#it’s hard to post any original writing here and even harder as a teeny tiny blog unless there’s big ol visuals

[thatringboy]

wanna post poetry but idk how to draw the images I wanna put with it 😭

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with MaybeAmanda

MaybeAmanda has been a longtime participant in X-files fandom. She has 29 stories at Gossamer, the earliest being archived there in 1998 and the latest in 2012. I've recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including "Malus Genus" and "Snow in Alabama." Big thanks to MaybeAmanda for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

It does, in a way.  The feedback I get nowadays is either of the "I read this like 20 years ago and I just read it again" variety or the "I was too young back in the day but I have been watching the show in reruns/on XYZ streaming service/on the full-series of DVDs I got for $3 from the thrift store and I was THRILLED to discover fanfiction was being written even in the Dark Ages!" So it's a bit of a surprise, but it's a pleasant one. I answer every mail/comment because my mama raised me right!

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

It was great. It was fun. It was educational. It was a godsend. Even with the occasional bouts of back-stabbing and flame-throwing, it was mainly a welcoming, inclusive place to be. I made so many online friends who have turned into meat-friends (do they still call them that? Probably not).  During the first run of the show I had small children and we had relocated for my husband's job.  I had very little social life, but the fandom gave me a chance to meet and connect with people who liked what I liked. Then I discovered online fanfic, and it was even better!

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

ATXC I think.  A lot of email lists - 5 or 6 or 7 or so over the years. Gossamer, of course, Ephemeral when that came into being.  Haven discussion boards. My own websites.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

More than anything?  I am a fangirl.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I have always been partial to sci-fi and speculative fiction, but it rarely makes it to the screen - large or small - without being trite, clichéd, or just plain bad. It's easy to forget that The X-Files was groundbreaking - smart, scary, funny, insightful, intriguing, complex plots, on-going mythology. It looked great. It sounded great. David Duchovny was pleasant to look at, too, and damn! Gillian Anderson is/was one hell of an actress.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I found XF fanfic - somehow - probably by accident, or by way of a recommendation - and it blew my mind.  I had written fanfic (of a sort) with my friends in highschool, so I was familiar with the beast, but to find what amounted to excellent story after excellent story for free within (relatively) easy reach (because dial-up, right?) written by people who, for the most part, were thrilled you read their story and were happy to talk to you about it, about writing in general, about your shared obsession - that was amazing. As I am sitting here typing this I am feeling that thrill again - discovering Karen Rasch, Madeliene Partous, Paula Graves [Lilydale note: AKA Anne Haynes], Sheryl Martin and all the other early BNFs was, well, the only word is exciting. I felt like I was a member of a secret society and that I was sitting at the popular kids lunch table, all at once. (Don't forget, in the early days, shippers were considered delusional outliers - seriously!)

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Good?   It's not as lively a place as it once was, but I haven't renounced my citizenship or anything. If I get a rec, I check it out. I know there are those who like to pretend they never had anything to do with the fandom, but why? I am still a proud XPhile.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

Angel (a teeny tiny bit) while XF was still running, but those fans were - I don't know the word.  Hardcore does not begin to do it justice. I wrote two short pieces at a friend's request then backed away slowly. Sherlock (a bit) - it is/was very LJ centred and that made it hard to find things. A lot of it moved to tumblr which made it harder, then to twitter, which - no.  I was involved in one of the less fashionable facets of the Sherlock fandom, so I was really a fringe-dweller there, too. It seemed clique-ier than XF, and they all seemed so young, and they all knew EVERYTHING about everything, and every damned thing was political, and, and, and... GET OFF MY LAWN!

But maybe I am remembering the XF fandom wrong. ;)

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Like, all fiction? Mulder and Scully for sure. Arthur Dent. Sherlock Holmes in most of his incarnations. Spock. Winnie the Pooh. Why do I like them?  They speak to me, I guess.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I haven't watched an episode in probably two years (back when it was on regular tv).  Yeah, I think about them surprisingly often.  Story ideas, weirdly.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic?

I finished re-reading The Iolokus Series a couple of weeks back, so yes.  It's excellent comfort reading.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Lots! But as far as authors go, I hate playing favourites. I will miss someone I shouldn't and feel like crap.  The Iolokus Series by MustangSally and Rivka T. is probably my all-time favourite fic because it's so very well-written, and so very fucked-up. Kipler's Strangers and the Strange Dead is also terrifically well-written and clever. For complex, interesting case files, you can’t beat syntax6 - pick any of them.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Oh geez. Seriously? I wrote a lot of collaborations and I love them - and my co-authors - all!  Stuff I wrote on my own: Anniversary Waltz (first XF fic I wrote so it's sentimental.) Or Blue Patches. Or Epiphany. Or The Gifts of the Magi (On a Kaiser Roll). Or 221XF.  Gonna stop now.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story?

Every time I thought I wouldn't, I did. I would never say never.

Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Nothing finished ever went un-posted. All the unfinished stuff remains unfinished.

Do you still write fic now?

