#I was is a bit of a mental health clusterfuck back when I played the trilogy

[farsight-the-char]

I don't think romancing Liara as Femship was the main thing to break my egg.

but looking back, I was perhaps a bit to giddy about "being gay" with Liara.

[nellie-elizabeth]

Grey's Anatomy: Never Felt So Alone (20x05)

Man, Nick sucks so much as a character I cannot believe.

Cons:

I'm going to be a broken record about Jo and Link, but wow, I don't care about their relationship. This pregnancy scare is a cheap way to introduce a shot of lightly-comedic drama into their honeymoon period and I'm bored to tears by all of it. It's a shame, because I actually think both actors are really charming and funny, and yet when they're playing off of each other in a scene, I feel absolutely nothing. The idea of going through a Jo/Link marriage and babies story just fills me with a sense of defeat and ennui. Alex Karev I miss you so much.

I feel like the takeaway from this episode is supposed to be that Meredith is being unreasonable about the Nick situation, but... nah. Nick is a boring lump of coal and Meredith has a lot of trauma around the death of loved ones, and Nick should have called sooner. I just wish that Meredith had been settled off-screen with a less annoying endgame love interest. It feels like we've lost our chance for Meredith to find a new forever person on screen, because Ellen Pompeo isn't interested in doing that anymore, and fair enough, but Nick? God, he sucks so hard.

Usually I get really moved and emotional about the "very special episodes" that this show pulls off, about all manner of serious subjects. I have to say, I felt a little alienated from this one, though. There were things I liked about it, but the core of it, the med student Eddie standing on the ledge, with Simone and Kwan talking to him, just felt very... generic, maybe? It was a lot of standard talking points about suicidal ideation, without the magic of making every guest character come alive, the way Grey's usually pulls off. I don't know. I don't feel like it was terribly done, it just didn't quite grip me.

Pros:

I really liked Owen and Amelia spending the day working together. Their romantic relationship was always such a clusterfuck but I think they have the kind of friendship that really stands the test of time. They do a risky and complicated surgery to give a med student a chance to be able to walk again, and seeing them triumph and feel that thrill of surgery again together was really quite lovely! Also, when Teddy and Owen don't have hella drama going on between them, their relationship is perfectly tolerable. I liked the ending little bit where Teddy gets cleared to go back to surgery, and she and Owen are talking over logistics for picking up the kids, etcetera. Their energy together does work for me; I remember shipping them way back in the before-times.

Bailey and Ben are really the best long-term relationship on this show. I'm almost anxious about Station 19 ending, because if Ben hops back over to be more of a main character on Grey's, they might give them relationship tension and I don't want that! Ben calming Bailey down, the two of them talking about mental health and being there to support each other... this was the part of the suicide prevention plot thread that worked the best for me. Just these two married people having a frank conversation about being there to support one another.

Despite hating everything about Nick, I did like some of Meredith's stuff in this episode. Her being able to talk through her fear with Richard was really touching. Of course she has baggage and fears around specifically this outcome! Something totally survivable happening to someone in her family, but the potential of the hospital fucking it up? I like that now that Meredith has moved to Boston and she's only a part-time character, she really does feel like more of a mom. Not to be cheesy, but it's such a fitting way to wrap up the overall arc of Meredith Grey, given where we started with her, and all her own issues with her mother. I wish Nick wasn't the person she was having the conversation with, but I also liked her being willing to process her messy emotions and admit the harm she did to others because of it. Real growth for our Mer!

As I keep saying, I really do love these new intern characters a lot. Let's go through some of these stories really fast.

Jules and Winston! Jules is growing on me more and more. I love that she stood up to Winston, and that he admitted he'd been a grump lately. Her compassion and care for the people around her is so lovely, and she manages to seem like a really strong, pragmatic person all while having empathy off the charts. We love to see it.

Yasuda gets stuck with the unpleasant job of babysitting a bunch of drunk med students with minor injuries, and things take a turn for the worse when she learns from Schmitt that Helm kept her from an interesting surgery, and made her stay in the pit. We don't know the outcome of this little betrayal yet, but I'm interested to see their relationship get more of a spotlight, even if it is to work through a difficult moment! I loved Jules comforting Yasuda at the end using a technique her mother taught her. Their friendship is so lovely.

We get some insight into Kwan's relationship to his own mental health; I loved how he stepped in and talked to Eddie after letting Simone take the lead for so long. I think it's telling that in an episode themed all around connection and reaching out to people, Kwan didn't actually open up to Simone after that experience. He didn't go to Jules, or to anybody else, to talk through what had happened. We'll have to see if he's able to form those important bonds moving forward.

And as mad as I've been at Lucas for being such a dickhead recently, I did find the scene at the end with him and Simone quite lovely. It's not a fix to everything broken between them, but it's this moment where they're able to come together to comfort and hold each other. Simone definitely needed that after the day she'd had, and I like that Lucas was willing to put aside everything else and do that.

So that's all for this one. It looks like from the promo for next week that Richard is going to have some sort of freak-out or incident at work, and I'm... kind of already tired of seeing this story again. But we'll see!

7/10

[bookofmirth]

Fandom! Just curious...like wouldn't SJM be aware of the fandom chaos? Even in some form? Maybe I'm just a bit anal and obsessive but when/if I publish a book I'd look into what my fans are thinking and if things got this bad release a statement or something. Am I just not that intune with what the publishing/author things are like? Or am I just more anti sjm than I originally thought I was. Because this is not okay and no one is holding these people, whatever ship they are, responsible.

No, I really doubt she knows. And personally, I don't think it's her responsibility. We built this mess, we are the ones behaving and reacting this way. It's ours to clean up.

Sorry, I get on my soapbox a bit here re: the acotar fandom.

From what I know, sjm intentionally keeps herself out of any sort of internet discussion. In one of her most recent events, she said that she doesn't even have any social media apps on her phone, and just uses it to play solitaire or something like that. And I think that Steph said she doesn't tell Sarah about any of it because of her mental health. There is 0 reason for her to need to know that people were joking about kidnapping her kid or her husband choking. The fandom is such a clusterfuck right now, that how would she be able to see through the noise to the actual, useful information, not to mention how could she engage with it?

I think there are some good reasons for this - I can't even imagine how I would react to seeing an entire anti community dedicated to me and my work. A lot of the criticism or discussion online is... suspect, at best. What good would it do her to read someone's headcanon? Or someone's completely subjective analysis of a scene? That's also tricky territory because authors aren't supposed to see any written fan work stuff, or they could be accused of taking ideas from people. I'd also rather she not know because I don't want fan service books. I want the organic story she wants to tell.

Also, fandom is a completely separate monster that the books, the publisher, and sjm did not create. Our behaviors are our responsibility. It's like the Wild West out here and some of us are taking full advantage to be assholes they always aspired to be. But there is no Fandom Police, which in cases like yesterday, kinda sucks.

I understand the desire to want sjm to make a statement. When Steph was getting a raft of shit for not shipping elriel anymore, I thought that surely Sarah would say something. I thought now this is personal, so she should get involved. But the thing is - and this is why I often choose not to reblog things with negative content - her response would also give that behavior a larger platform and more attention. And for someone with sjm's following? It would be 1000000% times worse.

And honestly? Even if she did say something, then people would just cry "death of the author" (inaccurately, might I add) and continue doing whatever they want to do. There is a fundamental lack of respect for other people that these behaviors indicate, and Mommy Sarah coming out and chiding everyone isn't going to make it better. People need to be held accountable, but it so quickly spirals into deflection, defensiveness, and then rerouting the conversation to insult OP, that what's the point? Sometimes I want to hold people accountable, but at the end of the day, that's not my job or responsibility, and all I can do is control my own actions.

My advice is to just be vigilant with who you do and don't follow, freely use the block button, and don't go into spaces that you know aren't safe. Right now, that's almost all of Twitter, and from what I hear, BookTok isn't that great either. I stick to tumblr, I have tags blocked, and I have about 40-50 fandom-related blogs blocked.

Unfortunately - and this is what makes all of this even worse - the fandom is proving itself to be very unsafe for people of color, and that's disgusting to me. It's disgusting and embarrassing and makes me want to peace out when people are just here trying to have fun, and a woman of color who rightfully calls out disgusting behavior is then subjected to something 1000% worse, essentially derailing the conversation away from the actual problem - racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism in the fandom - and turning the discussion into tone policing.

And that is what happened yesterday. Instead of reflecting and saying "wow, this fandom is doing shitty, racist, ableist things", the discussion turned into "omg why is OP calling people out, OP thinks she's so smart, OP needs to say these things differently, OP should be nicer", etc. etc. But that means WE NEVER END UP ACTUALLY CRITIQUING THE ORIGINAL PROBLEM OF RACISM, SEXISM ETC. IN THE FANDOM. The entire discussion gets skewed elsewhere and we are right back where we started. With people being problematic assholes, and others being afraid to say anything about it.

(The way those phrases have been used as weapons in ship wars is a separate issue.)

I know I went way beyond your original question, but I think that as a fandom, we have way more responsibility for our own actions than Sarah does for calling them out. And I am putting this in all the tags because I think everyone needs to see it.

[necros-writing-stuff]

There’s something about the comedic irony of characters meeting counterparts that share habits/characteristics and being so fucking annoyed by them that’s absolutely batshit hilarious. Eden dragging your twink ass back to the cabin and collaring you? Fuck it, fine, but next time you tranq Eden and drag him back to yours. You put him in a lil cow outfit and collar for the fun of it. You figure out quickly how many “milk” bottles you can get out of him per day - you make bank! What’s even more hilarious is if you’re the high tech type. Eden staring at the roomba in your room. Startled when you adjust the temp in the room just by voice command. Pissed when you force a cell phone on him when he’s locked up at your house, because “I piss off a lot of people on the regular, Eden, and if someone’s gonna set fire to my place I wanna know!”. While he bitches about the phone, though, whenever you’re out, you send messages and texts that get progressively affectionate and/or horny. Pavlov the fucker til he perks up when he hears the message ding. I can’t imagine you’re the paragon of mental health, but when you make food for Eden you chat to him about all the stuff you encounter on a regular basis, and he looks openly more and more uncomfortable. He points out town is shit and you should go back to the cabin. You say that after you get revenge on a few fuckers, you’d be happy to go play cottagecore life with him. Besides, you still have a lot to show him about the modern world. On a particularly eventful evening that ended in a heated scuffle that Eden almost won - probably wouldve if you didnt have the muscle relaxer syringe on you- you hook him up to a fucking machine and let it pound his ass. You know that when it’s his turn to turn on the crazy and drag you back to the cabin, your ass is probably gonna undergo something that’ll leave you limping for a week straight, but all’s fair in love and war. I’m not saying you’re a yandere but you are also in possession of a jealous streak a mile wide so lord help the bitch or bastard who shoots Eden too many glances out and about. And if he ever pisses you off you’ll book him a seat to Remy’s farms for a few days. He’ll probably choke you on the floor of his cabin when you get him out during one of Wren’s fires. You enjoy every second of it, especially how every bit of your body feels bruised after he’s done with you. I don’t think you’ve actively told him you love him or anything, so he’s bemused when you slide the marriage license over to him. Because he’s either signing it or you’re forging it, you just thought it’d be romantic this way. What a toxic clusterfuck of a situation, honestly. You haven’t felt this alive in ages.

Oh fuck PC practicing some shibari on Eden and taking photos of him all tied up. He's so mad when he wakes up, yelling at you that you'll get the spanking of a lifetime when he's free. And of course you will, you were counting on it.

Introducing him to the internet, showing him porn you want to copy with him or just simply movies while you cuddle in your warm bed. It's always warm here, you have central heating. He's an intelligent man, so he picks it up fairly easily. Just doesn't want to.

"The government uses it to spy on people-"

"I know, Eden, everyone knows!"

"And you're okay with that?!"

Maybe a schedule should be fixed up. Winter at your place, summer at Eden's cabin. Whoever wins fights in autumn and spring.

Eden hates being edged, but you do it anyways because it makes him cum buckets and its a treat to have either in you or collected for other purposes.

He shows you how to clean his gun so you can take care of it when he's the pet. Doesn't want anything getting rusty or jammed.

And he'll sign the damn marriage certificate, after some prodding. You're already married in his eyes. Stupid laws and stupid legislation telling him what to do.

[tripleaxeldiaz]

maybe one day i’ll fly next to you

chapter 6/8

read on ao3

start from the beginning

Eddie gets cleared with two weeks to spare, and they celebrate by making out on Buck’s couch for so long it actually starts to hurt.

Buck can admit that as excited as he was to give this thing of theirs a go (“You can call me your boyfriend, Buck, it’s not a bad word”), there was still a part of him that was nervous. Nervous about how it would affect him, would affect both of them, especially now, when they’re physically and emotionally exhausted as they hurtle closer and closer to Beijing. For the first week, Buck kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Eddie to realize this was a mistake and break it off cleanly, before they got in too deep. He knows what a monster he can be when he’s strung out on stress, and only Maddie has ever been able to see past the short words and shorter temper and get him to breathe again. 

But one day, after an awful practice that brought the monster out in full force, Eddie found him hiding out in the locker room, fuming by himself and at himself. He didn’t chastise him like he could have (like he should have), didn’t tell him he was overreacting or that he was too much. Instead, he did what had become such a pillar in their friendship: he sat next to Buck and waited. And when all the anger and frustration finally seeped out of him, Eddie was there with a warm, solid, grounding hand to pull him back to his feet and away from the edge he was mentally leaning over. No judgement or invalidation, just genuine empathy. 

And that’s all it took for it to slot into place for Buck. That no matter what, they’re friends — best friends — first, and their very unique life paths means they understand each other on a level that no one else can. Being boyfriends just means they get to do more fun things together now, like making out on couches like the real teenagers they never got to be.

The weeks after Eddie’s clean bill of health fly by, and they’re heading to Lake Placid before he knows it. Buck’s excited — he’s always excited for Nats — but he also feels a looming sense of foreboding, like any minute, something is going to go terribly, terribly wrong. The last time he competed here was four seasons ago, when he won his last Nats gold, two weeks before shattering his leg and Olympic dreams in one fell swoop. Who’s to say it won’t happen again? Maybe the universe has decided that the Olympics are not for him, and this weekend will result in a last place finish or another injury or something else that takes everything away from him again.

He feels a warm palm against his and a squeeze, looks up to see Eddie watching him, framed by the snowy mountains whizzing by the bus window. His brow is creased in worry, like he can see the storm starting to swirl in Buck’s head. That worry, the way Eddie knows him, is strangely grounding, pulling him out of his dark cloud enough to actually enjoy the view of upstate New York they have as they make their way to their hotel.

The pre-competition routine is easy, familiar, and Buck lets himself get lost in it, block out any and all doubts that keep trying to sink their claws into him as the weekend gets closer and closer. Eddie’s there every step of the way too, not at all the distraction Buck had been worried about for way too long, but a welcome calm in the clusterfuck of his emotions, something for him to hold onto and gravitate back towards when it all starts to be too much. He can’t believe he survived this season — or any other season — without this to balance him out, but he knows for a fact that he’s never letting it go.

It’s the morning before shorts, and Buck is woken up by obnoxious pounding on their hotel room door. He feels a groan rumble through Eddie’s chest where it’s pressed against his back, smirks as he feels his arms wrap tighter around his waist.

“If we’re quiet enough, maybe they’ll go away,” Eddie whispers.

“Get up losers, we know you can hear us,” Chim yells through the door. Buck throws back the covers, chilly morning air making him even more irritated, and yanks the door open, coming face to face with Chim and May.

“Oh thank god, he’s wearing pants,” May sighs in relief.

Buck squints an eye at her. “It’s 8:00am, what could you possibly want from us this early?”

“It’s team bonding day,” Chim says with a grin. “We’re going to Mirror Lake. Grab Eddie and your skates and meet us at the bus in 15.”

“What if we had our own plans?” Buck asks, crossing his arms. “How do you know we weren’t gonna spend all day in bed having—” A hand clamps over his mouth from behind him before he can finish.

“We’ll see you guys down there,” Eddie says. He shuts the door on them and pinches Buck’s side, turning toward his suitcase to find clothes.

“What?” Buck asks, laughing. “I was gonna say having a movie marathon, you didn’t let me finish.”

That earns him a sweatshirt thrown at his head, but Eddie’s looking at him all fond and soft when he throws it, so Buck’s not complaining.

Mirror Lake is the very definition of “winter wonderland” — the ice seems like it’s never ending, so clean and smooth you almost feel bad skating over it. Mountains and forests surround it on all sides to hide it away from the rest of the world, and Christmas lights are still strung up in the trees and around houses. It’s fairly empty this early, just a small group of kids playing a pickup game of hockey near one of the inns. A dusting of snow covers and muffles everything, bringing a sense of stillness and calm that’s unmatched anywhere else.

Buck takes a deep breath and revels at the bite he feels in his lungs. All the thoughts and voices filling his head finally quiet down, and he can just be here, enjoy this time with his friends without worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow or next month. He knows it won’t last long, will all come flooding back as soon as they leave the lake, but he’s going to soak it all in while he can. 

He’s fallen behind the group a bit as they spread out, taking in the sight of everyone — Maddie and Chim holding hands and matching strokes like always, Hen and May making up some kind of obstacle course, Bobby and Athena lost in deep conversation as they glide. He keeps looking until he spots Eddie, a little ways from the group, moving and spinning to the music only he can hear in his head. He’s as graceful as ever, confident in every movement, but there’s peace in him too — he’s at ease, free from the pressure of competition and perfection that Buck knows rests so heavily on his shoulders. The early morning sun bathes him in golden light, but it’s nothing compared to the smile sent his direction when he catches Buck watching.

He’s so beautiful it actually takes Buck’s breath away.

