#johns blog is free therapy for everyone

[ineffablesheets]

John: Casually goes out to the shop for milk, returns to find sherlock has built a small lab in the living room

[crepesuzette2023]

Hi, lovely Crepesuzette! Thanks a lot of your inspiring blog, your fics and always helpfull #fic recs! And can I ask any recs for good fics where John in the end understend the shit he did for Paul? All of this HDYS, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone etc, which not only hurted Paul but they ruined his self-esteem and creative reputation, you know. Thanks again! Love you and want you be happy everyday like you do it for me :)

Hello there, thank you for the ask—and for your kind words. Very welcome, esp. since real life has been low grade shit these past few days.

So...your ask make me think of stories where things are not only better than they were in this (clears throat) reality as we know it: there's also a focus on mutual understanding, peace-making, forgiveness. Yes?

These came to my mind...and making this list made me realize I'm really in the mood to re-read some of them! In the 70's:

stuck inside these four walls (@monkberries). Lost Weekend. John and Paul get locked up until they resolve their shit.

i can only speak my mind (@revollver). 70's. Paul reads John's 'secret' diaries that have been leaked to the press, and understands him—and himself—better.

forth and back (@monkberries). 70's—80's. Paul and John talk through songs.

A Toot and a Snore (@glowing-gold). Lost Weekend in LA. That jam session is on the page in real time, as is their slow and hot reconciliation. Will never forget the description of moustache-Paul and his nipples, *fans self*

They Say it's Your Birthday (@ohjohnnysblog). 1979. A personal favorite. Warm, nostalgic phone sex in the spirit of peace and friendship.

Down on the Farm (RosalindBeatrice), 1974. John is exposed to Wings, Paul's family, and Paul's hotness, and realizes it's all meant to lure him back...

You Will, You Will, You Will (@eveepe). John and Paul and Linda take the plunge. Excellent tension...over the phone and in person.

February in New Orleans (@eveepe). 1975. John and May visit Paul and Linda in New Orleans. Resentment is desire's favorite costume. Everyone has a good time, 2/4 have a hard-on (I am sorry).

Adventures in Total Honesty (@merseydreams). 1975. Paul and John meet backstage, and have it out. A+ banter, and so many things I wish Paul had said. Also: sex.

The lights go down (they're back in town) (@backbenttulips). 1977. Paul and John are trapped in an elevator at the Dakota. The power goes out. John comes back to live.

Something Borrowed Something New (@inspiteallthedanger). 1979. The former Beatles meet at Pattie & Eric's wedding. Paul and John face some truths.

six hours in august (@stonedlennon). 1979. A chance meeting in NYC. The love is still there.

I Still Miss Someone/ I Know That I Miss you, but I Don't Know Where I Stand/ Close the Door Lightly When You Go (RosalindBeatrice). 1976-1979. Paul and John become lovers, but their lives have changed. John feels guilty about the past, Paul has a family...Mutual empathy is needed, and accordingly grows. But it doesn't come easy.

1980 and Onwards:

The Birthday Party (@merseydreams). John and Paul meet at Ringo's Birthday Party. Paul has had therapy, and John wears denim shorts. There is only one bed.

Free Man in Paris (@backbenttulips). John and Paul get married in Paris in '61, and get a divorce seven years later. But it's not the end.

Memory Lane (@ohjohnnysblog). Old, married John and Paul leaf through a photo album and reminisce about the past, including past lovers.

and when broken bodies are washed ashore (who am i to ask for more) (wardo_wedidit): John and Paul. Now and Then.

Bermuda (@scurator): John and Paul are grown-ups and know what they want (each other, to start with).

Take A Sad Song and Make it Better (@javelinbk). 1980. John visits Paul in 1980, and they revisit the past, including their love. But their families don't magically disappear. Also by @javelinbk: Our Version of Events (Part 1, Part 2 (in progress)). 1971. Reading fan fiction helps John and Paul realize what's happening, and what's been happening in the past.

Going Nowhere (@inspiteallthedanger). 1980; John survives the shooting and returns to England. I think of this one as 'they talk about it' fic.

Comprehensive Fix-Its:

The Contract (JP). The story of John and Paul, with a happier (though bizarre) ending, and a lot of sex (good).

i was a younger man then (now) (post hoc) (@fingersfallingupwards). The story of John and Paul à la The Time Traveller's Wife. It takes them a long time—but in the end they do understand and forgive each other.

[godlesshasideas]

Writing about Disabilities: Chronic Pain

When writing about anything you are not personally familiar with, research is your best friend. Don't use this post as a catch all and think it's all you need to write characters with chronic pain. This is far from all the information about it, but it's a starting point.

Here's some basic information that I have found and I've also included some of my own experience since I have chronic pain.

Information regarding Chronic Pain

First thing's first, what is chronic pain? According to John Hopkins Medicine, the difference between chronic pain and regular pain is that chronic pain is long-lasting (anywhere from months to years). Chronic pain doesn't stay the same level (0-10) for everyone; also, majority of people with chronic pain don't realize that the normal amount of pain is 0. It can be continuous or it could switch from 0 to 10 to 6 to 3 to 9 to 7 and so on so forth...

There are various types of pain as well: muscle, joint, headaches/migraines, and nerve. You can have one or you can have all of them. Personally, I have all four. The first three for me are chronic and the nerve pain is from a recent surgery. They all have different causes and I know some of them. For example, my migraines are genetic and very common in my family. The joint and muscle pain probably caused multiple things but I know for sure it's caused by the scoliosis I've had for over a decade. My entire body was developing unevenly. So my joints are weakened and different muscle groups developed unevenly (especially my back and core).

Here's some clinical resources for the different kinds of pain that just cover the basics:

Muscle related: Myalgia | John Hopkins, Muscle Pain | Cleveland Clinic

Joint related: Arthralgia | John Hopkins, Joint Pain | Mayo Clinic, Joint Pain | Cleveland Clinic

Migraine related: Migraines | Mayo Clinic, Migraines | NIH.gov

Nerve related: Neuralgia | Health Direct

Something worth doing in your research is to find blogs, vlogs, or influencers that have personal experience with chronic pain. Don't overstep and reach out to them about research for the character you're writing. If they are open to questions, feel free to just remember to be respectful. Otherwise, read or listen to their experiences and research more until you think you have a grasp of it. If you are unsure of something, you have a search engine at your finger times, use it! Remember to cross analyze information though because just because it says it one place online doesn't mean it's true in all cases.

Things to Consider about the character you're writing:

How long have they had chronic pain? Just because it's chronic, doesn't mean they've had it all their life. If they've had it for a while, they might be good at hiding their pain or masking. They also may be more aware of their body and their limits (ex. they know they can't walk more than x miles before being in pain). They probably have already figured out some treatments that help them manage the pain like pain killers or hot/cold therapy. If they only recently developed it, they're pain may be more visible (ex. they can't sit still because of pin and needles). They'll probably more vocal in their complaints of it as well.

What is causing their pain? Don't give your chronic pain just to give them something. Do they have an autoimmune illness or some form of invisible illness? Do they have something kidney stones? Do they have an illness that has flare-ups? If you're writing fantasy, did someone curse them with never ending pain? You don't have to flat out state it to the reader if you don't want to. You're allowed to make it unknown but as the author, make sure there is a reason you are writing a character like this. Make sure it has a role in the story you're telling. If you are writing chronic pain that's connected to a specific illness, remember to also research that illness. Chronic pain is usually a symptom not a diagnosis. If you look my own medical chart, it says I have a history of chronic pain and it's lists the kinds of pain. The only thing that is a diagnosis of pain is migraines (but those can also be a symptom it depends on the person).

**Once again, always do more research. Do not use this post as all you need. Anytime you write something or create a character that has something you aren't familiar with, you need to take the time to learn about it. Research Research Research!

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #348

“nothing will be free  /  nothing will be done  /  black out the sun”

Do you have any famous relatives? My third or so cousin is the author of Not Without My Daughter, but she's not like a smash hit or anything that most people know. I really do recommend the book, though. It's a long read, but a beautiful, true story. Do you care about celebrity gossip? Nah. Have you ever failed a science course in high school? No; I was very good at science. What’s your favorite breakfast food? Cinnamon rolls. Does your house have a basement? No. No house I've ever lived in has had one. Do you like Hot Topic? Well duh. Do you think imagination is valuable? VERY! Just imagine how many incredible things wouldn't exist without it. What was your reaction to your first time falling in love? Unspeakably happy, and I felt like I was building a future with someone. I felt like I had purpose, which I should mention to anyone reading is a mindset to NEVER adopt. No one gives you purpose; you're born with it. How much weight can you lift at once? Ha, not a lot. When you have your own house someday, what color Christmas tree do you want and how will you decorate it? I want a black one with faux snow on the branches, then maybe red ornaments. Kinda look like blood dripping off. Sounds metal. Name three YouTube channels you’ve been loving lately. Lately, John Wolfe, The Dark Den, and Aim To Head Mix. Have you ever bought a designer purse? No. Do you wear jewelry often? No. What color was your senior prom dress? Black. Are you colorblind? No. Name the people you know who are colorblind. Jason's older brother is colorblind to two colors, but idr which. Would you ever consider a career in writing? I'd love to. What was your first favorite color? Red. What do you think about horror movies? I love them. If you love them, what’s your favorite? I really enjoy The Crazies and both The Blair Witch Project movies. Oh, and of course Silent Hill. Got any cool Christmas presents picked out for family or friends yet? I don't have the money to get anyone presents... and while I sometimes get ideas about something I could make someone, then it wouldn't be fair to the rest of my family if I don't make them something, too. What’s your favorite word and why? I really like the sound of "serendipity," as well as its meaning. It's just a pretty, nice word. Do you like to do craft projects? If so, what’s the coolest thing you made? Not really... I think the coolest thing I made was when I put the clay heart I made in Art into a shadowbox, and a poem I wrote was in the background. It was a gift for Jason. I remember working really hard on the whole process and being really happy with it. I don't want to know what he's done with it since. What’s one occupation you think gets paid too much and doesn’t deserve to? I don't know. What’s something you are currently saving money for to buy? Everyone knows about Venus' terrarium by now... Do you smoke/vape? If so, what brand do you smoke/what device do you use? No. Ever done drugs? No. Tell me one of your worst habits. Catastrophizing. I take a tiny seed of something potentially bad, and in seconds it's a damn redwood tree. And I do mean "in seconds." What’s a weird quirk you have that no one else you know does? I don't know, I don't have any particularly unique ones, I think. If you game, what type of headset do you use? I just use earbuds. Do you think you would be a good therapist? You know, it's funny, I've actually pictured myself as one a few times, given my level of understanding and empathy for people, as well as how deeply I want to see others succeed and spread the word that recovery from things like depression is very possible. I've never truly entertained the thought, though, given I'm quite sure I legally couldn't be given my suicidal past and mental illnesses. There is also NO way I could listen to so many people's suffering and manage to stay healthy myself, so, no therapist position for me, thanks. Have you ever been to a Chinatown? No. Do you prefer chunky or creamy peanut butter? Creamy, 100%. Do you stop to pick up heads-up pennies? No. Do your pets have collars? Describe them: Roman has an adorable navy one with a bowtie. Do you have any friends that speak any languages you don’t understand? Old friends, sure. What is something you want to begin learning? I want to improve my ability to perform what in therapy is called "opposite action," where you do the opposite of what your depression (or other conditions) make you want to do. It always helps me feel good, like when I draw even when I don't initially feel like it, but it's rough to really force yourself to do it. What is a food you find comforting when you are sad? Ice cream is my comfort food. What is a quote you find comfort in? There are really a lot, but none come to mind immediately, gah. What is one Tumblr blog you really appreciate? I actually haven't been on my main Tumblr in months, but oh my god there is a Markiplier blog called "lady-raziel" and she is FUCKING HYSTERICAL. The meme quality is A+. What is a comfort movie/show for you? When I actually liked watching movies, I enjoyed watching Silent Hill when I was down. That whole franchise just makes me so happy. What is a recent creative project that you are proud of? That I'm PROUD of, idk. I'm not that happy with the last drawing I made, and I haven't done any serious writing lately that I find noteworthy. What is a video game that you find comforting? Shadow of the Colossus is probably #1. I find it so relaxing while equally epic as fuck. The soundtrack is to die for, and after playing it a billion times, it's pretty easy for me to kinda breeze through and just enjoy myself. Do you know how to bake bread? If so, what is something you’ve baked recently? No. Would you rather live in the mountains, city, beach, or the forest? THE MOUNTAINS!!! Particularly in the woods IN the mountains! Are you closer to your mother’s or father’s side of the family? Mom's. I don't even remember anyone from Dad's. Have you ever been in a “perfect relationship”? I thought so. Have you ever lost a fingernail or toenail? No. Were you a Disney or Nickelodeon kid? I preferred Disney. Have you ever been inside a jail/prison? No, and I don't plan on it. Have you ever dated a guy with a beard, mustache, or goatee? Jason had a goatee usually. He'd go clean-shaven sometimes. Did you ever name your stuffed animals? I named every single one I got as a kid. Now I don't, really, unless they're really special. What’s the name of the person who cuts your hair? I'd rather not share, given her name is very unique. Do you like cheeseburgers? Yes, they're one of my favorite foods. Do you have a Flickr? Yes, but I don't use it anymore. Did you ever want to be a fashion designer? No. Do you drink milk? Yeah, I love milk. Where was your FB display pic taken? My room. Have you ever burnt your tongue like REALLY bad? If so, what on? Yeah; white rice. My dumb ass didn't realize it had JUST come off the stove. My tongue hurt literally for weeks. Have you ever gotten your legs waxed? No. Do you own any CLOTHES from Victoria’s Secret? Er, are undergarments not clothes? But I know what you mean. No. What are your grandfathers’ names? William and... I can't remember Dad's dad's name. Have you ever seen a snake in real life? Well yeah. Are you against seances? I don't know if I believe in them being effective, but either way, they seem like a bad idea. Even risking luring a negative energy/spirit to you is something I'd stay away from. Do you own any superhero shirts? No, just Harley Quinn ones, some with the Joker on them, too. I need to toss 'em though because I am like, violently against romanticizing their abusive relationship. I used to just like them as a story character couple, but I got to a place where it just seemed... wrong to "glorify" it by wearing merch and stuff. What band has the best guitar solos? Metallica, durrrr. Who is the biggest jerk you’ve ever met? Can you believe that would be my former best friend? Have you ever swerved off the road to avoid hitting an animal? I've never had an animal in my path. Have you ever grown your own herbs? No. Do you like kissing in public? If you're my serious s/o, I could care less, so long as it's a simple peck. I'm not making out in front of people. Do you think someone has feelings for you? I don't know. Do you want to be in a relationship this year? I don't know. I'm lonely and love feels amazing, but I need to get my life on track before I can be a good partner to someone and not just dead weight. Has anyone told you they don’t want to ever lose you? Huh, funny, he's the one that walked away. How long can you just kiss until your hands start to wander? Uhhh that would depend on how serious we are, where we are, and just what mood I'm in. What’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for you? ugh What’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever done for someone? also ugh What’s your dirtiest secret? TMI AHEAD. Probably receiving oral while bare-ass naked on the chaise in the living room while we were home alone. Or having sex in my sister’s bed. Oops. Would you ever get lyrics tattooed on yourself? Yeah. I already do, anyway, and I plan on getting another. Can you photoshop images well? I'm decent at it. Where did you last drive to? Mom and I went to go get our Covid vaccines today. What’s the first verse of the last song you listened to? "I don't know what we're supposed to be, but I know we lost it along the way to something better, something so much more than pleasure that we seek, so blind inside to fill these holes left by these lies that we tell to ourselves as we manufacture our own hell." What do you hear right now? The aforementioned song: "BLACKOUT" by 3TEETH. What was the last thing you laughed about? This is so fucking immature lmao but when we were driving earlier, we passed a gas station that had a sign that was advertising Coke, but due to space limitations, it abbreviated to "2 liter Cok" and I cackled like a child. Mom laughed harder than I did. Do you know any gay people personally? Ye. What was the last thing that startled you? I think it was a car hoonking at somebody the other day. What was the last thing to make you even remotely sad? Today's been a kind of rough PTSD day thanks to Facebook. My old high school friend had her beautiful daughter, a childhood friend just got married the other day, another friend is due to have her baby in just a couple weeks... It's just weird but even more painful to know it was the life I once fantasized about with a guy that just dropped me and made a break for it. I hate admitting that there's this deep, deep bitterness in me about it, like he took my life away from me, even though that's of course very unfair to say. I don't want to talk about this anymore, so moving on with my day.

[margomoment]

Some things I do to distract myself from obsessions

I noticed I get stuck in my head if I'm not doing anything, so I compiled a list of things I do to give my brain something else to focus on. I drew from multiple areas of things because some of these things might relate to your obsessions. In that case, don't do them. Do something else. There are a lot of options here.

Listen to music-- I recommend a coming of age movie soundtrack to feel simultaneously like you are infinitely small and part of something bigger

Bake chocolate chip cookies (put music or a podcast on in the background, sing along to Disney music! Occupy your thoughts with lyrics instead)

Look into how to make your own indoor garden!

Make a terrarium

Play a video game -- Minecraft is good and the music is soothing. Play a podcast in the background. I recommend Dear Hank And John because I am vlogbrothers Trash

Read a book

Write a book

Moisturize your body

Paint a sheet of paper with watercolor, let dry, then write on it.

Start a bullet journal

Go on a run. I hate running but I can’t think when I run.

Learn Sign Language. If you have BFRBs, this helps so much to distract yourself. Learning just the alphabet is really easy and insanely helpful

Try to dance, even if you suck at it. Turn off the lights in your room, close your eyes, just dance.

Play Just Dance(TM). It’s a great game! Get ya exercise on!

Go to an animal shelter, look at cute animals. Local ones sometimes have meet-and-greet days, so I always go when they have a bunny run and I’ll just sit with rabbits. Very cute, bring a friend.

Text someone to tell them that you need a distraction. You don’t have to tell them what.

Poptropica

Make a blog and write a post about what you do to get your mind off things (haha... this is meta)

Watch old Buzzfeed Unsolved episodes and try to solve them.

Do a face mask. I use this when I need to not pick at my skin. Get free samples at Lush! Get a free sample of Cosmetic Warrior you won’t regret it.

Go Thrifting and listen to music/podcasts while you do

Bring a friend over to do ANY of these things with you. Especially if you have a talkative one. Maybe you can’t speak much because you’re in your head, but they usually can.

Try (and fail, probably) to make bath bombs. Idk why but they’re hard! maybe only for me bc I never have any of the ingredients so i just wing it

Go to the Dollar Store, try to find the weirdest product

Play the Sims, make at least one person in the family complete their ambition without cheats

Learn how to sew

Make your bed and clean your room while listening to the Tangled soundtrack

Try online therapy. This isn’t “get your mind off of it” as much as work through it, but it’s important. If you can’t see a therapist in your area, online therapy is great too. Therapy is important to help you be able to do these other distractions.

These aren’t gonna work for everyone all the time. I know it’s hard to get out of your head in a spiral. Sometimes it’s just not gonna happen. But if you can feel yourself starting to get stuck and you can put your brain power to something else, do. It will save you, at minimum, an hour or so of obsessing. And, at maximum, it will get you over the hump and you’ll be able to pull yourself out of the spiral. Good luck. It’s better on the other side of this.

[eliminatedtheimpossible]

His Interpreter

Readers, you might be disappointed to know I’m not Sherlock Holmes. This is John. As you lot have been pestering me on my own blog in the aftermath of Sherlock’s last post and he refuses to address the fact he wrote something ‘sentimental’, I thought I would write an update so everyone would leave us be. In short, yes- we had a row. 

Sherlock is in the midst of a case so I doubt he realises how much you lot have been begging for more information. Honestly, you’re worse than Mrs. Hudson. At first, I didn’t want to address the issue because if I’m honest I didn’t know how to do so without feeling like a parent talking to a child. Yes, mum and dad had a fight. No this doesn’t mean they’re breaking up. Sherlock and I are still perfectly happy living together, working together, and griping at one another when the occasion calls for it. I’m already hating myself for using that analogy but really, as I’ve stated many times on my own blog, I’m not a writer. 

