#gotta get that citation count up

[squareallworthy]

🔥 cooking

It took me a while to answer this, because I have pretty conventional opinions about cooking, but here's what I've got: you sometimes hear people say that cooking is an art, but baking is a science. Meaning that with cooking, you can just wing it, double the amount of ginger or substitute a different kind of stock, and everything will be fine, but for baking you have to follow the recipe exactly as written.

But I think this is wrong. Because baking is a science, you have to change things. You have to alter the recipe, because conditions in your kitchen will not be exactly like conditions in someone else's kitchen. Your oven will heat and circulate air differently, your flour will have a different moisture content, your pans will have a different size and shape. These things will affect how your baked goods turn out, and you absolutely have to tweak recipes and techniques to make things work.

So if your bread does not turn out just like the bread in the cookbook, don't think that you are a failure because you tried to do things exactly as written and it didn't work. Look at what you've got, think about to move it in the direction you want, and try out an adjustment. Document what you're doing, and if it looks good, keep doing that. If not, try something else. In science, you're supposed to experiment.

[jessicalprice]

adventures in christian opinions about judaism

(reposted from Twitter)

So a while back I started writing a thing on the trio of parables that ends with the prodigal son (which I still need to finish) and like MAN OH MAN do Christian commentators insist that Jews hate shepherds.

Like, I can't even count the number of commentaries that insist that shepherds were "despised figures" for first-century Jews and the parables of the lost sheep and lost coin were designed to insult the Pharisees by comparing them first to a shepherd and then to a woman.

So, as is my wont whenever Christian commentators make a claim about what was normal for first-century Judaism, I decided to try to hunt down their source on this.

As I've said many times, when it comes to Christian parable interpreters' claims about what attitudes/beliefs/etc. were normal for first-century Jews, get used to the phrase "no sources are cited."

I mean, first off, as a 21st-century Jew, the insistence that 1st-century Jews hated shepherds rings odd, given that <checks notes> Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rachel, all of Jacob's kids (the founders of the tribes), David, etc. were all sheep-tenders. The image of God as a shepherd is pretty consistent throughout the Tanakh. That image reappears in the Qumran texts, which as far as I know, are one of the few Jewish sources we have from 1st-century Judaea.

The term "despised" gets used a lot, so I decided to dig into that one.

When I was able to find citations, I traced them back to an 1882 commentary by a guy named Frederic Farrar.

Farrar cites Heinrich Meyer as a source for this, but when I looked up THAT citation, it's Meyer saying that shepherds were a "lowly but patriarchally consecrated class" -- in other words, poor, but with a distinguished history and status.

So that's why everyone's tossing the term "despised" around--because Farrar just made it up. But what about primary sources? I went back on the hunt.

Surprisingly, in a number of reference works, like glossaries and Jeffers's "Greco-Roman World of the New Testament," I found similar assertions about the common attitude toward shepherds, for which they cited...

<drum roll>

Aristotle. You know, the Greek guy who lived 300 years before Jesus? Definitely a reliable source for Jewish attitudes of the time.

Some people cited Philo's On Agriculture. Okay, Philo was at least Jewish and lived when Jesus would have, although he was a wealthy Hellenized Jew living in Alexandria rather than a Pharisee living in the Galilee. But okay, at least it's the right culture and time period. (The reference in Philo turns out to be talking about the section of Genesis in which Joseph's brothers come visit him in Egypt. It talks about how they were proud to be shepherds, and criticizes (gentile) kings who look down on shepherds.)

Then we've got Mishnah Kiddushin, in which a bunch of rabbis are having a debate about which professions make you trustworthy vs untrustworthy, and one rabbi lists everyone from camel-drivers to herders to barbers to shopkeepers as untrustworthy. Another rabbi comes back and is like, nah, all those people are fine upstanding folks; it's doctors and butchers you've gotta watch out for. So they're citing one cranky dude with a LONG list of people he doesn't like, who immediately gets shot down, as evidence of the normative attitude for Jews about a century earlier.

Oh, and we've got a citation of Midrash Tehillim which says that God-as-shepherd doesn't have any of the failings of humans-as-shepherds, which... sure. Also, it was codified in the 1300s?

The most compelling citation is from the Talmud (Sanhedrin 25b), in which the rabbis discuss who's qualified to be a legal witness. They exclude shepherds, because shepherds graze their animals on other people's land, which some of the rabbis see as a type of theft.

The Talmud is a record of debates, but this passage definitely makes it sound like this is a majority opinion. (It should be noted that the passage disqualifies all KINDS of people, from those who lend with interest to those who fly pigeons, as having conflicts of interest.)

But the important thing here is that the Talmud includes records of debates from as late as the 4th or 5th centuries CE (300-400 years after Jesus's time), and the passage makes a point of noting that the disqualification of shepherds as witnesses is a later development.

So in other words, the idea that the Pharisees hated shepherds and would have been insulted by Jesus telling a story in which the protagonist was a shepherd is based either on Greek attitudes that are 300 years too early or Jewish ones that are 300-400 years too late.

But people will twist themselves into citation knots (or just not bother citing a source at all) to insist that this was a common attitude so they can position the Pharisees as hating those charming humble shepherds and their fuzzy little lambs.

As to WHY this idea seems to be so important to them, well, you cannot read about Luke 15 without encountering the word "outcast" roughly 90 times per page.

The framing is Jesus was friend to The Outcasts while the Pharisees despised The Outcasts and the Lost Sheep, Coin, and Sons are all parables about accepting The Outcast.

Never mind that neither the sheep, the coin, nor either of the sons got kicked out of their communities. The sheep wandered off, as sheep are wont to do, the coin was lost by its owner, and the younger son decided to leave to go on a spending spree while the older son declined to attend the welcome back party for him after his dad managed to hire a band and caterers but never thought to let his own son know what was going on and he had to find out from a hired hand.

Moreover, the term "outcasts" gets used as a synonym for "tax collectors and sinners." Tax collectors were usually pretty well-off because they ran a protection racket for the Romans. Outcasts? I mean, I guess? But hardly in the "marginalized and powerless" sense.

As far as "sinners," the NT doesn't usually bother telling us what, exactly, they did to "sin," but on the rare occasions when it does offer that context, it's almost always wealthy people.

But why talk about that when they can present the objection the Pharisees had to Jesus's dining with "tax collectors and sinners" as the Pharisees despising lowly outcasts, and insist that the Pharisees hated the idea of such people repenting and returning, and so Jesus was tweaking their noses by comparing them to shepherds and women.

As if, you know, teshuvah wasn't something the Pharisees were ALL ABOUT. If you want to actually understand, consider that the iconic tax collector in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector shows no inclination to STOP being a tax collector.

The objection wasn't you're having a friendly dinner with poor lowly outcasts for whom we have contempt. It was you're having a friendly dinner with people who are extorting their neighbors on behalf of the invaders who kill us for looking at them funny and have expressed no intention to stop doing that.

Now, there's a good discussion to be had about whether shunning Trump lawyers and Marjorie Taylor-Greene donors or inviting them to dinner and trying to win them over with compassion is more effective, more ethical, more compassionate (to whom?), etc.

But presumably we can see why people of intelligence and goodwill might disagree on which of those approaches is the right thing to do, and why such people might might object to the strategy they don't agree with.

But what really gets me is that Christians have the utter fucking NERVE to paint the Pharisees as inhumanly awful for not wanting to have dinner with tax collectors while viewing Corinthians as Holy Writ:

I mean, Paul's all YOU MUST SHUN ALCOHOLICS AND PEOPLE WHO ARE GREEDY and Christians are like yes, that makes sense, but if the Pharisees are like, no, I don't want to have dinner with that guy who narced on my cousin and got him crucified, Christians are like, they're monsters.

Cool, cool.

Anyway, this has been your weekly edition of Christians Need To Stop Just Making Shit Up About Jews And Then Citing Each Other Like It's Fact.

And there were a lot of "I've never heard anyone say Jews of Jesus's time hated shepherds..." responses: Maybe you haven't, but that doesn't make it uncommon.

Sources in which I've found it:

Craig Blomberg (Denver Seminary, Society of Biblical Literature, Tyndale House, NIV translation committee)

Jared Wilson (professor at multiple Baptist seminaries)

Stephen Wright (Spurgeon College (British evangelical college))

Arland Hultgren (Luther Seminary (ELCA))

Kenneth Bailey (Presbyterian/Episcopalian)

Joachim Jeremias (Lutheran, cited EVERYWHERE)

Bernard Brandon Scott (Disciples of Christ, the Jesus Seminar)

Klyne Snodgrass (Evangelical Covenant Church)

Barbara Reid (Catholic Biblical Association)

That particular trope spans denominations, decades, etc. It's not a fringe viewpoint.

[bro-atz]

1024UB CHAPTER EIGHT: ANOTHER UNSUCCESSFUL NIGHT

word count: 1.6k

table of contents ♤ previous chapter ♤ next chapter

San liked to think he was a good student, and that he chose the right major, but sometimes when he sat in the library hashing papers out, he felt like it was a mistake. Maybe he shouldn’t have let his parents force him to take the liberal studies path and just went into the arts as a dancer. At least he had friends who were in the same major as him to help him out.

Seonghwa liked to get his papers done in the liberal arts building, which definitely beat the sad energy in the library. San frequently studied with Seonghwa and Gyuri, but today it was just Seonghwa at first.

“Hey, do you have the source material for this?” San pointed at a quote.

“Uh, yeah, it’s somewhere in this pile… Huh?” Seonghwa searched for it under the mounds of papers and textbooks scattered across the table, but he was unsuccessful. “Oh, damn. Gyuri probably has it.”

“She said she’s going to come by later, so I can wait,” San laughed.

“No, but I need it too…”

“Oh, damn. Tell her to get here faster, then?”

Seonghwa texted Gyuri, and within minutes, she arrived at the table. San really did want to laugh— she was like a puppy following after Seonghwa sometimes, immediately running over when he called for her. Gyuri must have noticed him scrunching up his face to keep from laughing because next thing he knew, a stack of papers hit his face.

“Oh no, my hand slipped,” Gyuri’s words dripped with sarcasm.

San could only take the packet off his face and find the quote he was searching for. Gyuri, meanwhile, sat down at the table with them. San was able to finish up gathering the citations for his paper within ten minutes, and when he got out of his little studious world, he saw Gyuri observing Seonghwa, all of the affection in the world just sparkling in her eyes. She was pointing out things for studying boy, which meant that he was completely oblivious at that moment. San snickered internally before packing up his backpack and standing up.

“Oh, you’re leaving already?” Seonghwa asked.

“Yeah, I got a text from Yunho— the super’s supposed to be fixing our toilet today, and one of us needs to be home,” San lied straight through his teeth with a smile on his face.

“Damn, okay, good luck with that!” Seonghwa waved.

Gyuri quickly shot San a skeptical look. San nodded and laughed before leaving. She definitely knew he was lying, but all that mattered was that Seonghwa didn’t know it was a lie. On his walk back to 1024UB, he got a text from Gyuri.

PRIVATE MESSAGE: gyuday

gyuday: iseul’s home gyuday: the “source material you need” is in my room gyuday: you know what to do choosan: thank

San couldn’t help but jog all the way back home, a pep in his step. He got to the girls’ apartment and entered.

“Is anyone home?” he called out.

“Oh, San! What’s up?”

Iseul was sitting on the sofa with someone— San’s goddamn roommate.

“Gyu has some of the source material I need for this paper, so I’m just going to go grab it,” San paid extra attention to the tone of his voice to make sure the lie did not sound like a lie.

He went into Gyuri’s room and ended up actually taking some of her source materials so his lie seemed more believable. Nearly sighing loudly, he walked back to the living room.

“San, come hang with us!” Yunho waved him over.

“I really gotta finish this paper—”

“We don’t have class tomorrow! Just do it tomorrow,” Iseul advocated.

San could only muster a tired smile onto his face as he joined them in the living room. They were talking about their midterms and about how much work they had to do in preparation for that midterm. San just sat and listened to them— he knew nothing about the midterms the STEM students had to go through, nor did he really want to. Everyone in the group was always super jealous of his, Seonghwa’s, Gyuri’s, and Hongjoong’s midterms, which were essentially just papers (or in Hongjoong’s case, compositions). San was definitely not envious of the biology midterms and exams— Yunho always complained about all the dissections they had to do in a semester, not to mention the memorization and other wonderful things that come with being in an applied science.

“I’m starting to wonder if I even want to get my PhD…” Iseul trailed off.

“Why? You’re really talented at memorization,” San was able to pipe in for something.

“Well, I heard that no matter what kind of biology you end up going into, when you’re a teaching assistant, you have to repeat the dissections multiple times for whatever classes you’re in charge of. I heard from someone in the lab that her older sister once had to dissect seven cats back to back.”

“Oh dear God,” Yunho looked like he was going to throw up.

“Yeah, I’m good. I’ll stick with trying to pass the Bar exam.”

“God, I could never think about becoming a lawyer… I’d be so stressed all the time,” Iseul shuddered. “You’re a different breed, San.”

“No, I’m really not,” San scratched aimlessly at his face as he felt blood rush to his ears. “You both are impressive for trying to get a PhD in such an intense subject— I could never.”

Someone opened the front door at that moment, and the three of them turned to see Gyuri walk through the threshold.

“Oh, hey, I thought you were helping Seonghwa with his paper?” San asked.

“He got an important phone call and said he had to run,” Gyuri put her bag on a chair before plopping down in the living room.

Yunho turned to Iseul, asking her a question he suddenly remembered about the notes from class that day. San met Gyuri on the ground and quietly asked her, “Did anything happen?”

“No, that call was such a cockblock,” Gyuri said with intense, hushed disdain. “This isn’t the first time he’s done that, either.”

“What?”

“Someone called him twice the other day when we were hanging out at Ze Cafe and then Hongjoong’s place.”

“Oh wait, I remember that. Any idea on who it is?”

“He keeps saying the professor he’s TA-ing for, but I’m starting to doubt that,” Gyuri said quietly. “What about you?”

“Really? What do you think?” San asked flatly.

“I don’t know, maybe Yunho came later. I just got here,” Gyuri shrugged and stood up. “Anyone want to drink? I could use one right now.”

“As long as we’re drinking at home,” Iseul nodded.

The boys also nodded. Gyuri grabbed as many bottles of soju as she could from the fridge along with four shot glasses. San looked at her with wide eyes.

“Gyu, I’m starting to think you have a drinking problem,” Yunho joked.

“Yes,” Gyuri deadpanned.

San didn’t even realize how long he’d been there until he helped Yunho drag a very drunk Iseul— which was a sight to behold because he had never, ever seen her so drunk before— to her room; Gyuri was able to stumble her way to bed, which was another sight to behold. Yunho dusted his hands after they gently placed Iseul on her bed, and San’s eyes roamed around Iseul’s room— he’d actually never seen it before.  She had it decorated with various scenic locations and pictures of her and the group. Her desk was super neat and organized.

“Her room is so cool,” the words slipped out of San’s mouth before he even realized it.

“Yeah, until you look in her closet.”

“Why? What’s in her closet?”

“I can’t say…”

“Should I just look in there then?”

“You really don’t want to—”

San didn’t listen and opened the closet to see a shrine of a famous singer that San barely recognized. He slowly closed the closet door, his mouth wide open.

“I told you.”

On their way out, San checked the time on his phone: it was four in the goddamn morning. “Jesus Christ, we’ve been drinking for that long?”

“The girls really do know how to talk for ages,” Yunho yawned. “Wanna head?”

“Yes please.”

The two boys left the apartment and were so close to getting home themselves when San suddenly realized he left his bag in the girls’ apartment.

“Can’t you just grab it in the morning?” Yunho whined.

“No, my phone’s in there.”

“What kind of psychopath are you? Keep your phone in your pants pocket!”

“It’s too early in the morning for this lecture. You go to bed, I’ll grab my bag and come back quickly.”

