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irregularbillcipher · 1 year ago

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don't really have another place to put this, so… here's an alternate section of the last section of my flatland fic that had to be cut! the way the conversation was headed with this exchange didn't flow well with the rest of the chapter, but i do like parts of it, so you go, for anyone interested!

“You’re a writer?” Andy asked, leaning forward, fascinated, and nobody in the shop could think of a time they’d seen the boy more starry-eyed. “What sorts of things do you write, are— novels, or— or newspapers, or— or poetry, or even just like, medical papers or—” “A little of everything, I work on commission for a paper,” the man chuckled, and it was clear from his somewhat sheepish reaction that he wasn’t used to such a positive reaction to his line of work. “I take it you like to read?” “Mmm hmm!” he said excitedly, exactly as Bill said, somewhat tiredly, “Anything he can get his hands on.” Andy frowned, and rolled his eye. “You read too, Bill.” “Sure, but I’m not such a dweeb about it.” The Square ignored him, and instead asked, “Well, what’ve you written, anything we’d know?” “I mostly write for the paper, so nothing too interesting, but… oh!” He passed for a moment, as if trying to decide whether he wanted to bring this up, before finally asking, “Do you two read the dreadfuls? You’re probably the right age for it, I’ve worked on a few of those—” he started, but he was cut off by Andrew’s gasps. Clementine snorted softly at the noise and moved toward the boy to hand him a pen, already recognizing the excited grasping motion when he desperately wanted the materials to write something down. Chuck, also used to this, tore off a piece of paper and handed it to the boy, unable to hide a fond smile. Even Bill seemed impressed now, and he said, as Gus watched Clementine and Andrew with a soft amusement, “Well, now you’re never gonna get him to stop pestering you.” “That’s alright, I don’t mind,” said Gus gently, before peering at the page Andrew was scribbling on. Andy had already filled it with writing and scattershot drawings, trying to collect his thoughts and questions before he opened his mouth again. “You know, you’re fast at that. That’s a real skill.” Andy stopped his scribbling at that, and his eye shone. He wrote “it is?” on his paper— he really only ever got this excited in conversations with Bill and Clementine, who were a bit more used to his tendency to fall back on writing when his mind was jumping ahead of itself, and he winced a little, trying to compose himself enough to speak again, but the man was still looking over at what he was writing, and answered happily. “Oh, it definitely is! Getting down your thoughts quickly, organizing yourself before you blurt something out, trying to get the details of a conversation— all real skills. A lot of professionals have a hard time with that sort of thing. Great for interviews, or observational writing… or research, if you’re only going to see something or talk to someone for a very short amount of time. Having a system to stop yourself from getting overwhelmed and to sort out your thoughts is very valuable.”

Andy beamed, tapping the paper until he found his voice again. “I… I usually only use it to help things make sense, or… or pass notes. I never really thought it— y’know, I never thought it would be useful for— for anything else…” And he hadn’t, but now that the idea had been presented to him, he seemed smitten with it.

“And you don’t have to make it useful if you don’t want to, or even pursue it,” Gus said, “but you seemed to have a sort of… a writer’s instinct, I suppose, and that sort of thing would be really useful for any creative. You do this a lot?”

He nodded excitedly. “Mm hmm! Every time I need to— anytime I really need to think or— or I want to remember something or figure something else, I— I like to sort of write it down and draw, always like— always like this,” he said, properly presenting the scrawled notes and pictograms. “Done it ever since I was a kid, I just— I sort of figured it was because I was… well, y’know, slow—”

“You’re not slow,” said Gus and Clementine at the same time, and Bill rolled his eye at how much that made Andy light up.

“No, but really, I’ve only been talking to you a few minutes, but I can tell you aren’t,” Gus said. “Honestly, being that interested in the world around you and getting in the habit of just… writing… I know that sounds silly, but that’s such a hard skill to master, just writing and observing and asking questions… and making your own language? That’s not slowness. I sort of wish I’d been like this at your age, honestly, just to get good writing habits started. I never would have been smart enough to come up with a whole language, though, that’s skill!”

Andy was still grinning, but he pointed at Bill. “He helped me with a few, too! Um, I came up with— with most of the symbols, but once I started using them for— for talking to him, it gave me more ideas, and he gave me more ideas, so…”

“It’s a collaborative effort,” Bill said, and he looked a little smug when he added, “and we’re not looking for any more collaborators.”

Gus didn’t seem too disappointed by that, which in turn seemed to disappoint Bill. Instead he just said to Andrew, “So you’ve already got a cowriter! And you said he helped you come up with ideas?” when Andy nodded, the man just gestured to Bill. “Don’t lose him then, it’s rare to find an editor, a proof-reader, a collaborator, and a muse all in one. I haven’t even found a good editor.”

“We could edit for you!” Andy said, nearly beside himself. Clem winced at the enthusiasm and held up a hand, looking as if she were about to speak, but the boy kept babbling before she could. “Me and Bill— I’m— I’m good at writing even if— I know I sound, um— I know I have trouble with w-words, but my marks are good when I’m writing, and Bill’s just smart in— he’s just smart in general, we could—”

“Oh, no— no, no, I’m not asking— I’m don’t want to put you to work, Circles, I appreciate it, but it’s alright. I’m just saying that if you ever wanted to graduate from someone who reads books to someone who writes them, you and your friend seem to have the instincts to be able to do pretty well, if you two are already writing so much you’ve made a secret language. And if you ever do decide to pursue it, I know a publisher, so I can talk to people for you—”

“But he can’t be a writer,” Bill said, and he sounded as tired as he did annoyed. He’d joined Andrew up on the counter, and snatched the page from Gus’ hands. “He’s gonna be a lawyer. And I’m sure as hell not gonna be allowed to take up writing. Y’ever seen anyone like us in the office when you visit your publisher? Like him?”

Clem put her hand down. It seemed that whatever she had wanted to mention had been mentioned, most likely with much less tact than she would have delivered the news with. Her eyes drifted over to Andrew, concerned.

For the first time since the ice had been properly broken, the Polygon’s face fell. “… Right. I— of course.” It was as if he suddenly remembered who he was speaking to. The two boys in front of him, bright as they seemed, were not Sebalds, or Caesars, or even Hills. They were a Cipher and a Kryptos— an Equilateral and a Square, one Irregular, and one Abnormal. It was half a wonder anyone was allowing them to pursue the careers assigned to their castes, there was no possibility of them being allowed to do anything more. “Well, if… maybe law books, then? A few Squares have been allowed to write those, haven’t they?” he offered, as he saw Andrew’s face crumble a little.

Bill’s face, on the other hand, seemed to be a plastered over with sick satisfaction, a pride at being the one to wrestle Andrew’s attention back from the Polygon and crush the stupid hope this jerk was filling his head with.

“Yeah,” the Square said softly, a bit distant. He had taken his page back and was staring at it blankly. “Some law books are written by Squares.”

The look on Bill's face faltered, ever so slightly.

After seeing this reaction from the boy, Clementine looked very much like she wanted to smack someone round the head, and nobody could be sure if she wanted to smack Bill or Gus.

The Polygon was bouncing slightly, as if trying to shake off his awkwardness. “… You could still be a hobbyist. There’s no laws against you being allowed to write in general, even if you don’t publish…”

“Mmm,” was all that Andy could seem to offer. He didn’t seem thrilled at the prospect, but he managed a weak smile.

“… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by all that, I just… I was impressed, really,” Gus all but whispered, and when Chuck went to reassure him that he hadn’t done anything wrong, Clementine pulled him aside, and they spoke in frustrated mutters.

The atmosphere was tense, until Bill grabbed the page and jotted down a few things, half words and half pictures, before passing it back to his friend.

You already knew that dandy was being stupid. Stop moping. Just ask whatever you were gonna ask him. Chuck’s trying to suck up to him, but he’s right. We all make him too uncomfortable, Clem loses a sale.

Andrew read over it and bristled slightly, glaring at his friend, who rolled his eye, grabbed the pen, groaned, and added a symbol that he very, very rarely wrote.

Sorry.

Andy could practically hear the “sheesh, you’re really twisting my arm, not my fault that idiot didn’t know what kinda jobs Squares could have,” but he sighed and checked next to the apologetic image, a way of declaring that it was accepted, although the insult he wrote next to it made it clear he still thought Bill was taking a little too much pleasure in being a jackass.

“I can, ah, go… if I’ve made things too awful,” Gus said, unsure of how to interpret the near-silent performance the boys were putting on in front of him. “Just talk to Ms. Playfair, if, um, if you’d like, just focus on the order—” and it seemed very much like he wanted to take that escape, but Bill waved a hand.

“No way, we still got questions for you. Just don’t put your foot in your mouth this time, alright?”

“I’ll try,” the man nodded.

#wish i hadn't had to cut the line about bill being andy's 'collaborator and muse all in one' but ah well #also i promise i am working on this fic! i know it's been a year but... life got in the way #so have this alternate version of a scene from last chapter to tide you over as i get back to work

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holofoiltowercard · 1 year ago

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The Journey of The Tarot Haiku

XIII: Death - Cycles

I'll do my best to really concentrate on the project itself in this post, because I want to stay on track, and also to show all the different deaths and rebirths and metamorphoses it went through, as did I.

As I have said earlier, it was born as a single poem in response to an optional thought exercise. I always hoped I would one day write a book, but when that first poem came to me, the fact that it could become a whole book was not immediately in my mind (I thought my first might be a novel, if only I could pull my creative energies together in that direction). I had a single poem, and then its pair, and only when a few more came along did I start considering the possibility, which is a good thing, because it told me that I finally had something that sprouted naturally rather than me going, "it would be cool if I did this." Let me explain.

Through my life I have often struggled with where my art was coming from. It is probably my being autistic, but I began my art journey by copying what I saw, and I spent a lot of my life trying to imitate others to fit in, even if I didn't understand what I was doing or what they were doing, and it showed. One time my art teacher told us to make a collage, and I did not understand collages at all, so I mechanically complied with the concept by pasting random cut out stuff onto paper without any rhyme or reason - because there were none on my end to apply. My teacher looked at it and said I did it wrong, and of course I did! I was just imitating the concept of collages without any original thought or plan. And this wasn't the only time I found myself doing art a certain way just because everyone was doing that sort of thing and I wanted desperately to fit in (and then didn't because the art was clearly not coming from my heart).

The poems were different. The Tarot was dear to my heart and I enjoyed toying with poetry on the rare occasion, and I was mostly cut off from others while studying the Tarot. I realized I was not copying anyone this time, but genuinely pursuing something from the heart. That was the first metamorphosis, where a simple thought exercise started becoming a serious project, and I, a Tarot casual, became a deep diver in order to do justice to the Tarot, the poems, and my perfectionist side who wanted to get it right.

Then the manuscript was born and I started drawing again after letting my drawing skills gather dust for years. The poems transformed again and started gaining structure and shape. From a person without original ideas, I went to being a writer who was drawing from their own well of creativity to create poems. It was an amazing feeling. I remember how much hope surged within me as I continued to finish illustrations and structure the layout and insert everything into place.

The first death came when I burned out and collapsed. The poems were put to rest for over a year - I didn't even know if I would ever touch them again, despite that soft, tired murmur in my heart that they were good, and they were important. Then the two crashes came in succession, and I almost lost it all. Afterwards the first thing I did was open the Scrivener file, copy out every single poem from the myriads of little files and folders I tucked them into, and create a single Word document containing every single one, including the extra poems that didn't make the cut. I also printed it out to have a physical copy I could keep (if anything happened again I could retype it, I told myself), and when all the poems were finished, I completed that document and printed it out again to have it all safe.

And what do you know, I ended up having to redo the whole thing in Word, because I couldn't make my original manuscript agree with Kindle Create - sure, it loaded, but it looked off, and because it accepts both Word documents and PDFs, I realized that the best way was to finally figure out how to do upside down text in Word, and then format the whole thing. I actually managed to do it in a day, and I owe that to the many days I spent tinkering with it in CSP: I already knew what the layout had to look like, so once I figured out how to replicate it in Word, it was only a matter of copy pasting everything, so I put the OST of The Neverending Story on loop and got to it. (It's on Spotify and the whole soundtrack is amazing. Big nostalgia trip too, the movie came out the year I was born!)

And so the project was born again, became a PDF, and then a self-published book, with it going though a final transformation to meet the guidelines for paperback and hardcover... and here I am also, hoping that this will be a rebirth and metamorphosis for me too.

Buy the ebook

Buy the paperback

Buy the hardcover

#tarot #tarot cards #death #poetry #haiku #the tarot haiku journey

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romantichopelessly · 4 years ago

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Roman’s List

Synopsis: This is 100% romangst, based on a single line from this latest video. That’s it. I do not apologize. I did not edit this. Goodbye.

