#idk why it’s particularly bothering me so much these past couple days because like It’s The Usual i’d be more shocked if everyone actually

[wizkiddx]

3 hearts broken

I did an angst thing again oops also not proof read double oops

summary: an argument between you and tom, except it takes him hurting someone else for you to loose it

warnings: alot of swearing (im British sorry not sorry) idk anything else except commitment issues?

////////////////////////////////////////////

It was an argument you and your boyfriend regularly had. In fact, it was the only argument the two of you ever had. And especially recently, one that Tom seemed to want to have every day. It didn’t matter where you were on set; in the rental home; out for dinner. Or like now… in the airport lounge.

You were sitting across from each other in a semi-private booth. Tom in his joggers and a burgundy hoodie, you in your black leggings and an oversized tee that actually belonged to your boyfriend. The rest of the place was almost deserted, given the late-night time of the flight. It was probably why Tom felt so comfortable bringing up this touchy subject in a public place.

You were both way past overtired too, owing to the end of a gruelling shoot. All you wanted was to get back to London and get into your own bed. Without an unnecessary fight with Tom.

Unfortunately for you, when you had naively said those exact words, Tom’s overtired brain skipped straight to it being a personal attack.

“I don’t see why you can’t commit to moving in Y/n! We practically live together for filming anyway so-“

“I love you Tom, more than I could ever express. I just… I can’t do this yet. I need… more-“

“More time, I know.” He grumbled, already standing and slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder - as the flight’s gate was announced by the intercom. Had he not already turned his back and started heading along the hallway, you would’ve tried to protest and calm him down. But thanks to his urgency to get away from you… all you could do was sigh. Slumping back against the seat before hauling yourself up and grabbing the bags - that he had helped you with on the way in.

No doubt this would be a long flight.

That it was. Tom had been maturely giving you the silent treatment at the gate, as you were boarding, and finding you seats. You were both in first class, so you had adjacent little pods with a little partition in the middle. It’s standard position was to be lowered however, before you’d even been able to settle into your window seat, Tom had already switched to button to have it slowly slide up.

Real fucking mature.

Thinking he just needed some time to cool off, you rolled your eyes but let him be. Even though you were such a frequent flier, you were terrible at getting any sleep on them. Tom knew this, knew how much you disliked the idea of being hurtling through the air in a tin can. Usually, he’d be holding your hand, entertaining you by watching a movie and providing a shit commentary over the top. Sometimes, when you were both as exhausted as right now, he’d even slide into your chair, having you perch on top of him so you could fall asleep listening to his heartbeat in his chest. Now though? He refused to acknowledge your existence.

Tom never had such issues flying, he was like a switch that could just choose to fall asleep at any and every point. Which is perhaps why it shocked you to see him still wide awake, staring angrily at the corner of his pod when you went to the loo, hours later. Thinking it was time for a peace offering, on the return to your seat you made eye contact and began to smile softly at him. However, that plan lasted for all of two seconds, since as soon as he realised you had seen him staring, Tom instantly shut his eyes - playing asleep.

He really was being particularly stubborn tonight.

By the time the plane landed, he’d still refused to say anything - and it was starting to really piss you off too. You’d tried to be mature, tried to offer the metaphorical olive branch and he had quite literally thrown it back in your face. So by the time you were being escorted off the plane (first because you were first class), you hung back from your boyfriend, wanting to have your own space.

Which was exactly why you didn’t want to give up your own apartment yet!

The two of you walked across the bridge into the terminal with a good 8 metres between each other. Tom didn’t bother to turn round and check on you, taking purposeful steps as though he wanted to get away.

Thankfully the terminal was quiet, probably due to the ungodly hour in the morning you’d landed at. The halls echoed only with your and Toms footsteps, the echo exaggerating just how far away you felt from him at this point. Still, Tom hadn’t acknowledged your existence, or anyone elses for that matter - the pair of you almost got to baggage reclaim before seeing any other humans.

And that is where it all went wrong.

It was typical, an otherwise empty airport except for you, Tom and a family with 2 girls. 2 teenage girls. 2 teen girls whose eyes widened to almost comical levels at the sight of your boyfriend. You’d seen them from a mile away, but from Tom’s reaction to them - he clearly hadn’t.

In fact, you were such a distance away you couldn’t exactly hear the exchange. But what you saw, had your heart in your mouth.

The girls ran over from the seats their whole family were sitting in, squealing at Tom with that overcited little jump you’d seen so often. Instead of Tom turning to them and entertaining them with small talk and a photo or two - he did the opposite. If anything, he quickened his cadence, looked as though he waved the girls off without muttering two words.

And maybe there was a reason. Maybe they had shouted something really rude at him - but fuck, the chances were slim. One looked ten, and one looked a couple of years older - as you approached, you saw the dejected and shocked faces melt into ones of intense disappointment. The eldest turned and hugged the younger, whose chest appeared to be shaking in a way that meant only one thing. Tom had made her cry.

Just as both the mother and father stood up to rush to the girls, you matched their hurried steps - getting their first.

“Hi, excuse me… “

You felt really awkward but knew you had to do something for these poor girls. And quite possibly for Toms career too. “Are you guys okay?” It took a second or two, but the girls clearly both recognised you too (thank god), throwing nervous looks at each other.

“Are yo-you Y/n?” The younger one asked, bright eyes glazed in tears which broke your heart to see.

“Yeh-yeh I am, what are your names?” You knelt, smiling warmly at the girls, who seemed to chirp up a bit.

“I’m Tima” The eldest spoke first before nudging the other to speak. You waited patiently till the little girl had wiped her eyes before replying.

“I’m Azara.”

“Wow, you’ve both got very beautiful names. Where are you both headin-“

“Can I ask you a question!?” Litte Azara burst out, interrupting you, but in the cutest and sweetest way. You just laughed and said of course, as she twiddled with her thumbs nervously.

“How big is the biggest T-rex?” Her little eyes were so curious and you had to suppress a giggle, seeing how serious it was.

Of course, the T-Rexs in Jurassic world (one of your movies) were all CGI. But Azara didn’t have to know that.

“Oh, they are bigger thanthan the tallest trees you’ve ever seen!”

You carried on your little chat with the girls for five or so minutes, laughing with them and exchanging soft nods with their parents too - who seemed appreciative of your time. Eventually, though, it was the dad who pulled time on the exchange, signalling that the girls had taken up enough of your time. As you stood up, Tima spoke up - after being relatively withdrawn from the conversation.

“You’re friends with Tom Holland right?” You nodded, subconsciously biting your lip to see what she would say. “Can you tell him sorry for bothering him, it’s just Azara was excited, we only wanted to say hi.”

Yeh, there was absolutely no way these incredibly sweet girls did anything to Tom. He was just being a knob.

“Hey, it’s not your fault at all. We’ve just had a really, really long flight, and he’s in a bit of a mood at me - I’m so sorry that he let it out on you.”

That explanation seemed to satisfy Tima with a nod, and with some final hugs you bid the girls both farewell. By this point, the rest of your plane had caught up along the corridors, so it was busier, and you had to fight against the small crowd to get through the airport as quickly as possible. Because you were seething with rage for Tom and could not wait to tell him exactly what those poor girls thought of him.

Unsurprisingly Tom had chosen not to wait for you in the airport at all, instead already hiding inside the blacked-out windows of the 4x4 waiting at the collection point. You marched up to that car angry to the point you thought the whole airport would notice. Yanking the door so hard you were surprised you did no damage to it, you threw your bags in - momentarily ignoring the sight of Tom huddled into a corner, staring at his phone with AirPods in.

But once you slammed the door shut and the driver started the car, you let yourself go.

“Who the fuck do you think you are!”

“Y/n can we just leave it for- “

“You made 2 girls cry!!! You were so self-absorbed in your temper tantrum that you made 2 teenage girls cry. You proud of yourself?”

This time he did look at you, eyes wide and confused - clearly not understanding. So you continued - laying it out for him.

“Those two girls you waved off because you were so busy running away from me? Well the youngest one cried and then the eldest didn’t speak and when she did it was only to ask me to apologise to you. You’re a fucking dickhead!”

“I didn’t mean-“

“Oh god, that makes it all better. You didn’t mean to make them cry on purpose, so it’s fine! God if you’d only said I’d-“

“Fuck off Y/n you’re not being fair, cut the sarcasm.”

“I’m not being fair?!? Because I’m the bad person in this situation, right? I just saved you from a very, very bad headline tomorrow morning because you were too busy giving me the silent treatment.”

“Yeah, well, your the one who doesn’t seem to give a damn about me!”

You scoffed hard at his words, air trapped in your throat that now felt completely stuck. How could he say that? How could he even think that?

As much as you hated showing it, you felt your eyes well up with tears. Because who the fuck did he think he was.

“Now that, that is so unfair. You know exactly my history and why I don’t want to move in yet AND you know just how much I fucking love you. So don’t you dare.”

“You're not convincing anyone.” He spoke quieter, but the venom behind his tone was still there. As the first tear escaped over your bottom lashes, you knocked on the partition to the driver and asked him, in no uncertain terms, to pull over.

“Congrats Tom. That’s three women you’ve broken the hearts of in 20 minutes. Must be some sort of a record.”

And with that you slammed the door shut, abandoned on the side of the road somewhere within Heathrow.

?a part 2? idk where id go from here aha

tagging: @lovehollandy12 @hollandlover19 @thefernandasantana @hunnybunimdun @hallecarey1@cedricdiggorysimpp @msmimimerton @hollandfanficlove @pandaxnienke @crossyourpeter @thegirlwiththeimpala

[omiscurls]

Heyhey! I couldn’t find your rules, so idk if this is allowed or not, and if it isn’t feel free to ignore this, but may I request Childe with a reader who has depression? Thank you

tough

a/n: hi!! sorry for that, the rules are added by now, i chose not to describe depression itself, because it looks different on everyone, and you may not relate to what applies to me, but i'm hoping you'll find this enjoyable instead!!

plot: character helping the reader out of a breakdown, or a bad headspace

contains: tartaglia, kaeya

warnings: bad copying mechanisms, low mental place, nothing too serious mentioned

tartaglia

now, he's a man of action less than words, even though he's good with those, too

and to add to that, he's also a very perceptive person - if some negative vibe lingers on you for too long, he'll notice right away

however, relying on his experience, he opts to give you space to figure it out on your own, first, he wouldn't like to be making a huge deal of something that was just a worse couple of days

it's when you don't show up at your usual dinner spot, that he gets a little tingle in his brain, telling him to not dismiss it this time.

and so, he makes his way over to your place.

"ya there?" you hear on the other side of the door, followed by urgent knocking, sort of breaking you out of a trance, but you can't find it in you to go and answer it. he'll go away, you think, even better. your apartment is messy, you're messy, too, and it's not the right time to be receiving visitors. so you stay quiet.

"you do know i know you're in there, right?" he speaks up again "the blinds would be down if you weren't"

come in, you want to shout, and although no voice leaves your throat, soon the door opens anyway.

"hey, what's up, you weren't on the- oh." he stops in his tracks in the middle of the corridor, and you're already mentally prepared to a snarky remark about your sorroundings, but the only thing he says is a lighthearted "why're you sitting on the floor?"

the first thing he thinks about is to level with you, so he plops himself down right beside you, and you bet it looks funny - you in yesterday's clothes, in a big, probably smelly, mess, and then a harbinger in full military outfit right beside you.

"i-" you try to say, but your throat seems too dry and worn out, so you opt for a whisper "look at his place"

he indeed does, hinting the small note of desperation in your voice.

"what about it?"

"it's a mess!" you sigh, covering your face with your hands, out of both embarrassment, and fatigue. you take a big breath before continuing "so i wanted to clean it up, i even brought all the... all the things, but it's so much stuff to do, and i'm tired, and- and i don't know!" you choose to stop as not to snap right then and there. "i can't even do my shitty chores right like an adult" you mumble, massaging your temples.

"and is sitting on the floor helping?" he simply asks, and for a second, you're almost mad at him for not being more... cooey and fuss over you a bit more. he sounds cold.

"what are you-"

"really, is it helping?" he repeats "because from how i see it, every little thing would seem bigger if you looked at it from this angle. come on" he nudges you before standing up, and offering a hand to lift you up. you, however, shake your head.

"i really can't deal with it today, childe, i'm sorry"

"just stand up" he pleas, and the second you take his hand, he helps you up in less than a second. when you're on his level again, he sneaks both his arms on the sides of your waist, and sort of sways around a little, before speaking again. "what if, what if we do it little by little? look, we'll start over there" he puts his hand on top of yours, and lifts your arm to point to the full sink along with his. "and that'd be it for today! and then tomorrow... actually, let's not make plans. we'll just pick something tomorrow, and do it then. does the sink sound like a lot to do?" he asks.

"do you want me to be honest, or do you want me to say no" you mutter, earning the heartiest and brightest laughter you've heard in days from him.

"always honest. but come on, i'll help." he rolls you out of his embrace, causing you to feel a sudden wave of cold, it was comfortable back there, you think.

however, as he works through the dishes with you, the pile does seem to lessen, and doesn't rule over your kitchen anymore. every time he hands you a plate to dry, he smiles as wide as he can, and it doesn't seem to bother him at all when you don't smile back.

"remember" he starts again, after a while of comfortable silence. he looks ridiculous, doing the kitchen duties in an outfit designed mostly to look presentable and slay enemies in it, but the look on his face is dead set. "the first lesson you've gotta learn before going off to battle something, is that the best defense is always, always to fight back. and if you don't think you can manage that, well, that's why nobody ever battles alone. it's common sense to have someone watching your back. and as for you, not only are you a great warrior yourself, but you've also got the best second-in-command willing to help you out. don't forget that."

kaeya

as for him, he's also perceptive and empathic, but the difference between him and tartaglia is that he does believe people have the right to figure some things out on their own, he's a firm believer in the magic of secrets

that's probably because he himself doesn't like to share too much about his deeply personal feelings

so he'd obviously see some wave of difficult emotions coming your way, but would he immediately start worrying? probably not

the guy doesn't have healthy copying mechanisms himself, don't think he expects those of others

every other night the two of you meet up at the tavern, kaeya always ordering wine, you asking the bartender for whatever was in store today, but it's never anything alcoholic.

and just like nearly always, you're seated at angel's share, him noticing you're not particularly in the mood for talking, and choosing to entertain you with as many stories of the day that went by as he can remember.

the waiter interrupts him, asking if your minds are already made up regarding the drink. now, kaeya always has you picking first, but since he sees you're still analyzing the card (as if you expected to find anything new), he goes first with a drink he knows charles makes really strong.

to his surprise, when it comes to you, you just mumble "i'll have the same he had"

before the waiter has a chance of writing that down, kaeya tells him that actually, you're gonna need a minute or two more, and to erase the order you've both put in.

as he walks away, the calvary captain's eyes pierce through yours.

"that's a pretty nasty drink you wanted there" he starts, feeling he can't let you handle your mess this time, preparing to dig a little deeper into what's on your mind.

you shrug your shoulders.

"hey" he speaks up a little firmer, hand moving to cover yours, and even though they twitch as to retreat from his grip, you let it be. "tell me what's up."

"nothing's <up>" you accentuate. "can't i even have a drink now?"

"obviously you can" he nods "as long as i know you're trying it just for the taste, and not for the strong kick it's gonna offer, cause that's a dangerous path that only leads to nasty places." concern shines through his gaze, and an encouraging smile is wandering somewhere in his expression, however his lips are still pressed into a tight line, the same he forms when he's either fighting or arguing.

you stay silent for a good long while, before sighing.

"maybe i want the kick. good, or bad, maybe i want to feel... something."

the sentence sounds all too familiar, as he shakes his head and takes your hand, leading you towards the exit.

"what're you-"

"you're obviously not in the right state to be in a bar, of all places" he states almost coldly "so i'm getting you somewhere safer."

the two of you leave the bar, and walk out into the cold of mondstadt's street, covered in the darkness of the night. you walk past him, not leveling up to him, just tagging along to whatever he's going.

it comes as a surprise, that you're neither headed for your apartment, nor his, nor the knights' headquarters. he's guiding you in an unknown direction, until you reach a dead end.

he clims up a small building, offering you a hand and shaking off your confused expressions and questions. "you'll see" he says. the two of you walk from roof to roof, and countless times you tell him it's ridiculous, but then, he jumps onto the city's wall, helping you out with two hands this time, sitting you down right next to him on the stone surface of the wall. it's a little wet from the night's humidity, and cold, and probably dirty too, but the moon shines right at you, and from this perspective, you see thousands of lights in houses, taverns and shops, from the bottom up to the cathedral.

going up from that, a calm and peaceful lake paints the landscape blue on the left, and even from up here, you see a sea of lampgrasses shining through the leaves of wolvendom forest. if you squint, lights are still on in dawn winery, and the path to liyue and all the other lands swirls around near diluc's house. there's so much you can see, even if the night limits your vision.

"i like to come here when i need to gain some perspective over what is happening in my life right now" kaeya speaks really softly and quietly, bordering on a whisper. "it's a beautiful view, even someone as insensitive to art as i am can see that, but other than that... it's huge. and even though it is, it's also alive. every single one of those beings whose lights are dying out as they slowly go to sleep one by one, they're alive. they're not a scenery, they're their own, individual worlds. and they all coexist with each other in such a clever manner, don't you think? they have their differences, they might even hate each other, or wish the worst upon the other's name, but from up here? they fit together like puzzles of one, big picture."

"that's a nice way to put it, for sure" you whisper, looking down onto your knees. his finger pushes your chin slightly to make you face him, and he smiles at you gently, thumb brushing against the skin of your cheek.

"you know, we each have our own worlds, built from scratch from such fragile materials. we have our worlds rise, shine, and crumble before our sights. we look over the ruins of them and think, this is the end of the world. there's nothing more, it's all dust now. but from up here, you see how many other worlds there are - everyone has their own. not everything that is happening in your world is true. you see it from first person's perspective, and therefore the view might be disturbed by many different aspects. you might not see the picture, you just see the broken puzzle fragment that can't fit with the rest, and you're ready to throw away the entire picture, without finishing it. but being here, it reminds me... the world doesn't end on the ruins you see. you can always ask someone to help you build them up again, and of course, you can expect it to fall into pieces once more, but this time, you'll keep in mind, there're-" he stopped, pointing to the city's lights. "so many people to help you raise it up to the clouds."

"your metaphor is really complex" you chuckle, but his face stays still.

"it's not the end of the world if your puzzle piece is broken. and the ruins are not unfixable if you feel too tired to build them up all by yourself. if anything, that's a start." his hand travels up to keep the hair from getting on your face, since the wind blows pretty hard on this height. "what do you say we start your puzzle once more, toghether?"

