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melanieph321 · 4 months ago

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Ruben Dias x Reader - Not Ready Part 4/12

Part 5 and Part 6 are out on my Patreon!

Readers sister dies in a tragic car accident, leaving reader and her boyfriend Ruben in the urgent custody of her niece and nephew. Readers' life is suddenly flipped upside-down since having children hadn't been the plan for her and Ruben's life together. At least not now, when his football career was reaching great new heights.

Enjoy! 💞

"So you're the children's caregiver now?"

"No, Laleh. I'm still just their aunt." What a waste of your lunch break, you thought. Laleh was grilling you with questions all through your walk in the park. You should have stayed at the office, perhaps snuck up to the roof top and joined the chainsmokers on their lunch break. Lord knows you could use a cigarette right about now.

"But you're the only one caring for them, no?"

"Well, my parents sent me money for the week while the kids are staying with me. But, yes, their dad has gone a bit M.I.A for the moment. I suppose Ruben and I are the only ones caring for the children."

And how does he feel about that?"

"What do you mean?" You stopped before a park bench, behind it a large oak tree where a group of senior citizens were practicing Tai chi.

"Well you've involuntarily made Ruben a father figure now." Laleh said.

"What? No I haven't. The children call him uncle Ruben but that's because my sister and I joked about it once. It kinda stuck, but Ruben knows he is not responsible for the children in any way."

"But you are."

"Yes. I am. So what?"

"I dunno Y/N. It just feels like it can get a bit messy if you and Ruben aren't on the same page."

"Well, we are. The children are leaving tomorrow. Both my parents are coming to London to help clean out the rest of Liza's things. They're taking Emmy and Vale with them to Bournemouth after that, while their father stays back and continues to try and sell the house."

"It's really that bad huh?" Laleh picked up your walk, taking a sip of her coffee. "Does he want all traces of your sister gone?"

You nodded. "But I think it's for the best. There is no need for him and the children to be reminded of her everyday. It would be too painful. "

"And how about you, how are you holding up?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you—"

"Auntie Y/N!"

"Emmy, Vale, what are you two doing here?"

Fallen leaves rustled on the ground as the children came sprinting your way.

"Look what Uncle Ruben got us." Said Vale, waving his melting popsicle. Emmy was nibbling on hers, almost chewing on the stick.

"Ice cream?" You questioned. "In the middle of the day."

"Uncle Ruben said we could have as many as we like."

"Did he now?" You raised your head, watching Ruben as he walked towards you with a football at his feet. You crossed your arms, a smile on your face as he approached. He was supposed to babysit the kids while you were at work, not give them cavities.

"What can I say?" He shrugged. "Hey Laleh." He greeted her while pressing a kiss to your cheek. "How are you?"

"Fine. I see you guys have a full house now."

"More or less." He sighed. A sigh that caused a jab in your stomach.

"Baby, you didn't have to take the kids out to the park. You could have just watched them while you were resting." It was supposed to be Ruben's day off and now you felt guilty for ruining it.

"Yeah, but they got pretty bored of watching TV all day." He said. "I didn't mind taking them to the park. We had pretty fun playing football."

"Uncle Ruben lost." Emmy said, throwing away her popsicle stick in the nearest bin. "I thought you said that he was a professional auntie Y/N?"

"I am." Ruben frowned.

"Could have fooled me." Emmy scoffed and walked off to join her brother that had taken interest in the old people doing a funny dance under the oak tree.

"It was two against one." Ruben assured you.

Laleh laughed.

"Sure it was, baby." You patted his arm.

"It was. And I was tired from a whole week of training."

"Of course you were." You pushed up and pecked his lips, whispering against his mouth, "I hope you're not too tired for tonight. I'm finally off my period."

Ruben's eyes widened with interest, a smirk twitching his lips. "I'll see you at home then."

"See you." You waved, teeth biting down on your lips.

You went back to work that afternoon with mixed feelings. The week had gone by so fast. Your niece and nephew were going back home to live with their dad just when they were starting to come to terms with the fact that their mother was never coming back to them. It will be hard to let them go, not knowing if your parents will pamper them with the same loving affirmation like you have been doing every day for the past week.

"What are you thinking about?"

Ruben's chest vibrated against your face, his voice quiet and deep in the night. The children had gone to bed early while you and Ruben stayed up in your room, finally getting a moment to yourself.

"I'm worried about Emmy and Vale."

"You are? Why?" Ruben's finger drew lazy patterns on the hill of your naked shoulder. He did so, tracing his finger down your arm and then back up again, causing goosebumps to rise.

"My parents..." You sighed. "They're not very good with kids."

"No?"

"No."

Ruben lay quiet, his eyes gazing at the ceiling before stating the obvious. "Didn't they have two of their own?"

You shut your eyes, but shifted so that your chin rested against Ruben's sternum. Your eyes opened and found Ruben watching you, his expression dark but attentive.

"They did have two kids." You nodded. "But my sister and I took care of each other. At least for the most part. It was mainly in our teens that our parents stopped paying attention to us. Almost as if they one day decided that they had done enough for us."

"I see." Ruben removed a strand of hair from your face, letting his hand linger against your cheek.

"It was terrible." You said, remembering your parents' first vacation without you, and then the second one and the third one.... Liza wasn't too bothered by their absence, but that's because she had football. You on the other hand developed some bad attachment issues. Issues that showed themselves in future relationships. Mainly how you handled heartbreak, often blaming yourself. You also put others before you to a point where your own boss found you a replacement to cover your shift at work, only because she knew that you wouldn't dare to ask for a day off on your birthday. That's how much of a people pleaser you were (had become).

"It's a good thing that they have each other, no?"

"Huh?"

Ruben nibbled his fingers at your earlobe. "Emmy and Vale," He said. "I'm sure that they'll be looking after each other."

"Yes, but they shouldn't have to. My parents should—"

There was a crack of the door as it slowly came ajar. "Auntie Y/N?"

"Emmy?" You quickly reached for the bed sheets.

"Auntie Y/N, we can't sleep."

"No?" You couldn't see her where you lay pressed against Ruben's naked chest, the two of you butt naked under the sheets. Nevertheless, the door cracked open some more and you sighed.

"Yes. Me and Vale. Can we sleep in here with you and uncle Ruben?"

"Erm..." Ruben was already reaching for something on the floor. A pair of shorts. "You know what. Why don't you go and wait for me in your room? I'll be right there with you, baby."

"Oh. Okay." Her bare feet were heard scattering away, leaving the bedroom door open.

"Fuck."

You pushed off the mattress, climbing over Ruben, sliding down the bed. You hurried to get dressed, looking back at your boyfriend who was left in bed.

"I'm so sorry. I've got to—"

"It's okay." Ruben smiled. A thin smile. "I'll see you in the morning."

You nodded, closing the door behind you. The apartment lay quiet in the night, the city lights showing you their way towards the guest room. You opened the door with a light knock and was surprised to find Emmy and Vale in bed together with the dog. Iker who squealed and wagged his tail at the sight of you.

Vale was fast asleep while Emmy moved over to make a spot for you in the middle. There you settled with the dog curling up on top of your pillow and Emmy wrapping her arms around your stomach. You draped your arm over her head, pressing her closer to you. That's how you fell asleep, to the sound of the dog's light snores, in unison with the children's. For the split second between sleep and alert, you thought of Ruben and how this was the first time in three years that you slept apart. At least without saying goodnight.

The next morning went by in a flash. By ten o'clock you Ruben and the kids were out of the apartment, on the road back to London.

It wasn't that you were in a rush. It was just that the drive back to Bournemouth would take your parents a few hours. It was best for the children to grab their things as early as possible to save time.

"There they are!"

"Grandma!"

"Grandpa!"

Emmy and Vale scattered out of Ruben's car as it pulled up to your sister's house. Your parents had coincidentally arrived at the sametime you did.

"How are my favorite grandchildren?"

"Grandma, we're your only grandchildren." Emmy and Vale giggled, swept up in your mother's embrace.

"Are you? How could I forget?"

It was all smiles and giggles in the front yard. Your dad and Ruben shook hands, but not much more words were exchanged beyond that. Same thing with your mother. The farthest they had gone to approve of your relationship with Ruben was in the form of an yearly invitation to visit them in Bournemouth in the summer. But only at the sametime as your sister and her children were there. Other than that they left you and Ruben alone. Possibly because they were both radical traditionalists. Your mother once told you when you first started dating Ruben, that a man like him would only string you along as long as you maintained your youth and never upsetted his lifestyle by bearing children. It was a cruel and unfair thing to say, and perhaps your parents being born and raised in Chelsea might have something to do with their resentment towards your boyfriend. Nevertheless, you had learned to live with it and so had Ruben.

"Kids!" Your dad announced with a clap of his hands. "Let's go inside and help your dad with your things. We have a long drive ahead of us once we're done."

"Yay!" Emmy and Vale joyously sprinted into their home, through the door that had been left unlocked.

You and Ruben entered the house behind your parents. But just like them you were struck by the mess in the living room and the kitchen. Boxes lay scattered all over the floor. Boxes containing old books, records and pictures of—"

A heart-wrenching scream shook the house.

"Emmy!" Your heart tied a knot as you sprinted through the house in search of her. You passed the living room and pushed through the door to the office. In that moment an incredible stench hit you like a wall, tearing up your eyes as you regarded the tragic scene before you.

"My dad is dead. My dad is dead!" Emmy cried, and ran to you hiding her face. Vale on the other hand, stood in shock, his mouth left open, watching his father who lay slumped over the desktop his skin pale and gray. However, he wasn't dead. He was just passed out in a pool of his own vomit. Hence the stench. You counted at least four bottles of something strong, whiskey perhaps.

"Y/N?" Ruben appeared behind you in the door, wrinkling his nose once the smell hit him too.

"Oh dear." Your mother gasped. Your dad pushed past her and into the room his eyes wide and his breath shallow. "Valentie." He hissed. "Please, get away from there."

He didn't move, his feet remaining glued to the floor while his body trembled all over.

"Oh dear." Your mother repeated tugging at your arm for you and Emmy to step out of the room. However, you couldn't leave, not without Vale.

"Son, please" Your dad pleaded. Tears were seen streaming down Vale's cheeks but other than that he was unresponsive.

Your mother could no longer bare the tragic scene and disappeared down the hall, dialing 999 on her phone. Meanwhile you and Ruben watched how your dad struggled to get Vale's attention. The boy was simply in shock.

"Vale please." You cried. "Come to me." His sister trembled in your embrace, her arms wrapped around you tightly. So tight that you couldn't move. "Please, Vale."

His tearfilled eyes shifted towards you and the look in them was nothing but dreadful, emptied of all light.

"That's it. Good boy." You encouraged, as his little feet shuffled slowly towards you, or towards Ruben to be exact. He walked past your dad, stretching his arms above his head. And for a moment you saw the hesitation in Ruben's eyes. The fear. But he bent down to pick him up, cradling a sniffling Vale in his embrace.

The ambulance pulled up to the house as you stepped out of it. And just as you thought to see the end of a nightmare, another one had just begun.

Part 5 and Part 6 are out on my Patreon!

#fanfiction #football imagine #footballer x reader #footballer imagine #football angst #ruben dias #man city #manchester city #ruben dias x reader #ruben dias imagine

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shitpostsfromtheinvisiblelibrary · 1 month ago

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Dear companions:

Learning how to be lonely

Irene folded her shawl tighter around herself, stood on the edge of the beach and looking out to the sea, watching the waves crash against the pebble shore, whipped up by the strong wind that cut through clothes and pulled pins from her hair.

It was stupid to cry.

But it wasn't the same.

When had Irene become so soft? So... fragile?

So pathetic.

It was Christmas eve and she was alone.

She had been alone for christmas before but not since before Kai and now she thought of the year before, the laughter over Christmas dinner, the lopsided paper hats from the crackers smuggled from another world, Kai showing Catherine how to make her fortune telling fish work, Vale racing through the little brain teaser toys, lining up the finished ones and reporting that a child would be able to do those.

Wine, far too much wine, but the headache the day after was worth it.

The gloves she wore had been a gift from Catherine. They were soft and warm, a little too tight around her fingers, like someone was holding on and squeezing tight.

But there wasn't.

Being a Librarian had been the most important thing in Irene's life for years. Books, that was what was important, that was all that was important. She'd seen it growing up, she had been second to the Library, the books always came before her.

But then she'd made friends and then she had fallen in love.

Love, that stupid little emotion that ruined everything.

Irene did not regret it though her heart now ached with everyday that was void of people and laughter. She had never felt a loneliness quite like it.