You already know his side of the story. He was a bit of a thoughtless git. He sodded off to god knows where for five days. When I came home from my conference the flat was the same as I left it. I waited for him to come back. As he’s said, it’s not unusual for him to disappear for hours at a time but by the second day, my mind went to places I’d rather not discuss. 

I’m not Sherlock. I’m not going to air his dirty laundry for the world to read, though he might deserve it after some of the stuff he’s put on here. However, it’s no secret Sherlock has his vices and his enemies. I can’t believe there was a time when I thought people didn’t have enemies. Yes, Sherlock Holmes has enemies. I think it’s well within my rights to be pissed off when I couldn’t contact him and his watchdog brother was too busy messing about with government issues to answer my calls. 

When Sherlock came back to the flat acting like nothing was wrong and rambling like I was the one being ridiculous it was just the icing on the cake. I left, called Mike Stanford, and went to the pub. I spent several hours venting my frustrations to Mike. He’s the best kind of mate you can have. He’s good at just showing up and listening. When I get fed up with Sherlock’s antics, and monologues, Mike is always a welcome change. If I’m being honest I think he takes all of Sherlock and myself’s misgivings to heart as he was the one to introduce us. The only time he interrupted me was to tell me Sherlock had posted on his blog. 

Bit not good, Sherlock. You could have called, or texted. 

Anyway, I came home and we had what Mrs. Hudson. would call ‘a little domestic’. I’m sure she heard us as the next morning there had been a knock on our door and a tray of Sherlock’s favourite biscuits and tea set on our landing. We must have been louder than I first assumed because nestled beside Mrs. Hudson’s gifts was a couple’s therapy novel, likely from our neighbours. Which was very presumptuous of them, but it’s not as though they were the first people to assume such things. At some point, it just seems useless to correct people. 

The funny thing was, I’m almost certain Sherlock flicked through it. When I told him I was going to bed yesterday night he had looked up from his case file and gave his best attempt at an apology. Of course, he never actually said sorry but you learn to read between the lines with him. I believe his exact words were, 

‘Next time I’ll text you and I’m not mad at you anymore, so I don’t think you should be mad at me.’ 

When I decided to flick through the book for myself, one of the tips for conflict resolution was assuring ‘you and your partner’ (or in this case, you and your best mate) never go to bed angry with one another. it’s a pretty common tip, nothing groundbreaking but I think it’s the first time Sherlock’s ever considered something so ‘trivial’. 

I forgave him because of course I did. He can be charming when he wants to be. Plus, he promised to keep his collection of severed digits out of the crisper for the next month. So I count it as a small victory. 

As for everyone commenting about my love-life or lack thereof, kindly bugger off (That includes you, Harry). Just because Sherlock mentioned it to piss me off doesn’t mean other people get to have an opinion on the matter. I’m just not in the mood. With my work as a doctor and assistant to a madman, I don’t have much time for dating, particularly when I spent days running about London looking for Sherlock. At this point in my life, running about after Sherlock is a full-time commitment. 

So, as a summary. Sherlock and I are fine. We’re currently working on a case for Scotland Yard and as always, everything else is quite forgotten. My dating life is none of anyone’s business but my own and anyone else directly involved. For now, I’m taking a page out of Sherlock’s book and saying I’m married to my work, which just so happens to be chasing after Sherlock Holmes. 

Feel free to read into that what you will, I’ve told Sherlock as much and he, as always, is utterly clueless. 

[portals-to-a-new-world]

Shattered Glass

Who?: John Kennex x Reader

What?: YN and John fight, forcing both of them to realize some truths neither were willing to admit. 

Word Count: 4724

Warnings: Angst, Intrusive Thoughts, Self-Image Struggles, Portrayals of Depression and Anxiety, Language, Smut, Unprotected Sex (wrap it before you tap it, y’all), Semi-Public Sex, Fluff 

A/n: Hey y’all! This started out as a therapy fic for me after I’d had a bad day at work and just sort of snowballed lol. I’d just like to reiterate that this has portrayals of negative self image and anxiety/depression so please don’t put yourself at risk if that’s going to trigger you. I’d like to give yet another shoutout to the absolutely brilliant @bakerstreethound​, without whom this story couldn’t have happened. She kept me sane during the beginning and has been the bestest friend and partner anyone could ask for. Ace, I really don’t know what I’d do without you 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜 Finally, I’m not tagging in this one, simply because I’m currently trying to work out a way to organize my tags so that people only get tagged in what they want to be :). Keep an eye out for a post soon with further details, peaches. Oh just one more thing, I’ve been seeing a lot of blogs having their works reposted on other sites without permission, and I’d like to establish here that I do not give anyone permission to repost my works. I’m on AO3 under the same username, but any other sites are not me. 

Rough days were standard in your line of work. You'd think that after 3 years in the industry, the last 5 months of which being spent with your current employer, would have you used to the stress. Then again, you weren't sure anyone could get used to the bitch of a co-worker who was causing 80% of your issues. You were higher up in the company than her, but because she'd been with them longer, she seemed to think she could order you around. Going to your bosses achieved nothing, as she was apparently "invaluable" to the company, and didn't bother listening to them anyway. It wasn't a big deal at first, just one of those "ignore them, and they'll go away" situations, but as time progressed it got increasingly worse. Today you were forced to endure her screaming insults and ranting at you about a mistake your partner had made. Your day only seemed to get worse from there, and by the time you got off, you were about ready to blow a fuse. 4 bouts of road rage and a spilled coffee later, and you finally walked through the door to your apartment, slamming it shut behind you. John's head poked around the corner from the kitchen, noodles hanging from his lips. "Jesus. Is the door still standing?" He asked once he'd swallowed. You just huffed in response. He raised an eyebrow as you walked past without giving your usual greeting in the form of a kiss. "Hello to you, too, then." He mumbled. You waved your hand sarcastically over your shoulder.

"Hey," You said. John's concern was written all over his face as he followed you into the living room. He spoke as you plopped onto the couch, placing your head in your hands.

"I'd ask if you're okay, but clearly you're not so-"

"Sorry, Detective, but you must be losing your touch because I'm fine." You said, looking up to offer a strained smile, which was met with a skeptical eyebrow raise.

"Uh-huh, and Richard's being promoted to captain. Don't bullshit me, (Y/N/N). What's wrong?" He placed a hand on your shoulder as he finished. You shrugged it off and stood to your feet, ignoring the incredulous look on his face at your actions.

"I said I'm fine, John. Just let it go." You turned to walk away, but his hand shot out to grab ahold of your wrist. You tried to tug it free, which only served to draw him to his feet. He pinned your arm against his chest, pulling you in close. "Let me go." You said as you continued to struggle against him. Any other time you'd've found being pinned against such a handsome bastard incredibly sexy, in fact, that's probably why he did it in the first place. The notion was like throwing a match onto gasoline, igniting the rage that had been simmering under the surface into a full-on blaze.

"What the hell's gotten into you??" He demanded.

"I told you to fucking let it go, Kennex. In fact, you might as well go ahead and leave altogether, cause I'm not in the mood to fuck you tonight." He dropped your wrist as if scalded and took two steps back to search your face in angry disbelief before replying.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" You threw your hands in the air in exasperation.

"Oh, come on! I'm not stupid, John. There was never going to be anything serious between us. You're not capable of trusting, let alone loving, anyone after Anna, and even if you were, you'd never choose me." He opened his mouth to reply, but you cut him off. "No, you wouldn't. Put me in a line up with every woman you've ever been attracted to, and the differences are fucking painfully obvious." You took a deep breath before continuing. "I was not, and never will be, anything more to you than convenient, no matter how much I love you. Okay? So, you don't have to pretend to fucking care anymore, John."

"How dare you! I can't believe I'm standing here listening to this bullshit; matter of fact," He paused and gestured as if an idea just occurred to him. "I'm not going to!" He stormed over to his coat and yanked it off the counter before throwing it on. He stopped momentarily to look back at you, mouth open to speak before sighing roughly in frustration. "Fuck this." Without another word, he was going out your door, slamming it so hard behind him that the pictures on the wall fell and crashed on the floor. In a single moment, everything in you shattered like glass. You collapsed in a heap as sobs began to rip through your chest. It's for the best. He would have left eventually, anyway. Why would he want to stay with a useless, disgusting, pathetic thing like you? God, you can't even handle the basic stress of everyday problems, while he's out there still doing his job after everything he's been through. I mean, how weak can you be?? No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't stop the thoughts from invading your mind. Each one cut deeper than the last until you were numb. Eventually you stood to your feet, drained and feeling hopeless. Your body moved on autopilot, carrying you through your nightly routine and into bed. You slept in fits and starts, nightmares plaguing nearly every second. When your body finally gave in to the utter exhaustion, a tiny part of you had hoped that you would wake up to find it'd all been a dream. Most of you didn't want to wake up at all, though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unfortunately, neither part of you got its wish. You did indeed wake up, and you woke up to an empty bed. Your heart broke as you realized just how badly you'd fucked up. You didn't have time to dwell on your failures, though, as your phone was ringing, and upon answering, you discovered you were over an hour late for work. You shot up out of bed and quickly threw some clothes on, rushing through your morning essentials. As you stepped out of your front door, you looked up and saw dark storm clouds rolling in. You flipped through the radio in your car and found out that the storms were supposed to last through the rest of the week. At least the weather matched how you felt inside. Unsurprisingly, your problematic co-worker was standing ready to lay into you the moment you stepped through the doors. It took every ounce of what little strength you had left not to break down right then and there. By some stroke of luck, she was called away by your bosses, and you quickly took off to your desk. Your day was almost typical, until around 2 pm, your phone buzzed with an incoming text. Your heart stopped as you looked at the name on the screen. John. Your hands were shaking as you unlocked the phone to read the message.

Come by my place when you get off. We need to have a serious talk. 

All of your fears came crashing down on you at once, punching through your chest like a bullet. You stumbled your way into the bathroom and latched onto the sink edge to anchor yourself. So this really was it. He was breaking up with you. Your hand flew up to press against your chest as the ache there blossomed into raw agony. At least he had the decency to do it in person. He could have just ghosted you. You continued to rub your chest as you typed out a simple 'okay' in response. A quick glance at the time revealed that you still had three hours left in your shift. You took a few deep breaths and splashed some cool water on your face. The last thing you needed was for someone to ask "what's wrong" and you end up breaking down in front of God and everyone. After you managed to calm down enough to return to your desk, time seemed to slow down, until the remaining three hours felt like twelve. You'd also discovered that you'd left your rain jacket at John's the last time you'd spent the night. Still, most of your body was numb by then anyway, so it didn't really matter as you stepped out into what had to be a freezing downpour at the end of your shift. In all honesty you were grateful for the numbness. You almost certainly would have never been able to drive had it not been for the near void that threatened to consume you as you drove through the crowded city. When you pulled up into the driveway, some of the emptiness cleared away, leaving panic in your chest and your whole body shivering as you sprinted to the door. You hardly registered John opening the door and pulling you inside. Your focus was locked on to the way his face moved while he spoke, committed to memorizing every detail while you still had the chance. Your gaze had fallen to his perfectly plump lips when you realized he was saying your name.

"Y/n, can you hear me, sweetheart?" You shook your head to clear some of the fog from your mind. Might as well get it over with.

"Yeah-" You cleared your throat. "Yeah, I can hear you. When do you wanna come by and get your stuff? Or would you rather me just drop it off here for you?" Confusion flooded his features as you finished.

"What are you talking about? Why would I need my stuff back?" Damn, was he so done with you that he didn't even want his stuff back? You dropped your eyes, knowing that you wouldn't be able to hold his gaze without breaking down completely.

"You're breaking up with me, right?" You cursed silently as tears began to stream down your face. Gentle fingers pressed up beneath your chin to tilt your face back up.

"You haven't listened to a word I've said, have you?" You didn't respond, too caught up in the softness of his eyes, and he didn't bother waiting for one anyway. "I said I shouldn't have walked out on you last night. I had some excuse about being tired, but the truth is I was afraid because you were right. I didn't think I would ever be able to love anyone again after Anna." Your heart clenched and the tears began to fall even harder as breathing became difficult. Had you been watching his face, you would have seen the heartache ooze across his features as he watched you break down in front of him. As it were, your gaze had fallen back to the floor, and you jumped when his hand moved up to cradle your face softly. "I was so pissed at myself, and at you for being right, that it wasn't until this morning when I woke up without you in my arms, and it hurt that I realized just how wrong we both had been. You're wrong about me never choosing you. You're smart and kind, and so beautiful you take my breath away when you walk into a room." You hiccupped and fell apart as you processed what he was saying to you. He rushed to pull you into his arms as your knees threatened to give out, and just held you until you could breathe again. He pulled back far enough to look you in the eyes before he continued speaking. "And I was wrong. Because I do love you, and I'm sorry it took me so long to figure that out." You gasped deeply and threw your arms around his neck.

"I'm so sorry too. I never should have taken out my frustrations about work on you."

"It's alright. Do you wanna talk about it?" Part of you still felt stupid about the reason for your outburst, but you felt so safe in his embrace that you found yourself nodding in affirmation. He placed a kiss on the top of your head and let you go. The sudden lack of his warmth sent shivers up your spine.

"Jesus. Why's it so cold in here?" You asked, rubbing your arms. He reached out and took your hand with a grin.

"Part of your surprise." He said with a wink. "Come on. I'll show you." You followed him around the corner and into the main room. You came to a stop as your eyes fell on the mounds of blankets and pillows arranged on the floor. He turned to look back when you stopped, and he seemed disappointed when you just looked at him in confusion. "You mentioned a while back that you loved the sound of the rain on the roof here. I'd figured-" He cringed slightly as he stumbled over his words. "Well, I mean I'd hoped-" He began to rub the back of his neck nervously before he continued. "I'd hoped that we'd be able to work things out, so I went ahead and got everything set up. Since they're calling for the storms to last for so long and all." Deciding to put him out of his misery, you stepped forward and pulled him down into a kiss. All the tension left his body as your lips connected, and you couldn't help but grin as you broke apart.

"I promise to not tell Dorian that you're secretly a big ol teddy bear who remembers tiny details about his girlfriend." You joked. John rolled his eyes, but still had a small smile on his face as he pulled you back in for another kiss. Despite his closeness, another chill ran down your spine, reminding you of your original query. "Doesn't explain why it's so flippin cold in here, though." He looked at you and gestured as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"It's a pillow fort. And you've got the internal body temperature of a small space heater. I'd really prefer to not sweat my ass off." He said. You bit your lip to hide your grin as you nodded gravely before replying.

"That would be a tragedy." He also was fighting a smirk as he slightly tilted his head in agreement.

"Exactly. My ass is a national treasure," He said. You giggled and let your smile finally breakthrough as he gestured in a 'come hither' motion. You began to worry your bottom lip between your teeth as you stepped forward. He reached over and pulled the soaking wet towel from your shoulders, surprise in his eyes as if something had just occurred to him. You stepped forward in concern as his eyes seemed to zone out and darken.

"John? What's wrong?" He seemed to snap out of his trance, and he cleared his throat before gesturing to your body.

"Your shirt. It's soaked. You're gonna catch a cold." You followed his gaze to your chest to discover that his eyes had not darkened in anger or frustration, but in lust. He was right, your shirt was absolutely dripping wet. It was also white. Ah.

"Would you prefer me to take it off?" You joked. A smirk emerged on his lips, sending a shudder through you that had nothing to do with the cold. He nodded and closed the distance between you.

"Purely in the interest of your health, of course," He said lowly. You tilted your head in mock defeat and began undoing the buttons of your shirt slowly.

"Well, I'm sure you know best, Detective." You barely made it half-way down the line before his lips were crashing into yours and his hands taking over to speed through the remaining buttons. He paused before he could push the garment off of your shoulders.

"Is this- I mean I don't want to assume- Or make you think I'm only after-" You cut him off with another kiss and shrugged out of the sleeves. He still seemed hesitant, right up until you nipped at his bottom lip. He huffed out a breathless growl before returning the favor, his hands landing on your bare waist to pull you into him. He swiped his tongue across your lip in a silent request for entrance, which you happily granted. Your hands moved to grip at his shoulders while his own began an exploration of your body, sliding up your spine and across your stomach before dropping from your skin entirely. You whined at the loss of contact, but he quickly made up for it by reaching down and pulling his shirt over his head. He leaned back down and placed a soft kiss on your lips. "Just making things even," He murmured against you. His hands found your hips as he led you to the center of the room without breaking the kiss, but it was his turn to grunt in surprise when you gently pushed him down on the pillows. "What-" He stopped when your hands moved to play with the clasp of your bra.

"We're not even yet, Detective." You said coyly. You barely got the garment off before he was tugging you down on top of him and into another breathtaking kiss. A moan escaped your lips as he nibbled your ear, trailing kisses down your neck. You brought a finger up to his mouth, stopping his assault. "We're not done yet, detective." You were smirking and trailing your hands across every bit of his skin you could reach, but you were partly just trying to hide the way you were trembling at having him so close. Another part was just reassuring itself that he was really there, not believing that he was finally truly yours, that you had the broken-hearted detective beneath you. It all felt like a dream until he ground up against you and whispered in your ear.

"Please, (Y/n)," He didn't even finish his sentence before you were climbing off of him to quickly remove your pants and underwear. He followed your lead and, to your surprise, pulled you back down on top of him once he'd finished. You uttered a whimper as he brushed up against your soaked folds, but it turned into a full-fledged whine as he slowly guided you down onto his length. He cursed and his eyes fluttered closed once he was fully sheathed inside you. You both took a moment to breathe and adjust to the sensation, and he finally looked at you when his hands began to guide your hips. "I love you." You leaned down to claim his lips again, tears threatening to fall at the words you'd never thought you'd hear him say. 

"I love you too." You said, pulling back to meet his gaze once again. Such a small declaration, yet it made every movement, every touch, feel different. It was slow and passionate, so contrary to the fast and rough pace that was the norm with John. You couldn't bring yourself to look away from his deep hazel eyes, full of love and adoration, as you moved in perfect sync together. He rose with every fall, hitting so deep inside you that you knew you'd be feeling him for weeks. Your hips began to stutter as the sensations threatened to overwhelm you, and without missing a beat John flipped the two of you. A yelp escaped your kiss swollen lips as his nimble fingers slipped between the two of you to rub deliciously at your clit, and you could feel yourself rapidly approaching your orgasm. "John- please- don't stop!" He seemed more than happy to oblige, maneuvering to thrust impossibly deeper as his lips found your ear once again.

"You gonna cum for me, beautiful? I-" Whatever sweet nothing he had planned to say was choked off into a moan as your orgasm hit you. Your walls clamping down around him dragging him over the edge with you as he worked you through until you were whining with oversensitivity. He finally slid out of you and quickly retrieved a towel to clean you up. When he'd finished, he laid back down beside you and wrapped an arm around you, resting your head on his chest. You hummed in contentment as he began to stroke your hair, nearly drifting off before an idea occurred to you.

"John?" You mumbled against his chest.

"Yeah?"

"Do you still have any of that hot chocolate mix I gave you?" A small laugh rumbled in his chest as he responded.

"Yeah. You want some?" You lifted your head up to smile sweetly and nod your head.

"Yes, please!" John shook his head with a smile and placed a quick kiss to your temple before extracting himself from your embrace. You booed when he slid his boxers back on, earning another grin, this time accompanied by a wink before he headed off into the kitchen. Amongst the quiet, you finally registered the sounds of the rain still hammering against the building, the constant drumming a soothing backdrop to the cozy situation you found yourself in. You stood and slid back into your panties before moving to stand in front of the window. You also grabbed one of the blankets to protect against the chill that pervaded the air around the glass. Looking out, you could barely make out the disturbances the rain made to the surface of the water through the darkness, and yet you still found yourself mesmerized by the beauty of the view. You were drawn out of your reverie when John's voice sounded out behind you. "So, tell me about work. Is that woman causing problems again? What's her name, Kar-" He said as he entered the room. When his voice cut off you looked over your shoulder to find him staring at you with wonder in his eyes. You quickly looked out the window to see what he was staring at but couldn't spot anything particularly special.

"What are you looking at?" You asked, turning back right as he walked over to you. He didn't respond; instead, his hands found their way inside your blanket to grab your hips and push you back against the window. Mild panic set in before he finally spoke up. "John?"

"You're so beautiful." He said, dropping his head to kiss along your neck. You huffed in disbelief and reached up to push against his shoulders.

