#how in the absolute fuck is anything even remotely weird much less gross about this?

[here-there-were-dragons]

as a general rule, on average, if americans consistently complain about a food being conceptually weird, gross, and scary, then it probably tastes amazing. or at least inoffensive.

this is because in my experience americans for the most part (give or take a few exceptions by region) think eating literally anything other than beef, chicken, bread, eggs, peanut butter jelly sandwitches, ketchup, and disgusting cloyingly artificial brown sludge soda is insurmountably weird, gross, and scary.

#a lot of people literally refuse to even eat ham or pork #not even for like religious or health reasons #just because they think eating anything but beef and chicken is 'weird and scary and gross' #every time i hear people going on en masse about how 'weird and an acquired taste' something foreign is i go and try it and i'm just like #what the fuck were all of you smoking. where is the unbearable weirdness i am supposed to be experiencing #shoutout to that time i kept hearing about how bizarre a flavor milkis soda is and how intimidating and acquired of a taste #then when i actually try the stuff. it's just fucking peach soda. it's peach soda with a faint tangy yogurtish taste. it makes good floats. #how in the absolute fuck is anything even remotely weird much less gross about this? #unless your concept of what a 'soda' should be is poisoned by a lifetime of the entire soda aisle being filled with nothing but brown sludg #from the same 3 brands that all taste like what would happen if they could distill the concept of diabetes and artificial flavoring syrup #i don't know if other countries have this but there's this weird cultural like mandatory rejection of any 'unusual' food here #way more intense than i've seen from anyone from any other country (though that might just be inexperience with other cultures talking) #people react to the mere suggestion of any food outside a very narrow range with outright disgust and genuine fear and horror #and there's a huge amount of unspoken peer pressure on everyone to also do the same #like you're expected to agree with them and you've breeched some sort of silent social contract if you don't #it's seen as *immoral* almost it feels like #it's difficult to describe unless you've noticed it yourself #americans react to the mere suggestion of eating anything outside of the same 2 meats and handful of fillers the same way #that pearl-clutching aristocrat grandmas react to hearing that people in foreign countries do.. basically anything #it doesnt matter if you're suggesting eating ube cake or suggesting eating live bugs because people will react the same way #everything that's not chicken/beef/ect is as good as bugs to people here #hate this stupid blandass country and how impossible it is to afford any food other than burgers if you're not rich #or blessed with relatives that have any idea how to cook and are at all willing to teach you #cause nother weird thing i've noticed about food culture-or at least wasp food culture-that i haven't seen anywhere else quite the same way #is that if you DO have any relatives that know how to cook then nine times out of ten they will jealously guard their recipes like a dragon #and refuse to share them with anyone #thus taking whatever little cooking knowledge was in the family to their grave #so the opportunity other people usually have for family bonding via passing on recipes? pffft no. #for some reason we seem to actively go out of our way to prevent these things from being passed on #i don't know what the fuck is up with that but i suspect it has something to do with 50's dinner party oneupmanship

[welllpthisishappening]

falling feels like flying ['til the bone crush]

Someone should revoke her title. 

They’re trying, Emma supposes. Inevitable death probably means people can’t call her savior anymore, but they shouldn’t call her that now and that’s almost entirely because of what an absolute and complete liar she is. Telling Killian she would have done the same after he admitted he didn’t get rid of the shears isn’t her most massive lie, although it might be her most ridiculous. And they both know it’s not true. She wouldn’t do the same thing, she has. More than once. 

AN: That gif has nothing to do with the story! Here is approximately 3.5K where I once again force Emma and Killian to acknowledge their trauma. Not in the Underworld this time, though! So maybe we’re all evolving here. I blame this gif set, which I saw this morning and felt compelled to write something about. Maybe that evolution is also a lie, actually. 

———

“I lied.” Killian hums, exhaustion clinging to the sound, and Emma understands that. Less so why she’s talking right now, but neither one of those words seemed particularly interested in preserving the quiet calm of this particular moment, and she’s never been a lightweight quite like this. In more ways than one, she supposes. Hazy thoughts drift through her brain, muddled as it is by buttered rum and the steady flicker of flames in the fireplace because naturally this is the sort of house that has multiple fireplaces, and she burrows her face closer. 

To Killian’s chest. 

Takes a deep breath, not quite slow, but maybe a little greedy, and they ordered both things. Pizza and Chinese, half-finished egg rolls and beheaded slices of cheese with extra peppers strewn across the coffee table because Emma always likes that extra bit of crust and Killian’s nothing if not a frustratingly endearing sort of pushover. 

With her, especially. 

She closes her eyes. 

“I lied,” Emma repeats, “in the hospital, I mean. Wrong verb tense.” “You’re not making any sense at all, darling.”

Her nose must be cold — if the way Killian tenses as soon as it brushes his skin is any indication, but Emma knows it’s far more than that and far deeper than that and she might be the world’s biggest idiot. Looming death does that to a person, she supposes. 

Breathing isn’t particularly easy. And that’s not only because she ate four pizza slices worth of crust. Still, using death as an excuse again seems like an emotional crutch and an unreasonable reason, her muddled mind capable of clinging to every single letter in that particular endearment. It might be her favorite. 

She’s not sure she’s ever told him that. 

Stupid, really. 

“I told you that I get it; what you did today, and that part’s definitely true. But, uh, the rest of it. That I would have done the same thing? Total lie, right? I mean, I did it. That’s what happened.” Nothing. Just flickering flames and the quiet hum of a TV, neither one of them has been interested in actually watching all night. Emma doesn’t even know what channel they’re on. For all she knows, the remote’s in the kitchen. 

She counts inhales. Tries to keep her exhales measured, most of her face still pressed into the collar of Killian’s shirt as it is. And it takes about five full seconds before his hand moves, starts tracing a calm line up her spine, following that path until he reaches the base of her neck and the goosebumps that have already exploded on her skin and oxygen is overrated anyway. Holding her breath as soon as his fingers card through the ends of hair is basically instinct at this point. 

“Felt wrong to point that out at the time,” he mutters, “all things considered.” “Been kind of a long day.” “Reuniting with long-lost relatives will do that.” Scoffing is not the best reaction. Nothing about this is funny. Includes far too much death and dismay, and Emma’s gaze flickers up. Of its own accord and something much deeper, like the absolute refusal to accept a world where he does not exist. 

Goddamn Captain Hook. 

She loves him so much sometimes she thinks she’ll simply burst with the force of it all. 

It’s a gross thought, honestly. 

And they’ve already spent far too much time in the hospital today.

“Is he ok? Li—” Cutting herself off, Emma grits her teeth, but one side of Killian’s mouth is already tugging up, and the kiss that lands on her forehead is as soft as anything. Maybe bursting isn’t so bad, actually. So long as she can come up with another word for it. “God, that’s so weird.” Killian hums. “Indeed.” “Thoughts, feelings, et cetera?” “Vast. And none of them particularly pleasant.” “Seems fair. That sort of day, huh?” “Indeed.” They need more blankets. Need more things that are theirs in a collective sort of way, but that’s a dangerous and disingenuous train of thought, and Emma’s fingers twitch towards the fire. To ward off the sudden chill that’s settled between her shoulder blades, and it almost works, but it does absolutely nothing to help the sway of her stomach and the acid lingering in the back of her throat, threatening to burn far more than what these meager flames are able to do. 

“Should have finished high school,” Emma mumbles, “then I could choose more accurate verb tenses from my inevitably vast vocabulary. Did. Have done. Would do again, several thousand times over.”

“That’s the future tense.” None of his words come with any kind of pointed emotion, but Emma hears it all the same. Can see the tightness that lingers in the corners of his mouth and the way he’s holding his shoulders, straight as a line, and some joke about rigging that she no intention of making, and the furrow between his brows makes every muscle in her chest twist. Ache too, for good measure. 

With the promise of everything she wants to say and everything she hasn’t or can’t and—

Fuck magic, quite honestly. And the rules no one’s bothered to mention until now. Seems like poor planning on everybody’s part. 

“You heard me.” “I did,” Killian agrees lightly, and his hand has never actually stopped moving. It’s nice. Steady. Something Emma can almost nearly time her breathing too. “I would also choose that particular tense. If given the choice, that is.” “Do you not think you have that?” “I don’t particularly enjoy the thought. I’m rather partial to the option of whim, you see. Pirate and all that. We don’t much abide by schedules and fated decision.” “Seems like it’d be in the by-laws.” “Well, by-laws by their very nature are rather contradictory to the entire pirate notion, but you’ve got the gist of it at least.” Emma laughs. Doesn’t quite regret the sound, even as out of place as it is — just presses it into the edge of Killian’s shirt and the buttons he never bothers to do, trying to brandh the smell of him and the feel of him into every corner of her memory and she’s not really sure what happens after. Once the prophecy is fulfilled, and all that. 

She’s got too much unfinished business. 

To totally leave this particular plane of reality. 

She doesn’t mention that either. Not when the crux of that business is breathing steadily under her hand, and Emma can’t remember when she moved her hand, only that Killian’s warm under her touch, and he’s always so much warmer. Than just about anything else she’s aware of. 

“I thought you were dead.”

Of all the things Emma expects to happen in the midst of this night and this moment — and it’s really not a very long list, admittedly — that did not even make the cut. Wasn’t a consideration or a fledgling idea in the back of her mind, several different vertebrae almost audibly objecting when she jerks her head up. To find Killian staring straight ahead, lips not much more than a thin line across his face. 

Seriously, the rigging jokes almost write themselves. Which is more than Emma can say about her clearly piece of shit list, as metaphorical as it might be. 

“I don’t—” “—When I saw you,” Killian interrupts, and none of the words shake. Come out like a stream of consciousness and memories neither one of them have able to shake yet. Or talk about. Can’t possibly be healthy. “Chained to that stone, blood dripping into my mouth, and then all of a sudden, there you were. Worried I’d simply dreamt you up, couldn’t imagine how you looked quite that lovely in that hell hole, otherwise.” “Oh, that’s kind of insulting, actually.” “Hair like the bloody sun.” “Better,” Emma murmurs. Reaching up, her fingers tangle with the charms around his neck. Pieces of luck and trinkets she hasn’t learned all the stories to yet. The idea that she won’t makes her nauseous. “You told me ‘you shouldn’t be here.’” “Aye, and I meant it.” “Because you thought…” “Living people don’t often appear in such a God awful place, do they? Not without something tragic happening, and my mind was impressively efficient on that front.” “Which one is that?” “Every threat that’s ever lingered, every person I would have gladly run through if it meant you were safe. Half of goddamn Camelot.” Emma might snicker. Killian’s arm tightens, though. And that’s all she’s really worried about. “I think I could have taken Arthur. Y’know if it had come to that.” “Likely not a very good swordsman,” Killian nods, but that’s only so his lips can trace Emma’s temple and the top of her hair. More than once. Like he’s still making sure. “Pampered prince—” “—He was totally a king, babe. That’s like...the most basic Camelot knowledge.” “Ask me in five minutes if I care at all about anything to do with Camelot.” “Should I time it, or…” He scoffs. Presses another half dozen kisses to any spot he can reach, and he can actually reach a fair amount of places. Emma’s impressed. Swooning too, but also pretty impressed. “I kept thinking about you,” Killian says, softer than the last few words have been, and it sounds like an admission and another promise, and it’s weird that it can be both. At the same time. “This house. What it was and wasn’t. All those possible verb tenses.”