Haven't for a while, but it's not as if I have said "I SHALL NEVER WRITE FANFIC AGAIN!" I just have nothing in the works at this moment.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

With fic, it's usually from canon - some question unanswered, some road unexplored, some "what if?" that needs iffing.  With "original" fiction, damned if I know.  A snippet of overheard conversation, an interesting photo, something a random story generator spit out at me.  Sometimes things just click.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Okay so...many years ago I was on a (smallish) fic list with a friend.  There was a challenge posted - a bad fic challenge. We knew we could write some truly bad fic if we really tried.  One of the rules of the challenge was to post under an assumed name so no one would know who they were voting for. Well, my friend and I wrote something truly, painfully horrid and we were very proud of its ghastliness, so were brainstorming possible pseudonyms. She hated everything but had no real suggestions of her own.  I knew that she was a bit of a Trekkie (like me) and I said - What about Amanda Greyson and Joanna McCoy?  And she said  - What?? Huh?? Why?? And I said - Spock's mother and McCoy's daughter and she replied, "Maybe Amanda is Spock's mother but on Star Trek there is not a Joanna." By this point, I was SO DONE, and I became MaybeAmanda and she became NotJoanna. Really.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

It took years for me to admit it, but yeah, they know.  They didn't entirely get it.  The reactions I most often got were:

"Ew! You write stuff without being forced?? Ew!!"

or:

"Is it smut? I bet it's just smut. You write smut, don't you? Pure filth, right? I can't believe you are wasting your time writing pornography! That's disgusting! You sicken me! Um, can I read some of it?"

And of course:

"If you are going to write anyway, why don't you get published and become fabulously wealthy?"

which is really two questions, neither of which is easily answerable.

Anyone who tracked my work down (because I told them I wrote, but not my pseudonym) usually said something like, "Hey! You're an okay/passable/decent writer! Why don't you get published and become fabulously wealthy?"

Yeah.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Same old email (maybe_a@rocketmail_dot_com). Gossamer, my site, my LJ and probably some other places.  I can't lie - it's a bit scattered.

(Posted by Lilydale on August 4, 2020)

[consumedkings-archive]

ancient names, pt. vi

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt vi: dark, and drenched in longing

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~4.7k

Rating: M for now, rating will change in later chapters as things develop.

Warnings: Language, some “light” religious blasphemy (it’s Far Cry 5). Strong canon deviance from here on out. Mentions of blood/carnage, the frantic energy of people who both hate and are attracted to each other. Also, for this chapter in particular, the forced use of psychotropic drugs (also canon-typical?? I guess). John being himself. Per usual.

Notes: Hi! I'm going to keep these short and sweet because, basically, I have nothing to say for myself. I hope you guys enjoy! I mean it when I say every interaction makes my day. I swear I'm just as awkward in a real conversation as I sound in these notes and I'm not scary at all, so please feel free to come and say hi!

As always, thank you again to everyone who reads! I am so happy to be back in a writing groove with these two idiots again.

Theirs was a strange sort of allyship.

Tentative, to be sure, and certainly strained. But if four days ago you’d told John that he’d be sitting in a van with Junior Deputy Elliot Honeysett driving him straight to his brother, the man she'd slapped cuffs on and tried to arrest at the behest of a U.S. marshal, he’d have laughed in your face. The idea was ridiculous. Expansively, endlessly, incredibly ridiculous.

And yet, if John ignored the clink of the cuffs binding them together, and the knowledge that this van belonged to a strange, traveling band of cultists, he almost felt like he had been tricked into some kind of fucked-up romcom. As soon as they hit the highway, Elliot turned the radio on to the resistance’s repaired music channels, smoked her cigarette down, and leaned back against her seat as though she had not been viciously threatening to kill him just days ago.

Did she still think that? Did he care? John felt his brows furrow and he turned his head away, watching the treeline. He didn’t think he cared. He would say, so what if Elliot still wants to kill me? She needed him, and that was more than he’d gotten out of her in the whole time that she’d been under his thumb.

He didn’t care if she still wanted to kill him, and the thought that maybe she might did not thrill him, and he was not distracted by the stretch of her midriff when she shifted in her seat, and—

—And these were all things that he didn’t struggle with, certainly, because if asked, John would say that yes, he supposed that Elliot Honeysett could be considered conventionally attractive , but only when she wasn’t baring her teeth like a wild animal, only when she didn’t have a gun in her hands, only when she wasn’t making you say please to save the life of someone you didn’t even know the name of.

So, yes, he supposed, she was pretty: and John did not know why in particular he had to leap through those loops to get to that point silently, by himself, but, here he was.

“Oh, I love this song,” Elliot announced suddenly, turning the volume up and startling John out of the reverie he’d plunged himself into. His eyes narrowed when he recognized the song; the very typical back-water-town radio station playing Guns’N’Roses was not beyond his comprehension, and yet he found himself displeased nonetheless.

“Really, deputy?” John asked, staring at her across the console. “You love this song?”

Elliot dropped her glasses— my glasses, John reminded himself irritably—down the bridge of her nose so she could stare at him over the top of them. “It’s a classic, John.”

The radio blared the chorus of Welcome To The Jungle , and John said, “I cannot take you seriously with this music.”

She laughed, apparently pleased by his disdain, cranked the volume higher. Over the sound of aggressive guitar riffs sliding up and down and Boomer barking excitedly in the back, John shouted, “Why don’t we just alert everyone of where we are, hm?”

“Oh, you’re spoiling the fun.” She turned the volume back down, tsking her tongue, and John rolled his eyes. It was so very typical Elliot, to want to enjoy herself at the exact moment that he was trying to remind himself of all the reasons that he disliked her.

