#'this one consumes my life and heres it compared and contrasted to other things and heres the things i love and heres some things id change'

[snobgoblin]

I have a hard time with asks sometimes because I can never gauge if they want a short answer or if it's okay to talk my head off and the indecision makes it hard to speak at all

[trix1erose]

today in ideas that consumed my entire being (ramblings under the cut)

i’ve been thinking a lot about the hero/villain parallels in both seasons, more specifically in relation to jesse

in season 1 Magnus and Ellegaard are clearly Axel and Olivia, i think Gabriel and Petra are the warriors (esp since you have to choose between them in the beginning), and the Soren&Lukas parallel is admittedly weaker, but they’re both described as arrogant, cowardly, etc. but also amazing builders and leaders. so that leaves Ivor to be Jesse’s sort of parallel- which lends itself to how Jack mentions that Ivor is the founder of the Old Order of the Stone, same way Jesse is the founder of the new one. and… while he does get his redemption… Ivor is the first antagonist presented in the series.

season 2 definitely lends itself more towards Romeo and Petra being each other’s reflection-sort-thing, but i can’t be the only one who sees Romeo, Fred and Xara as a mirror to Jesse, Axel and Olivia. (also, this is based more in headcanon so im REAching here, but Lukas comments a lot on how Jesse can’t seem to leave his old life behind; i personally took that as him (jesse) subconsciously chasing adventure to a reckless extent, which is comparable to how Romeo set up all those unhinged challenges for his friends)

anyway, little art notes for anyone might be interested; i tried to show this in my little drawing with warm colours for the New Order and grey/blue for the underneath, i placed romeo on the side with axel and olivia and ivor on the side with lukas and petra to show the different symbolisms, and the jesse underneath the amulet is the one i normally draw for the during part of the witherstorm arc for like… vulnerable little guy idk. i included reuben in the top because they’re meant to be stark contrasts, the top one is a happy fantasy and the bottom one is a miserable nightmare. also i gave him a scythe because i saw a comment on the kwite vod where he made the diamond hoe as a joke that they headcanon enchanted hoe’s turning into scythes which i thought was super cool.

plus some close ups cause tumblr ✨butchered the quality✨

[grapejuicestyless]

conrad and fem!reader were bestfriends growing up but they were always in love. (reader is a conklin) they were both in love but they were both so oblivious to each others love (Susannah always knew hehe) I was thinking this could be inspired by ‘back to you’ by selena gomez

basically when susannah dies conrad lashes out on yn and says like the worst thing you can think of but then tries to kiss her and yn is so freaked out that they don’t see each other for years. After yn finishes college everyone reunites at the summer house and Conrad and yn finally realize what’s been right in front of them.

i know this is a lot but your writing is so beautiful especially with Conrad. thank u <3 🙏🏻

Back To You

Conrad Fisher x fem!reader

Angst to fluff

Summery: The request above^^^ I tried to stay as close to what was requested I hope this is okay! <3

The waves hit the wooden poles underneath our feet in a soft pattern. The thrashing of them shaking the dock just enough that you could feel it rocking. It was calming, breaking the silence that settled between my oldest son and I. Conrad had been off all spring, part of me connected it to his old ex girlfriend breaking it off with him, but that was just what I told myself because the thought that Conrad knew what was going on, something I swore I would keep hidden until it had to be know, made me sick with guilt. How my condition was weighing him down.

I took him out to the old dock just for one on one time. He used to love it out here at night. The way the stars illuminated the sky in their different patterns, the way even with them shifting, the constellations always found their way to stick together in the sky for a few weeks at a time. He loved the feeling of the damp wooden bench beneath his legs and how close we could cuddle up out here. He always loved it just being us.

“What’s going on, Connie?” My words were soft, in no way pushing him to open up any fresh wounds. He seemed wound up, his light dampened. I wanted to figure it out, I wanted to help him. The Conklin’s would be down here by morning and I worried that if left unresolved, it could bubble into a mess.

“Hm?” He acted confused, completely unaware to what I meant. I knew my son better than that though. He was always far too smart to play dumb.

“What’s got you down?” I put on my best smile, trying to squint my eyes to make them as welcoming as I could. My Conrad was never the most open with his feelings. He hated to be vulnerable. He told me once when he was younger that he felt if he was ever truly honest, the words would never be able to have been taken back. By saying things he didn’t say, by pushing people away, it gave him a good distance to build up the courage to make amends again. It gave him the time to choose when he was ready to open up his heart to whoever he wanted. He was always so conscious with things like that. Always thinking things through before doing them. It was funny how much a contrast he was with his feelings compared to Jeremiah. My spontaneous son who had no fears about regretting anything. Using his charm to get his way through life.

Laurel once joked that she believed Conrad’s eyes were so much darker because they held much more fear than Jeremiah’s. He was consumed by it. At the time we laughed, but now I was beginning to believe she was right. Here I was, preparing for a death nobody knew was coming and still, after nearly two decades of fighting and loving, I still was stuck at that distant arms length Conrad held me at.

He ignored the question, looking out to the sky. He knew he could’ve lied to me, could’ve made up something about his old heartbreak. How he was stressed with school. Anything to at least let me be able to give my support, even if it wasn’t in the areas he needed it. Conrad knew me like I knew him, though. Bound not only by blood but by love. There was no great excuse he could make that I wouldn’t pick up on. Mothers know everything, it’s our job.

My hands shook, partly from the cold and half from the disease working it’s way into my system. He shuttered sun my fingers wrapped around his, lips pressing to the back of his hand and my thumb smoothing over his skin to keep it stuck there.

“You don’t have to go through this alone, okay? When you feel like you need to say something, you don’t have to overthink it with me, okay? I’m your mom. I’ll love you no matter what’s going on in that mind of yours.” I saw the way his mouth twitched upward, a faltering smile so weak it was barely there. His eyes shinned in the moonlight, illuminated by the stars and the fireflies zipping by.

“Thank you, Mom.” He was honest then. I knew it by the way he said it. Like a weight was lifted off of his shoulders. He didn’t avoid my gaze, but held it firmly.

He crashed into me like one of the gentle waves into the dock. Arms wrapping around me in the biggest hug he’d given all year to me. His fingers dug into the back of my blouse, holding onto me for dead life in a way. He seemed desperate to be close to me.

A deep sigh left his nose, tickling the skin on my neck and down my back. I almost laughed at the feeling, but held it in to prolong the moment we were sharing. Soon, we would both be leaving whether we liked it or not, it was certain. I hoped that in the attempt to have one last perfect summer, Conrad and I could become closer. That we could all find a sense of happiness.

That sense came a few hours later. A wish being fulfilled without any extra begging. By now the moon was long gone, hiding beneath the horizon, the birds alive and singing. The children playing on nearby beaches and the whooshing of speeding cars passing the driveway.

Each part of the home was set up in the way I had hand picked it to be. My favorite flowers resting on the mantle and a bowl of the freshest fruits in the center of the kitchen countertops. The air was clean and crisp, blowing through the cracked window over the sink. It was cooling and refreshing, the outsides sounds seeping into the calm quiet of the house.

“They’re here!” My youngest shouted, heavy elephant feet stampeding down the stairs in pure excitement. I felt my own feet pick up from under me to jog outside. Summer was beginning.

The familiar silver car sat parked out by the bushes in the front, the engine still cooling and the sound of the car shutting off echoing through the area. The wheels moved from side to side, leaning closer to the ground to help give as the four missing pieces of Cousins announced their arrival.

Steven was the first to let his presence be known. His long, scrawny body stretching up after a long drive, an exaggerated groan becoming dragged out to truly emphasize how long their trip was. Jeremiah barely let him step away from the car before they were messing around, his arms wrapped around Steven in a welcoming hold. Their catching up was loud and joyful, jokes spewing off of their tongues without any extra effort.

Belly and Laurel came next, piling out of opposite sides of the car. Belly had occupied the passengers seat and Laurel the back right one. Both skipped the long stretch and made their way closer to their respected friends.

It was when Belly started making her way over to Jeremiah and Steven, giving an excited wave that I saw just how much she had changed. Her hair was longer, straighter. It fell just below her chest, shiny and thick. Her eyes seemed to sparkle brighter than last summer and her teeth had finally straightened enough to ditch the braces. It seemed like she was the center of attention for everyone because of these changes. Jeremiah swooning, hearts of eyes and Steven choosing to react in pure disgust, their playful teasing died down behind Laurels approaching voice.

“This has been a long time coming.” She sighed contently, arms already wrapping around me, feet in lifting from side to side to away smoothly. My hands rubbed along her back. She pulled away after a moment, observing the area, watching our kids. I saw her eyebrows furrow in confusion, almost like she was sad. I knew what it was.

Even in all this happiness, in all the reuniting and teasing, two very vital people remained missing. Y/n and Conrad.

While Belly and Jeremiah had an unbreakable bond that could carry any room, it never was really complete without Conrad and Y/n. To put it simply, even if Belly and Jeremiah were as great as they could be, Conrad and Y/n were the blueprint. They were the glue. No summer was truly starting until they were doing something irresponsible or stupid. One of them in a coughing fit, the other laughing themselves into one.

My lips drew themselves into a tight lipped smile, eyes finding the sky above. I swallowed. The words were in the tip of my tongue, the confession about what was happening with Conrad. What I believed was happening. I was getting ready to spill my guts about why Conrad wasn’t rushing out here. How he had been off all summer, and it was like he could hear me.

“Conrad!” The car door swung open so fast, I thought it might’ve snapped off with the force of it. It shook the car, slamming even harder than it had opened. The voice, still as sweet as I remember it being, belonged to Y/n.

She looked exasperated, hair a mess, cheeks flushed. Like she’d just woken up from a messy sleep. Her lips were bitten raw, and her shirt hung off her shoulder, unlike Belly’s that fit perfectly. But she was a ray of sunshine. She glowed like the brightest star in the sky. Her smile was infectious, spreading onto my best friend and I’s faces subconsciously. She truly captured the essence of pure happiness, the one I wanted so badly to feel this summer.

Heavy footsteps grew louder and louder behind me until a gust of wind was passed, the footsteps meeting their owner. Conrad, the moody, hurting boy who was completely shut away just hours ago was now running into the arms of his best friend. Of the girl he loved most.

They connected in the middle, the force of it making Y/n squeak. It didn’t stop them from tangling themselves up like they always seemed to do, Conrad’s back bent backwards and Y/n’s feet of the ground. They spun in circles, laughing the entire time. Even being limited to short glances at Conrad’s face while they spun, I could see the light in his face returning. The way his cheeks turned pinker and his eye bags seemed to get less heavy. He would never admit it, but it looked like he had gotten ready for her arrival. He no longer wore a plain grey zip up and old stained sweatpants. He wore Y/n’s favorite blue shirt he owned and matching shorts. She claimed he looked his best in that shirt because it fit him so well. Not too tight, but not too loose. He looked out together enough to go anywhere, but could remain comfortable. She’d even gone so far last summer to say it made him look handsome, something she confessed while drunk, clinging into her best friend and giggling under her breath.

I knew Conrad would never admit he chose the shirt just because he remembered that specific moment, but it was fairly obvious. At least to me. He always had the ability to pinpoint specific events, precise moments that involved something Y/n had done or said. He knew what she hated and what she loved. He put in more effort to make her see him than anyone else I’d ever known. It was endearing to see how much he cared for her.

More than that, it was like a storm had passed, Conrad’s grumpy attitude dissolving into one of pure sunshine and playfulness. He held no fear with her. Everything he did, everything he said, he knew it could be said with confidence. She was the one thing in this world he never felt ashamed to say what he needed to around. The only thing he never shared, his feelings. How he was so in love with her, his summers became dedicated solely to seeing her every second he could.

Secret sleepovers, long bonfire nights and early mornings on the beach. There was not more than a few hours that they weren’t together everyday. It was disappointing to see how he couldn’t share that, as Y/n so clearly felt the same for him.

Her eyes always looking for his face in a crowded room, her hands reaching out to feel he was there constantly. She needed him in more ways anyone could ever need a friend, she showed it, but they somehow always managed to shut down these feelings behind their insecurities of being wrong.

Jeremiah didn’t even get a chance to make his way over to talk with Y/n before she was being led away by his older brother, feet struggling to keep up behind him while he dragged her into the house. The thumping of their feet hitting the stairs sounded through the front door, their laughter and yelling echoing down the hall until his door slammed to a shut. I couldn’t help but laugh, Laurels own giggles stifled underneath mine. It was so obvious how much they cared for each other, yet so frustrating that they never acted on it.

The two of them always chased and chased, no aware that they were both aiming for the same thing. It was sweet to see puppy love like that. One so pure that they couldn’t even admit the feelings they so strongly felt for each other. Something they’d held since childhood, living in complete oblivion since.

The sun was high in the sky, a bright burning ball sizzling it’s mark into all of our skin. I could practically see Conrad’s shoulders peeling beneath its strong rays already. I had warned him to put on a rash guard, knowing he wouldn’t reapply. But he was so excited to catch up to Y/n, my words fell deaf on his ears. She was already out in the water with Belly and Steven, splashing around, laughter echoing as she grabbed what looked like mounds of wet sand from the bottom of the ocean to cover Belly with.

“Connie, you’re going to regret it later.” I had said, all to familiar with the distant sounds of his whining in the middle of the night. Conrad’s back sore and the aloe vera sticking to the warm sheets. But in that moment, the cringe worthy memory seemed to slip his mind as nothing was more important than getting to Y/n. He waved me off, promising to be careful but not really meaning it.

They were out there for hours that day. The waves were calm and the seaweed was relatively clear. The two of them, Y/n and Conrad, spent the perfect conditions submerged so deep into the water that when they reached land again, they complained how their legs felt like jelly. Conrads shoulders were bright red, torched by the beach day. I could see how they ached, just like I had said they would. Y/n’s cheeks and forehead were tinted a harsh red but she seemed completely unaware. Unbothered.

Conrad had pointed out how she had freckles on her face she didn’t have before. It was obvious how he thought she was beautiful, even then. I guess looking back on that memory, it was more clear that even at such a childish age, Conrad somehow always managed to pay the most attention to Y/n. Always the most observant of her tiniest details and mannerisms. Things he hadn’t even thought about in the others.

I didn’t let them sleep upstairs that night. I made sure to proclaim my love to them, but made it known I cherished my sleep more. Really, it was their own fault. Conrad had been warned to take precautions and those were blatantly ignored by the both of them.

I remember this day not because of how great the morning was, the summer breeze blowing in all its glory, but because of how the night had turned out to be.

The clocks hands were just passing the point that separated the late night and early morning. My blankets I had left for the kids spread across the large couch. The blankets were sticking to Conrads back and the aloe was rubbing off with each movement he made. I knew he was trying to muffle his whines, not wanting to be a bother, not wanting to wake his tired mother. I still heard it, and the rolling around became constant listening to the faint complaints from downstairs. It felt impossible to settle down at the time for Conrad, the soft melodic ticking of the kitchen clock only a reminder to how late the night was growing. Of how much time he had left before he was expected to be up and enjoying the day again. I remember feeling hopeless for him, he felt like crying.

It was the soft touch of fingers curling over his biceps carefully that pulled him from his descent into madness and silenced his cries. If it were anyone else, the sudden feeling of skin on skin would’ve scared him, sent him running upstairs into my arms like always. But the sensation was one he knew well. That and the shiny blue nail polish on her nails.

“Conrad, what’s wrong?” Her voice was soft, worrisome. It almost made him feel insecure, stupid in how he was getting ready to enter fourth grade and still couldn’t get over the ache of a stupid sunburn. Conrad should’ve felt pathetic, in his eyes. If it were Belly, or Steven or even Jere, he probably would’ve. But this was Y/n. His best friend! He knew he had nothing to be embarrassed about with her, she would never judge him.

“Is it your sunburn again?” She knew the answer, but always wanted to make sure. All it took was the slow nod of his head for her to lift herself off of the makeshift bed she’d made on the couch, the soft padding of her sock clad feet becoming more distant the farther she went into the house. In that moment, he felt confused, wondering if she was leaving him too. If his whining was even too much for her.

But, no. She came back with more aloe vera. A new bottle from the very back of the fridge. Conrad remembered how gentle she was when putting it on his back for him. It was feathery light, pressure changing depending on how severe the burn was. Even at such a young age, Y/n knew just what Conrad needed to make him feel better. It was like her sixth sense. Conrad had told me that morning, his heart couldn’t help but warm at that idea. That she had a special power just for him. He described it like waking up from a hazy dream.

