#(it’s not; we broke up on good terms and value our relationship deeply)

[emsleyanbluejay]

i think it’s so funny to casually mention that mine and my fiancé’s roommate is my ex because it breaks monogamous people

[all-pacas]

Do you think chase actually is capable of having a healthy romantic relationship (pre or post cameron)? Any time he wants a romantic relationship, it's always in the most ridiculous circumstances (a nun, a mentally fucked up coworker). He only pursues women he knows won't work out.

I mean………kinda?

First of all, Chase has a running thing where he's a lil bit of a Romantic Idealist. He almost cancels his wedding because Cameron has "normal doubts" (that she stresses have no factor on her love or desire to marry him), because he thinks that's unreasonable. He meets a nun on a massive almost-died rebound, and falls in love. Cameron complains he has a naive view of love. Cameron!!

I'd also argue that, as much as we love to make fun of our girl, I don't know if Chase saw her as mentally fucked up. He knows she's struggling with her dead husband, but on the whole the two get along well, they are friends, he thinks she's kind of annoying and that it's weird she has a crush on House, but he thinks she's a good person. A caring person. Is that a bit of naive romantic idealism? Probably! But Cameron doesn't admit to her insanity, and Chase has a long history (House) of accepting (House) insanity at face value (House). I really think he probably thought of her as his nice, hot, slightly annoying colleague. He respects her! She wants to sleep with him! Win-win!

Of course, because he's deeply fucked up and needy and has this idealized idea that Love Will Be Perfect And Fix Me, he does kind of set himself up to fail. To Chase's credit, he and Cameron do have a fairly healthy romantic relationship for a couple years there, and he actually seems to be a pretty good boyfriend! He's insecure of House, but besides that? They both work insane hours and spend all their free time together with no issues. He's able to be very patient with Cameron's dead husband issues.

Take the episode where they get engaged. Cameron asks Chase for carte blanche "I'm delaying our vacation and you can't ask why." He isn't thrilled, but he accepts. No questions asked. Trusts her. After two days have passed, he's getting worried, but when he confronts her it's not you lied to me or you're cheating; he tells her he needs to know what's going on now, he gives her a chance to explain. She refuses, and he digs up his spine to dump her. That's pretty good! Good job with boundaries and trusting your partner despite your insecurities!

I'm not trying to make it seem like Chase is the perfect boyfriend and their relationship problems are all Cameron's (although the writing being in her POV doesn't help that). We see, for example, that Chase avoids problems hard (the drawer situation, d i b a l a), that he holds things in and avoids and can't or won't rely on Cameron for support. But overall, he seems to manage to be a fairly Good Boyfriend. I think he could manage a Healthy Romantic Relationship!

What I'm not convinced about if Chase really wants one. I mean, his idealistic love at first sight habits aside. You're not wrong that he attaches to people (like the nun, if not Cameron) he knows he doesn't have a future with. We also never hear of him having any real relationships before or after his divorce: he dated the S&M banker, but that was "years ago," and that's it. We see him flirt and later sleep with women, and honestly every bit of it is portrayed as perfectly polite and nice and consensual — he's not a sleazy playboy, he seems to be on good terms with all his one night stands. He could very easily have a relationship if he wanted, but he… doesn't.

Which could be from any number of things. I don't think it's that Cameron broke him or anything. Chase is a bit standoffish, actually. He's the only one of the old team to never reach out to the new kids in S4; he doesn't like Masters at all, he doesn't like Park and is aloof around Adams. He doesn't open up to people, he's very private. We're used to seeing him in the first few seasons around people he knows and (minus maybe Foreman) likes, but unless he's specifically putting on a charming act to get laid (and we know from All In and the wedding it's very much a charming act), he's actually… kind of reserved. We joke about Cameron picking him to sleep with, but it's probably not a coincidence that he fell for the one woman in his life he was sort of friends with, that he later tried to do the same with 13. Chase doesn't trust people, struggles to open up beyond schmoozing, doesn't have many friends or relationships outside work. I think he could have a healthy relationship, but I don't know if he'd look for one instead of hoping it fell into his lap.

[forhisglry]

My positive birth story

I write my own birth story on International Day of the Midwife, to highlight the incredible value of good midwifery support and continuity of care and how the environment that we birth in has a huge impact on our birth experience. And to reaffirm what all the research says, that birthing at home with midwifery care is safe and empowering and should be available as an option for more women. As a disclaimer, I know that birthing at home is not what all women want and may not be right for some women. I also know that many women come out of their birthing experience traumatised rather than empowered. My hope for the future of midwifery and birth is that every woman would have access to supportive woman-centred midwifery care to birth in an empowering way that is right for them in the space that is right for them- whether that is at home, in a birth centre or at the hospital. Own your birth, your body is powerful and so capable. It was created to do this.

For me, choosing a homebirth was essential. As a midwife, I know the benefits of uninterrupted labour, and wanted to be in a space where this was honoured and I could birth on my terms. I also knew the challenge I would have with switching my midwife brain off in labour and stepping into the primal brain required to labour well. Being at home meant I was away from my workplace and other people’s birth stories, and was safely in my own space to write my own story. Thankfully, Darwin has a publicly funded homebirth program that I fit the low-risk criteria for, so I was quick to book into this early in my pregnancy.

Choosing a homebirth was also a step of faith for me. For a long time, I’ve had a fear that I’d never be able to birth my babies vaginally. A midwife once said to me when I was 19 that my ‘pelvis was too small to birth’, and it’s haunted me ever since. (A reminder that the words you speak over people, even off-hand comments, have power). Birthing Reuben at home, all 4230 grams of him, was a real step of faith in trusting God over my fears. And in that, He reminded me in a very real way that through him all things are possible, and that not only can I birth my babies, I can birth chunky big ones. It broke my fears of untruths spoken to me long ago. I write this birth story to give God the glory.

During my pregnancy, my husband Jonno and I spent 3 months on the road travelling. It was an amazing bonding time together and we grew a lot in our relationship. While on the road, I saw a midwife in Yackandandah, Victoria, several times over the course of our travels. In our short time together, her midwifery approach and philosophy resonated deeply with me, and I felt valued and listened to. I loved getting some continuity of care even as we travelled.

We arrived back in Darwin at 35 weeks pregnant. In the weeks leading up to birth, Jonno and I did a hypnobirthing course and I read through Rhea Dempsey’s books ‘Birth with confidence’ and ‘Beyond the birth plan.’ These both really helped in my mental and emotional preparation for birth. I spent time every day working through thoughts and fears of birth, and taking my birth to God in prayer and letting go of control. The wait is hard and takes a surrendering of your own will. It’s a strange time of anticipation and stillness. I loved and hated it. I desperately wanted my baby to come, but valued those precious moments with just me and Jonno. Five days after my due date, I started to have some mild crampy niggles but nothing particularly painful or regular at all. It was a Sunday, and Jonno and I spent the day together pottering around and went for a long beach walk in the evening, watching a beautiful sunset. That night I woke up at 4am with surges coming every 10 minutes, not too painful but enough to stop me from sleep. I got up so I didn’t wake up Jonno with my tossing and turning and sat on my exercise ball in the living room with a heat pack on my tummy.

He woke up to get ready for work a couple of hours later. With irregular contractions only once every 10 minutes, I told him to still go to work, thinking it might carry on like this for some time, and wanted to maximise the time that he’d have off work after the baby arrived. Before he left for work I got him to put the TENS machine on my back. It was absolute magic. I kept it on all day.

As the morning progressed, the surges began to get a little closer together but were still irregular and I was coping fine. I spent the day trying to distract myself. I played some cards, danced around the living room, rested a little and practiced some good positioning.

By 3 in the afternoon I was struggling to motivate myself and stay distracted. Jonno had been calling me up every couple of hours from work to check on me, but my surges were still only every 5 minutes or so and pretty manageable so I didn’t think he needed to come home early, but I was keen on some company and motivation. At this point I called Jenelle, an amazing midwife and friend who has previously been a part of the homebirth team, and had agreed to be a part of my birth support team. She was just what I needed in that moment. She entered my birth space and helped me to draw in my focus, where I was having a ‘crisis of confidence’ moment. I broke out in tears when she got there, and told her I didn’t think I could do it. She looked me straight in the eye and said ‘well, you don’t like the alternative do you!’, which really helped to kick my head into gear.

Up until this point I had been experiencing all of my surge pain in my pubic bone, so Jenelle felt my baby’s position and we realised he was posterior with a deflexed head. We got hard to work right away with various positions and massage to try and realign bub and release tension from my pelvis. As we moved around, we chatted about all things from magic mushrooms and the golden valley tree park in Balingup, to candles, to my mum and my relationship with Jonno. It was excellent distraction and really helped me to relax. At one point I felt an unusual popping sensation, like my baby just swung into place, and then things were on pretty big from there. This happened right before jonno got home at 5.30pm, and then it was suddenly all systems go.

My lovely housemates set up my birthing space with the birth pool in the living room, while Jonno supported me for a while in the shower, and at some point my support team called my homebirth midwife to attend. The intensity of labour ramped up and there were so many moments where it felt unbearable. Labour truly does take you to the end of yourself, and it was my incredible support circle that really kept me grounded throughout the whole journey. I never once felt like they didn’t think I could do it and never once felt afraid. When I looked around the room I felt believed in and surrounded by love. One of the affirmations I had written on the wall was the Bible verse ‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear’, and it was so true in that space. I really felt carried by God throughout the whole journey. What surprised me was how much I needed interaction in labour. In most situations in life when I’m struggling, I tend to internalise and go quiet, but I found that in labour, talking to my team and giving myself little pep talks really helped me to keep going. It never felt like there were surplus people in the room, every person in my circle had an important role. Poor Jonno was well outnumbered by midwives! Besides Jenelle, my housemate Jos was there as another support person, and I had the 2 wonderful homebirth midwives.

Some time after 8pm, I felt like I had exhausted all other coping options, and that I wouldn’t be able to do this much longer. I got into the birth pool and it felt like the most blissful thing in the world. I floated around the water like a mermaid, my body giving me some much needed longer breaks between surges and I rode the endorphins through each rest. As the surges continued, I instinctively moved my body around the pool to make space for my baby. It felt so good to move in a weightless and unrestricted way.

Some time after 9 o’clock, I started feeling that involuntary urge to push and after fighting it for a while, Jenelle reminded me to go into it, not to resist it. So I went with the feeling and it felt good to do something, but I didn’t feel like I was really getting anywhere fast. My midwife suggested that I spend some time sitting on the toilet- aka dilation station. I did this and really felt his head move lower. I got back in the water around 11pm and jonno got in the water behind me, which really grounded me as I continued to push. My support team held up a mirror through my surges, and seeing his head slowly emerge really spurred me on to keep going. His head birthed slowly and smoothly, giving my body a chance to stretch and move as it needed to. He was calm the whole way through and his heart rate was steady. I birthed my baby in the water at 3 past midnight to the sweet joyful sounds of Celtic music (that we had playing in the background throughout labour). His head was born on the 17th and his body on the 18th! It was the most surreal moment. My boy was quiet and calm and he stared at me and Jonno as we sat in the pool. After birth we got out of the pool and waited for the placenta to come naturally, leaving my boy attached to his umbilical cord until well after the placenta had birthed. We had a few hours together at home, breastfed and introduced our dog Tobin to his baby brother, then I had to get transferred to hospital for repair of a tear from birth. We weren’t in hospital long, and came back home and settled in later that morning, riding high on the blissful oxytocin. What a wild and beautiful ride.

Birth looks different for everyone. And what is right for me is not necessarily right for other women. We can’t control a lot of the circumstances we get dealt around our birth. But there are ways we can be empowered and set ourselves up for success no matter what kind of birth we have. My birth of Reuben wasn’t textbook. But what an incredibly empowering and exhilarating experience and witness to God who makes all things possible. I wouldn’t change a thing.

As with most labours, it was intense and filled with moments where I lost confidence or couldn’t bear it any longer, but I was surrounded by 4 incredible midwives and my husband who had complete confidence in me and the capacity of my body to birth this baby. And that helped me carry on. They gave me space and time for my body to move and open in the way it needed to to let my baby through and they trusted that process, not trying to control it. I was at home, where I was safe, where I did not feel observed or put on a time-line or made to conform with the way we’re taught labour is meant to go. My contractions were not a regular pattern- they blended from long to short and spaced out to allow my son to move the way he needed to move. I was not ‘assessed’ on progress, and slowly pushed his whopper head and body out gently and slowly in the way it needed to be; I was not rushed. There were minutes between his head and body, but he was calm and his heartbeat was normal, because the process was undisturbed. He needed time for his big body to navigate through. I was listened to and felt safe to speak out my fears of birth, knowing that my support circle had my back to speak truth and courage and power back over me again. It wasn’t perfect, I felt my tailbone pop during labour, which is still giving me some grief when I sit, and I had a decent tear, but it was my body powerfully shifting and making space in the way it needed to for my baby to be born. It wasn’t perfect, but I loved it. And I would do it again in a heartbeat. What I am so thankful for, is that knowing what I know as a midwife, my labour and birth in another setting could have had a very different outcome. If I had been assessed on progress and been monitored as to the expected pathway of labour, I would have likely ended up with an oxytocin infusion, probably a forceps delivery with a shoulder dystocia and an episiotomy, all of which would have been deemed necessary, but weren’t really. But instead, I was privileged to be in a space where I was trusted and supported, where I could move how I needed to move, where my body was afforded the opportunity to birth in its own way: a privilege I wish more women had. It’s not to say that those interventions aren’t necessary in some cases, but how many more women would birth their babies without them if we watched and waited more and held space for women.

I’ve been a midwife for years but experiencing birth for myself has given me a whole new appreciation for the incredible role, support and wisdom of midwifery care and gently and confidently holding the space for birth.

I’m so grateful for Gods hand in my birth. I’ve learnt more of what it is to trust his perfect design and wait patiently on him. He is good.

[chemicalblonde]

I rolled out of bed at 3 in the afternoon. 3 weeks ago I left my 9-5 job. The pay, the title, and the sound of it all looked good on paper, but I couldn't bare the unhappiness one more second. While working my flower gig on Mother's Day, I ran into my old boss. It was a picture-perfect scene - I was smiling alongside the owners, beaming ear to ear when I greeted her. In our last conversations, my former boss brought up the fact that she witnessed my struggle with being overwhelmed - so I knew this was a monumental moment.

You have to understand one thing, I have acknowledged that people possess many layers that include faults and wonderful gifts - so to say that she is evil would be untrue. She is a human navigating her own life, as I am mine. Hours later, after enjoying brunch with her family, she returned and I built her a bouquet. We hugged, wished each other well, and continued to go our separate ways.

I don't think about that job anymore and I'm not kept up passed the witching hour tossing and turning with grief and dread about interacting with her either. I don't regret leaving. I have found so much peace in doing so.

I made it to my pottery class 3 hours later and worked alongside 3 other girls who just wanted to get a course under their belt. Or possibly to do something on a Tuesday night that broke their routine. I destroyed 2 of the 3 pots we made. However, I did not feel defeated nor did I feel angry about wasting the money I spent to be there. I think I'll keep trying, and it's okay that I'm not perfect for my first attempt at ceramics since high school.

On my way home, I was stuck in heavy traffic. So I called my brother to inform him of the horrific death of our family friend that happened over the weekend. I have been keeping it inside because sharing this kind of story is sad, and not fair to share with others who aren't attached to this person. I felt relief in our conversation, I no longer had to hold that in.

After I got home, I scarfed down bits of dinner, ran a load of laundry, and decided to go for my nightly walk (I've been walking every night for a few days in a row now and I want to keep it up). I felt lighter. I felt a release of worry, I release of guilt or pressure to figure it out right now. I am happy that I am returning to my core, to my stable self. It's nice to be back. Maybe I do need to pursue a life in yoga training. Maybe I should. I can't think of other vocations that bring me to this kind of clarity. I am beginning to explore parts of myself that I enjoy.

