#i think the solution is to write weird poetry. maybe. or make some sort of playlist

[livingdeaddoctor]

me when i don't miss her because we're exes but i miss her because we're friends and i never hear from her anymore !!

[lairofsentinel]

Talking about the smidgens we saw of Gale, the wizard of Waterdeep.

[Baldur’s Gate 3 Early Access Spoilers]

Updated, AGAIN, because the hell of new aspects we saw when some bugs were sorted out. Warning:  all this analysis was done for game versions 4.1.83 and 4.1.84

Well, I had to rewrite all this because the explorations of dialogue options and the bugs being, somehow, solved, allowed me to see small details from Gale that stand out or end up being more than curious to me. I'll list his main features to make things short (hopefully), and useful for... eventual fics:

Gale is a char who approves any good treatment to animals (and creatures in general). He has a cat, a Library, and writes poetry sometimes.

He doesn't like gratuitous murdering which is implied in the anecdote he told us about how he stopped a massacre in a Waterdeep city inn just by buying a round to everyone. It is also implied in his approval in most situations; even in the one with the ogres having sex.

He gives you disapproval most of the time if you use violence and intimidation as your first approach in solving a situation. He prefers eloquence, diplomacy, and negotiation. However, he is flexible enough to approve a performance-intimidation in front of goblins to avoid bloodshed. Point (2) is primary. So... he truly is a pragmatic char. It's not white and black: “never use intimidation/lie” or that kind of over-simplistic view.

He likes logical and reasonable conversations. An action that earned his disapproval can be undone if the main char (MC) talks to him and explains their reasons. You can disagree with him without having approval penalties most of the time. You can question many situations and, as long as it remains a mental exercise, there are no penalties. That surprised me a lot. Most characters disapprove you if you wonder about a potential situation, but Gale no. He is the scholar, he will allow a safe space to think around things without being too judgemental. We will see if this attitude lasts in the full game. No wonder some players see in him “the Teacher” archetype. Quite so.

He was an Arch wizard while being Mystra's Chosen One, and fell from grace when she put him aside. What is hard for me to grasp is if he remained Chosen One and therefore able to cast silver-fire during that intermediate period when he stopped having Mystra's whispers and his folly with the netherese taint. We know that in that moment Mystra removed herself from his life completely. But before, she has only stopped whispering and sleeping with him. So far I understand, being her Chosen One doesn't imply sleeping with her, most of the time.

He was a teacher (not surprising, since his over-explanation vices and details such as the pronunciation of “Trashj” make us suspect it), and had some students that he could not keep longer since their ineptitudes irked him. 

Unlike the stereotypical “scholar” type, he knows how to cook, since he has been doing stews for the party in the camp. He also loves baths. A bit siding with the stereotypical “scholar” type, but a nice change for a “standard adventurer” type, in which most of the time it is implied that they are stinky with “animalistic” scents and uglier descriptors. No, Gale likes his lavender-scented baths. Good. 

He is an over-thinker strategist. And also a char who takes responsibility for his own mistakes to the point that, when he dies for the first time, a programmed image is activated to help anyone to revive him. Despite the fact that he is dead and can give a shit about that, he is still responsible of the catastrophe that may happen if that weird magic orb stuck in his chest erupts.

He is also forcing me to check the dictionary like no other game has done in a while... the fucker uses uncommon words a lot of the time. Smidges? really? Gale is a hard char for a non native English speaker.

We can assume that during his teenage time, he was a pretty prideful peacock to the point to be blind at the reality (well, yeah, he romanced a goddess; if that doesn't give you a hell of a ego boost...) He remembers his young self's pride with a thick level of regret. He is now a mature scholar that, for a change, does not patronise you or thinks of himself better than anyone. Sure, he over-explains a lot, but that's something that most scholars/teachers do when they are worried that, maybe, they won't be understood.

He is confident in his years of study (for that reason he is a capable wizard despite having lost Mystra's favours), but he acknowledges his limits. Which is a nice change to see in the “scholar” archetype, the typical know-it-all. He knows a lot, he knows that he knows (it would be ridiculous to hide his knowledge), but he is human, and like he says: “humans are fallible”. However, it’s more than obvious that he has a big ego for everything he does, which makes sense since he follows a motto in his life: “try to excel at everything”. High accomplished scholar lifestyle, indeed.

If you don't share the Weave with him, he will state that nights are lonesome. It seems he truly is looking for some connection with a keen fellow mind. Probably it's this loneliness which triggers his urge to see Mystra's face during the night. We also know he, in general, lives in constant fear due to the Netherese taint in his chest. So, very lonely, and very scared. 

I don't know if this is his poet side unable to be switched-off or it's another implication of how he sees sexual encounters: he never says sex (at least in my many runs, he never did it). He always gets around the word: love-making, art of the body, intimacy. For a scholar who is so prone to use the technical word for everything, and has already stated he is not coy at all, the use of these metaphors make me wonder if it's because he always conceives sex as something more than mere physical pleasure. For him, it seems to come with a more emotional connection (which makes sense if we think he will only sleep with those who connected to him through the Weave). Another small detail that may confirm this is when he asks the MC if the “other night” was wonderful. If MC claims it was “fun”, Gale shows a certain degree of uneasiness by that word choice, making us infer that he certainly doesn’t see sex as “fun” but as something else, deeper. 

His tadpole dreams are about Mystra (rather obvious). His most desperate desire is forgiveness. Mystra's forgiveness.

Mystra was his first love. The affair did not last long. And since soon after her abandonment he looked for the Primal Weave book and was infested by it; one could assume he has been focused on solving his problem for the rest of his life than putting some energy in romance, especially if we think about (13). It's hard to say with certainty (especially with banters like these), but since he is a char that you can only sleep with if you share a mind-connection through the Weave, it seems less plausible that he could encourage into casual relationships during all this period of his life looking for a solution to the Netherese orb. If he got previous relationships, they may have been meaningful, but clearly not enough to win over the goddess’ and his urges to see her, lol.

He did not mind Mystra having many other lovers besides him. It seems to be the same with the MC, since he will insist in sleeping with them even after the party and even after the MC slept with someone else (however, that only occurs if the romantic connection through the Weave happened.) This fact combined with (13) and (15) make me wonder if he certainly wants to be with the MC too badly, even in an open relationship. We need to see the rest of his romance to be sure.

Since he looks for forgiveness so desperately, he is a char who will forgive most mistakes made by the MC if they acknowledge them.

He is a char who knows how grey and complex situations can be. This is inferred by the way he speaks of the tiefling girl who tried to steal the idol in the Grove: “She is not innocent, but that doesn't mean she is guilty.” (of course there is a lot of self projection there). This is also implied in his (surprising) approval of raising Mayrina's husband and giving her the control wand to search for a solution in Neverwinter. That shows that he can accept the fuckest weirdest situations, recognising that “sometimes we can’t choose situations but we can try to do our best, not always having the best results”. Also self-projection.

He appreciates his privacy to the point to leave the MC if the abuse of the tadpole power continues. However, and honouring (4), you can abuse of these powers and convince him with reasons: if you don't lie to him and explain that you have a responsibility with the group to know what happens with his secret, he will understand, and despite disapproving the MC actions, will remain without major troubles.

Certainly, as long as you give him reasons and logical concepts, he can almost understand everything with no disapproval or at least little one.

Consent and negotiation are vital to him, apparently. However, this aspect reaches a flaw. He was too angry with Nettie when she almost killed the MC, and he made a short speech about how nobody has the right to decide your options for you. Yet, in his romance scene, we see that he deliberately hid his true relationship with Mystra and his bomb-condition in order to sleep with the MC. In fact, during the party, if the MC tells him that doubts if he is the one they want, Gale will drop a curious argument: “That’s because you’ve yet to find out what your’re missing” (implying that he himself is what you need), followed by his most curious “Doubt is a spoilsport. Cast it aside”. That coming from a scholar is rotten, lol. He tries every convincing argument to sleep with the MC (if they shared the moment of the Weave, of course)

This happens in every variation of the path: whether the MC sleeps with him in the party, or afterwards, Gale will always wait for sharing a night with the MC before speaking the truth. It's hard to read this aspect since, he is a char who, apparently, needs a mind-connection with his partner for intimacy (see (12) and (13)); so this terrible strategy is like his way of trying to guarantee that the MC will not abandon him. I guess there is something along those line, specially if we keep in mind the book he explained: a book which is not only about the art of the body and the night and sex, but of other things such as conversation, exploration, and acceptance of oneself and the other. He is expecting with this night to reach the MC to a certain degree of intimacy in which, despite the raw truth, the acceptance will prevail. Remembering (16), he truly wants to sleep with the MC, baaaadly. And somehow everything feels like he wants to push things in a subtle way to a certain degree of commitment. Following the concept in (12), I think he has been alone for too long, and desperately needs someone in his lonesome nights and in helping him to deal with his burden. Finding someone who connected to him through the Weave (such a personal experience for him as it is) made him a bit desperate or eager. We know his emotion for the MC may have grown over those days since the connection with the Weave. In two occasions he or the MC can ask if both of them think about that moment. Gale says yes with such enthusiasm, that it may imply...that maybe, he has been thinking about that more times than he truly wants to tell the MC. The Weave moment had such a strong effect on Gale that, if the MC spent the night with another companion and rejects Gale’s proposition later, he will trail off a sentence that implies he was convinced that the MC and he were heading into something serious and deep.

Of course, once he sleeps with the MC, he confesses the truth right afterwards, accepting--without approval penalties--the harshest responses that the MC can give. He clearly knows that such manoeuvre was truly disloyal, especially contrasting it with all his speech of consent and rights to know about the true situation one is in. In the next morning, he acknowledges it was a rotten thing to do and apologies. But this shows that his principles can be bend and even be broken when it comes to emotions. I'm still a bit wary of his emotional stability, what can I say.

Mystra is more than an ex-lover for him, it’s magic. And Magic is everything for him, even more than life. I wonder if, given the opportunity, Mystra forgives him and asks him to return to her side, would he accept it without second thoughts leaving the romanced MC? It's true he also acknowledges that all that fascination he had with the goddess was a product of his youth; he knows he was a plaything in her hands. But I don't see he got over with it. He still idealises her, as such a good poet does. Idealisation, especially when a Goddess is involved, is a terrible thing to fight against for the next partner. No matter what speech of loyalties and consent he states during the whole game, the MC knows that magic and Mystra are Gale's Achilles’ heel, and factors in which they  can’t predict his behaviour.

We also know that, because his bomb-condition, he tries to take all the opportunities to enjoy the little things of life that make him human.

Gale is a straightforward and honest (mostly, let's say) char. But we can see that he prefers to be honest in most situations, except in his Achille’s heel. Even when he wanted to hide all the stuff about the bomb in his chest, he did it by explicitly warning us that he was hiding something he did not want to talk about. Which is an honest approach considering the hardcore burden he carries and the immediate rejection it can mean if the truth unfolds too quickly among strangers.

When it comes to concepts, Gale has the symbol of the storm attached to him. So far, we see he talks comparing things with storms or storm elements: his lack of knowledge to explain why they are not Mind Flayers yet: the silence before the storm; the fear that rushes into his body when the Weave orb asks him for magic to consume: the thunder of a storm reverberating in his soul, the day it will erupt: the lightning striking, the consumption of magic: water running through a sore throat, Life itself: a tempest. When he asked the player if they were a wizard, he explains that he needs an Arch wizard and compares them with a Tempest. If we see the main image of Baldur's gate 3, it's clear that his main element is electricity/storm... so... full witch-bolt-guy here.

[updated later] The Weave moment is important to romance Gale. Leaving the moment in ambiguity will give the MC another opportunity to make their intentions clear during the scene of the Loss. However, remaining vague will lock Gale into a friendship path. What happens during this scene may suggest that the ambiguity in the Weave was enough to keep Gale thinking about the romantic possibility, but he will not engage into it by his own, which confirms (15). Unless the opportunity presents itself clearly before him, he will not pursue the MC. Further details [here].

Last moment detail: Gale says “I cherish you” when he explains he will await death alone if the Netherese orb goes out of control. I was not sure if that meant something more or less than love or like (I can’t not overlook the subtle meaning of the words coming from Gale’s mouth, he is a poet and his word choices matter). Checking the dictionary I found that “cherish” (in a relationship) is defined as to hold or to treat as dear, to feel love for and to care for someone deeply and tenderly. This man went straight into a commitment relationship without thinking it twice, and without (I believe) the MC knowing it either xD. 

Let's see how these characteristics shift or develop deeper once the full game is out there. Now we have to wait a lot :(

To see videos where all this stuff is inferred or explicitly said, you can check [here]

More videos added later [here] and [here]

More content of bg3 in general [here]

[im-the-punk-who]

Hey, I was wondering if you have a book rec

!!

Okay so in full disclosure, I have a really hard time reading books. My brain sometime around six years ago just decided that wasn't its style anymore, so I don't read a TON. A lot of these aren’t going to be recent releases. However, here are a bunch of books I would absolutely recommend checking out! I tried to include a variety of genres but I have uh.....five bookshelves in my apartment so if you're looking for more of a certain genre let me know!

Theatre:

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard

Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett

These are my two favorite plays - they're both absurdist, humorous, and have some fun things to say. They’re both by old white guys but like....I love both Tom Stoppard and Samuel Beckett DEEPLY and they have all of my love and respect.

Non-Fiction/Educational:

Why are all the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly Daniel Tatum - this is considered a 'classic' on the psychology of racism, and was particularly helpful for me as a white person in arming myself against 'reverse racism' thoughts and in dissembling my own prejudices. This is mostly a rec for other white folks, but Tatum also addresses 'having the courage to sit at the black table' as a way of claiming your own identity outside of the stereotypes the dominant society expects of you.

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown - Okay listen I just really REALLY love Brene Brown, she is a therapist most famous for her TED talk about Vulnerability and this is just...listen I really like to read this book when I am sad and feel like shit because it makes me feel strong. I reread this book at least once a year.

Imagined Communities by Benendict Anderson - This is an absolutely fascinating read on the rise of nationalism. It’s a bit dry and wordy, but the ideas and use of history as propaganda, spinning the story of a nation to pit it against or on the same side as other nations, and the ways in which these tactics shaped cultural history is just!!!! Amazing.

Gay New York by George Chauncey - This is just one of the most informative and interesting reads of queer history in New York that I’ve ever come across. It’s one of the ‘must reads’ of queer history and has so many interesting tidbits that I have to recommend it. It’s a bit old(published in 1994) but I still find it relevant and interesting to read.

Personal Fiction/Autobiographical Fiction

White Girls by Hilton Als - I went to a reading of this book when it first came out. It was so much fun and so eye-opening for me as a baby queer in NYC that I bought the book there. I wanna be really clear that Als does not pull punches and a lot of people don’t quite like it, but I love Als’ style of writing. The stories and essays in this book are amazing and funny and heartbreaking and informative of queer experience - particularly black queer experience - that I always feel like...honored? to experience through writing? This is one of those ‘you’re gonna suffer but you’re gonna be happy about it’ reads - it can be hard to face because of how very hard the pills are to swallow but like....gosh I just love this book and it’s interesting and hilarious and great.

Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins  - this is my tin hat favorite. It hits....ugh. This is one of those books that came out and like every government agency freaked the fuck out over it. It’s an interesting look into the quote-unquote dark underbelly of capitalism; how and why countries manipulate each other through economic policies. Super interesting read with a nice style of prose.

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs Okay so full disclosure I have not finished reading this, but I’m far enough through to rec it. This book chronicles the author’s attempt to read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica from front to back, and it is just as kooky and hilarious as it sounds. I am very incredibly and deeply offended this author stole both my schtick and my initials, thereby preventing me from doing this exact thing. I read through the phone book in its entirety when I was three. I had it in me. Anyway, this is basically the author just listing weird interesting facts he’s read about and connecting them to his daily life, but it’s a fun read, and you learn a lot of totally useless facts, which is absolutely my jam.