Life had just gotten in the way of it all.

London grew bigger and Vale was always busy with this or that.

Catherine was now a Journeyman, she was off living her own life, having her own adventures. She sent emails when she could but Irene hadn't seen her since she had left.

And she and Kai had just... there had been arguments. Shouting matches at three in the morning over the stupidest of things that suddenly drove her insane with annoyance. She told herself that's how it went, couples grew apart. She still loved him but he was never there, and when he was they fought. His title as ambassador granted him more standing in his father's court and he was there more and more on invitations to parties, dinners and to meet people's daughters, Irene knew he was under a lot of pressure to sign a mating contract though had no interest in doing it himself. But that didn't make it easier to sleep at night when his side of the bed was cold and empty.

And Irene was busy as well, the Library had to come first. It always had to come first.

Even if that left her alone with no one left.

She wasn't sure when the last time she'd had a hug was. Maybe the last time Kai had been home? But probably not. He'd left with a slam of the door.

Irene felt rain run down her cheeks and wiped it away as it started to fall heavier. She sighed.

If Kai was here he would have loved the view, he would have wanted to stand there for hours, and for him, she would have done too.

She turned and walked back up the beach, eyes on the pebbles crunching underneath her feet until she got to the steps back up to the road.

'I didn't think you liked the sea.'

'Kai!' She gasped, head shooting up to where his voice came from. He was learning against a lamppost, coat flapping in the wind.

'You must be freezing. Where are you staying?'

'Just up the road,' He offered her his hand. 'Why are you here?'

'I didn't want you to be alone,' He shrugged. 'And I wanted to apologise. Come on, lead the way.'

They stumbled through the door and Irene quickly shut out the wind and rain. Kai ran his hand over her shoulder and drew the rain from her clothes. Irene suppressed a shiver as she felt the water rush over her skin before being dragged off.

'There isn't a tree,' Kai frowned.

'I'm by myself so there wasn't a point.'

'Oh,' He ran a hand through his hair. 'Can we talk?'

'I don't know,' Irene said honestly, some Christmas gift if this ended in a row.

'Touché,' He sighed and looked around the small cottage that Irene was staying in, recognising the blanket draped over the arm of the sofa as one of his. 'Can we try to talk?' They were both guilty of starting the arguments but when Irene stopped to think about it, she could never remember what they were actually fighting over.

She poured them both a drink and they sat on the sofa, as far from each as possible.

'How is Catherine?' He asked after a few minutes of highly awkward silence.

'Good. She was in Denmark last time she sent me an email, just checking in whilst she's been hunting for a copy of Hans Christian Anderson's fairytales, apparently there's a variation in the Snow Queen.'

'Good for her. Vale?'

'Last I heard he was basically living at Scotland Yard. I haven't seen him in a few weeks. Still alive though. I know that much.'

'And you're here because?' That was a good question. Irene wasn't sure what had driven her to pack up, tell Melusine that she was taking two weeks off, she hadn't asked, she'd just said don't contact me, and got on the first train out of London. Luckily she'd found somewhere to stay.

'I didn't want to be home. It was too empty. Quiet.'

'I got home yesterday, I was suprised when I realised that you weren't in London,' How could she explain that London no longer felt like home? The Library didn't either. Irene had nowhere to call home. No one.

'I couldn't stay there,' She said. 'I've actually been thinking about moving into a flat instead of staying there. It's empty half the time, we don't need-'

'Leaving?'

'No, just living alone. I live alone for ninty percent of the time anyway, what's that last ten percent for?' Kai slumped further down into his seat and took a drink. 'Catherine has gone, Vale is always busy and you...' She trailed off.

'Aren't there either.'

'I'm alone,' Irene finished her drink. 'I don't mind it. People have lives to live. I was alone before, I can be alone now,' She shrugged. 'Anyways, how us your family?' Kai snorted.

'The same. Your parents?'

'The same,' Silence again. Kai took a deep breath.

'Are we still together?' He finally asked. 'I can't remember the last time we shared a bed. We didn't fight. Hells, when was the last time we just... did something nice, just the two of us and it wasn't part of some scheme or plot?'

'Probably about this time last year,' Irene said. They'd fought before, little spats, slept in the spare room and then came crawling back halfway through the night when they couldn't sleep and forgiven each other.

The first night Irene slept in the spare room and hadn't gone back halfway through the night she had cried. She hadn't told Kai that. But she had cried.

She got up to refill her glass.

'Was last Christmas really the last time where we could be in the same room for more than five minutes?'

'No, probably a few months later. What is this, Kai? Is there a need for this? Because-' Irene stopped herself. She was getting very defensive, Kai was drawing back as well. 'Damnit,' She drained her glass in one go. 'This is why I don't do relationships. I'm not good at them. This emotional honesty nonsense. I can't do it.'

'I don't think either of us can do that very well,' Kai sighed. 'I can go if you want, I don't want to fight, I don't want to upset you. I just didn't want you to be alone if you didn't want to,' He put his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wrapped gift, slightly creased and damp. 'This is for you. I'm going to be staying around for a while. I told my father I was done with court life for a while, it's not for me and I'm sick of people telling me what to do. If you move out, that's okay, if you don't, I'd love to take you out for dinner some time,' He put the present down and stood up.

'Have we ever gone on a date?' Irene asked.

'I don't think so, no. Would you like to?'

'It wouldn't hurt to try again, would it?' Kai smiled. 'I suppose we didn't try the first time, did we. We never dated, we never did your typical couple things we just fell together.'

'I wouldn't change that,' Irene said. 'Despite everything, I would not change anything. We were happy for a few years, I felt safe and loved. That's more than I could have asked for,' It was more than Irene knew she was allowed to want.

'I wouldn't either. But, if you want to try again, you know where to find me,' Kai smiled. 'Merry Christmas, Irene.'

Irene stepped forward and she kissed his cheek.

'Merry Christmas, Kai.'

#the invisible library #fanfiction

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drarryspecificrecs · 2 years ago

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2023.03 ~ Top 10 longest fics posted on AO3

1. Silver Lining by She_Who_Must_Not_Be_Named_0 [?, 386k]

►13 years have passed since Voldemort's defeat. In those 13 years, Harry has done his best to forget everything that happened during the Second Wizarding War. He is a professor at Hogwarts now. And so, as of the upcoming school year, will Draco Malfoy. They haven't seen each other in years, they haven't talked in over a decade. Nothing has changed since they were students at the school - and yet, so much has. And after a while, they begin to realise that, in the end, maybe they aren't so different after all.

2. Defying the odds by Ibbsterkisster [T, 213k]

►[...] There was only so much Draco Malfoy could take. He was intelligent, he could see what was happening, what he was fighting for, what he had to pay for a cause he didn't even believe in. He wasn't brave, he didn't rush into situations without thinking first. He wasn't a Gryffindor. Draco Malfoy was a Slytherin. And he was about to show the world and a certain green-eyed Saviour, how useful Slytherins could be. — Or: the one where the Houses reunite to kick Voldemorts ass while Harry and Draco are boyfriends

3. no need to panic by silverdragons33 [T, 158k]

►Apparently, in the wizarding world, having a predestined soulmate is completely normal. [...] When someone starts trying to murder Harry, Draco is assigned as his protection. And although neither of the two have any idea what awaits them on the path ahead, one thing’s for certain: This will either end in bloodshed, or something far, far worse. But, yeah, no need to panic.

4. His Only Love by Becstar7 [M, 148k]

►Harry is an incubus in the court of King Thomas II, where fae and crossbreeds are second-class citizens. When someone tries to assassinate his lord and husband, Draco, Harry leaves his home to find the one responsible. But all is not as it seems, and learning the truth about himself and the world around him leads to a conflict he could never have imagined, with forces far more powerful than himself.

5. Save the Date by @mallstars [E, 122k]

►In the twelve years after the war, Harry attends sixteen weddings. As his friends and acquaintances vow their lives to each other, he watches quietly from the sidelines. Step by step he pieces his life together and falls, slowly and thoroughly, for Draco Malfoy. /// Featuring Ron becoming an eBay enthusiast, Hermione refusing marriage altogether, Gilderoy Lockhart getting married in a fever dream of glitter and product placement, and Rita Skeeter spitting a steady stream of venom at Harry and Draco's every move.

6. With and Without You by @shewhomustnotbenamed [E, 117k]

►Harry and Draco realize that they’ve been living in the same building for the past five years, hiding from the Wizarding world in Muggle London for a variety of reasons. They grow unexpectedly close and Harry realizes that Draco’s relationship with his boyfriend is abusive, spiraling as he tries and fails to figure out how to help. In Harry’s rejection of the Wizarding world in general, he has fallen out of touch with his friends and his magical abilities, but has to reconnect with both in order to find himself again.

7. A Blanket Of Black Fur by DarkWizard [E, 78k]

►After being sequestrated in the Manor for months, Draco tries to escape. Comes a wolf.

8. The Practice of Everyday Life by @goblinmatriarch [M, 69k]

►After the War, Harry married Ginny, had three beautiful children, and remained best friends with Hermione and Ron, who had two children of their own, and they all were happily married until they weren't. Harry and Hermione are both struggling to navigate post-divorce parenting, Ministry careers, and then this fucking pandemic hits. If that wasn't bad enough, Draco Malfoy reappears out of nowhere with worrying information about magical wards falling and the future of magic itself at risk. Harry and Hermione will have to navigate horrifying bureaucracy, complex magical rituals, confusingly sexy Slytherins, and Having It All.

9. An Earlier Heaven by Relevant_Peach [T, 52k]

►An unexpected truce throws off Draco's sixth year plans to lay low and avoid taking the Dark Mark and being assigned a mission. He doesn't know why on earth Potter would want to gain Professor Snape's respect, but he's pretty sure it's impossible. Still, having a boon from the Chosen One could come in handy, and if nothing else, it will be entertaining to watch Potter try.

10. The Roles We Play by slytherin_heartstrings [?, 43k]

►Draco is content with living his life as Damian, at least until Harry Potter walks into his theatre and threatens to disturb Draco's hard-earned peace of mind. After all, Potter has always had a thing for ruining Draco’s life. /// Harry reckons he might have a premature midlife-crisis. Three years after the war he still doesn’t know what to do with his life, but maybe it doesn’t matter as long as he still has a house to renovate and a capybara in his shower.

※ HONOURABLE MENTIONS :

11. Winner Takes It All by @skeptiquewrites [E, 40k]

►As with all his friends’ wagers, it starts small. Fifty Galleons for one kiss from Harry Potter is easily done.

—

※ Word count: 1k ~ 15k

※ Word count: 15k ~ 40k

Diagnosis: Unresolved by @lekendall [T, 16k]

Down to the Wire by @bluesyquill [G, 16k]

Draco Malfoy's Entirely Justified and Very Official War on Trousers by Tophats_and_Teacups [E, 15k]

I Like to Believe You've Been Dreaming of Me by @professordrarry [M, 19k]

In Search of Redemption by mavieenlair [T, 31k]

It was a bad idea ('cause now I'm even more lost) by @all-drarry-to-me [T, 36k]

Rotten Luck: a Lesson in Slander and Self Control by enoby_w [T, 17k]

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream by @violenttulips [E, 24k]

—

Ongoing Fest/Exchange

※ Fics would be listed elsewhere.

Divorce Flash 2023

Salt and Pepper Fest 2023

#drarry #drarry fanfic #drarry fic rec #harry potter #draco malfoy #monthly review #2023

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sealedstar · 2 months ago

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This is not for you.

Much like real life, this blog will have lovely, gentle slices of everyday life--and then untagged, warningless horror and/or potentially triggering content. This blog will endear you to its characters, and then peel back the facade little by little. Be forewarned.

Bio: I'm a very hobbyist writer, but very new to publishing my things in public. I am a Lucid Dreamer and can control my dreams, which heavily influences my writing.

Tags:

Surface/First:

The Pale Woman In The Woods

The Little One Whose Name and Form Changes Often

Andiron, The Fire Dog

Second:

The Shell?

The Darkness?

Strongest Narrative Inspirations:

There are far too many to list, but here are a few.

Fallen London (Primarily Seeking Mr Eaten's Name)

Alexis Kennedy's writing: Secret Histories series, Signalis: Horizon Signal

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Yume Nikki, Signalis, Hello Charlotte, and many other "Dreamlike" games.

Many, many different meta-narrative games (again, such as Hello Charlotte)

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 10 months ago

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My journey through gender equality advocacy has been one of two starkly different halves.