Shayla and I have been indulging ourselves in this therapy show as of late. We stay up crying and psychoanalyzing. But tonight's season finale resonated with me. There was this insufferable woman who would incessantly gripe about her husband and his lack of value. Turns out, this woman was deeply anxious and loved him dearly. Her therapist asked, "What would life look like without your anxiety"? And she began to explain how she wanted to travel to places where there were dangers and uncertainty. That hit home a little too hard. I think of my past relationships and how my anxiety got in the way, how my control was suffocating, and my expectations for myself were projected onto my partners that resulted in feeling unheard or unappreciated by them. Much to chew on.

Shayla is thinking of possibly pursuing a job outside of Texas, which would mean our time living in this beautiful home is now on a countdown. I am sitting in this. It is not new information, but I was just getting comfortable with the idea of staying here long-term. But this is okay too because I would like to leave and explore the world now. It's time. I can pack my things and head to the west coast to be with my brother. I can create new memories with him and his small family like he dreams of...and I dream of too.

It's now 30 minutes until 3 and I should start winding down. I am overwhelmed with such joy and excitement about the newness ahead. May I continue to believe in the universe and all of its blessings.

[autisticandroids]

here is that “the world of supernatural is tiny” post i’ve been promising

the thing about supernatural, the thing at the core of a lot of our collective frustrations with supernatural, stuff like side character culls, what-if-there-was-an-even-bigger-gunism, the lack of institutions and governments and interpersonal politics, the nonsense worldbuilding, the fossilization of the brothers’ relationship, all of that, is that the world of supernatural is incredibly small. like it really is just... two brothers against the rest of the world, or eventually team free will against the rest of the world. 

and this is in every aspect of it.  this is why the side characters must be culled, obviously, and not just culled: it’s why the side characters never ever get the focus they should, why an episode told from bobby’s point of view is as weird and unique as the fucking episode told from the car’s point of view, why the side characters almost never become meaningfully part of the narrative. and the culling/squashing of the side characters is why the brothers can never develop: the only meaningful relationship they’re allowed to have long enough for it to grow and change is with each other, and eveeeeentually cas, and eventually eventually jack, but mostly just each other. if they were allowed to have more meaningful relationships with the outside world, they wouldn’t have to turn to each other for everything and ultimately fail, or take out all of their problems on each other.

this is why the solution to the problem of the season is always an even bigger gun: it can’t be building a bigger army, nor can it be diplomacy, because both of those require opening the world slightly to outsiders. it needs to be a weapon wieldable by a single person that they can use to destroy the enemy, or, at best, quid pro quo a deal made with one very powerful ally who can singlehandedly destroy the enemy.

this is why there are no governments or institutions, and no truly ambiguous parties: every powerful force is, in the end, a single person, or an organization with a single all-powerful charismatic leader. there are no organizations with organizational interpersonal politics. like, do we know the names of any of crowley’s underlings’ names? NO! why the fuck don’t we, he’s supposed to be the king of bureaucrats, mr. organizational. but nope! he’s just a despot like everyone else. do we know any of naomi’s underlings’ names before she fakes her death? raphael’s in season six? abaddon’s? fucking...... who else, every other big bad i can think of is just crowley. i digress. anyway in the end it’s always just one big scary guy with a big scary power, and sometimes that power is “an army” but that’s just. a superpower. it’s exactly like having a big raygun.

and like this is one of the reasons why the worldbuilding on spn is so nonsensical like. on top of the normal bad tv scifi reasons. it’s because nothing on spn exists in a society, everything exists in atomized isolation because the world can only include one thing which isn’t the winchesters at a time. there is no such thing as a wider world on spn.

and like here’s the thing. here’s the thing. there are good things about spn’s tiny, closed world. in particular, it allows really a lot of tight character focus on the protagonists and their closest relationship(s). like, if the world of supernatural was bigger from the start, would dean winchester still be the most compelling, most tragic character on television to me? i don’t think so. he wouldn’t have the depth.

but the thing is, you can have both. supernatural could have started in a tiny, closed world which slowly opened and blossomed to include both a larger universe and an ensemble cast. it almost did, but then it lost its way.

like, the first two seasons of spn are an intensely personal story, all about a family and its trauma. and all about the brothers, and their father. then the third season is about the fallout from the conclusion of that story, still personal, still all about the brothers. 

but then season four comes along. the story is no longer quite so personal. now it’s about saving the world. it’s about heaven and hell. and along with that, the cast opens up, too. ruby and cas become main-ish characters. this is exactly the right direction to be going in, a natural progression towards a bigger world and a larger cast. bobby, too, becomes a main-ish character, though he was already headed there in s3, and he doesn’t get the screentime of ruby or cas.

then, season five: we start to wobble. the world continues opening up: we’re still at a global scale, but now the supernatural is having an effect on wider society. in season four, we were preventing the apocalypse, but no one was seeing it but us, and maybe a few small towns. now there are demon omens on the news. but the cast is stuck again. ruby is dead. bobby does have a slightly increasing role, which is good. cas is there, but he’s also less of a character and more of a useful tool. and no one new is added. in fact, two of the people who it would be most natural to add to the cast - ellen and jo - are killed off for shock value. 

but then we really go down hill in six and especially seven. the world continues to open: six is about the fallout of five, a concept which i love! you can’t have an institutional war machine like heaven thwarted in its billion year purpose without a bit of fallout. conceptually, that’s wonderful! that’s why i have a good season six au. but by execution, it’s a mess, because the world of supernatural is actively shrinking again. in order to do the premise of season six well, your world needs to have a society in it, and season six can’t manage that. like, it should have been an exploration of the supernatural world with a sociological bent; a look at how averting the apocalypse, eve, social unrest in heaven, affected the paranormal parasocieties of spn. but it couldn’t manage that.

worse, the cast is also shrinking. cas isn’t around much anymore, lisa is there but she doesn’t really get to be a person, more just the idea of a wife, and side characters are dropping like flies. they killed off rufus for no reason!

then in seven it’s even worse! because the world is still opening! the supernatural world is finally crashing into ordinary society in earnest. godstiel killed homophobic pastors! he etched his own face in stained glass! he actively went around interfering in normal society! and then the leviathans came along and totally broke down the supernatural/normal distinction. they use ordinary societal channels to acquire their power! they’re politicians and corporate executives! they put their poison in the corn syrup! 

but in terms of felt sense it’s closing. the winchesters are not living in the society that’s being attacked, they are totally outside it, alone in the world. isolated. and the leviathans are still defeated by shooting their leader with an even bigger gun!

and here’s the thing: this still could have eventually built towards something, a larger universe for supernatural. with sera gamble and her side character murderboner out, season eight could have dealt with the fallout from seven in a way that kept the universe big and built the cast back up. instead, jeremy carver gave us kevin tran only to kill him a season and a half later, and decided to just completely drop all of sera gamble’s new worldbuilding, which in the case of season six is kind of understandable, since she made a total hash of heaven, but in the case of the leviathans is deeply, deeply frustrating. like, where was the fallout from that! did it change society at all? the answer, it appears, is no.

after this, the world of supernatural is fairly static. it’s neither opening nor closing. heaven and hell are constant forces, occasionally there are other threats, but everything stays basically the same in the carver era, and the dabb era too even though dabb made a few strides towards increasing the size of the cast with mary and jack.

but yeah. basically the universe of supernatural is tiny, and that’s why it’s frustrating. once again we come back to the basic problem of supernatural being that it simply is not star trek.

[likealittleheartbeat]

I deeply appreciate how ATLA depicts all the main characters responses to trauma. Aang’s, for me, however, stands out for its rareness in media. And we are not hammered over the head with the idea that Aang (or any other characters) repeatedly act certain ways because of a single traumatic event. Sure, there are key moments in our lives when a certain event comes to the forefront, but no one experiences the world as constant flashbacks. Rather, we see only in retrospect the way our sarcastic sense of humor or our heightened friendliness were protective responses to a deep emotional injury. Being able to understand Aang’s approach to loss is essential for the show. The structure of the series is founded on his arc (despite an incredible foil provided by Zuko). Our little air nomad initially confronts the loss of his people with a full-on meltdown in the episode “The Southern Air Temple,” where Katara’s offering of familial belonging soothes him. But this kind of outburst is not Aang’s primary response (and actually the literally out-of-character apocalyptic tantrums align with Aang’s overall process of grieving). Instead of constantly brooding (hey Zuko!), Aang leans heavily toward the monk’s pacifist teachings and toward his assumed destiny “to save the world.” He becomes overtly accommodating and joyful, constantly trying to see “the good” in everything with a perfectionist’s zeal. This is not to ascribe his bubbliness only to his trauma. Rather, he comes to emphasize this part of his personality for reasons related to the negative emotions he struggles to face.  Book 1: Water

In the first season, Aang is simply rediscovering his place in the world. “Water is the element of change. The people of the water tribe are capable of adapting to many things. They have a sense of community and love that holds them together.” This is vital to Aang as he initially faces his experience. He won’t get through this if he is not prepared for his life to change. Even if he hadn’t been frozen for 100 years, his world would never be the same. This fact involves eventually finding new people that he feels safe with. After such a massive loss, he’s learning who to trust, and also often making mistakes; not only does he find Sokka and Katara (and I’d argue he’s actually slow to truly open up to them), this is the season where he helps save a fire nation citizen who betrays him to soldiers, befriends the rebel extremist Jet, and attempts to befriend an actively belligerent Zuko (his moral complexity had only JUST! been revealed to the kid!). He’s constantly offering trust to others and seeking their approval in opposition to the deep well of shame and guilt he carries as a survivor of violence. This is also the season where Aang swears off firebending after burning Katara in an overeager attempt to master the element (one will note how fire throughout the series is aligned with, above all else, assertiveness and yang). Aang is so eager to be seen as morally good to others that he refuses to risk any possible harm to them.  And asserting himself carries a danger, in one sense, that he might make a mistake and lose someone’s positive regard, and, in another sense, that he is replicating the anger and violence he’s witnessed. He has no relationship to his anger at this stage of his grief, so it comes out uncontrollably, both in firebending and the Avatar State. It’s through the patience of his new family that he can begin to feel unashamed about his past and about the ways his shame is finding (sometimes violent) expression in the present. Book 2: Earth In the second season he begins to trust himself and stand his ground. Earth, after all, is the element of substance, persistence, and endurance. The “Bitter Work” episode encapsulates how Aang must come to a more sturdy sense of his values. First, there is the transition of pedagogical style. While Katara emphasized support and kindness, Toph insists on blunt and threatening instruction, not for a lack of care towards Aang. Instead, it’s so Aang learns how to stop placing the desires of others above his own--to stop accommodating everyone else above his own needs. Toph taunts Aang by stealing one of the few keepsakes from the monastery that he holds onto. This attachment to the lost airbending culture is echoed in the larger arc with Appa. And, by the end of this episode, it is Aang’s attachment to Sokka that allows him to stand firm. This foreshadows the capital T Tragic downfall in the “Crossroads of Destiny.” Aang gives up his attachment to the other member of his new found family, Katara, despite his moral qualms. Although he has access to all the power of the Avatar state, his sacrifice is not rewarded. Season 2 illustrates Aang coming to terms with his values. He is learning about what he stands for, what holds meaning to him. Understanding himself also includes integrating his grief, and there’s a lonely and dangerous aspect to that exploration. We see Aang’s anger and hopelessness over longer stretches rather than outbursts in this season. It’s hard to watch and hard to root for him. That depressive state leads to actions that counter his previous sense of morality, as he decisively kills an animal, treats his friends unkindly, and blames others for his loss. Letting these harsher feelings emerge is an experiment, and most people discover their boundaries by crossing them. Finding ways to hold compassion for himself, even the harm he causes others, is the other side of this process. Our past and our challenging emotions are a part of us, but they are only a part. Since Aang now has a strong sense of community and is learning to be himself rather than simply seeking validation, we also see him having more healthy boundaries with new people. He’s no longer befriending villains in the second season! He’s respectful and trusting enough, but he’s not putting himself in vulnerable situations nor blindly trusting everyone. Instead, he’s more likely to listen to his friends’ opinions or think about how the monks might’ve been critical towards something (they’re complaints about Ba Sing Se, for example). By knowing what he cares for, he can know himself, the powerful, loving, grief-struck monk. And he can trust that, though he might not be everyone’s favorite person, he does not need to feel ashamed or guilty for who he is or what he’s been through. Book 3: Fire However, despite a sense of self and a sense of belonging, Aang and the group still find themselves constantly asking for permission throughout their time in Ba Sing Se. It’s in the third season, Fire, that initiative and assertiveness become the focus. And who better to provide guidance in this than the official prince of “you never think these things through,” Zuko. It’s no longer a time for avoidance or sturdy defensiveness. It is the season of action. Fire is the element of power, desire, and will, all of which require us to impact others.  We see the motif of initiative throughout the season: the rebels attempt to storm the Firelord on the Day of the Black Sun; Aang attempts to share his feelings and kiss Katara; Katara bends Hama and a couple of fire nation soldiers to her will. In each of these examples, the initiators face disgrace. Positive intent does not bring forth success, by any means, only more consequences to be dealt with. This is perhaps Aang’s biggest challenge. He is afraid that his actions will fail, or worse, they will succeed but he will be wrong in what he has chosen. The sequencing in the series, here, is important. We have already seen how Aang has worked to care for (and appreciate) the well-being of others and how he has learned to care for his own needs. With this in mind, he should be able to trust that his actions will derive from these wells of compassion. But easier said than done. Compassion can also trap him into indecision, hearkening back to his avoidant mistake in the storm, in which the whole mess began. Aang’s internal conflict, here, becomes more pronounced as the finale draws nearer. I think it’s especially significant that we witness Aang disagreeing with his mentors and friends. He must act in a way that will contradict and even threaten his sources of support if he is to trust his own desires. Even the fandom disagrees about the choice Aang makes, which further highlights the fact that making a decisive choice is contentious. There is no point in believing it will grant you love or admiration or success. For someone who began (and spent much of) the series regularly sacrificing himself just to bring others peace, Aang’s decision to prioritize his own interests despite the very explicit possibility of failure is the ultimate growth his character can have and the ultimate representation of him processing his trauma. (This arc was echoed and made even more explicit in many ways with Adora in the She-ra finale.) The last significant time Aang followed his desire, in his mind, was when he escaped the Air Temple in the storm. To want something, to trust his desire and act on it, is an act of incredible courage for him, and whether it succeeded or failed, whether anyone agrees or disagrees with it, it offered Aang a sense of peace and resolution. Now I appreciate and love Zuko’s iconic redemption arc, but Aang’s subtler arc, which subverts the “chosen one” narrative and broke ground to represent a prevalent emotional experience, stands out to me as the foundation for the show I love so much.

