#english teachers everywhere in awe

[seahorseonastring]

so much respect to this guy for pulling off such a sexy assassination. like writing deny / defend / depose on ur bullets? that's so metal (literally.)

[clowningaroundmars]

heeyyy yaaalllll

so i was thinking to myself, i love punkflower. i really do.

what if there was a hobie in miles' universe and he didnt have to do the whole long distance relationship across dimensions thing, though? just keep his lil secret crush on spiderpunk a secret and keep it pushing, only to literally bump into his own hobie brown in 1610 one day?

wouldnt that be cool, guys?

wouldnt it? :)

wouldnt :) it :) be :) so :) cool? :) and so cute too?

:)

update: >part 2 here<

Miles was late.

It was his first day back, the very beginning of his junior year at Visions Academy and he was late. God damn.

His parents were really gonna kill him this time, no doubt about it. There weren't even any good Spiderman excuses he could use to weasel his way out of getting into trouble this time! He'd just have to cross his fingers and pray that his chemistry teacher for this year wasn't a total hardass like last year's English teacher.

Maybe he could make up some dumb excuse this time, try to wriggle his way into the professor's good graces with some blatant lie. Anyways, whose dumb idea was it to put him in a class so damn far from the entrance doors so early in the mor--

BRRRRRRING!

Miles tore around a corner just as the final bell rang throughout the mostly-empty hallways, inciting panic in his chest and making him nearly launch himself down another hallway just to get to his class.

In his haste, he nearly knocked over a very tall and very... familiar looking person that happened to be in Miles' trajectory. Luckily, bodies didn't end up colliding but the shock of having a person fly so quickly into their line of sight shocked the both of them into skidding to a sudden stop.

The tall person ended up dropping a textbook and what seemed like an enormous packet of papers, because sheets scattered absolutely everywhere, almost like snow.

Ugh. Of course.

They both stared down at the mess in the middle of the hallway floor for a beat.

Then, Miles exhaled a laugh, shaking his head.

"Aw man, I-I'm sorry! I just uh... here, lemme just--"

They both bent down to quickly scoop up the papers as Miles stuttered and spoke a hundred miles a minute, trying to apologize for the heart-stopping scare he caused. Just as Miles shuffled the papers together in his hands, he finally looked up at the unlucky student he almost football-tackled first thing in the morning... and nearly dropped the papers onto the floor again.

Kneeled right in front of him with papers and a textbook tucked under a skinny arm, long fingers nervously plucking up what was left of the rest of the packet, was none other than... Hobie Brown.

Oh. God.

This Hobie didn't seem to be Miles' Hobie, though.

(Miles' temperature rose a bit as he quickly thought: wait, my Hobie? That's not right, either.)

Instead of large freeform locs that tapered off like wicks, he was sporting long uniform locs that were piled up high in a loose ponytail on his head, most likely due to the school policy that stated boys needed to have hair above the nape of their neck. Miles kinda wondered about that policy, if he ever decided to grow out his hair; would pulling his hair up be enough? Or would they police his hair length and force him to cut it all off?

Well, turns out the answer was literally right in front of him. Another shock to the system right after the first one.

That was Miles' excuse, really. It was just so dang early in the morning and he really really wasn't thinking when he opened his mouth and basically shouted "Hobie?!"

It honest to god sounded like it echoed in the hallway.

He slapped a hand over his mouth, immediately chastising himself for the stupid mistake he made, mentally kicking himself. Stupid, stupid, stupid!! He wasn't supposed to know this guy obviously, they hadn't even met in their dimension yet!

Hobie, for his part, didn't seem perturbed by this at all though. He took the papers from Miles' hands and straightened himself back up to his full height, offering a hand so that Miles could stand up too.

He shrugged shyly and hid behind a couple locs that happened to fall back into his face, holding the books and papers closer to his chest.

"Uhmmn yeah, sorry. I-I'm runnin' late to my first class so I can't really give any autographs right now. Maybe later... if we see each other, ok?"

Miles blinked owlishly. Did he just say... autographs?

And wait a minute... was this Hobie... American?

Miles' poor little sleep-deprived mind was being blown again and again. He really didn't know if he was ever going to recover from this.

Hobie started to back up and walk away so Miles held his hands up to stop him. "Wait wait wait, autographs? I'm not uh-- sorry, this is weird," he laughed, rubbing his neck. "Nah, man. That's cool. I don't really want any autographs. Are you uh-- are you famous, actually?"

It was this Hobie's turn to blink owlishly now, hesitating a bit. A non-pierced eyebrow was raised as he said, "I... I kinda am...?"

He turned and pointed out the giant window of the hallway that they happened to be standing by, and Miles craned his neck to peer outside.

It smacked him right in the face once his eyes landed on it: a giant billboard fixed atop a neighboring building that depicted Hobie Brown in a luxurious-looking perfume ad. He sported the same locs as he did in real life, wearing shiny-looking makeup and giving the viewer the fiercest, smokiest look Miles has ever seen from a model in a hot minute. He was clutching deep purple satin, wrapped in it, basking in it. A single perfume bottle with a deep purple bow on the neck was photoshopped next to him, matching the overall vibe of the ad.

Miles was rooted to the spot, absolutely gobsmacked. How in the world did he miss that?!

Distantly, a small echo of a conversation he had in what seemed like a lifetime ago floated up from a memory. "I was briefly a runway model" pulsed in his neural pathways for a quick second.

Slowly, the gears started turning in his head. Slowly, he turned back to his dimension's Hobie Brown, who was giving him a strange sort of look.

Miles awkwardly tried to gather himself up, waving his hands around as he struggled for a non-weird explanation to his very weird behavior.

"I-I mean-- ahahaha! Yeah I mean, obviously you're famous! I was just y'know-- playin' with you. Pulling your leg and all that, I guess... heh."

The strange dubious look on Hobie's face didn't budge. "...Right."

Miles coughed conspicuously, trying to change the subject. "But uh yeah, haven't seen you around this school much then! Are you... you in a different grade than me or...?"

The corner of Hobie's mouth twitched suddenly, and for a split second Miles wondered if he said something wrong.

But then Hobie chuckled a bit. "No, I don't think so? This is my first day here. Like... ever. So I'm not really surprised you haven't seen me before. I just transferred over."

Miles practically sighed in relief and nodded, hands in his pockets. "Right! Right, very cool. Welcome to Visions then, I guess. Uh... I'm Miles! Miles Morales. Nice to meet ya!"

He goofily stuck a hand out, which Hobie actually accepted. They shook hands for a second, and then Miles was suddenly taken aback by how cold his hand was against his own skin. It was a definite contrast to the warm and lanky body he remembered practically draped across his own, back in Mumbattan.

He forced those particular memories away for now.

This Hobie was smiling down at him, sad eyes set inside a seemingly genuine expression of fondness. "Cool. I'm Hobie. But, uh, it seems like you already knew that, so."

"Aha, yeah yeah! It just-- honestly it's just the shock of, uh, running into a major celeb in the middle of my school that really got to me, I think. Sorry. I probably look like a total weirdo right now!"

Hobie shook his head, and Miles took the opportunity to really study this guy now that the shock was over and the vibe was more chill. This Hobie was just as long and lanky as the punk anarchist Miles was already well acquainted with, but he held himself completely differently. Where Spider-Hobie was all confident strut and careless swagger, this Hobie seemed to be all reserved grace and... sadness? He definitely reminded Miles of a willow tree drooping down into a lake, beautiful but tragic at the same time.

Okay Miles, get it together, he thought, stop thinking this guy is beautiful. I mean, he is beautiful yeah... but c'mon man, focus!

Hobie's non-pierced lips were moving now, finishing a sentence that Miles most definitely did not catch.

Then, Hobie looked at him expectantly.

Oh shit. He just asked a question didn't he? Fuck.

"Uh, sorry... one more time?" Miles grinned as wide as he could, apologetic. Nice going, Morales, the humorless voice in his head chimed in. Definitely not convincing this guy you're an alien from outer space or anything!

Hobie huffed a laugh and cleared his throat. "Sorry, my fault. Sometimes I mumble and... yeah. Mom says I need to work on that," he sighed, then continued, "I was just wondering if you knew where room 301 was?"

Miles nearly jumped with the force of the realization that just hit him.

"301? Mr. Moriarty's class?"

"Y-yeah, that's the one," Hobie smiled, twirling a loc on one finger and tugging it a bit. Then he tucked it back behind his ear. "I'm actually so lost it's not even funny, I'm godawful at directions and like, navigating. I've been looking for it for like 20 minutes now--"

"That's where my first class is too! AP chem!"

Hobie seemed to brighten up a bit at that, straightening his posture up from his own self-conscious hunch. "Oh cool! We should probably get going then, if we don't wanna be more late than we already are."

Without thinking, Miles places a hand on Hobie's shoulder and steers them both towards a classroom right at the end of the hallway they were in.

"Of course, right this way! Pretty lucky you ran into me, huh? I can help you find your other classes later on if you want, too."

For the first time since nearly crashing into him, Miles looked up at Hobie and saw genuine happiness in his eyes as they grinned at each other and walked down the hall together.

"...Yeah," Hobie said, nodding slowly. "Yeah that'd be pretty cool. Thanks!"

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Their chemistry teacher ended up not being a total hardass after all! Especially when Miles rolled up with none other than Famous Model Hobie in tow, immediately causing a ripple of whispers amongst the students sat at their desks.

Mr. Moriarty was a short and stumpy old man with a kind face and a severely receding hairline. He took one look at Hobie after squinting at his attendance sheet, accepted Miles' quick explanation that they were late because Hobie's minty fresh enrollment got him all lost in these maze-like hallways, and excused their tardiness with a wave of a hand.

"It's the first day and you were very kind to help a new student out, Mr. Morales. You're both excused for today, but try not to make a habit of it, alright?"

Miles bobbed his head as he picked his way past rows of desks. "Absolutely, sir. No problem at all. Thanks a bunch!"

Hobie stuck close to him, and smiled a bit as the only two desks left empty in the whole room happened to be right next to each other, right up in the back of the class. Nice.

They took their seats and exchanged a couple of glances as they pulled out their notebooks, barely listening to their professor's quick introduction and class syllabus. Well, Miles was barely listening, anyways. He was too caught up in the euphoria of running into a dimensional variant of one of his friends, in Visions Academy no less! His mind started to wander a bit. Did a 1610 Gwen exist too? a 1610 Pavitr? Were they also here at Visions? And what was with these random stares he and Hobie were getting from their fellow classmates right now?

Every now and then a student's head would swivel back to glance in their direction, awestruck looks evident on their faces.

How famous was Hobie anyway?

Of course, there was that giant billboard conveniently placed within view of the school's back hallways near a busy intersection, but Miles really started to think. He sneakily pulled out his phone and swiped down to the lowest brightness he could in case the classroom's fluorescent lighting wasn't enough to hide the phone screen's own light.

He kept his face straight forward, eyes flicking to and from his typing that he was trying to conceal behind the student sitting in front of him. He typed Hobie Brown model, Hobie Brown perfume ad, Hobie Brown supermodel, getting absolutely nothing every single time. Well, nothing that looked like the Hobie Brown sitting next to him, who happened to be dutifully scribbling down some notes in his notebook. Miles looked down at his own empty sheet of paper and quickly copied his new friend, whipping out a pencil and hurrying to catch up with the lecture on the whiteboard before the professor moved on.

Groan. What gives? Was Hobie this super accomplished, totally famous supermodel or not? Maybe he wasn't on social media, oddly enough. Maybe he just started an illustrious career and happened to be famous only in Brooklyn right now? No, that didn't make sense. If he was some small-time influencer or whatever, people would not be asking for autographs so often that Hobie would just automatically assume anyone who recognized him wanted one. And the looks on these other kids' faces convinced Miles that... maybe something was missing. Maybe he's just not searching up the right terms?

Agh, if only Spiderman business didn't keep him totally detached from reality sometimes. He really felt like he and the rest of the world were on totally different planets. If he had any friends besides Ganke, he probably would've heard about Hobie by now.

He bit his lip in concentration, trying to multitask between forming theories and keeping up with the lesson in the front of the classroom.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a pair of eyes staring straight at him that didn't belong to the other classmates he barely even knew. He glanced over at Hobie, who quickly looked away.

Was that... an embarrassed look on his face just now? Miles scratched at his jaw a bit, more confused than before.

That was weird. Whatever. Anyways...

Before long, class was over and the bell rang. Miles and Hobie both meandered slowly up to the door and hung around the outside, leaning against the wall as they compared schedules before they had to make their way to their next class.

"Dang," Miles lamented, clutching his own schedule and moving to slot it into the cover of his binder. "Looks like we don't share any more classes besides 1st period..."

Hobie stopped his hand and squinted at the sheet again, glancing back at his own. "Uhmm... nah, actually. I think we might have 6th period together? Right after lunch."

"Do we share a lunch period too, actually?" Miles asked excitedly.

Hobie made a small noise of triumph, a smile playing over his lips. "Yeah! 1st, lunch and then 6th. Okay. Better than nothing, right?"

Miles chuckled, shoving his schedule into the plastic and tucking it under his arm. "Definitely. We can eat together at the cafeteria if you want! I'll walk you to your next class though, since it's basically right around the corner."

Hobie shrugged his own backpack back onto his shoulder and shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. His eyes were cast downwards as he grinned at the floor and said, "yeah, if you don't mind... that'd be pretty cool."