When I tell people about my support of women, I do so to more or less exclusive approval and applause. The stories of standing up to cat callers and to confronting misogynists are warmly welcomed; my time spent homeless in London raising money for vulnerable women, a proud feather in my hat.

And whilst it’s not why I did these things, I can’t help but noticed how it’s made me socially, intellectually and dare I say it, sexually, more attractive.

Then I move onto part two. I’ll talk about boys failing in school, the unique criminalisation of gay men historically, the abysmal male life expectency, or the abused men shut out from refuges, and suddenly the situation changes.

The environment runs cold, smiles are wiped from faces, and nodding heads grow stiff.

Often outage and condemnation follows. To them I’ve fallen down some kind of rabbit hole. My views are problematic. Ignorant. And somehow misogynistic.

People, even my own family, will protest and leave the room. “King of the Incels!” or “Z List Jordan Peterson” I am called. I’m always left wondering why I am the subject of such colourful language, for simply making my views consistent and my compassion complete?

And so the transformation is complete. The face of compassion, warmth and approval, has become the face of ignorance, coldness and stupidity.

It is, in my eyes, the ugly side of equality.

The male side; of snails and puppy dog tails, of lazy and obtuse catchphrases and victim blaming mentality. Toxic this, and patriarchy that, and privilege sprinted on top. Yawn.

So how has your journey into the ugly side of equality played out?

And why do so many progressives forsake their own beliefs, compassion and virtue so quickly?

Sources:

Telegraph Article: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/11/16/boys-left-fail-school-attempts-help-earn-wrath-feminists-says/

Dr Farrell Protest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiRasOrIoYQ

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/13/girls-overtake-boys-in-a-level-and-gcse-maths-so-are-they-smarter

The activists don't care about this. They don't care about people. They care only about imposing their ideology onto everyone. You can tell from the girl who says "feminist spaces" should be used to talk about mental health. You're not allowed to talk about any real issue or problem without applying their corrupt, fraudulent ideological framework, in order to produce false, ideologically acceptable answers. Such as that suicide is caused by "the patriarchy" or "toxic masculinity." They'll literally attempt to stop you and call you a bigot if you try.

This is analogous to how believers will say that famine or disease are the result of "sin" or are "god's punishment," rather than non-fictional, actual real-world causes.

P.S. I absolutely detest how quasi-therapeutic language like "spaces" has leaked out into the everyday language of these ideologues.

#The Tin Men #gender equality #equality #education #hypocrisy #western feminism #systemic bias #misandry #it was never about compassion #religion is a mental illness

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chrisevansonly · 2 years ago

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EXCITING NEWS I NEED TO SHARE WITH MY TUMBLR PALS/FAMILY🤍

You guys are like my family, you’ve constantly been there for me, checking in on me, as well as just providing so much support and love towards not only my work on here but towards me as well and there will never be enough words to thank you all for everything you’ve done for me.

Most of you know I graduate soon, June 14th I’ll be handed my degree, but i’m done April 12th, and i’ll be the first person in my family to graduate university. That has always been something i’ve wanted to do since I was little but always struggled to find my passion until I found Law and fell in love with everything it has to offer.

Another part of my story you all know or recently found out is i’m a survivor of abuse from my stepfather, and neglect from my mother which left me to fend for myself growing up, and looking after my younger brother as well who graduates high school this year and is moving to Germany. I never thought 1. I’d make it to 20 and next month i’ll be 24 and still here, still fighting for myself even if it hurts like hell. Watching my brother grow up to be strong, and resilient like me only helped pushed me to continue on with my journey, because I owed it to him to live my own life after looking after him for basically 18 years now.

It’s still crazy to me that I’m even here writing this news to share with you all because some of you genuinely have been with me through this whether it’s from tiktok or just tumblr.

BUT WITHOUT FURTHER ADUE…

Ive been debating this decision for a while, if you don’t know i’m british canadian, my father lives in the UK and I live in Canada, he moved back when I was little but since then he’s kept in contact with me everyday, and been a parent to me from across the world. I’ve had my eyes set on moving to the UK eventually, specially the London area to practice law and build my career and my life in a new place, a new city and a fresh start which I keep telling myself I deserve. So to stop rambling and being annoying, as I’m currently working on getting my British Passport, since both the UK and Canada recognize dual citizenship; the possibility and opportunity of moving is almost set in stone.

So basically it looks like i’ll be moving to London next year, and I couldn’t be more excited for this new adventure and for the sudden weightless feeling I have…i’ve always fallen behind and lost who I was and it just seems like everything is coming together and I couldn’t be more excited…my neighbours think i’m crazy with all the tears and dancing i’ve been doing all morning🥹😭

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secretlywritingstories · 2 years ago

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We balance each other out on the seesaw of life | Phan one shot

Summary: Phil had dragged Dan to Isle of Man after his return home from tour. The sea air would do him good (even if it gave him hobbit hair) and he could be surrounded by Phil's family (who were his family too). He hadn’t actively planned to drag him onto a seesaw on a playground but it turned out to be a precious moment all the same.

Tags: Established relationship, domestic fluff, being the best guncles, playing on a playground and embracing their inner child

Word count: 5.1k

No warnings.

Inspired by this video Phil posted on Twitter.

Read on AO3 or below

It was wonderful to have Dan back. Phil felt as if he hadn’t really been a functioning human without him. Perhaps that should be cause for concern. After all, there was such a thing as being too dependent on each other.

However, it was not a concern that Phil would or really could entertain because if there was anything in this whole world that he felt sure about… it had to be Dan. If pressed or feeling contrarian, Dan could might be able to come up with a million and one arguments of could occur to pry them apart, even or particularly against their will, but Phil decided not to listen to any of those hypotheticals.

He trusted the universe to let him keep Dan until they were both grey and old. They would be one of those old couples that died within days of each other because they couldn’t live without each other. He had already decided that within the first year of knowing Dan.

It hadn’t quite been that extreme feeling to be without Dan while he was on tour, but there had been moments where Phil had felt a new sense of being lost. He had taken for granted what it was like to always have his love so close. He begrudgingly had to admit that he had taken that privilege slightly for granted. It had become their everyday life, and while it was wonderful, it became a given.

Maybe that was why Phil was even more all over Dan since he had returned. He understood that Dan needed to go into hermit mode, have a whole week of frydays, and no responsibilities.

No people too.

Other than Phil.

Of course.

Phil didn’t count as people to Dan anyway. He’d called him a piece of furniture once. Phil had chuckled at that one and teasingly demanded that Dan take him back to the store. Dan’s eyes had crinkled, even with the dark bags under them, and he’d said Phil was too used to be returned. Phil had hit him with a pillow. They’re giggled and laughed and fallen into each other.

For a moment, Phil hadn’t been able to tell where he ended and Dan begun. It wasn’t the first time he’d experienced that.

It had been a few weeks since Dan’s return to London post tour and Phil had deemed it necessary that they started to see people again. They made plans to catch up with friends, more days in a row than initially planned to accommodate other schedules, and then setting off for Isle of Man to see Phil’s parents, as well as Martyn, Cornelia and little Freja.

“People did that once you know,” Phil said to Dan when they were on the plane.

Dan turned from where he’d been blindly staring out of the window. The seatbelt sign turned on to indicate that they would begin their descend.

“Huh?”

“Go to the seaside,” Phil said.

He realised that he’d just again started a conversation with no context, or rather the context of his thoughts, which Dan didn’t have access to. He wasn’t really worried though because –

“Go to the seaside when they were unwell? Faint ladies prescribed visits to seaside towns to regain their strengths?”

– Dan often figured out where his head was at without any direct access anyway.

“Yes,” Phil said, clutching onto Dan’s arm after he’d doubled checked his seatbelt was still on.

“Are you telling me I’m a faint lady?” Dan said, mock offended with a soft scoff.

The last couple of weeks had done him good but the exhaustion still lingered in his face. Phil knew that he had loved every night out on stage in front of their audience, but all of the travelling and the effort had definitely taken a toll on him.

“You need it. The fresh seaside air,” Phil said with a hum.

Dan just hummed and slumped more in his seat, leaning towards Phil.

“I do like the seaside air,” he said after a beat. “You can breathe in without filling your lungs with car exhaust. It’ll kill my hair though, especially now that it’s so long.”

It would. Phil was rather looking forward to that really. Dan still hadn’t gotten a haircut since he had come back from tour. He was past his normal due for one by now, but he hadn’t wanted to use his limited social resources on getting a haircut.

Phil had offered to cut it for him, but Dan had just put the old haircut video up on their big screen TV and turned the volume all the way up to remind him how it had gone last time. Phil might be dense at times, but he got the hint there. Though he stubbornly maintained that it had made for a hilarious video and Dan hadn’t even looked that bad.

When they arrived home, Kath was the first to greet them. She stood in the doorway with a warm smile and something deep within Phil’s heart ached a little. It wasn’t that long since he’d seen his parents. It had just been for his birthday in January less than two months ago, but he loved her and his dad, and they were growing older.

Not just older. Growing old.

Not yet, but it was creeping up on them, slow and deadly.

Phil stayed in his mother’s embrace a touch longer than he would otherwise have, and he only really let go when Dan poked his side and then also demanded a Mama Lester hug. Phil reluctantly relented, if only because he wanted to watch the comfort and love with which his mother and Dan handled each other.

Dan had really been readily adopted into his family years ago, and it had been Phil’s mother leading that charge. Nigel met them in the kitchen, instructed to keep an eye on Kath’s latest baked creations in the oven while she came out to greet them. Dan was a little more awkward around him, but it was still a lovely reunion, even if Dan got insulted right off the bat.

“It looks like you haven’t slept for a week,” Phil’s dad told him, not meaning offence but just stating it plainly.

“I feel like it too,” Dan laughed with an easy smile. “Even though it’s the opposite. I’ve pretty much been asleep every day since I came home.”

“I can confirm that,” Phil said and raised his hand. “Practically comatose.”

It was an afternoon of warmth and comfort, and then an evening full of laughter and games when Martyn, Cornelia and Freja came over too. It was good to see them again. It was more of a treat to see them now that they’d moved out of London, and Freja was growing much faster than Phil had anticipated.

“Do you want to come to the playground with us tomorrow?” Cornelia asked, as the evening was wrapping up and she was standing in the doorway with her sleeping daughter over her shoulder.

“Playground?” Dan asked, looking slightly bemused.

“We’ll be there,” Phil promised for the both of them.

“Cheers, I’ll send you a text when we get ready to leave. It’ll be around 10 AM, but it might be a little before or later depending on the princess’ mood,” Martyn said, trying to sound annoyed but there was too soft a tone in his voice.

It had been a strange thing to see his big brother become a parent. Sometimes, Phil was reminded of how him and Martyn had been as children, and now Martyn was the one with a kid. It felt rather adult.

Much more adult than Phil felt himself. He knew he technically was an adult and he was capable of many things, but he wasn’t sure if that supposed “I am an adult” feeling would ever kick in.

It was still on his mind when him and Dan curled up together in the guest bedroom in his parents’ house.

“Do you feel like an adult?” he asked Dan.

Dan didn’t answer right away and Phil looked over to see if he had fallen asleep immediately. It hadn’t been that long since they had gotten into bed, but it wasn’t a lie that Dan had been sleepy lately.

“No,” he said, spoken softly into the dark bedroom. “But I don’t quite feel like a kid anymore either. It feels like I’m stuck somewhere in between. Responsibilities and childishness mixing in a rather terrifying manner.”

His words were slightly slurred, like he was just barely clinging to his consciousness.

“That’s not childish, it’s your inner child still living,” Phil said, after a moment. “No need to kill him.”

Dan didn’t reply. Phil snuggled closer and he could feel his steady breathing, clearly drifted off to sleep mid-conversation. Phil didn’t really mind. He looped his arms around Dan, ignoring the face full of curls and felt how Dan shuffled back just a little into Phil’s embrace. Even sleeping they drifted towards each other. Sought comfort in each other.

Bright and early – at least according to their usual morning rhythm – they grabbed their coats and headed out to meet Martyn, Cornelia and Freja. Dan had slept in until the latest moment, and his face still had creases from the pillow where his skin hadn’t evened out yet. Phil on the other hand was just feeling the effects of his first coffee of the day and he was almost giddy in his steps as he dragged Dan along by the hand.

They didn’t usually hold hands out and about but experience taught them that they could get away with a bit more on Isle of Man. It was a smaller community, less people out and about, and the ones that did see them didn’t seem to care one bit.