When Skatboards Will Be Free by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh - HI I LOVE THIS BOOK. I’ve read it maybe three times over. It’s so fun and interesting. You may notice that a lot of the books I rec are very absurdist in their humor, and this is no exception. This book is full of the dry wit and just weird goddamn shit you could only expect from the child of a revolution that never came. You want to read a book about someone who Went Through Shit? Read this book. It’s funny and heartbreaking and just. AHHHH. Seriously I cannot recommend this enough.

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch - FIGHT ME ON THIS. I love this book.....so much. Yes it’s technically a comic book but the stories are so INTERESTING and hilarious and full of exactly the dry absurdist humor I eat the fuck up. Also! Allie Brosch recently released a sequel of sorts called Solutions and Other Problems that I recommend without even reading it.

Poetry

Pansy by Andrea Gibson - IF YOU ARE NOT READING THE POETRY OF ANDREA GIBSON WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING WITH YOUR LIFE. I cried seven times reading this book. There are only like 14 poems. Please please read this to break your own queer heart :)

Bloodsport by Yves Olade - This is a tiny book full of absolutely devastating poetry. Most of it has to do with the grief of relationships, but like....gosh I love all of Olade’s stuff. (Also!! This is available as a pay-what-you-wish pdf!!)

Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón - This book focuses a lot on the author’s experiences of loss, and knowing that loss is going to happen. I’m completely devastated every time I read this.

Science Fiction/Fantasy

The Bartimeaus Sequence by Jonathan Stroud - So what if I am a dumb millennial I love this series. It’s another dry and deadpan humor, with weird additions and Stroud’s use of footnotes to absolutely crack me the fuck up means I gotta rec this. I just gotta. Four(I think?) books following the deeply unlikeable Nathaniel and his Djinn Bartimaeus, who just wants to eat humans and have a deeply enjoyable enemies to lovers plotline with his arch rival.

The Magic's Price Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey - Okay I know I’ve recced this before. I will rec it again. This was the very first series I ever read that featured a gay protagonist and I was. Devastated? Reformed? I latched onto Vanyel Ashkevron and I am never letting this depressed emo boy go. Try me, I bite. Seriously, this book was released in the 80s and yet it is still relevant, I still cry - god i LOVE this series SO MUCH. And, MERCEDES LACKEY actually invented unbury your gays, sorry I make the rule on that one. :) Also there are magic talking horses??????? Seriously please read this series I love it so much.

Fire Bringer & The Sight by David Clement-Davies - This is another series that was absolutely formative in my baby lexicon. These are books about magical animals and their inner societal workings and both books address the ideas of good, evil, darkness, compassion and good will, and destiny. I am obsessed with these books, they are some of the most interesting of the genre I’ve read, and so incredibly intricately written. LOVE these books.

Vampire Earth Series by E. E. Knight - The Witcher before it was cool. Sort of but like...there are schools of Cat, Bear, etc and it has COOL VAMPIRES I LOVE THSI SERIES. Basically, earth has been taken over by a race of alien ‘Vampires’ and follows a human involved in the resistance. The writing in this series is...wow. It’s so intricate and interesting and involved. I own the whole series because I love it so much, including the after-series hardback novels. I’m so messy and I love it.

Kindred by Octavia Butler - You know how people are like ‘YOU SHOULD READ OCTAVIA BUTLER!!’ ? You should absolutely do that. This novel is mindblowing and interesting and the pace and narrative are so so so interesting. Heartbreaking, god, horrific. Butler is an amazing writer and this novel, while my personal favorite, is not by any means the only of her books I would recommend. STORIES. STORIES!!!!!!!

Fiction

The Ballad of Barnabas Pierkiel: A Novel by Magdalena Zyzak - This book is so fucking good. It’s imaginative, funny, intelligent....it’s honestly one of the best fiction novels I’ve ever read. Again, dry, absurdist humor, this book sort of reminds me of Terry Pratchett’s style of writing.

The Call of the Wild by Jack London - This is a classic, a true classic. The social commentary of this book is so so good, London’s style flows and, personally, as a dog and animal expert, the anthropomorphisation of Buck and his fellow animals is just so well done. I love this book, it’s quite an easy read, and I reread it at least once a year.

Rolling the R's by R. Zamora Linmark - Okay. Okay okay!!!!!! I gotta take a deep breath about this one. This book is. Yuh. This is a bit younger leaning than the other fictions, focusing almost entirely on high school level characters, however the experiences and commentary is just so so good. Focusing on a diverse group of characters growing up in Hawaii in the 1970′s, this book addresses the intersectionalities of gender, sexuality, race, immigration, education, and how we define who we are. I’m obsessed.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles - A heartbreaking novel about war, innocence, adolescence, and how we hide from our truths. It’s...so good, this book hurts me a LOT okay. The prose is phenomenal, the story is poignant, and it feels like I’m ripping my own heart out with a fishhook every time I finish it.

The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan - This is one of those books I half recommend because it’s so good, and half because of the deep wealth of knowledge it presents the reader. The author’s use of her own culture is just....goddddddddd. Intricate and interesting and so delicately included in the narrative that you can feel the love the author has for it. It’s a long read and it took me almost a month to get through reading every day, but god. It’s so soft and amazingly written I both wanted to read it all at once and take my time with it. This is another one that deals with the duality of humanity and how we connect with one another. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!

P.S. Your Cat Is Dead by James Kirkwood Jr. - I love this book I love this book I LOVE THIS BOOK. It’s fucking hilarious, entertaining, I literally laughed out loud at every single chapter. Hilarious and poignant and surprisingly deep, this book literally follows the journey of a man in which literally everything that could go wrong does. It’s fucking hilarious.

I hope that helped and gave you some new books!!! <3

[tar-oh]

Pick a Pile: What the rest of October has in store for you

Okay, so I haven’t been active on here (mostly because of school and personal things) and I had wanted to do an October Pick a Pile but then...it was October and I was kind of like “Oh no! It’s too late!” But as I’m writing this, it’s the 10th of October and there’s still a few weeks left, so I felt that I should do one!

So, when I started this reading I was thinking “What could I do for the piles?” And guess what! I have a new obsession! The netflix show Julie and the Phantoms, which is about a girl who befriends a ghost band. SERIOUSLY A GHOST BAND! Sounds like they wrote this show for me... Anyway, she forms a band with them, and so the show is just all about her life now that she’s friends with some ghosts and is in a band with them. It’s also about the guys kind of navigating this new (after)life. So I thought I’d have you choose one of the ghosts for your piles! Also, it’s kind of SPOOOOOOKY! For Halloween, right? (lol these are like the friendliest ghosts you’ll ever find)

Okay so, 1: Luke, 2: Reggie and 3: Alex (Disclaimer: This is a general reading so it may not resonate with you. I suggest that if you feel like it doesn’t resonate, either pick another pile or find another reading. So, please keep this in mind.) Also, I’m looking into doing personal readings on here for people, so if you’re interested, DM me.

Pile 1: Luke

(sorry, my phone has been taking worse pics lately :/ ) Cards:  The Hermit, clarified by Justice reversed, 5 of cups clarified by 4 of swords reversed and empress reversed, 3 of swords clarified by 10 of cups, 6 of cups clarified by page of pentacles reversed Advice cards: Queen of Pentacles, 2 of cups Okay, so since this is for the rest of October, some of this could have already happened for you/you’re going through it. Or it’s something that could happen within the next few weeks, but I’m going to read it like it’s progressing right now.

I feel as though I should give a little about the character you chose, Luke. I don't know, maybe some of you chose him because you think Charlie Gillespie, the guy who plays him, is really adorable (the most adorable Virgo I've ever seen tbh, currently kind of in love with him really). Luke is the guitarist/lead singer of the original band in show, Sunset Curve. He becomes kind of the co-singer in Julie and the Phantoms. While Luke has a huge heart and cares immensely about those he loves, he also has kind of this thing where he wants the attention on him. It's more along the lines of something I don't think he can help. Like, he can be ass, but he's also a caring ass. Throughout the whole show he says that it's about the music, not the money. So while he probably would love to be famous, he's more about the music. He literally lives (an ironic statement given the plot of the show) for music and to be able to play it after his death seems to be all he wants. When he meets Julie, he sees a way to still play his music. He seems to be able to express himself best through his music. So, through this I'm going to assume that you are also someone who loves your people fiercely. I think you also are someone who connects through music. Maybe you feel best when listening to it, or possibly you are able to express yourself through it. Maybe you write your own lyrics  (or poetry) or compose your own music. So, then we get into the cards. You have the hermit as your first card. It's so funny this one came out because it's the card for Virgos, and as I pointed out the guy that plays Luke is a virgo, and though Luke seems to exude more of a fiery personality than an earthy one, I think Charlie's sun sign is still visible. At least to me. I mean, I guessed it correctly which I don't know. Kind of weird to me! So, that leads me to say that even though I don't have many earthy cards here, I still am getting those earthy vibes. Maybe it's more that you're feeling really grounded right now or maybe you are focused on your career more-so currently. I mean, bottom deck energy was 9 of Pentacles, so it's like this overall feeling that you either have your shit in order or you're striving to get there. And I see that in the Hermit card. There's a man in the forefront holding a lantern, looking for something. In this deck, the Haunted House Tarot, this guy is called the groundskeeper. He's the one that cares for the garden, which fitting since the hermit is the card for Virgos. I mean, an earth sign. In the background, the girl who is seen throughout the whole deck is peering around a tree at him. I kind of see this as two things for multiple people. The first is that this is you’re kind of taking stock of what's going on at the moment in your life. You're looking around at it all, seeing what you have and what you can do with what you have and I definitely see 5 of cups kind of backing that up, but instead of you seeing all of it, I think you're focusing on what you're lacking. A song called Anywhere You Looked by Au Revoir Simone came on, so, I definitely see this! The hermit was clarified by Justice reversed and so I think this is you kind of feeling like maybe you lack something and that it's seeming to taking precedence over what there is. Like, this lack seems like an injustice to you. In this 5 of cups, there's 5 wine glasses, all of them more than half empty and I think that's kind of interesting. I mean clearly someone drank the wine...but then stopped and got a new cup? And each time? So, like, is this you looking at what there is for you to work with, utilizing it but then putting it down despite you being able to use it more? Maybe it's you starting things and none of it feels right, so you start other things and it happens again, which leads to a frustration. To clarify 5 of cups, both the Empress reversed and 4 of Swords reversed fell out. I think maybe this empress being in the reversed position is kind of representing this frustration, but instead of it being on the lack of resources or not even the lack, but just resources in general, its going back to you. Like, you're upset with yourself. I know in this deck, her having her hand on her stomach is supposed to represent her being pregnant, and I mean, if we go with that, it being reversed its like that fertility wasn't there to nurture this new life? If that makes sense, but I'm thinking of this as something tangible (not that a baby isn't tangible lol but I mean a project or a job or something). But I also see this clutching of the stomach as pain. Like, maybe you're just feeling so frustrated you're stressed to the point of exhaustion. The 4 of swords reversed...Well. Right now I'm reading this as you needing to take a step back and rest but you refuse to. Like, maybe you're restless, and maybe that's why you're the hermit, looking around at what there is. Like this idea that even though you keep restarting, you're not giving up? And, because you chose Luke, I'm assuming this is you. Like this won't stop/can't stop mentality? I mean, dude literally dies but still tries to be in a band so! Skies the fucking limit! And you know that. You're just having trouble getting to a place that you're happy with. The next card was 3 of Swords. This insinuates that something was really painful. Like, heartbreak painful. I don't really think this is all that external though. I'm reading it as again, you're working on something and its just not going the way you want. It's not...Perfect. God. You know this really does give me Virgo vibes because from what I understand about virgos is that they really are kind of all or nothing. Like they want perfection or nothing. I'm not saying all virgos are like this but this is kind of how I’ve seen them with their own work. And, even Luke is kind of like this in the show. He definitely is really focused on the band. He's almost never not working or thinking about the band. So, like with this 3 of swords being a swords card, I see it as mentally. Mentally something hurts you, but it's more of something you're working on. Like, you just can't seem to get it right. 10 of cups definitely backs that up for me. This happy emotionally fulfilling end, but like you can't seem to get there with whatever it is you're working on, so you're just really upset. It feels like this weird-ass cycle you're stuck in, like this never-ending disappointment. Maybe one day you're like "Oh! If I try this it will work out!" but you try it and you end up scrapping it and trying again. And, honestly, even though I feel that for most of you this is a project of some sorts, I think for some it could be a relationship, like romantic or even a family member. With 6 of cups, I didn't really want to say it was someone from your past, but the song Visitor by Of Monsters and Men came on, and honestly for some it probably is someone from your past. For others, maybe just a solution you tried in the past will circle back around in your head and you'll retry it. The thing though, is that it's clarified by the Page of Pentacles reversed and for some it could mean that this solution will once again bring nothing forth. For others, it could be that you're in this position where you want to get further then where you're at (the song says, "I want to do better this time"), but...Maybe you're not putting in that effort you need to be putting in. Or, perhaps the way you're going about this is not beneficial to you.  Maybe you're just overworking yourself, and this is just the cards telling you to pause and think back. The solution is in the past. The past is just haunting me with this card. I don't always like to be like "oh it's this cliche meaning" but, this really feels like the past. In it there's a little girl reaching up at the flower in the cup that the woman is holding, but I kind of wonder if this is supposed to be Younger You, offering Older You this idea or advice. Something in your past is relevant. Maybe it is another person, but it's definitely something from your past. For your advice I pulled Queen of Pentacles. Usually, I'd say that you need to focus on you and your finances at this point, but in this deck's version, she's holding the pentacle but looking away from it. I almost wonder if whatever this is, be it project or relationship, you need to just take a break for a hot minute. I think you'll know how long of a break it needs to be, but I think once you do you'll be able to come back with a fresh mind and you'll be able to tackle it in a more efficient way. I also pulled two of cups and so maybe you need to stop what you're doing and water something else, like another relationship for a bit (i.e. if this is a romantic partner, maybe go hang out with friends, or vice versa). But I also get that for some of you, if this is a project you might need to ask someone else for their opinion or help. Maybe for some this is relinquishing this problem to someone else for the time being. Either way, two of cups is abut duality. There is something about this situation that requires a duality. It could be as simple as you being able to find a balance between working on whatever this is and everything else in your life, I mean, going back to the Queen of Pentacles, she's this lady who has her shit together while also being able to be there for others and in a compassionate way. So, maybe this is a reminder that you don't need to do everything on your own and that you won't be able to find a peace of mind until you're able to relinquish this or at least allow someone to help you. This also reminds me of Luke again because his band can't play music unless they're preforming with Julie since no one can see them until they're playing with her. He had to relinquish this role of being the only lead singer. Gosh, wouldn't that be funny if your were a ghost guitar player reading this? Lmao!  Overall, I get such a workaholic vibe from this pile. Guys just take a breather, seriously.

