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hannah-deserved-better · 3 years

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Hannah cared for Castiel. Let’s look at some facts.

Hannah was a lot like Cas was in the fourth season, she was an Angel who believed in her angelic sense of justice, but even from the beginning, she admired Castiel. Even knowing who he was, knowing so many other angels wanted to kill him, she wanted to help him.

She stayed by Castiel’s side. Sure, she was trying to be an Angel and obey, but I think Cas saw that she had the capacity to be a different kind of Angel. He trusted her.

Hannah had no reason to trust the Winchesters. People get upset that she tried to have Cas kill Dean but for her, she didn’t know Dean, she didn’t understand the significance humans had to Cas at this point. She was looking at this from an angel’s point of view

For angels, taking another’s grace is an abhorrent crime. I think I read that it’s on par with cannibalism as far as angels were concerned. So Hannah was justifiably mortified when she found out Cas had stolen another angel’s grace. She admired Cas so she felt betrayed. But the fact that she was down there in the prison proves that she was still trying to understand. If she didn’t want to be convinced, she wouldn’t have been down there in the first place, she had no reason to be. But Hannah is more open minded than most angels and she was trying so sort it all out. What Cas was saying and doing went against everything she understood. It’s my personal belief that Angels, and Cas and Hannah in particular are archetypes for being on the autism spectrum and Hannah’s rigid belief in angelic law and her confusion when things don’t quite fit into that, is proof of this. Trust me, as an autistic person myself this is the story of my life and I feel Hannah so much in this instance.

Hannah has no reason to trust Gadreel. It’s likely that she feels traumatized by him. After all, he beat her and left her in a warehouse full of dead angels. Angels she probably had to watch him murder.

As soon as she realized the truth she was at Castiel’s side again.

She traveled with him, saw him getting sicker, she literally begged him to take care of himself. Saving him became more important to her than the mission. And yeah she developed feelings for him, but there have been very few who genuinely cared about saving Castiel just because they cared about. Not because of anything she thought he could do for her, but because she genuinely cared about him.

It was her feelings for Castiel and her need to save him that helped to break through all the barriers of her angelic upbringing and conditioning. I mean she was willing to make a deal with Metatron to save him. The Winchesters have made those sorts of deals that ended up nearly destroying the world just to save each other but here someone is willing to face earth shattering consequences just to save Castiel.

Through her love for Cas she discovered compassion for humans. And it was her decision to give up her vessel that got Castiel to think of Claire.

Castiel developed feelings for Hannah, he was legitimately upset by her choice to leave, you can see it in his eyes. He’s sad about what could have been between them, but he was touched by the fact that she was willing to sacrifice those possibilities for the sake of her vessel.

People tried to tell me that Caroline needed to go back to her husband, that Hannah was wrong for taking her away, but this always reeked of sexist misogyny to me. Cuz it sounds like they think Caroline should return to her husband but Jimmy doesn’t need to return to his wife and daughter?

Hannah went back to heaven and she applied the things she learned from Cas. Even Metatron commented on how orderly heaven became under her rule.

And yeah she orchestrated Castiel’s torture and kidnapping but it was obvious to me that she wasn’t entirely on board with it. The other angels, Efram and Jonah made it a point to taunt her and disrespect her when she tried to speak up.

She proved herself by fighting- and dying- to save Castiel. Castiel was visibly upset by her death.

And there you have it, Hannah loved Castiel and he had feelings for her. Think about, she was one of the very few angels who didn’t hate him and Cas has always wanted to be accepted by his own kind. Even if he chose the Winchesters over heaven, he walked the tight rope between heaven and earth. He longs to be an Angel again, and here was one Angel who believed in him and cared about him and loved him enough to die for him.

And before anyone shoves the whole ‘they are siblings’ crap of me, I already addressed that in another post. Check it out here: https://hannah-deserved-better.tumblr.com/post/637340297231302656/okay-as-a-hanstiel-shipper-the-one-thing-that

But basically, the sibling thing is up to personal interpretation and your interpretation doesn’t set the rules for me. You aren’t the gatekeeper of this work of fiction and you don’t get to tell me how to interpret things. I don’t think the angels are siblings in a literal sense because Chuck made humans too. And being created by a god and coming out of the same vagina is a little different.

Anyway, in a fandom where wincest is the second biggest ship (and I respect wincest shippers, even if I don’t ship it, cuz you know, they have respected me and my ship, at least the ones I’ve met have) don’t you think the whole angelcest thing is a little hypocritical?

Anyway, yes hanstiel is a legitimate ship. I may be the only hanstiel otper in all of Tumblr but I know there are some sympathizers out there. Also? Hanstiel is a queer ship so don’t even pull the ‘your a homophobe if you don’t ship destiel’ crap on me. Both Hannah and castiel have possessed both male and female vessels and both of them have no sexual preference. I’d say they are both pansexual and also probably demisexual if anything, but I also think that they are beyond being put into labels.

#supernatural #hanstiel #castiel #castiel/hannah

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makeste · 5 years

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BnHA Chapter 239: We’re Fucked

Previously on BnHA: Actually it’s been two weeks, so I barely even remember. Let me just... take another... Ah, right. So Tomura brought it up a notch to Goth Level x20 and destroyed all of his Surplus Hands in a fit of independence, and Re-Destro was like “!!!” and then turned himself into a giant robot as a counter-flex. Meanwhile Gigantomachia continued to smash shit and also defeated Orange Leaf because lord knows Dabi was never actually going to get around to it. Compress called Ujiko and was all “hey can you please stop your guy because I’m afraid he’s going to smash us once he’s done smashing everything else,” but Ujiko was all, “listen if Shigaraki dies then he dies!!” But I’m pretty sure Shigaraki isn’t actually going to die. Re-Destro, though? He might be dead. Guess we’ll find out.

Today on BnHA: Nope, Re-Destro isn’t dead. So it goes like this: Tomura, who is now incredibly hot by the way, annihilates the entire fucking town leaving only bits of rubble, basically. Everyone is all, “LOOK AT THIS ARE YOU FUCKING SEEING THIS HOLY SHIT” and basically just watching in awe. Re-Destro chops off his own fucking feet so as not to be disintegrated himself, something which everyone is way too fucking calm about tbh. And in the aftermath Tomura stands there all “lol I won,” and RD is like, “yeah you sure did,” and I was expecting Tomura to be all “well anyways, [kill]” but instead RD is like, “HERE’S THE KEYS TO YOUR NEW ARMY” and Tomura is “HEY COOL” and SOMEHOW THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER AND WORSE ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Heh. Anyways where’s that comic with the dog in the house that’s on fire. That about sums it all up.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, but aside from that there are no changes, and even that was a rush job since I was late in reading the chapter this week. I basically have not edited this at all lulz.)

sounds like someone is about to get the official Gigantomachia Seal of Approval at long last! sure did take this boy a while to get accredited, but he kept at it! there’s a lesson there, folks. if at first you don’t succeed, stop sleeping for two months and then power-hallucinate your way to success

so we’re opening with Hanabata and his van! I sure hope this mofo is about to die, because mofos need to start dying already. I’ve loved this arc and we’ve had some really great times, but I never did have much patience for this particular point of any given arc. side villains need to know when to die. respect for Kizuki, at least she had the right idea

on the other hand we are being gifted with some pretty fun panels, such as this

wah, his shoes. heh

oh my god

did he slam into the van when it hit the brakes to avoid Tomura’s Destruction Radius. ouch

so he’s narrating about how some crazy shit is going down over where Tomura is. and that “our story was at a standstill, but now...”

listen, that “but now” had better mean that you’re about to de-standstill and wrap things up

-- holy shit

I’m not -- Tomura, what!?! you’re hot?! is it just me?? am I fucking losing it?? what the fuck. can you seriously just cut off anyone’s fingers and they’ll magically grow 40x hotter!? somebody count Aizawa’s fingers for me

shit. this isn’t even my normal aesthetic! Tomura you’re crossing genre barriers here. I can’t speak for everyone, but I deeply suspect that you’re appealing very widely right now

the moral of this story is, eyeliner. that’s it. that’s the moral

in other news, Twice shouting “hang in there, Giran!” speaks for all of us, I think, and he had better get a medal for being VIP of this fucking arc. and Giran, it’s good to get some exercise

so who is this monologuing now?

is this a flashback to All for One? or RD getting all philosophical as the countdown inches ever closer to his doom?

like, this could seriously go either way here. huh. full disclosure, I’m doing my best to speedread here since this recap is late, so I’m not taking much time to think real deeply or try and process every little thing this week

now RD is going “guh!” and failing to get with the times

yeah dude, we established this already. Tomura is doing a lot of things he shouldn’t fucking be able to do. because he’s awakening. you’re the one who fucking said it just last chapter. quit being so damn shocked

lol now he’s thinking “if I can just get out of range...” ha, good luck. does he even have a fucking range now

omfg. you guys

being on the villains’ team for an arc is so much fun. so nice to be able to shamelessly appreciate the senseless destruction

okay, not quite as hot now. but from the right angle, though. damn

anyways. he cray. we get it lol

now he’s shouting “I’ll break you to pieces!” all gleefully and, like. destroying the entire town, it looks like. possibly

okay but seriously I think he really is. he really fucking is, you guys

I’m simultaneously grinning at how badass it is and thinking in the back of my mind about how our actual heroes are so!! fucked!! once this arc is over and done with sob

like, hey Tomura, what was your overall goal again? destroy the entire world? oh, yes, right. and what exactly is stopping you, again? literally nothing but a handful of sixteen-year-old heroes in training? whom I’m deeply attached to? yes, that’s surely going to end well

sobbbbbbbb

we’re so. goddamn. fucked

also, when did RD transform back into his little guy form? why do I suddenly almost feel sorry for him. well maybe not sorry so much as I feel pity. though once again, weekly reminder that he invited them himself, and they probably would never have clashed had he not decided to start shit for absolutely no fucking reason

let this be a lesson to all other villains! if you’re still thinking the League is an easy mark now that AFO is ~out of the picture~, let Overhaul and Re-Destro serve as examples of what happens when you underestimate the new boy in charge

and when I think of it that way, it makes me want to warn Tomura not to get too cocky and make the same fucking mistake. AFO and All Might may not have much in common, but one thing they do share is a knack for choosing worthy successors. though I still think that in AFO’s case, “placeholder” would be a more accurate word

anyway so where were we. -- oh yes

I wonder how many pages do we need of Tomura cheerfully decimating shit and RD watching in terror. this is a manga-only complaint though, just to be clear. in the anime? this shit is going to be fucking amazing. Tomura cackling maniacally while the world crumbles to pieces around him. metal af

by the way I love how RD has gone pants-only now that he’s back in his Bruce Banner form

