#finding his diaries where he wrote murder fantasies about me

[eeunwoo]

hhhh

[duplicitywrites]

Thank you so much for replying to my other ask! I completely understand not wanting to revisit a fic you had wrote when you weren't doing the best, and I hope you're feeling better now! 🩷 I adore 'evermore' so much even though it's quite depressing aha 🥲 The way you wrote Harry's mental health and escapism was so good and Id love to hear some spoilers if you were up to it 😅

One thing I love about fanfic is the freedom of it all, and like you said "What is fanfic if not an ode to writing that felt unfinished?". Your interpretation of Harry as an abused child at his core in works like "damaged" always get to me. It always felt weird in the HP book series that Harry had such an awful childhood and was as well adjusted and happy in the future.

Another one of your works I was really interested in is 'perfect boys with their perfect lives', the Harry/Cedric aka a certain dark lord one. It really had me thinking about what could have happened in the graveyard if Harry hadn't escaped 🫣

i am, thanks! it was around covid, which was an awful time for everyone i'm sure, with weird life stuff piled on top of it.

i was going to answer all of the ones you mentioned, but evermore is actually one of few stories i have planned out in detail. this is why it has a planned chapter count (though that hasn't stopped me from going overboard before lol).

i guess i'll just give you the whole thing in case i never finish it kljsdgkljdgs it's pretty long, so under a cut it goes! but first some context for everyone else:

🍃 Evermore

Tags: Alternate Universe, Unhealthy Relationships, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Manipulative Relationship, Infidelity, Past Child Abuse, Dream Sequences, Depression, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Plot Twists, Happy Ending, Surprise Ending, Healing

Summary:

Harry is a married man who is living a charmed life. He has no need for the fantasy potions gifted to him by the Weasley twins—or so he thinks. After falling asleep on the train ride home, Harry dreams of the perfect man, a man named Tom Riddle. As Harry explores his dream life with Tom, he realizes that his actual life is not as charmed as it seems. The pristine image of his faultless marriage shatters, revealing a darker reality, and Tom Riddle becomes an oasis, a sanctuary for Harry to escape to. However, no sanctuary is eternal and no oasis is truly perfect. Harry must eventually confront his demons, inner and outer, before he can find real happiness for himself.

Notes:

these notes are arranged in order from where the most recently posted chapter left off.

there are probably some divergent points that occurred during the actual writing process, but this plan below (i'll admit i'm not quite brave enough to reread it all) is what the general storyline will be.

-

reality four - right where you left me

maybe harry's been harbouring fears of his potions being found? :thots: or his husband's made note of his changes in behaviour, accuses him of not spending time/being devoted

they get into an argument where harry gets a looooot of shit for stuff he doesn't deserve to get shit for, stuff that's not even true

harry yells back but gets hit, idk if by magic or not :thots: and he backs down, distraught. then once he's alone, he goes straight for the dream world

dream four - no body no crime

it'll be a much shorter version obviously, and the character roster won't be the same

i hadn't nailed down the specifics of the background and so i'm not sure how it'll look, exactly

harry is NOT married in this dream, he knows dream-husband but they are only friends

dream-husband is ginny's role in this particular iteration

but the climax of this scene is where harry is snooping around in the house, where he happens upon the dream-husband's diary

he's been looking for evidence to prove the murder

harry reads through the diary

and in the diary are tragic entries describing depressive thoughts, details of emotional (maybe even physical) abuse, etc.

this is a pivotal moment for harry, who up until this moment has been in denial about the failings of his real life marriage

reading this in the framing of it happening to someone else is enough for him to realize that it's wrong

what happens to him is not okay

but of course it's not that easy to just, shrug off years of marriage all at once; harry once again exits the dream, thus ending that particular dream universe

he's partly in denial but it's not as bad as before

he's been using the dreams as a coping mechanism up until this point

i've made it sound kind of frustrating but the dream worlds that harry goes to are meant to be very lush, romanticized

while we realize that harry's dream worlds are not ideal, he doesn't realize it right away

he thinks he's still doing something wrong

reality five - coney island

uh so next is probably another real life scene which shows tension between harry and his husband, only harry is no longer acting the way he did before aka accepting things without question

after the dream, harry starts to... notice things. he picks up on the slights, on the manipulative behaviours. he doesn't argue back for most of it, because he's still figuring it out and he's in shock, but he does start acting differently, which is noted by his husband

it escalates things further, a landslide of 'harry is no longer listening to me, is no longer under my control' type of deal where it results in more attempts to manipulate, which harry now sees is bad

voldemort grew addicted to power, made deals with politicians, gained a following

he looks back on past events and picks out the red flags, realizes that his marriage is not a marriage of equals. but just because harry knows these things, doesn't mean he knows what to do. he goes back to the dream world for comfort/answers

dream five - cowboy like me

this one is 'cowboy like me'

harry is there with his husband staying at a hotel, they happen across dream-husband, who is a con artist attempting to swindle an older woman

either harry is also a con artist in a similar vein, or he is mistaken for one - i'll probably decide once it's written out and i get a sense of the vibe

but he and dream-husband have some interesting conversations, flirting, etc

the theme of this dream i think will be further strengthening the similarities between harry and the dream-husband he's made up in his head

this dream ends with a bittersweet farewell

something along the lines of, despite their attraction for each other, they must part ways? :thots: or some other thing

but there will be a bit of a cheeky 'see you soon'

aka referencing the fact that it's a dream/dream world, that the dream-husband is a recurring character in harry's mental space

reality six - happiness

harry's down to two vials now, the bittersweet farewell of dream five has him realizing that time is running out in the metaphorical sense; we understand that soon he will need to make a choice

i might loop back to infidelity at this point, maybe in an attempt to bring harry to heel, his husband starts flaunting an affair? :thots: cause in the past, flirting with other people probably worked to make harry upset and easily manipulated

but y'know now harry is armed with his brand new knowledge of Marriage Should Not Be Like This and also he's got some shiny self-worth stored up, courtesy of dream-husband

dream six - ivy

in this dream world, harry is married to his current husband, but he is having an affair with the dream-husband; not in the sexual sense, but in the emotional sense. drawing on the dream five, harry is seeking comfort and solace from his bad marriage

this dream is meant to remove more of harry's doubts and encourage him to see that his current situation is bad

and i imagine we start to break through the fourth wall; dream-husband speaks directly to harry, referencing real life events that have occurred

he encourages harry to leave

harry is doubtful, obviously. this is all he's known and he's been gaslighted, manipulated, mistreated

he's terrified he will be found out and punished for it

but the dream-husband reassures him, promises him that things will be okay, etc.

he makes harry promise to take care of himself

and i'm thinking in true romantic sense, maybe they spend the night together? :thots:

reality seven - closure

we solidify that harry deserves better, that what has happened is not his fault, etc all the important, healthy things

we have harry reaching out to the people that have been slowly pushed out of his life (mostly by his husband). he’s reconnecting with them, being healthier, i think this section would end with harry going to ron and hermione and telling them the truth, telling them everything

harry is down to his last vial, so he's been saving it

like, he could obviously go and get more, they would give it to him for free, even, but you know it's kind of like

he shouldn't have to rely on that as a coping mechanism any more

dream seven - evermore

i'm thinking harry goes for one last dream, they sit together outside(?) or somewhere else that has significance for harry

they hold hands, harry talks about how much the support has meant to him, what he's learned about himself, what these dreams have taught him

sometimes things don't work out

he knows he needs to walk out and move on

i'll probably cry writing all this so you know it'll be good

the end - it’s time to go

then like i mentioned before, there will be a scene of harry signing divorce papers. his friends are with him, telling them they support him, and he feels... relief. he feels hope.

the story ends with harry attending a party, this time by his own decision. he's here to genuinely mingle with people, with his friends, and have a good time

and then he sees someone

much like the previous dream, it's someone who he once knew

they talk, they catch up, but this time it doesn't feel odd or uncomfortable

harry feels secure with himself, and we end on the hopeful note that this could go somewhere good

[i-know-my-value-darling]

Supernatural stars reflect on the show's undying legacy

Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, and Misha Collins discuss 15 years of fantasy, family, and flannel. 

"We only get one shot at this." Sam and Dean Winchester are surrounded. The monster-hunting brothers are standing on the edge of a cliff. They look to Castiel, their brother in arms — or is it wings? — but even he can’t help. One move in the wrong direction could ruin everything. After years of fighting demons, going toe-to- toe with Satan himself, and saving the world multiple times, they once again find themselves in a position of having to perform under pressure. But this situation is unlike anything they’ve ever dealt with before. All eyes are on them as they have one shot…at getting the perfect picture.

It’s a dry, hot August day in Malibu — when people were still allowed to gather outside — as Supernatural stars Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins prepare for the last setup of their final Entertainment Weekly cover shoot. With a bottle of champagne in each of their hands, Ackles once again reminds them they get “one shot” to do this right. But if their characters can shoulder the weight of the world, surely these three can handle a photo. Read the whole story below

The champagne soaking is meant to be a celebration of 15 years, of making television history. Supernatural, the story of two brothers destined to save the world, is the longest-running genre show in the history of American broadcast television. (So old, the first three seasons shot on this thing called film.) What started as an underdog story, living its first few years on the verge of cancellation, has become an institution, a milestone to which other shows aspire. Supernatural not only survived the move from The WB to The CW after its first season — it’s now the final WB show left standing — but became the backbone of the now highly successful CW network. Over the years, the sci-fi series has aired on every weeknight, helping to launch shows including Arrow and The Vampire Diaries. The network moved it one final time, most recently, to Mondays, to help Roswell, New Mexico expand its audience. “Supernatural is a major link to many of the shows that we have successfully built to market,” The CW’s chairman and CEO Mark Pedowitz says. “Almost every one of our shows has had it as a lead-out or a lead-in.”

And to think, it all started as a promise to bring horror to television. After Supernatural creator Eric Kripke had finished working with Warner Bros. on 2003’s Tarzan series, he pitched the idea of a reporter who travels around hunting urban legends. As he puts it, it was a Kolchak: The Night Stalker rip-off. But when he realized the story would benefit from having brothers at its core, he started writing. “At the time, The Ring and The Grudge were huge hits in theaters,” Kripke remembers. “We said, ‘We’re going to take that experience and we’re going to put it on TV,’ and the initial goal was to be scary.” After Warner Bros. passed on his first, what he calls “uptight,” draft, Kripke had to reassess the kind of show he was creating. “I canceled all my Christmas plans and wrote that second draft in three weeks,” he says. “That was when the show got its sense of humor, because I was locked alone, over winter break, in my office. I couldn’t do anything fun, so I started entertaining myself.”