This guy sure does like the word cool, Miles thought, and away to Hobie's next class they both went. They both ignored the various whispers and stares in their direction. Miles was already used to it by now.

They walked together amiably, in near lockstep for a little while before Hobie finally spoke up again.

"... So... if you don't mind me asking... why are you so nice to me if you didn't know I was famous, then?"

It was an innocent enough question, but it kinda caught Miles off guard nonetheless.

He laughed nervously. "Uhh ahaha, whaddya mean? I did know you were famous! I just... y'know my brain doesn't work the best real early in the morning. I'm, uh. Sometimes I can be pretty weird, if you haven't noticed by now."

Hobie nodded slowly, digesting this information for a bit. "Yeah, you did recognize me in the first place, I guess. It's just weird, you're like... the first person I met that doesn't look at me like I'm made out of solid gold, though. That's all..."

They exchanged glances again, and Miles' brain was working into overdrive, thinking of an appropriate response.

Before he could open his mouth, they finally reached their destination and Hobie bumped Miles' shoulder with his arm, smiling.

"So, thanks. For, uh... this. All this."

Miles raised a brow at him. "Oh yeah, this is nothing. I just walked you over to your next class, no biggie. My class is right over here anyways, so--"

Hobie laughed and shook his head, the expression lighting up his facial features unlike anything Miles has seen on that face yet.

"No, Miles. Not just this. I mean, like..." Hobie dipped his head, a bashful sort of move. "I mean, like, being nice to me. Like forreal. I really appreciate this."

They looked at each other for a moment, something real warm growing in Miles' chest all of a sudden, something... familiar.

He was just about to casually brush the gratitude off a second time with a dorky quip, before some girl's screechy voice interrupted their private little moment out of nowhere. It honestly startled them both, and the nice warm atmosphere dissipated immediately.

"Oh. My. GOD!! Is that Hobie Jones? Like actually?!"

She giggled and bounded up to them, blatantly ignoring Miles to insert herself between them and crowd into Hobie's space. She coquettishly asked for a selfie with him, promising to tag him on social media. The sudden commotion unfortunately attracted some other students who then took their cue to also bother Hobie for autographs, selfies, throwing compliments left and right.

Miles backed up out of the crowd, eyes still on Hobie as he watched the poor guy metaphorically slip on a mask, the very same that Miles saw when they first met not 2 hours ago. It was a sad, detached sort of look, and Hobie was forced to hunch in on himself to meet his fellow students' heights as they snapped selfie after selfie. His lips formed a smile all the while. His eyes did not.

A pang of sympathy hit Miles as he slowly turned away and made his way down to his own classroom without so much as a goodbye. He shrugged to himself, shaking his head. Yeah, he knew how that felt, just trying to mind your own business and live your life, do what you have to do-- and being stopped by nearly every living being within a 50 ft radius wanting their photo ops and their babies kissed.

Miles smiled to himself as he shouldered his way past other students and sauntered into his class, right on time. The bell rang as he reached his desk, and he pulled out another notebook out of his bag before the realization finally hit him with the force of a truck.

Wait... Hobie JONES?!

Miles quickly glanced around at his surroundings and mentally kicked himself yet again for choosing a seat so close to the teacher's desk, almost right up at the front. Damnit!

But the teacher wasn't in the classroom just yet, most likely making a quick run down to the printer down the hall to make copies of the class syllabus or something.

Okay, Morales. Gotta be quick.

He hastily pulled out his phone yet again, one eye on the door. He quickly typed in Hobie Jones model in his browser's search box, letting out a breath as search results loaded up and gave him exactly what he was looking for this entire time.

Bingo.

Hobie's face popped up in the image search previews, all sorts of cool and striking photoshoots lit up in all kinds of different ways. And the very first link at the top of the page? Hobie's own Flickstagram.

With a shaky hand, Miles tapped the link and impatiently waited for it to load, for his phone to get with the program and just open the damn app already. He kept glancing every so often at the door yet again, praying that the printer or copier-- or whatever-the-hell that was keeping the professor away from the class-- would keep them away for just a second longer.

He finally cast his gaze back down onto his own Flickstagram app and his heart nearly dropped out of his chest.

At the top, right next to Hobie's own smoldering profile picture was his username: hobiemjones

hobiemjones... hobie m jones. Hobie M. Jones.

M.J.

Miles exhaled again and tucked his phone away in shock just as the classroom door opened yet again and all the students quieted down. This class's teacher made their way over to their desk, piles of papers in hand. They started to pass them out to the students in the front row, introducing themself and then going over the usual attendance policies.

Miles accepted the syllabus sheets with trembling hands, turning to pass them over his shoulder once he got his own, his mind running a hundred miles a minute.

Peter talked nonstop about his wife, whenever he managed to stop talking about his baby, that is. It was always MJ this, MJ that. Flashes of a middle-aged man staring forlornly at a picture of his then-ex wife-- grieving the one who got away-- raced across his mind's eye. His universe's own MJ standing at a podium, strong but deeply hurt as she addressed all of Brooklyn after Spiderman's funeral.

"She wanted kids and I... just wasn't ready," echoed over and over in Miles' mind. Of course, they're together now. But the way Peter talked about his divorce... oh god.

Wait... was Miles ready for kids? Were he and Hobie going to have a messy on-and-off again relationship that ended up with them having to care for a spider-baby just like Mayday?! Maybe even multiple spider-babies?!?!?

Miles loosened his tie a bit, sweating profusely.

The fact that neither Hobie nor Miles were equipped with the parts to make a baby together flew right over his head. No... instead, his mind skipped straight to marriage, messy emotional fights and inevitable breakups. How was he gonna juggle school, work, Spiderman stuff and a relationship all at once?!

Without realizing, Miles started hyperventilating.

No no no no no, cool it Miles. COOL IT. Don't be weird. Miles mentally slapped himself and tried to even out his breathing as he leaned back in his seat and wiped some sweat off his brow.

He just proved to Miguel O' Hara and the entire multiverse this past spring that he can do his own thing, canon events be damned. Miles Morales was no victim to fate. Maybe all of the other spider-people had their own MJs. But maybe in this universe, MJ and Spiderman were... just friends. Good friends! ...Yeah, yeah, just friends...

The idea floated around in Miles' head throughout the entire rest of the class, but it didn't really make the tightness in his chest loosen up any at all.

Once the bell rang again and everyone started packing their things up, Miles dawdled a bit by the door, fumbling with his phone as his classmates filed out of the room. If he was late enough, maybe he'd completely miss Hobie in the hallways and not have to see him at all. Miles double-checked, triple-checked his schedule again and again, mapping out an eventual escape route through the halls in case Hobie's path did intercept Miles'.

God, Miles thought ruefully, checking the hour on his phone for the 15th time in a row and smiling awkwardly at his teacher's questioning glance. You're being so fucking weird about this right now!

The rational part of his brain kicked in and presented a quick slideshow of other calmer, more reasonable explanations as to why he really shouldn't be avoiding his new friend like the plague all of a sudden.

1. Hobie probably doesn't and won't like me, it stated. There is literally no proof that Hobie Jones is even into guys. Or me, Miles Morales.

2. Even if Hobie Jones is into guys-- or me, Miles Morales-- that does not mean the endgame is automatically marriage. No sir, no proof of that at all!

3. Canon events were officially disproven. Kinda. Mostly. Sort of?

C'mon, bro. Just man up and get out there. You're gonna be late for the next class soon anyways.

Right. He inhaled deeply and steeled himself.

"Okay well, uh. Have a nice day Mx. Gonzalez! See ya... tomorrow." Miles cringed inwardly at how lame that sounded, but his teacher didn't seem to notice as they bid him a nice day as well.

With his heart in his stomach, Miles slowly made his way into the hallway and started walking at a brisk pace, keeping his eyeline straight in front of him, trying to reach his next class on the floor below quickly but manageably. It was when he reached the stairs that his heart sank even lower.

Hobie was standing right next to the stairwell, glaring at the school map placed on the wall off to the left, fingertips on his chin as he mumbled to himself. He was glancing up and down between the map and his schedule in his hand, clearly befuddled.

Damn, he really is bad at navigating, Miles mused, once he recovered.

But as luck would have it, tragedy struck right then. Miles being pretty much the only other kid in the hallway attracted Hobie's attention, and even though Miles' feet kept him moving, he almost tripped on air once Hobie perked up upon seeing him.

"Miles!" Hobie grinned and waved him over, clearly happy to see him.

Oh noooo. Miles was not as happy to see him.

Without thinking, he launched himself down the flight of stairs, hopping over the railing and landing loudly on the 1st floor. Once steady, he basically sprinted over to his 3rd period class, completely missing the way Hobie's sunny grin slowly disappeared and his hand lowered back down to his side.

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Lunchtime came and went. Miles ate his packed lunch at his usual perch on top of the school building, where he always hid while trying to avoid the rest of the student body. He managed to pick a good spot away from prying eyes, and it never failed him.

Hobie ate alone, at a table tucked into the corner of the cafeteria despite being invited to several other tables. He sat and chewed sadly, locs back in front of his eyes, posture hunched over and defeated.

6th period came and went. Miles purposefully kept his gaze averted as Hobie walked in 5 minutes late. They sat at opposite ends of the room, never acknowledging each other's existence.

The school day ended and Miles made his way back to the dorms, sighing with relief once he glanced out the window and saw giant rainclouds rolling in over the horizon. Man, was he glad he got to bunk up on campus with his best friend! He greeted Ganke, kicked off his shoes and climbed up onto his bunkbed, laying back with a sigh. Maybe tomorrow he'd confront Hobie about his erratic behavior and apologize. Maybe.

But that was a problem for future Miles...

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Outside, the rain started falling fast and hard.

Outside, Hobie M. Jones waited miserably by the curb with an umbrella in hand, getting drenched by the water nonetheless. He checked his phone for the 15th time and sniffled angrily, pocketing it and gripping onto his umbrella handle.

Late. Again.

His mother was late to pick him up, as usual.

He swiped at a tear rolling down his cheek and finally loosened his ponytail, letting his locs fall all around his face.

Once she arrived, his mother was going to inevitably ask him how his day was, look only slightly concerned about his angry tears and ask if he made any new friends anyways, despite knowing the answer.

No, mom, Hobie would say as he kept his eyes glued to the car window.

No. I didn't make any friends.

[thesupremeuziplushy]

Could you do doll with a worker drone reader that voice often glitches like spamtons voice

Doll x WD!Reader with a glitchy voice

I like this one a lot! But I won't actually add stutter or glitchy effects into the text to make it a bit easier to read for dyslexic people. Also, I will use google translate for the Russian sentences and they will 100% not be correct!

Doll doesn't talk a whole lot, that one is for sure.

She prefers listening to other people talking and a weird habit of hers is to pay attention to how their voices sound like

Do they have accents? In what pitch do they talk? What feeling do their voices give, something calming, something exciting?

She appreciates the unique voices the most. People speaking in different languages or accents, dynamic voices that adapt easily to the mood, etc.

And then there's your voice, the most special of them all

You survived an unfortunate incident against the murder drones but not without scratches.

You'd often stutter, getting stuck on words that were once easy to say.

Your voice also had a gritty and glitchy texture which sounded far from pleasant.

The other workers try not to exclude you. They always try to involve you in their activities because they know it's not your fault your voice is like that.

And yet, they often can't listen to it for long, always cutting conversations short.

It hurt. A lot. People began to talk to you less and less until literally, nobody talked to you. Only a select amount of people felt enough pity for you to try.

Doll wasn't aware of any of that. She always thought you never talked because you were, like her, a listener. And thus, she never approached you for a conversation.

You walked around with a huge of paper stacked on top of each other, covering your vision. Cursing at yourself, you regret offering help to the teacher to carry all the worksheets into the faculty room. But then again, he's the only one that hasn't treated you any differently from the rest. No judgment but also no pity.

Doll's gaze was set on her friend Lizzy as she waved goodbye, not noticing you approach her. You bump into each other, sheets falling everywhere on the ground as you flail around, trying to gather each and every one of them.

"I'm sorry, I didn't pay attention..." You say quickly, avoiding Doll's gaze. She stared in awe, mouth hanging open before snapping back to reality, helping you.

"Все нормально. Я не был осторожен." (Everything is fine. I wasn't careful) Now it was your turn to open your mouth in awe. You never heard any worker drone speak any language other than English. Sure, some came with silly accents but they all stuck to the same language.

"You speak Russian?" You ask, perking up. She looks up at you, handing you the last worksheets, and smiles, nodding her head.

"Ваш голос в уникальном" (Your voice is unique). Your smile falters a little, thinking she's about to say something negative or pitiful afterward. But nothing came. Just her gentle smile and a curious glint in her eyes. "Меня зовут Кукла. Как тебя зовут?" (My name is Doll. What is your name?)

"O-Oh?" She's asking you a question? "My name is..."

Doll somehow always managed to find something to talk about around you. And to your surprise, she never interrupted you nor tried to find an excuse to leave. Quiet the opposite actually, she refused to leave you alone.

While creepy to some to you it felt euphoric. You rambled on and on about your favorite topics, hobbies, and interests and Doll would sometimes share some of her own.

You'd get to know each other a lot in a short period of time. Even though Doll doesn't talk as much you could always tell she was listening intensely to what you said.

It didn't take long for you to start dating. Being this obsessed with each other surely wasn't a normal friendship!

Doll recalls how her mother Yeva described love.