A realization dawning on him after it had been forming for years. Y/n wasn’t just some girl Conrad enjoyed spending all my time with because she was simply just his best friend, but because deep down he loved her more than that. He knew he always felt something for her. Even when we were toddlers. The way she always shared with him, stuck by his side. At the time, Conrad acted annoyed by her presence, but he always secretly loved having her so close. He babbled about it in his sleep. He would slur how he felt safer, warmer, happier. Even his dumb little fourth grade self could see that those feelings weren’t ones someone had for a best friend. Those were feelings reserved for someone you loved. He knew then that he had always loved Y/n, now was just the first time he confronted those feelings.

When the sun rose, I was met with a goopy mess spilling all over the coffee table and a shiny back and Y/n’s wet hand. I could put the pieces together, but back then, Conrad made sure I didn’t have to.

That morning, while Y/n showered to get ready for the day, he went into depth about what had happened that led to the mess. How he felt, what was happening. At the time, I believed it was merely a small crush that he amounted to true love because he had never felt love before, but the longer I observed the pair, the more obvious it became that my little boy was in love with his best friend.

For Y/n, the day of realization came much later.

I remember the day clearly. Laurel and I had been insisting on a much needed a girls day, folding twenties into Conrad and Y/n’s palms and placing them in charge of the younger siblings of the bunch. Conrad being the oldest Fisher and Y/n the eldest Conklin, it wasn’t unusual that we would place our trust in them, tasking them with the job of keeping everyone in check for a day.

They’d decided to go to the boardwalk, the day too beautiful to not enjoy it. When arriving, the group had agreed to split up and conquer. Conrad would take Belly to the ring toss and Y/n would take Jeremiah and Steven to the go-karts. Everyone would meet back up in two hours for ice-cream and swap groups.

Y/n spent nearly all her money that day on those stupid go-karts. She’d only ridden them once, but Jeremiah and Steven kept begging to go again, again and again. Y/n was always such a softy, despite her confident exterior. Especially when it came to her younger friends. She couldn’t say no to them, they were just too convincing. When they met back up as a group, she complained, having a headache from the loud engines of the ride. She had eight dollars left in her pocket. Conrad had a large smile on his face and a polar bear named, Junior Mint, held loosely in his arms that he’d won after Belly begged him for it.

The looks on their faces made Y/n jealous, in a way. A feeling she knew shouldn’t be feeling when the situation involved her sister and her best friend. Two people she adored more than life itself. But Y/n, no matter how compassionate and understanding as she might be, like the rest of us, can’t control how we feel. We can only control how we reflect them.

“You have fun on the go-karts?” Conrad, who had somehow sensed her bad mood, had made race car sounds with his mouth, holding his arms out in front of him like he was turning a steering wheel in an attempt to lift it. Y/n’s hand hit his chest playfully, feet dragging along the wooden floor beneath their feet.

“The most.” She lied to him then, she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she didn’t want him to feel bad for leaving her alone. She wanted him to be able to enjoy his day without having to worry about someone else.

When the time came to pay for their ice cream, it became apparent that the left over eight dollars would not be enough for three of the ice creams. Jeremiah and Steven insisted on getting the largest sizes possible, resulting in a grand total of almost the entire budget. Even if Y/n got a kiddy cup, she wouldn’t have enough to spend for a third cup.

Holding the money in her hands and looking back at the excited boys behind her, Y/n felt responsible to keep them that way. Happy. After all, she was the oldest. It was her job to look after them. To put their happiness above her own. She spent all her money on what they wanted that day, walking over to the table they’d picked over in the shade empty handed, disappointed in the lack of a cold treat to snack on after a long day.

Everyone was sat across from her, the table full of everyone except Conrad, who was ordering for him and Belly. Y/n’s hands became the most interesting thing to her for a brief period of time. The peeling paint on the table a good distraction from her two friends stuffing their faces with something she so desperately wanted.

“One vanilla ice cream cone for Belly!” She heard Conrad’s voice before I saw him. Her younger sisters eyes practically formed into hearts when he placed the dessert in front of her. He continued to announce the order.

“One mint chip for me and…” Conrad slipped a cup of mint chip ice cream in front of her next, the spoon lime green to match the melting treat below her.

“One for Y/n/n!” He sat beside Y/n then, mixing around the green ice cream until it turned into mush. Y/n lifted her eyes from the table to his face. It was stuffed with his own treat, a satisfied smirk directed towards his best friend. Y/n’s mouth was parted open, stuck like that for the longest time. It was only when Conrad had motioned at the ice cream that she realized it was still under the very hot sun, and melting more now.

With a silent whisper of a thank you, Y/n let the gift cool her down. It tasted sweeter knowing it was from Conrad, Y/n had confessed to me that night. Knowing that he cared enough to know how sad she would be to have been the only one without ice cream to finish off a fun afternoon.

He was always so sweet to her, always going out of his way to make sure she was included in everything. He didn’t have to, but he liked too. That’s what made Y/n like him the most. It didn’t matter what was happening, or who was involved. If Y/n was there, Conrad would be stuck to her side like glue, just like she was to him. He had some magic spell over her that no one else could even come close to.

Conrad always had a way to cheer her up, make Y/n feel like the most special person in the world. She never felt ashamed to be my most vulnerable self around him. He made her heart beat faster, her cheeks flush pink. He made Y/n feel pretty, wanted. More than that, Conrad never failed to give her butterflies.

These were all things she could connect with things someone could have with a best friend, someone close to them. She could convince myself as well as herself it was nothing more than that. Conrad was only a friend to her, but she couldn’t lie to herself anymore than she could lie to me.

Deep down, Y/n always knew she loved Conrad differently than everyone else. She could recognize his laugh anywhere, Y/n knew he had a lucky pair of socks and a least favorite pair of underwear. She knew he liked to part his hair down the middle, but how it trailed off to the left the further back it grew because he used to have a side part when he was younger. Y/n knew his glasses gave him a headache and how he didn’t really mind the feeling of sand stuck in his skin after a beach day. These were all things Y/n would’ve never given a second thought about with anyone else, but things her heart held onto like a prayer because it was Conrad.

Slowly but surely, she came to terms with my feelings developed for Conrad, ones I’d known about vaguely for years as the pair grew closer and closer each passing second since Conrad’s own revelations. Only, before, Y/n used to downplay them as a small crush. One she was developing because he was a boy and she was a teenage girl. She believed was supposed to feel like this, it would pass. But it wasn’t, and sometimes it felt to her like it never would. It grew more and more painfully obvious that Y/n’s feelings were so much more than that, and being in that moment then only solidified that fact. Y/n was in love with Conrad Fisher, her best friend, her world.

We were cuddled up on the couch when she talked to me about the day, the way her senses seemed to point overwhelmingly towards Conrad. I could’ve told her then that my son loved her just the same back, and maybe then they would’ve pulled together like a strong magnet, but I wanted them to find each other. They deserved to realize that through their own actions, not mine. So for years after that final confession, I sat here beside my own best friend wondering along with her when they would finally find each other.

“It’s cat and mouse with them every summer.” I sighed, holding my cup of coffee close to my chest. The warmth of the steam coming off of it warmed my skin in the cool July evening.

Laurel laughed beside me, her own mug clutched in her hands as well, we mirrored each other in looking out towards the back yard where Y/n and Conrad ran around in the grass with a deflated football. The smiles on their faces were vibrant, bright. Ones that only came out when they were together. They had that power over each other, to lift each other up. To make the others heart beat fast.

It was as clear as day what our oldest children felt for each other. No amount of deflections or excuses could hide the blush on their cheeks and the way their touches lingered for just a moment longer than friends should. They knew more about each other than anyone else because they cared too much to not know. It was pure and refreshing to see young love like this, even if neither of them knew what they had yet.

“When do you think they’ll realize what they have?” Laurel asked sincerely, her face turning to watch how my expression changed throughout my answer. She usually never played into my ideas, always being the more logical of the two of us, but this was the one thing we could agree on.

“With our luck, never.” We laughed, Laurels head falling to rest on my shoulder affectionately. We let out a synchronized sigh, allowing a beat of silence to pass.

“I’m sure they’ll find their way, they always do.” My hand rubbed my best friends arm in reassurance, my head settling on top of hers. I rested my weight on her, feeling more tired now that the day was ending.

It was almost comical, how ironic the entire situation was. The two oldest, smartest, strongest of the bunch, the ones who, other than Steven, had been the only ones to successfully apply and get into some of the top schools in the country, even with their brains, couldn’t figure out just how badly they wanted each other. Not even when it was dangled right in front of them.

I partially blamed myself. It was me who had ingrained the title, best friends, into their heads. With each time they were spotted together, with everything they set off to do together, I’d always stuck their names together with those two words. Even when it became more and more obvious that they were falling into each other in a way that crossed the line that divided platonic and romantic, it was always the two of them. The younger Laurel and Susannah. The next generation of best friends.

Conrad never managed to catch Y/n’s longing glances, and Y/n always seemed to just miss the way his hands held onto her in ways he didn’t with anyone else. He held her in ways best friends weren’t supposed to.

Lingering touches that mirrored her stares, fingers twitching, begging to be interlocked. Conrad spoke his feelings to her in acts of service, winning her prizes, helping her with her homework, reading to her when she had headaches, even when she was insufferable because she kept groaning. It was also in physical touch. His cologne practically stuck to her clothes permanently with all the excuses he could find to just touch her in one way or another. Y/n seemed to constantly be trying to relay the same in her own acts of service and physical touch. Holding the door, cooking him his favorite desserts without Conrad even asking, resting her head in his lap during movie night. Both slotting together to mesh perfectly, but their ignorance keeping them apart. If I were any less mature, I would’ve yelled at them to hurry up, I wouldn’t be here forever and I’d like to see my special kids happy before I went.

“What are you thinking about, Beck?” My own best friend asked softly, her head still under mine. I squeezed her arm, feeling sure that one day they would get together.

“How happy they’ll be once they realize what they have.” It went silent, but I knew my best friend. I could sense her tight lipped smile, eyes squinting and nose scrunching. He lifted her head from my shoulder slowly, her hand resting on my lower back.

“Why don’t we settle down for the night?” I wanted to fight her, I wanted to enjoy the calmness of the summer evening. The way our children were just what they needed to be, kids. No matter their age, still able to enjoy the simplicity that the summer home had to offer. But Laurel was right, I was feeling sluggish and if I didn’t rest soon, the couch would be my bed for the night. So I nodded, leaving the image of Y/n pinned under Conrad, his hands wiggling by her sides in an attempt to make her squirm and their laughter to be the last thing I would remember before I fell asleep.

“Con.” My voice was soft, the grass wet under our backs, dirt on our skin. He turned his head to face me, a lazy smile on his face. His eyes were all hazy, clouded by both tiredness and something unreadable that consumed his facial expression.

“Hm.” He hummed, eyes searching my face, lighting up when they settled on my own. I could feel the hair on his arms brush against mine, hands curled up, an indication of how close we truly were. Always just out of reach. My fingers twitched against the back of his hand, aching to be intertwined with his. My eyes flicked to his lips out of habit, breath hitching.

When I looked back to meet his eyes, I found the once playful look replaced with serious stare, burning straight into my head. He seemed stiff, nervous in a way. My cheeks flamed up in embarrassment. He must’ve seen the way I couldn’t pull my gaze from his lips. I breathed out.

“It’ll always be like this, right?” It wasn’t what I wanted to say, what I meant to ask. But in that moment, it was all I could manage. A simply vague question that held so much depth. I hoped he’d say yes, that we’d always be this close, not that we’d always be best friends. Selfishly, I hoped he said we would be more. That we could be so much more.

“You and me, always.” I felt the way his arm shifted from beside me, linking his own hands together over his chest and breathing out. He pulled his attention back to the sky, where the clouds moved faster than they did in June. The summer was ending.

“I wish it could be summer forever.” Feeling awkward being the only one to still be looking at him, I too turned to face the sky. Biting my lip, my eyes shut to imagine it was the beginning of the three wonderful months we had together.

I wished that I could have Conrad forever. That it wasn’t just some summer love that I would have to sit idly on as the seasons changed to a colder, more lonely winter. That Conrad and I could do all the things we always talked about over the phone together. Our cheeks would be rosy with the nip of the frosty weather and not because the sun had burnt us into a delirious mess. Groaning on the couch as we wasted our days away.

“Distance makes the heart grow fonder, Y/n/n.” He joked. Only, the way he said he sounded completely honest. Like he wasn’t joking. He said things like that a lot now. Things that were awfully romantic for someone who swore that we were platonic to all of our friends. It pulled in my heartstrings a little each time one of the phrases would slip. A source of joy for my daydreams to run on for the next few hours. If I were any more delusional, I would’ve told him how I felt about his jokes out loud. But I wasn’t, so I held them in. I let my heart face and my breathing quicken in silence.

“I hope you’ll be just as fond of me when you see me next, then.” I rolled to my side, countering his joke. I heard him laugh. My hands tucked under my head like a pillow and my legs bent at the knee. I made myself smaller next to him.

As our giggles died out, so did his interest in the clouds. He mirrored my position, hands under his head, legs bent up. Our knees touched, radiating a warmth that bounced between our body heat. My eyes were focused on him, but I was spacey. Thinking of just how long we’d be apart. It hurt my heart, I didn’t care if I would grow fonder of him. I didn’t think that was even possible with how much I loved him now.

“What’s running through that head if yours, Y/n/n.” His hand came up, pointer finger delicately tapping the top of my nose. I scrunched it under his touch, so light it tickled. My reaction made him smile again, even after his hand had returned back under his head.

“Thinking about how fondly I’ll think of you next June.” There were some things you just cannot speak about, can not share. I would never share what I was truly thinking about that day. How I was so stuck in my own feelings for him that I couldn’t even bare the thought of not having him beside me. That my heart deflated at just the mere mention of the winter because the only person I ever wanted to be around would be taken away from me.

Conrad’s laugh was weaker this time, smile fading into a smaller one but it was just as happy.

“I hope you’re already pretty fond of me, then.” I returned his smile then, the crinkle by my eyes moving a strand of hair into my face. It tickled my nose again, but I didn’t scrunch it. Too focused on Conrad so close to care.

Before I could respond, I felt the softness of his hand brushing across my face and tucking the strand behind my ear. He did it so gently, like I would break if he wasn’t.

“I am.” It came out breathy now that his touch was on me. He didn’t remove his hand from my face then. Instead, it felt more like he was molding his palm to fit my jawline. He cupped my face in his hand and just admired me. Eyes flickering around until they met my now moony gaze.

It was like some force was pulling us closer, then. Conrad’s face getting closer and closer, little by little. I couldn’t tell who was leaning in. It could’ve been me, but I was almost sure it was him. My eyelashes fluttered, fighting the instinct to close them. I heard how his breath hitched, I felt my own do the same. This was something I had always dreamed of happening, it felt unreal that now out of all times it would happen. I always dreamed of kissing Conrad in the beach, or the old dock where we used to play. Maybe even in the pool where we’d hold our fake Olympic competitions. But here we sat, on the grass, his breath fanning my face.

His head turned little by little, getting ready to connect our lips finally. The squeaky glass door slid open, and by some bad luck, it was enough to scare us into a more distant position. We sat up, now more than just inches away, searching the backyard for who had opened it.

Steven had been the culprit, having forgotten something on the small table outside. Looking beyond the pool, he found Conrad and I, red as can be, eyes wandering around and waved.

“I’ve been looking for you two! Belly wants to have one last movie night. Jeremiah’s making popcorn. Y/n, you’re on blanket duty!” He was completely oblivious to the tension between us. Of how my cheek, right where Conrad had been touching me was burning. How in my mind, it felt like he had left a mark with how hot it felt. I cleared my mind, shaking it off and looking to Conrad almost disappointedly.

To my surprise, he seemed perfectly fine, like nothing had just happened. He sprung to his feet, in fact, completely able to move on and ignore it. Maybe I had read it wrong. Maybe he wasn’t trying to kiss me. Of course I was, it would be stupid to believe that my best friend could really possess some sort of feelings for me. I had simply made it up, tricked my mind into believing it was true because I longed for him too much.

When his hands met mine to held me up, it felt like fire. Flames burning into my hands at how badly I wanted him. If he didn’t care, than I shouldn’t either. My stupid feelings shouldn’t weight down the last hours we’d spend together. It shouldn’t dictate how the last night will go.

