#i still had fun with it! and i don’t want to belabor the point as it’s been a topic of discussion for a bit

[busaikuknee]

not to be #negative here but i genuinely think my enjoyment of blood and guts would’ve been increased tenfold if the camera work hadn’t been god awful 50% of the time

#i still had fun with it! and i don’t want to belabor the point as it’s been a topic of discussion for a bit #but good fucking lord. you have someone whose debut people have been awaiting for months! years! and that’s how you cut it together? #when it comes to bigger companies i do value production a lot and aew’s has been noticeably declining. which is a shame #i like the wrestlers there please let me see them wrestle without 6 cuts away from the action

[ghoste-catte]

I was curious what advice would you give to someone new to writing fics? I've been wanting to get back into it but haven't seriously written something since high school. I hope this isn't an annoying question or anything!

Not an annoying question at all! I'm just a little worried that I won't have terribly good or useful advice. To be honest, I also sort of stopped writing in earnest right as I finished high school, and didn't pick it back up until my late 20s. It's certainly an adjustment! But I think the few things that really helped me get back into writing fic as a hobby and something I spend quite a bit of time on would be:

Write for yourself first, then find your other motivations. My original inspiration in getting back into fic writing was that there just were not that many fics I liked for my favorite pairing, and I wanted more of them, and I especially wanted more with the tropes and characterizations I wanted to see. I think at the very core of anything you need that internal spark that drives you. At the same time, for me at least, if I just relied on my own drive, I would not get much done; I need some external guardrails. So having people send prompts, or writing for particular events, or writing stuff for friends really helps me to get my ass in gear and finish stuff. That may not be the perfect motivator for you, and that's fine! You just gotta figure out what is.

Be open to inspiration. Anything and everything can be spun out into a story with the right tweaking. Obviously stuff like music is a classic inspiration source, but I've also pulled ideas from poetry, from memes, from Reddit threads, from YouTube videos, from rambling conversations on Discord and from real life to make fics out of. So many times, someone will post a silly Twitter screencap, and I'll think, There's a fic in this. And a lot of the time, there is! Research is a wonderful thing, but so is serendipity. If you're out there actively looking for ideas, eventually one that you like will stumble past you.

Find your community. I can genuinely say I never would have finished more than one fic if I didn't have fandom friends to talk to about even stupid headcanons, to bounce ideas off of, and to encourage me (and to encourage them in turn!). Discord has been a godsend, and some of my closest online friends are people I met in the GaaLee discord server. As I've gotten more comfortable as a writer, I've also joined general writing servers and Reddit communities and have found them immensely helpful on both a motivational level (bingos, sprints, owe-me challenges) and on a craft level (plot workshopping and writing ethics and live grammar help). It's a lot easier to think about fic ideas and hash through problem moments when I have a constant stream of fandom-related chatter coming from the little people who live in my phone! Ao3 is an amazing website, and it's great as, well, an archive, but it isn't social media by design. If you want conversation and human connection and cheerleading, you've gotta forge out and find it.

Make it a habit ... If you want to produce anything longer than a couple hundred words, you really have to set aside time for it. And writing is just like knitting or dirt biking or painting little model figurines: the more you do it, the more easily it comes. When I was first getting back into the proper swing of things, I committed myself to 30 minutes of writing per week. Just 30 minutes. I didn't even hit that goal every week, but there were tons of weeks I got on a roll and went over that amount, and by the end of the year I'd written over 200,000 words. I used to spend an hour laboriously tip-tapping out 200 words, but now I can easily blow through 1k in a 50 minute sprint. It's all about training that muscle.

... But don't make it a chore. With fanfic, you aren't doing this as a job, and you aren't ultimately doing it for anyone other than you. That means you can take breaks when you need them, you can set deadlines and then fail to meet them, you can write stuff and then decide to never post it. When you start getting burnt out, when the practice loses the joy and energy, stop. There's no 'hustle' here. In our capitalist society we're so trained to push past our limits and keep going even when it hurts us, but the hobby you do for connection and relaxation and whatever else shouldn't be like that.

Ignore metrics. Sometimes stuff isn't gonna get hits, or kudos, or comments. There are some basic 'rules' as to the stuff that does and doesn't get traction, but every time you post something it's a roll of the dice. If you're focused on watching that kudos counter tick up, you will get bummed out fast. And any writer will tell you that the stuff you think is your best work will never be the stuff that gets the most accolades. So you have to find something else to give you a sense of success. For me, it's watching my wordcount go up in my stats and those occasional comments where someone has a lot to say and that one person who always leaves me a <3 emoji (and, shout out to @egregiousderp, having someone to have long one-on-one conversations with about the stuff that never made it to page).

Don't strive for perfection. It's really easy to want your first ever fic to be a complete showstopper, the best fic fandom has ever seen, hitting all the tropes and the ideas and the characterization that you just know fandom is missing and would be everyone's top favorite if only it was written. This is a trap. No one fic can be all things. Most people who want to write an epic as their very first venture will not see the end of that epic, because they haven't put in the practice hours to make something on that scale work. That's not to say you can't start out with a big, sprawling multichap, just don't expect it to be the greatest thing since sliced bread if you're just starting out, and be okay with abandoning it for greener pastures if you get to that point. Think of the first time someone makes a vase out of clay or bakes a loaf of bread. That's never their best vase or their best bread. If they keep up with it, they'll make more and better vases and loaves. Likewise, your first fic is probably not gonna be your best fic. See it for what it is: your launchpad.

You can't edit an empty page, but you can over-edit a full one. This kind of spins off of #7, but if the words aren't there, you can't fix them. Daydreams and headcanons are fantastic (and god, how many times have I wished for a speech-to-text engine that projected my falling asleep thoughts onto a Google doc for later perusal), but they aren't fic. If you want to write fic, you've gotta get comfortable with the idea of sloppy outlines and rough first drafts. You can't build a house without a frame and you can't build a man without a skeleton (I mean, you can, I guess, but he'd be one floppy man). The nice thing about fic is that it doesn't matter if that frame is structurally unsound or the skeleton has 18 too many bones, you can clean that up in the editing process. But you can't start hanging curtains and arranging furniture in something that doesn't even have walls. That's the process. But! Also know when to set down the editor's pen and say, "Okay, this is good enough for government work", and call it done. ("Done" doesn't have to mean "posted", but it does mean, "I'm done picking at this for now, and I'm gonna go write some more stuff".) Over-editing can make stuff seem laborious and forced, and it prevents you from actually improving. To continue belaboring the house metaphor, you can spend your whole life rearranging furniture in just one room, but the end result of that is a pretty narrow existence and a room with a lot of footprints and tracks in the carpet.

Write shit down. When you have ideas, jot them down--in a notebook, in a Google Doc, in the Notes app of your phone, in pen on the back of your hand. You think you will remember that brilliant line of dialogue or sparkling snippet of narration or genius plot that came to you in a dream, but you Will Not. Write it down. Write it down. Write it down! There have been so many times when a fic was completely saved by past!me having written down my shower thoughts about what happens next in the fic, that present!me had completely forgotten about and was floundering over.

Have fun with it! Try different stuff. Try stupid stuff. Try experimental stuff. Do stuff you've never done before that you aren't sure will work. It's important to get comfortable with your niche (for example, I know I'm never going to be the sort of person who writes intricate plots of intrigue or super long 100k epics or detailed battles), but you can't find that niche unless you explore lots of different niches! Figure out what you love and what you absolutely hate, and then keep doing the stuff you love.

Okay, so that was actually TEN things, but ... I hope you still found this helpful. Feel free to send another ask if any of this was confusing or unclear. Good luck with your fic writing and, if you want, send me a link to what you've written once you've written it! I'd love to read it.

#answered #anonymous #writing advice #i guess? #am i qualified to give this? #no #but im doing it anyway

[bewitching-elizabeth-olsen]

Press: Elizabeth Olsen’s 20/21 Vision

The Marvel star takes us inside her transformation to a new kind of hero

GALLERY LINKS

Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 002

Magazine Scans > 2021 > Grazia

  GRAZIA: Elizabeth Olsen is a trooper. We are in a field in Surrey on the outskirts of the Marvel studios; it’s a biting minus one and she is standing in a Chanel broderie anglaise sundress and increasingly soggy UGG boots. Her feline cheekbones face skywards, but Olsen is slowly sinking into the mud, trilling out high notes to keep herself warm (possibly distracted) and of course with spirits high. “It was the wind I think, that was worse than the sideways rain,” she jokes as we trundle back to the soundstage hangar that we are using as a studio. It’s the kind of moment that could go viral on Instagram, that is, if Olsen were on social media. Yet one of the biggest stars of our current cultural moment is completely offline – and that surprising fact might just be the least interesting thing about her. If anything, it is a sign of how Olsen has come into her own as a confident, decisive star with the power to create her own universe.

On the cusp of her 32nd birthday, Olsen is fastidious and professional, yes, but also bright, engaging, creative, and collaborative. Born and raised in the California sunshine, she is surprisingly at ease in the blustery conditions that deluge the English countryside in late January – or, it’s that she’s very good at acting. “It was one of the ugliest days of this winter – just hilarious – but I knew we wanted the shot,” the 31-year-old actress says.

Since October, Olsen’s been living in the leafy British countryside with her “man-guy-partner,” musician Robbie Arnett, just a short drive to the Surrey compound where Doctor Strange is being filmed. It’s a closed set, masked in secrecy as much as the socially distanced masked crew dotted all over the 200-acre studio. “It feels right being in a small city right now,” she says.

Indeed, Olsen is a modern-day Renaissance woman. Learned and dedicated to her craft, she studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, with a semester at the Moscow Art Theatre School studying Stanislavski. (Surely, no matter how much of a genius the Russian theatre master was, he never could have conceived of the Marvel universe.)

Approached with the concept of WandaVision, “I thought it was perfect for television, and a very original idea that made me excited,” Olsen says. Also, she was happy she would get to work with Bettany again: “He’s very precise, like me.”

In many ways, WandaVision is a love letter to the first American television heyday. Olsen, who stayed up late watching Nick at Nite reruns as a child, says it’s a bit of a homecoming in that way. “I was a very hammy, performative child,” she explains. “So, I do think I got to live out some sort of childhood dream doing the show.”

“The highlight was really getting to tell a story about these superhero individuals told in different decades of American sitcoms, trying to match the tone of those sitcoms in order to help orate the story,” she says. “But keep it playful and fun.” Little did she know just how much we’d need that.

Half-filmed pre-pandemic in Atlanta and half post-pandemic in LA – with a six-month hiatus in-between “until all the unions figured out to work safely” – WandaVision was released almost a year into the pandemic. In many ways, it is an artifact of its time: centered upon a yearning for the simplicity of earlier days, yet shot through with the creeping realization that such days may never return, and perhaps never existed to begin with.

Indeed, the weekly story of suburban superheroes Wanda and Vision has played out like a parable of our times: Wanda living in her chosen bubble, her trauma resonating in the world we find ourselves in today. Olsen appreciates a good metaphor, but feels people may be projecting a bit much. “I see Wanda as a victim of extreme trauma, who does not understand how to process it,” she explains. “She has been a human experiment.” (Not to belabor the point, but haven’t we all?)

Being summoned by Marvel is like being called to a parallel universe for an actor: thrilling, yes, but not without a tinge of terror and a dash of the unknown. Six years in, though, it’s become like family in some ways. As a member of two dynasties – Olsen and Marvel – family is key to Olsen. She checks in on her mom (who still lives in California) and, like many American daughters, is researching which vaccine mom should get.

The performative gene runs strong through her family, of course – and no, we don’t mean her sisters. Olsen’s mom was a ballerina. Still, when she first started auditioning, Olsen took special care to carve her own path – one far from Full House. “Nepotism is a thing and I’m very aware of it,” she says. “And of course, I’ve always wanted to do it alone.” She did just that, her acting credentials consistently rising as her sister’s cemented their fashion kudos. Olsen bears a noticeable resemblance to her fashion-designer older sisters and her sartorial DNA is similarly low-key. She loves The Row (of course) and NYC label Khaite’s denim and cashmere.

For Olsen, her day job is like playing dress-up. This time around, she walked away from WandaVision with the girdle worn underneath her 50s wedding dress, laughing, “I mean, to have a custom undergarment like that, I felt like it was necessary!” Her WandaVision co-star, Kathryn Hahn, also became her shopping cohort when filming.

“She’s dangerous!” Olsen says. “She has the most exquisite, minimal but expensive taste.” It was Hahn who led Olsen to the independent boutique where she found the belted Julia Jentzsch trench that she wore to our shoot.

At the rail of samples compiled by the stylist, Olsen gravitates towards a spacious linen boilersuit and longline cashmere cardigan. Has she always been a tomboy, I ask? “I think I felt uncomfortable being a child being told they were pretty,” she says of her early auditions at age 10, adding that her love of ballet and musical theater could leave her “feeling exposed” at a young age.

Speaking of over-exposure, Olsen is distinctly offline in a time when so many are defined by their social media presence. Among celebrities and regular digital citizens, the perfect balance of online and off is up for debate, but Olsen is clear: social media saturation is a choice for all of us, and everyone needs to draw their own boundaries.

“It has to be a personal decision, right?” she begins. “So, my opinion has nothing to do with what anyone else does or doesn’t do with it.” Her own journey began when she momentarily dabbled with Instagram (since deleted), while filming Ingrid Goes West, director Matt Spicer’s frightening and funny debut feature about a social stalker, co-starring Aubrey Plaza.

Up until that time, she says, “I had never touched it before. I thought, ‘This is an interesting social experiment for myself, to see if it is a good source to talk about charities or a good source to talk about small projects, or to share something goofier about myself.’ But I think at the end of the day, what I discovered was one, I’m really bad at creating a perceived identity!”

“I didn’t find it very organic to who I am as a person,” she continues. “I found some joy in putting up silly videos, but I think the main reason I stopped – not I think, I know the main reason why I stopped – was because of the organization in my brain.”

“Lots of horrible things happen all the time. Or, lots of great things happen all the time. Whether it’s something terrifying, like a natural disaster or a school shooting or a death, there are so many things that happen, and I love processing information. I love reading articles. I love listening to podcasts. I love communicating about things that are happening in the world to people around me. And what I don’t love is that my brain organization was saying, ‘Should I post about this?’ That seemed very unhealthy ….”

“And to then contribute to these platitudes that I don’t really love, you have to subscribe to two different ways of thinking,” she says. “So, I didn’t like that, and there was a lot of it that was just bothering me for my own sake of what value systems I have.”

That’s not to say that there’s any inherent value system – pro or con – in using Instagram. Olsen is clear that like any other method of expression, it’s up to the individual to use it as they see fit. “I do see a use of it and how you can use it well for work,” she says. “But I don’t think that I would like to use that tool to promote myself.”

She’s private for a millennial yes, but not prim. On the photoshoot, lockdown experiences were shared, and Olsen recounted her (hilarious) first at-home bikini wax: banishing her husband upstairs “for an extended chat with his therapist,” her trusted waxer on speed dial, and microwave set to ping! (Yes, Olsen is a trooper, as I mentioned.)

We catch up over Zoom a week later, her hair once again pulled up in a casual topknot, her cashmere turtleneck simmering in a dark claret, and her entire being suffused with covetable understatement. She chats buoyantly against an unexpected backdrop of pirate ship wallpaper in the playroom of a house she shares with Arnett, who proposed with an emerald and diamond ring in 2019.

“We first started to try to make it the gym, but it was so cramped,” she says of the jolly space. The home gym was instead awarded a larger room, where Olsen loves to maintain a varied fitness regime – running, yoga, dancing, more – though after all the intense Marvel filming, she jokes, “maybe it’s time to give up on my body?!” Being comic book fit does sound grueling or “time-consuming fun” as she anoints the “strenuous physical demands.”

Like most of us, she is longing for the spring, but she still takes a regular constitutional walk in a nearby Richmond park, whatever the weather. “The deer are incredible; every time I see them I feel alive,” she says. “We have been lucky to have nature around us in lockdown.” It’s a marked difference from her paparazzi-populated home in the Hills. “They know our walks, where we get coffee, work-out…,” she trails off.