Eddie makes his way back to him, the light following in his wake. His smile is even brighter up close, but Buck only gets to enjoy it for a moment before he’s being pulled into a kiss so sweet and slow and perfect it makes him dizzy. Eddie pulls away just as quickly as he came in, the smile replaced with a smirk, and Buck barely registers the words “Race ya!” before Eddie’s speeding off to the other side of the lake. He’s stunned for a minute before he pushes off too, catching up with Eddie and doing his best to cut him off the rest of the way. Their laughter echoes off the mountains, surrounding them in their own joy, and Buck for the life of him can’t remember the last time he was this happy.

~~~~~~~~~~

Eddie’s in first and Buck’s closing out the group, because apparently the universe gets a kick out of watching him suffer.

They’ve been in this same situation so many times before, and he used to be able to turn his irritation at another flawless skate from Eddie into determination, propelling his own skating to be as close to perfect as possible. Now, though, he feels...proud. And happy for Eddie, because despite the weeks out and any lingering pain, he was flawless again — everything perfectly landed and rotated, a commanding presence on the ice. It’s a weird feeling, but it’s also nice, especially when Eddie winks at him and mouths good luck as he makes his way to the kiss and cry, and Buck’s whole body fills up with giddy butterflies.

Turns out butterflies work better than anything else for him — he’s 10 points in first place after shorts, and he feels so electric, so on top of the world he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Until he sees Eddie again on their way to the presser, costume still sticking to him with sweat in all the right places, hair mussed and cheeks rosy.

Then there’s only one thing he wants to do, and he can’t believe he has to be polite to reporters before he can do it.

He manages to be nice and not stare at Eddie the whole time, but he snaps as soon as they get back to their hotel room, pushing Eddie up against the door as it closes and kissing him fast and dirty.

“Is this your way of distracting me so you win tomorrow?” Eddie asks, breathless from the kiss, fingers threading through Buck’s hair as Buck trails kisses down his jaw and neck, pausing only to shove Eddie’s jacket and shirt off so he can get to more skin. He stops again just as he gets to Eddie’s chest, his breath ghosting over a nipple and leaving goosebumps in its wake. Eddie’s pupils are blown wide when he meets his eyes, and the blush on his cheeks and crawling down his chest is so pretty Buck could write sonnets about it.

He smirks, the novelty of the effect he has on Eddie far from wearing off. “Do you want me to stop?”

Eddie shakes his head, cupping Buck’s jaw to pull him back up. “Fuck no, don’t even think about it,” he says before kissing him hard again, tongue licking into his mouth immediately, and Buck can practically taste the quiet, subconscious sounds Eddie makes as his fingers run down his chest and stomach. He quickly thanks whoever made track pants a part of the Team USA uniform before shoving Eddie’s down his thighs and finally getting a hand on his cock, already hard and leaking. Eddie whines as Buck breaks their kiss, but it settles into a sigh as he resumes his trail down his body. Normally he’d spend a lot longer working his mouth over as much of Eddie’s skin as he can reach, relish in the salty sweet taste of it and hit all the places that make Eddie’s hips buck forward without his permission, but he’s only got one goal in mind at the moment. He’ll make it up to Eddie later.

He finally swallows Eddie down, hears a “fuck” and a thump above him as Eddie’s head hits back against the door. He knows exactly what Eddie likes — the first week of their relationship was pretty much dedicated to figuring out all the best ways to make each other fall apart. Eddie gets a hand in his hair again as he hollows out his cheeks and hums, vibrations sending another wave of shivers over Eddie, making his hips rock even more. Buck looks up, and Eddie looks wrecked, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth, head thrown back and neck bared. It’s a miracle, really, that Buck doesn’t come right then and there.

“Christ, Buck, I’m—” Eddie tugs on Buck’s hair in warning, but it just makes Buck go faster, coaxing and coaxing until Eddie’s spilling into his mouth. Buck just barely has time to finish swallowing before he’s being yanked back to his feet and into a searing kiss, Eddie wasting no time in tasting himself on Buck’s tongue. He barely registers where Eddie’s hands are until he feels one wrap around his cock, steady and determined. He’s so keyed up now that it doesn’t take much — a few twists of Eddie’s wrist and a bruise sucked onto the underside of his jaw has him spilling over Eddie’s hand before he knows it. 

He presses kisses to every part of Eddie’s face he can reach as he comes down, soaking in the warmth radiating from him, only stopping when Eddie not so discreetly tries to wipe his hand on Buck’s pants.

“Hey!” he cries, laughing at the look on Eddie’s face. “Go wash your hands like a normal person and come meet me in bed.”

“Room service?”

“Duh.” He kisses Eddie’s nose before flopping onto the bed and flipping through movie rentals. The rest of their evening is quiet, full of bad movies and french fries and conversations about everything and nothing, and Buck feels an ease that he never feels the night before free skates. Tomorrow may be make or break for him, for both of them, but in this little cocoon of theirs, his face tucked into Eddie’s neck and Eddie’s arms around him as they drift off to sleep, the worry and nerves and anxiety feel too far away to touch him.

~~~~~~~~~~

The worst part is that he knows it’s a dream.

He knows if he jumps in real life, he’ll always come back down. Maybe not gently and maybe not on his feet, but after half a second of air time, he will touch the ground again. 

But now he’s taken off and he just keeps going — it’s completely impossible, but he’s still scared. Scared of the unknown that he’s propelling towards, scared that he can’t control his body or where it’s going, scared that it’s all going to end and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Fear turns to pure terror as his weight shifts of its own accord and starts sending him back to the rink he’s made up in his head. He thinks (hopes) he’ll wake up before he makes impact, but the panic is still clawing at him, sinking into his bones and running all the worst case scenarios though his head. He crashes through the ice but it doesn’t stop — flashes of disappointed faces, snippets of voices tinged with pity for him and the fact that he failed once again. It’s cacophonous and overwhelming, but he catches specific voices — Maddie, Bobby, Eddie — that try to push through, try to pull him out, but it’s not enough. He’s falling into the nothingness of his own failure and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

He finally wakes up, his skin feels like it’s buzzing, alive with lingering panic. He’s got an arm around Eddie’s waist and his face pressed into the back of his neck, and he takes a minute to breathe him in and get his heart to slow back down. It’s early, barely light out, but Buck slips out of bed, grabs the comforter from the other one, and quietly slides open the balcony door. The snow is just starting to glow from the first rays of sunlight, and everything is quiet, still, a direct contrast with the thoughts and feelings still swirling in Buck. He sits on the little bench facing the surrounding forest, does his best to focus on the chill in the air and the quiet nature sounds around him, tries to shut out everything else and be right where he is.

It takes a while, but it helps. 

The sun is fully up by the time he goes back in, and Eddie’s just finishing packing up his skating bag. Buck’s bag, actually. Eddie’s is already set by the door. He feels on the verge of tears again, but not in a bad way.

Eddie turns to him as he slides the door shut. His eyes track everywhere, like he’s cataloging Buck, taking stock before making a move. Buck’s stupidly grateful for it — he feels like one wrong move could send him cracking all over again, and it wouldn’t be Eddie’s fault, but he’d get the brunt of it. But Eddie knows him better than almost anyone, so whatever move he makes will be a good one.

He watches Eddie move slowly toward him and reach for his hand, giving Buck every opportunity to back up and say no. That’s not at all what he wants, so he meets Eddie halfway and laces their fingers together.

“Do you need another minute?” Eddie asks quietly.

Buck shakes his head. “I’m okay. We have to leave soon anyway.”

“Will you believe me if I tell you that everything’s gonna be fine?”

“Probably not.”

Eddie nods. “Okay.” He tugs Buck toward him, gently kisses his forehead, cheek, and lips. “We need to be downstairs in 30 minutes.”

Buck squeezes his hand and heads towards the bathroom. He steps into the shower and tries to convince himself that Eddie’s right.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Channel your nerves, Buck. Everyone here is rooting for you. Show ‘em what you got.”

Buck nods at Bobby before pushing off the boards. He hears On the ice, representing the 118 Skating Club of Los Angeles, Evan Buckley and the applause that follows, but it sounds tinny and far away. He’s trying to channel everything — his nerves, doubts, fear of failure, whatever — and make it work for him, but it’s not as easy today. He feels heavy, like his body isn’t quite in line with his mind and what he needs to be doing, and he knows he’s going to be fighting himself for every element for the next four and a half minutes.

The music starts and he tries to float with it, use it to push through the extra gravity he feels and lift himself up more. He lands his first jump — his triple axel, usually one of his strongest — but feels himself wobble, knows his GOE will be low. He misses the second jump on his first combo and has to mentally comb through his program to figure out where he can tack it onto to make up points. On and on it goes — he doesn’t fall, there’s no monumental breakdown, but he’s subpar, doesn’t meet his own expectations and probably doesn’t meet those of the USFSA. He finishes with the fakest smile he’s ever slapped on his face and all but sprints to the kiss and cry.

Nats scores are always inflated, so he doesn’t do bad, but he’s certainly done better. There are three skaters left, including Eddie, and a terrible part of him hopes that the other two eat ice so he can still finish on the podium and salvage his spot in Beijing.

They don’t. Naturally. He sits in the green room as they each have the best skate of their season and leap frog over his score. Eddie’s last to go and he lays it all out there, like he’s already at the Olympics, but Buck’s hardly mad about that. He’s a force, attacking every jump but still keeping a softness in his movements to match Jeff Buckley’s voice. Buck’s got chills up and down his back during his last step sequence and into his final pose, and he knows it’s a gold medal by a mile. And he’s happy for Eddie, ecstatic even, but he also feels his heart break a little bit, because Eddie winning puts him in fourth.

The pewter medal. A stupid consolation prize that only the USFSA gives out. He’s technically still on the podium, but it somehow feels worse than if he’d finish last.

“You had a great Grand Prix this year, that counts for a lot more than Nats,” Eddie says on the ride to the airport the next day. It’s the first time Buck’s let him talk about it without changing the subject or kissing him or literally walking into another room. He’s run out of energy to avoid it anymore. 

“They’ll want someone consistent, and that’s clearly not me.”

“You have the second highest overall score in the country this season, fifth in the world. They can’t ignore that.”

Buck shrugs, picks at an errant string on his hoodie to avoid looking Eddie in the eye. He feels lips press to his temple and unconsciously melts, head moving down to rest on Eddie’s shoulder.

“It’ll all work out. We’ll be in Beijing together, I know it.”

Eddie’s always so confident, so sure in his convictions and unwavering in his beliefs. Buck loves him for it but it’s also unnerving, because he wants to believe as hard as Eddie does, but he knows how this goes. He works and works and pushes and pushes but in the end, it’s not far enough. All his hard work, his literal blood sweat and tears, can’t get him that extra inch closer to where he wants to be.

It happened four years ago, and he can feel it happening again. And this time, he won’t be able to blame a broken leg for his failures.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Buck, stop shaking your leg, you’re gonna trigger an earthquake.”

Buck scowls at Chim but stops. It’s been three days since Nats, three days of waiting, knowing that at any minute, the USFSA is going to post their final Olympic team. He’s been on edge for 72 hours because they won’t have an idea it’s happening until it happens, and he thinks he might be starting to go insane.

“It’ll be soon,” Maddie says from where she’s leaning on the boards. They’re all supposed to be warming up, a long day of practice ahead, but they’re congregated around the benches instead, anxiety crackling between all of them like lightning.

He doesn’t even notice his leg starts shaking again until Eddie places a hand on it to stop him.

“Opening ceremonies are in three weeks,” May says as she stretches on the floor. “They’re cutting it awfully close if they don’t announce, like, today.”

Chim groans as he stands up from the bench to join Maddie. “Why is it even taking so long? They’ve seen how the season’s gone so far, there can’t be that much left to deliberate.”

“Do you think they’re actually still deciding, or just waiting because it’s dramatic?” Buck asks.

Eddie snorts. “Probably the latter.”

“Guys!”

They all turn towards the doorway to the locker room, and Buck feels his blood run cold. Hen is there, looking calm as ever on the outside, but he meets her eye, and he knows.

“They just posted the list. Bobby has it up on his computer.”

Chim grabs Maddie’s hand and sprints, and May is hot on their heels. Eddie gets 10 feet in front of him before he realizes Buck hasn’t followed. He’s frozen in place, hands numb, heart beating so hard he’s worried about his ribs. Right now, on the bench, he can convince himself he’s living in a world where his dreams haven’t been crushed, where he still has a chance. Once he takes a step, that all ends.

Eddie comes back for him, grabs both of his hands and waits until Buck meets his eye. When he does, he gives him that small, soft smile Buck knows is just for him, and it feels like he’s saying I believe in you. It’s enough to get him moving.

They catch up with the others just as they get to Bobby’s office, and they jostle and crowd around the desktop, trying to get a clear view. Buck’s thankful for his height and looks over everyone, the world quickly narrowing to just him and the computer screen.

From the top, the list goes men, ladies, pairs, dance, so he starts from the bottom to delay any disappointment. 

He feels the tears prick when he sees Chim and Maddie listed, his smile nearly splits his face at May’s name. Eddie was inevitable, but his heart still soars when he sees it written out.

And then.

And then.

His name. His name, just above Eddie’s. 

Evan Buckley. Right there, clear as day, in Times New Roman font.

He’s glad Chim and May are already crushing him in a hug, because he’s pretty sure his knees have given out.

This is real. This is happening. Eddie is squeezing his hand and Maddie is crying and it’s happening.

They are officially, officially, going to the Olympics.

[sarah-blue-eyes]

2020 In Review

Hoo boy, here we go.

[Ok just before I begin. I had this queued to post in the first month of January but it doesn’t seem like that ever happened haha. Better late than never I suppose!]

So I am a nostalgic bitch, and since 2011, have loved to make memory boxes for each year, where I put trinkets and memories into a shoebox. This year I have continued that tradition, but I have also kept track of my happy memories throughout 2020 in my planner. This was done with the intention for me to upload a year-in-review sort of thing in hopes that maybe like, 3 people max on this god-forsaken site will read it. This sort of reminiscence was inspired by my friend @a-lbeit​, who has done these for a few years now and me, as a slut for nostalgia, was encouraged to do the same back in January (I think? What even is my memory at this point?)

2020, as it has been for many, was a very shit year, and I am no different. I would safely say that this year has undeniably been the worst I have lived through. But I am here. I am present. And I have made it through some of the darkest times to face 2021 with a new sense of hopefulness. Keeping track of my happier memories has been something that has truly got me through this clusterfuck of a year, so I am glad that I can finally go through them all again and share them with you.

Read it, or don’t, I don’t give a shit what you do with your time, but if you do, I hope that you aren’t bored to tears. And I hope to keep myself accountable to continue to do this for years to come.

Buckle up, grab a hot drink and a snack and get comfy, because this is a JOURNEY.

January:

· Kicked the new year off with hosting a 1920’s themed party with some of my closest friends at my family home at the beach. Had fun with drunk SingStar, playing What Do You Meme, creating a playlist with everyone’s top 3 songs of the decade (it was a bangin’ playlist I must say), and just overall drinking too much and having a riotous time

· I remember going to the beach New Year’s Day (as is tradition in Australia) and playing ultimate frisbee in the shallows and completing a crossword puzzle on the sand (I am a 75-year-old woman, it is just a fact of life)

· I also had my friend Kirsten from South Australia stay with me for the New Year’s period and it was lovely to have a guest over! I haven’t spoken to her much this year, she sort of fell off the face of the planet, but I hope she is doing ok.

· Went town to Torquay (a beach town in Victoria) for the 6th time for Beach Mission, which is essentially a holiday program for kids in preschool-year 9 where we run activities for them. It’s a Christian-based program but the aim isn’t to convert the kids or anything like that, it’s more to show God’s love to them through our actions and how we as Christians live our lives. It’s also a convenient way for parents to dish their kids off for a few hours too haha. This was my final year of being a part of this program, and I am so pleased to have made so many memories and (hopefully) impacted many children’s lives during my time there

· I remember going on a late-night beach walk with my boyfriend Josh, talking about what the year had in store for us. We were just sitting on the beach, as you do, and I saw a shooting star. I can’t remember what I wished for (if anything) but in that moment, life was a dream.

· The week after beach mission I started at my new internship! It was for a place called KidsCo, who run school holiday programs at workplaces, so parents don’t need to take time off work to look after them. I helped with client relations and a lot of behind-the scenes stuff. I really loved it there

· On the very first day of my internship I remember there was torrential rain, and the train home was delayed by like, an hour or so lol

· One of the best parts about interning at KidsCo was that they were the official child-minding service for the Australian Open. I make an effort to go each year, but I was lucky enough to get free ground-entry for me and a guest for the duration of the event. I went quite a few times and got to take my mum and Josh along as well.

· Saw my only concert of the year, The Veronicas, at the Australian Open. When I say the moment the violin riff at the start of Untouched absolutely went the fuck off is an understatement. Grade 5 me would have cried (and 23 year old me did a little bit too tbh.) Yet another of one of my “all-time-favourite-songs” that I’ve had the pleasure of hearing live. (I also went through the year feeling sad that this was the first time in 11 years I hadn’t gone to a concert, but this one certainly fell through the cracks)

· Started planning my trip to the UK to see my twin sister, and best friend, Jess

· Went away to Rye for the Australia Day weekend #changethedate. An excellent time with excellent mates, and went to the beach pretty much every day and got mindlessly sloshed every night

· Listened to the Triple J Hottest 100. I think 4 of my picks made it in, which was pretty good

· Continued my job as the office manager/events coordinator at my church

February:

Basketball started back after the summer break for my two different teams, The Vikings and The Wildcats (honestly such a highlight of this year with how the rest of it ended up going)

As a team-bonding activity at KidsCo we hired a boat for a few hours and I got more drunk that I had been for a while. It was a very fun time jetting down the Yarra, waving drunkedly at the people jogging by

For Valentine’s day Josh and I had an indoor picnic with our favourite food! The weather was shit for Feb, hence the indoor nature of the picnic

Saw Shrek the Musical with two of my closest pals, Bec and Katie (I honestly forgot that this happened in 2020 hahaha) but it was ICONIC

Had a Jackbox night with The Boys

Had my cousin Amy from England over for dinner! I hadn’t seen her in 5 or 6 years, so it was so lovely to connect again like no time had passed at all

Went to Healesville Sanctuary, a lovely conservation park which focuses on preserving and educating its visitors about Australian animals, with Amy

 Went to mini-golf for a friend’s birthday on the leap day. He technically celebrated his 6th birthday which was excellent

Saw Cody Ko and Noel Miller live with Bec and Katie

Finished working at the church office to make room for the potential job opportunity at KidsCo

March:

Ahhh March, you shitstorm of a month. This is where everything started going downhill.