A period of silence stretched between them; tranquil, blissful, just for one moment, before John’s gaze slid back to her. She did look peaceful, at that moment, her ponytail smooth and adjusted, her brows relaxed, coughing occasionally into the crook of her elbow but otherwise breathing fine. Relaxed. At ease—with him, of all people. Wouldn't she be furious to know it?

John’s fingers itched. Soft, he thought, reminded of Joseph’s words; you have to love them, John. It wasn’t his style, not particularly, more suited to persuasion rather than fostering mercy as Joseph did. 

He kept his voice light and casual when he asked, “Where did you get your scars, deputy?”

He watched—and watched and watched —to catch her reaction. He couldn’t see her eyes through the reflective shades she wore, but he did see the way her fingers tightened on the wheel, saw the push and pull of her jaw muscle as her teeth worked in her mouth, grinding, perhaps crushing the words she wanted to say between them. He braced himself for the vitriol; it would certainly be something along the lines of, I got them from Go Fuck Yourself USA, John, I’m the goddamn mayor or any suitable string of expletives.

Instead, Elliot prompted, “Who’s asking?”

John’s eyes narrowed. “Pardon?”

“I said, who’s asking?” she reiterated, not once looking at him. “Is this John Seed, or John Duncan?” Hearing her say the name like this—as though John Duncan were at all comparable to the man that John Seed was—made his chest prickle, anger and disdain welling up inside of him.

“That’s not my name,” John bit out. “Don’t play games with me, deputy—”

“I know your fucking cult psycho-bombing tactics, Seed,” Elliot replied, her voice sharp and quick as a whip. John opened his mouth to protest, but she went on, “You might think you’re being clever, waiting until I crack a smile to ask me an invasive question, but you’re not. First, you ask me where my scars come from, and when I open up about my past traumas—”

“So it’s a trauma,” John insisted, but Elliot was already railroading on; any footing he felt he’d was gone.

“—then you say some stupid shit like, have you ever really felt at home with your family, Deputy Honeysett? I could give you a home, Deputy Honeysett, which you would say, because for some reason you don’t understand the concept of someone being a Junior Deputy or having a first name—”

“It was just a question, Elliot ,” John interrupted, effectively ending her barrage. “I was only trying to make small talk with you. I noticed them back at the ranch, and since we’re in a car for several hours together, I thought…”

Elliot’s lips pressed into a thin line. “There’s your first mistake, then. You tried to form a cohesive train of thought.” Her voice dripped with a honeyed, pitiful timbre, “I know how hard that is for you.”

“Alright, thank you for this stimulating conversation, you literal child,” John snipped out. “And you’re still wearing my fucking glasses, by the way.”

“Take them back, then.”

John stared at her. The idea of putting his hand close to Elliot’s face was not only a dangerous one because it was in close proximity to her teeth—proven by her many run-ins with his acolytes before to be suitable weapons in a pinch—but because he worried.

He worried that the willingness for soft contact would make him soft, the way it had felt when Elliot tucked herself against his chest to combat the chilly Montana evening. He worried that getting familiar and comfortable with a feral and untamed creature like Elliot Honeysett would change him, and to be changed by someone like her —

“Consider them a gift.” He kept his voice clipped. “From me to you. They’re Gucci, you know.”

“Oh, very generous of you, Herald. What, little old me, nobody Elliot from Hope County, Nowhere-Montana, with her first pair of Gucci shades? Why, I’d never .” A little bit of a sweet Southern-belle drawl slipped in there, and John didn’t know if it was because of the dramatics or if it was an accent she’d mostly lost and only occasionally regained.

But his stomach twisted a little when she used his title, the patronizing drip of her tone going straight to the headache blooming behind his eyes. “You know, deputy—”

Instinctively, he paused; he waited for her timely interjection, as she was so comfortable doing, but yet again the moment he anticipated it she remained silent. Elliot arched a dark-honey eyebrow and waited. John cleared his throat.

“I think I’ve never met a more troubled woman than you,” he continued casually. “To suspect me of such foul intentions when I only want to know my driving companion better, I’m genuinely wounded.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Elliot acquiesced, and for a moment—just one teeny-tiny moment—John thought she meant it; and then she said, “But I’d prefer we not get too friendly, as you were just considering drowning me in a river filled with drugs just a few days ago, and...”

The blonde’s words trailed off. The van rolled to a crawl, and when he looked forward, he saw the remains of the fire assault that they had just escaped a day ago; two Eden’s Gate trucks, and flimsy barricades that had been pushed off of the road. No bodies in sight.

It was almost a relief, if he was being honest—he wasn’t sure how many more flower-stuffed corpses he could see before he finally decided to rip his own eyeballs out.

Any playful heat had died out of Elliot’s expression. She was somber now, the lines of her expression harder than before. In the back of the van, Boomer whined, and John could hear the swishing of his tail against the floor.

“I don’t like that they took the bodies,” she said after a moment.

“Me either.”

The next thirty minutes of the drive passed in strange, awkward silence. Elliot looked like she wanted to say something and wouldn’t; he could feel her gaze dipping over to him on occasion, but each time he thought her mouth was opening to let out what was on her mind, she’d just exhale. By the time they’d cleared the field where the tracks from their last ride had dug in and left the barricade far behind them, dark, heavy storm clouds had rolled in; he rolled his window down and felt the heady pre-storm humidity like a slap in the face.