Her haven in Los Angeles is her backyard, complete with a mid-century swimming pool and an edible garden. “It’s crazy the blackberries grow like weeds! I love watching a kid’s first reaction to an edible garden,” she gushes That has been the part of the pandemic travel restrictions she’s found hardest: missing her friend’s children growing up, and others who have been born this past year that she’s yet to meet. They will no doubt all be treated to her homemade blackberry sorbet on her return stateside.

Yet, her time on British soil will likely be prolonged, with a prospective indie commencing filming here when Doctor Strange wraps. Prompted for more detail, her firm charm kicks in. “I can’t jinx it!” she insists. Still, she will share that she’s heavily involved in the creative, and that funding smaller productions in the current climate has been a challenge.

Through it all, Olsen has remained determined and calm. “I feel patience is my superpower. But my weakness also,” she says. “I feel like it gets tested more than others who don’t have a lot of patience. If someone learns you’re easygoing or that you’re relaxed, sometimes it gets taken advantage of.” While she waits for the green light on that film, she is busy producing a new children’s cartoon with Arnett, “about loving and caring for our world,” and has also written a children’s book about to be published by Random House, all while the demands of Marvel life continue to surround her.

Indeed, Olsen is a superhero for the modern age: Multi-hyphenate, but fiercely devoted to the craft that she loves; instantly recognizable, yet thoughtfully protective of her private life; a woman with style, substance, success, and deep rewarding relationships with those around her; focused on a vision of a better world for us all.

Press: Elizabeth Olsen’s 20/21 Vision was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #WandaVision #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Sorry For Your Loss #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla

[oneweekoneband]

meet me behind the mall!!!!!!!!!

I don’t know why Taylor Swift thinks that teenagers drink wine, and I don’t know why she chose to record and release a wistful high-school-other-woman song which left me feeling naked as a frog and therefore furious. Some questions we ask only so as to be soothed by the familiar sound of our own voice, still there after all. The answers are not coming. 

The Taylor Swift Teen Love Triangle Triad of “cardigan”, “august”, and “betty” is the part of folklore that makes me most bullish about where Taylor is going as an artist. A turn away from writing songs which are intentionally meant to appear confessional and toward, instead, songs which reveal the personal as refracted through fictitious circumstances and made-up characters is a better use of her big, weird brain, and allows that brain to be unleashed on a broader plain of experience. It’s incredibly embarrassing to be an adult woman with my own problems to manage and to have living in my head Taylor Swift’s demented YA fiction, but it’s an embarrassment that feels appropriate, like I could never really have escaped this fate. On “betty” she gets to play-act as a contrite teen boy who knows he’s done wrong, and while obviously the most charming thing about the song is Taylor saying “fuck” (and also her giving us a little of the ol’ razzle dazzle by way of some light twang), her experiment with imagining what it’s like to be a skateboarding kid who hates dances, trying on an imagined teen boy interiority as a costume, is effective too. 

“cardigan” is more removed, less plaintive and shouty. This is a song from adult Betty’s perspective looking back on this period in her life and in her relationship with James, who the song seems to imply she is still with now. While—full offense—I believe marrying your high school girlfriend or boyfriend is a disorder which should have its own listing in the DSM, restoring order by putting the original couple back together so as to make the story one of true love triumphing over adversity, rather than a series of sketches of kids doing fuckup kid things just because it is not easy to be alive and to be alive alongside others and with gentleness, least of all when you are very new at it,  is the only conclusion this saga could ever have reached with Ms. Swift at its helm, and I do appreciate the consistent, if baby-brained, internal logic. I’ve never known a teenage girl whose signature garment was a cardigan and, frankly, this Betty sounds like sort of a self-absorbed drip (I do love, love, how Taylor’s own voice comes through so clearly on the lightly threatening, smug lines, “I knew you’d miss me once the thrill expired / And you’d be standing in my front porch light” !!) so I’m not totally surprised she got cheated on, but that’s very uncharitable of me and probably comes from the same meaty polyp in my brain that is responsible for my still loving all the hilariously mean-spirited, woman-hating songs on Speak Now.

“august” is about the other girl. The “her” in James’ rather pathetic defense, “slept next to her, but I dreamt of you all summer long”. “august” tells a story that brings to my mind another story. It is a story I won’t belabor because it is neither exciting nor unique. It will not illuminate an unexplored human experience, as it is, in fact, incredibly boring, regular, an incident which would be at home in any normal Tuesday, ordinary as meeting at the mall. This is a million years ago and there is a boy whose basement I go to sometimes after swim practice. We have matching team sweatpants with our names embroidered above the pocket at the right hip and I like to switch pairs. I’m you and you’re me and when we have pushed and bent the tiredness out of our muscles together, making experimental declarations in hushed voices down there while the furnace groans, well, then I’m you and me and you’re you and me and we are we are we are. 

One February day at twilight I bound out of the school building with wet hair and a fleece jacket, but his car is already gone. No worries. Standing at my locker the next afternoon like in a movie he will say, easy as anything, that he has a girlfriend, a family friend, two towns over, she goes to private school. You’ve probably met her, he says. And right then I remember that I have. Last year I did her zipper in the bathroom at a dance. We were fighting but we never really broke up, he says. For months you’ve been fighting? is all I say back. Fighting since October? As if that matters. Like that’s the point. My voice is pinched and ugly and I know I’ll hear that sound forever. Well, anyway... I feel bad. He doesn’t clarify for whom he feels bad. He’s got one sneaker toe working against the other one atop the tile floor that’s the murky green of sea glass. He looks at my St Brigid’s cross necklace, at the blue Masterlock hanging open like a broken jaw, at someone in a hoodie who punches his shoulder as they walk by. Nothing personal, he says, and there is a tiny smudge of cafeteria pizza at the corner of his mouth that I hadn’t noticed until that second and a day ago would’ve reached up and wiped away with the pad of my thumb, laughing. I get it, right? Oh, sure. 

The worst of it was not skipping pre-calc to cry in the bathroom, since, I mean, I couldn’t actually do pre-calc and would never learn how, but was inspecting my soul in the dark when I couldn’t sleep that night and finding part of me had known this all along, had chosen to pretend, wanted the wanting so badly I’d knocked from my brain the truth of how it was going to end. This would not be the last false love from which I’d find myself unceremoniously discarded, and in time I’d learn to be the liar myself, too. It’s unseemly to pathologize bad decisions, to take on poor impulse control or self-destructive patterns as an identity, but I do think that just as some people are born serial monogamists, part of a twosome forever with very little mess in-between, some of us were built from the very first cell to live like a pool ball struck and banging teeth first into the wrong mouths and hearts. I can examine my romantic history and tap my finger against the obvious errors, the times I chose what I knew would hurt me, when I ascribed hope to situations where it did not belong, when I, like the narrator of “august”, regarded someone as not mine to lose but still put myself in the position to be harmed by the losing, yet I can’t produce alternative choices that feel realistic. If you are in love and it doesn’t work out, there is mourning, there is pain, but there is all the while a record which shows something happened, it was real. “august” stands somewhat apart in the Taylor Swift catalog as a song neither about the glory of true love or the heartbreak when it’s over, but about the small, paper cut heartbreaks that are inescapable during each day of an untrue love. “It was never mine”. When it turns out you were wrong the whole time, fooling yourself, then even remembering that you’d been happy in the lie is like being trapped in a fun house, body bent and broken in the mirror, a thing not built right for this world. 

“august” is about the girl who James was with over the summer, the girl he leaves to return to Betty. Taylor said it’s the first of the three that she wrote, and I fear this has warmed me to her in some new and unsettling way. I fear this means she’s matured as a person and writer, capable now of a more expansive view of situations, to be generous. It’s like how you shouldn’t feed gremlins after midnight; there is no telling what new and more dangerous creature this woman might turn into if she’s suddenly been taught empathy. When Taylor-as-James in “betty” sings, “Would you trust me if I told you it was just a summer thing?” in his effort to woo Betty back I hate him a little, that thoughtless child undeserving of the kind of adoration in lines like, “your back beneath the sun / wishing I could write my name on it.” I try to extend grace to this fictional boy, but I think of the “Do you remember? in “august” and I feel a little sick from being so certain that no... No, he doesn’t. Not really.

“Back when we were still changing for the better / wanting was enough / for me it was enough”. I’d like to think there is no last chance to change for the better. I’d like to think wanting is enough so long as you want the right thing. I’d like to think that God made sure Taylor Swift became a singer instead of a young adult novelist because the absolute last thing this world needed was this freak joining the circus that is YA Twitter. Most of all, I like thinking that Judy Blume knows that her beautiful, searing, devastatingly romantic and also textually gay 1998 novel Summer Sisters is the only important book that has ever been published, and, further, that the world will show me the respect of understanding and accepting that “august”, when removed from the context of the Swiftian child romance trilogy, sounds as if it were specifically written in homage. Taylor, I know I’ve accused you of at least fifty crimes this week alone, but if you want to talk about Summer Sisters, please get in touch.

#taylor swift #folklore

[danielletinybruiser]

The Good Fight New York/New Jersey Open 7/31/21

I competed yesterday! And I actually feel really good about it! I'm a writer, so, writing about my experiences helps me really grasp them and process them and such, so, here goes! 

And also: as always, when I compete, it's in basically no-stakes tournaments for anybody. I'm not going to big competitions, I'm just doing this as a hobby and going to light fires under my butt and test my skills as they are in the moment. So, I take it seriously, but I don't go into this with delusions of grandeur! I do not think I am the next Danielle Kelly.

(Content warning for weight here, I talk about it a fair bit!)

I think I prepared pretty well this time around! I trained *a lot* and took conditioning very seriously. I also had a funny thing with weight: since getting my (cough, cough, under my breath) Peleton - I've been riding a lot and running a ton using the app. I sure thought I was being a genius doing frequent two-a-day cardio workouts, thinking "oh yeah, I'll be 125 no problem." Instead, obviously, I gained some muscle weight from doing tons of high intensity interval workouts. It's a good thing! I'm so much stronger than I was, walking now at 134-137, and my cardio is very solid. But it did mean having to be very conscious of weight to ensure I came in at 135 on Saturday.

Again, this should actually be ideal for this level of competition (read: LOW), because it means my walking weight and competition weight are super nice and close (I used to be around 126-129 and still competed at 135, thanks to the other major tournament I do having nothing between 120 and 135), and I feel so much more durable.

An action shot! Thanks for reading so far! Lol

So, I was strict with my diet for the last month (I usually am, this just meant no cheat days for a couple of weeks, really), and did weigh-ins periodically, then every day in the last week. It also meant doing a little bit of math and knowing exactly what kind of food I could have in the morning, and what was safe to do in terms of sweating just in case. It was good to know, because that came in handy!

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 136.2 (you get a 1lb allowance, so I was only .2 over). I did a shorty 15 minute HIIT workout so I could have a tiny bit of food and fluid, being very careful to not dehydrate or do anything stupid. I'm not going to cut weight for this, lol, but it would be truly ridiculous for me, at my height (5'5") and body composition (muscular, but not JACKED), to have to go in at 145 for being, you know, .2 over.

The nice side effect of a short workout in the morning was helping my nerves a little bit (they were BAD), so at least that helped me breathe. I don't know if I've ever been this anxious before competing before, and I'm not sure exactly why — I know there are no stakes besides my pride, there's no money on the line, this isn't my career! This is my hobby, for fuck's sake, so I don't know why my body interpreted "lets compete" as "we are going to WAR and we might DIE," but there it was! I was scared! Brains are stupid!

We got a tiny bit lost on the way, but it was ok because things were running behind at the tournament. No problem at all. I made weight (135.6) and started to warm up. The venue had plenty of extra space on a turf field to warm up, and Viki was a SAINT, not only to drive my nervous ass over, but to help me warm up about six times. I felt better after just drilling and flow rolling a tiny bit.

It was a long wait, but my gi division was up first. I had one opponent at bantamweight, so, a small bracket in gi.

Here's how it goes in a submission-only tournament: you have your brackets, for a full division it's basically semi-finals and finals, with a bronze medal match and the two winners do a gold/silver match. With two, it's best two out of three wins gold, the other person gets silver.

For blue belts, we have eight minute regulation matches. No points, no advantages, no stupid bullshit (sorry, I hate points tournaments). If you both survive eight minutes with no submissions, you go into overtime rounds: a back take, a spiderweb/armbar, and a classic head and arm triangle. For each, the defender needs to escape, and the attacker needs to submit. If you successfully escape, and you successfully submit, you win! If both people escape, or both people submit, you go to the next round, and it repeats as needed (back, armbar, triangle).

It's a great format, imo, and really suits my style: I play defense, I like to wear people down, and then go for it when I see an opportunity. I will play all kinds of wild positions and try to get creative and weird with it, and frankly have fun, and I think submission-only facilitates that!

Still, I was so goddamned nervous.

We started the match and it was ON. My opponent and I were really, really well matched. Size and skill wise, we gave each other a lot of hell. It was rough, too, and I have all the bruises on my face to prove it! But I was having fun. A lot of fun.

Overtime action shot!

Our match went through regulation, to overtime. I escaped her back take, but her coaches fought with the ref a little. I offered to do it again, because, hey, I want to do it better. This may have been stupid of me, but I also, like... the reason I like sub-only so much is that I hate stupid technicalities and bullshit. So I offered to go again and did! And I escaped pretty well. On my turn to attack, I submitted her.

I honestly couldn't believe I won a match in gi. The last time I got a gold medal in gi, it was because I went to the 30+ division, and my opponent was 53. I was happy to win that day, but like... c'mon. I was 35 at the time. In sub-only, women don't have age categories, and I believe my opponent was maybe a bit younger than me, but probably not far from my age, and tough as hell. She was my size, we were well-matched in strength. And she BROUGHT IT.

I remember that going through my head, like "you can win in gi???" I could hardly believe it. I got my hand raised IN GI.

This felt great, and I was basically in shock.

(I won't belabor this, but I hate the gi. I think I'm terrible in it. Tuesday night - my last hard training day before competition, I did ok, but felt demoralized. I almost cried after training and told Viki that night "I don't think I'm going to compete in gi" and thought about pulling my registration. This is why I couldn't believe it, lol).

We had a short break and went again. Again, we did the full regulation match - she had an armbar at one point that I escaped, and I did have a last second back take and choke attempt, but I ran out of time. We went to overtime, I escaped her back take... and I remember, in the moment, getting ready for my turn to attack: "this is probably for a medal. IN GI. You are this close!" and I cinched it with a submission. I got my hand raised again. I thanked her and her coaches, and even chatted with them a little.

We went to the podium - another woman congratulated me on the match, saying she watched it and love dit. The podium worker said the same, and I was flattered. Kirsten (my opponent, who again, was fucking AWESOME and tough) and I did the podium thing, getting our medals and taking pictures.

Podium action shot!

Then, it was off to watch my teammate Ollie compete and kick ass,  and then get changed for no-gi, where I absolutely knew Kirsten was going to come for blood, lol.

It still didn't feel real: a gold medal? Me? Danielle? Gi-hating Danielle who almost cried after just training in a gi on Tuesday night (again, nothing went wrong, lol, my training partners are incredibly conscientious and were preparing me!) - I let myself wear the medal for a couple of minutes before putting it in the backpack.

Even now, just about 24 hours later, it doesn't feel completely real. I swear, I only even compete in the gi because it's just five bucks more to do both divisions, and you may as well get all the rolls you can on a day you are showing up.

There was a pretty big time gap between gi and no gi, but I was honestly a little nervous again. They put a (fantastic) purple belt (that's the next skill level up if you aren't familiar with jiu jitsu, and a pretty huge gap for me, being honest) in our division, and I faced her first. There was really no pressure at all here, I do not expect to win against a purple belt. I feel — very honestly — that I have a very, very long way to go in blue. Based on how the day went, I do feel like I'm on my way, and making real improvements — But I'm no where near purple.

I survived about five minutes of an eight minute regulation period, and did survive a pretty intense back take at first, but she got me with a second back take and rear naked choke/crank. All the power to her!

Then, the bronze medal match was between me and Kirsten again (who I faced in gi). Holy shit, this was a doozy. We fought really, really hard in regulation. I know she wanted it BADLY after gi, and I could tell she had serious wrestling and probably Judo as well in her background. She tossed my ass around! It was rough and it was tough, and my face is a little fucked up today, not going to lie. But I loved it, and loved rolling with her — she had such good pressure, and beautiful knee cuts, and she was strong and fast and athletic.