“I’m sorry.” “Ah, that’s not your fault, love. None of this is, really, but—well, it did make it so seeing you, realizing you were there...left all of those thoughts crashing down around my ears, so to speak. Falling apart, like an avalanche of what hadn’t been and what I still wanted so desperately. No matter what Hades did.” “Stupid stubborn.” “I believe there’s something about a pot and a kettle in this realm.” “Don’t have that cliche in the Enchanted Forest, huh?” “Not that I’m aware of, no.” “Maybe you just didn’t go to a good college.” “Tell me every Greek word you know,” Killian challenges, and Emma rolls her eyes. Ignores the first few flutters of a headache brewing at the base of her skull. “It didn’t seem fair.” “Which part?” “All of it is also rather vast, but mostly that if you were there, then it happened again.” Narrowing her eyes, Emma tries to piece together those letters and the syllables they make, only to be marginally annoyed when she can’t make sense of them. Killian kisses the bridge of her nose. 

She might have to go get Tylenol soon. 

“Losing you without fighting, without challenge the goddamn reaper myself, was worse than anything He could have done,” Killian continues, and he doesn’t have to be more specific. “Worse than whatever pain I’ve ever suffered. Cut off twenty more limbs; it wouldn’t even come close.” “Do you have that many?” “Your humor lacks a little something; you know that, Swan?” “It’s a defense mechanism.” He noses at her hair. Drags the soft hum of what could very well be either an agreement or the opposite, or maybe even the sort of deep-rooted understanding that’s allowed him to sneak his way into the center of everything, across her skin. The specifics don’t matter, only that Emma’s magic roars under her skin, an inferno, and a symphony, meeting the challenge that no one has really laid down yet. 

“Do that again,” Killian mutters, a low chuckle as Emma’s scratches at his side. 

“I’m not sure I can, honestly.” “Pity.” “Something like that, yeah. And you’re not totally right, you know?” “Ah, and that’s almost rude.” “I’m serious,” Emma says, “that’s—none of that was your fault either.” Tilting his head only ensures that several strands of hair he still hasn’t bothered to cut fall almost artfully across his forehead, and Emma is grateful to a variety of gods, Greek or otherwise, that Killian doesn’t mention how much her hand shakes. When she tries to brushes them away. His hook finds her wrist instead, cool metal against freezing cold skin, and the state of her tongue is going to be a problem. Large as it is in Emma’s mouth, making it all but impossible to properly swallow while Killian’s lips sweep the bend of her knuckles. 

“Charmer.” “Aye, that’s my endgame.” There’s not enough room between them for him to run his hand across his face like Emma knows he wants to, and part of that isn’t really a bad thing, but the rest just seems like another entirely unfair thing, and Emma knows the rest is coming. Makes tears burn her eyes all the same. “They were just...gone, you understand? No chance to do anything about it. One moment they were living and breathing. Then Liam was dead. Slumped in my arms in the corner of a cabin he was supposed to spend the rest of his career in. He—he would have been a very good captain.” “So are you,” Emma says, fierce and determined, and Killian kisses in the inside of her palm. She’s moved her hand again. To cup his cheek. 

“For a time, maybe. But then she was gone too, and I thought I could feel it, you know. The exact way her heart crumbled in his hand, tiny bits of dust that I never wanted to blow off the deck. Like some of her still managed to stay. Is that—” The muscles in his throat move, jaw clenching, and Emma has to blink. She hopes the moisture on her cheeks isn’t tears. She’s not sure what’s a better option, really. “Must sound daft.” “No. I—I get that too.” “Do you?” “Not the only one who’s watched Rumplestilskin hold the heart of someone you loved.”

He can’t be holding his breath. His chest is moving much too quickly, but the burst of air that all but flies out of Killian is enough to ruffle the ends of Emma’s hair and possibly even dry some of the tears she’s still refusing to acknowledge, and she can’t get closer to him. 

She makes an admirable effort all the same. 

Like occupying the same few inches of space will ensure that she stays there. 

“Did you—” Killian starts, looking almost pained as the words war for his voice on the tip of his tongue. “Did you like her?” That didn’t make the list, either. It’s entirely possible that Emma is just garbage at making lists. She nods. “Anyone who loves you as much as I do is fine with me. Better than, even.”

His expression shifts again. Light lingers in his gaze, cautious hope, and misplaced optimism, gears whirring in his head that Emma can’t almost convince herself she hears. Her verb tense was on purpose that time. 

That’s a confidence boost, all things considered.

“She was something fierce,” Killian says, sounding reminiscent and not as sad as Emma has worried he must be. “Once she got away from him. Could get a grown man to do her bidding with a single look, the kind of glare that’d set you on fire from the inside out. It was—they loved her too. Men on the ship, would have followed her to the ends of the Earth if she’d asked. Probably even if she hadn’t.” 

His next inhale becomes an exhale almost immediately.

“She never would have asked,” Killian adds, almost entirely to himself, but then his eyes are back on Emma, and they’re a little glossy and just as blue and she’s holding her breath now. “She liked you too, I know it.” “I think she thought I was crazy, actually. Gold didn’t really have much tact in the...introductions.” “Ah.” “Right?” “Right,” he echoes, a pale imitation of her voice that makes Emma’s cheeks ache. From smiling. Legitimately smiling. Huh. “But I suppose that’s part of it, though. She was there again, and I—” “—I’m sorry. For...for all of it.” “Still not your fault, love.”

“How did you know?” she asks, and her voice doesn’t sound much like her either. Wobbles and warbles and some other word that fits the alliteration. “About me. And not being…”

“Dead?” Killian’s eyebrows jump. “Strawberries.” “Excuse me?” “That soap you use in your hair. Smells like strawberries, or strawberry adjacent maybe. Manufactured just a bit. I think it’s my favorite smell in the world.” “Backhanded compliment.” “No, no,” Killian shakes his head. His hair moves again. “It’s not. It’s—well, it’s you, love. Smells like everything that you are and—”

“—I’m manufactured?” “If you let me finish,” he chides, and Emma all but yanks her lips behind her teeth, “It smells like home. Smells like falling asleep next to you and a distinct lack of blankets.” He nips at the tip of her nose. She scoffs again; that’s why. “And your distractingly cold feet, and leather jackets, and how the smell clings to the collars, no matter how long it’s been since you’ve worn them. Lingers on your pillow too, and the fronts of my shirt. You fall asleep against me quite often, you know that.” “Can sleep anywhere,” Emma reasons. “Might be my greatest talent.” “I don’t know about that.” “If I call you charmer again, will you hold it against me for lack of synonyms?” “Tell me how charming I am again.” Emma scrunches her nose. “Now it sounds like my dad.” “Let’s leave the prince out of this. He’s only a prince, aye?” “Far as I know, yeah.” “Good, good. Strawberries, love. Touching you helped too, though. If we’re being frank.” “Anything except blunt force honesty seems silly now, doesn’t it?” Killian nods. Slow and measured, like anything else will snap this tenuous peace, and maybe they can just sleep on the couch. Getting up is an impossible prospect right now. Maybe they can make out a little before they fall asleep. 

“It’s a very big house,” Emma whispers, and they should really figure out a schedule for conversations like this. Talking about it all at once is exhausting. 

“It is.” “You don’t want to expand upon that?” “Oh, I want a great number of things I shouldn’t,” Killian admits, “but as much as I appreciate this fresh round of honesty we’re engaging in, the false hope would—” “—There’s no such thing,” Emma interrupts. “False hope. It’s an oxymoron, ask my mother. And I think you should get some sort of crew again.” “How would you suggest I populate such a thing?” She shrugs. Nearly hits Killian in the chin in the process. “Untold stories. Dwarves.” “I will not have dwarves on my ship.” “See, I knew you’d have opinions. And there was a possessive pronoun in there that time.” “Was there not before?” “No,” she says. “Just called it the ship. Like it’s not the most important thing you have.” “Well, it’s not.” Emma’s cheeks warm. “That was very smooth.” “Someone did guarantee I was a very good captain earlier.” Space continues to be relatively minimal between them, but Killian’s nothing if not adaptable, and he works with what he’s got. Swinging Emma’s legs perpendicular over his, she’s nearly sitting on his lap, an arm slung over his shoulders, which makes it even easier to get her fingers into his hair and his head to rest against hers, and he takes another deep breath. “I know you understand, Emma,” he says, soft and serious, and she doesn’t bother doing anything except cling to him. With everything she’s got left. “All of it, from the very start. So I don’t think I’ll apologize, actually. For what I’ve done, or what I’d still be willing to do. I won’t give up on you, do you understand me?” “Didn’t,” Emma says, only a little optimistic that’s the right verb tense. Maybe she can get her GED, or something. Before all of this ends. “In Camelot, or after. Accept or acknowledge, and I probably would have—” 

Announcing that killing Gold for what he’d done to Killian regularly crossed her mind in the twenty-four hours or so before they finally made it to the Underworld doesn’t really have the right sentiment for this conversation. Far too violent, and just as honest. 

She’d consider killing him now, too. 

For everything he’s doing, and everything he hasn’t, and she should have shoved him in that river. 

Killian doesn’t smile. At least not in a way that reaches his eyes, the same ones that are looking at Emma again, all blue and earnest, and his shoulders shift. When her fingers graze his chin, more than stubble there because, she imagines, spending a day or so underwater with a sibling he only sort of wants and kind of knows doesn’t leave much time for facial-type grooming. 

It’s a good look, though. 

Most of them are, in Emma’s experience. 