Word Count: 1543

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When Roman wrote, prose flowed from his mind like water from a tap. Steady most of the time and of questionable quality depending on the day, but flow it did. Verses came to Roman as easily as breathing. If one had occasional asthma, that was. Roman could pull out rhymes like so many dimes from his silver-lined pockets, even though his go-to metallic was gold.

Roman was a writer. Roman was a creative.

As such, Roman’s room was filled to the brim with notebooks. Notebooks filled with scribbles and ideas, sketches and poetry that never saw the light of day and love letter after love letter after diary entry. Notebooks that were as empty and clean as the day that he acquired them. Primed and ready to use in whatever way the prince saw fit, if he ever found the perfect use for a cherry red journal with a golden leaf pattern winding the cover.

However, there was one notebook that was not like the others. This notebook--plain and black, with a bound leather spine and a white satin built in bookmark--spent most of its time in the small crevice on the back of the prince’s mirror.

It was a difficult place to keep a journal, especially when Roman found something to put in said journal at least once a day, meaning that his poor innocent mirror was being moved far too often to excuse the elaborate hiding spot.

The journal contained a list. Roman, as a creative, was not one for making itemized lists. Really, that was more of Logan’s thing. However, this specific list had been ongoing for years now. If the notebook that the list filled was not imaginary, Roman would probably be on his third or fourth notebook.

Roman had started this list when Thomas was in his late highschool years. About the time that he was deciding what to do with his future, to be exact. The first entry was simple. A bullet point and a mistake. The first documented of many.

I lost us the lead in the school play. Thomas has decided to major in chemistry.

It wasn’t much, at the time. Roman didn’t even truly remember what it was that made him write down what was then seen as a colossal failure on his part. One minute he had been disappointed by Thomas’s decision to give up on his acting dreams, and the next he was huddled on the floor of his room, his reflection staring back at him from an awkward angle in his mirror, his breath coming in short gasps and chastisements running through his mind on a loop. Failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure--

When Roman came back from his spiral, his bright red glitter gel pen was already in his hands, and the words were already scripting themselves across the page of the notebook he hadn’t remembered reaching for. It was only when the mistake was written down that Roman felt the weight--or at least a very small part of it--release from his chest.

And there was the first on the list of Roman’s mistakes. Written neatly for future reference, to be looked back upon so that he would never ever fail Thomas in such a way again.

Of course, everyone knew that that was not the last time that Roman would let Thomas down.

The list grew slowly at first. Roman was still confident in his ability to be the perfect creativity for Thomas. He brought ideas whenever Thomas needed them. He encouraged Thomas’s passions, even though they were no longer a part of his career path. He pushed for Thomas to pursue his dreams in between engineering classes and organic chemistry papers, and for Thomas to pursue cute boys.

The only times the notebook was pulled out and Roman’s list grew longer was when the pursuit of dreams interfered a bit too much with Thomas’s work.

He never wanted to hurt Logan. Honest.

The notebook and the list was almost forgotten when Thomas finally gave up on chemical engineering and decided to become an actor. By the time Vine came around, Roman felt practically unbeatable. Sure, every once in a while he would do something that garnered the need of the notebook and its list, but more often than not, Roman was unstoppable.

He considered getting rid of the list.

On July 15, 2017, Roman’s list of mistakes nearly doubled in size.

After Virgil had revealed his name and Roman had apologized for making the anxious nelly feel so unwelcome as a part of Thomas, everything suddenly became a lot more clear.

He had been making mistakes for so long without even knowing it.

Every harsh name that Roman had ever aimed at Virgil was added to the list. All the times that Roman mocked his very real worries and sent Thomas out unprepared into the world were added to the list. Each time that he shot Virgil a look that made the anxious side flinch away--as if Roman were the villain, and goodness gracious Zeus above, if Virgil wasn’t the villain in those situations, perhaps he was--were added to the list. All the times that Roman doubted Patton’s judgement about his “shadowling” were added to the list. Entire years of Roman’s life were added to the list, because hurting Virgil was hurting Thomas, because like it or not Virgil did not, in fact, set out to hurt Thomas, and how could Roman have been so stupid to not realize that--

After that, Roman decided that he needed to be more cautious.

He needed to check himself. The list was kept for a reason. So that he could stop failing Thomas. He decided that he would be more open minded. He couldn’t chance hurting Thomas like he had with Virgil ever again.

So when Deceit revealed himself to Thomas, that was how Roman approached the situation.

Even with the list in mind, Roman still made mistakes. He got defensive around Deceit, modeling after Patton, and every night afterwards, Roman would add those names to the list. It was like Virgil all over again. Sure, it wasn’t obvious now that Deceit was another knight in shining armor for Thomas, but Roman had been wrong before. He had been wrong too many times to count now. He couldn’t take that chance again.

When the callback came up, even Roman’s list couldn’t advise him.

Deceit wanted to go to the callback. Patton was saying that that was wrong. Roman had never before made a mistake when agreeing with Patton. Patton was almost always right. He knew what was good for Thomas. On the other hand, shutting out Deceit was almost exactly like the previous mistakes that Roman had made in regards to Virgil.

And on the third pretend-it-doesn’t-exist hand, Roman desperately wanted to go to the callback.

He wanted it more than he had wanted anything in quite a long time. And Roman was a selfish creature. Selfishness had appeared in his list on more than one occasion.

So Roman did what he thought was best--not what he wanted, no, never what he wanted, the stakes were too large to risk yet another failure against Thomas--and Roman listened to Patton. He sentenced Thomas to the wedding.

A mistake was not added to the list that night. He had finally done something right.

Then along came the day of the wedding, and Thomas was hurting. Roman didn’t quite know how--of course he didn’t, he was too stupid to figure it out--but he knew that this was his fault.

Patton tried to make light of it. Good, caring Patton tried to fix Roman’s mess, and ungrateful Roman just kept messing it up.

Everything tumbled downhill after that. Roman’s progress was Humpty-Dumpty, and his fall came in the form of aggressive overcorrection of his actions and a nervous laugh at an admittedly funny name.

And a nail in the coffin.

A confirmation that this failure was the final nail in the coffin.

“I thought I was your hero?”

A shake of a head.

Roman sunk out to his room and shoved his mirror off of his wall without a thought to the fragile glass it was made of. He pulled out the notebook with shaking fingers and grabbed a pen off his desk with a complete lack of care.

CHOOSING THE WEDDING.

Listening to Dec Janus.

Not listening to Janus.

Skipping Logan.

Not watching out for Thomas

Laughing at his name.

Item after item was added to the list. The pages of the notebook crumpled under his careless hand as he gripped the pages with an intensity that he didn’t even know how to feel. The pages were wet, his tears hitting the pages and drying in rough patches on the paper.

He didn’t even know himself what the real mistakes were. He wrote them all down for good measure.

By the time that Roman ran out of energy, the list was almost incomprehensible. Words scratched out and doubled over, not following the lines of the notebook and in atrocious handwriting.

But it would have to do. Because Roman couldn’t afford any more mistakes. This list could not afford to get any longer than it already was. He couldn’t fail Thomas this catastrophically ever again.

#sanders sides #ts spoilers #???#roman sanders #janus sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #Logan sanders #formatting on my phone so I can’t add a read more #but it’s not too long

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poutyhannie · 4 years ago

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word count: +4k

warnings: fluff, angst, smut, college!fem reader, college!felix, romantic fantasy

** **

You gaze down at the materializing letters stretching across your palm till your elbow. It was a mixture of Korean and English. The Korean characters were few and far in between but were delicate and even while the English letters were long, messy, and leaned to the right.

I’ll need to turn in Prof Behl’s assignment when I go to class and then explain why I can’t go to the museum research trip.

Did I use all my meal swipes? Chris said he wanted to workout at 3…

These notes would often appear on your right arm, sometimes remaining like a tattoo for weeks or fading before you could even read it fully. These were the thoughts of a person whose soul matched your own. He was a college student who is majoring in English with focus on things like creative writing and poetry and you’ve gathered that ‘Chris’ was his roommate.

For as flowery his major was, the boy’s thoughts were surprisingly plain and boring. However, you were thankful for it. Your friend often had dark circles under her eyes. Her connection with her soul partner was being awake at the same time and you were sure her soul’s partner lived on the other side of the world with the opposite time zone. To be honest, you gleaned almost nothing from the notes. The boy probably didn’t know that his thoughts were being recorded on your arm, which you always kept covered with a sleeve. Neither did you know what connection he had with you. Did he feel the emotions you did? Were his dreams your memories? You’ve laid to waste these meaningless thoughts to focus on your life more, not his. There was little reason to go searching him out; if you truly were tied together by souls, fate could do the heavy lifting for you two.

Leaning back at your desk, you shake out your cramping hands. The graphic design project requires that you draw out the story board by hand rather than digitally and you never wished more to curse for it. The reason was, according to your Professor, head of the project you and your classmates are fighting to be a part of use physical copies in the preliminary section. Because you had started in traditional art, relatively it was easy to get back in the swing of things. Didn’t mean that your hand didn’t hurt like a bitch, though. You had everything riding you getting to participate in this project, you’d planned everything out with your counselor and had little attractive options if you didn’t get it, so you return to your drawing.

Your roommate swings open the door, causing you to jump and tug your sleeve on quickly. She throws her bag on her bed with no regards to the loud thump it emits. Her blonde hair rests on your paper when she leans over to look at your drawing. As always, she gushes at your talents and as always, you remind her that her microbiology major is much more impressive.

The night is a lot hotter than comfortable, especially with the tight sleeve you always relegate yourself to, even while sleeping. Ever since you caught your dad reading the thoughts on your arm when you slept, you sometimes go so far as to sleep on your stomach, with your right arm tucked under you. It was uncomfortable reading his thoughts, much less having someone else read them. Yeah, they weren’t always too juicy or detailed, but it still felt wrong to share something like this with anyone else.

“Even family?” You remember your dad asking to your rage.

“Even family.” You hissed.

With a groan, you rise out of bed, your roommate looking up from her five inch thick textbook, illuminated by a soft, yellow dest lamp. Her watery eyes gaze up at you from behind her round glasses. “I’m going out. Can’t sleep.” You tell her.

The night breeze whispers through your hair as you sit on an empty bench in an empty courtyard near your dorms. It’s in time like these that you feel peace. When not a soul is around you and you can finally just sit with yourself. Slowly, you unwind the sleeve and are met with chaotic swirl of words. This happens when he dreams.

Worth, friends, others, internships, classes, empty, running, nothing, darkness.

Your heart pangs. He’s having nightmares again. Instinctively, you begin to wrap your arm up again, not wishing to invade him at his weakest point.

Though you don a mask of indifference towards the scrawl on your arm and effectively the boy around others, you can’t help but hurt for him. He seems swamped with so much to do and feels helpless. When you look down, the chilling sentence on your arm burns in your mind and heart.

I don’t think there’s anyone for me. All I see is black. Am I alone?

Two weeks later, they stay. No matter how many times you unwrap and rewrap your arm, those three sentences never leave. Others come and go, but from that night until now, they stay. And the guilt of not pursuing this boy is eating you alive.

You always assumed he had a connection that allowed him to know of your existence. When you realize that he doesn’t, your passivity almost seems like a sin. How lonely it must be to be alone in a world where everyone has someone. Since then, you’ve been paying close attention to the scrawl on your arm, careful to gather as much info on him as you can decipher. Right now though, in class, you can’t.

Your Professor is announcing the chosen students of the project and you can’t really think about him now.

“And the last student is Y/n.”

You heave out a sign of relief, making a note to thank you Professor. You’re sure she had a few good words to put in for you. “The students I just called will be working with other student in screenwriting. You guys need to pick five scripts you want to animate and the screenwriting students will choose their preferred artist.”

Walking into the classroom with another female peer by your side, you absentmindedly fidget with your sleeve. She walks boldly up to a male student, who’s dark blonde falls onto his freckled cheeks, sticking her hand out. “I’m Madeline,” you hear her say. His eyes snap up towards yours but he immediately looks back to Madeline as they exchange pleasantries.

Madeline is paired up with the freckled boy and you with a quiet, thoughtful boy named Seungmin. He tells you that he is friends with Felix, the freckled boy, so you combine tables and group up. Because this is a project done in your own time, you all choose to work together to bounce ideas off with each other though with how bubbly Madeline is, you wonder how much you guys will get done.

When the topic of soul partners comes up, you and Felix shift uncomfortably. Seungmin gets visions through the eyes of his partner and has seen her face, he tells you guys casually.

How wonderful it must be to know who your soul is tied to, you think bitterly, a twinge of jealousy coursing through you.

Madeline’s green eyes shine as she starts, “I don’t know who they are, but I see colors that has to be tied to them.” She’s a romantic, giddy with excitement at the prospect. It’s so easy to live with just seeing colors; it’s pretty and inconsequential, much a contrast to the invasive cryptics on your arm.