We went through regulation, to the first overtime. I won the "rock paper scissors" to determine who went first and I took her back... and she escaped. She did her back attack, and I escaped. 

At this point, I was TIRED. Not no much cardio-tired (I have myself conditioned pretty well), but... "I want to lie down and sleep" tired. But I got her in the armbar position for the second round, squeezed... and got the tap! Again, I thought "you are this close to a medal!" and defended the second round armbar well.. I really, really thought I was out, but in the last possible instant she just NAILED IT and got my arm back and I had to tap. It was fantastic, she did well to grab it back.

So, we went to a third round of overtime. Triangle. I had her in, squeezed, cut the angle... and got the tap! Yes! Now, I really knew I was close. I tapped her, all I needed to do was escape her triangle and I'd have a bronze in no-gi. I wanted it. I really wanted it!

I got into her triangle. It was tight right away (which it should be!), I *thought* I had stacked her in the correct position to escape, I thought I could do it...

And then... I remember dreaming. I started coming to, thinking I was asleep in my bed, and that i was dreaming about competition. I started to become conscious, and I heard her say "I think she's out!" and saw her face and the ref's face. It took me a few moments, but I realized where I was, and that I had passed out completely. She sank a PERFECT blood choke on me. Absolutely picture perfect.

I sort of kept saying, in my confusion "I'm ok! I'm ok!" and shook her hand and kind of stumbled off the mat.

Me, laughing in utter confusion after taking a nice nap on the mat (my opponent was really nice about it!)

Later on, I realized: we were actually supposed to go to a fourth overtime round! We both submitted to a triangle (if you lose consciousness, that counts as a tap!), and I believe the ref was actually asking me if I wanted to continue. Hand to heart, I'm not trying to save face, I just didn't realize it at all, in my complete confusion. I accidentally forfeited by walking off, lol. I seriously had no idea, and honestly, it was probably better that I didn't try to do another round THAT confused.

But still, that is absolutely going to be something I kick myself about, for forever. Just being THAT CLOSE.

By the way, I will say: it was the second time losing consciousness in jiu jitsu (and the first time... I'm not sure I was all the way out, this time I absolutely was) — it doesn't hurt. I'm not saying it's pleasant or great, exactly, it's very, very disorienting, because you actually start to dream a bit and have NO IDEA where you are for a few. But I would rather that than a broken arm or a torn ACL, so, as things happen on the mat, really not a terrible experience.

Kirsten deserves all the respect in the world — she put me out, and FAST (I had no idea how fast until Viki told me, lol. I sure thought I was fighting it for much longer!). She was wonderful to compete with, and I felt we were very evenly matched and got the best out of one another. I chatted with her afterward and we both complimented one another.

Overall, I'm proud of how hard I fought. I know that, in competition, I have absolutely defeated my self before, and gotten so discouraged. It's never conscious, I will always push, I will always mechanically force myself to get back up and get back out. Always. But mentally, in the past, I've really fucked myself.

Yesterday, I vowed to stay patient, and I actually did. I stuck to a gameplan fully: patience, defense, attacking whenever I saw or felt an opportunity. I actually feel, for the first time, that I did my best out there, the best I can do with my jiu jitsu right now, at 4.5 years of training, as a blue belt with one stripe.

That is a wildly unfamiliar feeling. Every other time I've competed, I've come out with at least a few things that were "holy christ, I am terrible at X and need to work on Y." The only other slight exception was the sub only tournament I got my first-ever medals at (silver in both) where I legitimately shocked myself. Even then, I had a couple of specific things I needed to work on (ankle lock defense! I still think about it!)

I'm a little bit beat up today (that armbar I thought I was out of, then got caught right at the last second? I tapped on time, but "on time" with adrenaline is "a tiny bit late" so it hurts like hell today), and will probably just do cardio for a few days to take time to heal up before going back to grappling. But I feel really proud. I feel good about it. I feel stupid as hell for accidentally forfeiting, but overall very pleased with the day.

Where do I go from here? Rubber guard, baby! I want to get *great* at rubber guard. And this has given me a huge boost to keep chipping away at gi, no matter how much I may hate it in the moment. Because I won yesterday, I do get a free invitation to the submission only worlds for this tournament, so, that's something I can think about...

But for now... I'm going to try and let the good parts sink in. Viki got me victory pizza last night, and holy shit, I don't know if anything has ever tasted so good :D

#bjjwomen #bjj #jiujitsu #competition

[puckmeupfam]

Locked Down | Tyson Jost

Word Count: 1969 Note: This is my first time writing non-headcanon-y fanfic, but Tyson is my... exactly my type so here goes nothing

It was probably a mistake to bring your boyfriend back to your hometown for the holidays. You knew this. It wasn’t that you were worried that your parents wouldn’t like him. No, Tyson puts his hand on the small of your back and leans in to check on you randomly throughout the day which makes your mom give you a knowing look. And his mom raised him to go in the kitchen, put on an apron, and ask to be put to work - even if he was hopeless. Tyson was any parent’s dream boyfriend. The problem was that your family, and specifically your female relatives, had the tendency to be a bit overbearing… especially when it came to your love life.

“(Y/N), can you come help me in the kitchen for a minute,” your mother called. Your hand was in Tyson’s and your legs were intertwined so he also rose to follow you. “Not you Tyson, dear, you just relax,” she said. You looked back at Tyson to see him shrug and go back to watching the cheesy Netflix movie. Your fuzzy sock covered feet shuffled to the kitchen where your mom was waiting. “What do you need,” you asked as you entered to which your mom replied with a belabored sigh. “I don’t actually need anything,” she gave you a duh look which made you feel more like you were back in middle school than a grown adult talking with your mother. “I just wanted to talk to you about that boyfriend of yours,” your mom said with a smirk. Now you were the one sighing. You move to slouch against the counter as your mom keeps talking.

“I think we were all just wondering when you were going to lock that down.”

“Mother,” you gasped. This made that damn smirk on her face grow. You and Tyson had been dating for less than a year, you had met his family during the playoffs and then again when you visited him in the off-season and the holidays had been his turn. All you had wanted was a peaceful trip. You had even thought it might be the best holiday season yet because you would have Tyson with you, but of course, your family had to meddle. He was the first boyfriend you had ever officially brought home. And ever since you were in high school there were always relative and family friends asking if you had a boyfriend yet or if you would be willing to go out with Janet’s “very successful” grandson. 

“Mom, we aren’t there yet,” you started, “we’re young and we haven’t been together long and Tyson has hockey.” Your mom rolled her eyes and batted her hand as if none of that mattered. “(Y/N), he’s a wonderful boy and all I’m saying is that your grandma is getting older and you know she would want to go to your wedding…” she told you. “Are you really trying to guilt me into getting married? This is a new low” you huffed. Your mom was sadly not one to stop pressing. “My veil is upstairs and, I mean, you really don’t want to wait too long.” You determinedly spun around to march out of the kitchen. As you reentered the living room you paused for a second as you saw Tyson curled up with a blanket on the sofa, seemingly enamored with the silly holiday movie. You moved to stand in front of him and reached both of your hands out for his. “Do you want to go somewhere,” you asked. Even though the movie seemed to be at its climax with the main character going through some kind of post-breakup montage, Tyson dutifully stood up and went with you as you pulled him to the door to get your coats, keys, and shoes. 

The sun went down so early in the winter so while it wasn’t that late it was dark out… and cold. Not quite raining or snowing, but there were wet flurries here and there as you walked down the path towards the car. Tyson hopped in the passenger’s seat because you knew the roads having grown up here. Both of you were quiet as you began to drive. There wasn’t a clear destination in your head. You headed towards the downtown part of the city where there was more to do, just hoping that something would jump out at you. That something that you had been waiting for jumped out at Tyson instead.

“Hey, hey, hey, (Y/N),” he blurted out excitedly. As you looked at what he was frantically pointing at you saw the outdoor ice rink. You looked back at him questioningly. “Tyson, you skate every day,” you said. “Yeah, but not with you,” he replied drawing out the last word. At that, you exaggeratingly raised your eyebrow thinking of the Avs family skate the two of you had gone to just over a week ago. He returned your look with puppy dog eyes that had you pulling into the first available parking spot. 

While you were waiting in line for your skates, Tyson hip-checked you and then pulled you back by your clasped hand. You thought he probably sensed that something was off. If your quietness wasn’t enough of an indicator, the fact that you rushed out of the kitchen and then promptly dragged him out of the house definitely was. He moved to wrap an arm around your waist and then kissed the top of your hair. Tyson had the wonderful quality of always being snuggly warm without overheating you so you pressed yourself against him in an attempt to warm up. 

Once you finally had your rented skates in hand, he insisted on tying them for you. Afterwards, he reached out a hand to pull you up. While you hadn’t been raised a skater in any sense, Tyson had worked hard to teach you on a few different occasions which meant that at this point you could solidly skate around without falling. As your skating ability increases so did his ability to tease you while skating. When you first started he couldn’t even move from your death grip without you panicking, but now that you could keep yourself steady he could pull you faster or be otherwise obnoxious to make you laugh. In this case, it meant Tyson trying to spin you under his arm like you were ballroom dancing. This meant that you would inevitably stumble into his chest, both of you in fits of giggles. 

That was one of your favorite parts of dating Tyson. He had an uncanny ability to cheer you up. If you had a bad day at work he would put on a production of singing ‘00s pop songs until tears were streaming down your face from laughing so hard. When he was in Edmonton and you were still in Colorado, he sent you a framed picture of himself with a note that said, “just because I know you miss me sooooooooooooo much.” Now here he was spinning you around an outdoor rink in your hometown, being perfect one again. 

As the night grew on, the other skaters began to clear out which left just you, Tyson, and a group of three teenagers still on the ice. The two of you were skating more calmly while you chatted quietly about random things - some prank he had played on JT, a story Grandpa Jost had told about his band practice, a project you were doing at work. Eventually, he pulled you to the side of the rink so that you faced each other. 

“Are you going to tell me what happened,” he asked with a knowing look on his face. You tried to play dumb and put on your best I have no idea what you’re talking about face. Tyson sighed, “do you really think I’ll believe that you just happened to storm out of the kitchen and drag me out for no reason?” He clearly had you cornered but in a last ditch effort you tried to steer the conversation away one more time: “I thought you were having fun! You’re the one who wanted to go skating.” Tyson crossed his arms and gave you a look which told you he wasn’t going to let you avoid the question.

“Okay, fine. My mom was just pressuring me… about you. And I needed a break,” you told him. As you looked back up to make eye contact you could see Tyson’s face drop. “Oh,” he said, “I thought they liked me.” Your heart broke at how sad he looked. It was clear that he really was trying hard to impress them and valued their opinion of him. Even though you would rather not tell him just how much your family liked him, you knew that you had to. It might make things a bit awkward - not because he would get scared off, but because you knew that he would likely tease you incessantly - but it would at least take the kicked puppy look off of your boyfriend’s face.

You sighed, “no Tyson, they fucking loved you, that’s the problem.” The sad look on his face diminished slightly, curiosity taking its place. “My mom may have been asking me when I was going to lock that down,” you told him, making air quotes around the final words. At this, Tyson broke out into a wide smile, “I see.” He spun away a bit and broke out into Gracie Hart’s, “you think I’m gorgeous, you wanna daaaate me, love me, and marry me!” You put your hands to your red face and began skating towards him as he waggled his eyebrows and did a little dance. “Tyson it’s not funny,” you whined. At this point you had reached the other side of the rink as he wrapped his arms around your waist and once again pressed you against the rail. 

“Seriously though, (Y/N), like, I see a future with you… You’re my favorite person and when I do get “locked down” I want you to do it.” He was clearly trying to make it a bit of a joke in case you didn’t respond the same way, but it still took you aback. In all honesty, you loved Tyson and couldn’t see yourself with anyone else. “Well, yeah, I’m hopelessly in love with you, Tys. But that doesn’t mean that I want my mom shoving her veil in my hands,” you were mumbling into his chest, but he heard you. “Yeah, I still have to buy a ring… hire a flashmob, all that stuff,” he teased. You jokingly pushed him away which made him laugh loudly while pulling you back into him. 

With both of you feeling content and the night air getting colder and colder you went back to your parent’s house for the night. You entered the front door, instantly feeling the warmth from the fireplace. The adults who were staying over were in similar positions to how you left them. They seemed to be playing some sort of card game around the coffee table. You waved to everyone as you pulled Tyson with you towards the stairs. Right before you would be out of their view, Tyson stopped and turned around.

“(Y/M/N), I’ll give you a heads up of when to pull out the veil, okay?” he shouted down. You looked to see a massive grin take over your mom’s face. “Tyson!” you chastized before running up the stairs to follow his giggling form to your room. Embarrassment and meddling mothers aside, you felt light and happy knowing that you and Tyson were in it for the long haul. The two of you had countless more giggly, teasing nights ahead of you and you couldn’t wait.

#nhl imagine #nhl imagines #tyson jost imagine #tyson jost #hockey imagine #colorado avalanche #t.jost

[kanralovesu]

The Narrative Devices of “Minecraft Speedrunner VS 4 Hunters” (One of the greatest Shonen anime OVAs of all time?)

With over 17 million views and counting, this video of one man attempting to beat Minecraft while 4 other players chase him has become a huge success and its not hard to see why. The video is exciting and tense to a completely new viewer while still carrying with it the 32 million fans of the previous video in the series and the 29 million fans of the video before that. While those videos are also amazing, as a newcomer when I watched the vs4 addition I couldn’t help but dive deeper than I had any right to into WHY this video was not just exciting and tense but also a master of storytelling. So today lets run down a couple of extremely common narrative devices and structures that this video uses and possibly how Minecraft as a game contributes to this.

The High Concept

What if a bunch of teenagers were forced to fight each other by a tyrannical government? What if humans revived the dinosaurs but were unable to contain their power? What if 1 player is pitted against 4 others in a race to beat Minecraft?

High Concepts are quick, catchy premises that the story is centered around. They’re designed to get butts in seats by targeting people before the piece of media has actually begun. Once you’re watching, the High Concept needs to be played with an drawn to its natural conclusion in order to satisfy readers who were likely drawn in specifically because of that premise.

The Minecraft Hunters video does this multiple times when the person being hunted suddenly becomes the Hunter. While not inherit to the premise, this is a logical leap the audience can make that in order to be safe the hunted must get rid of the hunters.

The Hook

Its become part of the James Bond formula now to start every movie with a big, bombastic fight scene and that’s for good reason. Once someone has decided to view your media they’re still not necessarily invested yet. In an age of Netflix where you can flip to a new movie at the click of a button, a proper hook keeps the audience watching, provides a promise of things to come and leads into the first lull in action where more exposition can be given. 

In the Minecraft Hunters video we get a brief bit of exposition explaining the high concept and then its off to the races. One extremely fun thing the video does is bait you into thinking they’re going to stand around and explain things more when out of no where Dream punches and runs. The following chase is a classic James Bond opening scene. It also sets up mechanics that are used multiple times in the run such as towering. Like any good action scene it ends on a twist and then immediately the pace slows and we see Dream doing his first real resource gathering. The stage is set!

The Underdog Hero

A main character is an action movie or shonen anime narrative is often a paradox: they are an unkillable, hero, one man army and yet constantly the underdog. This is because the character cannot die (or the franchise is over), but at the same time a constant tension must be maintained that losing is possible. People also naturally want to root for underdogs its important to include this aspect of your character to make them relatable. The most common ways you can pull this off is to take a heroic person and either give them an impossible task or to pit them against multiple opponents or both (think a heist movie where there are several guards defending the vault). Naturally, the High Concept of this video leads itself to doing both of these things, turning Dream into the ultimate Underdog Hero. 

As a side note, the antagonists of the series, the Hunters, are character more similar to a shonen anime rival as opposed to a more western style of villain. Its all in good fun and you’re less rooting against them as you are rooting for Dream.

Chekhov's Gun

Named after the principle that if a gun is shown in a room someone is bound to grab it and use it, this refers to the general idea of setup and payoff. There are 2 major uses of Chekhov’s Gun in the video and they each have different delays between the setup and payoff.

The first is the Strider Saddle play and its perfect to illustrate the concept. First we see Dreams find his first Nether Fortress, killing a Wither Skeleton and opening a chest. We see him pick up the Saddle but we cut away and don’t belabor the point. This is because only 2 minutes later we see him use the Saddle to escape on a Strider.

