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#ugly. while it is a subjective opinion someone can have it’s so weird that it’s always her and it’s always her appearance when she was a
znvorz · 9 months
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My random lil analysis on your question on twitter whether canon Flug would think that Thompson is ugly or not (bc I can write more here) on all metaphysical levels possible bc I'm obnoxious:
and by that I mean an emotional
philosophical
or physical level.
It depends. How he defines beauty. It seems like Flug calls people ugly either if they are rude to him or if they spook him/gross him out. For example I remember that Black Hat smells differently to everyone according to their feelings about him, and Alan said Dem thinks he smells like roses while Flug thinks he's "unpleasant" which means that canon Flug most likely finds Black Hat to be ugly and gross. Which I find interesting bc it looks like most people in their world regardless of gender think he at least LOOKS attractive. So it gives me the impression that Flug's opinion on someone isn't superficial but instead based on how they treat him (...and hygiene.)
That is a sorta philosophical approach at beauty but I'm sure Flug shares this belief. I'll compare him to me bc we share the personality type haha so ye, I actually automatically think people who are genuinely nice to me and others look physically prettier and vice versa. Flug lets his feelings sway him similarly.
From how kind and careful Thompson would act towards him I say he would quickly see him in a positive light where physical appearance alone doesn't matter anymore. He would grow to see things in him that others can't, blurring the line between emotions and body.
But you probably mean his pure, subjective opinion on his physical appearance at first sight. His outer beauty, not the inner one.
Because well that first option wouldn't happen, Thompson would never be rude to him (and he's clean HAH) so the question is whether Flug thinks that he is scary or cute/pretty.
Since he doesn't resemble any earth creature and doesn't have any creepy features (barely any features at all apart from his big eye haha and humans inherently think big eye(s) are cute🥹) I believe he'd be more neutrally curious about him as a species than anything else. I think he's very aesthetically pleasing with those lashes👀 PERHAPS I can see him be judgemental like "Well that's a weird species" agshdjdjk which idk if that is an insult, a compliment or a neutral expression since Flug himself is probably aware that he is not the most normal person. I feel like anything that strikes his interest is a good sign. bc he must have seen a lot. (btw if we still hold onto the belief that Flug is autistic then maybe he would like that he looks simple. Easy and calming on the eyes. No overload of details, asymmetry and clutter, like Dem.)
Otherwise; he's dressed in soft clothes in warm colors probably making him seem harmless. The only thing Flug might find scary are his pointy fingers reminding him of his boss. But no matter what he initially thinks, from Thompson's voice and how he acts he would quickly deduce that he wouldn't hurt him.
We once mentioned together that smth he might be put off about is the yellow heart on him... that is if that would be what he wears during their first encounter. Thompson looks more powerful (but also elegant) in his Sirius outfit... less approachable on a personal level. He would treat him more like a client and less like a friend in that one.
Also depends on where and with whom he meets him first. Flug will act more harsh when around any group of people than in front of Black Hat; and then again a lot more gentle when completely alone, bc there is no one around to show off to how tough he can be in order to keep up a halfway respectable leader position. He could just be calling people ugly to sound superior without actually thinking that way for all we know.
I could be wrong bc of 2 things: maybe I misjudge him to be less arrogant than he actually is and... Flug seems to live in a world that is not only populated by humans. AT LEAST since highschool he is used to living among all kinds of creatures. Growing up like that could have affected his perception of beauty quite a bit. Having had a crush on Miss Heed he still leans towards humans I guess... but ye! That's about it🧡
THANK YOU FOR COLOR CODING THESE
the idea that Flug wouldn't find him ugly because of how Thompson treats him would be so sweet 😭😭😭😭 Thompson does have good hygiene, he even smells like holiday or autumn spices typically. he feels warm and smells warm/cozy and he keeps himself clean. he also takes care of his skin. his hands are very soft. his fingers only sharpen at the end when he's either angry or panicking or anxious or frightened/scared, so there's some instances where he has accidentally scratched Flug. which usually ends with Thompson feeling very guilty and showering Flug with multiple apologies for a simple mistake.
and omg i totally forgot about that, Dem's design IS cluttered/asymmetrical, which is fitting for her character. Thompson practically being the opposite of that makes sense. Thompson dressing soft is definitely a reflection of his personality, but i can see Flug having doubts or worries that Thompson isn't what he seems. and totally with the heart clothes Thompson likes to wear (he made his own turtleneck sweaters), i think Thompson would most likely not wear anything heart related during their first meeting as to come off as more intimidating. he would definitely wear his Sirius outfit, it's practically what he wore back when he was a hero on his home planet (but he made some alterations, turning it into a Sirius themed outfit since he likes the Sirius star)
as for their first meeting, it would be a consultation, they would be alone together (like in some scenes of the orientation videos where Flug is alone with clients and not getting disturbed by Dem or BH) eventually Thompson would sign a contract with Black Hat most likely after the consultation. but seeing how Thompson is only wanting a weapon from BHO, im not sure how big the exchange would be with Black Hat. like would that be soul exchange worthy? i think Thompson would most likely sign a contract where he is supposed to help Black Hat with something much later down the line, whether it's a favor or if it's some sort of battle. i think Thompson's healing powers would be very useful in that case (it makes me wonder if Black Hat has healing powers or not, i cant really see him having healing powers though)
and now that i think about it, Black Hat would probably smell like rotting food and alcohol to Thompson, or maybe the smell of a musty humid dark dirty basement... thattotallydoesnthaveanysortofconnectiontoThompson'spast
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bettermiya · 11 months
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Hellooo if it's okay id like to request a haikyuu matchup pls- (don't mind my awkward communication skills btw)
General stuff
Im female (she/her), 17 years old, relatively short (160cm, idk what that is in feet Im European :,)) maybe 5'3??)), my parents are from West Asia (Turkey) but I was born in a german speaking country so somehow i can speak 6 languages now-
Personality
One will realize pretty fast that I am in fact not normal lmao- i'm a bit weird but i'm living for it. I'd describe myself as rather introverted though I'm not shy or timid. I just like to relax and take things slow. I'm pretty easy to talk to if I do say so myself and laid-back as well. I'm also funny apparently (my friend's opinion. Lazy too but we don't talk about that HA-)
Interests/Hobbies
If you couldn't already tell by my ability to speak a lot of languages I am really interested in them. I love to learn new stuff and expand my knowledge in general- I also LOVE listening to music (my earphones are my bebes) and sometimes drawing is pretty tempting as well. Idk why but designing/ decorating is something I tend to enjoy doing even though I don't realize it. Gardening is also a hobby of mine.
Just a few more smaller facts- My love language is quality time and I'm not overly experienced when it comes to relationships. I tend to be drawn to ppl that are open and know what they want. Confidence and loyalty are a big factor.
Thank you in case my request gets accepted <33 bye byeee~
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Tsukishima Kei is surprised that he would be fascinated with you!
He's not an easy guy. The type who would retaliate with a sharp tongue before letting anyone in, but you've managed to get past his defenses. It's a combination of not pushing his limits and having the intellect to study languages, which is such a difficult subject. Tsukishima is a person who relentlessly pursues knowledge even if he hides it under such a cool façade. If he discovers that you, as unassuming as you are, can assist him in some way? Even his pride cannot keep him from asking for your assistance while his eyes are downcast, and he tugs at his fingers.
Why not? His demands are straightforward and specific. You start assisting him with his request, but you never expected to catch so much attention for it. You're beginning to see that other girls are drawn to Tsukishima by his good looks without knowing about the twisted personality hidden beneath. His interactions with Hinata and Kageyama, two of his volleyball club teammates, demonstrate his cruelty. A sharp word. A biting laugh. A taunt. Tentatively, you asked him about his personality, and he answers:
( “What gives me the right to be cruel to you? You haven't done anything, and you're helping me.” It could be a trick of the light, but he appears to be blushing into the crook of his arm.  )
His meanness, however, is directed at anyone who might criticize you. Those girls' attentions turn negative. He can easily exploit each of their insecurities. This one is far too ugly, this one is far too stupid, and this one is far too pathetic. It doesn’t matter where in the social hierarchy they are because Tsukishima is an ever-loyal attack dog. He’ll take all the heat if it means they’ll leave you alone.
One day, a girl who used to blush pretty when he was close had splashed water in his face. He didn't even blink. You dragged him to the back of the gymnasium and asked Tsukishima why he was willing to go so far for you.
This is too much.
( “You're a moron. I thought you were smarter than this… Why would someone be so protective? Because they like the other person.” )
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problemswithbooks · 2 years
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Having experienced racists like billy irl and enduring their bs “growth” I’m personally very glad that he didn’t get some redemption arc or whatever. Something my mom pointed out to me: would billy have reacted the same if el were black? Racism is so hard to stop like that takes years and years if it was ingrained as it was for billy. I stop experiencing attraction once an ugly side like racism is exposed and I have a hard time understanding people who don’t stop. Maybe experience or empathy is key I don’t know. Sorry this is a topic that is so touchy and I don’t know why but even trying for a character like billy when you don’t even like him that much. I don’t know man why even try?
I totally get why you wouldn't like a character like Billy having endured their racism in RL. Those people are shitty and a lot of media does focus way to much on the white character having a change of heart, rather then the black person they terrorized. That's more then enough to leave a sour taste in your mouth and be happy Billy didn't get a redemption arc.
As for if he would have had a different reaction to El if she was black--I say probably he would, simply because the Duffers needed him to. Billy's honestly a character that only exists to be a tool for the creators. All characters are, but for main characters the narrative has to shift to accommodate them so they feel more organic. You can't just force them to do something you want if that action would conflict with prior characterization (well, you can but it's really jarring).
Billy isn't that type of character. He was originally made to be the minor antagonist of season 2--the human threat that causes problems and throws up roadblocks for the gang, especially when it comes to how/if Max can help them out. He's there to create tension, so when Max is with the gang, you wonder when he'll show up and get in their way.
In season 3 the Duffers needed him to be way more likable because suddenly his character has to carry the weight of the main plot. If he was still season 2 Billy no one would probably notice or care that he was acting weird. The Mind Flayer pleading for Max to let him out wouldn't have affected her at all because she hated Season 2 Billy completely. Most of his characterization was booted season 3 because they didn't need Billy to be the human antagonist anymore. And though it's not a great choice, for a very minor character like Billy who was already built from nothing but tropes it's easy to slot him into a new role and discard past characterization.
When it comes to Billy being attractive I think there's a difference between seeing that's he's an objectively attractive person according to society's standards of beauty and wanting to actually be with him. Personally, I just don't like it when people try to say someone is physically ugly because they're a bad person, because I think that enforces the idea that looks have anything to do how good a person is. I can see that Billy is objectively attractive, while not being attracted to his his personality.
It's fine that it's touchy subject for you. There have certainly been characters that hit to close to home for me and I didn't like talking about them, and certainly couldn't take a step back and look them as the meat puppet controlled by words on the page that they are. And being able to do that doesn't make me better or my opinions more valid then yours.
I'm white so I've never had to deal with racists like Billy targeting me, so it's easy for me to shake his character and see what comes out. To see how he works from a writing perspective and browse his tag to see how fans reacted to him and ask myself why. And that's just generally how I consume and enjoy things--by picking them apart. Even if it's not a character that's my fav.
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bomnun · 3 years
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something I’ll never get is when weird kpop fans on twitter (ok I don’t understand most of what these people do) will drag another group by calling them ugly or members of the group ugly. (obviously it’s unnecessary and also very subjective), but what is that supposed to prove? do all artists you listen to have to be pretty? do you hear a good song, look up the artist and find out they’re ugly and then think “oh no I can’t listen to them because they’re unattractive” ???
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What would happen if you were sent back and ended up in the orphanage with Tom Riddle—and say you also had magic?
Oh boy.
Well, there's a lot to question here. Judging by the... spirit of this ask, I presume I'm... pretty much reincarnated. I'm in the orphanage, I'm much younger than I am now and a child, I'm pre-Hogwarts age, and I retain my current knowledge.
For the purpose of this ask I suppose I also retain my current mental faculties. Despite being in the body of an eight-year-old, I'm not The Carnivorous Muffin at eight.
Welp, there's a lot to consider here.
First, I probably don't realize I'm in Harry Potter for quite some time and instead assume I've been reincarnated to some parallel universe. It's the 1930's, I'm in England in the depression, WWI has occurred and the vast majority of major historical events I know about seem to have happened in the right order, and this Earth is eerily similar to the Earth I left behind.
Strange that I appear to remember everything of my past life with my adult mental abilities, but alright universe, I guess that's how we're going to play this.
What I do know is that I'm dirt poor, presumably still a woman which does not bode well for my career prospects, and if I want any prospects in life period I'm going to have to fight tooth and nail for it. It'd be great if I got adopted to help with this, and might be nice to have people in my life who love me, but there's a lot of orphans in the world and a lot of orphans who are much less weird than I am.
The orphanage is the orphanage and not great, Mrs. Cole is overworked, the orphanage is chronically understaffed, and the kids are running wild beating the shit out of each other.
Being a girl, I probably don't have to worry about getting the shit kicked out of me quite as much, but I still probably try to keep my head down and don't aggravate the particularly beefy looking orphans.
Yes, there's some very angry gremlin named Tom Riddle around who will shove you down the stairs in retribution, but that's just a weird coincidence. And then supernatural shit starts happening. Billy's rabbit hangs itself, people get injuries when Tom is nowhere near them, and I start wondering if this is really the Tom Riddle.
I'm in Wool's Orphanage, my matron is Mrs. Cole, Tom Riddle is running around lighting things on fire. It's possible, though it could all be a strange coincidence.
Now, how things go from here depends on how controlled my own magic is. Since accidental magic typically does manifest at least once or twice, it probably does manifest for me for.. something. If Tom Riddle's there to witness it then...
Well, I imagine he's very offended. Here he was, special, different, better than everyone else, and then some girl in the orphanage (who dares to get very good grades on her assignments in school) has it too.
And I just stand there, smiling, going "Tee hee".
He probably confronts me to prove that he's better at it than I am, and he probably is unless the universe hates both him and me, but having someone else with the Shining around probably prompts him to take me as his protégé (in part so he can show off and in part because he's genuinely excited to be able to share this super cool talent).
I am now apprentice to eight-year-old Tom Riddle. Whoop de doo.
Well, I don't remember this part of Harry Potter, so now I'm probably confused as to where I am again. Regardless, I try to advise Tom on how to tone it down and not, say, traumatize Amy and Dennis for life and antagonize all the other orphans forever. He probably doesn't take me seriously. What do I know, I can't even light that patch of grass on fire?
Hanging around Tom Riddle gets me a reputation to, given the difference in genders, probably a fairly nasty one at that. When Dumbledore arrives he's undoubtedly told hot gossip about how eleven-year-old Tom and I have had sex in a ritual to summon Satan. Dumbledore takes this seriously.
Dumbledore probably meets us both at the same time and it's a disaster. I tried my best to prep Tom without revealing I'm a prophet, Tom first doesn't believe there might not be others, then doesn't believe they would be antagonist/anything but amazed by how awesome he is.
Well, Dumbledore lights his wardrobe on fire while I sit there. Dying inside. Dumbledore probably also does something to me too, to teach me some kind of lesson about something.
I imagine he temporarily disfigures me/makes me appear very ugly, then sticks a mirror to the wall, that way I realize that looks aren’t everything/being a whore is wrong. Tom, still traumatized over the wardrobe, is no help and my magic’s probably not controlled enough to do a thing about it.
I spend a day looking like a pig, Tom and I are given just enough money to buy new wands and second hand/barely functioning everything else and given the world’s worst directions to Diagon Alley. Thanks, Albus.
Well, months pass, we get our wands, Tom gets excited for Hogwarts and I... start seriously considering the future. WWII is coming, the Blitz is coming, Tom and I live in east London and must be able to evacuate during the bombing of London (which went on well past the Blitz to the end of the war). I also start considering my future in the wizarding world. Do I now actually have career prospects?
Probably not because I’m muggle born and a woman. My best bet is doing very well in useful subjects and finding employment with the goblins, I can’t imagine they have the same hang ups as the wizarding world.
Tom wants to go to Slytherin, of course, I tell him this is a bad idea. “Gee Tom,” I say, “Not sure how I know this but I have this feeling that Slytherin is filled with people who loathe our very existence and will shank us. Why don’t we pick Ravenclaw or Gryffindor instead?”
