#commentary. ( every moment is a poem if you hold it right. )

[dccontramundum]

anchor's endeavour commentary / pilot episode

this got so long i've had to stick most of it under a cut

the first shot we get of morse's face is so beautiful. he looks SO young. a baby.

also the subtitles are (painfully slow typing) which is so funny. his typing is painfully slow.

socks hanging on the window to dry. idk why that's so funny to me.

him not hearing mcleash over his opera even though he's talking pretty loud

also love his excuse for getting out of going to the pub with mcleash. he points at what he's typing like it's work, which is what mcleash assumes, but it's literally his resignation letter lmao

then morse once again ignoring/not hearing mcleash on the bus and just staring out the window. daydreaming. music playing in his head

he's got the beige coat instead of the green one but it's still equally thin and cheap and i hate it

lott talking to morse and mcleash like they're children

almost the first thing morse says to him is a haughty little "wouldn't you think?" comment. i love him. he's such a little bitch sometimes

then he's in his lodgings. he looks so sad and pathetic. like a wet cat

ahhhh the first interaction with thursday!!! "there is one thing, sir" and thursday turns around. and listens. and it's SO important to morse. the first person to listen to him. yeah he then dismisses the idea a second later but still. he listened.

and then immediately the next scene is morse following that line of inquiry anyway lol

when he's talking to the woman he listens. "what makes you say that?" and a thoughtful little expression on his face. i adore him. the way he reacts to thursday listening to him as though he's the first person to ever give him a chance, vs the way he's always so careful listening to others. you become the person who would've saved you the time no one did. or smth

he's so grumpy when he gets into the office and immediately gets sent out again. so grumpy. it's easy to forget how grumpy he can get because he's also so vulnerable, but really, he's very bad-tempered sometimes.

i always forget how bad he is with the blood phobia this early on. he really really can't look. keeps such a long distance away too.

eww alex from university. "didn't take?" stfu leave him alone

how much morse struggles with his social skills. alex giving him a friendly tap while he says "word of advice..." and morse looking down at his collar where he touched him in confusion

ahhh his opera idol! he tries to walk away but then he can't stop himself from grinning and it's so cute and he just has to turn around, he can't help himself

he's so shy! right up until the moment he can get back on script. his planned script for the conversation

"what can i do for you mr morse" "actually it's detective constable morse"

the first time he takes work home with him!!! literally!!! he brought evidence home!!

he's using a folded up quilt as a desk

his hands are so pretty and slender.

repeated pen clicking while he rocks himself back and forth a couple times!! stim!!

dorothea frazil and the "have we met" "i don't think so" "another life then" moment. ohhh i love it so much. it's so important.

ahhhh he's in the jag for the first time!!! his smile is so cute!!! blasting his opera!!

"friday, must be corned beef" yessss

"when it comes to reliability the fixed motion of the heavens has nothing on my win" awww <3 and also morse smiling about it

when thursday realises morse has been on the case and he just accepts it and listens. again.

oh and!! when they get in. thursday's "wait a minute" to the others, to get them to listen too. "the lad's been having a bit of a dig around the tremlett case. tell them"

how they stare at him and he starts to lose confidence. "...possibly." then they start to echo what he's saying and he looks so hopeful... and then so crushed and upset when they shoot his idea down entirely.

lmao and then the smug look when it turns out to be right.

"who's a clever boy then." lott :/

okay but when the victim's family member starts sobbing and collapses to the floor. morse's reaction is so important to me. he kneels first to rub her back. but then she wails, and he just leans forward and he's not even fully hugging her, he's sort of bracing her with his own body, like he's trying to give her something to push against. i just think it says a lot about what he would want in that situation. he wants someone to be solid while he's breaking down.

this is getting so long i keep hitting the character limit per text block and coming back to split it up

the autopsy!! oh he's trying so hard. he's trying so hard to be brave. looks away with his eyes as much as he can but without turning his head away. then there's a little wobble ( and as someone who passes out for medical reasons fairly often, that is an exceptionally accurate portrayal. there's so often a little wobble first where you don't realise you're going down, you just feel a bit unsteady ) and then there it is. he's gone.

okay but the shot where thursday catches him, you can see the very end of the shot roger going "OH SHIT". he defo dropped him lmao and they just cut the sound

"you'll be alright." sir he's unconscious on the ground

"actually sir i don't drink" "very commendable. now get that down you" noooooooo :(

actually though "if you're going to apologise, don't". that's sweet

red jag!!!! <3

when he's walking with dr stromming he's nearly jogging to keep up with him. they keep putting him near people who are taller than him!! makes him look smaller than he really is

when he stands talking to someone he often has his hands clasped behind his back. which. as someone who also does that. is sometimes a way to stop ur hands from fidgeting.

"you didn't used to be so cruel" this is one of the things i adore about morse. even with people he's friendly with, or trying to be friendly with, he doesn't hesitate to bluntly state when he doesn't like what they said. and then "poor old morse. you were never oxford material. too bloody decent, by half" so mean. why is everyone so mean to him.

when he's shaving it sort of looks like he's wearing a t-shirt ( unusual ) and it looks a little bit like it's on inside out, with the seams on the outside. it's probably just the way it's designed, but. still

thursday walking morse to the chief super's office, "just tell dcs crisp what you told me, alright?" reassuring him. i love morse's combo of arrogance and anxiety

"he's lying. i know he is" oh babe. baby boy.

"he was still in love with her, he couldn't have harmed her" hopelessly, hopelessly romantic. i love him.

nooooo he's gone to the pub upset for the first time. nooooo

"any stupidity was mine"

talking about his mother. he's so heartbreakingly vulnerable when he's talking about her. "someone soft. the scent of her hair. tenderness"

"now get out of my office before i have someone break your legs, you little bastard" and morse looks so upset and scared by that. and he does get out of his office. i love how scared he is, so so so much. a protagonist who's so visibly and frequently frightened is unusual and it's so special.

"and who gave you leave to do that?" "i did" thursday to the rescue!!!! yesss!!!

so he got scared and went to the station and then from this point on, he's got thursday with him. morse stands slightly behind him, which is so cute.

ahhh the bit where thursday sends morse out to the car to look for tobacco!! morse is so gullible sometimes i love it. i love it so much. and then he comes back and he's so surprised to find thursday committed violence. he just can't believe it.

"what about the law?" oh baby. sweetheart. your black and white thinking. i love it.

"did inspector thursday hit teddy samuels" "no sir" such an interesting moment for morse's sense of morality! and then he gets yelled at. and he reacts visibly to it. again, the vulnerability in him. he's so so reactive. he hands over his letter of resignation.

"i read your file, boy" lott calling morse 'boy'. that's the second time.

ohhh then with rosalind calloway. "you saved my life". he's referencing i think the time when he was a suicidal teen living with his father and stepmother. knowing about that from i.m. gives so much context to that scene.

"are you flirting with me?" "a little. perhaps." so soft. so shy but also so honest. SO vulnerable. that's what strikes me about so much of this episode. he's so vulnerable in so many ways and i love that about him, but he still has this edge to him that you wouldn't expect from someone with such vulnerability.

"perhaps better to have loved and lost." "so i'm told" ohhh he hurts so much. he's hurting so much.

ok ok then it cuts to the next morning, and he's on his bed, fully clothed still, dead asleep. and the note pinned to his chest is from thursday. so there's a whole ass missing scene there where thursday finds him, presumably drunk, and gets him home. so. does he go to thursday, upset and drinking? does thursday come across him?

also love how morse handed in his resignation and was absolutely set on it, and then one (1) note from thursday and he goes running straight back. all it takes is one person's belief in him.

"dear, dear? a young girl strangled [etc.] and all you can say is dear, dear?" he's so cross!!! god i love him. he's so blunt and genuine. absolutely no ability to hide his emotion. love how thursday has to rein him in.

oh he's so upset now he's worked out the truth. poor boy.

thursday wanting to go on and interrupt the performance, and morse stopping him. beautiful.

oh him crying in his room listening to her record. and crying outside her cell. and crying again realising she's dead. poor poor baby. so young and so vulnerable and so deeply heartbroken.

thursday picking him up to take him to the station. so sweet.

"mind if i drive?" ahhh he loves driving. he loves it. so cute.

morse staring at himself in the car mirror. totally zoned out. he zones out so often

"endeavour!" the way he looks so cross about that.

[lookedlikethebins]

i'll say it twice

Finally! The long awaited Valentine's Day producer george x TA matty oneshot! I'm so sorry for taking as long as I did. Thank you for being patient AND a big thank you to the anon that inspired this fic with the prompt about matty coming to a club/one of george's dj gigs! [set ~6 months since meeting each other] ~5.8k words xo side note: i know nothing about being a DJ but a lot about cyclical anxiety and epic poems so i compensated xo

George had been semi-confident—and a bit overprepared—in his upcoming set, until Matty showed George the readings he’d suggested for the next week of class: Lover’s Discourse. The date of his set hadn’t registered until that moment, sitting with his arm around Matty and feeling embarrassed by his own obliviousness.

Valentine’s Day. Of course, the club wasn’t just holding an event to sell more drinks on a cold, mid-February Friday night; they were hoping to max their margins for the first quarter. For every one patron, there would undoubtedly be another—their date. George included.

The set had to be a bit beyond perfect.

For the next two weeks, each time Matty stopped by after his classes and office hours, George had been closed up in his studio. He would've been there most of the day, starting early in the morning (right after Matty left, if he’d stayed the night) and blowing past every mental stopping point in favor of fixing just this one last thing.

After Matty was left waiting outside for the third time, knocking and trying to ring George—phone on silent and face down on his desk—George gave him the spare key. Each time, Matty let himself in with a loud shout, letting the door slam shut; they’d learned George startled easily when he was working. When he was worried.

While Matty shouldered off his bag—as well as coat, scarf, sweater, and unbuttoned and rolled his cuffs—George would unplug his headphones and continue his work out loud. Matty often settled onto the loveseat beside George’s desk and leaned forward to best see George’s screens without hovering over his shoulder. Despite sometimes getting up to dance, Matty would never grow (outwardly) irritated when George would have to stop and adjust, redo, or take note of an idea for later. The only time Matty spoke during George’s work was to exclaim that a certain part of a song was his fucking favorite.

Most times, Matty’s excitable commentary was the reason George had to stop and make slight changes.

It would be Matty’s first time coming to see George work. Matty had asked if he could before—about other gigs and recent shows George was playing with the boys too—but George struggled to say yes. And thankfully Matty never pushed back or took offense when George stumbled over his answer. Granted, George had taken Matty to his label’s holiday party—and he’d been a hit—but his club set wasn’t for a closed group. There would be a room packed with people looking for the smallest pinhole in George’s quiet (misunderstood to be “stoic”) exterior, hoping to peep in on his private life.

But, even with all that fear and discomfort with the unfamiliar, it truly was sort of time for it, wasn’t it?

---

“Oh, fuck,” Matty said with a burst of laughter that seemed to surprise even him. “it’s loud.”

They had entered the club through the back entrance meant for employees. George made sure to pull around to the parking lot purposefully obscured by bins and out-of-place planted shrubs. They used the side streets and alleys of nearby buildings to get in without being seen by the group of patrons lined up outside, waiting to get in.

While George had been getting his bag out of the car, Matty stood by the hood, tapping his foot to the muffled beat sneaking through the club’s opening doors and sparse windows. But now, inside and standing on the farthest edge of the dance floor, Matty didn’t need to move his feet to the music; the floor was nearly moving for him.

It was what George loved the most: how the room, the physical space, came alive when music was loud—almost too loud. The air felt like it was breathing on its own from the shear pulse of the speakers.

It terrified George to think Matty might not like that feeling. The encasement of music. The ever-shrinking proximity to other people, while verbal communication became impossible and almost moot. All George ever had in those moments was the same unavoidable and inarguable beat moving him to keep time with the other bodies around him. That feeling of sharing the same heartbeat. He could live in the same suspended moment with someone, just a few minutes at a time.

“Is that… okay?” George said. He had steered Matty toward the back lounge for the invited guests and hired talent. Once George closed the door behind Matty, the wall of sound became a void, ringing white noise. “Do you want earplugs or something? I, uh, I probably have a pair somewhere. I’m sure I do.”

“No, no—I don’t mind that it’s loud. Just sort of forgot. Can’t tell you last time I’ve been to a proper club.” Matty placed his hand on George’s arm, gently squeezing it, before leading him further into the room and away from the door.

“Not a fan?” George asked. He immediately grabbed a bottle of water from the oblong coffee table. He twisted off the cap and handed it to Matty. It was Friday; he’d had his early and late classes.

“Just prefer a place I can sit down,” Matty shrugged. “And if I’m feeling wild: hear my friends talk.”

“You’re really not supposed to chitchat at a club.”

“Name another time I’ve been quiet that long, George.”

George paused. “Okay, so you might actually hate it here.” He was trying to tell a joke, but his chest tightened and twisted into a knot. Like he forgot how to create a laugh. He couldn’t.

“George, love, stop fretting—please? I’m starting to think I’m making you worse.” Matty swung his hand out to playfully hit George on the arm. The open water bottle made a small damp spot on his sleeve; luckily, he was only wearing a short sleeve, cotton shirt. “Pretty sure you’ve been doing all this before I ever showed up. You know what you’re up to—you’re very talented. I’m just here to listen, take a vow of silence, have a drink or two.”

“Oh, I should go get you one, shouldn’t I?” George muttered, looking at his watch and then the clock on the wall—they were a minute apart: George’s watch a minute behind. He was already floundering. The first time he brought Matty—any boyfriend at all for that matter—to one of his shows and everything felt like it was developing into a disappointment. A stumble. Two left feet. George could hear the music muffled in the other room; he just wanted to stand submerged in it.

“That—No, George. That’s not why I said that. I’m not angling for you to go and—Look, I just want to drink after I had to listen to someone wedge Ecstasy of Influence into our discussion for the third class in a row.”

“But I should go get them—they won’t charge me.”

“Oh, so it’s about showing off, not chivalry…” Matty said, offsetting his jaw as he crossed his arms and smirked at George.

“No! I—Matty, it’s Valentine’s Day," George said, taking out his phone. His phone matched his watch but not the wall clock.

“And you’re already going to get laid. I’m not sure why you think you have to butter me up—"

George sputtered in surprise and embarrassment as he heard someone talking just outside the door. “I meant, it’s Valentine’s Day so they’re going to be up-charging, I’m sure. Let me get you a drink. They don’t charge the people they hire.”

“You must not know what happens when a cute guy like me goes up to most bars,” Matty said, lifting one eyebrow. “I won’t pay for anything; Fuck, I’ll barely even need to be paying attention.”

George had never considered how Matty was as a single guy. He’d never really told him. Or maybe George had never asked. There wasn’t much for George to tell Matty, so maybe he’d forgotten people had dating histories that weren’t accidentally shallow or convenient. Had first loves before their late twenties.

The club owner opened the door while still finishing the tail end of his hallway conversation. “—on in twenty, okay? Yeah—George! Good to see you, early as always. What I like to see. JJ walked in five minutes before she was supposed to go on. Again.”

“She likes the spontaneity,” George said with a shrug, placing his bag down in one of the mismatched armchairs. “I can’t argue her style. She’s always great.”

“I just wish she could be spontaneous and not raise my blood pressure,” he said. “You ready to go on in half an hour?” George nodded, checking all three times again. “Great. Anything you need—you can go out and float around JJ when you’re ready. Get either of you a drink?”

“I’m okay, thanks,” Matty said. He placed a hand between George’s shoulders as he hunched down to look in his bag. George’s nervous energy was never something Matty could ignore. “George, did you want something? Or do you want me to get it for you.” Matty was teasing, probably feeling the tension in the muscles of George’s back. Maybe hoping for a laugh.

Instead, Matty’s kind and gentle smile—eyes following George’s hands as they continued to jostle everything in every pocket—was distracted by the owner’s follow up question: “I’m sorry—and I mean no disrespect—but who are you again? George, if this is a new label rep, I’m sorry I’ve forgotten again—”

“Label rep?” George turned toward Matty, who was still touching his back with one hand and had begun to hold his bicep lightly with the other. It was certainly no way to represent a professional relationship.

Matty looked down at himself. “I just came from teaching—Dammit, George, why didn’t you tell me I look like a corporate drone? Is it the tie? It is, isn't it?”

Finally, George smiled. The plane of his back under Matty’s hand relaxing as he laughed, shaking his head. “You don’t look like a drone, okay? And Matty isn’t my PR guy. He’s—” George had never actually called him his boyfriend in front of anyone before; at the holiday party, the moment everyone saw Matty walk in with George, they knew this was The Date George had after studio sessions so often. “He’s just here with me. No business.”

George couldn’t hear the music as clearly anymore, blood rushing in his ears. Matty moved his hand along George’s shoulder blades, slowly and soothingly. Finally, George’s fingers found the loose pair of foam earplugs in the front pocket of his bag. The last place left. He righted himself and held them out to Matty. He ignored the conversation he’d left paused with the owner for as long as it took Matty to tire from arguing he didn’t need them. He dropped his hand from George’s bicep to take them, his other hand not leaving George’s back.

The clock on the wall kept ticking, faster than the one on his wrist.

“Matty’s going to uh… he’s going to be up there with me.” George pointed loosely toward the door; he didn’t know what was out there, technically. Without being sure where the music was coming from, without being able to feel it faintly pulsing in his chest, he didn’t even know where the dancefloor was.

“Up where?” Matty asked.

“The stage. When I’m doing my set.”

“I didn’t think I would be allowed.” Matty shot the owner a quick look before adjusting his tie.

“Of course you are! But only if you want to. I won’t be offended if you’d much rather... not.” George wanted to give Matty the option to pick how he wanted to spend his evening. How to make it better without George intervening, even by accident, and making things worse—

“George,” Matty said softly. George blinked and realized the owner had already left the room; no commotion, no remark, no insistence Matty become part of the monolithic, pulsing, impersonal crowd. No pushback. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m not a fucking idiot, you know that, right?” Matty said. He stood in front of George and placed both hands on his shoulders, as if keeping him planted on the ground. George didn’t know he’d been feeling an urge to pace until then. Until he couldn’t. “What’s got you this upset?”

“I always get nervous before I perform anything. You know that. You know me.”

Matty had been sitting on that studio couch every day for those two weeks. He’d been over when George accepted calls for other gigs and immediately interrupted his own train of thought to jot down his immediate thoughts and plans—afraid he’d forget the “genius” of the impulse. Afraid his instincts weren’t really instincts at all, just moments when inspiration would take pity on him.

While talking about his students’ coursework, Matty had told George about the idea of ancient Greek poets praying at the beginning of their works. Of asking the gods of inspiration—the muses, actually; George remembered feeling embarrassed by his own surprise and sense of clarity by this fact and connection—before embarking on their epics. The invocation, Matty had called it with a flourish of his hand.

Matty described it as if the idea was antiquated; no one thought creativity or inspiration was so out of their hands that it had to be requested at the beginning of every project. But sometimes, when George could feel expectations compounding and very separate things interconnecting into one daunting and terrifying moment, he wished there was someone he could hand things off to. Trust he had solid instincts when he was mid-set and suddenly becoming aware of his own hands and expression and body and position with the person next to him—the new DJ that just arrived and hovering too close and asking too many questions, but being so polite and was someone George should be very eager to show the ropes because he never had that... To trust he would have no need to second guess, critiquing himself for too long and missing the window to execute his plan. The swing of his set broken while George was left standing in horrifying, reverberating silence and—

“This isn’t nerves, George. You look like you might pass the fuck out. Or throw up. Maybe both.” Matty ran his hands across George’s shoulders and laced them together behind his neck, pressing their foreheads together. “It’s not me making you this anxious, is it?”

“No, of course not,” George said quickly. “I just want everything to be perfect—”

“Well, it can’t be.”

“I-I know. I know. Nothing can be perfect,” George mumbled, trying to echo Matty’s frequent and always kind encouragement. What George tried to remember when he was feeling his anxiety bind tighter with the feeling things were slipping out of his control. George had invoked Matty’s words a lot in the past week in particular. “Best-case scenario, then. I want the very best-case scenario. For you. I want you to have a good time and—”

“Do you not think I’m having a good time?”

“My set isn’t for another,” George looked at the clock on the wall only. “fifteen minutes. We’ve just gotten here and… literally stood in a room while I’m…” trying not to freak out or throw up or just blurt out that I— “That’s nothing very exciting.”