The second is the Frost Walker boots. Dreams find a Nether Portal structure in the overworld and finds these in a chest at the 9 minute mark, well before the Strider play. At about the 10:30 mark we get this extremely exaggerated scene where Dream uses the Frost Walker boots in front of us and highlights the item. Then its not until 16 minutes later than he uses the boots to kill the hunters via fall damage.

So whats essentially going on here is different levels of setup based on how soon the payoff is coming. For a quick payoff we don’t need to draw attention to the setup because the audience will naturally have a short term memory of the recent events. However for the long term payoff we need to be primed to pay attention to a certain thing. When we see Dreams showing off the Frost Walker boots we internalize “this will be important later”. You’ll also notice that Minecraft’s game design helps prime you to remember these Chekhov’s Guns: both items being found in very noticeable and memorable structures not just dug up from a generic piece of dirt. (This also applies to the 3rd Chekhov’s Gun I didn’t touch on for time concerns, the TNT from the Pyramid) 

You’ll also notice that the video uses a Chekhov’s Gun in arguably the most effective way, as a twist. We need only think back to early Naruto to know how effective a twist Chekhov’s Gun can be in a shonen fight. You never forget the first time you saw Shikamaru win Chuuin exam fight by using the hole Naruto created during his duel. 

The Three Act Structure

I’m sure we all have heard of the 3 act structure before. While they go by many names lets go with Setup, Confrontation, Resolution for now. The key is having a cycle of tension and release while still slowly escalating tension over the course of the show. The video neatly divides into Overworld, Nether and End sections which translate very well into the 3 act structure. 

Tension is slowly escalating because each new dimensions has more and more hazards. This is of course Minecraft’s game design doing the heavy lifting, however the End in the hunter’s realm is a lot more dangerous considering its a closed off arena where Dreams can’t just escape, he has to fight.

There are also cycles of tension and release. Naturally tension builds up while a chase is happening and then we get some time to relax after Dreams escapes. However, what I want to focus on is how each increasing dimension gives an opportunity for the players to find each other again. Each step in the Nether counts for 8 in the Otherworld, so even if Dreams built a far away Nether portal on the surface he would still be closer to the hunters than ever before. This stage also requires finding a Nether Fortress so the players are forced to reconvene. In the End the forced grouping is more obvious as there is only one End platform so the action is forced upon the players.

This is mainly why I say the 3 act structure lines up with the Overworld, Nether and End dimensions so neatly. Its not just me observing that there are 3 dimensions in Minecraft but that each new dimension forces a new confrontation to happen even after Dreams has successful escaped and the tension is lessened. 

However, this observation does only go so far. I think the biggest flaw of the video is that End lasted too long. This makes sense when you lay the 3 act structure over top of it: you rarely want your conclusion to be drawn out. Usually the final confrontation is more elaborate than the previous ones, but not 2 times as long. 

Ambiguous Ending

So you’ve dragged your audience to hell and back and they loved every second of it, how do you ensure you piece of media becomes a discussion point after that’s all done? Well one way is to have an Ambiguous Ending. We see this a lot in fiction, but most famously at the end of Inception where we are unsure whether we are still in the dream world or not. This Minecraft Hunters video sparks similar online debate by posing the question “does it count if I killed the dragon posthumously?” Personally, these types of ending are my favorites! I think it takes a lot of balls for a piece of media to ask a question of the audience at the end instead of wrapping everything up neatly but of course not every story should have one. 

Conclusion 

All pieces of media are telling stories regardless of whether they’re Hollywood blockbusters, indie novels or Minecraft Lets Play videos. Sometimes even in unscripted content, a story can emerge especially if a content creator is looking to tell a good story. And lets not forget the role video editing has in putting together a story. Entire narrative devices such as Chekhov's Gun owe their entire existence to the editor. The decisions of what to linger on and for how long drove the pacing of the story from beginning to end. Finally, if you want to hear more on how editing can create a story from unscripted content, I highly recommend checking out the video below. Remember, stories are everywhere!

#minecraft #story #storytelling #narrative #narrative devices #writing #good writing #writing tips #minecraft hunters #dreams #minecraft dreams #minecraft dream #dream #dream youtube #video games #unscripted #emerging storytelling #analysis #4 hunters #hunters #narrative structure #editing #video #movies #tv #show #anime #shonen genre #shonen anime #shonen

[lyrishadow]

2020 in a nutshell

Just a reminder: I am in Australia so this is what was happening here: also personal stuff does not really wait til the end of a world crisis.. this is long, but bear with me :) 

  So Jan/Feb was a bit of a challenge down here, the bush fires burnt through half the state and the smoke was crazy. I started looking into getting a mask because of walking outside and having the air almost burning in my lungs. It was hot and horrible, but things usually settle down by March... March rolls around with a Pandemic. or at least news of one. Here we had very few cases, and most of those were coming in from overseas. Returned Aussies, Quarantine was established for them and all seemed good. March was not kind on anyone else though and we sort of watched as different gov bungled/handled the situation.  April and suddenly we have some community transmission. Most people  behaved and things seemed to be working to keep the curve down. We were ready for a NY style curve - where we had a lot of cases very quickly. It went well, extra resources did not end up being used and we sailed through wave one of the pandemic with less than 100 deaths. I  ended up with bursitis in April, I thought it would be like the previous and go away quickly but it steadily got worse. I had a cortisone shot and then I was OK for two hours from the anesthetic..  fun times. The following week was agony. Finally that Friday I woke up after 10 min sleep (all id managed) in agony, and tears. The pain had reached breaking point and I was done. This was not normal.  Hubby called an ambulance (because neither of us could drive at this point) and they came and took me back to the hospital. Not entirely happy with the experience, as I don’t think went well since I walked in with a lot of pain, and walked out with a lot of pain (and no med in between) but the ER doc was not sure it was bursitis. Called in the physio to check it and the physio looks at me, does a few tests and says: “I think this might be your back or neck rather than your shoulder.” 

GREAT! Saw my GP (Who finally gave me some pain med) and he ordered a scan. Scan showed I have degenerative disc disease in my upper back. Once again informed I was too young for this crap... but it is what it is. In all of it, my arm, shoulder, neck and upper back were agony - a 10 on the pain scale, where I normally sit at an 8 (chronic pain, chronic fatigue crap) so I have not been able to play. May... June... we have more cases now. I am still spending 90% of my day in bed. Ended up playing a game called “Utipia: Origins” on Android, cute little game and a bit of fun to explore a world.  We got mask mandate: here i am very tired but wearing my mask like a good person:

The pandemic has not really hit me until now, my nerves are frayed from the pain and fatigue has been nasty. I am wanting to play games but not able to sit up at my pc for long - wanting to draw, write etc and having the same issue.   We are now back in stage 3 lock-down, with the city 2hrs from us in stage 4 - not to belabor the point but it is for our own good, and we will get through this and reopen again, but we need to stop the virus or the thing that reopens first is the funeral homes :/

I am back on SWTOR. Still trying to figure out my way between servers and people but so far so good :)  Even dusting off old characters. Might get back to writing as well since I actually feel like it.  What a year... still waiting for the end of it, pain is still a thing and i am not well enough to stay awake for a whole day. Well, here is to the year improving.

#2020 #returning #playing SWTOR #bounty hunter

[missjanjie]

Branjie Fic | How Wonderful Life Is (While You’re in the World)

Title: How Wonderful Life Is (While You’re in the World) Summary: This is an epilogue/sequel to tiny dancer, because an extra dose was necessary. Word Count: ~1.7k Relationship: Branjie (Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo) Rating: T

Read on AO3

“I thought you’d be a little more excited by now,” A’keria observed. “You only graduate college once.”

Vanessa shrugged, setting the glue stick down. They’d been spending the day decorating their caps, but her heart just wasn’t in it. And that was because her heart was doing ballet in France. “I just miss her.”

“Come on, this was supposed to be a fun distraction,” Blair gently chimed in, resting her hand on her shoulder. “Brooke would want you to enjoy yourself, right?”

“Fuck, you make it sound like she’s dead,” she groaned and rest her head against the table. “How am I supposed to do this shit for another two months?” They were only two weeks into the ten-week engagement, and she already decided she couldn’t handle it.

A’keria pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, you just a drama queen. Aren’t you visiting her next month anyway? Bitching and moaning like you ain’t about to go to fucking France.”

Vanessa pushed herself up off the table, only to slump into her chair. “Y’all just don’t get it. We haven’t spent more than a few weeks apart in four years. I got separation anxiety!” Her cheeks flushed red, she was still embarrassed - she was self aware enough to know she was being childish and maybe a bit self-centered, but she couldn’t help herself; next to her mom, Brooke Lynn was the most important person in her life.

Blair nodded sympathetically. “Aw, honey, we understand. Why don’t we pick this up tomorrow? You should go give her a call before it gets too late over there. Go ahead, we’ll clean up here.”

A’keria arched her brow. “We will?”

“Yes,” she glared

Vanessa wasn’t paying attention to the bickering going on between her friends. Once Blair had given her the go-ahead to leave, she was gathering her things and heading right out the door. She glanced at her phone on the way out - it was about ten at night in Brooke’s side of the world, if she remembered correctly.

And lucky for her, Brooke Lynn was still awake and willing to Skype by the time she returned to their apartment.

“You’ve got glitter all over your face,” Brooke observed with a soft chuckle. “What sort of fun have you been getting up to over there?”

“None, I promise,” she retorted flatly. “We was decorating our caps but I just wasn’t feeling it. It’s kinda tacky at this point anyway,” she added, pulling dried glue off of her fingertips and flicking it away.

She pouted sympathetically. “Poor baby,” she cooed. “I think you should decorate it, though. It’s not like you to ever blend in.”

A slight smile twitched at the corners of her lips. “Yeah, maybe,” she shrugged. “How’s shit over there?”

“I mean, it’s hard to complain about this place,” she admitted with a soft laugh. “The only thing it’s missing is my beautiful girlfriend,” she cooed, batting her lashes.

Vanessa chuckled softly, looking down and pushing her hair off of her shoulders. “So, you ain’t gonna leave me for some fancy French bitch then?” She did her best to play it off as a lighthearted joke, but even after all this time, there was a nagging sense of doubt somewhere inside her that worried one day Brooke would wake up and realize she could do better.

Brooke scoffed and shook her head. “As if anyone in this entire continent could hold a candle to you. I’m offended at the mere suggestion, Vanj.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ve just been missing you.”

“I miss you too, but you’ll be here before you know it, and you’ll have a shiny new degree to be proud of.”

She looked back at her half-decorated cap on the dresser. “Still kinda hard to believe.” On paper, it had looked like all the odds had been stacked against Vanessa from the get-go. No one ever truly believed that she had the intelligence and determination to earn a college degree. Hell, when she had finished her first year, people around her had been surprised.

Except for Brooke.

“No it’s not,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation. “You busted your ass from the moment I met you, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that tries as hard as you. You, my dear, are a force to be reckoned with.”

“Guess it’s hard to argue now that you got proof,” Vanessa conceded, “I just wish you was gonna be here for it.”

Brooke sighed sadly. “I do too, baby. But I promise, Nina’s going to be there livestreaming the whole thing to me.”

It wasn’t the same, but there was no point in belaboring the issue - it wasn’t going to change anything and they both would only feel worse. “You right, I know. Imma let you get to bed, talk to you tomorrow.”

“Alright, love you,” she blew a kiss at the screen.

“Love you too,” she smiled fondly and ended the call.

However, when Brooke Lynn closed her laptop, she didn’t leave it sitting on her desk. Instead, she packed it into its case and put it in with her luggage. She flopped down on her bed for a moment, she’s not an actress and lying to Vanessa was harder than any course she’d taken during her master’s program, especially seeing the sadness in her expression - it was physically painful, but she knew it would pay off.

The alarm went off on her phone moments later and she made her way to the front of the apartment building to wait for a taxi. “L'aéroport, s'il vous plaît,” her diction had improved, but her French was still remedial.

But she got there just fine and landed in JFK around midnight. She took the train back into Manhattan, then took a cab to Nina’s apartment. “Thanks for waiting up for me,” she whispered as she slipped inside and carefully closed the door behind her.

“No problem, but you definitely owe me,” Nina chuckled and grabbed her a bottle of water. “Now, tell me again why you’re waiting until her party to show up?”

Brooke took a swig from the bottle and set it down on the table. “Because the graduation ceremony is going to be too busy. Besides, the party is going to be all about her, it’ll be the perfect moment for, you know…”

Nina nodded in understanding. “She’s going to be so excited to see you. I can already hear it; ‘Brooke Lynn! You’re here!’” She imitated Vanessa’s distinct way of speaking, getting her friend to laugh and hopefully alleviating the nerves she knew were still lingering.

------

Vanessa ran to her family, one hand clutching her diploma and the other holding her cap steady on her head. “Y’all seeing this shit? I’m a fuckin’ graduate!” She beamed brightly as her family surrounded her with affection and praise, the reality that she had actually survived college - something even she didn’t anticipate for herself.

“Come on sweetheart, it’s time to celebrate,” her mother cooed, leading her into the car so they could relocate to the venue.

They had reserved a private party room at one of Vanessa’s favorite restaurants. It had already been decorated with balloons and congratulatory banners as family and friends began filing in.

“Aw, you guys! This is so nice of y’all,” Vanessa beamed as she looked around the room.

“Actually,” Nina started, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet with a giddy expression. “We have a little surprise for you.” She glanced over her shoulder, her smile brightening even more.

The room was silent, aside from some confused murmuring, until the sound of heels clacking against the hardwood floor got louder and louder until Brooke Lynn was standing in the doorway.

Vanessa’s eyes went wide and began to well with tears. “Brooke Lynn!”

“Hi, baby,” Brooke had barely gotten the phrase out before Vanessa launched herself at her. She caught her in a tight embrace, picking her up and spinning her around.

“I can’t believe you’re here! What about your show?”

She shrugged as she set her down. “The understudy agreed to do a couple shows so I could surprise my girlfriend,” she kissed her sweetly and ruffled her hair. “It’s so good to see you.”

Even after she was set down, Vanessa was still hugging her tight. “I’m so happy you’re here, oh my god,” she tilted her head up to blink away tears.

Brooke stroked her fingers through her hair, humming softly. Then she took a step back, swallowing thickly. “I… um… I actually have one more surprise for you.”

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”

She laughed awkwardly and shook her head. “No, this is just… something I’ve wanted to do since… honestly, since our first Thanksgiving together. I’ve been ready but… I finally think we’re ready,” she haphazardly rifled through her purse, her legs trembled as she got down on one knee.

The Mateo family had already erupted in excitement, scrambling for their phones and enthusiastically chattering in Spanish. Vanessa was the only quiet one, biting down on her knuckles as she was already starting to cry.

“Vanessa--”

“Yes!” “Let me finish!” Brooke giggled softly, then collected herself as quickly as she could, opening the box up. “Vanessa, I’ve loved you from the moment I met you, regardless of how stubborn I was about it in the beginning. But over these past four years, my love for you has only grown exponentially. And that’s why I want to ask you… will you marry me?” There was a beat of silence. “You can answer now.”

“Yes!” It was somewhere between a scream and a sob, Vanessa hardly knew what to do with herself, so she just threw her arms around Brooke and cried into the crook of her neck until she had pulled herself together enough to slide the ring onto her finger. “Damn, look at this rock!” She exclaimed to distract herself and everyone else from how much of a mess she was.

“This bitch really got a diploma and a wife on the same day,” A’keria remarked to Blair with a laugh. “But I’ll be damned if there ain’t anyone that deserves it more.”

As the newly-engaged couple embraced, the energy that surrounded them made it clear that everyone shared those sentiments. Brooke Lynn and Vanessa had been through a lot since the day they met in Katya’s dance class, but it was all worth it to lead up to this moment.

#branjie #branjie fic #rpdr rpf

[chrisodonline]

In which I unwrap a little from “Mother” and also tie in past seasons’ of G Callen character development AND character insight shown and implied...