It's like an addicting feeling. Something you always want more of and yet feel empty without. It hypnotizes you and you feel like you can see all the colors brighter and happier than they are even if it blinds you. It's the wind that blows the clouds away and the lullaby's to calm you to sleep.

And in Doll's case, she can't get enough of your voice.

[withacapitalp]

How to Rehabilitate a Jock Pt 5

Part One Part Four Ao3 link Part 6

Reminder I'm not accepting anyone new on my tag list! Sorry if you want updates follow me here or subscribe on ao3! Also some warnings for Steve having PTSD and dyslexia in this fic. These two are going to start coming up more often but they begin here. Storytime!!

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Typically, a character starts at 1st level and advances in level in the adventuring world, although he or she might have been a soldier or a pirate and done dangerous things before.

Steve blew all of his breath out in an irritated sigh, balancing his forehead against his left palm and leaning impossibly closer to the book in front of him, willing the words to make sense. He put his right index finger underneath the line he was trying to read, using the trick his Seventh Grade English teacher had shown him. 

Tyqically, a character stars at 1st level and advantages in level by abvemturing and morbid, although he or she might have been a sober or a gyrate and done dangerous thinps before.

He squeezed his eyes shut, resisting the urge to just grab the book and throw it against the wall. The sentences were starting to float around the page like driftwood, the letters choosing to make whatever damn words they pleased, and Steve was left drowning in the ocean without a tether as per usual.  

Why did it matter if the characters were sober or gyrating? Did every character swear to be virtuous or some shit? That seemed like the kind of thing a stupid nerd game would come up with. 

No, he probably just had it wrong. Steve just needed to read it again, but the thought of looking at the same paragraph he had been struggling with for the last fifteen minutes made him want to throw up. 

When Eddie had given him the book last week, Steve had just thanked him and put it in his bag with no intention of reading it. But, Hellfire was at the end of the week, and he had said he would have a character to show them. He was determined to do just that, show them that he was taking this all seriously, but he couldn’t make a character until he understood what the game was. 

And, apparently, he had to read to do that. Eddie had said he wouldn’t just hand everything to Steve on a silver platter.  

You have to earn it. That was what Eddie had said as he gave Steve the book. He was going to have to earn this. So he had tried. He had been trying for five days now, and he was only on page eight. 

Eight. Eight of like three hundred. 

Steve was starting to think that maybe Hellfire wasn’t worth all the headaches he was getting trying to read this stupid book. 

“Hey, Steve!” 

Steve slammed the book shut as soon as he heard Nancy’s voice from behind him, scrambling to hide it under his other textbooks and act nonchalant as she and Jonathan came around the corner of the table and stood opposite him. 

“How’s uh- how’s it going?” Jonathan asked, looking everywhere but directly at him. 

Jonathan’s hands were fidgeting at his sides, his fingers twitching like he kept wanting to take Nancy’s hand, but kept stopping himself just before he could. Nancy was staring directly at him with the firm sort of determination she always had, her shoulders back, her head high. Steve resisted the urge to sigh. 

“I’m fine,” He said, keeping his voice low and casual, “How’re you guys?”

“Good,” Nancy said, answering for both of them. She took the seat opposite of Steve without asking, pulling out the chair next to her so Jonathan could sit as well. She was still looking right at Steve with fire burning in her eyes, daring him to say something. 

Let it be known, Nancy Wheeler was never going to back down from a challenge. She was strong as a lioness, as stubborn as a mule, and probably the most amazing woman Steve had ever met. Joyce Byers, Max Mayfield, and El Hopper were all extremely close seconds. 

But he couldn’t really picture any of them doing what Nancy was so set on doing. 

Somewhere during that last god awful night, Nancy had decided that the three of them were going to be friends. There had been a Steve and Nancy, a Nancy and Jonathan, but never a Steve and Nancy and Jonathan, and she was hell bent on seeing it happen. 

And to make it happen, she continued to insert both of them into Steve’s life whenever she could. 

Walking to shared classes, forcing him to come upstairs to say hi and chat for awhile when he came to get the kids from her house, and, of course, random library meetups like this one. After so many of these little check-ins, so many stilted conversations with the former love of his life and the guy she had left him for, it really shouldn’t be too awkward anymore. 

It was still awkward. 

“You’re spending a lot of time with the kids,” Nancy finally said after she couldn’t stand another second of uncomfortable silence. 

The kids were an easy topic. They were something all three of them had in common. Steve could talk about them. 

“They’re spending a lot of time with me,” He amended, trying to give her a smile. He could try for Nancy. It was the least he could do, “They just show up at my house whenever they want to and hang around my car until I agree to drive them places.”

“Sounds like them,” Jonathan murmured, and Steve huffed out a soft chuckle. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, Jonathan could be pretty funny.

“If they’re getting annoying I can tell Mike to back off,” Nancy offered, missing the point. 

“No! No it’s fine,” Steve said quickly, trying to ignore the way his heart was suddenly racing. 

His mind flooded with a thousand and one things that could happen if he wasn’t around, all the possibilities, all the ways that his kids could get themselves into trouble. He knew that they were smart, and capable, and resourceful, but they were also twelve. Twelve year olds who had fought against hell. Twelve year olds that needed deserved to have someone to protect them for once. 

And Steve needed the kids too if he could be painfully honest with himself. 

“It’s nice, actually. Fills up the time, and better than them just being left alone to get into trouble,” Steve said with a nervous little laugh, forcing his face to stay easy and even. If he acted too weird about this, then Nancy would poke and prod until she found everything out, and Steve couldn’t deal with that right now. 

It was hard enough to breathe as it was. 

Nancy was giving him a searching look, pinning him down onto a corkboard and examining what she found there. He had already lost her, if he had ever had anything to actually lose, and now the thought of losing the kids because of her was making his stomach twist up in knots. 

It wasn’t a fair thought, probably wasn’t even an accurate one, but Steve couldn’t make it go away. 

“They are little trouble magnets,” Jonathan tacked on, clearly not understanding what was happening between the two of them, “But you seem to have them well handled.”

Something about what Jonathan said made Stvee’s breath come a little easier, and he forced his shoulders to relax. No one was taking the kids away from him. No one was doing anything. 

Steve was just overreacting like he always seemed to do these days. 

“Yeah,” Steve responded, just so the ball was out of his court again. He couldn’t stand needing to be the one to say the next thing to cut through the silence. 

Unexpectedly, it wasn’t Nancy or Jonathan that took that next step. 

It was Eddie. 

“Yo, Harrington!” 

Every head in the library shot up, except Steve’s. He cringed, ducking his head low and trying to avoid the stares that were starting to come towards him. Eddie, who never really seemed to care who was looking and who wasn’t, continued to wave at him with big over the top gestures, trying to coax Steve over to his table. 

“Is that Eddie Munson?” Nancy asked, perplexed.

Steve very quickly saw the out that had been offered and grabbed it with both hands. He stood up and began to stuff his papers and books into his backpack. 

“Yeah, that’s Eddie. I better go see what he wants, but I’ll see you guys around, yeah?” He said, sliding around the table and giving them a wave, rushing away before Nancy could ask any of the other questions starting to form. 

Eddie settled down when he saw Steve coming his way. He was alone at his table, completely surrounded by scraps of paper and open books. He loomed over them all, trying valiantly to make a tiny space for Steve to put his bag as he took the only free seat. 

“What’s up?” Steve asked, not exactly sure why Eddie wanted his company. 

“Nothing,” Eddie immediately replied, waiting a second and clearly enjoying the look of confusion Steve gave him before continuing, “Just thought I’d save you from that,”

He looked past Steve, and when Steve turned around, Nancy and Jonathan were openly staring at the two of them. Well, half of the library was openly staring, but whatever. Steve couldn’t care anymore. 

“My hero,” He said sarcastically, turning back in his seat and resting his chin on top of his backpack. 

“Why were they bothering you?” Eddie asked, futzing with his papers. 

“They weren’t, just sitting,” Steve said, not quite on the defensive yet, but still feeling that urge to protect starting to hum in the back of his mind. 

He had heard some of the things people were saying about the whole situation, and he hated the thought of Nancy or Jonathan catching heat. They hadn’t done anything wrong, at least, nothing that bad. They shouldn't have to deal with defending themselves right at the start of their relationship. It wasn’t really their fault that it just happened to come at the death of Steve’s. 

“That’s weird,” Eddie stated, unintentionally treading right into dangerous territory, “I mean, it’s not like you guys are friends,”

“We are,” Steve protested automatically. Eddie raised a brow, and he faltered, trying to find the right words, “Well- I mean…”

Were they? 

They didn’t really have all that much in common, and every single time they spoke it was clear all three of them weren’t really ready to be close, but Steve still considered them friends. 

At the very least, Nancy and Jonathan were incredibly important people in his life, even if they weren't necessarily his friends. There were a few things that permanently bonded people, and killing an actual real life demon was one of those things. 

But he couldn’t tell Eddie any of that. 

“It’s complicated,” Steve settled on, hating how cliche that sounded. Eddie’s brow furrowed and he rubbed his thumb across his lower lip as he thought about what he wanted to say next. 

It was honestly kind of cute. 

“Nancy cheated on you,” Eddie stated bluntly. 

Less cute now. 

Steve flinched back, unable to help his first reaction. Cheating was such a harsh word, burning and bloody. It evoked images of The Hawk, and spray paint staining his fingers for months on end. He had promised himself he would never accuse anyone of it ever again unless he absolutely 100% knew for sure that it had happened. 

Except, in this case, he did. Jonathan had told him, clearly scared out of his mind, but he had still manned up and told him. They had slept together when they were at that dude’s house, the one who helped Nancy get justice for Barb. Steve had listened, put the information in a little box in his mind, and put the box on a shelf. 

Because that’s what Steve did. He just pretended he was okay no matter what, because he didn’t know any other way to be. He pretended like the sight of his pool didn’t make him nauseous, and he pretended like they hadn’t all almost died, and he pretended like he didn’t wake up gasping for air at least twice a week. 

Steve pretended, because he didn’t know how to live with everything that had happened. But Nancy did, and Jonathan did, and the issue here was obviously Steve, not them. He had pretended Nancy right into Jonathan’s arms, and he had no one to blame for that except himself. 

So, was it really cheating when it was Steve’s fault that it happened? 

Nancy was right. He was really just…bullshit. 

And yet, all of that also fell into the category of ‘Things Steve Wasn’t Legally Allowed to Tell Eddie’. He just had to go for the bullshit pretending answer. 

“Yeah. She cheated on me.” 

“That doesn’t sound too complicated,” Eddie said with a shrug and Steve leaned back in his chair, staring down at his hands which were fisted up in his khakis. 

“Well it is,” Steve replied moodily, “It’s really fucking complicated, and I really don’t want to talk about it,” 

“But she hurt you,” Eddie said, still using that stupid statement voice. 

“Yeah, she hurt me, but I love her so-” Steve cut himself off, biting his tongue harshly. Yeah, he still loved her, but admitting that was fucking pathetic. 

And yet, Steve was pretty sure a part of him was going to love Nancy Wheeler for the rest of his life. 

“So that makes it okay?” Eddie asked, and Steve sighed, exhausted with the conversation. 

“It means I can forgive her,” He said softly, trying to will his heart to stop aching, “It means I still want her in my life. Jonathan too. We’ve gone through stuff together. It’d be weird if we didn’t become friends after everything that’s happened,” 

That was still probably too much to say, but Steve almost felt like he owed Eddie that much. The guy had done nothing but try to help, try to be supportive; he wanted to give him some kind of explanation for why he was continuing to torture himself with the sight of his ex and Jonathan. 

Eddie still seemed pretty confused, and Steve doubted he even half understood, but his eyes had softened up, looking at Steve in a way that made his stomach feel funny. Not in the same way it had before with Nancy, just…funny. 

“You’re a strange creature, Steve Harrington,” Eddie finally said, giving Steve a slow sweet smile. Steve shook his head, shooting Eddie a wry grin. 

“And you, Eddie Munson, are a nosy jackass,” He snarked. Eddie laughed, too loud for the quiet library. Everything about Eddie was too much, always. He stood out from the crowd- no he didn’t just stand out, he forced himself out. Everyone had to notice him, everyone had to see. Steve, who had always done everything he could to blend in, to become one of the popular crowd, it was thrilling. 

“Too true my liege,” Eddie said, inclining his head ever so slightly, “How’s your character coming?”

Steve rolled his eyes, digging around in his bag to grab the offending enemy, waving it around his head. 

“Well, if I could stop wanting to hurl this book into the Quarry, I think I would be making progress,” 

“What did the player handbook ever do to you?” Eddie gasped in mock horror, reaching up to pluck the book from Steve’s grasp and hold it protectively against his chest. Steve, already used to Eddie’s theatrics from their few interactions, just scowled and crossed his arms. 

“It’s long, overly complicated, and the letters keep jumping around,” He griped.

Eddie slid out of the persona he had created as quickly as he had come into it, cocking his head to the side and making those bambi eyes somehow even bigger.

“Jumping around?” Eddie questioned. 

“Yeah, but that one is really kind of an every book situation. I’m not big on reading. School’s just not my thing. Give me a ball or a kid to wrangle, that’s where I shine,” Steve said in a joking tone, trying to steer the conversation to other places. If he could get Eddie on a rant about basketball, or teasing him for babysitting, then they wouldn’t have to talk about his difficulties with reading. 

And Steve really did not want to talk about his difficulties with reading. 