“Hey, that’s not all we did today; you picked me up from class, we had dinner, you let me read to you that botched essay intro, you told me about that tour invite and the boys, you invited me to see you do your job. George,” Matty stopped to reset his worried expression with another warm smile. “George, you do know you’re the reason I came, right? Not to experience the best DJ set of my life or have one too many and convince your band to dance with me, or even know any of the songs you’re going to play. I just came here because it meant spending time with you. And that’s why I’m having a good time. That’s it. This isn’t a performance review. I am not qualified for that in the slightest.”

“But—”

“George,”

“I’m not trying to argue,” George said. Matty nodded, moving both of their heads. Matty carefully ran one hand up and down the back of George’s neck, encouraging him to continue. “But… this is sort of your first… event with me. Next to me. Associated with me.”

“… And? We talked about this, right? It’s not industry people who know you, so I’ll have to be more… aware of what I’m doing. But just at first, like you said—I get it, George. I really do.”

“No, no. It has nothing to do with that… Or maybe it does. Fuck,” George stopped to take a breath, forcing it out through his pursed lips. “I want to do something you can be proud of. Be someone you don’t mind admitting is your date. I don’t want to embarrass you—"

“Embarrass?” Matty repeated with a soft but tense laugh. He cleared his throat and George could hear a sudden wetness sink his words. “What a preposterous fucking idea. And, actually, even more so: the idea I didn’t come here already proud of you. That I’m not already more than willing to walk out there and tell everyone who’s even remotely paying attention to me—free fucking drinks or not—” Matty gave them both the chance to laugh, the thickness falling away from Matty’s voice and some of the weight shaking off from George’s shoulders. “That I came here with you. I’ll go anywhere with you—anywhere you’re willing to have me.”

George dipped his head down to kiss Matty, quickly and without invitation for any lengthier response, considering the moment and environment. He wanted to say it. He wanted to tell Matty right then—without the expectation of anything in return. Just simply say. But that was sort of the point of the set. George hoped he could say it without the words; without the direct chance of rejection.

Matty kissed George on the cheek, hands sliding from his neck to smooth his collar and flip his silver earring so the engraving of the dagger’s hilt faced outward. His knuckle grazed George’s jaw as he stilled the jewelry from swinging.

“You’re going to be incredible—as you always are.” Matty said, holding the sides of George’s face. “Like, that’s not me setting a ridiculous bar. That’s actually sort of the baseline for you. Anything beyond that will just be genius—which, also very possible, I’m finding.”

George leaned against one of Matty’s hands—warm and firm and unflinching from the request for support—and sighed, a sense of relief hitting him.

George remembered what he was doing there. He could feel the music in the other room. He smiled. And Matty, the central reason for the tailoring of the next hour of George’s night, smiled back.

They waited in silence, George not trusting himself to say anything else. Not wanting to spoil it.

---

The music was too loud. But that was sort of the point. George was up on stage, feeling the rolling pulse of the room and the music, and didn’t have the space or sense in his head to hear himself think about anything other than just that.

The lights, flickering and flashing and swirling.  The faces in the crowd—at least those he could make out—lighting up and excitedly reacting to the change in song, speaking to the person beside them—the only person who could hope to hear them.

The person beside him, waiting until George lowered his headphones to lean in to talk to him. Both of Matty's hands gently holding George's forearm. Matty's chest pressed against George's bicep and shoulder as he leaned in, trying to shout in his ear over the music coming from the speakers on all sides of them.

“I’m going to go get a drink, okay?” Matty said. George only understood when Matty pointed at the blue backlit bar directly across the dance floor. He’d been standing next to George for the entire first half of his set, enthusiastic and smiling. Bouncing and dancing. Trying to get George to do more than his usual simple sway to the music—Oh, come on! I know you know how to move your hips a bit better than that, love.

George gave him a thumbs up and a smile. Matty held up two fingers and lifted his eyebrows. He pointed to George’s empty glass resting on the low railing surrounding the raised stage platform. It had been a vodka soda that, thankfully, had barely had much of the first ingredient. George shook his head and nodded toward the bar with his continued smile.

Matty stepped down from the platform and began weaving his way around the dance floor. He avoided all the clueless drunk dancers, almost bodies possessed by the music, and nosey patrons that bothered to look up at the DJ and see the new face now walking among them, but managed to bump directly into Adam. Which meant within seconds, and a silent cheer of surprise, Matty had also found the rest of the band that had come: Ross, John, and Polly.

As if discussed beforehand, the moment they all saw Matty they collectively looked up at George and waved. As if they knew George would be watching Matty from the slightly higher vantage point. Because of course George was. He answered them all with a quick grin so they would turn away again. After a moment of gesturing and over-enunciated (but mostly unheard) sentences, Ross walked with Matty to the bar. The other three migrated to the side of the dance floor with a cementing nod and lift of a hand: We’ll wait right here.

Watching Matty struggle to get through the crowd to the bar, George quickly rearranged his mental lineup of songs. What use was Matty knowing—dating—the DJ if George played all his favorite songs while he stood in line, cramped in his reach for the bartender between Ross and the back of a guy with shoulders practically as wide as Matty was tall.

For a moment, being able to see Matty from a distance was sort of romantic. It was a thrill to be able to take all of Matty in at once—when most of their romance typically happened up close, barely enough distance for George to see the lips he was about to kiss. From his vantage point, George could watch Matty lean forward on the bar, his weight shifting onto his left foot with his right hovering just above the ground. Could watch as Matty began bouncing his foot with an unknown pulse of anxiety, impatience, or anticipation; George couldn’t see Matty’s expression to know.

George looked back at the decks, needing to focus to ensure his secondary ordering of songs transitioned smoothly. He looked back up at Matty—to see if he’d have to sub in another song before he was back on the dance floor—and saw him angled back toward the rest of the room, smiling and chatting, his face more in view. The only face George couldn’t see was that of the man talking to Matty, one hand braced against the bar railing and the other quickly—and so smoothly George barely noticed—fiddling with the end of Matty’s tie.

George checked his watch, trying to give himself somewhere else to look. He lowered his head and gave himself the chance to hide his flushing and crimson embarrassment. He didn’t mind someone else flirting with Matty—George couldn’t be upset with other men that fell under the very same spell he did after their first introduction. No, George felt embarrassed he’d seen them, that he had been watching at all. That he was observing when maybe Matty had no such idea. Exposing a moment perhaps Matty would rather not have George see; invading Matty’s privacy and knowing something Matty would always think George didn’t know. What a terrible basis for lo—

Finally, George looked back up. Resisting to do so almost like telling himself not to think of something—and only prompting further rumination. George saw Matty shaking his head, hand resting on his own chest, as if holding his heart. When the man nudged Matty’s foot with his own—yet something else George felt he should never have seen—Matty lifted his hand to point at George.

Four sets of eyes were now on him: Ross, Matty, the stranger, and now the bartender returning with Matty’s drink. George froze. He didn’t know what Matty had said about him in their conversation; he didn’t want to betray his point by doing the wrong thing. George had told Matty to keep things lowkey for the night while George acclimated to (very subtly) exposing his personal life, but with someone flirting with him why else would he be pointing at George? Surely, it was romantic sort of point—literal romantic gesture—right?

But how could George ensure Matty knew it was okay he brought it up, that he was happy and so proud to be up there but if only because it meant Matty could turn and point and mouth something that looked a hell of a lot like: that’s my boyfriend.

Before George could short-circuit much further, Matty put his fingers to his lips and blew George a kiss. He then folded his hand at the knuckles in a flapping wave. Almost like a joke. A tease. A giddy gesture that had George feeling like he was growing sunburnt under the minimal, flashing lights. A youthful, almost teenage, motion done with complete honesty and infatuation. For a moment, George felt relief, felt certain for a moment that his very ridiculous and overthought plan would work...

With his drink in hand—and small black straw between his lips—Matty started going back toward the rest of the group. His eyes were busy searching each face he passed for Adam or Polly he didn’t look back up at George at first. It was just as well; George was already so anxious, he was sure if Matty looked directly at him as the next song started, his entire heart would’ve dropped into his shoes. Maybe bruised, maybe shattered, maybe resilient enough to bounce back up.

Although, as the song started, George felt like his heart had stopped. Its internal pulse absent from his ears as the beat around them took over, pounding against his chest, ribs, temples. George dissolved into the music; hoping that the joy and repeatedly expressed excitement Matty had shown listening to it in George’s studio would appear on the dance floor in front of him.

Just one more time, George. Play that part just one more time… For me?

After a deep breath, George forewent any subtlety and made no effort to hide he was watching for Matty’s reaction. He pulled his headphones down around his neck. The sound diluted into the vastness of the room, in comparison to being fed directly into George’s ears, but he preferred it. He wanted the space and breathing room. At least for the moment.

Matty stopped his gesticulating and conversation with John, pausing as he registered the song. His pivot from speaking to emphatically starting to sing along was split-second. Adam stood sort of confused, amused, and dumbfounded as Matty’s apparently dire point faded away and he started dancing: swaying mostly his hips with the beat and holding his one arm up, while the other steadily held his drink in front of him.

Matty lowered his arm and went to take another sip just as the chorus was about to hit again, his usual stopping point when listening with George, but the song swung back around to the start of the verse. Just that part, one more time. For him.

Matty’s declared favorite, all over again. Right on time—jumping to that exact thump of the brutally danceable kick drum. George wasn’t sure Matty would even notice; he probably hadn’t heard the song that many times to know its structure the way George had to. Oh, maybe it was all a bit ridiculous to think—

But Matty had stopped dancing. His lips still moved along to the lyrics, but now like trying to whisper across the cacophony to George. The lyrics almost being stripped and returned to its poetic form. Spoken with slight disbelief.

While everyone else seemed slightly confused—feeling more betrayed by their memory than upset about any music decision or direction—Matty continued to melt right back into the song. Dancing just as he had, holding the back of George’s chair with gleeful distraction.

As George began to fade between the songs—no threat of the verse cycling a third time—Matty pushed his empty glass into Ross’s hands and began hurriedly snaking back through the crowd to the platform. Despite his evident excitement—shifting and shuffling his feet while he pulled at his sleeves—Matty still stood and waited for George to give a cue he was finished with his task at hand.

Admittedly, George wanted to stay in the momentary reprieve between his gesture, the reaction, and his direct confession—the purpose of it all. In that moment, he could only be relieved that he’d done it in the first place. He hadn’t yet had enough time to worry or feel embarrassed by his own ornately constructed vulnerability.

But if George stayed in that moment forever, he’d never hear Matty’s reaction. Good or bad, it would still be Matty. And that sure as hell beat a solitary moment of acquiescing to fear.

George lowered his headphones again and turned to Matty with the very best look of neutrality and obliviousness he could. Matty was looking back with that minute, timid smile: the one meant for George and almost undetectable by onlookers. A glimpse at the joy thrumming inside of him; almost too full to even attempt to express; settling for an undersell rather than falling short.

“Need something, Matty?”

“I love that song!” Matty leaned in toward George’s ear. His hand gently curled around George’s hanging safely under the table and out of view. He tugged and pulled George toward him, able to slightly lower—soften—his voice. “You know I love that song—thank you.”

“I-I wanted you to have a good time! A chance to know some songs—your favorites!”

“You didn’t have to do that—what about everyone else here?”

George pulled back to better see Matty’s entire face. “Yeah? What about them?”

Matty’s smile faltered as he lowered his eyes to George’s earring, now swinging in the air after being pressed down by his headphones. His lips parted as if he was going to speak but then pressed them back together.

“Matty,” George said, although not loud enough. “I’m really glad you came tonight.”

“Hm?” Matty moved his fingers behind his ear—as if his hair was even remotely long enough—to politely hint he couldn’t hear George.

“I…” George cleared his throat, hoping it would still be there even if he couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear anything but the music flooding his body just like the flush creeping up his chest and over his cheeks. “I love you.”

“What?” Matty cupped his ear and leaned forward toward George.

George found himself repeating the sentence, but far softer. “I—I love you.”

Matty lowered his hand and looked at George with a furrowed brow. “I-I’m sorry, George. I can’t hear you!” He gestured toward his ears with splayed out hands, mimicking the pulsing, pounding soundwaves thudding against him from the surrounding speakers. “Don’t forget though, okay? Tell me later?"

George nodded, smiling. Like he could ever forget.

"Sure, yeah. Later!"

Like he was ever thinking about anything else.

---

After his set, despite the band congratulating him and offering a few rounds on them, George wanted to go home. Wanted to get out of the noise. He was beginning to feel spoken over, crowded, and pushed out by the thumping music—then even more so when it was no longer him behind the decks.

Thankfully—and once again forgetting the holiday—no one teased George for turning in earlier than them. He and Matty were able to be back in his car, sitting in the parking lot, thirty minutes after his set finished.

“George, you’re incredible, you know that right?” Matty was speaking too loudly, but George didn’t mind; his ears were ringing too. And it also meant Matty laughed a bit louder than he usually did, too. “I don’t think I’ve had that much fun in a very long time.”

“I’m glad you came,” George smiled, his own laugh sounding muffled to his ears but feeling stronger in his chest. Matty lifted himself from his seat to lean over the console and kiss George, quickly but firmly.

“Thank you for inviting me, George. I was happy to be there with you not on business,” he said. “Happy to be your date tonight. Proud to be—even if we’re still the only people here that really know I was.”

George thought about saying it again—a third time—but he didn't think he could stomach the trade of an oblivious, neutral response to his intended confession for open, undeniable, almost amplified (possible) rejection.

Instead, he kissed Matty again. He braced his hand on the console and caught Matty's lips again before he moved all the way back into the passenger seat. Matty broke the kiss—without pulling away—with a near-muffled, definitely mumbled confession of his own:

“I heard you, you know,” Matty said when George inquisitively pulled away at the sound spoken against his lips. “After you played my song—what I told you not to forget; I heard you. I-I just wanted to see if you’d say it again. If you wanted to—If you meant it.”

“Do—would you like me to... say it again?” George asked. It was a nicer response than quietly pleading, please don’t break my heart. I’m sorry if I—

“No, no, you don’t owe me another one," Matty held the sides of George's face, anticipating his emotional and physical retreat and apology. "Especially since I still haven’t answered.”

“You don’t have to right now. Let's just go home and—"

“George, I think I should tell the man I’m in love with that I do love him, don’t you? Seems like a reasonable thing to do.”

George reached for Matty's face, holding him and trying to get a good look at the man in love with him. Trying to spot the moment Matty would break, would maybe lie and soften what he'd admitted to. Matty held his joyful—and increasingly teary—look at George.

"You do?"

"Yes! Yes, George. I love you! Of course I do." Matty laughed and pulled George in again. His hands dropped from holding George's face to rest flat on his chest. Feel the beat of his heart.

"Wait," George muttered, turning his face to break the kiss but not pull away. "Say it one more time... For me?"

[socialmediasocrates]

i can't believe i'm writing fo4 fic in this the year of our lord 2024

if you're here for the bg3 fic it's on its way i promise

transcript under the cut

first screenshot:

every day, filomena woke up at five in the morning to catch the casualty lists on the news.

they rolled twice a day, at five in the morning and five in the evening, and she sat on the couch watching, nursing a cup of coffee and a cigarette. there were ten nathans on the list that morning; two of the last names looked familiar, both of them nearly gave her a premature heart attack. nathan farrier, nathan feltman, nathan fielder. she finally released the breath she’d been holding. nathan fasciani never showed up. twelve more hours of planning a wedding instead of a funeral. then she’d watch the five pm news, and the clock would reset. this was the rhythm of life while he was off fighting in alaska. twelve hour cycles hoping the name fasciani never showed up, a mounting sense of dread bitter in the back of her throat in between.

(that last name did appear, eventually, but it wasn’t nate. it was his brother, gianni. killed by chinese door gunners on a vertibird run over the position where his unit had dug in, body never recovered. they buried an empty coffin. nate’s parents aged a decade in a week. there would be an empty chair with a smartly folded american flag and a photo sitting in it for gianni at the wedding.

god, was it ever worth it?)

second screenshot:

“so, at the very bottom of hell, there’s this huge lake, right? and lucifer’s in the middle of the lake, frozen from the waist down-”

“the devil’s a popsicle?”

“no, he’s the ultimate sinner, trapped in a prison that he’s constantly refreshing by beating his wings, which are attached to his chin, by the way-”

“the devil’s a winged popsicle?”

“you’re the worst.” she readjusted the phone, cradled between her shoulder and the side of her head, as it began to slip.

“i’m the worst? dante made the devil a wing-chinned popsicle.” even his laugh sounded tired, but there he was. laughing. his mom always said he’d be laughing when the bombs dropped, and part of filomena hoped he would. the world always seemed less big and scary when nate was laughing at it.

“he’s only half a popsicle, the top of him isn’t frozen. he’s got three faces, and he’s chewing on judas iscariot, brutus-”

“-of et tu, brute fame?”

“-yeah, that one, and also his brother-in-law gaius cassius longinus, i guess he was also big into the stabbing caesar thing-”

“-damn, can’t trust anyone in the roman senate-”

“-you can’t trust anyone in the american senate, either; it’s not like they’ve changed much.”

and there he went, laughing again. she stopped working on her paper for a moment to just listen and pretend he was sitting next to her, his chin hooked over her shoulder, reading it as she wrote it, making running commentary on the poem.

“i miss doing homework with you,” she admitted, softly like saying it quietly enough would trap the admission in the moment, make it private even though she was sitting at her desk in a dorm room she shared with two other young women.

“i miss you, i don’t know about the homework.” and then a shift. voice lower, “i don’t suppose you’d appreciate me asking you to worry less.”

“it’s not about appreciating the sentiment, so much as it’s just impossible. you’re in anchorage. i’m going to worry.”

“i know. but it’ll be okay, cross my heart. i’ll be back for the wedding by june.”

he was not back for the wedding by june. it happened in mid-august, a week before his birthday.

[dailyaudiobiblechronological]

4/28/2023 DAB Chronological Transcription

Psalm 81, 88, 92-93

Welcome to Daily Audio Bible Chronological. I'm Jill. It's a joy, truly a joy to be here with you today on this 28th day of what month? Where am I at? April, that's what's going on. 28th day of April. Welcome. We are winding this week down together today. We can kind of feel the train coming close into the train station, but we're not there yet. We're going to be reading Psalm today and jump around just a little bit, psalm 81. And then we'll move over to Psalm 88 and then we'll read Psalm 92 and 93. Just a couple days left in the Christian Standard Bible, psalm 81. 

Commentary:

Once in a while we come across a Psalm and it reminds me of a song that we sang in the 90s or the early 2000, popular Christian songs. We obviously didn't have the saturated selection of worship then that we do today. And then if you liked a song, you completely just over-sang it till the song was sort of coming out of your nose holes and disrupting your sleep because the horse and the rider needed to be thrown into the sea while you're sleeping as well. Here's the point. It's easy to think about declaring the goodness of God through song. We do that on Sunday morning or Sunday night or Wednesday night or whatever your form of worship is. And that's sort of this moment in the blip of our entire week. But what if we meditated on the truths, on the goodness of God all throughout the week? What if it's not just this one little moment in our week because something truly changes during those moments of worship when we are intentionally focusing on the goodness of God, meditating, focusing, sending our thoughts and our intentionality of focus, declaring who he is. It changes our mindset, it changes our posture. It sets a different tone of our mental thought pattern. It sets the tone for our mood. Now, that's not saying dismiss wherever you're at, whatever situation that you're in, if you're struggling, if you're in pain, if you are just in a horrible season of life, this is not a formula to say if you just focus on God, all of that will go away and change. But there is a shift. There's a shift in what we think about. There's a shift in how we can attack our problem, how we can endure the situation of life, that we're either walking out, that we're running out, that we're limping out because we all cope differently. And that has to be okay because we are all created differently. We have these daily rhythms of our lives, whether we realize it or not. Most of us sleep every day. Most of us eat something every day. Most of us brush our teeth. Most of us shower, use deodorant, use the restroom. Some of you, exercise is a daily part of your life or a rhythm of your life. What if we made an intentional focus of the goodness of God, a part of our daily life every single day? I will take 30 seconds. I will take 1 minute. I'll take five minutes. Whatever it is that you have capacity for to intentionally set your mental focus on the goodness of God. 