The playground was located on the top of a hill overlooking the ocean. You couldn’t see it from within the playground, but it was close enough that the sea air was wafting liberally through the air. Dan’s hair had curled in the moisture just on the walk to the playground.

Phil noticed and he couldn’t stop himself from pausing and reaching out with his free hand. Just tugging on a curl and watching it spring back up. Dan narrowed his eyes and tried to do his best to send a death glare at Phil but he wasn’t really succeeding. Maybe because he still looked more sleepy and mildly grumpy than scary.

“It’s cute,” Phil said.

“It’s a mess.”

“A cute mess.”

“I’ll make you a cute mess,” Dan grumbled, even as his mouth lifted in a slight smile.

Phil reached forward to poke Dan’s nose, and then let go of his hand. He smirked before starting to sprint off the last of the way to the playground.

“Last one is a rotten egg!” he hollered over his shoulder.

He was granted with a rather delighted expression of surprise, disbelief and fondness on Dan’s face before he turned around to look where he was actually going. He knew he would need to do that, or injuries was way to high risk.

“You can’t just say that!” Dan complained in a yell but Phil could hear him start to sprint after him all the same.

There was a glee building in his chest, a bright smile on his face, even as his heart beat way too fast and he was running out of air in his lungs. It was worth it; he could live on glee and happiness of being silly with the love of his life.

It was moments like this that made life worth living.

Phil predictably reached the playground first, touching the fencepost and letting out a shout of victory. Dan wasn’t far behind but rather than heading for the post, he just ran right into Phil.

Phil stumbled a little, nearly tripping over but he managed to catch Dan and keep them both standing. Just barely. Dan was panting and if Phil had to guess, he would wager that his heart also was beating out of his chest.

“Cheater,” Dan said and then coughed twice. “You got a head start.”

Phil didn’t even try to deny it. He moved his hands to hold onto Dan’s shoulders better, but still let him lean into him.

“Sore loser.”

“False winner.”

Oh, how Phil loved him.

“Well, there’s one way we could fix it. All or nothing!”

It made Dan pull back, a little, to be able to look properly at Phil’s face. He shook his head when he saw the sincerity in his eyes.

“You’re a mad man if you think I’m running twice. Once was more than enough,” Dan said, pinching Phil’s side. He yelped and tried to pull away but Dan managed to wrap his other arm around his shoulder and keep him there to endure the abuse.

Well, the babuse.

“Did we get here first?” Dan asked, looking around at the empty playground. There wasn’t a single child in sight, let alone Freja with her parents.

Phil fished out his phone and saw that a new message had ticked in that Freja had refused to put on shoes for a bit but they were on their way now.

“They’re on their way, just a little delayed,” Phil said, looking down at his phone.

“Shoes?” Dan asked, as he let go of Phil and strolled into the playground.

Phil chuckled. “Yeah. But can you blame her?”

“No, I too want to live a wild barefoot existence. Well, at least until I cut my foot on something or just, like, get cold.”

Phil smiled, shaking his head fondly. The fact that Dan knew his niece currently had trouble accepting shoes on his feet felt nice. He’d been paying attention to even stupid silly things.

Phil took in the playground around him. Before Martyn and Cornelia had gotten Freja it had been a while since he’d actually been on a playground. It had felt a little strange coming here as an adult without a child. He had a feeling that he would have gotten some weird looks for lurking around on a playground or playing near other people’s children.

But they were alone right now, and Phil had his perfect playmate.

“Come on,” he said, tugging Dan properly into the playground. Most of the playground was entirely too small to cram their large bodies into. It would surely break. They couldn’t fit their asses down the slides and the seat of the swings looked far to narrow too. But there was one item that Phil was pretty confident could hold them.

“What are we doing?” Dan asked, even as he let himself get dragged along. He might question why but he didn’t hesitate for a second.

“The seesaw,” Phil said, and he knew that would be explanation enough.

“Phiiil,” Dan whined. “It’ll snap.”

“We’re not that heavy, and it’s like meant for parents to be able to use it too, isn’t it?” Phil insisted.

He put a hand on the little race car seat on one side and tried to wiggle it. It felt more than sturdy enough.

“I don’t think it’s meant for adults,” Dan said with a frown. “Imagine tiny Freja on one end and you on the other. There’d be no balance. She’d just be up in the air the whole time.”

It was a fun imagine, and Phil made a mental note to try it with her. Freja loved to be tossed up high, so he thought that she might actually like it. He could imagine her little giggle.

“Well, I’m not asking Freja to get on it with me, am I? I’m asking you,” Phil said. “Jump on.”

He made a shooing motion with his hand, to get Dan to walk over to the other side of the seesaw as he put just one foot on his side in preparation. Dan just looked at him with a blank expression.

It didn’t say blank for long. His resolve cracked far too quickly, warm smile spreading on his face and eyes sparkling slightly.

“You want me to ride the seesaw with you.”

“Yes.”

“For real?”

“Are you hard of hearing already?” Phil quipped, completely unphased. He wasn’t backing down. He didn’t need to with Dan. Together they could indulge in every single silly idea.

Dan shook his head, making his curls even more messy for a moment. Phil watched with a smile as he walked around to the other side of the seesaw and put a single foot up, just like Phil.

“You want to do this at the same time?” he asked.

“No, you get on first, then I’ll go.”

“You just want to see my ass hit the ground. If I fall off and break something, you’re paying for the hospital bills,” he remarked.

“We’ve got joint finances,” Phil snorted. “And it’s a children’s playground.”

“Never underestimate the dangers! We’re getting old,” Dan said, the last bit with a glint in his eye.

“We are not. Now get on the seesaw, buddy.”

Dan did. As predictably, it tipped under his weight. His legs were far too long, having to almost curl up to fit on the tiny footrests but he just managed it. Phil tried to not let the seesaw drop all the way down by keeping his foot on it, but Dan was heavier than he’d thought.

“Just let me fall, huh?” he asked, bright smile on his face, even with the accusation.

“And now I’m about to raise you up!” Phil argued and got on himself.

Dan had made it look quite easy. It wasn’t. Phil’s legs were too long as well and it felt like his muscles protested as soon as he tried to bend them into position. But he was going to do this, and his body just had to get on board with the fun.

It did. He managed to cram himself onto the little seat and then they were swinging. Their weight was similar enough that they evened out almost perfectly. And Phil got the pleasure of looking right at Dan, with his messy hair and the dark circles under his eyes and the small smile on his lips.

He rocked back a little, clinging on tightly with his hands, and let them tip back and forth. Dan did the same and soon they were rocking back and forth gently. Phil got a vision of them in rocking chairs on some porch as old men instead of being in their 30’s and rocking back and forth on a seesaw in a playground.

The movement was small, but there was still something fun about it. Maybe just because it was an indulgence and an experience shared with Dan. Most things were more fun when they were shared.

“Happy?” Dan asked, sounding caught been exasperated and fond.

“Yes,” Phil said, warm and secure.

Dan’s eyes softened a little. He knew that Phil didn’t just mean in this moment.

It was so good to have Dan back. Phil had taken to staring at him more than normal, delighting in looking over and just be able to see him without a screen between them. He never quite wanted to go back to that again. Long distance wasn’t made for them, at least not for long.

Though it was all good in the end, as long as he got Dan back.

“I see you started without us,” Martyn called out.

Phil turned to look at him walking into the playground with Freja on his hip, Cornelia walking behind with a bag slung over her shoulder. They never really went anywhere with Freja without a bag for her things.

It reminded Phil of how he and Dan would bring just one shared backpack going to the BBC when they went to do the radio show. They’d take turns carrying it, just like Cornelia and Martyn did.

“We can’t let the kids have all of the fun,” Dan quipped, and then it looked like he was ready to get off.

Phil wasn’t quite ready for that yet.

“Corn?” he called out.

“Yeah?”

“Take a video of us?” he requested, effectively halting Dan’s movements.

Dan raised an eyebrow at Phil in question, but Phil didn’t meet his gaze. He wanted to remember this moment. He wanted video of it. He loved that he had so many fun memories with Dan captured on camera and this would be another one.

“Got it,” she said with practiced easy, pulling out her phone.

Martyn sat Freja down who pointed at the two of them. “Guncles,” she mumbled out, words half hidden behind her other hand shyly coming up to her mouth.

Dan threw his head back and laughed. It made the whole seesaw move more his way; elevating Phil as Dan threw his weight around.

“Did she just call us… guncles? Who’s taught her that?” he asked, looking pointedly at Phil, but he looked quite touched.

“No one, she came up with that all on her own,” Phil argued, trying to wink at Freja and not really succeeding.

“Liar,” Martyn was quick to call him out. Phil could always count on his big brother being a little shit. “Phil practically rehearsed it with her on his birthday visit.”

Dan laughed again, and it was such a lovely sound. Phil rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too.

“Alright, ready when you are, boys,” Cornelia called, camera ready in her hand.

Dan and Phil exchanged one look and then schooled their expressions. They kept their faces neutral as they rocked back and forth a couple of times. Phil hoped it came off both as silly and a little eerie.

“Some performer you are, huh?” Cornelia said with a shake of her head as she lowered her phone. “You make the seesaw look tiny.”

“It is tiny,” Phil argued.

Suddenly, Freja ran over and tried to climb up on the middle piece unprompted. She couldn’t quite clamber up on her own, even as Phil put a foot down to steady the seesaw for her. She turned around and pointed at her father.

“Up!” she requested and then tried to climb on again.

Martyn grabbed her and carefully placed her on the little platform in the middle. She let out a delighted giggle, even as her legs wobbled under her. Martyn stayed by her side, keeping a hand on her shoulder to steady her and be ready to catch her if she lost balance. Phil carefully eased his foot off the ground and the seesaw started swinging back and forth again.

Cornelia walked around to the other side and lifted her phone to film again.

“Want to swap out, Corn?” Dan asked. “I can get one of the family together.”

Phil was about to protest that Dan was just as much a part of the family, but Cornelia beat him to it.

“You’re family too, Dan. Besides I want a video of my little girl with her father and her guncles.”

Freja seemed to agree, wiggling her little butt happily. Phil took that as they should keep the gentle rocking of the seesaw going. He may even had leaned back as much as possible to give it more momentum. Dan did the same on the other side and she let out a happy laugh.

Martyn rolled his eyes at the two of them, but he also couldn’t quite keep the smile off his face.

It didn’t take long for Freja to tire of the seesaw, and so they went around the playground watching her try everything at least once. She was so full of energy and Martyn and Cornelia seemed delighted that Dan and Phil were the ones running around with her the most. It seemed like it was a welcome break for them.

Phil was pretty sure he was more exhausted than Freja by the time they left the playground. They waved off Martyn, Cornelia and Freja, but not after Freja ran up and gave both him and Dan a hug.

She also kept waving at them from over her mother’s shoulder.

“She’s quite cute,” Dan said, falling into step next to Phil. He walked close enough that their shoulders bumped with each step as they headed back. “I’m fucking exhausted though. She’s fast.”

“She is,” Phil agreed with a chuckle. “Not quite rocking back gently on a seesaw for her.”

Dan let out a hum of agreement. “It was fun though,” he said, voice barely loud enough to be heard.

“What did you say?” Phil asked, mostly just to make him repeat himself.

Dan narrowed his eyes in mock annoyance but he did repeat himself all the same.

“The seesaw. With you. It was fun.”

“I’m glad,” Phil said, feeling warmth spread in his chest. “It’s supposed to be fun.”

“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “And it was but also just… there’s something life affirming about it. Like… you never get too old or too big to play around. No one is stopping you except yourself. Life if meant to be fun and silly, and do random things just for the sake of it. It’s what everything is about.”

The warmth continued to expand in Phil’s chest and he leaned close enough to latch onto Dan’s arm.

“You got all that from a children’s seesaw?” he asked, chuckling.

“Shut up.”

“No. You’re being soft and sentimental. That means I’m allowed to tease you.”

“I never signed anything like that,” Dan protested, while fighting a smile.

“Yes, you did. Must always entertain Phil’s whims. Must endure teasing when sentimental,” Phil listed off on his fingers. “It’s all right there in our contract.”

“What contract? I just told you I didn’t sign anything.”

“Hmm, well, I know how to forge your signature, so are you sure about that?” Phil teased, leaning his head on Dan’s shoulder for just a moment.

He wanted to get snuggled up once they were back at his parents’ house. It was nice enough to be outside in the fresh air and run around but it felt like they could do with getting cosy and warm now. A little late morning nap never hurt anyone. It wasn’t like their sleep schedules could be more thrown off than they already were.

