#<- has had a life so bad that just plainly describing it has made every therapist ive ever had cry

[gayteddy]

my brain is desperately telling me not to get my hopes up my brain is hitting my hope with a bat but oh my god please. please. please. please. please. please. please. i need this. PLEASE. PLEASE

[artist-issues]

I’m bored and I really enjoy your opinions on Disney, so I thought you might have something interesting to say to get my brain ticking. I came across a post on Frozen and I was like, “Ah, a perfect starting place for dropping you an ask.” I’ve never really been that bothered by Frozen and I don’t know what it is that I’m just not fond about. Maybe it’s that I dislike the characters? Maybe it’s that they didn’t really have any established rules for the way magic worked in that universe and thus had anything they wanted happening? Maybe it’s the twist villain? I don’t know, it’s probably just the characters that they tried to make so cool and girlboss!

Elsa is made out to be this awesome protagonist that is never in the wrong and that grates me. She has flaws, but the film doesn’t act like they’re flaws. She runs away out of fear and shame for not being able to control her powers, but then two seconds later she’s singing “Let It Go” and making giant ice castles and bringing snowmen to life?! And “Let It Go” is super annoying for the fact that Elsa starts off worried and upset (fair enough, she’s just ran away from her home, her kingdom, her sister whom she hasn’t seen in years, she lost control of her powers) but then immediately turns round and is like, “Actually, it’s not my fault and I’m fine as I am and I don’t need any of those responsibilities!” Which would be fine, but she also finishes the film with the same attitude!

Anna, too! Naive and optimistic and perhaps a little too trusting, she never realises that even if Han hadn’t turned out evil, Elsa had every right to be worried over their marriage. She never realises that it’s partly her fault for revealing Elsa’s powers (and she definitely doesn’t apologise). There’s a lot she doesn’t realise, and the only lesson she takes away from it all is that Christoff loves her instead of Han.

Oh my days, I’ve just realised how ridiculously long this has gotten, super sorry! Have a lovely day!

Let’s do this! For fun!

1. They don't need to establish exhaustive rules for how magic works in their world.

Red Riding Hood doesn't explain how the Big Bad Wolf can talk-it just explains that he can. Cinderella doesn't explain how Fairy Godmothers work, or why the spell should only last until midnight—it just explains that she casts one, and it does only last until midnight. Beauty & the Beast does not explain how, after The Beast has died, the "breaking of the curse" could bring him back to life. After Belle confesses her love, he should just go from dead beast to dead human, for all the explanation they give.

Beauty & the Beast also famously refuses to explain (explicitly) why all of the household were cursed, along with the castle and the Prince. But what it does explain is, "there's a curse, it was put in place because of a defect in the Prince's character, and there's a time limit on it's ability to be removed, which can only happen if the defect in his character is overcome."

The whole point of having magic in the story is just as a tool...to create a plot. You don't have to explain everything; you just have to explain what will affect the characters. So, Frozen says, very plainly in the beginning: "you can either be born with magical powers or cursed with them in this world, and trolls are the experts on how magical powers work. The way Elsa's specific magical powers work is, they're beautiful, but powerful, and they're tied to her emotions. Therefore, if her negative emotions control her, her negative emotions control those powers. Also, if you're struck with magical powers in the head, the effects can be removed with memory alteration. If you're struck with magical powers in the heart, the effects can only be removed by an act of True Love.

Also, here's an explanation of what counts as 'True Love." They actually do way more explaining than the average fairy tale. And they set you up really nicely to receive that explanation by having the opening scene be a song that describes Ice Magic as “beautiful/powerful/dangerous/cold/ice has a magic can't be controlled.” Etc.

If you were wondering what limits there are on Elsa's powers, and whether or not she can just make anything out of ice, and how it's possible for her to bring inanimate snow to life

—well, you're focusing on the wrong things for this kind of story.

It's not that important for a fairy tale like this one. In a superhero story, limitations on powers would be important. Because the point of a superhero story is, "how am I going to take selfless responsibility for what I'm able to do?" And if you don't know the boundaries on "what I'm able to do," then you can't communicate that point clearly. That's why we need to know that Superman can see through just about everything, but not lead. That's why you need to know that Elastigirl can't stretch in the cold. You can't know how to take responsibility for your abilities if you don't know what they are and are not.

But Elsa? The point of Elsa having powers is not as a metaphor for her unique skills. That's what it would be in a superhero movie.

Like, in superhero movies, Spidey's ability to stick to walls is supposed to be a reference to like, your ability to...l don't know, draw really well. How is Spidey going to use his ability to stick to walls for the good of others = how are you going to use your ability to draw for the good of others, because it's something special and unique to you, you have something to offer, are you going to use it selflessly, etc.

But for Elsa, that's not what it's about. Her powers are just a metaphor for how what's going on inside of her effects everyone around her, relationally. And it's still relatable. But not in a "skills" way. Just like all of us non-superpowered people: "if you let fear control you, you'll hurt everyone around you. But if you let love cast out fear, you'll love and be loved."

That's what's so good about this movie. When you look at it like that, you realize the powers aren’t the point.

Elsa isolates because she thinks that'll keep her from hurting everyone (fear controls her) but actually, by isolating, she's still hurting everyone-nobody in the kingdom gets to see their beloved ruler, and her sister is hurt, relationally, and feels unloved and shut-out, enough to trust the first scoundrel she meets-etc. See how the powers just make the story interesting, but they're not the point of the story? If Elsa's powers were replaced by "frantic outbursts of human temper" the story could be told in a lot of the same ways. But that's a post for another time.

So I don't think you disliked it because of the powers not being "established." "Whatever they wanted to have happen" did not happen, in the story. They laid out the rules that were relevant—“if fear controls you, it'll lead to great danger/but an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart."—and then they followed those rules in an interesting and consistent way.

2. The "twist" villain worked perfectly for the story.

A good villain is supposed to be the opposite of whatever your story's message is. Frozen's is, "Self-Sacrificial Love Casts Out Fear." Elsa is afraid she'll hurt everyone around her, and afraid that makes her unloveable-so she's a control freak over her circumstances. Anna is also afraid she's unloveable-simply because she's shut out and unknown-so she's always trying to control who she keeps in her life. Hans is both "unknown" and "controlling." He's "unknown" in two ways—1, nobody sees him in the shadows of his brothers in his own kingdom, and 2, nobody in Arendelle "knows" his true nature, especially not Anna. But the difference is, where our heroes don't like being unknown, Hans does, and uses it to his advantage, because he's also "controlling." But unlike our heroes, who learn that "control" is not the way to love, Hans is willing to do anything to stay in control. Which is, always, rooted in fear, too. Hans is just afraid he'll never get a throne. So. You see that he foils the two main characters perfectly.

But the main point of Hans is that he's not self-sacrificial, he's self-serving, which is the opposite of what the story claims "True Love" is.

Why's the "twist" part important? Because he uses the main characters' fears as a weapon to serve himself, and he couldn't have done that, for these two particular characters, by being anything but a liar. Anna is afraid she won't ever be loved, so he pretends to love her to get something for himself. Elsa is afraid she'll hurt everyone, so Hans pretends to be protecting everyone from her. And honestly, that's another core of the movie-love that is self-sacrificial, true love, can't be separated from truth. Anna can't really "truly love" Elsa in a way that HELPS Elsa feel loved if she doesn't know Elsa's flaws. Elsa can't "truly love" Anna if she's refusing to know Anna by always shutting her out. And Hans comes along and doesn't let himself be "truly known." Perfect.

So, the movie says "Self-Sacrificial Love Casts Out Fear" and Hans, the villain, says, "Self-Service Uses Fear As a Weapon."

So I don't think you disliked the "twist" villain. Because it wasn't just an empty "shock-jock, look how edgy we are, to make the Prince the bad guy" move. It was the right move, for this story and these characters.

3. I think your definition of "so cool" and "girlboss" might be different from what l understand those terms to mean, because none of the characters fit those descriptions.

Anna (as we understand her throughout the story) is introduced like this:

And she's constantly dropping stuff and getting into awkward social situations-and she basically makes zero correct decisions, for the entire adventure. Tries to fight wolves like a girlboss-and instead accidentally knocks her guide out of the sleigh and has to be thrown to safety while she ruins his livelihood. Tries to climb a cliff with zero experience-looks ridiculous and falls. Tries to talk her sister into lifting a curse and insists that she knows best because her sister would never hurt her-gets crippled, because her sister absolutely does hurt her, and totally fails. Tries to marry a handsome prince-really bad judgement of character, totally duped, basically would've died without help from the weakest and most mentally-confused character in the movie, Olaf. The only "girlboss" moment you could argue she had was punching Hans in the face at the end of the movie, and I would argue that that one moment, in the face of all her failures and humiliation throughout the movie, and in the face of him as a vile villain? That moment is okay.

Also, the whole way they pace that moment is still in-character for Anna. It's still like she's not doing the "dignified" thing. She delivers her little one liner, "the only frozen heart around here is you," and then turns around to walk away with her nose in the air, like she's

"above it all." Which frames the moment where she turns around and punches him like a joke. It frames that moment like it's a satisfying, but still "not decorous, not dignified," thing to do. It would've been "cool" and poorly received if Anna, the character who's always jumping into doing the emotional, awkward thing, had suddenly become the bigger person and risen above her hurt in that moment.

So instead, she punches him. And whatever. He deserved it, blah blah blah. The point is, even that moment isn’t supposed to be strictly “cool” or “girlboss.” It’s just supposed to be “in-character funny.”

See, usually a "girlboss" character knows exactly what the best thing to do is in a situation, and does it well. Or, she gets knocked down, but consistently gets back up and hits harder. Anna does not do any of those things. She keeps trying when she fails, yeah-but it's not because of an inner strength, it's because of an inner weakness. She keeps pushing because she's desperate, and insecure, not because she's awesome and never-say-die. Eventually, after Elsa strikes her and Hans betrays her, Anna does give up. She tells the snowman "we won't (come back.)" after Elsa strikes her. She tells Olaf she doesn't know what love is. It's not until she learns that lesson that anything she tries to do works—and she gives herself up to do it. And that's finally a moment of strength from her, not weakness. As for "cool"-gimme a break.

There's nothing "cool" about Anna. Anna's not good at anything except, at the very end, self-sacrificially standing in front of a sword and getting one punch in on a villain who's already disarmed, defeated and probably slightly concussed anyway. She's not supposed to be "cool" or "girlboss." She's supposed to be "Desperate to Love and Be Loved." And that's what she is, perfectly. "Desperate" is not a characteristic that fits the definition "girlboss" or "cool."

But maybe you just meant "Elsa is so cool and a girlboss." Okay, well, again, depends on what you mean by that. If you mean "having superpowers are cool" okay, well, are they? Is that what the movie is telling you? Because powers basically ruin all of Elsa's childhood and life until the last 3 minutes of the movie. You could be like "come on, she can make snow and ice monsters, glitter gowns, and an entire palace just by dancing. They totally tried to make her 'cool." That's like saying Simba's ability to eat bugs and belch and fight with Nala is "cool." She does all those things at her "Character in the WRONG" moment, in the story, just like Simba living in the Hakuna Matata jungle. Therefore the movie is not trying to tell you that Elsa is cool, it's trying to tell you that Elsa is wrong, but you can understand why she's wrong. You can understand why she feels triumphant for a moment-and then the movie shows you that triumph is misplaced.

I mean, she's taken out by her own falling chandelier. Every time she's confronted with a problem, she runs away. When she gets into "battles of wits," she says the wrong thing, or the shy, shut-down thing, not a girlboss one-liner that shuts the other person up. Elsa's not cool either. She doesn't have the answers, she doesn't save the day-she gets saved.

Both of these characters are desperate, open wounds-—they're needy and they're in the wrong, each in their own way, for the majority of the movie. They're weak, and they have to learn to find strength in love, for most of their story. There's nothing "girlboss" or "cool" about them.

I think maybe what some people make the mistake of is noticing the Frozen mania, and the fact that the two main characters are girls and one of them has superpowers and they other doesn't get with a Prince, and then they get the impression, from that, that the characters are "cool girlbosses." But like...that's like saying Dory from the first Finding Hemo movie is a girlboss. She's so totally not. She's a wreck. A funny, appealing, sometimes-relatable-human wreck. And a good character, but the hype doesn't change who she is, as a character. And who she is, like Anna and Elsa, is just a good character.

4. Elsa does not finish Let it Go with an "I'm Fine As I Am" attitude, and she doesn't finish the movie that way, either.

She finishes "Let it Go" with an "I'm fine up here, isolated from everyone," attitude. And then the movie very quickly proves her wrong by having Anna show up and reveal to her that no, actually, she is not fine up there, because the person she cares about most can still find her and be hurt by her, and the whole kingdom is still reeling from the problems she ran away from.

At the end of the movie the only thing I can guess you got the impression that she's "fine as she is" from was the fact that she's using her powers again.

But like. Elsa's whole problem was never her powers. She wasn't supposed to learn to stop using them. She was supposed to learn to stop living in fear. Instead, she was supposed to lean on love-love that sacrifices for her, flaws and dangerousness and all-and stop trying to control her image and what everyone knows about her.

Because in trying to control what everyone knows about her, she was controlling whether or not they loved her or treated her like a monster. And even running away and singing Let It Go was still an effort to control everything-by not being around people who could treat her like a monster or be hurt by her. Instead, accepting that she might hurt people because she can't always control everything, and trusting that they'll still love and forgive her, was her character arc.

She lives by faith in sacrificial love by the end, not by fear. That's the arc. She does that perfectly.

It was never, "I'm fine as I am." Because the point was never "there's* something wrong with me." It was, "I don't need to fear a lack of control, because true love covers what I can't control." That's all.

4. Anna does communicate to the audience that she's sorry and willing to understand the reasons behind Elsa's secrets.

The lesson Anna takes away from all of this is not "which guy loves me." It's "what is love?" And you know she's learned that because she demonstrates it. If Anna had died-frozen forever-or been cut down by Hans' sword, you realize that Elsa would never have been able to repay that gesture, right? But Anna still made that choice.

Even though it meant Elsa would never repay her. And the point is — excuse me, I know this is long enough, but I feel like you're missing out on something wonderful here—

Anna could have left Elsa to be killed and ridden off into the sunset with Kristoff.

They make it very clear that that is her goal when she stumbles onto the ice, free from the room Hans trapped her in. Elsa is no longer her motivation. She isn't looking for Elsa. She's not trying to get that love she's looked for, from Elsa, in that moment. She's trying to get it from Kristoff, not just for her emotional need-but for the "breaking of the curse" that's killing her in the moment. That whole scene where she realizes he loves her-truly loves her, because he fits the description Olaf gives-is in there to communicate to the audience that he could save her. He could give her what she needs.

And the reason that's important is that it proves that this is character development: when she chooses not to go to Kristoff, and to go to Elsa instead.

Because it's her, choosing to turn away from the person who could give her something (even if it is "love") and to turn toward the person who can't give her something (Elsa.) Who has repeatedly failed to give her something, for their entire lives.

Anna at the beginning of the movie would've run to Kristoff. That was the whole point of Hans, when it comes to Anna-he represents someone who can fulfill a need in Anna. But when Anna turns away from Kristoff and runs to save Elsa instead, Anna is demonstrating what she's learned —that love isn't about her own needs. It's putting someone else's needs before yours. She stands between Hans and Elsa, with the full expectation that she's not going to get anything out of it, not even a guarantee of E/sa's love in return. And her own needs will NOT get met if she puts Elsa's first.

And that's what she does. Whereas, at the beginning of the film, Anna would not have done that. Because that's not what she thinks love is. She hasn’t realized that yet.

She thinks love means closeness. And that does come with love. But that's not love. Love is, like Olaf says, putting someone else's needs before yours. But the whole movie, Anna is not working to put Elsa's needs before her own. She's working to change Elsa's mind, now that she knows the truth, so that she and Elsa can be "close again." She's climbing that mountain and arguing with Elsa, because she thinks that all that stood in their way before was this secret that's been uncovered. And sure, Anna has always been willing to “be there for” Elsa, but you have to see that Anna wanted that to come with Elsa being there for her, in return.

Which would be nice. But it's not true love. True love is being there for someone even when they refuse to be there for you. Because that's putting their needs before yours.

Thanks for the super long ask! That was fun! I hope you enjoyed reading as much as l enjoyed writing-I think sometimes we judge Frozen by the mania that followed, not the good quality that actually caused the mania, and deserved the mania, though. Anyway 😂

Guards! Take them away! Back to the theater with you! Watch the movie again!

[surviving-cptsd]

The Beginning - Diagnose of CPTSD

Hello and thank you for taking the time to read. Some of you may know me already from interactions with my shop or maybe through my community. I am the designer and owner of Little Home Mades and my name is Jessica. I am a wife and mother of 4 children and 3 step children so a total of 7. I have been mauling over the idea of writing a blog or a book, or anything for some time. Most times I am on Facebook in my select groups and will post whatever I can to help ease mothers and fathers who are struggling with their children or certain situations and will attempt to share bits and pieces of my knowledge with them without trying to overwhelm them. I worried about writing a book or a blog because I knew how complicated my life has been. Some may feel it's even not real or a lie and I've always had difficulty processing that kind of response because that's part of my trauma growing up - not being believed. I've had mix reactions to people through other social media platforms so whenever posting my own issues, I will usually post it anonymously. I do this to remove any bias and also so I don't feel shunned in the community I'm in for future posts. I'm sure many have run into this group with Facebook and Twitter groups is people will click your profile, pull up old posts and then judge you based on your past responses if you disagree with their views and openly share that disagreement. This is what ultimately lead me to start this blog. I wanted to share my experiences to make sure people know, they are not alone, that they are heard, and that it's okay to feel the way that they feel and it's okay to be not okay. As my blog plainly points out, I am diagnosed with CPTSD which stands for Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for those who don't know. Also for those who need to know the difference between CPTSD and PTSD, PTSD is one traumatic event, CPTSD is many over a long span of time. You're basically re-traumatized over and over and over again. When you feel you're finally over one event, another happens. This leads to multiple different symptoms and the biggest one I've seen lately is the fact that people don't realize they even have it. They're just so used to these events, they're almost normalized. They also tend to feel like they can handle another event because of the intrusive thoughts of "I've dealt with worse,", "It could be worse,", or "It's not as bad as other's experiences,". Every experience is different and every reaction is different, there is no mold. When you are formally diagnosed it is a form you do with many many questions with a therapist who is specialized in trauma. Some of them sound like trick questions, but the overall score of your answers is what gives you the actual diagnose. Some people may have nightmares, where as another person has insomnia, or some people may duck and cover to fireworks, whereas another person has a panic attack while sitting on their computer. You don't have to have every symptom listed to have CPTSD, you may only have a handful and feel they are minor occurrences or not even worth mentioning, but when they're all laid out in the open, a pattern emerges that you may have never noticed before. I say all this because this is what happened to me. For a long time, I had unexplained pain in my chest that would randomly occur starting in my early teens. I would feel like I couldn't breathe. My chest would become tight and best way I could describe it back then was that "I can't expand my lungs with too much air without excruciating pain". I once told my father about this happening to me, and he told me that he had the same thing, that it must be genetic. He also told me that his stopped as he got older, so I took that and ran with it for years.

Finally in my very late 20s, I reached out to my doctor. I don't go to the doctor often because I feel always ignored about any complaint I may have, but I just wanted his opinion on it. The last episode I had before going to see him was when I was playing Civilization VI on my laptop reclined on my couch. Literally nothing triggered me, and then BAM! I'm screaming at my husband that I can't breathe and I practically threw my laptop as I scrambled to get up off the couch. So I scheduled and went to my doctors and told him about this pain I'd been having. To my absolute shock, he almost panicked. He told me he felt I was describing the symptoms of a heart attack, but I was only in my 20s. It actually scared me, suddenly I'm being told that this is not normal and that something must be wrong with me to have these issues. He scheduled multiple tests including an MRI, and EKG and ultrasound of my heart. When I came back from the tests, he told me I had a slight murmur but otherwise I was in perfect health. That's when he told me "You're having panic attacks". I was taken aback hearing that and I honestly didn't believe it. My understanding was that a panic attack is when the eyes dilate and you think you're under attack. Having chest pains out of seemingly no where in non stressful situations didn't compute to me as a panic attack. He then told me he was going to recommend me to a therapist. Overtime this therapist told me I had CPTSD and I didn't believe her either because again my understanding of PTSD was that it had to do with huge events like life threatening situations or going over seas in the military. I had felt I never had any that would warrant me having CPTSD but subsequently I discovered, as I started to recover, that they were right all along. So I am now writing this blog, almost 40 years old, because I hope it will help others or at least let them know they're not alone. Overtime in my blogs I will speak about my childhood and my events that happened throughout my life. These things may be difficult to read for some and hard to understand. I will do my absolute best to post these events in order and supply as much detail as I can to help alleviate any questions. However, if you have questions, please feel free to ask me anytime or comment here, there will be no judgement from me. Before I end this blog I wanted to point out the phrase I chose to make my title, "I don't know how you do it,". This is a common phrase I hear almost weekly if not daily - to this day. I know the people who say it mean well, they feel they need to praise me for putting up with so much. However, this phrase actually can be fairly damaging to those who have experienced any kind of trauma. The reason being is this sentence implies there was a choice, that the person is only strong because they endured their painful event. There wasn't a choice, so that is always my response to those who say "I don't know how you do it," I say "I didn't have a choice,". I encourage those who speak with others who have endured any difficulty, not to use that phrase. The phrase you're looking for is "I'm sorry," or "I'm sorry you went through that,". It may sound like a bland response, but it is the most meaningful. You are recognizing and acknowledging this person's story and that's all a person wants is to feel heard. You can do so much by giving someone affirmation when they open up to you about something that has happened in their life. So I will end this blog today - here. And the next one I will start off with my earliest childhood memories and will build from there in future posts. Please feel free to comment or ask any questions, I am not here to judge you, I am here to hear you and help you to the best of my ability. Have a wonderful day!

