#i've only watched the finale twice bc it's too painful

[dont-let-me-eat-pears]

no tv show ending has ever devastated me as much as merlin’s. and i haven’t watched “the diamond of the day” in years, but i still remember thinking the first time i finished it, back in 2013, that i maybe, with much reluctance and tears, maybe could’ve accepted that ending—

IF! it weren't for that final scene, with old merlin in the present day.

i could’ve comforted myself with the thought that arthur might rise again in just a few years, and even though gwaine still would've died tragically and pointlessly, at least merlin and gwen would get arthur back. but instead! we end on merlin alone, hundreds of years in the future, still waiting for arthur. which means gwen lost arthur forever, after so much angst and such a short time together. (she wouldn't have lost merlin, though. i don’t care what anyone says; there’s no way merlin wouldn’t have returned to camelot for at least her and gaius. plus, he hadn’t found out about gwaine yet.) and whenever arthur does return, it will be to a world where his wife and all his other loved ones, besides merlin, are long dead and gone. and sure, merlin still had people—gaius and gwen and his mother—to live for after arthur's death, but eventually, inevitably he outlived them all. to wait for arthur entailed losing everyone else.

so i can't quite comfort myself with the thought that merlin and arthur will eventually be reunited. because of what gwen lost. because of the losses arthur will awake to. because of the losses merlin has been carrying with him for hundreds of years.

so, no, i can't accept that ending.

[kart0]

August 15th - My 22nd Birthday

Can't say it was a perfect day, or even a good day. It went pretty shitty, as it usually does. Nothing too bad, but small things added up and then I just couldn't hold myself together anymore. I've been dealing with pain in my arms for quite some time now, went to the doctor twice, and now started physical therapy. Haven't been able to draw and had to postpone some commissions which took a toll on me. Can't draw to relax, nor play games, nor cook, nor do literally anything.

My dad got mad at me for a mistake he did.

Tried to bake some cupcakes to give to my friends at uni but everything went wrong, I worked so hard on it, left my wrists burning in pain only to just fail.

My classmates sung happy birthday to me, which would've been nice if we were in a private room, instead of being in class with every single colleague of mine and even the professor. Whom which I highly dislike. It was very embarrassing and I felt weird.

I wanted to walk alone home to wind down but one of my friends insisted on walking together because it was my birthday and I shouldn't be alone, but I really needed some alone time to get myself together.

Couldn't find my favorite comfort ramen ( neoguri ) for weeks and it's been driving me crazy.

I didn't have lunch bc I was stressed with the cupcakes, only to end up deciding not to take them with me, so I was hangry and sad.

Some people I considered dear friends didn't even send me a happy birthday message, and even planned a birthday party to a different friend whose birthday is in a few days.

I was so upset, we went out for dinner and just seeing my dad made me start crying again. I didn't get to enjoy any of the food because I was crying and couldn't taste anything and that made me even more upset. And it was very painful to hold chopsticks so I ended up only having 3 slices of sashimi for dinner.

I couldn't stop crying at all and ended up sobbing for two hours straight, even though I was trying my hardest to stop. I couldn't control myself.

We went to the movies and watched Coraline, and I managed to distract myself and just pay attention to my favourite movie ever.

We got home, cut my cake and talked a bit about silly things and funny stories and that's when I finally felt content.

I think I don't really like celebrating my birthday. I don't like being the center of attention, and I create these high expectations that people will do these crazy things and love me and it'll be fun and amazing and perfect. Which obviously just makes room for disappointment.

I like the day before my birthday, and the day after my birthday, but never my birthday. I always, always get sad.

I do think it's no one's fault, tho. Just unlucky, and a coincidence. But it does make me wonder if I will ever have a good, happy birthday celebration.

Idk, I hope so. I mean, at least one, c'mon.

Anyways, I cried a bit more writing this, but I feel way better. My eyes are super puffy and sore and burning, and I'm just tired. At least I don't have classes tomorrow... I still need to wakeup early for my physiotherapy tho. Anyways. This was definitely a year... Very bad things happened, but also very good things. It balances out.

I'm happier than before and honestly, I think it's been a very long time since I've felt anywhere close to this. I'm glad I'm still here.

Hoping I will have an even greater year next.

[colour-outside-the-liness]

Hi Colour! This is going to be a long one, so buckle up!

Oh wow, that's so precious! You've definitely earned the "real life Dani" nickname haha I wish I could find something meaningful like that to do with my life. I'm actually autistic and have ADHD so hearing you do this kind of work makes me really happy! Keep up the good work Ms. Clayton! 😁 Haha

You sound like a lot of fun to hang out with at pubs! Haha I'm glad you identify with that bit of info on your star placements. I had a lot of fun doing it too!