No good, John thought, a few drops hitting his hand before he rolled up the window. He felt the thunder rumble deep in the marrow of his bones. The rain went from a drizzle to a steady silver sheet, and then to a torrential downpour by the time they’d been driving for just under an hour, and eventually Elliot pulled to the side of the road.

“We have to pull in somewhere,” she announced. “This van is great for toting cults around, but it’s not great for avoiding hydroplaning off of the road.”

“Well, isn’t off-roading your specialty?” John quipped. She shot him a glare, pushing his sunglasses up onto her head and nestling them into her hair.

“Yes, actually, now that you mention it,” Elliot replied tartly, “but not when I can’t see where I’m fucking going.”

“We’re only an hour and a half or so away from Joseph,” John insisted. “You really don’t think you can make it there?”

Elliot heaved a sigh. Her fingers fluttered over her forehead and the bridge of her nose like she had a headache that was a twin to his own, and every time he spoke, he was exacerbating it. That was probably true—and John was happier for it because the times when Elliot had been most compliant were when she was the most genuinely inhibited.

“I don’t like not being able to see who’s behind us or coming around the corner,” she insisted after a moment. “It doesn’t matter how close or far Joseph is. What matters is that there’s a group of nutjobs out there who apparently have insurmountable resources to take over a whole county in a single day, and I will not —”

She stopped, as though to calm herself, and John waited; impatient, but silent.

“I will not,” Elliot finished, “get kidnapped by one more fucking cult, John Seed.”

Lightning crackled in the distance, and the rain pelted the windshield violently. Another rumble of thunder went spiraling above them; Boomer whined, his ears flat against his skull. John could see Elliot’s fingers gripping the steering wheel until they went bone-white, but each time her grip loosened to let the circulation back in through her fingers, they trembled.

“Fine,” John said. “Pull off into the trees up there, then. We’ll take a break and pick up again when the rain lets up.”

“Thank you,” Elliot said, pulling down from the side of the road and winding her way out of sight of any traffic that might be coming; no venom laced her voice, only relief, and there was no follow-up jab, either. Under the shelter of the trees, the rain felt less violent, and already John felt the tension fleeing his own shoulders.

As soon as Elliot turned the van off, the motor ticking absently, John rumbled, “I think that’s the nicest you’ve ever been to me, deputy.”

She got up out of the seat, shimmying her way past the console and into the back where Boomer had been enjoying the right, pulling hard enough to yank John’s arm and force him to shimmy back with her. The gesture was awkward, and he only complied because he didn’t want to be sitting in the front seat with their arms slung at the angle to allow her back there.

“It’s incredible what a little decency can get you,” she deadpanned. She opened the back door of the van to let Boomer out, the dog taking off happily into the brush. Stretching out her legs in the more spacious, empty back of the van, Elliot wiped some rain from her face and made herself comfortable. John settled against the wall of the car, absently pulling at the cuff still locked around his wrist.

“I can be plenty decent,” he replied, almost sly, a little grin ticking the corner of his mouth upward. “But you already knew that.”

Elliot groaned. “You’re still on about the fact that one time in a bar like, three years ago, you hit on me when I was drunk and you might have had a chance?”

“I think we both know there’s a little more to it than that.”

She rolled her eyes. She could not have, perhaps, been more dramatic than she was in that moment, although John reminded himself that he had often considered Elliot could not be more of many things—impatient, infuriating, prone to violence—than she already was, and she had proved him wrong many times before.

“All I’m saying is,” John continued, “somewhere, deep down in that teeny-tiny heart of yours, deputy—”

“One time,” Elliot interrupted, holding up a finger to accentuate the number. “One time, many moons ago, I thought a man named John in a bar was objectively attractive. This was before I knew what your personality was like.”

John laughed. “You don’t need to like someone’s personality to fuck them, deputy,” he said and basked in the way her expression scrunched up, as though a particularly sour flavor had just seeped into her mouth.

“I do,” Elliot replied, “and every day, I thank God that Joey Hudson had the good sense to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

“Amen.”

Her gaze flashed with something that might have been amusement. She coughed into her elbow, turning her face away from him to glance out the window at the trees, their branches and leaves swaying in the wind but becoming more and more still the deeper into the woods they went.

“So you think I’m attractive, then.”

“Please stop talking,” Elliot groaned, head lolling against the back of the driver’s seat. “John, if I tell you that I think you’re handsome when your mouth is closed, will you shut the fuck up?”

John’s mouth curved in a half-grin, his chest welling pleasantly at her words. It may have been more than a little petty, to like the words coming out of her mouth—Elliot Honeysett, who would probably strangle him to death with her bare hands if given the opportunity, admitting that he was handsome.

“I might be more inclined,” he offered, sly. She rolled her eyes.

“I’m closing my eyes,” she announced, kicking her legs out and nudging his foot out of the way.

Absolutely childish, John thought absently and without much fervor, compliantly moving his foot out of the way for her. “Just use your words, deputy.”

“Certainly, anything for you,” Elliot purred. “I want you to shut up.”

He flashed her a grin, leaning his head back against the window. Rain pattered against the glass, and somewhere out in the distance, he heard Boomer’s happy bark as he did whatever it was that dogs did in the woods; hunt smaller things, perhaps.

“It’s nice to want things, isn’t it?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elliot did not know how long she had been asleep when she finally woke up.

