#and dont get me started on the pirate au (god damn why can i not write right now) | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

splendidshinobi · 4 years ago

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FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST 2003 LIVE REACT: EPISODES 6-10

back at it again with the white vans

episode 6: the alchemy exam

alrighty then

um mustang calling edward “ed” is EXTREMELY offputting

ohhhhhhh noooooo not shou tucker

FUCK

im wholly unprepared

them all being in central instead of east is low key jarring like my brain isnt computing it

alexander’s intro is basically the same

nina bbyyyyy girl u deserved so much better

ed is such a fucking nerd...chemistry club modern au confirmed

god the more tucker talks the more i wanna beat his face in

al pretending to eat by tossing a potato in his armor i-

aww theyre playing in the snow theyre so pure

wonder how long thatll last

“bigger brother” and “little big brother” and ed doesnt even get mad

ed’s birthday party????????

A MELON? ED YOURE SO RUDE

so 03 had ed’s bday instead of elicia’s...CAUSE THEY GOT ELICIA IN THE WOMB

“it’s here!” “the tea?” “the baby!” hughes is a fuck head

ok so now they’re having elicia replace rush valley baby arc

this was winry’s time to shine in fmab i miss her

if winry isnt here who is gonna birth this baby

oh my god they just realized ed can use alchemy without a circle

no wonder he’s been using circles this whole time

SO ELICIA JUST POPPED OUT????? WHAT

STUFF ALEXANDER IN THE ARMOR AND PRETEND YOURE A TALKING DOG???

“i dont think thats very funny” NO ALPHONSE IT IS NOT

THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE DOING WITH THAT ONE I SWEAR TO GOD IN THIS ESSAY I WILL

damn bradley what up homie

im so thrown off by the way theyre doing the exam omg

seriously what the hell is fuhrer bradley’s purpose right now is he even the fuhrer in this i feel like they wouldve mentioned it

oh lord ed is about to impress everyone with his clappy hands

ok so next episode is nina FUCK

episode 7: night of the chimera’s cry

havoc babeeee

im gonna marry him my himbo king

also can RIZA DO SOMETHING PLZ

“huhhhhhhhh nina” ew tucker that was weirdly gross

wonder why

cant do it cant do it

do we think jean kirstein was modeled after jean havoc slightly looks wise

was that purposeful

ill have to google

serial killer who only targets women? it cant be scar...scar drinks respect women juice

barry or slicer bros maybe? um ok

why did we start with liore if they were just gonna hop right back into the past for a huge chunk of episodes idk

assessment day??? oh noodles

AL WHY DID YOU TELL TUCKER TO MAKE ANOTHER TALKING CHIMERA ALPHONSE NO

THE NOISE I EMITTED IM GONNA TAKE A LAP

im gonna FUCKING SCREAM

ed r u writing to winry??? that’s a bit out of character for u good sir

no tucker put that baby down

im gonna fucking SCREAM

aww he burned nina’s picture thats not sus at all

SHESKA!!!!!

wait does the ironblood alchemist know what tucker did to his wife? thats kinda the vibe im getting

SCARRRRRRRR

looking like a pirate too damn

his voice sounds different is that j michael tatum

apparently not it was dameon clarke in 03 ya learn something new everyday

ew elicia has a lot of hair for a FUCKING NEWBORN

ed really is such a cynic very suspicious of everyone as he should be really

basque grand knowS SOMETHING

oh jesus oh fuck oh god please do not TOUCH THAT BABY

ed and al snuck back in to the house well u know what its for the best

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

im gonna cry again please god no

FUCKING DIE SHIT HOLE

she’s hurting? oh my god

my sweet angel

ew his eyes!!!!!!!

tucker is such a fucking failure...like look at the chimera squad and greed’s theatre troupe being the way they are. ugh it really hits how fucking unfair it is

ed was really about to split them? boy you know better

where is nina going...im hurting

ed really tried to save her in this one

SCAR KILLS NINA IN THE STREETS???????? SIR

thats different

oh snap

oh FUCK

SCAR WHY DID YOU LEAVE HER BODY LIKE THAT

THE WAY SHE WAS ARRANGED ON THE WALL THAT WAS FUCKED UP

AND THEY FOUND HER LIKE THAT???? AT LEAST IN BROTHERHOOD THEY DIDNT HVE TO SEE HER CORPSE ARE YOU SHITTING ME?

that was fucked.

episode 8: the philosopher’s stone

can yall get ed and al away from nina’s fucking MURAL

get out of the car mustang

finally jesus christ

roy mustang talking about healthy coping mechanisms dont make me laugh but alright baby boy go off i guess?

im curious about who this goddamn serial killer is though lets turn to that plot thread

r u kidding me

mustang is making ed and al take over tucker’s research?? thats actually wildly messed up

oh tucker was straight executed that’s a choice i guess

tucker and the philosopher’s stone sounds inaccurate but ok

ed please stop being mean to your brother

03 mustang has got me reaching for a fucking baseball bat on GOD

scar and edward having this conversation right now i literally cannot

WINRY yes bitch

BRADLEY WHAT IN TARNATION

JESUS LORRRRRRDDDDDDDDDDDD

alphonse shut your mouthhhhhhhhhhh

im so confused what is bradley up to

“alchemists are not cold blooded murderers?”

i mean

kimblee would beg to differ for one

whos this creepy lady

her voice sounds familiar

barry’s food shop?

