#it's interesting how grief hits you sometimes in ways you don't expect

[goldpilot22]

yesterday I watched the first 3 episodes of princess tutu with some friends. very good show, wasn't expecting it to be so... emotionally heavy ig? but in a good way. the 3rd episode really hit me hard, I had to stop after that and just cry for a while.

[nolita-fairytale]

try a little tenderness | carmen 'carmy' berzatto x fem!reader one shot

summary: on the anniversary of mikey's death, you help carmy find a way to grieve. (set in the make my heart surrender universe, but can be read as a standalone piece)

warnings: swearing, grief, mild angst, mentions of death & suicide, second person pov, no use of y/n

wc: 2.3k

a/n: i wrote this as a way to process my own grief over the loss of a close friend to suicide. i fell so deeply in love with 'the bear' because i saw myself in so many of these characters: how they responded to losing mikey, the nature of the loss, and the ways they fought their grief. i see so much of myself in carmy in the show and this ended up being really cathartic to write, even though it's been three years now. anyways, heavy shit ahead so don't feel obligated to read but thank you if you do.

(banner made by @allthefandomstogether)

Grief is a funny thing. 

For Carmy, most days it’s something easy to ignore – like an old friend that he’s managed to cut out of his day to day. He’s stopped calling, stopped picking up the phone, eliminated any and all thought about this thing that feels so foreign yet, so familiar at the same time. 

But now he has you – and he’s never been able to bullshit you for shit. Some days, he feels like you see right through him. He knows he’s been irritable, short, impatient at the restaurant (and sometimes at home too). It’s something you handle better than he expected – better than he thinks he deserves. 

“Honey, can we take a pause from this conversation? I just don’t think either of us are in the right headspace,” you’d asked him the other day when he’d tried to pick a fight with you. Completely caught off guard, Carmy had stared at you blankly in response, as if you’d suggested you both run naked down the street.

“If you wanna fight, we can fight. I just… don’t think this is what you’re upset about,” you’d explained, before slipping into the bedroom with the book you were halfway through. 

And today, after he’d tried to pick another fight with you, you’d stopped him again, like a tornado hitting an immovable wall. 

“Carmy, I’m not going to fight you about the dishes,” you’d sighed, shooting him a sympathetic look. “I’m gonna take a walk and pick some things up at the store for dinner. Is that still something you’d like to do?”

How could he forget when he’d been making his brother’s family recipe earlier that day, setting the braciole-filled dutch oven in the fridge to be put into the oven for later? But he almost has – another symptom of how checked out he’s been all week. 

He’s not used to this. He’s used to his siblings – his mom – picking fights over the smallest things that usually escalated into a screaming match. And while you were willing to fight over things that felt worthy to go to bat for, always quick to call him out when he’s being a dick, you don’t engage in his smaller, more frivolous attempts at starting something over the smallest, nitpicky things. 

It’s a whole new pattern for him, and he’ll admit, it’s harder than you make it look. 

Earlier in the week, he knew he’d been in a trash mood. Then he looked at the calendar and saw what date was coming:

2/22/23. 

Oh. 

No wonder he’s been such an ass. 

And now wonder you’ve been such a saint.  

“Oh, um…” he stammers, as he realizes his memory has failed him again. “Uh… yeah, we can still do that.”

He’d forgotten you’d made plans for dinner in preparation for today, and truthfully, he’d been so absent-minded all week that he’s forgotten – forgotten about the plan, forgotten about what day it was, forgotten that that day was now today. Thankfully, you’d had the sense to make sure he was off that day, coordinating with the staff of The Bear to make it happen. While you knew everyone would be grieving today, you weren’t interested in a repeat of last year when the both of you were still in New York.

Sydney, the real hero of this story, had moved mountains to get everyone’s schedules nailed down for this week – knowing it’d be a hard week for everyone that knew and loved Mikey. 

“No, we do not need a repeat of last year,” Sydney had agreed, as you’d explained to her the shit show that was Carmy going into work that night, one year ago. “Don’t worry. I’ll run the kitchen. Tap as many newer staff as I can to work too.”

With the recent press about The Bear (not to mention Sydney’s official James Beard finalist status) there’d been a huge increase in applicants lately. You couldn’t thank Syd enough. 

“Okay. I love you, Carm. I’ll be back in a bit,” you reassure, before grabbing his keys and your coat.

“Yeah,” he mutters quietly, as he watches you go. 

*

After lighting up a few in the apartment, he lays down on the couch, turning on something mind-numbing to not pay attention to on the TV. He’s not sure when or how long it takes him to drift off to sleep, but one minute he’s blinking his eyes closed, and the next he can hear the sounds of pots and pans clamoring around the kitchen. 

He feels guilty: guilty for being an ass, guilty for trying to start something, guilty about what Mikey did.

You’ve told him time and time again: “I don’t think it’s fair to yourself to carry this much blame, Bear.” While normally, he’d love the way his familial nickname sounded coming from you, he’d winced at the mention – just because today, it hits a little too close to home. 

He knows it’s not fair to himself – or to you – but it’s something he’s just not ready to let go of yet. 

He can smell the braciole he’d prepared earlier that day; you’ve already put it in the oven, letting it braise slowly like it was meant to be. He recalled the conversation you both had had about this a few weeks ago. 

“Let’s make a meal he’d like,” you’d proposed, wanting to be a supportive 

“The braciole. Or maybe his spaghetti,” he’d suggested, so matter-of-factly that you could tell he was trying to mask his emotions.

“Maybe both?” you’d countered him. 

“Yeah,” he‘d agreed, quick to put himself out of the discomfort the conversation was causing him. 

“How do you feel about maybe asking some of the others to stop by, Only if they want. Only if you’re up for it,” you’d continued, cautiously. 

“Can I let you know?” he’d asked. 

“Sure,” you’d agreed, even though you knew he wouldn’t be bringing it up again. 

As Carmy sits up from the couch, his mind drifting back to the present, he sees you posted up in front of his little apartment’s stove top, working on his brother’s spaghetti sauce. Pangs of guilt fill his chest, and he feels like absolute garbage for being a dick earlier. He can’t picture doing anything else tonight and he’s glad you had the foresight to do this. Carmy rubs the sleep out of his eyes, watching you move around the kitchen. You’ve got a window open just in case that tricky little smoke alarm goes off while you’re steeping the garlic in olive oil. 

You’re busy trying to maneuver the largest saute pan Carmy owns over the burner for maximum heat exposure when he approaches. The sun’s already set, and the heat from the kitchen leaves a fog on the windows right near the stove, as you shake the saute pan by its handle. 

“Hey,” Carmy says, his voice rough with sleep. 

“Hey,” you reply, a soft smile on your lips as you turn to him. “Sleep alright?”

His unruly curls seem exceptionally messy this evening, and you can smell the remnants of the cigarettes he smoked while you were out. You hate how sexy you still find the nasty habit, even though you’ve tried your best to get him to cut back, citing lung cancer as a top reason. As much as you hate to admit it, you’re eager to taste the cigarettes on his lips, wiping your hands on your jeans because, unlike Carmy, you could care less to wear an apron at home. Framing his face with both of your hands, you place a gentle kiss on his lips, breathing him in as he kisses you back. 

“Sorry I was an ass earlier,” Carmy says, in between kisses. 

“Thanks. You’re kind of allowed to be an ass today though,” you say back. 

He can’t believe you’re letting him off the hook this easily. 

“And what about tomorrow?” he asks, taking a more playful approach this time. 

“No, definitely not. Cut off. Ass privileges? Revoked,” you’re quick to banter back, earning a dry laugh from your boyfriend. 

As you return to your post in front of the stove, Carmy slaps your butt playfully from your earlier comment, eliciting a giggle from you as he does it. He watches you work, adding salt to the tomato, onion, and butter you’re reducing in the saute pan, while the saucepan-filled olive oil/garlic/basil mixture comes up to a simmer. 

“I know you’ve always said that Mikey’s pasta was over-sauced and under seasoned… but it sounds like he just needed a little extra salt and a few little tweaks here and there,” you continue, tasting the tomato sauce. 

He’s not ready to taste the sauce just yet, even though he’d suggested you make the spaghetti in the first place. He watches as you use a spoon to check for salt levels, tasting the sauce first. You throw your head back as the salty tomato mixture hits your tongue. Carmy watches you carefully as you remove the sprig of basil with a pair of tongs, tossing it into a deli container for the trash later. Placing the deli container on the counter next to the rest of things you need to dispose of, his eyes linger on the 28 oz San Marzanos. 

Because the small ones taste better…. 

You busy yourself with straining the oil, setting it aside to add to the sauce towards the end of the process. Carmy checks his phone briefly, seeing a few texts from Richie, Syd, and Tina – all just checking in. 

“Silly question, I know. But how are you doing?” you ask him, having found a good stopping point. 

Carmy thinks about it for a second. He’s not sure how he wants to answer – how he’s supposed to answer this question. 

“I’m… I don’t know,” he managed to get out. 

You nod in acceptance, before replying with an empathetic, “That makes sense.”

“It doesn’t feel real, I guess?” he admits, taking his time as the words fall out of his mouth. 

“I can only imagine, Carm,” you sympathize. “Wanna help me out?”

“Yeah,” he replies, a half smile on his face. 

You’re so kind, so understanding, so empathetic, and he can’t picture spending this day with anyone but you. He thinks back to last year – when he got the news. It was the worst day of his life and regardless of that fact, you’d been there: caring enough to show up, to fight with him, to make sure he ate something. And then that night… the night you crossed the line, slept together even though both of you knew it was a bad idea, that there was no way you could start something real. 

He’s not sure how you got from there to here, but he thanks his lucky stars for whatever good deed he’s done in a past life that’s led to it. 

“Thank you for this,” he says intentionally, making sure you hear him as he continues with, in reference to earlier, “... and I love you too.”

You don’t expect anything from him, and he’s grateful, because he’s not sure he has anything to give. Not today. 

You give him the softest smile, something that makes him want to melt right there and then when you reply with:

“You don’t need to thank me.”

