happens at a creative high for JOA and a commercial low. Kinsella currently performs in Good Fuck.

What made you want to tour living rooms?

It was really a very practical decision. I’ve been working as an adjunct teacher around Chicago and I have a better job that starts in February. I didn’t want to go back to my old job yet and get lots of music done. But by the time I found out I wasn’t working it was too late. It was too late to book clubs; to do a normal tour. It was very much just a backwards kind of a panic. Dave Bazan of Pedro the Lion and Tim Kasher have been doing this. So I got hooked up with the guys who booked those. And I’m excited this is the first one.

What subject and where did you teach?

I taught two semesters at the Art Institute [of Chicago] teaching a weird first year seminar. I taught classes on Utopia that I made up. But that’s just while I was in school there. But then I taught at Harold Washington, which is part of the Chicago City colleges, and I taught popular culture and mass media studies sorts of things. In February I start teaching experimental fiction writing at the University of Chicago’s night school program. That’ll be more exciting for me, teaching writing classes.

Are you going to write a follow up the “Karaoke Singers Guide to Self Defense”?

You know I just finished the second one and I can’t find a publisher. I actually just finished a first draft of the third one in the last two and a half months. So that means it’s still about two and a half years away from being done. I sent out the second one to 28 different publishers and have gotten 12 or 13 rejections so far and haven’t heard back from the other 14.

Why not put it out with the last publisher?

That’s part of there deal they don’t do two books by anyone. Half the people they put books out by have deals with bigger publishers, so this is like their weird side project thing. So they’re helping me find people to send it to. And I’ve become really good friends with them. So they’re on my side but they won’t do the book.

I saw in another interview that you were starting to move away from song-based albums to larger instrumental pieces. On the new self-titled album there is one side devoted to song-based material. Do you see yourself continuing to move away from that in the future or is it kind of up in the air in terms of Joan of Arc?

It’s hard to say. I remember when Joan of Arc Dick Cheney Mark Twain came out in 2004 and, when we finished mixing it, we met this friend of mine who’s in this band called Disappears, who’re really awesome, and telling him how excited I was about the record and gushing about how it does this and it does this and how we balanced it’s so crazy. He was nodding along patiently and he was like ‘you know it sounds like you just described the first Joan of Arc record to me.’ And I went ‘oh…right. I guess so’ But I don’t know I feel like I’m getting better at the craft of song writing. They’re very separate disciplines in my mind; song writing and playing music. I feel like I’m getting better at both, but they’re definitely separate disciplines in my mind.

Does it feel strange doing very different things under the same banner?

Yeah, from my perspective it’s very unified. Ideally, it should have contradictions. I don’t know. Have you ever seen a really depressing movie or read a really fun book and think ‘oh man I want to make something like that.’ That never lets up or never goes one way or the other. Realistically, I’m sad a lot of the time and I’m funny a lot of the time.

You wouldn’t want to box it in or anything?

If it’s going to representative then it needs to be multi- dimensional. So I’m comfortable with it. I understand it’s hard to sell. And at the same time when I feel like I’m getting better at these things, but the business aspect of it has never been worse. Our audience is shrinking and shrinking as I get better and better at what I mean to do.

Were any of the east coast shows canceled due to hurricane Sandy?

I guess I’m doing them. I’ve talked to all the hosts. There was one show at a friend of mine’s house in New Jersey that we moved to Brooklyn anyways so we could sell more tickets there. His street was destroyed but that show was canceled anyways. The only show that would’ve been canceled was already canceled…so it might be weird getting in and out of places…but I don’t know. Yeah I’ve been in contact with all of them and they’ve said ‘no you have to do it everything’s fine.’ I guess it’ll go neighborhood to neighborhood.

Are you going to make another film after Orchard Vale?

It’s a thing I think about a lot. Both novels started as script ideas. I found I have an easier time realizing the thing when it was just me, a laptop and a notebook. The movie was very frustrating. It didn’t turn out like I hoped it would. The tension of it ended my marriage because me and my ex-wife made it together. My girlfriend now is an experimental filmmaker and she’s really great, so we collaborate on some little things. I’ve done some music for a couple of her films and we’re constantly talking through ideas, but I don’t think…I mean I would love to, it would be my dream.

What made you want to soundtrack the Passion of Joan of Arc film?

This festival asked us to do something, it could be whatever we wanted. But they wouldn’t tell us how much money they had. They said ‘well how much do you guys want?’ Well for this little bit of money we’ll improvise to a 10-minute experimental film, for a lot of money we’ll do an original score to the Joan of Arc movie. It just popped out of my mouth. I didn’t think about it. They said ‘oh that sounds cool let’s try that.’ The one time we preformed it was in an old church this old church that was really perfect. There were stained glass windows, some people sitting in pews and a big pipe organ sitting to the side. We tried riding with the pipe organ, but we couldn’t get things in tune with it. The a-lot-of-money turned out to be very little money considering the amount of time we had to put into it. They called my bluff.

How much did the film influence the band name? Did it feel like it was coming full circle to do that?

It did feel great to do that. My relationship with the name Joan of Arc has gone back and forth a few times over the years. At first we thought it was a good idea because we wanted this familiar thing. Then there were some years where I was like this is a stupid band name, why are we stuck with this? It felt like claiming it as our own. I mean obviously it belongs to everyone. Our original idea was Sony. But our first label wouldn’t let us be named that. We just wanted a name that everybody knew that we could change the meaning of the name to certain people.

How’s the Owls reunion going?

It’s going great. It’s really fun. It took us a really long time to get momentum Sam [Zurick] moved back to Chicago last Valentine’s day. He was living on my couch so he needed to find a job and had to find a place. Then my brother had a second baby. I think we wrote the whole record twice and threw it away. It just wasn’t working. It had been 12 years since we all played together even though all of us play in Joan of Arc some of the time. Now we finally have momentum. We have enough songs where we’re throwing songs away. I think if we had to record next week we could but we’re waiting until the spring because we’re enjoying playing together and not tweaking things or making it a public thing right now. It’s fun for us to cultivate.

Did you plan to release three albums in a year? Is it hard to do that or is it more of a natural process?

No we’re totally backlogged right now, the labels hate us. Two years ago we did 113 shows we were all just miserable and exhausted. So we were like OK let’s stay at home and figure things out. It was a good year we all enjoyed it, but it’s difficult to sustain it. We’re just staying home but we still like playing music. Most days of the week we play music together. We throw away a lot of stuff you know.

The three records are very different: the soundtrack is a very specific thing, Pinecone is a very specific thing and this acoustic record. There’s three records for next year too. We aren’t trying to, it’s just how it kind of naturally occurs. I mean there’s the Owls record and our main focus has been our soundtrack to this performance art piece. We did it in London in April I guess and that’s a very specific thing. We’ve been doing this funny greatest hits record of rearranged old songs. The label’s saying you sound better live than you ever have, you should make a record as a live band.

They’re very distinct. And that’s a music industry thing really, I mean if you love what you do you’ll want to do it every day. It doesn’t seem weird to me. I understand the labels hate it because the records come out in very small pressings now.

Do you still bartend at all?

You know, I just started again and it’s fine. I was miserable the first couple shifts, but I’m just doing it until I can start teaching again. I’m just not used to being up that late.

Did that inspire the book at all?

I’ve lived above the bar I worked at. I’m not in there very often when it’s open and crowded unless I’m working. But the owners and managers there are my best friends. So I guess I’ve just been around the bar. And my Dad was a governor of a Moose Lodge, so he was like a bar manager too. So I’ve always been around bars I guess.

#tim kinsella #joan of arc #owls #capnjazz

1 note · View note