I put on a brave smile, sticking a bandaid over the wound over my heart. I bled out on the couch, all over anyone near me. My smile false, heart heavy. I forced myself to forget it and as the movie grew longer and longer, it left my mind completely. Eyebrows feeling lighter, the burning in my throat releasing itself into a soothing sensation. It would be my last memory of the summer that truly stuck. How close I had gotten to Conrad, and how quickly he had slipped away. How wrong I was about how he felt. How hurt I was for believing it could be different.

What I didn’t know then was how he felt the same. How his mind was swirling with the what if’s and the same disappointment I felt. How my fake smile had tricked him into believing it meant nothing to me, like I didn’t understand the weight of the situation at all. He didn’t know how I was breaking inside at how he didn’t seem to care, because he was feeling the same. My own act was tricking him, allowing Conrad to believe just what I thought of him. That I did not care for him like he did with me. That his feelings weren’t reciprocated. It was a dance between us. Chasing in a circle to get the other attention, to figure out what was happening between us. Completely unaware that if we would just turn around, we’d find what we do desperately longed for. The other chasing the same thing. We let the incident go by the morning, pretending that whatever happened was all a dream. And just like that, we were what we had always been. Best friends.

The news came early in the morning. The sun hadn’t fully crossed the horizon yet and there was still dew on the lawn. I was alone then, away at college. The constant calls from my mother waking me up. But it was the one from Conrad that I answered somehow.

“Hello?” My voice was full of sleep, confused as to why my mom was calling me so early. I had an eight am that morning, I had my alarms set. It was all so confusing, hazy.

“Y/n.” His voice was shaky, weak. It woke me up quickly. Conrad was never like this, at least not over the phone. Occasionally he would breakdown around me. The tears always stung. So full of emotion, so overwhelmed to the point he couldn’t keep it together. All it took was someone to ask if he was really okay to tip him over the edge. To open the flood gates. It only happened at the worst of times, it was alarming that it was happening now.

“Conrad, are you okay? What happened?” I knew something bad had to have happened. This wasn’t simply just him calling because of how much he missed me. Those calls came later at night on FaceTime, his voice light and playful each time. This was heavy, I couldn’t see him, he was hiding behind the phone call. I knew it had to be bad, already packing a bag as he spoke. The phone was pressed to my ear by my shoulder and head, I worked on stuffing as much of my clothes in as possible. I made sure to scribble a note down to let my roommate know I was leaving and would be back in a few days.

“It’s my mom.” The world stopped in that moment. I knew I had to get to him even quicker now, I knew he needed me to talk to him, to walk him through his grief but the news was so heavy, my hands stopped working. I froze, unable to do anything but pray that it was some sick prank.

“What?” It came quiet, I wasn’t sure if he even heard me. She wasn’t my mom by birth, I didn’t carry the same relationship to her as Conrad did. I didn’t see her everyday for hours, but in some way she was my second mother. She taught me to ride a bike, how to bake a cake. I learned how to read from her, her name was the first word out of my mouth. She was the grounding in my life. The one person I trusted to share everything because it was likely she’d already been through it. She understood like a mother, helped me grow as one. Her death would leave an empty hole in my heart for eternity, I was sure.

I heard Conrad take a shaky breath, holding it while he tried to piece together what he had to say. What I deserved to know.

“It happened this morning, just an hour ago. I wasn’t going to call so soon but, I thought you deserved to know. She was special to you, so…” He tried to keep it together, I could feel it. I could hear it. How his breaths caught in his throat, the quiet stutter beneath his words.

“Conrad, I…” In looking for all the words I wanted to say, to tell him it would be okay with, I came up short. Unable to make some sense as to what was happen.

“You don’t have to say anything. We all knew it was coming soon.” He dismissed my struggle, knowing that if it were hitting this hard on his end, he could imagine that I wouldn’t take it very week either.

“Yes but Con, that doesn’t make it any better.” I ran a hand through my hair, placing the phone tightly between my shoulder blade and my ear. I began to pack again.

“Do you need me to come down to Boston?” I would’ve come down on my own, would’ve held him like a brother, protected him from the world, the reality of it all. But it was a delicate situation. I had to walk on eggshells, unsure of what was best. I had never lost a relative before, never endured the pain of not having a mother. Never seeing her again like how the Fisher brothers just had. I didn’t know if it was best to stay or go.

“No, no.” Though it sounded like he was lying, like part of him wanted me to just be there, his words were firm, exhausted. If he wanted me there, I would come, but I would not intrude when times were so tough.

The line went quiet for a moment, I can still hear the static ringing through my head even now. How the line went just as quiet as the dorms when everyone was asleep. I could feel the hot liquid trailing down my cheeks, the tightening of my chest becoming more rapid the longer we both stayed quiet.

“Listen, I’ll call you later when I know more, okay?” I nodded my head, only realizing a moment later he couldn’t see me. I took in a deep breath.

“Okay, yeah.” He mumbled a quick goodbye, hanging up the phone and leaving me alone to grieve. The once cheerful morning turned grey with sadness, clouds looming as a reminder to the sunshine we had lost that morning. The dew turned into mud and the plants wilted. My bag was packed in minutes after the call ended, bag slung over my shoulder.

Conrad didn’t want me there, and that was fine. But my mother was at home, sitting with only two thirds of her family who were probably all unaware besides her. If Conrad didn’t need my shoulders to lean on, my mother did. She knew Susannah longer and truer than any of us had. The pain she must be carrying could only be indescribable to her. So if I wasn’t leaving for the Fishers, I was for her.

I never got that call from Conrad, not even a text. As I laid in my childhood bedroom, eyes glued to the ceiling and the silence of the household drowning me in my own self isolation, I didn’t even wonder why. For the first time, my life didn’t revolve around Conrad, on how he was doing, what he was doing. I didn’t miss him anymore. Not because the hurt of him not being here was any less, but because the pain of his mother never coming back being worse. It canceled out and an extreme numbness took over. I felt nothing. I had cried all my tears, screamed into my pillow until my voice gave away. My knuckles hurt from how hard I gripped the steering wheel on the way home. I had already lost it and now I had nothing else to give.

…

The funeral was a week later. Not much time to process such a heavy loss. Adam wanted me to speak at the funeral, he knew how much Susannah meant to me, but I couldn’t do it. Walking up to the podium, I couldn’t say her name. Even if it were just a practice run. My voice ran dry, eyes wet. Staring at her photo by the alter, all I could do was shake my head. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t do what her husband wanted for her. I felt embarrassed I couldn’t help the family who was going through so much still. They claimed they understood, but the guilt loomed.

We sat three rows behind them. Strangers separating us. It made me angry. If not us, the ones who spent hours on hours together, at least my mother deserved to be sitting in the front row with the Fishers. She was a sister to Susannah. She was just as much of a family as they were. I kept my mouth shut, my eyes down. The family took turns speaking, each sentence summarizing her in the most beautiful way possible. Some old friends spoke in her honor too. It felt wrong then, how people who barely knew her could stand up there and act like she was their greatest gift.

When it was Conrad’s turn, he sung a song. In his pain, his voice failed him. Wavering and breaking through the song. He apologized, looking out into the crowd he met my eyes. I wanted to look away, not wanting him to see me so broken when I should be the one supporting him. But by looking into my eyes, even as teary and red as they were, he grounded himself. By the time he finished, the venue was silent, soft cries echoing from the back rows. Nobody acknowledged them out of the fear that it would cause them to breakdown again.

The silence carried over to the Fishers Boston home. Other than the adults mingling and the quiet chatter of Jeremiah and Steven, the room felt empty. It felt like a depressing party, one that was about Susannah, yet excluded her from it.

It was tiring, the whole experience. Always trying to catch up with how quickly everyone else was getting over it. I felt like a dead weight compared to Steven and Belly, who had already started coming to terms with it. I was the only one left living in denial. The only one still dreaming of epiphany’s to make some sense of it. To make the heartache more bearable.

I wore the dark eye bags and my salt tears like a tattoo, ones that had been permanently stained on my face since the news broke. It was obvious I wasn’t doing well. I had planned to go back to school after the funeral, seeking a clean space to cope. To get away from the constant reminders of what could no longer be.

Jeremiah said I looked too weak to be driving myself to school tonight. He set up the guest room for me, decorating it just as his mother used to. Even in my protests he managed to convince me. He told me how it was more for him than it was for me. How having me close made him feel better because it was like gaining a piece of him family back. Like having an older sister come home from college.

After that, I kept mainly to myself. Finding the emptiest rooms and sticking to them. I hid my face in my knees, soft cries coming in waves until I had nothing left to cry for. Alone, I sat in the darkness until the soft chatter died out and all distractions became a heavy peace.

“You should get to bed soon, Conrad, it’s getting late.” I forgot all about him, I realized. Not once having checked on him. It was only Adams soft suggestion reminding me of the other brother, who was probably taking the funeral even harder than his younger brother. Wiping my cheeks with the backs of my hands, I waited until the choking breaths turned into quiet sniffles. Until everything felt calmer, more collected to see him. I wanted to be able to be there for Conrad, even when I wasn’t doing okay either. I wanted to—no. I needed to be strong for him.

I knew where he was, I could see the frame of his back hunched over on the couch. Head hung low and hands fidgeting around anxiously. It made me nervous.

I took the time to go downstairs then, only after I was sure everybody else had filed out of the house, leaving it looming with an eerie emptiness. There were leftovers on the table, one serving left, the rest already in the refrigerator. Adam had already cleaned away any evidence of Susannah’s death.

Taking what was left, I put it on a paper plate. My own stomach rumbled, being empty, but the starving feeling felt better than feeling nothing at all. I knew Conrad hadn’t eaten in hours, cemented to his place on the couch, he needed to eat. It could be considered a peace offering, a kind gesture. Something to maybe lift his spirits.

My hands were shaky, so I had to hold his plate with both hands. I leaned against the wall when I went back upstairs, I didn’t trust my footing anymore. I had to stop halfway up, take a deep breath and pull it together. Conrad needed me, I had to be there. I wanted to be there.

It was a soft knock that pulled me from my descent into a bottomless pit of sadness. My mind shook its self free, eyes fighting consciousness. I was ready to snap, irritated at my dads efforts of trying to move me from where I found some sort of comfort. Really, it wasn’t his fault. He was only a concerned father who wanted to help his son. But I wanted none of it. I wanted even more now than when my mom was alive to be as distant from him as possible. Unforgiving of his horrible mistakes that caused my mom so much pain.

The soft voice that spoke wasn’t one that belonged to my father, not even my brother who had a sweet voice saved specifically for moments like these. To ease the tension, calm everyone down. No, it was like honey. So sweet and gentle. So easy to listen to. I longed to hear more.

“Con?” It belonged to Y/n. My Y/n. The only person I hadn’t really seen all day. The only person I wanted to see all day. Instead, she had spent it making everyone happy with her. Tending to Jeremiah’s wish, staying with us overnight. Giving a loving hand to hold for Belly and Steven, calming down her younger sisters uneven cries and her brothers panicked breathing. She tried to get her mother to open up, but Laurel was like me. Stubborn. Even with her best efforts, she was locked out, leaving her to seek solace in the less crowded rooms upstairs. I wanted to come see her, but my feet no longer worked. My legs were jelly. I felt stuck to the couch. Too weak to keep moving.

I acknowledged her, mouth too dry to speak. She took it as a signal to sit down beside me. The plate in her lap was shaking like her. The food looked unappetizing, but I appreciated her effort. She pushed it towards me, a hand finding my back, she rubbed it like she had in the summer when I was drunk and clinging onto the toilet out of sickness.

Nodding my head, I accepted it only to place it on the table in front of me. I knew she knew I didn’t mean it as an insult, I just couldn’t eat right now. I just wanted her to hold me. I wanted to feel safe again.

So, I placed my head where I’d always wished I could. My ear pressed against her shoulder, hands glued to my lap, her arms wrapped around me out of instinct. It was so warm, so loving. It helped to heal the ache that was ripping through my heart slightly. My headache didn’t feel so severe with her close. She made everything better, just as she always did.

“Con, I’ve known you my whole life, you’re my best friend. You can talk to me. You can trust me, okay?” Her hands in my hair suddenly felt my poison. Little thorns poking into my scalp. The sour reminder that this hold, this closeness wasn’t reserved for me. I wasn’t hers, she wasn’t mine. It made me feel angrier than I should’ve. A mix of grief and disappointment mixing together into something she didn’t deserve. She was only trying to help.

Sighing heavily, I pulled myself away, standing up to create a distance that I knew she felt not only physically but mentally. A feeling of someone close to her becoming closed off to her, just as her mother had done earlier today. I couldn’t look at her. I’d spill everything.

“Conrad, no. Please don’t shut me out. Please, not now.” She was pleading with me, her voice shook slightly, it made my heart break a little, hearing how feeble she was feeling.

“Y/n, can you go please?” I didn’t mean what I said. I’d only done it out of my own petty desires. Hurting the girl I loved more than anything in this world out of my own selfishness. When we were both hurting the most. She didn’t say anything, but I imagined she must’ve shook her head. Her footsteps grew closer.

“No.” She choked out, “No, I’m not leaving you alone right now.” Y/n cared so much for me, she always did. She knew how to read me better than anyone else. She knew that even now when I was asking her to go, I didn’t mean it. I wanted her more than anything. Her knowing this overwhelmed me with a love that I misplaced, unable to cherish and welcome it due to my own selfish nature. Only ever knowing how to push away what was so graciously given to me. I decided to snap at her, make her leave.

“What do you get out of staying, Y/n?” My words were laced with venom, I turned around to speak to her now. Having already built up my walls to know I wouldn’t break. She was speechless, confused.

“I-I don’t…” She couldn’t find the words. Not expecting to be turned on so quickly when she was just trying to help, to be kind.

“God, you are so selfish. This is about you doing what makes you feel good, right? You don’t give a shit about me, Y/n.” I didn’t mean it. I knew Y/n was far from selfish. She was the most selfless person I knew. Always putting herself dead last to help everyone else thrive. She hated thinking she was one day going to be depicted as someone selfish, someone cruel. It was an insecurity I knew she had since childhood. So, in my own anger, I pointed my weapons at her deepest hurts.

“Con, no. That’s not true.” She was defeated now, lip quivering and face contorted into pure pain. I scoffed.

“You can’t even look me in the eyes when you say it. You don’t have to pity me just because my mom is dead.” I kept going, unable to stop now that I had started. I had already stabbed her, now I was only twisting the knife. I watched her eyes well up with tears, all glassy and red. Her lip quivered and her eyebrows pulled together.

“Fuck you Conrad!” It was unexpected. I hoped she would walk away, leave it be and blame it on my grieving, but I should’ve known better. Y/n was like me, stubborn. She was just as much of a fighter ad I was, kinder but full of anger just as I was.

“Susannah was as much of a mother to me as my own! You aren’t the only one grieving, asshole! I’m doing this because I care. I care Conrad, and I wish I didn’t because you don’t deserve it, but I do. And I’m afraid I always will. So…so don’t you disregard my sadness out of the spite of your own anger!” What started out so strong had faltered into a weak confession. She was looking at me in the eyes, finding it in herself to finally make eye contact, breaking the invisible barrier between us. We were chest to chest.

Even in her state, she was so beautiful. Like an Angel sent form heaven specifically for me. I couldn’t help the way my eyes searched her face. I felt confused, more overwhelmed now than ever.

A silence took over, heavy breathing turning into quiet huffs of air. Even, steady. We were so close, I could feel her body heat radiating onto me.

I opened my mouth to speak, I wanted to apologize but the words got stuck. I couldn’t convey what I wanted to tell her. How she meant the world to me, how she was the only person who I cared about more than anything. She was the only person I didn’t want to shut out, didn’t mean to shut out. I loved her more than anything I’ve ever loved and it hurt me to not be able to love her as more than a friend.

My fingers found her hand then, squeezing and pulling her fingers between my own. I held it there, by her side, trying to get her to understand. I heard her breath hitch, saw her eyes find my lips. They flickered back up to my face. I needed her badly then, I knew I couldn’t wait. She was right here, so willing to stay when I’d treated her so horribly. She saw right through me constantly, she stuck by me in my darkest storms.

I didn’t think about it when I did it. About how my leaning in, my effort to kiss her could’ve scared her away. I was blinded by want, by need. I forgot it takes two people to have something.