The show was still scary, but it was also funny and, over the years, would continue to evolve. Sure, you could say it’s a little bit X-Files — in its early days, the show often used the line “The X-Files meets Route 66” — and there were definite Star Wars influences (Sam and Dean were originally based on Luke Skywalker and Han Solo). But no combination of pop culture is going to perfectly describe Supernatural because the show has managed to do something remarkably rare in the age of peak TV, where audiences are so overwhelmed with content that an original idea seems foreign: It’s created a truly one-of- a-kind experience.

For starters, it’s a show about two flannel-wearing, beer-loving, blue-collar dudes from Kansas who for a good chunk of their lives traveled from cheap motel to cheap motel, paying for gas and greasy diner food with a mix of fake credit cards and money they earned scamming people at the pool table. “Almost all television is about rich people or, at the very least, middle-class people,” co-showrunner Andrew Dabb says. “The fact that we’ve been able to take this Midwestern blue-collar approach to this genre feels like we’re breaking the mold.”

But the mold-breaking didn’t stop there. Supernatural might’ve started out as a horror show with some snarky one-liners, but it evolved into some of the boldest, most experimental (and certainly strangest) stories on the small screen. “We’re a show of big swings,” co-showrunner Robert Singer says. “I used to say, with every idea, ‘This will be a home run or they’ll cancel us,’ but every year we wanted to do something really nuts." And when he says nuts, we’re not just talking about the episode with the talking teddy bear or the murderer targeting imaginary friends. Those are just some standard monsters of the week. We’re talking about the black-and-white episode shot like a classic Hollywood monster movie, or the episode that introduced Chuck (Rob Benedict), a prophet — who’d later reveal himself to be God — who was famous for writing a book series called Supernatural. That, of course, led to Sam and Dean attending a Supernatural fan convention as the show continued to redefine what it meant to inject a series with meta humor. And the swings never stopped. Season 13 featured a Scooby-Doo crossover as an animated Sam, Dean, and Castiel solved a case alongside the Mystery Inc. gang. And in season 14, after giving God a sister a few years prior, the show made the Big Man Himself its final villain. “I don’t think any idea, barring some production concerns, has been viewed as too crazy,” Dabb says. “Because we know that our fans are smart and that they’ll follow these guys anywhere.”

So long as each episode features Sam and Dean — and the occasional heartfelt talk on the hood of the Impala — the show can do just about anything, which is another reason Kripke had to rewrite his first draft of the pilot. Originally, Dean was the only brother who knew about monsters growing up, bringing Sam up to speed later in life. It wasn’t until Kripke figured out that they needed to be in this together that the series snapped into place. Because at the end of it all, they’re two brothers bonded by the loss of their mother and a life spent on the road with an absentee father. (It just so happens that their mother was killed by a demon and their father hunted them.) The familial dynamic — the irrational codependency, as the angel Zachariah (Kurt Fuller) once called it — is the most important part of the show. “The first inkling I had that we had something special was shooting the pilot,” Kripke says. “It was the scene on the bridge when Sam and Dean talk about their mother. It was the first time that you really saw their chemistry and their connection as brothers on full display. Because I’ve always said this show begins and ends with whether you believe that sibling relationship.” But Sam and Dean weren’t just the center of the show. For many years, they were the show.

Supernatural has never been an ensemble drama. For the first 82 hours of the series, Ackles and Padalecki were the only long-running series regulars — Katie Cassidy and Lauren Cohan briefly joined for season 3, appearing in 12 episodes combined. But Sam and Dean weren’t just in every episode; they anchored every episode. (They skipped table reads because there would’ve been only two actors there.) “I had many moments of not only questioning, ‘Can I keep this up?’ but an answer of ‘I cannot keep this up,’ ” Padalecki, 37, who’s been vocal about his struggle in the early seasons, says. “I borrowed strength from Jensen.” But even Ackles, 42, admits it was a tough job. “The 23-episode seasons were nine and a half months of filming,” he adds. “It was a lot of work, but I always came back to: I still enjoy it, I still like telling the story, I still like these characters and the people I work with.”

Not only did the guys stick around, they built a reputation of having created one of the warmest sets in the business, with a number of crew members staying with the production all 15 seasons. It all dates back to a talk Kripke had with his stars during the filming of the series’ second episode. “I said, ‘The show is about your two characters, and with that comes this responsibility,’ ” Kripke says. Padalecki remembers the exact setting of what he calls their “Good Will Hunting moment,” a bench in Stanley Park in Vancouver, where they film. It was a chat both actors took to heart. “We’d both been on other sets,” Ackles says. “We knew we wanted to enjoy it, to have fun with our crew; we wanted them to like us and us to like them and to have fun doing what we do.” It’s an attitude Pedowitz hopes bleeds into other CW shows, an attitude that launched an annual tradition where the CW chairman/CEO takes his new casts out to dinner with the Supernatural guys, a chance for the vets to share advice. “It’s always the most flattering situation,” Padalecki says, recalling a moment he had a few years back with the late Luke Perry, who was a part of the Riverdale cast. “Luke was sitting next to me and he was like, ‘What y’all have done and what we hear about you guys, it’s really cool to be associated with y’all in some way, shape, or form,’” he recalls. “And I’m sitting there pinching myself.”

It’s a behind-the-scenes legacy that’s perhaps just as impressive, if not more so, than the onscreen legacy. Collins, 45, who started as a guest star and the show’s first angel in season 4, has become the show’s third-longest-running series regular, and he still remembers walking onto set his first day. “When you’re coming onto a show as a guest star, it can be a little bit nerve-racking,” Collins says. “Coming to this set, it was an immediately different vibe. Think- ing about working on other shows in the future, that’s something that I aspire to bring with me.”

A similar reputation extends to the fans as well. Not only is the #SPNFamily one of the most dedicated fandoms out there, it’s also known to be a pretty nice one. (Not many fandoms can say they’ve helped launch a crisis support network for their fellow fans.) But their dedication isn’t just about seeing what crazy twist God throws at Team Free Will next. Thanks to fan conventions and social media, the viewers are just as invested in the lives of the actors. Supernatural’s not just about the words on the page, it’s about the actors saying them. “When you’re dealing with the public taste, there’s an alchemy of great writing, a great idea, and the close-up that’s required,” Peter Roth, chairman of Warner Bros. Television Group, says. “You need stars who you want in your living room.” And you need stars who want to be in your living room, and who, even after 15 years, care so deeply that they get emotional while taking photos in Malibu.

"It's going to be a long eight months," Ackles declares. Standing on that same ledge, an hour before the champagne shot, Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins walk away from a group hug after unexpectedly starting to tear up. It might be the setting — looking out over the ocean — or the occasion: their last-ever photo shoot. Or maybe it’s the fact that they’re almost a month into filming their final season.

It had been a question posed to the stars for years: How long will this show continue? How long can it continue? “Even my mom and dad were like, ‘When are you going to be done with this?’” Ackles says with a laugh. It was a decision the network and studio had ultimately put into the actors’ hands, and it was a conversation they’d been having for a while. Back in 2016, Padalecki told EW, “If we don’t make it to [episode] 300, I think Ackles and I will both be truly bummed.” But in season 14, they hit 300…and then kept going. While filming episode 307, they announced the upcoming 15th season would be the end, which will bring them to a total of 327 episodes when all is said and done. “[Jared] and I were always married to the fact that we never wanted to go out with a diet version of what we had,” Ackles says. “We wanted to have enough gas left in the tank to get us racing across the finish line. We didn’t want to limp across.” Padalecki remembers the moment it hit him — not the decision to end it, but rather the opposite. “We had that moment where he and I both realized that we didn’t want it to end,” he says. “It finally got to a point, ironically, where it was like, ‘I never want to leave this. I could do this until the day I die, and then if I get the choice when I’m dead, I’ll re-up!’ But you never want to be the last person at a party. We just knew. That’s not to say there haven’t been vacillations, but we all trust the decision that was made.”

Starting in July 2019, the cast and crew returned to Vancouver to begin filming the final season, but in March 2020, with two episodes left to go, they were sent home. For years, fans had wondered what, if anything, could stop the Winchesters, and now it seems we have the answer: a global pandemic. As sets closed amid social-distancing measures due to the spread of COVID-19, it didn’t take long for fans to start connecting the dots, sharing relevant GIFs from episodes that featured viruses, most notably Chuck telling Dean to hoard toilet paper “like it’s made of gold” before the end of the world in season 5’s “The End.” (Did we mention that Supernatural is also kind of psychic? In a season 6 episode, Dean calls Sam “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which just so happens to be the role Padalecki has lined up after this ends.)

When production paused, it all felt a little like we were living in an episode of the show, just waiting for Sam and Dean to drive up in Baby, open those creaky doors, and save us. They might not be able to do quite that, but the thing with the Winchesters is that they never stay down for long. When Supernatural is able to safely resume production, it will. And though there are only two episodes left to film, fans will enjoy a total of seven unseen hours, including the return of Charlie (Felicia Day) and a mystery woman who visits the bunker and, for some reason, gives Sam and Dean all the holidays they never got to celebrate. “She makes Christmas for them and Thanksgiving, birthday parties, and all that. It’s a very good episode,” Singer says, adding, “I don’t know when it’s going to air.”

That’s the thing—no one knows, not even the guys who took out Yellow Eyes, stopped Leviathans, defeated Death himself, and are supposedly destined to be the messengers of God’s destruction. But Sam and Dean do know the value of a good plan B. “Obviously it’s a horribly unfortunate situation we’re in, but the silver lining is that it gives us an opportunity to recharge,” Ackles says. “We had just finished episode 18, we shot one day of episode 19, and I was reading these two monster scripts thinking, ‘It’s like we’re at the end of a marathon and they want us to sprint for the last two miles.’ I feel like this almost gives us an opportunity to refocus and go into the last two episodes and hit them with everything we got.” Because when they do return to set, shave their quarantine beards, and step back into Sam and Dean’s shoes for the last time, they’ll have one shot at ending this thing…and they’re determined not to miss. 