That was the biggest lie San told in the twenty-four hours he had been up. When he got back to the girls’ apartment, he opened the door to see Gyuri cleaning up the soju bottles, her face still a little pink.

“I left my bag here,” he whispered.

“Of course you did,” Gyuri whispered back.

San walked to the living room where his bag actually was. He took out the notes he grabbed from Gyuri’s room earlier and said, “I don’t really need these.”

“Put them back where you found them, then,” they maintained eye contact.

It was a silent agreement. San went into Gyuri’s bedroom first, Gyuri following him in and locking the door behind them. While they didn’t have to be quiet as they fooled around that night, they still managed to keep their oath of silence for the rest of the night. San only returned to his apartment eight hours after he told Yunho he’d “come back quickly.”

table of contents ♤ previous chapter ♤ next chapter

1024UB tag list: @dalsuwaha @eyeryis @choisanswifexo @haebaragisworld @dazzlingstarrs

network: @cromernet

apply here to be part of the taglist!

[peachdues]

i won't lie.... i may or may not open up tumblr every hour or so just to stalk your page (this is insane i need to stop).

how long does it take you to write every chapter/part of phantasmagoria??? or just fanfictions and works in general. or maybe every 10k words,,,, whatever's easiest to estimate the time for

CAUSE YOU WRITE SO MUCH OMG?????????????? it's insane (in such a good way) also is phantasmagoria j 3 parts or more? epilogue? or.... > . < i'm curious so so curious

i wanna swear off of fanfiction after you're doing w phantasmagoria but I STILL WANNA READ TWAHM AND SEASONS IN LOVE AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH maybe i should block tumblr x-x my obsession is insane

THANK YOU ALWAYS FOR WRITING :DD it felt so weird stalking your page/spotify playlists without interacting so uhm here's an ask and a notice that you might have an influx of comments on your posts. or none. depending on if i cut myself off of this addiction!!!!!

TYTYTYTYTYTYT FOR WRITING it's genuinely so beautiful i wanna steal it HOW DID YOU GET SO GOOD AT WRITING IMA LEAVE NOW HAVE A GOOD NIGHT AND DAY

aww thank you!

I mean, as a writer, I obviously don't want you to swear off fanfiction lol, BUT I get it. You've gotta do what's best for you!

Phantasmagoria is my first 3-part fic, so Part III is currently being written, and it will feature an epilogue (y'all aren't prepared, I just KNOW it). It will probably be about as long as the other two parts (bringing the grand total word count to around 35k words).

To answer your question about how long it takes me to write -- it really depends, lol. I write in short bursts (usually when I have a few minutes), and write on my phone. It depends on what I'm writing, too. For example, I wrote Veneration in 20 minutes while I was at the starbucks drive-thru. I wrote Part 2 of Tell Me to Stop (Kyojuro) in about 2-3 days (that was 16.5k words).

I've had blurbs written for Phantasmagoria since June (well before I announced it), BUT I spent about 6 hours this past weekend filling in the gaps. Part II was probably the part I had the most content already written for. I could probably have done it from scratch in about the same amount of time, if I sat down and wasn't interrupted. Part 3 is arguably the one I've had the least amount completed, and right now, it's sitting at about 5k words, and I would say I'm only halfway done, if that.

However, for me, banging out a 10k+ word fic in a day is child's play -- BUT that's because I'm in a profession where 90% of my job is writing, and writing fast. I've churned out full, 25-page legal briefs in a matter of hours, with full citations. In college, I wrote a 30-40 page research/policy paper a week. Same in law school. It's just second nature to me at this point.

Thank you so much for your kind words! I really appreciate it, and I appreciate the time it takes for you to read my nonsense. Sending you my undying love!

[implausiblyjosh]

More time has passed, discussions have been halted, so I’d like to talk about another incident. I gotta get a bit less vague this time, so please be chill.

Someone started an Incident report because Andrew Tate was in the Did You Know box on Wikipedia and it had a quote where he self-described himself as a misogynist. This person thinks, seemingly, anyone/everyone involved in the Did You Know side of wikipedia is an idiot (Are the idiots who run DYK under the mistaken impression that WP:BLP doesn't apply there? was what they named this Incident before someone else edited it to be less inflammatory), but especially anyone who allowed the following Did You Know text to be approved:

... that social media influencer Andrew Tate described himself as "absolutely a misogynist"?

Keep in mind, this specific part of Wikipedia that this user took this to is about interpersonal or behavioral issues, not "I don't like what this page says" issues. There are seemingly a billion places on Wikipedia to discuss the ins and outs of what should or shouldn't be on an article or in infoboxes or what have you, and this specific place is to talk about behavioral issues of users.

Which brings me to another point: This was discussed at length in the relevant places for the Did You Know box! In fact, since early April or early March, depending on when you're counting, this has been brought up and discussed. The person who brought this to the Incidents seemingly had no clue that all this discussion happened, and once it's brought to their attention it's brushed aside, as a group of people defending this user are basically advocating for the entire Did You Know aspect to be removed entirely from Wikipedia.

For all of this incivility, the proposal is to block the person for 24 hours. This person already has an open Incident about themselves as they decided to have this little outburst, and I've seen them be a massive asshole like this in the past, so it feels like 24 hours is too low, but I don't edit Wikipedia so I don't get a say. Additionally, this person has repeatedly been told to be civil, and even had to cut the R-Word from their on-site vocab, so like... something needs to be done! Another thing I've not seen brought up at all is that this user's need to be mean and rude and blow up at people had them coming to this page, Incidents, to yell and be shitty without even a partial understanding of what was going on about the thing they were mad about. If they get so red, nude, and mad online that they can't even bring up their issues in the proper places, let alone be remotely civil about things, something needs to be done!

The split on the proposal has been mostly "Support, this guy needs to cool off and needs to know actions have consequences" or "Oppose, c'monnnn he's learned his lesson [citation needed].". One weird one is someone going off about "The question here is literally whether civility trumps our biography policy", which is simply not the case? This isn't the place for that question to begin with (again, this page is specifically about reporting and dealing with behavior issues of users!!), but on top of that there was already discussion on if that line about being a self-described misogynist really did go against policy and the discussion didn't go the way you wanted! This is, by all accounts, not actually about a biography policy but instead about a dude so fucking mad he saw "described himself as "absolutely a misogynist"" in the Did You Know box that he wanted to run to the "Please Deal With These Problem Users" page and call everyone involved in putting that line in the box idiots "trivialising" abuses.

Which kinda gets to a larger point that I keep seeing when I read this page. A lot of times it seems like people don't want to talk about what is actually the problem, but instead want to be fussy about anything else. In another Incident that went up around the same time, someone put in their user page an infobox that described themselves as anti-LGBT+ with the image of the pride flag with an X over it. Obviously, in order to talk about what was happening, they had to either link to the flag/infobox or describe it. So many people were up in arms about the description of what the flag was that there was, at one point, more comments about how to describe the anti-LGBT+ thing than what to do about the anti-LGBT+ thing.

But the best response, by the time the discussion got locked, was this:

Neutral – but I do look forward to seeing everyone making the "he's learned his lesson!" argument back here next time :)

Speaking of the discussion being locked… the discussion got locked! Seemingly by a friend of the problem user in question! Even though discussion was ongoing, with people split between “this dude needs to face some sort of consequences” and “c’mon he’s just a little birthday boy”, with responses and talking about the issue at hand, this friend of the problem user instead stopped the discussion (locking the whole thread) and directed them to a discussion about the Did You Know policies and practices. So now that discussion in this other part of the site is being sidetracked because people are pointing out how weird it is to close the discussion as people are still working out how to handle the problem user. To be clear, the problem user is still making digs at people so clearly he hasn’t learned his lesson, proving everyone who said he needed to face consequences right.

Additionally, another small thing came up. The problem user and alleged friend of problem user frequent some anti-Wikipedia forum. As far as I can tell, this website exists solely as some Wikipedia-specific kiwifarms, attempting to doxx editors under the guise of speaking truth to power and generally point and laugh and make fun of other editors not part of their shitty circle. Someone brought up how weird it was that the person who locked down discussion, the alleged friend of the problem user, talked extensively about the Incident in said forum before locking it, and now the alleged friend is trying to act like people are putting the kiwifarms-but-for-wikipedia-editors site on trial.

Reading through that thread on the kiwifarms-but-for-wikipedia-editors site... yikes. The person who locked the thread about the problem user is backpatting, others are justifying doxxing editors, other people are making fun of someone for talking about the connection between the alleged friend, the problem user, and this kiwifarms-but-for-wikipedia-editors site.

Looking at everything as a whole, here's what I see happened:

An editor with an axe to grind against the concept of the Did You Know box on the front page of Wikipedia got so red, nude, and mad about the line ... that social media influencer Andrew Tate described himself as "absolutely a misogynist"? that he went to the Please Help Me Deal With This Problem User(s) page to call everyone an idiot. Despite that this seems like a completely unhinged and procedurally incorrect response to this, no one brings that up in how his obvious want to be mean and shitty and uncivil he went to the wrong place to yell at randoms and also had no awareness that this line had already been litigated. Despite being active in his hatred for the Did You Know box on-site at Wikipedia and also off-site on a kiwifarms-but-for-wikipedia-editors site, he had no idea these discussions happened. When they're not relitigating if the Did You Know line was against policy or not, the opinions of editors on if this guy should face a 24-hour block are split into "this guy is always uncivil, and usually gets away with it for being right, he needs to find out that actions have consequences" and "he's learned his lesson, he's just a little birthday boy, you all yelled at him and that's enough". Before consensus could be reached on what to do about this guy, a kiwifarms-but-for-wikipedia-editors site fellow traveler swoops in and locks discussion of any consequences being faced. When people point out how weird it is for this fellow traveler to do this, they go back to the kiwifarms-but-for-wikipedia-editors site to yuck it up.

Truly this saga has it all, including a sequel hook, as I know this guy will not stop. Again, never had less of an interest in editing Wikipedia lmao

[aftergloom]

I would love to know about your bullet journal and writing trackers 👀

I mean… are you ready for some super fussy tiny handwriting? Okaaaaay.

My writing notebook is more of a composite creature than just a bullet journal (bujos in their purest form are great for task management over long periods of time, so the method’s adaptable to long-format fiction or fanfic) but this thing also has my ideation notes, inspo dumps, notes on theory and craft, and serves as a commonplace book. (LORE, y’all. Lore and how I’m adapting it.)

I write almost daily to set word count goals and I’m usually working on multiple projects that exist in various states of in-progress or done, so I’ve got trackers to measure productivity, what I was working on, and how I felt (because self-care is critical and burnout is real, and I’m trying to get better at seeing the wall before I run into it full-tilt.) That’s just me. Some people measure their productivity in terms of time spent, or what hour of the day they found they were most verbose. I like seeing if the stuff I was reading was a direct influence on what I was writing at the time too, so that’s in there too...

But the big important stuff are the story notes that are sometimes open-ended questions, or little bits of images (because I do include pictures), or parts of scenes, or quotes, or a character’s deepest desires. That stuff? That stuff is precious to me. That stuffs puts flesh on bones and makes characters breathe.

The bottom line: you can try to pry this thing from my cold dead hands — if you succeed, I will haunt you.

Tl;dr: The raw stuff lives in this book. It’s a direct channel to my muse; it’s how we communicate.

[ID: Archer & Olive Midnight Moth dot grid journal, closed cover.]

The meat is below the cut. 😬

A couple of organizational notes which are "very bullet journally":

Because multiple projects (especially the multi-year manuscripts — you know the ones that take three rewrites and two revisions? Yeah, those.) will span multiple notebooks, I allow for a chaotic index to let ideas crop up organically (so I don’t set a certain number of pages per project; I just thread them together later by colour coding with little circular stickers: one colour per project. Blue is Crown of Horns, for example.)

I’m a fan of page flags for “active pages/projects” because I’m happiest when I can jump to an in-progress page of notes. then I just move the flag along to the next empty one when that page fills up.

[ID: Open book. Left image: Bullet journal style index with pagination. Right image: Detail of page flags and threading system.]

Dailies/Inspo:

The writing to-do list is kept in this book. I’ve got a separate journal for work/life stuff, but any craft-specific stuff lives here.

I’m a visual person, so printed pics and notes from accumulated web searches wind up in here as well (my citations in this case are in

Pocket and everything’s tagged. Usually if I’ve quoted published work, it’s got an inline citation because I dread mistakenly using a line of published text from someplace else.) The one thing I’ve noticed is that if I treat a page like (Kohlma) here right before I get to work, the prose flows a lot easier. I might be writing on a laptop but having a physical reference next to me definitely helps me see what the character sees.

[ID: Open book. Left: Dailies page with to-do list. Opposite: Example inspo page with four pictures of Kohlma, Star Wars universe, with notes on the setting as it was used in the Star Wars: Bounty Hunter game.]

The Little Tracker of Horrors:

So this is what you asked about, anon, right? This is the scary stuff right here. This is the proof that I'm doing the work, save for the four days where I didn't.

Left: Writing stats from July. Right: Reading stats for July.

I took Stephen King's words to heart: you want to write? You gotta read. And you have to do ample amounts of both to get better at the first.

[ID: Open book. Left page: Writing stats for July. Right page: Reading stats for July.]

One thing that's missing in this thing is a "what did I actually post publicly" because I don't remember what was updated or how big those updates were.

Sometimes posting a chapter is a measure of success, and sometimes doing the work is where it's at so I can get ahead in the draft. I'm definitely hanging out in the latter bucket now.

Hope this helps. ☺️

[jaceyneedsabetterusername]

Hayloft p.3

Pairing: Arvin Russell x F!Reader

Summary: Your dad brings home his new coworker, Arvin Russell, telling you that he’ll be living with the two of you for a while. While attempting to keep Arvin from seeing the disfunction of your relationship with your father, the two of you grow closer than you thought. (Inspired by “Hayloft” by Mother Mother, though that’ll really only be one chapter later on so I don’t know if it really counts…)

Warnings: Mentions of suicide, death, abuse, and sexual assault (depictions of none, though)

Word Count: 5.0k

A/N: I am so sorry for how long this took to publish! Work and school have been CRAZY!

Citation: (This is absolutely cited incorrectly but the poem included was found at this link!) https://rememberingthesixties.wordpress.com/2014/11/15/love-poems

Read the Previous Chapters!

Part 1  Part 2

_________________________________

“No! No! No! I ain’t got time for this today!” You groaned, twisting your key in the ignition only to hear the engine struggle to turn over. You were already running late to work, thanks to you misplacing your shoes, purse, and keys all on the same morning. When it was really only just you, your dad, and Arvin living in your home, it was ridiculous to be losing things as often as you did. It’s not like they were touching them. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think there was some gremlin that lived in the linen closet and hid your things to make life more difficult.

Of course, your car wouldn’t work either. What a fantastic beginning to the day.

You weren’t even sure what could be wrong with the car. It had worked just fine yesterday. There was no reason for it to suddenly fall apart on you. But alas, after several minutes of trying to start the car and checking what basic things you knew about under the hood to no avail, you gave out a groan of anger, “Damnit!”

With an angry kick of your old tire, you stomped back into the house. “Everythin' okay?” Arvin asked from the dining room table, where he sat eating a plate of toast and eggs.

“I was already running late this morning and now my stupid car won’t start,” you grumbled, throwing your purse onto the open chair and taking the phone off the receiver on the wall with more aggression than you intended. You were spinning the dial and putting in the phone number to the diner you worked at.

Arvin leaned forward in his seat, “I can take a look at it for you, if you’d like.”

“That would be great if you’re willing to but-” You began to answer but you stopped abruptly and held up a finger to him when a voice answered on the phone.

“Molly’s Diner. How can I help ya?” A woman’s voice that you recognized as your coworker Charlene asked from the other side.