Y/n released a breath only to hitch it once again, moving back from where I leaned in, she lengthened the gap between us again. A soft whimper woke me up from my haze, her head shaking rapidly. She looked scared. But more than that, she looked guilty, hurt.

Susannah was dead, there was no way to avoid that fact. My mom was never coming back, and that alone broke everyone into tiny pieces. Knowing Y/n, I knew how complicated everything felt for her. She was grieving, hurting. Not even I could piece together what she was thinking.

“Connie.” Her second whimper of my name is the one that made me back away. It was then I saw what I had done. The girl I loved most was staring back at me with wide eyes, mouth open slightly and body shaking. More than that, she had tears streaming down her face rapidly. I had made Y/n cry. For the first time in my life, I had made my best friend cry.

My heart shattered at the realization. How I’d ripped her down, made her feel vulnerable and then went in to kiss her like it would cancel everything out. I moved back again, trying to find the right words to apologize with. A silence surrounded us, crickets and the late night breeze the only sounds filling the walls around us.

I watched her a step back, slightly faltering over the threshold of the doorframe. Her hand ripped away from mine quickly, leaving a burning feeling behind from where we were once connected. A pain that wasn’t real, but felt so. She began to walk backwards now, hands finding the hallways walls for support, her feet failing her.

“Y/n.” My voice was quiet, my feet cemented to the floor. She shook her head again, a sob racking through her body. It’s a sound I’d never heard before. One I hope to never hear again. I could see how panicked she was. How everything was just now catching up. Her feet move quicker now, seeing how I’m reaching out for her. She’s scared, how could she not be? We’d crossed a line that wasn’t meant to be crossed, one that was toed over during one of the most horrible moments of our lives.

She’s halfway down the stairs now, the thumping of her feet louder than the creaking of the stairs. Jeremiah sticks his head out at the sound, looking between her disappearing figure and my body stuck in the doorway. It’s then I realize she’s actually leaving. Not to find peace in the guest bedroom, but to go away for good. I’d pushed her away, why had I pushed her away?

I’m quick then, my feet finding the floor in front of me, I make a mad dash down the hall and around the old banister. It cried under my weight but I push through, desperate to reach her. I don’t care who I wake up, if my fathers mad. If he’d just finished crying himself to sleep. I’m shouting after Y/n, yelling her name like it’s the only word in my dictionary.

“Y/n!” My feet stopped at the beginning of the driveway. The space her car once occupied is gone, not even the distant sound of a car rushing down the street can be heard. She’s slipped away from me just as my mother had, leaving me completely alone.

I walked out to the street, trying to see if she had parked it elsewhere. She wouldn’t leave me, would she? Not after we’d promised we’d always be like this. So close, always together.

The street was empty, only the flickering street lights illuminating the dark streets. I felt defeated, broken. I had got what I intended for, but not what I wanted.

Y/n was gone like the wind, leaving me in the stillness of the night, overthinking everything that had led us to this tipping point. All the tension, all the build up just for the resolve to be our ending. I always dreamed of the day I could finally confess my feelings to her. Even if she didn’t reciprocate them, she would never be mean about it. We’d always be close, and that alone gave me comfort. Now, I wasn’t so sure. What should’ve brought us together in my head, the one thing I’d always dreamed about, had split us apart. It’s almost funny how it happened, when it happened. The two people I always saw myself standing next to for the rest of eternity gone within the same week. Unsure if seeing them again was even something that was possible.

In all the years I had ignored him, Conrad never stopped reaching out. Not until my Junior year. My phone was filled with unanswered messages that varied from topic to topic. He kept me updated even in my absence from his life, wanting to salvage the closeness we’d cherished when we were younger.

He told me how he was in therapy, a week later he told me how he’d stopped going. Not only because he felt like it was nearly impossible to open up to a complete stranger, but because going felt like another financial burden he was adding to his fathers long list of bills and soon to be debt. Conrad shared how day by day, the grief of losing his mother was getting easier to cope with. The happy memories of her having been around at some point fueling him each day. He felt grateful he even had the pleasure to know her so well. Call her his mother. He was going to school to become a doctor now, changing his major halfway through his freshman year because he wanted to help people going through what his mother was forced to endure. He wanted to save people, help them in ways he was never able to help Susannah. He had a good heart, an honest one. Yet, he never spoke of any new lovers in his life. He carried all these amazing qualities, but his heart still longed for me, the girl who had left and never looked back.

It had been just over three years since I’d walked away from Conrad. Three years since I’d seen him. I couldn’t even look at him through photos. I was grown now, but my heart still aches in the same childish way it did when the wound was fresh. He never brought up what happened after the funeral. It was like his attempt to kiss me didn’t exist, only adding to the hurt I felt. Only confirming what I believed from the beginning. Conrad Fisher hadn’t leaned in to kiss me because he loved me, he had done it because he was grieving and didn’t know how to feel. He didn’t love me like I loved him. He did it because I was always so easy. The lovesick fool who would do anything for him, even if it hurt me the most. Susannah had been so sure that he did love me the same, I almost believed her, but it was ignorant to buy into it when it was so obviously not there. Yet, I still felt a tingling sensation each time I looked back at his messages. I wondered if in the time he’d stopped talking to me, he’d found someone else to love and know like he did with me. I hoped that my replacement was beautiful, like a model on the cover of Vogue. I prayed she was smart and kind like Susannah. I hoped she was everything I wasn’t to him.

Deep down, I knew part of my attachment, my fixation on what he was up to was because of the messages. How no matter how wrong it felt, I continued to allow myself to be part of his life from a distance. Even if Conrad didn’t know it, I always cared. Always would. I told him that the day I left. It was fear that turned out to be true. A curse that kept me from finding that same love for anyone else. My heart belonged to Conrad Fisher, a boy who barely knew me anymore. A boy who I wasn’t even sure if I could consider a friend anymore. A boy I want to be able to call my friend again. I had been so resolute all these years in keeping to my word. That after that night, I would never come back. The last would stay just that, the past. It was never that easy.

Letting go of Conrad Fisher was more than only losing the love of my life. It was like throwing away the last pieces of a Susannah. Sure, I still talked to Jeremiah quite frequently. Our phone calls lasted for hours, he never failed to make me smile. But he didn’t have Susannah’s eyes. He didn’t have her blonde hair or her smile. He was a direct reflection of his father, other than his unwavering optimism. None of his features lined up in the same way Conrad’s did. He was her twin, in a way. Losing him felt like losing her all over again.

All I did was try, try, keep trying. I kept pushing until I had nothing left to give, a burnout who barely made it to graduation. No friends to stand with at the finish line. All in an effort to forget what was lost along the way. Losing Conrad made all my achievements feel unworthy. A deep depression looming deep in my stomach, waiting for the right moment to rise, swallow me whole. Not even seeing my family there, sitting excitedly in the folding chairs could lift my spirits. There were four empty seats beside them that shattered my heart. I could place a name to each one. Figure out who would sit where if they had shown. But that bridge was burned and it was my fault.

My fault for running away from the boy who adored me like no other. Who made me feel special. Who understood me like a lover. My heart felt empty, I couldn’t sleep at all that night. Not even when Belly had shared about her forming relationship with Jeremiah, not when Steven confessed he thought he might be marrying Taylor soon, he was ready to buy a ring.

Years ago, that would’ve been something that lifted my mood. Filled me with joy, excitement that my sister was finding her own soulmate in a close friend. How her heart finally beat for the one that was there for her the whole time. But like a train, it hit me that the connecting link between the Fisher family and the Conklin’s would no longer be Conrad and I like I always dreamed it to be. It would be Jeremiah and Belly. Steven’s upcoming engagement didn’t thrill me either. His healthy relationship only reminding me of the ones I lacked. Amplifying the loneliness I was already painfully aware of. All by my own doing.

I felt like I was crashing, listening to my family talk about how well they were doing. It was like they couldn’t see the downward spiral I was falling into. Becoming my worst self.

Going home to a house filled with tainted memories surely didn’t help. Nor did the bottle of alcohol placed in the middle of the kitchen table. Picking it up and drinking straight from the glass was bound to happen, I was hurting and it was my numbing solution. Years ago I had told myself I’d rather feel all the pain in the world than be numb when it came to Susannah’s passing, but now I wished I could take it back. Each drink hurt less and less. The tequila turned into water, my eyes hurt to keep open. I was a quiet mess on the couch. Unaware of anything really.

It was an issue how easily persuaded I was when drunk. In my sober state, I would have never agreed to Belly’s proposition. I would’ve protested, claiming I still wasn’t ready to face my issues. I wasn’t fully prepared to accept that Conrad never loved me, that it was his grief that made him want to kiss me. Something I loved with for years. But I wasn’t sober, and Belly’s argument that we’d be going down for the summer again because it would be what Susannah wanted had me packing a bag for the morning. Ready to go down to the one place I hadn’t been since Susannah still inhabited it.

I found myself hurting in the back of the car, aching, tired. The road underneath the wheels crunching and bouncing the car in a way that made my head pound. I laid my head in my moms lap, praying for it to all be over. Seeking the peace of stillness.

Susannah had once told my mother that she believed I was walking sunshine. A force that lit up the sky when I was around. Someone who’s smile was so contagious, even her brooding son couldn’t help but feel joyful around me. It felt like I was letting her down in a way. Now that everyone had moved on, had gotten better. I felt like an idiot being stuck on the past. What was worse is that I wasn’t sure if I was so stuck because of Susannah or because of Conrad. Both answers freaked me out.

“Y/n, honey.” Her voice was gentle, hands running through my hair. I felt a mess. Hair messy like a child’s, eyes wide yet so tired. My lips were wet with drool, cheeks rosy with the summer heat. My head pounded with a nasty hangover.

I knew what my mom was going to tell me. I felt the car come to a halt, the road turning sharply into a familiar driveway with even more familiar trees peaking through the window. I knew where we were. I wasn’t sure if I was ready, but I knew there was no turning back.

Belly and Steven got out of the car first, just like every year prior. Footsteps echoed from the crushed up shells and rocks that were considered a driveway. Laughter and chatter, I recognized the voice as Jeremiah’s. My mother shifted underneath my head in hearing this, ready to get up. Her eyes met mine, silently pleading for me to just, try.

Sitting up, my back aches from the odd position I forced myself in. What I thought was comfort was a hidden pain shooting through my back. All I wanted more than anything was to lay back down on my moms lap. To pretend we were still at home. Like I wouldn’t have to confront anything. I heard the excitement in Jeremiahs voice.

“So, where’s Y/n?” My moms heavy sigh was a signal of impatience, her understanding was wearing thin, she was ready to shove me out into the outside.

I opened the car door slowly, head peaking out. My eyes were wide and nervous. Hands shaking around the door frame. I felt like a shell of the person I was the last time I’d stepped foot on this very ground.

“Jere.” His eyes were just as bright blue as I remembered, his hair just as unruly and free. He hadn’t changed, that alone gave me some sort of comfort. I felt my lips twitch up into a smile, eyebrows furrowed. I should’ve had smile lines at this age, but I only had worry lines. To stressed to think about being happy. But here I was, body peaking beyond the car door, cowering like a young child meeting new faces at a party.

My feet dragged, my body curling into itself in such a pathetic way. The door close weakly behind me, it didn’t make a sound I was sure I hadn’t closed it properly in my nervousness.

His footsteps were quick on the driveway, long strides shortening the amount of time it took to reach me. His eyes were slightly closed, like he was holding back tears. His arms outstretched, fingers motioning for me to come to him.

I didn’t realize how much I had missed how tightly he held onto me until having been deprived of it for so long. I wished I had been around more. I think I would’ve been better off if I had been. I could’ve healed, talked everything through.

But I ran. Far away from the people who supported me greatly, from the people who I needed to be around the most. I was cowardly and childish. A fool so blinded by her own emotions, I let myself close off to the people who I’d never had to before. I smeared my tears on Jeremiah’s shirt, his shoulder firm under my cheeks.

“I didn’t think you’d actually come.” His hands held my cheeks when he pulled away, keeping a hold on me liked I’d slip away if he didn’t. I shook my head, eyes crinkling just like they used to when we were children. I let out a hurt laugh. It was the furthest thing from real, but it felt nice to make someone else believe it was. Placing my hands over his, he lost all ability to move his hands other than his thumbs. He swiped at my tears, fighting off his own.

“I missed you.” I pinched his cheek, wiggling his face around playfully and snapping it back into place. His hands fell from my face, pretending to not find amusement in my attempts of play in such a serious moment. He swatted my hands away. My hangover was still intense, and my heart still beat unevenly, there was still a sense of magic around the beach house. I could feel the sadness slipping away, a new relief filling my heart as I eased back into the old routines of summer. It was still there, it always would be, but being around half of the pair I grew up around was enough to clear the murky skies and paint them a beautiful shade of crystal blue.

“I didn’t think you’d ever come back.” His words made my hands freeze, pulling back away from him and my smile falling, hard to bring back up. How could I explain my absence was one that was caused not only by the passing of his own mother, but by the cruel joke his brother had played on me. How in the weakest times, he continued to play me, made me feel so easy.

A deep breath got stuck in my throat, blinking hard. The small lump in my throat expanded until it burned. I swallowed, and swallowed until the pain was soothed enough to speak without an intense rasp. Licking my lips, I prepared for the long explanation and heavy details I would shorten to help Jeremiah understand why I had left everyone behind. I opened my mouth, only to have my words cut off and my heart to leap into my throat.

“Y/n.” His voice was airy, like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Turning my head to the side, I saw the joy in his face, mixing with what I could read as pure shock and what I could pick up as a deep sadness. It was clear it wasn’t only the youngest who was shocked by me showing up this summer.

“Conrad.” My tone was the same. I didn’t chase after him like I did to Jeremiah, nor did I welcome him into my arms, letting him walk right up to me. I felt stuck in place, heart racing at the sudden confrontation. He looked thinner, more tired. But his skin was still sun kissed and his nose was burnt on the bridge into a pinkish red. He had freckles scattered on his face and the same middle part that still, even after almost a decade of the change, curved off to the side near the back.

It was his house, it was stupid to pretend to be shocked by him being there. Jeremiah and all the courage I’d gained to even begin the process of speaking up about what happened was gone. The smile, even as fake as it was was wiped from my face and replaced with pure terror, pain.

It was like ripping my heart out all over again. Resurrecting the feelings that I had sworn to have buried over the last years. The ones I promised would never come back. I never saw myself in this light. So pathetic, letting something so old kill me all over again. It was like I was watching myself out of my body, listening to the world around me as a ghost. Only half of who I was. It was like I convinced myself these past few months that what happened was merely just a flesh wound, nothing deeper. I couldn’t have anticipated how far the ache would reach. How intense it would feel.

Conrad had began to try and speak again, his hands raising, my heart beating. The closer he inched, the harder it became to breath. The more blurry my vision became, the more everything hurt in a way I was sure I would never feel again.

Like some saint, Jeremiah had seen it. The way my shoulders tensed, chest rising and falling erratically. My skin was becoming blotchy around my neck and my eyes were watering more. I looked just as panicked as I felt. He’d seen me crashing out, he knew just as Conrad once had to get me out of there.

His hand hooked in mine, fingers intertwined tightly and palms pressed together until there was no space between us. He looked to me with a fake face on, eyes searching mine, he prayed I would go along with it.

My ears tuned most of it out, the pounding on my ears to great to really listen to what he was saying. I could only nod my head and let him lead the way. My footing was unstable, the ground shifting and pebbles flying in front of my feet each time I lifted my shoes off the ground. The birds sung to each other, and my mother instructed everyone to help unload the last of the cars luggage. Jeremiah and I had slipped away, keeping distance away from Conrad while doing so and slipped through the back door to seek shelter in his room.

I knew I had to explain it to him then, I couldn’t leave Jeremiah in the dark. Not when he’d been so worried that he pulled me away from his own brother, my best friend. He’d saved me, in a way. I owed it to him to tell him everything. Even if he’d take Conrad side. Even if I lost my only other bridge to Susannah’s life. He deserved to know.

Sitting on his messy duvet cover, my shoes fell to the floor, creating a heavy sound when they connected with the carpet. My knees were pulled to my chest, as if to hide away in a way. He was patient with me, his hand warm on my leg. I felt calmer without Conrad so close, with walls to separate us. I told him everything. He stayed stone faced while processing my feelings, how my heartache had been so great I couldn’t take myself back here until now. How my heart still longed for Conrad Fisher, how it always would. He didn’t judge me, but I could see how he felt bad for me. An idiot who fell in love with his idiot brother.