No one shanks Tom Riddle! Tom says. Tom is still eleven and while he admits that sometimes I may, in retrospect, have been right about certain things that doesn’t mean he wants to go to the house known for hard work. That’s code word for everyone there being a moron and having no other redeeming features than tenacity. As for the other two, Ravenclaws sound like smug, elitist, nerds and Gryffindors like dumb jocks.
Better to be known for ambition, cunning, and actually being competent.
Well, there’s no talking him out of this one, and goddamn it we’re all each other has.
I’m the closest thing Tom Riddle has ever had to a friend in all these years and in the orphanage the only one who could hold a decent conversation with him. And while it’s not my moral obligation to keep Tom from becoming a domestic terrorist, and there’s no guarantee I even can, dumping him for one of the other houses and drifting apart won’t help.
Not to mention that, after all these years, I’m undoubtedly lonely, I’m in this foreign land, and he’s now the closest thing to a friend I have.
Looks like I’m going to Slytherin, YOOOOOLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOO! I shout as a battle cry as tears run down my face. I may have to convince the hat to put me in Slytherin, but like all human beings I am a mixture of many qualities. I’m not cunning in the least, mind games exhaust me unutterably, but I’m full of ambition. 
This confirms every bad opinion Dumbledore had regarding me and Tom.
For the next several months, Tom probably beats the shit out of dormmates who steal his things/harass him. He beats up mine too because feminism (TM) means that he should treat all people equally when guilty of the same crime. I... am not sure I can win that fight so I just resign myself to having to adopt some of Tom’s tactics to make sure I’m not shoved in lockers, have tampons thrown at me, or pig’s blood dumped on me at the prom.
Once again, everyone thinks Tom Riddle and I are dating. I don’t even know if they’re wrong at this point.
Well, being in class with eleven year olds who seem to have had little to no prior education, Tom and I are undoubtedly blazing through class. I imagine I’m bored out of my mind (the Hogwarts curriculum sounds unbelievably boring) and Tom is... well, probably devouring the library but probably also bored. I decide to try and see if I can find some real history texts on this world (there are probably none, the wizarding world seems to only have two historians and both... have a different approach to history than current modern thought as I know it) and discover what magic even is. That shit is fascinating: wingardium leviosa is not.
Dumbledore likely gives neither me nor Tom points in class, I think the house cup is stupid, so I really don’t care. I have no interest in playing quidditch, neither does Tom, so that doesn’t happen.
The second world war starts up, Tom, me, and the muggle borns are the only ones who give a flying fuck. I work harder on figuring out how to get lodging during the Blitz/the bombing of London. Unfortunately, Mrs. Cole hates me too for being the Bride of Satan, so that’s a no go. Third year, 1939, I probably write her in earnest anyway telling her to PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, send Tom and I instructions for the summer/where the orphans are staying/how they’ve been dispersed to the countryside. As a back up plan, I try desperately to shmooze shopkeepers in Hogsmeade during every Hogsmeade weekend to get myself and Tom part time jobs and lodging over the summer. As a back up back up plan, I spend my time badgering Tom to become very good at survivalist wandless magic and if the Lord has pity on me gain some ability in it myself.
Hopefully, either Mrs. Cole or one of the Hogsmeade shop owners take pity on us. If not, then Tom and I are going extreme camping. Given Mrs. Cole (and the brain damage brought on by Dumbledore erasing memories left and right) and the likelihood of Hogsmeade shop owners just not getting it, Tom and I probably go extreme camping.
(Tom, meanwhile, asks Dippet and Dumbledore if we can stay in Hogwarts over the summer. He’s told no exceptions. London’s being bombed, you say? No exceptions. Toodles. Tom is never the same.)
Me, Tom Riddle, a tent we made ourselves, several rabbits we had to catch and skin ourselves, and the pitiful fire that we can keep going through pure will alone because if we try to use real people spells then we’ll get arrested. It has the benefit of making Tom feel very manly and impressive, catching his own food, but both of us are well aware that this sucks.
But hey, we aren’t dead.
Well, I’m sure Tom doesn’t appreciate that and this is where I imagine he seriously starts talking about violent revolution. I imagine much of my time is spent discussing the merits of not violently overthrowing our ant overlords. I imagine a thirteen-year-old Tom isn’t impressed by my pacifism, but he’s not married to Voldemort yet (probably).
Then I imagine the horcrux thing comes up and... Well, I will argue hard against it. Humans die, it is a truth of the universe, and simply something we have to accept. Horcruxes are not a measure against that, they can be destroyed, given infinite time they will be, and the sacrifice they require is too high: human life as well as the very essence of who you are.
What is a soul? I’m not sure, we never really learn in HP canon, but whatever it is, it is in some way the essence of yourself. If you take half of it and throw it somewhere else, you will cease to be you, someone or something else is walking around in your body while the other half of you exists in endless agony.
If you must chase immortality, create a philosopher’s stone (as I darkly wonder why it was that couldn’t be replicated and what Flamel had to do to make it in the first place). On second thought, maybe we should search for the Holy Grail.
Whether I can talk Tom out of this or not is... unclear. I’m going to say that I can, in part because I imagine he’ll want to show the chamber off to me, tell me when he realizes he’s Heir of Slytherin, and in doing so I can prevent the basilisk incident from occurring. Without that, there’s no dead Myrtle, which means no first victim. That summer, when he goes to the Gaunts, I’ll go with him and convince him that it’s not worth it. He can just turn around and leave these people alone, I hopefully can talk him down. Which means no second victim.
I start writing Flamel to see if Tom or I can get an apprenticeship (Dumbledore probably beats us to the chase and poisons him against us, but it’s worth a shot).
Then, should all go well, I can convince Tom to find employment with the goblins rather than shady antique dealers on the bad side of town. Hopefully, I can convince him to never become Voldemort, and instead we travel the world together looking for the origins of magic or something.
Dumbledore goes around taking people’s memories of us in preparation for when Tom becomes a dark lord and I his lady of the night darkness.
TL;DR Apparently my life would become an SI/Tom Riddle fic. So, thanks anon.
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dysphxtric · 3 years
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Mental Illness - My Mental Health Story
TW: Depression, Anxiety, Self harm, Suicide, Sexual Harassment
“You should smile more.”
“It could be worse.”
“Just don’t think about it.”
These were the phrases I heard throughout all of my elementary and high school years. There was never a time when my peers and teachers, would not mention some bizarre, ignorant statement revolving around mental health. Not to mention, my family also contributed heavily to the stigmatization of mental health issues. Essentially, my family approached the subject of mental health with extreme hesitation, they refused to talk about how it affects people of all age, gender, ethical background (etc.) Every time I would say “I’m feeling lost” my family would automatically dismiss my frantic worries and it was not any different when I went to school. My peers would continuously remind me that my pain was not valid and that I need to stop being so sensitive. My primary parental figures, my mother and brother did not have the adequate knowledge or tools to be able to hold space for me. I would frequently hear my mom say, “I could understand someone suffering from PTSD feeling upset or sad but you’re so young and healthy honey, you have nothing to worry about” or the old classic “Someone else has it worse than you”. Whether I was at home or at school, I heard the same ignorant statements spewing out from what felt like everyone. And I could never comprehend what was the point of these falsely “encouraging” statements and why profusely use them? These kinds of statements do not uplift, nor do they empower those struggling with mental health issues, if anything it makes it extremely debilitating when your emotions are not acknowledged nor validated. One cannot expect to simply brush away another person’s emotion, thought or feeling as though it means nothing.
With that being said, growing up, I lived in a dysfunctional household alongside my mother, my older brother, and my grandmother. My mother would always be juggling work, schooling, and her dating life. My brother was very reluctant about staying home so he would always vanish after school, hang out with friends, party hard and engage with various street substances. Now my grandmother? It was not long after she immigrated that she began to immerse herself within the Jehovah’s Witnesses ideology and “religiously” strayed away from us as my mother likes to say. My mother was never fond of religious practices that were not “orthodox”. My grandmother wanted to indoctrinate my mom, brother, and I into joining her religious little club but failed which resulted in countless fights, yelling matches, and multiple dents left in our walls. The back and forth with the yelling was what scared me most in my childhood even if it was over something as small as not closing the cabinet door. I think it was around this time period I experienced violence/ trauma at home and truth be told I was extremely stressed and anxious all the time as a kid. My mother would cover the punched indents by taking magazines and sticking pages onto the indent. Often times my stomach would turn as I looked at the pages covering the area where my brother punched the wall with brutal force. Moreover, I felt impending sadness because all I ever wanted was for everyone in my family to be able coexist and not argue. I was trying to keep the peace between everyone, yet I was always the one that got caught in the middle of everything whether I liked it or not. I would get blamed a lot for trying to mend things for everyone. Even though all I wanted was the best for all my family members.
Fast forward to my pre-teen/ teenage years. By this point, my brother and grandmother were no longer living under the same roof as my mother and I. My brother was living with his ex-girlfriend while working as a security guard meanwhile my grandmother was living in her own little subsidized apartment preaching the word of Jehovah. At that particular time, my mother and I lived in a marvellous urban semi-detached house in a peaceful neighbourhood. My mother’s boyfriend had moved in with us and for the most part I was really happy because at least it was not just me and her.
My mother’s boyfriend lived with us while I was going to school. He was a really nice, caring and warm-hearted individual although I could never understand why my mother argued with him so much. I once told him “You should propose to her, I can see you two together forever” to which he replied with a welcoming smile.
But eventually just like with all good things, there comes an end. The inevitable breakup my mom went through was very bitter and I had to be there for her. Afterall, I was technically the only child that was around to emotionally comfort her. Ironically, the breakup occurred during the time I was being bullied in school. And it was difficult to be fully present for my mother while dealing with a lot of negativity at school. I had been experiencing cyber bullying on MSN by a bunch of peers calling me “weird”, “ugly” and “different”. To make matters worse, the group of kids that bullied me online ended up following me everywhere I went for recess which posed as a big obstacle for my well being. I had to eat inside the portables when teachers weren’t around or inside the girl’s bathroom stall just to avoid being teased. I never felt like I had a safe space to myself where I could be vulnerable and open up. Not to mention, it was a difficult time and there was practically no one I could confide in. I didn’t have a social circle of supportive friends, after all I was an antisocial person. Fear washed over me as I worried about disclosing my unpleasant experience to my mother because she was already dealing with so much, the heartbreak, the bills, work problems (etc.), it was then and there that I decided to lie instead of telling the truth. Ultimately, lying became my cooping mechanism to deal with the ongoing pain.
I kept up the lying for a long time in order to make it seem like everything was okay. I lied to everyone from family members to school peers to the teaching staff to principals to counselors.
For the longest time, lying sheltered me from all sorts of unnecessary questions. No one could really tell whether I was truthful or disloyal because I was able to make it sound believable. When I was a teenager, I continued to go down the same destructive path by being dishonest with myself and others. Many times, the thought of suicide crossed my mind and when I started to think about it and plan/coordinate the intricate details it did not hit me that something was very wrong, and I needed urgent help. A big part of the problem was that I was so used to downplaying my pain, given my family circumstance and stigmatization I experienced growing up with. There is no denying that I would engage in negative self talk convincing myself that I deserved the pain and suffering for not being likeable enough or for not being smart enough.
Sometimes I think that is the thing… people do not understand that I lied because that was what I was required to do in order to survive my childhood. I, myself do not tolerate lying and I think it is a form of betrayal and if I were to be completely honest, I would have NEVER lied to my mom had it been safe for me to express myself authentically in my household.
I did not live in a household where it was safe to speak my mind freely and disagree with my mother. Disagreeing was always the last thing I wanted to do, disagreeing meant I got the belt, my devices would get confiscated or that I was going to get grounded. They say, “Honesty is the best policy” and I do not disagree however, it is not as black and white as one may think. In my situation, lying was not only an adaptive coping mechanism but it became a survival mechanism to keep me safe from harm/threat.
I did not have very much individuality growing up. I felt as though having an opinion of my own was bad. In order to perpetuate this fixated mindset that I had, my mother constantly deemed certain attributed behaviours or thoughts as “good” or “bad”. So, say you were upset about a recent breakup with your partner, my mother would scoff and say, “You know life isn’t just about love right?” and play it like it means nothing to the person affected by the situation.
The first time I ever felt depressed was when I was 13. At that age I did not understand why I was feeling what I was feeling. All I knew was that there was something wrong with me. It did not help when I was being picked on by my classmates telling me “Go die”, “You belong in a ditch ugly bitch.”
The moment when things started getting out of hand was when I was first started my Art and Family Studies class in the same semester. In both classes I was placed into groups amongst other students. In Family Studies I had to be in a collaborative group that would divide responsibilities and tasks accordingly. When it came to cooking, my group consisted of four snobby, rich yet immature peers who were unwilling to help and contribute in any shape or form, I had to become the bigger person and sure enough I took all the responsibilities on myself. Though, it was not a smart move. But I was super shy and felt anxious to do anything different least to say speak up and advocate for myself, so I did what I had to do which was prepare meals, clean, and wash the dishes. At the end of the day, none of my peers thanked me, the only thank you I got was getting groped while washing the dishes and getting laughed at.
After what happened I ran to my best friend in tears to tell her what happened just to find her say “It’s not that bad, you’ll be fine” I felt like my blood was going to boil and I was about to start fuming. I stood thinking “Huh, that is so weird, is this how you comfort a person after being sexually harassed?”
Not to sound all grim but that experience showed me that no one really cared about me. No one cared that I got groped or how I felt in that moment. Let alone not even my “best friend” who was supposed to fulfill her role and be there for me. All I wanted was comfort and to be heard out. I could not even tell my mother about this experience until I turned 21 because of how ashamed I felt carrying around that experience and not having the ability to open up and mourn what happened that day and to be able to heal that damaged part of myself. I carried that incident with me for 7 years in silence because I was scared of being honest.
That specific experience was very detrimental to my mental health. Everything began to spiral out of control, I sprawled into a dark depressive state. I began to have intense panic attacks, insomnia, forgetfulness (etc.) After a certain duration of time, I had thoughts of suicide lingering at the back of my head. I questioned my worth, my identity, my culture, my everything.
The bullying and name calling persisted and became so intense that I ended up missing weeks of school time. Some of the boys in my Art class found it funny to make fun of my last name and call me “Prostitute”.
One day in the early springtime, my Art teacher noticed the marks on my wrists as I was painting and had not said anything until I made it to my last period class. I was called down to the guidance counselors office and was interrogated with questions.
“It has come to our concern that one of the staff members noticed cuts on your arms.”
I sat in silence trying hard to contain my anxiety.
“Are you struggling with depression or low mood? Is everything okay at home?”
It came to the point when I got so tired of lying about my pain that I admitted “Yes, I am struggling, I need help”. I dived into the bullying occurrences, the cat calling, my low grades, my self-esteem, the groping, my home situation (etc). After that, I was told that my mother would have to be called down to the school for “safety” reasons even though my counselor promised not to disclose any personal information to my mother. My greatest fear was that I did not want my mom to know that something was wrong.
Of course, my mom came to my school. She was told everything that had happened. I met her at the counselor’s office just to find her wailing in distress “You are such an embarrassment” and “Your counselor told me what you did, how could you do this?”. When the counselor gave us resources for help, my mother grabbed the papers and shoved them into the trash, got up and yanked me out the office.
The next three days that followed, my mother withdrew into her room not saying a word to me. I felt really uneasy and upset. She had her right to be alone but locking herself away from me and avoiding communication altogether? Didn’t make much sense.
I felt extremely guilty for not opening up to my mother sooner. But instead of choosing to be compassionate and caring she chose to resort to anger. She furiously blamed me for being “quiet” and “not trustful” which all landed on my shoulders again. It was “my” fault I thought.
Bottling this up resulted in a full-blown mental breakdown. I could not focus or concentrate because of everything building up. It came to the point where my mom had to choose between living in a toxic community or starting fresh elsewhere.
And even though my mother kept subjecting me to her harmful stigmatizations, the transition from my old school to my new one helped me greatly. When we moved away, I gradually started to feel better emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Very quickly, I ended up adapting to my new high school where I finally made friends.
One thing I cannot deny is that there definitely was a silver lining to all of this. Although I went through severe bullying and torment at school and home, I managed to reclaim my power and through that I discovered my inner peace after being extracted from my toxic high school. The new school that I ended up attending completely changed me and inspired me to become a more authentic version of myself. It was almost as though I did a complete 180°
My new peers and teachers were enthusiastic, open-minded and caring. The new community I was surrounding myself in was a very positive one that broke down stigmas and encouraged deep understanding and acceptance. My mind was blown when I found that it was easier to conversate with girls and guys at my new school, I was gradually becoming confident and more vocal, and I liked the feeling of not hiding myself away from the world. It felt rejuvenating to finally be heard and seen by others.