The first thing of note that happened this month was me injuring my ankle at basketball, which had me out of action for a few weeks. It was especially bad because I was nearing the end of my internship and was hoping to do my best work so that I would be chosen to stay on as an employee, but had to take a week or so off to rest my ankle. My ankle would continue to be tender and sore for most of the rest of the year

Went away for the Labour Day long weekend with the family

Finished up my internship at KidsCo. Honestly was lead to believe that I would be staying on as an employee and felt sort of betrayed after all the work I did for them, but whatever

 Had a party at Bec’s house to listen to Triple J’s Hottest 100 of the Decade. One of my favourite songs was number 1 which was a pleasant surprise

Went down to the holiday house for a few days just to have so me time and sort myself out

Animal Crossing New Horizons came out haha. Honestly was one of the highlights of this year though. I stayed up until midnight so I could download it as soon as it was available because that’s the sort of person I am  

Mum’s birthday dinner with Dani, one of my best friends, and her girlfriend Amy

Went for a hike at Sugarloaf Reservoir with Josh and got spooked by a mob of kangaroos

April:

My mental health started really taking a downward spiral this month for multiple reasons which I won’t get into here, but this is more a note to my past self to say that it will all be ok I guess? Idk I just felt like this needed to be here

Did my ankle badly again on Good Friday

Watched the Overwatch League live with my friends and just memed in the livechat lmao

WARNING - this is a bit TMI but I am going to share anyway since it was a big part of this year, and if you are reading this you are either a stranger or a good friend so I really don’t care lmao: This month I also started to get bad pains in my uterus, like, not period pains but deep, stabbing pains. This continued on for the next few weeks without me doing anything about it, except for increasingly getting stressed about it, although I will talk a bit more about this later.

Josh and I celebrated our 6th year together which was ~wholesome~

Called my friend Ashley from the US and just caught up. It was nice to see her face again. She is a good egg. I haven’t talked to her since but I really hope she’s ok.

May:

Watched Star Wars with Josh and his family for “May the 4th”

Started a volunteer job at Kivuli, a non-for-prophet that is based in Kenya, and started helping out with their website and social media stuff

Zoom movie time with my friends, we watched How To Train Your Dragon I think? Athough everyone was talking over the movie so I didn’t really get anything out of it

Played Scattergories (one of my favourite games) with Bec and Jess on zoom and just wrote really stupid and funny answers and I remember this being just what I needed

Went for a long walk with mum and one of her friends and her daughter on a track we don’t usually go on, which was a nice change of scenery

Went down to the holiday house for the first time in forever since restrictions were eased, at least for a little while lol, with the fam

Went to Portsea for a walk along the beach with Bec and her husband Trevor

Did an online trivia night that night with a big bunch of friends

Had a doctor’s appointment to see what was goin’ on down there. Honestly freaked that it could be something REALLY bad. Got booked in to have an ultrasound the next week, so at least I’d be finding out what was wrong soon.

The day after I got my results was the 21st of May, the day my mum and I were meant to be flying out to the UK to see my sister and her boyfriend. It was already hard enough a month or so before when I had to cancel my flight, but this day was so SO difficult. I can’t remember the last time I cried so hard. I am so blessed to have a boyfriend like Josh though. He was by my side the whole day, and held me as I cried. Oh man I am crying as I write this now, it was such a hard time but I know I will see my sister again.

And then the day after THAT whole ordeal was my birthday, which was meant to be spent in London with Jess but it turned out to be the first birthday we’ve had apart. This day was also hard, but made better by being with loved ones and having dinner at my grandma and grandpa’s house. Grandma’s roast potatoes make everything better.

Went to Geelong to see the other side of my family, it was so good to see my nan again. I love her very much.

Went to the Briars with Bec and went on a lovely nature walk and saw a lot of little wallabies and even an emu

Had an ultrasound and my pain turned out to be a 10cm wide cyst!!! So fun!!!!! Thank the heavens it wasn’t a child. I was so relieved. It is still in my body so that’s cute tho.

June:

Applied for a bunch of jobs, and even got a few interviews! Still no job.

The absolute highlight of this month, and maybe even the whole year, was going away to Lake’s Entrance and Yarram with mum, dad and Josh. It was so good to go to the country, I love country towns so much and the wildlife and nature is so beautiful in the eastern part of Victoria. If you ever get the opportunity I recommend going there!

We ate so much nice food and just relaxed. It wasn’t a perfect replacement for not going to Europe, but it was something at least.

Did more work for Kivuli which kept me busy

Went to Bec’s house to bake a cake. She came out to me as bi this day too, and the cake was coloured like the bisexual flag!

Started a short course through the university I went to in Facebook for Business. It was a great way to build up my skills.

Played Animal Crossing with Dani’s little sister, Tami, a very wholesome time

Looked after Josh’s dog Jed while his family went away for the weekend (also went into the start of July) and was honestly the greatest time

July:

Halfway through the year. Thank fuck.

Had another job interview

Went on lots of walks

Was just generally cold

Did a lot of cleaning

Painted the downstairs rooms at church, which took a few days and a lot of back pain, but it’s cool to think that I was able to contribute my energy and time to something while I was not feeling good at all

The restrictions were tightened again, meaning that I couldn’t go further than 5kms away from my house, except to see Josh, so this was a really lonely time for me.

Really got into Masterchef with mum this season. They had all returning contestants from other seasons so that was really fun to watch.

Got and assembled a new couch upstairs that I can say I actually own myself. I absolutely love it.

More walks, despite the cold

This was a very uneventful month, but that’s ok!

August:

Had a call with the hospital I’ll be having my cyst surgery with. It was good to know that things would be started. I had to have a blood test and a second ultrasound then put on the waiting list for surgery. Still no sign on when that will be happening though 6 months later. Just so lucky to live in Australia where all of these appointments are free.

Went for a really nice long walk with Josh. Got shat on by a bird.

Did lots of stuff around the house, just tidying and watering the plants and sorting through my wardrobe to purge all the clothes I grew out of

Had an online Switch games night with some friends which was fun. We played Smash Bros. and Mario Kart and just had a great time!

Ok this sounds super lame but my favourite podcast, The Jenna & Julien Podcast, finished forever which came as a surprise and was just really sad. I really hope it comes back one day.

Did my tax return lmao

Baked rice puff/marshmallow bar things

Made an ASOS order to fill my happiness with material things. Did get some cute clothes and lingerie tho 😉

More games with Bec and Jess, we played Golf With Your Friends this time

Had a cocktail night with Josh, where we just made a bunch of fun cocktails and got drunk. I can’t wait to live with him so we can do this all the time.

Lots of Kivuli work, as we are planning for our 10th anniversary fundraising event

September:

Baked cookies, which was something I did a lot at the start of lockdown but sort of drifted away from. I absolutely love to bake.

Started working for Media-Wize, a small PR company that was started by someone I know at church.

Started playing Among Us at the start of the month

So many Among Us nights omg, just call me queen impostor please

Did my induction for Media-Wize

Got  n e r v o u s  because I kept getting things wrong in my new job. I always seem to fuck up the good things and opportunities that I get

Did a livestream reading of The Great Gatsby on my friend’s Twitch stream. It was really fun and something I had never done before. I voiced Tom Buchannan, which was interesting but cool to sort of get into the character. I hope to do something like this soon.

I burnt my hair while cooking dinner and had to give myself a haircut lmao. It was the first time since 2018 that I had cut it so it was a long time coming anyway.

So much Media-Wize work. It felt good to finally be getting paid to do a job

Got locked out of my bathroom so I had to climb up the laundry chute to unlock it from the inside, all because a fly outsmarted me (it’s a long story… and honestly best told by speaking it)

October:

Had the Kivuli 10th anniversary livestream. Lots of work went into it and it was so much fun! It’s incredible that a non-for-profit that has benefitted so many children and families is still going strong. Such a blessing to see.

Dad’s birthday, and we had a picnic with grandma and grandpa and saw them for the first time since lockdown was somewhat lifted

Walked to Beasley’s nursery with Josh and got a coffee. This was the first proper, not McCafe coffee I had had in months and it was SO good

Played Animal Crossing with Dani

More Among Us, a theme for the last few months of 2020

Watched the AFL Grand Final. Wasn’t super exciting this year tbh, especially since we couldn’t have a BBQ or party or anything, but hopefully next year will be different

Nearly moved out of home with a friend of a friend, but since I didn’t have a job, didn’t think it would be a wise decision. Would’ve been nice though

Did some more Media-Wize work. I haven’t been given anything to do since this time though, so I don’t know what’s going on with that? They really be ghosting me tho.

Applied for JobSeeker so I would at least be getting a little income

New Jackbox came out, and had a games night with The Boys playing all the new games

Voted in the local election

Went to Westerfold’s Park with Josh for a lovely long walk

Played lots of The Sims 4 (but tbh I have been doing this all year)

November:

This month things sort of started to turn around, as Covid wasn’t hitting my state hardly at all, so I was actually able to see family and friends again!

Went to my old primary school with Dani and played basketball and just shot around and talked. She also came over for dinner. It was so nice, and she is a true friend.

Had a picnic at the park at the top of the street with my dad’s side of the family, all together at last

Melbourne Cup Day, not that I really care but it’s nice to get a day off. Went on a day trip to the Dandenong mountain range. It was so, so nice and bought some lovely little things from local shops, went for a bushwalk and had a bakery lunch

Went to the park to throw the frisbee and kick the footy around with Josh and his friends, although they are my friends too tbh

Had a picnic with a group of friends that I hadn’t seen since January, so it was so, so good to catch up with them and have a delicious BBQ dinner

My favourite online comedy group, Aunty Donna’s Netflix series came out! Had a virtual watch party with a few friends and binge watched it all in one go

Had lunch with grandma. This used to be a weekly occurrence but for obvious reasons was put off for this year. I absolutely adore her and every lunch we spend together is so precious to me

Went to Kyneton with some of the family as another day trip

Christmas shopping time again. So weird to be at the shops and feel sort of normal? I went 4 different times in the span of a week and a half haha

Josh’s birthday! We went to this maze place with has a bunch of big mazes and other fun activities. It was such a perfect day. Then we had dinner with his family.

Got a letter from the IRS saying that I needed to provide them with proof of identity, so that was fun trying to sort that out. We love the outdated US tax system <3

Went to a bridal shower for my friend Katie

Went for another hike with Josh to the mountains

Drove down to Geelong for a friend’s wedding and stayed at my nan’s house

Had a pub dinner and Jackbox night while down in Geelong with The Boys

A good friend of mine was leaving to live in Japan for two years, so I went to her house one last time to say goodbye and chill in her pool and just hang out

God why is it so hard to get a job?

December:

Omg we have made it to December. It truly is a miracle with how this year went tbh. And if you have read this far, thank you but also, how little of a life do you have?

Went to my friend Katie’s wedding. Sort of surreal to go to a wedding during a pandemic but it was fun and I got to see a lot of friends I hadn’t seen in a while

Enjoyed the hot weather and went to the beach a number of times with a variety of friends

Went Christmas shopping, and just shopping in general since it was safe to and shops had finally opened again

Got a job at a talent agency where you get gigs as a paid extra in TV shows and movies, which was pretty cool! I even had a professional photoshoot to get headshots done, something that I had never done before. Glad that I could get some pictures to use on LinkedIn though haha. Still haven’t been cast in anything but here’s hoping.

Had dinner and drinks with Josh, Bec and Trev in the city for the first time since it reopened. God I love Melbourne so much. It is just so magical on balmy summer nights. This was such a special evening, and was so good just to be in the city again

Had a lovely day with Dani, starting with breakfast and then going on a hike before the weather got too hot. We went to Sherbrooke Forest, a place I hadn’t been before, and it was incredibly beautiful

Had a number of job interviews this month too, none of which got back to me which was annoying :/

Now it was heading into the time where every weekend is packed with Christmas do’s so I’ll just collate them in this point. Lots of drinks were consumed and many delicious roast dinners

Had our annual Christmas Carol’s service at church. It was a blessing to be back in the building for the first time since March, and to be able to do something I love (singing) with some of my best friends was the best

Christmas eve I went to my grandma and grandpa’s house (on dad’s side) to help them set up for Christmas lunch. Spending time together just the three of us is so special, and I am so glad I was able to come over and just chat and be in their loving presence. Then that night I went to our 11pm church service to bring in Christmas day. It was a great service and was great to see our kick-ass minister give a sermon face-to-face.

Ok here we go, Christmas was a doozy, let’s go. So Christmas lunch was, as I said, with my dad’s side of the family, which is always a great time. Cracking open crackers and fighting over who’ll get the bottle opener or nail clippers is always a highlight haha. But we had the fucking best roast potatoes I swear. I need to know what my grandma puts into them because I could genuinely eat 20 of them and still have space. Then the rest of the afternoon was spent in a food coma until I went to Josh’s house to spend dinner with his family. Another delicious meal and great banter was what I needed, although I can safely say that I put on at least 5 additional kilos after that day.

The next day the fam and I headed to Geelong to see my mum’s side of the family. Was a great drive down and I listened to all of The Avalanches new album which had just released. Easily the greatest album of the yeah hands-down. So we spent lunch there and absolutely stuffed ourselves with more food. Three Christmas meals really took a toll on me, but I am just blessed as it is to have a loving family and food on the table.

The next day dad, Josh and I headed to the beach to spend that weird time between Christmas and New Year’s. To get there we took the ferry that goes from Queenscliff to Portsea, which is always a fun time, since we don’t often go from one side of the bay to the other (if you don’t know the geography of Victoria I apologise lmao). Mum didn’t come with us as she had some symptoms of Covid, so went home to isolate and get tested. Thankfully she tested negative and she joined us the next day.

Once I got back home I had to prepare the house for my friend Jono who was visiting for new years from SA. Many last-minute chores and cleaning was done haha.

New Years Eve! Went to pick up Jono and my other friend Sarah from the airport and dropped Sarah off at her accommodation and ended up staying there with Jono for a while as this was where the New Year’s party was going to be. Although, in true Victorian fashion, our premier announced that there was going to be a limit of 15 visitors at any house from 5pm that night. Excellent. We love a last-minute change of plans. So we had lunch and spent the afternoon at my friend’s house before heading to a local park to chuck the frisbee and kick the footy around. We also had our second annual NYE trivia competition, which my team lost by 1 point!! Dang I get so competitive, but we will win next year, I can feel it. The new year came through uneventfully, we were in the middle of a game of Scattergories or something like that when someone changed the channel on the TV to see the Sydney fireworks across the screen and like, 4 second left of the countdown. I gave Josh a bog ol’ smooch and gave my friends a big hug. We had done it. 2020 was defeated.

Conclusion (damn this really be an essay tho)

This year was undeniably the hardest year I had ever been through. Going through unemployment for the majority of the year and having no sense of purpose hit me hard but I am entering 2021 with the hope and willingness to get on track with my career. And I think I will be successful. A lot of truly awful things happened around the world this year as well, with the devastating bushfires at the start of the year, the powerful BLM protests, Coronavirus absolutely destroying lives and many, many other global events but through it all, here we are. I hope you all keep well this year and that your 2021 is infinitely better than your 2020.

Song of the Year: Tangerine – Glass Animals

Album of the Year: We Will Always Love You – The Avalanches (I CANNOT stress this enough, but you absolutely must listen to this album!)

TV Show of the Year: The Mandalorian - Season 2

Movie of the Year: Bombshell (the only movie I saw at the cinemas so didn’t have much to go with)

Memory of the Year: Going away with my family and just enjoying time away with each other

Thank you for reading this, if you’ve made it this far, you’re a real one <3

[neverheardnothing]

The Black Suits song ranking

Happy (late) Black Suits Day (eighteenth of September) y'all! Not that anyone asked but I have decided on my personal Black Suits song ranking. As always, I am very correct with my Joe Iconis music takes and will accept no criticism. Also I'm talking about 2013 here. Love yourself (and the work) and listen to 2013 instead of 2012 for better audio quality and a tighter book.

Spirit Song - I don't think anyone is surprised this is my top ranked song lol. "A melody only exists when someone hears, and the number one thing that I've learned through all my years. The fans and the family make the music strong, and the cheering is just as important as the song!" As Will describes it, it's a love letter to audiences (hey, that's me!) and when I listen to this song I'm always reminded of how much Joe believes in the message of this song, that the audience is part of the show.

Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang - [Joe Iconis voice] the language of the show. A lot of this list was influenced by not only how much I liked the song but by how well the songs functioned as extensions/expansions of the scene and the believability of that character singing the song. To me Bangx5 is one of the ultimate examples of this. The lyrics "there's a heavy metal hole where a soul used to be" like that's SO teenage angst and overdramatic just like Chris is supposed to be in this moment. I remember when I first heard the song I was like "is that it? Simple repeated [I am ___] lyrics for your act 1 finale? Seems a bit underwhelming even if it musically goes hard" but then after like another listen through of the show or so I realized that was the intention. When you're seventeen or so and you feel like your world is crashing down around you, sometimes the only way you can articulate it is "I am white boy rage, I am in a cage, I am bang bang bang bang bang bang bang." You are bang, you are loud crashing noises, your emotions are too loud and intense to be described with your limited vocabulary but you try anyways and fail. I love the contrast of the lyrics "I am chew my pens" and "I am hurt my friends" right next to each other. And the harmony at the end? Chefs fucking kiss.