"You're crazy," Your pressing did little to dissuade him from his task, and you couldn't help but smile as he continued to mutter praises into your skin. "John," You chuckled as he continued to nuzzle into your neck. "Stop it, you're fogging up the glass," Your protests were growing half-hearted though, as his hands began to wander, and his lips trailed softly over your skin.

"And?" He questioned, pulling you back enough that your blanket fell to the floor before moving back forward so you were pressed against the icy cold glass. You yelped at the shock the temperature difference gave your system, trying to shove him back and pull him closer for warmth at the same time, both to no avail.

"I was enjoying the view," You said, breathlessly in a last-ditch attempt to persuade him. He pulled back to look you in the eyes before he responded.

"I've got a much better one right in front of me." His lips found yours and you melted against him. The kiss bordered on desperate, almost as if he was afraid you'd disappear. His hands left a trail of goosebumps behind as the heat of his skin emphasized the chill in the air, sliding up your arms and down your back before moving to play with the skin just beneath your waistband. A whine left you as he dipped his fingers inside to tease at your lips, sliding around and deftly avoiding everywhere you wanted him. Just as you were about to pull back and tell him to stop teasing, he thrust two fingers deep inside you, drawing a surprised gasp from you. "So wet for me," He mumbled against your lips as he began to thrust his fingers inside you. Each pass brushed up against your g spot until you were practically seeing stars and begging him for more. Suddenly, his fingers were gone, and you opened your eyes to find him licking your juices off of them. You let out a desperate whine.

"John, please, please fuck me." You said, reaching out to palm him through his boxers. His hand grabbed your wrist before you could touch him, though, and he spun you around. 

"As the lady wishes." He leaned in and said against your ear. He reached down and pulled himself free from his boxers. John didn't bother to remove your own underwear, instead just sliding them to the side before slowly working his length inside you. You groaned in relief as he began to thrust slowly, pulling out and pushing back in to make sure you were ready. His cock dragged perfectly against every sensitive spot you had, sending pleasure shooting through your body and making your toes curl. Seeming satisfied with your preparedness he began to pick up his pace, hitting deeper inside you with every push. You yelped as his fingers found your nipples, tweaking and pulling on the sensitive buds as you moaned out his name. A hand left your skin and reached up to swipe across the glass, revealing your reflection. "Look. Do you see how fucking gorgeous you are? So beautiful, and mine." He nipped at the skin beneath your ear as his hand moved down your front to rub harsh circles on your clit. You threw your head back against his shoulder, eyes falling shut at the added sensation, but a sharp bite made them shoot open again. "Eyes open, baby girl. I want you to watch as I make you fall apart around me." Your eyes found his in the reflection, and you moaned at the way his pupils were blown wide with lust.

"Please, John, I need more-" You gasped deeply as his thrusts began to pick up speed, knocking you up onto your toes and forcing you to throw your hands up against the glass for support. Your reflection revealed how utterly wrecked you were, and the sight sent you flying over the edge with a scream of John's name. He buried his face in your neck as he continued to thrust, chasing his own release and prolonging yours as you gasped and sputtered, unable to form words thanks to the electric waves of pleasure flowing through you. Just when you thought you couldn't handle anymore, John's thrusts faltered, and he came with a deep groan. He rested his forehead on your shoulder as he waited for his breathing to return to normal, mumbling 'I love you's and pressing kisses into your heated skin. Out of nowhere tears began to flow down your cheeks, a quiet sob escaping you. John immediately noticed, and carefully pulled out of you before turning you around to run his hands over you in concern.

"(Y/n), what's wrong? I didn't hurt you, did I? I'm so sorry, sweetheart-" The panic in his voice made the tears come harder, and you struggled to voice what was happening.

"No, you didn't hurt me-" You hiccupped. "I just- don't deserve you." Confusion crossed his face as he processed what you were telling him.

"What? You-" He seemed to come to a decision, and he went and grabbed his phone, quickly pulling up the dial pad. "Here. Call your work and tell them you're taking the rest of the week off. If they ask why then tell them police business."

"What? John, I can't just-" 

"You've got tons of time off saved up, right?" He cut you off, still holding the phone out.

"Well yes, but-"

"Then, by law, they can't stop you from taking it." You closed your eyes and took a deep breath, trying to control your breathing and stop the tears.

"Why are you doing this?" You asked, finally looking up at him.

"Because I want to spend the next 5 days showing you just how amazing you are." He said, so confident, so resolute, that you found yourself reaching out to grab the phone. 

[ineffablesheets]

“i don’t get attached” then gets emotionally devastated when John isn’t home for 30 minutes

[lizziethereader]

Shelf History Tag

❀ This tag is for those books that came to you in an unusual, interesting, funny, or sweet way. Pick 5 (or more if you want) books from your shelf and tell us the story of how you came to own that book. If you’re a public library user and don’t really own any books, you can still participate. Just tell us the most interesting/funny/sweet ways you came to find a particular library book.

Tag your posts #ShelfHistory so I can see them all!

When you’re finished, tag 5 (or more) readers whose Shelf-History you’d like to know about! This one can easily be done on any blogging/vlogging platform so feel free to tag cross-platform if you really want to. ❀ 

I was tagged to do this by @bibliophilecats half a year ago or so, and you know what they say - better late than never! 

1. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory: We went on a school trip to California when I was 17, and my host sister gave me her copy of this to read and take back with me. It’s one of the few secondhand books I own, and it’ll always remind me of those sunny two weeks. 

2. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green - signed bookplate edition: I preordered this book when I was quite a new nerdfighter and John set himself the goal of signing the entire first edition, I think? So the book came and I was super excited only to see that it wasn’t signed. There was some kind of mishap with some orders from Europe and a few weeks later I actually got a letter from Penguin with a signed bookplate to stick into the book. Now lots of people have a signed edition of that book, but the bookplates are much more rare. (Not that I can buy myself anything with that, but it’s a cool story). 

3. Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle - B&N leather-bound edition: So this was one of the first books I ever ordered online, and that was back in the day when I didn’t know how harmful amazon was. What’s special about this is that I was completely surprised when the book came and was this massive, gorgeous, leather-bound edition. It’s one of the prettiest books I own. And because it’s so massive, it was quite useful as a tool back when I had to do physical therapy (The book wasn’t harmed, I promise). 

4. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie: I got this book at a book-exchange party. Basically, everyone brought a book wrapped in paper and labelled only with 3 words that describe it, and then we swapped around until everyone was satisfied and unwrapped their new books. Super fun way to get our of your comfort zone / usual genres! 

5. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss - signed anniversary edition with a goat: This is another nerdfighter-related one. Every year, nerdfighters take part in the project for awesome, which aims at raising a lot of money for charity in a weekend. Two years ago or so, one of the perks was a signed edition of The Name of the Wind in which Patrick Rothfuss had drawn a goat (because it related to the charity he was promoting) and I just couldn’t resist. This book is  probably one of my most valued bookish possessions.  

I tag @aliteraryprincess, @anassarhenisch, @myownlittlebookcorner, @trinareadsbooks (sorry if you’ve already done it - I’ve lost track) and anyone else who feels like doing this! 

[forestwater87]

201X in Review: A journey of cringe and regrets

Realizing 2020 is really close and wanted to look back at the second (full) decade I’ve actually been alive for. I feel like either a huge amount of stuff has happened, or basically nothing’s happened, but there’s no middle ground.

2010: 

Cringy 2010 photo: High school prom (in middle, dark green dress and...a face)

Junior in high school. 

Had my first-ever Real Boyfriend(TM). (Pictured in above cringy photo.)

Had just ended an extremely toxic 12-year relationship and was still figuring out how to have friends. 

Chemistry fucking SUUUUUCKED and I don’t miss it.

Had a super intense love for Megamind. I saw it minimum of 4 times in theaters and had a major crush on that blue lil nerd. (Began a personal grudge against both Tangled and Despicable Me for taking away its deserved spotlight, a resentment I have not yet gotten past 10 years later.)

Most regrettable 2010 memory: Getting way too intense about a new boyfriend and lowkey abandoning my friends. Not cool.

Most awesome 2010 memory: I have friends from back then I still love and keep in touch with (despite my abandoning them for a bit there). That’s pretty dang awesome.

2011: 

Cringy 2011 photo: High school graduation with one of the most beautiful women in existence. (We’re still friends, and she’s still gorgeous.)

Graduated high school! (Gym fucking SUUUUUCKED and I don’t miss it.) 

Fell in love with the college that was supposed to be a “safety school” and didn’t apply anywhere else, which means I can brag about having been accepted into 100% of the colleges I applied to. 

Started at Ithaca College -- don’t say “it’s gorges,” it gets so old so fast -- and had a miserable first semester and an incredible second. 

Started getting . . . uncomfortably involved in religious groups. (I mean, I’d been doing that since I was a kid, but it got kicked up to 11 in college.)

Most regrettable 2011 memory: Dressed as a “g***y” for Halloween. Fucking yikes.

Most awesome 2011 memory: Figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.

2012: 

Cringy 2012 photo: Modeling first successfully completed knitting project. With bamboo needles because Ithaca is a hippie paradise.

Learned how to knit, entirely out of boredom in long lectures.

Technically started my tumblr experience, though it was only for a few months while I worked through some Shit by being in love with Loki from the Avengers (and THiddleston in general). Stayed on here just long enough to discover Achievement Hunter and Rooster Teeth, and never went back.

Broke up with first-ever Real Boyfriend(TM) and handled it so well I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder.

Got very deep in a religious group at IC, which was . . . not very healthy and could perhaps not inaccurately be described as “cultlike.” (I owe a major apology to everyone who knew me back then; I was very much a major bitch.)

Despite the previous two bullet points, this was the best year of my life up until that point. I lived next door to my two best friends in college, loved my major, and pretty much was confident that I had everything figured out.

Most regrettable 2012 memory: Writing a fan letter to Tom Hiddleston, which included a photo of me and my phone number. I was convinced my charm and wit would totally make him fall in love with me.

Most awesome 2012 memory: Pretty sure this is the year my love affair with RiffTrax began, too. I had a posse and we’d go see live shows together.

2013-2014:

Cringy 2013 photo: A blanket that I made and sent to Jennamarlbes for her dogs, because it was too small for people. Pretty sure it showed up in a video at one point.

Cringy 2014 photo: My awesome college roommates and I dressed up to give out candy to people’s dorms on Halloween. Reverse trick-or-treating: very fun, always recommended.

HA. So much for having anything figured out.

I don’t actually remember much of this period in my life, because I was navel-deep in a major religious crisis that would continue until . . . a couple months ago, basically? There was a lot of freaking out and trying to reconcile culty fundamentalism with the freewheeling pinko that lived deep inside and was trying to break free.

Lots of therapy, though. And med adjustments. Eventually figured out something that worked. Free campus counseling was the bomb though.

I do remember living in an apartment and cooking for myself for the first time, and also playing a lot of tabletop games with my roommates. (Also drinking. Lots of drinking.)

Oh shit, was this when I started that Drunk Librarian blog? I was trying really hard to be The Nostalgia Critic for books (ew), but I remember having a lot of fun with that. That was when my lifelong vendetta against John Green began.

Most regrettable 2013-2014 memory: Did I mention that the blanket I sent to Jenna included a letter? Did I mention that letter included some bible verses I thought she would appreciate????

Most awesome 2013-14 memory: Started a knitting club. It was just like 4 people hanging out and not knitting.

2015:

Cringy 2015 photo: Me being emaciated, makeup-smeared, and proudly showing off a collarbone piercing. That piercing has since rejected, but was in fact cute af.

Graduated college! Summa cum laude, bitches. (And an unfinished minor because I didn’t feel like taking the one (1) class I needed to graduate.)

Started library school and moved back home with parents. That was . . . an adjustment.

Changed library school “majors” halfway through my first year, after a lot of soul searching and panic attacks.

Had a short but catastrophic relationship with a man 9 years older than me (who was my pastor. Awkward). Religious crisis continued.

Got really skinny and hot because I was too miserable to eat. Dyed my hair red for the first time and looked basically like Ariel.

Discovered Party Hard and got really good at killing people.

Remembered how much I fucking love my parents’ dog:

Most regrettable 2015 memory: Being that person who “thought I could change him.”

Most awesome 2015 memory: Did you see how cute that dog is? His name is Oscar, after Oscar the Grouch.

2016:

Cringy 2016 photo: I had this huge thing for 1950s dresses for a while, complete with petticoats.

Grad school continued.

Religious crisis continued.

Therapy happens to deal with Things, is quickly dropped due to money and lack of shrink-chemistry.

Discovered a dumb little web cartoon with a teensy fanbase and no love for my favorite ship. Began work on a fanfic to correct this.

Finished a long-form fanfic for the first time in my entire life.

Virtually abandoned every other fandom to hyperfixate on this for the rest of my life.

Got super political, then super depressed. Quit Facebook because I realized I hate everyone I’m FB friends with.

Discovered Stardew Valley and never got anything done ever again.

Found Tumblr again (needed it to keep in touch with my first-ever beta reader, @raenbowsofficial) and turned into fandom and politics trash.

Most regrettable 2016 memory: Man, was I cocky about that Hillary Clinton winning the election. Oops.

Most awesome 2016 memory: I mean, CAMP CAMP. Obviously.

2017: 

Cringy 2017 photo: My first day of work as a very bisexual-in-denial librarian.

Finished grad school and became a certified librarian (in NYS anyway)!

Got a job at a local college, including my own office!

Shaved half my head!

Moved into my own apartment and adopted a cat, fulfilling a goal over 7 years in the making!

Became friends with two of the most important people I’ve ever met. Visited one of them on a semi-impromptu 9-hour drive to Virginia and met IRL for the first time. First ever all-night solo trip, one of the best days of my life.

This might’ve been the year I got the VFD eye tattooed on my ankle, though I can’t swear to that.

Was part of my first long-form tabletop RPG with friends from college (and friends-of-friends). Was very emotional and also quite gay.

Rediscovered Megamind thanks to excellent fanfiction. That shit is still great.

Currently the best year I’ve ever had. 

Most regrettable 2017 memory: I should’ve attended my graduation from library school instead of deciding it didn’t matter. It mattered a lot.

Most awesome 2017 memory: Seeing the-artist-formerly-known-as-ciphernetics in person.

2018:

Cringy 2018 photo: Um, apparently we don’t get one, because there’s an image limit to these posts. Lame.

Was laid off and took 6 months to find another full-time job. Spent most of that time depression-napping.

Said full-time job lasted 4 months before I ran like my shoes were on fire, because it was morally . . . suspicious and left me borderline suicidal.

Got very fat because I was too miserable to stop eating.

Had to cut my hair so I would look “professional.” Looked like my ex-boyfriend. My mom said I “looked like a Trump supporter.” To-date the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me.

Moved back in with my parents due to not-having-job-ness (got to bring the cat, though).

Lost parents’ health insurance and had to pay for my own. Discovered health insurance is ridiculously expensive.

Became super left-leaning thanks to the power of Tumblr and Youtube (and possibly that super expensive health insurance thing). 

Writing came to a virtual standstill, though I managed to organize and actually finish participating in all of Gwenvid Week (for the first time).

Two weeks after quitting the job from hell and three weeks after moving back in with the parents, I was offered my old position back. Accepted. Was once again a college librarian.

Most regrettable 2018 memory: Knowing I didn’t want the nightmare job and accepting it anyway. Might’ve been the only choice, but it caused a lot of unhappiness.

Most awesome 2018 memory: The day I was laid off, I hopped on a plane and went to fucking Disney World. Because why not?

2019:

Started work again. Finally (mostly) stopped having panic attacks about being fired/laid off out of the middle of nowhere around 8 months into new job.

Fewer paper cuts than expected.

Accidentally became associated with dinosaurs at work, despite not having any sort of special affinity for dinosaurs.

Did develop a deep and abiding affinity for octopus. Also elephants.

Took cat to doctor. Cat didn’t enjoy doctor. Cat is now 8 lbs. and 14 oz. She is big girl.

Rediscovered the joy of reading again. Newly discovered that mysteries actually can be pretty awesome, and read barely anything else all year. (Personal recommendations: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton and Waisted by Randy Susan Meyers.)

So. Many. Youtube. Video. Essays.

Discovered Stardew Valley mods and eventually broke 3k hours of playtime. 

Napped frequently. Panicked less frequently. It’s a step in the right direction.

Most regrettable 2019 memory: This post sure is long and over-share-y, isn’t it? Didn’t even include a cut so you could more easily scroll past my face. Inconsiderate, is what that is.

Most awesome 2019 memory: This one is pretty good. Right now.

2020: 

??? 

Profit.

[shewas-agaystripper]

The Clinic: Part 17

The Clinic: Part Seventeen

Brian is sent off to Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Hospital to cure his depression and borderline. His roommates, John in particular, help him push through this difficult time in his life

Hello dear people! I can’t believe it’s actually happening, but here she is – the final part of The Clinic! (Or that is – the last part of the storyline within Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Hospital. There will be an epilogue coming up in a few weeks, which I think you’ll all enjoy a lot, because it contains good news for all of our boys!) But for now I really hope you’ll enjoy Part 17, and please let me know what you think!

Please feel free to talk to me and shoot me messages/anons! I’m feeling kind of lonely on my new blog still :s

P.s. Normally I’d link all the previous chapters here, but as SOMEONE @staff) deleted my whole entire blog, they’re now gone. If you haven’t read the previous chapters yet, or would like to reread them first, here is the whole thing on my AO3 account!

Have fun reading, and any sort of feedback or suggestions is appreciated!

The two weeks between the nerve-racking meeting during which Brian’s parents had signed the paperwork that secured both his and John’s immediate future after Queen Mary’s and the day of the reassessment judgement passed like a hazy blur in Brian’s experience. It was both the most and the least stressful time he had spent at Queen Mary’s; the most and the least joyful; the fastest and the slowest passing; the most relaxed and the most tensed; the happiest and the saddest weeks in his books of the mental institution. 

The death of Drew seemed to affect everybody present in one way or the other - and for most people it came as a positive change. The removal of arguably Queen Mary’s biggest bully and most violent patient left many feeling safer going out of their room in the evening, and Brian was sure that staff - even though no one openly spoke about the matter - was relieved to no longer have to guard the place as strictly as before, or spend as much time on keeping Drew in check. A bonus was that the murderer, who had been Clyde’s most important right hand, had been delivered to a prison in wait of his judgement - something Brian had heard the family of the guy had made a huge scene over, but Queen Mary’s didn’t budge and refused to take back a murderer in broad daylight. At last a decision Brian could get behind.

However, with the death of Drew and the removal of whoever the guy who had stabbed him into his unfortunate fate was, a shift in power dynamics had taken place at Queen Mary’s. Clyde, although weakened after the expulsion of his right hand, was still the leader of his pack, but Drew’s clan had fallen into disarray like a middle school class when left to vent for their own by their teacher for five minutes. Jake had never been anything more than a puppet that blindly followed all of Drew’s instructions, and he was never going to be the one to be crowned with the questionable honour of being Drew’s successor. There were a few other figures, though, who had all unanimously decided in their mighty wisdom that they would be the best choice to now rule over Drew’s collection of angry adolescents. To prove this point to the population of Queen Mary’s they went around the place slamming doors in people’s faces and shouting abuse at random passers-by, but most of the actual violence they reserved for each other in an attempt to show their strength. It reminded Brian of an anecdote his tenth-grade history teacher had told his class about three early medieval cardinals who had all declared themselves as the pope and excommunicated each other time after time in pursuit of their goal. As long as they left him and his friends alone, Brian didn’t care a straw for these patterers showing off their non-existent strength.

Something that did affect him, however, was the continuing lack of structure, routine, and professional staff around at Queen Mary’s. Things had been tight since the day Brian had been admitted, but with now even less staff around the place - as a result of staff cuts and people leaving the institution because they no longer felt safe at their jobs. Especially the kitchen team was hit hard by the changes, and attempts were made to have patients fill in the spots of the people who had taken their leave. 