Slowly but surely, I began to partake in various activities at my school. I joined the Poetry Club which I would have never considered joining had I stayed back in my old school due to fear of how I was perceived. Ultimately, I started caring and nurturing myself more. My new friends supported me, and teachers began to openly listen to my stories and encouraged me to write. When I started writing, I realized that I could use this medium to cope with my depression and anxiety. The acknowledgment made a major difference in my life like never before.
If it were not for the transition from my old high school, I would have not made progress in developing into the woman I am today. I know that I am not my pain, I am not my mistakes.
Do I still struggle and have bad days? Yes, of course. Just like any human being I have my days when I am not feeling the greatest however, I am more open to learning about how to engage with my mind, body and soul in order to soothe myself during turbulent times. I still have that inner critic however, I have been engaging with activities such as bike riding, painting, drawing, and reading to help occupy my mind which as a result has reduced the time that I spend ruminating. Occupying myself has worked magic, I am now able to reduce and control how much time I spend self-loathing, criticizing, and judging myself. Rather than judging every thought, I’ve learned to slow down and observe.
If you stuck along until the end of my story, I want to thank you for reading through my experience. My hope is that my story can shed some light on the myths and stigmas surrounding mental health, especially within the Eastern European community. I want you all to know that you are ALL valid and I wanted to be able to share my story so that my readers know that they are not alone.
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acesydneysage · 3 years
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A Sydney and Eddie retrospective
@vablappreciationweek Favorite familial relationship: The Melrose Twins
Part 2, Books 4-6: The Heartbreaking Trilogy, Why Are You Doing This To Me This Is So Sad
Part 1 here
In The Fiery Heart, Sydney and Eddie definitely already love each othe like siblings. By the end of the book they prove that in the most painful way possible, but let's ge through some cuteness first while I steel my heart.
We get Adrian's perspective on this book, so it's nice to see Eddie talking about Sydney when she isn't around:
“Because it’s Sydney,”said Eddie from the backseat. In the rearview mirror, I could see an easy smile on his face, though there was a perpetual sharpness in his eyes as he scanned the world for danger. He and Neil had been trained by the guardians, the dhampir organization of badasses that protected the Moroi. “Giving one hundred percent to a task is slacking for her.”
When Sydney wants to soften Zoe's extreme opinions on vampires, she picks Eddie to be Zoe's driving instructor because she wants "someone approachable and friendly who’d show her not all dhampirs were evil creatures of the night."
When Sydney is being a sappy romantic and describes what love is to the group, Eddie is the one who lingers looking at her the longest, he can tell something is different about her. They really know each other by now. When Eddie let's Zoe drive outside of the parking lot, he knows Sydney so well that he knows what she's going to say, and what to say to make it better:
“I can’t believe Eddie of all people would do that. It’s irresponsible.”She nodded. “He said you’d say that and that I should tell you, ‘At least it wasn’t Angeline.’”I couldn’t help it. I laughed at that. “That’s true. He does have limits.”
Later when she tells Zoe frivolity might not be such a bad thing, they have a sweet little moment:
“Sometimes frivolity isn’t a bad thing.” Eddie, who didn’t seem put out about the dance, grinned. “Sydney, when we first met, I never would’ve thought those words could come out of your mouth. What happened to you?” Everything, I thought. I met his grin with one of my own. “We all need some fun. We should forget that dance and go out and see a movie that night. When was the last time we all did that?”“I think the answer is ‘never,’” said Jill.
When Neil comes up with his crazy plan to test the Stigoi vaccine, Eddie is very shaken up by the similarities to the event in Spokane that lead to Mason's death. While Sydney thinks that "if Eddie was involved, one Strigoi seemed feasible", what finally convinces Eddie to go is her magic. Although Neil puts her on the spot, she does ultimately make the choice to trust him with this dangerous knowledge about her:
Eddie wasn’t swayed, and there was a look on his face I’d never seen before. “I’m not denying the principles, but it’s too dangerous. And not just to you. I did something like this once . . .” A pain so intense that it tore at my heart crossed Eddie’s features. “Me and some friends. We thought we could take on Strigoi . . . and my best friend ended up dead. No matter how prepared you think you are, even against only one, the unexpected can happen.” [...] The more this got out, the more trouble I was in. And yet, as I looked into Eddie’s steady gaze, I was reminded of our friendship and all we’d been through. In a world of secrets and lies, there were few I could thoroughly trust anymore, but I knew then, without a doubt, that Eddie was one I could. Taking a deep breath, hoping I wasn’t being a fool, I held out my hand. A nervous glance around confirmed we were alone, and I brought forth a spark of fire in my palm that soon grew into the size of a tennis ball. Eddie leaned over and gasped, the orange flames reflecting off his face. “Maybe . . . maybe our odds have gotten better,” he said.
During the fight with the Strigoi they go after, we get a little more about their similarities, how they're both so dedicated to helping others, and they both seriously admire each other so much. You get a bit of that from Sydney's perspective,and how much she cares about Eddie:
I knew what agony Eddie had to be in because I shared it. We both wanted to help Neil. Doing nothing, even for a handful of seconds, went against every part of our beings. [...] For his part, Eddie was magnificent. It had been a while since I’d seen him fight, and I’d nearly forgotten that the adopted brother I joked and ate lunch with was a lethal warrior. [...] I had to act. I couldn’t just stand by and let Eddie be annihilated, not if there was anything I could do.
After the fight, Sydney is caught up in the euphoria of surviving a near death experience, and she makes pretty much zero effort to hide her relationship with Adrian from Eddie:
As soon as I was on the road with Eddie and Jill, I told them, “I need to see Adrian. Drop me off and take my car. He’ll give me a ride back.” Eddie looked totally surprised by that. “Why do you need to see him?” “I just do.” I didn’t feel like attempting an excuse, and Eddie wasn’t the type to badger me. The most I got was a curious look when we reached the apartment. His curiosity turned to panic when he realized I’d be leaving him alone with Jill. “Good luck,”I said as I got out, not entirely sure who needed it the most.
When Eddie figures out that they're together she tries to avoid the conversation, expecting condemnation, but he's very supportive. This is the last conversation they have before everything falls apart, and everything I tried to remove to shorten it felt like an important character moment, but the most relevant parts are bolded:
“Sydney . . .”Eddie’s light mood vanished, and even with my eyes on the road, his tone tipped me off that something serious was about to happen. “About that. About you going to Adrian’s . . .”I felt a tightening of my throat and couldn’t answer immediately. “Don’t talk about that,” I said. “Please.” “No, we need to.” Eddie knew. Eddie knew, and if the subject wasn’t so dire, I would’ve laughed. He was oblivious to his own social affairs, but guardians were trained to watch and observe. Eddie did that, and no doubt he’d picked up all sorts of little things between Adrian and me. We tried so hard to hide from the Alchemists, but hiding from our friends, who knew us and loved us, was impossible. “Are you going to lecture me?” I asked stiffly. “Tell me I’m breaking taboos that have been in place for centuries to preserve the purity of our races?” “What?” He was aghast. “No, of course not.” I dared a look. “What do you mean ‘of course not’?” “Sydney, I’m your friend. I’m his friend. I’d never judge you, and I’d certainly never condemn you.” “A lot of people think what we’re doing is wrong.” It felt strange and oddly relieving to acknowledge my relationship with Adrian to another person. “Well, I’m not one of them. If you guys want it . . . that’s your business.” “Everyone’s suddenly very liberal about this,” I said with wonder. “I just heard a similar thing from Trey and Angeline—about their own relationship, that is. Not about . . . other people’s.” “I think my ill-fated time with Angeline may be part of it,” he said, with more humor than I expected, considering she’d cheated on him. “She talked enough about her people that after a while, it didn’t seem that weird. And, well, my race exists because humans and Moroi got together and had kids way back when.”I felt a smile start to grow on my lips. “Adrian says it wouldn’t be fair to the world if he and I had kids, what with the overwhelming power of our collective charm, brains, and good looks.” Eddie laughed outright, not something I heard very often, and I found myself laughing too. “Yeah, I can see him saying something like that. And that’s the thing, I think . . . the real reason I’m not that weirded out by you two. It goes against all sound logic, but somehow, you two together . . . it just works.” “‘Against all sound logic,’” I repeated. “Isn’t that the truth.” A little of his amusement faded. “But that’s not what worries me. Or the morality of it. It’s your own people I’m worried about. How long are you going to be able to go on like this?” I sighed as I took the exit for the meeting spot. “As long as the center holds.”
Eddie thinks Sydney and Adrian make sense. Obviously I agree that they absolutely do, but on a surface level it doesn't look like it. You have to know them and have a better understanding of their personalities to figure out how they actually fit together. What he's worried about is the Alchemists. Of course, by this point, since the ending of TFH is a sadistically drawn out torture, we already know from the ending of the last chapter that she's about to be captured.
I made it the door first... and found Eddie. His clothes were dirty and torn, and the right side of his face was swollen and red. There was a wild, half-crazed look in his eyes I’d never seen before. A feeling of dread settled over me, and the darkness and despair and fear that had left me alone for so long began to rear their collective ugly head. I knew, even without Eddie saying a word, what had to have happened. I knew because of that terrible look of pain on his face, a pain similar to when he hadn’t been able to save Mason. [...] “Adrian,” he gasped out. “I tried, I tried. There were too many. I couldn’t stop them.” He came forward and gripped my arm. “I tried, but they took her. It was a setup. I don’t know where she is. She tricked me, damn it! I never would have left her if she hadn’t tricked me!”
When they figure out it's a trap and he tells her to run, her first instinct was that she couldn't leave him behind. When they're running together through the woods the Alchemists start shooting at Eddie, specifically. He's running at Sydney's pace and she knows he would never leave her, the he would die to save her. And she knows she could not let him die.
Eddie won’t leave me, I thought frantically. He’ll never leave me. They want me, but they don’t care about him. He can live or die, and it won’t matter to them. But if he’s what’s keeping them away, they’ll shoot him and destroy his body. “Eddie,”I said, panting. “We need to split up.” “Never.” That answer wasn’t a surprise. What was a surprise was that out of all the things rattling around in my mind, Abe Mazur’s words popped up in the forefront:. Don’t think for an instant that I wouldn’t do terrible, unspeakable things if it could save someone I love. Because it was Abe, I’d naturally assumed he was talking about doing terrible, unspeakable things to other people. But as Eddie and I held on to each other, the words took on a whole different meaning. In that moment, I knew I would do anything to save Eddie—my friend—whom I loved. Even if it meant doing something terrible and unspeakable to myself.
The first thing established in the first paragraph of Bloodlines is that re-education is Sydney's greatest fear, literally her worst nightmare. But she faces that, she walks right back and turns herself in in order to keep Eddie safe. She tricks him into spliting up by claiming that it's part of a spell, and he believes her because he's seen her do extraordinary things.
“I tried,” he whispered. “Adrian, I tried. I never would have ever left her if I’d known. I would have stayed with her to the end. I would have laid down my life and—” I had to forcibly hit the pause button on my own feelings as I dealt with his. Eddie had lost another person. It was bad luck, that was all. He was one of the most badass , capable guardians out there, but he couldn’t believe that about himself, not when he kept seeing these failures laid at his feet. Looking into his eyes, I recognized the intense self-loathing consuming him. I knew the feeling well because I was carrying around a fair amount of it myself. “I know you would have,” I said. “There was nothing you could do.” He shook his head and stared off with a haunted look. “I was an idiot. I never should’ve bought into that spell stuff. After what I’d seen her do with fire, it just seemed so . . . well, real. I believed her. It made sense.” I smiled without humor. “Because that’s what she does. She’s trained to make people believe things. And outsmart them. You didn’t have a chance.” She also was willing to trade her own life to save her friend’s, but no one had trained her to do that. It was just something within her. Eddie wasn’t going to be swayed so easily, and I left him to his grief as I huddled with mine.
When Sydney's captured, Eddie feels like he failed her, just as he'd failed Mason in Spokane, and Jill when the rebels killed her. But still, he has faith in her, that she can hold on to herself:
“How much can they really change her, though?” asked Eddie. “I mean . . . she’s Sydney. She’ll be the same . . . right? She can fight them.”
In Silver Shadows,Sydney is in re-education, and she still finds it in her to be worried about her friends on the outside. Eddie's humiliation and guilt over having lost Sydney killed the kindling romance he had with Jill. There isn't much he can do to help find her at this point.
Once they find a lead on where she is, going to her rescue is very important to Eddie, but he also feels conflicted about leaving Jill with less protection. When the time comes, Jill convinces them to take Eddie because he needed to be part of her rescue, he'd been consumed by guilt this whole time, and that might be the only thing that would allow him to feel redeemed.
With some urging from Jill, he leaves her behind, and goes off to break into a prison again, to rescue a much worthier prisoner this time. After getting mostof the prisoners out, Eddie and Adrian go back into the burning building to get Sydney and the remaining people. After they bring her out to freedom, they have this moment where they hold each other and cry, it always makes me so emotional:
Eddie came last, and as we sized each other up, the tears hovering in my eyes finally spilled. “Eddie, I’m so sorry I lied to you that night.” He shook his head and pulled me to him. I heard tears choke up his voice. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them. I’m sorry I wasn’t protection enough.” “Oh, Eddie,” I said, sniffling. “You’re the best protection. No one could have a better guardian than you. Or a better friend.”
I hope Eddie did feel redeemed, because Sydney pretty much immediately tricks him, and gives him the slip again. She does take the time to try to nudge his love life again first. Then she goes off with Adrian, going against the plan, because she thinks the other fugitives will be safer without her.
"Eddie shot me one last parting smile that nearly choked me up again." “I never thought I’d see Castile brought to tears,” said Adrian as he started up the Mustang. “This really hit him hard. Hell, it hit all of us hard, but he really beat himself up for it. He never forgave himself for you giving him the slip.” “Let’s hope he can,” I said, putting my seatbelt on. “Because it’s about to happen again. We aren’t meeting them at the safe house.”
Eddie was furious about this, but at least this time she didn't get captured. And soon enough he had something else to feel bad about, since Jill went missing right after he got back to her. She disppeared without a trace in the middle of the night, and there's another failure laid at Eddie's feet.
He's not in a great state in the beginning of The Ruby Circle:
Eddie appeared in the doorway. Seeing him almost always brought a smile to my face. In Palm Springs, we’d passed ourselves off as twins, sharing similar dark blond hair and brown eyes. But over time, he’d truly come to feel like a brother to me. I knew few others with such courage and loyalty. I was proud to call him my friend, and as such, it hurt me to see all the pain he felt over Jill’s disappearance. There was always a haunted look about him now, and sometimes I worried whether he was really taking care of himself. He hardly ever shaved anymore, and I had a feeling the only reason he bothered eating was so that he could keep training and stay in shape for when he located Jill’s abductors.
Sydney isn't doing all that great either, stuck in a hostile environment while she deals with her trauma and worries about Jill. When Sydney and Eddie sneak out of court to look for Jill, the power of Raptorbot can make him smile:
“It couldn’t have been that unexpected,” I argued. “I mean, why did he build a dinosaur body for her? Why not something more human? Or at least a more friendly animal?” “Because then there wouldn’t have been much of a movie,” said Eddie. “There’s still got to be a plausible backstory …” I said. A wry smile crossed Eddie’s features, and although the entire topic was absurd, I realized I’d hardly ever seen anything but a grim expression on his face since Jill had been taken. “I don’t think you can really sit down with a movie called Raptorbot Rampage and expect a plausible backstory,” he said. The attendant looked offended. “What are you suggesting? It was a fine piece of film. When the sequel comes out, people will be lined up out the doors to see this exhibit!” “Sequel?” Eddie and I asked in unison.
I love it when the twins talkin unison, even if they probably had opposite tones. And I really love Eddie being a fan of Raptorbot I'm sorry. He and Declan have matching Raptorbot pajamas, you can't change my mind. This is another exchange that screams siblings to me:
“We were probably his only customers today,” I remarked. “That’ll make us memorable—that and having someone who’s actually seen and liked Raptorbot Rampage.” “Hey,” warned Eddie. “Don’t judge until you’ve watched it.”
