#school is legit terrible for my body and brain

[deathwords334]

See I was gonna try and wait to post till I had something to show… but a Gomens artist posted a pic of a Jurassic Park AU where Crowley is a TRex and Aziraphale’s a scientist. (EDIT: @Meatballlady corrected me that Crowley being the dinosaur wasn’t part of the actual fic. Just an idea that was brought up. Oops. Sorry about that… 😅 ) I guess someone asked if the two would get together and then…

I got a bad idea… a terrible, insane idea. I don’t know if the artist will humor my comment but I need to put it out into the world. I need someone to make it real!

Good Omens! Tammy and the TRex AU!!!

(quick trigger warning: blood/gore, animatronic TRex, girls in lingerie, medical malpractice)

Oh God help me…

A quick synopsis of the movie: Michael (Paul Walker) is a high school guy who’s dating Tammy (Denise Richards), whose ex is very much not over her. So the ex and his crew trick Michael into getting into the local safari after hours (as you do), and Michael ends up in a coma after being attacked by a lion. Suddenly, a mad scientist and his sexy assistant abducts his body and puts his brain into a TRex. And so Michael, as a TRex, goes on the run with Tammy (and his gay best friend Byron) to try and retrieve his body and get his brain out of the TRex.

Now you may think 'this sounds like a crazy movie', and you'd be right! I can only hope someone else sees my vision. Please I don't wanna be alone in this. Legit there'd be a scene where Aziraphale feeds Crowley's brain booze and does a strip tease for him in sexy lingerie!

[hotmess-exe]

I love some visibility for us folks who literally cannot and so do not meditate. Traditional meditation is so fucking stressful. I have intrusive thoughts. I have severe depression. I have severe anxiety. I have some other undiagnosed bullshit that makes my brain race a hundred words a minute the moment I am not actively doing something. When I sat in Mass or at school assemblies or even just spaced out in math classes, I'd type my thoughts out against my body.

Stillness of thought and a quiet mind only ever happen for me if I'm in the lowest pit of a terrible panic or anxiety attack. Even if I could will myself into such a state, these are not things that I find relaxing.

I'm not saying fuck meditation per se, but I am saying fuck people who just will not accept even the concept that sitting in silence and attempting to calm your thoughts could be legit impossible and not at all relaxing for some. That's me pointing the finger at annoying armchair psychologists and ""self-care"" advocates with poor listening skills, but unhelpful therapists, counselors, teachers, co-workers, bosses, and family members can get fucked too 🙏🏾😁

[otakumagicmusicgamer]

Just had a dream that I was taking a math final and I didn’t finish it. Like I was halfway done and time was up. And I was left with the familiar feeling of frustration and gauging if I failed this it’ll tank my grade from an A to a C or worse. And have woken up to that feeling of sadness and inadequacy cuz I failed my math final in my dream.

I’ve been out of school for 5 years now.

[c-is-for-circinate]

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

[destinationtoast]

In case it helps anyone to know -- if you struggle, you are not alone.

I think many people who who've followed me or known me for a long time probably think I have my shit pretty together. And in a lot of ways, my life is great, and I have done some cool stuff. But despite that, I struggle with mental health, and my brain is sometimes a terrible place to live. I've spent a bunch of time recently:

Feeling incompetent and like a complete imposter

Feeling like a failure and a disappointment

Feeling like I'll never be able to do any job well and will end up penniless and without healthcare (but still with chronic pain) and an enormous burden to everyone

Feeling like a waste of resources -- "I have so much privilege, and so many advantages, and I squander them by being useless and by not even enjoying my life"

Feeling like I'll never enjoy anything again

Feeling like life will never be anything except stress and despair

Lying awake feeling all my muscles clenched and my heart racing

Having a tremendously hard time getting out of bed

Having an even harder time attending work meetings or doing work

Not being able to eat much and experiencing nausea and digestive issues (where usually I tend to eat larger amounts than usual in response to stress, occasionally it flips and I have to force myself to eat)

Crying unpredictably, e.g. while doing dishes, and having to awkwardly explain to housemates

Feeling numb and impatient and distracted while trying to read/watch TV/browse Tumblr

Feeling So. Much. Guilt. And. Shame. Just constantly.

This is all in spite of the fact that (a) I have substantial and even recent evidence to the contrary about a lot of this stuff (e.g. I got feedback at work not that long ago that I was doing really well and could consider going up for promotion soon). And (b) I've had intense episodes of anxiety in the past and then gotten better, so I have plenty of examples of how these intense feelings don't necessarily predict the future.

Despite all this data, and despite my loved ones telling me wonderful, helpful things, I have spent a lot of time feeling viscerally quite horrible over the past few weeks (as well as for much longer stretches, at times in the past). And parts of my brain have compellingly argued that this will probably last forever.

I've dug myself partially out by talking to a doctor (though I realize healthcare is a privilege not everyone has, though we all should) and getting a short term Rx to help me relax at night enough to sleep. And signing up for therapy again. And discussing longer term possible changes to my meds (I'm on an antidepressant that had been working well till recently). And doing simple breathing exercises. And forcing myself to go do some small amount of work -- especially to make progress on a couple of the things i was most dreading, or to ask others for help with them. And forcing myself to eat and go for walks. And spending time petting kitties. And admitting to my closest peeps that I am struggling, and getting them to say that they'll still like me even if I lose my job. And remembering all those past episodes of anxiety and depression (as well as panicky bad drug trips) that I was sure would last forever at the time, but didn't. And realizing that life is long, and there are many ways to survive and find joy in this world -- and even if I thoroughly fuck up one path, there are other things to try.

I also had to do a big hard thing at work this week that was very stressful (definitely the dread of this has been one contributing factor in my recent spiral). Afterwards, I immediately felt drenched in relief, and feelings of interest and joy and hunger have started to flood back into my life again. "HAHA JUST KIDDING," the unhelpful parts of my brain suddenly said. I still would like to get to a much more stable place mentally, and I'm going to continue to work toward that, and to develop my toolbox for coping. But the sudden easing of some of the terrible sensations feels miraculous, and I'm grateful, and amazed at how fast my internal state can change. And even if maybe it turns out I feel worse again tomorrow, I'm going to enjoy today and try to remember that I did so.

So. If you're struggling, I empathize so much. And it's worth trying to keep in mind that:

Strong feelings of incompetence and/or certainty that the future will suck don't stem from reality. Our brains+bodies sometimes make us feel these things strongly even when actual evidence says otherwise.

That means anxiety/depression is like a bad drug trip. It feels very real, but you're likely to feel at least somewhat differently -- and sometimes substantially better -- if you can hang in there a while.

Just because your brain may be lying to you doesn't mean the resulting struggle isn't real. It's legit hard sometimes to do the basics of survival -- Eat. Sleep. Move the minimal amount needed to get food & water, go to the bathroom, etc. When you're finding those things hard, you're ill. And you deserve time off and self care and a trip to the doctor, if you can manage any of that. If you can't? If you're taking care of others/working or going to school/doing anything else on top of being ill? You're a superhero. I hope you can get others to help take some of your duties for a bit, or to help you book a doctor's/therapist's appointment, or to at least listen and sympathize and send you cute animal pics or memes.

Other people who may appear to have their shit together may not. Many of them are going through big struggles of their own.

The pandemic & state of the world right now are making things much harder for so many people. My doctor (general practitioner) told me that nobody she's seen in the past year is doing that great mentally, and the number of people having acute mental health issues has skyrocketed. Be as kind and forgiving toward yourself as you can manage (in general, and even more so now).

Good luck. Hang in there as best you can. I'm rooting for you. 💗

(Feel free to reblog or to reply, but I may not have energy to respond to comments... responding is hard right now.)

[genderpains]

Vent/rant/ramble tw idk

agh I was talking to my coworker the other day and I told him abt how my muscles and bones and body aches all the time since I was in like middle school and how my joints hurt and sometimes I need help getting out of a crouch/off my knees because my knees hurt so bad, and how doctors r just like “whelp loose weight and you’ll b better”, and he said his sister is the same and she got diagnosed with fibromyalgia, and her symptoms started when she got her period,, and idk I don’t want to take resources away from ppl with chronic illness/disorders/disease(?) but I’ve always had chronic pain, especially back pain, and it’s a running joke in my family that I can feel the rain b4 it rains (old ppl bones/ body lmao), and all my doctors have just said, oh growing pains, loose weight, take Advil etc. idk I just wanted to talk abt it, since my therapy appointments r on thursdays. And I always have this creeping fear that I’m making stuff up, like every time I have memories or talk abt something, I immediately preface it in my brain that it could be fake, even though I’m almost certain it’s not. Another thing is that because I’ve had this chronic pain for so long, I don’t actually know if it hurts? Like what if what I describe as sore is actually really bad pain and aches, but I’ve had it for so long I’m used to it? And again I just have this terrible feeling that I’m making it up and I’d be taking resources from others, and I wouldn’t want to do that, I don’t want to upset anyone either, idk just thoughts I guess. The soreness has been worse since the other day when I started deep diving into otherkin stuff, and it make me think abt my body (which I always avoid) and so now I’m just sore all over and every time I come back to myself after zoning out “, its like I’m missing a step, like how a record sounds when it starts skipping, like for a brief moment my body feels like it’s being dragged behind and I’m all fuzzy and my hair stands on end, I guess I’m just not feeling well today. And I have work at 4:30 but I’m worried I might zone out/get fatigued while I’m carrying something (I work in a warehouse/donation center and lift stuff all the time) it’s my first job so I don’t want to call out, and I honestly enjoy the work, but I’m exhausted everyday now, I just hate being all mentally fuzzy/I’ll, it sucks, legit I have 3 dx of depression ,seasonal, dysthymia, and major, so my body is chronically tired all the time I hate it. I wish I didn’t have mental health problems, shit sucks straight ass

[thefudge]

Do you have any Romanian (language or just content-wise) media recs? Particularly novels and poetry but really any must-sees/must-reads are welcome!

uuuu! 

my brain is too fried right now to do any kind of exhaustive list so i’m gonna rec a few things that i know you could get your hands on/available in translation:

for two thousand years, by mihail sebastian - really heartbreaking yet also lucid, adventurous and darkly humorous memoir of a Jewish writer in his youth at the height of nazism in romania (there’s even a Penguin classic of it)

diary of a short-sighted adolescent by mircea eliade - a funny and bittersweet bildungsroman about a bookish teenager who wants to read everything now and be the cleverest person alive while also struggling with being super lazy and unmotivated because he’s young and restless, it’s very #relatable. but it’s also fascinating to read this in opposition with “for two thousand years” because eliade entertained legionnaire nazi sympathies at one point. (also, you should check out his novellas too, especially the fantastic ones)

anything you can find in translation by gabriela adamesteanu - just lovely, delicate prose about growing up, being an adult, inhabiting your body and your feelings in an oppressive world 

the hatchet by mihail sadoveanu (apparently, there is a translation) - a lot of people give this novel flak, mostly because we had to read it in high school, but it’s a great and deceptively simple little novel that says a lot more about people than it cares to admit. the action takes you through several villages in the East-Carpathians, where a peasant woman goes in search of her missing husband. it’s a fascinating mixture of crime and folklore and mythology. 

any novella by costache negruzzi, but especially “alexandru lapusneanu”, another classic we had to read in school and which gets a lot of flak. it’s so bonkers and #quality-trash. let’s just say there’s a scene where the power-hungry voievod/prince lapusneanu enacts a red-wedding situation and builds a pyramid of freshly severed heads to impress his lady wife *swoon* 

the forest of the hanged by liviu rebreanu - i know people argue this isn’t his best novel, but it’s got the most heart. it’s the story of a soldier/philosopher in WW1 who falls in love with people again. that’s it. he falls in love with people, and the war and everything in between doesn’t matter anymore. or it matters only as it pertains to people, and people alone. 

gallants of the old court by mateiu caragiale - a bizarre gem of early 20th century Romanian nightlife, a wonderful, orgiastic fugue, feverish and infuriating. it’s mostly about rich men and social-climbers getting into existential trouble, but also into real trouble. normally, because the action takes place right before WW1, this would signify the end of an era. but we don’t really have a beginning or end. we are part-balkan, part-french imitators, part-whatever-sticks. nothing moves us, and everything does. and that’s why it’s a sort of love/hate letter to romanians 

in terms of poetry, some personal faves:  nichita stanescu, ana blandiana, monica pillat, marin sorescu,  a.e. baconsky, lucian blaga, emil brumaru, nora iuga, marta petreu, nina cassian. and yes, mihai eminescu, our national poet, though i’m often in two minds about him.  

poetry in translation is really hit and miss because of the “untranslatable”, so here’s two lines from a poem by nina cassian, because i want to show you what i mean:

            De când m-ai părăsit mă fac tot mai frumoasă             ca hoitul luminând în întuneric. 

this roughly and poetically translates to:

