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lilfellasblog · 3 years ago

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King Roman and the Fake Harem

Summary: King Roman has enemies directly outside his walls, pressure from inside his walls to get a harem, and no solution in sight. Until he sees the solution has been right under his nose the entire time. This is the story of how an aroace King gets a harem of advisors.

A/N: If you liked this, please reblog. It is the only way to help this fic reach a wider audience.

TW: Two brief instances of sexual harassment, one instance of groping, swearing (because Virgil), and people sneering at sex workers/ presumed sex workers.

Word count: 2385

AO3 here!

Fic Masterlist here!

King Roman sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Ugh, give me a few hours to think of something,” he groaned.

His lead advisor that he’d inherited from his father, who Roman refused to refer to as anything but Orange, protested “But sir, we need a decision soon. It’s already been a week since enemy troops positioned themselves just outside our walls, and we’ve done little besides ask them to leave. That, on top of your lack of harem-”

“I’ll have something for you in two hours, regarding the troops,” Roman said, waving Orange away.

Orange huffed and spun on his heel, leaving the throne room grumbling. Roman brushed a hand over his face. A week into being king and the enemy decides to attack? The nerve!

“You know, if you roll out the catapults to the front gate, that would take care of the troops outside the walls on that side, and then you could concentrate your archers on the rear of the kingdom walls.”

Roman looked over to the side of his throne. Sir Virgil had been his best knight, until he’d been shot by an arrow that had permanently damaged his shoulder. That was 4 weeks ago, he was still in a sling, and ever since he’d been released from the medical wing he’d been making his lack of work everyone else’s problem.

Roman raised an eyebrow. “And just how would you propose moving the catapults from the armory down 100 feet of stairs to the front entrance, hm?”

Sir Virgil shrugged. “Ramps.”

Roman stopped short. Oh, he’s smart. “...very well.” He appraised Virgil. He’ll never be able to be a knight again and he needs something to do, and he’s not too unfortunate-looking… “How would you like a job?”

/////

Virgil adjusted the silks that hid exactly nothing of his upper body so they’d sit comfortably over his still-bandaged arm and shoulder. He was about to join his first ever advisor meeting, and he was beyond nervous. He’d been rather enjoying his life as the first member of Roman’s harem (that so far hadn’t even resulted in a single flirtatious remark, which Virgil wasn’t complaining about but he was certainly confused by), and he didn’t want to do anything to fuck it up.

“Ready?”

Virgil jumped and hissed through his teeth as his shoulder was jostled by the sudden movement.

Roman was frowning. Before Virgil could apologize, Roman asked, “Are you alright? I can have a healer come over. If you’d prefer to sit out this meeting and rest, that would be a more than acceptable course of action.”

Virgil was stunned. “Huh?”

Roman nodded at him. “Your shoulder, it seems to be causing you pain.”

“Oh! It’s not too bad, I’ll be fine. Still getting used to not moving it too much.”

Roman laughed. “Yes, that I have been witness to. Are you ready?”

“Yeah. Do I need to walk, like, meekly or whatever?” Virgil asked, cheeks already heating up at the future humiliation.

A look of disgust came over Roman. “No, I wouldn’t expect that of anyone under my employ.”

Virgil let out a breath. “Alright, cool cool.”

The meeting started out as expected, a few snickers from his former co-workers who were still knights, but nothing Virgil couldn’t ignore. Virgil recognized Orange by his blaze orange ensemble that hurt his eyes (no wonder Roman refused to give Virgil his actual name). When it came time to discuss military tactics, Roman spoke first.

“I would like to introduce my military advisor, Sir Virgil. Sir Virgil, if you would, please announce your strategy for driving off the enemies.”

Before Virgil could get a word out, Virgil’s former boss blurted out, “You’re trusting your military strategy with a common whore?!”

Virgil levelled him with his best death glare. “Call me that again and I’ll cut off your balls and shove them down your throat.”

Only Virgil was close enough to hear the King swallow his laughter at the general’s paling face. Roman cleared his throat and spoke.

“To answer your question, yes. Sir Virgil, if you wouldn’t mind continuing?”

Virgil smirked. “Gladly.” For the next 20 minutes, Virgil confidently discussed his strategy with the catapults and archers, fielded questions, and specified the ideal placements. As the meeting drew to a close and Roman went to do the obligatory schmoozing with top leaders (Virgil noticed with glee how the military personel scrambled to get out, supposedly to “update the troops”), the Lead Advisor of Common Education approached Virgil. Virgil did the customary respectful bow, which the advisor returned.

“I trust King Roman is treating you well?” he inquired, blue eyes sparkling from beneath a sandy fringe.

“Yes, very much so. This fucked up rotator cuff is the best thing to happen to me,” Virgil internally winced at his choice of words. Gonna have to work on that.

The advisor just laughed. “I suppose it must be! Surely, being part of a harem is much more comfortable than being a knight.”

Virgil shrugged, and winced as he once again forgot about his injured shoulder. “Yeah, it is. I’m just glad I can help in some capacity by being a strategic advisor.”

“Yes, yes, that must be quite fun for you,” the advisor purred. Virgil bristled at his condescending tone. “Do let me know if you require more… attention than what King Roman provides.”

Virgil wrinkled his face. He focused on Roman, and heard his attention was on Orange who was insisting that one person could hardly be considered a harem. “I think I’m good.”

“Oh, of course, of course, but do keep me in mind.” And before Virgil realized what was happening, the advisor had patted his ass.

Virgil used his good arm to grab the man’s offending hand, twist him around, bring him to his knees, and place a foot on the middle of his back.

“Ow! You stupid whore, get off-”

“What is the meaning of this?!” King Roman thundered.

Virgil released the advisor. “This guy was perving all over me, and I get I’m part of a harem but I don’t stand for that shit.”

“It was just a love tap!”

King Roman’s face was red with anger. “Sir Virgil, he encroached on your person?”

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”

“You are relieved of your duties.”

Virgil sagged while the advisor smiled smugly. Welp, the grapes and silk were fun while they lasted. “Yeah, okay.”

Roman jerked back a bit in confusion. “What? No, you,” he glared at the now-ex-advisor.

The advisor was aghast. “Excuse me? How dare you!”

“How dare you, touching a man without his consent and then having the gall to speak to me in such a tone!”

Virgil was in too much shock to process the rest of the conversation. He came back to his senses just outside the medical wing. Roman was instructing the doctor to recheck Virgil’s bandages as they didn’t seem to quite hold his shoulder still, and sighed in relief when he caught Virgil watching them.

“Virgil, there you are! Are you alright? Say the word, and I’ll arrange for you to speak with our mind doctor.”

Virgil blinked a few times.

Roman turned back to the doctor. “Could he have gone into shock? Does he need-”

Virgil shook his head to unfreeze his brain. “No, I’m fine. I’ve had people trying to kill me, part of the job, I’m okay.”

King Roman furrowed his brow. “Are you sure? Truly, if you need to talk to someone-”

Virgil held his good hand up. “I’m fine, promise. I’ll talk to someone later if I need to.”

Roman sighed in relief. “Thank goodness. Oh! The military is deploying your strategy as we speak! I thought I’d let you know before the good doctor looked you over.”

“Dope! Wait, what?”

King Roman was walking away. “I’ll see you once you’re tended to!” he called over his shoulder.

“What are you talking about, my shoulder… actually kinda hurts, okay fine.”

/////

One successful defeat of an opposing military later, and Roman had removed yet another advisor from his circle for creepy behavior.

“Hey Princey, I appreciate you defending my honor and shit, but that was the Lead Advisor of Trade,” Virgil began.

“And I’m better off without him!” Roman declared.

