#but at the same time it's got some 2009-2015 bullshit in it

[myimaginarywonderland]

Hello people it's me. After struggling how to do this, here's finally how I am uploading my post about Lance's F1 career.

I decided to hit you guys with the qualy comparisons of him and his teammates first and foremost. It's just data where I highlight the Qualifyings he did better in but I thought it would be nice to see how far of he actually was.

Before going into my very long rant (about 8000 words) that I tried to keep as objective as possible I do want to note that of course there will be personal opinions and comments throughout as I am also just human and a fan as well. And with that note, let's dive in

Lance Stroll's journey to F1 and the question of why he is probably one of the most underrated drivers on the current grid

Lance career began in 2008 when he first started carting. During 2008 and 2009 he won multiple championships in the Canadian junior category. 2010 saw him winning the Rotax Mini Max of the Florida winter Tour. In that same year he was signed on by the Ferrari driver academy. Considering he was only 11 at the time and had basically only just started carting, that was a huge deal. Yes not every signed driver by Ferrari makes it blah blah but they made it very clear that they saw potential in him and wanted him to be racing in Europe for them. So, 2011 saw Lance first time competing in European championships. In one of those he was 9th for example. The just mentioned WSK-Euro Series in KF3 saw some familiar drivers such as the winner, Max Verstappen. Some other names that might sound family for example P2 would be Esteban Ocon or George Russell in P7.

2012 and 2013 saw him once again in many carting championships before he started Formula racing in 2014. He competed in the Florida Winter series where he got a pole and two podiums once again up against Max and drivers such as Tatiana Calderón or Antonio Fuoco. But most importantly from that year, he won the Italian F4 championship by nearly a hundred points. 2015 saw him competing in the European F3 championship where he finished 5th after the following drivers (all names many of you will be family with): Jake Dennis, Charles Leclerc, Felix Rosenquvist and Antonio Giovinazzi. That same year also saw him finishing 8th in the Macau GP behind once again driver such as Charles Leclerc and Felix Rosenquivst. He also in that year won the Toyota racing series by over a hundred points. This year he also left the Ferrari driver program and joined the Williams academy. He became their development driver for 2016.

In 2016 he once again competed in the F3 to this time win it by a nearly 200 point advantage. P2 saw Maximilian Günther and P3 was none other than George Russell. He also raced the Daytona 24 Hours where his team finished 5th overall.

Before we move on F1, I do feel the need to address something that has been brought up multiple times. The rumours that Lance had a better car because his father was rich, that his team-mates never had a chance etc. I think that is complete bullshit and frankly manly used to underline his talent. Even with the best car, the worst driver would do something wrong. Sure you can call him mid but considering the huge gap he had in his second year, I think it's fair to say he had talent in him. Also the fact that Felix regularly comments on Lance posts does not seem like there is any bad will against him. Yes, he had better equipment etc. to win but the way he wrapped up the season still speaks to his talent.

2017- The start of it all

Lance started his F1 career in 2017 with Williams. His team mate then was Felipe Massa. This was a huge leap considering Lance short experience with Formula racing and it was understandably questioned. Nonetheless 2017 saw him starting alongside Felipe who jumped into that seat after Val signed with Mercedes following Nico's retirement. I think it is also noteworthy to mention here that in 2016 he already was a development driver for them so there was always the probability for him to drive. I personally think he could and should have done another year in Formula racing (F2) but that is my own opinion. What people however also seem to forget is that will it might have been to early for him in F1, he did have a bit of experience as the Williams development driver. And considering that they had just lost Val who looked like one of the youngest and most promising drivers on that grid, it made sense for them to search for another young driver for their team.

He made his depute in the Australian GP. During that third free practice, he crashed as he was going too fast which then resulted in him having a penalty (he qualified last.) At the race start he gained about 7 places before he had brake issues and had to retire the car. His second race saw him qualifying tenth but immediately taken out on the first lap by Sergio (could be argued for a race incident but I think there's more blame on Perez.)

Now, his third race same him time wise qualify closer to his team mate but only in 12th place. In the race he flat spotted his tyre and did an early pitstop before his collision with Sainz. (Sainz came out of the pit lane very quick and just dive bombed into him. He was behind even after exiting the pit lane so Sainz should have waited for Lance to drive past.)

Russia finally saw a turn around in his luck. He once again qualified 12th and finished the race in P11. His fifth race after that saw him just mere 3 tenth off his team mate but sadly out in Q1 and overall he finished P16.

Monaco saw him crash out in FP2 and qualify 18th. He got up to 15th and then later in the race had to retire because of overheating brakes. Luck once again not on his side.

Canada finally saw a change when he not only qualified 7th but managed to come 9th in the race. He finally scored his first points in his home race.

Then Azerbaijan happened and for the first time ever Lance out-qualified his team mate and got 8th. But that is nothing compared to the drive he managed to pull off in that race. He wasn't the quickest but he once again proved that sometimes just consistently driving is enough to get into a good position and then profit from it. Many of the top teams drivers dropped out due to penalties or problems but that doesn't discredit Lance consistent drive in the top 10 which managed to get him a podium spot. Incredible how he managed to keep a gap and his place and only just missed out because of Val in the last corners. If not for that he would have gotten P2. A great race from him.

Next race once again not a great Qualifying in P18 but still managed P10. The first two laps saw Lance move up to P11 and then hang around that most of the race.

Next race he qualified 16h (penalty moving him up 1 place) and dropped to 16th .

The next race he qualified 17th and finished 14th. His qualifying was hindered by Kvyat.

After that he got once again unlucky and because off a damaged rear wing was only able to set one lap which meant he qualified 18th and finished just outside the points in 11th.

Then, something I feel like many people also don't know, Lance started the next race as the youngest driver ever on the front row (he originally qualified only 4th but penalties of both RedBull drivers put him up to second place.) During that entire qualifying he was only slightly off from the top 3 teams. Did he drop back during the race? Yes, he only finished 7th but you have to consider that his car did not have the race pace to compete with any of the three top teams and he wasn't even in the best midfield car. Side note, this was a wet qualifying and just behind him was Esteban. Funnily enough that changed in the race where he and Esteban where the best mid field drivers behind the top teams.

The next race yet again saw him qualify 18th and yet he finished the race in 8th. A chaotic race with many DNFs saw Williams massively profit, especially Lance. After that the following race saw him qualify 13th and once again finish 8th.

After that another qualifying in 18th. That race saw Lance up to 11th before he sadly went off and then seemed to struggle with the car. After that he ultimately failed to finish as a result of a puncture on his front wheel.

In the US GP he qualified 17th as a result of a penalty for him hindering Romain. The race saw him finish 11th, just outside of the points. Mexico saw him qualify 12th and finish in 6th. A great race from him where he was in the top 5 until Seb overtook him.

After that he once again qualified 18th and finished 16th. He was two laps down after a problem with a front tyre. The last race saw him qualifying 15th and he finished 18th .

Another incident that many like to blame him for here is the post-race crash with Seb. Bizarre but truly only because it seems like neither is really fully at fault. Also, if this is one of the only things you can use against a driver, maybe you might want to reconsider if he truly is such a bad driver. Anyways, I still put a video here for anyone that is interested. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRAN9pzdwsw

So, what does that mean for his first F1 season?

Well, his qualifying besides Imola you could argue was lacking pace and I absolutely will agree that it was bad. Then again what would you expect in someone's first F1 season, especially when up against a solid driver like Massa? Still, his qualifying definitely should have been better, I will agree. He was too inconsistent and too far off. In comparison to Massa he seemingly could make up places more easily though. All of the negatives are clearly overshadowed by the fact that in his first F1 season he was only 3 points behind his team-mate with double the amount of DNFs.

Not to mention that he not only is one of the youngest podium sitters but he is also the youngest front row starter (All in his first season.)

He had 4 DNFs of which he was not at fault for anyone of those (maybe in the racing incident but then again I see the blame more at Perez side than anyone else’s.) Yes he had about 3 free practices were he crashed then again he is was a rookie. Sure it's not great but accidents like that happen especially when you are not only new to the car but the entire form of racing.

So, all in all if you look at his statistics:

For his first season he managed a podium, a front row start and 6 points finishes in maybe the 6th best car? He finished just three points behind his team-mate in 12th (with 40 points) in the overall standing. His average Qualifying position was 14 and his average race finish was 11th.

Considering he had no F1 experience, had only been racing in Formula championships for 3 years at that point and was up against Felipe Massa who is still regarded very highly, I would say he did quiet al-right.

If anyone is interested in his DNFs, so you can form your own opinion:

Sadly I can't find a video of his first incident but the race is easy to find.

Here is him and Perez https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka11N-hLshE

Here is a video of him and Sainz colliding https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDNGfCTpJpQ

This was in China where he had a puncture on his front wheel (Also he could barely avoid Daniel since it is hard to steer when your wheel is like that yet he still managed to not make it into a big incident which I think deserves some credit)

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/japan- 2017-lance-strolls-puncture/907887256034924/

2018- a season to forget

Now in 2018, without a doubt there was a huge step back which is because that car was truly not it. I would say it was the worst car on the grid, therefore you should take these results as the lest credible. That Williams wasn't predictable in many ways and you could probably name this as the season the team went downhill. With Sergey as a new teammate and Lance only a year in F1, there also was the problem with having inexperienced drivers to give feedback for that car and lead the team.

In the opening race he qualified 14th and finished in that same position. After that he qualified 20th and finished 14th again. China saw him 18th and once again finish 14th .

Then he just merely missed out on 10th and qualified 11th and somehow managed to get into the points at 8th. I should mention however that this race saw may DNFs but I think he still did a good job with that car.

Spain saw him 19th but he managed to finish 11th in that race. Again capitalizing from DNF but still impressive considering he qualified behind his teammate. His bad qualifying continued with 18th and saw him finish in 17th .

Sadly at his home race it wasn't much better with a 17th place and DNF after a collision with Brendon Hartley. France saw him qualify last again and DNF as a result of a tyre blow out.

After that he finally managed to get into Q2 again, qualifying 15th and finishing in 14th , getting a 10-second penalty for ignoring blue flags.

In Great Britain Lance had to start from the pit lane because parts of his car were changed and still managed to finish 12th. Once again he was able to profit from some unfortunate DNFs but still a good drive.

In the 11th race he qualified 19th and once again had a DNF as a result of a problem with his brakes (They retired the car during a safety car period).

The next race saw him qualify 15th but start from the pit lane due to changes under Parc-fermé which meant he only finished 17th. Spa saw him qualify 19th again and finish 13th.

Monza finally brought good results in a 10th place in Qualy and a 9th place finish. He was nearly the best of the rest in a car that somehow just seemed to work on that track. Probably his best race of that season. A great drive.

After that he qualified 20h again and finished 14th. Once again making up places and outplacing his teammate.

Russia saw him last in Qualifying and 15th in the race. Then he qualified 14th and finished 17th.

The US GP saw him qualify 18th and finish 14th. Qualifying in Mexico saw Lance 19th again but he finished the race in 12th.

That picture didn't really change much in Brazil where he once again was 19th and finished 18th. And the season didn't really end on a high. Qualifying last and finishing in 13th.

So, how can we sum this up?

Well, even though this season was arguably his worst he still somehow got 6 points which is 5 more than his team mate Sergei Sirotkin. While his Qualifying still was lacking(an average of 17), it is still impressive that with that car he managed to have an average race finishing position of 13th. It is also notable that he was often times making up at least 3 places in his races where he finished higher which given the struggle that car seemed to be is worthy of noting. In comparison to his team-mate it is clear that Lance struggles in Qualy but consistently finishes in a similar position.

Out of the two of them he also managed to get multiple points finishes even though he qualified further back, something which I would argue is a strength of him. Yes most of their points finishes were as a result of the others misfortune but still, they had to capitalize during these races and most of that did come from Lance. Also, quiet a bit of Qualy saw him closer to his teammate.

Here's the DNFs for anyone that is interested:

Canada was arguably the biggest one where I understand why people might blame Lance but seeing how unpredictable that oversteer was and how he struggled with the car I would say it was more a racing incident than anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPn_GCa3mU

The tyre blow out in France https://twitter.com/F1/status/1010997824928878592

There isn't anything about Germany but watching the race you will see them retire the car towards the end.

2019- a season of change

Lance went to Racing Point and now has Sergio Perez as his team mate. Obviously with Lawrence buying RP and saving that team as well as Esteban losing his seat, Lance was not at all well received and already was guaranteed to be heavily judged, more so than what would have likely been fair. While I do get that point of Esteban losing his seat, I would also argue that the team of Sergio and Esteban was clearly not working and would have in the long run probably cost that team more points than they liked so I think there also is a tactical reason behind it.

In Australia he qualifies 16th but what people don't remember is that in Q1 he and Checo were only separated by less than a tenth of a second. That race sees Lance finishing 9th. After managing his tyres longer than Perez he managed to stay in the top 10,even closing in to 8th while having to keep others behind.

The second race of the season sees Lance qualifying 18th and finishing 14th. Next race Lance qualifies 16th and finished 12th.

The fourth race sees Lance qualify 16th and finishing 9th. He made up a flew places and was even closing in at the end.

Spain sees Lance qualify 17th and not finishing after coming together with Lando.

The next race saw Lance qualifying 18th just behind Sergio and ultimately finishing 16th.

Lance home race once again sees him qualify 18th just under a tenth behind Sergio. He manages to finish in 9th place. Just going to add this little video that quickly shows some of the moves he made . A great race for him.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/canada-2019-stroll-puts-on-a-show-for-his-home- fans/824107727965322/

The 8th race sees him in 18th but he manages to finish the race in 13th, just a place behind Sergio.

Austria once again sees Lance just a tenth behind Sergio in 17th and that race he finishes in 14th.

Something very similar happens the next race when Lance is just about a tenth of Sergio and qualifies 18th. That race he finishes 13th.

The German GP sees Lance finally in Q2 in 15th place. That race he comes 4th. An incredible drive to the surprise of many considering this is a wet race where a lot of drivers got themselves out of podium positions. Yes he was leading that race for a short while and was potentially on for a podium but I don't think there is any way he could have beaten that Ferrari or RedBull/Toro Rosso package who just seemed more dominant. Yeah sure you could argue what would have happened but the fact was, Racing Point made the smartest decision that race and got the maximum points thanks to Lance driving.

After that great race he qualifies 19th and finishes 17th.

In Belgium he qualifies 13th but due to changes of car parts starts from the back. Despite that he still finishes that race in 10th place.

The next race he finally manages to outqualify Sergio by quiet a margin and gets himself into Q3 and 9th place. Sadly he drops back to 12th in the race.

In Singapore he once again is less than a tenth behind Sergio in Q1 but sadly only manages P16.

During that race he gets up to 13th place.

Russia sees him P15 (P14 after a penalty for Pierre) and then up to P11. He just missed out on points.

In Japan he once again outqualifies Sergio and get P12, managing to climb up to P9. He finished just behind Checo.

Mexico saw him 16th and getting up to 12th.

In the US GP Lance once again by a huge margin manages to outqualify Sergio and gets 14th place.

In the race he finishes 13th. In Brazil he qualifies 17th and DNFs. The last race sees him qualify 13th and sadly not finishing.

This was an incident at Monza that many like to use against Lance where Seb clearly rejoins the track in an unsafe manner causing Lance to nearly crash. Lance does it similarly and I agree that it was stupid from him but also Lance clearly was on the racing line and his engineers should have told him who was coming from behind as every driver would want to go back into the race and away from the racing line. You can clearly see by the speed of the cars behind that the field was close together. Still not a good manoeuvre from Lance but in my opinion different from Seb.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2019-italian-grand-prix-vettel-and-stroll-collide-at- monza/269709670687851/

So what can we say about Lance's season?

I think he showed a step up in Qualy. If you look at his and Checo's times in most Q1s they were often less than 3 tenths apart and they were times when Lance was even less than a tenth off. I think he was still inconsistent but his Qualifying definitely improved. And I think the big points gap is largely down to Lance qualifying further back. You can see that there are quiet a few races where they made up the same places but because Lance qualified further back so he got less points.

Then again you have to question how much of their points or performance difference might be down to Checo having been with the team for a longer time and being a more experienced driver.

Did he outperform the car? Did Lance underperform? I think you can see progress here from Lance and I think many people misjudge their points difference. You also have to see that Lance in that year could have gotten a podium and scored the teams highest result. If you round their averages, Lance qualifies 15/16th place and finishes 12 while Sergio qualifies around 12/13th place and has an average finish of 10th .

Here's the DNFs for anyone that wants to check them out:

This is Lance and Lando. Honestly, for me a pure racing incident. Lance didn't expect Lando to make a move there, Lando might have been a bit too enthusiastic with that manoeuvre. I wouldn't put blame on one of them, just a simply misjudgement and miscommunication that cost both of them the race.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.spanish-gp-norris-stroll-clash-brings-out-

the-safety-car.6060938080001.html

In Brazil he ran over debrief and as a result of that might have broken his front suspension.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.brazilian-gp-stroll-retires-with-front-suspension-damage.1687522499774886264.html

In Abu Dhabi there is firstly a first lap incident which damages his car. I can see fault on his part but I also think that this is just a typical first lap incident that is unfortunate. I couldn't exactly find a clip where it shows him retiring but ultimately a brake issue forced him to retire.

2020 and the story of what could have been

Oh 2020 my behated. Lance is still with Racing Point and still has Sergio as a team mate.

The first race saw him qualify 9th and than immediately out of the race. He had to retire with engine issues and could have possibly scored points had that not happened (he would have likely been P8 or P9.) The next race saw qualify 13th and finish 7th just behind Sergio. An incredible drive that saw him defending his position until the line quiet literally.

Hungary saw him start from P3, an incredible Qualifying and finish P4, just behind the Mercedes and Max. He was basically a top driver during that weekend. There was no better result to achieve.

The British GP after that ended with him in P9 after starting P6.

In the Anniversary GP he started P6 and finished in P6.

The sixth race saw him start from P5 and finish in P4. Once again being the best outside of the expected top 3.

It continued so well with a start and finish of P9 in Spa.

It got even better when Monza came and Lance managed P3 after starting P8. Yes, he did throw away a potential win but I am certain that he would have been overtaken by Sainz anyway because he had more speed that weekend with the McLaren package so I don't think he could have ever finished higher than P2.

And then it went downhill with Mugello, kick-starting the “What ifs”. From P6 (he moved up after Perez took a penalty) to a DNF. A puncture sent him to the barriers possibly costing him a podium.

Before going off he was P4 chasing P3. At the very least he would have gotten a P5 finish.

Next up was Russia where Lance qualified 13th. When I say it starts to go downhill, I mean it. He was fighting for P11/P12 and then got taken out by Charles. I am certain he would have at least got P10 if he hadn't crashed out, potentially even up to P8.

The next race Lance misses out because of Covid so on to Portugal we go. He qualified 12th, not bad. Then of course there is the incident with Lando which for me personally was a racing incident but I can see the blame on Lance. It was an ambitious move, some might cool it reckless but so many people would be praising any other driver if that had worked. It ultimately resulted in him having to retire because of that damage.

Next up was Imola where Lance started 15th and finished 13th. Due to contact with Esteban during the first lap he had to pit early and that basically ruined any chance he had at the race.

And then Turkey happened. The heartbreak and elation that weekend inspired. First off all, if anyone tries to discredit Lance Pole as anything other than possibly one of the greatest Qualifying results in the last years I am smashing their heads with a hammer. Yes that Racing Point was a fast car. Yes, they obviously could be podium contenders if Mercedes or RedBull messed up. But considering Max reputation and Lewis pure race craft, I don't think anyone thought that they would be anything other than the top 2 drivers. And in comes Lance with a lap about 3 tenth faster than Max in a worse car.

Incredible. And then Racing Point saw that and + Sergio's P3 and went “Nah, we can only have one of them on the podium.” During that race I genuinely thought the first 30 laps that Lance would win. And then they go against his pit call which turns out to have made things worse (no pace) and discover later on that Lance had a problem with his front wing which slowed him down. Therefore he only got 9th.

I don't really want to talk about Bahrain because the only thing that mattered about that race was seeing Romain get out of the car but I have to if I want to recap Lance performance. I am going to keep it short. He qualified 13th and didn't finish as he was turned upside down by Kvyat. Would have probably been a points finish but truly nothing of that race really matters or mattered other than Romain being okay.

The next race finally saw something good again with Lance qualifying 10th and being third on that podium. This was overshadowed by Sergio's win but it was a great result from him and the team.

The last race saw Lance in P8 and finishing in P10.

Spain had a great start for him again which I just want to add here.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.spanish-grand-prix-stroll-overtakes-bottas-with-amazing-start.1687526223371988110.html

So, what is the overall season summary?

This was without a doubt Lance best season. I mean come on. The only reason why people think he did bad is because they merely look at the points which you can't. Lance had so many DNFs this season where he wasn't at fault and which meant he missed out on huge points. I don't doubt that if he only had half of the DNFs or even if Turkey had gone the way it should have, he would very much be closer to Checo. Without a doubt he was never as close to a team-mate than he was in 2020. Even Qualy shows how mostly they were so close pace was. I think he would have had at least 2 other podiums (Mugello and Turkey) if luck had just been a bit more on his side. So therefore I think he would have had at least a 100 points. Sadly that didn't happen.

But this was undoubtedly his greatest season so let's just collect his achievement that he did have: He got the best qualifying results of the team that year, a pole and a third place. He also got two podiums and two fourth place finish. All the races expect 1 that he finished were Top 10 finishes. He outqualified his team mate multiple times.

Here are the DNFs if anyone wants to look them up:

There is no clip I can find of the Austria GP since they basically just call him into the pits.

The Mugello DNF (This is a fairly heavy crash so don't watch it if you can't see stuff like that) A possible puncture, another incident completely out of his hands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1ebaeSw8ZE

This was Russia where Lance got taken out by Charles. I don't really think it's the worst attempt I have seen but yeah, blame to Charles because he clearly saw Lance if that camera perspective is anything to go by.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-russian-grand-prix-sainz-and-stroll-crash-out-in-chaotic-sochi-race-start.1687515300528811143.html

Lance and Lando's collision during the Portuguese GP (I can accept that the move by Lance wasn't the smartest and I can also fully understand why people blame him.) However I think so many people jumped on this because of the Free Practice incident between Max and Lance where it was clearly just a miscommunication and misunderstanding.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-portuguese-grand-prix-stroll-and-norris-collide-at-turn-1.1687510148078074772.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QJTAVnaLRI

(This is said Free Practice accident)

Kyvat flipping Lance (again you shouldn’t watch this if you cant deal with heavier crashes). Some say racing incident, I would say more blame an Daniil but I am just happy Lance was okay especially after Romain's accident before.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-bahrain-grand-prix-stroll-flips-and-crashes-after-kvyat-contact.1687510862145773128.html

2021- up against a champion

Now it's time for change! Not only is the team now Aston Martin but Seb is Lance new team mate. And the car is well there.

In the first race Lance outqualifies Seb and not only starts but also finishes in 10th.

Imola presents a similar picture where Lance outqualifies Seb and gets 10th place. And he finishes 8th! Sure he got a 5 second penalty for leaving the track but that is still a good start to the season.

In the third race it starts to go a bit downhill with Lance qualifying in 17th and finishing in 14th , just behind Seb in 13th.

Spain once again sees Lance start and finish in the same place, this time 11th. That qualy saw him just miss out on P10 where he was off less than 10/1000. He had some good battles though like with Fernando.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-spanish-grand-prix-stroll-wins-wheel-to-wheel-battle-with-alonso.1699487558908336755.html

The next race is good once again. Lance qualifies 13th and finishes 8th. Considering that this is Monaco and there isn't really any overtaking opportunity, that's huge especially with Seb finishing P5.

Baku sees well a bit of a downer. First he has his Qualy crash (Absolutely his mistake then again hitting the wall happens to many drivers) and during his race he suffers a tyre blow out which causes him to crash

(See the qualy crash here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txr4NfOoZys).

In France he once again fails to set a qualy time to get out of Q1 but more as a result of bad timing. He couldn't have predicted the others would crash so no fault on him there. He even managed to set a lap which was sadly deleted but would have been faster than Sebs. He somehow manages to get back to 10th place just one behind Seb in the race.

Styria sees Lance qualify in P10 and finish in P8.

The next race once again sees him P10 in Qualy and then the race finishes with him in P13 with a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

The tenth race sees him start in P15 and finish in P14 in the sprint. In the actual race he gets P8.

Hungary looks promising with a P12 start but then well carnage happens. I will comment on those incidents in a bit.

On to Spa where he qualified P15 but was sent back to P20 as a result of the collision in Hungary. I won't talk about this race because it was still one of the biggest jokes and bullshit things this sport has done in recent years. Lance got a penalty for the work done under the stopped race. All in all a weekend to forget.