Prayer:

Father, we thank you for your word today. We're thankful for these reminders, these songs, these prayers, these poems, these laments of worship to you. I pray, God, that we would hold on to the truths of who you are. We would let that be our focus. We would stop and pause intentionally toward that, that we would make some sort of room and place and space for reflecting on the goodness of who you are, that you are for us and not against us. Maybe that could help with our focus. Maybe that could help cancel out all of the distractions around us, focusing our thoughts, needing to stay informed with information, rather than rising above and focusing on you, who is ruler over all. We stop and declare the mighty works of who you are right here in this space and the goodness of who you are. Not because of what you've done for us, but because simply that you created us. You are God and you long to be in relationship with us. Thank you for that. We love you, we worship you, we praise you, and we honor your name, father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Announcements:

Daily audio Bible. That's home base. Check it out. If you have not lock it in. If you are new around here, that's the website. Just take a look around. If you have any questions, if you're curious about anything, that is a really good place that you can go and find out anything that you want to know, check out our store as well. There's some beautiful resources designed specifically to enhance your journey through the Bible. If you'd like to partner with us, boy, we sure give thanks to you for that. We could not do that completely on our own and we're so grateful that we do not have to. If you're giving by mail DAB PO Box 1996 Spring Hill, Tennessee 37174 or you can simply utilize that app. Hit the Give icon up at the top right hand corner. And lastly, look for the website. Hit the Give icon up at the top of the page if you need a prayer. We are a community that prays for one another. If you'd like to pray for someone that's previously called in, you can do that too several different ways. 800-583-2164 or you can hit the red circle button it's up at the top right hand corner of that app. You have two minutes to record your message. Please speak clearly and concisely into your mobile app. The technology is great, but sometimes the voice is just too far away. So make sure that you speak clearly and concisely into your mobile device. When you're done with your recording, hit send and then turn that little wheel over to chronological. This number is specifically for chronological, but you do have to send it to chronological at the end of your recording. I want to just take a second and thank you all immensely for your prayers for my father. I haven't spoke about it here, but I know some of you are friends on Facebook and social media and my beautiful human being of a man that I get to call dad had to have open heart surgery last week, and although it's become a very routine surgery, boy, was that scary to go through fully. Fully? Well, I say fully, but I don't think I was fully trusting in God, but I was focusing all of my mental attention into the one who is able and thankful that the surgery went as well as it possibly could. My dad is, of course, Superman to me, but he's a fighter, determined and just man. I could go on and on, but I would cry real tears. Bottom line is he's doing so well. And I'm really grateful to so many people for so many things. But above all, I'm just so grateful to God for his hand of protection, his providence to him and my mom throughout this process and the incredible doctors and staff that took care of him and for my family, allowing me to step away and be where I needed to be for the sake of my heart and my own mind. So thank you all for your prayers, for your concern, for your care and for your love. And I just so grateful to God, and I'm so grateful to God for my dad. So we will close the week out together tomorrow and I look forward to it. I'm Jill. Until then, love one another.

Community Prayer Line:

Good morning. Daily Audio Bible Family Chronological. I'm listening to April 16 reading and China is like, literally all in my business from the standpoint of asking God to watch over our mouth and guard our lips. And literally, I'm like, typing this up. I prayed it and then I typed it up and immediately somebody that I know I need to wash my mouth and God to guard my lips against reaches out to me. And so I just laughed because I'm like, God, you have just an amazing sense of humor. And it was like, perfect timing. I just wanted to come on and just pray for China and Jill. Just thank you guys for your obedience and your consistency and your wisdom. And so I just want to pray. I thank you, Father God, for these beautiful women of God, who has just given so much dedication to the reading of your Word and then more wisdom at the end to help us to just grow and lean into what you're doing in this community. God, I pray the favor and power of god be with them and on them. I pray, God, whatever they're standing in need of, that you would provide it. I pray that you would continue to bless them, continue to give them more revelation dollars. I pray that you will be with their families and protect them. I just pray more of you. I pray that you just take them to more deeper levels than you as they pour into others, as they give unto others. I pray, God, that you just continue to pour into them and give unto them. I thank you for them. I thank you for this community, and I thank you for everyone who's a part of it and those who shall be a part of it in the future. In Jesus mighty name, I pray. I thank you, Lord. Amen.

Andy in Georgia, welcome to the family. We love you already. Oh, my goodness. It's so good to have you. Yes, life is hard. You're right. But God is so good, and he is outrageously faithful, and he's going to take care of all of us. He does take care of all of us. When you go outside this morning, listen for the birds when they're singing that's God telling you that he loves you and he's got you. So just say good morning. God. I hear you. I love you back, and he's got you. This is your friend Adrian in Maryland.

Greetings and blessings dear DABC family, my heart just goes out to Andy. Life is hard, but God is good. Your name Andrew. Andy comes from the root word Andrew, which means strong and bold and manly. And Joshua was told to be strong and courageous and that the Lord would be with him, and the Lord is with you. And these battles and these challenges like this, I use the word challenge instead of hards because it's to make us stronger, it's to make us grow in his grace. And the only way we can do that is to surrender and realize we can't do this hard life without the without our Father's help and the Holy Spirit. So I just pray the Holy Spirit crush upon you. And you represent so many people right now that are pressed down, and may it be to our knees. And you're in a good place. When we get to the end, that's when God shows up. So I just pray peace over you and blessing. Heavenly Father Andy, help him to know that he is loved and that he's in a good place in Your word. Help him to meditate on Your word day and night. Help him to memorize Psalm One and be like that tree planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth his fruit. And the way to do that is to be in your word day and night. Have a word, meditate on it, and be in the word more than the world and China. What a good leader you are. What a good challenge to turn off the world and turn into the word and write it down and listen to see what God's going to tell us every day. Let's expect great things and attempt great things from our great God grandma Grace going by Grace Rabio.

Hey, my sweet DABC Fam, this is Kingdom Seeker Daniel. I wanted to reach out to my brother, our new family member Andy from Georgia. Hey, bro, I heard your call, man, and I just wanted to let you know I feel you. I feel you more than I can even articulate right now. But there's a piece of a song that says life is hard, but God is good. And so you're right, brother, life is hard. In fact, Jesus told us, in this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I've overcome the world. So, brother, I don't know your story, but I just want you to know you're not in that story alone. As another song says, god is in the details and he's right there with you, bro. So I'm praying that the lord will strengthen you. He hold you close and walk with you through the tough times. Love you much, brother. Welcome to the family. A family. Would you guys be so kind to please lift up my bride and my stepdaughter Tanya Gordon, as she had a heart attack on last night. Today is the 22nd and she had two stents put in and she's having to have a blood transfusion on this morning. So would you please pray for Tanya Gordon that God will bring her through this and that God would comfort my bride's heart LOV through this process. Much love for you guys.

[lacefuneral]

not helpful for people who do not have a library nearby but if you do, please consider getting a library card. i got one impulsively after seeing a tumblr post like this one (lol). library cards are free, and once you have one, you gain access not only to physical books, but movies, TV shows, video games, and of course, digital books. 

mine, personally, is connected to every other library in the county, so there is a HUGE online catalog. just massive. you can go to any of these libraries in person, or you can request a book from one library and have it delivered to your local one to go pick it up. and it’s free! all of it is free!

having a library card and checking out items helps your local library and the surrounding community. and if you have items you’re willing/able to donate, you can make those materials accessible for the other people in your region. 

now i know some people will be like “but jay, I don’t read books, and I can just pirate stuff, or play the games I already have access to. why library?”

but here’s the thing. I had not read for fun since I was a child. i hated reading books. i’d space out constantly. it physically hurt to hold a book in my hands (neck and wrist pain). and a kindle wasn’t any better.

so what i did was, first of all, was pick a subject that interested me. i’m a gay trans man, and I’ve always felt alienated by being surrounded by cishet-heavy media, and I also wanted to learn more about my community’s past. so I was going to be looking at fiction and non-fiction books in the LGBT category.

then i picked the genre. reading poetry, which is small, digestible bites of text, and graphic novels, which are image-heavy, would help ease me back into reading. a warm-up for longer pieces. 

then format. I wanted to have a physical book in my hands. having a physical book taking up space would remind me that I had to read it and return it. 

but physical books were hard! so I bought two adaptive devices that, when used together, greatly reduced the amount of pain i was in while reading. i’ve spoken about them before

i also got myself a set of magnetic bookmarks. i find that these are the most useful, as they remain fixed to the page and aren’t clunky. and also, when not in use, you can stick them to a fridge or another metal surface

once I had all of that figured out, I looked for specific books, read reviews, and organized the content into lists. one for poems, one for graphic novels, one for non-fiction, one for fiction. 

i started out with two poetry books and the first volume (out of four) of a manga. I found that I took to reading pretty quickly, and I enjoyed the experience even when I wasn’t fond of the content. one poetry book left me making a lot of commentary, out loud, as one would when watching a bad movie. and weirdly enough? i had fun doing this. the other poetry book, though, made me burst into tears, in a good way. 

once i knew I could handle reading, I just... dove right in. I’m 20% of the way through a 550 page fiction novel right now. if you told me a couple of months ago I’d be doing that, I’d look at you like you had five heads. i have a spotify playlist with instrumental music i listen to help set the scene, just as one would when playing DND, and this helps me block out the outside world and keep focus, so that helps substantially. 

this book is not a library book, however, so I am taking a break from it to read the two library books i have at the moment: a history book and a manga volume. when i am finished reading the novel, i plan to donate it to the library. i also plan to do the same thing with other gaps in my library’s catalog. buy the book, read it, donate it. 

anyway, give the library a try, if you can. especially if you’re marginalized in any way. hell, i have found 4 separate books JUST on the intersection of being trans and autistic. you may not find everything you are looking for, but you may find something that makes you feel less alone in the world, something that resonates with you

[teenyweenynightghost]

Dream Date

Thomas x fem reader

Thomas had been crushing on Y/n for god knows how long

They sat up all night and talked online about every little thing in the world; passions, dreams, futures, meanings…

After a bit of wine and endless encouragement from the band, he finally decided to ask her out.

“Um, y/n, I had a question…” his voice trembled slightly, watching her wash some dishes before patting her hands dry and turning to face him

“Of course, amore. What is it?”

“I was wondering If you wanted to go on a date with me tonight?” He asked, looking at her with fear and anticipation.

He only grew more worried as the girl remained silent, shock written all over her face.

“Are you kidding? I would love to!” She chuckled, approaching Thomas and hugging him tightly

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, and basked in the sensation of being so close to her. Y/n’s soft, luscious hair slightly tickled his cheek and filled his nose with the pleasant scent of flowers and spring

Thomas was standing in front of the mirror, fumbling nervously with his tie. He had picked a light gray suit with a pink shirt.

“Thomas!! Aren’t you gonna come pick up your princess?” Damiano teased from downstairs, earning a frustrated groan from the blond.

He came up in a second and watched Thomas try and knot his tie, laughing to himself before helping him out.

“Are you nervous?”

“Guess, stronzo.”

Damiano snorted before patting him on the back and pushing him downstairs

“You are incredibly handsome Thomas, she’ll be more than enamored”

“Shut up.”

He got in the car and drove all the way to Y/n’s house, where he noticed she was already waiting on the porch.

She was gorgeous, to say the least. Her curly hair was pulled back with a few pins, light peach eyeshadow on her eye lids and a soft pink lipstick.

He hadn’t realizes she was in front if him, until Y/n spoke.

“Where are we going?”

“Oh um, beautiful- I mean, you, you are beautiful.”

They both blushed, Thomas more out of embarrassment, and he opened the door for her to get in the car.

“What made you decide to finally ask me on a date?” Her soft, honey-like voice broke the silence.

“I am always excited when I’m with you, or when I talk to you. It’s something I don’t really feel with other people.”

“I honestly thought you’d say that you would willingly wake up for me.”

They both started laughing, as they passed the illuminated streets of Rome.

“That’s a given.”

Eventually, the car slowed to a stop, and they both got out.

“Where are we?”

“Remember that place I told you about a few nights ago? I used to come to this meadow every day when I was younger. It was like a safe haven for me.” His voice faded out, looking around and taking in the all-too familiar plants and trees he knew so well.

“Why did you bring me here, then?”

“I wanted you to see it. Maybe it could become our haven.”

Y/n sighed, and picked up a flower from the ground, smelling it.

Meanwhile, the boy opened the trunk of the car and pulled out a blanket and a basket, laying them both down and taking a seat.

The soft glow of the moon softly illuminated the patch of grass they were sitting on, creating a surreal and whimsical feeling.

“To be fair, If you wouldn’t have asked me out one of these days, I would have.” Y/n snorted, opening the basket and gasping.

“CHOCOLATE COVERED STRAWBERRIES??” Y/n’s eyes were comically wide, as she looked between the treats and Thomas

“Well, you know, I did plan for this date to be the cheesiest thing possible.”

“They’re over used for a reason. They rock!”

“We rock.” He added smoothly, feeling himself relax more and more.

“We sure do.”

Taking out another plate out of the basket, Thomas grinned as he remembered one of his favorite childhood movies.

A big smile appeared on Y/n’s face as she saw the giant portion of pasta in front of her, and hurried to find some forks in the basket.

“I suppose we’re eating out of the same plate, correct?”

Thomas nodded and didn’t hesitate to start devouring the food.

They mainly listened to the soft tuned of the car radio while eating in silence, the occasional chirp of a bird catching their attention, until Y/n started giggling.

Thomas looked down, and saw that they both have the same noodle in their mouth, one end in her mouth, on in his.

Thomas smiled sheepishly, as he continued advancing towards Y/n, her actions replicating his.

They were mere centimeters away from each other, Y/n’s hot breath sending shivers through Thomas, her eyes lit up, as If a fire glowed with in them.

She made the final step and closed the distance between them, kissing Thomas tenderly, for so long that they both forgot what breathing felt like.

Eventually pulling apart, they kept staring into each other’s eyes, trying to calm down, despite their hearts being aflame with desire and affection.

“We should film a live-action version of Lady and the Tramp.”

Thomas chuckled and shifted so that he was closer to her, nuzzling his head into the crook of Y/n’s neck.

She picked up the box of strawberries and started shoving them down her throat, eating with a speed that got Thomas worried.

“Woah, woah, woah, slow down! I want some too!”

“You can’t bring me strawberries covered in chocolate and expect me not to eat them!!”

He snorted and leaned over to the basket, pulling out a book.

“What’s that?”

“Poems”

Y/n gasped and lowered herself so that she would align herself with his face.

“Wow! You’re gonna bring me food, read me poetry and show me your hiding spot? I feel like I’m in a romantic movie.” She joked, pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek.

“Well, I am trying to romance you.”

“There are literally so many words for it and you choose romance me?”

“I knew you’d say that.” He scoffed, faking a pout and opening the book. He flipped through a few pages until he ended up at a heavily marked one, a coffee stain on the corner.

“I’m guessing this is your favorite?”

“For one specific reason. Can you guess it?”

Y/n hummed, thinking for a few moments before answering him.

“Is it about sleep?”

“Oh come on! No. It reminded me of you.” He grinned, fluttering the book under her nose.

“Oh god, it’s gonna be a prayer to the devil, won’t it?”

The blond squinted his eyes, seemingly freezing, before starting to flip hurriedly through the pages once more.

“Shit, you’re right.”

“THOMAS!” Y/n elbowed him, scoffing, bursting into laughter along with him.

“Fine, fine, alright. Here it is;

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Y/n’s eyes were brimmed with tears, slightly smudging her eye makeup, as she took a deep breath, taking in all that Thomas recited

“What’s it called?”

“When you are old, by William Butler Yeats.”

Y/n let out a silent oh, and looked closer at the sketches around the writing.

There was a small sketch of her, relaxing on the balcony under the stars, and Thomas, looking up at her as if she were his moon.

Her heart was filled with affection for the boy who held it in his hands, who unfortunately didn’t realize how much he meant to her.

“Let’s dance.” She beckoned him, walking towards the car and turning up the volume. A terrible love song erupted from the speakers, making Thomas cringe at the harmonies and lyrics, but he took Y/n’s hand regardless and pulled her closer.

They swung from side to side, looking deeply into each other’s eyes and memorizing every single aspect of the night

“This night is amazing, but this song really fucking sucks.” Thomas eventually spoke, not being able to hold in his commentary any longer.

“Well, not everyone can make music as well as you.”

“Oh you little flirt.” Thomas blushed, brushing a strand of hair out of Y/n’s face and spinning her around, over and over again.

She was giggling as she turned, her flowery dress flowing around, making her look like even more of an angle in Thomas’s eyes.

“I wanna spin you too!”

“I’m taller. You can’t!”

“Bet?”

Y/n pushed Thomas around, but he got stuck while he was with his back to her.

“Ow, Y/n, my arm can’t bend like that!”

He muttered a few curses, instinctively stapling backwards, thus making Y/n fall along with him.

A loud thud was all that he heard before an uncontrollable mess of giggles started wiggling under him.

“YOU’RE CRUSHING ME!”

“No, I’m crushing on you.” He spoke calmly, not getting off of her small body.

“Stronzo!!”

They were both laughing as Thomas got up, pulling Y/n with him, and pressing a passionate kiss to her lips.

They both sat back down on the blanket and nuzzled into each other’s embrace, their breath matching up.

“I never want this night to end.” Y/n whispered against his neck, squeezing his hand.

“It’s the only way it will remain special.”

She smiled contently, before looking up at the stars and letting the faint crickets and rustles of the forrest drive them to sleep.

A/n: I had plenty of inspiration for this🥴 @cantaraiilmionome 😉 for you, amore

Taglist: @fuckim-so-gay @ginny-lily @messyhairday-me @cheese-toastie-11 @wannabemarlenabutiscoraline @simp-per-ethan @maneskinrollercoaster @juststalking @superchrystaldrug @immrbrightsideeee @shehaddreamstoo @tiaamberxx @victoriadeangeliswifey @bidet-and-legolas @makapaka11 @electra-phoebe

[myelocin]

Linette | Akaashi Keiji

Synopsis: Decisions are a funny thing, but you suppose certain ones can’t be bad because they eventually accumulate to Akaashi Keiji.

Genre/Warnings: None! Fluff (for once lmao)

Characters: You, Akaashi Keiji

wc: 1k+

a/n: This is for you, Linette, aka dei & i’s adopted child <3

buckle up y’all bc after this I will be working on angst :)

-

At one point in time Akaashi Keiji was only the smart kid who sat in front of you in your second year class. He had always been a stranger, but he was that familiar fixture in your life. A part of the background, if you will—but you were more than sure you held the same role in his.

And later down the years you find it a bit overwhelming thinking about how the little decisions you make accumulate into something that becomes a part of you.  It isn’t necessarily terrifying, or at least you first thought that, but it is fearful in its own right.

Spring mornings have become your favorite as you grew older. Spring mornings are reserved for waking up in chilly mornings with a shy sun filtering light into the bedroom and one of Akaashi’s poem written neatly on a pastel sticky note left on your bedside for you to read.

“Why do you never wake me up if you have to leave for work early?” you ask.

“I don’t like disturbing your sleep.” He replies, and every time he speaks in a soft way that only is for you to hear.

“I’d like to start my day with you, though.” You counter before he smiles and threads his fingers through yours and replies, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

So it doesn’t surprise you much when you wake up the next day, Akaashi having left much earlier because of a deadline he needed to finish at work, and a pastel sticky note posted a little crookedly on the side of the alarm clock to your left.

And as you have breakfast on the mornings without him, you think back to those little decisions you made. Opting to wear a white shirt on an event in school lead to Akaashi spilling his donut’s chocolate sauce all over you when Bokuto clapped him on the back unannounced. Perhaps you have to thank Bokuto for that because his enthusiasm was the starting point for the story you and Akaashi are writing.

Another one was saying yes to his offer of letting you use his jacket to cover the stain, and later, another yes to getting his contact details he could make it up to you. ‘It’s not a big deal.’ You vaguely remember saying to your friend who was getting different ideas between you and Akaashi’s interaction.

You snort at the thought because due to that interaction, five years later you decide to choke out a resolute “yes” when Akaashi knelt down on one knee and cried with you as he asked for your hand in marriage. And it was on that spring night, at a rooftop in Kyoto where you looked at him and found all the missing pieces of you that seemed to finally snap into place because of his presence.

Then the morning after that night, you will never forget how Akaashi looked at you and muttered his love for you in the form of a poem, and every time you close your eyes you feel as if you’re in Kyoto again—listening to a soft confession of all the things he feels for and because of you.

You realize it’s like that with Akaashi, he carries himself in a way where you often have to read in between the lines most of the time. You fish out confessions in between his dialogues, and discover meanings from the ghosts of his touches—but you suppose Akaashi Keiji will always be worth every single metaphor you analyze.

-

So when he walks in the door, announces that his boss sent him home early to rest, you walk up to him and idly think about what little decision you’ll be making this time to accumulate for the future’s unfolding.

And then three things happen that lead to your revelation.