It wasn’t exactly like he was ashamed of not really being able to read, except he really fucking was. What kind of person got to their senior year of high school and still couldn’t manage to read more than a page without wanting to give up? What kind of person still couldn’t manage to spell a single full sentence correctly at almost eighteen? 

An idiot. That’s who. 

But, if Eddie hadn’t already realized how much of a numbskull Steve was, then he wasn’t all that anxious to show his new friend. Everyone in Eddie’s circle was just like his kids, wicked smart and unafraid to flaunt it. If Eddie figured out just how much Steve really didn’t belong with them, he might change his mind about having Steve around. 

No, on the whole, it was just better to derail the conversation. But Eddie didn’t seem to want to be derailed. 

“What page are you on?” He asked Steve, his face frustratingly neutral. 

Steve bit the tip of his tongue, contemplating just how far he might get in a lie. Would fifty pages be too obvious? Maybe he could say twenty five, and try to get Eddie on a rambling tangent before he began quizzing Steve on statistics. But as Steve went to open his mouth to try and spin a story that might work, Eddie held up a hand, cutting him off. 

“Hey, I don’t judge. I just failed an essay because apparently Star Wars isn’t ‘an appropriate choice for analyzing the Hero’s Journey’,” Eddie said in a mocking false voice, handing the essay over as evidence.

A big fat ‘F’ sat at the top of the paper, circled in red. Steve’s brow furrowed, and he put it down, grabbing his own essay out of his bag. He and Eddie weren’t in the same class, but they did have the same teacher. 

She had given Steve a ‘C’, and Steve’s essay was only two pages to Eddie’s five. 

“Wait, do you mean the big wheel thing?” Steve asked. Eddie nodded, his mouth screwed up into a frustrated pout. Steve picked up his notebook and flipped to a clean page, drawing out a circle. 

“But it works perfectly, why would she tell you it didn’t?” Steve made a mark at the top of the circle, “Leia’s hologram is Luke’s call to action, the force is his supernatural thing, his inciting incident is his aunt and uncle being killed, Obi Wan is the mentor, the robots are the helpers, and then Han is too. And Chewie! Obi Wan dying is the abyss, and then Luke transforms at the death star, becomes a jedi, and saves the galaxy.”

Steve continued to make little doodles along the edges of the wheel, muttering to himself. It was a really good example actually, and he was kind of jealous. He had just used The Odyssey like their teacher had suggested, but Star Wars was a way cooler option. 

Why had she failed Eddie? At the very least he should have gotten a ‘C’ like Steve did. Even if she didn’t like what he had written, he had put in way more effort than Steve had. 

Then, he noticed how quiet the table had gotten. He looked up briefly, and Eddie was looking at him, his jaw dropped, eyes wide in a whole different way. 

“What?” He asked, unsure of why exactly Eddie was just staring at him. 

“Steve, how is it possible that you just perfectly outlined the hero’s journey, but school ‘isn’t’ your thing?”

He squirmed in his seat, instantly uncomfortable. His parents liked to say things like that- he was smart, but he was just lazy. If he tried, then he would get better grades. 

Steve would be at a dinner or some other stupid social function that he was dragged to and say something that was apparently impressively insightful, which should have been the right thing to do. 

It never was. 

Instead of praising him, his parents would always shake their heads, look at their friends, and sigh that if Steve just applied himself, he would do better. That they had done their best, and clearly he had the ability, he just lacked work ethic. 

It didn’t matter how many times Steve attempted to explain that he was trying, that he stayed up all night sometimes, just trying and trying and trying. They didn’t care. 

Eddie didn’t seem to mean it the same way as they usually did, but it was close enough to make Steve want to curl up in a ball and disappear. 

“This is a picture. Pictures don’t move,” Steve said, mentally praying for the bell to ring, but knowing it wasn’t going to. They still had at least a half hour left in the period. Plenty of time for Eddie to ‘try and help’ which would probably just end with Steve being even more humiliated than he already was. 

“What if I read it out loud to you?” Eddie offered.

It was a genuine offer, Steve could tell that it was. It was sweet, and it was kind, and Steve could never accept it. 

“You don’t have to,” Steve protested, ignoring the part of his mind that thought it might be nice to get to listen to Eddie talk. He was a gifted storyteller, and Steve was always greedy for stories, even though they were so inaccessible to him. 

Still, he wasn’t some toddler sitting on his mother’s lap, and Eddie wasn’t holding a picture book. 

“I just want to get what I need to make a character, that’s all,” Steve said. He just wanted to be able to do enough that he would get by fairly okay during the next Hellfire meeting. He just wanted to be able to prove that he did want to join them. 

“Then, I’ll read the parts you need for that, and I’ll help you fill in whatever gaps,” Eddie amended, reaching out yet again. He even physically reached this time, leaning over the table and squeezing Steve’s wrist once before settling back. 

Steve opened his mouth to agree, to just say yes, but his voice was failing him. The words were stuck in his throat, and no matter how hard he tried to force them out, they just wouldn’t budge. 

“Sweetheart, I’m a super senior,” He pointed out with a little self-deprecating laugh, “I’m in no position to judge. And, even if I was, I wouldn’t.” 

There it was again. 

Sweetheart. 

Eddie had called him that after Hellfire, and Steve had brushed it off, considering it a fluke or a slip of the tongue. Given the deer in headlights look he had given Steve the second he said it, that wasn’t a bad call. 

This clearly was not the same. Eddie had meant to call him ‘Sweetheart’ this time, knowing that Steve wasn’t necessarily going to mind it. He chewed on his lip, worrying it between his teeth as he tried to figure out why exactly he didn’t mind Eddie calling him a pet name. 

It was the kind of thing Steve usually used for girls he was trying to woo, the kind of thing a guy would say to a girl. He had never heard a guy call another guy ‘Sweetheart’ before, but no matter how hard he searched, Steve couldn’t find a single part of himself that minded. Sure, he was confused by it, but it wasn’t upsetting or anything. 

Just weird. 

Not even weird in a bad way, and wasn’t that a head trip? 

Fuck it. He already had enough on his plate as it was. Steve didn’t have the time or the energy to try and figure that one out. 

He got up from his chair and came around to the other side, sitting on Eddie’s left the way he had during the Hellfire meeting the week before. Eddie beamed, settling down and putting the book on the table between them both. Steve didn’t need to say yes, Eddie just knew, and for that he was grateful. He was already struggling enough as it was. 

“What page?” Eddie asked again, dipping his voice low and letting it melt the icy walls that Steve always kept around him. 

“Eight,” He said, pausing to gauge Eddie’s reaction. 

There was none. No snort of derision, no sigh, no head shake. Eddie just nodded, flipping to the right page. Steve let out a soft breath, forcing his body to relax. 

It was Eddie. He wouldn’t judge. 

“I was on the part talking about levels,” Steve added, taking the risk to lean in and let their arms brush up against each other. Eddie stilled for all of two seconds before going back to totally nonchalant. 

“Perfect. I could use a refresher anyway.” Eddie said, rolling his neck and shoulders to stretch quickly before clearing his throat in an over dramatic fashion, just to make Steve laugh. 

There it was again. The weird feeling in his stomach.

Steve ignored it. He ignored their arms, ignored ‘Sweetheart’, ignored his ex and everything that came with her, and even ignored the very world around them. None of it mattered, not right now. He pushed all thoughts away, letting himself get lost in Eddie’s voice and the universe he created with it.  

“Typically, a character starts at 1st level and advances in level by adventuring and gaining experience points (XP). A 1st-level character is inexperienced in the adventuring world, although he or she might have been a soldier or a pirate and done dangerous things before….”

Tag List: @paopaupaus @zerokrox-blog @surferboyzaza @whatever-is-a-good-name @minjintea @addelyin @5ammi90 @hagbaby420 @shinekocreator @bornonthesavage @starxlark @electrick-marionnett @resident-gay-bitch @ash-a-confused-enby @classicdinosaurdeathpose @valon-whomsttf @rotten-lil-goblin @thereindeerlady @love-ya-kash @kerlypride @sparkle-fiend @thefreakandthehair @flowercrowngods @milf-harrington @sadcanadianwinter @gothbat99 @hotcocoaharrington @henderdads @lightwoodbanethings @colorful565 @h0n3y-dw @craterbbox @sourw0lfs @lesliiieeeee @bidisastersworld @tinynebula @ravnlinn @bonescaro @mexmatch @cottagecoredreams @joruni @hellykelly @maegan1116 @farewell-wanderlvst @desertfern @due-to-the-fact-that-im-a-slut @anythingforourmoonyedits @eerielake @fandemonium-takes-its-toll @sidekick-hero

[ao3-softwarecorruption-exe]

📖 Writer Interview

Tagged by @writing-for-soup!!!! (unoffically lol) Defo go check out her interview, it was a blast 2 read! :D For my own answer- please continue reading after the cut!

When did you start writing?

Technically I've been trying to write ever since I was a kid. Doing small comics and writing the first pages of stories to never be finished. I loved the idea of making my own characters come to life, and to manage to write something of my own, but the task was always so daunting for me.

Then sometime during middle school I discovered fanfiction, and that made me want to writ fanfiction, though I never dared until Uni lol.

During middle school was when I started actually getting married to the idea of one day exploring writing. We had a lot of creative writing assessments during English class, and my English teacher was a wonderful lady who gave me such wonderful feedback, and she always, every single assessment, said she hoped to see me as an author one day. I hope I can tell her one day that she was the biggest reason that I never gave up on writing.

Then during Uni I finally managed to write. I found writing to be a great way to destress, and it was fun, and when I posted and got nice comments I started to lose that beginning anxiety that my words were awful and it became easier to actually get words on the page instead of just dreaming up ideas in my head.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

Perhaps Sci-Fi? I do enjoy Sci-Fi, but I don't think I could ever wrap my head around all the sci-fi-y terms and rules haha. It requires so much thought to world building and at least a basic understanding of science to start with before you start making up your own science lol.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

My favorite author might be K.A Applegate when I read all her animorphs books, and I've always enjoyed her blunt way of storytelling. I like getting to the point. But I wouldn't say I am only emulating her writing style.

I steal and take from authors everywhere, be it published authors of fellow fanfiction writers. I see a style, I consider how to mesh it with my own, until I have something a mix of all in some Frankenstein's Monster creation.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

My main writing space for max productivity is the gas station right down the street of where I live. Free wi-fi, barely any people, cheap sausages, and free refills of coffee. It is my ideal environment for calm of mind, though it can get quite freezing during the winters.

Other than that there is, of course, the mess that is my room. And sometimes I will treat myself to write at a café after my lectures, or else write during my lectures. (not a good thing for my grades lol).

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

Probably songs. I've found that if I have a song I really like, and also connect to a certain piece of media I like, listening to that song on repeat will make me think up ideas and concepts and scenes for the characters or media that I connect it with.

It can truly be random. It's very rarely a song actually connected to that piece of media. I just decide by a whim.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

I've found that I enjoy writing characters who use denial as a defense mechanism. Avoiding problems, or more often the truth of their situation or their own emotions, is something I think I force upon many a character.

I asked my fantastic friend @lily-alphonse for help with this one, and she mentioned that I also use loneliness in a lot of my works. Which I believe is true. I do adore loneliness as theme or something to have a character suffer with.

What is your reason for writing?

It is fun, and I get a lot of enjoyment out of the art of creation. I love consuming art, but sometimes I need to scratch an itch that no-one can reach but myself. I am my own dumb scratching stick haha.

I've always loved the idea that when you write, you create actual little universes. Like there's a power in it, in creating, and having others see that creation and get something out of it. Art is so wonderful, so beautiful.

Also it's just so goddamn human. We can explore so much that we can't otherwise, we can get a better understanding of ourselves, the world around us, people so different or so alike. It makes me so insane, the way art can surpass us. I mean art has been around since the most early humans! Drawings, and architecture, and later writing. The earliest goddamn written story that we've found explores the same human concepts that we still ponder about today!!! Gilgamesh's intense existential dread, his fear of dying after his closest friend dies. Hello?????? Insane, wild, fantastic. Its fucking crazy, honestly, and it has brought me many spirals of existential dread and wonder at the same time.

And I mean- have you thought of how fun it is to see the same concepts shaped by the time they were written in? When I was reading Frankenstein in High School I was so fascinated by how Frankenstein acted when stressed and anxious, and how it was always explained away by him coming down with a fever. He did not have a complete mental breakdown that left him unable to leave his house for weeks due to how stressed seeing certain things would make him, no. He was sick with a fever. This was used multiple times. I found it so absolutely intriguing.

And I also just cant bare the thought of dying one day and having contributed nothing to the endless, beautiful wonder of art. I get to make things, I am so so lucky I get to make things, and I get to share what I make, and that's just. So fun. So fucking great.

Stopping myself from ranting further lmfao.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

God comments, I love you so much. Anything from a single emoji to a multi paragraph essay. I love you. It brings me so much joy, makes me so flustered.

The comments that have always made me fawn in utter appreciation, are those that have pointed out things I do in my writing which they enjoy. Especially concerning characterization, which tends to be the thing I'm the most anxious about when writing. When someone tells me they feel I've captured a character's personality/vibe, I feel so warm.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Someone who made them feel something, if only for the duration of the read. Even if it's just momentary contentment. :)

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Again I had to run to @lily-alphonse for help! She says that it's probably introspection, which might be true! It's something I really do love writing. God, to get into the head of people- its so fun. I love writing the way characters rationalize and think and decide on things.

How do you feel about your own writing?