This episode was all about parallels -- and they were well done. Parallels in TV episodes are nothing new, and you see them as handy ways to tie storylines and characters together, either from within the show itself or with references and homages to past literature and media.  They are a great tool for new writers, and for good reason. People expect themes to episodic and serial presentations, and they help keep formulae from being just straight formulae. ECO and Babar definitely leaned into them, but with a lot of thought. 

I do think the parallels between Akhos and G were supposed to make us think as well as make G think.  Akhos definitely thought they were two sides to the same coin. Hetty had concerns they were, in a way, as well. It was setup to put Hetty in continued crisis thought and self-reflection that has started recently -- but you saw seeds in past seasons.  It’s still very in character.  The beauty of the ep was that it didn’t actually lean all the way into the parallel. It was more explicit in noting the parallel of Akhos and G, but mainly because the dialogue was coming through to display the aforementioned mentalities of our Baddie of the Week and Mother Hetty. (Mother was also the very specific nickname/codename given to the CIA during the Cold War, and I just kept thinking about that. I’m sure that was no coincidence.)  Sam also had a little dialogue that floated this -- in this ep and in recent ones.  

Anyway, what the episode demonstrated was a reinforcement that G and Akhos? Actually two very different people. And it’s not that they ended up on two different sides of a forked path after Hetty’s modus operandi of intervening with lost souls. It wasn’t even anything about what Hetty planted. G was never going to be Akhos, Hetty or no Hetty.

Before I get into the ending parts with G and his fantastic dialogue, we’ll look at the speakers of lines that contributed to the “Akhos = what G could have ended up as.” Akhos himself belabors the point. Akhos is extremely misguided, and approaches things from an embittered POV. He has also lied to someone who is loyal enough to him to go to the HQ of a government agency.  There’s an entitlement aspect to him, and also someone who refuses to accept any of his actions or mistakes as completely of his own doing. It was all “nurture” to him. He wasn’t a full-grown adult or anything at some point capable of making his own decisions.  If anything, saying he was ruined and fallen shows that he has a pretty darn clear understanding of morality.  You can’t fault a person for not being mentally healthy or having emotional issues. But he knows right from wrong. He did wrong. He’s not the voice of reason in all this. He has a skewed view of things, and we’re not supposed to walk away thinking, “Man, Akhos was a deep guy. He’s super smart. He had it all figured out.” He tried to kill Hetty, then G, and tried to blow up Deeks and Kensi. He’s not...a good guy. He’s not on the side of right nor is he right about things. He ends up killed by Hetty.  If this were a novel, well, a traditional novel -- let’s say -- Akhos’ ending up killed in a very bloody fashion and coming out the loser -- big time -- with his men taken out and plots being foiled all over the place pretty much enforces his worldview and ways of life are not ones the author subscribes to nor are they trying to get the audience/reader to subscribe to them. 

Hetty is another person who muses this, and she does it not from her usual confident stance.  She isn’t Hetty the Purveyor of Wisdom.  She is Hetty the Mother, specifically Hetty the Mother, who is going through common paternal guilt mode. She’s questioning her decisions, how it’s affected her children, etc. She isn’t Hetty the Orator. She is Hetty the Doubter. Sage!Hetty is a voice we’re supposed to listen to.  Confused, guilt-ridden, confidence-bruised is not the Hetty we’re supposed to listen to. It’s her at her most human, not her most all-knowing. 

Sam? Sam is your favorite aunt. He meddles at times, but he always cares. He might get a little personal, but you know you can go to him with whatever horrible thing you think you did, and he’d give you a look before helping you out and guiding you back and giving you the best hug you’ve ever gotten. He’s also a worrier. Sam’s just worried about his friend, and this is probably his gateway into deeper discussions because he knows G isn’t up for the really, really deep ones.

So, we’ve established that these aren’t necessarily the voices we need to put full faith in -- for the ep that is.  (Hetty and Sam know what’s what very often.)

The episode is smart enough to let G speak for himself. He doesn’t do it often, and that’s been a big point in some of his plots. He gets deep here, and he drops his guard. It’s Hetty, and he’s often done it with her. However, he also knows she needs to hear what he has to say. It’s all true, so he’s not lying out of kindness. He’s being honest. He doesn’t do this because Hetty showed him a magic, fun path. He may have ended up on this super specific path because of Hetty, but he was always going to help people. He doesn’t do this because he feels like he has no choice. He does it because he sees the good it does. It allows people to live their lives. That’s all he wants. He wants people to live outside of violence. He has every reason to doubt the good in people. He’s seen the worst in this job, and he saw it before the job. He had abandonment issues not knowing who he was and if he was ever wanted. He had to live with that on top of not only encountering horrible, cruel people, but being left in their charge. Time and time again. His childhood was full of horrible things and horrible people. But he also saw good, innocent people -- his fellow foster kids. 

Sam, Kensi, and Deeks usually mention at least one personal relationship when talking about doing the job, though they also love helping others and explicitly note. In the 11th season, with G’s acknowledging he is no longer a lone wolf, that he does have people close to him, and seeming to be okay with, he still talks with distance about the people he saves. He’s tried the “normal” things beyond the found family: girlfriends, a niece and nephews, steady dwelling places, staying in a job for a while, etc.  He still sees himself as separate from the “normal life.” From the world he saves. The world is full of other people living their lives, not him. He’s not bitter about that. In fact, he kind of misses the aspects to being fully solo. (See? Already very different Akhos. Not bitter. Not feeling entitled to something better or throwing blame around.)

G Callen has had emotional growth in being able to trust more people and let them in. He’s allowed himself to make connections.  Morally, though? He’s still the same person. Because he was never evil. And he never would be. Don’t get me wrong. He’s no saint, and he’d be the first to tell you that. He lives in the gray, though. Always has, and always will. He might have ended up in a different system if he stayed in juvie or kept going back. Even if he never went and ended up in organized crime or on the “wrong” side of the law because that was sort of his only options, or seemed like it, he’d be a total Arkady. (Maybe more...understated, shall we say?) He has the natural skill set and aptitude for organized crime, but you know he’d be helping people one way or another. Probably even be a CI.  He’s clever, and always has been. But he’s never been evil. He might go dark at times, but all these characters have. 

Again, Akhos feels like so many things forged him.  He takes no responsibility for the forging he did of himself. Trauma and horrible experiences do not forge us. That’s a misconception. It permanently affects you, in ways you sometimes don’t understand. It can affect your physical health. It can dig into your DNA. It’s not what makes you you, though. Survival is not a creator of bravery, it is a product of it. (I do want to note here, that the lack of survival does not mean there is an absence of bravery. There is no victim-blaming here.) 

G Callen was impacted by cruelty and tragedy. He got scars from them in various ways. He may have not wanted to get close to people or let them get close to him as a result. However, that doesn’t mean he didn’t care about them. G Callen didn’t go into this life because Hetty told him to or offered it to him, and made it sound like a trip to Disney World every day or like constant 80s training montages. The G Callen who went from agency to agency because, even though he hated the structure, he wanted to do the job. (He also says he left the CIA because the thought they were too shady.) He could have been a private investigator. Or just left and did something less kickass-y.  Something without any rules or bosses.  But he stayed. He didn’t stay because of Hetty. He’s super loyal to Hetty, but he’s also super stubborn.

G Callen sat there tonight and told Hetty that she didn’t fail him, that she didn’t fail any of them, that he does this because he wants people to be able to live their lives and that the world is worth saving. That’s why G Callen has always done this. That’s why when he sees kids in trouble, he doesn’t do what Akhos does and go “Oh, woe is me! You think you have it bad! Look at what life and the people in it have done to me! Aren’t you lucky to still have a parent who might be upset you die in a bomb blast!” G Callen has the opposite of the crab mentality.  He wants to make sure everyone else makes it out of the bucket, usually feeling like he has to stay in it himself -- no matter how often Sam tells him he can come out of the bucket. 

G Callen will always live in the gray, but never the dark.  He knows he’s not meant for a life in the “light.” He’s okay with that. He doesn’t double-down and go and live in the dark, taking down everyone with him. He wants to save people from the dark, no matter what it means for him. 

G Callen is still very often that hurt, little lonely boy who just wanted a family and to be loved and know who he was. To be safe. He was well into adulthood before he knew any of that, really.  He even says as much to Nadir back in “The Seventh Child.”  You find people who make you feel safe. He has talked about the team being family, and he said it tonight. He’s gotten all of that. That stuff is newer; however, he has always wanted other people to be safe, too. His hands are far from clean, and he can be extremely lethal and detached due to his training -- as seen tonight, as well.  But he’ll always help people. It’s who he is. It’s why he does what he does. In the “Matroyshka” episode (another nice maternal name, there), he reacts very strongly to his father calling him a good man. He doesn’t feel like he is, but he wants to be. 

G Callen lived through horror after horror, and he was still never going to approach Akhos-level evil. That’s not how it works. I realize the episode itself seemed to be pushing that more than it didn’t, but it was just having a discourse and exploring things through dialogue and plot -- as good TV does. G Callen would’ve said in his moment of deep honesty with Hetty if she did anything that might have led him to be Akhos.  I know there’s an argument to be made about whether or not Callen is self-aware, but what this ep and the ones before it have shown us is that he so very much is self-aware.  He’s more self-aware than he gets credit for because people mistake behavior changes as a guaranteed result of self-awareness.  (Behavior changes are soooo ingrained. They are nearly impossible to change permanently. It is very serious work and doesn’t signal a lack of attempts to make those changes.)

Anyway, that went even longer than I intended. I could go on and on. Clearly. I just wanted to put it out there that G Callen was never at real risk for becoming an Akhos, and the episode didn’t end with that notion, either. At least not to me.  

#g callen #z rambles on #ncis la #i'm going to pay for this tomorrow #and by this #i mean the lack of sleep #and lack of doing any work to make tomorrow's load lighter

[lettucetacoboatsix]

Like hurt me, but make me feel safe: Non-Consent Fantasies and Shame

Anonymous asked:

Fear: my sexual fantasies. I get aroused by rape fantasies and thoughts about my physical pain. It makes me feel like a slut and I hate it.

Content warning: Those who find discussions of rape and sexual assault may find this article triggering.

Hello friend,

That sort of fear has the potential to shake you to your core. Our sexuality and sexual identity is something so intrinsically tied to the self and to privacy that when it shows us something that we fear, we begin to question our very being. It’s easy to get lost in that initial reaction of self-loathing and disgust. We can’t always control which dark corners our minds will wander to, just like we can’t always control our physical arousal response to stimuli. Those responses do not make us gross or slutty or evil. Really, all they show is that we are human and that we are alive. Especially if you are still able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

Sexual fantasies run the gamut because personalities and interests do. They range from outlandishly unrealistic to entirely plausible. Maybe you fantasize about a trans witch, her anthropomorphic dinosaur lover and a sentient motorcycle with a human head (yes, that’s a real thing. Seriously, the rabbit hole of self-published erotica available on the internet is a glorious exploration of the human condition). That’s totally okay! It’s probably never going to happen, but role playing can be a lot of fun.

The fantasies that you mentioned, though, are often more realistic and play on our sense of safety and control. I do want to caution how we talk about them, though.  While easily recognized as a “rape” fantasy, a more accurate term would be a non-consent fantasy or a forced sex fantasy. Rape is, by definition, sexual violence—a violation of the body and mind. Your sexual fantasies, while they might include elements of saying “no” or being bound or even physical harm to your body, are your fantasies, and are therefore empowering to your sexual identity. Sexual fantasies let you explore your sexuality. They are what allow us to find self-gratification on those cold and lonely winter nights without WiFi. We get to recall our fantasies through roleplay scenarios to make our sex lives even more fulfilling. This type of fantasy plays off of our feelings of sexual shame (if we’re saying we don’t want it, it’s not our fault when it happens and we enjoy it), and, because of that, we generally do not talk about it candidly. Rather than releasing ourselves from that shame, we internalize and we are disgusted by our own thoughts.

But this type of fantasy is incredibly common. A 2017 study (and seriously… PubMed is an amazing database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics) showed that between 31% and 57% of women have fantasies in which they are forced into sex against their will. For 9% to 17% of those women, non-consent fantasies are their go to deposit in the spank bank. Another study, showed that 62% of women had had a non-consent fantasy at some point, and 14% reported that they had such a fantasy at least once a week. The cultural narrative would tell us that men fantasize more about domination than submission, and, while research does anecdotally support this, socialization isn’t absolute, and a person of any gender can embrace that desire to let go—to be seduced against our will or to be forced to have sex. It is a completely normal fantasy to explore.

It is understandable if those statistics make you uneasy. In real-life contexts, non-consent is deeply traumatizing. It is not at all sexy to feel that we have no sense of agency or safety in our daily lives. It is an intense violation that causes high levels of mental anguish and anxiety. It seems like there is some serious cognitive dissonance that we would use violent sex and non-consent as the basis for our sexual fantasies – but so many of us do.

It’s absolutely vital to note that while non-consent fantasies are common, this does not mean that anyone secretly wants to be raped. There is a huge difference between acted out role-play, imagined scenarios, pre-negotiated scenes and real-life experiences. No one asks to be raped, no one deserves to be raped, and how common forced sex fantasies are in no way justifies unwanted sexual contact of any nature. It is impossible to know exactly what these fantasies entail, because, they are going on in someone else’s mind. If you do choose to engage in a scene of consensual non-consent, pre-negotiation is absolutely mandatory and a safe-word must always be respected. Acting on these fantasies in real life requires an intrinsic trust with one’s partner and a thorough discussion before anything actually happens.

For some, fantasies of forced sex steered away from experiences that would be close to reality. Rather than lines of consent being crossed by friends or bosses, we fantasize about high drama situations in which we are forced to have sex to survive, entering into sexual contracts rather than having our right to consent taken away from us outright. We might share the relatively common fantasy of being kidnapped and held hostage, then having one of the guards forcing us into sex to survive, or we might fantasize about thieves breaking into our house and being so overwhelmed by our presence and attractiveness that they have to have sex with us against our will. In both of these relatively common scenarios, we start out by resisting the advances. Then we begin to enjoy the sex midway through, as pain and terror give way to pleasure. It is this relinquishing of control and giving in to desire that is the turn on, rather than the very real trauma of real-life sexual violence.

For others, though, these fantasies are more true to life. It may not be about feigned struggle, but imagining consent and control being ripped away as a major turn on. Why are so many of us aroused by forced sex when we’d be horrified of it in reality? Why do we find the idea of rejecting sex then being made to do it anyway a turn on? There are a few theories.

One theory is that it is an echo of the dominant narratives shown in our media-saturated world and masculine-controlled pornography. Our culture sells sex, and that vision of sex is a masculine man being dominant and losing control around a meek, diminutive and submissive woman or multiple women or parts of women or women acting as furniture or other objects. Our fantasies of non-consent are just an extension of that narrative—an internalized misogyny. Personally, I get that this might provide the framework, but it really seems like more is going on in those fantasies.

Another theory is that fantasies of non-consensual sex can be boiled down to lingering guilt and shame around sexuality. Young people are taught to hide sexual feelings or encouraged to fit narrow gender stereotypes of the acceptable ways that sexuality can be expressed in society. This leads to feelings of deep-rooted guilt and shame in expressing one’s own sexual desire. Being forced in the fantasy allows freedom since what happens to us and what we enjoy are not our fault with that added level of narrative. It’s not us, it is a fantasy version of us that doesn’t have a choice. We can’t be ashamed if we don’t have a choice.

If it seems like I am belaboring this point, please recognize how important it is to be clear here. Just as having fantasies about being abducted by an insectoid alien queen and being penetrated by her ovipositor to become an incubator for the next generation of our future overlords doesn’t mean you want to quit your job and become an astronaut, fantasizing about non-consensual sex does not in any way mean that you want to experience sexual violence in real life. It does not make you less human. It does not make you a slut. All it does it make you aware of this particular branch of your sexual fantasies. One more time for the folks in the back: people who have fantasies of experiencing sexual violence do not want to experience real-life rape. Fantasies are not permission to do such a thing, and what people find erotic in their minds can be deeply distressing when played out in reality. Having fantasies about being raped also doesn’t make you a terrible feminist. It doesn’t mean anything about who you are as a person, other than that you’re a person, who occasionally fantasizes about non-consent.