First, you decide to take his coat, give him a kiss, tell him you love the poem he left for you and ask if he wants coffee.

Second, you watch as he places a box of pastries on the table and tell you that there’s a new bakery like the one near Fukurodani from years ago that opened up down the block. You pour coffee into a mug in the kitchen and turn to ask him what the name was.

“Linette.” He says, and you nod your head at the foreign choice. “What does it mean?” You ask, and he wracks his brain for a moment before answering, “I think it means ‘pretty one’ or something.”

You say a commentary about how fitting the name is for the bakery’s aesthetic before he opens the box and offers you your favorite pastry. You don’t remember telling him, so you ask, “How’d you decide what to get?” to which he shrugs to and mumbles, “I don’t know, just seemed like the obvious choice for me.”

You part your lips to grin and tell him to chew properly before speaking because he sounded a little muffled with the pastry stuffed in his mouth, but you pause because the third revelation took you by surprise.

Processing his answer, you then awaken to the thought that a majority of those little decisions from the past weren’t decisions at all. Akaashi Keiji was a force you gravitated towards—he pulled you into worlds that were founded in gunmetal blue and spring poems. And in an instant, you realize the sole decision you made was that morning in your bedroom when you decided to wear a white blouse six years ago. Everything else that transpired only happened because everything else was the obvious choice.

Akaashi watches you sitting across from him, holding your pastry and expression looking far away. He smiles to take a sip of his coffee and relaxes.

Looking at the box in front of him, he traces the outlines of linette with his eyes, then his thoughts begin to drift.

He often had to leave work early, but in the rare moments he spends times like this with you, he can’t help but thank Bokuto for pulling him into that quaint bakery across the school that one morning.

Spring mornings are his favorite, he muses, as his eyes finally trace up and focuses on you—the cogs in his head whirring at the poem he instantly sees when you wake up from your trance and meet his eyes, smiling.

[wondereads]

Personal Recommendation (04/25/21)

The Evil Queen by Gena Showalter

Why am I recommending this book?

I've had my eye on this book for so long. I love when characters that are typically thought of as villains rise up and take hold of their fate (yes I read all those villainess mangas).

Want something quick and short? Check out my tiktok

Plot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Everly and her twin, Hartly, were raised in our world, but their mother hails from another dimension known as Enchantia, a deceptively pleasant name. Everly, Hartly, and the people around them are prophesized to eventually take part in the fairy tale of Snow White and the Evil Queen, and everyone seems to think Everly is the Evil Queen. It especially does not help that her magic involves her speaking to mirrors. Everly enters Enchantia in order to discover the truth behind her mother's escape and what the prophecy really means.

The plot was mostly character-driven. There was no big goal the characters were working towards; they made their decisions based on their emotions and in reaction to the other characters. Because of that, I could never really predict where the book was going to go next. Unfortunately, I was a little spoiled because one of the last chapters is at the beginning of the book. I get why it's there–it removes any expectations that Everly will come out of this untouched–but I still recommend that you skip it. There's just a bit too much there, so it's a major spoiler.

Showalter does a really good job of evoking outrage in the reader. At a lot of points in the book I was genuinely mad at what the characters decided to do, but it only made me want to keep reading so I could see what Everly would decide to do in response.

Characters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Everly is so great. It's so nice to have a YA female protagonist that is completely unapologetic. She's not the nicest person, and she knows it. She gets her revenge and takes pleasure in it. It was very cathartic to read from her point of view, especially after all the horrible things that happened to her. It was really great because she was 100% justified in doing so many horrible things to the people who wronged her, but she chose to have mercy not because it was the right thing to do but because she knew she was better than them. At times, I felt like she sort of fell into the trap of brash, over-sharing girl from another world, but she moved past that in the second half of the book.

Roth. My opinion on Roth went from one extreme to the other in the book. His general personality was good, especially for a traumatized and somewhat entitled prince. He was a good example of what happens to good people when they're taught to hate, and he really did love Everly. I really did enjoy their relationship for the most part. It was some weird balance between enemies to lovers and friends to lovers which doesn't sound real, but it is. There were some points that threw up some red flags for me (you'll know it when you read it), but I think he's on the way to redeeming himself by the end of the book. I did appreciate that Everly didn't just immediately accept him at the end; it'll take some time for them to work things out and set boundaries before even considering running off together.

God, I was so ready to end up hating Hartly. I was just bracing myself for that inevitable moment, but I loved that she turned out to be perfect throughout. Also, she made me cry. As for Truly, she swapped sides so often during this book, but I did end up liking her. Her conflicting relationships with Farrah and Everly were pretty interesting.

Below here are characters that will spoiler the book! Skip this part if you haven't read it yet!

I'll keep it short. Ophelia and Noel were awful; I can't believe Everly ever trusted them again after what they did to her. I loved to hate Farrah. I thought her punishment was fitting although I wouldn't have been mad if Everly killed her. Nicolas was definitely a wild card; I'm still not entirely sure what side he's on, and I finished the book.

Writing Style 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The book is from the perspective of Everly, a modern teenage girl, so I felt it was mostly fitting. I did really like how the way Everly and Hartly talked contrasted with the fairytale world inhabitants like Roth and Truly. However, there were some points where it felt like Everly was trying too hard to be a ~relatable teenager~, which is a pitfall a lot of adult YA authors fall into.

I loved the map, I always love the maps. The poem that was written line by line at the beginning of each chapter was a nice touch too. I also really liked how Everly, Hartly, Truly, and Farrah were all based on fairytale-ish words (ever, heart, true, and fair), but Farrah's was still a little different because she distinguished herself as the protagonist and therefore didn't have the lasting bonds like the other girls did.

Meaning 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I wouldn't say there was a big, glaring, over-arching message in this one, but it did have some really poignant commentary on hypocrisy, stereotyping, and hating for the sake of hate.

To start with, everyone dislikes Everly because her powers involve taking it from others, but everyone is also 100% ready to use her powers for themselves. Also, Everly is pretty much constantly railed on for the sake of the fairytale in the middle of the book. Even though she's done absolutely nothing to warrant it, she's forced into these horrible situations because people have pegged her as the Evil Queen, not realizing that they are why she will eventually become the antagonist. God, I love shit like that. When she retaliates to protect herself, she's all of a sudden this unforgiving, violent witch (which might also be a jab at how society shits on women and then villainizes them when they fight back). The best thing is that Everly doesn't stop standing up for herself and the ones she loves, and, while she isn't actively cruel to those against her, she certainly doesn't let them get away with it.

Overall 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I loved this book. I have always loved twisted fairytales, and now I also love stereotypically evil women taking back power for themselves. I genuinely liked the main character, the romance was pretty good, and the side characters were all well-developed. The social commentary wasn't subtle, but, like Everly, sometimes being unapologetic isn't bad. This book was kind of cathartic to read. I would recommend this book to people who enjoy fairytales, romance with a lot of sexual tension, and those villainess mangas.

The Author

Gena Showalter—46, America, also wrote Alice in Zombieland, Firstlife, and The Glass Queen

The Reviewer

My name is Wonderose; I try to post a review every two weeks, and I take recommendations. Check out my about me post for more!

[squidpro-quo]

For the prompt : Jaskier is kidnapped and used as leverage against Geralt (I'd be forever grateful if you did this op)

    Thank you so much for this prompt! A perfect opportunity for angst and whump and hurt and comfort, i can only hope i fit it all in here. This was a load of fun!

Jaskier strained against the rope tying his hands together, reminded of another time when the same circumstances had led to his life changing—he’d argue for the better most of the time—and now it might just happen again, except the change to his life will be that it ends. His fingers are turning numb, with how long he’d been held in the stone room it’s no wonder, only a question of how much longer until they figure out that it was all for naught. Bribing the innkeep, getting the herbs necessary to drug him, the fortified hold they’d decided to hole up in? It was all too much effort for a lost cause, but he’d kept his mouth shut for once knowing that if he spoke a word of the futility of their plan, then they’d have no reason to keep him alive anymore. 

    The door creaked; the sound of the key scraping in the old lock had him struggling to scramble as far away from the door as possible, his body protesting every movement even as he knew it wouldn’t help. They’d made up their mind. 

    “How’s the little songbird now? Ready to sing a sweeter song?” The man that entered had a grin with the curve of a sickle, sharp and cutting, to offset the fact that his lisp would have undercut any threats made in anyone else’s mouth. The sharp whistle of his breath through the cracked crags of his teeth accompanied his heavy steps and Jaskier bit back a retort about his singing’s quality in favor of staving off the inevitable by just a few seconds. 

    “No refrain? I’d heard it was hard to shut you up, not the other way around. Guess some things just end up embellished into lies, don’t they?” The look in his grey eyes grew hard.

    Jaskier knew what was coming, he might have found himself in trouble more times than he could count but he’d learned when to expect a punch by the set of a man’s shoulders. This time was no different. The blow caught him across the temple, leaving his ears ringing and the ache in his head redoubled after he’d just started to regain some peace from the pain. He slipped sideways down the wall, unable to catch himself when he couldn’t feel the stone beneath his fingers, to the hoarse laugh of the man he’d realized was the orchestrator of it all. Jaskier rested his forehead against the cool stone floor, hoping it would take away some of the pounding that he felt reverberating through his skull. Like metal clashing against metal, the clanging sounded deceptively close despite the fact that he knew it was only his tired mind playing tricks on him. 

    “Talk,” the man ordered, in a deceptively soft tone, forcing Jaskier to look up at him to read his lips and discern his meaning. “You can talk to that monster, but not to a human?”

“What do you want me to say?” Jaskier couldn’t hold his tongue any longer, though his own voice sounded muted and echoing inside his head. His fear had been a thin veneer before, but now it was being poked through with the usual thorns of irritation and the aching need to be glib. “That I haven’t seen him in months? That I don’t know where he is? That I doubt he knows, or really cares, where I am either? You didn’t understand it the last time I said it, but I guess the constant whistling can get in the way of listening comprehension.” 

“The entire continent knows you’re companions, traveling together, dining together… sleeping together,” the man raised his eyebrows, before continuing, “You know him better than anyone.” 

“Do I?” Jaskier swallowed, to get the dry taste of irony out of his mouth and to keep from retching at the way the world turned blurry before him. “If sleeping together was all it took, I’d have several dozen of those I’ve courted lining up at your doors. So I’d say you’re out of luck on that shaky limb of logic.”

It was a good joke, considering he’d likely die just from the surprise of Countess de Stael riding up so many months after leaving his poems as ash in her fireplace. Or Geralt, who last he’d seen was firmly in the arms of someone Geralt had risked his life for against all odds and against all wishes, her own included. Not that she’d seemed to mind at the end. 

“Is that a note of pity I hear?” 

“I can’t do many things, fight a murderous band of men for example, but I know when I’m not wanted. I don’t begrudge anyone that.” He didn’t, he loved freely and indiscriminately, pouring his affection into the world along with his quips and commentary as an inexhaustible resource. Because what better way to try and stay a memory in someone’s heart long after the flare of passion has gone cold. He couldn’t help it if Geralt had been a never-ending well for him to attempt to fill, not realizing how he’d fallen down into it in the process and the answer he’d been chasing had been merely his own deluded echo in return. 

“He might not come for you now then—” Jaskier had a brief moment of hope at the contemplative look on the man’s face, the sliver of mercy amidst the cold calculation. “But he’ll surely come for your headless corpse. If your songs have even a fraction of truth, he’s the sort to be mad about that kind of thing.” 

Cold ice slid down Jaskier’s spine, because the man was right. Geralt was nothing if not a righteous man, perhaps surly and grumpy to a fault, but he’d fight anyone that threatened the helpless, never mind that it happened to be Jaskier. He’d written songs about it after all, he’d know. Blood pounded in his ears, the sound seeming too loud in the confines of his terror and he could almost imagine the keep itself was resounding with it, the thump of his heartbeat bouncing through the walls in an irregular series of bangs. 

The man snatched his attention back when he slid his axe free of the belt at his waist, hefting it for a better grip and leaning down to yank Jaskier upright. 

“Wait! Wait, what if you just let me go? There’s a new idea, worth considering—”

“Don’t worry, if it really doesn’t matter who ends up dead as long as it’s someone he could’ve saved then we have an endless supply of who to use. As you’ve said, it doesn’t take anyone special,” the man said, rank breath wafting into Jaskier’s face, and he wished that wasn’t the last thing he’d ever hear. 

Axe shining in the flickering light of the torch, the man shoved Jaskier into the right angle despite his best efforts to scrounge together enough strength to resist. The man lifted his arm, already evident that he wouldn’t be able to make it one clean cut and didn’t particularly care, and swung. 

Jaskier had closed his eyes, content with the darkness if that’s all that was left of life anyway, and so the sound of wood breaking from close by and the short gurgle of a last breath was all he knew before there were hands on his face. 

Calloused, rough, and warm, familiar from the many years and he leaned into them so quickly they were all that held him up. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know, but he did anyway because he needed to see, to remember the sight of Geralt leaning over him, engulfing him in his shadow and tracing the bruises on his face with a touch so gentle he could’ve sworn it was a dream. 

“Jaskier,” just the rumbling timbre of Geralt’s voice was enough to make Jaskier realize that he’d been worried, chest heaving and sword bloodied from his rush through the keep. To him. 

“Cutting it pretty close, no?” Jaskier snorted, relief making him lightheaded. Relief that he wasn’t dead, that Geralt was there. “Did you get it? He was about to cut my head off, that  kind of death offers so many opportunities for pithy jokes. Would be a shame to waste it…” 

“I came as fast as I could,” Geralt said, tone not plaintive in the slightest but desperate, as if he thought Jaskier was really doubting him. As if he hadn’t been doing just that not a few minutes ago. 

Jaskier swallowed, this time to keep the words, all the damning and too honest words he wanted to bare before Geralt, down and keep what he’d been willing to carry to the grave with him just a while longer. 

Before he could find anything to say, Geralt pulled him close, palms brushing over his ruined doublet and down to Jaskier’s deadened hands, enveloping his fingers in a grip he could’ve sworn was trembling just slightly. His other hand slipped into Jaskier’s hair, until he felt the spot last touched by the man lying dead at their feet. 

Jaskier hadn’t meant to flinch but he saw the way Geralt’s eyes narrowed at the movement and tried to stand on his own to make up for the moment of weakness. 

“In the area, were you? I don’t think you’ll get much coin for this job.” He wanted to ask, wanted to see if he was more trouble than he was worth but he didn’t want to hear the ugly answer.

“I was already searching for you, when I heard.” Geralt’s hand stayed on his back, just like when he’d carried him around in the djinn’s aftermath. “Last time I saw you, you were covered in your own blood, like now. You left… and I didn’t know where you’d gone.” 

Jaskier stumbled, both from the way the room seemed to spin beneath his feet at the change in altitude as he got up and the fact that Geralt had followed him this time, sought him out and found him. 

“I got into yet more trouble, as you can see. Nothing new there.” He rubbed his newly freed hands and grimaced at the red welts the ropes had left behind. He’d have to wear his longer-sleeved wardrobe to cover those up. He looked up to find Geralt’s gaze still raking over him, the furrow in his brow the one that always formed when he was considering something. “Did you need something?”

“You shouldn’t be alone.” 

“W-what?” Jaskier stuttered. “What does that mean?”

“I’m trouble,” Geralt continued, looking like he was choosing his words carefully. “And you are too.”

    “Thank you for the astute observations… Where are you going with this?”

    “I already said it. That you shouldn’t be alone.” 

    Jaskier waited, but Geralt stared at him with the same set look on his face as when Roach gave him a neigh instead of a bump in the chest, unsure what to say. But words had always been Jaskier’s forte, even if he swallowed them down sometimes. 

    “Are you saying you think trouble loves company?”

    Geralt nodded, and that was enough for Jaskier. He’d never be empty of what he poured into the world, and so when something spilled into him instead, he overflowed. Geralt’s empty well might just have a bucket of water inside it, and he’d managed to fish it out after all. 

prompts open

[citylightsbooks]

5 Questions with Dennis Baron, Author of What’s Your Pronoun?

Dennis Baron, professor emeritus of English and linguistics at the University of Illinois, has long been a national commentator on language issues, from the Washington Post to NPR and CNN. He is the author of A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution. A recent Guggenheim Fellow, he lives in Champaign, Illinois. His newest book is What’s Your Pronoun?: Beyond He and She, published by Liveright. Dennis discusses his new book at City Lights Bookstore on Tuesday, February 18th.

***

City Lights: If you’ve been to City Lights before, what’s your memory of the visit? If you haven’t been here before, what are you expecting?

Dennis Baron: Yes, I’ve been before, some years ago on a family trip to SF, and my son bought his own copy of Howl and Other Poems and gave me back the fairly well-preserved one I got when I was in high school back in the 1960s in a Greenwich Village bookshop (the 8th St Bookshop, if I remember rightly). What do I expect? Books and the people who love books. What are you reading right now?

Right now I am re-reading Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse novels in order, having just re-watched the John Thaw TV series. It’s unusual to prefer the video, but I think Thaw brought Morse off the page and turned him into the quirky detective character that Dexter was still trying to imagine. What I like to read is literary fiction, detective fiction (often UK writers) for fun, and for work, books about language, law, and technology, preferably all three combined. What book or writer do you always find yourself recommending?

The two very different books I find myself re-reading every couple of years are Brideshead Revisited and Lucky Jim. And I tell everyone who asks to read them too. (I read Lucky Jim, the best novel about teaching, as a reminder about what the academy is really like, and I can never re-read Brideshead without hearing Jeremy Irons narrating it in my head). What writers/artists/people do you find the most influential to the writing of this book and/or your writing in general?

So I’m in the maybe paradoxical position that I write nonfiction (believe me, you don’t want me as a novelist), but what I love to read most is fiction. That said, the writers of recent books, articles, and commentaries on language that (yes, “that" as well as “who" for people) I admire most are (in no particular order), among the living, Deborah Cameron, Lynne Murphy, Kory Stamper, Peter Sokolosky, Geoff Nunberg, Ben Zimmer (also Robert Lane Greene and David Shariatmadari); and among the not-alive (although there’s a lot to disagree with, but they are still fascinating) H.L. Mencken, H.W. Fowler, and William Safire. If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?

I came of age in the 1950s when serious paperback books first revolutionized the market in the U.S., and I spent my formative years in NYC and Boston exploring those pioneer paperback bookshops, and scooping up used hardbacks at the Strand and the many other fine used bookstores. I’ve been living in Central Illinois for over 40 years, and the last indie bookstore was driven out by Borders many years ago.

I guess I would model my ideal bookstore as a fusion between the two stores I currently visit most: 57th St. Books and the Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago. And I would focus on fiction and books about language (no one goes into bookselling to make a profit, right, it’s all about holding, touching, and inhaling the books).

Where to locate the store? That would be somewhere not in Central Illinois, and that’s a tough call as we currently divide our time between Illinois—for work and friends––and the UK, for research and family, and we will be adding San Francisco to the rotation in the Spring. So all I can say is the best place for the bookstore will be wherever I am at the moment. As for places to live—and have a store—my favorites right now would be Ann Arbor and Falmouth.

What to name it? Surely something that is not a pun or demeaning. One of my favorite library haunts has been the rare book room, so maybe calling my store the Book Room would work. The problem for me would be, does it have the obligatory cafe? I like Atticus Bookstore Cafe in New Haven, but I go there to eat and have an afternoon coffee or tea when I’m in town. Although the collection is good and I do buy books there, the books have become an afterthought—the main attraction for me is the scones. If the economic model for survival requires that a side hustle like coffee and wine become the main draw, then clearly I am not cut out to run the Book Room. And no one would buy books at the Scone Room. Chicago’s Seminary Co-op solves the café issue by having one in the building—Plein Air Café is always busy, but it’s not in the store itself—people go there to eat or work on their laptop, and they browse next door, in the actual book space. Come to think of it, Book Space might be a good name too.

What would my bestseller be? You mean I get only one choice? Maybe I’d push more than one book—after all, there’s more than one pronoun. (You see how I did that?)

[ifyoucouldholdme]

Brave Angel

Words: 2735

Read on AO3

Bill had a collection of journals. It began with a large lined composition notebook from his little brother, Georgie.  The cardboard cover, ornamented with a menagerie of sailboat stickers and blue stars drawn in crayon.

“It’s for you to keep track of all of those stories you tell me,” the boy had cheered when Bill tore away newspaper wrapping. Bill smiled softly in gratitude, but Georgie knew it was the perfect gift when he discovered that Bill had filled over half of the notebook over the following week.

