#do not come into my fucking house and use words like “somatic”

[glimblshanks]

I need a support group for people whos shitty dads/step dad's transitioned and became perfectly lovely lesbians who like, go to therapy, and try to be nice to you, because my god, I get that this bitch has grown and changed as a person but she's still the reason I get anxious whenever I accidentally shut the door too loudly!

[thought-42]

Critical Role, 1350 words, Laerryn, Dweomer

Pounded this out over my lunch break and posting it between meetings, pray to the mobile formatting gods

----

The second year after Quay and Laerryn's engagement, the Court of Workings asks for a six percent annual funding increase and gets an Aeormaton instead.

"This is called regifting and I've been told it's rude," Laerryn yells after the Magisterial aid who had delivered the message, and then she forgets about it entirely because Patia wants her to go present at some bullshit philosophy conference in Zemniaz, and Quay wants her to attend a charity event for starving orphans (she assumes), and Evandrin keeps calling her to wax rhapsodic about Zerxus' arms and also remind her that Elias has a birthday coming up and attendance at the party is not optional.

So, a month later, when Calum requests she actually emerge from under the battery housing where she's doing repairs instead of just talking to her through the access hatch, her first reaction upon seeing the giant automaton is to drop her multi-tool and begin the somatics for Firebolt.

"Architect," Calum says, pointedly, "this is the Aeormaton we were told about last month. It-- apologies, she's just arrived on one of the supply ships."

Laerryn picks up her multi-tool and her dignity, and almost holds out a hand to the automaton to shake before she thinks probably that's not a thing they do and also it's kind of a weird thing for her to do as well.

"Great," she says. "What... do you... do?"

The Aeormaton inclines her head slightly. "What do you need me to do? I'm a skilled artificer, but I've been told I'm a quick learner."

It takes a moment to process. "You're a what?"

"A quick learner," says the Aeormaton, with the distinct implication that it's a quality only one of them possesses.

"Well," says Calum, taking a few steps backwards. "I believe this is where I leave you."

He scuttles off before Laerryn can call him a traitor to his face.

"Right," says Laerryn. "Um. Ok. You're very tall, and I'm not used to looking up at people. Or... things. People. Robots? What do I call you?"

"I am an Aeormaton," she says. "My name is Dweomer. I'd imagine you may call me that."

"Do you name yourselves? Why only one name? Do the naming conventions change with who produces you?"

"In order? Yes; because a family name would make the soul touched acknowledge the potential for social connections among Aeormatons, making the fiction of charmingly selfless talking equipment harder to maintain, which might make someone uncomfortable; and no, but also there is only one... "producer"."

"God, I hate Aeor," says Laerryn. "Do we need to do a thing about your legal status?"

"Do you know the citizenship status of other Aeormatons in Avalir?"

"I can find out. I don't really have time to support a revolution, but we can make it work if we need to. What's your artificing specialty?"

"Primarily weapons development. But as I said, I am adaptable."

"What an ominous fucking answer coming from Aeor," says Laerryn. "Let's talk about conversion of raw ether to kinetic energy through a mechanical lens. Whatever wizard bullshit you've learned, forget it, it's quantum physics time."

"I arrived here as cargo. I would not like to remain as such."

"Sometimes all it takes is one case to set a precedent. That sounds way easier than a revolution, I know people."

Laerryn pulls out a notebook and starts scribbling furiously. "I'm making you a book list. You're useless to me until you've read all of this. Is it true Aeor is developing mutant attack trees?"

"If it were, I certainly wouldn't be permitted to share that information with you. Are these books available at a standard academic library or are they the more... discreet sort of literature?"

"I hate that implication a lot. Mutant trees are acceptable. Banning books is just obnoxious."

"That's a word."

"Start with the city's admin staff-- it's possible you'll be able to get your status changed through a municipal records request. If not, you have to go to our fucking Magister, who won't do anything, and then come to me and I'll give you the name of a decent lawyer. I'll stand as witness or support or whatever if you need at any point in the process. Don't send me memos, I don't read them. I'll add you to my masks if I still like you in six months."

"I appreciate your support, Architect Coramar."

"Yeah, well, I appreciate your shitty situation. And your sentience, that's interesting."

*

A year later, Dweomer tells her, "That first day we met. You would have been within your rights to have me decommissioned for the things I said."

Laerryn very carefully sets her coffee cup down. "Did I pass the test?"

"Yes."

Laerryn is having a feeling and she doesn't know what to do with it. She stands up. "Come on, there's one more project I want to show you. Nobody else knows about this one."

*

"Listen, fuck off," says Laerryn, laughing and clutching at her fourth stupid pink cocktail thing, "I could have other friends. You don't know me."

"The robot doesn't count," Zerxus says, and Laerryn throws her drink, glass and all, in his face.

*

Dweomer overhears Nydas call Laerryn 'Your Eminence' one time. And one time is all it takes for her to adopt the form of address. When Nydas says it it’s respectful and fond and a little of that pirate captain flirt. When Dweomer says it it's an even split between awe and teasing, because Laerryn is doomed to be surrounded by assholes with too many feelings.

*

The whole group is down on the far edges of the Labyrinth, Laerryn and Calum and Dweomer and the twins, trying to figure out what keeps weakening the effect of the Broomstone in this area. Quay's there, too, because he stopped by to bring her breakfast and then never left. She's pretty sure he's hiding from at least one member of the Ring of Silver.

Laerryn's hyperfocused on the calculations she’s working on, a detection spell running in the back of her head as she paces slowly along the wall. When the generic Chancellery guard melts out of a nearby hallway to demand they explain their business in this area, she waves a hand dismissively at him, tossing words in his direction absently as she notes the power fluctuations. She knows she hasn't made a sentence, but Quay will explain what she means.