You are also no more likely to experience non-consent fantasies if you are a survivor of sexual assault or rape – fantasies can come up for anyone, at any time in their lives – and, if you are a survivor of sexual violence, it is incredibly important to note that experiencing non-consent fantasies does not mean that their real-life experience was in any way less traumatic. While renegotiating a scene on your terms might be a very therapeutic way to process and heal from a traumatic event (whether through role reversal or putting yourself in a submissive role by choice), having a fantasy at a later date is not indicative  that what happened to you was somehow less traumatic. It’s important to understand your own feelings around fantasies of forced sex. If you’re enjoying them and are free of any guilt or discomfort, you don’t need to worry – fantasies of being forced to have sex are entirely normal and very common. If these thoughts feel intrusive, out of control, or distressing, though, then they’re no longer fun sexual fantasies – they’re an issue which needs resolving. Echoes of shame and guilt can often be addressed through open communication and understanding. But with that being said, though, if in the moment of fantasizing these fantasies are causing you distress, please seek professional help in the form of an understanding therapist. Fantasy is a tool for exploration. It is nothing to be ashamed of.  If you’ve established that your fantasies are just that – sexual fantasies well within your control, that you find arousing, not distressing – you should feel free to enjoy them.

It’s entirely normal to find something arousing when it is played out in the safety of your mind but upsetting in real life. It’s normal for your own mind to push the boundaries of your comfort zone, and it’s normal if being out of that comfort zone makes you uncomfortable. Don’t panic, and bring a towel. Don’t judge, and treat your mind as a safe space to explore your sexuality in whatever way tickles your fancy at a given moment. If you do want to role play, have that discussion with your partner(s) as openly and honestly as possible. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Especially a sexy, sexy mind. So treat yourself. Let go, and enjoy.

With love, friend.

[adamatomic]

Design of Doom Eternal

Wanted to jot down some thoughts while they were still fresh, and I hate writing threads on Twitter, so, here we are.

(Surprise! Male game designer has DOOM OPINIONS. BEHOLD LOL)

First, disclaimers: what follows is super subjective, pretty picky, and likely unjustified. I love a good mobility shooter - Doom 2016 and Titanfall 2 are the only western shooters I really enjoy, and each do super interesting things spatially, mechanically, etc. However, I’ve never worked on any kind of FPS type of game, and never worked on a AAA game, nor shipped a game during a global pandemic, and there’s a lot that I don’t understand about what goes into making this kind of thing, much less how it’s even possible. Making a followup to a well-loved and hugely successful game is also a terrifying prospect. Finally, I am about to "dwell” on what I perceive to be “negative” things about the game, which is pretty unfair, because there’s a LOT of positives (it’s fun, it’s gorgeous, the load times are crazy short, the vistas slay again, amazing accessibility options, perfect audio, etc etc). But I think this is a game where a lot of the positives are really in your face, and what again I personally perceive to be the negatives are a little bit harder to put your finger on. And this isn’t a review, and definitely isn’t yucking anyone’s yums. This is me trying to figure out why this one feels a bit different to play. Hopefully the unanimously positive reception of the game by literally everyone everywhere (including myself) balances out whatever acid might be in these queries.

OK!

Jungle Gyms Versus Canyons

Ok, so. Doom Eternal is structured a lot like 2016 in that it’s corridors linking big wave-based arenas, which is a good structure for a game about shooting all the things. Arenas can be flat-ish or tall-ish. Tall-ish arenas seem to roughly come in two flavors: jungle gyms, and canyons. Jungle gym arenas are the ones that I feel like took centerstage in the marketing and gameplay of Doom 2016, as a way of showing off the double-jump / ledge grab / launchpad vertical mobility stuff, and because they make narrative / thematic sense in the human-built oil rig environments that comprise much of Doom 2016′s level architecture. Jungle gyms are distinguished somewhat from canyons by generally having what feel like distinct “floors”, or solid planes creating multiple separated levels of combat. Canyons, even if they have some transverse traversal elements, are more open and chaotic, with less concrete divisions between elevations. I’m belaboring this essential difference because it has a bunch of second-order effects on gameplay - jungle gyms allow you to jump from skirmish to skirmish, you can use your mobility options to “interrupt” combat, while canyons are more continuous. Jungle gyms usually have more obstacles (like the aforementioned distinct floors) which make it slightly harder for long range enemy attacks to land, which reduces the overall ambient damage-soak.

The key thing about all these arenas - flat open spaces, distinct jungle gym environments, and canyon style playgrounds - is that you definitely want all of them in your game, because the strategy and tactics for playing these fights changes a lot based on these constraints. When do you want a roof over your head? When do you not? When do you want your back to a wall? These are valid and important differences for these games specifically, especially when basic resource management strategies in these encounters is pretty similar, and because the enemy behaviors and attacks have so much variety.

So far, though, Doom Eternal feels like it has a WHOLE LOT of canyons, and NOT a whole lot of jungle gyms. It’s possible that this changes later in the game, so take all this with a big grain of salt. But the first 3-4 hours of gameplay are really dominated by canyon-style vertical arenas, which isn’t necessarily ideal in terms of variety (and makes you angst a little harder for the wall-run affordances of other mobility shooters). They also tend to be slightly same-y, outdoor, rocky environments, versus the more oil rig-inspired, recognizably human-scale mining structures of 2016 (I’m sure this changes later in the game too). The oil rig-inspired stuff also lends itself to jungle gyms a lot more naturally, so I feel like these choices of arena shapes and environment types are kind of an interconnected and difficult problem.

None of this would really even qualify as a problem, either - this is nitpicking nitpicks, at this point - except relying on canyons so much exacerbates some of the “fussiness” of the combat changes (those are next). For me, anyways - I’m not sure anyone else is feeling like these are problems haha. And it’s a big game, so I’m not sure how much this stuff changes across the whole campaign yet!

Tactical Ballistics

A Doom thing I adored in 2016 and am continuing to enjoy in Eternal is the way ammo, health, and other arcade-style upgrades are thoughtfully placed around the arenas. It’s a nod to the strongest parts of Vanquish’s level design, and goes all the way back to using coins in Super Mario to lure players out to new places they might not explore otherwise. It’s a huge part of what gives the nu-Doom arenas their “chess-like” feel, and shifts the fights away from Serious Sam-style battles and makes them into four-dimensional puzzles. 2016 doubles down on this tactical approach by leveraging a kind of resource triangle of chainsaw kills, glory kills, and just plain firefights.

A lot of Eternal’s design seems committed to upping the ante on all of these strengths. Lower ammo capacities puts more pressure on the chainsaw kills. There’s a new technique called “flame belch” that turns the resource triangle into a resource square to accommodate armor. Monsters have “weak points” now, shortcuts that change their behavior or get you fast glory kills. It’s a pretty compelling jigsaw puzzle of abilities.

It also places a lot of strain on player attention and cognition, because all this is running on top of straight-up arena-wave firefights (with 7+ enemy types at a time, all with unique behaviors and optimal strats) AND beefy mobility controls (swinging, dashing, double-jumps, ledge grabs, launch pads, etc). It’s kind of a lot. But I don’t think this is necessarily the place for saying “this is DOOM, man, you got to keep it simple, just shoot the monsters, how come there’s even upgrades” or whatever. For so many reasons, but the primary of which is that most of this stuff rules, and throwing it away would suck. So what do you do?

I want to focus on two small, specific things that really stand out to me - I’m not totally sure that they’re actually “bad”, but I think they have a lot of weird secondary and tertiary effects that contribute to some perceptions of “fussiness” in some of the battles.

Weak Points

This is a big enough change that it is repeatedly tutorialized through video on every loading screen, after every game over, and after every new enemy is introduced... so I know it was on the designers’ radar haha. And it's an interesting addition - chess fights in Doom are already about hierarchies, and adding another tiny hierarchy within an existing hierarchy is a NICE bit of tension to add, it gives a kind of scrambly feeling that is good overall. The issue for me arises from an apparent or perceived damage scaling issue around these weak points. For example, the optional sniper rifle upgrade to the heavy cannon and the optional sticky bombs upgrade to the shotgun insta-wreck the arachnotron and revenant enemies’ weak points, while sustained plasma rifle fire doesn’t seem to ever do the job. Which makes sense on paper - this is a nice way of putting pressure on the player’s weapon choices and ammo, which is what it’s all about. Although I guess you could argue that it’s also all about movement, and that this particular combat pressure has a pretty tenuous relationship with mobility in general.

Either way, it means you spend a lot of time squinting at your weapon wheel mid-battle to see how many shots your shotgun still has, because you ran out of chainsaw fuel a while ago, and are still being actively bombarded at a pretty long distance (because its a canyon and not a jungle gym). I know, I need to git gud, trust me, i KNOW. But check out the weapon wheel ammo display size in Doom 2016 versus Doom Eternal:

I love the new color scheme and ammo icons in Eternal! But it’s 3-4x harder to read the actual, very important ammo counts.

All these small changes add up to something that feels like a pretty different gameplay experience compared to the more spatial (read: movement-based) and literally easier-to-read resource management stuff from 2016. Which, it’s a sequel - failing to sufficiently differentiate it is its own huge risk. And, to be fair, 2016 had its fair share of fussy (though more legible) weapon switching. But when you add this stuff up, the matrix of considerations in moment-to-moment combat in Eternal is pretty different from 2016, and I think it largely comes down to the damage scaling around the weak points. While you can technically choose to play through battles without leveraging weakpoints (thus sidestepping most of these cascading issues), this approach is heavily incentivized by the major behavior changes that happen after you hit weak points (in addition to the constant tutorializing) and the waves appear to have been balanced around taking advantage of these things. Whether or not these are even flaws, technically, whatever they are is exacerbated by the UI design of the weapon wheel AND the relatively popularity of the relatively unobscured canyon arenas. So it’s hard for me to judge weak point damage scaling in a vacuum.

Overall, these new combat options make the arenas feel more constrained and more prescribed. Design is a nightmare this way: sometimes by giving people more choices, you’re actually giving them less. My pitch for a small tweak that might engage with some of these issues would be to keep weak points, but get rid of the damage scaling and maybe make the hitboxes a little bigger. The goal here is NOT to make weak point enemies easier so much as to open up options about what weapons you can use against them, thereby reducing wheel squinting, thereby freeing up more attention to movement and all the other stuff that ruuuules about nu-Doom in general.

Also, I should clarify that it’s entirely possible that I completely imagined the weak point damage scaling, and am a big dummy with bad aim.

Flame Belch

This is a pretty small thing, there’s this new “flame belch” move, intended to complement the existing chainsaw and glory kill moves as a way of “farming” resources from combat, one of the things that really defined Doom 2016. It differs in one huge way though, in that it has to be committed to BEFORE killing a monster. Chainsaws and glory kills ARE kills. Flame belch adds a status instead, which is “cashed in” later when you do the kill. If chainsaw kills and glory kills and BFG shots are Super Mario jumps, Flame Belch is more like a Tony Hawk jump - it starts early and is carefully calculated. Which is pretty dope!! But in this environment where weak point damage scaling and canyon layouts are already putting huge strains on the player’s attention, it feels like a big ask. The “triangle button” mechanic from 2016, the BFG, was a kill move with cool-down, so really I’m just suggesting stuff they already tried anyways. There’s no way this is news to anybody, much less the developers haha.

But... I would love to play a build where flame belch was totally a thing, just it was a finishing move, not a status thing. Let it plug into that reload-replacing resource-farming punctuation pacing flow. That shit rules.

Of course, I have to wonder what the unintended secondary and tertiary consequences of these suggestions would be. Good action games are often tenuous and deeply interconnected things where results are really hard to predict. Maybe they already tried these ideas and they sucked, or they know their own game a lot better than I do, and have a big stack of reasons this stuff would suck for most of their player base.

But wait...

Where The Hell Am I?

Last section, I promise.

I am extremely not going to weigh in on whether or not Doom games need “Story” or not, or what that even means.

But...

If you are driving a monster truck, it is probably pretty fun to see a big line of cars in front of you, and know that you are about to drive all over those cars, and that at the end is a really big fancy car... and you are going to drive over that too.

The general conceit of Doom 2016, that you are on one end of a Mars base, and you need to get to the other end, and in between is a whole lot of cars demons, is a good one. It has good monster truck-ness.

So far this is something that I’m struggling to extract from Eternal. I’m not really sure who any of these grumpy folks are, or where it is that they are, or why I am going down this corridor (aside from the very Doom-like fact that it is the only corridor around).

The problem for me is decidedly NOT that I don’t understand the slayer’s emotional whatever, or that I haven’t been painstakingly expositioned into the specific hierarchies of the demon universe, or anything that I think would normally be described as a “narrative”. For me, it’s that I don’t get to sort of soak in the anticipation of the loooong line of cars I’m about to crunch.

Does Doom need a story? Idk. Doom might need a lot of about-to-get-crushed cars though.

Finally finally finally, and this is highly subjective, but I think the slayer is just more fun when he’s an X factor or a rogue agent. NPCs recognizing the slayer feels sort of weird to me? The feeling that he is a fly in the ointment I think is stronger and sexier when he’s like... outside the canon, almost. I’m not totally convinced that having him Kratos around is as fun as having a bunch of demons and priests both confused and terrified of what this dude is doing.

OK

I need to get back to family stuff. They let me sit here and type this out, which was very kind of them. Only five tantrums so far. Either way, I’m looking very forward to playing more Doom Eternal...

...just as soon as I finish designing 17 more shirts in ACNH.

Hope everyone’s staying home and staying safe! Rip and tear, friends. Rip and tear <3

[deez-no-relation]

im gonna lose my virginity soon and im like kinda worried about it. do you have any advice Miss Deez?

Oh my dear I have been thinking about this ask for hours. I do have advice, probably too much, lol. 

Before I say anything else I want to say that I have some assumptions, and I am aware they are heteronormative, and I apologize if my assumptions are inaccurate, but the fact that used used the term virginity makes me think you are a cis girl expecting to have intercourse with a cis guy. I’m also kind of assuming you are American or Western European, I think.

[I wanted to make a meme of Mac from Always Sunny saying, “First of all, virginity is a social construct, so jot that down,” but you’ll just have to imagine it because I am shit at graphics stuff. Anyway virginity IS a social construct but you believe in it so I won’t belabor that point]

Most importantly, I only want you to do this if you WANT to. And by WANT, I mean you are horny, you are aroused, and your body wants to have sex. You might feel that way and still feel nervous, of course, but if you don’t physically really feel like doing it but you are thinking you should because 1) he really wants you to 2) it’s seems like it’s time 3) you are in love - or any other reason -then please know that you don’t have to. You still CAN, it’s your choice regardless of your reasons, but it’s really better when you want it.

If you aren’t on the pill, or the shot, or the ring, or any hormonal method of birth control, you might want to consider getting that lined up in advance, if you have a few weeks: your school health center or your doctor should be able to help you. If you don’t want to or can’t do that, PLEASE get a Plan B pill from a pharmacist. If you can’t do that, and you don’t have access to other hormonal birth control, let me know, and I will figure out how to get one to you. 

Ask him to use a condom. EXPECT him to use a condom. And yes this is in addition to the above! Plan B is UNPLEASANT. I took it once and I could barely eat for two days and had the worst cramps of my life. If he thinks his momentary increased sensitivity to pleasure is worth 2 days of you being in agony, then reconsider having him in your life, let alone in your vagina. 

Okay this next part is going to sound pessimistic, but: don’t expect a magical experience. Maybe you will have one, and if you do, that is WONDERFUL! But most people I have talked to (and me) have felt sort of let down after the first time, with a feeling of “that was it?” If you/he go slowly you can avoid most of the pain but it may very well still not be comfortable; it isn’t something most people immediately acclimate to. It may take having sex a few times before you are relaxed enough to enjoy it. 

Plan to have lots of foreplay, and if you can, to orgasm first. I don’t know if you and your partner have been having oral sex (aka him eating you out), or if you have orgasmed before; but whether you have before or not, you probably won’t orgasm during intercourse, and it may be hard to orgasm beforehand if you are nervous. Nevertheless, let him give it the old Harvard try! (Buck up, Hamlet!) It feels good and will help put you in the mood even if you don’t orgasm. 

Okay, I think that’s all I have to say about it. Please have fun!! Sex is fun and if it doesn’t feel that way to you at all...maybe reconsider? 😬

PS Please use a condom!!

#advice #virginity #Anon

[artificialqueens]

How Wonderful Life Is (While You're in the World) Branjie - Joley

ao3 link

“I thought you’d be a little more excited by now,” A’keria observed. “You only graduate college once.”