I really shouldn’t be complaining that this chapter is going by so quickly, given that I’m trying to race through it, but literally the next two pages are just more of the same shit

town: destroyed. RD status: defeated and pants-only. plots advanced in the last three pages: none that I can actually see

oh shit. wait

what the -- holy --

okay lol. nevermind. here I thought that was Tomura’s foot on the previous page. and I didn’t notice RD’s feet had been chopped off on account of I thought the BLOODY STUMPS OF HIS FEET were his shoes, I guess. despite the manga establishing multiple times that he was only wearing pants. I only pointed it out specifically twice myself. wowwww

just. I’m running on four hours’ sleep here but feeling pretty all right considering, so I thought I was doing pretty good, but I GUESS NOT lol. one of these days I’ll learn that if a giant two-page spread appears to be a waste, it’s far more likely that I’ve just completely failed to see some very obvious thing of critical importance

anyways. ohhhhh yesssss

[raises hand] me! I know!! it was him calling you up out of the blue and being all “hey come here I want to start a whole battle”!!

heeeeeeeh

god I’m living for this. the brief swell of pity is gone as quickly as it arose lol. finish him off boiiiii

OH FOR FUCK’S --

DID YOU GUYS SOMEHOW FAIL TO GET THE MEMO. DID THE ENTIRE TOWN CRUMBLING APART NOT CLUE YOU IN THAT IT WAS TIME TO HEAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION

jesus. I would be impressed by their loyalty, except that none of them have given a fuck about the 100,000 hapless redshirts who’ve died fighting for them, so it seems pretty damn hypocritical for them to care so much about this one fucking guy. especially when his stupid plan singlehandedly destroyed everything your organization has spent their entire lives working for. in, like, an hour

anyway, Tomura is back to being hot again guys

motherfucker is fully aware of just how much everything is lining up his way right now. finally his childlike self-assuredness actually has some sort of basis in fact. you are exactly as badass as you think you are, sir. must be nice. you enjoy this; you deserve some nice things just this once before everything goes to shit again after this arc

holy shit, even Hanabata’s quirk is failing in the wake of that see-you-in-hell grin

I’m telling you dude, you should have been driving the other way. not that there’s any point now. enjoy your final seconds on this earth

LOL

“meaningless casualties” lmao that is the most pompous variation on “DON’T YOU GET IT, WE’RE ABOUT TO FUCKING DIE” I’ve ever heard

wow, so wait, is RD trying to beg for their lives now??

that’s a surprisingly classy move. unfortunately I’m fairly sure Tomura is going to show you exactly as much mercy as you were prepared to show him just a few minutes earlier. well maybe a little more mercy, since you were going to take your sweet time and he’ll probably end things quickly in comparison

anyway so now RD is having an internal dialogue with his dead great-grandpa about how Tomura turned out to be the living embodiment of everything they were fighting for

and actually, he’s not wrong when you think about it. which just goes to show you how deeply flawed their philosophy really was. there’s a hugely important distinction between “freedom to be who you are” and “freedom to do whatever the fuck you want, including hurting and oppressing others”

anyway, so in the end he didn’t ask for mercy. “I picked a fight with you and lost. if you mean to kill me, then get it over with.” well I guess that is still classy in its own way though

also, Machia is staring at Tomura and seeing this

which is an awesome visual, and I love that Horikoshi went with that instead of more internal monologuing. nothing else even needs to be said

-- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HOLY SHIT

SDFSLDKJFLJS HOLY SHIT

yooooooooooo. oh shit

I did not see that coming. should have, probably. there was a lot of buildup to it in hindsight. Tomura and the gang started out the arc flat-out broke, and now at the end of things they acquire a company with precisely the resources they need. manpower, cash, and technological innovations. oh shit. oh shit

oh my god the look on Ujiko’s face. this worked out better than he ever could have hoped

pausing it here because I did in fact laugh and I love it. [pats]

this boy has a 5/5 intelligence score in the character databook. he’s a genius. nothing gets past him. his reflexes are too fast

aaaaaand that’s the end of the chapter. well, then. to reiterate: we are well and truly fucked y’all

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha 239 #shigaraki tomura #re-destro #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #well that's just great #now he has an army *and* a hulk #on the bright side #having seen what this army is capable of #I don't think we need to worry too much about that particular new asset

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gaylotusthatexists · 6 years

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an infinitesimal tuesday

logan appreciation week - day two

c. what would actually happen if logan didn’t have the organization skills we all think he has? draw or write a time the other sides find out logan isn’t as collected as they think he is!

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairing: Platonic Analogical

Rating: General

Brief Description: Logan hasn't left his room in days. Virgil is beginning to worry.

Word Count: 1222

also on ao3

Virgil tapped his fingers on the arm of the his chair, as he stared at the TV screen intently. He wasn't paying attention to whatever was happening in the program. He just... needed a distraction, or something along those lines.

But this wasn't helping. Watching some terrible program absentmindedly just made him think even more. It was causing him to tune out, and his mind was wandering to places he did not want to go to, and his heart was starting to beat faster, and he was starting to feel hot, and-

He stood up. He couldn't deal with this anymore.

"Hey, kiddo, you alright?" Patton asked, looking over to Virgil from his spot on the sofa.

Virgil nodded. "Yeah," he lied. "Just... I'll be back in a minute."

He left the room, and headed upstairs, to Logan's room. Logan hadn't left his room in days, and Virgil was really starting to worry. Without Logan around to keep him grounded, to fill his head with logic, he was growing less and less sane. He needed Logan back. Plus, with the fear that something bad had happened to Logan, Virgil's anxiety was getting worse. He had to know that he was okay.

Of course, logically speaking, Logan would be okay. He was still alive. Patton had been up to give him dinner, and check on him from time to time, but apparently Logan hadn't said much, or let Patton into his room. However, Virgil wasn't exactly thinking 'logically' with Logan gone. Sure, it was comforting to know that Logan was still eating, and very much alive, but the fact that he wouldn't let Patton into his room... Virgil didn't want to think about the reasons. He just needed to make sure that he was definitely okay. And try his best to help if he wasn't.

Virgil knocked on Logan's door. "Logan?"

"Is that you, Patton?" a voice called back. "I wouldn't expect you to come at this particular time." His voice sounded hoarse. Slightly deeper than normal. That didn't sound good.

"No, it's Virgil," he replied. "Can I come in?"

There was a brief pause. The only sound Virgil could hear was his own heartbeat. Which had only increased with the sudden silence.

Eventually, the door swung upon, allowing Virgil to step inside. He closed it quietly behind him, but left a slight gap, just in case he needed a quick escape. It should be fine, though. This was Logan. Logan wouldn't hurt Virgil. He would be safe, surely.

Logan's desk was completely covered in papers, to the point at which Virgil literally could not see any of the wood. The floor around him was also covered in paper, all screwed up into balls. Pens and pencils were scattered around the room and on the desk. And Logan... God, Logan. Dark circles under his eyes, his hair a mess, his tie lose around his neck. He looked as if he had been wearing the same clothes for days. And like he hadn't slept for days, apparently. Or showered.

"Dude, no offence, but you look terrible," Virgil immediately said, approaching Logan.

Logan frowned. "That was an incredibly offensive comment Virgil, I don't understand-"

"Yeah, whatever, you need to get ahold of yourself," Virgil interrupted. "Like, seriously. This place is a mess."

Logan looked around. "Ah, yes. I suppose it is. I hadn't noticed."

"You... hadn't noticed." Virgil shook his head in disbelief. "Seriously, are you okay?"

"Yes, I do believe I am in good health," Logan stated. "And, emotionally, I suppose I am fairly stable."

"No, you really aren't," Virgil disagreed. "When was the last time you slept? Or... showered?"

Logan didn't reply for a moment. He looked deep in thought.

Virgil sighed. "Okay, the fact that you have to think about that tells me enough." He hummed. "Go take a shower, right now."

"But, I need to finish this," Logan objected.

"No. You need to take care of yourself, you complete idiot. Take a shower."

Logan ignored Virgil, beginning to turn back to his papers. However, after a glare from Virgil, he decided to surrender, and left the room with a towel and a change of clothes. Smiling slightly at his success, Virgil watched Logan walk down the hallway, before turning back to Logan's room. He began to pick all the papers off the floor, and deposited them in the bin in the corner. He then went to the desk, and gathered all the pieces of paper into a pile. He placed all of the pens and pencils back into their respective pots on Logan's windowsill, and then sat down on the bed, waiting for the other boy to return.

When he eventually arrived, Virgil immediately thought that he looked better. Not completely, but not as bad as before, at least. His hair had been brushed, so there was that.

"Can I carry on working now?" he immediately requested.

"No," Virgil replied, firmly.

"But I-"

"You are going to sleep," Virgil said.

"I'm not tired, though," Logan argued.

Virgil laughed. "Those dark circles under your eyes beg to differ." Logan looked as if he was about to object, but Virgil held up his hands to stop him. "Also, the fact that you are swaying from side-to-side and look like you could fall at any minute isn't exactly helping your case," he added.