You step aside, making space for Carmy as you give him a task to do to help with dinner. You made the executive decision not to scale Michael’s recipes down, making them as written – family style. If anything, you hope to bring some of the leftovers, sharing his food in honor of his life. You wish you could’ve met Mikey, and since you didn’t get to, making his food feels like the best way to get to know the man Carmy loved and admired so much. 

You queue up a good playlist, working in perfect harmony with Carmy till dinner is ready to eat. Between the braciole and the spaghetti, you know you’ll have more than enough leftovers to feed the two of you for the next week. You let Carmy plate – something he’s truly exceptional at – watching him as he creates a perfect twirl of spaghetti before tearing a few pieces of basil for garnish. As you bring the spaghetti to Carmy’s small dining table that is only meant to seat two, he plates up the braciole on one plate for the both of you to share. You set the table, enjoying the sounds of the playlist you’ve set for the night, before sitting down to eat. 

Carmy takes his first bite of the spaghetti, knowing that it’s not going to be an easy thing for him. You watch closely as he tastes the sauce, his eyes closing and face turning a darker shade redder. 

You wait a beat, letting him settle in before asking:

“What do you think?” 

He nods his head, “It’s fire.” You can see that he’s holding back tears, not ready to lose all control just yet. “It’s actually better… than Mikey’s”

You eat your dinner quietly. It’s the good kind of quiet but the air feels heavy. Carmy may not always have the words for what he’s feeling, but he doesn’t need to right now. You try the braciole together, sharing one plate as he tells you about how Mikey refused to use raisins, even though that’s how they grew up eating the beef dish. You listen, letting him travel down memory lane, only as far as he’d like tog. 

Halfway through dinner, Carmy says something that surprises you:

“We’ve got more than enough leftovers to feed a large family of… twenty,” he states plainly. His blue eyes water as he continues with an ask. “You uh… maybe wanna pack this up and take it to the restaurant tonight?”

“Yeah, Bear. I think everyone would love that," you agree, the smallest smile on your lips. "Would you... wanna tell me a little about him? On our walk there?"

Carmy nods, "Sure. Yeah, I-. I think I can do that."

*

taglist: @allthefandomstogether @gaysludge @sobshoney @harrysmatcha @starbritestarlite @tpwkkmila @cool-girl-is-hot @nunya7394 @galaxyprincess51-blog @carmensberzattos @blue-weekends @rexorangecouny @ridingthehotmessexpress @the-nursery@strawberryalicia @astronautelilanded @veryplatoniccircunstances @fonteyn @hlkwrites @not-two-shrimp

[thedarlingdearestdead]

Meditation:

Summary: Anakin has trouble meditating, you help distract him.

Warnings: Smut - but it is kind of censored. R18.

Word count: 1,660

“Anakin, I can feel your disquiet.”

His eyes open easily from his placement on the floor. He was cross legged and had maintained his peaceful state for a time after your entrance, but something about his signature told you that he was not so deep in meditation. 

You could sense the turmoil within Anakin, like a storm raging beneath a calm surface. His emotions were a maelstrom, and you knew that if not controlled, they could lead him down a dangerous path. Obi Wan had seemed worried about him since Ahsoka left, you did not think he was wrong to do so. 

You looked at the pain in the eyes of your old friend. You saw his grief, his confusion, his restlessness. You knew Anakin too well to think that he had been meditating, maybe he was trying, but he long since given up on the practise. 

“Why are you here?” He asked, looking over at you sullenly.

“Because you’re being too loud.”

He glares at you and moves to get up. “Fine, I’ll give up.”

“Don’t be stupid Anakin, I’m not here to make fun of you. I want to help.”

He settles back down but doesn’t move back to his spread out cross legged arrangement, instead his knees remain up in a guarded, almost foetal position. 

“I don’t think anyone can help me.” His voice is low and dark, his eyes closed and mind stormy. You could almost feel the heavy weight of his burden through the force, though you knew his shields would be hiding much of the extent of it. 

You take a deep breath and try to center yourself, reaching out to Anakin through the Force. You feel the resistance in him, his shields firm and unyielding. But you persist, gently pushing against them. He does not waver however. 

“Anakin, get up.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re obviously not doing anything here.” 

He doesn’t move. 

“Don’t make me fight you, Anakin.”

He looks up at you with disdain, so you give his knee a light kick. 

“That hurt.”

Anakin's reaction was more of annoyance than actual pain, and he finally unfolded his legs and sat up, still visibly troubled. His emotions continued to churn beneath the surface, like a tempest held at bay. When he stands he raised his eyebrows at you, expectant and petulant, you roll your eyes. 

“Come on, I need your help with something.”

Knowing that he is in need of a distraction you hadn’t bothered to fix-up your lighter from your last mission. It had suffered some hit and made a concerning growling sound as you landed, but you figured it could wait. Anakin was always good with the mechanical world, and he did quite like to show off.

Anakin's expression shifted from sullenness to curiosity. "What do you need help with?" he asked, his voice tinged with a hint of interest.

You offered him a small smile, relieved that he was willing to divert his attention from his ‘meditation’, even if just for a little while. "I've got a problem with my ship. It's making some strange noises, and I thought you might be able to take a look at it. You know how much I trust your mechanical skills.”

He grunts. “Lead the way then.”

You lead Anakin through the winding hallways of the Jedi Temple, the two of you walking side-by-side in silence. As you make your way to the hangar, you can feel Anakin's restlessness ease slightly. You know that he is still troubled, and you worry about him, but you also know that sometimes the best way to help him is to distract him.

When you arrive at the hangar, Anakin heads straight for your ship, a battered old freighter that you've had for years. He runs his hand over the hull, inspecting it with a critical eye. "What kind of noises?" he asks.

You shrug. "I don't know, just strange ones. I thought maybe one of the engines was acting up."

Anakin nods and disappears beneath the ship, emerging a few moments later covered in grease. He wipes his hands on a rag and looks up at you. "Yeah, it looks like you've got a loose coupling on one side.”

“Oh do I?” You say a bit dumbly. 

“Hmmm, pass one of those-“ He gestures to the table at his side but you already had the tool in your hand. He takes it without another glance. 

You stand back and watch him work, admiring the way he moves with such fluidity and precision. He seemed to get lost in the task at hand, his focus entirely on the ship. For a moment, you forgot about all of the troubles that had been weighing on him. Watching him work was a reminder of the Anakin you knew before all the darkness, before the war.

As he finishes up, he stands and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. "Alright, that should do it. Start her up and see if it's running smoothly."

You nod and make your way to the cockpit, taking a seat and starting up the engines. You hear a smooth, steady hum and grin, turning to look back at Anakin who had followed you inside. "Looks like you fixed it," you say, grateful for his help.

Anakin nods, a small smile playing at the corners of his lips. "Told you I had skills," he jokes.

You chuckle, feeling the tension in the air ease a little bit more. “Never doubted you for a second.”

Anakin’s expression grows serious again, and you can see the turmoil churning behind his eyes.

“Is everything okay, Anakin?”

He hesitates, looking down at his feet. “I… I don’t know. Everything’s changing, and I don’t know where I fit in. I’m trying to listen to the order, to the force, but both voices are so loud. I can’t hear either of them properly.”

“Hence the meditation?”

“Hence the attempt at meditation.”

The Jedi Order was in a state of upheaval, and Anakin was caught in the middle of it all. The war had taken a toll on him, and the loss of Ahsoka had only made things worse.

"I wish I knew a better way to help you."

He shrugs, "You do help me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He smiles ever so sadly into your eyes, and like magnets your lips find each other. 

The kiss was soft at first, hesitant almost, but it quickly deepened as the two of you moved closer to each other. Anakin's hands found their way to your waist, pulling you tighter against him, and you could feel the heat of his body against yours. It was a comfort to know that you could provide him with some solace amidst the turmoil that surrounded him.

When you finally pulled away, both of you were breathing heavily. Anakin's eyes were dark with desire, but also with something else, something deeper that you couldn't quite place.

“Do you still want to distract me?”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“You know how to fix a ship, Y/N.”

“Then yes, let me try distract you.”

Anakin grins and pulls you in for another kiss, his hands running up and down your back. You melt into his touch, relishing the feeling of his strong arms around you. For a moment, everything else fades away, and it's just the two of you in your own little world.

But clearly you underestimated his need. He presses you against your ship, growing hungrier by the second. You can feel the heat between your bodies rising with each passing moment. Anakin's kisses become more urgent, and his hands are now exploring every inch of your body. Your own desire is quickly building, and you find yourself responding to his advances eagerly.

You break away from the kiss, gasping for air. "Ani, we can't do this here," you say, trying to catch your breath.

He looks at you with a mix of frustration and longing, his eyes dark with desire. “I need to.” he whispers, his voice husky.

"Someone might walk in," you reply, trying to keep your voice steady.

Anakin looks around the hangar, checking to make sure that you're alone. "No one's here," he says, moving in to kiss you again. You can feel yourself weakening at his touch, your resolve crumbling under his persistent advances. His mouth moved lower down your neck. You bite your lip, trying to hold back a moan. His hands move down to your hips, and you can feel how much he wants you.

You press yourself against him, revelling in the strength of his embrace.

His tongue finds its way into your mouth once again, tracing a path along your teeth and lips. Every nerve ending in your body is standing at attention, begging for release.

His hands pull you against him even harder. His erection digs into your thigh, making you gasp with pleasure. A whimper escapes your lips, and Anakin growls, pushing himself further into you. You dig your fingers into his broad shoulders, loving the feel of his muscles under your fingertips. You let out a low moan, your head lolling to the side as his tongue sweeps across your sensitive skin.

It feels too good. It feels right. It feels so overwhelming. 

You would let him do anything he wanted to you. You give him full reign as he unzips your pants, slips his hand under your tunic. 

Your thoughts turn hazy, and you give into your lust. There's nothing holding you back anymore; your emotions run rampant through your body. Everything becomes one big blur of sensation, leaving you unable to think.

When you are both finished, and he is standing over you, face flushed and sweaty, hair curling deliciously around his eyes. You can finally feel him relax. The tension, the shields which had been so reinforced had fallen. He is yours. 