The thing about Hozier is that some of his lyrics are incredibly sapphic to me for some reason, I'm still trying to figure it out. NFWMB is one of the songs that feels like that to me. Don't know if you've heard it before but give it a try if you haven't. If you close your eyes it sounds like you're in an epic romantic story and there are swords, pretty gowns, and rooms lit by torches. Haha

The beginning of this song was inspired by a poem written by W.B Yeats called "The Second Coming" in 1920, and it talks about an apocalypse of sorts, alluding to all of the horrors men inflicted upon the world which ends up awakening this beast that goes to Jesus's place of birth in the Bible (Bethlehem) to be born. The last lines being:

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

So the song starts with:

"When I first saw you

The end was soon

To Bethlehem it slouched

And then, it must've caught a good look at you"

And oh boy do I think of Dani when I hear that. Especially bc of that scene where Viola accepts Dani's invitation to live inside her. And nobody knows why she accepts it (but I do!).

And yeah at first glance you might not think much of Dani. in the beginning she's just a tiny frail small-town girl with a lot of anxiety, running away from her past traumas. But she proves us wrong again and again and again. She moves to a country she's never been before entirely by herself, sees an opportunity, and doesn't let go of it even when it looks like it went wrong. Then is very loving and tender with these children who have gone through so much and are still going through so much. Tries to fight (with a fire poker!!) the threatening man that keeps harassing her, the children, and her friends. THEN manages to soften the angry, grumpy lesbian who's given up on people after A LOT of trauma (too much in my opinion) and doesn't give up on her when she rejects her either. Freaking exorcises her ex and makes him stop haunting her so she can be with the love of her life. And then finally as if all of that didn't make her the bravest hero in this story, she literally stops an apocalypse from happening and saves everyone from this beast by sacrificing herself without even thinking twice. Saves everyone that came before her and then the ones who'll come after for the rest of eternity. I mean the P-O-W-E-R this girl has. 💪 so hell yeah the lady in the lake wanted to take her.

When Hozier says:

"Ain't it a gentle sound, the rollin' in the graves?

Ain't it like thunder under earth, the sound it makes?

Ain't it exciting you, the rumble where you lay?

Ain't you my baby? ain't you my baby?"

I can only think of Dani at the bottom of the lake laying on top of all the bones of the people Viola killed and how she's at peace living forever in a dark place like that. That's kinda hardcore y'know?

After the first verses, Hozier goes on to talk abt his lover, someone so utterly terrifying even the beast of the end of the world can't stand to look at them. But this song is also about being proud to be this person's lover bc nothing can fuck with them, not bc you are there to protect them and wouldn't let anyone harm them, but bc they're more than capable of protecting themselves and you too. So in my head, this song is Jamie's declaration of love to Dani.

And then I think of Jamie's devotion to Dani when she said "If you can't feel anything, then I'll feel everything for the both of us." shown in this verse:

"If I was born as a blackthorn tree

I'd wanna be felled by you

Held by you

Fuel the pyre of your enemies"

And the fact that she took what she could get just to be with Dani. She knew she'd have to suffer for/bc of her at some point, but chose to be with her anyway. I have no doubts in my mind she'd want to be anything for her as long as they could be together in any way, shape, or form. In all the lives they happened to meet one another too.

Wouldn't it be cool to see them in an AU where Dani is like a medieval princess who's supposed to marry Edmund to form an alliance between kingdoms or something and Jamie is an assassin who is hired to kill the princess so she has to pretend to be Dani's personal guard or wtever but they fall in love and run away together and Jamie teaches her how to fight so Dani becomes this warrior but turns out Dani is naturally good at it and then she becomes a legend? Hahaha I can see her riding a horse in the winter with paint on her face and her blonde hair falling over this fur-lined cloak, fierce look on her face, and Jamie riding next to her (always). Then they come across Viola who's a witch and puts a curse on Dani and then Dani and Jamie have to travel to all sorts of places and fight all sorts of people and go on this whole adventure to rid Dani of this curse. Maybe Dani has to go back to her kingdom bc her father dies and there are other people trying to take her kingdom so there's a lot of angst and suffering but then they win at the end after a lot of sweat and tears and they live happily ever after! 😎Hahaha

Anyway, I hope you're having a great week so far and hope you had fun with your niece today! (I know if I was her and you had us make fudge and paint I'd worship you haha) I'm sorry for the very (very) long ask, but I've been obsessing over this idea for months and I just had to share it with someone! ✌️✨

(And you can call me Libby or wtever since I'm not anon anymore 🤗)