Virgil scratched his chin. “I mean yeah, but also you have a trade meeting with neighboring kingdoms coming up in a week, and two days after that you have an internal trade meeting with surrounding villages and the farmers within the city walls.”

Roman started stretching his arms and back in a way Virgil had identified meant he was stressed. “And there has been even more talk of my small harem, which does not bode well for external negotiations,” Roman murmured to himself.

Virgil shifted. “Yeah, that. Why don’t you just have your new advisors be part of your harem like me?”

Roman paused. “That’s… brilliant! Thank you Virgil!”

Virgil shrugged. “Yeah, no problem. It’s a pretty sweet gig. Although I don’t know why you haven’t-” he cut himself off with an awkward cough.

King Roman looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I’m afraid I’m not… particularly interested in those activities. I apologize if I’ve disappointed you.”

Virgil let out a breath. “I mean, I’m kinda relieved, not that you’re not hot! But I’d rather not break my two rules.”

Roman preened at the compliment. “What are your two rules?”

“Don’t shit where you eat and don’t fuck where you work.”

“Ah.”

“Look, there might be enough time to get someone else up to speed before the trade meetings. But you’ll have to choose someone quickly.”

Roman sat down in his throne and looked skyward in thought. “Are you familiar with Patton Hart? He’s already organized the internal farmers into their current union. What of him?”

Virgil remembered running into him right after a difficult mission and somehow ending up with a bag of tomatoes, a bag of bell peppers, and strict instructions to bathe and sleep. “Yeah, he’s a good guy.”

“How do you think he’d do as an advisor?”

Virgil didn’t have to think for long. “I think he’d be awesome. Want me to talk to him?”

“If you’d be so kind. And please assure him that his role would be strictly as an advisor.”

Virgil smirked. “You mean a shirtless advisor.”

Roman turned beet red, and Virgil cackled.

/////

Before Virgil knew it, the harem quarters weren’t so lonely. Patton had agreed to join, very happy with the wardrobe and quickly making a name for himself. Patton had, in turn, recommended Logan Logos to replace the other creepy advisor. Logan had run a very successful pre-K Montessori program before joining the palace harem, and he fit in with the rest of the advising circle well, already creating reforms to account for diverse learning styles. In fact, Virgil had noticed that the advisors who weren’t part of the harem started taking him and Patton more seriously once the proper and strong Logan had joined them.

The day of the inter-kingdom trade meeting had come, and Logan and Virgil would both be attending along with Patton. Everyone was nervous about how the sweet and gentle Patton would do at such a fierce and antagonist event.

Virgil’s shoulder was out of the cast and sling, although it was still tender. He clapped a hand on Patton’s shoulder. “Go get ‘em,” he said, trying to be encouraging.

Patton flushed. “Thanks Vee.”

The meeting began, along with the customary hour-long political niceties, and finally it came time for the trade advisors to speak on their leaders’ behalf.

Virgil ground his teeth at the open snickering of Patton’s garb, and he could tell Logan and Roman were feeling the same way. Patton, however, seemed to be unaffected by it all. As expected, the Kingdom of Fiery Fields spoke first.

“King Roman, we propose a 5% increase of taxes for the crops we export to your kingdom, lest we cease all wheat exports to you.”

“You may call me Advisor Hart, and for what reason? We already pay you 12% more for your crops than other kingdoms.”

The platinum blonde man stared at Patton with haughty hazel eyes. “Because, Advisor Hart,” he sneered. “our crops are unmatched in quality!”

Patton nodded his head. “Fair point. I suppose you won’t mind a moratorium on all exports of our steel to your kingdom then?”

It was as if all the air was sucked out of the room.

Platinum Blonde was outraged. “You wouldn’t!”

“Actually, we would. You are now meeting with the new King’s new advisory circle, and we won’t stand for pointless tax increases that a review of the books show only go to pay the noblewomen you’re cheating on your wife with,” Patton stated, smiling sweetly the entire time.

Half of the trade advisors around the table laughed, while the other half gawked. Platinum Blonde backed down, and the trade meeting lasted for only 2 days instead of the typical 3 since Patton effectively shut down any ego-based bullshitting that occurred.

/////

Virgil and Patton were taking turns trying to toss grapes into each others’ mouths, laughing, while Logan pretended to be irritated by their antics. The doors opened suddenly to show Orange, in his eye-burning all-orange ensemble.

“Hiya!” Patton chirped, hiding his own discomfort. They were all intensely disliked by Orange, who seemed to blame them for Roman not being interested in sex or romance.

Orange sniffed. “Advisor Logos, the noble King would like to extend his congratulations on the tax reform that redirected many of the fees of our noblepeople to educational supplies.”

Logan nodded at him. “Thank you. I’m quite proud of that myself and am very glad it came to fruition. Was their anything else you required, Advisor Wrath?”

“What?!” Virgil and Patton shouted at the same time. They whipped their heads over to Orange.

“No. Good day.” With that, Orange - or rather, Advisor Wrath - left their room.

Virgil and Patton turned back to Logan, who was seemingly reading again.

“Dude what the fuck-”

“How the heck did you know?!”

Logan just raised an eyebrow while continuing to read. “I have a way of finding things out,” he said, looking up for a second to smirk at them before going back to his book.

Virgil and Patton decided to not test Logan’s abilities.

#sanders sides #roman sanders #aroace Roman Sanders #virgil sanders #logan sanders #Sanders sides fanfic #Sanders sides fanfiction #patton sanders #ts sides

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that-house · 4 years ago

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Hey so I hit 100 followers today!

Buckle up, this is gonna be a LOOOONG post.

I quite honestly expected it (while my ego is a little smaller than my jokes make it out to be it is definitely present), I didn’t expect it to happen so fast.

It’s not an insane milestone, plenty of people have 100 followers. A hefty portion of my followers are bigger than me. But it’s still important to me. Knowing that there’s 100 people out there who enjoy my shit makes me happy.

First and foremost the credit quite honestly has to go to ahegao George Washington. No, I’m not joking. Until I posted on r/tumblr about my desire to draw that, I had 0 followers. I jumped to like 10 overnight, which was awesome. And then those new followers helped me spread my posts and get more attention.

Secondly I’d like to shoutout @imaverysadgirl and @themeaninglessjumble. You two were my first real tumblr frens. You were the first of my followers to really interact with me. Ember, I’m super happy you’re alive to see me hit 100 followers. Jumble (I don’t know your name unless I forgot it), your art and creations are great and you deserve way more attention.

To all the rest of you, you guys are great, too. Every new follower makes me happy. I’d say I don’t deserve you all, but my colossal ego says I do. Regardless, being nemesi and getting called out for being horny on main and sending and receiving asks has made this last month or so great.

Finally, for all the shit it gets, and for all the shit it pulls, [tumblr] really is pretty dope. I got to meet you all, and it’s actively making me a better person by exposing me to groups of people I’d rarely interact with in real life.

Why does it feel like I’m saying goodbye? I’m not, don’t worry. I plan to stay, and neither death nor pain shall drive me from this hellsite. I’m just saying thanks.

Now with the thanks out of the way, I want to talk about myself a little. Just the stuff that I’ve always wanted to say and never quite gathered my thoughts and found the time to talk about.

You’re gonna get to know me so well! This is like a mini autobiography!

First off, my mental health. This is something I don’t talk about much on this blog, mostly because it doesn’t need much talking about. I’m doing pretty well, to be honest. I have a smattering of anxiety and I’m maybe a little too introverted for my own good, but I’m not suffering from depression and the only time I ever even remotely considered suicide was when I just really really didn’t want to go to French class. COVID has been great for me, since I don’t have to see people. I suppose I’m not a great person to talk to if you’re struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, seeing as I can’t personally relate, but I’m still always here for you guys if you need me. Just because I haven’t lived through your experiences doesn’t mean I can’t try to help.