[eybefioro]

Weekly fic rec, by yours truly...

The wind stills ruffles our hair, still shakes the leaves of the trees. The world keeps on spinning. People still walk on the streets, still keep on their routines. We share old stories, old photographs, old memories. We offer each other a hug, even if it can only do as much as wave the cold away. Sometimes, that warmth is what we need to sooth the aching lump in our throats. Sometimes, it just makes it hurt more, but we need it all the same.

I was living my life like normal, until I saw this post. I wasn't prepared to have the ground shattering beneath my feet.

The Ordinary World, by Anti_kate

Rated E, ~24,8k words

My tags: intense, cathartic, beautiful

Summary:

He couldn’t quite remember what Aziraphale smelled like anymore, the particular combination of fresh bread and sea salt and cedarwood, the caramelized sugar of crème brûlée. But even though he couldn’t remember the scent precisely, he knew the bookshop didn’t smell right. It didn’t smell like Aziraphale. It was as if he’d never been there at all. Aziraphale disappears the night of the bookshop fire, and Crowley is left alone and grieving. But death is not always the end.

Hm. This fic spoke to me in such a level. Cut me deep and dissected my feelings in such a way that I didn't expect -- so I'm sorry in advance. This will get a bit personal, and I don't know to which extent everyone can relate to this story, and to which extent is me projecting my own experiences.

So, this can be a particular experience of mine, but I don't see many stories dealing with grief. In the movies, TV shows, books, etc. that I've watched and read, it's an uncommon theme. I find that interesting because even if it is different for everybody (and if every time it hits differently), everyone experiences grief. In the same way that everyone dies, everyone also feels the pain of grief.

We see characters dying and characters suffering for it, but the grief per se is uncommon. And I think that's because it happens a lot in one's head, it's not a linear process, it's complex and painful, and it's never the same. It doesn't even end. We never really stop mourning. We go through our days, and the grief is with us. We work, and it sits by our side. We laugh, and it warps its arms around our shoulders. We cry, and it constrict our voices. We eat, and half of it goes to its belly. We walk, and its weight slows us down. We learn to live with it, we grow around it, but that hollowness is always there, never fulfilled again.

And this story taps into that so well (for me, at least). It describes so well the sense of loss, the sense of emptiness, the absence that lingers. How everything hurts, how it feels for the world to end, and nothing changing. For it to end and people still being the same, doing the same things. For it to end, and for you to confront the fact that it means nothing, really; you still, somehow, have to keep going, you, somehow, are still alive. The world ended, nothing changed, and you still have to breathe.

All that is left is your memories, and they aren't even the same anymore. You can't exactly remember them, but your body does. You get assaulted by them. You get haunted by the ghosts of the people you lost -- you can hear their voices on the back of your mind, you can feel them on their words, on the things they owned, on the things they did. You listen to a song and BAM! there is their ghost singing those lyrics, hoping to that rhythm, a memory that you didn't know you still had. Their ghosts haunt you. But they're gone. They don't exist anymore, only being alive in the past; only still in the memories, in memories that, more often than not, will die with you and cease to exist when all that's left of you is the memories on other people's heads.

We see Crowley go through that. We see him hurting like we (maybe *I*, lol) hurt. We see his suffering upon losing Aziraphale, and how he hurts himself trying to stop hurting, and unfortunately, the hurt is inescapable. He sacrifices a lot to get answers, to try to get close to Aziraphale again -- and what wouldn't I sacrifice only to be able to hug the people I lost ome more time...

But the good news is that he can get Aziraphale back. And he does. The plot is amazing. The descriptions of how he does that and the twists are amazing. This fic is so poetic, and the ending is so beautiful. Reading Crowley getting Aziraphale back was incredible, especially after seeing (experiencing, really) the hurt.

I love how the author wrote this story, their prose is beautiful. Haunting. I loved every bit, and I felt so seen, hugged by Crowley's hurt; he getting back something that I will never be able to was great. It comforted me a lot, even if it hurt (and it did hurt a lot lol I still have a lump on my throat and did cry yesterday because of it, but it was a good type of cry. One that makes you feel good after).

This fic made me feel a lot, and I'm so grateful for it (@antikate I'm sorry for tagging you I just want you to know that I loved your fic so much, and I for sure wasn't able to get that across by my comments there. Rhank you so much for this story) It's so beautiful and... aaa alright time to end this rec. I babbled a lot and said almost nothing, I feel like. Just go read it (not for everyone, I know, but yet...).

This fic is like drinking a too-sweet beverage to try to swallow a too-bitter med. Like making popcorn when you feel sad, because that's what they did when they felt sad.Like keep on living and laughing, because they would like you to.

[good-to-drive]

would you say paul was a good husband to linda?

This is a super interesting question that I was actually just thinking about! The short answer is yes. The long answer is a little more complicated, but it's also yes.

In a way, all you really need to say about Paul and Linda is that they were happy. And I know a lot of people feel that trying to understand a happy couple is pointless (or possibly even offensive) because all that matters is that they were happy.

But I do tend to think that even a happy relationship can still be complex and interesting -- or, rather, that a real, human relationship can still be very happy. That's why I'm personally comfortable with thinking more deeply about their relationship, and those thoughts are under the cut.

Paul and Linda's relationship made them both happy and that is absolutely something to be celebrated. I also think that, like literally every other relationship in the world, the specific way in which they related to and loved one another was a product of their own personalities and experiences. It’s not necessarily fairy tale magic that made them right for each other. Or it is fairy tale magic, and fairy tales are just a lot more real and human than you might expect. 

I actually think to understand Paul and Linda it helps to look back at Paul's relationship with Jane, and how his relationship with Linda was essentially the logical follow-up.

This has been on my mind lately because I was just reading about a phenomenon where men, particularly of older generations, were shamed in childhood for wanting emotional intimacy or showing any vulnerability with their emotions (“man up,” “too old to cry”, etc.), which culminates a fear of intimacy/affection as an adult.

Because it’s generally acceptable for men to have high sexual appetites, sometimes these men will start to substitute sexual/physical intimacy for the emotional intimacy they’re deprived of, thus appearing to have a high sex drive.

(Obviously this can happen to women and young people, too, but everything I read specified that it’s most often seen in older men.) 

All this together reminded me a lot of Paul and how we often perceive him pre-Linda as having a high sex drive (i.e. cheating on Jane like a goddamn dog), and also how he seemed to fear emotional intimacy and platonic affection throughout his entire life (like when he thought George of all people was going to hit him for taking his hand on his freaking deathbed). 

It kind of makes sense given how massive and insane his life was (and how much grief and trauma he was still carrying from his childhood) that he would basically be a black hole of emotional need just like all the other Beatles were, and I genuinely wonder if he used sexuality as a band-aid for an enormous, unmet need for affection/intimacy/validation/etc. 

Which brings us to Linda, and the fact that he was able to be completely loyal to her. Which is an amazing achievement for someone who struggles with infidelity, and I definitely don't want to take that away from him, but I also think we can look a little deeper at why he was suddenly able to be loyal.

If I'm right that his high sex drive was band-aid for unmet emotional needs, then it would tend to follow that being able to be 100% loyal would mean that black hole of emotional need was being satiated, or at least soothed, by someone willing and able to do a lot of emotional caretaking to keep him happy.

Essentially, I think his newfound loyalty was a product of Linda's willingness to be a therapist/girlfriend/appeaser/etc. pretty much 24/7. (That’s barely an exaggeration btw – they spent a lot of time together). Looking at their relationship just in a practical sense, Linda really went out of her way to be with Paul all the time, to be involved in the things he cared about (even at the detriment of things that she cared about), and to make the relationship “about” him.

(Kind of a weird side note here is that John was loyal to Yoko under similar circumstances, at least until the level of emotional dependence between them got to be too much for her and she encouraged him to develop an outside relationship with May Pang, so it's arguably yet another unexpected parallel in John and Paul's lives after they “broke up” with each other.)

I've also wondered a bit why Linda was willing/able to devote herself to Paul's needs to an unusually self-sacrificing extent, but unfortunately Linda's childhood is something I know a lot less about. Some people (especially women of older generations) are deeply reliant on the need they sense in other people to give them a feeling of value. Only by being of service, by satiating the need, can they feel like a worthwhile person themselves. So in that way they're equally dependent on their partner. 

(Okay, maybe not equally, but they're still dependent).

Obviously love was the main reason Linda focused so much of her time and energy on being what Paul needed, arguably at the detriment of her own needs, but looking at it more in the context of her personality and experiences it does make me wonder about her upbringing and to what extent she was raised to believe she achieved value or lovability by being of service to others.

I think Paul's reliance on Linda to caretake his emotions for him (and Linda's potential reliance on Paul to require caretaking) could be part of why we see such extreme devotion between them, why they literally never (voluntarily) spent a single night apart in all of their marriage. It's an expression of love, yes, and also of how deeply they both relied on one another.

(It also probably indicates anxious attachment and potentially some deep rooted concerns about being cheated on, but that's speculation for another day.)

Now, all this being said, none of this changes the fact that Paul was loyal and he did adore Linda and they did spend every single moment possible with one another. I'm not bringing any of this complicated shit up to try to devalue their relationship or any of the things we love about it -- rather, I think the fact that it does come from a place of humanity and vulnerability is part of what makes it beautiful.

It's a good chance to remember that no relationship is 100% easy and simple 100% of the time, and we're all a product of our own messy internal stuff that we try to deal with and try to find other people who are also willing to deal with. And while it’s true that every relationship has a deeper story, it’s equally true that a relationship between two people with complex personalities and needs can still be extremely happy, loving, and positive for the both of them.

[losersroom]

twenty questions for fic writers

tagged by @tetrapod7! thanks man, this was a fun one.

1. how many works do you have on ao3? 17 on my current account. there's more on my old one and obviously that doesn't count everything i published on other platforms (livejournal, ff.net) in the ancient days, lol

2. what's your total ao3 wordcount? again just on the wolfspider account, 168,153. i cant tell if that feels low or high to me

3. what fandoms do you write for? right now, just wild hrpf. in the past it's been mostly anime and various cartoons.