Photos: Peggy Sirota for EW 

https://ew.com/tv/supernatural-stars-cover-ew-to-reflect-on-the-shows-undying-legacy/

[im-pretending-imthere-already]

by the warm current

As kids, my sister and I spent our summers near the river, often falling on our long garments. Our knees scraped and bruised by the sharp rocks that lay beside the strong, warm stream. The hot days rushed by as we spent our hours playing under the hot, blinding sun. If my sister adored anything, it was birds. Often we spent our days searching for them in the scorching heat of the summer, looking for all the wings that have been neatly crafted, threaded into shape. Our collection of feathers of all colours were kept safe, hidden to preserve their infinite beauty, kept in a wooden rustic box under our bed. The box neatly tucked away between the sheets that were perfectly stored by mother. One grim evening, one of my older siblings had found our box hidden between the worn out blankets, that night we were forced into womanhood, our childhood was stripped away from us. Our summers were no longer warm, our knees left with scars.

What is it to truly be a woman? A question I still struggle with. Reverend Michael often referred to womanhood as preparing to serve God by serving your husband, which we spent the following years doing, leaving our ambitions and dreams of independence behind. Our personalities were to be crushed under the high expectations of becoming nothing other than slaves which men used. Our days were spent caring for our younger siblings who occupied our time dirtying the floors we just scrubbed. Our womanhood, reduced to becoming mothers and leaving our aspirations for our sons. Too tall, too confident, too short, too skinny, too immodest, too fat, too lanky, too talkative, too hairy, too loud, too aggressive, our existence is nothing more than a checklist for men to choose from. Growing up, I admired adulthood. I admired the idea of growing up to serve my husband, the idea of dressing modestly and spending my time cleaning, to become a woman. But as I grew into that woman, I began despising it.

My teenage years were regulated by the women of the church who made it their mission to crush my dreams, my life was to be sacrificed for god. Waking up to the screaming children of the church who demanded breakfast, my days were the same every single day. After the tedious mornings of cooking, cleaning and caring tirelessly, we met the citrus trees sprinkled with the soft dew on their delicate leaves in the community garden as we planned to prepare our annual lemon pie. Every year we were to prepare a feast full of food, including our lemon pie as the dessert for the mating party. This glamorous party was only a facade, a sweet glaze over a dark oppressive, controlled, and abusive future. This year was different, however, as I was becoming a woman of age, all day I had been thinking about what was to come, the life I was forced to have, pushed into a designated role my whole life. This is it, this is the dream of the church, this is what my life was to be, what my family had planned, what the reverend had envisioned.

That day I realised I couldn't do this, after seeing all the women blatantly eyed by the men of the church, scanned from bottom to up, graded as if they were a gift to be expected, a helpless little kitten to be chosen from a shelter or rescued from a basket left on the road. My older sister stood beside me, we glared at each other exchanging the same thoughts. Our life was more than this, our dreams were not to be forgotten, hidden in the blankets of our mind. I had heard about a couple of people who had escaped before, I didn't know how to but we had to get out. That night I decided to do the unthinkable, I had to make a plan, I had to take action, I had to escape this cage and fly away.

Reverend Michael was my father however he was never a typical father, more like a shepherd grazing his sheep, controlling us to become nothing more than slaves for his sick fantasies. He slept in the cabin house beside ours, but I knew he was going to arrive late today due to the ceremony, like every year before. It was the perfect time as if the universe aligned for our freedom. In my nightgown, I slid out as my sister was fast asleep. The night was dark, the air thick and foggy, the moon barely lit watching over me as I ran barefoot, in my white gown to the reverend's cabin. I knew where to look, under the vase he kept his spare key, which I used to unlock his door. I walk in knowing exactly where to find what I'm looking for, his diary, kept in the last drawer of his desk conveniently hidden in between his bibles. I flick through the delicate pages looking for something useful when I stumble across the gold mine. It wrote the name of a woman named "Angela Zachery" and her cabin number''14", suspected of breaking out "Mary Williams". I quickly close the book, return his diary precisely into its spot and leave the same way I entered, leaving no trace behind me.

The coming night my mind was occupied with one thought, cabin 14. I couldn't just leave, I had to make sure it was clear. It took a couple of nights which felt like forever but eventually, I got there. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Friday night, everyone had got to their cabins early after a hard day of work and the daily evening lecture was longer than usual. The pathways were empty, the road clear. I made my way, a little more professional than the night of the ceremony, in my brown dress and handwoven cardigan that wrapped its threads around my shoulders supporting me through my journey. If I was found by any person or even if "Angela" was a scam I would end up 6 feet deep into the ground before sunrise. I took the chance walking across the church to his cabin, no one was around, no one to be seen spying. I knocked on the door anticipating the worst, painting the images of my death. My life dissolving into nothing more than a forgotten story in the depths of my memories, an old story tale kept at the back of a dusty bookshelf. The door opened ever so slightly as I felt the fear shake through my body. She grabbed me inside so hard I stumbled inside falling to my knees in front of her as he shut the door aggressively. I introduced myself and explained my story and she sat there listening. Her eyes stared at me aggressively yet with a shadow of love. Her agreement brought me feelings, flushing my skin, red. Independence, freedom, individuality, expression, life. All books that she dusted alive within an instant. My dreams of independence and freedom rushed back through my bones to the crevices of my every thought. It was scheduled for Thursday night.

The night before the escape was probably one of the hardest and most important nights of my life, I was breaking the cage and finally getting the opportunity to fly, but the thought of leaving everything and everyone I knew terrified me. I wasn't to ever clean after my siblings, but I wasn't ever going to see them again. I wasn't going to have to make lemon pie for the church, but I wasn't going to celebrate with all my family ever again. Laying in my bed I couldn't get my eyes to shut as I laid there staring at the ceiling. The only support holding me together was the sheets I laid in and the light breathing of my sister beside me.

My bags packed, my thoughts collected, my breathing stable. This was it, this was my freedom. I get to leave and not look back. It was starting to get dark, the last evening to spend in this hell of a place. The trees rustling in the wind and air smelling of wood fire. I had kissed each of my younger siblings goodbye, hoping I would remain alive in their memories. My sister spent that evening reading, which we did often. An outlet we used to let our imagination roam free to live the lives we wish we had. As we put our coats on we stared at each other with fear, the sun had set and the sky was so empty reflecting the withdrawal we were to be hit with. We looked at each other and left, never to set foot in the cabin ever again.

Angela has sent some, waiting for us. He had a car organized outside the fence, we just had to make it outside. In the dark night, we threw our long dress off and climbed the fence gripping the holes with all our strength, looking back I could see Angela in the distance leaving. Climbing faster and faster, our bodies shaking with fear, our hearts anticipating our freedom. Hand over hand, foot over foot, we rose higher and higher. It felt like forever until we reached the top, then at the tip I stared into my sister's eyes when I heard a bang! My soul left my body for a moment from the fear as I saw my sister's body growing limp, her back falling into the fence becoming one with it. I stared into the sky for a moment, knowing I was targeted, I had no time. I had to leave my sister behind, running my way down the fence. I felt the wind brushing my cheeks, the heat irritating my skin. As I reached the last few steps I fell onto the floor, my vision blurring into two. There was no option but to get up, leaving my sister hanging on the fence and running into the truck.

As fast as my life gained sweetness it got bitter again. I stayed in a home with many people, I had food and clothing. But life without my sister was hard, the image of her murder remaining drilled into my head. I saw the soul leave her body, I saw her life end. I often wonder how different things would have turned out if I never left, if I was caught, if we moved a metre to the right if we left on Friday?

My favourite place grew to become the beach, reminding me of the warm river my sister and I loved ever so dearly, connecting our dreams to every nook of the world. As I sit here today, on the warm sand, I often find myself looking beside me to find my sister's spirit constantly gifting me with feathers. Today I have the privilege of sitting on this beach, feeling the wind through my hair, the cool breeze on my shoulders and my sister's feathers can be forever stored, kept safe and loved, not to be a secret but to be a memory of resilience.

-F.A

[trainwreckwips]

New Friend

A short story written for this Reedsy contest.

Word Count: 1,534

Warnings: Murder (non-descriptive)

Inspired by ‘The Magnus Archives’. Enjoy!

I guess I met her by pure chance, though at the time I just assumed it was because I looked lonely

I was sitting by myself at a picnic table under a tree near the student dorms on my college campus, reading. It was one of my favorite places to read- quiet and peaceful on a nice day like that. No one ever bothered me there. I had another thirty minutes before the lecture I was supposed to attend, and it was only a ten-minute walk to the lecture hall, which left me twenty minutes or so to sit and read in peace.

I don't know how I didn't notice her walk up and sit down across from me. I honestly didn't notice her until she asked me what I was reading. I looked up, startled, and after a moment explained to her it was my favorite fantasy novel. She smiled to herself- a small eerie smile- as if my answer pleased her. I noticed that she, too, had a book in front of her. It looked old, with a black leather-bound cover that mesmerized me. I didn't see a title. The strangest thing was that it had a small lock keeping it closed. I diary, perhaps? I never did ask about it. She began to ask questions about my book. It was nothing out of the ordinary- what's it about? Who wrote it? Why do you like it? - and after several minutes I began to ease up. We talked for maybe ten minutes.

I don't remember her ever telling me her name but she must have because by the end of our conversation I knew she was called Patricia. I also don't remember telling her mine, but she knew so either she'd seen me around the college campus or I had told her.

When the timer I had set on my phone went off, I stood up, gathered my belongings, and told her I had enjoyed the conversation but I had to get to my class. She asked me where I was headed, and I told her which lecture I was off too. She smiled and told me she was attending the same one. She asked if we could walk there together and I said sure.

After the short walk, we arrived at the lecture hall. My boyfriend, Kalvin, was there waiting for me. He said hello with a quick kiss, and for a moment I thought I saw a flash of the purest, unfiltered rage in Patricia's eyes, but I wrote it off as a trick of the light. Looking back... maybe I should have been suspicious of her long before I was. And yet, when Kalvin asked me who she was I found myself calling her my new friend.

I'm not going to talk about how the lecture went- it was boring as any really. I did notice that Patricia was nowhere to be seen afterward, but I guess I just assumed she had gone home.

We must have had a similar schedule because after that day whenever I was sitting under that tree, reading, she would be there. I never saw her walk up to the table or sit down, but at the time I just assumed I was too engrossed in my book to notice. She would ask me about what I was reading and we would have a friendly conversation until we had to leave for class. She always had that same strange black book with her, though I never saw her open it.