          Since you left me I’ve grown more beautiful

           like the corpse lighting the dark 

and this is sort of lovely on its own, but you’d need to know and hear and taste the word “hoit” in romanian to really feel the abjectness, because “hoit” is a smelly, ugly yet also alluring, already decomposing version of “cadavru” aka cadaver/corpse. also “ mă fac tot mai frumoasă” cannot be accurately summed up in “i’ve grown more beautiful”. a literal translation would be “I make myself more beautiful”. in romanian, this is obviously idiomatic and not literal. and yet, these strange self-reflexive valences make these lines strong and eerie, as if the speaker were authoring her beauty, shaping it out of clay and darkness and “hoit”,  like a butterfly cracking the corpse’s shell to get out, but also retaining some of its mesmerizing stench. why did i pause to do a close-reading of romanian poetry??? anyway, you catch my drift

in terms of movies, a recent one i really loved was sierranevada by cristi puiu, which is a neurotic family drama that drains you but also lifts you up 

and yeah, the hype is real, 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days by cristi mungiu really is that good (about two young women trying to get an illegal abortion in communist romania. it won the palme d’or for very legit reasons. it breaks you in small ways. the very last shot of the film you’ll carry with you forever). i also liked graduation by cristi mungiu, where a young overachieving girl is about to graduate high school and go on to study abroad, until a terrible event unmoors both her and her family. the movie turns almost hallucinatory at one point, filled with ambiguity and a kind of sleep-walking quality 

tales from the golden age by cristi mungiu (him again!) is also fantastic for anyone who wants to get a taste of communist romania and the sad-funny absurdities of everyday life. this movie is split in 2 parts and the format is that of an anthology, almost like watching several short films at once. and there is one film in the anthology that always turns me inside out, and it’s really silly, it’s this bonnie and clyde type story about this girl and boy who meet at a party and devise an ingenious get-rich scam and just run around a few neighborhoods trying to put it into practice and it’s...the sweetest, most incomplete thing. there is such a strange, lovely connection there that never gets realized, and there is a MOMENT between them where he helps her step down from this ledge and he holds her briefly to him and i remember being in the cinema and thinking THIS, this is THE MOMENT where i felt these people were real. it was such an honest, lovely moment. like the equivalent of this song. ANYWAY, why am i rambling so much??? this ask was supposed to be SHORT. 

aferim! by radu jude is also a really neat movie and provides a look into the historical romanian/rroma relationship and why it’s so messed up, yet also so organic

the death of mr. lazarescu by cristi puiu is also a great little film about a man who gets sick and goes to the hospital. and...dies, as you can tell from the title. on the surface, he dies because of institutional ineptness and a broken healthcare system. at a deeper level, he dies because we no longer know how to help people. various hospital staff in the film do try to help him and fail for various stupid or quietly heartbreaking reasons. it’s a movie about being physically unable to care. there’s indifference, sure, but also this great exhaustion of the human spirit. but the movie is also darkly funny. might not be a great pandemic watch, but then again it might be exactly what you need 

there are soooo many other classics in terms of books (morometii by marin preda, for instance, about a patriarch in a small village in the South who slowly realizes the world he used to live in doesn’t have room for him anymore, and maybe it never had) but i’m gonna end on a quote from ion creanga, one of the most cryptic classics of romanian lit:

“Şi eu eram vesel ca vremea cea mai bună şi şturlubatic şi copilăros ca vântul în tulburea sa”

my translation: “and I was cheerful like the best weather and frolicsome and childish like the wind in its cloudiness” 

and again, the words in romanian and their particular sound and bite (”şturlubatic”, “tulburea”) immediately take me elsewhere. creanga writes about childhood, but it’s never really childhood. he writes as an adult who, in my opinion, was never really a child, but a weird, small god of the land. i mean the word “tulburea” can mean both “turmoil” and “muddiness”. the wind can be anguished, but also just a little cloudy, just a little hazy, shrinking its agony, howling it in the child. it’s eerie and gorgeous. so, that’s what he does: creanga writes about children as if they were wind-like spirits. he writes stories about devils and the peasants who trick them and school books filled with spit and flies, and warm eggs stolen from nests and fairy-tales of a world that is buried somewhere inside us, but not too deep, things hidden under our clothes or nails or even in our hair. and it’s all so physical and convoluted, just like his prose. and i don’t think anyone will ever make sense of him and that’s what makes him so discombobulatingly great.

anyway, this was supposed to be...like, really short! and not gassy! i’m sorry. i love waxing about all this gay stuff. i’m so gay about it. 

realistically tho, the nearest thing you’ll find in your local bookshop is probably books by famous ‘theater of the absurd’ playwright, eugen ionesco, or novels in translation by contemporary author mircea cartarescu. both are pretty good, so go for it! (if you want to start small, i’d recommend REM by mircea cartarescu, because it’s so trippy and meta and captures that summer holiday eeriness so well. it goes well with this romanian song sung in english)

okay byeeeee 

[rawiswhore]

Hunter Hearst Helmsley x Fem Reader- "You're Beautiful"

During the 1980's, most professional wrestlers, especially ones in the World Wrestling Federation, weren't exactly Shawn Michaels-esque pretty boys.

There were a few that were pretty handsome and even were very over with females, but in the 80's, most professional wrestlers were quite ugly to look at.

And you were not attracted to them.

By the 1990's, before the Attitude era, you didn't care about professional wrestling, in fact, hardly anyone cared about pro wrestling before the late 90's Attitude era.

The WWF nearly went out of business during the 90's, after a decade when they made major pro wrestling draws like Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Macho Man Randy Savage and even Rowdy Roddy Piper household names and popular enough to cross over into pop culture.

Even some of the men you dated during the 90's didn't watch wrestling before the rise of NWO and the Attitude era, because they felt like they were too old to be watching it, and it was so silly, childish, corny and lame.

Though, when they thought of wrestling, they thought of the World Wrestling Federation and hadn't heard of ECW.

However, on a Monday night near the end of 1995, which is considered to be one of the worst years of professional wrestling ever, you were sitting on your couch in front of the television in your living room, flipping through the channels trying to find something good to watch.

You usually love whatever is playing on MTV, BET, occasionally Vh1, A&E, TBS, Comedy Central, and other TV channels, those were your go-to TV channels growing up, and you even did watch a bit of those channels that night since those channels you usually watch.

You even sometimes watched Cartoon Network if they were playing a cartoon from your childhood, during the majority of the 90's, Cartoon Network was a channel that played cartoons from throughout the 20th century so adults could either see cartoons from their childhood again and kids of the 90's could watch cartoons their parents or even grandparents grew up watching.

You should've had a spare TV Guide with you to see what's playing on television, but you couldn't really turn to the TV Guide channel since they scroll down so slowly of what's playing on television.

However, when you were flipping through the channels, you stopped at the USA Network that aired the newest episode of "Monday Night Raw", the match displayed on television was a match featuring Hunter Hearst Helmsley, a rich, elegant, classy 1800's Jane Austin/Charles Dickens blueblood aristocratic gentleman (that's a mouthful!).

When you had seen Hunter, your eyes were glued to him and didn't switch the channel.

He didn't look anything like the wrestlers you knew from the 80's like Hulk Hogan, Macho Man and Andre the Giant.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley looked like he should be on the covers of those cheesy paperback romance novels with Fabio on the cover, not wrestling.

You weren't in love with Hunter for his wrestling talent, but for his looks.

You started to watch "Monday Night Raw" just for him, even if "Monday Night Raw" was so damn cheesy and corny during this time (though was slightly improving a bit), and you eventually fell in lust with other pro wrestlers on "Monday Night Raw", like Razor Ramon (one of the few wrestlers of the New Generation era that was over and a fan favorite), Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Marty Jannetty, and of course, the Heartbreak Kid and sex symbol of the WWF throughout the 1990's: Shawn Michaels.

'Tis a shame that Lex Luger was in WCW by the end of 1995, because he's pretty hot too.

You felt embarrassed and like you had lost some brain cells watching "Monday Night Raw" in late 1995, but there were a few hotties in that wrestling company.

You knew that rock stars, rappers, professional athletes and even serial killers have groupies, and of course, professional wrestlers have groupies as well, they're called "ringrats".

You had seriously thought of being a ringrat for Hunter Hearst Helmsley as well as other pro wrestlers in the WWF like Razor Ramon and Bret Hart, and after fighting the temptation, you did one night go to a "Monday Night Raw" show to sleep with Hunter as well as other pro wrestlers.

You had thought carefully what to wear to "Monday Night Raw".

You are going to be a ringrat, and groupies usually always wear slutty, skin revealing outfits for men to lust at them.

Kayfabe is a word commonly used in professional wrestling to describe something as real, be it anything from Razor Ramon being Hispanic, Hulk Hogan lifting up Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania 3, and Mankind being a psychopath.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley's character was a rich, classy 1800's gentleman who scoffed at cads that were beneath him, would he turn you down if you were dressed half naked and showed a lot of skin?

Though, you don't just wanna fuck Hunter, plus, wrestlers are playing characters and even back in the 1990's anyone with an IQ above their shoe size should know that wrestling is fake.

Not to mention, while watching "Monday Night Raw", you notice there are prepubescent little children in the audience watching this, and you're afraid some little kids will see you in a pretty skimpy outfit.

It isn't an outfit too revealing, like being dressed in a thong and nipple pasties, but it isn't something you'd want your teenage daughter wearing.

You had thought long and hard on what to wear, if Hunter will like you in your outfit, and if you don't do it with Hunter, you can always move to Razor Ramon, a major ladies man, or Shawn Michaels.

You decided to dress in some tiny acid wash denim short shorts and a makeshift crop top that tied at your breasts, but you prayed and hoped that Hunter would still bang you even if you're not dressed elegantly.

Thankfully, the WWF rolled to a town that was close to you, and you had arrived to that "Monday Night Raw" taping dressed in that aforementioned outfit.

You had butterflies in your stomach and felt like a giddy, overexcited schoolgirl when you saw Hunter, Razor Ramon, Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith, and other wrestlers you fancied, tears of happiness weld in your eyes seeing them, and thank God you wore waterproof mascara.

You waited in line with some other ringrats, you felt like a hyper kid on sugar deep down inside, you were so excited to meet Hunter as well as other pro wrestlers, but you wanted to meet Hunter first.

You had never had sex with a professional wrestler before or even anyone famous before, though you did do it with a few guys on the wrestling team in high school.

As you waited in line, you chatted with other ringrats about how this is the first wrestling show you've ever been to and you've never done it with a professional wrestler before, they couldn't believe you.

Then, eventually, it was your turn, and you could nearly wet yourself in meeting Hunter Hearst Helmsley in more ways than one.

You smiled from ear to ear when you approached him, and as you walked up to him, his breath was nearly taken away by you.

No, he wasn't just playing his Hunter Hearst Helmsley character, he really did find you absolutely beautiful.

Like you when you first saw Hunter on television, his eyes were glued to you and looking you up and down.

"Hi" you said as you walked up to him, waving one of your hands to him.

"Hello" he greeted, "What is your name?"

He still talked in a phony, terrible British accent.

"Y/n" you confessed.

"Pleasure to meet you, y/n" he welcomed, taking one of your hands as you got closer to him and kissed the top of it like the gentleman he played on "Monday Night Raw", keeping kayfabe alive.

You could nearly faint when he kissed your hand, your entire body could turn red from bottom to top like in cartoons when a character gets kissed, and you smiled so much.

"You are absolutely beautiful" he gushed, getting up and putting both of his hands on the sides of your face, his eyes observing your face and body up and down.

You stared at him with an ear-to-ear smile and felt like a giddy schoolgirl inside as he touched you, you were trying to contain your excitement inside.

You legit feel like you're at Disneyland meeting Cinderella or Mickey Mouse or whatever, meeting people playing fictitious characters and keeping their characters alive, making you feel like you really are meeting them.

"Thanks" you said "Believe it or not, I've actually never actually done it with a professional wrestler before"

"Well, let me be your first" he purred, grinning as he said that.

"I actually started watching the WWF because of you" you confessed. "I never cared for pro wrestling until I saw you on a Monday night and was flipping through the channels, I changed the channel and found you having a match and couldn't keep my eyes off of you"

"I'm so proud of you" he gushed. "You chose me instead of those other cads"

He really is trying to keep kayfabe alive, even though you aren't buying that he's an English gentleman.

Even his British accent is terrible.

"Awwww, thanks" you said, smiling at him and looking like AJ Lee when she looks in someone's eyes and smiles at them. "Most other pro wrestlers aren't all that handsome, but you are"

"Precisely" he boasted, grinning.

"Do you like my outfit?" you asked, pointing at your outfit. "I was trying to decide what to wear, and I was scared you wouldn't like what I'm wearing right now since you play a classy, rich gentleman that scoffs at people beneath you"

"You look perfectly fine" he admitted.

"Oh, thank God!" you thanked to him, breathing a sigh of relief.

"You're welcome" he replied, smirking. "You are such a beautiful woman"

One of his hands stroked the side of your face, his thumb tracing down your jawline down to your chin.

"I'm thinking of having valets, women that escort wrestlers to the ring, wrapped right next to me as I walk to the ring" he confessed "Would you like to my valet?"

Oh. My God.

Your face and body completely froze, you didn't know what to think.

This is what he had in store for you that you didn't know about.

It's one thing to be a ringrat, it's another to be a ringrat turned valet.

Does that mean you're going to be signed to the World Wrestling Federation and be his valet?

"I-I don't know" you admitted, stuttering. "Am I going to be signed to the WWF and be your valet escorting you to the ring?"

"Yes you are" he admitted, nodding your head.

"It isn't just me being a valet for you once?" you asked.

"Well, it's your decision" he suggested.

He is giving you that decision, but you don't know what to decide.

He's so handsome and so are other wrestlers in the WWF, that means you get to travel with him and fuck them.

But...you'll give up your dreams, and you're in something that's a little bit corny and embarrassing that hopefully won't get any worse.

"I don't know what to do" you admitted. "I'll think about it, maybe I can be a valet for you onetime"

Even Hunter thought you can be a valet for him just once, he doesn't know what kind of trouble you'll get yourself into since you're a ringrat.

"I came here to fuck you" you admitted. "Pardon my language"

"It's alright" he understood, nodding his head.

You didn't want to say how you also wanted to fuck some other wrestlers as well: Razor Ramon, Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Shawn Michaels and even Marty Jannetty.