When all your eyes turn to Felix, he purses his lips softly, only able to look down at the table. “I actually don’t know what my connection is. Maybe its unconsciousness because I can never fall asleep at nights,” he jokes, attempting to push the attention off of that topic.

A glossy nail taps Madeline’s pink lips as her dark lashes flutter, “I don’t think so. Insomnia isn’t usually paired with unconsciousness connection.”

Feigning disinterest, Felix shrugs, focusing back to the sketches, “Maybe it has something to do with my color blindness, I’m not sure. Doesn’t really matter,” he mutters, his voice deep and throaty. Madeline gasps, lightly slapping Felix’s arm. He raises an eyebrow at her.

“Of course that has to be it!” She exclaims, “It’ll be a subcategory color connection, just like me! Maybe you’ll see colors when you see your partner or when some other unveiling instance occurs.”

She goes into depth about connections, her shoulders bouncing in excitement. Thankfully, this distracts them from asking you about your connection. As her movements and words quicken, the stale bitterness in your mouth consumes you. It’s immature, your distaste for anything about these connections. Just because you have a subjectively unfortunate connection definitely doesn’t mean you should shit on Madeline’s obvious interest in the subject. In fact, Felix and Seungmin seem to enjoy talking with her about it as she has extended knowledge about connections.

However, while Seungmin’s tone that he asks his with questions are amused, his interest piqued, Felix is leaned forward in his chair, his eyes barely concealing desperation. Your heart pangs for him; he’s probably so lost.

Seungmin and Madeline walk in front of you and Felix on the sidewalk, returning to the dorms. They’re in deep conversation about Seungmin’s connection and with Madeline’s knowledge and Seungmin’s intellect, they quickly and thankfully exclude you and Felix.

“I don’t wanna talk about connections,” you declare to him. A small smile spreads across Felix’s face and he nods knowingly. “What made you want to get into animation?” He asks, a pleasant and refreshing topic.

“I haven’t always been the best at art,” you admit with a shrug. “No way!” Felix exclaims, his eyebrows raised, “Your work is so cool, though.”

You laugh at the compliment, “Yeah, well it took me a while to get here and I didn’t want to throw away that work, so here I am. What about you? Why did you want to get into script writing?”

Felix’s eyes soften and he stares off past the line of buildings, into the horizon. “I feel like I can see different things with words. Does that make sense?” He pauses, gathering his thoughts, “They open up worlds and ideas that I can’t experience and it makes me feel closer to normal. It makes me feel alive.”

“Like, you can imagine how colors feel or look through words?”

He nods, looking back at you with a playful look, “That’s another reason why I like your work so much. The values are clear and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything by not seeing color.”

The genuine, heartfelt comment makes your heart warm and a smile spread across your face, “Yeah, I focus a lot on just greyscale because composition is the most important aspect to my art. Stuff like color theory, while important, it basically inconsequential if you can’t even tell what’s going on in the picture.”

Felix’s voice quiets as he shoots a look up at Madeline’s back, “Yeah, I didn’t want to choose Madeline’s for that reason, but she really thought that the color use in my script would work in perfect tandem with her style and I really couldn’t tell whether she’s right or not,” he shrugs, his lips pulling into a line.

“Oh, totally,” you say quickly, not wishing to have Felix question his choice, “It makes total sense and in some instances color can tell more of a story than composition and values can. It was wise to team with her.” Maybe your intentions of reassuring Felix was too obvious because his eyes crinkle deeply when he gives you a big, knowing smile.

A week into your work and the very basic shapes for the animation is finished. Working with Seungmin is wonderful as he has a clear direction and even pictures he’s taken to show you what he envisions. Concentration pinches Felix’s eyebrows together and he and Madeline converse as you watch them from the other end of the table.

An hour or two pass and you stand up to stretch, announcing that you’re gonna take a bathroom break to which they agree is a wonderful idea. Coming out of the bathroom, you wrap up your sleeve, peeking to see what the ink says this time. The three words that you’re familiar with; that have been etched into your sink for weeks don’t make your heart stop, but the ones under it.

Am I alone? She needs to add more clear composition so I can actually tell what’s going on.

Your eyes snap up to the blond haired boy. That’s exactly what Felix told you a day ago. Its him?

To your confusion, he now stares, awestruck at Madeline. There’s a sinking in your stomach but you can’t tell why. Gasping, his eyes widen as he takes her hands. “Madeline…I think,” he stumbles over his words, clearly flabbergasted. “I-I’m seeing color now, I think.”

She squeals, squeezing his hands tightly, “When? Just now? What happened?” His dark eyes look dazes and he steps back. His eyes wander from the ground her hers and he whispers, “When I saw you.” Turning your back on them, you leave quickly, not wishing to intrude on Felix’s revelation.

You resume your seat next to Seungmin, heaving a sigh. “What’s wrong?” His lips form a slight pout and his head tilts to the side. You shake your head, waving a hand, “Felix and Madeline are soul partners. He just found out.” From your peripheral, you see Seungmin smile widely. You laugh to yourself, an embarrassed blush rising on your cheeks at your previous hasty conclusion. You really are desperate for the person who matches your soul.

“That’s great,” he taps your arm with his hand, hidden by his sweater’s sleeve, “Why do you look so bummed, though?”

You purse your lips, “It just sucks to be a late bloomer. I don’t know who my partner is,” you tell him as the bitterness fills your mouth again. Seungmin nods firmly, his fingers tapping your arm again, “At least you know that you have one, though. Felix didn’t even know whether he was alone or not.”

“Yeah,” you shrug, trying to ignore the gnawing guilt of your selfishness, “it just sucks.”

“Of course but just give it time,” Seungmin advises, patting your shoulder softly.

You and Seungmin gaze blankly at Felix and Madeline as they both gush over each other. You can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy in your chest when Felix gingerly strokes her cheek.

Clapping, Seungmin returns to the story board, pointing at a slide, “I like the idea with this one, but if you’ll look here,” he pulls out a picture he took of a deep, dark green forest that just seems to dissolve into black, “I want the composition to be more dangerous. Like, the characters are being drawn into darkness and they won’t have any way to escape.” Nodding quickly, you add rough shading and lines to your preexisting work to cater to Seungmin’s request.

“Perfect,” he beams his toothy smile at you.

By the time the project is all but done, Felix and Madeline are attached at the hip or the hand or the face. You try not to watch them, jealousy foaming in your throat. Felix’s eyelashes flutter against his freckles and his lips are glossy as Madeline gently strokes his cheek, smiling softly. Such a romantic—it would make sense that her seeing colors would be paired with his past complete colorblindness. He gushes over her work and her use of color, his voice giddy with excitement at finally seeing color, finally being normal.

While your initial bitterness at their fortune has washed away into passivity, you can’t bring yourself to look at your arm like you used to. In a way, you’re foolishly upset at you partner for not giving you anymore clues that would lead you to him. It’s foolish because he doesn’t know you can read what’s on his mind.

You pick up your artist’s hand brace from your dorm bed and begin unwrapping your arm to put it on, barely sparing the black scrawl a glance.

Its not all black anymore. I can see it. I can see her.

Dread clenches your gut as your eyes travel down to the next single word.

Madeline.

There’s a buzzing white in your head as you fumble to get your shoes on, tripping out into the hallway, breaking into a sprint towards Madeline’s dorm, on the other side of the campus. Whirling confusing overcomes your mimd and you feel like you’re suffocating, the only goal is to find an answer. You don’t know when hints of this conclusion plagued your mind. Maybe it was that day, months ago at the bathroom. Maybe it was a deeper jealousy at seeing Felix kissing Madeline. It didn’t matter anymore, you frantically knocked at her door, out of breath and gasping.

Her green eyes are wide and her pink lips are swollen, she’s almost as out of breath as you are. She makes no move to hide Felix, who’s pulling on a shirt behind her shoulder. Nervousness pangs in your throat but you shove past her and shed your arm to Felix.

“Wh-what’s this, Y/n?” He asks, eyes bouncing off your arm to your face, uncomfortable with looking at something you’ve explained to him is so precious and private to you.

“Read it,” you beg, eyes flicking from his face to Madeline’s. She furrows her shapely eyebrows, gingerly taking your cold arm into her soft hands. At Madeline’s brazenness, Felix finds it in himself to look down at your arm.

Her grip is firm but you could rip away from it at any moment.

Madeline’s eyes are wild and horror fills them as she looks up at Felix. You try desperately to explain, “I-I don’t know what this means either, but that day that you first saw color, Felix, there were your exact words to me about your project on my arm.”

He laughs to deflect how uncomfortable he feels, it comes out too harsh and grates against your neck, raising heat into your face. “Y/n I know you really wanna find your partner, but this is crazy. Don’t try to suggest stuff like this. Madeline and I are partners, everything has been perfect since that day for us.”

He looks over to Madeline for reassurance, but she doesn’t meet his eyes. A soft, vulnerable look plagues her eyes as she looks up at you. Felix stutters, confused why she wouldn’t immediately agree with him. “Lix,” she inhales deeply, “for my connection, you know how I see colors? Those are actually s-supposed to go away when I meet my partner.” You realize the vulnerable look in her eyes was actually guilt.

“What?” His voice is a breath, like he’s been struck in the chest and is left gasping for air. “I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to meet them because I don’t want to loose my color—it’d be like dying for me and I’m really happy with you. Aren’t you happy with me too?” Felix’s lips hang open and his face is frowning in confusion, “So you’ve been using me when you knew I wasn’t yours?” Madeline’s eyes fill with guilty tears and she nods. As much as you can understand why she did what she did, anger and bitterness towards her, towards loosing so much time with Felix consumes you.

“Then you never deserved him,” you hiss, possessively retracting your arm into your body, hiding the words against your bosom.

You and Felix sit wordless on a bench in a park in a part of town you were unfamiliar with.

“So it was you this entire time?”

“I’m so sorry, Felix,” your voice cracks and you bite your lip to prevent it from trembling, “I really didn’t know for sure and I doubted what I knew because you just seemed so happy with her.”

He scoffs loudly, running a hand through his silver hair, “Yeah and look what that amounted to.”

Quietly, you respond, “It amounted to us realizing. That means something.”

Felix exhales slowly, turning to face you, his eyes tired and sad, “Yeah, at least we realized now—” he stops abruptly, pausing to collect himself, “God, I was so stupid, just because I started seeing color one random day because she was in front of me?” He scoffs again, slouching into the bench.

“It made sense though, you were both eager to get your partners and—”

“But to leave you alone?” His voice is raw and soft, “I left you alone when you were right there.” Slowly, as if he were a hologram or mirage you couldn’t quite reach, you extend your hand to rest your hand on his warm cheek, almost shocked that he’s there. Unintentionally, he leans into your hand, closing his eyes gently. “We can begin now. Rather a late start than never. We have the rest of our lives to get it right.”

Felix buries his face into the crook of your shoulder, pressing firm, confident kisses and hot, stinging hickies into your neck. You run your hands up the bare expanse of his back and up to his hair. Flush spreads across your cheeks as he lifts himself up to gaze down at your bare chest but you don’t cover yourself up. You have nothing to hide. “Have you ever done this before?” You whisper to him. He shakes his head softly, leaning down to trail kisses from the base of your neck through the valley between your breasts. Lower, his kisses get wetter as he gets closer to your aching hotness. As if you’re made of paper, Felix gingerly spreads your legs. The cold air hitting your core causes you to flinch, but Felix’s warm palm presses slowly against you, calming the sensation into pleasure.

“May I?”

You whine out a ‘yes’, groaning when his sinks a finger into your core. It sucks his finger in and Felix barely contains a moan at the sensation, imagining how you’d feel around him. Slowly, he begins to pump his single finger into you before adding another and scissoring deep. Curling his fingers, he brushes your sweet spot, causing you to gasp and arch your back.

Smiling to himself, he continues to work at that spot until you’re gasping and moaning incessantly. He pulls out and you whine immediately but he positions himself above you, gazing down at you with adoration even while his impossibly hard dick pokes against you. “Hurry, Lixie, please do it,” you whine and he hushes you with a kiss, slowly sliding in and caressing his tongue against yours when you gasp. Your face is scrunched up at the unfamiliar stretch but Felix can’t help but smile down at you, endeared. His eyes are dark at the sensation of him dragging against your walls. When you begin to relax around him, you start whining again and he giggles, slowly beginning to thrust up into you. There’s nothing desperate or wanton about his movements against you. He’s being gentle, letting you feel him as his drags along your walls though it takes all his self control to not increase the pace. It’s deep and rhythmic, his hips against yours. He fills you up and groans as you seem to suck him up, your juices mixing with his precum.

“Baby, you’re so warm and so—mhg—tight,” he gasps against you, “Can I go faster?”