-

your friendly reminder that you can request things [here]

[babylon-cal]

Don’t Like Me? - Calum

Pairing : Calum x Reader

Genre : Angst & Fluff

Requested : by anon : Can I request something? I want a fic where the reader is dating Calum & the rest of the boys don't like them because they don't like the LA party lifestyle. Angst with fluff in the end (Calum reassuring the reader that it's ok to not like the LA party lifestyle because he doesn't like it either)? Make sure you write it with gender neutral reader in mind

Word Count : 1.7k

I haven’t written for the 5sos boys since 2018, so i hope this is better than what I used to write, idk honestly gjdshk i hope you enjoy it!! Tried not to make it too unrealistically dramatic because I know that in all facts, the boys would not straight up not like someone for not partying so I had to make the reasoning about more thought out. 

Unrelated, but I have some 2012 wattpad fic type requests in my inbox that are just giving me flashbacks that I’m not entirely looking forward to write but you know what we gotta pull through fam so

The air was cool outside the club and the cars that drove past would occasionally cause a stronger gust to blow against (y/n)’s hair, pushing it away from their face. The music from inside of the club sounded muffled from where they stood on the sidewalk that was cast with a soft orange hue from the streetlights, a half smoked cigarette nestled between their fingers. They took a drag from it, tasting the nicotine. They never particularly enjoyed the taste but it made them feel a little bit at ease, especially during the exuberant atmospheres of parties.

It was baffling as to why their boyfriend, Calum and his bandmates insisted on renting out clubs every other two weeks and indulging in exorbitant amounts of alcohol and dancing to deafening electronic pop until they were stumbling out of the doors in the wee hours of the morning. Calum had never made it too difficult on (y/n), trying not to get drunk too often. In all honesty he would rather stay at home with this partner rather than leave them while he was out, or even bring them along like they did tonight. (y/n) heard the music as it was unobstructed for a few seconds - assuming it was someone exiting the club, before the doors closed again.

“Mind a puff?” a voice said beside them and they turned to see Calum there, sporting his The Sensation t-shirt and a pair of black slacks. They handed him the cigarette and he placed it between his lips. (y/n) watched as the orange ring glowed and ate up the white casing slowly as he took a drag and how he blew the smoke up in a small cloud. “You alright?” Calum asked, as he handed the tab back to them, placing an arm around their waist and pulling them closer to his side.

“Yes, I just wanted some air, you know how all of this isn’t really my thing,” They dropped their cigarette, stubbing it out with their foot.

“Of course I do. Do you want to go home?” he asked, staring down at them as they continued looking out into the distance and at the bright neon from the 7-11 sign down the road.

“Actually, yeah,” they responded, looking at him once more, flashing him a small smile, which he returned before pressing a kiss to their forehead, mumbling an “okay”.

“We should say goodbye to the boys first, don’t you think?” Calum suggested and (y/n) felt their heart sink. They could never fathom why the other boys behaved somewhat hostile and cold towards them, whenever they met at parties most of the time. In the rare occasion they did meet at other smaller gatherings, the boys would only exchange a few words with them - only deciding to speak to them when Calum included them in a conversation. (y/n) would more often than not, stay silent by Cal’s side, disengaging from any conversation on the fear that they would dislike them more, in case their suspicions of their feelings were any way true.

Calum and (y/n) stepped into the club, immediately greeted by the strong smell of tequila and sweat, the cold air conditioning not really helping. Their fingers interlaced as they made their way through the stragglers, (y/n) feeling an awful discomfort at the unknown skin-on-skin contact with the strangers on top of the blaring of Physical by Dua Lipa through every corner of the room, the bass boosts giving them unsettling vibrations at the base of their throat. The couple approached a small booth where the other three youngsters sat with their girlfriends, sharing some drinks and laughing over the music. They set their eyes on (y/n) who was a few metres away with Calum, the girls giving them friendly waves which they returned with a grin which faltered quickly upon noticing the blank expressions on the boys’ face, especially Ashton.

He made eye contact with them for a second before quickly blinking away, the eye roll not going unnoticed by (y/n) which took them back slightly, feeling a small lump form in their throat upon discovering that their suspicions may be true. Maybe I’m overthinking, they thought but the not-so-inconspicuous eye roll from Michael who saw the couple reaching the table, made the whole idea seem anything but farfetched. (y/n) stood at the edge of the table, while Calum leaned over to whisper something in Luke’s ear who nodded, giving him a thumbs up and fist bump. He did the same to the other two, before returning to (y/n)’s side and giving one last wave to the table, which they did, out of courtesy as well. Only Luke paid attention, even flashing a small smile.

The car ride was awfully quiet, not much being spoken between the two except in the beginning of their journey where Calum told (y/n) that they could choose the songs to play. They stared out the window at the settled down, LA city at 1 a.m. with some shops still having their display lights on, while some had them off. They liked the city streets at this time in comparison to the multiple traffic jams and hustle throughout the day and early nights. Most of the town were indoors or at the club, leaving the roads almost empty and calm. Wait For Me by KIngs of Leon played softly in the background, as Calum turned at the traffic lights right before turning to spare his partner a glance, worried at their lack of chatter.

“Are you alright, (y/n), you haven’t been talking much tonight,” he said, resuming his attention to the road, letting his hand fall softly on their thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze. (y/n) blinked out of their daze at his contact, slowly turning to look at him while placing their hand on his wrist.

“Yeah, I’m fine Cal. Just a bit tired, that’s all,” He didn’t push it further, even though he knew that they weren’t being entirely truthful. He could read them like a book and he knew that (y/n) was only this quiet when they were upset because even when they were tired, they’d go off into pointless waffle that didn’t really make sense as much as it did in their head, which made Calum so curious to how their brain was wired in addition to finding it absolutely adorable.

(y/n) was quick to get into bed, having changed into one of Calum’s shirts that they always slept in and joggers. While he was in the bathroom, his phone pinged with a text and his phone lit up as (y/n) was scrolling through their own. They didn’t mean to but their eyes subconsciously glanced over to the strip of message that flashed on his lockscreen, covering the part of his background which was a photo - taken on their holiday to Venice - of them kissing on the Gondola as it floated under a bridge.

Mate, i hope this isnt rude

The first message read and it was from Ashton. Not long after, another message strip appeared under the other.

We think (y/n) is trying to control you bro

This hurt to read. At this point, every suspicion they had of not being liked by the rest of the band confirmed itself which broke their heart. These were his brothers. His soulmates. They were his forever before themself. What would he think of them, when his own brothers didn’t like them? Would he change his mind on how he felt about them? A tear slipped down their cheek but they quickly wiped it away, their throat tight from the lump that had formed in it. Their stomach churned and their skin burned as the phone slowly went black again. (y/n) didn’t say a word and continued scrolling through their instagram when Calum returned from the bathroom, a pair of grey joggers hanging low on his hips. He climbed into bed next to them, grabbing his own phone. They looked at him from the corner of his eyes, and saw him typing a reply to the text from Ashton, they looked away, trying to ignore it. It was difficult when his arm wrapped around their frame and he leaned down to their cheek pressing a kiss to it.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong and why you look like you’re going to cry?” his voice was deep but soft. It was their safety blanket. Hearing him was more than a reassurance that he was going to be there and be honest through all of their doubts. (y/n) sighed, locking their phone and placing it in their lap, leaning into Calum’s arm more causing him to nestle his chin in the crook of their neck and shoulder, his other hand rubbing down their arm comfortingly.

“Why don’t the other boys like me?” Calum’s heart sank at the intense amount of pain that they showed. “I want them to....they’re practically your family,” they added softly, their voice shaking, the tears forming again. Calum didn’t say anything at first, instead pulling them onto his lap, wrapping both his arms around their middle and pressing light kisses to the exposed skin at the top of their shoulder.

“They don’t dislike you, (y/n). They’re just a bit bothered by the fact that we always leave early whenever you come out to parties with us,” he spoke again almost immediately. “There’s nothing wrong with not liking clubs or any of that shit ok? I’m not one of those crazy party people either to be fair, and you have nothing to worry about anymore. I explained everything to them,” (y/n) looked at Calum as he finished his sentence, looking him smile back down at them. “If you like, we could invite them to lunch maybe? Somewhere that can help them have a proper conversation with you instead of just at the club all the time?” he offered and (y/n) smiled a little bit, trusting Calum.

“That sounds lovely, thank you Cal,” they shared a kiss before he hugged them tightly again, swaying them to the side slightly, making their mind feel at ease which (y/n) could not be more grateful for. 

END

[tardytothepardy]

Fruits Basket - Vol.16

Fruits Basket has so many flashbacks. There's just so much going on, in the present but also in the past. Last book, it was focused on Yuki, and a section of his childhood. In this book, however, the focus is on Kyo, who apparently met and kinda talked with Tohru's mom, Kyoko. (let's hope I don't confuse their names 😬)

So, most of this started simply because Kyo took a nap on the floor. This is why you don't nap on the floor. Sure, maybe it feels nice, sometimes, to lie on the floor, but if you're anything like me, you'll get stuck. Kyo didn't, but he doesn't have a busted hip, so he has that going for him.

Anyway.

So he was thinking back to when he met Tohru's mom, who started talking about her past. It's never really said why or when this happened, but I'll just think that Kyo forgot about the particulars. It seems like it happened when he was pretty young, so it'd make sense.

It seems like Kyoko's life was kinda similar to Uotami's life, in that her relationship with her parents was abysmal, and she often acted out. She got herself into a "bad crowd", and rarely went to school. Her dad was said to not think about his family, and her mom only did things to keep up with appearances. They never went out as a family, and Kyoko felt ignored and/or unwanted. It was a chance happening that Kyoko even ended up meeting Katsuya (who would later become Tohru's dad). She was at school, and she got called aside and put in a separate room, which is when they first met. She was yelling up a storm, and Katsuya wanted to know what she was so angry about.

This particular incident was shortly after her dad had basically told her that she should be more grateful for what she's gotten in life, to which she responded with "Who even asked me if I wanted to be born?", and this was clearly still floating around in her mind. As she continued yelling at Katsuya, it became apparent that what she was yelling at Katsuya was what she felt herself, which is why is made sense that she quickly broke down into tears. This was especially the case after he said that he thinks she does want people to care about her, and she does care about what people are saying (otherwise, she probably wouldn't be bothered by it). After all of this, Katsuya took her to a ramen place, just completely cutting class.

Kyoko was confused by Katsuya, but after meeting him, she started trying to better her life. It was mostly small things, like showing up at school. She didn't go to any of her classes, but she was at school (which sounds extremely boring to me, but whatever). She was able to talk to Katsuya a little bit more, but not a lot, seeing as he was a student teacher, he had things to do. When the time came for Katsuya's training to end, he revealed that he wasn't going to continue on to be a teacher, that he just didn't like it. This, understandably, bummed out Kyoko, because she was looking forward to seeing him everyday. Once he left, she would probably never see him again. Fortunately for the story (and Tohru's general existence), it wasn't. He ended up getting a job at a pharmaceutical place, and visited Kyoko on the weekends to help her with her schoolwork, and Kyoko tried to get back into school. The gang that she was a part of didn't like that much, and beat her up a bunch for trying to leave it. They beat her up so bad she had to go to a hospital, and wasn't able to get into high school. Her parents refused to visit her in the hospital, and after she was unable to get into high school, they completely disowned her.

Thankfully, Katsuya was nearby (presumably because he wanted to see if she was okay, because after she woke up in the hospital and learned it was too late to take the entrance exams, she didn't try to talk to him, thinking that his help and efforts were all for nothing), and overheard Kyoko's parents, and that's when he announced his intentions to marry Kyoko, which took both her and her parents by surprise. As they were walking away from Kyoko's parent's house, Kyoko still couldn't believe that Katsuya was serious, but he totally was. He said that he saw her as a very genuine person, particularly in their first meeting (which is, he said, when he fell in love with her, which I think is kiiinnddaa weird, but okay), and that he has full intention on marrying her. He wished that he could've made it a bit more of a happy surprise, but in the moment, it was basically the only way that he could guarantee that nothing bad would happen to Kyoko.

Kyoko bristled at the idea of a wedding, and apparently, so did most of the Hondas. There's probably a host of reasons, ranging from how Kyoko was eight years younger than him, to the fact that she used to be in a gang, but there was one person who was supportive of Kyoko and Katsuya: Katsuya's dad.

When Kyoko found out she was pregnant, she freaked out. She didn't feel like she could be a good mother, because of the way she was. How could a person with her background be a good mother? The way that her parents treated her as a kid was awful, and she was terrified that she would end up doing the same to her child. Katsuya pointed out that since she was already so aware of these problems, that she would do her most to avoid doing the same to her own child. They might make mistakes, but they would try their hardest to do their best. And so, Tohru was born. What a cute little round organism.

For a couple years, everything was happy. Katsuya and Kyoko both loved Tohru to pieces, it was great. Then, Katsuya fell sick, and ended up dying. This destroyed Kyoko, because there was such an emphasis on togetherness between the two, especially when it came to raising Tohru. She was completely desolate, almost angry at the world that it continued existing as if nothing had happened. She came out of mourning, a little bit anyway, after going out to see the ocean, and overhearing a mom and daughter talking to each other, and she realized that she couldn't remember if she had even talked to Tohru since Katsuya's death. She raced home, and saw Tohru sitting at the entrance, mostly asleep, and say "Welcome home". It was something that Kyoko and Katsuya used to say a lot, so it meant a lot to Kyoko.

The flashback concluded with Kyoko saying that, "Maybe the world doesn't need me. But there's still one person who's kind enough to need me. I only need that to live." Kyo then asked her if she still missed Katsuya, but Kyoko(why are their names so similar ;-;) didn't really respond. I mean, of course she still missed him, she probably missed him everyday, but she still had to get through life and raise Tohru. It was all about how she went on from that, that mattered.

Then we get reminded that this is, in fact, a dream that Kyo is having, because it swerves completely of track, and now there are bloody women on the ground, with other faceless women saying weird shit. I do not have really any idea who these women are, I assume one of them is Kyo's mom, and maybe the other is Kyoko? I don't really know, but the dream (at this point it's a nightmare) ends with Tohru, wounded and unconscious, in the place of the first woman, and there's blood of Kyo's hands. Whoa! What the fuck!

After he wakes up, he's pretty shaken (with good reason, like wtf, whoa) but after Tohru fretted over him, he just waved off the concern like "It's fine I'm fine I totally didn't have a freaky dream it's fine", which is the number one reaction to something like that, in case you were wondering.

Now, let's move completely onto a new topic: Machi. It starts with a callback to a brief scene a few books ago, after the Student Council had nabbed a whiteboard, and were yelling about what colors everyone was. It focused mostly on Yuki asking Machi what color she likes, and she couldn't answer him, because she couldn't imagine herself as anything other than "blank".

The Council had finished up a bunch of work, and they (mostly Kimi) were thinking of a way to celebrate, by going out to a shop or something idk what people do with their free time, and on her way out, Yuki called out to Machi, asking if she was going to come as well. She didn't really say anything about it, but Kimi gave her a slip of paper of the address and such, and they all went their separate ways.

Machi went back home, to the sound of a phone ringing. It seems to be her mom, asking what she's been doing, if anything's changed, then just kinda called her boring and dull, which is really nice of her to do. We see that Machi had to deal with higher expectations after Kakeru rebelled and stopped putting up with their family's bs, and that her room looks like a storm blew through it. Seeing as that seems to be the way she releases her emotions, it makes sense. And if she never has anyone over, why would she clean up? It'd probably be a waste of time.

After the call, she basically just passes out in her room, and wakes the next morning to shuffle off to go to the place where everyone is meeting up. She didn't even bother changing out of her school uniform the previous day. On her way to the meet-up place, she thinks about how she feels empty, and broken. The things that Yuki has said to her really seem to be making her think about stuff, mostly of her self-perceived lack of meaning, which she either never really thought about before or came to terms with, but after his questions (which were basically like "oh hey what's your favorite color"), she's gotten all confused.

Anyway, when she gets to the place where they're all meeting up (probably nearby a train station or something idk I don't know these things), Yuki shortly shows up, and she responds to his greeting by promptly collapsing, causing stuff to fall out of her bag, like a bottle opener, and that leaf that Yuki gave her as a souvenir of that one place from a while back,, the field trip. She's kinda embarrassed, because she put them in her bag after she had woken up, and so it showcases something most un-admirable: being kinda groggy and disorganized after waking up. When Yuki asks about the Leaf, she says it's nothing, it's not the same leaf, it is the same leaf, it doesn't matter, whatever! (is it important to say that she made it into a bookmark? idk, but that's how it wasn't torn to shreds: she made it into a bookmark)

Kakeru arrives to see Machi and Yuki wrestling over the leaf, one insisting that it's no big deal, and the other saying it was nice that she had held on to it. It was a pretty confusing scene, honestly. After everyone had arrived, Kakeru told Yuki that he'd never seen Machi act so flustered, which was pretty interesting.

I'll conclude this section with one thing: Machi likes the color red? Interesting. Red is a nice color.

Anyway, I'm nearly done! (When did these things start getting so long I gotta cut these down somehow I seriously doubt anyone would read these all the way to the end ;-;) It is nearly New Year's, and there are two things going on: Tohru is going to stay with Kazuma, and Yuki is going back to the main Sohma house, just for the one night. (Tohru is staying at Kazuma's place because Yuki is going to the main Sohma house, because,,,, reasons?? Idk)

There's nothing much of note for Tohru being at Kazuma's house, but Izusu is there as well, so maybe we can get some progression on the whole curse-breaking thing?? Hopefully?? Maybe not.

There is one moment at the Sohma house that I do want to talk about, and it happens between Akito and Yuki, where they're just sitting there, and Akito says something like, "You're not running away anymore? Cool. I forgive you for that." and Yuki starts to say that he forgives Akito as well, then says that he doesn't want to place blame on anyone, because, in the past when he's done that, it hasn't really helped him. He said that there are some things about himself that he would like to improve upon, and Akito swiftly responded to that by breaking a pitcher and scratching Yuki's face with it. Nice, Akito. Real nice.

Yuki gets help for it, but everyone kinda sat there like O_O for a few seconds (which, like, yeah. I'd respond the same way.) While Hatori is patching Yuki up, Yuki apologized to him for what happened back when Yuki was a little kid, with Hatori erasing all those kids' memories, and how he was only thinking about his own pain, and that he might have been blaming Hatori in a way, this whole time. Hatori waved it off, it was no big deal, but it was nice of him to do, nonetheless.