She’d been ignoring me all week. Something I never saw myself becoming well aquatinted with when it came to her. She was always a ball of sunshine, so easy going, so open to change. I had no idea that by me expressing my feelings I could change it in a moment. I wouldn’t have done it if I knew she would have run like this.

My mom always believed that Y/n and I were meant to be, pulled together by some invisible force. It constantly worked in our favors to push and pull us into a tightly knitted circle. Just us. When she died, Y/n was persistent on being supportive. Being there, caring more than anyone had ever done for me in that dark time. I thought that it was smart to buy into my fantasies, that Y/n had developed the same feelings I held for her and we could finally be what I’d always dreamed of.

It was the worst thing I could’ve done, looking back. How naive I was to think that even if she did reciprocate what I held for her, she was grieving just like I was. She was weak. Maybe she thought of it as wrong, now that my mom was dead. I drove her away with my own selfishness. It was a regret I carried all of my college experience.

Phone dry, a never ending loop of unanswered texts. She became a dump in a way, a place for me to open up even in her not being there. Part of me liked to think she read the messages. She had turned off her alerts, I had no idea, but thinking she saw them made my heart hurt less.

I thought by her coming, even though I knew the chances were slim as the Conklin’s had packed up and spent the summer down at Cousins without her in the previous years, I knew that maybe by her just being close that we could mend things. I had to. It hurt me to not be able to reach out and touch her like I once had the privilege to.

To hold her fingers under mine, rubbing dirt out of her eyebrows and maybe pressing my palms to her temples just to feel her warmth. How her legs tangled between the lawn and my own. It was all a foreign memory, ones that kept me going. Her laugh was a distant memory, one that echoed each night before I went to bed. For years I covered my ears and held my breath, afraid to loose the sound of her voice and smell of her perfume. Some shirts stayed hung up idly in my closet because she lingered on them. I didn’t want to wash it away yet.

Jeremiah insisted she just needed time after the first day. After he’d taken her away from me. I went into his room that night to yell at him, ask him why he would do that to me when he knew just how badly I wanted to hold her. He shook his head and held his breath. She was still hurting, he explained. Still scarred by the injuries that should’ve healed months ago. She needed time.

Time, something that became limited in the summer. Something we had not much of. There was no more guarantee she would be back. No more sure telling that her smile would once again light up the summer home and her voice would ring throughout the beaches. This could be my last ever moments with her. My last real conversation being one that caused her to leave.

I wanted to make it right more than anything, wanted to show her I still cared more than anything. I wanted to tell her everything. Pretend that we were okay, really be okay. I wanted her back.

Around the twelve day mark, I had enough. Time and space was something she had plenty of. I understood her, better than anyone. I know she needed her space, continues to need to heal. But for the first time in my life it’s like I have no clue on how to even begin to help her do that. It made me feel stupid, helpless. Killing myself over a girl who was once only a little girl to me.

The old dock was a place I found myself at most peace. The way the waves gently brushed against the old wooden beams, rocking the platform above. How the moonlight peaked through the cracks of the wooden roof and glistened on the water. You could faintly make out the shape of fish if you really looked and the wind was chilling compared to the usual humid summer air that hung all morning.

My arms were situated right against my body, hands tucked under my armpits. I was cold, sure, but I would never admit it. I always loved when Conrad would take me out here when we were younger. He learned his own love for the spot form his mother, a love that was passed down from child to child like an everlasting passion.

It was quiet, the water and the air drowning out any background noise. Sometimes if you were lucky, young children would play in the background. Laughter would fill the area. Maybe an old couple would barbecue outside. You could people watch. It was all so serene. Not enough to block out the creaks of approaching footsteps. How the boards groaned under the heavy steps getting closer.

My nose was red, I scrunched it in the cold. I sighed heavily, releasing any tension.

“This has always kind of been our spot, huh.” His voice was much deeper than I recalled it. Much more gravely, raspy than before. He was referring to Susannah and how it started, the first discussions that made us realize we were closer than all the others. We were certainly best friends. It was funny how even though it was her funeral that ultimately led to our breakage that she was a reoccurring theme in our lives. I nodded.

Silence took over us, a gap left between our bodies. I felt the urge to stay in place fighting the one to leave. I swallowed hard, looking over my shoulder and backing away slowly. My feet found the floor behind me, and unlike I had when the incident occurred, I was steady and able to begin my escape.

“Y/n, wait.” Conrad spoke softly. His voice wasn’t demanding, almost like he was begging. His eyes begged more than his voice. He pleaded for me to stay. I turned my head to him, stopping short and turning to face him. I watched as his frame began to tower over mine the closer and closer we got. He left a sizable gap between us still, out of respect for me.

Looking up at him, my eyes reflected the stars, wide and expecting. I waited patiently while his tongue licked around his mouth, his breathing heavier and heavier by the minute. He looked like he might burst.

“Y/n, you’re my best friend.” The words stung to hear even now. Even when I should’ve been relieved to know that he still considered me to be at the top of his list. My own heartache held me back. I could only nod.

“I know.” I could feel the lump in my throat form. How it hurt to not cry. How my eyebrows felt heavy and my nose became sore, not from the cold anymore.

He breathed out harshly, watching as I tried to make my escape again. His hand was harsh on my hand, pulling me back to where I was. I hadn’t even gotten the chance to turn away yet but he knew my intentions just as well as I did.

“You’re my best friend and it kills me to not be able to have you in my life anymore. I miss what we had, what we were. Everything was going great and then…what happened to us, Y/n?” I wish I could’ve answered him, but we both knew what led us here.

“I don’t have to defend my feelings to you.” My lip quivered, feeling a fight rising between us. We never used to fight. Now looking back on it, our last two interactions had only been fights. How quickly things can change.

Ripping my hand from his grasp I turned and made my quick escape down the dock. Walking as quick as my feet would carry me until my feet felt the grass beneath the soles of my shoes. I heard Conrad’s own steps connecting with the flooring just as harshly as mine had. The yank on my wrist was no as gentle as the first time around. His grip was harsh, tight. He made sure there was no escape.

“What is wrong with you?” His voice was raised but he wasn’t shouting. He rarely shouted at me. He always said he loved me too much to be mad at me.

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me?” My eyes rolled and my chest heaved, I felt myself getting hotter, cheeks redder.

“Susannah’s dead. She fucking died and everyone was hurting. You were hurting, I was hurting! You treated me like a last resort! Like, now that you lost someone important to you—you needed someone to fill the void! Made me feel easy, like an idiot! Trying to kiss me like it didn’t change anything—like it didn’t mean anything! It ruined everything Conrad! You decided that because you couldn’t have your ego bruised by being openly emotional, you just had to keep pushing people away! You used me! ” I threw my free hand up. I was crying. I felt stupid for crying, I shouldn’t be crying over him.

“I didn’t do that! No, Y/n you were never a last resort. I thought…I thought it would help! I didn’t think it would hurt you that badly. God, why did it have to hurt us so badly?” He shouted it at the sky. A fog now hugging the trees in the distance. A rainstorm coming in by morning. Clear sky’s would soon turn dark and murky. It felt fitting.

I felt rage. Pure rage. How blind he was to why I was hurting. I had pointed him in every direction, given him hints and yet he was always the one who even with their smart eyes and quick attention, could never truly figure out what I held for him. It all bubbles out like a sickness. A burning vomit that was nothing more than a dry heave. It hurt to get out, but the relief afterwards was worth it

“Because I love you, you idiot!” My voice was loud, deafening in the heavy silence that now hung between us, “I love you, okay?” I was more quiet the second time, seeing Conrad’s big eyes and shocked expression. How his hand loosened on my wrist, I prepared for the worst. The long awaited rejection that would forever break me, tear away the last pieces of the Fisher brothers from my life all together. Our past only to be held in old Polaroids and my moms photo book.

“And I’ve known it since that day in the pier. You bought me ice cream and I realized nobodies ever cared for me like that before. It felt so good to be know so well. It felt ducking amazing to have someone like that. I cared so much about you, I’m afraid I always will. Even now I can’t shake it.” I went on and on, confessing how I felt, when I realized what always been there. I felt his touch leave me completely. It felt cold to be so alone. My tears were salty when they landed on my lips, I wonder if Conrad could taste them.

His hands were warm on my cheeks, palms pressing into my jawline so hard that the simple touch felt that much more intense. His eyes were shut, I noticed. So I closed mine too, allowing myself to give into the boy in front of me. His chest pressed against mine, we were so close, air was almost impossible to find. I could only breathe in him, everything was Conrad. I could feel him everywhere. My nose, my eyes, my ears, my fingertips. His lips molded against my perfectly, slotting themselves into place and setting off jolts of electricity in my veins. It was slow and passionate, everything I had ever dreamed it to be. Wished for. He was gentle and rough, fearful to hurt me, as if I would shatter under his touch, but the pure desire to show me he felt the same was too great to dull down his actions.

We separated with a gasp. Heaving at the lack of air, both breathless form how long it lasted and how much build up had led us here. How badly we desired it. His forehead rested against mine softly, hands sliding down to settle on my waist. He was a lot softer now, more gentle, kinder. Like now that everything had been said wordlessly, he could finally relax by having me in his hold.

Our eyelashes fluttered against the others cheeks, a soft laughter passing between us. Our smiles were b, it felt more like a scar than a scab now. To have some reassurance that he didn’t go after me because I was easy in his eyes. But because he felt the same.

“It was the day at the beach. We got sunburnt badly and you took care of me all night.” I kissed his cheek while he spoke, holding onto him just a moment longer, “You said you realized your feelings the day at the boardwalk. I found mine while you were rubbing aloe on my back.” We laughter again at the almost stupid memory. How we had both realized what we felt at rehab seemed like the most insignificant parts of our relationship. Not when Conrad had taken me to my first party and danced with me all night, not when I stayed up all night with him and held him close just for the hell of it, but when we were children.

We had been so blind to it our whole lives it was almost a tragedy. How much wasted time we had in our lives. It was something we would never get back. Something so precious, something we all had so little of. It was too late to rewrite our history. We could only hope to fix what was broke. And in the silent of the night, Conrad began the mending with the soft whisper of three simple words. Ones that came out in almost a mumble, they only reached my ears.

“I love you.” I never truly believed Conrad when he would joke how distance makes the heart grow fonder, but after what felt like a lifetime apart, it felt like the most honest statement to be made.

Conrad Fisher was mine and I was his. After all of our damaged fights and flaws, we’d found each other again. Being pulled together again by that invisible string. Sticking like glue. My heart swelled knowing he would be mine in the morning.

I will forever cling onto everything I feared, but I will feel at peace with my own inquiries while now that we are half-awake, intimate in how we hold each other. Finally, the grief subsided and I am at peace. I am myself again, he is himself with me.

I know myself better than I have in years.

[onewingedsparrow]

Do transformers eat and/or sleep? What makes them sentient?

*rubs hands together excitedly All right, Brb my beloved, you have discovered one of the things I am most passionate about: Cybertronian physiology. Buckle in. I'm intensely invested in Transformers Science, particularly biology, so you've come to the right place. @brb-on-a-quest First, let's set the record straight: there are two major acknowledged branches of Cybertronian science: Canon and Fanon. Within each branch is a countless spread of other offshoots. As expected, Canon splits into various continuities, from comics to video games to novels to TV shows to movies to everything else under the sun. Fanon is likewise orderly, but a bit more freeform, splitting into Canon-But-Explained-to-Make-More-Sense (which is comprised of but is not limited to Robotics-Inspired, Vehicle-Inspired, and Creature-Inspired); Popular Headcanons That Have Just Been Around Forever; and Pure Imagination and Whimsy. (Canon is certainly also affected by Pure Imagination and Whimsy, but Fanon takes the time to explain how things work whereas Canon is more likely to gloss over it.)

I bring this matter up to set in stone that there is no "one right answer" for Cybertronian science. Continuities within canon don't always agree with each other, even without adding the orderly chaos of fandom interpretation. With that in mind, instead of answering this question with the highest level of accuracy, citing sources from various continuities and comparing and contrasting Canon logic and Fanon logic to see what truly makes the most sense in regards to Cybertronian physiology (as I normally enjoy doing), I'm going to simplify it all and give you a concise reply that is backed up by multiple canon continuities. Note: I will be using the word "Cybertronian" a lot in this reply. The term is used to refer to the native inhabitants of the planet Cybertron: sentient robotic organisms. On Earth, we know them as "Transformers," commonly translated to "robots that turn into vehicles." However, "robots that turn into vehicles" is a rather misleading idea, because while Cybertronians are robotic, and do take forms of vehicles, they are also organic first and foremost. A Cybertronian is not just wires and nuts and bolts come to life. Cybertronians have blood (called energon), organs (some of which are called biomechanisms), and souls (called sparks, though, the term "spark" itself is quite complex and refers to the heart, soul, and spirit all in one), to name just a few aspects that set them apart from your typical "robot." Cybertronians are aliens first and foremost: people that live on another planet. Just because they're robotic doesn't mean they're "robots." They don't follow programs; they have freewill. Now, to return to your ask.

- Do Transformers eat? In the most basic terms, yes. Cybertronians need to consume sustenance to go about their daily lives. Their standard food source is energon. (Yes, I said that was their blood, but really, it's fuel, same as your blood is a source of fuel for your body.) Energon is processed, consumed, and then circulates throughout the body. Simple!

As far as "How do they eat?" goes: that's a question I can only answer continuity by continuity. Some stories have them drink it through their mouths like we might chug water, some stories have them inject energon into their arms or their torso or elsewhere...there's no "right answer" here. So, yes, you can have fun imagining Optimus Prime drinking a giant glass of what looks like blue Gatorade, or, imagining Megatron chomping down on a giant-rock-candy-crystal of diesel-pink energon, or whatever strikes your fantastical whimsy. Some people imagine them having proboscides like insects or hummingbirds. It's rather fun all around. - Do Transformers sleep? Yes. Canon doesn't always have show that they sleep (because that's kind of a boring movie or TV show to watch) but canon regularly implies that Cybertronians need some sort of rest. "Recharge" is the term most commonly used in fandom. But, the life cycles of Cybertronians are very different from the life cycles of humans, so just because we don't see them sleep for a week doesn't mean they don't sleep at all. The way they engage with time is different from humans. It's logical to assume they don't need to rest as quickly as humans do. - What makes them sentient? What makes YOU sentient, dear friend? ;) This is one of my favorite questions to answer about Transformers. See, like I said, Cybertronians aren't robots, they're robotic aliens. They're people, with souls. When they "come online," they're sentient. The way Cybertronians are "born" (so to speak; actual birth is not involved) is their spark is brought into the world from a great light known as the Allspark. The Allspark is the source of Cybertronian life, and, so too, is the place that sparks return to when Cybertronians die. For yes, they can die, just as you and I. A spark is metaphysical; the Allspark is metaphysical. Who is to say what makes a soul sentient? Who can say they know exactly when life begins?

To quote Optimus Prime from Age of Extinction, "There are mysteries to the universe we were never meant to solve...but who we are and why we are here are not among them. Those answers we carry inside."

There are some continuities that claim that "Transformers were built." Forged by other creatures. Created by physical hands. However, I prefer the stories that leave the Allspark intact as something that cannot be fully understood—sanctified by the mystery of life itself. I think there is something special about stories that treat the metaphysical with gravitas. I believe Transformers is so much deeper when Cybertronians are truly more than meets the eye.

[kiirotoao]

Re: Byler and being best friends

Alright, look, I understand that in real life, best friends can appreciate each other’s art. Best friends look for each other when they’re lost. Best friends stick together in rough patches. Best friends fight and disagree. Best friends apologize when they’ve messed up. Best friends give each other gifts. Best friends confide in each other with almost everything. Best friends can do romantic things and be completely and utterly platonic in real life.

But guess what Stranger Things is not? Real life!!

If any story in media is well-captured and well-written, if the camera sees it, if we see it, then it’s supposed to be important. While friends in real life can do the most questionably romantic things and still claim to be just friends or even just best friends, there’s far more nuance to real people to explore if it’s truly romantic or not, and that’s not for others to openly discern. But we who analyze Byler are not doing this because Mike and Will are real people. They’re characters, crafted into this audio-visual story with pre-written and exclusive history and dreams.

While I know that they say they’re just best friends, I speculate on them potentially being more. Why? Because their stories are interwoven and I see chemistry within the threads. It’s as simple as that.