[whoree321]

the bad batch + olivia rodrigo songs

this is kinda super angsty and i didn’t necessarily mean for it to be but also idk what i expected. omega’s is cute but everyone else’s just got more sad the more I wrote lmaoooooo

Hunter: happier

hunter is def the kind of guy after a break up that wants things to be on good terms and genuinely does want to see the other person happy

like i think hunter is the most likely to want to stay friends after a break up

but he also has that pride and ego of not wanting to be replaced or wanting the next person to be better than him

he would be really torn between sincerely wanting the best for them and also battling his own discomfort and insecurity/jealousy at actually seeing them be happy without him

the balance between maturity/respect and that petty need to “win” a breakup would be tricky for hunter to manage

i feel like this song perfectly captures post break up hunter like “i hope you’re happy but don’t be happier” that’s really truly how he’d feel

Crosshair: favorite crime

i think that if crosshair got to a point in a relationship where he really cared about the other person and then they broke up he would feel very much this song

like i know the obvious choice might seem like “good 4 u” like edgy and angsty but I don’t think he would feel so aggressively angry as he would feel just really melancholy about it

like crosshair isn’t the type of guy to have meaningful relationships that he puts his heart into so if he did put himself out there and open his heart up so much he’s not gonna be able to just shut it down (even though he def will act like he doesn’t care at all even a little bit)

he’s gonna feel hurt and taken advantage of by the other person but he’s also gonna blame himself for being so vulnerable and opening himself up to that hurt

like i really feel like in the bridge where its like "everything we broke and all the trouble that we made / but i say that i hate you with a smile on my face / oh look what we became" is very crosshair. thats the bittersweetness he would feel towards someone he really loved that ended up hurting him

Tech: deja vu

this is so tech bc it is really a thorough, itemized, fuck you list

like i feel like it would be very tech to pinpoint all the parts of an ex’s new relationship that they reused from their relationship with him and just be like “hm. interesting. a big fat phony. how does that feel? to be a phony? just asking for a friend”

and that’s also something that would hurt him the most. like knowing that that person had experiences with him and learned things from/with him that he thought were meaningful and then they just go share all of it with someone else? that would be tough for him to take

the lines that specifically give me tech are in the one chorus where it’s like “that was our place / I found it first / I made the jokes you tell to her / when she’s with you” and also in the bridge when it’s like “play her piano but she doesn’t know / that I was the one who taught you billy joel”

i could just see him having detailed notes of his favorite moments of his relationship with that person (like specifically things they learned together or taught each other, new experiences they had together, etc) and then gradually having to sadly mark down when one of them has been used with someone else

it would be a really prolonged hurt knowing how much he valued those things and thought they were special and how much the other person just didn’t think that at all and continuously drives that point home

Wrecker: 1 step forward, 3 steps back

i feel wrecker here in this song bc i think of all the bad batch he is one of the most likely to really drag out a rough relationship in the hopes that it gets better

and I don’t mean that in a shady way at all. but I think crosshair’s self-preservation would kick in, tech would turn to logic and numbers and determine the costs outweigh the benefits and it’s no longer a fruitful relationship, and hunter and echo would have a weird honor code of like “I cannot allow our relationship to cause pain any longer”

but wrecker

wrecker would just be so head over heels and desperate to go back to good times bc he just loves so fully and completely. he falls fast and hard and it would be difficult for him to accept that a once-happy relationship just isn’t salvageable

the line that gets me is really in the chorus like “do you love me, want me, hate me / boy I don’t understand” bc I think that’s exactly how he would feel

wrecker would just be so sad and confused and he would know things were going wrong but it would just be such a whirlwind and he would want it to work out so much that he would let himself stay in an unhappy situation for too long

Echo: traitor

echo is an extremely loyal person and he values loyalty in a relationship so much

when he loves someone and dedicates himself to someone, it is really hard to break that bond. he will stick by them through almost anything

one of the few things that is unforgivable in a relationship to him tho is infidelity. so the hurt and anger in this song I think is something he would really feel in a relationship that ended in a similar situation

like if echo’s s/o was unfaithful to him, even if they didn’t technically cheat on him, it would really cut him to the bone. he couldn’t imagine doing that to someone else and I think he would feel that betrayal from them really deeply

the line in this one that sold it is in the last chorus when she changes it a little and goes “you gave me your word / but that didn’t matter”. like the way she says it is so hurt and that’s how he would feel

losing someone he cared about would really sting for echo (he’s already lost so much), but losing them bc they betrayed his trust, knowing that he really believed in them and he really thought they were someone he could put his faith in and then being wrong? it would be devastating to him

Omega: brutal

this song really captures that chaotic panic of being young and coming into yourself and the world

i think omega is a little young at this point to be feeling a lot of this just yet, but when those teenage hormones and angst settle in this one is gonna hit different for her

it’s just a really good depiction of that like self-consciousness and anxiety of adolescence where you’re so hyper-aware of your flaws and you feel like everyone is looking at you and judging you all the time

and in omega’s position, I imagine when she enters that time in her life it’s gonna feel pretty intense. you can already tell she feels some of it just bc of her life situation and experiences but once you add in the normal hormones and psychological changes it’s gonna be crazy

the most omega line in this song is when she goes “i’m so tired that i might / quit my job start a new life / and they’d all be so disappointed / cause who am i if not exploited?”

LIKE THATS LITERALLY HER @ THE KAMINOANS IN THE FIRST EPISODE THATS BASICALLY EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED

basically it would be her teeny bopper anthem and i love it for her

[sscoutregimentss]

L, D, F, U and Y w eren pwease🥺

modern au, again. also, i realize these arent very romantic lololol ohhhh well.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

Helping out with Historia's volunteer club has gotten him pretty used to kids, but honestly half the time he floats off to the corner and doesn't really interact with them because they're so preoccupied with Connie and Sasha being... Connie and Sasha.

He actually does pretty well with older kids like 9-13 year olds, mainly his dad's friend's nephew Falco. He thinks Eren is like the coolest guy ever (next to Reiner. Sorry Eren you're not taking his spot any time soon lol) and Eren thinks Falco is really sweet.

I like to think that toddlers like Eren too, especially when he gives them those pretty smiles that light up his entire face. But he prefers to be with older kids if he can. Mainly because he's a little shit and can get them to do stuff for him.

The amount of times he has gotten Falco to run errands or do chores for him in exchange for ice cream (or like... Vbucks... do 13 year olds still play fortnite? I'm lost) only for the poor kid to never see said ice cream... uncountable. If he paid it all at once he'd be dead broke.

And despite Gabi fronting about hating him because him and Reiner aren't friends anymore, she enjoys hanging out with him and Falco because Eren doesn't really baby them as much as her cousin and his friends do. Those two butt heads like crazy, though. He literally doesn't call her by her name, he just calls her "Brat" or other variations.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

I'll talk about settling down more in the next letter, but Eren is like both the most messy and most clean person ever.

He's the type of person to let his environment reflect himself. If he's stressed, his room looks like a pigsty. When he gets angry, he purposefully makes messes, because punching a hole in the wall means he doesn't get his security deposit back. But when he settles down, he uses his skills picked up from cleaning the locker rooms and club rooms with Captain Levi for hours on end and makes his room spotless in record time. It's a talent.

Good at chores because he has flashbacks of Levi going "Oi, Jaeger brat... you think this is clean?" every time he's doing something. He procrastinates a lot though.

You know I came on here wanting to say he is a god awful, terrible cook, but I don't think so. I mean, it's just a practical life skill he has from not having parents for most of his life.

The problem with Eren's cooking is that he over seasons everything. He hates bland food so he can't tell when to stop. Like if a recipe calls for a teaspoon of chili flakes he's adding 3 tablespoons just for good measure. He will watch Jean put a whole head of garlic in something and chop up a small garden worth of herbs and still goes "that looks bland."

Really likes spicy food. If you have a low spice tolerance, don't count on him cooking. Poor Armin is already half dead.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

I don't think he'd want to get married. You guys could be together for 20 years and he still wouldn't propose.

He thinks it's dumb to define your relationship with a flimsy piece of paper, and that your value becomes too stringent on your partner when you're married. Plus, all the legal stuff, ugh such a bore. Literally the only thing motivating him to get married is being able to call himself your husband because he thinks its cute.

If you guys have a really long term relationship (like living together, kids, everything) he eventually just starts calling himself your husband even though you aren't technically married. No one is going to correct him anyways.

He would like a wedding though. Just because he thinks it'd be fun. Maybe like a commitment ceremony? His love for you is very personal, so he'll do whatever he wants. If he wants to literally throw a party and call it a "We Love Each Other, Kiss Our Ass!" celebration, he will.

Your children would have hyphenated last names. If the world's end is dependent on you marrying Eren Jaeger, he refuses to change his last name, and urges you not to either.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

Short. Freaking. Temper. It's the easiest one to point out. And it's always been a prominent trait, only made worse by his rough childhood.

Eren's inner child is deeply hurt, and he thinks the best way to heal him is to just get pissed off. This, combined with his fiery and passionate personality, plus general recklessness just makes for a 6 foot tall, muscled, handsome ball of rage.

The best way to prevent Eren anger? Just nip it in the bud. You notice he side eyes you after you say something? Ask what you did. He's happy to tell you if you ask, but otherwise he just let's it build up and blows up on you.

He's a good apologizer though. Good balance of kind words and actions = happy relationship. It's just him having a hard time communicating with you, and he's eternally grateful for you helping him get better.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

He cannot stand people with no conviction. If you're saying one thing to some people and other things to others just to fit in, he probably won't like you. Like, if you're a "popular kid" who likes nerdy shit, just fucking own it, stop being two faced. He doesn't like people who feel the need to hide who they are.

That doesn't mean he doesn't like shy people though. If you have trouble standing up for yourself, he's prone to step in and help you out. He just really doesn't like fake people.

[grokebaby]

Summary of the eldritch angel story

Terminology masterpost

Central Characters

Heaven:

Lamera

ZZZ

Grandefel (Persecutor)

J'aimekiel

Ngah (High angel)

Kxxxtr (High angel)

Combfa (Caretaker)

Samuel (Angel in training) (not my character)

God's throne

Hell:

Deirdre (Persecutor)

Delilah (High demon)

Xerxes (High demon)

Hart (High demon)

Devoul

Limbo:

Godwatcher

Story summary/walkthrough under the cut

Our story kicks off when Lamera, J'aimekiel, ZZZ and Grandefel are all wondering what hell is like, since none of them (except Grandefel, who's lying about it) have ever been there. ZZZ is extremely curious by nature and decides to just go there because why not. Grandefel tries to resist and ZZZ calls her a coward (You can read this first part here, but it's not great quality imo)

About a day passes without much happening, until everyone hears a distress call from ZZZ. Ngah who's the mother of Lamera and ZZZ, scoops them out, whereupon everyone sees the sorry state the angel is in. Something bad and violent had happened in hell (You can read this part here, content warning for nonhuman gore)

We come back to the story not long after, with our two persecutors, Grandefel and Deirdre meeting secretly in limbo. Deirdre has news she's worried about but loses her chance to tell them when Ngah bursts into the scene, foaming at the mouth, demanding retribution for how ZZZ was treated down in hell. Grandefel is forced to leave and Ngah makes Deirdre escort her to speak to hells manager high judgement. Apparently ZZZ violated several rules upon entering hell and was generally very rude, driving some of Deirdre's friends to attack them on her behalf. Deirdre stayed compliant because she hasn't been feeling well lately and isn't fond of angels in general (except Grandefel). The explanation and lukewarm apology for what happened doesn't please Ngah and she decides to call on a high court case, aka essentially suing them. Hells high judgement has no option but to attend the case (You can read this part here)

After about an hour, hells high judgement along with Deirdre and a few punishers make their appearance in heaven, but not before J'aimekiel can wonder outloud about how empty heaven is. She tries to ask Lamera about why there's barely any angels but the high court case starts. Deirdre gets her apology in, but before it can be accepted properly by all high angels, Ngah directs the conversation elsewhere. She accuses Grandefel of "using her time unprofessionally", and starts trying to squeeze out something from both Persecutors. Delilah, Deirdre's sister, intervenes so the court won't dissolve to off topic accusations but Xerxes wants to hear what Ngah has to say. (You can read all that in more detail here)

After dancing around the topic with increasing frustration, Grandefel reveals that she and Deirdre are in a relationship. Ngah not-so-subtly expresses her disgust with this and makes a direct jab at Deirdre, revealing to everyone that she's pregnant. Since it's a surprise to everyone but Deirdre herself, the revelation is met with backlash. Ngah knows this because as a high angel she can sense angelic life, and because she has a habit of stalking keeping a very close eye on everyone around her. Now that everything has finally been outed, the court dissolves into arguing.

Most angels aside from Ngah and maybe Kxxxtr are actually pretty fine with this kind of crossover happening and Lamera would gladly step in to Grandefels defense but is held back in fear of Ngah's rage. J'aimekiel however isn't, and raises her voice from the crowd. She calls out Ngah for her hateful remarks and reminds everyone that she was born a demon but became an angel after, and if that is fine, this should also be fine, right? Ngah starkly disagrees and in vague terms makes it clear that J'aimekiels existence is only tolerated, and might be because they quote on quote don't have better options right now. J'aimekiel is quite distraught by this and Lamera tries to come to her defense but is shut down by Ngah.

After a painful few hours the court case finally draws to a close with some new rules put in place going forward. One of them being that only the persecutors can make cross visits regularly, since it's required for their job. If any high judgements want to make cross visits it needs to be agreed upon beforehand. This is to avoid all possible conflict. Ngah also makes it clear that, "if they ever survive birth", Grandefel and Deirdre's children must pick a side and that "it would be for the best" if they never knew what they really were, or who their parents were. Despite the backlash, she gets everyone to comply thanks to everyone still being a little confused about the whole ordeal, and Ngah promising to be their personal problem if the children act out of line.

Case closed, everyone goes home. Deirdre feels extremely isolated from everyone now. Grandefel is kept busy by being given alot of heaven-centric work. While not explicitly getting in trouble for it, it's heavily implied that Grandefel really shouldn't be seen with Deirdre again outside of work related situations. J'aimekiel also feels isolated from everyone now.

A few dreadful months later the children are born in hell with Delilah supporting her sister. There's three. One is confirmed an angel via her halo. When Grandefel hears about their birth she can't keep herself away from them anymore, and with her help the children are named. The oldest is Mihail, middle one Meredith and youngest Gabriel. They also make the difficult decision of who gets to live with who. Despite all Grandefel doesn't take the angel child with her, instead taking Gabriel who she thinks would fit in due to how he looks. The children are raised apart like this and don't get to meet their other parent, despite being aware of their existence.

Somewhere along the line, one of Lameras halos gets a crack, something that's painful and quite a big deal for an angel. It's on the collar halo. The crack is small enough that he manages to hide it from everyone, especially since his beard covers most of his neck from view anyway

About a year later things have mostly calmed back down again. Although there's now alot more people who hate Ngah. A certain rather ordinary demon named Devoul makes the news in hell, thanks to Lamera hearing about him from a mortal. The thing is that Devoul has been tricking mortals into working for him in exchange for superpowers and getting something they desperately want. He's been doing this under the guise of being "The Devil" who rules in hell. This is obviously unture and a trial ensues, but it's only kept to hell because nobody wants to involve heaven after last year's occurrence. It goes surprisingly smoothly, and a portion of the souls are reborn and the rest decide to continue on with their lives. One of them, Samuel, inspired to make up for his bad deeds, becomes an angel in training. Devoul is sentenced to 800+ years of tedious physical labor, case closed.

We resume to the story when in limbo, by pure happenstance, Devoul and Lamera bump into each other. They have a moment of "YOU" where Devoul manages to hit Lamera right in the mommy issues, making him drop all attempts at being nice. Devoul is taken aback by how much he unintentionally managed to rile up Lamera, knowing him to be one of the good™ angels. Devoul notices the crack in his halo and becomes curious, whilst also trying to pull up any shreds of decency he has. Lamera tries to deflect most of it and finds out Devoul is here to look for Godwatcher to ask some questions.

On their way to find them, the two talk over a few things and find themselves understanding each other better. Lamera still feels iffy about Devoul though, despite him trying to explain himself

They find Godwatcher together and ask some general questions about morality and the nature of angelhood. Godwatcher can't really give them any one correct answer, rather than "What you think is good or bad depends on what you value in this world. No angel is born being better and no demon is born being worse". The two mull over some of the things they've heard and talk about ""God"". Devoul keeps asking Lamera increasingly difficult questions that cause him to doubt his own worldview and dig into the fact that Ngah is absolutely not a good angel. This causes Lameras halo to crack all the way through, causing him pain and distress. He's deeply afraid of Ngah's reaction if she were to see him like this, and feels like he'll be in trouble. Devoul, having gained sympathy for Lamera, feels guilty that he caused this and tries to offer various ways to help, none of which end up helpful. Figuring that he'll have the next 800ish years of being punished anyway, he decides to dig his grave deeper by pretending to attact Lamera. As a cover up for what broke the halo, so Lamera himself won't be blamed since it obviously broke in conjunction with his trust in his mother.