Okay, that was the end of the book. Finally. Why do I make these so long? Idk.

[citrineghost]

Humans Are Historically Known for Being Terrible

Hi I’m here with an opinion today. Let’s see how many words it will take for me to adequately get it across on this very fine 15th of January

I personally believe canceling things from the past* is fruitless, pointless, and accomplishes about as much as censorship does

*We aren’t talking about shit like nazi Germany, let me elaborate further

So, as I occasionally do, I have seen a post on my dash today criticizing something historical that people are ‘problematically partaking in.’ That thing today was the wellerman sea shanty due to its ties with colonialism, slavery, and so forth. 

I’m not going to dive into this specific example, because I don’t know enough of the details and am not interested in going to find them out because I’m not planning to defend it or its history, so there’s no point. I learned what I needed to know from said callout post and it’s enough to work with.

To me, it is important that we remember that people, in general, have been historically pretty terrible.

There’s colonialism, there’s slavery (of all kinds, including chattel), there’s thievery, murder, genocide, sexism, the murdering of queers. There’s lying, manipulation, propaganda, and so many more things that I couldn’t possibly list them all. I’m not saying that everyone was equally shitty. I am aware that, especially in the most recent couple hundred years, white people, especially Western Europeans and Americans, have been pretty Shite.

Am I excusing them for their actions? Absolutely not. I think it is always important to bear in mind the way they played a part in cultures’ growth, death, and, ultimately, development from one year to the next.

The reason I’m pointing this out is because the result of people being historically shitty is that most, if not all, of our historical content, our history, is steeped in horse manure. 

There is not one thing you can enjoy from centuries - even decades - passed that is not here because of something inhumane, unjust, or otherwise terrible.

The only thing keeping us from canceling every other historical thing that we enjoy is our lack of awareness of how each thing ties into the whole mess.

So, we’ve learned that wellerman was sung by slavers and thieves and colonialists. What about that nice little folk song from uh, idk, Ireland or something? Let’s take this metaphorical song and ask the question, “who wrote it?” The truth is, for many folk songs, we just don’t know. There is a very very good chance that 90+ percent of nice, soft folk songs about lying in the grass or feeding chickens or baking bread for your spouse were written by racists, sexists, abusers, homophobes, and so forth.

Does that make it wrong to enjoy that song about lying in the grass and looking at the stars? I don’t think so. No one is profiting off of you listening to it, regardless of who wrote it. It’s hundreds of years old. Do you even know the name of who wrote it?

Remembering that times were different may not absolve something of its wrongdoing, but it does provide us context.

We have to allow ourselves to admit that most, if not all, historical things, came from or benefitted from atrocities or injustices that we would not stand for today. That’s just how human progression works. Frankly, if people 200 years from now don’t look at US, CURRENTLY, and think we’re terrible assholes, I am actually very concerned by that. 

The nature of humanity is to get better and better over time and to build a world and a society where we don’t feel the need to be controlled by greed or to consume unethically. The problem is, it takes time. It takes lots and lots of time. Would it take less time if certain people weren’t terrible, terrible people? Yes it would. But they are, and so it doesn’t.

The fact is, human progression and improvement will never reach its end because, as things improve, our perception of our past actions will change as well and we will begin to realize that what we were doing wasn’t acceptable and is no longer necessary nor excusable. 

Hate Jeff Bezos? Look around and see that 90% of people still buy from Amazon, because it provides the only affordable source of many products for people who don’t make enough money under capitalism to buy from a small business.

Hate Bill Gates? How many of us are willing to switch to Linux to quit using Microsoft? Speaking of Microsoft, they own Minecraft. Do we stop playing Minecraft?

Think Steve Jobs is a terrible person? Why are people still buying iphones, ipads, and macs? Why don’t we stop buying those so that he and current CEO, Tim Cook, quit making billions of dollars?

These are just a tiny amount of examples, using big names. We also must consider, if you have 100 books on your bookshelf, how many of the writers of those books are racists, homophobes, sexists, or abusers? I guarantee you it’s a non-zero answer. The thing is, an author who’s relatively nobody is not someone who gets canceled. No one knows anything about them but that they wrote a neat work of fiction and it’s a good book.

The question is, should we be expected to quit buying, consuming, and enjoying things made by problematic people?

In some cases, the answer should be yes. If someone is currently profiting massively from people consuming their media or products and people are ignoring their atrocities, that person could end u making millions or billions of dollars despite being terrible, which is something that undoubtedly affects all of us, economically.

In the other cases, the answer should be, do you want to? If you’re not comfortable with something, you should, of course, stop consuming it. If you can ignore the thing, you might not need to bother. And, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re excusing it.

If we look at all of humanity, even in the present day, mathematically speaking, 50% of people are more bigoted and terrible than the rest. There’s no other way for it to be. Less than 50% would be a mathematical fallacy. Does that mean we only consume content from the better 50%? Does that mean we rigorously research producers and creators and their personal lives only to decide it’s not worth the risk of ‘contributing’ because they have no trace online except for a private Facebook account? Is them having a Facebook account enough of a ‘sin’ that it’s not worth it to buy their book?

This brings us to the censorship point

If you know your history, you know that censorship is a nasty thing. When one person decides who or what is unethical to consume from, they sometimes seek to get rid of that thing so that no one has a choice - so that no one is Allowed to consume that thing.

This has led to book burning, the destroying of decades and centuries of research about sexuality and gender. It’s destroyed religious texts. It’s destroyed content created by women that painted any single man in a bad light. It’s destroyed progression.

“But I only want to get rid of the bad thing that everyone agrees is bad!”

It doesn’t matter. If you open the door to censorship for yourself, those who wish to use it for worse reasons will become just as justified, in their own eyes, to do the same. You’ll have Christians saying it’s okay to get rid of gay content because it’s objectively wrong according to the bible. You’ll have conservative parents burning books with complicated topics like abuse and assault because they don’t want their children to have access to anything controversial or complex like that.

You cannot open the door to censorship for one group without opening that door for everyone. And that is why we do not censor things.

The question then becomes, but what of the people consuming that media? Even if it’s not censored, consuming it still makes someone bad, right? 

Not necessarily. People consume problematic stuff all the time - things considered objectively bad. However, people don’t always consume said media because they support it being normalized in the real world. For example, fanfiction or books with rape in them may be something a victim reads to cope with their own past or present. A book with abuse depicted may actually make a young teen aware that what they’re going through is abuse. Content largely seen as ‘problematic’ can often play a part in solving the problem it portrays.

Then there’s historical, problematic media. Now, this is an area where I feel things have actually been OVER complicated.

Because everything historical has some tie to injustice, there is no ethical way to consume it. 

There is no ethical consumption under passed time.

So, how do we judge whether something should or shouldn’t be consumed? It is my opinion that something historical should stop being consumed and become shunned when its meaning is well-known enough and its message is still pervasive enough that it is actively causing problems.

For example, we generally try not to consume content when it is made by someone who is a known nazi. This is because nazis are still a problem in our society, presently. We have antisemitism all over the place. Therefore, we cannot let the message become that it is okay to be a nazi by way of us treating nazis like normal people and allowing them to succeed in society without consequence.

However, there are certain problems that are no longer particularly prevalent or which are agreed to be terrible on a large enough scale that consuming the content does not necessarily imply you believe it is okay. For example, if you look at literally any media from the 1800s or which is placed in the 1800s, you will see a lot of casual sexism and gender roles. Should we despise that time period because sexism was readily available at every turn? Should we refuse to enjoy 19th century fashion or culture because it had problems? I think not. I think it would be pointless to refuse to consume, read about, or otherwise engage with the 19th century. It wouldn’t change the past and it isn’t going to somehow undo the progress we’ve made on women’s rights. 

As a matter of fact, if someone merely suggested that perhaps the people of the 19th century were right for forcing women to wear long dresses and darn socks all day, they would be laughed into oblivion and called a shitty, sexist incel (which would be correct).

Does enjoying media from or placed in the 19th century mean you support sexism? I certainly hope not, since I enjoy it very much and know a lot of progressive people, women especially, who do enjoy that kind of thing. It is common sense enough, at this point in time, that people don’t generally believe that the sexism of the 1800s was acceptable. I am not going to see someone watching a period drama and assume they desire for our present-day social laws to be like what’s portrayed. That would be a ridiculous assumption. However, I could not assume the same about someone I saw watching openly antisemitic content. I would quickly wonder if they’re an antisemite/nazi/white supremacist.

So, what about that one thing I heard had a sordid past?

Listen, if we’re being honest here, most things from history have a sordid past. Sea shanties? You bet. But then when we talk of sea shanties being steeped in colonialism, we have to look at the bigger picture. What about pirates? Pirates were, by and large, a huge contributor to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder. Does that mean enjoying media with pirates is glorifying or contributing to slavery, theft, colonialism, and murder?

(I’m about to talk a lot about pirates but this can be applied to anything that was historically bad but is no longer prevalent)

Pirates of the Caribbean is only a movie, but pirates did once exist and they did kill people. They did raid ships of merchants and tradesmen and they killed them and stole their goods. They took many good men from their families and even killed working children aboard the ships. Does that make enjoying pirates in media a contributor to these things? No. It doesn’t. We are looking at a dramatised, cleaned up version of the original piracy. I think most people are aware that pirates, in the real world, are bad and harmful and should not be supported. That doesn’t make pirate media any less fun in theory, and under our own terms.

Then we arrive at our perception - because most of this does come down to perception. When you watch pirate media, should you enjoy that, are you able to divorce yourself from their actual history enough to enjoy the media? If you can, you might enjoy it a lot. If you can’t watch a movie about pirates without thinking the entire time about how terrible they were and how much damage they did, then pirate media just isn’t right for you. But, it doesn’t mean you should attempt to take it away from others. Your opinion and perception of pirate media is not the global perception.

I have to ask, do you think others view it the same way you do?

When you read that question, you may be wondering what exactly I mean. What I’m asking is, do you believe others view that media with the same “clarity” that you do? Do you believe they understand the atrocity of real pirates and Feel that the entire time they watch the media and still enjoy it anyway?

Perhaps that’s why your response to someone enjoying something you feel guilty partaking in is, “these people all must not care about the real-world damage pirates did. The fact that they can watch this (despite sitting here and feeling the same things I do) makes me sick.”

However, if that is the case, you must remember that for a lot of people, the awareness of real world consequence is suspended during dramatised depictions of it. It doesn’t mean they have forgotten about the real-world consequences of piracy or that they don’t know it at all. It just means they are choosing not to think about it in that light while consuming media.

There is also the assumption that people must not know about something when partaking in it. You may think, “How can they enjoy this media? They wouldn’t be able to stomach it if they realized what really happened with pirates.”

In many instances, you would be correct. A lot of people are ignorant to what pirates have done in the real world. If you told every ignorant person the truth, maybe 5% of them would then become turned off by pirate media, and the other 95% would keep the truth in mind and then divorce themselves from it to continue enjoying said media.

There are realities that it is safe to divorce yourself from, and there are those that are not.

Is allowing yourself to enjoy dramatizations of pirates making you ignorant to present day conditions? Not largely. There are still pirates today, but not nearly enough for the average Joe to need to take them seriously. Those who need to know about them and do something to stop them are aware.

However, it is not safe to divorce yourself from, for instance, the holocaust. Divorcing yourself from the holocaust and seeing it as merely a dramatic setting with dramatic events and not a present-day real-world problem is exactly the kind of thing that leads to young teens being sucked in by white supremacy and naziism as well as what leads to many average conservatives believing the rise in white supremacy isn’t actually real or is not a big deal. They have distanced themselves so far from the real-world atrocity of the holocaust that they have forgotten it was real and that real people, like them, were contributors. They don’t want to believe that everyday people had any power in it and that it was tiny acts of willful ignorance that made concentration camps so successful. 

All in all, there is a different answer for everything we consume.

Want to know if something you’re consuming is okay to consume? Ask yourself: is this produced by someone who is contributing to present-day conditions? If the answer is yes, quit consuming it. If the answer is no, ask yourself, does this media make me uncomfortable because I’m aware of its roots? If the answer is yes, stop consuming it. If the answer is no, it’s probably fine. You are most likely not doing any damage, so long as you are aware of what is wrong with the content and are not using it as grounds to perpetuate harm. 

If, when thinking about something problematic in an old piece of media, you cringe? You’re on the right track. If you feel inclined to make excuses for it or justify the wrong in it, it’s time to step away and reevaluate why you feel the need to do so. If you’re doing so because you feel guilty for consuming it, you need to realize that it is actually more harmful to make excuses for the wrong in order to justify your consumption than it is to admit, “Yeah, this media is problematic and contains a lot of sexism, but I still enjoy it for its other qualities.” It is better to admit that you enjoy something problematic than to spread the message that what is happening in it is okay.

Some of you may be thinking, “Or, just stop consuming problematic media.”

I think in many cases, especially recent media, where your consumption has an effect on production, this is true. However, for media that is no longer being produced, I will remind you that most things have something wrong with them - yes, even pretty recent stuff.

Supernatural kills off women constantly, queerbaited the fuck out of its viewers, and sent a huge character to fucking mega hell for confessing his love.

Scrubs has no end to its sexism, transphobic and homophobic slur usage, and other problematic content.

V for Vendetta glorifies and shines a heroic light on a character who kidnaps and tortures a woman for what appeared to have been weeks or months so that she would be forced to understand his trauma and “no longer be afraid.”

Star Wars has incest, the producers/directors abused Carrie Fisher and sexualized her as a young teen, and probably a lot more that I’m not aware of because I haven’t seen the movies nor read the books.

I don’t even need to start on shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Community, That 70s Show, and so many more. Almost every popular piece of media has something worth canceling in it. There is no point trying to curate your media consumption to only unproblematic content, because it simply can’t be done.

Curate where it makes a difference. Sigh heavily the rest of the time. Make yourself aware what and how things are problematic. Put critical thought into how your consumption is capable of supporting or perpetuating a problem and how it is not. Make informed decisions.

Do not feel guilty if you are unable to flawlessly live up to the standards of purity culture. None of us can - not really.

[just-this-once--stay]

Little fic about the least explored arm of the new Best Friends Squad! Written on my phone so idk how long it is. Catra & Bow, G

***

Catra gets to know people by pushing their buttons.

It’s what she’s always done, all she knows how to do. She can admit these days that it isn’t kind or healthy or smart, but she doesn’t know how to trust anyone without knowing how far she can push them, how much it will take before they push back.

She knows, with Adora. She knows where the lines are and what Adora will do if she crosses them, and she knows that no matter how badly she screws up, Adora won’t really hurt her. Adora is exciting in every other way, but her anger is predictable, and that makes her safe.

It’s easy to figure it out, with Glimmer. Glimmer is quick to anger but even quicker to forgive, and anyway, Glimmer has already seen Catra at her most vulnerable and didn’t take advantage of it, which means more than Catra knows how to articulate. Glimmer will yell at Catra over a prank or a rude comment one minute and be laughing with her the next. It’s easy being around her, too.

Bow is harder to gauge. He’s too calm, too accepting. He has moments of self-doubt, but he never externalizes them, which makes him different from everyone else Catra has ever met. The whole time they’re in space, and hiding out with the rebels, and defeating Horde Prime, Catra is tense around him. She can’t figure him out.

She watches him, sometimes, at Bright Moon. For someone so kind, so wrapped up in his relationships with others, Bow spends a surprising amount of time alone. Catra sneaks looks through windows of him sharpening arrows, tinkering with tech, testing new inventions in an open courtyard. Even Glimmer, who’s not particularly sensitive about privacy and personal space and also attached to Bow’s hip, doesn’t bother him when he’s out there.

So Catra, of course, does.

He doesn’t even sound annoyed when Catra starts peppering him with questions about what he’s doing. Even when she grabs an arrow right out of his quiver, all he does is snatch it back with a gentle warning that it might explode. He laughs with her when she deliberately interrupts his practice for the sake of “training.”

It’s unsettling.

Catra interrupts him in his room but all he does is hand her a stack of arrows and a whetstone when it becomes clear she doesn’t intend to leave. She almost stops after that - she doesn’t want to bother Bow, not really, but she can’t shake the feeling that the more he accommodates her tactlessness, her abrasiveness, her everything, the harder he’s eventually going to explode.

He finds her in her room one day, pushing open the door only after she tells him to come in. “Are you free this afternoon?” he asks, too respectful. He knows she doesn’t have any responsibilities here - no one trusts her enough. “I want to show you something.”

He takes her to a building, not far from Bright Moon but well-hidden in the woods, with similarly impractical architecture.

She finds herself following him inside unquestioningly.

“You must be Catra!” someone exclaims from the second level before Bow even has the chance to close the door behind them. Catra jumps, and Bow’s hand is suddenly in front of her, steadying without touching.

She pastes on a smile for George and Lance, who seem, against all odds, genuinely delighted to meet her. She’s nearing her limit on pleasantries when Bow makes an excuse and takes her to his childhood room, shutting the door behind them.

“So, that was my dads,” he says, his smile a little embarrassed but genuine.

Catra walks over to the window and crosses her arms. “Why am I here?” she asks. Bow’s trust and gentleness and patience itches at something under her skin. It keeps building and building and she doesn’t know how to handle it.

“A couple reasons,” Bow says, as if she’d asked something normal instead of invalidating his kindness like she’d been intending. “I wanted you to meet Lance and George, because you’re my friend and they love meeting my friends. I also could tell that you’ve been trying to get to know me, and I thought this might help.”

That’s an awfully generous way to frame what Catra has been doing. Logically, he shouldn’t even have put up with her for this long, but here he is, trying to accommodate her. “Why?” she asks. George and Lance are cool and all, but Catra doesn’t really get how they’re supposed to help her understand Bow.

Bow comes up next to her and looks out the window as well after Catra shies away from eye contact. “They’re my parents, and they’re really good parents. Growing up, the worst thing I could imagine was disappointing them.”

Catra just nods. She’s not learning anything. Nobody likes disappointing people, not really.

“Out of curiosity - what do you think I was afraid of, exactly?”

Catra actually has to think about that one. She can already tell that Lance and George have never even once threatened to murder Bow. “That they’d kick you out?”

Bow shakes his head. “Nah. They would never. I was afraid that they’d stop loving me.”

Catra’s arms tighten around herself. She’d never had any illusion that Shadow Weaver had loved her - Adora had, she always had, and Catra had lost that for a time, but that was different - she and Adora had chosen each other, over and over, even when Shadow Weaver had been trying to tear them apart. They weren’t supposed to love each other, not like families were.