4. top five fics by kudos: i'm hitting the skip button on this because like. wrt my own work i think it's not a very good metric of EITHER how popular those stories actually were OR the quality of them; they're mostly the TUA ones and im chalking that up to that fandom being Huge when i was active. my most kudos'd fic of all time is still how much was mine to keep, though, and i think that one holds up.

5. do you respond to comments? i try to now. i went through a long phase of not engaging with comments due to Social Anxiety and also being kind of fed up with the hyper-combative culture in the fandoms i was in. like i wanted to just yeet my work out there and be done with it. in hrpf fandom i'm actually interested in the community aspect though so ive been trying to get over myself and respond as best i can.

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? the brodsfabes time loop fic, hands down. it's weird because as a reader i am um. not very into unhappy endings or unconsummated angst but every once in a while when i'm writing i'll get into a Mood and write something viscerally upsetting. anyway that one was pretty clearly me processing some grief that was happening in my real life, lol.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? probably entangled, from my spiderverse days. ngl i kind of hate it now though so let's move on from this. i think most of my fic has happy or at least ambiguously-positive endings, though.

8. do you get hate on fics? only one time ever and it was someone complaining that a ship i tagged for wasn't present in the story after One Chapter so. we're discounting that one. i've been pretty lucky!

9. do you write smut? yeah. my relationship with writing pornography ebbs and flows, like. sometimes i'll be really into it but sometimes i'll just stick a sex scene into a story where i feel like it's the least interesting thing that happens because people expect it and aren't going to read a romance that isn't leading up to that. i'm a horrible pervert and building up to a sex scene is an easy way to give your story a climax (...in multiple senses of the word) though so. why not.

10. craziest crossover: i don't write crossovers but if i did it would be the insane one ive been thinking about lately where the minnesota wild are stuck in the dungeon from dungeon meshi

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? not to a degree that i can prove it but part of the reason i left TUA fandom was somebody, in my opinion, ripped off large chunks of one of my fics and did just enough massaging of the language to make it defensible as Not Plagiarism. ruined the whole experience for me though.

12. have you ever had a fic translated? no, i think that would be one of the highest honors i could receive as a writer though. i wish i knew enough of a second language to translate my own work, but i'm still at like a kindergarten level in japanese so that will. Not happen.

13. have you ever co-written a fic before? tried to once with someone i am no longer friends with, it was a disaster. never gonna do that again. i am just too much of a control freak to relinquish any amount of creative decisionmaking i think.

14. all time favorite ship? don't have one! i tend to like hyperfixate on one ship for anywhere from one month to a year and a half and then when the brain juice runs out im Done and i never want to think about this concept again. im giving check please jackparse a point for being a ship i can read about post-fixation without getting bored but other than that. right now it's 725, in the future, who can say.

15. what's a wip you want to finish but never will? [stares at my overflowing gdocs draft folder. stares at the camera] i do not see it

16. what are your writing strengths? i like my prose, most of the time, and i think i'm pretty good at descriptive writing and like, internal character voice. sometimes i can accidentally stumble into excellent pacing

17. what are your writing weaknesses? INTENTIONALLY good pacing. writing dialogue that sounds like a human said it and not a sitcom character. i'm decent at line-by-line editing but awful at structural editing. recently ive become aware that i tend to subconsciously reuse certain plot beats a lot.

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language? like anything else, there's a way to do this that's fine and interesting and a way to do it that's insultingly terrible and it all depends on intent and execution. like if you're peppering in phrases in a second language just to show off that a character Is Foreign, don't do that. try to do it in a way that's realistic for how people talk. do it purposefully, i suppose

19. first fandom you wrote in? god dude i do NOT remember this was literally 21 years ago but probably either naruto or fullmetal alchemist.

20. favorite fic you've written? probably one of the unpublishable ones tbh. or the time loop one again. honestly i really like all my hrpf work, ive been putting out some bangers lately. it's nice to feel like ive been growing as an ~artist~ or whatever.

[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

Books I’ve read so far in 2023!

Friend me on Goodreads here to follow my more up to date reading journey for the year!

___

196. The Alien by K.A. Applegate--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was such an interesting perspective! I wasn't expecting it a few books back and was curious how Applegate would tackle it, especially since we know so little about the character. It definitely added a new pov to the story and I'm excited to see how they are represented in the future after more time has passed and more character development has happened!

I can't say too much because spoilers. But I am genuinely enjoying this series and can't wait to get to the next one!

___

197. The Grip Of It by Jac Jemc--⭐️⭐️

If there is one thing this confusing and jarring book did really well, it is the representation of what it might be like to slowly fall into madness. The way the characters worked off each other in their madness and the way the dialogue and chapters worked together to create a choppy and disorienting dialogue was genius.

What wasn't so genius was how confused I was most of the time. There are so many unanswered questions and the story is full of confusing moments. I know that Horror can sometimes truly be a hit or miss and that one person's horror won't be another, but this is the kind of horror that should probably be read more than once to fully grasp just what the hell is actually happening.

I will say that while the structure of the story definitely works in creating the mood of the story, listening to the audiobook was an interesting and frustrating experience. The chapters would end rather abruptly and would often leave me wondering what had just happened.

Overall, this book was everything I was expecting, but also underwhelming in its over-all presentation. It was wild and so brain twisting. I don't know if I'd recommend it, but if I did, I'd recommend reading it slowly and maybe more than once LOL.

___

198. The Island by Adrian McKinty--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

THE ISLAND was both exactly what I was hoping it would be and still completely different than what I was expecting. I knew it was going to be a ride, but I wasn't prepared for the level of wildness that this book would adopt.

Imagine that you're on vacation with your new husband and his children, shortly after those kids' biological mother has passed away. You're in a country you know close to nothing about (Australia) and being the tourists who should be featured in a horror film, you find yourselves on a small, private island being chased by a trigger happy and aggrieved family. What ensues is something straight out of Hollywood.

I saw this as a cautionary tale for "actions have consequences" and while yes, the consequences here are dire, we have to admit that the catalyst for this was heartbreaking. I think McKinty does a good job of showcasing the dangers of grief and the magic of morally grey characters. Let's be real, the MC and her husband are no saints. They do a pretty twisted thing in order to save their asses and while yes, I was rooting for them and the kids, a corner of my mind couldn't forget the awfulness of their choices.

If you're a parent, this might be a little bit of a rougher read since it does include younger kids in dangerous situations. We get to see an MC who grows as a character in order to make sure these kids survive, but I know some parents, especially those who have younger kids, might have a harder time with stories like this one. Keeping that warning in mind, there were some pretty badass moments, but also some very human ones, as well.

I really enjoyed this and I'm glad I finally picked it up!

___

199. Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

AESTHETICA was a lot and to be honest, I think that's necessary in the world we live in. So many young people obsessed with social media and their appearance on those apps are incredibly impressionable. What can help them be more famous? What can make them look more beautiful? The exploration of beauty standards and how they affect a young woman, in particular, and those around her can be relatable to at least one reader.

I think that Rowbottom's book is also a great look into generational trauma because of how the MC's mother raised her and how she herself had a level of dislike towards her mom that is a whole other side to this book. While we have the clear main story of the MC regretting the choices she made and dealing with that trauma, we also have her disentangling her love/hate relationship for her ill mother.

AESTHETICA was brought to my attention by an article presenting it as a horror story. In some ways, I can understand that. There is a certain kind of horror behind the trauma of selling yourself in the name of success. There is definitely a particular kind of horror in wanting to face all of the trauma you've faced, to the point where you're set on undoing everything that is the physical proof of that trauma.

Though this is a relatively short book, I think it carries a lot of weight. We see the power of social media and a naive mentality. We see the dangers of those who present themselves in a certain way. And we see the sometimes incredibly complex relationships between mothers and daughters and how deeply entwined these relationships and our own self worth can be. Also, a brief mention on the power of childhood friendships and how they can scar us if they end too soon, or shift in any way that is beyond our control.

I'd recommend this if you want a bit of an acid trip of an exploration into the above mentioned topics.

___

200. Icebreaker by Hannah Grace--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

RE-READ: September 2023:

My library got the audiobook version, so of course I HAD to put a hold on it. I was a little scared I wouldn't love this book as much as I did the first time around, but I'm happy to say that I DID! ICEBREAKER is still one of my favourite romances, if only because of the level of communication between the characters. I also forgot how spicy and full of sexual tension this book was.

Overall, super happy I re-read this. Maybe it'll be a yearly re-read. 😌

___

201. Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham--⭐️⭐️⭐️

There's something interesting about an older man writing a young kid--especially when his MC mentions in the book that at 13 years old, boys don't even notice girls and actively try to stay away from them. LOL. I actually laughed at that because I was thirteen over twenty years ago and I distinctly remember that not being the case. I just thought that was hilarious and felt super disconnected. Not that I want a romance story in a middle grade book, but just...let's be real. And I mention this first because it happens pretty early on.

Anyway, the MC was a pretty cool kid--he knows everyone and even has a little side gig where he gives advice to his classmates. His smart take on the current case and his enthusiasm jumps off the page. I'm not sure how I will feel about the rest of the series, but we will see!

___

202. Misery by Stephen King--⭐️⭐️⭐️

I went into MISERY knowing that it's a fan favourite. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was a bit let-down. I think that while I did enjoy some aspects of this book and was genuinely freaked out at times, this kind of fell into the same category of THE SHINING for me. When I read THE SHINING, it was incredibly hyped up and even though it DID have a terrifying take on the fall of madness, it was otherwise meh for me.

One of the best things that King does with his writing (or at least back them) was his creation of madness in a character. He somehow knows how to take the most terrifying characteristics of humanity and integrates them really well into his characters. The brutality of this villain was something else, especially when we actively see her professing her love for the MC and then causing him bodily harm.

I think one of the downfalls for me in my reading experience of this was listening to the audiobook. It was disjointed and confused the hell out of me. Maybe physically reading it would have been a wholly different experience, but the disorientation of the audiobook could have either freaked me out or confused me and sadly, it was the latter.