Zandvoort could be promising with a P12 start. Nothing major happens, he also finishes P12. He has a moment with Seb where Lance moves across from Seb to possibly cover him off from overtaking him. Dangerous driving I will admit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLT3XQ96FAY

Monza sees him Qualify 12th and manage to get up to 10th during the sprint qualy. In the race he finishes P7. He does another borderline move on Seb which I won't deny. I however feel like people over dramatize it. For me that wasn't nice but it was still okay. The only reason why people really criticize it so much is because you shouldn't do that to a teammate. Again I can understand why people dislike it but that still doesn't take away from the great job Lance did that weekend, considering he just missed out on Q3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rRMnO3mmPY

Russia is there, with a P8 start and a P11 finish. But we obviously have to talk about it. Not only did he have a great start where he overtook multiple cars but he also hit the wall and had contact with Seb. He hit the wall as it started to rain but he was still able to keep going. The incident with Seb is well yeah Lance fault. But I think it wasn't so much mean spirited as more plain underestimating space and possible struggle with the conditions. Seb even said that it was a misunderstanding and that Lance probably didn't see or expect him there.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2021-russian-grand-prix-mega-stroll-start/228625209311917/

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-russian-grand-prix-onboard-as-stroll-slides-into-the-wall.1712063737151581609.html

Turkey has a P9 start and a P9 finish but once again shows Lance skill as it is a wet race.

The next GP sees a P12 start and P12 finish. Quiet a race though as Lance was first spun by Nicholas Latifi and then nearly had a collision with Mazepin.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2021-united-states-grand-prix-nicholas-latifi-and- lance-stroll-collide/248666900567613/

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2021-united-states-grand-prix-mazepin-strolls-close- call/402411924879898/

Mexico comes with a slap of penalties so qualy doesn't really matter anyway. He also crashes in Qualy. https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2021-mexico-city-grand-prix-stroll-crashes- out-of-quali/627086791628083/

Still a P14 finish though.

Brazil once again sees the useless sprint Qualy which manages to get Lance up from P15 to P14.

Nothing really happens in that race position wise for him so he stays P14. However he has a scrap with Yuki which honestly was just Yuki in my opinion trying a way too ambitious move. They actually fought quiet a bit that race. Lance retired in the race as a result of the damage he suffered from the accident in the first lap.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-sao-paulo-grand-prix-tsunoda-and-stroll-collide-at-interlagos.1716425125628029095.html

Quater sees Lance in P12 and he manages to get a P6 finish! A great drive from him especially considering that he had to make his tyres last longer.

The penultimate race sees both Astons struggling in Qualy with Lance in P18. He manages to get up to P11.

We don't want to talk about Abu Dhabi because it was a robbery and a shit show but we have to because people keep saying it was only bad for Lewis when drivers like Lance where also massively effected by the FIAs incompetence. He started P13 and finished that race but by god was it a nightmare. I am just going to leave the comms between him and his engineer here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK5SbgqcjIA

My summary:

While last season showed how great Lance can be, this season was huge for him in terms of development. Not only did he outqualify Seb multiple times but he also was incredible consistent.

Almost every race saw him somewhere between 8 or 12th with an average finish of 11th. Yes Seb has more points but almost half of those came from his podium (which I am absolutely not discrediting or taking away, just merely pointing it out.) If you consider that Seb has over 10 years in that sport compared to Lance rushed into it and now being in his 5th + Seb being one of the greatest for many, it truly speaks to Lance credit how close he was to him and how much he managed to consistently score.

I won't deny that this however also is the season where I would argue Lance had some questionable manoeuvres and many borderline racing incidents. This however also shows that even with a car that wasn't great Lance was consistently in the midfield battling for points.

Here's the DNFs:

Baku which sadly was just out of his hands

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-azerbaijan-grand-prix-stroll-escapes-heavy-high-speed-crash.1701823437935060912.html

The Hungary chaos from multiple perspectives. You can clearly see that Lance is of course at fault for it but he immediately recognizes that and apologizes. There's been mistranslations where it looks like he blames Val which is not true. He knows he fucked up. Drivers look up but yeah totally on him although I will say I first thought he was trying to avoid that carnage by going onto the grass. In his interview after he says he possibly ran over debrief which given the carnage in front of him isn't hard to believe. So yeah, for me personally more of a domino effect then anything.

Valtteri's bad start set a series of unfortunate events into motion.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-hungarian-grand-prix-drivers-react-to-turn-1- crash.1707071583705474820.html

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.lance-stroll-reacts-to-disaster-hungarian-grand-prix-start-crash.1706899140973058269.html

2022- a shitbox in green

Another year at Aston Martin with Seb but instead of a bad car they now got a green tractor to honour Sebs environmental perspective.

In the first race Lance qualified 19th and finished 12th. The second race sees Lance start in P15 and finish P13 but a lap earlier due to a longer pit stop and damage after coming together with Alex.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-albon-found-to-blame-for-clash-with-stroll.1728538480607161440.html

Australia sees well a bizarre qualifying. Lance and Nicky crash during Q1 for which Lance later gets penalized. In my opinion completely undeserved. As you can see, Nicky clearly moves over to let cars pass which Lance then does only for Nicky to seemingly want to retake that position very fast with a much to small gap. I don't fully blame Nicky but I understand why Lance didn't expect him to come back so quickly and I personally see it as a bad communication example more than an accident where you have to shift blame.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-australian-gp-qualifying-latifis-car-destroyed-in-bizarre-crash-with-stroll.1729611513723725817.html

In the race he manages to get back up to P12.

Imola once again has a sprint weekend which doesn't affect Lance who still remains P15. In the race he manages to get back to P10.

The new Miami race sees Lance qualify from P10 but due to an issue he has to start from the pit lane. And still he gets P10.

The sixth race he quallified 18th and finished 15th. He didn't really score points but he could have scored higher had he not been spun around by Pierre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lSP08f5Slk

Next up was Monaco. Lance qualifies P18 and finishes P14. He hit the wall during the formation lap but then again it was a wet race.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-monaco-grand-prix-latifi-and-stroll-hit-the-barriers-on-wet-formation-lap-in-monaco.1734171020113023239.html

Baku saw Lance qualifying 19th and not finishing. His Qualy which I will give people was bad. Like crashing twice (also the second time was a result of the first) isn't what you should expect from someone who at that point was 5 years in F1. However he had engine issues that entire weekend which is also why he didn't finish so you start to wonder if they maybe played a tiny role.

His home race saw him qualify P18 again but he finally got points again with a P10. His move on Seb was dangerous and probably cost Seb a position or two. But also, Lance start in that race was like incredible. What a great start.

https://twitter.com/F1/status/1591574059808165888?lang=de

https://twitter.com/F1/status/1587415154936930304

Silverstone sees Lance start last and finish in 11th. A good start which saw him avoid all the chaos in front.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7_Elsl4jGM

Austria once again sees a sprint which means he goes from P17 to P13. Nothing changed in the race and he finished in P13. Some battles that were nice but ultimately with the Aston Martin tractor not that great.

The next race saw Lance once again in P17 and finishing in P10. An incredible race from him and I just want to show his start because we rarely ever saw how great his starts can be and how close the midfield is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOaKfdx6wrw

Hungary saw Lance qualify P14, finally into Q2 again. The race saw him finish P11. Considering he got spun around at one point by Daniel I would say that's a good result.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5I-95BkUK4

Next up was Spa where Lance once again got into Q2 and qualified 14th. Because of penalties of other drivers he started P9 and finished P11.

Zandvoort saw him even into Q3 and qualify P10 which is also where he finished the race. Up next was Monza where he was once again starting from P17 but because of penalties got pushed up to 12th which was very promising. Sadly he had to retire the car because of breaks overheating.

The next race had Lance start from P12 and finish in P6. And then Japan came back. Lance only qualified P19 but finished P12. The start he had to that race was just wow. During a wet race he not only managed to overtake multiple cars but he also just quiet literally drove past them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwJvwpCnRwU

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2022-japanese-grand-prix-lance-stroll-makes-lightning- start-to-go-from-19th-to-p11-on-opening-lap.1746188182712421933.html

Next up was the US GP where he qualified 7th which considering he was best of the rest in a car that was 9th fastest deserves a shout-out. Especially when it put him up to 5th because of other penalties.

Sadly his race was over rather quickly. He DNFed after colliding with Fernando.

https://www.facebook.com/Formula1/videos/2022-united-states-grand-prix-fernando-alonso-and- lance-stroll-come-together/885762125676389/

I have seen people say that Lance move is dangerous but you are allowed to move over to defend from an opponent, some of you need to remember that. Yes he should have moved more clearly but there was still like Lance said enough space. I think it was just a bit misjudged which lead to the racing incident. But yes I can see why people were to put blame on to Lance since he should have not just moved a bit or could have defended it later. He got a penalty for his move which would be applied in Mexico. A penalty that I agree with because his defending was too robust and late.

Mexico saw Lance start as a result of his penalty for last race. He finished 15th.

Brazil saw him qualify 15th and finish 16th in the sprint. What he did during the sprint to Seb I'll agree was a bad move. In the race he managed to get back up to 10th.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hCpPzHBQ1k

The last race saw Lance start 14th and finish 8th.

I think looking back on it now especially comparing it to 2021 and 2020 which were undoubtedly some of Lance best performances, it's hurts seeing 2022. There were many mistakes made by him and I think a lot of that is also down to him just not seeming to be comfortable with the car plus Aston just struggling in general. Lance Qualifying was definitely lacking and there is no doubt that he clashed more with Seb than he should have. I won't say many of the incidents he had that season reflect good on him.

However I think it's truly unfair that people would judge him based of one season that was bad when he had a car that was nearly the worst car on the grid. It is also very clear that controlling that car was very difficult.

I also raise the question again: How much better do we expect him to perform against Seb? This isn't me dismissing his incidents this is merely looking at results.

How much can you really expect from Lance to be close to Seb in that car without trying to diminish as arguably the better driver? How much can we compare their performances? Or rather how much can we judge Lance especially when he was against Seb, a 4 time world champion, a runner up multiple times?

If we were to merely look at results for this (which I have started before aren't everything), we will see that really they aren't that far apart. In the races where both of them finished they are mostly only 2-3 places apart which is interesting if you consider that Lance often qualified further back.

But, like I said results don't speak for everything so if you were to say which season was Lance worst, I would probably say this.

I want to draw your attention now though to some positives from that season like Lance amazing start in Japan which shows he is talented.

Or the fact that Lance got Aston Martin's highest Qualifying that season with 7th which turned into a start from P5 after penalties of other drivers were applied. He also had the most positions gained and was in the top 10 for most overtakes in that season.

Here are the DNFs:

This is Lance and Alex making contact which resulted in both of them out of the race. Personally a racing incident for me as they seemingly both misjudged the space or weren't expecting the other to turn in. I would argue it's a bit ambitious from Alex but I don't think it was penalty deserving on either end.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDg9cweEbew

Side-note: I also don't know why people think Lance crashes a lot or is know for his dangerous driving. Sure during his first season he crashed twice in free practice and had a few DNFs but almost 80% of his DNFs are either not his fault or simple race incidents. Then again he had 2 other free practice crashes in his second season but that doesn't make him a bad driver? The worst he ever clashed with another driver was Seb in 2022 which I will give people. However I really don't see why people say he is famous for colliding with others when many couldn't recall any incident that involved him and another driver that wasn't in 2022 or the last season. He isn't memorable for bad driving although 2022 might reflect badly on him.

So what is the conclusion?

Why did I title this document the way that it is? That is simple to answer. I completely mean it.

In his career if we ignore 2018, Lance has had/has the following teammates:

- Felipe Massa, who was nearly a WDC

- Sergio Perez who was one of the best midfield drivers at that time

- Sebastian Vettel, a 4x WDC

and now Fernando Alonso, a 2xWDC.

People forget that not only was Lance in F1 with very little experience at an early age but he has also had world class drivers, some regarded as the greatest as his teammates.

Not only that but he has consistently improved over the years and had rarely any bad clashes that he was responsible for.

The worst he did was against a 4 x WDC in one of the worst, if not the worst car on the grid, a car that he didn't feel confident in and that was hardly able to be predicated and difficult to control. That was his worst year in F1 where a lot of the mistakes where his fault without a doubt.

But people truly forget how great Lance can perform, especially in the wet and how he dominated Perez in 2020 until his streak of luck was cut short to no fault of his own. Not only that but he outqualified Seb in 2021 multiple times, was more consistent than him with his race result etc.

Not to mention the things he has already achieved.

He is one of the youngest podium sitters, the youngest front row starter (all from his first season), has multiple podiums (and would have had more if not for his unlucky streak in the later half of 2020), has a pole and has managed to be close to many of his teammates (if you don't only lock at results.) Not to mention that even though his qualifying was inconsistent, he always had good standout performances.

And he is one of the best starters on that grid. There are some races where he just drives past 5+ cars like it's nothing which often shouldn't even be possible with his bad car.

Yes, he was inconsistent in Qualy many times and yes he had some questionable drives but the later can be said for almost any driver on the grid. Drivers are bound to make mistakes and also sometimes experienced ones because it happens.

Considering how well he is doing in this season with a still healing injury, I truly do not get how he is this discredited and underrated. When it comes to teammates he has arguably had some of the hardest to compete against in the last years.

Not to mention he came into this sport without anyone believing he deserved there. He even questioned his own place in this sport which is bullshit considering he had enough wins and champions to warrant an F1 seat.

#f1 #lance stroll #so yeah this is it guys #if anyone wants to reblog or give me feedback I highly appreciate it

[polygondotcomvideoproducer]

damn it i’m gonna have to read hs aren’t i

I respect you way too much to suggest that

#personal #which is to say that I have the basest level of respect for u as a human #real talk idk if I'd advise reading it personally #it's kind of a lot #like I think it was good but I did read it over the course of like 2-3 weeks when I was 16 #and I was a dipshit when I was 16 #so my memories of it being good may be skewed #there's some genuinely funny shit in there and a lot of interesting characters #but at the same time it's got some 2009-2015 bullshit in it #also it's kinda hard to get into it took me a couple of tries lmao #but listen. that shit is LONG it's not worth reading it just so u can get the references

[emma-what-son]

(Echee post) Did Emma Watson actually graduate from Brown University? Special treatment at college?

Posted on November 8, 2015

*PS this is a work in progress, will take a few days to get it in order...so apologies if it is incomplete Intro Emma has been talking about how important education is to her since she was 10. Even during the first interviews for Harry Potter promotion, back in 2001 for Philosopher's Stone, she was adamant about going to college. She's continuously said how important college/education is throughout the Harry Potter promotion years, but does what she say match up with what she actually did? She was playing along with that bullshit "Classy, educated" image she and her PR team (like her publicist Luke) have crafted for her, the one where she claims she is exactly the same as Hermione, the beloved character from the Harry Potter franchise. Course though, she's contradicted herself on that multiple, multiple times - sometimes saying she's exactly like Hermione, and other times claiming they're extremely different. There was some extremely strange stuff going down with Emma's Brown University Education though....as will be revealed below. And you'll have to start wondering if she actually did graduate or how much, how extensive and enormous, was the amount of special, unequal treatment she got for being a celebrity and a feminist (College campuses love pandering to social justice warriors/feminists - part of it is a natural love for them and another part is Obama forcing them to through the OCR and Title IX) Emma's Education Emma entered Brown University the Fall of 2009. Brown is a private, 4 year university/college in America. Emma entered Brown as an international student studying on an F-1 Visa. Okay Emma didn't do much BS during her first 3 semester (Fall 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010) at Brown and seemed to study there like most normal students, but it's after the first three semesters that things started getting extremely strange and Emma started telling a whole bunch of lies. Emma constantly raved about how awesome college is and gave every single impression she was going back to Brown in Spring 2011. getSurrey November 2010: getSurrey: Will you carry on acting? Emma: I will keep on acting. I’ve just been in a film called My Week With Marilyn. I’ve just finished shooting that. But finishing university is a priority. But I hope I do lots more things. I don’t really want to be put in a box – just yet. I’m not exactly sure. University Magazine Interview by Colin Turner (November 2010?): (Okay just note that this interview came out in June/July 2011 for Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2 Promotion, but Emma mentions in the interview she just finished filming My Week with Marilyn, which happened in November 2010. Uni magazine is this student run magazine, so I'm assuming they don't do monthly issues (don't have the money/people for that) so it takes them several months to release an issue.) Colin Turner: You’ve gone to university, obviously, do you imagine taking up acting in the future or are you just seeing what happens? Emma: I just did a movie, finished something last week, “My week with Marilyn”, which is exciting. No, I think I’ll just keep doing things. But my education is my number one priority at the moment and everything else comes around that really. Parade Magazine Interview November 2010 (Emma Watson's Campus Confidential, interviewed by Jeanne Wolf): "I get some amazing offers to act, and sometimes it’s hard to say, “No, I’m going to stay here and do my homework.” People are like, “What do you mean she’s not available?” I may do some theater next summer, but this college experience is really important to me, and I won’t give it up for anything. I’m not going to school just for the academics–I wanted to share ideas, to be around people who are passionate about learning."

Echee says: Okay, notice how in November 2010 and even right up until January 17, Emma claims/gives the strong impression she's definitely going back to Brown University for the Spring 2011 semester. Big lol at the "this college experience is really important to me, and I won’t give it up for anything" two months before she did. By the way I have to mention the whole "Sorry for long absence from here - so much to do and so little time to do it in before I go back to school! Hope you're all ok x" was originally a tweet from Emma's @EmWatson twitter account but after she left university she deleted it lol. The picture I posted is from the official (that's why there's the blue check mark) Emma Watson Facebook page run by both Emma and her team. I guess she forgot to delete the facebook post after she deleted her tweet. For Spring 2011, the first day of classes was January 26 (per the academic calendar). Yet even at January 17, Emma stated she was getting ready to go back to school, hence her "so little time to do it in before I go back to school!" How the fuck can she be confused 1 week before classes start whether she's taking a personal leave of absence or not? Brown University Personal Leave of Absence Deadline

Brown University 3 types of leaves of absence

Okay, so of Brown University's three types of leaves of absence, Emma took personal. The deadline to declare you're taking next semester off is December 1, hence the Brown policy "If you are planning to take leave for the spring semester (Semester 2), you must declare by Dec. 1st." Either Emma was lying and trying to delay revealing she was taking time off to do her Perks of Being a Wallflower filming and BS Lancôme makeup and perfume work (very possible since she lies so much), or she was honestly undecided until right before, and thus requested special, unequal treatment that despite her missing the deadline, she should be allowed to take a leave of absence. Anyway I think it was special treatment from Brown allowing their publicity cow to get what she wanted. That means she was clearly lying in her January 17 tweet about going back to school.

This from Amanda Foreman, Emma's interviewer, for Emma's Vogue Magazine July 2011 interview: Emma struggled valiantly to fit everything into her life, becoming increasingly exhausted, until over Christmas advisors at Brown suggested that she take a leave of absence, a turn of events Yates was not surprised by. Notice how the Vogue article says it was "over Christmas"....Christmas Break for Brown starts after December 1, the deadline. First off, unless Emma's doctor signed off on it, then it was NOT a medical leave of absence, and her advisors gave her special treatment since she missed the personal leave of absence deadline already. And You know December 25 is over 3 weeks after the December 1st deadline, so that's an amazingly long extension despite the severe, absolute terms of "You must declare by December 1". Anyway, wowza, off to a bad start....getting special treatment when you're quitting school temporarily. Well, whatever, it's equality feminist Emma Watson that we are talking about here. She runs her mouth off talking about feminism and equality and whatever but like most Western (usually Caucasian) privileged feminists, have no idea what she's talking about. Despite Brown's Spring 2011 semester starting at the end of January, Emma kept quiet about all this until March 7, 2011. She announced it on her website EmmaWatson.com (which is now defunct and shut down): Here's her statement on March 7, 2011: As you know, I love Brown and I love studying pretty much more than anything. But recently I've had so much to juggle that being a student AND fulfilling my other commitments has become a little impossible. I've decided to take a bit of time off to completely finish my work on Harry Potter (the last one comes out this summer) and to focus on my other professional and acting projects. I will still be working towards my degree … it's just going to take me a semester or two longer than I thought : ) Hope you are all well! Thank you for all your continuing support. Emma xx.

On February 10, 2011 (well after the Brown semester had started), Emma confirms on twitter that she will be filming Perks of Being a Wallflower, which interfered with Brown (Brown school date ends May 20, Perks started filming May 9) and she had also already had various talks and was close to finalizing a deal with Lancôme. And she knew she would have to do some filming work for Lancôme commercials in the coming months. At this point clearly she was taking the semester off and yet she didn't announce it until March 7, 2011. Why'd she wait an entire month??? Why be so secretive of it? Just like how a week before classes started she was claiming she was getting ready to go back to school. And then why wait another month before she and Harry Potter publicist Vanessa Davies, release more details of this leave of absence? April 23, 2011 Press Release to Associated Press: LONDON (AP) — A spokeswoman for Harry Potter star Emma Watson says she will be transferring from Brown University to another university in the autumn. Vanessa Davies denied reports that the 21-year-old actress was "bullied out" of the Rhode Island university, saying there was no truth in reports by a number of online publications who cited classmates and "insiders". Davies said Saturday that Watson, who plays Hermione in the wizard movie series, has decided to pursue a different course not offered at Brown. She added that the star "has absolutely loved her time at Brown" and made many good friends there. Watson has recently taken time out of her studies to focus on her movie career. She has said that her first days in college were difficult. Davies did not identify the university Watson will be transferring to. Emma releases a statement April 30, 2011 on her website EmmaWatson.com (now defunct): I felt the need to let you all know the reason I took a semester off from Brown had nothing to do with bullying as the media have been suggesting recently. I have never been bullied in my life and certainly never at Brown. This "10 points to Gryffindor" incident never even happened. I feel the need to say this because accusing Brown students of something as serious as bullying and this causing me to leave seems beyond unfair. Please don't try and speculate about what I might do in September - no one can possibly know because I don't even know yet! Like my other fellow Brown students I am trying to figure out my third year and whether or not I will spend it abroad (this is common).

If you wondered why Emma let Vanessa Davies announce the transferring information, instead of Emma just announcing it on her website a week later, it's because Davies is head of publicity at Harry Potter, so they were working out how best to frame the narrative that Emma is still a hardworking student. Don't forget, ~200 million is spent on Harry Potter marketing for HP Deathly Hallows and Davies is part of that team and one of the heads. Warner Brothers had to protect their little cash cow until the movies were over and Emma couldn't damage their profits. Also, the Harry Potter spokesperson, Vanessa Davies, says Emma will be "transferring" but from Emma's own message (and it's later revealed), she was actually only just studying abroad, not transferring. Weird. April 2011 Associated Press Interview: I just knew I was going to be beating myself up because I wasn't going to be able to be doing the best that I knew that I could at school or in my job. If I'd been getting B's or C's I would've been really upset. Wonderland Magazine February 2014: You realize you can't do everything. I really did think I could do it all - commute back to the UK for Potter filming and press, then go to Brown for finals, and keep up with my friends and family. You can't do it by the way. You do have to take breaks. It's how I became interested in meditation and yoga. I developed bedtime rituals. Elle Magazine UK November 2011: Of course Harry Potter got in the way, with its relentless round of reshoots and promotion, meaning that Emma had to temporarily halt her studies at the start of this year. "I was basically commuting across the Atlantic. Taking a semester out wasn't what I wanted to do, but I am still enrolled at Brown." Collider.com Interview with Steve Weintraub November 14, 2010: Well, I keep trying to but she keeps finding her way back into my life. I still have two movies left to promote, and they’re still cutting and editing Part 2 so I might have to do some more voice recording and other stuff for it, so it’s a very gradual goodbye. I’m being eased out of it gently........I mean we are special, it is Harry Potter. But we only had two days—I was being sarcastic (laughs). Sorry, I have to like fill that in because otherwise it will be written, “we are special!” (laughs). But yeah we only had two days to shoot it and we needed so much more time than that. So yeah, we have reshoots at Christmas. So it’s not over. It’s not over yet guys! Echee says: Okay, what? Notice how in Wonderland Emma claims she was busy filming for Harry Potter and her Elle Magazine interviewer claims the same. Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Part 2 filming ended in June 2010, and then for less than a week they had to reshoot the epilogue in December 2010 (they reshot around Christmas time, so Emma had already finished her Brown Semester). They re-shot the epilogue because the makeup/CGI made the actors look elderly instead of middle aged. Also, HP and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 premiere was July 15, 2011. Generally press begins one month in advance (though you might do some magazine interviews 3-4 months in advance). Emma was not seen at any events/doing press until beginning of July 2011. She was stuck in Pittsburgh doing Perks of Being a Wallflower filming (which took place from May 9 to June 29, 2011) Emma was also filming for and doing work on her Lancôme stuff in March/April. How can she claim she was too busy during the Spring 2011 school year (which was from January 26 - May 20) with Potter filming and promotion? She did none of that. The overlap she had with school and non-school stuff was Perks filming and Lancôme filming/promotion. It had NOTHING to do with taking time off for Potter. Plus she was negotiating those deals for Perks in January 2011 and for Lancôme in December-ish. There was ZERO reason for her to take time off from school, but she did, because she was desperate for fame/money, and she blamed it on Potter to hide the truth. PopSugar On-Set May/June 2011 Interview with

Shannon Vestal Robson: Shannon: Have you read the book, and do you feel pressure to live up to it? Emma: I read the script first and then I read the book. It was so funny because I read the script and I came back to Brown and I told my roommates that I've just read this amazing script, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and my friends were like, "Oh, that's my favorite book. So jealous that you get to play Sam. If I was ever going to be in a movie, if I was ever going to play any character ever, it would be Sam. Notice how Emma mentions going back to Brown and asking her Brown roommates (Scout Willis, Madison Utendahl, etc.) about the book. So even during the Fall 2010 Semester, she was secretly thinking of filming Perks next year. And remember the interviews I posted above (from November 2010) where she claimed education and university came first? BS. She was already planning back in September 2010 (when she went back to Brown) about leaving next year. Also, remember this. Emma is claiming she was overworked with Brown and Potter stuff.....why in September 2010 was she looking at possible filming projects that would coincide with Spring 2011 Semester and Summer? If you claim you are overworked, why are you looking to add on more, extra, unnecessary work. She was also negotiating her Lancôme deal in December 2010 as well. Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 2 New York City Press Conference July 2011 (Listen at 17:30): "I'm going to Oxford, in the fall, to study English for a year. Just to explain, I haven't left Brown. I'm still enrolled at Brown, but I'm doing my third year abroad. Studying at home, abroad, for me. So I'll go back to the States to do my last year. I took a semester off but my A-Level credits actually count as an advance-place-me-out-a-semester so I'm no further behind, I'm still technically going into my third year. So, yeah, that's that." Something to remember is how Vanessa Davies (when the Harry Potter spokeswoman announced Emma was transferring from Brown in April)says "Watson, who plays Hermione in the wizard movie series, has decided to pursue a different course not offered at Brown". On Emma's EmmaWatson.com website in the FAQ section (undated), she says this: I was seriously torn as to whether to stay in the UK or go to the States as let's face it the UK has some of the best universities in the world. But, ultimately, I loved the course at Brown and really liked the idea of experiencing a different country and culture - and I must say I've never been happier, I absolutely love Brown. So strange how Emma + her Harry Potter spokesperson contradict each other. Emma claims she purposefully chose Brown (instead of staying in the UK for university) because she loved Brown's course, but then the spokesperson said the reason Emma is transferring is because Emma was sad that Brown didn't have the course she wanted to take. Emma reveals in the press conference that she will be studying English a Oxford. The thing is, Emma was and did graduate as an English Literature major. So Brown did have the course she wanted to take (which is what she earlier said). Okay so Watson claims here that despite taking an entire semester (3-5 classes) off, she's no further behind than the rest of her classmates. Damn, this girl must be such a hard worker to not fall behind. Still, is she telling the truth, lying as usual, or begging/threatening Brown University to give her special, unequal treatment? Fact checking Watson's "advance-place-me-out-a-semester" claim Brown University Office of the Registrar - The College, Advanced Standing Guidelines

Anyway, there's a lot of information and I only parsed out a bit of it, but here's a quick summary. Basically, to graduate from Brown University, you need to take a minimum of 30 classes during your college years (can be at Brown or other approved colleges) and also a minimum of 8 semesters. Just to mention, A-Levels are the UK equivalent of American Advanced Placement (A.P.) courses or International Baccalaureate (IB) courses. Also, when Brown says "credits" they mean courses/classes. So, yes, Emma told the truth in that her semester standing is no further behind because her A-Levels counted as an extra semester. However! Emma is still behind in total number of classes taken because A-Levels do not count towards your degree requirement of 30 classes/courses. So she needs to take more classes per semester than the average person since she's behind.