She knew that she had been allowed to sleep uninterrupted, which was the first red flag—there was no way that John would just let her sleep and sleep and let the day tick them by. As she slowly came to, through the corner of her eye she could see that he’d fallen asleep, too, shifting restlessly against the window.

The second thing she realized was that the rain hadn’t stopped, and the reason that she became immediately aware of it was that the back doors of the van were open. She hadn’t done it, obviously, and she couldn’t fathom why in the world John would leave the back doors of the van open, so then the question in her foggy mind persisted; who?

And then someone grabbed her ankle and pulled.

The back of her head hit the metal floor of the van with a heavy thud , the world spinning in her vision as she was pulled closer to the outside world, even as her legs kicked. Panic rose in her throat, violent and hot, and instantly her hand went to reach for John, his name spilling out of her mouth in a desperate attempt to wake him up.

His eyes fluttered open. Groggily, he said, “Elliot?” and as she was yanked violently down he got pulled, too, slammed forward face-first into the floor of the van, biting out a swear that only barely registered in her mind as she struggled to wake up.

She twisted to look at her attacker—a tall redhead with a nasty scar dragging his lip in a permanent sneer. Elliot recognized him as the same red-head that had been handling Faith for the woman from before, the same man who’d nearly rammed his van into hers on the road just a day ago.

His hand fisted in the front of her shirt; he drawled in his thick, round accent, “Go back to sleep, little one,” and slammed her head back against the floor with purpose, her vision going sticky, staticky black on the edges.

She felt the heavy pain blooming behind her eyes. The weight of it dragged her eyelids down; she swam in inky black, only vaguely aware of the sound of raised voices, the feeling of a damp cloth being draped over her mouth, the sensation of floating, as though she were drifting underwater with everyone else shouting above her; all of these things began to fade, slipping through her fingers like sand until there was nothing left except for the empty, hollow black filling her up.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Elliot?”

It was John’s voice, she thought, or maybe not; it was hard to tell. Hands pressed to the tops of her shoulders, the pressure a welcoming comfort. Her chin was tucked against her chest, and she lifted her head—not without significant effort—and opened her eyes.

The world pulsed around her, colors bleeding brightly and violently against her irises. She was in a field—

(I’m in a field? But the floor—)

—and John was kneeling in front of her, his hands coming up to take her face. There was no smugness, no venom in his expression; only concern.

“I was so worried,” John said. “I was so worried about you, Elliot.”

“John,” Elliot said, and when she said his name it felt like the letters were spilling out of her mouth, choking her on the way out. A warm breeze tickled the edges of her vision, and the sunlight hemorrhaged into the grass, into the ground, oscillating in time with her heartbeat. A strange, sticky feeling wound up inside of her.

John said her name again. When she looked at him, his eye sockets were blooming, beautiful purple blooms pouring out of them, brushing his cheekbones like eyelashes. The feeling in her chest deepened; grief, she thought, with desperation, agony, hollowing her out, dread , filling her back up again, nothing but a vessel for the deepest emotions to be carried in.

“I was so worried about you,” John said again. Soft petals tumbled out of his mouth when he spoke. He gripped the sides of her face and pressed their foreheads together, and she started to cry, shaking her head. “My Elliot,” he said, over the sound of her crying, his thumbs brushing the tears from her face, “my Elliot.”

She thought that her skin must be burning, from the inside out, everywhere his hands touched; sliding down her throat, along the slope of her collarbone, gripping her shoulders. Hungry, and burning, lighting her on fire as he murmured, “My Elliot.”

His hands skimmed her face. They felt different, then softer and more slender; she closed her eyes tightly, willing the horror of it to go away, for the clammy terror to slip off of her skin.

“Open your eyes, mor. Did the visions scare you? ” a soft voice asked, the words slinking across her skin, serpentine and cold. She did as she was told, even when she thought, I don’t want to open my eyes, her body operating obediently.

Soft, dark eyes. Wisps of dirty-blonde hair that curtained Elliot’s face. Her head was in the woman’s lap and the night sky stretched, cloudy and endless, above them. Ase smiled at her dreamily.

“I saw your color the minute I laid eyes on you,” Ase whispered. She said the words like they were meant to be treasured, kept between them, only them. Elliot’s eyes fluttered and she tried to will herself to move. Her body was non-compliant, heavy as lead, and the warmth of a tear moving haltingly down her cheek made her skin prickle with goosebumps.

With the touch of a doting mother, Ase wiped the tear from her cheek, the pad of her thumb sliding along the slope of Elliot’s cheekbone, and then brushed the hair from her face. Now, Elliot could see more clearly the way her pupils were blown wide, swallowing up the color of her irises, crushing it in the event horizon of her eyes. She murmured, reverently, “I saw your color, mor, I saw you. Have you ever felt seen? We waited for you, for so long.”

Elliot moaned, misery stinging in the sound. Her lip trembled. She thought, I don’t want to be seen, the way Ase reiterated it making her vulnerable. I don’t want to be seen, I don’t want this. But she couldn’t make the words come out, her jaw hanging slack when she opened her mouth, the knowledge that they had done something to her flickering only briefly through her mind before it was swallowed up by something else.

“I’ll let you go.” Ase’s voice remained silken, spinning around her, weaving a cocoon. “I’ll let you go, mor , but only because I know that you will always come back to us.” She skimmed her fingers lovingly across Elliot’s forehead and whispered into her skin, “Now go back to sleep.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

John found her curled up, her fingers sinking into the earth like she was afraid she was going to float away, and sobbing.