Next up I want to talk about my sexuality. This one’s a bit of a mystery. For the past 16 years of my life I’ve considered myself 100% straight. But lately (let’s be honest, following the release of Spirit Blossom Thresh) I’ve been wondering if I might be bi. How many times can I joke about wanting to smash sexy boys before it’s not really a joke anymore? And if I am, a lot of things would suddenly make a lot of sense. But every time I think I have it figured out it suddenly feels like I have no clue what’s going on. Regardless, my sexuality has honestly never been a massive part of my identity (though I’m definitely not asexual, my friends can attest I’m far too horny for that). I have no clue if I’m bi and for now it’s kind of a fun little adventure!

I guess I’ll talk about school and stuff now. Believe it or not, I’m kinda smart. I’m taking a shitton of AP courses this year. But I simultaneously feel like it’s too much and not enough. I’m smart, but I’m not a great student. Compared to my dad, who graduated college with a 3.98 GPA (and his only B being in History of Canada as an American) and now has a super well-paying government STEM job that he loves, I feel like even if I work my ass off I’ll never quite measure up. And my parents have had super high expectations of me, and it’s only recently that they’ve started to accept that I might get some B’s here and there. I’m worried about all the homework this year. I’m a year ahead in Math but I don’t feel good enough at math to be taking AP calculus junior year. I’m worried I’m going to get like a C. But for the most part school is alright, too. That’s sort of the trend in my life. Everything’s alright.

Time to talk about my love life! I have no love life! I’ve been single for 17 years and probably stand no chance of changing that until at least college! Haha I’m so alone! But I can live with it. Growing up an only child with a few friends means that I’m pretty good at functioning without a ton of social interaction, and, while I’d like a partner someday, I’m not desperate. I can wait until I find someone. Pretty much my goal is not to die alone.

Onto sports maybe? I played soccer for most of my life, and was always the worst player on the select team. I was too good for the normal team and not good enough for the select team (kinda like math). Soccer was really toxic, especially when you’re the worst player on a team of high school jock drug addict boys. So I quit, and started playing frisbee! It’s a lot better. The people are nicer! But my first season never happened because of COVID and now I’m in my Junior year and haven’t played much frisbee! So I kinda suck! But I’m physically fit and that’s good enough for me! On my own time I bike and run to stay in shape.

Are you still with me? Now I’m gonna talk about my hobbies and things!

I’ve been playing video games for a long time. I kinda suck at them to be totally honest. I probably have below-average reaction time, and my parents only let me play 15 minutes a day for most of my childhood, so I have a lot less practice than most of my friends. I’m pretty slick with Swain in LoL tho.

This next part is borderline shameless self-promotion, but since the Kickstarter isn’t live yet I guess it doesn’t count. I’m making a tabletop role playing game! I’ve been working on it for the past few years. My goal is to launch the Kickstarter prior to my college applications, because that’ll look sexy as fuck to potential colleges. It’s a post-apocalyptic sci-fi game where you play as supersoldiers trying to reconquer the wastelands of Earth for humanity. I’ll do a big post on it when I launch the Kickstarter, and I guess that’ll also be a full name reveal (kinda spooky since my full name is ENTIRELY unique and one-of-a-kind. More ego boost lmao).

And finally I want to talk about my art and writing. I’ll start with my drawing, and finish off with my writing, since that’s what I’d most like to be known for on here (but that’ll never happen because my caveman brain shitposts are too funny).

So I’ve been doodling for a long time. I briefly got formal art training but sacrificing my Saturday mornings to draw what someone else wanted me to make so that I could make better stuff in the future didn’t appeal to my 8-year-old brain. I draw in the margins of worksheets. I draw on random sheets of paper. Recently my parents bought me a drawing tablet, and I’ve been trying to improve at digital art. I’d say I’m getting better, but I don’t practice nearly enough. All in all my art serves its purpose. It makes people laugh and can sometimes creep people out. It’ll never go in a museum, and I’ll never make money off of it but whatever.

And finally, my writing.

How can I talk about writing without talking about reading? I’ve likely read more books than both my parents combined, and if not, it’s close (and my mom is a prolific reader too). I have three bookshelves in my room and books on every surface. You can’t follow me for long without seeing a post ranting about my latest read. I love to read and I read incredibly fast. Reading spurred my love of English class, which in turn helped me write.

And finally, we get to writing in and of itself. I’ve been writing stories since I was a little kid. I’d like to think I’ve improved a fair bit. I’m still no novelist, but I consider myself a fairly adept short story writer.

But I suppose where my writing really stems from is my bed. Every night while I’m lying in bed, I tell myself stories until I fall asleep. I work on a story until it’s done or until I get bored of it. Along the way, in the shower, on my bike, I build the world of the story, crafting the plot. Sometimes the stories are elaborate fanfictions of my latest reads. That’s probably how they started. Often, they’re unique worlds all of their own. My current writing posts are about the City of Mammon, but my current story in my head is about some vampires who hunt other vampires in Victorian England.

And now we get into the process of writing. It’s fun! I sit myself down with an idea in my head, and use all the fancy words I picked up from my books to convey the vibes I want. I honestly wouldn’t be a great writing teacher. It’s just a skill that comes naturally to me as a result of what I’ve been doing with my free time my whole life. And it’s beautiful. And every time someone compliments my writing or reblogs it, I love writing just a little bit more.

Well I guess this is it. The 100 follower special. I wonder how many of you guys will take the time out of your day to read this. Hopefully a lot!

James (or That House) signing off for the night!

<3 thanks guys

#100 followers special

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dreamiesformula · 6 years ago

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Triggered - Seo Changbin

When the one person you trusted to not break your heart does just that... how do you recover? Broken one too many times before can you forgive him?

To say you were insecure was an understatement, your whole life you were made to feel less than everyone else, worthless, ugly and a waste of time. That was until you met Seo Changbin rapper for famous idol group Stray Kids, exactly 2 years ago today. He made your life worth something, he made you feel loved, wanted, needed he made you feel beautiful. So you wanted to make him feel special and surprise him with lunch, before your very exciting anniversary night but shit backfires!

Y/N’s P.O.V

He is everything that’s good and I felt so bad about having to rush to my best friend Jack’s house early morning, but it was only cause he is helping me to organise Binnie’s surprise for tonight! Dinner at his favourite restaurant, 2 tickets to a Chase Atlantic concert being performed in a bar (since he said he wanted to see my favourite band live with me), then back to my place for a long night of appreciation and sentimental words, oh and loving.

Walking into the JYPE building even after all this time still made me nervous, I’d brought enough for the 10 of us to eat but probably would end up making sure Changbin ate enough for the both of us. I make my way to the dance studio where they undoubtedly are overworking to perfect their lastest comeback, but to my surprise I hear them talking.

“I just can’t handle Y/N today man, the stress and exhaustion may be getting to me but god I can’t deal with her insecurities. Every night she’s crying over something new, worrying I’ll leave her, skipping meals. Every single time I come home she’s panicked and I can’t deal with her insomnia one more sleepless night I’m gonna lose my shit.” I hear Changbin ramble on, standing at the door awe struck and frozen with fear. I hear footsteps...

“That’s not nice Changbin!” Jeongin defends me, bless him he’s always been so kind to me.

“Yeah maybe you’re being a little bit harsh, she’s had it rough and on today of all days you shouldn’t be bagging out the girl you’re dating.” Chan agrees knowing full well what today was while Changbin seemed lost.

“Today of all days? What do you mean?” Tears start rolling down my cheeks as the foot steps getting closer before you could process the door swings open revealing a very shocked looking Jeongin and scared looking Chan.