the killer is barry ok got it

IS BARRY DISGUISED AS A WOMAN

I KNEW THAT WAS JERRY JEWELL’S VOICE

WELL I KNEW IT SOUNDED FAMILIAR AT LEAST

WINRY GET OUT OF THE FUCKING TRUCk

has PINAKO TAUGHT YOU NOTHING

ok so i VASTLY prefer suit of armor original manga canon barry

this is such an odd plot what in fuck

um OW the meat cleaver

im so confused this fucking plotline

oh hey alphonse nice of you to show up!

is barry still gonna become a suit of armor later on

it makes NO SENSE to introduce him otherwise

everytime i see 03 mustang i wanna beat his ass HONESTLY

literally i will shove my foot up his ass

fullmetal here we go

ed thinks he’s so punk rock

oh great scar’s seen the watch

episode 9: be thou for the people

ed you simp buying winry all this stuff my edwin heart is ascending

SIMP SIMP SIMP

“mr. elric”?? you mean MAJOR ELRIC

to be fair though fuck the military

YOUSWELL??? oh LORD

im gonna need to read a full chronology of this show

alphonse continues to be a precious angel

where’s my boy yoki!!!!!

edward you idiot don’t go flaunting your money

woof woof ed

al looks so offended by ed saying they just met

whereas in brotherhood didnt he totally throw ed under the bus???

a choice to be sure

ah there he is hello yoki

who’s the chick

shes a lesbian

yoki makes me miss my baby girl mei chang

mei where r u

WAS THIS MILITARY DUDE REALLY ABOUT TO CUT DOWN A CHILD??? oh my god

hawkeye getting a promotion yes bby girl

jesus theyre transferring them to east now OKKKKKAY thats not how it happened it the book but ill take it....just doing it the opposite way i guess

who is lyra who is she

cute some military bribery

umm lyra what the fuck did you do

lyra is a homunculus im callin it now

they definitely invented/changed up some homunculi in fact im certain they did and shes one of em. gotta be

i feel like 03 wrote ed as much more insensitive towards others than he really is...just a vibe im getting

i know he was faking for the townspeople’s sake but i still get this vibe from other instances

i mean i cant say its not “canon” because its 03 canon

anyways what a show off

i cant believe theyre going to east...fuery and breda better be there

ok finally some answers on their ages....ed got his license at 12 like normal and nina and youswell were when he was 12...liore was 15,

if they didnt flash the ages on the screen id be lost honestly

at least we’re back up to “present day”

episode 10: the phantom thief

ed saying he doesnt wanna see mustang

same

03 mustang is activating my fight or flight and im choosing fight

ed cheating at cards totally checks out

um who the fuck is this woman

what is she wearing

SERIOUSLY WHAT IS THAT CUTOUT MAAM HOW DO YOUR C**CHY LIPS NOT POKE OUT

idk but this is fem!hisoka

“hey shouldnt we talk first” after getting handcuffed??? christ almighty these innuendos

siren??????? siren is probably also a “fake” homunculus

ugh

ok so the nurse is siren

ya aint slick girly

alphonse control your crush

I REFUSE!!!! ALMEI RIGHTS

why is al’s hair so brown in this flashback anywayssss

oh its spelled psiren ope

like she’s literally a batman villain...

oh my god...............the tiddy grab. my son would never

my son is respectful

is this her homunculus tat or just a random alchemy tat

the added plotlines and original content continue to confuse and astound me every single time....

ok but if psiren really was doing this for the hospital she wouldnt be so flashy about it. like thats how you get caught sweet cheeks

girly stop flirting with this child on god im gonna fucking kick you

now shes a nun????????????????

Shes a fucking troll i hate her

im going to kick alphonse into the sun

oh great now shes a teacher

wow shes a savior. the savior of amestrian venice. greatttttt

ed looking exactly like this emoji on this gondola rn 🧍‍♀️

STOP FLIRTING WITH THE CHILD

GOD THIS IS SO BATMAN VILLAIN ESQUE

alphonse plzzzzzzzzzz she aint your girl

ok so probably not the last we see of this ding dong con artist

ok so its starting to get muddy. im scared the 03 stans are gonna come after me like i do like it and im having fun watching it but some of the plot and characterization choices are just....odd??? idk i gotta keep going though!! im sorry i just stan arakawa and her work in all her glory!!!

#carol watches fma03 #fullmetal alchemist #carol's remaining brain cells #this is fun for me and no one else #whatever i dont care about anyone else on this website anyway #this is my stupid hole

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purghhappenings · 6 years ago

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Do you have any headcanons for an alternate universe where Mihawk is Zoro's biological father?

*busts through wall* BOY DO I

TBH its totally gotta be canon at this point i mean if it’s not, someone will have to pay me for every dead parent/child in one piece

Here’s some HC’s for you! I hope you like them!(sorry it took so long my phone was being dumb and I decided I wanted to write them on my laptop for you)

Mihawk has always been a single dad and when the kid showed up on his doorstep he only had a few questions

1) is this another one of red hair pranks?2) Is it mine?And last but not least(not really a question)3) Fuck.

He panicked when Shanks didn’t jump out immediately, because he just accepted the offer to be warlord of the sea how could he raise a fuckin kid. A kid with Green hair?! “He’s gotta be important” Shank’s had screamed which just made Mihawk scream and right now he was talking to Benn about childcare and why didn’t Mihawk let the fucking baboons eat it?!