“Hey, Charlene?” You asked, shooting Arvin an apologetic look for the sudden interruption. She sounded surprised to hear your greeting on the other end.

“Where you at, girl?” She questioned, the ambient wound of the busy diner in the background.

You leaned against the wall, gripping the phone with both hands, “I know I’m late! I’m sorry! My car broke down and I don’t think I can make it-”

“I can give you a ride if you need.” Arvin offered quiet enough for Charlene to not hear him on the other end but you perked up.

“Wait, hang on-” You interrupted Charlene just as she began to respond, “I can actually get a ride in.” You mouthed a sincere thank you to Arvin while holding onto the phone with both hands, feeling a slight glimmer of hope in your otherwise crappy day.

“You know what? Don’t even worry about it. You’re already so late just take the day off and get your car fixed. Just be here tomorrow, alright?” You could almost hear the way Charlene’s hand was waving dismissively from the other end of the phone.

You sighed in relief, “Thank you so much. I’ll make it up to you!” After a few brief goodbyes, you hung the phone up on the receiver.

Arvin stood up and placed his plate in the sink, “So are you needin’ a ride to work?”

You shook your head, “No, Charlene said to just take the day off ‘n get the car fixed. Thank you, though. It really is sweet of you to offer.”

Arvin only shrugged, “C’mon, after all you done for me, givin’ you a ride into town really ain’t much at all. I’d still be more than happy to take a look under your hood if you’d like.”

You blushed and tried to suppress the immature giggles that threatened to slip out at the way he worded his offer. His face visibly paled and began to stumble over his words, “‘m sorry! I didn’t mean for it to come out like that! I didn’t mean take a look under your… erm. I ain’t too good with my words sometimes. Forgive me.”

You laughed outright now, stepping forward and trying to pull his nervously fidgeting arms down, “It’s okay! You’re fine! You’re fine! I would love it if you looked under my hood.” You teased, overexaggerating the way you emphasized his words, throwing them back at him.

He rolled his eyes at you, an embarrassed smile pulling the corner of his lips upwards, before looking back down at you. It was then that you realized just how close you and Arvin were, your fingers still loosely touching his forearms where they had fallen. You looked up into his eyes - those soulful brown eyes - and found yourself wanting to know everything that they’d seen.

That familiar heat rose to your cheeks and you pulled your hands back, running them up and down the white apron you wore over teal uniform, “Well, um, I’m gonna go get changed outta this if I ain’t gotta wear it for work and then I can help you out with the car?”

Arvin’s hands found their way to his pockets and he nodded in understanding.

You had changed into a pair of jeans with a buttoned up blouse before jogging out front to find Arvin already bent over the exposed inner workings of your car. “How’s it lookin’?” You asked, slowing to a pace until you reached the car. You landed beside him, hands falling on the dirty metal as you leaned over to see the mechanics. He fiddled with a few things here and there, things that you didn’t quite understand. You were good with the basics of fixing your car. You could change the oil and fix a flat but when it came to the more complicated stuff, you were a little less well-versed.

He leaned back and wiped his greasy hands on each other, “I think I have the problem pinpointed. ‘M gonna need to head into town and get a part but it’s not a hard fix at all.”

“Thank you so much for doin’ this. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” You took a few steps back as Arvin lowered the hood, letting it fall the last few inches with a heavy thud.

“Yeah, well I’m happy I can finally be some help ‘round here to you.”

You rolled your eyes, following Arvin back to the house, “Please, you are plenty of help ‘round here. More help than I’ve gotten in years.”

Arvin gave you a knowing tight-lipped smile and nodded once the two of you made it through the front door. He didn’t say anything for a moment but there was a silent understanding. “You need anything while I’m out?” He asked, changing the subject.

You shook your head, “No, I’m alright. Thank you though.”

It was rare that you actually had time to yourself. While Arvin was gone, you found yourself wandering around confused for a short while until the buzzing silence wore on your ears. You sat on the couch and pulled the radio over closer to you on the coffee table, looking over your shoulder as if someone would catch you at any moment.

This was one of your secrets that you held close to you, knowing your father would make fun of you if he ever found out. Moon River had been a favorite radio program of yours since you discovered it while tuning through the stations a year back. It was full of romantic poetry and slow beautiful music. Everything you dreamt about but knew you could never have, not while you were stuck here at least. But a girl could dream.

“Tonight’s love poem is written by Betty Hayes Albright. We hope you enjoy.

They tell me not to write of love

but what else can I write –

when love is in my heart and soul

and mind both day and night?

“You’re just too young and you can’t know

of love,” (does anyone?)

“you can’t profess such knowledge –

stick to verse and pun.”

.

They tell me that, and say love poems

are worn out through and through

but I can’t agree with them,

for me love is brand new.

Feelings in me can’t stay down,

my love for him I can’t ignore,

somehow it’s got to be expressed,

“I’ve got no lock upon my door.”

.

To those who stick to subjects

of the sky and stars, of joy and pain

I write my poems of love because

my heart’s love-blood shall never drain.

Perhaps they too shall love again.”

You sighed as it came to an end and you couldn’t help but see Arvin’s face in your mind’s eye. Love had always felt like something you could only dream of. It was a “one day when I get out of here” thought, not something you saw yourself obtaining for a long time, if ever. Now with Arvin… well you weren’t sure if you could call it love but it sure as hell was the closest thing to it you’d experienced.

Since the words were spoken, they kept swirling around your head: “When love is in my heart and soul; and mind both day and night.” Since his arrival two months ago, Arvin had been that very subject on your mind almost constantly. He was the first face you hoped to see every morning and the last one you wanted to see before bed. Your entire mood lit up every time he walked into the room, even when you were stressed from work or your father. It hadn’t been hard for you to realize that he became the lighthouse in the rocky ocean, promising solace and providing light in the storm that could be your life at times. It was hard to not fall for that.

"Never heard that one before." You whipped around in a panicked start to see Arvin standing in the foyer. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you."

You shook your head and tucked your hair behind your ears, "No, no, you're fine. You read a lot of poetry?" You watched Arvin shake his head and walk into the room. He stopped on the other side of the couch and you climbed up, placing your knees on the cushions and leaning over the back of the couch to look up at him.

"I don't like poetry all that much, at least the ones we read in high school… but I like that one." He looked down at where his hand gripped the back of the couch and his weight shifted on his feet.

Your eyes fell to his hands in an attempt to hide the blush that crept up on your cheeks that really had no place being there. "Yeah… me too. It reminds me that there is real love out there in the world."

A silence settled over the room as your eyes anxiously dragged up Arvin’s body till they settled on his eyes but you found yourself unable to hold his gaze. "I, erm, I got the part I need for your car." He took a step back and lifted the hand that wasn't on the couch, tossing the metal mechanism in his hand.

"Oh," you pressed yourself away from the couch and moved back to stand, "thank you for runnin’ all the way out into town."

He gave you a small smile and a nod, “It’s my pleasure. I’m gonna go see if this fixes the problem.”

***

"That should be it," Arvin slammed the hood back down and wiped his hands on his jeans. "We should take her for a drive to see if she's runnin' alright now."

You nodded, "Alright. Hop in." You took the keys from your pocket and gestured to the passenger seat. Arvin climbed in and you slid into the driver's seat, turning the key. This time, the engine started up without a problem. A big smile spread across your face, "You're a miracle worker, you know that?"

Arvin shook his head, "I ain't no miracle worker. Just good with fixin' things I s'pose."

Your feet were on the brake and the clutch when you shifted into first gear and began to peel out down the long dirt driveway. You stopped at the road and looked both ways, trying to decide which way to go. You looked to your right, the road into town, and then to the left, the way to that field that was oh so special to you. You began to gnaw at your lower lip.

Did you want to show Arvin? That little clearing by the creek had been your secret getaway since you’d discovered it three years ago. You never told anybody about it and you’d never seen anyone else there when you went so, as far as you were concerned, it was yours. Your special hide away, your paradise, your escape. But since his arrival, Arvin had become just that as well.

“You alright?” He questioned, looking over at you with a vaguely concerned expression.

You looked over at him, a nervous twist to your lips, “Can I show you somewhere special?” Perhaps it was an odd question to ask, though you hadn’t thought it was until you saw the curious and somewhat confused look dawn on Arvin’s face. Nevertheless, he nodded and, with a smile, you turned left towards the field.

It was a short but otherwise successful, trouble-free drive. You slowed down and pulled off to the side of the road into the dirt shoulder. “Where are we?” Arvin asked, looking around and seeing nothing but tall grass and trees.

With an impish smile, you turned off the ignition and looked towards him, “You’ll see. C’mon!” You threw your door open and walked around the front of the car towards the passenger’s side, hanging on the passenger door when Arvin finally opened the door to exit the vehicle.

He followed you to the edge of the brush where you walked as if you knew it like home. With minimal effort, you found the overgrown path and pulled him along behind you. The road disappeared behind the two of you as you wandered beyond the tree line, tall birch trees creating a maze that you knew by heart. The path was short and you navigated it with a sixth sense until you led Arvin to a small field. There was an imperfect circle of wild grasses beside a stream that seemingly appeared from nowhere but you knew it was that time of year when the snow started melting off the mountains. Bundles of wildflowers grew mixed in the grass. Just along the bank of the crystal clear creek water was a large dogwood tree with vibrant white flowers.

“Wow…” Arvin breathed out in amazement as he tried to take in the beauty of the place.

“Pretty, ain’t it?” You asked with a smile, the wonder in his brown eyes warming your heart. You were glad that he seemed to appreciate it as much as you did.

You couldn’t wipe the smile off your face as your heart welled with happiness at his stunned reaction. He stepped in a slow circle, taking in the beautiful scenery. “It’s beautiful.”

“This is sorta my… escape from reality, I guess you could call it. I come here and I’m suddenly in a different world away from all the bullshit of life.” You reached down to run your fingers through the soft blades of grass. Arvin smirked and you looked up at him with a short breathy laugh, “What?”

He shook his head and looked down, hands buried in his pockets as always, “I think that’s the first time I ever heard you curse.”

You rolled your eyes, “I don’t do it very often. My daddy would always yell at me tellin’ me how un-ladylike it was to say bad words. Told me it made me sound ugly. I think his exact words were ‘a dirty mouth makes a dirty woman.’” Your voice dropped to mock your father.

Arvin spoke plainly, “Your pa needs to treat you better.”

You gave him a sad knowing smile and looked down at the ground, “It wasn’t always like this, y’know? I think that’s the saddest part.”

“What you mean?” Arvin asked.

You sat down on the grass, feeling the soft blades press against your skin as you sat back on your hands. Arvin followed suit, finding a comfortable spot beside you and waiting for you to continue. “When my momma was alive, he hardly ever drank. Wasn’t nothing like he is now. I think that’s the only reason I’ve put up with as much as I have. I hate seeing this miserable shell of the man I once knew but I also know that a real father wouldn’t have let himself fall into this pit - or at least stay down there long enough to practically leave his daughter to fend for herself. I just always hoped that maybe one day he’d pull through and… y’know… be my dad again.”

You laid back on the ground and stared up at the sky. The clouds passed by, white and weightless, pure and unaffected by the troubles of this world. You envied them. The way they floated along, either bringing shade and beauty to the sky or raging unapologetic storms, with no constraints as to where they could float and how they could behave… it made you wish you could be a cloud.

Arvin was silent, unsure of how to respond. He wanted to offer words of support and encouragement but he never had been too good with words. He hadn’t really been taught to talk about problems. His daddy had taught him to finish them with his fists. Finally, he sighed, looking out across the field, “I understand. I felt the same way ‘bout my daddy.”

You perched up on your elbows, “Really?”

He nodded and looked down at his leg, which he was slowly rolling side to side just to keep fidgeting in some way, “Yeah… he, uh, he changed into a totally different man after my mama died.”

You looked up at him but you could see he was trying to avoid your eyes. You rested a gentle hand on his knee, “‘M sorry, Arvin. I had no idea.”

He shook his head, “Nah, don’t be. It’s been a long time.”

“D-do you mind if I ask what happened?” You cautiously inquired but quickly added, “Of course, it’s fine if not. You just… you don’t talk much ‘bout yourself.”

Arvin took a deep breath in, “My mama died when I was ‘bout ten. Cancer took her. My daddy tried everythin’ to keep her alive but when it didn’t work… he killed ‘imself too.”

This time you were unsure of how to respond, stunned by the new information you’d just learned. “I-I’m so sorry,” you breathed out in disbelief. For some reason, you had never thought that perhaps Arvin could have had a similar childhood experience to you, like losing your mothers, but your heart went out to him.

“It took a long time for me to understand why he did what he did but I finally realized that he just loved my mama so much that he couldn’t bear to be away from her.”

“He should’ve loved you enough to stay for you.” Before you could stop yourself, the stunning but honest words slipped from your lips. You damn near stopped breathing when you realized what you said, “I’m sorry. That was out of line. I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s alright.” Arvin had been stunned by the words that came out of your mouth but he knew damn well they were only a vocalization of a thought he had had almost every day since the day his father put a bullet in his head. “I’d be lyin’ if I said I hadn’t thought the same thing before.”

A heavy silence weighed over the two of you that was only relieved by a cool breeze. “So what happened to your mama?” Arvin asked.

Your face twisted, “Labor complications. She was pregnant with my little sister. When she went into labor, things just went really wrong. She lost too much blood ‘n died. The baby died too. I think it was just too much loss at once for my daddy to handle.”

“That’s too much loss to make a child deal with on her own,” Arvin commented the same way you had earlier.

You shrugged, wavering your head from side to side. Like he’d said, you would be lying if you said you hadn’t had the same thought. “Looks like we got a lot in common.” You chuckled sadly, “I feel like I lost everyone who ever loved me. My mom, my sister, my grandparents, my dad...” Another silence settled and you waved the thought away, pushing yourself to sit up, “‘M sorry. I didn’t mean to make this all sad.”

Arvin shook his head, “You ain’t got nothin’ to be sorry for.” He paused, hesitant to continue. He hadn’t talked to anybody about what happened back in Coal Creek and Knockemstiff but something was strongly compelling him to. Maybe it was a bad idea to continue but he did, “I had a sister once too.”

Your mouth fell slightly in surprise and you let out a heavy breath, “You did?” The use of the words had and did instead are have and do were not lost on you and you couldn’t help but wonder what had happened.

Arvin swallowed hard and nodded, “Yeah… she, uh, she got into some trouble with this no good preacher that came into town. She was just so lonely, reminds me a lot o' you, but when he saw that and he took advantage of her. Took everythin’ he wanted and when she got into trouble he just told her she was crazy.” He paused for a moment, the memories of his sister flowing through his head, “Found her hangin’ in the shed.”

You were dumbfounded by the story you’d just been told. Anger and sadness were clear in Arvin’s voice despite his attempt to hold on, though you had a feeling that just the way he had been telling you about it meant that he had shared more of himself than he ever intended to . You struggled to wrap your brain around the tragedy he had just shared. “What’s her name?” You finally asked after a few moments of silence.

Arvin looked out across the field again and then back at you, “Lenora.”

“Lenora,” you repeated, “That’s a pretty name.” Arvin only nodded wordlessly. Again, another pause before you continued, “You said it was some preacher that got her in trouble? What happened with that? I mean, you knew? Didn’t anyone else? Is he in jail or somethin’?”

The man tensed up next to you and shot a look towards you that was sharper than one he’d ever given you before. You shrank back ever so slightly, taken off guard by his response to your seemingly simple question. “‘M sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t have to-”

“Ain’t nobody woulda believed my Lenora if she told ‘em. You know how people see women who got babies ‘n no husband. Especially since he was the preacher…” he trailed off and you were desperate to see the memories that played behind his big brown eyes, “He ain’t gonna hurt nobody no more.”

Your brows knitted together, trying to decipher what that meant. Did he go to jail? Was he fired? Was his reputation ruined? You prayed whatever justice he got was fit for something so atrocious.