Hahahha, my friends @lily-alphonse and @writing-for-soup will know that I am never at all consistent with how I feel about my own writing.

I've learnt during my journey of posting what I write, that I often love my work up until it is posted. Then I will go through a cycle of barely daring to touch it or read what I've written, and when I eventually force my gaze upon my wretched creation, there's a high chance I'll suddenly decide it is wonderful and the best thing I've ever made and wow look at me I'm such a genius I can't believe I wrote this.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely for yourself, or a mix of both?

I mostly write for myself, though writing completely in self indulgence is something I have to work myself up to! I still write the ideas I want and daydream about, but some ideas, often of the darker and more dead-dove-do-not-eat designs, I must hype myself up for.

And I am of course influenced by trends and popular headcanons in the fandoms I am in haha.

Tagging (with no pressure); @steamyearlgray @vilukissakakskaks

[akaakeis]

HEY HEY HEEEEYYYYYYY bokuto moment

HI SAV<33

first of all shut up and pretend I didn't see ur sideblog posts THE THING IS I LOVE LOVE LOVE SENDING ASKS BUT LIKE I DIDN'T KNOW IF ITD BE FREAKY TO SEND RANDOM ASS ASKS TO YOU EVEN THO I BLEAT IN UR DMS EVERY OTHER SECOND

N E WAYS HIIII im having lunch rn !! IT RAINED SO BAD SO ITS LIKE 5PM AND IM STILL IN MY UNIFORM AND STUFF i had like.. stuff planned on my schedule and stuff :cccccc

dude the way i do NAWT feel like writing at all but also im dying to get yns pov in the first chapter like PICK A FUCKING SIDE OMFG literally had to pause writing this to think

TODAY I CORRECTED THE ENGLISH TEACHERS GRAMMAR IT WAS SO FUNNY LIKE I WAS WRITING AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS HUGE ASS WHITEBOARD SO I WAS KNEELING ON THE GROUND AND SHE GOES TO CORRECT SOMEONE'S (ALREADY CORRECT) GRAMMAR AND I LOOK UP TO HER LIKE UH NO THAT'S RIGHT ACTUALLY AND SHE DIDN'T EVEN QUESTION IT JUST TOOK IT LIKE A CHAMP??? LIKE GIRL WHEN EVEN U KNOW UR WRONG????

THE SENTENCE WAS monica went to her grandmother's house for summer vacation AND SHE MADE IT WEIRDER SOUNDING "during vacation" LIKE GIRL NO??????????? sorry for ranting god im such a hater

AND LIKE THESE FUCKASS TEACHERS WONT SEE MY TEXTS (i love them) BUT THE EXACT SECOND I PULL UP TO THEM AT SCHOOL IM GETTING MY CHEEKS TUGGED AT LIKE "oh em gee alina u did such a great job we r sooo proud of u" DIE. AND IM SO SCARED CUZ IM NOT STUDYING PROPERLY OR ENOUGH I THINK AND MY SCHEDULE IS SO FREAKY AND WEIRD AND THE !! RAIN !! EW 🤮🤢🤮🤢 not that i hate the rain, it just conveniently happens NOT when im at home ready to go to school, but rather otw to school or otw home so i'm just late everywhere. also MY WATER BOTTLE DISAPPEARED?? AND THERES A GIRL W THIEVING TENDENCIES IN CLASS LIKE IM NOT POINTING FINGERS BUT BUT BUUUUUUUT um. ANWYAYS I SAW A SUBMERGED MOTORCYCLE AND ALSO MY CHEM TEACHER TAKING PICS OF THE FLOOD LIKE WTF HE WANT THEM FOR "look wife im not cheating im actually trapped in school"

dude.. biceps r so..... like... kuroo... IM LOWK A KUROO ENTHUSIAST HE IS SO YUMMY LIKE U JUST KNOW HED LET U BITE IT (my intrusive thoughts r like. if he existed irl. nom nom time) NOT EVEN IN A SEXUAL WAY BTW I JUST NEED A CHOMP

ANYWAYS I FOUND OUT LIKE RN THAT I GOT 77/90 IN PAPER 1 AND 95/110 IN PAPER 2 OF BANGLA AND I ONLY GOT AN A* BECAUSE OF THE THRESHOLD (171) LIKE WHAAAT. (I GOT 172)

ITS 5:18PM RN AND IM GNA TAKE THE FASTEST FUCKING SHOWER OF MY ENTIRE LIKE CUZ MY HAIR GREASY ASF AND ITS SO EW AND THEN ILL DO CHEM NOTES HASHTAG STUDYING TRUST ME ! ! !

ANYWAYS last anyways of the day HRU MY BABY POOKIE PIE DARLING SWEETHEART POPEYES MUFFIN CUPCAKE HONEYPIE POPSICLE POOKIEBRO HOW WAS UR SLEEP HOW WAS UR YESTERDAY HOW IS UR LIFE WHATS GOING ON AND ALSO ALSO ALSO i forget give me a sec um erm ueueue OH I GOT IT I ABSOLUTELY ADORE U FOR READING ALL OF THE THINGS I SEND U LIKE!!!!! SHIRRJSKSKSOKSKS ILY okbye!!

HEY LINA!!

yeah im gonna act like u didnt see that sideblog post bc i SAID i wasnt trying to hint at anyone... AND NO THATS NOT FREAKY?? idk man i send in asks to ness like every day bc i think its fun to talk that way!! paragraph asks are genuinely so fun to receive!! ALSO USING THE WORD BLEAT IS CRAZY YOU R NOT BLEATING IN MY DMS

omg i hope you had a good lunch!! im answering this like an hour later so i assume u already finished? idk its weird that we're 12 hrs apart 😭 AND NOOO THATS AWFUL :(( sorry to hear that love :( hopefully the rain didn't flood any area and you and your fam are all good!!

HELP THATS SUCH A REAL FEELING i was battling with that yesterday so bad omf... i feel like sometimes we can attach somewhat negative connotations w writing bc sometimes it can feel like a chore? so sometimes it's a struggle to get up and decide to write? maybe thats js me but like yeah 😓 BUT GENUINELY SO EXCITED FOR YOUR APOCALYPSE AU!! ITS BEEN AMAZING SO FAR!! AND ANYTHING IVE READ FOR IT MAKES ME WANT TO LET OUT AUDIBLE SOBS ‼️ that sounds negative but i feel like you get why i want to LIKE GOOD GRIEF anyway write whenever you feel like it!! dont force it <3

THERES NO WAY??? PLEASE THATS SO FUNNY TO ME 😭 I LOVE THAT SHE DIDNT EVEN QUESTION IT OMG? YOU PROBABLY SPEAK MUCH MORE FLUENTLY THAN HER ANYWAY LMAOAOAO BUT PROUD OF YOU!!

okay like maybe im stupid but i feel like both of those sentences make sense? like "monica went to her grandmother's house for summer vacation" makes sense but so does "monica went to her grandmother's house during vacation" it's just that it doesn't specify whether it's during summer vacation so it can sound awkward ig?? idk man ive been stuck reading old english for the last couple of days bc of the hobbit (I DESPISE THAT BOOK IT CAN GO DIE) sigh

HELP?? I MEAN IM SO HAPPY YOURE GETTING GOOD GRADES THO!! AS LONG AS YOURE ABLE TO STUDY JUST ENOUGH SO THAT YOURE CONFIDENT IN THE TOPIC THEN I THINK YOURE GOOD HONESTLY 😨 and the rain sounds like its out to get u thats wild??? PLEASE im not pointing my finger at anyone... im just agreeing here... there's a chance 😭 having classmates with tendencies to steal is such a pain in the ass tho i hope you're able to retrieve your water bottle!! AND HELP I LOVE THE WAY YOU DUBBED THAT "im not cheating im actually stuck in school" had me giggling sm

HELLO? BITING KUROO'S BICEP IS INSANE (but lowkey i would too VERY LOWKEY because i feel like im not super attracted to big biceps and stuff idk?? but just a little chomp 😋😋)

WHATATATAT AT LEAST YOU GOT A* THOUGH ‼️ GOOD JOB!!!

AAA ENJOY YOUR SHOWER! I HOPE IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER!! AND YES WE LOVE A RESPONSIBLE STUDIOUS GIRL 😋

AND IM ACTUALLY DOING GOOD MY POOKIE WOOKIE SUGAR PLUM COOKIE BROWNIE PUMPKIN PIE HONEY LOML (i laughed an obscene amount while writing that)!! TODAY IM GONNA BE SUPER BUSY.. I HAVE SPEECH AND DEBATE AFTER MY SCHOOL DAY IS OVER AND THEN I HAVE VOLLEYBALL PRACTICE UNTIL... 7 PM???? I THINK???? GOD. AND I SLEPT SUPER DUPER WELL I WOKE UP RLY COZY IN MY BED AND IM STILL HUDDLED UP IN HERE LMAOAOAO 😭 YESTERDAY WAS GOOD!! I DIDNT HAVE ANYTHING I NEEDED TO DO SO I GOT TO CHILL AT HOME AND LISTEN TO MUSIC AND LITTLE PODCASTS (i listen to the bit my tongue podcast by nailea devora SOOO MUCH) AND AWHAGSHHA LINA!! I ADORE EVERYTHING YOU WRITE AND ANYTHING YOU SEND TO ME!! ILL ALWAYS MAKE TIME TO READ SOMETHING YOU SEND ME!! ILY!! <3

[urapocolypticcrush]

helloo rose!! 👋

how are you? (i hope ur doing ok)

im really curious about ur school! schools around the world are so different and its so interesting hearing about schools everywhere!

what is your school like? is it a good school? big school?

what subjects do u take during the year? what year are you? how many periods/classes do you have during the day? how many break times do u have? how long is each class?

does ur school year go jan-dec or aug-may?

do you have a homeroom? are your teachers & classmates nice to u?

do u have a favourite class or teacher?

im sorry if this is a lot of questions, u dont feel like u need to answer all of them

have a great dayy!!!

from anon 💌

I JUST SAW THIS IM SO SORRY IDK HOW LONG AGO THIS WAS SENT BUT IM SO SORRY!!!

anyway. HIIIII ANON 💌 !!!

my school is really shitty! but whatever! it’s a pretty big school yep! (its not actually that bad but its not great.)

i take lots of subjects! some of the subjects i do are art, math, english, french, history and physics! i have 9 periods in the day with 2 breaks! my school goes aug-may!!

yep i have a homeroom!! my teachers are overall okay (some of them are AWFUL) and my classmates are horrible people (only the boys but whatever)

favourite class would be art or history! my fave teacher would be my english teacher i’d say!

dont worry at all i really enjoyed this!!!!!

you too!!!!!

thanks soso much once again anon 💌 <33

[sweet-symphony0]

1, 4, 10, and 15 for any of your fics you want to talk about!

1. What is a piece of symbolism in your fic?

Oh, this is a good one! I had to go back and reread all my fics to find something but-

In Dance Me to the End of Love, it’s definitely Joe’s ballet shoes. He keeps them with him even after he quits, he brings them everywhere he goes, because to him, it’s a (physical) symbol of something he lost, but something he’s also loved and desperately clinging onto in the hopes that he can get back to. And while he doesn’t ever throw those shoes out, or ever wear them again, they’re a keepsake of his old life, a reminder of what was, and what could have been.

4. What's something you've researched but haven't incorporated into your fic?

So much for Legacy, I can’t even list it all, though most of it was incorporated. The research I did for that story pales in comparison to anything I’d done prior.

-I researched directors and what films they’d done before, because I wanted to make sure the (real) director I chose in the end would be good for a teacher biopic, even though I ultimately went with Sam Esmail, selfishly.

-I looked at the studios and their execs, to make sure I had the names and job positions right.

-I already knew how to make a budget, so everything in chapter three and four is fairly accurate, but researched what the process would be once the budget was made and how films get made and funded.

-I looked at Hamlet again since the first time in over a decade, to make sure I knew it well enough to explain Rami being able to teach it; I looked at which monologues I wanted and what I felt would be the one to include in the end. For him to teach it, I had to teach it myself, and I looked at curriculum for 10th and 11th grade AP English courses.

-The Belasco theatre is a real theatre in LA, and it’s where the wrap party for Raising Ambition is held. I can’t tell you how many tabs I had open to research venues, how big the capacity was for each place, and if they allowed kids (this story is fictional, I know).

10. What is your favourite au? Have you written anything for it?

It’s the same as the one I listed above: I would say my dance AU, where Joe is a professional ballet dancer to leave it behind to go into acting, really is one of my favorites. I’ll never finish that fic, but damn is it good, and boy am I proud of it. You can find that here.

15. Tell us a fun fact about your fic/wip!

I’ve talked about this before, but in all my twin Tuesday fics, at some point in the story, those twins share a moment where one of them squeezes the other’s wrist, in a silent gesture of affection. It’s an “I got you,” gesture, and I love writing it in and seeing if anyone picks up on it.

Similarly, in all my mazlek fics, the first article of clothing Joe almost always removes from what Rami is wearing, is his bow tie. That one isn’t planned, but I love the image of it every time, it’s very sexy and sensual and intimate.

Lastly- I wrote Home is with You, because I had awful, awful period cramps one time, and decided my way of dealing with it was Joe being miserable with nearly the same agony, and had Rami come to his rescue 😂

———

Sorry this is so long, but this was a treat! Thank you for asking!!