We didn't always talk about books. Sometimes we'd chat about our everyday lives. Somehow, I never learned much about her life, but I always seemed to find myself telling her about... well, everything. Whenever I mentioned by of my friends, I thought I could catch that unfiltered rage flash in her eyes. It was always the brightest when I mentioned Kalvin. I just tried to ignore it.

In the several when weeks we talked regularly, I began to notice strange things about Patricia. Sometimes she would talk weird. Her pronunciation sounded off occasionally almost like she was still learning new words. She'd slip into different accents, too. Sometimes she'd even say something in some foreign language I'd never heard before, and when I asked her what she had said, she just repeated it in English.

What really started to bother me, though, was her appearance. It wasn't anyone thing that threw me off, but rather... everything. And I don't mean that in a rude way. It was small things, really. Her hair seemed to shift colors from day to day, as did her eyes, even her skin. Her nose, lips, body seemed to change shape, too. It was always the slightest change, barely enough to even notice. But after talking to her every day I started to notice these things and I started to wonder about her.

It was maybe three and a half weeks after I had met Patricia when it happened.

She hadn't met me at the tree that morning. It was flu season, though, so I just thought she must have been sick. I'd gone to my class as normal. Usually, I would meet Kalvin on the steps of the hall because we had most of the same classes but when I got there he was nowhere to be seen. It was at this point that I started to get nervous. I tried to convince myself that they were just sick, out with the flu. But Kalvin would have told me. He always told me when plans change, and he wasn't answering his phone.

I needed to distract myself, so I stayed in the campus library until they closed at 6 pm. It was late in the year and the sun had already mostly set. I was in a relatively safe town but I held my keys tight in my hand anyway as I walked back to the dorms.

There's an alley in between two buildings near the student apartments that I lived in. Usually, I would cross to the next street over to avoid it but they were doing some sort of construction work there so I was forced to take the... less safe option. Of course, it was in front of that alley that I heard it.

I should have kept walking. I should have gone home, went to sleep, and never thought about it ever again. I should have never even looked into the alley.

It was a pained, whimpering noise. I froze. Fear spiked through my heart and yet I was compelled... no, forced to look into the alley. A young man whose face I couldn't see lay on the ground, writhing in pain. A dark figure stood above him, speaking quietly in a foreign language. My blood ran cold and I forgot how to breathe. It was the same strange tongue Patricia had slipped into on those rare occasions.

The figure walked slowly around the man. In its hands, it held a book. It was her book, the black leather-bound, titleless, locked book. The figure that should have been Patricia stepped into a ray of moonlight and I finally saw its face. It... it wasn't her. Its features were in constant flux. Its eyes were blue, green, brown. Its hair was blonde, black, ginger. Its skin was pale, dark, tan. I felt almost dizzy looking at... whatever it was.

It reached under the collar of its shirt and brought out a small silver key hanging from a thin cord around its neck. It slotted the key into the lock on the book, its foreign speaking decreasing in volume as the lock opened with a small click. As its speaking turned to fierce whispers, it flung the pages of the book open.

The man on the ground gave a gut-wrenching cry of pain and absolute terror. Swirls of misty fog began to pour out of the book's pages, circling around the figure that wasn't Patricia and the man who I just knew was dying. The man's head turned in my direction, and I caught my breath enough to scream. The man was... oh god.

The thing that was not Patricia snapped to look at me. Looking directly at its face, I felt inexplicably dizzy again. The fog from the book had thickened, and though I couldn't see the man on the ground, I knew he was dead.

In the half a second it took me to tear my eyes from the alley and run to my flat to call the police, the figure looked at me and I swear its features shifted to mimic Patricia, exactly the way she looked the day I met her at that table under the tree.

Then the thick fog overtook the alley, and they disappeared.

Later, the cops would say there was nothing in the alley that indicated a murder, or even an attack. I was scared and confused and I didn't know what had happened until I realized that no one even remembered a young man named Kalvin attending the college.

But I know. I remember him. Him and the years of happiness with him and his death.

And I know that the thing that calls itself Patricia is coming for me next.

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/21/2019: TERROR IN THE WOODS

I consider this to be the second Slender Man movie that I viewed this blogtober season. Previously, I wrote about THE TALL MAN, a twisty 2012 thriller by Pascal Laugier, the writer-director of 2008′s MARTYRS, which is coincidentally about a pair of traumatized young women who are driven to violence by the belief that they must placate a monstrous supernatural entity. THE TALL MAN does not share that similarity with the Slender Man mythos, but it makes a familiar proposal: A tall shadowy male figure emerges from the forest to abscond with children, for reasons that may be either murderous, or that may instead offer lonely and dejected little kids an escape into a sort of gothic Neverland. This odd killer-savior dichotomy reflects the pathos at the heart of Slender Man fandom, an obsession that thousands of ordinary young people shared with juvenile attempted murderers Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier. Their story is so well-known that it feels a little embarrassing to explain that the eerie Slender Man is the fictitious product of an online Photoshop contest. His first appearance, surrounded by young victims and/or acolytes, was captioned thusly:

“We didn't want to go, we didn't want to kill them, but its persistent silence and outstretched arms horrified and comforted us at the same time… “

The images’ combination of spooky shit and childhood innocence would have felt pretty cliche even in 2009, but the conflation of victimization with salvation is a potent one. It evokes both the escapist bent that is so pronounced in children, and also the death drive--the psychoanalytic idea that people are subconsciously attracted to their own inevitable and perhaps cathartic conclusions. Maybe someone has already named this form of suicidal ideation that represents both the desire for everything to stop, and the hopeful fantasy that death could be the beginning of something else; If so, I would love to read about it. For want of that, we have the sadly overexposed yet still poorly understood story of 12 year olds Moran Geyser and Anissa Weier attempting to make a sacrifice of their supposed friend Payton Leutner to the Slender Man. A thinly-veiled version of this story is articulated successfully in the Lifetime original movie TERROR IN THE WOODS.

The generic title gives no hint of what this well-acted and psychologically realistic production is like. While no names are named, including the Slender Man’s, Ella West Jerrier and Sophie Grace play extraordinarily convincing stand-ins for Geyser and Weier, as the awkward, isolated little girls who become increasingly obsessed with a Creepy Pasta-like website where they find out about a demonic creature called the Suzerain. Like the Slender Man, the terms of one’s relationship with the Suzerain are complicated. Once you have its attention, you have to make a blood sacrifice, or else it will annihilate your family. However, making the sacrifice brings the strange reward of being accepted into the Suzerain’s remote mansion, where you live forever as his slave. That might not sound too good to just anybody, but an unhappy, confused, and powerless person sees in it an escape from the ravages of the mundane world, and also a relief from the painful burden of personal responsibility, as the Suzerain becomes your ultimate and eternal authority. This is where the Payton Leutner character comes in (played perfectly by Skylar Morgan Jones), an even more naive and immature classmate who was being edged out of girls’ triangle before the Suzerain “chose” her for sacrifice.

While I feel concerned about some of the oversimplified causes that TERROR IN THE WOODS seems to identify--chiefly, well-meaning but absent parents who are too concerned with their personal dramas to notice the murder plot hatching under their noses--the movie nails perpetrator’s personalities, keeping the focus appropriately on their emotional turmoil and complex delusions. Minus the acerbic comedy, TERROR sometimes feels like a Todd Solondz picture, with true to life characters rendered in agonizing detail, especially Skylar Morgan Jones, who is as unlikable as she is undeserving. Their vulnerability, their tackiness, and their juvenile pretensions are all beautifully fleshed-out. One rarely sees an honest, warts-and-all portrayal of young children in anything besides obnoxiously arty, explicit indie dramas, and this quality puts Lifetime ahead of the curve (as they often are) in terms of a certain kind of domestic realism. Even the attempted murder scene pulls no punches, graphically depicting the savage stabbing of a little girl who ends up drenched in blood and rolled in forest floor detritus.

As I just suggested, I object somewhat to the easy-out presented here, that all of this could have been prevented if only the parents were more attentive to their children’s internet activity, and more suspicious of their perceived emotional states. Today I watched the two hour 20/20 special about the crime, in which a lot of professional adults say a lot of incredibly stupid things about the “obvious” problems with Geyser and Meier. “Is ‘I want to die’ a normal thing for a child to write?” blusters one expert rhetorically about a diary entry, at which I nearly screamed “OF COURSE IT IS!” Anyone who never experienced such exaggerated feelings of emotional exhaustion as a young teen would have to be either extremely sheltered, or sort of a psychopath themselves. Throughout the special, grownups who think Apple Jacks should taste like apples spar over whether Geyser and Morgan are just fundamentally bad people, completely ignoring the complex and detailed psychology laid out in the Slender Man literature itself. On one hand is the threat of family annihilation by this creature in whom the two girls manifestly deeply believed. On the other hand, respite from a continued life of bullying and rejection from all of their peers. Fear, sadness, alienation, and actual mental illness permeate this tragic story. In fact, the girls were ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia and shared psychosis, respectively. However, even with all that on the table, some individuals remain happy to go on TV post-trial speculating frothily that these kids just wanted to know what it felt like to commit murder, and that maybe in this story we have discovered “that rarest of things--an evil 12 year old!”

It isn’t that I don’t think evil 12 year olds can exist. I don’t believe in the patent innocence of children any more than I believe that parents are completely capable of knowing (and changing) their child’s every thought and feeling, down to the ability to determine that something as outrageous as a blood sacrifice is a real life possibility and not just a relatively normal morbid musing for a normally emo-y kid. Trying to imagine that level of domestic detective work reminds me of the superior documentary DEPROGRAMMED, which details how the filmmaker’s rebellious brother had his life ruined by parents who convinced themselves that he was a legitimate and dangerous devil worshipper. Life just isn’t that simple, and this urge to find simplistic causes and solutions for unpredictable events is no more rational or mature than the urge to find solace in an imaginary kingdom with no parents and no homework. At this point, I feel like I should apologize for failing to address this movie, which I really liked a lot, as much as I addressed the story of the Slender Man stabbing. TERROR IN THE WOODS is roundly well-acted, appropriately sympathetic to all parties, and soberly told. It’s just hard for me to separate the story from the movie, as both have potent things to say about how we underestimate the psychological complexity of childhood. I don’t have solutions to propose, except that I think a good place to start would be with responsible adults relinquishing their own shallow certainty about what can happen and what we can do. 