His head was pounding; he felt disoriented, and panicked, the same kind of strange, distant panic that happened when he fell asleep during the day and woke up to it being night. He could only remember the sound of Elliot saying his name jerking him out of his sleep in the van, the sensation of getting pulled forward violently, and the feeling of someone slamming his head into the side of the van.

And then, waking up in a field, in the dark, alone.

He had struggled to his feet when he awoke. He had thought, the handcuffs are off . He had thought, I have to find Elliot. And then he’d started walking, saying her name, until he heard the sound of her crying and found her.

“Elliot,” he said urgently. His mouth felt incredibly dry; he was worried that if he spoke too much, his skin would split. He reached for her when she turned to look at him, and when she saw him she moaned, the sound that came out of her the same kind of sound an animal with its leg caught in a trap would make.

A slur of protests came out of her. A line of no’s that all blurred together, but when brought her to a sitting position she only shrunk away from him a little. He took the sides of her face in his hands and searched her for any sign of wounds or harm that might have come to her: but there was nothing. She was, it appeared, physically untouched.

“Hey,” John managed out. “It’s me, Elliot. I’ve got you.”

She blinked blearily at him. Her face was flushed, puffy, and tears dotted and darkened her lower lashes. Her pupils nearly ate up the entirety of those baby blues; clearly, she’d been drugged. She said, “John?” and he nodded.

“Yes, Rook. It’s me.”

“They did something to me,” Elliot said, her voice rising in her distress. “John—”

“They’re gone,” he said, without confirming her fears. “We have to move, though. Can you stand?”

The blonde hesitated for a moment and then nodded—he supposed she would have to fight through the remains of whatever they had put in her. He stood, taking her hands and helping her as she wobbled to a stand as well. It was hard to figure out exactly where they were, with no road in sight, but the haze of his sleep—which he now thought must also be medically induced—was still weighing on him.

“We have to move,” he said again, Elliot’s fingers clutching his hands so tight it almost hurt. He scanned the horizon of the field, touching on the dip of a hill, a river, and then a treeline. His eyes strained. He thought he might have seen headlights through the dim of them, but it was hard to tell.

It was also all he had to go on.

“Come on,” John said, her hands still locked around his like he was anchoring her to the earth. Unable to guess what they’d drugged her with, he imagined it probably felt like that.

“John,” Elliot said, her voice impossibly small as they began to walk, her steps halting and uneasy, “They did something to me.”

His jaw tightened. He hated this; he hated Elliot like this, emotionally wounded and voice wobbling, because all of a sudden he thought that this was not the Elliot he knew, not his Elliot at all. Where was the venom? The steel? Where had she gone?

Buried, he supposed, under psychotropic drugs, of which he knew not the origin nor the duration.

The rain clouds had moved along; the earth smelled wet, and fresh, the scent of it welling up inside of them, and as they walked his mind felt clearer and clearer. With clarity came the knowledge that they had been trapped; the cultists had had them, and had chosen to leave them alive. For what?

“I know,” John said again, his voice rough with his forcefully-induced sleep. Elliot’s fingers dug into his arm where they clutched, the feverish pitch of her body heat seeping through his clothes from how close she lingered. “You’re fine, deputy, I’ve got you.”

He tried not to think too hard about the voice that echoed in his head, for now.

[maryanntorreson]

Here’s how I finally got myself to start exercising

Avalon Nuovo

When we received the stay-at-home order in March 2020 — I live in California — I came out of the gates pretty darn hot.

“Embrace not being so busy,” I wrote. “Take this time at home to get into a new happiness habit.”

That seems hilarious to me now. My pre-pandemic routines fell apart hard and fast. Some days, I would realize at dinnertime that not only had I not showered or gotten dressed that day, I hadn’t even brushed my teeth.

Even though I have coached people for a long time in a very effective, science-based method of habit formation, I struggled. Truth be told, for the first few months of the pandemic I more or less refused to follow my own best advice.

I think this was because I love to set ambitious goals. Adopting little habits is so much less exciting than embracing a big, juicy goal.

Take exercise, for example.

When the pandemic began, I optimistically embraced the idea that I could get back into running outside. I picked a half marathon to train for and spent a week or so meticulously devising a detailed daily training plan. However, I stuck to that plan for only a few weeks — all that planning and preparation led only to a spectacular failure to exercise.

I skipped my training runs despite feeling like the importance of exercise and the good health it brings has never been more bracingly clear. Despite knowing that it would cut my risk of heart disease in half. Despite knowing that exercise radically reduces the probability we’ll get cancer or diabetes and that it’s as least as effective as prescription medication when it comes to reducing depression and anxiety, that it improves our memory and learning, and that it makes our brains more efficient and more powerful.

Why did I skip exercise despite knowing all this?

The truth is our ability to follow through on our intentions — to get into a new habit like exercise or to change our behavior in any way — actually doesn’t depend on the reasons that we might do it or on the depth of our convictions to do it. It also doesn’t depend on our understanding of the benefits of a particular behavior, or even on the strength of our willpower.

Instead, it depends on our willingness to be bad at our desired behavior.

And I hate being bad at stuff. I’m a “go big or go home” kind of gal. I like being good at things, and I quit exercising because I wasn’t willing to be bad at it.