“They didn’t do that either,” Bow says, gentle and smiling. “I know now that they wouldn’t have, no matter what. But a lot of the person I became started with that fear. I don’t know what it’s like to not have people in my corner I can fall back on, and I never want to.”

Catra’s tense, and somehow it’s on Bow’s behalf. He shouldn’t be sharing this with her, opening up his heart, exposing his vulnerabilities. That’s how people get hurt.

But at the same time, she knows that’s the point. He’s giving her what she wanted and needed and would never have dared to ask for - trust, so that she can trust him in return.

She could say something cutting now and see if he flinches. But she’s amazed to find that she doesn’t need to. She knows how to hurt him, because he’s told her. She trusts him.

“Thank you,” she says instead.

He bumps his elbow against hers, and her crossed arms loosen a little. “Anytime,” he says, his grin warm and full as ever.

[pinkbubbles-and-bigtroubles]

You Don’t Know Me

Not smut just some very soft oblivious Luke

You knew something was wrong. Luke didn't always text you back right away, but in the entire time you'd know him he'd never left you on read. You knew sometimes he was too busy to check his messages for hours, especially if he was on the road. You expected that, and never worried or got irritated if he didn't text you back, but that was before the disaster at Calum's party.

The weekend had been rough. Saturday night there had been a crazy party at Calum's house and everyone was getting wasted. You'd seen Luke show up with his girlfriend per fucking usual. You hated that it bothered you, after all they'd been together six months, Leila considered you a friend. You had tried to like her but the more you saw them together, the more it got under your skin. They argued constantly these past couple months, and lately you never saw Luke without her around. The party was no different, you'd barely gotten to talk to Luke for two minutes before she was dragging him away to hang out with her friends. 

When they'd started arguing yet again something in you had snapped. You'd started downing tequila shots like you were trying to drown your emotions in liquor. The alcohol, instead of extinguishing the flames, just made them burn brighter.  Sure enough you'd ended up in the upstairs bathroom tearfully confessing your deepest secrets to Calum when you weren't heaving your guts up.

Calum was sympathetic, rubbing your back and trying to calm you down. You claimed to love all the guys as if they were your brothers, and with Calum that was particularly true. He'd been the first to call you on your feelings months ago. Calum saw the connection you had with Luke and it was obvious it was more than just friends, but you tried to play it off. Luke only liked a certain type, tall and lean, and much hotter than you could ever hope to be. 

Still, you were the one he came to when he and his girlfriend had problems. It was you he confessed his fears to late at night when he was homesick from being on the road. You were the one he sought advice from, and the person he trusted most.  He was like a brother to you, or at least you pretended that was the case, until the Patron came right back up along with your feelings. 

Luke came to check on you and Calum ran him off. You'd heard shouting between the two of them before they were separated. Calum came back to you followed by your friend Eva and the two of them got you home. 

You crawled to your couch, not able to make it up the stairs to your bedroom, plus the bathroom was nearby. They got you set up with a towel, some water and Advil before Eva took Calum up to your room. Their moans were the last thing you heard before you passed out.

When you woke up you were in your bed in last night's clothes but on fresh sheets. Your phone was plugged in and charging next to a bottle of coconut water. Your throat felt like sandpaper so your chugged the bottle almost choking halfway through when Luke walked into your bedroom. 

"What are you doing here?" You sputter trying to remember the previous night. 

"Came to check on you." He sat down next to you on the bed sliding over so you're leaning against his chest. "You were wild last night, what got into you?" 

"Tequila mostly," you groan, squeezing your eyes shut at the memory. 

"I noticed." Luke sounded annoyed but when you looked at him, he smiled down at you. "You seemed upset about something, were you mad at me?"

Fear shot chills through your entire body as you remember why you'd started drinking. You had been angry with him, but it wasn't his fault. You were angry because you were jealous, horny and frustrated from denying your feelings for him. You were pissed at yourself for not being able to say anything, because you knew he didn't feel the same way. You were like a sister to him and you didn't want to destroy what you had. 

"I can't remember anything except getting sick, I barely remember getting home," you lie, closing your eyes to avoid looking at him. 

"Can you get me another water please?" 

You could feel the tension in his body ease for a second as he gave you a little squeeze, "of course, do you want some food or anything else?"

Your stomach twisted at the thought and you shook your head, and you saw the tight expression return to his face. He was clearly annoyed by the whole situation, but dutifully returned with two bottles of coconut water, a Powerade, animal crackers and a banana. 

"Wait where did that come from? Did you bring that all with you?" Your brain hurt trying to remember the last time you'd gone grocery shopping.

"Yeah, I thought you might need it. You probably should change, you good on that?" He blushed and busied himself arranging your snacks for you. 

You realize you're still in your jumpsuit that zips up the back, worse the room is still swaying. 

"Please," you manage to squeak out. "Can you grab my big purple t shirt and I have a pair a grey shorts in my second drawer." 

He got your clothes and you put the shirt on over your head letting it rest on your shoulders as he stood you up. You wrapped your arms around him as he unzipped your suit and unclasped your bra. The feeling of his fingers grazing your bare back made you gasp, and you hoped he didn't notice. He pulled back and lowered the oversized shirt as your clothes fell to the floor. He sat you back on the bed and got your feet into your shorts and the two of you worked together to get them up your legs.

"Are you ok?" Luke suddenly looked concerned.

"I'm gonna be sick, I'm sorry," you whispered.

He carried you to the little bathroom connected to your bedroom and held you as you heaved and coughed. You could hear him muttering to himself behind you.

"I'm gonna kill Calum for letting it get this far. He shouldn't have let you drink that much." 

"Hey," you protested weakly, "it's not Calum's fault I'm an idiot. He shouldn't have to babysit me. I can handle myself." 

"That is obviously not true, look what happened," he scoffed. "Come on, let's get you back to bed." 

"Well we can't all have hot girlfriends, that we're constantly fighting with," you complained as he got you settled in comfortably. 

"If I didn't know better I'd think you were jealous," he teased. "I thought you two were friends." 

"Uh we are, it's just that you two have kind of been fighting a lot lately." You tried to walk it back.

"Don't," he sighed, clearly annoyed again. "Last night we were arguing about you so you weren't the only one pretending. Why can't people just be honest?" 

"Was that a dig at me?" You pout at him, getting irritated yourself. 

"A little bit, I heard some of what you said to Calum. It sounded pretty serious, but you refused to talk to me. I had to leave because Calum was getting super aggressive, and wouldn't let me see you. He wouldn't let anyone near you actually, except Eva. What the hell was that all about?" Luke's jaw was clenched tight and he was scrolling through Netflix on your bedroom TV, refusing to look at you. 

"I don't know why Calum was acting like that," you told himand he shook his head. "Maybe I feel like hot garbage right now and don't want to analyze everything. I'm not even sure why I got so upset. It really is kind of hazy," you used your baby voice and he couldn't help but smile. He put a pillow on his lap and let you rest your head as you started watching TV. He played with your hair and rubbed your back until you were practically purring. 

Suddenly you remembered, "wait why were you two fighting about me?" You sat up quickly and regretted it just as fast. Luke steadied you and laid you back down gently. "She thinks we're too close. She never had a problem before but now she says it's different." 

"What did she say?" You were fighting sleep and he knew it. 

"Get some rest," his fingers grazed your skin, his voice low. "We can talk later, I'm not going anywhere." 

When you woke hours later you could hear Luke downstairs in the kitchen and you could smell bacon. Your stomach growled and you reached out for the cookies he'd left for you. Nibbling on them helped but you decided you wanted to try whatever he was cooking. You reached for your phone to text him when you saw several missed calls and messages. Plenty of your friends were at the party and wanted to check up on you but you scrolled down to Eva first. 

How's everything with Luke? He was pissed when he showed up this morning. He made me change your sheets before he carried you upstairs, and then made me take them home and wash them. Wtf even happened last night? You were fine and then next thing I know Calum is coming to get me because you're fucking wasted. You were saying some crazy shit last night. If you really feel that strongly you need to tell him bc I heard them fighting.  His girlfriend thinks you like him and doesn't want y'all hanging out anymore. Cut that bitch off at the knees babe hmu later so I can tell you about Calum

You texted Luke below he could come back upstairs

Idk what you're cooking but it smells amazing. Can I have a bite? Please? 

He answered quickly

I was hoping you'd be hungry. I'll make you a little plate. Drink water

.

You smiled, letting yourself enjoy being domestic with Luke for a day. You quickly scroll back down to check the texts from Calum. 

You owe me big time. Luke almost swung on me twice. He's furious I let you drink too much and was worried I had a thing for you. Good thing I had Eva walking sideways 😝😝😝

You need to talk to him, there's got to be a reason he's so overprotective. Hmmmm 

His gf is looking for him, he's ignoring her to take care of you. Lucky you have such a good friend right? 

You answered Calum back listening for Luke

Yeah he's mad at me too, it's not just you

Did he leave? I thought he was staying there? 

Yeah he's downstairs making us food

Oh yeah he sounds really pissed lol tell him I said hi

You heard Luke coming up the stairs

Not a chance, gotta go, he's coming

You put your phone back on the charger and scrambled back onto the pillow before he came back into the room carrying two plates. He'd made bacon and eggs for himself but you hated eggs so he'd made you tater tots covered in bacon and cheese with ranch dressing on the side. He was trying not to eat carbs, but always stole bites off your plate insisting those calories didn't count. You put queer eye on Netflix and you sat side by side, propped up with pillows against the headboard while you ate. He claimed not to like the show, but you knew JVN and Karamo were his favorites. He always laughed at you because you always cried watching this show but he also got choked up a bit from time to time. Your leg was pressed against his and your felt his phone vibrating, text after text, call after call and he ignored them all.

"Are you just gonna let everything go to voicemail?" You asked.

"Told you I didn't want to talk about it, got some thinking to do," his voice was hollow and he was really starting to worry you. 

"Why won't you talk to me Luke? I don't understand what's going on." You ask finishing your food.

"I don't either," he sighed. "Why didn't you tell me you like someone?" 

"What are you talking about?" You decide to admit nothing until you know what he knows. 

"One minute you're hanging with Calum and Mikey, dancing and having fun. By the time I see you next you're in tears and crying to Calum about how you can never get him to notice you. That he doesn't look at you that way. How can he be so sexy with those eyes, his body, the way he moves across a room. Why didn't you tell me?" Luke turned big puppy dog eyes on you and your entire body is hot with embarrassment. You don't remember saying that, but you knew exactly who you meant. How are you going to explain yourself? 

Luke surprises you when he keeps talking,"I don't want to tell you what to do, but you know how Michael is with women. He's one of my best friends, my brother, but he only wants one thing and you're worth more than that." 

You start laughing, unable to believe Luke is so clueless to think you're after Michael. Not that you'd mind a hookup, you'd heard the rumors about how good he was in bed. You were also aware Michael never caught feelings and soon grew bored with any girl he took to bed. 

"I'm not into Mikey like that," you told him. "He was going to be a distraction but I got too drunk." 

"So who were you crying over, I want to know who's ass to kick." Luke looked relieved but still concerned. 

"It's not important now," you tell him. "He has a girlfriend, and he doesn't see me that way."  

Luke frowned, opened his mouth to speak before snapping it shut and closing his eyes. He looked back down at you, "if he doesn't see how wonderful you are, then he definitely doesn't deserve your tears." He reached over and squeezed your leg and it jolted through your entire body. You grabbed his empty plate and swung your legs over the side of the bed. It was only when you stood up and the entire room swayed your remembered your pounding head. Luke was up and next to you in a flash. 

"No no no sweetie easy," he took the plates out of your hands and sat you back down. "I'll take care of that, drink some water for me." You nodded and complied, feeling your head ease up a bit. 

"I need to take a shower," you insisted.

"Fine, I'll do the dishes so you can have some privacy." Luke walked you to the bathroom and made sure you had towels and your big fluffy robe. You were still a bit woozy but slow deliberate movements kept it mostly at bay. 

The water felt like heaven against your skin. For several moments you just let it pour over you, hoping it could wash away your feelings. It didn't work, especially when soaping yourself down you imagined for a second not being alone in the shower. What it would be like to have him pressed against you, his hands on your wet skin. 

You groaned in frustration because you felt too awful to get yourself off but thinking about Luke in the shower left you incredibly horny. You finished your shower and shut off the water. Wrapped in your robe and with a towel on your head you sat on the edge of your tub to think about everything. You couldn't deny your feelings for Luke any longer, but had no idea what to do about them. You were starting to suspect he was a little conflicted himself. You decided to test that a bit, and made your way back to your room. Despite it being just after six pm you dug through your pajama drawer finding a matching grey tank and shorts set that was girly cute but not obviously sexy, with a pink lace bralette and purple boy shorts underneath. Sitting on your bed you got the bralette and tank top on just fine, but bending over to try and pull up your panties was not happening. You texted Luke downstairs

I need help getting dressed

He came back upstairs quickly his eyes going wide as he realized your predicament.

"Can you please just hook them on my feet and pull them up where I can reach?" You tried sounding irritated but you were super nervous. So was he from the looks of it, he nodded and swallowed before kneeling and carefully looping the underwear over your feet pulling them up until your hands met his just below your knees. The whole time not looking up at you but his eyes fixed on the hem of your shirt as it grazed your thighs. You saw him blink back to reality and abruptly stand up and turn around. You pulled the panties over your hips and sat back up. 

"You can turn back around now." You teased him, handing him the shorts when he did. Same thing only this time he let his hands reach your thighs before he stopped, and when took the fabric from his fingers they lingered hovering before brushing the inside of your thigh with the back of his knuckles. 

"Your skin is so soft." You barely heard him and you saw him flush red when he realized what he'd said. He stood up just as you leaned forward and smacked his head into yours.

You both yelped in pain and shock before collapsing onto the bed. You lay there almost in tears until Luke started giggling, which is contagious and soon you're both cracking up. 

This doesn't help your headache and when he sees you wince he stops laughing and pulls himself over next to you. Resting on his side on one elbow he inspects the small knot forming at your hairline. He presses a kiss to the spot and you look up at him and return the favor, smoothing his curls away from his forehead and ghosting your lips across his skin before lying back down. You feel the tension in the air and you decide to make a move. Until your stomach growls breaking the spell. Luke laughs and pats your belly, "Let's get some dinner and watch a movie." 

He carries you downstairs on his back and puts you on the couch so you can order takeout. You already had his order memorized, grilled chicken wrap, no cheese, extra chicken add avocado. You got a chicken pita, extra feta because he always stole some of it. Luke let you pick the movies grumbling when you picked Aladdin yet he always sang along to every song. You would sing with him on the silly songs like "Friend Like Me"and "Prince Ali" , but left the "A whole new world"  to him alone, sometimes closing your eyes and just listening to his voice.  

The food arrives just as he's finishing the song. 

"Ugh I'm starving," he pushes off the couch to answer the door.

He comes back with the food and gets everything set up, winking at you as he immediately stole a big chunk of feta. 

The two of you got quiet as you ate, randomly throwing out  lines, by the time the movie was over you were both finished and full. 

You were getting a bit sleepy so he put Moana on next and laid your head on a pillow in his lap. 

As you watched the movie you became distracted by a loose bright yellow thread in the inseam of his shorts. Rubbing your finger along the seam trying to figure out where the pull started you didn't realize what you were doing until Luke snapped "can you just watch the movie?" 

You were taken aback by the harsh tone until you felt him reach inner the pillow to adjust himself. Then you decided to push it up a notch toying with the hem of his shorts before resting your hand on his thigh and giving him a little squeeze.

"Thank you for taking care of me today, I appreciate it," you keep your voice low and stretch your legs out a bit letting your shorts ride up. After a few minutes of you moving around Luke finally taps your shoulder. 

"I gotta go to the bathroom," he tells you and you sat up, noticing the bulge he tried to hide in his shorts. 

When he got back you saw it was gone and he seemed more relaxed. Luke checked the time on his phone.

"I should go before I fall asleep here, and really get myself into trouble." He grins at you and helps you to your feet for a hug. 

"Make sure you keep drinking water and no more drinking like that ok. I don't like seeing my girl upset like that, he doesn't deserve it," Luke tilted your chin up to meet his eyes. He looked at you with such warmth and caring you didn't want him to leave but you couldn't make yourself tell him that. "And no Michael, no Calum, you're off limits and they know this " 

"You're not my daddy," you pout sticking out your tongue at him. "What are you gonna do about Leila? She knows you've been here all day and she's pissed," you asked him.

His face darkened, "how do you know that?" 

You realize Luke hadn't told you that, Calum had. Your expression tells on you and Luke nods, "I'll deal with him tomorrow. You need to get some rest, can you get back upstairs?" 

.

You nod, "yeah I'm feeling better, you make a good nurse." 

"Anything for you sweetheart." He wraps you in a hug again kissing your forehead. "You know you're like family to me " 

"Yeah that's the problem."  The words are out of your mouth before your realize it and for a second you think they were too muffled for him to hear. 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Luke pulls back from you. His eyes searching yours, and you can't believe he's that surprised.

"Break up with your girlfriend and we'll find out." You blurt out the words and instantly want to take it all back. You pulled back and turned away from him, but he stepped up behind you, just like he has a million times before, and squeezed your shoulders while kissing the top of your head. 

"I'll talk to you tomorrow." Then he's gone.

You text Eva and she rushes over. The next two hours are a rehashing of every second with Luke as well as more information than you needed about Calum's big dick. 

That all happened Sunday. Monday you hadn't heard a word from anyone until Calum texted you after your got home from work. 

They broke up, and he's still not talking to me. He even got into it with Michael today telling him you were off limits. What has he said to you? 

Nothing, once I told him I didn't want him to think of me like a sister I haven't heard a word. I fucked everything up

You said something? Haha No wonder he's freaking out. I don't think you fucked up, but you definitely hit a nerve. You'll hear from him soon

That was Monday, it was now Wednesday and he still hadn't contacted you aside from liking your posts on social media. You'd even texted him yesterday

Heard what happened, hope you're doing ok. Lmk if you need anything

He'd read it almost immediately but hadn't replied. Michael ended up DM'ing you that night to ask you what happened, and why Luke was trying to warn him off. You had to admit you'd told Luke you found him attractive and thought he'd make a nice distraction from your current problems. 

Radio silence stretched until Friday. By the you were a nervous wreck trying to stay busy and not think about it. That just made you think about it more until Luke finally texted you

Hey sorry, I've just been dealing with a lot lately. Tell your mom I said happy birthday, miss ya

You blinked back tears, not because you were hurt, but because you were pissed.  What kind of half assed message was that? After what went down Sunday, not to mention waiting five days to contact you in general. 