“What else have you signed with my signature, Philip Michael Lester?” Dan asked, even as he pulled Phil more into his side as they walked.

Just like they had balanced each other out on the seesaw, it was so easy to fall into perfect step next to each other. The length of their strides and the tempo matched without a second thought. A side effect of having walked next to each other for so many years.

“Oh, you know. All the regular stuff. Deals with the devil and such.”

“You sold the devil my soul. Imagine their disappointment when they find out that I have none. That’s mean of you,” Dan said, voice growing a little tired. A little sleepy.

They were almost back at Phil’s parents’ house. Judging by the look on his face it seemed like it wouldn’t take much to convince Dan to crawl back into bed.

“It’s incredible that you work actually. No soul and no heart,” Phil said.

“No heart?” Dan echoed.

“Yeah, ‘cause you handed it off to me,” he said, cringing a little at his own cheesiness. Dan was the one for sappy declarations, but at times Phil tried to purposely speak his language.

It was worth it when Dan snorted, almost choking on a laugh.

“You did not just say that. That’s corny as shit, Phil,” Dan protested, even as he tried to lean closer to Phil. Almost melting into his side as they walked side by side.

“Doesn’t matter. You love it. You want to hear all that corny shit,” he said, full of confidence.

Dan shook his head but didn’t argue. It would have no point. They both knew he’d lose that discussion. Phil knew him too well.

His phone buzzed in his pocket just as they reached the house. He pulled it out to find a message from Cornelia. She’d sent over the two videos of them on the seesaw. The first one with their stoic faces and the second one with Freja giggling in the middle and Martyn standing behind her.

“Look,” Phil said, leaning close to show Dan the two videos.

“Cute. You should post the first one,” he said as he pushed open the front door.

The car hadn’t been out front, so Phil’s parents had probably left to do something. Phil still called out to announce their return just in case he was wrong. No one replied.

“What, with no context?” Phil asked, even as he already moved to save the video.

“Keep them on their toes,” Dan said with a shrug. “And to remind them that if grown ass men can play in a playground, then so can they. You’re never too old for a little fun.”

“We look more like we’re being held hostage,” Phil said, as he opened Twitter and picked the video from his gallery.

“All part of the aesthetic,” Dan said, closing the front door behind Phil that he’d just left open because he’d been distracted by his phone. “That and my awful hair.”

“It’s cute,” Phil maintained. He left the video sitting in his drafts for now. He could post it later. Right now, he was much more interested in putting his phone away and falling into bed with Dan. “Come to bed?”

“We just got out of bed like an hour and a half ago,” Dan argued, even as he toed off his shoes and hung up his jacket and headed right back to the guest room.

Phil did the same and when Dan wasn’t moving fast enough, he grasped him by the hand and pulled just to make sure that he didn’t get any other idea. Again, Dan let himself get pulled and they stripped off their pants and just crawled back under the covers.

“We’ve been outside, we’ve been active. We deserve a little rest,” Phil argued, and snuggled up close.

His nose was slightly cold, and he nosed along the underside of Dan’s jaw. Dan pinched Phil’s hip but otherwise didn’t protest being used as a personal heater. Phil then reached up to trail his hands through Dan’s curls one more time.

He hummed contently and leaned into Phil’s touch.

“Thank you for dragging me along, and making me remember to have fun,” Dan mumbled, speaking against the top of Phil’s head. He placed a soft kiss there.

“Always,” Phil promised. “We’ll be 84 years old and I’ll still make you ride the seesaw with me.”

#phanfiction #phanfic #my stories

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motownfiction · 1 year ago

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the world

It’s her lack of closure with Sam’s death that brought Elenore here now. She’s sure of it.

And it’s not like she has too many regrets. If she hadn’t fallen for Charlie, she wouldn’t have Veronica. Maybe she and Sean would have had a daughter of their own, and maybe they would have named her Veronica like Elenore had always planned. But it wouldn’t be her, the most perfect girl in the world, who’s just about to finish high school and grew up too fast, too smart, too beautiful. But she can never be too much of anything. Being too much of something is an insult, hurled at you by someone who’s too chicken to be your friend.

Or someone who’s too chicken to be your husband.

Elenore’s lost track of how long Sean Fitzpatrick has been her partner. In a way, it’s been since second grade, when Elenore moved to New York. They fused at each other’s sides. But even in elementary school, Sean went through a phase where he didn’t want to be Elenore’s friend. In the first half of the fifth grade, some other girl took up all his time. She said Elenore was too much – too much drama, too much loud, too much everything. If Sean hung around with other people, maybe he’d be happier. And he was – for about three months. Around Christmastime, he came back to Elenore.

When they broke up in college, Sean cited similar concerns. Yeah, he’d fallen in love with someone else, but maybe he wouldn’t have if Elenore was more relaxed, more secure, more chilled out. He said she demanded people’s time in ways she didn’t recognize, that it was hard to be around someone who needed that much attention. He was nineteen and stupid, but at the time, he meant it. Elenore still thinks about it when she looks at him now.

It’s happening again. They’ve been married for ten years, and it’s happening again.

If Elenore is honest with herself, it’s been happening since the lockdown. Elenore, ever the performer, couldn’t stand being inside the apartment with nothing to do. The world had never been so small. So she wrote skits. Tons and tons of skits. There’s a part of her that thinks she missed her calling as a writer for the National Lampoon, but by the time she was old and educated enough, there was no National Lampoon to write for.

The skits were mostly topical. Stuff about the pandemic and the election cycle. Some of them were just ludicrous, like “Werewolves of London,” which she can’t bring herself to think about because of how much Sean seemed to hate it. And maybe Elenore shouldn’t have made him read all the skits. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked him and Veronica to act out the skits with her. But what the hell else were they supposed to do?

Sean says he’s still waiting for her to grow up. Stop playing games. He says he’s sorry that Charlie took advantage of her when she was still just nineteen, but that’s no excuse to act like a college freshman everyday of her life.

Elenore doesn’t see it that way. She sees it as being funny. Spirited.

Her therapist seems to agree with Sean. You’re an adult child! she says, as though that’s something she should be proud of.

No one seems to get her. Nobody but Veronica, who co-writes scripts with Emma over FaceTime every weekend.

Elenore’s not really sure what she’s going to do about it.

So, she keeps writing, hoping somebody out there wants to listen … wants to play.

#drabble #writeblr #ch: elenore o'connor #ch: sean fitzpatrick #ch: veronica o'connor #year: 2020 #asks #buddyaldridges #thank you!

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ambiguousthoughtsinsilence · 1 year ago

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A love letter to The National

My love for the National was not a ‘love at first sound’. It grew slowly, but persistently, similar to when you meet someone and find them interesting at first, but with each meeting that follows, you start wishing that they would stay a bit longer. It was 2010, High Violet had come out. I was 16 years old and foolishly thought that the Suburbs was a better album. 13 years later and the Suburbs are nowhere close to being the soundtrack to my existence in the way the National are. The lyrics of Terrible Love even adorn my arm in the form of a tattoo, physically signifying the importance of this American alt-rock band to my simple existence. ‘High Violet…]widened the scope into a grand, literary, moody, sardonic brand of arena rock for a disenchanted generation.’ I had always been drawn to rock music, but the National brought something else to the table, a reflective and poetic beauty that spoke to me when I was 16 and still speaks to me now. They were grandiose in sound, but not in a cliché tiresome arena rock kind of way. ‘These were anthems made for, and by, people raised to be skeptical of anthems.’

I remember the pleasure of blasting Sorrow into my ears and singing along to ‘sorrow found me when I was young’, feeling understood as I played ‘Afraid of Everyone’ again and again. Slowly I started to dig around in their discography as tends to happen, when one finds a new musical love. I became obsessed with Boxer. ‘A little more stupid, a little more scared, every minute a bit more unprepared.’ Just seemingly perfect encapsulations of how I felt inside. Creations of associative beauty, capturing these complex, messy and often isolating feelings of existing in a world that is overwhelming, filled with beauty, but is also tiring and loves to swirl you around, even when you are not ready. And you have to make sense of this all-consuming and puzzling existence, even though you didn’t ask to be here.

2013 was the first time I had a chance to see them live. Me and my friend travelled to London to Alexandra Palace for the Trouble Will Find Me tour. I remember how dreamlike it felt, as over the three years I had fallen deeply for their music and the album became a very beloved LP of 2013. Don’t Swallow the Cap was special, because it articulated the conflicting feelings of loving people oh so much, yet being terrified of being hurt and then somewhere in the midst of it all finding comfort in music. ‘I have only two emotions / Careful fear and dead devotion.’ I do not remember much of the concert, just that the happiness of seeing them live seemed surreal and also just how passionately I felt singing along to Graceless. ‘God loves everybody / Don’t remind me’ Memories of Matt throwing wine high up in the air also cling in some hidden parts of my brain.

In 2016 I moved to Manchester and they were an always present component of my playlists. Sleep Well Beast came out while I was pursuing my masters. It grew on me more slowly as they had taken their sound in a direction that was more electronic and seemingly darker, more contemplative. Initially didn’t hit me as hard, but as time went on, I listened to it again and again. Their music had become such a comforting presence in my life. Years pass, cities change, I move my belongings from one rented flat to another, partners change, friends left in places once called home, life becomes organised around white-collar jobs that now seem to define everyday existence. ‘You’re pink, you’re young, young middle-class / They say it doesn’t matter’

Time’s arrow marched forward and I Am Easy to Find came out in 2019. It felt more gentle, the traditional alt-rock sound softening, Matt’s enticing baritone being balanced out by more gentle feminine vocals. The album was accompanied by a beautiful short film, the imagery of which still sits with me. An album that captured a sense of longing as time rushes ahead and you ponder the people who you loved, yet are no longer there. ‘I still fall apart at the sound of your voice.’ I cried seeing them live in 2019 as I heard ‘I’m still waiting for you every night with ticker tape’, as it made me realise how much I desired that for me, yet the inability to see how it would ever come to fruition.

I saw them three times in 2019. Manchester, Brighton and Cologne. Cologne was special as I was able to share it with my best friend Tina. Before the show we shared wine in an Air BnB and then attended the concert together. It was magnificent to share it with someone who shared an understanding of the poetic beauty of the band’s music. Sharing a love for something is often the most beautiful thing, it’s saying ‘I am not alone in this world , you get me’.

I saw them twice in 2022, the second time being a spontaneous on-the-day decision to travel to Manchester to see them, for the first time I got close enough to the stage that it felt personal and intimate. I had decided to see them a few hours before and it was everything my heart desired. Being in the front of a National show is wonderful as that is where most of the hardcore fans are, and that adds another layer of joy to the experience. You’re all singing your hearts out as Matt shouts into the microphone, for those few hours nothing matters except the music and the release you feel as you sing with a bunch of strangers. The outside world didn’t exist, all that existed was the world inside the Mayfield Depo.

2023 came and a new album was forthcoming. New Order T-Shirt was a beauty, an encapsulation of how we cling to memories and reminders of people who are no longer in our lives. ‘Glimpses and snapshots of you’ I replayed it again and again and again. Then the album came out. Try as I might, I wasn’t able to fully embrace it. Was this it? How could they no longer speak to me in ways I was used to? It was like feeling a friendship slip away and not understanding why. But then Laugh Track came out and it was like an amalgamation of everything I loved about them. The guitars, the drums, the lyrics filled with phrases I found captured my most intimate states of being, the melodic build up over the three minutes of Space Invader sending me to heaven. I quickly started searching for a ticket to their second show in London, one would not be enough. Thank God for TicketSwap. Then the week of the concerts came.

Almost 10 years of me screaming ‘God loves everybody / Don’t remind me’. Same venue. Two nights, two setlists, no repetitions. Communicating with people over Facebook messenger, whose love and dedication exceeds mine. I spent the days of the gigs pondering which shirt to wear, listening to playlists and eager for the work day to end. Blood buzzing and having no idea what the two nights would bring.

During the Sleep Well beast tour some fans introduced me to a Facebook fan group and since 2017, it has a been a wonderful place to revel in collective joy. Before the September shows I arranged to meet some of the fans in person and attend the show together, it was lovely to talk about albums and our journeys of loving the National. I often think that my emotions towards this American alt-rock band are quite intense, however I feel understood when meeting others from this group. Being at a concert and seeing the excitement as songs from an EP, released in 2004, get played live. I realised that seeing them this September were the 9th and 10th time of seeing them live, and it had been almost 10 years since seeing them live for the first time, at Alexandra Palace.