She does hear Quay's voice, charming and boisterous, but she also hears another, soft and courteous and unyielding. It doesn't click until hours later that Dweomer understands how her brain works well enough to translate for her in the same way that her fiancé does.

*

One of Evandrin's knights --an elf who had been entering training shortly before Laerryn dropped out and had later mentored Evandrin-- is the first person who actually thinks to tell Laerryn that Evandrin is dead. It's been six hours. She thought he was on an upswing. She'd thought it was safe to go to work for a few short hours, just long enough to check on things.

She's frozen after the knight leaves. She can't finish the repairs she's in the midst of; can’t explain to her staff that she's going to be gone for a while; can't make sure all the records of her Leywright are hidden beneath even more layers of security; can't get herself away from anyone else so she can have a meltdown in private; can't call Quay or the rest of the Ring of Brass to tell them.

Dweomer can.

*

Laerryn's on her fourth day awake and her seventeenth hypothesis regarding the instability of objects returning to this plain via the Leywright when Dweomer says "My application for full citizenship and all the rights that covers is being decided on today."

"Mmhm," says Laerryn.

There's a long pause. "I-- it would be very meaningful to me, personally, if you were there."

'politically, too,' the tiny Quay voice in her head offers.

"I of course understand that you are occupied with far more important work--"

Laerryn drags her attention away from her work like scraping her brain across sandpaper. She stands, and looks up at Dweomer.

"I said I'd make time for the revolution," she says, and what she means is "I said I’d make time for you."

[luckyjak]

fic: i never leave well enough alone [shadowgast]

Caleb and Essik, making out for science. The Mighty Nein are also there to walk in on them and embarrass them. A kissing fic, with some found family fluff thrown in to break the tension that could otherwise be carved up with a knife.

[AO3 Link]

a/n:  I haven't even seen the episode yet (I'll see the VOD Monday) but I know a good ship when I see one.

They are studying, and they are talking, and Caleb has been distracted by the gold of Essik’s eyes for a while now.

Normally, dunamancy is a fascinating subject for Caleb, but he finds his attention wandering this afternoon in ways it hasn’t in over a decade. Not since he was a boy, noticing his classmate Astrid and the way her robes filled out in different ways than his.

Today, he’s distracted by a lot of things--the overbearing warmth in the room, to combat the stark cold of the Xhorasian winter outside. The way Essik must be warm, too--there is a gentle bead of sweat falling down the back of his neck, into his high collar. Caleb imagines following that bead of sweat for a moment. Essik has a lovely neck, long and slender, and Caleb can imagine himself kissing it, pressing hot lovebites into the drow’s dark skin. What do drow even look like, bruised?  Would anyone even notice if Caleb left a trail of hickeys on his dark purple skin, or would it just be their little secret?

It’s not just his neck, either. It’s his mouth, too: his lips are full, and they look soft to the touch, and they move subtly, spellwork precise in the way it comes out (“ pro” “hibere” “tempus”), the verbal components soothing to Caleb’s ears. Somatic, too, in the way Essik moves his hands, tracing arcane patterns into the air. He has beautiful hands. Caleb thinks about his hands, and wonders where else his long and slender fingers may fit on Caleb’s body.

And his eyes, too--gold, like the center of a hot fire, and Caleb has always been attracted to a flame. They are small but vivid, in color and in shape, and they are staring at him now, intently.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” The drow accuses, but his tone is gentle, teasing, coaxing Caleb out of his fantasy and back to reality.

Caleb rolls his eyes, and with the practiced ease of a student who has never once had to study, casts the spell he was only half paying attention to flawlessly.

His reward is a smile and a pointed look of pride on Essik’s face. “You are brilliant, you know? You’ve progressed further in mere weeks than what many have done in lifetimes. You are simply amazing .”

Essik runs his hand down Caleb’s shoulder and squeezes, and it’s too much for Caleb; the heat and the intensity of Essik’s gaze, the skin contact, the way their knees brush against one another underneath the table. He leans in swiftly and kisses Essik fully on the mouth before he can think better of it.

It’s a risk, but a calculated one, and he’s always been a fan of the potential rewards.

Essik’s lips are soft, softer than Caleb expected, and while the Shadowhand doesn’t pull away he doesn’t kiss back, either, and so Caleb moves away sooner than he wants. His gut wants to keep kissing, to grab and to hold the other man and kiss him until they are both breathless, but he stops himself.

Not yet. Not without permission.

“ Oh ,” Essik says, quiet at first, barely audible. “That was-- unexpected.”

“I apologize,” Caleb says, sitting back down in his seat, though his eyes still stare at Essik’s lips.

“No, don’t. It was not unpleasant,” Essik’s hand traces his own lips carefully, cautiously, curiously. “Merely unexpected. I have never, ah, kissed , like that,” He says the word kissed with uncertainty, like he has to think carefully about what the word means in common.

Caleb raises an eyebrow. “Ever?”

“Not with one like you, no,”

“Human?” Caleb offers, scooting his chair closer to Essik’s, so that one of his knees is in between his partner’s. The dark elf doesn’t respond. “Male?” he ventures another guess.

“One of those is correct. I’ll let you guess which one,” the Shadowhand whispers, playfully, a coy smile on his face. He moves his hand to Caleb’s face, caressing the soft patch of hair that’s begun to grow there in the weeks since he’s shaved last. “I would--I would like to try again, if you aren’t opposed.”

Caleb doesn’t respond; instead, he kisses him again, and is thrilled when the elven man kisses back.

This time, Essik is more present in the kiss, less shocked and more daring. He keeps one hand on Caleb’s face, caressing his cheek while the other wraps around the broad expanse of Caleb’s back across his shoulders. Caleb’s hands, for his part, find themselves drawn to Essik’s waist, his fingers catching in the loops of his belt.

They part only long enough to catch their breath before Essik stands, kicking his chair over in the process, and drapes himself instead into Caleb’s lap.