Logan sighed. "I hate it when you're right."

"Come on," Virgil sat, patting the mattress besides him. "Get into bed."

After a brief moment of consideration, Logan made his way over, and climbed into bed, curling up under the covers. Virgil smiled, and stood up, making his way over to the door.

"Wait," Logan called. Virgil turned back around. "Can you stay here?"

Virgil frowned. "What do you-"

Logan sat up in his bed. "You were correct to think that I... haven't been doing the best, lately. I haven't been sticking to a healthy schedule, as I so often insist that you guys and Thomas should. I guess that makes me a huge hypocrite. But, uh, I would really appreciate it if you stayed the night, in order to ensure that I actually do sleep, and don't just get straight back up to work again."

"Okay, wow, sure, if that's what you want." Virgil closed the door shut, and turned off the lights. He made his way over to the bed, glad that he had tidied up so that there was no chance for him to slip and fall on something, and got into bed besides Logan.

"Goodnight," Logan whispered, closing his eye.

"Night," Virgil replied, as he laid on his back, staring up at the ceiling. Logan, the one person who seemed to have it all together, was apparently even worse than Virgil. That didn't add up at all. However, this experience did mean on thing - Virgil knew now that he had to be checking up on this guy. He really didn't want Logan to be falling into an inconsistent schedule, especially since Logan had just helped him to get out of one. Things couldn't really have gotten worse for Logan at that point.

But Virgil could talk to him about that in the morning. Logan needed his rest, Virgil was certain on that. And with the warmth of Logan's body beside him, Virgil managed to drift off to sleep.

ayyyy thanks for reading! feel free to like/reblog and stuff, that would be greatly appreciated. i hope y’all enjoyed this nice lil fic!

@fandersfic-analogical

#sanderssidesappreciationmonth #sanders sides #thomas sanders #analogical #platonic analogical #virgil sanders #logan sanders #my fanfiction #my fanfic #my writing

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demonic-activity · 6 years

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Love the player, hate the game

Malec fanfic // read here on AO3 // based on this brilliant ask // brilliant beta @brooklynxmagic

Because Alexander Lightwood would never cheat ♥

“You’re cheating.”

Magnus’ voice cuts icily through the loud and excited chatter in the loft. His eyes are narrowed, flashing with anger and betrayal.

Alec feels his heart stop for one second before it starts beating furiously in his chest.

“Wha… Magnus, no I would never.”

“Oh you can drop the act Alexander,” Magnus hisses, and he leans forward over the table, something dangerous and predatory to his expression and the way his body moves.

Around them, the room has gone quiet and his siblings and friends shift uncomfortably in their seats. Jace clears his throat and almost imperceptibly shakes his head.

Fuck. Alec desperately wants to wipe his hands on his trousers, since they’re sweating out a seemingly infinite supply of perspiration, but he’s afraid it would immediately give him away, what with Magnus’ unrelenting gaze focused on him so closely. For a fleeting, almost hysterical moment he wonders if it’s possible to get dehydrated just from sweaty palms.

He tries his best placating voice, “Magnus don’t be crazy,” shaking his head as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “I’ve never even done this” he gestures between them “before and by the Angel, I barely know what I’m doing!”

“Typical shadowhunter,” Magnus says, mockingly, “Such hypocrites. Oh I think you know perfectly well what you are doing. I’ve been counting your every step and there’s definitely foul play. Don’t give me that incredulous face, you’ve been having a little something on the side, haven’t you?”

“Babe, c’mon, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Liar,” Magnus huffs, jabbing his finger accusingly. “I saw you stuff it in when you thought nobody was looking.”

Alec’s mind is going a hundred miles per hour; he doesn’t know if he can keep this up any longer. He inhales once, deeply, trying to keep a steady voice. “Why? Why would I do that, betray you like that? It’s all just for fun, right?” Alec meant for that last part to be a rhetorical question, but Magnus latches on to it.

“Funny. That’s not the impression you gave when I landed on Marvin Gardens with two of your hotels.”

Alec scoffs, “You earned that back thrice over by now!”

Magnus’ eyes gleam as he says, sweetly, “Exactly, my dear Alexander, which begs the question…How are you still afloat, especially considering those taxes that hit you pretty hard last round?”

The rest of the group watch their exchange with increasing nervousness, eyes shifting back and forth between the two of them.

Alec swallows, hands pretty much dissolved into puddles at this point, “Beginners luck?”

“Right. So if I were to search your trousers right now I would find nothing?”

“Well, not nothing.” The reply comes automatically and he blames in on gin and gin alone.

Simon coughs loudly, barely keeping from suffocating mid-margarita.

Alec can’t help the left corner of his mouth turning up as he continues to hold Magnus’ gaze, but he can see a similar twitch on Magnus’ face and Alec thinks he might be saved.

That turns out to be a serious miscalculation. (Not like the “miscalculation” of paying Jace with a couple of tens instead of hundreds; it’s not his fault if they’re similar shades of yellow and Jace is generally too eager to count).

Suddenly, Magnus leans back in his chair, leisurely folding his hands over his chest. “Alright,” he simply says.

Alec quirks an eyebrow at this sudden change of demeanor.

Magnus smiles at him and it’s somehow so much more terrifying, “So what you’re saying is that you aren’t able to repay my $750 loan yet?”

“See for yourself.” Alec gestures at the meager amount of bills before him. “What you see is what you get.” And Alec flashes him a grin, “I’m a simple man.”

“Hmm,” Magnus hums noncommittally.

“No worries, it’s a, how do you say this? An IOU?” He quirks his head, “You trust me – to pay you back – right?”

Jace is shaking his head even more vehemently now and Izzy and Clary are whispering amongst each other, Simon has gone completely - unnaturally - still.

Magnus gives him another one of his smiles, alarming in its sugar-coated sweetness. “Of course.” And as he drums his fingers lightly on the oak table, he continues, tone casual, “Since we’re in such a trusting and transparent relationship, I feel obligated to point out that you just rolled a five right before this conversation. Now I’m sure you can do the simple math, but let me help you out. I believe that five puts you on Boardwalk. My Boardwalk.” He quirks his head, as though in deep thought, “Hmmm rent, plus a hotel, oh dear, oh dear, I do believe that would mean you’ll be paying me $2,000.”

This is met by a chorus of gasps from the room.

Alec can only just bite back a loud groan and Magnus himself is still sporting a neutral expression, but his eyes belie him - they always do - and now they shine wickedly as he looks down at Alec’s sad little stack of cash. Magnus tuts, “Except, oh no, it looks like you won’t be able to afford that after all.” His eyes snap back up to Alec’s, “That is… if that truly is all you have?”

Magnus lifts a single elegant eyebrow and Alec grits his teeth. Well damnit. Catch, meet 22.

“Fine.” Alec bites out, hating his own stubborn ass, as he pushes his last few bills over to Magnus and flips over all his cards, mortgage side up. He plucks a few more bills for that from the bank – with a little more aggression than necessary – and gives Magnus a look as to say You happy? But Magnus’ gleeful look as he counts his obscene pile of fake money is just…all telling and quite disturbing if Alec is completely honest.

Next to him, Simon groans excessively loud. “Alec, noooo! Now he’s going to be absolutely invincible.” And insufferable Alec adds in the privacy of his own mind. He gets up and mumbles, “I’m gonna get another drink.”

It is all downhill from that moment on.

Alec sits next to Jace slumped low on the couch, watching it all unfold. It’s just Simon, Clary, and Magnus left in the game and it’s not lost to Alec that they all had a mundane childhood (never mind that Monopoly had not been invented yet when Magnus was born). How Simon hasn’t declared bankruptcy yet is anyone’s guess, but Clary is tenacious and almost as fanatic as Magnus. Izzy, it turns out, is a pretty disastrous choice for bank. His sister may be crazy talented in many, many things, but finance isn’t one of them. The rate at which she’s downing margaritas is not exactly helping either. Chaos is soon ensuing, Jace has started shouting unhelpful comments at Clary, second-guessing her every decision. Izzy is pretty much asleep at the wheel – almost literally, just dozing off before snapping to attention and just doling out money left and right, completely arbitrary. Simon is making a lot of money from Clary, profusely apologizing while doing so, which just seems to be increasingly irritating her. And there is Magnus, with still that crazy almost maniacal gleam to his eye, desperately trying to determine Simon’s strategy, which seems to be altogether absent.

Alec is just observing it all from a far. “You know,” he comments nonchalantly to no one in particular, sipping his gin, “Monopoly was created to show that unchecked capitalism was a bad thing. Not to mention,” he adds, “the game is actually named after a mundane financial crime. Quite bizarre if you ask me.”

From the table he can hear Magnus mutter under his breath “Barely know what I’m doing, my ass.”

Not much later, when the shouts are getting louder and the chances of serious bodily harm higher, and someone somehow managed to flip the board, Alec sighs and finally gets up.

Everyone is long gone when Magnus and Alec have found their way to the couch together, halfway lying down, curled up and making out enthusiastically. Apparently, capitalistic board games get Magnus excited in more ways than one, but Alec isn’t exactly complaining this time. Magnus presses him further into the couch and Alec grunts when something painfully pierces his side. He plucks a pewter battleship token out from under him, tossing it away without bothering to open his eyes. His head is swimming, his senses full of MagnusMagnusMagnus and he vaguely registers Magnus’ touch darting lower and lower down his front, till it reach his belt buckle and Alec makes a needy little noise, lifting his hips off the sofa. Alec is so grateful for Magnus’ nimble fingers as he works his belt open with one hand, moaning when he feels Magnus’ hand finally skimming the waistband of his boxers, only to dazedly open his eyes in confusion as Magnus’ weight is suddenly lifted off of him.