Not my favourite King novel, but I can see why so many love it. Will continue on my reading journey with King's books.

___

203. Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Phew, this book was weird and wild and hooked me right from the beginning.

Huang explores so many topics in her skin crawling novel: Racism, social perception of beauty, the addiction the wealthy sometimes have when it comes to "self-care", unexplored sexuality, envy, and SA in the most unusual of ways but could also be an allusion to how the rich can sometimes use money when it comes to getting away with sexual crimes.

I never expected body horror when I picked up NATURAL BEAUTY, but here we are. I remember when that started to show up in the narrative, along with the changing physical body of the MC, I paused what I was doing (while listening to the audiobook) and became even more enthralled. This was such a creepy and genius exploration of societal expectations and the things people will sometimes do to be either "different" or "like everyone else".

There's also an interesting sub-story about the MC's experiences as a child musical prodigy and how that definitely played into her malleability as a victim for the people who would eventually take advantage of her. It definitely played into the stereotypes society has about young Asian children when it comes to classical music.

And somewhere along the way, as the MC is evolving (both metaphorically AND physically), she starts to discovery a side to her sexuality never fully explored. During these scenes, it truly reminded me of the "will they/won't they" that usually accompanies blossoming sexuality--the "I want this, but do I really? But should I? Do THEY want to?" narrative that usually flashes through our minds when we're right on the verge of making that exploration.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now. I really enjoyed this, much more than I thought I would because this book was WEIRD. Like, mind-bending weird. And if it was ever made into a movie, I'd be watching it with the biggest side-eye.

___

Have you read any of these books? Let me know your thoughts!

___

Happy reading!

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

Twilight Out Of Focus As A Relatable Love Story As A Person On The Autism Spectrum:

For most of my life love has been a confusing and complicated thing. I got crushes and found myself in situationships where I wasn't quite dating guys but we weren't just friends either. I never really understood why my first reaction to romance when it involves myself is to see it as something odd. Most of my friends wonder why I watch romance anime as someone that is hyper romantic without a boyfriend. And I've always struggled to come up with a proper answer for that question but I still continued to watch them anyways. I can't say that I've ever seen one that works the same way that Twilight Out Of Focus does though. The way that they told the story through the three different relationships where just when I thought that one couldn't be better than the other I managed to get surprised by the next pairing and managed to fall in love with them even more. I thought that I couldn't love a pairing more than Jin and Ichikawa, but Rei and Shion caught me by complete surprise and I might be in the minority by saying that but I have a reason and it's a pretty big one. Relatability.

To me, I saw a lot of myself in love while watching Rei fall in love with Shion and I'm going to hit you with an HC that changed everything for me, you ready for it? Rei is autistic. This is coming from someone that's also on the autism spectrum with a lot of unique special interests that often take over my life and leave most of my friends in an array of confusion but overtime gradual acceptance. I've been really, really luck in the online friend department with finding my fair share of Jin's that encourage me and push me forward to keep growing on my own but I've been really unlucky in terms of romance because a lot of the time people wind up bored of me. They realize that I'm really predictable, that I can sit you down and draw a ven diagram with a connection of each English VA with each One Piece character that I love or that I speak coherently in movie quotes. They get tired of the novelty and wind up calling things off with me overtime and that was the first time that it really hit me in the gut of how much I saw myself in Rei. Due to how much he throws himself into working on his movies, people get easily bored and tired of his antics and leave him for other people. The fact that he mutters things to himself is another trait that can often be found with people that are autistic, I definitely have minimal brain to mouth filter where I wind up sometimes just saying stuff with no knowledge of whether or not it's hurtful or not something that people would usually say. When I have feelings for someone I tend to tease them very similar to how Rei does with Shion where I give them grief over little things.

Last week I was just sitting there and it hit me of how much I related to Rei and how much I saw my own traits in him. So I wanted to throw my own hat into the ring of the Rei defense squad with the way that I looked at his character. As someone that's been diagnosed for a few years I'm confident in why I feel this way but I don't think I've ever related to a love interest more than Rei just with my own social awkwardness. I think that it might be one of the best portrayals of loving someone while being autistic and while I might not have relationship experience in the traditional sense this love story brought me a lot of relatability and made me look at myself and my experience with romance in a wholly different way. I've always assumed that most of my relationship shortcomings wound up being my fault because I talk too much. I get too into my interests and not everyone can understand that but I think that I need to just find the right person that gets me.

I wasn't expecting for me to find relatability in this character but a lot of Rei's "bad" traits are traits that I also share as someone that's on the autism spectrum. I've been seeing a lot of people bad mouthing Rei for being "mean" but to me, that's just something that I've experienced being autistic. Being 'self-centered' or a 'jerk' is something that I've been called my entire life but that doesn't mean that's the whole of who I am and it's not the whole of who Rei is as a character. Oftentimes people on the autism spectrum just seem abrasive if you're not in their inner circle of friends. It's been my experience that once I found my people it was easier to open up and we can see Rei opening up to Shion where before it was just Jin and that was it. And I felt myself crying multiple times throughout their story arc and I'm so grateful to see the way that I love represented.

[badassbutterfly1987]

2023 Film Reviews

(from July to December)

5 stars

Medea (1983): A strong adaptation of the play. A straightforward simple telling of the story, almost like a filmed stage performance. Strong acting from the leads.

4 stars

Haunted Mansion (2023): The first twenty minutes felt a bit rough humor wise but it smoothed out after that. Overall I enjoyed, I was actually pleasantly surprised by the performances. Strong focus on grief and healing from loss while also being a spooky fun family movie.

Ninja Shadow of a Tear (2013): Strong improvement on Ninja 2009. Better action, better acting, better story. Strigtforward revenge story but it does the formula well. Kane Kosugi as Nakabara is a highlight even if he only has a handful of key scenes. Docked a few points for fridging the last movie's female lead without even a good fight scene.

Five Nights at Freddys (2023): I was delighted; animatronics alternated between adorable giant cuddle buddies and deadly killing machines, bunch of lore easter eggs, Josh Hutcherson as a sad wet dog of a man and his odd little sister, Mathew Lilliard having a blast, and a wildly flipping tone (which is perfect for this franchise). Will horror fans like it? Eh, there are spooky scenes but cut between robot adorableness and somber family drama. Will average moviegoers like it? Again, the tone varies wildly and the story's a bit confusing and doesn't answer every question (which fits fnaf). Best to approach it as a spooky fun alternate adaptation of the game story.

The Marvels (2023): I mostly enjoyed it! It's fun and fastpaced and it balances the stories of the three leads pretty well. I think the fast pace is a detriment at some points since the emotional moments aren't always given enough time to breathe (I wish we spent a little more time on the musical planet for example). Villain feels a little forgetable but she has a good motive that ties well into Carol's guilt about how she handled fighting Hala. The Flerkens are fantastic as usual. There's a planet where they communicate primarily through song, where Carol is technically a princess and has a platonic husband (I so badly want to hear that story). I like the heart of the story too, about the relationships between the three leads.

3 stars

Ninja (2009): it's a fun sometimes goofy ninja film, you get what you pretty much expect. Although it does have a heart and genuine character interactions, even if they don't get full arcs.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023): eh it's okay. I like Harrison Ford as Grumpy Old Man Indy Jones; I think I actually connected more to this version of him than the previous films (guess depression made him relatable). Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) was mostly a delight; yes she's selfish and greedy and her character arc isn't quite there but she bounces off Indy in fun ways. Mason (Shaunette Renee Wilson) seemed to have potential for an interesting arc but that was abruptly scrapped. Mads Mikkelsen does well as the villain and it was especially fun to see him progressively lose his shit in the climax as his plan falls apart.

The Shepherd (2008): Meh, it's okay. There's definitely far worse direct to video Van Damme films. There are a couple fun aspects (Jack carries around a pet rabbit also named Jack, Scott Adkins as side villain Karp) but it felt lackluster.

Gran Turismo (2023): First act is pretty weak like it's just hitting the required plot points and the training section definitely felt rushed. It regains it's footing once the lead actually starts racing. An interesting look at the fallout (both PR and emotional) of a nasty race crash. Good showing from the cast, especially from Djimon Hounsou.

2 stars

Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 (2023): Cool action and stunts. Too long and too many characters. Most of the new cast are either boring or annoying, couldn't remember the names of half of them. Couldn't take the scary AI threat seriously because it felt like jumping the shark. Through most of it I just felt mildly annoyed, including when a favorite character was abruptly killed.

Hard Night Falling (2019): Typical Die Hard formula featuring Dolph Lundgren. It's functional but doesn't do anything to stand out. Mostly a bland experience.

[beauzos]

3, 17, and 20 for the ao3 wrapped prompts ^_^!!!!

AO3 Wrapped Questions

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

I definitely never measure my success by popularity, considering my environmental niche on AO3 is posting the most hyper-specific shit about side characters most people ain't interested in to begin with lol. Ain't no good to play a numbers game.

Anyhow, by and large, my favorite (and, ergo, the one I am most proud of) has to be The Endless Ocean (Or; Leder's Private Treatise on Grief). I really like this one. Leder is one of my favorite Mother series characters hands down. He is so ripe for the picking when it comes to fleshing out the world and his character. He has a lot of depth in and of itself within Mother 3; I admire how Itoi can create the illusion of depth without having to go super in-detail about a lot of the characters. You can just sort of see it, and work your way through it.

So, writing a work that is from Leder's perspective was very fun and rewarding. It took me a while to write, but it turned out really well, and I think it's the best of the fics I wrote this year, out of the four complete fics I had. I also really love fleshing out pre-Mother 3 stuffs. I'd been wanting to do more writing centered on the White Ship and the people on it, since I imagine that there were a lot of people who, for one reason or another, did not make it to Nowhere.

Engaging with all these characters in different stages of grief, how they cope with what they have and what they expect, and how things drastically change when the White Ship survivors erase their memories is fun. And Leder being at the center, the only one who still remembers after all this time? You also get to center on/examine the way his grief manifests, knowing he doesn't get to join the others, but that he did it for the love of them. It's a nice work. I still really like it.