“What are you gonna call him Hawky?” Shanks questioned as he stood over the little one’s crib.

“Definitely not after me, it’ll cause him issues later on”“Doesn’t help what you’re gonna call him. Oh! How about SJ, Shanks Jr-”“Roronoa Zoro.”“What?”“It’s a powerful name, from a character I read and I found him in November which is the eleventh mon-”“Nerd shit, got it Hawky.”

He was bad at first. Like really fucking bad. He uh, thought it would be a good idea to take the kid with him everywhere, which in turn means he showed up to a Shichibukai meeting with an infant strapped to his chest and Boa, life long friend(at this point a new friend) was like, what are you doing.“This is a kid who was left on my door and I unfortunately could not leave him there, so I am acting as his guardian.”“No I assumed that from the everything about how shitty you look but, why isn’t he wearing anything more than a diaper you’re sailing with him in the hot ass sun, what the fuck mihawk?!” and Mihawk honest to god thought it was okay to do something like this.

To be fair all Benn told him was “it’s like Shanks is naturally but it can’t talk yet” so Mihawk knew the basics, keep him fed, clean, safe, he can’t hold a sword properly but he’d be there soon, and well, that’s about it. The man was a master swordsman and couldn’t remember the specifics of his childhood.

With a shit ton little help from Boa, (her calling everyone she knew, he got a more extensive idea of child raising) After a few crash courses from none other than A marine by the name of Sengoku and Monkey D. Garp(mihawk prayed for those children) he became perfect

He took Zoro with him everywhere, and when they found a pink haired little girl at the ripe age of 4(zoro was still an infant) Mihawk said “Sure i guess this one too)

He took his two children everywhere and hell be damned if they ever came home with a scratch. No not after the first pirate crew that kidnapped both of them and they were just… Gone.

As Zoro and Perona got older Mihawk personally trained them( he was only in his 20′s when he found the little ones but damn those were his kids)

Zoro expressed interest in swords while Perona was more of a free spirit(haha get it, cause she uses ghosts???? I’m sorry)

But they were both trained on hand to hand combat, the world, anything mihawk could give and teach them was theirs. He taught them responsibility and honor and he was very much a doting parent when it came to Warlord meetings

“not only are they still alive, but Perona just went off to join her first crew” he threatens Moria sixty different ways from hell that if he gets his little girl hurt he’d had better hope he was already dead

Zoro still wants to kick his dad’s ass, but he really can admire the man who can fend most off in his sleep(he’s watched him do it and didn’t challenge mihawk for a full month out of fear for his own life)

When Zoro went off to join his crew Mihawk talked about it for days

He also worried a bunch, especially when he saw the bounties just. keep. going. up

During the two year time skip Mihawk says “Zoro, do you remember your training when you were little?”

“Yeah, it was hell.”

“I am going to make you the strongest swordsman in the world, or at least throw you onto the path a little harder than before. Can you guess what this means?”

Perona: Bye Zoro, it was nice to have a little brother for a few years.

A father can worry about their child and still kinda want to let them know they’re weak and have a long way to go right? Mihawk thinks so

In an alternate AU Mihawk definitely teaches and trains his kiddos in krav maga along with other hardcore fighting styles and even though his BF Monkey D. Luffy is a crazy good fighter, god have mercy on the man, woman, or grandpa that decided to fuck with any of Zoro’s friends.(Or Peronas)

I said he went from Shit -> Perfect, and I meant it.

Mihawk was on top of school, emotional support, and discipline like it was a career! (His actual career is mob boss enforcer but we won’t go there)

He is an honest to god lowkey mama bear like, he lets his kids fight his own battles and this is for the safety of the people around him. Shanks one time questioned Mihawk on a decision about Zoro and the rumor is Mihawk broke his arm in three different places before the end of the sentence was out(a rumor that was started among the ranks but it was effective at keeping people in line(shanks actually tripped from a prank Zoro and Perona were pulling and he was too proud to say that))

He’s lowkey because he has a permanent resting bitch face, Dr. Trafalgar has already pronounced it incurable, and when Perona and Zoro are excitedly talking about something his face doesn’t change to the natural human eye, but if you’ve been around him long enough he completely opens up and his small smile is like a shining beam of sunshine

He is always proud of his kids, but not like in the “THEY CAN DO NO WRONG” more of a, they always have a solid reason(or they better, he raised them that way!) and stand their ground, and that’s noble to him it really is, so while he doesn’t always agree with Zoro or Perona, like a needless fight, he knows if they’re honest to god fighting, there is a good reason that they feel they should stand by

He’s also raised them that if they fought and then learned the reason wasn’t that great to admit it to themselves and work on being better

Mihawk never hit any of his two kids and all he has to do is look at them and they behave not from fear but from respect and it’s terrifying to watch the man just command a room, also murder people and then just be a dad in the end like mihawk is a force

Mihawk was a big fan of self reflection as a person and he brought that into his parenting. He’s like “i get you thought it was a good idea to put gum in your sisters hair because she was being a ‘doo doo’ head but why was she being a ‘doo doo’ head”“Cause I kept antagonizing her” “so what do you think needs to be done about this?”And if either one had no clue, he’d tell them it was fine to not know but they should at least sit and think and try to figure it out, or if they needed help he’d help themor if they knew “I need to apologize”“if they don’t accept?”“it’s all i can do to rectify my actions” and man to see that parenting in action???(dont yall fucking wish?)