Amphibian - This song is so goddamn fun. Like honestly. That’s it. Nato is chilling by himself and makes up a song about himself and his frog and it’s the best goddamn time in the show. You really get the feeling like these characters are actually friends. I love the “idiot” Nato vs “smart” Brandon. The “who cares about Beethoven. It’s a movie about a dog” joke never fails to make me laugh. When Brandon is expecting a regular bridge to the song and Nato whips out the falsetto and he goes “oh my God” like. Peak comedy here. And also Will Roland doing That? I’m in awe. Like this is what The Black Suits (the band) is, friends hanging out and having fun with music, that makes the next scene when the band formally break up so sad.

It's All Good - “So we’re cool and whatever?” It’s such a teenage boy thing to say. Like you want to acknowledge that you guys have been through something but at the same time you want to undercut it so you don’t run the risk of seeming too openly emotional. I’m also only very slightly bitter about that review that was like “oh wait so the only stakes of this show is the battle of the bands?” Like hello? Did you not see the show or listen to a single second of the finale? It’s about the way these characters communicate in their kinda inadequate ways and how they use music to express themselves. In a way it’s classic, cliche musical theater 101, with the characters unable to say what they feel with plain English so they resort to music, but of course with a Joe Iconis twist. The stakes aren’t the fucking battle of the band, it’s the friendship between the boys. It’s literally so obvious I want to scream. Anyways this song is fantastic way to end the show.

Car Ride To Long Beach - That's right. Car Ride To Long Beach is 5th place. I'm only very slightly bitter about the review that was like "is fried chicken REALLY the deciding factor in going on a drug run?" And by slightly bitter I mean this person goes on the list of people I want to beat up for being so fucking wrong about a Joe show. No, you fucking fool, that's not actually the deciding factor. She's at least on the fence, if not already secretly decided yes, about it from the moment he asks. It's about the company, it's about the road trip, it's about breaking the rules after having been "good" for so long. I am so adamant that this song is about desire and thrill and guilt and wanting to be seen for who you are and not just John saying obscene things. Like take the dialogue exchange right before she finally vocally says yes. "What do I look like right now?" "Uh. You look like... Lisa?" "... Alright let's go." Like tell me that does not drive you fucking crazy after Lisa's constant questions about others perception of her and trying to figure out who she is herself. Car Ride To Long Beach is good you guys are just mean.

Social Worker - Another example of an incredibly fitting character song. The refusal and reluctance of a teenage boy to admit that he actually needs or gets mental health help. I love the music-ification of a panic attack as loud drums and electric guitar. "I don't really go to the social worker," he says, as he goes to the social worker. It’s truly hilariously, heartbreakingly fitting for his character.

The Answer - When that Things To Ruin reviewer said Joe is a master of putting commonly shared moments to music no one else has done before, they were right. Who HASN’T taken a test and failed it so utterly they started questioning their entire life and worried for their future before? I love the repeated lyric questions like John is sitting there reading the question over and over trying to figure out what the answer is. I love the synthy keyboard. Fantastic choice @ Charlie Rosen.

Band-Aids and Cigarettes - Oh this song is so good I feel guilty about putting it at 8. It’s like honestly heartbreaking, not being able to give what the other person needs and being aware of it. And the unconventionality of it being sung by the mentor character instead of a love interest or something.

The Feeling (Part 1 and 2) - Yeah I’m combining them into one song and also assuming the entire beach/Chris & Mrs. Werring conversation is part of the song, too, with the interlude of the “I just want something good to happens.” This song is a jam, plain and simple. I love the absolutely terrible advice that Mrs. Werring gives Chris. “You got to push all your worries inside of yourself, and then they’ll mix creating a combustible boom.” Awful! But Annie Golden sings it so well. And it makes Band-Aids and Cigarettes later that much more sad. In part 2, I love how interconnected the two conversations are. “Just breathe them in -> I love the beach.” The synchronous “I don’t even remember why I liked him/her in the first place.” The score here having the Spirit Song melody. Also now feels like a good time to bring up my Lisa Bred is nonbinary headcanon (though it’s practically textual canon) with “I’m not a girl, I’m a song.” Like that right there, she literally states she’s not a girl, and that’s just the most obvious part. Twice before now, she’s asked people about how they perceive her (“what do I look like right now?” “my girlfriend?” / “Lisa”) and her arc in this show up to this point is discovering more about herself and trying new things. She’s aware of societal gender norms (“isn’t that what boyfriend girlfriends are supposed to do?”) and how she doesn’t really fit in with them. She’s experimenting with expressing herself (dyeing her hair blue, photography). Like it’s all right there. I don’t know if Joe was intentionally writing a nonbinary character figuring herself out but that’s what I get when I read the text straight. In Lisa’s mind, John is one of the gateways to trying new things (“you give me this feeling”) and then that blends right into the rest of The Feeling and it’s so fucking GOOD. I love this song.

Blue Hair - The OG Joe Iconis viral song! I love the music song of this song so much, specifically the guitar/piano riff. I love the multiple sources of motivation of doing it, from actually wanting to try something different, to getting a reaction from Chris and John, even if she denies that last part. And then again at the end of the song with her self-awareness. She’s doing something to stand out/express herself! I love it.

Nato's Song - A six minute clusterfuck of a song and it’s beautiful. Sticking to the actual Nato stuff right now, I think it’s a pretty clever way of passing time and seeing how it’s affecting him and everyone else in the show. With the interspersed content of other characters, it really is the musical equivalent of a film montage. I love seeing Chris’ further breakdown in the form of voicemails to his dad. The music of Blue Hair, Old Records, and Rather Be coming back is fucking great. Everyone is just struggling in this song and it’s great.

Rock 'N Roll Band (Reprise) - I love this re-introduction song so much and the differences between it and the original. I love the chaoticness of the solos all going at the same time. I love the cut Geek Rock Garage King still making in into the show as Brandon’s bridge and how out of place it is with the rest of the song musically but yet it’s still in it. I love the a capella break with Mrs. Werring cheering them on.

Old Records - The fact that John plays the guitar as Chris sings it for someone to hear is so good. When he gets affirmation that John likes the song, he continues. And it’s only after being called out about his writing revealing things about him that Chris feels bad about the song again and claims that they were just dummy lyrics. Once John leaves the backing music comes back on like glockenspiel or something and I love the lightness of it combined with the electric guitar that comes in after.

Black Suit On - I know we’re at like 3/4ths through but I honestly love this song. I love all the songs so much. This ranking honestly barely matters because I love all the songs in this show. I love the (unrealistic) idea of finally being able to be your best self, of all your problems going away, if only something symbolic but ultimately inconsequential thing were to happen. It’s about the (shared) vision for a different future than the one you’re currently living! (By the way I am so haunted by Jen Tepper saying this song was actually about LIHN. Like does anyone know what that means? Do I fundamentally misunderstand this song or LIHN? I don’t get the connection.)

Lisa - Once again, the relatability. Who hasn’t felt like they were good enough for another person? I love the specificity of the AOL verse. It’s so late 2000s. And the rest of the lyrics are so angsty and overdramatic as John is. Specifically in the context of the show this song really hurts after Lisa tells him she can’t fix whatever issues are wrong with him.

Rock 'N Roll Band - I love how the entire song is so what teenagers going through school, waiting for life to change, and seeking refuge in the only place where they feel like they are important and can be themselves. I love all their intros. I love Brandon going way too hard on the drums. “I’m gonna scream and shout, knock you out. I’m gonna conquer the world, get the girl. I’m gonna get some respect, finally connect. When I take a stand, with my rock ‘n roll band.” The extreme vividness of the type of stuck they feel here is so good and it’s a good summary of the show.

Pop Tarts - I love that this song is still called Pop Tarts despite all references to it having been removed except for one dialogue. I love the section of Chris’ vision for the band. The pre-reprise of the beginning of It’s All Good with “we’re cool and whatever?” and all of them joining in and getting on the same page. We love some boys just absolutely barely capable of communicating with each other with words.

Song In My Head/Only Person In The World - The absolute irony and poetry of John singing “I’m the only person in the world” and Chris singing about how everyone is gone when this is a duet. It’s literally so fucking good. When they both sing “I’m the only person in the world” at the same time? Are you kidding me? And this song is ranked 18th? Truly every song in this show is top tier.

Rather Be - This song is rather on the nose in its message, everyone would rather be at band rehearsal. It’s a solid song that helps us get into each of their characters more (“rather be where my buddies / now the same bands / and tolerate my drum fills” / “where my brothas like that I’m weird / and ask to see my squid impression” / “because we’ve only got a little while to get fantastic and get some style / if we do it soon then I won’t have to go to college” / “christ I’d rather be anywhere / but sitting trapped here taking this asshole test”). I love it when characters in shows all have different reasons for singing the same lines.

McFly Is Looking For A Drummer - Rip to this song, being ranked last. It’s not that I don’t like it because I actually do. Again, I just love all the songs in this show. He’s trying to communicate in his own way, which happens to be in music references, but that’s not how other people around him understand, and so he sees this opportunity to be with people who are more like him, but then he he gets scared that he wouldn’t fit in the way he hopes he would, which would be even worse than where he’s currently at where he knows that they don’t quite get him but are his friends anyways. I love that one moment where he drops out singing. It’s very reminiscent of in Michael In The Bathroom when you expect him to sing the title words but he doesn’t, so your brain fills it in for you. It functions a bit differently than that moment does in BMC though. I think in this song it’s the comparison of how he’s currently treated with the possibility of what McFly represents, that he could have the exact opposite experience there, that he’s imagining all the possibilities in that moment. Lol, ranked 20 and I still have so many things to say about this song.

[ursoself-satisfying]

Ask/Drabble/Blurb/HC Masterlist: 4/19/2019

OK SO this is a compiled list of all the lil things ive written for various boys in asks!!!!!! I plan on updating the list monthly n its v hard to go back n keep track of asks so pls if i miss any let me kno!!!! ENJOY!!!! 

this fts drabbles, blurbs, n hcs for Patrick Murray (Undrafted), Gardner Langway (Dear Sidewalk), Eugene Sledge (The Pacific), Joe Mazzello (himself lol), Queen, current! Brian n Roger, adult! Tim Murphy (Jurassic Park), n probably more!!! ur always welcome to send in more n im always working on more even if i am slow ilyall ty!!!!! 

its not rly organized at all n the titles of the links r vague but i hope u enjoy n it all works,,, MOST R NOT SFW SO READ W CAUTION nothing is marked but this is a warning here,,, some r longer some r horter its kinda a crap shoot at this point but its not like a normal msterlist so ::// but i still hope u like again ily,,,

also this is messy n written mostly in short text speak so i apologize it might be hard to read ::// 

Pat Murray 

me describing pats character in the best detail i can

moving in w pat 

teasing ;;;)))

hes a show off lol (first time seeing him play) 

hes a DOM 

he steals ur panties rip

u sing n he loves it oof 

pats british gf!!!! 

introducing u to the boys (he gets a lil jealous) 

hand holding!!

insecure pat ::””(( 

w a gf w mental health issues ::””(( 

MORE insecure pat omg ::””(( 

he LOVES ur hair lol

fuck buddies pt1 

bELLy bULge 

masturbating lol 

geeky/nerdy gf!!

kink overview lol 

wearing his jersey 

virgin gf aw 

fucking on the field under the stars 

rly,,, hes soft,,

u flirt w another guy 

omg guys he speaks in playlists 

comforting him ::””)) 

intervening when he has a breakdown 

who starts the relationship??

met thru his dad lol 

hes a titty man 

he spanks 

soft aftercare uwu 

he lets U dom ;;;)))

praise kink 

frustrated subby pat 

anons soft pat dream!! 

u give him a massage ;;;)))

film nerd gf!! 

another fuck buddies to proper lovers 

could he sub??

coach dad pat!!!

another subby pat ;;;)))

Pat is sad so u ride him 

pEgGiNg pAt

 Gardner Langway 

lil thing bout u getting him off in public ;;;))) 

hes a SUB 

lil thing bout sucking his dick 

dom n edging short but sweet 

smore edging lol 

gardy n the rain ::””)) 

feeding him strawberries on ur anniversary 

mOmmy kink 

he! cant! help! himself! 

finger,,, sucking,,,,

soft morning sex n his o face 

fellas is it sexy to suck ur friends off 

smore finger sucking its a thing 

edging,,, again

we let him top for a sec 

he helps u thru a rough day ::((

soft scared gf!!

a FULL day of teasing 

spends all night telling u bout stamps ::””))

riding raw n cumming on stomach OOF 

finding his parents???

some boat logistics lol 

virgin gardy!!!

eating u out OOF 

getting him a new watch uwu

bi!gf n soft gardy getting together 

he gets sad about his parents ::””(( 

being domestic!!

YALL HAVE TEDDY BEARS 

his first valentines w u im crying 

he tops ;;;))) 

facesitting

he leaves his socks on!!!

GORGEOUS CREATURE 

v public gardy ;;;)))

u admire the duke ::””)) 

lil dick appreciation ;;;))) 

his lil WAVE 

lil bit bout thigh riding at a party lol

u kinda leave him hanging :://

soft date ideas ::””)) 

pulling his hair?? oof

catching him getting off 

hes premature but its cute!!!

hiking w our unathletic boi uwu

a lil storyline about getting back together after a while ::””)) 

he sees his parents ::O

gardy eating u out to make u feel better ;;””))

“im gonna c(um)ry” 

tired shower thigh sex whoo

pet names!!!

pubic hair preferences ::)) 

angry sex??? 

Gardy seeing u in a pretty white dress uwu

post movie life 

Eugene Sledge 

pEGGING 

hes a lil spoon uwu 

sLoW RiDiNg 

softly playing guitar for him ::””)) 

he likes to suck titties ::)) 

thoughts on him never wearing his uniform again ::””(( 

fucks u hard after a nightmare ;;””))

going on holiday on a boat?? 

Eugene’s sexually aware gf oof 

Joe Mazzello 

mild priest hcs 

double dates w rami n lucy!!! 

hes touchy 

HS!joe likes ass 

sub joe 

comforting him about his receding hairline rip 

his singer gf!!

he gets ROUGH 

thoughts on romcom!Joe 

(mostly current!) Brian May 

lazy morning sex ah

short random thoughts?? fic idea maybe??

soft moments ::””)) 

i just love him ok 

Current Bri Fucks Me Up: A Mild Weird Thing 

(current+70′s) hand kink anyone?? 

Tim Murphy  

starting off right w pegging 

The Holey Trinity+ (meaning drabbles of more than one person meaning lil bits for each including Pat, Gardner, Joe, Eugene, and Deaky) (ALL=ft. Queen as well as the boys) 

P+G breaking the bed 

G+J ass or tits??

G+J anal lol 

J+P+G comforting u after a bad day ::(( 

Queen Boys w a gf w acrylic nails 

P+E+D domestic scenes ::””))

E+P+G ur preggo omg!!!

P+G jamming out in the car together aw

Clusterfuck crossover anon!! 

G+P+E comforting u when they find u cying ::””((

E+G+P engagement rings!!!

G+P awards shows scenarios w famous gf!!

G+P+E+J+D chubby gf!!! loml!!!

G+P+E+J+D sad gf moments ::””((

P+E+G happy birthday sex ;;;)))

P+E+G+J+D seeing u in suits oof

ALL (the boys) on whining, praise, n edging 

ALL on marking up and dirty talk 

P+E breeding kink ;;;))) 

ALL+bonus Tim Murphy dancing around at 3am 

Other

groupie thoughts ::)) 

mob!prof!Gwil thoughts (from @borhap-socials au) 

rly lil short deaky BODY LANGUAGE thoughts,,,

[l-o-g-l-a-d-y]

The Short List

Summary: 

“Kid, you know that I have a very short list of people who I would move heaven and Earth for.” With his flesh hand, he began to tick off names. “Pepper. Morgan. Rhodey. Happy...and you. You made the cut, Pete. And honestly? I don’t know what else I have to do to prove to you that you made the list." Iron Man is retired but Tony Stark will never stop playing superhero for his kids. Or Peter Parker has a high school diploma and not a lick of common sense. Set three years post- Endgame. Featuring retired Tony and walking disaster Peter Parker.  

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18970351

Tony did not know what he did in a past life to deserve the sort of hell Peter Parker was putting him through.

It had been a normal Friday night when, for the first time in a long time, he was awoken by his AI with an urgent message.

“Boss, I am receiving an incoming message from Karen. Peter Parker is experiencing a medical emergency.”

Well, that woke him up. Beside him, Pepper stirred awake, brow furrowed in concern.

He threw the blankets off himself and scrambled to get out of bed “FRI, what happened?”

“He appears to be suffering from a severe cranial injury. Karen’s scans are reading a 7mm epidural hematoma. The bleed has stopped but the pressure against his frontal lobe and optical nerve is increasing.”

Tony felt the blood drain from his face, slapping the long unused nanite arc reactor on his chest.

“Where?”

“The midtown safe house.”

Tony whirled back around to share a confused look with Pepper. The safe house had been a byproduct of his post Battle of New York paranoia, a place to regroup nearby should the tower be overrun again. He had never dismantled it, but he had forgotten it among newer, safer, alternatives. He knew for certain he had never told the Spider-Kid about it.

“The midtown safe house?” he pressed a kiss to Pepper’s head.

“Correct, Boss.”

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., get me a flight plan. Don’t wait up for me, Honey!” He called over his shoulder while rushing out the door.

Tony had hung up the suit following the final Snap, all but forced into early retirement by the loss of his arm and the desire to settle down with his family. In doing so he never bothered to re-establish himself in New York City. Instead, Peter and Harley came out to the lake house on a semi-regular basis. Peter had recently graduated high school and was still adjusting to college life at NYU, so he saw his arach-kid a lot less than he would like. It was all a part of growing up, he knew, so despite the distance, Tony had eliminated some of the training wheels protocols to give the boy some space to grow. Something he was deeply regretting right then.

“How far out am I now?”

“10 minutes 42 seconds.”

“Call Peter.”

Tense seconds past before F.R.I.D.A.Y could respond “No response.”

“Fine, have Karen do another scan and get me there in five minutes.”