[tracinginwardinvestigation]

Play #9: Talisman’s emergent narrative: making meaning out of chance

A few weeks ago, I played Talisman: Digital Edition with my friends. As its name suggests, the game is a digital adaption of Games Workshop’s classic board game from 1983, Talisman. The game’s main objective has players taking turns rolling dice to travel around the gameboard, fighting enemies and collecting loot before they can venture into inner zones to become the winner. Indeed, if that description hasn’t reminded you of a typical RPG’s gameplay loop yet, then the fact that the game’s aesthetic theme is western fantasy should cement that. That being said, the board game is definitely not meant to be a storytelling-focused game like Dixit or the typical Tabletop RPG; none of Talisman’s rules mentions nor encourages players to tell a story as they play along. Yet nevertheless, the emergent narrative formed unintentionally through our playing was what made the game really fun for us.

This emergent narrative caught my attention when after we finished our first session, one of my friends said that the campaign was fun and then proceeded to describe the experience in fantasy narrative style. To call our session a “campaign” reminded me of Dungeons & Dragons (my friend knows a little bit about DnD), and when I looked back to our playing session, our Talisman session did feel similar to a fantasy adventure: we worked together to take down the Sentinel, we kept losing our healths inside the harder areas, we made fun of each other when our lucks weren’t in our favor, and so on. The game was already fun to play as it was, but by describing the session in terms of DnD style, we also produced a fun story too. For example, this was our most favorite moment in our first session:

Reality: I accidentally lost my last Life Point by not paying attention. Unexpectedly, that death gave me a chance to turn the game around. When I got revived, I got lucky and drew a spell that lets me steal a powerful item from my friend. This one singular decision ended up having a big ramification to the point of leading me to victory.

Narrative: The Exorcist visited the graveyard to make a pact with the Devil. In exchange for his life, he gained immense power that let him steal a powerful artifact from his ally—a wand that lets him cast numerous spells. With this newfound power, obtaining the Crown of Command was an easy task for him.

Notably though, the way we created narrative here was slightly different from roleplaying: instead of acting in alternate persona in order to form a narrative, here, the narrative was formed retrospectively. None of us played the game with the intention to tell a story, and yet we nonetheless looked forward to the kind of absurd narrative that could be generated from our playing.

One specific feature of Talisman that contributes the most to the creation of this emergent narrative is the matter of “fortune”, a central point of playing according to Sarah Lynne Bowman. While Talisman has been met with criticism before for being too luck-based, I think half the fun of the game is dealing with bad luck. The unpredictableness of dice rolls opens up opportunities for us to laugh at each other’s misfortunes or to get surprised by an unexpected turn of event. Granted this randomness might not be fun for everyone, but for my friend group, who loves “stories so absurd it is fun” (it’s the reason we watch Riverdale weekly), Talisman is perfect for us! Even boring moments can be translated into something memorable, such as with our second run. New to the game, we were unaware of the Firelands Expansion’s difficulty, so our combination of the expansion with a specific victory condition that did not gel well ended up making the run horrible. To put it plainly, we had to end the run prematurely because it was miserable to keep playing when everyone just died every turn due to fire tiles. As a story, however, it was frankly entertaining to look back on: just a bunch of heroes who failed to save the world from hellfire, so they slowly burned in hell for their damnation sins. This sort of emergent narrative, which is resulted from unpredictable dice rolls and our interpretation of events, demonstrates the power of narrating: it can turn individual gameplay moments into a meaningful sequence.

Overall, I find it interesting that this emergent narrative is “forcefully” constructed by the players instead of being a natural part of the game’s convention. In a way, such a narrative making process can serve as an example of how players' experience doesn’t necessarily have to correlate to a game’s intended design in order for them to have fun.

P/S: I wonder what it would be like to play Talisman as a roleplaying game?

[lys1]

Congratulations! You waited so patiently <3 This is another Asra x fem!reader for you. NSFW. 5218 words. 

Playing With Potions

—————

The late spring morning air was warming up to be a balmy 75 degrees. You had your skirt pulled down and up, tucked in the back of the waistband, forming makeshift shorts. The shop was somewhat quiet, yet the din from the streets made its nimble way through the open windows.

You descend the ladder to the box of ingredients you were unpacking. They had come in the previous evening and Asra had promptly asked you to “organize them later”. Of course you said yes, the two of you shared this shop after all, and the work that came with it.

Asra himself was bustling behind the counter, sweeping the wooden floors free of the dust and fallen ingredients. He stops momentarily to pick up his cup of tea and take a long sip. The jasmine tea's steam billows into his face as he sighs with content pleasure.

The floorboards creak as you step down and Asra looks over at you, gaze soft. "How's the supplies look, dear?" He asks curiously, returning the cup to it’s coaster.

"Ah," you muse, counting the small containers in your hands. "Looks like we will be all set on lizard toes for a while, I think our supply captain read 1000 instead of 100." You can't help but chuckle, it couldn't be helped, at least you wouldn’t have to order more for a while.

Asra's eyes open a little wider, "oh my." He laughs, "I suppose we won’t". He sets his broom to rest against the counter and bare feet pad over to you, his deep-purple eyes examining the products.

You feel his hand settle on your waist subconsciously; a side effect of being close to one another. You breathe in lightly, smelling the sweet scent of coconut and honied biscuits wash over you. Asra's breakfast choice was apparent.

"Mm," you say, turning so the two of you were face to face. "You smell delicious."

Asra smiles, box in his hand now a little less important. "Care for a taste?" He teases, eyes falling to your parted lips. He sets his lizard toes aside and joins his other hand at your waist. You look up at him through your eyelashes and nod.

He is a mere millimeter from sealing the gap between you when the bell of the shop jingles merrily.

"Ah jeez," you huff good in good nature. "I forgot we have jobs and responsibilities."

Asra laughs at your obvious disappointment and steals a small peck. "Unfortunately, we have to eat somehow." He then turns away and walks back to the counter to greet the customer.

The man is short and has a little round face. He looks extraordinarily nervous, and this catches your attention. Yours and Asra's shop is well known in the city and the townsfolk trust their magicians. You hadn't seen anyone come in here looking so nervous, and maybe even a little embarrassed.

"What can I do for you, sir?" Asra asks charmingly, resuming his position behind the counter. Briefly you let yourself admire how nice he looks, comfortable in his shop and expertise, before turning back to the box you were supposed to be dealing with. Not, however, letting your ears miss the conversation.

"I," the man starts, already fumbling with his words. "I, well look. I need help." He finishes plainly, nervously clutching his shirt between his pudgy hands.

Asra smiles kindly, "many do." He says, tilting his head and examining his new client. "Are you here for a card reading? Need to get some answers?"

The man groans as though he is already exhausted with the conversation. "No, I already know what I need. I have the answers. I've heard about this place. The ways you can help people. I live an hour out of the market and I made this trip just to see you."

"We're flattered, for sure." Asra says calmly, you can hear slight annoyance in his tone from all the ambiguity. The visitor is none the wiser though. "To help you though," Asra continues. "I'll need to know what you need."

"Alright I need a potion," the man finally reveals. "One that will help me... with performance." His cheeks are redder than a bell pepper in the sun.

Asra raises a white eyebrow, "performance? Are you an actor?"

"No!" The man's voice came out in a strangled whisper, obviously trying to keep it down. You roll your eyes, chancing a glance over your shoulder. The shop floor wasn't that big, of course you were going to hear everything.

"No," he said again, this time a little more composed. "What I mean is... my sex life performance." The truth comes out. Your visitor wipes his forehead with a dirty rag from his pocket. "My wife and I well.. we've hit a slump," he explains. "And I've heard of potions that can help with that kind of thing. Stuff that will completely change the game." His eyes are shining now, imaging life post-performance potion.

Asra looks uncertain at best. "I see," he starts, shooting you a glance. "That.. does exists. But it takes awhile to make. And the price isn't cheap either."

You shove the last of the crow feathers into their designated drawer while listening. You have never heard of such a potion, but you were also still learning. Asra sounds a little unsure though.

"Price isn't an issue," the man sounds desperate. "I'll pay anything."

Asra sighs, he feels bad for the man wringing his hands before him, practically crying for a cure. "Alright," he finally concedes. "I'll make it, but you'll have to come back in the morning. This kind of thing takes all evening to brew."

Your customer nods vigorously, "I can wait." He says. "Tomorrow morning, yes! I'll be here!" His excitement apparent, he bows a few times while backing out of the door, tripping over his own feet.

The door closes with a sharp bang and the bell rings furiously. Asra blows air out of his mouth so that itf ruffles the curls between his eyes.

"Well," he says after a moment. "A sex performance enhancing potion was not what I was expecting to make today." He rubs his temples, eyes closed and looking thoughtful.

You grin at him from the shelf as you pick up the empty shipping box and rest it on your hip. "That's quite the name, I've never heard of a potion like that."

Asra laughs and opens his beautiful eyes to look at you. "Yes, you'll have to forgive me for not teaching you that kind of magic, it's not the.. safest." He ends uncertainly. "I don't even know how this guy found out about it. It's not talked about much amongst us magicians.. and it's certainly not a common one."

Immediately more questions than your mouth can keep up with flood your brain. "So how did you find out about it? And why isn't it safe?" You ask the two more important ones, eyes following Asra as he finds a piece of paper and quill to use.

He dips his quill in the register's ink well and starts scratching down what you presumed to be ingredients. "I've been studying magic for years, my love." He says simply, "and before you ask, no I haven't used it on myself." He looks up at you, mischief dancing in his pretty eyes. "I'd like to think my sex game is up to par." He adds innocently, licking his lips seductively when your ears tinge pink.

You brush imaginary dirt off your shirt sleeves and huff. "I suppose it's pretty good." You mumble. It almost feels like a lie to just describe it as "pretty good" but Asra doesn't need you to stroke his ego right now. You do that enough falling to pieces beneath him every night.

Asra is well aware of your attempt to keep him humble and laughs lightly. "And to answer your other question," he says, turning back to his ingredient list, "messing with ones body like this can be dangerous. You have to be very precise."

You nod as he explains, it makes sense.

Potions are always brewed in pots over a magic fire so you put yourself to work, removing a medium sized iron pot from a hook on the wall and carrying it to a fire stand. Asra is busy himself, opening various drawers and adding seemingly random ingredients to a basket he has looped over his arm. Iris petals, newt eyeball, and some shimmering gold flakes. You smile watching him, your gorgeous magician; smart and able.

In no time at all Asra has a bubbling pot of sweet smelling liquid stirring before him. You stand beside him, observing curiously.

"Why are you wearing gloves?" You ask, taking note of the large leather gloves that clad all the way up your lover's forearm.

Asra continues to stir and looks over at you, happy to hear your eagerness to learn. "I can't risk even a drop of this touching my skin. It's so strong, and will immediately absorb into anyone's skin, leaving them..." He shakes his head and trails off, amused. "That's why it has to brew so long, to burn off some of the potency."

Your mouth opens in amazement, taken aback by the idea. This is the real deal you decide, stepping back a couple inches in precaution. After watching the potion bubble for a couple more minutes you stretch and grab the watering can sitting by the floor of the door.

"I'm going to water the plants," you inform Asra, waving your hand briefly until the can is full of cool, crisp water. Gods knows there are at least three dozen inside and outside of the shop.

Asra is humming in confirmation that he heard you as you open the shop door to the plants hanging outside. You don't get very far before you're blindsided by a streak of purple darting through your legs.

Escape!

"Faust?!" You yelp, dancing around the squirming snake as she winds her way under and into the open shop. A loud, booming bark makes you jump again. This time a large hound dog is rounding the tight corner from the side street and barreling full speed towards you.

All hell breaks loose. The water can is up in the air, crashing wildly into the side of the building. You are thrown back onto the dusty floor and a mass of fur and teeth race past you, paying no mind to your yelling.

Help!

Faust is racing around the floor, narrowly avoiding the jaws of the angry dog she seemed to have aggravated. There's a large crash from inside and you cringe, hearing bottles break and wood crunch. You look back, scared at what you might find.

The shop is a disaster, papers strewn, vials broken, and potion pot toppled. Asra is groaning on the floor, obviously doing no better than the rest. You glance at him worriedly, taking quick notice of the potion he had been making spilled everywhere, even on him.

You snap your fingers and the dog's growl, who was cornering Faust by the bookshelf, turns into a whimper as you lift him up with your magic. "I'm sorry pooch," you sigh, "but we can't have you eating our friend." With a wave of your wrist the hound is out the door and down the street in an instant. The hinges creak and bell rings as the door is once again closed to outside.

Thank you!

Faust wriggles happily, red eyes glowing in relief. You guess she got up to some trouble with the local fauna. She slithers up the stairs quickly, leaving you to look around at the ruined shop.

"Ah, fuck," Asra's words cut through your thoughts like a knife. He's laying flat on the floor, chest heaving as though he just ran a marathon. Sweat glistens on his tan skin, covering him from head to toe.

You step over the broken bottles and kneel at his side. "My love?" You ask, unsure of what to do. It was obvious what had happened, it didn't take an expert. The potion that was supposed to be for your customer was now soaked into Asra's glowing skin.

Asra opens his eyes and you swallow hard. You know that look, and it nearly makes you start trembling where you sit. Lust is prevalent, clouding Asra's eyes until they're a dark amethyst color.

"You-" you start to speak but are cut off by Asra sitting up abruptly. His face is close to yours and his breath washes over your lips, hot and wanton. He looks positively desperate, just the sight of you sitting before him doing wonders.

"Please," Asra's voice comes out low and husky, he watches your chest rise and fall quickly as a result. "Can I please have you, right now."

You could almost call him asking like that soft and innocent, if it wasn't for the raw, hungry look he was giving you. His eyes were traveling everywhere across your body, leaving an invisible line that you could almost feel burning into your skin. Your lips parted and you let out a soft gasp, the power that kind of look had over you was astonishing. You shifted your legs under you subtly, feeling the result of the hot atmosphere low in your stomach.

"Tsk, tsk," you had to tease for a moment. "Closing the shop at midday for some fucking?" You reach up and cup Asra's cheek, feigning uncertainty. His skin on your fingertips burns white hot and you have to hide your amazement.

Asra's eyes narrow, he knew you too well. With a quick flick of his wrist you hear the deadbolt on the door slide into place. It's only a second later and both of his hands have found a place on either side of your hips.

"Why do you torment me?" he asks, pulling you close so your legs straddle him. "Can't you see I'm getting enough of that from this damn mistake of a potion?" His words are almost shaky, as though he can barely speak anymore. He presses his hips up to meet yours, and a soft sigh escapes his lips as he finally gets a little friction.

You dig your nails into his shoulders and gasp, the feeling of Asra so obviously in need is enough to make anyone go wild.

You can't resist grinding down lightly and Asra's eyes practically roll back at the sensation. "How can I say no to such a pretty face," you whisper, completely in love with his reaction.

That was enough for Asra and without added words he gathers you up in his strong arms and lifts you both. Your head falls back pleasurably when his lips find your neck. It only takes a few quick steps on his part to bring the two of you into the plush back room.

The purple cushions lining the cozy futon sink in gently as your back hits the mattress. The room has a slight pleasing haze as sandalwood incense burns at the table. The smell washes over your senses and a new wave of sensuality comes over the room.

Asra's hands hold you firmly as his lips continue to press lovingly into your skin. He hovers over you, one leg pressed between your legs, causing your hips to involuntarily move along his thigh.

"I need you out of these clothes," Asra groans, lips being stopped at your chest where your shirt has suddenly become a hindrance. He's already tugging at the hem, untucking the loose fabric from your waistband. You raise yourself to your elbows and help him pull the shirt over your head. At once it is thrown over Asra's shoulder and his eyes are set on your bare skin, drinking in the sight of his lover.

You smile at his admiration and lay back again, stretching your arms above your head and arching your back. You feel his hands on your stomach, traveling up to rest on your breasts. Your skin prickles with desire, flesh lighting on fire from his ministrations.

"How did I get so lucky," he breathes out, looking down at you with a look filled with love and passion. He rests the tips of his fingers on your nipples and swirls them lightly, leaving you to twist in torturous pleasure beneath his touch. "Everything about you is beautiful." Asra continues to flatter, lowering his head so his curls tickle your stomach. He licks a long line from the dip of your hip up to the valley between your breasts.

After a few moments of tasting your supple skin he moves his hands to the top of your skirt and tugs. You lift your hips in compliance and the fabric slides down your legs easily. Asra licks his lips as your body is finally fully presented to him.

"I could feast on you," he announces, voice lowered with need. "And I wouldn't go hungry in a lifetime." These words he whispers into your inner thigh, they tickle your skin softly.

You watch with bated breath as the man before you adores his lover. It's hard to keep your moans controlled as you feel his sinfully good tongue lick you in a way that can only be described as ecstasy.

Asra shifts into a more comfortable position, lying on his stomach and he brings your legs to lay comfortably over his shoulders. You shudder as you feel his hot breath flutter over your dripping slit. He doesn't waste anymore time and lowers his face to enjoy you.

Your thighs squeeze his head lightly as your body arches in response. Asra is devouring you as though you were a feast and it was the only meal he is to have in a lifetime. He grips your legs tightly to keep you from moving and covers your slit with his mouth, sucking for a moment on the tight nub at the top. He groans happily into your skin before moving down to lick your hole.

"Oh please, yes," you run your trembling hand through his hair and raise your hips up to meet his greedy mouth. He laps short, quick strokes first, stimulating you into madness.

After a moment he slows his tongue down to swirl languidly, looking up at you. You make eye contact and groan at the erotic scene of him eating you out. "That mouth of yours is too skilled for its own good," you whisper, fingers digging into his scalp, trying desperately to savor every swipe of his tongue.

Asra smiles against your folds. "I live to make you feel good, my dear." He says, pausing a moment. "You intoxicate me. Your smell, your taste. I couldn't get enough even if I had all the time in the world." He presses his lips on each one of your thighs with hot, open mouth kisses.

You blush at his words, feeling amazing under his praise. "Come here," you command softly, pulling on Asra's hair lightly to guide him back up your body. He kisses every inch of skin he passes before finally reaching your lips.

"Mm," he hums, taking your face in his hands. "But these lips, are like the finest honey in Vesuvia." He lifts your head so your mouths meet. It's a hot and feverish kiss, full of staggering amounts of love.

You press your body into his and relish in the feeling of kissing Asra. Your mouths are opened to one another and your tongues meet in fiery unison. While you enjoy the kiss you allow your hands to roam. Your fingers find his shirt buttons and you start to undo them as best you can, only a little distracted. It takes just a minute and you sigh happily into his mouth when you finally remove the annoying clothing.

You part a moment to admire the divinity of his body; prostrated before you. He was calling himself the lucky one, but you could probably make a pretty good argument for it being the other way around. He looked absolutely glorious in the hazy glow of the room.

As you reach for the waistband of his pants and rest your fingers playfully on the skin above it Asra breaks out in goosebumps at the fluttering feel of your touch.

"Ah," he breaths out, raising himself to his knees and closing his eyes. Clearly, he's enjoying the attention finally being on him.

"You are the one with the potion affecting them." You say, drawing a line from one hip to another. "It'd almost be criminal to ignore you for any longer." Your eyes fall to the bulge straining under Asra's pants, just begging to be free. A smile plays across your lips as his breaths quickens significantly.

"I.. wouldn't complain." He finally manages to say in a strained tone.

You smile, maybe a little too satisfied, and hook your fingers under the band. "I know." You chuckle, pulling. The trousers catch a moment on Asra's hardened length before slipping down to his knees. You take time to admire the sight before you, licking your lips. Asra is panting slightly, looking down at you lustfully as your eyes graze over him.

He grabs your head on either side and looks into your eyes. "Please," is all he can croak out.

You swallow thickly and you feel yourself dampen even more at his begging words. “I’d like nothing more" you say; need dripping heavily from your words. You lean forward and kiss the tip of his leaking slit lightly. Asra's body shivers with pleasure when your soft lips meet his aching shaft.

You take a breath before closing your mouth around his tip. Your cheeks hollow and you suck in deeply, enjoying the small sounds of pleasure emitting from Asra's lips. He groans even deeper as you finally swallow down his whole length, tip sliding down the back of your throat.

"Ah fuck, baby," he stutters through gritted teeth, fingers threading through your hair. He thrusts into your mouth without hesitation, reveling in the way you feel around him. The pace is fast and vicious, leaving no time for extra room for breathing.

You choke back your gasps and feel the involuntary tears prick at the corners or your eyes. Your hands fall to your sides as you let Asra use your mouth how he pleased. Licentious noises ring around the room as he sinks his member into your mouth relentlessly, moaning at each stroke and the salacious feelings that come over him.

His grip tightens in your hair as he pounds into your face. You open your mouth as widely as you can and take him in, ignoring the slight pain of labored breathing. The feeling of being used so mercilessly is intoxicating, and you close your eyes, enjoying the pleasure that overtakes you.