Speak of which, Ngah hears them and scoops up both. Right on time too, since Deirdre was just about to retrieve Devoul to do his work. Up in heaven, Ngah Is "Dissapointed but not surprised" that Lameras halo broke. She lifts him up by it, intending to fix it, but being manhandled by his mother, through an injured body part, distresses Lamera alot. It doesn't sit right with Devoul and he tries talking to Ngah, who dismisses him as a speck of dust not worth listening to, and they dissolve into arguing. The stress of it all causes Lameras collar halo to finally shatter and fall off completely. He deflects any further attempts to fix it, and tries to confront Ngah about her behavior. This infuriates Ngah who then accuses Devoul of corrupting her child. More arguing ensues, during which Devoul uses his special power of reading people's memories to briefly look at Ngah. He sees her attempted murder and banishing of their third high angel who hasn't been seen in a long time. Apparently heaven had a big inner conflict some time back, which Ngah resolved this way. Their current low number of staff is due to a huge chunk of the angels leaving since they supported Ezekiels cause more.

Ngah, despite wanting to sweep it under the rug, doesn't deny that she did all this, which upsets Lamera even more. He and Ngah argue. Lamera hits her where it hurts (insulting her divinity) and she's about to possibly get violent, when Devoul casts a spell that paralyses her physically. As she's a powerful high angel it won't hold her for long, and the duo flee heaven

Devoul and Lamera hide out and rest at the foot of a mountain on earth. They go over everything and get to know each other better. Lamera is surprised that Devoul would care this much about what's happening upstairs to which he replies "Hey I still have morals" - "Except for that one time". Their bonding is interrupted by Deirdre who caught up to them finally, intending to take Devoul back. Lamera resists, to her surprise, and they explain the situation. Deirdre sympathises with them heavily but is unsure if they can do much. She promises to speak to the high judgements about this all anyway, as a start. Lamera decides to try talking things out with the high angels. Devoul makes a spell that allows him and Lamera to call and talk to each other just in case. The duo separate after sleeping through the night at that mountain.

Heaven: Lamera goes to talk to Kxxxtr about everything he's found out. Kxxxtr expresses regret over letting everything go on like this, especially since she doesn't necessarily agree with how Ngah works things around here. Witnessing the murder attempt has been traumatic for them, hence they stayed compliant out of fear. Kxxxtr does also make clear that whatever Lamera tries to do to change things in heaven, he'll have their support. Ngah who's been listening in on them, bursts in angrily, accusing them of conspiring against her. Kxxxtr tries to get past their fear and stand against Ngah, who proceeds to purposefully trigger them in order to get them to stand down. Instead of backing out, Kxxxtr strikes Ngah in a bout of rage. Regretting the move immediately, they send Lamera up to the higher heavens to safety, and so he could talk to the highest power: God's throne.

Hell: Devoul goes to his house to look at his spellbook in case there'd be anything useful, while Deirdre proceeds to talk to the high judgements. Before he can really find anything, Lamera calls him to tell that Ngah and Kxxxtr are at each other's throats and he's afraid and not sure what to do. Devoul helps him calm down and barely gets to explain what he's doing before the call forcefully disconnects with Lamera notifying how beautiful God's throne is (using both he and it pronouns). Devoul has just enough time to find a spell that will take away a big chunk of power from a powerful individual, before Deirdre comes to him in a rush. One of the high judgements, Xerxes, takes things related to Ngah very seriously and has decided to go fight her. It's not entirely clear if there's ulterior motives, other than wanting to fight her. Deirdre and Devoul head to an opening where they find the three: Delilah chewing out Xerxes for throwing his staff at the heavens, and Hart snickering in the background.

While waiting for the staff to hopefully return, Devoul decides to call Lamera back just in case. At first it feels like the call is forcefully blocked and directed away but eventually he responds. His answers are cryptic and he sounds overall very out of it. At one point, he starts talking entirely differently, way louder and with a completely different voice, asking Devoul if the staff should hit something. He makes it clear that it should definitely not hit anyone or anything and the staff gracefully floats back into Xerxes' hand. The call disconnects. Devoul is worried and decides he really needs to get up there. Luckily for him, despite Delilah's efforts to stop him, Xerxes is about to throw again. Impressed by Devouls determination, he puts the little demon onto the staff and throws it. This time the throw is alot less coordinated due to Delilah physically restraining his hand. Devoul however makes it to where Ngah has currently dropped Kxxxtr down from the cloud. They have a brief confrontation before Devoul uses the powersucking spell on her, causing her to also fall off the cloud. The spell takes a physical toll on him, partially by causing him to feel extremely hungry. All of Ngah's now removed power manifests as an orb. He hopes Lamera is okay and tries to look for him, and is suddenly lifted up to where he is, as if on command.

He enters the throne room where Lamera looks.. Off. He's extremely swollen, like a balloon blown to it's limits, and his entire face is engulfed in flames. He doesn't respond to Devoul trying to make sure he's okay. He only speaks in that different voice that's clearly not suited to his vocal chords. In the background Devoul sees God's throne, mouth moving slowly. He has a hard time really registering the Throne's physical form into something he can comprehend. There's separate elements (Crystals and gems, large mouth and eyes, galactic matter streaming in and out of it) but his brain can't bring them together in his head. Despite this he addresses the Throne With "What the fuck did you do him? (Lamera)". The throne proceeds to ignore his questions and attempts to take the orb from him through Lameras body, since the entity itself can't move much at all. Devoul is unwilling to hand it over until God's throne explains that now, since Kxxxtr is heavily injured, and Ngah technically not a high angel (in terms of strength), they need a new one. He exposits how He was just going to make Lamera into a high angel instead but having Devoul enter with the orb brought another option to the table. Devoul hands over the orb, which God's throne takes into it's mouth and Lamera falls limp, now presumably free from it's control. After both making sure they're okay, they exit the throne room and take a moment to collect themselves and pass out from the exhaustion.

Meanwhile Kxxxtr fell down to limbo, bleeding, where they're still laying, unable to move. Xerxes, who partially went to look for his staff, and partially to punt Ngah in the gut, discovers her. Kxxxtr is terrified at first but Xerxes offers her his armor, to cover for her leaking insides. She's taken aback by the kind gesture and they just sorta awkwardly hang out there while Kxxxtr explains what happens. Xerxes escorts her back later. Ngah has turned into a giant three headed serpent, and is having an episode somewhere, enraged and miserable at being demoted. Samuel and J'aimekiel are shook by the commotion and are trying to figure out what's going on. Xerxes finds Ngah on his way back and they start fighting (he still hasn't gotten his staff back).

Upon waking up, Devoul and Lamera lament over the whole mess. Samuel and J'aimekiel find the two and want an explanation. Devoul and Samuel aren't thrilled at seeing each other again. After a thoroughly uncomfortable interaction they part ways, Lamera leaving to clean up things upstairs and Devoul returning to his punishment work downstairs, dreading all the more trouble he might be in now. He stumbles upon Xerxes with Ngah in a chokehold, and doesn't even recognize her. Ngah is now even more pissed at him, but with some help he realizes who she is. Xerxes seems intent on killing her but Devoul tries to stop him, knowing Lamera would be destroyed by something like that happening. They heavily discuss it before concluding that Ngah really should answer for her crimes instead of getting the easy way out. She's locked up in the Void District until she can play nice again (and until they can figure out a proper punishment for her). Xerxes and Devoul chat on their way back, and Xerxes, still very impressed by the little demon's spirit, offers to recruit him. Devoul, although surprised, accepts the offer. He still has alot of punishment work left but at least he'd get to do it in consistent company.

About a day passes and everyone is almost getting to settle in, when something strange captures the attention of all the angels. God's throne is now finished making them a new High angel - how exciting! The new angel, instructed by the Throne, fetches and throws Xerxes' staff right back to him. They then backflip out of the high heavens to meet everyone, making a thoroughly.. Interesting first impression, to say the least.. The angels have a hard time swallowing that a demon - Devoul specifically, kickstarted the creation of their new High angel. Samuel nopes out, Grandefel heavily considers asking for a refund, and the new angel, not seeing anything wrong with any of this, hops down to hell to meet their "Daddy". Devoul is taken aback by the news but welcomes his "child" with open arms. He with Lameras help, proceed to name them Terjey, since God's throne didn't give them a name (which is very unusual). Heaven returns to cleaning up the mess and dealing with the staff shortage and Devoul returns to his work.

And that was everything that happened up to this point, the present day.

The end - for now!

[moiraineswife]

Refreshing as a Highstorm - A Stormlight Fic

Hey I inflicted this on my ao3 people last night and forgot about y’all! Inexcusable!! So here we are. 

DO NOT PROCEED IF U HAVE NOT READ RHYTHM OF WAR. 

you’ve read it? okay fabulous - u may proceed? 

you have not? WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? LEAVE. NOW. 

Title: Refreshing as a Highstorm

Summary:  Set some time after Rhythm of War. Jasnah decides it's time to come out as ace to Wit, and she does so in typical Jasnah fashion. He takes it in typical Wit fashion - in stride. They're soft and I'm emotional. Everyone wins. Jasnah POV. Minor warning for mentions of past acephobia. 

Teaser: “Wit,” she said, tone brisk and firm, “We need to talk about sex.”

For a moment she saw surprise tinge his sharp features. Then he blinked and smoothed it away.

“What?” he said, his tone light, “Have I been doing it wrong all these years and no one has thought to tell me until now?”

Link: ao3

Commission Link: Have me write other cosmere characters 

Jasnah settled down on Wit’s bare chest, listening to his heartbeat. He did have a heart. The organ, at least.

That had surprised her the first time they had done this. Though in many ways Wit was deeply human, he was also alien.

There was a depth to him, a knowledge that came only from the thousands of years he had been alive, stalking her planet, and more besides.

At times that daunted her. Looking into his eyes could sometimes feel like looking into an abyss that held the weight of more knowledge than could ever be contained in all the books on Roshar.

History, history from a thousand worlds given life. And he was in her bed at this very moment peering down at her with a haze of sleepy pleasure. That gave her a little thrill of pride and excitement.

Alien and ancient or otherwise, he liked to hold her once they had finished. She had the sense that he craved the tenderness and the humanity of it, to end an act that had always seemed so primal to her with a distinctly human, civilised note.

She didn’t protest. Initially she hadn’t wanted it. It had felt like wasted time. The world was ending and she was cuddling? But, more recently, she had come to acknowledge the benefits of a little rest, of time where she was allowed to simply be. To exist, rather than fighting tooth and nail for each breath.

She suspected that was part of why Wit insisted on it. He kept doing things like that. Making excuses to feed her, or force her to take a break and step away from her work for a moment.

A part of her had balked at that at first, seeing it as a subtle way of him trying to control her. She had shut those fears down. It was not about control, it was about care. And she could let herself be cared for. Sometimes.

Wit stroked his fingers idly through her hair, unbound, pooling around her like a swath of night. Then he threaded their fingers together, deliberately choosing her safehand for the purpose.

He often did things like that, trying to entice or excite her. She worried he was beginning to see it as some sort of challenge or game she was luring him into.

She sighed.

The time had come to speak to him about this. In truth, the time had probably long ago. But, well, she was human. She could admit to a little fear.

In the chaos of everything that had happened over the last year, Wit had been a flurry of his own kind. But it was a kind that felt good rather than terrifying and she...Well she did not have an excellent history with romantic partners and she had feared to lose this.

The time had come, however, when not saying something would do more harm, so she pushed herself up, back against the headboard of the bed, drawing her dressing gown more firmly around herself.

Wit shifted lazily, rolling onto his side and propping himself up on an elbow to look at her.

“Wit,” she said, tone brisk and firm, “We need to talk about sex.”

For a moment she saw surprise tinge his sharp features. Then he blinked and smoothed it away.

“What?” he said, his tone light, “Have I been doing it wrong all these years and no one has thought to tell me until now?”

She eyed him. Each conversation was like a dance, a fight, testing, seeking, pushing one another. She enjoyed it, normally, but tonight...Tonight she just wanted to be open, and honest. No games.

“No,” she said, simply, “You were perfectly satisfactory.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her and she grimaced slightly. That..was probably not the most tactful thing she’d ever said to a partner.

Fortunately he just laughed and kissed her hand, “Jasnah, my dear, you can be wonderfully refreshing at times,” he said.

“As refreshing as a highstorm, you mean?” she said, bluntly, and he smiled again, eyes twinkling.

“Roshar would not have life without them,” he said, lightly.

She sighed again, more heavily this time, and Wit frowned slightly as she rubbed her temples. His expression shifted, and he sat up straighter.

“Jasnah?” he said, a faint note of worry tinging his words for the first time, “Is everything alright?”

“Fine,” she said, waving a vague hand, “It’s still difficult to speak about this. I’ve done it several times in the past, yet it never seems to get any easier. Particularly if one attempts to approach it with any measure of delicacy.”

“Then don’t,” he said simply, taking her hand, “Approach it like the highstorm that you are, Jasnah. I assure you I’ve survived worse.”

She took a deep breath and, not looking at him, said quietly, “I don’t need sex, Wit.”

He frowned slightly, and she braced herself for the quip.

“Don’t need it for what, my dear? For life? Technically none of us needs it, in the basest of terms. We don’t theoretically need wine, either, to survive. But to live? I consider it a necessity.”

“I don’t,” she murmured, and her voice seemed to strangle itself, becoming small.

She hated that, and forced it back to its typical tone and volume with effort as she cleared her throat and continued.

“I don’t need it to feel satisfied with life. I don’t need it to feel satisfied or fulfilled in a relationship. It is not something I have ever found myself wanting, as most other people seem to.”

She drew her knees up to her chest, holding them. A part of her recognised that she did this as a defence mechanism, that it was a very obvious tell that she felt afraid and insecure, which she hated feeling, and hated telegraphing even more. But she couldn’t help it. In that moment, not looking at him, waiting for the storm wall to hit, she needed the comfort it brought her.

Wit moved beside her, sitting up straight, facing her, and when she looked up at him she saw that his face was uncharacteristically serious. He reached out and gently took both of her hands in his. She let him, and he seemed deeply relieved by that. Far too relieved in fact.

She frowned at him as he said, in a tone she had never heard from him before, serious and direct, “Jasnah, you haven’t felt as though I’ve ever-”

“No,” she interrupted him quickly, suddenly understanding what he was worried about.

Then she gave him a flat look that clearly said, ‘do you truly think you could pressure me into doing anything like that?’

The tension in his posture broke and he laughed, then, and said, “You are truly wonderful, Jasnah. I don’t think I’ve seen such a fabulous glare for centuries now. I must study it thoroughly at a later date so as to be able to properly master it when needed.”

She smiled again, some of her own tension bleeding away, though not all.

He scooted over to sit beside her, back against the headboard, legs stretched out comfortably in front of him.

She waited for him to settle himself then said, “This isn’t a problem for you? In our relationship?”

“No,” he said, and though his tone was lighter than it had been earlier, it took on that uncharacteristic serious cast once more for her.

“You surprised me, Jasnah Kholin. You were something on this planet I never expected, and have been delightful in many ways. I won’t pretend that I haven’t enjoyed our physical diversions. But you, and indeed this budding partnership, are worth more to me than the pleasure I can derive from our bodies.”

She nodded absently, then frowned as she realised that he seemed to be perfectly content to continue with her, without question or hesitation.

