#i am going into london for the progress show later and just UGH

[aleisters]

sick with anxiety today … no … !!!

[ineffable-endearments]

Waking up in July

(Rating: G. Approx. 1917 words.)

July 1, 2020.

On reaching for the snooze, Crowley discovers an envelope he definitely didn’t leave on top of his phone. (Mail doesn’t usually get delivered to his bedside, of course, but given the handwriting on the front, Crowley has the impression divine intervention was involved this time.)

Dear Crowley,

I am writing to you in frustration. Not with you, you must understand, but with myself. There are a few things I do believe need clarifying.

Given everything that’s happened, I feel strongly that I ought to be behaving in solidarity with the guidelines the people of London have set for themselves. I must admit, it was a surprise to hear you express the same sentiment. I’ve always known you aren’t cruel enough to want to see innocent people fall ill (don’t you roll your eyes at this letter; you said it yourself), but I thought surely you would have your own ways of getting around the lockdown, carrying on outside the rules and indulging in mischief as you always do. Were this the case, it would only be responsible to invite you over here, to decrease your bad influence.

And yet, this was not the case. Still, after declining your offer when we spoke, I felt somehow unsatisfied, or perhaps at loose ends. It would have been very nice to share my baking with someone who is not attempting to steal my cashbox.

If you read this letter before July, do know you’re encouraged to reach out. We could at least speak telephonically. And if you don’t read this before July, know I will be immensely happy to meet with you again as soon as you awaken.

(There’s a long gap between the end of the paragraph and the end of the letter itself.)

Crowley...I suppose the truth is I miss you very much.

Yours, always,

Aziraphale

“Sentimental old sap,” Crowley says out loud. How else is he going to dislodge the painfully fond lump in his throat? “Right. Time to see what’s going on, then.”

=

Continue below or read the rest on AO3

One rushed mobile search and five minutes later, Crowley has an approximate idea of where the humans stand. They haven’t done the greatest job of getting the virus under control, but they seem to have made...progress? Arguably? Ugh, they could have done better. At any rate, if he and Aziraphale want to see each other, they’re going to have to form a...a “support bubble.”

The notion of asking Aziraphale out loud if he would like to be in something called a “support bubble” together almost makes Crowley want to turn around and go back to sleep.

On second thought, the angel would probably get a kick out of it, and the awful naming scheme would give Crowley something to gripe about, so all’s well that ends well, really.

The bookshop phone barely rings before Aziraphale’s voice is on the line. “Hello. I’m afraid we’re closing early--”

“Good,” Crowley says. “I’m not calling you to buy books.”

“Crowley!”

Oh, that’s a familiar delight in his voice. That’s rescuing-from-the-Bastille, cleaning-paint-off-his-coat, showing-up-for-Armageddon-in-a-flaming-car delight.

“Good morning, angel.”

“So very much has happened. I’d like to fill you in, but oh, I don’t even know where to begin...”

Crowley frowns at his phone, worried. “A lot has happened? What, at the shop?”

“No, no, I mean in the world.”

“All right. Well. Just start in...I dunno, start off from our last conversation, I fell asleep pretty much right away--”

“Come to the shop,” Aziraphale blurts. “You have to wear a mask, and-- and don’t go anywhere else, but it’s allowed. It...it’s okay now.”

“I’ll be there in five,” Crowley says, grinning, ready to ignore any admonishments about speed limits.

“Wait! Crowley?”

“Hmm?”

“Actually. If you come see me before July 4, we...we have to be in, ah. A support bubble.” There it is. “Have you heard about that yet?”

“Sure I have.” Crowley does his best to sound gruff and unaffected.

“You couldn’t be in anyone’s place but mine, you know. And even after the fourth, you couldn’t...get closer than two metres to anyone but me, even though you could visit--”

“Aside from the fact that all this is totally for show anyway, stop worrying, it’s fine,” Crowley insists. He miracles himself the least-ugly mask he can contemplate and bustles out the door, hurrying irritatedly back a minute later to grab the “something drinkable” he forgot.

They don’t even sit down right away, much less get within the 2 metres of each other. Aziraphale does, however, give Crowley a long, pleasantly intense look (it appears to be a proper drinking-in) when he enters the shop.

“Did you, ah,” Aziraphale clasps his hands together. “Did you get my letter?”

“I did,” Crowley says. “Got a bit bored, did you?”

Aziraphale sighs, impatient. “I suppose you could put it that way.”

“I’d have come over, you know,” Crowley says softly, just loud enough for Aziraphale to hear. “You could have called. Had my phone right by the bed.”

“I know,” Aziraphale responds, not any louder. He looks away to the table next to him, makes a show of studying a book that wouldn’t have moved from the shelf since 1949 if it weren’t for Adam’s reorganization. “But if you’d...stayed here, wouldn’t you have been bored?”

Crowley shrugs. “Maybe. I’m sure being bored here wouldn’t be worse than being bored at home.”

“If you were here, hunkering down as you put it, we might have got in each other’s way. I’m sure it would have been lovely for a while, but what about after a day or two? Or after a week? A month?”

“You have always liked being left alone with your work,” Crowley muses. “I could have gone to sleep here, too, though. I know you’ve got that little flat with the single bed you haven’t used since 1993 upstairs.”

At this, something in Aziraphale’s face loosens, and he looks almost as if he might smile. “Oh, now what kind of host banishes his guest upstairs for bedtime?”

“You absolutely would. Or I could just come visit and leave. Rules only apply to us if we decide they should, right?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Aziraphale says. “I was stuck. It seems silly, I know, I know, but it’s such a strange time, everyone out there struggling - I would have felt terrible for choosing not to align with the humans’ rules myself. I was hoping…”

“That I’d help you get around them,” Crowley finishes.

“As you always have,” Aziraphale admits. That confession alone pushes the air out of Crowley’s lungs, a surprising sensation even considering his breath is optional.

“Those were...stupid rules. Dangerous for an angel to break. I felt like I was sort of doing you favors while also being a proper demon when I did that. This isn’t quite the same.”

Aziraphale nods. “No. Perhaps it’s not.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley says, urgently needing eye contact. Aziraphale cooperates, drifting even a little closer as he does. Not quite 2 metres away now. “This is our side.” Crowley gestures vaguely at Aziraphale and everything around them. “I can sneak around other people’s rules all you want, but I’m not gonna force my way around yours.”

“I don’t know what’s right,” Aziraphale says, plaintive. “People aren’t supposed to be seeing each other, so if we’re going to live here, neither should we. I missed you every day, though, Crowley. Isn’t that strange? We don’t even meet every day under normal circumstances, but something about being forced to stay apart reminded me so much of old times - bad old times…”

The angel is getting himself worked up. “No point worrying about it now,” Crowley interjects. “We’re a...we’re a ‘bubble,’ aren’t we? We’re following the rules just fine and I’m even allowed to come and go. Problems solved.”

Aziraphale purses his lips. “For now,” he agrees, smiling in earnest this time. “It did get me thinking about an awful lot of things, though.”

“And none of them have to be resolved this second,” Crowley reassures. “Would you like to talk over wine? I’ve been thinking about this bottle since April.”

“Certainly, yes.” Aziraphale waves his hand. “One more thing before we do, though. You know, it’s alright for people in a bubble to get close to each other.”

“You sure?” Crowley asks, not because he doesn’t know the rule, but because he doesn’t know what Aziraphale’s rule is going to be.

“Yes. I was actually hoping you might - and you can refuse, Crowley, really, it’s a bizarre request - but I was hoping you might allow me to hug you.”

Crowley feels a big, undignified grin breaking out on his face. He schools it into the best semblance of a smirk he can manage, but he’s definitely not going to fool Aziraphale. That’s fine. “All right,” he says. “If it makes you happy.”

There is a different sort of delight on Aziraphale’s face as he sidles nervously up to Crowley. It’s not as blatant as what he’d sounded like on the phone. It’s quieter, but deeper. It’s rescued-books-after-a-fallen-bomb delight.

“Come here,” Crowley murmurs, pulling his very favorite fusspot into a hug. Upon resting his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder, breathing in that cologne and the scent of various baking experiments, soaking in Aziraphale’s warmth like a...well, like a serpent in the sun, Crowley realizes this is as much for him as it is for Aziraphale.

And he doesn’t want to stop. Sod the wine; let this take hours.

“Do you still get the feeling we’re not supposed to be doing this, no matter how safe it is?” Aziraphale asks, voice muffled. He’s sort of talking into Crowley’s jacket.

“Not really the same for me,” Crowley says. “My lot weren’t big on guilt. Fear, more like. Terror, yes. Not guilt.” He lifts his head so he can rest his cheek against the angel’s ridiculous fluffy hair.

“Oh. Yes, that makes sense. Sorry.” Aziraphale presses his head into Crowley’s shoulder.

Crowley rolls his eyes, knowing Aziraphale won’t see it, more attempting to reassure himself that he hasn’t gone completely, entirely soft. “Let’s take it one moral crisis at a time,” he whispers, stroking Aziraphale’s back. Aziraphale shifts and breathes out, snorting very lightly (although he’d never, ever allow it to be called a ‘snort’ out loud) in a way that indicates he’s trying not to giggle.

“You know,” Aziraphale says, apparently regaining his composure, “they might tighten restrictions again.”

“It’s possible. It might be the smartest option,” Crowley agrees.

“We should consider what we’re going to do if that happens.” Aziraphale has not removed himself from Crowley’s grip. “If you’re really sure you wouldn’t mind…”

Crowley finds himself chuckling, progressing to a full-throated laugh. “What, sleeping upstairs?”

“Well, no--”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it, but if there’s one thing I can guarantee, it’s that I wouldn’t want to sit around and chatter 24/7. You’d have your reading time.”

Aziraphale sighs. “And wouldn’t you miss your things?”

“Sure, possibly. Not like I was using them when I was sleeping the months away, though, was I?”

“All right.” Aziraphale pulls away enough to gesture toward the sofa, leaving Crowley wanting more. Days. Days more. Aziraphale is beaming, though, and Crowley might be, too, and Aziraphale doesn’t end the hold entirely because now their hands are clasped. “Now, bring the wine over here and let’s go sample the desserts. I’m especially interested to hear what you think of the devil’s food cake.”

[mnthpprt]

Chapter 13: Guilty Of Caring

The next morning, Sebastian wakes me up with three loud knocks on the door. Annoyed to be suddenly pulled from my slumber, I look out the window. It’s ridiculously early. Thankfully, he brings a tray with coffee and a sandwich when I tell him to come in.

“Rise and shine, Anaïs,” he says cheerfully. Ugh, I hate morning people. I shoot him a groggy glare and rub the sleep from my eyes. “Get dressed and meet me in the garden, by the fountain. I have a job for you.” Upon saying that, he leaves again, and I sit at my desk to eat breakfast.

I knew my offer to help would bite me in the ass. Still, I set myself up for this, so I can’t really complain, and truth be told, I am grateful for something to do other than sit around in the library, which I now know is practically Leonardo’s second bedroom.

After our conversation yesterday, he helped me find the book I was looking for. He seems to know those shelves by heart. I stayed there as I researched and took notes for my paper, while he scribbled on a notebook himself until we were called to have dinner. I went to bed early after that.

I walk up to the fountain, where Sebastian is already waiting for me. He hands me a neatly folded apron, which I put on without question. Above us, Mozart’s playing floats out through the open window of the music room.

“I need you to plant some violets for me. But first, let me show you where everything is.”

I follow him as he guides me around the garden, explaining which plants are kept in each area. As everything Sebastian does, it’s perfectly organized, and much larger than I thought it would be. Under the pale morning sun, we make our way to a greenhouse near the edge of the property. In it, all sorts of tropical plants cover every surface, safe for a small work table in the center. Once he’s showed me where all the tools and supplies are, I turn to him.

“Great, so where do you want me to plant them?” I ask, already eager to get down to business. Even after I started working as a chemist and was no longer employed at the flower shop, I always loved gardening, and kept doing it as much as I could in my small London flat.