Hopefully his feelings won't be hurt if you go off to sleep with them.

You're not sure if you want to confess that you want to sleep with other wrestlers tonight, because you're afraid you'll upset him.

Maybe he might even show you off to those other wrestlers and how beautiful you are, and they'll wanna fuck you and it'll turn into an all out gangbang.

"Do you mind if I say this?" you asked him.

"What is it?" he asked.

You took a deep breath, preparing what to say.

"It isn't just you I want to fuck tonight" you admitted "But also Razor Ramon, Bret Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty"

His eyes grew wide hearing that you wanna fuck all of those people.

"I hope you aren't upset by it" you said. "Although, having promiscuous sex leads to AIDS and HIV, amongst other STDS"

"Exactly" he admitted. "I'm not upset"

Hunter's character is very possessive of his valets, as evident by next year when he was furious over Wildman Marc Mero stealing Sable from him or when Mr. Perfect/Curt Hennig stole one of Hunter's valets.

Even Hunter admitted his women are his toys.

Hunter shouldn't be getting way too into kayfabe and taking it so seriously, he isn't really a rich 1800's Jane Austen-like gentleman, especially since those kinds of gentlemen carrying canes didn't exist anymore in the 1990's except in movies and TV shows.

That's the problem with pro wrestling: some people take their characters so seriously, they still play them when the cameras aren't filming, and sometimes, when you play a character on any wrestling show, sometimes you have to play that character all the time if you appear on other television shows.

That can be fine, but what if you're playing a nymphomaniac and you have to appear on Regis Philbin and Kathy Lee's talk show, you don't really wanna fuck Regis.

You're basically signing and selling your soul to the devil.

Though, again, wrestling is not real, and anyone who isn't a prepubescent youth should know that.

Hunter would even like to show you off to the other wrestlers, about how he's thought of turning you into a valet.

There have been ringrats he's slept with who are beautiful women, but not as beautiful as you are, much to the dismay of them.

In fact, many women ended up becoming ringrats and sleeping with other pro wrestlers in hopes that they can become a valet and eventual WWF superstar thanks to you.

Basically the Sable effect: Sable joined the WWF because she thought it would be her ticket to Hollywood, and the Bella Twins and Eva Marie followed suit, many other women have been like that as well.

And there has been controversy over "16 and Pregnant" and "Teen Mom" on MTV because of allegedly teenage girls getting pregnant just so they can be on those shows.

Later on that night, you made love with Hunter, and he even showed you off to other pro wrestlers who were in lust with you as well, especially Razor Ramon, Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty.

Did you get to fuck them? Oh yeah.

And you continued to fuck Shawn and Marty next year, but sadly, not Razor, who had left the WWF to go to WCW.

When you had went home, you thought long and hard whether or not to join the WWF or not.

You eventually decided to join the WWF, which was both wonderful and horrible.

When you eventually became Hunter's ringrat, men would cheer for you, but not for Hunter, and you eventually started sharing your own ideas with the WWF's creative staff.

Eventually, you blew up in popularity in the WWF and became the most popular woman in the company, and the most controversial person in the WWF.

Some people knew about your story, how you were a ringrat for Hunter, he got a boner for you and turned you into his valet, and there were many ringrats sending angry emails and letters to you, saying that they're ringrats who've slept with whatever pro wrestler and they didn't get turned into a valet.

Many people also thought you slept your way to the top, you're a gold digger, and you're basically a wrestling Monica Lewinsky, Courtney Love or Lil' Kim.

It's really Hunter's fault because it was his idea to turn you into a valet.

_____________________________________________________________

I really hope that I haven't typed this fanfic already before.

[meloncubedradpops]

Repo! The Corona Opera

For every rotation that Earth has completed around the sun since the dawn of humanity, humans have created art to cope with the realities surrounding our everyday life. We weave stories in songs, movies, plays, books, paintings, and so forth, that help digest the world around us and provide an entertaining escape from the cruelties we endure. Some stories take place in abstract universes or in the future, and we rely on what we know in our present reality to build upon these fantasy societies. My favorite movie, Repo! the Genetic Opera, certainly makes this list. We are currently experiencing perhaps the most surreal year of our collective lives, and with each passing day I argue that we find ourselves closer to the world crafted in Repo. I have seen this movie, at least 20 times. If you haven't watched Repo! the Genetic Opera or you haven't seen it in a while, I recommend giving it a view. The movie is unique in that it falls under three distinct genres: musical, horror, and sci-fi. And while the jury is out on whether our future society is going to go full on gothic aesthetic, I can say that the Repo! movie experience offers a glimpse into a dystopian fascist post-plague world wrapped in unapologetically hilarity with a heaping side of camp. It doesn't offer any spiritual cleansing that our souls collectively need, but it does show us what a new normal could look like if we really go off the rails.

As things stand, right now, so much of our daily lives and culture are impacted by the coronavirus. All of our institutions have been impacted, from school, to work, to family, to the way we interact with strangers, and especially our economy. We have all felt the effects in one way or another, and honestly? Most the impacts are of our own undoing, for better or for worse. I am going to write three pieces analyzing Repo! the Genetic Opera. First I will create the foundations that bridge our contemporary life and the world of Repo! Second I will explain how the Repo! universe operates under the definitions of fascism. And third I will weave together parts one and two into our contemporary world (particularly in the context of the United States) to highlight the dark path we heading towards. My viewpoints are of mine, and my own alone. Let's dive into part one.

Part I Repo! the Genetic Opera takes place in the year 2056. Humanity was on the brink of collapse as a result of a medical crisis that caused massive organ failure.

I never gave the premise much thought, at least not until recently. We aren't given much detail beyond the fact that entrepreneur Rottissimo "Rotti" Largo solved this crisis through his company GeneCo. GeneCo provides organ transplants that can be repaid through a payment plan. Witnessing the coronavirus unfold in real time and seeing its wrath, particularly on severe cases, honestly makes me wonder if the writers had some sort of "super plague" in mind when creating this universe. For the purpose of this analysis, I will assume that humanity suffered at least one infectious disease crisis. And just to reiterate covid-19 particularly, we really *don't* know what it's going to do to us long-term. Let the parallels begin. 

The world in Repo! the Genetic Opera, operates as normally as the citizens possibly can, which appears to be quite limited. I have noted how dated some the technologies look.

For a world 30 years in the future, it lacks cell phones and easy access to internet. When we enter Shilo's world (aka her bedroom!) she watched Blind Mag sing on a busted up tiny ass TV and the program itself looks like an ad on Home Shopping Network.

The Graverobber is shown reading headlines on a newspaper. The news reporters shown in the ribbon cutting ceremony during the 1st Italian Post-Plague Renaissance have old school cameras with flashbulbs.

The most contemporary technology appears to be a Wish.com version of an Apple watch, and even that looks like a leftover prop from Spy Kids.

Obviously the people who made this movie intentionally inserted these anachronisms, but why? This is a science fiction movie after all. I speculate that they reverted back because the impact from humanity's crisis resulted in an overall professional "brain drain" from the sheer volume of professionals that dropped dead. In fact every scene depicting medical procedures looks dimly lit and lacking in sanitation. We will see this as we struggle to contain the coronavirus, at least in America. Healthcare workers have already died from this thing, and I am sure many prospective college students will have second thoughts about a career in healthcare. I mean hell, look at no other than GeneCo itself. That company employs workers called "Genterns" who are most definitely not in full PPE. I don't doubt their medical expertise, but they appear to be disposable (please see: that time Luigi killed one for NO REASON in "Mark it Up").

On that note, it really was quite incredible how China built the pop-up hospital in Wuhan in under 4 days, but it was also not the most safe or structurally sound building by far (it collapsed, people were hurt!). Maybe at this point, the people in Repo! don't have much of a choice. I am sure there were likely legit hospitals, but the fact that the Renaissance had gross surgery tents is a bit unsettling.

This is a world that is completely built upon the social more of valuing your health above all else. There had to be a turning point in the GeneCo business model where they really played on up-selling organs for the benefit of "genetic perfection". "I needed a kidney transplant desperately. GeneCo showed this single mom sympathy. This makeover came for a small added fee. Now I look smashing on live TV!" Imagine signing the documents for your power of attorney while actively going into renal failure, when your doctor chimes in with an up-sell for breast implants. When all is said an done, your body is now not only functioning again, but you're hot! Even in a post-plague dystopia we are still holding value to having a nice rack. What's not to love about GeneCo? Obviously we know right away that GeneCo has a dirty side. Rotti Largo personally lobbied to make organ repossessions legal, and he does not hesitate to recollect his property. The concept itself is, of course, wild. In America, our healthcare system is incredibly broken and expensive.  You would wonder how it could get worse without us backpedaling many steps on the industrialization timeline. And in a lot of ways, I could see a company like GeneCo thrive here. We already hate the poor, and we have political think tanks that salivate over the idea of cutting social programs that keep people alive. Our president has wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act while many people are unemployed during a pandemic. In Repo! we hear about those who don't pay, but obviously there are plenty of people who do. Those who can will happily pay, either for vanity reasons or to stay alive.

And while society cites Rotti as being a "hero" for humanity, we see more and more evidence that the crisis is both not under control and life is cheap.

His son murders multiple people, in front of others, with seemingly no repercussions. In the scene where Shilo meets the Graverobber for the first time, adjacent to the graveyard and tombs owned by wealthy families who could afford grave markers, lies a poorly constructed wall hiding thousands of corpses piled on top of one another. We even get a glimpse of a truckload pouring more onto the pile. I would not be surprised if there is a disinformation campaign there keeping the public in the dark (although you'd think the smell would be unbearable at this point).

There are multiple indications that propaganda works in society (still), and no one is getting the full picture of how much of a raw deal the people in Repo! have. We see poster after poster about GeneCo, in the literal absence of other corporations. 

And a lot of them bear resemblance to 20th century Russian propaganda. It would be a real shame if the goals outlined The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia were actually realized. Imagine going to visit your mother's grave and hearing commercials for hardcore analgesics play through the cemetery. Also, there's a police presence too. Apparently the police are called Genecops and have authority to execute any assumed graverobbers on site.

Imagine the hellscape it would be to live in a world where your loved ones may have died from a terrible pandemic, and you face a non-zero chance of an over zealous cop murdering you thereafter, and because their qualified immunity bypasses the judicial system entirely...oh wait. Anyways let's circle back to the Graverobber character.

Graverobber's role in Repo! appears to be minor on the surface. Rotti's daughter, Amber Sweet, appears to almost despise her relationship with him. And that relationship involves him supplying Amber with what he describes as the "21st Century cure". This cure you ask? A super effective painkiller with the clinical use to accompany GeneCo surgeries. This drug is called Zydrate, and it has a street version that he acquires and sells, with clients including Amber Sweet.

Graverobber makes his living sucking the glowy blue brain corpse goo and injecting them into people on the streets. Yum!

Not everyone who needs an organ transplant can pay for it all upfront. Luckily for them, GeneCo provides payment plan options! The caveat to this is if you fail to make those payments, legally GeneCo can come and repossess your newly acquired organs. If you find yourself past due, you will soon see the last face before your doom, the Repo Man. He will harvest GeneCo's property, and it won't matter where you are or what you are doing. There is no anesthetic, and you will likely die! This was all made legal through Rotti's lobbying efforts.

Society, as it's set up today, allows for property repossessions. This can be as straightforward as a repossession of your vehicle to as heartbreaking as a foreclosure on your home. At the end of the day, the impacts of that are difficult and life changing. Currently millions of people in America are out of work, and the threat of losing everything is at stake for many. We could lose our homes, our vehicles, and our sense of purpose. And while many government bodies have created temporary moratoriums, they have not provided any substantial financial relief to keep the proverbial repo man at bay. What went wrong in this dystopia to normalize the concept of death due to nonpayment? Fascism! Ah yes, the dreaded f-word. In my next essay, I will outline the 14 characteristics of fascism and how it relates to the universe in Repo! After I will relate that to our modern world so that we can try and stop this from becoming our reality.