SO yeah he was a good single dad,

made all the appointments, games, recitals, plays, parties

He won’t admit to most he was shit at first, but he totes keeps updated pictures in his wallet of his two kids, and even has photo albums of stuff like “Perona’s first makeup” and “Zoros first recital” all of it. He has in his room. And after his two kids are moved out, he’ll just drink some really fancy wine, and look at the albums of his two surprise children and thank every star in the sky he was found by them

I hope you like these!!!! Dad!Mihawk makes me feel warm and fuzzy because while he’s a fucking monster to fight, I feel like his parenting skills are just on point because of how cool and collected he is, plus it’d be nice for more than three of them to have wonderful familes

Dont hesitate to ask me questions!!!! I was thinking about playing an ask game, so let me know if you think it’d be a good idea!!!!

Again, I can’t thank you enough for the ask, my heart has melted from Dad Mihawk( I self inserted Perona also being his kid so I hope that’s okay)

Thanks a bunch! Come talk to me ya’ll!!!

#ask thing #heraldofsong #dad mihawk #dracule mihawk #Red Hair Shanks #roronoa zoro #monkey d. luffy #perona #my mom commanded respect in a good way and never hit us and honest to god she lives several states away and I'm still afraid sometimes #when she hits me with my first and middle name i disappear for a few #come talk to me!#the ask game would be like #have you ever #and I'd give my honest answer #one piece #my hcs

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possibly-meaningless · 5 years ago

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Dailies - Home from home

23.07.19

It’s technically morning, with the fans snoring like pirates in hammocks, or alternatively white rattlesnakes, and the water outside taking it’s turn to blow unevenly on my singular body which cannot sleep. Someone is fading in new lights at the window, just fast enough to get your attention. New Haven, picking an outfit. Not for us, mind you. Never for us. For logics unknown and in no need of explaining, for no sake at all, but certainly decided.

24.07.19

You walk out into the morning which is like drinking from a stream., putrescence consistent, insect karaoke, packed lunch of sandwich and plumb. Your career is waiting in the howling tunnel, but for now you are walking errands and eating sunscreen. Answer your own question, if no one else can, buy what you want for breakfast. I’d rather a life than your kind of efficiency, the grind of a waiter scraping your own.

Je suis complètement larguée, perdue, levée d’ancre, un petit rafiot qui traverse la rue dix fois pour en retrouver un grand, vide, rudimentaire, à peine construit, alors que la nuit grésille et présente des étoiles. Il n’y a pas de maison en mer, et quand vient la fatigue, les seules certitudes qu’il y a ne sont pas reposantes.

25.07.19

It was one of those moments you know can exist, where you receive a long and genuine moment of practical kindness from a cook vinyl collector whose girlfriend sold you plates and glasses, who knew New Haven so pretty well and drove to your street without a GPS, and helped you pick up a table and chairs, and when you listened to music to remantle the table you found your apartment beautiful, and when you left you talked to someone fixing something big and funny in the grass with tape, and walked past the smell of fresh pizza. And if you pay attention you’ll notice your gait is wider, your shoulders back, that loud cars are listening to music they like, and that the power poles sing just as well as cicadas.

26.07.19

Blasted be this bus– bad day I suppose. Learn from mistakes only. I’m torn between a headache and a dedication to being Buddha-like, to mourning the unlikely refund, the upcoming exhaustion on the Uber, Lis’ exhaustion at her work. I chose to be here, yes. And I will make of it what I can. There is no reason not to be, once I have cradled my little suffering, to coo like the toddler in the yellow dress and earrings, you are traveling, you are traveling, your time is never wasted.

It’s as if I cannot be on this Jersey Turnpike at any time but at eye-hitting sunset. As if the world will not allow it. Perhaps it was the first loving thought I had for this place that assigned me to it, and that I am now the sole designated lover of the gold cutouts on the Passaic river, this residence of cars where mere accumulation forms our departing products in the dust. If so, I am to see it as itself, not as a shallow safari of white and red metal birds, not as a child’s toy-strewn floor, the working hand on a veiny body. I am to see it strange billboards and all, a land bent to utility, understanding of its own gas-fumed complexity, tarmaced and bolted, where flatness is walls, having picked me.

27.07.19

Auntland is just so damn well written. And Lis is working god knows where but always impressing me. My friends are beautiful in a way that simply means I love them. She stops in the antique store where I do not, tells the Roman coins to me. How does one organize a store like this, where paintings are stacked, unnamed, painted wood and cursed carved jade? What went on in a Mayan mind, in this unpolished mosaic mirror? We should buy a castle together. We don’t recognize the Manson murders. We eat cumquats from the branch, and figure out how we are gods. I paint, and Eli knows government secrets. The buses are socialist free. Ten meters of crying DiCaprio, whose girlfriends are never over 25. I decide who lives or dies, who gets to take the scooter home. What a delightful Chekov’s gun, what a connection of inanities. And with the would-be limes that glued circles into my palm so that I must fill them with wisteria fuzz, we took to the painted wood and wrote: OAI. And in the Georgetown chalk dust of the building we found nothing exciting at all but sent off our exploring nonetheless, we took the eraser and wrote: OAI.