Later Sydney tries to tease him about it again, but he's focused on the search so his good humor doesn't come back. I think it's very sweet thet she saw something that had made him momentarily happy through the pain, and tried to press that button again.
Eddie is understandably very protective throughout this book. It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you, they actually run into Sydney's family, while they're trying to stay off the Alchemists' radar:
“Then get out of here. Hurry—before he comes out. Both of you.” I was stunned at this complete reversal in her behavior, but Eddie didn’t need to be told twice. He took hold of my arm and nearly dragged me to the car. “We’re going—now,” he ordered. I caught one last glimpse of Zoe before Eddie shoved me in the car, where Ms. Terwilliger sat waiting for us. A thousand emotions played over Zoe’s face as we peeled out, but I could only interpret a few. Sadness. Longing. As we quickly got back on the road, I found myself shaking. Eddie was driving and kept anxiously checking the rearview mirror. “No sign of pursuit,” he said. “She must not have been able to see which direction we went to tell him.” I slowly shook my head. “No … she didn’t tell him at all. She helped us.” “Sydney,” said Eddie, in a stern-but-trying-to-sound-kind voice, “she’s the one who turned you in the first time! The one who started that whole re-education nightmare.”
He doesn't really belive that Zoe had a change of heart, and he tries to be so gentle with Sydney, while anxiously trying to get her away.
With how sad he is in this TRC (he even has broody beard to show it), the bits where he gets excited about things are really adorable. He's very enthusiastic about meeting Malachi Wolfe:
“Are the Chihuahuas really trained to attack?” he asked. I couldn’t help but grin. “That’s what Wolfe claims. We’ve never seen them in action, though.” “I can’t wait to see his nunchucks.” “Do not touch them,” I warned. “Or any weapon, without permission. If he approves of you, he might lend you something too.” [...] “Oh, man,” breathed Eddie. “There really is a herd of them.” I’d seen Eddie fearlessly face down an attacking Strigoi, but he took an uneasy step back at the sound of the canine charge. I grinned and turned toward the door, waiting for Malachi Wolfe himself to answer.
There's a lot of hugging after Sydney leaves re-education. Sydney and Eddie hug a lot, but just in general. Good for her it's what she deserves. "“Eddie,” Sydney exclaimed, running to give him a hug. He grinned back. “You guys okay?” "
When Sydney and Eddie are preparing to infiltrate the Warriors of Light as recruits, she gets a super strength spell while he gets super excited about it, and they have the cutest arm wrestle in history:
“And how much stronger?” asked Eddie eagerly. “Like lift-up-a-car stronger?” Maude smiled. “Sorry to disappoint, but no. [...]” She glanced between Eddie and Sydney speculatively, her smile growing. “I’d say you’re strong enough to hold your own with a dhampir in an arm wrestling match.” “I would kind of love to see that,” I admitted. Eddie’s face said he would as well. Sydney groaned. “Really? That’s so barbaric.” Eddie leaned over and propped his arm up on the table that had previously held the canteen. “Come on, Mrs. Ivashkov. Let’s do this. Besides, if you’re squeamish about arm wrestling, how are you going to handle going head-to-head with the Warriors?” [...] Ultimately, Eddie pushed his strength to its limit and finally defeated her, but not without her holding her own for a while. I held up her arm triumphantly, like a victor at a boxing match. “My wife, ladies and gentlemen. Beauty, brains, and now brawn.” “Awesome,” said Eddie, in a rare moment of delight.
He's really excited about human magic in general, such an adorable nerd. And again, they really do admire each other so much. Following Sydney's blackmailing the Alchemists: "I hung up, and Eddie regarded me with awe. “That was pretty badass. But do you actually think it’ll work?”"
In the epilogue, Eddie pulled strings to live with Sydney and Adrian as a Guardian, and he's one of the people who's in on Declan's secret. He even chooses to sleepin Declan's room.
I sprinted out of the room and up the stairs, to the bedroom that doubled as both a nursery and Eddie’s room. I had high enough royal rank to finally be assigned my own guardian, and Eddie, in that noble way of his, had pulled strings to be assigned to us. I’d initially protested because I wanted him to stay at Court and have a semi-normal dating life with Jill. Eddie, however, felt obligated to be with us—both out of friendship to Sydney and me and for all the times Neil had helped him. We’d offered to turn the house’s small study into Eddie’s own bedroom, but he always ended up sleeping in Declan’s room anyway.
I'm really glad they didn't get separated by the end, it always makes me happy to think about them living together.
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So on my old blog, I would occasionally give my unsolicited thoughts and opinions on shows or movies (usually ones that either had a lot of hype or were just straight up bad). I just watched "365 Dni" aka "365 Days" because I had a couple hours to kill so be prepared for mental spewage because it's my blog and I do what I want.
Wait I thought this was a romantic thriller. They're talking about human trafficking. This is already gross.
Michele Morrone is very good looking though and I've been obsessed with his face for the last few weeks.
This whole conversation about these girls getting trafficked is gross.
Yes. Let's be extra pervy during a pervy business meeting and check out the girl on the beach with our binoculars.
Hold up. Why did they get shot?
I don't know what's going on. Freaking Italian mob, man.
This song about being addicted to someone that's playing while people are bleeding out on the ground seems tonally inappropriate.
So far we've seen Italy, San Francisco, and Warsaw. I didn't know we were globetrotting.
And we switched from Italian to Polish to English. Sure.
Yeah. Michele Morrone could get it. Also he survived being shot.
Is that the same girl from the beach? Probably. Why not.
They do a lot of spinning shots and it's making me dizzy.
So far this is a very expensive foreign Lifetime movie.
Yes. Because everyone takes boob shots in the back of their Uber while sober.
Homegirl's boyfriend looks like they picked him out of a burly henchman catalogue.
Yup. Michele Morrone is stupid hot. Even just sitting down he's hot.
Oh good. We've transitioned from potential human trafficking to cocaine.
Well damn. This is fairly explicit for a "mainstream" film.
Cool. I share a name with the female lead.
Still don't know the male lead's name yet.
Everybody in this movie is either stupid hot or stupid ugly. There is no middle ground.
Yes, Michele. Creeping up on this girl on a darkly lit path saying "Are you lost, little girl?" is definitely going to win you all the points.
I don't understand why writers insist on putting powerful women with schlubby dudes. It's tired and cliched and inevitably leads to annoying arguments.
Yes. Let's wander around Sicily at night all alone. That's totally safe.
And my point is proven.
I hope if I ever get kidnapped and holed up in some random ass castle in Sicily my makeup looks as good as Laura's.
So this just turned into a horror movie.
Called it about Laura being the girl on the beach.
Yeah, that's not creepy at all, dude. Let's obsess over a girl we might have hallucinated for five years and then kidnap her and give her a year to fall in love with you. Solid plan.
This is literally making my skin crawl.
Ah yes. "I won't do anything without your permission" he says as he literally grabs and sexually assaults her.
So basically this is trying to be "erotic thriller, Beauty and the Beast style".
Her pulling a gun on him has been the best thing so far.
I'm so confuuuuuused.
That's nothing new though. I live in a state of perpetual confusion.
Why the hell is there a man chained to a rock in this dude's basement.
I have many concerns.
Also his name is Massimo so that's good to know.
Besides the man chained in his basement his house is pretty cool.
Just kidding the man is no longer chained in the basement since he now has a bullet in his head.
I'm only 30 minutes in and this has been a wild ride.
"I'm not a bag of potatoes you can move without my permission!" is very Polish and as somebody who's family is Polish I'm living for it.
I'm going to need him to stop laying hands on her.
Whoever chose the music made some odd choices.
He keeps watching her sleep and it's creepy.
And there he goes grabbing her again.
I do like that she's giving him a lot of attitude and isn't putting up with his shit but you know that's going to change 🙄
Yes. Go spend all his money, honey.
He is disrespectful as hell.
I don't care how hot he is, he's creepy and abusive and I don't like it.
"I am not the monster you think I am." You would be incorrect, my dude.
Like, she went on vacation with her boyfriend and friends, and I can't for the life of me figure out why they aren't looking for her unless they explained it and I missed it.
Pierogi. The most romantic of Polish foods.
"I do business." He's a drug trafficker, honey. Run away. Run far, far away.
Honestly I would turn this off if I wasn't so far in it already.
I feel like I have to see this trainwreck through to the end.
"I would like you to show me how to be gentle for you" would be more appealing if HE LITERALLY HAD NOT KIDNAPPED, ABUSED, AND ASSAULTED HER.
Ew. Did he sneak in her bed while she slept?
One good dinner and now she's all "let's gently touch him in bed and take a shower in front of him" 🙄
Why is this bathroom set up like a communal shower? It's weird.
Although to be fair if he hopped in the shower with me I'd check him out too 🤷
They tied her to the seat in the plane. What the hell.
I'm so uncomfortable.
Ugh. Why. Why is this a thing.
So far this has been creepier than 50 Shades and 50 Shades is creepy as hell.
Hold on. I thought they were at a hotel. Why does he have a giant ass portrait of himself hanging up in his room?
I. Am. Uncomfortable.
Oh man. He has a nice butt.
Don't get distracted by the pretty man, Laura.
Onscreen Laura too.
He asked her to teach him how to be gentle, then handcuffs her to the bed and makes her watch while he hooks up with another woman.
Yup. Doing a great job there, Massimo.
Cool I'm back to being confused.
She can't walk in her heels and I'm dying laughing. Same, girl, same.
"What are you wearing?" "A couple thousand euro of yours." GET HIM.
Now we've entered the Scarface phase of the movie because there was just a copious amount of cocaine snorted.
Where did he pull two guns from??
So I don't know how long she's been with him at this point. I feel like that's something that needs to be clarified.
And she fell off the boat.
Of course she did.
Oh man. Why's he gotta be so cute with his fluffy curls and stubble and tattoos?
Also I'm pretty sure he only owns like two shirts because he's walked around shirtless for most of this movie.
We are now in the part of the movie where we've screamed awful things at each other and now we're going to bone it out.
All over the boat. Like every surface of the boat they have now banged on.
If y'all were dissatisfied with the raunchiness of the 50 Shades series, this is the movie for you because it far surpasses that.
Of course they're going to a ball. They always do in these rich people movies.
Makeover montage because why not.
Oh no. He's hot in a tux.
It always cracks me up in movies when people just automatically know how to ballroom dance like professionals without any training.
Every time I think this movie can't get more cliched, it does.
Why do I do this to myself? Why do I subject myself to bad movies?
I take it back. I know why I did it this time. The reason is 6'2" and looks damn good in a button up shirt.
"I thought you were kidnapped!" She was. You were a good friend for thinking that.
The switching between languages is giving me whiplash. It's very jarring going from Italian to Polish to English to Polish to Italian.
Her friend seeing through her bullshit is giving me life.
Also loving the fact that she's acknowledging she has Stockholm Syndrome. But because it's a movie it won't change anything.
Another makeover montage? So soon?
Also her friend keeps calling Massimo Mozzarella and it's hilarious.
That wig looks like it's about to crawl off her head.
Of course the ex shows up.
Honestly just knee him in the nuts and be done with it.
Why does Massimo think it's okay to break into her apartment and wait in the dark for her?
I don't know who thought using a blue light for her apartment was a good idea but it just looks like they're in a giant tanning booth.
"I don't need 365 days... Because I love you." GIRL NO.
I mean it was inevitable but it's still gross.
Yup. That's normal. Let's marry our kidnapper.
I want to snatch that wig off her head.
"What are your intentions with our daughter?" You don't want to know what his intentions are with your daughter, sir.
I will say that I love all her clothes in this movie.
Also she's pregnant. Calling it right now.
Called it.
Also good to know they've only known each other two months and they're going to get married and have a baby 👀
Her best friend is my favorite character and is the only likeable person in this whole movie.
Plot twist. Shocker.
This is so dramatic.
I will give them credit for the ending because that was unexpected.
In summary, this movie is trash and while the "love" scenes are pretty hot, it's not worth the time or effort that I clearly put into this.
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elfrooting · 3 years
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Hey, Nonny! Sorry for taking a while to reply, I wanted to make sure that I gave this the appropriate amount of time and thought, as it’s a subject that I think warrants a lot of care. Also I can’t seem to reply directly from my inbox, I think maybe Xkit is f-ing up at the moment, so sorry for the weird formatting as well!
Before I get into my opinion on the film, I think it’s important to clarify a couple of things.
1) I am part of the American Sámi diaspora. I have regrettably never lived in Sápmi (although if I thought my husband would let me drag him up there, I would be on a plane tomorrow), and my Sámi heritage is also something I have only recently begun the process of reconnecting to. My Sámi ancestor immigrated from Sweden to the United States to escape persecution and forced assimilation, so when they arrived here, they tried very hard to blend in with other Scandanavian immigrants and did not pass their language and culture down to their children. As such, I have not grown up in the culture and was raised in a very typically white midwest family, and so I don’t have the same lived experiences as a Sámi person who has grown up in Sámi culture in a country where racism against our people is still very much alive and well. I could write a whole separate post on what it means to be a white-passing indigenous person living thousands of miles from their ancestral lands with only bits and pieces of their culture accessible, but that’s not what you’re asking about, so I’ll save that for another time. But I do want to be very transparent about this part of my identity and make it clear that I experience a level of privilege that many, many Sámi do not.
2) Sámi people, like any marginalized group, are not a monolith. We are all individuals with our own differing backgrounds and lived experiences, and because of that our opinions on things like this are not universal. So what I say in this post may vary from what you see from other Sámi people, and my opinion does not invalidate or negate theirs. We are all allowed to feel however we feel about issues that relate to the representation of our culture in media and the impact it has on our community. My opinion is my own and shouldn’t be taken as The Sámi Opinion™ on the matter. There are a lot of other posts about it from other Sámi folks, as you’ve noted, and I would encourage everyone to look at all of them to get a broader view of how the film has been received by our community.
SO. All that being said, here are my thoughts:
The Frozen franchise already had kind of a special place in my heart because of Kristoff. According to the original script from the first film, his character is “a young Sámi boy,” and it was my first time ever seeing a Sámi person represented in an animated film. And while Disney did not remotely do Sámi culture any justice in the first movie, it still felt nice to see my culture being recognized in a children’s film at all. So few people have even heard of us that just to be seen felt kinda good, even if the representation was… not great. LOL.
The second film was produced with the help of Sámi people who consulted on the representation of our culture, both in terms of the aesthetics and the way the Northuldra people’s lifestyle was depicted. It was MUCH better than the first film. However, it still had some issues. This is going to get a bit long so I’m going to put it under a cut.
I think there are a lot of Sámi who can identify with reconnecting to the culture, self certainly included. Centuries of forced assimilation have left a lot of us displaced and removed from our heritage and I think we saw some of ourselves in Anna and Elsa’s discovery of their mother’s Northuldra roots. But the idea that Anna and Elsa automatically get accepted into their culture just by virtue of… a shawl? It felt a little bit superficial to a lot of people, and I think that’s valid. The reconnection process is long and involves proceeding with an abundance of caution, care, and respect. None of us would be able to come in and say “Hey, I have this liidni, it belonged to my mum, so I no longer represent colonization and all the horrific things my family did to you guys, isn’t that great!?” That shit wouldn’f fly, LMAO. 
And the idea that this person who hasn’t been raised in the culture can come in and claim her place without any work, and also happens to be a magical Chosen One archetype has some white savior overtones that are kind of uncomfortable, as well.
I also know that a lot of folks felt that the Northuldra fall into the “noble savage” trope, and I can definitely see that as well. So often the way indigenous people are portrayed boils down to Magical Nature People and it can be tiresome, because it leads to a lot of exotification/fetishization of our culture by outsiders. Like, Ryder’s last name is Nattura. It literally means nature in Icelandic. Of course nature is a huge part of indigenous culture, but we have interests and personalities beyond that and it would be nice to see those explored more in media.
And I’m also kind of salty about Kristoff not getting a proper reconnection, or really any explanation about his origins at all. I thought for sure that they were going to get into that, given his affinity for reindeer and the almost immediate brotherly bond he had with Ryder, but then… nada. I really need my soft Sámi boy to find his place and discover more about his own roots if there ever is a Frozen III. That and gay Elsa, those are my two demands from the Mouse, LOL.
But you know what? There were also parts of the film I really did love.
