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edwardelricsrightarm · 3 years

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"A lesson without pain is meaningless. For you cannot gain anything without sacrificing something else in return, but once you have overcome it and made it your own...you will gain an irreplaceable fullmetal heart." - Edward Elric

In honor of disability month and the FMA 20 year anniversary I wanted to address some Thoughts™️ about the series.

It's not often you see a disabled protagonist in media where their disability is integral to the story without taking up their entire character, even more so with anime. Yet, Fullmetal Alchemist has not just one disabled Protagonist, but two. The Elric Brothers are an exemplary representation of disability in media that I find myself reflecting on often as a disabled person myself. If you haven't completed the manga or Brotherhood, skip this as it will be brimming with spoilers.

(Mangahood will be my point of reference because while 03 is good on its own merits it's not as fresh within my immediate memory, and I am far less familiar with it. Keep this in mind, I've watched FMAB 10 and a half times whereas I've finished 03 only once years ago.)

The story highlights their disabilities immediately, Edward being a double amputee and Alphonse being without his ENTIRE body, only having the senses of proprioception, sight, and hearing left. Yet, despite this being key to the story and an integral part of their characterization, it is only one facet of their motivations and doesn't take center in the narrative, which is refreshing. It's not inherently negative to make a narrative centered on the characters' disabilities, but often this model of a story goes very wrong very fast and starts to feel hollow (no pun intended). FMA avoids this by making their disabilities a clear part of the plot and their motivations without allowing it to consume the entire story, so the Elric Brothers don't suffer the "my disability is all of my character" problem that many disabled characters are relegated to in a vast portion of media, all while being strong and competent.

Recap:

The brothers wished to revive their mother, but their good intentions cannot change the atrocity of their mistake, Truth makes this abundantly clear from the start. Edward loses his leg first, a punishment for "stepping" into God's shoes and transgressing the place of humans in their world. Alphonse loses his entire body, unable to feel any warmth or simple comforts like food and rest, when all he wanted was to feel the warmth and comfort of his mother's embrace again. At first, Alphonse's entire being is consumed by the gate, but Edward acts immediately, refusing to lose his little brother and refusing to allow his arrogance in this plan to cause his brother's death for only following his lead. Edward gives his right arm to have the gate give back Alphonse's soul, and stated clearly in his panic that he'd give his entire self to save Alphonse if that's what it would take, but Truth took his dominant arm only, showing something akin to mercy, although the character of Truth is capriciously strict and hard to describe as "merciful".

Through giving up his right arm, Edward regains his Right Hand Man, his little brother and best friend. His only remaining family, who he feels responsible for protecting in the absence of their parents. He felt immediately that he'd made a grave mistake, instantly full of regret as he realized the gate had taken his brother. In that moment he was willing to give anything to take it back and undo the suffering his arrogance caused his brother, yet Alphonse was still to suffer more to come. Ed tied Alphonse's disembodied soul to one of Hohenheim's collected suits of armor, managing to at least keep his brother alive in some way. One could say that Alphonse's punishment functioned as a secondary punishment for Edward, showing him how easily his hubris could have cost him what he has left in his obsession with regaining what they'd lost, their mother. A very clear symbolic reminder of the weight of his actions and how he'd misled his brother in his own naive ignorance. Even in giving another limb away to drag his brother's soul back out of the gate, he couldn't offer enough to bring him back intact. Thus is the law of equivalent exchange.

Now that we've reviewed some of that basic symbolism and the motifs the story draws upon with limbs and body parts in relation to characters, let's move on to each individual brother and break it down, shall we?

Edward Elric is a very realistic protagonist, this is one thing a majority of us familiar with this series can agree upon. He feels like a believable teen boy, with layers of complexity to his character while also showing arrogance and immaturity that is unsurprising at his age. He expresses unwillingness to kill and avoidance of unjust violence from the beginning, and has a strong moral code after the ordeal of committing the taboo.

In some characters his cocky personality would typically become grating, yet the story explains in itself why he is this way, then builds upon this to develop him into an incredibly mature character who is willing to admit when he's absolutely wrong and adapts to new information and context for the crisis unfolding around him as it comes, even if he remains crass. This arrogance is shown from the start to be a manifestation of insecurity, self loathing, and repressed guilt. Edward is a logic driven person, he has a very unique thought process, which is where my interpretation of him as autistic comes in. Edward's awkward social demeanor, somewhat abrasive and cold approach to some, and his trouble coping with nonsensical societal structures all stand out in this way. Furthermore he clearly shows hyperfixation, hyperactivity, special interest, and infodumping behaviors that are all too familiar. He's picky with food (*cough* the milk thing), has very little filter and speaks his mind bluntly even if this can warrant conflicting responses, yet at the same time struggles with vulnerable emotions, and he is frustrated when his own routine or itinerary are interrupted by forces beyond his control. All of these things Scream autism with comorbid ADHD. Many traits are shared between the brothers, and I'm quite certain they're both on the autism spectrum based on behavioral patterns. Neurodivergence aside, Edward's physical disabilities are undeniable.

Despite his bratty persona, Edward is fundamentally kind and uncharacteristically gentle and soft around the edges for a shonen protagonist in many ways. He cries openly on many occasions even if he struggles talking about his trauma and burdens in words at times, he feels pain, grief, and compassion so intensely it throws him into action on a regular basis in the narrative. In this way he's also a fantastic example of non-toxic masculinity (though in other ways he has displayed more toxic traits, he's just a kid). He acts on his heart, even if he's led by his mind and logic in most things. His humanity, value for life, and care for others will always win over his logic, and he shows a sense of personal responsibility for doing the right thing even if it harms him in the process. Ed is clearly shown having ghost pains in his lost limbs which is honestly an interesting detail to include, I don't think I've ever seen that aspect of amputation shown in media aside from FMA. It's also shown that when Ed's automail arm breaks this is a HUGE problem for him, but he's also shown to be very good at working around this in difficult circumstances. He doesn't become completely helpless, even if majorly weakened.

Alphonse is an extremely lovable and compassionate boy, brimming with altruism and care for others. Even in his noncorporeal state he pursues a better future and he's not helpless by any stretch. Edward clearly states Alphonse is the superior fighter for example, and it's not just because of his armor body being so large. He's *talented*, that's a fact. Al is every bit as clever and capable as Ed, moreso in some ways, and I love that about his character *because* he's so clearly disabled. He has no sense of pain, he is completely incapable of sleeping, he can't eat, can't relax or find comfort, he can only exist and think. This causes him to overthink in all his time alone, this is debilitating. He clearly is absolutely sick of the loneliness this causes, and he often feels helpless though he's not. He has doubts and fears that consume him in relation to his armor body, he questions his own personhood, even. Yet, Edward is stubborn and staunch in affirming that no matter what he's dealing with, he is fundamentally still a human being that is loved and irreplaceable. Alphonse is powerful and his body gives him some advantages, but it also sets him back, and the brothers know this even when others claim Alphonse's state is somehow a good thing. I have hEDS, a disability that comes with advantages as well as the major downsides, so I can understand and relate to Alphonse here. I too am told my disability is a boon because of flexibility and because I'm less likely to fracture bones, but I'm twice as likely to injure my ligaments and joints, which people ignore.

The brothers are both disabled, both flawed, both show weaknesses, but they are competent, determined, and strong in their own right. They are rounded characters that exist for more than to be pitied or condescended to by able bodied characters around them. They put their entire being in everything that they do no matter what that is, and they don't know the meaning of giving up. These traits that they're made of truly make them a shining example of disability in protagonists for others to look to for reference when writing their own disabled characters.

Even though by the end Edward has regained one limb and Al has regained his body, this also doesn't just deus ex machina reverse their disability or make it go away. It's clear that Alphonse's body is weak and has to be rehabilitated upon recovery, and Edward is still missing his leg and bears the scars and pieces of the port from his automail arm. They weren't suddenly made able bodied upon recovering these things, they reclaimed what was lost through struggle and grit, but the narrative didn't give the impression that their disability in itself was something to be fixed, which is important. They wanted to recover their bodies, but this doesn't erase the effects of their disability.

It was about Edward atoning for leading Alphonse into their mistake and saving his brother from suffering further, it was about them proving they can keep moving forward no matter what, not about getting rid of their disability in itself or putting themselves down because of the disabilities. This, to me, as a mentally and physically disabled viewer, is so important. They achieve their goal, but this doesn't in any way erase or undo the effects of their initial losses, they find ways to adapt and move on but they're still affected and still disabled. They always will be. That can be so important to see in comfort characters, and as a disabled individual who's had both brothers as comfort characters since I was a child, their impact on my own journey is surprisingly tangible for fiction.

#fmab #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #fma #edward elric #alphonse elric #elric brothers #character analysis #disability month #disability positivity #disabled #fma 20th anniversary

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missmentelle · 3 years

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Everyone has mental health, but not everyone has a mental ilness. It sounds really logical, but I was wondering how this influences people's lifes and the way mental health campaigns have or haven't an impact? When I hear people speaking about their mental health I often feel invalidated because it looks like everyone is doing bad. But I think it's dfiferent because of my mental ilnesses? Even if my mental health is okay, things are still not okay and I don't know, this is very unclear

To be honest, I actually think we actually make too much of a distinction between "mental illness" and "mental health" - those aren't really separate concepts, and the line between "people with diagnosed mental illnesses" and "people just experiencing general bad mental health" is not really a clear line at all.

Think about physical health. Some people have distinct, specific physical illnesses - things like type I diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease, lupus, or asthma. These are the sorts of illnesses where you either have them or you don't. We often aren't totally sure what causes them, and we might not have any permanent way to cure them - although we do often have therapies available that let people lead normal lives even with these diseases.

At the same time, every single one of us experiences physical health. Our physical health is on a spectrum, from "nearly perfect health" to "extremely unwell", and the state of our health will likely change throughout our lifetime. It's possible to be in general poor health without having a diagnosable illness - if you spent a few months living on junk food, drinking heavily, not sleeping properly and not getting any exercise, you would quickly start to feel absolutely awful. You might not actually develop a diagnosable illness in that time, but your health would certainly start to suffer - you might start feeling out-of-shape and out-of-breath when you tried to do physical activities, you'd probably develop digestive issues, your blood pressure and cholesterol might rise, etc.

The relationship between physical illness and physical health isn't always a simple one. Being in poor physical health can eventually cause you to develop a physical illness - if you eat poorly and don't exercise for years at a time, you can eventually develop hypertension or Type 2 diabetes. At the same time, though, having a physical illness does not automatically mean you are in poor overall health - a Type 1 diabetic who manages their condition correctly, eats well, and runs 5k every day may be in better general health than a non-diabetic person who leads a very unhealthy lifestyle. These things are complicated, and we can't always draw firm lines between "healthy" and "sick".

The same thing applies to mental health and mental illness.

Some mental illnesses are a straightforward "you have this condition or you don't" situation - this would include things like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. We aren't always sure what causes these conditions - they likely have a strong genetic component, and sometimes it seems like they just happen to people.

At the same time, though, everyone has mental health. If you are living in stressful situations or not maintaining your mental health, you can start to experience poor mental health - you can start to have difficulty concentrating, low mood, social withdrawal, low motivation, irritability, etc. You don't necessarily have to meet the criteria for a mental illness to be in poor mental health, in the same way that you don't have to have a physical illness to be in poor physical health.

And again, the relationship between mental illness and general mental health is complicated. A person who has poor mental health for a long time might eventually be diagnosed with clinical depression or anxiety. And at the same time, having a diagnosed mental illness doesn't guarantee poor general mental health. A person with bipolar disorder who is taking their medication and managing their condition properly may be in better general mental health on a day-to-day basis than a person without a mental illness who is dealing with something stressful and not able to find healthy coping mechanisms. These things are complicated, and we can't always draw a line between "THESE people are affected by mental illness" and "THESE people aren't" - that's sort of not how mental health works.

I guess I just... don't understand how someone else's mental health struggles would invalidate yours? Multiple people can struggle at the same time, with the same thing - we don't have a quota for how many people are allowed to experience mental health problems at the same time. I think if we're going to really break down the stigma around mental health struggles, we need people to understand that mental health affects everyone, and not just the people who have been formally diagnosed with a mental illness.

There are a lot of reasons why someone might not have a formal diagnosis of a mental illness - they might not be able to afford professional mental health care. They might not feel comfortable accessing care. Their symptoms might not quite reach the threshold for a diagnosis, but still be seriously impacting their life. They might have a diagnosis but choose not to share that information. Gatekeeping who is "mentally ill enough" to count or to speak about their issues doesn't really help us make the kinds of positive change we need to make on mental health - it shuts out people who don't have the education or resources to put a formal label on their problems, and it lets other people pretend that they don't need to care about mental health because they don't have a formal metal illness and it will never happen to them. The reality is that mental health and mental illness will impact everyone in different ways, and we all benefit from hearing as many perspectives and experiences of it as possible. Everyone’s mental health experiences are valid.