Oftentimes, I reread my works and think they're pretty good, but Endless Ocean is one of those ones I feel is genuinely really damn good. IDK, that's just me, though.

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

Is it cheap to say Leder? I had to avoid saying he's one of my favorite characters to write in the previous question, lol. But it's true! Leder really is my favorite of the characters I wrote for this year. He has so much potential and depth, and I love examining his thoughts and how he approaches everything from his perspective. Leder is so profoundly unique and intriguing. He's the perfect foil to so many other Mother characters.

So, yeah. He's my favorite.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

If it's not The Endless Ocean, then it was probably Feet of Clay. I reread Feet of Clay quite a bit because it's a very chill, slice of life work. It's easy to approach and revisit over and over. It's just a little snapshot of life for Tazmilians during the timeskip period, and sometimes, the simplicity is delightful too, ya know? I love Paul and Abbot as a friendship dynamic, and it's all about them and how their lives intersect with the other villagers at the Clayman Mines. I don't know how many more ways I can find a way to say "it's fun" KRJKF cause that's really the only reason why I keep reading it.

[ram-de]

[read] extraordinaries

gosh it's been a long time since i put my random commentaries afetr i read a book. i read a lot but i haven't been putting it in words like these. i think it's a nice way to take a breather and appreciate the story for a bit. though i'm itching to read and jump to another one. alright. let's jump in.

the extraordinaries by t.j. klune is the second book i read of his! the first being the house by the cerulean sea. and i wept for that one. it's achingly sweet. and cute. and also hits hard a bit. i should reread it soon. now this one... this one features the main cast being highschoolers. and damn i didn't know I NEED IT SO BAD... LOOK... a lot of romances i read before features teenagers that acts way too mature and also quite high in steam (aka they can't keep it in their pants for 5 minutes) and i. it's not that it's bad. it's just... you know after a while of reading several books, i kind of tend to notice the pattern of like, the tropes, and like, the prose, and um. basically at some point it loses it charms and i ended up groaning, "not again..." or "i felt like i have read this storyline 32 times this month..." NOT THAT IT'S BAD OF COURSE... i eat it when i'm hungry. when i'm full i just need to take a breathe.

and man. NICK...!!! having the book centered around nick is so, so, good. a peek to his ever-flowing racing mind and how he's just, being him, as a whole. and this guy is a... a fanfic writer. and the love interest being his beta reader... I DON'T KNOW WHY THIS CRACKS ME UP... the dynamics is so good though i felt like they can feel a bit one-dimensional sometimes. i don't know why i'm criticizing. i don't know shit about stories 101 lmao. alright. nick is also very straightforward and cannot lie for good. the way he rambles about everything is adorable (i see u seth...) he puts his mind to it and pushes through everything. i love my delusional son akjsdgashda

THE HUMOR... very up to my alley.

"Nicky, no!" "Nicky, yes!"

AND THE CROWD (me) CHEERS... that sums the whole book actually. nicky got an idea, everybody told him no, and he did it anyway. sdhgfadskhaskjh. or this one passage. context being the dad is injured and was advised not to talk, and nick asked him how his day and glared at him. it's funny to me!!

and this one i have sorta expects from the author. it's how heartfelt the story can be at times. t.j. klune is poignant with his words. the story touches grief very delicately, how it impacts the whole family and their relations to another. there's this one part where nick have hard time breathing the moment his dad said he's gonna take his phone. his dad grounds him, distanced him from his friends, cutting of internet and all other things. but the one thing that was about to break him is the fact that he would have his phone taken away, due to the thoughts that if something happened (to his dad), then he wouldn't know. like how it happened with his mom. AND... :-( ... that's why it also hurts so bad when the two get caught arguing and his dad ended up telling nick why he is the way that he is.. :"""" I'M SO WEAK WITH FAMILY STORYLINES... they're always the one that made me teared up...

one thing i did not like is the blue-balling of important revelations that's like kinda obvious but they kept pushing it back. "oh, nick, don't you know? he's actually..." and suddenly the door opens. [plot ignored for several pages]. "i can't keep it anymore. i'm gonna tell you. actually..." and then suddenly a bomb exploded or something. LIKE... the fact that i'm writing it down means i'm annoyed by it lol since i don't actually notice these stuff usually. also i think the book kind of drags down by the end. i don't really hooked enough for shadow stars storyline. maybe another thing i didn't like is that it have real person shipping... though it's mentioned and implied a lot of how unhealthy that is lol, i can chalk it up to nick being a delulu y/n fanfic author.

it's been a while since i consumed any superhero-related media. i used to be into marvel movies but then they kinda... i don't know. lame. i watched ms. marvel and i liked it. i tried to watch she-hulk but i forgot it exists by the time episode 4? happened and i haven't finished it since. i also despised secret invasion's intro enough to never watch it. ever. i need to watch spiderverse....

why am i getting distracted. OKAY... the thing is. i loved the book. i enjoyed reading the book. i took my time reading it, and the character still lives in my head for now. and because this is a superhero-setting... i ignored any normal haircolor depiction in my head and instead put wacky colorful hairtones for every character anime style. nick? shiny silver (with a stupid ahoge). owen? fiery red (subversion, this is so good). gibby? deep purple. jazz? pink and yellow ombre. seth... black.., because subversion, uh... (he gets his colors from his ties and knots instead)

uh... what i want to say is it's lighthearted! it can be sweet and poignant at times. it's an enjoyable read. mr. t.j.klune good :) i'll put more thoughts if i remember

Edit 5 minutes later.

IT'S A SERIES??!?!?!??!? I thought that last part was the story being cheeky and a references to how superhero movies do post-credits scenes teasing future reveals. there's TWO MORE...!?!??!?!

[riddlerosehearts]

more baldur's gate 3 playthrough thoughts--this time, i've completed both shadowheart and astarion's companion quests and also stumbled upon more sidequests! maybe someday i will finally manage to finish my first playthrough of the game!

so i randomly stumbled across the house of grief because i keep freaking getting lost LMAO--but before going in, i talked to shadowheart so i could get her back in the party, and she had dialogue talking about the grafitti she drew? interesting, i knew there was grafitti of hers somewhere around the city but i don't remember encountering it while having her in my party. i suppose i must have, and simply didn't hear her comment on it. anyway, since i'm at the house of grief now i figured i might as well go ahead and go there.

i ultimately had shadowheart do the mapping of the heart because she said she wanted to and it seemed like the obvious best choice for the story (she even disapproves if you don't let her), but first i let my tav do it just to see what would happen and wow it was actually really interesting to think over the answers to those questions! here's how i had him answer them, along with viconia's shockingly accurate assessment of his flaws:

for the last question, "i would be restless" would've also been a good answer, but i just picked based on what my first instinct was at the time. these are neat character building questions tbh.

oh yeah, i should also say that my whole party hit level 12 a few battles ago! and i feel like i've seen a lot of complaints about how you'll most likely hit max level by mid-act 3, because people dislike gaining exp and having it essentially go into the void + being unable to keep improving your characters. but tbh i like knowing that i'm already as powerful as i can possibly be and if i'm having trouble, all i have to worry about now is my equipment and build! in most games where the max level is 100, i either never manage to reach that at all or only hit it while doing postgame content after the main story is over. so i actually like this change of pace. and maybe it's just me being bad at games, but even at max level i still find the combat challenging and fun.

the choice with shadowheart's parents... i was really annoyed at having to make that choice for wyll, and i could see things going either way with shadowheart, so even though elenion would absolutely save her parents if it were up to him, he told her to decide for herself what's right. she chose to save them and i am so proud of her. seeing her cry and say she feels like she doesn't deserve to be anyone's daughter almost made me cry, but now her parents are in camp and everyone is happy! what a beautiful resolution to her quest. i imagine elenion, who hasn't actually visited his mother in a long time, would go to visit her in the city as soon as possible after this.

i wasn't sure what i should do next so i just, went ahead and grabbed astarion and took him to confront cazador because why not! i had to google how to get to the palace and i'm not sure how i was supposed to naturally figure it out tbh but maybe that's just me. anyway, meeting sebastian and the gur children was really interesting and unsettling. and so was hearing astarion talk like he'd be totally fine with having to sacrifice 7,000 souls in order to ascend, even though i actually knew about that part already.

anyway, i did manage to defeat cazador and first of all act 3 is really making it clear that i am absolutely horrendous at this game 😭 i think i was so excited to get through the story that i just didn't take the time to properly learn the mechanics as much as i should have, but oh well, i'm still having fun even if i have to retry the battles a lot sometimes! and wow uh. i've barely even used astarion on my team in this playthrough but holy shit i love him. seeing him get covered in blood from stabbing cazador to death like that was kind of hot. i did not expect him to break down crying after killing cazador!?!?! i wish you could walk over there and give him a hug. i used the hugging mod i have downloaded to do that right after the next conversation with him at camp. just really felt like he needed it. i'm also really proud of him for, when you say you think the spawn should be released, admitting that they're innocent and shouldn't have to suffer for his mistakes, and then coming up with a plan for them to live in the underdark. act 1 astarion would definitely never have done that.

karlach is so sweet and wholesome it makes me wanna cry sometimes.

i love that minsc has something to say about pretty much all of the companions. i love how he has so much respect for both karlach and wyll, especially with how much karlach looks up to him. also fucking love that he's all jealous of halsin for beating him at arm wrestling and that he needs boo to tell him that rather than being scared of blood, astarion might just possibly be a vampire. and he doesn't like gale because he uses big words like "posterior" and because boo is scared of tara adkgjdh 😭

he wouldn't tell me anything about shadowheart though?? he said it would unwise to talk about her behind her back. idk why that is, but i really hope i'll be able to ask him about lae'zel after i get her back.

i found volo?! he stayed in our camp all the way until the end of act 2 since i never let him do eye surgery on anyone, and then he just unceremoniously disappeared, so i was wondering where he'd gone off to. elenion didn't really care because they can't stand his ass, but oh well, they saved him anyway because unfortunately they don't see "being extremely annoying" as an acceptable reason to leave someone to die, and now he's back at camp again! i also started the "avenge the drowned" quest, and then found the society of brilliance lodge and--oh god no this made me remember that one society lady in act 1 who wanted the githyanki egg, which then made me remember lae'zel is carrying that egg around everywhere and nurturing it, and she got kidnapped. we have put the egg in danger. blurg tasked us with saving omeluum but i really want to get lae'zel back, actually.

going to end this post here, but yeah, i think i probably will just go ahead and try to kill orin next. i miss lae'zel a lot, and i think it would feel wrong to go to the house of hope without her.