Needless to say, this proved to be a disaster; almost nobody voluntarily signed up to peel potatoes or wash the dishes, and absolutely not a soul turned up for the corvee-schedules the head cook fabricated. When eventually random patients around the place were simply rounded up and ushered into the kitchen to help out the remaining staff, they had been creating more troubles than they solved. Food fights were a classic trick at Queen Mary’s, of course, but never before had patients had access to the large variety of kitchen knives. It had taken less than two days before people of Drew’s and Clyde’s gang had winded up in the kitchen together, and the stab accident that followed had made staff decide to just abandon the participation project altogether. Now everyone simply had to either work harder or wait longer, and more pre-made food was bought and prepared. It didn’t exactly taste good, but luckily the patients at Queen Mary’s had never been used to any form of luxury whatsoever anyway. 

A bigger problem was that besides the kitchen staff also the actual medical staff had suffered losses. After Ariel, the group leader of another therapy group had also left the place; the official story was that she suffered from a burnout, but Brian had learned over time not to automatically trust official reports issued by Queen Mary’s. What he did know was that the group this therapist had left behind, had now been mashed up with his own, leaving Jasper on his own to handle twenty-five depressed young men. Nolan, being the hero that he was, often joined his co-worker to help him - but even his presence could not keep the group under control. Group therapy now a mess, personal sessions with psychs now became more important to most people - but just like everyone else at the mental institution, they were busier than ever before also. People who had previously been in touch with their psychs every day now only got to see them every other day, and those people only once a week from now on. This did not matter too much for Brian personally, but he was not too happy about Freddie and Roger seeing their psychologists less than they used to. Of course there was no proof of correlation, but Brian did feel that Roger slipping into taking Valium could be linked to the lack of support and security around the place. 

On the other hand, the all-absorbing chaos of the place did mean more leniency and less people to look over their shoulders at all times - which meant that John had made a run for the kitchen to provide breakfast in bed multiple times, and that no one really said anything about them making music in their bedroom for hours on end. Most of all, it meant that Freddie had managed to have his family either directly give him or smuggle in numerous cosmetic items, which he was now going to put to the test on Brian’s unwilling hair and face. Ushering the half-awake man into the bathroom shared by Rooms 40 through 49 at an ungodly hour in the morning, Freddie put his makeup bag down on the sink and gestured for Brian to come on over.

‘Hop on up, dear! We’ve got no time to lose,’ he declared impatiently yet enthusiastically, landing his hand on the white surface of the sink platform he apparently wished for Brian to perch himself on top of. 

‘It’s barely six o’clock,’ muttered Roger, who followed behind. He had similarly been pulled out of bed by his over-enthusiastic boyfriend a mere five minutes ago, and him rubbing his eyes ever since was a visible testimony of how tired he was.

‘Yes, but there’s a lot to get done! It’s going to take a while,’ Freddie said.

‘You’re saying I look bad?’ Brian lifted an eyebrow.

‘Of course not! You look fine, dear,’ Freddie shushed. ‘But I just want to touch you up a little. Give your face some more colour and make your eyes pop out a little. Maybe define your lips somewhat… And get rid of these blemishes around your nose. Do you think I should line out his jaw some more?’ Freddie now turned to John, who had leaned back against the wall across from the sinks as he regarded the early morning spectacle from as much distance as he could possibly create. 

‘Yes, and maybe also draw out his nose and give him pink coloured lenses,’ John said quasi-thoughtfully. ‘Fake lashes and a forehead high enough to host a picnic on. Cut off all of his hair and give him a wig à la Diana Ross.’

‘Very funny, Deacon,’ Freddie rolled his eyes. ‘But now that we’re talking about his hair anyway… I think it could use some washing, moisturising, and blow-drying. Then afterwards I can properly comb it through and put in the curls again with setting spray.’

‘No brushing!’ Brian protested. ‘Unless you want me to look like a drowned poodle, don’t brush my hair.’

‘I don’t see how that would make you look any different from usual,’ Roger shrugged.

‘Oh, you’re terrible. Go make yourself useful and get me a chair,’ Freddie said to his partner, before he turned back to Brian. ‘And you get on top of this sink now, will you?’ He gave Brian a light smack against his bottom, which, although not at all painful, was unexpected and therefore made Brian yelp awkwardly. 

‘Might I remind you that I am the only one allowed to touch Brian’s ass, or tell him what or whom he is to get on top of?’ John commented from the sideline.

‘As if Brian would ever top. I have to laugh,’ said Freddie - which made Brian sure that if he had not been blushing before, he sure as hell was doing so now. He hoisted up one leg to the fake marble platform, planted his knee on it, withdrew it again, and then put it back again. It was a near military operation to perch himself up there, being all long limbs and of awkward height - not to even mention his fear of breaking down the whole damn construction. If it was of the same quality the average Queen Mary’s furniture was made of, he might end up on the floor with the whole sink platform below him.

‘Don’t worry, you can sit on it,’ said Freddie, as if he could read Brian’s mind. ‘I do it all the time.’

‘Very comforting to hear that a glorified scarecrow can sit on this piece of painted hardwood,’ said John. Brian knocked on the surface of it to find that his boyfriend might not even be far from the truth concerning the material of the thing.

‘I’ve seen Clyde standing right on top of it once,’ Freddie shrugged. This at last restored some faith in the sink to Brian; if a near-bodybuilder like Clyde could stand on it (he decided to not linger for too long on the question of why Clyde had a cause for doing so), then certainly he could sit on it. Placing his hands on the platform for a second time, he again put his knee on the sink, hoisted himself up, and turned around until he sat with his bottom as far back on the platform as possible, with his back leaning half against the wall and his feet dangling over the edge.

‘See? Nothing to worry about,’ Freddie said. ‘Now, you’re just gonna have to shift to the light a little - turn to me, dear. Yes, that’s better. Or maybe…’ Freddie stood on his tiptoes to put his hand on Brian’s chin and face it in the correct direction, something that to Brian felt a little strange at the very least. He had never been exactly comfortable with people touching him, and especially not when it was done before notifying him first. On top of that, having someone fiddle around with his appearance was something he was not very used to - especially not when this was at six in the morning in a questioningly clean semi-public bathroom with a range of makeup and grooming supplies he had never seen before. It had been Freddie’s doing, really - if it hadn’t been for his friend having decided that he would make a better impression on the jury if he looked like the Queen of Lombardia, Brian still would have been in bed, arms firmly around John and sleeping in for as long as they could until Nolan would eventually come pick them up for the trial that had been planned for that early afternoon. It certainly would have been better for his skin to have gotten some more sleep, Brian pondered when he got a glance of himself in the mirror; the bags under his eyes were going to take some serious product and talent to fully cover up.

‘You could work at Madame Tussauds with all of that repositioning you’re doing,’ said Roger, who burst through the door with one of the dingy rattan dining chairs he had taken from their bedroom. Freddie was still busy adjusting Brian’s face in the right angle to the light, and did not look up at his boyfriend. 

‘I’d rather become fabulously famous and have my own statue at Madame Tussauds, darling,’ he said haughtily, gesturing towards Roger to move the chair over. Roger planted it down next to Freddie, who took visible trouble to step up on the seating platform. Roger reached out a hand to help him steady and readjust the chair so he was positioned in front of Brian and next to the sink to put down the ungodly amount of items he had brought with him. 

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Roger asked as Freddie balanced unevenly on the chair.

‘My dear, I have nothing but good ideas only,’ smiled Freddie.

‘Then why are we up at six?’

‘Because!’ Freddie squealed loudly enough to make John put a finger across his lips to gesture that he had to be quieter. ‘Because I’m going to make Brian glow, and show all of those dumb judges that he’s doing better than ever and taking good care of himself and ready to leave this place behind.’

‘And that’s going to take seven hours?’ Roger asked.

‘No, it’s not. But we need to practice what to say to the judges and how to answer their questions also.’

‘Brian and I have already done that a hundred times,’ said Roger - and to Brian, this did not even feel like an exaggeration. Since the moment he had been told he would pull through to be reassessed - no, since the moment he had decided to take a reassessment, that was - he had been eager to practice what he should say or do once he was to be faced with the people who were to decide on his fate. He had received a lot of support from the people around him, with John helping him fill out all the paperwork, Freddie helping him with the diary he had been asked to keep, and Roger by preparing him for the questions he was most likely to have to ask during his trial. Nevertheless, he felt the nervousness getting to him now that the day was finally there, and it did not surprise him one bit to hear that Freddie wanted to go over all they had practised from their waking moment to the second the door of the meeting room would close behind them.

‘But there is no such thing as too much preparation,’ Freddie said.

‘And yet that seemed to be exactly what you complained about last night when I wouldn’t get on with it,’ Roger grinned.

Freddie rolled his eyes. ‘Hush, you. Get me a washcloth and the face wash.’

‘I’m your servant now?’ Roger raised his eyebrows.

‘Yes, so maybe you can make yourself somewhat useful still on this trying day,’ Freddie answered with a tired smile that betrayed that there was no real malice behind his words. Roger, surprisingly, did as he was told, and Brian was asked to close his eyes and cant his head back a little. Even though he washed his face at the sink every morning, the coldness of the washcloth as it was brought up to his face was startling still. Freddie wiped his face down with it, covering his whole face with the thinnest layer of moist. The cloth then disappeared and he heard the faint click of a bottle being opened. He opened his eyes to see Freddie rubbing a substance of some kind between his hands, which he then applied to Brian’s facial skin. Seeing the questioning look on Brian’s face, he said: ‘Just a facewash, love. Don’t tell me you never use that.’

‘I just use water,’ Brian shrugged, the movement of which made Freddie’s fingers accidentally rub the facewash on his lips instead of his chin.

‘Same here,’ John said.

‘You’re lucky if I wash my face at all,’ Roger snorted. Freddie sighed deeply.

‘You’re a bunch of barbarians, really. I can’t believe they’re about to let two of you go.’

‘It’s a disgrace, really,’ John said. ‘Brian and I are really going to get out there and do things like washing our face with water only, and not making the bed every morning. Maybe I’ll even wear the same boxers for two days in a row.’

‘I’ll eat fruit without rinsing it off first, and not wash my hands after I sneeze,’ Brian added.

‘You’re driving me crazy,’ Freddie sighed as he wiped the face wash off Brian’s skin. ‘As long as you promise to wash your hands after going to the toilet.’

‘After?’ John asked. ‘I thought one was supposed to do that beforehand. The exact opposite of when you prepare raw meat and then wash your hands after.’ Freddie nearly dropped the washcloth to the floor as he turned to John with a jaw that almost did the same. 

‘Just kidding,’ John grinned after having let Freddie stare at him in disbelief for a handful of seconds.

‘John! You nearly gave me a heart attack!’ Freddie squealed, and he sent the cloth flying into John’s direction. John caught it with ease and buried his face in it, rubbing up and down a few times, before he threw it back into the sink with trained expertise. ‘So, that was my personal hygiene for today.’

‘I’ll refrain from commenting on that,’ Freddie groaned as he dug through his makeup purse and fished out something that looked oddly similar to a razor. He picked up a bottle from the sink platform and squeezed out a foamy substance, but it was only when he started spreading it along the lower side of Brian’s face that the pieces of the puzzle really fell into place for Brian.

‘You’ve got a shaving razor?’ he asked in surprise.

‘Mh. Yes. I got sick and tired of having to shave under the supervision of a staff member,’ Freddie parroted with his nose drawn up to ridicule the average Queen Mary’s employee. ‘So I snuck out to steal a few shaving razors on my own, and had my parents bring me shaving cream during visiting hour.’

‘And no one noticed- of course no one noticed,’ Brian answered his own question. If they had, after all, he would not be sitting here with Freddie spreading shaving foam along his jawline with one hand and the other hand wrapped around a disposable shaving razor.

‘This place is the biggest joke I’ve ever seen,’ Roger snorted.

‘Speaking of which, anyone want some breakfast?’ John asked. ‘If I go now I can get in there before the kitchen staff arrives.’

‘I mean, I could do with a croissant and some coffee,’ Roger said.

‘Same for me, please,’ Brian mumbled as best as he could now that Freddie was covering his lower face in a somewhat excessive layer of shaving cream. 

‘You, Bulsara?’ John asked.

‘If you can get your hands on some cucumber, that’d be great,’ Freddie said without looking up from his subject.

‘If you think I’m gonna let you get away with eating a single slice of cucumber for breakfast then you’re mistaken.’

‘Not to eat, silly. To put on Brian’s face later on.’

‘Scuse me?’

‘To make these bags under his eyes less visible! You really all are the enemies of personal care, are you?’ Freddie asked.

‘No, we have our own methods against bags under our eyes. It’s called sleep,’ John said, after which he flashed Brian a wink, turned on his heel, and paced out of the bathroom. 

Strangely enough, it was after John - usually the quietest of the pack - had left that they fell into a comfortable silence. Brian allowed Freddie to shave him, which he did with a minute precision that made Brian wonder if a single beard hair would ever dare to grow back on his face. Roger was given a reprimand for using the same washcloth to wash his face as Brian and John had previously done, and was then sent away to fetch a clean towel and probably to grant Freddie a second of rest. He returned right in time with John, who provided coffee and croissants and yoghurt for everybody - and who brought a cucumber large enough to supply the entire population of Queen Mary’s, staff and clients, with cucumber slices to put on their eyes.

Roger attacked his croissants with fervour, and John tried to slip Brian pieces of his in between Freddie’s makeover session. They could not tell whether Freddie was too busy with brushing out every single blemish and every possible crease in Brian’s face to think about having breakfast, or if he was actively working to avoid having to eat - but, suspecting that the latter option played at least a factor to some extent in the matter, John took to spoonfeeding Freddie yoghurt in between the acts. Roger willingly posed as Freddie’s assistant and handed him creams, concealers, and brushes when his partner asked him to. Brian just sat back and tried to enjoy - or at least relax - as much as he could this unusual treatment he had been submitted to.

In this fashion, half an hour or so slipped by almost unnoticed, until Freddie suddenly realised that the luxury of having the bathroom all to themselves was soon going to be a thing of the past when the people staying in the other rooms at their wing would wake up and start pouring into their space. Luckily for him, living with an antisocial personality disorder for years on end had taught John all the tricks of the trade. He summoned Roger to get a pen and paper and paper and another chair from their bedroom, and himself he fetched a piece of tape from a broken table in the hallway someone had clumsily tried to fix. He used the paper to write a sign which proudly boasted ‘OUT OF ORDER’, put it on the outside of the door, and then locked it by putting the chair right beneath the handle. Surely enough, not even five minutes later the first people arrived for their morning shower; but, upon trying the door a few times and finding it stuck, they quickly left the place with a string of swear words.

‘Do you think staff will figure us out?’ Brian whispered at Roger when what must have been the fifth person in line was rattling the doorknob.

‘Probably not. They’ve got other things on their mind - and since the door is locked on the inside and has an out-of-order-sign on it, they’ll just let it be.’

Roger was right - a few more frustrated fellow patients tried their luck at opening the door (one of whom almost managed in an outburst of pent-up frustration), but after fifteen minutes or so, the attempts had died out completely. This gave Freddie the opportunity to resume his work on Brian’s face; a thin layer of powdered foundation had been applied, and he now worked away the bags under Brian’s eyes with a concealer. He darkened up his cheekbones a little, and then decided to get started on Brian’s hair, which he declared was going to be ‘quite a task’. Indeed, he worked on it for nearly an hour; washing it and blow drying it, putting God knew what sort of setting sprays and curl definers in it while fluffing it up into a mass of tight, shiny black ringlets that graced Brian’s shoulders and which bounced back when he pulled at them - something Freddie told him not to do, but which Brian could not resist. To prevent the curls from sagging down or falling out of their desired shape, Freddie applied a mist of hairspray to them big enough to keep Mary Antoinette's wig from slipping, after which he told Brian to take a look in the mirror and see what he thought of the result.

Brian was surprised when he looked at his mirror image, and in the positive sense of the word. His face looked young yet masculine, without the usual dark circles around his eyes; similarly, his lips were shiny and the area of his mouth did not show any creases or blemishes. His hair was a vast but glorious mess of curls that shone in the light and fell around his face as a dark halo. He had never known that his hair could look so voluminous, so healthy and shiny and yet so natural and /uncomplicated/. He had always struggled with his hair - both with keeping it decent and with accepting it the way it was - but Freddie really had made him like it for the first time in what must have been years, and possibly could have been for the first time ever.

‘And? What do you think?’ Freddie asked.

‘It’s beautiful. I love it,’ Brian declared with the broadest smile. He leaned forward and caught Freddie in a hug that his friend obviously did not anticipate, for he squealed and clung to the rattan backrest of the chair he was half-standing, half-leaning on. Once he realised Brian had him safely in his grip, however, his terror faded and was replaced by happiness, and Freddie allowed an equally bright smile to shine through on his face.

‘And I’m not even done yet!’ Freddie declared enthusiastically. He carefully detached himself from Brian, and rumbled through his makeup bag until he fished out a small black stick that Brian had to squint at to find out its purpose.

‘Eyeliner?’ he asked.

‘Kohl. Just a little at the outside of your eyes to make them pop out,’ Freddie beamed. Although both Brian and the rest of the men present in the room had their second thoughts on the idea, Freddie talked them into allowing him to try it out anyway - and in the end, a thin layer of it smudged out ever so slightly to the midst of the lower eyelid was met with everyone’s approval.

By the time all the face and hair care had been done, it was past eight o’clock, which meant that virtually all of Queen Mary’s inhabitants were to be expected at breakfast. The four men of Room 41B decided to take a shot for their room; Roger was the one to be brave enough to remove the chair from the door and peek around it, first for a mere second and then for a long enough time to establish that there was nobody to be seen in the hallway. They then took a dash for their door, one by one; Roger and John with a chair under their arm, Freddie with an armful of bottles and tubes, and Brian with the makeup bag and towels which had been left behind. Once they had returned safely to their room Brian ran down the hallway one more time to tear down the homemade out-of-order-sign, which he crumpled up into a ball and threw into the toilet. On his way back to the room he silently prayed that it would not cause a congestion and cause the bathroom to actually be taken out of order for the upcoming time. 

Already having taken breakfast in the form of John having brought them coffee and croissants, once they retreated to their bedroom they unanimously made the decision not to emerge from it again to mingle with the rest of Queen Mary's inhabitants for shared breakfast in the canteen. Rather, they spent the time feeding Freddie small pieces of the croissant John had brought for him (and ignoring the protest Freddie made against taking such a 'calorie bomb', as he called it). They made him comply in the end by promising they would then get down to have Freddie pull off whatever kind of stunts he had in mind with the cucumber he had made John take with him from the kitchen, which sulkily made Freddie swallow the last bites without too much audible gagging. 

John, being the genius that he was, had taken care to take a small potato knife with him from the kitchen. It was large enough to cut the cucumber into slices, but small enough to either hide or dispose of pretty easily. Freddie cut enough slices for everyone to put on closed eyelids, and a few extra for Roger to eat (with a not so subtle comment that he should eat some vegetables at times, which Roger in turn said he did, and which started quite the discussion about vitamins and minerals between the couple). John and Brian, in the meantime, took the moment to appreciate Brian's almost entirely renewed skin and softened curls. They then took to their bed to have a seat again while the others bickered about their eating habits - it was, after all, still early in the morning. They remarked that they might even go to sleep again soon. Nolan would not come to pick them up for another three or so hours, so they might as well get a little more sleep. 

Freddie, on the other hand, clearly had other plans than 'sleeping away these precious hours'. Once he had cut up the cucumbers into the most irregular slices Brian had ever seen, he ordered them to lie down flat on the bed and have him put the items of food on their eyes. This went down with lots of laughter and screeches at the unfamiliar feeling and coldness of the vegetables against their closed eyelids, which in turn evoked Freddie to call them a bunch of barbarians again, although this time he did it with a smile. The singer also started fussing about Brian's hair again now that he was lying flat on the mattress while his hair had been styled with an exorbitant amount of product and care just ten minutes ago. Unfortunately for Freddie, there was little other alternative if he wanted for Brian to have the cucumber slices evening out the by now already non-existent bags under his eyes. Roger's idea of putting the slices on Brian's eyelids and keeping them in place with Freddie's suede sleeping mask was cheered on by everyone apart from the owner of said item, who seemed indignant at the idea that people would even think of putting his precious Japanese suede sleeping mask to that purpose. In the end Freddie won the battle of the suede mask, but was thereby forced to have Brian recline with his head on the pillow. 