“AHA! I KNEW IT!” Magnus exclaims, frantically waving three $1,000 bills through the air and Alec drops his head back in defeat.

“Alexander Lightwood, you are a liar and a cheat. And I don’t know whether to feel proud of abhorred that you took to the rotten heart of this game so quickly.”

Alec licks his lips, “You’re not… mad?”

“What makes you say that darling? Oh but we’re definitely done here,” Magnus says as he gestures between their two half undressed bodies.

Alec squints his eyes close and groans as he mourns the lost prospect of tipsy couch sex. “Fuck, Magnus.”

“Oh come on Alexander.” Magnus grins. “You and your siblings weren’t exactly going soft on me either.”

“We’re shadowhunters, we give no quarter.”

Magnus scoffs in reply. “Next weekend then?”

“Magnus! You’re crazy if you think I’m ever letting you play that game with us again. You’re lucky I’m not burning that board to a crisp this very second.”

His boyfriend raises a hand to his chest in mock affront, though Alec fears it is only half in jest.

They just lie quietly for a moment, too tired to do anything else but still too high on adrenaline to fall asleep.

“Sooo,” Alec tries one more time, “You sure there wasn’t still an IOU I can cash right now?”

“Oh, I think we’re way past IOUs.” But Magnus’ expression has turned fond and he’s caressing Alec’s cheekbone, settling closer to him on the couch.

Alec yawns. “You’re right. I already owe you so much, it would seem silly to keep count.”

To that, Magnus gives a little whine of disagreement. Alec drops an uncoordinated kiss to his head. “Way too much to ever repay. But it’s a debt I gladly accept, and will carry with me wherever I go.”

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sherlolo-land · 6 years

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Okay, we’d like to go over some of our favorite parts of this post. Now, we’re not here to tell you that you absolutely have to hate Mary with every fiber of your being, because that’s an opinion for each person to decide on their own. We are just here to talk about why some of the reasoning in this particular post is laughable.

1. Right off the bat, it compares Johnlockers to the obnoxious boy in the scenario raising his voice at someone who disagrees. Lmao. We know what you guys think of Johnlockers. We don’t need to waste time proving that the hate against us is both hypocritical and blown out of proportion. For more info, simply search this blog. It’s just funny how ya’ll can never make any arguments against us without resorting to ad hominem attacks at least once. Or in this case, from the very beginning.

2. Mary’s “unforgivable sins.” The examples you give of us searching for any reasons to demonize her are…. not the best. You picked examples that made it easiest for you to say “See, look how reaching your arguments are!” You basically said we think she’s evil because she playfully teases Sherlock, tries to keep her family safe, and doesn’t reveal her identity right away. I think you know that there are much better examples to argue that Mary is not a good person, but you intentionally didn’t use them. You went for the smallest points in our argument instead and presented it like it was the core of it. To me, this shows that even you see the weakness in your own argument. And regarding Mary’s abandonment, John himself thought it was incredibly selfish of her to run off instead of working things out with him. His words, originally, not ours.

3. Mary’s smile. Now its my turn to call the argument reaching. I’d say, claiming Mary was smiling just so Magnussen wouldn’t have another pressure point on her is one interpretation you could use if you were desperately trying to make her actions in these scene less detestable. If you love Mary and want to think this to make yourself feel better about her, go right ahead. Make it your fanon. But claiming that it’s a cold, hard fact? Nope, nice try. There’s nothing in that scene to suggest that that smile was only for Magnussen. That’s your personal headcanon, and there is a difference between that and canon.

4. “A large number of people claim they hated Mary before His Last Vow…However, if she was disliked before she actually deserved that, what does it say about those fans?” It’s not a crime to dislike a character. Johnlockers are held to this ridiculous standard of not being allowed to speak a single negative word about any character (esp. a woman). Why aren’t other fans held to the same standard? Why is it okay for Sherl0llians (and sometimes Adl0ckers too) to vehemently and openly hate John with everything in their soul? They are never accused of hating someone for getting in the way of their ship or being biased in their opinions. On the flip side, how come no one is making this same argument about ppl who loved Mary? There are people who loved her right from the start, and throughout everything afterwards (the assassin reveal, the shooting, the lying, the abandonment, the belittling, the selfishness…), she remained a saint in their eyes. How is this different from someone disliking Mary from the start and holding onto that opinion no matter what?

5. “Nothing an antagonist can do to be redeemed, it seems. I don’t want to say a female antagonist, but I am thinking that (Irene Adler, for instance, is still described as a villain.)” *claps for you* Omg what an original argument to make against the big, bad misogynistic Johnlockers! I’ve never ever heard that one before! … Shucks, and here I was thinking I was reading a well-written, organized post that for once didn’t resort to calling Johnlockers sexist for no reason. And about Irene, she may not have necessarily been a villain, but she was an antagonist. She was a force working against Sherlock throughout ASiB. She worked for Moriarty. She was a adversary for him. Does that make her a horrible, evil person? No. But don’t act like it’s a crime to call her what she is. An antagonist. And chances are, if someone uses the word “villain” instead of antagonist or adversary, it’s probably just a word preference. It’s not that deep fam.

6. “It’s best, I believe, to look at the facts and try to be objective.” Okay, then let’s look at all her crimes and despicable acts that you left out of your earlier arguments. Wait… but that would tear apart the point you’re trying to make.

7. Before she shot him, she clearly warned him not to come closer and expressed her remorse. Aka: It’s okay to shoot your friend (who is offering to help you) in the chest just because they bet on you having a conscience and decided to take a step closer to you. And afterwards, it’s best to express your remorse by threatening to shoot them again when you think no one is looking.

8. “Sherlock clearly forgave her and they remained friends” See here’s the thing. We were never actually shown this. We were shown Sherlock escaping dying at her hands a second time, then John making up with her with that ominous, carefully worded, possibly double-edged “The problems of your future are my privilege.” Then Sherlock shot Cam to keep John and Mary safe (yes, John too). Then we got TAB, where Sherlock solved the mystery of a bride who shot people and envisioned John’s marriage going downhill. It was sublte, but throughout all that, there was always the very plausible possibility that there was something more going on. After all, it would’ve made a much better story than Mary trying to kill her supposed friend twice and John forgiving her, despite that decision going against all his previous character development. So yeah, it’s not a surprise (nor the viewer’s fault) for scratching their head when TST aired and Sherlock and Mary were suddenly besties. Something else to understand here re: s4: The question isn’t whether or not he forgave her. They made that pretty obvious. The question we simply have is why?? It’s not a crime to wonder about this instead of just accepting whatever the writers give us, especially when it has no consistency or sense behind it.

9. “She’s been criticised for her sass in HLV, after the shooting, when she dared not to grovel at John’s feet, begging for his forgiveness.” Ask yourself, does her little quip in HLV make you see her as a funny, quirky badass? Why? Genuinely ask yourself why. Why shouldn’t she ask his forgiveness for trying to murder his best friend in cold blood, and apologize like any semi-decent human being would have done? Why is it so “uwu cute and badass” that all she had to say about the situation were some snarky sarcastic comments? See, this is an example of Mary being able to do literally anything, and still be worshipped for it. She’s a woman and can therefore literally commit murder and its uwu so cute. I don't understand how saying “omg wow she tried to kill her friend and DARED to not apologize for it, you go girl!” is helping your argument that she’s really not so bad of a person. (It does, however, help the argument that she would have made an incredible, very interesting, and entertaining villain, so thanks for that).

10. “Regardless of Mary’s actions and her motivations, she was bound to be hated, simply because she was in a relationship with John.” *claps again* Ohmygod wow you are so smart, I have never heard anyone say that before. Jesus, can ya’ll simply make your argument for once without resorting to calling us sexist? Or insulting our intelligence by implying that we can’t tell the difference between someone getting in the way of our ship and someone being a despicable person who should not be worshipped and praised? And it’s funny cause i double some of ya’ll would love and stan her so much if she wasn't in a relationship with John. You guys just love being able to use that excuse. You love that she blocks Johnlock and you love her for existing to do just that. If she was just a random side character who shows up in S3, makes some snarky comments, becomes friends with them, and then tries to kill Sherlock, I doubt you guys would still feel the same about her.

11. “But when people demonise her and twist her every word to make her look like the evilest woman on earth, I have to disagree.” / “Mary is not as evil as some people think.” Listen, I agree. I don’t think every single thing she does is horrible. People can often be unfair when talking about her. Both in defending everything she does, and villainizing everything she does. I get it. But hating Mary or interpreting her as a villain is not a fucking crime. There are numerous reasons to support this reading, as you said yourself. I personally don’t see any redeeming qualities in her that make her a character worth forgiving or liking. If you want to argue that she’s not so bad of a person, go right ahead. But seriously, if you’re going to try to justify your reasoning for doing so, try to come up with some better reasons, because these are weak. As I said before, I don’t think every single thing she does is horrible. But I do think that, objectively, the bad about her far outbalances the good. Just try making a simple good/bad list of her traits and actions, weigh them fairly against each other, and tell me what conclusion you come up with. It’s really not a surprising thing (nor a crime) to dislike Mary or see her as a bad character. It’s common sense. At least that’s how I see it. But I’m just a stupid Johnlocker who is only interested in seeing dicks touch. What do I know

#mary morstan #mary wank #sherlock #double standards

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yeonchi · 4 years

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Japanese Kitchen Nightmares - The Story of Minami-chan

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This show was Kitchen Nightmares before the Gordon Ramsay show even existed. Ai no binbou dasshutsu daisakusen, aka Escape from Poverty with Love or rather, Japanese Kitchen Nightmares, was a Japanese reality show that was broadcast on TV Tokyo between 1998 and 2002, with some revival specials in 2003, 2010 and 2011. It was hosted by Monta Mino, who in 2006 and 2008, was recognised by the Guinness World Records as being the TV host with the most hours of live TV appearances in a week.