[mygangtome]

who were they then, who are they now: richard armitage

My dearest, dearest tumblr user. We’ve been here before, haven’t we? I’ve tried time and again to persuade you to watch this glorious, bonkers, utterly compelling madhouse of a show, and despite my recommendations of yesteryear, you still haven’t been persuaded.

So I’m going to have to bring out the big nose guns.

HEY! ARE YOU IN ANY OF THE FOLLOWING FANDOMS: THE HOBBIT, HANNIBAL, SPOOKS, CAPTAIN AMERICA?

DOES THIS FACE LOOK GOOD TO YOU?

pictured here: god he’s so dashing i hate him so muuhuhuhuch

Ladies, gents, and nonbinary friends, I present to you Richard Crispin Armitage. If you don’t know who he is, you probably haven’t been on Tumblr before.

who he was before?

pictured here: he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity

Back in the hazy, long-gone days of 2006, Richard Armitage already had a more substantial following than a lot of the Robin Hood cast. He’d been around a bit in stage and the small screen; he joined a circus in Budapest, played Macavity in Cats, stood by the side of a pool as eye candy in Cold Feet, gave a career-defining performance as Smug Man At Party in This Year’s Love, and even turned up as an extra in Star Wars.

pictured here: DIDN’T KNOW THAT, DID YOU, EH?

The sudden explosion of Richard into the public consciousness is primarily due to the BBC’s North and South in 2004, in which he played a brooding Northerner who primarily wears black and holds a position of power.

Then he got cast as Guy of Gisborne, a brooding Midlander who solely wears black and holds a position of power.

Typecasting? What’s that?

who was he then?

I’ve talked extensively for previous My Gang To Me days about Guy’s character, and his excellently melodramatic interactions with other characters on the show. He’s the big baddie in a show which needs one; the sneering, scowling foil to Robin’s optimistic heroism. But he’s also generous to a fault, obsessively loving, and full of thwarted ambitions. No other character divides the fandom more - is he a misunderstood good guy or an overindulged crybaby? Are he and Marion meant to be or an abusive relationship? Does he deserve a redemption arc? I DON’T KNOW, I’M NOT THE BOSS OF ROBIN HOOD, STOP ASKING ME ALL THESE QUESTIONS.

pictured here: there’s no such thing as too much eyeliner

Two years ago, I wrote the following about Guy, and it holds true:

More often than not we end our hijinks with an exasperated shout of “GISSSSBORRRRRRNE!” echoing through the castle and a shot of Guy slinking off to explain how he got foiled this week… Despite being a handsome devil, he is so deliciously dislikeable in a proper, old-school, tying-people-to-the-railroad tracks kind of way. And I’ll be honest, it’s worth watching the show just for a demonstration of how Armitage is able to smoulder with all parts of his body up to and including his back.

Where the Sheriff revels in his own villainy, Guy never thinks of himself as anything but The Hero Of This Story, and is all the more gloriously villainous for it. It certainly doesn’t hurt that the show is well aware of the fact that Richard looks nice without a shirt on.

pictured here: how many times can i use this screencap before it become gratuitous

Admittedly, my particular preference is for bearded-and-soulful-Armitage (more on that later on) but you know, any Armitage is good Armitage.

richard on guy

The Thing You Probably Know Already About Richard Armitage is that he is a ~method actor, which means that he takes all his roles Very Seriously. He wrote a diary for Thorin. He underwent waterboarding in order to get in character for his role as Lucas North in Spooks. He got extremely into William Blake for Dolarhyde. And, believe it or not, he also got very emotionally attached to Guy.

Today, [Richard] knocks on [series writer Dominic Minghella’s] door with a pencil and pad. Can he ask me some questions about his character? I tell him, truthfully, that I can’t believe he is here - an actor of his talent, sitting on my sofa, talking to me about playing this part. I feel so lucky. Suddenly, I stop myself - do I destroy what little (gamma-male) authority I have by being so candid? I glance at him. My concerns are unfounded. He is blushing. 

source: interview in sunday telegraph, october 2006

pictured here: richard cosplaying as 80s investment banking!au guy of gisborne

I can’t even be mad at this point. 

His own opinions on Guy are about as complicated as the fandom’s.

“I’m really hoping that when people sit and watch this, when Gisborne is trying to woo Marian they absolutely squirm in their seats and their skin is crawling. That was my main aim with this character, to make people absolutely despise him.” 

source: interview on bbc robin hood website, october 2006 

“His love for Marian is something which is beginning to unravel him and he’s becoming more human through her. It’s actually surprising him. I don’t think he quite realises what’s happening to him - he’s becoming human throughout the course of the series, I think.” 

source: interview on robin hood audiobook, “will you tolerate this?”

who did he become?

pictured here: i’ve never seen spooks so i can’t comment but OOH, DASHING

After Robin Hood, Richard officially became a Household Name when he joined the cast of Spooks as Lucas North, a series regular. Technically he started filming it whilst finishing off Robin Hood, which must have been an experience.

He stayed with Spooks for three years, becoming That Guy Off Spooks With The Face, You Know The One, and also turned his hand to a few other television and film roles over the years. 

He warmed the cockles of our collective hearts when he turned up as Dawn French’s love interest and future husband Harry Kennedy in The Vicar of Dibley. Bit of a jump for him, this one, as it’s a handsome and charming accountant, rather than a handsome and charming spy. Still, he rose to the occasion masterfully, and also got to snog Dawn French, so he won on multiple accounts.

In 2011, he turned up as the bespectacled Nazi spy Heinz Kruger in Captain America: The First Avenger. He got to have a secret submarine and run around with tommy guns. One time Chris Evans punched him in the face. It was awesome.

And then Thorin happened.

pictured here: majesty~

I will keep this brief, because if I talk too much about Thorin Oakenshield I’ll burst into tears, but it was the role that changed his life.

“I just think it’s a really amazing opportunity to take a character from a book that I was brought to as a child. My first experience on stage was in a production of The Hobbit at the Alex Theatre in Birmingham, and I played an elf.  And Gollum was a papier-mache puppet with a man offstage on a microphone. It’s been in my childhood very prominently, so to come to it as an adult,  a middle-aged man, and have another look at it is a brilliant opportunity." 

source: ‘the hobbit’ cast press conference, february 2011

Yes, that’s right, Richard Armitage is a Tolkien nerd. He wore elf ears made from cereal boxes to see the Two Towers in cinemas (he was thirty years old at the time).  And in 2012 he first graced our screens as Thorin, the proud and noble long-lost king of Erebor and a significant change of pace for a man who had developed a career as shifty, morally-dubious hired killers. 

He developed a reputation on set for being “moody and broody” (his words, not mine), due to all that method acting stuff that kept him fretting about the fate of the dwarven race when everyone else was fretting about lunch, but his performance was hailed as one of the best in the trilogy and - of course - it absolutely transformed his career.

who is he now?

Good question, and really one for Richard himself, or his doctor or his therapist or maybe a priest, but we’ll take a stab at it anyway.

After The Hobbit, Richard took a break from the massive media scrutiny and did what all British actors do when they’re scared, which is be in a play. In his case, the play was The Crucible at the Old Vic (I saw it, it was INCREDIBLE) and it earned him an Olivier nomination.

pictured here: bad timez 4 johnny p

He bounced from that into a couple of movies that you are, on the whole, unlikely to have seen - disaster movie Into The Storm, social drama Urban and the Shed Crew, bizarre fantasy Alice Through The Looking Glass…

But his most iconic role of late has been in Hannibal, as serial-killer-with-a-heart-of-gold-actually-no-wait-he-murders-people Francis Dolarhyde. He joined Hannibal for the last explosive season, and seems to have had a lot of fun killing people and wearing flower crowns and… I don’t know, I don’t go here, I’m doing my best.

pictured here: @nettlestonenell challenged me to fit at least one additional shirtless shot into this post, so here’s naked dolarhyde doing something that’s probably evil

It seems to have gone down well with the fans. And things are only looking up for our boy, who’s filming season two of his spy thriller Berlin Station as we speak. He’s based in London these days - still famously private about his private life, but happy to chat on twitter and instagram - just finished performing in his off-Broadway debut in Mike Bartlett’s Love, Love, Love, earning rave reviews, and he’s got several movies coming up.

my gang, to me!

Have I persuaded you yet that you want to get to know the man who was Guy of Gisborne? Well, you’re in luck - the boy’s been busy. You might see him on the big screen this year in Pilgrimage, or Ocean’s Eight, or Brain on Fire. He’s aging well, like a fine wine, and you only have to poke a toe into his tumblr tag to find that his ‘army’ of fans are as passionate now as they were when Guy first slithered onto our screens, eleven years ago today.

pictured here: then & now

I think he might actually be aging in reverse.

Of course, if you want to see more of Richard, there’s one surefire way to do it - and it’s the reason I made this post. Come along and join the gang in Sherwood, and get to know Guy for yourself! Buy some DVDs, or fire up a stream, and settle down with a couple of glorious episodes of the friendliest, loveliest show in television - BBC Robin Hood. 

No matter how famous he gets, to us, he’ll always be Guy. And we wouldn’t have him any other way.

Sorry, guys. We saw him first.

-

post by @interestinggin / with thanks to richardarmitage.net & richardarmitageonline.com

[poisoncorncob-and-thefrogs-blog]

Che Guevara, the Beat of South America

Ashton Clatterbuck

I just finished reading Motorcycle Diaries, by Che Guevara, the Argentinian revolutionary who became Fidel Castro’s right hand man. The book struck me as very similar to On the Road, by Kerouac. Just as Kerouac tells of his adventures across the country, Guevara retells of his trek across South and Central America. Both authors were educated men who, directly following higher education, set off to find purpose in life, a slightly crazy friend at their side. Where these young men differ is, while Kerouac’s time on the road was spent reflecting and turned inward, Guevara turned his need for meaning into a social/political movement.

His travels were based on the same discontentment that Kerouac describes in his book. Kerouac was never happy in the present, needing to be on the move, heading toward happiness wherever it may be, but never finding it. Guevara, on the other hand, also discontent with the world as it is, spends his short life trying to change it. Kerouac’s bar was Guevara’s stage, Kerouac’s night with a woman was Guevara’s murder of an opponent. Clearly, the two had very different methods of handling their need for adventure.