To Brian’s surprise, it wasn't even that bad to have Freddie try out his weird homemade remedies for bags under the eyes that would not have been there in the first place if he just would have been allowed to sleep in until a decent time. Maybe it was because he was getting used to the feeling of being pampered, or perhaps because he knew he had the rest of his friends hanging around him looking like clowns just as much as he did. They fell into a short moment of silence upon all having settled down on their respective beds, but it was soon broken up when the sound of crunchy vegetables being torn into pieces reached their ears.

'Roger!' Freddie called out instantly.

'What? What else were you gonna do with half of a cucumber, put it pack into the kitchen fridge again?' Roger around a mouth still half full of remains of the last bite of vegetable.

‘At least he’s eating his veggies,’ John shrugged, the movement of which made a slice of cucumber tumble off his eye and onto Brian’s shirt. It left a somewhat damp spot on Brian’s uniform shirt, and he was glad Freddie hadn’t seen the incident. With his current nervousness which outed itself by striving for absolute perfection, he would probably have a stroke if he noticed a stain on Brian’s clothes.

Speaking of nervousness... Brian had forbidden himself to think about the upcoming trial too much, but he definitely felt an uncomfortable tension in the pit of his stomach - one which had followed him for days in a row by now. Although it must have started as early as the moment he had signed the first official paperwork concerning his wish to leave Queen Mary’s, it had grown gradually worse over time, with the peak of it coming down upon him in these last few days. The last paperwork and diary assignments had needed to be completed the other day, and it had taken his friends an hour of pep-talking him to go down and have his last talk with Sarah and Doctor Fisher concerning the Judgement Day, as it had come to be referred to by now by everyone around the place. Being as rare as it was, his reassessment track and all that came with it had become something of a public spectacle that all people at Queen Mary's, regardless of how close they had been to Brian, were currently engaged with to some level of the other. It was the talk of the town, as a matter of speaking; it was the only topic his by now therapy group of twenty-five people were interested in talking about, and the thing strangers continually tapped him on the shoulder for to either question or advise him about. Even Freddie, Roger, and John were not exempted from this treatment, and especially the former two - who tended to go out more often - returned with stories about random people questioning them about Brian’s reassessment on the daily. All the attention was something Brian could definitely do without; it made him nervous knowing that so many people looked at him as he was trying to fight his sentence at Queen Mary’s. How many people would look down upon him if he failed, how many people would laugh at him and ridicule him if he didn’t succeed?

‘Are you nervous about this afternoon?’ John asked, plucking a strand of hair out of Brian’s face. Brian sighed.

'More than I’d like to admit,' Brian said. 'I’m mainly afraid of having to face all of those staff members and judges and whoever more will be in that room...'

'Would it feel better if we won't be there?' Freddie asked from the sideline. 'You know, having fewer people to worry about...'

'No, I want you to be there,' Brian told him. 'I want people who support me there. I want Sarah and Nolan and Jasper and you guys - I just don't want the other people there. The jury and the people from the medical board and the director of Queen Mary's.'

'I'm afraid you can't exactly have a judgement without a jury, darling,' Freddie said. 'But I understand what you mean. It's never exactly comfortable having to put yourself out there around those people, but we'll be there for you. And your parents will be too, won't they? Or does that just make you nervous?'

'Somewhat,' Brian said with a breathy laugh. 'They support me, but I know that they'd rather have me stay here at Queen Mary’s until my treatment is over. Although… since I’ve told them about the chaos around here, they seem more sceptical about this place. The murder of Drew didn’t seem to sit very comfortably with them when I told them about it on the phone the other day,’ Brian said in what must have been the understatement of the century. His father had been indignant that no police investigation was going on at the place, and his mother had been hysterical at the idea of what could happen to him if people at Queen Mary’s could literally get their hands on knives and commit murders inside its walls in the broad daylight. He did not mean to stress his parents out, but it felt good to know they supported his possible homecoming more whenever they heard of such atrocities. 

‘Well yeah, I should hope that they’re not comfortable with murder,’ Roger snickered. ‘Because regardless of how much we all hated Drew, that really was disgusting.’

Brian nodded weakly; he kept remembering the last words Drew had spoken to John and him. He kept remembering the sincere look on his face as he wished them well; and though it did not in any sense of the word make up for all the pain and hurt he had pulled both them and everyone else at Queen Mary’s through, it had shown the human side that Drew still, deep inside of him, had possessed until the very end of his life. 

‘For how long do I need to keep these soggy cucumbers on my eyelids?’ John interspersed in an attempt to keep up the atmosphere.

‘Another fifteen minutes or so,’ Freddie said.

‘Oh, but then we’ll miss our therapy groups!’ Roger exclaimed with the biggest grin on his face, which told the people around him that he absolutely did not give a straw about his group sessions. None of them did, in all honesty - but as Brian was the only one who had officially been given leave to be absent on that day due to his obligations elsewhere, the others were officially required to show up at their therapy sessions. A short discussion broke loose, which was more of an enumeration of all the reasons why they should not go rather than a real contemplation of the pros and cons of following Queen Mary’s schedule - and unsurprisingly the result of it was that they all decided to stay in to have a chat while plucking some guitar strings. Freddie proposed a classic game of mensch-ärgere-dich-nicht, which they languidly played in between finishing up the last preparations for the judgement that afternoon.

‘You filled in all of your paperwork?’ Freddie asked while rolling the dice.

‘Yes. Mister Fisher collected it all and will bring it with him to the meeting.’

‘Your mental health diary has been filled in for each day?’

‘All covered.’

‘You know where to go and what to do?’

‘Be at the staff room at ten to one, shake hands with the judges, then take a seat next to Mister Fisher, who will make a case for me. I just have to be quiet unless I’m being asked to open my mouth, and appear as strong and mentally stable as possible,’ Brian said with a slight twitch of the lips. 

‘Have you prepared a speech?’ Freddie asked. Brian frowned.

‘Speech? It’s not his graduation, Fred,’ Roger told him. ‘At most they’ll ask him some questions similar to the ones he had to answer for his portfolio of whatever one wants to call it, and we already practised those a hundred times.’

‘Well, but you never know! They might ask him to defend his case in a beautiful, heart-felt soliloquy…’ Freddie clearly poured out his heart into this idea, but Roger just snorted.

‘This is not a business pitch where you try to receive a million-dollar loan from some kind of business magnate,’ Roger laughed. Freddie joined him, and even John gave them a grin - but Brian himself could not treat the idea as a laughing matter. Ten minutes later, when Freddie won the board game with a glorious victory over all of his roommates, Brian still found himself caught up with the possibility that he might actually have to explain his case in detail to all of the people present in the room who were ready to judge his every word. Of course he had prepared answers to short and basic questions - such as why he thought he was ready to leave, what he had learned at Queen Mary’s, or which plans he had made to prevent a fall-back in the future. But what if he could not provide such a deep-going speech that combined high levels of emotional security with lessons from the past and promises for the future? What if despite all of the paperwork provided which all professionals who had helped him on his journey here told him would almost surely free him from Queen Mary’s, the jury would turn him down for his own clumsiness with words? What if Doctor Sumner saw it as his window of opportunity to put him down and keep him at Queen Mary’s for as long as he could?

This question - and others concerning the nature of the judgement and the personality of the judges - continued to bother Brian over the course of the hours the group spent in each other’s presence. By the time lunch rolled around, he found himself having too little appetite and too many worries to get out of the room and go downstairs to the dining hall. The prospect of being flooded with glances and questions and tips and tricks from people who had never shown a single interest in him until the moment his attempt at reassessment was made public upon presenting himself in the canteen did not exactly encourage him any more. John was not very much in the mood to suffer the same treatment, so in the end it was Roger who dragged Freddie down to the canteen and promised to stuff some sandwiches in his pockets for the roommates they left behind. The idea of this did not sound too appetising to Brian, but he decided not to dwell onto this fact for too long. Instead, he gestured for John to come join him on his bed again. While he continued to pluck at the strings of his guitar, John settled down next to him and started carding a hand through Brian’s curls, then quickly moved downwards to stroke his arm when he realised Freddie would probably kill him if he put a single lock of hair out of its original place. 

‘What are you thinking about?’ John asked when the silence turned a little too long even for his liking.

‘I wish it would all be over,’ Brian sighed. ‘This entire circus show around my trial. It’s no one else’s business apart from ours.’

‘I know, honey. Soon it will be over, and it will be all between the two of us again.’ Brian received a kiss on his jawbone, and a string of promises of how good it would be when they’d both get released from the institution. The smaller the gap between the present and the hour of confrontation grew, the larger Brian’s feeling of insecurity and doubt became. What if he could not deliver the version of himself the judges wanted to see? What if he would disappoint everyone after so much work they had all put into his revaluation?

Freddie and Roger returned to the room after less than fifteen minutes, and - true to his word - Roger had taken two splashed sandwiches with him. They looked flat and soggy as they emerged from his trouser pockets, but Brian was coaxed into eating his anyway by John, who insisted that he could not go down to the judgement without having eaten something first. The mere mentioning of the word ‘judgement’ made Brian’s stomach turn. 

Between the bites of his soggy peanut butter and jam sandwich - a culinary decision he would not have made on his own, but which turned out not to even be that bad at second thought - Brian was bombarded by questions from Freddie, who asked him if he had all the papers, documents, and answers ready for everything the judges might possibly ask from him. After all, the meeting was going to be in less than fifteen minutes - a fact that Brian started to realise he could not change with every one of these minutes passing by on the round clock hanging above the door of their dorm room. 

It was a quarter to one, and Brian had just finished the last bite of his sandwich, when a knock on the door caught them all off guard - and, as seemed to have become tradition overtime, Freddie was the one who hoisted himself off the bed and flung himself at the door. He opened it with his usual enthusiasm to reveal not only Nolan, whom they had expected, but Jasper and Sarah on top of that.

'Guys! We didn't know you were all coming down here?' Freddie said as he gestured to the staff members to come in. Brian could see from his corner of the room how Jasper made an attempt at entering, but Sarah pulled him back by grabbing his arm, reminding him of the limited time they had until they were expected to show their faces at the meeting. 

'Emotional support, we thought,’ Jasper smiled, and Brian, although he was not always too sure of having too many people around him, appreciated how they had all come down to meet up with him here. Unfortunately for him, it turned out that the staff members involved in the process were not the only ones who had made the journey to Room 41B - when he followed John’s example of standing up from the bed, he could make out the figures of a few other men over Sarah’s shoulder. Judging by their grey t-shirts, they were neither part of the jury nor did they belong to the staff of the institution, and must thus simply be guys with a sense of morbid curiosity trying to get a view of the unusual scene that was about to go down.

Luckily, it was Nolan who addressed the bunch. ‘Jack, Paul, Eli, and all the rest of you - please leave us some space, will you? You can go downstairs to watch the whole thing and you know that.’

You can go downstairs to watch the whole thing and you know that. The words hit Brian like a baseball bat, even though he did not know for sure what Nolan meant with this. Did he simply say this to get everyone out of their way, or was he referring to how downstairs they could see the entire party descend into the meeting room? Or was there perhaps a literal meaning to the words Nolan had used to shoo away the unwanted spectators?

Freddie was quicker to pull himself together than Brian was. ‘Excuse me? Go downstairs and see what?’ 

‘Why, the meeting, of course,’ Jasper answered without batting an eye. 

‘The meeting? It’s public?’ Roger now mingled himself into the discussion. 

‘They always are. Just like court cases - they’re public unless stated otherwise. I thought you knew that.’ 

Brian felt John’s eyes travelling travelling over to meet his, but he could not look back at his partner. In fact, he could not look at anything apart from the doorknob his gaze had fallen onto since the second the possibility of an open judgement had dawned on him - something that was now confirmed by a single careless sentence falling from Jasper’s lips.

‘Oh, well, excuse us for not knowing the practices and traditions of the English legal system by heart-’ Freddie started off bitchily, but Jasper interrupted him.

‘No, what I meant was - I thought you’d been told this. They were supposed to tell you this. They didn’t tell you?’ Six pairs of eyes flung back to look at Brian, who feebly shook his head in a form of response. 

‘I don’t think any of us knew this,’ John spoke on behalf of his partner. ‘Who exactly are ‘they’ when they’re at home?’

At the question of this, Jasper turned to look at Nolan and Sarah. ‘I thought you were going to tell Brian this, Nole.’

Nolan in turn shook his head. ‘No, Sarah was going to. She’s his psychiatrist and leads this process of reassessment.’

‘No, Mister Fisher does. He’s supposed to be in charge, and I thought he was the one to tell Brian?’ The audible question mark at the end of Sarah’s sentence revealed that she, just like her male co-workers, had no idea of how exactly things had been arranged concerning who was responsible for passing on which part of information to Brian. The person affected decided not to dwell on for too long on the possibility of the staff having forgotten more than just this one not entirely trivial fact, which might in turn be detrimental to his chances of leaving Queen Mary’s.

‘Okay, so basically this was communication at its finest,’ Sarah said with a breathy half-giggle, but she checked herself in time, probably understanding that as typical and non-surprising it was that such a thing happened at Queen Mary’s, it was not exactly funny to Brian, who would now be given exactly thirteen minutes to prepare himself for the idea of having to submit to his ordeal in a room filled with God knew how many nosy men who came to watch how he kept himself standing in front of the judges, hoping for juicy details or a nervous breakdown or whatever it was that they were after.

‘And now? Brian is supposed to just accept that there’s going to be a flood of nosy bastards snooping around during the trial because no one here talks to each other?’ Freddie asked crankily. He was obviously not happy about it, and neither was Brian himself - but, knowing that making a scene about the matter now would only make things worse and might even affect his chances of getting out if word of it reached the judges. Better buckle up and keep his calm as much as he could.

‘It’s fine,’ Brian mustered. ‘I can deal with it.’

‘You sure?’ Roger sounded a tad worried.

‘Yeah, sure. I won’t have to talk to any of them anyway,’ Brian said, a lot braver than he felt inside. 

‘You won’t even have to look at them. They’ll all be sitting behind you anyway,’ Jasper said in what must have been an attempt at comfort. It served the exact opposite in Brian’s mind. He knew it was irrational, but somehow the idea of a sea of people being able to view him from behind while he could not look back at him made him nervous.

‘Shall we go, then?’ Sarah proposed. ‘The sooner we get there, the more time you’ll have to get yourself settled.’ Everyone turned to Brian, who simply nodded. He reached out a hand for John to help him get up from the bed, and he followed his friends out of the room. John stayed behind him with a hand on his back, as a silent force; a silent way of telling him that he was there to usher him through the hallways that turned out to hold even more nosy fellow clients than Brian at first had been able to see from his view in the bedroom.

'Everyone out of the way, please,' Nolan said with a fierceness that one would not normally attribute to him.. 'You can go downstairs to watch it all - leave Brian to have some peace now. You would want the same if you were in his place.' 

Part of the audience obeyed Nolan's speech and got out of the way, part of them did not. Brian decided not to pay too much attention to them. How could he anyway, now that he was caught up in a whirlwind of thoughts about the upcoming process? How would the judges react to him, how would their first impression of him influence their judgement of him? What would his parents do when they saw him from their view in the meeting room? Would they smile, cry, would they be proud of him? Or would they still keep to their previous judgement that he should stay here and finish his treatment?

‘So are there any more surprises we should keep in mind?’ Freddie asked while the party clattered down the stairs. ‘Are there going to be journalists to report the whole thing? Cameras and microphones? A press conference afterwards?’ 

‘None of that, no,’ Nolan answered. ‘Only a registrar to take notes for future reference, and to allow the board to see if the judgement was carried out according to the protocols.’

‘What, so they can overturn the sentence if they feel like it?’ Freddie asked in the same sarcastic tone he had been using ever since the forgotten clause of the apparently public meeting had come to light. 

‘No, that won’t happen. Just to reflect on the judges’ work. See if no favouritism or prejudice was used to come to a conclusion,’ Nolan said. This last sentence, Brian had to admit, made him feel a little better - apparently there were rules in place which would prevent Doctor Sumner from blatantly turning his case down just because he could. Then again, if the decision made today was to be final, nothing could be done if Sumner decided to sabotage the judgement anyway. Brian was unsure if he should feel comforted or alarmed.

They continued the way downstairs in silence - or that was, silence from their part. The men who had gathered around them and who had been waiting for the caravan to descend the stairs made enough noise to make it nearly impossible for Brian to hear his own thoughts. Maybe this was a good thing, though - his mind was racing and he could not find a single positive or uplifting thought among the whirlwind in his head. 

‘Brian, good luck!’

‘Tell them what we think of this place!’

‘Flip the judges off on my behalf!’

The things people around him shouted at him - some of which were genuine wishes, others just hopes to make him stick it to Queen Mary’s and the mental health care system in general - reached Brian’s ears as a slow-motioned hurricane. He felt queasy, but with the help of John’s hand on the small of his back to guide him, he managed to keep his eyes straight on the figures of Freddie and Nolan, who led the way to the meeting room. 

Brian had never been to the meeting room before. He had been vaguely aware of its presence, and had heard his caretakers speak of meeting up at the place. He had not previously known where exactly it was located in the staff wing, but it became clear to him soon enough when he saw hordes of people moving around one particular room all the way down the corridor. Some of them pointed upon his arrival, others clapped; some took it as a sign to go in and take a seat, others remained in an attempt to catch another look at him. Brian felt like a celebrity who had fallen from grace through a scandalous sex offence, and who now had to answer for his actions in front of an audience already bent on judging him for his crimes.

‘Out of the way, please,’ Nolan called out - and, when people only partially listened to this wish, he simply pushed his way through the crowd. It was not the behaviour Brian would normally expect from his cool, calm, and collected mentor, but he did not blame Nolan even one bit for his no-nonsense approach to the dozens who had gathered outside the meeting room. In fact, he was rather grateful that Nolan showed the men that he was not to be messed with for the time being - it certainly made part of them scatter and disappear into the meeting room.

A downside to having these people leave the hallway and claiming a spot in the meeting room, however, was that now a pathway to the door emerged - a pathway through which Brian could cast a glance into the room in which he was to present himself in a few minutes. It was not a pretty sight, to say the very least. The room, although he could only see the back of it through the limited sight he could catch of it through the door, seemed absolutely packed with people. They were sitting on rows of chairs provided, leaning against the walls, sitting on the floor in front of the chairs - they were everywhere. It was as if the entire population of Queen Mary’s had come out to see the trial. It would not surprise Brian if this was actually the truth: with no institution-wide activities going on at the moment, and little else to do around the place anyway, a public meeting in which a client tried to defy the judgement of his own mental health caretakers could be viewed as a spectacle on its own. 

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Freddie all but exclaimed at the sight of the crowds. ‘And everyone just conveniently forgot to tell us this? That the entire fucking place would come out to have a look?’

‘It really was an accident,’ Sarah said feebly, before being pushed aside by someone rushing into the room in an attempt to get a seat still. 

‘Thanks, that really helps,’ Freddie grumbled. ‘So we’re not gonna be able to be by Brian’s side? Sit somewhere close and be there in case he needs us?’

‘I’m sure Brian is gonna be alright,’ Jasper said. ‘He’ll have to do this on his own anyway.’

Even though Brian realised that Jasper meant these words as a comfort, it really hit him hard that he did, in fact, have to do this on his own. He did ae to go in there and have unironically two hundred people look down upon him while a jury compiled of undoubtedly mental health experts who nevertheless knew nothing about him were going to decide on his fate. If he had Even though Brian realised that Jasper meant these words as a form of comfort, it really hit him hard that he did, in fact, have to do this on his own. He did have to go in there and have unironically two hundred people look down upon him while a jury compiled of undoubtedly mental health experts who nevertheless knew nothing about him were going to decide on his fate. If he had been nervous before about this latter fact, the presence of the entire institution on top of that made him break out in cold sweat. He could not do this - not in front of all of these people. The image of all the people rushing in and out of the room, the sound of their chatter and laughter and screaming - it all mashed together in a blur of sound and visual that reached Brian as in slow motion. He could not do this.