[notesofarichlycolorednight]

it’s taken me a while but here we are!! listened to bloodwater ballad [TUMBLR | SOUNDCLOUD] by @gerrydelano so I’m gonna dive (ha, dive, get it?) into some analysis even tho I haven’t taken a proper English class since AP English Lit in high school and the god complex it gave me has never left (RIP to everyone else, but I’m different). But I do have a degree in Psychology and am a Researcher, so I know how to dissect things (this is probably why the god complex never left lmao)

disclaimer: I have only listened to TMA through one (1), read it ONE time, so if you read something that seems wrong it probably is because my memory is not The Best (the seasons are 40 eps long and 30 mins each, Jonny why) and I’m probably straight-up not remembering or misremembering some aspect or detail about either a character and/or their relationship

(and before you say it, i absolutely CANNOT just go relisten to an ep out of order. my nd brain Will Not Let Me until i have listened thru all 4 seasons, In Order, several times)

ALSO: i speak very definitively here, but it doesn’t mean i’m right abt my analysis

bold and italics are lyrics, regular font is analysis. if there’s a more accessible way to format this, lmk!

analysis under cut

honesty that's what she gave to me mary didn’t hide who she was; eric knew exactly what he was getting himself into

into the water i bleed into the sea sea motif/metaphor to describe how eric viewed his relationship with mary

truthfully even when she lied through her teeth it only meant she trusted me to lay at her feet rationalization from eric: he knows she’s lying, and she probably knows he knows. but she also knows that he won’t do anything about it

oh, heave-ho it's over the edge i sink more of the sea metaphor in pieces in ribbons in tatters i'm thrown into the dark of the drink ribbons and tatters: reminiscent/hint of mary needing a piece of his skint to keep his ghost in the leitner

oh, heave-ho it's over the edge i go blow the man down, he's a jewel for your crown (blow me down) and no one will ever know ”jewel for your crown”: suggestive of how mary used eric like an object. jewel and crown suggests that he was useful to her in an important way, tho, still an object ”no one will ever know”: suggestive that no one else, looking in on their relationship, would even see it for what it truly was, nor would they ever expect mary to throw him away so casually like she did

war, you see is somewhere you go just to bleed the end of a book you can’t read (books you cannot read) a legacy’s greed “book you can’t read”: suggestive of mary’s relationship with leitners ”a legacy’s greed”: commentary of leitner; bc this is eric telling his story tho, this could also be about how mary pulled eric into her plots regarding leitners, and then gerry

distantly, familiar hope came to me that even with blood in our teeth my son stayed asleep ”even with blood in our teeth”: eric knows what role he had to play in all this and is not absolving himself of blame ”my son stayed asleep”: often sleeping can be used as a metaphor for ignorance. in this case, eric is hoping that, despite what gerry’s mother is and what eric has been complicit in, will not affect his son i think it’s interesting to note here that the backup voices cut out for “my son stayed asleep” (put a pin in it)

oh, heave-ho the ship is my body, i gave to my wife as the captain, the whip, and the brine, the shark lurking under the waves more of the sea metaphor; also a metaphor for how complicit eric was to mary’s will i think it’s super interesting that she’s the captain, whip, brine, and shark in this metaphor. all things that can hurt eric, as the ship. suggests that mary is in complete control of eric (as the captain). also adds to the notion that eric knew exactly who mary was and still loved her anyway (”i gave”).

oh, heave-ho the ship is my body, she cracks the mast of my spine, spills my blood as her wine (lightning strikes and) i really like this line bc it makes me think of the marriage lines in corpse bride: “your cup will never empty, for i will be your wine.” and i love that it’s turned on its head here. cuts a flag from the skin off my back (takes all the skin off my back) a direct callback to the fact that mary has to take strips of eric’s skin to keep his ghost in the leitner book, while also staying with the metaphor that eric is a ship out at sea

way, ay, i wanted to say though blinded i still saw the light at the end of the hall, in a crib with his eyes almost grayer than mine in the night direct callback to eric blinding himself, twice! also represents how much he loves his son: “light of my life” is a common saying and gerry was that for eric

i gave up the sight of his face for his life and i would have lost more for the same i'd cut out my heart to save his from her bite and i almost don't know who to blame again, direct callback to him blinding himself so he could escape the institute a demonstration of how much love he holds for his son, willing to give up more and more of himself if it meant keeping his son safe heart motif! both for eric and gerry i really like the last line here bc he’s saying he doesn’t know who to blame for his blindness (aka cutting out his heart): himself or mary. bc, as i’ve stated before, eric knows who mary is. and he still loves her. still had a child with her. i also think it’s foreshadowing. and the reason i say this is bc, in the end, eric was unable to save gerry from mary. this song is representative of his statement to gertrude, so at this point, he’s a ghost. tho he may not know exactly what mary has done, he knows who she is enough to know that after he died, mary would raise gerry in her likeness, with her ideals

is it a murder if i made my bed by her side when i knew what she was? and here we have eric, most nearly explicitly, stating that he knew mary’s true colors. and loved her anyway. perhaps i'm complicit; i fell asleep first in the bloodcutting comfort of jaws this also solidifies his stance that he should shoulder some of the blame for allowing himself to love her when he knew what a truly terrible and deadly (literally) person she was ”bloodcutting comfort of jaws” is also really nice alliteration

forgive me, forgive me, i did try to swim with my hands and feet bound to my heart heart motif! okay so this one has so many layers for me: so, for all intents and purposes here, eric has effectively cut out his heart, which his hands and feet are bound to, and is now in the jaws of a shark (mary), who is dragging him down to kill him. he tried to save his son by getting away from the institute by blinding himself but it didn’t work weighted and anchored with love for my son who by birthright deserves more than scars legit, this confused me for a bit bc i always saw “with my hands and feet bound to my heart” as the anchor that pulled him down, as you’d weigh someone down with big rocks if you wanted them to drown. however, in the context of tma, i realized anchor could also mean the way martin is jon’s anchor. eric’s love for gerry was his reason--the person who he kept fighting for as best he could

additional note: these 4 verses are all sung without backup voices. i think it’s interesting that the lyrics/verses that revolve around wanting to save his son, and that are about his son, are sung with his singular voice. i wish i could articulate more what that means, but despite my best efforts, i’m not musically inclined even tho i’ll kinda be talking abt music composition for firesorrow girl lmao. link at the end

my eulogy the carpet red under my feet like standing on top of the sea (standing on the sea) the frenzy beneath don’t ask me why but i really like how this last part of the song starts with “my eulogy” bc you can tell the song is coming to a close now by that lyric. what’s really nice is i can “picture” eric closing his statement with gertrude with the request that she finds his son more sea and shark metaphors

infamy how do you remember me? that fool just so desperate to leave that he couldn't see? i also really loved these lines bc eric most likely knows how gertrude thought of him, and can probably sense how she feels of him now, after his story then i love how “couldn’t see” has a double-meaning here: 1) of course, he blinded himself but, 2) that he was also metaphorically blind to what kind of consequences his actions had, both on him and his son

oh, heave-ho a dead man has only one tale listen,,, i know i keep saying this, but i love how ron turns turn-of-phrases on their heads. bc “dead men tell no tales” right? eric has one tale, tho: his statement bc he’s a ghost who’s been bound this book and kept, for all intents and purpose, alive i knew she had hunger for blood in the water and that means it was no betrayal again, confirmation that eric knows that he has to shoulder some of the blame for the consequences of knowing who mary was (this bloodthirsty shark) and still loving her anyway

oh, heave-ho though, i have one request of you now if my son can be found and his own hands unbound (find my son) cut the rope - don't you dare let him drown (don’t you dare be the reason he drowns) so a throwback to “hands and feet bound to my heart” tho perhaps gerry’s heart isn’t what’s dragging him down, necessarily bc he was raised by mary, he didn’t have a choice. the moment he was born, he was tied to her. and the moment mary killed eric, there was no chance he could get away and then, of course, the gut-puncher: “don’t you dare let him drown”/“don’t your dare be the reason he drowns” are especially poignant, given gertrude uses gerry much in the same way mary did. gerry becomes bound to a different entity and is used for gertrude’s gain. so he drowns anyway.

--

alkjdlf i hope this is semi-coherent. i tried to do it more “professionally”--i even thought abt breaking it up and putting it back together, out of order, to address all the themes and motifs all in one spot--but then decided what would be best for my brain, was to listen to the song and just add my thoughts in as they came, stream of consciousness style *finger guns*

firesorrow girl analysis | meme i made for these analyses bc it’s funny and i wanted to share

[heat-riser]

Some weird analysis of when you knew me.

I’ve thought about doing this for a while. One part screaming into the void, one part for anyone who was on tumblr in it’s heyday and watched me be strange and into- frankly- the worst characters and really terrible ships. I’m 26 now and understand a bit more about myself after finally finding a good therapist who specialized in sexual trauma and delving into the deepest darkest parts. Maybe it’s part insight for people who were friends with my at the time- and by ‘at that time’, I guess I mean any point in my life up until a couple years ago. From around 5 years on- I was in a constant state of incredibly deep sadness and anxiety but was too numb to even really consciously feel it. I learned some of the worst things about people and became acquainted with some of the worst things a person can feel at 5, and then again multiple times around 9 due to rape by two different boys. The first, my family and people around me knew about pretty immediately. The second was completely unknown to people until recently. It’s not an easy thing telling your parents another neighbor boy who was a ‘friend’ raped you too. I can’t really explain properly how deeply this effects a person and how people don’t really understand it. Things as little as not being able to be outside my house without a jacket and full pants to cover my whole body because I internalized that showing your body is vulnerability opened up the possibility of sexualization and therefore- attack. All the way to now with everything being resurfaced and having nearly no sex drive and being unable to feel arousal without more anxiety coming in and overpowering the arousal feeling. It was recently recommended to me by my therapist to not play horror games because the feelings of arousal and fear are so tightly linked. I’ve been with the therapist for three years and anticipate at very least another 3-5 and she has clients who have been seeing her 10+ years for having experienced childhood sexual abuse. I can’t remember if I’ve talked publicly here about any of that but most of my friends are aware of the first one (it’s not really something I want to throw out there randomly and conversations in covid time are strange). I was only aware of the first one up until a couple years back. When talking about buried memories, how they come up, how to tell if they’re legit, I halfway thought “what if there was more” and felt sick to my stomach. One of the sure signs of a memory being true is an emotional response. I’m in the process of reclaiming the memories of the events involving the second neighbor boy. But point being- I learned the world was awful very early on and it became the background for all future development (sexual, social, self, etc. etc.). I began to numb myself after the first event and went through half of elementary school and middle school angry, sad, and hateful- I especially hated men, but also just the world at large. By high school, I had learned to shove all of that down. I can’t really recall feeling much of anything in high school. So the people that knew me at the time really only knew a weird ghost of a person. Then there’s this thing called trauma reenactment- where victims are drawn to things relating to the trauma situation. So this is what takes me to explaining the characters I was interested in. 1- Adachi. I now see as little more than a sad incel but it does say a lot about where I was at the time to be so fascinated with him. He shared my resentment towards the world, the idea that anyone who wasn’t depressed simply didn’t understand, and saw more of a problem with the world than his current state of being. Of course that was relatable. I very clearly remember in middle school believing people that weren’t depressed simply had no idea what was going on around them. Of course I thought that and still struggle with that mentality. All I had really known was deep despair and numbing myself from the world. I didn’t understand how other people didn’t realize that but now know what the emotional world I was living in was not typical of children. So here was someone that knew how bad everything around was and how bad the world felt and I clung onto him the same way I did my own idealizations. With what I’ve been processing more recently, the dude needed therapy and to unlearn that depression was cool and correct but had shown multiple times he was unwilling to challenge any of his issues and just started killing people. There were a lot of favorite characters through this but one that sticks out as another really fucked up example of where I was was Damon Gant. I look back at liking him as the ultimate symbol of trauma reenactment. He’s older, he had power, he was creepy, intimidating, unsettling, and controlling. Everything my predators had been to me at the time. So- all of those things were in a way intertwined with my own sexuality as they’re what I first learned with anything ‘sexual’. Some of my favorite ships are due to the same reasoning. Gant and Lana- again, kind of inherently controlling, imbalance of power, and ends horribly and tragically. I always found something intriguing and beautiful about the most horrific and sad feelings. And I’ll touch on it just for the record. Cyrus is big fucked up- but I think he is, though maybe incorrect, well intentioned with his main goal being what he believes will actually be better for everyone cause of his projection of the awful things he feels on everyone. He doesn’t go out of his way to hurt anyone and certainly doesn’t enjoy other people’s pain but rather wants to eliminate what he sees as the reason for people hurting others with and end justifies the means mindset. His numbing/attempts to numb, hatred of emotion, and hatred of people inflicting pain on others is all incredibly familiar and I’m certain a part of me in middle school knew that when picking him as a fave. As I progress, I’m more interested his potential to relearn people and start opening up to feeling. (Pokemon Master’s definitely more than hinted at him changing and I’m hoping that means they’ll go that route with remakes.) I should note that during my most ‘numb’ parts would sneak out and I would be very- and increasingly over time starting with 6th grade- suicidal and became addicted to cutting and self harm (which I realize now are both just further numbing techniques). I described the feeling at the time as a parasite controlling your brain and a part of yourself knowing you had to fight against it. There was a period I was certain of how I would die, it was just when I would finally snap. I should also say how much people are able to numb themselves. I can remember getting so anxious that my heart would race and the world felt fast- I would get to the point of gagging but can’t remember ‘feeling’ any ounce of anxiety consciously. When first becoming sexually active, I had extended, horrific anxiety that would have hospitalized me for a couple weeks if not for my mom being able to stay home with me (also out of work for a couple months and left addicted to xanax for a bit). And still didn’t quite believe her all the way when she suggested it was anxiety. And I sure as hell didn’t make any connections to any possible mental issues around sex. So I’ve ranted enough but saved this bit for the end cause it hits kinda hard. People tend to feel the same things they felt in locations. Curiosity got the best of me and I drove around parts of my childhood I spend a lot of time at and specific routes I would take. (It’s called state dependent memory if anyone’s interested). I’m learning just how much I was numb to everything and wondering just what it was I was covering up my whole life. This isn’t easy to really type out cause of how fucked it is with the realization that I didn’t really experience childhood to a degree. During my drive, past my high school, up near my friends houses, the route I would take coming back from college- I was deeply, and very profoundly sad in my core. Nothing near what a person should have felt through their childhood. I missed so much. And I’m sorry to my friends at the time who only got to know a strange, numb, trauma reenacting, ghost of myself. I’m not going to be able to relive those times in a better light but I can at very least do some work to prevent a future spent numb and profoundly sad. But my brain is finally allowing me to remember some things because it’s deemed that I can handle it, I’m learning more about myself and my past, learning how to listen to what my brain and body are telling me and why, and getting better at expressing grief and real, raw, sadness and a touch of deep-seated anger so I think I might be starting to turn this around.

[kasplode]

okay enough abt bkg.... deku next >:)

:,,) ok time to hurt my other baby boy ! (btw the OG tweet said ‘MAXIMUM potential anguish’ so. im so fucking sorry for number 2.)

TRIGGER WARNINGS IN TAGS.