[quillkiller]

jen jen jen for the ask game can you spare some lilyminerva thoughts for a poor soul?? and ritaminerva thoughts?? and maybe also ritasybill?? just as a treat??

i would jump infront of a train if you asked me to so YES !!!!!! of course i can !!!!!!!

lilyminerva:

makes sense/comepls me

listen. this may be a stretch. but i think even in canon it would make sense for lily to have a onesided obsessive crush on minerva even if it never ever evolver into anything because lily was a minor obviously and i don’t think minerva ever looked twice at lily when she was her student. but like. we’ve all had crushes on teachers ??? even when we were underage ?? like i remember having a huge crush on my english teacher (i was her favorite student❤️) and i would truly gather my things sooooo slowly after class just to have a few seconds alone with her. like a normal person .

i also think minerva is the only professor that would treat lily like a person? who wouldnt treat her like a child prodigy ?? and lily respects that woman soooooo much. so so so much. she grows a little obsessive, even gets frustrated that minerva doesnt give her special treatmeant, why not, what am i doing wrong, why can’t i impress her like everyone else, im fucking lily evans

in a modern au or canon divergence. i love the idea of lily being a new professor at her old school where minerva is still working. she’s married to james, she has the perfect life, james is lovely, he wants to have a family with her. everything is perfect. everything is the way lily always wanted it to be………… or did she.. she runs into minerva on the first day and shes immediately gone. shes immediately thrown back into her obsessive tendencies. her creepy and stalkery ways (sorry i just love creepy lily 😔). she follows minerva around everywhere, puts up her best front, shes being sooooo nice, shes trying to impress her so fucking badly. but minerva is stern. shes a stubborn woman and she has never ever played favorites. lily has always been everyones favorite. its driving her insane. she shows up super early for work. she brings minerva coffee. she stays late. she volonteers for anything there is to volonteer for. she wants minervas approval so bad. shes thinking about her all the time. she cant even get off anymore when shes sleeping with james unless shes thinking about minerva.

HONESTLY ?? i don’t even know if i want it to be requited. i love lilys onesided obsessive love. she snaps one day obviouly. she stomps into minervas office. or maybe she gets drunk and goes all the way to her house. she has a whole speach prepared. she doesnt do the speach. shes just yelling and demanding to know why minerva doesnt want her. ”im so bright!!!!” ”im the brightest student you’ve ever had!!!!!” ”why don’t you love me?????” ”tell me what to do i’ll do anything!!!!!” shes drunk and sobbing at minervas house. maybe minerva is married. to poppy, maybe. AAAAAAAAAAA

ritaminerva:

doesn’t make sense/compels me

they’ve bewitched me body and sould. student/teacher relationship. rita is a uni student and minerva is her professor. rita is the biggest teachers pet in all of history. she’d fucking bring an apple for minerva im sooooo sure of it. minerva is the professor everyones been dreading. they have awful nicknames for her. shes stern and doesn’t take anyones bullshit. its love at first sight for rita. she’s so entirely gone. she gathers her things soo slowly to be alone with minerva for just a few seconds. she always sits in the front row. doesn’t take her eyes off minerva once during lectures. shes biting her pencils and minerva watches her intently as she does. rita is a fucking tease and she knows it. she gets under minervas skin. she’s always raising her hand in class. she’s always right. she always wants to debate. she’s emailing minerva after hours. minerva is responding despite knowing better. its not her fucking fault that rita is so bloody interesting. so cutthroat. shes challenging minerva and minerva loves a challenge. rita actually cares!!!!! shes not falling asleep at her desk or running out of class once its over. shes dedicated. and did i mention… a fucking tease……… shes openly flirting with minerva in the emails and at first minerva ignores it. but she doesn’t say anything. eventually she starts flirting back, just a bit. whats the harm. yeah whats the fucking harm!!!!!!! she asks herself when she finds herself with a lap full of rita, ritas back against minervas desk. rita talking academic filth in minervas ear. minervas not sure she even locked the door to the classroom. it doesnt matter she thinks when rita starts unbuttoning her shirt and says ”a little help, professor?”

ritasybill:

makes sense/compels me

THEMMMMMM. THEM THEM THEM……… they have literally changed the trajectory of my life forever and ever.

i think they’d be interesting in a canon compliant fic, but im way way way more intrigued by our little au we (mostly you!!!!!!! 🧎) created. them working for a trashy magazine together. sybill being obsessed with rita from start. bewitched body and soul. rita deciding from that that sybill is her rival and nothing else. stalkery delusional vines. sybill doing rituals and spells to get rita to fall in love with her. rita keeping a binder of every single detail of sybills life. she has to know her competition obviously. she has a picture of sybill on her ceiling above her bed just so she can glare at it. if the glaring turns into yearning then thats no ones business but her own :/

literally actually delusional. both of them. batshit insane women. they should be together❤️

[alltoofuckingwell]

I am incredibly frustrated. I am extremely emotional. I haven't felt this way in a really long time. Little things are getting to me. Like this morning, my water bottle fell out of my backpack onto the floor, broke, and spilled everywhere. I was enraged. Why?

Then I start to spiral. Dark intruding thoughts. Then I think of my son. I never want him to feel this way. Then I blame myself for having a kid when I have mental health issues that I could pass onto him.

I feel so alone.

I hate my job. I love my students (seriously, they are great) but I hate my coworkers and the American education system.

This is my 3rd year here and the coworkers are so fucking cliquey. I have taught in two other schools and while the students were out of control, I at least had support from some other teachers. Now, I work with English and history department. History department "invited" me to eat lunch with them. By invite, I mean I was told "you need to be eating lunch with us. We discuss important department information."

Out of guilt, I did it that day and I felt SO unwelcomed. No one even acknowledged my existence. I never went again.

Now they continue to ignore me. Great. Awesome. Even admin has been acting cold towards me now (this might be me being paranoid but w/e).

I want to be at home with my son. Not here where I am not appreciated. But no, I have to pay someone else to take care of my son so we can work to afford to live.

I hate so many things right now. I am not okay.

Then I think about all the AWFUL shit happening around the world and I need to STFU about my nonexistent problems.

[lunapwrites]

15 Questions | 15(?) People

So I am not tagging 15 people, I get anxiety tagging like. 5. BUT I will give this a go lol.

Are you named after anyone? My great-grandparent.

When was the last time you cried? Hmmmmmm couple of months ago.

Do you have kids? Nope.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? What's sarcasm?

What's the first thing you notice about people? From a distance, their hair. Close up, their eyes.

Scary movies or happy ending? Kind of neither? I want to be left having an existential crisis. Like with Whiplash, do we really want to call that a happy ending? What category do you put Don't Look Up in?

Any special talents? I'm good at air hockey? Otherwise, I can whistle through my teeth.

Where were you born? IN WEST PHILADELPHIA-- no but seriously.

What are your hobbies? [gestures at blog]

Do you have any pets? I have two dogs and I will talk about them endlessly if you get me started. I am that obnoxious pet parent that puts pictures of them on the fridge. I painted portraits of them that I hung on my wall. I would take them everywhere if they were remotely capable of existing in a safe and sane way off my property. Unfortunately they are just as neurotic as I am.

What sports do you play/have you played? Wew lad. Alright, so I went through a small phase where my mother was trying me through several activities to see what I would stick with (none) but, I have done tee ball (less than one season, badly), ballet (about a year or two, it was awful, never again), soccer (football to everyone else; I did that for 3 years and i did like it but meh), and crew (competitive rowing. also liked that but again, meh.) my parents were also attempting to see if maybe i would get into horseback riding, but NOPE. i was not interested.

How tall are you? Like. 5'2"? Ish? I think earlier I calculated that out to about 158cm for the metric crew.

Favorite subject in school? English and History, typically.

Dream job? I used to really want to be an English teacher, but the way that profession exists now (at least in the states), I really uh... can't do that the way that I always envisioned it. So instead I run a Discord server that more or less does the thing and work my day job on top of that haha. But I think overall, I'm mostly just looking for whatever I can live with that will give me enough money to buy the things I need and still have enough freedom and flexibility to enjoy my life outside of it. I don't want to be that person that lives to work, but I also don't want to be a person that works to live. I just want to work, and to live, and for those things to be separate lol. Small ask, I know.

Anyway, this was fun! Anyone who'd like to join in from here, feel free. Consider this me tagging you.

[lingshanhermit]

Ling Shan Hermit: Sentient Beings in the Eyes of the Awakened Ones

Some say that in the eyes of highly awakened individuals, everything is pure. 'If there is Buddha in your heart, you see Buddha everywhere; if there is filth in your heart, you see filth everywhere.' I've seen many people sharing such thoughts. Subconsciously, this is probably a counter to those who criticize them, causing them discomfort, because it implies that those critics have a low level of awareness. This reminds me of someone I met in the past who said that his teacher was 'very free and easy', because his teacher never criticized him. Because his teacher never criticized him, he affirmed him as 'very free and easy'. I wonder if one day his teacher begins to criticize him, would he still be able to maintain the image of being 'very free and easy' - I am not optimistic about this.

Yes, in the realm of those highly awakened practitioners, everything is pure, but this does not mean that they won't criticize you, or that they lack criticality, nor does it mean that you are flawless in their eyes. If you regard lack of criticism as a sign of high enlightenment, then firstly, Gautama Buddha himself could be classified by you as unenlightened. Because he was highly critical, he said that every thought and action we take is creating karma. He likened those who live in a daze without exploring the truth of life and have no desire for liberation to cattle. Even the Arahant Aniruddha, renowned for his divine vision, was reprimanded by him for sleeping like a pig.

In the eyes of those highly awakened, everything is pure. In their state of consciousness, everything is the embodiment of the self, everything is a mandala, everything is apparent yet void of inherent existence - but this does not prevent them from being critical, nor does it hinder them from pointing out your faults bluntly. You may not know, but a highly enlightened person can point out your issues without hindering the purity they see in everything. They can chastise you for being irredeemably awful while simultaneously regarding you as Samantabhadra, the King of Universal Worthy. They can berate you while considering you to be Manjushri, the great majestic one. For those who are awakened, there is no conflict between the two. Only those who are not enlightened would think that these two are incompatible.

As a disciple, if you are annoyed after being critiqued by your teacher and go on to share such views, you are already on the edge of a cliff. This indicates that you have never truly submitted to your teacher, that you do not understand the way of the teacher-disciple relationship, and you are not grateful for his guidance. Instead, you have developed subtle resentment. This immature resentment could very well lead to the destruction of your practice. Therefore, I have always said that those who are not ready for practice, who do not understand what practice is, who do not understand the role of a teacher, should not enter practice lightly. You are suited for soul-soothing words, spiritual massages, aerobic exercises, but not for genuine practice.

Written by Ling Shan Hermit on July 4, 2023, first published on July 5, 2023.

All rights reserved, no infringement intended. All articles of the Ling Shan Hermit, in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese, English and other languages, are copyrighted to the natural person who owns "Ling Shan Hermit". Please respect copyright laws. Any media or individual (including but not limited to Internet media, websites, personal spaces, blogs, WeChat public accounts, print media) wishing to use this content must first obtain authorization from Ling Shan Hermit. No modifications to the article are permitted (including the author's name, title, body of the text, and punctuation). We reserve all legal rights.

灵山居士：证悟者眼中的众生

有人说在证悟很高的人的眼里一切都是清净的。“你心中有佛，看什么都是佛，心中有屎，看什么都是屎。”我看见有很多人在转发这样的话。潜意识里，这大概是对那些批评他让他很不爽的人的一种回击，因为这话暗示那些人的境界都很低。这让我想起以前见过的一个人，他说他的老师“非常自在”，因为他从��批评他。因为他从不批评他，所以他认证他“非常自在”。我在想假如有一天他开始批评他，他在他那里是不是还能维持一个“非常自在”的形象——对此我并不乐观。

是的，在那些证悟很高的修行者的境界里，一切都是清净的，但是这不表示他不会批评你，或是他没有批判性，也不表示你在他眼里是无瑕的。如果你把没有批判性视为证悟很高的标志的话，那么首先释迦牟尼佛就可以被你归为没有证悟的那一类。因为他很有批判性，他说我们每个人起心动念都是在造业。他说那些活的浑浑噩噩没有探索生命真相精神不思解脱的人和牛马差不多。就连天眼第一的阿罗汉阿尼律陀都被他骂天天睡的像猪一样多。

在证悟很高的人眼里一切都是清净的，在他的境界里，一切都是本尊、一切都是坛城、一切都是显而无自性——但这并不妨得他具有批判性，也丝毫不妨碍他对你横挑鼻子竖挑眼。你可能不知道，具有高度证悟的人在指出你问题的同时并不妨碍他眼中一切都是清净的。他可以在说你糟糕透顶无可救药对你痛心疾首的同时视你为普贤王如来，也可以一边数落你一边认为你是文殊大威德。对证悟者而言，这二者之间并不存在任何冲突。只有没有证悟的人才会觉得这二者无法兼容。

作为弟子，如果你是被老师戳中痛处之后很不爽而去转发这样的话，你已然在悬崖边上，因为这表示你从未服膺于他，表示你不懂师徒相处之道，你对他的调教并无感恩，反而产生了细微怨恨，这种尚未长大的细微怨恨，有很大的可能会导致你的修行全毁。所以，我一直在说，那些没有准备好修行的人，不知道什么是修行的人，不知道老师是做什么的人，不要轻易踏入修行，你适合心灵鸡汤，适合精神按摩，适合有氧运动，但不适合真正的修行。

灵山居士写于2023年7月4日，首发于2023年7月5日。

[trilies]

tldr, proship is the idea that if you don't like a fandom thing, just block/mute the tag, don't read the fic, etc etc, anything that is not harassing another person. Antiship is the idea that whatever you are into in fiction is a reflection of your irl interests and thus if you ship, say, teacher/student, then you are dangerous and should be made to Stop.

the full three course venison meal:

So in ye olden days, but especially on tumblr, you would tag your ship hate with anti-[that ship] for a mix of reasons - to keep your bitching out of the ship/fandom tag for people to mute (so that no wars started) and to find other haters. That's fine, that's basic tumblr etiquette.