Thanks I'll let her know, going out this weekend, hope to see ya

Prob not but will see

You were stunned at his answer and Calum agreed he was acting like a bitch. Calum and Michael had already convinced you to come out to the club with them Friday. Luke was mad and wouldn't go so you could have fun without worrying about Luke and whatever was going on between the two of you.

You and Eva showed up to the club that night and gave your names at the door. Calum put you on the list for VIP so you went all out. Your black halter top and a silver sequin mini skirt must've looked decent on you given the wicked grin Michael gave you when he saw you. You took a shot from Calum's hand and raised a toast, "to moderation," and you both laughed taking the shot. It was then you saw Luke, sitting in the corner and glaring at you. 

"What is he doing here?" You hiss at Calum who shrugs. 

"He found out you were coming and suddenly he had to be here. He's mad at us so we're not fucking with him right now. Ignore him, have fun with us." 

Eva pulled her onto the floor and they danced together feeling the guys watching them. After a couple songs you wanted a glass of water. Michael was right there, handing you water and flagging down the server so you could order something stronger. You got a tall vodka and cranberry and cozied up to Michael. He was whispering to you and cracking jokes to make you laugh while never getting too handsy or flirty. Calum and Eva were all over each other and you caught Luke's eye as Michael murmured something in your ear. Luke glared at you and you responded by blowing him a kiss. 

Luke almost smiled but he looked away, determined to be difficult.

You rolled your eyes and let Ashton lead you out to the dance floor. Music was blasting and you were a decent dancer, and Ashton knew some moves.  It was sensual, but not too sexy and you felt he was holding back.

"I thought you were supposed to have hips," you teased him as he turned you three times before bringing you back into him, his fingers lightly resting on your hips.

Accepting the challenge he rolled his hips, thrusting a bit more aggressively against you. Calum noticed and began to cheer you guys on as you danced closer together. You saw Luke stand up. Michael held him back, trying to talk him down, but Luke pushed past him towards where you were. 

He cut in and Ashton gave you a wink as he backed away. You kept dancing as if you didn't notice. Luke's fingers dug into your hips as he pressed himself against your back, rocking his hips in time with yours, with his breath hot on your neck. Your fingers entwined with his as you followed familiar steps with your favorite dance partner. 

"Come on now, Ashton? What are you thinking? He's worse than Mike. I don't want you being just another one of his girls," Luke snapped.

"You haven't talked to me all week."  You shot back. "How am I supposed to know what you want? Besides you're not my father, my brother or my boyfriend so you don't really get an opinion." 

"We can work on that." He spun you around, your chest pressed to his staring down at you.

"What's that supposed to mean?" You ask, unable to stop staring at his lips. 

"Kiss me and we'll find out." He winked just before his mouth was on yours. His arms circled your waist as your hands crept up his chest feeling his heartbeat race as he kissed you. 

 You were interrupted seconds later by Calum hugging the two of you, jumping around screaming "I knew it, I knew it." 

"Fuck off Calum," Luke snarled and you laughed. 

"No way, I'm a fucking matchmaker and I want credit." Calum was smiling at you proudly. "I knew you guys would be perfect together." 

Luke laughed and pushed Calum out of the way so he could kiss you again.

@kiiiimberlyriiiicker1995​ @ghostofmashton​ @5sosnsfw​ @irwinkitten​ @sexgodashton​ @maluminspace​ @kchillout​

[purplesurveys]

1109

What were you like at 17? Infinitely more naïve than I am now. I was going through my first heartbreak, funnily enough caused by the same person who is the reason for my current heartbreak, but that’s a story I’ve shared a million times. Anyway, at 17 I was still in high school so I was definitely more carefree about a lot of things; I wasn’t worrying about the future too much just yet, and I was still set on taking journalism. I was also going through my first family death which allowed me to explore a new side of my emotions.

Tell us about your first kiss. I had been really nervous about it and I felt like I wasn’t ready. But she was very gentle and took her time with me that night, even though I could tell she really wanted to have that kiss. I knew I hadn’t been a good kisser for my first, but she seemed to have good memories of it years later when we revisited the experience.

Tell us about your worst date. I’ve never been on a date with someone I wasn’t seeing.

What’s your biggest flaw? I’m extra sensitive and can’t take even the most playful of jabs without feeling the least bit hurt, unless the dig came from someone I’m extremely comfortable with, like Angela. That makes me the worst person for banter in most cases and it makes me not the most approachable person.

What’s the coolest thing you’ve bought lately? To be honest with you, I only ever buy food lol. I’ve been an employee for three months now and I have yet to buy something that’s meant to be an investment or is meant to last with me. 

Who is your celebrity crush? Can’t really decide between Kristen Stewart and Kate Winslet. Love them both.

What is your biggest pet peeve? I don’t appreciate lateness very much, especially if people have no reason to be.

What’s the song you most wish you had written? I don’t really think like this. If anything, I’m grateful there are songwriters out there who can pen songs that perfectly encapsulate my thoughts and feelings.

What do you always take with you when you travel? Phone, laptop, my chargers for each, wallet, and too many clothes because I like having multiple choices on what to wear while I’m traveling.

Do you have any pets? Two dogs.

Have you or someone you know ever drunk dialed? I never have, but I probably know a ton of people who have.

What is the worst break up you have experienced? The most recent one. The person I trusted the most hurt me in more ways than I could ever imagine. She seemed so desperate to get rid of me, and I will never be able to shake off the excruciating pain of feeling unwanted. She made it sound like I put her on a leash when I did nothing but attend to her every need and adjusted in a million ways for her comfort while never asking for anything back. I blamed myself for months, never knowing what exactly I was blaming myself for.

I worked my goooooooddamn hardest to get to where I am today, and I’m not sure she deserves to re-enter my life after the work and fixing I’ve done to be able to forgive and love myself.

Have you ever been stuck by someone very annoying on a plane/bus/etc? I don’t think so. The only one I remember was a seatmate on a plane who snored for the entire trip, but it didn’t bother me too much. When was the last time you were rejected by someone? Late 2020.

Has someone way older than you tried to hit on you? Nope.

Have you ever been cheated on? Never. 

Did you get lost at all on your first day of high school? No. I went to the same school from kinder to high school, so by freshman year I could’ve gone through the entire campus blindfolded.

Have you ever been interrupted during sex? Yeah many times.

Have you ever been recorded doing stupid things while drunk? Yeah, I’m the favorite for that kind of content haha. I can get quite silly when drunk.

Has a significant other ever called you by the wrong name? Nope.

Have you ever cooked anything and it turned out horrible? Not exactly, but close. I’ve baked stuff before that ended up tasting like nothing.

What is the worst birthday you have ever had? I don’t think I have one that’s in the running for absolute worst, but my 21st birthday coincided with Easter Sunday so I couldn’t invite anyone to celebrate with me. Gabie’s parents, who aren’t even particularly religious, didn’t allow her to celebrate with me because it was Easter, so that was a blow. Angela saved the day by taking me to dinner and spending the whole evening with me, but by the end of the evening Gabie and I had a lengthy argument and she kept trying to break up with me. It was a miserable end to a mostly miserable birthday.

Have you ever choked on chewing gum? Probably briefly in the past. I don’t have any moments that stuck with me.

Have you ever found anything dirty in a siblings room? No, but I also don’t go looking around through his things. < Same.

Have you ever made a bad first impression on someone’s parents? I’m sure I have. I once made a mess in a high school classmate’s bathroom when I cleaned my hands to get red food coloring off of them. I did want to clean it, but my mom suddenly came to pick me up so I had to leave the sink in such a messy state. Years later and I still feel bad about it, even though I’ve never been close to that girl and I’ve never visited her house since.

When is the last time you got into a fist fight? Idk man, 15 years ago? The only physical fights I’ve gotten into were with my siblings and cousins when we were kids.

Have you ever been spit on by a llama? I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a llama in real life.

Have you ever locked yourself out of your car/house? The house, yes many times. Never out of my car.

Describe how you got one of your scars. My right ring toe got caught in the gears once when I was riding my bike.

Describe how you’ve broken a bone, if you have. Never have. Would hate to feel what it’d be like D:

Have you ever had a near death experience? The time I got shocked when I was 11 probably comes the closest.

When you get cold at home, do you get a sweater/hoodie or get a blanket? I rarely get colds. When I do, I just wait for it to leave; I don’t really do anything to deal with it.

Do you require visual assistance? (i.e.; glasses or contacts) I’ve had glasses since I was 11.

Do you work out? Occasionally.

Describe the last cup you drank from. It was just a clear glass that had water in it.

What is a food that you always are in the mood to eat? Sushi and sashimi.

Do you like sausage? I’ve never liked sausage tbhhhh. It tastes odd to me.

Ever held a newborn animal? I don’t think. The closest I’ve come to holding a newborn was meeting Cooper when he was two months old and barely looked like a beagle.

Do you make a wish when you blow out your birthday candles? I haven’t had a birthday cake in a while, but in general I do make wishes when I get the chance to blow out candles.

Have you ever been to Boston? Nope.

Describe your hair at the moment. I showered a few hours ago so it’s still a bit damp, but otherwise it’s nothing special.

What is the last thing you searched for online? I looked for a synonym for a certain word, but I don’t remember what it was.

What are you sitting on? The chair in my room. I actually haven’t sat on it for a couple of months, so it feels pretty refreshing to do so again.

Could you use a massage right now? If I could get rid of how terribly ticklish I am, I would so appreciate a massage right now, yeah.

Is it wicked hard for you to sleep when its hot in your room? Yup and I also get insanely cranky as well. Being hot is one of the worst sensations ever, if not the outright worst.

Do you sleep on your stomach/back/side most often? On my stomach with my arms and legs wrapped around a pillow.

Do make sure you dot your I`s when you write? Yes.

Do you dunk your cookies in milk? No, I just like to eat them on their own.

What did you wear today? I had a tank top and shorts for most of today.

Do medical terms make you uncomfortable? Not really, unless I’m diagnosed with a certain condition lol.

Are you afraid of failure? Yeah because I really hate losing or people thinking I’m not capable enough. The older I get and the more experiences I gain, though, the more I’ve been less afraid to commit mistakes. More and more I realize everybody I deal with are people who also make mistakes and are afraid of making mistakes.

Have you been called a bad influence? I’m sure I have.

What about Chinese food? Love it or hate it? I loooove Chinese food, but it’s not one of my top favorites.

How do you feel about getting new neighbors? I honestly have no clue who any of my neighbors are, so I would barely notice if we got new ones.

Why were you last in a hospital? I needed to get blood and urine tests because my fever wasn’t going away and it was time to figure out what was wrong with me.

When is the last time you went to a doctor, and why? We needed him to figure out what I had from the results of the aforementioned medical tests, and for him to prescribe the proper medicine for me to take.

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

How I Think The Star Wars Sequels Should Have Happened: Another MrMallard Nerd Moment

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

The Force Awakens:

fine jumping on point. Not perfect, but honestly a return to form in regards to making Star Wars movies fun again. Keep TFA as-is, warts and all - the trick is paying this movie off by the end.

The Last Jedi:

Less faux-Guardians of the Galaxy humor. That's not to say "no humor", I honestly thought Luke Skywalker had the best jokes of the movie, but less "your mother" and less "Finn wakes up from a coma and drips IV fluid everywhere, Wakka Wakka!". The former is corny, the latter is undignified and actively cheapens character development from the prior movie.

Cut the stampeding race-beasts, because it reeks of Disney's "fuck you we're Disney" money, but keep Canto Bight as a whole. The alien designs are charming - it's a nice moment of fanservice, along with the Jizz music. It also serves as a nice character-building exercise for Rose and Finn.

Ultimately, I think it might have been a better idea to kill off Leia in this movie considering Carrie Fisher's passing. I don't dislike her in this movie, and I honestly enjoyed the scene of her in space - my first thought was "holy fuck she can use the force!!" - but I think it would have been better for her to pass on in this movie, both logistically and for her character. That, or they should have scaled back her cobbled together Frankenstein-performance of CGI, cut lines and recontextualised footage in TRoS. Either/or.

Keep the mutiny plot with Poe, but something has to be done with how they treat the secret plan. The resolution to the mutiny plot was the thing that bothered me the most with TLJ, but it's pretty much the only thing for Poe to do in the movie and it adds conflict to the main story I guess. Making the Holdo/Poe seem a little less personal might help? idk. honestly a lot of this storyline felt forced.

Don't try and resolve Rey's backstory in this movie. Keep it as a running mystery. I understand that they were trying to go for a clever subversion in this movie, but it just added another stupid thing that TRoS bad to address and it honestly kinda ruins the trilogy.

Honestly, either cut Crait entirely and make it the beginning of the next movie - bc the movie's already two hours long and it feels like the final battle stretches the movie out beyond its natural ending point - or shorten it a bit and make it a bit more functional. It looks cool, but at that point it's like tacking an extra mile onto a marathon.

Also, don't shoehorn a failed heroic sacrifice with Finn imo. That, or give him more screentime and character development to build up to that moment. Post-TFA, he's really half-baked, and I honestly think he should have been more of a focal character next to Rey. The heroic sacrifice felt like it came out of nowhere, and by thwarting it and adding the Rose Tico scene, it felt like a waste of time even having it in there. It comes and goes with no fanfare.

Honestly, I would have preferred if Luke stayed alive at the end of the movie. I think his death was a movie too soon. Saying that, I think they nailed his death in this movie - if they were gonna kill him off, I think they did it right. Also, don't kill off Snoke. It's a cool scene, but it fucks up the next movie.

Re: Rose Tico - she's not my favorite part of the movie, but I don't actively hate her and I think the response to her character that Kelly Marie Tran had to face was absolutely disgusting. I think her plotline with Finn was a little underbaked, and that scene at the end where she prevents his heroic sacrifice just kinda sidelines them both. I think making her a navigator would have helped her character in TLJ and TRoS.

In short: trim a few excessive CGI scenes, cut a few cornball jokes out, play around with the characterisation and tone of the mutiny plot, dignify Finn's character instead of reducing him to a rehashed coward, comedic relief character and pointless failed Rebel martyr, and maybe keep Luke Skywalker alive at the end. Bring the movie in at around 2 hours max.

Keep Luke Skywalker as-is, bc his character is a highlight of TLJ.

The Rise of Skywalker:

Kill off Luke Skywalker in this movie. Seriously, just cut and paste his death at the end of TLJ into this movie. Work him into a reduced role when Rey junks her ship, like the force projection messed him up and he doesn't have much longer to live, and have him help her when she returns to his island planet instead of adding a phoned-in Force Ghost appearance. Maybe have her there when he passes?

Reduce Leia's role in this movie instead of stitching together a Frankenstein's Monster of a performance. Not to be morbid by that reference - it's just that everything she says feels so stilted and wrong, like you can definitely tell they've thrown all the scraps they have left into her character in this movie. It doesn't feel natural or respectful for her character to spit out non-sequiters for the characters to respond to in an equally unnatural sort of way.

Honestly? Canonise Fey/Rinn, however you want to portmanteau Rey and Finn's ship name. If you give Finn more of a character arc in TLJ instead of side-lining him, and establish that he and Rey are particularly close - which they are IMO - and then pay off that "I have something to tell you" beat with a confession of love. This isn't a stab against Reylo, though I've certainly had words to say about Reylo, I just think Finn/Rey is a more wholesome ship and I prefer this dynamic to the fuckin dark side/light side paradigm of Reylo. I Just don't care for it. Kylo Ren's conflicted nature doesn't have to resolve in romance. Gimme Rey/Finn.

Snoke gets offed by Palpatine. There's no breeding vat for Snokes, but if the movie wants to suggest that he's still just a puppet or a creation, that's fine. That, or build Snoke up as the bad guy, and either follow through on that or have Palpatine be a twist halfway through the movie.

Maybe make Palpatine a Sith Ghost? They do exist to some degree. Or have him stuck in some other limbo that requires him to hijack Rey. Anything is better than that "if I do this you do this, but then I'll do this so you would have to do this, but really I'm going to do this so either way my entire plan was completely unnecessary lmao" clusterfuck where he's a living corpse impaled on a robot arm.

Cut out the macguffins, or make them feel less inconsequential. Okay, so the dagger storyline involves rebooting C3PO. It has stakes and gravitas to a degree. Cool - keep that. What the fuck is up with the wayfinders though? Why are there only two? Why do they need to be so convoluted?

Maybe have Maz Kanata talk about Luke's lightsaber, and/or have her involved in finding a way to Palpatine. It would pay off her appearance in TFA and explain her importance to Luke.

By making Rose Tico a great navigator in TLJ, her role on the team can be expanded in TRoS and she can do like star charts and stuff for all the different worlds they're going to - she can come along instead of being fucked over by JJ Abrams in this movie. She can even help with Maz Kanata's wayfinding plan. In short - make her a part of the team.

Honestly, fuck the Knights of Ren right off. They're a waste of time. That, or set them up in TLJ - hell, have one of them on Canto Bight and another one on Snoke's ship. Maybe even retcon Phasma into being a Knight of Ren. Anything but bringing them back as a mook squad in this movie, with no weight or character.

Honestly? Show Palpatine surviving the Death Star crash. The retcon is all the more painful for being completely and utterly unexplained. Doesn't matter if you have to touch the source material to do it, CG in a force shield as Palpatine falls through fire and have him hobble to a life support pod that takes him to where he is in TRoS. Literally anything is better than "Somehow, Palpatine returned".

Either cut the healing powers, or leave them in sans Reylo kiss.

In short: reduce Leia's role instead of using cut content and a CGI puppet to stitch together a performance, leave Luke alive until this movie, kill Snoke in this movie OR have him be the big bad, make Finn/Rey a thing over Reylo - again, no hate, I just prefer this pairing over Reylo - write more details about Palpatine's survival, either put some Knights of Ren into TLJ or don't have them at all, get rid of the Wayfinder macguffins and/or work Maz Kanata and "master navigator" Rose Tico into a plot to find Palpatine.

At the end of the day, there should have been a planning committee for the Star Wars story, not for the merchandise. You can see from how the sequel trilogy crammed out merchandise that Disney was clearly asking for marketable merch, but the story is a trainwreck - there was a Star Wars committee, just not where the property needed one.

The sequel trilogy was a worthwhile experiment imo - it didn't pay off, but it was worth doing just to see if it was possible. But even then, I would prefer three decent movies over a couple of experimental trainwrecks retroactively ruining one decent movie.