With a loud pop he pulls out of your drooling mouth, leaving you to be the one groaning in disappointment.

"I'm sorry love," he huffs dazedly, need heavy on his features. "But if I don't stop this now I'm cumming in your mouth."

"That doesn't sound so bad," you complain, sticking your tongue out so Asra can view how much you want it. His eyes darken considerably and he looks ready to break.

He takes a breath in sharply, steadying himself before holding your face gently in his hand. "As much as I want you fuck your face, that pussy of yours I know is dripping for me and I have to comply." He chuckles, running his thumb along your lip.

You whimper at his words, practically climaxing at the suggestion. You meet his eyes in a needy manner and nod. "Oh, Asra," you start, already seeing excitement flit across his face at the mention of his name. "I want you more than I can even describe to you."

To this Asra inhales sharply, thumb still hooked in your mouth. "Tell me how you want me," he says, barely able to contain his own desire.

"I want you to fuck me from behind," you begin, knowing exactly how to please his ears. "I'm going to cry and moan, and beg you for relief but you will know better." His eyes widen in ecstasy but you continue anyway. "I want you to give everything you can to me, without holding back."

Asra seems to snap right in front of you. His features immediately seem to plead for consolation. "You'll get what you ask for." He growls, fingers tightening in your mouth. You lick his thumb seductively and the action throws him over the edge.

Asra's hands fly to your waist and hold you firmly, you're flipped over; ass to the heavens greeting him. He swallows at the sight and digs both palms into the flesh, enjoying the feeling immensely. "So needy and ready for me," he groans, finger finding your entrance and slipping in easily. You gulp at the warmth of having fingers enter you. Asra is unrelenting and curls them cruelly against your walls.

"Just fuck me already!" You cry, unable to hide your desires anymore. You hear Asra laugh behind you, yet despite this you know he is dying to sink himself into you.

"Alright, alright." He concedes, taking your hips in his hands. "If you insist."

You feel his tip slide against your slit and shudder, craving the feeling of him inside you. It doesn't take more than a moment before you feel him start to enter you. You lay your head down, turning your face so you can watch Asra take you from behind.

His lips are parted in a silent moan as he relishes in the feeling of your walls around him. You sigh softly as he fully sheaths himself in you, a small tremor passing over your body from the pleasure. One moment, two moments pass as you both bask in the feeling of being connected.

"Give me your hands," he commands, slowly sliding in and out of you, giving no care to his agonizingly slow pace. Soft gasps are falling from your lips as you try to register his request.

Carefully, you cross your arms behind your back. It's no use to keep the blush at bay as you take in the dirty scene. Your face is pressed to the pillows, unable to move much as Asra takes your wrists and pins them to your back. Your ass is raised in the air to meet his rhythmic thrusting.

Asra grips one of your thighs with a free hand and quickens the pace a little. Your eyes shut tightly as your body responds. You can feel his tip hit deep inside of you with each snap of his hips. It's unrelenting and you have to catch yourself from begging for more.

You feel the fingers around your wrist tighten a bit as Asra's breathing speeds up behind you. You know that he's set on giving you as much painfully slow torture as he can manage himself, but you also know that potion is working against him. There's nothing he wants more than to let go and pound you into the mattress.

"Baby," you choke out, words bouncing along with your bodies. "I know you want to fuck me so good right now." Your voice is deep with seduction. "Please just fill me up like I know you want to." You finish your plea, watching his face with satisfaction. His eyes are darkened with desire. He takes just a few more strokes before slowly to a stop inside you.

"You asked for it," he warns. He only takes a moment to let go of your wrists and flips your body so you're facing him. He cages you in on either side and licks his lips as he stares into your eyes. His hungry mouth meets yours in a kiss full of fire. You can melt into it for only a second before you feel him grab your hips and pull you flush against him; Your cries drowned by his lips as he sets an erratic pace, skin meeting with loud slaps.

"Fucking hell," he groans, still kissing you between words. "You feel like heaven on earth. You're so hot, and I can feel your insides squeezing me." He explains, hot breath falling over your face. Your cheeks burn at his descriptions.

You loop your arms around his neck and press your chest into his. Your skin meets, shining with sweat and burning from love. Asra presses back, savoring the feeling of your nipples brushing against his.

You start to feel that familiar blossom of unreleased pleasure pool in your lower stomach. Asra's shaft is hitting you just right, sending jolts of satisfaction right to your core.

"Oh-" you stop and whine pleasantly when he shifts angles. "Fuck. Please yes, don't stop!" Your arms drop and nails dip into his biceps and you grit your teeth from the hot delight searing through your body.

"I couldn't even If i wanted to," Asra answers, words strained as his grasp on himself starts to crumble. His breath is leaving his lips in short pants now and you can almost see the resolve to hold on slip away before your eyes.

He falls into you, wrapping his arms tightly around your waist and thrusts into you with all of the strength he can muster. You bury your face in his neck and take hold of his hair. You can feel Asra's body shuddering to not let go.

You bring your lips to his ear and bite his lobe. "Won't you come for me sweetheart? Please empty yourself in me." You whisper.

Asra takes in a sharp breath and you hear him choke at your words. They were enough to push him over the edge and he rams into you with a low, strangled cry.

Your head falls back and your mouth opens in a silent scream as Asra lets himself go in you. Your legs shake violently of their own accord as you feel your orgasm wash over you, leaving your body in euphoric fire.

Asra's lips immediately find yours as you ride out your orgasms together. You kiss him passionately, all of your senses in overdrive. His kisses are soft, and sweet, a clear declaration of his love. Happiness rushes in like a flood as you enjoy the afterglow. After a minute Asra removes himself from you and joins you in laying down, sides still heaving from the activities.

"My dear, how I love you." He says with a smile, running his fingers in slow, soft circles on your stomach.

You turn on your side and look into his eyes. He looked content, and his cheeks were dimpled from his growing grin.

"I love you too," you return, hand falling into his. His skin was still warm. The two of you lay there for a while, out of breath and simply enjoying the presence of one another.

Eventually, Asra sits up and looks down at you with humor in his eyes. "Well, I think I can tell our buyer that we did an extensive review of his product and it does, in fact, work."

Your face breaks into a smile and you laugh at Asra's words. "Oh goodie, I'm sure he'll be thrilled to hear all about it."

[cuddlesslut]

Memories

Part three to Home

Suna x fem reader

Atsumu x fem reader

Tags: still angst, light fluff, just a lot of Suna simping.

AN// let me know if you want me to continue the story.

Part Two: Silence

Part Four: Chance Encounters

You were the most beautiful girl Suna had ever seen. When he saw you that first day of school it was like the clouds in his normally dreary day parted and he could feel the sun. You weren’t in the same class much to his dismay. That didn’t stop the middle blocker from searching for your face in the crowds of the halls or the cafeteria. Though it was rare he stilled catch some glimpses. In those moments a war waged in his mind part of him wanted to go introduce himself, he wanted to know your name. To just be around you. But another side of his brain forbid that. Stating that he was fine were he was he would just interrupt your day. What would he even say to you. Hi I’m Suna I’ve been watching you since the first and even though I know next to nothing about you I can’t get you out of my head..... yeah no. He’d just sit back and wait for opportunity to knock. Suna curses himself for his laziness. He can’t describe how his heart stop the day his friend brought you to practice and introduce you as his girlfriend.

Though he kept his composure he felt as though the air was stolen from his lungs. This is the closesest he had ever to been to you and it was overwhelming to say the least. You stood there at Atsumu’s side smiling and greeting the team memebers and when your attention drew to Suna he realized his favorite thing about you was your eyes. You beautiful (e/c) eyes shown with so much light and happiness. When you smiled you smiled with your eyes, always getting this cute little crinkle. He shook his head at these feelings. You were taken and by one of his friends no less.

From that moment on you presence was always close by joining the boys for lunch or stopping by practice with little snacks you had made the team. Suna almost resents how easy he gets along with you. How simple it is to fall into a banter with you. He hates how calming it is when you’d sit next to him and laugh as you showed him some meme. He wanted to be annoyed with you ever time you’d put your foot down and insist he let you wrap his finger after a bad block. But he couldn’t you were just such a caring person. He’d try and give you some petty insults, maybe if he caused a rift between the two of you he’d feel better, maybe then if there was more space between you he’d feel less guilty for always being enraptured by you. But you’d always snap back with something just as clever or petty. You could go toe to toe in trading insults but both of you knew neither of you meant it. You’d always break out into that breathtaking smile after a few rounds of back and forth. He realized soon that he’d much rather keep you in his life as a friend even if he could never have you because at least he’d still see that smile. At least as your best friend he’d still see your eyes shine bright and he could take a small pleasure in knowing he brought some of that happiness.

“You need to calm down,” Suna turned to see Osamu taking the seat on the bench next to him.

Suna's hands run through his hair gripping the roots in frustration as he let out a yell.

“How the fuck am I supposed to be calm, she could be hurt or missing, and that ass is just sitting there! Two weeks! Lord knows what could have happened by now.” Hes shaking part of him wants to go back up and give Atsumu a few more licks but he knows no good will come from it.

“YN is a grown woman and she’s smart and strong and you know damn well she’d bitch you out right now for thinking she couldn’t handle herself,” the former ace chuckled.

“I’d much rather her here bitching cause at least then she’d be here,” he groaned rubbing his hand down his legs trying to let out some of his nerves. “Did you know?” He asked the grey haired twin.

Samu gave his quick glare of offense. “Absolutely not believe me if I’d known I would have been the one to deck him , you just beat me to it.”

“The last i heard from her was her birthday, maybe if I’d had stopped by and brought the Onigiri myself I could have been there for her,” he sighs.

“We’ll find her don’t worry,” his friend pats his back, “and then you can finally confess,”he smiles.

“I’m that obvious huh,” he sighed.

Samu let a loud laugh “ OH PLEASE we all knew, well maybe not YN she can be kinda blind ya’know,”

Suna shook his head laughing. He has to see you.

They returned home today from nationals. The loss to Karasuno was really starting to sink in now that was Suna was home sitting in his room alone the house quiet. He laid there berating himself for balls he failed to block. If I had just done better maybe my team would still be playing. Maybe - he was disrupted from his thoughts by the chime of the door bell. His parents were out of town this weekend. They had assumed like many Inarizaki would still be out in Tokyo fighting for first place. It was fine though Suna was used to being alone. But that just confused him more as he made his way to the door. Who could possibly be here. All he can say is he’d never except to open the door and see you standing there. Like always you stole his breath away.

“What yer not gunna let me in,” you teased “and to think I brought you snacks!” He just realized now she was carrying a grocery bag that looked pretty heavy.

“Give me that ya Dummy,” he said taking away the snacks, he stepped to the side allowing her entry.

“I figured you were hungry, but try to save me some,” she giggled. Suna just rolled his eyes as she took a seat on his couch.

“What are you doing here?” He questioned taking his seat beside her making sure to leave a respectable distance. Though he wants nothing more than to hold you close. He dismisses the thought as he rummages threw the goodies waiting for your response. He smiles seeing the package of milk bread you bought. He took it out and tossed it to you knowing it was your favorite. You smile and give a slight nod as a thank you.

“I figured you wouldn’t want to be alone after the game, I know your probably thinking a whole bunch of nonsense right now aren’t ya?” She looked at him with a solem but knowing look. He cursed how well you knew him. Seeing as he had been doing just that before your arrival. His heart squeezed at the thought of you wanting to comfort him. It almost gives him a slight hope. What about Atsumu, he lost that game too.

“Why aren’t you with you boyfriend, he’s probably taking it harder than me,” he asks knowing he might ruin this little fantasy he has here with you. He sees a sad look cross your face at the mention of the setter. It’s not a look Suna wants to keep seeing.

“You’re right about that, Tsmu’s having a tough go of it,” she gave a soft smile. “But he said he didn’t want my pity and asked I leave,” Suna could see your eyes get a little glassy thinking back to the conversation.

“He’s an Ass.” The middle blocker states plainly.

“He’s just got a lot of emotions right now and wants his space, it’s okay.” But Suna can see your hurt. He knows it wont do any good to keep talking about it.

“His loss, now I get all of the snacks,” pulling out a bag of chips. “Want to watch a movie?”

That’s how the evening went the both of you curled up on the couch Suna had brought down some pillows and blankets and he wouldn’t lie he loved seeing you wrapped in his comforter. You went on and on about this anime you started and you nearly died when he agreed to let you show it to him, pumping your fist in the air going off about your favorite character and how he’s totally going to love him. Suna looks over at you and your wearing the biggest smile eyes wide with joy. This is will always be his favorite moment he thinks.

He’s right that moment still sticks out in his mind. He has plenty of great memories but that one right there is his favorite. He’s been thinking back on a lot of his memories of you lately.

It’s been seven months since your birthday and no one in your former circle new anything about where you were. You hadn’t talked to anyone. Your number was no longer in service and all of you socials have gone silent.

After a couple of days of looking for you Suna was ready to go to the Police and report you missing, ready to call every hospital and pray you are safe. At this point that’s all that matters to him. He can’t bare to think about anything bad happening to you but it’s hard to keep his mind out of the dark place. Osamu was the one to stop him. Luckily they had gotten in touch with their former captain and while Kita was sorry to hear about the situation and very disappointed in his junior for his actions. Every one was upset with Atsumu for his actions. Kita was gladly willing to help in the search. Still being in their home town he was able to pay your parents a quick visit. And while he was happy he could inform them both that your parents had heard from you the other day so your fine. That was all your parents could tell him, stating that you had requested to keep your privacy not wanting to talk to anyone. So while they knew the biggest detail they still knew nothing.

It hurt Suna the most. How could you just cut him off like that. You were the most important person to him how could you not know that. He fretted. He knows your hurting but why did you have to cut all of them off most importantly him. Part of him was so incredibly angry how could you not even say goodbye to him. Did his friendship really mean that little to you. But another part of him understood that he couldn’t possibly know what you are going through. All he knew is how much he missed your smiling eyes. He would give everything to see you again.

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[papa-rhys]

Thoughts on Jack and His Borderline Personality Disorder and How It Shows Through His Behaviour - Because I Cannot Stop Analysing Things That Ultimately Aren’t Important

Symptoms/behaviours under the cut because holy hell this guy has a lot of them. Like, honey, are you okay?

Okay, so I’m pretty sure I can trace Jack’s BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) back to his grandmother. His mum abandoned him, which shows a reckless/irresponsible behaviour and her mum had fits of rage that didn’t correlate at all with the trigger (ie; drowning Jack’s cat because he didn’t make his bed). So I think he has a family history of it, with both his mother and grandmother having BPD and passing it down to him.

Either way, Jack definitely has it. In fact, he’s a textbook case of it.

Impulsivity

Spending sprees: he bought a pony made of diamonds because he was bored and throws money at all kinds of ventures to keep him occupied and because he wants to. I really don’t know how else to describe this one lol. He bought a pony. Made of diamonds. Because he could.

Gambling: won some of the things on his trophy shelf through poker and owns an entire casino. Hunting the Vaults themselves were a huge gamble too, especially the first two, since he wasn’t truly sure that they existed. He was prepared to sacrifice a lot in order to come out on top in both his career and his social standing. All in all, he’s reckless.

Binge eating: he doesn’t even like pretzels, but still eats them because he’s either bored or stressed. Talks about food quite a bit in conversation, too, especially his cravings.

Substance abuse: admits to being high on uppers for the duration of the pre sequel (and his time on Elpis as a whole) and tells further anecdotes about drugs and getting high in tftbl.

Promiscuity/unsafe sex: nothing about having sex with Nisha is safe lol. But in all seriousness, there’s no way to prove this one. He does strike me as the reckless sex sort though. No proof, just 7 years of knowing him as a character.

Emotional instability

Inappropriate trigger response: he strangles a man to death for simply mentioning his wife, stabs Lilith for talking about Angel, and tries to kill Rhys for not being sure about his grand plan (more on this later). His response to triggers is disproportionate, often resulting in extreme anger over small things that don’t warrant that intense of a reaction. He gets big angry about almost everything; there’s no middle ground. His reaction is never really “you’re annoying me a lot” or “don’t talk about that, I don’t like it.” His reaction to almost everything is “oh my god I will murder your first born child how dare you-”

Quickly changing mood: aside from being prone to fits of rage at the flick of a switch, Jack also flicks back to “normal” pretty quickly, too. He flips between telling you to kill yourself after surviving the train and then talks casually about his day. He’ll be filled with rage after Angel’s death and then suddenly he’s laughing about you jumping into lava and having fun tricking you into visiting his grandmother. He can be intensely angry or sorrowful one moment and then nonchalant and sociable the next. His moods don’t last very long.

Idolisation/devaluation

Jack does this with numerous people across the games, but the two shining examples are Moxxi and Rhys; Rhys being the most notable. He idolises Moxxi, complimenting her on how attractive she is and how smart she is and including her in his circle of close friends/teammates. Then the inevitable happens and she lets him down and he instantly changes his opinion on her as if he’d never thought she was good to begin with. The same happens with Rhys. Throughout tftbl, Jack is best friends with Rhys and seems to form a one-sided connection with him where he idolises him and thinks they’re going to be best friends for ever and that they’re the perfect team. You cannot make him mad at you in tftbl (trust me, I’ve tried). He’s encouraging to Rhys the whole way through, like they’re brothers. Then the second Rhys displays doubts about something Jack is passionate about, Jack reacts violently and completely devalues Rhys, claiming him to be his mortal enemy and trying to kill him. People with BPD do this often. They have strong convictions and have a tendency to feel betrayed by people who go against those convictions. Jack does this regularly and it leads to the breakup of a lot of his relationships.

Paranoia

He vented a room full of scientists into space, just in case. I mean, that pretty much sums it up, really. Jack is under a lot of stress at this point in the game and stress-induced paranoia is a particularly difficult symptom of BPD. With him already feeling the pressure, the mention of a possible mole is a huge trigger for Jack. Especially since he’s reeling from the recent betrayal from a friend. His brain is already working over time, planting uneasy feelings of distrust and being unsafe. So when he’s presented with the idea from an outside source, he runs with it. Betrayal goes on to become a big button to push in Jack’s life to the extent that he actively betrays people before they get a chance to betray him (ie; killing Wilhelm). Paranoia feeds into a lot of Jack’s bad decisions, particularly in the pre sequel era.

Delusion

Jack wasn’t lying when he told us that he’s the hero. He absolutely was not the hero at all, but he wasn’t lying about it. Because lying about something implies that you know it’s not true, and Jack genuinely believes he’s a good person. The best person, in fact. It’s not a lie because in his mind, it’s the god given truth. He’s massively delusional, even before the events of the pre sequel. He’ll spout all the cheesy 80s movie lines about saving the moon and being the hero and he thinks he’s the protagonist of his own big adventure. We know that’s not what’s happening, but Jack doesn’t see it that way. Another delusion is the idea he has about how much everyone loves him. He thinks Moxxi is obsessed with him and he thinks Angel is being forced to work against him. He cannot conceive of a world in which people don’t like him or agree with him. Because why wouldn’t they agree with him? He’s the hero. Everybody loves the hero...

Intense but unstable relationships

Moxxi, Angel, Lilith, the Vault Hunter; I could go on. Jack’s relationships with people are volatile and rocky, even when they’re seemingly on the same side like with Moxxi or even Nisha (who he forms a tight bond with very quickly). People with BPD feel all emotions intensely, which causes a roller coaster. Jack really likes Moxxi, but then he doesn’t want to talk to her, but then he wants her on the team, but then he gets mad at her for calling him a pet name and beign friendly, and then he’s telling her she’s sexy, and then he’s cursing her, and then he’s hanging pictures of her in his casino. It’s the same with Angel - he subjects her to physical torture, then he loves her, then he’s mad at her for helping the Vault Hunter, then he’s doting on her, then he’s manipulating her, then he’s grieving for her. Everything is a whirlwind.

Distorted self-image

Oh boy. Jack has this physically and mentally. Mentally in the sense that he thinks he’s a good person when he actions are abhorrent and also because he’s massively insecure. BPD often comes with a lack of identity, which causes insecurity to begin with. Throw that in a pot alongside some childhood abuse, betrayal, work place bullying, and grief, and you got yourself a big pot of insecurity soup. Put plainly, Jack doesn’t really know who he is at his baseline. His personality and interests and ideas and needs all change on an hourly basis. He morphs to suit his circumstances. He can be open, honest and down to earth when he’s trying to trick Rhys. He can be full of worry and desperation when he needs you to head to grandma’s house. He can be cunning and clever when he’s tricking you into killing Wilhelm. He can be fatherly, he can be nasty, he can be torturous, he can be laid back, he can be clever, he can be ignorant, he can be sheepish, he can be cocky. He’s everyone and no one all at once and this probably leaves him feeling very hollow and empty; which is another symptom of BPD. In the physical sense, Jack issues with self image are pretty clear. He wears a face over his face to hide his face. Yup. And he does this because he thinks he’s disgracefully ugly. This scar he’s so vehemently protective of is something that defines his whole persona going forward. He literally claims himself as Handsome Jack, forcing people to adhere to the idea that he’s so attractive that it should be his title. Even though he doesn’t feel that way and does everything he can to hide the real him. He thinks he’s hideous and he struggles between loving himself and hating himself because of it.