Vanity Fair May 2010 Interview: After shopping classes, she settled on European women's history, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and acting. “I think actually I'm the worst person in the class,” says Watson cheerily. So in Emma's first semester (that's the time period they're talking about), Emma took 3 classes - women's history (lol at this feminist class), Ovid, and acting. Brown requires students to take 3-5 classes a semester and so Emma took the bare minimum....kind of super lazy for someone so excited to get to college and start learning and whatever else she's been spouting for years. Okay, Brown's most basic, elementary requirement that ALL students have to fulfill to graduate is to take 30 classes. Since Emma only took 3 classes her first semester, that means 30 - 3 = 27 classes left to take over 7 semesters. Since Emma took a semester off but claims advanced standing, meaning she wants to graduate in May 2013 (September 2009 - May 2013), that means...... 27 classes over 6 total semesters. 27 / 6 = 4.5 classes per semester This I will go into detail in below, later, but just a heads up, Emma also took the Fall 2012 Semester off in order to film Noah. Because Emma had enough A-Levels, she did indeed get 2 semesters of advanced standing, but to graduate in 6 semesters means...... 30 minimum classes to graduate / 6 semesters = 5 classes a semester every semester Brown only allows you to take a max of 5 classes a semester and since Emma only took 3 classes her very first semester at Brown, it means it's impossible for Emma to graduate by May 2013 without special, unequal treatment....special treatment being either lowering the required 30 classes or allowing her to take 6 classes a semester, but come on, Emma is super lazy and unprofessional. Can you honestly see this girl doing 6 classes a semester when she lazily only took 3 classes her first semester? Freshman year is the easiest you know.... And their 30 classes requirement is their most basic requirement - to let her worm her way out of it would be absolutely disgusting.

#echee #echee's posts #brown

[fourteendaysinaweek]

Show Recommendations

Grimm

Platform: Amazon Prime

Official overview: Portland detective Nick Burkhardt, descended from a long line of warriors known as Grimms, defends his city from magical creatures known as Wesen, which are part human and part animal. Fighting alongside his partner, Hank, colleague Sergeant Wu and friends Monroe and Rosalee, Nick faces off against internal and external forces, including his police captain, Sean Renard.

My overview: Portland detective Nick Burkhardt thinks he's going insane when he randomly starts seeing monsters at the time his aunt goes into a coma. Turns out he's not, in fact, going crazy. He deals with shit trying to kill him and his girlfriend and friends CONSTANTLY and in reality all he wants to do his keep his city safe, and he accidentally saves the world in the process.

Thoughts on the show: I love it, it does have a habit of setting up for recurring characters and then never mentioning them again, so that's annoying. There are 6 seasons. There are some great romances in the show, and also some iffy ones, but the iffy ones are definitely regarded as such in the show, and eventually either develop past the weird stage or die before anymore harm can be done. Aired from 2011 to 2017

Thoughts on the fandom: Wayyyy too small, I know of 0 people around my age who like it, and 90% of the fan base is obsessed with Sasha Roiz who plays Sean Renard (not that I'm judging). Definitely not enough fics out there, and the ones that I've found seem to be poorly written or basically just pwp.

Warehouse 13

Platform: Amazon Prime

Official overview: Following an abrupt transfer, Secret Service agents Pete Lattimer and Myka Bering find themselves in the middle of South Dakota at a massive, top-secret storage warehouse that holds every strange artifact, mysterious relic, out-of-this-world object and supernatural souvenir ever found by the U.S. government. Lattimer and Bering's new task, as directed by the warehouse's caretaker, longtime agent Artie Nielsen, is to investigate reports of unexplainable and paranormal activity in an effort to secure more peculiar and dangerous objects, and to help Artie manage the warehouse itself.

My overview: imagine the TARDIS except it's a warehouse and not a police box (bigger on the inside) and it's full of cursed objects to be kept there so it doesn't destroy the world.

Thoughts on the show: I love it. It accurately depicts trauma and has decent representation such as a black woman everyone is intimidated by because she's the boss, a gay man who isn't sexualized and has development and a personality other than "gay". There is even an incredibly homoerotic friendship between two women that the actress of said women played up because they wanted their characters together, even if one turned out to be not-so-good. The show deals with sexism and victims of neglect. You'll learn a lot of random history while watching the show as all of the artifacts tend to be historically based (the guillotine blade that cut of Marie Antoinette's head, for instance). There are 5 seasons and I'm s3 or 4. Apparently the show does something weird with Pete and Myka at the end, which probably means they get together. Ran 2009 to 2014.

Thoughts on the fandom: again, way too small, although a lot bigger than Grimm. There are quite a few fics out there, mainly for the two women which I ship with my whole heart. There might be some controversy with Eddie McClintock (Pete Lattimer) but I'm not very well-versed in it. I wish Grimm's fandom was as big as W13's.

The Umbrella Academy

Platform: Netflix

Official overview: On one day in 1989, 43 infants are inexplicably born to random, unconnected women who showed no signs of pregnancy the day before. Seven are adopted by billionaire industrialist Sir Reginald Hargreeves, who creates the Umbrella Academy and prepares his "children" to save the world. In their teenage years, though, the family fractures and the team disbands. Fast forward to the present time, when the six surviving members of the clan reunite upon the news of Hargreeves' passing. They work together to solve a mystery surrounding their father's death, but divergent personalities and abilities again pull the estranged family apart, and a global apocalypse is another imminent threat. The series is based on a collection of comics and graphic novels created and written by My Chemical Romance lead singer Gerard Way.

My overview: adult survivors of abuse with increasingly weird/out-there superpowers due to the weird circumstances of their birth come together to celebrate *cough* I mean mourn the passing of their "father" And accidentally cause the apocalypse.

Thoughts on the show: I love it. I've finished season 2,currenfly there are only 2 seasons, it's still in progress, I love it. I'm sure most of you have already watched it because what is the supernatural fandom if not emo? Also a good one for representation. Mexican man with a stutter, black woman with a daughter she is in a custody battle for, gay druggie veteran, Ellen Page, Asian ghost boy, 58 year old man in a 13 year old's body, and a half-chimp man.

Thoughts on the fandom: big. Big big big. Haven't found any fics that cater to my specific wants in a fic, but there are fics. Some of them have weird pairings, but since the show made two (adopted) siblings canon, I can't exactly blame them.

Lost Girl

Platform: I actually have no idea

Official overview: Bo is a small-town girl on the run after a disastrous sexual encounter with her boyfriend ends with his death. Bo learns that she is not human, but a succubus, who feeds on the sexual energy of humans. She and her kind are members of the Fae, creatures of legend, who walk among humans and feed off them in different ways. As she searches for the truth about her origins and runs from her inhuman urges, she vows to help those she meets along the way -- human or Fae -- who need to right a wrong.

My overview: bisexual woman finds out she's a succubus and she has to choose to be either good Fae or bad Fae (I think it's light vs dark but it's been a Hot Minute) she has a thing with a werewolf and also a thing with a Fae doctor who is human and a woman.

Thoughts on the show: it's good, 5 seasons, don't think I've finished the first season. Back when I started watching it it was on Netflix and has since been removed. It's on Vudo but it costs money which is bullshit. It's a little weird at first, but I like it. Ran 2010 to 2015.

Thoughts on the fandom: have not interacted with the fandom for fear of spoilers. I'd imagine this show's fandom is about the size of Grimm.

Being Human (USA version)

Platform: again, I don't know.

Official overview: "Being Human," based on a BBC series of the same name, features three 20-something roommates who each try to keep a secret from the rest of the world -- one is a ghost, another is a vampire and the third is a werewolf. The three roomies try to help one another navigate the complexities of living double lives.

My overview: again, weird starts off in almost the middle of the story. It deals with abuse, death, fighting urges, dealing with past sins, and, well, being human. The characters are Sally (Ghost) Aidan (vampire) and Josh (werewolf). The three of them are trying to live like normal, Aidan and Josh as workers at the local hospital as Sally works to deal with her death.

Thoughts on the show: I love it I just wish I could find it on a reliable site, again, it's on Vudo but it costs money. It definitely had the set up for a good mlm relationship but from what I've gathered they end up forcing heterosexuality.

Thoughts on the fandom: again, too small, roughly the size of Grimm. I have seen 0 fics.

The Librarians

Platform: Hulu I do so believe

Official overview: Cued by TNT's popular 'The Librarian' trilogy, this series introduces new members of an ancient group protecting mystical artefacts. Hidden below the Metropolitan Public Library, the secret society's longtime leader is Flynn Carsen, whose job has become very complicated. To help, the Library recruits Eve, a counterterrorism agent responsible for organizational security; Jacob, who has encyclopedic knowledge of art, architecture and history; Cassandra, who links auditory/sensory hallucinations to memory; and Ezekiel, a skilled thief and master technician. Overseeing them is Jenkins, the reclusive caretaker of the Library's sleepy little outpost in Oregon. Noah Wyle executive produces and recurs as Flynn, the role he played in the movie series.

My overview: very similar to W13. This time imagine the Bunker, and the Warehouse, and boom, you've got the Library.

Thoughts on the show: good! I love it, I just found out it was on Hulu and am going to be binging it as soon as I finish Grimm and Warehouse. I'd love to see a crossover between W13 and The Librarians I feel like they'd have a feud.

Thoughts on the fandom: probably the same size as W13 if not bigger as the series came from movies. Again, haven't finished the series so I haven't interacted with the fandom.

Eureka

Platform: Amazon Prime

Official overview: In the years since World War II, the U.S. government has been relocating the world's geniuses (and their families) to the Pacific Northwest town of Eureka. Daily life there shifts between amazing innovation and total chaos. U.S. Marshal Jack Carter learns this first-hand when his car breaks down in Eureka, stranding him among the town's eccentric citizens. When they unleash a scientific creation still unknown to the outside world, it's up to Carter to restore order. Subsequently, he's let in on one of America's best-kept secrets.

My overview: a small town but make every person a genius. Has some crossover with Warehouse 13, they exist in the same universe.

Thoughts on the show: I love it so far. Just the kind of weird shit I enjoy.

Thoughts on the fandom: I'd imagine about the size of Warehouse 13's but I've yet to interact considering I'm still in season 1.

#show recommendations #show recs

[aizawa-yamada-shinsou]

Alright, so our least favorite person in my AU, Jackieboyman!

Jk, Jk we still love him even if I’ve made him kinda a dick in my AU. 

So Biggest thing about his backstory is he’s from the MCU. Don’t worry NO Endgame spoilers are in this, I swear! In fact, due to the inclusion of JBM, I can only say that his backstory is based on the MCU but pretty canon divergent.

I’m going to put it under the cut since this is going to get LONG.  

So to start with JBM was a first gen immigrant to the good old US of A, coming across the pond from Ireland with his parents when he was seven, gaining citizenship right before his 10th birthday.  They live in an apartment in the Bronx. (mostly because I want the three-way rivalry between Our Brooklyn boys, Queen’s Spider and now Bronx JBM.) 

He was staying with a family friend when he gained his powers at age 13 in 2006, no one is sure what happened as he was the only survivor of the event that totaled the apartment building the friends lived in. JBM remembers a deep rumbling and arcs of electricity but nothing else before he woke up in the rumble surrounded by his best friend and his parent’s body. JBM parents don’t make him  His abilities are just like they are now for the most part; X-ray vision, keen hearing, and superior agility, only instead of hacking/coding skills, he has straight up Technology Manipulation. He makes his own suit and decides he wants to have an epic superhero adventure, because what 13 year old wouldn’t want to be a hero if given the chance? Plus, he wanted to know why he was given these powers while his friend and so many others died that day. 

He ends up taking care of the Bronx, kinda like how Spidey takes care of Queens and Daredevil takes care of Hell’s Kitchen. He trained himself to be good at parkour and hand to hand fighting so that he could help out his neighborhood. He took the name Jackieboyman from his friend who perished the day he got his powers, his name was Jack and his dad always called him ‘good ol’ Jackieboy!’. JBM names are actually not even close to Jack, or Sean but he prefers Jackie now that he’s ego and doesn’t really need to give away his original name. 

When the battle of New York happened in 2009, he ended up fighting as it was way too close to home for comfort. The other Avengers weren’t really happy to see a teenager in what really accounted as PJs out in the fray but he helped them out greatly when he went to the tower with Nat using his Technology Manipulation to help shut down the protections on the portal control and help to turn it off after Tony took the Nuke up. 

He went with the Avengers to confront Loki, calling him an icy creep. Thor misunderstands and asks how JBM knew about his brothers Frost giant heritage, but Jackie equally confused said he was talking about the god’s icy blue glare. THIS gets Thor’s attention as he knows that Loki, in fact, has green eyes. This makes the others think back realizing that they all had met the very blue eyes of the god at some point during his stay on the Helicarrier, the same blue Clint’s eyes had been not too long ago. 

It doesn’t take a genius to realize the man they all thought was pulling the strings was a mind-controlled pawn, and since the spell wasn’t breaking after Hulk smashed him into the ground many times over Thor needed to take him back to Asgard quickly for help breaking free. 

After they leave JBM is ‘inducted’ into the Avengers by Fury, who really just wanted to know how they didn’t notice this little dude running around the Bronx. No one tell him about Daredevil. Tony ends up getting JBM a better suit so the idiot doesn’t end up dead, but he has very limited contact with the Avengers from then on out. 

Loki, on the other hand, comes down to Midgard, using his secret pathways as he may not be in trouble for the invasion but he’s still imprisoned for destroying  Jotunheim, to thank JBM for helping his idiot brother realize that he was not in his right mind during his time as an invader. Loki and JBM end up being fairly good friends with Loki slipping out of his prison on a fairly regular basis to annoy JBM. 

He does get sent to help for bigger missions as he gets older, like helping take out the Helicarriers when he was 18 in 2014, and Slovakia mission when he was 19 in 2015. Thor tells the group that Loki is dead but JBM knows this is a load of Bullshit because the god stole his Twix bar the day before, but keeps it quiet because he knows Loki has a plan and if he ruins it he has to deal with a pouting trickster and that’s never fun.  

He ends up helping Tony and Bruce create Ultron with his powers, which as we know ends up lovely. He is there when they rescue what will end up being Vision, and running a battery of diagnostics to see how the body is doing when Thor shows up and Frankensteins Vision alive. JBM is not going to even pretend that he didn’t fangirled over Vision and wanted to figure out how the bot ticked really badly. 

In Civil War he sides with Tony, not believing that Bucky could be innocent after all the evidence starts building up. Emotions do not outway facts in his mind. He ends up meeting Peter during the team up and feels an instant brotherly connection with this tiny child. Yes, he realized Spidey is a year older then he was when he joined the hero biz but he refuses to believe that he was ever this adorable and small. 

After the ‘civil war’ JBM ends up stopping over in Queens more than entirely necessary to check in on his ‘baby bro’. He ends up helping Peter realize that he can be an awesome Spiderman without Tony’s constant approval, even though Peter does not stop trying, but it gives Peter more confidence over the course of the movie. They form a very competitive brotherly relationship, always trying to one-up each other. 

Loki ends up following JBM to Queens and meets Peter and ends up deciding that Peter is way too precious for this world and deserves to be protected. Thus forming the Trio of pranksters that no one puts together is them because Spidey is too innocent, Loki is ‘dead’ and JBM, the only one they suspect could be one of the pranksters, always has an alibi ala Loki illusion. 

Shuri ends up joining their group after Tony introduces Peter and JBM to her. She loves how intelligent JBM and Peter are about technology and science in general, and is in awe at Jackie’s powers. She demands to run tests on his abilities to see how it works with Wakanda tech and that’s how Loki finds them seven hours later. She loves helping out with pranks remotely as long as she gets recordings of the results. 

Shortly before Infinity War picks up JBM is killed, he wasn’t even on duty, just heading to his job in Stark Industry's IT department (No Tony was not aware that JBM worked for him, JBM thought it was hilarious not to tell him since Tony never could figure out who he was. Stark may be good at Hacking but JBM was better and wiped any clues towards his secret ID too well to be discovered), when the bus he was on crashed killing five passengers including JBM. 

Peter and Shuri were the only ones that knew as they, along with Loki but he was in the Dark as he was facing Ragnarok, were the only three he trusted with his ID, but Peter ended up breaking down causing Tony to find out and He informed the public, announcing that he was financing a service to honor and say goodbye to the fallen hero, even if he wasn’t going to release the name of JBM, or the cause of death and he made sure that the press knew that the body would not be present as he wanted the family to be able to mourn their loved one without being hounded. Jackie was 25 when he died.

There’s just one thing I’m on the fence about. I’m debating on if JBM would have been a transman when he was first alive in the MCU, since it’s such a popular fan theory, only to be remade in Sean’s image when he became an ego thus making him a cis dude now, what do y’ all think? 

#JBM #My backstory for my AU #So long

[icharchivist]

Before reading your theories I actually never noticed how much Allen's "Death" changed Lavi since he was the one telling Lenalee to basically get over it. Also the fact that he seems to pay extra attention to anything Allen does since then. And how you pointed out in some panels he seems to be overprotective but Hoshino still kept it somehow subtle.

aaHH well i’m glad if my theories made you change your mind?

tbh when I first was in the fandom in 2009 I didn’t pick any of that up either. It’s only when I came back in 2015 that I did and it was a huge mix of Knowing where the story is going + attempt at shipping jokes that backfired and oh no now i ended up crying i am forced to pay attention to them seriously i waS JUST JOKING HOW DID IT HAPPEN + getting back into the fandom and hearing of others people theories (tbh I wouldn’t have picked up most of what I do without the Ace of Spade Theory i’ve read a bit after i got back - i can’t tell if i did it before or after I started to overread stuff though) + my own experiences since then since I did graduate in litterature and cinema analysis in the meantime

I think it’s kinda the thing when you go back to a media regularly for 10 years, you just change your lenses on it time after time.

And... yeah tbh I feel like i’m just picking up details everywhere that don’t especially matter, but this is apparently the hill i decided to die on. 

I don’t particularly would say that my reading is like, the most accurate one either. I know i have my bias because I was emotionally manipulated by the tropes that got my interests in the first place, so i think a part of me will always force my own point of view on the story and i will grasp at details to make my point. This is how i bullshitted my way out of academy so you bet i would do it so for things that makes me happy and trying to figure out how it can make me happier (even if in their case it’s linked to a lot of tears on my part)

So i completely would get that maybe my reading is getting overboard and I’ve never hiden that i had a very major bias. (i bring it up far less now but i was justifying myself over this bias every two asks when I came back.. a couple of months ago? so yeah dkjfhd). I just hope that perhaps in those details, even if people don’t agree with the interpretation, they can get their own thing out of it. 

I would maintain that Lavi’s arc had really changed after Allen’s death, even if it was kept very subtle. A lot of it makes sense after the dreamworld fight to me, so it is good to come back and try to pick up all those things.

Like yeah he did yell at Lenalee about Allen’s death, but he was crying too, (funfact Hoshino got a letter about this detail, like to make sure Lavi did cry, but the letter got lost and the writter of Gintama was the one to reply that Lavi was going through a hard time kdjhfd) and there’s just.. a lot of things that change when you take into account the type of person Lavi pretended to be when the story begin, and how he confronts it in the dreamworld.

Personally even in the most platonical way i’m content with my conclusions, and I just hope like reading them too!

But at the same time, everyone will interpret things differently and my word is just another word thrown into the mass! i’m glad if people enjoy it, or take it as a starting point to go in another direction, but otherwise I hope people can drive their own conclusions that they find satisfying!

dkjfhdf i feel like i overexplain myself but yeah :’D I just ended up being surprised by how much my vision of Lavi’s arc had changed in the past ten years, and how those details ended up mattering to me. 

and if anyone can appreciate this journey, that’s always my pleasure o/

Thanks for the message though ;O

#ichafantalks dgm #Anonymous #ichareply

[preserving-ferretbrain]

One Man's Burning Hatred for Anime

by Rude Cyrus

Friday, 10 July 2009

Cyrus displays something that looks suspiciously like masochism.

Uh-oh! This is in the Axis of Awful...~

Dear god in heaven. I’m not prepared for this, but the rage and hatred have built to a point where I must let it out. There are some things I hate in this world, but none more so than pretension, especially pretension that is accepted by the masses as tortured genius. It’s frustrating to point out that something is obviously a dog turd wrapped in shiny foil, only to be met with derision, defensive bootlicking, and cries of “WELL, THAT’S JUST YOUR OPINION.”

The subject I’ll be talking about today is a well-known anime (if you don’t know what anime is, go look it up on Wikipedia or something). A fair warning: there’s going to be a gratuitous amount of cussing and spoilers – that is, if you consider a dead fly in the middle of a feces lollipop to be a spoiler.

A bit of background first, so I can delay this thing as long as possible: when I was an innocent, starry-eyed larva, I was exposed to anime by way of Speed Racer. The show is about racing and cars, or some such shit; frankly, it’s a poorly animated mess that’s interesting only as an experiment to see how much footage the animators recycled. I was left with the impression that all anime was shit, at least until a few years later when I discovered Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon– the former catered to my violent fantasies of burly dudes beating the crap out of each other, while the latter indulged my masturbatory dreams of teenage girls in short skirts. Look, I was 13 at the time, okay? Oh, and I got caught up in something called Pokemon, although I don’t think too many people watched that show.

Eventually I matured (kinda sorta) and began yearning for something that appealed to my awesome intellect. My first taste of a “real” anime was Akira, a fun little jaunt into a post-apocalyptic Japan inhabited by shriveled, psychic children and motorcycle gangs. The film fell apart at the end and generally felt slipshod; it wasn’t until years later that I found out that it was an adaptation of a manga, and quite a bit of content had to be cut.

Then I watched Ghost in the Shell, another movie that takes place in the Future! This time, it’s about 100 times more confusing and talky, with characters standing around, pondering what it is to be human, blah blah blah. Interspersed throughout are scenes of the lead character, Makoto, running around bare-ass naked and kicking butt. The thing that stuck me is that Makoto has no genitalia – no pubic hair, no vulva, just a blank area of flesh. It disturbs me to this day.