Awwh thank you so much for saying I have earned my 'real life Dani' title is means a lot to me that you guys see that in me!! I am sure you do so many meaningful things in life without even realising it!! I honestly just want to make a difference and I love helping people so going into a career like this just seemed so natural to me and I really do love what I do!! Thank you so much I really hope I can keep up the good work!! I hope I'm a lot of fun- I know I have helped win a few pub quizzes and there's been a few times I've won games of trivial pursuit as well so that really did make so much sense to me and learning about all the placements of my chart was so much fun and was so interesting so thank you very much!! I have heard some of Hozier's lyrics are quite sapphic and I always mean to look into more of his songs and then just never do but I will definitely look in to NFWMB because the lyrics you have sent me here are incredible and definitely give of Dani x Jamie vibes I definitely agree with you in everything you have said about why Viola accepted Dani's invitation- Dani and Viola are similar in some ways and this was something I was explaining to my niece when she watched it with me. I explained to her that both Viola and Dani are strong willed, and stubborn, and would do anything to fiercely protect the people they care about. We saw that time and time again with Dani, how within days of knowing Miles and Flora she was out with a fire poker trying to protect them from a strange man that she kept seeing around the manor. And how Viola would've done anything to protect her daughter. One major difference between them though is that Viola seemed to have a slight selfish streak where as Dani is entirely selfless, she was selfless for the longest time in even agreeing to marry Eddie so she wouldn't hurt him, she was selfless in protecting Miles and Flora, and even more selfless in saving Flora's life and freeing all the trapped spirits of Bly Manor and then she is selfless in the fact that she won't drag anyone down and won't hurt anyone else at Bly ever again. The one thing she did for herself was being with Jamie- and she was able to make Jamie open up and trust people in way she probably hadn't for the longest time. Dani is a truly strong person as was Viola and I can see why she would accept Dani's invitation. I will have to listen to this song to see it from a Jamie perspective which I will definitely do tomorrow but from the lyrics you have sent me I can definitely see it being a love declaration to Dani from Jamie. Jamie knew in the end she would suffer because she knew she wouldn't be able to keep Dani forever, and knew that one day she would have to leave her- but she knew loving Dani for as long as she was allowed to would be worth that pain in the end and Jamie is a truly strong person as well for knowing this and staying by Dani's side anyway when that must have been such a hard thing for Jamie to ever have to accept. Jamie would've been anything for Dani and would've one anything for her as Dani would've for Jamie and that's why I love them so much. They loved each other so purely and without conditions and so wholeheartedly and it really was such a lovely thing to watch play out in front of us (even if it did hurt us all at the end). I think it would be so cool to see an AU like that I think medieval stuff is always so fun and so interesting and a good enemies to lovers start never fails either because there's so much tension there between them. And Jamie being undercover as someone to get close to Dani and them slowly falling in love with each other would just be a great thing to see!! And I am all for warrior Dani and Jamie (women with weapons is a little bit of a weakness of mine)!! This whole AU just sounds incredible I love a good curse in fantasy stories and the curse slowly taking over and you thinking they're going to run out of time but everything works out in the end!! Dani going back to her kingdom because of her sick Dad dying would be great for angst because it would look

like she would have to marry someone to create an alliance and that she would have to take over a kingdom (perhaps something she never wanted to do in the first place)!! I think this could be a very angsty one shot and could be so interesting and fun and the happy ending would definitely make all the angst worth it in the end!! I am having a good week so far thank you and I had so much fun with my niece today, making fudge went great and she was happy that I was able to show her how to do it because she'd never made it before so now that's something she knows how to do (I think she thinks I'm way cooler than I actually am haha thank you for saying you'd worship me though if you were my niece haha 😂) but tomorrow she is teaching me how to do something because I taught her how to make fudge today... she's gonna teach me how to draw in an anime style- which is something she is really into and even though I'm not she loves drawing so I've asked if she can teach me since I taught her something today!! There's no need to apologise I loved this long angst and I loved this idea I think it's really great and interesting and that song just seems amazing and I am definitely gonna listen to it tomorrow when I get chance!! Thank you for sharing this idea with me I loved it!! ☺️ Haha oki doki then as long as that's alright with you Libby is what I'll call you!! Like I said you can seriously call me anything!! ☺️

[juunshua]

Oh dw about it love - i've been recovering from surgery so I wasn't sure if I sent in the ask or it it was a part of an elaborate pain-medication-induced dream. Def agree with soyang because I feel that same way whenever I listen to that performance. I was expecting support but not fucking resonance on nearly every! fucking! note! (pls excuse my language), like she needed to in order to breathe. Fuck man that song touched my soul and made me walk around holding it. The percision, the ease (1/)