That was the last present Georgie had given him before that summer. Before the sewers. Before It. While the pages were now yellowed and lovingly worn, the journal remained unfinished. Bill couldn’t bring himself to add to it, leaving it preserved in a time when that precious child still smiled, much as his parents had preserved his room in the years after.

So Bill bought more journals. Over the years, he amassed quite a collection of folios and notebooks. Leatherback, spiral-bound, handcrafted, and dollar store brand alike overflowed the shelves of his dorm in no particular order.

 “Damn Bill,” an already tipsy Richie whistled when he spotted the piles. “I know you’re a writer, but do we need to hold an intervention? Eds has been binge-watching Hoarders, so I’ve absorbed some stuff through osmosis.” Stan, gliding past the louder than usual Trashmouth, to the one and only actual chair in the room, threw him a “Beep, beep. This is Bill’s personal space, don’t be rude.” Bill shot him a grateful look. He absolutely adored Richie. Out of all the Losers, the lanky goofball understood him the best. He was even the first person that Bill spoke to after they lost Georgie. But it was nice to have Stan nearby, since he could maneuver Richie like no one else. Just a given glance and a soft spoken word was all that he needed to let Richie know when teasing was close to drifting into inadvertently cruel, and Bill admired about him. In fact, he admired more than Stan’s interpersonal skills.

The look had lasted long enough that Bill knew no one would believe him if he called it anything but a stare. Stan didn’t seem to mind though, smirking and sending an unexpected wink in reply.

           Bill’s breath caught in his chest. His fingers twisted knots into his bedspread. How could Stan not know the grip his existence alone had on the boy, much less such a gesture.

           “Have you thought that maybe he has so many journals because he wants to be an author?”

           “Well yeah,” Richie muttered, “but that’s a metric shit ton of books.” Bill chuckled softly at that. “I guess I do have quite a collection now. It’s mostly just fragments of stories and ideas.” That was only half true. Sure, some were just a place to dump the random assortment of thoughts and inspiration that he discovered throughout the day while others he reserved for more specific purposes.

           Stan gracefully swiveled around in the chair to face Bill, his gaze landing directly back into his own. “Have you ever thought about doing anything with them?” he inquired, absently toying a stray curl around his finger, on which Bill refused to fixate any further than he already had. As much as he tried to repress is growing infatuation with Stanley Uris, the author in him continued romanticize every little thing about him. He dreamt of those slender fingers intertwined with his. He yearned to wrap his arms around the boy and bury himself in that mop of autumn curls. An added touch, Stan had worn Bill’s favorite of his kippahs this day, sky blue to complement his somber eyes and embroidered with a small flock of turtle doves. Beautiful and swift, just like Stan.

           “Paging Big Bill! Hello?” Richie’s booming radio announcer voice, which had improved considerably since high school, blasted Bill back into the moment with an actually articulated, “Huh?”

           Richie, scrunching his brow a little in confusion said, “Stanny boy asked you something and you just stared at him.”

           Dammit Richie, shut up! Bill thought. Instead of shouting that and outing himself right then and there, he turned again to Stan. His gaze had not fallen, however Bill thought that there might have been a slightly rosier tint sprinkled across his normally pale cheeks. “Sorry St-Stan. What did you s-say?”

           “I asked if you planned to do anything with them. Like publish one or enter something in a contest. “Bill automatically reacted with a light scoff. “Nobody would want to publish those. I’m nowhere near good enough f-for that.”

           “Don’t do that, Bill.” Stan’s face wore a calculated blank expression, but he could see the dull frustration lingering just behind those glistening irises and the corner of his mouth. “You are more than you think.”

           He still disagrees, but he would do anything if it would make Stan happy, so he bites back any rebuttal.

           Richie, noticing the tension, jumps in to alleviate the energy hovering between the two. “ You ever show them to your professors? Maybe they could help you submit something to some creative writing shit or whatever.”

           Bill drops his head to stare now at his hands tracing invisible patterns in his bedspread.  “Except for G-Georgie, nobody ever cared enough to ask if they could read anything.” The silence that followed didn’t help the boulder he felt in his stomach.

           Richie didn’t even crack a joke, and he always had something to say regardless of the situation. Why didn’t Bill just agree and steer the conversation towards something less uncomfortable for the others? Maybe finding a party somewhere nearby or what all Richie had already drunk, or-

           “I’d like to read them.” Bill had never heard Stan’s voice so timid since they emerged from the sewers in their receding childhood. “I mean, if that’s ok,” Yes Stan, please, anything you want. “S-sure, Bill managed, “I g-guess so.” Richie leapt to the shelf with a “Hell yeah, man!” and grabbing the first few he saw, dropped onto the floor, fidgeting into the perfect reading position. Stan on the other hand, scanned through the books, tracing his fingers across every spine. The reddening light drifting in the only window outlined every contour of his face, even the pocked craters of scar tissue lining each side from temples to jawline. Normally he was acutely aware of these souvenirs left from that summer, actively avoiding his reflection and constantly rubbing the marks as if he tried hard enough then he could wipe them away like a splattering of mud. Today must have been one of his better days, because Bill had only caught him once briefly brush a small scar on his left cheek. Stan eventually settled on a small pocket journal, one filled with fragments of a fantasy novel Bill had attempted a year or two ago. The room hushed again, this time they welcomed the shared silence in amicable comfort.

             By night fall, they were still deep in the mass of Bill’s literary work. Richie lay upside down on the floor skimming through his fifth selection, pausing intermittently to give his commentary. Stan had finally finished the first journal, now absorbing a collection of short horror stories. Over time he had gradually moved to a new perch on the foot of Bill’s bed, his posture still as straight as if he had still been in the desk chair. Bill curled himself against the headboard with his favorite sketchpad. Stanley’s rapt expression and relaxed half smile had inspired him too much to ignore, plus he had the perfect match to the blue of Stan’s kippah in his pastel set. He wished every moment could be like this. Special peace spent with his oldest friend and his…crush? Or whatever he could call the boy in his bed. The boy on his bed. That realization forced him to slump behind his sketchpad. He would be mortified if Stan discovered the furious blush radiating from his cheekbones. “What the hell, Billiam?” Richie suddenly erupted from underneath a somewhat forgotten collection of Bill’s attempts at poetry, startling the other two from their silent focus. “You told me you were finally over Bev!” At this point Stan would inevitably see Bill’s flushed face, for now he grew even redder in embarrassment.

           “Yeah,” he growled through a clenched jaw, “and I also told you that in confidence.” He tried to glance silently to see Stan’s reaction, but that infamous Uris poker face was back. “Seriously Bill, writing a whole poem about how beautiful she is and wanting to protect her and never leave her and shit doesn’t sound like being over her.” What love poem was he talking about? Although he had fallen for Beverly when they first met, he never really wrote anything about her.

           “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Stan interjected, “Beverly is definitely amazing.” His gaze held still, but there was a hint of something in his voice that Bill couldn’t quite comprehend. “You two would be good together.” His eyes stayed glued to the bed beneath them.

           “It’s much cheesier than I would’ve thought for a Denbrough original. Check it Stan, “ Richie continued then, putting on a voice he claimed as his Masterpiece Theater voice and read an excerpt.

 “My Brave Angel.

How can I show you what you mean

You hide your face

When all I want is to see your smile”

             Bill didn’t remember writing anything like this about her. He didn’t ever feel anything more than an adolescent infatuation with Bev or anyone. In fact, the only person he could say he ever truly loved was-

           “Here’s the part I don’t get,” Richie said in his own voice before jumping back into his recital,

 “When the doves rest in your hair

I wish that I could grow wings

Wrapped inside your autumn locks

I wish that I could live there.”

           Oh shit, THAT poem.

“But Bev doesn’t have curly hair, at the most it’s a little wavy, not like Stan’s frigging tumbleweed of a mop over there. That’s what curls look like Bill.” Richie jerks to a halt, the puzzle in his thoughts clicking together into the full image. For once, his words left him, his rant defaulting to a low, “uhhh…”

The boys tentatively look to Stan. “Oh please, let him not understand, “Bill futily prayed to God or the turtle or whomever was listening, “Please let him!”

Stan’s hand was timidly grazing the raised figures of the doves adorning his kippah, a dreadfully endearing braille.

“Shit, he understands.” Bill desperately wanted to deny everything, to say it was about a girl in his Bio lab, Ha ha Trashmouth, you’re too drunk to know what you’re talking about. Stan, isn’t he crazy? But his throat sealed shut and his tongue grew enormously heavy, just waiting for a laugh or sound or anything from Stan. He didn’t expect the trembling insecurity in their heartbreaking eyes or the wet trails slowly tracking down from them. Richie’s grown jumped to a buzzing hum upon seeing Stan’s tears. In a gangly mess of limbs, he leapt off the floor and with a frantic, “I need another drink,” bolted down the hall. Neither of the remaining two acknowledged the puzzled yells of “Shit, shit, shit, Eddie! I fucked up bad!”

They just sat on the bed, each unable to look the other in the eyes. Bill’s pulse drowned every other sound in his ears. He hates me now. He’s going to leave me behind and never speak to me again. Why do I have to write down every fucking feeling? “S-Stan. P-p-please say s-something” he managed despite his mouth repressing his words. He flinched as Stan met his gaze. Those beautiful eyes held even more of that undescriptive thing, forcing such an anxiety upon him as he hadn’t felt since the poor child disappeared into the mass of sewer pipes they’ve tried to repress.

“Is it true Bill?” Stan asked, his lips tight, but a barely noticeable tremor breaking through his voice. “Did you write this about me?”

Say no Bill. Say no and let him forget it. Dear God, I can’t lose him. Instead all of the fear and embarrassment and shame rushed up and vomited out in a frenzy of stutters and sobs. “I’m s-so sorry S-Stan. N-n-nobody ever r-reads my journals. S-so I thought it’d b-b-be s-safe. P-please d-don’t hate m-me.  I just l-like you s-so much, p-please d-d-d-don’t, “Spit it out Bill, spit it out before he runs away, “p-please don’t l-l-l-“ Then his panic overcame him and the only noises he cried out were violent sobs as he lost any dignity he had left. “Oh God, he’s never going to speak to me again.

In the throes of his shaking, he vaguely noticed arms embracing his crumbling frame and supporting his head. The warmth pressed against him soothed his manic hyperventilation, and Stan’s voice, although breaking in tears itself, brought him back down to relative stability.

“You’re ok, Bill, you’re ok. Please don’t cry. Just breathe with me, ok?” Bill obeyed, inhaling the scent of peppermint embedded in his crush’s dress shirt. After what felt like days, he finally whispered, “P-please don’t l-leave me…” The warmth and the mint receded much to Bill’s dismay, but Stan’s arms stayed. He leaned into the hand wandering through his hair, against his own better judgment.

“Bill, look at me.” Unwillingly, he did. Stan’s face looked just as disheveled as his must surely be. The boy looked hurt, striking pain through Bill’s shuddering chest.

“Why would I ever leave you?”

“B-b-because I’m g-g-g-“ he sputtered beginning to work himself up again when Stan pulled them flush against each other again. Bill let himself sink into that pressure and scent, shamefully enjoying the fingers gently stroking short trails across his shoulder blades and the crown of his scalp. Stan’s heart played a rapid pattern against his own ribs. His breath pressed against Bill’s beet red ear as he whispered so softly it may have been only a thought. “Me too, Bill.”

Everything stopped. The world froze and fell away leaving only the warmth and the mint and the rhythm. Bill lifted his head just far enough to connect their eyes, finally comprehending that mystery in Stan’s gaze. It was that same secret desire that tormented him.

“Did you mean it? Do you really want to see my smile?” The question dripped with such a self-deprecation it crushed Bill to think that Stan loathed himself to this degree. Throwing his own self-pity aside, he boldly put his hands on either side of Stan’s cheeks, thumbs tenderly sweeping over the dreadful marks laid there. With a strength and calm he forgot he knew, he said, “Scars or no, your smile is precious to me, and it kills me to see you try to hide it.”

This broke the calculated façade and Stan disintegrated in Bill’s hands. He cried at length, almost screaming as he finally let himself feel all those years of fear and abuse and longing. He sobbed until his voice gave out and only fell as rasping heaving sighs.

When the deluge ended, the two just lay on Bill’s comforter, drinking in each other’s embrace. Wrapped in the tangle of their arms, they tried to comprehend all that had happened over the past few hours. “Bill,” Stan was the first to disturb their quiet, “After…after I got there, I always thought that no one would ever be able to love me. Like even my own reflection is a constant reminder that I’m… I don’t know, broken”

Bill leaned closer into his…whatever Stan is to him now. “Stan,” he whispered, “You are even more beautiful now. You f-faced It alone, and you’re still here. And you still hit It with a f-fucking pipe.” He chuckled lovingly at the imagery. “You are the bravest of all of us. How could anyone see you as less than perfect?”

Stan hummed a still disbelieving yet pleased hum, snuggling against Bill. “You know, “he barely said, quietly giving himself over to exhausted sleep, “You’re reading the rest of that poem to me later.” Bill smiled the brightest smile he has since Georgie was alive.

“Of c-course I will, Stanley.” He quickly buried his face in the mass of curls like he always dreamed. “Of course I will.”

[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/gemini-new-moon-june-2019-seeding-one-of-the-most-important-lunar-cycles-of-this-game-changing-year/

Gemini New Moon, June 2019 ~ Seeding One of the Most Important Lunar Cycles of This Game Changing Year

FCGCT Commentary: We are moving from the mind, to the Heart… not the balancing of the two. The mind conflicts with the Heart, and is the cause for imbalance, pain, fear, suffering and more. It is the Heart and Brain which work in harmony together. The mind… the ego, blocks the Heart, as it Edges God Out. It is the Heart and Brain which work in harmony to allow Balanced Harmonics, your Divine Blueprint. Let go of the mind, and solely flow from the Heart, connected to the Unified Heart in Unity Consciousness.

Gemini New Moon, June 2019 ~ Seeding One of the Most Important Lunar Cycles of This Game Changing Year

By Marcia Sisterstar

Hello, Beautiful,

We’re on the home stretch now to tomorrow morning’s creation mystery. Within and around you, it will be hidden from sight. And it will carry the potential to shift everything. 

Each year of your life, the early summer Gemini New Moon brings a whole new way to see. This year, it’s power-packed and transformational. “Critical and catalytic” are the words astrologer Nick Anthony Fiorenza used to describe the lunar cycle now being seeded, within and around you. He’s right: the coming weeks are among the most important of 2019, our year of preparation — via transformation– for a shift unlike anything we have ever experienced.

Clues to our next infusion of transformative power literally saturate the chart for the New Moon — as they do every cosmic map, including the one of your own life. How could it be otherwise? The very essence of the Great Mystery you and I are woven into is mind-blowing, reality-bending transformational power, showing up in ever-new forms.. 

   The big magic’s latest live-stream to your own fertile and creative deep heart came alive this morning when Luna entered Gemini, 23 hours before she conjoins our Star tomorrow morning at 6:02 am EDT (that’s 10:02 GMT, and 3:02 am PDT). That first, potent degree of the sign of the Twins is where the brightest of the seven stars we call the Pleiades calls home. Her name is Alcyone, and the lore that links her to the power that transforms sorrow into bliss — the ecstatic bliss of the goddess — is so ancient it predates the patriarchy. 

From the moment the Dark Moon aligned with Alcyone, she began pouring those star codes into your emotional and intuitive intelligence. They’re the very same celestial frequencies that have been guiding your perception for the last 12 days,since Mercury conjoined the Sun on May 21 — and transformed himself (and the frequencies you use to perceive reality) from Evening Star to Morning Star. And now they’re going deeper, traveling the pathways of dream, intuition, and cellular knowing that connect you to the heart of all Universes. 

In the sky around you, our Messenger planet is now shining in the evening sky after sunset, as he will until July 8, when he’ll turn retrograde just days after our next new moon — a total solar eclipse. Mercury is not only reminding you that he’s now a Wisdom Star. He’s inviting you to join him in seeing through the eyes of wisdom.

For no other eyes except those of wisdom, MotherGod, are adequate to truly, deeply see the possibilities of these times.  And the timeless and ever-new wisdom of the Cosmos is pouring over us, throughout the lunar cycle beginning now int he same place that everything does. Every galaxy and every human being, every poem and every star, in fact, “all serious daring,” as the 20th-century writer Eudora Welty put it, “begins within.”

Tomorrow, the Messenger who’s been so recently transformed by Alcyone will guide the Sun and the Moon — and you too — to the luminous mystery where the ancient and ever-new wisdom of the Big Magic can transform your life as well.

But the Moon isn’t waiting til tomorrow. She’s already downloading the codes into your deep heart. She’s been doing it all day. 

If this sounds like a fairy tale, there’s a reason. The astrology of Now is the astrology of a fairy tale, the most spectacular one ever, unfolding within your own life and the world that holds it. Like every fairy tale, it’s full of very real menace and danger, pitting both heroine and hero against forces far beyond their power as they’ve always known it — and pushing them into an unexpected encounter with a different, utterly transformative kind of power to, one they’re connected to not through their minds but their hearts and souls. The turning point comes, as it always does, at the brink of doom. That’s usually what it takes to remember who we are — and what we’re part of — and tap a greater wisdom.

We’re gearing up, MotherGod, for the biggest magic of our lives. It’s right around the corner. Its impetus is sheer necessity. Its raw material is your current limitation and the illusion that you’re helpless.

In this potent dark moon field, the Sun is squaring Nessus, and breaking new ground for us all to see the patterns of abuse and domination on which the reign of domination in our world depends. In the sign of the Twins, our solar system’s great heart is reminding us that there is always another perspective, showing us a bigger truth. We have the power to transform the imprint Nessus has made on our lives, rather than let it shut us down.

Meanwhile, Venus is opposing Ceto, the sea monster. Here too, her power — which is also your, the power of what and why and how you love — can relate consciously to the monsters that live in the vast and often turbulent sea of human emotion. Anyone who’s spent half a day with a baby or a small child (not to mention our own selves) knows how quickly fear and rage can become monstrous, and how quickly they can be soothed, transforming. The power to transform our reality, beginning with the perception that we are powerless, is always with us.  

Tomorrow’s new moon is a magical gathering of Sun and Moon and a cosmic entoruage. They include the asteroid Magdalena and her Divine Feminine frequencies, the edge-dweller Altjira and the codes of the Australian aboriginal god of the Dreamtime, and the most newly named of the reality-changing planets orbiting in our solar system’s outermost, transformational edge — the first to be named for an African goddes, Gǃkúnǁ’hòmdímà, also known as Aardvark Girl, who often appears as either an elephant or a python.  

Mercury, ruler of the New Moon, opposes the Galactic Center, inviting us to bring our hearts into a more conscious and co-creative realtionship with the Mystery that made us, through the power of our alignment with what we know, in the depths of our hearts and our souls, to be true about life, and about ourselves.  When a planet aligns with the Galactic Center, it becomes a pathway for a power that our consensus thinking can’t begin to explain, a power described by words like miracle.

In the days to come, that’s a power we’ll want to be connected with:

June 4, Mercury (who’s out of bounds until June 17, and guiding the Sun until the June 21 Cancer Solstice) leads us through another perceptual shift when he enters the Moon’s sign of Cancer, where our evolutionary GPS is showing us the path to the good future — through our emotions, our intuition, and our commitment to all that is young, and new, tender and vulnerable within and around us. It’s time to bring the left brain and the right into harmony, and activate our whole-brain intelligence. 

June 8, Venus enters Gemini, a sign that she rules in esoteric astrology. With our desires and values will be guided by Mercury as he listens to the Moon, we have the opportunity to respond to life from a new and deeper level of personal integration.

June 9, the tension between what we really want and how we’re going after it intensifies as Venus semi-squares Mars and the Sun squares Neptune. We’re at a crisis point and our current level of inspiration is inadequate to the task. What needs to be dropped? What resistance needs to be pushed through? It’s time to let go of whatever disconnects us from Source. 

June 10, it’s time to connect to inspiration that’s true and real can we hold a space for wisdom and for grace that’s bigger than the challenges we face. When the Sun, still squaring Neptune, squares the Moon as well, and simultaneously opposes Jupiter, a very powerful and extremely tense mutable grand cross will form, giving us little choice but to tap in and ride the power of our purpose. 

June 11, we won’t be let off the hook until we’re motivated by our potential for breakthrough and let ourseves fall in love with our evolutionary destiny. The Sun’s semi-square to Uranus and Venus’ semi-square the Nodes will make sure of it. 