Fear of abandonment

Aaaand here we are at the crux of the problem. BPD boils down to the intense fear of abandonment and this is probably what guides Jack for most of his life. His father died, his mother literally abandoned him, his grandmother neglected him, his first wife died, second wife left, girlfriend and friends betrayed him, and daughter killed herself to get away from him. Abandonment is practically coded into Jack’s DNA at this point and every time it happens, it confirms his fears more. He clings to Moxxi after she betrays him - taking her ideas to try and rile her up and even going as far as to recreate her entire bar in his casino because he wants to keep her presence around. He fights tooth and claw against Angel’s rebellion, begging both her and you to stop what you’re doing and leave. The only time he begs you is when he’s facing perceived abandonment, that’s how strong the fear is. His final words to Angel are “I’ll still forgive you.” Jack isn’t a forgiving man by any stretch, but he’ll say anything he has to in order to prevent her from leaving him. He’ll stalk people, he’ll manipulate them, he’ll lie to them or keep them physically locked up - all to prevent them from abandoning him. The worst possible thing that could happen to Jack is that, and we see the spiral he slips into after Angel. After Moxxi. After the Meriff. After his wife. He can’t bare the thought of someone leaving him and he’ll do anything and everything to prevent his fears becoming a reality.

So yeah! There it is, I finally got around to posting it lol. There’s probably a lot more little details that I’ve forgotten, but I cannot think of them right now. I’ll probably update if I think of any more! The tl;dr is that almost all of Jack’s behaviour can be linked to massively untreated BPD. He needed meds and therapy, but he didn’t get them and he spiralled as a result.

[camilliar]

recs for someone new to omgcp

[February 2021.]

Reading, or not reading, OMGCP fics has come up in a couple of conversations I’ve had recently with artists newish to the fandom (ie. @jovishark; @decafffff), who are making OMGCP art (!!!) but haven’t started exploring fic -- but maybe want to? Which of course reminded me that I’ve never bothered to make an actual, concrete recs list for this fandom. So, I mean. Here is one.

The approach is, what do I think about when I think about OMGCP fanfic? What comes to mind, what stands out to me? I have excluded some very popular fics. Some of these I just don’t think are very good, and others I do think are good, and/or I enjoy them, but I don’t see why you’d need me, specifically, to recommend them. I am thinking of a story like maybe i’m waking up, which I discuss below because I link to a podfic of it. It has a lot of merits, to be sure, but it’s the second-most-read fic in this fandom by hits, and it’s got thousands of comments, and it’s by an author whose work is relatively widely praised and circulated. I am not sure what telling you more about this fic will add to the conversation; if you want to find and read it, you inevitably will. I’m happy to, say, answer asks about these kinds of fics, or talk more generally about them via DM or whatever. Feel free.

Also, I don’t think there’s a point to pretending to be objective about fanfic; this list has a perspective and that perspective is mine. In this fandom I largely read stories that navigate the tension around Jack, Bitty, and Parse, in various permutations. This is not to say that I’ve never read fic about the frogs, or that I have no interest at all in other pairings, but I am by no means an expert on Dex/Nursey and can really only speak to the one fic about them that sticks out to me because it goes beyond being merely Dex/Nursey and does something else. This is just to say that I am sure there are great and interesting fics about other things and ideas--but I’m not the person to hear about those from.

Likewise, I’m not super interested in stories that really reproduce that which is already in OMGCP. I like Zimbits--albeit maybe not in the ways or for the reasons most fans would--but I do not really need to see endless iterations of the same story about them falling in love and being cute together. I don’t think these stories are bad or they shouldn’t exist or that they have no merit by default. Still, I don’t need fanfic to give me more OMGCP. I need fanfic to complicate, to comment on, and to transform OMGCP. Many people don’t work like this! Totally okay! But I can’t rec you fics that do that.

What I have noticed, however, is that over time there appears to have been a shift in how people do write fic for this fandom. (Other than, you know, increases and decreases in activity pending the status of the comic, pairings going in and out of vogue, and so on.) Early on, say during Y1 and Y2, the comic was about the group of friends having a cool time at college together; about whether the burgeoning attraction between Jack and Bitty would manifest and, if so, how; and, especially, Jack’s past coming into fuller view for Bitty and how it would have to be dealt with in order for a relationship between them to work. YMMV on how great the comic executed there, but as Y3 went on these themes increasingly disappeared from the story. I think this means a lot of fic written over 2015-2016 or 2017 has one kind of tone, and was written mostly around these questions; after that, it feels like a new crop of writers and a new crop of ideas started circulating, that is, either embracing Jack and Bitty’s canon relationship and accepting its relative straightforwardness in text--or deconstructing it, imagining what readers aren’t seeing, or how problems not dealt with in the comic would manifest later. People who have read my fic know which of these I’m mainly interested in exploring.

All of which is to say, looking at what I’m reccing here, when the fics were posted or when I first read them probably has a lot to do with why they stick out to me so much. Because there’s no real culture of fanfic criticism--and I mean that in the positivist sense of broad evaluation not explicitly for fault and merit but rather, for context--I think it’s really hard to keep this in mind. But I’m obnoxious and I can’t just be easy about things.

Fic recs

In alphabetical order, somewhat unsorted; if a stand-alone fic has a summary I’ve included it, but in other cases I’ve recced a couple of conceptually related fics or series, which I’ve tried to just describe or explain as opposed to copying the summary off AO3.

There are so many more fanfics I think are great and worth reading! In an ideal world I’d come back and add more later, or create a secondary list that’s more along the lines of “if you like this, read these,” or whatever. But, being realistic, this is a starter kit. I’m open to talking about fanfic.

- - - - - - - - - - -

7-0-2 by Idday; Friends in Low Places and Sorry for the Blood in Your Mouth; I Wish it was Mine by blue_rocket_frost | I’m not sure it would be correct to say that I don’t like Parse/Tater, or that I’m not interested in Parse/Tater. I’m not interested in Patater a priori; I think it could be interesting, with teeth. These fics stick out to me when I think about this pairing, because they feel different. Accusations of a preference for just linking any two white men who happen to be hanging around have validity, but because of what hockey is and how it works and who’s hanging around it, it’s not exactly a leap to imagine what kind of gritty spark the friction between two closeted NHL players would create. A little violence in your sex? A little sex in your violence.

A Sight Worth Seeing by sadtomato | A four-fic Jack/Bitty/Shitty/Lardo explicit BDSM series. Either you want that or you don’t. It’s nothing hardcore, and not properly a four-way, really; more properly a kind of voyeuristic round-robin. There’s a more open and egalitarian view of sex here than I really get from the characters in the back end of the comic. It’s an expansive, propulsive view of sex and relationships that’s really nice to see. I love Lardo's detached coolness, and Bitty as a smooth operator; if you’re looking for some kind of Dom/sub dynamics world, this really isn’t it, but it’s a lively exploration into the sexual dynamics in a group of friends that’s super close to the good-times vibe you get from Haus scenes in the first couple years of extras.

call me son (one more time) by Summerfrost, Verbyna, and blithelybonny | This is a series, incomplete, and you will love it or be massively put off by it. I mean that as a compliment. I love it. The premise is, Bob Zimmermann and Kent Parson have been having sex since Kent was, like, 19. Everyone in this story has been chewed up: by themselves, by each other, by hockey. Plainly, this is a pretty bleak view of what OMGCP, as a story, is supposedly offering. If you want fic that is dark and glamorous, treading the toxic melange of substance abuse, sex-as-sublimation, and so much money you can’t possibly throw all of it away without trying, this series has that sick-inducing shimmer to it. But, again, its strength is its examination of Kent Parson, textually and meta-textually, as someone to be projected onto. Bob, Alicia, Jack, and Bitty all impute certain feelings of their own onto him, displacing their own issues to a character who’s centralized in every fic but defies neat or total comprehension. Some critiques I’ve read of this series feel it’s too dark, and I’ve also seen it argued on FFA that an overwhelming amount of praise heaped onto these stories has made it tough for other writers to make headway in writing Bob/Kent fic. But I’m also not sure you could engage with Bob/Kent fic without going down this road at some point? I’m sure there are ways to scale it back, but ultimately it’s a story about how hockey’s violent, homophobic, old-guard gatekeeping has continued to set the terms for a younger and ostensibly less toxic culture. I fully embrace PWP fics that tread on the power dynamic without fully excavating it, but buried within any PWP is the fact that a 53-year-old man is ensnaring a 19-year-old, no matter how much the latter is, realistically, into it, and legally empowered to consent. Not to mention the dynamics of it being a 53-year-old man who is the father of the 19-year-old’s ex-boyfriend, and a 53-year-old man who is an eminence grise in the field the 19-year-old is trying to make a career in  The sexual element--the vaguely incestuous nature of it--is making textual the subtext of how hockey works, actually: objectification of teenage bodies as older men’s capital.

Coach Z by thistidalwave | Just before the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, tp prospect Jack Zimmermann overdoses on his anxiety medication and is admitted to rehab. His future turns from a clear-cut road to the top into an uncertain path filled with therapy appointments, ignored text messages, a group of boys who aren't there to teach him a lesson about himself, and, of course, hockey. | I keep reccing this fic because it has 360 comments on AO3 but nobody, as far as I can tell, has ever read it; it never appears on rec lists. This isn’t the kind of fanfic I usually go in for, but I can’t help being charmed by it. This is a character study in the truest sense, a kind of Mighty Ducks-but-better view on what Jack’s time coaching peewee hockey might have been like. I have no interest in kids and my own aesthetic is maybe a little darker than this, but I admire this story because it injects vibrancy into a period of Jack’s life that OMGCP has left largely unexplored, and so has the fandom. We know nothing about what made Jack want to go to college, nothing about how he spent his days in between juniors and Samwell. It posits a very sympathetic and patient Jack/Parse dynamic, showcasing the exact kind of ragged teenage push-and-pull that would have led to the circumstances we see in Parse I-III. The outside perspective Jack needs is largely present in an OFC who’s not a love interest. Super unique, somehow both engrossing and low-key.

#dirtbags by angularmomentum | A series that is a Kent Parson/Claude Giroux fuckfest with feelings. I’ve long suspected that Parse is popular in part because he is the character who most easily elides OMGCP with the actual NHL, or rather, NHL fandom; I think he made it appealing to write OMGCP fics where the NHL is a factor. Case in point, this series, which is basically “what if Kent Parson was a real hockey player and therefore part of NHL RPS”? I have only read some NHL RPS, so I’m not the person to assess accuracy, but what I do know is superstar IRL hockey players take turns here as the caricature fanfic versions of themselves, and since Kent Parson is already that, it’s great how seamlessly he integrates into their social fabric. Rambunctious energy peppered with regret and loss, but ultimately this series is farcical, and it doesn’t take its sentimental ending too seriously--which, good.

fated to pretend by nighimpossible | 5 Jack/Kent fics that Ransom and Holster dramatically reenact for the Haus + the truth. | As a fic format, 5+1 doesn’t usually work for me, but this one isn’t just front-loaded with five too-knowing vignettes; it then wraps up by using its +1 better than you might expect. Sometimes I talk about economy of fic, and this one exemplifies it. A zero-waste fic.

go ahead and move along by originally | "Leave, Parse," Jack says. Again. Or: Kent finds himself stuck in a time loop. | Kent Parson is trapped in a Groundhog Day scenario on the day of Epikegster. I’m sure you can imagine, just from that, what happens. And yet I think this fic is super entertaining, reserving some key surprises. What this story is doing is something a lot, and perhaps even the majority, of great Jack/Parse fic wants to do: digging into the question of just why this can’t work in comic canon. Most often this is approached from the past, by writing teenage Jack/Parse deep-dives that examine their lives mid-juniors, or by writing AUs where enough circumstances are shifted that it does work, or via future fics that posit enough growth has happened, and enough things have changed. But this fic makes Parse live the same bad day again and again, testing multiple theories about just how dependent on circumstance and incident real life actually is. Another day, another tone, 10 minutes sooner, not at all--you just can’t know why it didn’t work until you exhaust every possible variable. I worry that this rec has sucked the life out of the story, though--it’s so fun!

I Saw a Life and Strange Lovers by @bluegrasshole | Most AUs in this fandom seem to retell the story in a new setting or with some big detail change, following OMGCP’s rhythm beat-for-beat. I think of this as, “It’s the plot of Check, Please, but” -- they’re doing high school football? They’re acrobats? They’re a/b/o? They’re in a DIY punk band? And so on. These two stories are not that! They’re both 1950s AUs, each deeply felt, and yet hugely different from each other. I Saw a Life is about displacement and fragmentation, two sides of a similar but incongruent social critique; Strange Lovers is a finely wrought social drama about coal mining in Nova Scotia in the 1950s, centered around historical events. I suppose a theme on this rec list is something like, “I don’t even like this, but” -- yes, okay, I don’t even like Dex/Nursey, but--! This fic is so overwhelmingly complete, the AU laid out so carefully that the story breathes with all the background details informing the writing that aren’t actually, in the story; you just know they’re below the surface. (With the exception of one investigation of Jack’s character in a short, separate fic.) I Saw a Life, meanwhile, really tests the limits of the notion that Jack and Bitty are soulmates--not by calling it into question but by asking, rather innovatively, how the setting and place of the comic itself activates that.

Les Hivers de mon enfance by staranise | What do you do when hockey is the language of prayer for your soul, and also the toxic thing that almost killed you? 2009: Jack Zimmermann takes a mental health year. God knows he needs it. | Here’s a fic by someone who’s no longer around so much, but she felt ubiquitous in 2016-2019 OMGCP fandom. Before any of that, though, she wrote this one lovely fic about Jack’s pre-Samwell recovery. The author is Canadian and really irritated by hockey culture, and I think this fic benefits greatly because she is clear-eyed about Jack’s being caught in an exploitative system; it’s hockey he’s in recovery for, in a way. There’s an epistolary element that works for me, too. I read this early on in my time in OMGCP fandom and it really stuck with me.

Lysistrata? I Hardly Know Her! (by which I mean everything) by @tomatowrites | It feels somehow like cheating to recommend OMGCP fanfics by my OMGCP BFF with whom I make an OMGCP podcast where we talk about OMGCP. You know the fics I really want to rec, like truly the ones that speak to some kind of shared depravity, are the ones where Jack is miserably mpreg for the second time and accidentally lets his kid see Kent Parson’s Long John Silver’s shrimp scampi promo spot, which obviously would get twisted into a self-hating three-way. How many times do I have to rec this fic? As many as I need to, is my feeling. If you don’t know, Long John Silver’s is an American fast-food chain that sells, like, fried pollock sandwiches; it is nautical-themed; I have never eaten there; I don’t know where there is one; I don’t eat fried fish. (Shrimp, on the other hand?) All of which is to say that it takes a real genius to investigate a premise that far out. And while a lot of people almost certainly will start reading this humanity’s depths-themed sex scene and back the fuck out, readers with refined taste will note that Kent, the point-of-view character, is right there with you, despairing that he can’t help himself. And so long as you’re in that story collection, honestly, you’ll love petite gems like Jack is transmasc, Jack and Shitty play hockey in 18th-century England, and oh, right, he’s from Georgia. Tomato holds the distinction of being probably the gamest author I know in this fandom, just really like fearless in her pursuit of any range of concept she’s pushed to. (I can push her to?) See, for example, a sublime bandom AU; Bitty is cancelled for buying a maybe-unethically exported Roman fragment of a youth’s torso; or, god, the masterwork that is this future fic series where Jack keeps relapsing and Bitty exiles him to their guesthouse. Do I think you need to read a fic where Bitty is snide about the teen prostitute whose baby they’re adopting? Yes, I mean, he would be snide, don’t tell me he wouldn’t. I could go on, but my main thing here is, if I have to pick just one, I’m going to pick this Lysistrata fic. The premise, literally, is that Bitty reads the Lysistrata and it gives him ideas. Like most of Tomato’s OMGCP fic, it’s a stripping away of the comic’s polite fiction that Jack and Bitty could possibly attain the ideal it reaches in the comic without some kind of messy, efflusive breakdown. Life is like that, you see! Tricky. Like a lot of people, although it’s tough to say precisely how many, I have always intuited that maybe Bitty is kind of a natural top? But obviously when you meet him, as a literal virgin, it’s hard to see how he’d go from zero to self-actualization so neatly. This fic floats a theory, and it has a fun little side plot for Whiskey, something I never thought about or needed before Tomato built it out herein. In conclusion, BONUS: Dex’s gay lobster novel.

only fools rush in and the light of all lights by decinq | This person wrote of the nature of the wound, one of the early, formative Jack/Bitty fics that was oft-recced when I was getting into the fandom in 2016. It forms part of a larger series that deals deeply with how Jack has been shaped by his struggles (? I hate this word) with homophobia and his own mental health. It’s a picture of the character as you might have imagined him much earlier in the comic’s run. The formatting is atrocious and he author’s flair is what Tomato would call “AO3 house style.” It’s a voice that works great for her writing. I think it’s at its best in these shorter fics; the former is about Parse and Shitty stumbling into a relationship almost accidentally; the latter, an eerie PBJ vampire fic. I had begun writing a fic where Parse is a vampire early on in this fandom, only to read this and immediately quit, because you only need one, and this one’s all I need. The Parse/Shitty rare pair fic shares its exuberance with hockey RPS when it’s good: here’s how fun it can be when you’re young, rich, and jocular. And I don’t even like accidental marriage AUs, they’re usually boring, so that says a lot. By all means, read the wound fic; read the entire series. But these are highly unusual.

OVERDOSE and Oomph and a little spin-o-rama by jedusaur | None of these are long, or plotty, and they’re all a little experimental. OVERDOSE is an AU set in a world where you know how you’ll die, but no details; Oomph, a little fic where Jack hears hockey pucks talking to him. This is the kind of stuff I used to think I’d find in fandom forever, coming out of Lotrips lurking in the 2000s: short, zany bursts of energy that surprise and delight. a little spin-o-rama peers at Kent’s character through the grim reality of being the hypertalented superstar stuck on a dead-last team. All three are sparse and stylish in a way that’s really smart, practically economical.

Sowing Season by @agrossunderstatement | Parse and Zimms, Zimms and Parse. Kent Parson's life, from the Q, through his early years with the Aces, to Jack's senior year. Canon divergent. A story of love, loss, moving on, regressing, hockey, and found families of all kinds. | Effectively a novel, digging into Kent’s personal history, mostly concerning his life in juniors but expanding into his present, overlapping with the plot of OMGCP. I think there is room enough for endless speculations on what went down pre-canon; this one offers a fuller life for Kent than nearly any others, digging into him as a whole person rather than as a satellite to Jack or the plot of the comic. Which isn’t to say that the Kent/Jack stuff isn’t dealt with here; it explicitly is. But the fact of Kent Parson’s life, if we can begin to imagine it beyond mere text, would exist before, after, and alongside Jack; he gets to juniors without Jack, presumably, and he is the captain of a hockey team without Jack, and Pinkerton lays the foundation of Parse’s character within a junior hockey that Jack also inhabits, more so that Parse existing for Jack, so to speak. And I’m not implying this latter tactic is wrong; I have certainly employed it, and others have employed it to great impact and effect. But, still, the title of this series tells you what you ought to know: Kent and his story are the potentiality of OMGCP, up to a point; seeds being planted. Young hockey players, similarly. The question implied there is, what will be reaped? And the answer to the latter, in a sense, that reaping is a sort of violence. Which makes this series sound pretty heavy, but it’s not -- more like, realistic.

(tell everyone) you were a good wife by @queerofcups | The biggest problem with pretending that he doesn’t know that Kent Parson is fucking his husband is that Jack can’t tell Kent how grateful he is. | The ne plus ultra of PBJ triangulation; I’ve been squealing to the writer about how good it is since August, begging for behind-the-scenes insights, and I’d only do that if I really meant it. The precarious social fabric stretched across these three chapters is fraying before the reader’s eyes. The details are delicious, and I don’t want to spoil them, but they sing in chorus with the plot. My favorite OMGCP fics, honestly, remove the romance narrative guardrails that keep things in the comic itself humming along. I think Dann’s take is to ask who in this comic has power and what they would end up doing with it. (Or not doing, from another angle.) At one point, early on in its telling, OMGCP looked like it was going to be a story dealing with the compounded traumas of hockey’s discontents. Then, of course, it wasn’t. This is a fic that steps back and asks what the fallout of that oversight would be. But that’s just the moldering core of this fanfic; it’s actually embroidered, like I said, with glittering detail. The color of the suit Bitty wears to his wedding is burned into my brain. The gray manicure of a woman Jack knows. The ingredients in a cake. This is one of those fics I still haven’t reviewed because the thought of stacking everything I could say about it into mere AO3 comments is inadequate.

when you’re ready by megancrtr | The Aces’ director of communications gets the call at 3:13 a.m. Jack Zimmermann has withdrawn from the draft. | “What happened at the draft” is so mythological it gets asked in the comic proper, and I’ve never counted how many fics attempt to answer this question--from Kent’s point of view, even--but it’s gotta be, oh, hundreds. This story replays the situation from the perspective of an Aces staffer who just wants to do her job, and gets at the jarring discordance between the plot of OMGCP in its quest for social justice and the business of actual hockey. Important context is that this story was written around the time the comic was playing out the end of Y3 and start of Y4, and Bitty pointedly asked Jack the question, “why can’t we?” This story reframes the question as literal, rather than rhetorical. A sterling example of fanfic being a gloss on its source.