While watching episodes here and there, I came across the story of Shinya Minami, aka Minami-chan, and found him to be a particularly interesting character. His notoriety in Japan can be compared to Amy’s Baking Company in Kitchen Nightmares. Minami quit his initial training after a setback and various things happened to him after that. The video above is a summarised compilation of Minami-chan’s appearances on the series after his initial episode. I may not be able to translate every detail correctly, but you’ll understand where I’m getting at. I’ll get into some context after the break, then we’ll dive into him.

Context

User ransom sums this show up well on the Asian DramaWiki Forum, but I’ll do a little summary of it here for context. Basically, failing restaurants apply for this show and after a camera crew observes their current conditions, the owner is sent to train from a master. Some masters are nice and some are strict, which is why you hear the masters berate the owners a lot. In most cases, the master tells the owner “I’m not having this” and kicks them out, leading them to beg the master to take them back. Eventually, the owners pass their master’s test and they are allowed to return and reopen their restaurants. All of this is played in front of a studio audience, who get to try out the owner’s new menu and comment on it. The restaurants featured usually specialise in a particular dish, such as ramen, takoyaki, okonomiyaki, curry, sushi and the like, if not Chinese or Western cuisine. Even a few ryokans are featured along with a fruit shop near the beginning of the series.

If you go into the channel that uploaded the above video, you can watch many episodes of the series, albeit with Chinese subtitles as it was rebroadcast in Taiwan. If you think the masters are being too strict or hard on the owners, think about the last time you ate at a Japanese restaurant (or a restaurant in Japan) and how dedicated the staff are to providing consistent food and service. Being slack - not up to the Japanese standard, that is - is not tolerated by them. On top of that, making ramen is an art form that is taken very seriously in Japan, hence the high level of scrutiny in the ramen restaurant episodes. Every chef has their own way of cooking ramen and they develop and refine their skills over years of training and practice. As you read on, you’ll see how Minami’s standards are not to par with those of your “average” ramen restaurant.

This site keeps a database of all the restaurants, owner or master, that were featured on the series. Needless to say, few of the owners’ restaurants survived and few of the masters’ restaurants closed. One other person on YouTube, a pro-wrestler by the name of Prince Mitsumoto, has been visiting the restaurants and doing interviews with the owners. For reasons that are beyond me which I can’t find unless I read the comments, this guy’s dislike-like ratio is pretty high. I don’t think he’s a Logan Paul in any way, but I’d be curious to know why this guy isn’t that liked. Anyway, onto the main topic of this post.

The main show

In a series of four episodes aired in December 2000, 37-year-old Minami-chan was part of a group of five ramen restaurant owners who had come to Tokyo to do their training under one master. His messy restaurant in Hakodate had been open for 7 years. His signature shoyu ramen used soup prepared a few days before, which was oily and full of impurities, which Minami claimed added to the flavour of the ramen. 90% of his business was made up of deliveries. Struggling to make 5000 yen a day, Minami made 15000 yen revenue and spent 16000 yen on expenses per month, leaving him 1000 yen in the red. Because of that, he was very frugal in his lifestyle - in winter, he burnt firewood instead of using gas, while in summer, he doesn’t bathe or shower.

Upon coming to Tokyo, the five were tasked to make ramen for each other so they could understand each other’s cooking and personalities. Minami-chan made spicy noodles in miso soup. Needless to say, the other four didn’t think it was appetising. The only female member of the five suggested to Minami that spicy miso would be better, to which he replied “Do you know the difference between professional ramen and amateur ramen?” This started a conflict between him and the female member, which would escalate to the entire team with time. In the same scene, he even outed himself as a hypocrite, saying that he doesn’t always walk the walk more than he talks the talk. He believed that the taste of the ramen doesn’t matter as long as it sold well, which goes to show why he was fine with leaving impurities in his soup.

Next, the five began their training at the Shigoroku/Suurou/Siwuliu/456 Restaurant in Yokohama’s Chinatown under Shanghaiese cusine master Kangi Son (Sun Guanyi). Unlike the usual format of four days to a week of training, the five would undergo an unlimited period of training until they passed, but if they failed, they would be eliminated. On the first day of training, the five were tasked with making their own “unsellable” ramen for Son to taste. The bean sprouts that Minami brought had turned rancid and his method of making soup was not unlike that of an amateur despite considering himself to be a professional; he was just adding everything into the soup willy-nilly. Needless to say, Son disapproved of it and when he was ranking the five owners, Minami-chan was last.

The next day, Son began teaching them the restaurant’s signature noodle dish. Minami was willing to learn the soup, while the others had their doubts. That night, they began making it according to Son’s instructions. While the other four were discussing their game plan and implementing it, Minami did his own thing. The four got the pork/chicken bone ratio wrong, but amazingly, Minami got it right and he even made an effort to help the others by giving them tips. Following this, the rift between Minami and the other four deepened, particularly because of the female member, who thought that he wasn’t thinking in the right direction.

On the third day of training, the five were shown again by another chef how to make the soup, then they were tasked with doing it. It is then that Minami had this confident look about him, thinking that he was like a master. The female member reminded everyone that Minami was under the master’s tutelage as well, which led him to state that she was only going on TV for the attention. He even walked a different path to the others because he thought that he wasn’t on their level.

Son gave them a test to make the soup, noting that if they failed, they would be eliminated. Minami seemed more relaxed than the day before despite being the only one to be successful in making the soup. It was at that point that he started deviating from the master’s method - he cleaned the bones before he started cooking the soup, he cooked the pork and chicken bones in the same pot instead of doing it separately and his bones were undercooked. Again, he didn’t filter out the impurities and he was also doing the same thing from yesterday, helping others like a master when he was supposed to be learning. The five each made a bowl of ramen for Son to taste. In the end, the female member and another male passed to the next stage, while Minami-chan and the remaining two were eliminated. Son said to the three that even though they were asking for him to let them try again, they weren’t really serious in doing so and that they didn’t trust his instructions.

So now, we come to the meme of this show where they get rejected and they have to beg the master to let them try again. As the three were wondering what to do now, Minami blatantly said that he would give up his old restaurant and work at the master’s. The female bluntly said to the others in front of Minami that he was too carefree and that she couldn’t help him. The next day, Minami accepted his fate and left for home, but one of the two men, the quiet one who he helped in the last two days, had a scuffle with him as he begged him to stay, but Minami insisted on leaving, telling the other guy not to give up because unlike him, he had a family to look after.

Here’s what happened to the other four. The male who passed went on to complete the master’s dish on the sixth day and gain his approval. The female member, probably the most prominent and talkative next to Minami, became overconfident and failed the same test. She left without saying goodbye to the master, but she came back the next day to fulfil the meme. She later passed on the fifteenth day. The other two who were initially eliminated fulfilled the meme and were allowed to train again. While they both passed the soup stage, the quiet guy who scuffled with Minami failed to complete the dish on the seventh day, but the other guy passed. He allowed the quiet guy to train at his restaurant and he eventually passed on the fifteenth day alongside the female member. Aside from Minami and the quiet guy, the other three restaurants have closed, but as for the latter, there is no confirmation as to whether he is still working there.

Minami-chan revisited

So now we come to the main focus of this post and the point of the video above. In a revisited special broadcast in October 2001, it was discovered that Minami was using the show as a means to promote his restaurant, lauding his new signature ramen dish as “the master’s ramen” when he hadn’t passed his training. After an undercover crew did an investigation, the host, Mino, went up to his restaurant in Hakodate to ask Minami what was going on. They even called Son and had him berate Minami over it as well.

The next mention of Minami-chan was four months later in February 2002. Following the previous revisit, the production team took pity on his situation and asked Son if he could take Minami back and train him again. His second training started in the middle of November. He stayed at the same ryokan he did initially and the production team asked him to keep a diary of his training. At first, he seemed positive about his training, but after a month of washing dishes, he started to become bored and depressed. His diary entries began turning negative and eventually, just before Christmas that year, 43 days after he started his second training, he told the production team that he was quitting and heading home. He was stubbornly firm in his decision despite the team’s attempts to convince him otherwise. Wisely, he told people not to copy him and the production team reassured him that they wouldn’t. Mino’s reaction was that he and the production team were looking forward to Minami-chan’s rise from the ashes, but they decided to give up on him, with Mino saying “Do whatever you want.”

On 27 May 2002, Minami suddenly showed up at the doors of TV Tokyo to apologise and told them that he would be closing his restaurant soon. The producer contacted Mino’s manager and left a message for him. Nothing seemingly came of that, but a month later, the production team visited his restaurant again. Evidently, he didn’t close, but he changed his image and became a Chinese restaurant. He was still living a frugal life, but still, no one came to eat at his restaurant. A car passed by and Minami said that they were “hidden fans”, but when the production team went to interview them, they were told that they had come all the way from Shiga to stare and laugh; they didn’t have the courage to eat there at all. Minami said that there were a lot of passers-by like that for a year. Astonishingly, Minami stated that he wanted to get married while continuing to run his restaurant.

At this point, there are no further subtitles for what I’m about to state, so chances are that I might get something wrong. Apparently, in a special aired 1 January 2003, Minami and three other chefs trained at Ramen Tetsuya in Sapporo and according to what the Japanese Wikipedia said, he failed again as his attitude was considered a problem. Unfortunately, I can’t find the raw episode to confirm this.

Minami was revisited in a “where are they now” special in October 2010. In spring 2003, he was diagnosed with leukaemia and in October 2007, he started learning Russian. When the special was filmed, there were quite a few customers that had come to visit the restaurant, including some Russians as there was a significant community there. He even had his menu in Russian. His restaurant looked cleaner and his ramen soup no longer had impurities. He was even shown giving ice cream to children.

In March 2018, Minami did an interview with Prince Mitsumoto. I’m not going to link to the video because it’s too fucking long, but I will link to a short video that someone else made in March 2018. Miraculously, it has English subtitles.