The version of Motorcycle Diaries that I read includes a small collection of photographs taken by both Guevara and his friend Alberto Granado. One picture in particular grabbed my attention. It was taken in 1951, the same year Kerouac wrote On The Road. There an exchange between Guevara and his comrade written below the photo that sounded quite similar to conversations between Sal and Dean.

And suddenly, slipping in as if part of our fantasy, the question arose: “Why don’t we go to North America?”

“North America? But how?”

“On La Poderosa, man.”

This conversation was much like the Beats while on the road, deciding on the fly to visit Chicago, or Denver, or Mexico, without a plan in place or adequate resources. Motorcycle Diaries contains many accounts of interactions with natives of so many different countries, cultures, ethnicities. Kerouac described many states and cities as though they were of vastly different cultures, but he had no idea. In some regards, Guevara was more Beat than Kerouac, that is, by the social standards of what ‘beat’ means. The movement started by Kerouac was politically involved, liberated, indifferent to authority, and generally angry at ‘the way things are’. This characterization of the movement very much matches that of political uprising in South America...but instead of smoking weed and talking about revolution, Guevara motivated the general public to act on those beliefs.

Guevara was, and remains to this day, the face of social and political uprisings across South and Central America. High school students wave flags bearing his face as they march down streets, posters call for revolution, iconic Guevara staring boldly at the view, hand pointing to an unseen threat. In the same way communists, hippies, beatniks all use On the Road as a manual for how to live life like a Beat, like Kerouac, Guevara’s speeches and writings continue to fuel a different kind of revolution.

[thefudge]

Hi :) I was wondering which are your book OTPs.

so you mean my literary otps?

get. ready.

1. SO. since you started me down this path, there is a little known book by barbara pym called excellent women, about this spinster-in-the-making young woman (called mildred) in england’s 1950s who becomes friends with her downstairs neighbors and develops an innocent crush on the husband of the family. now, that’s not the otp. oh, no. see, the neighbors have this anthropologist friend that is this haughty impatient dude who sneers at everything and seems perennially vexed (he’s not really proud, he’s just super particular and doesn’t have patience for artifice and good manners). IN COMES our protagonist who just doesn’t really know what to do with him. they just sort of accidentally spend time together and they have this amazing dynamic that i’ve looked for in other otps but haven’t found since. basically it’s this fascinating ease they have with each other and this natural grouchiness they share; he doesn’t treat her as a “woman” per se, but as a human being, whom he questions and challenges. he doesn’t put her on a pedestal and he doesn’t really love her for any special quality, it’s so fucking charming and effortless. there is this JEWEL of a scene where he awkwardly invites her over for dinner, and mildred thinks he’s your average asshole bachelor trying to get a free meal out of her (basically, having her over to cook for him) so she rejects him. she eventually does come over and when she acts surprised she doesn’t need to cook for him, he’s SO outraged like “wtf cook for me??? no thank u??? that’s not why you’re here grl”. it is PERFECT. i may be super subjective, tho, but these two owned me and still do. oh also, the dude’s name is EVERARD. it truly is perfect. so yeah, mildred/everard 5ever. 

2. elizabeth/darcy is a given, but i will like to say that from austen’s plethora of delightful ships, my angst-sucker-punch will forever be fanny price/henry crawford from mansfield park. yeah yeah, fanny ends up with dreaded cousin edmund for…sigh, good reasons i guess. like, it’s probably just my weird hang-up and perhaps austen thought this ship was too much “reformed rake” for her taste but maaan, when this tiny ship sailed, it sailed (i’m also always a sucker for playa dude plays himself with feelings)

3. here i go with my obscure shit again, but this novel from amelie nothomb. it can be translated as “the sparrow’s diary”, and it’s such a weird otp, because this dude is hired to assassinate a whole family, from what i remember, and he goes through with it, but he discovers the diary of the teenage girl and keeps it for some reason. and he falls for her, post-death. it’s messed up and amazing. and i won’t spoil the ending, but whoa. yeah, so assassin/sparrow. my jam. 

4. eliza doolittle/henry higgins. grouchy marrieds seems to be a theme. i love how unsentimental this ship is, when you get down to it.

5. beatrice/benedick from much ado about nothing. def see a pattern here.

6. phaedra/hippolytus. yes, the original mother/stepson ship yall. euripides was my guy. also, here’s a delightful pic from one of the stage adaptations

6. eve/the literal devil in paradise lost. the original sinful otp. i remember milton writing about lucifer pining over eve and her coolness. the BEST. 

7. robin/cormoran strike from the cormoran strike series by jk rowling. THESE TWO, lord oh mighty, you know, i do have harry potter ships aplenty, but rowling never ever managed to kill me with feels UNTIL ROBIN AND CORMORAN. fuck me. they are the exact mixture of banter/tough-love i adore so much. and what should be obvious from this entire list is that i love it when the gents treat the ladies like fully formed, complex human beings.

8. amy/nick from gone girl. one day i will wrote a whole “post” on my theory that gillian flynn actually wrote the truest romance ever with these two. yes, also great commentary on the patriarchy and the capitalist twist on marriage etc. BUT deep down, this is a story of two people who come to really, finally see each other for the first time. and what they find is that, paradoxically, they match really fucking well. U HEARD IT HERE FIRST FOLKS. nick doesn’t just stay with her at the end because he’s “trapped”. it’s a larger metaphor for me. he’s trapped because no one will ever know his soul like amy, and vice versa. it’s only after you’ve shat on each other forever that you can come out of it remade. FIGHT ME. (my second secret theory about gone girl it’s that wuthering heights with reversed genders and a sordid, amazing HEA for cathy(nick)/heathcliff(amy).

9. iago/othello - i would argue iago’s deep loathing was desire, mixed with a desperate need to subjugate othello.

10. onegin/tatiana. yall. YALL. if you have never read “evgheni oneghin” by pushkin, remedy this mistake immediately. it’s a tragicomic lyrical novel about a young dandy who is doomed to ignore love when it is presented to him. but it’s also great, trope-wise. basically, he meets this young woman, tatiana, whom he finds pretty but simple and too romantic. she falls for him and tells him earnestly she wants to be together. this takes place circa early 19th century in russia. he rejects her. skip to 10 years later, she’s married to some important dude, he’s still embittered asshole, but he meets her again and falls for her. the roles are reversed, however.  BOOM. weep on that. 

11. lestat/louis/claudia for my anne rice fans. what a trash fam.

12. alice munro has a short story called “passion” which forever owns my soul. in it, this young, kind of naive girl goes on a drive with her boyfriend’s brother and well, it’s the best thing ever. the saddest, too. basically, those two. 

13. clara kalliam/ vincen coe. okay, yall, you may have no idea who these folks are but hooo boy, did they ruin me. so daniel abraham has this fantasy series called the dagger and the coin. basically, clara is part of the upper class society and is married to a baron. vincen is her husband’s servant. he is several years younger. their bond can never be. enter lots of angst and yearning and hot chemistry. what’s hilarious/painful about this ship is that clara is a lot like catelyn stark and vincen is a lot like jon snow, soooo if you ever thought that would be an interesting pairing, you’re welcome (i should say, they’re hardly the main focus/main ship of the series but they do play an important part and they’re my bbies)

14. there’s this book by yukio mishima called “spring snow”, it’s part of a bigger trilogy of his on love. but anyway, the two lovers in that book are sooo fucking intense i die every time. he wants to hate her, but ends up worshipping her. she’s engaged to a prince, ofc. it’s hopeless. the aaaangst. (in later novels, there’s a great queer subtext involving reincarnation and two male friends, but! those two crazy kids).i had to look up their names again, but they’re called kiyoaki & satoko.

15. dunya/svidrigailov - sooooo. these two are from crime and punishment, by dostoyevsky. basically, it’s a petyr/sansa ship that goes there. there’s a scene where she threatens him with a gun and it’s the hottest thing ever. he’s kiiind of obsessed with her but she’s also drawn to him. it’s weird and tragic and hopeless, in the end, but sooo good.

16. pretextat/nina - another amelie nothomb novel, this one called “hygiene de l’assassin”. so, you have this author dude who is scum of the earth. erudite and refined but absolute piece of fucking shit. enter girl who read all his work and wants to interview him. she thinks she’s uncovered the fact that he murdered someone in his past. pretextat falls in love with her in the course of one conversation. at one point i remember there’s a scene where she spits on him. it’s the fucking best. 

i think i’ve got many more, but just to give you a taste of my diverse literary menagerie lol. (jane/rochester should probs be there too but i decided to go with lesser known, more personal choices).

[sending-the-message]

Case #2- Youtube's Most Mysterious Vlogger Part 2 by JacobMielke

(Note: this is an update to my second case. To read Part 1, click here )

For the first two days, Moxxy didn’t answer my texts. Unusual for her, because she is very much a phone in hand kind of gal, but I let it go. Everyone needs space sometimes, right? On the third day she didn’t show for our coffee date and I tried calling her phone. A recorded message told me the number was disconnected. Then I began to worry. On day seven, after spending every minute I could at her favorite hangouts in hopes of seeing her, I decided something was definitely wrong.

I went to the police station to file a missing person's report and ended up making a fool of myself. We’d only known each other for about a month and a half and I’d yet to learn her address or any of her family’s names or even her last name. All I had was a defunct phone number, first name (Molly, which she hated, hence why she went by Moxxy) and description. I hoped that would be enough as Moxxy’s red hair and distinctive tattoos (of things like pokemon and Linda Blair’s face) stood out in a crowd, but apparently not. Without more information, there was nothing the police could do, though the sergeant promised to keep an eye out for her.

It didn’t matter anyway because I realized that night this was something the police couldn’t solve. They dealt in the material and their monsters were flesh and blood villains who followed the strict rules of the physical world. My monsters were more unpredictable.

I’ve never been the type to pay attention to dates unless I need to, and when I got home that day, I looked at a calendar for the first time in about a week. Then it clicked. The day Moxxy stopped texting me was July 11th, 2015. The anniversary of Scott Eric Cranston’s murder. And we’d wrapped up the case of Opperyke, the ghostly Youtuber, the week before. Or so I thought.

It was a hell of a coincidence, and I was rapidly losing my belief in coincidences.

I did fret at first that maybe I was wasting time chasing a supernatural explanation but what else could I do? Though I called myself an investigator, I wasn’t trained in any way. If the cops couldn’t find her, how could I? But I was the only one who could put the supernatural clues together, and I had to do something, even if Moxxy’s disappearance turned out to be a horror more suited to the world of police and sex traffickers and psychotic murderers.