When Yelena called the Northuldra “people of the sun,” I legit got goosebumps. One of our creation stories explains that we were the children of the sun and the moon, and the seeds of that story are scattered all over Sámi culture. You can find our people referred to as “children of the sun” in some form in many places throughout history. Our flag has a large red and blue circle, which represents the sun and moon respectively. One of our most famous poets, Áillohaš, wrote a book called “Beaivi, Áhčážan,” or “The Sun, My Father.” Our national anthem refers to the Sámi as “Beaivvi bártniid,” sons of the sun. So to hear that referenced in the film was really something.
I also enjoyed the overt anti-colonial themes in the movie, with the dam representing the colonial oppression of indigenous people and Anna working to crumble it despite knowing it might mean the end of Arendelle. In recognizing the role some of her ancestors played in oppressing her other ancestors and doing “the next right thing” to correct it, she was showing that she was willing to face the ugly parts of her family’s history in order to truly embrace her heritage, and as someone with mixed indigenous and colonizer ancestry, I felt that in a big way.
So yeah… it definitely was not what I would call perfect representation, but then, I don’t think that media written about Sámi culture by non-Sámi people ever will be. Even the much-praised Klaus—which is a beautiful film, by the way, and I would literally die for Márgu—but even it had some room for improvement in the way we were portrayed. Still, I felt Frozen II had a lot of positives going for it and I’m hoping future installments in the franchise will continue to improve on indigenous representation, and that Disney will continue to involve our community in the discussion when doing so.
I hope that answers your question adequately, Nonny! Feel free to send another ask if you want me to expand on anything or provide any clarification. And thank you for the ask, and for listening and learning what you can about our culture. It means a lot!
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Any way we could get like a master list of like Tobias + Rachel moments like “first time they talk about their feelings” and “first kiss” etc? And what book it’s in? If that’s not too much. I love you!!
All right, this is going to be less a master list, more a “things I can think of off the top of my head,” but here it is.
The Non-Definitive List of Rachel/Tobias Milestones:
First crush: #1.  It’s hard to say how much is going on in the background of their first mission, because Jake is a clueless duffer who needs Cassie to explain romance to him and because Jake takes forever to wrap his head around the fact that Rachel is capable of having crushes on boys.  But we know that Rachel is looking at Tobias when she agrees to let the boys walk her and Cassie home, and we know that Rachel immediately jumps to Tobias’s defense when he and Marco start arguing.  Rachel is the most worried about Tobias when the others lose sight of him during that first battle, and the fastest to consider Tobias a part of the group.
Unresolved romantic tension: #3.  Tobias knows he has a thing for Rachel as of this book.  He knows, and he’s not ever planning on doing a dang thing about it, because he’s a bird and she’s a human.  They smash up car commercials together, they hunt for yeerk ships together, and they fly all over town together, but he’s pretty sure they’re going nowhere relationship-wise.  And then Rachel, in the middle of half-drowning in the truck ship’s water tank, starts to say what she needs to say before she dies.  She stays in morph longer than any of the others specifically so that she and Tobias can have this last moment alone.  And Tobias’s response to her near-confession is to grab a dracon beam and go take on an entire yeerk fleet alone.
Acknowledging their feelings: #7.  When the Ellimist comes with his offer, Jake and Marco focus on saving their families, Ax and Cassie go full environmentalist... and Rachel and Tobias are pissed.  Tobias figures out instantly that he’s only there as a human because the Ellimist wants to manipulate Rachel’s emotions through dangling the possibility of de-nothliting her honey-pie in front of her face.  Rachel’s pissed on Tobias’s behalf, Tobias on Rachel’s behalf, and the Ellimist is just deeply amused.
Resolving romantic tension: #12.  When Rachel doesn’t know what to do about the crocodile thing, she goes to Tobias.  When Tobias sees Rachel and Jake headed for another fight, he undercuts it so that Rachel wins.  They banter about Superman and Xena having kids together.  They jerk Marco around together.  They’re a couple already, even if they’ve never even held hands.
First couples’ fight: MM2.  They’re both tired and hungry and injured, to give credit where it’s due, and they’re entitled to get snippy with each other.  It’s also worth noting that they resolve their spat in a pretty healthy way — Tobias acknowledges that he underestimated how hard it would be to control the deinonychus morph, Rachel acknowledges that she underestimated how dangerous the deinonychuses would be, they both acknowledge that they’re not at their best and need to drop the subject until they’re in a better mood.  It’s also when Rachel recognizes that Tobias isn’t, fundamentally, a mere human: she doesn’t reach him through the dino instincts until she pivots from descriptions of fingers and toes and instead reminds him of flying.
Healthiest moment: #23.  Yes, a matter of opinion, but I love how supportive Rachel is toward Tobias throughout this whole book.  She’s quick to reassure him that she doesn’t think it’s weird to eat roadkill, and equally quick to drop the subject when he wants to.  Whatever Tobias needs, from a sympathetic ear to a killer grizzly, she’s happy to help him through this difficult time.
Labeling the relationship: #27.  Bless T.T. and his stupid little 1990s So Cal name.  It takes T.T.’s dimples and his smooth-talking and his sheer ordinariness for Rachel to realize that she doesn’t want dimples or smooth-talking or ordinariness.  She wants the kind of guy who is terrified of water but will become a sperm whale to keep her safe.  She wants a “mouse-eating freak,” because she’s a squid-eating freak herself.  She wants someone around whom she can be ugly, can be vulnerable, can be scared, can be herself.  Also, I love that moment with Tobias commenting that T.T. is “pretty cute, and perceptive too” after T.T. says something unrepeatable about Rachel’s violent tendencies and sense of propriety.
First kiss: MM3.  It’s the moment just after Rachel was “killed” by a cannonball aboard the Trafalager and then pops back up in the middle of Princeton University’s campus.  Tobias runs and grabs her, she smooches him, Marco asks if he can have a kiss as well, the racist dude that Cassie was in the middle of intimidating cries on the floor.  It’s all very romantic.
The L Word: #32.  The whole book is about Rachel learning to reconcile the different sides of herself, but a big part of it is her realizing that Tobias has gone through many of the same struggles.  Tobias knows she’s a killer, and he’s a killer too.  Tobias knows she’s a frightened softie at heart, and he is one too.  Tobias’s entire life has been about him trying to stick together disparate pieces of himself, which is why Tobias is the only thing Mean Rachel and Nice Rachel can agree upon, and it’s why Tobias is the only one whom Rachel wants to see after it’s all over.
Best “battle couple” moment: #36.  A matter of opinion, of course, but I love the moment that the yeerk submarine starts to come apart and Rachel bodily wraps herself around Tobias to protect him.  Honestly the whole motif of them pairing up their battle morphs — hawk-Tobias compensating for bear-Rachel’s major weakness through acting as her eyes and ears, bear-Rachel compensating for hawk-Tobias’s relative delicacy through being the tank of the team — does my heart good.  But I have an extra-large soft spot for this moment because when the shit hits the fan, Rachel’s immediate reaction is to throw her entire body between Tobias and danger.
Picking out furniture: #49.  Yes, Rachel is joking when she tells Tobias that they need to get patio furniture for his meadow, but it’s also an affirmation that they both view this as a long-term thing they’ve got going.  She wants them to have a place together, even if it is a random clearing in the woods with a deeply suspicious number of lounge chairs.
First date: ???  Arguably, Rachel and Tobias never go on a single actual date-date, and I think that’s a lot of the beauty of their utterly unique relationship.  Ones that could count:
Destroying a car commercial in #3.  Although there are hints in #2 that Rachel goes flying alone with Tobias sometimes, this is the first time we actually see them doing something for fun together.
Running around as hork-bajir in #13.  It’s the first time they go on a mission as a couple, the first time they really consider the possibility that they could have a relationship now that Tobias can morph, and the first instance of them using “paired” morphs together.
Tobias’s birthday in #23.  If “date” means sharing a meal together, then by gum Rachel baking an entire cake for Tobias and then having the world’s strangest conversation about his family history while they sit on the floor of her room and eat with their hands has got to count.
The school dance in #29.  This is the first time (that we know of) where they go to a public human gathering as a formal couple.
The opening sequence of #33.  This moment canonically makes “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls their song, and it involves the first real conversation about their future as a couple.
The ending sequence of #33.  EVERYTHING HURTS AND NOTHING IS OKAY at the end of this book, but it also involves them doing human-stuff like hugging and hanging out on the beach followed by them doing raptor-stuff like flying around together, because everyone but especially Rachel is trying to do whatever Tobias needs right then.  It’s also the most emotionally raw moment between them, but one they get through together.
Watching Felicity together in #35.  I love this moment, not in the least because Rachel and Tobias are both like “how dare you interrupt our soap opera with yeerks, Marco?” and it hints at what they’ve been up to in the background of the books they don’t narrate.  It’s also canon that Rachel doesn’t have a TV in her room, so that suggests that human-Tobias and human-Rachel were sacked out on her couch together, possibly while Naomi glared disapprovingly from the door to the kitchen.
Having burgers in #49.  Rachel bringing Tobias McDonald’s is actually the first time they label one of their own meetups as being a date, for what it’s worth.
Most painful moment: #54, duh.  For me it’s a three-way tie between Tobias guiding Rachel through her last battle after she’s blinded by snake venom, Rachel and Tobias both taking on human morph so that they can say goodbye to each other THROUGH A VIEWSCREEN, and Tobias stealing the urn with Rachel’s ashes because he wants her to have a memorial her way.  Ugggghh why do these children wound me so.
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thedreadvampy · 3 years
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look not to vague here particularly bc my comment about You Know did straddle the line between criticising art and being mean about a person, fair play there, it was not a simple critique of art
but my biggest beef with Fine Art as an educational establishment is that I've yet to meet a Fine Artist who's been taught to separate artistic criticism (which can be very harsh and very negative) from a personal attack.
and as I say I'm not talking about You Know here, I understand how that felt personal bc it was about his public persons not just his work. but the idea that negative comments are inherently unkind or are a suppression of the Artistic Vision are pretty endemic to my experience of Fine Artists (whether at college/university or pros in their fifties setting up shows in spaces I've helped run).
like I tend to say the thing I got from my undergrad that I couldn't have got without studying art wasn't technique or theory (you can learn those from books) but the ability to give and take productive criticism.
and that includes criticism that isn't meant as concrit tbh, like, my tutor used to say 'clients don't know shit about art but if they say something looks like a dick you need to be able to either take the dick out or make sure there's a good reason for the dick to be there.' like art is made to be seen so anybody who sees it and tells you what they're seeing in it is giving you useful information even if they're also being a cunt. this is especially true for commercial work/work to brief but like. all art you put out the world rather than keeping as a personal/practise work is a communicative medium so what is communicating Matters.
you won't always have to change it but you do have to accept that some people won't like it and some people won't like it for reasons that didn't occur to you. so taking critique effectively is about listening to what the other person is saying and deciding whether or not you think their point is valid, significant and useful. and sometimes it isn't! like I've suggested some changes to people's works in progress and been really glad they ignored me when I saw how they finished it! and sometimes we are just gonna disagree! if you put a political message in your work and I say 'i think that message sucks' that doesn't mean you're WRONG or your art needs changing it may just mean. we disagree. but art is a conversation and for a conversation to work people are gonna have opinions about it.
and btw there's a skill to giving good critique too and it means getting beyond 'i like' or 'i don't like' and trying to work out what specifically you're reacting to and why. like 'the anatomy is dodgy' is less helpful than 'the hand looks weird' is less helpful than 'the hand looks stiff and awkwardly posed' is less helpful than 'what if you moved this finger to here?'. Saying 'i hate this' is less useful than 'this colour scheme makes me nauseous' is less useful than 'i think the juxtaposition of these two colours is gross, is that intentional? if not it might be nicer with a warmer yellow'. and always giving space for the artist to consider and explain why they made intentional choices.
critique is not about instruction but about questioning. but like. also if you have to give a ten minute explanation of why you made a choice then the art probably isn't effectively communicating for itself and that's useful information in itself. like 'I'm not sure what you're trying to say' or 'this seems kind of on the nose is there something more you're trying to get across' are Very Useful Criticisms to develop your work
but a lot of people get very defensive and like not to be a dick but while there's a few in every group, every single time I've had a joint crit with fine artists they have just been dreadful at taking crits. like it's always the fine artists who get upset at you questioning their vision and burst into tears or storm out or say "why are you all picking on me" when like. the crit they're getting is way lighter than in illustration or graphic design groups.
and like. this makes me sad. because I think when it comes to art teaching, group and individual crits are like 90% of the most valuable learning. like I didn't get a lot out of my art education because I had The World's Most Amazing Artists as teachers! (some of them have been really good though) I got a lot out of my art education because group crits helped shape my work, make specific changes, and learn from 30 other minds who saw my work from different angles. and if that basic skill, to criticise and be criticised, isn't being developed in five art courses then those students are missing a vital skill to keep improving and developing their work and communicating their ideas clearly and strongly.
also uhhhhhh if they haven't learnt to take criticism from other artists in a safe managed environment like a studio or classroom then they are really gonna Struggle if they get any notoriety because the majority of people who look at art aren't thinking about how to improve it, they're criticising from the perspective of a finished work, and that's still useful critique but it's much less likely to be couched in compliments or to come with specific suggestions for improvement. and with commercial art clients they often know nothing about process or theory they just know if they Like It or Don't Like It. so it helps to have practise in interpolating vague or general criticism into actionable changes and subjective opinions, and to have had space to develop some resilience. you know. it DOES hurt when people criticise your work, particularly if it's very personal, and it takes work and practise to get past that kneejerk defensive reaction and to step back from it a bit. but somebody saying "I don't like this art" or "this art is shallow/obvious/meaningless/ugly/unpleasant" isn't a personal attack. it feels like one bc you know how much thought and effort and work and how much of yourself goes into every piece. but art is a conversation and a negative response is part of that conversation. and if your work reaches a wide enough audience someone ain't gonna like it and uhhhh. a lot of fine artists don't seem to be able to cope with that concept.
(mind you if somebody says "this art is ugly and meaningless because it was made by an ugly meaningless stupid person" then yeah that's about you and they're being a dick (but also. it is about you and it isn't about you, it's about the single facet of you that they see from your art, and they do not know you and aren't speaking to your actual worth even if they think they are). but even there like. block it out and move on bc throwing a tantrum at them, however justified, only makes things worse. their opinion is not of you the entire human person but of you the reflection they're seeing in their interpretation of the art. it's not your problem.)
like it's not that you don't get to be upset when people talk shit about your art or recieve it in a way you don't like. of course you do. but it's also uhhhhh an inevitable consequence of putting art out into the world. by putting it out publicly you are inviting 'what do you think about this' and you can't be surprised when people tell you. it's not bullying to Not Like Your Artwork. it's kind of aggro to seek somebody out to tell them you don't like their art and all the things they should change about it (and that's got pretty endemic with the internet and accessibility of artists) but it's on you if you go looking for reviews or critiques or responses to your work and then can't cope with the fact that they're not unilaterally positive and not everyone is picking up what you're putting down.
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randomoranges · 3 years
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bonjour là, bonjour
i think this fic has been in the works for years, in one way or another, slowly building as i found the blocks for it. through discussions and thoughts and whatnot. 
the innitial idea for it is new, but the content is a few years old. i finally found a place for it. 
it’s a big rambly mess of étienne talking about the 5 times he fell in love. the fic in itself is a Beast that i decided to hack up into smaller parts. i’m not even done with the last of it and it’s already 20 pages. 
i know it’s still dialogue soliloquy heavy, but - for now it’s how it goes.
i don’t know when i’ll be posting the other 4 parts. 
also yeah, this reminds me of the 5+1 fic model that was in vogue a while back. i tried to see if it could work that way but didn’t want to push it haha 
im also still unsure if it happens during exile 1 (spring 2020) or 2 (fall-winter-early spring 2020-2021) or if it happens later, but the fic does take place at edward’s house 
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The Five Times Étienne Fell in Love Part I: Geneviève 
 They’ve been quietly passing a cigarette back and forth, sitting on the back porch, for the better part of the last hour or so. It’s nice, moments like these and they’ve both come to seek them out when they can. It’s sunny today and pleasant and it’s a nice change from the cold and the wind. Edward had gone out in search for Étienne and he’d found his boyfriend here, like he often does, throwing a ball at Mercury, who’d left the chickens alone for this game of fetch instead. He’d watched for a moment, amused and endeared by the scene, before he’d taken a seat beside his boyfriend.
 Somewhere along the line, their conversation had changed for companionable silence and Étienne had taken out a smoke he’d been more than willing to share. Edward had indulged himself, as he often did when Étienne offered him a cigarette, and he’d gotten lost in his own thoughts, a particular issue ruminating in his head as he watched the swaying grass and the budding branches of the tree.