28.07.19

We buy plums, small and mottled, skin the best, and get them in a plastic bag. We joke about the poem, freezer plums, while the heat gets at my shoulders you touch, use your neck to protect me. The juice flecks our elbows with purple paillettes, and the lace at my breast. I’m intrigued that you like me, intrigued if you like me. A line of sweat rolls down your back from your bra and another from of the fold of my butt. I say, not to you, “see what I meant about fruit?” with the slit of the plum open at my thumb and use my tongue to finish the fleshy pit.

29.07.19

É, T, ohielleu. Je m’appelais comme ça avant. Maintenant il y a à ma place quelqu’un de très bien, mais de complètement différent, en chemises rayées, les yeux fermés au soleil, riant ou riante selon le jour, montant une étagère seul(e) et repensant à ce que moi j’ai senti en me disant ayant sept ou huit ans. Ça me va. Cette person ferme les yeux et voit une photo qui n’existe pas, d’un balcon espagnole en sépia. Elle s’amuse à habiter n’importe comment, et aime beaucoup, tout court, d’une manière que je ne pouvais imaginer que par le biais de moi même. Elle pose toujours des questions, ça c’est bien. Elle pleure d’autres choses que de désespoir. Elle a fait la paix avec elle même, et sait que tellement d’autres trucs vont venir lui foutre dans la gueule. Celle dont elle a le plus peur de voir en colère c’est moi.

30.07.19

The dump outside my apartment seems to be getting fuller every time I go home. Every day, I encounter a new insect. I think « I’ll come back for this later, and if it’s gone, then it’s gone » almost as if I’m thinking it was meant to go. The world has been trying to make me believe in predestination. My bottle of Gamsol spills in my suitcase, but it pools entirely into the dustpan at the bottom. When I lift it up, it spills, but only into the suitcase cover. And it cleans the spray paint off my hands. The ruins of cardboard valleys smell, that is the clearest reminder. They enter a state of being trash and immediately start to smell. I reach into the dumpster for what I need— magpie mind, magpie means. This is the sink I will be drinking in for the next year, and the stove doesn’t work. I walk the cupboards into the house like Easter Island heads.

31.07.19

Warm and sticky, legs and teeth, rain or percussion, swipe and reloading. Misspell a dinosaur. Cool yourself down, cold brownies in the fridge, muggy but just muggy, not hot, waiting for imaginary clothing, talking about drawing clothing, think of opening the window to the wet air, stay pinned by your laptop like by an at-home cat. Film over your teeth, laugh track in a song, chattering gutter, TV-show noises, waiting to go to a task, ignoring the pressing one, pick up your phone, write down a number, stand up, be light headed, sugar nourished.

Skill number one: drink water when you are drunk. Ceaselessly gulp, breathe like a bull into your glass. Why drink, when you are embarrassing enough sober. Blind men would find you bottomlessly stupid. Find the time to find this funny. Laugh about what matters. Think about going dry. See yourself stumble, again and again and again, off the walls, into bed, into formless conclusions.

01.08.19

Something not quite like a headache leaning against the side of my head. It’s the screens, I know that, and maybe the lack of sleep that I intent to maintain, and the beer today after the last night’s Old Fashioned, the earbuds I stole from a lost and found just parsing sound through my ears. My phone screen is sick now too, necrotic pixels growing only when you check, like the pea plant on the windowsill. A vision clouding while I continue to smile, not to sound morbid, of course.

02.08.19

If your body has decided you are going to cry, and no amount or quality of your usual thinking is going to save this (remember, this is also matter of luck and means) find yourself a comfortable place or places to do it. Jaywalk and scowl at the cars, ask the sun for cancer-freckles, worry your music with volume, drop yourself from finger-height like a pill into a glass— any form of cutting off will do. Don’t actually hurt yourself. Learn to recognize the good habits from the bad, the healthy from the fucked, palpate your own side, train yourself to make the right decision.

03.08.19

This place is one big noxious noise and I am not using it to its full effect. I am the one white Bollywood dancer who goes on the dance floor to think. I do this during sex too. My thoughts take monster forms on the dance floor, legged, entering. I dance like a writing, like a thinking, like unlocking the heart of an encyclopedia: Americans dance on their heels, and I would stomp if I wanted to be masculine. Eye contact changes everything, not only for you, especially for others. Look at the two women grinding— couldn’t that be you? Would you know how to give yourself properly to that hand? Would you squirm? Would you fear? You’ve stopped asking if you seem awkward or brave. The question has been eradicated. You’re working out of line, and doing nothing at all. You are looking at the halo lights and watching your carrousel mind melt in a black plastic shape where you’ve decided to put yourself for nothing. Couldn’t you do more? White woman you are, cleavage-key, dancing sexy for the Hindu gods? What a waste.

04.08.19

The sea reminds us the strongest, because every ripple is a mountain where one crest is the sand and another is the sky, because a half of you is pushing through jade hip by hip, because you are driftwood-sun-dried and the water takes your breath in weight or in drowning lap. We are reminded when we sit on rock, and the wind and heat does the all of us, when our bodies are just another thing for the world to be on, when the being there is just being at all, smelling seagull fallings (fish, shit) while the ocean talks to itself.