However, people generally agree that shit got Real Bad with the Voltron fandom, where a huge ship war started to rage. The kind of ship war where animators and VAs were actually targeted - one guy was sent *death threats* - because one side wanted their ship to be "canon".

And if it was that bad towards the *actual people involved in the show*, then the fandom atmosphere was at least twice as bad. It only got worse when Ship A's side decided on another argument for their side:

You couldn't ship Ship B, because that was *pedophilia*.

Now, not only was this a rubbish excuse to start with, but it was all the more rubbish because, iirc, the two characters in Ship B didn't even have ages stated anywhere, and Voltron is about people in the space military finding giant robots, so, y'know.

Anyway, so that only made things worse, because now this wasn't just a matter of "your ship sucks and is OOC" but "your ship is IMMORAL too!!!!!!".

That meant a person not even IN the Voltron fandom would reblog a non-ship fanart from a Ship B artist, but then get some jerk from Ship A's side in their inbox screaming at them that they were actually supporting the art of a "pedophile".

....Because the Ship B artist shipped two vaguely young adult anime men.

Now, some people thought these were some god-awful vibe s- even if they were Ship A types themselves! So to signify that they were not that kind of terrible toxic "anti-shipper", no matter what they did or didn't ship, they came up with a name for themselves. A show that they followed older fandom trends of "if i don't like it, I'll block/mute/ignore it, not be a dick at other fans".

Anti-anti.

....But that sounded really dumb, and everyone knew it, so they changed it to "pro-shipper".

You know.

The opposite of anti. Because that's how the English language works.

Voltron may have ended, but it was a large fandom and that terrible fandom practice had cemented itself - both by the active dickhead fans of Ship A, but also passively, by people who *wanted* to be Good People (tm) and not do terrible things like "support pedophilia" but hadn't, like... really critiquely thought about how shit the whole thing was, or didn't know that pedophilia is 100% not shipping two vaguely adult anime men.

(And everyone kind of falls victim to that to some degree - I won't pretend I'm wholly innocent on that either, I've just matured after some experiences of my own, but enough of that)

So large fandom meant lots of other people to take that sort of terrible fandom practice to aaaaaall the other fandoms and, indeed, general internet fandom at large.

And it's very tantalizing! No one wants to be a "bad person", after all, and "encourage" whatever terrible thing the other ship supposedly "encouraged" (abuse, pedophilia, incest, etc). so it took off, especially with people who were still on wobbly fawn legs when it came to certain respects of social justice.

....Except one of the core problems with the ideology is that it was always founded on making up a shitty lie for a ship that people just plain didn't like because they didn't like it, no other reason, and that carried through everywhere else it went, too.

Ship-hate with a shallow veneer of social justice, using All The Right Language.

That's how you get "child-coded" because a character doesn't have watermelon boobs. Or "it's incest because they're childhood friends". Or "it's racist to ship this white guy/brown dude because, uh.... the brown dude is clearly just a stand-in therapist, yeah".

"You can't ship this literal child with this other child, because the boy was a brat to her once, and so that means you're saying abuse is fine."

These are all real excuses I've heard, by the way.

Because anti-shipper excuses are, well, just that - excuses - that meant its meaning was always a little *wishy washy* depending on the anti in question and what they were trying to spill. For example, I've heard some antis claim that it was only ever "anti-underage". Bring up toxic ships, and they try to claim that isn't a part of it at all. Anti-shippers are for convenience, and so "anti" is "anti whatever is convenient for them".

(Some even say it's "anti-proshipper", which is fascinating to me.)

In contrast, I'll say *generally* proshippers always stick to a more consistent meaning for their own label: being anti-harassment in fandom, blocking the shit you don't like to see, etc.

....Now.

I'll admit I *don't* know who first came up with the definition for "proship" that translated into "problematic shipping". I cannot guess at the reasoning there. However, that is so against basic English language that either they're not very bright.... *or* it was someone who purposefully decided to twist the meaning.

Considering how antis lied about a ship being "pedophilia", you can't deny that second option is a possibility.

After all, it's more convenient if the person arguing against you is a "gross person who ships abuse/incest/underage/whatever it is you don't like". If they *aren't*, if they too are a basic vanilla shipper who still thinks you are a creepy jerk who can't follow basic etiquette, well...

One side looks more reasonable and sensible, and it's not the side you're on.

Better to use the "problematic shipping" idea, if only for one's own ego and saving face.

ANYWAY THERE'S YOUR FULL VENISON MEAL i also used to not give a damn but then I got accused of lying about being a CSA survivor because I said "a character's age isn't judged by her boobs, that's stupid" and called slurs because I suggested a person block a ship tag, so then I deep dived and have seen So Much Shit,

hope that helps, @sonaspectrum

I'm starting to find evidence on twitter of antis encouraging each other to shun friends and family for not being one of them and I am deeply concerned. This is some cult shit.

"should I shun my friend for being proship even though they're my only irl friend?"

"Should I shun my mother for being proship?"

The answer to both of these is GET HELP. You are being brainwashed into thinking that your friends and family are dangerous when you know that they wouldn't hurt anyone. See a therapist, take some time off the internet, reevaluate your situation. Fiction does not take precedence over your loved ones.

I'm tagging this with "antis please interact" because I think they need to see this too, and hopefully it helps someone. Your loved ones are not dangerous because of their taste in fiction.

[friedaaaaaaargh]

Another phobia ramble

I’m typing this for one day in the near of distant future some person experiencing similar issues will see this (as I get increasingly terrified by even the thought of an alarm, the English gets more illegible).

I have igniterroremophobia (ligyrophobia/phonophobia) which basically for me is a completely bizarre fear of alarms (mainly fire alarms).

As I’ve moved to an environment where the need to have millions of alarms for various health and safety reasons (this is the UK of course) is required, I’ve noticed this fear has escalated massively. It’s been on my mind a lot this week after an incident on Tuesday where now my entire workplace knows I was outside shaking like a leaf on a bench for an hour to avoid a fire test at a conference (I walked out of someone’s talk which was very rude of me, but good job I did as they tested the alarm early). I’ve spent the week ashamed and hiding from people as I’m aware of how ridiculous I must look, and also know that my lab group probably want to know why they tell me I need to help them with an alarm-triggering procedure and suddenly I’m nowhere to be found.

I’m not sure when my fear started exactly, but it did. Initially, I used to spend the entire end of the school year dreading class allocations as I didn’t want to be in the classroom that had an alarm in it. At the beginning of school year was fire drill season and they’d tell us at the beginning of a certain week we’d be having one and I could never focus. In sixth form I had to be excused from a lesson as i overheard a teacher talking about a fire drill that afternoon and was so embarrassed and my teacher suggested exposure therapy.

I barely slept for a year at uni because I was so terrified of being woken by the fire alarm (not a nice experience I’ll tell you) making me exhausted. I used to be terrified to take showers, to walk around without headphones (still the case) and have the toilet with a fire alarm in the room (trust me I do seem to always be on the toilet when an alarm goes off.) I thought during lockdown it got better, afterwards I went back to uni and deliberately chose my desk to be under the fire alarm as an act of defiance to myself but it wasn’t to be.

Currently, I can’t work with liquid nitrogen, I do not work with cryo-EM either for fear of the alarms going off. Everytime they do engineering work I get stressed. I hate level crossings, I hate my smoke alarm but I’m coming to peace slowly with that one. I currently can’t work in my office on Monday afternoons as they test the fire alarm at SOME point (depends when they feel like it) that day, but sometimes they just move it to Tuesday for the lols. I can’t visit the school of medicine on a Wednesday morning, biology on a Thursday morning or lecture on a Thursday morning. I know exposure therapy will help but the alarms are loud and everywhere and I can’t find a place to slowly expose myself. I missed my first year PhD taught lectures due to them always being when the fire alarm went off, in the end I had to confess my fear before I got a bad reputation and they moved the lectures! But the other students started complaining how ridiculous it was .

When I travel for conferences I stay up all night because I’m terrified I’ll have to evacuate. I moved out of my flat after one month because the students above kept setting off the fire alarm. I refuse to live in high rise tower blocks so live miles away from my workplace so the only person I know whose gonna be setting off any alarms is me.

For me, the worst part of my fear is the fear of it suddenly happening, or knowing it’s going to happen at some point that day but not exactly when. If and when it happens, I feel sick for the rest of the day. If alone when it happens there’ll be crying and screaming.

On Tuesday I was scheduled to present at a conference and I’ve got a reputation as quite a good speaker. Last year I had an awful time at the conference as I was really unwell and nearly didn’t go this year cos of memories but thought I’d suck it up and deal with it. When we turned up, they announced we were expecting a fire alarm in the afternoon. I was in the middle of the room completely unable to get out. There was no guarantee it’d go off at said time, I was terrified. My speech was a mess, I sat quietly during lunch and excused myself in the afternoon by leaving the talks to lots of stares. I sat by the river crying for an hour and was so angry at myself. I’d told a friend where I was and she later coaxed me back in saying the alarm was finished. It was not, but she wanted to make sure I was in the room for the next session. As I was walking to the building it went off again. I walked into the next session and the organiser looks at me and warned me they were probably not finished testing (in front of the whole room) I ran out crying whoops and was also embarrassed and saw the friend outside who had lured me back in (and was now tryna stop me from bolting out the door home) who then angrily told me the alarm was actually quite nice (NICE?) but that she’d go and ask them to stop. I didn’t pay attention to the rest of the conference and I didn’t go to the after party, instead going home and laying in bed humiliated and angry. I haven’t spoken to anyone from the conference since out of pure shame.

I’m tryna work out how to help myself but the thought of exposure therapy makes me feel a tiny bit sick. This kinda just turned into me dumping all my thoughts from the week on as I’ve been very angry at my phobia and really want to stop it as to be fair it’s ruining my work performance. Also our annual fire drill is this month so he he he.

[billconrad]

Most Authors Are Goodhearted People

    As a teenager, I read on a coffee mug, “Workers got to do what they got to do, and authors write about it from the sidelines.” This flippant remark cracked me up, but I was a brat who had no appreciation of how difficult it is to write a book. At the time, my father was a talented author of ceramics textbooks.

    I have since matured, and, like my father, I became an author. This journey provided a newfound perspective on writing, marketing, and English. Along the way, I met many fellow authors who were all goodhearted people who wished to make the world a better place. Why are they goodhearted people? While developing a plot, the author must create an ideal (writeable) world; hope is the most significant ingredient.

    Why? We want our characters to make it through the plot and hope readers enjoy their words. Yet, books may contain horror, conflict, criminals, death, torture, imprisonment, and all kinds of unpleasant topics. Plus, they may have trashy stories, have bad morals, and treat their characters poorly.     An early example of a distasteful book is Frankenstein’s Monster by Mary Shelley. In its day, this book was horrific, gory, controversial, and unethical. Today, we see disturbing plots like The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, The Shining, and Silence of the Lambs.

    Why did such nasty stories succeed? Even deplorable characters can overcome adversity, survive, thrive, mature, and change. But what about genuinely awful authors? Or the authors who intentionally create contemptible works? There will always be exceptions to the rule. What about books written for revenge, shock value, manipulation, or terror? Evil people use whatever tools they can find to spread their hate.

    When someone sets out to be an author, they have an overall goal to contribute (publish). The authors I met want to add goodness instead of spreading evil. Their contribution may not be successful, but there is an honest attempt to be positive.

    I saw a personal improvement once I became an author. This means that I think more about the people surrounding me, what they should do to better their lives, and what I should do to improve my life. This positive change was gradual, but I can trace it back to writing. In addition, I read many positive posts on the Facebook group Writers Helping Writers. The authors positively contributed to the comments, worked hard to perfect their words, and tried to make the world a better place.

    I concede that the same goodhearted argument could apply to oil workers, teachers, drafting technicians, clowns, and stockbrokers. They all want positive change, but authors still have a special place in our society. They work late into the night, writing textbooks, fiction, comic books, scripts, plays, and poems that shape future generations. This positive dedication makes them unique and positive members of society.

    You’re the best -Bill

    December 09, 2023

    Hey book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

    Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

    Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

    These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

[xtruss]

Handstands, Badgers and Sewage Works: 12 Snapshots of Charles III

The UK’s new king had an unhappy childhood, a disappointing marriage and a frustrating wait to succeed to the throne. What can his past tell us about his last act?

— May 3rd 2023 | By Catherine Nixey | 1843 Magazine

The Royal Touch, Part I

How close can one come to the king’s skin? Not very, if the king in question is Charles III. (“There was never anything tactile about him,” said Princess Diana.) Not very close, either, if the royal in question was his mother. In 1954, Queen Elizabeth II returned home from a tour of the Commonwealth, having spent almost six months apart from the five-year-old Charles. Grandees lined the deck of the royal yacht Britannia to greet the queen. The young Charles tried to jump the queue to reach his mother. “No, not you dear,” she said, batting him away. When it was his turn, she shook his hand.