1. PH!bkdk from my previous Pain Post. except lets take it a step back. bkdk are planning their futures together. they wanna be a duo. they’re gonna kick ass. they wanna work with their classmates, maybe open up their own agency? deku’s so excited, but the pressure of all might’s legacy weighs on him more and more by the day. he tells no one, but oh, it keeps him up at night. his performance as a hero, his professional appearances, his fucking private life-it’s all going to be scrutinised. hell, most of the class have been in contact with PR people since second year. but regardless of all the complicated bs, what bkdk really wanna do is make all might proud. they’re together, and their families and classmates know- there were varied responses, but it’s fine. they’re fine. but soon, kacchan starts talking about the future of their relationship. deku tries to avoid the conversation. kacchan gets upset at him for it, calls him a coward, and they argue. a lot. eventually deku cracks and tells katsuki their relationship needs to be kept hidden from the public. after weeks of arguing, katsuki snaps no, he won’t accept that. izuku sobs as he gives katsuki an ultimatum: keep their relationship secret, or they can’t stay together. they almost break up under the pressure of it all, but ultimately, kacchan agrees to keep it a secret. (it’s a shame that in the years to come, their relationship would end and be outed.)

2. kacchan is kidnapped. again. izuku fails to save him. again. but this time, there is no coordinated attack, there is no known motive, there is no rhyme or reason or suspects or any clue to where his kacchan is. weeks pass. clues are investigated (tirelessly, by izuku, who is a pro and you have no fucking right to keep me out of the office, i’ve earnt my place here, i need to keep working-!) but every thread to katsuki has been mercilessly cut. izuku doesn’t waste away, because kacchan needs him, but he doesn’t live in the time he spends searching. weeks, then months. years.izuku doesn’t let his hope (desperation need terror loneliness agony) die. and then, one day, kacchan turns up. izuku breaks who-knows how many laws getting to the hospital kacchan ended up in, getting there in record time. hope flares in his heart, bright and genuine, for the first time in years. he is met with a barely-alive, emaciated body. comatose. it’s months more before kacchan wakes up. his memory is spotty, but he knows who izuku is. he can get better.it takes only days for kacchan to make his attempt. it wouldn’t have been successful, but he was already in such a bad shape... and izuku fucking shatters. 

(I HATE MYSELF AND MY BRAIN IT KEPT GOING DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE OF MISERY. FUCK. ARE YOU HAPPY? ARE YOU HAPPY THAT I AM HURTING MY BABY BOY?)

3. izuku is kind of old, for a pro. not all-m old, but pretty old. (active pros don’t usually last that long, after all) after his successor has graduated from school, izuku teaches, continuing to do as much PH work as he’s physically able to. OFA is dwindling, his time is running out.. but he still has more people to save. it’s all well and good, until villains destroy UA. Izuku & his students fight. some students escape, even. but Izuku was injured in the initial explosions, and he’s old, and OFA- gives out. he fights on, weak and in agony, as the children, his children, are hurt around him, falling one by one.

his last thoughts: i wonder if i’ll see my classmates again. i hope my successor will be ok. i wonder if ill ever be forgiven for this. im sorry.

(do u see these getting shorter now. do u SEE)

4. inko gets sick. izuku spends every second outside of class with her. she gets worse. he starts skipping class, too. (even though he mostly spends his time sat by her bedside, watching her ever-thinner form sleep) worse, still, and they don’t know whether or not she’ll die, but it could happen. izuku all but moves in to the hospital. he gets in trouble (not trouble, they just want to help, but their ‘help’ would take him away from his mother-) but he refuses to leave her side. he’s alone, most of the time. he spends days, weeks, months in the company of his mother’s shallow breathing and the beeps of the machines that keep her alive. everyone’s worried. he still won’t leave, won’t talk. once he misses enough school, they tell him he’s at risk of failing the year; he has to go back. izu doesnt know what to do

5. listen this shit is legit takin a toll lmaooo XD  im too emotionally invested in my boys so short final one: deku, quite unintentionally, loses his quirk. loses his spot at UA. loses his dreams, his future, his closeness with his class. they can’t help but move on without him, ykno? he feels fucking terrible. sinks into depression. and lives his life, quirkless once more, except now, he knows exactly what life he has lost.

[cutebutstillsingle]

A lot of still-single people don’t realize there is a difference between “values and standards” on a character level, and “preferences”.  i used to get the feedback all the time that I was “too picky”, and it used to infuriate me to hear it.  Turns out, people were half-way right.  I was too picky.  But the truth was that I was too picky on “preferences” and not picky enough when it came to “values and standards”.  And also, my standards were fully out of touch with reality, because I didn’t realize there is no such thing as a “perfect” straight out the box. 

Ok so let’s start with preferences. This is the area where I was foolishly being too picky.  These are things like “enjoys nature, lean body, has college degree”.  Preferences kinda matter, but ultimately people’s preferences are dictated by their more deeply important ‘values and standards’. 

When you start to become overly hung-up on preferences, this can lead you to believe that no one else will ever compare to your terrible ex boyfriend or girlfriend.  Because you will think “what is the likelihood that I will ever find someone again who possesses that particular unique pairing of preferences?”.  Maybe you won’t.  But would you rather have someone that has maybe half the preferences of your ex, but 110% of the character and standards you dream of?  Exactly. 

The truth is, half your preferences don’t actually matter; and honestly, “values and standards” are going to naturally filter preferences out for you.  Preferences are tangible, external measures that, no joke, most people on the planet are potentially capable of learning and developing if they have the desire and enough time and resources at their disposal.  That being said, outside of race preferences (and I’ve already made a post about being straight up actually racist.  Being legit racist will keep you single), anyone who loves you enough, if these kinds of external preferences mattered to the two of you you that profoundly, would want to try and pursue the things that you value, so that the two you could potentially grow closer and continue to walk alongside each other while pursuing your life goals.  

Values and standards, however, are intangible in nature.    They can’t be known just by meeting someone on a superficial level.  It is not until you actually start to experience how somebody carries out their life, in person, that their values and standards can come to light.  Values and standards are what allows each person to decide for him or herself what are the “musts” and the “dealbreakers”; and these genuinely drive the long-term potential behind every romantic connection.  Values and standards are what’s behind a person’s habits, hobbies, preferences, and decisions.  

For example, “health” is a value and a non-negotiable standard for me.  Someone else who values the standard of health is probably going to have a few pictures on his dating profile of him doing stuff outdoors for enjoyment.  He will say that his use of intoxicants is minimal or nonexistent.  You might see him eating an acai bowl and enjoying a family dinner with all his cousins.  These are examples of how values and standards reveal themselves through preferences, but how preferences should not be the barometer.  

More importantly, values and standards usually come from a person’s character.  And a rare character is the true thing that makes someone so uniquely desirable.  Pay attention to that word “rare”.  A person of amazing character and values really is rare to stumble upon.  There are a million girls that look like the Alana Blanchard, or Tyra Banks, or Lucy Liu type, who all work out and do the same hobbies.  But it’s the character that makes THAT particular Alana Blanchard clone so rare and desirable.  

Why do we all keep expecting our “perfect” dream partner to be a real thing?  It’s not.  The reality is that there is no such thing as Mr. or Mrs. Perfect.  And even thinking that you can show up to the table “perfectly” is just never going to happen. Nor is your partner going to show up with all of your preferences and dreams dialed in.  It’s kind of like the olympic games.  Chances are very high they will get a 10.0 from most of the criteria on the panel, and then they’re going to majorly sink in a few areas.  It’ll be like “floor routine: 10, vault: 10, balance beam: 10, gymnastic rings: 2, uneven bars: 2″.  Alana Blanchard can’t do everything perfectly, and she can’t be every man’s version of “perfect”no matter how hard she tries.  But for Jack, she works.  

Most of us are over here expecting 10s across the board because of social media, and the fact that the real life couples we know don’t usually go around disclosing the difficulties in their relationships and the flaws in their partner’s character.  I literally would ask my coupled friends general questions so that I could learn what to expect or what to look for while dating (ie was this normal?), and my friends would literally respond back saying “I’m not trying to expose my husband’s dirty laundry”.  It is not our fault, singles of America, that we are so misguided.  Literally no one is showing us the truth.  So we keep holding fast to our unattainable, out of touch standards and preferences.  

I now realize how important it is to make a list of your own values and standards (every few years).  Not to be confused with “the values and standards I want in a partner”-- no.  I’m talking about what values and standards matter to you regarding the reality of your life.  I now believe it is critical that every adult take time to sit down with yourself and list, in a journal, the values and standards that truly matter to you in your life-- the life that you intend on sharing during a life partnership with someone else.  These are what need to matter the most, because as you are out dating and getting to know people, your values and standards are what your brain is going to be subconsciously looking for and attracted to. 

Particularly as we each endure the inevitable hardships of life that will come our way, these also recalibrate the standards and values that we think matter. I used to think I wanted to be an occupational therapist (works in rehab in hospitals alongside physical therapists) and as time progressed through the reality of busting my ass in OT grad school, turns out, no.   I don’t want to have to do patient transfers or have to deal with physically aggressive cognitively impaired patients who basically abuse me at work.  So now, I’m an educator and I still make a paycheck big enough to survive off of, and live a life I’m very content with.  

You may have also gone your whole life thinking something like, say, ‘health’ wasn’t a value.  And then something happens in  your life that changes everything.  Life should change and strengthen your character and values.  So keep doing this values exercise at regular intervals (like once every 3-5 years?), whether you're still single, and when you’re in a partnership. It will show you if you’re still growing in the same direction as your partner, and whether you’re still growing in a direction you appreciate for yourself, whether partnered or not.  

Finally,  how much of your ‘values and standards’ list do you actually embody right now?  After you make your list,  you need to assess how good of a job you are doing being the values you have listed.  Because it is unfair to magically expect your partner to possess qualities that deeply matter to you, and yet you can’t even embody those things yourself.  It’s safe to say that values you long for in a partner are things your soul longs for in your reality, period.  And there is no reason they can’t come from you first.   If you notice that you have listed a standard or value that you yourself have not yet been able to develop, well then... keep working on you and shift the focus off of expecting your partner to be that thing for you.  (and yes, I’m always speaking to myself when I write these posts, too). 

[izzy-b-hands]

SHOT A GUN??!? LEE OMG, now you have to tell the story cause i'm curious (same goes to ruined a surprise)

From this post, for reference for anyone seeing this who hasn’t scrolled my blog today lol

The ruined a surprise one was pretty tame, and actually has happened more than once. As a kid, I would be told not to tell my mum or another family member about a surprise being done for them for their birthday. But I always wanted to make folks happy, and that was such good news to give them, my tiny brain would tell me. So inevitably I would roll up to the Birthday Person like a week before their party and be like “wouldn’t it be cool if you had [surprise thing X] at your party? Wouldn’t that be the best?” And they would go “Is that thing going to be at my party?” and I would immediately start giggling and give away the surprise lmao. My family still doesn’t tell me surprise stuff in advance now, and tbh, that’s fair. Though I will say, I have halted my ruining of surprises lol.

Put the gun story under a cut for safety’s sake. TW for mentions of abuse mentions of rape, mentions of death, hunting (idk if it’s a trigger for anyone else, but it is for me, so I’m adding it here), and racism.

The gun story is...more lol. My ex-stepdad was a proper Midwestern racist, sexist, homophobic, redneck asshole who loved guns and the flag more than anything else (aside from himself, naturally) and as a part of trying to “bond” with me before he ended up proposing to my mum (after barely six months of dating! And she said yes! But that’s another tale) he tried to teach me and get me to use all the weapons he loved so much.

Now, the bow and arrow I legit did and do still love. I never get to use it now, but I have a bow and my arrows with their hunting tips, and refuse to get rid of them in case I ever get a chance to go to a range again and shoot some of those foam cubes (my fave targets to use.) However, he was not content for me to just use that, and he really wanted to take me hunting. 

Few issues with that: 

-At the time, I was a middle schooler campaigning against the wars in the Middle East, using what little platform I had as a kid to protest; namely wearing an actual peace sign necklace to school and challenging other kids to debates about the wars. My government and history teachers did enjoy me for that, though I will never forget the government class where they let me go up against the entire class in debate. In one corner, seventh grade me, against the wars and war in general while still respecting that at least some soldiers are people who want to do good and think they can do it by being recruited but also acknowledging that the military targets minorities of all kinds knowing they can be more vulnerable to wanting to help others, and the military can prey on that to recruit people. In the other corner, the literal rest of my class, who were all too happy to pile on me about things not even related to the debate, even the ones who admitted they were on my side of the debate, but chose to instead use this opportunity to yell at me. 

-As a result of the above point and other things, I Did Not and Do Not like guns. Not comfortable around them for many reasons, and since that age have believed in gun control. 

-Also a result of the above point, was for peace in general and was not a fan of hunting. As I grew, I learned that there are some cases where hunting is actually needed to cull populations so they don’t overrun areas, but seventh grade me didn’t know that, and just wanted all animals to be allowed to live without people like my then-stepdad hunting them. Tbh, they still should be able to live without my ex-stepdad hunting them, because he should not be allowed weapons of any kind. 

So needless to say, I didn’t want to even hold any of his guns, let alone shoot one. I managed to actually avoid that bit until after they got married. 

Then, he turned into someone completely different from who he had been when they were dating. The full story of how he was abusive and what we went through for five years isn’t something I’ll put here because this is already long, but all of that does play into why I did not want to go hunting with him (in a field, in the middle of NoDak, just me and him, no one else around for miles and no cellphones? Not cool, putting it mildly) and why I did not want to handle his guns. 