The idea of spreading more awareness about mental health and opening up discussion is not to make people compete to see who deserves to be labelled mentally ill. The idea is to normalize the fact that mental health struggles are a part of the human experience, and to make people realize that they aren't alone in dealing with this. When a lot of people go through a stressful or traumatic event - like a war, or a natural disaster, or a global pandemic that impacts every human life on earth - it's natural for there to be more people experiencing mental health struggles, and that's okay. Instead of worrying about who is "truly" mentally ill and who isn't, we should focus on learning more about mental health, pushing back against stereotypes, and making sure that supports are in place for anyone who might feel like they need them. MM

#AnsweredbyMM

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mixelation · 3 years

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A thread you may have picked up from following this blog: I am lowkey obsessed with trying to make a dynamic that makes a Sasori ship work, the best take of which i’ve seen is Flesh and Blood (which is SasoDei; OP has not really marked for many content warnings and I don’t really remember enough to give all the specifics... I DO highly recommend this fic but anything Sasori-adjacent and IC is gonna be pretty fucked up and filled with violations of personal autonomy). (cut bc this ended up long)

Anyway, the point of this is that I recently realized one reason my brain has a hard time making most Sasori ships work is that I can’t really see most non-Deidara ninja appreciating art? Sasori’s mastery of puppetry and poisons, yes. Art? Nope, can’t see most shinobi into it. The only other artists we see are Deidara (whose views on art are opposed to Sasori’s by design, but DOES seem to show interest in Sasori and appreciate his work even if canon makes it seem like Sasori doesn’t reciprocate) and Sai (who seems to mostly just draw as part of a coping mechanism and doesn’t really conceptualize himself as an artist? idk i haven’t put that much thought into Sai).

By this I mean: I don’t think ninja are really brought up to appreciate art.

In most OC/Sasori fics I’ve read, the OC is not an artist and simply thinks Sasori’s puppets are cool. These stories mostly fall flat to me because while I don’t think Sasori’s love interest needs to be an artist, I do think they have to appreciate (or learn to appreciate) his puppets as art, not just cool weapons. This trend is interesting to me, because I’ve read lots of fics where an OC is an artist who earns Sasori’s and/or Deidara’s respect, but are not paired with them. (I’m not saying that artist!OCs SHOULD be paired with Sasori or Deidara, just that it’s not like there’s a dearth of interest in artist OCs.)

Okay, so, what if your preferred Sasori partner is not an artist? Sasori/Sakura is the #2 Sasori ship on AO3, after all! I do think this one has potential because 1) Sasori shows an interest in her in canon, based purely on her skills (and i am a sucker for Sakura ships where the other half appreciates how badass she is), and then 2) Sakura is built up as an “”intellectual”” type of character, so there’s room there for her to look into art and then develop her own opinion on it.* But, in my limited experience, people skip this step? Or! They have her entire art education be via Sasori and I just don’t like this as a ship dynamic, because 1) it feels “mansplainy” and then 2) I don’t think Sasori would actually be all that intellectually interested in someone who doesn’t mentally challenge him.

*You don’t have to be an “”intellectual”” character to get Sasori. I can see more empathy-driven characters being able to look at Sasori’s art and get him.... but for me, personally, “Sakura goes and looks up some books on art” rings more true.

(This is NOT to say that any ship should hinge entirely on one side trying to figure out Sasori. Sasori also needs to reciprocate interest in his partner’s hobbies/skills/career! I’m just not complaining about this one because usually authors do think to address this.)

I also think that... in order to be IC, Sasori does need to struggle with the urge to turn his romantic partner into a puppet. Flesh and Blood, in my opinion, does an excellent job of developing Sasori’s attachment to Deidara enough that he ultimately concludes that Deidara is worth more to him as a flesh and blood person than as a puppet. I would be interested to see a fic where Sasori succeeds in convincing a romantic partner to become a puppet? (I have seen a couple of OC/Sasori fics where becoming a puppet is the OC’s goal, although I don’t think this would particularly interest Sasori unless you were bringing more to the table.) But mostly I want to see character & relationship development to the point where Sasori recognizes another human being as worth more as a human being than as one of his puppets.

So! What does all this rambling ultimately mean? It means that my personal preferences are:

For SasoDei: a lot of the work is already done by canon; you just have to develop their relationship so they value each other’s take on art enough that Deidara doesn’t want to blow up Sasori and Sasori doesn’t want to skin Deidara alive (or,... you could write a wildly unhealthy relationship where they’re BOTH trying to do this and I’d be okay with it because it’d be IC)

For SasoSaku: Part of the work has already been done by canon, but Sakura’s relationship with art DOES need to be developed. I don’t think she even has to be that into art; she just needs to show interest in Sasori’s hobbies?

For any other Sasori ship (including OCs but maybe excluding someone with a canon relationship with him like the Third Kazekage or Orochimaru): Why does he like them? I do feel like Sasori is a very picky man, so they’d have to be very good at some ninja skill he respects, or have some very compelling art opinions. Or like.... just be really attractive? XD

I am FULLY open to an OC being compelling to Sasori for deeply silly reasons, like a plot contrivance making it so that he can’t kill them for Reasons even though they’re deeply annoying.... and then coming to like and respect them as humans u.u

Fuck it, you can apply this one to Sakura and Deidara too because I love crack

And then YES, my ideal is leaning into the “Sasori kidnaps people and then relieves them of their organs” aesthetic. Like, there’s no way to accurately depict Sasori and not make it Problematique. His romantic partner is going to have to accept this about him somehow. There might be a way to move him away from this, but it would take a lot of character work and like... a lot of words in a story.....? BUT THEN ALSO. With Sasori I think there’s a danger in people getting caught up in the aesthetic of making human dolls and forgetting the art. And you gotta... you gotta balance BOTH.

(And then, a side note because if you’ve ever read my takes on Sasori, you may have noticed: I do headcanon Sasori as being compelled to treat people he vaguely likes as dolls. This is very “why is your make-up ugly? Here are my suggestions--” and “let me pick your wardrobe--” I like this HC (obviously, because it is mine) so I’m throwing it out here, BUT ALSO you do not have to conform to my headcanons.)

Or..... don’t do any of this. The above is really just my personal preference and opinions, so if you disagree, I still support you writing about Sasori! March is multi-sasori month if you wanna go all in. :3

........but yes I do like my own opinions and hope they inspire others XD

#sasori

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emilythecosmicbun · 3 years

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Creepypasta OCs.

Any updates information is on Wattpad WATTPAD: https://www.wattpad.com/story/255861941-creepypasta-ocs-emily-elliot-and-stedge

TW BLOOD, ABUSE MENTION

cottontailprincess is my Instagram and Emilythecosmiccat is my username on some art websites.

They/Them pronouns please

do not sexualise me, my characters or my boyfriend please he isn’t comfortable with that.

okay so these are my two vent ocs.

Emily/Elliot (Bunny.)

one of them, as you know, is my impure agere oc, representing all the sad and flashback parts of everything. I made them to help cope with my thoughts and feelings. They are based off of my appearance and my trauma. They age up with me.

BASIC INFO

Full Name: Emily/Elliot Bunzelle but prefers just Emily or Elliot.

Nickname(s): Bunny, Emmy, El, Em, Princess, Prince, Princette

Meaning of name: Emily (from Urban Dictionary.) An Emily is someone who is crazy inside and out. She knows who her friends are and try’s hard to look after them. She is very pretty but doesn’t always know that. She isn’t always the most popular, but to her that doesn’t matter. She has friends from all ages and they all adore her. She hides her feelings however upsetting they may be.

Meaning of name: Elliot (Urban Dictionary) Elliot is a true master at caring. He teaches how to love and be loved. A man of honour a man of steal. He's as handsome as a Greek God, as strong as diamond, as compassionate as a saint and is as gentle as a father's touch. Elliot possesses a magic within to create a vision in the eyes of all, leaving them stunned at how brilliant and perfect Elliot truly is. A leader, a spirit lifter, a lover, a giver, an Elliot'll leave you speechless with his being, his essence.

Gender: Non-Binary

Pronouns: They/Them

Age:

Currently 19, same as IRL me, though they physically and mentally regress to younger ages, so their age varies. Their main ages are variants of 1+

Date of Birth:

August 21st (Body born in 2001)

Race/Species: English and a Spirit or Entity.

Native language: English (as in England English.)

Orientation/Sexual Preference: Bisexual Personality: Silly, playful, honest, caring, childish, bratty, stubborn, sweet.

Are They Dead: No but they aren't alive either. Somewhere in between.

Any Mental Health Issues?

C-PTSD, due to multiple traumatic events. They frequently experience multiple flashbacks and nightmares, and is usually terrified of leaving their safe space unless it’s with Stedge, even then, they panic.

Triggers: Listed Here. Triggers page on my Carrd.

Powers/Special Abilities: Can float slightly off the ground, is able to phase through walls, spew blood at will, and look "alive" when speaking and comforting children, or just around those they trust.

APPEARANCE:

Looks:

Very young child: Short but very curly/wavy brown hair, a bit lighter than when they are in older looking forms. They wear a pink dress with a white shirt under, and black school shoes. However, they can also just wear a sonic shirt and leggings, or a skirt.

Child: They can vary but their usual look is long curly/wavy brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin, blood on their mouth and nose area, tired-looking eyes, pink dress, sometimes a nightgown, depending on the look, they can wear socks, bunny slippers or even go barefoot! Sometimes they wear bunny ears! Sometimes they like to wear sonic gear.

Teen: Depending on the age as a teen, at the point it's "kawaii" inspired things, sometimes just a Melanie Martinez shirt and pants (or skirt), sometimes overalls! They also wore band merch, stuff like that. They have either long brown hair, black hair or multicoloured hair like Melanie Martinez (dyed in variants such as pink, red, blonde (more like light ginger.)

Adult: Band tops, but also ones with cute designs on such as bunnies or kittens, sometimes overalls or dresses, sometimes even onesies, since they can still have the traits of an agere headspace. Short Brown hair, is a lot chubbier than the rest, can be considered mid or plus size.

Height: Varies depending on form and age, but usually smol.

Weight: (UNKNOWN BUT IT VARIES.)

Hair color: Dark brown/Brown

Eye color: Brown

Scars and/or skin conditions: Has a few bruises and a few cuts in some places, but I prefer to not draw them.

Has a skin condition called psoriasis. (I have it IRL.)

Never Seen Without: White Bun, and their three Cream The Rabbit plushies.

Likes:

• Things with peaches (the fruit) on them. (Including peaches and peach ice tea.)

• Bunnies

• Their Caregiver, Stedge.

• Drawing, and colouring in.

• The colour pink.

• Sonic The Hedgehog.

• Porcelain Dolls

• Stuffed Animals

Dislikes:

• Abusers (including physical, mental and sexual abusers.)

• Those who take advantage of vulnerable people.

• People who don’t take them seriously.

• Drama.

• Being abandoned or left alone.

Relationships:

Stedge - Partner in crime, best friend, caregiver and lover. (Depending on age of course.)

Cream.exe (Sally.exe game) - practically twinning, bunny loves to hang out with cream.exe. (my highest kin, apart from cream herself.)

Family Members - Depending on which member, they do have a good bond or a negative one. Bunny loves them on different levels, some of them, they hate. This does not reflect on how (I myself) feel about said family members.

(If you want your creepypasta oc to be friends with Bunny, just ask!)

OTHER INFO:

• They age up with my current age since they aren't dead and they are based off of me.

• I decided to make them some sort of entity since I couldn’t make them a ghost and still be alive lol they age up with me.

•Their “trauma” is the same as mine, which is why I won’t write it in detail here but they are a victim of abuse.

• They are all bloody because its how I feel about my trauma.

• They physically and mentally regressed to the age they are supposed to be, if they are in their child forms, they are an actual child. (Direct reference to my age regression I use to help me cope with my trauma) They prefer to be in this form so they can protect and befriend children. They don't harm children or other victims of abuse. The children usually call them “bunny.”

• When they're in their adult form, they have a partner called Stephen. Someone who they have known since they were 17 years old. When they are a “child” he takes care of them and protects them to make sure they don't ever get hurt again.

• Their sense of justice is what caused them to want to help other children. They never want to see another child go through what they went through.

Any Other Info is on the Picture.

Stedge

Well, I also made a creepypasta oc to represent my boyfriend, someone who I love and trust to help me during those horrible times. He’s like my partner in crime. lmao also his age isn’t rly there because he ages up with his real life counterpart, which will get updated.

REMINDER TO NOT SEXUALISE HIM AS MY BOYFRIEND IS UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THAT.