“Yeah,” you’re breathless and rake your fingers across his back when he starts to do just that. He positions his hip in a way that has himself dragging across your sweet spot and you screaming with every thrust. He reaches down to rub your clit, stars and lights sparking across your vision as a burning coil begins wind in your gut. The groans and moans he lets out when you unintentionally clench around him paired with the way his movements quicken as he becomes desperate push you closer. “Y/n, I’m g-gonna cum,” he whispers, his eyelashes fluttering against your skin. “Me too, Lixie,” you gasp, running your hands over his body.

“I love you.” Your high crashes over you, white pleasure electrifying you through your body as you feel Felix shoot into you. The burning pleasure overcomes your senses as he collapses next to you, his hair sticking to his forehead as he pants into your neck, smiling deeply in pure bliss. Euphoric, you tug him closer, pressing a kiss to the freckle on the tip of his nose, onto both his cheeks, and finally onto his warm, glossy lips.

“I love you too, Lixie.” He is yours and you are his. That’s how it was predestined and you both have fulfilled destiny.

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tortvred-artist · 3 years ago

Text

LET'S TALK ABOUT THE SUBJECT

Friday, December 17, 2021

8:41 AM

Half drunk, half sober. I am at home, surprisingly. Not home away from home. This is home, home. I feel like I'm still dreaming of this place from a faraway and desolate land.

I have unfinished paintings waiting for my hands' magic here in the room; 'renaissance maria' and 'stoic'. I can't paint. Not in this state of mind. I am not in my studio. I am at home and I don't think this is an ideal place for an art studio. There are distractions everywhere. Speaking of studio, I am wondering about the situation of my apartment in Cebu after the horrendous typhoon last night. I hope everything is intact, I hope all my paints and art materials lay unbothered in my small room. I can't wait to reconcile with them next year. I am longing for another time of solitude. Art. Poetry. Literature. Travel. Solace.

I don’t want to be drunk anymore. I hate being in this helpless state. Yes, helpless in my age but ecstatic in 2 years retrospect. I can't afford to be in this state forever. My artwork requires sharp sobriety but my writing is demanding this mellifluous drunkenness.

Someday I'm gonna publish a book entitled: Running Away From Home: Survival Guidelines for Introverts. The title would be something like that and then there would be a sequel and the thoughts would be as follows: Vagabond Homecoming: What to Expect from the Home You've Left Behind. Idk. I want to publish these books for the future generations. For the self-actualization of the youth even if my mother always tells us to kill the "self" or the "ego". But how do you kill something that you are not aware of? Wouldn't it be too helpful to know thy enemy first before hitting it with a fatal blow?

Let's talk about my paintings. No. let's talk about the subject herself. Yes, good guess. It's Kim. Agh! Inspiration comes in different forms indeed! This time, it's in a form of a stranger I only met once. Yeah2x, I know. This is just part of my cycle, but my longest cycle had lasted for a year. Will this last for a year, too? Because I have no plans of pursuing these ideations. I just want to imbibe the inspiration that this infatuation had brought during a very weird time of my life.

Another woman so close yet so far. I checked in on her during the typhoon last night and tbh, I wasn't worried because I've turned off that switch in my head for a very long time now. I am more concerned of her well-being and her mental state during the calamity and I am glad she turned out fine after that gut-wrenching hell of a storm. I am relieved all at once. So, while I waited for her response the whole night until dawn, I decided to work on her portraits. I decided to follow my "creative intuition" and I'm glad I did. Ideas. Every stroke were the byproduct of my thoughts about her; her current state, her past lives, her personality, and the things hidden from every mundane eye. (Damn, the alcohol is almost gone from my system which is slowly being replaced by a stiffed neck). I can't pursue the subject but I will finish the art in any way possible. God, I hope these ideations will be over by next year before I climb MT. Pulag. I am desperately indifferent. It made me selflessly selfish at this point; to suck inspiration from somebody who's not aware of my thoughts. My thoughts. I wish I could silence them after this. I wish I could drown them with all the tubes of my oil paints…but I can't.

The subject? Kim? I hope she cuts me off before I muster the courage to do it myself.

#thoughts #art #inspiration #oiloncanvas #oil painting #oilportrait #stoic #inspired #chat with strangers #female artists #artists on tumblr #art is art #drunken #drunk blogging #wlw #infp things #infp feelings #infp

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jasper-tarot-reader · 3 years ago

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Hello, Jasper!

I hope you're doing well. It's been a long time since my recent question for tarot.

You know I try to find my occupation now. I'm unsatisfied because I still don't know if I should do what my parents say or I shouldn't. I'm talking about career choice, of course.

I thank you for the career reading you already gave me but now I need another piece of advice about it from tarot.

You also know that I'm into astrology. It's my hobby (and a tool to communicate with people better) for a several years. By the way, I'm not going to be a professional astrologist. Okay, let's get back to the topic... I find my own natal chart pretty interesting because there are a lot of connections with the 5th house (just in case, I will say that this house is responsible for art, entertainment, children, parties etc.). So I assumed that I could self-actualize in the field of art.

Art is my life, actually. I was thinking about getting a creative profession but I'm afraid I won't be able to make money there. I'm the only child of my parents (and only grandchild also). That's why I'm obligated to provide my family with a good and comfortable life in the future. I wouldn't be afraid to make mistakes if I was only responsible for myself. One day I'll write something positive about my life but it's not now. Also... I love art! But I love so many different, sometimes unrelated things. It's dancing, writing poetry and novels, painting, playing piano, singing, stage playing etc. It's hard to choose only one or two activities to work in. It feels like a large accumulation of energy that desperately breaks through all the cracks... But there are so many restrictions that I have set myself and that do not allow this energy to release. I'm scared how many troubles are in my head. Okay, the preface is over.

So, my questions are, will I be successful if I work in a creative profession? And if so, what creative profession(s) do(es) fit me best? (I'm sorry there are two questions. You can separate them and answer only one, of course)

That's all. You know I always highly appreciate your work. Thank you so much for being respectful and understanding to me. I hope you have a nice day!

Wishing you only the best,

Lilou 💛

Hello Lilou!!! Welcome back, it's always good to see you, even if the circumstances of our interactions aren't always in the best of spirits.

In light of these questions, I have selected Storyteller for this reading.

Question 1: Would Lilou be successful working in a creative profession? Answer 1: Ace of Coins [Pentacles] upright

This card depicts the English fairy tale of Jack and the Beanstalk - it represents new beginnings, financial opportunities, and prosperity. The origin of this gift may be unexpected (like magical beans) but through nourishment and support, the benefits could be miraculous. It's time to make dreams a reality.

This is a good sign, but don't be fooled - it will take monumentous work. You'll have to really buckle down and work to get ahead, but if you choose to pursue a creative profession, you may find that it suits you very well.

Question 2: What creative professions may fit Lilou best? Answer 2: Page of Coins [Pentacles] upright

This card depicts Beaivi, the Sami sun and sanity deity. It welcomes the new beginning of spring and summer, a fresh start, and the end of darkness, while also representing hope, setting up solid foundations, and mental wellness. This is a person who is grounded and anticipates the bright future.

This card turns the question back around on you - what do YOU want? It warns you that it will take a while for things to bloom, so maybe having creative arts as your only income wouldn't be good to start with, but look in yourself and figure out what you enjoy enough that you'd be willing to do it over and over.

I hope that this reading helped in some way, Lilou! Feel free to DM me here on Tumblr (though I warn you that it pains me to use Tumblr's DM feature) or on Discord at JasperEspurrWitch#6396 if you want to discuss this reading in-depth.

As usual, leave feedback as another ask that I can publish publicly and tell me what parts felt right, if anything felt off, stuff like that. Until you do, you will be added to my greylist. Please reblog my reading guidelines!

~Jasper

#answered #tarot reading #honeyimtiredofeverything #ace of pentacles #page of pentacles

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seraphimguks · 4 years ago

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list 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the ask box for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you. learn to know your mutuals and followers 💖 (hellooo! Hope you have/are having/ have had a lovely day today!!)

hi gayatri!! thank you so much for this ask!! <3

in no particular order, I will mention the 5 things which make me happy!

1. working

honestly, this was the first thing that popped up in my mind. I’ve been working for an internship for a month and I realized I really do enjoy my work!! yeah I'm a workaholic and I destroy myself in the process, I only do it because I wanna do a good job, I wanna showcase my skill and I really want to be a hardworking person who knows how to get the job done right. So yeah! I love working my ass off for something and the best part about it is when people recognize your hard work and skill, I literally get a surge of motivation and power if I hear a tiny compliment about a job that I worked 20 hours for so lmaoo

2. reading

I’ve always been an avid reader as a child and that’s really what me into literature and writing honestly. unfortunately in the middle, I lost my childhood reading habits and it made me so so insecure. there were so many beautiful books out there to read and I was pretty mad at myself because of the limited range of books I’ve read so far. that's why i made a decision to read A LOT during quarantine to really bring back those childhood days when reading was everything to me. and it worked!! i can very proudly say I’ve read almost 15 books during quarantine!

3. writing

my love for writing emerged pretty early on, i used to write short stories and the like but nothing extraordinary. but i really discovered that i liked to write when i was around 17, i fell so much in love with my literature syllabus in school and also i was an EXTREME reader of bts fanfiction on tumblr and ao3 that i got heavily inspired to write something of my own! honestly, the process of writing and actually being satisfied with my work came pretty late. i cannot begin to express how much i despised my writing and how much i used to compare myself to others. it was horrible. but thanks for my ton of reading during quarantine, and of course because i was practicing writing for college clubs, i could see the effect it was having on my own creative ventures. Reading a lot, and frequently, really did have a positive effect on me because i actually felt the words coming to me on my own! my story ‘roses poetry and jeon’ was one that i felt the motivation to write and write and i couldn't stop, the ideas just kept coming one by one, and never had i felt so happy with whatever i was writing! so yeah, that phase truly was the happiest for me! now i am planning to pursue writing as my career so lets see how that goes~

4. singing

ahh, where do i begin for this. so I was a self-taught singer til i took classical singing classes when i was around 10. i learned singing for a total of 8 years however had to stop because of my academics. no amount of words can express the love and passion i had for music and singing. i so desperately wish i had my old voice back but over the years my love for singing has died down. from what i thought could have been a career path for me soon turned into a hobby, then almost nonexistent at this point. sometimes i feel so pathetic about it, because almost everyone in my class knew i sang but in college, i never revealed it to anyone. i guess i felt like if i had to sing i wanted to give my best shot, but since i stopped practicing for over 2 years i thought it wouldn't be worth it. but i always find time to sing for myself and so singing will always be something i will hold dear to my heart. maybe one day when i have the time and motivation again i can start practicing!

5. lazying, doing my thing, sleeping, watching yt videos

honestly couldn't think of anything else significant at the moment so i just put these all together!!

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ajedisith · 5 years ago

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An Equal Relationship

The topic of romance in Little Women has been one of much contention since the novel’s conception. Ironically, decades later I venture on a journey to write about Jo March’s love life when Louisa May Alcott would probably have preferred literally any other topic about the character. But I’ve never viewed the novel or Jo’s story as a “romance,” but more so a story about four sisters with romantic subplots.

Little Women takes place in the mid-19th century amidst the backdrop of a divided America recovering from the harsh realities of the Civil War. Most women’s lives during this period are tied to the home “with little opportunity for outside contact” or most other kinds of experiences. The promise of women’s suffrage and higher education is still on the very distant horizon. Even when they are admitted to colleges, educators fear “their health [is] threatened” if they follow the “intellectual rigors of the male curriculum.” The “Cult of Domesticity” plays a significant role in shaping the lives of women as homemakers and child bearers (Hartman).

Louisa May Alcott’s deeply rooted connection with the Transcendentalist movement and its most prominent thinkers influences Jo March’s relationship with Friedrich Bhaer and how she describes him in the novel. Alcott’s progressive father was consumed by an unorthodox passion to educate his daughters at a time when a woman’s educational opportunities were limited. Her family lived near brilliant Transcendentalist reformers of the day, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne. She received lessons from Ralph Waldo Emerson and frequented Henry David Thoreau’s library to read great works of literature that sparked her interest in writing creative stories to support her family. Her early exposure to progressive ideas about the value of individualism had a significant effect on her writings, including the themes about family and ambition presented in Little Women.