Unfortunately for me, my mum insisted I wasn’t trying hard enough to help him adjust to having a child, since he had been a single dude, married only once before for about six months, with no kids. He had nieces and a nephew, but otherwise he wasn’t used to kids. Part of my making ‘a better try’ with him was to go hunting, and let him teach me to shoot. 

So, we went out hunting a few times. Pheasant, and deer, and that was alright. I wasn’t thrilled to be out there, and I can still smell how his truck was just saturated in the scent of dead animal and I hated and still hate that scent burned into my memory, but I got through it. 

It was in the backyard of our house with his makeshift (read: not all right for guns or bows, really shitty) range that it came to a head, and I got to fire a gun for the first time. 

I still question why he gave me a pistol. You don’t really use a pistol to hunt deer, you know? And he could never tell us why he had so many extra pistols, since he did have his one for work as an officer at the Penitentiary, and it seems like that one should be enough. By the time we left him, he had two huge gun safes full of pistols and other guns, including weapons that by law no one should be able to purchase, but no one checks in on the two assholes meeting in the Wal-Mart parking lot who have trunks full of weapons they want to sell without getting in legal trouble. 

But I digress. He showed me how to hold it, to make sure I’m always pointing down-range, to only point at something I intend to shoot. To always treat the gun as if it was loaded, even if I was 99% sure it wasn’t. I give him that, because that is decent gun safety, and he could have been really terrible and not taught me that. 

Once he had me set up in front of a target, he told me to go for it, to expect the recoil (I was chubby, always have been, but I hadn’t started seriously lifting weights at that time, so my arms were really reedy and physically even that pistol’s recoil flung me back some.) 

I shot, and I wanted to drop it and run inside. It was loud, and the smell of gun smoke and ammunition is unpleasant. I felt like I’d betrayed something inside myself in that moment. This was what the troops learned how to do, what people who hurt others knew how to do. 

But my mum had been really mad at me for not being better to him (in retrospect and after therapy, I was fine, just being a kid in early puberty. My therapist says my mother should have stood up for me. I’m not in a place to assign blame like that yet, and maybe I won’t ever be.) So, I stayed put, and I shot a few more times. 

He noticed I had tears in my eyes, and started to complain about “the peaceful pussy shit getting in the way of me being taught something important” and he told me I needed to stop crying right away. I’ve never been able to do that, and I cry all the damn time; if I’m really angry or sad or happy, my body responds with tears that give me migraines that are hard to turn off once started. 

He got more angry, and told me I needed to learn how to do this because if I didn’t, what would I do if someone broke in? Would I let them hurt my mother? Rape her? Kill her? If he wasn’t there (and he often wasn’t, due to his job and his hunting trips) it would be up to me to save her, didn’t I care about knowing how to save her? 

I argued that I didn’t think a gun was the answer to that situation, that self defense and what weapons are used during it was too much for me to discuss with him. 

He started talking about the black family that had moved in down the street, about the friend I had at school who was Muslim, about how diverse (read: not that diverse, this is the mid-fuckin-west that has a long way to go re: diversity) our state was becoming.  About all the things he was ‘so sure’ they and their families would do to us, to me, if given the chance. All incorrect and horribly racist things, but he didn’t care, because he was always right, in his mind. And I wasn’t allowed to call him out and say he was wrong, or at least that was what my mother would tell me. 

“You like peace, so learn to help me keep it.” 

Instead I told him that it wasn’t right to say those things, that no one was going to try and hurt us like that, and that the notion was ridiculous. Shouting, I told him I was more scared of him and what he might do with his guns than what anyone else would do to me. 

He went very quiet, took the pistol from me (that I was still pointing at the ground, like he showed me) and told me to go to my room. 

He stayed out the rest of the night shooting his various guns, only coming in to switch weapons or get more ammo, refusing to come in for dinner until I had finished mine and was away from the table. He didn’t speak to me for the next week, and as scared as I was of him, it was some small relief that he at least wasn’t yelling at me or asking me things that made me uncomfortable. 

In a weird way, I’m glad I’ve shot one before. When I’m debating with people in my area about gun control and other issues, they instantly respect you more if you can say you’ve shot before. Otherwise, they talk over you and don’t want to listen to anything, no matter how nice or calm you say it. 

At the same time, I recoil any time I hear anything like gunshots, and I can’t ever imagine using a gun again. Even if I was told I must, I don’t think I could. I’ll hold my bow and arrow, keep the bat I keep in my room at all times to ease my paranoia, but I can’t ever imagine holding a gun again. 

[shadesofgreysmythes]

HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT ➝ BLAYSON

TAGGING ➝ Greyson Smythe & Blake Rutherford

LOCATION ➝ Greyson’s house

TIME FRAME ➝ Wednesday, February 5th, early evening/night

WARNINGS ➝ Mentions of blood

NOTES ➝ Greyson invites Blake over to blow off some steam kickboxing, things get a little out of hand in more ways than one

BLAKE

As if Blake didn't have enough on her plate her father had to come in her life again. It was a headache on top of a long day, but the most surprising part of it was Greyson offering his time, and his home to her. It's not like they magically were okay being around each other after talking earlier that day, but it did make her see him in a different light. After receiving his address Blake spent the whole time wondering what she was getting herself into. Had she ever kick boxed a day in her life? No. Had she hit someone with a text book in high school? Sadly, yes. Blake found herself fretting for nothing, other than her brain overloading and needing some sort of outlet to blow off steam. Coming up to his house, which was on a fucking beach. Blake planned to tease him about it later. She used the gate code her gave her and closed to door behind her. It was a nice house, clearly expensive, and honestly not as large as she expected. There were still glass windows and one that over looked the beach, if it wasn't so beautiful she might've puked. "Despite how excessive all of this is.. It's nice."

GREYSON

Greyson felt like he had something to prove now. Blake wasn’t going to take him seriously unless he proved how serious he was. A product of his own actions since he spent so much time goofing off and being a pain in the ass. So when she mentioned having a hard time, particularly in the father area, he found it the opportune time to extend an olive branch. And maybe the tequila in his system didn’t hurt either. He had been mid session when he invited Blake over anyway. Grey was waiting for her, walking across the living room with two glasses in his hand, offering one to her as he reached her. “Don’t worry, it’s just pre-workout. You’ll thank me later.” He drank half his own and shrugged one shoulder. Sometimes the expanse of his own wealth made even him uncomfortable when prodded about it enough but oh well. “You haven’t seen the half of it. We can head down to the basement whenever you’re ready.”

BLAKE

Hesitant to take the glass from him, she nodded once he denied her suspicions. Taking the cup from his hands, she took a sip before sticking out her tongue. “Jesus,” she looked in the cup and decided to just chug it. Blake rolled her eyes, but left the smile that lingered on her lips. “Ready now,” Blake said handing Greyson back the now empty cup. “I have a lot of pent of anger and my frustration needs to somewhere that isn’t a wall.” Following Greyson down to the basement she looked around, kind of in love with the way the beach looked. “Do you go on the beach a lot?” She asked, curious. While she missed about Texas’s vast amount of land, she loved Californian beaches. “After college I stayed somewhere that was close to a beach, it was very nice.” Being mindful to not mention that ‘somewhere’ was rehab.. “Also, I’ve literally never kicked box in my life.”

GREYSON

Greyson rolled his eyes and downed the rest of his before taking both glasses to the kitchen sink. “Spare me, it’s not that bad.” He motioned for Blake to follow him to a winding spiral staircase that led downstairs, past an open glass-windowed office with a view of the shore, and into a smaller room full of workout equipment. Most prominently, punching bags. The question caught him a little off guard. “Oh, uh, yeah. It’d be psycho to live next to the beach and not like the beach.” Greyson snorted, rummaging through a set or drawers against the wall til he found what he was looking for. “I had a feeling. No worries. I’ll go easy.” He smirked, tossed the pair of gloves to Blake and slid focus mitts over his own. “Put those on and take your shoes off. It’s literally exactly what it sounds like— boxing and kicking turned into one fluid movement. For now...” He approached Blake and took a stance a couple feet in front of her, one eyebrow up in a playful challenge, smirk stuck on his face still as it usually was. “Show me what you got.”

BLAKE

“Yeah and my dad continued to live with my mother despite having no feelings for her,” She said quickly, it surprised her how easy the words came out. She simply shrugged and moved along. Blake caught the gloves Grey handed her to. Putting them on  her hands, they were heavier than she expected but it was interesting enough. “Okay,” Blake started, holding her hands up; she wasn’t sure where exactly to hold them but she tried her best and swung at Greyson.

GREYSON

Her sudden admission practically gave Grey an itch under his skin. He wasn’t accustomed to this kind of peek into people’s personal lives. “Save it for the punching bag. You’ll feel a hell of a lot better after.” Greyson moves the mitt to catch her punch and nodded once. “Okay, that sucked but that’s our baseline.” He dropped his mitts to the ground and came behind Blake, placing his hands on her elbows and positioning her arms better. “Alright. Feet shoulder width apart, knees a little bent, and keep your hips relaxed. Watch.” Greyson showed a basic jab in slow motion. “You don’t gotta move your whole body with it, you’ll hurt the fuck outta yourself. Work up to harder hits.” He slipped the mitts back on and bounced back and forth in front of her, tapping the mitts together tauntingly. “C’mon. Like you mean it.”

BLAKE

For someone who was ‘naturally good’ at things and could pick them up almost perfectly, not getting a good first punch kind of hurt her pride. As Greyson came behind her, Blake’s cheeks heat up; being this close outside of work was different in a way Blake wasn’t entirely anticipating. She follows his instructions, nodding her head to show she was listening. Blake took a deep breath, going over Grey’s pointers in her head before throwing another punch, this time with a little more anger and knowledge behind it.

GREYSON

What exactly was getting Greyson through this relatively painlessly? Treating Blake like any other client. She wasn’t Blake the costar. Blake the fake girlfriend. Blake the ultimate pain in his ass. She needed a release and Greyson understood that on a deeply personal level. He grinned as the next hit landed. “Good. Better. Again. Keep going.” With each hit he nodded his approval and stopped her after a minute. “I think you’re gonna like this next part.” He ditched his mitts entirely, leaving them behind on the floor as he walked her over to a punching bag hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room. He slapped the side of it and met Blake’s eyes. “Treat your body like it is— one instrument. Comboing punches and kicks instead of using them like separate blows.” Grey stood behind the bag, steadying it for Blake and peeked around it. “You wanna blow off steam, right? This is how you do it. Don’t be afraid of it and follow through. You need me to tape a photo of your old man on here or you got this?”

BLAKE

The wave of approval washing over Blake motivated her to do better, to continue up the hill of improvement she was climbing. After stopping her for a minute, she slipped one of the gloves off and stretched out her hand, flexing her hand. She couldn’t reminder the last time she felt this powerful. As they went over to the punching bag, Blake listened to Greyson, nodding at his words. She slipped the gloves back on and stared at the punching bag. “No need.” Was all she said before she started hitting and kicking the punching bag. Every kick for how betrayed she felt by her father. Every punch for the tears she wasted on him. Was it only about her father? No, her mind wandered off to every man that made her cry or abused her. She thought about the look on her mother’s face when she woke up in the hospital after her overdose, she thought about her mother’s pleading eyes to get help. How Greyson and her got roped into this stupid scheme to save their asses. Before she knew it her arms and legs felt like lead and she started to slow down, her breathing getting heavier until she finally stopped. Blake slid down to the floor and laid on her back staring at the ceiling. “I feel better.” She said out of breath.

GREYSON

Greyson eyed her, intrigued, as Blake went to town on the bag. It was always interesting to him watching people become more confident. Hit harder, faster, factor in kicks. He's seen a lot of emotions cross a lot of people's faces during sessions like these. And he knew how it felt to be on the other side. He'd never tell Blake but this was one of the most intimate parts of his world. It was the thing that got him back on track and let him be level headed enough to curate the career her has today. And then he saw the exhaustion setting in. Greyson loosened his hold on the punching bag and as soon as Blake stepped away, he crossed the room to pull two bottles of water out of a mini fridge. "You look like you do," he commented with a huff of laughter, passing the bottle to her and cracking open his own. "If you wanna actually learn shit instead of just wailing on a bag you should come to my legit gym sometime. The instructors are aces and I guarantee you won't be as sore as you're about to be tomorrow. Eventually."

BLAKE

Blake smiled and took the water bottle from Greyson, she untwisted the cap and practically downed the entire bottle in one sitting. She tilted her head to the side, the idea wasn't a terrible one. She enjoyed it more than she thought she would and actually having a healthy way of coping with her stress and frustration would be good.. her mother would be proud. "Do I get the girlfriend discount?" She joked before taking another sip of water. "I love being sore, at least I know what I was doing I did it right, you know?" There was a beat of silence before Blake look over at him, "Again."

GREYSON

Greyson sent a spout of water in her direction for the comment. “Funny. This was the girlfriend discount.” He nodded in agreement. They’d never had more in common than they did in that moment. Grey jerked his head and quirked his eyebrow. “Again?” A slow, mischievous smile took over his face as an idea took over. “Alright. Again.” Quickly on his feet, he crossed the room and pulled on his own gloves. He took up his stance right in front of Blake, tapping his gloves against hers teasingly. “C’mon Rutherford. Hit me.” There was a clear challenge in his eyes as he shrugged one shoulder. “If you can.”