Vanessa shrugged, setting the glue stick down. They’d been spending the day decorating their caps, but her heart just wasn’t in it. And that was because her heart was doing ballet in France. “I just miss her.”

“Come on, this was supposed to be a fun distraction,” Blair gently chimed in, resting her hand on her shoulder. “Brooke would want you to enjoy yourself, right?”

“Fuck, you make it sound like she’s dead,” she groaned and rest her head against the table. “How am I supposed to do this shit for another two months?” They were only two weeks into the ten-week engagement, and she already decided she couldn’t handle it.

A’keria pinched the bridge of her nose. “No, you just a drama queen. Aren’t you visiting her next month anyway? Bitching and moaning like you ain’t about to go to fucking France.”

Vanessa pushed herself up off the table, only to slump into her chair. “Y’all just don’t get it. We haven’t spent more than a few weeks apart in four years. I got separation anxiety!” Her cheeks flushed red, she was still embarrassed - she was self aware enough to know she was being childish and maybe a bit self-centered, but she couldn’t help herself; next to her mom, Brooke Lynn was the most important person in her life.

Blair nodded sympathetically. “Aw, honey, we understand. Why don’t we pick this up tomorrow? You should go give her a call before it gets too late over there. Go ahead, we’ll clean up here.”

A’keria arched her brow. “We will?”

“Yes,” she glared

Vanessa wasn’t paying attention to the bickering going on between her friends. Once Blair had given her the go-ahead to leave, she was gathering her things and heading right out the door. She glanced at her phone on the way out - it was about ten at night in Brooke’s side of the world, if she remembered correctly.

And lucky for her, Brooke Lynn was still awake and willing to Skype by the time she returned to their apartment.

“You’ve got glitter all over your face,” Brooke observed with a soft chuckle. “What sort of fun have you been getting up to over there?”

“None, I promise,” she retorted flatly. “We was decorating our caps but I just wasn’t feeling it. It’s kinda tacky at this point anyway,” she added, pulling dried glue off of her fingertips and flicking it away.

She pouted sympathetically. “Poor baby,” she cooed. “I think you should decorate it, though. It’s not like you to ever blend in.”

A slight smile twitched at the corners of her lips. “Yeah, maybe,” she shrugged. “How’s shit over there?”

“I mean, it’s hard to complain about this place,” she admitted with a soft laugh. “The only thing it’s missing is my beautiful girlfriend,” she cooed, batting her lashes.

Vanessa chuckled softly, looking down and pushing her hair off of her shoulders. “So, you ain’t gonna leave me for some fancy French bitch then?” She did her best to play it off as a lighthearted joke, but even after all this time, there was a nagging sense of doubt somewhere inside her that worried one day Brooke would wake up and realize she could do better.

Brooke scoffed and shook her head. “As if anyone in this entire continent could hold a candle to you. I’m offended at the mere suggestion, Vanj.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ve just been missing you.”

“I miss you too, but you’ll be here before you know it, and you’ll have a shiny new degree to be proud of.”

She looked back at her half-decorated cap on the dresser. “Still kinda hard to believe.” On paper, it had looked like all the odds had been stacked against Vanessa from the get-go. No one ever truly believed that she had the intelligence and determination to earn a college degree. Hell, when she had finished her first year, people around her had been surprised.

Except for Brooke.

“No it’s not,” she replied without a moment’s hesitation. “You busted your ass from the moment I met you, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that tries as hard as you. You, my dear, are a force to be reckoned with.”

“Guess it’s hard to argue now that you got proof,” Vanessa conceded, “I just wish you was gonna be here for it.”

Brooke sighed sadly. “I do too, baby. But I promise, Nina’s going to be there livestreaming the whole thing to me.”

It wasn’t the same, but there was no point in belaboring the issue - it wasn’t going to change anything and they both would only feel worse. “You right, I know. Imma let you get to bed, talk to you tomorrow.”

“Alright, love you,” she blew a kiss at the screen.

“Love you too,” she smiled fondly and ended the call.

However, when Brooke Lynn closed her laptop, she didn’t leave it sitting on her desk. Instead, she packed it into its case and put it in with her luggage. She flopped down on her bed for a moment, she’s not an actress and lying to Vanessa was harder than any course she’d taken during her master’s program, especially seeing the sadness in her expression - it was physically painful, but she knew it would pay off.

The alarm went off on her phone moments later and she made her way to the front of the apartment building to wait for a taxi. “L'aéroport, s'il vous plaît,” her diction had improved, but her French was still remedial.

But she got there just fine and landed in JFK around midnight. She took the train back into Manhattan, then took a cab to Nina’s apartment. “Thanks for waiting up for me,” she whispered as she slipped inside and carefully closed the door behind her.

“No problem, but you definitely owe me,” Nina chuckled and grabbed her a bottle of water. “Now, tell me again why you’re waiting until her party to show up?”

Brooke took a swig from the bottle and set it down on the table. “Because the graduation ceremony is going to be too busy. Besides, the party is going to be all about her, it’ll be the perfect moment for, you know…”

Nina nodded in understanding. “She’s going to be so excited to see you. I can already hear it; ‘Brooke Lynn! You’re here!’” She imitated Vanessa’s distinct way of speaking, getting her friend to laugh and hopefully alleviating the nerves she knew were still lingering.

——

Vanessa ran to her family, one hand clutching her diploma and the other holding her cap steady on her head. “Y’all seeing this shit? I’m a fuckin’ graduate!” She beamed brightly as her family surrounded her with affection and praise, the reality that she had actually survived college - something even she didn’t anticipate for herself.

“Come on sweetheart, it’s time to celebrate,” her mother cooed, leading her into the car so they could relocate to the venue.

They had reserved a private party room at one of Vanessa’s favorite restaurants. It had already been decorated with balloons and congratulatory banners as family and friends began filing in.

“Aw, you guys! This is so nice of y’all,” Vanessa beamed as she looked around the room.

“Actually,” Nina started, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet with a giddy expression. “We have a little surprise for you.” She glanced over her shoulder, her smile brightening even more.

The room was silent, aside from some confused murmuring, until the sound of heels clacking against the hardwood floor got louder and louder until Brooke Lynn was standing in the doorway.

Vanessa’s eyes went wide and began to well with tears. “Brooke Lynn!”

“Hi, baby,” Brooke had barely gotten the phrase out before Vanessa launched herself at her. She caught her in a tight embrace, picking her up and spinning her around.

“I can’t believe you’re here! What about your show?”

She shrugged as she set her down. “The understudy agreed to do a couple shows so I could surprise my girlfriend,” she kissed her sweetly and ruffled her hair. “It’s so good to see you.”

Even after she was set down, Vanessa was still hugging her tight. “I’m so happy you’re here, oh my god,” she tilted her head up to blink away tears.

Brooke stroked her fingers through her hair, humming softly. Then she took a step back, swallowing thickly. “I… um… I actually have one more surprise for you.”

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”

She laughed awkwardly and shook her head. “No, this is just… something I’ve wanted to do since… honestly, since our first Thanksgiving together. I’ve been ready but… I finally think we’re ready,” she haphazardly rifled through her purse, her legs trembled as she got down on one knee.

The Mateo family had already erupted in excitement, scrambling for their phones and enthusiastically chattering in Spanish. Vanessa was the only quiet one, biting down on her knuckles as she was already starting to cry.

“Vanessa–”

“Yes!”

“Let me finish!” Brooke giggled softly, then collected herself as quickly as she could, opening the box up. “Vanessa, I’ve loved you from the moment I met you, regardless of how stubborn I was about it in the beginning. But over these past four years, my love for you has only grown exponentially. And that’s why I want to ask you… will you marry me?” There was a beat of silence. “You can answer now.”

“Yes!” It was somewhere between a scream and a sob, Vanessa hardly knew what to do with herself, so she just threw her arms around Brooke and cried into the crook of her neck until she had pulled herself together enough to slide the ring onto her finger. “Damn, look at this rock!” She exclaimed to distract herself and everyone else from how much of a mess she was.

“This bitch really got a diploma and a wife on the same day,” A’keria remarked to Blair with a laugh. “But I’ll be damned if there ain’t anyone that deserves it more.”

As the newly-engaged couple embraced, the energy that surrounded them made it clear that everyone shared those sentiments. Brooke Lynn and Vanessa had been through a lot since the day they met in Katya’s dance class, but it was all worth it to lead up to this moment.

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #branjie #lesbian au #how wonderful life is while you're in the world #joley

[cdyssey]

Hadestown (7/14/19), Act II

The second half of my thoughts and incoherent rambling from Hadestown! Act I is here.

“Our Lady of the Underground” —

A.K.A. Again, and I cannot stress this enough, but Amber Gray is the love of my life.

She comes out with a flask in her hand, which she surreptitiously sticks into her bra, so she can dance, lololol.

Her energy and vitality are just so infectious. When she smiles, you can't help but smile. When she start giving shout-outs to the musicians, the rumble of pride in her voice echoes throughout Walter Kerr. 

Hermes escorts her at the beginning of the song and then stands off to the side as she sings. He eventually gives her her bouquet of flowers, and she gives him her flask.

“There’s a crack in the WALLLLLLLLLLLLL.” She lifts her flowers into the air as bright [sun]light shines down upon her. It’s an amazing, joyous moment.

“She’s right here waiting in my pay-per-view.” Smirking, Persephone taps her noggin.

“What the boss don’t know, the boss won’t mind.” Having retrieved her flask again, she takes a sip. I got major Prohibition vibes from this line, which is to say that as far as Persephone’s character development goes, you get the sense that she’s ready to rebel against her husband to help our heroes. It’s a big leap from Orpheus’s line about how Persephone is drowning in wine and oblivion.

“Way Down Hadestown (Reprise)” —

OH, this song. THIS SONG MADE ME WEEPY.

So in this one, Eurydice comes out of Hades’s office dressed in worker clothes. She watches in horror as the company workers toil around her, repeating the refrain, “Keep your head low.”

The dichotomy between Persephone looking up at the “crack in the wall,” and the workers keeping their heads low in order to avoid trouble is incredible. Their spirits have been entirely broken, and Eurydice is up next.

She tries to get the workers to acknowledge her, but the Fates mock her for the futility of the action. They’re obviously taking glee at Eurydice’s situation.

Another incredible dichotomy: the jauntiness of “Way Down Hadestown,” which Eurydice once smiled at, and the sinister spin the reprise puts on the chorus. Hermes and Persephone did try to warn her after all.

“Hades laid his hands on you and gave you everlasting life.” HOO BOY—this subversion of religious language was INCREDIBLE.

“Flowers” —

;-;

In “Flowers,” all of the workers except for Eurydice are collapsed on the ground, exhausted and dead to the world. She’s on floor as well, the lone figure lit by light.

“I remember someone / Someone by my side / Turned his face to mine / And then I turned away.” Okay, after I stopped tearing up over these lines, I immediately started tearing up again when I realized that Eurydice doesn’t remember Orpheus’s name.

She doesn’t even know her own.

“Papers” / “Nothing Changes” / “If It’s True”

“Papers” is Hades confronting Orpheus about sneaking into Hadestown. 

When Persephone tries to vouch for Orpheus and Hades tell her, “You stay out of this,” Patrick doesn’t say it as softly as he does on the OBC—he practically yells it at her, and she flinches into silence.

ALSO, GOD, Patrick’s EVIL ENERGY is wiiiiiiild in this one. I love him????

In the “Papers (Instrumental), Hades directs the workers to attack Orpheus, and they, like, beat him up. This is the scene where Timothy lifts him!!

At the end of “Papers,” Orpheus is collapsed on the ground holding his side. He stays like this through “Nothing Changes.”

“Nothing Changes” reminds me of how much the Fates sound like a choir. I love them.

Plot wise, it’s them sowing the first seeds of doubt and defeat into Orpheus’s head. While he initially overcomes their temptations, I think he’s never fully able to shake them away after this, a struggle which carries into “If It’s True.”

Ugh, another song I wish I had the OBC track to listen to for reference, but this one is largely Orpheus’s doubt and idealism warring against each other. If it’s true what the Fates and Hades are saying, he wants to leave, but he’s also not entirely ready to give up. I think this is also the one where he and Eurydice start to rouse the workers’ spirits, showing them that there is hope.

“How Long” —

I love “How Long” so, so much. It might be a contender for my favorite. 

Incredible and moving and vulnerable and tragic. Hades is. Persephone is. They are.

For large parts of the song, they stand on opposite sides of the elevator, which has been lowered so it looks like a pit, a chasm—obviously symbolic of the breach that divides them.

Again, for almost the entire song, Hades never takes his eyes off Persephone, while Persephone turns her head away from him after she’s done singing her verses. I’m so tender for them.

When Hades sings, the lighting changes into a fiery amber, while when Persephone sings, the lighting dulls to a cool blue. It’s an interesting dichotomy. Hades’s makes sense because of his anger and general association with the color red, but I took the blue to symbolize Persephone’s deep sadness. It seeps from her; it pervades the stage.

Lively and joyful she may be most of the time, but deep down on the inside, Persephone is sad.

At one point, they both make it to front stage and stand side by side. Watch their shadows on the floor at this point. It’s a marvelous effect. (Also, watch the shadows on the walls and floor in general! The workers circling the platform in “Chant” especially comes to mind. The lighting in this show is INSANE.)

When they share their final verse, half of the stage is orange, and the other half is blue.

I was emo, y’all.

“Chant�� (Reprise) —

In “Chant II,” Hades realizes that Orpheus is rallying his workers. He pulls a lever or something, which signals that they should get back to work, and they do for a couple of “Keep your head lows” until they go into the new refrain of asking why people turn their backs on each other. 

GOD, what a joyous change. Orpheus and Eurydice’s light has given them the courage to question the system for themselves. “Why do we build a wall and then call it freedom?”

Hades grows increasingly angry throughout the reprise. You get the feeling that he’s losing control of his kingdom, and he not only knows it but fears it. He’s frantically trying to grasp onto whatever some semblance of authority he has left.

The thesis of this song is just powerful. If we raise our voices and raise our heads, we can effect change.

“I CONDUCT THE ELECTRIC CITY.” First of all, I LOVE PATRICK PAGE, AND HE ABSOLUTELY DID NOT HAVE TO GO THIS HARD, BUT HE DID BECAUSE HE’S AMAZING, AND DID I MENTION THAT I LOVE HIM??? Secondly, when he sings this line, the lights flash bright before flickering out for a couple of seconds.

While he’s counting down (1... 2... 3...), he angrily stomps down the staircase and crosses over to the side of the stage where Hermes gives him a barstool. He takes it and slams it on the ground to wait for “Epic III.”

“Epic III” —

Not 2 belabor the point, but this entire damn musical made me an emotional wreck, and “Epic III” was no exception. It was a religious experience, at once both simple and sublime.

Right before it starts, Hades slowly snaps his fingers twice in expectation.

Hades doesn't really react to the song until the moment Orpheus sings his first “la, la, las.” At those, he immediately gets up and crosses over to Orpheus, shocked and enraged, fully intending to interrupt him: “Where did you get(?) that melody?” Persephone stops him before he can do anything and implores him to let Orpheus finish.

Of course, he recognizes the melody because it used to be his and Persephone’s once upon a time.

(Hgjkahgjkskjnksjfkjhkashfkj—I was tender.)

Orpheus falters after the interruption, but Hermes, placing a hand on his shoulder, encourages him to keep going.

Anyway, REEVE CARNEY DESERVED A DAMN TONY, PART TWO.

If Hades was spellbound, then the entire theater was, too. A boy and a lyre and a song—it doesn’t seem like much, but it was quite literally everything.

Right before Hades echoes Orpheus, there’s a poignant pause in which Persephone turns to fully face him—she hadn’t quite been looking at him before.

Very softly, very gently, she extends her hands to him... and as soon as they touch, Hades finds his song again: “La la la la la la la.” 

My God, I cried.

At the end of Epic III, the carnation “appears” in Hades’s hand. (Holy hell—I don’t know how he did it; it was really quite like it magically appeared.) 

Persephone wipes tears from her eyes as she holds on to her husband, as they hold on to each other.