BONUS, podfics

hockeyed up | There are many things on Jack's mind. Namely: hockey, hockey, Bitty, hockey, anxiety, hockey, hockey, anxiety, Bitty, hockey, hockey, anxiety, and hockey. | A fic read aloud by its French-Canadian author. Also a relatively early OMGCP fanfic; composed while the first semester of Y2 was posting, the story suggests a version of OMGCP that was in some ways more and in other ways less complex than what it would turn into not long after. The real power of this podfic, however, is that it’s read by the writer, so you can hear the intended emphasis in every line. Also, because she’s French-Canadian, Sophie’s intonation is what I picture when I read or write dialogue for Jack.

maybe i’m waking up | It’s almost funny. All he ever wanted was to play hockey, to play in the NHL, to win the Cup. This—Samwell, the team, the Haus—was supposed to be just a detour, but now it feels more like a destination he failed to realize he’s already reached.(Or: Jack signs with the Falconers, graduates, and leaves. It's the hardest thing he's ever done. What comes after is even harder.) | Don’t get too excited; this isn’t finished. A podfic of probably the best-known, most-recced fic in OMGCP fandom. Striking for its use of metatext woven into the story, this is one of several early longform Jack/Bitty fics that posits that maybe Jack has a lot more development to undergo before he can really, truly, be okay--or be okay enough to be with Bitty? To be honest, this story strikes me now as too long, but the parts in it that work are effective beyond that which fanfic demands. Meanwhile, this audio version only covers six chapters, but it’s so slick, so well-realized, so true to the story. Podfic as art.

my own dear friends | Ever since the day he met Jack Zimmermann, Shitty has seen it as his solemn duty to aggressively love him. (He just didn't know how aggressive the love Jack needed would be.) | There’s previous little Jack/Shitty in this fandom and a lot less quality BDSM,

the city’s ours until the fall | Kent has been, historically, good at this—forgetting about things until suddenly he doesn’t, and then it’s like the scar has never been there in the first place, just the wound. (Or: Kent Parson lets himself be happy, after all this time.) | I’ve never read this fic and I never will. I cannot imagine how, no matter how good it is, it could compare to the version that lives in my head, with Kent’s voice so totally realized. Vocal fry and pathos, a languid energy that I still think about when I think about Parse.

the model home | It’s going to be better, and that’s great, but sometimes Jack thinks, why can’t it be good right now? | j/k j/k, this is a self-reminder to finally one day review this.

[whitehotharlots]

The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc. 

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism. 

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable. 

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself. 

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing. 

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want  students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse. 

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back. 

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure. 

[queenbirbs]

I was the son you always had | Ethan x MC

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x MC

Warnings: discussion of drug use, language, neglect

Word count: 4.9k

Summary: Ethan confronts Louise. Post chapter 13. 

Notes: Title taken from the Bear’s Den song “Above the Clouds of Pompeii.” 

------

The years have not been kind to Louise Ramsey.

If that’s still her surname, of course, Ethan isn’t sure. It’s what he gave Marlene for the admission forms; she had the wherewithal, at least, to not even bat an eye at the name. He’s always liked Marlene, even if attempting to curb hospital gossip is like trying to put out a fire with an eyedropper. Having been fourteen hours since she was admitted, it’s no secret that Doctor Ramsey’s mom is the OD in room 532. 

It’s the same room he’s standing in front of, trying to gather his wits. The rest of the staff look on from behind their pillars and charts, as if the art of discretion is lost on them all. Ethan stamps down on the reflex to bark and snarl at them. It’ll only stoke the flames if he does. 

“You have to turn the knob to open it.”

That tight feeling in his chest eases up a fraction. He turns to see Sloane, propped up against the wall beside him. In a sea of a thousand curious faces, her expression of concern is a welcome sight. Resisting the urge to reach for her, he opts for a look of disappointment at the joke, or attempt thereof. She answers with that gentle smile of hers, the one where the left corner of her mouth crinkles up and her dimple appears. Her gaze drifts from his and over to the window; on the other side is Louise, the pallor of her face covered in a light sheen of sweat. The hands that used to hold his as they crossed the street tremble around the pages of whatever magazine she’s pretending to read. 

“I don’t know why I’m bothering. I already know why she’s here.”

“No, you think you know why,” Sloane says, and he hates it, but he knows she’s right. “The only way to know for certain is to talk to her.” 

“And what would that conversation sound like? Hi, I’m Doctor Ramsey, the son you left without a backwards glance when he was eleven years-old. How was the turkey sandwich you had for lunch?”   

She leans her temple against the wall, her eyes glazing over in that familiar way that tells him she’s deep in thought. After the eleven hours she’s been here, thick strands have come loose from her messy bun to settle against her neck. The urge to sweep them away, to settle his hand there and massage at the tight lines is a fierce one.  

“Treat her how you would a patient. Ask her about her pain management, about her next steps once she’s discharged. That will give you a feel for her attitude towards you, and towards herself in general. It’ll give you a foundation to start with.” 

Reaching out, Sloane squeezes his arm once, then twice, before letting her hand fall away. He misses the warmth of her immediately. 

“Alright,” he sighs. “Yes, thank you, that… helps. Truly.”

Before he can work up the nerve, she beats him to his next question.

“I’ll be in the office when you’re done, if you--”

“Yes.”

That smile winks at him again as she pushes off the wall and heads down the hallway. Ethan watches her for as long as he can, until the throng of staff swallows her up. Turning back to the door, he catches Louise watching him before her eyes dart back to her magazine. She hasn’t turned the page for quite some time, and he doubts the full-page cologne ad is somehow keeping her attention. Before he has to resort to a pep talk, he turns the knob and steps inside.

Louise looks up as he closes the door behind him.

“Oh. Hello.”

“Hello,” he greets through a throat stuffed full of cotton. “I’m Doctor Ramsey. I’m here to perform a check up and see how things are going.”

Her mouth opens and closes, her eyes growing wide beneath her bangs. 

“Well, okay, yeah, but -- I mean, I know you. I know who you are. You’re my son.”

The angry retort he prepared never comes, drowned out by the roaring pulse in his ears as he picks up her chart from the foot of the bed and reads through it. 

“Yes, I’m aware.” He brushes off her words and continues in a forced monotone. “We’ve got you on lofexidine to help reduce the detox symptoms. Even with the assistance, those symptoms will likely peak in the next day or two, depending on how heavy your usage is.”

“I know.” She toys with the magazine as she speaks. “This isn’t my first rodeo.” 

Ethan lifts his gaze from the chart and looks -- really looks -- at his mother for the first time in twenty-six years. The dark brown hair she used to tease with her can of Aqua Net, making the hallway outside the bathroom smell of chemicals, is now a sallow gray. The warm arms that would hug him tight are gaunt from malnutrition. The bright face that he remembers smiling down at him, or blowing raspberries against his cheek, or peeking around his door to call him down for breakfast is no more. Pockmarks mar her skin, more visible now without the thick coat of makeup. Deep grooves circle underneath her eyes and along the curve of her cheeks, carving at her skin. 

“When did the drug use start?” he asks.

“We were at the tail end of the nineties recession, but layoffs were still happening across the company. I was lucky to keep my job, but with a forty percent cut of staff, those duties had to be distributed elsewhere.” She heaves out a sigh, a weary chuckle following after. “Being the finance manager, I was elsewhere. My coworker, Brenda, she’s the one who got me started, going on and on about how it made her feel relaxed and on top of things. I grew up in the seventies, so I’d taken an occasional trip or two with LSD. It didn’t seem so bad just to try it out. At first, it was a line or two to get through the fourteen-hour work day. Then, after a few weeks, two lines became five. And then…” she drifts off, her hand dipping from side to side.  

“Not that working those long hours helped in any way. I never got to spend time with you -- that was your father.” It’s impossible to miss the bitterness in her tone, the downward turn of her lips. “He got to play stay-at-home dad until you turned two. He got to hear your first words, watch you take your first steps. He’d tell me all about what I’d missed when I got home: how much fun you had at the park, how well you did in the spelling bee, how high you placed at the science fair. He got to be the parent, and I was just the moneymaker.” 

The dull roar in his ears changes to a shrill pitch, drowning out every sensible thought inside his head. The sob story was to be expected, but the jealous jabs at his dad are a step too far. How dare she walk back into his life and insult the man who raised him? She knew nothing about that first year. How Ethan would come home from school and spot the late notices on the kitchen table. How Ethan would creep down the hallway at night and see his dad sitting on her side of the bed, going through photographs and crying. How, three days before Christmas, the electric was shut off and his dad made the living room into their own campsite, complete with a roaring fire to cook beans on and flashlights to tell make-believe stories. 

“So you decided to skip out and miss twenty-five more years of my life?” he snaps.  

“Oh, Ethan,” she sighs, “it wasn’t like that.”

“Bullshit.”

“I had to--” she stops and drags in a breath. “I snapped, that day. I’d worked there for thirteen years, right out of high school. I got called into the boss’s office. I thought I was getting a promotion. Instead, I was reprimanded for not performing well enough. That if I didn’t shape up I’d find myself without a job at all.” Her fingers tremble with effort as she pushes her bangs aside, her glare set firmly on the tiled floor. “And then I came home -- early, because I was crying in the bathroom to avoid making a scene -- and your father… he stopped me in the kitchen. He told me that I was working myself too hard, and that I should try to take some time off to be with you two.”

She looks up at him then, sympathy for her misdeeds plainly written across her face. Ethan wonders if he’s still that good at reading his own mother, or if she’s that good of an actress.     

“Then you went to the store,” he finishes for her. “And you never came back.” 

“I went to the bank,” she corrects, as if, in the grand scheme of things, it matters. “I took out my money and got in the car and drove. I made it all the way to Richmond before a state trooper took note of my tags. After I made it clear that I’d left of my own volition, he let me go, and that was that.”

The flippant way she describes those harrowing days feels like a slap in the face. His next words are spoken through clenched teeth, as he attempts to reign in the anger that burns through him. 

“You could’ve… why didn’t you leave us a note? We both thought something terrible had happened. He never said anything in front of me, but I wasn’t stupid. I watched the news. I saw what happened to other moms who disappeared.” 

He remembers sitting in Mrs. Lemon’s living room, their next-door neighbor and his babysitter while his dad was out searching. He remembers the ticking of her crochet needles and the smell of the litter box that needed changing and the feel of the corduroy couch under his flannel pajama pants. He remembers Unsolved Mysteries playing on the box television in the corner, the host stepping out from behind a shadowy pillar to ask for his help solving a mystery. He remembers asking for a pen and paper to write to Mr. Stack and see if he could air his mom’s case.  

“I… like I said, Ethan, I just-- I snapped. I had to get out of there. Every day it felt like I was drowning, but then, seeing you, coming home to you, gave me enough air to breathe.” A wistful little smile appears, but soon falls away as she continues. “I made it all the way to Tampa and lived there for a few years with an old friend. After that, I moved around some, changed my name, tried to make something of myself.” She gives a hapless little shrug and reaches up to pull at the dry skin on her lip. “But I was hooked. Still am, I guess. And that always kept me from reaching out -- because I did think about it, Ethan. I did. 

“I tried rehab a few times, and the other moms -- their children wrote them letters and came for visiting hours. They talked about all the wonderful things they were going to do together once they stopped using.” Louise yanks at her lip again, cursing when her fingers come away flecked with blood. “But when I thought about writing to you, the thought of you seeing me like that stopped me. And the longer I stayed, the more I watched those families stop visiting and the letters stop coming. And it seemed… pointless.”        

Odd, he finds, that she refused to reach out over fears that he would abandon her. He wonders if she rehearsed her lines beforehand, or if she’s this good at ad-lib. The misty eyes and pitiful expression only serve to enhance the performance; she wears a mask, and her face grows to fit it. Buried underneath all that disappointment and resentment, though, is the what if. What if she’s telling the truth? She could have easily been another dejected workaholic that fell victim to her vices and sacrificed her relationships in the process. As a physician, Ethan knows how tight of a hold addiction can have on a person. 

“It’s different,” Sloane had said in the on-call room, those bright eyes of hers shadowed with experience, “when it’s not an article or a case study, but your own parent -- someone you’re meant to rely on.”

But he can’t -- won’t, even -- play devil’s advocate, not now. Not with the mother who walked right out of his life and never looked back. 

Wandering over to the window, Ethan watches his city move below him; people and cars and buses and trucks going and going while he wastes time here. 

“For four days, I didn’t believe Dad.” Unwilling to turn back to Louise, he searches for city hall as he speaks, finding an odd comfort in the ugly, familiar structure. “I thought he was lying when he said you left. He told me you were okay, but that you decided you needed some space from him. I think that early on… we-- he thought you would come back. Then four days became a month, then three, then school started, and when I had friends over I had to explain how it was only Dad now and that you’d left. That no, we hadn’t heard from you, but no, we didn’t think you were dead.”

Though, in his weakest hours, during that first year of her being gone, Ethan had thought about it. Would that look of pity be easier to handle if the concept of choice was taken out of the equation? If cancer or a car accident had taken her away, would that be more palatable for his friends to understand, rather than her choosing to abandon him? He could’ve been the kid making lame dead mom jokes, instead of the kid hiding his tears and fumbling his way through an explanation on why he didn’t need to make a Mother’s Day card this year, Miss Riddleberger. 

“You can imagine my surprise,” he says, “when Dad told me you were back in town and wanting to reconnect.” 

“Because I -- I do want to, Ethan,” she pleads, her voice cracking over his name. “I’ve spent all these years wondering about you. But look at you! You’ve done so well for yourself. Your father, he told me about how well you did in college, that you graduated the top of your class at medical school.”

“That was nice of him.” The reply is sour in his mouth, bitter and painful. “Did he also tell you that when I was thirteen, I fell off my bike and broke my arm and, despite everything, I cried for you? Or when everyone else was getting graduation photos with their parents, Dad had to stop another family to get our picture taken?” 

Louise’s breath hitches artfully; he imagines that she’s clutching a hand over her heart, the picture of a distraught mother. 

“No, he… didn’t tell me about any of that.” 

“No,” he agrees with a humorless chuckle, “no, I don’t imagine he would have. I imagine he also didn’t mention that I saw you leaving your motel.”

She makes a noise of interest at that. “Then,” Ethan continues as he finally turns back to face her, “my friend was in a nearby market and watched you shoplift. Oh, but before that, she overheard your interesting phone conversation.” 

Louise studies him for a long moment and he feels eleven years-old again, sitting on that corduroy couch, hoping and hoping and hoping his mom would come home safe. Some small part of him wants to be wrong about her. But Sloane has taught him time and again that gut feelings can’t be brushed aside. 

“That call had nothing to do with you,” Louise tells him. 

Crossing his arms across his chest, Ethan settles his shoulder against the window. 

“I’ve been a physician for almost a decade now, which means I’ve gotten rather good at knowing when patients are lying to me.” He holds up a hand to stall her immediate protest. “I also know that standing here and arguing with you is a waste of my time. There’s someone out there who I care about a great deal, who I treated horribly earlier because of you, yet here I am. So, here is my offer: once your three days are finished here, I’ll help you secure a spot with a rehab facility. One of the country’s best is right outside the city and I know the director there. Once you’re in recovery, you can decide what you want to do with your life.” 

“I don’t think I can afford--”

“All expenses during your stay will be paid for by me.”

“Oh.” Her eyes grow wide and her lower lip trembles. “That’s-- thank you, Ethan, that’s--”

“Let me be clear about this, though,” he interrupts, straightening to his full height and pinning her down with his gaze. “This is the only financial help I will give you. This isn’t an act of forgiveness. I still don’t trust you, and right now, I’m not sure I ever will. But you--” he clenches his teeth against the sudden wave of emotion that batters at him, “--you’re still my mother.” 

From his coat pocket, he pulls out a thick, crinkled envelope. Crossing the room, he hands it to her; she pops the tape and slides the card out. It’s been twenty-six years, but he can still remember the glittery flowers on the front, the curly font of whatever silly poem he read aloud to his dad in the card aisle when choosing it.

“You held onto this for all these years?” she asks, tears spilling out onto her pale cheeks. As she opens the card, the dried husk of a flower falls out and onto her blankets; a daisy, her favorite. He remembers sneaking onto Mr. Taylor’s lawn to steal it.  

“You left before I could give it to you.” 

It’s the last thing he has of hers. Something settles deep inside his sternum at the notion that he’s free of it. “Do you agree to the terms I’ve set?” he asks after a moment. 

Louise looks up from the card and smiles at him. 

“Yes.”

------

“You didn’t have to come with me.”

“You’re right. I didn’t.” 

This late in the evening, with most of the patients fed and medicated, the only sounds are the low murmur of televisions and steady beeps of monitors; the white noise of second shift. 

“Did you manage to get any sleep?” Ethan asks, unable to stop the quick once-over he gives her. 

“I took a nap on the couch. When I woke up, someone had covered me with a blanket. It was sweet.” 

Sloane side-eyes him, that little smile making its appearance for the third time today. He wonders when he’ll stop keeping track of something so silly. 

“That was very kind of them to do,” he says.

“It was.” 

They make it to room 532 and Ethan stops to shift the tray of food in his hands. Sloane lets out a grumble about men and opens the door for him. He’s forced to a halt right inside the doorway when Sloane stops and flashes him a concerned glance over her shoulder. 

“Wait, where’s your mom?” she asks.

“What?” 

Nudging her forward, Ethan steps into the room. He takes in the freshly-made bed, the chemical smell of a hospital-grade disinfectant, and, most alarming: the lack of his mother or her things. Turning on his heel, he beelines to the nurse’s station and slams the tray down onto the counter. The plate cover pops off, sending potatoes and green beans into the floor. Kendra glares at him from her seat behind the computer.   

“What crawled up your--”

“Room 532 -- where’s the patient?” he growls.

With a huff, she moves to the keyboard and pecks at the keys. Ethan watches the realization spread across her face and hates seeing her anger turn to pity. He’d rather have the former. 

“Says here patient discharged herself around four.”

“Why wasn’t I informed?”

“I’m sorry about that,” Kendra replies in a cool tone, then doubles down when he scoffs. “Really, I am. But you’re not listed as the primary attending, and shift change happened right about then. It fell through the cracks.”

Something wet slides across his hand. Ethan looks down to see apple juice dripping over the side of the tray and into the floor. Awareness of the mess he’s made shakes him out of the haze of outrage.

“No, I’m the one who--” he clears his throat and tries again, “--I’m sorry, Kendra. There’s no excuse for my outburst. I’ll get this cleaned up.”   

“I can page for a janitor,” she offers.

Ethan shakes his head and crouches down, scooping up the cold food with his hand and dumping it back onto the tray. Before he can stand and start to locate the closest cleaning cart, familiar orange sneakers appear beside him. Sloane crouches beside him and hands him a roll of paper towels, spraying down the counter and floor as he tears off a few sheets. They pile the used towels onto the tray, now covered in a mountain of food scraps and trash. If Ethan were a metaphorical man, he would consider it an allegory for the day he’s had.

Kendra waves them off when they move to pick up the tray. 

“I’ll have one of the dietary aides pick it up on their way through.”

“Thank you,” Ethan murmurs. 

A nudge at his side pulls him from the slippery slope of his thoughts. Sloane tips her head down the corridor, the invitation hidden away in the lift of her brow. He answers with a nod and follows her towards the elevator. 

------

Ethan drops down onto the couch, unable to quiet the weary sigh that escapes him. Jenner hops up to join him, knocking her big head against his shoulder as she snuggles close. He wraps his arm around her and rubs the white patch on her chest; Jenner settles her nose against his chin and lets out a chorus of happy grunts. 

Circling the couch, Sloane takes her spot beside him and hands him a tumbler. 

“How are you feeling?” 

It doesn’t escape his notice that she completely skipped over asking him if he wanted to talk in the first place. The response to that would have been an emphatic no. His throat feels full of all the vague answers he could give instead, of all the ways he could brush aside her question. He thinks about sitting on Mrs. Lemon’s corduroy couch that first awful, terrible night; remembers Mrs. Lemon asked if he was okay; remembers how he boxed up all those new, scary feelings and lied. 

A great, shuddering breath escapes him.

“What’s wrong with me?” he rasps. 

“Oh, Ethan--”

“I’m serious, Sloane,” he interrupts, clenching his fist tight around the glass. “There has to be some explanation, right? Because that’s-- that’s twice now she’s left without even bothering to say goodbye. And she didn’t-- she never even said she was sorry, for any of it.”

He’s unaware of his own tears until he tastes the salt of them on his tongue. His chest aches from the uneven breaths he takes, his lungs burning from the effort. Jenner whines and licks at his jaw, sensing his distress. 

“Why didn’t she stay?” he chokes out, unsure of which time he’s referring to. 

Sloane slides her hand under his and takes his glass. Placing it on the coffee table, she turns back to him and wraps her arms around him, guiding him back into the cushions. He settles his head on her shoulder, where she runs soothing fingers through his hair. 

“There’s nothing wrong with you. I could list your accomplishments until I’m blue in the face, but I know all that doesn’t mean shit to you right now, so I won’t. Instead, I’ll remind you that you’re loyal and honest and hardworking and, despite the losses you’ve experienced and despite the ways you try to hide it, you care more about helping people than anyone else I know.” She kisses the crown of his head and hums. “Well, besides me, of course.”

Her intended effect works; despite it all, he feels a laugh slip through his aching throat -- it’s feeble, but it’s there. 