“Don’t.” I choke out handing Chan the food and with blurry vision and my head up high looking Changbin dead in the eyes. “I know where I stand, happy anniversary btw asshole. Enjoy it on your own!” Sarcasm lacing my voice as I spin on my heels ignoring the pleads of the boy who was and is my world.

Changbin’s P.O.V

I go to chase after her, I was dumb, I didn’t mean any of it. I said it myself I’m just tired and stressed, one things for sure, I need her.

“Changbin, Jyp is on his way and you know that, you can’t leave now.” Woojin scolds.

“Hyung, I cant just let her leave, not like this, not today, not anyday. I need her I was just being a dick, you all know that.” I say pointing to the members.

“I’m sorry but right now Woojin is right, she’s already gone, your damage has been dealt.” Minho backs Woojin up looking at the boy sorrow filling his eyes, Minho of all people knew the extent to which Changbin needed Y/N.

“Did you really forget what today was Bin?” Felix asks, his voice a whisper as he stood beside the boy.

“Yes.” He breaks “I fucking forgot.” He colaspes to the ground in his own sorrow he doesn’t hear his boss entering the studio.

“Changbin, what’s wrong?” The man dressed in casual attire sounds genuinely concerned.

“I-I -I’m just a bit cranky today sir, I’m sorry.” He stands up momentarily regaining his composure.

“Well you boys have tonight off, but I wanted 3 racha to go to a show tonight. The group is an Aussie group, I figured you’d like that Chan...” he chuckles to himself “the point is to widen your musical exposure and hopefully give you some ideas for beats, composition and you’ll have a chance to talk to them afterwards. In return they’ll come to your show later this month, their manager wanted them to have some free time and they wanted to check you boys out after hearing that you’ll be watching them.” They all nod Changbin regretting so afterwards.

“The show starts at 8pm, goes for about 2 hours and you’ll meet them afterwards. Changbin I know it’s your anniversary but is there anyways you could call Y/N, I’ll pay for your make up date, I know how inconvenient this must be and I’m so sorry.” He smiles genuinely patting the boy’s back and walking out.

“Fuck as if it couldn’t get any worse.” He grunts turning to Chan who’s still holding the bag.

“She brought this for us.” Chan says followed by “She’d want us to eat it regardless.” A bittersweet smile on my face as I realise exactly the magnitude to which I have just fucked up.

Y/N’S P.O.V

“Yo mitty, so I’m coming to your show tonight, was wondering if you and the boys wanted to get drinks after. Like old times back home!” I ask excitement filling my broken voice, my voice hoarse from an hour of sobbing until I decided I’d just go to my friends concert and let lose. Have a good time like we used to!

“You know I’m always down for that, but we gotta meet with some idols or something after who are coming, you’re more than welcome to join back stage. We can race fireball like old times?” The boy chuckles over the line.

“Alright Cave, you’re on!” I smile proudly knowing I’ll kick his ass just like old times!

“Alright cutie you’re on.” With that he hangs up the line, cutie was what he used to call me in highschool. Some junior tried to hit on me during our last year and he swooped into rescue me, I miss those times. No broken heart, no betrayal, just a bunch of idiot friends having a good laugh and writing some songs.

I get dressed while calling Casper to update him on the situation. I take my lacey black bra and pair it with some black ripped skinny jeans and a pair of combat boots and leather jacket to top off the bad ass bitch vibe for tonight. Put my piercings in, necklaces on, straighten my hair and do some light make up and boom ready to have an awesome time. Despite the ever growing pit of grief in my stomach, was I really that needy? Desperate? Clingy? That I managed to make Changbin the man who would always call me the love of his life, hate me.

Changbin’s P.O.V

3RACHA pulling up looking hot as fuck. Chan dressed in his mixtape 4 outfit (cause that’s a fat OOF 🤤), Han Jisung wearing his outfit from the boxer street video (p.s author loves her baby UWU he’s so handsome.) and Changbin wearing his outfit from SBS Inkigayo ep 997 (because Oml What an absolute king of I am not a goth but black is such my colour and I own this shit). Okay visual cue out!

“What the fuck is up Seoul? We’re Chase Atlantic thanks for coming out tonight.” The crowd screams ��it’s super amazing to be here tonight and we hope you all have a dope time, our first song tonight is Triggered. I wanna hear you get loud.” A man with long dirty blonde / brown hair hypes the crowd up and they begin. The music itself wasn’t bad but most of the lyrics went in one ear out the other, lots about drugs but then again I only picked up half the songs contents but after all we were only there to listen to their use of sources, beats and their instruments so if it works, it works.

Next was a song called Swin, Cassie, Into It, 23, Lust, Friends, Uncomfortable, Drugs & Money, Right Here, What U Call That, Ozone, Devilish, The Walls, Okay and then they talked for a little. I scan through the crowd from our seats which were front section of second level as I was not really understanding what they were talking about until I see her, there she was, Y/N here, or at least I think it’s her I can only see her back but she’s got the jacket I gave her on. It had a SPEAR.B patch on the back, one she had designed for me when we were only known as 3RACHA. Surely it’s her the hair colour and jacket, surely that’s MY Y/N.

“Oi Chan?” I turn to the blonde haired Aussie to my left “is that Y/N?” I question pointing to where the girl is.

“Looks like it, that’s her jacket after all and this is her favourite band.” He looks slightly annoyed I hadn’t put two and two together, Aussie band, Chase Atlantic. Y/N always talked about how one day we’d go to their concert and we’d be the hottest couple because she had me. I told her I wanted to go see the things she loves. Jesus today keeps getting worse. Time ticks on and I can’t help but watch her, the girl I love, dancing with some other guy, laughing, singing, being happy. When I left her broken-hearted.

“This is our last few songs, these are You Too, Meddle About and Like A Rockstar! Enjoy Seoul you’ve been fucking awesome.”

I watch by as she gets crazy, let’s go and enjoys herself. Was she really unphased? No, I could tell, I know her better than anyone.

The boys wrap up the show and I watch as the lead singer leaves before we head back stage. My eyes searching for her, but she’s no where to be seem.

Y/N’s P.O.V

“MITTY” I scream as I hurl myself at my oldest friend who’s laying in the green room couch. “CUTIE!” He screams back tickling me “how the fuck have you been man?” I ask as we spend time catching up we hear a knock. “Yeah come in” Mitchael screams “bro my fucking ears, Jesus” I complain getting off of him and going towards Clinton as he’s where the drinks are. “Clint? Gimme something strong yeah?” I plead “Jesus rough day?” He chuckles “you have no idea man. No I fucking dear” I sigh turning around and regretting it instantly.

There he stood, Seo Changbin looking as good as ever. Without much thought I down the entire drink and head back to sit with Mitchel, Chan breaks the momentary awkward silence “hello it’s nice to meet you, we are 3RACHA.” Chan extends his hand to Mitchel but instead he bro hugs him, “how’d you enjoy the show man?” Clinton asks Changbin as they bro hug “uh... it was really good, I-I really like the uh compositions of your music-c.” I smile slightly to myself he’s doing so well my precious boy, Y/N SNAP. OUT. OF. IT. “That’s so nice, thanks bro.”

The night or the next hour and 30 minutes at least consisted of everyone sitting on the couches sharing advice, ideas, stories and me on my phone. “You know this little chick right here is pretty good with a beat, we used to have jam sessions and she always started our old songs.” Mitchel looks down at me as I occupy the space next to him, “she even sends us samples and lyrics still to this day, cutie over here got mad skills.” My eyes go wide knowing full well Changbin just heard and understood everything that was said, I hum from behind my phone screen too scared to look up in fear I’d meet his eyes. Those same eyes I can feel burning a hole into my forehead right now, “how about we watch some of your videos, I know we get to see you live soon but aye give us a sneak peak!” Clinton changes the topic, my life saver. Chan pulls out his phone and everyone huddled around where he was sitting I stand at the back close to Changbin just too rest the waters, knowing he was both sad and jealous I didn’t want to escalate things. He notices my position and while everyone is focused on the phone snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me closer into his side “baby, you know I love you. I was a dick I am so sorry. I need you to stay with me. Please love.” He whispers in my ear sending shivers down my spine as he peppers soft, sweet kisses along my neck, “we will talk about this later” I muster up all the courage I can to detach myself from his side and go back to sitting on the couch scrolling through my phone. “Y/N, you good?” Clinton asks knowing I’ve had a few drinks “yeah boys, all g” I smile.