"I'm sorry you lost your sister."

"I'm sorry you lost yours too."

After a long silence, Arvin laid back beside you, his body grazing your arm as he lowered himself. The two of you rested beside each other in this new understanding of each other. As you struggled to keep your attention on the sky, your eyes frequently straying from the vast blue expanse overhead to the beautiful man to your right, you couldn't help but wonder if by some insane fantasy maybe he'd be struggling to keep his eyes off of you in the same way.

"Let's talk about somethin' less depressing," you prompted, "How 'bout girlfriends? You ever had one of those?"

Arvin’s chest rose and fell heavily as he sighed, "I ain't never had much time for a girlfriend. Didn't much like anybody in my hometown anyways. Don't think nobody liked me much neither."

You rolled your eyes and audibly scoffed, "I find it hard to believe you didn't have girls bangin' down your door for a date. You're tellin' me you ain't never went out on a single date?"

He shook his head, "Nope. I mean I kissed a girl or two back when I was younger but I never had no time for datin'. Always workin' or helpin' my grandma or keepin' Lenora safe."

You rolled over onto your side and looked down at him curiously, "Where you from anyways?"

Arvin was hesitant to answer, you could see it plain as day, though you couldn't figure why. Finally, he answered, "Lived with my mama and daddy in Knockemstiff but moved to Coal Creek with my grandma after they died."

Mentally, you wracked your mental map for any memory of those towns but found none. "I don't think I ever heard of those," you commented, lying back down.

Arvin stretched his arm up and readjusted his cap, "Not many people have unless you're from near there. Just some small towns you'd drive right through and never even notice. Knockemstiff is near Meade, Ohio."

"Oh!" You exclaimed in realization, "I heard of that one!" You giggled. You didn't live anywhere near there but you'd heard the name at least from a friend whose family was from Meade.

"What about you?" He asked.

You began tracing light patterns on your stomach with your finger, "What about me? You know where I'm from."

"You ever had a boyfriend?"

You kept your eyes staring straight up. “I tried datin’ a few boys back in high school but nothing too serious. They didn’t seem to like me much,” you admitted with a shrug. At the time, it had bothered you a little that you seemed to have a hard time finding a boyfriend but now you saw that it was better this way. Younger you had spent night after night praying for a knight in shining armor that would come and whisk you away to some beautiful new life. All they had done was run for the hills because they didn’t want to deal with your daddy… not that you could blame them. You’d learned not to depend on anybody for anything, certainly not some boy to make your life better. You’d have to do that yourself.

“I think it would be impossible for somebody not to like you.” Arvin said quietly but with no ounce of dishonesty.

You rolled your eyes and rolled over to look at him, “Your just sayin’ that.” Despite the fact you swore to yourself he was only joking, blood rushed to your cheeks.

Arvin’s head turned in the crook of his arm to make eye contact with you, “I like you.”

The sweetly joking smile you had on your face fell in shock. “W-what?” You stuttered less than gracefully.

“I mean it. I like you… a lot.” After your pause, his heart fell but he didn’t need you knowing that, “You ain’t gotta say it back.”

“I like you too,” you admitted quickly before Arvin could continue to doubt himself anymore but when you looked over at him, you could see that momentary flash of doubt in his eyes. You could almost hear his thoughts behind those big brown orbs: Nah, you’re just sayin’ that. So you decided to beat him to it, “I really do.”

A warm breeze couldn’t dispel the thickness that had been created in the air between you two as you both looked at each other, trying to decipher what the other was thinking and what on Earth you were supposed to do next. Neither of you were well experienced when it came to love or romance or whatnot but experience wasn’t needed to feel some higher power, call it God or the universe, pulling the two of you together.

You weren’t quite sure when you and Arvin had started to inch your lips closer to each others’ but when they finally met in a gentle experimental kiss, it was as if fireworks had gone off. Your heart swelled with an emotion that could only be described as longing. Breathing stopped as if the feather-light touch of his lips on yours had knocked the air out of your lungs and you found yourself unable to catch it.

Both you and Arvin were hesitant to pull back and neither of you did until there was no air left in your lungs. It was one of those kisses that left you less. Breathless, speechless, thoughtless. Just less. And yet somehow more. A part of you that you had denied being empty for so long felt like it was now filled by Arvin and, perhaps that was too much credit to give for simply saying he liked you and sharing a mindblowing kiss with you, but damn.

“I-I-I uh…” You tried to stammer out something that would be fitting but there were no words.

“You ain’t gotta say nothin’.” Arvin reached over and gently brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen into your face, “But I’ll be damned if I let you go without tellin’ you you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

You reached up and covered his large hand with your own, twisting your wrist so that your fingers would interlock with his, “Who ever said you gotta let me go?

__________________

Taglist:

@peterswebshooters

@thisisparadisemylove

@justapurrcat

@tomsirishgirlx

@peterswebshooters

@femmme-xxx-fatale

@kittyformannn

[fictitious-little-stitious]

Gonna Lay Down the Law

Flufftober Day 31 — Halloween Costumes

Flufftober prompt list by @themand0lorian 💜 adapted from @ flufftober2021’s prompt list here

Jack “Whiskey” Daniels x GN!Reader

Read on AO3

Themes: Cheeky fluff, established relationship, getting into drag for Halloween. All kinds of people do drag! ♥️ While the reader is described as having features like breasts and hair the size of Texas, whether they’re accentuating what they got or are adding more, it’s all drag.

Warnings: Nothing explicit, but any minors should get lost. Suggestive humor, swearing. Let me know if I missed something.

Word Count: ~520

A/N: Wow! A prompt posted on the day it’s intended for 😂. I may post more of these regardless of October being over. (I may be shooting myself in the foot for posting 2 fics in 1 day, but it’s okay.) If you’re not sure what movie I’m referencing, I’ll tell you at the end!

Hint: think of the movie star who initially inspired Agent Whiskey’s character and look.

“Are you ready, Jack?” You checked your lashes in the rearview mirror one last time for good measure.

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” he chuckled. He picked up his hat from the seat between you and donned it. The light tan wasn’t his typical fare. He didn’t bother checking his reflection in the rear view mirror. Jack looked good, damn good, and he knew it.

“We’re gonna be a hit, I know it! Even if we don’t win the contest - although I’m sure we will!” you quickly reassured, with a squeeze to his forearm and a quick peck on his cheek. “I’m still goin’ home a winner with the other winner, if it’s all the same to you.”

Jack eyed you in the passenger seat and gave a sly grin in return. Before you could open the door, he had already hopped out to, what you assumed, open it for you. Instead he sauntered around the front of the jeep to lean nonchalantly against your door, then rapped on the window with his knuckles.

You rolled your eyes but played along, turning the crank to roll down the window.

“Good evening, ma’am, are you aware that I’m the law in this town?”

Oh he was having too much fun with this. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was really feeling his oats in the tan sheriff’s uniform, just tight enough to show off the cutest little butt this side of the Mississippi. Jack wasn’t so infatuated with his looks to ignore you, oh no no no. With blonde curls piled high to heaven, a full beat, and tits at full attention, how could you be missed?

“Law? In this little piss ant town? Please!” You waved him off with a flare and made a show of rolling the window back up. You gathered the skirt of your silky black negligee and long, flowing robe, then opened the door. He stepped back and gave you an appraising look.

“Need a hand there, ma’am?” Jack offered.

“I would prefer both hands, but depending on where you place it, one hand just might do the trick! But it’ll cost you!” you snapped back with a wink.

His eyes bugged out and he adjusted his tie. “Now, take it easy there. We gotta get in and out of this party without getting a citation.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Oh don’t you worry your pretty little head. There’ll be more than enough fun to go around.” He offered his hand again and this time you took it.

Jack steadied you as you slid to the street. Once you stuck the landing, you breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Jack. If I had to jump down, I would’ve poked an eye out!” The wind chose that moment to pick up. A few unfortunate chicken feathers from your boa were lost to the chilly autumn breeze. Jack held onto his hat with one hand and swiped the flyaway curls from your face with the other. Mischief, adoration, and giddiness radiated between you.

“Crisis averted, darlin’. Now,” he extended his arm out to you as any proper gentleman, man of the law, or sweet talkin’ scoundrel should, “I reckon we have a costume contest to win. Ladies first, Dolly!”

Image description: A drawn movie poster for the 1982 movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton.

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[cowboy-noises]

As I have to go back into Essay Writing Mode, here's just some essay tips that I've picked up through the years:

- Ariel is the largest font that I've found that's acceptable. Times New Roman is a close second.

- I like to give myself about 3 days before the due date to have the paper finished, just in case I need to take a mental health day, have other homework, emergency, etc

- Always do a little extra research and have "backup" quotes. Things you can throw in and talk about if you need that extra paragraph or two

- Ngl, I get most of my quotes from introductions/ beginnings of chapters. Usually texts get really really confusing after this point, but if there's that one sentence that makes sense and fits your essay by all means use it and disregard all of the confusing jargon

- Almost every paragraph can use one or two more sentences in it. If you're about a half page short, try just adding some fluff and further explanations throughout the entire paper

- There's been so many papers I've proofread that use "can't" "hadn't" etc- not only are these not considered good easy grammar, but cannot takes up more space than can't- so just throw all that out

- If you have to use Chicago style, don't be afraid to make those endnotes a little bigger than they have to (if your teacher/professor hadn't given guidelines for those)

- Honestly, most of my research papers are just me throwing my thoughts between quotes and connecting them. I usually don't go into the paper with any hard opinions and just let whatever the research tells me to believe. This is a little harder with more opinion based works, but I made it work with a paper debating about hotdogs and sandwiches so it still kinda works.

- Make sure that all your fonts are the same. I know Google Docs especially likes to go to the default font for things like endnotes, page numbers, etc.

- check all of the formatting requirements way before turning it in. This includes page count, font, page numbers, citation style, etc.

- Unless the professor said otherwise, I usually cut off my papers halfway down the last page. So a 5 page paper is really 4.5 pages. I never got anything taken off for this and I've only had one or two classes where the professor said that it had to be exactly 5 pages

- If you can, finish the paper at least 12 hours before the deadline and then proofread it before turning it in. I never turn in a paper without a heavy amount of proofreading after the fact, but always try to take some time away from it for a while and then go back and proofread

- If its not for an English or grammar class, don't kill yourself making the perfect essay. Chances are the professor won't be too strict in grading. You still gotta try, but I've learned that those teachers look more for "can this student do research and put quotes together" rather than a completely correct essay. I've turned in many essays in those types of classes that would never fly in an English class that I got good grades on

Tips I've heard of but never had to use:

- I've heard that you can increase the font by half a point and it's also barely noticeable but it makes your essay longer

- Basically as long as your format looks "close enough" chances are no one will notice, especially since most teachers are grading online and don't have a pile of printed out essays to easily compare yours to.

[uniarycode]

Susanoooooooo

Digimon have branching evolutions. Agumon can evolve into Greymon yes, but he could also evolve into Tyrannomon, Ankylomon, or Seadramon.

Some of these are only attributed to the various card games, which is how you get some odder evolutions for armours, hybrids and the like.

The current card game doesn't have set lines, which on wikimon reads like this:

The newest Japanese set gives us this guy:

The rainbow symbol means any colour, but his effect also allows him to evolve from any tamer card, supposing you have enough tamers or Hybrids.

This leads to what is currently my favourite citation right now:

If you count Wikimon as canon, he can evolve from nearly any Ultimate, and absolutely any tamer.

Thoma from savers? Gotta keep up with Masaru somehow. Rina from Re:digitize? Girls get it done. Menoa from Kizuma? If she tries hard enough. The unnamed protag from Digimon world 1? Would have simplified the game if he went Susanoomon from the start.

Abstracting allows you to apply this concept to any human (or heck, group of humans, duel-tamers are a thing.):

Have a human against the wall with no help in sight and need a quasi-Super Ultimate Digimon from no where? Bam, Susanoomon.

Need a human to survive getting blown up? Bam, Susanoomon.

Want to write an OC but don't know how to write partners? Bam, Susanoomon.

It's not a cop out, it's canon

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 11: You Don’t Come Around No More]

A/N: I apologize profusely for the long wait. Thank you all so, so, so much for your support. Every single reblog, message, comment, emotional rant, and/or screech of despair makes my day, and I couldn’t do this without you. 💜 Only THREE more chapters left!!!

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “More To Life Than Baseball” by Petey. 

Chapter Warnings: Language, angsttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt.

Word Count: 7.5k. 

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​​​​ @bramblesforbreakfast​​​​​​​ @maggieroseevans​​​​​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​​​​​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​​​​​ @escabell​​​​​ @im-an-adult-ish​​​​​​ @queenlover05​​​​​ @someforeigntragedy​​​​​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​​​​​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​​​​​ @deacyblues​​​​​ ​ @tensecondvacation​​​​ @brianssixpence​​​​​ @some-major-ishues​​​​ @haileymorelikestupid​​​​ @youngpastafanmug​​​​ @simonedk​

The Rain

I wish I felt empty.

I’m supposed to feel empty, right? I’m supposed to feel steeped in grey, oceanic misery; I’m supposed to dip in and out of depressive naps all day and sob delicately over creased photos and fading, wistful memories. I always envisioned heartbreak as a soft and inherently feminine sort of affliction: the hems of nightgowns and bathrobes sweeping along hardwood floors, Kleenex boxes and concave couch cushions, weepy phone calls to friends and aunts and mothers, Queen Victoria wearing black for the rest of her life after Prince Albert’s death, Mary Todd Lincoln sinking into dark and hushed obscurity. Women, hollowed out by despair, cross the history of the earth like lines of latitude.

I don’t feel empty at all. I don’t even feel sad. I feel razored by sharp, red, ceaseless anxiety. I am consumed by thoughts of what I did wrong, what I said that started the wheels of doubt spinning in his mind, if he had known how it would end from the start. I dream of white, clawed hands dragging me down through cold waves. I hear words scream to me as I toss at night in my suddenly too-spacious bed, words that now hit me like knuckles to the gut: Shhh, hey, it’s just me, don’t get up, as Joe slipped beneath the Arizonan blankets, wrapped an arm around my waist, kissed my collarbone as I tumbled back into sleep; I love you to death, as his Subaru idled in Charlie’s driveway; Baby Swan, listen to me, nothing is supposed to hurt, okay, so if anything hurts, ever, at all, you tell me and we stop, deal? as we stood in the doorway of our hotel room at the Four Seasons in Chicago. And now...and now...

And now everything fucking hurts.

It doesn’t make any sense; and yet it does. Look at him. Look at me.

The Polaroid photo from Homecoming was still taped to the top of my full-length mirror. I peeled it free like a layer of translucent, friable reptilian skin, tore it straight down the center, burned both halves over a brand new three-wicked, lemon-scented Bath And Body Works candle—a gift from Renee and Paul—and closed my eyes like a child casting a wish over her birthday cake like a spell. I wished for my memories to vanish with the photograph. I wished to get hit by a truck and wake up in the hospital with no recollection of the past two and a half months. I wanted the Lees to dissolve into distant, enigmatic mystery; I wanted to join the rest of Forks in believing that they were nothing more than bewildering and yet harmless freaks, barely worth noticing, one of those glitches of the matrix that were better off ignored like liminal seconds of déjà vu. I wished to carve out every part of myself that they had ever touched.

And Joe’s voice came rushing back from where we stood by that star-lit fountain outside the Church of Saint Lawrence, accompanied by falling raindrops and a crooked grin: I can make wishes come true.

The three tiny flames flickered in the breeze that sighed through my open window. The bright, citrusy scent of the candle reminded me of Lucy. I couldn’t fucking win. What else is new?

I turned back to the mirror. I flinched when my gaze snagged on my reflection: bloodshot-eyed, swollen-faced, utterly unbeautiful, restless like a caged animal. Look at him. Look at me.