I think I caught a few episodes of Gundam Wing, but the only thing I remember is how two of the characters confused the enemy by kissing. I thought it odd.

After that, I went through what I call my Hayao Miyazaki period: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro – if Miyazaki made it, I watched it. This was followed up with Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (which I found to be superior to the film). Finally, I stumbled upon a series called Neon Genesis Evangelion, something considered by the anime community to be a complex, profound examination of human nature, combined with awesome giant mech action.

This series is the subject of this article.

A brief synopsis: in the year 2015, Earth’s population has decreased dramatically, thanks to a cataclysmic event called “Second Impact” that occurred at the turn of the century. To make things worse, monstrosities called Angels are threatening to destroy the remnants of humanity – the only things that stand in the way are giant, biomechanical creatures called Evangelions (or EVAs for short), piloted by three 14-year-old teenagers. The main characters are:

Shinji Ikari – a shy, introverted boy that was abandoned by his father after his mother died (said father being the commander of the organization that created the EVAs), Shinji wants nothing more than to be liked by his deadbeat dad. He’s a coward as well, something that puts him at odds with the enormous responsibility of piloting an EVA. He becomes a bit braver and more self-assured as the series goes on, before collapsing into a whiny, spineless piece of shit.

Rei Ayanami – this strange girl is almost emotionless and wholly dedicated to Shinji’s father, which is somewhat creepy when you realize that he’s twice her age; we later find out that she’s a partial clone of Shinji’s mother. Her interactions with Shinji lead her to become more in touch with her emotions and thus more “human”, at least until she starts fostering a death wish.

Asuka Langley Soryu – a half-German/half-Japanese redheaded girl that serves as the show’s LOUD WESTERN STEREOTYPE. Asuka is opinionated, bossy, overconfident, and thinks poorly of Shinji. She softens towards him a bit after he fishes her out of a volcano and the two are forced to train in unison (don’t ask). She becomes an emotionally shattered shell after being forced to relive childhood memories of her insane mother’s suicide.

Whee.

To be fair, it doesn’t start out too bad. The best parts of the series dealt with the interactions between the three main characters (when they were three-dimensional human beings and not cardboard cutouts, that is). As time went on, the tone became darker, the characters became suicidally depressed, and a somewhat coherent storyline devolved into madness. Episode 24 (out of 26) introduced Kaworu Nagisa, an Angel in human form that became insanely popular due to his homoerotic interactions with Shinji, and ended with a two-minute static shot of an EVA holding Kaworu’s body in its hand while music played in the background – no speech, no movement, just this single shot. Go stare at a picture for several minutes and you’ll get the same effect: mind-numbing boredom.

The final two episodes were bullshit from start to finish. In them, an unseen party questioned every major character on their motivations, which the characters responded to, all with bowed heads so the animators didn’t have to draw mouths. In between these interrogations, we were assaulted with still images and words and nonsense. The ending had all the characters standing around, clapping their hands and saying “Congratulations!” As if they were praising the viewers for making it through this festering garbage.

I would’ve purged this crap from my head and moved on, but then I learned that the creator, Hideaki Anno, was forced to give the fans that shameful ending due to time and budgetary constraints, and there was a film called The End of Evangelion that acts as the true ending to the series. So, I hunted down a copy and watched it.

Let me tell you something: the movie makes the series ending look like fucking Citizen Kane in comparison. I have never, ever seen such a bloated, pompous, insulting, nasty, manipulative, incoherent pile of monkey shit like End of Evangelion. I hear that Anno received death threats over the series ending, and after seeing the kind of petty drivel this man is capable of, I can understand why. Not that I’m condoning death threats or anything.

How bad is this film? Here’s a scene from the opening moments: Shinji is in a hospital room, standing over Asuka, who has been sedated following the mental trauma she endured at the hands of an Angel. Shinji, desperate to get her to respond, pulls at her and accidentally rips open her gown, revealing her breasts. Shinji, naturally, takes action by masturbating over her comatose body and ejaculates into his hand.

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

This is sick! What’s the fucking point of this scene, to establish Shinji as a future serial rapist? It’s disgusting, vile, inexcusable, and every other synonym for “bad”. Why? I have about a dozen other questions, like “Who thought this was a good idea?” and “What the fuck is wrong with Hideaki Anno?” but the best query right now is: why?

Later, Shinji spends about three-quarters of his screen time –

I’m sorry, I can’t get over this. WHY?! I’ve heard fans say that this is an example of Shinji hitting rock bottom, and besides, he expresses his contempt for himself immediately afterwards. Look, I’ve been clinically depressed at times too, but I don’t jerk off over unconscious girls. Know why not? Because that would make me a SEX OFFENDER.

Fuck.

Shinji spends about three-quarters of his screen time cowering in a ball in the corner, alternating between screaming and sobbing. Asuka is revived, but she and her EVA are literally ripped to pieces. Rei becomes a sort of god-monster and dies. Whee.

The second half of the movie is filled the same mind-fuckery and nonsense imagery that ruined the series ending, only it’s a billion times worse here. There’s also some well-written dialogue on display too:

SHINJI: Where is my dream?

REI: It is where your reality ends.

SHINJI: Then where is my reality?

REI: It is at the end of your dream.

That’s not a 100% accurate quote, but it’s pretty damn close. It’s deep, man.

And if you don’t hate Shinji enough, here he comes to bitch endlessly about how everyone hates him and he hates everyone. Gee, with that sunny disposition, I can’t imagine why he’s so miserable. Then Asuka steps in and tells him he’s a worthless turd, so he chokes her. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to kill a fictional character so badly in my life.

Then there’s some live-action footage of people getting on a train while Rei and Shinji continue to babble about human nature, all for our benefit, of course. After what seems like fucking days, the movie ends with Shinji and Asuka on a beach, the only two humans left on the planet. Shinji starts choking Asuka AGAIN, but is stopped when she caresses his cheek. Her oxygen-deprived brain must’ve mistaken him for someone else. Shinji stops choking her and, what else, starts crying. Asuka looks at him and utters a most appropriate line: “Disgusting.”

In case you don’t get it, let me spell it out: I HATE THIS MOVIE. I hate it to a degree I didn’t think was possible. Most of my anger is directed towards Hideaki Anno, who was the writer and director for the series and the movie. He strikes me as a pretentious, antisocial, petty person, and everything he does oozes contempt for his fans. From creating this giant middle-finger of celluloid to stating “Too bad” in English when a fan said he was dissatisfied with the original ending, he’s a man who has no idea how to relate to people.

*deep breath*

Here’s why I can’t stand him: he created characters that I related to, characters that had nuanced personalities (even though they would be pigeonholed at times), characters that I wanted to see happy, characters that I sympathized with…and then he slowly, gleefully tore them apart. He forced them to go through absolute hell, and they all came out as broken individuals, and that’s how they stayed to the end – alone and unloved. Whenever there was a glimmer of light, Anno snuffed it out. I have no idea why he was so cruel to his own characters, but I have some theories:

1. He started out liking what he did, but ended up hating it, so he tried to make it so no one else would be able to revive the series (this one appears to have been disproven – see below).

2. He planned this from the beginning, making him a sadist as well as a hack.

3. Something in his life caused him to become extremely depressed, so his work reflects that.

I’ve heard a lot of evidence (and by evidence I mean conjecture) to support C, but if that’s the case, why not just put things on hold until he got better? On the other hand, his “too bad” comment indicates that he didn’t really give a shit about the whole thing, so who knows?

The fans deserve a tongue-lashing as well. If I had a dollar for every comment that called him a “genius”, a “visionary”, or any of the things that he isn’t…I’d be able to buy out Microsoft. I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

Hilariously, Anno has decided his masterpice wasn’t good enough, or something, because he’s now remaking the series into four movies with witty titles like You Can (Not) Advance and You Are (Not) Alone and You Can (Not) Go Fuck Yourself. The ending to all of this is supposed to be totally new, which means it’s probably going to be even more frustrating and ambiguous. From the pictures I’ve seen and the reviews I’ve heard, it looks awful. Asuka’s last name has been changed to Shikinami, for some nebulous reason, and the body suit she wears is now translucent – she wears a bra underneath, but there are only a few inches of opaque fabric covering her cooch, so I’m guessing the design was built around fanservice. Which is always a great consideration, right? Plus, she’s supposed to wear an eyepatch in the third film, like a goddamn pirate.

On top of that, Anno has shoehorned in the loathsome Kaworu from the beginning, and added a new character named Mari, who is from the UK, I think. He’s packed 100 tons of shit into a 10-ton bag, in other words. Naturally, the fans are eager to fall all over themselves defending their messiah, bleating variations of “IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO COMPLAIN” or “WE JUST NEED TO WAIT UNTIL THE END”. I don’t need to poke myself in the eye to know that it hurts, and I don’t need to watch these films to know that they’ll end just like the original series: no resolution, no closure, no catharsis, no satisfaction. The whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth, and no amount of brushing will get it out. The only way these movies could be more insulting is if they consisted entirely of Hideaki Anno flipping off the audience with both hands, pausing occasionally to grab his crotch and sneer.

Actually, that would be less insulting.Themes:

TV & Movies

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

~

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Wardog

at 12:26 on 2009-07-10Oh good God.

I don't know what to say. My knowledge of anime is pretty much restricted to shows in which princesses turn into ducks and do ballet (or is that the other way round). I guess we need to get Jen along here as she's the closest thing we have to an anime expert.

Shinji, naturally, takes action by masturbating over her comatose body and ejaculates into his hand.

Well ... at least he didn't do it over her unconscious body? Right?

I feel generally a bit ambivalent about a creator's attitude to fans. I mean, I don't think he's under obligation to be "nice" or, even, to provide a text that "satisfies" his fans - since what satisfies fans isn't necessarily the same as what's actually good. In fact, the more consciousness of fandom there is, the worse texts seem to get. Although this seems like a really confused amalgamation of fan service and fan contempt. Weird.

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Arthur B

at 13:23 on 2009-07-10I'm personally quite fond of

Evangelion

the series, at least the first 24 episodes. There is, as you point out, character development, gradual growing of a backbone on the part of Shinji and Rei, an interesting mystery revealed at a reasonable pace, and so on. I even like the way Episode 24 ended, with Shinji poised in a choice between killing a friend and letting the Angels get away with whatever it is they're trying to do, although to be fair I've only seen the expanded/tidied up version of the episode where they put in extra scenes and the last shot might not be so ridiculously long.

Then, as you point out, you have the different endings, neither of which fits what's gone before. I did enjoy

End of Evangelion

for the sheer trippy sadism of it all, but at the same time I couldn't really relate the characters we see in it to the characters from the TV show; there's this weird sort of inconsistency about it. Asuka is psychotic, Rei is even more autistic than she's ever been, and Shinji loses the balls he's been carefully growing over the course of the series; it's as if the TV show never happened. At a guess, I'd say the film is more about Anno's thoughts on the end of the series, and the experience of making the show, than it is about actually ending the story; the characters seem to be spoofing the fan conceptions of who they are rather than continuing the development shown throughout the series.

It's a fun ride, but it's fun partially because I think it's hilarious how Anno's trolled anime fans for years over this, and because I enjoy watching characters get raked over the coals and suffer for their most irritating personality traits. I'm interested in seeing the new movies because they're promising a proper ending this time, and even if they break that promise the results will probably be mad enough to be worth a look. I even think it makes sense to put Kaworu in from the beginning; the one thing I dislike about Episode 24 is that they insert Kaworu, have Shinji make friends with him really surprisingly quickly (exacerbating the homoerotic angle), and then have him betray everyone and have to get taken down. It would make far more sense if he were in it from the start. Even if the ending resembles David Lynch directing

Final Fantasy VII

again, I'd still watch it.

That said, my attitude to

Evangelion

probably stems from how I was introduced to it: at an SF all-nighter thrown by a local cinema, which incorporated a preview showing of

28 Days Later

(which is a

much

more effective movie if you go into it genuinely not knowing that it's a zombie film, as we did), hopped up on soda, watching

The Death of Evangelion

on the big screen. Watching 8 hours of TV series crammed into 90 minutes is hilarious, to the point where I could never take the show seriously after that.

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Rude Cyrus

at 19:51 on 2009-07-10

I mean, I don't think he's under obligation to be "nice" or, even, to provide a text that "satisfies" his fans

From what I've read, his fans are satisfied enough to try to unravel the mess he's made. I'm not asking him to be all happy-go-lucky, but his attitude comes off as spiteful.

I guess I'm just overreacting, but I still have an intense dislike for the man; he's my own JK Rowling.

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Wardog

at 22:38 on 2009-07-10He sounds like a worthy target of your bile :)

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Rude Cyrus

at 23:20 on 2009-07-10This may sound silly, but I still like the general idea behind the show and the characters (when they aren't being emo or one-note).

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Guy

at 04:42 on 2009-07-11I only watched a bit of Evangelion, but my impressions were coloured by the lengthy scenes displaying static scenery with loud cicada noises in the background. At first I thought they might be in there for atmospheric reasons I didn't quite understand, then decided they were in there for financial reasons (animation ain't cheap) and shortly thereafter gave up on the show. I love Miyazaki's films and would like to see more anime of that quality which isn't exclusively about plucky young heroines growing up and discovering their strength and independence... but I guess I'll take what I can get. :)

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Robinson L

at 18:00 on 2009-07-14I used to be a fan of

Dragon Ball Z

and

Sailor Moon

because for an early (and even not-so early) teenager, they seemed pretty cool. Then I noticed how stupid and repetitive they were and kinda lost interest.

At this point, I'm struggling to think of any Anime I know of that I actually think was any good. Well, the first season of

Digimon

, and at least one episode from the second. And Miyazaki's version of

Howl's Moving Castle

. And I suppose

Princess Monoke

, although it never particularly appealed to me.

Anyway, I've been hearing a lot about

Neon Genesis Evangelion

for a while, but nothing that's really excited me after the series. This review, I think, clinches my decision not to subject myself to it.

Personally, I tend to empathize with main characters even if most people dislike them. Apart from Mal, I can't think of any main characters I know of who I think I'd enjoy seeing put through that kind of torture. Maybe not even him.

I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

This may be just me fishing for an excuse to pull out my own pet hate, but it seems to me from the description that an alternate or complementary explanations might be that

because it's so dark and depressing, fans (and critics) have deluded themselves into thinking this is somehow insightful.

This is a trend in popular entertainment I've noted and lamented for a couple years now.

Last night my younger sister and I were discussing the contemporary

Battlestar Gallactica

(of which I've seen a couple episodes, they've seen the first three seasons). At one point, one of them said that "if the character only lost about twenty pounds of emo they'd be all right."

While this may be true, I suspect it's the current vogue for death, despair, doom and gloom which made the 2004

Galactica

so popular. To take an even more contemporary example (and borrow a metaphor from my sister's upcoming review) witness Kirk's and Spock's and Nero's Inigo Montoya Syndrome in the latest

Star Trek

movie.

For a while,

House

did a pretty good job of balancing its angst, but it seems like circa Season Four the writers began seriously to crank it up. After the one-two-punch finale (Amber dies and right afterward Thirteen discovers she does indeed have Huntingdon's) I was asking "Geez, you think you could lay it on any thicker? Maybe find a way to reveal that Cameron really did contract HIV in Season Two after all?"

I've yet to see Season Five, but from what I've heard of the spoilers (don't read this if you haven't seen it and mind spoilers), Wilson is broken up over Amber's death for a long period of time, which means House is going to be even more miserable than usual; Cuddy goes through a whole lot of crap before finally getting a baby of her own, and that only when the mother ups and dies; and Kutner commits suicide/gets murdered/somehow ends up shot dead. What fun.

The new

Doctor Who

started out pretty emo, but it feels like Davies and the rest of the team take every possible opportunity to twist it in just that little bit more.

And being the Star Wars fan that I am, I have to say the stuff that the Expanded Universe went through during and especially after the prequels ... let's just say most of it is not pretty. Not in the slightest.

There's probably more, I just don't pay much attention to what's popular at the moment. Anyway, my point is that I suspect anything as depressing as

Evangelion

is by all accounts in the current tragedy-obsessed atmosphere is bound to be considered deep and meaningful and insightful and all that simply because it puts its characters through so much crap.

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Cressida

at 04:16 on 2009-11-18

I love Miyazaki's films and would like to see more anime of that quality which isn't exclusively about plucky young heroines growing up and discovering their strength and independence...

Guy:

Try

Porco Rosso!

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http://orionsnebula.blogspot.com/

at 23:05 on 2009-12-18

I suspect that because much of the series and movie is inexplicable, the fans have deluded themselves into thinking this balderdash is somehow insightful.

I think you're onto something here, but as someone who enjoyed Evangelion, let me propose a more charitable version of the psychology.

I'm a student of ethical philosophy and religious history at college, so I spend a lot of time thinking about the "deep" issues that fans will tell you Evangelion (, Donnie Darko, The matrix, ...) addresses--Destiny, choice, purpose, hope, knowledge, or whatever the hell.

Let me be clear and say up front that I don't think Evangelion makes a coherent statement about any of these issues. I'm not going to claim that you're "not getting it" if you don't see any "there" there, and I'm not saying that Hideaki Anno is some kind of visionary genius.

BUT

I'm a very visual, fictionalizing person. I do a lot of free association, and try on ideas by putting them in the mouths of imagined characters. Something like Evangelion is, for me, excellent raw material. It gives me a *context* to think about these issues. the incoherence of the actual show forces me to go to a lot of effort to try to figure out "what is this show trying to say?" and since that question is, I think, largely unanswerable, this also becomes an exploration of what *I* have to say.

Something similar happens because I write fiction. I'll eat up many stories--Evangelion, The Matrix, Harry Potter, even some of Star Wars--that have, in my opinion, glaring flaws, because they *make reference to* ideas I find interesting, even if they don't do them justice. Frequently, while watching the show even for the first time, my mind drifts to possibilities and alternate timeliness, with the result that I am actually watching a movie that exists only in my head, that (I like to think) *does* say something coherent. for this reason I consider Revenge of the Sith, for instance, to have been worth the price of the ticket even though it was (IMO) absolute shit, because by about a third of the way in I had stopped watching what's on the screen and started watching the movie *I* would have directed.

I mention this because before I became really conscious of what I was doing, I would frequently walk away with the impression that a movie was in fact "deep" when is fact it was just thought-provoking, and then only for people with preexisting interest in the issue who are prone to free association. I don't know how many people like me there are, but there's a strong tendency in all humans to assume that they're "normal," and that may be where some of the "you just don't get it" responses are coming from.

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http://luna-glass-wall.livejournal.com/

at 23:31 on 2010-10-12//I think I caught a few episodes of Gundam Wing, but the only thing I remember is how two of the characters confused the enemy by kissing.//

...What? o.O There's no kissing in Gundam Wing. There are barely any established romances.

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http://cammalot.livejournal.com/

at 19:02 on 2010-10-13That was Macross/Robotech. Similar giant-robot-thingies-piloted-by-superteens plot -- possibly the originator of the entire trope. The giant-size humanoid enemies of Earth didn't have sex to reproduce, or something, and so this display of humanity was too much for them and made them stop fighting. Until one or two of them discovered that they liked it.

Aw, that was my very first anime. I'm all verklempt now.

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Gamer_2k4 at 22:41 on 2010-10-13Neon Genesis Evangelion is actually my favorite anime series, but I think that's more because of the concept and because of what it did to me personally than anything else. I mean, I've taken a look at some of the episodes recently and they look OLD. A lot of the content is boring or unnecessary filler, the animation switches between "pretty alright" and "did they not pay you or something?", and overall, there's a lot not to like.

However.

I've had a very limited exposure to media (besides the some of the popular stuff), and NGE completely changed the way I looked at storytelling. I had never seen a character like Rei before, and I loved her. The idea that the mechs were actually giant feral humanoids barely restrained by their armor blew me away. The fact that the Hallelujah Chorus was played as an Angel mind-raped Asuka, and it WORKED, stunned me. The cast and plot are both remarkably tight; EVERYONE is involved, somehow. But finally, the thing that struck me the hardest, was the idea that a big giant robot action show DIDN'T HAVE TO HAVE A HAPPY ENDING.

Consider Asuka. She's this hotshot pilot, showing up a third of the way into the series reading to kick some butt. Her first appearance is quite dramatic as she handily and elegantly dispatches an Angel. However, her next victory requires the complete support of Shinji, and she barely plays a part from that point on. Battle after battle happens with this pilot, the one who was literally genetically engineered (in the manga, anyway) to be perfect, just failing with every attempt. Nothing goes right for her.

Rei's an interesting character, too. Generally you'd think the stoic, silent character would play the support role, ending up as the person the others always rely on. But she's not that great of a pilot! If memory serves, her Eva spends half the show out of commission, and in the other battles Rei plays a very minimal role. For as much popularity as she has among fans, you'd think that she had done a lot more in the series than she actually did.

And let's not forget Shinji. Here's a kid whose dad runs an organization that sends out giant robots to fight the bad guys, and HE gets a chance to be a pilot! In any other show, Shinji would've jumped in and started owning face for the rest of the series. But you know what? He acts like a kid could be reasonably expected to act: he's scared, and doesn't want to do it at all. But more than that, he wants love from his father, and realizes this might be his only chance to get that.

Right away it's clear that these aren't cookie-cutter stereotypes, but real characters with real problems. I personally found it refreshing that someone decided to make something where the good guys don't necessarily win. I was so familiar with "happily ever after" stories that I was shocked when this wasn't one of them. I like NGE, not because "true art is angsty," but because "holy balls, this is what a show can actually be like!"

Anyway, that's the anime series; let's get to End of Evangelion (you know, the subject matter of this article). It really did feel like some tacked-on supplement to the real thing. Furthermore, Shinji was infuriating, and the battle scene was just the opposite of what I'd come to expect from NGE: rather than an original conflict, it was just a beat-em-up royal rumble.

The second half of the movie left me in shock, and I went away from it thinking that was a good thing. I had never been exposed to the stream-of-conscious approach before, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. I think Anno was trying to convey just what Instrumentality (the merging of all souls and minds) would feel like, and it SEEMED like he did a good job. I didn't understand it, so I assumed it was beyond my understanding, so I assumed it was good. That's probably not the right mindset, though.

Oh. In the first scene, Shinji sneezed into his hand. He just didn't have a tissue. Never mind that you can't hear the sneeze. He's allergic to nudity. Yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

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Melissa G.

at 22:53 on 2010-10-13*Shameless self plug alert!*

A certain Ferretbrainer debuted with her first article by

defending Evangelion

. It was written late at night and not researched (by which I mean I hadn't seen the series in a while) or proofread much, but an article in favor of Eva does exist on this site! ^_^

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Fin

at 19:02 on 2010-10-14Ooh, I remember reading that article a while ago. It made me really interested in checking Eva out, which given my general scepticism of animé is pretty cool. If I like it I'll have to remember to thank you. :D

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Melissa G.

at 19:29 on 2010-10-14

Ooh, I remember reading that article a while ago. It made me really interested in checking Eva out, which given my general scepticism of animé is pretty cool. If I like it I'll have to remember to thank you. :D

:-D

They are actually remaking the series as a bunch of movies. The first two (?) have come out already. I've only seen the first one, but I liked it a lot. I just don't know how much one would like them without having seen the series first. But the animation quality is way better so you could always try watching the first new movie (You are (not) alone, I think it's called) as a taste test type of thing.

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Gamer_2k4 at 22:51 on 2010-10-14I agree that the first movie was pretty much spot on. They left out the stuff that could be left out, played up the stuff that could be played up (most notably the battle against the third Angel), and everything just felt right. (My only complaint, actually, is that in the English dub, Rei is played by a new voice actor. I thought her old one was perfect, and it was a real shame for that voice to be missing.)

However, the second movie just seemed a little...off. It was darn COOL, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching Evangelion without all the stuff that made Evangelion special. Maybe it was just that I was so familiar with the story that there wasn't quite that sense of wonder. You know, the sort of "sure it looks nice, but it's been done already" feeling. Yes, that's ridiculous, because the only reason it's been done before is that it's a freaking remake. I don't know.

Perhaps the thing that really did it was all the seemingly unnecessary changes they made. New pilot, changed surnames, different (and missing) Angels, a LOT of new scenes...It's possible I just felt that the makers were trying to do more and ended up with less.

Anyway, Melissa, you should still check out Rebuild 2. Remember when they had to catch that falling Angel? The weirdly shaped flat brown one with all the eyes? IT'S FREAKING AMAZING IN REBUILD 2. Like I said, the movie is still very, very cool, and the ending actually has traces of EoE in it. It's nuts. Watch it.

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Melissa G.

at 05:06 on 2010-10-15I definitely want to see the second remake movie, I've just been lazy and haven't gotten around to it. I saw the first one in theaters in Japan because I happened to be living there when it came out. Seeing it on the big screen was something special. ^^

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TheMerryMustelid

at 18:37 on 2012-04-21I am a terrible animation snob. When it comes to anime, there isn't much I like outside of Miyazaki, save the studio that did

Tokyo Godfathers

.

What puts me off most anime is it's obsession with mecha, robot girls, and post apocolyptic premises. Yes, Miyazaki sounds the environmental apocalypse gong in practically all of his films, but at least he puts Nature above the usual anime love affair with all things machine and keeps the damn robots to a minimum. How I hate this obsession with the ensouled machine.