“Talk about sick beats man, those are dope. So you make all your own shit. Composing, mixing, lyrics. The whole lot yeah?” Changbin nods “yeah the whole lot.” He smiles confidently, fuck he’s making this hard.

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binsofchaos · 5 years ago

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‘I Believe in Love’: Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Final Year, In Her Own Words

Introduction by Garance Franke-Ruta. Jump to the start of Elizabeth Wurtzel’s essay here.

The late Elizabeth Wurtzel was best known for her memoirs and essays, especially Prozac Nation and Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, but after attending Yale Law School in her late 30s she also enjoyed having a voice in the political arena. She was as much an original there as everywhere else, and between 2010 and 2012 she wrote a series of pieces for me at The Atlantic.

A feminist and a New Yorker who had really lived, she looked at the world in a different way from all the boys on the bus in Washington. And she was funny. She would send long text messages written on her smartphone while she was walking through Washington Square Park, an emissary from a more vivid and creative world than the boxy K Street buildings I would pass en route to my office in the Watergate. Sometimes her stories would come in like that too, texted in graf by graf, and I’d knit the passages together in what seemed like the right order and ask for some connective language. The thoughts were always razor-sharp; the understanding of human nature acute.

Over time our editing relationship moved into a long-distance friendship. We met for dinner at a restaurant in Chelsea, outside of course so her dog could be nestled at her feet. She had somehow managed to find a lipstick with my name on it — Guerlain’s Garance — and purchased us two tubes encased in elegant silver that sat heavy in the hand. She wore hers to dinner, and when I went to the restroom, I changed my color too, making us lipstick twins. It was how she was and in many ways the secret to her success: In addition to being wildly talented, she overcompensated for being so difficult and never totally in control by being astonishingly thoughtful, and kind, and, well, seductive. She was a seductive personality; hard not to love even as she could be hard to be close to.

When I started working at GEN this fall and living in New York full time, I reached out to her. “I’m in remission!” she’d said brightly when we first reconnected, three years after last seeing each other and nearly five years after she first learned she had the BRCA gene and breast cancer. We drank red wine on her balcony overlooking a giant earthen pit in the ground: The future NY offices of Netflix. We went to dinner at Il Buco on Bond Street (her suggestion); I could feel she was lonely. She and her husband Jim Freed had separated and were in the process of divorcing, a not so happy ending to the happily ever after story she had been astonished to stumble into in 2015, and something she was still figuring out how to write about. She started sending me things she had written as we talked about her writing a piece about Gen X politics and the 2020 race.

“I am intimate with the dirt,” she wrote of the Netflix pit. “It has infiltrated everything. It is all over me and under me. It is Love Canal, sewage from the Mississippi, cigarette butts, marijuana ash, slave remains, rats, mice, Three Mile Island, Mount Etna, Mount Saint Helen, Dust Bowl, Adam, Eve, serpent, Satan, Chernobyl, Berlin Wall, acid rain, asbestos, uranium, geraniums, 9/11, 7/11, Donner Party, bird beaks, pigeon claws, squirrel tails, gerbil puke, hamster wheels, insulation, Saran Wrap, Mason Pearson bristles, dental floss, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Mafia hits washed up from the East River, syringes, works, the residue at the bottom of the empty bag of dope, coal waste, cookie crumbs, broken bottles, rusty nails, Bataan Death March, Manila massacre, Boston Tea Party, frog legs, goldfish, mutant ninja turtles, alligators from Florida, red algae, yellow fever, Agent Orange, bubonic plague, gold teeth, silver spoons, copper wires, iron ore, Crest with fluoride, whitening strips, stripper tips, dollar bills, twenties laced with cocaine, subway tokens, expired MetroCards with unused fare, tickets to see Star Wars in 1976, bicentennial souvenirs, gutta-percha, cat guts, doll parts, golf balls, tennis racket strings, cashmere socks, polyester, rayon, pylon, nylon, Mylar, warped vinyl, scratched CDs, crispy leaves, shredded lettuce, tarnished keys, queen bees, xerox paper, pepper spray, Prozac pills, poppers, pooper scoopers, hula hoops, leis, fecal matter, aborted fetuses, snot, rot, cots, bots, shot glass shards, broken windows, chimney smoke, dice, playing cards, poker chips, lollipop sticks, toothpicks, used tissues, dirty handkerchiefs, bandanna threads, kite pine needles, kite strings, toilet water, wolf fangs, sunburn peel, hangnails, cavities, skin, scabs, split ends, fur balls, chicken bones, dissected cadavers, wisdom teeth, crash test dummies, Big Bang, Little Miss Muffet, Humpty Dumpty, Rip Van Winkle, bog wood, petrified forest, oyster shells, freshwater pearls, blood diamonds, Star rubies, asteroids, primordial ooze, love letters, promises kept and broken.”

Very soon the piece she’d wanted to write about Gen X politics started to slip. The cancer was back. There were so many tests and scans to undergo. I told her not to worry about writing it and was surprised when she filed. She said it was a good distraction from having cancer. She badly wanted to interview Beto O’Rourke, but by the time he arrived in New York City where they might have had a face-to-face — the Gen X skate-punk candidate and the Gen X icon — he was already getting ready to drop out of the race.

She sent me a long piece about her past year, about her impending divorce and her marriage and her mother and Donald Trump. It was from something longer she was working on, she said.

We talked about her writing an additional passage when she recovered from brain surgery and running the piece on Medium. “I suppose I have to add something about this, since so much of the piece is about cancer,” she texted. “You know, of all my failures of imagination, I never wondered what a brain tumor is like. So I could not have guessed it was this atrocious, the dizziness and the pain.”

Her recoveries from the relentless march of the disease during her final, dreadful month would prove to be brief.

After her first brain surgery — she had two to cope with her metastatic breast cancer and subsequent complications — which she described as a “brain resection,” she was astonishingly herself. She was funny and poetic and articulate and in good spirits. Still dizzy and unstable — the tumor had impacted her balance center and left her clutching the furniture as she walked during her last night in her own home — but also still herself. She laughed with her mother, who took video and pictures of her in the hospital and helped coordinate, along with Jim and some of her oldest friends from college, a parade of sun-up to way past winter sundown visitors so that she would never feel alone.

And the night before the surgery, Jim was the one she stayed with. He was the one who took care of Alistair, her dog, and her black cat, Arabella. When I saw him in the hospital, he was entirely attuned to her and what she might need so that she could recover and have, in the unspoken best-case scenario, another year.

“I can’t get over how great my husband has been with this. He has made it possible for me to get better and not worry about anything,” she wrote in mid-December, after the surgery. “He loves you so much it’s clear,” I texted back, thinking of how attentive he had been, how he was arranging visits with so many people, that look on his face that you cannot fake. “I think so,” she texted back. “It’s good you see. I love him so much.”

But the past year had been a hard one. This is what she had written about it. She had shown it to Jim too, and he agreed, as did a number of her oldest friends, that she’d want it published. She loved to be published.

I Believe in Love

By Elizabeth Wurtzel

Greetings from the chaotic land of marriage come undone.

The caravansary is dismantling, toothpicks flying everywhere, the bubblegum that held it together is unstuck.