***

It was 12 hours later and a clusterfuck later that he found himself helping his beloved idiot walk out of the ER where they had met Dr. Cho. When Tony had first arrived on the scene, Peter had been in no shape to make the trip to the compound medbay. Tony had directed F.R.I.D.A.Y. to get him to the nearest hospital and do whatever it took to have Dr. Cho meet them there as soon as possible. It had been touch and go for the first hour. The hospital was ill-prepared to treat an enhanced patient that metabolized medications as fast as they could be administered. They didn’t exactly have protocols for letting an unfamiliar doctor commandeer the operating room or for letting a patient walk out the door eight hours after having their skull cracked open.  It had taken a lot of bluffing and abuse of his privilege as that guy who saved the universe to get it done. He was getting a headache thinking of all the paperwork he would have to fudge to keep the kid’s secret identity intact.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure Peter was still behind him and rolled his eyes at the sad picture he made. Peter was trudging up the hallway to the safehouse, now sporting a six-inch-long bald spot behind his left ear and approximately 20 staples.

Shouldering the door open Tony allowed himself to take in the safe house in greater detail than he had that morning. All in all, it looked like any large, empty, upper-class apartment, except for the Spidey suit on the floor of the bathroom, a backpack with a duct-taped strap, and Peter’s laptop perched at the kitchen bar.

Tony gestured to one of the barstools by the counter and let Peter sit while he proceeded to the hall closet. It was stocked with mostly expired medical supplies and a few emergency odds and ends. He popped an instant icepack, wrapped it in a washcloth and handed both to Peter to place over his swollen cheek with a wince.

“Do you want to tell me what you were doing here?” Tony started. His tone was sharper than he had intended. He saw Peter tense but he left the floor open for him to speak.

“I told you, I had heard about some messed up drug being distributed to clubs across the city. When I looked into it I realized they weren’t just peddling drugs, but weapons,-“ Peter looked away guilty “and people.” That should have been the first clue that he was in over his head.

“So, I’m just supposed to be thrilled you decided to take down a drug cartel and human trafficking ring all by your lonesome?” Tony interjected.

Peter bit his lip the way he always did before spilling his guts. “Uh, well no, technically not. Uhm…It turns out that Deadpool had been tracking the leader of this group too, so we teamed up to-“

Tony held up his hand.

“I’m sorry did you say Deadpool?” he said in mock disbelief “Am I going deaf in my old age? I know I couldn’t possibly have heard you say Deadpool, because I know you have been explicitly warned about that guy by S.H.I.E.L.D., by every hero operating in New York, and me.”

Peter frowned the way he always did before giving a heartfelt and utterly stupid argument.

“Look, I know he has a bad past but he’s really trying to turn over a new leaf! And I’ve been helping! He hasn’t killed anyone in months and Ms. Nat did it so- ”

“Hey, tt tt tt! Let me stop you right there. Natasha’s mental health and loyalty were carefully vetted over a period of years by a massive intelligence agency. You have been kadoodling about with a contract killer on the basis of a pinky promise to do better. There’s a difference.”

Peter gritted his teeth at the word kadoodle but figured he ought to pick his battles if he was going to get through the story.

“We teamed up. Apparently, someone from Sister Margret’s, which it turns out is NOT a school but a really gross bar that Deadpool hangs out at, had leaked that Deadpool and Spider-Man were onto them. It was basically an ambush, except we didn’t know it was an ambush, and Karen couldn’t tell that it was an ambush, but my spidey senses warned me at the last second. But by then, Deadpool had just charged right in! Before I could stop him! I couldn’t just leave him in there!”

Tony’s snort of derision made his opinion on that matter perfectly clear.

“So, I had to get him out.  They had way too many guns, and this ridiculously big dude in there. He was some kind of ‘enhanced’ situation though, ‘cause when he hit me it was like being punched by a rhino or something. He got a lucky shot to the back of my head when I was trying to yank Deadpool out of the line of fire. I think I greyed out because the next thing I know, Deadpool had me over one shoulder and he was shooting over the other. He managed to get us out onto a neighboring roof but I couldn’t swing us anywhere” He gave a weak attempt at a self-deprecating grin “it was kind of embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” Tony scoffed. Peter watched the knuckles of Tony’s right hand whiten and heard the minute whir of his mechanical hand tighten and quickly forged ahead.

“Anyway! I knew something was wrong but I hadn’t wanted him to know where I lived or make him try to get me to  the compound, so I had him help me get here and I figured I should probably have a friend around to keep an eye on the situation so-“ Ohhh that was the wrong thing to say. A fire seemed to flare in Tony’s eyes.

“EXCUSE ME? I think you mean a MERCENARY! A very dangerous mercenary who you should not even know!”

“Mr. Stark, I know Wade is sorta-“

“Oh, Wade is it? You had your good buddy, Wade, drop you off at a safe house I haven’t even used in a half dozen years to do what exactly? Sleep off a brain hemorrhage!?”

Peter had not seen this level of ire out of Tony since the Ferry Incident of 2017. It seemed a little unfair since he had called Tony once he realized he was out of his depth.

“Mr. Stark, I swear, I didn’t know how bad it was! And I called you, didn’t I?” Well, Karen called. And not so much once he saw that he was out of his depth so much as he when he started losing time and puking.

“I’m technically 23! I thought it was time to try- “ Tony cut him off.

“No! Functionally, you are 18, you’ve said yourself you don’t remember the Snap so none of that counts! 18 means you get to go to big boy prison and vote.  It does not mean you know jack crap about head injuries!”

Pick your battles, Peter… “Besides, Wade stayed until Karen said you were coming. He wanted to make sure I didn’t die, but I had told him not to stick around for you to get here.”

“You should have called me! First! Thing! Or Dr. Cho! Hell, call Dr. Strange!”

“I’ve been hit in the head loads of times! I thought it was not so bad!”

Tony threw his hands up and turned around in exasperation then rounded on Peter again.

“Not so bad? I’d ask if you were brain damaged, but oh wait “Tony held his finger to his chin in a pantomime of thought “ that’s right YOU ARE!”

“Mr. Stark! C’mon-“

“You didn’t know your ass from your elbow when I got here.” Tony seethed. “You couldn’t form a sentence. Didn’t know who I was! Where we were! By the time we got to the hospital, you were completely non-responsive. It took sawing off part of your skull and scooping the blood out like jello for your healing to get enough of a head start to matter.”

Peter gulped but Tony wasn’t done. “What about May? What about me? Don’t we matter, kid?”

“You’re retired! I thought I could handle it! By the time I knew it was this bad it was too late. I’m sorry!”

“Retired!? Are you kidding? UGH!” Tony wanted to punch a wall but instead, he walked a few paces away and rubbed at this face exhaustedly. When he turned around, he took stock of what he saw. Peter looked a mess with a swollen face, pilfered MIT sweatpants, a worn out 2011 Stark Expo shirt, hospital socks, and a line of staples down his scalp like a Frankenstein monster.

Who let this idiot out into the world unsupervised? Uh-he did, apparently.

“Kid.” Peter looked up from the tile grout he’d been inspecting. “You know that I have a very short list of people who I would move heaven and Earth for.” His voice had dropped to something more like his normal timbre.

With his flesh hand, he began to tick off names.

“Pepper. Morgan. Rhodey. Happy.”

He emphasized each name with another finger leaving his thumb tucked against his palm. His eyes met Peter’s desperate to get him to understand “and you.” His voice dropped to a whisper, wagging the thumb of his now open palm.

He rubbed his hand over his face again in an attempt to force a semblance of calm.

“You made the cut, Pete. And honestly? I don’t know what else I have to do to prove to you that you made the list. You’re right, I am retired. Iron Man is the Earth’s absolute last line of defense, but no matter how old I am or how old you are I am always going to be the first line of defense for Peter Parker. Capisce?”

Peter felt his eyes start to burn. He didn’t know what to say. He was sorry?  He had felt like he was handling it responsibly at the time?

He didn’t trust his voice but swallowed against the ache in his throat to say “Maybe some of the people they were hurting are on someone’s short list too.”

Despite his best efforts, Tony saw right through the rapid blinking and Peter saw his shoulders drop as the last of the fight poured out of him.

Tony was way past the point in his life where he could hold this kid at arm’s length. He crossed the room in three steps to wrap his arms around Peter’s shoulders. Immediately he felt the kid shift to lean his weight against him, trusting him to hold him up while he clutched the back of his mentor’s jacket. He briskly kissed the top of Peter’s head and rested his chin atop the matted curls. Under all the bravado, the kid had scared himself too.

Silence passed between them except for the occasional sniff as Peter tried very hard to not cry. Tony held in a sigh. Pete still didn’t get it, he had nothing to prove to Tony.

“You know I invented time travel. Not to save the universe, mind you, but for your scrawny ass.” He paused “I couldn’t live in a world without you in it. I tried. For five years, I tried, and I couldn’t do it. Not when there was still a chance.”

“That’s a low blow, Mr. Stark” Peter’s voice sounded scratchy and wet but amused.

Tony huffed a laugh. “And I’m never gonna let you forget it.” He smiled and let Peter pull back a bit. He brushed sweaty hair from the kid’s face and winced at the swollen edges of Peter’s normally handsome face. He felt his smile turn sad.

“There are lots of ways for me to lose you faster than you can heal, Underoos.”

“I know ...I’m sorry.”

Tony blew out a frustrated breath. He knew what it was like now. From both sides. Peter was a hero. He was never going to stop trying to save lives. There was never going to be a day where Peter Parker could just sit idly by while the world went to shit.  He also now understood how a woman May’s age could have so many grey hairs and why Pepper blamed Tony for her Xanax prescription.

“You know, every day you remind me that I owe Pepper about a billion apologies.” He shook his head. “The things I put her through.” Peter smiled up at him bashfully.

“Speaking of Pepper,” Tony continued handing Peter the hoodie he’d left on the counter. “I gotta go back upstate. I have a lakeside dinner date with two lovely ladies.”

Peter stood as well “Tell them I say hi, will you?” Tony watched the kid pull a denim jacket on over the hoodie. He was pretty sure it belonged to Harley but Peter probably nicked it the last time he’d been to the lake house. The kid started triple layering as soon as the air turned the slightest bit brisk.

“I can do you one better. What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Gee, I don’t know if I can go up there tonight. I have work tomorrow and-“

“Looking like Frankenstein? I don’t think so. How are you going to explain to triple-J how that mess is gone by Wednesday?”

“Frankenstein’s monster.” Peter corrected shoving his laptop into the ratty backpack. “Besides, I don’t want to upset Morgan showing up looking like this.”

Tony shrugged. “She’s a tough cookie. She’ll probably want to play doctor. I should warn you her medical case is fully stocked with holographic Iron Man band-aids.”

Peter laughed “I should be so lucky as to receive such quality medical care.” He shook his head “Sure why not? But I gotta be back to pick May up from the airport Tuesday night.”

“Deal.” He glanced down at Peter’s socks “Ya still need shoes, bud.”

Peter trotted off to the bathroom to grab his shoes and spidey suit. Everything back to normal. As normal as they got anyway.

Tony called after him “Doesn’t Hot May know I owe her a thousand favors for encouraging her nephew to pursue a career in vigilante justice? She literally has access to a private jet.”

Peter shrugged as he did a once over of the apartment to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind.

“I don’t think that’s her style.”

“She could have Happy be her chauffeur,” Tony replied in a sing-song.

“Ughh! Mr. Stark, don’t encourage them! It’s bad enough they like to do date night at our apartment. Where does Happy even live?”

Tony held the door for Peter, laughing, and basked in the light-hearted glare Peter threw over his shoulder.

Once inside the elevator Peter gently brushed his shoulder against his mentor’s. “Thanks for bailing me out, Tony.”

The elder wrapped his arm around his kid’s shoulder. “Any time, Underoos.”

[pisati]

I skipped some of the ones I didn’t have a reply to;

I was anxious, but they knew they helped me. I was fine when I had company. I could go for walks, or just sit and watch while they played games I couldn’t keep up with. I was the relaxed fun one that could host games of Cards Against Humanity and Clusterfuck; the cool girl, who didn’t really want to drink but it was okay because I was underage anyway. I was cute, I was smart. they were drawn to me in a different way than I was drawn to them, but somehow we ended up close.

in what way were they drawn to you and vice versa? are you talking about the 2 guys or your friends in general?

those two were the ones I was closest to, so mostly I’m referring to them. I couldn’t say how they were drawn to me; I guess they thought I was cute at first. I was rooming with one of their friends at the time and I was involved with orchestra, which... I think they were all music majors at the time too. so I saw at least one of them in rehearsal 4 times a week. wasn’t too long before we were all hanging out and I kind of got absorbed into the friend group. 

I was drawn to them for different reasons. they were nice to me. offered to hang out. A knew my anxiety was bad and offered to hang out when my roommate was at work, because being alone made it so much worse. he’d come over and we’d watch a movie, or I’d go to his apartment and we’d do our separate homework together, watch something, listen to music. it was so nice. those times were what I missed most. I had a big ol crush on him at the time, but just getting to spend the time with him as a friend was so, so nice.

T also offered to hang out when my anxiety was bad. he told me he wouldn’t mind going on walks if I needed it; later he remembered his offer and asked for my number. one night he’d come to hang out with a bunch of other friends; I was hosting a Cards game night. he got a little drunk; I knew what he was after. my roommate warned me he was a charmer. but that night we stayed up all night just talking. we both had insomnia. we talked about everything, and we both had such a calming effect on each other. I couldn’t have panicked around him if I wanted to. he knew he only meant to hook up, but he told me later he was caught by surprise with the feelings. I’m not his usual type, apparently, ha. I thought he was funny. sweet. naturally charismatic. the kind of person people are naturally drawn to. I still have a ton of respect for him. his wife is a lucky lady.

they knew I had my issues, but maybe they thought it was just, I don’t know, Depression Lite™, compared to the anxiety. but even that wasn’t too bad when they were around. I had my moments, but I thought they knew we could always talk through it.

so things were “okay” before you left? you had depression, anxiety but it was manageable, especially with social support

things were okay before I left. not great, mental-health-wise, but when I had friends around and felt like I was cared for, I could deal. I had friends, I had the best grades I’d ever gotten in school, and T absolutely would have dated me if I stayed. I felt about as good as I could feel, with the anxiety. 

then it hit hard. I left. I spiraled. I’d go up to visit, but it would sometimes hit me that soon I’d have to go home and be alone again and I couldn’t help feeling the worst existential dread.

do you feel like you’re somehow defined by your friends? talking about existential dread, i wonder if you have “who am i” moments when you’re not with your friends. does their perception of you as “the cool girl” give you a sense of identity (as “the cool girl”) which goes away when you’re not around them?

I think before, my feelings felt a little defined by them. I still say I feel most myself when I have good friends around. I’ve had a lot of existential moments alone. but I don’t think I ever put on a face for them, or changed anything fundamental about myself. I’ve always tried to be myself. if they didn’t like me as I was, they wouldn’t have been my friends. hence why I don’t really have friends here. and that’s fine. I don’t need anyone to like me. that validation is nice, but I know I’m not a terrible person. it’s just... where I am. I do think I pushed myself in some ways, doing certain things or telling myself I felt certain ways, which was a mistake, but I never did anything I wasn’t okay with.

I felt like shit when I was alone, but I never lost my sense of self. I was the same person after I transferred schools. I just didn’t want to feel shitty again. I didn’t want them to move on and leave me behind. that was the first time I ever really felt comfortable with people, with having friends. I didn’t want to lose it and be stuck here with nothing again, like I was before. the loneliness brought out the worst of the depression monster, and everything that comes with it. I’m sure you know what I mean. it wasn’t that I tied so much of my identity to my friends, it was that I finally had something good, and I felt really awful when I didn’t have it. maybe something like cocaine, ha.

I felt hollow, I felt sick. I’d numb out, I’d cry. they hurt me, too, really bad. in different ways. they just didn’t get it. what happened to the Cool Girl? why couldn’t I accept that none of it meant anything and move on? they still wanted to be my friends, why wasn’t that good enough? why was I so upset?

you seem conflicted about feeling things. why shouldn’t you be upset? if they hurt you as bad as you say, why wouldn’t you be upset?

I asked myself that a lot. I felt my pain was justified. but they acted like it wasn’t. A especially got upset with me because I knew he didn’t have feelings but I was “acting like he was cheating on me” when we weren’t anything to begin with. after a few years, the way we were together? he could have just called me his girlfriend and wouldn’t have had to do anything different. we were so close, of course people naturally assumed. our parents did. our friends did. but he acted like it was a personal offense that anyone should think so. we had a very complicated relationship, and I was confused and hurt. but I learned a few months ago that he probably has BPD and a whole mess of other things going on, so... that could explain a lot about how he’d pull me in and push me away. I’m learning to forgive him for how he treated me. he didn’t even know how bad it was. but it definitely hurt. he knows that. T I think was rightfully annoyed with me. we were upfront with each other, we had an end date. that was it. he was allowed to date other people. I got upset because he had only just told me he wasn’t in a good place for a relationship where he was in his life, and suddenly he had a girlfriend. suddenly he was telling A he just “put up with me”. I thought he had feelings, because he said so, but who even knew anymore. I was very cold with him, though he tried to be friendly. I hated the idea that maybe he didn’t actually do anything wrong. I just needed time to get over it. and I did. we’re still cool. even though that did hurt. 

they didn’t get why leaving hurt. why being alone hurt. why feeling used hurt.

what do you think this says about the type of people they are?

they’d never been alone before. they’d never had to leave everyone they cared about. they always had good friends around; even if they pretended people didn’t care and isolated themselves, they knew they were doing it to themselves. they knew I was sensitive. but I think they tried to be careful around me because they thought being too blunt or something would just hurt me more. I wouldn’t have known what to do with me either, I’ll be honest. but, you’re right, it does really sound like they didn’t actually give a shit.

my first semester after I transferred, I thought people were forgetting about me. I remember talking to A on messenger one day; seeing “seen at ___” and no response. curling up in bed, starting to shake. cry. please. please. please. just. don’t leave.

are you quick to jump to the conclusion you’re being ignored/forgotten? there are often other reasons for being left on read

I am, and I don’t know why. my friends sometimes need to reassure me they’re not going anywhere. I don’t even know how many have actually left. I know there are plenty of reasons people leave you on read; I’m much better about it now. that specific instance was from when I was still coming out of my horrific anxiety; I had just started at my new school and everything was still new and scary. I didn’t think he’d just up and stopped talking to me forever in that moment, but I think I kind of “what-if”-ed the future a little bit; envisioned a scenario where he just didn’t talk to me anymore. and it terrified me.