It’s too much; Essik kisses like a storm, like lightning in a bottle, precise, stunning, fast, and all of Caleb’s senses are on fire from the sensation. His vision is dark and blurred, only catching glimpses of white hair against dark skin as Essik nibbles his way down his chin.

--

Yasha doesn’t remember what she came into the library for, but it certainly wasn’t to catch Caleb in this compromising position.

...It is Caleb under there, although it takes Yasha starring longer than she intends to to discover that. It’s not her fault: Caleb is somewhat buried, his lap full of an attractive drow man straddling him in the chair.

There’s a chair knocked to the floor, and neither man is wearing their jacket. Caleb’s shirt--from what Yasha can tell, where she’s standing--is half unbuttoned, and his hair is a mess, stark red tangled from dark fingers.

They are just kissing, she reckons, but Essik is kissing Caleb like he wants to eat him, tongue first, and Caleb’s hands are firmly attached to Essik’s backside.

“...I’ll come back later,” Yasha tells the room in a whisper, her voice unheard, as she closes the door quietly behind her.

--

“Did you know Caleb’s kissing the Shadowhand now?” Yasha announces casually to where most of the Mighty Nein are gathered in the kitchen. "They're making out in the library."

“WHAT?” Jester squeals with delight, clawed hands covering her mouth in joy.

“WHAT?” Beau hollers, outraged, fist slammed on the table.

Fjord doesn’t react beyond trying not to choke to death on his salad, his face a new and unusual shade of green.

“Good for them,” Caduceus nods sagely, stirring his teapot without much concern. “Tea?”

“Yes please,” she nods to Caduceus, taking a seat between him and Jester. “I just walked in on them in the library. They seem quite attached to each other.”

Jester’s squealing gets louder (“oh my gosh oh my gosh ohmygoshhhh!!!”) and Beau seems even more outraged.

“The fucking library?” Beau howls, loud enough for the whole house to hear. It’s a good thing Nott and Yeza are out shopping, and that the rest of them were in the kitchen, minus the two in the library. “ I use that fucking library. That’s public property. I swear to god if they get sweaty boy shit all over those fucking books I’ll murder them both, those fuckers-- ”

And then Jester is up out of her seat and down the hall, and Beau is following fast behind her, and Fjord seems like he wants to crawl into his shirt and hide like a turtle as he pushes his bowl of food aside.

“Was I not supposed to say anything?” Yasha asks, more to herself than to anyone in the room, but Caduceus answers her with a cup of tea nonetheless.

“Nah, it’ll be fine. This is what families do, in my experience. At least that’s how I reacted every time one of my sisters brought a partner over.” He picks up his own cup and sips it. “Never really saw the appeal, myself, but different strokes for different folks.”

“Ah,” Yasha nods at his wisdom. Behind her, a door slams and there is a lot of yelling and screeching and a crash of what sounds like two bodies roughly hitting the floor. “Should I stop them?”

“In a minute,” Caduceus says with the sophisticated ease of someone who used to living in chaos. “Let them have their fun, first. Then we’ll go save poor Mr. Caleb from dying of embarrassment.”

“Or setting off a fireball in the house.”

“That too.”

--

Unlike Yasha’s quiet opening of the door, Jester slams the door to the library open with enough strength that they might should be concerned about the hinges.

“Caaayyyyleeeb,” she coos , her voice getting high pitched towards the end. Her voice and the door startle Caleb and Essik enough that they lose their balance in the chair, and Caleb lands flat on his back on the hard stone floor, with Essik on top of him.

“Oh my gosh, Yasha was right! You two were kissing,” she makes an exaggerated smooching sound, and Caleb can feel Essik stiffen on top of him, uneasy with the situation. For all that Caleb is certain that Essik likes him (as a friend, if not more, now), he always thinks that the elf has no idea what to do with the rest of Caleb’s friends, uncertain what to make of them. “How cuuuteee.”

Beau comes slamming in after Jester, and gods, they are going to have to replace that door. “Do not fuck in public spaces,” Beau yells, and, oh, it seems drow can blush, based on what little of Essik’s face Caleb can see buried on his shoulder. “New house rule, effective immediately, should have been mentioned earlier but we didn’t think about it. No fucking in any place where I routinely eat, sleep, read, practice, or bathe, or I’ll cut your fucking dick off and nail it to the wall.”

Caleb can feel his own face flush at that. “Get. Out.”

Jester scrunches her face at Beau. “But if they can’t fuck any place we sleep, then where are they supposed to have sex? Outside?”

“Get out.”

Beau shakes her head. “No sex outside either. I don’t want anyone to ruin the garden with that. They can fuck in Caleb’s roo-----oom, shit!”

He flings a firebolt at Beau’s head and misses, his aim made unsteady by the body on top of his.

That causes more squawking, this time about “fire safety!” and “don’t burn this house down too Caleb!”, and he feels Essik start to laugh quietly against him.

Luckily, his heroes arrive before he dies of embarrassment.  “Okay,” he can hear Caduceus's calming voice come from that side of the room. “You’ve had your fun. It’s time to stop embarrassing Caleb now.”

He hears Beau shriek in protest, and then Caduceus must pick her up somehow, because she starts screaming about being carried off until Caleb can’t hear her voice anymore. He still hears Jester’s giggling though, and heavy footfalls until she, too, starts complaining about how Yasha is ruining all of her fun.

He hears the door shut tightly, and thanks whatever gods are out there that they are alone now.

He feels Essik roll over on top of him, and groans a little, his back bruised from their fall. “We broke your chair,” Essik says, sitting up off of Caleb properly and onto the stone floor. He looks--undignified, and young, but still terribly handsome, as Caleb takes a moment to stare. His stark white hair is in disarray, and his tunic is off-center, and his gold jewelry tangled. It’s the most like a mess Caleb has ever seen him, and he must confess, it’s a good look on him. It makes Caleb wonder, briefly, about other times when Essik might become disheveled, and how Caleb might help him get there.