BASIC INFO:

Name: Stephen

Nickname(s): Stedge, Mr. Bubbles (by Emily/Elliot.)

Meaning of name: Stephen The most beautiful boy in existence. Has stunning eyes, that make your heart fall through the floor when they crinkle with his perfect smile. Is deep, unlike most boys, and extremely intelligent. Has a big heart, and he doesn't realize when he's being taken for granted. Even though he would never admit it, he sometime's can't see what's right in front of him. An over-analyzer, and very stubborn, but he will admit defeat when he has to. Likes to drive girls crazy, apparently. Easy to fall in love with. Hard to figure out.

Gender: Male

Age: Ages up with IRL person. Currently: 19.

Date of Birth:

9th April

Race/Species: English, Human.

Native language: UK English.

Orientation/Sexual Preference: Straight

Are They Dead: No

Any Mental Health Issues? No, None that we know of.

Triggers: None that we know of.

Powers/Special Abilities:

He doesn't have many powers but he athletic and can run quick and has a good amount of strength. He uses a bat and other various stuff.

APPEARANCE:

Looks:

Short brown hair, brown eyes, a bit of facial hair, variants of a black or dark grey shirt, but obviously not only those, sometimes they’re ripped.

Hair color: Dark brown, brown.

Eye color: Brown.

Scars: None.

Personality: He is quite intelligent and mature, behaves childishly in front of Emily/Elliot, cold and serious, is kind, polite, protective.

Hobbies and Likes: • playing the guitar

• skate (skateboarding)

• listening to tunes

• spending time with Emily/Elliot.

Dislikes:

• Abusers, people who take advantage of vulnerable people.

• People who are cruel to Emily/Elliot.

Relationships: Bunny - Best friend, soulmate, would do anything to make bunny smile, frequently gets them stuffed toys and food.

EXTRA INFO:

He is a few months older than me in IRL, his age is 19 right now, along with mine but will be updated.

Stephen is a human, and helps take care of Emily (in their child forms.) since they are a child and very vulnerable in that state due to their trauma, when they’re adult they are romantic towards each other.

They work together as a team when bashing and killing abusers. While he uses physical means, Emily uses mental.

Any Other Info is on the Picture.

WATTPAD: https://www.wattpad.com/story/255861941-creepypasta-ocs-emily-elliot-and-stedge

#my art #agere #sfw agere #creepypasta oc #creepypasta #impure regression #creepypasta child #child oc #bunny #sally.exe #sally exe #sonic exe

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thefinerpoint · 3 years

Text

August 2021 Reading List.

This month’s reading list is a little smaller than previous months. I have been struggling to carve out as much time to read at home with changing commitments and some home improvement projects. August is also a bit more mixed in the books I have read and the topics covered.

Bobby Seagull - The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers. I decided to try this book after seeing it on a book clubs previously read list. I never felt confident with Maths at school and always felt lost and confused. Apparently I am not alone in this as around 50% of adults in the UK say they are no good at Maths. This book does help in some way to explain some basic mathematical ideas and there really are some great quotes and ideas for encouragement. I did have to re-read a few sections to try and understand what Seagull was talking about and the Maths problems at the end of each chapter baffled me. I want to expand the topics of my non-fiction reading and this book ticks that box.

Douglas Stuart - Shuggie Bain This was the Man Booker prize winner for 2020. What I noticed the most from this novel is the visual imagery that Stuart was able to create. This is a tragic story but wonderfully written. If you can cope with the melancholy side, then this is a worthy addition to a reading list.

Brené Brown - The Gifts of Imperfection. Martha Beck brought the concept of soul teachers to my attention in The Way of Integrity and since reading this I have felt there is no doubt that Brené Brown is one of mine. The way she frames ideas and explains her theories smacks me across the face and makes me think. This is the first time I have read the Gifts which I decided to read as part of her summer read along podcast series. So many great ideas in here but her definitions on love and belonging are brilliant. As with most of Browns books I end up highlighting loads of things and annoying my husband with her ideas and teachings.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - We Should all be Feminists. This tiny little book is the speech from Adichie’s Ted Talk. It’s essentially like a long read article and therefore very quick to consume. The ideas she presents in here about feminism are brilliant and the way she frames and defines feminism is simple and eye opening. Feminism always feels like a sensitive topic that can lead to uncomfortable conversations and eye rolls, but after reading this book there shouldn’t be any reason why. As I said in last months post, Adichie is wonderful, concise and writes beautifully. Another one to revisit, to gift and to share.

"For centuries, the world divided human beings into two groups and then proceeded to exclude and oppress one group. It is only fair the solution to the problem should acknowledge that. " -- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - We Should all be Feminists. P. 41.

Ronan Farrow - Catch and Kill. This book takes some stomach to read. Farrow is a journalist who uncovered the story about the sexual assaults of Harvey Weinstein and subsequently a lot of other men in positions of power. The content is graphic and in some cases they really were sickening. The lengths and challenges Farrow had to go to to share this story was unbelievable to a point but I found them an interesting point of the narrative. I am not sure I could recommend this book but as a long form account of the story it really is both interesting and sad.

Samantha Dion Baker - Draw Your World. I have been dipping in and out of this book throughout the month. It’s a great book about Bakers sketching experience and how you can draw the small and big things around you to create a visual diary. I have taken both of Bakers Skillshare classes which were great and this book supports some of the idea there. It’s a lovely book to pick up, look through a few pages or sections.

Here’s to Septembers reading.

Jenny.

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ranmanjuu · 4 years

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Me again sorry if I’m spamming can request how the boys react to going to the future with mc be everywhere’s in lockdown thank you and stay safe love you~ (๑ゝω╹๑)

there’s probably a shit ton of them hcs around these parts and i feel like i’m just re-wording a lot of things so like,, ahaha i’m sorry. also the character cast is u-t forces cause ngl we have a lot of oda forces request previously and the coming requests dw just showing love to my kasugayama boys

—shingen:

the moment you stepped into the good ol’ modern times, the first thing you realized was that there’s a pandemic going on and with shingen being immunocompromised, it’s surely a danger more than ever. without a word, you quickly drag him into your apartment first thing’s first.

you quickly told him to take a shower (to which he’d probably jokingly invite you in, but to be fair, he doesn’t really know how bathtubs and shower heads are used). you didn’t have men’s clothing, not for his size so to say, so you just settled with your big, stretchy jackets you had.

after explaining the situation, you did consider going to the hospital for his treatment,, on one hand, if shingen doesn’t do it, he’ll. . .you know. and if he does, there’s a chance that he could get infected (with hospitals being a breeding ground for the virus).

in the end, you decided to do it.

even after that, you were always careful with things like going out, mostly you taking care of the shopping and everything. you kept reminding him to wash his hands, social distance, etc.

and frankly, while he understands social distancing, he doesn’t like it. he just wants to hug and kiss his deity lover! prepare for the man to just recite poems so damn dramatically for this.

(^ this includes the amount of pickup lines increasing by a lot. the fact that he can now search some up from google doesn’t help.)

there’s a lot of things you do in quarantine, and you’ve found that the amount of carpentry has increased significantly prior to this.

said carpentry ranges from tables and chairs, to small decoration carvings of birds and the likes. the smell of wood now wafts in the air more than ever.

you’ve now replaced yukimura for his dieting of sweets. his illness may be gone, but teeth problems could still arise! but shingen can have some modern candy once in a while, as a treat.

as for the reaction of the future in general—shingen finds it so, so warming how relatively peaceful it is compared to the sengoku. yes, protests are happening and there’s practically a new type of war going on (he most certainly advocates for human rights, etc), but it’s a step to a new light. a world he wants.

—kenshin:

you’ve had conversations of the future before—most of them on a,,, bizzare note, with the topic being on swords and war (or lack thereof), etc. a silent agreement was made between you two to not have kenshin be in the future since he’s missing one of the things he ‘needs to live with’ (them being war, sake, and you).

but a lot of improv had to be done when the wormhole was much more stubborn and managed to pull you through.

right after you figured out what happened, a security guard immediately came and told you to wear a mask (considering it’s a must). you had to haul kenshin back to your house before he attacks the guard with his sword.

after cleaning the two of you from any virus, you began running things over to him about the future. aaaand he’s already thinking about keeping you in your house by any means so you don’t get caught by it.

but you managed to convince him otherwise, you did have to go shopping and the thought of kenshin doing it with all the foreign technology around him made you sweat nervously.

no, kenshin, sake isn’t a need but you will buy it for him cause he won’t be able to survive, you feel.

you thought a peaceful modern world was bad enough for kenshin to reside in, ohoho, wait until you realize he can’t even go outside and fight sasuke and all that jazz.

a thought crossed your mind to learn how to duel and fight using mop sticks but he shot down that thought.

in the meantime, most of your days were spent in the garden with his sea of bunnies (how they got there, you don’t know) and mostly tending to them so they don’t contract the virus (kenshin almost flipped when you told him that rabbits could do that).

and by night, you spent it by looking out to the city skies (but the light from the buildings doesn’t hit like the stars do) and drinking sake.

he’d also be against social distancing, but—unsurprisingly—only to you. after a while that rule goes out the window as he cuddles you to death from being touch-starved.

i feel like he’d be interested in the past (or future, to him) wars just because. he’d read up about the wars from all sorts of places. and sometimes, you’d catch him with a deadly smile and say, “that sounds like a great idea, i should wage one like that.”

you had to remind him no, you can’t start a war cause you want to.

—yukimura:

he’d flip straight up by the idea of there being a pandemic in your time. you never talked about this when you told him you came from the future!

he’d probably groan at first with the thought of having to hole up for a long time, but he’d quickly understand. it’s for the benefit of the immunocompromised and the old, he’d like to help by following the rules.

besides, he has you. he’ll cope.

at first, his plan was for you to just let him do all the work during lockdown, like going out and stuff. he was non-chalant, if a bit stubborn.

until you mention groceries.

you start firing him questions, do you know what we need? do you know how much of it we need? or which one is which at all?

he shuts up after that.

yukimura will definitely do those workout things on youtube, and you’ll probably be roped into it. rip to you but you’re gettin’ buff during these lazy times.

small, silly arguments would most likely be the norm for you. it’s a bit of spicy bickering back and forth, you both find it amusing and it’s a way to stimulate the brain, no matter how stupid the topic is.

it can range from if mugwort mochi is better than chestnut dumplings, and you’ve even gone out to search for light topics to have small debates over.

occasionally, he’d invite you outside to watch the skies. the colorful lights from the tall buildings kind of reminds you of the loud fireworks during the festival back in the sengoku—only if they became stars instead.

much like shingen, yukimura is thankful of the positive changes in the future. horrible things may have stayed, but as long as there are people advocating for a fair and peaceful world, he can spend his days beside you.

—sasuke:

as any situation, sasuke was prepared as ever. the second you went to the modern days, he pulled out a spare mask (dw it’s clean) from his pocket and handed it to you. remembering the rule of mandatory masks, you quickly put it on.

you couldn’t really have a discussion about time-travel in the open, so you both went to your apartment.

sasuke is definitely well-versed in the virus, dumping most everything he knows unto you to better arm you with it yourself.

somehow, he could calculate how much groceries and overall shopping in any timeframe. a month, two, etc. so you find yourself bringing him out shopping with you.

since he’s now in the modern world, the amount of him being holed up kinda increases. if he’s learnt so much from a youtube tutorial, imagine the absolute machine he’d be by the end of it.

yeah he’s that guy who learns 45 million skills.

sasuke might seem unbothered by having to keep distance from you, but he really isn’t. you can tell; by the way his lips tighten, or the way his eyebrows furrow sometimes.

would regularly remind you to wash your hands, and would always say to take a bath each time you go home from the outside. if you’re ever sick, he’ll somehow have the perfect medicine ready.

you binge watch shows all the time, it’s another form of bonding cause you two already know about them. you’d spend nights on the couch with a blanket and snacks, discussing about things ranging from theories to crack cotent.

you really wouldn’t trade it for the world.

—yoshimoto:

honestly, yoshimoto isn’t even much interested in the future. mostly just how far art’s gotten (and trust me, it’s gotten so far). such is the situation when the wormhole caught you two.

he probably got sidetracked from the first art he could see (probably street art in this scenario) after you barely identified you went to the future.

again you must haul this pretty man after being told off by a security guard for not wearing a mask.

your biggest problem is probably his massive fascination with modern art. endless hours were used to have a talk that, no, he can’t go to an exhibit right now.

so you improvise.

you gave him a hand-me-down phone, or just share a laptop, and teach him the concept of digital art, along with how to operate certain social medias so he can browse around.

downside is he is currently—and unknowingly— planning to get you broke by commissioning artists. also he may or may not’ve been doing posting questionable things on his accounts (you really shouldn’t’ve given him one,,)

and so to fix the problem created to solve a problem, you decided to take it into your own hands.

popping out all the drawing supplies you’ve ever had, you began to doodle anything and everything, every day. and each one, you’d show it off to yoshimoto like a child to their parent.

and each time, he still looks at them so lovingly, no matter if it could hypothetically be classified as chicken scratches. as long as you make it, in his mind, it’ll be something worth cherished for.

but your strong suit has always been stitching, so you start a lot of projects of art on clothing. it counts as the one above.

oh—you know those pretty cloth masks? you now have about 100 of these at least, courtesy to yoshimoto.