On the American side, that includes

Transformers

up to

Wall-E

. I just find it sad that the idea of emoting robots is considered more 'cool' or even more

realistic

than emoting animals.

Say what?!

So teens 'outgrow' cartoons with talking animals while anything with a chrome surface is just friggin' AHW-some, man.

(what's that? what's that I hear in the background? Is it my axe grinding? Why yes, it is!)

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http://kitsune9tailed.livejournal.com/

at 02:57 on 2015-07-28@TheMerryMustelid

Unfortunately, it sounds like you have had a very slim experience with anime and are using it to make a blanket assumption of the whole medium. Remember, animation is just a storytelling method, it's not a story in and of itself. Mecha and machine anime are actually a very small slice of the whole. Unfortunately, this is the slice that is made especially for 6-12 year old boys, and as such, is the primary genre exported to the US (since the American public feels cartoons are generally only for young boys, they freak out over any anime that doesn't settle nicely into that demographic).

But, you can still seek out other genres. You've already seen Miyazaki (almost a genre in and of itself), but you have high-school romance, film noir action/mystery, artsy (you might like Paprika if you haven't seen already, it's from the same studio as Tokyo Godfathers), magical girl, drama, slice-of-life, comedy, etc.

So, I'd definitely sample the waters a bit and find anime in a genre more to your tastes before swearing off altogether :)

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Orion

at 08:03 on 2015-07-28I think you've been mislead by the headline, which really should be "one man's burning hatred for an anime." It's pretty clear from the text that he likes a decent amount of anime and is open to more.

#Ferretbrain #Rude Cyrus #Neon Genesis Evangelion #The End of Evangelion #Anime #Axis of Awful

[marigorbital]

Dumb Ducks in the Water: Part 14

IT’S FINALLY HERE. Three actual years later, but it’s here.

A lot has happened in my life for the past three years and, to make a long excuse short, I was doing a lot of life questioning and dealing with events. And once I got out of my dark cloud, I decided to return to this fic while returning with my own writing projects. So I’m here to finish this fic, though I’m not sure how long it will take (I hope within a year?)--I’m just promising not to go MIA again, is all.

Anyway, some notes on this chapter:

- Listen, I did NOT plan on returning when the 3rd season of Free! came. This is pure coincidence, honestly. That being said, SO MANY THINGS HAVE CHANGED. Side characters have personalities now... Isuzu exists (I’ll have to, at some point, change Yukiko’s name)... People are in college now... Anyway, I want to remind folks that I started this fic in 2014/2015 and I’m trying to stay true to that, so anything that doesn’t match up with the current season is kind of like oh well for me.

- This chapter features tweets. Yeah. I used some website that make them look like they were written in 2009, lol, but we’re just gonna go with it. Also, want to give a shoutout to my best friends, who spent like five hours coming up with the twitter handles.

- Speaking of which, trigger warning possibly: cyber bullying (?) and rumors. Now, I generally try to keep this fic lighthearted, so I am also touching the mentioned subjects in a lighthearted manner for the most part, but I also know that if what happens in this chapter ever happened to me in high school, I would have been mortified. So I tried to respect that and take it a little seriously, which also pertains to the rest of the plot--but this is still Dumb Ducks. No PSAs, just some self-awareness.

- I am a little worried the quality is not up to par with this chapter because it’s been a while and I just wanted to get this chapter over with because I’d rather write other scenes, so I’m super sorry if it’s only sort of funny/cute or too serious. It’ll be better next chapter! (Which hopefully comes out by December?)

Anyway.

Start from the beginning or go to the handy-dandy tag page and pick up where you left off.

Enjoy.

------

It was still Tuesday.

But worse yet, it was time for him to face the swim team.

And to be honest, if you asked Nitori, that was kind of bullshit.

There he stood, observing the pool of sharks in the distance just waiting for him to make a move. A whole lot of damage had been done in the past eight hours since Rin shouted a profound WHAT THE FUCK at Nitori and Momo’s dorm doorway, which immediately stirred up a banana telephone game of epic proportions throughout Samezuka Academy. Pair that with the fact that both of the dimwits were publicly announced to head to the principal’s office together and that something amiss had happened in the cafeteria last night—and boy, oh boy, were the rumors trending the social sphere like something straight out of Nitori’s nightmares. They had gone viral, top of the chart gossip among their peers, who were all too ready to roast the couple into infamy.

It all started with a tweet.

Some rando on the basketball team had overheard Rin catching Nitori and Momotarou getting caught in an explicit position at their dorm, and what with the rumors of Samezuka’s swim team having more tea than a J-drama now stirring, this caught the attention of several bored teenage boys before classes had even started.

The sports news network was simple. Basketball passed the rumors around to get some details. One teammate asked who found out about this and were replied to with the captain caught them. Another asked, which one’s the captain?? And another replied, the guy who cries all the time.

Once the rumors spread over to other sports teams at the academy, the Samezuka Swim Team Thot Conspiracy began. It was the volleyball team who mentioned that both Nitori and Mikoshiba were sent to the principal’s office that same day, as sourced by a classmate in Nitori’s homeroom. A peculiar detail because how did the school find out about what the couple was doing in their bedroom? Did someone rat them out?

Then someone on the tennis team who was also in the culinary club mentioned, I heard they got caught doing shit in the cafeteria.

Cue the controversy.

This made folks on the baseball team wonder just how many times the two had done it and bets were being taken about when the relationship started. Someone on the bicycle team hashtagged the gossip thread as #bombezuka, which set off a flurry of well-intentioned, damage control tweets from students who didn’t want the reputations of Aiichirou Nitori and Momotarou Mikoshiba to get tarnished.

Things like who cares if they’re banging and let them live in PEACE to they’re not gay and who are we even talking about flooded social media circles as the rumor spread outside of Samezuka’s sports clubs and into the general student body. Did things get out of control? Naturally. Details were being made up, people weren’t entirely sure who was involved in the cafeteria fucking, and lavish erotic assumptions about who had the biggest dick energy on the Samezuka swim team were battling it out for all of this side of Japan’s internet to see.

One person assumed the captain (Rin) was angry because he was in a secret love affair with “the silver twink” or something. Another person insisted, Mikoshiba-san has been bragging about being with Nitori-san since last weekend. Another student saw them nuzzling faces on the metro train, claimed they were on a date. Oh, definitely, said another, saw them on the beach making out.

Eventually someone had the nerve to try to confirm some things with the swim team by messaging Toru Iwashimizu, who only responded:

But because Iwashimizu had responded, the #bombezuka thread had popped up on the rest of the swimming team’s Twitter feeds, who righteously had mixed reactions of freaking out to defend their teammates’ honor and freaking out because their suspicions had finally been confirmed.

To no one’s surprise, Nagisa Hazuki caught wind of the frenzy, despite being from another school entirely.

And with Rin Matsuoka’s name mixed in with the rumors, it did not take long before six degrees reached his younger sister Gou, who could not believe what had unfurled throughout the day without any comment by her brother. In a desperate attempt to get him to notice the Twitter storm, she tweeted:

The only silver lining of the tweetastrophe was that at least no one was being inherently meanspirited about the potential lust blossoming between Nitori and Momotarou, which was partially due to the swimming team’s notoriety. On paper, sure, the swim team was the pride and joy of the Samezuka Academy, but that’s not why they were famous among their peers. They were famous because the rest of the school viewed the swim team as a group of guys obsessed with swimming. They did nothing but swim. The whole point of the indoor swimming pool was for the team to practice even during the winter—when they didn’t even have to swim—or whenever it rained.

Barely anyone knew anything about the students in the swim team, so many folks figured they had the stock personalities of a school of fish. All going for the same goal to be a professional athlete and not much else. They were untouchable; their schedules surrounding practices, training camps, and swim meets, with not much room for dating in between. The only other thing people knew about them was their annual tradition of hosting a maid café at their school’s cultural festival, which no one could reasonably explain.

That was it. Listen, people figured if there was ever going to be a scandal coming from the swim team, it was probably going to be about some guy shooting up steroids in the locker room or wearing unapproved swimsuits for better aerodynamics in competitions or maybe even something crazy like the students were all brainwashed and manufactured into disciples of Poseidon himself to carry on the legend of Samezuka forever. They weren’t known for actual drama, not even while people heard about Rin Matsuoka swimming for some other school’s team halfway through a competition for some reason last year (that was weird, but okay) or even this year when some folks whispered about Sousuke Yamazaki having a hurt shoulder and, like, that was sad, but he still swam in the championship, so other students figured it wasn’t so bad. Hell, if you even heard about those two so-called incidents, you had to be real close to the swim team—and the fact of the matter was, what happened in Samezuka’s swim team generally stayed with the swim team.

So, when rumors spread about last year’s swim team captain’s little brother possibly dating this year’s captain’s ex-roommate, who some said might be next year’s captain, too, things got a little bit juicy.

To the student body of the Samezuka Academy, this was like finding out the royals were having incestuous affairs behind the castle doors, which got people thinking: maybe the reason no one had ever heard of the Samezuka swim team dating anyone outside of school was because maybe the swim team was dating… each other.

Yet, while folks were reveling in the swim team’s supposed love triangle plot twists, it was all at the expense of Aiichirou Nitori’s dignity. People were quick to forget that. It was one thing to be teased by his teammates about possibly dating Momotarou, but to witness his reputation get warped into being the promiscuous sexpot darling of the swim team was a level of humiliation Nitori had never known. He read tweet after tweet, seeing his name become the butt of a thousand jokes by students who he had never heard of, let alone spoken to.

It was a wild exchange. There were positive messages at first that called him cute, saying no surprise he’s dating someone, remembering him as the second-year breaststroke swimmer, saying how quiet in school he was, saying how small he was, saying well, if he’s still on the swim team, he must be good, right? They said he must be flexible, then mentioned Momo and Rin and Sousuke and Seijuro and damn near any teammate people saw him with at some point during the school year. They got more invasive, calling him relay boy, and assumed he was experienced, assumed he was bottom, assumed he was easy.

He cried about this, locked his dorm room and wept at his desk as he used his laptop to delete his Twitter and turn all his other social media accounts private before the gossip switched platforms. And once it was done and he could finally use his phone again without notifications stalling the system, Nitori stared at his last text message, one from Sousuke that read, emergency meeting at the pool now.

There stood Aiichirou Nitori at the entrance of the indoor swimming pool, with eyes puffed red and swollen, just like his ego.

“I hate this,” he muttered, his voice hoarse.

No one wore their swimsuits, which was good because like hell was Nitori going to do some goddamn laps after all the bullshit he went through today. As he sauntered down the gym in his hoodie and sweatpants, he looked down at the tile floor and listed the day’s events in his head. He woke up at 5:30 in the morning, broke into the cafeteria to smuggle in paper cranes, got caught, kissed Momo, had a nice breakfast, kissed Momo again but in his underwear so Rin could catch them—and thus the downward spiral set off. Today was the first day he started his first relationship. He should have been happy. It should have been a good day, really. But all Nitori felt was tired.

He was so, so tired.

“Honestly, fuck ‘em,” said Toru Iwashimizu, who sat at the edge of the pool with his feet dipped in the water. “Summer break is coming up anyway. They’re going to forget all about this.”

Most of the swim team sat down on the floor as a huddled group, with a few teammates just off to the side by the pool edge or by the wall. Nitori couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with anyone, knowing what had been rumored, but he saw someone approaching him and stepped back.

“Nitori-senpai?” whispered Momotarou, still in his school uniform. Not because he couldn’t get into their dorm room to change clothes, but because he chose not to.

“Where were you?” asked Nitori. He looked up at Momo then, pointing an incredulous glance at his manic kouhai, and didn’t care if anyone noticed their confrontation.

There was no question that Nitori-senpai looked like a wreck. His eyes were bloodshot, his nose and lips cracked at the irritated dry patches he must have wiped too many times, and his skin dulled from exhaustion. Once he found out about all the rumors, Momo’s first reaction was to go straight to his dorm room and talk with Nitori, but when he heard his senpai’s sobbing and how obviously hurt he was, his next impulse was to stop the madness. For the past twenty minutes, Momotarou went to several sports teams and people whose names he recognized in the tweeting threads and made a small statement to each of them in person. He needed to come up with a better solution, he knew that, but it was all he could think of for now.

He told them, you have hurt someone I care about.

“I was trying to fix this,” he told Nitori, even though he also knew the concept of fixing their shattered reputations might have been impossible by now.

“How could you possibly fix this?”

“Oy, Ai,” interjected Rin, who like the rest of the swim team had been taking note of Nitori’s dejected state. “That’s what we’re all trying to do now. Come up with a way to fix this mess.”

Fix messes, huh, Nitori thought. It seemed like he was always caught in some mess that needed to be fixed, at least for the past four days. Eventually the escalation must stop and crash, that’s what he was learning. He just never thought it would crash on him.

Nitori looked up to evaluate the rest of the team, taking note of their worried yet puzzled expressions as they looked back at him. He saw Minami and Uozumi sitting up against the wall, their lips pursed as if holding back their own commentary until they felt safe to do so. Off to the side, where most of the team sat, lied Nakagawa on his back and yet he averted his attention up at Nitori, then began to sit up when he noticed Nitori staring down at him. Iwashimizu took his feet out of the water and turned toward Nitori, sitting cross-legged and cross-armed. They looked guilty, or maybe Nitori just wanted them to feel that way. He wanted to blame them for their casual teasing as some sort of fuel for the rumor fire, even if he couldn’t prove it as the catalyst to the day’s events.

There was a moment when he wanted to blame Rin for shouting so loud that morning, for getting involved, for being so known at school. It didn’t last long, though, because even with everything that had happened, Nitori couldn’t muster up the nerve to blame his senpai for caring about him and his reckless behavior. As he looked Rin directly in the eyes, Nitori noticed the accountability Rin felt for his part of the scandal, how much of a captain he looked during this crisis—if you could call it that, Nitori wondered, feeling dumb. God, he felt so dumb, standing dead center at an emergency swim team meeting—a meeting—over rumors about him fucking—fucking—Momo.

Over fucking Momo.

When it came to Momo, his anger was complicated. It wasn’t the rage of someone who felt betrayed or even the kind of frustration someone felt because of how stupid their friend was. His fury was much more personal, a fury that made him obsess over every bad mistake he made in the past few days because of Momo’s whims and how any sane person would have said no, would have said the line was being crossed, would have realized they were setting themselves up for a messy catastrophe, but not him. Truth was, as Nitori realized it after sobbing at his desk, that he was, in a way, having fun. And the reason he was mad was because it had been spoiled.

He looked back at Momo and weakly raised his hand with his fingers twitching in frustration, pulling the air as he pulled his thoughts together.

“Nitori-senpai,” said Momo, who stepped closer ready to accept any punishment he was about to be given. “I’ll do whatever it takes to fix this.”

Yeah, he got anxious. Yeah, what they were doing was stupid.

But it was fun.

Nitori got mad because he hated how everyone wanted to rewrite his memories. They weren’t there watching the sunset at the beach with Momo while eating ice cream after a day of dancing and shooting water guns. They weren’t there going into downtown to shop for origami paper and eating lunch while binge-watching anime in their dorm room, just hanging out together and enjoying each other’s company for like twelve hours straight. They weren’t there eating breakfast in a little kitchen shop, planning dates and dodging bashful glances on the morning of their first kiss. They had no idea how much of a big deal it was, how it felt, that first time. All they had was this idea of who they were—just a couple of zany kids, off to the side, doing nothing important, just messing around. Who were they to try to tell Nitori the story of (maybe) the first time he fell in love?

Momo and his big mouth, his stupid ideas, his dumb heart.

Nitori dropped his hand. He took one step forward and plopped his head onto Momo’s chest, letting out a deep sigh. First day of a relationship and he was mad. God, he felt so dumb.

“Is it worth all this?” he said to Momo. “How long are we going to hide this secret?”

This secret, of course, referred to the surprise party they were planning, which had clearly become the bane of their existence. What started out as a prank turned sentimental gesture had wildly spun out of a control as the basis of their public outing for all to jest—and there was still another half of the week to go through before it was even supposed to happen.

Yet, given the rumor situation, when the swim team heard “secret,” a slight misunderstanding prompted folks to speak up.

“Oh, well, you don’t have to hide anymore, Nitori-san,” said Minami from the back, a little preemptively. “We’re totally cool with it.”

“Uh,” Momo stuttered, looking down at Nitori, who merely closed his eyes and sighed further. “That’s not—”

“That’s right, Ai,” said Rin. “We’ll make sure this doesn’t get out of control.”

Sousuke also chimed in with a supportive, “You’re not alone.”

And while it was sweet how quickly the Samezuka Swim Team turned into the Momo-Ai Defense Squad, hearing the phrase you’re not alone had channeled the exact reason Nitori was furious in the first place. He wasn’t alone, was quite prophetically forced to not be alone—when that’s what he wanted. He gripped Momo’s shirt, tugged down at the neckline as his silent call for freedom, and whispered into Momo’s ear, “Fix this.”

As more teammates spoke up to lend their support, it dawned on Momotarou that despite the fact that there was no real plan on how to come out as a couple since they were originally just rolling with the team’s own suspicions, this was probably not it. This was not how anything was supposed to go. He wrapped his arms around Nitori, feeling his senpai give in the embrace and start to choke up. Things had gone too far over nothing and no amount of white lies could change the fact that Momo, frankly, messed up.

“Stop,” he announced, then groaned as he gave in to surrender. “We were just trying to plan a party.”

Huh?

Even Sousuke, who was helping plan the party, wondered why the flustered ginger had snapped out and revealed the party plans. Collectively, no one on the team could tie the connection between Momo and Ai’s relationship outing and a… party? Unless, maybe it was a coming out party? Were they gonna be that elaborate about announcing their relationship? Wouldn’t that be a little much? Was that even a thing?

“What are you talking about?” asked Rin.

But the truth had to come out, and so with Nitori still in his arms, Momo exasperatedly confessed, “It started with the bread, but then you saw the bread, so then we couldn’t use it anymore, but I didn’t want to give up on—well, see, I was trying to plan a surprise because, come on, look at this pool, it’s so big! Like, how am I supposed to be at this school and not put stuff in it, so then why not origami cranes? No one can get mad at origami cranes—because they’re beautiful—and it’s barely a prank if there’s 5000 origami cranes—I mean, that’s practically art—like, honestly, I think it’d even be a good idea for the summer festival, just putting it out there because I’ve been working really hard on making them, you can ask Yamazaki-senpai, who—actually—is the reason we started planning a party. Yeah, ugh, because it was just a really good idea and we couldn’t explain why we are on the beach on top of each other—but nothing happened! We weren’t even thinking about that yet! We were just having a good time and then Yamazaki-senpai was like oh, what are you doing, give me my radio back, you’re planning a party, right? And we were like, yeah, that’s a great idea because it was, so then we had to go through with it, which is why we were always together, but then everyone kept thinking we were together together because we took a shower together and like, yeah, okay, so I checked Nitori-senpai out, but who wouldn’t? Look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t—no, you can’t, because Nitori-senpai is an amazing person who deserves to be checked out and, you know what? I’d do it again, honestly.”

Momo took a moment to breathe.

“Ugh, not that it matters,” Momo continued, his confession getting louder, “because then everybody was getting suspicious because of how much we hung out and Yamazaki-senpai couldn’t take the cranes to the cafeteria, so we had to, and the freaking cafeteria manager came in too early, so we had to run and run and it was sunrise and Nitori-senpai looked beautiful and, like, that was the moment—I couldn’t just not kiss him, especially after last night’s failure, so I did and it was great and today was supposed to be a great day because today—TODAY—was the first time I’ve ever kissed someone and today was supposed to be special because I asked Nitori-senpai out on a date and he said sure and I was,” Momo panted before he calmed down and finished, “I was really happy about that.”

Nitori looked up at Momo, then softly uttered, “Momo-kun…”

“I’m angry, too,” said Momo, meeting Nitori’s gaze. “I ruined our first day.”

The team stood there, stunned.

It was a lot to digest, particularly since Momo gave no context to anything he said, just spouted out a stream of consciousness that only select people could put together in a coherent timeline. But while some team members were trying to figure out the missing details, Rin—who felt he understood most of the Momo speak—hesitantly spoke up and said, “So, you two were planning a party here in the gym?”

Momo and Nitori nodded.

“And you knew about this?” Rin asked, turning around to Sousuke.

“Yup,” he said.

“But you two,” Rin turned back to the frazzled couple, “weren’t dating until… today?”

“Right,” confirmed Momo.

“But I saw… you both… this morning,” said Rin, trying to make sense of the lewd scene he walked in on earlier in the day. Who hooks up on the first morning they’re together?

“We were trying to distract you,” explained Nitori, who stood straight while still in Momo’s embrace and motioned his hands toward their intimate hug. “And it worked really well because we ended up distracting the whole school.”

“I can’t believe this.” Rin threw his head back, trying to be respectful toward his kouhais’ newfound relationship, but also absolutely using every fiber of his being to contain his frustration over the day’s events. “You guys literally test me every goddamn day.”

Sousuke chuckled, covering his mouth with his hand.

“What are you laughing at?” snapped Rin. “This is a disaster!”

“Yeah.”

Still waiting for an answer or a punchline, Rin bucked his shoulders for Sousuke to continue.

To which he shrugged and said, “Oh, nothing. I just think they’re funny.”

“Oh my god,” groaned Rin.

A sense of freedom washed over the two kouhais, who both took in a relieved breath about not having to keep up the lies anymore. They looked at each other then and sort of smirked at each other. Nothing was fixed by confessing about the party and, now that they confirmed they were interested in each other, the dating jokes were probably only just beginning, but it was their truth and they just wanted to live in it. For a moment, neither of them wanted to feel anxious about what was going on around them, even as the team shouted more questions about why were they throwing a party in the first place or why were they showering together if they didn’t like each other then or why would they go to these extremes, dear god, and why weren’t they answering?!

Toru Iwashimizu, who knew very well that today was the first day of their relationship, called out to the team, “Let them have a day, guys. We’ll rag on them later.”

All Momo and Ai wanted was a simple moment together.

-

They lied on Nitori’s bed together on top of the sheets, facing each other with a quiet acceptance. So much chaos in one day, but for a moment, it didn’t matter. They could just enjoy being near each other. Give them a chance to get used to each other. Be with each other.

“I’m sorry I ruined today,” said Momotarou.

Nitori reached his hand out to Momo, twiddling their fingers.

“You didn’t really,” he said, accepting that fact. “You didn’t start those rumors.”

They scooted closer to each other, enough to press their chests together and nuzzle their necks like swans. Let them feel each other’s heartbeats, that’s all they wanted. Just enough to hear that they were still excited about each other even with clothes on, that their breathing was still deep for each other because they were comfortable in each other’s arms, that when it got quiet it was intimate, not awkward. Maybe they couldn’t have a first day, but they could have a first night.

“Can we kiss again?” asked Momo, who gently tucked some fallen bangs away from Nitori’s face in case he said yes and who noticed the faint blush creeping up his senpai’s ears.

“Sure.”

Their noses bumped, as they realized they weren’t sure how to tilt their heads for a kiss in bed. A soft giggle slipped out as Nitori pointed his finger to the right, and they both adjusted their heads for a second try. A sweet kiss for an evening, involving parted lips and heated cheeks.

Just a moment to relive that morning, that’s all they wanted.

Another kiss.

#dumb ducks in the water #momotori #momoai #free! #free! es #free! dive to the future #momotarou mikoshiba #nitori aiichirou #rin matsuoka #sousuke yamazaki #samezuka #ALSO let me know if the tweets don't show up and I'll just put the text back in #I hope you guys like this...

[inknerd]

November Wrap-Up 2018

I’m a little late in posting this, but let’s go!

I have, for the first time, embraced non-fiction november; so the amount of non-fiction I’ve read this month - while perhaps not that many compared to others - is way more than usual.

VERY GOOD LIVES by J.K. ROWLING ★★☆☆☆ | 74 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2015

So, the only reason I read this was because it was in the pile of books I won a couple of months ago, also because it was non-fiction and very short. + So this was a speech Rowling apparently held some time ago at a graduation, and like, it wasn’t bad? - I’m not super invested in J.K. Rowling in general? But I still thought the speech would be more spectacular than it was.

NORSE MYTHOLOGY by NEIL GAIMAN ★★★★☆ | 235 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2017

Man, Norse mythology AND Neil Gaiman? It’s strange I haven’t read this before now. + First of all, I dig the cover. 10/10. This book is also hilarious, while still keeping it serious enough that it feels real. - I can’t say I can come up with anything super important to complain about; but there were certain things I’d hoped would appear in the book that didn’t, and I sort of wished for illustrations?

ZEUS GRANTS STUPID WISHES: A NO-BULLSHIT GUIDE TO WORLD MYTHOLOGY by CORY O’BRIEN and SARAH MELVILLE ★★★☆☆ | 304 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2013

I saw people talking about this on tumblr and desperatly wanted to check it out. Guess how happy I was when my local library had it???? Very happy. + God, it’s so funny! I especially enjoyed the part dedicated to Norse mythology. The illustrations were quite funny, too. - While it was super interesting to read about creation myths and stories from mythologies I haven’t really read about much, not knowing them beforehand made it a little bit harder understanding what was going on under all the jokes.