‘Brian?’ It was John’s voice that spoke to him somewhere in the distance. ‘You’re quiet. Are you holding out?’ He turned his face to look at John. His eyes were too intense and too prying, and Brian took a step back from him. He bumped into someone behind him, who seemed to verbally lash out at him but who fell into muttering apologies when they saw who he was. None of the words reached Brian in any intelligible form, and as John approached him, he stepped further back until his shoulder blades bumped into the wall behind him. The people he’d come to the meeting with now all gathered around him, seemed to ask questions, but none of them reached him. Someone - presumably Freddie, judging by the black-tipped fingernails - put his cold hand across his forehead, and someone else pushed a plastic cup of water in his hands. He did not drink of it, however; and the next thing he knew was the cup being taken away from him and its contents being splashed in his face. This sobered him up enough to hear Freddie squeal something about being careful with his makeup, but most of all, as he blinked a few times he could make out the image of John standing in front of him with a now empty cup and an expression that told him he was not to be messed with.

‘John…’ Brian managed feebly. John pushed the empty cup into someone’s palm so he had free range of his hands. He placed them firmly on Brian’s shoulders.

‘Look, Brian. I know this is overwhelming but you have to pull yourself together. The judges are ready to see you. It’s time to step up and do this.’

‘But all… all these people,’ Brian brought in.

‘I know. I know you don’t want all of these people here, and neither do I or Jasper or Nolan or anyone else. But you know what? All of those people are here because they support you.’

Brian blinked at his partner, only to discover that John seemed to be serious about this claim. He huffed out a laugh. ‘They’re just here for some free entertainment.’

‘Maybe some of them are. Some might have nothing else to do on a regular Wednesday afternoon. But literally everyone seems to be here. I’ve seen Sebastian and Lester and Bill and Andrew, and other people from both our depression talk group and other groups. The ones who never go anywhere. Who wouldn’t show up to breakfast or even to get their fucking medicines in the morning if their mentor wouldn’t come over and drag them there? Do you think they’re here to be entertained?’

Brian shrugged. ‘Why else would they be here?’

‘To support you!’ John repeated. ‘To show that they’re on your side. To see Queen Mary’s authority and judgement being challenged for once. All of these people here - even if they’re just here because they have nothing else to do, they dragged themselves out of bed and out of their rooms to be here. Do you think they would have been here if they did not care?’

Brian was quiet for a moment. ‘Do you?’ John asked again.

‘Maybe not,’ Brian shrugged.

‘Most definitely not. They care about this trial, because it’s more than just your trial, Brian. This has become everyone’s trial in a sense. It’s a protest against Queen Mary’s and their judgements and authority. This trial is showing people that there’s hope, and that we can be our own person and lead our own lives even while in here. We’re not their puppets, Brian, and whether you win or not, this trial is proof of that.’ John paused for a second to take a breath of air, and so did Brian. It was not often that his partner got so passionate about something, but when it happened, he was sure to put your worldview upside down. Maybe the people here had not come out to jeer or taunt or laugh at him - maybe they were here to show their support. To show they believed in their own authority regardless of what Queen Mary’s tried to mould them into. 

To give his most recent words a little more power, John took up the conversation again by asking: ‘Remember what Drew said the other day?’

Brian cast his eyes down at the mention of the murdered patient whom John brought up without a warning, but he was told off for doing so. ‘Look at me. Do you remember?’

‘Yes,’ Brian whispered. John’s grip on his shoulders had tightened, which felt both suppressing and safe at the same time. He knew he was not going to escape whatever John was about to tell him, but at the same time, John was not going to let anyone come in and make matters harder for him. John was here to protect him, keep the world at a distance now that Brian needed it most. 

‘Tell me what he said.’

‘He said that… he wished I would get out of here.’

‘Exactly,’ John nodded. ‘He wanted you to get out of here because you deserved better. Drew, the most hated person in this entire Godforsaken place, stood behind your cause. No matter how hard he’s made things for us at times, in the end he wanted you to win this. And fuck, I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but let’s go out there and do it for Drew. As some weird kind of last honour, or whatever people call that.’ A small, crooked smile appeared on John’s lips, and Brian let out a breathy sigh.

‘I want to,’ Brian admitted. ‘I do want to, and maybe- probably all those people are on our side. But they are so many-’

‘You’ve fought too hard and too long for this process to let this slide because other people showed up,’ John interrupted him, with power to his words but a gentleness to his tone. ‘And besides, since when do you care for other people? Have we ever cared for other people while in here? During all those late nights of playing music and talking during group discussions and locking ourselves in my hiding place during drug raids, did we ever give a single fuck about other people?’ The crooked smile on John’s face was back - more sincere and inviting this time, and Brian could not help but copy it.

‘We didn’t,’ he smiled.

‘God knows we didn’t,’ John agreed. ‘And right now is not the time that we are going to give a damn about other people either.’ The twinkle in his eyes and the confidence of his voice made Brian realise that John was right about all he just told him - the majority of the people here today had come out to support him, or at any rate to support him showing Queen Mary’s he was taking his own say in his life back, everyone wanted him to win, and even though the presence of two hundred uninvited clients made him nervous, he had never let other people around Queen Mary’s from doing what he wanted to do before. More than that, it made him wish he could kiss him right in the middle of the hallway - something he might actually have done if in that exact moment they would not have been pulled aside by Sarah to enter the room. 

‘Brian, Doctor Fisher is here to take you in and introduce you. Are you ready to go?’

Brian shared one look with John, who let go of his shoulders and gave him a comforting nod. ‘Absolutely,’ he answered, and he stepped away from the wall he no longer needed for either mental or physical support by now. He was ushered to the door opening, right in front of which he was reunited with the psychiatrist who had gone through the process of reassessment with him. Brian hadn’t seen him for a week or so now that the therapy sessions were over, but the smile on the man’s face and the firm handshake he received made him happy to see him back and be supported by him today.

‘I’ve worked day and night on these files, I’ll have you know,’ Fisher said with a nearly loving pat on the folder of documents he carried under his arm. ‘If this doesn’t bail you out, it won’t be for my lack of effort.’ Brian smiled and thanked him - even though he had not yet seen or heard a letter of the words Doctor Fisher had prepared for today, he knew he was in good hands with his help.

Upon stepping over the threshold of the door, Brian was blinded and deafened by the noise the people inside of it made. It was as if he was the defender of the world title at the Australian Open, the continent’s favourite act at the Eurovision, the Beatles upon first arriving at JFK airport - there was applause and screaming and all other sorts of noise coming from the left side of the room, which was densely packed with people in every single corner. A quick glance around told him that he did not know half of the audience, but the many smiling faces, the thumbs-up, and the applause they offered made knowing them unnecessary. It was the vibe of positivity and support they radiated that did it for Brian./

‘They’re here for you.’ For a moment Brian thought that he was imagining John saying these words to him, but he soon found that he was not - he turned around to find his boyfriend smiling up at him, grabbing his hand and give him a quick squeeze. ‘We’ll be in the audience. Whatever happens, know that I love you.’

‘I love you too,’ Brian beamed, giving his friends a quick wave before being taken up by Fisher and Queen Mary’s staff to ascend the three steps of the stage-like platform on the right side of the room, on which several desks had been pushed together to create the illusion of one long table in the style of a law court. It looked improvisational at best, as everything at Queen Mary’s did. Brian tried to prevent a chuckle as he followed Mister Fisher upstairs and faced the three-headed jury, which had gathered in front of their seats for the time being. A lady, perhaps in her late thirties or early forties, was the first member of the jury they came across.

Mister Fisher took it upon him to familiarise the entire crew to one another. ‘Miss Gerald, I’d like to introduce you to today’s client, Brian May.’ Brian felt like he was being presented as if he was the latest vacuum cleaner to be launched into the market, and tried not to laugh. He shook hands with the one that was extended towards him, and politely repeated his name to the woman.

‘Please allow any signs of nervousness he shows today,’ Nolan spoke on his behalf. ‘Due to - eh, communication errors, he was not aware that today was to be an open trial.’

Miss Gerald was nice enough about the matter, and told Brian (surprise surprise) that there was no need to be nervous, but that it was a very natural feeling to deal with in such a high profile situation. She also remarked that he did not seem all too nervous to her eyes; Brian was afraid that he was not doing too good of a job keeping his nervous giggles under control. Luckily it was Jasper who pointed out on his behalf that his jittery laughter was most likely to be a result of his nerves playing up. Nolan, Sarah, and Jasper were then properly introduced to Miss Gerald; Mister Fisher took his chance to take Brian to the second stop along the road of meeting the judges. 

Brian was introduced to a balding, spectacled man of near-retirement age with a low voice and stern expression, but his face became more friendly as he spoke up and smiled at Brian. His surname - Carlston or Carlman or something the like - did not stick with Brian for too long; which might be a result of the guy’s monotonous, slow way of speaking, or of the fact that he could see his third and biggest obstacle standing no more than five feet away from him. Doctor Sumner side-eyed him every so many seconds, but Brian ignored him for the time being. He was determined not to give his former psychiatrist a single indication of his nervousness concerning the power he possibly held over him - if anything, Brian had made up his mind, both for the sake of John and himself and everyone present in the room, that he was going to show him he was over him, and was no longer going to allow himself to be intimidated by the man who had put him here. It was his turn to triumph now. 

The talk with Carlston or Carlman over, Fisher took Brian to speak to Doctor Sumner, and leave the rest of his team to move on and speak to the second person in line. Brian felt his knees weakening a bit as he stepped towards Sumner, but he tried to make up for this by straightening his back and pulling the straightest, most no-nonsense (and perhaps somewhat bitchy) face he could produce.

‘And this man right here, Professor Sumner, I’ve been told you’ve met before,’ Mister Fisher said, obviously not aware of the tension between the two. Then again, no one standing on this platform apart from Sumner and Brian himself was aware of that, and he preferred to keep things that way for the time being. Something that did catch his attention, though, was the fact that his old psych was not addressed as a doctor anymore, but as a professor – something he quickly realised must have been an effect of him having promoted himself in scientific circles through his discovery of borderline personality disorder – at the cost of him and God knew how many more of his other patients. Brian felt his blood starting to boil, but he worked hard to keep his anger to himself.

‘I have indeed. Back when he was still a doctor and not a professor,’ Brian said with a perfectly cold civility. Copying Sumner’s behaviour, Brian’s eyes travelled up and down Sumner’s somewhat shorter frame, and eventually lingered on his face. It took a handful of seconds of tensed silence before Sumner was eventually the first to remove his hands from his back and reach one towards Brian. Brian reluctantly yet firmly gripped it. 

‘Brian May. I never thought we would meet each other so soon again,’ Sumner said with the fakest smile Brian had seen in a while. ‘Or at all, if I may be so honest.’

Brian knew all too well what he meant by this - that if it was up to him, Sumner would have him placed in a long-stay hospital to prevent him ever being able to convincingly tell his story of how Sumner had abused his power to make a living out of the suffering of Brian and undoubtedly more of his patients. The idea of countering Sumner and his wishes by going for a reassessment and pulling so far as to actually land himself into this trial gave Brian the last of determination he had been in need of to pull through today and give both Sumner and the entirety of Queen Mary’s the finger. 

‘Doctor Sumner,’ Brian said steadfastly, refusing to acknowledge the new title that had been acquired at the cost of him and others. ‘How delighted I am that you were able to spare us some of your time,’ Brian smiled icily. ‘You must be rather sought after the launch of your research papers these days.’ He could see Sumner tensing at the mention of the research papers of which he knew damn well he could be blacklisted for if the truth about them came out, but Brian’s enemy was quick to pull himself together. 

‘I am. But that does not prevent me from devoting some time to an old acquaintance who has played such a vital role in the making of said papers,’ he said easily. Brian, however, was even quicker to give his former psychiatrist an even easier yet snarkier answer. 

‘And who can similarly play a vital role in tearing them straight down again.’ It was a good thing that the crowd around them was still making such noise, and that Mister fisher seemed to have gone off to speak to the registrar sitting at the far end of the table, because Brian was unsure what would happen if any outsider was to overhear the obviously somewhat threatening conversation they were having. 

Sumner’s jaw clenched at hearing these words, and Brian could almost see the radars inside his brain spinning for an answer. He did not seem to be able to come up with anything, though, because after five seconds or so he simply asked: ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing extraordinary,’ Brian shrugged. ‘But how about you let me go and I let you go?’

Sumner’s face remained unreadable. He was obviously unhappy with the direction this discussion was heading into, but had little to say to defend himself - as was made obvious by his bland try at countering Brian.

‘I haven’t even heard your case yet.’

‘Don’t worry about it. I promise you that if anything, it’ll make you look suspicious if you don’t let me go,’ Brian said with more confidence than he felt inside. To prevent Sumner from being able to say anything that would bring him down again, Brian gave him an uncharacteristic and intimidating pat on the shoulder, spoke a nearly cruel ‘you know what to do’, and moved along to give his regards to the registrar. He left a bedazzled Sumner to greet his defence and figure out what to do with the part-promise, part-threat he had been dished out on his own. 

When the last of his entourage had shaken hands and exchanged words of welcome with the judges, Brian was guided down the steps again and given leave to sit down on one of the chairs facing the judges. As he turned his back on the jury and was faced with the audience, his eyes quickly darted around the room to locate the places where his friends and his parents had settled themselves. It was hard to spot them in the tumultuous scene in front of him, but he detected the pink sleeve of his mother’s dress as she held up her hand to wave at him soon enough. His father, sitting in a black suit next to her, also caught sight of him. Brian gave a bit of a smile and waved back at them, and the gesture was answered by a lot more people than just his parents. These people really are on my side, Brian thought to himself as he gave a wave directed at the other side of the room, which again was met with unbound enthusiasm. 

In fact, Brian did not make his regards to everyone because he was so pleased to have the entire population of the institution there, but because he hoped he could win some time to figure out the location of his friends also. They were a little harder to spot, given that they dressed in the same dark trousers and grey shirts as all the other clients, but they would not have been his friends had they not tried their very best to show themselves.

‘Briiiian! Honey, we’re here!’ Freddie’s voice was loud and bordered on obnoxiousness while Roger and he waved both their hands above their heads to attract Brian’s attention. It did work, though - and Brian felt a wave of relief passing through him when he found his three roommates sitting in the middle of the front row of the audience. He was unsure how they had found themselves such a desirable spot in the room, seeing as they had made their entrance rather late, but he figured that Freddie and Roger might have used their status as his best friends to persuade people to give them the best spot available. John sat beside them in a much more quiet fashion, and he smiled up at Brian and send a kissy hand his way. Brian, a bit too overwhelmed with the entire situation, clutched a hand against his heart to indicate that he had received the imaginary kiss.

Jasper, Nolan, and Sarah ascended the stairs, too, and took their seats on one of the five chairs across the judges’ table. Brian waved at his friends one more time, before he turned around and lowered himself in his chair. The plain wooden chair he was sitting on made him feel small when compared to the judges and their more luxurious leather desk chairs, but the presence of two of his supporters at either side of him - not to even mention a sea of people, including his parents, best friends, and his boyfriend behind him - made him feel a little stronger.

The noise in the room had not ceased in time with the key figures of the trial sitting down, so Miss Gerald made a point of clapping in her hands a number of times in a row in an attempt to quiet down the multitude. Not everyone seemed to either hear this or listen to it, so her efforts were joined by those of Doctor Sumner, who slammed a fist down on the desk in front of him. This at last seemed to have some effect.

‘Ladies and gentlemen! We’d like to start this session!’ he thundered in a voice louder than any of the ones Brian had heard in the meeting room, and the last of noise seemed to quiet down at this statement. Miss Gerald took the opportunity to stand up from her chair and wasted no time in opening the meeting.

‘Welcome everybody - my name is Edna Gerald, and together with my colleagues Professor Sumner and Mister Carlston, I seek to come to a verdict regarding a client of Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Institution’s appeal for a reassessment. Can Mister Brian May stand up, please?’

Brian, a little taken aback by the suddenness with which the introduction morphed into serious business, took a second before he pushed himself up on his somewhat wobbly legs - a feeling that did not pass at all when Miss Gerald went straight to making him promise a testimony of truth.

‘Do you confirm that all you tell us today will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?’

‘I promise. I mean- I confirm,’ Brian corrected himself clumsily. Off to a good start, he thought to himself, but the judges seemed not to mind or even notice. 

‘Thank you. We will start with the technical part of the process. Please state your full name and date of birth for the record,’ Miss Gerald ordered.

Brian cleared his throat. ‘My name is Brian Harold May and I was born on July 19, 1947.’

‘Place of birth?’

‘Homerton University Hospital in London.’

‘Names of your parents?’

‘Harold May and Ruth May-Irving.’

‘Correct,’ Miss Gerald stated after a look at the paper in front of her, as if she had been contemplating the possibility that Brian would be lying about his mother’s maiden name. ‘Now you, Brian Harold May, stand before a selection of members of the South East England Mental Health Facilitation, which is an independent organisation that oversees the working of Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Institution and similar places. You are here today, on September 15, 1971, because you filed for a reassessment which, in case it is approved, will grant you leave from the aforementioned institution.’ The formal way of talking made Brian feel more than just a little out of place, but he refused to show a sign of discomfort.

‘That is correct.’

Miss Gerald dived back into the files in front of her, scribbled something down, and took a moment to read. ‘According to the data provided to me, you were admitted into Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Institution on March 13, 1971. Is this correct?’

‘Yes.’ It took little time for Brian to establish this as being a fact. He still remembered the day and the week previous to it vividly - the establishment of the date he was to be taken in, his father allowing no backchat on the subject, his mum packing his back the night before as he could not be convinced to get up from his bed, being dragged out of the house and into the car, and being left behind at the institution. It was a date he would never be able to forget, whether he wanted to do so or not. 

‘And you have remained on the property of Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Institution ever since, without any breaks or intermissions?’ Miss Gerald went on to ask. 

‘Yes.’

‘Very good. Now is it true that you filed for a reassessment August 24, 1971, with the interference of a certain Nolan Ferrier?’

Brian gave a small glance at Nolan, who was sitting on his right side. It was true indeed that Nolan had applied for a reassessment on his behalf, but whether this had been on August 24, 25, or 29, was something Brian could not tell to save his life. Nolan gave a small nod, and Brian faced Miss Gerald again.

‘Correct.’

‘Can you describe what position Nolan Ferrier holds towards you?’

‘He is my mentor, and has been so from the day I was admitted into Queen Mary’s.’

‘Has Nolan Ferrier, or any other staff member of Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Institution, in any shape or form influenced you in your decision to go for a reassessment?’

‘He has not. None of them have,’ Brian said firmly, as to put this idea out of the way. 

‘Do you confirm that the reassessment that was filed on your behalf was filed through your own desire, as a result of your own wishes, that it was a decision made in a rational moment, and moreover is a decision which you still stand by?’

The first time I am to experience a rational moment has yet to happen, Brian thought to himself, but he decided that right now was not the proper moment for jokes. ‘I confirm all of this,’ he said with a straight face.

‘Very well,’ Miss Gerald shortly comment. ‘Now, lastly, you must confirm that you agree with and consent to the rules and regulations that apply to every reassessment appeal - which state that the decision to be made today is final, that an approval can be overturned if evidence surfaces which shows you deliberately forsook the truth at any point of this reassessment process; and that, in case of dismissal, a new reassessment will not be allowed to be filed for the upcoming 120 days. Do you agree with and consent to all of these regulations?’

Brian swallowed thickly - there were quite some rules he was submitting himself to that he did not feel entirely comfortable with. He knew that the decision today was final, but the idea that it could later be overturned if it turned out he had not told the truth entirely to the wishes of the jury made him nervous. Who was to decide what was the truth, or that he had deliberately made up his mind to withhold the truth from the judges? And what would happen if they caught him doing so - would he be chased down and dropped off behind the gates of Queen Mary’s again?

‘None of this will apply to you,’ Nolan whispered beside him, probably understanding the tension he found himself under. ‘You will get out today for once and for all.’

‘I agree with and consent to these regulations,’ Brian managed.

‘Thank you. You are excused for now.’ Brian gave a weak nod and allowed himself to sit back in his chair again. He was still a little fazed by all he had just been made to solemnly swear, even though all information he had been made to confirm or deny had been purely factual, and was just the start of the session. God knew what else he might be made to say later, God knew how long this meeting was going to last - maybe he should have practised more, maybe he should have prepared a speech as to the hows and whys of his reassessment-

‘We shall now bring forwards the first speaker on behalf of Mister May. Sarah Gaskell may step forwards, please.’

Sarah, who was seated next to Nolan, all but jumped up from her spot.

‘Miss Gaskell, you are likewise asked state your full name, date of birth, and to confirm that all you tell us today will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,’ Miss Gerald proceeded.