June 12, we get a double dose of duality — a deep and total look at how we embrace the other as co-creator or as adversary — as Venus opposes Ceres and the Sun opposes Varda, and Mars conjuncts the Moon’s North Node. 

June 14-15 (depending on your time zone), Mars trines Neptune, supporting you in taking action that is more deeply inspired, and opposes Saturn, confronting you with the necessity to be persistent, grounded, and willing to become wise. As Mercury conjoins the North Node, you can begin to see what that means.

June 16, the day before a Sagittarius full moon conjunct the supermassive transformational vortex that holds our galaxy together, the Cosmos pulls out the stops. The Sun trines Haumea, whose codes birth and rebirth the world, and conjuncts Chaos’ codes of the fertile, primal creation ground. Mercury trines Neptune, bringing a big wave of inspiration into our hearts, and confronts the reality of outworn structures as our Messenger simultaneously opposes Saturn. Jupiter perfects the second square in his long and powerful wrestling with Neptune that is pulling apart illusions so that we can hold a bigger space, for inspiration that is real and true. Venus squares Orcus, and we feel the values that are too small for who we vowed to be in coming here. As Mars as Pluto, we may feel ourselves wrestling with the angel who promised our soul to help us become the ones we came here to be. 

Only deep and simultaneous connection to the two poles of our being — the vibrant drumming heart of the Earth Mother, fed by the energy from throughout the cosmos she brings in through her magnetic poles, and the luminous mystery of the heart of hte Universe — can support you in remaining grounded and inspired in the days, weeks, and months ahead, MotherGod. Putting your bare feet on the Earth’s surface — every day if possible, for at least 30 minutes — can be reality-changing, bringing you into direct contact with the frequencies of the Mystery that made you, and me, and everything in the Universe.  

In fact, that’s a potent way to prepare for tomorrow morning’s sacred marriage of Sun and Moon — consciously connect to Earth and Cosmos. Let yourself feel the creative energies of both course from the heart of the earth through your feet to each of your chakras. Breathe those life-giving codes in deeply. Hold them in your heart and then slowly, slowly exhale through your crown chakra, all the way to the heart of the Universe. Breathe back in, across the starfields. Bring the cosmic creation frequencies into your own field, through your crown and into your heart. Hold the Universe there before letting the cosmic breath drop down, all the way through your feet to the heart of the Earth.  After you’ve established a rhythm, send both your dreams and your fears to both the Earth Mother and the Cosmci Heart — and receive the transformational codes of their response, as deeply as you can. 

Make no mistake, MotherGod. The dangers surrounding us are real. And so is our connection to the Mystery and its legions of allies, messengers, guides, guardians, and angels.  When we choose to change the game, we begin to discover how close they are, in every moment. We realize anew that the Universe is within us.

May you be blessed beyond measure as you move through the extraordinary days ahead.  With all the love, and star blessings,