And these shows felt special, kind of hard to explain. Seeing them live feels like an embrace from a friend you hold dear. It’s familiar, comforting, pulsating with life. When the brass section kicks in, there is almost a parade like feel to it all, the drums adding an edge to the performance. They seemed to be reinvigorated, joyous to share the stage as a band, a playfulness to their performance I had not observed before. Aaron and Bryce having prolonged moments of letting their guitar playing expand throughout the venue. Stunning. Especially on Space Invader. The first night ended with the ‘turn-the-audience-into-a-choir’ hit that is Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks. The whole show was accompanied by Chris Riddell’s live drawings, shown on the big screen, managing to capture the fleeting beauty of those live performances.

Night two felt different, songs that hadn’t been featured in years. Deep dives I had forgotten existed and that blew me away. Matt’s movements making me thinking of the theatricality of it all. On night two I succeeded in getting closer to the stage so I experienced the joy of the explosive singing along with others during Graceless and Terrible Love, reaching a body enveloping catharsis state. A different sort of happiness, but one that captured my heart in ways I do not fully understand.

I am a person with an overall positive outlook on life, yet there is an underlying sadness and melancholy to most of human existence, a melancholy embedded in living that is inescapable. Time accelerating as you grow older, moments slipping away to fade into memory, becoming vague recollections as you look back. Those moments of feeling completely unable to communicate, the jumble of emotions your body carries around that linger in the background of your mind. Seeing the people you love and feeling like there is an invisible barrier between you, blurring the ways in which you see each other. A feeling of discomfort that occurs, unprovoked and surprising. When it feels like everyone else has figured life out and can co-exist with others, but you teeter around the edges. Being there, but on the margins. That is what The National embody to me.

#the national #concert review #personal essay

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quill-pen · 2 years ago

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Okay, I'm gonna be completely honest: Bess would have fallen for Ebenezer even as a grumpy, old miser. She'd meet him and he would be rude and she would adapt to his energy and be rude right back. They would both get furious with each other and Eb would kick her out of his counting house and tell her "Don't come back!" And Bess, being the instigator she is and possessing the "never-say-die" American spirit, would be like: "That ass! ... I'm gonna make his life hell!" And she'd just keep coming back to his business everyday to annoy him and tick him off. Every time she's tossed out; every time she comes back.

And if she catches him in the street, and she DOES because she's looking for him specifically and she literally lies in wait for him, it's even worse because then she gets to embarrass him too. Nothing too bad, because even just taking his arm in hers is enough to mortify curmudgeonly Scrooge, but she definitely follows him all over on his rounds, butts in on his conversations, drags him into ones he has no interest in being in. She never fails to get him all hot and his blood pressure skyrocketing (not for the same reasons as in post-ACC universe... at first). Oh, miser-Scrooge loathes her! That's okay--she kinda loathes him, too. At first. But I guess over time they'd just kind of... wear each other down until Ebenezer is merely annoyed by her and Bess' mission changes from "I want to make you suffer," to "I want to make you smile". And eventually Scrooge develops a semi-soft spot that only Bess is able to call out. He's still really salty and (I can't think of another word so we'll use this) tsundere-ish about it though. Bess definitely realizes and acts on her feelings before he does in this au (she keeps hiding them in hers).

I still don't see an actual romantic relationship taking form until after Eb's reclamation though. Not for lack of trying on Bess' part (I definitely see her finagling a kiss or two out of Scrooge--probably annoying him to the point he kisses her to shut her up), but scroogey Scrooge just wouldn't allow that bud to blossom for numerous reasons, the biggest ones probably being because he's terrified of the emotions and he doesn't believe he's good enough for Bess (that definitely stays the same universe to universe). And sheer stubborn pride would be a reason too, let's be honest about the man.🙄 She'd definitely be a big part of the redemptive journey I think. They probably had a huge blowout right beforehand, Bess finally bringing up the topic of their obvious feelings and Eb getting angry because he's so scared about the idea and shoving her away, probably projecting his feelings of not being good enough onto her. 😬Yeowch.... Bess would kind of have that niggling doubt herself already because of her past, so... it wouldn't be pretty. So all that would probably come up through Christmas Present and Yet to Come.

After his redemption, I don't think Ebenezer would waste any time trying to make it up to Bess, though. He'd scour all of London's gardens to find a bunch of bluebells for her (accented with poinsettia, of course--it is Christmas after all) and present them to her. (This first one, would be a bouquet unfortunately--afterwards he starts getting her potted plants.) I don't think he'd invite her on Christmas Day like everyone else. A) he knows she wouldn't come, because he hurt her and because she'd be spending the day with her siblings and the few family members she likes. B) He realizes this is something that needs to be private--just between them. He doesn't want to make Bess' feel socially pressured into forgiving him; she's free to slap him across the face and turn him away if she wants--he deserves it. But she'd agree to talk with him when he goes to meet her, and Eb would be so relieved and grateful! After thousands of apologies and reasons (not excuses--there's a difference) for why he's been the way he is and acted as he did, he'd get around to telling her he's all in for a relationship--any relationship--with her: Or rather, "... As in as you want me to be". Poor Bess would be SO CONFUSED!🤣 And a tad bit suspicious.😒 But because she always knew there was some good in that heart of his somewhere, she'd mostly just be so happy.🥲 She knows she shouldn't, because this man was literally being such a bully to her and everyone else a few days ago, but she can't help herself: She definitely kisses him.😍

Eb: "... Would it be possible to meet your brothers and sisters? As they are so important to you, I would like to ask them permission to court you."

Bess: "... You remember I have siblings?"

Eb: "Well, you talk about them often enough, Dear."

Bess: "Yes, but as chatter to annoy you. I never thought you actually paid attention! Bob talks about his family as much as me--you never remembered he has children."

Eb: "Bob is English, Bess. His voice is a bit easier to tune out than your American tongue."

Bess: "Oh, believe you me, Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge, you haven't the faintest idea just how difficult ignoring my ✨American tongue✨ can truly be yet."

Eb: *immediately burns bright red*

Bess: "Ha-ha! That blush is still the same!"

... I might do this just as a little side project. Idk--we'll see. I think it'd be cute and fun, but I'm not super invested in it beyond this. If I ever feel an urge to write about what their courtship might have been like had they had the option (in the mainline they, um, really kind of don't? I guess, technically, it could be considered courting, but they never see or refer to it as that themselves) I'll probably play with this au. Again, we'll see. It's always a crapshoot with me.

Btw: She'd still DEFINITELY call him "The Big Bad Wolf" in this version. It'd be even more apt actually.🤭 And Prudence still loves her and she loves Prudence. The dog most likely met the sibs long before Scrooge did.

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pink-ttes · 1 year ago

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rank the members from least talented to most talented pls <3

OKAY SO. HERE WE GO.

001. CHARMEINE : I feel like we’re not surprised, tbh! She’s the holy grail of the group. She’s main dancer material, arguably the second best in the group behind Tana. With her strong, consistent vocals and impressive range she earned her spot as the groups beloved main vocalist, often being labeled as the best vocalist of the 4th gen. Although nobody in pinkalicious is particularly great at rapping, she proves herself to be a decent rapper, coming in at third best with her often infrequent brief catchy verses and sassy tone that fans have fallen for. She also can write a mean song, her lyricism only getting better with time as she watches the groups eldest London’s writing process and mentoring. Her stage presence is another thing to never be messed with! She’s easily the most consistent performer in the group and loves being onstage and you can tell as she’s constantly praised for her skills. Frequently called the performer of her generation. Charmeine proves everyday that she’s a jack of all trades.

002. LONDON : Many people would be surprised to see her outdoing Tana on this list, however, London excels in all areas except dance, stage presence, and rap compared to Tana. That seems like a lot but lmao let me explain! London is a wizard with the pen, not to mention her ear for beats. She’s written almost every song in The Pinkettes’ discography (yes, even the songs she wasn’t credited for.) Next, she’s the second best vocalist in the group, having exceptionally stable vocals and a very pretty vocal tone that could be described as light, airy, slightly honeyed, surprisingly versatile, and melodic. Noooww this is where things take a small turn. Her stage presence is really not that bad but it’s definitely not the best. Her facials aren’t that versatile and honestly consist of similar variations of the same expression—no matter the concept. Her dance is also not bad, just, once again, not the best! She’s a very soft dancer which makes it look like she’s not dancing as hard as the other girls so it can seem as though she’s underdancing. She princessify’s every choreography ever. Rap is obviously not her strong suit, either. But then again, none of the girls are great rappers but they eat on a song. London can write a good verse but she cannot execute it the same way, which is why she never gives herself a rap verse in any song ever. Though she has her shortcomings, she made her way at number two because she’s pretty much the backbone of the group.

003. TANA : Coming in at number three, everyone’s favorite main dancer Tana! She’s an amazing dancer and has been dancing her entire life. She’s often praised for her sharp moves, attention to detail, control, and versatility by well-respected industry professionals. She’s frequently labeled as the best dancer of her generation and her freestyles stun every time. Going hand in hand with her dance, her stage presence is exceptional. She’s consistent and very expressive onstage, knowing how to match with any concept. Her rap is also pretty good, hence her main rapper title. She has nice flow and execution. Her most lacking area would be her vocals. She’s not the most stable but she’s decent. However, she has a vocal tone whose reception is very divided. Some people say she sounds like you can hear her struggle whenever she steps to a mic, others say that it’s her style.

004. MIKYUNG : Don’t get it wrong, Mikyung isn’t this low because she’s purely untalented. She’s arguably the second best dancer of the group, her remarkable smoothness, outstanding musicality, and precise movements never go unnoticed. Her stage presence is neck and neck with Tana’s, they just differ in vibes. Mikyung offers an effortless, kind of subtle, charisma that captivates the audience. Her vocals are good just not in comparison to the top two. She has a surprising range and a well-perceived tone that’s distinct and can be described as nasally but sweet tone. The second best rapper in the group, she has a charming yet fun flow/style that makes all of her verses addictive.

005. NELLY : No surprises to be frank. She’s a mediocre dancer and not very smooth nor versatile—which is they a lot of songs/choreo from the core four were swiped (because she couldn’t keep up.) She has a hard time with musicality and was caught a beat behind the other members on multiple occasions. Vocals are also mediocre, she’s quite listenable in the studio on the actual track but she’s not all that stable. Rap…never let her spit on the mic. London learned her lesson giving her a couple of verses a few eras back when the poor girl got slandered by the masses dhsjdbs. Her best area would be her stage presence which was definitely a work in progress. For a lot of her career she was pretty much like a deer in headlights onstage until recent years when we saw some good improvement. Now she can pull out some charisma and allure in her facial expression which are starting to receive praise.

#ℐׅ 핑크 ─ Q&A 𝆬 ֪ ࣪ ᰍ

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survey--s · 1 year ago

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611.

What does your town’s name begin with? An M.

What number house do you live at? Yeah, I'm not putting my house number on here, lol.

Are you a seafood fan? It depends what time - I love clams, prawns, crab and lobster but I'm not a huge fan of mussels or oysters.

Do you prefer dark, brown or white chocolate? Milk chocolate is my favourite closely followed by dark.

Give me a random word in another language. Tell me what it means. Schokolade means chocolate in German.

Can you cook Thai food? Not without a recipe.

Do you get easter eggs at easter? I normally buy myself one, yeah, but I don't really get given Easter eggs anymore as an adult.

How long does it roughly take you to do the weekly or bi weekly shopping? I get an online shop once a week and it takes me about 15-20 minutes to put it all together and order it.

Who taught you the most valuable lesson in life and what was that lesson? I honestly don't know. I can't think of one particular lesson that stands out to me more than any other.

Which city would you like to visit- Rome, Tunis, London, Madrid or Paris? Madrid or Tunis as I've already visited the others several times over.

Would you rather visit Australia, Germany, Croatia or Jamaica? Croatia. I have no real interest in visiting Jamaica and I've been to the others already.

Have you got perfect vision? No, my eyesight is about -9 in both eyes -_-

What colour bedspread or blanket is on your bed now? I just changed the sheets this morning actually - currently they're white sheets with pink & purple butterflies on them.

What colour is the door to your house? Silver metal with privacy glass.

Would you prefer a pet rat, mouse, snake, lizard or spider? A lizard or a snake maybe. Though I looked after some lizards recently and they ate live insects which freaked me out slightly, hahah. They were pretty cool animals though.

What song(s) do you put on repeat often? At the moment it's Cinderella Snapped by Jax or Savage Daughter by Ekaterina someone or other. I can't spell her surname and I'm not even going to try lol. I believe she's Ukranian.