05.08.19

We dolly our furniture in dark processions, clack and bonking from pavanent to pavement, sweating evenly. Once again a ferry, this time two-manned, this time jolly, stopping traffic like spirits on the street, chatting shotgun through the tower of trays, legs, drawers, scraping wrists and ankles, puzzling at our load on a corner then off again. Simone can’t tell if she pisses Matan off. In living with strangers she doesn’t mind being bossy. Dish towels are clean and not for cleaning. She refutes claims of her dirtiness. I find she is someone who is very sensitive to gender roles. Abby Adult says adult beds are not in corners. I climb up the walls to give myself a red canopy. Stash and steal and crowd and clutter, Howl’s bed, magpie’s mind, treasure box. Let me live somewhere I can get lost.

06.08.19

I am folding myself into this house like into a blanket, filling every corner with some hand-sized glee. The moving and choosing fires off the part of my brain that is a mouse pushing levers, saving grains, planning for later, living like cooking, by habit and precaution. Cameron had nothing in their room. These are two sides extreme, both beautiful, both in their own flavor correct. My choice is to be fret-tired and worn in a moment; rather than lacking or scavenging later, bumped and familiar with frustration or money-spending. I like the bartering, the cooking with nothing, the piling and stringing things up. “Your DIY aesthetic” says Matan, strange and insightful again. Birds will make a nest to see it torn down the next year.

07.08.19

The storm like me back it seems. I talk about her incessantly, of when the kites fly low and remind me of the sea, of the way the sky presses on the city and makes you notice it, doing what you’re doing but doing it with your eyes on a corner between roofs were you see her scheming the rain, first drizzle then pour. And I make my ferry way, pressing my umbrella between my fingers and phone, braced and ready for the trick to fall, eager in the waiting like happy prey. And when you do start love, you have humor: you growl somewhere to the side-ear and fall just on the chorus of Don’t Let Me Down while I join in and soften just as it stops. You have me laughing clamorous and soaked and clear.

08.08.19

I dream that I am Theo, lost and boyish and cut-off from everything and especially myself expect girls and history and whatever excites the mind to marvel. Let me read again, now that I am slightly weak, now that my mind is playing tricks on me again, listlessly making me believe I am worth no one’s time. I want something to sparkle for me or damnit I will go and find it. I will go to a play tomorrow and I will be in New York and I will read on the train. By God I will be good at this if nothing else.

09.08.19

“Pay attention” says Ethan, “to how your body feels.” Is your phone less reactive, or is it the cover screen? The chord, the block, or the device? I stand evenly on both feet in the line at UPS. I return every eye that meets me, insistently— look at me, I am looking too. Pay attention. My face feels gathered like a half-raised first. My step clacks, my back is straight, I am no floater, Theo. Where is my benevolence? Why must it depend on, vaguely, if Adrian is sleeping with Lis, if Holly cancelled on me, how my body decides to wake up? Who am I being so cool for, so impenetrable, when I have said so often that I refuse to defend myself against people?

10.08.19

C’est drôle comme rapidement je me remets à aimer. Il faut aller trouver ces choses: la pièce de théâtre indépendante et un peu étrange, l’établissement au nom russe, la tartine un peu brûlée. Florence me pose les questions comme il faut: non pas, comment vas tu faire (qui est une bonne question, mais pas la première) mais que vas tu faire. Je sais déjà ce qui me fait frémir. Tout ça je le sais. Il s’agit d’être radical. De savoir être radical. De choisir. D’aller chercher. Savoir rester heureux est vraiment un art— étrange d’ailleurs, vu que le monde a tellement à donner pour être heureux.

The AC in the train starts up again. There’s a helpfulness in the air today, like the summer doesn’t want to end, is sunny, and sea-like, glowing and streaked with clouds. But the movies are closed until September, and I don’t understand it. The coast has put on its best, I can tell, but doesn’t dare ask me to stay and I am ignoring it— going home. Never have I felt so invited to roam little Connecticut alone. But I am going back to my duties, sad-no smiling to the sun, as if I am an adult who truly must. How symbolically heart-ending if I were to sit inside today! I’ll go, no I will. I’ll take Natalie or no one but I will. You cultivate what you want to be, Caleb said it, we all agree— nothing has so clearly been that occasion for a good habit.

11.08.19

And we didn’t go to the beach in the end— we will, because we have a car now, but we have not yet. Instead we took the car to Lowe’s and the storage unit, and made a copy of the keys. I sat in the back seat with the sea in my hand like a toy I’d been told to be quiet with. Trent slid his hand over the wheel and he and Natalie held arms over the front seat like parents, in a way signaling to one another they’ve just felt affectionate, but must for now keep it seemly for the children. I take Natalie in, big eyes on her for long moments. Bare-chested Trent eating strawberries over a chair makes me stare. I want a moment with Nat alone (walking to the car, at home while errands are run by Trent and her mom) to raise the back of my hand up and point to my finger: the ring? As if to ask: how are you? How much of who you are with me can I still expect to see? And then, no matter the response, to say: alright, I’m glad.

12.08.19

The walk to work is always interesting. I face the sun both ways, cross like an accomplished idiot, stride as if to prove to the summer session students, and the tourists, and the construction workers, that this place is mine. The air is carpeted with the hum of HVAC and wired with cicadas, cool and rustling near the graveyard and parking-lot hot near the Whale. A painter camouflages a new building into the sky and an old man coughs on the steps of his house, wearing all red. New Haven calls for climate emergency, and for gun lessons, and for a twin pack of cigarettes (and of course, to Tax Yale). I am only a certain amount of native here.