‘My name is Sarah Marie Gaskell, born on October 29 1942, and I confirm that all I will tell you today will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.’ Sarah did not falter a single time, as she was asked about her position concerning Brian, the sessions they had sat through together, and Brian’s overall mental health. Brian felt himself growing somewhat uncomfortable as his psychiatrist spoke of the impact Jimmy’s death had had on him - not just because he did not enjoy having the deepest pits he had fallen into discussed so openly, but also because the judges seemed altogether surprised at the mentioning of a suicide by hanging at Queen Mary’s mere months ago. Miss Gerald and Mister Carlston bowed their heads together, and Sumner brought out a folder through which he started flicking with earnest. It suddenly dawned on Brian that the ‘incident’ might very well never have been reported to the healthcare inspection, and that Sarah had, unbeknownst to herself, exposed a secret that Queen Mary’s had been eager to keep. 

Good for them, Brian thought dimly. Let them try to talk themselves out of sweeping a suicide-leaning-on-murder case under the carpet.

After a minute or so of hushed conversation, the matter was dropped - for the time being - and Sarah was again questioned about her contact with Brian and the progress she thought her client had made. She answered all the questions with enthusiasm, and stood proud and confident before the judges. Brian wondered if she had practised her speech - because with this being the first case of reassessment to pull through to the final trial, she could not have had a lot of practice beforehand. 

‘Miss Gaskell, in your professional opinion, do you think your client is ready to be released from Queen Mary’s and return to society?’ the main judge eventually asked in quite a straightforward fashion.

‘I do,’ Sarah smiled.

‘Why then, miss Gaskell, did you not propose the idea of letting him go yourself?’ Miss Gerald asked her critically. ‘You, after all, are his psychiatrist. If you thought him to be ready to be released from Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Institution, then why did you not propose this yourself and followed the standard procedure of dismissing a client once their trial is completed?’ It was a tough question - one Brian personally would not know how to answer convincingly if he had been in his psychiatrist’s place. Luckily, Sarah seemed to know exactly what she was doing, as her smile did not falter for a split second when she answered.

‘I understand your concern for Brian having come up with the idea of a reassessment on his own, rather than waiting until we as his caretakers filed for him to be dismissed,’ Sarah acknowledged. ‘And whereas I will admit that upon first hearing about his reassessment I was surprised, as his trial - as I had planned it out on paper - had not been finished yet. But when I thought about it a little more, it dawned on me that the trial I had planned out, was not at all linked to the progress Brian had made. In fact, his progress during the past few months has been so rapid that the psychiatric sessions I had planned out for him lag behind tremendously. My plans do not correspond to his current needs anymore.’ Sarah paused for a second. ‘In fact, as I’ve come to think of it, I think all that Queen Mary’s has to offer simply does not correspond to Mister May’s needs anymore. He has made such progress and gained such mental stability over the period of his stay here at Queen Mary’s, that I am afraid there is little to nothing more we can offer him here.’

‘I see,’ Mister Carlston took over from his colleague when Miss Gerald simply looked at him. ‘And do you not think that his progress could be carried even further if he was to remain at Queen Mary’s for, let’s say, the duration your original planning for him therapy-wise would have lasted?’

Sarah was quick to tear down this idea before it was able to plant its roots into anyone’s mind. ‘Quite the opposite. I’m afraid that keeping Mister May here, against his own wishes, would have a negative effect rather than a positive one on him and his condition.’

‘Thank you, miss Gaskell. You can sit down again.’ Sarah gave a small nod and settled next to Nolan again. Brian tried to catch a glimpse of her to shoot her a grateful smile for the words she had given in defence of his wishes, but as the judges wasted no time in moving on, Brian pulled his eyes into the direction of the jury again.

‘Now we would like to have Nolan Ferrier come forward to inform us on Brian’s behaviour according to the official records that have been kept during his stay at Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Hospital until this day.’ 

Nolan got up from his chair, repeated his name and date of birth for the record, swore the same oath that Brian and Sarah had done before him - and started on an anthology of Brian’s good behaviour, which included acts of generosity towards fellow patients and kindness and obedience to the staff of Queen Mary’s. The sheer act of listening to it made Brian cringe a little - it was awkward to have to sit by and listen to Nolan praising him as if he was Jesus Christ incarnated. Besides, Brian realised all too well that he was no saint. He had had his fair share of missing mealtimes to go outside with John, skipping drug tests by finding shelter in John’s hiding place, paying zero attention during group therapy, running out of Sarah’s office or plainly not talking to her for an entire session in the aftermath of Jimmy’s death, and getting wound up in a fight with Drew within days of being admitted into Queen Mary’s. Luckily, Nolan mentioned none of these events - and when asked to explain Brian’s absence during perhaps three or four breakfast- and lunch moments, he was able to explain them away with illness, obligations elsewhere, and similar excuses. The questions from the judge were few, as the official records showed little accounts of Brian having disobeyed the rules and regulations - and within five minutes, Nolan was thanked and invited to sit down again to make room for Jasper.

Jasper’s session was even shorter, if still possible. Despite getting to see Brian nearly every day, he was not able to say too much about him personally, as he had always experienced Brian in the context of a group only. Brian was relieved, though, that Jasper described him as respectful and cooperative, and did not mention any of the countless times when Brian had drifted off, usually with the help of John, to topics they found to be more interesting than the thought schemes or positive thinking assignments or whatever it had been that Jasper had prepared for the therapy sessions.

Mister Fisher was then addressed and asked to share his experiences of Brian’s illness, behaviour, and capability of returning to society already. He gave his report of the weeks he’d spend examining Brian and his motives for leaving Queen Mary’s - the ones on paper, that was. Brian had decided it was probably not the best of ideas to tell them he wanted to leave this shithole behind in time with his boyfriend, because something told him that the judges might not see this as a valid reason to be excused from a mental health clinic at all, even though matters were of course a little more complicated than Brian just wanting to leave and be with John for the hell of it. They needed each other - but that was not something he expected random strangers to understand. 

Luckily, Fisher did not speak of John other than mentioning him, together with Freddie and Roger, as being the closest friends his client had made while at Queen Mary’s. This in turn seemed to be meant to convince the jury of Brian’s improved social skills and capabilities, but besides this, Brian was not too sure what they spoke about. As soon as they brought up the DSM and it’s technical medical terms - boundary conditions and parthopsychological processes and cluster symptoms and similar phrases - he found himself zooming out somewhat. He forced himself to keep his gaze in front of him, afraid that any sort of sign of disinterest might later be held against him. Still, he was relieved when the judges thanked Mister Fisher for his input and allowed him to sit back down again.

Although… Now that everyone around him had been questioned apart from he himself, Brian had a feeling that he was going to be the next victim of the judges.

‘Lastly we will hear the client himself. Mister May?’

Oh, Lord. Here we go.

Suppressing the tendency to first have a look at the people sitting around him to check their reactions, see if they had any comforting words or gestures for him before he stood up for his ordeal, Brian got up, straightened the least faded grey shirt Freddie had been able to pluck from the laundry room, and faced up to the judges. There was some applause and cheering behind him, but the guards quickly managed to calm everyone down again - which was a first by Queen Mary’s standards, Brian thought dimly. 

‘Now, we’ve heard everyone speak so positively about your progress here at Queen Mary’s, we’ve read your statements and your motivation for leaving Queen Mary’s early, and your plans for picking up your life again after you return to society…’ Miss Gerald summed up, and Brian instinctively felt that, despite this not sounding too bad, a but to all of this was going to come up. 

He turned out to be right. 

‘But what I’m really interested in is your diary segments,’ Miss Gerald said as she flicked through the notebook Mister Fisher must have handed over to her during a prior contact with the judges. ‘In particular the mentioning of a certain individual who goes by the name John, and who seems to pop up in every single diary segment.’

John. Oh God, this really could go in any possible direction from this point onward.

‘Yes,’ Brian said sheepishly, not knowing what exactly would be a meaningful reply to this statement.

Miss Gerald pushed her glasses a little higher up her nose. ‘Now, I’ve been informed by Mister Fisher that this refers to a fellow client at Queen Mary’s whose name is John Deacon. Is this correct?’

‘That is correct.’ So far so good. 

‘I’ve also been told that this John Deacon has recently been given leave from Queen Mary’s,’ Miss Gerald read from the paper in front of her. ‘And that you, in fact, asked for a reassessment from Queen Mary’s the day you heard about his dismissal.’ Miss Gerald looked up at Brian with stern eyes, and Brian, even though he knew he should look back at her, could not muster the courage to do so. It was time to say goodbye to so far so good - this question was turning the session straight into the conversation he had been fearing for all along. And it was not because he was afraid of talking about what John meant to him and the role he played in his life - hell, he would proudly talk of his love, affection, trust, and friendship with John until the cows came home. 

The only problem was that he was afraid the judges would see it as a sign of weakness to depend on one person so much, and more than that, that they would flatly turn down his appeal for reassessment if they found out that it was largely based on wanting to follow his boyfriend outside of Queen Mary’s. Besides, he had not at all forgotten that even though homosexuality had been legalised back when he had been in his second year of university, it still very much was classified as a mental illness. He knew there were progressive psychiatrists out there, but with an old and possibly conservative man like Mister Carlston, and Sumner probably still wanting to keep him behind the bars of Queen Mary’s if so possible, Brian did not dare risk it.

Still, he had a feeling he could not hide the truth for much longer - because there was the voice of miss Gaskell again, urging him to answer her questions.

‘Is this correct?’

‘Yes,’ Brian confirmed in the smallest voice.

‘Would you say that your wish to leave Queen Mary’s is in any way related to John Deacon’s dismissal of the place?’

‘Yes,’ Brian said.

‘To what extent?’ 

Brian felt his heart starting to beat faster. He knew that on the one hand he could make up a story around the importance John had played in his filing for a reassessment, but he was terrified of being found out (hell, the evidence that John meant the world to him was easily to be discovered in that diary for everyone who could somewhat read between the lines). He had never been good at lying, and especially not under pressure, especially not in the presence of so many people, and with the prospect of ruining such important chances. To tell the truth about John, however, might be the equivalent of digging his own grave.

‘Mister May?’ The voice, this time of Mister Carlston, was kind but demanding. The judges wanted an answer, an honest answer, and Brian could no longer withhold it from them.

‘To the extent that... I would not have left if he had not been dismissed,’ Brian admitted. He himself had thought his voice to be quite soft, but it had obviously been loud enough for a substantial amount of people sitting behind him to comment on this to their neighbours. Brian could not overhear their words, but he had a feeling that people were not exactly supportive of what he had just admitted.

The judges, despite sending each other some sideways glances, remained neutral and professional - which, Brian decided, was worse in some ways, as he could not at all make up from their reactions what they were thinking. ‘So you want to leave largely, if not solely, because John Deacon is leaving.’

‘Yes.’

‘You previously said, though, that your decision to leave Queen Mary’s was not influenced by anyone else,’ Miss Gerald said. ‘You said that after having sworn testimony.’

‘That is incorrect,’ Brian said, facing the judge at last now that he had found a loophole in her own words. ‘I swore testimony, and denied that any of the staff members had in any way influenced my decision to file for a reassessment. That is what you said, madam.’ Excited mumbling arose from the room behind him, and Miss Gerald looked from her left to her right as to find the answer in one of her male co-workers. Neither of them seemed to be able to offer her any help in the matter, so she turned to the registrar at the separate table on the left side of the stage. 

‘Can the registrar please go over the notes to recall what was said?’

The man, who seemed a little uneasy now that a room full of people shifted their focus to him all of the sudden, started looking over pages of notes. He eventually coughed and answered: ‘The client is right, Miss Gerald. Following your question, Mister May denied that any staff member had played a role in his decision.’

More noise behind him, and the hand of Nolan on his shoulder as a sign of support. Brian felt his heart beating faster, even though he knew it was irrational to be so excited over a small win like this. True, he had beaten the judge with her own words and was not guilty of having lied to her - but as soon as she went back to the discussion of him wanting to leave because of someone else, Brian knew he would be royally fucked again.

‘Alright. My mistake - I apologise,’ Miss Gerald said a little coolly, obviously not happy about having to admit her wrong publicly. ‘Nevertheless, the point still stands. Your decision to leave Queen Mary’s is thus not solely based on your firm belief you are ready to return to society, but also on the fact that Mister Deacon is leaving.’

‘Correct,’ Brian said. 

‘We have a lot to unpack here,’ the woman said, took a clean sheet of paper from her notebook, and asked: ‘How would you describe your relationship towards Mister Deacon?’

Alright. Your relationship with John. Let’s be careful now, but make them understand how much he means to you nevertheless. If they do want to lead you down this path, better make them understand how important John is to you and to your healing process. ‘He’s my roommate. My therapy partner. My best friend - my better half,’ Brian summed up.

‘Your most intimate friend, one could say?’ Doctor Sumner asked.

Brian stifled the little smile that tugged at his lips at this word choice that was not as innocent in his ears as it must be to the rest of the judges. ‘One could certainly say that.’

‘And you met Mister Deacon here at Queen Mary’s, without having any prior knowledge of his existence?’ Sumner asked.

‘Indeed.’

‘What role has he played in your life here at Queen Mary’s since you met him?’ Miss Gerald asked him.

Brian smiled. ‘Even though I was hesitant upon first meeting him, because he was rather reserved and snobby towards our other roommates, I knew right from the start that he was the one. The one I’d get on with best, and the one who would drag me through my time here at Queen Mary’s. You see, I was in a bad place, and so was he - we both weren’t keen on social contact, or going out and showing our face to anyone, but we found comfort in each other. We shared the same room and the same therapy group, so we spent a lot of time together automatically. And that time… made us realise we wanted to be together in the remainder of the time also. During mealtimes, and in the medicine queue, going outside - we went everywhere together. We still do.’

There was silence for a moment after this report; Mister Carlston broke it eventually. ‘So you could say John Deacon has played a large role in your daily life here?’

‘Absolutely. The largest role of all the people here at Queen Mary’s.’

‘The largest role, you say?’ Sumner asked. ‘Do you mean that to be understood in a social context?’

‘I mean it in every context,’ Brian said. ‘In a social context, leisure time-wise, but also support-wise and coping-wise. Healing wise.’

‘Should it not be your psychiatrist, or therapy leader, or even your mentor, to have the largest role in your mental state?’ Sumner sounded sceptical and a bit intimidating, as if he was not hearing the answers he wanted to hear. Brian, however, was not going to let Sumner get to him the way he had previously managed to do.

‘Perhaps it should have been,’ Brian shrugged. ‘But apart from the fact that I only got to see them a handful of hours a week, they just never could have done what John has done for me. In fact, I’m sure I could have been shackled to my psychiatrist during my entire stay at Queen Mary’s, and still she could not have had the same influence on me as John has had. They never could have lifted me up and comfort me and help me the way John has done.’

‘And what- how could it be that John could have this influence on you if the professional staff could not?’ Miss Gerald asked him. The question made Brian smile a little - because it was such a typical question someone who had never reached the lows he had done himself would ask. People who had never been down and out the way he had been, would not understand the importance a friend who was there with you, really with you both mentally and physically, could have on you. 

‘Because they never would have understood me the way John did,’ Brian said. ‘I’m sure my psychiatrists trained for years to learn every disorder out there, and know the entire DSM by heart, but they cannot teach themselves an understanding of mental illness the way someone experiences it. The only one to understand the loneliness and the feeling of being inadequate and the depths of depression, is the one who has been there themselves.’

‘But John is not the only one with depressive symptoms around at Queen Mary’s,’ Sumner remarked. ‘Why is it him specifically that you turned to?’

‘Because… John was so different from me, and yet I could see so much of myself in him. Unlike me he needed no validation from others at all, but we could both do with someone to either talk to or be completely quiet and just be there when we needed it. He told everyone exactly what he thought of them when I would let everyone walk right over me, but we both knew what sort of support the other needed and when they needed it. It just became clear to me within a few days that we would understand each other always. Which we did, and do, to this point and onwards,’ Brian took a second of rest and waited for the judges to pick up the cross-examination again. When they didn’t, however, he added to his statement: ‘You know, chemistry between people is hard to explain. But when it’s there, you will feel it, and you act accordingly.’

‘I guess one does,’ Miss Gerald repeated, a furrow on her forehead which Brian did not know if it was one of deep understanding or utter miscomprehension of all he had just said. ‘So… Mister Deacon and you, you have always been this close while at Queen Mary’s?’

‘We have been.’

‘So when you heard that he was to leave…’ 

‘I was heartbroken,’ Brian finished the sentence. ‘Devastated, really. Well, both of us were - especially him. He wouldn’t just have to leave behind me, but the entire life he had built up around Queen Mary’s in the past two years.’

‘And that’s when you decided, let’s go for it, let me file for a reassessment and get out of here together?’ Doctor Sumner said with a waving hand gesture, as to denote the suddenness and shallowness with which he assumed the decision has been made. Brian felt his face retort at the probably deliberate attempt of Sumner at making him look like a rash teenager, but he kept his cool and faced him with a stone-cold expression as he re-explained the matter in more detail. 

‘It was when I, after having thought a good deal about the… rather precarious situation John would find himself in once he would be dismissed from Queen Mary’s - you see, he has no family ties he can rely on, no close friends outside of this place after years of social isolation, no funds to rely on of places to go to - it was then that I decided that it would be in the best interest for the both of us if I would leave with John.’

Sumner did not seem to back away from his antics, unfortunately. ‘How exactly is it the best for the both of us, when you seem to discard your own mental needs completely for the sake of someone who was testified to be ready to stand on his own legs again?’ 

‘Funny you should ask that,’ Brian smiled. ‘Because I know that you see this reassessment as being all about me and all about what’s best for me - and that it’s hard to imagine that the influence of a person besides myself can play a large role in that. But the truth is that the individuals surrounding one, and their well-being, do have a large impact on the well-being of the person who cares about them. Would you agree with me on this, Doctor Sumner?’ Brian posed the question right back at Sumner, who seemed a bit taken aback. ‘Would you agree that the happiness of your loved ones have an impact on your own happiness, Doctor Sumner?’ he clarified - not just to make things a bit clearer for his audience, but also to make Sumner look just a little stupid for not following at once, and, in case he would deny this statement, make him look like a cold-blooded person.

‘I would agree,’ Sumner eventually said, although not with much enthusiasm.

‘Great. Then you might see how John, who is my best friend, and his well-being, is… is crucial to me. Absolutely crucial. I could not imagine being happy without knowing that John is happy - or at least to have them there with me so I can be with him if he is not. John has come to mean so much to me that I… could not do without him, and the same applies to him. Our state of mind is irrevocably linked - we could not be happy if we knew the other lived in misery.’ Brian’s heart was thundering away in his chest by the time he had spoken all of this, but it had been worth it - Sumner seemed to have been silenced, even if it was just for the time being. Sumner opened his mouth, then closed it again. He eyed Brian for a handful of intense seconds, but it was Sumner himself who eventually lost the staring battle as he looked for aid in his co-workers.

Miss Gerald was quick to compose herself. ‘This is interesting, Mister May. Were you not diagnosed with borderline personality disorder? Which - correct me if I’m wrong - is characterised by an immense dependency on- and idolisation of people around the afflicted?’

‘That is correct,’ Brian confirmed. ‘And I do not rule out the possibility that part of my dependency on John might be caused by my mental affliction. But against that, I would like to raise the argument that on the one hand, I have been in a close but very stable friendship with John over a period of more than six months - which, as Doctor Sumner can tell you, denotes a bond deeper and more stable than connections typically formed with underlying borderline patterns do.’ Brian could practically feel Sumner’s eyes glaring right through him, but he ignored the stares - or perhaps even took them as an encouragement. ‘And on the other hand, I have no tendency to idolise John, and can see his faults fairly as far as he has

 been nervous before about this latter fact, the presence of the entire institution on top of that

them. We’ve had an… incident concerning a diary at one point, and I also was not entirely happy when he used force to distance himself from me during a very tensed moment,’ Brian admitted, even though it hurt a little to share these moments with the entire room. ’Besides, I have no desire to push him away and pull him back, to test his loyalty as a friend, I do not react with jealousy when other people claim his attention, and am not afraid he will desert me if he leaves my side for whatever reason. We can talk about so much, and I am not afraid of telling him my opinion. Does that not sound like a healthy friendship, Doctor Sumner?’ Brian tried his best not to cock his head daringly into the direction of the psychiatrist, who he could see clench- and unclench his jaw even through the distance between them. 