“That’s the spirit,” Sebastian chuckles. “Right where we started the tour, by the fountain. Mozart likes looking at them when he’s composing. Now, unless you have any questions, I shall return to my work inside.”

“All clear,” I nod. “See you later.”

Sebastian leaves me, taking a different path back to the mansion, and I gather some supplies and the tray of seedlings he pointed out before in a large basket before making my way to the fountain.

I have my sleeves rolled up and my hands in the dirt when a shadow covers the flower I am in the middle of planting.

“Good morning, Aiko-san,” says Dazai behind me. He bends to look over my shoulder. “Hard at work, I see.”

“Anaïs,” I correct him, but turn to him with a smile. I don’t mind the company. “I offered to help Sebastian, since I’ll be living here for a while. I guess that makes me the new gardener.”

“Mind if I stay here with you? I like to write outside,” he informs me as he gets back up and takes a seat on the edge of the fountain.

“By all means.” I return to my labor in silence, but then I remember something. “Hey, Dazai? What do you write about?” I look up at him and wipe my hands on the apron. “I just realized I don’t really know anything about you, compared to the other residents. Cultural differences, and all.”

“Well...” Dazai starts, and takes a thoughtful glance at a nearby tree. “Before I became a vampire, I used to write about my own life, mostly. Sometimes I just wrote about life in general. I still do, but this is just a poem I can’t seem to finish.”

He is interrupted by Isaac, who wanders out of the mansion looking at the floor and calling the name ‘Harry’. As soon as he sees me, he scurries away. I didn’t even know he was avoiding me.

“What is he doing?” I ask, earning a laugh from Dazai.

“Looking for some apples, probably,” he jokes. I stare at him, unsatisfied with his answer. “He’s trying to find his pet hedgehog. The little thing must have ran off somewhere, though I don’t blame him. Isaac-chan is always so grumpy.”

Was that apple thing about how Isaac discovered gravity? I just roll my eyes with a chuckle and continue planting the violets. Meanwhile, Dazai focuses on his notebook, occasionally looking around, I assume for inspiration. By the time I am done with all the flowers, it’s almost lunchtime. As if he read my mind, Dazai approaches me.

“Wanna take a break? I’m hungry.”

“Yeah, me too.” He extends his hand to help me get up and I take it. I decide to leave all the tools there and come back later to clean up.

We get to the dining room and take a seat at the table. To my surprise, Sebastian has already served some food and a bottle of rouge for Dazai. There is also a third set of plates, along with another bottle. I wonder who it’s for.

My unspoken question is answered when Isaac enters the dining room, only to see me and swiftly turn around to leave the way he came from.

“Isaac, wait!” I call after him, but he gets away too fast. With a resigned sigh, I grab my fork and start eating. Dazai observes me with amusement, but does not voice whatever he’s thinking.

As soon as I finish, I quickly excuse myself to return to the garden. I need to put away the tools before I forget. I carry the full basket to the greenhouse and begin organizing the supplies. As I return a bag of fertilizer to a low cabinet, I see something move out of the corner of my eye.

I search around the corners, but there is nothing out of the ordinary. A sound coming from under a shelf alerts me to the location of whatever animal it was that I saw. I hope it’s not a rat. I lower myself to the ground and look under the shelf, and what I find surprises me.

“Hey there, little guy.” Pressed against the corner, a small hedgehog trembles and struggles to move. “Are you stuck?”

I reach for a pair of thick gloves on the work table, and after putting them on, I return to aid the trapped animal. I reach under the shelf and feel around for him, unable to see what I’m doing. It only takes a few seconds for me to grab him gently and, scared, he moves around in my hand. I successfully pull him from the tight corner and get back on my feet, holding the little beast in my cupped hands. He puffs out his spines. Thankfully, the gloves do their job and protect me from being stung by them.

This must be Harry. I think I should take him to Isaac, seeing as he has been searching everywhere, but the physicist wants nothing to do with me, apparently. Oh well, there’s nothing to lose if I try to speak with him, other than a small portion of my ego. 

I knock on Isaac’s door with a gloved hand, and wait for him to open. He takes his time, but when he finally does, his eyes immediately light up.

“Harry! Where have you been, little friend?” he softly exclaims. I hand the hedgehog over to Isaac.

“I found him hiding in the greenhouse. He’s a scaredy one, but I think he likes me now. Don’t you, Harry?” I take off the gloves and stroke him with my finger, earning a happy little chirp. The poor thing was terrified, but I fed him some worms in order to keep him calm.

Suddenly, Isaac seems to notice who he’s talking to. He looks away and quickly thanks me as he tries to close the door, but I wedge my boot in the way before he can shut me out completely.

“Isaac, please. I just want to talk.”

He sighs, fully aware that I am not going anywhere, and steps away from the door to let me in.

“You’re avoiding me,” I state, softly. I walk into the room and close the door behind me. “I just wanted to let you know that you don’t have to.”

“I-I could have killed you...” He sits on the bed and puts Harry down next to him. Meanwhile, his eyes look at anything that isn’t me.

“I know. But you didn’t.” I sit down next to him, and he moves away. That’s okay, these things take time. “I’m sorry. You must have been so hungry... It was my fault that your meal was late. Le Comte explained everything. I can’t imagine what it’s like, but I don’t want you to blame yourself for what happened, Isaac.”

He turns halfway to face me, but his eyes are still on the floor.

“You’re not scared of me?”

I shake my head, a sad smile on my lips. He really made a point to avoid me just so I wouldn’t feel scared.

“How could I be when you’re this sweet?”

He blushes at my words, but doesn’t say anything. The silence is not uncomfortable at all, it just... is. I take this moment to look around the room. All sorts of tools and mechanical trinkets line the shelves on the wall, and a dismantled clock sits on his desk. My face lights up when I spot something in the corner.

“Is that a sewing machine?”

He nods, and I almost decide to leave it at that when he starts talking.

“I found it in the attic and repaired it, but I have no use for it.” That is the most words I’ve ever heard him say.

“Could I... Could I borrow it?” I ask shyly. He shrugs.

“You can keep it. It just takes up space and gathers dust here.” Once again I am surprised by him talking, although his voice is so quiet I would not be able to hear it if I wasn’t sitting right next to him. We’re making progress.

“Thank you, Isaac,” I smile at him, even though he’s not looking at me, and get up to look at the machine, which makes me realize something. “Wait... This is not like the machines I’m used to. I don’t know how to use it.”

“I guess... I could teach you...” Now that was unexpected, in the best way possible. I turn around to face him, my smile returning even bigger.

“You’d really do that?”

“It’s the least I can do,” he simply says. Before I have time to thank him, he gets up and approaches me before pulling the sewing machine to the middle of the room. 

“See this latch on the table? You need to open it to pull the bottom thread through the hole and attach it to this bit here next to the wheel,” he explains. He sounds a lot more enthusiastic now. “To make it spin you step on the pedal repeatedly. Then, for the top thread, you have loop it around this bobbin and feed it through the needle, then the pedal and the wheel under the table will do the rest of the work. If it gets jammed, try spinning this wheel up here by hand in the opposite direction and then pull on the thread.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much!” Without thinking, I throw my arms around Isaac and pull him into a hug. He tenses for a moment and then goes limp. I finally let go when he awkwardly clears his throat, and the moment he is free from my embrace he looks away, a pink tint on his cheeks.

“Sorry,” I mutter, embarrassed. I got too excited. “I’ll stop bothering you now.”

He just nods and watches silently as I drag the large contraption out of the room. I stop in my tracks and turn to face him before he closes the door.

“Isaac? It was nice talking to you,” I tell him. “I hope we can be friends someday.”

[stormtrooper-in-clogs]

“Written in the Stars”

I wrote this for A Night at the Fandom, hosted by @dtfrogertaylor, for my “secret Santa” recipient @jessahmewren. Enjoy!

Summary: Roger tries out for Smile and meets his new band mate.

Pairing: Maylor

Word Count: 2548

Warnings: the usual (drinking, kissing, implied sex, vomiting)

A/N: I literally had no idea where this was going, but somehow it got there. 

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“You see Ursa Major up there?” Brian asked, pointing at the sky.  “And that star there, the North Star.  If you follow it like this...” he traced a path across the night with his finger.  “...you’ll see Ursa Minor.  And if you look over here,” he directed his attention to another cluster of stars.  “This constellation is called…”

Roger lay there on the blanket with his head in Brian’s lap, gazing up at him as he mapped the darkness.  He could listen to that man ramble on about the cosmos all night.  He just adored the way his boyfriend’s eyes lit up as he described each constellation and planet that peppered the sky.  Roger sighed contently as Brian ran his free hand through his silky locks, gesturing at yet another twinkling dot with the other one.  He closed his eyes as Brian absent-mindedly scratched his scalp, surrendering to his touch.  The guitarist’s voice disappeared into background noise as Roger concentrated on the fingers massaging his head. About a minute later, he stopped, earning a small whine from the drummer.

“Roger, are you even listening to me?” he asked, snapping the blond back to reality.

“M’listening,” he mumbled, opening his eyes again.

“Really?” Brian smirked, raising an eyebrow.  “Then what are the brightest stars in the sky?”

A mischievous grin spread across Roger’s face at the question.  “Your eyes,” he answered, teasing him.

Brian blushed at Roger’s response, a hand shooting up to hide his dopey grin.  He usually didn’t get this flustered over one simple comment, but Roger had learned early in their relationship just which buttons to push to make him lose his cool.  He had the guitarist wrapped around his little finger and he knew it.

But it hadn’t always been that way.  After the night they first met, Roger could barely look him in the eye.

The year was 1968, and a young dental student was responding to an ad looking for a drummer.  He entered the auditorium and his gaze fell first on the drum kit that had been set up in the center of the stage.  He made his way toward it, stopping just short of the instrument when he heard a voice:

“Name,” called one of the two men seated in the fourth row.

“Roger,” he responded, his voice cracking.  He cleared his throat and tried again.  “Roger Taylor,”

“Alright, Roger.  Well, I’m Tim, and this-” he nodded to the man sitting next to him.  “-is Brian.  “You may begin whenever you’re ready,”

Roger nodded and sat down at the kit.  He grabbed a pair of sticks and tested the snare.  Ugh, flat, he thought to himself.  He tested it again and adjusted the tension rods until it sounded right.

“Perfect,” he whispered.

“What are you doing?” asked the man called Brian, as Roger moved on to the next drum.

“Tuning,” he said, lifting his head to face him.  “The snare was a bit flat, so I just thought I’d test the rest of them,” he explained.

Brian looked genuinely impressed by that.  It was like he had never seen someone tune drums before.

He hadn’t.  Truthfully, Brian didn’t even know drums could be tuned.  In a few short minutes, this man, who may or may not be joining their band, had completely overturned his understanding of the instrument.  

Once Roger was satisfied with the sound, he began his audition.  While he drummed, Tim had brought out a metronome to test his ability to keep time.  He would periodically call out different time signatures, and Roger would change the pattern that he was playing.  This went on for about five minutes, then the two men in the audience grabbed their instruments and joined him on the stage.  

The rest of the audition must’ve gone really well because the next day Roger was officially asked to join the band.  He of course accepted.  

That night the three of them were going to go for a drink to celebrate.  Unfortunately, Tim came down with a pretty bad case of food poisoning and couldn’t make it.  Even though it would be just the two of them, Brian and Roger decided that they would go out anyway.  

“To Smile!” Brian toasted, raising his glass.

“To Smile,” Roger agreed.

As they drank to the beginning of a new era in their lives, Roger couldn’t help but notice Brian’s hair.  At the audition his hair was straight, or straightened, but now it had begun to re-curl itself into a messy afro on top of his head.  With his hair pulling away from his face, it revealed the straightest jawline Roger had ever seen.  Now that Brian was right in front of him, and the blond could see him clearly, there was certainly no denying that he was handsome.  With his hazel eyes and charming smile, Roger’s stomach was tying itself in knots whenever the guitarist looked at him.