She had been about to assure him that she was perfectly happy to continue having sex with him, for him. She was not repulsed by it, if she had she would certainly never have entertained it with him. But she had expected to make this point in rebuttal of his disappointment or withdrawal. And he hadn’t done either, which momentarily threw her.

She knew her worth. And she knew that her value as a partner was indeed worth more than the use someone might find for her body.

Other partners had not exactly shared that sentiment in the past.

However fond they had been of her, her disinterest in sex had always put them off. Even if they did not react initially poorly, over time they became frustrated and disappointed, as though they had secretly hoped that she might make an exception for them.

They seemed to take it as a personal slight that she didn’t think about having sex with them every waking moment.

She had never had either the time or the patience for that nonsense, and each time she had walked away without regret. But she would have been lying if she claimed that it hadn’t hurt her, hadn’t made her feel lonely, and alien, even broken, when she’d been younger.

Wit was taking this too well, and she narrowed her eyes slightly at him, trying to determine his angle.

He did not seem the type of man who would take it as a personal insult that she did not crave sex with him. He was arrogant, and he had an ego, but it was of an entirely different sort.

Still, she hadn’t expected his reaction to be, so, well, absent. He was looking at her with the same bright eyes he always did, the same thinly veiled eagerness to see what their companionship would bring, the same intensity and hunger that had simmered between them this past year.

Wit seemed to read her confusion and suspicion in her face, for he reached out and took her hand, her free hand, and squeezed it.

“You are not the first person I’ve met who feels this way, Jasnah,” he said gently. “Indeed, you are not the second, third, or fourth person, either. We would have to climb rather high up the number scale, if you wish to truly and accurately plot yourself.”

“Really?” she said, before she could stop herself.

Logically she knew that she couldn’t be the only person who felt this way. Particularly when one factored in the sheer number of people Wit had known in his life. Statistically it was highly likely that he’d met someone else like her before.

The logic, however, did not prevent the sudden rush of warm emotion at hearing, at knowing, that she was not alone.

Wit smiled at her. A different smile than any she had seen before.

This was the smile of a man who knew the importance of knowledge, the emotion it could bring when used to connect, rather than destroy.

The smile of someone who used that knowledge to bring hope and comfort to people; to bring them together, and help them Connect across realms and ages.

The smile of someone who still found simple joy in using the wealth of his vast experience to bring a simple joy to a frightened girl who had spent so long afraid that she was alone and unlovable.

He squeezed her hands and nodded. Absurdly, she felt her throat tighten, and had to raise her other hand to wipe at her eyes as she felt tears bud in them. Some instinct urged her to pull away from Wit, to not let him see her emotion, the power he had over her with the truth he had just given her.

But she was learning to fight those instincts, and so she turned to him, full on, and let him see her tears, let him see her smile, let him see what a gift he had given her today.

Wit smiled back, warm and genuine, and stayed quiet, with obvious effort, allowing her to have her moment.

A gloryspren winked into existence above her head, and for once she let it manifest in the physical realm, smiling up at it.

After a moment she pulled herself together, taking a deep breath and wiping her eyes, returning to business.

“Have you ever been in a relationship with someone like me, though?” she asked him, tone direct once more.

“No,” he admitted gently, then added, with typical levity, “But I’ve never been tap dancing with a chull, either, and I’d very much like to try that as well. The ability to continue providing me with new experiences even after all this time is one of the cosmere’s greatest gifts and joys, Jasnah.”

She eyed him, judging his sincerity. Somehow, the man sitting there with a twinkle in his eye, talking about tap dancing chulls, seemed more sincere than the others who had initially told her the same, with serious tones, and sombre expressions, only to accuse her of being cold and inhuman some months later.

She eyed him again and he raised an eyebrow at her.

She sighed and admitted, “You’re taking this too well.”

A faint blush stained her cheeks at that and she turned away. It felt so vulnerable to admit that, to admit that she expected him to hurt her. More vulnerable even than it had felt to admit the thing she expected him to use as a weapon against her.

“Jasnah,” he said, quietly, “I won’t pretend that I haven’t enjoyed that aspect of our relationship. You are a beautiful, alluring woman. And for all that you have no inclination towards it yourself, rather talented."

She smirked a little at that. As with most things, she had felt that if she was going to engage in it she may as well at least attain some competence.

“But it was a means to an end, my dear. Pleasure, indeed, but also intimacy, and closeness with you. That is what I truly want.

“I’ve had plenty of sex in my life, Jasnah, I’m quite sure I can survive a few decades without it for a creature as truly incredible as yourself. You are the unique and wonderful experience Roshar has gifted me with. What a fool I would be to throw that aside for the sake of sex.”

"Others in the past have not been as...discerning," she said drily.

"Well, as you yourself are fond of noting, dearest, other people can often be idiots," he said lightly. "Sex is wonderful. A true masterstroke by the cosmere to encourage us all to keep producing children. But I'm fairly sure its lack won't be added to the list of things that have killed me any time soon."

She studied him, so sincere, so lighthearted, then said, bluntly, “I’m not asking you to become celibate for me, Wit. We can have sex again, if you wish.”

He blinked at her, digesting that, then he said curiously, “Do you enjoy it?”

There were no strings to the question. They did not do that with one another, as was openly established early on in their relationship. Questions were welcomed, by both parties, whatever their content, the intent assumed always to be genuine.

She considered the question, truly considered it.

With him, and with a few others, she had engaged in sex because her partner had desired it, and she had wanted to do something for them.

Rather as she might prepare a meal she was not altogether fond of, but which she knew was their favourite. If she prepared meals.

“Yes,” she said, finally, “It is pleasurable for me, when done correctly,” she added with a frown of irritation.

In her experience, that was certainly not always the case. Wit, for all his flaws, could never be accused of being stingy with the attention he gave her. In every aspect of their relationship.

"As I imagine it can be for most people. Though likely not as intense and consuming as it is for others, I’ve gathered. And then there’s of course the fact that-”

She broke off, actually blushing noticeably for the first time in approximately a decade.

Wit’s face split into a wide, almost wicked grin.

“Come now, Jasnah," he said, waggling a finger at him, "A highstorm does not hold back its rains, you should not hold back your insightful and unique pearls of wisdom on the human condition. Least of all in my presence. I simply won’t have it,” he said, prodding her with a finger in a spot that he knew she was ticklish.

She actually growled at him, and he stopped at once, though he did laugh as he did so. Insufferable bastard.

She sighed and said, “Sex is pleasurable, but it’s not a pleasure that I can’t achieve myself more easily, with much less mess and fuss, and a good deal less complex emotional baggage attached.”

Wit laughed again at that, loud and full, and she found herself smiling in spite of herself.

Knowing he would enjoy it, she continued, layering an analogy onto the idea.

“It’s rather like attending a feast when you’re already full. The food still tastes nice, even if you didn’t particularly want it. But wouldn’t it have been far simpler, faster, and less likely to cause a headache had you simply taken a private meal in your chambers and skipped the fuss?”

As she had hoped, that caused him to laugh harder. Wit enjoyed an apt metaphor, particularly if it was original. Or as original as it could be to someone with his life experience.

He leaned in and gently kissed her temple, “You are a true delight, Jasnah. A highstorm that invests me with such joy and wonder, even as it attempts to bludgeon me with the force of its will.”

She raised an eyebrow at him as he coaxed her back down into a more relaxed posture, the two of them lying down once more, their legs lazily entwined, his fingers in her hair again.

“Too far?” he asked, lightly, as she settled back into place.

Wit liked flowery language, in all areas of life, but particularly in complimenting her.

She'd made the mistake of telling him, flatly, that it was nauseating.

He'd spent a solid month afterwards composing the most outrageous quips and lines of flattery, which had included multiple pieces of poetry sprung on her without warning.

Finally losing patience, she had soulcast all six pages of the final one into crystal and thrown it at him.

He had laughed, and they had come to an agreement regarding a comfortable level of tolerable flirtation and flattery from him.

“You’re a faint breeze away from ending up at the bottom of a chasm,” she told him flatly.

He smiled, “You may need to think of something with more threat to it, my dear,” he said. “You know perfectly well that if a faint breeze did topple my hapless person into a chasm I’d only crawl out of it a day later far more annoying than when I’d plunged in.”

“Hm, with a tap dancing chull in tow, no doubt” she deadpanned in response, resting her head against his chest once more.

She felt the laugh vibrate through his ribs this time. It was a strange sensation, but not an unpleasant one.

He sobered again a moment later and said, “I’ll need to leave again, in the next few days. There’s somewhere else I must be. Something that proves even more irresistible than your delicious tongue, my dear.”

She nodded without comment. He did this, disappearing for sometimes weeks at a time. He had done it even when he’d acted as Elhokar’s Wit, and she’d had no illusions at all that she would be able to dissuade him of it. He always came back, typically just before she truly needed him. That was enough. She'd long since given up asking where he went.

She did appreciate that he’d started giving her some warning that he was going to vanish on her, however.

“I would like to discuss this further when I return,” he said, thoughtfully, fingers still carding absently through her hair, “I understand, and appreciate, your willingness to continue experiencing the true wonders my tongue can perform in physical matters, as well as mental,” she rolled her eyes, but he pressed on, apparently without noticing, “But I would like to have an open conversation, establish some rules, some tweaks to our relationship going forwards to allow it to blossom as it may.”

She smiled against him, “That would be wise, and appreciated,” she said slowly.

It still hadn't sunk in that he was so...Accepting of this. People usually had a broad range of reactions to her. Acceptance was rarely one of them.

Then, with more reluctance than she ever thought she would feel doing so, she pushed herself out of his arms and stood.

“I have work that must be attended to tonight, casualty reports from the latest battle, maps I wish to review before the strategy conference in the morning,” she said, adjusting her robe.

Wit propped himself up in bed and eyed her. She knew that he thought she should sleep, that she worked herself too long, and too hard. He had warned her about the dangers of relying on Investiture to push her body beyond its natural capabilities. Indeed, she had chided several of the younger Radiants with similar warnings, and forced them to rest.

But for herself? This had been her burden to bear for almost twenty years, now. She had already given so much of herself to it, and felt that it was still not enough, that this was a piece of advice she found it difficult to take.

He opened his mouth, and she expected him to protest, to urge her to return to bed with him, perhaps with some crass quip. Instead, he said, “How can I help?”

She smiled, and asked if he would fetch her copies of the maps from the room they used for study and preparation.

He pressed a small kiss to her cheek before moving off to do as she’d requested. Watching him go, she felt a faint stir of warmth inside her. Rather like the feeling she had when drawing in Stormlight.

The world was ending. They were embroiled in the midst of a centuries long war with the destructive embodiment of hatred, bent on their capitulation and eventually destruction. But in that moment, she allowed herself to be human, to be vulnerable, and open, and flawed.

In that moment, Jasnah allowed herself to be cared for. She allowed herself to be wanted, in a way she never truly believed she could be. She allowed herself to remember why they fought, why she had given so much of herself to saving this world. She allowed herself to live, for just a moment, before she returned to the fight.

***

A/N: Look I didn’t expect this ship to happen to me either but hey! That’s just how life works in the year of or lord brandon sanderson 2020 so what can you do??????? He makes Jasnah happy and evidently that’s good enough for the rat brain. Except more fic at a later date bc I have 0 self control. 

[catrasredemption-moved]

Just wanted to say this because of the Catra redemption talk: My abuser had been the victim of long term, severe and complex abuse. They were very young when they took on the enormous responsibility of managing my family. They ignored their own true needs and mental health and subsequently continued the cycle largely to feel more powerful and in control when they were actually hanging on by a thread, sound familiar?

Learning to like Catra was a struggle for me, but she’s now one of my favourite characters. If not my most favourite. Why? Because she made the choice to be better. She reached out even when she knew people had every reason to reject her. She did as much as she could to really look at herself and listen and think about how she needed to change. It wasn’t for power or control or to stick it to someone, but because she had wants and needs and was able to allow herself to be vulnerable enough to address them honestly. She started to show who she truly was, playful, protective and true to her values. If you know what to look for, these things are demonstrated with meticulous detail. Especially her recovery being a difficult process of two steps forward and one step back.

Healing relationships where abuse has been present is difficult. Often impossible. Forgiving someone who has been abusive to you is a personal decision and frequently based on the quality or depth of the relationship before the abuse started. But someone who genuinely works on themselves and starts to change should be given the time and space to do so. They aren’t owed relationships with the people they hurt, but we, the abused, have every right to allow them back into our lives if we feel safe enough to take the chance. That’s why I forgave Catra. I wanted to give her the chance and she didn’t disappoint me. That’s why I support other people forgiving her, even after everything she did.

This was a very nice, if somewhat bittersweet ask to get at the end of the night. I’m going to continue under the cut,but basically, lots of talk with my own abusive experiences.

My mom and stepfather gaslighted me for most of my life. Made me feel like an inconvenience, like a leech that just sucked life and money out of them, like I was worthless because I couldn’t contribute, to the point where I am now married and still worry about “wasting” food (wasting being eating food).

While still living with them, I got into a relationship with a girl. Let’s call her V. She was... complicated. We found out later she had undiagnosed and untreated borderline personality disorder, and it made her downright vicious. She’d lash out at me if I was out of contact for more than five minutes, even if I was at work or spending time with friends. And none of this was out of nowhere - she was also emotionally and psychologically abused by her parents.

Full disclosure, I was in love with V, and I kept giving her chances. We broke up four times in the span of a year, always initiated by her pushing me away before I could leave her, then coming back a few months later, usually after catching up to see how I’m doing on Tumblr, then initiating conversation. She’d acknowledge how terrible she was, apologize, promise to change, to be better again.

Our last and by far messiest breakup was April 2015, mostly because I finally grew a backbone and told her I was tired of her fucking games, and to never contact me again. I blocked her everywhere I could think of and cut off any access she might have to me. I even changed my tumblr url just so she couldn’t accidentally find me again. I knew this was the final final final final breakup, and I was exhausted and depressed, and felt like I was going to be alone forever.

Fast forward to October, I’m tentatively dating a new girl - call her Shai - and I have vague hopes that maybe she’ll work out. She’s smart and she’s funny and she already knows my last relationship broke me, and she’s willing to take it slow.

Then one day I get an email from V, because of course email is the one thing I didn’t think to block. She was writing to let me know that she was trying to get her shit together, she was on medication, she was going to therapy, she was building a support system that wouldn’t be on one person’s shoulders. So I gave her a chance. I told her I had a girlfriend and that I would, under no circumstances, consider dating her again. She understood. She still understands. We’re still friends now, five years later. Because she for real, actually put the work in to try and be a better person. Shai - now my wife - knows I’m friends with her and is supportive, because she also knows what it’s like to be a deep dark hole that almost drives everyone away, so as long as V doesn’t fuck with me, we’re good.

And to be clear, I was no angel during those miserable four attempts at a relationship. Especially toward the end I started getting angry and lashing out and standing up for myself.

And, like you, I think this is why I appreciate Catra as a character so much. Because I’ve seen the real time struggle of someone who just doesn’t know how to take care of herself and handle her emotions, and how absolutely self-destructive that can be. But Catra takes that first step forward and tries. And Adora accepts her, for all her mistakes, and all her flaws, and cares so deeply for her. And if Adora wants to forgive her, then good. It just goes to show how unbreakable their friendship really is

PS - V and I still talk. Usually random two-line conversations here and there, but they’re funny and nice and natural and feel like friendship. She’s still working so hard every day to be a better person. And I see so much of her in Catra, so I might be a little biased. Catra’s trying, and Adora wants to help her try. and... honestly, I feel like that’s the moral of the story. If someone truly wants to change, you can choose to shut the door your mental health, and that’s fine. Or you can reach out and give the person another chance. It’s all your choice.