The first step was to comb through the data we’d collected and see if there was anything relevant. It was a long shot, but thoroughness is a virtue. I made a to-do list on a sheet of paper (yes, I know that’s ridiculous given the context. I have mild ADD and a physical list helps keep me focused) and at the top I wrote the name of Opperyke’s hometown. Maybe I could find his address or family.

Next I opened the copy of Opperyke’s last video to see if he’d mentioned anything that could lead me. I’m not ashamed to admit revisiting the video filled me with dread. The last time I watched it, I had disturbing nightmares that turned out to have real world implications.

And that was before I knew I was watching and listening to a dead man speak.

I played the video but something was wrong. The image distorted, breaking Opperyke’s face into dozens of different colored lines on the screen. The audio was completely shot as well, just sounds and tones. I was about to click away when I heard a more discernible voice. It was quiet, but it clearly wasn’t Opperyke’s. I rewound that part again and again at maximum volume, trying to make it out.

“...how did...where...you and...I...help me...me, please!...Jacob!”

It was a woman’s voice. With the distortion, I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure it was Moxxy… but come on. It was Moxxy. I think anyone would have known the same in my shoes.

I didn’t know how, but there wasn’t a shadow of doubt in my mind that Opperyke was responsible for Moxxy’s disappearance. What baffled me was the sheer scale of the act. As a rule, ghosts are mostly harmless. They can barely work up the energy needed to open a door. For one to kidnap Moxxy, even if it’d somehow been in her exact location when it happened, defied reason.

Of course, that led to a possibility I really didn’t want to consider: maybe Opperyke wasn’t a ghost at all.

It wasn’t difficult to track down Opperyke’s next of kin. There weren’t many people living in Marietta, Ohio with the surname Cranston and I tracked down the Facebook profile of Melinda Cranston, Opperyke’s mother, within minutes. She didn’t post much; most of what I saw on her timeline were memorial posts for her deceased son and husband (how horrible for her to lose her son and husband in so short a time) and the occasional shared pie recipe. She wasn’t very cautious with her personal information. Her “about me” section contained her address and phone number, among other things.

I called her number and she answered on the first ring, which wasn’t nearly enough time for me to overcome my social anxiety.

“Hello?” Her voice was raspy and I hazarded a guess that she was at least a two pack a day smoker. That, or she had laryngitis.

“Hello, Ms. Cranston. My name is Jacob Mielke, I’m an author and I’m researching your son for an article I’m writing. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions?”

There was silence on the other end of the line and I almost thought the call dropped before Ms. Cranston angrily retorted: “My son’s tragedy is not some piece of gossip for you vultures to jump on. He isn’t a gimmick, or an urban legend, or a true crime story. He was a person. Can’t his memory get any goddamn respect?”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Cranston, I didn’t mean any disrespect.”

“This is the real world. What you mean doesn’t actually mean shit.”

“Please, this is important. Someone’s life is at stake and I think your son may be involved.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Please, I want to know your son’s secret!” I don’t know why I blurted that out. It was an even more inappropriate thing to say to a grieving mother than the rest of the conversation (which was poorly handled, in hindsight). But it worked. Ms. Cranston was silent for several moments and when she spoke again, the anger was gone from her voice.

“Why did you say that?”

Things started to piece together in my head. “I think you know why. You’ve heard your son say it before, haven’t you?”

“That thing is not my son!”

“I know. I think it took my friend. I need to know more about it. Maybe if I figure out what it is, I can stop it. Maybe I can get her back.”

“I’ll tell you everything I know. Do you know where I live? You have to come here. There’s things you need to see.”

She refused to give further information than that over the phone, so there was no choice. I bought a Greyhound bus ticket (which wiped out my savings due to the short notice) for the next day. I called off work and told everyone I was going on a fishing trip. It was a tense journey and the longest part of it, Chicago, IL to Cleveland, Ohio, was spent in the company of a young man who didn’t believe in showering more than twice a month and had spent the entire previous night at a rave (and if I had to wager a guess, I’d say they raved in a sauna).

I had to hike part of the way to the Cranston house once I’d exhausted every possible public transportation option. When I got there, I found the door had been marked off with police tape. I spotted a man walking his dog on the road and asked what happened.

“Melinda Cranston had a heart attack. She called 911 and when the ambulance got there she was already dead. Damn shame, she was a great lady.”

Ms. Cranston was getting on in her years. It wasn’t unusual for a woman her age to suffer a cardiac arrest. As for the timing, well… coincidence? You know, that circumstance that I was sure didn’t actually exist?

Someone knocked on my motel room door later that night. There was no one there when I answered but a book was left in the hallway. It was bound in purple faux-leather and the first page identified it as Melinda Cranston’s diary. Someone had scrawled on the page: DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MY SECRET?

Some of the pages were marked with post-it notes. I turned to the first one.

Dec. 20th, 2012 One day until the end of the world apparently! I’m so glad Scott doesn’t believe that nonsense. He still insists something major is going to happen but at least he’s not throwing away his savings or anything foolish like that. Misty from down the street said…

I skimmed through the rest of the entry, which read like a love letter to a neighbor from a closet lesbian. Interesting, but not what I needed. I turned to the next posted page.

Dec. 21st, 2012 The world didn’t end! What a surprise! Not a thing happened… though Scott doesn’t seem to think so. He says that on days like this one, different worlds are closer together and sometimes things can come through. Like Halloween, I guess? I don’t know. He’s watching too many weird movies or something.

Feb. 3rd, 2013 I thought Scott let his little fantasies go. He didn’t talk about them at all last month but today he said he found a place where something came through. Apparently he was in Noonan Park walking the trails earlier and he found some creepy stone house or something. I swear, I don’t know how his mind works anymore.

There was something in my room with me. Call it my sixth sense or whatever, but I could tell I wasn’t alone. It came with the diary, I was sure of it.

March 13th, 2013 I’m so worried about Scott. He doesn’t talk, he barely eats. He just stays in his room all day. Lately he’s been talking about doing all the things he always wanted to do, like skydiving or starting that video channel of his. Should I talk to a doctor about this? I’m so scared my baby’s going to take his own life. I don’t know what I’d do if that happened.

May 20th, 2013 There was someone in Scott’s room last night. I woke up and needed to pee and while I was walking down the hall I heard him crying. Someone was talking to him. They asked if he wanted to know a secret.

That was the last entry in the diary. It was enough to piece together a rough estimation of what happened. Scott had a fixation with finding entities from other dimensions and believed something would happen on Dec. 21st, 2012 that would allow those entities passage to our dimension. He also believed he tracked down a location where one of those entities crossed over, a house in a park. Smart money was on him being correct in his theory, only the entity he found followed him back. From the sound of it, it was malevolent enough and strong enough to kill him and perhaps others (like Ms. Cranston).

There were still things I didn’t understand, like why did the entity carry on Scott’s dream of having a Youtube channel? And why was it leading me to the house in the park (it was clear to me by now this was the case)? If it wanted to kill me or teach me it’s “secret”, why the convoluted plan? It was strong enough to kill a human being and abduct another (I refused to believe she dead. Her absence didn’t make sense unless she was alive). Couldn’t it just come to me?

I looked up directions to Noonan Park. It was about ten miles from the motel, easily reachable on foot. I’d follow the trails and find the house. Whatever came next, I’d deal with it and hopefully at the end of the tunnel, I’d find Moxxy. Alive and safe.

The story of Mielke Investigation’s second case will conclude in Part 3. Read about our first case here . If you’d like updates on when the next posts are up, follow my author page here .

[im-pretending-imthere-already]

By the warm current

Tw: heavy topics and mention of murder and abuse

As kids, my sister and I spent our summers near the river, often falling on our long garments. Our knees scraped and bruised by the sharp rocks that lay beside the strong, warm stream. The hot days rushed by as we spent our hours playing under the hot, blinding sun. If my sister adored anything, it was birds. Often we spent our days searching for them in the scorching heat of the summer, looking for all the wings that have been neatly crafted, threaded into shape. Our collection of feathers of all colours were kept safe, hidden to preserve their infinite beauty, kept in a wooden rustic box under our bed. The box neatly tucked away between the sheets that were perfectly stored by mother. One grim evening, one of my older siblings had found our box hidden between the worn out blankets, that night we were forced into womanhood, our childhood was stripped away from us. Our summers were no longer warm, our knees left with scars.

What is it to truly be a woman? A question I still struggle with. Reverend Michael often referred to womanhood as preparing to serve God by serving your husband, which we spent the following years doing, leaving our ambitions and dreams of independence behind. Our personalities were to be crushed under the high expectations of becoming nothing other than slaves which men used. Our days were spent caring for our younger siblings who occupied our time dirtying the floors we just scrubbed. Our womanhood, reduced to becoming mothers and leaving our aspirations for our sons. Too tall, too confident, too short, too skinny, too immodest, too fat, too lanky, too talkative, too hairy, too loud, too aggressive, our existence is nothing more than a checklist for men to choose from. Growing up, I admired adulthood. I admired the idea of growing up to serve my husband, the idea of dressing modestly and spending my time cleaning, to become a woman. But as I reached womanhood I began despising it. 

My teenage years were regulated by the women of the church who made it their mission to crush my dreams, my life was to be sacrificed for god. Waking up to the screaming children of the church who demanded breakfast, my days were the same every single day. After the tedious mornings of cooking, cleaning and caring tirelessly, we met the citrus trees sprinkled with the soft dew on their delicate leaves in the community garden as we planned to prepare our annual lemon pie. Every year we were to prepare a feast full of food, including our lemon pie as the dessert for the mating party. This glamorous party was only a facade, a sweet glaze over a dark oppressive, controlled, and abusive future. This year was different however, as I was becoming a woman of age, all day I had been thinking about what was to come, the life I was forced to have, pushed into a designated role my whole life. This is it, this is the dream of the church, this is what my life was to be, what my family had planned, what the reverend had envisioned.

That day I realised I couldn't do this, after seeing all the women blatantly eyed by the men of the church, scanned from bottom to up, graded as if they were a gift to be expected, a helpless little kitten to be chosen from a shelter or rescued from a basket left on the road. My older sister stood beside me, we glared at each other exchanging the same thoughts. Our life was more than this, our dreams were not to be forgotten, hidden in the blankets of our mind. I had heard about a couple of people who had escaped before, I didn’t know how to but we had to get out. That night I decided to do the unthinkable, I had to make a plan, I had to take action, I had to escape this cage and fly away. 