This post was mostly trying to work with what the movies already have, though by TRoS you really do have to start overhauling shit to make it work. In my eyes, the longest that these movies should run is two hours - any more than that is a slog, especially when the movie feels like it takes two hours. The Last Jedi felt like two and a half hours. The Rise of Skywalker felt like a two hour movie crammed into 80 minutes, despite the fact it was longer than 2 hours. The best way to make these movies more watchable is to make them shorter - cut out superfluous money shot scenes like the Canto Bight chase, have more efficient scenes to balance out the stylish scenes. The sequel trilogy is short on efficiency imo, and without a movie where it feels like progress is being made, the style doesn't work.

So tweak some things to make each movie more efficient.

[demigodofhoolemere]

Saw The Rise of Skywalker last night. I went in totally expecting to hate it because that tends to be the way with my favorite franchises these days and I’d heard about how bad everyone seemed to think it is. No one is more surprised than me, but... I really liked it?? I do understand why others don’t, plenty of the content is pretty subjective in terms of the tastes of individuals. But I really didn’t have all of the problems I thought I was gonna have.

Plenty of spoilers below.

~~~

Negative:

- I can really only think of one huge negative which is just knowing behind the scenes info, assuming this redditor’s source is telling the truth (looks credible to me and we already know that things have been disastrous behind the scenes of the sequel films in general so I really have no trouble believing this): https://www.reddit.com/r/saltierthancrait/comments/eisnd8/heres_what_ive_been_told_from_a_source_that/ . In which case my biggest problem is how severely Disney/Lucasfilm screwed JJ and the cast over and altered what they’d made. From the perspective of ‘this isn’t what we created anymore’, if I were among them I’d be ticked, too, and I am ticked on their behalves. I do want to see the un-altered, complete version that they did and even though I enjoyed the movie as is, I would probably enjoy that version even more because it sounds like important emotional stuff got shelved, and it didn’t deserve to be (Finn being force sensitive, dang it!). There were a couple of things that made less sense because of the way it got pared down (like the fact that Han’s appearance was apparently Leia manifesting him to Ben and that’s what sapped her strength so badly - that wasn’t made clear at all to me) and I’d love to see what it was like before it got messed with. But this knowledge is really my biggest problem. If I’d never seen this, I wouldn’t have anything truly bad to say about the released product.

Iffy:

- Re: Leia, without it being made totally clear what was happening, I thought they were repeating Padmé’s ‘lost the will to live’ send-off. It’s not something that particularly bothers me about RotS, Padmé did just have the stress of pushing two human beings out of her body all while living with the stress of her husband falling to the dark side and all of the Jedi are being murdered and the list of awfulness goes on, so even though she definitely has her kids to live for, I also know that she was undergoing unimaginable agony both physically and emotionally, and you CAN die from your body physically giving out and from broken heartstrings, so I don’t think that was stupid the way others seem to. But they needed to make what happened to Leia clearer, because I thought they were reusing that, and *that* I did think was weird, and kind of a cheap way to take her out of the picture. Not that Leia hasn’t been through hell enough for broken heartstrings, and losing her son on top of having lost her husband and brother could certainly do it, but because the movie didn’t give any further context for what was happening and what she was doing, it just looked like she passed out and then the next time we see her she’s covered with a sheet and I’m like, “Wait, that’s it?” So I do wish we’d gotten a little more in the way of explaining that sequence, so that Leia didn’t die from just passing out. That didn’t feel completely right to me. I much prefer the idea of her using up her strength to save her son.

- Leia dying at all. I get why, but... owie.

- Shortchanging Rose. I don’t feel terribly strongly about her but in any case it’s not fair to her and especially not to Kelly.

- Very convenient dagger rofl.

- The Palpatine stuff was very sudden. No prior hints anywhere. I don’t know if it’s something they decided late in the game, or if they were going to allude to it but felt TFA was too early and would have in TLJ if Rian hadn’t had such full control over doing whatever he wanted, but whatever the story there is, it felt very out of nowhere. We’re supposed to suddenly accept that Palpatine survived the fall down the shaft and has been living on life support in a cave making creepy clone Snokes. And like... it seems like the sort of crap he’d pull, so I can buy it and I’m not really too bothered, but wow. I can also get behind Rey being his granddaughter, I thought they dealt with that very well and I surprisingly enjoyed it, but again, it’s very sudden, and also because of the implications of that I have to live with the mental image of Palpatine getting it on with someone and for that alone I could have added another to the ‘negative’ list.

- So... Reylo. I constantly have mixed feelings about Reylo. I’ve very much enjoyed their force bond (one of the only things I did like in TLJ), I love the focus on redemption and good winning out, their dynamic is very interesting and I can see the allure of pairing them because of the balance of light and dark, they just have a fascinating thing going on. But I also can’t help but think about him having tortured her in TFA, and as much as I’m here for redemption and I love Rey’s heart I still think it’s weird how TLJ is like three days later at best yet she’s so ready to look past what he did to her, what he did to Han, and to plenty of other people, and those things still really aren’t acknowledged. We can have redemption without having amnesia lol, especially when those are the things he needs to redeem himself of. By all means, redeem him, I love a good redemption and I’ve found myself far more attached to his character than I would have ever expected, but don’t have Rey immediately ignore the past to do it, and... I don’t know how to feel about that kiss. Part of me liked it (especially his sweet genuine smile), but part of me still kind of goes, ‘Wait... no. Didn’t want this. Not like this.’ It’s not the affection that bothers me at all, but the fact that it’s romantic affection. I love the dynamic that’s been built between them but considering their history I’d prefer that they actually get some footing as proper friends (whether that be before anything else happens, or it just stays that way). Way too sudden for anything romantic. And really I just wish this trilogy hadn’t attempted any new romances at all, because I feel like things would be more meaningful if they were all left to be platonic friendships. There really wasn’t room for couplings in this trilogy and it sours things a bit for me that they tried to fit them in anyway. So tl;dr, I very much enjoy Rey and Ben as a dynamic but I’m more here for a platonic Reylo.

- I get the poignancy of having him use his life force to save her, I understand killing him off, but for ONCE can I have a redeemed character continue to live their new life and figure out how to navigate that? It also makes better sense to have characters like Ben try to pay for their past while they’re still, idk, alive and have the chance to do more. For once. Please. I’m not mad that they did this but I’m tired of redemption=death.

Positive:

- Pretty much everything else. I can’t believe how much I actually liked this movie.

- LANDO CALRISSIAN LANDO CALRISSIAN LANDO CALRISSIAN LANDO CALRISSIAN LANDO CALRISSIAN

- FORCE GHOSTS!!!!! ANAKIN. OBI-WAN. AHSOKA. ALL OF MY FAVORITE JEDI FOLKS. LIGHTS OF MY LIFE. I’VE BEEN WANTING TO SEE THEM THIS ENTIRE TRILOGY AND I FINALLY HAVE THEM EVEN IF THEY’RE JUST VOICES. NEW HAYDEN-AS-ANAKIN CONTENT. I’M OVER THE MOON. Ahsoka must be dead then but I’m overlooking this.

- Whatever the heck they did to use the deleted Carrie Fisher footage to give us more Leia in such a seamless way... hats off.

- Seeing the sequel trio actually all be together and working as a trio. I can finally feel like they’re actually a unit.

- That hug between the three of them at the end, my heart.

- I really do adore Rey. She has such a good heart. Seeing her fight against her ancestry and adamantly trying to be a force for good makes me happy, I love that she believes so strongly in redemption despite her anger, and I love that they still keep character details like her brilliance with mechanics and the way she’ll use scrap to slide down sand hills. I’m so proud of her progress with using the force. Rey is precious and I love her.

- Ugh I love Finn, too. He has a strong spirit and he’s come so far. I love that they delved (or tried to delve) into him being force sensitive as well, and that he has such belief in it now. It made me so happy to see other former Stormtroopers who couldn’t live that life and that Finn can have those people to relate to. Can’t say enough good things about Finn. Very proud of him.

- Interesting learning more of Poe’s past, and I enjoyed getting to watch him try to be a leader in Leia’s absence and feeling like a failure, since I felt he was the least developed of the trio up to this point so I’m happy I have more to go on. He felt a lot more fleshed out in this one and I really appreciated it. I’m glad to be able to say that I genuinely love all of the new trio now, because it used to be that I casually liked them but couldn’t connect. Although I connected to Poe’s love for BB-8 from the start and that’s still going strong. Only he and Anakin have ever truly understood my droid love.

- Always a sucker for redemption arcs. I never used to have many feelings about Ben one way or another, I didn’t feel there was anything in TFA to make me like or dislike him from the get-go because it was too soon to say, but TLJ (for all my issues with it) made me care more about what happened to him, and now this movie got me super invested. Did not see this coming. I’m glad I was able to like him and be emotional about his conflict and his ending.

- Already covered this but I really like Rey and Ben’s dynamic. I loved seeing them use their force bond to their advantage and work so well as a team. And I love that her healing his wound also healed his scar, symbolically healing him of Kylo Ren. GAH.

- Han!!! Just Han.

- CHEWBACCA GETTING A MEDAL. Both incredibly emotional because that’s probably Han’s medal and incredibly satisfying because darn right he deserves a medal! In your face, ceremony scene from A New Hope! Now give them to the droids and I’ll be appeased.

- Chewbacca just generally destroying me. His wailing hurt me even more than Leia’s passing itself did. Did not need that but also thank you. (Why am I such a masochist?)

- C3PO taking one last look at his friends 😭 I cannot tell you how relieved I was that R2 really did have his memory backups, because I was fully prepared to put “C3PO losing his memories!!! 😡” under the negative column. Thank goodness for droid friendship.

- Speaking of droids, new droid! D-O really had little purpose for being there but I’m a sucker for a new cute droid to love so I’m all for him. Bring on all of the new cute droids!

- Really liked that planet with the festival. So many cute baby creatures and I loved the subtle Easter egg of 42 years referencing the original release in 1977.

- Rey healing the snake thing! I’m all for NOT shooting or killing Star Wars creatures, there’s too much of it and it makes me sad (R.I.P. Rancor, so sorry Rancor handler. And I’ve never gotten over Ratts Tyrell and his crying family and I never will. Stop killing Star Wars creatures 2k20). Rey gets me.

- Liked the new characters. Zorri was interesting and Jannah made me emotional.

- With the context of Jannah having been meant to be Lando’s daughter, the scene she has with him in the end has even more to it than on the surface (not that either of them would know, but still), but I really do just appreciate Lando reaching out to a stranger to help her uncover her past and recover her life. Sweetheart.

- I loved that Hux was the spy, and not because he cares one wit about the rebellion but just because he really hates Ben. Talk about petty.

- The fact that Palpatine was behind every voice Ben has ever heard means that he manipulated him his whole life just like he manipulated Anakin and now I hate his guts all over again for the same darn thing. Incredibly satisfying to watch him shrivel away. Screw you Palpatine.

- LUKE AND LEIA FLASHBACK. LEIA TRAINING IN THE FORCE AND OWNING A LIGHTSABER. FINALLY.

- Briefly seeing other old characters like Nien Nunb and Wedge Antilles. That kind of thing just makes my day. Also pretty sure I saw Naboo ships in that enormous fleet and I know I’m never getting Padmé back in any shape or form so I’ll take it.

- Seeing Luke’s old home wrecked me. Seeing the binary sunset wrecked me. Luke and Leia’s force Ghosts wrecked me. Rey calling herself a Skywalker wrecked me. That ending wrecked me.

I think I covered most of it which leads me to my verdict:

I understand why this isn’t popular with everybody. A lot of it is completely dependent on personal taste. Luckily for me it actually was very largely to my taste, somehow, which I never would have seen coming because I’m usually so frustrated with recent things in the big franchises like this, and after TLJ I had no trust. But I was pleasantly surprised and actually pretty satisfied. They hit a lot of nostalgia buttons for me, made me care a lot more about the new characters, made me cry a ton, and generally delivered something I could be pleased with. Don’t know how it happened but I really liked this movie and no matter what people feel about it I don’t think it deserves the sheer vitriol it’s received (there’s criticism and then there’s yikes). I thought it was a pretty good movie and I’d watch it again willingly.

[toomanyhobbiesandthisisoneofthem]

I was a preemie, here’s how that affected me, part 2

THIS IS REALLY LONG, JUST KEEP THAT IN MIND

I am not a doctor or any other type of medical professional; a lot of this is just my opinion, and observations of things in my life. The rest is stuff I’ve read on the internet about this sort of thing. If you are interested/curious about what I talk about here after reading my post, feel free to research sensory processing/integration issues on your own time.

Because I was born three months premature, my nervous system wasn’t fully developed. When a baby is taken out of the womb early, everything develops more slowly. I’m not sure why that is, but that’s how it works. It’s common for preemies to have various issues during early childhood relating to the nervous system, which manifests as sensory problems because the brain is still learning how to properly process the sensations its receiving from the nerves.

These sensory issues pretty much resolved themselves once I was an older kid and my nervous system had finished developing. (I no longer freak out when the telephone rings, for instance) However, there are some symptoms which have lingered into adulthood, and some of them do actually affect my life, if only to a small degree.

I’ve also heard this type of thing referred to as Sensory Processing Disorder, or SPD. SPD-related symptoms are common among preemies (which I was/am) or with people on the autism-spectrum (which I am not). However, keep in mind that it is possible to have sensory integration/processing issues without either of these things “causing” it. In fact, I’ve found that most people have at least one or two things that bother them in this way, particularly as children. But having actual SPD mostly applies mainly if you have a significant number of symptoms and/or said symptoms really affect your daily life.

SPD is not considered an official medical diagnosis in and of itself, but it is an actual thing.

I would say I have something close to borderline SPD, because there are quite a few symptoms that I still exhibit, but their effect is not strong enough for me to think I might fully have SPD. Basically, I have SPD tendencies which are above average, but are probably below “diagnosis level” or whatever you want to call it.

Symptoms Mom says I exhibited when I was younger (like, two or three) include:

-Freaking out over sand (apparently I was able to feel every single grain, because my brain didn’t know it was supposed to process it as one sensation rather than many at once.)

-Freaking out when the telephone rang

-Literally climbing up my mother as fast as possible because I saw a leaf blowing across the yard

-Sudden loud noises in general, particularly balloons

-Balance problems (apparently I would randomly fall over sometimes, though this could also have been because i didn’t walk ‘til I was... two and a half or so?)

Symptoms I remember exhibiting once I was a little older (say, 6 or 7) include:

-hyperticklish

-I still hated balloons until I was like 9. Then my brother told me being afraid of noise was stupid and something about that actually clicked, and while I still don’t like balloons, I don’t scream and run away at the slightest indication that they might pop either.

-certain textures in foods bothered me; I remember my mom trying to make me eat certain things and she didn’t realize i was literally trying not to gag while eating it, haha.

-seeking out high-intensity experiences (this includes things like roller coasters. Now, I know it’s normal to like roller coasters, but when a kid likes roller coasters so much they will go on one roller coaster like ten times in a row, only to turn around and go on a different roller coaster ten times in a row, it’s possible that their desire for the thrill of the roller coaster is a little excessive. Even now I love roller coasters, but not with the same intensity where I’ll go on it over and over and over and over again. I might ride one three or four times in a row sometimes, but then I’ll go do something else.)

-I’ve always hated having my hands wet. Unless I’m swimming, but that’s like, the only exception. I like the smell of lotion, but when I use it, I put the tiniest drop possible on my hand because i hate the greasy, slippery feeling it gives me. And even then sometimes it’s too much and I end up trying to wipe my hands off.

Symptoms I still exhibit today include:

-hyperticklish (OH MY GOSH do not tickle me unless you know you have permission from me for it. I only let people tickle me if I trust them not to take it too far. My brothers are allowed to tickle me because they only do it a little bit at a time and recognize when I’m serious about stopping, so they actually make it fun. My nieces and nephews are amused at the fact that my knees are ticklish, and they are usually pretty gentle when we have tickle fights, so I’m okay with them. But I genuinely dread the day when some random person finds out I’m ticklish and decides to act on it, and I hope that day never comes. For a hyperticklish person, tickle fights can be genuinely unpleasant if they’re tickled to hard or too long. When someone so much as pokes me in the side, I literally feel the effects for several minutes afterwards, no exaggeration. Also, my brother is the only one allowed to scratch my back without prior instruction because he knows how hard to scratch without it tickling, haha.)

-going along with the hyperticklish thing, I tend to react very strongly to unexpected touches. Not because it tickles, it just makes me startle badly and I jolt and/or jump. Mom has actually mentioned before that having that kind of reaction usually indicates abuse, and I’m just sitting there like, “...Well I wasn’t ever abused so I really hope no one gets the wrong idea because I can’t help my sensory problems...” Yeah...

-I also still startle pretty strongly at loud noises. Now, I know it’s normal to startle at loud noises, but I startle even when no one else reacts. At all. So.

-honestly I just startle too easily in general, and it’s kind of annoying. :P

-there are still some food textures that bother me, but I’ve grown out of a lot of that. also, it’s possible some of the texture thing actually came from my dad, because he has problems with certain textures too.

-I. DETEST. PRUNY. FINGERS. It’s just... for some people with sensory issues, it is actually painful; that’s not the case with me, but having pruny fingers is really uncomfortable for me. In a non-painful manner. Especially when I go to touch stuff afterwards. The only thing I like touching after having my hands submersed in water for a few minutes is a towel. Touching anything else with pruny fingers just makes me cringe, especially touching my own skin. I will literally go to the point of wearing gloves when doing chores like peeling pears or washing dishes, because i do not want my fingers to prune.

-I actually still randomly fall over sometimes, but it’s pretty rare, and when it happens I am able to correct myself quickly enough that it doesn’t cause a problem. :P

-I don’t like being touched softly. It doesn’t even have to do with being tickled or anything, I just don’t like it when someone like gently touches my arm or brushes my back or something. If you’re gonna touch me, do it firmly. Be solid like a wall, not soft like a feather. :P

There are probably others I can think of, but those are the main ones. :P

If you’re curious about SPD in general, here’s a couple links to some websites that discuss it (idk how links work on here so I’m just gonna copy/paste and hope for the best):

https://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/

http://sinetwork.org/

[kiangreyback]

❝ He tore the beauty from his face, and called it terror. ❞