 “Hey,” He finally breaks the silence after a rustle of wind. Besides him, Étienne turns and looks at him, questioning gaze in his green-brown eyes. It’s a delicate subject matter, what he wants to ask about, but a recent rummage through his attic had made him re-read some old correspondence and had left him with a few nagging questions. “This is going to sound weird, but, how is it you told me you didn’t do love and romance, yet wrote to me about a wife, being in love with one other woman and at least two men?”
 It’s an odd way to phrase it, he knows, but something had been squirming inside of him ever since he’d found those particular letters and he knows he needs to address it before it turns ugly. He’d more or less forgotten about the content of those letters, really, however, re-reading them had made him wonder and ponder. Why was Étienne able to love those people and be frank about it, but not about him? Why hadn’t he told him back then? What had made any of it different?
 Étienne looks at him, surprised by the question and lets out a nervous laugh. He falls quiet after that and ponders his answer for a long while. His hands start playing with the hem of his sweater and Edward recognises it as the nervous trait that it is. Edward puts a hand to Étienne’s knee and gives it a reassuring squeeze to hopefully stop the bounce it’s started. He’s not angry and he’s not about to accuse Étienne of anything. He just – wants an answer if there is an answer to be had.
  If anything, Étienne takes a deep breath and then gives him a look, before looking back out to the chickens, the dog, and the nature slowly awakening from its long wintery slumber.
 “I told you I didn’t do love and romance to spare you frustration, really.” He finally admits, quiet as he makes an impressive twist with his sweater sleeve around his thumb.
 Edward looks at him, confused and unsure he understands what Étienne means by that. There was plenty of frustration in the end. He hadn’t been spared at all. If anything, it had nearly felt like a waste of time, on some of his worst moments.
 “I don’t – I’m not,” Étienne tries and fails and lets out an annoyed huff at himself, “I didn’t want you to be disappointed; I thought I was broken.” His hands take flight, flitting this way and that, tugging on a curl one moment and pushing up his glasses the next. “Not because of what I did over the 70s and my general fucked up mind – although, that was part of it – but I don’t fall in love like other people. It takes me longer to get to that point – and sometimes I simply don’t. I didn’t want you to have to deal with that – have expectations I wouldn’t be able to live up to – in case. Didn’t want to put you through that or lose you along the way because I’m different. It took me a while to figure it out and a longer time still to come to terms with it, but it seemed no one got it and everyone thought surely, romantic attraction had to happen, so I stopped trying to explain myself and never told you.”
 There’s anger there – anger and resentment towards himself, maybe, but perhaps even towards those people who had hurt Étienne along the way. Edward wonders what his boyfriend had experienced and who those people are so that he may have a word with them. In his opinion, Étienne is a wonderful person and anyone who fails to see that is severely missing out.
 Étienne shrugs, looks away again, and then fishes out another cigarette he quietly lights up, while Edward does his best to absorb this information. It – makes sense, retrospectively and he’s just surprised that it’s taken them this long for Étienne to mention it. Then again, he supposes their renewed friendship and relationship hadn’t left much time or space for such a conversation, but – he’s still somewhat surprised.
 He knows Étienne is deflecting with the smoke to hide how vulnerable he must feel and Edward knows that he’s treading on thin ice. Étienne is opening up to him in his own way; sharing something new and one wrong remark and he’ll clam up and never discuss any of this ever again. Therefore, Edward waits patiently and tries to form a coherent question that will guide Étienne in his tale without scaring him away.
 “How did you find out?” He asks gently. It’s not his best question, but he’s not sure he’s fully grasped this truth Étienne has just presented him with. There’s more to uncover, he can tell, and more he craves to know and understand, but rushing Étienne to the end point will be of little use to them.
 “Surprisingly or not, it’s El who got me thinking about it – a little over three hundred years ago. I was already trying to figure out how sex and religion worked. How that could affect me, considering what we are and all. Élise had come over that day and we were catching up, talking, when she told me about this man who’d been after her for a while now and her utter lack of wanting anything to do with him. I figured she simply wasn’t interested in this one particular man, but she admitted to me that it wasn’t just him. The idea of being involved with a man repulsed her. She couldn’t stand the idea of it.”
 “She tried to deflect from it, say that with us not aging it made things complicated and that men would expect her to give them children and such, which she couldn’t, so why bother? I thought it was the only reason why she didn’t want to – it would get awkward, feelings would be crushed and such, but she admitted that even the idea of just going to bed with someone held no interest to her. She’d heard enough horror stories from the women in the city and even then, even if she ignored those tales, the idea of fooling around held no attraction to her. Hence, she politely turned down her suitors and moved on.”
 “Yet, for as much as she made it sound so simple, I could tell that it bothered her – to some extent. That she felt different. For as much as there were those women who had gone through hell with their so called husbands, there were still those who went for a lay in the park or whatever euphemism was used at the time. And I think that at first, hearing those women talk of the thrill of the handsome man and whatever made my sister feel alienated from them. As if she wasn’t normal for not even feeling an ounce of heat at the most salacious of novels or something. It took her a while to come to terms with it, it obviously didn’t happen overnight. A lot of introspection, but once she really realised that she was happy in her own life, she let go of the idea that she was missing something. She liked her life, why should it matter what she did or didn’t do with men or others?”
 “But I think that after she opened up to me about this side of her, it made me realise that I could relate to some parts. I wanted to experience sex – out of curiosity and out of defiance. However, I wasn’t looking for everlasting love or whatever garbage was suddenly in vogue. I figured it was a phase. Once I’d have my share of the forbidden fruit and I’d get it out of my system, I would most likely want to go for this “romance” or something. It was probably my “coming of age” or whatever.”
 Étienne remembers seeing his old friends marry and start families and the frustration he’d felt then. How he’d been told that he was too young even though he’d seen those same friends be born. He hadn’t fully understood at the time and he’d grown to resent those who’d been chosen to care for him who kept on telling him that greater things were in store for him – that he was special and different from them. At the time, he just wanted to be like everyone else he lived with.
 He would listen to some of the older boys go on about being interested in some of the girls, or how their parents had found a good match for them. He’d been too young at the time, even if he felt old and older still. There’d been a few – moments he still remembered. Furtive touches under a summer moon; nothing significant  but that had left lasting impressions on his young impressionable mind. He’d be intrigued, would ask when his turn would be, and would receive a pat on a head and some never ending story about his special role.
 “Instead, I realised that not only was that not the case, I kept eyeing gentlemen as well. Retrospectively, I wasn’t really surprised. When I was younger, before I chose to stay in the city, there’d been a few older boys I had always admired. Because they were “cool” or whatever the equivalent to that was at the time.  Boyhood “attractions” and very good male friends I always wanted to be with. Was it love? Was it lust? Was it hormones? Was it a real crush? I honestly don’t know; I think it was a coming of age thing, more so than love. It felt different from when I was in love. But now that I was older, it seemed it wasn’t just women I was interested in and that set me off on a tangent as well. Then again, I suppose I’d always been pulled towards both yet even that was different.”
 Edward feels he understands that at the very least. He remembers his own dawning realisations that he was interested in men that way and that for as much as he liked women and respected them, he never ever wanted to be with them like that. He’d kept the truth to himself for a long while, acutely aware of how that was treated in the new society he’d found himself living in, mourning the more open minded outlook of the other.  By the time he’d decided to dare a little, it had all eventually blown up in his face, but that’s not the tale for this time around.
 “Despite that, no matter how many times I went to the brothels, no matter the people I met, there was none of this love stuff happening so I turned to the one expert on the subject that I knew at the time – Samuel.”
 Edward can’t help but laugh at that, “You must have been really desperate to ask him!”
 Étienne rolls his eyes and playfully hits his arm, “Hey, no judging, it was the height of the 1700s and I had no one else to ask.”
 “What? Confession no longer good for you, Maisonneuve?” He teases.
 “Oh yeah, sure, that would have been good – oh father, do provide your great assistance, for not only have I sought the cock, but now I find myself thinking of loving it as well. How many Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s will that be? Will a donation work instead? Same time next week??”
 They’re both wheezing and Mercury spares them a glance, concerned, but quickly lets them be when Étienne pets her head. Edward grasps his shoulder for support and Étienne tries not to choke.
 “Alright, so you asked Sam – how much did you regret that move?”
 “I asked Sam, since talking with El led to nothing. But –  you’re right, that was probably not the best of moves. Samuel was constantly falling in love. Every time I met with him, he was always going on about his latest flame and he made it sound so easy and effortless. So I asked him – how it worked, because I knew he visited – well special brothels and such. So – if he could fall in love and also sleep with others, then clearly, I was doing something wrong and seeing as he is my older brother, I figured he’d have brotherly advice to pass around.” He crinkles his nose at that and Edward chuckles, anticipating the next part of the tale.
 “Except – Sam’s answer made no sense. He talked about how he’d meet someone and just feel it. He’d love them from day one – or nearly and his sexual desires for those he loved always nearly overlapped the ones of love – which was never the case for me up until then. I thought a person was attractive, sure. I wanted to bed them, sure. But the most that turned into was friendship. There were none of the butterflies and giddy feelings Sam would go on about. I thought maybe something was wrong with me, but I consoled myself in thinking that Samuel was always – extra in everything he did and overly dramatic; therefore, he was probably exaggerating things.”
 “A wise conclusion to come to,” Edward said encouragingly.
 “Right?! That’s what I thought as well! Decided not to go to him for advice after that. Still, when I first started going to the brothels, I was on guard for the feelings Sam had mentioned – waiting for them, in case. I thought maybe the feelings developed after a certain time, when I didn’t feel anything but attraction towards my partners, yet when I asked Sam he told me that it didn’t take this long. That I should already feel something. It’s when I started to think that maybe something was wrong with me. Surely, there had to be if I wanted to bed a person but I couldn’t love them! Maybe God really had forsaken me and I wasn’t allowed to feel His love for His children or whatever. I thought maybe it would have been easier if I would have felt like El – she just – didn’t want anything to do with love or sex.”
 He stops in his tale and starts fidgeting with his sweater again. The easiness and playfulness from earlier is gone and Edward feels that this is the part Étienne’s been slowly building up to.
 “I think, retrospectively, I may have only been infatuated with Geneviève,” Étienne starts. Edward knows her name and the story behind her, but he lets Étienne ramble on, knowing that if he interrupts, Étienne might never speak of this again. “I was young and full of grand ideas. She was everything I wasn’t supposed to want. She worked in a brothel and the church said I wasn’t supposed to go there or seek out the pleasures of the flesh. Copulation was only for making children and only amongst married people. But – I couldn’t have children and I wasn’t about to get married. So visiting the brothel was like an act of rebellion.”
 “She was the first one to welcome me in and she was – beautiful. It sounds like a cliché but she was. She was so confident in herself – in what she did and – patient with me. I was an overeager gangly mess, but she made sure I learned the finer details of being with a woman. She must have been with dozens of people like me, yet she made me feel special and she took the time to explain. I knew after I left that night that I wanted to see her again. I needed to see her again. Mostly because of the sex, but I had also enjoyed talking with her.”
 “The priests made it sound like the women who worked the brothels were soulless and damned, yet Geneviève was anything but that. She was vivacious and smart and she knew more than they all did, most likely. I ended up going back – again and again and again. I’d pay for my time with her, pay more for extra and – she was just a pleasure to be around. Maybe it was the novelty of it all, maybe I was just really horny and the fact that I was sticking it to the church felt good, but for a full year, I would always go to her. I even sometimes met up with her during the day – we’d go for a stroll, eat somewhere. I knew she saw other people – that it was her job to sleep with men, but – I didn’t mind. And she got a kick out it – of being paraded out like a proper lady, she would say and we’d have a grand old time of it. Maybe, in the end, we were just friends, but at the time it felt like love – I know I had never felt anything quite like it.”
 Edward knows how the story ends in this case; how the following winter Geneviève had taken ill and never recovered. Another casualty of the flu. Étienne doesn’t bring it up and Edward doesn’t pry. Instead, he takes his hand and gives it a squeeze.
 “I wrote the whole thing off afterwards. Convinced myself it didn’t matter. It’s not as if I could ever live life with a human or even be one, so what was the point if I didn’t feel romantic love? I came to think that maybe I hadn’t found the “right person” – maybe I worked differently because I wasn’t like my people. It had to be that. Maybe I had to fall for someone like me – like Emma; I loved her, even if I didn’t want to sleep with her, so surely, I was on the right path. It just had to click on all aspect, but even when I tried, there was never that connection – the butterflies and the swooping feelings Sam had mentioned.”
 “Then, I asked Jacques about it; figured he would know something about love. He had Suzette after all.”
 In Edward’s opinion, Étienne should have gone to Jacques first, but he kept the thought to himself.
 “Surprised it took you that long.” He chides instead.
 “Listen, I never said I did it right,” Étienne says and then goes on, “I thought I could get a better sense of love from him. Instead, I left even more confused,” Étienne laughs ruefully at that and then quiets, “He told me he knew he was in love with Suzette from day one. That he admired her and wanted to be with her for as long as possible – he wanted to “grow old with her.” I thought that was daunting; the idea of being with someone in that way for so long. Who would ever want that? The idea of still being into someone so many years down the road sounded preposterous to me, but Jacques assured me that it was possible – that it was real and it was how he felt for Suzette. I thought he was crazy, so I ignored him and then I met Charlotte.”