Everything is falling.

My husband moved out at the end of December [2018], as the calendar flipped from last year to this [2019], while I was in Miami Beach, strolling the walkways in the shocking morning sun and under the nighttime Van Gogh sky, away from it all.

I knew he was moving out, but still: I was surprised.

I did not see that the game was over. I did not know the clock was running. I never lose, but I do run out of time. It turns out this was basketball and not baseball.

While I looked away, my marriage fell apart.

I fell off my keel. I lost my kilter. I was a kite without a string.

Maybe it’s better.

It is a peaceful purple without him here. But psychedelic with disarray.

Marriage is an organizing principle. It is flow. It is coffee in the morning. It is who walks the dog. It is HBO at night.

And love. Don’t forget that.

Now I am an ombré mess of a person. I am missed appointments and canceled meetings. I am the thing I forgot to do. I am hanging on by a strand of Drybar dry-shampooed hair.

All day long I have to ask people to forgive me, I am flailing and failing at it all. Forgive me, I beg, as I hope my untweezed eyebrows will. Maybe soon, I will even tug at a few strays.

Or maybe wild is the way.

🖤🖤🖤

I still think of Jim as this sweet person I married. He is my trust fall. He is my emergency contact. He is my next of kin. He is my valentine. He is my birthday dinner. He is my secret sharer. He is my husband.

I do not know him anymore so I do not know myself. Who are my friends? Where is my family? I have fallen into a crevasse of nobody nowhere.

I am estranged and strange, strangled up in blue.

I do not want to feel this way. I am going through the five stages of grief all at once, which Reddit strings have no doubt turned into 523. They are a collision course, a Robert Moses plan, a metropolitan traffic system of figuring it out.

I feel bad and mad and sad.

Is this a festival of insight or a clusterfuck of stupid? I change my mind all the time about this and about everything else.

I got married because I was done with crazy. But here it is, back again, the revenant I cannot shake. I feel like it’s 1993, when my heart had a black eye all the time.

26 is a boxing match of the soul.

I did not expect bruises at 52.

🖤🖤🖤

I have blamed myself. I have blamed my husband. I have blamed cancer. I have blamed marijuana. I have blamed sexism. I have blamed Charlottesville. I have blamed my in-laws. I have blamed several men named David. I have blamed my mother who lied to me my whole life about who my father is.

Who would I be if I did not blame Donald Trump?

I am angry all the time since the election of 2016, like it happened to me, like I was gang-raped by Michigan. I don’t want to be angry, but so there, I am.

Who don’t I hate?

Who won’t I blame?

If you are standing there, I blame you.

It is not conservative against liberal.

It is everybody against everyone. Here we are, in it together, alone.

The problem is not arguments I have with people who voted for Trump, who I don’t know anyway. The trouble is the way all of us who agree about everything are bickering. Oh, the narcissism of small differences.

I remember not that long ago when the world was not political. I was part of landmark litigation that was all about a team of Republicans and Democrats working together. I loved everybody. We were all on the same side.

What Alamo did I not forgive? What Masada did I not get over?

Now there is no microaggression too small for me to scream about so the next four neighborhoods can hear.

My husband does something and I am affronted like it matters.

I am sure he does not know how I feel.

And maybe he doesn’t.

But what does any of this have to do with why we got married? We got married to be in it together. Polarization has even invaded love.

I have anger fatigue. I am sick of sick. Like everyone.

The emotional toll of the world we live in is going to do all of us in.

But politics is not about conflict.

Politics is about making the world a better place.

🖤🖤🖤

How could my mother keep a secret for 50 years? What makes someone do that?

She buried herself in it. She grew a wild Victorian garden with thorny bushes of rose and purple larkspur and red snapdragon. There was a lush meadow of lavender that gave a whiff of Aix-en-Provence en été. The dandelions ran rampant and the daffodils glowed yellow like Big Bird.

But underneath it all, beneath the lilies of the valley and the rows of geranium, there is dirt.

There is a secret.

I am a bastard. I am her bastard daughter.

There are things that come along that are a shock.

I believed something for nearly half a century. It was a lie.

I was conned.

I was wrong about myself.

I did not know who I am.

My mother told no one.

It was a lie she told for so long it became true and the secret faded to no-memory. She misremembered who my father was. She did not think it mattered.

When it all came out in 2016, not long after I got married, just after my real father died, my mother could not see what my hysteria was about. She did not understand why I was stunned.

All the while I was trying not to feel the worst way ever, trying not to be overwhelmed by the explosion, my mother could not figure out what was bothering me.

After all, she is the nuclear physicist.

My mother is like everyone else. She thinks she is normal. She is sure her behavior makes sense. She believes she does the right thing. Since she cannot imagine that this is not the case, she is surprised to find out that, yes, she makes bombs.

I scream at my mother, “What’s wrong with you?!”

I do that and she does not know what I mean.

She says, “Oh get over it.”

Her eyes widen until they look like goggles on an herbivore. She is put upon. She cannot believe we have to discuss this yet again.

“Omigod yet again!”

When will I quit badgering her?

I say, “You lied to me.”

She says, “It wasn’t a lie.”

“Then what?”

“It was a decision!”

Any relationship founded on a lie is doomed. Or not a lie, according to her, which is another lie, a lie about a lie.

That is how it is between us. We are living in the doom.

And yet, we are still at it. My mother and I refuse to give up. She is my only parent. She is all I have.

She made sure of that.

This is the most painful thing ever.

She has made so many inexplicable decisions over the years that I know about, and now I see the ones I did not know.

And yet I love her more than anyone else in the world.

She is it for me. She is in the way of everything. I should be interested in my husband, but how can he compete with how much I want to figure out the Once that started all that is upon a time?

🖤🖤🖤

I was a welter of emotions.

I was so emotional.

When I found out that my father is not my father, that my mother lied to me my whole life, that there was so much I did not know, a bomb dropped in my life. Bombs, really, aerial bombardment. It was the Battle of Manila: bazookas, flamethrowers, grenades, tanks, cannons, howitzers, banzai charges, kamikaze tactics, I was shocked and stunned with feeling.

I did not know what to do.

I became a raging lunatic.

I was a mettle of rage.

My rage is my retinue. My rage is a filthy velveteen train I drag around with me, carelessly. It is my ruby tiara. It is my rainbow and my pot of gold.

My rage is cream. It makes Chock Full O’ Nuts coffee that my grandmother brewed in a percolator on the breakfront in the dining room taste not half bad.

It is the coloratura harmony to my singsong days.

My rage is my conscience. I insist on my right to feel.

But I got caught in a Möbius strip of emotion. I was gone round the bend of scream.

It was stuplimity.

🖤🖤🖤

My marriage is crushed beneath the weight of so much. It is delicate, like all relationships. It is not one of those fine elms that blows with the gusts and does not snap.

We are a scattering of branches on the lawn. We are deadwood.

Oh, there is a lot that holds us together, the love and the hours. We got married during chemotherapy. We are bound.

But my husband is not who he was.

Yes, I know: It is always like that. The sorrow of unraveling is the stranger you are facing. What happened? I want to scream. Where did you go?

My husband had a softness. I will not compare it to the feel of cotton balls or the touch of silk charmeuse, because it is better. He was new to love. I could tell. I could see. He was surprised. He did not see me coming. He did not know I was interested. He was alone in a room. His life was small. He had the same six friends he always had. He was shy. He was not brave. He had no expectations.

He was lovely.

The beginning is always like honey, liquid and sweet.

But he was open.

He was not wounded by a million heartaches.

He had not been through it all.

He did not have a wretched past.

He was 34, which is not young. Younger than I was, but a lot could have happened by then.

It had not.

He was fresh.

There was nothing I would not do for him.