Some speculate that Alcott may have based Friedrich Bhaer off of the Transcendentalist thinkers whose ideas so intimately spoke to her feminist perspective. For example, in the novel Friedrich is described as personable with an ability to attract people with his unique charm. Similarly, although Thoreau’s historical image is that of a hermit, he actually entertained guests, visited friends, and frequented the nearby town. In her journals, Alcott describes her admiration for Thoreau’s philosophies, calling him the “the man who has helped [her] most by his life, his books, his society” (Rogers). Furthermore, Emerson’s kind presence, musical voice, and commanding style of speech during his philosophical lectures captivated audiences. His 1838 speech at the divinity school in Cambridge was a passionate speech about self-reliance and religion (Brewton). Comparatively, Jo’s fascination with Friedrich’s impassioned speech about religion at the symposium is due to his “honest indignation” and “eloquence of truth,” which makes “his broken English musical and his plain face beautiful.” Additionally in the novel, Friedrich is described as having “a sympathetic face” and kind eyes. Alcott derives many of Friedrich’s tenderly masculine traits -- introversion, compassion, soft-spoken charm -- from the very men who were close family friends and who shaped her own philosophical views. Friedrich Bhaer is an unconventional romantic interest just as the men who shaped Alcott’s life were unconventional intellectuals.

Louisa May Alcott believed that most women were marrying for economic reasons. She loved luxury, but “freedom and independence more” (“Alcott”). In Little Women, Mrs. March believes that “[m]oney is a needful and precious thing,” but it isn’t “the first or only prize to strive for.” She would rather see her daughters as “poor men's wives,” if they are happy and content than “queens on thrones, without self-respect and peace.” Alcott herself never married -- perhaps because she could never find anyone who sympathized with her strong feminist ideals -- and the passage emphasizes the notion that marriage for the purpose of economic stability is a restriction and that marriage is not the end all and be all of a woman’s existence. Alcott uses the theme as a backdrop to Jo’s dynamic with wealthy socialite Laurie and penniless intellectual Friedrich. She emphasizes both characters’ social statuses throughout the novel to highlight more important distinctions about their personalities and their distinctive interactions with Jo. Where Jo and Laurie’s friendship represents a connection of two like-minded yet strong-willed young people trying to seek belonging in one another, Jo and Friedrich’s dynamic is one of equals in which Jo is challenged to push her limits and grow intellectually and spiritually.

Jo March is an ambitious, independent, strong-willed tomboy who wants to be a famous writer and seeks a life of deeper meaning than simply conforming to societal traditions of marriage and domesticity. Jo’s most passionate hobby is reading and in many ways it influences her intellectual curiosity about 1860s society. One day, Meg finds her sister “eating apples and crying over the Heir of Redclyffe;” it is Jo’s “favorite refuge.” Additionally, she somehow puts up with her job as Aunt March’s companion because the moment Aunt March is asleep or distracted, she devours “poetry, history, romance, [and] travels like a regular bookworm,” but she has to “leave her paradise” when she is called to do her duties.

Jo’s tomboyish nature and views against love depict her desire for non-conformity because to her conformity is synonymous with a broken family, loneliness, and the denial of her intellectual pursuits. She hates to think that she has to “grow [to] be Miss March, and wear long gowns” because it’s “bad enough to be a girl [...] when [she likes] boy’s games and work and manners.” Her insecurities about womanhood are emphasized when she tells Meg she wishes she could be a child for a long time. She observes that “Margaret [is] fast getting to be a woman and Laurie’s secret [that Meg and John Brooke are in love makes] her dread the separation that surely must come.” Nonetheless, she responds erratically when it becomes evident that John will take Meg away from her family -- she’s incredibly rude to John when he visits Meg, but she’s extremely ecstatic to see the regular ole’ postman. Jo wishes that they would hurry and get married because she’s uncomfortable with the idea that “Meg is not like [her] old self, and [seems] ever so far away from her.” Jo knows how things will eventually turn out, so she wants to make it a brief, sentimental separation for herself, instead of a drawn out, painful one.

Given Jo’s strong views on womanhood and her curiosity about upending social norms, she dreams of intellectual pursuits far removed from what is expected of mid-19th century women. Her ambition is to “do something very splendid,” but her “sharp tongue and restless spirit” are constantly “getting her into scrapes” when she ventures out into the world, removed from the comfort of her homely upbringing. She even admits that “her greatest fault is her temper” and “her greatest ambition is to be a genius.” It is precisely her restlessness that makes her happy and content when she is “doing something to support herself.” Furthermore, although long locks are the tradition for 19th-century women, Jo cuts hers to financially support her family. This illustrates the depth to which she is willing to go for her family in a desperate financial situation, but more importantly it emphasizes her continued disregard of social norms about physicality in favor of what she believes is right.

Jo and Laurie’s dynamic is characterized by childhood and innocence; he illustrates a brotherly figure who compliments her views about non-conformity while she represents the feminine presence he craves in his own life. Interestingly, Laurie admits to Jo quite early in the novel that he feels envious about the sisters’ bond with their mother. The motherless boy’s “solitary, hungry” look in his eyes affects her and she is glad to share her richness of “home and happiness” with him. This forms the foundation of Jo’s strong feminine presence in his life – he looks to her for affection and she responds with compassion. An important distinction between Jo and Laurie’s intellectual values is their contrasting views about education. Jo wishes she can go to college and notes that Laurie doesn’t look like he’ll like it. He agrees that he hates it because it is nothing but “grinding and skylarking” and he would rather enjoy himself in his “own way.” Jo desires a life of meaning to pursue her passions; she is intellectually curious and admires scholarly pursuits, whereas Laurie takes his intellectual opportunities for granted.

Although Jo and Laurie share some similar characteristics, such as their strong wills and quick tempers, they also have strong conflicting personalities. For example, Laurie complains that he feels like he’s living in the shadows of his grandfather's wishes and therefore has little motivation and is too lazy to try anything else. In response, Jo suggests he ‘“sail away on one of [his] own ships, and never [come back] until [he has] tried his own way.” While Laurie does eventually sail away for a time with his grandfather, he also goes to college beforehand to fulfill his grandfather’s dreams, not his own. On the other hand, Jo is rebellious and self-motivated from the beginning. She refuses to simply marry out of convenience and leaves her hometown the moment she realizes there isn’t much left for her there.

Jo wants to keep Laurie close to the family because she sees in him a kindred connection of masculine identity. This is one of the reasons she is constantly trying to match him with her sisters. When it becomes clear that Meg and John will be betrothed, Jo is frustrated because she “hates seeing things get all crisscross [...] when a pull here and snip there would straighten [things] out.” Jo’s reaction highlights her fears about a broken family and loneliness. Her plan to marry Meg to Laurie emphasizes the desire to keep her family together by marrying her sister to a friend, someone nearby who she deems trustworthy and complementary to her association with masculine identity. But, once Jo realizes that Laurie is getting too fond of her, she decides to pack up her things and travel to New York because she doesn’t believe they are suited for one another. Mrs. March is relieved and agrees that they “are too much alike and too fond of freedom,” not to mention their “hot tempers and strong wills,” which would thwart a relationship that needs “infinite patience and forbearance.”

Jo and Laurie’s clashing stubborn personalities are illuminated during the confession scene in which Jo insists she can’t be with Laurie while Laurie continues to badger her. After Jo admits that the main reason she went to New York was to get away from Laurie’s growing sense of attachment, he admits that it only made him love her more. He gave up “everything [she] didn’t like, never complained,” and hoped she would come to love him. Laurie’s confession is similar to that of a guy friend who has a crush on a friend and hopes that he will get her simply by being nice and hopeful. Furthermore, he tells her that if she says she loves the Professor, he will “do something desperate,” as if threatening her will convince her to love him. He then promises Jo that if she loves him, he would be a “perfect saint”; however, Jo rejects him because of fundamental differences in compatibility more so than his lack of saintly characteristics. Laurie continues to implore her to reconsider because “[e]veryone expects it. Grandpa has set his heart [on] you, your people like it, and I can’t get on without you.” It’s selfish that he insists she settle for what others wish for her than what she wishes for herself. If she followed his suggestion, it would negate her character as someone deeply rooted in individualism and upending societal expectations. Jo actually says as much in her response, “It’s selfish of you to keep teasing for what I can’t give you.” Laurie eventually travels to Europe, but not before sulking in his home while playing the piano tempestuously, avoiding Jo, and staring at her from the window with “a tragic face that haunt[s] her dreams.” Laurie’s attraction to Jo is natural, but his behavior after the rejection is self-destructive. He continues to make Jo the sole reason for his happiness. It’s the kind of response that hinders productivity and enjoyment of life, but also makes the other person feel guilty about their decision.

Unlike most of the other men in Jo’s life (of which there are very few as she hasn’t had much experience with men in general), she describes Friedrich’s physicality in greater detail and relays much of it in letters to her family back home. For example, early in their acquaintance, Jo hears him singing in German and notes that has the “kindest eyes [she] ever saw” and a “splendid voice that does one’s ears good,” but there is not a “handsome feature on his face.” Nonetheless she states that she likes him because “he [has] a fine head” and “[looks] like a gentleman,” alluding to her attraction to him being more cerebral than corporeal. When Friedrich advises Jo to study people’s characters to get a better sense about writing fiction, she studies his physicality and how it relates to his character -- she notes that he seems to “turn only his sunny side to the world,” that “time seems to have touched him gently” because of the kindness he bestows upon others, the “pleasant curves” around his mouth are due to his many friendly encounters and laughs with others, and “his eyes [are] never cold.” She thoroughly enjoys checking him out. Jo values character as a “better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty.” She ponders that if the qualities of “truth, reverence, and good will” are ‘great’ qualities, then her friend is “not only good, but great.” Her resolve on this matter strengthens every day and she values “his esteem, she [covets] his respect, and [she wants to be] worthy of his friendship.” When Friedrich later visits the March family, Jo notices that “he is dressed nicely and wonders if he is courting someone.” But realization soon follows her curiosity and she “[blushes] so dreadfully” that she “[drops] her ball” and goes after it to “hide her face.” Jo has progressed as a character by this time because the idea of Friedrich courting her does not disgust her as it once would have; instead, it makes her naturally self-conscious and fidgety.

Furthermore, it’s important to note how much of Friedrich’s tender masculinity aligns with Jo’s values about character. When Jo first notices Friedrich in the boarding house, he carries a “heavy hod of coal” all the way up the stairs for the servant girl and leaves with “a kind nod.” Jo likes such things and agrees with her father that such “trifles show character.” He leaves a good first impression on Jo; it also shows sincerity of character because he doesn’t know that she is observing him. At first she is perplexed why people admire Friedrich because he is “neither young nor handsome,” neither “fascinating [nor] brilliant,” and yet he is as attractive as “a genial fire” and people seem to “gather around him as naturally as about a warm hearth.” She concludes that it is his charisma, positivity, and good nature, not the superficiality of his looks or wealth.

Jo is reflective about society’s restrictions on her individualism and Friedrich is a natural companion because he represents the mentor figure who encourages her to think more deeply about her views. Friedrich’s philosophical background compliments Jo’s unique sense of feminist individuality. She greatly admires intellect and is proud to know that he was an “honored Professor in Berlin.” She observes that his “homely, hard-working life” beautifies the “poor language [master’s]” character much more in her eyes because he never speaks of his former esteemed life. Additionally, their shared sense of intellectual curiosity is illustrated during a moment on New Year’s Eve, when he gifts her Shakespeare’s works to study characters. She admits that “she never knew how much there was in Shakespeare before, but then again she never had [someone] to explain it to her.” One interpretation of this small moment is that it illustrates how much Jo has yet to discover about storytelling.

Moreover, she is entranced by Friedrich’s speech at the philosophical symposium as he defends religion and blazes with “honest indignation” and an eloquence that makes his “broken English musical and his plain face beautiful.” As he finishes his speech, she feels as if she has “solid ground under her feet again.” Jo not only agrees with Friedrich’s philosophical views, but is captivated by his delivery as well. It is a moment that coincides with her strong belief in individualism; she too wants to speak at this debate, but instead Friedrich gets the courage to do so and he speaks to her soul. Moreover, Friedrich reveals his strong distaste for sensationalist literature because he believes it sets a poor precedent for young people. Although he has a suspicion that Jo writes in her free time, he doesn’t know that Jo writes sensationalist literature or that she herself is uncomfortable about it. She doesn’t tell anyone about it for a long time. In order to publish her work, she is required to cut her sensationalist writing to one-third its original length. It receives mixed reviews after publication and she is generally jaded by the experience; she regrets not publishing the novel in its entirety. Jo is persuaded by Friedrich’s opinion on sensationalist literature and decides to stop writing pieces for the newspaper in pursuit of more principled stories. Soon after, she discovers that her passions lie with writing literature rooted in realism. There are some who would argue that Friedrich is patronizing here, but Jo also feels the same way and she discovers that she has more to offer the world than outlandish tales with no moral themes precisely through her interaction with him. Her efforts writing such stories are soulless and provide little personal meaning in her life and Friedrich’s strong opinions help her overcome her thankless endeavors.