Marcia (aka Star Sister)

~~~~~~~~~

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[coffeeandcalligraphy]

What I’ve Been Reading #2

Hey People of Earth!

I recently started a new series on this blog (titled above), where I reflect on the last few books I’ve read. I’m doing this mostly to keep myself accountable because I’m notoriously bad at committing myself to reading. So far, reading has been far greater than it’s been in the past--I’m definitely getting into the rhythm of things. I read some amaaaazing books this time around (since approx. November), and these are them:

1. The Darkest Legacy by Alexandra Bracken

This is book four in The Darkest Minds series, and was just recently released (last summer). Whilst I’ve drifted from YA in the last few years, this series was such a huge favourite of mine when I was younger, and I thought I’d give this book a go for nostalgia’s sake. Also, I truly admire Alex as an author, and wanted to support her! Here’s the summary:

Five years after the destruction of the so-called rehabilitation camps that imprisoned her and countless other Psi kids, seventeen-year-old Suzume "Zu" Kimura has assumed the role of spokesperson for the interim government, fighting for the rights of Psi kids against a growing tide of misinformation and prejudice. But when she is accused of committing a horrifying act, she is forced to go on the run once more in order to stay alive. Determined to clear her name, Zu finds herself in an uncomfortable alliance with Roman and Priyanka, two mysterious Psi who could either help her prove her innocence or betray her before she gets the chance. But as they travel in search of safety and answers, and Zu grows closer to the people she knows she shouldn't trust, they uncover even darker things roiling beneath the veneer of the country's recovery. With her future-and the future of all Psi-on the line, Zu must use her powerful voice to fight back against forces that seek to drive the Psi into the shadows and save the friends who were once her protectors.

What drew me to it: Like I mentioned, its mother series was a mega favourite of mine in grade 8, and whilst I’ve grown out of YA, I was curious to see where the story went, five years in the future. I read about 60% of it on page, and listened to the rest on and of over the course of a few months. I started it in August, and finished it on New Year’s Eve. Not the fault of the book, that’s totally me being Very Bad at commitment. I’ve really enjoyed Alex’s novels in audiobook format, and this one was no exception (I think, if I were to read it again, I’d listen to the audiobook: it’s like listening to a television show!)

My rating: 3/5

Why: This is really due to the fact that I no longer am very interested in YA. In all truths, I got into YA early, and got out of it even earlier because apparently I am a sixty year old woman?? I started my journey with YA in grade seven, and it ended around the end of grade eight. After that, I had trouble finding YA books I could enjoy/relate to, not that the books were any less, or bad because of this, but because I was just an injustice to them (I’ve always been a strange reader). This is why I don’t really read YA anymore because I feel like I rate them unfairly because I’m not super big on the category anymore. It just (rightfully) didn’t give me what I’m most currently interested in in books (horrible people; horrible relationships; morally grey protagonists), because of course the category is different to what I read now! With that said, I think, if I’d read this book in my Peak YA Moment (grade 7-8), I’d definitely have given it a 5 star rating. It was super entertaining and funny and nostalgic, and made me miss a series so pivotal in my writing journey. If you love YA, and this series, I think this book is definitely worth the read! That was a thiccccc tangent. 

2. Past Lives, Future Bodies by Kristin Chang

This is a really quick poetry collection (that I spoiler: looooved). This is the summary:

PAST LIVES, FUTURE BODIES is a knife-sharp and nimble examination of migration, motherhood, and the malignant legacies of racism. In this collection, family forms both a unit of survival and a framework for history, agency, and recovery. Chang undertakes a visceral exploration of the historical and unfolding paths of lineage and what it means to haunt body and country. These poems traverse not only the circularity of trauma but the promise of regeneration—what grows from violence and hatches from healing—as Chang embodies each of her ghosts and invites the specter to speak. 

What drew me to it: @shaelinwrites rec’d it to me on my last update, and I fell in love with the premise. I’m *cheap* so was very excited to be gifted it by my Grandma for Christmas. (I actually read it on Christmas!)

My rating: 5/5

Why: Kristin Chang is literally so skilled with her use of the line break? I was shook? This is my second collection of poetry that I’ve read, following (no shade) Rupi Kaur’s The Sun and Her Flowers, which, I felt kinda made the line break feel gimmicky? So this collection definitely reinvented it for me. Her poems are so punchy, and thoughtful, and you can truly feel the experience built into the backbone of every one of them. When I panic wrote some poetry for my writing class, I used it as comfort reference and was amazed at how deliberate she is with her words. I also found so much of its commentary on race so relatable. It’s definitely a collection I’ll keep re-reading. I’d recommend this if, like me, you’re just starting out in poetry--a perfect way to acclimate yourself to a new form!

3. God of Shadows by Lorna Crozier

*Rachel vigorously trying to diversify her reading.* The summary:

The poet Lorna Crozier has always been brilliant at fusing the ordinary with the other-worldly in strange and surprising ways. Now the Governor General's Literary Award-winning author of Inventing the Hawk returns with God of Shadows, a wryly wise book that offers a polytheistic gallery of the gods we never knew existed and didn't know we needed. To read these poems is to be ready to offer your own prayers to the god of shadows, the god of quirks, and the god of vacant houses. Sing new votive hymns to the gods of horses, birds, cats, rats, and insects. And give thanks at the altars of the gods of doubt, guilt, and forgetting. What life-affirming questions have these deities come to ask? Perhaps it is simply this: How can poems be at once so profound, original and lively, and also so much fun?

What drew me to it: At this point I’m just stalking @shaelinwrites​’ Goodreads because her reading taste is on pointttt. I’ve also been dying to read more poetry, and branch out into different forms of writing, so I can be a little *prepared* for school, so I thought I’d take a peek at this collection. 

My rating: 5/5

Why: This collection is so beautiful! I read it super quickly, and fell in love with the concept immediately. I think Crozier explored such unique ideas with super unique language, and I live for it. This collection gave me perspective on ‘gods’ I’d never even thought about. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re looking into reading some prose poetry!

4. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

I finished this book today, and now have trust issues and feel like I’m in a constant state of wanting to cry. Here’s the summary:

If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.

The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.

What drew me to it: I actually don’t know?? I put it on hold at my library in October, and was loaned it in January (looooong waitlist). So I can’t remember why I wanted to read it, probably because 1969 was in the premise lmao. I actually completely forgot about placing a hold on it because it’d been two months, so by the time I got the email notification, I’d forgotten what it was about. Oftentimes, I’m Bad, and leave my loans for weeks, forgetting about them, but I was intrigued by seeing I’d received this loan because I couldn’t remember placing it/why I placed it. I quickly re-read the summary, and immediately started reading because it reminded me a lot of the Haunting of Hill House sibling dynamic, and I was on board!

My rating: 5/5 stars soaked in all my tears

Why: This book is SO good, I literally can’t think about it too much because I will cry, lol. I’m not one to get emotional over books, but this book touched me in a place I didn’t know existed?? Like I didn’t know I had emotions before reading this book?? Apparently I do?? It also left me feeling stunned with a whole bucket of life lessons, and similarly to getting emotional, I’m not a reader to really take away a whole new worldview after reading something, but this book was like NOPE, here’s some THOUGHTS. I think I might’ve loved it so much because the four siblings it follows remind me a lot of my siblings (tag yourself I’m Klara, @sarahkelsiwrites is Varya). I too am a sibling of four with a similar composition to the novel’s (two boys, two girls), so the actual heartbreak of realizing that one day, there ain’t always gonna be four of us struck me so hard I was not prepared?? The characters are BEAUTIFUL, and my heart aches so much after finishing this, I almost don’t know what to do with myself... If you liked the sibling dynamic in the Haunting of Hill House (me!!), you’ll probably dig this book. Benjamin’s writing is also gorgeous; straightforward, but so detailed and lush at the same time. I don’t often see books in third present, so this was a delight for me to read. Also: I’m no expert on any of the topics in this book, but to me, a Fool, this book felt so well researched? This isn’t something I ever notice in books, but it surprisingly really added to the reading experience. 

TL;DR: I’m literally an emotional wreck because of this book and have a whole new perspective on life, if you too want to be an emotional wreck, defs join in on the fUN.

So that’s it for this reading update! All of these books in this update were wonderful! Making me antsy to read more for sure! I’m currently attempting to read more short story collections, so if anyone has recs, hit me up! ‘Scuse me while I go sob!

--Rachel

[indomitablemegnolia]

The truth of a kiss

He set the box on the round table with scalloped edges. “Come on over so we can finish our conversation,” sitting on the back of the couch, he began leafing through my notebook again. He would read some, his lips moving over silent words, smile at others, but a few he would literally lift his other hand to caress the page. I tilted my head, watching him, every motion, his gentle thumb rubbing softly at the edges of the pages, as if he were coaxing, enticing the words off the page; the way his eyelashes fluttered, undulating in the air as his eyes moved over the words. I stood and scampered over; I will never know it if was to just be closer to him; or to get a closer look at how he was, who he was, and what he said without words. I settled in the chair, leaning hard on my forearms, he pulled the cranberry orange muffin from the box and slid it gently towards me, reaching I pinched off the edge of the muffin top, munched on it quietly. I watched this rather galled look quickly cross his face, he looked up at me through his lashes, then quickly away. “What?? You find something just deplorable?” he didn’t answer, he didn’t look up, I just flared my eyes and dissected the top of the muffin.

He chuckled, letting his eyes slowly glide up from that paltry pulp of paper to meet mine. A devil’s grin reaches his eyes, slowly crimping and crinkling the corners of those wide, glorious eyes, giving them a delicious mischievous tilt upwards; those eyes rimmed with long lashes take on a shining bright green light infusing those delighted blue depths, as if he had just come up with some marvellously naughty idea. The muscles in his beautiful cheekbones curling the corners of those lush, but not quite full, chiseled lips into an upturned cocky grin; showing those straight teeth all the way to their healthy pink arching at the gum line. His right lateral incisor deliciously, thoughtfully bites onto that plump bottom lip, making my stomach flip flop. The smile pulling until a fantastic dimple appears in his lower left cheek. I take a shuddering breath, “you know this is not righy, you are basically you are reading my diary while I am forced to watch.” I whined.

I practically feel his tongue as it snakes out licking delectably at his bottom lip. I was as fascinated by his mouth with its the slow graceful moving tongue, almost as taken as I am with the tintinnabulation of his voice. “Oh, no,” he purred, “I would never use the word deplorable. If I had to describe these it would… to go with the safe word of…” He let it hang in the air for a moment and I took another tidbit of muffin, I tilted my head smiling. “Interesting.” Unsatisfied I smirched my lips, “no good? Delicious, delectable, evocative… Although some of this does beg, questioning.”

I smiled wide, “Well, honey, you know the rules. Ask only questions you would answer. Proceed…” I lifted my single eyebrow, smiling with the opposite half of my lips, “if you dare.” I closed my eyes mortified, “to my estimation that was the most terrible impersonation of flirting ever to be heard by human ears.” I laugh

The sweet rumbling sound of his laugh tempted my eyes open, “Oh, darlin, that was adorable, and oh,” he sucked air between his teeth. “I dare.” Leaving his mouth slightly ajar, that tongue of his bobbing and swirling as he thought, “I don’t quite know… I’m not exactly sure though how I would answer some of these questions.”

I shrugged, nodding my head, “Oh, I will think of something.”

His head fell back as he laughed, “Fine, agreed, now let me see.” He pulled that gorgeous bottom lip in and bit it… “OK, I see that you do both prose, although your prose has a cadence, and poetry, both vivid, really, and your prose are poems that are linked contiguously; though the thing that grabs at the heart is your passion… Where does this passion come from?”

I sighed, gripping the edge of the table in a stranglehold, possibly it was the only thing holding me upright, “You know, I heard something about a bottle of something or other, this is not a conversation that should be had stone cold sober.”

He let that laugh tinkle in the air as he walked to the little refrigerator, extracting two bottles, inspecting both labels, nodding, taking the necks of both bottles in one hand; as he passed the low dresser with four glasses on it. He takes two glasses, flipping them, adding ice to both, then gripping in the tips of his extended fingers walks back to the table.

The grace is amazing, I shook my head. “How are you able to be so graceful, is it just something that comes along with good luck and great looks?” I giggled, “God, listen to me, maybe liquor isn’t a good idea.”

He put one of the glasses before me, “Oh, darlin, on the contrary, I think it’s a wonderful idea, it will keep me on my best behavior. Now pick your poison. There’s a scotch and a vodka.” I tilted my head thoughtfully. “If you need, there is an orange juice and a cranberry juice in the mini bar.”

I licked my lips, “I’ll have what you are having.” That laugh echoed in the large room, “and do you suppose there might be some music?”

He poured about two fingers of scotch in both glasses, turning grabbing a Canada Dry from the minibar he slid it across the table to me; grabbing the can and I fidgeted with it; I watched his motions, his smile was saying so much.

Spinning on that heel again he placed his phone in a glass in the middle of the table, softly oh so softly Marvin Gaye started playing; the soft purple of the standby screen was marvelous mood lighting. With “Trouble Man” playing he walked back to the little table, sliding a glass in front of me, the frost from the ice artfully streaked where his fingers just pulled away. I watched his motions, they were like a ballet, graceful, beautiful, delicious. “Right, so where does it come from?”

I laugh, “Really, where does any passion come from?”

A soft scoff, he sat back pushing his chair, tsking, taking another small sip, pressing his lovely tongue out to clean the tiny errant drop, “answering a question with another question? Cheap cop out, you can’t tell me that you just conjured it all from nothing.” He breathed in stretching his arms above his head, craning his back; good god how he stressed that delectably thin white cotton, my mouth began to water. He yawned, I am sure it began as a sarcastic comment without words to my answer; it became a lovely sight of that once upon a time little boy, rubbing his eye with his fist. “You can’t tell me you have never been kissed, never made love, been…loved.”

I laugh so hard I snort, “well, in truth I missed the whole pubescent teenaged high school drama. In high school I studied; early twenties I was still studying, but then there was this one time, and only one time, that I had boyfriend; god, I hate that word,” I sat back playing with the edge of my sleeve cuff, “do you ever just hate a word, as innocuous as it might sound, no matter the actual meaning? Well, really, I do hate it, though in this case the boy part was applicable; in physical age he was a man, he had the maturity of an adolescent orangutan. The relationship seemed less friendly and more like… a parasitic infection.” He looked almost galled, I snickered, “I am serious, I couldn’t go anywhere without him literally attached to me in some way. I found myself spending extra time in the bathroom for a breather.” I stopped laughing, and sighed, “Oh, but I have had some kisses, I loved kisses;” I shrug my shoulders pulling my legs under me on the chair. “I suppose have had sex, but not really ever made love…” I shrugged at his shocked face, “I must just be a picky bitch, no I have never felt passionate love for anyone or more over from and that you need to have made love… that was more out of a, err curiosity.” I sigh, “well, you know its not like I have never been loved, I have been well loved, family, but that isn’t passionate. I love my Mother, and Father, even my brother I suppose, they love me, but you know, the drawing hearts on your binder, necking in the movies, and wanting hours of phone calls kind.” His laugh had a touch of hesitance, I absently play with my scotch glass, taking a sip, “God that sounds so horribly pathetic.”

He kept reading my journal, “you know, that is a shame because I am sure you would be fantastic at the necking in the movies.”

My eyes flared, with my temper; there he was mocking me; as if I needed his commentary on the inane nature of my existence. I had thought he would be different than the rest of the world, I may as well just let it all go, there was obviously nothing where I had thought there was… arrrgh. Maybe he doesn’t really believe a damn thing I had been saying, but now there is no want or need to impress. I play all the imaginings I didn’t let myself peruse but as they left I reveled, my head dropped heavily into my crossed arms on the table. “Honestly, I…I give up…” I breathed a sigh, my eyes refusing to look at him, my mouth now moving with a mind of its own. “I had given up, quite a while ago, on the idea of a great love, maybe even great anything, ever happening to me.” I breathed out a huff, my tongue suddenly thick, still loving the words, though not the ideas. “Now, I am focused on doing that great thing with the time I have; I have spent 39 years dying…” I shook myself, “I suppose it’s safe to say that my styles, my ideas, have come from reading, more over, believing. Sometimes, for me, just being able to eat a steak is an act not simply to be reveled in, but an act of sheer will.” I toyed with my ice, swirling it around in the empty glass, the beautiful tinkling of the motion was quixotic. “I would be willing to bet that, with the possible exception of, Oscar Wilde, all writers have manufactured their passions. I am one who believes and as with all things to be believed, one does it without having any proof nor having felt it before, but to believe in a kind of love that doesn’t demand me to prove my worth, that accepts me as I am, that doesn’t make me sit in abject misery full of horrible anxiety. I crave a natural connection where my soul can recognize a feeling of home with another. A freedom, a simple moment out of time, that is all I need. I know, I know, for a damn cert, there is no such thing as ever after, happily or otherwise; there is no always, other than the continuity of human behavior; there never was a forever, there just… is…” I dropped the last syllable as if it weighed 250 pounds. I finally look up at him.

Suddenly, my hands literally itch to run over his lovely soft skin; I no longer cared if he was or wasn’t, did or didn’t, will or wouldn’t accept me for anything other than a font of oddity that I am. I let my eyes roam and wander as they will, and they decided to run over his entire frame, head to toe, brashly; my voice felt foreign, whispering, “unsure if it is just speaking of my thoughts, or just time starting to feel as if it is running short. Suddenly I crave an experience, unflinching, unashamed; Jimi Hendrix posed the question, “have you ever been experienced?” but now deflated, defeated, I know my answer will always be, no.” I lean heavily onto the table top, softly the lights through the window, soft and wobbly with the rain and wind battering the building, the silence that comes from its fall, as if it’s roar literally swallowed every, single, thing, wrapping us tight in this little cocoon. It lent to a beautiful aura around him; his head haloed with loving light purple light, his shoulders hugged by the darkness. My mouth watered at the sight, his legs stretched out in front of him, watching the kiss of that ambient light stream over his shoulder, up his delicious neck. and caressing his cheek; finding myself jealous of every ray of libidinous light. Smoothly, sensually, he unscrewed the lid to the bottle with a single hand, pouring sweet elixir into my glass. I take a deep drought of lush sweet liquor and drop my hand holding the glass to the table, rubbing my fingertip along the lip not feeling the glass at all, but his satiny soft skin.

We sat quiet for a moment, the music the only thing playing on that soft hum that quieted the universe. I watch him breathe soft, slow, relaxed as if we were taken out of this universe to sit side by side, dipping our toes into the cosmos, the universe still baiting me to believe. He smiled, bashful, his soft blush dusting his cheeks; oh, me, oh, my, maybe he had just read my thoughts. I poured my longing into this moment, making that thought a hopeful wish; oh, Gods those lips, he has such an awfully kissable mouth, soft rounded shaped lips, delicious. Lord help me, his lips alone were enough to drive me to distant distraction. That delicious face almost perfectly symmetric, but seemingly split between his mercurial sides. Almost a perfect Jekyll and Hyde, one side deliciously dashingly handsome and sinister, oh the other, sweetly smiling. If I were the moon herself I would make a break in the clouds just to bend to slide my fingers, tendrils, rays sweetly over the luscious plane of his lightly stubbled cheek.

I snickered to myself, dropping my face to the crook of my elbow; it really was so odd, around him I am my own mercurial dichotomy. My usual, easy going nature becoming sorely tested, but it did not stress me. I smile at how he had been able to put a bee in my bonnet without effort. As we talked half of me was filled to bursting with words, the other painfully shy; wanting to be the belle of the ball, but still craving solitude; and then again hungering for communion, suddenly starved for human interaction, contact.

His eyes watching, searching, seeing, then his sensual tone piercing the veil of this quiet, yet painfully honest, anonymity “If the world were as it should be,” he took a deep breath, “actually just, and right, and fair,”

My head popped up, “There is no such thing as fair, it is as vague concept in philosophy, there is wrong and right but never fair.” I take a sip.

He chuckled, “As true as that may be, my point was that we know it is not, no person should feel the need to prove anything, to anyone. Someone like you should always be you without any questions or qualifications.” His eyes for the first time were guarded, he leans over with that bottle and pours a small amount over my ice. “Please, don’t take this badly, but I heard the words from your own mouth, I have watched the gentle winces cross your face that I know is pain. I don’t need details, just a confirmation, you’re dying.” It really wasn’t a question, but a sweetly intoned accusation.

I felt a door slam on my face, it hit harder than watching him walk away; I am not ready for that to be my reality; I let my eyes roll shut and drain my glass, lord, I let that kite string slip, still my voice was low, hollow, my eyes cast to the ceiling; “Thank you, universe, this… it was beautiful, while it lasted, but it seems is surviving, never thriving the only option… oh, but never mind, gratitude is not expressed due solely to the length of the journey, but the view from the window.” I whispered to my glass, wincing feeling that delicious burn, those long delicious licks of alcohol dulling my senses, but not enough; his oddly skeptical eyebrow raised told me he heard; willing my eyes not to mist I let my lashes flutter up, there he was as beautiful and earnest a human as could be hoped for. Wanting to be horribly honest and drive him away, where he belongs, but mentally I juke; I want more, I want it to last. So, I pulled from my mind a character, unflinching, “Honey, ain’t we all dying from the day we’re born, from something or other?” I said in my booziest floozy sass.

That tongue of his slipped between his lips moistening them, slow and tenderly, a caress I envied. Envied with a wanting so hard the only time I remember it before was in antiquity; my cousin a year and a week older was turning four; we were the best of friends, but for that birthday her mother got her a tiara. I came in and she had this sparkling pink jeweled tiara on her head. I remember the hot sucking feeling in my stomach when I saw it, I wanted it, and yes that horrible green jealousy crept through my veins. I wanted to pull it off her head along with her perfect beautiful hair; my mother even got a picture of it. I have never been able to keep my thoughts much of a secret, they broadcast on my face; you could see the violence on that cherubic, baby face, but yes it was her birthday, I tamped that feeling down, I let her keep it. The next week when it was my birthday I wanted nothing to do with the damn thing; I never wanted to feel that again, but more over I never wanted to cause that feeling, so I let it go, just as I was with this moment. God that would not be the case this time, this want will haunt me until the end of time. He let out a small breathy chuckle, ticking his head to the side, raising an eyebrow, “Tsk, Possibly the first time I have seen you bunt this game. Though, I will take it as it was offered…”

It hung on the air, that soft dare, he poured some ginger ale into my glass, “Well, honey, how honest were you hoping for?” I swallowed the ginger ale. I shook my head, at myself mostly, “I would really love to regale you with the tale of how I have a blood curse and I am being tailed by 1472 ninja from a rival clan who have sworn a blood oath that they will not rest, in this life or the hereafter, until I no longer draw a breath. The ones who I could cut me down in a minute if left to my own devices, but now I have to protect you, someone like you soft, not used to the life on the run, they would enjoy peeling that soft, supple, seductive, skin from your bones.” I laughed, a dry unfunny laugh, he smirked casting a doubting pout, I blushed down to my soul.

God his smile, it was something I knew was basically a wish, his lips the kind of lips that kisses dream about, “I told you I was not adding pressure, no details just confirmation, I think I heard it. So, now it’s up to you how Honest you wish to be.” I must have made a face, his laugh shot an arrow directly through my heart, “You don’t have to say anything that you are uncomfortable with, but I think I can hold my own against a couple ninja.”

His eyes looked sad, and that glorious colour turned a darker blue. I sighed, dropping all my hopes, desperation still trying to grasp, but I gave up, horrible truth is what he wants, so that’s what he gets, “Okay, do you know the word interstitial?” He nodded, the curiosity pulling his face beautifully. “Well, looking long and hard, long before this year began, at those spaces between; those things you can only really think about when staring down the hallway at Terminus; the place that it all meets…and ends or really, does it?” Watching his mind soak in my words and their implications. “Yes, I am dying, but truly, as I said before, so are you; I just have had a name for the culprit that will free me from this mire, I also have had an expiration date, but if I were eggs I would be stinking up the place. This breathing corpse keeps going with far less than the necessary parts. Though when you have those pieces of information, you stop living in this worldly common space; you start living in the space between things and it all becomes so relative; the rings in a tree, representing years, decades, existence continued, counted in tiny increments, and galactic steps. The little dash between birth and death; yes, agonizingly long years, the happy flashes in seconds; quick uncountable moments all living in that dash; that mad dash, like riding a psychotic horse toward a burning stable, amazing, thrilling, horrifying and ultimately deadly. The space between thought and action; lifetimes lived in between breaths and heartbeats. Moments counted in milliseconds, I decided to forgo any further treatments; life itself a cancer, eating away at parts of my breathing corpse. I decided to rest in the better part of valor, letting whatever may come, come. Hopefully living more in the countable seconds of time and space, the motion of the world, ebbing of the tide. “Long hours where we are close, months where we are far, but still.” He pulled his hand to his face, as was his habit he rubbed his thumb across his two first fingers, caressed those soft lovely lips. “The space between those fingers, the curiosity and imaginings they produce.” I nodded to his digits as he rubbed his thumb over the pads of his first two, “it may as well be millions of miles across this table, but I have felt them run along my skin.” I rub my forefinger along the lip of my glass, I nodded toward it, “I have felt your skin, silky in its softness, hard bits of bone, dips,” I suck air through my teeth, “and valleys of your muscles, though we have never been closer than this table.” Vaguely I motioned at the faux marble of the table.

He let loose a laugh so sonorous that I nearly melted, melted like an ice cube that met a welding torch, “You know darlin, I could listen to you forever; though. I do have to contest your ‘giving up on great love,’ that, right there, was living with more passion than most people encounter just once in a lifetime; just your words, your ideas; especially your little external internal monologuing.” He leaned forward in his chair, brushing his soft knuckles over my cheek. ”Yes, darling I heard all of them.” He caught my eyes and kept them; his delicate tongue licking lightly at his bottom lip then hovering, hovering as if there was an idea just on the tip of it that tasted like heaven. “You must actually think that great love is like in those movies, a tormented longing and a nearly lost boredom that calls itself togetherness.” He breathed as I nestled my cheek into his palm, my lashes cuddling my cheeks. “mmm, the space between… the breadth and expansion of these 22 inches of the table top, you are right suddenly these 22 inches,” his hand circled around the back of my neck as his other hand motioned to the faux green marble between us. “It might as well be millions of miles. Love, great or no, is more fire and sudden outbursts of thunder and lightning,” he leaned just a little further, his frame starting to dwarf mine, “it is really a hurricane of feelings that falls out of nowhere, revolutionizing everything.” He breathed lightly caressing my ear, pushing my hair behind. “My turn, I will offer up a confession, I have watched these lips of yours talk all night, they caress the words holding them lovingly before you lick the air letting them free.” His thumb reached over lightly caressing my bottom lip, “I have sat, as you have ravished me with words, words so very alive, words that cut, that dance and breathed, I have been trapped by the gorgeous tumescence of their weight until I could not breathe.”

He leaned even further, his breath caressing my cheek, my eyes fluttered closed, “To Borrow from you, ‘Without knowledge, forethought, without reason I began to crave one thing;’ I have tried to hammer it down into my soul, not wanting to be too fast, too bold. I have read, though, and I know this to be true; we are punished by the universe for our refusals, refusal of our impulses our longings. Every single impulse that we strangle broods in the mind, the heart, and it poisons us. The body sins but once and it is done with its sin, for the action itself is a mode of purification; leaving nothing but a sweet recollection of the pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. Although I do not believe that this temptation would result in any regret.”

I gazed as deeply into his eyes as possible, reading those sweet possibilities the ones I had resigned as never would be’s. “What pray tell would that temptation be?” My voice sounding foreign, my tongue sticking to my teeth, my breath simpering.

He smiled, his breath light over my soul, “Well, obviously, your kiss.” I stopped breathing my mouth dropped open. “I ache for the arch of your lips pressing against mine. I thirst for your sweet flavour on my tongue, inundating my soul like dark chocolate. I am ravenous for your delicious scent to fill my lungs.”

I dropped my eyes for a moment to his beautiful lips. “Well, to finish your Oscar Wilde paraphrase;” my voice wavering, shivering like my soul, the words felt foreign raspy, “the only way to rid yourself of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.”

His hand moved swiftly gripping loosely the base of my neck, not pulling me, just holding me still, reassuring but subtly demanding as he tipped my head back; he moved like a wave coming in with the tide, he sweetly nuzzled my lips, I took a deep breath, he took advantage of my parted lips. He swept in swiftly, the water swept over my head. His tongue dancing, licking deeply into my soul. His lips covering mine; he kissed me like ice cream; he kissed me like a stanza of poetry, my blood rushed and sound disappeared like snow as it softly falls, like a slow summer waltz; a touch of rough, but in a gentle way, like the rushing tide, pushing, pulling, guiding, asking, demanding, wanting, needing; the waves rushing lightly, licking at my ankles, washing soft sand from my skin on the very last day of fall. The whole time there was this little laugh between us, sweet and silly; as if neither of us could quite believe what was happening.