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artificialqueens · 4 years

Text

End of the Day (Crystal x Gigi) - Ashley

A/N: The plan was simple. All Crystal had to do was pretend to be her twin for one week: sit silently in seminars, only leave her room for her basic necessities and stick closely to the set of rules she was left with. Only the rule that stated she “mustn’t bother the bitch from downstairs” became a lot harder for Crystal to follow once she had laid eyes on Gigi Goode.

Hope you guys like this!! Think of it as Breakfast at Tiffany’s meets She’s the Man only at a Russell Group where there’s a stereotype around every corner. Sending infinite thank you’s to Meggie for being a fab beta. p.s thanks so much for all the lovely feedback for Everything Has Changed (I could have cried reading some of it)…xoxo Ashley.

“No way.” Crystal dropped the pencil she toyed with, a laugh squeaking out of her throat at her sister’s audacity.

“It’s only a week,” she pleaded over the phone, the voice that had convinced Crystal to do stupid things since they were children making its reappearance.

“You seriously want me to pretend to be you just so you can jet off to Majorca to see that creep?”

“Yes!” Elle ignored Crystal’s clear disdain. “That is exactly what I want. We used to do it all the time in school.”

“You’re crazy, actually insane.”

Crystal was used to her sister’s wild antics, but this plot may have been a step too far.

“But you love me.”

“I hate you.”

“It’s not like you have any plans.” Elle held no hesitation in poking the bear - the boundaries between the two twins almost non-existent.

“I have Depop orders actually,” Crystal snapped back, a tiny part of resentment that her sister was attending one of the best universities in the country whilst she was sitting at home making jewellery rising inside of her body but not quite breaking the surface.

“£200.”

Crystal stopped in her tracks - now she was listening.

“It won’t work anyway, people will notice!”

“They won’t. I don’t speak to anyone in my college anyway and my course friends won’t say anything, just stay in bed all day once you’ve been to my seminars. I’ll even give you my Disney+ password.”

A hint of worry rose in Crystal’s mind; she wondered how her more outgoing other half had managed to go to university and not make friends in her accommodation. Where Crystal was shy and nervous throughout the entirety of her education, Elle had never been afraid to put herself out there, always surrounded by one group of pretty girls or another. “So what am I supposed to do in these seminars then? It’s not like I have an extensive knowledge of anthropology is it?”

“All you have to do is sign in and sit there pretending to type - they don’t even pick on you I swear. And it’s the last week before we break up so everyone will be really chill.”

“£300,” Crystal responded, the idea of escaping the four walls of her bedroom whilst making three months of her usual income beginning to tempt her, cursing internally at how easily convinced she was.

“I can’t give you £300.” Crystal could hear that her sister was talking through a grin despite not being able to see her face, the grin that meant she’d won.

“Well, you can’t go to Majorca then.”

“Three hundred pounds it is,” Elle agreed. “But you better get me a decent Christmas present.”

“Deal,” Crystal responded, knowing she had already purchased her sister’s gift two months prior. “Now, tell me absolutely everything I need to know about collegiate life.”

“It’s a good job. I knew you’d say yes and already planned this part out.” Elle beamed, proud at her ability to convince her timid younger-by-ten-minutes sister to do almost anything.

***

If secondary school was supposed to be a jungle of cliques, then Elle’s college may as well have been the Amazon rainforest.

Walking through the incredibly hard to find dining hall for breakfast, Crystal could make out almost every university stereotype she could think of, each confined to their own special hold.

From the druggies to the athletes, to the Oxbridge rejects, to the girls who borrowed daddy’s credit card - they were all there and thriving. A small part of Crystal wanted to go and sit with who she decided were the artsy girls despite knowing her sister wouldn’t be caught dead doing so.

Trying not to draw attention to herself, she kept her head down as she made it to the front of the queue, Elle’s clear step-by-step of how she approached meals playing through her head on repeat, the weeks of planning for this moment all coming into play.

Only at that moment, she panicked, the child’s paint by numbers that were her instructions started to turn into a set of IKEA diagrams without captions in her brain. Wishing she’d stuck to eating a pot noodle in her sister’s room, Crystal’s body froze in a state of fear after dolloping a ladle of baked beans onto her toast. A tonne (or maybe ten tonnes) of bricks smacked her right between the eyes. She knew she wouldn’t be able to pull this off. The lack of self-confidence she always battled with ran thick through her veins, her thoughts turning to ways she could go home and return to the comfort of her hometown, willing to sacrifice her sister’s already flagged attendance and the three hundred pounds to be watching Bake Off with her mam in the kitchen.

It almost happened in slow motion, time losing its speed as the boy behind her walked into Crystal’s back, propelling her tray forward onto an unsuspecting blonde. An unsuspecting blonde who seemed the opposite of dumb.

“What the fuck?” She snapped her head around to Crystal, thick brows furrowed and pink lips pursed.

“I’m sorr-” Crystal started, beating herself up internally at how she had managed to do the exact opposite of laying low despite being only one night into her weeklong mission.

“This won’t come out!” The girl started turning her neck frantically to the back of her shirt, the white satin stained bright orange.

Her mouth opening but no words coming out, Crystal didn’t have a chance to apologise again before the girl had a swarm of minions dabbing her back with tissues.

“It’ll be okay, G.” One of them took her hand. Crystal wanted to burst out in tears like she usually did at the smallest sign of conflict, pinching the skin on the back of her hand and looking at the white ceiling lights to stop herself.

“So long as people look where they’re going.” The girl, G, cast a terrifying yet beautiful scowl in Crystal’s direction before sauntering away.

So much for laying low, she sighed before leaving the queue herself, her body tingling as if she’d hit her funny bone over a dozen times. The girl’s stare still imprinted in the back of her eyes.

Having narrowly avoided a panic attack, Crystal thought hard about her old coping mechanisms and tried her best to remain positive as she did after these situations, sitting down at an empty table and giving herself a pat on the back that she had at least passed as Elle without any doubts, ready to take the rest of her day by storm (also known as sitting in silence and occasionally nodding her head as a bunch of middle ages men discuss human evolution and diversity).

***

Having achieved three B grades by the end of sixth form and the award for ‘most creative’ in their final assembly, Crystal always thought of herself as somewhat intelligent and capable of living in the real world despite her decision not to go to university like her sister.

Yet there she stood, her face in a scowl and her fist in a ball, completely and utterly perplexed by the laundry system.

After sleeping in her sister’s dirty sheets the night before, she had arrived back to the college with hopes of resting her head on a pillow that wasn’t mascara stained and washing her face with a flannel sans toothpaste blobs (which was basic hygiene in Crystal’s opinion, but she hadn’t expected anything more from her twin). Only those dreams were temporarily dashed as she spent an entire thirty minutes pressing buttons and swiping the card Elle had left her manically against an aged machine.

Thirty-six internet searches and two desperate phone calls to her sister later, Crystal was beaming at the sheets swirling around, not a care in the world at how much of a psychopath she would look to anyone entering the room, the stress she had previously faced in getting the machine to work inducing her to stay and wait for the clothes to wash instead of leaving them like normal practice.

Elle had seemed happy on the phone, gushing to Crystal about how tanned she’d gotten in such a short space of time and how delicious all the food was - Crystal shutting her down quickly by reminding her that such a tan would only alert their mother to the fact she’d spent a week abroad visiting the sleazy holiday rep she’d fallen in love with that summer rather than in the brown-bricked, straight from a horror movie, sixties’ style complex that Crystal was currently residing in.

Crystal made a mental note to text her mam later and tell her how much she was enjoying her time “visiting her sister” - knowing fine well that talking to her on the phone would probably cause her to crumble and confess their scheme.

She had always been a family orientated person, always choosing a night in the house watching movies over playing out with friends, crying buckets the day her sister moved out and started a new chapter of her life without her. It was clear her mother wanted her to get out into the world, knowing she was capable of more than selling jewellery online, but unlike her sister, Crystal wasn’t quite ready to leave her home yet, needing that extra push to get her feet moving that just hadn’t come her way yet.

She figured that spending a week pretending to be her sister may actually be a good start.

Lost away with her head in the clouds like usual, Crystal was snapped back to surface level as her phone chimed to signal the end of the cycle, only to find herself even more frustrated when she realised that no dryers were free.

Today really hadn’t been her day.

She personally blamed the lack of lucky necklace around her neck (Elle telling her specifically during their planning stages that she would never wear such a monstrosity and Crystal following suit despite knowing it was only entrenched in their rules because her sister thought it was ugly). Her secret superstitious side kicking in, she thanked herself for bringing some of her jewellery making gadgets with her, figuring she’d have to make her own version of it, for now, it wasn’t as if she had any better way to spend her evening.

Seeing a dryer with two minutes left until it timed out, Crystal figured she’d simply wait until it had been emptied to use it, allowing her brain to return back to Pinterest for a short period of time.

But ten minutes passed and no one came to empty the machine.

She glanced at the other piles of clothes that lay on top of the machines, figuring it was normal to remove other people’s when none were free, the thought of her sheets staying wet and crinkled making her feel uneasy.

Opening the dryer, she was hit immediately by a waft of lavender, reassuring herself that it was okay to move the clothes and feeling almost proud of herself for making a leap the old Crystal would have ran from in fear of awkwardness.

Being her most careful, she picked the clothes one by one and started to fold them, her brain subconsciously admiring the mystery tartan-wearer’s sense of fashion and wishing she had the confidence to wear some of the outfits. That was when her hands met a satin blouse, a familiar satin blouse with an orange tinge on its white back.

Before she had time to process that the clothes she was moving belonged to the pretty girl from breakfast, Crystal’s train of thought was interrupted by the devil herself.

“Admiring your handiwork?” She strutted over and snatched the shirt back from Crystal’s hands.

Crystal couldn’t quite place her accent but she knew it was Southern. Her overactive imagination hearing the girl whisper dirty thoughts to her in that posh voice without being able to stop herself.

Oh, fuck.

“I’m sorry.” Crystal turned to her, not even attempting to act like anything other than the soft wimp she was inside. “I didn’t mean to.”

Crystal looked into the girl’s eyes, almost seeing her melt a little before her.

She felt the tension between them, dense and heavy in the air.

“It’s fine,” the blonde responded, losing the passive-aggressive tone she’d carried beforehand but still not sounding entirely sincere as she began to throw her clothes into her hamper.

Crystal couldn’t help but gawk a little as she began to strut away, her body swishing like a model’s as she made her way out of the room, pausing for a second at the door.

“Can you do me a favour, though?” the girl called back to Crystal.

‘I think I’d give both of my kidneys to you’ Crystal thought. Only it instead came out as an awkwardly stuttered, “Erm, sure.”

“Turn your music down, please.” She shot a sarcastic smile in Crystal’s direction. Crystal felt it burrow straight through her chest cavity and into her fast-beating heart. “I know that anthropology may be a bit simpler than most degrees, but some of us really struggle to work when all they can hear is your shit music directly above them.”

Her mouth dropping open to catch flies as the girl left the room for good, a pang of realisation hit Crystal.

Opening her phone and flicking through the dramatic guide to her sister’s university life that was now saved at the top of her notes, she found what she’d been looking for:

“12. DO NOT, under any circumstances, bother the bitch downstairs.”

Too late, Crystal thought to herself, wondering how many more of her sister’s rules she would have broken by the end of the week.

***

Crystal would be lying if she said she hadn’t been watching out for the blonde that week, whose name she had figured out (after an intensive Facebook stalking session) to be Gigi.

Yes, she was lying low, not leaving Elle’s room other than for seminars and to eat - but that didn’t stop her from taking stolen glances at the girl across the dining hall or walking up that second flight of stairs to the room just a fraction slower than she did the first flight.

Three days at university and she’d somehow turned back into a fourteen-year-old girl fantasising about the most popular girl in the class.

Except this time, the popular girl didn’t even know her real name.

She felt like Tracy from Hairspray - one look and she could hear the wedding bells playing in the back of her head.

But at the same time, Crystal knew what was at stake - leaving their interactions to intense eye contact and mumbled “excuse mes,” knowing that even speaking to Gigi again could blow her entire cover.

Yet, she somehow managed to do exactly that on Wednesday night. Or, technically, the early hours of Thursday morning.