Here’s why we need to be willing to be bad. Being good requires that our effort and our motivation need to be equivalent. In other words, the harder a thing is for us to do, the more motivation we need to do that thing. And you might have noticed that motivation isn’t something we can always muster on command. Whether we like it or not, motivation comes and motivation goes. When motivation wanes, plenty of research shows that we humans tend to follow the law of the least effort and do the easiest thing.

New behaviors require a lot of effort because change is hard. Change can require a lot of motivation, which we can’t count on having. This is why we often don’t do the things we really intend to do.

To establish an exercise routine, I needed to let myself be bad at it. I needed to stop trying to be an actual athlete.

I started exercising again by running for only one minute at a time — yes, that’s right, 60 seconds. Every morning after I brushed my teeth, I changed out of my pajamas and walked out the door, with my only goal to run for one full minute.

These days, I usually run for 15 or 20 minutes at a stretch. But on the days that I’m totally lacking in motivation or time, I still do that one minute. And this minimal effort always turns out to be way better than nothing.

Maybe you relate. Maybe you’ve also failed in one of your attempts to change yourself for the better. Perhaps you want to use less plastic, meditate more or be a better antiracist. Maybe you want to write a book or eat more leafy greens.

I have great news for you: You can do and be those things, starting right now!

The sole requirement is that you stop trying to be so good. You’ll need to abandon your grand plans, at least temporarily. You must allow yourself to do something so minuscule that it’s only slightly better than doing nothing at all.

Ask yourself: How can you strip down that thing you’ve been meaning to do into something so easy you could do it every day with barely a thought? So if your big objective is to eat lots of leafy greens, maybe you could start by adding one lettuce leaf to your sandwich at lunch.

Don’t worry: You’ll get to do more. This “better than nothing” behavior isn’t your ultimate goal. But for now, do something ridiculously easy that you can do even when nothing in your life is going as planned.

On those days, doing some wildly unambitious act is better than doing nothing. A one-minute meditation is relaxing and restful. A single leaf of romaine lettuce has a half-gram of fiber and important nutrients. A one-minute walk gets us outside and moving, which our bodies really need.

Try doing one better than nothing behavior. See how it goes. Your goal is repetition, not high achievement.

Let yourself be mediocre at whatever you are trying to do, but be mediocre every day.

Take only one step, but take that step every day.

And if your better than nothing habit doesn’t actually seem better to you than doing nothing, remember that you are getting started at something and that initiating a behavior is often the hardest part.

By getting started, you are establishing a neural pathway in your brain for a new habit. This makes it much more likely that you’ll succeed with something more ambitious down the line. Once you hardwire a habit into your brain, you can do it without thinking and, more importantly, without needing much willpower or effort.

A “better than nothing” habit is easy for you to repeat, again and again, until it’s on autopilot. You can do it even when you aren’t motivated, even when you’re tired, even when you have no time. Once you start acting on autopilot, that’s the golden moment that your habit can begin to expand organically.

After a few days of running for one minute, I started feeling a genuine desire to keep running. Not because I felt like I should exercise more or I had to do more to impress people, but because it felt more natural to keep running than it felt to stop.

It can be incredibly tempting, especially for the overachievers, to want to do more than our designated better than nothing habit. So I must warn you: The moment in which you are no longer willing to do something unambitious is the moment in which you risk everything.

The moment you think you should do more is the moment you introduce difficulty. It’s the moment you eliminate the possibility that your activity will be easy and even enjoyable. So it’s also the moment that will require a lot more motivation from you. And if the motivation isn’t there, that’s when you’ll end up checking your phone instead of doing whatever it is you intended to do or you’ll stay on the couch binge-watching TikTok videos or Netflix.

The whole idea behind the better than nothing habit is that it doesn’t depend on motivation. It’s not reliant on having a lot of energy, and you do not have to be good at this. All you need is to be willing to be wildly unambitious — to settle for doing something that’s just a smidge better than nothing.

I’m happy to report that after months of struggle, I am now a runner. I became one by allowing myself to be bad at it. While you couldn’t call me an athlete — there are no half marathons in my future — I am consistent.

To paraphrase the Dalai Lama, our goal is not to be better than other people; it’s just to be better than our previous selves. And that I definitely am. It turns out that to grow as people, we need only do something minuscule. When we abandon our grand plans and great ambitions in favor of taking that first teeny-tiny step, we shift. And, paradoxically, it is in that tiny shift that our grand plans and great ambitions are truly born.

This piece was adapted from a TEDxMarin Talk. Watch it here now:

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christine Carter PhD is a writer, speaker, coach and sociologist, as well as a Senior Fellow at the Greater Good Science Center. She is the author of the books The New Adolescence: Raising Happy and Successful Teens in an Age of Anxiety and Distraction, The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less and Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents.

This post was originally published on TED Ideas. It’s part of the “How to Be a Better Human” series, each of which contains a piece of helpful advice from someone in the TED community; browse through all the posts here.

Here’s how I finally got myself to start exercising published first on https://premiumedusite.tumblr.com/rss

[feverhalo]

Ok so. Big talky post about irl shit in all forms because why not & i feel bad leaving you all hanging so long on so much

Please dont r///ebl/////og and theres no pressure to read it or do anything in regards to this.