I do know better now, though, I promise, lol. a few people that don’t matter have just up and stopped talking to me, but, ya know? they don’t matter.

I’d count down til I could visit next. that was what kept me going. just knowing that in three months, I could have a few precious days to feel like a person again. use my voice again. but I’d always have to come back.

i think the core of the issue is hinted at here. “to feel like a person again” tells me a story of a girl who has attached her sense of identity to unstable, external sources outside of herself rather than stable, internal sources inside yourself that you can nurture and depend on

not my sense of identity so much as my feelings. when I was around friends, I had people to talk to. I could get out of my head. the whirlwind of thoughts and anxieties and what-ifs and everything quieted down. it was always worse in my head. it still is. when I visited and I looked ahead at having to leave, having to throw myself into this rut again... I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to come back. I craved the comfort. the feeling of normalcy. nothing was as fun alone. I couldn’t watch TV shows for at least a year after I transferred, because it reminded me of being with friends and it just wasn’t as fun alone. I had to fight with myself to quit being miserable and just... learn to be okay alone. watch the TV shows. go to the store and buy groceries. keep busy without unraveling completely because company just wasn’t possible right now. would I rather continue to be miserable, or accept the situation? I think I chose right. 

I felt stupid. maybe I was just overreacting. I stopped letting them know how I felt. visits weren’t the time or place to get sad. nobody wants you around when you’re sad. nobody knows how to deal with you. they don’t get it. they won’t get it. they’ll just complain about you. don’t give them anything to complain about. maybe they’ll want you around then.

this section is so conflicted. these people don’t understand you, complain about you, etc, yet you want them to want you around. it sounds like a big price to pay…but what is it you’re paying for exactly? that sense of identity? validation?

maybe validation. you need to understand, these were the first and only good friends I really had in my life. I have never known a healthy relationship. my parents didn’t have one, my mom’s parents didn’t have one, my parents didn’t really have or keep friends, none of my friends growing up were ever good for me (I have hella stories about my best friend here, but that’s for another time. or maybe not at all)... not to mention I moved schools in both elementary and middle. I didn’t even have anyone stable in my life, let alone anyone positive and healthy. I met a group of people in college that were fun to be around, who didn’t pressure me, who liked things I liked, who assured me they liked having me around even if I didn’t drink or smoke like they did... I would have done anything for them. a few people I still miss to bits. I almost moved to Pittsburgh this summer and I’m actually sad I ended up not going, because the friend I planned on rooming with is an actual angel. literally one of the sweetest people I have ever met. it just so happened that two of the people in this friend group put the moves on me, and I became much closer to one of them than anyone else. I don’t know why they said what they said. I’ve heard them complain about other people in the group as well. I think we all have our frustrations with each other on occasion. I like to think they talk it out; they do seem like the kind of people that are able to do that. I know when we air grievances on festivus we’re all upfront with each other. though I do wish it happened more. I guess I wouldn’t know if it did, I’m just not around. nobody’s taken any issue with me in the last two years, and the year before that I’m pretty sure I heard a few times “you need to come out of your shell more” “we care about you and you’re hard on yourself; stop it”. so. I don’t know how often anymore anyone talks behind my back. I haven’t given them reason to. but it really gutted me when it did happen. it is hard, though, because I do still feel like I have to be on top of my shit when I go visit. it’s not changing myself for them; it’s just... putting the feelings in a little box and dealing with them later. if at all. 

just. box it up. it doesn’t matter anyway. sometimes it makes you sick to your core. but if you take a few deep breaths and make yourself stop crying, it goes away. it all stops eventually, if you make it.

this isn’t healthy. suppressing emotions like this might work in the short term but in the long term it becomes highly destabilizing as you become more and more emotionally numb and fractured

ya I know but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t know if I just told myself I was cared about, or if I am. they say I am. I’m still invited to friend group things. they seemed happy I could get an early pass for farm jam this year. T told me at festivus during grievances (which nobody had many of at all) that he’s really glad that despite everything I still made it up for new years and festivus; A nodded sharply in agreement.

let’s not wait around for signs like this that we matter. let’s not wait like patient dogs for scraps from the dinner table. let’s envision our importance irrespective of how others see us, okay?

maybe not so much that I matter; I know I do. but maybe like... signs that I didn’t fuck up so bad that they don’t want to deal with me anymore. it would suck if that happened one of these days, but I could deal now, I think.

T hasn’t talked to me hardly at all this year, though he said he knows he’s bad at reaching out. I thought he was just sick of me.

does it matter if he’s sick of you? i’m sick of a ton of people, aren’t you? does it matter? does this define you?

no. it doesn’t matter. but it would suck if he had a problem with something I did, never brought it up to me, and then cut me out of his life. I respect him a hell of a lot, and I like to think he respects me as well. at least enough to tell me when I fuck up.

after his wedding, after I told him that was my last straw with A. is it because I’d just shoved everything down? because I’ve stayed out of sight? do they like me better when I pretend I’m fine? I don’t think I’m pretending. I make things be fine.

things don’t seem fine to me

as fine as they have to be. at least they were, til you made me think about it. gross.

I don’t know what to think. what to trust. I don’t know how they see me. saw me. it felt like it would change based on my moods.

you’re caught in an unstable feedback loop here. if your mood is unstable then their reaction to you will in turn appear unstable. if you’re happy then they seem to like you, if you’re sad then they seem apathetic. if your mood depends on how they react to you, then your mood will worsen. and so on, down the rabbit hole

right. but I also can’t be on 100% of the time. I’m not a sunshiney, peppy person. just not who I am. they used to get cold with me when I’d get upset, sometimes. I do remember a few times when we tried to talk it out. A especially. he’s seen a lot more of my moods. once sitting on his bed crying. he talked me through it. once after I learned T had a girlfriend; he knew, but he didn’t want to be the one to tell me. I came back to his apartment after talking to T with tears in my eyes, and he acted like he didn’t know; he knew. but he sat down with me and held me and told me some things I still remember even now. there were times when he was the voice of reason I needed; there were times when we did try to be healthy about it. but it does stand out the few times I was upset and there was nothing anyone could do about the situation. they didn’t know what to do. so they just... didn’t do anything.

I can’t beat myself up over little things, but what do I do when it feels like little things get me put in the doghouse?

the language here, to me, indicates how you see yourself - almost as a pet. you’re not a dog and there is no doghouse. if they try to treat you as you are and send you away like a scalded puppy then it’s time for a new friend group

I think this is more how I feel than how they treat me. I do sometimes exaggerate things in my head. it’s hard to know what people think when we don’t talk about it, but I also don’t want to be constantly asking my friends if they hate me because of one misstep. that’s not cool either. I try not to let it show how much these things worry me, because it seems neurotic. it feels neurotic. I don’t want to have to worry. I know with good friends it should never feel like a question that needs to be asked. 

when they won’t talk to me about what I seem to have done wrong in their eyes? I’m more than willing to talk through it; I’ve never been unreasonable.

you’re unreasonable to yourself all the time. you treat others better than you treat yourself

maybe unreasonable to myself, but not unable to reason. I feel like you’ve seen that by now. maybe it takes a while for me to internalize reason, but I’m not so stubborn that I refuse to try looking at things another way. I do want to learn to be kinder to myself. to trust that people do like me and care about me and want me around. 

I’m not crazy. I just feel things really deeply. but I sure as hell feel crazy when I think I have a place and feel cared about, and find out they talk behind my back. how do they see me?

you’re not crazy, you’re human. there is a laser-like focus on how others see you. your happiness, self-esteem, and sense of self-worth are 100% put in the hands of others. all of your eggs are in one basket, and when that basket develops a hole, you’re screwed

I don’t think I care as much how they see me anymore. I do care a little, but I’ve been hurt enough. if they think I’m terrible and don’t want me around anymore, okay. that’s just, like, their opinion, man. I’ll fuck off. I know how to be okay by myself now. but you can’t tell me it’s not jarring to feel secure with your friends, and then learn what they’ve said about you when you’re not there to hear it. it hurts. I have to wonder if that’s how they really see me, why they won’t just tell me. if I’m doing something that bothers them, why they’d rather complain to each other about it than bring it up to me. I wonder what it is I’ve done that’s made them so uncomfortable with speaking candidly with me. 

I took what I could get. I made mistakes. just to get it over with. just to know what all the fuss was about. I had a crush on A, I thought he did too. I was over the moon with the possibility. possibility. that was when I got slapped in the face with hookup culture. I didn’t realize people actually did that without feeling anything. I didn’t.

hookup culture isn’t for those of us with sensitive hearts. a lot of people just wanna get off. with whoever, wherever. they can just have sex with whoever and walk away whenever they want. it’s purely physical. sometimes they allow for this because they’re emotionally invested in someone else. so they’ll have a girlfriend but then use a girl on the side for physical stuff. it’s exciting for them but it’s nothing more than cheap sex and adrenaline. others turn to this because they can’t develop a relationship beyond the purely physical because they’re emotionally damaged

for some of us it’s more an emotional experience. we bond and develop strong feelings for whoever we hook up with. if we’re careful, we develop a friendship first which may blossom into a sexual relationship. for me, that’s the preferred course of events. it feels natural, feels good. friendship comes first (pardon the pun)

ha. yeah, I’m definitely in that camp with you. that was how it went; that’s how I prefer it goes anyway. 

then T swooped in. scooped me right up with that charm, and I told myself I didn’t care. what was another one, at this point? just fuck me up.

so now that you do feel fucked up, do you regret thinking that way? will you treat yourself better in future, knowing that this is the outcome?

well, this one didn’t actually mess me up as bad. at the time, I was expecting it to be another hookup. I’d already been hurt by a few people at that point (a few I’ve never mentioned; they weren’t important), and after the first debacle with A, I figured, well, fuck it. whatever. this one ended up being the most healthy. not saying it really was healthy, but it was more clear-cut than anything else. he had feelings, I knew it, I had feelings, he knew it. if I hadn’t been leaving in a month and a half, we wouldn’t have had any hangups.

the ones that did mess me up, though... I don’t know that I regret thinking that way. I regret the circumstances that caused me to think that way. just, one after the other, feeling like I wasn’t good enough no matter what I did. I stopped caring what happened to me. looking back I wish I hadn’t done any of it. I would have been a lot better off emotionally. I used to be able to feel things! I used to be the biggest sap. I would have been the best girlfriend to any one of em, if they’d deserved me. but I didn’t know up from down as far as healthy relationships go, so live and learn I guess.

at least we were clear with each other. I’ve only been cool with his now-wife because he never let me think he didn’t respect me or my feelings. sure, it hurt, but it was easier to deal with.

you spend a lot of time dealing with being hurt instead of getting yourself out of hurtful situations. why do you stay in them?

it always hurts to watch someone move on. but the other situations? I don’t know. I guess I figured it was better than being alone. I know now that that’s not true, but you couldn’t have told that to cripplingly-anxious 19-year-old me. I finally had friends and a boy that was interested in me?? hell if I’m letting that go. 

I like to think I know better now.

A took his opportunity once he knew that was over. I thought maybe he changed his mind; he hadn’t. I asked why. shrugs. “you’re hot”. I heard it echoed years later. it’s hard to know what means anything and what doesn’t. it felt the same to me. or maybe none of it meant anything. I’ve mistaken a lot for love.

love is unmistakable. it has nothing at all to do with sex or anything physical. it is a pure, clean, incorruptible feeling. your heart swells and you feel an unconditional affection and an undying desire to protect a certain individual. you want to see them happy, you want to support them no matter what. they feel like home. they make the ice around your heart melt and they make you believe in the beauty of humanity. if you’re on the receiving end of this emotion you’ll know all about it. it’s so much more than “you’re hot, let’s fuck”

the way you describe it, I think that’s how I felt. I don’t think I ever had it reciprocated. I always wondered. if you have to ask...

it wasn’t just that he thought I was hot. I was one of his best friends too, like he was mine. he told me once, he thought I was great. funny, smart, witty; all these other adjectives he threw at me. the year after the Big New Years Fiasco of 2014-15, he held my hand as I drove us home and told me I was wonderful and I didn’t deserve what he did to me the year before. but he just didn’t feel this ~spark~ with me that he felt with other girls he wanted to date. sounded like a bunch of bullshit to me, but whatever. to him, that’s “just a thing that friends do sometimes”. I don’t want to know what other “just friends” he has. it very well could be that it was just me for a long time. or maybe the others were just hookups and I was the only one stupid enough to stick around. 

also from 2015: “the thought of anyone touching me repulses me. if anyone showed me any kind of affection I’d probably start bawling. not in the “oh god finally” way, but in the “oh god you’re going to leave or you’re going to hurt me please don’t start this” way”

people can’t hurt you. you can only hurt yourself by placing so much importance in the hands of people who don’t deserve to have that kind of faith placed in them

that’s an interesting perspective. I want to agree, but I’ll have to sit on it a little more.

maybe I thought they deserved it. my perspective at the time was very, very limited, remember.

sometimes it makes me feel sick. the second I realize someone’s interested in me, now. I’ll show them the worst of me. I’ll try to run them off. I’ll try to convince them I’m not worth their time or effort. clearly I’ve never been. why not put up a warning sign, spare you the energy? it’s hard to know at this point if it’s out of kindness to others or to myself.

it’s kindness to neither. you’ve painted a picture in which they leave you and you mistake it for reality. the anxiety of having faith in them drives you crazy. you have no control over the situation. you soothe that anxiety by taking control back: you’ll try to make them leave. better to have the certainty of killing it yourself than the anxiety of letting it live

yeah, I do have issues with lacking control. that’s actually where a lot of my fears come from, believe it or not. my emetophobia? I can’t control if I’m gonna throw up or not. if I’m sick, it’s gonna happen. and Boy Howdy do I not like that. I think a lot of my traveling anxiety has roots in control and a deep-seated fear of new things. it’s interesting though, I don’t know if I’ve ever thought about this from a control perspective. maybe I have and I forgot. but I really would rather have the upper hand than let myself get hurt like that again. but, back to the previous reply.

do I think I’m sparing myself? why would I still have this vague hope if I really didn’t want it? I think I do want it, but my instinct is to push. just, go away, leave me alone. I’m afraid I’m going to be alone forever, let this self-fulfilling prophecy work itself out.

you’ve placed so much importance on falling in love and being with someone. a relationship is something that’s nice to have. it’s warm, it’s tender. it’s something that most people want. at the moment, i think you see it as something you need. something you absolutely need otherwise you’re not worth very much. that’s no the foundation for a relationship. a stable relationship comes from a mutual desire to be together. not a need, never a need

maybe I did feel like that at one point. I did feel the most content I’ve ever felt when I had T around. it wasn’t head-over-heels, it wasn’t infatuation, it wasn’t any fireworks show. it was just... calm. content. wanting to be right where I was. I miss that feeling a hell of a lot. 

but I don’t feel like I need it right now. maybe a bit of my self-worth was placed in it a few years ago, but I’m doing alright now. I’ve done pretty alright without it. I know I feel a lot better with that contentment, but whatever. it’s not a huge deal. I told you I’ve never dated anyone; that hasn’t changed. I never dated whoever just to be in a relationship. I hardly even talked to anyone like that since I left my old school. I had a hope that maybe I’d happen upon it again, but I wasn’t actively seeking it out. I didn’t let feeling lonely distract me or bring me down [too much]. I focused on school and my career. I don’t regret that. but I’m sure I could have felt better while I went about it. 

I wonder why I flip around so much with how I feel. why I worry that one little misstep will send people packing. why I’m not reassured by kindness. am I actually numb? it’s exhausting, trying to think about it. I don’t want what I had before, I want what I felt before. but I get scared. I feel needles shooting down my spine. how is it so easy for other people? why don’t I trust?

you know why. because you’ve been in emotionally damaging relationships with people who used you

I mean, yeah. but why should that make me so confused? it’s pretty cut and dry, looking back. maybe I’m asking myself why because I was made to feel like this wasn’t a big deal. I shouldn’t have been so hurt. but... I was. so. I don’t know, I don’t have the best gauge on how bad it messed me up. I’m guessing it was Pretty Bad. 

someone could want me around, talk with me about anything and everything, look into my eyes and kiss me so gently, rub my back and kiss the back of my neck just once, hold me close all night… and it’s hollow. empty. how in the fuck do you know? how do you make it not feel meaningless? a friend’s band’s percussionist slowly put his hands on my hips during a set at farm jam, pulled me close.

stop falling for this shit. we men will put our hands on any girl who seems remotely willing. when we’re done, we discard you. please understand that if you want to find meaning, you have to start extremely slowly. you start with friendship, not with hands on hips. as the weeks and months pass in your friendship then it will grow and flourish very naturally and of its own accord. that’s where meaning comes from

oh, I know. believe me. I didn’t think that it would be anything. I’m almost 100% sure now that that was self-harm. I don’t know what I expected to gain from it. probably nothing. just wanted to be dumb for a minute. do something real stupid. who cares. another one of those “fuck it, what’s another one?” deals. 

how can you be both repulsed and intrigued? I went back to his camp with him; I wanted to push myself. I wanted to. but I knew it was nothing. why wasn’t I afraid? it made me feel sick; why did I want to? do I see it as hurting myself? I certainly don’t think it’ll help.

because you liked the attention. everyone likes attention. i feel you had to override your gut instinct here - you literally felt sick. that tells you all you need to know

yeah, that.