“This entire time,” she continues, “you haven’t given up on me yet.” “Works both ways, darling.” “That one crosses realms, huh?” “Pick up things spending so much time with you.” There’s nothing extra in the words. No sap-filled sentiment or promises she’s only a little hopeful will become actions. And they haven’t talked about the rest; might not even have time, but Emma will let herself think about all these empty rooms anyway, of the exact shade Killian’s eyes go when he stands at the helm, and she hopes he doesn’t cut his hair. Not yet, at least. Longer strands make it easier to touch him, to leave a lasting mark, and settle into his center the same way he’s taken root in hers. 

They fall asleep on the couch. 

#cs ff #captain swan #cs fic #captain swan fic #captain swan ff #laura writes canon #force characters to talk 2k4ever #also remember when i wanted to write about killian not getting to see milah in the underworld? #have some of that here too #just for fun

[ashintheairlikesnow]

chris with jake when he goes mute and is frustrated and stressed that he can’t get any words out and can’t express something he needs and jake is patient and gentle w him. maybe gets him to calm down and encourages him to use gestures to say what he needs 🥺

CW: Phobias/fear, trauma recovery backslide, kind of a flashback but Jake doesn’t know that, PTSD, very vague references to Chris’s past

Takes place very early, after Chris has picked out his new name but before he’s entirely comfortable with everyone.

Tagging Chris’s crew:  @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @stxckfxck , @slaintetowhump, @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout, @doveotions

Jake finds him in the corner when he comes home from campus, curled into a tiny little ball with a heavy blanket wrapped around him, staring at nothing with his green eyes utterly unfocused, hair falling uncombed and mussed-up into his face. The blanket is one of Jake’s, and the last Jake had seen it was folded up neatly in the closet on a shelf. How the kid even got to it, Jake isn’t sure.

The house isn’t empty - he can hear Leila and Krista chatting in the kitchen and Antoni’s probably upstairs - but the kid is all by himself, pressed into that little corner between the sidetable and the wall, nearly hidden from view by the beat-up old plaid couch, some ugly early-90′s or late-80′s relic Nat has probably had since... god, since before Jake was born.

He reminds himself not to say that to her.

“Hey, Chris,” Jake says, quietly as can be, dropping his backpack on the floor in the entryway, kicking off his tennis shoes. He shivers a little as the cooler air hits - his shirt is damp from walking in the drizzling rain, sticking to his back a little, and he rolls his shoulders to dislodge the uncomfortable feeling. 

The kid doesn’t answer. He’s picked a name out, sure, but it takes a while to remember the new one, and Jake isn’t surprised when all he does is stare wide-eyed and silent in Jake’s direction, pulling himself up tighter, the blanket wrapped around him like a fluffy blue cloak, hiding everything but the narrow pale face, the big green eyes, the big of hair stuck out over it all. 

“You okay?” Jake asks, keeping his voice low, his hands where the kid can see them. They didn’t find any obvious scars on intake, no real sign that the kid had been subjected to the kind of violence that was common for runaways and rescues. But Jake has been with Natalie long enough to know that there are usually worse scars on the inside of their heads than whatever they wear on the outside.

Especially for the ones like the kid.

Chris doesn’t answer, but his eyes follow Jake’s movements, and there’s a rustling sound, almost rasping, that Jake gradually realizes must be the kid rubbing at the inside of the blanket, scraping his fingernails along the soft fabric again and again. 

Jake comes to a stop somewhere near the low-set coffee table and gradually crouches down to the kid’s height, staying right where he is, with a good four feet or so of distance between them. A nice safe amount of space. 

He can’t think of anything that might have gone wrong. The remote to the TV is still in the exact same spot he’d left it when he finished watching a news thing this morning, Leila and Krista are the least threatening people on Earth, Antoni has already taken a shine to the littlest rescue here... Nat’s gone all day at meetings... so what is it?

Outside, the drizzle turns to a downpour, and Jake’s eyes slowly slide towards the window, watching the water smack into the leaves of the white birch tree outside with enough force to force them to dip and spring back again. 

There’s a sound of distant thunder, and Jake smiles slightly at it, the low rolling rumble is soothing to him. When he looks back, Chris’s eyes have shifted, too, to stare into the rain as it’s heavy enough now that Jake can barely see across the street to where the weird cowboy guy and his husband live. 

“Is it the rain, Chris?” Jake asks, gently. “Do you not like heavy rain?”

Silence, and then slowly Chris shakes his head, looking into Jake’s eyes with something like pleading in his. Pleading for what, Jake isn’t sure. But he doesn’t move, not yet - not closer and not away. 

“Okay, so it’s not the rain...” Jake sighs, a little lost. Normally when a rescue is like this he’ll get Nat, she’s better at this kind of thing, but Nat’s not here and he can’t just leave the poor kid like this, hiding from something. “Chris, I can’t help you if you can’t tell me what you need. Can you explain what you’re scared of?”

Chris’s expression goes more intense, like he’s trying to come up with words - body tense and straining, almost - and then he slumps back against the wall and shakes his head again, more emphatically this time. Almost angry. Jake watches him bang his head back against the wall behind him with a low grunt. Then he does it again.

“Hey, hey, no need for that,” Jake says, gently. Chris stops, but blinks at him, eyes round as saucers and almost hurt - he’s not sure why telling him not to bang himself against a wall would hurt the kid’s feelings, but he’s clearly done just that. “I mean, look, I’m sorry. I just mean... it’s okay if you can’t say it right now, that’s normal, yeah?”

Another long pause. Then, in the softest whisper, the kid asks, “Is it, it, um-... is it really? Normal?”

“Yes,” Jake says, relieved he’s made a single sound at all. “It is. A lot of rescues have stuff that makes them act kind of like this. It’s so normal, Chris, I promise. But you can’t stay here all day. Is there somewhere you’d rather go?”

Chris’s lips press together, but his eyes move to focus behind Jake, on the stairs in the entryway. Jake glances back over his shoulder, then back to Chris. 

“Are you saying you want to go to your room?”

Chris shakes his head rapidly, pulls further back into the blanket. Now only his eyes and a bit of soft strawberry-blond hair, those freckles scattered over his nose and cheeks, are the only things visible.

“Okay, so not your room...” Jake sighs, rubs a hand over his face. Something changes in the bit of face he can see - something in Chris crumbles at the gesture, and Jake lets his hand drop immediately, frowning. “Hey, you’re okay. I’m not mad. Just trying to decide... hey, I have an idea.”

No visible response this time.

“Here’s my idea. I have like... two hours of homework and some studying to do. What if you hang out with me, huh? You can chill on my bed while I do homework? Would that help? If you were with me?”

Thunder rolls again - Jake never even saw the lightning and feels a hint of disappointment. He fucking loves watching storms, and you can’t really see much in his room, he doesn’t like to open the blinds and curtains since you end up staring directly into the neighbor lady’s bedroom window, which... gross.

The kid’s eyes go to the window, to the rain and the storm outside, and then back to Jake. Slowly, he nods - just a shift of the blanket down and then up again. 

“Okay, good. Great. Can you stand up? You want to walk upstairs with me?”

This time, Jake catches the lightning, the crack of thunder that comes right after it. He doesn’t see Chris flinch - he’s looking out the window. By the time he looks back, Chris is just shaking his head again. Now his nose is behind the blanket, too, and he’s just big green eyes and a few freckles and nothing else.

“Okay... no walking. Got it. Um... I’ll carry you, and then I can come back down for my stuff. How’s that sound? I’ll get us some tea or something, too, to drink. Yeah?”

A quick nod, slightly less panicked eyes. 

Jake lets out a sigh of relief and smiles, standing - his legs ache from having been crouched so long - and moving over to the scared teenager that had hidden himself so well and so silently. 

He’ll have to talk to Leila and Krista and Antoni about keeping a better eye out for stuff like this. They’re all further along in recovery, they probably don’t even remember the days they were all silent and still, lost in their own memories and minds. But they’ll watch over the kid if he reminds them, he’s sure of it.

When he leans down, Chris reaches up, sliding arms around his neck and clinging like a barnacle as Jake slips one arm under him to hold him steady and balances himself with the other, pulling the blanket up with them, tucking it as best he can so Chris won’t get cold. 

“Do you think you’ll be able to talk to me a little, once we’re up in my room?” Jake asks, shifting so he can adjust his hold and get a better grip. Chris’s arms tighten like he’s afraid Jake will put him back down again.

He feels a brush of hair against his neck as the kid nods. “A, a, a little, maybe,” Chris says, in a low soft voice that is barely not a whisper. “M-Maybe. In a, a little while, Jake.”

Jake heads for the stairs - Chris looks like he was once all muscle and has lost some of that in the life he’s lived, and he doesn’t weigh nearly as much as Jake thinks he probably should by now. It’s entirely too easy, too effortless, to carry him up the stairs with the blanket wrapped around him. 

“That’s okay, take your time,” Jake says, gently, thinking about the essay he has to write tonight, has to, he’s been putting it off too long and it’s due Thursday... thinking about the studying, he’s got a test tomorrow and he absolutely cannot bomb it...

“That’s okay,” Jake says, as much to himself as to Chris. “It’s okay if today’s not your best day. Let’s just get you somewhere where you feel safe first, and see what happens, all right?”

“All, all right,” Chris murmurs. His voice is weak and it stirs something in Jake, some deep-seated need to take the reason for that weakness away and ensure it never comes back. “I... I want to feel safe.”

Jake feels the weight of arms around him and the body in his arms and thinks, I hope I can be safety for you. I hope I don’t fuck this up. 

I hope I figure out what set you off like this today.

Outside the house, the rain pours, and the thunder rumbles like something moving underneath.

#whump #hurt/comfort #h/c #caretaker and whumpee #angry caretaker #the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one #phobias tw #ptsd tw #flashbacks tw #although you don't see the flashback from Chris's perspective at all here #frightened whumpee #trauma recovery whump #trauma recovery #trauma recovery tw #rescued whumpee #box boy #box boy universe #box boy multiverse #mute whumpee #sort of #out of fear #chris the strawberry blond romantic #jake the shelter guy

[atrainernamedradish]

Top 10 Least Favorite Pokemon

You know what’s harder than making a top favorites list? A least favorite one. I was particular about this list because I wanted my own personal opinion on the matter instead of adding to the echo chamber that can be the fandom’s. I don’t hate these Pokemon. These are the ones I care for the least. Also, the placements kept changing for this list, but I feel like I finally put everyone on here in the right order now.

10) Whismur Line

The only reason this line is the Normal typing is because Game Freak hasn’t made the Sound typing official. Hell, Electric, or even Steel, would have made more sense. But nope we got these weird fleshy sound-based things that I’m never excited to see.