As the evening progressed, one drink turned into two, then three, four, and so on, until Roger could no longer think straight.  As he finished his sixth(?) beverage, he could feel the alcohol clouding his judgement.  Once his inhibitions were basically nonexistent, he found himself leaning toward Brian, lips puckered.  

Brian must’ve been sufficiently drunk as well, because instead of pulling away from Roger’s kiss, he welcomed it.  Soon the pair were snogging like a couple of hormonal teenagers right in the middle of the bar.  Fortunately Roger looked enough like a girl, so they didn’t get many funny looks.  

“You wanna, -ah- take this, -ohh- back to mine?” Brian gasped between kisses.

Roger nodded eagerly, and the pair paid their tab and hailed a taxi.

During the ride there, Brian and Roger continued getting familiar.  Turning the backseat of the taxi into a sloppy, drunken gropefest.  

The next thing the drummer remembered was waking up in a bed that was most certainly not his.

“Wh-where am I?” he wondered aloud.

His fuzzy gaze wandered around his unfamiliar surroundings, landing on the sleeping body lying next to him.  Upon closer inspection, Roger realized that it was Brian!  How much had they had to drink last night?  He asked himself, although his pounding headache seemed to provide an estimate.  And the ache in his groin provided a clue as to what transpired before they fell asleep.

As he tried to recall the chain of events that lead to him winding up in what he assumed must be Brian’s flat, his stomach lurched.  Evidently, whatever he had consumed last night decided that coming back up was preferable to going out the normal way.  

He threw back the covers and ran out into the hallway in an attempt to find a toilet.  On the way, Roger discovered that he wasn’t wearing any clothes! One problem at a time, he thought.  As he searched for Brian’s bathroom, he cursed himself for leaving his glasses at home.  Eventually his blind eyes were able to locate it, thank goodness.  A few more minutes and the drummer probably would’ve hurled on the carpet like a sick dog.  

Once his nausea had passed, he made his way back to the bedroom.  Apparently Brian was a heavy sleeper because Roger’s “episode” hadn’t woken him.  He was still snoring lightly as the blond grabbed his clothes off the floor and re-dressed himself.  He thought about leaving a note, but decided against it.  What would it even have said? “Sorry I apparently had sex with you last night. -Some guy you barely know. '' No, the best course of action was probably to pretend that it hadn’t happened.  Besides, if Brian had been as drunk as Roger was, then he wouldn’t remember it anyway.

When Roger got home, he made himself a cup of tea and tried to put the events of the previous evening out of his mind.  What had he done that had lead to them going to Brian’s flat in the first place?  What had he said to convince the guitarist that having sex was a good idea?  Admittedly, it wasn’t his first time waking up next to someone who was practically a stranger, but why did it have to be Brian? The morning after usually wasn’t so bad because he could almost guarantee that whoever else was in the bed was someone he would never see again.  But he and Brian were in a band together.  They would have to see each other at every practice, every show, and every. Single. Afterparty.  And to make matters worse, Roger had actually kinda fancied him.  If he hadn’t been so impulsive, maybe they could’ve even dated.  That could never happen now, not if Brian remembered.  The blond would be labelled a tactless slag, and any chance they might’ve had would be gone forever.

That night at band practice, Roger couldn’t bring himself to look at Brian; instead, he kept his eyes glued to his drums.  

After practice, Tim invited his two band mates out for a drink.  After Brian agreed, Roger made some excuse about not feeling well and went home.  He knew it wasn’t a convincing narrative, but he didn’t trust himself to get drunk around Brian ever again.

“What was that about?” Tim asked.  Even he had noticed something off about Roger’s tone.  “Did something happen with him last night?”

“He probably blacked out and woke up next to some disgusting slut,” Brian snapped, spitting out the word slut as if it were poisonous. 

There was a hint of sadness in his voice.  But the anger that surrounded it was enough to make Tim back down.  He knew the guitarist well enough to know that if he wanted to talk about it, he would.

This became the routine.  Roger would attend rehearsals, avoid making eye contact with his fellow musicians, and then leave before anyone had the chance to suggest going out.  This pattern continued for almost a month until he stumbled upon a situation where he couldn’t escape.

It was a Saturday night in London, and Smile had a gig at a pub not far from Imperial College.  They didn’t have a real following yet, so attendance was sparse.  But, as Tim would say, “you’ve gotta start somewhere.”  

The tension backstage was palpable.  Between the expected pre-show jitters, and the fact that Brian and Roger were still refusing to acknowledge each other, Tim was using every ounce of his strength just to maintain his sanity.  They had all gotten on well enough at the audition.  And they had felt comfortable going out drinking without him afterward.  Then at practice they had barely looked at each other.  And Brian’s comment.  Something had obviously happened that night.  But what?

He managed to push these thoughts aside long enough to perform.  And he discovered that his band mates were good actors as well as good musicians.  He was glad that they were at least professional enough to hide their bullshit in public.

After the show, however, it was a different story.  No sooner had they stepped off the stage, than Roger and Brian were already back to giving each other the cold shoulder.  It was in that moment that Tim chose to put a stop to this nonsense.  

“Hey guys, where are you going?” he called after them, as they turned to leave.  “The night is still young, and the bar doesn’t close for another hour,”

As his band mates visibly cringed at his suggestion, Tim decided to try a different approach.  He sat them both down and told them very gently that if they didn’t work through whatever issue they’d been having by tomorrow afternoon, Smile would be disbanded.  He then went back out and ordered himself a drink, leaving the pair backstage to deal with their problems.

For the first time since Roger had woken up in Brian’s bed, the two men were alone together.  It seemed that neither of them could find their voices.  It was as if they couldn’t bear to relive what they had done.

“Sod this, I’m getting a drink,” Roger announced, breaking the most uncomfortable silence of his life.  

Just as he got up, a small voice stopped him.

“No,” Brian squeaked, eyes still firmly pointed at the floor.  “Tim’s right.  We need to talk about this,”

“Alright then,” Roger retorted, turning to face the guitarist.  “Let’s talk about it.  Let’s talk about how we got piss-drunk and fucked.  Let’s talk about how I ended up in your bed with no recollection as to how.  And let’s talk about how you’ve been ignoring me ever since,”

The rage that had been building in Roger’s chest for weeks exploded through his words and pierced his bandmate like a hurricane of daggers.  But what stung Brian the most was the tears welling in the drummer’s eyes, threatening to spill out.

“That’s not how I remember it,” he said softly, lifting his face to look at the man yelling at him.

“Really,” the blond deadpanned, raising an eyebrow.  “Then why don’t you tell me how you remember it,”

“I remember us kissing at the bar.  I remember the taxi ride back to my flat.  I remember us making love in my bed and you falling asleep next to me,” Brian’s voice was shaking at this point.  “But my clearest memory from that night-” he took a deep breath and wiped a tear that ran down his cheek.  “-is waking up alone,”

Roger was shocked at the curly-haired man’s comments.  That’s what he was upset about?  

“You’re not mad that we slept together?” he asked with wide eyes.  “You’re mad that I left?”

Brian nodded, tears flowing steadily now.  “And then you refused to acknowledge my existence for weeks.  If you think I’m disgusting just tell me,”

“No! Nononono!  I don’t think you’re disgusting!” Roger attempted to calm his band mate.  “I left because-” he sighed heavily.  “Because I was disgusted with myself,”

“Why?”

“Because we barely knew each other, and I just… threw myself at you.  I thought you would think I was some kind of whore,”

“So we’re both upset because of your impulsiveness,” Brian clarified.  “Where do we go from here?”

“Well, clearly trying to pretend it never happened didn’t work.  What do you suggest?”

“I don’t know,”

“Obviously I find you attractive because I initiated our little “night of fun” a few weeks ago, and you must find me attractive as well because you didn’t tell me to go fuck myself, like a sane person,”

“Right, and based on our behavior since then, I don’t think we could handle a purely platonic relationship,”

“Well, I don’t see a way around it,” the drummer shrugged.  “I guess we have to go on a proper date.  How about Friday, I’ll pick you up at seven?”

The guitarist cracked a genuine smile for the first time that night at Roger’s suggestion.  “Sounds lovely,”

Once the pair had calmed down a bit and dried their eyes, they went out and joined Tim at the bar.  Brian ordered two rum and cokes and passed one to Roger.

“I’d like to propose a toast,” he said, raising his glass.  “To Smile!”

“To Smile,” his band mates echoed.

“So I take it you two worked out your problem then?” Tim inquired.

“Yeah,” Roger grinned.  “By the way, we’re gonna need to cancel practice on Friday,”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: This was fun! I’m looking forward to the next event!

[hvcy]

Undoubtedly Raw: Take on Lover

As I write this, it’s going to be the 3rd time I listen to the full album. To give a hint on how I reacted the first two times, let’s just say I panicked, I screamed, I cheered, just, all sorts of emotions were there.

I Forgot That You Existed: At first, before I hit play, I felt anxious. As the song progresses, I found myself just smiling. I love how she said “indifference”. It is a solid intro for an album; not a shocker but also not borderline forgettable.

It isn't love, it isn't hate, it's just indifference.

Cruel Summer: I fucking love Jack Antonoff’s robotic backtrack vocals during the verses. Before the album was released, I expect the song to be some shady or even a sassy track. I’M NOT DISAPPOINTED; I’M SHOCKED. I love the bridge so much. The bridge snaps. I would repeat the bridge a hundred times. Definitely a level higher than “Blank Space”. I was surprised by the length of the track, but it felt fitting.

And I scream, "For whatever it's worth, I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?" He looks up, grinning like a devil.

Lover: No words for this track. It took me to another dimension of pink clouds, heart-eyed emojis, slow dancing with my own lover. Funny thing is I am with my own favorite person when I first listened to this, and I was just smiling the whole time to contain all of my emotions.

Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever?

The Man: This track receives a massive hype before the album release, and I’m just so glad that I didn’t expect anything from this. The hook surprised me, but the overall feel of the song is not for my personal spectrum. I enjoyed the bridge but the song as a whole is not for me. Lyrically, it’s appealing and controversial to the public. Would I be happy for this to be a single? Probably. But I wouldn’t want to repeat playing the track as much as the other tracks. Just: Holy shit, she went off!

What's it like to brag about raking in dollars and getting bitches and models? And it's all good if you're bad and it's okay if you're mad. If I was out flashing my dollars, I'd be a bitch, not a baller. They'd paint me out to be bad, so it's okay that I'm mad.

The Archer: The whole hype around the production spreading all over the Internet isn’t working for me. Around the time this was released as a promo single, I wasn’t myself, so it probably contributes to what I feel towards this song. As an album track, however, it fell flat. After my first listen on the whole album, this is one of the tracks I wouldn’t go back to listen to on a daily basis.

I've been the archer, I've been the prey. Who could ever leave me, darling, but who could stay?

I Think He Knows: A subtle visual. I love the verses, but the chorus not so much. It felt like a commercial song, but I get how it fits to the album.

"Where we gonna go?" I think he knows.

Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince: NOW THIS IS A SOLID ONE. One word: ethereal. At first, I didn’t get the political references on this one. After my first listen, I went straight to the Genius website and my fan account on Twitter to get the whole point of this song. I was amazed by the whole concept of this song; how different styles managed to fit perfectly in this almost-4-minute track. This is my most favorite track on the album. Would I want this to be a single? Probably not. Usually when I listen to tracks that have deep storylines, I would visualize a music video or just portrayals of those excellent lyrics; I’d never want to ruin that concept for this song. One thing’s for sure: I would repeat this for months.

And I'll never let you go 'cause I know this is a fight that someday we're gonna win.

Paper Rings: Production-wise, this is a shocker. But the moment the chorus went in, I immediately loved this. When I feel sappy and shit, I would still listen to this. Whenever I’m home alone, I would listen to this, without a doubt. This is not a childish song at all. I believe the song has this sort of sound is because love will make you feel that being with that person is the most important thing in the world, and no material shiny thing would even compare to that feeling.