Sure enough, there is a broken splintered wooden chair nearby. He offers Caleb a hand to help sit up, and Caleb finds he’s reluctant to let go now that he’s sitting up straight. He leans his back up against the leg of the table, and offers Essik what he hopes is a charming grin.

“We can fix it. Jester knows mending,” he breathes in deep, and takes a moment to recollect himself briefly. “That was fun though, yeah?”

He get a soft smirk in return. “I can think of less enjoyable ways to spend an afternoon.” Then Essik bites his lip, his eyes glancing up and down Caleb’s form. “I can think of more enjoyable ways, too, though.”

Caleb feels his face flush, and he wants to ask like what, coy and flirtatious, and he wants to lean over and kiss him again, on the floor under the table, for hours at a time. He wants to peel off Essik’s tunic and see what he looks like underneath his many layers of clothes, to see if his skin is that dark purple color throughout.

He probably shouldn’t, though. Not today. Caduceus and Yasha can only distract the others for so long, and besides, Nott will be back soon, and that’s a whole different interrogation to get through.

So instead he grins, charming and boyish, and says, “Like, four hours of uninterrupted time in a library with a good book?”

That gets him a hearty chuckle, and gosh, the Shadowhand is pretty when he laughs. Caleb’s face should not be this flushed; he is not some inexperienced teenage schoolboy, and yet the rapid beat of his heart seems terribly, achingly familiar.

“Among other things,” Essik smiles, and kisses him, softer this time, just a gentle press of lips against his. Where as last time was all passion and fire and shocked skin, this one is gentle, like a feather tickling the skin, and it ends quickly. “I should probably go, though.”

Realistically, Caleb knows he has to leave; that Essik has a job and a life outside of kissing and tutoring Caleb in magic, but right now the idea seems unfair, cruel and senseless, just another way of punishing Caleb for his past crimes. “Tomorrow, then?”

Essik bites his lip, and kisses him again. “I think I could find the time,” he promises, and there’s another kiss, deeper, and Caleb can taste his tongue. “We could maybe actually study, this time.”

Caleb wraps his arms around his neck, pulling him closer with another kiss. “Or we could explore those,” he’s interrupted with a kiss, “those other things you were talking about,” there’s another kiss, another clashing of tongues and teeth, until they find they need to breathe again. “I have ideas.”

“A locked door might be nice,”

Caleb kisses into Essik’s grin. “I think I know where to find one.”

If they don’t stop kissing now, they may never stop, and while Caleb can think of worse things, he also doesn’t want to get Essik in trouble. He pushes him away slowly, savoring what he plans to be the last kiss of the night. “You should probably go though,”

“Right,” Essik breathes heavily, still staring at Caleb’s lips. “I have a meeting. With the Bright Queen.”

Caleb reaches over, and straightens out Essik’s tunic, and rehooks the gold chain that had come undone around Essik’s ear. “Sounds important.”

“It--it could be more important,” Essik stutters as Caleb stands, offering him a hand up as well. “It could definitely be more important.”

“You don’t want to be late, though,” Caleb picks Essik’s cloak up off of the table, wrapping it around the gentleman’s shoulders. “I doubt the Bright Queen tolerates much tardiness.”

“You’re right,” Essik confesses, and looks down at his shoes. “I don’t want you to be right, but you’re right.” They haven’t stopped touching each other, Caleb’s hands on Essik’s shoulders, and Essik’s hands on Caleb’s waist. “I just want to keep kissing you.”

With a stronger willpower than most, Caleb leans into the embrace, and kisses Essik carefully on the cheek. “Tomorrow, then.” He lets go then, and squeezes Essik’s hand tightly instead. “I’ll walk you out.”

They leave the library hand in hand, and dream of better tomorrows.

--

Notes:

unpictured: Caleb's walk of shame back inside to be interrogated by the Mighty Nein.

also unpictured: Essik doodling cartoon hearts with Caleb's name in them during his meeting with the Bright Queen

[ryoukenkogami]

Schizophrenia Awareness Month 2019 // Day 2: delusions

This… is probably going to be the hardest topic for me to talk about out of all of them to be quite honest. No matter how far I’ve come in the process of accepting myself and being open about my struggles, my delusions are the one thing I’ve very rarely (if at all?) spoken about publicly because quite frankly? I’m still afraid of what people will think of me. They were, however, the first symptom I began experiencing back senior year of high school. At the time I was going through my most prolonged mental health spiral to date and this was also the time period I first started seeing a psychiatrist (and they refused to diagnose me with anything other than severe depression even though I was referred to see one because of my therapist thinking I was displaying traits of type ii bipolar disorder… which I was later diagnosed with that summer, and which my medication for actually helps unlike the ridiculous list of antidepressants they tried to put me on prior to that). At the time my delusions were a safe haven for me; they made me feel like everything going to shit was okay and that I could just ignore it, because in the end none of it would matter. I won’t go into too much detail as like I said I’m still not very comfortable with it, but the long story short is they very prominently had to do with the idea of reality/unreality, which is something that did stick with me and became a very big trigger for more severe psychotic episodes within the next year or so following that. I never realized it was anything “different” than how other people thought at the time because 1)  I didn’t talk to anyone about it anyways because of how innately personal it felt, and 2) I was convinced I was special in a way other people weren’t, so why would I tell them and make them feel bad about themselves? These became more severe when I left for college though and fueled a lot of the bad decision making I did at the time when it came to taking care of my body and the things I would put it through. My favorite story to tell people is about the one time I walked all the way from the state house downtown to Cayce in nearly freezing weather wearing shorts and a crop top just because I was absolutely thoroughly convinced I was not vulnerable to the elements (for those of you not in the Columbia, SC area: this was like an hour walk, and yes I made it perfectly fine) just because it’s one I can laugh about and find pretty funny in retrospect. The reality of it is I was barely eating (maybe one thing that could be considered a small “meal” a week a lot of the time) because of the convictions I held about what my body could go through, I became a (poly)addict because I thought it would give me more insight into my delusions, and in general I did a lot of extremely impulsive and dangerous things that thankfully did not end up causing long-term harm. I still live every day with the same beliefs, but they’re more of a background noise a lot of the time unless something in particular triggers it to blow back up. I haven’t had a really severe psychotic episode where they got to the point they affected how I function in a year now which is a huge relief (the last one was right around this time last year though).