So. This covers like. So many topics. Grief and death and mental health being the biggest warnings for

Average news first. I still have my job and have been there officially for a year now! Pay rates are going up in my province, and thats a new solid reference should i need it any time soon. Theyre also beong really understanding and compromising(? Forgot theword i had originally) and letting me try new jobs/places to reduce stress

I found out yes, i am still allergic to peanut butter if the fact that i had really annoying stomach pain for h o u r s after eating a teeny tiny pb cookie is anything to go by. Didnt really pay attention to if i broke out on my sides or not because i was a little preoccupied with curling up tightly and feeling a little off the next day too. (I mean no duh what did i expect to happen but i mean. They smelled so good). Lesson learned.

Bad news

ive touched on but i dont think ever really said. Someone very very close to me passed in late summer and im still devistated and torn up and doing my denial/anger thing for the most part. Its. Not easy. But ive been going to see someone, admittedly its become a bit about everything when it was supposed to just be this, but i dont do death. When i was a kid and lost someone i shut down entirely and aside from angry outbursts and the occasional breakdown i tried my hardest to act like there was not and would never be a hole there. It didnt work well at all and im still affected by that person's passing too.

They were also one of the more supportive people in my life and i spent a lot of time reading and writing and creating in their company and its been hard.

And i know that im handling this a little better even though im still skipping out on things and blowing up and all the same sort of crap but i actually have a neutral space that wont feel marked or stained every day for processing and a neutral person to help.

And of course its not just grief im getting help with because its all kind of a tangled mess. But im also getting like. New insight on stuff and someone to talk to about whatever. And its making life quite a bit harder because im so used to blocking it out or locking myself away and letting things rush over and take over and run their course. Its been really hard to be creative because im incredibly self critical and having a lot more trouble focusing lately because of a lot of reasons.

Im stressed and overwhelmed a lot more easily and frequently right now. And i know im being distant even if it doesnt show. Im scared to kind of go along with this and open up and all that junk and now im being gently prodded to do so in short, honest (not just stuff i dont rly care about or stuff callously overshared to just pretend im being open) bursts its kind of freaking me out. But like. Itll all end up for something good i hope. Even though it feels awful right now and ive had stints of days or even a full week with supports on speed dial when i havent been able to calm down or shut off over thinking but thats- i mean i expect it. A lot is happening and ive known for years my coping strategies have been lacking.

Ive also been talking with this outside help and weve toyed with the idea of maybe i really do have add or at least my anxiety manifests similarly and its kind of a which came first- and this ties in to the next good part in a second- but i havent scheduled anything in my area for right now for those sorts of things but im still kind of getting new ideas from a different angle that might maybe help and if i dont then im learning things i still may be able to use. Either way its not a huge deal for the current moment and its a bit if trying to find compassion and acceptance for myself whether its thing a or b or neither but whatever

Good, great, best news!!

I have an in to starting the more physical process of transitioning. Like i have a day and a time and a start. Like really really really soon. Its going to be hard i know because im going to have to open up about things and will probably be told i have to wait until i can stablize a bit more- its been a lot happening in a short while. And i understand. I waited 2 years to hear from them, i waited a few years to reach out to them, and i unknowingly waited years to find new words that struck a chord and all that. So as long as its moving i can deal with the wait.

I have GOOD people (many i know and have known for years now who happen to work in an adjacent field, some who are new and yet to be met but have rly good references if that makes sense?) who are going to help me kind of navigate and understand and undo things i thought i learned that were honestly just veiled hate and scare tactic garbage. People who support me and dont push me past what i am comfortable with undergoing to "prove" anything (such as 'if you didnt do x right away youre lying/if you dont do y surgery first i wont believe you' kind of comments. I hope). Im looking into options and im so excited for it!!

Its going to involve a lot of talking about things and probably a lot i dont want to talk about just yet but its a great chance because it gets me officially connected and officially started and this place has more options than my town and more specialized crap that can detangle and work through all the connected things and it can all be lumped together as the same process and hopefully help financially that way- and time wise unbelieveably. Theres a very good chance ill be able to talk with someone there, and very likely that first appointment, who can help me understand why i work the way i do sometimes for whatever reason it is.

And im getting a lot of positivity and lessons like learning to give myself some slack where it matters and stuff like that. And that im not worthless or stained or going to rot other people- which is honestly uncomfortable for me to think because of how long ive thought the opposite. Like to think i may actually be pretty good like not pretend good and actually worth anything at all. Because i got stuck in bad thoughts since i was small.

Im also thinking on trying to go back to school because i have a lot i think about with nowhere to really put it and nothing to do which doesnt help me do the things i want to do. So maybe something like that would help because i like learning. I like the motions of it- writing and reading with intent to understand something new, the routine as much as i whined about it in highschool, the forced kind of proximity to people living apart from what i know entirely too so the world feels bigger in a tangible way. Thats on a back burner and waiting for sure! But the fact im thinking about it and happily thinking about it? I like that.

My life has been. Kind of a combination of bland as hell and busy if that makes sense. Ive had to sort of shut down outward productivity and cut down on things a bit because so much is going on, and im trying to do a lot as paced and as slowly as i can bear.

And even though im not Here here as much as i want to be and everything its just. Kind of time for this. And im so glad and happy that when i can be here i can see that people still like what ive done and theres always awesome content to see and yeah

Thanks for everything and checking in and i really really am looking forward to moving forward.