I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this. Darling, you're the one I want.

Cornelia Street: The secret sessioners ranked this track as their most favorite on the album prior of its release. I listen to this with my eyes closed, hands on my chest, trying to feel the words that she’s saying. When the post-bridge came in, and she said “I hope I never lose you.” that’s how it hit me. It hit me to the point that I have also a Cornelia Street in my life. I have a past relationship where I was the one who’s more attached than the other. We went to the theatre together, and after our relationship ended, I never wanted to go back to that same theatre again. We usually sit together in class during breaks, and after that I felt awkward just sitting with strangers. It’s just a feeling that you think you would never be prepared of; no matter how scared you are of the outcome, you just don’t want to go there.

I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends. That's the kinda heartbreak time could never mend.

Death By A Thousand Cuts: The introduction snaps! This is not my cup of tea at all, but I enjoyed this track at least. Again, Ms. Swift, with all the bridges of the tracks! Her and Antonoff’s bridges through the years are getting more and more well-thought-out.

My time, my wine, my spirit, my trust: tryna find a part of me you didn't take up. Gave you so much, but it wasn't enough, but I'll be alright, it's just a thousand cuts.

London Boy: A cute track. Similar thoughts with “I Think He Knows”. In the future, I hope I could also make a song about my favorite person telling everyone in the same way of appreciation Taylor exudes on this song.

They say home is where the heart is; But that's not where mine lives.

Soon You’ll Get Better: I know the background of this song prior to initial release, and I already knew this is going to be the hardest to listen to. But the lyrics of this is the most unexpected thing I’ve heard from the whole album. It feels like everyone who has a pain similar to Taylor’s can relate. Mine isn’t about family, or a specific loved one; I thought of myself. I fucking bawled my eyes out the first time I listened to this. I thought of listening to another person in my own point of view. I thought of somebody singing the song to me, telling me that I have to get better. I will be better soon. I will have a hard time repeating this song in the future, for sure. 

And I hate to make this all about me, but who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do if there's no you?

False God: As I was just preparing myself after the disastrous outcome brought by the previous track to me, this sexy track came in. I wasn’t ready! First song came to mind was “So it Goes” of reputation. “So it Goes” is my most favorite track on rep the first time I listened to the album. I didn’t feel the same way to “False God” because of how it played while I’m still preparing for my emotional mess. Still, it’s a sexy track. A chill and not-so-subtle one.

They all warned us about times like this. They say the road gets hard and you get lost when you're led by blind faith, but we might just get away with it.

You Need to Calm Down: This is THE lead single. Out of the 4 songs that were released before the album release, this is the superior one. Miles far from (let’s talk about it later). Going back, this is a complete serve for all the people of our society, not just the community. Can you believe she took her legacy on a pedestal just to show her support to the LGBTQ+?

And I ain't tryna mess with your self-expression but I've learned a lesson that stressin' and obsessin' 'bout somebody else is no fun.

Afterglow: UGH. Fuck. I don’t know, man. Just listen to this track. I relate to this track so fucking much. I am that person whom I think apologizes too much, even in the small things in life. But to think of it, it’s not wrong to admit you’re wrong on a situation where you’ve both argued or misunderstood each other. Or when that person is upset because of your actions, and you can’t do anything but to suck it up and face your fears; face the reality that even you can do stupid things. This is the song that says “Hey, I know I do stuff sometimes, but I’m willing to work it out: all because of you.” FUCK THIS.

I don't wanna do, I don’t wanna do this to you. I don’t wanna lose, I don't wanna lose this with you.

ME!: I’m a very kind person, hell I love Taylor to death, but I would agree with the general public that this is the worst lead single of her legacy. This deserves to be at least a second or third single of the album, but not the one to jumpstart a highly anticipated successor of a dark era from the once America’s Sweetheart. It didn’t deserve, however, the disrespect it gets just because of its underwhelming performance on the charts.

And when we had that fight out in the rain, you ran after me and called my name. I never wanna see you walk away.

It’s Nice to Have a Friend: I personally believe you need to be in a specific mood to get along with the vibe of this track. On my initial listen, it sparked an interest to me to repeat it again afterwards, but it just stands there. Nothing interesting.

Call my bluff, call you "babe". Have my back every day; feels like home.

Daylight: Let me just say, I don’t wanna listen to other artists now that I got Taylor. Perfect ender. I would even pick this more than “Begin Again”, and *sigh* “Clean”. It’s perfect, need I say more?

I once believed love would be burning red but it's golden like daylight.

[cecilspeaks]

117 - eGemony, part 1: “Canadian Club”

The suffocation of the ego.   The eternal silence of the void. Faceless, yet screaming. And now serving orange wine on tap.

Welcome to Night Vale. 

Listeners, we have a new sponsor! Our show is brought to you by – money. When purchasing items, please consider using money. It’s exchanged universally in place of transactions with actual value. Money is available in handy ones, fives, sixes, eights, and now twenties. [very fast] Money may be habit forming, symptoms may include (avarice) [0:03:21], lack of introspection and, frequent substitution of the phase “intelligent” for “wealthy”. Please ask your doctor if money is right for you and nod with considerable vigor when your doctor asks if you think money will complete you.

We have a visitor who I’m just now learning about. I’ve been handed a note by my new intern Gustav. Gustav says Station Management has ordered him to bring this guest immediately to the studio. Gustav, are you missing an eye? Uh, Gustav is nodding. OK. Uh, let’s see. The note says, it says to please welcome... Oh. What?! Wow! I mean, WOW! Gustav, is this real? OK, it is my honor and my privilege to welcome to the show – Hugh Jackman.

Hugh: Hi!

Cecil: Wait you’re not the Hugh Jackman, right?

Hugh: I like to think I am.

Cecil: Yeah, you’re not.

Hugh: But my children think I’m the real Hugh Jackman, so..

Cecil: Your children are wrong. But go on Mr Hugh Jackman.

Hugh: My name is Hugh Jackman, and-

Cecil: [muttering] Hmm but not the Hugh Jackman.

Hugh: Here’s my card.

Cecil: Oh. Hugh’s business card is a hologram he’s projected straight into my fingers. Says he’s the senior vice president in charge of “dreamfluencing” at.. ee-Gemini?

Hugh: It’s pronounced “ee-Gemonee”.

Cecil: Oh so it sounds just like he-

Hugh: I’m here to solve a funny little mystery. I just need to uh, open my briefcase here. Take a look at this.

Cecil: Oh, well that’s a Playboy magazine.

Hugh: Yes! December 1969. It had the pictorial on Bond girls in case you don’t remember.

Cecil: Oh I can see that. Ooh and there’s also a feature on architect Mies van der Rohe.

Hugh: I’ll take your word for it, Mr Palmer. I only read Playboy for the advertisements like this one: the one for Canadian Club.

Cecil: OK uh listeners, Mr Jackman is showing me a full page ad that features six people hiking in dense-looking woods, and two of them are carrying a sling of some sort and in the sling is-

Hugh: A case of Canadian Club whiskey!

Cecil: Uh huh. Um the headline reads, “On October 13, 1969, we hid a case of Canadian Club deep in the Amazon jungle. Here’s how you can find it.” Oh let’s see! Well this is actually quite entertaining, there are clues and maps and, is that an acrostic?

Hugh: It is an acrostic, very good Mr Palmer! It’s a clue to where the case was buried. Now from 1967 to 1973, Hiram Walker Distilled Spirits TBA Canadian Club ran a contest where they hid 21 cases of Canadian Club whiskey throughout the world, from the densest alleys of Jakarta to the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the cable car tracks in San Francisco, on cobblestoned streets in London, under 30 feet of water on the Great Barrier Reef. They ran ads with clues about how to find them, and find them the people of the world did! Every single case was recovered.

Cecil: That’s remarkable.

Hugh: Mr Palmer. We hid a case under the ice caps of the North Pole, and people found it. we dropped one on Mount Everest..

Cecil: [clears throat, mutters] Mountains. So why do you think people wanted to find them so badly?

Hugh: As far as we can tell, it has to do with people’s desire to have alcohol. Ironically, it sank the contest. People weren’t buying Canadian Club. They figured that it was way cheaper and more fun to get a yacht and sail to the Cayman Islands and snorkel under the security fences of the International Monetary Fund and then you know like, remove a case from the International Monetary Fund’s Mom’s poolside refrigerator, and that’s exactly what happened to case number 17. So sales plummeted, but later, Hiram Walker merged with (--) [0:07:21], which was acquired by Bacardi Constellation brands, which is now an acquisition of our little tech startup, eGemony!

Cecil: Now excuse me but what does eGemony do?

Hugh: We dreamfluence!

Cecil: [long beat] …Got it.

Hugh: It turns out there’s one further case of Canadian Club. It’s been hidden for over 40 years. Right here in Night Vale! Here’s the ad. This is the November 1973 issue of Playboy. Go on, read it.

Cecil: Um, “on August 30, we hid a case of Canadian Club in Night Vale. Here’s how to find it.” But, Mr Jackman, the rest of the ad is blank.

Hugh: We at eGemony after some internal discussion, believe that might be why the case was never found. There seems to have been some kind of event at the printers that month. Fran Lebowitz’s interview with progressive rock band Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman is perfectly fine for its first 37 pages, but then devolves into a series of umlauts. Little Annie Fanny, generally a lighthearted and [chuckling] adorably misogynistic comic strip, was just panel after panel of…

Cecil: ..umlauts.

Hugh: And Mr Palmer, look at the pictoral on men’s golf pants.

Cecil: Aaaagh…

Hugh. Yeah.

Cecil: Ooooooooh.

Hugh: I know, we’re not really sure what happened there. Further, you’ll see that every cartoon has the same punchline.

Cecil: Oh yeah. Uh, here’s a bride on her wedding day and her mother is telling her… “It’s under Cecil’s desk”?

Hugh: Same punchline is on page 33 with the desert island, and page 74 here with the cowboys at the saloon.

Both in unison: “It’s under Cecil’s desk”!

Cecil: That is so odd! So Mr Jackman, why does eGemony want to find his case of liquor?

Hugh: We thought it would be.. fun. Can I look under your desk?

Cecil: Why?

Hugh: The case is under your desk.

Cecil: Yeah, but this desk wasn’t even here in 1973.

Hugh: So you’re telling us - me - no?

Cecil: Well I’m telling you to ask Station Management.

Hugh: Oh, I will!

Cecil: I-I-I mean they’ll make you fill out a form, and they can also create fire with their minds. Also they’ve eaten people before for way less. Hey Gustav? Gustav, come in here and show Hugh what Station Management did to your eye.

Hugh: Oh my!

Cecil: Oh God..

Hugh: That is disgusting.

Cecil: Ugh, it’s getting wor- [gags] OK, that’s enough Gustav.

Hugh: Oh. I am prepared. [ahem] I’m familiar with your Station and Management and not afraid of them. Eunice, Lily, Agatha, DeMarcus and Chad, old friends of mine.

Cecil: Who?

Hugh: Have you never learned the names of your supervisors, Mr Palmer? You need a team building retreat. I’ll be back. You haven’t seen the last of me.

Cecil: Yeah well you aren’t even the real Hugh Jackman!

I don’t trust that man. I need to figure out what to do next. We’ll be back after this.

[serene voice] Life is meaningless. There are no guiding principles, nor rewards, nor punishments for how to live. Just flashes of pain or joy, which are only neurotic messages, not actual experiences. Even pondering why we exist is a rudderless journey. So consciousness is a means to no end. The Sheriff’s Secret Police would like to acknowledge that hearing this will ruin your day.

However, they are further authorized to announce that nothing we have heard about nature describes a process that occurs without purpose. We can point to a fish’s fin and understand what function it serves. A monkey’s fur, a starfish’s many arms. The acorns in your uncle Simon’s branchy beard that explode outward as stabbing bristles whenever uncle Simon experiences fear. They all serve a purpose. So it’s possible that consciousness developed for a reason larger than consciousness itself can conceive of. The function of your mind is literally beyond comprehension. Which means that awareness, pursued to its limits, only makes you aware of your helpess ness. You are without power in this life. Except when you purchase items by using – money. This has been brought to you by – moneyyy.