9) Greedent

I take back everything I said about Diggersby (still wished it didn’t have the belching model cry though), and I’m directing that towards Greedent. It looks like your typical fat, lazy, and not particularly bright cartoon character. Almost feel like they were a bit lazy in this design. Like… they could have done something more, or less since it’s large enough. I feel like Game Freak is trying to recreate a likeness to Snorlax, since it’s the poster child for obese Pokemon, but keeps falling short by giving us the ugliest designs. We don’t need more fat normal types. We’ve got plenty.

8) Electrode

Hey guys, let’s make this Pokeball based Pokemon flip upside down, make it less pissed off and call it an evolution! Also, it’s going to be crazy fast as well explode, most likely killing anything nearby, because why the fuck not? Boring and dangerous… what a match made in hell for a design!

7) Pheromosa

It’s an almost 7 foot tall sentient cockroach with legendary stats. Nope. Just nope. *flees*

6) Grimmsnarl Line

I have been disappointed with this evolutionary line since seeing the leaks of Impidimp. I know a lot of Faerie lore and it ticks me off that they chose a Goddamn Goblin for the first Dark/Fairy type. Also, and I know not all Faeries are cute and cuddly, but why does Game Freak keep trying to sneak in ugly Fairy types? About 95% of the Fairy typing has a cute or pleasing ascetic. That’s one of its themes, that and trying to throw pink on everything, so why give us this ugly line?

The only indicator of this thing remotely being Fairy typing at a glance is that it’s pink. I would have never gotten Fairy otherwise from it. Goblins might be in Faerie Tales, but they aren’t Faeries.

The only one in this line that remotely gives off the Dark typing to me is Morgrem. The other two not so much. Putting black on a Pokemon is maybe another indicator of the Dark typing, but even then it ain’t helping…?

Overall to me this thing is goofy to ugly looking with its design and typing a complete mess. It irritates me that our first combination of Fairy and Dark is this line…

Also, using it in a playthrough and it pisses me off that I’m not getting a Fairy move until it reaches its final evolution! That’s if I don’t want to grind up watt points in the Wild Area for a Fairy TR, or beat Opal before getting said evolution!

5) Shiinotic

Fairy typing makes sense for Morelull when you realize what it’s based on. Hell, even Ghost does. But Shiinotic? I don’t care if mushrooms are a big thing in Faerie Culture. You can’t just design some ugly ass alien mushroom hybrid then slap the Fairy typing on it because of mushrooms or lore from a pre evolution! While we’re at it let’s make the Amoongus and Breloom line Fairies too!

Morelull should have been a single stage line. It would have made sense. But no. They just wanted to make an ugly Fairy type just to prove they could say: “hey fandom I know you’re sick of all the cute and pink Fairy types so here’s an ugly one to change things up!”

And don’t get me *started* on that ugly ass shiny! Game Freak: bright yellow and muddy browns are a terrible color combination! Guess why?

4) Spinda

You know how I praised Alcremie for having multiple forms because of what it was and why it made sense for it? Well I have the opposite opinion regarding Spinda.

If I didn’t believe in the golden rule of everyone having a favorite of each Pokemon then I’d very much assume this thing wasn’t liked by anyone.

Everything about its design annoys me. Why is it a panda? And before anyone tries to tell me otherwise, it’s in its American/English name. Why is it in a constant state of vertigo? I literally was trying to think of a typing it would be better off as instead of the Normal typing and none come to mind. So it’s normal because a) it’s an animal or b) because they needed to give it a typing and no other typing fit.

And out of ALL the Pokemon why does this one have an almost endless possibility of “forms”? This thing has got to be a living dex collector’s worst nightmare!

3) Archeops

This Pokemon is on here for pure personal reasons. Technically there are a few other Pokemon that I feel the same towards, but this one was the worst about it.

You know you have a stupid powerful stat as a non-psuedo legendary and legendary when you need an ability to nerf you. What’s worse is when you need a pretty bulky Pokemon to soak up the damage you reap before said ability does nerf you.

It was always Goddamn terrifying to run into this Pokemon in White 2. Not only was a good chunk of my team weak to Flying, but my Samurott couldn’t take more than one hit from it. Not to mention it didn’t do enough super effective damage to OHKO this thing. So I was never happy to run into this thing because I would only get out of the fight with a lot of collateral damage to my party!

This wasn’t the only Pokemon that was this fucking difficult to deal with in Unova. There is definitely a power imbalance in these games which made playing them a pain in the ass. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Black 2 & White 2, but fuck me if this wasn’t my biggest issues with those games…

(Some of y'all are probably wondering about Slaking, and Slaking is actually easier to deal with thanks to its typing and ability readily triggering.)

2) Pelipper

This Pokemon was originally going to be my least favorite Water type on my favorite and least favorite typings lists, but I think its placement on this list suits it better.

I honestly don’t mind its pre-evolution Wingull. Wingull is kinda cute. Wonder Trade had me groaning every time I saw one, but that was more the player’s fault than anything.

Pelipper is just such a poorly designed Pokemon. Like, what were they thinking when they essentially fused the beak and stomach together? How can this thing carry its front heavy, well front? I assume it can handle all of that weight being airborne since I doubt it can get around any other way with its stubby little feet.

Then they gave it the Drizzle ability and suddenly people give a shit about its ugly ass…

The only time I’ve “willingly” used one was in my Wonderlocke, which was only due to the fact that I was in dire need of a water type, and I'll tell you that right now that I didn’t want to resort to using it. I’m pretty sure it died at the very end in the Champion battle… wasn’t all that sad to lose it if I’m being honest.

This isn’t just reserved for this Pokemon, but I absolutely hate the dual typing of Water/Flying. Nothing says “throw a rock at me” more than this typing combination. 

Overall I just don’t like anything about this Pokemon.

1) Greninja

This Pokemon used to be a lot lower on this list, but as I mentioned right before the list that the order changed as I was making it. I can promise you that this Pokemon isn’t on here because of how popular it is (there are others that would be on here if that was the case). There are many other reasons I will go over as to why this one is on the list.

The first is my experience using a basic one in XY. It’s learn set of moves is terrible, and that’s because it learns a lot of physical moves despite having a much better Special Attack. When I thought about the aspects of a ninja’s special attack being higher than physical it made much more sense. It had little to no options for Dark type moves with one of the best moves for it not being available till you’ve gotten the 8th badge for Waterfall. Greninja was the weakest member of my team with my Aromatisse putting in much more work than it! If Greninja is not competitively trained as well as has any of its hidden abilities then it’s not really that useful. I kept the one from that playthrough because I don’t have the heart to release it or get rid of it…

The second is its design. I very much don’t care for it (its tongue scarf is gross!). Its middle evolution looks so much better to me, and it made me sad evolving it into this ugly thing…

The third is its typing. I’ve had some time to think about it and I’ve wondered to myself: why is Greninja a Dark type? Thinking of the history, and to some extent the mythology of ninjas, nothing screams Dark type to me. I’m also taking into account of Dark being Evil in Japan, and nothing about ninja inherently screams Evil or Dark typing. Then I found myself thinking about its other typing in Water which brought me to the conclusion that the only reason Greninja is a Water type is for two reasons: 1) It’s a starter and 2) it’s a frog.

So you’re probably thinking by this point: “well Radish if you don’t like its typings then what would you change them to?” Unfortunately, I’d keep Water since it’s not the only Pokemon to have a typing based on the animal it is (looking at you Poliwag line!). Dark typing would be replaced with Ghost since ninjas in their lore and mythology can traverse and interact with the spiritual world.

I will address the elephant in the room for my closing thoughts on this Pokemon: Greninja and the fandom. I wholeheartedly believe that if Greninja didn’t have the hidden abilities that it did that it wouldn’t be as favored as it is among the fanbase. As someone who used a basic ability one in hopes of giving it a chance I was greatly disappointed, and didn’t understand why this Pokemon was so popular. That’s why I feel as though the competitive scene is where it has gotten all of its fame from. People give Charizard so much shit for being overrated but do they for Greninja? (Not a big fan of Charizard for those who wanna accuse me as such.)

#whismur #loudred #exploud #greedent #electrode #pheromosa #grimmsnarl #impidimp #morgrem #shiinotic #spinda #archeops #pelipper #greninja

[twiststreet]

Joaquin Phoenix’s “Joker” scored a record $13.3 million on Thursday night in North America. [...] The Joaquin Phoenix-starrer is now looking at a possible offshore weekend bow of $110M+. If that holds, along with domestic expectations, it is also looking at a $200M+ global opening, and further has a shot at overtaking Venom‘s 2018 record October global debut.  [...] Weeks of speculation as to ‘Joker’s’ opening weekend performance and its status as one of the most talked about movies of the year have made the acclaimed (and controversial) film a must-see cinematic event,” Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian said.

Feel like Rambling Instead of Doing My Chorin’ Dept.: I have zero interest in this Joker movie since I prefer cinema and/or low-grade Japanese pornography (which in my estimation is cinema in the Scorsese of sense of the word because you learn a lot about psychology, the punishing psychology of sempais).  I have zero interest in like adult super-clown movies or whatever the fuck’s going on here-- and I don’t want to understand the psychology of someone who doesn’t have enough sex, I’m just too afraid that letting those kind of thoughts into my head might make me slightly less excellent at intercourse and the world would be robbed forever (Ladies).  And add in even a remote chance of some shiny chrome War Boy blowing away my theater...?  Imma pass.  The only Batman villain I’m risking death for is Egghead...

But boy, watching people talk about and around this movie-- what a giant pile of yikes, which has ended exactly how all moral panics about art invariably end, with a giant pile of cash changing hands.  And only “We want to generate TV ratings from normal people who hate arty shit we usually reward”-style award nominations no doubt await (aka the Black Panther slot).  

What a stupid time to be alive... Its always been a stupid time to be alive because we’re not a really brilliant species, but I mean... moral panics over super-clown movies which are poised to make hundreds of millions of dollars where the moral panic isn’t just “oh my god it’s a billboard you can see from outer space about how we stopped funding our education system”... Boy...

I mean, I don’t think everyone was in bad faith, necessarily-- like if I were a lady who had to worry about incels coming and blowing away my yoga class or whatever, everytime I’m downward-facing my dogs, I’d probably be kinda not super-hot for a Joker movie either, like the world needs one more thing zooming-up the limp-dicks of this world. Or I mean, just generally, on the one hand, you want to talk about the world, right, because you live there or whatever?  But on the other hand, it’s that thing you learn if you write about comics, especially-- being the guy talking about the thing just helps the thing, no matter what you say about it. I don’t know-- I never figured out how to square that circle.  Like, I don’t know that I’m the audience for a lot of the moral panic, but it’s not like it was unreasonable for people to be like “can’t we just not”... 