Pile 2: Reggie

Cards:  3 of pentacles reversed clarified by ace of swords, 9 of swords clarified by the hierophant, 7 of wands reversed clarified by death reversed, 4 of swords reversed clarified by page of cups Advice Cards: Page of swords, the devil

First, I said this with the last pile. These are things that either might have already started to happen, or may happen. I’m just going to read it like it’s progressing already. Reggie is the sweetest character in this show. Like, for the most part they're all really sweet, but he's that one that is basically equivalent to that puppy who just likes everyone. He's also the bassist in the band and I find that bassists are the most overlooked, so I think that can ring true about Reggie too. We know some things about him and his past but it's the least. Which is interesting because this pile also seemed kind of vague to me too.  With 3 of pentacles being reversed I always want to read it as someone wanting to do something on their own. Like, doing something independently. The ace of swords clarifying this is screaming, like literally I just keep hearing this in my head, you cut something or someone off. Or maybe you're trying to get through something without feeling something so you're cutting the feeling off before it starts. Somethings being cut out, for sure. I’m also imagining someone cutting some paper with scissors, so maybe you’re editing your life or something by cutting situations/people/things/feelings out. The ace of swords feels violent actually. Something about this ace of swords is so visceral, and that makes me think that this intention/idea was really sudden. Almost like you woke up one day and you were like "Nope. Doing this on my own."  or "Nope. Not feeling that today. Cutting it out.” But, I don't really think you're someone like that. Like, I see that you could be someone who enjoys their alone time  but that for the most part maybe you enjoy others company. And, like Reggie is like that too. In fact, I think he's the only character we don't see alone ever! Like, we know the least about him too, so it's like, maybe you enjoy being around people but you also hold yourself at a distance. You may share things about yourself but maybe one of those people who is very selective about what and with who you share with. Like, maybe you make it seem like you’re sharing deep things, but...They’re not. They’re surface level, but you’re able to present them in a way that isn’t like that’s what it is. And maybe this 3 of pentacles being reversed is you thinking "Hmm. They know too much." but I feel like that’s for some of you (I think some of you are scorpios and it's more than just the death card. I just get that ~vibe~). An interesting thing about this 3 of pentacles is that she's in the ruins of a building. She looks hurt, and the other two look as though they're trying to help her. So maybe if this about someone, this cutting someone off is you cutting off help someone has offered you. Like, maybe someone has offered to help you cover something financially? But there's this feeling that you're thinking this is something you have to go at alone. I also could just see this as someone denying themselves something. Like, I think there's a small group repressing something like an emotion. Like a small group of you. Yeah, definitely for some you're aware that there is an emotion that you're supposed to be feeling but I think you're just telling yourself to detach from it. But I think this is just causing you more stress, so I think you really need to let yourself feel it in order to move on. Vlad the Impaler by Kasabian was on and there's a line where they say "Get loose get loose". So. Um. I think for those of you repressing something, I think that's for you. So, instead of denying yourself that, I think you need to stop and tell yourself it's okay to feel it. Like, maybe you're thinking your emotions aren't justifiable but that's not true because you can't really tell your body not to feel something, right? 9 of Swords shows me that you are stressed right now. I think you're freaking out over how this could play out on your own but you seem to be determined to do it on your own. The hierophant kind of says that for me. Like, he's all about conventional things, and maybe you feel that there's a right way to go about this, and that right way is to do it alone. Although, its funny because in this card it's a priest exorcising someone, so this isn't really someone going at it alone. Also, again, giving me this feeling like exorcising demons, so like, repressing/deflecting emotions. Maybe this 9 of swords is you worried that you won't be able to do this alone? The thing though, is that I see such extreme distress with 9 of swords. She's in bed crying and there's so many swords next to her. It feels crowded, but I think that's your head. I think you have too many thoughts about this and how you want to do this alone. But then we have 7 of wands reversed and it's literally just this ball of fire since the wands are torches in this deck. I think this is how you're seeing this situation. Like, a huge ball of fire just waiting to turn into something worse. 7 of wands being reserved can mean surrendering, but I don't necessarily see that. I see this overwhelming sense of stress and worry with it, and this overwhelming sense has you back in that bed with the swords looming over you. And death reversed suggests that too because its something you can't let go of. But, I think death is telling you that it's time to let it go, whatever this is. Like this worrying isn't helping (which, ha, I know that saying that really doesn't stop it). There's also this sense of compromise with this pile. It's weird because I don't really get a sense about what this is. Like, I think for some it's definitely financial, but I don't know about the others. Whatever it is, I think you're aware that you need to let it go, but its not...Going. With 4 of swords in reverse, I do see you letting it go, though, same with page of cups. She's sitting there just letting these butterflies out. So with that, I see this transformation. Right? So I think once you're able to start to heal/let this go, you go thorough this transformation. It could be a little one but it can also be something big and noticeable. I really feel like a lot of people are choosing this pile because it seems really vague. The last pile seemed vague too, but it wasn't like this one. This one just seems so much broader. I'm not sure if this is something you have to do with yourself or someone else, but the bottom deck energy was 5 of swords reversed and I am reading that as compromise. So, either you need to compromise with yourself, or there is someone you need to compromise with. For advice, I pulled page of swords. I think this is telling you to be looking at every angle of this. I'm sure you've done a lot of overthinking with this, but I think it's more like a broken record. Like, you're focusing on the same thoughts when there's another perspective you're missing. The other card was the devil and that's for everyone, but especially those who are repressing something. So, if you are repressing something, you need to stop that and let yourself feel it. The only way out of this is through it. It's interesting because on this devil card there's two people chained up and I honestly think they could easily slip their heads through those chains? So, I think there is a way through this and I think you know but I think maybe there's an element of fear. But, going back to that Ace of Swords, I think you're stronger than you give yourself credit for. The ace of swords and the 7 of wands are standing out so much to me. The sword and the fire, and those are strong things, so I think you're strong enough to get through this. You know this, but I think you've convinced yourself otherwise. You know what’s so funny about this devil card, too? It's the same people from the 3 of pentacles. So it's like, for those of you repressing something, it's like you're holding it hostage by refusing to acknowledge it, so I guess just kind of think about that. (But don't over think it). The woman who has the horns on the devil card is the same woman who had fallen in the 3 of pentacles, so I definitely am seeing this as the cards saying you’re kind of in your own way. Even adding onto that, the girl in the page of swords card is overlooking a dollhouse, so maybe you're just trying to control this and it's not working, it's more to your detriment. I just really think you need to sit with your emotions, all of you. Like, journaling is a really good way to get them out. Maybe you like writing lyrics or poetry or anything? I just think you need to spend some time alone doing something constructive so that you can get these emotions out in a healthy way, because I think if you don't they're going to explode. Like, at first I thought maybe it was some of you, but I definitely think all of you who chose this pile are avoiding some hard emotions, or at least not letting yourself feel them. And that’s not healthy my friends! Pile 3: Alex

Cards:  3 of swords reversed clarified by 9 of wands, the world clarified by 8 of wands and 9 of cups, judgement reversed clarified temperance reversed, ace of cups clarified by 8 of pentacles reversed Advice cards: 8 of pentacles reversed, knight of wands reversed Okay, so another disclaimer that I’ve said for the other piles. Since this is for the rest of October, I’m reading it like it’s currently progressing. That being said, it could have already progressed, or will progress this way. Again, take what resonates. Alex is such a great character! I honestly think he's my favorite. He's considered the "emotional one" of the band, but is also the most sarcastic out of all of them. He doesn’t miss a beat, which is funny since he’s the drummer. So, maybe rhythm is important to you? He's also kind of the Dad-Friend and is quick to scold Reggie and Luke when they do something mean to someone else. Alex also is the one that goes out and befriends another ghost and he finds out some interesting things about being a ghost, so I would say while the others are curious, he goes out and looks for answers. This makes me feel like you're a doer rather than someone who just watches stuff unfold.  First off, I want to say that the bottom of the deck energy was 8 of pentacles reversed, which makes me feel like maybe you feel neglected in someway. This is kind of weird because it also kind of goes with Alex. I don't really want to go into it because it could be a spoiler for anyone who hasn't watched it, but there's a point where he feels like someone is avoiding him and I get that sense with you guys. I think this is what might lead to the first card I got, 3 of swords reversed. The first card was 3 of swords reversed, so I get the sense that you are or will be healing from something that really hurt you. With 9 of wands clarifying it, I think maybe this made you get really defensive of your heart, but maybe you're feeling really tired and you're feeling like it would be a bad idea to let your guard down, especially because maybe you know you're healing. Like, I think maybe you don't like...actively think "I'm healing right now," But somewhere in your head you have a knowing. That 9 of wands has really tall wands. And she's coming out of a maze too, so maybe whatever it was that led you to this state of healing was confusing for you. Like, you felt like you were going through a maze of emotions, but you made it out and you're not going back there at any cost. Next we have the world and to me that means a cycle is ending and that this healing is coming with this end. She's holding a key, and in this deck it means that she's like now the owner of the haunted house that this deck is about, but like I see this as you holding this key. Maybe it's specifically to your heart or something like that. Or, it's just this key because you found answers to this maze you just went through. Like, you were confused and now you're not, or at least clarity is finding it’s way to you. And, it's clarified by both the 8 of wands and 9 of cups, so like this ending is going to bring something in really quickly and it's going to be something you've been wanting. Maybe before this you had no idea what you wanted, so back to that key, it's like you figuring that out. I think judgement being reversed says that you were taken off of some path because it wasn't really aligning with you, which temperance clarifying it tells me this. Like, you were in need of more balance but this path wasn't bringing this. Perhaps it was this path that led to those 3 swords in the first place, but either way, I think it's closing out and you're going in a new direction. Also, on the judgement card, it's the lady who'd been holding the key and coming out of the maze, but on judgement she's holding this little kid. Granted, this kid doesn't look like her, but she's really white like she has white clothes, white hair, she looks like she could even be a bit translucent. So maybe this is you nurturing that hurt side of yourself, like picking yourself up and realigning yourself. The ghost of your past self? Like, I do see that the universe has helped you but really you deserve this credit because I think you're the one doing most of the work. The universe is just kind of nudging you gently every so often. You also got ace of cups and it was clarified by ace of swords, so this is going to be really emotionally fulfilling but also you're going to be full of ideas. Like, I just get this huge excited feeling from this pile, so I really think the rest of October is going to be really great for you guys! Ahh! I'm so happy that this pile was this way because as I said earlier, I love Alex, so it's so nice to see that you guys are going to do great! (after this period of healing of course). For advice, I pulled 8 of pentacles reversed, so it definitely wanted to come out. Before I was saying that it being on the bottom of the deck made me feel like you felt neglected, and I still think that's true but I also think that with it showing up in the advice section, I think it could also be telling you that even if something seems boring or tedious you need to keep at it despite this. So, while you're closing out a cycle, there's still some work to put in. And maybe this could be referring to that ace of cups/ace of swords, like those new beginnings coming. Whatever they are, there's going to be work you need to put in and I think it's just warning that you need to be continuous with the work. Not to get lazy or half-ass it. This could also just be, continuous healing. Like, allow this to unfold. Allow yourself to continue to heal. But, for others, I think this also maybe telling you that you may need to take a break and not overwork yourself. I think you'll know which one is for you, because if you have a a tendency to be a workaholic, than you'll know and if you're someone who can be lazy, you'll know. The other card was knight of wands reversed. This, I think, goes with those who may have a tendency to get lazy or even bored. Finish what you start. And, this could apply to all of you, but I see that mostly for that group. For the other, I think maybe it's kind of a be patient. Don't go at it and do it all in one go, or something like that. I think you need to take your time with whatever this new beginning is as well as your healing from the beginning. But, overall, I think these cards are just kind of warnings, so I think things should be okay overall.

[nellied-reviews]

Box 953 Re-listen

Well, I got a bit side-tracked by life (seriously, I had to take an impromptu trip to a consulate!) but I am back, and just in time for episode 8 of Wolf 359:

Box 953

In which Eiffel finds a mysterious box, Hilbert really wants to avoid the quarterly talent show and Minkowski is the very model of a modern major general.

Sometimes I'm surprised by these episodes when I get back round to them. This one? Not so much. I think I actually remembered pretty much everything relevant about this episode, going into it: Eiffel is avoiding Minkowski, finds a mysterious box, the mysterious box gets blown up before we see what’s inside it.

And in general, I do like the episode a lot. It's funny, after all, and it does that thing that I'm noticing a lot on the re-listen where the show throws out a big weird mystery, then ends up dropping it with a theatrical shrug of the shoulders. It's a smart thing to do, because all of the unanswered questions ("Do those transmissions really come from Earth?", "There's a plant monster on the loose!", "What's with that weird voice?", "What's in the box?") could be answered in the future, but could just as easily not be. Sure, some of them are super important and interesting in hindsight. But burying the plot-relevant questions under a heap of less relevant but equally intriguing questions disguises them, and means that we're surprised when something like, say, that weird ghost voice comes back later on. Plus it creates the impression that the Hephaestus itself is a setting full of mysteries and weird things. Which is fun.

As we begin, though, all we know is that Eiffel, for whatever reason, is hiding from Minkowski in a store room. Why? Turns out, Minkowski is worryingly invested in their quarterly talent show, while Eiffel is... less than enthusiastic.

And look, I am easily pleased. The idea of the four crew members being forced to participate in a mandatory talent show is very funny to me. The fact that this is quarterly - and so they have, presumably, already suffered through several of them - makes me smile a lot. Eiffel and Hilbert being united in their dread of it? Awesome. I love it. Honestly, it makes me want to consume and/or write fanfic about the Hephaestus' previous talent shows, and the shenanigans that I just know must have been involved.

An another level, though, can we also stop to appreciate how seriously Minkowski takes it all? It's played for laughs throughout, sure, but I do like the fact that Minkowski is the sort of person to go all out and just unselfconsciously embrace the talent show. Her love of musical theatre is so joyful and pure, and I really appreciate it. I think, on some level, it even makes her a more interesting character; instead of going down the well-trodden "I'm a badass with a secret love of something cheesy, which I'm horribly embarrassed of" route, she goes for "I'm a badass with totally non-secret love of something cheesy, which I am totally open and unashamed of." It's a sign of self-confidence, I think, plus a reassuring reminder that Commander Minkowski, badass extraordinaire, nerds out just as hard as the rest of us. (Plus, you really can't be a fan of G&S and take yourself all that seriously, because come on...)

Anyway, the conversation Minkowski and Eiffel then have, and Eiffel's ensuing log entry is just enough to give some tantalising hints of what past talent shows have involved (smoke rings? poetry readings?) before Hilbert calls Eiffel, desperate to avoid the talent show. And his solution? Knock Minkowski out. Because it's Hilbert, so of course that's the answer. *Sighs*.

While Hilbert gets going with that, then, all that remains is for Eiffel to explore the store room. And while this isn’t super relevant, it is a great excuse for a Night Vale-style list of Improbable Weird Things. And seriously, pretty much every single object here is worthy of mention. We have eyeless Russian dolls straight out of a horror movie. We have letters to Santa, a revelation whose implications are both hilarious and baffling. We have Chekhov's cannon, which totally won't be relevant later in the episode.

And in among all this, Eiffel mentions Goddard Futuristics by name for the very first time, which actually surprised me. I thought they'd already come up, since in hindsight, they really do have their fingers in everything going on up on the Hephaestus, even in the first few episodes. But I guess this is their first official mention? And to be fair, I do remember assuming, early on, that this was a military mission. So this is probably the point where we are aware, for the first time, of the corporate context of it all, and the fact that it's Goddard who are basically running a for-profit private army here. Which is... fun.

The dystopian side of that is brushed aside here, though, in favour of just revelling in the out-there weirdness of all the stuff that Goddard have stored up on the Hephaestus. L-shaped Lego pieces? 3 suits of armour? The partial skull of megafauna specimen 58 "to be handled with a vague feeling of existential dread"? It's Warehouse 13, in space! 

It's also kind of heartening to see how excited Eiffel is by all this. Like, I know that he essentially got forced to go to space, but he really does have the sense of adventure for it. There's something very sweet about how not-jaded and enthusiastic Eiffel gets, as soon as he encounters something new. And then the plot thickens when he discovers the titular Box 953, which is reserved for Douglas Eiffel. What could possibly be in it? Eiffel, ever curious, is clearly desperate to know.

Before we find out, of course, we're interrupted by Hilbert, whose plan to knock Minkowski out has hone horribly wrong - he's just gotten her drunk. Even better, we get Minkowski's drunken rendition of "I am the very model of a modern major general" in the background during all of this, and kudos to Emma Sherr-Ziarko, because every single thing drunk!Minkowski says from here on out is amazing. From making pirate costumes, to nearly shooting Hilbert over ice cream, to the little hiccup she does, everything about Minkowski here is perfect and wonderful.