Friedrich’s version of courting Jo is characterized by level-headed steadiness because he is unaware of her emotional and physical availability. Initially, he is suspicious that Jo and Laurie are more than friends when she wishes to introduce them. That night, he searches about the room “as if in search of something he [can] not find,” but he is still there to see her off at the train station the next morning. Although he likes Jo at this point, he does not act impulsively on his feelings because he is not sure about her feelings or her relationship with Laurie. Moreover, when he visits the March family after he realizes that something is amiss through Jo’s writing, he has a misconception that Jo and Laurie are a couple and “a shadow [passes] across his face” as he looks towards them. Friedrich’s realization is painful but he somehow manages to hide it and behaves amicably towards Jo and her family, which illustrates maturity and self-control. Additionally, he is confused by Jo’s “contradictions of voice, face, and manner” and her “half a dozen different moods” when he tells her that he is moving west. He doesn’t understand if she likes him or not and it’s only when she reveals her feelings that he also confesses he “waited to be sure if [she] was something more than a friend.” Jo confronts him about why he didn’t propose sooner, so he tells her that he thought she was betrothed to her friend, but he also wanted to have enough money to offer her a comfortable living. Friedrich’s courtship of Jo March is slow, steady, cautious, and level-headed. Due to his observant and compassionate nature, he is able to extrapolate Jo’s aversion to romantic pursuits and thus he approaches her mindfully with his own reservations.

Jo’s friendship and eventual romantic dynamic with Friedrich illustrates a relationship of equals in which she is able to fulfill her intellectual ambitions and overcome her fears about love and companionship. Their dynamic is set from their first interaction in which she unconventionally travels to New York alone as an unmarried woman. He then has a suspicion that she writes in her spare time and inspires her growth as a writer of passion instead of profit. Jo is captivated by the intellectual charm of such a man who delivers impassioned philosophical speeches at symposiums, who lives with integrity as a poor scholar in a foreign land, and has a unique charisma that attracts others to his presence. In return, Friedrich doesn’t expect anything to become of their friendship, even when he thinks Jo and Laurie are not a couple or when he’s confused by her contradictory range of emotions after he tells her that he’s leaving New England. And, neither does he feel threatened by her unique sense of ambition at a time when men’s ambitions are taken more seriously. He courts her like a patient and observant gentleman awaiting the final verdict about a woman’s romantic feelings, as if he is afraid to impulsively ruin a dearest friendship.

Friedrich Bhaer is no romantic, but neither is Jo. He is not one for passionate phrases about love, but Jo wouldn’t be impressed by such a companion. He has little wealth, yet Jo has lived her whole life in poverty so she is used to hard work. With the professor, Jo is able to live a life dedicated to her ambitions, where the social constructs of marital life need not necessarily apply, while also conquering her fears about love –that it doesn’t necessarily have to be about an unequal dynamic where the woman succumbs to a meaningless life of pure domesticity. Her dynamic with Friedrich is about being with someone who treats her as his intellectual equal, a kindred connection with someone outside of the loving but splintering family she was afraid to leave many years ago. In other words, it's hard to imagine a free-spirited woman like Jo, who has lived her whole life in the seclusion of her hometown with the safety and security of her family, not being captivated by an intellectually forward-thinking mentor type figure like Friedrich Bhaer. It is fitting that a woman so radical for her day forms a companionship with a charming, progressive intellectual.

Friedrich is Laurie’s foil in both his life experiences and characteristics. Laurie is an extroverted, wealthy socialite who has the privilege of pursuing intellectual interests, but would rather spend his time pursuing other things. He is impulsive and persistent in his pursuit of Jo. On the other hand, Friedrich is the poor scholarly professor in a foreign country who is soft-spoken and charming. He spends his time pursuing intellectual hobbies like attending philosophical symposiums. Both characters represent different aspects of Jo’s personality. Laurie represents her naiveté; he embodies her past and her too comfortable homely life. In contrast, Friedrich represents Jo’s growth into womanhood and a life away from the luxury of her comfortable home where she undergoes a feminist awakening about the kind of writer she can be. Her time with Friedrich also represents the challenges she is forced to confront regarding her own perspectives about the world and how she doesn’t necessarily have to forego love to life a fulfilled life. She can have both her intellectual ambitions and a companion who understands her.

Many have suggested that Laurie is a better companion for Jo. For example, some suggest that Jo and Laurie are good friends, have good chemistry, and know each other well. He wouldn’t constrict Jo’s ambitions, and therefore he would make a good life partner for her. While this is true, having good chemistry doesn’t necessarily translate to a successful romantic partnership. There are many people who we have good chemistry with in our lives, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they would be great life companions. Although they know each other well, Laurie doesn’t completely internalize Jo’s unromantic, stoic personality; he reveals this when he complains that she “won’t give anyone a chance” and “doesn’t show the soft side of [her] character.” He is needy for attention and love while Jo is more of an independent, free-spirited person who wouldn’t be able to provide that kind of love for him. Furthermore, just because he wouldn’t inhibit her ambitions, doesn’t mean that her ambitions wouldn’t be thwarted by marrying him and fulfilling her marital duties in wealthy society.

Another perspective is that Jo would have been better off single because she is a strong, independent woman and Friedrich was simply shoved in so Alcott could fulfill a romantic subplot. Although being single is what Alcott preferred for Jo, it contradicts Jo’s characterization in the novel. Jo is strong-willed, independent, and extremely ambitious and while all these things are great reasons for her to have a fulfilled life without the construct of marriage tying her down, she is also extremely averse to love and marriage because she fears the loneliness that it brings. She’s seen what these institutions do to her family -- they break it apart and it can never be completely repaired again because all of the fragments (the married sisters) are in different places (their married homes). By the end of the novel, Jo’s reality is one of loneliness and isolation -- the very things she feared all along. The inevitable happens. Moreover, Jo is in search of a belonging where she is able to be herself completely, but not feel the burden of societal normativity upon her shoulders. With Friedrich, she gets the best of both worlds -- she is able to pursue her intellectual passions as a writer because he is also passionate about philosophical ideas, they share similar world views about individualism, and she gets to have him as a friend, lover, and companion.

Alcott didn’t focus much on Jo and Friedrich’s dynamic, but she also didn’t focus much on the romantic stories of the other sisters as well. Romance was always going to take a back seat to the strong themes about family and womanhood presented in the novel, but it’s disingenuous to claim that because Alcott was required to pair Jo off with someone at the end, she decided to simply insert Friedrich as a subplot device and thus their relationship is random and forced. Regardless of whether or not one believes that Alcott succeeded in illustrating a believable romantic storyline, she did create a distinct character who compliments the unconventional heroine in many of the subversive ways a unique dynamic like Jo and Friedrich could have been depicted. She addresses Jo’s ambitions, her fears, her indifference to marrying for wealth or power, and her deep sense of intellectual curiosity -- in other words, it’s hard to imagine how such a radical character like Jo (for the times that she represents) could have ended up with anyone other than an intellectual type, someone who could continuously challenge and inspire her (as Friedrich does with her sensationalist writing, which inspires her to find where her passion lies). By introducing Friedrich’s character, Alcott wanted to make a bold statement and subvert societal expectations about what a potential romantic interest could look like. Therefore, it’s quite possible that she spent more time crafting his character. In fact, she seems to have thought about the character quite purposefully and thoughtfully.

Although Alcott didn’t intend for Jo to be paired off at the end of Little Women, it’s unlikely that she would half-heartedly insert a romantic interest in order to fulfill a requirement. By making Friedrich Bhaer a counter stereotypical character, one who subverts conventional stereotypes about masculinity, she was very intentional in the kind of lesson she wanted to impart about social class, intellectualism, unconventional romances, and a relationship founded on equality. Jo’s dynamic with him represents the subversion of societal norms; they are intellectual equals. With Friedrich, she remains an ambitious, impassioned individual with greater clarity about how to focus her passion for writing. On the other hand, Laurie represents Jo’s innocence and comfortable family life. They are two stubborn and alike individuals who seek a belonging in each other – Laurie seeks her feminine presence while Jo wants to live vicariously through Laurie’s masculine energy. Alcott never married, but she created a romantic interest who understood Jo while many others stood by shell shocked. It’s through Friedrich Bhaer that Alcott revealed a part of herself and her ideals.

**A special thanks to @fairychamber for the thought-provoking discussions and review of this piece.**

Sources

“Alcott: Not the ‘Little Woman’ You Thought She Was.” NPR: Morning Edition. 29 Dec. 2009.

Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. DigiReads Publishing, 2015.

*Azelina. “Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Moods’ and Transcendentalism.” Wordpress. 2012.

Brewton, Vince. “Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882).” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

*Campbell, G. Jacqueline. “Gender & The Civil War.” Essential Civil War Curriculum.

Hartman, W. Dorothy. “Lives of Women.” Conner Prairie.

Rogers, Olivia. “Louisa May Alcott’s Transcendentalism.” Live Ideas Journal. 19 Mar 2019.

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be-ready-when-i-say-go · 4 years ago

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may i ask how you got into writing? how old were you and what drew you to it opposed to other things and paths you could’ve gone?

I got into writing at a young age. My dad would write poems for my NaNa on her birthday day, on Mother’s Day, etc. I started writing poems and journaling to help with my parents divorce, so I had to be like 6 or 7. How I got into writing fanfics and my own fiction is another story, but all you have to do is ask if you want to hear.

Along the way I’ve done other things dabbling in choir though it was short lived, dancing (which I so desperately want to get back into). I didn’t really play a sport they weren’t my thing. I got into video games and I’m big into movies. But I’ve always been writing. The thing that I love more than writing itself is story telling. I can tell a story in art, or through song, through dance, through film, through video games.

So, a more accurate statement is that, I’ve always been telling stories. In my head. On paper. With my body. I’ve always been telling stories and that’s what draws me into it. I have a BA in Psychology. I signed up and took the GRE. I was signed up for information for Master’s degrees in Counselings. But I couldn’t tell stories that way. And I told myself I could write on the side. I could be creative on the side until being creative paid out more.

It doesn’t help that my junior year of undergrad I hit a pretty steep decline in my mental health and didn’t think I could really help anyone since I couldn’t help myself. But I missed telling stories. And sure, I had a minor in Creative Writing and sure I was dreaming up big with poetry collections and novels and novellas. But I realized if I did my MA in Counseling and went down that road, I wouldn’t have been satisfied.

And I tell myself, even now, after flying across the fucking country, sitting in my apartment in Arizona that I can go back to Counseling. I can always backtrack, but why the fuck would I have moved across country to get a degree in Creative Writing if I’m only going to backtrack?

That’s not even related to your question at all, sweetheart. But yeah, it’s been me, pens, notebooks, laptops, and journals for going on 18/19 years. So Psychology was definitely interesting and I love it and i wish to god now I could go back and take a class in it. I wish I could learn more about Abnormal Psychology and Community-Based Prevention Plans and there’s a part of myself that loves that, but there’s a larger part that loves telling stories.

It’s risky as hell to go after my MFA and pursue writing as my career. But I ain’t let a risk stop me yet.

-H

Come talk to me

#asks #answered #anon #truth be told i dragged ass on the idea of an MA in counseling #i mean i had folks at the ready to help me get experience just with my BA #but my soul always stopped me #and i guess where i'm at is the reason why

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hecallsmehischild · 5 years ago

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Grieving the Good

Beyond Boundaries by Dr. John Townsend claims there are six components for grieving a lost relationship. Most of the steps are already inherent to how I deal with pain, and I recognized each as I went through them. One, however, took me off guard. It makes sense, but it hadn’t been said to me before.

3. Name what you valued.

When you value someone, you affirm that he or she is important to you. When the connection is over, there are certain aspects of the person and the relationship that you miss the most. There are the values you have to grieve. {List of examples follows}

Sometimes, the value you need to grieve is connected to specific memories as well. It could be a trip you took or a private joke you shared. It might be a time of deep intimacy in which you were very close. Perhaps it was good times with the family.

Why is it important to name the specific things you valued? Because you must say good-bye to the entire person, not simply the negative parts of the person. You cannot walk away from the things you disliked, which may be the things that ended the relationship, without also saying goodbye to the things you loved as well. A half grief is never a healing grief.

It has been seven months since I ended a ten year friendship. Things have been better. I feel more healing every week that goes by. However, I am still stuck some days. I still cycle fruitlessly through each thing that hurt me. In my head, I argue and shout and scream until I’m acknowledged. I deliver biting, sarcastic lines designed to cut. I make it so that this time, I’m not the one in a thousand pieces on the floor.

I can’t seem to move on from this simmering anger on the back burner. I want it to protect me, but I know that’s not what it will do. It will turn into bitterness and a permanent wall that will hinder me from connecting to new people in my life. I also know, though, that if I try to suppress or ignore it, it will come back to bite me in other nasty ways down the line. So I continue to try and find ways of legitimately dealing with it, torn between letting it run its course and trying to find ways to let go.

I have grieved the negative parts and events for months, now, though I have not publicly disclosed all the specific events that led to this dissolution. It is time to grieve the good. I will grieve the good without asking which parts were lies and which were truths, because I’ve already asked myself that untold times and there is no answer to be had. At the time, it was all true, and I will grieve that.