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In it, Minami, aged 56, still runs his restaurant after 25 years. The filmer wanted to order a Peking duck for 200 yen, but he refused because he didn’t feel like cooking it. Minami stated that he has been harassed following his appearances on television, with prank calls and crank pizza deliveries presumably being the tip of the iceberg. The video states that he is a victim of the community because it isn’t diverse enough to tolerate his kind of attitude.

In the spring of 2019, there were rumours that the restaurant had closed and in October, the restaurant had disappeared from Google Maps. However, on New Year’s Eve, having previously made a phone call to Minami earlier, Prince Mitsumoto confirmed that Minami was taking a break because his leukaemia had worsened. As far as we know, the place hasn’t shut down.

My thoughts

Wow. I used to think that Minami was just a cuck (like the quiet guy from the initial episode and like, a great deal of Japanese men), but when you look into the story of what happened after, you honestly can’t help but feel for this guy. For someone who has done extensive studies of Christian (now Christine) Weston Chandler on the Cwcki, people like him are just the tip of the iceberg.

On top of being stubborn, his attitude during training is inconsistent. He was arrogant enough to think he knew everything once he got it right the first time and claim himself to be an expert. He flip-flops quite a lot, like he can’t decide what he really wants to do.

I have no idea how Minami came to be poor or have no family of his own initially, but I suspect his attitude may have been a turnoff. During his second training, he claimed that sparks were flying between him and the female member from the group of five during their arguments. Despite saying that he intended to get married in 2002, he is still single to this day. I would crack a joke here and say “once an incel, always an incel,” but even if I do, I still can’t help but feel pity for this guy.

People like Minami can serve as good examples of what not to be like, but at the same time, they also serve of good examples of how people can change or how we look at certain people in a different light once we get to know the true situation. I’m optimistic that I can make my own way in life eventually, but even sometimes with my current situation, I get depressed and wonder what would happen if I never do. It’s almost as if everyone else’s doing it easy while I’m barely struggling to make it in life and expecting a miracle to come. God fucking damn, I’m living in a clown world.

#kitchen nightmares #愛の貧乏脱出大作戦 #みなみちゃん #中華料理みなみ

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autisticandroids · 7 years

Note

DS9 for the fandom ask

The first character I first fell in love with:

okay so storytime: i actually watched ds9 out of order, because when i’m at home i mostly watch trek with my parents. we were running out of good tng, and mum and dad were like “hey, everyone likes ds9 even though we hated it back when it aired, let’s watch it” and i was like “nooooooo, dataaaaaa” and they were like “we’re watching it.”

so we watched emissary and they were like “this sucks” and i was like “but i heard worf is there in later seasons let’s jump” and so i picked a random middle season and that’s how i started ds9 with season five.

anyway, the first character i really fell in love with was odo, oddly enough. or rather, not oddly at all because he is superficially smack dab in the middle of my Ideal Character Type, but i later got quite disillusioned with him because of the show’s uncritical attitude towards his Police-ness, the way he is set up as a Protagonist of the show instead of the lovable quirky side-boy, and his conspicuous lack of gender complexity (he is the most comfortably masculine of the spocks, and it’s a symptom of ds9′s uncritical valorization of masculinity, degradation of femininity, and specifically villification of male femininity)

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:

okay so there are three answers to this that each deserve equal space.

first, ben. ben ben ben ben ben. my love, whom i adore, and care very much about. it took me so long to understand him.

i spent the first maybe..... two months? of watching ds9 ranting at my mother for three hours a day about how benjamin sisko had the possibility to be such a good character with so much potential if he wasn’t so INCONSISTENTLY WRITTEN. i really couldn’t understand him. i wanted to love him but i couldn’t get inside his head. i spent all of my time wishing that he’d been better written so i could have the character i wanted him to be

this has a lot to do with the fact that i need to understand a character’s ethical system, why they follow it, and what efects it has on them to really understand a character, especially in a series as driven by ethical dilemmas as star trek. most characters i get get a read on it fairly quickly. to use the other two characters i’m about to list here, julian bashir is an idealist, in a way that’s rooted in a combination of naivete and his raging god/hero complex. elim garak has no morality, just a system of loyalties that he will follow to the death, and a sense of propriety based on rather conservative cardassian ideals; this has a lot to do with his tendency to dehumanize other people, and to not see himself as a person with agency but rather as a tool, as well as his rather uncritical patriotism.

anyway, i just could not figure out captain sisko. i couldn’t do it. and then i read hollow men, and it all slid into place.

the funniest running gag/plot point in hollow men (which takes place directly after in the pale moonlight, an episode which i fumed about for WEEKS after watching it) is ben sisko going around to approximately every member of starfleet who outranks him and begging them to yell at and punish him. and none of them will do it, because he did, you know, actually do the right thing.

before this, i had assumed that his ethical beliefs had been carelessly and inconsistently written. after, i realized that he was actually a hypocrite, of a very particular type. specifically, three things are true about his worldview/psychology and they’re totally incompatible. first, he truly, genuinely believes that a Good Starfleet Officer is a Moral Paragon of Perfect Idealistic Purity. second, he is a pragmatist who will always, in the end, do what needs doing. but third, most importantly: he needs to believe that he is a Good Starfleet Officer. this is why he is always so surprised at himself when he must Do Something Bad, and yet always so willing to do it. why it always throws him into a crisis. he has to lie to himself about things in order to function. he’s also incapable of maintaining a healthy level of detachment from affairs at hand, even though in the end he will generally make the right decision. he gets very emotionally involved in things, in all sorts of way: he holds a personal grudge against eddington. he gets angry at garak at the end of in the pale moonlight. hell, he gets caught up by dukat’s friendly and charming demeanor and happily banters with him despite knowing he’s a monster. ben is very bad at taking a step back. and that was the piece i was missing.

next: julian. here’s the story on julian: whether i like a character depends very much on how they’re framed. and i fucking hated the framing he got from both the show and the fandom. i’m not interested in julian as the audience avatar the way he is framed in the show, nor am i interested in him as the naive baby/perfect caretaker/sidekick boyfriend/garak’s pet twink that he is in the fandom. i don’t care for it.

now, i thought i hated julian bashir in an uncomplicated way for a long time. but about four months into my watching of ds9, three things happened at once: first, i began bingeing season seven seven with my parents. you know, the season where julian goes off the rails to the point where the show can’t lie to itself anymore. second, i hit a string of julian/miles episodes on my own personal runthrough of the earlier seasons. and third, i realized that i talked more about julian bashir than almost any character except mr garak, and that....... normally doesn’t happen with characters i straight up hate.

julian is a perfect, beautiful nastyboy antihero who thinks he’s hot shit and the savior of the galaxy. and i love him for it. but i couldn’t love him for it when i thought that i was supposed to love him for being a different character. which he wasn’t.

third, and this is the one that’s gonna shock EVERYBODY: i didn’t like garak at first. and the thing is, garak is like odo: he’s my type, to a t. mr queercoded (ex-)villain, wildly gnc, utterly fucked up, no healthy coping mechanisms we die like men and yet still dangerous through all of it.

but see, i started with season five. and his first episode of season five involves him 1) being a racist asshole and 2) not doing anything else of note. so i was like ???????????? why don’t i love this guy like everyone says i should. sooooooo i went back and watched past prologue. and i didn’t care for it. past prologue is a VERY badly written episode, on a number of levels. first of all, garak doesn’t make any attempts to not be obviously suspicious. second of all, he CREEPS ON JULIAN IN THAT FIRST SCENE IN A WAY THAT MAKES MY SKIN ABSOLUTELY CRAWL JESUS CHRIST. third, it just isn’t a very good episode. imo.

AAAAANYWAY so instead of giving up like a sensible person i kept skipping through garak episodes one after the other. i enjoyed cardassians (although the resolution was, imo, Bad), and i absolutely LOVED profit and loss, (although that was as much for the quodo as for garak), and then i got to the wire. here’s the thing about the wire: it is a LOT of emotional turmoil for a character who we’ve only seen in three episodes. it helped me reconcile my biggest issue with garak (that he seems like a spy when he should be able to seem innocuous since he has spy training; he acts suspicious bc he was high and also as a form of self-sabotage) and it also made me more attached to both him and julian, but also...... after watching it, i felt like i should have been more invested going in. i felt like i didn’t Feel enough, because i didn’t know him (or julian, really) well enough.

so i kept going on my garakbinge. the first time i felt maybe a touch of the emotions i feel for him now was in second skin. it was when he vaporized that obsidian order agent after bantering with him and quipped “a shame, i rather liked him”. and then the other charcters turned and looked at him in absolute horror. deep in my gut i felt a little bell go off. a bell that said damn that is a good piece of writing. because like, action hero style quips right? actually kind of a brutal and terrifying concept. no one ever points that out. and like..... god damn is he quick with the quips.

and then.... then........

civil defense. civil defense helped me to truly understand what kind of monster garak is. what makes him tick. and it’s all in the scene where he insults dukat for hitting on kira. what he focuses on in his insults? the fact that dukat is married, and calling dukat unattractive. he focuses on dukat’s failings according to Propriety (that he’s slipping around on his wife) and as a man (that he’s an incompetent seducer/unnatractive). he doesn’t comment on the fantastic rapey-ness of the situation, doesn’t comment on the fact that what dukat wants is one last validation that his role in colonialism was justified/is forgiven. it showed me that garak dehumanizes everyone, yes, and thinks of himself as above everyone (except, as i was to learn later, the Objects of his Loyalty), but that he had two categories. non-cardassians couldn’t know any better. they were sub-cardassian by nature. they could never be held to the same standard. whereas cardassian should know better. they should be better. the fact that they’re not is their own personal failing. this racist principle controls garak’s entire way of relating to other people, and i didn’t understand him until i understood it.