We are back and – I’m in a jam. I mean I don’t trust this “Hugh Jackman” nor his company. I mean after what StrexCorp did to our town, I’m a bit wary of any business conglomerate. Although eGemony does seem different, friendlier. But what is this thing with looking under my desk? I’m not sure I should even look under my desk, I mean what if I find it? what if I don’t find it?

Every time I’v ehidden under my desk, I’ve closed my eyes and for good reason! I’m so distracted I lost my notes and now I don’t even know what the news was supposed to be! And Gustav went to go by some cotton balls and anti-bacterial spray for his missing eye. Um.. [rustles papers] Well, I mean honestly I’ve never really looked at any of these magazines before. I mean, Playboy was for other boys and girls. Uh, interesting. Listeners, did you know that Playboy magazine has a bunch of pictures of women across various careers with in-depth profiles on their lives? I did not know this. yeah there’s a whole pictoral on this issue of all the women who have ever played James Bond, in full costumes! Oh my god, look at these smart tuxes and pistols and one of them’s on a motorcycle!

In the middle of a magazine, there’s even a foldout photo of a woman in coveralls and a hard hat, leading a volunteer construction crew who’s building houses in a hurricane-ravaged Nova Scotia. Oh, and on the other side of the foldout, there’s a Playmate questionnaire. Let’s see, her turnoffs include “impatient people and tick bites”. You know, I agree with that. And her turn-ons include “groovy people, good food, overwhelming feelings of dread, chanting, and all hail the Glow Cloud”. All hail the Glow Cloud! Yes! Uh, the playmate’s name is Missy Wilks. Missy Wilks?! Could that be the Missy Wilks who lives over on Kestrel Street here in Night Vale? I mean, they do have similar eyes and tendrils. I wonder if it’s possible that she knows where the case of Canadian Club is? Well let’s see. [dials] M-I-S-S-Y-W-I-L-K-S.

[phone signal]

Missy: Hello?

Cecil: Hello, is this Missy Wilks? This is Cecil Palmer from the radio station. It’s a little hard to explain why I’m calling but-

Missy: Have you looked under your desk?

Cecil: Oh, not yet. Should I? I mean I kind of don’t want to.

Missy: Cecil. I’ve been waiting for this phonecall for over 40 years. You must look under your desk. The future of Night Vale depends on it.

Cecil: Have you been doing anything else?

Missy: Pardon?

Cecil: 40 years.

Missy: Well, no not really. Raised a family. Shot a guy once. But you’re stalling, Cecil.

Cecil: I’m not stalling! Bu-but you know, we really should get to today’s weather.

["Lost Everything" by Mary Epworth]

Cecil: And we’re back.

Missy: Have you looked under the de-

Cecil: No, I’ve not looked under my desk!

Missy: Come – on -, Cecil!

Cecil: Wait, why does Mr Jackman want this so badly?

Missy: Ugh! It’s why they put cases everywhere on the planet! They knew that leaving an item in place long enough allows it to absorb the spirit of the area. That case is now infused with the soul of Night Vale. No one actually recovered those other cases. eGemony recovered them after they bought all the other parent companies of Canadian Club. They’re going to send out one of their corporate prize contestant sweepstakes buzz marketing street teams to dreamfluence anyone who stands in their way. If eGemony finds it before you do, they will drink Night Vale’s soul, the same way they’ve drunk the soul of all the other cities!

Cecil: Wait, that makes no sense! They’ve recovered a bunch of these across the world. Are you saying that Manhattan, San Francisco, London, the Great Barrier Reef and the Cayman Island don’t have souls anymore?

Missy: Cecil.

Cecil: Oh my god, you’re right. OK then, alright, I’m going to look. I am looking under my desk. And I am findiiing.. nothing. I, there’s nothing under here!

Missy: Mm?

Cecil: Wait, wait wait wait wait wait wait oh, oh, oh, oh, oh wait put – a pushpin! A red one! And it-it’s holding an envelope to the underside of the desk!

Missy: Is it manila?

Cecil: Yes! And it’s addressed to me. There’s a letter inside. It’s written on papyrus and you can tell it’s very old because it’s written in cursive. It says: “Dear Cecil how are you? We are fine. We’re sorry we didn’t write earlier, but we were unlearning our destinies. We had to unlearn so many things. Small steps, then larger ones, then larger until we were almost flying, but not quite flying because we had to unlearn our expectations and then unlearn our limitations, so we gave up on flying. Because that turns out not to work regardless of your expectations and no matter what you unlearn. So we relearned what we needed to. we’ve relearned so many essential things, Cecil, about work and love and complaining about work and love and – oh! And we took the case of booze! If you wanna find us, you’ll know us by our sign.” And then it’s signed with a smear of foam. No wait, this isn’t just any foam it’s – hold on! [sniffs] [tastes] Cappuccino!

Oh my goodness, I have to tell Ms Wilks that..

Missy: I’m still here.

Cecil: Oh! Miss Wilks! I know where the case of Canadian Club is!

Missy: Where?

Cecil: It’s in the cave lands outside of town. It’s been taken by the baristas!

Missy: Cecil! This is the worst possible news! The baristas are no match for buzz marketing street teams. The baristas are gentle people, soft of spirit and jolly of countenance, whose dreams are only influenced by the purest of the loves, not crowd sourced manipulations. The baristas are rosy-cheeked and innocent! They gamble like lambs, Cecil! You’ve got to warn them!

Cecil: OK, I will, I will. Thank you, Miss Wilks! Listeners, this is terrible, I-I-I don’t know what to do! I don’t like warning people about things, I mean warnings lead to consequences and we all know how much I avoid consequences. In fact, there’s only one way to be thoroughly insulated from consequence and – that’s to accumulate enough money. But I don’t have any money. As Station Management recently switched their payroll protocol from cash to Twitter followers and Groupons for local spas, so I’m kinda screwed.

Think, Cecil, think. Think think think think think.

Stay tuned next to the sounds of chewing amplified to the threshold of pain.

Good night, Night Vale, Good night!

Today’s proverb: People always say “before I die”, as if they haven’t already begun the process. 

[sssoto]

Creator’s update #2

Hey guys! I’m back with another update to keep y’all posted on what I’ve been up to (= I’m getting this up a week later than I wanted to, but hey, what can ya do. It’s still very much up to date, I just didn’t have the time to get this typed up last week, buuuut making up for that now!

Mood: Juuuuuust chillin’~

Music I’ve been digging recently:

This is basically just gonna be a looooong list of Selena Gomez, because dammit I’m into her music right now. The girl is gorgeous and I’ve always liked her music, but I used to be more into her old stuff, and now I’m just living for all the songs I didn’t listen to as much from the time she released her Stars Dance album and onwards. These are just a select few of the songs I’ve been listening to on repeat for the past week or so lol.

Selena Gomez - Fetish (ft Gucci Mane)

Selena Gomez - The Heart Wants What It Wants

Selena Gomez - Do It

Selena Gomez - Me & the Rhythm

Selena Gomez - Me & My Girls

Selena Gomez - Nobody

Selena Gomez - Save the Day

Selena Gomez - Like a Champion

Writing

So I DID ACTUALLY DO SOME WRITING THESE PAST FEW WEEKS OMG.

I finished editing an entire scene I’d been struggling with for the looooongest time (and now I’m having trouble with the next scene, sigh you just can’t win). For that scene, I had to rearrange three different scenes and combine them into one in a way which made sense, and geez it wasn’t fun. The real struggle is finding out what to keep and what to cut, right? I dunno ‘bout you guys, but I’m very reluctant to cut anything until I’m sure I don’t wanna use any of the prose somewhere else.

The light came to me late one night (as it usually does) when this random line popped in my head as I was mulling over what to name my second chapter. Okay, backtrack, I title my chapters, and ever since I started revisions and essentially condensed the first four chapters down to three, I couldn’t figure out what to name the second chapter. The other two chapters could easily just take on the titles they had previously, but the structure and overall focal point of the second chapter had changed so much that I needed to rethink the title (at least if I wanted it to be a good title lol). So chapter 2 was untitled until just recently, when this line came to me and finally made me decide on a name: The Find. A find in this sense refers to an archaeological discovery (my main characters study and work in the archaeological field), and you might see how it plays into the chapter in my excerpt later this post. But yeah, this line came to me, and along with that came the realisation that I could move a whole paragraph from the scene I was revising in chapter 3 to chapter 2, since that paragraph was oriented in a pretty similar fashion to what I was going for with that new line. Does any of this make sense? My thought process is a little strange lmao.

Anyway, so knowing what I needed to do with chapter 2 gave me the push I needed to move on with that scene I struggled with in chapter 3, and I finally managed to restructure all the bits and pieces of those scenes I had to combine. It became much easier because I’d moved an entire paragraph that didn’t really fit in that scene anyway to a place where it was much better suited lol. Since the new dialogue was already written out, it was pretty straightforward to draft new narrative to go with it after I had reassembled the pieces (though I’m sure it’s all veeeeery rough cuz I’ve not given it a proper read through yet).

It all worked out in the end, and I’m so happy I made that progress wee! And I think I know what to do with the next scene, so it’s just about kicking my ass into gear lol (special thanks to @coffeeandcalligraphy who helped me brainstorm for this scene, ugh bless my friends). I already knew the next scene needed to be edited a lot, because basically the entire thing was just filler. The first half was a way too long narrative summary with a bunch of unnecessary detail which could be condensed significantly, and the next half was a scene also way too long for the purpose it served, and to make matters worse, it also introduced a bunch of pointless characters that never show up again, so the scene just feels kinda forced. I’ve done some trimming on the narrative summary, and I’ve cut out the scene that follows, so what I need to do next is add some details that pertain to the timeline and illness change (if you read my last post, you might recall me mentioning that I was doing these revisions in the first place because I aged my characters up and changed the illness of my MC’s sister), and then I’m gonna draft a new much shorter scene that’ll serve the same purpose the previous scene did, but without so much pointless, contrived detail, and without friggin’ introducing new characters that’ll never appear again, my god Soto what were you thinking.

But you know what, I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I’ve made an important discovery during these edits, which I discussed with @shaelinwrites, who herself was recently stuck in revision hell with her manuscript I’m Fine, and we both agreed; it’s honestly much easier to draft new, better prose than trying to elevate very old less mature prose. As I’m revising these chapters, I sometimes get the feeling that my prose isn’t very complex or sophisticated, but then when I get to draft completely new lines or even paragraphs, I wonder how the new words seem so much better than the old ones. Then I look back at the date and remember that these chapters I’m revising were written in friggin’ 2014. It’s no wonder the prose ain’t that sophisticated lmao. It’s hard work improving something which at its core is less refined!

With that said, I think it’s time for some excerpts. I didn’t show any last time since I hadn’t been working much on my writing recently, but this time I have stuff to show!

Excerpt:

He seemed a hidden gem waiting to be uncovered, layered deep in the crusts of his own humility and class, a rare find with all the potential it entailed – academical and monetary.

This was the line I talked about which basically solved all my problems for me lol bless this line. And bless @shaelinwrites who convinced me to get rid of an unnecessary word, THANK YOU GIRL, I WAS DUMB, YOU WERE RIGHT, THE WEASEL WORD HAD TO GO.

Excerpt:

They arrived in Naples, grandest seaport of the Mediterranean, without incident. The capital of the Sicilies was a majestic sight when approached from the sea, rather alien with its numerous colourful structures raised on slanting green hillsides amongst sprouting palms, so very different from the grey, uniform London back across the English Channel.

Just some description; looking at pictures of Naples helped a lot for this lmao. I’m still not entirely happy with it, it needs a good clean up and stuff. Buuuuuut you know what, it’s progress, and that’s all that matters right now!