BLAKE

She dodged the water and stuck her tongue out at him, it was childish but it was probably the longest time they’ve gone without bickering at each other. Which was a milestone in its own right. Blake felt herself get competitive and now she felt like she needed to prove herself. Her eyebrow quirked as she slipped her gloves back on and on her feet. She could she the literally challenge in his eyes, daring her to make her first move — and she did. It wasn’t a very good one, call it an attempt if you would. She groaned after throwing a few punches that were just a couple inches out of each. “Jesus, why are you so fast?” She asked slightly out of breath. “Please do not make a joke.”

GREYSON

Greyson knew she was outmatched from the start. And that wasn’t a rude thing, he’d just been doing this far longer. He smoothly dodged when he needed to, smacking her gloves with his when she missed. It was a taunt designed to be absolutely infuriating. Greyson smirked and tilted his head to the side and back. “Only fast in some respects,” he joked anyway, grinning. Apparently this was the only way they’d found so far to actually get along. Go figure. He clicked his tongue. “Tch. You can do better than that.” He threw a couple in her direction, purposefully off by an inch or two to gauge her reaction time.

BLAKE

Blake rolled her eyes, she was getting frustrated with him dodging her. Those six words ignited something in Blake, she lunged forward, dodging Grey’s glove before hers came in contact with her chest. She backed up and smirked knocking her gloves together. “What?” She stating smiling wide. “You said I could do better and I did.”

GREYSON

A familiar feeling collided with his chest as Blake got her shot in. A huff of air was forced out of his lungs and he looked a little shocked at first before a small smile appeared, the adrenaline rush pushing through his entire body. “So you did.” In a flash of fluid movement, Greyson jabbed at her face and gave her enough time to block and as she did, he ducked low and swept his foot at the back of her knees, sending her down to the mats. He was immediately straddling hers, hands up in position, before tossing the gloves off and letting his arms fall to his side. He pushed back the damp hair off his forehead and was panting lightly. “Got confident and let your guard down. Don’t sweat it, you did good. I’m just better.”

BLAKE

Falling hurt, but her pride was hurt more at Greyson’s gloating. To know she was doing well and he was still able to get the upper hand on her, taking her down. She laid there practically seething as he straddled her. She tried not to think about how mildly hot it was until he spoke again. It was like something out of movie, before she really thought about her actions, Blake took her dominant arm and swung right for Greyson’s nose. For someone that was gloating out his ass, she half expected him to dodge her. Instead she laid there with a shocked expression on her face.

GREYSON

Before he knew it, Greyson was pushed backwards off of Blake and onto his ass by what he registered too late as a punch directly to the nose. He caught himself on one hand, the other curled around his nose protectively. “Ah, fuck.” Blood was already running down his face and he could taste it in his mouth. Whether that was from his nose or not had yet to be seen. Grey sat there staring at Blake in shock for a moment before it dissolved into a fit of laughter. “Been waitin’ for that one, huh?” he teased, moving his hand away and sniffing then immediately wincing. It didn’t feel broken but man was it sore. Bubbles of laughter were still coming out. He couldn’t deny he deserved that. “There’s a first aid kit with some shit in it in the bottom drawer over there. You mind?"

BLAKE

Blake sat up, once Greyson as off of her, she was shocked to see blood and sat there in awe. “Holy fuck,” She said before falling into a fit of laughter herself. “I’m feeling better.” She smiled before nodding. Getting up, Blake grabbed the first aid kit and made her way back to Greyson. “I got it,” she said, “I’m the one that punched you after all.” She smiled before looking at his nose. It wasn’t broken thankfully, but she was able to wipe the blood from his face and his nostrils. Unaware of how close they were physically. “Don’t lean your head back too much pretty boy,” Blake started before leaning his body forward. “Breathe through your mouth so it drains your nose. Do you need ice?” She asked before taking one of Grey’s hands in hers, cleaning the blood.

GREYSON

Greyson’s lips were still twitching with stifled laughter. Ending up on the floor with a bloody nose was the last thing he could have ever expected. “Im sure you fucking do, Blake Ali.” He sat with his feet flat on the floor, arms propped on his knees and head tilted back. Blake was very much in his personal space. They spent a lot of time close together and had easily hours of filmed kissing under their belts but this was different in a way that Greyson couldn’t put his finger on. He silently heeded her instructions and swallowed the odd lump that formed in his throat. His eyes were stuck on her face and the way she handled him was with a softness that practically triggered his fight or flight response. One of his fingers briefly skimmed across her knuckles out of... curiosity? Greyson didn’t know but he retracted his hand out of her grasp entirely. Clearing his throat he snapped back to focus. “Yeah, c’mon. Let’s head upstairs before you go for the nads next.” He playfully shoved Blake’s shoulder before hoisting himself up, back up the stairs and into the kitchen where he hopped up to sit on the counter. “You know I’m gonna milk this for everything it’s worth, right?”

BLAKE

She wasn’t sure how she felt about Greyson’s hand basically being ripped from her own, but she was too physically tired to push about it. Blake blinked for a couple of seconds before nodded and stood up and following him into the kitchen. Blake rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I know,” Blake hopping up on the counter as well. “Doesn’t matter cause I know I got you good.”

GREYSON

Grey held an ice pack over the bridge of his nose, his eyes just barely visible over there top of it as he turned to face Blake. He scoffed and kicked at her dangling foot. “You wanna go again? It was a cheap ass shot and you know it.” It was quiet for a moment and he wasn’t entirely sure where to go from there. Especially as he found himself not quite wanting Blake to leave yet. Maybe this whole scheme could go smoothly. Maybe. It would involve a lot more work on his part than he anticipated though. Might as well start laying the groundwork, he figured. “Thanks. For cleaning me up. I mean you did make me bleed in the first place but still. I, uh, appreciate it.”

BLAKE

“Sure, throw kickboxing out the window I’ll show you how I kept people off my back in high school.” She counted back with a smirk. “I hit someone with a textbook once,” Blake shrugged her shoulders swinging her feet off the edge of the counter. Blake felt an unusual sense of warmth in the pit of her stomach, she quickly jumped off the counter and nodded, suddenly being close to him felt... Overwhelming. She smiled and nodded his leg. “Don’t make a big deal out of it pretty boy.” Her stomach growled she was sure it echoed through the house. “You got anything to eat in this ridiculously beautiful house. Clearly I’m hungry.”

GREYSON

“That is deeply unsurprising,” he mumbled, icing under his eyes to hopefully avoid any bruises tomorrow. “I’m trying to be fuckin’ nice for once, don’t ruin it.” Greyson soon followed suit and lowered off of the counter, dropping the ice pack in the sink. He sighed heavily and internally cringed. No one had a way of making him feel his privilege more deeply than Blake did. “There’s no way for me to say this without sounding pretentious but my groceries haven’t been delivered yet. But we can order something and doordash usually has it here in twenty or less.” He glanced out the back wall of windows and noticed the sun was close to setting and hummed. “View of the beach from back there gets even more impressive.”

BLAKE

"Teenage Blake had a temper," Blake shrugged her shoulders. Totally unable to keep herself from laughing at Greyson. "Extremely pretentious but go on," She snaked, nodding her head as she listened. Blake hummed and thought it over, normally she enjoyed being by herself. But for whatever reason she didn't want to leave Greyson, his company was.. Nice. If she could find a word for it. "Sure. Chinese? Mexican? What's your poison," She asked looking on the app. "I'm sure it is. Are you trying to make a move on me?"

GREYSON

"Just teenage Blake, huh?" He teased, gesturing to his nose. He rolled his eyes and snatched his phone up off the counter dramatically. Now that Blake mentioned it, food sounded fantastic and his stomach sounded off its own agreement. "Fuck, chinese sounds baller. Here. Send the order when you're done." He added what he wanted before passing the phone over to Blake while he rummaged through a small chiller next to the fridge. "Ha. You fuckin' wish." Grey pulled out a bottle of wine for himself and an unopened sparkling cider for Blake. He wiggled it in the air at her direction. "Sans alcohol for the straight edge," he teased, pouring them both glasses. "You mentioned the beach earlier. I'm being thoughtful and absolutely nailing this fake boyfriend shit. What's your excuse?" he asked with an eyebrow up as he took a long sip of his wine.

BLAKE

“You’re lucky it was my fist and not a whole damn textbook,” Taking Greyson’s phone, Blake practically made love to the pictures of food with her eyes. She might have done a little dance while ordering, excited about getting food. Finalizing the order, Blake watched Greyson grab some wine and hand her sparkling cider. Throwing her head back, she laughed and rolled her eyes. “How’d you know I love bubbly apple juice.” She took a sip and raised her eyebrow. “Uh huh, sure.” After taking another sip Blake gasped. “I don’t know what you mean, I’m being totally irresistible.”

GREYSON

Greyson snorted and let it go. If the stray throb here and there in his face was anything to go by, she wasn't entirely wrong. He leaned against the counter, one arm crossed, steadily taking drinks inbetween. "It's on your wiki," he said with a straight face. Truthfully it was the only non-alcoholic thing in the house that wasn't water or a jug of milk with exactly one sip left. Grey practically choked out an incredulous laugh, shaking his head. "If a bloody nose and being a non-stop pain in my ass is irresistible then I guess I do have a type."

BLAKE

Now it was Blake's turn to snort, "Yeah, because I'm supposed to believe you took time out of your day to learn anything about me that isn't something you could find out in two seconds?" She took another sip and smirked shrugging her shoulders. "At least you pick the hot ones." For a guy that got under her skin at work all the time, without so many people around he was almost bearable. Silence fell over time, Blake retracted into her own mind which was never good. For a second Blake couldn't figure out why they fought all the time, she looked at Greyson.. Even with a slightly bruised nose he was.. Cute. Staring at this face she noticed the small stud. Why haven't I noticed that before? She thought to herself before feeling her throat close up, she needed to escape fast. "Where's the bathroom?" She asked suddenly. Taking the directions given, Blake hurried off to the bathroom for a breather. Removing her sports bra so she could actually breathe and get a grip over what was coming over her. It's just because y'all are having good moments, it's not feelings, you don't have feelings for Greyson Smythe, you're just trying to keep your drive. Blake repeated to herself a couple of times before sighing and walking back to the kitchen.

GREYSON

"I'm fucking with you, Blake," he pointed out, a suppressed smile on his face. He hummed and swirled his glass, memories trying to scratch their way to the surface.  He washed down the bad feeling in his mouth with the rest of his wine which he then proceeded to top off. "My taste is aces." The silence that followed fell over them like a fog and Grey found it damn near stifling. Blake finally gave him a breath of air when she asked for the bathroom. He gave her directions around the corner and down the hall and as soon as she was gone, downed his glass and poured yet another. It was like a bad case of whiplash, one second they're tearing into each other the next it's an entirely different vibe. Greyson was pulled out of his own mind before it went too deep by the doorbell. He retrieved their food from a concerned looking dasher who pointed out the spots of blood on his tank top. Taking it upon himself to set up shop on the back deck, string lights winding around the wooden and metal railings, he laid everything out on the table and straddled a chair. "Out here," he called as he registered the sound of Blake's footsteps. His arms were folded over the top of the chair, chin resting on them, and his eyes were focused on the horizon, mesmerized by the rolling waves. "You ever surf?"

BLAKE

Coming back to find Greyson not in the kitchen, she followed his voice and found herself outside. The breeze brushed through her hair and it felt like another breathe of fresh air. She watched Greyson watch the rolling waves, she found herself smiling before she caught them too. Hypnotizing her in a way only the ocean could. She snorted and shook her head. "Never been sporty type, what about you?" She sat down herself watching Greyson, the weird feeling from before was coming back and going to the bathroom twice in the span of two minutes wasn't a good look. "So, this food looks fuckin' dope." Blake started going for the food, she could practically feel her mouth watering. "Why kickboxing?" She asked suddenly. When Greyson didn't answer at first she elaborated. "Like, you could do anything you wanted and you opened up your own gym.. Why?"

GREYSON

Greyson snorted, not moving his gaze. It was calming. Like the sound of a heartbeat or white noise. "Nah. I like the ocean objectively and on boats and shit but the idea of the ocean as a whole? Is fucking insane. Last thing I wanna do is go down in a wave. The water doens't give a shit about you." And maybe that's why he liked it so much. The waves didn't care for his past, his name, his wrong or right. It just was. Which is how Greyson wanted to be. He inhaled deeply and sat back a little, reaching over to start in on his food. A simple answer was on the tip of his tongue before she asked for more information. This was fine and easy and he could do this without thinking about it too hard. "When I blew my knee and lost my scholarship I was... pissed. And that's putting it so damn lightly. All I could register was anger. I was destructive and a danger. A friend recommended it. It only took one lesson for me to be hooked." He chewed through some more food and found the buzz of wine in his brain loosened him up enough to let it all flow freely. "It just felt so fucking good y'know? I could blow off hella steam and I learned to use my body in a lot of rad ways. I guess I wanted to be able to give other people that same kind of power over their own mind and body," he finished with a shrug. "It's a little lame in the grand scheme of my family but it's what I like so fuck the rest, right?"February 6, 2020

BLAKE

Blake was able to contain her confused but slightly amused face for moment before she started to laugh. Greyson wasn’t wrong but the whole intensity behind his words was amusing. “Sorry,” She said between giggles. “I’ve never seen someone so fascinated yet terrified of the ocean before.” Blake opened a pair of disposable chopsticks, trying her best not to look like an idiot but she was obviously struggling the mechanics of it all. Hearing him talk about how kickboxing made him feel, how it could make others feel something similar and him being able to provide that? Blake felt her chest getting warm again, she had to stuff food in her mouth to distract her brain. “That’s admirable,” She said softly, then continued to ear her food. “It’s not. There was something you wanted to do and you did it. Regardless of expectations from your family and the world.” For a moment Blake ate in silence trying to wrap her brain around the current whiplash their new dynamic was giving her. One minute picking on him and teasing him was happening, and then he’d say something she never expected to hear from him. It was all crazy. “Thanks,” She started. “For today, it goes hand in hand with what you said. I felt power of myself today rather than letting my father to try and have power over me. It’s definitely something I should look into.”