At first, Crystal tried to ignore the argument below her, drowning out their voices with her headphones (partly because she felt like she was intruding and partly because listening to people screaming at each other, like a lot of things, made her cry). However, as the war below was still awaiting a cease-fire, snippets of conversation slid their way into the room.

“Why do you have to do this on every night out?”

“I just want what’s best for you.”

“You don’t know what’s best for me.”

She could hear the pain in Gigi’s voice heighten right before her door slammed, Crystal wincing in bed at the sound.

Expecting to hear male footsteps stomp away, Crystal was surprised to instead hear lighter ones, making their way up the stairs and past her landing, a muffled sob travelling through her door.

Looking out of the window, she squinted in the dark until she saw the red glow of a cigarette from their fire escape, the hum of an unfamiliar tune making its way through the thin walls.

She knew it was a risk, but it was one that Crystal couldn’t help but take when she thought of the beautiful girl from the laundry room freezing in the cold.

Grabbing her sister’s spare dressing gown, she made her way onto the landing, taking a deep breath before going out onto the fire escape.

Logic and speech pushed to the back part of her mind, Crystal simply made her way over to the other girl and sat down beside her, placing the dressing gown over her slim shoulders.

Even in the dark, she could see how perfect Gigi was.

The mole on the side of her cheek.

The soft pout on her lips.

Despite the mascara smudged down her face and her eyes stinging red, Crystal thought she looked like an angel.

“Hi,” Gigi spoke to her, dropping the cigarette she smoked on the floor and pressing it out with her trainers.

“Hi,” Crystal spoke back, unsure of what to say to the girl, blood rushing through her at a rate of knots, nervous filling her body and bursting through her head like she was some sort of human kettle.

“I guess you know what I mean about the music now.”

“Yeah.” Crystal nodded in the dark. “It’s noted.”

“I’m sorry about Karl…” Gigi trailed off, taking some time before speaking again. “He just gets like that sometimes when he’s had a drink. I know he doesn’t mean it. I guess you know that.”

Unsure of who Karl was, or why she was supposed to know that, Crystal began to feel like she was drowning. Only instead of jumping on the next lifeboat, she swam down deeper for Gigi.

A part of her was afraid, afraid she’d read the aura surrounding the other girl so wrong, afraid that Karl was her boyfriend.

“Mmhmm,” Crystal responded, maybe a bit more high pitched than she naturally would have.

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s my best friend. But sometimes a part of me thinks that he just doesn’t have any idea who I really am if you get me.”

Crystal couldn’t have understood any better at that moment.

All she wanted to do was tell her. To tell her how hard it was when everyone expected you to be the same as another person. How awful it felt when they never knew the real you, only a shell of the more outgoing sister.

Only she couldn’t, so she did the next best thing and placed her hand on the girl’s forearm, instantly getting a shock at how cold she felt.

“Do you wanna go inside? We can make hot chocolate,” she suggested, noting how Gigi’s body relaxed under her touch.

“He’s still in my room.” Gigi rolled her eyes. “I just can’t deal with him right now, it needs to be left for the morning.”

“You can stay in mine,” Crystal asked, squeezing her grip ever so slightly.

What was she doing?

This wasn’t part of the plan.

And it was certainly breaking some of the rules.

Potentially all of them combined.

This was a bad idea. A very bad idea.

But nothing filled her with greater relief then when Gigi finally responded: “If you don’t mind, thank you.”

***

At first, she felt awkward as she let Gigi into the room, especially considering the fact it wasn’t hers. But after two hot chocolates each she had felt the most comfortable and at peace as she had since masquerading as her sister.

She watched as Gigi’s eyes made their way around the room, a kid in a sweetie shop, gawking at the treasures around her.

“What’s that?” she spoke between sips, pointing towards Crystal’s craft box that had been haphazardly set up on her sister’s desk.

“Oh.” Crystal went to pick it up, a flutter of warmth rushing through her at the thought of someone, let alone Gigi, being interested in her jewellery. “Just some bits and bobs I make.”

“These are so cool.” Gigi held a pair of scarlet earrings up and examined them closer, her mouth opening slightly as she focused. “Like the ones you had in the other day.”

Crystal’s face turned a deeper red than the earrings, the thought of Gigi remembering what she wore sending shivers down her spine - her head telling her heart on an auto loop that no matter what she thought about Gigi, all of Gigi’s returned thoughts were instead about Elle.

“Yeah,” she choked out, nipping her skin to bring herself back to reality.

“You should sell these!” Gigi gasped as she rooted through more of Crystal’s collection. “I sell the clothes I make on Depop, we’d make a great team.”

Crystal didn’t get a chance to respond. She was too busy picking the pieces of her exploding heart from the carpet and trying to put it back together again.

“In fact.” Gigi grabbed her phone and began to search.

Crystal decided that her thinking face was even cuter than her regular face.

She was in deep. Too deep.

“I think I follow an account that does stuff like this, let me think, something to do with crystals…”

Way, way too deep.

“I’m feeling a bit tired.” Crystal blurted awkwardly, getting mad at her mother for never placing her in acting lessons as a child, ready for the inevitable week that she’d have to pretend to be her twin sister or else she’d be kicked out of university and murdered by their family. Seeing the almost defeated look on Gigi’s face, she tried again. “But you can show me in the morning?”

“I’d love that.” Gigi smiled.

Crystal wanted to rewind time just to hear that sentence again. She wouldn’t be too greedy, she’d only listen to it one more time. Two at a push.

Making sure to go into the en suite as Gigi got changed, Crystal returned to find her in bed, already asleep, her hair a sprawl of honey against the pink pillows.

She waited a second before turning off the light and getting into bed beside her, something about lying next Gigi sending Crystal into a sleepy haze despite the way her heart had been beating so fast just moments before.

She could hear Gigi breathing, snoring just a little, finding her own breathing starting to sync along.

Sleep was only minutes away from taking over her body when she heard it, the muffled cry coming from the other side of the bed.

“No.” She heard Gigi mumble as she tossed from one side to the other. “Don’t go.”

Crystal placed a reassuring hand on her arm without thought. “Are you alright?”

Gigi woke startled, her eyes beaming at Crystal like a young deer caught in the middle of the road.

“I’m fine.” She realised her surroundings and threw the quilt to one side, moving her body down to the bottom end of the bed. “I best be off.”

“Hey.” Crystal sat up, flicking the lamp on by her bedside. “It’s alright, we can-”

But before she could finish, Gigi was gone. Nothing more than the faint smell of lavender on the pillows and the dark ring of hot chocolate in the bottom of her sister’s mug.

***

Making her way back into the college that evening, Crystal waited by the entrance for a few moments, wondering if she could manage to get to Elle’s room without passing the drinks and shenanigans that were currently taking place in front of her, wondering if she could manage to make it without passing Gigi, more precisely.

Tesco carrier bags full to the brim of every comfort food she could gorge on (salami, cheese, salt and vinegar crisps and three different bars of dairy milk to be precise) as she watched her sister’s Disney+ alone, Crystal concluded that the coast was clear and made her way to the bottom of her stairs without passing Gigi.

The words of the note she had posted under Elle’s door the day beforehand were still dancing around Crystal’s mind like a puzzle that even Professor Layton couldn’t solve:

“Elle, please forgive me for this morning. I don’t know what happens when I get like that..we’re all having drinks at around 8 tomorrow if you wanna join? - Gigi.”

As much as she longed to join Gigi for a drink, Crystal knew that she couldn’t. She’d already put too much on the line, allowed herself to get too close, too emotionally invested. A short text from Elle asking if everything was okay scared her straight, there was too much at stake. Yes, she wanted more than anything to be the one who comforted Gigi the next time she had a nightmare, to make jewellery for her and kiss her forehead whenever she looked stressed. But family meant everything to her, and she knew if anyone were to find out what they’d done, the consequences wouldn’t be worth it.

About to make her way up the stairs, Crystal felt a tap on her shoulder.

“Let me help with those,” the boy motioned to her bags, his voice familiar.

With dark hair slicked back, and skin the colour of caramel, it took Crystal a second to realise where she knew the boy from, remembering his face next to Gigi’s in their corner of the dining hall.

“I’m fine, they’re not heavy.” Crystal tried to walk away but was stopped by his voice, yet again.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come help? It’s been a little while, Elle.” He grinned, a smirk in his eyes that Crystal couldn’t quite trace.

“I’m sorry, I’ll have to catch up with you later,” Crystal responded, trying to remain calm on the outside as her insides reached peak panic mode, her brain mentally scanning her notes for anything mentioning this boy. Her search found no results.

“Oh I get it,” he laughed. “It’s one of your games. Sure, you wanna catch up later.”

That’s when the realisation hit Crystal. Her sister was having sex with this boy. And she completely failed to mention it.

Trying to think of something to say, a heavy silence lingered between them. Broken by a familiar tone that managed to scare her half to death and turn her on at the same time.

“Karl.” Gigi shook her head as she made her way down the staircase, carrying what looked like a sippy cup of vodka red bull in her hands. “Do you mind not trying to shag every girl in college for five seconds?”

“I’ll see you later, Elle.” He muttered before strutting away with Gigi, Crystal making out the word ‘cockblock’ in their hushed conversation as they left.

She knew that Elle didn’t tell her everything.

Just because they were twins they didn’t have to know every detail of each other’s lives, even though they spoke every day. Crystal always knew that. But a part of her heart stung at the thought of her sister not even telling her about a boy she was sleeping with. Is that how far apart they’d grown since Elle came to uni?

Fighting back tears, she made her way up the stairs and tried to call her sister. She knew she was being silly; a part of her had just thought she’d know when her sister was sleeping with someone. So many questions ran through her mind. Was Elle safe? Did she love him? Why didn’t anyone know?

She tried to call again, no answer.

Gigi must have known, Crystal figured - slotting together their interaction the night before with the one they’d just had. Is that why Elle didn’t like her? Why they weren’t friends? Why she’d told Crystal to avoid her?

She answered on the fifth call.

“Hey, babe, I really can’t talk right now.”

Crystal ignored her sister’s words, dropping her shopping outside the door and moving out onto the fire escape, the cold breeze hitting her face harshly.

“Who’s Karl?”

“Oh.” She heard her other half’s surprise, she could see the look on her face, high definition in Crystal’s mind. “I told you not to speak to people, for fuck sake, Crystal.”

“Who’s Karl?”

“I can’t speak about this now.” Her tone lowered, clearly someone else was in her company.

“Who’s Karl?” Crystal asked again, not even stopping to think about how dramatic she was being.

Only her sister had hung up before she could get an answer.

Crystal didn’t know how long she’d been out there when she heard the door open, she didn’t even know if she was still crying or not.

“Hi,” Gigi spoke, almost a whisper, as she approached her. “We gotta stop meeting like this, hey?”

Crystal watched Gigi’s face drop a little at the sight of her, looking hurt the second she got close enough to see her tears.

“Yeah, I-” Crystal started but was swiftly interrupted.

Normally in films, it happened after a moment.

The pair would talk, get deep about their issues, reach a comforting solution then sit for a moment in an all-knowing silence.

Then they’d look into each other’s eyes, letting them flicker down once or twice before meeting again, that lock not leaving until they were shut.

Next came the strand of hair, pushed away and tucked neatly behind the ear.

Finally, the kiss, slow at first then growing in passion.

Only Gigi had no patience.

It took Crystal a second to react, to realise what was happening, to press her lips back against Gigi’s, to race her hand through the other girl’s hair.

It was unexpected.

Yet it felt nothing but natural.

And right.

“I’m sorry.” Gigi pulled away, pausing to bite her tongue between her teeth, a nervous side of her appearing that Crystal had not yet seen. “I know that’s like the last thing you’re meant to do when someone’s upset but, I don’t know, you just looked so sad and-”

This time Crystal wasn’t going to let her finish.

She felt Gigi’s hands wipe the stray tears from her face before moving right down her body to her waist. Moving her body closer so she was almost straddling the other girl, Gigi pulled away for just a second to let out a breath.

Crystal moved her hands round to Gigi’s back, further and further down until she was granted a nod of permission, letting them slide over the silky fabric of her skirt.

Before Crystal knew it she was being pushed back to the ground, Gigi’s long and beautiful body towering over her, as she got to her knees and began to kiss Crystal all over.

Gently, methodically, slowly.

Crystal’s mind was carried away, far from reality and refusing to take away from the moment in front of her.

“I knew you wanted me.” She felt Gigi’s breath tickle her ear, sending hot flushes down her entire body, reaching her hands out to touch the other girl’s breasts.

“Fuck, Elle.” Gigi grinned, flicking a switch in Crystal’s body as she pushed herself backwards away from her touch.

She’d almost forgotten that part.

Looking at the other girl’s confused face, she was lost for words, pulling the strap of her vest top back in its place. She knew she couldn’t do it anymore, she couldn’t keep lying. She would have let Gigi sleep with her thinking that she was someone else. She’d become a monster. She had to tell the truth.