I ripped the last memento off the mirror—Official Citation!! No More Sad Spaghetti!!—and watched the yellow square of paper catch fire, curl up around the edges, become unrecognizable, turn to ash. And I wished over and over again, like a poem, like a prayer: Let me forget, oh god please let me forget.

Charlie keeps asking if I’m okay. The answer, of course, is no; but I can’t tell him that. So I wear a serene smile like clip-on fangs, a cheap polyester cloak, crimson smudges of lipstick like trails of spilled blood down the side of my neck. Every day is Halloween for me now. I dress up as someone who isn’t haunted, who hasn’t become a ghost.

And when Charlie turns up the World Series or I’d Do Anything For Love on his geriatric, staticky kitchen radio—the same radio he’s had since my mother was the one joining him for daybreak coffee and Pop-Tarts—I choke back tears like dragonfire.

Missing In Action (Revisited)

Joe wasn’t here. Neither was Ben.

Lucy, Rami, and Scarlett were sipping cups of tea at the Lees’ usual table, their eyes downcast, their voices low and murmuring, their pristine lunches neglected. Lucy and Rami were dressed in matching charcoal grey turtleneck sweaters; Scarlett had come from Fencing Club and was wearing royal purple yoga pants and a black tank top, her duffle bag of gear on the floor by her sneakered feet. Her hair was in a long fishtail braid. Archer hadn’t mentioned her since Joe broke up with me. That either meant that it was going blissfully and he didn’t want to injure me further, or that Scarlett had ended things as well.

Since Joe broke up with me. That sounds so fucking pedestrian.

I stared at the three present Lees, almost leered, commanding them to see me, to acknowledge me, to admit that I had once meant something to them, that this hadn’t all been some transitory delusion to fill the cavernous void of losing my home, my life as I knew it in Arizona. They took no notice whatsoever.

Jess kicked me beneath the lunch table. My attention snapped back to her.

“Sorry, what?”

“You want to go shopping with me and Angela tonight?” Jessica’s hands were folded just beneath her chin, her voice gentle, her eyes large and sympathetic and watery. This was her version of being supportive. I appreciated it...in a perpetually tormented and preoccupied sort of way.

“No thanks.” I forked my cold, sauceless spaghetti listlessly. I’d forgotten to pack a lunch. I didn’t have an appetite anyway. I had deleted the GrubHub app from my iPhone and had no intention of using it ever again in my comparatively short and calamitous human life.

“You could come to temple this weekend,” Jessica pressed.

“Uh.” Mingling with a churchful of sociable, wholesome, marriage-obsessed adolescent Mormons sounded like the absolute last thing I’d want to spend my evening doing. “That’s a really generous offer, but I’ll pass.”

“Well you have to do something,” Angela said. “You can’t just sit in your bedroom alone all weekend and stare at the wall and wallow in self-pity.”

We’ll see about that. I turned to Jess. “How’s Vodka Boy from your Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class? Did he ever reappear? What’s his name again, Elmo? Ellington? El Chapo?”

“Ellsworth.” She frowned as she slurped her patron-drink-of-Mormons Sprite. “And no, he definitely failed out or overdosed or something, because he never came back.”

“Tragic,” I noted.

“But I’m pretty sure Mike’s coming over this weekend, so we’ll see if I can get some Netflix and chill action going.”

“Jess,” Angela chastised, widening her eyes and nodding to me subtly (but not quite subtly enough). No talking about getting lucky in front of the heartbroken single loser, that look said.

“I think I can be emotionally supportive without taking a goddamn vow of chastity, Angela!” Jessica hurled back.

“I gotta go.” I stood, threw on my backpack, discarded my nearly untouched lunch.

“You’ve barely eaten anything!” Angela protested. “You’ve barely eaten for a week!”

“I’ll live.” I picked my umbrella up off the slippery tile floor—peppered with muddy shoeprints and pearlescent drops of water fallen from coats and limp, sopping locks of hair—and headed out into the pouring rain. I hated the rain. I hated it. Maybe I had forgotten that for a while, but it all came hurtling back now like a hurricane, like a hand cracking across my face. I ached for the desert, for blatant and unapologetic heat, for palm trees and cacti and naked stars in the night sky. I had been researching marine biology graduate programs in the Southwest. There were good ones at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, Texas A&M, the University of Southern California, UCLA. I would miss Charlie and Archer—and maybe Jessica and Angela on occasion—and absolutely nothing else about Forks. At least, that’s what I promised myself.

This is a no-giving-a-fuck-about-Lee-boys zone, I thought morosely.

Ben was brooding at our table in Professor Belvin’s classroom. It was the first time he’d shown up to Chemistry since that day Joe met me on the beach at La Push, since the place I’d once occupied in his universe had closed like a wound. I took my seat beside Ben. The window was shut today, the downpour outside torrential. Ben recoiled, just enough for me to notice; he was wearing his oversized black hoodie and practicing his Welsh, his handwriting messy and unbalanced.

“You could have warned me,” I said.

Ben didn’t glance up from his notebook. “Would that have made it any easier?”

“No,” I realized in defeat. I guess it wouldn’t have. I pulled my own notebook, my favorite pen, and a can of Diet Coke out of my backpack.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ben said. “You really need to know that. It had nothing to do with you. And none of us are happy with the current situation. None of us.”

None of them. That included Joe. “Interestingly, that didn’t stop him from creating it.”

Ben was thoughtful, debating his next words. “We’re probably going to be moving soon.”

“What?” I startled; my turquoise blue pen dropped out of my grasp and rolled across the table. Ben snatched it up and returned it to me. “Really?”    

“Yeah.”

“And what, just redo this whole college thing?”

Ben shrugged. “We’ll probably start our junior years over again. Gwil will say there was some horrible family tragedy and we needed a few semesters off. I could use the extra time to figure out Calc anyway. Parametric equations make me want to kill myself.”

I just stared at him. It didn’t make any sense. “But...why would the whole family leave Forks? Because of me? One pathetic, aggrieved human? Do you all pack up and relocate every time Joe fucks and dumps someone? That must be exhausting.”

“It’s better for everyone if we get some distance. Put more space between our world and yours.”

“But...” I tried to imagine never seeing any of them again: no Mercy humming merrily as she tossed handfuls of homegrown carrots to the alpacas, no Dr. Lee dabbing away my blood with an ageless sort of patience, no Scarlett or Lucy or Rami, no brief glimpses of Joe as he avoided me in the campus library. It’s exactly what I wanted; and yet it wasn’t. It so, so, so, so wasn’t. It keeps getting worse. How is that possible? My voice was flimsy and quivering, absolutely pitiful. Disgustingly pitiful. “Who will be my lab partner?”

Ben peered over at me with wide, confused green eyes. And then—gingerly, awkwardly, like holding an acquaintance’s baby for the first time—he laid his hand over mine. “I’ll miss you too.”

Professor Belvin lectured about coordinate covalent bonds. I didn’t absorb a word. I conjugated Italian verbs with my turquoise blue pen, sketched disordered whirlpools of ink, tried not to think about whether this was my last-ever Chemistry class with Ben, whether it was my last-ever weekend sharing Forks with the Lees. Those rageful, frantic thoughts were back. What did I do wrong? What didn’t I do right? Why did he have to leave?

My nomadic gaze caught on a flier on the wall next to our misted window. I had assumed it was a leaflet for some club or protest or seasonal dance that I would definitely not attend, but it wasn’t. It was a missing poster.

Have you seen this student? the flier asked in bold, businesslike black font. It was urgent, but not quite despairing; not yet, anyway. I could hear a Dean of Student Affairs cajoling some affluent, strings-of-pearls-adorned mother over the phone: Yes ma’am, you have my full attention and I can assure you that we’re very concerned, but I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding...he’s probably gone backpacking or sailing with some friends and forgotten to call home. You know how college students can be. Beneath a large photo of a grinning blond kid—pink polo, flushed cheeks, clever crop job to nix a can of Natty Light clutched in one fist—was a name: Ellsworth Jonathan Griffin.

Ellsworth, I thought, my stomach plummeting. The guy from Jessica’s Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class. He hadn’t failed out. He was missing. Missing like a 20/20 episode or a true crime podcast, missing like the pregnant stillness before a murder is confessed in some glaringly florescent-lit interrogation room, before a distended and bloodless corpse washes up on shore.

I turned to Ben. He noticed me eventually, crinkled his brow, shrugged in that way that seemed so petulant if you didn’t know him well enough to not be offended.

I pointed to the flier and raised my eyebrows. Ben twisted around in his chair to look. Then he sighed, scribbled a sentence in the corner of a piece of notebook paper, tore it free, and slid it across the table.

Ben’s note read, in atrocious penmanship: Are you seriously asking me if I ate that guy?

Maybe, I wrote back after a moment’s hesitation. Maybe that wasn’t exactly what I was asking; maybe I just wondered if he knew anything about it.

In either case, Ben’s reply was swift and resounding, and underlined three times: No.

Sorry, I wrote, abruptly remorseful. I am a jerk. And I added a frowny face for good measure. Ben chuckled when he saw it, shook his head, gave me a drawn little smirk. His words tiptoed around in my skull, leaving searing imprints like footprints in the sand. I’ll miss you too.

I have to forget about them. I drummed my turquoise blue pen against my notebook as Professor Belvin drew families of molecules on the whiteboard with squealing dry erase markers. I have to find a way to make myself forget.

Jessica was waiting for me in the hallway after class. It was part of her convince-Baby-Swan-not-to-jump-off-a-cliff initiative. “Hey.”

“Okay,” I told her with steely resolve. “I’m ready for you to set me up with one of those guys from your church or temple or whatever. I’m ready to be a nice wholesome wife, pop out like six kids, learn how to scrapbook, give up caffeine and horror movies, do the whole white picket fence thing. Sign me up.”

Jessica blinked at me. There were flecks of fallen mascara on her cheekbones like ashes. “What?”

“You’re a Mormon, right?”

“Girl, I’m not a Mormon,” Jessica said, puzzled. “I’m a witch.”

Lucille

I found Joe where he usually was these days: sprawled on the sofa, engulfed in the same blue Snuggie he’d been wearing for thirty-six uninterrupted hours, gazing catatonically at the big-screen tv. A 90 Day Fiancé marathon was on. Some rodentish guy named Colt was apologizing to his gorgeous, aspiring-green-card-holding Brazilian love interest for calling the cops on her during their last screaming match. He was also apologizing for the fact that they lived in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother. I didn’t need clairvoyance to see where their future was headed.

“Hey,” Ben said when he spotted me. He was sitting next to Joe and occasionally tried to shove pieces of popcorn into his mouth, which Joe accepted passively like coins plinked into a gumball machine. Ben had been his shadow for the past week; he was perhaps the best equipped of us to understand this degree of melancholy, of hopelessness.  

“Ciao.” And then, to Joe: “How are you?”

“Terrible,” he replied, not tearing his eyes from the tv.

“I figured.” I squeezed between them on the couch, curled up next to Joe, rested my chin on his shoulder. He ignored me completely. I could hear Mercy tapping at her laptop keyboard out in the dining room; she was browsing through Zillow listings in Portland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland. Dear god, please don’t let us end up in fucking Cleveland. “Guess what.”

Joe stared at the tv for a long time before he answered. “What.”

“I had a vision of you. Just now, as I was doing laundry. Crystal clear and very scenic too, I might add.”

“Fascinating,” Joe said flatly.

“What happened in this vision?” Ben asked, far more invested, which I was thankful for.

“It was pretty far away, maybe a year from now. I saw you in the desert at night, under a full moon. There were cacti everywhere. The shadow of the Milky Way was threaded through the sky, and the stars were very bright. I could make out the constellations Pegasus and Cassiopeia. You were filling up a tiny glass bottle with dirt.”

“That’s remarkably helpful,” Joe said.

“It is, a little bit,” I insisted. “It means you get through this. That you have a future. I get nervous when I go too long without a vision of someone in the family. But now I know you’re going to be okay.”

The reflections of the feuding 90 Day Fiancé couples danced in his glassy eyes. “Being alive doesn’t mean you’re okay.”

“That’s dark,” Ben said. “Even I think that’s too dark.” He pushed a handful of popcorn into Joe’s mouth. “Are you gonna hunt at some point or what?”

“No.”

“You’re just gonna sit on this couch and waste away?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to bring you anything? Grizzly bear? Brown bear? Fuck it, I’ll get you a polar bear if that’s what you want. There’s probably some on the black market. Rami would know.”

“He what?” Mercy called from the kitchen. Her typing had stopped.

“Nothing, Mom!” I shot back.

“I don’t want anything,” Joe said. That was a lie, of course. We all knew what he wanted. Rami couldn’t stand to be around him; the thoughts were relentless, smothering.

I linked my arms around Joe’s neck, laid my head against his chest, sighed deeply and mournfully. “I’m sorry,” I told him. “I know that doesn’t fix anything. But I’m so, so sorry. And I’ll help however I can. We all will.”

And I had accepted that Joe wasn’t going to respond at all when he finally whispered: “I just wish I could forget.”

Cato

My rolling suitcase snagged on the cobblestone driveway. The tiny spinning wheels bashed against concrete as I scaled the front steps. As the taxi pulled away, I dug around in my suit pocket for my keys, found them, unlocked the enormous front door, stepped inside the palace as my suitcase trolled along the marble floor.

“Cato’s back!” Charity announced as she breezed down the nearest staircase, beaming and embracing me. She was a lovely, innately warm woman from Pointe-Noire, Congo; she still wore the silver cross necklace her mother had once given her around her neck. “Did you have a nice flight? Wait, let me check.” She pressed the fingertips of her right hand to my cheek. I felt the memories rush up like blood to a flushed face: the bite of sipped champagne against my tongue, the thin semi-transparent newspaper pages gliding between my fingers, the husky voice of the bearded, bearish naval officer who sat in the seat beside me, the misted silhouette of Vladivostok as it rose up out of the Pacific Ocean. “Uneventful, but pleasant enough. You flew commercial?”

“The jets were otherwise occupied, apparently.” Charity could see things with the predictability and precision that Lucy so often lacked, but only the past. I pushed her hand away. “Was that really necessary?”

“You’re not mad,” Charity declared, confident, impish, helping me shed my suit jacket and draping it over her arm. “You’re never mad.”

She was very nearly correct. “Where are the rest of the kids?”

“In the kitchen. Go say hello, they’ve missed you dreadfully.”

“I know the feeling.” I kicked off my Berlutis, ran a palm over the wiry fur of the Irish Wolfhounds that appeared to greet me before they resumed padding watchfully around the palace, and went to the kitchen, my black socks slipping a bit on the marble floors.

I could hear their voices before I reached the door: laughter, teasing, complaints, requests. The scents of pancakes and cold butter and maple syrup were thick in the air. Charity was one of our four newest recruits, and they all still had that energetic lightness of being human, a youthful enthusiasm, a relative normalness. I spent quite a lot of time with them. It was my job—to help with the transition, to keep them happy, to facilitate the welding of their individual parts into the beastly machine that was the Draghi—but oftentimes it felt more like a reprieve. Some would stay close to me as they matured, others would grow in different directions, like ambitious vines climbing the skeleton of a garden trellis. I usually missed them when they ‘grew up,’ so to speak...although there were exceptions. I had never liked Liesl. I had always liked Ben. I opened the door.

“Ah, you are home!” Ksenia cried from where she stood over the stove, a spatula in her right hand, bouncing excitedly in place on her small bare feet.

“Hey!” Max and Austin called together. They were both sitting with their shoes propped up on the unglamorous kitchen table. There was a massive formal dining room that could accommodate up to twenty-five guests, but we rarely used it.

“Good morning,” I said, aware that I was smiling for the first time in days.

Max groaned as he scrolled through his Google search results on a burner phone. “What the fuck. My name is one of the top five dog names again. I think I’m gonna have to change it.”