Chapters edited: 2/16

Current total word count: Around 123k (I’ll give a more precise number when I’ve gathered all my chapters in one document)

Current total chapter count: 16

Look at the lovely progress on chapter 3 since last update <3

Art

So honestly I don’t have a lot of WIPs to show in the art department this time around, because a) I’ve mostly been finishing up the sketches I showed last time, and b) the new stuff I’ve started are secret projects I’d rather not reveal yet. So don’t blame it on inproductivity! d:

Like I said, I’ve finished some of the WIPs I talked about last time, and even better, I’ve posted them as well, so you can go and take a look at the final product: the Disney portraits, and my portraits of the Armstrong siblings.

And with that said, can we just marvel at this improvement?

Sometimes it can feel like you’re never getting anywhere, and that’s when it’s important to gaze back at your journey and see how far you’ve come. I’m certainly pretty happy with how my skills have developed in the past two years! I want to do more “draw it again” pieces in the future so I can track my own development n.n

The only thing I feel I can show a WIP of (that I’ve not already shown, anyway) is this character portrait I’m working on for Serena. Used my girl Selena Gomez as reference cuz she’s the best face claim for Serena I’ve come across <3 It’s actually this portrait’s fault that I got into this entire Selena Gomez groove, and oh how grateful I am for it because Selena Gomez slaaaaaays.

I’m not entirely sure I’m gonna keep the portrait like this for her official character portrait though, because I feel it’s a little risqué~ for a Victorian portrait LOL. I mean, slay that hair, Serena, you know ya sexy af, but gotta stay in character with your setting, yanno? Lmao I dunno, I need to rethink it a bit, but regardless I’m digging the sketch thus far!

I think the next thing I’m working on will be lining and colouring Owen’s portrait, and then I also have all these secret things in the works that I wanna make progress on so I can reveal them. Aside from this, I’ve been hard at work on setting up commissions, and I’ll soon make an announcement, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested in getting a portrait done by me!

Youtube

It’s been a month since last update, and I upload new videos every Friday, which means I’ve got new videos to announce to y’all! So if any of you like kpop, vocal covers, or speedpaints, here’s where you should look :D

I’ve actually gotten pretty good at this Youtube thing (thanks to the scheduling feature, it saves lives), so my uploads are fairly consistent. I upload every Friday; every other week it’s a vocal cover (usually kpop, but not exclusively), and the other week it’s a speedpaint, so *hint hint* you should subscribe if you haven’t already *hint hint*. I’ll soon run out of covers to upload though, so I should record some more... Ahem.

Anyway, here’s the most recent one I uploaded. The song is a bit obscure if you’re not a dedicated 4minute fan, but it’s one of my favourites!

And my second cover can’t be embedded due to copyright, but I’ll leave a link for it here so you can check it out! It’s for the song So Good by Kara. The acapella for this one was super fun to record what with all the harmonies and background vocals and stuff.

And of course, I uploaded a few speedpaints as well! There are actually four up on my channel now because one of the speedpaints was split into two parts to prevent a 45 min video lol. So if any of you are interested in seeing my process, check them out! The first one was a birthday gift I made for the amazing @juliajm15 back in March <3

And the second, split into two parts (lineart and colour), is one I find particularly interesting since it’s more elaborate. I really do like how the colouring came out for this piece!

So yaaassss, remember to subscribe if you’re into this sort of stuff!

Bonus: Fanart feature!

So you guys, I have some really amazing friends who make some really amazing fanart for me, and I must share.

Where to even begin? I seriously get all teary-eyed when someone takes the time to make something because they enjoyed my story and characters so much *cries*. If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve probably seen me gush about all the amazing artwork @juliajm15 has done for me over the past couple years, but I wanna shine some light on two of my other good friends and loyal supporters who made some incredible and thoughtful tributes to my little labour of love!

First up are some amazing edits as well as a drawing done by Rachel over at @coffeeandcalligraphy.

This pretty thing is a fan book cover Rachel made for my first book, Memoirs! I love the aesthetic of the title so much, and there’s some actual symbolism in there with how she chose to colour coordinate the elements; green for Daniel, red for Serena. Just knowing how much thought and care she put into it makes my sentimental little heart swell <3

These two edits are just GORGEOUS. Once again done by Rachel, she made this for my birthday last year <3

For the first one, she used lyrics from Elton John’s Daniel because I’d mentioned that this song was the perfect message for Hazel to give Daniel, and the little doll reading the book is sooooo adorable because Daniel and Hazel have this thing with reading fairytales together *cries* and then it’s wearing a white nightgown too, which is basically what Hazel always wears since she’s confined to her bed!

For the edit beneath, she picked an actual quote said by Serena to Daniel, and the summer aesthetic with the greeneries and the flower in the background to symbolise the summers they spent together, bah it’s too much! The care and thought put into this makes me emotional all over again, and these edits are just so lovely!!

And last one: my darling, Daniel! Rachel actually made this for our friendship anniversary a short while ago, and I still feel bad that I didn’t think to make anything for her lmao. She used the ref I found for Daniel, and his face honestly is just so friggin’ adorable, and then she used a quote from Renaissance to go along with it! I seriously have the best and most thoughtful friends in the entire world, like wow.

Another one of my friends who’s been giving me a bunch of cute fanart lately is @sarahkelsiwrites! Just take a look at this adorable drawing she did of Hazel:

Hazel is a very beloved character, but she doesn’t get nearly as much love in terms of artwork as my other characters, so it’s always so nice when someone remembers her <3

And okay, but this one kills me:

I literally screamed when she sent me this. LOOK AT HIS TATS HAHAHAHAH. So for some context, basically @coffeeandcalligraphy has a weird fetish for angst, and we started talking about how our characters have different kinds of angst. I started calling her characters angsters, because they angst like it’s cool to angst, aka gangster, aka angster. Rachel then said that Daniel’s angst is elegant, which turned into a really lame pun, and the rest is history...

Long story short, don’t mess with E. Angst’s tea, yo. Much British, very angst.

And the last one and I DIE CUZ MY BBY LOOKS SO HANDSOME <3 <3 <3 So Sarah brooded that somehow, everytime she tries to draw a girl, it turns into Daniel, but yanno... Can’t complain.

LOOK AT THE SMOOTH LINEART THO. I couldn’t draw smooth lineart for the life of me until I’d had my graphic tablet for like two years. Ugh I love how Danny looks here, his expression is so perfect! Thank you so much @sarahkelsiwrites and @coffeeandcalligraphy for the amazing gifts, I feel so blessed to have such generous, thoughtful and talented friends! <3

So that was all for this time around; I hope you enjoyed seeing what I’ve been working on! I’ll be back soon to summarize my progress on all my projects again, so until next time, folks!

[aliceellablog]

Sick and Tired - (includes my M.E. story part 1)

It kinda seems like it's just one thing after another to be honest. So I woke up on Monday fully colded :( scrap that... I had the FLU!!!!!

Tissues stuffed up each nostril, Sudafed, Lemsips, Vix vapour rub in all the right places... (not there...ouch) and I could hardly get out of bed ... good times!!!

So I basically slept all of Monday and Tuesday... oh and I looked oh so god damn attractive while doing so...

Wednesday I could at least make it to the sofa to watch endless episodes of ‘Catfish’ with my housemates. I think we must have watched them all now- which is an impressive amount of catfishing agwarning!

The next few days consisted of mainly sneezing, coughing, a lot of snot, (how does one nose create SO MUCH?!?!?) eating cream eggs in the bath and watching so much ‘Line of Duty’ that I was pretty convinced I worked for AC-12.

It’s now Sunday and at least the sun is shining and its bladdy beautiful outside - apart from the wafts of blocked drains that keep finding their way up my luckily blocked nose. Rank.

Not much else has happened this week to be honest. I got chatted up by the local weirdo in our corner shop when I was wearing a ‘my little pony’ tracksuit, had no makeup on and looked like I was straight out of the walking dead. He kept asking my name and I replied that I’m not into talking to strangers and could he please leave me alone. His response was that all relationships start with strangers talking....eugh.... he was creepy AF. Then on the way home from said shop three drunk men tried to hug me. GO AWAY. I feel like I was giving out some sort of pheromones that day. Oh and when I ordered my fav Turkish takeaway I asked for ‘fries’ and they thought I said ‘rice’... when I got home I wanted rice.... and there it was! Oh god! what a FASCINATING week!!!!! COOL STORY BRO!!!

Flu will be flu, but I have to say that I am feeling stupidly positive today! And yesterday too actually! Normally when I get a cold or flu or whatever I turn into the biggest pile of woe is me you have ever seen and feel like the world has ended.... Instead... this time I feel like I can’t wait to be better from this and to then continue getting better from the M.E.

In fact. I’m gonna kick it in the balls. hard. 

Seeing as my week has been so interesting and totally worth the read... lols... I figure maybe it’s time for PART 1 of my M.E. story. Lord only knows how many parts there are going to be and how this is gonna turn out, but over the next few weeks maybe the whole story will be here...

Ok... where to begin... no freakin’ idea...I guess I will just type...tap tap tap...

I had a pretty great childhood in general, and was a happy and healthy kid. I mean, obviously I can think of loads of messed up things that happened and could go in to a whole load of crap, but I’m gonna start this story when I was 14. 

Those 14 years can be rambled on about some other time :)

Long story short...lol lets see if I can actually keep this short... I was at an all girls school in West Sussex, and life was pretty good!

I was popular enough, school was fine- My friends and I would put on ‘The Ali V Show’ at lunchtimes where I would improvise songs about everyone - friends, teachers etc and prance around like I was on the stage of a West End musical. I went to dance classes after school and competed at weekends, and did gymnastics too! Yep... I would be jumping about in a leotard and loving it! Oh how things change! I was also in the choir at school and used to enter talent shows dancing to Liberty X with high kicks all over the place - I did all kinds of crap, and loved it all. 

I was at that age where me and all my mates would go out drinking in the local park every weekend- we’re talking the finest WKD Blue, Smirnoff Ice and the odd bottle of Lambrini if we were feeling fancy ;) 

These weekends were the best. They were what we lived for. Getting silly drunk, kissing boys, and getting chased down the park alley ways by police dogs. There were loads of us, all hanging around the skate park, and it was all innocent fun really.... other than the under age drinking, but who didn’t do that?

Then we upped our game and started going to these club nights for over 14′s in creepy Crawley. Classy. Man I used to LOVE it!! Walking through the doors and feeling the music hit you in the chest - now I’m always just complaining that it’s too damn loud. Such a grandma.

So I THINK it was on one of these nights that I may have unknowingly slipped my poor little tongue into a horrible diseased mouth LOL and gone and got myself the Glandular Fever that has ruined my life. Great.

We used to play ‘the game’ where you’d have to kiss as many boys as you could and then when you’d get back to your mates house you’d be up all night telling each other all the details, whilst eating enough sweets to ensure you didn’t fall asleep first - cos that made you like super ‘uncool’.

Anyway, I’m not sure if I caught it at one of those nights or not, but Glandular Fever is known as the ‘kissing disease’ so it kinda maybe makes sense.... oops.

So I got really sick. Like a really bad flu. I didn’t think anything of it until I just kept not getting better. All my flu symptoms eventually went - the fevers, the snot (nice), the coughing etc but I just wasn’t feeling better like you usually would. 

Weeks would go by and I just didn’t feel well enough to go back to school. I was getting so miserable, missing my friends etc so much that I kept trying to force myself to go. I’d manage go in for the odd day and end up being sent home a few hours later. I could hardly keep my eyes open. 

My Mum had obviously written to the teachers and explained the situation but most of them were bloody horrible. I remember once calling my mum in tears asking her to come and pick me up and one of my Science teachers saw me on the phone and started shouting at me and took my phone off me. I explained I was calling my Mum cos I felt so ill but he didn’t give a shit and made me go back to class.

I had letters excluding me from having to do P.E. saying how exhausted I was and could I please not be made to get changed into my P.E. kit (not sure why they always made you when you weren’t even doing it) but they still made me.