--
Part II
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Survey #333
“imaginary chain  /  the one you never break  /  seething all alone”
Do you have any fears you would rarely admit to anyone? Nah, I'm pretty open about what I'm afraid of. What website do you spend most of your time on? YouTube. What class in high school did you struggle with the most? I honestly don't remember with certainty, but it was probably math or economics. At least, I think econ was my senior year. What could you talk about for hours? Mark, meerkats, a few game franchises... maybe a couple more topics. Who is your favorite character from Harry Potter? I wouldn't know. Do you salt your popcorn? Yes. Do you have a Steam account? Yeah, but I don't have many games on there and rarely touch the ones I do. Do you like gaming? I do, but not as much as I did for most of my life. I mostly just play WoW now, and even that I'm not that into anymore. Part of it though comes from not buying any new games that I'm interested in because 1.) no money and 2.) no proper console, and you can only replay games so many times before you're just... yeah, done. Do you like reading books? Some days. Do you like religion? All things considered? No. Do you like Grand Theft Auto V? Y'know, growing up, I actually liked watching my younger neighbor play one of those games, but I don't remember which. Though he never actually "played" it... just ran around wreaking havoc, lol. I do however think GTAV was the one that Jason and Jacob started playing together when we moved into the apartment, and I thought the story was okay; I don't think they ever got far into it, though. Definitely wasn't Jason's sort of game, and I don't think it was too much up Jacob's alley, either. Can you twerk? I haven't tried and you will never see me try either, lmao. Do you have a Spotify account? Yes, but I almost never use it. If the last person you kissed tried to kiss you again, would you start kissing them back? Yes. If your best friend of the opposite sex tried to kiss you, would you start kissing them back? No. Have you ever kissed someone who has previously kissed someone you hated? Yes, because of how badly she hurt him. I don't have any negative feelings towards her now, though. We're actually friends, haha. The irony. Are you an easy lay? What weird wording. But whatever, quite the polar opposite actually. When’s the last time you said you were sorry? A few days ago. Are there any songs you listen to everyday? No. Would you like living on the coast? As someone who lives in a state hit by hurricanes usually every year and has seen the incredible damage they usually bring to the coast, no. I don't like the smell or gritty feel of salty air, either. When’s the last time you were really late to something? No idea. That's usually not a problem with me. Why did you stop liking the last person you liked? The last person I actually stopped like-liking would be Girt, and that would be because I just came to the realization I saw him too much as my brother instead of boyfriend. It just always felt awkward. Do you still talk to that person? Yeah, we're good. No hard feelings or anything between us. Are you keeping a secret from someone who needs to know the truth? No. Do you trust easily? Fuck no. I'll be cautious, at least to some degree, about new people for a while. What is the last song to make you cry? Since I've actually behaved and not listened to any trigger songs, it's been a long while, but it was probably "Another Life" by Motionless In White. Last person you hung up on? I'm sure some automated message. I barely ever answer the phone to numbers I don't recognize, though. Where was your last car ride to and from? To Wal-Mart w/ Mom to pick up our order and then back home. Next big outing? *shrug* Do you find it difficult to stay invested in online relationships? Not really, no. Considering I'm by far my most authentic self online, I actually tend to appreciate virtual friends more, if I'm being honest. I try to keep up with those people. Are you the type of person who pays close attention to the release dates of movies, music, etc., and will, for example, go see a movie or buy an album on the date it is released? If so, when is the last time you did so? Not really, no. I think I saw Warcraft the day it came into theaters, though. Do movies often make you cry? What kind of films/scenes make you tear up most? Yep. Tragic romance tends to do it the most, I think. Do you use any apps to track your health or medications? I have one to track my menstrual cycle as well as another that tracks my daily caloric intake, but I'm bad at using it because it's tedious if I actually have to measure something. Whose opinions/recommendations do you value most? Ummm if you mean like, in general, probably my mom's. But this most certainly depends on the subject I'm taking feedback on. What is something society "expects" you to do that you don't want to do and/or don't plan on doing? Shaving my legs came to mind first. Granted, I will if there is almost any chance of someone seeing them, but otherwise, I just don't care. We respect women with body hair on this account and see them as no less feminine. Are you interested in architecture? Is there any particular style that you're drawn to? I think it's cool, yeah. I should have an answer for this, given architecture was a massive focus in Art History the last time I was in school... Roman architecture comes to my head first, if that says anything. What was one of your favorite things from the nineties? BOY OH BOY, SO MUCH!! I'm probably gonna say the toys. There was some dope shit, man. Do you collect things pertaining to an animal? ANYTHING and EVERYTHING featuring a meerkat!!!!! :''') Do you wish that people were kinder to spiders? Well, yes. I hope everyone in their heart wishes this, even if they're afraid of them. They're very important to our ecosystem, and none are out there to harm us; their existence does us a favor. Where do you normally order pizza from? Domino's (my favorite) or LIttle Caesar's for the price. Did your parents keep anything of yours from when you were a baby? Oh yes, loads of stuff that's stored away somewhere. Do you own one of those "____ For Dummies" books? No, but I feel like we had one at some point? What was the last VHS tape that you watched? Yikes, who knows. Did you watch Boy Meets World back in the day? I actually didn't, no. Our old neighbor though loved it so much that she named her daughter Tapanga (deliberately spelled that way). Who is your favorite Scooby Doo character? I never really had one. Maybe Thelma. If I were to give you a coloring book, what would you want its theme to be? Animals. Have you ever won a stuffed animal at a carnival? Possibly a small one. I can tell you I did however accidentally stab the guy who ran the dart-throwing booth though, lmfao. He was obviously fine, and it wasn't a bad wound. I felt SOOOOOO bad. Are you a fan of narwhals? I'm a fan of any animal. Narwhals are definitely fascinating creatures. Grape or orange soda? Orange. Grape-flavored soda ain't my thing. Have you ever wanted to vlog? Noooo. My life is so painstakingly boring and repetitive. Did you have a favorite Disney movie as a child? It was and still is The Lion King. Do you or have you ever owned a portable gaming console? Yeah, a GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS. Is shyness cute? It definitely can be. Have you ever had alcohol poisoning before? No. Do you like to gossip, or do you prefer to keep your mouth shut? I'm not a gossip fan. Have you ever vandalized someone else’s property before? Most definitely not. Are your parents divorced? Yes. Have you ever been under suicide watch for 72 hours in a psychiatric ward? Yes; at least here, that's protocol when you're admitted for suicidal thoughts/tendencies. Have you ever gone through your significant other’s phone or social media accounts, or do you respect their privacy? Absolutely not. That shit pisses me off so badly. Do you wear any sort of clothing for religious reasons? No. What's something you worked extremely hard to get? My sanity back. Sounds so dramatic, but I'm literally not kidding. Have you ever been labeled negatively or otherwise been called something extremely derogatory? Not that I remember. How many kids do you want to have? I don't want kids, but to entertain the question, when I did, I wanted three. It's fuckin wild to imagine for even a second that I once wanted that. Do you believe that being gay is a sin? *eye roll* Are you any good at photography? If so, what’s your specialty? I mean it with modesty, but I think I'm pretty good. My favorite thing to photograph are animals, but I generally take most pictures of people by request or pay. Judging by my deviantART account, my nature pics definitely get the most attention. Have you ever been a member of a gang before? Fuckin yikes, no. An infamous gang tried breaking into my childhood home once, so you can probably gather that I would never take part in their "big bad guys" bullshit. Have you ever felt like you were neither male nor female? No, I'm comfortable as a cisgender female. Do you like oatmeal raisin cookies? NO. Anything with raisins = NO. Do you think you’re attractive? No. Has a teacher ever caught and read a note you were passing in class? No, not that I really passed notes to begin with. I'd be mortified, regardless of what it was about. Would you rather live in a tropical or arctic climate? Arctic. Do you have an older brother? Yes. He's technically my half-brother, but I don't see "half"s. Have either of your parents ever been to jail? No. Are your collarbones prominent? Bitch I wish so I could get the damn dermal piercings I've wanted for years. Have you ever in your life worn overalls? As a kid, yeah. So ugly. Do you love yourself? It's... weird. Therapy is making me realize that a part of me, maybe even the bigger one, doesn't, but at the exact same time, I know I have worth just like every other human. I just don't treat myself like I do. What TV shows do you keep up with? None, until Meerkat Manor returns this summer. :') When’s the last time it snowed where you live? A couple months ago we got a little bit of it. Is your belly button pierced? No, but it would be if I was actually skinny. Just in my personal opinion, I don't at all think that that piercing would look nice on someone as overweight as me. Even if my damn dreams come true and I lose all the weight I want, my stomach will never look "normal," even after I get the excess skin removal surgery that will be very high on my priority list for my own self-image that's been nothing but loathsome since 2016. What is your favourite dinosaur? Spinosaurus is the obvious answer. What do you remember the most about your childhood? Lots of imagination. Parents arguing. Playing with my little sister. What age did you get your first hair cut? I have no idea. Do you have a favourite toy from childhood still? No. I wish I hadn't gotten rid of it. Have you ever made bread? No. Would you ever consider shaving your head? Nah. Would you like to live in a realm where the zombie apocalypse is possible? Who says we don't now? Zombifying parasites already exist among insects and such, so like... it's not unimaginable to one day see one developed enough to infect humans. I sure as fuck hope not, but. What do you use to dry your clothes? (Tumble dryer, radiator, etc) We have a dryer. Do you ever play the built-in games on your computer? Which ones? Nah. What was the last spontaneous thing you did? I did this many, many months ago, but I guess watch an episode of The Witcher by my own volition. I don't really do spontaneous things with how routine I am, but I had a random urge to check it out one morning. How loud can you whistle? Not very loud at all. Does anything on your body hurt or itch right now? My knees really hurt. They're getting worse. When was the last time you built a sandcastle? There's noooo telling, it's been many years. Have you ever ridden a mechanical bull? No. Well, not a *real* one, anyway. Just the little ones for kids. If you had to appear on a game show, which one would you choose? Family Feud. What is your favorite hot beverage? Hot chocolate. Do you have an alter ego? Describe them: No. Food: Are you adventurous or do you stick to what you know? I absolutely stick to what I know. I am SO picky. Is there anything (out of the obvious) that makes you feel really ill? I'm not immediately sure, but there's probably something. Do you bump into things often? Yes. I've always had this weird habit of like... drifting when I walk, so I do this easily. I just kinda wander to the sides a bit without realizing it. What design is on your calendar this year? I don't have a current one. Did you enjoy playing Hop Scotch when you were younger? I did. Do you feel uncomfortable going to the movies by yourself? Nah, not really. I did that with Warcraft and it was actually pretty chill. When thinking about your dream home, what do you think would be your favorite thing to shop for? The ~g o t h i c~ decor. Do you ever listen to those lo-fi hip hop/study music playlists on YouTube/Spotify? No. Are you likelier to work harder if you’re being paid? If not, what drives you to give your best effort? I mean, yeah. I'd assume that's pretty normal. Does the fashion sense of a potential partner matter to you? No. Is there anything that you prefer to write down rather than type? I'm unsure. If you download/torrent things, do you remember the first thing you ever torrented? Oh, the Limewire days of music pirating... but no, I don't remember. What was the last thing you posted on Instagram? Something photography-related, but I don't feel like checking. What do you wish your hair looked like? I wish I could pull off pastel pink hair rn. It also desperately needs a trim. Do you still feel anything for the first person you fell in love with? I'm sure I always will, at least a little. Do you get any magazines in the mail? No. Have you ever paid for any kind of online membership? Uhhhhh have I? I don't think so. Who’d you last see in a tux? Probably the groom of the last wedding I shot. Do you record any TV shows and watch them later? No, but I used to do that big time because I loved "rewatching" stuff when I was on the computer. Out of everyone you know, who was the most heart? My mother, big time. Who’s the bravest person you know? Also my mother. Or Sara. What profession do you admire the most? Teachers might just win. The patience that must take, among so many other things. Have you ever made a fake profile, for any reason? No.
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I like Kat’s lyrics better than Courtney’s cuz they are like riddles and she uses word play and puts phrases together in weird ways but to me it works. It’s like dream poetry, even angry ones. Courtney writes straightforward Diary-like or therapy session confessional lyrics that you know what she’s about. She’s more verse chorus verse which is more professional songwriting style so I see why you and a lot of people might like her lyrics better than Kat’s.
Interesting take, you’re right! They are much like riddles and also children nursery rhymes to play hopscotch, for example in Catatonic. And she also combines similarly sounding words. So she uses a play with the words a lot and the poetic sense of her lyrics lies in the way she combines words, sounds, pronunciation. Plus the dream-like vibe... Kat was diagnosed with schizophrenia at some point, sometimes i wonder if that influenced her writing style? It’s way harder to tell what are they about, if they’re even about anything and not something random. But even less meaningful songs of Kat have good lyrics. It’s been a while since i listened to them closely instead of having music in the background, but they’re entertaining even to just read in the booklet/internet without music.  
Courtney is definitely more emotional-therapeutic like you said. But the verse chorus verse structure actually dominates in her later works. Pretty On The Inside wasn’t conventionally verse chorus verse and it feels like it’s all taken from poems rather than songs. It’s similar to more free-writing forms Courtney used to write in booklets, show posters or that zine she printed on pink paper. I’ll have to get my Dirty Blonde copy and see but Courtney took a lot of lines from other short poems... With her 1st album i have a theory there are subjects of violence against women, rape, murder, prostitution, betrayal but i think she used them as a vessel to speak about her self-hatred and feeling ugly. I don’t think she went through prostitution/rape but she stripped and almost got raped, she spent childhood in reformatory and boarding schools more than at home, then landed on the end of the states to strip in shady club at the age of 16, it’s not exactly being a teenage whore but there’s this underlying consciousness that it’s somewhere between this and normal life and some people might consider it as bad as prostitution or whatever. She’s loud and confident but she probably felt very cheap and ugly back then. I can relate to raw anger and self hatred or lack of belief coming from this album. 
But coming back to poetry, I can’t decide what are Kat Bjelland’s best lyrics, maybe you tell which song is best in your opinion? If it comes to Courtney i’m always most fascinated with Mrs Jones, Drown Soda and Burn Black. Mrs Jones gives hints about overall idea of what happens in this song, but it makes you wonder about details, what each line means, etc. I like to hear people’s interpretations on Mrs Jones cause it seems to be understandable on the surface but it has different possibilities. I wish someone asked her exactly what it is about. And with Kat Bjelland, i’d like to know what Angel Hair is about.
I like a lot Katie Jane Garside’s lyrics, but I have no idea what she sings about most of the time. I actually tried and made an attempt to analyze her entire discography, but that was VERY HARD and i still don’t know if i was correct.
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docfuture · 4 years
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Princess, part 7
     [This story is a prequel, set several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16.  Links to some of my other work are here.  Updates are theoretically biweekly–next update is scheduled for February 16th.]