I ruffled his long blond hair, stealing a piece of bacon from his plate. Max had grown up a trust fund kid in Perth, Australia. His mother was old money; his father was a professional surfer. “Your name is fine.”

“Really, Kato Kaelin? Is it really? How am I supposed to intimidate people when I have a fucking dog name?”

“So make them call you Maximilian,” offered Ksenia in a heavy Ukrainian accent. She’d only been with us for eight months, but her English was coming along swimmingly. She flipped a massive A-shaped pancake on the sizzling griddle. That one was for Austin.

“Seriously?” Max said. “That is just way too many syllables. They’ll be halfway down the block by the time I’m done introducing myself. ‘Hey, come back mate, I haven’t killed ya yet.’”

“At least you aren’t stuck with a basic-white-boy-circa-1992 name for all of eternity,” said Austin Tyler McInerny, originally of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He was chomping on a multicolored Fruit Roll-Up, which swung from his mouth like a lizard’s tongue. He’d been working at an ailing skatepark when Larkin found him. He still enjoyed showing off his kickflips, and kept insisting that he was going to teach me how to ollie. I didn’t have the faintest idea what an ollie was.

“Do you want a pancake, Cato?” Ksenia asked, passing Austin his plate and wiping her hands on her pink apron. Her black hair was tied in a high ponytail with a matching rose-colored ribbon. She looked so young. She was so young, actually. Nineteen. And she would be forever.

“No, thank you dear. I’m alright.”

“I like Alaric,” Max decided. “First king of the Visigoths. Alaric is a name fit for a vampire. Creepy, yet dignified. Or maybe Silas. Or Draco.”

Austin shook his head as he swirled a river of viscous maple syrup over his A-shaped pancake. “Definitely not Draco.”

“Why not?”

“Well, the Harry Potter connection is unfortunate. People will hear Draco and think of that obnoxious white-haired kid from the evil snake-people house or whatever.”

“Oh, right,” Max sighed. “Like I said. Alaric would work.”

“So many A-shaped pancakes!” Ksenia poured a K on the griddle for herself.

“It’s good for you,” Austin replied, pointing at her with his fork. “We’re practicing English.”

“Alaric Luther,” Max mused, scrolling through his phone. I didn’t think he’d find that on any list of trendy dog names. “Alaric Lothaire...Alaric Lucian...”

“I like your name, Max,” Larkin said from the doorway. None of us had heard him arrive. He was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, wearing a deep maroon suit and a ring on every finger, grinning hugely. He was exactly as I remembered him: stunning, captivating, terrifying. The kitchen fell quiet. I could smell Ksenia’s pancake beginning to burn.

At last Max chuckled nervously, pushing soggy pancake hunks around on his plate with his fork, averting his gaze. “Guess I’ll keep it then.”

“I thought I heard you come in,” Larkin told me.

“It’s always a pleasure to be home.”

He nodded out towards the hallway. “Come. Regale me with the stories of your travels.” Then his eyes flicked down to my socks, and he grimaced—slightly, briefly—before turning away. “And find your shoes.”

I followed him through the hallway, the living room, the grand front foyer with the crystal chandelier, into the elevator. Larkin did not speak, but he hummed as we ascended: House Of The Rising Sun.

It hadn’t always been like this. It was difficult for me to pick out the details of what had changed—the tone of his voice, the proportion of wonder and gratitude I associated with him versus fear, the way this palace (or the one in Reykjavik, or Juneau, or Ivalo, or Murmansk, or any of the others) felt when I stepped inside it—but I knew something had. It had begun before Ben left. It was much worse now. Older vampires, in my fairly learned opinion, are something like the stars. They mellow as they age, temper their character flaws, grow wise and patient like Nikolai or Honora or Gwilym Lee; or they rage until they burn away every last atom of humanity, until they destroy themselves and take entire solar systems down with them. Increasingly, I harbored fears that Larkin was a vampire of the latter variety. And we were all his planets.

In his study, Larkin dropped into the chair behind his desk, brought a hand to his forehead, surveyed a disarrayed flurry of papers: letters, notices, deeds and titles, meticulously managed accounts of finances and disciplinary actions. Larkin had a laptop and burner phone, of course, as we all did; but he liked to work in paper as much as possible. That’s how he’d done things for centuries, since long before the name of the inventor of the internet (or harnessed electricity, for that matter) was a whisper on his parents’ lips. The sky outside was clouded and seeping soft rain.

“Things have been busy?” I ventured.

He frowned, gesturing to the cluttered desk. “I’m in purgatory.”

“I’m terribly sorry to hear that. Can I help?”

“The Lancaster coven says they’ll need an extension for their dues. That’s the second year in a row, now it’s not just an exception, it’s a precedent. If you let one coven bend the rules, others will follow. So something will have to be done. Then there’s Stockholm. Anders’ coven has eaten a few too many locals—including the mayor’s favorite niece—and now the city is launching an investigation. Fucking idiots. They’ll probably all have to relocate. There’s some new territory dispute in Lima between Alejandro’s coven and a group of strangers that just came out of the Andes. We’ll have to make their acquaintance, of course. And as if all that weren’t enough, Rigel accidentally fed on a heroin addict and he’s currently detoxing in a cell in the basement. Would you check on him for me? I’m sure your presence will be a...” He waved his hand distractedly, almost dismissively, searching for the words. “A comfort to him.”

“Of course.”

“How are the Lees?”

“Fine. Typical. Gwil’s putting in a lot of hours at the hospital. Rami’s planning to get another law degree. Ben is, uh, adjusting. Slowly, very slowly. He’s not particularly content. But he hasn’t murdered anyone that I’m aware of.”

“How nice.” Now his eyes darted up to catch mine: focused, luminous, unreadable. “Nothing new at all?”

And instantly, I wanted to tell him everything. I forgot why I had ever planned to blunt the girl’s existence, to conceal her talent entirely; I felt her name rising in my throat. And then I remembered again. I’m doing this for Gwil, for Ben.

I pretended to ponder Larkin’s question, as if it was so difficult to remember, as if there was nothing left to sift through but a trunkful of mundane details from the trip like a grandfather’s tattered correspondence and tarnished war relics. That was something an average family might have squirreled away in their attic, I assumed; I’d never met my own grandfather, and he sure as hell wouldn’t have had anything to leave me if I had. “Joe’s got some new girlfriend, but I don’t think it’s serious. I doubt she’ll be around long. You know how Joe is. Scarlett’s seeing someone too, actually. A Quileute kid.”

“Poor boy.” And Larkin grinned like a shark beneath burning eyes. “He’s in for a lifetime of disappointment. Who will ever be able to hold a candle to those memories?”

Larkin had a moderate preoccupation with Scarlett’s beauty, her...tenacity. Her lack of talent was a great disappointment to him, a somehow more egregious fault than Joe or Gwil or Mercy’s. What a shame, Larkin often said. And I believed I knew what came after in his mind, although never aloud: What a partner she could have been.

He was still grinning at me. His expression was hollow, vacuous. A shiver clawed down my spine. He was waiting for something. No, he was searching. I stared back, and I willed for that intangible, contagious harmony I carried around like a wedding ring to hit him like carbon monoxide or bromine: undetected and yet inexorable, knocking him off his path of inquisition.

What does he suspect? What does he already know?

“Anyway,” Larkin continued abruptly, turning his attention back to his paperwork. “I’m glad there’s nothing to worry about in Forks. Liesl will be back in the next few days, Rigel will be ready to work again, I’ll come up with a plan to handle all this and my mood will improve tremendously.”

And where has Liesl been? I almost asked; and then I didn’t. It was a good sign that she was coming home. I had looked for her once while I was in Forks. When I made up my mind to find someone—when that switch flipped in my skull or in the tangle of nerves of my solar plexus or wherever it lived—it wasn’t like poking around on Google Earth: zooming in here, scrolling over there. A goldish trail lit up on the floor, a ‘Yellow Brick Road’ Honora and I sometimes joked, and I followed it. And I had no way of knowing how far that trail might lead. A route heading dead east from the palace might stop in the next town over or continue across the Pacific Ocean; my search might last one day or a hundred. In Forks—as I perched in a soaring western hemlock tree in the forest outside the Lee residence on a cool October evening—Liesl’s trail had led north. North to Vancouver, to Victoria, to Dawson, to Alaska? Who the fuck knew. I was just relieved it hadn’t led to the tree next to mine.

“Well, as always, I’m happy to assist however I can,” I told Larkin. “Just let me know and I’ll be on the next flight out of Vladivostok.”

“I appreciate that, Cato.” He smiled, paternally this time. And then he spun his chair around to peer out the window into the episodic flares of lightning that illuminated great dark clouds like neurons in a celestial brain. I hate thunderstorms. They remind me of South Carolina. “But I think you’ve earned a rest.”

After checking in on Rigel—irritable, frenetic, pacing, and yet predictably pacified somewhat by my visit—I trotted up the main staircase to the second floor of the palace. I found her in our bedroom: sitting at her easel, a paintbrush held in one graceful hand, an image like a photograph on the canvas. I promptly pried off my Berlutis for the second time today and tossed them into the closet.

“Ciao, amore,” I said.

“Ciao!” Honora replied, beaming. Her curly brunette hair was pinned up and away from her face; wayward tendrils spiraled down to brush her bare shoulder blades, the back of her neck. “Just give me five minutes...I have to finish the shadow of this tree...”

There weren’t many in the Draghi who survived the transition from Nikolai’s leadership to Larkin’s, but Honora had. She was gentle to a fault, a hopeless warrior, turned into an immortal on her forty-fourth birthday when Rome was still an empire; and she was without any talents whatsoever, except for one which was useless in combat. Her paintings, drawings, and sculptures adorned every palace the Draghi owned. Each year, Larkin would ask her to paint all of us together, incorporating any new faces, erasing the memories of those who had proven themselves unworthy. One such portrait, I knew, hung in Gwilym Lee’s home office.

I went to the woman I called my wife, laid my palms on her shoulders, leaned down to kiss the top of her head. “Take your time, love.”

“Everything’s alright?” Honora asked, looking hopefully up at me with large, wide-set jade eyes. No, not just hopefully. Trustingly.

“Everything’s alright,” I agreed, not knowing if I believed it.

Shadows And Spells

“He just...just...disappeared?!” Jessica sputtered, scandalized, gaping at me as she held a Styrofoam cup of spiked apple cider in her clasped hands.

We were on a quilt near the outskirts of the sea of beach towels and blankets that circled the bonfire. Women—wearing flowing dresses or robes or tunics or not very much at all—flounced around the flames banging tambourines and reciting chants that I didn’t know the words to. Some carried torches, beacons of heat and light in the darkness. Jessica was wearing a short black shirt, fishnet tights, and a black crop-top turtleneck sweater; I had opted for a bohemian blue dress patterned with stars, an old thrift shop find and the closest thing I owned to Wiccan festivities apparel. I had a cup of hot apple cider as well, enhanced with a generous splash of Captain Morgan, but hadn’t quite conjured up the rebelliousness to drink it yet.

I suddenly recalled Mercy bringing me an endless supply of virgin autumnal sangrias as Joe and I swam in the hot tub on the Lees’ back porch. As soon as you turn twenty-one, you can have the real thing. I frowned, shuddered, took a bitter and burning sip.

“Yeah,” I replied. “He told his roommate he was going to a frat party or something and never showed up and never made it back home either. The parents are blaming the university, the university is insisting he must be off with a girlfriend or on some hipster soul-searching nature adventure or whatever, it’s a mess.”

“Jesus,” she murmured. “What does your dad say?”

“He’s been helping the state police with the investigation. There’s really no evidence of anything. No witnesses, no footprints, no surveillance footage, no handy anonymous tips...”

“No body,” Jessica finished.

“That’s morbid.” I downed the rest of my cider. Was the world already beginning to list like a ship on choppy waves, or was that just my imagination? I guess it would be possible. I’d barely eaten all day.

“You were thinking it.”

“Well, one’s mind does tend to wander towards homicide under such circumstances.”

“It is the season of the dead.” She grinned wickedly, then took my empty cup. “He’s probably fine. I bet he wants to drop out to become a weed farmer and hasn’t worked up the guts to tell his parents yet. You want another?”

“Sure.”

“Cool. I’ll be right back.” Jess rose to balance on black boots with five-inch heels and staggered off to the foldable table piled high with cans and bottles and snacks. I was getting the impression that her Wiccanism was more of a novelty than a spiritual commitment.

The season of the dead. Now that’s VERY morbid.

There were some guys laughing, smoking home-rolled cigarettes, and toasting glasses of red wine on a nearby mandala blanket, bespectacled intellectual types who were probably getting PhDs in Anthropology or Medieval Studies at the University of Washington. One of them—curly-haired, pale-eyed, wearing a sweater vest and a cautious smile—raised his wine glass in my direction. I waved back without much enthusiasm.

“He’s cute, right?” Jessica asked, plopping back down onto our quilt and shoving a full cup of spiked cider into my grasp. She motioned for me to drink. I did. “That’s Sebastian, but he likes to be called Bash. He’s twenty-three and speaks fluent German.”

“Charming.”

“He’s very...uh...gifted. I’m not saying I know from personal experience, but I’ve heard it from a very reliable source. And his parents own a beach house in Monterey. You could go skinny-dipping.”  

“In the ocean?” The world was definitely wobbling now. I was warm all over, numbed, fuzzy; it was becoming difficult to picture Joe’s face, to hear his voice. This was good. I kept drinking. “No thanks. Too many sharks. They have great whites down there.”

Jess tossed her long, loose hair and sighed impatiently. “I’m just saying that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else. So you should pursue that.”

“I’ll totally consider it.” I lied. I would not consider it.

She smiled, sympathetically, fondly. “I can’t believe you thought I was a Mormon.”

“I can’t believe I’m out in the Washington wilderness commemorating the Gaelic festival of Samhain, but here we all are.”

Jess glanced over my shoulder. “Oh my god. He’s coming over here.”

“Ugh.” I craned my neck to see. Sebastian—whoops, my mistake, Bash—was approaching. “Please distract him. I don’t want to talk to anyone. Also I’m pretty sure I’m getting drunk and I don’t want to do anything humiliating, like sob uncontrollably about how much I miss my ex-boyfriend.”

“Don’t worry. I gotchu, Baby Swan.”

“Hey Jess,” Bash said, but he was looking at me. He pitched his cigarette off into the trees. What the fuck, who does that?

“Only you can prevent forest fires,” I told him in a woozy, mock-Smokey Bear voice.

“What?” he asked, baffled.

“Ignore her, she’s drunk,” Jess said quickly. “So what’s up? Come on, sit with me. Keep me toasty. Teach me some German...”

As they chatted and giggled and snuggled closer together—I’m starting to think that Jessica might have been her own reliable source—I studied the forest, watching to make sure the cigarette didn’t begin to smolder in the damp brush. The voices and crackling of the bonfire and sharp ringing of the tambourines faded into one muted, uniform drone. The trees reeled in the haze of the spiked cider; the cool wind moaned through them. And then, for only a second: a glimpse of something impossibly quick, something silvery and reedy and sunless.

What was that?

I blinked. It was gone. I blinked again, staring penetratingly. The swarming heat from the cider evaporated from my skin, my blood. There were goosebumps rising all over me.

What the hell was that?

I remembered how Calawah University students sometimes reacted to Ben: flinching, withdrawing, autonomically fearing him on some primal, evolutionary level. They knew he was a predator. They knew they were prey. It was chillingly similar to what I was feeling now.

I have to get out of here. I have to go home.

I shot to my feet. Oh, wrong move, that was too quick. I swayed, and Jessica reached up to steady me. “Are you—?!”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I gotta go home now.”

“What?! We just got here! Look, chill out, let me get you some vegan samosas or something—”

“No, seriously, I have to go.”

“Okay, okay,” Jessica conceded. “I’ll finish my drink and we’ll call an Uber, alright?”

“Really?” Bash asked, crestfallen.