It just fucking got pretty wild in the last few days though-- because it got sucked into a second entirely different jetstream.  You had the “Art is the exact same thing as an instruction manual for stupid people” elitism that kinda kicked off by that awful Mother Jones editor, or people who just want to childproof the entire world because they desperately think that’s a necessary response to living in a horror world (which I don’t think I sign up for but I can see my “we are all damned anyway and deserve to die” position not winning a lot of adherents)... but then thanks to the weird-ass marketing strategy (positioning Joker explicitly as a weapon in the Great American Culture War...?  That’s how they sold Lady Ghostbusters, “come see this movie to send a message”, but it was just weird seeing a Reverse-Ghostbust)... it got sucked into the constant thriving secondary hum on the internet of unfunny people who are super-online and who have a constant axe to grind about comedy, because they don’t get jokes, don’t understand why people laugh at them or anything, and they’re narcissists who think we’re all actually laughing at them when we laugh at jokes because they’re so fucking insecure about their outsized-perception of themselves especially as victims?  

At some point it just wound its way where a lot of people going “The Hangover wasn’t funny to begin with, even though it was one of the highest grossing R-Rated comedies ever made, because we’re all evolved now”-- arguing that movie’s half-billion dollars of revenue generated all magically rendered meaningless cause the director said some stupid-ass jackass shit...?  Yeah, good luck with that.  “Did you know the Hangover had Mike Tyson in it???  The internet’s going to win this fight against one of the biggest comedy hits of my lifetime, ten years later-- how dare people have laughed, according to me, someone who sounds totally normal and cool and fun to be around?  I’m going to buy two tickets to the next movie by the Thor guy-- he’s making anti-hate satires-- why can’t you all be like a guy who makes fucking Thor movies?”  Maybe I’m wrong, I’m on the side I’m on, but I just don’t think the internet’s going to win this nonstop war against jokes, no matter how many anti-hate satires the Thor guy’s got in him!  (Anti-hate satire... go fuck yourself...)

And then the other side of things you had people who are like “nothing ever matters wheeee” where you just have to ignore, like, just the completely stupid world we’re stuck in full of absolute shitheads who obviously have us all surrounded and just are nontop dripping abject fucking brain-deadening bullshit into their ear, day after day, like Chinese Water Torture that these cretins are lining up to take part in, just salivating for to help make the world that much dumber and shittier, happy New York Comicon everybody!  We really need Joker when there are 10 hour Youtube videos of guys complaining about a lady working the counter at Wendy’s who turned down their extra-large bottle of perfume they bought her or I don’t even know what the fuck’s going on with Youtube, nevermind games-- we really needed to make that avalanche of stupid any scarier or stupider..?  I mean, “shit in, shit out” seems kinda like a reasonable proposition to me.  You can’t feed people shit all day and then be like “why does this place smell?”  It’s all the shit!  I call it my Carl’s Jr. theory of human civilization. 

But I mean, you look at the massive loneliness in the world, and even a cursory examination of what’s happening with men in this country statistically, at the same time as all kinds of people are getting stepped onby economic pressures and then you layer on climate change on top of everything else which kinda has to put some kinda dampener on human optimism generally, even if crazy people want to pretend it’s not happening... And then you’re going to tell people not to want entertainment that goes to a dark place, or that the movie they should see instead is Ad Astra (which was just Star Wars for men who hate their penises)??? “You should spend more time contemplating how being a man is bad, like Brad Pitt in Ad Astra.”  A lot of people online (and not just Republicans) just seem angry and isolated and disconnected and sad, and I just don’t think “what if we tried to not have art or entertainment that speaks to that and instead gave them a DVD of Booksmart instead” is just even remotely realistic, or even worth contemplating, from a how-people-function standpoint.  People who get upset about art being a valve, like ... I don’t understand how they comprehend the history of art in the 20th century, let alone modern day stuff... 

Is there going to be a violent cost to it?  I don’t know-- you go look at Falling Down’s wikipedia page and they mention a guy who shot up some folks whose favorite movie was Falling Down.  But... I think there’s a gap between knowing that and then judging Falling Down for it, or that being a relevant data point when talking about Falling Down, that I don’t go over that gap and other people do.  Maybe it’s my age or my own selfishness, I don’t know...   

I don’t know.  As usual, maybe I don’t know what I think.  Anyways, it’s at least nice that it’s finally out and we just have to wait and see what the next bullshit-ass bullshit that causes some moral panic is going to be.  There was cancelling Stephen Colbert because a hashtag inventor told people he hated Asians or some shit.  There was people saying Isle of Dogs hated the Japanese.  Bruce Lee’s daughter yelling at Once Upon a Time in Hollywood -- that was cute, I guess; I guess Bruce Lee’s no longer a public figure who we can comment on and re-purpose as artists have been doing since Warhol or before, because Bruce Lee came in his wife one time, good to know.  I can’t remember all the panics with stand-up comedians, all that stuff, whoof.  There was that time people got angry cause a guy on Youtube didn’t want to see the Lady Ghostbuster movie-- that’s not even an exaggeration there was like one youtube guy everyone got mad at.  I don’t know.  We’ve reached evil super-clowns.  I don’t know how much stupider things can get, only that they will get infinitely, infinitely, infinitey stupider until the sun melts us because we’re definitely not surviving climate change, this isn’t a species built to last...

Anyways, felt like rambling.  

#I am Pointless!

[mergatroid-jones-blog]

Twin Mickey

(A short story)

* 1 *

I don't have a name. That's because there's nobody to give me one. There's nobody to call me by it either, due to the nature of my particular birth defect. I'm three eighths of one inch tall. Not only that, I don't have my own body. Not exactly. I live in my brother's head. We're twins I guess. Some kind of conjoined twins--only instead of being conjoined on the outside, I live inside his head. He doesn't know I exist. Nobody does.

For all I know I'm a very common medical phenomenon. Micky's never had a brain scan-- maybe I wouldn't even show up. That's my brother's name: Micky Van Buskirk. It's sort of my name too, since I don't have one. I stole a little piece of my brother's name. I steal a little piece of everything he has. I'm a parasite. That's what I've decided. Or maybe I'm cancer. I certainly don't do anything to help him. All I can do is sit around his head and complain. He can't hear me, no matter how loud I shout. You aren't designed to hear from the inside. I figured that out.

But that doesn't matter. I still scream about everything. What else do I have? It's like I'm chained to the floor in front of the worst TV show, and I can't reach the remote. Forever.  My brother really might be king of the idiots.  Like all the best idiots, he's just clever enough to convince himself that he's being awfully rational in any given situation. He's convinced himself that everything he's ever done was absolutely the only thing he could have done. He probably thinks he's had a really hard time of it. He hasn't.

I  know literally everything about him, but his motives are a mystery to me. Like when he stole Jacob Yockey's jacket in high school. It was sitting there, all lime green and fake-leather, and he just put it in his backpack like he'd been planning it all along. He didn't need the jacket, and he wasn't some kind of kleptomaniac. That was the only time he did something like that. He put it in the back of his closet and there it sat. He didn't wear it, and he didn't have anything against Jacob Yockey either. Jacob Yockey never hurt anybody. One day, Jacob mentioned that his jacket was lost, and my brother was there. Micky laughed, and he said “Soggy pickles.” What the hell is that??

That night,  he actually put the jacket on for the first and only time. He was still wet and naked from the shower.  He posed and made faces at himself for at least three minutes. My brother is barely five feet tall, quite fat, and covered in thick, curly, black hair. He's not physically attractive.   I heard Jacob Yockey lives in Toronto now, and he's gay and breeds expensive dogs. Good for Jacob Yockey I guess. He sure was funny looking in high school.

* 2 *

You would think that self-loathing and egotism would contradict one another, but they make surprisingly genial bedfellows. My brother will be convinced that he is worth less than the scum under a pretty girl's fingernail. Then in the same hour, he'll realize once again that the world is almost entirely  idiots, and that he miraculously isn't one. If they'd just ask the non-idiots, the world would get along better. Again, these sentiments seem like a contradiction, but my brother has never noticed the inconstancy. Most people don't seem to notice inconsistencies like that.

Perhaps they would notice if they spent a day as a pimple. That's how I think of myself: a brain-pimple. Like when you get a pimple on the inside of your nose, but deeper. My brother is always picking his nose, and he's not subtle about it. He used to eat his boogers, and he didn't stop until he was sixteen. He really is a disgusting shit. One time when we were about seven, he took off his pants, crawled under the  bed, and peed into the carpet. For no reason. What reason could he have possibly had? He just did it to test his body? To test the carpet? That carpet is still there by the way, and I doubt anybody has ever shampooed it. I  think I really hate him.

If I had to live in somebody's head, it didn't have to be such a boring nincompoop. Mickey Van Buskirk has never done anything I would care to watch. Weird stuff sure. Gross stuff, definitely. But nothing good. Once he spent a whole day sorta following around this old man who carried a trombone. I guess he thought the guy was a creep, but who's the creep when you're stalking some old guy all day? Weird stuff, he does. Gross stuff he does. I've seen him lick a banister after a pretty girl touched it at least nine different times. Nasty.

* 3 *

What a miserable little shit. Here's what happens every time: he gets a shitty job and he hates it. And he hates it more and more for a whole year. Then he throws a fit, quits, and gets a new shitty job. He's like clockwork. After high school, he told our mom he was going to be a pharmacist. Whatever happened to that? He was never going to be a pharmacist and he probably knew it. I'm sure Mom wasn't fooled. She's not stupid like Mickey.  

My brother has only ever had one girlfriend that lasted, and that's because she's an even bigger idiot than he is. Angela is her name. They've broken up four times. They broke up again last week.  He made out with her sister Kara. She did it to piss Angela off. He just did it because it was on offer. Fucking idiot. The thing was Angela wasn't actually all that mad about it. Kara was getting revenge for previous transgressions. But it brought up all this drama, and everybody hates each other now.

Good riddance.  I hope I never see those two again. Talk about entitled.  Not one of the three of them can form a cogent thought. Angela literally sets fires and puts them out for fun. But Mickey can't  find words to voice this legitimate concern other than “You're a psycho-bitch.” That doesn't tend to help. But who cares? She walked out and maybe it'll stick. Mickey got good and drunk after that. He got high on pills too. Good. I can share in that.  Then he looked at a bunch of “furry” porn. Disgusting. I really hate him.