It doesn't distract Eiffel for long, though, and soon he's asking Hera what's in the box. She doesn't know, though, and actually can't access those files at all. Instead, she gets the message "Error, inappropriate security clearance", which is pretty creepy. It's the second time in as many episodes, after all, that we hear somebody who isn't Hera speaking through the Hephaestus, and it's a reminder of just how many secrets the station potentially holds. And so all we learn, in the end, is that Box 953 is weird. It's huge, and bolted in place, and it's cold to the touch. Plus it's making a heart beat kind of sound? It's at this point, I noticed, that the background music also cuts away, and we’re left with a weird crackling noise as Eiffel goes to open it. Spooky.

Every part of me was expecting this to be a Pandora's box-type scenario where Eiffel's opening the box would unleash something terrible and all hell would break loose. So when we hear something explode, it seems like confirmation of this... except when we cut back to Eiffel, several in-universe hours later, we learn that the problem wasn't Eiffel opening the box. In fact, Eiffel didn't manage to open the box; the explosion was from Minkowski setting off the cannon. It seems like a lot happened in the three hour gap in the recording (not least, Minkowski ended with burns and frostbite?) and as a result, Box 953 was lost to the vacuum of space. Bummer.

And then that's it. Episode over. Everyone is safe and well, and the station is fine. But we don't learn what was in the box, and I don't think it really come up again? I googled it, and I think I saw a suggestion that it's the simulation-y machine from Change of Mind? But I don't remember the connection really being commented on, and even then it doesn't explain why it's specifically Eiffel's name on the box now. Like... what situation would Command have been expecting him to use it in? Why? How? So many questions, all of them unanswered!

And I suppose that's fine, at the end of the day. I enjoyed this episode, I loved the talent show idea, and I didn't mind the weird storeroom bits. I can imagine that some people probably felt cheated by the lack of answers we got here - and Eiffel's own anger and frustration as the episode ends maybe feels like a concession to those people. But personally, I'm more than willing to leave it as a riddle for the ages. If this had developed into something more later on, that would have been fun. As it is, I didn't mind it one bit, though. As long as you don't overdo it, weirdness for weirdness' sake can be plenty entertaining. 

Plus, drunk Minkowski is a gift to us all :)

Miscellaneous thoughts:

So I checked out the poem that got name-dropped in this episode, Sylvia Plath's Lady Lazarus, and holy smokes, disturbing much? In an interesting kind of way, sure, but still disturbing...

"You can't solve all your problems by knocking them out." "You know, people keep saying that, and yet my problems keep going away."  

D'awww Hilbert is enjoying this, isn't he?

I bet your alcohol tolerance goes way down in space. Hmm...

"Eiffel, you do not understand, there is singing."

"Swashes and buckles, Hilbert, swashes and buckles."

Also, it sounds like Hera has absolutely no objections to the talent show, and is just busy practicing her lines? What a cutie ^-^

"I don't know if it was a warning shot or if she just missed." Scared Hilbert is 100% not what I'm used to.. Is this the most frightened we ever hear him?

Don't think I missed Eiffel finding Dr. Fourier's diary :'( (another thing linking this episode to Change of Mind?)

[thingsifindinthedark]

Some thoughts about: Anger, Illness and Imagination

Good morning

It’s 11:30 am in Los Angeles and the sky is finally looking blue again even though fires are still raging close by.

Living in the smoke reminded me of winters in West Virginia. When the sky was just a heavy gray blanket from November through April. It felt cruel at the time.

I never got used to that winter.

My moods are so connected to the weather and what I’m looking at outside.

California is the perfect place to live if you’re pretending to be happy all the time.

The weather always tells you you should be hiking, and laughing as you wash your face with some sort of foaming organic cleanser like you’re in a commercial.

Setting aside the horrific reality of the fires, purely for the sake of metaphor, there’s a poetry in being here in this moment.

Just as I learn to make room for anger, and embrace it, and leave the cult of fake positivity, things are going up in flames.

Something that therapy and illness has taught me, is how much freedom and power we have to make sense of certain things creatively in whatever way we want. It’s just hard to let ourselves do it, it feels almost indulgent. Or maybe silly. Or we feel it will take away from our ability to grasp harsh truths or do something about them. I think we need both versions.

The places where I have most desperately wanted certainty and facts but not been able to get them- those are the places where finding meaning with my imagination helps my life.

I remember being in 3rd grade, newly dealing with the reality of being in pain all the time. Something had changed in my stomach.

I was now late for school every single day, a trend that would continue, because of the mixed messages my gut sent me every morning that sent me in and out of the bathroom, or cause me so much paralyzing stress that I would try to talk my out of attending.

My 3rd grade teacher, tired of my lateness, but with good intentions, once told me to picture a cool liquid in a soothing color, to pick my favorite color - I chose turquoise, filling the inside of my stomach. Calming the pain.

I was annoyed. Imagining a color in my stomach was not going to fix me. I needed cold hard data. I needed medication or a replacement set of internal organs. Even if this COULD help, the moment I admitted using my imagination helped my symptoms? That would be the moment doctors took my pain even less seriously and dismissed me outright. Many had already because I was a young girl. If I weren’t a young white cis girl from an upper middle class family i guarantee the dismissal would have been even worse.

So I was defensive to my teacher. The same way I would be defensive for years when people told me to try xyz lifestyle choice or simple solution to address years of pain that had confused doctors.

The same way I would be insulted when I was told it was “just anxiety” by doctors. I was defensive, and I became avoidant of sharing about my life in order to not, inevitably, come off as defensive.

But there is a weird sort of privilege in my being sick this long, over various stages of life; childhood, adolescence, young adulthood. Don’t get me wrong, I would rather not be sick, but what I mean is, this isn’t my first rodeo.

Science may only just now be really starting to understand the microbiome and the conditions that plague it, but I have been here, waiting in the wings, doubled over but still trucking along, learning how to make sense of things where there is not enough information for them to literally make sense.

I’ve found I truly need both the antibiotics AND the stupid turquoise liquid mind exercise, the lab work and the therapy that looks to address my anxiety and traumas. The idea that it was one or the other, in my mind OR in my body has been a barrier to my coping skills for years.

I came by that “either or” idea organically. It’s the way we are taught to think and the way western medicine tends to view things, though that is improving. Trauma also makes it harder to grasp nuance instead of black and whiteness.

I couldn’t have gotten to this point without learning to recognizing the way my brain got organized in childhood: don’t get angry, always appear positive, put others first, men’s emotions and needs are generally more important than yours.

I have a lot of anger. I have anger at my illness too. About the symptoms. About being on a restricted diet (again) and taking all these supplements. About feeling like I have to do everything perfectly or my body will collapse for days.

It becomes so much more livable though, even by simply acknowledging that in writing; I am angry. I am still sitting here calmly on my red velvet pillow on the floor at my short Japanese tea table by the window, but I am also angry.

There is something in anger that is self-preserving. An acknowledgment that you deserve better than what you’re facing.

When I can trust myself to meet my anger, to neither stuff it down or express it in a way that is harmful to others or myself, I feel a new freedom. I don’t have to walk around ready to spring into a defense posture. Because I know how to regulate that emotion and I’ve made room for it to show up. Even though it is still uncomfortable.

When it can’t show up as itself, for me anger shows up as; looping anxiety or guilt, obsession over food and health that leads to tunnel vision, impulsive decisions, various other forms of self sabotage. Oh, and physical pain.

My therapist once told me it was “like my body rejects it, when I feel angry.”

It made sense to me perfectly in a way that is hard to explain, but that I’m sure someone out there reading this also feels and understands. I think a lot of our bodies, women in particular, reject anger. Or maybe reject some other emotion. Whatever you weren’t allowed to feel growing up. Whatever emotion was deemed too much, or was monopolized by a different family member in a toxic way.

But that pain, rage, sorrow- it has to go somewhere. We learn to point it at ourselves for the benefit of other people when we don’t know what else to do.

This is the last thing you probably want to think about if you have a chronic illness. Or even if you don’t, it is not stuff we as humans tend to embrace; trying to better regulate and sit with our least pleasant emotions.

But while you are waiting; while you’re waiting for your lab work to return or your doctor to call you back, while you’re waiting for your new anti depressants to kick in, while you’re waiting for the incessant busyness of your pre-Covid life to return, experiment with stopping yourself from going down whatever avenue it is that you go down when things are out of your control, the one that harms you. The one that is probably fueled by anxiety - constant googling? Obsessing over something small? apologizing constantly for reasons you don’t understand? The list goes on.

Instead, try to feel the physical sensations of emotion in your body. Are your physical pains saying anything to you?

Is there a totally unscientific but spiritual interpretation of what’s going on that can help you get through the day or the hour or the minute, WHILE you’re on the meds, or waiting for the next step?

Here’s mine:

Science: My body has been overwhelmed for years by bacterial overgrowth, pathogenic yeasts, mold spores, fungus, mycotoxins. As I have been wiping out these beasts, I’ve also had to build up my body’s detox pathways, my ability to take in, process and effectively get rid of what is harmful. I’ve had to get my immune system stronger, and build up my good bacteria so it will fight these monsters off and not let them take over again.

Creative connection: My biggest roadblock in relationships, of all kinds, and in my career, aside from being sick- has always been with boundaries. I used to never have them, and feel the need to say yes to everyone. When that burned me out, I was resentful. I’d built up a lot of resentment that wasn’t the fault of others. I let everything in and it built up and I had no methods of getting it out. So I am detoxing here too. I have gotten rid of so much of what doesn’t serve me. And my ability to notice and honor anger as a messenger and protective force will help keep the harm away, just as a healthy immune system and functional microbiome keeps the pathogens away.

That’s an oversimplification of both my illnesses and my point of view on it, but it helps me to find these ways that healing from (and just improving in dealing with) sickness mirror/compliment the other areas of my life. I used to push illness into it’s own separate corner of my brain as if it weren’t really a part of me.

It is. And I both accept that, AND feel certain that I won’t always feel the way I do now, and that I can keep getting better, or at least befriending these parts of me. I’m building a relationship with my illness. Weird as that sounds.

When something is awful and out of our control and makes us feel we lack agency, deciding your own interpretation of it can be a way to seize a little bit of a feeling of autonomy. I will wait for my doctor to tell me what to take next, but not to tell me how to feel.

[xiubaek-13]

Providence

Prompt: You kind of-sort of said you had a boyfriend and now you both are invited to a ‘couples only’ party and now you have to find a boyfriend ASAP

Pairing: Chen x Reader

Warnings: Alcohol, poor dating history, a little bit of smut.

Word Count: 9,118

A/N: This was for a one-shot challenge. We had a really cool idea for a Valentines prompt but life decided to come in and drop multiple anvils on all of our progress. Life can be shit like that sometimes but at times like that you also have to step back and realise that the writing can wait. We made a group decision to kind of call off the challenge but still post if/when we finished. This is my contribution.

Anyway, let me know what you think - apparently I cannot write a short one-shot to save my life so here is an almost 10k present for you.

You only had yourself to blame for this. Why the fuck did you tell him you had a boyfriend? Did you enjoy suffering? How the hell were you supposed to find a boyfriend before the weekend?!

You were just so sick of feeling left out of social gatherings but Suho was all about couples parties… originally you thought it was a phase that would pass but six months later it was still invite only and you had to have a boyfriend or partner or significant other. The rules were that you couldn’t turn up alone or with a fuck buddy, not after that one time Baekhyun turned up with an escort just to piss Suho off. You still remember Baekhyun telling you that story and how Suho hadn’t invited him again for two whole months. That man was too concerned with how society perceived him and his perfect wife. He just didn’t understand how you could possibly have no time for dating and dismissed you every time you asked to come alone.

So you hadn’t seen him in six months. You still talked and still saw each other at work but you missed hanging out with your friend. You just wished he cared less about what everyone thought of him. One by one they’d all gotten girlfriends and wives and suddenly you were no longer the main woman in their lives. Gone were the days when you’d have to pretend to be their date, scorned ex, sister, or bitchy friend to save them from awful dates. Now none of them were ever free to do the same for you because it wouldn’t be proper.

At some point you gave up on dating. You just decided one day that you’d had enough of being disappointed by every so called suitor and weren’t going to participate in it any more. Your mother was distraught, but you were pretty sure it was more that she was upset that she couldn’t play matchmaker any more rather than any sort of concern for your wellbeing. What you would give to not have been born into high society with all of these convoluted rules and stigmas. You had to marry a career man of good stead from the right family. You had to mask and hide your feelings, always, because any sign of emotion was a sign of weakness. You had to have a good education and a good career but be willing to drop it all to get married and start a family then spend your days on committees. You could never not be seen in designer wear, what would the neighbours think? All of this superficial bullshit. You were done with it.  There had to be more to life than this and if there wasn’t then what the hell was the point of anything? Why put up with all of this just to be a beige blip or boring in the grand scheme of things.

You craved excitement like that art student you dated in college who had a talent for body paint. Your mother haaaaated him and once he found out about your status he was done with you. You craved a person who could chill with you and be happy in just your company for days on end when the rest of the world became too overwhelming like that library assistant you dated for a couple of months until you found creepy poems everywhere and had to call it quits before you ended up the subject of a cold case study in a decades time. For some reason you always ended up with the weird guy who seemed great… until he wasn’t.

Your luck wasn’t any better when your mother set up the dates. There was the lawyer who always had to argue with you and spoke over the top of you, there was the medical student with the foot fetish, there was the personal trainer who didn’t believe in showers, the stock broker with anger management issues and a possessive streak, the list went on. Back in the day Suho, Baekhyun and the others would laugh with you about these jerks and give you hope for the future but now, now you couldn’t help but feel like they thought you were a lost cause since you were the only one left who was single. Maybe you were just destined to be forever alone like Chanyeol had once suggested.

***

“Are you sure it isn’t you that’s the problem?” He asked.

You paused as you brought your coffee up to your lips. “Wow. Thanks Kai. You’re a beacon of positivity you know that?”

Kai pressed on. “Think about it. You’ve been on countless dates and all of them, every single guy you’ve ever dated hasn’t been good enough. You’ve found a flaw in every single one. People have flaws, it’s normal. It’s not normal to have gone on like 50 dates in the past 2 years and still have nothing to show for it.”

“You couldn’t be more of a finance guy if you tried. I know people have flaws but don’t you dare try to tell me I should have just looked past Jason’s poetry thing.”

“Oh fuck no. That guy was a textbook serial killer in the making, you’re lucky you got away from that relatively unscathed.”

“Kai, they’ve all be terrible. I don’t know what to tell you… maybe the guy for me just isn’t in this universe. Maybe he was here but he died before I could meet him and now I’m alone forever.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“You’re lucky I like you Kai. Now are you going to help me get into one of Suho’s parties or have I just wasted a half hour at this overpriced cafe?”

Kai laughed and put his drink down. “Just go through your phone and find the least terrible guy you ever went out with and see if he’s up for playing along for a night. Suho will know if you just bring a guy you’ve never met before - it’s kind of how he caught Baekhyun out.”

“And here I was thinking it was because she was propositioning Sehun in the kitchen or when she told Xiumin her price list that really gave her away.” You deadpanned.

“You know what, you might be right.” He laughed and shook his head. “We are lucky he’s finally settled down, single Baekhyun was wild.”

You checked your phone and realised you had to be back at work in 20 minutes so you thanked Kai for brunch and headed back to your office.

***

Your phone was mocking you, you were sure of it. It felt like a stone in your hand ever since brunch with Kai. His words kept coming back to you but every time you opened your contact list and started scrolling you felt like the world’s biggest loser. What would you even say to any of these guys if you called? Hi I’m pathetic and still alone but please date me for one night so I can go to a party? Yes I know things didn’t work out between us in the past but what’s one night for old times sake? Ugh. You needed wine if you were going to stoop this low.