AVAN JOGIA? No, that’s actually KIAN GREYBACK. A SEVENTH YEAR student, this RAVENCLAW student is sided with THE DEATH EATERS. HE identifies as CISMAN and is a UNKNOWN ( WEREWOLF ) who is known to be CUNNING, TEMPERAMENTAL, and BRUTAL but also RELIABLE, ADROIT, and ADAPTABLE.

links: pinterest

triggers: child abuse, child abandonment, kidnapping, drugs, alcohol

CHILDHOOD.

!! CHILD ABUSE TW, CHILD ABANDONMENT, KIDNAPPING TW !! The most that Kian can remember about his childhood is abandonment. Perhaps the cruelest thing to him was his parents deciding to carry him for nine months, bring him into this world and leave him for it to devour. –And devour it did.  The story is that his parents just didn’t care– they had lives and he wasn’t a part of them. The most they’d done for him is stuff his pockets with a couple galleons and leave him behind in Knockturn Alley ( because who would go around asking ‘who’s kid is this’ there. )

However, he didn’t have to suffer abandonment for very long. Fenrir Greyback had an eye for those who ‘needed’ a pack and knelt down with a hand offered. It came with a price but what wouldn’t Kian give for a home– a family. Perhaps if he could go back he would have refused that offer…only perhaps.

Fenrir was a cruel man..and that was putting it mildly– but Kian wonders if he’d take his own parents over a monster of a man because at least he’d given him a home. ( Not that home meant comfort but it did, eventually, mean FAMILY. )

His ‘father’ was hard on him. He was pushed to his breaking point again and again. He was taught how to endure cruelty, how to get his vengeance, to bleed but not be weakened by it. The lessons were vicious – but in Kian’s eyes necessary. He adapted well, fought until he couldn’t catch his breath and held up his siblings when it was their turn. Even though he was scared, Kian would approach everything in control– because that’s what he was taught. His ability to look Fenrir in the eyes and say NO earned him the most hated and most favoured spot in ragtag group of his siblings. ( standing up to his father only had a punishment at the end– though it seemed as if Kian had made his own mark with his stubbornness. ) Get knocked down, you get back up and you swing.  !! End TW !!

SCHOOL DAYS.

Kian was sorted into Ravenclaw. A strange house for someone who’d seem more fit for Gryffindor or Slytherin. But it came down to his cleverness and craftmanship that stuck him in with the eagles. He was smart– or rather a smartass – found unconventional solutions to problems and had a cunning way of adapting to even the worst of conditions.

He isn’t very popular with the others in his house or year– a little bit of an outcast because who doesn’t know that GREYBACK is synonym for WEREWOLF. HE tended to be a target for the upperclass peers to dig into when they were feeling bored. Though it ended with someone hexed or cursed or sporting a split lip or broken nose. But such was his life and he wasn’t too bothered by it. –As he grew older and stronger and word got back to those scaredy-cat pureblood parents that it was a Greyback throwing said spell/fist– things quickly quietened down for fear of retaliation from Fenrir. ( Not that the bastard actually cared but it’s the… thought that counts.)

HE doesn’t really spend time in clubs or extracurricular as he feels it’s a waste of time. Besides he has one band of dumbasses he doesn’t need to join any others. However, he did pick up quidditch from an early age and was quite a talented flier. His postion is naturally a beater– though he’s not fond of being led by a weasley.

His grades are above average and had once been considered for the position of prefect because of them but ultimately wasn’t offered it because of the fights he’d been involved with. smart but not friendly nor helpful enough.

OTHER STUFF.

Uhm, he doesn’t believe in all this ‘purebloods are superior’ shit. He’s just mostly here for the fight– at least that’s what he believes his ‘father’ is in it for because Merlin knows they aren’t fucking purebloods no matter how you spin it. There’s no money. No real parents. No hoity-toity clothes. No nose so far up his own ass. – IN fact i think he believes the Purebloods are a disgrace and can’t hold their own and that’s why people like him have to fight their battles. ( He doesn’t really voice this but he definitely thinks it even if it isn’t particularly true— just he’s real dumb? arrogant? idk? about this mess of a war )

He’s actually quite calm??? ( I KNOW?? WHAT?? ) He doesn’t mess with others unless he’s messed with and he tends to keep to himself. Kian isn’t out there being a social butterfly because he really doesn’t fucking care what you do or say or whatever. Life is dumb as hell, in his opinion, and he thinks dealing with his own is enough without someone elses involved. HOWEVER, if he is messed with this boy is gonna throw down. LIke he’s gonna go for the throat because that’s how he was raised. It’s either you or them there is no BOTH.

with that ^ said— he does have friends ( hallo plots ). he can be quite charming if he puts in the effort and perhaps his ‘life sucks, do what u want’ attitude tends to draw in people who may need stress relief from the war or you know normal things like last nights essay.

!! DRUGS TW, ALCOHOL TW !! Kian does smoke. Cigarettes and pot– never been one for anything harder than that. If he really wants to let go he’s out here for a couple rounds of firewhiskey. This is probably to the best way to see his true personality.   !! END TW !!

Loyalty is important to him ( though he isn’t past using it as a toss-around word for the DEs because he just really doesnt give a single fuck about them ). His lays with his siblings– though not biological he is very protective of his sisters but not enough to stand in the way of danger for them ( unless lethal. he will definitely step in ) After all they should know how to survive by now ANYWAYS. ( okay he does step in more often than that ;) a pack is a pack. )

There is some light at the end of the tunnel with him. He is quite funny when he wants to be– he can have a laugh and smile ( no, i mean an actual smile ) but it seems to be reserved for those he can trust and let down that massive guard he has up.

MORE RANDOM THINGS.

Probably would love baseball in the muggle world.

The name Kian was given to him due to that being the first word he spoke to Greyback. ( OR at least that’s what Fenrir believes he said ). Kian would be the name his father had and somehow it had stuck in his mind. ‘Why are you out here all alone?’ ‘Kian.’ SOOOOOOO he has no idea that’s his real father’s name….but yeno I guess you do get some things from your parents ha.

He doesn’t really remember anything about his birth parents. He only remembers Greyback. Greyback is gross and likes to hold things over your head so -- his parents leaving him is something that is usually brought up in order to take kian down a notch-- though it doesnt work how Greyback anticipates.

Doesn’t really have an opinion on being a werewolf other than it’s time consuming and therefor irritating to deal with. Pain is pain. Its an inconvience he wishes he could cure but not one that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to cure it, if u get me.

His favorite food is probably something dumb like mashed potatoes with gravy or roasted chicken with cous cous. – Favorite drink would be something equally simple like apple juice. Basically the palate of a two year old. Meaning he’s also here for things like lollies and popcicles, general summer time sweet treats. Not much for hot drinks like coffee or tea tho..go figure.

He has SEVERAL tattoos…..and  none of them really mean anything? They are mostly just  a series of lines/designs/patterns that he doodles on his parchments and, you know, since Papa Greyback don’t care about anything except himself this boy’s been getting them since summer before sixth year.

Tends to favour clothes that are flowy or breezy. Oranges and reds…blacks and whites mostly when outside of uniform. Doesn’t mind tighter jeans but the shirts gotta be flowy.

He cuts his hair every so often. Like real short then lets it grow out…currently like mid-length and usually pulled up out of his face either in a pony or half-up-half-down.

PRetty damn good at wizard’s chess ( eat your heart out ron weasley! ) and most anything that requires quick-strategy. He’s pretty good at figuring out the other’s intention which leads to a win.

He does draw– not anything too complicated but enough to know he has a mediocre talent in it? ( ie. his tattoos/doodles. )

His favorite classes are probably transfig, charms and probably astronomy. Most hated is herbology, comc, divinations and History or studies of anything.

UMM VERY UNSURE of what he’s gonna do when he graduates?? He doesn’t really have a certain goal for right now but….hopefully he can figure it out before the end of the semester tbh.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

Best Friends. I SAID IT!!! i know i mentioned lone wolf but listen-- he needs a bestie or two  to fuck things up with or at least someone to treat him like he isn’t just, yeno, a wolf.

‘Bullies’.  This tech could be any blood status but i think, particularly, purebloods would be fun for this. basically when they were younger they picked at him for assorted reasons and eventually told to leave him alone by his parents because of Fenrir Greyback. Probably holds resentment to him because of that. also probably still takes abs at him. --kian being on the edge of chilling and ready to throw a curse at you, some could be fun enemies and/or frenemies at this point.

Hookups. basically fun hookups, angsty hookups, any genders. there isn’t a particular reason just that he likes to hookup -- this is probably something that is just physical. he’s not emotionally available and most likely doesn’t know how to be.

That ONE Person. you know that quote? ‘When is a monster not a monster? oh when you love it.’ I think it’d be nice to have someone that treats him softly-- on equal grounds. Like not scared of him or not here to make fun of him but to be gentle towards him. LIKE YOU KNOW the ones taht are saying ‘well your feelings are important. you are important. you aren’t trash’ ( even tho he is trash sometimes lmao )

Qudditch Buddies. Kian is usually abrassive but when it comes to this sport he is probably the only one in the school with good sportsmanship. he doesn’t care if they win or lose ( he still plays well though he’s not lazyyyy ) he’s just there to have a good time!! I think that’d make him quite likable on the pitch-- probably, as funny as this sounds, a breath of fresh air.

[mathematicalghost]

celeste, anxiety, and me

A couple of notable things happened this week:

I started 428 Shibuya Scramble on PC

I finally dusted off my Twitch account to stream for the first time in months

I finished Celeste

And, most frustratingly, I had an anxiety attack.

I don’t really talk about my anxiety all that much, or at least not nearly as much as I should. I got diagnosed with it in the height of my GCSE’s, so absolutely no prizes for guessing exactly what flared it up. I didn’t really do much about it in a medical sense - I never took medication, saw a therapist, or really had much interaction with a healthcare professional at all after a diagnoses. I just… lived with it. There were a whole list of very clear triggers for it, and I worked through them and figured out how to cope using mechanisms that were both good for me and uh, less good (if you’ve ever seen me at an all day event where I’m new to the building layout, I am almost definitely dehydrated). The laundry list got smaller, and I claimed I “stopped” having anxiety just before I went to university. Hrm. It didn’t quite work out that way.

Let me jump back to Celeste really quickly, because I’m not just unloading all my trauma onto an unsuspecting reader without a reason for it (I swear!). So, I really enjoyed Celeste - evident by the fact I bothered to actually finish it, a rare feat that is becoming increasingly less rare as my free time is now more predictable and less guilt-wracked from education. It took me a little under 18 hours to complete, although this doesn’t include any strawberry collecting, I don’t have all the B-sides (I haven’t played the B-sides levels yet either), the Crystal Hearts-based level is currently locked off to me, and includes the fact I made liberal use of the Assist Mode function. I’d imagine if you were any better at platformers than I am, it’d probably take 12 hours or so to do a single run, but equally if I went for an actual completion run I’d still have a good extra 30 hours left to me in this game. I’m still pretty new to short platformer games, spending my time caught up in RPGs that all my friends played and not realising how little I actually care for that style of gameplay, but Celeste was so addictive to me just because I could play in the stolen chunks of time I’d find on the bus to work. It definitely made me more alert when I’d get into the offices in the morning - nothing like a good bit of frustrating gameplay to get your brain going in the morning, I guess.

Celeste is such an easy game to recommend because there’s already so many people raving about it - I don’t need to rehash why the gameplay or music is so good when there's plenty of work out there already explaining it. I loved how the Strawberries held no actual mechanical weight to them other than “idk if you want to I guess”. I loved the mini rhythm levels to achieve the B-side cassettes. I loved the Assist Mode, where I could add an extra dash or switch on invincibility when my hand started to hurt and the thrill of the challenge was replaced by pure frustration. And, above all, it’s pinned by the most amazing story.

So, the basic premise is that Madeline decides to hike up Celeste Mountain. She’s not much of a mountain climber, or any kind of climber at all really, but the mountain calls to her in an inexplicable way. She has to prove herself, prove that she’s able to do something. Madeline is pretty open about the fact she has depression, and the Mountain exploits this to split the depression “Part of [Madeline]” into a ghoul. She looks like Madeline in every way except that she’s purple, floats, and is constantly trying to kill Madeline. At times, she’ll even sabotage Madeline’s relationship with other people, causing them to to turn on Madeline, too.

Part of what really struck me about Madeline’s story is the fact that the depression ghost didn’t actually hit her at first. She’s nervous, sure, but she actually gets part way up the summit before this ghost even appears. She doesn’t have her first panic attack until long after the ghost has established herself as a nuisance, and it crops up even when danger doesn’t seem to be around (such as at a campfire). It takes different forms at times, and affects people differently (Mr Oshiro and Theo both have times when their own demons affect them, and it’s not the same as Madeline’s ghoul). It mirrors my own experience with anxiety, especially as it moves to the final chapters.

So, back to me, I guess. If Madeline’s depression looks like a ghoul version of herself, floating menacingly and pushing through outbursts, then I’ve always described my anxiety as an overtired toddler. The main wave of anxiety has passed now (Anxiety attacks for me can last between three days and, during a particularly bad February of this year, three and a half weeks), but I think the main thing to trigger it was a stomach ache I had on Wednesday. If you’re thinking it doesn’t make sense, then try asking a screaming two year old why they’re crying and deciphering their nonsensical string of an answer. Maybe there was something deeper to the anxiety than a stomach ache, but that doesn’t mean I can articulate it to anybody else, least of all myself.

Anxiety attacks are slightly different to panic attacks in that they can last longer, and don’t always have an obvious external symptom like hyperventilating. For me, I was in a loop of nausea, irritability, fighting back the consistent urge to cry, and heart palpitations. I didn’t quite hyperventilate, but I was breathless at the height of it, manifesting as a cough as my body fought to breathe. All of these symptoms made me tired, which made me anxious, because I get anxious when I’m tired, which made me more tired, which made me anxious, and so on and so forth. Stomach pains and nausea make me anxious too, because I don’t know if I’ll be sick, which also in turn make me more anxious, and get me trapped into a building cycle of pure dread. Three and a half weeks of it wasn’t exactly the best way to spend my February of this year, and it certainly wasn’t my chosen method of experiencing the past week.

Madeline asks her ghoul at one point why she’s being attacked. Surely, if Madeline’s fear is that she’ll get hurt on the mountain, why is her ghoul trying to kill her? Much in the same way I wonder why I’m getting anxious over nausea if it’s only a symptom of the anxiety in the first place, the ghoul isn’t on the mountain to follow logical reasoning. Theo tells Madeline that she’ll only get hurt if she tries to help Mr Oshiro more, and that her existence on the mountain is already a proof of achievement. And yet, Madeline is determined to stay in the resort (to my Switch left joycon’s horror) to help him regardless of whether or not he is grateful. I do things to prove something to myself long after it’s necessary, even if I know I’ll pay the price with my mental health later. We do things that aren’t always objectively logical because ghouls, and toddlers, and crystals, and weird Mario-esque ghosts, aren’t always things you can objectively reason with.

Initially, Madeline tries to swallow her fears and just climb. To ignore the ghoul she saw in the cracked mirror. Further up Celeste Mountain, Madeline concludes that she needs to destroy her ghoul. She needs to get rid of the “Part of [Madeline]” that seeks to hurt her. Then later, finally, Madeline realises she needs to talk to the ghoul. To embrace it and utilise it.

I once was deep in an anxiety attack when I went to a fencing match. By mistake, I’d had too many coffees that morning and the combined caffeine and anxiety pretty much clipped me through the sky and into another plane of existence. We won the match, and in turn I figured out that if I move more in a match, I get more points. Was it healthy in the moment? Absolutely not. But I doubt jumping into an abyss and hoping your ghoul is going to throw you the rest of the way is that healthy either. But you can take from it and learn.

Ignoring my symptoms of anxiety didn’t help at all. Avoiding all sources of my triggers helped a little, but not that much either. Recognising when I’m having an anxiety attack, managing the symptoms, and letting it pass like a wave works so much better. It’s only my second anxiety attack of the year, but if I get a third one I know what I need to do to get through it.

I’m not going to climb a mountain to prove I can do this, but I’m glad I followed Madeline on her journey as she did.

[deanwithscissors]

Why we wanting to not feel... What are we avoiding feeling? #goingDeepAnon

just life y’know

i’ve struggled with mental health for 15 years, i’ve been in really dark places but in 2019 so much changed for the better; i moved into my own house with my long term partner in a new town (getting away from my hometown where all my trauma had occurred) and got my very first job!

i finally had the fresh start i was so desperate for and it was so great…

but my supervisor is such a horrible nasty woman, she makes me hate going to work when i absolutely thrive being left alone to do my job. i can’t do anything alll day at home because of the anxiety and stress of knowing i have to interact with her (i start work at 3pm) and when i’m anxious/stressed that triggers my bad coping mechanisms (sh, ed, shutting down/hiding from the world) which makes every single minute of the day a chore, which is why i can’t do anything. the whole vicious cycle thing

i’m stuck in this place of leaving, what to me is the perfect job; i’m a cleaner in a primary school so it’s nonstop go go go for the full shift, which is excellent to stop my brain from thinking and i can literally see the school from my house, it’s the perfect location, perfect job, everyone is so bloody wonderful besides her

or, staying and putting up with her shit. going above probably won’t do anything, fellow coworkers have called our boss and the supervisor changes for a week then straight back to being her standoffish self like a switch, plus i hate confrontation so the thought of going above and then having to go into work to face her is one of my worst nightmares

i’ve fought so hard and through so much to have what i do and to be alive past 25, which i never thought possible from the age of 15. i hate that one person who shouldn’t have any real affect on me is basically dictating my life and i’m such a sensitive person that i can’t just push it aside and ‘go to work, do my job and go home’

and it’s not just me, she’s like that with everyone. no one likes her and the amount of staff changes at that school is unreal and it’s because of the supervisor which is why it’s like, what’s the point going above she’s been there 22 years and people constantly leave because of her, they won’t do anything now, she’s closing in on retirement. i just need to wait her out

lol and hope the next supervisor isn’t a bitch💀 but i guess i’ll deal with that if it comes

besides that, i lost both my grandparents in the past few years. my first real losses (other than a pet), i have a small family so it’s just me, my mum and her brother that’s left. my grandad was like my dad since i never had one and he was supposed to walk me down the isle which even tho i don’t care for getting married, idk, i just wanted it to be him to do it. this time of year i spent with them so yeah that’s not the same