I preach at the end of almost every video I make, “Byler’s endgame,” and really, that’s a sendoff of encouragement more than anything else. Because I hope and believe that Byler can happen at the end of this season and this overarching story. I’m not pushing two people together. I’m hopeful to see two characters come together and realize that their relationship and feelings can blend into a wonderfully written romance amidst this dangerous and unpredictable world that they’ve been put in.

So please stop comparing Mike and Will to real relationships and saying, can’t best friends just be best friends? Look, yes! You’re right! In real life, best friends can be nothing more and choose to stay that way. But on the other hand, hey, best friends in real life can also become more! No one can deny that! But whatever the weather, whatever can be real isn’t relevant. Real lives are not a TV show. Real lives are not being created and publicized (besides some people in reality TV, which is another unrelated issue). By contrast, as characters, Mike and Will’s lives are. And I love the thought of them finding love in each other at the end of the pages. It gets no finer than that.

And so when I look back at their narratives and see the way they treat each other, interact on screen and see how they think, tell me, am I wrong for shipping them? I’m taking the details and looking beyond explicit labels. And I don’t just go around doing this to all people I see in my life who have chemistry. This is specific, this is the love I witness in this thriller-drama-romance. I’m sorry if I end up fighting against you, but I’m not here to crowd you out. Ship what you want. If you love certain characters together, talk about them! There’s a plethora to talk about for Byler! So honestly, I’m curious, why are you compelled to come to me and try to convert me away from what I love when I often don’t even mention your name? Is there not enough for you to obsess over and love? Is there perhaps not enough textual evidence or good moments to enjoy for your ship? I’m just saying.

At the end of the day, real life experiences and examples are practically void when we’re talking about art, and please, please let me have fun with my ships. This is the internet. If you don’t like it, use your capabilities and settings and scroll or block what you don’t like, and pursue what you do. Unless you want to join a forum to discuss the arguments, I think that it’s unfair to think that those who don’t ship your ship are going to talk about your ship. I’m not responsible for what you consume and see. Really, no one is but yourself.

I like to think that I’m rather patient, but I don’t know, I think I’m tearing at the seams a little after a few years in this fandom. This is directed to no one in particular, though, so please don’t take this as a direct callout. I just wanted to get this off my chest. Sorry if I got a little harsh in the end, there, too.

Thank you to those who’ve engaged very respectfully with me even if you disagree with my opinions. I hope that I’m respectful, in turn. I love lighthearted debates, but I don’t love repeating myself to some who don’t want to listen. And of course, thank you Bylers. I’ve met so many wonderful people through our silly journeys going crazy together. That’s all. 💙💛

[caeliajournal]

A journey through my moodboards

This is an analysis of all the moodboards I've created since I started journaling, from 2021 up to now

Searching for my golden hour

January, 2021

aestetic: golden hour

This phase of my life is defined by the significance of sunsets as a metaphor for what I was looking for: the magical and ephemeral moment that, despite its daily recurrence, never fails to captivate us.

Each of the images represented a goal:

The girl on the path symbolized the need for self-discovery and forging one's identity.

Roses embodied the past and roots, viewed through a lens of positivity and nostalgia.

We can also appreciate a collection of indoor plants, which would have a different meaning if they were wild plants. In this particular case, it represents caring for those who are home.

The bookshelf served as a gentle nudge to keep enriching my life with stories that leave enduring imprints.

Intertwined hands spoke of romantic connection.

Quotes:

❝Seek magic everyday❞

❝I am learning to find joy right here in the mess of things❞ — Morgan Harper Nichols. ❝Grow through what you go through❞ ❝feel what you need to feel and then let it go. do not let it consume you.❞ - Dhiman [...]

Homemade

September, 2021

aestetic: cottage core

The primary distinction I notice in this moodboard compared to the previous one is that nearly all the scenes take place indoors and are linked to artistic expression. It's akin to the seclusion of an artist, one might say.

Numerous activities are depicted, such as reading, writing, cooking, or drawing. The golden mirror symbolizes a distorted self-perception and the urgent need to gaze into it once more for self-recognition. Additionally, there are recurring elements from the previous board, like intertwined hands and a cat.

Unlike the previous aesthetic, this one features colors reminiscent of nature: muted browns and greens.

Quotes:

❝Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.❞ — Albert Camus, The Rebel, 1951.

❝Never regret your past. Rather, embrace it as the teacher it is.❞ — Robin Sharma

❝You have absolute control over just one thing, your thoughts.❞ — Napoleon Hill

[...]

Eternal dilemma: air or earth

Somewhere in 2023

aestetic: cottage core

The colors in this moodboard are much brighter compared to the previous ones, with green and purple being the main tones. There's a portrayal of a sunrise sky, although it's not golden anymore; rather, it has pastel colors, much softer and calmer.

The symbol of the mirror makes a comeback, along with elements that have disappeared and others that have emerged, like daisies, representing innocence and childhood. Themes such as books and art resurface, though this time there's a greater sense of solitude than in the previous boards.

Quotes:

❝part of her mystery is how she is calm in the storm and anxious in the quiet.❞ — JmStorm

❝He was earthly; she was aerial. He was made of clay and iron; she was made of fire and dreaming❞ — Graham Joyce, Some Kind of Fairy Tale

❝Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, a fate. It is not a hobby.❞

[...]

The manuscript

March, 2024

aestetic: light academia

This moodboard boasts a distinct aesthetic, characterized by neutral tones, and it's centered around the writing process.

There's a contrast of ideas at play. On one side, there's handwriting alongside digital writing; on the other, tea versus coffee. It's safe to say I'm undecided.

There are fewer scenes depicted compared to the previous boards, making it simpler in design.

Quotes:

❝When it comes to art, it's important not to hide the madness.❞ — Atticus

❝The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.❞

[vamptastic]

spoilers ahead if you haven't listened to wolf 359 and you like scifi and/or story podcasts (or if you don't wanna read a long analysis post) PLEASE go watch it and ignore the rest of the post. its so so so good i promise.

so ive been re-listening to wolf 359 for probably the fifth time on my weird old outdated patched version of spotify. and spotify does this weird thing where if you play something else, then come back to a podcast ep you're not finished with it goes back a minute or so, presumably to help you remember what was going on. and i usually skip the last few minutes of each ep when the barrage of ads starts. which means that as i go back and listen to it for the nth time, if i forget to manually skip to the next episode, each episode starts by playing the last minute or so of the ep until i find my phone and rewind.

and its actually been a shockingly fun way to relisten, especially as the show goes further and further from silly goofy space hijinks to serious suspenseful drama (with occasional hijinks). i'm just struck by how purposeful each episode is later on in the show (and earlier, but the episodes get more...purposeful as the plot starts reaching its climax). there's exceptions, obviously, but the general structure is half the characters doing something silly, while the other half do something important and serious, and the two contrast each other. and even though the two situations seem disparate and tonally opposite at first, they always end up being more of a parallel than a foil by the end. usually, this kind of dawns me in an "oh, that's what the point of this episode was" moment brought on by the last few minutes of the episode.

one of my favorite episodes, ep 34 "a matter of perspective" is a great example. half the crew is trying to restore the signal for alien transmissions, the other half is playing a terrible board game. this is also in the pivotal part of the show before our evil corporate overlords show up where we're getting to know jacobi, maxwell, and keppler in a relatively short period of time compared to the rest of the cast, and i'm always impressed by how fleshed out they were when they got a lot less screentime.

anyway the contrast here is really interesting. keppler is demanding the impossible from eiffel, and the rest of the crew sans jacobi are trying to win an impossible game (the accursed funzo). at the end of the episode, jacobi explains why keppler is doing what he's doing (side note: the whole military "demand the impossible from your subordinates" thing is so insane), and keppler remembers the end to his joke: the pig, despite its usefulness, despite the fact that it does fucking taxes, is still being eaten. slowly but surely. it's such good insight into kepplers character its such good writing! he is a corporate slave who doesn't realize it, he is a deeply talented man who is letting his entire life be consumed by people who do not care about him and his wants and needs and happiness for a cause he will eventually learn is abjectly evil. meanwhile, maxwell, hera, lovelace, and minkowski finish their game of funzo by collectively losing after playing for 10 hours. they are also pouring time and energy into something pointless! everybody loses!

anyway the reason i even mention the whole spotify rewinding thing is that i never really noticed the point of this episode until i listened to the end of the pig joke first. which is probably on me, the metaphor is really obvious in hindsight, but up until now i just thought of the funzo part of the episode as haha silly board game time. having the thesis of the episode presented first is making me realize how genius the writing was in episodes i previously didn't get. i think the entire show is kinda like this, i could listen to it an endless number of times because each and every episode has some kind of double meaning that isn't always initially obvious, especially when you go in blind not knowing that things are getting serious.

the only other work i've read so far that does something similar is probably house of leaves, which is designed to make you read it over and over and search for meaning and has 3+ plots occurring at any given moment. i'm just really struck by how masterful the writing in wolf 359 is that it can achieve a similar feat without the meta elements, nebulous plot, and multiple narrators that house of leaves has.

short version: i think it's really fucking cool how the end of each wolf 359 episode presents the thesis of the episode in a non-obvious way, and listening to the series while having the last few minutes presented first is helping me understand what episodes i didn't previously appreciate were trying to get across. wolf 359 is really fucking good, basically.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

BOOK REVIEW:

GHOSTBUSTER' S DAUGHTER - LIFE WITH MY DAD HAROLD RAMIS (VIOLET RAMIS STIEL)

@amalthea9 @professorlehnsherr-almashy @angelixgutz @the-blue-fairie @princesssarisa @themousefromfantasyland @scarletblumburtonofeastlondon @thealmightyemprex @bixiebeet

I got curious about this book for a while after seeing posts of pages, pictures and quotes from it here on Tumblr.

I finally got to listen the audiobook, in a site that provided it for free that downloaded it from Audible.

The story of how the conception of this book happened is interesting: the author, Violet Ramis Stiel, initially tought of writing a collaborative book about parenting with her father, Harold, when he was still alive and she had just become the parent of two children.

They intended it to be a project where they would compare and contrast their perspectives on parenthood and share those perspectives with the public.

Sadly, Harold Ramis got ill and passed away in 2014, before getting a chance to write a paragraph of the provisionally titled We're All Gonna Die, Now Go To Sleep.

During the period of mourning, while corresponding with friends and fans of her father's work online, Violet mentioned the idea of the book about parenting.

And people encouraged her to write the book, even tough her father passed away and it did turn into something different than originally intended.

So, this book, published in 2018, was the result. After sharing a letter she wrote right after Harold's passing as a way to proccess her grief and briefly introducing her father's birth date and place and who his parents were, she goes to what she calls her beggining, telling about the peculiar romance and eventual marriage of her parents, Harold and Anne Plotkin, in 1967, soon after they graduated college, and his change of jobs from psychiatric hospital caregiver, to farmer for a week, to taxi driver, to freelance journalist, before his joining of the Second City and National Lampoon Radio Hour troupes, where he really discovered his vocation for audiovisual arts and comedy while his wife developed her talent for painting.

In 1977, Harold and Anne decide to have a baby, with Anne specially seeing this as an adventure to go with the flow, and in that same year, Violet was conceived and born, and because Anne had a complicated childhood and also suffered from post partum depression in a time that it wasn't really understood, Harold became Violet's primary parent, feeding her, bathing her, nursing her when she got sick, and joining her in her naps.

Besides this inversion of roles, other aspects that made the family unconventional was that they were very open in talking to little Violet about things like sex and drugs (wich both members of the couple consumed alongside their friends from artistic circles), traveled a lot, and had a deal where each one could have relationships with other people, as long as the other returned home.

From 1978 forward, after his work on television in the first two seasons of SCTV, we get information about Harold Ramis slowly getting experience in filmaking, enjoying the success of Animal House, wich he wrote with Doug Kenney, despite the fact that he got frustrated when John Landis acted controling as a director and didn't cast him in one of the roles, the complicated production of his directorial debute, Caddyshack, to later have a more narratively consistent success with National Lampoon's Vacation, writing and acting in an important role in Stripes and writing and acting in his most famous work, Ghostbusters.

After this period of slowly getting success in the movie industry, there comes the production of his next film as a director, Club Paradise, which os overall fun backstage (him once getting arrested by the Jamaican Police for posession of marijuana not withstanding), is not a box ofice hit.

It was around this time that Harold had an affair with director Amy Heckerling, when both were still married to their respective spouses, which got her pregnant with his second child, Molly, and for a variety of reasons, he regretfully distanced himself from that child until years later, when a DNA test revealed that she wasn't biologically related to her mother's then husband, and eventually she decided to contact Harold, becoming close to him and, specially, Violet.

This complicated development is told divided in three chapters.

By the late 1980s, Harold works in the more luke warm received Ghostbusters II, divorces from Anne, falls in love with production assistant Erica Mann and eventually proposes and gets married to her.

Violet's custody is shared between Harold and Anne, which is a challenge because each household has a different aproach in raising her: whereas Anne keeps being free spirited and letting her loose, at Harold and Erica's house there are more extricted rules, to which Violet reacts by becoming more gloomy and rebelious. To add more complications, she is bullied at school, and her mother starts to date a man who turns out to be a pedophile and sexually abuses Violet, who, despite constantly blaming herself in her mind, eventually gets the courage to denounce him to her parents, with her father acting specially protective and suportive.

The 1990s start, and in paralell to Harold's success as a director with the acclaim of Groundhog Day, his personal life still gets in turmoil, with his backstage fight with Bill Murray, Violet still acting in a rebellious and gloomy way that even involves a fascination with the gangster life style, and a night where he and his two young songs get hold at gunpoint by two robbers at their home in Los Angeles.

At 16, Violet gets pregnant for the first time, and after repressing herself in secrecy, she shares her plight with her family, who support her when she decides to get an abortion.

Is after this moment that her unstable fase starts to go away, and she starts to open herself to dialogue and retakes a loving relationship with her family.

The later half of the 1990s come, and Violet graduate in college with honors, while Harold presents another directorial critical and comercial success with Analize This. Her father comes clean to her about having another child that he was distant from during a trip they make together.

Come the 2000s, and with it, a lukearm reception to Harold's remake of Beddazled, the family proccessing the trauma of 09/11/2001, Violet figuring out her career ambitions until deciding to become a Social Worker, and having two kids of her own.

Harold continues to work, with his movie The Ice Harvest receiving mixed reactions, while as an actor, he is complimented for his performances in Orange County and Knocked Up.

Violet parts ways with the father of her first two children and eventually finds a new love who becomes her now husband.

Harold works in Year One, the biblical satire that he hopes to be his next important movie. Unfortunally, lack of rewritings due a writers strike coinciding with the production and the studio changing the movie's rating rom R to PG 13 harm the quality of the movie, and when it comes out, is a financial and critical failure.

Harold has to deal with a period of depression, from which he slowly comes out with the help of his friends and family.

Until it returns, heavier, alternating with glimpses of calm and hope, when he suffers an infection that slowly turns into the brain disease that would take away his strength to walk, his ability to hear and talk, and kill him.

We follow the narration of his agonizing, the grief of his family, and end with a full circle, as Violet returns to the memory of the conception of the book, and writes a new leather to her father in the afterlife.

I already enjoy biographies, calling them "a more (at least appearance wise) respectfull gossip magazine".

And yes, there are elements that feel like reading a gossip, while other times it feels like a book of funny anedoctes, a novel, a film history book, a series of philosophical diaries, and the guide to parenting that it was originally imagined to be.

I was surprised and chocked at some moments, laughed at others, and specially was in the verge of tears as the book was coming to an end, knowing that it was based in real life and so we were coming to Violet's loss of her father, but still wishing for a happy ending, like watching a tragic play where you know the ending will be sad, but still hopes that the characters will end happily ever after.

Trough this sharing of their life together, the story of Violet and her father Harold explores a lot of themes: artistic and sociopolitical influences, the art of filmaking, fame, consumerism, gender roles, family dinamics, friendship, faith and spirituality, grief and trauma and the eventual peace we can slowly find when focusing on the good moments we had with our loved ones when they were alive, rather than just on the fact that they are phisically gone.

I'm glad that she decided to share that complex, but not complicated story, and I got to listen to it, and be touched by it.

Highly recomend it, specially for people who are enthusiasts about film history.