I was SO weak. every little thing was a struggle. I also remember when Hayley and Holly (no hard feelings now gals) had such a go at me in front of everyone at lunch. 14 year olds could be so bitchy. They were saying I was faking being ill and that I was so lucky not to ‘have’ to go to school every day. I was gutted. They were my best friends, they were supposed to understand. I broke down and told them to fuck off. They then told the teachers that I swore at them (they also did a lot of swearing at me first FYI) and I was the one who got into trouble for it. What they had said to me was a million times more painful than a simple ‘fuck off’ outburst. ugh. No one understood.

It’s hard to explain- I was feeling so so ill all the time but trying desperately to make it into school and pretend that I was OK. In the end I just couldn’t make it in anymore and I think the last time I went was early in year 10. 

I had school work sent home to me and I did what I could in bed when I had the energy but things just got worse and worse. It got to a point where I didn’t have the strength to leave the house, or my bedroom and had to have my food and drinks brought up to me in my bed. 

My school friends would visit most weeks but understandably this got less and less and I don’t think they ever quite understood what I was going through. When all I could do is lay in bed all day and then I’d get a text from my friend saying ‘sorry I can’t make it round today hun I’m seeing my boyfriend’ or ‘I’ve got too much homework to do’ - I get it, but it’s like that visit was lit the only thing keeping me going.

During all of this I’d had no diagnosis. All of my blood tests were ‘normal’ and no one knew what was wrong with me. I think that’s why so many people thought I was ‘faking’ or didn’t understand. I’m so lucky that I did have friends who visited as much as they could, but it must have been awkward for them too, I’m sure they didn’t know what to say or do most of the time. 

So basically, years went by and I got progressively worse and worse. I would keep trying to do little things - my Mum (who is just beyond incredible and who would look after me every day) would get me into the car sometimes and just drive me around for a bit so that I could see sunlight, fields, animals, civilisation lol. We would mainly go out at around 5pm when the rabbits would come out and see if we could spot any. Now you tell me, that’s a teenagers idea of a good time right? OH DEEEEEAR!!! (I did enjoy it though hehehe)

During all of this I was of course seeing doctor after doctor trying to find out what was wrong with me. I was seeing all kinds of specialists and no one had a clue. Then I went to some big London hospital and saw the fittest doctor ever! (every cloud) It was then that they found a positive result in my blood tests for Glandular Fever. The thing is though that this was years after I had caught it and I was now kind of ‘better’ from the actual Glandular Fever and was just left like this. By this stage I was in a wheelchair. I couldn’t walk more than a few paces and could hardly eat either. At least I lost a few pounds...well a few stone actually! #win 

I could hardly even talk and when I was at my worst I could’t tolerate light (so I had my black out blinds shut all day) or any noise- like even people talking was unbearable. I would lay in bed all day, sleeping on and off, and of course couldn’t sleep during the night. I was thoroughly depressed and had thoughts of wanting to just end it all. I could never have done that though because of my amazing mum and brother (totes my best friends) who would try and cheer me up every day. They would even put on little sketch shows for me at the end of my bed to just try and make me smile. I thank them from the bottom of my heart- them and all my other friends and family who were there for me when I really needed them #TotesEmosh 

One of the weird things is that my brother had been through all of this before himself. He was just getting better as I was getting ill. We are not sure if M.E. runs in the family or not but I’m gonna go with yes. This means that my poor mum had basically nursed him better for about 4 years (he’s totally better now! yay!) and then had me to deal with!! Ouch. His case was a little simpler though. They found he had Glandular Fever and diagnosed him pretty soon after with M.E. - He did very strict G.E.T. (graded exercise therapy) and found that it really worked for him- This is where you build up your level of activity VERY slowly- so literally one step at a time - (more about this in a bizzle) 

So it got to a point where I had a stair lift fitted in my house and couldn’t even watch tv or have a conversation with anyone.

I was fucked. 

All we now knew was that I had ‘at some point’ HAD Glandular Fever. No one knew what to do, we only knew about M.E. because my brother had had it and thought it could be a possibility. But I was firmly in denial. He had been so ill for years and years and I was NOT going to have the same thing as him. I was desperate for the doctors to find that I had some kind of easily curable illness. Then some of my blood tests started coming back as positive for other things that indicated Crohn’s Disease. I was in and out of hospital having every test you can think of. My temperature was raised most days and they made charts of this. Now the question was if I had Crohn’s, or M.E. or both!?

Right.... I reckon that’s enough for Part 1!

Let’s see what next week brings and what I will want to blog about at the time, but either way Part 2 is on its way!

Ooh and check out my new blog banner up the top of my blog page - That’s the other thing I’ve been working on this week :) - Shout out to the amazing Simon Ackerman for the photography!!

Huge thanks again if you have read this blog - I am finding that it gives me a sort of ‘purpose’ as stupid as that may sound. It gives me something to think about in the week and then when it’s Sunday I’m like, yay! Sunday blog day!.... is that depressing or what hahaha, but seriously, please get in touch if you want to, more than happy to chat :) And if anyone can *like, *share or *follow this post or my blog in general I appreciate it lots!!! 

[yes-dal456]

Forget Body Positivity: How About Body Neutrality?

By Marisa Meltzer

It is late afternoon on a sunny day in Vermont and around a dozen people are gathered to talk about their bodies. They’re all staying at Green Mountain at Fox Run, a retreat where women (and only women) stay from one week to several months to learn healthy eating habits and make peace with their bodies. It’s much more bare bones than a spa, and rather than focus on numbers, like a typical weight-loss program, the aim is to teach women how to change the way they think about food. The days are structured, with classes on meal planning, goal setting, self-care, and workouts like yoga and strength training. Even meals are to be eaten mindfully, with a weekly exercise that involves savoring every bite of a tiny dessert.

That journey to peace is a lot easier said than done, as the group, who range from college age to their 40s, is learning in the Body Neutrality workshop, led by the program director Anne Poirier, BS, CSCS, CIEC, whose previous job was running the fitness program at Colby-Sawyer College. She has prompted everyone to consider “what your body felt like and looked like at different times in your life” and they’re all jotting notes down in a binder with Green Mountain’s “womanifesto” printed on it (“too often, our lives play out on the stage between our ears”). A blonde in her 30s talks about being a former competitive swimmer who feels shame because she gained weight; a brunette next to her talks about how, despite losing half her body weight in college, she always feels obese.

Poirier listens to all of this and nods. “There’s a whole movement talking about loving our bodies. But it’s kind of a long jump to move there from dissatisfaction,” she says. “Some people are just going to land in body neutrality, which is the term we utilize here for somewhere in the middle.” It’s a kind of détente, a white flag, a way station between hating oneself and loving oneself.

*****

If we judged how we felt as a culture about our bodies just by Instagram alone, the results would be mixed at best. There are the celebrities shilling sketchy tea detoxes, all the sweaty post-workout selfies our friends post, and countless pretty, proportionate girls in an array of sizes posing in bikinis encouraging all of us, no matter our weight, to embrace our curves, to shun diets, to just love our bodies — and, by extension, ourselves —already.

“My problem with body love, beside the fact that it’s a high standard, is it’s asking women to regulate their emotions, not just their bodies,” says Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, author of Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women’s Lives. “I don’t see the pressure on women really easing up, and then you’re supposed to have this bulletproof self-esteem on top of all that. It’s not something we can really live up to. Body love keeps the focus on the body. The times I’m happiest are when I’m not thinking about my body at all.”

The way that we feel about our bodies, she notes, is not a simple upward graph where one day we vow to love ourselves and each day we progress forward on the journey to embracing our thighs that touch or total lack of six-pack abs. “It’s a topographical map, it’s fluctuating. And that’s normal and healthy.”

Another thing that’s unavoidable: feeling less than unqualified joy about what you see in the mirror. “If you’re even a tiny bit of a critical person, there are always things that are wrong with everything. We have this notion of love that is connected to perfectionism — the image that we should be in bliss all the time is so strong in our culture,” says Joan Chrisler, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London. What might instead be a more successful and realistic approach is to think, “You have the body you have and accept what you have. It’s an essential part of yourself.” At least it’s something to work toward.

“I don’t think I know anybody who walks around every day thinking, ‘I am loving this today,’” says Kelsey Miller with a laugh. She’s the 29-year-old New York–based author of the memoir Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life. Perhaps ironically, while she was writing the book about learning to love her body, she was working around the clock, barely having time to exercise and living on takeout by necessity. “I put on weight. I was thinking, here I am supposed to be body positive but I don’t feel psyched about this right now.”

She vowed not to let it ruin her life, nor her sense of accomplishment at finishing a book, even if she wasn’t her most satisfied. Part of the implicit goal of body neutrality is to free up all the energy and attention that women often devote to body angst so that they can care about other matters instead. “I realized my body is going along with my life, and there’s nothing wrong with that — I hadn’t committed a terrible crime. If I can’t like this, I have to be able to accept it, otherwise I’m not going to live my life.” One thing she committed to was to stay resolutely in the present, with no place for magical thinking about losing ten pounds in a week. In the weeks that followed, she didn’t go on a crash diet or start weighing herself religiously to mark her progress, but instead simply let her life return to normal. Miller went to barre classes and “remembered what a joy it was to make my own damn breakfast,” she laughs. “I don’t weigh myself but I know I’ve lost some weight. My message to my body was, thanks for getting me through this and not breaking down, and now I can devote time to doing what makes you feel good: sweating, eating homemade food, going to sleep.”

Wanting to be fit isn’t antithetical to body neutrality, nor is dieting. “But it’s a tricky balance,” says Elena Ramirez, Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor of psychology at the University of Vermont in Burlington. “It’s reasonable, if someone is overweight, that they should lose weight. It’s all about moderation and being grounded in reality instead of avoiding the issue.” Body neutrality isn’t a license to throw in the towel, dive head-first into a pile of chips, and give up on feeling healthy, but to move on from the mindset of needing to lose weight or worrying about what you see in the mirror to focusing on how you feel. “It doesn’t mean suddenly stopping things like being physically active or choosing nutritious foods. Just focus on what feels good: dancing, bike rides, going on a walk, eating more vegetables, meditating, taking a bubble bath, getting a massage,” says Chrisler. “Sometimes you’ll lose weight without trying. The important part is not delaying your happiness until then and remind yourself not to be so demanding.”

Thirty-one-year-old Mara Glatzel is a life coach in Cape Cod who helps women come to terms with their bodies. But she wasn’t always in such a good place. In fact, she uses the words “damaged” and “difficult” to describe her relationship with her body. “I was just constantly creating plans — diets, workouts — which all had to do with how I looked to somebody else,” she says. So instead of jumping straight from a place of loathing to love, she shifted her focus to “things I was overlooking. I picked one or two things to focus on, really simple ones like brushing my teeth and making sure I washed my face before bed or drinking enough water,” she says. “ But it worked because I tried to turn down the volume of what I think about. Now I take good care of myself.” For some of us, that’s enough of a breakthrough right there.

Try thinking about your body the way you think about friends and family, says Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D., director of the Cincinnati Psychotherapy Institute. “The way I like to look at this is, think about your best friend. Is she perfect? Well, no. Are you mean to her because she’s not?” she says. “There is nobody out there who is a perfect ten emotionally or physically and yet people fall in love with people all the time. Look at your partner and you might say, ‘Well, he has a receding hairline but is funny and loyal and has beautiful eyes.’”

Working on neutrality — and it is an ever-evolving process — is ultimately about how you want to allocate your time and focus. “Neutrality is the freedom to go about your day without such a strong focus on your body,” says Kearney-Cooke. “We have only so much energy, where do we want to use it? There are lots of other things that need attention. You don’t want to neglect your body, so you listen to it, and are aware of the function it serves.”

Melissa A. Fabello, a 31-year-old Ph.D. candidate in Philadelphia, wrote a blog post on body neutrality in 2015 (the term seems to have been popping up on the internet for the past few years, but Green Mountain applied to trademark it last year) that sums up how it can be both a joy and a relief for those of us who have previously felt only body turmoil. Body neutrality is “going to the Cheesecake Factory and perusing their ‘Skinnylicious’ (ugh, I hate that name) menu just because you want more options to choose from,” she wrote. “It’s ordering S’mores cheesecake because it strikes you as sounding amazing. It’s only eating half of it because that’s when you get full. It’s taking it home for later, in case you need a midnight snack.”