Previous: Part 6
     Full intragroup and intergroup relative advantage simulation run started.  Estimated time for results: 6 hours at current background priority.       Flicker finished her third high speed assessment of Practical Power Dynamics and supporting information on people and organizations that had used it.  It had sparked insights--it was full of interesting social science--but it was also full of traps.  Many of them seemed to be associated with naive scaling--the book's advice seemed unusually hostile to the incentive structures of large organizations, such as major corporations, government agencies, and international organized crime.  She didn't yet have the context to follow the social changes the book had inspired, other than the notable de-fetishization of gratuitous killing.  A long model run would help, but it would also take a while.       Flicker's focus was more on the personal.  Some of the advice on managing anger was intriguing, but it was unclear how applicable it would be for someone whose emotional processing was not entirely human.  What she had found most useful was the window into the thinking of a smart, astute human who had done serious work on the problem of long-term functioning with a large personal reservoir of anger.       She slowed down, moving herself back into squishy brain again, with active senses other than sight and touch.  Human senses, hearing and smell, for the sound from the high speed workstation fans and the cooling pumps for the server room, and the faint smell of the oil she'd used on a stuck robot earlier in the day.  She flexed her hands, which tingled as the normal flow of blood returned after a long bout of speed typing.       Her emotions shifted back to as normal as they ever got as well.       Journeyman was still watching.  It had been about a minute for him--and almost a day subjective for her, some of it spent thinking on her own while she waited on resource intensive bits of Database analysis.  She stood up from the high speed workstation and moved to the other end of the couch.       "The book's perspective on anger is useful," she said, "and there are some techniques that may end up helping with management--but that will probably take a while.  DASI is analyzing it and running simulations.  There is lots of subtext, and quirks because it wasn't really intended for someone with my level of power.  And we still have to sort through some of the traps, so I'll take my time, and it's securely recorded and backed up."       She handed the book back to him.  "Thank you for the loan."       "No problem."       Flicker exhaled slowly, releasing a bit of the tension she had built up.  "My level of background anger seems to be pretty high compared to most humans.  But not compared to the author of the book, apparently.  The way she talks about normal humans getting angry and calming down sounds like an anthropologist documenting weird alien behavior.  It's kind of funny because I find some of the same things weird.  So I can see why someone with normal human anger might find mine scary.  Like you do."       Flicker waved a hand.  "It's hard to explain because a lot of it isn't conscious.  It's just what I do, I don't know any other way.  But I can tell you something I know I do differently.  A lot of the things I see at high speed make me angry.  How could they not, if I care at all?  And my speed mind is wider than my squishy brain--it has way more short-term memory.  That's why I need to forget so much when I sleep--to keep the human part of me sane.  But some of the anger from the memories stays.  Only a little for each one, but it adds up.  More than anything I can do to calm down does.       "I have ways to dump that kind of anger, but only down to a certain point.  So I tend to be at or above my background anger level most of the time, unless I'm completely concentrating on something.  And new things can interact with the background and make it seem like I'm reacting disproportionately when I'm really not.  Does this help you understand better?"       Journeyman glanced down at the book, still in his hands, then put it back into his vest pocket.  "A bit.  I hope you're ready for some things that will make you angry, because I can't put them off any longer."       Flicker studied him.  "Speaking of traps and subtext, there was a bit in the book about not setting traps for yourself with unresolved conflicts.  We have one.  Have you been avoiding it to sustain your load-bearing social fiction?  Or because you were worried I'd be angry?"       "Both.  The spying you did the next time I was gone after scrambled memory day had some serious consequences."       "It was research on your background I needed to do because you didn't leave me any other options, and you never elaborated."       "You'd already stopped by the time I found out about it, and I didn't want to have that fight while you were my backup for the dicey mess I got myself into."  Journeyman spread his hands.  "You uncovered information about a fair number of my contacts.  One of them was a Diviner.  Doesn't matter how careful you are if you hit a canary secret from a prepared Diviner.  If the number of people who know it is small, and goes up, they can tell.  After I got back, I found a message from her telling me it had been fun, but she didn't want to die finding out the hard way that my new girlfriend was the jealous type.  She'd already disappeared.  I can't blame her--she knew you were my partner and correctly guessed you were the one digging.  Diviners that aren't paranoid about being hunted don't generally live to get old."       "But I wasn't--never mind."  She planned ahead based on plausible assumptions.       "Yeah.  My contacts don't know everything, and neither do you.  And that's the way it has to stay."       Flicker frowned.  "Okay, but I still don't understand the rules for how your magical communities function.  The information quality about them in the Database was really low:  A lot of implausible junk, some weird and disturbing stuff--most of it probably untrue--and occasional records of conflicts that left a body or bodies.  I wanted to find a good enough set of connections and opinions of you so I could see where you fit.  I was not trying to endanger anyone. That was why I put so much effort into preserving anonymity for everyone but you when I was digging.  And stopped when I realized it would fail.  I learned a lot of things I didn't expect.  Including how justified so many of the people you know are in fearing databases.  But only the Database knows who they are, I don't."       "They don't know that.  Limiting access to personally identifiable information can be a matter of life or death for them."  Journeyman smiled humorlessly.  "The torches and pitchforks crowds and burn-the-witch-itis have always interacted with privacy loss in ugly ways.  One consequence is that internal safety is an issue, and yes, that's something I have to balance.  I try not to make things worse.  But I did, when I became your partner.  I needed backup for too long, and you stopped waiting and started spying."       "I wanted to know about you, and if you'd been willing to sit down and talk to me--"  Not productive.  Redirect.  "I use the Database as a social prosthetic to keep from screwing up even worse than I do already.  You were being evasive.  I didn't know enough to tell if you were trying to get me to take a hint, so I used it to try to find out if I was taking the right hint.  There were Database privacy blocks keeping me from finding out what I wanted, and that stupid superhero social taboo against asking directly.  How else was I supposed to find out?  Telepathy?  Osmosis?  It was OSINT, active hacking and monitoring, or ghosting around to spy in person, and I picked the least intrusive option."       Journeyman nodded.  "That's what the Database told me, when I learned about the urgent trust hazard you'd created.  I understand.  But even open source intelligence is qualitatively different with your level of Database access.  Perceptions count for what I do, and it doesn't matter what you or I think, if my contacts start avoiding me because they're worried about a frighteningly powerful 16-year-old with high level Database access who is perceived as immature."       "How did this become common knowledge?  Did the Diviner tell people?"       "I did.  I knew there would be others, so I asked the Database for a list, got in touch with those I still could, and apologized."       Calm.  "Without telling me."       "I told you I'd handle the fallout--that it was a social problem, not a speed or power problem.  Remember?"       "Yes, but this was something I needed to know to correctly evaluate consequences.  And isn't it still a problem, just from us being partners?"       "At the moment, yes.  It's going to take time for me to rebuild trust."       Flicker shook her head.  Staying angry at him for concealing an apology would be both unhelpful and unfair.       "I see," she said.  "Any other unpleasant surprises you want to get out of the way?"       Journeyman clasped his hands and looked down at them.  "Several.  I've had time to think a little more about Doc not telling you things.  And you make assumptions based on what you think he must know.  But there is something I've picked up as a magician that you probably haven't.  Diviners tend to be paranoid and secretive, for good reasons.  A lot of Seers have serious trouble staying mentally healthy.  And true Oracles have to take extreme measures to stay sane and alive, and be really careful how they talk."       "What definitions are you using?  The Database says 'Seer' is used so broadly and vaguely it's almost meaningless."       "Ah, sorry.  Magicians can be sloppy with terminology, but what can you do?  A Diviner is a magician who specializes in information magic.  Seer is a catch-all label for anyone who sees or perceives things not accessible to normal senses that are at least sometimes accurate--they don't have to be trained and Seeing often isn't voluntary.  Breakpoint is an example of a Seer who isn't a magician.  An Oracle is a Seer who can see the future, know it's the future, and possibly affect it.  They are frickin' dangerous.  And rare.  And Doc comes across to me as an Oracle doing a very good job of hiding it."       "He isn't an Oracle, he's just good at long term extrapolation.  He does do some pretty weird analysis and debiasing tricks with Database projections, though."       "I think there's more to it, but it might not matter.  There are quirks he has, ways he talks about certain things, that make me wonder if he has a future-vision-o-mat down in the vaults.  And a way to stay functional as an Oracle is extreme compartmentalization--literally putting some things completely out of your mind.  That's risky if you get attacked, and I think Doc has been.  But he does have the Database, and the support for the kind of compartmentalization he would need was already there when I needed some of it, for the data I just put in escrow."       Journeyman looked back at her.  "So don't assume he has to know something because he knows other things.  And be careful about dismissing warnings if he can't share direct evidence.  Oracles can know without being able to show."       "That sounds pretty speculative," said Flicker, "but I'll keep it in mind."       "That's all I can ask."  Journeyman nodded slowly.  "And now for something else you'll probably consider speculative, but sure doesn't look that way to me.  Did Doc ever tell you how an Oracle duel works?"       Flicker sped up briefly to check the Database, then slowed again.  "No, but it sounds like something theoretical called a dual loop virtual time travel instability.  Does it involve nothing you can really see except strange apparent coincidences?"       "Yeah, that's what Doc called them.  I'm pretty sure now that the entire mess I got dragged into over a year ago--the deciding factor for my agreement to become your partner in the first place--was tangled up with a long running Oracle duel involving at least two sides.  And that's not even counting whatever indirect effect Doc's projections might have.  When I started to realize something was weird, I didn't think it had anything to do with you.  Aaand... I was wrong.  Figured that out last night, but it doesn't help much.  Even if you know you're caught in the gears, it's way too easy to tie yourself up in self-delusion, seeing things that aren't there..."       "Confirmation bias?"       "And a bunch of other kinds.  Multiply the problems in Doc's rant about using Bayesian analysis to catch a probability manipulator by a hundred.  And I'm fairly certain I was targeted to get at you."       Flicker frowned.  "Why?  Why am I not targeted directly?"       "You are--that would be Hermes.  There are multiple things going on, which is what makes this such a pain to try to unravel.  But you have a lot of protection from direct probability manipulation.  A bunch of older magicians that lived through the Cold War still cast regular little blessings against nuclear annihilation.  You get part of them because you can--and would--rip apart a nuclear war with thrown rocks.  And Doc and I still argue about the origin of some less obvious buffers for you that definitely exist.  But there's lot of hostile probability manipulation, too.  Like, everyone who can do it who wants to destroy the world or part of it, because you're pretty good at stopping that, and the easiest way to get it to happen is to trick you into doing it for them.  Now I'm not defenseless.  But it's like..."       Journeyman paused to think, then looked up at her.  "Suppose I'm somewhere with bullets and shrapnel flying around.  I'm better off than the average bystander because I have an anti-bullet ward.  But if I'm standing next to Armadillo and a bunch of machine guns are shooting at her, I'm in danger, because bullets miss and bounce, and my ward can only handle so much.  And if some of the gunners get the bright idea to shoot at me instead, I'm in real trouble, because what might only annoy her can kill me.  I'm the weak point."       He pressed a hand to his forehead.  "I think I'm your weak point.  In more than one way.  And yeah, there are things we could theoretically do to try to handle it all, but you know what those machine gun equivalents are very effective at preventing?  Calm, uninterrupted consideration of anything personal or contentious."       "I think we're managing okay," said Flicker.  "I mean, it's not exactly fun, but..."       "We haven't gotten to the contentious part.  And, uh... I'd kind of like to move somewhere neutral for that.  This is your home, and you may suddenly prefer I be elsewhere."       "I may even more suddenly need to talk to the Database, and the latency is lower here.  If I want you to leave I'll tell you.  And you can port out any time, if you stop feeling safe."       "I'm not feeling particularly safe now.  But I promised I'd stop evading, so...  Do you still want to go ahead?"       Flicker briefly consulted her reminder list, much of which now seemed outdated or inappropriate.  "I had a plan, but you derailed it by bringing up other stuff--important stuff--like you're afraid we won't ever get another chance to talk."       A steadying breath.  "So I'm wondering if I even should, with everything you say is getting in the way.  And you aren't acting or sounding okay.  When you came back to Earth yesterday, you'd been through something horrifically bad.  Forgot you'd been stabbed in the back bad.  Paranoia turned up, reliving things under cover, not all the way back yet bad.  I changed the subject to Hermes, then later botched my sleep-fuzzy attempt to help.  Partner, can you tell me what's wrong?  And how we might go about fixing the Oracle thing if you think it's interfering with you too much?  Because I can wait a little longer if I have to."       Journeyman laced his hands together behind his neck and shook his head.  "You're right that I'm not okay, but waiting isn't going to make it better.  I think bad shit would just keep happening.  And I know you hate incomplete answers, but I've told you as much as I can about what's wrong.  As for fixing things... I don't think there is any quick fix.  I put details in Database escrow just in case, but I sure don't want you going off on a rampage in another dimension because I suspect some of the inhabitants might be responsible for some of our problems."       "Then why bring it up?"       Journeyman smiled wearily.  "Doc's old rule:  Tell you what not to do clearly and first, because there may not be a chance for a 'wait, stop'.  And with the way things have been going..."       "Fair.  So you think we're just going to have to live for a while with incomplete information, bad luck, unfortunate misunderstandings, inconvenient interruptions, and so forth for everything we do together?"       "No."  He took a deep breath.  "We aren't going to live with it because we aren't going to be together."       "...Until?"       Journeyman spread his hands.  "Don't wait around."       Flicker stared at him with a hollow feeling in her stomach.  "What does that mean?"       He looked down, then back up at her.  "First:  You're 16.  I would not be okay with starting anything before you're 18.  Next:  Even if all the interference went away, I still couldn't be Make-Everything-Better Man for you," he said.  "I'm glad I was able to help you as your partner.  But it's not a healthy basis for a relationship.  And those aren't the only problems, but going through a list with the implication that the goal is to find a way around them all would be a bad idea.  Some of the issues are mine.  Getting together with you would not work, and I don't know when, if ever, that might change."  He shook his head.  "You have your own life.  You should feel free to grow, and learn, and become... whoever you're going to be.  And right now there's too much I can't tell you, you have too many good reasons to be angry with me, and I don't want to be used as a weapon against you."       Flicker stood, and looked over at the entrance to the server room.  "So you'll just blow everything up yourself.  It sounds like you want to drop our joint duty shifts, too?"       A pause.  "I wasn't kidding about the load-bearing thing.  At least for a while, I think they would just make things worse for both of us."       "Now that makes me angry.  I put a lot into our partnership, and trusted you to maintain it.  But okay.  It's not like you need your partner's backup anymore."       The hollow feeling had given way to the grim disgust of seeing a tangled mess she couldn't possibly have helped, because it was wrecked before she even started.  But it was best to be sure.  She sped up.       DASI?  Does Journeyman appear to be suffering from mental sabotage, mind control, or anything else relevant?       I do not have sufficient data to judge the soundness of his decision process, but his actions are consistent with his prior behavior.  He is showing signs of prolonged stress.  As are you.       Thanks.  I knew that last part already.       Amelioration measures are still in progress.  Please do not do anything precipitous.       Yeah, yeah.       She slowed back down and shook her head.  "I just don't understand your thinking.  Why even agree to our partnership, if you were going to do this?  And if your model of an attack on me is right, and not just a paranoid overreaction, why pull away... everything I thought we had, without even trying to help?"       "I do intend to try to help, after I spend a while recovering," he said.  "I'll stay in touch through the Database.  But first I need to see if I can track down some Diviners, because half the ones I know are indisposed or missing, and the other half are getting 'future not found' errors or disturbingly ambiguous signs of some sort of global catastrophe that may or may not be happening the day after tomorrow."       A sudden frown.  "You weren't planning on doing anything drastic to the planet that day, were you?"       "Not particularly.  I'm not even going to be on Earth for some of it."       "What."       "I'm going to the Moon to run Speedtest, finally.  Scheduled it with Doc this morning."       "Ah," said Journeyman, his face noticeably paler.  "I don't suppose you'd be willing to reschedule?"       "No.  As you said, I have my own life, and things to learn.  If you are seriously convinced some entity is actively trying to sabotage something specific that I've put off for too long already, tell me where they live, and I'll visit them with some physics.  Before catastrophe day.  Then you can find those other Diviners and see if the problem has cleared up or there is someone else who needs a visit.  An Oracle should be able to tell if their personal future is about to become very short, right?"       Journeyman looked down.  "I... don't think that's a good plan."       "Then maybe you should have raised your concerns before dumping your partner?"       "Priority interrupt," announced DASI from the wall speaker.  "A candidate psychological expert has been located."       Flicker sped up to read a summary on her visor.  It was good news that DASI had managed to identify and contact someone.  But she had conditions for her help and an unusual background...       Flicker puzzled over some of the details, then slowed down to frown at Journeyman.  "All right, if you really still want to help, the Database profile of this person is weird.  There seem to be rumors that she has some kind of magic resistance.   Have you ever heard of a Dr. Stella Reinhart?"
Next: Part 8
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productivebuddy · 4 years
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Hello again! I am not trying to be annoying about the advisor issue, but you had mentioned bringing my situation up to a friend of yours - is there any chance he/she talked to you about it yet? I am super duper stressed about my situation and feel so discouraged about it....
Hi! Yes, we talked about it! I wanted to reply to your asks from my computer, but I never got around to it, because I was busy with work, so I’m so sorry for this late reply! Also, for some reason, what I had already typed before just disappeared so I have to start over again. I hate it!
I’m gonna put your original ask here in case someone sees it and wants to share their opinion too.
I attended one particular school in the 2018-19 school year, transferred to a community college this past school year, and plan to return to that school in the fall. Just went to a CC to save money. The school I'm hoping to return to is an incredibly large UNI, and has the same core requirements as the CC. I enrolled in US HISTORY II in the Spring 2019 semester, and thought I should take US HISTORY I at the CC. My advisor convinced me that I had taken the other class, US HISTORY I at the other and WROTE DOWN for me to take US History II last semester (Fall 2019). The class I had already taken! I questioned him about it, and for some reason my record at the CC showed that I had taken US History I previously, but it was wrong. Did he screw me over on purpose? I feel SICK realizing that I took the wrong class, particularly when I had a gut feeling that something was not right! Do you think any place I try to transfer to will automatically reject me over this issue? Hope not. I feel so furious at that idiot. I also am trying to get into law school, and they’ll likely see my error. What a moron! What do I do? I feel this was entirely my fault. Now I am 3 credits shorter than what I thought I was, and it makes me feel less motivated to complete this semester. I will, but it’ll be less of an accomplishment if I get a 3.6 or something because of last semester. What a waste of time, money, energy, etc. I hate that advisor.
I doubt there were rotten intentions coming from your advisor, because that sounds like a slip (an ugly one) that can happen, but the fact that it has gone for that long sucks. Honestly, I think you will not forget this experience, but I’m still telling you to be more careful next time, and this is something my friend has stressed to me before: People may be in a position of authority or somewhere where a student assumes that they know what is going on and is expected to know better, but they are still human, so we as students need to know it’s okay to stand up for something we may think could be done better. Anyway, done is done and in the past, so now, what’s next?
I think, first (and sorry for saying it lol), calm down. While I don’t know the specific schools you attended and the way they handle their paperwork, I think the procedure should be pretty much the same or strongly similar across all higher education institutions, and my friend thinks so too. He told me to tell you he doesn’t think it will represent a big issue later, but I’ll get to that later.
One of the tasks my friend handles at work (told you he works at a university, right?) is actually related to major transfers, as in he checks if a student’s classes taken in the past can be checked off in the new major; kind of similar, so that’s why I wanted to ask for his opinion.
Since I don’t know the specifics of this situation, I’ll say it’s a possibility that the advisor wasn’t actually that far off and the History II class you took is like the equivalent of a History I course in the CC, but in case you are sure that that is not what happened, you need to get a copy of the syllabus or whatever dictates the structure of the subjects in both institutions, say HI and HII for the uni and the CC, that’s four in total. That way you can compare them yourself and see if it’s different enough that no exceptions can be made in case there’s actually an issue, which I doubt and hope it’s not the case. 
You said that they pretty much had the same core requirements so that’s why we think that the worst that can happen is that the CC’s syllabus is not equivalent and the subject/class will be dropped as if you never took it, so it had been indeed a waste of money and time, as you said. If this happens, it’ll be like you never took the other class (not emotionally though) and there’ll be no more further issues.
And since I can’t speak in behalf of the schools you’re applying to, if you really need closure (?), then the only thing to do is to contact the administration of the university and calmly explain the situation, asking specific questions regarding the process and ‘consequences’ of this. I think this ought to have happened to someone else before you at some point in time, or at least something similar, so hopefully it’s not as big a deal as one may think. 
And yeah, having taken HII twice and no HI will look weird, but he doubts it will be a pretty big deal, unless the new school’s administration is really really thorough and strict. 
Anyway, I hope I made sense, so please get back to me and tell me what you think or if you had already done any of this lol. Best of luck to you!
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