There was nothing I did not want for him.

We met in October and got engaged in May.

We knew.

And now he knows he has had enough.

It has been too much.

🖤🖤🖤

Most of all, it is not easy to be married to someone with cancer.

I feel for my husband.

Cancer is so big. Everyone is prostrate before its deadly enormity. It is the answer to every question. It is the reason why. Is it an excuse or is it real? Who is anyone to argue? Cancer is a bully. It is an elephantine disease of body, mind, soul. My husband moved a half a mile away from it. I would love to do the same.

I am stuck until the end.

I do not know what he expected when he married me when I was ill. I am sorry that it has not been what he wanted. I am sorry that I hurt him.

After I got cancer, I was not the same.

I wanted to be.

I wanted my life to go back to what it was.

I was so lively. I was so lovely.

I was so busy. I was so social.

But I could not do it.

No surprise, I changed.

I was withdrawn during chemotherapy and my world became small. It contracted like starvation. It is hard to get back what is lost. It is more difficult still to begin anew.

I tried. So hard. I called. I emailed. I texted. I showed up.

But there was a diminishment.

Cancer is an ecosystem. It is a crime spree.

Things broke. My radius. My fibula. My tibia. My spirit.

My cancer came back a year after it went away.

You think people are nice about it? No.

Cancer is misunderstood.

Everyone says the wrong thing. Which is what they do so much anyway.

Then I say the wrong thing back.

There we are, bumper cars of mismatched words.

I can’t believe the stupid things people tell me in an effort to be kind, about something hard they had to deal with that is not the same as having cancer.

The worst thing anyone can do is tell me they are sorry about my cancer.

I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. About anything. Don’t apologize unless you have done something wrong. It is nasty to feel sorry for anyone for any reason because it pushes her away.

Mostly sorry is just a thing to say. Anything else would be better, including I don’t know what to say.

It is always people who are the problem. What else? Our suffering is small compared to our misunderstandings with others, how they fail to give us a break, know what it’s like, judge us fairly, see the world the way we do. It is not even cancer or especially cancer. It is especially this and even that. If you are looking for absolution, you are going to have to forgive yourself.

I have chainmail from years of frustrating conversations, of people who think something bad has happened to me.

I don’t see it that way.

You could tell me everything that’s bad about cancer, like that it’s cancer, but you could not convince me that cancer has been bad for me.

Cancer has made me optimistic.

These are the days of miracles and wonders, of biopharma fireworks, of immunotherapy wow.

I have been saved.

I am miraculous me.

I will skate figure eights into infinity.

I am all claws I am all fangs.

I am not afraid of cancer. I think cancer should be afraid of me.

This past October [2018], I had a tumor in my shoulder bone that was 5 inches: big! It was threatening to break it.

And worse.

My cancer antigens were at 205, when 25 is as high as the level can go.

I had meetings in the World Trade Center while all this was going on. I hate it down there. Skyscrapers as grave markers. It is an ominous place.

When I went for help in Philadelphia at the Basser Center for BRCA at the University of Pennsylvania, only Alistair, my service dog, was with me.

My husband said he had to work.

My marriage had already come undone.

I had stereotactic radiation at Memorial Sloan Kettering. It took only three sessions to zap the tumor away. The treatment saved me, but I have a five-inch hole in my bone that looks like a cave in the Thai jungle.

When my husband moved out, I was still healing. I have a rotator cuff tear and pain from the long way home.

🖤🖤🖤

This is a love story.

Every marriage is a love story.

People who run off to Vegas after knowing each other for 10 days and find a drunk outside the Sands casino to be their witness — they really mean it. Marriage is a big gesture. There is no reason to do it except: love.

It is effusive.

I am sorry I failed.

I am sorry for this confederacy of catastrophe.

I am sorry for it all.

I think that my husband can’t believe I hurt. I know what I’m like: I have a powerful personality, it’s true. But he got me.

He made a vow to love me in sickness and in health.

There was great love between us.

And love is hard to stop.

We made a commitment for when we could not remember why we did.

He decided enough.

I am a monotheist. I am in it for life. I am in everything for life. If you don’t stop me, I will not stop myself. I have the kind of faith that you can only have if you have talked your way out of trouble all along.

I feel so much and too much. Deep in my radiated bones.

I cannot believe it is like this with my husband and not like it was that long ago on Halloween, our first date, which he did not know was a date, maybe it was maybe it wasn’t, he showed up at my door not knowing anything at all.

We were resting on our future arms, we were like people who have never read The Unbearable Lightness of Being, have never seen City of God, have never heard Exile In Guyville, oh what lay ahead.

I remember my husband in the beginning, I know the man I married, I insist he is still there somewhere.

I keep peeling for the pentimento.

Or has this all been a fraud?

Love gone wrong feels like a confidence crime.

That is the worst of it.

Do I have an electron microscope or am I blinded? Do I see more clearly now or is this a distortion? I could ask that about the whole wide world.

Sex and race look different since Trump was elected. We know all the things that we never knew. We were living in a world of trust, we believed we were on a righteous path, that things were incrementally improving, so we did not look so hard into sunlight.

All anything ever is is another way of seeing.

I thought my husband was on my side.

I thought I knew him.

I did.

I don’t.

He changed.

I do not know how to help him.

I do not know how to reach him.

Anything is possible.

I believe in so much.

I am just that way.

I believe in love.

What matters more in this crazy world?

Shame on Casablanca’s ending! I will take the hill of beans.

(This is Garance again.)

Love. Sometimes in our lives when we feel most bereft it turns out that we are not alone at all. It is the kind of cloying Disney sentiment Lizzie might have scoffed at, but it was also the truth with her. She affected a toughness that was both real and a coping mechanism, but which also led her to downplay how sick she was. Even as she was telling me she was in remission in September, spots of cancer had already returned, I have since learned.

“The people who know us when we are not our best selves — what would we do without them? I am so grateful right now for even my mother coming through for me,” she wrote after her first surgery in December. Her mother Lynne Winters and she had a famously complicated relationship, but it was Lynne who took her home to recover both times she was released from the hospital, and who had the difficult burden of having to bring her back, and who sobbed in the sparkling clean MSKCC neuro ward hallway where other parents of too-young-to-die adult children paced forlornly.

“Jim has been the best,” Lizzie texted after the surgery. “I wish you a great first husband. That might be all you need.”

They had, in fact, not divorced. The papers were signed, but not filed. He was her husband until the end, during the final days after it was clear no further interventions would work, when she lay still in bed in what was by then her at least fifth different hospital room, for all the world the image of a big-eyed Renaissance pieta looking heavenward.

“Neurology takes a positive view toward god and prayer,” she had texted after the first surgery. “And relinquishing, which is what god and prayer is about. It is always turning your will over to a higher power and letting the will of the world and not your extraordinary manipulations lead you to your desired result. I always say that, it is my constant prayer: god, if you are out there, watch over me and your will, not mine, be done. That is what will happen anyway, but I pray for release from the dreadful fight.”

She spent her whole life fighting — fighting her parents, society, the patriarchy, social conventions, addiction, depression. But man, did she live big. She had a gift for building love into her life and at the end, her friends built a cocoon of love around her.

And on the morning of January 7, 2020, she was, as she had prayed, released.

#Elizabeth Wurtzel #i believe in love #love #garance franke-ruta #medium #writing

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smokeybrandreviews · 8 years ago

Text

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Wanna See A Dead Robot (Franchise)?

What is this? Number five? Yeah, five. I have seen all five of these pieces of sh*t. Paid for two. Seen five. Dunno if there’s going to be a six. Man, i am SO tired of this films and i LOVE Transformers. G1 enthusiast. Been following these Robots In Disguise for 30 years. Every time Michael Bay gets being the camera for one of these cash grabs, my inner child dies inside. This movie sucked. Sucked. I mean, yall are going to go see it because explosion and shiny but, f*ck man, this is a whack experience. That being said, Human Quintessa was real bad, man.