Anyway my meds have kicked and now I’m really tired so I hope some ounce of this made sense. Thank you for ending my night with this, though

[agentrouka-blog]

Jon and Ygritte - rotten moral code? Nah, just setting up Jonsa.

If there is one thing that had me uncertain if Jon is good enough for my Darling Angel Sansa, it’s this:

He could feel the throb of pain where her arrow had gone through the meat and muscle of his thigh. He remembered the old man's eyes too, and the black blood rushing from his throat as the storm cracked overhead. But he remembered the grotto best of all, the look of her naked in the torchlight, the taste of her mouth when it opened under his. Ygritte, stay away. Go south and raid, go hide in one of those roundtowers you liked so well. You'll find nothing here but death. (ASOS, Jon VII)

Gosh, it was sure bad when she murdered that innocent, unarmed old man. But wow, what a hottie. “Go south and raid”? Raid?? Seriously, you want her to kill even MORE innocent people because it’s such swell fun for her? What the hell is wrong with you??

Ygritte was much in his thoughts as well. He remembered the smell of her hair, the warmth of her body . . . and the look on her face as she slit the old man's throat. You were wrong to love her, a voice whispered. You were wrong to leave her, a different voice insisted. He wondered if his father had been torn the same way, when he'd left Jon's mother to return to Lady Catelyn. He was pledged to Lady Stark, and I am pledged to the Night's Watch. (ASOS, Jon VI)

Wrong to leave her. Hm. Yeah. If that’s your preferred lifestyle, Jon. By all means. 

And, dude, I get that your relationship with Catelyn was very painful and that you never even met your mother, but that comparison is just insulting to BOTH women. And Ned. By all the Seven, get a grip, Jon.

"Who is Ygritte?" Donal Noye asked pointedly.

"A woman of the free folk." How could he explain Ygritte to them? She's warm and smart and funny and she can kiss a man or slit his throat. "She's with Styr, but she's not . . . she's young, only a girl, in truth, wild, but she . . ." She killed an old man for building a fire. His tongue felt thick and clumsy. The milk of the poppy was clouding his wits. "I broke my vows with her. I never meant to, but . . ." It was wrong. Wrong to love her, wrong to leave her . . . "I wasn't strong enough. The Halfhand commanded me, ride with them, watch, I must not balk, I . . ." His head felt as if it were packed with wet wool. (ASOS, Jon VI)

This is one of the few things I find deeply, deeply disconcerting about Jon. This willingness to overlook the murder of an innocent man, to let it be overshadowed by the memory of, essentially, her naked chest. 

Jon Boy, I get that you were a love-starved little bastard weasel and you miss the intimacy of a relationship, but she is literally a cold-blooded killer. And she treated you like a possession. How are you justifying this. 

Seriously, the only saving grace here is that Jon is maybe 15 or 16 and emotionally starved and has zero experience with what a good relationship would be like. Ygritte was neither particularly warm, nor smart (AT ALL!) and I cannot judge the funny. But she most certainly was a violent, murdering invader. And Jon really really really wants to be in denial about that. 

At the worst, this tells us Jon is extremely superficial in his core values. A sham of a character. But that doesn’t gel with what we’ve seen of him elsewhere.

At best, however, this underlines how very very very much Jon longs to be loved, how much it will mean to him when he experiences it. This is the only interpretation that ameliorates his moral failure here just a little bit. This angle also gives us a glimpse into the future.

We already saw Jon mature a lot over the course of AFFC and ADWD. He does still refer to Ygritte in his head as a mentor. But the romantic relationship fades far into the background. He has better priorities, but that longing for love is likely not dead. 

GRRM is obviously setting up something to do with Dany, here. Violent invader open to romance… It’s Dany. GRRM either means to create plausible doubt about Jon’s true feelings if he wants to toy with the reader about political!Jon, OR to set up another bout of actual denial if Jon is bound to Dany on an honest, emotional level.

But. 

The first option will be tricky to pull off, without erasing Jon’s POV for far too long, so why bother for just one short-term surprise? It’d be as bad as the show. GRRM is better than that.

If it was the second option played straight, I would lose all my respect for Jon. And I would find it boring. It would mean that Jon has literally not grown, at all. It would mean that whatever relationship he develops with whatever Stark he encounters before Dany - Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon, Benjen, I don’t even care - would not have enough depth to outweigh whatever an emotionally stunted child woman (fascinating character arc, but really, she’s not that interesting on an interpersonal level) can offer him. He would be as ignorant about a proper relationship as he had been with Ygritte. As willing to compromise basic moral standards for emotional comfort and a good time between the sheets.

Or GRRM is simply setting up a contrast.

The fact THAT Jon was having these extremely questionable impulses of bargaining when it comes to Ygritte’s character back when he was a wee little stupid baby, actually makes me fairly confident that he won’t struggle so hard do the same with Dany when he encounters her as a “man grown”. 

Because there would be absolutely nothing interesting about Ygritte 2.0. with dragons. Murdering invader who looks good naked, yay! My family disapproves: what surprising, heart-rending tension. She kills people but she is so pretty: what inner turmoil. She is miraculously pregnant with the fruit of our incest, but I love her, it’s all good. Go south and raid, Dany Darling! I am aghast by your killings but, gosh, so torn because you are so full of.. um.. yeah. No.

But it would be very interesting to see Jon understand the difference between a good and a bad relationship. To track his actual growth by seeing him reevaluate what he thought he knew with what he learns. To see him struggle not with melodramatic denial but with guilt for an emotionally vulnerable monster, and with horror when he discovers she is possibly much cleverer and even more dangerous than he even thought. 

Basically, what would be much more interesting, would be Jon underestimating her, rather than being in denial. Being in denial about Dany’s nature, or bargaining over it, makes Jon a boring, repetitive fool. Underestimating how far she will go, while being fully aware of her nature, that’s the stuff of horrifying surprises.

But in order for Jon to mature emotionally to such a degree, he will first have to experience a relationship that is not abusive but nourishing, and feel loved and accepted. Not even necessarily romantic, but simply close, positive, trusting. And in order to do it in an interesting, non-redundant way that shows us something we have not seen before, it almost HAS to be Sansa. Which brings us back to how very very very much Jon craves just such a thing. So much he was willing to downplay the vile horror that is murdering innocent people because the person who did it had “loved” him and he wasn’t ready to let go of that.

Arya, Bran, Benjen, Rickon, all the Starks already love him. It’s Sansa who’s a mystery box in terms of interaction. Basically, their relationship, in order to set Jon up on a trajectory to stay interesting, has to be a very positive one. It doesn’t have to be perfect, obviously, but overall very positive. Warm, funny, smart. Life-affirming. Embracing.

And unless Jaime-Cersei-Brienne is supposed to be the apex of romantic tension in the books (Love Arianne, but she is not “big” enough to carry the books on her amazing shoulders.) then Jonsa is basically inevitable. 

There is simply not enough emotional tension in a platonic Stark family v. Targ family feud. Certainly not between the Starklings. Why have two Stark sisters unless Jon’s relationship with them is going to be markedly different? Especially with the level of importance weddings and babies have carried up to now. It is literally inevitable that romance will be central. Even if GRRM means to end it tragically, which I don’t think he will, Jonsa will have to be a thing, a BIG THING in order to provide emotional growth for Jon, a contrast to his relationships with Ygritte and Dany, a pay-off for all of Sansa’s romantic disasters and - obviously - for RLJ. Because only Jonsa is unlocked by the reveal of that secret. Because Jon’s main arc is not the road to Targaryen kingship. It’s the road to home and family. There is only one thing in that direction that RLJ makes possible: marry a Stark. And there is nothing to be gained by Jonrya, their love was already perfect. And he probably can’t continue the Stark line by marrying Bran. Just saying. 

In order for Jon’s questionable, immature thoughts about Ygritte’s murdering actions to lead anywhere at all, he will have to overcome them. The most interesting way for him to do that would be by experiencing an actual, positive love story, where he doesn’t have to be in denial about his lover’s vicious nature, and experience actual acceptance and tenderness. You know, that exotic stuff where you’re not threatened with violence, called stupid, angrily yelled at for disagreeing, being shown zero interest in the things you care about… You know, the kind where you don’t have to commit or condone murder in order to be loved. Where someone might actually, I don't know, try and pull you away from the murderous brink. 

So, out of the darkness of those horrifying Jon thoughts about Ygritte, I kind of draw a lot of hope for Jon’s future. 

[96thdayofrage]

The anti-racism consulting industry does deserve both some sympathy and some credit. Its intention, to prod white Americans into more awareness of their own racism, is beneficent. And their premise that white people are often unaware of the degree to which racial privilege has enabled their success, which they can mistakenly attribute entirely to merit and effort, is correct. American society is shot through with multiple overlapping systems of racial bias — from exposure to harmful pollution to biased policing to unequal access to education to employment discrimination — that in combination sustain massive systemic inequality.

But the anti-racism trainers go beyond denying the myth of meritocracy to denying the role of individual merit altogether. Indeed, their teaching presents individuals as a racist myth. In their model, the individual is subsumed completely into racial identity.

One of DiAngelo’s favorite examples is instructive. She uses the famous story of Jackie Robinson. Rather than say “he broke through the color line,” she instructs people instead to describe him as “Jackie Robinson, the first Black man whites allowed to play major-league baseball.”

It is true, of course, that Robinson was not the first Black man who was good enough at baseball to make a major-league roster. The Brooklyn Dodgers decided, out of a combination of idealism and self-interest, to violate the norm against signing Black players. And Robinson was chosen due to a combination of his skill and extraordinary personality that allowed him to withstand the backlash in store for the first Black major leaguer. It is not an accident that DiAngelo changes the story to eliminate Robinson’s agency and obscure his heroic qualities. It’s the point. Her program treats individual merit as a myth to be debunked. Even a figure as remarkable as Robinson is reduced to a mere pawn of systemic oppression.

One way to understand this thinking is to place it on a spectrum of thought about race. On the far right is open white supremacy, which instructs white people to fight for their interests as white people. (Hence the 14-word slogan, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”) Moving to the left, standard-issue conservatism tends to discount the existence of racism and treat all problems in pure color-blind terms, as though racism has been banished. To the left of that is standard liberalism, which acknowledges the existence of racism as a problem that complicates simple race-neutral solutions.

The ideology of the racism-training industry is distinctively to the left of that. It collapses all identity into racial categories. “It is crucial for white people to acknowledge and recognize our collective racial experience,” writes DiAngelo, whose teachings often encourage the formation of racial affinity groups. The program does not allow any end point for the process of racial consciousness. Racism is not a problem white people need to overcome in order to see people who look different as fully human — it is totalizing and inescapable.

Of course, DiAngelo’s whites-only groups are not dreamed up in the same spirit as David Duke’s. The problem is that, at some point, the extremes begin to functionally resemble each other despite their mutual antipathy.

I want to make clear that when I compare the industry’s conscious racialism to the far right, I am not accusing it of “reverse racism��� or bias against white people. In some cases its ideas literally replicate anti-Black racism.

Glenn Singleton, president of Courageous Conversation, a racial-sensitivity training firm, tells Bergner that valuing “written communication over other forms” is “a hallmark of whiteness,” as is “scientific, linear thinking. Cause and effect.”

This is not some idiosyncratic oddball notion. The African-American History Museum has a page on whiteness, which summarizes the ideas that the racism trainers have brought into relatively wide circulation.

“White” values include things like “objective, rational thinking”; “cause and effect relationships”; “hard work is the key to success”; “plan for the future”; and “delayed gratification.” The source for this chart is another, less-artistic chart written by Judith Katz in 1990. Katz has a doctorate in education and moved into the corporate consulting world in 1985, where, according to her résumé, she has “led many transformational change initiatives.” It is not clear what in Katz’s field of study allowed her to establish such sweeping conclusions about the innate culture of white people versus other groups.

One way to think through these cultural generalizations is to measure them against its most prominent avatar for racial conflict, Donald Trump. How closely does he reflect so-called white values? The president hardly even pretends to believe that “hard work” is the key to success. The Trump version of his alleged success is that he’s a genius who improvises his way to brilliant deals. The realistic version is that he’s a lazy heir who inherited and cheated his way to riches, and spends most of his time watching television. Trump is likewise incapable of delayed gratification, planning for the future, and regards “objective rational thinking” with distrust. On the other hand, Barack Obama is deeply devoted to all those values.

Now, every rule has its exceptions. Perhaps the current (white) president happens to be alienated from the white values that the previous (Black) president identified with strongly. But attaching the values in question to real names brings to life a point the racism trainers seem to elide: These values are not neutral at all. Hard work, rational thought, and careful planning are virtues. White racists traditionally project the opposite of these traits onto Black people and present them as immutable flaws. Jane Coaston, who has reported extensively on the white-nationalist movement, summarizes it, “The idea that white people are just good at things, or are better inherently, more clean, harder working, more likely to be on time, etc.”

In his profile, Bergner asked DiAngelo how she could reject “rationalism” as a criteria for hiring teachers, on the grounds that it supposedly favors white candidates. Don’t poor children need teachers to impart skills like that so they have a chance to work in a high-paying profession employing reasoning skills?

DiAngelo’s answer seems to imply that she would abolish these high-paying professions altogether:

“Capitalism is so bound up with racism. I avoid critiquing capitalism — I don’t need to give people reasons to dismiss me. But capitalism is dependent on inequality, on an underclass. If the model is profit over everything else, you’re not going to look at your policies to see what is most racially equitable.”

(Presumably DiAngelo’s ideal socialist economy would keep in place at least some well-paid professions — say, “diversity consultant,” which earns her a comfortable seven-figure income.)

Singleton, likewise, proposed evolutionary social changes to the economy that would render it unnecessary to teach writing and linear thought to minority children. Bergner writes:

I asked whether guiding administrators and teachers to put less value, in the classroom, on capacities like written communication and linear thinking might result in leaving Black kids less ready for college and competition in the labor market. “If you hold that white people are always going to be in charge of everything,” he said, “then that makes sense.” He invoked, instead, a journey toward “a new world, a world, first and foremost, where we have elevated the consciousness, where we pay attention to the human being.”

Whether or not a world along these lines will ever exist, or is even possible to design, is at best uncertain. What is unquestionably true is that these revolutionary changes will not be completed within the lifetime of anybody currently alive. Which is to say, a program to deny the value of teaching so-called white values to Black children is to condemn them to poverty. Unsurprisingly, Bergner’s story shows two educators exposed to the program and rebelling against it. One of them, Leslie Chislett, had to endure some ten anti-racism training sessions before eventually snapping at the irrationality of a program that denigrates learning. “The city has tens of millions invested in A.P. for All, so my team can give kids access to A.P. classes and help them prepare for A.P. exams that will help them get college degrees,” she says, “and we’re all supposed to think that writing and data are white values?”

Ibram X. Kendi, another successful entrepreneur in the anti-racism field, has a more frontal response to this problem. The achievement gap — the long-standing difference in academic performance between Black and white children — is a myth, he argues. The supposed gap merely reflects badly designed tests, he argues. It does not matter to him how many different kinds of measures of academic performance show this to be true. Nor does he seem receptive to the possibility that the achievement gap reflects environmental factors (mainly worse schools, but also access to nutrition, health care, outside learning, and so on) rather than any innate differences.

Kendi, like DiAngelo, argues that racism must be defined objectively. Intent does not matter, only effect. Their own intentions are surely admirable. But the fact is that their insistence on denying that America provides its Black children worse educations inhibits working toward a solution. Denying the achievement gap, like denying the gap in how police treat white and Black people, seems to objectively entrench racism.

It’s easy enough to see why executives and school administrators look around at a country exploding in righteous indignation at racism, and see the class of consultants selling their program of mystical healing as something that looks vaguely like a solution. But one day DiAngelo’s legions of customers will look back with embarrassment at the time when a moment of awakening to the depth of American racism drove them to embrace something very much like racism itself.