[cherubchoirs]

your blog is like a finite library where i continue to stumble upon beautiful things

thank you for your thoughts

as of the ask - how would you imagine fraud and characters in it, if you can picture it at all? between all three of the upcoming layers, this one is the most eluding one of their description, so it's always interesting to see different opinions on it

thank you so much! your art is genuinely such an inspiration, i'm always so happy to see a new piece from you and so i wanted to thank you as well for sharing your work

fraud is a very interesting layer in the inferno, with its set up being somewhat unique compared to many of the others as it consists of ten pits of torment that cover a pretty broad range of sinners. what stands out to me about it as an environment though is that it is within the walls of dis and it is a ruined city, with massive amounts of crumbling or simply destroyed architecture. this is sort of my basis for how i envision fraud and although i'm likely way off base, i think it could be interesting to see a transition in aesthetics in general past heresy.

heresy itself marks the first layer in dis, the city that consumes the lower layers of hell, and it's interesting to note the highly architectural environments it presents in game - the gothic cathedral is sharp and commanding, very much having a presence in itself. i would love to see more city-like environments included, but ones that have a distinct, alien feeling compared to those of the lust layer as they are not made by humans, it's architecture meant to torment, to enclose and to sicken, and i enjoy fraud being the pinnacle of this before it gives way to an utterly barren treachery. but importantly, i want to see the decay of fraud, to see its twisted form nearly incomprehensible in its destruction. once there stood buildings difficult for the mind to conceive, but those fell centuries ago and the damage of so many souls suddenly filling what's left of its skeletal remains only ruined them further. fully understanding and taking advantage of all the ways it can move is now vital to v1, some areas near impossible to traverse as no comprehensible paths exist (if they ever did). it would be a very tiered layer, with v1 sometimes having to ascend into different bolgia in order to make its progress - i just like the idea of playing a lot with movement and creative thinking (+ some help from explosives) to find paths forward. overall, i want the sense that this was a city but it's impossible to say anything beyond that, what's left all jarring to the senses and nearly overwhelming to look at (especially again to contrast it with treachery, a blank, unending void that barely has a single thing the eyes can find purchase on).

following that, however, i think fraud will really do something to emphasize the blindness of hell - like several people have pointed out by now, many beings lack eyes in hell, but i think the most important of these have been the angels. virtues have their eyes removed (or they simply vanish) upon descending into hell while gabriel's helmet appears sightless as well, and we now know this is likely due to god being so ashamed of it he wants no one to actually behold it. this makes fraud quite interesting for a couple reasons: in the inferno, the lower layers mark the beginning of sinners wishing for no one to lay eyes upon them as they are so humiliated by their state and who they were in life to place them so deep into hell. they attempt to hide their identities, they sometimes do not give their names, and this becomes incredibly apparent in fraud. additionally, fraud is a sin of deceit, many of the sinners there those that worked in secret to do harm, meaning even in life they wished to go unseen. so i very much think that the sightless nature of hell will be worked in deeply - i would be interested in all the husks and demons here to be without eyes, with only the machines remaining to see it. this is also another reason why i want fraud to be so difficult to look at - it doesn't want to be seen, it begs not to be perceived and it never should be. before it was only the angels that all had their eyes taken, but so deep into the layers nothing may see, everything must be sightless lest it see a world so painful and so hideous, so ugly and so embarrassing to god.

so my ideas are very much based around the actual source material of the inferno, but i do think fraud could make for some really interesting architecture. and i would sort of like to see a husk/husks that seem adapted to living in such a bizarre place, a lot like the stalkers with forms now made for vertical ascents and clawing their way over ruins, possibly translucent like so many animals that live without sun in the deep sea (not to riff too much on wrath lol). i guess in a sense it really is like those trenches or subterranean cave networks - alien and unsettling, difficult to traverse with its grotesque geography, and suited to life totally unlike that above it. fraud is a place that wants to hide, but ironically it exists as one of the most expansive layers in all of hell.

[tapioca-puddingg]

The Riku vs Terra Discussion

Hey y'all. So as you can see, I didn't choose violence today.

I've already spoken about this in my Terra video, but I'll reiterate my talking points here bc it's quicker to consume than a video.

So because Riku and Terra have similar story arcs related to darkness, a lot of us are naturally inclined to compare their stories and their behavior. However, I feel like some folks compare them with the added context of Riku’s redemption arc as ammunition against Terra. It’s comparing the life of someone who’s struggling to someone who has already succeeded, so that wouldn't be fair. So if we’re gonna play the comparison game, it’s only fair to start by isolating Riku’s behavior in KH1 and Terra’s in BBS since that's where these two made their starts.

This isn't me trying to say that one is better than the other. They both come from different lives, have different insecurities, and have different personalities. They are both flawed in their own ways. This is just a compare and contrast type of thing.

Riku was far more problematic at the start of his journey.

He actively antagonized Sora and co., worked with Maleficent (albeit it was to try to find a way to save Kairi, but still), was manipulated by Maleficent, was later possessed by Ansem, and attacked Sora while he was possessed.

Not to mention that he was selfish. He was totally fine with never returning home or seeing their parents again. Zexion calls him out on this in Re:CoM; that he was the reason why Destiny Islands fell to darkness.

I guess to give him the benefit of the doubt, the situation was more dire, as one of his best friend's heart was missing, and he was willing to do anything to help her.

Terra showed a lot more self-awareness and restraint. He was trying to do what Master Eraqus told him to do while simultaneously trying to figure out how to control his darkness. However, the desperation combined with his own insecurities made him vulnerable to being tricked by villains, like Hades.

Sadly tho, I don't think that he exercises discernment with some of the villains; Cap'n Hook in particular. And with Xehanort, he doesn't realize that he's been fooled until it's too late (which isn't his fault, Xehanort was playing 5D chess).

Beyond KH1, Riku had a lot of time to self-reflect and come to terms with his darkness, and he also had a good support system in Mickey. Mickey was someone that was genuinely curious, compassionate, and open-minded with him. He was willing to stand by him and support him no matter what. That’s somebody that Terra needed.

This might be a hot take, but Terra didn't have the best support system to be able to deal with his darkness issue. Eraqus was Eraqus-ing and Aqua assumed the worst about him after seeing the aftermath of his actions. Ven still supported him, but I think the distrust from Eraqus and Aqua had way more of an impact on him.

Honing in on Aqua for a moment, she always arrived in the worlds after Terra. From her perspective, it looked like Terra was doing a lot of fuckshit. He did leave the worlds pretty unresolved, so I understand why she was suspicious of him, especially with Terra’s lack of communication. BUT at the same time, she also didn't ask him what really happened. But anyways.

Terra and Riku were both manipulated and possessed at one point. They also both protected their friends from their possessed bodies; Riku protected Sora from himself in Hollow Bastion and Terra tried to protect Aqua from Terranort in the realm of darkness.

Riku is able to succeed where Terra couldn't. Riku was lucky to have Sora when he was possessed, otherwise he might've ended up being possessed for who knows how long. Like I said, he has a year and some change to grow as a person, whereas Terra has that opportunity taken from him.

Currently, Riku already has gone off to rescue Sora. Terra's story arc from this point forward has been undetermined and I have no idea what they plan to do with his character. In terms of the Wayfinder trio, Aqua will be training Kairi (and maybe they'll explore new worlds together?), and Ven might embark on a new journey based on his forgotten memories of the Age of Fairytales. Maybe Terra will help Aqua in training Kairi. Maybe he'll go on his own healing journey. Or maybe he'll eventually retake the Mark of Mastery exam and become a master.

I don't have a conclusion to this, I just like talking about things. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[rebelquilled]

in ahri’s new lines, she tells xayah something like “in another life, we could have been great friends” and i’m here feeling 🥹🥹🥹 emotional !!!

yesss !!!  i’m sleeby so my thoughts here probably won’t be as coherent as i want... forgive lack of eloquence essentially but.  honestly ahri’s voice lines to both xayah and rakan feel telling to me, even if rakan’s come off very “obvious” for lack of a better word. to me if feels like rito is really trying to sell a bit of an evolution of ahri.  her voice is... happier now.  more peppy and fun versus the sultry and slick tone she had prior.  ( and, of course, everything i say here will revolve around league-specific ahri, so this isn’t me trying to speak on the terms of your lovely divergent and original version !!!  but since she is an inspiration, we still adore her and i have a lot of thoughts about league ahri and xayah’s relationship which semi impacts how our bbies relate obviously! :eyes: ) i derailed some - anyways!  aside from the tone of the voice in particular, the things ahri says to xayah and rakan to me are actually deep in their own unique ways.  the lines to xayah are more obvious in this and emotional as you’ve noted.  the possible friendship, even kinship the two could have or could have had ( since she says that line for killing xayah, it’s obviously somewhat of an “alternate take” on their relationship ).  meanwhile to rakan, she pretty much just references xayah being important to him and him to her, yatta yatta. but like.  i think these lines extremely highlight the comparisons and contrasts between ahri and the two birbs, as well as ahri’s personal growth and her stance on xayah’s rebellion. they really kind of start to push that ahri is the “unwilling monster” in a way.  this isn’t to say i don’t think ahri doesn’t enjoy killing her prey or being deadly... but league ahri loves humanity.  she enjoys and even craves their presence in a variety of ways.  the line for first seeing xayah about knowing who she is and what she has to do feels as though it’s essentially saying to xayah “i don’t agree with you” ( unless rito plot twists us, but i don’t think ahri would join xayah’s rebellion full heartedly unless xayah stopped being so antagonistic to innocent humans ).  ahri experiences humanity and even magic differently since how she draws her magic doesn’t parallel what the lhotlans experience.  ( and this all contrasts to xayah who very willingly is becoming a monster in the eyes of humans and even some of her own people due to her lack of care for innocents, essentially.  she isn’t actually a monster - and neither is ahri - but how they have to behave and present themselves form these perceptions.  rakan is the main reason xayah probably isn’t off the deep end in this regard while ahri’s unfortunate need to consume souls prevents her from shedding the monster label. ) it’s why rakan can still get behind xayah’s work despite liking humans... he’s still suffering from what is happening.  meanwhile, ahri literally gets energy and life and memories and all from them.  rakan likes humans but is still hurting... ahri likes humans and is learning to thrive again.  some humans even essentially worship her so she’s just got complete opposite experience esp compared to xayah. xayah and ahri’s lines to each other can almost be a back and forth.  if you take ahri’s line first ( “i know who i am and what i must do” ) and then xayah’s “you betray your heritage, ahri”...  it kind of unfolds what their relationship stems upon.  they don’t see eye to eye on humanity, and that’s a rift.  but unlike rakan, ahri can’t sympathize with xayah quite so much.  so, yes, in another life... they could be friends, because their personalities are actually complimentary.  their goals and values are just at odds, and that stirs up the trouble.  mainly from xayah’s end because she’s actually probably the more antagonistic one with her prejudice and bias. meanwhile look at ahri’s lines to rakan.  ahri and rakan probably don’t have a lot in common personality-wise if we’re honest.  however.  both of them are strongly tied to love.  so ahri speaks to rakan with joy and perhaps even a smidge of envy when she talks to him about xayah.  them being one heart, xayah would miss him if he died...  i’m sure there’s more that ahri and rakan could talk about and enjoy together if they really got  the time, but something tells me a purple birdy doesn’t like that, so ahri really only gets the surface level of the two of them and xayah definitely only learns the surface level of ahri ( i would like to argue that rakan’s keen perception actually allows him to understand ahri a bit deeper with only small exchanges ).  but regardless, ahri knows this one thing between her and rakan lives and it’s just that feeling of love.  rakan fights for his people, yes... but he fights a lot for xayah.  to keep her from going off the rails or getting herself killed.  ahri has her own love she’s fighting for in a way... and so she connects to rakan through that and that’s why she focuses on those things when she speaks to him. a clear contrast from the antagonism and difficulty to see eye to eye she has with xayah.  a difficulty that wouldn’t exist in another world ( or multiple worlds if sg and arcana and all aren’t explicitly telling us LMAO ). anyways, here was my random ramble about that, idk if you signed up to get this but you got it.  your ahri may not be league/rito ahri but even just talking about this is making me think of it in relation to your version of her, too, and i’m 🥰  again ignore how badly this is all written my brain is DEAD but i HAD to rant!

@vulpesse

[poleaxewife]

As I stumble around my room late in the evening after spending all day providing emotional support and a shoulder to cry on to a dear and personal friend of find my thoughts and drawn to my identity.

Who am I? Why am I like this? Why do I have the hang-ups that I do? Why do I have the things that I'm comfortable with that I do?

I think about things that I shouldn't in ways that make me feel strange.. I compare myself to others in my communities. Others like me. I find companionship at solidarity in those who have experienced things that I have. And at the same time I feel a terrible sense of disconnect. Of otherness. Of not belonging. Sometimes I fear I don't belong anywhere. Not because of lack of feeling nor lack of trying of course. I feel like a girl I try to be one. When I feel like one I feel happy when I don't I feel sad. I know what I am deep down inside I'm a girl and I love that. But I'm bad at it and I'm new to it and I've become surrounded by people who are good at it and aren't new to it. I find myself comparing and contrasting between me and them between us and them. I hear them talk I listen to their sweet and musical voices and I wish so desperately that I could be like them. Now I lay here in the depths of the night is the room slowly spins around me and I consider what tomorrow will bring. The sensation fills me with trepidation with joy And terrible terrible Loneliness.

I suspect in the coming days and maybe the coming weeks there will be great changes in my life. I pray that they are good warm tidings bringing joy. But still I fear that the things I dread that follow me will rear their heads. I fear that an invisible edit that I cannot understand or explain is that to get me. I don't know why I don't know who but still I fear it. Listen nebula's contact of something that I don't know and can't control that wants nothing more than to destroy me. My paranoia seeps into everything I do without even thinking. I can't even go to the bathroom without feeling the paranoia. I deliberately tilt my phone off and away from me so I know I will be out of reach of the camera and still be able to see my phone to scroll through YouTube shorts the 10,000th time. It's still unperfectly content to sleep with a wire tap in my room thank you Google. And still I am happy enough to leave my location on despite it being unnecessary thank you Samsung. It is a paradox that I live with everyday why do I not fear that my phone is wire tapped? And why do I fear that the ones that I love and trust most or conspiring against me? Why? For what purpose? Every every day and every night I am consumed by these terrible thoughts and awful anxieties that never go away. I know that they are logical I know they are mad. But still I fear that they are not I fear that I am on to something. And then the others in my mind protect me from things that aren't there. And the others in my mind become more and more different every single day. And sometimes I fear that the others in my mind will assume me and I won't exist any longer And the others in my mind feel the same exact thing and I still Threatened to inflict oblivion Upon them. I push them down I fight them back I keep them away like barbarians at a gate. They're not perbarians they are just as much citizens of this body as I am. And still and still still still every day I am consumed by fear. Every day I ostracize myself inflict hurt as I can to myself. I don't use knives I don't use fire sometimes I pull my hair but most of the time words will suffice. I have become something of an expert at making myself Miserable. I don't even know why I'm writing all of this down. I don't know who this is for maybe it's not for anybody. I don't even know if this is for me or for Vicky or for Mako or for Char or for whoever else is hiding up here. That's the real Kicker. I don't even know if I have a complete list of personalities. There are gaps and I don't know why. My memory has never been great it's a side effect of being depressed it's also a side effect of being autistic and having a strong pot habit. It could be any number of things worst case scenario I have one more personality or 2 or maybe more. And the thought of that drives me sane with worry.

Who are you I scream into the void who am II scbeam I beg for response and I know that even if I got it I wouldn't remember it. I am something so very small part of something so very large another days it fills me with awe and wonder do you know I exist as an infantastically small speck and an unbelievably massive universe but on nights like this where the air is clear and my thoughts weigh heavily it scares me so deeply I can't even breathe.

[leam1983]

On Honesty

Someone on YouTube posted a roast of incel comments and pickup lines so, from the high promontory of my 39 years of existence and grand total of 8 measly years in somewhere between a couple and a polyamory, I figured I'd chime in. I started with how I courted Sarah - or didn't.

I just treated her like any other colleague, mostly. We shot the shit on breaktimes, hung out after hours, drank a few beers and, well, after a year of that, figured we'd drink those beers in a place we shared. I eventually realized time enough had passed for us to be considered a thing, and asked her if we were one between two sandwich bites during a PTO extended weekend.

That earned me a scoff, a smile, a chuckle and a weak sock on the shoulder - followed by a hug. That was essentially it.

Compare and contrast with what I'm reading in some comments, wherein the expected and assertive means of approach seems to consistently revolve around "You're cute, I like to think I'm cute too - let's hook up."