Things About Which Charles Has Complained

Modern Architecture

Industrial Farming

The Menace Presented By British Badgers

Illegal Fishing of the Patagonian Toothfish

Nicholas Witchell, the BBC’s Long-suffering Royal Correspondent (“I Can’t Bear That Man. He’s so Awful. He really is.”)

Interest in His Private Life (This “National Pastime…of Prurient Speculation”)

Fountain Pens (“I Can’t Bear this Bloody Thing.”)

The Birth of Prince Harry (“Oh God, it’s a Boy…And He’s Even Got Red Hair.”)

Things About Which Charles Did Not Complain

The queen and Prince Philip chose to send the young Charles to the then infamously grim Gordonstoun school in Scotland – “to toughen him up”, said Prince Harry. The school’s outlook was an eccentric blend of ancient Greek ideals (namely a firm belief in steeping the pupils in culture) and aristocratic English ones (namely a firm belief in steeping them in mud). It had been founded with the aim of churning out Plato’s philosopher-kings: men strong in body and mind. The boys’ lockers, as Jonathan Dimbleby observes in his biography of Charles, offered a graphic demonstration of this hearty approach to life. A “Training Plan” was pinned inside each one. It divided daily life into upright columns and upright tasks, with entries to be made for “Teeth Brushed”, “Rope Climbed”, “Skipping”, “Press Ups” and (of course) “Cold Shower”.

“I don’t like it much here. I simply dread going to bed as I get hit all night long. I can’t stand being hit on the head by a pillow now”

There was no column for “Coping with Relentless Nocturnal Bullying”, but, for Charles, there ought to have been. He was, as one contemporary observed, bullied “maliciously, cruelly and without respite”, while at the school. “I don’t like it much here,” the young Charles wrote in a letter in 1963 when he was 14. “I simply dread going to bed as I get hit all night long. I can’t stand being hit on the head by a pillow now.” (There is pathos in that “now”, as if once he might have been capable of tolerating it.)

Later, Charles would tell Harry that he had been “persecuted” as a boy. “I remember him murmuring ominously: I nearly didn’t survive,” Harry says in “Spare”, his recently published memoir. What kept him going? His teddy bear, which he still hangs on to decades later. “Teddy went everywhere with Pa,” Harry writes. ‘It was a pitiful object, with broken arms and dangly threads, holes patched up here and there…Teddy expressed eloquently, better than Pa ever could, the essential loneliness of his childhood.” Charles never said a word to his teachers. Whether or not Gordonstoun did turn out philosopher-kings is moot. But it forced one future king to be – or at least to show himself to be – philosophical.

Friends

It wasn’t easy for a man titled His Royal Highness, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Merioneth, Baron of Renfrew, Baron Greenwich, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland to find someone on his level. One such person was his great-uncle, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, Admiral of the Fleet, Earl Mountbatten of Burma and the last viceroy of India.

Their relationship felt natural from the beginning, particularly since Mountbatten bought Charles such good presents. The austerity of Charles’s schools seems to have been matched, if not exceeded, by the austerity of his parents. Prince Philip once bought the boy an electric toothbrush as a birthday present, which, wrote the underwhelmed future king, was “like using an electric drill in one’s mouth”. It was reported by some newspapers that when the young Charles wished to attend a midnight feast at prep school he “had been obliged to sell some personal possessions to finance his contributions”.

That story is dubious, but it is beyond doubt that Mountbatten lavished his great-nephew with love, affection, letters and presents. He bought him a subscription to Eagle magazine (“I like Eagle very much,” the young Charles wrote back. “It’s got such exciting stories”); a bicycle (“I have had great fun on it and it goes very fast”); and a dymo label printer (Charles wrote in thanks that he had heard of such things but had “never possibly believed that anyone would give me one. I sit playing with it all day”).

“Teddy went everywhere with Pa. It was a pitiful object, with broken arms and dangly threads, holes patched up here and there…Teddy expressed eloquently, better than Pa ever could, the essential loneliness of his childhood”

Mountbatten also gave advice, not all of which was followed: he told Philip and Elizabeth to have Charles’s ears “fixed” because, “You can’t possibly be king with ears like that.” And he wrote to Charles in a letter in 1974 that a young man should “sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down, but for a wife he should choose a suitable, attractive and sweet-charactered girl.”

In August 1979, the ira blew up Mountbatten’s fishing boat as he was taking his daughter and her twins on a family outing in the Atlantic waters near his holiday home in north-west Ireland. A deckhand and one of Mountbatten’s grandsons died instantly; Mountbatten himself shortly after. “I have lost someone infinitely special in my life,” Charles wrote in his diary that night. “In some extraordinary way he combined grandfather, great uncle, father, brother and friend…Life will never be the same now that he has gone.”

Love, Part I

Charles is in a blue suit and a tie. Diana is in a blue pussycat bow, head down, eyes up, fringe over them. They are giving their first interview after their engagement, one which will cast a long shadow over their marriage. The script is now notorious. As with any good tragedy, the tension comes not because you don’t know how things will end but because you do.

Interviewer [Offscreen]: Can You Find the Words to Sum-up How You Feel Today, Both of You?

Charles: Difficult to Find That Sort of Word Isn’t It Really…

Diana: Mmm….

Charles: Just Delighted, and Happy…And I’m Amazed That She’s Been Brave Enough to Take Me On.

Interviewer: And I Suppose, “In love”?

Diana: Of Course…

Charles: Whatever “In Love” Means…

Diana: [Laughs] Yes.

Love, Part II

The oddest thing about Charles’s statement was less his ambivalence than the fact that he’d made it before. This was not a romance plotted by Barbara Cartland. They had met a dozen times before their engagement. The first meeting was on a ploughed field: she was 16 years old, “fat, podgy, no make-up” and in Wellington boots; he was 30 with a Labrador and a gloomy air about him. Her first impression was “God, what a sad man.” There followed meetings at a friend’s house where “he was all over me,” Diana remembered. “I thought: ‘Well, this isn’t very cool.’”

It’s not easy for a man titled His Royal Highness, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick, Earl of Merioneth, Baron of Renfrew, Baron Greenwich, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland to find someone on his level

There were more meetings. At one, Diana told him that he had looked “so sad” at Lord Mountbatten’s funeral, whereupon, to her surprise, he pounced on her the “next minute”. But “the feeling was I wish Prince Charles would hurry up and get on with it,” as Diana later put it. It was evident that the queen was also “fed up” by her son’s failure to grasp the nettle. Charles returned from a skiing holiday and asked Diana to come over to Windsor. She thought, “Christ, what am I going to do?” At this point she was still calling him, “Sir”. Charles sat her down and told her that he had missed her. Then he said: “Will you marry me?” Diana laughed. “I remember thinking, ‘This is a joke.’”

Charles, who had always been acutely aware that royals are more or less gametes in gumboots, was indeed serious. He had always been serious about marriage. It was a “much more important business than falling in love”. The proposal was almost more awkward than the public announcement. After Diana realised that Charles was not joking she replied: “Yeah, OK.” Whereupon Charles said, “You do realise that one day you will be queen.” She said: “Yes.” Then she said: “I love you so much, I love you so much.” Charles said: “Whatever love means.” Diana later recalled, “I thought that was great!” She was 19.

Aphorisms

Kings are richly served by the “Yale Book of Quotations”, from Shakespeare’s Richard III (“Now is the winter of our discontent”) to his Henry IV (“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”) to Martin Luther (“I have a dream”) to the current King Charles III, who appears in the dictionary a little before Chaucer and Chekhov.

It was reported by some newspapers that when the young Charles wished to attend a midnight feast at prep school he “had been obliged to sell some personal possessions to finance his contributions”

It is an unflattering juxtaposition. There are five quotations from Charles in the dictionary. They include his public inability to define love, two on architecture (including his condemnation of a mooted extension to the National Gallery as a “monstrous carbuncle”) and his musing on the conversations he conducts with his plants (“they respond, I find”). The fifth, and most famous one, does have a certain Wife of Bath bawdiness to it. It is: “Or, God forbid, a Tampax.”

The Other “The Ugliest & Disgusting Woman”

To understand the Tampax, it is necessary to understand Charles’s relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles, once his mistress, now his queen. There was something gynaecological about their relationship from the beginning. On November 14th 1948, an obstetrician named Sir William Gilliatt had safely delivered Elizabeth II of her firstborn son, Charles, at Buckingham Palace. Sir William was in high demand in high society. The year before, on July 17th 1947, he had delivered another baby, this time a girl, named Camilla Rosemary Shand, whose married name was Parker-Bowles.

There were other intimate coincidences between the two. Camilla’s great-grandmother had been Alice Keppel, the favourite mistress of a former Prince of Wales, Edward VII, the great-great-grandfather of Charles. Being the mistress to the Prince of Wales was easier in those days. As Alice simply put it, her job was to “curtsy first and then leap into bed”.

A young man should “sow his wild oats and have as many affairs as he can before settling down, but for a wife he should choose a suitable, attractive and sweet-charactered girl”

The two babies that Sir William had delivered would meet in 1972. And, by all accounts, were as taken with each other as their ancestors had been. “She was in love with him and would have married him at the drop of a hat,” wrote Penny Junor, a Royal biographer. “Alas, he never asked her. He dithered and hedged his bets, and could not resist the charms of other women, until Camilla gave up on him. It was only when she was irretrievably gone that the prince realised what he had lost.” They rekindled their affair in 1986.

Transcript of phone call between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles on December 18th 1989

Charles: What about me? The trouble is, I need you several times a week, all the time.

Camilla: Mmm. So do I. I need you all the week, all the time.

Charles: Oh God, I’ll just live inside your trousers or something. It would be much easier.

Camilla (laughing): What are you going to turn into? A pair of knickers? (Both are laughing) Oh, you’re going to come back as a pair of knickers.

Charles: Or, God forbid, a Tampax, just my luck. (He laughs)

Camilla: You are a complete idiot. (She laughs) Oh, what a wonderful idea.

Charles: My luck to be chucked down the lavatory and go on and on forever swirling round on the top, never going down.

The conversation then moves on and, with Chekhovian understatement, ends with a discussion of which combination of motorways offers the quickest way to Wiltshire.

The Royal Touch, Part II

Access to the royal skin has always been carefully controlled. It is generally rationed but, at times, also offered liberally. Kings from Edward the Confessor onwards would touch the scrofulous sores of their subjects, healing them with the “royal touch”. Charles II used to get through 600 people in a single session.

Today, royals are measured less in consumptives cured than in their willingness to hug. Diana deployed hugging to show she was a caring and modern royal. She hugged her children (“I hug my children to death”) and she hugged the sick (“I had always wanted to hug people in hospital beds”).

No one has ever suggested that Charles is a hugger. Not even on the night in August 1997 that Diana died in a car crash in Paris. “He sat down on the edge of the bed,” Harry writes in “Spare”. “He put a hand on my knee. ‘Darling boy, Mummy’s been in a car crash,’” he told him. “They tried, darling boy. I’m afraid she didn’t make it.” Harry doesn’t remember what he said in response. But what he does recall “with startling clarity is that I didn’t cry. Not one tear.” And, of course, that “Pa didn’t hug me.”

Sewage

The gardens of Highgrove, the private home of Charles III and Queen Camilla, offer many delights for those who visit them at a cost of £30 for a garden tour or £85 for champagne tea and tour. There is the Wildflower Meadow (“one of the most picturesque gardens at Highgrove”), the Thyme Walk and the Arboretum, filled with magnolias, a “particular favourite” of the king.

They also contain the less celebrated Highgrove sewage-filtration system. “Believe it or not,” Charles announced in a speech in Madrid, sewage sludge “is a subject which has long fascinated me”. The man who capitalises the word “Nature”, began organic farming long before most people had heard of it and wears his clothes till they are patched at the pocket, has strong views on recycling. Including that of human faeces.

Highgrove therefore has a “specially built reed-bed sewage system, much loved by dragonflies at its treatment end” that recycles all the household’s waste. Those who come as Charles’s private guests are likely to be given a special tour of what he calls his “sewage garden”. The sewage garden is not part of the private champagne tea tour, which costs a cool £790.

Boxer Shorts

The facilities in Balmoral are Victorian, in the most literal sense possible: the house was bought for Queen Victoria and has been little improved since. It has a rustic charm, for those who appreciate such things. The water in the toilets is, for example, always brownish, which “often alarmed weekend guests”. Charles, Prince Harry explains, will reassure them that there is nothing wrong with it. On the contrary, it has been filtered and sweetened by highland peat. To have a bath in this water is one of life’s “finest pleasures”.

“Believe it or not,” Charles announced in a speech in Madrid, sewage sludge “is a subject which has long fascinated me”

There are 50 bedrooms in Balmoral, so it is easy to get lost. And behind some of these doors, as on a magician’s stage, or in a riddle, surprising things lurk. Including the king. For the man who was once the “world’s most eligible bachelor” is older these days and, like Balmoral, also a little creaky. He has been prescribed exercises by his physio to cope with the neck and back pain inflicted by old polo injuries. Open the wrong door and you might therefore find Charles doing headstands in his boxers or “hanging from a bar like a skilled acrobat”. As Harry explains, “If you set one little finger on the knob you’d hear him begging from the other side: No! No! Don’t open! Please God don’t open!” ■

— Catherine Nixey is a Britain Correspondent for The Economist

— illustrations Martin Rowson