[wholeanimal]

Quietly Shitty Men

“There is a specific type of person who will siphon the gas right from you because they’ve never learned how to shine their own light.” My ex is engaged.  That shouldn’t bother me, should it?  Oh, but it does.  It bothers me because I saw it coming.  Tell me, what makes a woman “crazy”? Is it when she follows her own instincts? Or is it when she suppresses them? Is she crazy for sensing something is wrong, or crazy for acting like it?  It would be one thing if this was someone new. Good luck and God bless.  It would be another if he said, at any point in the relationship, how he felt. That he was anxious or nervous or angry or scared or hurt or apprehensive or lost. You know, feelings.  I can’t blame a person for having feelings. Had he stepped up and said “you know what, I can’t stop thinking about my ex, I want to give it another try with her.”  That would have been fine. Not in the moment, but nine months later, I wouldn’t be feeling like this. Feeling like I’ve just clicked the last piece of the puzzle into place. 

It wasn’t me. It was, obviously, never me.  I wouldn’t still be putting myself back together after riding the world’s shittiest, least exciting roller coaster.  I wouldn’t be having nightmares that I was somehow still dating him, still subjected to his unfortunately not unique brand of emotionlessness and quiet disdain. Like I was the freak for feeling.  When things were really, truly over, that’s when I learned the most about who he was. I remember sitting at the kitchen counter, having a silent panic attack, wondering where I was going to live, what I was going to do, how I was going to make this all work. The pandemic and riots had hit my neighborhood hard, and I was trying to imagine starting life over when everything else was figuratively and literally crumbling.  Granted, I can’t remember the conversation word-for-word, but this is my best attempt.  “What’s going on?”  “Nothing, I’m just freaking out.” “Why?” “I have to move. I have to start over. I have to figure out so many things.” “Yeah, well...” “What?” “I just don’t know why you’re so upset.” “Are you fucking serious?” “Yeah. I don’t know why you have to have so many emotions.”  “Do you mean now, or in general?” “In general.” I was about ready to fly apart.

“You don’t...understand...why I have EMOTIONS?”  ”Yeah. I guess I just don’t see the point.” I don’t remember much after that. I remember going back upstairs and crying so hard I vomited. So much made sense: it wasn’t that he couldn’t empathize with me. It’s that he saw no value in it. Only his emotions were valid. Anything beyond that was simply not worth caring about. It was chilling, and nauseating, and heartbreaking. My heart broke many times over the course of the month I spent living there after we decided to part ways. I had several conversations like this, where I realized just how long I had been having a one-sided relationship. It also made me feel white-hot, clench-fisted RAGE. How DARE he?  NOTHING about his daily life would change. He would wake up in the same bed, go down the same set of stairs, putz around his merry fucking way. He wouldn’t have to spend a dollar or dime sorting out what came next. Me, on the other hand? I lost my job the same day I found my apartment.  I wanted to claw the paint from the walls I had meticulously restored. I wanted to splinter the floors I had paid to have refinished. I wanted to take all this hard work with me, somehow, to show that I had not truly given up everything. That I had something left. I’m not writing this for you to feel bad about me. I’m more than fine.  I’m not looking for words of encouragement. I don’t need them.  I want him, and other quietly shitty men, held accountable.  Nothing my ex did was actually abusive. It was juuuuust under the line, just enough for him to be able to walk away with his hands up, all “Guess it just didn’t work out!” And I know, I KNOW I’m not the only one.  He made me feel crazy and stupid and weak and small and pathetic. I contorted myself into impossible shapes, trying to make the relationship work. I did things he would never do, that I would never do again. I moved across the country. Twice.  I downplayed all the porn he watched. I pushed the fact that he had an active FetLife account out of my mind. I ignored my dealbreaker about being with a smoker - something he claimed he quit, then started up again in secret, then held against me when I called him out. Making me the bad guy.  It got so bad, I suspected I had R-OCD, or relationship-based OCD. That was my only explanation for how I was always so anxious and he was always so calm. It was MY fault that something felt off. He was aware of my tendency to blame myself, and used it against me. Then, he would get to be the patient, understanding boyfriend while I broke down again and again, hating myself for being so “weak.” I wasn’t weak. He was keeping me in the dark on purpose, because it was easier to do that than to, I don’t know, be fucking honest?! 

Every time I got really bent out of shape, when the little slights and coldness and disdain had built up to a breaking point, he would let me say (or scream) my piece, and respond: “You’re right.”  Wow. Thanks!  I see now that you don’t have to do much work on yourself when you just agree with the person who is upset with you.  I’m also not writing this to paint myself as an angel. Yes, I was frustrated and confused and upset, which came out in outbursts of tears and anger. But the difference is, I was trying to connect with him in everything I did.  He was trying to push me away. it dawned on me, during one of those horrible post-breakup conversations, that he had fully checked out many months ago. I finally asked him to define a phrase I had heard him use during couples counseling (another suggestion of mine). “What do you mean by ‘I’m deeply invested in your happiness?’” “What?” “Well, like an investment, do you mean time, money, emotions? Or do you just want me to be ok?” “Yeah, that.” “Ok. so you just want me to be “okay”.” I’ll take “Performative Allyship” for 200! I’ve told myself I should have known. Should have left sooner. Should-ing myself to death, sparing him from any fault. Remember, he’s the long-suffering partner of an overly sensitive woman. Another wince-worthy excerpt from couples counseling: Our therapist asked us, at the end of a session, to each tell the other something we loved about the other person. I turned, with tears in my eyes, and told him I appreciated how consistent he was. I was always able to count on him being stable and calm.  He told me he liked how nice and clean I kept the house.  Cool! He could have saved himself about six months of this bullshit if he had just spoken his mind. I wonder, now, if he even had the capacity. But no, he preferred to wait and let me figure it out on my own, until I was so depleted that I was having almost nonstop migraines. But, just like the sibling who can’t get into trouble because they’re “NOT ACTUALLY TOUCHING YOU!!!”, nothing he did was exactly abusive.  But it was plenty shitty.  Mr. Social Justice. Mr. Feminism. Mr. Don’t Comment On That Topic Or I’ll Shut Down Emotionally. Mr. We Have To Move Away From Montana For Vague Reasons Including Racial Tension Which I Never Actually Experienced But That’s Reason Enough For Me!  And when we got to Philadelphia, it was Mr. Why Don’t You Take More Walks Outside Even Though You Get Harassed and Followed? You’re In The House Too Much (Yeah, Even Though It’s a Pandemic).  He’d spend hours on the phone talking to the nurses he helped at work. But when a woman in need lived in his own house, ew, gross! Too close to home!  There’s a line in a very funny Chris Fleming song called the “Grad Student Shuffle”, which takes the absolute piss out of white male graduate students. A few of the lines apply, but these especially: Call yourself a community organizer Even though you’re not on speaking terms with your roommates! Stand tall and look mindful Even though you're addicted to porn! C'mon! Now close your eyes Say fair enough "Fair enough" Now you are doing the Grad Student Shuffle I’ve gone back and added to this post a bunch of times since I wrote it. I like having a record, even if it’s one-sided. I realize I’m writing this as much for myself as I am for anyone else. To put my story down somewhere, and not to be too concerned if it’s fair or balanced. What happened to me wasn’t fair or balanced.  Which reminds me of the worst confrontation we ever had.  It was just an hour or two after we decided to break up. It was a sad, but quiet conversation. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved. I went upstairs to let the new reality soak in, and asked if I could steal a puff from his vaporizer. Not weird, right? What was weird was that I felt like a guest in his room. We kept separate bedrooms, which I highly recommend to any couple who can spare the space. But there is a difference between having the option of separate spaces, and feeling relegated to separate spaces. I didn’t feel welcome in his room, and he made no secret of it.  So, as usual, I asked to go in.  He had left his laptop open on the bed, and I stared off into space as I waited for the vaporizer to heat. I must note, here, that I am not a person who digs. I will run circles in my own brain, but by and large, i leave stuff alone. So I didn’t go looking for what was already on the screen, which was a conversation between him and his best friend.  I read maybe a couple sentences before realizing, oops, probably shouldn’t. It was enough to see one exchange, less than two hours after we had officially broken up. “That sucks, man. How long do you think til you’ll be back on Tinder?” “I don’t know. Probably before she moves out.”  I’d like to say I don’t remember what happened next, but I do remember. I marched down two flights of stairs, yanked two giant plastic bins out of basement storage, and rage-packed everything I owned outside of my own room in less than ten minutes. 

He, of course, had no idea. Nuanced as a fucking turtle, he told me he was going out for a walk, and then asked if something was wrong.  I let him have it. Everything that had been building inside of my body came spewing out, all at once. I stumbled over my own words, laughing-crying-screaming-asking him what the fuck he was thinking, who the fuck he was, and what the fuck was this relationship? Was any of it even REAL?  He had nothing to say.  And that, my friends, was my main mistake. Thinking anything I could ever do could ever get a reaction out of him. Could ever draw the sort of love or support or attention that I used to get from him, before he decided to turn off the tap. 

I spent another month there until I could finally move out. I could tell he was annoyed that I was still there. I remember telling him people aren’t disposable. They don’t disappear when you decide you’re done with them. Thirty days was the absolute minimum I could manage, and even that was an incredible feat.  He asked me to watch the dog, the one he adopted only a couple of months before, while he went out. I remember thinking, “Am I watching this animal so he can go out on dates? No fucking way.” I still don’t know, and I’m glad I don’t. 

He’s not the only quietly shitty guy. There are many. I’m sure bunches of them are being congratulated on their engagements or promotions right now, by people who have never dated them. Have never had the soul-wrenching realization that oh, this person who told you you were their dream and their angel and their moon and stars actually decided like a year ago that they just weren’t feeling it and didn’t have the balls to tell you.  But, feel free to question reality in the meantime! 

Women reading this, beware. There are men who hold up their hands and shrug and say shit like “I wish her the best” and know to use phrases like “emotional labor” to fake enough self-knowledge to start a relationship that they don’t know how to finish.  I encourage you to ask questions. Find out how much they know about themselves. How long their relationships tend to last. If their friends really know them. If they change jobs frequently. If they move states frequently, and why.  But most of all, know yourselves. Know that you deserve to have your questions answered, your emotions validated, and your opinions heard. There are plenty of quietly shitty men to choose from.  You don’t need to choose one. 

[fortunatelylori]

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love now and then

Thoughts on Sanditon finale

It is a truth universally acknowledged that you should never blog in anger. Last night’s Sanditon episode left the entire fandom in a state of uproar. Cancelations have been issued. Curses have been cast and tears have been shed … those were mostly mine, to be fair.

For once I decided not to start furiously typing just as the episode ended but wait out the inevitable momentary fury and return to the episode tonight for a second viewing. I have to thank @and-holly-goes-lightly and @kitten1618x for putting up with my temper tantrums late last night on private chat so all of you nice people wouldn’t have to endure my more volcanic outbursts. Being far more reasonable people than I, they pointed out the grayness in a sea of black and white and made me reconsider the episode.

In addition I would advise anyone to do a second viewing of the episode if you haven’t done so yet. Reason being that your first viewing of something that you are so deeply invested in will always be heated. I could hardly pay attention last night to the scenes I was watching because I was so desperate to get to the ending. On top of that, the reality of what you see on screen will fight with the theory you’ve already made in your head and more often than not you end up disliking canon not because it’s bad but because it’s not what you thought you were going to see.

That being said, after a thorough rewatch, I have to declare this episode as one of the finest finales to a season I’ve seen. I say finale to the season, not the series because as a series finale it would be more than a little disappointing. But if there is one silver lining to take from this episode is that we are getting a season 2. I just can’t see how we wouldn’t.

Now, nothing in life, has any business being perfect and this episode wasn’t either. So I will quickly list what I felt were the major flaws so we can proceed to the good stuff of which there is plenty.

Not sparkers of joy

The pacing and structure

It was somewhat rushed. Scenes jumped from one to the other without much preparation (particularly in the first half) and several things were not addressed. People have pointed to the fact that they did not include a Charlotte/Georgiana good-bye scene which I agree was a mistake. In addition, we were presented with a Georgiana and Arthur that were the best of friends even though in episode 7, Georgiana couldn’t stand him. That’s not to say they couldn’t reach this point but I expected to see that journey, not skip it.

Georgiana, on the whole, was odd. Aside from her rebuke of Sidney and conversation with Charlotte which were keeping in line with what she did in episode 7, the rest of her time on screen was perplexing. She was lively, dancing with everyone, huge smile on her face … this being the girl that refused to leave her bedroom a few days before. Again, not saying she couldn’t get to this stage but where did I see how she did that?!?

The whole Sidney/Eliza situation was resolved off screen which … why?!? First we weren’t given the scene of him sending her packing in ep 7 and now we have no idea how he turned that around to the extent that he got himself engaged to her and with the money to save Sanditon, all in a week.

I mean ok, I get that he’s got but ... OK, OK! He’s THAT hot!

There were other examples of shoddy storytelling but those stick out in my mind the most.

The sudden tone shift

The reason why I reacted so badly to the episode to start with was because for 7 hours I was led to believe this was a fluffy, cozy regency romance in the vein of Northanger Abbey or Emma. Sure, things happen to cause momentary sadness but it all gets resolved in the best way by the end of the episode.

Instead the Sanditon finale marked the tone shift from the fluffy to the angst. We are now firmly in Persuasion/Sense&Sensibility territory. It’s still Austen as I will explain below in more detail but I would have appreciated some warning that this is where we were heading.

The specifics of the cliffhanger

Now this is obviously personal preferences but I do have some issues with the manner in which they chose to separate Sidney and Charlotte. Having Sidney propose to Eliza in order to get the money to save Tom from prison does resolve several issues in a very expedient way: it forces the two young lovers apart; it creates angst and anticipation for the next season; it also allows for Charlotte and Sidney to both be victims of the separation and still desperately in love with each other and wanting to get married.

However, the cost is that Sidney is now in the position of doing to Charlotte exactly what Willoughby did to Marianne in Sense and Sensibility. Sidney is obviously not Willoughby and his motives are selfless. But his actions are a play by play of Willoughby’s betrayal: he pursues Charlotte, kisses her on the cliffs (substitute that for Willoughby taking a lock of Marianne’s hair), means to propose to her and then disappears, only to return engaged when a lack of money force him to choose between love and a fortune. 

He even makes a “I don’t love her” confession, similar to Willoughby’s scene with Eleanor. Of course, Sidney tells Charlotte that not to victimize himself like Willoughby but rather because he can’t bare the thought that Charlotte might think he’s done this because he doesn’t love her. But you can see how this kind of narrative choice can really negatively impact Sidney’s character. 

It’s sad that they chose this cliffhanger, particularly since they didn’t need to. I firmly believe that had they ended on a more hopefully note for Charlotte and Sidney we would have tuned in anyway for season 2. I wish they had had more confidence in their story and in their viewers.

But enough of the negative!

Sparks joy

Theme

I have to say that thematically, they hit this finale out of the park. The most important piece of dialogue in this whole episode occurs between Esther and Lady Denham:

Lady Denham: It is infinitely better to be loved than to love. Especially in a marriage.

Esther: You’re speaking from your own experience or someone else’s?

Lady Denham: My own. Not with my husband, of course. It was long before that. A man called Rowley. Some people said he was the handsomest man in all of Somerset. But to me he was the handsomest in the world. And he knew it!

Esther: What happened?

Lady Denham: He kept me dangling for a while. Trembling. Waiting for a look, for a smile, for a tender word … like one of his dogs. And then he up and married a girl from Gloucestershire, with 50.000. He had debts, of course. Couldn’t have afforded to marry me. Should have been obvious to me at the time but … you know what girls are.