“I’ll call an Uber,” I told Jess. “You stay, I’ll go.” Maybe she shouldn’t stay, I thought foggily, irrationally. Maybe it’s not safe.

“I can’t let you go alone. I got you drunk and now you’re a mess and if you end up murdered it would be my fault. There are unsolved mysteries going around, you know.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Girl, there’s no way I’m gonna—”

“I’ll call you as soon as I get in the Uber and I’ll stay on until I’m physically inside my house, okay?”

Jessica considered this. Bash leaned in to nibble her ear. I could smell the red wine and nicotine and animalistic lust sweating out of his pores. And unexpectedly, agonizingly: a biting flare, a muscle memory, Joe’s fingertips skimming down the small of my back and his scent like winter nights saturating the capillary beds of my lungs. Stop, stop, stop. “Okay,” Jess agreed at last.

“Awesome.” I was already opening the Uber app on my iPhone.

My driver was a Pacific Northwestern version of Santa Claus: wild grey beard, red flannel, L.L.Bean boots, rambling about his upcoming trip to hunt caribou in British Columbia. I honored my promise to Jessica and kept her on speakerphone for the duration of the twenty-minute drive. I rested my whirling head against the seat, let my eyes dip closed, watched the intermittent streetlights appear and disappear through my eyelids. I let myself into Charlie’s house when I arrived, wished Jessica goodnight (and reminded her not to get pregnant), and meandered clumsily into the kitchen for a glass of water and a cookie dough Pop-Tart to ward off a possible hangover. Charlie was snoring quietly on the living room couch. I watched him for a while, smiling and achingly grateful, before heading upstairs to my bedroom.

My window was wide open; that’s the first thing I noticed. I didn’t remember leaving it that way. I was always neglecting to lock the window, sure—I kept forgetting that there was no one to leave it unlocked for anymore—but I hadn’t left it open when I went to meet Jessica this evening. Icy night air flooded in. The stars were bright and furious in an uncommonly clear sky.

“You trying to give me pneumonia, old man?” I muttered, thinking of Charlie. I tossed my iPhone down onto my bed and crossed the room to close the window. And as it creaked and collided with the sill, I heard my closet door open behind me.

Someone’s here. Someone’s in this room with me.

I turned, very slowly; it felt like it took a lifetime. She was standing in the doorway of my closet, sinuous and white-haired, wearing black leather pants and stiletto heels and a long-sleeved lace blouse the color of blood, the color of her eyes. And she was harrowingly beautiful; not like Lucy or Mercy, not like Scarlett. She was beautiful like a prehistoric jawbone, like a serrated crescent moon, like a blade.

The owl. The goddamn albino owl.

I recognized her immediately. I heard Joe’s words as he introduced each vampire in the immense painting hanging in Dr. Lee’s upstairs office to me, though I desperately didn’t want to: She’s literally Satan, only blonder.

Her name tumbled from my trembling lips. “Liesl.”

“Wonderful, we can skip the introductions.” Her voice was like windchimes, cutting and brisk, with a hint of an Austrian accent like a shadow. Now she was at my bedside and picking up my phone, scrolling through it with lightning-quick and dexterous thumbs. “Hm. No texts from any of the Lees in the past week. So we don’t have to worry about them dropping by, I suppose. Joe got bored with you already, huh?”

“Evidently.” My own voice was brittle, anemic, weak; just like my ineffectual human body.

“That’s quick, even for him. How sad.” She sighed, tucking my iPhone into her red Chanel purse. “There’s a private jet waiting at the Forks Airport. Pack a bag. You have five minutes.”

“Please don’t hurt my dad,” I whispered, scalding tears brimming in my eyes.

“Of course not,” Liesl replied with a savage, saccharine smile. “Not yet, anyway.”

[eerythingisshaka]

PTA II

[Trevante Rhodes x Reader]

Word Count: 2.4k

Angsty Fluff

Part 1

Looking at your desk, you wonder how it’s gotten even more junky since working from home.  A rainbow of notebooks and sticky pads scatter its surface with reminders and past lesson plans that beg for organization.  You pick them up in clusters, doing a vague clean up as you check the clock on your computer to see you have ten minutes until showtime.  Your kids will be logging in for their Zoom classroom to begin.  

You’re starting a new chapter on the Civil War today and although you knew it like the back of your hand, you freaked out at the moment, not able to find your presentation in any of the appropriate desktop folders.  Unfortunately your virtual desktop was every bit as messy as your physical one.  Clicking through the dated lesson plans, you finally find what you are looking for, opening it to prepare for sharing as your breakfast sandwich dings in the microwave.  You meander through the obstacle course of your living room to grab your meal to go, almost burning your hand from its fresh heat as you sit back down, just in time to start off the lesson.

“Good Morning class!  Happy Monday!”

“Good Morning!”  They all say in scattered succession, your greeting back.  

You dig right into the lesson at hand with dates, names, places, and all that is in between. The kids were assigned a chapter before the weekend to prepare for discussion and luckily most of them seemed to have at least skimmed the topic beforehand.

“Ok guys, now we have a few more minutes before I have to assign this week’s project, so does anyone have any questions?”

One young man, Nemour raised his hand.  “Yes, do you think, um, like could this happen again, do you think?”

You couldn’t hold back the gag on your face from the insightful question.  “That’s a good question.  And I know it really fits with some things that are talked about in politics today.  I won’t say that it never is going to happen, but I also will not scare you into thinking that it will.  Civil Wars are happening today in countries all over so it is not a subject that is new or forgotten.  But use the events that lead up to it and think about what we do that could avoid the conflict or what are tells that signify that war is imminent.  Thank you for that question Nemour because it segues us into this week’s project…”

Displeasure washed across several of your students’ faces but you have been blind to that behavior for years now so you began the rundown:  three page essay on any aspect of the Civil War they may choose.  

“You may email me and we can discuss your idea and if it is a topic that can fill three pages.  I want a citation page, credible sources.  See me if you need a review on what a credible source is.  I will see you again tomorrow guys.  Be safe!” 

The blips of each person signing off is your background noise as you put aside your notes once more, dropping your pen in the process.  

You pick it up and hear something in the background of Nemour’s video.  

“Nemour?”  You call out the student’s name but they must’ve forgotten to sign off.  You begin to hang up yourself, when someone comes into frame.

“Nemour, I told you to clean up your room before school started so I could get this laundry done, damn!”  

You recognize the shirtless man strutting with a laundry basket under his arm as Trevante Rhodes, Nemour’s dad.  You had a run in with him before that left you more than flustered but you stuck to your morals to ensure nothing came of it.  Luckily, Nemour’s been doing well and no one has messed with his things, so any teacher-parent meetings are only the ones required by the school.  

“Ahh ah ahh ah ah AHHHHH!  Caught up in the rapture of love…”  He sang out loud, setting the basket on a table to free his shoulders up for some bopping.  

You can’t look away and didn’t dare end the session as the show was just getting started.  Trevante rolls his shoulders, pumping his fists victoriously in rhythm with the song.  You take a bite of your breakfast sandwich covertly appreciating the show.

“I love you here by me/ You let me love fly free…”

He spins around quickly on his toes ending on a pose before the next verse.  His body is an artist’s dream with each flex he made.  You could tell before that he is a fit man but nothing beats seeing the evidence unadulterated.  His thick torso kept steady by his deep abs, kiny hair peppered across his chest for flavor.  And those arms, what can be said about these family style, thick cuts-

“Ms (Y/N)?”  You snap out of your inner study and forget you are in full view of him seeing you.  Hanging up abruptly flashed through as an option but it made no sense now you were caught.

You shuffle some papers as he takes out his AirPods and comes closer to the camera.   “That is you!”

You look up in feigned surprise, coughing up your previous bite of sandwich.  “Oh, Mr. Rhodes!  Did Nemour forget to sign off.  Oh well, I was just going to-”

“Nemour!”  Trevante yells out.  The soft patter of feet become louder. 

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Your teacher is waiting on you, whatchu doin?”

“No no!  I wasn’t waiting!”  You say fervently.

Nemour peeks over his dad’s arm.  “Hi Ms (Y/N).  Did you need me?”

You smile disingenuously.  “No, I was just about to sign off.  Just don’t forget that project, ok?”

“Yes ma’am.”  He runs out the room as his dad calls out.

“Talk to me about this project when I’m done talking to your teacher!”  Trevante takes a seat, looking pleased with the predicament.  You are mortified, sitting your your head in your hands.

“So...how you been?  You look well.”  Trevante says with an enthused smile.

You look to him and return a tight one.  “Thanks.  I can’t say I’ve done much of anything but good to know I don’t look worse since our last talk.”

Trevante leans forward with his chin in his hand and you try not to imagine sinking your teeth into it.  “Please, you’re blessed to not need much.  Natural beauty.”

You take in the compliment with an inhale.  “Sure, thanks,”  you say, noticing a spot of jelly landed on your chest, probably after that last bite.  You rub you chest to get the tiny stain out.

“Wow, that looks damn good,”  Trevante says when you’re done.

You hold a hand to your chest, gasping in outrage.  “Mr. Rhodes!  I really don’t take kindly to forward comments referring to my body!”

Trevante purses his lips together, resting his chin on his fist.  “I...meant that sandwich.  I can see it below there.”

Your mouth hangs open staring from the sandwich to the meal in front of you.  “I am...so sorry...”

“Don’t worry about it.  Hey, how was your date?”  he asks quickly with a forgiving look. 

You think of his question with confusion before you realize that you had brought up meeting someone on Valentines Day after the meeting with him last time.  

“You remember that?”  You ask, slightly impressed.

He nods.  “Of course.  I’m that kind of person, receptive to information and it sticks.  That’s why Nemour so good at school, gets it from Daddy.”

“Good to know.  But the date didn’t go as well as I hoped it would…”

Trevante cocks his head to the side inquisitive.  “Huh.  Where’d y’all go?”

You roll your eyes automatically.  “He told me to meet him up at this mom and pop diner, which I’m not stuck up!  If the food is good, I’m practically down for anything!”

“Ok, ok, so what was the problem?”

“He knew the family that owned the place, so his meal was free.  We ordered like a late night breakfast thing and it wasn’t good.  My food was both bland and overseasoned and the eggs I asked for were runny when I wanted a hard scramble.”

“Oh no,”  he shakes his head.

“And in the end, even though his meal was paid, I had to pay for mine because he’s ‘in between things right now’.  Then I had to give him a ride home and he offered his bed to me since his mama was asleep on some Xanax.”

Trevante rears his head back covering his mouth with his fist during his hoot-and-holler.  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to laugh, but that was pretty damn bad.”

You laugh graciously.  “I know, but he was cute and I swear he seemed to have more potential than most other guys on the apps so maybe it was just a bad day?”

“You are giving these playas too much credit!  And apps?  Shoot, you could pull any ole dude off the street on a Tuesday just taking out the trash.”

“Mr. Rhodes-”

“Trevante works.  Sometime Tre, sometimes Te but hold the Mr. Rhodes for me, please.”

“Fine, but only on here, I can’t call parents by their first names in public, it’s just too formal for me.”  

Trevante gets a sneaky grin on his face, scratching his beard stealthily.  “So, you want to talk to me on here more often?”

Your jaw drops, aghast.  “Mr… Trevante, I never said that.  You’re always putting words in my mouth.”

He shrugs.  “I’m sorry.  It’s just so pretty, I can’t help but wanna hear it say things I wanna hear.”

You twist in your chair, barely composing yourself with his sly talk.  “Wow!  You never quit!”

“I will when you do!”  

You face each other in a standoff over each other’s screen.  He was slowly tearing down your walls as much as you tried to reinforce them with professionalism.

“Ok,” you say.

“What’s ok?”  

You sit forward, building up the nerve.  “IF we were to discuss things outside of schoolwork and your son, how would that go?”

Trevante rubs his hands together.  “Well, first-”

You put a finger up.  “Remember that I have a busy schedule with assignments and we are in quarantine so no way we could be in the same room or eat out.”

Trevante looks off into space, thinking.  “Ok, so when do you usually turn down for the night?”

“For bed?  Probably ten if I am lucky.”

He nods, rubbing his chin philosophically.  “What are you having for dinner?”

“...probably this pasta thing I picked up at the store…” you say reluctantly.

Trevante claps his hands together.  “That’s it!  Ok, I gotta go but let’s talk later, aight?”

Before you could question him further, he hangs up the video call.  You sat there pondering what just happened.  Trevante is pretty straightforward with you but that ended on an unusual note.  And then you began to think back to his smile and body and laugh and compliments, making your head curl toward your lap with giddiness.  

“God he is so fine.”

Later that evening you are laid across your couch in full snuggy mode: bonnet on, pimple cream where needed, tshirt and titties freeballing.  You set your reheated pasta meal down to cool and look through your emails one more time before calling it a night.  You have more than one concerned parent who will message you at ungodly hours about why Timmy and Jane aren’t getting an A+ average and their stress allows you to sleep peacefully as you’re reminded how unbothered you are since students make the grades, not you.

As usual, there is one new unread message to check out and of all people it is Nemour’s dad.  No subject line, but the body of the email asking you to log on to video call him.

This was sent almost an hour ago, so you feel pretty secure that he is not on and let your curiosity lead you to the app.

Not long after, you get an invitation from Trevante.

“Hey!”  he says, smiling wide (this time with a shirt on)  after you accept.  You begin to smile back but catch a glimpse of you in video and feel instant regret.

“What’s wrong?”  he asks, slurping some spaghetti up.

“I forgot what I looked like, I should’ve waited to talk in the morning,” you say apologetically.

Trevante waves a hand at you.  “Don’t worry about all that.  You getting ready to wind down, right?”

You pick up your dinner and show him on camera.  “Pasta and all.”

“Great, so the date is on!  How was your day since we last spoke?”  he asks, slurping more spaghetti and taking a bite out of some garlic bread.

You scoff, poking at your penne.  “So this is why you didn’t answer me?  This is your plan for a date?”

He holds his hands out humbly.  “A brotha gotta try.  You so busy and remember we are in a quarantine so I can’t have you coming here with those beautiful germs of yours.”

“Wow, sure ok.  Throw it back at me.  Got it.”

You take a bite of your pasta as ladylike as possible, giving a rundown of your day which wasn’t much to take note of as Trevante noisily slurps his spaghetti making you laugh.

“What’s up?”  he asks, wiping his mouth.

“I...well your meal looks better than mine.  At least you make it look better.”

He licks his lips before smiling, lighting your spirit as you smirk into your food.

“What can I say, I get down in the kitchen when I can.  I wasn’t bout to heat up some frozen mess and call that a meal, you know?  I gotta eat real food!”

You drop your fork.  “Ok, Mr. Anita Baker!  I know when I’ve been disrespected!”

Trevante gets nervous having offended you.  “Wait wait!  My bad, ok?”

You point at him with all authority.  “My food is my business.”

“No problem, I’ll hold back, but not too much on Anita.  And maybe I’ll order you some DoorDash or something next time.”

“If,” you warn.

Trevante gives you a playful face.  “If not, I’ll just tell Nemour to quit doing his homework and we can conference about it.”

“Oh bye, he’s too smart for that!”

Trevante laughs.  “You probably right.  Look, I don’t mean to push, but I’m glad you made time to see me here tonight.”

His eyes look at you genuinely pleased and you feel that familiar giddiness creeping up.  

“I’m glad you invited me.  Just this little bit is better than my last date, so points to you.”

Trevante stares at you contently.  “You know if we were outside, this is when we’d kiss.”

You look up to the ceiling.  “Here you go!”

“I felt the moment!  Don’t lie!”

You look at him defiantly.  “Too bad we won’t know until that time comes.”

He wags a finger at you.  “See?  You keep thinking these are conversation ending phrases, but you baiting me.  So there’s a next time ahead of us!  Hit me up for a Netflix Party and Chill.”

“Good night, Te,”  you say exasperatedly.