and then........

improbable cause/the die is cast. never has a piece of television quite so effectively Totally Destroyed My Ass.

improbable cause is a smart little piece of comedy that brilliantly develops a relationship that has a ton of potential: garak&odo. they’re both brilliant on their own, but together they reach new levels, and the writing is glorious.

the die is cast is a harrowing walk through elim garak’s daddy issue riddled psyche and i don’t know if i could not-love any character after watching them go through that shit.

the mood whiplash between the two episodes is ingenious, the writing is tight, and the emotions? very real. i was so invested. i decided i was ready to die for elim garak at about exactly the moment odo punched him in the face.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t:

jadzia dax. she’s the only in the credits-main character who i truly cannot muster up some love for, somewhere. the only time i ever enjoyed an episode focused on her was rejoined (yeah, shocking, i know). jadzia dax is a sex object who is defended from accusations of being a sex object by doing two things: 1) giving her a superficial list of traits (sass, scientific knowhow, some fighting skills) associated with Strong Female Characters, and 2) making her a Mighty Whitey with the klingons.

but she isn’t actually a complex person. she responds to workplace sexual harassment and even stalking (lookin at u juli) by laughing and flirting back, and her sexual libertinism mostly serves to make her supremely available to all nearby men. if you are a young straight man in the audience, she is your wise mentor (but without any kind of power over you), your fuckbuddy (with no strings attached), your best friend and drinking (but without any of those nasty feminine interests and habits girls tend to have) and your girlfriend (but with no difficult Womanfeelings). ds9 has some really terrible gender bullshit and essentialism that we can blame for this. miles o’brien’s line about wishing keiko was more like a man in that one episode is a good example. it sounds gay, and it is, but it’s also underpinned by this terrible gender essentialist, heteronormative assumption that women are inherently alien to men and inherently difficult, (and also that men don’t have feelings/shouldn’t have feminine traits/yadda yadda). jadzia dax is the perfect woman for a man who follows this philosophy. she is a sexy woman who has none of the traits that make women difficult, won’t ever so no, and will always make things more fun without being a person in her own right.

the only time she ever gets to be a person on screen is when her gender is overridden by her performing the role of white audience avatar among the scary, barbaric, non-white-coded klingons. she is a textbook mighty whitey, an audience avatar who is instantly loved and respected by all klingons she meets, and can out-klingon most klingons as a party trick. it’s really absolutely disgusting and plays into ds9′s really bad racial politics and especially bad racial politics regarding klingons. like, she just waltzes into their culture and they shower her with adoration, and also she’s used to highlight the barbarism ds9 likes to portray klingons as having.

i’m gonna work myself up into a snit about ds9, klingons, and worf so i’m just gonna stop here, but, god DAMMIT,.

The character I love that everyone else hates:

there aren’t a ton of universally hated characters in the fandom? but ben sisko doesn’t get the three dimensional appreciation he deserves and i cringe every time i see him reduced to “baseball dad”

The character I used to love but don’t any longer:

odo and jadzia, but just so i can round this out with another character, i’ve gotta say quark sort of too. i still love him, and actually i still love odo too, but i no longer get excited when i see a quark episode because they’re so repetitive. as the series went on, quark got more and more shunted off into his own corner of the narrative and stopped being allowed to interact with others in meaningful ways, and that just made him less interesting to me? because without outside influence, quark is totally cyclical. he can’t develop. he’s trapped in his own trap and all his plots are the same. i love him but i need him to do something else for once. please.

The character I would totally smooch:

kira :3c

The character I’d want to be like:

i don’t normally take fictional characters as role models, because i tend to be more interested in them for their flaws than their virtues, but if i had to pick i would say ben.

The character I’d slap:

julian. deserves slapping but doesn’t deserve anything worse.

A pairing that I love:

:3c y’all know

A pairing that I despise:

all the het especially the canon het, garashir

#star trek #rape ment //#racism ment //#thanks for the ask!#bluespock

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mkobooks · 3 years

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Portnoy’s Complaint - Philip Roth

It’s been a minute in which I both gained and lost my job! So, I’ll be back to trying to write reviews weekly because what else better have I got to do? 👍

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One of my biggest takeaways of my last review was that Interior Chinatown didn’t have the intended emotional resonance with me because I am not a member of the AAPI community.

Well, that is very much not the case for Portnoy’s Complaint and me. Although this book has very, very male POV and was written over 50 years ago, the descriptions, caricatures, anxieties, and guilt of the American Jewish community were both identifiable, amusing, and weirdly relatable to me.

This was my first Roth book and, unlike my first JCO or Ishiguro books, Portnoy, I think, is probably his most famous work and the best place to start in the Roth bibliography. He’d always been on my radar, though I’d never considered reading him until seeing all his obituaries, memorials, and--let’s be honest--harsh critiques, following his death in 2018. I was curious about his work, but given my recent experiences with old school, white, male “literature” and the foreknowledge that some of his work can be incredibly sexist, I sort of expected to hate-read this one.

Actually, I really liked it. I almost hated how much I liked it.

Portnoy’s Complaint is ostensibly a long diatribe from the titular Alex Portnoy to his therapist in which he details his numerous problems and what caused them, going off into tangents about his parents and upbringing as well as his relationship with non-Jewish women including “The Monkey.” He’s absolutely disgusting, yet apparently somewhat successful in finding partners as well as in his career. So, a lot “happens” in the book through these various anecdotes, but I wouldn’t say there’s much of a plot thread to summarize.

What I liked the most were the stories about his childhood. He blames a lot on his mother, but as far as I could see, his mother was really not that bad? While my own Jewish mother is nowhere near the level of his, many of her actions reminded me of both real-life people and of the stock character of the Jewish mother in shows like Seinfeld or South Park. A scene that stands out in particular is when she is yelling at him through the bathroom door not to flush the toilet after he’s used it, so she can try and get to the bottom (heh) of his stomach troubles. Of course, this being Portnoy, he’s not really racing to the bathroom every 10 minutes because he ate hot-dogs with his friend after school; rather, he’s racing away from the dinner table to masturbate.

And there’s a lot of talk about “being the master of your own domain”! I’m not so easily grossed out. I was pretty amused by the most notorious episode in the book in which he jerks it into a piece of raw liver which he puts back in the kitchen for his mother to cook and serve to the family. It’s the precursor to movies like American Pie or the more recent series, Big Mouth--a cartoon that strikes a great balance between disgusting Jewish middle-schoolers, their relationships with their mothers, and sexual humor, albeit a more earnest and “woke” humor than anything in Portnoy.

Which brings me to Portnoy and “The Monkey,” his very dysfunctional, and frankly abusive relationship with a “shiksa” (a term for a non-Jewish woman, usually with the connotation that they’re corrupting or taking a Jewish man away from his community). He continues to refer to her as such throughout most of the book. He’s awful to her and by the end of the book (the emotional climax, if you will) basically rapes her. If you didn’t already think he was repugnant and morally bankrupt...

What makes it even worse is how “fake-woke” he is (to use 2021 parlance). In his professional life, he is a crusader against injustice and inequality. In doing a brief search for other reviews and summaries of the book, I feel like this detail is somewhat overlooked. Yeah, he’s terrible, but he’s even more terrible in how hypocritical he is.

As a pretty assimilated American Jew (who’s married to a “gentile”), it was interesting to read a book from “my” community. Throughout the past ~2 years, I’ve been making an effort to read more diverse authors, so I don’t even remember the last time I read about the American Jewish community; Spinning Silver by Naomi Novak was the last book I read with a Jewish protagonist and I really can’t recall any others before that. Do I wish that this Jewish protagonist wasn’t so repellent? Yes. But, I also have the cultural knowledge that self-deprecation is a staple of Jewish humor as well as feel like I can critique and comment on this book more candidly than those concerning communities I am not a part of.

Incidentally, when I described some of the funny Jewish mother scenes to my spouse as hilarious and relatable, he was a little bit disturbed. I can’t recall my mother ever begging me not to flush the toilet so she could see what’s in there, but at the same time, it doesn’t sound entirely crazy and ridiculous to me.

At the end of the day, characters who are awful people don’t automatically make a book awful. I’ve already mentioned Seinfeld, but other shows like Always Sunny in Philadelphia are great entertainment because we know they’re awful and they’re hilariously so. I wonder how I would have felt about this book if I were reading it for the first time in the 1970s, but as someone who watched a lot of South Park in my teens, I thought Portnoy’s Complaint was both hilarious and thought-provoking.

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth My rating: 4 of 5 stars

#literature #book review #reading #jewish literature #philip roth #portnoy's complaint #book thoughts

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foreverdontlastt · 6 years

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How It All Began...

So I've been struggling the last couple of days trying to plan out what I would write for this specific post in my head. I encourage everyone else to share their secrets and experiences that made them who they are, but I have yet to tell my whole story. I absolutely love getting submissions from you all and each story I read makes me more confident and more brave to write my own. I apologize in advance to anyone (and i won't name names) that I may hurt or may feel as though I am blaming them for something, but if I am going to tell my story it has to be the whole truth. So here goes..