“She’s the one missing out on knowing you,” Sloane assures. “We can’t choose who our parents are. You and I happened to get stuck with the short end of the stick when it comes to our mothers.”

Ethan knows the gist of her issues with her own mother; knows she left Sloane and her little brother at their grandparents when she was nine. 

“Tell me,” he requests, to which she hesitates. “I want to know. This isn’t some tactic to… I’m not trying to avoid my own troubles, I promise.”

Her fingers resume their movement as she heaves out a sigh. 

“Most of the time, it was me and Milo by ourselves, waiting for my mom to come home from work or from the club. She would come in and pass out on the couch. I knew how mad she would get the next morning if she stayed there, though, so I’d wake her up and guide her to her bedroom, make sure she took her contacts out and took some ibuprofen. On the weekend, she would have her friends over and they would fill our little apartment. But it was exciting, being around so many people, watching all of them, talking to them, fetching beer or cigarettes for them when they were too drunk to stand. Sure, sometimes they would get violent, or steal, or fight, and I would hide Milo with me under my bed until the cops left. But she threatened to drive down to Indiana and leave us in a cornfield if we got her in trouble, and I believed her. 

“Then Milo started school and cut himself on some playground equipment. He has hemophilia, so the blood wouldn’t clot, and they called her to come pick him up. When she called back to tell the school nurse to ‘staple the fucking wound shut,’ the school called CPS. The morning after that first state visit, my mom packed us a trash bag each and loaded us up in the car. She told us we were going on vacation to see Gramma and Grandpa. When we got to Virginia, she kissed us on the cheek and told us she’d be back in a week. I never saw her again.”

Ethan reaches up for her hand and holds it in his, warming her fingers that have since turned cold. He can feel the small hitch in her breath as she clears her throat to continue.   

“Thankfully, Milo doesn’t remember much. But he was the one who sought her out when he got old enough. He tracked her down when he was in college, found her and her new family. She lives in Corpus Christi; she’s the wife of a lieutenant. They have two kids, a boy and a girl, both in high school. After she dumped us off, she started a new life for herself.”

“Did your brother reach out to her?”

The humorless chuckle tells him all he needs to know. He lifts their joined hands to press a kiss to her knuckles. 

“She told him he was mistaken. Milo sent her a photo as proof. She countered with an offer for hush money.” Ethan can’t see from his position, but by her tone, he knows she’s rolling her eyes. “Some things never change, I guess.”

“I’m sorry,” he says. 

“Me too.” Sloane squeezes him tighter to her for a beat. “But I’m telling you my little sob story only because it makes me more appreciative of the people in my life who care about me. At first, that was my grandparents, who never once made me and Milo feel like a burden, who loved us unconditionally. Then, my friends at school, and my friends in college, and my friends now. And you have Naveen, you have me -- you even have your ‘boys,’” she teases. “But you also have your dad, who’s proud of you even when you burn pancakes. Just know that you can feel angry and hurt at her, but her walking away doesn’t diminish the love others have for you.”

Ethan closes his eyes at her reassurances, drinking them in. Unable to work up a response, he lets go of her hand to slide his arm around her waist and pull her impossibly closer. His heartbeat slows at the soft circles she rubs along his back, sinking easily, readily into his embrace. 

“I don’t burn pancakes,” he says after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

“What?”

“My dad, he said that?” 

“Oh, my god.” Sloane barks out a laugh; he enjoys the sound of its return. “Out of all that, you would focus on that?”

“Since it was a testament against my cooking ability, yes.”

“I don’t think he meant literally. More like metaphorical.”

“Metaphorical pancakes?”

“No, you’re-- oh my god you’re the worst.” 

“I thought I was amazing and caring and thoughtful?”

“You are, but you’re also the worst.”

He moves out of her embrace and up to meet her gaze. Her kiss is a gentle one, a brush of her mouth on his. 

“Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

“I think I know just the thing.” 

------

Author’s notes and what-have-yous:

I barely googled AMA discharges or protocol for those, but I know that since she is his mom, Ethan would not be allowed to be her actual doctor. 

“He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it” is a line from George Orwell’s Shooting An Elephant, changed slightly for this fic. 

[love-little-lotte]

Ranking the Bridgerton Books

I know I should write this in my book blog, but frankly, I have no idea how to make another section for it, and I'm too lazy to research. So, I'm writing here. Please bear with me.

Recently, I read the Bridgerton books by Julia Quinn. You might be familiar with the first book since it was adapted into a popular Netflix series by Shonda Rhimes. I binge-watched it back in December, and I have to say... not a fan. I guess I just find it too cheesy and annoying. Plus, the actors who portrayed Daphne and Simon had no romantic chemistry whatsoever.

But I'm not here to talk about the TV show. I'm here to talk about the novels! This is actually not my first time reading the books. Well, not exactly. I've read six out of the eight novels when I was in high school, I believe. I found the books when I was in high school as it was in the library (please don't ask me why my high school library has smutty novels in it, I have no idea who's in charge - they had Fifty Shades of Grey for a week but they eventually removed it from the catalog when they learned what's it about, but I digress). As a fifteen-year-old girl, the series hooked me.

If you're not familiar with the books or the Netflix series, here's a short synopsis: Set in the Regency era, the Bridgertons are one of the most influential families of the ton. The books follow the love stories of the eight Bridgerton siblings, alphabetically named Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth.

I didn't read it in chronological order back then, though. I just borrowed any available Bridgerton book in the library if there's one. You might think I was too young to read a romantic novel like that, but I guess I was mature enough to understand it.

Rereading it now that I'm twenty-two (cue Taylor Swift!), my heart's not in the same place. I was more skeptical with the writing, the story, and, most especially, the characters. But, really, I'm not that heartless, so I will cut the author some slack. Quinn wrote this at a different time for a different audience. It's not that long ago, but you'd be surprised how fast things change.

However, even though I have major criticisms, I cannot stop reading them. There's something about the novels that put me in a chokehold. Despite everything, I was able to enjoy it overall. This series is the definition of "guilty pleasure."

Anyway, here's my ranking of the Bridgerton books! I only read the eight main ones, which means I didn't include novellas of any kind. Also, as a fair warning, I might discuss spoilers and whatnot, so please beware. And do keep in mind that I'm writing my opinion, so if you don't agree, well... tough. I'd like to hear your comments, though, if you have any.

#8 - An Offer From A Gentleman (Book 3)

Honestly, this was probably one of my favorite Bridgerton books when I was younger. A Cinderella retelling? Come on! As someone who loves fairytales and forbidden romances, this was supposed to be heaven. However... it was not.

Benedict may be my least favorite Bridgerton brother. No, scratch that - he is my least favorite Bridgerton out of all of them. He's whiny and creepy and I was plainly annoyed with how he keeps asking Sophie to be his mistress in the novel. This was not the gentleman I imagined when I was younger. I might have liked him more in the first few parts, but as the story progressed, he became too childish and obsessive. Sophie, on the other hand, was all right. She's definitely one of my favorite Bridgerton heroines. She was tough but kind in her own way. I wish she had a better partner than Benedict, but I guess they suit each other in the end.

I just detest the climax and the ending of this book. It was too comical - and not in a hilarious way. I guess the same could be said for the entire novel. This was so, so different from the rest, to be honest.

Overall Rating: 3/10

#7 - On The Way To The Wedding (Book 8)

Fun fact: this is the first Bridgerton novel I read. And even then, I wasn't a huge fan of it. Just like An Offer From A Gentleman, the climax was a bit silly but more in a soap opera level than comical.

The biggest factor why I didn't like this was the characters. They were all so bland. Especially our hero and heroine. Gregory is the least featured Bridgerton in the novel, so I don't really know what to make of him at the beginning of the novel. In his book, I learned that he was a good guy - and that's all. Maybe he's too young and naive when it comes to romance (which is endearing, I have to admit), but he has no interesting personality whatsoever. Lucy, the heroine in this novel, was the same. She was described as pragmatic and sensible, which perfectly sums her up. Also, she's a great friend to Hermione (whose last name is Watson, by the way, and you can't tell me otherwise that this isn't a Harry Potter reference - Hermione Granger and Emma Watson? If that's not a reference, well, that's a very crazy coincidence, but I digress again). Gregory and Lucy's story was average - not bad, not good, just so incredibly dull.

The fun parts started way too early. It was difficult to find intrigue in the middle and end bits. The second main conflict, which happened near the end of the book, was truthfully not that good and was just obviously a ploy to keep things longer. You'd think that the Bridgerton novels would end the series with a bang. Alas, it did not.

Overall Rating: 4/10

#6 - To Sir Phillip, With Love (Book 5)

Eloise finally gets her turn in her own love story. She used to be one of my favorite Bridgertons, but when she got her own story, she was reduced into a plain girl. Gone was the feisty and outspoken Eloise we knew from the previous books.

Maybe it's because she's paired up with one of the most insufferable Bridgerton heroes, Sir Phillip. Just an inch away from Benedict, Sir Phillip maybe my next least favorite character. And it annoys me so much that Eloise gets to fall in love with someone like him.

It actually started pretty well. Before the events in the book started, Eloise and Phillip had already been corresponding for a year through letters. Phillip was on the lookout for - not a wife - but a mother for his two unruly children, and he thought Eloise was perfect for the role. He's a terrible father, but the book tries to convince us that it's not his fault because he had a bad upbringing by his own father (a recurring theme in the Bridgerton books - four heroes are plagued with different daddy issues). Eloise tried her best to turn things around, and of course, she eventually did, but I just really hate Phillip's initial intentions for seeking out a wife. He gets better in the end, sure, but I still really don't like him. At least the book wasn't short of excitement, else it would've been rated a bit lower.

Obviously, my favorite part in this book was when the Bridgerton brothers stormed into Phillip's house. He got what he deserved, truly.

Overall Rating: 4/10

#5 - The Duke and I (Book 1)

Now, this is the most well-known story in the Bridgerton literary universe, thanks to the Netflix series. I know I've said that I wasn't a fan of the series, but really, the Netflix writers and producers deserve all the gold in the world because they managed to transform this novel into something exciting.

Daphne and Simon had their moments, that's for sure, but as a couple, they were just so... meh. I liked their relationship at the start when they were still pretending to be courting. But as soon as they got married, everything interesting about the two of them sizzled out. And please don't get me started with how Daphne "took advantage" of drunk Simon. Thank God the show fixed that.

Despite my mixed feelings, this was a decent start to the Bridgerton books. There's really nothing majorly wrong about this novel (except for the aforementioned "taking advantage.") It laid out the future characters well. Lady Whistledown was also great. Thinking about her made me miss her because she wasn't featured in the later novels (you'll soon find out why).

Overall Rating: 5/10

#4 - It's In His Kiss (Book 7)

Since Eloise was stripped away from her feistiness when she got her own love story, I was obviously worried for Hyacinth. Thankfully, she didn't change! She was still the same tactless girl in the previous books. And for that, she gets to be my champion as my favorite Bridgerton.

This is the first time I've read this book, and oh, I'm surprised with how exciting it was. Hyacinth's hero, Gareth, perfectly suited her. Gareth was able to tame her impulsiveness, while also proving to be a good romantic partner for her. I loved that he could match her intellectually, too. It was never a bore whenever they have one of their silly banters. Lady Danbury was also featured more in this novel. She's one of my favorite side characters. As Gareth's grandmother, she was determined to bring him and Hyacinth together.

Maybe the only criticism I have in this novel is Gareth's issues with his father. I find it really weird that most of the heroes' problems are with their fathers. It just seemed lazy writing, in my opinion. But oh well, Gareth was interesting in his own way and that's perfectly fine.

Overall Rating: 6/10

#3 - Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Book 4)

I have a feeling that this is Quinn's favorite Bridgerton book. In this book, it's Colin's turn to find love. Colin is featured in several of his siblings' stories - in fact, in almost all of the books, he had an important role to play.

I love Colin and Penelope's story. Long before this book, they already knew each other. Penelope was Eloise's best friend, and she's almost always in the Bridgerton household. Colin has been forced by his mother for God knows how long to dance with Penelope every time there's a party. But it was only now that they became closer. Unbeknownst to Colin, Penelope had been in love with him for half her life, even though he didn't particularly care for her. Penelope speaks for all of us who know about unrequited love all too well.

Furthermore, this is the novel where they finally reveal who was behind the Lady Whistledown column. Yes, viewers of the Netflix series who are not familiar with the books. This is the part - and not in the first book! I'm so mad that they revealed Penelope as Lady Whistledown in the first season of the series, when in fact it's much later than that.

However, that's also one of the lowest points of this novel for me. Lady Whistledown's identity reveal was a bit anti-climactic. A little bit laughable, even. Also, also, also: I hated Colin's reaction to Penelope's secret. He didn't have to be angry and jealous of her, but ah well, whatever makes for conflict. Nevertheless, I love both Colin and Penelope because they had so much character and depth. Quinn was certainly biased when she wrote this.

Overall Rating: 8/10

#2 - The Viscount Who Loved Me (Book 2)

Remember earlier when I said that I cannot stop reading the books because even though I knew it wasn't that good, it was still highly enjoyable? Well, I'm really talking more about this book, to be specific. I think I've read it in less than 24 hours because of how much I love it. And yes, Anthony and Kate had their obvious flaws, but oh God, they were so perfect together. I can't help but imagine Jonathan Bailey from the Netflix series as Anthony when I was reading it. I swoon, all the time.

This used to be my favorite Bridgerton novel, but that's only because I haven't read my new favorite until recently. Anthony and Kate's story was just oh-so good and intimate and romantic. Kate's also my favorite heroine in the entire Bridgerton literary universe. She was headstrong and loving. She's unafraid to put the happiness of her family first.

In so many ways, Anthony was the same. He assumed the role of Viscount Bridgerton when he was only eighteen when his father unexpectedly died. Since then, he overlooks the family's estates and well-being. Yes, this is one of those "daddy issues" stories I mentioned earlier, but this one was kind of done tastefully. He didn't wish to fall in love but everything changed when he encountered Kate. He didn't mean to be attracted to her, but here we are.

Anthony and Kate had so much understanding between them. I agree Anthony was a bit of a dick when Kate asked if they could have one week to get to know each other before consummating the marriage (worse things have been said by Benedict and Phillip, though), but in the end, I can't deny that I truly love them together.

Overall Rating: 8/10

#1 - When He Was Wicked (Book 6)

*blushing furiously* So what if I put the smuttiest and steamiest novel as my top choice?! What about it? Oh, but really, though, I can't stop reading this. Francesca is one of the least known Bridgertons in the books, just like Gregory. I didn't know anything about her, except that she's quieter than most of her siblings. It was also first mentioned in Romancing Mister Bridgerton that she had already married but was sadly widowed after two years.

Michael was Francesca's late husband's cousin and best friend, which makes him her best friend, too. He has been secretly in love with Francesca since the first moment he laid eyes on her but was unable to pursue her because she's with his cousin John. In addition, I'd like to say that Michael is my favorite hero in the Bridgerton books. He's very charming and wicked, and really, my knees buckle at the thought of him.

Long after John passed away, Francesca and Michael reunited. Francesca was looking for a new husband because she desperately wants a family, while Michael... well, Michael was still in love with her. There was undeniable passion and intimacy between them, and it was hard to stay away from each other. I seriously have a thing for men secretly pining over women they love. That's got to be one of my favorite tropes.

However, the book itself was a bit longer than necessary. While I understand Francesca's hesitations in marrying Michael, it could've been shortened because it felt draggy by the end. Her constant changing of minds was a bit annoying, and yeah, it was probably a ploy to lengthen the novel.

Additionally, I was a bit skeptical at first of how they're going to treat their relationship, especially since Francesca was truly in love with her first husband. But it was done so nicely. Francesca and Michael never forget about John, even in the end. I loved what John's mother said to Michael in a letter at the end, "Thank you, Michael, for letting my son love her first."

I guess I love their story more than the other couples because both were already mature and experienced. Just like everyone else in this romantic series, Francesca and Michael belonged together. The entirety of Chapter 19 is proof of that.

Overall Rating: 9/10

***

Overall, the Bridgerton books are quite entertaining, despite being a cheesy and sappy series. I admit that I feel quite lonely and bored now that I've finished all eight of them. Ah well, there's always the possibility of rereading them!

[hlupdate]

Variety’s Grammy-nominated Hitmaker of the Year goes deep on the music industry, the great pause and finding his own muses.

“We’ll dance again,” Harry Styles coos, the Los Angeles sunshine peeking through his pandemic-shaggy hair just so. The singer, songwriter and actor — beloved and critically acclaimed thanks to his life-affirming year-old album, “Fine Line” — is lamenting that his Variety Hitmaker of the Year cover conversation has to be conducted over Zoom rather than in person. Even via videoconference, the Brit is effortlessly charming, as anyone who’s come within earshot of him would attest, but it quickly becomes clear that beneath that genial smile is a well-honed media strategy.

To wit: In an interview that appears a few days later announcing his investment in a new arena in his native Manchester (more on that in a bit), he repeats the refrain — “There will be a time we dance again”— referencing a much-needed return to live music and the promise of some 4,000 jobs for residents.

None of which is to suggest that Styles, 26, phones it in for interviews. Quite the opposite: He does very few, conceivably to give more of himself and not cheapen what is out there and also to use the publicity opportunity to indulge his other interests, like fashion. (Last month Styles became the first male to grace the cover of Vogue solo.) Still, it stings a little that a waltz with the former One Direction member may not come to pass on this album cycle — curse you, coronavirus.

Styles’ isolation has coincided with his maturation as an artist, a thespian and a person. With “Fine Line,” he’s proved himself a skilled lyricist with a tremendous ear for harmony and melody. In preparing for his role in Olivia Wilde’s period thriller “Don’t Worry Darling,” which is shooting outside Palm Springs, he found an outlet for expression in interpreting words on a page. And for the first time, he’s using his megaphone to speak out about social justice — inspired by the outpouring of support for Black people around the world following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May.

Styles has spent much of the past nine months at home in London, where life has slowed considerably. The time has allowed him to ponder such heady issues as his purpose on the earth. “It’s been a pause that I don’t know if I would have otherwise taken,” says Styles. “I think it’s been pretty good for me to have a kind of stop, to look and think about what it actually means to be an artist, what it means to do what we do and why we do it. I lean into moments like this — moments of uncertainty.”

In truth, while Styles has largely been keeping a low profile — his Love On Tour, due to kick off on April 15, was postponed in late March and is now scheduled to launch in February 2021 (whether it actually will remains to be seen) — his music has not. This is especially true in the U.S., where he’s notched two hit singles, “Adore You,” the second-most-played song at radio in 2020, and “Watermelon Sugar” (No. 22 on Variety’s year-end Hitmakers chart), with a third, “Golden,” already cresting the top 20 on the pop format. The massive cross-platform success of these songs means Styles has finally and decisively broken into the American market, maneuvering its web of gatekeepers to accumulate 6.2 million consumption units and rising.

Why do these particular songs resonate in 2020? Styles doesn’t have the faintest idea. While he acknowledges a “nursery rhyme” feel to “Watermelon Sugar” with its earwormy loop of a chorus, that’s about as much insight as he can offer. His longtime collaborator and friend Tom Hull, also known as the producer Kid Harpoon, offers this take: “There’s a lot of amazing things about that song, but what really stands out is the lyric. It’s not trying to hide or be clever. The simplicity of watermelon … there’s such a joy in it, [which] is a massive part of that song’s success.” Also, his kids love it. “I’ve never had a song connect with children in this way,” says Hull, whose credits include tunes by Shawn Mendes, Florence and the Machine and Calvin Harris. “I get sent videos all the time from friends of their kids singing. I have a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old, and they listen to it.”

Styles is quick to note that he doesn’t chase pop appeal when crafting songs. In fact, the times when he pondered or approved a purposeful tweak, like on his self-titled 2017 debut, still gnaw at him. “I love that album so much because it represents such a time in my life, but when I listen to it — sonically and lyrically, especially — I can hear places where I was playing it safe,” he says. “I was scared to get it wrong.”

Contemporary effects and on-trend beats hardly factor into Styles’ decision-making. He likes to focus on feelings — his own and his followers’ — and see himself on the other side of the velvet rope, an important distinction in his view. “People within [the industry] feel like they operate on a higher level of listening, and I like to make music from the point of being a fan of music,” Styles says. “Fans are the best A&R.”

This from someone who’s had free rein to pursue every musical whim, and hand in the album of his dreams in the form of “Fine Line.” Chart success makes it all the sweeter, but Styles insists that writing “for the right reasons” supersedes any commercial considerations. “There’s no part that feels, eh, icky — like it was made in the lab,” he says.

Styles has experience in this realm. As a graduate of the U.K. competition series “The X Factor,” where he and four other auditionees — Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson — were singled out by show creator and star judge Simon Cowell to conjoin as One Direction, he’s seen how the prefab pop machine works up close. The One Direction oeuvre, which counts some 42 million albums sold worldwide, includes songs written with such established hitmakers as Ryan Tedder, Savan Kotecha and Teddy Geiger. Being a studious, insatiable observer, Styles took it all in.

“I learned so much,” he says of the experience. “When we were in the band, I used to try and write with as many different people as I could. I wanted to practice — and I wrote a lot of bad shit.”

His bandmates also benefited from the pop star boot camp. The proof is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members — Payne, Malik and Horan in addition to Styles — each of whom has landed hit singles on charts in the U.K., the U.S. and beyond.

This departs from the typical trajectories of boy bands including New Kids on the Block and ’N Sync, which have all pro ered a star frontman. The thinking for decades was that a record company would be lucky to have one breakout solo career among the bunch.