One hour and five glasses of wine later you were three quarters through your contact list and you had gained nothing. If anything you’d lost some dignity in the process but you’d also deleted about 10 numbers from your phone for good, ones that were disconnected or if the conversation felt too forced or if he was rude. You cursed Kai, so far this was a horrible walk down memory lane of your failed love life. What you saw in any of these men was beyond you. One conversation stood out so far - Lance. Lance was clearly a low point of your dating life, really the name said it all. Stereotypical frat boy, on the rowing team, thinks women are to be seen and never heard, thinks the ability to do a keg stand makes him a certified legend. Lance was more than happy to chat with you tonight, to catch up on old times and tell you all about himself and how well he was doing at the law firm he was a partner in. Not once did he ask about you. His response when you’d asked, through gritted teeth because you were certain you’d end up killing him on the way to the party, was “Cool, cool, look sweetcheeks I’d like nothing more than spend a night with you but I don’t do the whole date thing plus I haven’t seen you in years - you gotta send a guy some pics first. You should just come over later tonight, we can have a party of our own if you know what I mean.” You actually felt greasy after talking to him and never before had you deleted a number from your phone so quickly, because fuck ever talking to him again.

Sighing and pouring your sixth glass you settled into your couch and scrolled to the last three numbers. If none of these provided results you were back to square one. You glanced at the remaining names, remembering who they were and if they were worth calling. Taekyeon was a med student in college and you’d lived in the same dorm. He was actually a really good guy back then. You recalled that one time where you were so horrifically hungover after one bad night out and he’d somehow procured a drip and solution to hook up to you to rehydrate you as well as feed you painkillers and took care of you. He’d never asked for anything in return either. You dialled his number and waited as it rang.

“Hello?” A male voice answered.

“Hi, is this Taekyeon?” You asked.

“It is...who am I speaking with?” He responded hesitantly.

After you got past formalities and got to chatting you didn’t even bother bringing the proposition up. Instead you made up some lie about a project you were working on and needing to reconnect with your past. You were right, he was still a great guy. So great that he was a pediatrician, married and had two adorable children. It got you nowhere with needing a fake boyfriend for a night but it was wonderful to chat to him again after all this time and he seemed just as happy to chat with you. He promised to call again after he returned from a work conference so that he could invite you over for dinner to meet his wife and children.

“After all, I owe you for not letting me turn into one of those awful frat boys. You kept me in line so my morals never wavered.” You couldn’t really turn the guy down. Not when you could tell he was serious about having you meet his family and really, you were a little bit curious to see how he turned out.

“It was the least I could do, you were younger and more impressionable. I just didn’t want you to turn into a jerk, especially if I had to live next to you for four years. Don’t think of it as a selfless act!”

He laughed and the two of you continued chatting for a bit before saying your goodbyes and promising to speak again soon. With a smile you moved down to the next name, Wonsik. Wonsik...Wonsik… who the hell was he? You racked your brain to try and pull up some detail that would enlighten you as to who this guy was. Was he that forgettable? Or is he just some random dude? You sat for what felt like hours trying to work out who he might be but in the end you took a big sip of wine, threw caution to the wind and dialled. As you waited for the mystery man to answer his phone you continued to mull over the name in your mind.

“Heeeey! It’s been so long since we last spoke. How have you been?!” a bright and cheerful voice greeted you from the other end of the phone line. Who the hell IS this guy? Why does he seem to know me...that would mean my name is saved in his phone. So we must have met in the last year.

“Hi! I know it’d been ages. I’ve just been so busy. What have you been up to?” You decided to play along like you remembered who he was to see if he’d give away any clues that might jog your memory.

“Oh you know, same as usual - museum stuff. Preparing the newest exhibition which has been taking up all of my time. Honestly the hoops you have to jump through to have artifacts leant to a museum is just mind boggling. Anyway please, tell me what you’ve been up to. I had honestly given up on hearing from you again.”

No. no no no no no. You remembered him now. Eight months ago you had a weak moment and joined Tinder. This guy had matched well with you so you’d chatted and organised a date. He seemed nice enough, he still did now, but you remembered getting the strangest vibe from him during that date. Something about him made you feel unsafe and you just wanted to be as far away from him as possible the whole time you were on your date. Being a smart woman you’d told a few friends about the date and teed them up to contact you an hour in to check on you, providing a believable reason to end the date early if you needed to. You did this with any date you went on but this was the only time you’d used it.

“Oh just the same, work and more work. I’m sorry if I bothered you, I’ve just been going through my phone checking all of the numbers in here - it’s been playing up lately. So this call was just to confirm that it’s still you. I wish I could chat longer but I really do have to go.”

“Yep, still me! Ah well hopefully we can meet up again one day and finish that date. It was such a nice surprise to see your name come up.”

You made loose promises to talk again sometime and hung up. Instead of deleting you made a note in his contact information - Tinder date - so that you would remember not to ever call or answer his calls, deleting his number could mean that you’d answer him and be stuck talking to him again and you really didn’t want to be caught off guard like that.

The final name stared at you. You knew this name and you had a sinking feeling about it. You used to work for Yesung as an intern. He was only a few years older than you and he was handsome. The two of you had dabbled in an office fling. It had been hot and heavy but it was short lived since both of you desired your careers more than each other. You both knew it was only lust and proximity that kept causing you to end up in compromising positions so you’d put a stop to it after one too many close calls. He was a nice enough guy but he was a workaholic so you weren’t sure if he’d be down to play pretend with you for an evening.

You put the phone down and made your way back to the kitchen to pour another glass of wine only to find the bottle empty. Had you had six glasses already? It was probably a sign to stop drinking for the night before you regretted it the next day. The storm outside intensified as rain pelted against the windows. If I’m making this call I need to do it before the thunderstorm starts. You grabbed a bottle of water from your fridge and headed back to the couch. You unlocked your phone and your thumb hovered over the dial button. Fuck it. You thought as you pressed his number. It rang and rang and rang until you were sure it would go to voicemail but at the last second a voice answered.

“Hello?” a warm voice greeted you from the other end of the line. It wasn’t how you remembered Yesung’s voice but it had been a few years so you weren’t sure.

“Hi, is this Yesung?” You asked tentatively.

“Oh, sorry. No this used to be his phone, it hasn’t been for years though. Was it personal or business?” The voice answered. Dammit. I called everyone and came up empty handed.

“A bit of both really.” You lied. You were feeling a little pathetic now but your manners meant that you would continue this conversation until it was polite to end it.

“Maybe I can help with the business part. I work with him now.” You thought this voice sounded younger than Yesung. Maybe he was his new intern? You didn’t really care. His voice was nice though and after a bottle of wine the warmth in his voice made you feel a little less pathetic.

“Oh uh, I don’t think you can. It was more a proposition. I used to work for Yesung.” You replied. If he’s not an ass he’ll ask more questions.

“Hmmm why not just tell me it’s a personal call then?” He chuckled.

He had a point. Why lie? “I don’t know, it’s late and I might have had some wine but I also don’t know who you are. Why should I give you a proper answer?”

He laughed. “Yeah, coz that makes total sense.”

“Oh shut up.” You snapped.

“Do I know you?” He asked. Surely he didn’t? Did he?

“Why? Don’t many people tell you to shut up?” You quipped.

“Ha. No, your voice sounds familiar. I can’t place it though. You said you used to work to Yesung though right?” He wasn’t letting this drop, he must actually think he knew you.

“Mmmhmm” You were unsure how much you wanted to divulge to a complete stranger. For all you knew he was just playing with you.

“When did you work for him?”

“A few years ago.” It was a vague enough answer that he shouldn’t be able to get much out of it.

“As…?” He pressed.

“I was an intern.”

“Oooh! I DO know you!” He sounded excited on the other end of the call.

“Well, can you enlighten me? Because I’m drawing a blank here.” You exclaimed, confused at how the hell he’d seemingly worked out who you were, or that he knew you.

“Ah wae! I’m not sure if I should be offended that you don’t remember me just by my voice.” He feigned offence at your lack of memory. The whiny complaining he did triggered something in your memory but.. It couldn’t be… could it?

“Wait...Chen?” A handful of you used to go to karaoke rooms after work on Fridays and Chen was the guy with the voice of an angel. You had no idea why he wasn’t a professional singer but you could have sat and listened to him sing for hours. Surely this wasn’t him? Chen was always argumentative and loud at work, not this soft spoken voice you were currently talking to.

“Ah, you do remember me. I’m flattered.How have you been?” Now that you knew it was him you couldn’t work out how it hadn’t clicked earlier. That voice, that warm and inviting and vexing voice.

“Good I guess.” You answered softly. You weren’t really expecting that question from him. You had been mentally preparing yourself to deflect the ‘why did you call’ question that would inevitably be brought up again.

“So good that you’re calling your old boss’ phone on a weeknight at 11pm? What’s going on?” Damn. Apparently you weren’t going to evade this question any longer.

“Uh. Don’t worry about it.” You mumbled. There was no way you were telling Chen why you rang. He was a smartass and a tease if you remembered correctly and as nice as his voice was, you wouldn’t enjoy it if he was making fun of you.

“If you don’t tell me I’m just going to assume it was a booty call & I’ll be sure to tell him all about it tomorrow.” He teased.

“You wouldn’t!” You exclaimed. It had been too many years for you to know for sure if he was bluffing or not.

“Wouldn’t I? I can even give him your number and I’m sure you remember how he is when his ego is inflated by pretty women.” He teased.

“Oh I remember now. I hate you.”

Chen couldn’t speak because he was laughing so hard at you. Eventually he pulled himself together enough to speak “Then tell me why you rang and avoid this fate.”

“You’ll only make fun of me so either way it’s a bad result for me.” You whined.

“Either I can make fun of you or Yesung can call you expecting you to offer up sex… your choice. I know what I’d pick but hey… maybe you were just after a booty call. Maybe I’m doing you a favour by handing Yesung your number… You can thank me later. Send a gift basket or something.”

You nearly choked on the water you were drinking when he’d spoken. “Oh my god. I needed a date ok? It wasn’t a booty call. Jesus Chen.”

“You needed a date & Yesung was who you called? There has to be more to this. Come on, make my night interesting and tell me.” He egged you on. Something in his voice, something in the way he spoke made you want to tell him more but you weren’t giving it up for nothing. If you were about to tell Chen how desperate you were then he was going to have to offer something in return.

“What do I get in return for telling you? I’m not drunk enough to just drop it on you and the shred of dignity I have left isn’t going easily.”

“I… promise I won’t laugh at you or judge you.” He replied.

“You’ve already done both of those things!” You exclaimed. No way were you letting him lowball you like that.

“Fine. I’ll sing for you. Is that a better offer?”

“Actually yes, it is.” You reluctantly launched into your tale of why you were calling Yesung and why you needed a date. You tried to brush over the part where you were, for lack of a better phrase, forever alone and kept it as simple as possible. True to his word he didn’t laugh but he did remain silent for a painfully long stretch of time before he spoke again.

“I cannot believe I promised you I wouldn’t laugh. You’re not kidding are you?” He said, his voice trembling as he tried to keep his promise.

“Nope. This is my life.”

“Fuck me. Firstly, let me say that your friend sounds like a dick. What kind of jerk only holds couples parties? I might not know you that well but I know you shouldn’t be spending your night calling every guy in your phone just to see if you can convince them to pretend to be your boyfriend for a night. No offence but it kind of makes you look crazy. Secondly, is your contacts list that sad that you got all the way down to Yesung’s name and still hadn’t found anyone who would do this for you?”

“It’s the last name on the list. Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t you promise not to judge me Chen?” You chided.

“Not judging you, just your choices. Anyway, that brings me to my third point. I’ll do it. I know you weren’t expecting to talk to me tonight or anything but this whole thing is too amusing to not want to be a part of it. So if you are still in need, which I’m pretty sure you are, I’ll fill the role.” You were sure you’d heard wrong, there was no way Chen had just solved your problem. Surely not. You must have lost your mind or only heard what you wanted to hear because you could have sworn he said he’d do it.

“What? Seriously? You’ll do it? Chen, you have no idea how much you’d be helping me out!” You practically beamed down the line. He had to hear the sudden uplift in your tone and pitch. You’d honestly thought when Yesung didn’t answer, well actually even before that, that you would be back to square one and still alone. Suddenly there was a light at the end of the tunnel. You had plans for this party, plans to tell Suho exactly what you thought of his couples only crap at some point of the night but you’d play along until the perfect moment then throw it in his face. Was it petty? A little. Was it deserved? You thought so. How could he still call himself your friend if he organised events and wouldn’t let you attend on your own?

“I never said I’d do it for free, but we can discuss my price later. I think we should meet up for coffee tomorrow to reconnect and get some facts straight. If we’re going to fake date we need fake dating history.”

***

You stop outside of the cafe entrance and internally debate for what has to be the eighth time since hanging up the phone last night whether or not this is a horrible idea. What if you went inside and he never turned up? How would you handle rejection from a fake boyfriend? What if he was in there but he mocked you or judged you for your forever alone status? What if he thought you were pathetic? For the eighth time you reminded yourself that he suggested this meeting after he agreed to be your fake boyfriend. He’d been so amused at your inability to find someone but also so pissed that your choice of friends sucked that badly that you needed a fake boyfriend in order to hang out with them. He’d texted you a time and a place after you hung up last night so you steeled your nerves and pushed the door open.

Once you were inside you looked around, searching for him. A hand waved from the back left corner and beckoned you over. You started walking towards him and relaxed when you saw his smiling face. “Good, I was starting to think you’d chickened out on the whole thing.” He exclaimed when you slid into the seat across from him.

“Why a booth in the back corner Chen?” You asked. The cafe wasn’t that busy that he had to choose the seats furthest away from any of the other customers.

He shrugged. “I wasn’t sure how comfortable we’d be discussing the semantics of our fake relationship so I opted for some privacy.” He pointed to his hot chocolate. “Please, order something to drink or a snack, it’s on me.”

You wait for the waitress to appear then order an iced chocolate. You and Chen make small talk until the waitress returns with your drink, then he gets straight into it. “I think we should incorporate our real history into this fake backstory, it makes it easier to lie when half of the lie is truth.”

“It won’t make it weird?” You ask.

“Not at all.” He responds, taking a sip from his hot chocolate. “Hear me out. We met a few years ago through work. You were an intern and I was an office lackey. We had the same boss and on Friday nights after work a group of us would all go out for drinks and karaoke. The two of us hung out and got to know each other. We became friendly but we were both off limits, I had a girlfriend and you were kind of seeing someone. We remained friends until you finished your internship and left, losing contact with each other until about a month ago.” He paused while you processed the story so far. So far it wasn’t fake, it was just exactly your history with Chen. You weren’t really sure where he was headed with it but you were curious.

“What happened last month?” You asked.

A slight smile formed on his face, knowing he’d reeled you in so far. “A month ago you had one of the worst blind dates of your life. I’m talking the guy was drunk and lewd to the point where you told him you were going to use the restroom but instead left the restaurant and went to the bar down the road. You were sitting at the bar quietly having a few drinks to try and wash the evening away when we ran into each other. We got to talking and caught up on each others lives - me getting promoted to junior partner, having my fiance cheat on me and you having a string of bad luck with love but success with your career. We kept drinking and chatting and once we realised that we were both single, flirting. One thing led to another and you let me get you home. I left your doorstep with the promise of a date and a month later we’re still dating.” He sat back and waited for you to chip in with your two cents on his story. It was good, almost too good actually. For one thing, you could definitely retell that blind date because you’d been on one like that. The rest was plausible and enough that not too many questions would be asked.

“It’s good.” You eat a spoonful of cream from the top of your iced chocolate. “I think that’ll work well actually. The truth thing does make it a lot easier, honestly I hadn’t thought of it from this perspective. Plus I’ve been on that horrible date so that won’t be a stretch of the imagination should anyone want details.”

Chen’s eyes widened. “Seriously? You’ve been on a date that bad?”

You laughed defeatedly. “You have no idea.”

“Wow. I thought I’d concocted a date so bad that no one would want to know more but I didn’t think anyone actually had dates that bad. What kind of- nevermind. We’re getting off topic. Are you happy with the backstory?”

You nod and continue to spoon the cream off your drink. “I like it. Honestly I had no idea what we were going to tell them if they asked but of all the options I thought up last night, none of them are as simple and realistic as yours. Way to choose the most believable one” You smile and laugh to yourself.