“What the fuck?” A voice came from the door behind them, Karl’s confused face flicking between the pair of them. “Is this a joke?”

“Shit,” Gigi muttered and stood up, but Crystal was frozen in place, her hands and feet turning numb with anxiety, the sky around them warping in time. “I can explain.”

Crystal watched as Gigi chased her friend back into the building, listening to her tell him she was sorry and she just got carried away. Listening to Karl ask if that was why she’d told him to stop sleeping with her. Listening to Gigi explain that it wasn’t it, that something had just changed recently. Listening to her life crumble around her.

And then she heard nothing at all.

Even when she knocked on Gigi’s door later that night, ready to give her the explanation she needed, Crystal heard nothing at all - eventually giving in and retreating to the cave of Elle’s room, with no plans to leave it until their train pulled in at the station.

***

Looking up at the hideous brown bricks in front of her, Elle Barge never thought she’d be so relieved to see the college in her life.

One day earlier than she was supposed to return, she hoped that Crystal would forgive her for withholding some of the stuff she’d been doing at university, thinking that they could have one fun night together before getting the train home the next day, giving at least a hint of truth to their family when they arrived back.

Besides, her holiday romance meet-up hadn’t exactly gone the way she had planned when she accidentally met up with his wife. Hence her early departure.

She figured she’d just have to chalk this one up to being a good story to tell, throwing away her sadness at the thought of having a best-selling novel about her awful love life someday.

Heck, she’d probably already have half of it written with just stories about Karl.

Walking up the stairs to her room, she rolled her eyes at the sight in front of her.

One thing she certainly had not missed was Gigi Goode braying on her door to tell her to turn her music down.

Surely, Crystal wasn’t irritating her, Elle thought to herself. The only music Crystal ever played was One Direction and she hardly blasted it.

“Ahem.” Elle coughed loudly enough for Crystal to hear from inside the room, praying she’d understand with her magic twin sense not to come out (also quickly texting her not to incase the magic twin sense failed them. Elle did not want a repeat of that time in year nine when Jackie Cox asked if they could read each other’s minds).

“Hey.” Gigi turned to face her, a strange look on her face that Elle couldn’t quite decode. Tension started to seep through the stained carpet and up the walls like lava.

“Hi?” Elle raised an eyebrow to her, more of a question than a greeting.

“I’m sorry for ignoring you before,” Gigi started, nodding her head as she got into the rhythm of her speech. “I was just scared and I didn’t know how to say it but I can now. Please just listen and wait ‘til I’m done, I have to explain.”

Minefields began exploding inside Elle’s brain.

She simply nodded.

“I’ve been fucked over in the past. And it still scares me today. You know the other night? That was it, I haven’t felt myself get close to anyone in a while. And I know it’s bad because of Karl and I’m a shitty friend to him but honestly, I think that this is something bigger than that, cause I’ve not felt it for a while. And I think you feel it too. Look, I’m really shit at this but something changed this week, I saw you in this light I’d never caught you in. I might sound mad but I think that I need you.”

Looking back at the girl in front of her with dismay, Elle spoke back the only three words that rang through her brain at that moment.

“What the fuck.”

And then her door opened, her sister’s face peeking out around the corner, clad in the same expression she used to have whenever she’d spilt juice on the carpet or smashed plate. Her hair matted and eyes puffy, Elle immediately moved to her side.

And then Gigi uttered the three words as well - only adding a “fucking” in there too for good measure.

Killing the silence that lingered for some time, Crystal spoke the fastest sentence Elle had ever heard all in one breath: “I’ve been pretending to be my sister so she could go get fucked by a Spanish guy.”

“Wow.” Elle looked back and forth between the pair, recognising a glint in her sister’s eyes that was certainly not there before.

Crystal prepared herself and walked up to Gigi, placing her hand on her arm. “I wanted to tell you so bad. I was going to but then Karl came and everything got messy. I know you probably can’t forgive me, but I saw that bigger thing too and I let myself get carried away in it.”

Gigi looked between the pair and raised a hand to her mouth, letting out a hearty laugh.

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Elle pleaded, fear rising inside her.

Silence filled the landing again, the twins standing sheepishly as they gave time for Gigi to process.

“If I’m honest I think I’m less confused now.” Gigi turned to face Crystal and grinned, showing an emotion Elle didn’t think the Barbie doll was even capable of showing. “This makes a lot more sense.”

Elle watched as her sister grinned back, seeing the genuine happiness on her face and throwing away all thoughts about whether or not she’d get in trouble.

“I think I might just be able to forgive you.” Gigi looked her up and down, pouting her lips in a joking manner. “If you let me take you out so we can talk this through over dinner?”

“Yes,” Crystal responded without hesitation.

“But first, could you tell me your name?”

“Crystal.” Elle watched as her sister reached out and shook the other girl’s hand, proud of the growth in confidence she could see - happy to see the return of the happy-go-lucky Crystal who wasn’t too scared to try anything new that she knew as a child.

“Crystal,” Gigi repeated, smiling to herself. “So Crystal, do you go to uni or just hang around at other people’s?”

“Maybe next year.” Crystal smiled back a sense of optimism in her voice. “Are we going for this dinner or what?”

Although it took her a minute to take in what she’d seen, a strange feeling inside of her as she waved her sister goodbye for a date with her bitchy downstairs neighbour, Elle couldn’t help but think that her disaster vacation had all happened for a good reason. In fact, she found herself almost shedding a tear as she heard her sister laughing at something Gigi said on their way downstairs, figuring that she might just see more of her sister than usual next term (and being nothing but happy about it).

#rpdr fanfiction #crystal methyd #gigi goode #crygi #angst #lesbian au #university au #end of the day #ashley #concrit welcome #submission #s12 #college au

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iampikachuhearmeroar · 4 years

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tl;dr political rant post:

it had been my goal from 12 years old to do an arts degree in philosophy (yes what a nerd- thanks to my dad playing a Great Courses philosophy dvd one morning in 2007 and my dad always taking me to the botanic gardens/the uni some weekends).

i graduated from my arts degree in 2018, with a major in english and a minor in philosophy. i was so, so lucky to even get into my communications & media degree (at first i was originally going to do marketing communications, advertising & PR)... but i realised that i was not made for business subjects- despite my mark101 tutor telling me she thought i had knack for marketing- something under this policy that i wouldn’t undertake due to the price hike for commerce/business degrees. nor was i made for a media degree. so i changed to arts & humanities.

although under this atrocious policy, english subjects are made “cheaper”- why on fucking should the rest of someone’s arts/humanities degree be so much more expensive, all depending on the fields they choose???? so you’re telling me, if i was instead to enter undergrad this year to do my english degree... that my english major would be subsidised, but my philosophy minor would be at double the cost (along with the few first year business and communications&media subjects i did), unless i forced myself to pick maths or science subjects that i would most definitely fail, no matter how much work i’d put into them??? or there’s languages- but much like maths/science- there’s the problem with my handwriting that stopped me trying french and even japanese (ironically, since it’s know for its ~painstakingly neat and orderly~ script- but my handwriting is still messy, disorderly and confusing asf).

*please note that most of this next section is just me being highly spurious and cynical. it’d probably work out fine*

but you’re also telling me that under this policy that i’d also probably have to forego my reasonable adjustments in those subjects (yes i still have trouble with my handwriting to this day) mostly because a lot of software still won’t let you write out maths problems properly or i’d have to spend twice as long trying to get a graph to work in excel or idek matlab (please teach me maths nerds)???? and most maths working out is probably better handwritten or whatever??? and that’s besides the point that i still can’t use excel at all 😂.

so with these classes then, would i be battling from day one of first year with professors to let me use a computer during exam periods (unless of course they use online/take home exam methods like philosophy)???? probably (im being very suspicious here because i don’t know how science/maths etc faculties work).

although i did get this once with one particular english professor; who used the excuse that he didn’t know how to set a computer up for exams because he had been on “sabatical for 4 years” or whatever and so “didn’t know the policies anymore”.... so then according to him it was apparently “the students job to do it.... especially since you’re in third year, miss williams”..... however, i was promptly then told by EVERY uni offical that i approached for help to do it for me.... and my other professors across my course that had done it for me, that it was in fact the PROFESSORS job/responsibility to set it up, and not the student’s??? like. help your students fuckwit professor grant??? honestly. anyway. aside from my personal struggles in the english department: let’s proceed. (this was a real incident btw).

would i be at a significant disadvantage to other students by not being able to use a computer during maths exams or science exams because of the drawing of diagrams and graphs and “showing your working”???? hell yes. would i want the professors in that department to probably condescendingly telling me all the time to “present my work neater and more precisely”? FUCK NO. it’s exactly why i avoided every maths and science subject in undergrad- even including the astronomy subject that i wanted to do- because it also meant that fellow students had to read my handwriting for practicals etc as well, that i wasn’t entirely keen on either. but i did not need the harsh reminders of “be more precise and infallible in your work presentation” that i’d had at school constantly for 11 years of maths lessons; affecting my mental health and performance in a subject during a uni semester.

moreover, that’s besides the fact that i’d flat out fail the “year 12 band 4 maths” requirements- unless they want to waive those- for first year maths/science subjects (at least basing it on my local uni).... considering that i actually skipped out on maths completely in year 12 by doing a TVET/tafe/technical college course in live theatre, production and events (which no surprises here, actually included maths anyway 😅).

because, fuck. is ANYONE seeing a trend in my study choices here? hell, i almost did a commerce/business dual degree with a tafe diploma in event management for crying out fucking loud. and you’re telling me that’s also doubled in price?? it’s obvious that i was interested in the arts & humanities and business subjects from the get-go. but under this policy- i’d be charged double for having my interest in event management, instead of say, biology (which is a subject that if it weren’t for mark scaling in my final hsc exam- i would have failed completely)??? utterly ridiculous.

i even contemplated doing a double degree with law at one point (or doing a legal studies major/minor- which is now a course at my local uni, but was not while i was there). however, law course fees have also doubled under this new policy. leaving that out of reach for me, despite that a double degree with law was out of reach for me anyway..... since my mark average was 65% and not at least 75% lol. but as if those marks averages will actually matter under this new policy.

under this bullshit policy, i’d be forced to take science/maths or even teaching (another field i had to avoid, since people can’t read my writing on a whiteboard from a distance half the time either.... besides the fact that i’m not really the ~teacher type~) subjects- all so that my degree price overall will be ”reduced”..... meaning that i would have to trade out my philosophy minor for something in maths/teaching/science (or maybe creative arts- since those fees stayed the same roughly)... instead of sticking to what i was good at: philosophy and other humanities/social science fields like sociology and history????

i understand that many people will snub me with saying “oh why did you even BOTHER going to uni if you were THAT indecisive about what you wanted to do?” which is something i’ve seen many older people saying on posts about this policy. but hell, i was 19 FUCKING YEARS OLD WHEN I STARTED UNI, FOR GODS SAKE. OF COURSE I WAS GOING TO BE FUCKING INDECISIVE ABOUT MY DIRECTION IN LIFE! because, newsflash fuckwits: not everyone has a defined career goal at 19. hell, i still don’t have one at almost 25..... since i’ll admit here, that i flunked out of my postgrad library course.... because i realised that i simply couldn’t cope with learning simple HTML, CSS and javascript coding for website design & user experience design 😂 (again help me computer wiz friends). yes, believe it or not, librarians have to know that today. and most people think that it’s just all about books (okay that was me, but i was wrong). also, if you’re wondering: postgrad library courses aren’t affected, thank god. but my point is, aren’t we meant to fuck up and pick the wrong things in life sometimes??? aren’t we meant to be indecisive about our choices in our late teens up until our mid 20s???

but now you’re telling students that their very first year of uni is practically set out for them, even for arts/humanities degrees (im not counting properly prescribed degrees such as engineering/science/communications & media (they had prescribed majors and prescribed first year subjects, which is why i left it. because i felt trapped in the prescribed marketing et al major etc); all because the government is telling them that “oh to make your first year cheaper: (A.) get good marks.... so that we don’t cancel your HECS place and (B.) pick subjects outside of the arts/humanities like science/maths/tech related subjects so that you don’t pay a whopping $14,500 for your first year of uni and will be more likely to be “job ready”. whatever the actual fuck “job ready” really means. and this all as if there ISN’T enough pressure for a 18/19 year old to succeed in their first year of uni already.

although, the one thing i’ll say is that my one year advanced diploma in marketing that i did in 2014, was $16,500. i still haven’t made any moves to pay it off. but it was constantly in the back of my mind during uni, both undergrad and postgrad. it was there as a reminder to pick cheaper subjects, so as to not greatly increase my combined hecs debt and vet-fee help debt; which is now sitting at $42,500. which under this new policy is the new price of ONE arts & humanities undergrad degree. i’d hate to be going into uni next year at 19 years old (or any age really) with that price tag on my degree.

anyway. that’s the end of my non-sensical rant. morrison and the rest of the libs etc can go fuck themselves.