13.08.19

Last night called for rain which came and stood, grey boots in the window at my awakening. Thanks to it now I am under the burbling skylight, wedged into the service stairs like a young délinquant, barefoot, sandal-tanned and flecked with black with but only waiting for my flats to dry. Donna Tartt narrates over me in alliterative phrases stuck there since high school English: “widow Dido,” “Popchik, Popchik.” She makes the packing of my lunch seem frantic. I am misted in parts and soaked in others. I contend with the parts of my commute I have the least affection for when they offer me shelter. Boring duties are renewed with care (I check my bag like a friend) and the umbrella surprises me with a watery caresse. The pour stops and starts in uncaring moods, while I marvel at the fleck of dry sand on my fingernail, as expertly dropped as a seagull’s bird shit.

Making food, spiked-seltzer drunk, feels like something I should be doing in my early twenties. Still in my shoes, not quite bumping into our move-in mess, navigating to the stove where my peppers are patiently cooking. Technically drinking alone, I suppose, although Nat and Trent are in the room next door. They’re as if teenagers had gotten married, playing locked-up video games, eating pop tarts and pop corn. I’m being mean, but still. Give me a friend other than myself to be arrogant and drunk with.

14.08.19

The day has felt like a skipping record. I sit with my shoes awkwardly up on the bar of the old geology classroom table where we have our lab meeting, legs apart, changing the position of my hands to look more like the men on the team. I’ve been wanting to project to them, and to convince myself, that I am confident, and unashamed of myself as a researcher. The flattened squamate skull Kelsey has been segmenting all summer spins evenly on the projection screen like a rainbow screensaver. “It took me a lot longer than I’d like to admit to figure out how to make it loop in PowerPoint,” she says, in the bored and awkward silence preceding Anjan’s arrival, “does anyone hear that ominous beeping noise?”

As the meeting goes on I feel bad for my cynicism. Anjan is helpful, and full of feeling; he kicks his voice into a fury about how the auditorium in the new science building will have no exhibits for modern research, only stupid, dead, drunkard white guys, dried out carrions in their graves whose work we refuse to shut up about. Pisses him off; he’ll go up and give them a piece of his mind. “How about you Alice?” eventually he turns as he does for each of us to ask about my progress, paused and attentive, a gooey ring of white exposed all around the iris. “That’s good!” I flicker my eyes around the room, unsure if I have ended my explanation. “If you’re working on vomeronasal projections you should look up nervus terminalus– nerve zero. It’s kind of an old theory, might be totally wrong but you never know. It’s worth looking up. Some of those old dudes tend to say more interesting things than some people in the field nowadays.”

I think back to the ominous beeping at the apartment, poked through my reading by the musical sting of Trent’s medieval strategy game a room away. He and Nat hadn’t realized I was home at first, and had cooed at one another in a way I knew I would only hear now as they would never do it around me again, and talked about how mushrooms tasted like cum, Trent explaining that he had, yes, sampled his own cum which is why he knew what it tasted like. I made myself coffee, which I never do, half milk and three spoons of sugar, feeling like a thief for taking from Nat’s Knick-knack teapot. Worse, I catch myself wanting a drink, in pathetic emulation of Theo’s own self-seriousness, the brooding, world-bereaved young man, for whom defensiveness is not only perfectly reasonable, but noble.

15.08.19

Jack, you came up in conversation with Nat. There’d been a build up to it all week, me thinking about morality and self-image, feelings of guilt, feelings of rancor. I sat on the couch, wrapped up into myself, furrowing my brow because I wanted to feel myself do it, wanted to put myself here, guilting profusely over every movement and word I said. I was too arrogant, didn’t notice when Nat stormed out that morning, I steered the conversation wrong (“how do you learn to do that right?” had asked Max) toward myself, or towards the wrong kind of comfort or advice or recognition, sloppy, really. Just sloppy, when you can be deft. And I thought about how guilty I felt for what I’d done to you I said, “if I forgive myself for what I did, then I am no better than him for forgiving himself, for absolving himself of the need to think of the pain he’s caused, and the pain he might cause in the future.” The difference, of course, and I don’t need a shrink to remind me, is that I need to hold us both to the same standard. That does not mean I’ll happily dismiss you to my advantage as deranged, or a dick, as you surely do me (I can almost hear it) but it does mean that I can expect for you to think on your behavior as much as I have mine, and when you do not (I have no way of confirming that you do) work accordingly. Same standard for you and I Jack— simple as that. For me and you and everyone else. Mix and match.

16.08.19

The next day I wake up thinking “let’s try impunity” and what an immediate delight. I walk and I see: GMC pickup, electric pole panel, security camera, parameter, when was this constructed? Are they working on Payne Whitney? Yale facilities vans have reference numbers. Brick patterns on the windows, tinted glass, where does this bus go? My voice picks up, I am un-embarrassed to speak, I listen to rap and move around the lab. I work. On the way back the air is breath-hot, and mercury light pushes out from behind the clouds in blingy prelude to a storm. I’ve selected a song of Lis’ that pulls my confidence all the way up through my spine, two gender-fucking voices, one slapping and modern, the other age-old and trilling.

17.08.19

I didn’t think I wanted to swim until my feet were in the water. Perhaps it is like weighted blankets and hugs that make you cry: being held never uses the front door of the mind. There is movement, my froggy propulsion through the water, and then there is the off-handed way the ocean sloshes to the shore with you still in it. I cannot conceive of the volume in any other way but the sea. Knowing what it is like to drown can change everything. Barnacle cuts are pink and radiant but impossible to feel, the opposite of paper cuts, which I suppose makes sense in more ways than one. I tie my ribbon around my hand like a tribal fisherman, hung up by all limbs in the water. I accost the dead skin on my heel. I speak and sing to myself. I do not notice the fog until it is in.