My friend,

You are one of the two people that I know who writes at what I call a college-Lit-class-level. It’s a very specific compliment that carries a great deal of my awe. I know many truly wonderful writers who floor me every time I read their work. But I do believe your work, if published, could be taught in college classes. Not everyone would get it. You probably will not have a broad readership. It took me years of reading your writing to start to understand what you were getting at. It’s a small niche, but people who understand what you’re saying, well. Their conscience will be smitten. Your wordplay and sensory overload descriptions are brilliant. I will miss getting to read your work in advance and offering what I could to the editing process. I will miss cheering every time you got accepted for publication. I will miss collecting any printed piece you got published and begging for your autograph. I grieve that I will never hold your published novel and say, “See? I knew you could do it.” I still know you can.

We made two books together. Did you know how fun that was? Yes, there was some pain in the process, but we made two children’s books. You crafted two lovely stories. You weighed in on design ideas and I illustrated them. I am much more comfortable with my tablet and Art Rage after 9 and 6 months spent on the respective books. I have some concept of character design, simply by doing it over and over. This isn’t something I ever sought to pursue myself, but I learned a little of it through trial and error and repetition. Perhaps you will take the stories and have someone else illustrate them for publication. That is okay. I have my copies. They are the only two I can’t part with, even now. I will miss creating children’s books with you, friend. I grieve the ones we will never make. I grieve these ones will never be seen, but for the few copies that exist among friends and ourselves.

I miss sharing music with you, trying to find songs you would enjoy and occasionally finding for you one you’d searched for without success. I will never hear many of the songs you would have sent me, a lifetime of accumulated musical taste we could have traded.

I miss your passionate conversation about topics that interested you. You were never annoying, in spite of your concerns about being so. I could have listened to talk about your passions for hours. I miss how, when we got together, we could (and did) literally talk for hours, as if jamming together all the time we hadn’t spent together. I miss our long-distance communication. The wall-o-text emails. The few months we did Marco Polo, when we thought it would revolutionize our communication to be able to pick up on tone and facial expression. I miss getting to show you the cool little mundane things about my day. I grieve the loss of our communication.

You and I shared our deep sorrows and victories. We shared vulnerability and acceptance. We both mourned friendships that didn’t last or people who used us and wondered why people were so quick to cast loyal friends aside. I thought I could talk to you about anything and everything that hurt. I kept that belief very shielded from the things I knew I absolutely could not bring to you. Fortified heavily with denial was the belief that you were a safe person, and during the time I believed it, it was a good thing for me. I grieve the loss of that. I grieve the loss of trusting that you were really going to tell me the truth once you confessed to your lies, and that there were and would be no more lies between us.

I saw a great beauty in you, and I wanted so desperately to see that beauty bloom and grow, and to have been a small part of that because I felt you were so much wiser, smarter, more talented than me. I grieve that I will never see what becomes of you in this life up close. I hope, desperately, that you do heal and grow.

Once, when I really needed it, you stood up for me. Though details have come into question, now, in that moment I fully believed I needed it, and you were there for me. In the very early years of our friendship, you provided a friendly and safe-feeling place to talk with you. We talked about anything and everything. I grieve that.

I grieve the gifts I could not keep, chosen with care for every birthday and every Christmas. I grieve the joy I took in picking out gifts for you as well.

You loaned me your knowledge. Knowledge about health and food, theology and psychology. Book recommendations that were dead on what I needed to know and what my brain was able to process correctly. Articles you sent that made you think of me. You have had your head more in the real world than I ever cared to, and when I was stymied about how to even research, you shared your store of collected knowledge with me.

You had such insight. I felt that you “saw” me, and you phrased what you saw in me all so beautifully. I thought I was so fortunate to be friends with someone like you, who would point out my strengths in such a healing way. Do you even comprehend what a balm your words can be, when you want?

I remember playing the What-Does-M-See game. Because you said you could see the spiritual realm. Now I don’t know what to believe, but at the time, I was always in awe when you saw or described something. Especially if it was about me, and especially if it was accurate to something in my life.

I miss praying with you in the early days, when we first got to be prayer partners in the huge house.

I’d never had a delicious vegan meal before. You astounded me by cooking incredible savory 100% vegan dishes. And I got to cook one dish for you that you fell in love with. And even when we lived apart, it was fun to cook with you over Skype, creating the same dish across several states’ distance.

I’d only recently begun reading aloud books for you. Books I thought spoke to your situation, or books that I hoped held some answers for you. I grieve that I will not be able to share with you like you shared with me.

Slumbertale was a short story born out of our friendship. I wanted to sustain you from week to week. Give you something to look forward to. I miss coming up with a new few paragraphs of the story each week and waiting for your reaction to the next twist in the tale. I miss picking out a weekly treat to mail you. I miss making gestures of Philia (deep friendship)--nearly Storge (familial)--love and having them received. I grieve the loss of the times I was able to shine a little light into the darkness for you.

You actually got me to like parenthesis. With a super creative poem. How even? I was so anti-parenthesis in fiction and storytelling, but you did the thing. I liked it so much I had to literally paint the poem.

Some of my most beautiful artwork and poetry were inspired by something you said or wrote, or a part of who you were. You influenced my poetry style. You twined into my craft sphere. We even started a mini-partnership about my trees, remember? I wanted to start writing micro-fiction, but was having a hard time titling the trees. Your titles were spot on and creative and always inspired a fabulous story. I offered $2 per title if the tree sold because I wanted to. Now I title them myself, and have only just returned to the micro-fiction, because the grief was so sharp.

I believed you were someone worth flying out for on as short notice as I could afford during the absolute worst times. I did this three times. I grieve being able to hold the belief that you deserved this, and much more, from me. I grieve the image of you that I had and refused to release for so long.

I grieve good times in Seattle, the city I never want to visit again because the painful associations now outweigh the good associations. You were the last remaining reason I ever wanted to return there.

I remember one time, during a visit to you, I spiked myself into a panic attack. I had ordered a mocha from one of Seattle’s hipster one-off coffee shops. I could tell from the first sip that the balance skewed way more toward coffee than chocolate, and that it might be too strong for me, but I drank it anyway. And shortly after, my heart was hammering and my breathing was shallow and every dread in my heart came screaming up to the surface of my skin. And I asked you for a hug, and in the middle of the coffee shop, with no embarrassment, you held me. Spoke gently into my ear. Helped me regulate my breathing. Helped me back down to a tolerable level of anxiety (it would be a few hours before the caffeine totally left my system).

You wrote me a journal in response to the one I wrote to you. Then you spent months helping me decode your handwriting so I understood all of what you had to say.

You wrote the single piece of derivative fiction (or fan fiction) that exists for my still unfinished novel. You accompanied it with components of a visual piece of art for me to assemble, one that directly related to the story you’d written, in spite of you “not being a visual person.” It had so much meaning to me.

You gave me a deeply meaningful nickname, and called me that almost to the exclusion of my name.

I miss your laughter. I miss your sense of humor. I miss your warmth.

I grieve the good in you, and I grieve the good I received from you. I grieve the good we made together, and the good we shared with each other. As hurt and furious as I am, I still miss you. But I will not return this time. I cannot express to you how much I hope you heal, truly heal, and learn to relate to people. I wish you well. I wish you healing. I wish you true joy. I wish you a life where you do not have to leave claw-marks behind.

Goodbye.

#emotional abuse #rlchild #grieving #goodbyes

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absinthehq · 5 years ago

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DAI RUOGANG

THIRTY THREE. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF VEGAS TIMES NEWSPAPER.

trigger warning for death / murder mention, substance abuse.

Known as the Vegas' Hellion, Ruogang is always in pursuit of a good story. Originally from Taiwan, his parents made their way to America as two ambitious lawyers who founded themselves in the city of sin, Vegas.

As a child, Ruogang was known for pulling pranks on his parents with the horrendous stories he'd make up to tell them, or his poems proudly pinned to the fridge on the kitchen. He was a poet, a dreamer and an idealist -- but soon he'd find out the world didn't revolve around love or poetry. It revolved around money. And good stories weren't made of poetry, they were drawn in blood.

His parents discouraged him from going to college as a creative writing major, simply because they wanted him to make money instead of winding up in a ditch somewhere, drunk and lonely and writing his Bukowski-like poetry about love and women. So he pursued a career in investigative journalism instead, hungry and hollow for a good story, always in the search for the best perspective. The bloodier the better, the found. The public eye loved drama, and so he gave it to them soon as he landed himself a job at the Vegas Times.

The job had been thanks to his father's connections in the city, but everything else had been earned by a power-starved, desperate, ambitious Ruogang. Including the several promotions that rose him to the position as chief editor of the Vegas Times, as early as thirty-three years old, he was full of life and death, full of contradictions and mysteries. As a professional, he became a hellish writer, and as a person, an even more difficult man to handle: Ruogang never leaves his curiosity behind, nor his bullet journal and ipad, should a good story ever come up to him. And it always does.

As the chief editor in the newspaper, it's his job to assure the news are good, but most importantly, interesting. He goes to sleep at night knowing that power and truth cannot always walk alongside one another, and sometimes the stories he sells aren't necessarily the truth. Just rumors.

But Cesare's death? It should have been a rumor. It was too good to be true of a story, and it was a midnight call he received that confirmed Cesare's death. He heard and posted it first -- he remembers the hungry visits on the Vegas Times website, all the eyes on his story: famous businessman and philanthropist found dead at sixty years old. It made for such a good headline that he couldn't help but dig further... did Cesare truly have connections in the mafia? Often disregarded as a rumor, Ruogang found it to be his life mission to investigate further.

Lately he doesn't sleep. He has connections that have helped him find the rotten in Cesare's gold, and it seems that he's getting closer to exposing the Bonventre family. Despite his curious nature, he may just be getting into the exact kind of trouble he shouldn't be. Although Ruogang knows he's far too important to die, he's just another one on the Bonventre's death list, and if he's not careful enough, he may just get burnt in the fire that he's been trying so hard to put out. Can he find the answers to the publc's question.. and furthermore.. can he bring a good story out of a bloody mess of a potential murder?

GLORY AND GORE GO HAND IN HAND…

Nina Collins: She’s been hired by Ruogang, personally, to investigate the Bonventre. It’s not like Nina isn’t interested herself either -- she also has her own agenda. But it seems she’s getting too close to the fire, and an engagement to the middle child of the Bonventre might just be exactly what he needs.. someone infiltrated in the family.

Eduardo de Assis: Eduardo is his best journalist, period. He gets the good stories, the best angles, the worst perspectives. It all comes from within.. he seems to be just as ambitious as a younger Ruogang back in the days. Eduardo might just replace Ruogang, should anything happen -- he’s his right hand, after all.

Chander Adhya: His current boyfriend. The word sounds awfully strange to a lonesome Ruogang, since it took him some time to come out of the closet -- to himself and his family, but he’s been happy with Chander so far. It’s a shame they met through Cesare’s club, Absinthe, but Ruogang intends to keep Chander out of his investigation. If Absinthe goes to ruins, he doesn’t want his loved ones anywhere near it.

Alex McTeer: Nobody can know the editor-in-chief of Vegas newspaper takes one or two pills to avoid sleep at times. They haven’t been prescribed by any doctor, and sometimes he stays awake for days on end, addicted to the drugs Alex has provided him. He doesn’t want to admit it, but it’s become a problem -- and even Alex themselves see it.

THAT’S WHY WE’RE MAKING HEADLINES!

✉ SENT @ 1:54pm → ALEX: when can you bring it over? ✉ SENT @ 2:57pm → CHANDER: i can’t come over tonight. work reunion. ✉ SENT @ 1:32am → EDUARDO: you and nina must work together.

available. faceclaim: godfrey gao (non-negotiable)

#godfrey gao fc #rp #rpg #roleplay #mafia rp #open: all #open: male #open: unaffiliated #mw #dai ruogang

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bloomwithaurelia · 2 years ago

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Sometimes I wish I was a coffee person. One of those people that gets a new lease on life by inhaling the scent of coffee beans in the morning. Ngl it smells great. Though coffee and my brain just don't match. ….

Honestly I've been a little stuck lately. And by little I mean a complete standstill. The sqeakiest grinding halt in history. Or so it seems. I have figured out things I no longer want to do, but am not quite sure what I do want. And it feels like time is running out. For some odd reason it feels like I should know by now, after nearly 3 decades on this planet, what it is that I want to pursue and what will make me financially independent.

I've already read the final words of this chapter I'm in and am (desperately) eager to start the next, but as I'm turning the page I got a papercut and as I'm tending to the battlewound I misplaced the entire book, mid page turning. Yes the drama. I'm drifting in a strange limbo where one morning I wake up and am pinned to my matras as anxiety has sunken deep into my bones, weighing me down. Fast forward to the next morning where I'm unstoppable, with a restless urge to make something of my life and pursue the 100th new side hustle or passive income I've come across on tiktok. And then I get hit by the 'why'. Annoyingly so I just can't seem to commit to a job or anything that isn't meaningful, serves the greater good or has some intrinsic value to it.