#life #about me #shut up ilona #auspol

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papers4me · 4 years

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Fruits Basket, SE02, Ep20

This is a buildup ep for yuki’s confession, like most buildup eps in furuba they kinda seem awkward & a bit stretched, but overall this one is not bad.

-The theme of “ letting go” & tohru:

Tohru needs to Not only let go of her excessive attachment to her mom, but also, of treating yuki as needing of much help all the time. tohru’s is the mother friend for all, she tends to care for everybody, however, since she lives with yuki, this instinct fire up & she provides care, nurture, support & worry lots abt him since she knows the sohma’s abuse. Their dynamics need to change as yuki is starting to depend on himself as equal leaving tohu’s nest, tohru needs to accept his change & support him differently from before. The analogy of yuki leaving the nest is also fitting of tohru’s need to focus on herself since her nest is now empty. Tohru has also been using her motherly care for others to avoid working/focusing on herself. I find it ironic that Arisa’s “ tohru come convince kyo, he doesn’t wanna be a prince” comes as tohru & yuki acknowledge the need of a modified dynamics between them & she sends him off with her “ do your best” instead of her usual “don’t overwork yourself”. She leaves him to go to kyo/her own personal life that she needs to focus on.

-The Endless Parallels:

As yuki is starting to open his lid to his pal, the focus is shifted to machi! I’m happy she’s back. Similar to kyo’s apology into tohru’s ears in Se01, machi was given the questionable behavior without explanation treatment to hook viewers & I’m hooked! I know I’ll love this girl. It was pretty clear that her & kakeru are yuki exclusive characters & if he’s the best buddy, she’s the love interest. To connect her with yuki, certain good parallels were hinted at from the beginning:

She always leaves a mess behind, yuki lives in a messy room.

She has to have traumatizing background in order to make her need yuki in her life cuz part of yuki’s wishes is to provide for someone who needs him the way kyo provides for tohru. Yuki is ready to give back, now that he’s healing. Machi is yuki’s person.

Her coping mechanism is a bit similar to yuki in SE01, she shuts herself from others, doesn’t talk much & is withdrawn. I love that they both have somewhat similar coping mechanism regardless of the nature of heir trauma, it makes them both less ashamed of what they adopted to cope regardless if it’s wrong/harmful.

She has low self esteem & is shocked when someone notices her, very lonely which is why she noticed yuki’s loneliness since Day 1.

She saw through yuki’s resistance of his “prince” title. She’s perceptive in nature just like him.

She looks physically more similar to yuki than she’s to kakeru, her brother, (yuki’s family grayish hair/his mom’s /ayame’s long eyes). Not really fond of that, but no harm, I think it was done so she & yuki will have similar aesthetic & have similar color shades.

All these are amazing parallels above help connect characters together & build relationships. However, I’m kinda annoyed that the writer went over board with the parallels, to the point of semi-exact situation:

Machi & Kakeru are siblings who were not close at all due to abusive family attitude. Exactly Similar to: Ayame & Yuki.

Kakeru is the older brother & was able to stop his abuse cuz of his character or extreme behavior that saved him from being caged into the family’s grasp while machi, the younger, was unable to escape & isn’t free yet. Exactly Similar to: Ayame & Yuki.

Kakeru, the eldest, is trying hard to reach out to his sibling & aid her as much as he can but fails due to his insensitive character or his failure to see where she stands. Exactly Similar to: Ayame & Yuki.

In their relationship, kakeru is the extreme, bubbly & bigger than life character while machi is the vulnerable, silent, withdrawn one. Exactly Similar to: Ayame & Yuki.

This is a ton load of parallels that is not much needed to make machi suitable for yuki. I know that the writer is aware that machi is introduced late into the story, & is eager to flesh her out to be loved, but I don’t think that adding all these similarities to yuki’s life is the way to go. In the contrary, it makes her seem like a female version of him without the curse. Machi should be fascinating without yuki or kakeru. I guess making her kakeru’s sister helps create situations of yuki knowing more abt her without her talking & can be used to redeem kakeru’s character if he was ever harsh to her the way ayame was cuz you bet kakeru will play matchmaker. but overall, it takes uniqueness from machi’s situation herself & draws more attention towards yuki & kakeru. More focus on what will yuki & kakeru do. I really love her form the few things I saw abt her & her reactions, but yeah, don’t mind me~ it was a fleeting feeling of disappointment. Oh well, it is what it is. I hope her own perspective of her situation is rewarding.

-Machi is NO weak woman:

She really isn’t! She took control of the situation when she noticed it needed quick intervention. That’s why, the first set of 6 parallels mentioned above is important for machi! She saw through yuki without needing to know abt the exact similarities of their abusive homes. You don’t need all that to see through someone who was in the darkness for years, cuz she too, must’ve been in the darkness as well! So, in unique fashion, she comes & destroys yuki’s walls. Don’t worry, I’ll save you. I see you.

-Cinderella ( what??):

I didn’t expect elementary school fairly tale to be chosen & I sure didn’t see the cast choices coming! XD I’m sure sth will happen & they’ll change cast. but It’s 100% awesomely spot on in a reversed manner!! So Ironic!

Yuki godmother means yuki in female dress???? similar to SE01, Momiji ep! poor yuki! plus godmother is a nonhuman character that is superior & grants wishes & yuki is considered stronger than normal human without training & despite weak health, all his skills are always extraordinary. But maybe becuz he’s nearly done healing/opening the lid, he’ll help the others now, godmother style. XD

Tohru is evil stepsister?? Tohru is kindness reincarnated! but perhaps tohru needs a hint of evilness to wake up for herself & be more assertive! plus tohru is considered evil by yuki’s fan club (there’s an entire ep dedicated for that lol).

Hana Cinderella?? The queen of darkness & eerie wave reports who can see right through humans will play the weak, powerless Cinderella. XD. But it suits her cuz she was once called witch when in reality she’s kind.

Arisa a prince! the woman who wants to be a model & is desperate to turn kureno’s head with her womanly charms & is dying for a kiss from him in their first meeting! XD. but it suits her as she used to be a gangster? XD.

Kyo the prince?! the most un-princely prince! kyo’s kindness & warmth is exclusive to kazuma & tohru, the rest of the world sees him as the always annoyed, easily teased, harmless dude! Princes are diplomatic with their words! kyo’s life would be over in a second if it depended on his words! XD. He depends on his physical body & actions to show affection & love. You want him to be shower girls with compliments the way princes do?XD. but it suits him in a way, cuz he stole the main female protagonist’s heart like in all fairy tales & he’s genuine with his affection. XD.

I want Cinderella play NOW! plz don’t change the cast!!

Side Note:

The ep started with yuki’s statement abt what he wants from tohru, however, failed to deliver an answer by the end. It is obvious that (a) the answer will be given once yuki explains himself (b) a tease to hook the viewers into waiting for yuki’s answer. However, it was badly done. Rather than giving anticipation, it gave a disappointing feel. It dragged a genuine & vulnerable moment for the entire ep for cheap hook by the end. It can be completely avoided by not opening the ep with yuki’s lines. The thrill/anticipation would’ve come 10 times stronger with his closing lines leaving viewers with “OMG, he’ll say it next ep!! rather than “ what? i was waiting for that all ep? man~, next ep perhaps?”. I duno what is the nature of the manga chapters. but there are times when it’s so clear to me (an anime-only) when the show adapts things via direct cut & paste rather than working them to suit the ep format. Generally, the show doesn’t know how to implement cliffhangers, so I really wish they avoid them altogether.

From the way he handled machi’s apology to his firmness with the chibi member, to his elaborated speech with kakeru, to his calmness inside the locked room & how the flashback didn’t affect him as much as I thought it would! yuki’s growth is 90% complete! =D! You go boy!

I gotta confess..I’m slightly disappointed that kakeru turned out to be another abuse survival child. I was loving the idea that yuki is connecting with someone via their own character/personality not shared past of similar experiences cuz there are TONS of those in furuba. Kakeru’s character with (mix kyo-ayame) & virtues/vices is a good balance for yuki, adding the abusive past is hinting that broken kids only befriends broken kids which isn’t true. Plus this means that all young characters “with importance to the plot” must be abused one way or another... I know furuba has a theme..but you don’t have to make it part of every important character. I still love kakeru tho. but if kimi turned out to be ANOTHER abused child, I’m quitting furuba! XD..jokes..

#Fruits Basket #Anime Only #tired paper

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funkymbtifiction · 4 years

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Hey what type do you think Luke’s Nephew Jess is from Gilmore Girls?

INFP 4w5. Not sure of his social stacking, might be soc-blind... but then, so much “going against” of social norms is actually heavily social, because you’re aware of them and resisting them, whereas soc-blinds are oblivious to them.

He’s a good example of an unhealthy Fi-dom, in that if he doesn’t want to do something, he doesn’t show up, bother to do his homework, or let anyone know he won’t be there, etc., because “I don’t feel like doing it.” He sees no reason to attend class or finish school, because he under-values academic achievement (inferior Te problem, plus just a Jess problem). He ignores the fact that Rory has a boyfriend and tries to steal her away from him, by doing whatever he feels like doing through opportunism, but then runs away after the car accident, to avoid confronting people’s angry feelings toward him. He has an anti-social streak that doesn’t want to absorb into the masses and regards most people, things, etc., with disdain. He’s smart and well-read, able to see the symbolism in books, but has no ambition, drive, or desire to succeed for a long time. And then there’s the fact that later on, Rory’s Fe tendency to people-please runs up against his Fi-ish disdain for “fakery.” If I remember right, he matures a lot but at the moment, I’m still in my season two rewatch and he’s being “problematic.”

I’m not just being “hard” on Jess. I said that to show you how an unhealthy IFP can act. The truth is, Jess is deeply hurt about his mother abandoning him and he’s acting out to cover up his insecurities. He has developed a “tough guy” attitude to cover up how painful life is for him; as a Fi-dom, he’s sensitive to criticism, genuine conflict (not the kind he blows off, where he sasses Luke, but the meaningful, deep kind that involves pain and loss), so he copes with his inner torment by reading books to escape the real world, by disrupting things around Stars Hallow to “act out” his pain (like stealing gnomes), etc. So what you see on the outside is just a manifestation of his inner anguish. In a sense, Luke is right to draw some hard lines with him, because as much as he hates it, Jess needs some kind of stability, someone who won’t abandon him, and structure in his life in order to feel secure. But Lorelai accusing him all the time, seeing him as a “problem” that is threatening her daughter, etc., is wrong. Jess “needs” Rory to coax him back into participating in the human race. It’s just he wears so many thorns, it’s hard for anyone BUT Rory, who has a sweet, non-judgmental nature, to give him a second chance.

TBH, Rory doesn’t have great taste in boyfriends. Jess is selfish and arrogant, and Dean is controlling and driven by insecurity. I feel like they wrote Dean as a hybrid between ISTP (mechanical expertise) and ISFJ traditionalism, but a 9w8 or a 6w5 ISTP might make the most sense for him (he built Rory a car, and has inferior Fe passivity followed by outbursts all the time). Not that you asked. ;)

#question #gilmore girls

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fierceawakening · 3 years

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Like, because I feel like babbling, here's why the idea that empathy and morality aren't connected, or aren't very connected, strikes me as so odd.

(cut so people who know they don't want to read it can scroll on easily)

Let's consider "antis/fanpol" for a moment, since most of us don't like them and think they're being very mean.

Fanpol have decided that they don't like "pedophiles." (A problem with this is they usually confuse this with "shippers," which is a whole other can of worms. But let's suppose for a moment that their problem is actual adults who are actually attracted to prepubescent children, not barely-adults or people who don't look like adults or fictional non-adults.)

Lack of empathy for pedophiles, it seems to me, would look like what these people say and do. Dehumanizing language, insulting and threatening messages, attempts to get authorities to intervene, sometimes even violent acts (think the needle in the cookie incident.)

"I don't have any feelings of sadness or kinship when a pedophile is sad." (Lack of affective empathy.)

"I don't reason out why a pedophile might feel as they do and mitigate my desire to harm them based on an attempt to understand." (Lack of cognitive empathy.)

Now obviously the fanpol THEMSELF would say this is perfectly moral, and probably that it's immoral NOT to harshly behave toward the pedophile. So we don't have everything solved. But... what might empathy for a pedophile look like?

Here are a few things I think it might look like.