‘That’s… That sounds like a healthy friendship,’ Doctor Sumner allowed. ‘Nevertheless I am sceptical of you being able to fully understand the implications of leaving Queen Mary’s permanently over someone else.’

‘Just like I am sceptical of you being able to fully understand the consequences of me having to live here, against my will, while knowing that my best friend is out there without the help he needs and deserves,’ Brian shot right back at Sumner. Then, in a tone more approachable to the jury in its entirety, he said: ‘No one else can help me the way John can. I know it’s hard to believe as an outsider, but I know I would not be doing as great as I am doing right now if it had not been for John, and that my progress will take a huge beating if I cannot continue to have him in my life. He is the best thing Queen Mary’s has brought me. By choosing for John I am choosing for myself - going through life with him by my side. He does more for me and my healing process than any medicine or therapist could ever accomplish.’ 

‘That is a bold statement to make,’ Sumner said, but his voice sounded weak and defenceless. Brian therefore did not doubt a second to tear it down again.

‘The truth can be bold at times, but that does not mean I should not speak it,’ Brian replied. ‘But here’s the thing. Medication is temporary, therapists work with you for a number of sessions, but in the end you will have to design your life yourself - you have to make yourself happy, and make the choices that enable you to be happy. And for me, this is John. He enables me to be happy and to live my life the way I never thought I’d ever be able to live it again in the midst of my depression. John is the best thing Queen Mary’s has brought me, the best choice I’ve made in my life, and I know he will support me long after my time at Queen Mary’s, whether that ends after today or later down the line, is over.’ 

Silence again - for a few seconds, before the first claps of applause landed behind him. A guard tried to shush it, but this only seemed to encourage more people to join in on the applause, until eventually whistles and shouts of support filled the room on top of this. Brian could tell by the gestures the judges and the staff around him made towards the audience that they were not exactly pleased with the behaviour of the crowd, but he personally felt too much of a rush of relief and ecstasy to really mind. In fact, he even allowed himself to turn his head around and catch a glimpse at the audience - or, more specifically - catch a glimpse at John. Their eyes locked for a second, and their smiles grew wider.

These people are here to support you. Brian could see it in John’s eyes, and he believed him.

Eventually the guards managed to calm everyone down again by threatening to throw out the people who would not listen to the order of being quiet, and the attention was focussed on the judges again.’

‘Thank you for your report, Mister May,’ Miss Gerald said, obviously not too pleased that she had been interrupted in her previous attempts of acknowledging her client’s contribution to the case. ‘We would not like to retreat shortly to discuss our judgement.’ Brian nodded, and the judges stood up from their chairs - but as this invited everyone in the audience to do so, too, Miss Gerald held up her hand and said, rather loudly to make sure she would be heard: ‘We will be back soon, and we would like to ask everyone to remain in their seat and be quiet.’ With this, she followed her co-workers and descended the stairs. They disappeared through the door with a bundle of paperwork under their arms, to be seen back in what could not have been more than five minutes.

How he managed to keep his cool during these five minutes, however, was something which Brian could not figure out when he would later look back on it. All the tension of having to listen to speeches about himself, having other people answer questions on his behalf, being cross-examined by three people… It all disappeared from his body and mind the second the judges left the room - only to be replaced by the stress of now having to await the judgement. 

And boy, it was as if he was the only one nervous about the judgement. Nolan and Jasper enthusiastically started chatting both to him and to each other to talk about how well the meeting had gone down, and Sarah stood up to enthusiastically share some words with Mister Fisher. They all seemed completely convinced that the jury was going to judge in his advantage, but Brian himself was not too sure about it as of yet. He had managed to deliver some pretty strong answers, yes, but to questions that he had been hoping would not be posed. He had also been able to quiet down the judges in their doubts about him leaving for the right reasons, but would they take this as a sign of strength, or as plain rudeness and dislike for authority? What if they’d publicly declare him to be an insolent, insane adolescent, who had a whole lot to learn still before he’d ever be allowed to walk through the gates of Queen Mary’s?

‘Brian?’ 

A hand continuously poking his shoulder brought Brian back to the present, where Jasper was trying to catch his attention. ‘Brian? Freddie is trying to get your attention. I think he wants to congratulate you on how well you did.’ There was a broad smile on Jasper’s face, but all Brian could do was stare back blankly and wonder how anyone could be so optimistic about a judgement that had not been made public yet. 

‘Brian, turn around! Come ooon!’ It was Roger’s quasi-annoyed voice that eventually made Brian lull his head around, but he did not dare turn around in his seat, just in case the jury would return early. He knew it was irrational, but for some reason he felt that they might alter their judgement of him if they walked back into the room to find him having moved in his seat when they had been told to stay where they were. Then again, if they were to return now, Brian looking over his shoulder was likely to not even catch their eye. With the chaos around him - people standing up, walking around, talking and yelling and making noise even louder than that - it seemed unlikely that Miss Gerald would even notice his small deed of disobedience. Not now that guards were literally trying to prevent people from going up to him or singing loud songs he vaguely remembered from football games, at any rate.

‘You did so well, darling!’ Freddie beamed upon having Brian face his way, and Brian gave him the smallest of a smile. 

‘You totally killed those judges. They’re currently out there trying to repair whatever’s left of their ego!’ Roger laughed and Freddie joined him, but Brian felt his smile fade a bit. He knew Roger meant it as a compliment, to help him feel better, but Brian interpreted it as further proof that he might have offended the judges with his fierceness to protect his case. 

Between the laughter and the triumph of the couple, however, was one face that remained still, just like Brian’s - and that was John, who looked at his partner in quiet admiration.

‘You did better than I ever could have hoped for,’ John said. ‘I’m so proud of you.’

Brian swallowed, and just nodded in response. He had no words to match these sentences that were so much meaningful than Freddie’s and Roger’s attempts at boosting his pride, or Jasper’s and Nolan’s easy confidence towards the judgement. What he could do, however, was turn around in his chair just a little more, and reach out a hand towards his boyfriend. While Freddie and Roger - and seemingly the rest of the room, too - amused themselves with loud chatter and easy jokes, John and he entangled their fingers in mid-air, and looked at each other with a fondness Brian had not believed was possible had he not witnessed it himself at that moment.

He did not know for how long they stayed like that, or how many people saw them share this moment - Brian just remembered the sound of the door opening, and swiftly letting go of John’s hand to settle down in his chair again. Whether the judges saw him in his hurry to comply to the rules again, he guessed he’d never find out; by the time they were in sight they looked positively annoyed by the mayhem in which they arrived. Brian saw Sumner call for a guard and admonish him for being unable to keep the peace, and Carlston gestured to the crowd to behave themselves - to little or no avail, that was. In the end, it took Miss Gerald repeatedly smashing a folder of papers against the desktop before people looked her way and possibly even realised the judges had returned in the first place.

‘So, now that we have your attention...’ There was an unmistakable hint of irritation in her voice. ‘We would like to move on to the judgement of this trial. So if everyone could sit back down and be silent, it’d be much appreciated.’ Despite the biting sarcasm of Miss Gerald’s voice, people did listen to her - and her wish for order was granted in what seemed like a heartbeat. It was perhaps a bit too fast for Brian’s liking; the conclusion of this trial was coming upon him so soon all of a sudden, and he was unsure if he could deal with it. He had no choice, though - not when he was asked to stand up from his chair to hear the judgement that the three people currently in charge of his fate had come to. 

Feeling that everyone in the world was looking at him, Brian stood up on wobbly knees. Nolan made an offer of standing up with him, but Brian politely brushed it off - this was something he had to do on his own. 

‘Brian May,’ Miss Gerald started, which made the last of voices even out into the all-surrounding silence. ‘On August 24, 1971, you filed for a reassessment of your stay at Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Institution until your psychiatrist would dismiss you. Today on September 24, we - Professor Sumner, Mister Carlston, and I myself, Edna Gerald - were sent on behalf of the South East England Mental Health Facilitation to reassess your case.’ Miss Gaskell paused for a second, which gave Brian the opportunity to wonder if repeating the entire setting was part of an official protocol, or if she just enjoyed making him more nervous than he was already. ‘With the help of both written and spoken statements of Sarah Gaskell, clinical psychiatrist; Nolan Ferrier, client mentor and qualified nurse; Jasper Vee, therapist; Jim Fisher, independent psychiatrist; and the client himself, we were able to come to a final judgement in line with the protocol regarding early dismissal of mentally afflicted persons.’

Come on! Hurry up! Brian was rather sure he could hear some people voicing their impatience with the endless taunting of the head of the committee representants in the back of the room. He felt a surge of relief that someone was finally saying what had been on his mind ever since the judges had returned to the meeting room, but at the same time he heavily disagreed, since he was not at all ready to receive the final note to this judgement. He knew he could not stop the tide, and while he was aching to finally hear what the judges had to say, he at the same time wished it had been socially acceptable to cover his ears with his hands and run out of the room. He performed neither of these actions, of course, and instead took to chewing on his lower lip while Miss Gerald covered some more factual trivialities while actively ignoring the sighs and protests from the crowd.

‘... and we have tried our utmost to adhere to all the rules and regulations, both from our employer, from the British Mental Health Association, and from the law of the kingdom under which we operate. Then, as for our judgement,’ Miss Gerald switched to the topic everyone had been waiting for, and Brian, although he could not see what was happening either next to or behind him, could swear he could sense everyone moving to sit on the tip of their chair. 

Miss Gerald opened yet another folder and addressed Brian by his full name. ‘Brian Harold May… Upon first receiving your case we felt sceptical, as we, if my co-workers allow me to speak on behalf of all of us, always do. You see, there is a reason why psychiatrists are the ones to dismiss their patients from their care, and not the patients themselves. Psychiatrists studied to understand mental progress and regress, they know the difference between having a good mental state or simply having a good mental day, they can calculate the risks and advantages of releasing their patients, which is something the patient, being obsessed only with being released from the grips of mental health care, does not see.’ Brian was not entirely sure how happy he was with this condescending, prejudiced outlook on mentally ill people, but it did not seem like he would be was given the chance of objecting, for Miss Gerald blabbered on. 

‘Reassessment is meant for people who fear they are being kept in mental health facilities for too long, because their caretakers mistreat them and disregard their freedom. But as Queen Mary’s has never been known as a place of malpractices, we found it unlikely that you would have a fair point. Nevertheless, as our position required us to treat every appeal for reassessment without prejudice, we looked into it - after all, we would not have been here if we hadn’t.’ Miss Gaskell flashed Brian a smile as if it was somehow funny that her precalculated opinions on mentally ill people and her opinion of when reassessment was valid potentially could have cost him his chance of leaving early, if it had not been for the official policy of her position.

‘We then found that the case you submitted, together with the motivation from your psychiatrist, mentor, and therapist made sense - especially because your caretakers supported you,’ Miss Gerald told the audience, which again did not give Brian the best of feelings. ‘Mister Fisher’s report, and the diary segments and everything you submitted, all convinced us you were a strong and largely recovered individual ready to be released and pick up your life again outside of Queen Mary’s.’ Miss Gerald smiled, so Brian smiled back at her - but he regretted it instantly when she dropped the next line. ‘You can imagine what a disappointment it was to us when, upon hearing you out today, we discovered that you’d gone for a reassessment simply because your best friend was going to leave.’

Brian felt his heart sink in his chest, could hear his pulse in the complete silence the room fell into. This was what he had been afraid of all along - that the judges were going to use his arguments of wanting to leave for the sake of both John and himself against him now that they had found out about it and had made him open up about the topic. They found him weak, clingy, dependent; all a borderline sufferer was supposed to be according to the books so conveniently largely written by Doctor Sumner. 

All the reasons why he should stay at Queen Mary’s for as long as possible. 

As Brian brought up one hand to wipe at the suddenly moist area around his eyes, he suddenly noticed that the silence around him had broken up. There was no more soundlessness in the meeting room - sound of protest and outright booing were aimed at the judges, who Brian could see from the corners of his eyes tried to hush people with hand gestures of some sort, to little avail.

‘However,’ Miss Gerald started, but she dropped her sentence when the booing got louder the second she opened her mouth. ‘I’m not done talking yet!’ she all but exclaimed, and crossed her arms over her chest as to demonstrate her refusal to speak up until the crowd had calmed down again. Brian heard the guards behind him urging people to be quiet, which they eventually did when they were reminded they were making tension worse for Brian. Even if the judges did not, the audience supported his case still, apparently.

‘As I wanted to say - however, whereas my co-workers and I were at first sceptical of your dependency on Mister John Deacon, you convinced us through your well-founded rhetoric that you are not just a puppet clinging to someone else, but that your best friend is- an extension of all you have to offer, and the other way around.’ At these carefully positive words, Brian allowed himself to look up at the judges - at least two of which now bore a kinder look on their face than they had before. ‘We have come to see that you do not simply lean on John Deacon for all you do, but that he is there to lend you a hand when you need one, and vice versa. In your time together at Queen Mary’s you have formed a friendship founded on mutual love and trust that we hope will last a lifetime.’ As Miss Gerald smiled at him, Brian returned the favour - and this time, he was not let down as soon as he did so.

‘A bond like the one you built up with John Deacon is one to be cherished, and one to continue building upon. Even though we have never met him in person, we can tell through your stories and descriptions that Mister Deacon brought you to the point where you are today. And the point where you are today… seems to us as a point where it would be in your favour to follow Mister Deacon in his journey of establishing his life again.’

Miss Gerald’s voice died out for a moment, and left Brian with a lingering buzz in his ears. He tried to comprehend all that he had just been told, but he could not make sense of it - the overwhelmingly positive vibe of the speech had excited him, and the praise in which John’s and his ‘friendship’ had been showered had made him hopeful. But what exactly did Miss Gerald just tell him? Following Mister Deacon in his journey of establishing his life again?

Did that mean…?

Brian turned to Nolan, then back to the judges, and then to Nolan again. ‘Does that-’ he squeaked rather helplessly, making a vague gesture of the hand which he could not make out the meaning of himself.

‘So what- what is your final judgement on the client’s- this reassessment case, Miss Gerald?’ Nolan asked. He tried hard not to stumble over his own words, but in his current fit of enthusiasm, he didn’t succeed - not that anyone cared as they heard the reply of the judge.

‘Our unanimous judgement is that if Mister May promises to continue his medication and weekly therapy sessions to help him beat his depression and manage his borderline, we approve of his reassessment, and of him being put in the accelerated dismissal trajectory that will allow him to return home anywhere between seven to fourteen days from today.’ 

All of the words related to protocols, trajectories, and conditions completely missed Brian - all he could hear were those five words, that one little sentence that set him free.

We approve of his reassessment.

We approve of his reassessment!

Brian clamped a hand over his mouth and sank back into his chair as the meaning of these words reached him. All of these last few weeks, all of the effort, the diaries, the forms, the therapy sessions, the tension, the stress, the hope and the despair - it all amounted to this one moment, this one sentence that would release both him and John from a foreseeable future without each other. This was the moment that set them both free from all their anxieties, their fears, and their desperation.

This was the moment their real life together could begin.

The crowd behind Brian had erupted in noise - yelling, clapping, cheering, the sound of chairs scratching the carpeted surface of the floor, people high fiving and walking around and congratulating each other. He felt the hands of people on his back to give him a pat on the shoulder or to full-on hug him from the back in an attempt to congratulate him on the outcome of his case. He heard Jasper telling people to keep their distance, and most of all, their calm - one when neither of those worked, it was Nolan who pulled him to his feet to go and thank the judges. 

It was at this exact moment that he was half-dragged towards the podia that Brian realised that he had not gotten to hug or even share a word with his friends yet - or, even more scandalous, he had not even been able to look at his boyfriend. Brian thus made quick work of treading up the few steps of stairs and shake hands with the three people behind the desk, who had stood up for the occasion.

‘Thank you- thank you so much, thank you,’ Brian said, his right hand moving quickly to accept the outstretched arms of the judges, while his left continued to wipe at his wet cheeks. Tears of relief and all the weight suddenly falling off his shoulders just kept coming, slowly but surely, but luckily none of the judges seemed to mind specifically. Even Sumner gave him a smile and wished him well in a voice as genuine as Brian had ever heard it sound. It was not enough to prevent Brian from determinedly calling him Doctor Sumner one more time, but it did make him feel on top of the world.

Now having fulfilled his formal obligations, there was only one thing on Brian’s mind, and that was to reach his friends and his partner as soon as he could. The room had been transformed into chaos in a matter of the half-minute during which he had been occupied, but he could detect Roger’s messy blond hair from the same spot where they had been sitting during the hearing - and from there, he soon faced up with John himself. A smile spread out over John’s face, the sight of which made Brian tear up just a little more than he had done before. He regretted every second he had spent away from the moment the veil had been lifted, even if this could not have been more than a few minutes. He was going to make it up to John right then. 

Brian stepped one foot into the direction of the stairs, then another, and the first one again - until he passed down the stairs with a speed he could not remember having attained. John, who seemed to understand his intentions, broke away from the small group of people that had gathered around him and his friends, lightly yet determinedly pushed someone out of his way, and quite literally broke through the row of chairs Brian and the staff previously had been sitting on. 

The noise which the chair clattering to the floor produced attracted the attention of some people across the room, but neither Brian nor John particularly cared; all they aimed for was to reach each other as soon as they could, a goal which they would not put on hold because some bystanders had seen them making a run for each other. If anything, it made them more determined to be close to each other soon - which they did a mere second later, meeting in a clash of chests pressing against each other and arms reaching out to wrap themselves around backs, not to let go again anywhere soon. 

The mere act of being reunited with John, this time while knowing for a fact that they would leave Queen Mary’s and start their new lives together soon, was enough to bring tears to Brian’s eyes for a second time. Burying his face in the crook between John’s neck and shoulder, Brian allowed the tears to run free. He vaguely noticed the presence of new people around them - quite literally around them, as two pairs of arms joined around the embrace John and he had previously established. Judging by the soreness of one and the boniness of the other, they had to be Freddie and Roger. 

‘It’s alright. It’s all fine,’ John told him. ‘Everything’s going to be alright from now off.’ Brian weakly nodded against his shoulder, and let out a shaky sigh of relief. It was as if hearing John say that all was going to be fine was the thing that really convinced Brian that this was real, that the entire reassessment had been real, and that having been dismissed was real.

‘We’re so proud of you.’ In the midst of tears and smiles Brian could not tell which one of the three people currently hanging all over him said this, but he appreciated it nonetheless. Cheered on by what sounded like the majority of the audience, he allowed all three of his friends to hold him and to celebrate their win for a minute or so, until eventually Brian carefully detached himself from everyone around him and took a step back.

‘John?’ he called to further clarify that he needed a word with his partner only. Freddie and Roger took a step back to a place Brian could not make out right away, and neither did he exactly care about where they went to. All that mattered in that exact moment was John, who was standing before him and who looked more radiant than a thousand shining stars. 

‘John…’ Brian whispered, a broken smile on his still tearstained face. There was so much he wanted to say to him - that he loved him, that he never could have done this, any of this - both Queen Mary’s and the reassessment process - without him. That he looked forward so much to living with him, going back to university with him, making music with him, building up his life with him outside of the walls inside which all of their current memories together lay. He wanted to say so much, but could not utter more than a choked-up ‘thank you’. 

‘I want to thank you. Because you did this - you did all of this,’ John told him, wiping a line of tears from Brian’s cheek with his thumb.

‘I know,’ Brian choked out. ‘I’m- we’re gonna get out of here.’

The smile on John’s lips grew wider, and he took a step forwards so that Brian was in reach for him to bring on a hand and put it on Brian’s shoulder. Through a haze of lingering tears, Brian could swear he could see John coming closer, his lips no longer in a smile but slightly pursed - as if to kiss him. 

Caught off guard by this action Brian had not foreseen, Brian said: ‘Are you- are you sure?’

John opened his eyes at this and blinked. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ he asked gently. 

‘I mean- er, my parents are here,’ Brian blurted out. ‘Everyone’s here?’ It was not even a criticism - it were not reasons why he would not want to kiss, at any rate, and apparently those factors also hadn’t stopped John from leaning in for a kiss. In all honesty, