u/Shine_On_07

TL;DR I get to be the boyfriend of such funny, sweet, blindingly beautiful, down to Earth person with whom I share so many worldviews, interests, and humorous quirks. I genuinely don’t feel like it’s possible to be luckier.

Currently, she’s on holiday quite far from home, and we’re long distance anyway - so, there are eight whole hours between us at the moment. These past few days (and for another week and a bit!) our sleep schedules only have only really made room for chatting in the mornings and evenings, when one of us has just woken up, and the other is about to go to sleep. Usually we’re both tired during those times! But, they’re still moments to be treasured, and even though it’s hard, we’re open and communicative about that.

That’s one of the best things about her. Relationships can never be perfect, and we’ve had many ups and downs, usually due to external circumstances in our wider lives, and at moments one or the both of us has needed a break altogether; and, that has always been respected, which has only allowed us to build up trust and honesty once things improve and we’ve gotten back to the status quo. Long distance is hard, and some claim it’s impossible altogether - but it isn’t. You just need trust, patience, and total respect for the other person’s freedom and time.

Before I met her, I had just come out of school, and I was pretty lost - whittling away my days doing very little, just trying to catch up and get myself on track after a rough year. She was the final piece of the puzzle I needed, and now I’ve got part time work whilst I spend the rest of my hours writing a novel I’ve intended to write for years; now on my second draft, and getting down roughly 1,000 words a day on average. She showed me the support, love, and genuine belief that I needed in order to get my life properly on track and working towards my dreams. That’s a good relationship: one where your partner wholeheartedly stands behind the person you are and strive to be, and she has never stopped doing that. I’m trying to do just the same in return - and on that topic, she intends on going to University, and considering we’re both people who’ve had a pretty terrible time at school, I am so insurmountably proud of her drive to push towards that where I couldn’t! I am wishing her all my lucky stars along the way, and all my support.

Most days, we call and chat, sharing our lives from afar - before playing games, relaxing, and having fun. Sometimes, if one of us is sad or tired, the call will be softer and more mellow. Other times, it will be lively and silly! She has such an awesome laugh and such a kind-hearted, good sense of humour that only gets me laughing alongside her. She has a really pretty smile too. We’re both artistic souls, and we love relaxation, fun, but also - when we want to be more serious - we can be heavily analytical, dissecting stories, and finding joy in things like writing. Her writing is beautiful to me, emotionally rich and vivid, just what I love!

Most importantly though, she’s just so incredibly kind. It’s the bare minimum, for a partner to be someone respectful and valuing of others - but it seems worryingly rare these days, from hearsay both online and in person. But she is very good-hearted, not just towards me, but to her family and to anyone else. I look up to her, and I do actually think I’ve become a better person in the time we’ve been by each other’s side. I was never someone unkind I don’t think, but I’ve just grown more conscious of being nice is all, in just the way she is - she brings the very best out of me. Nobody in the world is perfect, not me, not her, not any of you reading this.

…But when you can find a relationship where you and your partner can recognise that, but try your hardest, and wholeheartedly celebrate each other in spite of it, then that’s something always to be treasured.

Right now, she’s asleep - this altering of the routine is super hard for both of us, but hey, it’s only temporary, and space is just as important as anything else! But whilst I can’t express my love to her until later, I wanna do it now, here on Reddit. I love my girlfriend, with all my heart. Thank you for reading, it means a lot :)

Something that is already astounding me so far being still near the start of ASOAIF, is just how well so many moving parts are able to interweave and blossom together - not just in terms of the plot itself, but also in terms of the themes and the impact on the reader. And my biggest example of this is how euphoric the start of Tyrion’s story in this second book already feels.