"Sexual desire can be really, really intense sometimes. Knowing that you don't have a partner can feel really awful. Knowing that for some reason you're not going to have one for a very long stretch of time--say during a goddamn pandemic--can feel awful! A pedophile who knows they shouldn't hurt kids is basically owning up to the idea that they can NEVER have a partner, at least not of the sort they really want. Man, I feel bad for them. If they hurt someone they deserve punishment, but if they're trying not to I'm not going to pile on by calling them names. What a way to draw the short end of the stick!" (Affective empathy.)

"I don't feel desire for children, so I don't know firsthand what that's like, but... I can imagine how lonely it might feel to see everybody around me starting to fall in love and happily pair up. My straight friends, my gay friends, my kinky sex fiend friends who I never thought would find their complement. And then to know that I actually CAN'T, because anyone I tried to pair with I'd be harming. No child would ever ACTUALLY return my feelings, only act as I'd trained them by grooming. Wow, that sounds... terribly lonely. I think I'm going to try to find out what can be done to help these people cope without hurting anyone, and work to make that available to them." (Cognitive empathy.)

Which, well. I think those choices not to hound people are the more moral ones, but I suppose I could be wrong on that? And fanpol would likely say I am (assuming, again, that actual pedophiles are their problem, not a desire to feel superior.)

But in either case--the presence or absence of empathy does seem at least to CHANGE what actions the person DEEMS moral, and if one set of them is the moral one and the other is the immoral one, then yes, one or the other is going to be better at behaving morally.

THAT is why I found the old-school, "sociopaths are bad because they lack empathy" style arguments convincing. Because once you don't have empathy for a person or a group, you're more able to justify dehumanizing them to yourself.

THAT's my worry, and that's why all this discussion of whether morality is mostly an intellectual exercise seems kind of... oddly off-point to me? Dehumanization is a common failure mode in humans,a and we need to find ways to stop them from doing it/lessen their tendency to do it.

To me, downplaying empathy's importance seems like it makes dehumanizing people EASIER rather than HARDER, for reasons like those I give above.

#the empathy discussion

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audreycritter · 4 years

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I hc Damian as autistic and I would love to write him as such someday and I was wondering which of his canon traits would have to be changed or altered to not make him too "stereotypical" autistic? In my interpretation drawing is one of his special interests/hyperfixations and he loves animals because their behaviors are more logical and easier to understand. (He also loves noise canceling headphones which is not canon but should be)... but is that too stereotypical?

Not at all, imo! the thing about writing autism, I think, is that some stereotypes are stereotypes because of how often they occur. it's whether or not you're using the stereotype as a joke, a crutch, or a superpower that it gets dicey. Damian actually is easily a case of institutional autism, I think, but honestly comics canon is such a clustercuss that you don't NEED "canon evidence" to say "I want to write this character this way because I want to write it." Fanfiction is for fun, not for scientically adhering to canon.

You can write Damian in a way that conforms to a lot of canon AND fanon though, and still do this specific thing. Attaching to animals, drawing as a special interest. Noise-cancelling headphones to help with stress, sensory-input, or focus. Routines and sensitivity to touch (animals are good for this because it's not unheard of for autistic people to have touch-aversions AND want the weight of a pet). The thing about any personality or neurological condition is that the chief hallmark is inconsistency, and a lot of "high functioning" (that word has stigma for some, so be careful with it-- it basically means in this case "able to outwardly adapt to non-divergent expectations more easily/hide ND traits/find own coping skills for environment") people can sometimes handle life fine without their noise-cancelling device and other days need it. Sometimes routine disruption is very upsetting, other times stress can be more internalized or its easier to adapt.

One big thing for writing in fanfic, if you want to maintain some appearance of a general canon perspective on the character, is to be careful how you handle meltdowns and stress reactions. Not EVERY autistic person has meltdowns in the same way. Not everyone has the same triggers. And like any strength or weakness, the pros and cons are going to be different sides of the same coin. Special interests are great and can be highly developed skills, but other school work might suffer. Animal interest is wonderful, but because it's emotionally easier to connect, it might come at the price of struggling to give other humans the same consideration. Autism, contrary to early assumptions, is a highly emotional neurodivergency. It's not that emotions aren't there, it's that they're so intense it often makes it difficult to see outside them, express them in neurotypical ways, or process them. Shutting down and hiding with your dog is sometimes easier than talking through being frustrated about something, if your dog is one way you cope with things, and you tend to be low-verbal when upset, etc.

Avoid language that compares autistic traits to robotic ones (unless the character has claimed that perspective themselves) and ESPECIALLY if it's dehumanizing/negative rather than connecting. Be careful about language that makes autism a "super power." Many people do not feel that way, even if autism is a positive or neutral for them. Be careful that the portrayal isn't so rigid that the world bends unrealistically around your character to cater to them (unless of course you just want to write self-indulgent hurt/comfort or something to do something for YOU or a friend-- that's fine, it just won't read as realistic).

I hope this helps!

#autism #damian wayne #batman #robin

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babysprouseisart · 4 years

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Every story ever has its end or the summary of the thoughts on the past #sprousehart era and attempts to change the attitude of others to this illusionary world

Dear fellows, from the very first days of the origin and further existence of mankind on the planet, in each period more and more foundations, irreversible phenomena and laws in nature or the society in which man lived and continues to live appeared. Time is fleeting, night turns to morning, year to year, and every story ever has its end. You can object, say that this is complete nonsense, but unfortunately everything in our world is natural and therefore in the same way one story of two wonderful people - Lili Pauline Reinhart and Cole Mitchell Sprouse - ended.

Their relationship was and will remain one of the most beautiful and unlike in comparison with others, at least based on what I could witness, love story. And even though this love story began seemingly banal with an audition for the role and the set, it was so real, amazing, which many could dream about, with its special feature of gradual disclosure, so enticing, and that is why it probably resonated so much, along with other reasons.

Like any other relationship, this relationship was based on many things and included many reasons for existence. Starting with a slight interest in each other, first liking and flirting, then there was a strong and almost immediate attraction to each other that they both talked about, a passion visible in the way they acted out scenes together and in glimpses of information from others. Then, after some time, the romantic charm passed, and a new stage began – getting used to each other, building a joint life, adapting to the peculiarities and shortcomings of the partner, and it is during this time the couple tries to create a happy and satisfying relationship for each. Accordingly, everyone got a desire to stand out from the other, to be significant not only in the relationship, but also outside of it, which is why they kept their privacy and wanted everyone to perceive them as separate individuals. They clearly tried to control what they shared with the world, and gradually the amount of what they shared increased. We were lucky to witness many, even small, moments in their lives. We were allowed to see the whole development, although some of it was very hidden, starting with the sarcastic banter on Twitter, the tempting 'Tempt me!', then multiple photos of fans with them, then supposedly random photos of Cole, with Lili in the background, or other way around, then many other breadcrumbs, then expanding of the circle of friends where his friends are now hers and vice versa, family meetings following by huge support to the certain time, then an infinity of her photos taken by him, so divine and beautiful, as well as photos taken by her of him, then numerous long or not so long trips to various places, the first vocation trip together which was made public, then 'No comment!', then more words about love in public media, birthday wishes, comments, bouquets just like that and on special days, 72 roses, chocolate-covered strawberries, the way they were baking together, him making a grilled cheese for her, them watching the sunset at Debby's and the other times we haven't seen, the time when Antelope Valley has become an indicator, the most tender words about each other, endless heart eyes, her inability to stop sitting on his lap, and his habit of touching her shoulder, neck, jokes understandable only to them, the words of others about them as if they are friends for 20 years already, knowledge of each other's body language, bragging about wonderful sexy times and the beauty of each other, giving cute nicknames, comfort, joint red carpet moments, him shaking her of joyness, constant support and much more, what we could obviously notice in social networks, interviews, after videos/photos of paparazzi, almost complete idyll at first glance and so on. All this is certainly only what we were allowed to see or what we guessed having observed various facts and over time it has gotten more obvious, and it was an insanely beautiful experience to be a spectator of all this for which I am grateful that is why I sincerely wish myself and all of you to look at it from the point of view that you need to smile because it happened and not cry because it's over. Nevertheless sometimes if you get too involved you can start looking at it through the prism of pink glasses of love and admiration, enjoying every moment they directly or indirectly shared with us, and accordingly, the impression of a fairy tale is being formed that does not quite correctly reflect reality and it does not allow us to perceive the other part on the other side of the screen/social networks, because we simply do not see it. However, I don't want anyone to take it as if I believe that everything they shared was untrue and false, completely out of the blue. All I want to convey to any reader is that everything we saw was only in an unreal bubble of illusions, since the Internet and social networks, which are, after all, this very bubble in its essence, which we ourselves and they decided to form, allowing us to take it as they want and this is normal, and life is very far from perfect or dreamlike. That is to say life is such an unpredictable thing, where everything is justifiably natural and sometimes things just don't work out the way we would like them to, including relationships which are also a complex structure that is not easy to build correctly, sometimes even with a strong attraction and a strong sense of love, there are things that cannot be corrected or changed. As well as you cannot change the essence of a person and his worldview, his personality, internal or external qualities, his behavior, his views on life and goals, his mistakes and position in society, loss of trust, his moral and physical endurance, other side things like sharing very little time for the second half in connection with business or temporary work, unwillingness to accept any conditions, commitment, settling down or restriction of something, lack of compromise, fading feelings because of passed desire and passion, external factors, especially if we are talking about a public couple/popular people, such as dramas in social networks, created by fans or family/friends, stress from the strong involvement of others or non-acceptance of partner selection by relatives, and so on. Just sometimes if after a while two people failed to get accustomed to each other, as if a plant were transplanted into a new soil or some organ to the human body, thanks to some external or internal features, obstacles, be it custom qualities or external influence on each other with the constant tries for the reconstruction of another and over time awareness of the fact that what has been created by the supreme cannot be altered and adjusted for something else, becoming more and more negative, when one of them in its content can no longer learn to cope with the environment and the further continuation of the joint work of the struggle can lead to the bad conditions of both, with exhaustion from this struggle and, accordingly, to the death of cells. And all this exhaustion for whatever reason can also be theoretically and philosophically equated to the bowels of the earth and depleted sources. After all, a person get used to using fresh water, the earth's mineral resources, eating plants and fruits, vegetables, buying things, and so on, but sometimes it happens that this is either limited or ends and nature is no longer able to provide us with anything, after constant giving, and in return receiving only harm or damage. This is a very complex science and this is a life where, as I already said, many things are not the way we picture them to be. So many interpretations and/or reasons can and could be hidden behind all these failures/ends/dissensions/decays/breakups/bad moments in life, and I cannot even list all the options, but I have some general considerations on the specific occasion, but I do not want to start the speculation now and go into details about why and how I think the end of this love story that we all loved happened, cause it is not my business and I am no one to judge someone or even dare to talk about it when I am not them or relative/friend to any of them and I haven't seen the actual period of their relationship and how it was going from the beginning to the end except my own representation of everything based on this social-media bubble, and each of you can have your own thoughts and draw your own conclusions. However, it goes without saying that even after any obstacles, failures and heart and soul break and with the passage of time, everything constantly takes place to change in any way, people change, the behavior change, the attitude change, and so on, one moment the doors are closed, in the other you open them or they are opened for you so in the end a person finds their happiness and purpose despite previous mistakes and shortcomings.

The penultimate thing I want to say is that obviously, after all this, you are already starting to think about something and I really hope so, given what I said about life and bubbles of unreality in our time, and as you gain experience in this fandom and being a fan very much involved in all of this it can be very useful for us to eventually rethink how much we were involved and how much energy we were giving this every time, and I have already made a whole post about this. And particularly good for me were the recent events when there is no particular food for thought and to be involved, I'm more and more alienated from the lives of other strangers, and the more time passes, the more relaxed I began to react to many things, although it also sometimes was hard to deal with all the drama and speculation, constantly think through all sorts of logical outcomes, since I am such a person by nature and I cannot be calm without a logical conclusion, and I am still digesting the whole situation happening since the beginning of this year with the fandom and the relationship of these two people, however, as much as I would not like to clearly represent everything and have a clear picture now it does not matter, the main thing is that it was and it just needs to step over, swallow and not give too much attention to this, because unfortunately we could not control the whole situation, we could not prevent what happened and what could have happened just because we are not the supreme or these same people and it is not our business.

In conclusion, even if some may think of me as a soulless person or that I do not care about others, know that this is far from it, I just try and will try to find a way out of the situation, reorganize and look at everything objectively and with a grain of salt because I believe that this is the right decision to be detached in any way from someone else's experiences, especially from those who are so far from us, and bad moments, so as not to have any attachment, hope and faith, so that it does not hurt us later. But I am certainly an emotional person and my heart just bursts with pain when I see that many people strongly bring down themselves and suffer from the fact that there was some kind of non-related to them co-ordinal change, although this is not the end of the world, and therefore I consider it my duty to try to somehow distract some of you and calm down on this account, as once I was helped by others and my own search for the right attitude.

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