GREYSON

Snorting he shoved Blake’s shoulder. “Whatever. Shut up. No one’s even seen the bottom.” He watched with amusement as she struggled with her chopsticks and he made a point of stealing a bite of her food with his own, showing off a little yet again. Opening up was supposed to be a relief. Or so he heard. Greyson was left feeling more exposed and stupid than anything else. Family and expectations and responsibilities he wanted no part in made up the majority of his life. He was proud of himself, that much showed in every facet of his attitude, it just never seemed like enough to please his father. “Yeah well. That’s kinda been my whole entire thing from day one,” he quipped playfully with a smirk. Greyson set his chopsticks down and pushed out of the chair, making his way to a stretch of railing a few feet in front of the pool. He leaned on his arms and gave Blake a small smile. “Don’t make a big deal out of it princess.”

BLAKE

Blake rolled her eyes at Greyson as she finished her food. “So you’re telling me it wouldn’t be hella cool to just explore the ocean?” She asked before following Greyson and standing next to him. “Whatever, I’m being a nice fake girlfriend and complimenting you for making me feel better.” She nudged his side and watched the waves rolling again; spotting a couple walking along the shore holding hands. Blake imagine them as her and Greyson and her cheeks heated up slightly.

GREYSON

“And get eaten by some unknown horror? No fucking thank you.” He hip checked her gently, mostly because he had no rebuttal. She was being kind. They were getting along. Greyson got an idea that was likely to land him another bloody nose but impulse control wasn’t a strong suit of his. “Kinda warm out, even up here, huh?” Without any further indication, he wrapped his arms around Blake’s middle and launched both of them into the pool, releasing her as they submerged. He popped up almost immediately, laughing and pushing the hair out of his face and then he realized his fatal mistake. Blake was wearing white. And apparently no bra. And they were less than a foot apart. It was impossible not to notice. He quirked his head to the side, not the least bit shy about the fact that he was staring. If his mouth went a little dry, he wouldn’t admit it. “I— your nipples are pierced,” he stared blankly. “Hot.” Real smooth. He mentally kicked himself and removed his eyes from Blake’s chest where they caught her own eyes instead. Greyson wasn’t an idiot. Blake was beautiful. That’d always been a given. On set he was as professional as he could get. But here, in the light of a setting sun, with new information to process, well. He was a little turned on and he wasn’t very good at hiding it.

BLAKE

If the two of them were getting along so well, Blake might suspected something. But alas, Greyson threw her off by his question before he hurled them both into the pool. When they both came up, Blake wipes the water from her face and pushed her hair back. Covering her mouth, she laughed and smirked. “I know.” She watched as he stared at her chest before meeting his eyes. “What master plan was this all apart of? To say you got me wet?” She teased. Blake waved her hand in front of his face, “Are you okay? Have you never seen pierced nipples before?”

GREYSON

Okay so maybe this definitely hadn’t been his plan. Too late for that now. He was the in for a penny in for a pound type and he fully planned on seeing this through, whatever that would come to mean. Grey hummed and lowered his voice a little, lowering himself on the water until it was just below his shoulders and moving closer until they were just shy of touching. “Maybe. Did it work?” he asked with a smirk. He snorted and caught Blake’s wrist in the air, bringing it back down to the water before letting go. “What? No, I— Fuck off,” he said with roll of his eyes. “I didn’t know and I wasn’t expecting it and I already said it was hot. Wanna drop it now?”

BLAKE

Blake quirked eyebrow and hummed herself shaking her head. “I won’t make it easy for you pretty boy, better try harder,” She said before she winked and swam backwards putting space between them. “Because you went with a plan without thinking about an outcome. Watching you flounder was sort of cute.” She smiled before splashing him. She started swam around, before turning on her back and floating. “I’ll drop it, just for you.”

GREYSON

“Prove it,” he challenged, one eyebrow up. He definitely didn’t expect it to work but so far Blake did seem to enjoy proving a point. Grey pulled his shirt over his head and off, tossing it onto the deck to move more freely. “Dunno if you noticed but that’s my entire thing.” He quickly returned the splash and made a grab for her but was too slow before she drifted out of reach. “What, am I getting special treatment now?” he teased, floating up beside her so his head was next to hers, his feet facing the opposite direction. “Going soft on me, Rutherford?”

BLAKE

“Prove what? What you’re going to have to do more than smile to get in these pants.” She dipped into the water, so it was slightly above her shoulders.  She snorted before quickly touching her feet to the bottom of the pool, wrapping her arms around Greyson and pulling him underwear with her. She came up, pushing her hair back. “Soft on you? Never.”

GREYSON

Greyson snorted and sent a large splash at Blake as the tips of his ears burned. It was almost a little embarrassing, like he was trying too hard. He didn’t have time to dwell on that as he was suddenly yanked, a surprised yelp getting out before he was underwater. Grey came up and spit a mouthful of water in her direction. “Oh? No?” Catching Blake around the waist, he kept one hand on her hip as he drifted closer again. He brought his face down, his nose skimming hers, one hand curling around the side of her neck, his thumb on her cheek. His touch was light and gentle and unlike any side of himself he’d revealed to Blake so far. Sure he was trying to prove a point but he also couldn’t deny the way his heart beat just a little faster. “So you don’t wanna kiss me right now?”

BLAKE

It all happened a little too fast, one minute she was blocking her face from water and the next moment Greyson and Blake were inches from each other. Their eyes locked was slightly overwhelming but Blake refused to look away, to loose. She tried to ignore the light feeling in the pit of her stomach, much like how gentle touch. Blake licked her lips slowly, tilting her head to the side and smiled. “Depends,” She started her voice above a whisper. “Didn’t you want to kiss me back in the basement?” One of Blake’s hand sliding up his bare chest, she leaned forward as if she was going for his lips but moved past to his ear. “Make your move pretty boy.”

GREYSON

Greyson wasn’t sure if it was the suddenness with which things were happening or the alcohol buzzing and blurring his brain but he felt a little dizzy. This wasn’t right. Grey could practically feel the walls building right back up double time. His hands parted from her skin like he touched something hot and he used one to wrap his fingers around her wrist as he said, “I think you should go.” and pulled her hand from his chest, swimming back and hoisting himself up and out of the pool. He disappeared for a minute, coming back with a towel, t-shirt, and shorts. The least he could do all things considered. Grey laid them over the back of one of the chairs and hesitated just for a moment. “See you at work.” was the last thing he said before disappearing for good.

BLAKE

If there was any sort of code word for their weird relationship, it was whiplash. One minute they were bickering, trying to find some footing for any type of relationship. The next minute they were flirting with sexual tension through the roof, and now the floor was taken from under her. Blake barely spoke, her head fuzzy from the confusion and the rapid decline of the night. “Okay,” she said softly watching as he got out of the pool, Blake following. “Thanks.” Blake said, though she wasn’t sure he heard her. Blake took herself to the bathroom and quickly changed, wringing the water of her wet clothes and leaving herself.

[hxlsteads]

𝔽𝕒𝕜𝕖 𝕀𝕥 (#14, #6)

Pairing: Archie Andrews x Reader

Summary - When stuck in a room together for a long period of time; a whole lot is revealed... About life. Drama. And a bubbling desire for love that was set to spill.

If only the possibility to simply switch off your brain was a thing. Life would be so much simpler; more beautiful. Instead, the harsh reality of school life was ever-present and the deafening shrill of the bell still drilled through your mind. Usually, anyone would enjoy that company. The knowledge of the lone fact you could just pack up and get done with your day. But not you... Going home was quite frankly the last thing you wanted to do.

Sauntering your way through the corridors, shoulders hunched over in the hopes of avoiding the highway of unforgiving zombies heading for the exit- you dropped your head to somewhat distract your mind from the living hell you were about to endure. But what could you do huh? Walk the corridors until the bell sounded once again, only this time introducing you to an alternate hell. Stare at your locker until the stacks of notepads magically fill themselves. Nothing- you could do virtually nothing.

The one thing you could do was continue. Walk the way you were, solemn with your feet dragging behind you and your shoulders clipping others left, right and center. All until a stronger force pulled you out of the crowd and out of that undead trance. At first, you just thought it was another one of those bulldogs, thinking they own the school. Guys like Reggie Mantle not caring who was in his way when he stalked the area. Until you felt the warm, soft breath of another brush against your scalp as a door was pressed closed behind you. Looking upwards, your breath hitched in the back of your throat, eyes meeting the warmth of both his hazel gaze and orange locks. Archie Andrews...

He was a bulldog; captain of the football team as that. But he wasn’t like the others; He never had been. He was more of a labrador, can put on a mighty front but in all reality had the softest soul. You admired him. 

Maybe more than others...

“Archie? Wh-what’s up?” you questioned, getting progressively more flustered as a heat transferred between the centimeter gap of your bodies.

You shifted yourself around his body, being unable to hide the perspiration leaving the surface of your skin to find comfort on one of the perfectly laid out science tables. Leaving enough time for him to possibly come up with a reasonable answer for this encounter. I mean you were close... close acquaintances. A glance across a classroom and a hello in a pops booth. Far from gazing eyes alone in a room and an anticipating question too thick to grasp. That was only in your dreams. He twitched, running his hands through his hair in a nervous fit to get his words out, “I know this is weird, I’m sorry. I- Just thought I could count on you.”

“Alright-”

“My mom’s coming back in town for my birthday and it’s a long story but; can you pretend to date me. Just for this meal.” He stuttered. You were unsure of how to feel. Becoming a bargaining chip on a table of fake love was never on your list of things to experience in the near future, but here you are. Another level of hell to add on to the list; school, home, and undeniable attraction. 

You’d be inhuman to even be able to resist that boy but truthfully he had a reputation. A long string of hearts hanging behind him and quite frankly you weren’t willing to be another one however fake it may be. “I can’t Archie,” you shook your head. “Why me anyway? It’d be much simpler to just grab one of your vixens and move on.” You spoke softly, laying the palm of your hand over the embroidered ‘R’ on his letterman jackets as you slipped past him to reach the door. 

In a moment of confusion, you grasped your hand around the handle ready to release yourself from your discomfort. But obviously, life doesn’t work that way. Much like being unable to switch off your mind whenever you liked, bad luck seemed to lurk behind every corner in your life. “Fuck” you muttered under your breath, hearing it echoed in a voice much deeper than yours. 

“Y/N, I... Shit” He choked, coming up behind you. “Don’t you have a bobby pin or something, isn’t that what all girls have?”

“Archie, do you think if I had a bobby pin, I’d still be standing in this quite legit, awkward situation?”

Your palms rose to cover your eyes hoping that once they were re-opened it would just be another one of your teenage fantasies. Yet that was still just another fantasy. A huff escaped your lips as you brought yourself back into the room and your glance once again met his. Soft and sympathetic as he spoke, “I guess we’re stuck here for a while...”

*A matter of hours later*

“I never knew that about you,” Archie spoke, stretching his arms out against the wall they were both sat against. His eyes roamed your body as your twizzled your thumbs, a habit you picked up somewhere along the way in your life.

“There’s a lot people don’t know about me, Archie Andrews.” You fluttered your eyelids up towards him, seeing that side of him that made you question how anyone could have broken his heart. That you discovered in the past hour conversation. He wasn’t even a labrador. A puppy dog, lost and vulnerable with a heart of gold. Searching for a source of comfort in his life ever since his mom had left yet he’d never quite found the one. Also consequently the reason he wanted to find that girl; to show his mom he was strong even without her presence. 

You felt bad for him. Even more than that, terrible for turning him down so quickly. You knew the most of him before but you let the interpretation of others take advantage of you. That you regret... His face so pure as he stared at you, listening as your muttered your last sounds. “Can I ask you something then?” He begged, his eyes mirroring the hope in his words. The hope of acceptance in the arms of recent rejection. You nodded slowly, receiving a slight smirk to stretch across his cheeks before dropping again. “Why do you hate me so much?” 

“What?” You couldn’t quite fathom the meaning behind this question. You don’t hate him, you never had... In reality, you never could. He was too full of good but somewhere along the way, he got the impression that you were unaware of that. You now had to prove otherwise; set his mind at ease and subsequently lead yours to comfort, “I don’t hate you Arch.”

“I just thought... Look- y/n. I know we aren’t best friends or anything but I’ve grown up around you. Everything you’ve been through and you’re still so strong. My mom was the strongest person I know, you were a close second and I came to you for that reason. I wanted someone to match that strength but I think you’ve raised it now.” His words hit you. Closer than anything before. More deep than the shallow ‘I love you’s’ you heard as a child because this meant something. 

For once... you felt like you were worth something.

“I couldn’t hate you for wanting something you’re so worthy of Archie. You’re strong enough to stand on your own; trust me. But for the sake of your mom and because you now know a hell of a lot about me so I have to keep your close...” You drag out with a wink, twisting your body to direct to him and your hand comes to rest on his herculean thigh. “Do I love you? Yes. Do I like you? That’s up for debate. Gotta prove to me I’m not wasting my time Andrews...” You explained unable to conceal a grin as words effortlessly rolled off your tongue. 

There you both were, smiling like goons; gone crazy in a world of fake love... The good kind.

A/N - This is so fkn awful, I’m ashamed in myself. But I haven’t written in a while so I’m hella rusty. I also will edit later on so ignore any mistakes. Hope any of you that managed to make it to the end of crappy writing that I was alright, thank you!