The Good

STANLEY. F*CKING. TUCCI.

Laura Haddock was dope. I am exceedingly glad she was able to do stuff. Chick was actually pivotal to the plot, i guess. i was super glad she got to keep her clothes on.

Pretty movie is pretty. Bay is good at that. He and Snyder have a flair for the visual

Cogman was hilarious. Jim Carter did a damn good job voicing psycho-3P0.

Frank Welker actually got to be Megatron. Finally. Dope.

Most of the human characters were serviceable in their portrayals.

The Bad

That Izabelle character was useless. Literally, she did nothing. Not a thing. I’m not knocking isabela Moner, she did what she could with what she was given, but her character could have been completely wiped clean and nothing would change in the plot. USELESS!

Also, Izabella was weirdly sexualized almost immediately. She’s suppose to be fourteen. It made me mad uncomfortable. Like, Bay shot this child like he shot Megan Fox. It was mad skeezy.

Why did Optimus fly into space? it’s literal two degrees colder than ABSOLUTE ZERO. If we remember way back when, Megatron was subdued by the antarctic BECAUSE OF THE COLD. HE LITERALLY FROZE IN PLACE. What the f*ck are you even doing in space, Prime??

How is Megatron not Galvatron anymore? How is he a Jet when he was a truck? Where the f*ck has he been? how did he get to Cybertron? What the f*ck is even going on with this goddamn character??

How is Barricade Alive?

How is Onslaught alive? Pretty sure Prime stabbed him through the head in the first movie.

How is Quintessa a Prime? Didn’t they all die when Megatronus turned on them? ON F*CKING EARTH??? NOT F*CKING CYBERTRON???

Why was John Turturro even in this movie? Seriously, why?

The whole King Arthur aspect was stupid.

Bumblebee against Nazis is even stupider.

Nemesis Prime was sh*t. Optimus turned coated real quick, man. Never trust a big butt and a smile!

That dragon was lame.

Not enough Grimlock.

Why was that one Transfomer who got murdered in the beginning, Canopy, even there? He was literally in A scene for 5 minutes then, dead.

How was that night in that Decepticon ship during the battle of Chicago? Those guys were mad sleep for centuries. How the f*ck did he even get there?

Why would ol’ dude Transformer give such a powerful staff to admitted liar, womanizer, and charlatan?

Bumblebee’s voice. Oh my god. Seven years for that?? His voice box wasn’t even fixed! Bee literally tore it out thirty minutes into the film!

The Ugly

The entire plot. Everything about this narrative is nonsense. Everything

Michael. Bay.

This movie was long. And boring. and LONG. you could have cut about an hour out of this thing, streamlined the narrative, and gotten a pretty decent movie. But no. Michael Bay doesn’t know how to f*cking end films, man, and this thing just drags.

The pacing of this movie is retarded. Jump cuts everywhere!

You’ve seen this movie four times. It’s literally the same movie for the fifth time. Robots fight against robots. Humans have to take some stupid, all powerful, cybertron mcguffin across the world to stop ultimate destruction. Megatron gets dismember/killed. escapes. Same movie, five times over.

MICHAEL. F*CKING. BAY.

The Verdict

When people say you need to turn off your intellect to enjoy something, I get wildly offended. I can’t reconcile that process. You’ve basically told me that I have to dumb down my intelligence or numb my critical thinking because what I am about to experience is trash, and you know it’s trash, but that’s okay. It’s not okay. Don’t make trash. Like, don’t you have to think about something to actively engage with it? Don’t you have to analyze said medium for a better understanding of it? How can you just passively sit there, letting sh*t happen to you and enjoy it? In what aspect of society, outside of sh*tty, sh*ty, knowingly terrible film, can you apply that “Turn your Brain Off” fallacy? Nowhere! So why is it okay that assholes who get million dollar checks to make hundred million dollar crapfests, are given that prerequisite excuse for awful, awful nonsense??

We’re making excuses for sh*t that we all know is sh*t and I find THAT to be the most offensive thing of all! Not because we’re okay with mediocrity but because we ENCOURAGE it with our dollars. Transformers is an objectively TERRIBLE franchise. The Fast Franchise is an objectively TERRIBLE series of Films. Batman Vs. Superman is an objectively TERRIBLE film. All of them use the excuse of “popcorn movie” or “Turn Your Brain Off” or “Made For The Fans” as an excuse for their ghastly productions and all of them are billion dollar franchises. That sh*t is mad distressing to me. We’ve become a nation of cretins and no one cares. I guess when we turned out brains off to ingest another sexist, creepily pedophilic Michael Bay SFX extravaganza, we forgot to turn them back on.

That being said, literally turn your intellect off to watch this movie. It’s bad. It’s boring. It’s poorly put together. But if you don’t think about it, if you turn off your brain, it might be fun. I didn’t have fun because i’m not a goddamn zombie.

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smokeybrand · 8 years ago

Text

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: Wanna See A Dead Robot (Franchise)?

The Good

STANLEY. F*CKING. TUCCI.

Laura Haddock was dope. I am exceedingly glad she was able to do stuff. Chick was actually pivotal to the plot, i guess. i was super glad she got to keep her close on.

Pretty movie is pretty. Bay is good at that. He and Snyder have a flair for the visual

Cogman was hilarious. Jim Carter did a damn good job voicing psycho-3P0.

Frank Welker actually got to be Megatron. Finally. Dope.

Most of the human characters were serviceable in their portrayals.

The Bad

That Izabelle character was useless. Literally, she did nothing. Not a thing. I’m not knocking isabela Moner, she did waht she could with what she was given, but her character could have been completely wiped clean and nothing would change in the plot. USELESS!

Also, Izabella was weirdly sexualized almost immediately. She’s suppose to be fourteen. It made me mad uncomfortable. Like, he shot this child like he shot Megan Fox. It was mad skeezy.

Why did Optimus fly into space? it’s literal two degrees colder than ABSOLUTE ZERO. If we remember way back when, Megatron was subdued by the arctic BECAUSE OF THE COLD. HE LITERALLY FROZE IN PLACE. What the f*ck are you even doing in space, Prime??

How is Megatron not Galvatron anymore? How is he a Jet when he was a truck? Where the f*ck has he been? how did her get to Cybertron? What the f*ck is even going on with this goddamn character??

How is Barricade Alive?

How is Onslaught alive? Pretty sure Prime stabbed him through the head in the first movie.

How is Quintessa a Prime? Didn’t they all die when Megatronus turned on them? ON F*CKING EARTH??? NOT F*CKING CYBERTRON???

Why was John Turturro even in this movie? Seriously, why?

The whole King Arthur aspect was stupid.

Bumblebee against Nazis is even stupider.

Nemesis Prime was sh*t. Optimus turned coated real quick, man. Never trust a big butt and a smile!

That dragon was lame.

Not enough Grimlock.

Why was that one Transfomer who got murdered in the beginning, Canopy, even there? He was literally in A scene for 5 minutes then, dead.

How was that night in that Decepticon ship during the battle of Chicago? Those guys were mad sleep for centuries. How the f*ck did he even get there?

Why would ol’ dude Transformer give such a powerful staff to admitted liar, womanizer, and charlatan?

Bumblebee’s voice. Oh my god. Seven years for that?? His voice box wasn’t even fixed! Bee literally tore it out thirty minutes into the film!

The Ugly

The entire plot. Everything about this narrative is nonsense. Everything

Michael. Bay.

The pacing of this movie is retarded. Jump cuts everywhere!

MICHAEL. F*CKING. BAY.

The Verdict

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