I’m scared and confused. I think I know it’s simpler when it’s clear. I’m afraid of feeling more than them, of them feeling more than me.

i don’t think it’s a competition. who cares if they feel more or less than you? feel what you feel and let the chips fall where they may

I don’t mean it as a competition. I just mean, like... if it’s imbalanced, in my experience, someone gets hurt. I feel like I’ve only ever had more feelings, and they went and hurt me. I fear that I’d do the same with the tables turned. but that could just be a fear that stems from my never having any healthy relationships. I don’t know how these things work. 

maybe my big issue is trust. I want to feel wanted, liked, blah blah. but I won’t let anyone tell me they feel that way. I don’t trust it’ll last.

okay, so don’t trust it will last. that’s fine. if you’re right, then no harm - you knew it was coming anyway. if you’re wrong, sweet! you trust the person! it’s win/win. the right person will actively earn your trust, month by month, year by year, decade by decade

and if I don’t trust them? wouldn’t you get sick of someone not trusting that you want to try for them? even if you tell them, they still don’t believe you? I suppose you’re right, though, if it is the right person they should be willing to try and continue to try. I guess I’ve never really had that either.

I’ll do something, inevitably, and they’ll be gone. someone better, less fucked up, will come along.

sounds like you’re painting more pictures of the future, and they’re not pretty. better to paint nothing and let things happen of their own accord

that’s the anxiety. always making shit up. I’m glad I don’t have the energy to do this as much anymore. it’s still in the back of my mind. I guess I do need to learn to just not expect anything. 

inevitably. I want what we all want, but I also don’t see it as a real possibility for me. it’s what happens in movies. it’s what happens to other people. sure, I love, I care. I know I can. but is it ever good enough? I’ve tried so hard, I don’t know how much harder I can try. is it ever good enough?

you sound like a lost puppy doing tricks for its master to win affection. stop trying to win over the hearts of people. stop bending over backwards for people. stop placing your self-worth in their hands. you are suffering and suffering deeply

I have suffered deeply. thankfully I haven’t been as close to anyone in years as I was before. I haven’t really had anyone to try so hard for. it gave me a lot of time to reflect. a lot of time to repress, too, which is unfortunate. but I did learn I need to stop trying so hard unless I’m sure I get some reciprocity. I just. I hope it’s clear that I never had anyone interested in me before. hardly even as friends either. they gave me half an ounce and I gave back ten pounds. that’s just how I was. I didn’t regret caring so much. honestly, I still don’t. I had a lot of love to give, and if they wanted to step on it that spoke more to their character than mine. my problem was that I watched them step on it and I stayed anyway.  

I just have a lot to learn, I guess. I went through so much unhealthy, painful shit, because I didn’t know better. I thought that was just how things were. I had no reference point, though I’m sure I knew I wasn’t happy with some things. I held on to a lot because I didn’t want to be alone; I didn’t have anything better to move on to. I can’t complain about the friendships. those genuinely have been some of my best memories and experiences. but the pesudo-relationships, FWB-type-situations-turned-friendships? that’s what’s weird. hard to deal with. 

the last 4 and a half years have been very quiet. whatever weird situation I was involved in with A lasted for 2 and a half years, but we only saw each other every few months. we’d agreed on no feelings, but he knew it was hurting me. so that was that. I kept up with school. I tried the okcupid thing for kicks, maybe I felt some sort of optimism about it, but it mostly made me feel sick. I deactivated that thing so many times. I’m not even sure what I wanted out of it anyway. if you aren’t making friends or meeting people “organically”, how else do you do it? if there were an okc for friends I’d have been on that shit too. I missed company, more than anything. feeling a genuine connection to someone, being able to talk to them, knowing I didn’t have to put on a face. thinking back, I’m sure it was my own feelings more than what other people did or said that hurt most. 

I forgot where I was going with this. I’m tired. but uh. yeah. 

you wanna skype some time? sure would be easier than long rambly posts. 

[skriaki]

The best language no country uses: my first month learning Esperanto

Saluton! Mi lernas Esperanton. But a few weeks ago I’d have barely been able to guess what Esperanto was, and mainly knew it from a joke in the beloved sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf. Then one day a random YouTube recommendation led me to start learning a new language for the first time since I left school.

Esperanto isn’t your typical language, coming about as a collective cultural phenomenon over many years. Instead it was the passion project of Dr Ludwik Zamenhof, a Jewish-Polish linguist who, noticing the strict language barriers between different groups in his home town, formed the dream of an international second language which might help alleviate humanity’s long-standing issue of killing each other. He eventually called it Esperanto, which appropriately translates as “one who hopes”. As if creating a whole new fully-functioning language wasn’t impressive enough, Zamenhof’s baby enjoyed a fair bit of success after its 1887 release, to the extent that the League of Nations almost adopted it as an administrative language. Sadly, his idea might have come along at just about the worst possible time; the global surge of nationalism surrounding the world wars proved antithetical to the tolerant philosophy behind Esperanto, and the language has remained little more than a curiosity in the public eye ever since.

So why did I literally decide overnight to start teaching myself a language with no official government support and a speaking population scattered in small pockets across the globe? Well, quite simply because it’s a fascinating piece of work. Common knowledge states that a person can pick up a working comprehension of Esperanto in a fraction of the time it would take them to learn a traditional language, especially if they have at least one European tongue in their repertoire already, and I can honestly say that within a month I’m already more confident with Esperanto than I ever was with French after two years of schooling.

Zamenhof’s creation is remarkably efficient. For starters, it’s essentially a splicing of prominent European languages, meaning it’s common to recognise words from Spanish, Italian, English etc. More than that, though, the grammar is flexible, the pronunciation and spelling is downright utilitarian, and as a whole almost every possible step has been taken to make Esperanto as approachable as possible. There’s only one word for “the”, compared to the six I had to remember for German. Every noun ends in O, every adjective ends in A, and every present verb ends in AS, with the whole language using a consistent system of suffixes and prefixes that make it so much easier to guess at a word’s meaning based on its easily identifiable type, or even invent a new one. All in all, what quirks you might find with Esperanto are nothing in comparison to the minefield of half-rules and archaic logic you’ll find in a natural language. Especially the Anglo-Saxon clusterfuck that is English!

So yeah. It’s kind of a big deal. Even though a new language invented by one dude was always going to have an uphill struggle getting international recognition, Esperanto might have been ahead of its time and to date remains arguably the most well-known constructed language, with at least one popular language app featuring a course (which I passionately recommend if you’re remotely curious, since it’s free and low-effort), and a devoted global following who tend to be delighted to bump into a new Esperantisto. And while English may have stolen the spotlight as the likely candidate for a lingua franca, Esperanto remains shockingly easy to pick up and play, to the extent that some experts have argued the case for teaching kids Esperanto as a stepping stone to traditional languages, because it’s so much less punishing.

And on a personal note, I’ve found that the tangible sense of steady progress these past weeks has had a notable effect on my mental health after a rough few months marred by illness and the return of the dreaded warmer months. I enjoyed learning German back in the day too, but Esperanto’s flexibility and consistency makes it a satisfying puzzle to solve because it’s mostly just a matter of remembering the rules and assimilating new words. I’m also inspired by the philosophy and surprisingly eventful history that some research uncovers. From the Nazis cracking down on Esperanto as a supposed Jewish conspiracy (since fascists generally hate when people try to empathise with each other), to a pre-Star Trek William Shatner mispronouncing his lines in an Esperanto film, and even bands who exclusively perform as Esperantists. And while the language is politically neutral, it’s hard not to see it as a bit of a rebellious underdog after all it’s been through.

Esperanto might never be a serious cultural phenomenon but it’s certainly a subculture, and has practical benefits for anyone looking to understand how languages are put together. And while it might not be as weird as Klingon (which is an actual, functional language), or Solresol (which uses musical notes so you can talk through music), I sincerely believe it’s a beautiful and inspiring triumph in itself. A great book is still a great book even if nobody ever reads it, and Esperanto deserves to be known as a linguistic milestone even if its devotees will forever be an underground movement of friendly nerds.

Tre dankon, adiaŭ!

[tottwriter]

Progress Update

So! The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that I’ve been making considerably fewer story updates for a while now. I haven’t really given much of an explanation up until now (hand injuries aside), because I’d kept hoping that, any week now, things would resolve themselves and I’d go back to “normal”.

Well, spoiler: They haven’t. and for at least a few more months, they probably won’t. With that in mind, I’d like to let people know what’s been going on.

I’ve been a single parent for five years now. I make no secret of that, or of the fact that I have health issues - disabilities - which sometimes affect my ability to write. What I haven’t really covered before is the extent to which my various health complications are hereditary. 

The fact of the matter is, over the last few months I have been experiencing a considerable amount of stress and time loss due to my son developing several persistent symptoms of some of these conditions. We’re currently waiting on a formal diagnosis - which will likely only arrive after several more hospital appointments - but he’s been on and off missing school, and experiencing a lot of insomnia to boot. 

It goes utterly without saying that my first priority is my children. I feel like that’s pretty obvious, but lately it has meant taking him to appointments, fetching him from school early at times (then making arrangements for my daughter to be collected), and comforting him when he is distressed and in pain, or unable to sleep. 

At the same time, I am keeping a closer eye on my daughter, who will quite possibly start experiencing the same things in a couple of years. I’m hoping that by forging a relationship with the consultants I see for my son now, I can speed up that side of things when the time comes. 

I’ll be blunt now - I am well aware that this is not information which is particularly interesting to many people. I’m not here to make this a cry for help or play the martyr - there’s nothing life or death or particularly dramatic about my situation, and I have plenty of family support. My children have a good relationship with their father and he and I get along and are working together on this. In the long term, it’ll all be completely fine. 

For the short term, however, I am emotionally devastated, and the result of that is that my creative output has almost run dry. It’s not just a matter of losing time and physical energy in order to care for my son - he’s ten. For the most part he looks after himself pretty well these days. I probably lose more time to seizures than I do to the extra caretaking, and that always left me with plenty of time to write in before.

What’s wiping me right now is the emotional side of things. My son is in pain almost every day, and while as a parent that’s pretty hard to cope with - hell, as a human it’s hard to know that someone you care about is in pain all the time - what is really compounding this one is that on some level, it is my fault. This is a condition he inherited from me, and I know it’s not going anywhere. 

I want to tell him I’ll fix it, or that even if I can’t, someone else can, but I can’t make that promise because I know damn well it’s a lie. In fact, if his health follows the same pattern that mine did, it’s actually probably going to get worse for a few years before it starts to improve. 

I often joke that I spent half my teens on crutches or in hospital. It’s not much of an exaggeration, and although I just sorta got on with it at the time, that was when no one knew what was going on, or that my constant ankle injuries were anything other than bad luck. By the time I started experiencing regular excruciating pain in my knees and hips, I was old enough to more or less get on with it, albeit with the aid of very strong painkillers and good friends. It was a bugger, sure, but at that point I’d gotten used to it. 

Now I’m faced with the prospect of probably having to tell a ten year old to “get used to it”. That pain and discomfort and dizziness are going to be his faithful companions throughout his formative years. Honestly I can’t actually describe how that feels, other than to say it’s a piece of shit. 

This is a long post to make, about a topic which is honestly pretty sensitive, and I’ve tried to keep it relatively free from woe-is-me sentiment. I’m not here to fish for comfort. Honestly, I’ve gone back and forth on whether to share details about this at all. I’m aware that this is personal stuff, and that a lot of people don’t need or want to know. 

I thought about dropping it below a cut, too, but ultimately decided to leave it in plain view. I’m not going to make this post again, but I did want to make it visible. Not, as I say, for the pity party, but because these health complications are serious, ever bit as important to me as the political issues I might share, or the LGBT+ issues I highlight.

Disability is a huge facet of how I have been shaped and grown over the years, and I refuse to hide it tidily away behind a cut to be glossed over, intentionally or not. Ultimately, this is a twofold statement. Firstly, to explain why my fiction has been thin on the ground lately (it is absolutely 100% not that I have lost interest in writing or my fandoms), and secondly to make a definitive statement about the nature of disability, and how insidious it can be.

I do not consider myself depressed at the current time. I’ve experienced it before, post-partum, and I can tell the difference. But there’s no denying that my mental wellbeing right now is compromised by the situation I find myself in, and at the moment I don’t know how long that will last, or how it will affect my other health problems. 

I’m going to do my best to keep writing. And this...this clusterfuck will pass in time. Until it does, all I ask is that people continue to bear with me, because I might still slip up and promise to finish something soon, only to miss the deadline I’ve set myself again. If there’s one thing which will probably never change about me, it’s my constant habit of pushing for unrealistic goals. 

I’m not going to mope after this post, either. It’ll be right back to my regular randomness, so please don’t feel that you need to tread on eggshells or avoid certain topics. As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t life or death, just...creatively draining.

[kathrynclery]

Hello, I’m back again with a third baby, who is surprised? Not me. I shall give you a rundown of her below - hit me up to plot because I’m VERY EXCITED about this mess of a brain child I have come up with. 

First & Last Name: Kathryn Clery Gender/Pronouns: She/her Date of Birth:  July 5th 1982 Place of Birth: Crystal City Current Residence: Willow Creek Occupation: Works at Spin that Record Faceclaim: Shiri Appleby Character Quote: Honestly, I don’t even play an active role in my life anymore…things happen and I’m like “oh is this what we’re doing now? Ok.” Trigger Warnings: Mental health tw, mental hospital tw, arson tw

She is Bren Clery’s half sister (they share a father) and the two of them kind of grew up together until Kat left home at the age of seventeen. Her mother had left a few years before and her father was a heavy drinker. She couldn’t handle the abuse and responsibility of looking after her kid siblings so she bounced.

Can be called Kathryn, Kat, Katie, Kit, Kitty...it all works. She doesn’t really like Kitty though she thinks it makes her sound like a lipgloss obsessed teenager. 

Lived in Vermont for a while - just because it was away from home basically.

Her life has always been a bit of a clusterfuck, her half siblings showing up, her mother leaving, her dad drinking, her leaving, she was battling with insomnia, depression, and manic episodes.

Katheryn has always had undiagnosed bipolar with low lying PTSD thanks to the things her father inflicted on her and her siblings.

When something went wrong with an ex, aka he broke up with her, during one of her manic episodes she basically blacked out and convinced herself that the way to cleanse him from her life to make things better was to set his apartment alight. It didn’t kill him, and the firefighters put it out before too much damage could be done to the property, but nevertheless it was still a crime.

Judged by a psychiatrist as well as her ex being willing to strike a plea deal out of court due to her deteriorating mental health, Kathryn was sent to a psychiatric hospital for four years instead of being put in prison.

Drugged up for a lot of that time she was pretty passive, only released about two years ago and since then she has been attempting to rebuild her life as well as keeping her past somewhat secret.

She works at Spin that Record as a way of keeping her afloat, not because it holds any passion for her.

She tends to get on better with guys than she does girls, which has lead her to be seen as ‘one of the lads’ rather than someone that could potentially be a girlfriend or wife. Although she plays into this because it’s comfortable the girl HATES it. She doesn’t want to be perpetually single but everyone assumes she’s happy that way, probably because she pretends she is.

Would rather drink beer over wine, watch sports over soaps, wears jeans and leather jackets almost everyday.

It’s highly likely she’ll be fired from her job soon since most of the time she is late anyway, or literally falling asleep behind the counter.

Loves to get drunk and take recreational drugs, it allows her to escape her own head for a while.

Can be pretty manipulative when she wants to be, knows how to play the ‘flirty girl’ despite not looking like it, in order to get men into her bed. Problem is that’s where it ends, it’s a one night stand ability rather than dating most of the time.

If her head wasn’t attached to her the girl would have lost it by now, she’s that kind of human.

Can have manic episodes where she literally cannot remember what she did or said in a certain timeframe. It’s very distressing for her, and can launch her into her depression out of the fear.

Used to do a lot of skiing in Vermont, it’s one of her favourite things, except it’s not really possible in Crystal City obviously. She misses it a lot.

Sometimes blurts out exactly what is in her head which can get her in trouble, but she’s not often malicious. She can be a bit crude.

Despite constant bickering with her siblings she does love them, she just isn’t sure how to show it all the time.

Can get hyper sexual sometimes when she’s having a ‘turn’ as the doctors called it, meaning she’ll literally seek out someone to have quick sex with and then leave.

Wanted Connections: I’m down for literally anything. People who know her past, people who don’t, one night stands, unrequited crushes (on her or from her), ‘family’, people that hate her, people that know her from the store, friends, childhood/school friends...take your pick!