Talking on the phone, Fabello said just the idea that a kind of peace with our bodies is possible is important. “I’m in a place where I can order pizza without a problem and not feel bad about myself all the time.” But that was not always the case. As a conventionally attractive, relatively thin woman, she had a positive body image growing up. Then, she gained a lot of weight for her frame — around 25 pounds — when she went to college. In her early 20s, she was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man who would tell her she was fat and needed to go to the gym. After he broke up with her, “I thought, well I’ll show him,” she says. “I went on the first serious diet of my life, spiraled out of control and was diagnosed with an eating disorder. After that I had to do some work to get to a place where I felt okay about myself.”

One thing she does is recognize that negative thoughts about her body are a pattern, one she doesn’t have to just succumb to. “We spiral and make up stories about how bad they are. I don’t have to place a value on it,” she says. “So if I think, I don’t like my thighs, I will think about my thighs in terms of how they actually are. What are the things I need my thighs for? They hold me up, I can walk, I can bend down. It sounds trite, but we lose sight that our bodies are to help us move through the world.”

*****

Back in Vermont at Green Mountain, Anne Poirier sits down after teaching and talks about her personal history. “My journey is yo-yo dieting, diet after diet, and never happy with my body. I’m tired and I don’t like how much it has occupied my whole life.” She calls all the space food talk takes up in her brain “Judge Foodie.”

When asked about whether she has gotten to body acceptance, she shakes her head no. “I honor and respect my body. I like feeling strong, certain things I like, but I can’t say I love it.” Instead of sounding like a failure, the revelation that she’s making her way through the spectrum of body hate to body love and falls somewhere in the middle makes it sound more real and more achievable. “Body neutrality is experiential and not something that happens overnight,” says Poirier. “It’s one awareness at a time, one thought at a time.”

More from The Cut:

50 Simple Pieces for Building a Classic Wardrobe

Meet the 82-Year-Old Runner Famous for Chugging Beer Mid-Race

Yoga, Meditation, and a Yurt: My Weekend at a Breakup Retreat

There Is a Best Time to Work Out and It’s Not in the Morning

Trans Teens on What ‘Bathroom Anxiety’ Really Feels Like

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Forget Body Positivity: How About Body Neutrality?

By Marisa Meltzer

It is late afternoon on a sunny day in Vermont and around a dozen people are gathered to talk about their bodies. They’re all staying at Green Mountain at Fox Run, a retreat where women (and only women) stay from one week to several months to learn healthy eating habits and make peace with their bodies. It’s much more bare bones than a spa, and rather than focus on numbers, like a typical weight-loss program, the aim is to teach women how to change the way they think about food. The days are structured, with classes on meal planning, goal setting, self-care, and workouts like yoga and strength training. Even meals are to be eaten mindfully, with a weekly exercise that involves savoring every bite of a tiny dessert.

That journey to peace is a lot easier said than done, as the group, who range from college age to their 40s, is learning in the Body Neutrality workshop, led by the program director Anne Poirier, BS, CSCS, CIEC, whose previous job was running the fitness program at Colby-Sawyer College. She has prompted everyone to consider “what your body felt like and looked like at different times in your life” and they’re all jotting notes down in a binder with Green Mountain’s “womanifesto” printed on it (“too often, our lives play out on the stage between our ears”). A blonde in her 30s talks about being a former competitive swimmer who feels shame because she gained weight; a brunette next to her talks about how, despite losing half her body weight in college, she always feels obese.

Poirier listens to all of this and nods. “There’s a whole movement talking about loving our bodies. But it’s kind of a long jump to move there from dissatisfaction,” she says. “Some people are just going to land in body neutrality, which is the term we utilize here for somewhere in the middle.” It’s a kind of détente, a white flag, a way station between hating oneself and loving oneself.

*****

If we judged how we felt as a culture about our bodies just by Instagram alone, the results would be mixed at best. There are the celebrities shilling sketchy tea detoxes, all the sweaty post-workout selfies our friends post, and countless pretty, proportionate girls in an array of sizes posing in bikinis encouraging all of us, no matter our weight, to embrace our curves, to shun diets, to just love our bodies — and, by extension, ourselves —already.

“My problem with body love, beside the fact that it’s a high standard, is it’s asking women to regulate their emotions, not just their bodies,” says Autumn Whitefield-Madrano, author of Face Value: The Hidden Ways Beauty Shapes Women’s Lives. “I don’t see the pressure on women really easing up, and then you’re supposed to have this bulletproof self-esteem on top of all that. It’s not something we can really live up to. Body love keeps the focus on the body. The times I’m happiest are when I’m not thinking about my body at all.”

The way that we feel about our bodies, she notes, is not a simple upward graph where one day we vow to love ourselves and each day we progress forward on the journey to embracing our thighs that touch or total lack of six-pack abs. “It’s a topographical map, it’s fluctuating. And that’s normal and healthy.”

Another thing that’s unavoidable: feeling less than unqualified joy about what you see in the mirror. “If you’re even a tiny bit of a critical person, there are always things that are wrong with everything. We have this notion of love that is connected to perfectionism — the image that we should be in bliss all the time is so strong in our culture,” says Joan Chrisler, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Connecticut College in New London. What might instead be a more successful and realistic approach is to think, “You have the body you have and accept what you have. It’s an essential part of yourself.” At least it’s something to work toward.

“I don’t think I know anybody who walks around every day thinking, ‘I am loving this today,’” says Kelsey Miller with a laugh. She’s the 29-year-old New York–based author of the memoir Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life. Perhaps ironically, while she was writing the book about learning to love her body, she was working around the clock, barely having time to exercise and living on takeout by necessity. “I put on weight. I was thinking, here I am supposed to be body positive but I don’t feel psyched about this right now.”

She vowed not to let it ruin her life, nor her sense of accomplishment at finishing a book, even if she wasn’t her most satisfied. Part of the implicit goal of body neutrality is to free up all the energy and attention that women often devote to body angst so that they can care about other matters instead. “I realized my body is going along with my life, and there’s nothing wrong with that — I hadn’t committed a terrible crime. If I can’t like this, I have to be able to accept it, otherwise I’m not going to live my life.” One thing she committed to was to stay resolutely in the present, with no place for magical thinking about losing ten pounds in a week. In the weeks that followed, she didn’t go on a crash diet or start weighing herself religiously to mark her progress, but instead simply let her life return to normal. Miller went to barre classes and “remembered what a joy it was to make my own damn breakfast,” she laughs. “I don’t weigh myself but I know I’ve lost some weight. My message to my body was, thanks for getting me through this and not breaking down, and now I can devote time to doing what makes you feel good: sweating, eating homemade food, going to sleep.”

Wanting to be fit isn’t antithetical to body neutrality, nor is dieting. “But it’s a tricky balance,” says Elena Ramirez, Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor of psychology at the University of Vermont in Burlington. “It’s reasonable, if someone is overweight, that they should lose weight. It’s all about moderation and being grounded in reality instead of avoiding the issue.” Body neutrality isn’t a license to throw in the towel, dive head-first into a pile of chips, and give up on feeling healthy, but to move on from the mindset of needing to lose weight or worrying about what you see in the mirror to focusing on how you feel. “It doesn’t mean suddenly stopping things like being physically active or choosing nutritious foods. Just focus on what feels good: dancing, bike rides, going on a walk, eating more vegetables, meditating, taking a bubble bath, getting a massage,” says Chrisler. “Sometimes you’ll lose weight without trying. The important part is not delaying your happiness until then and remind yourself not to be so demanding.”

Thirty-one-year-old Mara Glatzel is a life coach in Cape Cod who helps women come to terms with their bodies. But she wasn’t always in such a good place. In fact, she uses the words “damaged” and “difficult” to describe her relationship with her body. “I was just constantly creating plans — diets, workouts — which all had to do with how I looked to somebody else,” she says. So instead of jumping straight from a place of loathing to love, she shifted her focus to “things I was overlooking. I picked one or two things to focus on, really simple ones like brushing my teeth and making sure I washed my face before bed or drinking enough water,” she says. “ But it worked because I tried to turn down the volume of what I think about. Now I take good care of myself.” For some of us, that’s enough of a breakthrough right there.

Try thinking about your body the way you think about friends and family, says Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D., director of the Cincinnati Psychotherapy Institute. “The way I like to look at this is, think about your best friend. Is she perfect? Well, no. Are you mean to her because she’s not?” she says. “There is nobody out there who is a perfect ten emotionally or physically and yet people fall in love with people all the time. Look at your partner and you might say, ‘Well, he has a receding hairline but is funny and loyal and has beautiful eyes.’”

Working on neutrality — and it is an ever-evolving process — is ultimately about how you want to allocate your time and focus. “Neutrality is the freedom to go about your day without such a strong focus on your body,” says Kearney-Cooke. “We have only so much energy, where do we want to use it? There are lots of other things that need attention. You don’t want to neglect your body, so you listen to it, and are aware of the function it serves.”

Melissa A. Fabello, a 31-year-old Ph.D. candidate in Philadelphia, wrote a blog post on body neutrality in 2015 (the term seems to have been popping up on the internet for the past few years, but Green Mountain applied to trademark it last year) that sums up how it can be both a joy and a relief for those of us who have previously felt only body turmoil. Body neutrality is “going to the Cheesecake Factory and perusing their ‘Skinnylicious’ (ugh, I hate that name) menu just because you want more options to choose from,” she wrote. “It’s ordering S’mores cheesecake because it strikes you as sounding amazing. It’s only eating half of it because that’s when you get full. It’s taking it home for later, in case you need a midnight snack.”

Talking on the phone, Fabello said just the idea that a kind of peace with our bodies is possible is important. “I’m in a place where I can order pizza without a problem and not feel bad about myself all the time.” But that was not always the case. As a conventionally attractive, relatively thin woman, she had a positive body image growing up. Then, she gained a lot of weight for her frame — around 25 pounds — when she went to college. In her early 20s, she was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man who would tell her she was fat and needed to go to the gym. After he broke up with her, “I thought, well I’ll show him,” she says. “I went on the first serious diet of my life, spiraled out of control and was diagnosed with an eating disorder. After that I had to do some work to get to a place where I felt okay about myself.”

One thing she does is recognize that negative thoughts about her body are a pattern, one she doesn’t have to just succumb to. “We spiral and make up stories about how bad they are. I don’t have to place a value on it,” she says. “So if I think, I don’t like my thighs, I will think about my thighs in terms of how they actually are. What are the things I need my thighs for? They hold me up, I can walk, I can bend down. It sounds trite, but we lose sight that our bodies are to help us move through the world.”

*****

Back in Vermont at Green Mountain, Anne Poirier sits down after teaching and talks about her personal history. “My journey is yo-yo dieting, diet after diet, and never happy with my body. I’m tired and I don’t like how much it has occupied my whole life.” She calls all the space food talk takes up in her brain “Judge Foodie.”

When asked about whether she has gotten to body acceptance, she shakes her head no. “I honor and respect my body. I like feeling strong, certain things I like, but I can’t say I love it.” Instead of sounding like a failure, the revelation that she’s making her way through the spectrum of body hate to body love and falls somewhere in the middle makes it sound more real and more achievable. “Body neutrality is experiential and not something that happens overnight,” says Poirier. “It’s one awareness at a time, one thought at a time.”

More from The Cut:

50 Simple Pieces for Building a Classic Wardrobe

Meet the 82-Year-Old Runner Famous for Chugging Beer Mid-Race

Yoga, Meditation, and a Yurt: My Weekend at a Breakup Retreat

There Is a Best Time to Work Out and It’s Not in the Morning

Trans Teens on What ‘Bathroom Anxiety’ Really Feels Like

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2mQvM26