The two of you keep chatting and catching up on each others lives. A lot had happened to both of you since you’d lost contact. You’d forgotten how easygoing and warm Chen was. Hanging out with him brightened your day and you hadn’t realised how much you’d missed this feeling. He can’t contain his laughter as you enlighten him with your failed dating history. At one point he is in tears from laughing so hard after hearing about a particularly bad date with the non showering personal trainer and he begged you to stop talking. You swapped the conversation to find out more about him, pressing to see if the whole fiance and being cheated on thing was true and you were appalled to find out that it was.

It was the aforementioned girlfriend from when you worked together. He’d fallen head over heels for her and after a year and a half of dating they were engaged. Chen had never been happier, he was progressing in his career and he had the love of his life by his side. Sadly it turned out that the love of his life was a manipulative bitch who had been using him. He’d noticed something was off when she accused him of stealing her phone. He went to talk to a friend about her behaviour but as he spoke he realised more and more things she’d done to him. He was so in love with her that he hadn’t noticed her toxic behaviour but now there was no going back. He’d arrived home early from an out of town business trip and went home to surprise her only to arrive home to something that shattered his heart. It’s one thing to know that someone is manipulative, it’s another to see just how little you mean to them in person.

She was in his apartment fucking not one, but two guys in their bed. Once the men saw him they hightailed it out of there, not wanting to be a part of whatever conversation happened next. She didn’t even try to apologise. No, she tried to turn it back around and make it his fault that she cheated. He was so heartbroken and disgusted that he simply told her she had 3 hours to pack all of her shit, return her keys and get out of his life for good then turned around and left the building.

You were so mad for him at the end of his story that you didn’t notice the tear escape your eye until he reached forward and caught it on your cheek. You flinched at his touch which didn’t escape his notice. “Hey, don’t get worked up over it. I’m past it and I’m much stronger and self reliant now. I’m also a much better judge of character than I once was so out of all of that pain some good occurred too.” He smiled gently at you. “What worries me now is that you flinched when I touched you, and you’ve done the opposite of what a girlfriend should do every time I’ve touched you or looked into your eyes since we started chatting. You’re too tense.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise we were acting from now Chen. Here I was thinking we were just catching up as friends.”

He chuckled. “We are but I figured I’d test how you responded to me touching you. You do know that for this whole thing to be believable you have to act natural when I invade your personal space. We’re supposed to have been dating for a month now and if you flinch at any point and someone notices then we’re done for.”

He got up and moved to the other side of the booth, sliding in next to you. What the hell was he doing? Why was he so close all of a sudden? Was he always this handsome? You shook your head and looked at him with a confused expression on your face. “Chen what are you doing?”

He cocked his head as though you should already know the answer to your question but when you made no attempt at speaking again he sighed and filled you in. “We are going to sit here and chat until you act natural with me being so close to you, with me looking into your eyes, with me touching you. If we can’t master this then there’s no point in going through with it.”

You furrow your brow and ask. “So...we’re acting like we’re a couple now?”

He nods, a playful grin spreading across his face. “Yep. A smitten couple. One month in you’re still clinging to each other, still completely absorbed in one another, inseparable. So if you want to pull this lie off, you need to get comfortable with me.”

So you sit there, incredibly close to Chen and continue chatting. Now that there wasn’t a table separating the two of you he’s even more disarming. You knew he was handsome having sat in a karaoke bar and stared at him on more than one occasion but that was when he floored you with his voice, after that you really looked at him and noticed the handsome man that lay beneath his bright and joking demeanour. You’d never been this close to him before though. He’d swiveled you so that you were facing him and pulled you closer to him. His hand rested on your thigh while the other alternated between playing with your fingers, holding your hand and brushing your hair off your face. His touch was somehow gentle and firm at the same time and his hands were warm, you could still feel where he touched you after his hand had moved away.

Maintaining eye contact was the difficult part. His deep brown eyes told you more than his words did and you were afraid you’d see pity in them if you stared for too long. The last thing you wanted was his pity, you knew you were pathetic and he’d been doing a wonderful job at making you forget how pathetic you were but you couldn’t help that niggling voice from returning to tell you that he was only doing this whole fake boyfriend thing because it amused him.

Every time you broke eye contact he’d squeeze your thigh or lift your head back up to look at him before starting again. He leant forward and whispered in your ear at one point. “The sooner you stop averting your gaze, the sooner you can go home and get ready for this party. If you can’t do it then I guess our deal is off which would be a shame since we’ve put in at least two hours of work at this point.” When he leant back you saw the smirk on his face and you steeled your resolve. You could do this. You could hold eye contact and withstand his touches and act like a smitten couple and you would do it to prove to him that you could.

The next time you break eye contact it’s not because of fear of judgement or pity. It’s because you felt something. Something about his gaze and his touches had made you feel too hot. You’d felt exposed and you wanted to run away or throw yourself at him and you were embarrassed. “Ah wae! You were doing so well!” He exclaimed and you tried to brush it off as nothing. He made you repeat the task again until you were able to hold eye contact the entire time. You were certain that you’d gone a shade of pink or red by the time you passed Chen’s tests but if you were he said nothing.

His eyes and touches made you feel warm and on edge and you were trying your hardest to keep yourself together but you kept noticing his gaze, his inviting lips, his arms, his legs, his touch and you were going a little insane. Did he sense it too? Or was he just playing his role? You had no idea but you needed to leave this cafe soon before you made a fool of yourself. “Chen, thank you for helping me. I still don’t know why you’re helping me but I’m choosing just to go with it at this point. I need to get back to work so I can leave on time to get ready for this party.” He checks his watch and lets you know he should be getting back too. He pays for your drink and snack then heads back to work & tells you he’ll pick you up at 7 at your place so the two of you can go over the plan once more. He smiles and gives you a quick hug before leaving.

***

Quit acting like a moron and get ready. It’s fake so of course he was acting sweet and endearing, it’s his role, nothing more. Ever since you’d left the cafe you’d been feeling strange. It had felt like you’d seen him, really seen him, for the first time and it was having an effect on you. You kept thinking about him, about his warm eyes, his mischievous lips, his charming words and his proximity to you. Every small touch he made seared into your skin, every gesture, every glance, it all felt too intimate and it was driving you crazy. You hadn’t counted on your emotions not realising that he was only acting that way because of the arrangement the two of you had. He’d been right, if you hadn’t spent the extra time getting comfortable being so close and touchy with each other then tonight would be a bust. Apparently your brain had decided to ignore the arrangement and instead focused on how his touches made you feel and how he smelled, the way his arms flexed when he moved, they way he looked at you. It clouded your vision and you felt too hot and overwhelmed. You’d been glad to leave the cafe before you did anything stupid and the fresh air was a welcome change to the encompassing tension of everything Chen you were now experiencing.

You stared in the mirror as you evaluated your outfit. The dress you chose was cute, a retro 50’s style pin up dress so it showed just enough cleavage, nipped in at your waist then poofed out into a full skirt. The couples party had a retro theme and the dress coupled with flawless make up and rockabilly hairstyle made you fit the part perfectly. You had no idea what Chen was going to wear but he told you he had it covered and you were willing to believe him. You kept trying to remind yourself not to read into anything tonight and not to let your emotions take over because you were going to pretend to be smitten with this guy and you had the slightest fear that you would feel sad and alone after he dropped you home tonight. You needed to go through with it though. If this was the only way you got to give Suho and your friends a piece of your mind about how unfair and terrible they were as friends then so be it.

A knock at the door pulled you from your thoughts. You make your way to your front door and open it. You had spent a decent amount of time trying to guess what Chen would wear tonight and for some reason you’d kept landing on suit as the option but you were wrong. Standing in front of you was temptation. He was dressed in blue jeans, a white v-neck tee and a black leather jacket. He’d gelled his hair back and looked like he’d stepped out of Grease or Crybaby. You sent a silent curse to the universe because he looked so good that it wasn’t fair. The suffocating tension that you felt earlier returned tenfold and you could do little more than stare at him.

His mouth quirked up into a smirk as he watched you stare at him unabashedly. He leant against your doorframe and watched as you tried to compose yourself. It gave him plenty of time to stare at you. “Hi doll.”

The only words you could get out were “How dare you.”

He quirked an eyebrow at you encouraging you to elaborate. “How dare I what?”

“How dare you turn up looking like this. You know it’s rude to look better than your date don’t you?”

He chuckles and very obviously gives you a once over. “Clearly you haven’t looked in the mirror because you, you look amazing.” You looked beautiful, more than beautiful, incredible. And sexy. Something he was not prepared for. He was prepared for cute and for pretty but not for the bombshell standing before him.

As his eyes raked over you you felt yourself heating up. “So, uh… are you gonna let me in or are we conducting this discussion purely in the doorway? I don’t mind either way but I’d like to know so I can get comfortable if you aren’t letting me in.” His words brought you back to reality and you finally remembered your manners. You stepped aside and let him enter the room.

As you closed the door his hand grabbed you, spinning you around and pulling you into an embrace. You were glad he couldn’t see the blush forming on your face. “So, how did we meet?”

He was testing you again. You tried to remind your brain of this fact but it was no use, it was giving in to the feeling of having Chen pressed against you and part of you couldn’t blame it...it was a damn nice feeling. But it wasn’t real. “We met a few years ago through work when I was an intern.” you responded, running your hands along his firm arms.

He rubs circles into your hips with his thumbs. “How long have we been dating?”

You rested your head in the crook of his neck as you replied, your body betraying you as you tried to get closer to him. “Just over a month now.”

He lowered his head and whispered in your ear. “Why are we only dating now?”

The feel of his hands roaming over you was making you light headed as you tried to concentrate on answering him. “W-we were both seeing other people at the time so we were only ever friends. We ran into each other a month ago and hit it off. The rest is history.”

“Now this if more like it, you aren’t awkward at our proximity. I can officially say that you stand a chance of fooling these ‘friends’ of yours tonight.” He detached himself from you and stepped back, smiling down at you.

See, it’s an act. He’s just putting on an act. He isn’t feeling what you’re feeling. Why would he? Your subconscious, ever the downer, decides to rear its head and berate you with negative thoughts. It usually waited until after the date before it ruthlessly came for you but it was determined to make an early start tonight.

You forced a smile and hoped that Chen didn’t notice it. “Then your method of teaching was a success.”

He stepped forward, cupping your face in his hands, his eyes laced with concern. “Are you ok?”

Apparently he did notice the shift in your demeanour. You tried to nod which must have looked ridiculous since his hands hadn’t left your face. “I’m good, just nervous. I promise.”

He didn’t move away. He stayed there, hands holding your face as his eyes darted to assess if you were being truthful or not. His gaze didn’t meet your eyes as he spoke quietly, voice lower than it had been moments ago. “You know, there is one thing we haven’t covered off on.”

“What’s that?” You whispered.

“Where we had our first kiss.” His eyes lifted to look you in the eyes now as he tried to gauge your reaction.

You didn’t miss the way he licked his lips or the way his eyes kept dropping to stare at your mouth. Your brain was a mess and couldn’t work out if this was another test or if he was flirting with you now. All you knew in that moment was that you really wanted him to kiss you. “I, well, wouldn’t it be a month ago when you walked me home. We would have kissed on my door stop before you, ever the gentleman, took your leave.” You let your eyes fall to his lips, they looked soft and inviting and you really wanted to know what they’d feel like, what he’d taste like. Would his kiss be soft or would it be demanding?

“Oh, did you think I was a gentleman?” He moved his hand to push a strand of your hair back behind your ear and your breath hitched. He stilled and searched your eyes for any sign that he should stop and he found none. “Fuck it.” he breathed before closing the distance between the two of you and pressed his lips against yours.

For a moment you couldn’t do anything except stand there but then your body seemed to remember how to react and you reciprocated, kissing him back with fervour. He help you against him as your mouths moved and your kiss deepend. His lips were incredibly soft and skilled, which you silently thanked the universe for, and you could barely get enough of them.

The two of you parted only to catch your breaths as he pressed his forehead against yours. “Sorry if I overstepped a boundary or something but I’ve been wanting to do that for hours.”

“Don’t you dare apologise Chen.” His eyes widened as you pulled his face back down to yours and kissed his again, your tongue flicking against his as he walked you backwards until you were pressed against the wall. You could barely remember how to breathe as he peppered kisses along your jaw and neck before returning to your mouth and drawing your bottom lip between his teeth, causing you to moan.

Things only escalated from there, clothes were hastily stripped from your bodies as you made your way down the hall to your bedroom, leaving a trail of discarded garments in your wake, only breaking contact to lift his shirt over his head. Your kisses became more urgent and passionate as he pushed you down onto the bed.

The only word you have to describe the sex is ravaging. As you lie next to him, both of you panting trying to catch your breaths and have your heart rates return to normal you replay the events that just occurred. He’d pushed you down onto the bed and positioned himself at the end of the bed with his head between your legs. You’d tried to close your legs out of embarrassment but he held them open, telling you that you looked beautiful like this, all spread out just for him. He nipped, sucked and licked until you were a writhing mess begging for him to let you cum. He led you to the edge of your release repeatedly but backed off right before it hit you. “Do you want to cum doll? Maybe you should show me just how much you want me to let you cum.”

He stood at the end of the bed as you knelt on it and took his length into your mouth, working him over with vigour and need. He’d hissed and moaned when you took all of him in your mouth and moaned, telling you just how well you sucked cock. He didn’t let you finish him off. He pushed you back onto your back and pinned your hands above your head before entering you in one thrust. You’d cried out at the stretch and he’d stilled as you adjusted to him. When he started moving again you saw stars. He would alternate between rolling his hips and relentlessly pounding into you and soon enough you were screaming his name and begging for him to let you cum. This time he complied, chasing his own release shortly after yours crashed over you.

You giggled and he turned his head to look at you. “We’re going to be late now.” He laughed and pulled you against him to snuggle.

***

The party was more or less a success. You had turned up with Chen on your arm and hung out with your friends. It was almost too easy to forget why you were pissed with them when you were enjoying catching up on their lives and they were so engaged with yours but you didn’t forget.

When Suho came up to tell you how glad he was that Chen had come into your life so that you weren’t sad and alone any more you snapped. You told him in no uncertain terms that if it took having a boyfriend for him to want to catch up with you then he could shove his friendship up his ass because you deserved better. You didn’t hold back - you told him how upset you had been when all you wanted to do was hang out with your friends but you were rejected time and time again because you were alone. You told him how worthless he made you feel and how he should be ashamed of how he’d acted.

The party fell silent as everyone stood in shock at your outburst. After a few moments you heard a slow whistle followed by Baekhyun’s voice. “Dude, you fucked uuuup.” You turned on him next.

“No Baekhyun. All of you fucked up.” He shut up after that.

When you were done telling all of them just how terribly they’d treated you Chen took your arm and gently pulled you to him. “I think we’ll be taking our leave now.”

He took you home. The ride home was silent as he let you process your thoughts and emotions. He rested his hand on the console, palm facing up as an invitation to take his hand should you need it. You didn’t need it but you wanted the comfort of his touch so you took it and he gently squeezed your hand.

“For the record, you did the right thing and for what it’s worth I’m proud of you.” He paused. “I could see the internal struggle you were having all night and I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to go through with your plan.” His tone was so gentle and it made you feel warm and safe.

“Until I did it I honestly didn’t know if I would.” You whispered. He squeezed your hand again and continued driving in silence. When you arrived at your home he walked you up to your doorstep and embraced you. You relaxed into the hug and smiled.

“So, now comes the business end of my deal.” You stiffened at his words. You’d completely forgotten that he had told you there would be a price for having him pretend to be your boyfriend. Apprehension seeped through your veins as you waited for him to enlighten you.

His silence got the better of you. “What’s the price?”

“A real date. In three days time.” He watched your face break out into a genuine smile, one he could get used to seeing, before you pulled him down into a kiss.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed it!