If you ask me to pinpoint a specific time in my life that started of all this madness I really am not sure I could choose. My parents had me young, never married, and each re-married their spouses when I was young, so my household has never just been one house- it was a lot of back and forth and a lot of moving. My earliest memories were those with my mom, because essentially, she raised me and I would consider her a single parent. She worked two and three jobs to make sure I had what I needed. I vaguely remember this time my mother and I were at my grandparents lake house in Upstate NY and she asked me how I would feel if she married my stepdad, Phil. I gave a vague "sure" and that was that (or at least that's all I could remember). I think from that point on my relationship with her changed and the relationship I had with other members of my family changed as well. It wasn't that I didn't like my stepfather, but I was used to being home with my mom in our tiny yellow house at the end of the street where I had the whole top floor to myself. We may not always have had food in the fridge or my mom may not have always known where the money would come from to pay my tuition for school, but she always found a way. The one thing I learned from my mom is that if you want something done, and done correctly, you don't wait on anyone else, just do it yourself. I most definitely get my independence from her. But as I grew older our relationship became more strained and I am pretty sure it had to do with the progression of my mental disorders (mainly depression and bipolar at that point in my life). I went from telling my mom "i love you" literally a hundred times a day to barely saying two words to her. If someone were to ask her now to describe me as a person and what I like she probably wouldn't get the answer correct. I don't think many people would honestly. Plus, when my stepdad came into the picture I felt like things changed and I didn't like the dynamics in the house. I remember hearing them in their room and me being in mine across the hall and I would call my moms name until she came in and I don't even think I had a reason, I just wanted her there. The other major change during that time in my life was moving from Parkville to Cecil County because it was closer to my stepdad's work. I never had a say in where we moved (granite, I was young, but still) and I didn't even see the house until the day we moved into it. I absolutely hated living so far away from all of my friends and family. I felt uncomfortable in the neighborhood because my mom and I were the only black people (yes, my stepdad is white). I felt judged, uncomfortable, angry, annoyed, and stranded (literally). So I guess that whole chunk of time is what elevated my depression and I began to see a therapist when I was in middle school. My mom and I also started arguing A LOT and I would always threaten to move in with my grandmother or leave and never come back. Along with my independence I also get my temper from my mom.

Now even though things weren't always happy at my mom's house, I always preferred it over my dad's house (for several reasons but i will spare a few of them because i don't want to hurt anyone's feelings). The custody agreement was that I was to go to my dad's house every other weekend and i hated it. I would cry and beg my mom to not make me go. The crazy thing is, I didn't want to go because of my dad- if anything he is my best friend. I just didn't like the dynamic at their house either, and I was not fond of my stepmom. Being at my dad's was a lot different than being at my moms. I would cry in my room all the time and secretly call my mom and tell her how much i wanted to come home. I have two younger brothers, one is 10 years younger and the other is 6 years younger. When I was there on the weekends I usually found myself taking care of them. My dad and stepmom were the kind of parent's that if you were old enough to walk and talk you could basically fend for yourself, and I didn't like that. One day my brothers and I were hungry and my parents had left us in the house with no food so I had to call my grandmother to order us a pizza. Little things like that infuriated me. My dad or stepmom never put their hands on me but there would be nights when my brothers would get spankings and i would go in my room and cover my ears and cry. I just felt like I had to handle way more than a child should have to at that age. I was supposed to live with my dad until I turned 18, but at around the age of 15 I stopped spending the night. I would just go to visit my brothers.

I went to a private school my entire life called Bryn Mawr and even though i loved it, I also had my moments where I hated it. It was a predominately white school and most of my black friends who didn't go there would make fun of me saying things like "you talk like a white girl," or "you can't be from Baltimore, you don't sound like it.' Those comments triggered my self-consciousness a lot because I felt like I didn't fit in anywhere. I didn't completely fit in with my white friends nor my back friends, I didn't fit in where I lived in Cecil county, and I didn't feel like I fit in with my family. I have always been very different than most and I have also always been an introvert. I let people know little things here and there, but never the important things. I kept everything bottled up and by the time I got to high school I kind of said "fuck it" and did what I wanted to do. By this point the cutting had already started and I was doing things like drinking (I once brought a water bottle of vodka to school) and going in the woods behind school with friends to get high in between class. I was also having a lot of sex and there was on particular party where I had messed around with 5 different people drunkenly and woke up the next morning disgusted with myself. When I was senior I got pregnant for the first time and it was a very surreal experience. No one knew (not even my mom, so sorry mom if you're reading this) except my best friends at the time, my boyfriend, and my cousin Aaron. My boyfriend was a year ahead of me so he was already in college in North Carolina so I waited 3 months until he could come home to get an abortion with me. I would be at school throwing up every hour trying to hide it from everyone. I was pregnant for my senior prom and could barely fit in my dress and was just so depressed and felt fat and worthless. My boyfriend and I talked about keeping it but it just wasn't realistic. I finally got the abortion and to this day I still think about that decision. High school just kind of sucked in general. High school was also the first time I tried to commit suicide. I remember my mom and I had gotten an apartment closer to school to stay at a couple nights a week because the drive from our house to the city was too much sometimes. One day we had gotten into an argument and I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and swallowed all of my depression meds. Each day I was getting more and more depressed and anxious, and I hated the fact that I had to live between 4 different places, and I hated that my parents weren't together, and I hated that I sucked at school no matter how hard I tired, and the list goes on. So I took the pills and came out of the bathroom and felt a weird sensation come over my body and I started shaking. Even though my mom was in the other room I called my dad and told him what i did and my mom rushed me to the hospital. My stomach was pumped and that was the first of many visits to Sheppard Pratt (psychiatric hospital). After I got out I felt "better" and gave my senior speech on what I had gone through, but in the back of my head I felt wrong and like a hypocrite because I wasn't actually better, I just pretended to be.

Then came freshman year of college and I attended UNC Greensboro. There isn't a place I hated more than that school. I had absolutely no friends (and that's not an exaggeration), I would walk to class alone, eat in the cafeteria alone, get high in the woods behind school by myself and I would always be in my dorm room. I cried every day and begged my mom to let me leave during winter break so I could transfer. Eventually I transferred to UNC Charlotte and that experience started out good and got progressively worse. To save time I'll just sum up what happened: I broke up with the love of my life after almost 5 years because he had cheated on me for an entire year, I started messing with this boy who only used me for sex and to do his hw but I really liked him and it just fucked with my head, I wasn't doing well in classes because school just was never my thing, and then my fall semester of my senior year I got pregnant again. This is where everything just went downhill and for the next 2.5 years I was more depressed than ever. By now I had been diagnosed with depression, major anxiety disorder, OCD, and bipolar (and more recently borderline personality disorder). When I found out I was pregnant I knew that I couldn't keep it but I wanted to more than anything. Why couldn't I keep it you ask? Because it would have been the child of my bestfriend's ex. To this day I don't know why or how i got myself into that situation but it happened. I was all alone in NC, pregnant, nauseous 24/7, crying multiple times a day, and contemplating whether to follow my heart and keep it ( I already had a name picked out, Laila Marie) or abort it because I didn't want to lose one of the most important people in my life who is now no longer my friend and hates me. So it was a lose/lose either way you look at it. But I will never forgive myself for that. I should have listened to my gut and kept it. I lost her as a friend anyways so what was even the point. So I got an abortion and went by myself and had people protesting outside the clinic telling me how shitty I was and how I was killing an innocent life. Not only that, but the abortion was painful and I just went home and cried for hours. My mom came to visit a week later and I told her if she didn't take me back to MD I would kill myself and she would never see me again. I went back to Sheppard Pratt and yeah. By now I hated myself more than anything, I was lonely, I had made decisions based on other peoples opinions instead of my own, and I felt like a failure. From 2015 until the end of last year I was on a path of destruction. I didn't give a fuck about anything or anyone, I drank excessively, partied, didn't go to school, self harmed a lot, attempted suicide a couple more times, was sexually assaulted more than once, and I felt like I had no one to talk to.

It's hard to explain what went on in my head but just imagine your only thoughts being "i wish i were dead" or "which way will i try to kill myself today?" or be driving in a car and contemplating swerving into oncoming traffic. I just wanted to die. I didn't understand why God would put me on this earth to be so painfully miserable. My soul hurt, my body hurt, my mind was a mess, and I was at the very bottom of my limit. When things got hard my excuse was that death would be the easiest way to avoid whatever it was that was going on. I can't tell you how many goodbye letters i wrote to my friends and family, or how many times I tried to kill myself in my room by trying to hang myself or drowning myself in the bathroom. But I always failed. There was never a day that I didn't cry. There was never a day where I woke up excited for the day to come. I was miserable and I wouldn't wish what I felt upon anyone. I would lock myself in my room for days, not answer phone calls from family- I'd just disappear. 2017 was particularly hard and was the absolutely the last straw. I lost the person that meant the most to me, I met someone who made me feel good inside and supported me but that ended toxically, I dropped out of school for the second time, I ended up in a psych hospital again, and I just completely shut down.

My last stay in a psych hospital was October 13th, 2017 and since I've gotten out I have become completely different person. Now i won't lie and say that I am 100% better because I still have my days, but they are few and far between. And I will admit that I had gotten off track and cut for the first time in months last week. But the difference between the me now and then is that I can handle things better. I don't immediately jump to the idea of death. As a matter of fact I haven'[t thought about dying in quite sometime. I still have occasional thoughts of self harm, but I don't act on them. Yoga and writing has truly helped me center my thoughts, made me healthier, and has given me a positive outlet to let out the things I have trouble speaking into words. There are still some days where I feel lonely but unless you have suffered from a mental illness you will never truly know what it feels like no matter how hard you try to relate. There are a lot of choices and decisions I wish I could take back, but I have taught myself that dwelling on the past only makes things worse because they can't be changed. I am beginning to love myself, I can genuinely say most days I am happy or at least content, I am taking my medications regularly, I am mending broken relationships, and I am trying to be a good big sister to my brothers because I know they have seen me at my worst and I couldn't apologize to them enough. They are my everything and although we may not share tons of things with each other I hope and pray they know they can come to me if they ever feel like how I felt.

There are still some things I could mention, but I'm not quite ready for that yet. But I gave you all I could and that is more than I have ever given anyone. I am taking each day as it is and trying to stay strong. I am sorry to anyone that I hurt or betrayed or neglected because of my disease. I am not perfect, nor will I ever be, but I am better. I am better than I was even 4 months ago and for that I am proud. So yeah, that was basically my life in a nutshell. Thank you for listening.

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