my neighbour come to the door yesterday too to say his wife passed the night before. they were an elderly couple and so sweet, i literally just seen her out and about, driving the car ffs and she’s gone. i wasn’t particularly close with them but with their age and when i did speak to them it reminds me of my grandparents too

also it’s nye and i’m struggling to keep down a packet of crisps (feeling ill, not ed) although i don’t really fancy bringing in a new year anyway tbh, so🤷🏼‍♀️

lol idk if you’ll even bother reading all this, didn’t mean to offload so much haha. thanks for asking tho💙

[theragamuffininitiative]

Tagged!

@dearponty tagged me in this one, thanks friend! ^_^

@notatypicaldimension, @thisbibliomaniac, @crazytwist09, @party-with-books, @enchantedblackforest, @mariposamonarch (if you wonderful peoples want to. And even if I didn’t tag you, feel free! That’s a constant rule on this blog. :) )

— what was your last…

1. drink: orange juice

2. phone call: My mom or my grandmother.

3. text message: My sister-in-law.

4. song you listened to: "He’s Not Here!” from !Hero

5. time you cried: It’s been a little while. I’ve gotten teary over a lot of beautiful things especially over Easter, and I got pretty upset over something dumb that made me want to cry in anger, but I haven’t actually cried in a bit.

— have you ever…

6. dated someone twice: Nope

7. kissed someone and regretted it: Nada

8. been cheated on: Negatory

9. lost someone special: Yes.

10. been depressed: Yup.

11. gotten drunk and thrown up: Nope-aroo.

— fave colours

12. Purple

13. Navy + assorted blues

14. Peach/Coral <<same as Ponty

— in the last year have you…

15. made new friends: Yesss. Love them. ^_^

16. fallen out of love: You have to first be in love for this one, right? XD

17. laughed until you cried: Yeahhh lol

18. found out someone was talking about you: Yes but so far not in a bad way?

19. met someone who changed you: I think everyone you meet changes you, but yeah I can think of a good few.

20. found out who your friends are: I love how this assumes we all constantly get ourselves embroiled in toxic relationships we have to discover aren’t true. Like, I am way too cautious in initiating relationships for that. It may happen, but not yet. I’ve got good friends and I love them.

21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list: Ew. No.

— general

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl: Most all of them, but most of them not very well.

23. do you have any pets: I MISS MY PUPPER AND MY KITTEHS. Technically I have a godchild cat...or niece cat...something like that. She’s a percentage mine. XD

24. do you want to change your name: Nah.

25. what did you do for your last birthday: I spent time with family, spread out over a couple days and tbh I kinda don’t remember a whole lot. I think I watched a movie, my fam made me dinner and there were sweet cards and gifts. ^_^

26. what time did you wake up today: 9 am. I stayed up late last night. XD

27. what were you doing at midnight last night: Watching !Hero: the Rock Opera, and also getting distracted not watching !Hero.

28. what is something you can’t wait for: This askjdlgs episode of Supergirl - alternatively, “Jeremy Jordan returning to Broadway.” Also, getting to see The Lion King in about a month. !!!

30. what are you listening to right now: Traffic outside my apartment. Birds in the courtyard. Occasionally my neighbor moving around upstairs.

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom: Yup. A couple Thomases, and I worked with a Tom previously, and work with a much nicer Tom now.

32. something that’s getting on your nerves: Supergirl’s deeply flawed existence is a constant mood, and I’m having frustrations with a relationship that I don’t know how to solve. :/

33. most visited website: Youtube and Tumblr are probably about equal.

34. hair colour: Hehe wouldn’t you like to know. <<I second Ponty. ;) ;)

35. long or short hair: Longish. Thinking about getting it cut, but idk how short.

36. do you have a crush on someone: I get friend crushes a lot. Like I fall hopelessly in love with somebody, but not in a romantic way, just in a “I want to hang out with you and do dumb fun stuff together because you seem so cool” sort of way.

37. what do you like about yourself: I always seem to answer these the same way, but whatever? I like my (semi dormant?? ha) creativity, and that I’m usually a pretty patient, forgiving person. That might sound weird, or bragging, but it’s not something that comes without practice, so I think it’s okay for me to like/be proud of that.

38. want any piercings: I’ve been saying I should get my ears pierced for like ten years now.

39. blood type: I honestly have no idea, why don’t they give you this information when you get a copy of your birth certificate, or have a check-up? Seems kinda important. XD

40. nicknames: Here? “Rags” and many variations thereof. I also have a lot of nicknames irl but a lot of them have kind of petered out of usage.

41. relationship status: Single pringleeeeee.

42. sign: Aquarius I think but it has no relevance so.

43. pronouns: she/her

44. fave tv show: Fringe or White Collar or Psych maybe.

45. tattoos: I don’t have any, but if I ever got one, it’d be Needtobreathe lyrics.

46. right or left handed: Right. Which is funny because in the artistic circles I run in, I’ve often been the odd one out. XD

47. ever had surgery: I split my head open once. That explains a lot. ;)

48. piercings: Noooone

49. sport: BASEBALL

50. vacation: NYC (literally just to see shows) or the mountains somewhere or Europe, particularly Edinburgh and London. And anywhere honestly on the East coast of this country, because it’s so rich in history.

51. trainers: Shoes, right? Or people who have trained me?? I’m confused. I buy from Payless. I like Converse but who can afford them. XD I’d rather wear something sensible but stylish anyway, and the one shoe I actually care about is Oxfords. I want me a pair of Oxfords.

— more general

52. eating: I am so hungry. I’m going to swing by a cafe and eat because I have a freebie there. But generally, I love pasta and pizza and eggs and toast for breakfast. And fruit.

53. drinking: Water, tea, orange juice, Pepsi.

54. I’m about to watch: I have a bunch of things in my Youtube “watch later” list, including some talks by Jason Robert Brown. Oh! I’m going to rewatch Doctor Strange with some of my favorite peeps tonight. ^_^

55. waiting for: “Schott Through the Heart” and Lion King again. Also, the lunch rush to pass before I go to the cafe.

56. want: Actual furniture in my bedroom. It’s beginning to bother me. I just want a little desk, a little shelf, and a little nightstand like thing. I can wait longer for a proper bed.

57. get married: Maybe someday. I’m not seeking it out right now. :)

58. career: I’ve just started my first job in a theater, and though it’s not with the production process itself, I am loving it, and hoping to move backstage sometime soon. I want to have a career in theater, probably as a writer or at least writing scripts/novels on the side.

— which is better

59. hugs or kisses: hugs

60. lips or eyes: eyes

61. shorter or taller: shorter?

62. older or younger: older?

63. nice arms or stomach: ?? what kind of a. Smile. Nice smile is 100% the most attractive thing.

64. hookup or relationships: relationships. 100%. <<amen

65. troublemaker or hesitant: In a relationship?? Hesitant, I guess, if it means they/you are being careful and serious.

— have you ever

66. kissed a stranger: Nope

67. drank hard liquor: No why would i put myself through that miserable experience lol <<<saaaaame

68. turned someone down: A couple of times.

69. sex on first date: no

70: broken someone’s heart: Doubtful.

71. had your heart broken: Nope.

72. been arrested: Ha. No.

73. cried when someone died: Yes.

74. fallen for a friend: Again, no. Although idealistically that’s a cool way to go. :)

— do you believe in

75. yourself: To a healthy extent, I think. I believe in other things more, but I definitely believe in what I ought to be doing and how I have to work to do. I’ve gained a lot of self-confidence in the past four years, kind of a totally different person now - thank heaven.

76. miracles: I see them all the time.

77. love at first sight: Ish? Appreciation/attraction/clicking immediately can happen, and that can grow into love.

78. santa claus: He exists in every way that counts.

79. angels: Yes.

— misc

80. eye colour: Wouldn’t you like to knoooooow. ;) Idk, it’s probably in another tag/ask post I’ve done on here somewhere lol.

81. best friend’s name: I don’t know that I have one exact best friend rn. There are a handful of individuals I am super close to, and people I know I can tell anything to, and people I just love to hang out with, and I always want to make them happy. <3

82. favourite movie: Newsies Live. It counts, and I know for a fact I have watched it more than any other movie so there.

83. favourite actor: Jeremy Jordan. (woooooowwwww shooockkkerrrrrr)

84. favourite cartoon: Tangled: the Series, and Trollhunters. (Those count, right?) I didn’t watch a lot of traditional cartoons growing up. Just Disney movies.

85. favourite teacher’s name: If I say anyone other than my amazing mother who homeschooled me and my siblings, I’d have to say: Clint. He taught me how to play guitar, and he was pretty fantastic as a role model too. I loved being his student, even if I was too withdrawn at the time to properly take advantage of it or show my appreciation for him.

[littledonkeyburrito]

So Unclean

1. Quick! Chinese or Mexican? Both!

2. How many significant others have you had in your WHOLE life? I don’t think any of them would count as “significant”

3. I have to ask: What does the last message you received say? “I saw the corpse touching party photo again”

4. How about the last message you sent? *laughing face emoji*

5. Have you shared any kisses today? No.

6. Did the last person you kissed have soft lips, or were they kind of crusty? Soft. Can I just say that “crusty” is like the worst possible adjective you could have used.

7. Do you think your life will be any different a year from now? Yeah because I’ll probably be in Australia and working and stuff

8. What is in your wallet? My licence, bank card, health insurance card, metro ticket and I think about 30 euro 

9. Have you ever been in a fist fight? 11 years of martial arts will do that to you

10. When was the last time you went to the doctor? Back when I got my yellow fever shot in august

11. Are you going out of town anytime soon? I'm going back to australia in 2 weeks. There was talk of a family friend maybe paying for me to visit her in london next week but idk what’s happening with that.

12. Do you hate your ex? There is one I dislike, the rest are fine.

13. When are you going to get a haircut? When I’m back in Australia

14. Can you fit your hand around your wrist? Yes

15. When was the last time you applied chapstick? A couple of hours ago. Need to put more on though. Winter is a bitch for cracked lips. I swear I have to drink like 10 litres of water to stop them drying out

16. Are you a coffee person or a tea person? Neither, but if I have to choose, then tea.

17. When’s the last time you had a phone conversation for more than ten minutes? Does a voice call on google hangout count? If yes, then today with Maggie and Patrick while we played The Elder Scrolls

18. All the people you’ve kissed, what did their names start with? God, I’ll just list the letters in alphabetical I guess: A, B, C, D, E, I, J, M, N, R, Z Most of those letters are multiple people though. Surprisingly there are two Z’s and neither of them are a name you expect.

19. What did you and your ex fight about most? I have never had anything last long enough for fights.

20. Don’t you love long hugs? Generally, no. But if they’re from certain people, yes.

21. And long kisses? Sure, why not

22. Have you ever purchased condoms? Yes

23. Do you have a dirty mind? My mind is So Unclean.

24. Do you check the mail everyday, or somebody else? Nah I never get post here so I only check like once a week.

25. Did you think braces were cool when you were little? I don’t recall ever having an opinion

26. Put your iTunes on shuffle RIGHT NOW and tell me the first song it plays. I can’t be bothered waiting for itunes to open but I can tell you that I currently have “La Raza Es La Pura Raza” by Molotov currently playing youtube.

27. What is the last song you added to your iTunes library? That would have been an album by Alvaro Soler. But I’m going to put a bunch of new songs on there soon before my flight back to aus

28. Are you embarrassed by any of the songs in your iTunes? Not really. I have no shame.

29. When was the last time you were sick? No idea but I’ll probably get a cold from the 26 hours of flying I’ll be doing soon.

30. Who was your Valentine this year? Nobody

31. When did you first kiss the last person you kissed? September

32. And when did you last kiss the last person you kissed? October

33. Did you borrow that shirt from somebody? No

34. What was the last thing you put in your mouth? Dark chocolate with almonds

35. Do you like to swim? I used to hate it because long hair took forever to dry. Now I don’t mind but I don’t actively try to go swimming often.

36. How many vacations have you been on in the past year? Oh My God so many this year has been awesome. And since I’ve been living in spain the whole time I guess it’s basically been a year long vacation.

37. Have you ever gone on vacation with your boyfriend/girlfriend? No

38. Do you have to wake up early tomorrow? No but I might anyway because I barely slept last night and I’m going to bed after I finish this quiz.

39. When you put an album into your iTunes, do you delete all of the songs that you dislike, or do you prefer to keep the complete album in your library, and why? I keep the whole album. But I have playlists of my favourite songs.

40. How often do you get confused about someone’s tone through the internet or texting? (For example, taking something serious that was intended to be taken sarcastically?) Not often. My friends and I get each other pretty well and if we can’t understand the tone we just ask.

41. What was your most awkward sexual experience? (If you don’t have one/are too embarrassed to share, what is the funniest sex story you’ve heard?) I don’t think I really have any funny or awkward stories. The most amusing one for me was fooling around in the back of his car and ducking every time another car drove past and him saying that if anyone looked in they’d only see me because I’m so pasty I pretty much glow in the dark.

42. Have you ever called in and won a radio contest, and, if so, what was it, and what’d you win? No but this reminds me that when I was a kid I won an easter colouring competition and my prize was a 3kg chocolate bunny which my dad smashed up with a hammer and put all the pieces in a cooler and then most of it was eaten by him and my brother. Although in fairness to my brother he did trade me a stuffed monkey toy for half the chocolate.

43. If you’ve used pads, do you prefer them with or without wings and why? What kind of sadistic fuck uses pads without wings? Fun fact: pads are the reason I know the spanish word for “wing”

44. Who was the last person you had actual sex with in a dream? I think I had a sex dream about my ex recently

45. If you went to a bookstore, what section would you most likely end up at? The exit, tbh. I’m not a big reader.

46. What is in your left pocket? There is nothing in any of my pockets

45. How much alcohol did you have this weekend? I think I had 2 beers on Friday night

46. Do you eat gas station food? Pies.

47. What color underwear do you have on? White and blue speckled

48. Do you sit or stand in the shower? Stand, unless I’m particularly tired or I’m feeling sick. Sitting under the shower is a really effective method of stopping nausea for me.

49. Where were you born? UK

50. Where do you work? Or go to school? Or are you a bum? Currently a total bum but soon will be back working in security

51. What do you want to be when you grow up? Who the fuck even knows. I’m open to suggestions if you wanna throw some at me

52. When did you join Facebook? Why? 2008 because all my friends had facebook. I think I got myspace then too.

53. Do you like to cuddle? Only with sexual partners.

54. Do you believe that the last person that you kissed cares for you? Don’t know. Maybe a little?

55. How long does it take you to fall asleep at night? Lately, so fucking long. Like, 4 hours.

56. Do you prefer to take your showers at night or in the morning? Morning because I’m a sweaty sleeper.

57. Is there a night you would like to repeat and allow it to live on forever? Yeah, there is one night that comes to mind

58. Name a person whose name starts with the letter M. Me, Maddie

59. Do you eat ranch with your pizza? I am but a simple australian and I’m not even entirely sure what ranch dressing is

60. Is there a place that you wish you could visit? So many

61. Do you believe that this weekend will be a good one for you? Depends if I do actually end up going to London

62. Is there anyone that is jealous of you or anything that you have? I hope so. People’s jealousy of my travel kinda fuels me tbh

63. Have you told anyone that you missed them lately? Yeah I told my mama I miss her

64. Why will/won’t you and your ex get back together? We probably will when I’m back in australia. We’ve already agreed to catch up once I’m back.

65. Have you ever kissed anyone while driving? No, that sounds dangerous

66. Think of the last person you kissed. Have you ever kissed them on a bed or a couch? Yes and no I don’t think we ever kissed on a couch. It was mostly in hotel rooms so I don’t think there were any couches

67. Is your best friend single? Yeah

68. What are you going to be doing later? Sleeping hopefully. I’m so tired

69. The last kind of lotion you used, what does it smell like? Probably like lotion with argon oil. Y’know because that’s what it was.

70. Have you hung out with any guys recently? I have not physically hung out with anyone for a long time. 

71. Can you go a whole day without drinking any pop or eating any sweets? Yeah, that’s not uncommon. I’ve kinda surprised myself by how unintentionally healthy my diet has gotten this past year. Like, I eat a ton of vegetables every day and drink mostly water, milk and orange juice. And I started eating eggs for some protein too.

72. Who’s the weirdest teacher at your school? There was a teacher at my highschool called (I think) Mr. Moore. He was always powerwalking and/or spilling his coffee. He was just.. hell I don’t even know how to describe him but I guess he was like a human version of a hyperactive vibration. I’m sure that makes absolutely no sense but that’s all I think to say

73. How old were you when you learned how to ride a bike? 5 or 6

74. Who do you talk to first when you’re upset? Mum or Maggie

75. Do you have nightmares often? Not proper nightmares but my dreams are often quite anxious

76. Do you think you could be with someone for over four years? No idea.

77. Were you happy when you woke up today? No, I just wanted to go back to sleep. I only got like 3 or 4 hours sleep.

78. What are you thinking about right now? Which surburbs in Brisbane I should look for apartments in

79. Are you wearing jeans, shorts, or sweats? Jeans

80. Would you live with someone without marrying them? Yes. I wouldn’t marry someone if I hadn’t lived with them for a while first

81. When is the last time you really laughed? When I read that story about communion with the life size bread jesus earlier

82. Have you ever skipped school because you were tired? Not school but I skipped uni lectures a lot

83. What was the last thing you had to drink? Water.

84. Your most recent ex needs you at 3 AM, do you go? Depends what he needs me for, but probably 85. Would you rather kiss someone 5 years older or 5 year younger? 5 years older. Five younger is like 18 and hell nah I’m not going to kiss an 18yo kid.

86. Do you like your parents? Yeah they're pretty awesome as far as parents go. My Ma especially is just a fucking awesome lady, I know it sounds cliche but she is genuinely one of my best friends.

87. Do you make smart decisions? Usually but I have been known to fuck it up every now and then, usually with money stuff.

88. Would you consider yourself tall? No. I can’t use the top 2 shelves of my fridge.

89. Have you answered all of these questions honestly so far? why would I lie?

90. Have you ever lived in a house with a basement? I don’t think so

91. What woke you up this morning? My alarm

92. How many hours of sleep did you get last night? 3 or 4

93. Anybody tell you they miss you lately? When I told Ma I miss her she said she misses me too

94. Have you ever kissed someone who was high? Yeah

95. What were you doing at 4am this morning? I’ll tell what I wasn’t fucking doing was sleeping even though I’d already been in bed for 3 hours.

96. Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed? Well he’s in Costa Rica so the physical distance would make it a little more difficult.

97. What time is it right now? 10:23pm

98. Have you ever been led on? I wouldn’t even notice, I am so oblivious to that stuff

99. Do you know a secret about your ex and if he/she pisses you off, will you tell? No

100. Are you excited about anything today? I’m getting kinda pumped to start looking at apartments back in Brisbane. I really like looking at rental apartments. That’s why I always offer to help my friends find a place.

101. Do people ever call you by your last name? Actually yeah there’s one guy at work that calls me by my last name but he’s gonna get confused once I’m back because my brother works there too now.

102. Have you ever gone camping? I used to spend a couple of nights with my aunt and uncle every year when they went camping over the christmas break

103. Would you sleep with the last person who Facebook messaged you? Probs not

104. When’s the next time you will consume alcohol? Whenever I buy beer next, probably within the next week