On a less personal note, this topic brings me to something that’s been grating on me more and more over the past few months. Please, for the love of fucking god, can we stop using “delusional” as an insult. Collectively we’re at the point where most people who’re respectful towards those with mental illnesses have stopped using terms like “psycho” to describe people, and some have opted away from “crazy” too (which I appreciate), but “delusional” is one I still see CONSTANTLY from people who otherwise seem to be big advocates for awareness and respect, including non-psychotics who have mental illnesses themselves. Psychotic disorders are some of the most heavily stigmatized, and this does absolutely nothing beyond reinforce the idea that delusions are something to be shamed and othered for; it’s the reason I feel afraid to talk about mine too. The stigma surrounding them feels heavier than the other positive symptoms of psychosis for me, including hallucinations. At least with those, people have some kind of understanding of them (whether it’s exactly accurate or not…) and are more likely to display concern rather than disgust. Delusions don’t get the same sympathy. Delusions mean “there’s something seriously wrong with you, you need help, you must be crazy to believe something like that!” and it seriously pisses me off so much. Do you think we don’t know there’s something different about us? Believe it or not, many of us are self-aware and realize that these things are delusions. That does not, however, make them any less real to us and you trying to convince us otherwise does infinitely more harm than good.

Delusional people deserve respect, and it’s something we often aren’t given. Delusional has become synonymous in most people’s minds with irrational behavior, when it’s a term many with psychosis feel wary to even use to describe their experiences out of extreme fear for how we’ll be perceived by those we love and trust, let alone the general public.

Respect people with delusions, whether they’re delusions of persecution, of grandeur, somatic, or anything else, and using “delusional” as a pejorative for people you think are being irrational. I promise, there will always be a much better way to describe someone without using a word that demonizes a serious symptom of psychosis, and, given that the rates for schizophrenia alone are 1 in 100 people (I say this because there are quite a few other mental illnesses that can cause psychosis/specifically delusions) they likely affect someone you know and care about.

[psyychokitten]

I don't know what I need

I don't know what I want

I don't know what I am feeling

I don't know who I am

I can't feel properly. For months my feelings have floated in a haze of smoke. Shadows of jaws snapping shut around the spinal chord of a crumbling figure, limbs like packed sand falling to the ground. Fingers reaching forward, hesitating before they grasp.

My head, stomach, and heart hurt every day. I feel tar rising up from my stomach, the urgency of the past warring with the wariness of the future in my throat. Push up, push down, settling in a stalemate just behind my teeth. Choke on it. Feel it writhe along your tongue and press in in in to the skull. Pounding on and in my head, breath only let out so as to not expell this heaviness, to not vomit pain.

You touch it. You live in it. I see you huddled over the shards of glass and your rib cage collapsing in onto your heart. When you're close I can feel it too, the immense pressure of a beaten heart. I am glad you are here. I don't know what I would do, having all of this in me, having no escape from our terror and our pain. You allow us to continue, to survive. Despite this, I still want to access the hurt. No I don't. Yes I do. Maybe not. But it would be healthier for us all to process it. You can't do it on your own. I can't live this life on my own. We need to come together; me to feel, you to function. We will do both better together.

I want to scream and die and live and sing and know and forget and bleed and heal and level the fucking earth and raise mountains and love and hate and cry and advocate and be cared for and close my eyes for a thousand years and tear all the skin off of my bones and all of my organs out of my body and replace them with wires and relays and knives so anything that dares enter me will be met with HELL and I will no longer have to be me and I want to be me.

I want to stop forgetting

I want to stop remembering

I want to be blind

I want to be omniscient

I want to own my past and I want to tear it to pieces. I want to give in to all I want to do. I want to let myself and others destroy my brain and body. I want to go back to not knowing and letting people shape me and kill me and everyone is smiling. There is no happy before. I have no previous happy self I want to go back to. This IS my happy self. Since I can remember I was terrified and in pain and confused. Always. There is not a single point in my life where I was not terrified and hurting and confused. Not a single God damn time. None. My world and my identity was shaped by horror and delusion and forgetting. My father demanding I survive and become strong and become the ultimate example of human excellence. Physically strong, mentally dexterous and fortified, successful, creative, a whole person, no weakness, no emotion, as long as you survive and become successful nothing else matters and you should push yourself past anything. No knowledge of me, slowly dying inside, lost to delusion and pain that had no origin. I am thankful now to know what I do, I am able to see why I hurt.

But it is all still in the haze. Trying to think about myself and emotions clouds my thoughts and scrambles them, and I am left to swing my arms wildly through the fog in a vain attempt to get them back, put them to words.