And that just - it really fucks with me. How does that create a relationship in any way, shape or form? It's probably great for one-night stands, but I really can't imagine a woman saying something involving a guy's "forward looks" being the one driving factor that got them from zero to steady over a single evening.

I then contrasted with how I met Walt, and how the big guy was actually glad I didn't make moves too soon. Montreal's Gay Quarter is packed with libido-powered SCUD missiles that either want a one-night cum dump or a semi-permanent cum dump. You know by now that he'd left an abusive relationship and wouldn't open to anything meaningful until several years into my working for my former company. It followed the same pattern as with Sarah: booze and platonic fooling-around until a few particularly boozy suppers between all three of us allowed us to realize that we were compatible with each other.

As I also discussed in other posts, some Gay acquaintances didn't get this. Their money was on Walt pinning me to the bathroom wall a few weeks after our bumping together and forcefully initiating something. That's in total ignorance of the fact that Walt actually wasn't in the right frame of mind to be quite so forward.

What really peeved me is when someone called my approach with Sarah dishonest. As if I'd planned the poly scope of our relationship and had kept her from it, or as if I should've swung for the fences after a few microbrews and five or four Mario Kart rounds.

I discussed this with Walt during the usual Friday Afternoon Dogpile period. Asking him why made him smile.

"I wouldn't have been ready for anything forward, actually. I thought it was really sweet that you showed interest in me for who I am, and even sweeter that you actually refused the first few times I gave you my hand or an arm. It showed me you understood what my doing this meant."

He paused to stroke my cheek. "Love and honesty are slow burns, sport. You pick that up later in life, I think. People who want to feed the fire too quickly are going to consume all their fuel. You didn't. You gave me little wood chips and then blew on them. You weren't just giving me an invitation to love again, but to nurture something."

He smiled. "I don't care if things cool down between all three of us, eventually. I don't care if it stops feeling like our love is the only true constant I've got - I want to be here for the both of you, here and now."

He sets his book on his belly and gestures to shush me for a minute. "Here, listen to Sar for a few seconds," he says.

Sarah's asleep. Her breaths are deep, her snores are soft. Her legs are threading mine and her left hand is reaching across for Walt's. I can feel their respective body heat signatures enveloping me.

"That's love," he says. "What you'll hear once I put my mask on and conk out is pure love, too. Even the racket I make when I yank it off without waking up is pure, unadulterated love. If some jackoff manages to Caveman his way to a couple somewhere down south, good on him. I wouldn't bet a twenty on that relationship's stability, though."

I smile. "So you don't mind that I didn't pull a Chrysler Special on you?"

He squeezes me closer. "You not acting like a Sales Adjunct is the first thing that made me fall for you, Grem. Screw Internet incels - I will love you and Sarah until my dying day."

I sigh and press into his offered one-arm hug. "Teenage Me would've needed this so much..."

He kisses my forehead, his voice already turning a little slurred around the edges as sleep creeps closer. "I would've greeted you at school every morning and carried your bookbags. I would've tried to soothe you and cheer you as needed. I would've used quiet moments to hug you, to make you feel validated. I would've defused every ounce of negativity your well-meaning ignoramus of a father burdened you with. I would've waited for you, Grem, waited for you to grow older, to connect the dots, to realize that all this time, someone truly did love you."

Tears are brimming my eyes, at this point. "I don't fucking deserve you," is all I can muster. Walt settles with an endeared grumble, as if I'm silly for even thinking this.

"I don't deserve you, either. Neither of you," he then says. "That's what makes us work so well."

For once, I'm the one with failing waterworks. In my case, it's a mixture of emotions and general fatigue. Walt responds by closing his side table's light and making me scooch higher so our heads are level on the pillows, and then brings me back in to stroke my back while he closes his eyes.

"I'll always be here for you," he whispers into my ear, turning it into a soft mantra. His stroking motions eventually stop and he transitions to mumbles, and then to deep snores, but it feels like the intent remains in every inhale and exhale. I still feel like crying, mostly because the network switches and cubicle cable runs kicked my ass all week long - and also because I'm so stupidly happy I might start levitating off the bed.

Suck it, incels and redpills - I've got an outboard motor roaring in my ear and every revolution sounds like a goddamn serenade, as far as I'm concerned.

[nangbaby]

Something I have to get off my chest.

A common defense proshippers use to defend the ethics of publishing prurient depictions of prepubescent characters is, "Promoting fictional murder doesn't make people kill people" or "Showcasing a fictional bank heist doesn't make people decide to become robbers." However, for as much as proshippers talk about black-and-white thinking and purity culture, they definitely dive into "all crimes are equal" territory here.

Crimes like murder and bank robberies are comparatively rare crimes these days. That doesn't mean they don't happen, but very few people are likely to even be a position to commit either crime to begin with. Even if reading about a serial killer made people want to go out and copy that killer, most people just aren't going to have the tools to recreate said killing spree and even fewer are going to have that sustained drive to follow through with the tools.

Furthermore, things like murder and bank robberies/heists, and even aggravated assault has a very high solving rate in comparison to most crime. Meaning, if you do it, there's a very high likelihood you're going to get caught. Most people who really want to do these things are deterred by the threat of punishment. Knowing that they won't get away with it and knowing that people look poorly on people who murder, steal items of value, and beat people to a bloody pulp are strong disincentives. Usually, someone who is in the mindset to kill or rob is pretty desperate or motivated by external circumstance, and showing someone material isn't usually enough to make people act out in real life unless it's carefully crafted propaganda.

By contrast, sexual crimes of any kind are much more prevalent, and yet the solving rate of those is as low as the higher tier of property crimes (which are almost never solved). This fact is made even more striking when considering how underreported sexual crimes are. As should be expected with so many victims who frequent Tumblr, being victimized in this way is horribly common. Unlike with killing, the prospect of suffering a sexual crime is not merely a fear but an existing reality for multitudes. This is largely because of the secrecy that surrounds sexual assault. Not only are the victims are made to feel as though they deserve it, but other non-participants often don't see anything wrong with it and often turn a blind eye in the vein of "no snitching." Unlike some crimes, most sexual crimes are not motivated by external circumstances but internal ones, spurred on in part by biology combined with opportunity. Thus based on this alone, the two types of crimes are different.

The content provided by those who play around with child characters in a inappropriate manner is designed to be entertaining and visceral, even when it is intended to be disgusting. (And often such material is designed to be enticing.) For most people, there is a deliberate wall between certain biological urges and the idea of children that is internally maintained. Encouraging people to seek out this material by making it easy to access breaks down that wall on a conceptual level. Many people have discovered their own sexuality and paraphilias through erotic materials, and exploring depictions in fiction does lead to people acting out in real life. For consenting adults, this is fine, but not for children, either as the consumer or the potential victim.

tl;dr - Reading a story about killers won't inspire people to kill because of the logistical barriers to killing. But reading erotic depictions with child characters can encourage readers to see both fictional and real children as viable targets for romantic affection, where the logistical barriers to act out the fantasy in real life are far lower.

[preferenceandpriorities]

Schöne welt, where you at?

Amidst all this ruin, maybe the looking was the good part. Should we ever find something we should be alarmed.

If I am the type to write poetry, I know this. But I have no friends or lovers to read me. And if no one is to read me, what is there to write? What good am I if not seen or consumed? Made to do things I wish not to? Made to withhold things I wish to express? Who am I without the burdens of living, the punishment of society, the relief of friendship?

I find poetry is rid of difficult words, old words. Poetry is made up of a thought, that continues into the next, a shorter story than a short story, An invitation to feel a feeling.

This is a poem I wrote instead of the review I've been trying to write since August 2022. It encompasses what I felt around the time I finished the book. I keep thinking, I'll actually perfect it, I'll shape it into something readable, but alas, that still hasn't happened as I am too busy living life. Yet I still feel that there's something to it, reading it as an unfinished piece, so here it goes:

Probably the most straightforward out of Sally Rooney’s books regarding the relevance of “non-important” stuff. I think she’s brilliant at looking at the contrast there is between our post-modern concern with the “state of the world” and how incessant our small lives actually are.

With Conversations with Friends and Normal People, this same theme is underlying, it is nearly subliminal. You could still describe either as a completely different book and get away with it (i.e., about cheating, or the latter a book about soulmates), but not this one.

It’s interesting to see a white female writer (who is clearly very aware of her whiteness and female-ness) tackle themes of mindfulness and the idea of sanctity. Religion is clearly the pivotal thing in this novel, and its comparability to celebrity culture or the deification of popular media characters seems to be fascinating to contemporary writers. Ted Chiang, who wrote Stories of Your Life and Others (what the movie Arrival was based on), wrote about it in his foreword to Everything Everywhere All At Once’s A24 book release, saying the archetypes of superheroes in media are equivalent to a modern religion. Both books and films cementing their importance in the discussion of time and meaning. And personally, I also felt compelled early in 2022 to write about why Euphoria seemed to hit a bone with its internet audience. All of these artpieces that seem to be worth talking about at all are concerned with this idea of “goodness,” just like Beautiful World, Where Are You?

(switch up?) I rarely sit down to talk about religion (and how it clearly coincides with depression), mostly because I’ve been through it. I’ve done the dirty work of confronting the mundanity of life, forgetting my self and concerning myself with others. I only feel like I may talk about it now because it is not with someone else on the other end that may misconstrue me. Most conversations I’ve had were of someone trying to convince me of a worldview that made life bearable, and the rest are of people looking for any answer that can make them happy. As someone who grew up in a religious country, I’d have to say I’m over it!

What makes Beautiful World intriguing to me is not the exploration of religion in isolation, but it is the way the characters look for what they think is God in other people.

Is religion solitude or company?

I wonder what it is to have someone be kind to you. Does this graciousness really not exist in everyone? Why is it so hard to find? What does it feel like to have someone want to bathe you without hesitation? With no hesitation? To help you go to the restroom when you’re sick.

I think this is the reason I avoid hospitals. There’s just no lying in hospitals There’s no sugarcoating anything. And everyone is there to help you. I used to love it growing up but the past three years hospitals have terrified me.

I almost feel like I wish I was sexually assaulted. I would have a reason to be sad, then. Now I just, I’m floating in a space where no one cares about me, if I died, people would be sad but no one would really miss me. Maybe that’s selfish, self-centered. But I would love to know if that would at least give some meaning to my life, to touch someone else. If I was assaulted everyone would call me strong, unbeatable.

Sally Rooney is one of those writers that I just trust will carry me on an insightful journey. It doesn’t matter so much the plot she uses as much as it matters what she says throughout.

The doctor came to me and kept repeating you are not okay. You are not okay. This isn’t normal. And I had to keep believing her. It feels nice knowing someone can see that.

Is kindness really rare? Is it God because it’s not there?

*

I wonder what it feels like, to share a smile in secret with someone Or to make someone smile to themselves, without me seeing I wonder what it feels like to feel someone sniff outwards fall on my cheek Someone happy to see me I wonder if I’ve ever given that to someone, or ever will

It cost me my life to know that he loved me

[drbased]

‘Getting started’ ‘getting the ball rolling’ ‘taking the first step’ is a narrative. It’s not real. There is no ‘process’ because the future isn’t real; only the present is is. And only with looking back at your memories you generate a narrative of your life; it’s naturally retrospective. We are narrative creatures who make meaning out of said narrative. But that doesn’t mean the narrative is ‘real’ - it’s a construction of your brain that you need to respect as part of you. Externalising that narrative and pretending it’s ‘real’ is actually a major insult to your brain’s magnificent ability to process and make meaning, and therefore it’s a fundamental insult against yourself.

Some people can use a theoretical future of themselves as motivation, and good for them. But if it’s not working for you, you need to consider why. Despite not being able to get out of bed sometimes, the person who made this comic still made something. Despite having your periodic breakdowns, you still moved your fingers to reblog this post. Compare and contrast the difference between why you do some things and not others. ‘But that’s different -’ yes, it is different. But there are only actions, consequences and what you value. You value not being thirsty, so you take a drink. You value not being broke, so you drag yourself to work. It’s exactly that deep. Narrative makes you forget that you’re always in a direct 1:1 relationship with your environment. And that feels scary, but it’s not - it’s how we’ve always existed, from the very first rudimentary lifeform whose only sign of life was ‘want nutrients -> consume nutrients’. We want to think we’re more sophisticated than that, but we’re not.

Narrative is a comfortable cushion, because narrative makes you forget that when you ‘start the ball rolling’, you don’t magically become a montage, or a cut-scene version of yourself. You’re still there, you’re still making decisions, you’re still feeling some type of way about the stimulus you’re experiencing. Depression is a narrative cushion, and that’s why it feels comfortable. Never feeling responsible for yourself feels safe, but in doing so you communicate to yourself that you don’t deserve to be here (which becomes literal in the form of suicidal ideation).

In my experience, if I can’t get myself to do something, that’s because I actually don’t want to do it. And the reasons I don’t want to do it might make me feel deeply embarrassed: I don’t want to learn pottery if it means I have to take a bus across town to get to the class. I don’t want to read a certain book because it’s too long. I don’t want to prepare that dish because its too expensive. Sunk cost fallacy is one hell of a drug. And narrative has you always feeling outside of yourself, as if you owe something to some universal force of objectivity which is telling you you’re supposed to do those things: you said you were going to do it, you’ve bought the tools, you’ve told your mum, why aren’t you fucking doing it? It’s so easy, what’s wrong with you? But even that’s an abstraction, because in reality nobody is telling you that but yourself. You might not consciously believe in this universal force of objectivity, but you will find yourself bristle when challenged about it. If someone says ‘you don’t have to do that’, you may want to fire back ‘but I do!’

There are only actions and consequences, and what consequences you value. There is. no. ‘should’. There is no ‘have to’. There is no ‘need’. If you stop brushing your teeth, maybe they’ll fall out, and maybe you don’t give a shit. Or maybe the thought of that horrifies you, and suddenly you’re motivated to brush your teeth. Narratives will have you forget that it’s your prerogative as an individual to want, and those wants are never going to pure or 100% correct. That concept is fake as the narrative is. Make no mistake, all these things are useful for us to make more informed decisions so we can live rich, fulfilling lives - but by that nature that means they come from within us and are how we generated meaning and process the world and our selfhoods.

There is nothing ‘wrong’ with you. And as with everything else, that ‘wrong’ is also a constructed concept and is therefore not ‘real’. I still use the word depression to describe what I went through, but I understand now that believing in what society says being ‘mentally ill’ is is exactly what was holding me back. Society says being mentally ill means that you’re broken and wrong and incapable of making rational decisions for yourself. What I discovered is that I’m always a rational agent, and it’s my prerogative to be an individual, and that narrative cushion of depression was actually preventing me from making the decisions for myself that I’ve always known I’ve wanted.

People who have never had depression yet never have exercised, ‘followed their dreams’ or eaten healthily in their lives will be doing exactly the same shit as you and thinking their life is pretty chill whilst you have breakdown after breakdown. The only difference is, those people will stop ‘bedrotting’ the moment their bestie starts a Zumba class and suddenly they’ve caught the exercise bug. They’re not fundamentally more rational people than you just because they don’t have depression; they’re just not reliant on that narrative as you. They’ve not categorised what they’re doing ‘as not exercising’ - they’re just chilling, living their life, and besides the gym is all the way across town. So when suddenly an opportunity for exercise comes along, they’re not burdened with all this narrative - they just want to do the thing, maybe for low-key ‘bad’ reasons e.g. they don’t want to miss out on things their friend is doing, or there’s a hot guy teaching the class.

What I eventually came to learn is that I’m not living in a separate dimension entirely incapable of being like them. In fact, if you’re anything like me with mental health problems you probably have something they don’t: self awareness. And whilst self awareness feels so deeply embarrassing, remember there are only actions and consequences, and what you value. And you exist in reality first, including the reality of you. You can’t ‘old man yells at cloud’ your way outta this one.

The moment I decided to treat my self awareness as a boon instead of a curse is the moment I was able to write aaaaall this shit on tumblr. And is that bad of me, that I didn’t write a book instead? The book is the ‘correct’ route, no? But that’s the thing; I know that if I had stuck with believing that I ‘had’ to write a book, I would have written nothing. Am I so fucked up in the head that I can’t muster up the attention span, to ‘start the ball rolling’ in writing a whole book? I dunno, that’s a narrative categorisation of myself that doesn’t mean anything real. I’m just who I am now so I’d rather work with that. You can call me that if you like, but I’m just chilling.