And I want to honour my inner child, finally. I really do. And not over exhaust her by committing to longterm plans that will guarantee (financial) stability while I'm not sure if they are really for me. I still am quite ashamed for not having figured out this part.

I realised I was ashamed for so many things that I just actively would keep myself hidden. For the longest time. And now I'm here. Trying to just be. And honour my inner Tumblr girl by sharing my thoughts online and learning as I go. Trying to untangle the shame and limiting beliefs.

But what I would really want? I suppose freedom to express, exchange creativity and have inspiring conversations with like-minded, passionate creatives. A place of my own, a little dog, travel, To write poetry, and songs. Exchange my million ideas and creative vomits in communities that match my infinite energy for creating. But how? This I don't know(yet).

All I know is that I want to make intentional decisions instead of fearbased ones. #truth #diary #

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comingouttoteach · 6 years ago

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Week 3

We began the week thinking about inclusion. It felt a bit overwhelming trying to think of how to support every specific need, however, I think once I am in the classroom, having spoken to colleagues and spoken to the pupil/s it will all come together. Effective communication is key. The group I worked in were focusing on dyslexia. We came up with some obvious tools to use in the classroom, such as a writing slope, C-pen, window rulers, coloured acetate sheets and rainbow reading rulers. We then thought more broadly about how the lessons themselves might be tailored to make them as accessible as possible. If a person has issues surrounding reading and writing, then we thought it necessary to vary lesson styles: we could use music, song and sounds, maximise visual learning with images and drawing, create a tactile element, even if it means just passing round an object to hold and finally, movement. This second train of thought would surely benefit everyone. However important a student’s particular leaning towards a learning style actually is (visual, kinesthetic, aural), implementing variety isn’t going to be a hindrance, especially once the teacher-student/s relationship has been built and the learner’s feel safe. We decided that there are NO excuses for a person with special needs or a disability not to be able to access a lesson.

Writing is.....

A cognitive activity -thought process

Socio-cultural -social act, socially constructed tool

Linguistic -terminology is a building block

None of these are more important than the others, but, in being forced to pick sides we discussed the topic with more vivacity than if we’d been merely presented with three aspects. We’re starting to catch on the the tutors’ tricks now.

Top tip: If you ever want to feel the pain of a person who struggles to write, try writing a whole short story with your left hand in a time-pressured situation. You will feel the following: angry, bored, ashamed, distracted, frustrated.

SCHOOL

I’m in school. It’s a cracking school. I had an unfortunate first commute though. I got there ten minutes before the bus arrived, patiently waited, whilst reading Great Expectations; the bus arrived, I got on and to my horror there was no card payment option (classic millennial problem, which shouldn’t have been mine because I’m not a millennial). I didn’t have enough of a breakdown or enough charm to convince the bus driver to let me on so shuffled off. The next bus was DUE so I ran to the nearest cash machine. On my way back I saw the bus departing, and noted that it was most definitely a bus on which you could pay by card. The next bus would get me in four minutes late which was unacceptable. I nearly-in-tears called my partner who sent me an uber (I repaid her with a fancy much-deserved meal out) and eventually arrived with 15 minutes to spare. Nothing could be worse than that I thought, and nothing actually was. The school is lovely, very big, everyone is friendly, behaviour is generally good with low level chatter, I only saw one member of staff wearing a suit and that was the headteacher. All in all I feel grateful to be here although I sometimes feel a bit out of place, like when I was pursuing a pupil for the day and there’d be no where to sit, or when my Year 8 tutor group were highly enthusiastic and I had no luck in calming them down, or when I was in department office and everyone was talking about the cost of their children’s school clubs and my only dependent is a house plant. I spent most of the week adjusting to the feeling of being new and awkward. Here are some things I took away from it though:

- If people know something about each other they will work better, more effectively together. - we gotta be honest, brave and resilient! (advice from my dynamic and spirited professional tutor) - a ‘sweep’ is a quick-fire feedback strategy where everyone contributes and no one repeats an idea. - Lesson planning should at first consider the ‘who’, ‘why’, ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ before the ‘how’ - When you give instructions to a class, show them an example of WAGOLL, which is not a dance move but a What A Good One Looks Like. - When observing lessons, think of a focus point before you go in, and it can be helpful to pay particular attention to aspects you think you may be weaker at. For example, I want to observe a lesson next week and focus on presence and voice. - ‘Challenging behaviour or conflict may arise as a result of unmet needs’ - a good quote.

My classes that I actually will actually be teaching soon:

Year 7 - Performance poetry Year 9 - Romeo and Juliet Year 10 - Creative writing

What a dream! I have only observed one lesson of these groups so far, which was with the Year 9s, and they spent half of that watching the Baz Luhrmann film, but they seemed engaged and well behaved. I have to come up with a starter idea and teach it on Wednesday. Help?

Celebrating Creativity Conference

Alternative title, Practice What You Preach. On Friday we were safely back in university where we met PGCE English cohorts from three other universities and participated in a day of thinking, writing and more socialising. The idea was that teachers should identify as writers and should write creatively as much as possible. Since starting the PGCE I have not written for pleasure at all, which is something I would like to change. There was an inspiring talk by an author of some notable YA fiction, an adventurous group writing task, various workshops and some individual writing time. The workshop I attended, Creative Writing for Grammar, got me inspired about grammar, and made me want to understand better how grammar works. As I mentioned, I have been reading Great Expectations and have continued to note how the variety in sentence structure is what makes the text so rich and playful. Some things I learned from the workshop:

It’s not about where the verb is, it’s about what it does.

Grammar is for... - developing knowledge about language. - using metalanguage to talk about grammar. - Making connections between grammar and writing.

Did you know that writing is as cognitively challenging as playing a game of chess because of the number of decisions your brain has to make?

LEAD (a good way to teach grammatical techniques):

ink: make a link between the grammar being introduced and how it works in the writing being taught.

xamples: explain the grammar through examples rather than lengthy explanations.

uthenticity: use examples from an authentic text to link writing to the broader community of writers.

Discuss: as a whole class, discuss the grammatical choices and how they affect the text.

The final message of the workshop was that a teacher should ‘create space to engage the imagination and the emotions - help the writers want to write.’

In summary, I have gathered a lot which I can potentially put into practice. The reality of standing up in front of a class will soon be upon me and I hope that not all my knowledge scurries off into the darkness, leaving me as desperate and fearful as Pip in a graveyard.

#pgce #english teacher #charles dickens #teaching

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findmyhouse · 7 years ago

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EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER - LOVE BEACH (1978): 4/10

Yeah! How do you like that album cover? What the hell happened? Okay, time for a little history lesson. Remember how the band used an orchestra on the previous two albums? Well, one day Keith said to the other guys: “Hey, wouldn’t it be a great idea if we took an orchestra with us on our next tour?” And… well, to be honest, it actually was a great idea. Artistically, at least. Backing up the old and the new ELP hits with orchestral arrangements resulted in some outstanding performances that were captured on the live album Works Live, which I heartily recommend to anyone who's interested in the band. Financially however, this was a really bad move. Paying the musicians and transporting their equipment was such a financial strain that the band would inevitably lose money unless they sold every last seat at every venue. And they didn’t succeed at that because the popularity of progressive rock as a whole took a nosedive in the late seventies. The genre's emphasis on complex rhythms and structures, esoteric concepts and instrumental virtuosity became more and more associated with snobbish elitism and was rejected by the new generation, which instead flocked to the more approachable, raw and rocking sound of punk rock bands such as the Sex Pistols, who regularly mocked progressive rock bands as part of their performances, with their famous “I hate Pink Floyd” t-shirts, and their burning of Yes and ELP records on stage. In addition, the music industry itself changed around this time and became far less receptive towards experimental music than it had been throughout the decade.

So, to make a long story short, ELP were in a bad spot in 1978, and were further plagued by deteriorating personal relations between the band members, as well as conflicts with the record company which demanded a hot-selling record. Love Beach was made in a desperate attempt to reach out to a new audience: it’s made up primarily of a bunch of lightweight pop songs but also throws in a few progressive-sounding tunes to please their old audience. The result, predictably, pleased no one at all and made ELP the laughing stock of the music world. Even the band members themselves have frequently mocked it. What else could they do? This album is just too easy to mock. Just look at it! Even the liner notes hardly say anything about the music and mostly just talk about how much fun the band had on the Bahamas, where the album was recorded.

I mean, you can tell that there are some creative problems when a singer has trouble trying to make the third line on an album fit within the meter. At the same time, Keith changes his synthesizer tones from otherwordly and ominous to sickly sweet and sappy, and Carl plays an awkward drumming part that never seems to get off the ground. And despite all of that, I still have to count “All I Want Is You” among the better songs on here, because it shows at least a wee bit of classical influence and of the old production style (and to be fair, this is hardly worse than Greg’s pop stuff on Works, Volume 1).

However, things very rapidly go off the deep end with the title track and “Taste Of My Love”, which are basically guitar-led cock rock anthems that have Greg singing oversexed smut that would make even Gene Simmons blush with embarrassment (Oh, I almost forgot: all of the lyrics on this album were written by Peter Sinfield, who originally rose to fame by supplying King Crimson with his hallucinatory texts about 21st century schizoid men and rusted chains of prison moons, and who just five years earlier thought up the apocalyptic machine warfare themes for Brain Salad Surgery. Now he writes such lovely slices of poetry like “I’m gonna love you like nobody ever loved you; Climb on my rocket and we’ll fly”). Anyway, these songs are far too tame instrumentation-wise to appeal to the general sleaze-rock crowd, and far too simplistic to not infuriate anyone expecting to hear the ELP of old: Keith’s synthesizer parts feel like they were added to these tracks more out of obligation rather than because they actually contributed something of substance to the music.

“The Gambler” goes for a comedic mood again, but really overstays its welcome with its generic female backing vocals as well as some shitty ukelele and some equally shitty harmonica to spice up the pill. Oh well, at least it has some funny keyboard playing. And "For You" ... well, that one's actually alright. Unlike the rest of the album, it's more melancholic and reflective than sappy and jolly, and it has some nice echoey guitar playing, too. I couldn't care less about the "rocking" coda though (in quotes because it just sounds kind of torpid).

In contrast to the first side of the LP, the second side holds tracks that are basically bones thrown toward the band's traditional audience. The first track on here, "Canario", is also not bad. It's another classical cover (of a piece by Joaquín Rodrigo) that still sounds overly sweet and kinda cheesy but at least it has some dang energy which is sorely missing on the rest of the album, particularly on the next track, where things get really murky when the boys try to pen one more epic multi-part suite in the old prog style, called “Memoirs Of An Officer And A Gentlemen”. Don’t expect another “Tarkus” here: this whole suite is just a big toss-off. Almost the whole thing is in the same key and the same plodding tempo, and it sticks to the same disgustingly cheerful atmosphere that dominates the rest of the album. Furthermore, the lyrics try to sound really grandiose and world-shattering but, when taking the utterly banal subject matter into account (a soldier falls in love with a nurse but oh no she died the end), just come off as pathetic. But worst of all, Keith's keyboard playing feels completely sterile and forced throughout the whole thing, and there's no impressive synth solo to hear for miles around. The final movement, "Honourable Company", is a gradually intensifying march that's obviously intended as a rewrite of "Aquatarkus", but it has no climax and just ends up sounding like really bad theme park music (I apologize if I overuse this analogy in my reviews but I really can't think of a better thing to compare it to. Do you remember waiting in line for an Indiana Jones ride and hearing some super-cheesy tune for the grand, magical adventure you're about to go on? Yeah, that's the one ). Not even the gratuitous Chopin quotations help bring the suite to life or anything resembling life.

Oh, I'm sorry. I must come across as angry right now, but honestly, the spectacular stupidity of this album makes it impossible to actually hate or get angered by. The incompatibility of Emerson, Lake & Palmer with their newly created popstar image, combined with the unconvincing manner in which they pursued this new direction, makes Love Beach one of the most hilariously ham-fisted and ill-conceived products in the history of mainstream rock music. So just don’t take it too seriously. Don’t look for quality here. Just let the stupid sink in and have a blast.

Allmusic's original review of this album consisted of just one sentence which read: "A record that ELP released only because they owed it to their original label, and that's all one needs to know." I suppose it’s a mystery whether the band just wanted to make a few dollars and please Atlantic Records or if they actually wanted to make a turn in this direction, but in any case, the album flopped both commercially and critically. Now reviled by their former fans and belittled by their enemies, the trio finally called it quits and went their separate ways.

Best song: eh, I guess it's probably CANARIO

#ELP #Progressive rock

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