I need help. When I was so young it hurt to urinate and it hurt to shower and the most terrifying thing was my mother leaving me alone. I felt constantly haunted and hunted and afraid. My school work began suffering in second grade. I would be made to sit out in the hall and complete it away from the class. At the same time I was seen as a great student, because I was very intelligent, and all struggles I had in school were dismissed as character flaws. As elementary school progressed, I struggled with relating to other children, completing school work, sexual and persecutory and grandiose delusions, boundaries, appropriate behaviour, abandonment issues, attachment issues, increasing anxiety and depression, identity crisis and confusion, etc. I would often lie about my school work to my parents and teachers, throughout all of my schooling. I would forget things in my bags and leave them to rot or tear. I hardly ever brushed my teeth. I hardly showered. I remember specifically wearing the exact same outfit for a week straight. I was suicidal from grade 6 onwards. In grade 7 I began failing classes and smoking cigarettes. I ran away from home in a dissociated and delusional state, with bags full of stuff, planning on making my way to the west coast, selling myself for rides and sneaking on buses or trucks. I put my walking shoes on and dark eyeliner and a black coat and I did not look like myself in mirrors or windows as I passed. I walked down to the convenience store, about 20 minutes, around 4 or 5 am, I bought bus fare and a chocolate chip muffin. I think I remember the cashier being confused and concerned. Wait. I forgot an essential thing. Near the convenience store there is a hotel and I tried to book a room there for several days. I had stolen my mother's bank card, and it did not have the funds necessary to book a room for any amount of days. Then I gave up and went to get on a bus. I don't remember why, or where I was going. I don't remember where it stopped, but I had either lost time or dozed off because the driver said it was the end of his route and I needed to get off. I walked a lot. Under bridges, along streets with shops, streets with houses, alleys. I left my bags at some point. They contained some food, some clothes, some of my favourite books, some unfinished. I was going to kill myself, throw my 11 year old body under a van. I stood at the side of many roads, waiting. I don't remember if this was before or after I left my bags, but a man by the name of Mario walks up beside me under a bridge. He chats to me about just getting into the city. He asks my name, and I say it is Soren. He invites me to his hotel room. I do not know if I went. I don't remember going, but I don't remember so much of that day. I don't remember how I got to the Wal-Mart I called my family from to go home. Right before I went to the Wal-Mart, I tried to buy a map, and the cards were declined, my mother had cancelled them. I think that is what made me call home. But I don't remember anyway. My mother was sad and angry, my father did not react. How could you? Was said. When I got home my mother drew me a bath. She asked if I had been assaulted and I said no, but I don't know if that's true. I don't know if I just dissociated through it, or convinced myself so much that it hadn't happened so I wouldn't hurt my mother. She loves me immensely. She slept on my bedroom floor that night. A memory that is connected, but may not have been the same night, was going through a book that told you your aura colour. I was an indigo child. Of course. I don't remember how long I was gone for. Could have been hours, could have been days. I haven't asked.

Coming back to school, I was greeted by the entire school knowing, being asked why, having to give some sort of excuse that wasn't as terrifying and psych-ward-inducing as 'I do not know, I came to at various points during the time confused but knowing I had to go, but other than that I do not remember why I left or where I went'. I have more words now. Dissociation. PTSD. Delusion. Attachment disorder. Losing time. Typical responses to child sexual assault. Amnesia. Somatic symptoms. I can see the patterns in my behaviour and put names and reasons to it. When I was in it, I was blind. Lost to confusion and fear and pain. I am grateful to have words and reasons now. But it was easier, and somehow more real, when I didn't know what was going on. When I could allow myself to be hurt without pain. Now no one is hurting me, but I have all the pain. Part of me reliving all the horror and the fear and the hurt constantly, trying to make sense of it, trying to own it as our own, trying to honour the suffering of a child who's suffering went unnoticed and invalidated and smothered, while trying to grow and become adult.

Oh God. Torn wings beat furiously to keep us aloft while talons reach for the dirt and I eat my own tail, the most absurd and devastating winged ouroboros. Your hands around my throat is the only halo I have ever known and I revere it as a crown. Silly little bob with the bangs and missing teeth the site of my razing. Throw the crown from my head and tear the wings from my back and I will slither into the dirt and become one with the insects we parished. Sleep there for eon upon eon. Or maybe go to therapy.

[kentonramsey]

Writers on Writing (And Not Writing) Right Now: Mary H.K. Choi

Cutting well-done steak with a dull knife. Swimming in glue. Running on sand. These are the metaphors that come to mind when I try to describe the act of writing recently. There is no question that it’s an enormous privilege to have the time and space to do creative work at home right now, but it’s also a uniquely challenging moment in which to try and “take advantage” of that. Nearly six months into the pandemic, I’ve been eager to hear from writers about how they’ve been navigating the pressures and obstacles that result from such a dichotomy, and how current circumstances have impacted their writing process. Here, in the first of three writers I interviewed, the amazing Mary H.K. Choi (author of Permanent Record and Emergency Contact) shares how she’s managing to continue creating meaningful things–insights that made me feel equal parts optimistic, humbled, and less alone. I hope they will do the same for you.

Mary is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York. Check out her Instagram here and her website here.

How has your writing process changed since the pandemic began?

I no longer write as if being chased by a pack of wild dogs. There used to be so much urgency. If I didn’t get my thoughts down, I was scared they’d evaporate and crop-dust someone else who’d get to claim them. It was always zero sum with me, or that scarcity mentality. A lot of that energy has dissipated. The truth is I’m in grief and that makes me prone to depressive waves so everything is going much slower.

I used to write everywhere. Cafés, cars, anywhere in my house. Draped on the sofa, propped by a weird arm, getting pins and needles in both haunches. Or else at the dinner table, making my partner crazy. Lately, I write at my dedicated desk because I’m inviting some intentionality to the practice mostly because it’s so hard to want to write. I purchased a proper laptop stand and a separate keyboard and mouse and admittedly it’s been good for morale that my neck and shoulders aren’t in constant agony.

Hustle culture isn’t the wave anymore. Not by a long shot.

The “getting dressed for work” thing has been going in waves. At the outset I was feeling feral and gremlin-ish but now I’m putting outfits together and conventional wisdom is prevailing because I do feel better.