May I just say that Anne Ried’s performance in this scene is a treasure trove of skill and emotion? You can just feel the longing and the sadness this story can still elicit from this seemingly cold matriarch. Lady Denham, like all our characters, is more than she seems. She starts off as a Lady Catherine de Bourgh clone and develops into one of the wisest, mot rational people in the show.

She gives Esther excellent advice and is compassionate when she realizes what Edward has been doing to her.

She also gives us our theme for the finale of Sanditon and perhaps of the whole show. Because her speech doesn’t just apply to Esther and her relationship to Edward. It applies to Georgiana’s heartbreak over Otis and Charlotte’s impeding heartbreak at the hands of Sidney. In even more general terms, it speaks to the heartbreak most Austen heroines experience at some point during her novels: 

Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of, and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions - Pride and Prejudice

Her whole speech reminded me of what my mother told me the first time I broke up with someone I loved. She said: “No girl can pass through life without having her heart broken”.

The show telegraphs this home by having the Sidney/Charlotte cliff walk follow immediately after this scene.

We are so distracted by the innocent beauty of Sidney and Charlotte being in love and so mesmerized by their first kiss:

That we fail to take Lady Denham’s warning seriously. And, just like Charlotte, we end up paying the price for it

The Austenverse

Lady Denham also clues us in to where exactly we are within the Austenverse. Many people have claimed that episode 8 marked the moment this stopped being an Austen story because Austen novels always have happy endings:

My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.

Did you think we were just going to skip the “little trouble”part? Sweet summer children! We’re at the moment where Elizabeth finds out Lydia has run off with Wickham and thinks she’s lost Darcy for good. We’re at the moment where Knightly reprimands Emma for treating Miss Bates poorly and leaves for London. We’re at the moment where Anne is forced to join her father in Bath and believes Fredrick will soon marry Louisa Musgrove.

And finally, and most pertinently since this is what Sanditon is trying to emulate, we’re at the moment where Edward’s engagement to Lucy Steele is made public and he and Eleanor say their final good-byes (supposedly).

Austen heroines are never spared heartache. But it is a depiction of heartache that is not gratuitous. It allows the characters to grow, to understand the true depth of their feelings and eventually to value the good fortune they have when it all turns out for the best in the end.

And no novel drives that point home more than Sense and Sensibility and Austen’s Eleanor character, the suffer in silence heroine who pretends she is fine, all the meanwhile dying on the inside. Kind of like this:

Honestly it shouldn’t surprise me that we’ve ended the season on this somber note. Sanditon visually owes a great deal to Davies’ Sense and Sensibility 2008 adaptation. That mini-series had a somewhat different feel to usual Austen productions, particularly in comparison to the 1995 Ang Lee film. It was darker, grittier and had a bit of a western feel to it than Sanditon reproduces to great effect, I think.

So it’s quite understandable, in retrospect, that Charlotte’s character arc would see her start off as a Marianne type character (open, romantic and impulsive) and slowly turn her into Eleanor by the end of the season.

In order to make that transition complete, a lot was asked of Rose Williams and she manages to convey the transformation in one breathtaking shot:

I am deeply, deeply impressed with her acting in this episode, and particularly in this scene. You can literally feel her heart breaking and see the mask that will dominate in the church scene fall into place.

Which brings us to Sidney …

I’ve said it a million times and I can’t help but say it again: Theo James OWNS this character. I don’t know if he simply hasn’t gotten the proper material in his career until now or if there’s something special about Sidney that resonates with him but his acting is so spot on that even when Sidney breaks Charlotte’s heart, behaving like Willoughby as I’ve said, you can’t hate him.

Not when he is the same man who gets chocked up as he tries to propose to Charlotte:

Not when he’s the man who tells her this:

Sidney: I have never wanted to put myself in someone else’s power before. I never wanted to care for anyone but myself.

And not when, with just one look, Theo James is able to convey Sidney’s despair and pain. How can you hate him when he’s clearly breaking himself into tiny pieces over giving Charlotte up?

And how the hell can you hate him when you can hate … this clown instead?

Oh, sorry I meant …

Words cannot describe how much I loathe Tom Parker. Well actually, my new fictional mum comes close to enunciating our common and general distaste:

Lady Denham: I will see you in the debtors prison! I will see you in the poor house! Where are your promises now? Dust and ashes! You might as well have lost my money at the gaming tables! You despicable man!

If only Lady D would have been allowed to go forth with her threat and hand Tom over to the debt collectors. How much happier everyone would be right now!

Unfortunately the Parkers are far too nice for their own good. They all jump in head first, trying to save this sorry excuse for a man. Arthur even offers up his entire inheritance. Tom refuses … Not because he thinks it’s not right for his youngest brother to risk his entire life’s comfort for his unworthy clown’s ass but because … IT’S NOT ENOUGH MONEY!

Tom Parker has amassed 80.000 pounds worth of debts. Luckily Google allows me to illustrate to you exactly what 80.000 pounds meant in 1820s era England:

80.000 pounds could have paid the wages of an immortal skilled worker in perpetuity!!!! And this MORON decided not to ensure it … Apparently, Kris Marshall has said that Tom is the Regency’s version of Steve Jobs … I assume Steve Jobs too let his younger brother prostitute himself for his benefit, after already taking a 3000 pounds “loan” from him and thinking up ways of spending his baby  brother’s inheritance on top of that … Oh, wait! Steve Jobs was a visionary who died a billionaire. Take several sits, Kris!

What really irritates me is that everyone is very quick to absolve Tom of any blame, jump to his defense and in due course Tom, himself, decides he should not be so hard on himself, which is why he is ecstatic when Sidney returns to Sanditon, with the news of his engagement. This is what comes out of Tom Parker’s mouth:

Tom Parker: This is excellent news! Oh, Charlotte, glorious news! Sanditon is saved!

So he knows full well that Sidney has asked Mrs. Campion to marry him in order to save him and he is perfectly willing to let him go through with ruining his life. The saddest part is that the rest of the Parker family goes along with this lunacy.

That includes Mary who already knows that Sidney and Charlotte are in love. Kind and sensible as she might be, Mary decides to turn a blind eye to Sidney’s sacrifice and Charlotte’s pain in order to have her husband safe. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise since she’s the one that told Sidney this back in episode 1:

Sidney: And tomorrow is the famous ball, is it not?

Mary: Tom has been in such a state about it! You will do all you can to help him, won’t you?

I thought I’d mention this since everyone seems to be under the impression that Sidney sacrificing himself for Tom now is a sign of the growth of character Charlotte inspired in him. But it actually isn’t.

Both Tom and Mary make it very clear early on that they relay on Sidney’s help. He’s sort of the third member of their marriage (they do have a painting of him in their entryway) who is there to ensure Tom’s ass is saved from the fire of his own making. And both Tom and Mary are complacent in this.

Sidney choosing to marry Mrs. Campion over Charlotte isn’t a new development in his dedication to his family. It is the end result of years of emotional blackmail and dependency Tom has dished out, and Mary has, most likely unconsciously, supported.

And all of that spells disaster for Sidney who is left closing the door to the coach that will take the love of his life away from him:

I know we are all commiserating with Charlotte over what happened. But I think we should spare Sidney a thought as well. He is ruining his life, his integrity and his happiness for someone who will most likely waste his sacrifice in a matter of months. Add to that Eliza’s behavior at the wedding and it’s pretty safe to say Sidney will pay for the money he will give Tom in every which way possible.

The only glimmer of light in all this unbearable darkness is that Lord Babington (he still doesn’t have a first name … :( ) and Esther are now married. Their wedding is actually very much a visual representation of Austen type country weddings, down to everyone smiling and throwing petals at them:

However even in their case, there are still clouds on the horizon since Esther was pretty clear about not being in love with her husband. She took Lady D’s advice that “ being loved is better than loving: and season 2 will show us if that is enough for her or indeed her husband.

Unfortunately, our two protagonists weren’t as lucky as Lord and Lady Babington. The road ahead for them is hard and filled with angst. There’s bound to be a lot of darkness before the dawn. However, do not despair and listen to the only voice that matters:

Lady Denham: Well, Miss Heywood? You’re still proclaiming your independence? Or is it that none of our young men have taken your fancy? I’ll wager we’ll see you walk down the aisle very soon. What do you say, Mr. Parker?

My fictional mummy is never wrong!

[myownprivate-johnnyutah]

If Found (Chapter 1)

AN: A Fluff-as-Fuck Penpals Story because we’re in a fuckin’ pandemic and I want to write about yearning, goddamnit. I have no outline, no plan and am just going wild with it. 

Synopsis: After losing a notebook in a Brooklyn bar two years ago, Alana Miles has lost a few more things and gained some others. Lost? Her tiny Brooklyn apartment, her first love-turned fiancé, their shared cat. Gained? A small rental house in her hometown, a second book deal, a rescue bulldog and a facelss email pen pal she may or may not be falling for. (AO3)

Wordcount: 1,530

September 2020

It’s a little early to be up for a Saturday, but she cracks open her laptop anyway— careful not to jostle the sleeping bulldog deep snoring across her legs. Alana has tried to let herself sleep in on weekends, lately. With the weekdays full of deadlines, interviews and long calls with her editor normally kicking off before her morning coffee’s kicked in, the few blissful hours of no screens and light-blocking blinds on Saturdays were usually her favorite thing. Usually.

It’s not her fault, though. Because of stupid timezones, there was a message waiting for her that she’d be itching to see and even after years (plural) of back-and-forth emails with her accidental pen pal, the little rush of seeing where the conversation would go next was enough to make her a bit more of a morning person (even when she doesn’t have to be). 

To: Miles2Go@mail.net.

From: KCR@mail.net

Subject: RE: RE: RE: The Not-Divorce is Finalized! 

A, 

Sure, okay, I believe you.

I know you said you were fine and I understand I’m maybe half-obligated by the terms of our friendship to take that at face value and instead pivot to asking you about your day or the book proposal or whether you got around to reading that book I sent you (it’s a chapbook, honestly, and you pretty much read for a living). And I will ask those things. 

But I wanted to add, RE: your point on “closure not even being a fuckin’ real thing” that I’m not sure if I agree. Provided you’re giving yourself the grace to step away and close the chapters, relationships, painful memories in order to open something up, it’s as real as you want to make it. 

But what you’re going through (all of it), it’s draining and exhausting and you’re carrying a lot. Closing a door doesn’t mean everything’s resolved behind the door, just that you’ve resolved to let yourself be on the other side. 

I think you’re brave and good, if that helps. And I hope you’ll read that goddamn chapbook so we can talk about it.  

Yours, 

KC

Welp. That’ll need coffee to respond to, she thought, slowly inching her legs out from under Bruce (who let out an insulted snort before snuffling back into the duvet) and heading out to the kitchen. 

Mug in hand, she made her way out to the porch and took in the fall morning: the lake’s got the beginning reflections of red and orange showing through and the smell of burning leaves (they still do that out here) is already making its way to her door. The tiny one bedroom house she’d been renting is about five minutes from where she grew up (where her parents still live). It’s modest (if maybe cramped) but has big windows, a monthly rent that doesn’t drain her bank account beyond recovery and lets her be close to her mom for doctor’s appointments and long meetings with specialists that she trades off with her sister and brother. 

She leaves the door open a crack, since Bruce is unlikely to last long in the bed alone before stumbling out to his sunny porch bed, and takes a seat on her own “grown-up porch couch” — an oversized wicker basket chair her little brother salvaged from a friends’ student house and spray painted white to look less wretched, paired with some overly fluffy pillows her twin sister bought her. She cracked open her computer again and tried to figure out how she’d respond.

She tried, not infrequently, to picture KC. She was sure he was good looking, despite that name feeling so deeply undignified and childish for a man in his forties. (Or is he fifty by now? A funny thing about surprise pen pals is you never really exchange birthdates or A/S/L — and, in their case, they just went for the emotional jugular). She imagined a doe-eyed John Cusack-type (maybe a bit more “High Fidelity,” actually) or, of course, a Tom Hanks “You’ve Got Mail” has crossed her mind but neither really ever felt right. 

She knew a lot about him, after nearly two years of correspondence. He’s told her about the long scar going up his stomach that he got in a motorcycle accident (how he’ll forget its there even after 20 years); she knows he works in film but simply says “I help people tell lies for a living” when she asks for specifics; she knows he fell in love a few years back, after thinking he was never going to fall in love again (and that he has a gift for emphasizing the sweet of a bittersweet ending) and she know she’s a Virgo with a Cancer moon. He knew a lot about her, too: He knew birds freaked her out, that she was in the middle of final proofs of her first book and the proposal on her second; he knew she broke off an engagement (and thus a relationship spanning nearly all of her 20s) in the last year and reflexively performed being cavalier about it; he knew her mom was sick and that she left the life (the one she secretly wasn’t all that wild about) in Brooklyn to be closer to her.

It’s funny the way these little stories and pieces of ourselves can be assembled to make a person feel so whole and so close, even if they’re thousands of miles away and you’ve never seen their face and you probably wouldn’t have met if it weren’t for the right amount of happy accidents flowing in succession. 

He was her happy accident and, if she were the fate-believing type she’d believe it was some of that kismet that brought him to that Fort Green bar on that rainy afternoon. She’d been transcribing some notes in one of her many junk-ish notebooks (full of story ideas, a few email addresses and phone numbers for sources, a scribbled quote, some ticket stubs and a lone piece of gum between the back pages (whoops) — all organized by chaos) and got a call from Brandon, her then-fiancé reminding her that they’d need to leave their Greenpoint apartment for his department chair’s dinner party on the Upper West Side (a thing she’d forgotten she’d agreed to do) shortly and if she was still stopping to grab the wine. 

In her rush to settle up her tab, scamper to the liquor store next door and procure a fancy-ass bottle for the academic circle jerk, she left the notebook behind. Luckily, she’d remembered to scrawl her email in the front cover that time —she wasn’t going to let some rando find her address!

KC, as he told her later in one of their subsequent emails, found it and “began trying to decipher its many, many mysteries (the gum, for example).” 

She couldn’t be mad, she 100 percent would’ve done the same thing if fate, kismet, the universe’s funky algorithm, who knows, left someone else’s brain-dump to her doorstep. Between that confession (and the charming apology that came with it), the emails just didn’t stop — long after he’d sent the book back. 

Despite this two year friendship, she hasn’t seen his face — and only recently heard his voice. She knows he’s older than her 34 years by a not-small amount.  (He doesn’t have an instagram or a Twitter and when she asked him why he responded “Oh, that. What would I do with that stuff, really?”) And 95% of the time it doesn’t bother her. But then she sees emails like that and thinks of his deep, thoughtful voice (the calm, intentional pauses when he speaks that make everything go soft and quiet over the phone line) and something in her twitches. 

It’s been a long 18 months of being very single and maybe, just maybe it’s messing with her head to have such careful, considerate attention 4-8 (depending on how much they write and how busy they are) times a week. 

To: KCR@mail.net

From: Miles2Go@mail.net.

Subject: Doors Open & Closed — moving on.

KC, 

That poet soul of yours is working overtime today, bud. It’s too early for my icy heart to thaw the way it needs to if I’m going to adequately respond, so take this: I know. You’re right. I’ll try. Thank you. 

And try to let it be the end of this for now. 

I’m digitally and spiritually cleansing this space and cracking open this sad  pamphlet of a book you sent me. Stand by for my thoughts. 

Chilliest regards (with a gooey center), 

A

P.S. You promised me that shortlist of “films I need to watch now that I work from home and can watch movies all day.” Keep in mind, my attention span is like my love life: short, sad and ridiculous. 

She hits send and quickly checks in on the few dangling work emails that couldn’t wait until Monday. It’ll be a few hours before her West Coaster pen pal is up and a few more before he’s near a screen. He’s an early riser, but more of a yoga, outdoors-y, going jogging (ugh) kind than a feverish AM emailer. But she’ll forgive him that one (admittedly well-adjusted) flaw for now.