* 4 *

He had hated his job at the print shop for almost a year, so I wasn't surprised when he threw a tantrum at work. My brother has always been able to throw a tantrum for what seems like no reason. I think he must plan it in advance. The printer was being crap, and Annie was blaming him for it as usual. So he started throwing boxes everywhere and screaming “It's fucking bullshit, and I can't fucking bullshit!” He said the word “bullshit” twenty-seven times in total. I counted. He ripped off his Clayborn Printing shirt, threw it at Annie, and walked out. She didn't say a word. I don't know if she was angry or amused. At least she had to deal with the printer herself. Horrible woman.

Then what did he do? He called Angela crying and babbling incomprehensibly. I was surprised she hung up on him. Good for her. Then his classic pity party. I've seen it a thousand times. He buys a fifth of Wild Turkey and gets some pills. Angela is kind of a pill head and he's kinda one too when he's with her. Then he rolls down the windows (even if it's winter) and blares Linkin Park at full volume all the way to Foy Point in the national forest. It's isolated. It's also incidentally where he lost his virginity to Sarah Spiller who later turned out to be somehow related to us. Good going.

He did what he normally does. He drank as much of the fifth as he physically could. He smoked every cigarette he had. He used his lighter to blow a fireball with the bourbon, then he threw the bottle (still one third full) into a tree. All that was normal. Then he went for the pills, and I noticed he had brought every bottle that Angela had stored at his house. Most of them were almost empty, but it was quite an array. He dumped them all out into a Halloween candy-pile on the picnic table. He was going to kill himself! I screamed at him “YES! Do it! Finally, I'm done with you! I'm fucking done, you piece of living shit-fucking shit!” I really was excited.

* 5 *

He looked at all the pills, and he shuffled them around. There would have been enough to kill ten Mickey Van Buskirks and a thousand brain-pimple brothers. Then he arranged them by color. Then he shuffled them again. Then he took a little yellow one. Then he took a handful. No good. He couldn't swallow them all. He didn't have any water, and the bourbon was all over a tree. He puked. Now there were two Halloween candy-piles.

Foy point overlooks a creek, and it's not all that far down if you go through the brambly parts. Mickey did. He really wanted to die. I was proud of him. He took a Styrofoam cup from  Frosty Time, and filled it in the creek. The brambles cut him up, but he was too drunk to care. He took two handfuls of random pills, and swallowed them with creek water. Then he screamed “I did it!”

He had. I've never wanted anything more than to die. I would have been jumping up and down if I had legs. But then, Mickey Van Buskirk had an attack of cowardice. He was too much of a coward  even to take the coward's way out. He clutched at his uvula for dear life, and life it gave him. He made himself puke. Then again. Then again. More candy-piles. It was horrible to watch. He was covered in it. If he had waited just five minutes, I bet he would have been too far gone. What a failure.

* 6 *

He woke up the next day, sunburned and thirsty. He was covered in little cuts, and vomit, and Wild Turkey. I woke up too. Alive. I really hate him. Before he drove home (well below the speed limit) he produced his pocket knife. It always makes a satisfying click when he takes out the blade. A lot of things were carved into the picnic table. A crude owl. A penis. A fancy heart. One message said “Be happy.” Another said “Smoke a fat blunt biotch 420!”  Another said ambiguously  “Is waterlogged and so am I.”

It was important for Mickey to carve something into that table. It must have been important for him to stare at it so long.  Something big had happened there, and he needed to commemorate it. He needed to write a message of his own: to speak and be heard. After at least three minutes of staring, he carved his statement on the table very large above the owl.  Here's what it says:

“Fuck”

[nihilist-commentary]

Before Sunrise (1995) Commentary

To start this entry, please go see the trailer for this movie. It's fantastic. Which is ironic of me to say as I was on the verge of vomiting during the entire movie, but let me dive in and explain exactly why I can't stop thinking about this movie. I'm gonna save your time and my time and I will not give you a plot synopsis but just use this link and catch up, or as I said, please watch it. 

Thanks. So the movie itself is a romantic comedy, although, the usual elements of many couples being involved, a big conflict, intense crying etc. was not included, which made this movie even less usual and even more cool. And yet, why was I so “disgusted” by some of the scenes? The entire concept of the movie, meeting someone completely new and only having a short amount of time together, is something very autobiographical to me. I won't go into detail on this, but just know.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play the protagonists, and actually the only dynamic characters. The cast is very minimalistic, and so is the actual plot structure, as nothing actually happens apart from talking and romance. It is amazing how Richard Linklater managed to direct a movie this minimalistic, and yet so powerful and consuming. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

And yet, I was not able to watch it without feeling weird. I don't know what exactly made me cringe so much. The fact how accurately and amazingly this movie was filmed, or just about how cheesy it was. Fair enough, from an objective point of view, it was actually not even remotely as cheesy as normal romcoms. And, since I have to be fair, a pretty damn good movie. But, I'm not here to gush about the plot and the actors, but I actually just want to share some of my insights on this basis-idea of the movie and maybe even some advice, too.

Since I have been in a similar situation before, I completely understand the need and urge to know the other person as well enough as possible, for you found this amazing person and you're trying to compensate for all the years you have missed without them. Understandable. But definitely not the way to go. 

Picture this. When meeting someone, someone you're potentially attracted to, you are your best self. Best behavior, best humor, best temper, everything. The less attractive and rather negative qualities of yourself are completely shut away, for we need to warm up to a person before we become, in a certain way, comfortable enough to let our ... shittiness (no, I could not find a word more precise and eloquent) show through. It has also to do with trust; are we ready, do we trust our opponent to accept our flaws? When you only have a short time with someone entirely new, anything as little as less than a week, three days or even just one night, you most definitely will not reveal, at least deliberately, any negative qualities of yours. I'm not saying that when we are comfortable with someone we purposely try to piss them off with a bad trait of ours, but we do become more trusting and comprehending toward the other person. 

Why are those negative qualities important? Firstly, to stay in reality. Chances are, you will try and "keep contact" with each other (which by the way, only stirs up old emotions that will be gone after a max. of six months and really just holds you back from moving the fuck on). In itself, a good idea, unless you plan on fully dating that person, in which case NO NO NO NO NO. Jesse and Celine didn’t do it, hell, they only saw each other about a decade after their encounter so really, unless your temporary romance can succeed time then please come back to this post and I will change my entire commentary. But for now, unless you are Jesse and Celine, it is very unlikely to happen.

Why shouldn’t you date the person, though? Because of the negative aspects that are yet to be revealed. As the third movie in the trilogy, Before Midnight (which was just as fucking amazing as the previous two movies) shows us, they have found the negatives in each other. You have to wait, just like they did. For the real person to come out. As honest and carefree you may be with that person in that short time you have with them (which I'm sure felt like an "eternity" and you've "never felt more alive and understood" and yadda yadda - come on. Be real with me), you do not get the real version of them. Instead, it is some illusion-love drunk person who is doing everything in their power to forcingly accelerate the process of warming up to a person. Bad, bad, bad. Secondly, negativity is part of the human. And we cannot know someone without knowing their flaws. 

Skipping the "you piss me off" phase and jumping straight into "I have never met anyone like you and I want to be with you forever" is rarely ever a good idea. If you have never been in this sort of shithole before you might think it is exaggerated, both the movie and what I'm saying here. But no, inevitably, if you end up in this situation, you will be thinking about merging futures. I suppose experiences like this really put you into some sort of hallucinatory phase where you see the world through love-drunken eyes. Kind of gross, eh? Ew, romance. 

Understand that it may take years until you are fully close with someone, and understand that making rash decisions while you're in this kind of state of euphoria and lust and love and whatever else that may be, is not good. And if you do keep contact, you will eventually see the negative traits. But it will be too late already, as you firstly only had the best of them on your plate, and then suddenly you get bits and pieces of a shitty personality and a bad opinion on political issues. When meeting someone in a more average context, all of our traits and characteristics tend to show and hide every now and then, and the only reason that is possible is due to the time. It takes TIME. And when you have seemingly everything, love, wine, and your amazing new person that you will definitely marry in 10 years to come, you will know that none of it really matters unless you have time to fully enjoy it. 

So, what do you do when it comes to this? Well firstly, stay focused. Stay focused on life, on where you are, on what you have to do next. Be aware that you have a rosy filter over your eyes, and don't make any rash decisions. Neither the ones that affect your new-found love, nor the ones that may be impacted by it in your own circle. Partners, friends, hookups, think about them, too, and realize that, as harsh as this sounds, the person in front of you is not made of marble. They are not perfect, they are not replacements for anyone, and they are also capable of hurting you. Understand that usually, feelings like this are temporary. Not so however in Before Sunrise. Marvelous plot, and it even has two sequels which I have mentioned before, and the actors have done an outstanding job in it. The movies are the best-case scenario, yet brilliantly put and very realistic. I don’t think any other romance movie (or trilogy, for that matter), has had me this hooked and losing sleep and thoughts over it.

So, what did piss me off? How real and yet deceiving the movie reflects these temporary encounters with, what at the moment seems, a soulmate. Maybe you will have a Jesse that you meet on a train to Vienna. Who the fuck am I to tell you it won’t work, right?

Take care of yourself. And always think about the consequences of your actions.

#before sunrise #comment #before sunset #before midnight #movie review #movie commentary #ethan hawke #julie delpy #richard linklater #jesse and celine #vienna #movie #commentary #review #romance movie #romance #romcom

[celepom]

Trollhunters Book Review

I did not like this thing. I can see the parts that remained in the animated show, but they improved on so much and for that I am grateful. Because if the show had been anything remotely like the book it would have been vile but even more tragically - BORING.

It goes without saying that everything under the cut will have spoilers.

The Writing Style

First of all, it’s written in first person and it really shouldn’t be. Like most YA novels written in FP it is done incredibly poorly and cheats that narrative several times. This is Third Person Perspective with First Person Pronouns and it’s really REALLY bad at times. The style itself is inconsistent and its hard to follow what’s going on sometimes because characters just drop out of existence/the scene when the author doesn’t have anything for them to contribute.

It is also gross for the sake of being gross. In the show the “Biology” of the trolls is at least consistent. They’re stone creatures. In this? They’re sacs of puss and goo that vomit up their own internal organs in order to be more sneaky. There’s shit, vomit, blood and guts everywhere in this book.

There were several points in this book where I could tell that it was both written by a man and for a male audience. It was very distracting, but that may just be personal preference. I prefer a more neutral narrative voice, I guess. (Think of it like a movie where the camera suddenly pans across the female character’s ass. It’s like that male gaze, in written form, but toned down because it’s YA)

The Characters

Man, you know all those characters in the show and how you love them and want to keep seeing them grow or have redemptive arcs? *bitter laughter* There is none of that here. Absolutely none, and it’s both frustrating and depressing

Jim

This guy has nothing on Jim Lake. He has no hobbies, no interests, he labels himself as a loser and is quite content to remain that way up until he finds his Magical Calling and suddenly for the first time something is easy and so he loves it. He’s a Gary-Stu, essentially. He is a blank slate for the reader to project themselves onto.