[kio-may]

hey bestie- it's me again shsksbskn i really love what you did with my request!✨ now you don't have to answer my request but i'm interested in your take on it.

(tw profanity sbsjsbj)

dorm leaders with an s/o that's able to hide out their frustrations in public and is very proper and mature. but the headcannons are when they accidentally stumble upon their s/o lecturing ace, deuce, and grim and they overhear them say:

"this is the third time this week, you three do that shit again, and i will personally strangle you, do i make myself clear?"

(keep up the good work!)

Hi!! Nice to see you again :) thank you for the request

Honestly this tickled my fancy a bit huhuhu wkdnsks

Ive always wanted to write something similar huhu

I think i went overboard with vil's 😭😭 and i probably made kalim's too short im sorry wodnsksj

THE WHIPLASH

LWEPWJWOWJW

In shock,denial, processing all stages of grief in like 3 seconds for the moment he hears you

Can't actually believe it's you for a second

But then he realizes

"Y/n? Was that really you..?"

You're gonna have to give him an explanation 😡😡 /j

But honestly on a serious note, he's actually a bit empathetic about it

He's also usually seen as the calm and stern leader, but he also has his own anger issues so he's used to people sometimes telling him that he wasn't what they expected him to be

He recommends things to do to vent out your frustrations

"I wouldn't recommend strangling them, as much as I'd love to aswell"

Has a small laugh with you about it

Has doubts you may be hiding your emotions so as the guy he is, drops very subtle hints that he's always ready to lend an ear

Good boy <3

Subtle whiplash

But only for like a second

Stands there amused then breaks out into a smirk

"Didn't think you had that in you, herbivore"

Probably thinks it's kinda hot

Tones up the teasing for the rest of the week to test you

Wonders how you managed to hide it from him too, considering how observant he is

(Lazy but not dumb basically)

Slightly encourages you to strangle the adeuce and grim combo-

Stop LWNSOSNSJ

Has a good laugh

He also thinks it's a good intimidation factor

Typical Leona

Also kinda smug about it too

Like the "my s/o is very mature and calm but when shit hits the fan, the ceiling breaks" kinda proudness

Likes that side of you lowkey

Won't admit it but he'll tease you about it

Smug bastard /hj

Medium whiplash LANSOSJSJ

Amused

Actually reminds him of Jade

Like a tiny bit

Approaches you after you're done lecturing them

"That was truly delightful"

He'll be curious about your more angrier and more emotion-showing side

Like Riddle though, doubt fogs his mind and he thinks he isn't being trustworthy for you and tries to drop subtle hints that you can talk to him about it

Also tries to get you to teach him how to be reserved but that's another story LAKSLS

Is a bit more observant of you to see if there's any small cracks of your more emotional side in the side that you put up in public

Also relates a bit, he's felt irrational and immature so he hides it behind this shady persona, so out of concern he sometimes inquires about it

He'll be very empathetic

"Is that so?"

If it's just that you're more emotional around people close to you, he'll shrug it off, but again some doubt fogs his mind

He wonders what needs should be met to see this side of you more often

If you show it during both of your's intimate moments he's melting and he feels so loved and trusted

"That was so cool!"

He's actually so shocked by it but in a very amused-happy way

He thinks it's really cool how you can be so reserved despite having so much emotion

Still asks about the whole "I'll strangle you" thing and has a laugh about it

Straightforwardly asks you about it

"Is there a reason you do it?"

Really reminde him of Jamil in a way

Asks you for tips on how to be so reserved and calm

He really needs it LWNSKWJ

Nothing much really just initial shock and the usual happy go lucky kalim

Wishes he was like you but loves the fact you're his s/o, kind of like Leona he's very proud about it

Good boy

Wants to tell everyone about it but it just kinda defeats the whole purpose of it so-

He's trying his best to keep his mouth shut

Teetering on the edge

Sometimes thinks it's scary when you get angry but like,also in a cool way

Yeah KANSKSK

"Potato? What was that?"

He's actually pleasantly surprised

He thinks it's smart and a bit appreciative of how well you're in control of your emotions

Still, he's a bit concerned and makes sure it's not anything bottled up

"Well, they deserved a good lecture anyway, but I suggest not strangling them just yet"

He's a bit playful/teasing, like a tiny subtle bit

A bit impressed

Inquires Rook about it

And if you managed to even fool him?

Oh dear, you're a smart cookie, aren't you?

But he also straightforwardly tells you that if it's anything serious, or if you're bottling up your emotions, to talk to him about it

Also warns you a little if you actually do bottle your emotions

Also smug about it too

A relationship means a lot to him so he trusts you a lot to be able to freely talk to him about your emotions

You'd think he may not like that side of you, but he's actually a bit fond of it

It feels intimate and trusting to him, and he's happy whenever you genuinely express an emotion in front of him without any hesitance

The moment you start opening up more about your emotions to him, the more he will reciprocate and show emotions to you that he won't usually show

It was just a tad bit intimidating to him at first, this level of intimacy is probably something he didn't expect soon

But he's happy

<3

THE WHIPLASH 2.0

Crying screaming throwing up

Somewhat intimidated by you

He already was at first when you both met and you had this very calm aura around you thats stood out from the other nrc rats students

But when he sees you angry? And lecturing those idiots two?

Oh dear

He's hiding in his room for a day (like always) and refuses to show himself to you for a while

It'll probably take him a while to inquire you about it

But when you do and really talk to him about it in depth

He'll be relieved and a bit ashamed because he felt like he overreacted skdnksjd

Makes multiple references to characters and snickers to himself

"Ahh.. I remembered a character just now, you're so much like them.. lol"

Snickers to himself now when he remembers you lecturing those 3 again

Smug

Leona level smug about it

Like "heck yeah, that's MY s/o!!"

Sometimes asks Ortho about it because he gets curious but nothing much

"Child of man..? How interesting"

Amused

Then comes the teasing

Also a bit like Leona

Wonders how you hid that expressive side of yours so well,and how you managed to maintain it

Asks Lilia if he noticed "something" about you

He's also dropping small reassurances in his teasings

"Hahaha.. well I hope you won't hide anything from me, no? As for those 3, maybe not now"

Very smug about it too

Whenever you show your more expressive and emotional side to him, he's not judging but everytime it happens he's slightly amused and so proud about it

He feels all giddy for the fact you're more vulnerable around him

Happy in a weird way (not bad tho)

Sometimes wonders how you're able to do it so well

Asks you about it from time to time just to know more and more

He thinks it's very interesting

Likes comparing the contrast of you in public eye vs people who you show your more expressive side to

Overall he finds it fascinating

Everytime you show more emotion, his eyes light up in a different manner and his gaze on you feels all the heavier, it's not that he's trying to scare you

It's just he understands how rare these moments are and

He can't help it

He wants to treasure every small intimate moment like that!

One of the more chill ones tbh

---

[dreamhot]

Lee, what do I do...

I just read up on the Sky does Minecraft situation, and now I feel... Both sick but severely conflicted.

Sky got me through one of the harder times in my life, not the worst, but not the best, and now all that's come forward, how am I supposed to deal?

Can I trust anyone online anymore? What if dream is just like him and I'll pour my heart and soul into adoring something only for it to come out and be absolutely awful... Can I get some advice/reconciliation???

all right so - this got a bit (very) long and discusses some sensitive topics so i'm gonna put it under a cut

it's never easy when this happens. obviously there are varying levels of creator sins - sometimes entirely contained with the cc's social life, and other times involving the fans. either way, there are few feelings like the gut punch of finding out that someone you looked up to isn't a great person. it's like the ground crumbling out from under you. yeah, we don't know the ccs, but we still trust them to be decent people. so when they're not ... that trust is broken.

the first thing you'll always hear is that we shouldn't put anyone on a pedestal. of course that's a given, but that doesn't mean that we can't be disappointed by someone even if we didn't expect them to be perfect. definitely recognise that the people we follow are flawed - especially since we'll never see the entire extent of their personalities or personal lives - but don't feel bad for expecting basic morality either. that's just common sense.

i think one of the best first steps - in a general situation, not specifically this one - is to evaluate the nature of the situation and do your fact checking. how severe was the offense? are there concrete details or only hearsay? are we talking 'i don't support their actions, but i can still watch their content' or is it more 'this is so deplorable that i'm no longer comfortable engaging at all'? bear in mind your personal comfort level and that of victims who might be affected by the situation. compassion goes a long way here.

from a personal standpoint, i followed tobuscus, ryan haywood from achievement hunter, and another (non youtube) figure with a muddy history. i've been through assorted tiers of creator scandals and on the sidelines for others - for example, i never watched cry, but i had friends who loved his content dearly and were shattered when the news came out. it feels almost like mourning... and it is grief, in a way. we lost something that was a comfort to us, something that brought us happiness. that source of joy has effectively died, and it makes sense that we would feel the pain of loss.

and it always creates the worry you mentioned - what if it happens again? what if i trust another figure and they let me down like this? you almost want to tell yourself that you won't let yourself get in that deep again, because it hurts so much worse when you let yourself be that invested. it's the double-edged sword of parasocial relationships - the more you care, the harder it hits you when something falls through. that much is inevitable.

the thing is ... it sucks not to care. it's in many of our natures to see the best in others. when a cc brings us joy, we're going to be passionate about that interest and assume that they won't let us down. and, honestly, i don't think it's wrong to keep that faith even when someone else has hurt you. of course you might be cautious or even wary. of course you might be hypersensitive to potential red flags or worried that the ball is going to drop at some point. i think any of us who went through this sort of upset are familiar with that anxiety - what if [current fixation] is next?

but we don't have to assume the worst, especially when we haven't been given cause to do so. trust me when i say i was extremely wary of dream before i joined the fandom (i mean, i didn't like the guy for a while lmao). the cry-adjacent branding, the encouragement of parasocialism within the fanbase... it made me nervous. but actually following his content and hearing what he has to say has put so many of those old fears to rest.