18.08.19

Shovel-fulls of visions arrested on their way to meaning. The day is jumpy and bored until. I am marvel-bound until I am talking, at which point I am stringing conversation and looking at your tattoos. Your eyes are clear, like lemon beer. The walls flake, and your photographs are grainy with dark, looking for fish in the deep. A sense of light, an understanding not semantic. A re-wiring. I climb and make, I sit in your smoke, I show the different angle which is absurd and funny, makes us tiny toys. You are from Moldova, I have to remember. I hold your hand on the backseat. You were talking yesterday about the moving holes of LSD.

19.08.19

The sequence of the day has seemed completely natural— something a hobbit would set their watch to from the porch, looking out into the turning of the world. Chris was around, and will be for the next few days since his New York conference got cancelled. We both understood the afternoon so well before carrying it out: we would both get chai lattes and bump around the Willoughby's unembarrassed when our orders get messed up, say we should ��make the usual walk to the Div school” and stop to sit in a tree by the observatory, perch in the stormy wind like two academic birds in the Marsh Hall belfry, and chat about efficiency, and language, and morality. At work, it storms. I pack up to walk home some half hour after the rain and head to Stop and Shop in the gold-dripping postdiluvian afternoon: an excuse to see a neighborhood that isn’t mine, where streets fan out into the unknown, sparse with people and rife with churches, a zone I’ve not yet added to my mental map. I buy bread, hair ties for my roommate, “nice” jam for the other, slot them in my technicolor backpack, and glide home on the sound of crickets and seagulls beaming through the limpid air.

20.08.19

I’ve decided not to go to work (Laurel hasn’t asked for me, I’ve figured out the extraction problem on my own, I’m getting lunch with Chris and Julia near the med school, I’m not even getting paid anymore, I have other things to do, and if she needs me she can just text). The only thing I’ll be missing is the chill of the lab, without which we are faced with an unclenching strip of hot, humid weather than I scroll across the weather app on my phone. The apartment is still as whispery as a wood: spoon tinkling once against my chosen mug of tea, Trent or Natalie taking a rising sip from the vape pen, mindlessly clicking at a video game, against the faraway in-and-out of chittering cicadas.

21.08.19

Around 1:30am we left Viva’s and dropped Jenna off with her three-year-faithful, less-successful-than-her boyfriend (Andrew? It would be weird if Chris slept over with him walking around the one bedroom apartment in the morning) but the rest of us had other prospects. I guarded Christina like a puffed bird while she changed in the trunk of the car from a black striped shirt to a black striped sweater, and helped list the roofs in the area. I could do Dwight, Kris had the password to the Howe Street roof, and Cameron still technically had keys to the whole building, but their first suggestion had already taken it: the creepy, stony walls of St Lawrence Cemetery mausoleum.

Next, drinks: I had half a bottle of mango-nectar orange juice in the fridge, and a flask of vodka that’d last been used at dinner on Friday for one of Christina’s mosquito bites. Nat and Trent had moved in with a dreg of Maker's Mark, which was waiting on the kitchen counter, and Kris, of course, had more vodka at home. Halfway out of the apartment, waiting for Natalie to get dressed and join us, I couldn’t help but laugh at our situation: we’d pulled into the parking lot like a bunch of gangsters, crouched over the giant electric fan in the back seat, Kris smoking and blasting some dark, full, floor-of-the-mind Witchhaus for the entire tenement to hear. We were making things exactly as we wanted them, speeding off onto a road that was empty and ours with the arrogance of a Neo-Tokyo biker gang.

Campus, which had felt like a kingdom until yesterday, has been retaken without a breath of effort. The air smells like a firecracker, and the dorms like shoe-box houses. People have started partying, and practicing, and working, as if they had spawned there already in the act.

22.08.19

I am drunk and sober enough to write. We are magnificent tonight, you would see it. Our kisses barely hold back— I kiss Kris on her rough, shorn head, I rasp at her slenderness, the meeting angle of smile and cheek, I kiss Keduse on his good man’s t-shirt, on his Egyptian locks, the enamored look in his eyes and hands, I kiss Cameron with hands around the waist, into bony rebellion, hated and going, spirit that knows me in a pair, dyed hair.

And for those who are not with us, I have planted a kiss on your neck— feed me more alcohol. For those who are too lost to stay— you are guiding yourself, and we are here waiting. For those who are trying us, getting their feel— our love extends to you too. We are the city, that much I can tell. She is in the blinking foreign, she is in the dollhouse lights, she is in the streets of police and the things out of their sight. The drug dealer, the broke, the roped-up nervous boy, and those who’ve got nothing to lose, and everything to look for.

She is the stage for us, the in between. She knows I see her— she is the mint I bring to my lips with inexpressible longing: wilderness of love. I cannot smell it without knowing it exists. After all, she is here: kiss them, she says, for I cannot quite do it in a way they will understand. Dutifully I do, and imagine hers, smiling sadly, pearled horizon, born dressed. I will miss you, Christ! God I will miss you! How much I owe, and this fantastic longing, it stands for all the rest of it! What tender love I will feel until I am torn from this.

#creative writing #daily wriiting

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