Also, this isn’t on the soundtrack, but there’s a brief instrumental between “Epic III” and “Promises” where Hades and Persephone dance. They hold each other so tenderly. Their eyes never leave each other’s faces. The flower is in Hades’s lapel.

It honest to God made me believe in love again. 

“Promises” / “Word to the Wise” / “His Kiss, The Riot”  —

This is awful, but unfortunately, I don’t remember that much of how “Promises” was staged. ;-; I was still being emo over Hades and Persephone because “Epic III” ruined me.

While Eurydice and Orpheus sing, they stand still on the corner of the stage holding each other, her head buried in his shoulder, and his head tucked against her neck. They don’t move. They never let each other go.

Towards the end of “Promises,” Orpheus or Eurydice one convince  the other that the king will let them go now that he’s rediscovered his love again, which takes us into “Word to the Wise.”

As soon as Hades admits that he doesn’t know whether he’ll let them go, Persephone violently parts from him, repulsed that he still hasn’t made up his mind in the right direction.

Just as the Fates had teased and mocked Eurydice during “When the Chips Are Down,” they do the same to Hades here. Their impartial wickedness is so good.

“Give him a rope, and he’ll hang himself.” This advice is definitely the seed for the compromise Hades ends up giving Orpheus. Also, ooooh, fun fact: in Greek mythology, death by hanging has metaphoric resonances of extinguishing one’s voice, which, of course, is a tragedy for a poet, a singer, an artist.

And in the end, he does just as the Fates predicted, doesn’t he?

Ugh, the dark orchestration for “His Kiss, The Riot” is chilling. That accordion??? Incredible.

After the brief instrumental section, he addresses Hermes and conveys his plan to him. This is why Hermes is the one who tells Orpheus, Eurydice, and the workers what’s up in “Wait For Me (Reprise)”.

“Nothing makes a man so bold as a woman’s smile and a hand to hold.” He glances over Persephone as he sings this. 

For the most part, Hades sits on his barstool for this one; it really reminded me of a Shakespearean soliloquy!

“Wait For Me (Reprise)” / “Doubt Comes In” — 

The intro to the reprise is so heavy. Hermes is just weary. He knows what Hades is up to. “Divide and conquer is what it’s called.”

“It’s a trap.” / “It’s a trial.” Orpheus’s newfound skepticism really makes itself apparent in this one. He thinks the world’s out to get him, he doesn’t particularly trust himself or Eurydice anymore. The writing’s on the wall, and Hermes knows it better than anyone: “The dog you really gotta dread is the one that howls inside your head.”

Eurydice and Orpheus singing the “Wait For Me” chorus together is so unbelievably powerful. God, I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house through these last few songs.

“Show the way so we can see. Show the way the world could be.” The company repeats this refrain because they’re literally following Orpheus and Eurydice, too. ;-; I didn’t realize this until I saw it staged.

“Wait for me.” / “I will.” Hades and Persephone stare at each other and grasp hands. He gives her the carnation, and for the rest of the reprise, she holds it up—a small beacon of hope, a vivid pop of color against a woman clothed in black. Bye. I’m crying again.

And then, when Eurydice ends “Wait For Me”—JESSIE SLAYED THESE VERSES—you can see the hope and belief in her face as she begins to follow Orpheus. She has no doubt that he’ll lead her home.

The light shines bright on Eurydice one last time before the entire stage is plunged into darkness for “Doubt Comes In.”

The staging for “Doubt Comes In” is absolutely incredible. Wow. So there are rings on the stage that rotate—various characters utilize them for walking during songs, and they’re used to brilliant effect here.

Orpheus walks along the outer ring in the darkness; it’s so dark that you can’t see Eurydice and the workers behind him, which adds to the notion that he’s alone, entirely alone. When Eurydice or the workers sing, they’re briefly illuminated only to be plunged into the darkness once again.

Orpheus tries to comfort himself by singing his song, but the doubt and the darkness are too much, too overwhelming. He makes it to the final staircase, and the light signifying the outside is the most vivid location onstage.

When the final note rings out, he turns around, and there Eurydice is. She was there all along.

The elevator takes her back to Hadestown as Orpheus collapses to his knees.

“Road to Hell (Reprise)” / Ovation / “We Raise Our Cups” —

You know how I mentioned that Hermes’s footsteps were the only sounds audible at the beginning of “Road to Hell”? The same holds true here as he walks back onto stage, slowly and wearily. He’s sung this song before, but by the gods, as this song tells us, he’ll sing it again and again.

I never realized that they did this until I saw it live, but as the music ascends into a more hopeful mood, the cast members reset the stage, so that it’s almost exactly as it was at the beginning of the musical. They even go through the same scene of Eurydice entering from the cold and lighting her candle. (OH, and I meant to mention this in my Act I write up, but right after Eurydice descends to Hadestown in “Gone, I’m Gone,” Hermes blows her candle out. 😭)

When the cast lined up on the stage for the bows, the whole theater stood up and clapped for at least ten minutes. I was so overwhelmed with pride and love for every single performer on that stage, that I couldn’t help but tear up.

And then, Persephone and Eurydice sing “We Raise Our Cups.” Orpheus is the only one who doesn’t join in, watching silently as the entirety of Hadestown raises their cups to him.

To the world we dream about and the world we live in... this musical was a life-changing experience, and I’m so thankful that I could inhabit Orpheus’s world, even if just for a brief fraction of this eternity.

Stagedoor: —

This was my first stagedoor, and it was so much fun!! The cast was so lovely and nice and obliging.

My friend and I got a picture with Reeve; he’s really good at stagedoor. He took his time with everyone and made sure everyone who wanted a signature or a picture got one!

I didn’t quite know what to say to anyone because I was just so in awe of them, but I had an amazing interaction with Kay! I told her that it was really important to me to see Asian representation on Broadway, and her face lit up! I love her.

#hadestown #persephone #eurydice #orpheus #hades #broadway #reginianwrites #p: hadestown

[my-wayward-son]

2 months on T-------------------> 7 months on T

I’m late with this post.  Again.  Because I’m doing really shitty.  Again.

First, let me address the obvious: yes, I’ve lost weight. (Well, if you wanna get technical, I weigh the exact same thing as when I started, which I probably shouldn’t).  But beyond that, I don’t want to talk about it.  That change is probably 25% due to testosterone and the tendency it has to aid in the development of lean muscle, and 75% due to other factors.

All the previous changes I’ve noted in these posts are still happening/happening more, such as still more body hair growing/thickening.  There’s really nothing new to report, except that I pass better when I have on glasses and teenage boy clothes (as opposed to professional clothes), but still get a lot of gender neutral and she/her designations mixed in with the he/hims.  

I had a dream last night about correcting my dad (his typical naming convention for me is Laura, I mean, Laur, she, I mean, Laur...) . So he’s trying when he’s in front of me, but it’s obvious he isn’t trying when he’s talking to my mom without me present.  I’m torn between being upset about it and letting it go.  My dad was diagnosed with Aspergers as an adult and he struggles with shifting his perspective.  This is something else I don’t want to talk about, but just know that my far-from-NT-yet-decidedly-allistic ass has a hard time reconciling it.

But anyhow, the transition is going great, and I have no reason to be upset about anything, but I’m upset about everything, and the rest is going under the cut because it’s going to be full of triggers (suicide and ED stuff).

For my whole life I never understood why anyone would want one of those dolls that you can customize to look exactly like you.  My thought was always, ‘what’s so special about me?  I kind of suck.’  I thought so little of myself and my live, even as a little kid, that I would rather pick the princess or the American Girl or whatever with the most interesting story and change myself to match.  Like I’d beg my mom for an outfit the same color as the character’s, or wear sunglasses with the lenses popped out, or only style my hair the same way as the character in order to adapt into that character.  

Of course all those phases were just that, phases.  They were highly tied to the media I consumed, and as I aged, that media changed.  So I was always editing myself to match my current obsession.  I never gave thought to what I was actually like, deep inside.  Like it didn’t matter what my actual personality was.  I hardly even thought about it until the end of high school, and then a series of traumas knocked me down a few pegs, and that sense of self didn’t come back to the surface until mid 2017.

In mid 2017, I went to a 2-week dance convention.  At that time I was living as female, had basically given up on the idea of transitioning, and was just trying to push through as a painfully shy 24-year-old who worked full time and danced part time with a local ballet company.  At the convention, I studied various styles of dance, realized I was extremely untrained in every field but ballet, and spent the entire thing on the verge of tears because I was with students over 10 years my junior in most of the classes.  It was an “all ages” program, but literally all the other adults were in professional level classes for all styles.  I was only in the professional level class for ballet.  I couldn’t wait for the convention to end.  I hated every second of it.  I had a chronic foot injury that made dancing painful (but not dangerous), but I’d always pushed through it because I loved it.  Now I could barely stand to go to class, even back with my regular company.  So I made arrangements to retire. 

I retired from professional dance in May 2018 and had foot surgery in June 2018.  I could dance again, if I wanted to, but I’m not ready yet.  Eventually I might go back as a recreational adult dancer, just taking class from time to time.  But I don’t know.  

I still love ballet, but as of a year ago, ballet was the one thing hanging over me that I hated.  I hated the obligation; I hated the way it tore up my body; I hated the way it made me exhausted and ate up all my spare time. However, I was damn productive.  I wrote so many fics and drew so many pictures, and I went to therapy at least every other week, and sometimes to PT.  I was at the studio approximately 20 hours a week, on top of working 40 hours a week.  But I guess I was so busy and tied to my obligations that I quite literally couldn’t fall apart.  

My uncle died (suicide, marking the 4th attempt and 2nd success in my family) and my granddad died (heart condition), so I had good reason to fall apart.  I was freaked out and sad for a while, but I was also fine.  I was a robot.  When I look back, I realize that the last time I was happy was prior to the 4th of July 2017.  I call that the “Wonder Woman Moment.”  I did a photo shoot for a ballet personal training/nutrition service that dressed me up in WW-esque dancewear.  We blasted Patty Smythe and had a ball.  Even though it was a really feminine thing, it was so much fun, and I had no worries.  It was July 1st 2017.  Before my uncle died, and before my granddad died and before I went to the dance convention.  That’s my last happy memory.

After unpacking some acute issues with grief and anxiety, my therapist started talking to me about my issues with gender ID.  By November 2017 I was thinking about transitioning (I had thought about it before, but never felt it was feasible).  By December, I’d decided it felt right.  I sought out a doctor in January 2018 and had my first appointment in February.  I told my mom on Superbowl Sunday.  Then a month later at my Oscar party, she basically washed her hands of me.

I love film crit and the Academy Awards almost as much as I love fanfiction and ballet and coffee and all the other good things.  I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting for the 2019 noms to drop.  I know a few of them just from the grapevine, but I haven’t looked them up yet.  I’m still working from my early prediction spreadsheet, even though the actual noms are just a few clicks away.  I’m scared of the feelings that’s going to bring up.

One year ago, all I could think about was getting through the next 6 months and reaching a series of milestones: my company’s production of Alice in Wonderland.  Moving to a new apartment.  My company’s production of Water for Chocolate (an original contemporary ballet choreographed on me and 14 other dancers).  Starting testosterone.  Retiring from ballet.  Foot surgery.  I thought my life would be so much better.

And in a way, it is.  I have the confidence to do random shit, like walk into Autozone and talk to the workers about what is wrong with my car, then help them fix it.  A year ago, I would have panic attacks over things like that.  But a year ago, my mom loved me.  A year ago, I thought I’d have my current job forever.  A year ago, I thought once I got on T, my eating disorder behaviors would go away.

I’ve gained personal confidence, but lost so much else.  Lost my family.  Gained a new one, but still, I lost my relationship with my biological mother and father.  Lost my job satisfaction, which makes me worry that at some point I will have to interview for a new job and integrate with a new company, which is frightening in the extreme.  T has changed my body shape in the way I like, but it’s not magic.  I’m still afraid of eating, and stress doesn’t help.  I’ve also had health complications that add pressure and make me feel run down.  Some is my own damn fault (Hi, I’m Laur and I abuse OTC medications like a rebellious teenager, which is apparently not advisable when also on several prescriptions).  Some is a fluke.  But feeling like shit while also mentally feeling like shit has destroyed me.  I hate my life.  I hate everything.  I don’t see the value in anything.   

I know there’s a Spider-Man: Far from Home trailer out there.  I haven’t seen it.  I don’t know what to expect.  I want to see it.  But I also don’t want time to move forward.  I like the MCU as it is (I like it pre-Infinity War, actually, but nobody asked me, so I won’t belabor you with my opinion).

And that’s a good metaphor for my life right now.  It’s a mess.  I can’t picture anything far in the future, so the light from my proverbial headlights is dim and dull.  I’m afraid of moving forward, so my tires are spinning in place, kicking up mud and dust.   I’m incapable of shifting side to side, so when I do roll ahead a few inches, I hit every obstacle in the path.  If I just changed the lightbulbs, twiddled the steering wheel, took a breath and let myself move, I’d probably be fine.  But somehow that seems like the most impossible choice.  

I could slam the car into one of the cave walls, triggering a rockslide and killing myself.  If I did that, I know it would hurt a lot of people in my life, but it would also fulfill all of my hopes and dreams.   Peace.  Calmness.  Stillness.  Not having to deal with a world that insists on moving forward with the passage of time.  

The most compelling reason is that I can’t find a reason not to.  I wish I was an undergraduate student again, because I want to get a degree in philosophy.  I don’t know why living is so highly valued.  I can’t figure out what makes this “will to live” the correct way of thinking and the desire to die the wrong way of thinking.  Right and wrong are subjective.  They don’t exist, really.  There is not value behind things and thoughts and actions.  They just are.  What’s to say that a lack of serotonin or whatever in a depressed brain is really not normal?  The non-depressed brain may have an excess.  Normal is relative.  Averages don’t mean correct.  Just because most people in the class chose answer B doesn’t mean that it is the right answer to the question.  Just because most Americans are a little overweight doesn’t mean that that’s the healthiest body type.  

Sometimes I really want to try to get well and forge ahead and get my life together.  Sometimes I want to say fuck it and take all the pills in the house and lay down and drift away.  I can’t decide which is better because neither is better, they both are just choices.  I can’t use other people’s reasoning to back up either one, for they are slanted for reasons I cannot understand.  They have a bias toward life.  I have to choose what I really want most, and I just don’t know.  I truly don’t.  My wants and desires-the deep ones in the core of my being- have been so long ignored, given up for what a character would do, or what my mom would do, that as an adult, I hardly know how to access the decision-making skills that most children have already mastered.  I’m a fucking goldfish; when I’m upset, I’m only upset, and I’ve always been upset.  When I’m happy, I’m only happy and I’ve always been happy.  I don’t know how to take a step back and see both at the same time.  I can’t hold contradictory truths at once.  I’m not wise.  I’m set up to fail because there are cracks in my foundation.

As long as I continue to not decide, I don’t take action.  I’m stuck in a holding pattern of “I don’t know,” and “what’s going to get me through the next 5 minutes,” and “just fuck it all, it doesn’t matter.”  

I’ve never, ever, in my life imagined myself as an elderly person.  I’ve thought of myself as a middle-aged adult, but never past 40 or so.  Sometimes I see myself as a woman, sometimes as a man, sometimes an NB person.  But that’s not what matters.  I don’t see myself living to old age.  Mortality is comfort.  The fact that this life doesn’t go on forever is one thing that honestly makes it seem ok to keep living.  But by definition, it also makes it seem like a good choice to die when things go wrong.  Because I will in the end.  

I see my life as a project, and I’ve always had this dilemma with projects: if I make a mistake, what point is too ruined to salvage?  What factors make it more worthwhile to backtrack and fix the mistakes vs. just throwing it away.  Fixing the mistakes shoes dedication and perseverance, but it’s frustrating.  Hot.  Angry.  Uncomfortable.  Embarrassing to show youthful ineptitude to the world.  Throwing it away is quick.  Easy.  Zen.  Brings immediate cool relief with grace and style.  But it’s selfish.  So fucking selfish.  

If you’ve read this far, please proceed to pour water into your ears and shake vigorously.  This was not meant to be imprinted on your brain.  This is for me to sort out my thoughts, which are, and shall always be, unable to be ordered.

#laur talks #trans #suicide tw #mental health tw #philosophy #death tw #family issues #eating disorders tw #ed tw #maybe do not read below the cut