I watched most (but not all of the show) a while back, so I know the basic beats of the first three books and some vague tidbits of knowledge for the fourth and fifth from hearsay, so with that in mind, I’m at least partially aware of the kind of reprehensibility Tyrion is going to exhibit later on - but even now, whilst lighter in comparison, he’s still pretty dirty in a moral respect. The chapter I just read was the one where he sends Janos to the wall and afterwards plots with Varys, and on paper, Tyrion is no less an opportunist than Janos is… but, this is where George’s excellent writing comes into play. He’s got the reader so firmly on Tyrion’s side, not just through how fun Tyrion is to read with his witticisms and whatnot, but also by spending pretty much the whole previous book making us hate his King’s Landing supporting cast as much as humanly possible. So then when Tyrion comes along and is pretty much objectively a total prick the whole time (I pretty much know how the rest of his ‘acting hand’ arc plays out), and not even fully for the sake of being ‘moral’ any more than just establishing his own authority, sucking up to his father, and pissing off people who he personally dislikes, we’re nonetheless still cheering him on all the way.

I know I’m stating the obvious, but I did wanna just do a little gush-post. Running through what George has laid out really makes it feel like just such a flawless textbook way of getting the reader to love an immoral character. This first book and the little I’ve read of the second just seem so good at executing ideas that actually appear really simple, interweaving them all, and thereby turning the story into actually something extremely complex. I’m loving it!

I arrived in London this morning and got to my hotel way too early to check in. Since I barely slept on the flight, I had a few hours to kill and was sitting on a bench trying not to fall asleep.

At one point I happened to look up and saw someone from behind who looked an awful lot like Stone.

My first thought was, "There's no way that's Stone." My second thought was, "Holy shit, that might actually be Stone!" The dead giveaway was the exquisitely-preserved head of grey hair, the black T-shirt and the black pants which I guess he wears casually outside as well, alongside the fact that he seemed to get married and divorced six whole times *just* in the time that I was sitting there. The guy walked into a store and I wasn't about to run in after him like a crazed fanboy so I just waited outside down the corner of the street. After a few minutes I started walking down the street just to see if he was still inside the store and suddenly there he was walking right toward me.

At that point I'm like WTF!! Most normal people would probably ask for a photo, an autograph, or tell him how much his music meant to them. Instead, I asked him a question on behalf of the sub.

I mustered up the strength to approach him and said, "Stone, sorry to bother you. I don't want an autograph or a photo. (My phone was dead anyway. 😭) I do have a question. Have you ever referred to post-‘The Final Cut’ Pink Floyd as 'Dipshits (Three Different Ones)'?"

He looked at me like I had three heads.

Then suddenly, Dave Kilminster and Jon Carin leapt out of a bush and the three of them performed an impromptu rendition of ‘The Bar’ that spanned an hour in duration and was played at half tempo. Then at the end, Roger gave a speech, turning the tables and choosing to ask a question of *me*: he said, “I have always been here. I have always looked out from behind these eyes. It feels like more than a lifetime… feels like more than a lifetime. Sometimes, I get tired of the waiting. Sometimes, I get tired of being in here. Is this the way it’s always been? Could it ever have been different? Do you ever get tired of the waiting? Do you ever get tired of being in there?”

I was humbled, and speechless. After several moments, Stone recognised the primal fear that had arisen within me, and he said:

“Don’t worry. Nobody lives forever… nobody lives forever.” Before winking what must have been roughly a hundred times in the span of a single second. Then, a plume of smoke rose from the ground, merged him with the leaden sky, and he was gone.

I'm sure I could have asked him a dozen things but he's probably heard all those questions before and I'm glad I did ask him that because the answer I got instead was probably better. This story is no BS. There was one other person who I saw hovering outside this store which led me to believe that it was indeed him.

—————

(uj/ Edit: Thanks for the nice comments! Though surprised to see a lack of recognition for the material I’m parodying, so I thought I’d best credit. Completely my mistake, 100% I should do this all the time, even with a shitpost.

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PinkFloydCircleJerk/s/Hwn8xhpbTx

Inspiration: https://www.reddit.com/r/PinkFloydCircleJerk/s/XIgkb7nfqT

Take care)