[canonicallyanxious]

this 30 question thing?? and i have to tag 20 people lol in what universe do i have that many friends

Thanks to @evensdramaticshenanigans for tagging me! <33

nickname: don’t really... have one anymore? Just call me Sarah i suppose gender: i’m a girl i guess idk i’m not that committed star sign: gemini! height: five feet on the dot as my wonderful friends who’ve never even met me in real life so love to remind me on the daily :’] birthday: May 29th favourite bands: fuck me idk what i listen to anymore um two door cinema club, twenty one pilots, misterwives, grizzly bear, the xx, glass animals, local natives, wildcat! wildcat!, saint motel, recently got into little green cars as well, basically just a shitton of white indie rock lol [though grizzly bear and the xx are gay culture so Jot That Down] favourite solo artist: Sufjan Stevens until i die [literally play seven swans at my funeral i’m not even joking]!!! also hayley kiyoko, mirah, laura veirs, brooke waggoner, and kid cudi song stuck in my head: dusk til dawn by ZAYN/Sia, it’s such a jam??? BABY I’LL BE THEEEEEEEEEREREREREREREREEEEEEEE last movie i watched: i think it was this movie called fairhaven about a kid who gets sent to gay conversion therapy [yikes......] and when he comes back he has to navigate his relationship with his old boyfriend which, like, i was kinda dubious about, but i gave it a shot because people said there was a happy ending and the trailer looked good?? turns out they put almost all the good footage in the trailer and there’s maybe like two minutes of the entire movie i actually liked LOL the acting was good but idk the writing was... eh? also i hated how long the conversion therapy scenes were i had to skip over those because i just couldn’t do it so basically i would not recommend it unless you can find the two good minutes of the movie [which to be fair were REALLY FUCKING GOOD i mean my queer ass is absurdly weak for sleepy morning cuddles idk what you want from me] last show  watched: haven’t really had the time or emotional/mental capacity for proper tv show watching lately but i did start watching this webseries called Barbelle [it totally counts] which is about lesbian pop stars and honestly what more of a pitch could you need go watch it right now when did i start this blog: i wanna say i made it late 2010 and started using it mid 2011 but like what are dates, time is a construct, IDK what do i post: idk lol. i guess you’d call this clusterfuck a multi-fandom blog?? right now there’s a lot of skam, check please, brooklyn 99, the get down, various other gay shit, the usual Other blogs: I'm a tiny bit obsessed with sideblogs oops. let’s see what are the ones i actually want linked out there... so i’ve got an aesthetic blog, a collab blog i run with my writing partner in crime and spouse @boxesfullofthoughts, a SKAM fic rec blog i co-run with a bunch of other people now lol, a review blog i run with lyds and @pronouncingitwang we don’t really post on anymore but w/e it exists, and more private blogs than i care to admit do i get asks: not that often nah average sleep: lol lucky number: 28 dream job: the DREAM dream job [like, top tier goals] is to write stories and live like a hermit but the “this might not be my ~most ideal scenario in the most perfect world~ career but i know i would be happy and fulfilled doing this” dream job is communications in public health [preferably at a nonprofit/ngo] food: noodles! last book i read: Clifford’s Blues, had to read it for class and i’d actually highly recommend it! It’s about a gay black jazz musician imprisoned in Dachau during the Holocaust and you can tell the writer really did his research. lots of interesting things done with style and form too. it’s quite heavy though so be warned what i’m wearing: an apollo/nasa shirt i got from the kennedy space center, jeans, socks my SO gave me, and my favorite flannel 8] favorite fandoms: my cynical bitter ass thinks all fandoms kinda suck on some level lol i’m sorry i’m such a rude fucker but i guess i’ll answer this with favorite fandom i’ve written for? in which case best and worst fandom simultaneously goes to SKAM, worst because the fic culture in this fandom was really stressful and rough on my mental health at times back when i was still actively writing [rip don’t ask me why i’m not writing now believe me i want to so badly but my life is a MESS] and i’m just in general not a huge fan of the level of entitlement and harassment i see leveled toward other writers [which of all the fandoms i’ve written for probably has to be the absolute ugliest] but also best because i’ve met some of my favorite people through writing for the fandom i would otherwise not have gotten to know, which makes up for 100% of the bullshit and then some. so... yeah sorry this is kinda not a very positive answer i just figured i’d be as honest as i could

i’m tagging: 20 people????????????? fuck that i’m just gonna tag like half of that, do it if you want but don’t feel pressured! @boxesfullofthoughts, @call-this-a-mask, @pronouncingitwang, @hotchocolatenthusiast, @fox-muldr, @rumpelsnorcack, @askybison, @minyardv, @of-flowers-and-sunshine, @thelibraryiscool

[ourwomanhood]

Interview: Caroline Kessler, Storyteller, Photographer, and Video Editor on Mentoring and Using Personal Projects to Disrupt the Status Quo

Caroline is a storyteller, photographer, and video editor based in New York. She is also an actor having worked in film, television, theater, and voice over. Caroline trained at Duke University, The National Theater Institute, International Center of Photography, and Manhattan Edit Workshop. Currently, she serves as a judge and mentor for ic0-D Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) for photographers and video editors looking to launch their careers with the guidance of respected creative professionals within the ico-D`s and Adobe`s global network.

Check out the interview I conducted with Caroline to find out the story behind her recent online project, Throwback Diary ("The Story of a Life, Told One Diary Entry a Week"); how and why she uses personal projects to disrupt the status quo of how people, as she explained, "view and judge the emotional state—specifically of women—based on how 'perfected' they are"; her experience serving as a judge and mentor for ic0-D Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA), and the impact it's had; and future projects she has in store. 

Interview: Caroline Kessler, Storyteller, Photographer, and Video Editor on Mentoring and Using Personal Projects to Disrupt the Status Quo

 Jasmine: Caroline, thank you doing this interview. You are a storyteller, photographer, and video editor based in New York. You’re an actor that has worked in a myriad of categories in the entertainment industry to include film, television, theater, and voice over. You’ve trained at Duke University, The National Theater Institute, International Center of Photography, and Manhattan Edit Workshop. Currently, you serve as a judge and mentor for ic0-D Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) for photographers and video editors who are looking to launch their careers with the guidance of respected creative professionals within the ico-D`s and Adobe`s global network. Tell me some things I might not know about you.

Caroline: I adore sequins, name everything George, and studied astrology hard core for two years.

….but also…  

All those things you summarized come from my sixth grade teacher reading Agatha Christie to us, one chapter at a time, at the start of each school day.  Before anything, I fell in love with reading and the written word.  My mom used to take me on a weekly trip to the mall bookstore—my selection only ever lasting the week until we went again.  Child me was certain she’d be a writer (and I did write a mystery novel between sixth and seventh grade), an English teacher, or a fashion designer.  The last may have had something to do with Barbies…it certainly had nothing to do with my sartorial choices. 

Then I discovered acting.  I auditioned for a play in seventh grade because my best friend did.  And I found tremendous power in the theater.  It was a literal platform upon which to be Not Shy.  And it offered a new world of language and writers, and a new approach to honoring words.  Theater led to film, which led to photography, to editing, to documentary, and some current amalgam of all the above. 

Storytelling—the pursuit of language as expression, and expression as language—is the through line.

Jasmine: You focus on non-fiction portraits. I was introduced to your work through your self portrait, “How I See You See Me,” 2017, by Women in the Arts during their week of highlighting “Women in the Arts of Instagram: A Week of Self Portraits.” It immediately prompted me to go searching for more of your art. My journey took me beyond Instagram and to your website where I stumbled upon the “Take Your Pick” 4x4panels that included the self-portrait that intrigued me initially. I found myself shifting my eyes to see you differently in each photograph, trying to find an emotion— but what I saw I couldn’t be sure of. It left me wondering, who is the woman behind the photograph and what does she want me to see? What does she want me to understand? 

Caroline: I’m so glad you were intrigued by the piece!  That particular collage is born of a series of 18 self-portraits to which I oft return.  They were meant to progress fluidly, each image shifting by a single degree of emotion and self-presentation.  Putting them in different combinations creates new conversations between the images, changing the piece each time it’s approached.  As for what I want you to see?  I think you had my ideal response, but I’ll get to that via your next question.

Jasmine: Tell me about this particular project and why you decided to do it.

Caroline: My 20's were riddled with crippling depression.  My first attempt at seeing a therapist was a bit of a discordant clusterfuck. 

One day I saw her after my HR appointment at a law firm.  I was dressed for the corporate-ness of it.  She remarked, “You’re wearing makeup: you must be feeling better.”   

I remain stunned by that comment to_this_day.   That our outward expression have anything to do with our interior experience; that makeup was the Correct Way to Present Oneself to the World; that a woman say so; and a mental health professional, at that.  I can tell you the day I arrived after painting my bedroom, leaning streaks of (hopefully) dry paint against her office sofa, she did not remark upon my appearance as any indication of my mental health.  

The self-portrait series is my response to how we view and judge the emotional state—specifically of women—based on how “perfected” they are. 

Specifically: it’s two sets of nine images.  The self-presentation ranges from incredibly polished to incredibly disheveled.  In one set the emotional range begins with the polished face as ecstatically happy, and ends with the disheveled face in extreme agony.  In the other set, the emotional range is the exact opposite.  In the middle, both sets appear to meet in neutrality and stasis (without makeup.)

They’re intended for a gallery setting, where you can walk along a wall, and gradually experience the emotional shift through the faces and composures.  Then you could walk along the next set of photos and get the exact opposite sense of her emotional being.  It’s designed to be a confusion of which woman is “happy.”  Perhaps crying with reckless abandon is a great joy.  Perhaps the mask of perfection feels like jail. 

Perhaps people disregard the non-descriptive middle expressions in a rush to get to something more “telling.”

If you didn’t know what you were meant to see, then I’d count that a win. 

Both as the artist— who’s intention was to point out you can’t interpret another human; and as the viewer—to be open enough to not have a concrete conjecture.  It was a bit of a “fuck you” in concept, but I hope the end result is curiosity and empathy.

Jasmine: I want to discuss your diary project. Pulled from your website, the excerpt reads: “her recent online project, Throwback Diary ("The Story of a Life, Told One Diary Entry a Week"), was a year-long exploration of a life told through 25 years of personal writing.” Tell me about the decision to release something so personal. A level of personal some people would burn their diaries over before publishing them for the world to preview at-will. 

Caroline: I have ease with personal art because it saw me through dis-ease. 

I began using myself as subject at a time when I was so depressed and secluded, that making a photograph, or essay, or video of myself, was a way to prove I existed and took up space.  

Throwback Diary—essentially me reading 25 years of my life to total strangers on the Internet—was a way to create a project from a current viewpoint of survival and strength, which I hoped could offer the same to others. 

You know when someone asks, “What would you go back and tell younger you?”  I wanted to foster a safe environment where we could learn from one another when the lessons are most needed. 

Why wait for an issue to reach the past tense to begin healing? 

I’ve had some surprising and debilitating things happen in my life, that maybe could have been less stifling had I known how someone else proceeded.  In social media we’re encouraged to “share,” but we create digital avatars of ourselves.  You see with the rising popularity of documentary film—or of a podcast like Beautiful/Anonymous—this curiosity to go deeper and explore the universality of experience: there’s a true yearning for intimacy, as much as voyeurism.  David Wojnarowicz said, “We can all affect each other, by being open enough to make each other feel less alienated.”  That’s it, really.  

Was it hard to read entries about depression, cancer, and betrayal from the voice to which they were happening?  It was nothing compared to the events themselves.  Throwback Diary taught me a more powerful compassion, and in return I was overcome and overjoyed by everyone who submitted their own stories. 

So if that’s why I spent 25 years writing my life down—for that honest exchange and compassion with total strangers—worth it. 

(Okay, honestly, it was super-hard to read the entry about my first-ever date: February 25, 1995.  Turns out I’m only one step removed from a giggling 13-year-old!)

While I no longer make new videos, the project continues and I always post new submissions. 

I don’t know what ultimately happens with these diaries.  For a while I thought they’d make a great parenting resource, but I’m not sure my life will take that path.  I know I can never destroy them.  I have a maternal affection for younger me: she survived.  But she still needs gentling.  I’m still responsible for how I treat her.  

Jasmine: Caroline, let’s talk mentoring. How has serving as a judge and mentor for ic0-D Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) impacted you? 

Caroline: ico-D’s support of young talent through the Adobe platform is awesome.  What excites me about the mentoring and the judging process, is the slight possibility I may help someone grow by introducing them to an artist they’ve yet to encounter.  The kind of work that makes your breath catch—that reminds you you’re part of a history and community of explorers. 

If I can be a shortcut to a young artist finding an influence that speaks to them in a really personal, influential way—that would rock my world. 

Jasmine: Have you found that through mentoring, areas of your life have been awakened that otherwise would not have been?

Caroline: It’s giving me a front row seat to the rebranding of Millennials that I otherwise would not have had.  I’m witnessing the evolution of that group: an awakening, an empowering.  A shift from trying to be everything, to trying to encompass everything.  They’re finding their artistic voices at a much younger age than I.  It's heartening and makes me hopeful.

Jasmine: Tell me one word that would describe your journey thus far, Caroline.

Caroline: Serpentine.

Jasmine: Are there any current or future projects you’d like to talk about?

Caroline: I certainly had no intention of going straight into another hyper-personal project, but that just may come to pass.  I’m currently watching a series of eight MiniDV cassettes from exactly 10 years ago.  I had filmed them with the intention of making a Ross McElwee-inspired documentary.  Now I’m wondering what present-day envelope I can devise to use this footage, as well as the writings and self-portraits from that time.  It’s strange, because I often consider 2007 one of my Lost Years (where I was so depressed I can hardly remember a thing about them), but it’s right there.  Some of the footage is about as bad as I could expect, and some of it is just delightful.  I like taking back control of that time.  Does that mean I make a one-person account of mental health?  I don’t think so.  That doesn’t sound entertaining, or particularly artful.  I’m talking with a creative director I greatly admire about collaborating on an exhibit, instead of a documentary.  There’s something about an immersive experience that makes a lot of sense for my particular kind of exploration.  These are early days.  I have some encouragement to make a show of the self-portraits, and I will forever and always be writing personal essays for That Memoir I’ll Someday Finish.

And I’m always excited for new collaborations!  If you have an idea, get at me.

Jasmine: Where can you be found online/off-line?

Caroline: 

CarolineKessler.com

ThrowbackDiary.com

YouTube channel: Throwback Diary.  

I’m on Instagram (@caroline_kessler), which is a pretty decent representation of where I am offline—generally at movies and art galleries.  And posing with my cats.  And photographing whatever book I’m enjoying.  Sometimes I dance tango.  I tried to take up birding; but, alas, I don’t think it’s for me.

Hey—thanks for reaching out!  A pleasure to be a part of your community.

Jasmine: Thank you, Caroline!

[sassyhazelowl]

I decided in the interest of moving the story at a faster clip and uniformity to keep the chapters of similar length (~1k). I tried to expand this chapter a bit but it didn’t flow quite right. Whenever I finish, it will probably compiled into a single story. Jellal comes back in next chapter, along with Erza, but in the meantime enjoy some Erik.

Secrets Underneath

Part One

Part Two

"Are you sure you weren't spaced out and staring at his di--"

Sorano rolled her eyes as she cut her roommate off rudely, "If you can, I can, and that has nothing to do with this! Juvia SAID Jellal, and just how many Jellals do you think there are exactly? It's not a fucking common name like Sarah or Dave or whatever people name their brats."

Erik shrugged, knowing his given name was quite common, and snipped just to be a pain, "Okay, but it's been years and years... why now? And why the hell would HE be in your shitty department store?"

"You work there too, you know," Sorano snapped back, reminded how utterly prickly he could be when he didn't want to talk about something. This was SERIOUS and he was probably only thinking about banging his girlfriend or boyfriend or whoever the hell he was dating at the moment! Sorano wasn't playing around here; if there was a threat, she was going to move and take Yukino with her. 

After the two had been reunited, the older sister had sworn to protect her younger sister with her life, and with Yukino's delicate health, she had to be tough and decisive. Yeah, her baby sister would be sad to break it up with her crush (that she thought Sorano didn’t know about, HA! It’d only took three minutes to corner Rogue and convince him to spill his wussy guts) and to leave her job (which she seemed to like even if she sucked at it), but you did what you had to. Life was tough like that.

"Mall security," Erik reminded her loftily, as if that were any better in the minimum wage pit they all wallowed in, but a thoughtful look had stolen over his features and he was rubbing his chin slowly. 

Maybe he was starting to take things seriously! 

This was a crisis, and Sorano already had her fill of them as a teenager when she was young and stupid and had nothing to lose. 

Erik took a deep breath, near-violet eyes locking onto hers steadily and smirk wiped from his face, "Go get more information. He's connected to this Juvia chick, right? And he didn't recognize you or else we'd know about it by now, right? I’ll call MacBeth and get a hold of Sawyer, but I’m not gonna rile them without proof. Could be the wrong guy, or hell, maybe he decided to retire or go torture some other sick fucks."

"Haha..." But there wasn't too much bite to the sarcastic laugh she forced out nor an acknowledgement of the sick fucks comment. 

Her mind was digesting Erik's words, slowly simmering down as practical thoughts filtered in and smacked down the panicked ones that'd been zooming around on a crash course since her shift. Retirement was unlikely but replacement pawns seemed his style. Or maybe the man she’d met earlier was simply a guy with a lingerie fetish that happened to share a name with her own personal boogeyman.

Fate seemed to have it out for her like that.

Oh hell, she'd not only forgotten to tell the managers about Juvia, but she'd left as well. Well, bye-bye job for both of them. Getting info from her co-worker was going to be damn hard if she inadvertently gotten the cheerful little chick fired. Shit. Eh, maybe it was Juvia's first write up -- employees got 3 per year after all before insta-termination. She did seem like a bit of a suck-up, so maybe the managers would do some voodoo junk and wave it away. Sorano, on the other hand, was charcoal she was so fired, great sales or no.

A big, calloused hand waved in her face, jerking her attention back to the smug and smirking asshole before her, probably reading her face again like the perceptive jerk he was, "Look, what was Angel's specialty?"

Cheeks puffed with irritation at the reminder and a small flinch at hearing her codename out loud for the first time in a long while, she ground out, "Espionage."

"Tch, big word for a little woman. Do your spy-thing and I’ll do my thing and we’ll nail this lickety-split, right?" She easily ducked the hand coming down to mess up her hair and returned fire with a swift open palmed swat to his shoulder. The resulting wrestling match ended with her hair destroyed and his arm slung around her as she leaned into his wiry, strong frame trustingly. The two of them had been the original members, and even though the others were close, there was a special bond between them, deeper than blood and stronger than steel. This sort of hug would be awkward with anyone else, detestibly so, and Sorano sometimes still had trouble when Yukino offered, but with Erik it was just a natural thing. Even if he did stink and sometimes had two snakes on his person, only one being in his pants.

As she shoved out of his embrace with a mock-huff, she mentally started to list what needed to be done.

Sorano had some quick calls to make to Juvia and work, and then… then Angel also had a few calls to make as well. It wouldn’t be pretty, and it wouldn’t be nice, and Yukino could never know because she PROMISED Angel had gone to heaven for good after she’d been released from prison the last time. And Yukino may never forgive her for this...

Uggh, her job though.

What a clusterfuck.

Getting a job as a felon was near-impossible regardless of the type of felony, and she’d been lucky to score such a cushy and boring job that didn’t involve digging ditches or collecting trash. Okay, job THEN Juvia. If she played this right, and if by some grace, definitely not God’s, this Jellal thing was a harmless mistake, she could keep her currently shitty but tolerable life intact and operable. If he wasn’t a harmless mistake, well, there was only one solution for that… and Sorano lamented the fact that there were no cute ways to carry and hide a Glock.