Styles has plainly thought about this.

“When you look at the history of people coming out of bands and starting solo careers, they feel this need to apologize for being in the band. ‘Don’t worry, everyone, that wasn’t me! Now I get to do what I really want to do.’ But we loved being in the band,” he says. “I think there’s a wont to pit people against each other. And I think it’s never been about that for us. It’s about a next step in evolution. The fact that we’ve all achieved different things outside of the band says a lot about how hard we worked in it.”

Indeed, during the five-ish years that One Direction existed, Styles’ schedule involved the sort of nonstop international jet-setting that few get to see in a lifetime, never mind their teenage years. Between 2011 and 2015, One Direction’s tours pulled in north of $631 million in gross ticket sales, according to concert trade Pollstar, and the band was selling out stadiums worldwide by the time it entered its extended hiatus. Styles, too, had built up to playing arenas as a solo artist, engaging audiences with his colorful stage wear and banter and left-of-center choices for opening acts (a pre-Grammy-haul Kacey Musgraves in 2018; indie darlings King Princess and Jenny Lewis for his rescheduled 2021 run).

Stages of all sizes feel like home to Styles. He grew up in a suburb of Manchester, ground zero for some of the biggest British acts of the 1980s and ’90s, including Joy Division, New Order, the Smiths and Oasis, the latter of which broke the same year Styles was born. His parents were also music lovers. Styles’ father fed him a balanced diet of the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and Queen, while Mum was a fan of Shania Twain, Norah Jones and Savage Garden. “They’re all great melody writers,” says Styles of the acts’ musical throughline.

Stevie Nicks, who in the past has described “Fine Line” as Styles’ “Rumours,” referencing the Fleetwood Mac 1977 classic, sees him as a kindred spirit. “Harry writes and sings his songs about real experiences that seemingly happened yesterday,” she tells Variety. “He taps into real life. He doesn’t make up stories. He tells the truth, and that is what I do. ‘Fine Line’ has been my favorite record since it came out. It is his ‘Rumours.’ I told him that in a note on December 13, 2019 before he went on stage to play the ‘Fine Line’ album at the Forum. We cried. He sang those songs like he had sung them a thousand times. That’s a great songwriter and a great performer.”

“Harry’s playing and writing is instinctual,” adds Jonathan Wilson, a friend and peer who’s advised Styles on backing and session musicians. “He understands history and where to take the torch. You can see the thread of great British performers — from Bolan to Bowie — in his music.”

Also shaping his musical DNA was Manchester itself, the site of a 23,500-seat arena, dubbed Co-op Live, for which Styles is an investor and adviser. Oak View Group, a company specializing in live entertainment and global sports that was founded by Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff in 2015 (Jeffrey Azoff, Irving’s son, represents Styles at Full Stop Management), is leading the effort to construct the venue. The project gained planning approval in September and is set to open in 2023, with its arrival representing a £350 million ($455 million) investment in the city. (Worth noting: Manchester is already home to an arena — the site of a 2017 bombing outside an Ariana Grande concert — and a football stadium, where One Love Manchester, an all-star benefit show to raise money for victims of the terrorist attack, took place.)

“I went to my first shows in Manchester,” Styles says of concerts paid for with money earned delivering newspapers for a supermarket called the Co-op. “My friends and I would go in on weekends. There’s so many amazing small venues, and music is such a massive part of the city. I think Manchester deserves it. It feels like a full-circle, coming-home thing to be doing this and to be able to give any kind of input. I’m incredibly proud. Hopefully they’ll let me play there at some point.”

Though Styles has owned properties in Los Angeles, his base for the foreseeable future is London. “I feel like my relationship with L.A. has changed a lot,” he explains. “I’ve kind of accepted that I don’t have to live here anymore; for a while I felt like I was supposed to. Like it meant things were going well. This happened, then you move to L.A.! But I don’t really want to.”

Is it any wonder? Between COVID and the turmoil in the U.S. spurred by the presidential election, Styles, like some 79 million American voters, is recovering from sticker shock over the bill of goods sold to them by the concept of democracy. “In general, as people, there’s a lack of empathy,” he observes. “We found this place that’s so divisive. We just don’t listen to each other anymore. And that’s quite scary.”

That belief prompted Styles to speak out publicly in the wake of George Floyd’s death. As protests in support of Black Lives Matter took to streets all over the world, for Styles, it triggered a period of introspection, as marked by an Instagram message (liked by 2.7 million users and counting) in which he declared: “I do things every day without fear, because I am privileged, and I am privileged every day because I am white. … Being not racist is not enough, we must be anti racist. Social change is enacted when a society mobilizes. I stand in solidarity with all of those protesting. I’m donating to help post bail for arrested organizers. Look inwards, educate yourself and others. LISTEN, READ, SHARE, DONATE and VOTE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

“Talking about race can be really uncomfortable for everyone,” Styles elaborates. “I had a realization that my own comfort in the conversation has nothing to do with the problem — like that’s not enough of a reason to not have a conversation. Looking back, I don’t think I’ve been outspoken enough in the past. Using that feeling has pushed me forward to being open and ready to learn. … How can I ensure from my side that in 20 years, the right things are still being done and the right people are getting the right opportunities? That it’s not a passing thing?”

His own record company — and corporate parent Sony Music Group, whose chairman, Rob Stringer, signed Styles in 2016 — has been grappling with these same questions as the industry has faced its own reckoning with race. At issue: inequality among the upper ranks (an oft-cited statistic: popular music is 80% Black, but the music business is 80% white); contracts rooted in a decades-old system that many say is set up to take advantage of artists, Black artists more unfairly than white; and the call for a return of master rights, an ownership model that is at the core of the business.

Styles acknowledges the fundamental imbalance in how a major label deal is structured — the record company takes on the financial risk while the artist is made to recoup money spent on the project before the act is considered profitable and earning royalties (typically at a 15% to 18% rate for the artist, while the label keeps and disburses the rest). “Historically, I can’t think of any industry that’s benefited more off of Black culture than music,” he says. “There are discussions that need to happen about this long history of not being paid fairly. It’s a time for listening, and hopefully, people will come out humbled, educated and willing to learn and change.”

By all accounts, Styles is a voracious reader, a movie lover and an aesthete. He stays in shape by adhering to a strict daily exercise routine. “I tried to keep up but didn’t last more than two weeks,” says Hull, Styles’ producer, with a laugh. “The discipline is terrifying.”

Of course, with the fashion world beckoning — Styles recently appeared in a film series for Gucci’s new collection that was co-directed by the fashion house’s creative director, Alessandro Michele, and Oscar winner Gus Van Sant — and a movie that’s set in the 1950s, maintaining that physique is part of the job. And he’s no stranger to visual continuity after appearing in Christopher Nolan’s epic “Dunkirk” and having to return to set for reshoots; his hair, which needed to be cut back to its circa 1940 form, is a constant topic of conversation among fans. This time, it’s the ink that poses a challenge. By Styles’ tally, he’s up to 60 tattoos, which require an hour in the makeup chair to cover up. “It’s the only time I really regret getting tattooed,” he says.

He shows no regret, however, when it comes to stylistic choices overall, and takes pride in his gender-agnostic portfolio, which includes wearing a Gucci dress on that Vogue cover— an image that incited conservative pundit Candace Owens to plead publicly to “bring back manly men.” In Styles’ view: “To not wear [something] because it’s females’ clothing, you shut out a whole world of great clothes. And I think what’s exciting about right now is you can wear what you like. It doesn’t have to be X or Y. Those lines are becoming more and more blurred.”

But acclaim, if you can believe it, is not top of mind for Styles. As far as the Grammys are concerned, Styles shrugs, “It’s never why I do anything.” His team and longtime label, however, had their hearts set on a showing at the Jan. 31 ceremony. Their investment in Styles has been substantial — not just monetarily but in carefully crafting his career in the wake of such icons as David Bowie, who released his final albums with the label. Hope at the company and in many fans’ hearts that Styles would receive an album of the year nomination did not come to pass. However, he was recognized in three categories, including best pop vocal album.

“It’s always nice to know that people like what you’re doing, but ultimately — and especially working in a subjective field — I don’t put too much weight on that stuff,” Styles says. “I think it’s important when making any kind of art to remove the ego from it.” Citing the painter Matisse, he adds: “It’s about the work that you do when you’re not expecting any applause.”

[hldailyupdate]

This Charming Man: Why We’re Wild About Harry Styles

Variety’s Grammy-nominated Hitmaker of the Year goes deep on the music industry, the great pause and finding his own muses.

“We’ll dance again,” Harry Styles coos, the Los Angeles sunshine peeking through his pandemic-shaggy hair just so. The singer, songwriter and actor — beloved and critically acclaimed thanks to his life-affirming year-old album, “Fine Line” — is lamenting that his Variety Hitmaker of the Year cover conversation has to be conducted over Zoom rather than in person. Even via videoconference, the Brit is effortlessly charming, as anyone who’s come within earshot of him would attest, but it quickly becomes clear that beneath that genial smile is a well-honed media strategy.

To wit: In an interview that appears a few days later announcing his investment in a new arena in his native Manchester (more on that in a bit), he repeats the refrain — “There will be a time we dance again”— referencing a much-needed return to live music and the promise of some 4,000 jobs for residents.

None of which is to suggest that Styles, 26, phones it in for interviews. Quite the opposite: He does very few, conceivably to give more of himself and not cheapen what is out there and also to use the publicity opportunity to indulge his other interests, like fashion. (Last month Styles became the first male to grace the cover of Vogue solo.) Still, it stings a little that a waltz with the former One Direction member may not come to pass on this album cycle — curse you, coronavirus.

Styles’ isolation has coincided with his maturation as an artist, a thespian and a person. With “Fine Line,” he’s proved himself a skilled lyricist with a tremendous ear for harmony and melody. In preparing for his role in Olivia Wilde’s period thriller “Don’t Worry Darling,” which is shooting outside Palm Springs, he found an outlet for expression in interpreting words on a page. And for the first time, he’s using his megaphone to speak out about social justice — inspired by the outpouring of support for Black people around the world following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police in May.

Styles has spent much of the past nine months at home in London, where life has slowed considerably. The time has allowed him to ponder such heady issues as his purpose on the earth. “It’s been a pause that I don’t know if I would have otherwise taken,” says Styles. “I think it’s been pretty good for me to have a kind of stop, to look and think about what it actually means to be an artist, what it means to do what we do and why we do it. I lean into moments like this — moments of uncertainty.”

In truth, while Styles has largely been keeping a low profile — his Love On Tour, due to kick off on April 15, was postponed in late March and is now scheduled to launch in February 2021 (whether it actually will remains to be seen) — his music has not. This is especially true in the U.S., where he’s notched two hit singles, “Adore You,” the second-most-played song at radio in 2020, and “Watermelon Sugar” (No. 22 on Variety’s year-end Hitmakers chart), with a third, “Golden,” already cresting the top 20 on the pop format. The massive cross-platform success of these songs means Styles has finally and decisively broken into the American market, maneuvering its web of gatekeepers to accumulate 6.2 million consumption units and rising.

Why do these particular songs resonate in 2020? Styles doesn’t have the faintest idea. While he acknowledges a “nursery rhyme” feel to “Watermelon Sugar” with its earwormy loop of a chorus, that’s about as much insight as he can offer. His longtime collaborator and friend Tom Hull, also known as the producer Kid Harpoon, offers this take: “There’s a lot of amazing things about that song, but what really stands out is the lyric. It’s not trying to hide or be clever. The simplicity of watermelon … there’s such a joy in it, [which] is a massive part of that song’s success.” Also, his kids love it. “I’ve never had a song connect with children in this way,” says Hull, whose credits include tunes by Shawn Mendes, Florence and the Machine and Calvin Harris. “I get sent videos all the time from friends of their kids singing. I have a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old, and they listen to it.”

Styles is quick to note that he doesn’t chase pop appeal when crafting songs. In fact, the times when he pondered or approved a purposeful tweak, like on his self-titled 2017 debut, still gnaw at him. “I love that album so much because it represents such a time in my life, but when I listen to it — sonically and lyrically, especially — I can hear places where I was playing it safe,” he says. “I was scared to get it wrong.”

Contemporary effects and on-trend beats hardly factor into Styles’ decision-making. He likes to focus on feelings — his own and his followers’ — and see himself on the other side of the velvet rope, an important distinction in his view. “People within [the industry] feel like they operate on a higher level of listening, and I like to make music from the point of being a fan of music,” Styles says. “Fans are the best A&R.”

This from someone who’s had free rein to pursue every musical whim, and hand in the album of his dreams in the form of “Fine Line.” Chart success makes it all the sweeter, but Styles insists that writing “for the right reasons” supersedes any commercial considerations. “There’s no part that feels, eh, icky — like it was made in the lab,” he says.

Styles has experience in this realm. As a graduate of the U.K. competition series “The X Factor,” where he and four other auditionees — Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson — were singled out by show creator and star judge Simon Cowell to conjoin as One Direction, he’s seen how the prefab pop machine works up close. The One Direction oeuvre, which counts some 42 million albums sold worldwide, includes songs written with such established hitmakers as Ryan Tedder, Savan Kotecha and Teddy Geiger. Being a studious, insatiable observer, Styles took it all in.

“I learned so much,” he says of the experience. “When we were in the band, I used to try and write with as many different people as I could. I wanted to practice — and I wrote a lot of bad shit.”

His bandmates also benefited from the pop star boot camp. The proof is in the relatively seamless solo transitions of at least three of its members — Payne, Malik and Horan in addition to Styles — each of whom has landed hit singles on charts in the U.K., the U.S. and beyond.

This departs from the typical trajectories of boy bands including New Kids on the Block and ’N Sync, which have all pro ered a star frontman. The thinking for decades was that a record company would be lucky to have one breakout solo career among the bunch.

Styles has plainly thought about this.

“When you look at the history of people coming out of bands and starting solo careers, they feel this need to apologize for being in the band. ‘Don’t worry, everyone, that wasn’t me! Now I get to do what I really want to do.’ But we loved being in the band,” he says. “I think there’s a wont to pit people against each other. And I think it’s never been about that for us. It’s about a next step in evolution. The fact that we’ve all achieved different things outside of the band says a lot about how hard we worked in it.”

Indeed, during the five-ish years that One Direction existed, Styles’ schedule involved the sort of nonstop international jet-setting that few get to see in a lifetime, never mind their teenage years. Between 2011 and 2015, One Direction’s tours pulled in north of $631 million in gross ticket sales, according to concert trade Pollstar, and the band was selling out stadiums worldwide by the time it entered its extended hiatus. Styles, too, had built up to playing arenas as a solo artist, engaging audiences with his colorful stage wear and banter and left-of-center choices for opening acts (a pre-Grammy-haul Kacey Musgraves in 2018; indie darlings King Princess and Jenny Lewis for his rescheduled 2021 run).

Stages of all sizes feel like home to Styles. He grew up in a suburb of Manchester, ground zero for some of the biggest British acts of the 1980s and ’90s, including Joy Division, New Order, the Smiths and Oasis, the latter of which broke the same year Styles was born. His parents were also music lovers. Styles’ father fed him a balanced diet of the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and Queen, while Mum was a fan of Shania Twain, Norah Jones and Savage Garden. “They’re all great melody writers,” says Styles of the acts’ musical throughline.

Stevie Nicks, who in the past has described “Fine Line” as Styles’ “Rumours,” referencing the Fleetwood Mac 1977 classic, sees him as a kindred spirit. “Harry writes and sings his songs about real experiences that seemingly happened yesterday,” she tells Variety. “He taps into real life. He doesn’t make up stories. He tells the truth, and that is what I do. ‘Fine Line’ has been my favorite record since it came out. It is his ‘Rumours.’ I told him that in a note on December 13, 2019 before he went on stage to play the ‘Fine Line’ album at the Forum. We cried. He sang those songs like he had sung them a thousand times. That’s a great songwriter and a great performer.”

“Harry’s playing and writing is instinctual,” adds Jonathan Wilson, a friend and peer who’s advised Styles on backing and session musicians. “He understands history and where to take the torch. You can see the thread of great British performers — from Bolan to Bowie — in his music.”

Also shaping his musical DNA was Manchester itself, the site of a 23,500-seat arena, dubbed Co-op Live, for which Styles is an investor and adviser. Oak View Group, a company specializing in live entertainment and global sports that was founded by Tim Leiweke and Irving Azoff in 2015 (Jeffrey Azoff, Irving’s son, represents Styles at Full Stop Management), is leading the effort to construct the venue. The project gained planning approval in September and is set to open in 2023, with its arrival representing a £350 million ($455 million) investment in the city. (Worth noting: Manchester is already home to an arena — the site of a 2017 bombing outside an Ariana Grande concert — and a football stadium, where One Love Manchester, an all-star benefit show to raise money for victims of the terrorist attack, took place.)

“I went to my first shows in Manchester,” Styles says of concerts paid for with money earned delivering newspapers for a supermarket called the Co-op. “My friends and I would go in on weekends. There’s so many amazing small venues, and music is such a massive part of the city. I think Manchester deserves it. It feels like a full-circle, coming-home thing to be doing this and to be able to give any kind of input. I’m incredibly proud. Hopefully they’ll let me play there at some point.”

Though Styles has owned properties in Los Angeles, his base for the foreseeable future is London. “I feel like my relationship with L.A. has changed a lot,” he explains. “I’ve kind of accepted that I don’t have to live here anymore; for a while I felt like I was supposed to. Like it meant things were going well. This happened, then you move to L.A.! But I don’t really want to.”

Is it any wonder? Between COVID and the turmoil in the U.S. spurred by the presidential election, Styles, like some 79 million American voters, is recovering from sticker shock over the bill of goods sold to them by the concept of democracy. “In general, as people, there’s a lack of empathy,” he observes. “We found this place that’s so divisive. We just don’t listen to each other anymore. And that’s quite scary.”

That belief prompted Styles to speak out publicly in the wake of George Floyd’s death. As protests in support of Black Lives Matter took to streets all over the world, for Styles, it triggered a period of introspection, as marked by an Instagram message (liked by 2.7 million users and counting) in which he declared: “I do things every day without fear, because I am privileged, and I am privileged every day because I am white. … Being not racist is not enough, we must be anti racist. Social change is enacted when a society mobilizes. I stand in solidarity with all of those protesting. I’m donating to help post bail for arrested organizers. Look inwards, educate yourself and others. LISTEN, READ, SHARE, DONATE and VOTE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. BLACK LIVES MATTER.”

“Talking about race can be really uncomfortable for everyone,” Styles elaborates. “I had a realization that my own comfort in the conversation has nothing to do with the problem — like that’s not enough of a reason to not have a conversation. Looking back, I don’t think I’ve been outspoken enough in the past. Using that feeling has pushed me forward to being open and ready to learn. … How can I ensure from my side that in 20 years, the right things are still being done and the right people are getting the right opportunities? That it’s not a passing thing?”

His own record company — and corporate parent Sony Music Group, whose chairman, Rob Stringer, signed Styles in 2016 — has been grappling with these same questions as the industry has faced its own reckoning with race. At issue: inequality among the upper ranks (an oft-cited statistic: popular music is 80% Black, but the music business is 80% white); contracts rooted in a decades-old system that many say is set up to take advantage of artists, Black artists more unfairly than white; and the call for a return of master rights, an ownership model that is at the core of the business.

Styles acknowledges the fundamental imbalance in how a major label deal is structured — the record company takes on the financial risk while the artist is made to recoup money spent on the project before the act is considered profitable and earning royalties (typically at a 15% to 18% rate for the artist, while the label keeps and disburses the rest). “Historically, I can’t think of any industry that’s benefited more off of Black culture than music,” he says. “There are discussions that need to happen about this long history of not being paid fairly. It’s a time for listening, and hopefully, people will come out humbled, educated and willing to learn and change.”

By all accounts, Styles is a voracious reader, a movie lover and an aesthete. He stays in shape by adhering to a strict daily exercise routine. “I tried to keep up but didn’t last more than two weeks,” says Hull, Styles’ producer, with a laugh. “The discipline is terrifying.”

Of course, with the fashion world beckoning — Styles recently appeared in a film series for Gucci’s new collection that was co-directed by the fashion house’s creative director, Alessandro Michele, and Oscar winner Gus Van Sant — and a movie that’s set in the 1950s, maintaining that physique is part of the job. And he’s no stranger to visual continuity after appearing in Christopher Nolan’s epic “Dunkirk” and having to return to set for reshoots; his hair, which needed to be cut back to its circa 1940 form, is a constant topic of conversation among fans. This time, it’s the ink that poses a challenge. By Styles’ tally, he’s up to 60 tattoos, which require an hour in the makeup chair to cover up. “It’s the only time I really regret getting tattooed,” he says.

He shows no regret, however, when it comes to stylistic choices overall, and takes pride in his gender-agnostic portfolio, which includes wearing a Gucci dress on that Vogue cover— an image that incited conservative pundit Candace Owens to plead publicly to “bring back manly men.” In Styles’ view: “To not wear [something] because it’s females’ clothing, you shut out a whole world of great clothes. And I think what’s exciting about right now is you can wear what you like. It doesn’t have to be X or Y. Those lines are becoming more and more blurred.”