AND HE DOES NOTHING BUT WHINGE!! There is a difference between a character having a realistic reaction to dark circumstances and Whinging. Jim reaches Bad Batman Angst Fic levels about how NOBODY Understands him and he has NOBODY and he must GIVE HIMSELF UP TO THE NIGHT!

That is up until 3/4 of the way through the book when he suddenly starts deciding that being a Trollhunter is amazing (They start winning - that’s what causes his attitude shift), but even then he continues to WHIIIIIINE.

Toby

Toby at least had some redeeming qualities in the show. And you bought that he and Jim were friends in the show. Here? They’re friends because they’re both losers and Jim really isn’t that great a friend to Toby. And since this book is written in Fake First Person, he often gets ignored. Out of Sight, Out of Mind and all that.

Blinky

Oh Fraser Book Troll Dad you certainly came a long way. Blinky in the books is a (mostly) blind Troll that is a tentacle monster. When he starts talking it’s similar to how he does in the show - intellectual - but instead of being gentle, supportive, protective and instructive he....well he’s a condescending asshat. He also drones on and on and on (usually about himself/his dissertation) and there is no sense of companionship between him and Jim, because, well, he doesn’t know him! He’s also more of a fighter than just a scholar in this.

AAARRRGH!!!

AAARRRGH!! is actually female in this. Actually, it mentions that most Troll Warriors are female because they’re more built for it than males.She also has brain damage which was interesting until the book shat itself at the end (Her Brain Damage was caused in her fight with Gunmar when he slammed a boulder into her skull and the remnant remains. And then at the end the remnant is removed and suddenly she can talk “intelligently” again - to quote the book). In place of moments where AAARRRGH!! goes berserk we have her being possessed by Gunmar’s eye, which she ripped out of his head during their battle 45 years ago. Oh, and she eats several of Toby’s cats. Like at least 15 of them (”Three square meals of cat”). And it’s treated as a joke both times it comes up (FUCK YOU BOOK)

Claire

Claire was barely in this except as a love interest (and one other very stupid “surprise” at the end, but we’ll get to that). In this she is Scottish (Not British, as Jim assumed at the beginning of the book). She has wild hair, isn’t stick-thin, is “weird” but still makes friends and is fairly popular. But it turns out she’s living a double life - pretending to be a different person for her parents who want her to be an upstanding, rich, ideal young lady. But her true calling is to be a Trollhunter because like Jim she is from a magical human family of Trollhunters!!! (At least she had training in swordplay/fencing. Unlike Jim who pulled the skills out of his hobbyless and inathletic ass)

Jack

Jack should have been the main character of this book. Period. This story should have nixed Jim in it’s entirety because he was ultimately pointless. Jack meanwhile actually had stakes in the war going on, especially after being involved in it for 45 years. He unwillingly gave up his life as a normal kid to help in putting an end to the murders of nearly two hundred children. He’s frozen in time - a 68 year old man trapped in a 13 year old body - because living with the trolls stopped his aging (It was never properly explained why - it’s just what happened). It’s also his fault for Gunmar being back since instead of striking the killing blow 45 years ago Jack sealed him away. That’s why he stuck around for 45 years, out of a sense of responsibility.

The Major Differences

Jim isn’t the first Human Trollhunter. In fact Human Trollhunters have been around since ancient times and always have been the PRIMARY Trollhunters because up until around 300 years ago ALL Trolls were Gumm-Gumms. No joke. In fact, all of the Trolls in Europe and Asia are STILL Gumm-Gumms and only a group of separatist Trolls and their descendants (Trolls live a long time - 300 years is nothing) who traveled to the Americas are “Good Trolls” who think eating people is bad. And yet they relapse into eating people sometimes too.

Trollhunters are mythical lines of humans whom always historically heeded the call to protect people from Trolls who consider them a nice snack or meal if they take several at a go. One of these families is the Sturges, but since Trollhunting was basically non-existent in America they didn’t uphold any of the history, training, anything. So after tracking down one of the legendary families Blinky and AAARRRGH!! kidnap one kid (they tried for two, but the second one got away) in order to help them fight off Gunmar since the pacifist trolls had forgotten how to fight....Except they had an army and FWHFLIEHGF- IT’S STUPID, MOVING ON!!

And for anybody who likes the Changelings, they are completely different in this and not sympathetic, tragic, or interesting at all. How are they made in the book? By Nullhullers vomiting on the target to create a cast of them which then develops into a copy of that person (Baby) from the vomit and viscera. And then they carry the baby off...to be eaten. Yeah, I hold no notions that those babies weren’t tortured then devoured after being fattened up. Not in this book.

Jim isn’t living with his single mother, he’s living with his single dad. His dad who is a paranoid control-freak who turned their house into a bunker basically. There is a reason for this, his brother - Jack - disappeared when he was young, but it’s spiraled so far out of control it’s really NOT. OKAY. He also only starts coming around after a troll parasite makes him “feel better.” And after all these years when he discovers his brother is still alive he gets very creepy about it. Jim Sr. is no Barbara Lake that’s for sure.

There is no training, not really. Training consists of Jack demonstrating sword moves to Jim Once. ONCE. But that’s enough because magic inherent Trollhunter genes means he memorizes and knows how to perform all of those moves after being shown by someone else doing them once. THAT’S HOW INSTINCT WORKS!!

The Annoying Shit AKA The stuff that made me lose my suspension of disbelief

The Milk Carton Epidemic.

Troll Market is not accessed by magic (except when it is) and it is literally underneath the city. HOW HAS IT NOT BEEN FOUND WHEN IT IS LITERALLY CONNECTED TO THE SEWERS AND YOU CAN HEAR CARS DRIVING OVERHEAD??!! WE DO GO INTO SEWERS! WE MAINTAIN THEM! AS WELL AS ROADS WHICH SOMETIMES REQUIRE CONSTRUCTION!!

Trolls can fully regenerate within a day if their gall bladder is not destroyed (Thank you for getting rid of this, Dreamworks/ Del Toro/ Whoever)

There’s no Magic Armour or Weapons. The only armour anyone wears is by the character Jack and it’s made of scraps like tacs, boom box speakers, book coils, etc. And the “Medallion” is just a trinket that allows the wearer to understand what the Trolls are saying. Because, yeah, they don’t speak a Human sounding language. (That doesn’t get annoying with how it alienates Toby or anything. No siree)

Gunmar the Black was sealed away and Killaheed Bridge will release him....Except how, like I said, Troll Territories are literally underground and they walk through the sewers and old mines(???) to get to where he’s “Stuck.” (Again, THANK YOU for changing this to the Darklands because another dimension I can understand not being able to WALK OUT OF for 45 years)

Steve. STEEEEEEEEVE!!! I hate generic bully characters, but this one takes the cake. He abuses other students in front of teachers and they accommodate him to the point where he is disruptive to other students IN CLASS but they do nothing. He has even less personality here than in the show. And Jim doesn’t stand up to him until near the end because he’s a self-admitted coward, but even THEN He isn’t the one who gives him a verbal smack-down - IT’S CLAIRE. Oh, and turns out he’s a Changeling. So they can kill him at the end. *cough* Male Revenge Fantasy *cough*

THAT ENDING THO

I mean it when I say the ending was a fusion of Chekov’s Guns and Ass Pulls. You remember this thing that was mentioned back at the beginning? How about seventeen different things??? WELL SEE! THEY’RE ALL IMPORTANT TO THE FINALE!! But, Oh, WAIT that isn’t fun enough so here’s a bunch of stuff that wasn’t forshadowed at all (Pulled straight from my ass) but I’m gonna act like makes perfect sense!!!

And then they kiss while covered in and surrounded by blood and gore while Steve is casually killed in the background because I’M Special and SHE’S SPECIAL and that means we’re PERFECT for each other.

Oh what’s that? Did we actually save the day? What happened to the weird guy? AH WELL WHO CARES KISSING DREAM GIRL

No seriously was that half-asses sequel bait because it was just dumb

#Trollhunters #Book Review #Trollhunters the book #very negative #If you like the show I'd say just stick with that #You won't get anything interesting out of the book #just frustration if you're anything like me

[cantskank]

fuck this is long...tldr i’ve been lame but getting better

the last post is brought to you by me getting into the magnus archives for some positive ace rep

then having the absolute and overwhelming focus of the fandom be focused on that character’s romantic relationship

then the people who ignore or gloss over the fact that jon is ace or make him have sex anyway to make martin happy????  which just like fucks me up a bit

(esp bc exact quote, “jon...doesn’t” really disputes the idea that he would have sex with martin)