(the cry stuff is admittedly unfortunate, but the branding also happened before the situation was made public, so i'm willing to let that slide. however, i respect the reticence of anyone who was more invested in cry's content before everything happened - i can understand that anxiety, even if i don't think it's merited here.)

sure, dream openly cherishes his fans, but he's also notably good at maintaining communication boundaries. when he engages with the fandom, we see it. i'd even wager he has less direct interaction with individual fans than he used to, which is a good move when your popularity reaches a certain magnitude. he loves his audience, but imo there's still a clear line dividing his personal life from that of his creator persona - not that i would call his public face ingenuine, but hopefully you know what i mean.

dream's not so bubblegum perfect that it seems like a facade, but neither does he behave in a way that sets off any alarm bells. of course it's true that we can be blindsided by shitty behaviour - because we can never know their whole lives, sometimes bad news will seemingly come out of nowhere. with dream, though, i've allowed myself to have faith in his character. he's fallible, yes - he's only human - but i've not yet seen anything that would lead me to believe that we'll get a horrid bombshell one of these days.

and, while it's sad that we can use this as a point of reassurance... people want to defame him. there are those who constantly seek to find evidence of him being a shitty human being - even going so far as to straight up lie about him to tarnish his name. nothing he does goes unscrutinised, and i feel as though we would know if something was amiss. the fact that nothing meaningful has been dug up by bloodhound antis is a fucked up sort of relief, i guess.

dream's just a guy. he loves his cat and his family and his friends. he has his own history, messy or otherwise with all the high moments and low. he's flawed, but who isn't? the difference between him and others who have let me down in the past is that i believe him when he says he wants to be a good person and make people smile.

i care a lot about him - so much so that if something happened, i would feel beyond crushed. but i have to go with my vibes on this one, and he doesn't cause me to worry. he makes me happy, and if he makes you happy as well, i would try to embrace that feeling. take care of yourself, but don't let yourself shut out the potential for caring just because someone else failed you. there are always going to be good people, ones worthy of our support and affection. and, god willing, dream is always going to be one of them.

<3

[hopeymchope]

Honestly, anon finds these discussions about "which deaths we would swap" to be kind of creepy. It's like we have a god complex, talking about who we think deserves to live and who deserves to die. It's one of anon's biggest pet peeves about the Danganronpa fandom; we talk so much about "who we think should have died" that it's kind of ghoulish. It's like what Gandalf said in Lord of the Rings: many dead people deserve to live, but we can't give life to them, so we shouldn't decide death either.

I think we can drawn a pretty thick line between rewriting scripted, fake deaths and having a morbid, delusional fixation on rewriting the deaths of actual people. At the end of the day, every fictional game or movie or tv or book franchise is still something someone had to write. To start the whole thing off, someone had to just type up a text document and store it on their computer, y'know? Which means that some regular person or people really did decide who was going to live and who was going to die in the story.

In the case of Danganronpa, Kazutaka Kodaka is the "god" who got to determine the course of all these characters' lives for as long as we'd know them. The same is true of any writer. To use an example you referenced: Tolkien had to decide to kill that one child of Denothor (yes I'm seriously going to dance around naming the character just in case it'd spoil LotR for somebody). Then he had to write down the details of how it happened. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was just some mortal, but he had total control over that fictional reality. Yet I wouldn't fault him for killing a character for dramatic purposes, y'know? When you write fiction, you are ultimately taking those fictional characters you create/adopt and deciding upon the path their lives will take. And you make those decisions based on what's best for the story - not based on whether you like the character or whether it's the most satisfying possible time in their lives.

And none of that is even accounting for the fact that in fictional works, we often want to see or follow very different rules for who lives and dies than anyone would ever want to see apply to reality. For example: Just because you might expect any teenager who drinks alcohol in an old slasher movie to get killed, and you even might write those kinds of deaths if you had to create some kind of '80s throwback horror movie, that doesn't mean you'd EVER wish that kind of thing on real people of ANY age.

So to me, to sit around and talk about how you'd change someone else's written work isn't really any different than writing a fanfic, or from being anyone who writes anything that's made up. It's interesting to note, though, that Shuichi would agree with you on this whole point due to the horrific meaning of "fiction" in his reality. The idea of viewers in the world of V3 contemplating how they would've written a particular season differently? I guess it'd be like if a bunch of Americans sat around together, discussing who they personally would've liked to see escape and/or get killed during that week's most recent mass shooting. ................ And although that sounds pretty fucked up, I'm just realizing that it ALSO sounds like a way of working through that third stage of grief.

Ultimately, I guess what I'm saying is a long-winded way of delivering a simple "Don't take it too seriously, because we all know that nobody is actually getting hurt here; it's just a discussion about writing." But even so, I think it's natural to sometimes find a fictional world that gets you SO invested that the deaths and the drama hit you like a truck. So maybe you're simply trying to say that this kind of thing feels painful to you because of how invested you are? Maybe it just gives you a feeling of the macabre in some loose, undefinable way... and maybe that's just because you care that much. And I'd say: There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But if we really had godlike power and the world of DR actually existed in some multiversal sense, I assume most of us would opt to stop all the deaths entirely. We're not psychos. .......Or maybe we wouldn't all choose to stop Junko's or Korekiyo's deaths, because they're essentially serial killers. But you get what I mean.

[mrsdoctordear]

How L. M. Montgomery portrays grief in the Anne of Green Gables books

Anne encounters and navigates grief several times throughout the AOGG series, from Matthew's death in the first book to two of her children’s deaths in the later ones. In each instance, L. M. Montgomery portrays grief very accurately and stays true to its many forms—from confusion to anger and a sense of betrayal, as well as disinterest and indifference to life without our loved ones.

Below are ten different points that Montgomery hits on in her explorations of grief.

1. A part of our old self dies with the person we loved.

"It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it."

(Anne of Green Gables, Ch. 36)

2. We can hardly imagine life without our loved one, yet almost struggle to remember what our life was like with them in it.

"Half the time it seems to me that Matthew can't be dead; and the other half it seems as if he must have been dead for a long time and I've had this horrible dull ache ever since."

(Anne of Green Gables, Ch. 37)

3. We hate to think that we can be happy again, as if in surrending our grief, we also surrender part of our love for the person we've lost.

"It won't hurt so much always, Anne." "The thought that it may stop hurting sometimes hurts me worse than all else, Marilla."

(Anne’s House of Dreams, Ch. 19)

4. We grow angry with what we don't understand and scoff at the beliefs we formerly held.

"It was God's will, Anne," said Marilla, helpless before the riddle of the universe—the why of undeserved pain. "And little Joy is better off." "I can't believe that," cried Anne bitterly. Then, seeing that Marilla looked shocked, she added passionately, "Why should she be born at all—why should any one be born at all—if she's better off dead? I don't believe it is better for a child to die at birth than to live its life out—and love and be loved—and enjoy and suffer—and do its work—and develop a character that would give it a personality in eternity. And how do you know it was God's will? Perhaps it was just a thwarting of His purpose by the Power of Evil. We can't be expected to be resigned to that."

(Anne’s House of Dreams, Ch. 19)

5. We hate to be alone with ourselves, for it leaves us alone with the unwelcome company of our grief.

"Would you like company or would you rather be alone?" "If by company you mean yours I'd much rather have it than be alone," said Anne, smiling. Then she sighed. She had never before minded being alone. Now she dreaded it. When she was alone now she felt so dreadfully alone.

(Anne’s House of Dreams, Ch. 20)

6. We become disinterested in many of the things we once enjoyed.

In the mournful eventide Grief was closely at my side, Shrinking from her sullen woe Much I longed to see her go. Music lost its tender grace When I looked on her grim face, Flowers no more were sweet to me, Sunshine lost its witchery, Laughter hid itself in fear Of that Presence dour and drear, Little dreams in pale dismay Made all haste to steal away. Reft of what had made me glad, Grief alone was all I had

(The Blythes are Quoted, Part 2: The Fourth Evening, Grief)

7. To forget our grief for awhile is only to remember it keenly later on.

"Oh, I wish I could just keep on working all the time, Susan," cried poor Rilla. "And I wish I didn't have to go to sleep. It is hideous to go to sleep and forget it for a little while, and wake up and have it all rush over me anew the next morning. Do people ever get used to things like this, Susan?"

(Rilla of Ingleside, Ch. 23)

8. Just when we feel as though we couldn't live with grief any longer, we realize that we haven't any other choice—for as long as it is a resident in our lives, we must learn to acquaint ourselves with it and tolerate its existence.

"'I cannot bear it,' she said. And then came the awful thought that perhaps she could bear it and that there might be years of this hideous suffering before her."

(Rilla of Ingleside, Ch. 14)

9. Once life begins to return to normal, it becomes difficult for us to distinguish between moving on and moving forward.

"And then Avonlea settled back to its usual placidity and even at Green Gables affairs slipped into their old groove and work was done and duties fulfilled with regularity as before, although always with the aching sense of 'loss in all familiar things.' Anne, new to grief, thought it almost sad that it could be so—that they could go on in the old way without Matthew. [...] 'It seems like disloyalty to Matthew, somehow, to find pleasure in these things now that he has gone,' she said wistfully to Mrs. Allan one evening when they were together in the manse garden. [...] 'I am sure we should not shut our hearts against the healing influences that nature offers us. But I can understand your feeling. I think we all experience the same thing. We resent the thought that anything can please us when someone we love is no longer here to share the pleasure with us, and we almost feel as if we were unfaithful to our sorrow when we find our interest in life returning to us.'"

(Anne of Green Gables, Ch. 37)

10. But for as long as our loved ones are in our memory, they are in our lives.

“I've read somewhere that 'our dead are never dead until we have forgotten them.' Matthew will never be dead to me, for I can never forget him."

(Anne’s House of Dreams, Ch. 3)