Eating meals at meal-times has also been helpful. And taking the full break and not doom-scrolling alongside the chewing. I’ve been buying beautiful produce and marveling at how ludicrously delicious peaches and tomatoes are. It’s a good way to check into my body when I’m dissociative.

In March, a tweet went viral about how Shakespeare wrote King Lear when he was quarantined with the plague. Have you felt more pressure than usual to write and create during this time of isolation? 

Hustle culture isn’t the wave anymore. Not by a long shot. Now it’s discernment and shrewd allocation of resources and boundaries galore. Energy is finite. It’s a somatically real and depleting thing to keep one eye on the election and another little antenna honed on a literal global plague.

I wasn’t immune to the fantasy that I’d get really, really jacked. Or else learn a language or take a course on playwriting, but then June swung around with zero progress and I realized that so much of it had to do with making this pandemic “worth it.” But no matter how much I try to avoid how scary and sad and fucked up this situation is, I can’t.

Plus, I realized I was trying to “be good.” As if I can cut a deal with the universe, like, if I behave and act diligently and piously and do my work then surely, the pandemic will desist in a reasonable amount of time, like three months? That was just a bullet train to heartache and rage.

I’m learning to work without committing words to the page. Film is so instructive.

GQ staff writer Zach Baron wrote an essay entitled, “How Do You Write About People When You Can’t Be Near Them?” This question applies to his line of work quite literally since he writes a lot of profiles, but given that all writing–to some extent–stems from being out in the world and observing it closely, how and where have you been finding creative inspiration these days?

Reading has been such a tonic. I’m grateful to borrow books from the library through the Libby app. Initially I was so mad at not being able to go to the physical library that I stubbornly refused to borrow e-books but I got over it. My TBR pile is so robust right now, and I love catching up on all the books I’d intended to read but missed the boat on. When I’m stuck on writing I read. I steal things. Check for grammatical quirks or transitions that I admire.

I’m also watching a ton of movies. Like, Takeshi Kitano’s mob series, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Last Picture Show, Badlands, Barry Lyndon. I’m learning to work without committing words to the page. Film is so instructive for proxemics and micro-expressions and the tension between what people are saying and what they’re doing.

Talking to good friends consistently has also been fruitful. My characters tend to become neurotic in a one-note way the more I isolate. It’s not as surreptitiously delightful as things you overhear or observe on mass transit, but going for walks around New York will always inspire me.

What’s something you’ve written recently that you’re especially proud of (even if it’s just a sentence!)?

Well, I finished my third novel Yolk (available now for pre-order ahem), which was surreal since it’s all about illness and death and asking for help. I had to take week-long breaks in between edits because it was brutal and uncomfortable to sit inside of, but I’m proud of what came out of it.

Some things I only get one good hour a day on. Others I need to write long-hand because word docs or final drafts feel too stultifying or scary.

I also wrote an essay about Korean author and performance artist, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, for Doris Ho Kane and the 17.21 book that she’s doing about Asian women iconoclasts. I got so imposter syndrome-y and anxious because I don’t feel as though I’m a high-brow enough critic or essayist, but Doris seemed pumped with what I filed so I’m thrilled.

What’s the best thing you’ve read recently?

Holy shit. Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata was great. I was so sad when it ended. It was one of those where you’re just stuck on what to follow it up with because the mood is so specific.

What advice would you give to young or aspiring writers who are trying to write something right now?

Let go or get dragged. It’s healthy and realistic to have a consistent practice but I’ve also learned that every piece of work has its own particular rhythms that you’d do well to honor. I’ve wasted a lot of time setting agendas that the writing is largely indifferent to. Some things I only get one good hour a day on. Others I need to write long-hand because word docs or final drafts feel too stultifying or scary. Nothing is a value judgment or an indictment against your skills or progress. Creative works just have their own particular personalities. Plus, my circumstances and influences change along the way as well. I don’t know about you, but this is my first pandemic.

The other thing that I hate doing but am learning to lean on and value is asking for extensions. I ask as early as possible out of respect for everyone’s time because doing a weird, mincing dance when I know in my heart I’m going to blow the deadline is a disservice to everyone.

Also, I’m a big believer in the vomit draft. The first version won’t be good. You’re not as good as the You you’ll become once you’ve written the thing. The better You will do the edits and that’s how it works.

See All 3

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[trivialsplash]

Angel Virus: The Biology of Ecstasy

For the SLY project. In honour of all bodies. All knowledges. Between trauma and ecstasy countering the narrative of feminized pathologies.

Fine tendons, mobile ribbons. Their body, invisible body - her body (of all textures, sizes, all shapes and functions and genitals or totally agender, asexual, alien). Always multiple, permeating mycelial structures, filling airy inter-molecular spaces in a  rockbed with aliveness, weight, air, water, matter. Life and decay. Filling the solidity of meaning from within, creating gaps, creating spaces, imbued, fertile, secret spaces. Biohacking. Wires, electic signals.

‘‘ There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of bird’s feet is unknown. ‘‘ (V.Woolf)

Lightening. Nitrogen-fixing rhizo-mycelial strings. Laces of a dress, swaying, spiraling, rocking motions. My legs, had I had any, would have been tied into a poem. My body walks dematerialized, it is walked from the outside, I overlook the process. When I visit briefly I experience a thick First Night, an ancient darkness. Death and rebirth of consciousness. A blackout. Helix. Consciousness. 40-80% is estimated as having had arrived from an ancient invasion of abiotic viral structures. Primordial oceans. Bacterial heat. Our brains have been hacked. Even before our birth. How much of our epigenetic structure is coming from non-human sources? What is the thing that separates us, that deemed us human, so upright, with a centralized nervous system? Two rainbow snakes fucking inside of my body, undulating, I feel naussea. ‘If no human is good enough for you, you’d have to fuck God/dess.’ sarcastic voice puts me in a place. I laugh from my guts. This is how it probably feels like - being fucked by the universe. Vine. Hedera helix. Infinite lovership. Jolly, nauseating, cosmic, hard, cynical, character-building humour. The panromantic gene. Pansexual panpsychism. Non-bodily. Then suddenly deeply somatic. The Arc Gene. The other within. I hear animal sounds that are beyond audible, even in the city. ''I know things older than Freud, older than gender. (...)I interpret this as 'the one who is at one with the beasts'.'' (G.Anzaldúa)