BAD FEMINIST by ROXANE GAY ★★★☆☆ | 320 pages | 5 days to read | Published 2014

This is a book I didn’t get myself, but I was still really excited to read it! (Mainly because it had sprayed pages that looked like marble) + It was an interesting collection of essays about a subject that’s always interesting to read about. Overall I think they all were good. - To me, there wasn’t really anything I hadn’t about (several times) already, and I sort of hoped it be a more fun/witty read.

MEN EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME by REBECCA SOLNIT ★★★★☆ | 130 pages | 2 days to read | Published 2014

+ Really interesting and meaningful read that at least made me feel like I was realising and understanding things I’ve already read about,because it was written in suck a good way. - I skimmed some essays in this collection - some where definitely more enjoying to read than others.

ILLUMINAE by AMIE KAUFMAN & JAY KRISTOFF ★★★★★ | 602 pages | 2 weeks to read | Published 2015

MAN, I’d heard so much about this book and how many people loved it but I had NOT expected to love it as much as I did! One of the best books I read this year, definitely. + The epistolary style doesn’t often do it for me, but I wasn’t bothered by it this time at all! I really liked the artistic choices they made to present the different types of text and especially the way they made the pages from the AI’s perspective. This book was also funny and imaginative while also being subtly terrifying the whole time. It’s a war-love-mystery story in space and also zombies and it works. - Nothing big I can think of. Looking forward to the sequel.

SAMLADE DIKTER by EDITH SÖDERGRAN ★★★★☆ | 187 pages | 2 weeks to read | Published 2014 (1949)

I’ve been thinking I need to read more poetry in Swedish and I already knew I would probably like Södergran’s poems, so yeah. + They are written so beautifully and some of them really stand out to me. I’ve read poems like Vierge moderne and Violetta skymmningar... before, but it was nice reading even more. - There were parts - or years - of the book that I wasn’t at all interested in, while some really stood out to me.

BYGONE BADASS BROADS by MACKENZI LEE ★★★★★ | 176 pages | 9 days to read | Published 2018

+ I actually loved this way more than I thought I would? The real reason why I gave it five stars rather than four is that the illustrations and the colours were just SO beautiful??? Like, everything just looked great it made the reading experience even better. - I can’t really think of anything obvious to complain about. The writing in this book is supposed to be witty and stuff, so if you’re looking for a more “objective” book about women in history this is not for you, but it was still fun to read.

NÄR HUNDARNA KOMMER by JESSICA SHIEFAUER ★★☆☆☆ | 301 pages | 3 days to read | Published 2015

So this is a book I read with the class where I have my teacher’s practice. Normally, I probably wouldn’t have picked this book up ‘cause it’s not really my style, but now I had to read it and it wasn’t BAD...more like OK. + Shiefauer is a good writer in general - she has good language and writes different perspectives good. The most interesting thing about this book is that it’s sort of based on a real-life crime that happened in Sweden some time ago. - idk, I didn’t really care much for the characters and the main romance had me very frustrated (but I think that was the point?), and while it might be a good book to read in class with sixteen-year-olds it’s not something I would read by myself.

MY LADY JANE by CYNTHIA HAND, BRODI ASHTON & JODI MEADOWS ★★★★☆ | 491 pages | 4 days to read | Published 2016

Ahh, I finally got to read this! I’d looked forward to reading this so much and after asking my kind library bought it in! + It’s just here for a good time, you know? I mean, it’s a story about a queen that sat on the throne for a couple of days, a king that’s deathly ill, and a guy that turns into a horse every day - and it like...works? I’m amazed. The story was fun and easy to follow. - I felt like some things were just unnecessary? Like, I understood why they had to do some things but meh. It’s also hard to take this book seriously, but that’s not really overly negative. Am looking forward to read My Plain Jane.

MEN WHO HATE WOMEN AND THE WOMEN WHO LOVE THEM by SUSAN FORWARD ★★★★☆ | 301 pages | 1 day to read | Published 1986

I have no idea why I started to read this. I saw someone recommending it in a tumblr post together with a link to the ebook and went like “oh” and read during the entire day. + It’s very easy to read while still keeping it professional. It was easy to see Forward’s reasoning and the stories she had about women stuck in certain types of marriages were so...sad to read? I also liked most of the conclusions she had. Overall a very interesting book to read. - I didn’t notice at first but by the ending I realised some things were sort of dated (this was released in 86, so not that strange) and then there were other stuff I sort of stopped at but then thought maybe it’s a cultural difference? Not really big things.

RESTORE ME by TAHEREH MAFI ★★★☆☆ | 400 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2018

MAN, I wanted to like this book. I couldn’t believe when I heard the Shatter Me-trilogy would get another set of books. I was so happy! But...meh. + I feel like I don’t anything specific to put here but like the book is still FINE. Juliette’s powers are still cool, more ‘interesting’ characters gets introduced and the language is still Tahereh Mafi, you know? - BUT I honestly think I got so frustrated by the characters because I had let this series go. I read the third book, was satisfied by the ending and now I sort of have to wake up the feelings for the characters that I used to have. But they are not there and I just...found myself incredibly frustrated by all the characters. ALL OF THEM. Also some plot-point just feel so...B. Just give me a book with Juliette destroying stuff that’s what I want.

MOXIE by JENNIFER MATHIEU ★★★★☆ | 340 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2017

Wasn’t planning to read this. I saw it at the library one day and just picked it up and started reading. + Very entertaining and frustrating at the same time. I think the idea of Moxie was pretty cool and they came up with inventive ways to fight back; like drawing stars and hearts on their hands to show support, or take on bathrobes to protest against the school’s sexist dress codes. A cool book. - I didn’t care much for the romance - Like I understand why it was in there and it gave a really interesting perspective of certain things, but it would have been just as good if they’d just been friends, you know?

GIRLS OF PAPER AND FIRE by NATASHA NGAN ★★★☆☆ | 336 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2018

I got this beautiful book in a fairyloot box and was so excited to read it! Sadly, some things just wasn’t as good as I’d hoped. + Listen, the worldbuilding in this? Cool. Awesome. I’m really fascinated by the country’s history, religion and myths, and the different castes and different demons that exists in this world. It also has a f/f main pairing, and honestly? I’m here for that. - I’m not kidding when I say that while I was reading I thought “I’m probably going to give this like four stars” and probably would have if I didn’t hate the ending as much as I did. It felt rushed, unrealistic and also just crushed some of the things I’d thought would happen because I was so certain they were hinting at certain stuff during the entirety of the book. But no, didn’t happen. Okay.

BEAUTIFUL DARKNESS by FABIEN VEHLMANN & KERASCOËT ★★★★☆ | 94 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2009

A graphic novel I read while waiting in the library. It was surprisingly good! + So weird, but also so entertaining, horrifying, and fun to read? I love the artstyle - which manages to be cute but still manages to look really creepy when it’s supposed to. - Sometimes I struggled with what this graphic novel actually tried to say. And why did they kill the badass warrior-lesbian with a scissor-sword OFF-SCREEN!?

#reading wrap-up #reading wrap-up: november 2018 #julia reads #books #book review #my post

[mubal4]

Life Lessons – From Time on the Trails

 Back in October, Halloween to be exact 😊, I wrote this blog on life lessons I learned from wrestling.  Around that same time, I had two other ideas in mind about sharing life lessons I’ve been fortunate to learn from other moments in my life.  They have both been sitting in my notes to get to and today, as I had one of those quite moments all to myself, while reading, I was reminded about one of those items.  I believe the title is spot on but the content will share thoughts about running, specifically on trails and in ultramarathons, but just getting out, into nature, in the mountains, and how, what’ve been able to glean has carried with me over the last several years.  As I am thinking about how this will go, my mind shifts to timing really; so, let’s begin with running in general.  That started when I was in middle school probably.  Well, let’s talk about really running though because in youth sports, football & wrestling specifically, we ran to get in shape and stay in shape.  It was probably around 8th grade where I started running, almost daily, outside of practices.  That process continued through high school and college with the same purpose in mind, get in shape/stay in shape for wrestling.  I can probably say for about 14 years following college graduation, full transparency, I ran 3-5 times per week just so I can eat what I want and drink a lot of beer 😊.  Just being honest here.  Yes, I did enjoy running and staying in shape and there were some moments, usually a meal a day, that I stuffed some salads in my head but I was likely managing 20-25 miles per week, usually on a treadmill at a gym, running to stay in shape and eat/drink as I wished. 😊  Still funny to think back about that time.  I was in my 20’s/early 30’s, living as if I had not many responsibilities, then got married and things got somewhat real right!  My running/lifting continued but at this point, not with much purpose other than to still stay in shape and eat & drink beer.

 It was right around winter of 2010-2011 where, for some reason, I decided to sign up for a Tough Mudder.  I can’t remember why I did it; maybe my boss/friend at the time gave me the idea, but I though that running 13-ish miles and doing a bunch of obstacles in the woods, in the snow, would be cool.  So, I started training for it and my typical 5-8 miles runs when to 10-13-mile runs.  This was going to be the furthest I had run since high school cross country.  This training led me from Tough Mudders to the Spartan Death Races and those 10 or so mile runs grew to 15-20-mile runs.  Up until this point however, most of those runs, sadly to say, were on treadmills.  Maybe a couple of times a month I would get out on the roads but that was it.  In the summer of 2011, because of what we thought was necessary to compete in these races, I felt the mountains was where I needed to be.  Living in the suburbs of Philly at that time I thought I was screwed.  However, with a little Google search I found a bunch of trails 3 miles from our house and, that magical place where this whole trail running journey began, The Appalachian Trail, about an hour drive away. From June 2011 through June of 2018, for seven years, the Wissahickon Trail and Appalachian Trail served as a training ground for me and where I started to completely fall in love with being out on single track trails, climbing, hiking, and running hours on end.  

 Here is where the timing aspect comes into play and I believe had a significant role on the impact trail running has had in my life the last decade.  See, right around the end of 2009, beginning of 2010, as I’ve shared in this blog many times, I realized I needed to be better.  I had to make a change, to be a better husband, father, and human being; for my wife, my girls, and everyone that I am blessed to connect with.  It is a long story, but I had a mission and was fortunate to have the awareness to start on this journey that will continue throughout my life. What were those changes? At that point I had no idea other than I needed to do shit differently; not everything, but a lot.  So I began getting out of my comfort zone and doing the tough stuff that I tried to avoid in the past; essentially, I did the stuff that I didn’t like to do at times I didn’t want to do them.  Nothing magical!!  What is ironic, getting out on a mountain for several hours in extreme cold, or burning heat, with things hurting and my not wanting to be there, became something I fell in love what.  Kinda sick and twisted but my point in sharing that backdrop is that running, and specifically to me, trail running became incredibly instrumental in my healing, cleansing, transformational process.  Sure, there are many times today that I don’t love it, I don’t want to go do it, it is hot/cold…. insert complaint here!!! But, once I step onto that trail, I hear my feet it that dirt, my lungs are hurting from a climb and my quads are burning, then you hit that peak and are able to look around at the beauty; everything stops!!  And, when you are finished there is that sense of gratification!

 I first started realizing this in 2012 and it has become addictive.  There were times back then, and still today, where I am not able to get out on the trails for a couple of days and I kinda go through a withdrawal.  It is wonderful and weird at the same time.  In 2015 I decided, with the help of someone particular 😊, to do my first ultra-marathon; a 50K in Reading PA.  I had no idea what to be in store for and didn’t know what to expect. I felt that being able to run for 31 miles in the woods and mountains would be awesome but also hard as hell; and this race didn’t disappoint in those areas.  What I didn’t realize was the culture of this sport, which again, has become incredibly addicting.  The people are awesome!  Over the last 5 years I have been fortunate to GET to race a bunch of ultra-marathons, as well as, train, and just run/hike in a bunch of ultra-marathons in some pretty epic locations.  Sure, there are times when I dread heading out because it is going to be a trail/course that I’ve done countless times.  Those first couple of miles you are thinking that this sucks, I got shit to do, I don’t feel like doing this, my knee feels wonky; all sorts of shit brews up in your mind.  Then you hit that first climb and all those thoughts subside and you are focused on climbing.  Then you get to the top & you breath it all in.  Epic!!  There are those other times, where you just go with no expectation, no particular destination, no specific trail, you just run.  Those are the best ones and that is so awesome about running; you don’t need much to do it; slap on a pair of shorts, a shirt, socks, shoes, and go…. some folks don’t even wear shoes 😊.  But there is a lesson, LET GO OF EXPECTATIONS.  

 I have learned, whether it is a training run or a race, when I don’t have an expectation and just set out to enjoy the day, have gratitude that I GET to do this, that is when it is most fulfilling. That is something that is so important in life because it works the same way.  When I wake up in the morning, and it is rare to be honest, that I don’t have my mind racing on what I “need” to do today or what “has” to get done; and my attention reverts to gratitude to be up and moving and all the things I “GET” to experience today; those are the best days.  IT IS HARD AS F#%& to have that outlook just some of the time; I don’t know anyone that has it every day.  It is a constant battle but so fulfilling when it happens!  That’s the beauty of this process that keeps unfolding and that we get to continue learning how to be better, do things different, and grow.  I’ve learned that if you just keep going, you will eventually get to where you want to go.  This is just perseverance and not giving up.  When it means something to you, when you have desire to finish that run, race, business venture, painting, whatever it is, if you just keep moving forward and work a little each day on it, eventually you will get it done. Like running 100 miles, it is one step at a time………or, like that popular saying, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.  I’ve been caught, like so many others, when tackling something big, by getting lost in the enormity of it all.  I don’t think anything is that big and anything is attainable; one step at a time.  Sure, it gets lost, a lot, and I tend to not be a very patient person a times 😊 (not comments Robin, Alaina, Isabella 😊).  But trail running has taught me more patience, perseverance, and just how much we, us, as human being, how much we can take.  There are so many times in training and races, and in everyday life too, where I JUST DON’T WANT TO DO IT!! Or, I just want to stop. All the fear, uncertainty, and doubt seeps in and you begin questioning the meaning.  How far do I have to go? My knees, quads, feet, etc. hurt.  I am tired.  It’s too hard.  What the hell am I doing this?  All these come into our mind no matter what mission we may be on.  But there are so many times we continue to move forward, left foot, right foot.  We get frustrated, angry, and disappointed maybe because in that hour, day, or year; we haven’t gotten to be where we expected to be in that period.  Let go of those expectations because they are all arbitrary timelines, we set for ourselves and in reality, they are bullshit.  It really means nothing.  I get caught up when a race is coming up in “runner math.” Thinking about pace, distance, time, and what I think would be a cool time to finish running this particular distance in.  “Well if I can do this pace for this long and factor in the climbs, downhills, yada, yada, yada……” It doesn’t mean anything really, but, if I can get across that finish line healthy, grateful, with great people I’ve connected with, I have a story to tell. Don’t get me wrong, I get wanting to finish a race in a certain place or time, but that is that person’s mission.  Not mine and the funny thing is, whether you finish a race 1st, 20th, 150th, or last – all the dark moments and the questions outlined above still come up.  That is the great thing about this sport, about trail running, yeah there are times that differentiate you but the experiences you realize can be incredibly similar.  It is all what you want to get out of it and when you let go of those expectations, at least in my experience, is when it is most fulfilling.  

 Many times, out, again, race or run, I seem to learn something new about me, my surroundings, my body, my life.  The thoughts that come up when you are alone on a trail in the middle of nowhere can be mind-blowing, sometimes scary, sometimes incredibly weird. I’ve thought about shit from 30 years ago and had no idea how that thought came into my head.  At that point is when you catch a toe and fall on your face 😊, good times right there.  I am not solving the world’s problems when I am out there, but I do have instances where I gain perspective on situations.  Maybe I could have handled a situation with our family or at work differently.  I could have used different language or word choices when having that conversation.  A blog or podcast idea or a different way to attack our finances or business ventures next week? Could be as easy as what I think we should all do for dinner this week.  Or, the one’s that I particularly enjoy, you think about that one person that you haven’t connected with in a while, stop, snap a picture and send them a text saying, “just thinking about you.”

 My intent is not to inspire you to start running. I wanted to share this because I was fortunate to find something that I am passionate about, that positively impacts my journey, mission, my health, and helps me cleanse and heal.  For me it just so happens to be trail running. Most importantly, from my perspective, it is directly related to our life’s journey.  I can also say that I’ve seen how this sport has impacted many in the same manner.  I don’t know what “that thing” is for you that will enable your healing and keep you moving on your journey.  My hope is that we all have the ability and awareness to find it and the courage to take the first step to implement it.

 “Those destined for greatness must walk alone in the desert.” – Winston Churchill

#PAAZRNR PAtrailrunning AZtrailrunning mountainhealing trailhealing getoutthere

[jfleurcannon]

oh fuck. a hysterectomy story.

just so i don't have to go through explaining. please visit links and read up if you are interested, i simplified it AF and wiki'd the source, otherwise, this is legit not the place for you. i talk about things, life, whatnot, and my life is fucking bullshit sometimes.

endometriosis

adenomysosis

fibromyalgia - i'm not even gonna get into this one. because, as the doctor who diagnosed me said, 'not many people believe in this one, so maybe don't say that you have it out loud.' but chalk that guy up for chronic musculoskeletal & joint pain in my wrists, arms, shoulders, back, butt, and knees. but 🤫.

i'm sure y'all know wtf depression and anxiety are, i see those #bellletstalk tags. it's been with me for years, since i guess the chronic pain started. i got my period and wondered why the fuck i was the only one who got sick, like sick. fainting, knocking over a mannequin display at the eddie bauer at fairview mall (you're welcome, sisters), passing out at school and having to be carried out by julie (thank you, sister), missing so many activities and things i wanted to do but couldn't. having 'jenn's always sick anyways' thrown in my face by a childhood friend, being made to feel bad about pain and not wanting to be in the mood, having to cancel plans last minute because of pending pain, side effects from meds i'm taking that make me sick, but not quite as sick as the original problem - so i deal. like i deal with it all. [like a warrior. i have held my pain like the damn death star. my uterus is the death star. except that time i carried and birthed a baby, and then it was fucking AWESOME!] typically it's bottom shelf paper bag internalized. and for years my solution was to therapy it out, or shove the feels down hard so i developed massive GI issues, or maybe that is the endo, who the fuck knows. fast forward years of therapy and a shit ton of medication and three suicide attempts, the final one being in 2007. i was hospitalized for the final attempt at sunnybrook's mental health ward. the F ward, i shit you not. i felt like girl intrurrupted, but there was no winona or angelina. there was a pam and a joan. no padded room, but i couldn't leave to go outside for the first week. that was fucked up.

pain is pain, and although i am a fan of ja-rule, pain has never equaled love to me. it has only left me with an overwhelming hate for parts of my life, that were always plagued by illness, pain, and brewing depressive state. i would get sick for long, long periods of time and there would be no reason for it. had i known then what i had (endo, adeno, fibro, MFGT's) it would have made sense. two of the three are auto-immune diseases. i get a cold, and i really get it. i lose my voice, and it's gone for months.

the only fast thing i've done is labour and delivery. it might seem strange to put the birth of my child in the pain category, however the story will explain why in a mo. i arrived at the hospital at 10am at 2cm dilated, upon exam by a nurse i pushed and my water broke, i was put in a wheelchair and brought to wait for a L&D room, outside the exam room and in the tiny hallway, there my insides tore open, quite literally, nerve damage, and rapid labour. i screamed and screamed and was told to wait while they got things ready. i mean. i thought i was dying. why was this happening so fast? my husband came back up as i was being brought into the room (i think, some details are fuzzy). i was examined by a doctor and was at 10cm. it hadn't been more than 10 minutes since i had arrived. i remember things moving too quickly for me and i was very panicked that something was wrong. i remember being told the boy's heartbeat was becoming compromised and we needed to get him out. options included a C-section, forceps, or the vacuum. all terrified me as i literally was without ANY pain management. we opted for the vacuum and they offered me laughing gas as a super sad knife-in-the-back compromise. i took it, but the hell? AT THAT VERY MOMENT I WANTED THE SWEET, SWEET NECTAR OF THE ALL POWERFUL EPIDURAL! four pushes with the vacuum on and the boy was born, at 10:35am. in 35 minutes i arrived at the hospital had my baby, like whatevs, and held him while being stitched up. naturally there were stitches. i can't even with that pain. OMG. people say you won't remember the labour pain and that 'it'll just go away when you see your perfect baby', you know what? they lied to your face, or they had an epidural, or they didn't experience rapid labour. 2-10 in 5 minutes. they did not teach me that in L&D class. i wanted ice chips, and the tub, and the playlist of music, and maybe a pelvic roll or two on the ball, but no, miles wanted his entrance to be dramatic and fast and it was nothing less than that.

any and all of the things i've battled have stayed with me like wearing a cloak, all day everyday i feel pain, whether it's physical, mental, emotional, or otherwise, i feel it. i can't see it but i fucking feel it. with diagnosis always come the waiting game of endless specialists, tests, interventions by way of oral medication, physical therapy, walking epidurals, suppositories in my ass or vag, chiropractor visits, along with visits to acupuncture, massage, GP, GYNE, and psychologists.

after a thirty year battle, and almost one year of keeping this in my drafts folder, i finally have felt an end to my endometriosis and adenomyosis pain. a hysterectomy and final excision of endo from nerve clusters fused together because of it, i can breathe. i can breathe clearly and without a constant fear of nausea, hot flashes, bizarre mood swings because of the menopausal state the IUD was causing, and chronic pelvic/back/low abdomen/bowel pain. i still have a 44 year old body and permanent nerve damage from rapid labour and negligence from a past surgeon, but holy hot hell it's nice to not want to punch people in the face for asking you how you feel. i know that's not a normal reaction to that question. i get that. however, as someone who has suffered from chronic pain her whole adult life, it is the hardest question to answer honestly. how you feel sometimes is like shit, or crap, or a god damn mess, or you just don't want to talk, especially to that person but you can't say it. so you answer, 'fine', 'great', or 'living the dream'. is the honest answer the best answer? it may not be, but it's the one with the least amount of follow up questions or lengthy conversation to follow. i love things, and flowers, and coffee, and white wine, and my man friend, and my kid, and my family, and a handful of others - but for the most part i would honestly prefer not to talk to anyone about anything. it's all the same conversation anyway. and i'm tired. tired of listening. tired of talking/hearing my own voice. tired of noise. in need of quiet and calm. my one year surgery anniversary is coming up and i'm looking forward to it. i have never looked forward to a post surgery anything because those have always led to more surgeries. but the doctor from brazil with the 'small hands' did the job this time. removed the death star and its accompanying bullshit organs (tubes and cervix) and we are good to go now. she works again, without pain 😉

surgeries for endometriosis & adenomyosis

2006 - laser laparoscopic discovery of endo

2009 - stage IV endo excision via laparoscopy

2015 - laser laparoscopic removal of endo & appendectomy

2016 - endo excision via laparoscopy

2019 - full hysterectomy (minus ovaries) and extensive endo excision on nerve clusters fused together

#hysterectomy #endometriosis #adenomyosis #fibromyalgia #depression #anxiety #rapid labour

[brian-wellson]

An Open Letter ((OoC))

Hello, awesome people of Wyrmrest Accord! I felt compelled to write this because of, well, you’ll see!

I. A bit of background.

I first started playing WoW as a PvE’er (January 2009), and as an RP’er just a touch over two years ago (May 2015). It’s true… I am a Wrath baby, one nurtured on thottbot.com (and I ignored all advice given by icyveins.com). In July 2010, I developed a neurological disorder, one which has rendered me in constant pain and unable to sleep much past four hours a night, even under sedation, ever since. Needless to say, I had/have plenty of time on my hands. Once I maxed out at 80, achieved Explorer, and became a Loremaster, I decided to spend my time as a ‘raider’.

My feats were truly epic. Indeed, my guildmates had given me the affectionate nickname ‘Dr. Death’ – partially due to the fact that I have a Ph.D., but mostly because I was a horrible raider. Every pull? Dead. To this day, I still avoid ICC because Lord Marrowgar lives there. That bastard, he owned me. I can hear the redolent echoes of “Bonestorm!” quite clearly, and usually that echo’s antecedent is the death rattle of a human male.

Make no mistake, I held this title – Worst. Raider. Ever.

The friends I made in that guild, we’re still friends today, 7 years later. I even met one of them at BlizzCon 2015. That moment was amazing. We got drunk in the hotel room he was splitting with his girlfriend (and they’re still together to this day!), and laughed about the time our tank had finished off Professor Putricide, by herself, with 10% health remaining. I’ll never forget the thrill of that kill, nor the way we cheered once it was over.

Even though we are no longer in the same guild or even on the same server, we have celebrated real births, supported each other through real deaths, and rejoiced in real marriages – all online. Back when my liver was on the verge of failure, I had lost 60 pounds, and my kidney function was in the toilet, those former guildmates were the people who kept in contact with me the most. I’ve since recovered, but will forever be grateful to them. They cared, and they still do.

II. Why it matters.

I suppose what I am trying to say is the people with whom I align myself, they’re my friends for life, and I would do anything for them. (Well, everything except move a dead body, but even then there are three people who I would assist, if necessary.) Such unwavering loyalty has led to my being called a lapdog or yes-man; yet, unlike such people, I will often disagree with my friends, and tell them directly. And then we move on, send each other aesthetically incongruent covers of truly awful songs, and revel in gifs of cute pets doing silly things.