[themisterdarcy]

dear darcy,

what’s up? it’s currently thursday, april 30, 2020. we are in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic, and north carolina is on lockdown. well, technically. we are actually the worst state in the entire country in pandemic support. there are 1.06 million confirmed cases in the entire country, with 9,948 in north carolina, and 1,567 in mecklenburg county alone. the stay-at-home order is still supposed to be lifted on may 8th, though. that’s next friday. i don’t know how on earth anybody thinks that is a good idea, but the governor has the power in this situation.

school is canceled for the rest of the year, meaning that i have to finish my junior year online. i’m disappointed that i have to miss prom and seeing my friends (especially kai), but i think it’s for the best. nobody expected covid-19 to be this big of a deal, or for the quarantine to last this long. the day before schools closed, my apush teacher, mr. church, told us that he thought the situation was “blown out of proportion” and i quote: “there’s no way that school is going to be canceled.” even when schools closed, we were originally supposed to be back in school by march 30! here we are, a month later, and there’s no end in sight for this crisis.

trump is being absolutely useless, and even detrimental to the effort to contain the virus. he his early information about the virus, and didn’t bother to take precautions, leaving the country unprepared. by the time of the first case, it was hopeless. this week (or last week... time is all running together right now), he actually suggested in a press conference that a way to prevent/cure coronavirus would be to inject bleach/disinfectant into the body, or to illuminate the body from the inside with a uv light to kill the virus. both of these options as said by trump (uv light actually does have some merit to it, but it is in an entirely different context than trump suggested, and still in developmental phases) would be fatal, and aren’t even a solution to the main issue at hand: containing and controlling the spread of the virus.

in my opinion, new zealand has it down. i only know about it because amanda palmer is quarantined there, but they’re getting close to the end of 5 weeks of near complete lockdown. people are not allowed to leave their houses or visit non-immediate family members at all, and parks and public spaces are closed. while it does seem a little like an overextension of governmental power, it’s working. new zealand only has 1,476 total cases. thanks to prime minister jacinda ardern, the entire country has fewer cases than mecklenburg county. yes, new zealand only has a population of about 5 million, while mecklenburg county has 1.1 million, it’s still impressive that a population five times the size has 100 fewer cases. i honestly wouldn’t mind temporarily giving up some of my civil liberties and democratic principles if it meant that covid-19 was knocked out and controlled.

the people who are protesting the lockdowns are quite frankly narcissistic idiots who cannot see past their own ego. yes, staying at home is difficult and boring, but it’s the only way that life has any sort of chance of returning to a form of normalcy. i don’t think things will be exactly the same, nor do i think they should, but i do want to be able to hang out with friends again. i do want to go to school and have my senior year. i do want to be able to move out and go to college when the time comes. the more people disregard reality and ignore social distancing, the longer life will be like this. the protesters are only making things worse for themselves, and the saddest part is that i don’t think they realize this.

i’m writing these letters to future me (that’s you, darcy!) so that i can have a document of my life from the pandemic. also, i want to be able to remember what being 17 was like when i’m older. i do keep a journal, but that’s more for songs, poetry, and breakdowns. screaming into the void of the internet just feels more Official to me. also, i can’t lose a blog. that’s the thing about the internet: it’s forever, for better or for worse.

i think that i will open each letter with a discussion of any updates about the pandemic, focusing mainly on concrete facts and statistics. these are important to document, and i wish i had been recording this from the beginning. maybe i will go back and create a timeline, but i’m not sure yet. that might just be a task for another sleepless night. after the corona rundown, though, i’ll go into my own experiences and thoughts about the events of my life. these will probably be in bullet-point form, since my mind has the tendency to jump around as if topics were trampolines. i don’t know how often i’ll write, but i will try to everyday. every letter won’t be as long as this one, that’s for sure, but i do tend to ramble on. i hope you’re not overwhelmed, darcy.

taking a much needed break from 2020, how’s your life at the moment? i don’t know how old you are, but i’m assuming that you’re in college at the very least. are you and kai still together? i hope so. i really do love them. have you come out to the family yet? have you changed your name legally yet? i need to do that before my college graduation, because i want my degrees to be in My Name. the thing is, i’ll need to come out to change my name, and that is an issue i don’t really care to think about at the moment. how did that go? was it as bad as i expect it will be? have you started t? besides transitioning, how is your academic and career life? i hope to go to the university of texas at austin and double major in physics and music theory and composition. did that happen? if it didn’t, where did you go to school, and did you stick with the course of study i mentioned? i can’t really imagine studying anything else, to be honest. physics and music theory are two of the most intimidating and difficult subjects there are, and they also happen to be my favorite subjects. i love being challenged mentally, and i also like being seen as intimidating. imagine: a punk, non-binary, queer physicist who also writes and performs music. is there anything more intimidating than that? i aspire to be the “scary kid in your physics class.” i want to be an exception.

i’ve written so much already, but i do have quite a bit to get off my chest. yesterday was a weird day, and i couldn’t sleep at all last night, so here we are. this is what being 17 is like:

it is 6:15 am, and i have stayed up all night.

i was planning on getting a lot of work done, but instead i wasted time listening to amanda palmer and browsing the internet.

my dad thinks i took my sleeping pill, so i need to stay quiet in my room until at least 10:00 tomorrow morning so he doesn’t get suspicious.

kai called me today, but only for 15 minutes. they are a month behind in school, and will only get their phone back once they are caught up. i don’t know when that will be, but i am preparing for the worst.

i identify as androgyne, meaning in between man and woman. recently, i stopped feeling like i was faking, though. instead of worrying that i was making it all up in my head, i’ve become confident that i am Androgyne. it makes sense. it always has made sense. when i was little, i asked my father if it was possible to be “half-girl, half-boy,” and i would tell people that about myself. just because i like glitter and riot grrrl doesn’t make me a girl. i am an enby.

this is the song of the night:

i realized today that i have not left the house (excepting switching between mother’s/father’s) in an entire month. at the beginning of this lockdown, i was struggling, but i feel like i’ve adjusted more or less. this feels normal, now. i don’t feel like i’m missing something from my daily life.

10 days clean :)

my sleep schedule is fucked up. dr. kissam has put me on a mood stabilizer, an antidepressant, and a sleep medicine as well as my anxiety meds because she’s concerned by my bipolar tendencies. my manic phases have gotten more intense and happen more often now, and my down phases have gotten worse than they have in a long time. i started hurting again, but i’m trying to stop. i think i have a handle on it now. i did give myself two stick and pokes on monday night, though... does that count? i don’t think so.

i have the deathly hallows on my ankle, and the androgyne symbol on my left middle finger. it looks more like an anchor or a dandelion though. :/ i like them anyways, because they are Mine. My body. My decisions. I Am My Own Person.

during the call today, i felt like kai was distancing themself from me. i don’t know if i’m overthinking a 15 minute chat, but they didn’t seem like their usual clingy, lovey self. i’m worried that they’re going to decide they don’t want to be with me anymore during this time that they are off their phone, but i know that it’s just anxiety. overthinking is my enemy. kai loves me. i love them. we are in a healthy, stable relationship (for the first time in my life!!). they aren’t going to decide to leave me out of the blue.

the song for the kai situation:

sometimes i wonder what life would be like if i could just focus on school like a normal person. i have good grades, but i am a Very Chaotic student. if i could just sit down and complete assignments at a normal pace and with consistent motivation, what would i be able to achieve? would i be in a bunch of service organizations? would i be on student council? who knows?! i am darcy, and i am tied for valedictorian while never doing my homework. i don’t know how i do it either.

i’ve decided that i don’t like my confirmation name (octavian) as my middle name. i want to take my dad’s middle name, lamont. darcy lamont wheeler. it’s a super cool name, and it has Significance. our family is directly descended from the lamont clan in scotland. it’s also my grandmother’s maiden name, which i feel like makes sense because my dead middle name was her middle name. poetic justice. symmetry. i have come full circle.

hi! my name is darcy lamont wheeler.

darcy means “dark one.” i really, really like that. i like thinking that i am connected to the somewhat dark and eccentric. like the dresden dolls, or disturbing short stories. darkness adds complexity. nuance. background.

my favorite short story is “i have no mouth & i must scream” by harlan ellison. it is so completely terrifying, so beautifully disgusting, so brilliantly bizarre, so disturbingly ominous, and i have never read anything else that has come close to comparing. i love science fiction, especially dystopian ideas about technology advancing past the point of no return. it’s crazy to me that what could be considered mankind’s greatest achievement is so close to being our downfall.

everybody is awake now, and i hear them in the kitchen. i wonder when i stopped wanting to be awake. matthew and brianna seem to wake up as early as they can and fight bedtime until the absolute limit, as if they want to maximize the hours that they have each day. each morning is a new chance for fun. they don’t seem to resent life yet. i would rather be asleep instead of conscious most of the time. days are uniformly boring and miserable, with the rare diversion. why would i want them to be longer than they have to be? is this depression or is this just growing up? i can’t even tell anymore.

i missed amanda palmer’s birthday livestream yesterday, so i’m going to watch it today. two hours of her and her quarantine buddies sounds like heaven. this woman’s music quite honestly saved my life, and she is the epitome of badass!! i love amanda palmer. i wish i could write songs like she can.

on the topic of the dresden dolls, i asked brian viglione, the drummer, to “prom” as a pretense to ask him about his experiences as a musician, and for advice about how to develop my music. against all the odds, he accepted, so now, on may 9th at 8:00 pm, i am going to facetime with Brian Viglione, drummer for the dresden dolls and the violent femmes, among many others. life? made. i still can barely believe that this is actually happening!!

i came out to my english class, including ms. blaylock on tuesday. everybody reacted really well, and in that class at least, i get to go by my name and use my pronouns. i honestly couldn’t believe that i had the balls to tell anybody besides kai’s family, but i did, and it actually went well! the fact that there are people calling me darcy makes me so happy that i can’t even put it into words. it’s validating. i am darcy. not just when i’m by myself, but in real life. i am darcy.

is it weird that i’m not crippled by kai’s absence? i used to be an unproductive tangle of anxiety whenever mary was out of touch, even for a few hours. i was constantly worried that she was going to hurt herself, or that she was going to leave me. the thing is, even though i am in love with kai and i only thought that i loved mary because she was the first girl i was with, i don’t miss them to the point that i can’t function. i don’t think about them 24/7. i do miss them at times, and i cannot wait until we can talk again, but it’s not an all-consuming thing. i can go through my entire day without talking to them, no problem. night time is a little harder, but that’s because night is always when i go down spirals and rabbitholes. maybe this means that our relationship is healthy? co-dependency is a bad thing, i know, but i don’t know what a healthy relationship feels like since the only other experiences i’ve had (jack, mary, saanchi, rachel) have all been toxic in their own way.

one thing i have learned with kai is the importance of boundaries in a relationship. just because i love everything about them doesn’t mean that it’s healthy for us to share everything. there was a time where we were both in dark places and hurting, and when they shared what they did, it would set me off. the same went for them, i was using them as a journal too often, and the emotional burden had started to affect them. we had a conversation about this though, and established clear lines that we will not cross. it felt good to figure that out. i felt mature, looking out for my own needs and respecting kai’s. isn’t that how a relationship should work?

i love kai.

i’ve written a SHIT-TON. i think this is enough for now, but i might write another letter today. this was cathartic, and i feel like i’ve processed some shit as well as made a record for the future. i hope you weren’t bored or overwhelmed by my novel, darcy. i’m just writing what i feel is important, and i hope it’s still important to you.

signing off,

darcy lamont wheeler

[polar-stars]

C, D, G, i, J, M, N, O, P, Q, S, T, U, V, Z for the fandom meme thing please?

Ooh so much ! Thanks for the ask, I hope it won’t be too controversial....ha ha

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will (be nice)

Shun /x/ Yuki, for completely biased reasons. Also it’s just not my kind off dynamic you know and I can only see that as platonic. Honestly, to me their relationship is even quite big brother and little sister-esque so pairing them up is just weird to me as well.

Also everything adult/minor. So things like Haya//Jun also are a “nah” from me. In this particular case, Jun is a mother-figure for Akira to me which makes the ship pretty uncomfortable for me honestly.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t (again: be nice)

Eh....canon So//rina so to speak? Like I don’t hate So//rina on its own, I still love the ship and their dynamic.

But I stand by my opinion that they were handled awfully in canon and that it was completely butchered.

G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it

Daisy x Luigi from the Mario series !

I - Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why

Tumblr mainly is responsible for me not bothering to check out things in the first place. But I honestly don’t know anymore which ones that were.

J - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr

MCU kinda. Though I still have to catch up with a huge majority of the movies. Also I actually watched through Steven Universe’s Finale thanks to tumblr.

Tumblr also made me consider Boku no Hero Academia (which I have kind off abandoned though because honestly that’s just the usual for me sadly)

M - Say something genuinely nice about a ship that you don’t ship (or its shippers, or anything related to you)

Doromame’s Art for Asahi and Erina is really pretty even if the ship is a huge, huge no for me.

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

1. .....A little bit more variety maybe? Like, don’t get me wrong, everyone is allowed to do and ship what they want.....but sometimes it just feels stale seeing the exact same line up of ships everywhere. What also just makes it a bit more troubling for me personally that things that step out of said line up have a much harder time to be accepted honestly. It’s like it’s unwritten law in this fandom to stick to the particular line up in this fandom sometimes it feels.......and sometimes that just frustrates me

2. A bit more appreciation for rarepairs and minor characters maybe, MAYBE

3. Stop bashing on your opposing ships. Stop making a war out of So//rina and Sou//Megu. You’re free to dislike either of them but be a bit more respectful ! (And don’t drag Taku//Megu into it)

O - Choose a song at random, which ship or character does it remind you of

“Upside Down” by Diana Ross

uhhhhhhhhhhhh

I dunno it kind off makes me think of Rindou? But I don’t know why.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

Adding to my trillions of Royalty AU:

AU where Nene is a princess in an arranged marriage and on her way to said arranged marriage but gets kitnapped on the way by the soldiers of a barbaric, power-hungry king on his way to world domination. (Three times you can guess who that is) She absolutely hates it.

(I actually am kinda at writing a Royalty AU thingie for EtsuNe, but the ask was about coming up with something at random and yeah............honestly that one is also just a slight alternation to another Royalty AU I plan writing for them some far day in the future....I have too many Royalty AUs, hi)

Q - A ship you’ve abandoned and why

Kuga //x// Nene Maybe?! Like ahdhdhd I still ship them don’t get me wrong they are adorable but like? I was actually about to include them into my Next Gen Fanfic but just.....kinda heartlessly threw their kids out for two assholes and their screaming little brother? It’s a sort of abandonment I feel.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

Yuki Yoshino is scared of thunder !

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

Takumi and Ikumi can dance-battle anyone to the world, you can’t change my mind.

U - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms

(I’ll leave out SNS for that, since I listed my favorite characters there. Honestly SNS is also my only “true” fandom....with the ones I will list now I am pretty much a casual fan)

Star Wars: Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader and Princess Leia (Sorry they only come as double for me)

Mario: Princess Daisy

Love Nikki Dress Up Queen: Bobo

ATLA: Katara

MCU: Steve Rogers/Captain America

V - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms

(I’ll be leaving out SNS again, because I named my two OTPs for that)

Star Wars: HanLeia

Mario: Luaisy

ATLA: Zutara

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged)

I really wish for Shokugeki to end open-ended in terms of pairings, honestly. It’s a very unpopular opinion, I know but I feel it’s just the most peaceful solution.