How many letters long is your last name? Six. <–Same! <--- me too!

Can you play the violin? If not, would you like to? No and no, not really, but I remember being jealous of my friends who took violin lessons when I was younger lol.

Can you keep a pokerface and not show your emotions easily? No - my emotions are written ALL over my face.

Are you a good liar (tell the truth this time)? Sometimes. It depends on the situation.

Are you wearing shoes, just socks or nothing on your feet? I have bare feet at the moment.

What word or phrase is disgusting in your opinion and you hate hearing it? I can't stand the worst moist.

Do you like the smell of a barbecue or bonfire? Ooh, I absolutely love it. It reminds me of summer.

Do you prefer to write etc, ecetera or something else? etc.

Do you think rainbows are pretty or overrated? I love a rainbow.

Are your lips chapped? Nope.

Have you ever fallen into a hole or crevice whilst hiking? Not a major one, no.

Ever been quad biking? Was it any good? No, I've never been. I would if I was given the opportunity though.

What is different about you than others you hang out with? I'm autistic.

Are you more skeptical or gullible? Skeptical.

How often do you drink sodas or fizzy drinks? Everyday.

How many cups of tea or coffee do you have a day? Normally two cups of coffee and occasionally an iced coffee too.

Has anyone ever called you apathetic or unemotional? Yes, and I certainly can be in some situations.

Favourite crisp/chip flavour? Salt and vinegar, cheese, paprika.

Do you put salt and vinegar on your fries? Yes, always. Especially if they're proper "chippy chips".

What accent is the sexiest? Irish, Scottish, Australian.

Do you currently live in the same country you were born in? Yes.

What’s your current mood? Relaxed. Also surprised at how quickly my time off is going lol.

Do you struggle to articulate your thoughts and feelings? Not on here, no, but I do struggle with it in real life sometimes.

A romantic meal, a trip to a theme park or go to a concert? Theme park.

Prefer being in control in a team environment, helping out or taking orders? I would just rather not be in a team environment lol.

Do you like carrot cake? Yep, it's one of my favourites lol.

Don’t you hate it when people say ‘I don’t mean to be rude but…’? Especially considering 98% of the time they ARE trying to be rude? No, because I say it all the time lol. I just think people are away too easy to take offence these days. I know that's an unpopular opinion though.

Would you say yes to a drink from a friend of a friend? Yeah, if my friend was also there.

How good is your memory? Annoyingly good. I wish I found it easier to forget thing sometimes.

On a scale of 1-10 how was this survey? Did you enjoy it? It was actually pretty good as there were a few decent and original questions - I'd say a seven.

#survey #surveys

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aboulian · 2 years ago

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Note on grammar

In 2015 Oliver Kamm gave us Accidence Will Happen, a guide to English usage. Whether by accident or by design, Kamm’s guide traces the steps of Wittgenstein’s conversion from the logical atomism of the Tractatus to the intricately piecemeal non-philosophy of the Investigations.

The parallel isn’t perfect, I know. Kamm is more of an empiricist than Wittgenstein, and Wittgenstein more of a pessimist than Kamm. Both authors make appeals to the empirical, but Kamm’s appeal to the empirical has a statistical literalism that is alien to the Investigations. For Wittgenstein makes scant reference to any entity so literal as a statistic. The items that instantiate Wittgenstein’s doctrine that meaning is ‘use’ include custom, practice, circumstance, history, behaviour, the everyday, the ordinary, ‘form of life’ (Lebensform) and just the various things we’ve done. Any such appeal to the evidence as Kamm makes – an appeal that aspires also to be a citation of data – would have struck him as vulgar.

Kamm adopts the dispassionate attitude of a scholar; he shows little enthusiasm for speculative exploits. But – even so – his book reads like an allegorical play on Wittgenstein’s career. Where in Wittgenstein there are philosophical problems, there are, in Kamm, the well-known cruxes of English usage ('shibboleths', for Kamm). And in the place of philosophical practitioners there are the ‘grammarians’* – the authors of the prescriptive surveys of English usage, running from Fowler in 1926 to lesser lights such as Cochrane, Gwynne, Heffer and Humphrys in this century. Kamm calls these people ‘sticklers’, taking a disobliging delight in cutting them down to size in a compressed, aridly careful English style.

I remember when Kamm was a banker who blogged. He now works as a journalist, writing leaders for the London Times. But, until he got the Times job, he was a blogger. In 2006 or 2007, his must have been one of the first blogs I read. I remember what a sententious scold he was, and how quick he was to take other writers’ offences against good usage as proof of intellectual inadequacy.**

That was Kamm’s Tractarian phase. At that time, he stood for a linguistic essentialism whose equivalent in Wittgenstein is the logical atomism of the first six or so sections of the Tractatus. He confesses to it, too. In his own words he is a ‘reformed’ (or ‘recovering’) stickler. Diagnosing his own disorder, he explains that it is characteristic of sticklers to make an appeal to a kind of essential grammar. This, for sticklers, is a grammar founded in logic. Its invariable presence promises in some way to make good the imperfect flux of day-to-day usage. In its light, and only its, our everyday English shall be judged.

Perhaps Kamm himself once thought he could write in so crystalline and clean a style as never to stray from the logic that underlies language. Perhaps the passionate conviction with which he pursues his anti-pedantic campaign derives from an experience of conversion which he only wishes others could experience as passionately as he did. If this is the case, Kamm’s project is something like that of the reformed addict who guides initiates to the group through the first steps towards a cure. And it is something like that of the later Wittgenstein, who – in the Investigations – had already fallen victim to the philosophical disorder, and who, in practising a therapy, also pursued a cure. One of the critics cited on the back cover of Kamm’s book calls it ‘deeply reassuring’. If so, it is presumably reassuring in the way that therapy is.

I wouldn’t like to overstate the analogy. For one thing, Kamm is as much a satirist as he is a therapist. He has great fun with the risible ranters who write about grammar for a conservative readership. (As he nicely observes, their way of popularising discussion of language seems to be to link it to a generalised kind of declinist nostalgia.†) But, if only pedantry is at issue, there's a surfeit of spite in his satire. In this book, Kamm likes not just to laugh but to lacerate – so that we may wonder whether his anti-pedantic project is in fact a metapedantic one. As far as this ‘metapedantic’ project is concerned, only lesser pedants are his targets, but still, and again and again, they provide him with opportunities to reap a paltry glory from the humiliation of the ignorant – just as did the old pedantry he disowns.

For all that, the parallels are clear. Kamm and Wittgenstein are preoccupied by the same question. Both think they’re in possession of a way to answer it. They both attract the same sorts of antagonists (there are compelling parallels to be drawn between the pathologies of the grammarians and the pathologies of the professional philosophers whom Wittgenstein has in his sights in the Investigations). Both, in the end, succumb to the same problems.

Framed philosophically, the question is this: Are there norms without essences? How can our words mean anything at all without being keyed in some way to a system of reference that lies immutably outside the individual? Of course there aren’t just semantic norms: there are norms of all kinds. In epistemology, for instance, there are ‘epistemic’ norms, and there is this question: What is knowledge without an epistemological guarantee such as Descartes’ God grants in the Meditations? Wittgenstein addresses this question in On Certainty, but Kamm isn’t so interested in it.

Take the question of what art is. This is a question in the philosophy of art. Or take the question of how we ought to use the word ‘art’. This is a linguistic question, or a grammatical one (if you insist). It is a question on which an authority on usage might conceivably wish to issue a verdict.

Both Wittgenstein and Kamm take it for granted that we cannot have recourse to any essential entity in our answers to these questions. Instead, they ask that we appeal to the way the concept (in Wittgenstein’s case) or the word (in Kamm’s) is used. So Wittgenstein asks that we have full confidence in any of his many proxies for ‘use’ – in history, in custom, in practice, in the everyday or the ordinary. (The Wittgensteinian question, then, is not ‘What is art, in essence?’ but ‘What have we customarily [or historically, etc] considered art to be?’) Kamm, for his part, asks that we have full confidence in something he calls ‘Standard English’. When we ask him how to gauge, or even to identify, such a Standard, he is able to give a much more precise answer than Wittgenstein is when he is asked how to define ‘use’. In Kamm’s case – in the case of the grammar of the word ‘art’ – we can have recourse to a corpus, or the OED, or, in quick-and-dirty style, to Google. It’s in terms of bodies of evidence such as linguistic corpora that Standard English is defined. Is there any analogous method we can introduce in philosophy? It would be quite self-defeating to try to appeal to a linguistic corpus to adjudicate the question of what art is. But perhaps there are other literatures or bodies of evidence to which we might turn.

If the question asked by Wittgenstein and Kamm in context of their distinct concerns is the same, their answers are also alike: they would both have us derive definitions from the evidence. Lacking a belief, for instance, in Art Itself, we must derive our definition of it from a study of the concept’s sublunary career, taking into account its history as well as its present state (so the abstract demand as to ‘the evidence’ can be met by citation from a corpus or a historical dictionary). Therefore neither thinks there is one answer. There is no answer in general. They take their questions one at a time. They give their answers case by case. They move from crux to crux, and from problem to problem, in a piecemeal way.

The essentialists' different projects – either the grammarians' project or that of the philosophers who believe that the definition of art is implicit in its essence – suffer the same setback. The grammarians are always getting caught making mistakes. In the treatises in which they lament the mistakes of others they invariably make many of their own. But even a book unblemished by any hypocrisy, an immaculate book that never fell foul of its own prescriptions – even this work would give the lie to the grammarian’s case. Imagine a grammarian who tried to define a certain class of uses of the word ‘art’ as ungrammatical. To refer to any sort of stand-up comedy as art, he says, is categorically bad English. Now if we ask why it is he exactly thinks this ‘bad’ grammar is bad, he typically gives one of two answers that will carry any weight with those of us who can’t expect to share his sense of what is and isn’t artistic. He may say that it is illogical to say stand-up comedy is art or that it is unintelligible.

If he says it is illogical, we should ask him what he means by logic. If he means merely that it doesn’t make sense, he should explain himself (without accounting for the assertion, he’ll just have restated his view). But it’s worth challenging him simply on the principle, here, and asking whether language should 'make sense’ in so rigid a way as to preclude a user of English from, for instance, saying ‘less’ for ‘fewer’ with count nouns. How literally logical should natural language be? For what it’s worth, there are already many languages for writing logic (as there are many systems of logic): the pedant, if they want to communicate as logically as possible – and if they are not already Michael Dummett – should learn one. Natural language has to be recast as logic in a laborious process that bears comparison to translation, and – when it is – much of its content is lost with its context. If it has been so recast, this is no guarantee that it will be logically valid. Indeed, part of the point of rewriting things in logic is to check them for validity. If a sentence in its literal, logical form is found valid, it may still, of itself, make less sense and say far less than the natural-language sentence it was in the beginning. To insist that natural language be logical is something close to a category mistake.

But if he claims that it’s unintelligible to say stand-up is art, we need only turn to the treatise in which he offers a taxonomy of all the errors that offend him. In that treatise there will naturally be an entry for ‘art’, and in that entry there will be examples of the word ‘art’ in the erroneous usage. In that entry, too, the grammarian will seem to have understood the instances of art in this, its erroneous usage: he will seem to have understood them so well as to know exactly why they were in error. Is it not legitimate to infer that he must have understood such usages if he has been able criticise them as systematically as he has? In effect, his treatise will show that the solecisms that afflict the sentences he employs as examples are not so severe as to have made them unintelligible.

It therefore proves impossible for the grammarian to flesh out his complaints without making them seem empty. Perhaps the only way would have been to list them anonymously – that is, to make a list of sentences seen to be in error without glossing it as such. The idea of silence as a solution is familiar from the Tractatus. Wittgenstein's project in that book is to put an end to philosophy, reducing all its questions to an atomised array of answers, and this project falls victim to the same sort of problem as the grammarian's. For if the philosopher aspires to seal off philosophy in a sphere of pure sense, as the grammarian might aspire to separate all correct sentences from their incorrect counterparts, he would seem to have to implement the idea without letting us know, in silence and in secret.