Therefore, when I see an anonymous call out leveled at someone who is very dear to me – someone who has been a far better friend than she probably knows – I get irritated. I get defensive. When compounded with the fact that someone has besmirched the quality of our writing, I am vexed that much more. To be sure, constructive criticism is good and we welcome it; anonymous insults, however, can be damaging and help no one.

III. Let’s talk about RP.

My RP partner and co-conspirator, Quai, and I worked toward resolving a plot for close to two years. We were faced with some very real logistical issues. There were more moving pieces than I think either of us had anticipated. Blackbay prides itself on its gritty realism, so how does RP resurrection even work? The short answer is, we did something different. The long answer is just that – long – and largely beside the point anyhow. The key takeaway is that we had to work within the confines of the game, in addition to our own harsh and self-imposed restrictions. To criticize us for being ‘too slow’ in pacing… well, I am sorry to hear that someone has perceived it this way, but I must respectfully disagree. Killing off a character is a big deal, but bringing one back? – even more so. The density and amount of detail necessary to craft something remotely believable in our gritty take of the Warcraft universe was quite high.

Quai and I – as well as our DM, Monette – are always pushing each other to think harder, do more, work faster, and to project things ever further out. To be clear: length does not equal quality – an axiom not only applicable to the line level, but also that of a plot or story arc. Does this mean every plot we craft is two years long? Of course not, for that would be preposterous. Does this mean that everything from one-offs to a years-long long plot or story arc feeds into an even bigger narrative? You bet it does. Admittedly, sometimes our stories flop, and sometimes threads are left hanging. More often than not, these issues arise because communication had broken down somewhere. Do we take lessons from such moments? Yes, absolutely.

While I understand and most certainly empathize with the point of view that new characters may have initial confusion during a long-term story arc, I present this challenge – if you don’t know what’s going on, ask the writer, ask the DM, ask the GM … hell, ask all three. I can guarantee that the people running the story would be more than happy to talk about it with you, either OoC or IC. We – all writers – love to talk about our babies. If you don’t know why someone needs to recover ‘X-object’, ask them: “Why the hell are we risking life and limb for X-object, when I don’t even know what X-object is or does?” (Perhaps with a bit more tact…) The reply could be OoC, or it could be IC, or it could be a little of both. Irrespective of the encounter type, the fact remains that it is always within your power – and I would say it is your imperative – to understand your peers’ and storytellers’ motivations.

Ultimately, RP is about enjoying oneself. If something is unclear, ask … because, you know what? You will enjoy yourself far more if you understand what is occurring, for understanding leads to personal investiture. This said, is asking difficult? It can be, but its rewards vastly outweigh the probability of being miserable… and this is coming from one of the most insecure RPers out there. Heck, there are times I am reticent to ask questions, so I understand this more than you might think.

More than anything, RP is about forming connections with characters and people, and granting those connections and relationships the opportunity to flourish.

Think of RP like wine. The best wine comes from the most carefully cultivated terroir. Even then, some of it is sour, or just doesn’t sit right with us. This is ok. Not all varietals are meant for all people. Some people can’t stand a Châteauneuf-du-Pape and only drink moscato (because they’re weird, teehee!); others want to vomit when they smell the sticky sweet of moscato, yet salivate at the mere thought of a well-blended meritage. And, once more, this is ok – that is why there are so many different varietals!

IV. A parting thought.

When I say that I’m lucky to be RPing with the people in my circle, it’s not bullshit – I mean it. These people, my friends and partners and peers, they impel me to work toward greater clarity, work harder, and be more creative. And these things, to me, are their own rewards.

Perhaps most importantly, those in my circle, and even those with whom I have yet not had contact, teach me how to be a better friend, peer, and collaborator.

Please. Before you complain about the length of a story or plot arc, the quality of the GM or DM or writer running it, or the general guidelines of a guild of which you are not part – I beseech you. Reach out. Ask what is happening, or why certain restrictions exist. Find your way out of the rabbit hole. Encourage interpersonal skills. Be kind & respectful. And, as always, write with heart, presence of mind, and with the cognizance that other people are involved aside from yourself. The decisions you make about your characters – IC & OoC – impact the way both you and your character will be perceived.

We are here for each other.

Let’s write a story.

(( Shout outs to my main RP partner and co-conspirator, @quai-mason; the fantastic people in [ @blackbay-wra ]: @monettemason, @juniper-rose-blower, @killerkyara, @alastar-wyatt; so many other people who I admire: @thalsianiii, @risrielthron, @adhelin, @manduhs-things, @patiencekindnesscourage; and all those who escape my exhausted mind at the moment. I adore you for who you are, and what you bring to the game. ))

#OoC #Author #RP thoughts #WRA #Wyrmrest Accord

[kacebox]

Shipping Just Sucks For Me

I’m going to share with you all here on Tumblr a little bit of frustration I have when it comes to enjoying whatever fictional dramas I do.  Be they TV shows or some film franchise, it always seems to be the same.

I didn’t know the term “shipping” even existed until about Summer 2004 when I started frequenting some L Word message boards.  It was a bit of internet language I wasn’t familiar with.  From there I was introduced to concepts like ship names, names based on whatever pairings, romantically or otherwise from some show or movie.  I remember an early favorite of mine was a friendship based one from TLW called AlShaDane, based on a trio of friends, Alice Pieszecki, Shane MacCutcheon, and Dana Fairbanks.  There was Dana/Lara and when that fell through, there was Alice/Dana aka Danish.

For TLW, the big one and the one that still persists to something else I was introduced to in 2004, FanFic was TiBette, Bette/Tina.  That was the first truly fierce, “ride or die” ship fandom I can recall and it’s still rather fierce.

Eventually I learned what I could of the terminology so I could apply it to my own fandom.  The L Word aka TLW was important in teaching me a lot of stuff I wasn’t familiar with, but also teaching something else important and that’s shipping disappointment, also fandom disappointment.

TLW prepared me to deal with a lot of bullshit I’ve noticed when it comes to the fandoms I represent.  Dana Fairbanks was my favorite character.  She had the most intriguing story overall as it concerned the main characters.  Naturally, she��s the one the writers decided to kill off in Season 3 while she was already in the middle of a gripping enough storyline involving herself, Alice, and Lara.  I had also become a fan of the Shane/Carmen pairing and of course that died at the end of Season 3.

I remember writing the first (and only successful) fanfic based on the trauma that I and some other fans had dealt with as a result of that season.  I’ve tried here and there to write some stuff since, but I’m fucking horrible at writing.

By the time TLW ended in 2009, it felt like a mercy killing and it would be a while before I was able to watch anything though I should point out I did watch FlashForward for the freak show effect of the plot.

2013 was when I finally started opening back up to watching any shows again, starting with Agents of SHIELD and The Blacklist.  Eventually I would catch up on some other shows I eventually became interested.  In 2015, Supergirl would burst on the scene and that show quickly went from curiosity to my favorite show, the reason why episodic TV was worth it.  I became a big fan of the Danvers sisters and how they dealt with the growing pains of Kara growing into being a superhero and the support and love from Alex who had always been there for her since Kara showed up at the Danvers’ doorstep.

Unfortunately, Supergirl had to deal with CBS during Season 1, but thankfully the show as able to move over to the CW where I figured things might open up.  I admit, my initial reaction to Maggie showing up had me at “Huh?”  Then I remembered, it probably wasn’t likely Maggie was gonna show up on Gotham and date the future Batwoman who herself has yet to appear on that show.

Then Season 2 came along and Alex and Maggie started interacting.  There was an instant chemistry to it.  Sanvers wasn’t like Olicity where I figured “Yeah I like it, but understand Oliver’s got that “destined loner” thing going against him (see: MacCutcheon, Shane).  Like I said, TLW prepared me for this shit.

Sure there’s Barry/Iris, but that’s cheating as OF COURSE they’re supposed to be together.  Then Sanvers happened.  Cue the Sigma song with Rita Ora, “Coming Home” and that first kiss.  It was Dana/Lara all over again for me.  I remember how that one ended.  Again, that show prepared me.

Yet still, here we are in 2017 and this amazing story with an amazing pairing of characters featuring actors with chemistry and empathy for the situation their characters are in yet we’re on the verge of the oil slick into the ravine, assuming it’s not there already.

Disappointment is disappointment and sure a good fanfic doesn’t hurt when it comes to distractions, but that can only get so far.  Heck at one point last year I attempted (and failed) to write some story where not only were Jessica Jones and Felicity Smoak were a couple, but Supergirl and Quake were also one, because just the idea of that impossible pairing was too good to pass up without at least giving it a shot.

Again though, it’s fanfic.  Anything may go there, but the writers of the official stuff still helm the controls.  Creative and the network dictate what they can with the official narrative and there’s not much we can do about it.  Based on my avatar as of this writing, it’s apparent that I’m a big Holtzbert fan as well, based on Jillian Holtzmann and Erin Gilbert from Ghostbusters (2016), my favorite of the Gb films.  Sadly, I don’t think that will ever be successfully addressed either in a sequel that might not ever happen to the comic adaptation that currently gets to form the narrative, courtesy of IDW Publishing.

Which brings me back to Sanvers.  Here’s what the current state of Supergirl has done to me.  Keep in mind, this is still my favorite show, but I’ve gone from watching the show as it airs to DVR’ing it for later to delaying watching it and the other shows I’m into.  I’m currently 2 weeks behind and this Monday it might be 3.  I’m still keeping up thanks to social media, but it sure does make me feel apprehensive about hitting Play.

Everything is veering towards an inevitable breakup and I’m none too pleased about this.  I get that Floriana Lima, who plays Maggie is up for checking out some other gigs while she can and that’s fine.  I get that Creative is more interested in teasing the Supercorp (Kara/Lena) fans while shoehorning Karamel (Kara/Mon-El) in even when they’re not together.

Don’t get me wrong Karamelers, I’m not anti-Karamel necessarily.  I think they’re good together.  It’s just not something I feel strongly about either way.  I love that Team Karamel is ride or die for their favorite couple.  I dig that.  I also dig Team Supercorp and they’re undying faith in a concept no doubt feel should be given a chance.  I know that feeling well.  Unfortunately, I also know what it’s like to be disappointed at such a chance not being taken.

I don’t like feeling strongly about ships.  Again, I learned from TLW that’s a quick access point to resentment toward strangers trying to write their narrative.  With the exception of some likes or whatnot on social media I’ve tried keeping all this in check, but I admit it’s getting harder to do that.  There’s this level of bile building up, a level that I haven’t felt since Losing the Light on March 12, 2006.  Trust me when I say I was not particularly pleasant that night.

If/when the big Sanvers breakup happens on Sg, I’ll likely find out about it before I get around to watching it and it’s still gonna suck. 

These people have lives.

These people have jobs to do.

These people are just trying to tell some story the best they can.

That’s me trying to remind myself to be rational.  That’s me trying to remind myself that ultimately this is fictional bullshit that should have no effect on my or anyone else’s life.

Then I remember how wrong I am.  Then I remember the families who shared their stories about how the Danvers sisters dynamic was huge for them, especially those with a birthed child and one adopted.  Then I remember the past year of reading just how powerful Alex’s coming out and the relationship with Maggie became instrumental in their lives.  I remember thinking to myself “Wow” when it came to others struggling to come out and struggling with acceptance, struggling with all of these real life issues that Chyler Leigh has been able to provide her acting prowess to as Alex and how meaningful the Alex/Maggie relationship became.

This wasn’t just some TiBette shit where people simply loved the chemistry in everything Jennifer Beals (Bette) and Laurel Holloman (Tina) brought to the table in making the rollercoaster ride of that relationship work on screen.  It wasn’t just about how natural they made it look, how organic it came off as.  Sanvers wasn’t just some crazy idea worth checking.  We weren’t interested in being baited.  We weren’t interested in Sg Creative declaring, “hey let’s try a lesbian thing on here and see how it goes.”  As the SEC football fans and marketing puts it, “it just means more.”  We had no interest in Sanvers being some kind of exploitation project to attract the GLAAD viewers.  For many of us it became personal, deeply personal.  I have a bad feeling that once all this plays out the way it’s apparently going to, that by the time they’re able to resolve it, it’s going to be too late.  When fans declare that “Sanvers is my endgame,” they’re not fucking kidding.  Something to understand about LGBTQ viewers, myself representing the “B” side to that.  We don’t like being dicked around.  We don’t have time for it.  We don’t have to be baited and we’re not interested in being thrown a damn scrap here and there. 

Whether Sg Creative meant it, they tapped into something that’s become meaningful for many of us.  For me it’s idealism mixed with some realism, which I realize is a bit crazy as it comes to a show about a flying white lady alien who among her superpowers is being able to do all that fighting and not get a single run in those tights.

Alex/Maggie is getting into Dana Fairbanks territory.  It’s getting into Losing the Light territory.  As much as creative has a right to tell their stories as best they can, I and other Sanvers supporters have a right to not be happy about it and be rather vocal about it.

I won’t allow for any ship to be my endgame. I just won’t.  That said, even with the now apprehensive viewing, there’s going to be that disappointment.  The previous decade, TLW made me realize that I was more of a fan for what the show could be than what it was.  Supergirl with all those powers and abilities is going to wind up being the same.  That just sucks.

Sanvers matters.  Sanvers fans should also matter.

#Sanvers #Sanvers Matters #TheLWord #Supergirl

[impalaimagining]

I’m Still Here

Below the cut is some stuff about my life. It’s partially my story, partially the reason things have been so not-positive on my blog lately, for which I apologize. It gets pretty graphic so avoid this post if self harm, depression, cutting, PTSD, or suicide are triggers for you. Also this might not even fucking make sense because it’s 3 in the morning and I have no idea what I even wrote at this point. Good luck if you actually read this. It’s blabber.

Some of this, I’ve shared before, and some of it is new to you. This is why I am the person I am. This is why I’m still here.

November 2008. I was 13 years old. Outwardly, I was the girl who laughed at everything, the girl who people liked being around because I made them feel better about themselves. But I wasn’t happy. I had “no reason” to be unhappy, but even on good days, it was like a grey cloud poured down on me. I’d stay up too late and be too tired to function at school. One night, when I swore I would go to bed early, my brain had other ideas. Bad ideas. I walked downstairs from my attic bedroom and tiptoed past my parents room to the bathroom. I sat on the edge of the tub and told myself, “I’ll be okay. I can play it off as a cut from shaving.” And I did it. November 2008, I started hurting myself because I was convinced that physical pain was easier to handle than the gloomy, unemotional state I couldn’t describe to anyone. If I had scars, then maybe they’d realize my pain wasn’t just in my head.

December 2009. I started dating Andrew, a kid I had a crush on for years beforehand. He knew nothing of my past, nothing of my harmful ways or my self-destructive nature. He knew me as a bubbly, giggly girl. I was 14, and definitely not prepared for that relationship to go past a little high school fling. He lived over an hour away, and he had just gotten his driver’s license. I didn’t tell my parents we were dating, because I knew they’d try to convince me to get out of the relationship. My dad hated him. My mom was indifferent, but I was still their only daughter, so they both had that protectiveness about them when it came to anything regarding me. I ended up in love. Head over friggin heels in love with a guy with whom I had quite a history - and not a good one. We pushed past the shit that had kept us apart, and we made it work. I had love, I had someone who actually cared about me, but I still needed to feel the physical pain of self harm.

November 2010. I fought like hell for a friendship I’d lost two years earlier. I had my best friend back, and I was learning how to trust him again. I told him about my scars, told him what I’d been feeling, and he was the only one who knew. He never asked to see them, and he told me if he could, he’d take them away, undo everything he ever did to add to the way my heart was breaking. November 10, I cut myself for the last time. November 11 was the first day in almost two years exactly that I didn’t hold a razor to my thighs, the first day in almost two years that I didn’t bleed by my own hand, the first day my wounds weren’t self-inflicted, the first day I found myself looking for someone to run to. For the first time in a long time, I felt okay. 

I managed to keep my depression under control. I grew closer with a couple of friends, and my boyfriend was there every day, despite the fact that we lived in different states. I had people, I had a support system, whether or not they knew that’s what they were. 

August 13, 2015, just shy of two years ago. I include the day with this on, because it’s a date permanently etched into my mind as the worst day of my life. I’m living with the same guy from ‘09. We’re all but married at this point, just missing the legal documents. Things are good, except Pat, my best friend, the kid I grew up with, the one I looked up to as my older brother, just moved away. I’m sitting in a restaurant in Center City, Philadelphia, eating lunch between my college classes. I had just answered a text message from a friend, asking me if I could nanny for them that afternoon. I said sure, I could skip my class, so I emailed my professor and told him I couldn’t make it. Then my mom calls. I answer, and her voice sounded shaky, but not too far from normal. She asks if I’d been on facebook at all that morning, and I say no, I’ve been in class for the past four hours. She starts crying and trying to tell me something, but I can’t understand it. I finally make out what she;s saying. “Pat died.” My heart starts pounding in my chest, and I feel my stomach churning. I don’t remember what I did with my entire plate of food, but somehow I carried myself outside and walked half a block to my boyfriend’s office building. I hung up the phone with my mom and called my boyfriend. My voice is breaking and he can’t understand me, but he hears, “Can you come downstairs?” So he does. I tell him what happened, that Pat is dead. At this point, I have no specifics, just a post from his mom on facebook that says, “please remember him fondly.” I hop on a city bus and get to my apartment, in a blur. I missed my stop to get off, but luckily the next stop was only a block farther. I walk home, lay in bed, and don’t move until I pick up my phone and email every professor I have, telling them I won’t be in class for the rest of the week. I shut down. I didn’t talk to anyone about anything other than surface level bullshit. I couldn’t let anyone in because I couldn’t let them know how badly I was hurting, and fuck was I hurting.

August 21, 2015. I’m back at my parents’ house instead of my apartment. I booked an event about a month prior, so I’m baking 65 cupcakes in my mom’s kitchen. The next day was Pat’s funeral, so my mind is anywhere but these cupcakes. I finish them, I box them, and I deliver them. That’s it. I drive back to the house I grew up in, the house across the street from Pat’s, and I collapse. My body has had enough, and in reality, I probably had only slept for roughly eight broken hours over the course of the week. I pull out the letters Pat wrote me while he was deployed in Iraq with the United States Marine Corps. I read them. I laugh at his bad spelling and even worse handwriting. And then I cry because all I’ve got left of the man I adored for so long is sitting in my hands. I notice the way he signed the letters. “see/talk to you late” And then I decide. I take the letter to my tattoo artist and I have him put the words on my skin, Pat’s signature underneath them. We walked to Pat’s parents’ house that night to see if they needed help setting anything up for the service. It was taking place in their back yard under a tent. His mom caught a glimpse of my tattoo and made me show everyone. His dad wrapped me in the tightest hug and just kept me by his side for the rest of the night. I barely knew them, but I stayed. I stayed because their pain was my pain, infinite times over. I stayed because they needed every bit of love and support they could get. I stayed because we were all grieving. While I was there, I found out Pat had killed himself. It was the first I’d gotten details about his death, and fuck if it didn’t hurt worse hearing how it happened. Pat, my smiley, goofy, bear-hugging best friend had taken his own life. He struggled with depression, then he joined the Marines and went to Iraq in the middle of the worst of the war. He returned, and outwardly he was... fine. He was Pat, just with a harder exterior. He was the same lovable guy I’d known since I was seven. But apparently, he wasn’t. He fought depression, and after he returned from Iraq, PTSD played a huge part in his daily life. He lost his battle, and the world lost him.

August 22, 2015. I’ve never met Pat’s brother or sister. That changed at his funeral. It was strange meeting all the people I’d only ever heard stories about, and having them tell me they’d heard a lot about me too.

September 2015. Grieving sucks. It sucks even worse when the person you love and live with is grieving for a separate death. Andrew’s grandmother died three weeks after Pat. The atmosphere in our apartment was... unbearable. We were both just so down. I was grieving over the loss of Pat, and he was grieving the loss of his grandmother. Everyone grieves differently I heard. And yeah, that’s true, and that’s fine, but when the grieving feeling doesn’t go away... that’s when it turns into something I hadn’t dealt with in years. My depression was rearing its ugly head for the first time in close to five years. I needed an out. Then I remembered one of Pat’s friends asking me if I’d ever heard of Supernatural. Nope, I hadn’t. I looked on Netflix, and there were ten seasons. I binged. I binged hard. Supernatural was my escape from the fucked up reality that my life had become. If I was submerged in the world of Sam and Dean Winchester, I didn’t have to face what was going on around me. So, I drowned myself in Supernatural, and if I never came up for air, that was just fine with me.

I watched all ten seasons, but not in time to watch Season 11 while it aired on television. I missed my boys. Sam and Dean had become... my boys. I fell in love with fictional characters and their stories. After a few episodes, I looked more into the actors. Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles. Hell, there went the rest of my life. I read about Jared’s campaign and looked into his battle with mental health. Sam Winchester was a hero, yeah, but Jared Padalecki was a living example that I could fight through everything. I could conquer this shit. 

August 2016. I went swimming at my friend’s house. The same friend who knew about my cutting. He saw my scars for the first time that day. The next day, I went and got my Always Keep Fighting tattoo (in Jared’s handwriting). A week later, I ended up here. I made a blog for Supernatural-related things, and I started dabbling in writing. I posted something, I gained a few followers. It continued to grow as I wrote and posted more. I began sharing my writing with other people who were just like me.

September 2, 2016. Disney World in Orlando, Florida, in front of Cinderella’s castle. My boyfriend is on his knee proposing to me. I say yes. I call my extended family and closest friends, tell them it finally happened after almost 7 years of being together. I post it on facebook, instagram, twitter, everywhere. I’m engaged. I cried myself to sleep that night because I didn’t - I couldn’t - call Pat. I’m in the happiest fucking place on earth crying like a baby because I just miss my best friend. His mom comments on my facebook post, saying something along the lines of, “If Pat were here, he’d be overjoyed for you. I think he put Andrew through enough tests to make sure he was good enough. Congrats.” Congrats. Congrats on being an emotional disaster the second day of your family vacation. 

July 2017. I’m engaged. I’m planning my wedding. I’m marrying the kid I started dating when I was 14 years old. I’ve been writing and posting on tumblr for close to a year. I made some friends, and holy shit. I found my place. I found people who are like me. We like the same things. We can relate to one another because we’ve all been there. We support each another, and we lift each other up. The way this fandom comes together when people need one another never ceases to amaze me. And now? We have a book. We have conventions. We have the actors. We have each other. We have a family. I know the SPN Family existed before I found my way into it. But I also know that I have never felt more connected to a group of people I’ve literally never met.

Depression still looms heavily over my head, and that grey cloud has become darker and darker within the past few weeks. Thoughts of self harm have crept back into my mind, but I’ll be damned if I throw away seven years of fighting every single day to keep that blade from my skin. Depression doesn’t own me, and you know how I know that? Because I’m still here. 

This post is about me, yeah, but it’s also about you. I love every single person who takes the time to read this, who takes the time to check up on me when I post something that... isn’t too cheery, who messages me or sends me an ask to remind me that it’s going to be okay. This post is for my friends who have become family. This post is for those of you who think you can’t fight one more day. I promise you, you can. Take it a second at a time, then a minute, then an hour, and eventually you’ll have gotten through another whole day of living. You can do this. Always Keep Fighting, my loves <3 

A shoutout to those who have especially had my back since I joined this crazy place: @spontaneousam @plaid-lover-bay25 @torn-and-frayed @cyrilconnelly @wayward-girl @mrsdeanfuckingwinchester @ofloveandlonging @elliewinchesterr @the-thirteenthhour @atc74 @impala-dreamer (I’m sorry if I missed you and you feel like you belong on this list. It’s 3am and my brain is overwhelmed and my head hurts). Thank you all for being here. I love y’all <3 

#not spn #personal #about me #depression trigger #suicide trigger #self harm trigger #cutting trigger #tw: depression #tw: suicide #tw: self harm #tw: cutting #rambling #Taylor talks #tw: PTSD #PTSD trigger

[thefutureisplywoodbikes]

Harte Rates, #1

Hello.  Those who know me well know I watch quite a lot of films and because I’m a nerd I rate them all on IMDB so that, come December, I can write a film of the year list that no-one really wants to read.  In a bid to turn this activity into something useful/exacerbate a waste of time (delete as your opinion deems applicable) I’ve decided to make this into a monthly exercise, in case others wish to risk trusting my guidance when selecting what to watch.  Below you’ll find a list of what I’ve watched so far this year with a rating out of ten.  Below that will be a little additional information on each film for those of you that like that sort of thing.   (I tend to rate things based on how I feel in the immediate aftermath of watching something so there is a chance I may be swayed by a prevailing mood and if you’re suspicious of my praise or damnation this may be why)  Right at the bottom will be a breakdown of the ratings and what they mean.  Anyway enough preamble.