Also most “ships” have barely got much true, canon development so for many it would be a quick Snapshot-Getting-Together anyway and honestly? They deserve better than that.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I have this weird black and white photocopy version of Future Shock by Alvin Toffler sitting on my table.  It’s completely blank inside except for some chinese letters I started writing in it long ago.  I did a video for some show that was based around the book years ago.  It was a shitty video.  I don’t know at the time I would have exactly called myself an artist.  I was definitely trying to do something different besides music at the time.  The people and the scene I was around was claustrophobic.  Years later the irony is kind of painful.  Much less that these pages aren’t really blank because of my writing or the fact that I’ve never actually read anything by Alvin Toffler to begin with.  Much like a lot of things I bump into I’ve wandered into them somewhat in the dark.  Most of the time, it’s through collaboration with communities and people like footwork, activism, volunteer work, or collective art groups.  Collaboration never really works out the way you intend it to.  There’s some sort of bizarre hope that lies within that.  That something might surprise and impress me some day.  That there’s no pressure in that.  For me what I desire or think that I want rarely turns out to be the thing that is most satiating.  I could also argue I never get near anything I desire but that’s a complex thing in and of itself.  We all make choices.  And we sacrifice things as a result to follow through.  If we didn’t things would probably look a lot more broken than they seem.  And the truth is people are going to make bad choices whether we approve of them or not.  That’s part of this thing we seem to enjoy the most about the experiment that is the United States of America.  Chicago is a byproduct of that.  I’ve often been in shock for most of my adult life figuring out how I feel about all of this.  I used to cry about how alone I felt in this world maybe a little too much.  These days I have friends in places I can barely see let alone detect in some cases.  It’s been kind of a bumpy road the last year.  This is my second summer away from drinking.  The quote from Alvin Toffler’s book I never read says the culturally illiterate will be the people who can’t unlearn, let go and relearn.  You can take that on a lot of levels but people, places and things are destined to evolve over time.  The shock and awe in seeing things mature can leave people speechless.

In fact it has been kind of quiet these days.  I’ve found I still have to perform a bit whether it’s my job or in public.  If it sounds fucked up for the most part people leave me alone.  I’d be lying if I didn’t say I felt a presence lurking around.  The further you peel back the onion layer of Chicago, you’ll see it goes on for miles.  What really matters is what you consistently represent.  And for me these days I’m more of a journalist than anything.  I remember wandering around four in the morning in Shinjuku one year with a camera by myself.  People asked if I was a journalist.  It always stuck with me.  I am a writer.  I’ve always been writing in some form or another.  My first job was in a coffee house in a shitty suburban town that hosted slam poetry nights.  It seems so dated.  And yet I’ve been fifty million things since then.  I don’t know that I really have the desire to be anything but what I am now.  People seem to tolerate me.  I seem to be able to tolerate a lot of things.  Mostly missteps from people.  I have problems sometimes in professional settings dealing with people like anyone else.  Most of the time I err on the side of professionalism, rank and file.  The times where I’ve been most successful this last year professionally was when I addressed the problems with solutions and facts head on.  Months later I’ve learned how to cope with some difficult people as a result in my personal life and otherwise.  Mostly it’s about maintaining distance and keeping the peace.  There’s a fucked up concept about keeping the peace you forget about.  You are maintaining it for yourself as well.  All the genuine effort I put into anything is put there out of love for life.  I’ve also learned the hard way what does and doesn’t work.  And with some people you cannot win.  If you like battling sure, you’re welcome to drown in a fiery firefight of who is right and who is wrong.  But I find it’s easier for me to be less reactionary with the way I set things up in my life.  And patience is byproduct of all of that and a skill nonetheless I overlook often myself.

I’ve waited longer than anyone can imagine for something that seemingly doesn’t exist.  That can sound brutal if you look at it one way.  Nobody but me has wasted all this time trying to be right.  Trying to live in a future that heeds your concerns about all the things men like me can be.  And yet showing people I can still be myself.  That no matter how much I listen to your criticisms and take them to heart, they’re never enough to prove you wrong about me.  And you have to know how that feels.  To know that at the end of the day your opinion doesn’t actually matter.  How heartbreaking that is to feel for me.  Because I really tried to make things right.  I still do.  I still live like it actually mattered that I tried to be something more.  That I tried to take the high road and be the better person.  I think people want you to not believe you are good enough.  They want to drag you down with them.  They want to normalize their own bullshit and taint your self worth.  And your biggest strength is acknowledging that and responding measuredly or not at all.  The one thing the left and the right have in common in America is our need for immediacy in terms of resolutions.  The convenience of having a verdict when there isn’t really much justice.  We want closure like we ordered it through the drive thru five minutes ago.  And I can tell you for a fact the shit never ends.  There is no payoff.  Nobody cares about your 1600$ vintage street wear jacket but you and maybe the CIA if you are lucky.  If everybody seems fake they probably are.  Why can’t we just admit it?  Some of us are still in shock.  I was pretty afraid to admit that life sucked.  I couldn’t see a future in which I’d adapt.  Week after week I write here, people see things changing with me.  And yet if you look around everything is still the same.  Nobody knows who I am.  That’s not entirely true.  I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you I felt more part of something than I’ve felt before.  If anything I live in Chicago on a block that I like.  I think maybe it should start there.  Because I got here on my own two feet.  And if I can then I’m sure you can find a place you belong too.  It’s a big city that way at least.  You can find me in every corner of it if you aren’t careful.  <3 Tim

[cwl190]

Week 5

Benjamin Percy’s “Making the Extraordinary Ordinary”:

“Burton was enamored with the gritty nightmare of Gotham, the whiz-bang awesomeness of the Batmobile, and was carelss with characterization. So I didn’t believe... I was only a child, but after dreaming my way darkly through Gotham, the movie felt comparitively silly. Because it had no heart” (66). 

“I remember my mother crying and running upstairs when I was suspended. I remember my father ripping up my report card and hurling the pieces across the room like the saddest sort of confetti, not saying a word, just staring at me with hooded eyes” (66).

“Silence, I came to understand, was knowing when to shut up” (67).

“Saunders reinvents grief by giving it a beating heart. And he normalizes the weirdness by giving her a pitiable desire we can all relate to. Would the story be just as effective if it were told as realism? Some might say so. But fantasy allows us truths that might otherwise be unavailable. Normally a reflection means little except as a way to check our teeth, to smear on makeup, but before a warped mirror we pause, studying ourselves with awe and care, struck by a new way of seeing” (71).

“We expect winged men to be angelic, muscled and white-robed and blonde-haired and backlit by radiant light, but Garcia Marquez plays against our expectations: this figure is far from heavenly. They call him an “angel”, yes, but they also wonder if he is Norwegian or a sailor, a “castaway from some foreign ship wrecked by the storm.” And he is not exalted, as we would expect, but persecuted. He performs no miracles. He cowers pitifully. They cage him, prod him, pick his feathers, throw stones at him, burn his side with a branding iron. And in this way Garcia Marquez not only makes the fantastic accessible but captures the human tendency to fear whatever is different and the desire to label, define, control” (73).

Benjamin Percy’s “Get a Job”:

“Whether we like it or not, work defines us. Work dominates our lives. And we have an obligation, in our prose and poetry, in the interest of realism, and in the service of point of view, voice, setting, metaphor, and story, to try to incorporate credibly and richly the working lives of our characters” (140).

“Nor, tonally, should you build baroque sentences when the mind of your character is empy, his life unadorned. Her voice shouldn’t sound like white lace and gold trim when her home reeks of cheap whiskey and wood smoke” (144).

“It is a job that frames and sets into motion every element of your story or essay or poem- and it is your job to do the required research that will bring the language and tasks and schedule and perspective of your characters’ work to life. Google can do only so much for you. The library can only do so much for you. You need to write from the trenches” (145).

“Writing is an act of empathy. You are occupying and understanding a point of view that might be alien to your own- and work is often the keyhole through which you peer” (149).

Tom Perotta's "Ordinary People"

““I can’t look at everything hard enough”: The tragedy is that, while we’re alive, we don’t view our days in the knowledge that all things must pass. We don’t- we can’t- value our lives, our loved ones, with the urgent knowledge that they’ll one day be gone forever. Emily notices with despair that she and her mother barely look at one another, and she laments our self-possession, our distractedness, the million things that keep us from each other. “Oh, Mama,” she cries, “just look at me one minute as though you really saw me.... Let’s look at one another.” But mother and daughter remain self-absorbed, each in a private sea of her own thoughts, and that moment of recognition, or connection, never comes. Eventually, Emily has to return away” (130).

“Some people think of Our Town as being sentimental. Obviously, there’s a wish-fulfillment aspect here: the character who returns to the past, in a sense conquering death for a moment. But what’s unsentimental is that it’s too much, the way the experience is heartbreaking for the character. There’s a real emotional courage in the fact that there’s not a catharsis: only an unflinching acknowledgement of the gulf between the town and the cemetery. The living don’t appreciate the dead; the living don’t even appreciate the living. For me, that’s not sentimental- it’s unbelievably tough. The play presents us with a difficult truth, and forces us to take a long, hard look at it” (130-131).

Leslie Jamison's "On Commonness" 

“You remember too much, my mother said to me recently. Why hold onto all that? And I said, where can I put it down?” (158).

“I want to tell you how much it hurts, but I’m also going to tell you that there is a vioce inside of me, dogging me at every moment about tryingtoo hard to tell you how much it hurts... Carson’s mode of self-awareness doesn’t apologize for its emotion...” (158).

““I thought I would die” It’s so willfully plain. There’s something moving to me about saying it so embarrassingly straight. The following line, “This is not uncommon,” can be read so many different ways. The tone might be clinical or dismissive, as in, this is not an uncommon symptom of the disease of heartbreak. But it’s also an acknowledgement that what she’s going through is in no way extraordinary. It’s something that’s been felt before, and it’ll be felt again. Yet she owns this commonness, without apologizing for it, relinquishing it, or dismissing it” (159).

“I think there’s an additional layer of use when it comes to personal experience: You just see the events of your own life so differently after more  years have passed. That doesn’t mean that the truest version of an event is going to be the version you write when you’re eighty. But your perspective keeps changing” (162).

MAKING THE EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY—TRUTH:

The truth that exposes itself in “The Miniature Wife” and “The Infamous Bengal Ming” is the failures in the narrator and his wife’s ability to communicate with one another and that wild animals cannot mingle with humankind. The narrator’s wife being shrunken down and the negligence of the narrator portrays how she herself has literally been minimized through the course of their relationship. The marital problems between the narrator and his wife have existed even prior to the events of the story, and now it’s presented as the main conflict of the story. Gonzales reveals that it’s not really the incident that was the problem between them, but rather the catalyst.

In “The Infamous Bengal Ming”, the truth that becomes available in this story is that humans and animals cannot cross the bridge between their nature. Whether or not this is due to a communication problem is up to our interpretation, but everything the tiger does that he thinks will aid humans is villainized and he suffers the consequences of it. In the end, it doesn’t even matter because the tiger’s idea of love becomes distorted due to his senses. He finds some type of twisted euphoria in killing a woman he despises, and because of his hunger he eats her. The tiger still calls it love even though it’s clearly not, and I think Parameswaran is trying to make apparent the futility of trying to bridge that gap between species.

FEAR: 

This observation applies to “The Miniature Wife” through the narrator’s fascination with his wife. Rather than try to find a solution to her problem, he observes her as if she is a wild animal as well as gives her a habitat for his own self-gratuitous reasons. We see that views her more as a test subject than as a person through ways such as peering at her through a microscope, prioritizing crafting a dollhouse for her to live with and not making any pursuits to undo the shrinking ray effects. Instead of handling her infidelity with communication, he fears the ramifications of anyone finding out he has two shrunken people in his house and kills his co-worker. 

In “The Infamous Bengal Ming”, this theme is present all throughout the story. The tiger approaches humans with good will, but almost everyone recoils away in fear and is killed from the tiger’s advances (understandably). The tiger's position as an apex predator puts him at the forefront of their defensiveness and rather than embrace him, they seek to restrain and control him based on their preconceived notion of tigers being a threat. Fear moves along the plot. The tiger runs away in fear of the consequences for killing the zookeeper, leading him to the house where the woman and her child live in, and because the woman is terrified of the tiger's presence in the room she drops the baby, causing the tiger to catch it with his jaw and eventually kill it. It leads the reader to wonder, what would have happened if the people in this story were not as terrified as the tiger as they were? Would that have changed the way the story spiraled out of control, or would the tiger have given into his animalistic instincts earlier?

CONNECT THE DOTS—GET A JOB AND GONZALES: 

The narrator’s world revolves around his job. The way he handles the situation, his relationship with his wife prior to shrinking her and how it ends is all because his job is his life. Due to the way he got caught up in his work, he was never a very attentive husband and always left his dishes in the sink and didn’t clean up even after his wife reprimanded him several times. Because of his constant pursuit of knowledge, instead of doing the reasonable thing and trying to grow his wife, he instead observes her as if she was an experiment rather than his partner. Because of the narrator’s occupation, he has been portrayed as a very cold, obsessive, and negligent man, or maybe that was the kind of person he was to be suited to the job to begin with.

ON COMMONNESS: 

I think it’s a matter of the ego? The author summarized why the describing the full scope of your genuine feelings can be seen as something to rag on at pretty well. Adding “This is not uncommon” is a self-aware statement that tells you they’re aware it’s not that big of a deal. I really liked the examination of this concept because being sincere is a scary thing to do when you write, or even in your everyday life. Your works are somehow a bit of an extension of yourself, and by shoving that into the forefront of everyone’s judgement you are exposing your expressed thoughts and feelings. You don’t want to be completely genuine because you’re usually not. There’s not much I can add onto that because I think the essay put feelings into words that I wasn’t able to do myself. 

ONE THING: 

The fake grandmas was something that I felt was done in a way that could really make us suspend our belief. When they mentioned how when visits from kids became more of a chore than something they enjoyed was the correct time to kill the grandparents off, it made so much sense to me. That was such a calculated strategy on their part because most children’s memories change with the passage of time. They won’t remember every feature on their grandparent’s face, so using their naivety to the business’s advantage works perfectly in the context of the story to me. 

Also, the way the stand-ins are required to memorize the entire family tree as well as their parent’s vacations, photoshopping photos to put them in it. It all seems like a huge elaborate gaslighting project. The moment the grandparent is killed off is the moment when the person they’re tricking decides it of their own accord without even realizing it. It made me realize the inevitability of family relationships eventually growing apart. A lot of people aren’t close to their grandparents at all so it was pretty easy for me to accept that them eventually being phased out of their grandchildren’s life is pretty believable.

WILSON: 

The narrator’s way of seeing the world definitely bends around her work. Her ability to disconnect from relationships at her job translates into her everyday life, where we see that she doesn’t bother with building her own attachments. She isn’t married, doesn’t have any kids and she refuses to enter committed relationships with other men. Whether or not this is due to the nature of her job or because of her past we don’t know, but we can glean that someone who treats familial relationships as a transaction isn’t very authentic or sentimental.

We especially see this when the narrator converses with her co-workers, who all seem to have a bitter, snarky approach to their jobs. They make death into a lighthearted subject manner or something with a double meaning. When Martha says “I was so good, fams were going to keep me until I outlived all of them. They were going to be leaving me money in their wills” (14) and the narrator reminds her that they all have due dates at one point. it’s not really just about the completion of their agreement as a stand-in. It can serve as a foreshadowing to when being a stand-in truly takes a toll and the narrator is no longer competent to their job.

ORDINARY PEOPLE: 

Perrotta’s ideas of ordinary details come in the form of people’s mannerisms: The breakfast they eat in the morning, how someone might put up their hair, etc. The “Grand Stand-in” makes all of those ordinary details into it’s own concept. It’s the grandparent’s job to embody those details and form themselves into a believable person. The narrator is transfixed on the lullaby because she feels the need to prove herself as a professional. Every part of their job is calculated, all those little details that make up their identity is the bizarreness of being a stand-in. The ordinary things about these grandparents are what makes them fascinating because it’s not them at all. 

CONNECT THE DOTS: 

The “Grand Stand-in” follows Boyle’s advice in “How Stories Say Goodbye” and has a closure where we are more or less satisfied with the ending. The narrator goes through an epiphany where she realizes that she doesn’t want to continue with her job due to wanting something real. The loss she experiences by cutting herself off from all the families is a hallmark of these change because although all the families she involved herself in was nothing but a fabricated lie, quitting unexpectedly gave her “deaths” meaning. She states herself that the sadness she feels is more rewarding and genuine.