The agility, the clarity. Just. Fuck. As for jeonghan, I think it's a mixture of both. Even back in 17tv, he had a decent sense of rhythm and how to not hurt himself. There's a clip of Joshua teaching jeonghan choreo and jeonghan does it with better distributed strength. From what Ive seen every member's technique has gotten better, just that some of them seem to be more focused on the final shape whereas others are focused on the movement, which is why Jeonghan stands out because he (2/)Seems to have gone for both and boy does it pay off. Seungkwan too also has a good understanding of the fundamentals. Maybe because he has spent so much time with Vernon and hoshi but nevertheless he is a vocalist who is more comfortable than not with dancing. Idk of he can freestyle an eight count yet but definite improvement from where he was in adore u. As for choreo like thanks, idk if there is one bc its a mixture of many genres and styles characteristic of certain choerographers (3/).There's Paula Abdul in the transitions, Bob fosse in the staging, KK Harris in the speed and smoothness, and a little of Fred astire in the grace. Then underneath all of that is the physical movement with modern, contemporary jazz, and soft hip hop. Quite a few formally trained dancers come to mind. Victoria, Fei and Jia (formerly of miss A) Winwin (NCT) Cheng Xiao (WJSN) in traditional Chinese dance. Daisy (Momoland) Yein (Lovelyz) in ballet. Gayoung and Junyeol (Stellar) in jazz (3/)Woosung (Snuper) Kyungil (formerly of History) Hwall (The Boyz) and Momo (Twice) all did contemporary. Sinb (gfriend) was also heavily involved in the jazz dance scene in her youth. Im sure I've forgotten some people but there has been a definite increase in the number of idols with studio training. Before it used to be only Stephanie and Lee Joon. Thats not to say theyve kept up with technique but it comes through in how they prepare themselves for certain moves or phrases (5/).Foot over knee isn't ideal but a stylistic decision. If you want to see a performance taht combinds good technique with artistry, I encourage you to check out the six flying dragons stage at ultra dance festival. Banging choreo, song is a tune, and everyone does well. Believe it or not, JYP and SM actually have had some of the most well balanced groups in terms of dancing. More so in the past but pretty reliable in making sure their dancers don't get hurt because theyre doing something wrong (6)

ahhh i hope everything went well with the surgery!and yes she is an absolute queen!! technical approach + thinking about something musically + putting a lot of emotions in a song isn’t! impossible! to do! all! at once!!!ooh movement vs final shape, what’s the difference? like the transition to the move verse making sure the final pose looks nice? ooh are hoshi and vernon the better dancers in the group or? also yeah i don’t know much about the technical aspects of dancing but boo, to me, seems to at least have some control over his body when it comes to dancing? alskdjf idk what im trying to say. like idk if he’s doing things technically right, but i do like how his dancing looks like to my eyes but hooray! im glad that all the members have been improving at least in their dance! i went back and rewatched a lot of jeonghan fancams, and although i cant see anything personally in terms of what he’s doing right and what he’s doing wrong, watching him was a real pleasure!! ohhh thank you for answering the question about thanks!! i should look into those choreographers bc i quite frankly have no knowledge about them! and ahh ur kpop knowledge seems to expand vaster than mine. i do know a lot of these groups but i didn’t know a lot of them had people actually formally trained, nor that there were significantly fewer people in the past. but i feel as though bc the market just keeps getting more saturated, ur bound to find more people formally trained in dancing of some sort? and im sure having formal training is an asset when companies do pick trainees so ? and alsjdf i was about to ask that, that whether or not any of them maintained what they learned in the studio, esp since a lot of ppl become trainees at such a young age, they may not necessarily continue those more private dance lessons? im not sure how trainee life works but. i just watched that performance and it was absolutely gorgeous!!!! its really amazing when groups can come together and put together spectacular performances like that one wow that was really good...the girl in the beginning (stephanie i think?) stole the entire performance but thats just me. i couldnt leave my eyes off her she was the highlight for me. oh jyp too? im not surprised about sm since they’re pretty ok with voice technique, so it would make sense theyd be good about dance technique too, but jyp hmm thats so interesting! although i guess compared to singing, dancing is a bit more, structured in society’s eyes? im sure people realize the importance of not overexerting and damaging ur actual physical body (whereas it wouldnt be /as/ obvious with ur voice i suppose?) so maybe they realize that at jyp but laksdj im glad like the big three at the v least i think should have the money and resources to make sure their trainees and idols aren’t hurting themselves while they do their job (idk what ** is doing but you know)