Since January 1st I have watched:

- What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) - 9/10

- Rumble Fish (1983) - 9/10

- The Last Movie (1971) - 7/10

- The Lobster (2015) - 9/10 (rewatched)

- Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) - 3/10

- Shin Godzilla (2016) - 6/10

- Sucker Punch (2011) - 2/10

- Alien³ (1992) - 6/10 (rewatched)

- High Noon (1952) - 9/10

- Gargoyles (1972 TV Movie) - 3/10

- The Favourite (2018) - 10/10

- Madhouse (1981) - 6/10

- The German Sisters (1981) - 8/10

- Fyre (2019) - 7/10

- Roman Holiday (1953) - 9/10

- Moon (2009) - 8/10

- Eyes Without a Face (1960) - 7/10

- Funny Face (1957) - 8.5/10

- Destroyer (2018) - 7.5/10

- The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) - 10/10

- A Quiet Place (2018) - 7.5/10

- Sabrina (1954) - 9/10

- Burning (2018) - 9/10

- Alison's Birthday (1981) - 3/10

- Roma (2018) -10/10

Further Details

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) - 9/10

Should you watch it: Definitely if you haven’t already.  Probably if you already have.

Where did I watch it: It was on Amazon Prime but I don’t think it is any more

What’s it like: Beautiful photography and brilliant performances of contrasting style from the two leads.  Also it’s crueller and more blackly comic than you might expect from a film from 1962, in a good way.

If you like ______, watch this: Not sure really, maybe Psycho regarding the dark humour perhaps Frankenheimer’s 60′s films for an approximation of the aesthetic.  If you’re a fan of Davis or Crawford you probably wont require prompting for this.

Rumble Fish (1983) - 9/10

Should you watch it: Yeah.

Where did I watch it: Caught it at the cinema on 35mm.  Print had seen better days and I’d say is nearing the end of it’s serviceable life.  Even with ropey sound at the beginning and a few scenes chopped up more than I’d like it was great though.  

What’s it like: Looks great and has a superb soundtrack from Stewart Copeland.  Full of incongruous smoke and inky blackness it’s a surprisingly and I’d say unusually seductive film from Coppola.  The story is kind of absent and Coppola pitching it as an “art film for teenagers” maybe belies a lack of serious depth but if you’re prepared to relax and let it wash over you it’s got a lot of dreamy charm to offer.

If you like ______, watch this: I could maybe scratch up some movie parallels but the most apt I think is Charles Burns’ Black Hole; they share a commitment to pitch black nights and hypnotic hazy days in the visuals.

The Last Movie (1971) - 7/10

Should you watch it: Maybe.  It’s interesting and has some great imagery but it’s Hopper in his years under the influence so you’ve got to put up with some really erratic editing.

Where did I watch it: At the cinema, the 4k restoration.

What’s it like: As I said above interesting with some great imagery but occasionally taxing.  It’s got some good scathing moments regarding the corrupting and toxic influence of American culture and insidious decadence but the highlight for me is the town that adopts the actions of the movie shoot seen at the beginning into a perverse pseudo-religious ritual

If you like ______, watch this: El Topo maybe, but don’t expect the same level of exuberant flair that that has.  Medium Cool maybe

The Lobster (2015) - 9/10 (rewatched)

Should you watch it: Definitely.  Or least start watching it.  You may hate it and if so you may want to duck out before it get’s really dark.  Personally I enjoyed it more on the second viewing and was disappointed I hadn’t returned to it sooner.

Where did I watch it: It was starting on Film4 when I got in from work.

What’s it like: Cruelly delightful.  An utterly absurd premise but within that setup it mercilessly and hilariously mocks the compromises, capitulations and deceptions we succumb to in pursuit of love or under pressure to conform and suggests the reality we inhabit to be if not equally then similarly fickle and ridiculous.

If you like ______, watch this: The work of Chris Morris, or other Jorgos Lanthimos films obviously.

Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018) - 3/10

Should you watch it: Fuck no!

Where did I watch it: NowTV.

What’s it like: Tiresome pointless bullshit.  It’s a film with giant robots fighting giant monsters that I managed to asleep during more than once.

If you like ______, watch this: The first Pacific Rim, also tiresome pointless bullshit but not to quite the same extent as this.  The Transformer films maybe, they’re also insufferably fucking awful.

Shin Godzilla (2016) - 6/10

Should you watch it: Meh, do what you like.

Where did I watch it: NowTV.

What’s it like: A Godzilla movie but taking itself more seriously than you maybe think it should but somehow being better for it.

If you like ______, watch this: It plays out a bit like a disaster movie with teams of experts earnestly theorising, but is also entirely ridiculous, so maybe shit like The Core or The Day After Tomorrow.

Sucker Punch (2011) - 2/10

Should you watch it: No-one should have ever seen this.

Where did I watch it: NowTV.

What’s it like: Like someone who really wants to direct music videos made a 2 hour showreel inspired by computer games, borrowed the plot from a women in prison film to tie it together.  It’s woefully incoherent but weirdly effective at being consistently sleazy.

Annoying they managed to waste the time of and sully the resumes of some really talented actors while doing so.

If you like ______, watch this: Babestation Daytime, youtube clips of the cut-scenes in the early Resident Evil games, the grimier depths of 70s exploitation cinema.  Basically if you're already a lost cause.

Alien³ (1992) - 6/10 (rewatched)

Should you watch it: If you feel the inclination.

Where did I watch it: Film4 I think

What’s it like: Alien, but not as good.  Decent cast.  Some fun moments

High Noon (1952) - 9/10

Should you watch it: Yeah, why not?  It’s only 85 minutes and it’s good.

Where did I watch it: NowTV

What’s it like: It’s brilliantly shot for starters; most of the shots have a crispness in the focus that you notice because you don’t see it achieved much elsewhere.  The depth of contrast is also really good.  Where this really excels though is in the pacing and editing, it plays out in near real-time and ramps up tension really effectively.  Also the story’s more cynical than you might expect and jars with heroic narratives of the times and with those traditionally seen in Westerns.  John Wayne called it “the most un-American thing I’ve seen in my whole life”, which alone should be enough to perk you interest.

If you like ______, watch this: If you like From Here to Eternity also directed by Zinnemann, you’ll certainly like the look of this at least.  Touch of Evil maybe too.  And while Hitchcock perhaps fairly complained her character is a bit mousy in this, if you’re a Grace Kelly fan she’s mesmerising whenever she’s on screen here.  And if you fancy another unusual western with a black-list connection, check out Terror in a Texas Town (written by Donald Trumbo)

Gargoyles (1972 TV Movie) - 3/10

Should you watch it: No, it’s shit.

Where did I watch it: Go Flow Streaming TV, it’s a channel you can get on Roku currently free that has a few gems available for free (Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Wages of Fear) nestled amongst shit like this.

What’s it like: Shit.

(Though it’s still only the second worst Scott Glenn film on this list)

If you like ______, watch this: Shit

The Favourite (2018)

Should you watch it: Absolutely, it’s wonderful.

Where did I watch it: At the cinema, and so should you while you still can.

What’s it like: From the trailer I was expecting a deliciously vicious mean little comedy, what you actually get is a more sophisticated tale of Machiavellian manoeuvring and some surprising tender moment.  A pristinely hilarious script, stellar performances throughout and visually beautiful.

If you like ______, watch this: Good films.  The Death of Stalin perhaps.  Also, probably goes without saying but if you like Lanthimos’ other films, more so The Lobster than Killing of a Sacred Deer.

Madhouse (1981) - 6/10

Should you watch it: Eh, probably not unless you really like this sort of thing.  

Where did I watch it: Amazon Prime

What’s it like: Pretty standard 80′s slasher fair but with a couple of decent special effects moments and a bit more visual flair than you normally get with these.  It was one of the video nasty titles on the DPP list if that interests you.

If you like ______, watch this: Crappy 80′s horror films.

The German Sisters (1981) - 8/10

Should you watch it: Yeah catch if you can.

Where did I watch it: At the cinema, part of a Margarethe von Trotta season that may still be touring.

What’s it like: Serious and engaging; if you’ve seen any other New German cinema, or other politically charge European cinema from the late 70′s/early 80′s you’ll likely have an idea of what you’re getting.

If you like ______, watch this: Reminded me generally of Antonioni and One Sings, The Other Doesn’t more specifically

Fyre (2019) - 7/10

Should you watch it: Oh yes.

Where did I watch it: Netflix

What’s it like: It’s not an exceptional documentary but it is an exceptional story.  It is the perfect antidote to the suggestion that you can achieve anything with a positive attitude and the unquestioning conflation of success with capability.  I experienced perhaps the most prolonged period of schadenfreude in my life while watching this, and I’ve been an incurable misanthrope for at least 20 years.  On another note, watching this will introduce you to Andy King, a man of such astonishing professional commitment and unassuming likability, that after this he likely became the world’s most eligible employee.

If you like ______, watch this: If you like seeing the affluent disappointed.  Documentary wise it’s pretty standard fair but Three Identical Strangers or Precinct Seven Five may also be up your street.

Roman Holiday (1953) - 9/10

Should you watch it: If you find Audrey Hepburn to be an enchanting screen presence, yes.  If you don’t, maybe not.

Where did I watch it: NowTV

What’s it like: Somewhat old-fashioned in a charming way, but also in a way that may make you a little uneasy with the exploitative manipulation of Peck’s character when viewed in a modern light.  Not to the extent it spoils the film though I’d say.  It looks great, makes superb use of its location and zips along merrily.  

If you like ______, watch this: Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck or the mismatched romance movies of the 40′s/50′s

Moon (2009) - 8/10

Should you watch it: Yeah, but I’m late to the party on this one so you probably already have.

Where did I watch it: Amazon Prime

What’s it like: Good.  A smart little movie that plays to its strengths and limitations.  Sam Rockwell is always watchable and is on good form here.

If you like ______, watch this: Reminded me of Outland though I’ve not seen that for ages and that might be down to a plot-point rather than anything more general.  If you liked Silent Running you may well enjoy this.

Eyes Without a Face (1960) - 7/10

Should you watch it: If it sounds up your street, yeah.  It’s good, not great.

Where did I watch it: Go Flow Streaming 

What’s it like: Good.  A bit predictable in a Hammer kind of way but, refreshingly, more callous.  The special effects while not exceptional have a mundane quality akin to actual surgical procedures that make them seem more realistic.  

If you like ______, watch this: Similar look to Les Diabolique from what I recall of that.

Funny Face (1957) - 8.5/10

Should you watch it: Again, if you especially like Audrey Hepburn and/or musicals yes, otherwise maybe not.

Where did I watch it: NowTV

What’s it like: Pleasant, but outmoded.  The celebration of the transformation from independent intellectual to model and girlfriend is a bit queasy, as is the titular song.  It’s wonderfully colourful though and decent fun; Astaire is charming as usual, Hepburn reliably delightful and Kay Thompson wittily brash. 

If you like ______, watch this: It’s Stanley Dolen so if you liked Singin’ in the Rain you may well enjoy this (though probably not as much).  Also, I haven’t seen them but Jacques Demy’s Umbrellas of Cherbourg and The Young Girls of Rochefort look to have a similar exuberance.

Destroyer (2018) - 7.5/10

Should you watch it: Yeah, but I wouldn’t worry too much if you’ve missed it at the cinema

Where did I watch it: At the cinema

What’s it like: Solid. Maybe a bit predictable but well worth a watch.  Felt a bit derivative to me, but derivative of good things; Lynne Ramsay (We Need To Talk About Kevin and You Were Never Really Here) and the first series of True Detective.  Mostly fairly low key but has one particularly invigorating scene in the middle that’ll satisfy the thrill-seekers among you.

If you like ______, watch this: As I said above, We Need To Talk About Kevin, You Were Never Really Here, True Detective.  Maybe Brick too.  If you feel like exploring Kusama’s earlier, Jennifer’s Body is good fun.

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) - 10/10

Should you watch it: I fucking loved it but it’s up to you.  I feel mine may be an idiosyncratic assessment.

Where did I watch it: NowTV

What’s it like: Achingly cool.  McQueen and Dunaway are both effervescently alluring throughout as is their cat and mouse seduction.  The playfulness of the extensive use of split-screen adds to the fun.  This is a film that makes polo enjoyable viewing and chess sexy.

If you like ______, watch this: Steve McQueen and/or Faye Dunaway.  The films of Norman Jewison.  You may also like Out of Sight, How To Steal a Million or The Hot Rock but they’re all at best vaguely related.

A Quiet Place (2018) - 7.5/10

Should you watch it: It’s pretty good.  You choose.

Where did I watch it: NowTV

What’s it like: A pretty dumb premise but one that it commits to it and makes good use of.  It’s an endearing and well put together little movie.

If you like ______, watch this: Not sure, nothing particularly springs to mind.  Probably if you like John Krasinski and Emily Blunt.  Edge of Tomorrow is probably a good fit.  Pitch Black perhaps

Sabrina (1954) - 9/10

Should you watch it: Yeah, it’s Billy Wilder of course you should.

Where did I watch it: NowTV

What’s it like: Smart and funny but with the bittersweet touches you expect from Wilder.  Hepburn and Bogart are great while Holden and the rest offer solid support.  Like Roman Holiday and Funny Face the aspects whereby it’s just accepted that men will manipulate the lives of women as they see fit don’t really sit too comfortable nowadays within a romcom but it’s a pretty minor niggle

If you like ______, watch this: Roman Holiday, The Apartment

Burning (2018) - 9/10

Should you watch it: Yes.  I thought it was great.

Where did I watch it: At the cinema. You should too.

What’s it like: Brilliant and brilliantly unnerving.  And that’ll do for now, the less you know the better.  

If you like ______, watch this: I don’t want to say too much lest I spoil it, though I’d say it has some of the feel of Blow Up (not the pretension though)

Alison's Birthday (1981) - 3/10

Should you watch it: Nah.

Where did I watch it: Amazon Prime

What’s it like: It’s a zero-budget, bloodless Australian horror movie from 1981 and while it’s competently put together in a TV movie kinda way, it is incredibly dull.  It’s like an episode of Neighbours trying to make your afternoon especially spooky.

If you like ______, watch this: Minder is probably on a par in terms of dramatic tension.  Maybe if you have a hankering for a particularly dull episode of Tales of the Unexpected.

Roma (2018) -10/10

Should you watch it: Yes, in the cinema if you can.

Where did I watch it: I saw it at HOME and if you’re in Manchester so should you but go to a Curzon if you must.

What’s it like: Spectacular.  It’s beautifully photographed throughout but some of the shots it features are masterful.  The sound design is superb too and even though it looks stunning is probably the main reason I’d say to see it in the cinema.  And it has a deeply compassionate, complex story, that seems transparently informed by the truth of the director's life.  A majestic cinematic triumph.

If you like ______, watch this: I was reminded a bit of Andei Rublev and Altman in the camera movements, Cold War in the clean naturalism of its look and maybe Nuri Bilge Ceylan in the scope of the story, though this is a far less demanding watch.  But you don’t need any of this bullshit anyway, just go see it.

And we’re done.  Congratulations if you stuck with it.  It took fucking ages to write, hopefully it was an easier read.  Let me know if you think it’s a taxing format and I’ll maybe shift to more regular updates.  (Also I think that as it stands, this moreso serves to highlight the inadequacy of my vocabulary than it does the presence of any useful film knowledge.)

A word on ratings

I used to a movie recommendation site called JInni, now defunct, which had the a breakdown of ratings that I liked enough to keep using after it shutdown.  See below.

10 - Must watch

9 - Amazing

8 - Great

7 - Good

6 - OK

5 - So-so

4 - Disappointing

3 - Poor

2 - Bad

1- Awful

My baseline is likely a 6, if I don’t actively regret or resent watching something it’ll likely be there.  Anything 7 or above I’d say is worth seeing, 5 and below I wouldn’t necessarily bother, a 6 is up to you, it’ll pass the time.  So if you feel the inclination you can obviously treat 5 as 0, 6 as 1 and 10 as 5, for a simpler 5 star rating system; I like to distinguish the full spectrum from dogshit to sublime but what you choose to do is your business.

#HarteRates

[the-desolated-quill]

Ghost In The Shell: An Ode To Kamikaze - Quill’s Scribbles

MAJOR spoilers ahead for the Ghost In The Shell movie, so don’t read if you haven’t seen the movie yet... which you’re not going to obviously because it’s a whitewashed, racist piece of shit and you would never support such a thing, would you? No, of course not.

I’ve been asked a few times to write something on Ghost In The Shell and up until now I’ve been reluctant to do so for two reasons. 1) I’m not really a fan of Ghost In The Shell. I know roughly what its about from what people have told me, but I just never really got into it, and 2) I’ve pretty much said everything I’ve wanted to say about whitewashing, mostly in my numerous Doctor Strange posts. If I started doing stuff on Ghost In The Shell, I’d run the risk of repeating myself. Whitewashing is bad, Hollywood are a bunch of racist opportunists and you shouldn’t pay money or support these kinds of projects in any way, shape or form. That’s pretty much it. I had no intention of watching Ghost In The Shell and neither should you. Enough said.

But then some rather interesting news came to my attention, courtesy of @gabriel-strange. VEEEEERY interesting news indeed. So interesting in fact that I honestly thought it was an April Fool’s prank. So I double checked. I triple checked. I quadruple checked. And I discovered to both my horror and delight that it was true.

But first, we have to set the scene.

Ghost In The Shell is a Japanese series of anime and manga titles that takes place in the year 2029 in a fictional city in Japan. In this cyberpunk future, the lines between humans and technology have been blurred, with people placing more and more reliance on cybernetic implants and prosthesis, and computer and electronics permeate every aspect of their lives. The main protagonist is Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg who works for the counter-cyberterrorist organisation known as Public Security Section 9. Her main job is to hunt down and capture cyberterrorists and hackers, who are especially dangerous in this futuristic society due to everyone’s over reliance on technology. It’s even possible for a skilled terrorist to hack into a person’s brain and make them act against their will.

The series has been heavily praised for its creativity and its philosophy, posing some very interesting questions. How do you define who or what is human in a world where a person’s mind can be copied and where body parts can be replaced with machine parts? Where do you draw the line? It’s a very rich and thought provoking subject matter, so naturally Hollywood wanted in on some of that. In 2009, Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks acquired the rights to make a live action Ghost In The Shell movie. Paramount Pictures agreed to co-produce the movie in 2015 and Rupert Sanders signed on to direct.

All they needed to do was find a talented, up and coming young Asian actor to play Motoko Kusanagi. Who did they go with?

Yep. Scarlett Johansson. An actor most famous for not being Asian. She was cast in the role when talks with Margot Robbie (another actor whose defined by not being Asian) fell through.

This, naturally, sparked a huge amount of controversy from both fans and people working within the industry, and as night follows day, people started to try and justify this bullshit. Some people (let’s be kind and call them idiots) posit that there was never any indication that Motoko Kusanagi was Japanese in the original manga.

Right. Because why would one assume that a woman with a Japanese name, living in a Japanese city in a series originating from Japan would be Japanese? 

Guys, she’s about as Japanese as you can get! Wake the fuck up!

Others say that the race of the character shouldn’t be an issue because the themes the series covers are universal and can be applicable to everyone regardless of race. Oh good! In that case, she should definitely be played by an Asian actor. Well... if the themes are as universal as you suggest, the fact that she’s Asian shouldn’t alienate me, a white person, at all, should it? Unless you’re suggesting the themes are somehow more universal if the main character is white. If that’s the case, you may want to look up your definition of universal.

A popular excuse is that the Japanese fans have no problem with the casting of ScarJo, with many assuming that a Hollywood production would have chosen a white actor. Even Mamoru Oshii, the director of the original anime films, gave his blessing, saying there was no basis for an Asian actor to play the role. So if they don’t have a problem with it, why should we? Well first of all it’s kind of tragic that Japanese people just assume their beloved characters will be whitewashed because Hollywood have done this so often now they’ve basically gotten used to it. But it doesn’t justify it. A child might get used to an abusive parent over time. It doesn’t make the abuse okay. It’s still wrong. And as for Mamoru Oshii, Well, with all due respect, his opinion is fucking irrelevant. No, really! His opinion carries no weight whatsoever! He’s a Japanese man working in a Japanese industry in a country where 98.5% of the population are Asian. Here in the western hemisphere, Asian people are very much in the minority and, especially in the US, it’s very difficult for them to break into this industry. The last thing they need are white actors stealing all the good roles they could and should be playing. (And for the record, the most vocal people criticising this movie are Asian Americans who have become sick and tired of Hollywood constantly screwing then over, so fuck you).

And finally there’s the age old excuse that ScarJo was the best person for the role and that casting an A-list actor would help to bring the franchise to a more mainstream audience. I mean there are no A-list Asian actors, right? Well apart from Jackie Chan and Lucy Liu (and they're debatable), no. There aren’t any A-list Asian actors. And do you know why? IT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T FUCKING CAST THEM! Of course there aren’t going to be any A-list Asian actors because you’re not giving any of them a chance! You keep handing over the roles to white people and depriving Asian actors of job opportunities that were intended for them in the first place!

The studios and filmmakers of course have been offering their own insightful comments, saying how this is a future world and that they’re depicting an international city. That seems to be their go to word. International. Code for ‘populated mostly by white people’. Even Motoko Kusanagi has been renamed as Mira Killian. Seriously, Ghost In The Shell is only a decade into the future. What happened between now and 2029 that the Asian population has somehow decreased exponentially?

And of course Scarlett Johansson doesn’t hesitate to get her thoughts heard, first by saying that this was about gender over race and how this was an opportunity to bring a strong female character to mainstream audiences. Now if you were wondering what White Feminism is, this is it. An actual feminist would encourage and celebrate the casting of an Asian actor in the role because it would be a massive step forward for women of colour. Old ScarJo clearly doesn’t meet those requirements. And then she said this:

“I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person. Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive.”

Uhuh. Okay. Dear readers, do me a favour. I want you to remember this quote for me, alright? Trust me. It’ll be very important later ;)

From Doctor Strange to Iron Fist to the upcoming Death Note adaptation, there seems to be this weird obsession in Hollywood recently of exploiting and fetishising Asian culture whilst surreptitiously telling the Asian community to go and fuck themselves. This Ghost In The Shell movie seems to be less of an adaptation and more like a white person’s self insert fanfic. And trust me, you have no idea how true that statement really is.

Which brings me to the interesting news I was telling you about. Again, massive spoilers for the movie ahead, so be warned.

Are you ready? Okay.

Well...

Turns out that Mira Killian is actually Motoko Kusanagi. She has the brain of a Japanese girl inside of her whose memory was erased in an effort to create the perfect soldier. There’s even a scene at the end of her meeting and hugging her Japanese birth mother and embracing her true identity as Motoko Kusanagi.

Oh yes! They actually went that far! Somebody actually thought this would be a good idea! And don’t get me wrong, it’s horrible. It’s racist as shit. I’m utterly disgusted by this, but at the same time I can’t help but admire the ballsiness of it. They chose to depict literal whitewashing in their movie. A Japanese girl is stripped of both her identity and any character traits that would identify her as Japanese and replaced with the body and mind of a white person in an effort to create somebody ‘perfect’. It practically borders on self parody.

But do you want to know the best part? Remember what ScarJo said?

“I certainly would never presume to play another race of a person. Diversity is important in Hollywood, and I would never want to feel like I was playing a character that was offensive.”

Tell me Ms Johansson. Do you know the Japanese translation for ‘lying, racist scumbag’?

Because let’s not deny it. What ScarJo said was a blatant lie. She is playing a Japanese character and now she’s quite rightfully being torn to shreds by the critics, most notably the Asian American Media Group. Yeah! Who’d have thought they’d have a problem with this?! Call it a hunch, but somehow I think there might be less demand for a Black Widow movie now after all this. So I wouldn’t hold your breath.

It also puts all those other claims to shame too. That the character’s race isn’t important and that this is an international city and that the themes are universal and so on. Let’s not forget that in the early days of production, they were considering using the same CGI from The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button to make their chosen white actor look Asian. The fact that they’re practically bending over backwards in a desperate and pathetic attempt to justify their whitewashing actually proves that the race of the character is actually important after all.

I can’t help but find this just a bit hilarious. I mean at least Doctor Strange didn’t pretend Tilda Swinton was Asian. At least they didn’t stoop THAT low. And the irony of it all is Rupert Sanders and co could have gotten away with it if they just kept their mouths shut. I know how gullible general movie going audiences can be. They probably would have blindly accepted a whitewashed Ghost In The Shell movie if the story and acting was good. But because the studio just couldn’t leave well enough, because they were so paranoid that they’d be accused of racism and that they’d upset the fans, they tried to tinker with it and ended up not only making the issue even more awkward than it already was, but also highlighted their racism in big bold neon lights. They haven’t just tied a noose around their necks. They’ve practically built their own gallows as well.

Already they’ve started to feel the effects. On its opening weekend, Ghost In The Shell pulled in less box office earnings than DreamWorks’ Boss Baby. And I don’t know about you, but I would love to have seen how that conversation played out to the studio execs. Your movie is losing to an animated film featuring Alec Baldwin voicing a talking baby. LOL. In fact I’m almost tempted to go and see this movie for myself just to witness it commit cinematic suicide live, right in front of me. This has got to be one of the most glorious kamikaze moves I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

And I can’t think of a more appropriate way to end this Scribble than with the ironic use of this classic from the 80s. Enjoy :)

#anti ghost in the shell #anti scarlett johannsen #whitewashing #spoilers #quill's scribbles