We kissed for an eternity, maybe just a minute; time is that pesky thing of perception. We parted for just a moment; a chuckle passed between us, something beautiful, ineffable, shy, arresting, delicious. We passed a look, a curiosity, as if we both expected to suddenly fade into the either. He slid the back of his hand down my cheek and I rubbed that sensual bottom lip with my thumb; both searching for a physical proof that we were both very real and very here; he kissed my thumb smiling, I smiled too. We kissed again, longer deeper, there is nothing possibly more beautiful than the look he gave me as we kissed again, I kept my eyes open for a moment sure he would fly away on the wind; watching the subtle emotion play on his features, the way his eyes drifted closed, those soft fans of lashes resting sweetly on his cheeks, that single brow raised in askance as he made the kiss even deeper, my eyes fluttered shut; he was dipping his head, slanting across parts of the universe licking deeply into dark unknown parts of my soul, forbidden dark red places.

His kiss was addictive, like drug that I was searching for an amazing spiraling high, a manna from heaven, my soul craved; as his eyes told me when first I looked in his, hours ago, now mine echoed. Its is you I want; and god, want him I did, that tongue that vexed my mind for hours, was in fact as delicious as promised, those hands that drew my eyes were indeed perfectly calloused. This was unbelievable, dislodged completely from the universe I had always known, now here he was kissing me, as if he meant it.

He began to mutter sweet words as his lips kneaded and suckled on mine. “Darlin’ I crave you, this flavour, a million kisses deep,” he kissed me deep and deliciously again, teeth nibbling my bottom lip, his tongue discovering more hidden places in my soul. “The curves of your lips write stories on mine,” he softly touched his lips to mine, “rewriting all history.”

In an odd way words failed me, I was lost in the moment, the feeling; like being suspended on thoughts, ideas dreams. I basked in that beautiful voice, bathing in forgotten feelings. “Darlin’ you taste of sunshine,” he pulled his lips away kissing my cheeks dragging that tongue down to my neck; the tandem team playing a beautiful game with every nerve they found; I long for this perfection to linger forever, to be a permanent feeling; “you taste like life,” he muttered low suckling on the tendons on the side of my neck...

OK might be back to my Olde self...

@keeper0fthestars @writernotwaiting @pedeka

[jardindesoi]

The Garden’s Harvest, a collection of poems.

For my first blog post, I decided to analyze some of the poetry I’ve written in my free time through an outside lens. I compiled all the pieces I’ve written whose main themes deal in some way with my experience as a queer person: this theme shows up a lot in my private work, so I wanted to see what the poetry I write reveals about my relationship with my queer identity.

When I get inspired by something I experience in the world, I open a note in my phone and use a specific artistic style to try and articulate the “truth” I am grappling with. This style depends entirely on how I feel in the moment: some of these pieces use specific parallel structures or references, while some are bursts of words and phrases written down as they occur to me. I title and very sparingly edit them after finishing. If I were to compile these for some formalized assignment or other publication, I would likely edit them for either length or clarity of thought, but as of now they are the raw “flashes” of creativity I felt over a period lasting from some point in my senior year of high school (“History”) until a few weeks ago (“Sterilization”). 

I looked at these pieces from the point of view of an outsider, with the help of my friend, another queer person who writes poetry. The first thing I was able to notice about what I’ve written so far is that they all contain elements of three specific themes. I’ve arranged them below in order of which of these themes they fit most: the social perception of queerness, then anger at this perception, and finally yearning and love. 

Most prominent in the first section but present in all three is the impression that I am very in touch with both my queer identity and how it is perceived by the wider society. I wrote “Work for It” such that each stanza discusses a different marginalized group that suffers under American capitalism, and this fragment demonstrates how I am conscious of the queer community’s place in this suppressive system. “History” was me coming to terms with the fact that the history I was learning in school excluded the stories and challenges of the queer community as it recognized itself and grew, requiring me to seek out this knowledge without any formal guide. 

What queer representation I am able to find, both in history and in present-day media, is the object of “Sterilization:” the “idols” are the whitewashed, well-behaved, stifled image passed off by mainstream media as the epitome of how queer people are expected to act to gain acceptance in majority society. “I AM MORE” was a rage-fueled vent spurned by frustration at queer identities being treated as jokes even in spaces that claim to be accepting of them. These two pieces together show how I see the queer community as double-edged sword: I am thankful for the ability to find and relate to other people like me, but the injustice and separation both within and without the community lead to stereotyping and a monolithic view of queer people as a whole. 

The last two pieces are unique in that they don’t have an explicit theme of social or political commentary: rather, they are raw and unfiltered expressions of love, the same love felt by heterosexual couples. “He’s Beautiful/or Something” muses on men I have found attractive with the underlying idea that beauty can be found in any kind of person, while the “Wanna” fragment is an expression of the desire to be close to someone. Although these two deal explicitly with my own emotions as a gay man, they portray emotions and desires shared by anyone with the capacity for love; the only difference between these poems and identical ones dealing with heterosexual love would be the use of a differently gendered pronoun. Yet they are still queer pieces, because they were written by a queer person who experiences love. I used the act of writing these expressions of love as a method of authenticating those same feelings: being able to articulate my emotions like this allowed me to further settle into my identity as a queer person and a queer lover. 

Here are the pieces I used for this analysis (CW: f-slur in “I AM MORE”):

fragment from “Work for It”

The queer, commodified 

Into company pandering one month yearly, 

Whose battle for the rights to marriage, adoption, and healthcare has been one of distracting White noise?

“History”

My history is not taught.

Students don’t read about my predecessors—

Unless they read between the lines,

Under Achilles’ heel,

Under Shakespeare’s pen,

Under Caesar’s fist.

Their eyes must strain under and between,

For my history is beaten and burned and buried.

My history is uncovered in late night dives through Wikipedia,

Following a scent trail of shining blue words,

Digging up fragments of a story with no words,

Of a movement with no motion,

Of a revolution with no goal.

We have no manifesto, no agenda.

We have identity, 

Love, 

Art,

Life...

Mere abstractions, whose essences are eroded by the sands of time.

I gaze at the past through a rose tint, and cannot see the blood that drowns our past,

Soaks our present,

Steeps into our future.

For who can stare agog at the glitter and self-expression of the balls,

Without also bearing witness to the sicknesses and deaths of the models, the dancers, 

The lovers?

We are all lovers.

Our Hearts are Normal,

But our history is not.

“Sterilization,” unfinished

Are these to be my idols? These totems of plastic and glitter, these mannequins adorned in the clothes of the everyman, these peacocks who preen and strut and jape and dance and sing for their audience? 

Am I to learn their dance, learn how they imitate those traditions which for so long were closed off from them? Am I to fall, as they do, at the feet and mercy of the audience, performing and receiving as payment the permission to be like them? 

/////

They are Not Us, and We are Not Them. 

They are Not Us, so We become Them. 

They are Not Us, but We are Not Us.

They are Not Us, yet We are Them.

“I AM MORE”

I AM NOT YOUR JOKE

I AM A HUMAN

I AM BEYOND THE STEREOTYPES I PUT ON FOR HUMOR, IN CONFIDENCE THAT THEY ARE UNDERSTOOD FOR THE NONSENSE THEY ARE

I AM NOT YOU

I AM EVERBEING I AM MULTITUDES I AM BEYOND I AM MORE THAN YOU AND I WILL NOT DIE

I AM A FAGGOT

I AM NASTY

I AM NOT A HILARIOUS FAIRY

I AM SOCIETY’S DISGUSTING LEFTOVER MISTAKE

AND I LOVE IT

“He’s Beautiful/or Something”

He has long, curly, blond hair that falls almost to his shoulders, a mane that shakes when he laughs.

Or his hair is long, but silky smooth and straight, and he wears it in a tight ponytail when it gets in the way.

Or his head is buzzed almost to the scalp and dyed crimson red, or sea-foam green, or blinding white, or any other beautiful color.

His eyes are dark, almost black, but they shift with the sunlight to a shining amber or gold.

Or they’re sky-blue, shimmering with a reflection of the world they gaze upon.

Or they’re green, but sometimes they’re hazel, or cerulean, or mint—but they’re always beautiful.

He’s tall, and when we’re together he envelops me in his embrace and surrounds me.

Or he’s my size, and we share clothes, and when I wear his sweaters I lose myself in the scent he left behind.

Or he’s small, almost dainty, and I hold him tightly when we’re together, as though to protect him from the world, or selfishly preserve his beauty for myself alone. 

He’s an academic, his eyes glazed over as he devours the heavy tome before him, hardly noticing me until a small kiss on his head brings him back.

Or he’s an athlete, running or jumping or swimming, hitting or kicking or just moving, his kisses full of a passionate spirit.

Or he’s an artist, creating from nothing pieces that speak to the heart, that are at once uproarious, haunting, and as beautiful as the face I kiss every day.

I am his.

Or, he is mine.

fragment from “Wanna”

I wanna

Be close,

Closer,

Closer,

So close that the atoms that separate us break apart

And we are left with our spirits,

Ebbing and flowing in an eternal cosmic dance,

Fundamentally connected,

Never to leave the warmth of the other.

I wanna

I wanna

[cookiedoughmeagain]

Haven DVD Commentaries; 5.24 - The Widening Gyre

Commentary with Nick Parker (writer for episode), Shireen Razack (writer for the previous episode) and Josh Brandon (script co-ordinator and writer)

NP: I laboured over what to name this episode, because stuff is going so wrong, and ended up pulling from one of my favourite poems, The Second Coming, and The Widening Gyre is about things falling apart. It’s a weird falconry term, I guess? I always liked the way it sounded. SR: It was really fun watching Nick really tear out his hair over the title of this episode. NP: Yeah. Titles are always tough for me for some reason. I feel like I end up thinking about titles more than most of the writing. SR: Or it’s our way of procrastinating.

SR: The cool thing about this episode, that I really really love, is that the stuff that happens between Audrey and her dad, all takes place in this one room for the entire episode. It’s two people talking to each other and normally if that happens on any other show it is the most boring thing you could imagine. But when I watched this I just thought it was so compelling. I could not look away. Nick did an incredible job of crafting these scenes. NP: Oh that’s so sweet of you. We talked a bit with the last episode about how we had to shoot that really fast and that was why we went with the security camera footage idea that ended up working really really well. For this episode in order to get it done quickly we had to basically have a bunch of two handers in static locations. So we’ve got Audrey and Croatoan here, we’ve got Vince and Howard in the Herald, and then we’ve got Duke and Nathan basically, in the station. All conversations between two people in a single room. It was a lot of talking. SR: For a writer that’s doing TV that can be the most terrifying thing on the planet. But when you’ve got a great writer like Mr Nick Parker, then what you see on screen is compelling that you don’t care that there’s not a lot of movement. NP: Thank you very much. I think it was also aided greatly by the fact that we have a legend in the sci-fi genre, William Shatner, holding some of these scenes up. He was so much fun to write with. My dad is a huge Star Trek fan. I used to watch The Next Generation with him when I was growing up, and he used to watch the Original with his dad back in the day. So when I found out I was going to be able to write for him and I told my dad on the DL, and he just kept asking me questions; Are you going to get to meet him? How much do you get to write for him? He was so excited. JB: We did get to meet him briefly when he came into the office. SR: Of course that was the day I was out of the office. NP: He is just awesome. I don’t even know how old he is ... JB: He’s 83 NP: And apparently these days were pretty brutal, they were working and working and working. And he was great - there is a reason that he is a legend. SR: Now that I think about it, both of my brothers are huge Star Trek fans, as am I, and I don’t think I’ve told them that I got to write for William Shatner. How is that possible? NP: It’ll be a great surprise for them when the episode comes on.

[McHugh throws a chair to Dwight who smashes it over Duke’s back to stop him attacking Nathan] JB: Oh that was awesome! NP: Yeah that was definitely a callout to the wrestling. WWE fans will know, but for those that don’t know, Adam Copeland and Christian were tag team partners in WWE for years, so we wanted to have a moment where we had a little tip of the hat to their wrestling past. So Christian tosses Edge a chair and it just seemed very wrestly SR: It was beautiful. NP: I was afraid it might be cheesy SR: Not between these two. They know how to sell it. NP: They made it work. McHugh ended up being a really fun character too, so thank you for giving us that character Shireen. McHugh’s cool.

SR: The thing that I don’t understand, is why isn’t Croatoan serving Audrey pancakes? NP: Because Mara hates pancakes. And he wants Mara back. SR: Oh, right. NP: Audrey is just an imitation to him. SR: She’s a real girl now.

NP: I think production did a really good job with this room that Croatoan and Audrey are in. It’s pretty but creepy SR: It’s very Laura Ashley NP: Yes. Any time you start to throw in a floral wallpaper, you’re going to terrify me. It feels like an old horror movie, set in my grandmother’s house.

NP: These were fun scenes to write between Audrey and Croatoan because when we were going through the revision process, Matt McGuinness was having some problems with his back so wasn’t coming into the office. So I went over to his place and spent a whole day working just with him which was really fun because Matt is the father of three daughters so he gave me a lot of good guidance on talking with your daughter, which is an experience I do not have, so that was good. SR:  It’s really interesting when you’re on a writing staff and half the staff are parents and the other half are single, and footloose and fancy free. NP: Yes, functionally still children. SR: That too. So Matt’s got three daughters, Speed has triplets, and hearing the stories that come from them as opposed to the stories that come from us are polar opposites. NP: Yeah like when I start talking about my weekend like; I woke up at 10, went to play basketball. And you can just see Matt’s blood slowly starting to boil. SR: Yes, exactly.

NP: This was a fun story line {Vince and Howard] because we got to really … well the difficulty of an episode this late in the series is that you’ve still got a lot of mythology you want to pay off, but you don’t want to get all talky and boring becasue too much mythology can be really cumbersome. But it was fun to have basically the guy from the other world who knows how everything works, with the guy who’s spent his whole life protecting Haven (the lore keeper of Haven) talking to each other. That was a lot of fun to write SR: I remember in the room, once everyone realised that was what was happening it was like; Holy crap of course - this is what the story is! NP: And then we were pitching the idea that Vince becomes the New Barn’s Controller. And at first it was like; Oh man that’s huge, how do you get your head around it. But then as we talked about it more in the room it started to really make sense and fit. And then really just informed all the scenes previous because we knew what we were working towards. SR: Yeah. Basically when you came up with that, it was another light bulb moment, and everyone was just like: Of course, that’s it, that’s what has to happen! JB: It has to be that way.

[Nathan sitting down to talk to Duke in the interview room] NP: I’m always a sucker, as you can probably tell in this episode, for scenes where there’s two things happening on both sides of a one way mirror. It’s a total cop trope at this point, but I still think it’s so much fun. SR: Especially when on the other side of the mirror is someone who’s completely possessed/ NP: A total monster, yes.

[Croatoan: I loved your mother. She wasn’t destroyed by me. She was contaminated by weak minds] NP: Yeah, he really sells it. I’m so glad we got him. NP: I don’t think any of us thought it was really going to happen. They were talking about it for a long time. He came in and met everyone. He sat down with Matt and Gab and kind of quizzed them about the show for an hour. But I still think everyone thought it would be too hard and we wouldn’t get him. And then he said Yes. NP: It worked out great. He’s also sitting a beautiful table - look at that. SR: And the house that they found for the exterior of this, is just perfect. NP: Oh I know. It was like; We’ve got to find a place that looks isolated, kind of innately creepy, but also Haven. And then; this house that is totally alone on a cliff side? Perfect. SR: Our location scouts are amazing. NP: Yes. That’s a great example, and then there’s that spa that we shot at a couple times. It’s this crazy place where they were going to build this huge getaway place up in Nova Scotia there and I guess the real estate bubble crashed in 2008 or whenever that happened. And so, seriously, you walk in and there’s blue prints lying around. Uninstalled light bulbs. They just stopped paying the workers and people stopped coming in, so it’s just this giant concrete, unfinished … it’s humongous, halls and halls and halls of it. It’s crazy looking. SR; Which episodes did we shoot there? NP: 4.11. And also … something in the first season. And we go up there for exteriors every so often.

NP: I think the shroud ended up looking really cool. I think I’ve said that before but it ended up looking amazing. I really like it. SR: Yeah it’s really cool. It doesn’t look like a visual effect. It just looks like Los Angeles fog.

[Nathan; Whatever Croatoan did to you it’s wearing off.] NP: No, it’s not. Boo. SR: That’s my favourite line; Boo. NP: Oh thanks. But really the way he acts, the way he’s teasing Nathan and everything, was absolutely informed by your sing-song dialogue in the last episode. Because, we were really the ones that were responsible for setting up how he’s going to be through to the end. So the Evil Duke character you conceived really helped me write these scenes, so I couldn’t have done it without that. SR: Oh, thanks.

[Duke: Sometimes Audrey likes the bad boys. And now that I’ve found my true self, well, we might go all the way this time] SR: Doesn’t it just always go back to Colorado? NP: Yeah, pretty much. That one scene in Colorado … the actual scene was probably like three minutes long, but the amount of time we’ve talked about it since then, it’s like three hours of on screen content. SR: And back then, I was a fan then [before working on the show], so I’m watching it as it’s airing, Screaming at the television; What are you doing? No! NP: Yeah, we can all blame Shernold for that JB: Everyone does, it’s so unfair. NP: Poor Shern. One of my favourite people in the world. Even though she did put Duke and Audrey together. And she did start the whole Team Waffles thing I guess. SR: That’s true. And I think in the commentary that we did together … You know, I fully own my Naudrey-ness, but Shern refuses to own her Daudrey. NP: I mean, she is the originator of the Daudrey movement. She has to admit it. JB: But just so everybody knows - these decisions are not made by one person. NP: No, that’s true. And she’s not even here to defend herself, poor thing.

NP: I love the way that post-apocalyptic Haven looks. Like; Well, we’d better throw some garbage on the street. JB: But I love that because so many times you see - and one of the best examples is Dark Knight Rises, the place is on lockdown and nobody does anything for months. But still there’s no garbage, nothing piles up, there’s nothing on the street.

[Howard; By your calendar it was several centuries ago] NP: Oh, here’s comes the info dump. Get ready SR: But hey, there’s something very important about this info dump. NP: Well and it is nice that he gets to talk to Vince about this. Vince is the right guy to hear this stuff. SR: And even more important is that this connects to the awesome comic book that is the insert to the DVDs that you wrote. NP: Yes, the season four comic book. What I loved in that is that Maurice [who plays Howard] has an awesome look and his mustache is excellent. But the season four comic book was set way back, in the fifteenth century or whatever, so then he is in fifteenth century garb, and with a mustache that’s twice as big and goes all the way down to his chin. So it’s like; Yes, that’s the classic look. And it’s funny how we really got to push a lot of mythology in the comic books. Like; We’ll tell that story there - OK, great, that’ll be fund, it’s actually a really important story! JB: What was it called? In The Beginning? NP: Yes. The other one was After The Storm, which tells what happens between seasons three and four. And then the season four comic book told the story of Mara and William’s first time in Haven. It was funny because, between three and four it was easy becasue there was a six month gap between the seasons so we could tell the story of what happened right after three ended. But between seasons four and five - no time passes whatsoever. JB: Yeah, what can we tell in this one hour? NP: So we’ve got to go back, we’ve got to go way back.

SR: Is that Dwight’s new crossbow that he was talking to Jason Priestley about? NP: Yeah that might be the one he wanted Chris Brody to see. Adam has got a long career ahead of him. He’s just so good. And built like a giant brick house. He’s great. And, the nicest person you will ever meet. SR: And Adam and Christian are awesome on screen together. NP: Yeah you can tell they have a lot of history together. They’ve been friends forever.

*Some joking around about the idea of Mara drinking black coffee as a child and that maybe that is what messed her up, and perhaps black coffee isn’t that different from aether anyway* JB: You should put some milk in your aether so you can tell them apart

[Audrey stabs Croatoan in the next] JB: Oof, that looked good. NP: He just looks like such a bad ass here SR: Daddy’s not happy [Croatoan breaks Audrey’s arm] NP: Oh god SR: That looks nasty. NP: Yeah I feel like I had to work in the bone breaking moment. Just because, I love on TV whenever you hear a bone breaking, because the folio people do such a great job to make that bone breaking sound. It always sounds so brutal SR: There were some conversations in the writers’ room about how much of the bone should be poking through the flesh. And I think Standards and Practices might have pulled us back. NP: Well in the original script it was just hanging at an impossible angle. And then we were like; Let’s go as gruesome as possible. SR: And I also remember there being a lot of conversations about what Croatoan should wear. And ultimately it was a beautifully tailored suit, and he looks awesome! NP: Yep, gotta look classy. JB: I remember on the prep schedule, one of the first things it had - because Shatner is always dressed by … he either has a tailor or he does something with Mens Wearhouse or whatever. And so it even said on the prep schedule; Shatner arrives and is taken immediately for fittings at Men’s Wearhouse. Although he was not listed as Shatner on the prep schedule. We won’t say what it is, but he travels under an assumed name so that people don’t mob him. NP: Yeah it never said “Shatner” on the scripts or anything.

[McHugh; Some Guard buddies of mine have Old Troubles that can make Duke talk] NP: McHugh doesn’t have a lot of lines in this script, but what he has to work with, I think he did a great job with. He’s just efficient, just like; Let’s make it happen - let’s torture the shit out of him and find out what’s going on. SR: We’ve played with that a couple different times in different episodes, and it’s even been cut from certain episodes JB: The ethics of it? SR: Using Troubles to torture people. NP: Yeah because for this one we had talked about going back through the old Trouble catalogue. I think the character’s name was Ginger Danvers, from 3.10 - Burned. Ginger was named after one of Matt McGuinness’s kids. And her power was that anything she said that you had to do, you had to do it. So she inadvertently kills several people, and then she uses the power on Jordan at one point to make her tell the truth. So we were like; What if we bring Ginger Danvers back? But we had to keep it simple, we really could only have a few people in each scene.

[Vince draws Dwight a map of the old farmhouse where he thinks Croatoan will be hiding out] JB: That was a very quick reference to the old mis-labelled East Haven, West Haven map. West Haven is where East Haven should be, and vice versa. It’s a quirky thing. So in case you’re wondering why West Haven is written on the East Side of that map - it’s deliberate. NP: It’s very Haven.

SR: The thing that I thought was really interesting about the final cut of this episode is that normally the act outs (where you go to commercial) are usually on Audrey, or Nathan, or Duke. But a lot of the act outs in this one went out on Vince. And I thought it was a really nice send off to the character, because he is the one that has the worst dilemma but also the most heroic moment. NP: Yeah. It’s something I thought about a lot writing this. Functionally, the fact that Audrey is in the scenes with Croatoan makes that the A story, but really there’s three A stories in this episode. And while we’re getting a bunch of information from Croatoan and there’s a lot of emotional movement in their story, and obviosuly Duke and Nathan are going through a lot as well … but then all the while going on in the background is this Vince story where he is making this huge sacrifice that no one else is really aware of because they’re so caught up in their own stories. So that I think was why we ended up putting the act outs where they are. It kind of gives him that impact.

[Croatoan; I created you] NP: That was scary. SR: This is the best part; “Twice.” His evil little giggle at the end, just sold it so well. NP: Yeah, he really held those scenes.

NP: Just looking back on Duke’s character; he’s goes through a Lot this season. Leaves Haven, goes on this journey, comes back, loses Hailie. He has quite a journey this season. SR: Yes, and if you go all the way back to the beginning of 5A, it’s just been quite the rollercoast ride. NP: Yeah, Mara was a rollercoaster there. JB: And there are echoes of the Mara,Audrey stuff from the beginning of the season here, Duke trying to come to the surface [Nathan seeing Duke still there underneath what Croatoan has turned him into] NP: Yeah, this was definitely a callback to that kind of stuff. It’s funny, talking of Hailie - in the original concept for this episode, Duke was receiving instructions from Croatoan, but Croatoan was posing in Duke’s mind as Hailie. And there was going to be this whole big reveal. But as we got further into it we realised; We don’t really need to see that side of it, it’s enough to play all of that off of Eric Balfour’s acting, and him really selling it. And he nailed it. So I’m glad we don’t have that complicating factor. JB: And I think as well, I remember reading that and thinking; This is really cool, but it would be amazing if it was Jennifer. And knowing we couldn’t make it Jennifer, I wonder if some of the fans might have thought the same thing. NP: Yeah, we totally wanted it to be Jennifer. But it was a case of who was available. JB: She was great too though, Hailie NP: Yes she was, but just emotionally does she mean the same to Duke? JB: Exactly

SR: So, do you think, if Dave were still alive, would Vince be willing to do this? [To sacrifice himself to become the controller of the new Barn] NP: Um, yes. It is something I thought about working on this, that his sacrifice is more about Haven as opposed to some displaced or weird mourning process for his brother. I definitely think that Dave passing recently maybe put the idea in his head, but I wanted the sacrifice to be more about his relationship with Haven as opposed to his relationship with his brother. SR: Right. Actually, I guess if Dave were alive they would do it together. NP: Likely, yeah. Just high fiving on the way in. They can just play gin rummy for ever and ever. SR: And argue with each other. NP: Yep. They’re good at that.

*Some comments about how pretty the house in this is, and how pretty Nova Scotia in general is, the downsides only being that it’s cold and rains all the time* SR: When we started shooting this season it was bitter cold. NP: Yes, because we did 26 episodes this year, which was a lot to cover. So we started shooting in April, and didn’t wrap up until mid-December. So by the time we were into the last four episodes, we had maybe 6 hours of daylight, the sun went down at like 3 o’clock or something. So that’s why we have a lot of interiors. SR: And when we started - April in Nova Scotia is still really cold as well. And I remember Lucas was out there in a shirt leaning against cold steel NP: Yes where Mara had shot him and he’s leaning against the bronco, there are all these out takes of him leaning against the cold metal like; Ahhh!!! JB: And in the last couple of episodes there some stuff outdoors and everyone’s wearing big coats which you’ve never seen anyone in Haven wear before. NP: Yeah, we just couldn’t do it otherwise SR: But our actors are troopers, man.

[Duke breaking out of his chains, and walking through the table and the wall/window] NP: It’s the classic; He wanted to be captured. SR: And as it true on pretty much any type of sci-fi show, you’re always wondering how much money do you have for visual effects. And I remember this discussion of; Do we have enough money to see him go through the table? NP: Yes, it was that specific. Because originally it was; We can’t do any more special effects. And because of the structure of this episode there was not a big visual effects budget dedicated to it. So originally that was going to be practical where Duke would have jumped across the table and leapt through the window. And then they were like; Er, actually it’s going to be more trouble for us to do it that way, let’s just go with the visual effects. So was I was like; Yes, that’s what I wanted all along. JB: So that’s the answer. You have what you want in your head, but you know it’s a bit expensive. So you write a shittier version of it so they insist you re-write it. NP: Yeah pretty much. A long con.

[Duke taking the Trouble census from Nathan] SR: The amount of times that Nathan has been hit in the head. NP: Yeah poor guy. I know he can’t feel it, but. JB: I feel it. I feel for him. Also didn’t McHugh almost get killed in this scene too? NP: Yes, that was changed, so eventually we just knocked him out. JB: A bit of a shout out to Nick because he’s too modest to mention it himself, but the whole concept of what the Trouble Census looked like, Nick spent a lot of time mapping that out for the art department when we were coming up with the concept. NP: I did? Oh yeah I did. I think because I carry around a journal that looks a lot like that.

[Audrey pleading with Croatoan not to kill Nathan] NP: That was the first time Audrey called Croatoan ‘Dad’. Probably to manipulate him, in that moment, but. SR: It worked NP: I wanted to have this cut back and forth between appealing to people’s real selves. And as scripted, this fight scene between Duke and Nathan was much longer, but with the constraints of producing something it had to be tightened. SR: The other thing I remember is that part of the reason we were shooting these two episodes in 10 days is because we were banking a lot for the finale. So that the finale could be awesome for the fans. NP: Yes, we really wanted to have as much time and money as we could, to do those final episodes right. SR: And I think Matt and Gab did a bang up job NP: They turned out great. And what’s nice is because we did do that, with the constraints of the last episode and this one of just being two people in various rooms, we got to have them talk a lot and figure out where they’re coming from heading into the craziness of the final two episodes. Because there’s a lot that goes on in 25 and 26, and there’s not a lot of time to sit down and talk about motivation. So that’s why these were fun to write.

[Croatoan tells Audrey she’s free to go] SR: This was another light bulb moment, because we were trying very hard to figure out what happens at the end of this episode. NP: Yeah you really painted me into a corner with having Audrey abducted. I was like; Why does he let her go? Gotta come up with something. SR: But you did a beautiful job! NP: Thank you. SR: It make absolute sense that he would just say; Off you go - go say goodbye. NP: Yep, before I turn them all against you. And then what we see is the result of that move [Dwight walking up to the house, about to find Lizzie] NP: This has always been one of my favourite story lines; Dwight and his daughter. He just talks about her really, you don’t see much in the show, but I always liked it. SR: And you did a webisde about it. That cleared up a lot of stuff for him. NP: Yeah we got to cover a lot in that, which was fun. Got to learn a lot about the Guard and everything. SR: She’s super cute. She totally looks like his daughter. NP: What I liked about this is it’s the first example of like; How I’m going to ruin you all. This is how I’m going to manipulate you and your friends. SR: Oh so beautiful. JB: It’s more evil than violence, it’s more manipulative. NP: Yeah. And that plays out in 25 and 26 in a cool way. It gives Dwight something to really lean into.

[Vince; I know exactly what we have to do to send Croatoan screaming back to hell] SR: That is a great line. NP: I love it when he gets tough. I also love that the outfit he chose for eternity is a sweater vest, or cardigan or whatever that is. Thank you all for watching. SR: Watch the finale, you’re going to love it.