“Have a good day at school tomorrow.”

You hang up first and sail backward, laying across your couch feeling like you ran a marathon.  This could all still be forgotten.  You aren’t too deep to deny him.  He called this a date but come on, did it count?  You sit up to poke at the remnants of your meal and think about his lips slurping up the spaghetti hungrily.  And the kiss that would have sent you to bed happily.   

Part 3

Masterlist

Tag

@chaneajoyyy​

[agirlunderarock]

How I accidentally wrote 20 page paper on Boromir for one of my Final Ever University Papers PART 2

So this took me 5ever because I had to go through my actual paper again to find the sources and the citations I had, and then throw out the academic fluffer I had to speak with. But anyway just be prepared for a long ass read because we gotta touch on nearly every source I argued with in this post before getting to the good stuff. If you haven’t read Part 1 well here it is

Okay Okay where was I?

I said that academics were wrong with how they were judging Boromir right? Is that where I left off? Well thats where I’m starting

So before I go further I need to explain that the main premise for my paper is an argument to characterize Boromir with loyalty and fear, instead of power hungry and whatever the hell used, and then throw out this good vs. evil binary that’s often used to describe the lord of the rings- because lets be real, it looks like that on the surface but everyone has their ups and downs at least once or twice, and if not within the Lord of the Rings, it comes from books that are set in previous ages. 

ANYWAY

Keep the fear and loyalty things in mind alright?

Fear sounds like an odd choice for a character I’m supposed to be defending right? I know.

We’ll get to that just bear with me. 

So in order to say that academics were wrong, I first had to look at where they were coming from and try to see what textual evidence they had. Because if you’ve done academic research, you know how important textual evidence is. 

So while finding literally nothing that focused specifically on Boromir, I found  J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia : Scholarship and Critical Assessment by Michael D. C. Drout, which I still have questions about but hey it was a good starting point. You would think that a whole Encyclopedia dedicated to Tolkien would have more than a handful of entries dedicated to Boromir. I mean mentioning him in Gondorian politics or relations with Rohan or even Boromir I instead of just Boromir II but heres the thing, IN THE WHOLE IN ENCYCLOPEDIA HE WAS ONLY MENTIONED 8 TIMES.

THE NAME BOROMIR (which in this document only refers to Boromir II) ONLY APPEARS IN EIGHT ENTRIES.

You know what those entries are? 

‘double of,’ - okay what the fuck does that mean?

 I honestly don’t remember what it means I think it had to do with character foils, you know like how Neville is a foil for Harry in Harry Potter? If I remember correctly, it identified the common foils, Gandalf v. Saruman, Frodo v. Gollum and Aragorn v. Boromir. I could be totally wrong about this, its been exactly a year and I didn’t focus on this entry.

 ‘Faramir and,’- yes we know Boromir is Faramir’s older brother. What else ya got?

 ‘herosim of,’- Ah yes sounds promising

And you think it would shed some positive light on our boy right? RIGHT? Heres what the entry said per the quote in paper “It is in fact Boromir’s desire for the victory of Minas Tirith and his own glory there in that motivates his own grasp for the ring: the heroic motivations of fame, reward, and revenge (in this case on Sauron)” ( Drout 270 ).  

LIKE EXCUSE ME WHAT THE FUCK- sorry wait, let me show you how I rephrased that for academic purposes:  This description does not actually describe Boromir as being heroic, but later explains why these descriptions of heroism are actually evil compared to characters like Aragorn, Frodo, Gimli and the rest of the Fellowship.

 ‘penance of,’- Yet another character who achieves redemption through death. Great. I hate it. Shut up. Kill this trope.

 and finally,  ‘tyranny of.’- yes because Boromir was obviously a tyrant, but I say again SHOW ME TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

AND I’M TALKING ONLY ABOUT THE BOOKS HERE REMEMBER ALL OF THIS IS INFORMATION ON THE BOOKS. like there were entries on things from the movies, and even fanfiction, but THESE ENTRIES WERE BUILT ON RESOURCES THAT BUILT ARGUMENTS ABOUT THE BOOKS

I’m getting off track here

SO 

ANYWAYS

At the end of each of those entries were list of sources that the author used to create those entries. So guess what that meant- Ya girl was hand delivered sources to search for and hopefully they had some specific pages references for me to look up within the actual book series. At least you would think thats what I found, but NOOOOOOOOO, what I actually found is that EVERY SINGLE REFERENCED SOURCE CHARACTERIZED BOROMIR ONLY BY HIS ATTEMPT TO TAKE THE RING FROM FRODO.

Thats like living your whole life and having people who say they know you intimately (not in the romantic sense in the knows you to your core sense) BUT the only thing they really know about you is that one time in pre-school you tried to draw a rocket on the wall but actually it looked like a penis thats the only thing anyone will remember you for. I didn’t do this by the way, nor know anyone who did this but some kid somewhere probably did

But you know me at this point I had to check the sources and see what they were saying. So I took up Patrick Grant’s  “Tolkien: Archetype and Word,” where he talks mostly about Frodo. I know its a stretch BUT he talks about loyalty specifically Sam’s loyalty to Frodo, and remember we want to establish that Boromir is incredibly loyal, so we have to see what he’s actually up against according to the critics

“…Sam Gamgee, whose part is least publicly acclaimed of all, but who in the sense in which we are now using the word, is especially heroic. His unfailing devotion to Frodo is exemplary, and here again Sam is a key link in bring the meaning of the book to the reader, the everyman who admires great deeds but wonders what his own part might be in important events which seem well enough wrought without him” ( 180 ).  

Okay that seems fair from how Tolkien himself has talked about Sam right. And you’re probably like okay, but what the fuck does that have to do with Boromir? Literally just further down the page  he says:

“…. The fellowship breaks only when the bond of obedience is broken, as it is by Boromir, whose pride and lust for personal power are evidence of false heroism” (180).

LUST FOR PERSONAL POWER???? PRIDE?????

SHOW ME THE PAGES SIR

GIVE THEM TO ME

I know you’re probably thinking, ‘but wait he’s actually kinda right-”

WRONG

Its anxiety, I’m telling you

I counted 

its fear and anxiety

but again I’m getting a head of myself. Basically Grant just took a shat on Boromir to make Sam look good.

EXCUSE ME SIR SAM IS A GODDAMN MASTERPIECE ON HIS OWN THANKS. DON’T TRASH BOROMIR TO COMPLIMENT SAM. Also be wary of people who do this in general, if they put someone else down instead of just out right complimenting you take it as a warning

Oh and did I mention that because Grant says Boromir is technically being selfish, another critics analysis makes Boromir Evil, because acts done out of selfish pursuits are seen as evil and a “perversion of human will.” But you know, thats just how it be sometimes when you’re putting literature in conversation with one another.

Just know I pick on Grant a lot, mostly because he says shit like this:  “…the most blinding love derives directly from such obedience,” (180). when it comes to Sam, and then takes a shit on Boromir. Like we’re going to come back to the obedience thing in a little bit, but just know that Merry, Pippin, Faramir, Eowyn, Even Sam at one point, and I mean I guess by some extension movie!Arwen take a big ‘ol shit on the idea that the only way to be heroic is to be OBEDIENT.

I get it, its another Catholic thing. I’m Catholic, I know what its getting at. But consider- no

Basically I boil this shit down to one thing

Sam Only Owes Loyalty To Frodo.

Literally his main concern throughout the book is Frodo and then the Shire and what that encompasses. So yeah its easy to be loyal and obedient to someone who shares all the same ideas and values as you and has a pretty similar lived experience right??? ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY And before anyone says Sam was loyal to the fellowship, Sam would literally cut a bitch for Frodo. He woulda fought Aragorn in the Prancing Pony if he thought he had to. He gave a second thought to Merry and Pippin when they left the Fellowship, but it wasn’t a “we should go back for them all or wait for them” It was “i’m gonna support mr. Frodo, even if Idon’t much like the gollum creature he decided to drag around but fair i guess cuz none of us know the fucking way into Mordor.” 

So I made a chart to demonstrate why comparing Boromir and Sam is a big no no, and what kinda things Boromir was working with the whole time he was part of the fellowship.

Did I forget to mention that this was supposed to be a visual research paper?

So Sam and Frodo had a lot of the same Fears and values.

Our Boy Boromir over here has to deal with being a political/military figure, meet the demands of his father, he’s gotta try to be a good brother, he’s gotta learn to get along with the fellowship, and then each of those new or old loyalties has different responsibility and expectations he’s supposed to meet. And because I had to include Aristotelian ideas as part of the class, to quote myself: Despite the Aristotelian concept that it is impossible to be a virtuous friend to many, Boromir’s actions throughout The Fellowship of the Ring show him attempting to do this ( Aristotle 9 ). Like thats literally why he ends up a member of the Fellowship, he’s a little unsure of this plan, but hey its the best one he’s heard and if everyone thinks its going to work then by golly he’ll see it done. But again Aristotle (just in your head pronounce it like chipotle for me please) wants to try to establish a structure that I think is stoopid, he’s got a thing that says  “it is a more terrible thing to defraud a comrade than a fellow-citizen, more terrible not to help a brother than a stranger, and more terrible to wound a father than any one else” (15). 

So remember those loyalties in the little blue squiggles up in the picture, we already know that Denethor, and Faramir bump heads a little, and then the soldiers serving with Boromir probably have their own ideas about how Gondor should be defended, and then he goes to the Council of Elrong and they’re saying something completely different from what he’s heard- theres a lot of threads pulling the Captain in different directions. He’s got a lot hats to wear and demands to fulfill and living under the shadow of Mordor with all of those responsibilities is bound to give anyone anxiety. 

But don’t just take my word for it

The movie actually reinforces this. I know the book says Boromir was “...pierced with many black feathered arrows” But the movie specifically makes it 3

Now I’m sure Mr. Peter Jackson didn’t intend for what I’m about to say, but I think its a pretty cool notion to think about. Because you can summarize Boromir’s conflicting loyalties into “family’ ‘country’ and “Fellowship’. Like his father would have him bring the ring to Gondor, his role as a military/political figure for Gondor means he should be doing whatever he has to in order to protect his country, and the Fellowship is like nah man we destroy this thing and everything else will fall into place, and Boromir is left having to decide whih of these things to act upon. Family, Country, and the Fellowship are the competing signs that make up is character arc, and his grapple with these three things is ultimately what leads to his death.

Now if your thinking family and country should be lumped together- theres a reason for it, just trust me, bare with me please

But basically what I’m trying to get at is given all these factors, you can’t compare a character like Boromir with all these responsibilities hanging off him to be comparable to Sam whose only responsibility is Frodo. 

But you know who does share all these same demands

Faramir

Like take a look at their character arcs- if you can the text on this next pic is super teeny

If thats too small for you don’t worry about it because we’re gonna get into why Faramir is a better foil for Boromir, and how this should affect the way we as the reader come to understand his character. So fun stuff in the next part! Sorry for dragging this out, but just like my original paper, this turned out to be WAY longer than I expected. 

[painterofhorizons]

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trigger warning: historical research about rape and being very upset about it, I guess

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Fuck me. Seriously, just fuck me. I’m done with today.

I’m doing the second opinion grading for a bachelor thesis rn. The student (male) writes about the thirty years war (1618-1648) with the topic of the relationship between soldiers and civilians aka violence. I mean you can hardly write about anything else with that war (even though to me it really is a boring take on it, but it is popular with the students and rel. easy).

So the student is elaborating on different forms of violence between the groups (which makes it a REALLY depressing thesis to read, 55 pages full of violence, violence, violence). And there’s two chapters on rape, one of which has extremely graphic citations from sources from that time. And like - I didn’t expect it but that shit just crushed me emotionally, like really fucked me up. You know, count me in for any #metoo debate and fight for the rights of today’s people, I will be vocal and fierce and raging. And I deal with the topic of abuse in my own writing a lot, too. It’s not like I am generally sensitive with it. (Though my take on it is HUGELY different...) But this? I mean I know, violence and also iolence against women is a huge and important topic in history. I get that. But like there is a million different topics, too, that you can do research about. But reading 55 pages about violence including two chapters about rape (of which I skipped 1,5 after skimming it) written by a male because of interesting war and violence! just has me sitting here, sobbing, writing my boss an email that I will refuse to grade papers with such topics in the future because they fuck me up.

Fuck that, really. I didn’t expect that it would get to me that hard, but it did. Fuck me. I will go on sobbing in the bathroom.

Screw all the professional distance you gotta have, but who would let a male write about rape when it is graded by two females? Who would do such shit??

[lizziesquire]

AIGHT. LIZ-O. WHY ARE WE PROCRASTINATING THE JOURNAL COMPETITION COMMENT WRITING?? You already have a TOPIC! That’s the hardest PART! You read through all of the materials and crafted your topic so just fricking. DO THE THING!!!!! You know that that’s your perfectionism crippling you, yet again. BUT WE’VE GOTTEN SO! GOOD! at managing this, over the years!!! We just gotta jump in and just do the thing and, like clockwork, there’s going to come a point where you go from being daunted by the word count to feeling stressed about just how few words are left to use up but how much you still have left to say and then it’s a whole ‘nother problem but guess what??? that point is going to come sooner than you think!!! so just jump in and do the thing and stop stressing about having to simultaneously bluebook your citations while writing and figuring out the ids and the supras and the whatnot and just. do it. if you can’t figure it out in the moment? just put the shorthand for the source in the end note and move on, then come back to it. the hardest part is filling up the blank page, but you just gotta get past the perfectionism block and just word vomit like you’re doing right now and just as you’ve done before, again and again, throughout your whole schooling and just like you will forever, in the future, because you’re not gonna stop writing and reading and learning, nope!!! this is just another short little piece that you get to talk about on a topic that you got to choose. you got this. bitch. don’t over-complicate it and don’t feel pressed that you haven’t figured out how things link to one another exactly, just yet; you’ll figure it out as you go through your analysis let’s GO!!!!!

write the thing tonight, fix up the citations tomorrow + go over the last 3 rules for the bluebook exercise (5/28); 5/29 fix up your lawyering brief; 5/30 do your personal statements 

and then 5/31 party party party w maman and papa w a backyard bbq!!!

eyes on the prize, bay-bee. u got this.

[fursasaida]

i have spent this week single-mindedly editing this paper (which i had already worked on for 3 weeks prior) and i am in the homestretch. all i have to do is make it 213 words shorter. but that’s after i added like 1500 words to it and cut 1287, or something like that. when you can’t cut any actual substance and you have to just find different phrasings or redundant sentences wherever you can, in an 11,000+ word document where every citation counts toward the wordcount and even this useless citation format’s insistence on saying “p. 285″ instead of just “285″ like a reasonable person would and all those Ps count as words....hell. and the more you’ve successfully cut (over a thousand words already!!) the harder it is to find more little ways to nip and tuck. it took me all day yesterday to get it down from ~700 words over to ~225 over. i will get these last couple hundred words out of here today if it kills me but by god i will hate every second of it

just to zoom out for a second:

i worked on this paper for 3 weeks while also doing arabic class and some union meetings. i spent a lot of time trying to help my incoming student “buddy” with an ICE-induced crisis that almost certainly means she is stuck, unemployed, unable to do remote classes or to get her grad student stipend, in lebanon for at least another year when otherwise she would have been coming here for the fall. i finished the paper. i spent 3 days cleaning my apt, packing up my life, and organizing the temporary move to boston. i met with my advisor about the paper. i have been editing the paper since while trying to adjust to living?? with people??? and getting indigestion from the abrupt change in diet (from: i somehow get enough minimal food into myself to avoid falling down to: my mom makes rich--nutritious, but much more meat and starch heavy--food daily). and now all of a sudden i gotta have a (distanced) social life. and once i’m done with this i have to read a book and edit another paper before the semester starts in like two weeks. you’re probably wondering how i ended up in this situation. buddy, me fuckin too