The grammarian’s problem is that the sentence or sentences in which he defines the errors that offend him show those errors not to be errors at all, or are otherwise themselves in error; this problem is illustrated ideally by the pedantic intervention that makes a mistake of its own.‡ The philosopher’s problem is that the sentence in which he might have expected to declare the final unravelling of philosophy, and the full separation of sense from nonsense, may not itself speak sense. If the sentence speaks sense, it invalidates itself: it makes nonsense. If it instead speaks nonsense, and is unintelligible, its success remain unknown. But if its success does become known, it must be undone

The task then is to find a way to fall silent without letting on, for silence is the last thing the word ‘silent’ achieves. The philosopher should perhaps become a performer, a mime. Failing this, the philosopher must give up the project to put an end to philosophy as misguided, as arising finally from a mistake. The grammarian who cures himself of pedantry, and learns to see language as a linguist does, learns also to see grammarians as dilettantes and cranks, each with his own little collection of cheap complaints, each on his own irrelevant crusade against the corruption of language, each claiming to speak more logically than the last.

The philosopher must likewise remake himself. He must be a non-philosopher (and Kamm is ‘non-pedantic’). As a philosopher, he had suffered from a sort of disorder; it left him incurably confused, and the problems of philosophy gave him no relief. It all seemed as vital as if his very life were at stake. But, as a non-philosopher, he knows that these problems are no problems at all. In our difficulties with them we betray a basic confusion, attesting to an approach that does not discover philosophical problems, as it imagines itself to be doing, but creates them. For they are spurious. They are figments, and merely spells to fall under. No one need try to solve them. They are as spurious as the grammarian’s recommendation to use ‘decimate’ only when speaking of divisions by ten.

The philosopher then plays the part of the philosopher against philosophy, as Kamm plays the pedant against pedantry. His philosophy lurches from particular to particular. His solution is not to define, but to do, and do, and do. He has no more disciples: his philosophy is no longer pressed into a package of ideas fit to be digested, disseminated and unpacked again. He has only imitators now. In a sense his method is only to be himself. It does not survive him: it depends on his being there to show us how it’s done

So say he appeals to what people actually do, or to how they actually use the word ‘art’, preferring not to prescribe to them what they should ideally do, or how they should use the word ‘art’ ideally. That’s all well and good – if he is prepared never to stop philosophising, as his previous approach promised he might. The thing is, language is adding to itself all the time. Invoking an evidence-base such as that of the linguist’s corpora, he has to watch it remake itself before his eyes. When he asks ‘How is the word “art” standardly used?’, he’s obliged to answer that ‘art’ must be defined, defined and yet again defined. If he issues a verdict, he's bound to advise that his verdicts are subject to revision from the moment that they are issued. As fresh evidence re-establishes the Standard, and more of our ‘errors’ and lapses become acceptable by its lights, work always remains to be done.

We shouldn't need to be persuaded that Kamm’s problem, the pragmatic problem of repetition, is preferable to the philosophical problem of regress. That the non-philosopher swaps the philosopher’s old problems for newer, better problems – this is undeniable. But he would be wise not to claim too much for his reformed method, result as it is of failure – or of the success that is achieved by an ability to admit defeat where others simply keep going hopelessly on. And Kamm’s way of being high-handed with his antagonists does suggest that he has misjudged the actual power of his approach.

Take the question of art, again. A variable definition of art derived from the evidence was never what we wanted, any more than we wanted an invariable definition derived from its essence. Inconvenient though it is for philosophy, the one definition enters into the other. That’s why the philosopher’s project went wrong: the definition of nonsense is implicated in a dynamic way in the definition of sense, putting into question the project's pivotal sentence, the sentence in which it is to be completed. And it’s not that, when the philosopher underwent his conversion and cured himself of philosophy, his project was saved. No, he gave it up, or at least outsourced it to the ambiguous public whose practice is what ‘ordinary’ language is. Like the philosopher��s, the pedant’s project failed because correct and incorrect language are interdependent and impossible in isolation. Kamm (as an anti-pedant) does not bring this project back to life, crediting the corpus or the OED with the power to determine what is and what is not correct. Instead he credits them – a little circularly – with the power to define what is Standard.§

In his role as a ‘reformed’ pedant, Kamm is required to act as a publicist and even as an activist on behalf of his new programme. He is therefore unable to give due weight to the antithetical principle that makes his analysis possible. No meaningful appeal to the empirical could be made without the involvement of this principle, which – though it needn’t be an essence or even a constellation of atomic propositions – cannot either be supplied by evidence alone. The evidence cannot of itself furnish criteria for its own evaluation: indeed, it provides no intrinsic guarantee that ‘art’ should form any kind of category at all, and still less does it contain any intrinsic criterion that would serve to restrict the instances of ‘art’ as they arise in it to a meaningful minimum. In itself, it lacks the materials to make provision for any degree of limitation such as might be prescribed by an individual set of specifications particular to an individual inquirer. This is why, without any antithetical principle to focus one’s inquiry, one cannot define its terms, and cannot hope for significant results (without such a principle, one is constrained merely to repeat the evidence as it emerges). In the case of the word ‘art’, for example, the evidence does not of itself provide the means for us either to include this quotation in our inquiry or not to include it:

To find out that, good Shepherd, I suppose, In such a scant allowance of Star-light, Would over-task the best Land-Pilots art Without the sure guess of well-practiz’d feet.

When we ask what art is, are we asking about such ‘art’ as a ‘Land-Pilot’ might practise?

Of course Kamm is no kind of fundamentalist, and he never makes the dogmatic claims I criticise here. He is a columnist and, to that extent, he is concerned to impress his opinions on us. His true error is to take his opponents’ indulgence in dogmatism as an occasion for an overreach of his own.

Kamm’s strategy is to insist that the grammarians’ concerns are groundless, but in this he takes the empiricist approach too far. It’s easy to see that, though they aren’t grounded in evidence, they are grounded in intuitions or ‘hunches’ such as most English-speakers share. Had they been purely idiosyncratic, they could not have endured in the unkillable way that they have. The grammarians’ crime isn’t to have conjured up complaints out of snobbery or whatever other prejudice takes their fancy. Their crime is to have raised their aesthetic complaints to the status of logical ones. The split infinitive is an example. Are their complaints about it legitimate? The intuition in this instance is that the split infinitive seems too much to mix adverb and verb, making a new verb where none is wanted and none needed. A split infinitive too often primes us to hear an intrusive hyphen between a verb and its adverb (and is it the same to 'go boldly' as it is to 'boldly-go'?§). But Kamm’s politicised empiricism sees him entangled in still deeper difficulties.

It is to his credit that he has applied a little scholarship to the issue, putting in time at the library in an attempt to produce a history of the prescriptions against this or that pedantic bugbear. To that extent, his appeal to the evidence pays off. But, by the same token, he might feel compelled to produce statistics showing how much traction was gained by all the particular rules at particular points in this broader story. There are judgements he would need to make in order to produce such statistics, and the evidence cannot make these judgements for him. Regarding split infinitives, he would need to determine: did a particular author decide not to split a particular infinitive in deference to a prescription or not? Should any particular non-split infinitive be considered a product of the kind of pedantry his method calls into doubt – and, if it is, should he then exclude it from the evidence constituting the Standard?

The €60 000 question is this. If the evidence shows some infinitives unsplit and some split, but says nothing about whether any one infinitive might stand unsplit as a result of a piece of pedantry, how can Kamm appeal only to the evidence in judging whether or not split infinitives are Standard? Say the evidence is divided 50/50, or even 60/40. If the empiricist knows that infinitives with adverbs only go unsplit when a writer has bought into some piece of false pedantry, can he then avoid recommending that as Standard? Or would his own method compel him to recommend as Standard a prescription that has risen to a regrettable popularity?‖

Above, I made mention of an ‘antithetical principle’ to which Kamm does not give adequate weight in his arguments. Nothing about Kamm’s method works if his appeal to this principle is denied him, and he’s made to rely on evidence alone. It is a principle that could not be derived from any body of evidence; at the same time, it informs all his judgements about the evidence. Once it is admitted, however, there is no knowing how far it will take him back to the arbitrary pedantry he rejects. Insofar as there is a lesson to be learned here, it is that Kamm should not have made his prescription against prescriptions so perversely strict. If his righteous reaction against the pedants leads him never to split, something – somewhere – must be going wrong. He should surely not be seen to be indulging self-consciously in the mistakes he used to scold others for making in ignorance. That is no kind of recovery from pedantry. It is its grisly sequel: Pedantry – The return.

If the appeal to the empirical is to be more than a gesture – that is, if it is to be pursued for more than its effect as a gesture – then it will need to be aided by an antithetical principle, which will complement it as the opposable thumb complements the open hand. But there is a catch here – there is a bug in our code – which is that the moment such a principle is invoked, the empiricist restores to life all the old problems his appeal was supposed to sweep away. So – instead – he holds one hand behind his back. And this is his fate: to proceed serenely, without encountering any pitfall or trap, but to proceed without progress, for all hope of progress has been sacrificed for his serenity, a serenity that the hand behind his back might at any moment sweep aside once again.

This doesn’t make Kamm’s book worthless. It is not. But its readers should bear in mind that its prescriptions against prescription are made in the light of a method with only a little more intrinsic validity than the philosophy it replaces. Its readers should remember, too, that its anti-pedantic practice doesn’t so much arise from an honest desire to offer guidance and advice as from an arbitrary ambition to prove the merits of this method (whose main feature is more that it is not the philosophy that failed us than that it is the method it is). So Kamm recommends his method in the spirit in which a reformed alcoholic might recommend absolute sobriety to an audience of lightweights and social drinkers; perhaps it comes as a shock to him, but they have never had much difficulty keeping their drinking in check.

And the philosopher of art? The aesthetician? Where is he in all this? Dishevelled and spent, is he not now a defeated figure, a figure of fun? Will he not now be the butt of the students’ jokes?

Throwing in his lot neither with the invariable nor in the variable definition of art, and unprepared to claim either that there is one thing art is or that there is no thing it is, he finds himself forced to compromise. Art – he accepts – must lie in the difference between its ideal instance, the last artwork, the art of the infinite, which we may deny, but never renounce, and whatever art we call ‘art’, the finite art of time. In us, each informs the other, and, each being indispensable, neither is privileged. This give-and-take is what is, and what will be, so long as we live without a norm of norms – a rule of rules – that resolves all regresses, and forever justifies their coming to an end with us, here, at this time.

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* In Kamm, the term ‘grammarian’ doesn’t always appear in the pejorative sense (as if it was a synonym for ‘pedant’). In this review it is only used in that sense. When I want to refer to grammarians in the positive sense, I call them ‘linguists’.

** I remember too that the Iraq War had few more dogmatic or more vigorous advocates in the British blogosphere. I venture no opinion as to whether his loss of faith in linguistic hawkishness coincided with any comparable loss of faith in the neoconservative ideas he espoused in his 2005 book, Antitotalitarianism.

† Kamm is too confident that the pedant’s sense that his language is in some way suffering a decline amounts to a fallacy (’many of the [language] pundits instinctively confuse change in the language with decline. That’s an error’). This idea of decline may be expressed more colourfully as decadence, debasement, degeneracy, corruption etc. And we may rightly register our distaste for such language, but if we call it fallacious we invest our distaste with a false rigour that is merely rhetorical in force. It is dishonest of the linguist, taking a generalised perspective on the evidence, to so insistently deny the particular perspective of the pedant – for the fact is that there is a pedant. The pedant is a mortal man or woman born in a particular place at a particular time. If there is that mortal man or woman, there is decline. Unless that man or woman is a fallacy, there is no fallacy.

‡ This, from the Guardian, is interesting: ‘So if guns kills people, I guess pencils miss spell words [sic], cars drive drunk and spoons make people fat.’ (I'm quoting a quotation). Does the 'sic' apply to both errors ('guns kills', 'miss spell)', or did the Guardian itself introduce the first error? Is the sign's 'miss'-spelling not ironic, and the Guardian's 'sic' not a bit tin-eared, a sort of subeditor’s kludge?

§ An Ngram on this famous split infinitive (credit: Yian Shang). It’s interesting to see how the rise in popularity of ‘to boldly go’ is reflected in the rise of ‘to go boldly’ in a sort of pedantic afterimage. I’m not sure how a descriptivist wishing to provide guidance on this point should react to what’s happened here.

‖ Note that when Kamm or any other commentator makes a self-effacing appeal to the evidence as part of an anti-pedantic project, they also assert their authority as a sort of spokesperson. If the grammarian tries to demote himself in deference to something greater than him, the anti-pedant denies that there is any such entity to defer to, and characterises the grammarian as idiosyncratic, as a crank. But the evidence does not have a voice of its own, either. No linguist is its transparent tribune, any more than the grammarian is a mere instrument of a greater truth. Does the anti-pedant demote himself in deferring to the evidence, or does he promote himself as its spokesperson? In Britain in 2016, were we not reminded that, for every poll presuming to take a neutral reading of the nation's temperature, there is also a pollster?

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