Reverend Michael was my father however he was never a typical father, more like a shepherd grazing his sheep, controlling us to become nothing more than slaves for his sick fantasies. He slept in the cabin house beside ours, but I knew he was going to arrive late today due to the ceremony, like every year before. It was the perfect time, as if the universe aligned for our freedom. In my nightgown I slid out as my sister was fast asleep. The night was dark, the air thick and foggy, the moon barely lit watching over me as I ran barefoot, in my white gown to the reverend's cabin. I knew where to look, under the vase he kept his spare key, which I used to unlock his door. I walk in knowing exactly where to find what I'm looking for, his diary, kept in the last drawer of his desk conveniently hidden in between his bibles. I flick through the delicate pages looking for something useful, when I stubble across the gold mine. It wrote the name of a woman named “Angela Zachery” and her cabin number''14”, suspected of breaking out “Mary Williams”. I quickly close the book, return his diary precisely into its spot and leave the same way I entered, leaving no trace behind me. 

The coming night my mind was occupied with one thought, cabin 14. I couldn’t just leave, I had to make sure it was clear. It took a couple nights which felt like forever but eventually I got there. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Friday night, everyone had got to their cabins early after a hard day of work and the daily evening lecture was longer than usual. The pathways were empty, the road clear. I made my way, a little more professional than the night of the ceremony, in my brown dress and hand woven cardigan that wrapped its threads around my shoulders supporting me through my journey. If I was found by any person or even if “Angela” was a scam I would end up 6 feet deep into the ground before sunrise. I took the chance walking across the church to his cabin, no one was around, no one to be seen spying. I knocked on the door anticipating the worst, painting the images of my death. My life dissolving into nothing more than a forgotten story in the depths of my memories, an old story tale kept at the back of a dusty bookshelf. The door opened ever so slightly as I felt the fear shake through my body. She grabbed me inside so hard I stumbled inside falling to my knees in front of her as he shut the door aggressively. I introduced myself and explained my story and she sat there listening. Her eyes stared at me aggressively yet with a shadow of love. Her agreement brought me feelings, flushing my skin, red. Independence, freedom, individuality, expression, life. All books that she dusted alive within an instant. My dreams of independence and freedom rushed back through my bones to the crevices of my every thought. It was scheduled Thursday night. 

The night before the escape was probably one of the hardest and most important nights of my life, I was breaking the cage and finally getting the opportunity to fly, but the thought of leaving everything and everyone I knew terrified me. I wasn’t to ever clean after my siblings, but I wasn’t ever going to see them again. I wasn’t going to have to make lemon pie for the church, but I wasn’t going to celebrate with all my family ever again. Laying in my bed I couldn’t get my eyes to shut as I laid there staring at the ceiling. The only support holding me together was the sheets I laid in and the light breathing of my sister beside me. 

My bags packed, my thoughts collected, my breathing stable. This was it, this was my freedom. I get to leave and not look back. It was starting to get dark, the last evening to spend in this hell of a place. The trees rustling in the wind and air smelling of wood fire. I had kissed each of my younger siblings goodbye, hoping I would remain alive in their memories. My sister spent that evening reading, which we did often. An outlet we used to let our imagination roam free to live the lives we wish we had. As we put our coats on we stared at each other with fear, the sun had set and the sky was so empty reflecting the withdrawal we were to be hit with. We looked at each other and left, never to set foot in the cabin ever again. 

Angela has sent some, waiting for us. He had a car organized outside the fence, we just had to make it outside. In the dark night, we threw our long dress off and climbed the fence gripping the holes with all our strength, looking back I could see Angela in the distance leaving. Climbing faster and faster, our bodies shaking with fear, our hearts anticipating our freedom. Hand over hand, foot over foot, we rose higher and higher. It felt like forever until we reached the top, then at the tip I stared into my sisters eyes when I heard a bang! My soul left my body for a moment from the fear as I saw my sister's body growing limp, her back falling into the fence becoming one with it. I stared into the sky for a moment, knowing I was targeted, I had no time. I had to leave my sister behind, running my way down the fence. I felt the wind brushing my cheeks, the heat irritating my skin. As I reached the last few steps I fell onto the floor, my vision blurring into two. There was no option but to get up, leaving my sister hanging on the fence and running into the truck. 

As fast as my life gained sweetness it got bitter again. I stayed in a home with many people, I had food and clothing. But life without my sister was hard, the image of her murder remaining drilled into my head. I saw the soul leave her body, I saw her life end. I often wonder how different things would have turned out if I never left, if I was caught, if we moved a metre to the right, if we left on Friday? 

My favourite place grew to become the beach, reminding me of the warm river my sister and I loved ever so dearly,  connecting our dreams to every nook of the world. As I sit here today, on the warm sand, I often find myself looking beside me to find my sister's spirit constantly gifting me with feathers. Today I have the privilege of sitting on this beach, feeling the wind through my hair, the cool breeze on my shoulders and my sister's feathers can be forever stored, kept safe and loved, not to be a secret but to be a memory of resilience.

- all feedback is appreciated <3

[anneathenadura-blog]

My journey as a writer

I’ve always been a storyteller. Ever since I could remember myself, I’ve been telling stories. From a very young age, I started making up stories. Stories about monsters, wizards, the eternal fight between good and evil (cliche). 

My story as a writer, however, begun when I was about 6 years old. Just like most children, I had to write a short story for school. 

(I can draw better than that, I swear.) 

We had to write a poem that would be published in the school’s yearbook. I didn’t even play with dolls back then, but it was much better than the very original I wrote:

“School is nice

It has many mice

They eat all the rice”

Or the amazing poem 

in Tagalog:                                                                 which means:

“Isa, dalawa                                                               “One, two

Ako’y si Athina                                                             I’m Athena

Tatlo, apat                                                                   Three, four

Salamat lahat”                                                             Thank you all”

I was six and hated rhymes, don’t judge me.

I turned to short stories immediately and won my first national short story contest at the age of 10. A fantasy short story - something about a shapeshifter. I can hardly remember the plot. 

At that age, I started keeping a diary. Up to this day, I have filled more than twelve notebooks. I found out that writing was a great way to express myself as an awkward kid. I’ve always been an introvert and finding a way to extrapolate my feelings was pretty fulfilling and something I wanted to do for life. It was when I considered becoming a writer for the first time. I wanted to become a short story writer.

My stories grew bigger in time and I thought I wasn’t meant to write short stories after all. Back then I believed in fate and I watched out for any signs. All the signs pointed towards novels. 

The problem with novels, though, was that they were soooooo long. Before I ever got to the middle of the story, I’d get ideas for another story. I used to abandon the first one and start writing the new one. Then, I thought to myself that I could never become a writer if I leave unfinished work behind. 

At about that point I also switched genres. From fantasy, I went to romantic comedies and mysteries.  At the mean time, I had very little support from the people surrounding me. 

“Writing is not a job” 

“Writers are losers, they’re homeless and starving” 

“You should quit writing ‘cause I’m sure you’ll fail and I don’t want to see you disappointed and hurt”

(Look at me now! Boom!)

I finished writing my first novel when I was fifteen. “The last goodbye” 

It was about a girl who lost her parents in a car accident and had to move to another country to live with her aunt. She struggles with school, learning a new language, making new friends, falling in love. And somewhere within all that, she discovers that her parents weren’t killed in an accident; they were murdered. No spoilers! Hah!

Several months later I finished my second novel. “Like toy soldiers”

And so it went until I was seventeen. That’s where my life paused - I had no life. For about a year, I disappeared. But that’s a different story. 

When I got into university, the new friends I made were very eager to read the stories I had written and urged me to write more. I started writing short stories again and this time also poems. My friends would read every single one of them. They were willing to give me feedback and to this day they are my favorite beta readers. They were also the ones who made me look for publishers. 

I sent some emails back in my second year at Geology and every single reply was exactly the same. No Greek publishing company was willing to publish work written in English. They asked me to translate it and I refused. 

I turned to literary magazines based in the UK and the USA. The feedback was amazing and extremely helpful. I learned so much from their observations. Some gave me awesome comments but asked me to resend it for the next issue, ‘cause they were looking for something else at the moment. Others rejected me without explaining why. And others gave me good and bad comments, asked me to revise or rewrite it and send it within six months. 

This whole magazines thing was time-consuming and I had so much work to do at the university. Eventually, I stopped submitting. 

Through social media, I met some amazing writers who were self-published. Till then, I didn’t know I had that choice. I did some research and about a year later, I decided to try it, too. Being a freelance writer is also time-consuming. However, I get the advantage of publishing any genre I want. While with magazines, I had to aim for that very one interested in my genre. 

Now I write thriller, mystery and science fiction. Occasionally, I might write anything - ANYTHING! 

If I could go back to submitting to literary magazines, I would. Right now, though, I feel like I’d stick with self-publishing. I have my own reasons, maybe I’ll write about that in a future post. 

So, I started looking for editors and for book covers and decided to publish my first short story in 2016. 

On July 19, 2016 I published “Nadine” via Kindle Direct Publishing.

Description: It is a realistic, yet fictional story about a thirteen-year-old girl, who just survived a war. Coping with the loss of her family and questioning her faith, Nadine decides to leave town. On her way, she meets a blind man. As Nadine offers to help the man, she is lead back into town, unaware of his true intentions.

On August 28, 2016 I published “Sweet Sweat” 

Description: Stephen and Maria have been together for almost a year and are both very comfortable talking about Stephen's condition. One day, Maria finds out what it really is like to live with someone who suffers from diabetes.

With very little promotion they did great. I had not expected it. Maybe one day I’ll prefer traditional publishing again. Not yet, though.

On March 13, 2017 I will publish “Through Michael’s Eyes”. 

Michael is a five-year-old boy who dreams of becoming a monster fighter when he grows up. Not the kind of monsters that hide in one’s closet or under the bed. The monsters we encounter every day.

Whatever I choose to do, though, I’ll keep writing. And I know exactly who to thank for not giving up. Writing is a calling. Being a writer is not a job. It’s not a hobby. It’s just an inevitable status to go by. A lifestyle. Who I am.

I’ve always been a storyteller. I’ve always been a writer. 

www.anneathenadura.com