(also much more minor but it bugs me to see people in the fandom refer to jon and martin together as gay.  jon is biro ace, i think gay is not particularly accurate.  and gayness is excellent!  don’t get me wrong.  but that’s just not accurate to what jon is.  and it would not at all bother me if there were equal amounts of “aww look at them they’re so asexual together!”  and that description probably feels weird and wrong.  but it’s just as correct as saying “they’re so gay and cute!” or whatever i keep seeing people say about it!  it is just as accurate to call their relationship ace as it is to call it gay!  and not wanting to acknowledge or even consider that is really telling in what it reveals about how non-aces feel about asexuality.  it just builds to a picture of ‘we want our own representation and we will discard or ignore the ‘uglier’ bits of one of the ship character’s identity because asexuality is foreign to me/irrelevant/unnatural/weird/something i don’t fully understand and am afraid to/uninteresting.’  and i very much want to sympathize with the former (again, the whole reason i got into the magnus archives) and very much want to kill the latter with fire. this is also relevant to me in that about a year ago, i started thinking a lot about how as an aro ace, being told i had straight passing privilege, and the fact that i am not out (but would not lie and call myself straight) and just generally allow people to assume whatever they want about me when it comes to my orientation, whether that’s gay, straight, bi, ace, whatever, (and also having had mostly straight friends for the couple of years before that when it had very much been the opposite prior to that (and that does make a difference, to me at least),)  had resulted in me very much creating this narrative of being ‘effectively straight.’  not at all in the sense that ‘yes i’m basically straight and i feel mostly straight’ but in that i felt like ace-ness and aro-ness, if i wasn’t going to be out about it (which i’m not but which i may end up changing down the line), was not something i was allowed to consider as separate and distinct and special and important about myself?  because society would not like to think about aros/aces.  what society wants is to send the message that “not having sex is not important.  not having sex is not normal and makes you a loser.  not feeling romantic attraction is shameful and unnatural.  not feeling romantic attraction is something that makes you a monster.  do not talk about your disinterest in these things, it is at once completely unimportant/irrelevant and for our comfort and to allow you to conform socially you should not talk about it AND it is disgusting and freakish and makes you broken.”  so.  it is somehow unimportant AND deeply disturbing at the same time.  anyway, for me this resulted in feeling that my aro ace-ness was unremarkable and i should not consider it something exceptional about me, and i should just settle into viewing myself as close to the default.  and maybe you would think i am part of the default, as a first impression, and that’s fine.  but i realized i didn’t want to think of myself that way.  even if people will insist it is this way, asexual =/= straight.  i get to, and i want to, think of asexuality as its own distinct thing, and it does not have to fit into the paradigm of gay vs straight because it cannot fit into that paradigm.  i had refused to give myself the space to think of it as special because no one was telling me it was special.  and not being out definitely had a huge effect on this.  but it is just factually untrue to view myself as unremarkable for being asexual and as ‘effectively straight’ because it’s wrong!  it’s just wrong!  and if i am firmly of the belief that i am not straight, i must be equally firmly of the belief that i am not gay.  there is no judgment involved in either of those statements, but i must respect myself and my identity enough to firmly believe it is its own identity, and worthy of being considered that way, and not merely framed in which ways it relates the false dichotomy of gay and straight.  meaning, i cannot frame my asexuality as “not quite gay but not quite straight” but as its own entity: i have my own distinct orientation and it is aromantic asexual and i do not experience attraction.  full-stop.”  which may seem basic (and may seem like a very minute difference) but it was an important step for me in my identity.  i don’t think i’m quite explaining it right.  i will say: whether they realize it consciously or not, i think a lot of people think of sexuality by how much you deviate from the norm.  the norm is straight.  the most extreme not-norm (by, again, the false dichotomy that has been set up) is gay.  how different you are from the norm will probably determine how important your sexuality is to you because non-normative sexualities are oppressed and the fight to be allowed to feel you are worthy of respect means your sexuality feels and is highly personal.  and, this would be a measure of how gay you are.  before my perspective shift, i felt very little about my sexuality (other than mostly dread at dying alone.  which i still feel!).  therefore, i was not very different from the norm, and my sexuality was not worthy of consideration.  it was not allowed to be very important to me, especially if i was not going to be very out.  BUT!  this is not a good perspective!  again, false! dichotomy!  there is no reason to view yourself on a sliding scale of gay and straight!  i am Neither!  and it is for this reason that i feel very strongly that gay is not the right way to describe jon!  it can be, and if it feels right to him then that is a fine and excellent way to identify!  but his identity is asexual and, by necessity, he is not gay.  just as he is not straight.  which is okay and allowed.  and by many people choosing exclusively to refer to jon and martin as gay, while extremely understandable, feels like a failure to understand the above.  allo identities do not hold precedence over aspec identities because aspec identities are worthy of their own consideration, not just as something “missing” and inherently lower priority to allo identities.  and calling the relationship gay exclusively, feels like they kind of believe that.  and any reluctance to call their relationship ace (which i think MOST people would find very strange and weird and uncomfortable) is a lack of education and understanding on what asexuality looks like, the kinds of relationships asexuals have.  asexuals are not some remote, gross thing that cannot be understood and must be ignored, we are people and we are here.  if you haven’t noticed, our entire online presence is BUILT around education and visibility.  these are things you can find out and understand very quickly.  and hopefully people will not view asexuality as something weird and shameful and something that should just be ignored. holy shit that was a long aside.)

and the post was precipitated by seeing fanart of a very romantically intimate moment and not being at all interested in that for myself.  i really want to be close to someone (/some people which is too much to hope for) but just so emphatically not in that way.  just...a lot of clarity in what i want?  because i am sometimes so miserable for being aro specifically that i wonder if my identifying this way is wrong and unhealthy, whether it’s worse to consider myself aro and causing more problems than it’s solving.  sometimes i wonder if i was too quick to dismiss romance and all my self-discovery and self-reliance has been for nothing?  maybe being miserable about amatonormativity has just been because i’m alloro but just miserable and self-hating and trying to ruin the fun for everyone and the problem is not that romance has been artificially elevated but just that i have deep-seated issues with romance?

anyway it was more of a relief than anything to have my aro-ness confirmed by my gut reaction.  um, i still think i need to let go of some of my bitterness about amatonormativity, only because it’s not serving me to be my happiest self (not because it’s not bullshit), but it’s not because i’m unconsciously not aro. 

here’s what i think i want for myself:

like i said above, letting go of some of my anger at romance and at amatonormativity in general.  there’s definitely a place for that in me, but people talking about romance should not make me miserable like it’s starting to do.  in a lot of ways this comes from me being jealous and bitter about not having this supposedly wonderful, normal, natural experience, and not being confident in it being okay- great, even!- to be aro and not experience that.  i want to become more neutral about romance, since it is equally okay to not experience that.  my existence and validity is not threatened by other people having romantic relationships.  it’s okay for that to be an important thing for them, and (/because) it’s equally okay for it NOT to be important to me.

sorta referenced in my point above, but i want to rely less on other people to make me valid.  it doesn’t matter how anyone else feels, i am the way i am.  i want to be much more confident in that for myself.  i can’t progress and build a better relationship with myself if i don’t trust my own experience and emotions over what other people would tell me is true about myself (or how the rest of the world works). 

i know this is kinda what got me feeling not great in the first place, but i want to find more ace/aro rep for myself.  potentially this could make things worse (in the way i mentioned above; relying on that representation to really speak to my experience and finding that it does not, and that fandom in particular is very caught up the romance- and just generally allo- side of things).  but i am hoping/relying on the possibility that increasing ace/aro rep will give me way more options and a higher chance that i will have my own experience reflected.  i want to start listening to the penumbra podcast, since i’ve heard there are at least two aspec characters, one of whom is even aro ace! side note, thinking about it a bit: the first ace rep i had was a few months ago, when i watched bojack horseman and saw todd’s story.  i think i was a bit spoiled in that rep.  todd’s story was really focused on his own self-discovery.  he was alloro and wanted a relationship, but in my mind he didn’t care so much about getting that.  even when he was in a relationship, he still got to be cool and have his own adventures.  having a romantic relationship was secondary to his story and, you got the sense, secondary to him as a person.  and, his asexuality was very important to him once he realized he was ace.  he was very open about it to people, not ashamed, and he did have a journey with his sexuality that the audience was brought along.  that is everything i want in an ace character!!!  then i got into the magnus archives, expecting to have a similar experience.  instead, we find out jon is ace because we as the audience hear him being outed without his knowledge between his friends, based on information from his ex (again, presumably without his knowledge).  and word of god says "although whether that’s how the archivist himself would actively identify, who knows?”  also a very different take on ace rep than bojack horseman.  and i love jon and martin as a couple, but i have just been really overwhelmed with how much of that is the focus of the fandom (plus my normal/main fandom is hockey and that can be VERY platonic.  i can make it as platonic as it gets).  those are two different ways of being asexual, and they are both valid!  they probably each ring true for many.  from my perspective i prefer the bojack approach because i feel more affirmed by todd’s rep than by jon’s, but that doesn’t make todd more accurate representation.  i guess the moral of the story is, not all ace rep is the same, and don’t get invested in seeing yourself (or the kind of rep you want) in every ace story.  and my solution is to broaden my ace rep rather than only have a few and ultimately not be happy with it.  (also i want to be very clear that the importance of ace rep is something that is built up entirely in my mind.  jonny said they always considered jon to be asexual from s1, way before he was revealed to be in the show.  they were not going for ace rep, they just felt asexuality fit his character best.  it is me (and others like me probably) who came to this story knowing this and placing expectations and stakes onto this character as The One Who Represents Us.  i relate waaaay more to martin (as we all do i’m sure) but because my other options are so! very! limited! when it comes to asexuality i put all my emotions and expectations and self-worth on how this one character could represent my entire experience.  which has nothing to do with the creators of the show, who are just telling the story they want to tell.  so they can’t give “bad ace rep” because there are so many ace stories to tell and it’s not their fault or their problem that options are so limited that we end up building up any character that is ace into the one who represents all ace experiences.  my fault, not theirs, is what i’m saying.)

probably obvious after my word-vomit but cut back on actively seeking out magnus archives fandom/content!!!!  it does not make me feel better about myself.  romantic relationships do NOT make you more worthy.

just generally being more positive and affirming about being aro ace (and being aro in particular!)  it is excellent and there are so many good things about being this way!  i would like to focus on those more for myself :)

holy shit i wrote a lot.  i had a lot of feelings that i wanted to get out.

#i almost want to legit tag this #(with like aro/ace tags) #because i wrote a lot in here about being aspec that i'm really proud of and i think should get more consideration! #but this whole post is a mess and that's not why i wrote it #i did not write it to be consumed by other people :P #i think what i will probably do is take the parts that i think are good points and put them together into a post on my main blog. #also this was basically motivated by tma and idk how much i want to call that out. #like i'm not looking to start discourse in a fandom (which i most definitely will not do anyways) #but i think it's important if you're a fan of a certain piece of media that has certain identities represented #that you respect and have a lot of consideration for that? and that you don't generally choose to ignore our of disdain/ignorance for that #identity #idk apparently there are exclus who are fans of tma? and it's just like...how? #you know the main character who you presumably like is exactly the sort of person you would sneer at right? #even an exclu with the mildest feelings on asexuality (of the 'idc just you are only queer if you're otherwise lgbt also get out of my face' #variety) must feel some discomfort in their views given the fact that they appreciate jon as a person #how do you like and respect jon but still look down on aces????? i don't get it #and the people who ignore jon's ace identity give me similar vibes to that #like jon being ace is an unpleasant truth that they can just ignore their way out of #since deep down they don't respect us and don't find asexuality worthy of consideration #what they want out of this character is his ability to be in a gay relationship #which okay #i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about how feeling nothing when it comes to romance and sex makes me feel like a non-person a lot of th #e time #which makes me feel like just a tool to use a lot of the time #which i might write about later #'oh you need someone to comfort you? i've got no one else in my life and i crave human contact i will drop everything and comfort you' #'oh you need someone to run an errand for you? i am so desperate to keep people in my life because i know most people will not stay in it fo #r me that i will run the errand for you and tell you i don't mind and it's fine and i will really really try hard because i have not yet int #ernalized the fact that being useful to people will not make them want me around any more' #'oh someone might need to take care of mom and dad when they're older? i won't have a family so it will probably be me'