It is a full moon, I am walking through the park of the Train Station, my sinuses are being filled with strong lunar glow, an end of winter air curls into my cranial cavities, then suddenly I no longer have a skull. A frisky crowd of rats opens up in a full moon in front of my each step. Rodents’ rendezvous interrupted by my presence, diverging choreographies with me as a nucleus, a negative space. Paws tapping into the still frosty earth, provoking a subtle rustling of the dry grass. I am following her. She is full and raising in a slit between two solid blocks of houses. A crowd of rough sleepers cheered up from the period of warmer nights look at me, look at her. We smile. Sometimes toothlessly. We pray the same prayer. They look at my glass bottle hoping for booze. I pour a puddle of clear water on the pavement staring into the moon. Cervix bleeding. Cervix ovulating. Full moon nearly falling out of my cunt with the weight of dewey humidity, the full moon filling my mouth.

‘‘Both the performer of the epic scenes and their audiences are felt to be ‘beside’, ‘outside’ (exó) themselves and possessed by god (en-theos, whence enthousiasmo),(...)The pleasurably ‘mind-bending’ (psuchagogía) of allowing god to enter ‘inside’ oneself (enthousiasmos, i.e. being en-theos) (...)and thus moving ‘ouitside’ (exó) one’s normal consciousness...‘‘ (M.Griffith)

The divine is a virus. The notion of devotional, a notion of another within us, the guardian angel, the arc gene angel virus, the external consciousness, the one within and without, non-dualistic. Our RNA hacked, self which is both internalized and othered. Self-transcended. Crystalic divergent metalic sounding structures, consciousness’ cosmetics. On a deeply biological level we are numerous. We ride or we are ridden. Without mutual exclussivity. The notion of devotion is build within us as a survival reflex. If you do not honour others within you you will be devoured, overpowered.

The occult knowledge of spatial matrices. Plateaus. Climaxes and little deaths. Trauma. Non-human intimacies. Challenging toxicities. Hormonal fluctuations. Critical theory applied as a practice of magick. Only poetic overlapping inter-dicoursive meanings can really be uttered as magickal formulae, shape-shifting, space-bending, echoing, echolocating. Echo-locating. I write so the nervous system  does not burn itself, so the knowledge does not consume me. A fire sword appearing in the Garden of Eden. Neural synapses like wide open psychic channels. Chemical receptors running tears down my face without a grimace, comely unlike me, estranged, intimate, exotic. Tears like a condensation on a galactic rock. Luke warm gushing waters despite this body sometimes being so metalic dry. Crone-like, ancient, inhuman, amorphic. Electric. Hypervigilant awake multi-presences. La Virgen. Both eclectic and Saturnian. I sing in the main church ship. Spaceship. The echo sings me back, massages my fine skin membranes. Magicians’ box, endless numerous bottoms. Endless negative spaces with positive presences. The sound waves build something I can trust, I can move on. I sing love songs in the vernacular. My secular tongue knows the best how to lick my human wounds. I spit my own blood below the dress. There are vegetal motifs in dark rich pigments and gold on the walls. This church was built in a place of a pagan worship. The rocks towering above the river click their teeth in a dusk, but they hold. I know the thickness of the air as I breathe, the density of materials as the walls sing it back at my emptied body. There is no separation between music and dance or matter and the spirit.

‘’Squirt, shoot, bite, write, cum, scratch, dance, kill... do anything, but do it with ME!’’ there were words at some beginnings and those words were hasty spells. Tempestuous postcards in my mailbox. Copious saliva in my mouth. A diamond projectile.

Blue fire. Hanging upside down, my hard mocking laugh disturbs. Escaping body, watching it from the outside, laughing. Hanging upside down. Gestating past life images. Pendulum, an oracle. Hanging in timelesness, spatial vacuum. I enter a room full of old karmic bonds, broken oaths, people are on heat, trying to fuck them out, fuck themselves out of their current shape, of their conditioning, to alchemize these bonds, broken oaths, some have forgotten. I sit quietly by a fire. Someone asks: ‘‘Are you okay?’’, obliges me to try to explain what I know, what I sense. No body knows anything. No single body knows everything. She claimed she’d teach me. She’s nervous now. Noone is safe, there is no safe role here. I run out just as the thunder gloriously roams above the storming sea in the dark night. I am the thunder. My back convulsing, my limbs wide open on the wet green grass. Angry orgasms. Autonomous. Thundering. The semen of yours held in my body, the semen I never wanted inside of me, turns into tiny stars in the Milky Way. My own generosity. Overflow. Throat opens. The energy cannot be held. The consciousness being birthed into the cosmic darkness, inter-planetary interplay, inter-stelar galactic spaces, my body opens all its holes and convulsions birth me into states of in-betweenness. Years of being not a ‘part of’. Being in between. Stranding. I psychically communicate with my lost twin. Big raindrops falling on my body that walks along the coast on an autopilot, while simultaneously jumping layers and fluently moving across ancestral planes. I am learning how to walk myself back. Coming, screaming, speaking primeaval tongues, then sitting silently, home-coming. Soul retrievals. I never begged to be spiritual. I bet the part of brain that deals with trauma also triggers responses in the worshipful cells. You literally go beyond yourself to survive in this human body, to survive this human body. Again. And again. Laughter.