But acclaim, if you can believe it, is not top of mind for Styles. As far as the Grammys are concerned, Styles shrugs, “It’s never why I do anything.” His team and longtime label, however, had their hearts set on a showing at the Jan. 31 ceremony. Their investment in Styles has been substantial — not just monetarily but in carefully crafting his career in the wake of such icons as David Bowie, who released his final albums with the label. Hope at the company and in many fans’ hearts that Styles would receive an album of the year nomination did not come to pass. However, he was recognized in three categories, including best pop vocal album.

“It’s always nice to know that people like what you’re doing, but ultimately — and especially working in a subjective field — I don’t put too much weight on that stuff,” Styles says. “I think it’s important when making any kind of art to remove the ego from it.” Citing the painter Matisse, he adds: “It’s about the work that you do when you’re not expecting any applause.”

Harry for Variety. (2 December 2020)

[lawgrain]

Appropriate and Inappropriate Comments on AO3

So I mentioned the idea of doing one of these and I think it’s low key needed. But before I start I do want to say, most of you guys are great and the inappropriate section will seem like comments sense to you. But sadly it’s not to everyone and I’ve gotten comments like them. I’ma start on the positive side though. With that, I’ma jump in!

Good Comments

1) Just leaving hearts is actually pretty chill. I know some of you guys get nervous to comment and hearts might not seem like much, but it’s a very clear message: you liked the story. Not every comment has to be in-depth and if you are afraid to go into a deep comment, at leas for me, I don’t mind just getting hearts. Most the time I just respond with hearts back <3

2) Picking out specific quotes or moments you like is kind of cool. I’ve had people pick out a quote from a chapter and I get so excited when it happens to be a section I specifically worked on. I’m like “Yeah! That’s right! I added that for flow and it was friggen appreciated. Take that world!” It can just be something that meant something to you or that you found particularly funny/interesting. These are words writers have worked on and they’ll be happy to see, oh these are the ones that were liked. Sometimes people even point out things I hadn’t thought y’all would like and that’s super cool too!

3) So low and behold, writers sometimes really like talking about their works. In particular, I get caught up in meanings behind things and morals. Obviously not every writer gets caught up in those things but they still like talking about their work. So asking an opinion on stuff is sometimes pretty fun. Asking about what an author thinks of a certain character or what a character would do in a certain situation is like a fun little challenge game. But with this one, it’s important to keep it within the realm of opinions. 

For example, I got an ask on here once asking what I think would happen in a certain situation. That was a great way to phrase things. It let me know that they are just asking for my imagination on things. They didn’t suggest that something else should be happening or what they wish was happening. It was just “what do you think?”  Here’s a link to that. It was a fun ask to think about and actually made me want to right more. Where things can go wrong is sometimes people ask more into a character while sort of suggesting that I’m doing something wrong with the character or suggesting I should be having more about certain characters that I don’t want to do. So a “what do you think” is a beautiful way to avoid that and keep things to opinions.

4) It’s pretty nice to know people got meaning from a story. I am definitely okay if people just read my work on a surface level. It’s meant to entertain and if that’s all it does, that’s okay. But it’s also really meaningful when I hear that people are taking things away from a story. I love the comments saying “I’m gonna be thinking about this” or “this made me question things.” Because that’s my goal. I want people walking away with a new perspective or something gained. And then I’ve gotten people who thought they were the only ones to feel some of the things I’ve written and it’s kind of amazing to show that they’re not. 

And yes, this doesn’t apply to every fic because not every fic is written to have as much meaning. But every fic is written to do something. A comedy is written to make you laugh and the writer wants to know they’ve done that. A fluff piece is written to make you happy and show cute moments and a writer likes hearing you fangirl over those cute moments. And angst is written to make you feel. It might be heartache but if your stomach drops the moment you read something in an angst, that’s far from a bad comment to get.

5) You don’t have to do this, but sometimes it’s nice to appreciate the writers as themselves. It’s nice when people shift the focus from the fic to how you wrote the fic. There’s a sort of meaningful difference between the two. In one phrasing anyone could have done it. In the other it recognizes the writer and how writing is an enjoyable part of them instead of all they are. I think a lot of times for myself I start to think people just like or follow me for a fic I wrote. That has a lot of me in it, but that’s not who I am. I tend to answer questions in a very fic orientated way. You don’t like my writing you like the fic. You don’t like how I worked on a fic, you just like how the fic exists. Again this isn’t something you have to do and it doesn’t detract from the amazing comments left. But it adds something a little more meaningful for the author.

On to the next thing!

Inappropriate Comments

I’m going to precursor this with I know for sure some of you guys don’t know you do a few of these. Some of these are purely things trolls would do but others happen with people who actually don’t mean to bring a writer down. And I know it’s not your intentions to make a writer feel bad but it can easily happen by accident.

1) I mentioned this in a different post which I’ll link here, but be careful with comparisons. Keep things in a positive manner and focus on writer you are actually commenting on. It is not okay to draw comparisons to describe everything the author is doing wrong and the other is doing right. I got a comment doing that once and, surprise surprise, that's very shitty. If you’re going to compare a fic, do it in a way that doesn’t degrade anyone. Say it’s different or the same, and only do that if you’re going to follow it up with you found it enjoyable. I know for a fact that if someone used my fic to hurt another person, I’d be furious. I don’t care if you like my fic better, that’s no reason to make other people feel bad. Authors writings aren't all supposed to be the same fic. It’s gonna be different and that’s okay.

 2) It's okay to be very impassionate against characters actions in a fic. Some are written to be disliked. But there are lines. It's not okay to say that a child deserves to be beaten by a parent. A lot of things aren't okay. Directing anger at characters is different then implying real world things should happen to them. People are abused in real life. People who have been abused are gonna read you talk about how you think it’s okay. It’s not. It’s never been okay and it’s a really shitty thing to have to find that in a comment section. 

3) It's okay to be upset with things that happens in a story. It's not okay to attack the story itself. You can like a story and still accidentally do this. Saying things are "unrealistic" and "would never happen" are kind of offensive. It starts attacking the author and devalues what they are trying to write. And the other thing about that is not everyones experience is gonna match up. I know I write in a heavy topic. So when I’m told that somethings would never happen and then I have to quietly take it, understand that some of these things have happened. I’m listening to some of you write off things that have even happened to me. And you’re also writing off what might be happening to others. I know teachers might seem unrealistic to people who have had good teachers. I know it seems incomprehensible for everyone to turn their backs on a character to people who have had good friends, who have had people listen to them. And let me just state it plainly, I am jealous of those people. I’m jealous of people who have never been happy one day just to feel completely betrayed and alone the next. I envy you. And I know that’s not the intention with some of you guys when you comment but in the end, not cool. 

 4) Comment on the actual fic. When you go off about how you wish things would happen or say "it's too bad this didn't happen", you are telling the author that you wish you were reading something else. I’ve gotten very well meaning comments talking about how they just wish something else would happen or “what if instead”. And I don’t know what you want me to say. Yeah that’s great but it’s also not what I’m writing. Be my guest if you want to write that I guess. In the end those people never give me something that I can respond to because they made it about what they want and not about anything I did. If you genuinely want to change everything about my fic but keep the bases, just comment “Do you mind if I do a fic inspired by this one” and I will happily say yes, just make sure to note it was inspired by the fic. Hell I’m chill even when people don’t ask for the go ahead and just remember to cite me as the inspiration. But getting a comment wishing you did something else? Not enjoyable.

5) Don’t comment just to confuse the writer. This one is kind of odd and something that hasn’t happened to me as much. But leaving confusing comments that have nothing to do with the story? Like I don’t know what is expected when that happens. I’m less inconvenienced by this because I like to just roll with things but I know others don’t like this. It starts to feel like you’re being trolled. Again I don’t mind this as much. Like once I got a consistent commenter that I never quite understood what their comments meant and I actually started to enjoy the oddity. They’d do a key smash then Id be like “okay well, when in Rome” and key smash back. But some aren’t me and are going to assume it’s being done to them to annoy them. Which is a safe bet because a lot of writers have probably been trolled or low key harassed by people in the comment sections.

6) If you say you like a fic and then say “too bad you did this in the fic”, you don’t like the fic.

7) This one is based on a comment that I know what done with good intentions but careful on how you ask questions. Writers do like talking about their fics but we like talking about it to people who are curious and like the fic. If you have a question, ask it but let us know that you aren’t challenging the fic itself. So for example, I mentioned when a fics realism is brought into question. It’s not chill to say “It’s unrealistic” because that's an insult. It’s not okay to put “how is this realistic” because that’s gonna put the writer back in defensive after their other bad experiences in comment sections. What you could do is say “how did you come up with the teachers acting like they are in the fic”. Or once I got on the defense because a question was phrased in a way that sounded like a set up to hate on my fic. It wasn’t made to do that and the person picked up on my very obvious defensive mode. What can help if you’re unsure how a question is going to come across add something like “The answer doesn’t change how much I like the fic, I was just curious”. That’d set me at ease at leat.

8) Don’t demand answers. And I’m not talking about the silly “wE neEd tO kNoW LaW!!” thing. I usually know when you’re teasing. I’m talking about people who just want an answer from you and leave. This isn’t bad perse and doesn’t actually hurt a writers feelings. It just tells the writer nothing about how they are doing. Did you like the fic? Was there something confusing about this section that caused this question? Again this one is a very small thing. Writers probably don’t mind answering the question either. It’s just kind of one where it’s less engaging because you feel like the person just wants you for the one piece of information.

9) If you have to disclaim it sounds rude or aggressive, think about who that disclaimer is for. Is it for you to feel like it’s okay to say rude things and then claim “but that’s not how I meant it” or is actually because you’re worried you phrased something wrong. And for gods sake if I get a goddamn comment saying “I don’t mean to start a fight” I’m starting a fight next time. Most of the comments I get that have some sort of disclaimer feel like they are just trying to excuse themselves and have a place they can say “look, right there, I said it’s not rude so it isn’t” as if that changes things. It’s like if someone went “I don’t mean to be a jerk, but here’s an entire list of why I don’t like your story and lol that sounded a bit agressive. Woops! Good thing I didn’t mean it like that!” Bullshit. Take a minute to actually access who the comment is for, you or the writer. I’m actually the most heated about this point. Like I’ve gotten a very specific comment in mind and I really regret not going off. I’m still bitter.

10) This isn’t one I’ve gotten as much but have had someone mention to me. Some authors get a bit pressured when all you ask is for more. Like we’re happy you want more. Very happy. But the way this author explained it to me was “It feels like they just ignore the 40k of free work I’ve just written and feel entitled for more.” I’m paraphrasing it a bit here. But the thing is, it’s very flattering that you want more of a writers work but why can’t what they’ve already done be appreciated. Don’t just demand, appreciate too. A lot of writers are working on more things at once and it needs to be recognized that they are worth more than the one chapter more you need for just one of their fics. 

Ending Note

Alrighty! That’s all I can think of for now. All writers are different but I hope this is a good foundation for things. Looking back on some comments I’ve left, I know that they probably weren’t as positive as I thought because they weren’t made from a writers point of view. Now though, I think I’d do a better job after having gotten some of the comments I have. But I don’t want anyone to feel called out or bad. I usually know when you guys are well intentioned and just missing the mark. If anyone wants to add or reblog this, be my guest!

[fierceawakening]

Okay, so going back to reading against empathy

“One of the best arguments in favor of empathy is that it makes you kinder to the person you are empathizing with. This is backed by laboratory research, by everyday experience, and by common sense. So if the world were a simple place, where the only dilemmas one had to deal with involved a single person in some sort of immediate distress, and where helping that person had positive effects, the case for empathy would be solid.

But the world is not a simple place. Often—very often, I will argue—the action that empathy motivates is not what is morally right.

Most laboratory studies don’t tap this complexity. The experiments are designed to measure the effects of empathy in terms of some action that is plainly good—more helping, more cooperation, more kindness toward an individual who plainly needs help. But there is one significant exception, a clever study done by C. Daniel Batson and his colleagues.

Now, Batson has defended the “empathy-altruism hypothesis”—the idea that empathy motivates the helping of others—but he does not claim that empathy inevitably has positive consequences. As he puts it, “Empathy-induced altruism is neither moral nor immoral; it is amoral.”

To explore this, he set up a situation in which empathy pushed people toward an answer that most people would believe, upon consideration, is the wrong one. He told his subjects about a charitable organization called the Quality Life Foundation that worked to make the final years of terminally ill children more comfortable. The subjects were then told that they would hear interviews with individual children on the waiting list for treatment. Subjects in the low-empathy condition were told: “While you are listening to this interview, try to take an objective perspective toward what is described. Try not to get caught up in how the child who is interviewed feels; just remain objective and detached.” And those in the high-empathy condition were told: “Try to imagine how the child who is interviewed feels about what has happened and how it has affected this child’s life. Try to feel the full impact of what this child has been through and how he or she feels as a result.”

The interview was with a girl named Sheri Summers—“a very brave, bright 10-year-old.” Her painful terminal illness was described in detail, and she talked about how she would love to get the services of the Quality Life Foundation. Subjects were then asked whether they wanted to fill out a special request to move Sheri up the waiting list. It was made clear that if this request were granted it would mean that other children higher up in priority would have to wait longer to get care.

The effect was strong. Three-quarters of the subjects in the high-empathy condition wanted to move her up, as compared to one-third in the low-empathy condition. Empathy’s effects, then, weren’t in the direction of increasing an interest in justice. Rather, they increased special concern for the target of the empathy, despite the cost to others.”

Are we sure that’s morally wrong, though? I’m not completely convinced it is.

Because we make judgments based on the information we have, and if we have details of how this one child’s illness supposedly affects her, then we have more to work with in one case and not in others. (Ideally, though, I think our response should probably be “where are these vignettes for the other kids?” and yes, it does seem telling if it’s not.)

I don’t know, it just seems like there could be multiple things going on here, so “empathy narrows our focus” may not actually equal “empathy is bad” or “empathy is worse than other tools.”

Been a while since I picked this book up, but is bloom just looking at “is empathy good or bad?” Or is he asking a nuanced question like “when is empathy the proper tool and when is it not, if it’s ever either?”

Hell, the first part of this very quote from Bloom might ITSELF even suggest that empathy leads to morally good outcomes when moral issues/dilemmas/choices are simple.

Which, hilariously enough, is actually the thing I was arguing--that the person who defaults to the kind action from empathy may, on balance, be a better moral agent than the one who has to deliberate every time, just because she may get more Good Actions done more quickly.

Rotflmao.

[mcfanely]

Memories

A short drabble I wrote for @razzle-zazzle‘s Blinded AU, a bit of calmness in a sea of all the angst I love to write (I hope you like it, Zaz!)

Months after the events of the Sons’ of Garmadon, promptly getting thrown into the First-Realm followed by the Oni invasion, there hadn’t been much time to just... sit down and think. Think about what had happened with Ultra Violet and the last thing Cole ever saw before his vision went blank. 

And what followed.

1520 words

Cole had sat himself down, outside, just barely within the courtyard of the monastery. It was good to be back, to have so much time to just be at a place he considered home; the sunlight warm on his face as it flowed through the gap in the wall that the open gates provided and the feeling of stones and gravel under his bare palms was abrasive but tactile, calming as he carefully moved the pads of his fingers over the small ridges. 

Getting banished to a whole other realm, coming back and then getting thrown into a new problem and an entirely new battle - two in fact, Garmadon and then the Oni, it had been hard for everyone. No time for a break, not really. That was the life of a Ninja. 

Taxing in every way, but when they finally got some down time?

Time to relax without a world ending problem taking up every moment of the day. Time that Cole could use to just enjoy the light breeze as the day slowly delved into its evening state, the sun dipping below the horizon. He could feel it, the chill as shadows stretched over him inch by inch and the warm line of the dipping light.

Until his attention was drawn away. Maybe it was the shift in the air beside his head, or the slight tremors running through the ground, or even the light breathing he could hear. And he could hear it, easily. Better than he could have done a few mere months back. 

The only issue was, he wasn't the best at differentiating anything yet, even after going so long without his sight. He could sense people, sense movement and depth, but nothing much past that. Though he was learning gradually.

It seemed like years since he'd ever seen anything, when in reality it had been months.

"You've been sitting out here for most of the day." Came a croaky, soft voice. Wu.

The scrape of the bo staff on the ground confirmed his suspicions. How had he not noticed that? 

Cole smiled, and gave a short nod. "It's nice. The weather has been pretty good over the past few days, Sensei. And, you know, we don't always have time to sit and enjoy it."

It was a weird but welcomed dynamic change that they'd all experienced during their run-ins with the Sons' of Garmadon, and then the escapade through the First Realm. They had their master back, after so long. After wavering hope and doubt that he was even still alive, or even in their own present day anymore. 

But being there, raising him from the baby he had been stuck as, it... Was odd.

Cole felt like he'd learnt more about Wu from caring for the man as a child than he had with all the years training under the mysterious Sensei.

"I noticed you aren't wearing your blindfold." it was said with a questioning tone, and the crinkle of fabric and a huffed out breath followed, Wu sat down.

Cole shrugged, "It's not like I need it up here. No one to scare with my lack of eyes." He chuckled, humour. It helped him work through trauma, and it was trauma. There had been time between the initial injury and present day, but that didn't negate from what he'd experienced. The pain of the spelled blade, the heat, the burning, the smell. It made his stomach roll just thinking about it. He swallowed hard, around a sudden lump in his throat.

Sensei Wu seemed to pick up on the motion, there was movement. Cole just turned his head in the Sensei's general direction and smiled. He didn't know what the injury looked like, but he knew it wasn't good. It never had looked good really, all it had done was heal thankfully without an infection and the perpetual ache had subsided. Zane had told him one night, when they'd gotten to talking on the roof of the monastery, that it looked like raised skin. Discoloured, scarred, some areas lighter, some a lot darker. That his eyes, well, his eyelids had healed closed but he knew that there was nothing behind them. Cole knew that, he couldn't feel anything there. He couldn't see. He'd describe it as blackness, but in reality it was literally nothing at all. As much as anyone could see if they asked what they saw from their elbow.

"I remember the day you found me." Wu said plainly, abruptly. Cole felt himself pause, one eyebrow raising. "When I was a baby." He elaborated.

Cole frowned, "You remember... Being a baby?"

"You have to understand, what I was subject to was not normal development. I went from a young child to an adolescent youth in the matter of a few hours. I remember everything."

The earth ninja couldn't help but blow out a heavy breath. "So you remember..?"

Wu paused, as if thinking over how he was going to word what he was going to say. Or even if he should say it. "I remember the blood." He stated. "That covered most of the injury but I supposed it made it look worse than it was."

"I don't know Sensei, it felt pretty bad." Cole laughed lightly.

He felt a tap of the bo staff on his shoulder and huffed. If he still had eyes, he'd roll them.

"I know you remember it too. More so, in fact."

It was a prompt, an opening to speak about something that he resolutely avoided in lieu of other problems.

Cole swallowed hard , "I remember the pain. The fact that the last thing I ever saw was stone walls and Ultra Violet diving at me with the knife." He whispered, their surroundings seemed to follow suit. Birds became quiet, cicadas in the grass stopped their chirping. It was like the world took a breath. "Everything flashed white, and then nothing. I remember coming around and you were making baby noises. I... Could feel everything. The blood, the burns, I honestly…" Cole's voice fell below a whisper, "I wanted to cry but I couldn't." He ducked his head.

"And amongst all of that, you still got me and yourself to safety."

"Sensei--"

"You put everything that had happened to the back of your mind, you adapted to the situation and you found your way to safety, even without your vision."

Cole cleared his throat and shook his head. He could feel a catch in his voice, and he knew if he spoke again it would break, just as he had yet to do so over the situation

Yet he did, "Why're you mentioning this now?"

"Because you need to hear it." Wu said plainly. "You need to know that you're not alone with this. And even though I may be a crotchety old man," Cole smirked, and received a harder staff tap to the back of his head. He winced and brought his hand up to rub the knock.

"I am your mentor, and I'm here to talk to. Just as your brothers are."

There was a light breeze and Cole hefted a heavy breath, nodding slowly to the words. They made sense, and he had heeded them before. If the conversation was broached, he would talk about what happened. He was doing so now. Bottling emotions wasn't exactly his forte, he was more for waiting until there was time to let them out. The only issue was free time rarely came. "I'm fine, Sensei. Really. I'm okay. And I'm sorry you remembered what happened."

"Apologies from those who are not at fault get neither party anywhere but closer to understanding each other. It is not your fault that what you experienced was traumatic. It is not your fault that I remember what happened."

"Sensei, I don't get what point you're trying to make." Cole admitted slowly as he pulled his legs up against his chest.

"What I'm saying is, eyesight or not, safety or peril, your immediate action upon getting grievously injured was to protect someone else. To protect me, whether you knew who I was or not. It's why I chose you Cole, all those years back on that mountain top."

Cole paused, listened.

"Because when all seems lost and hopeless, when you're in pain, you still put others first. You do the right thing, to the detriment of yourself." Wu stood, using his staff as support. "Whilst putting yourself in harm's way, I don't advise; your heart is always in the right place."

He felt a hand rest on his shoulder, the touch firm but gentle. Cole couldn't help but give a small smile.

"It's why you're the leader, and why you continue to be the one everyone looks to."

"Sensei--"

Sensei Wu paused, presumably looking back, not that Cole could tell easily. "Disability does not equal to inability. You are proof of that, Cole. You work with your circumstances, you are every bit the person you used to be and more.

"I am here to thank you. And to tell you that I am very proud of who you've become."

-

AO3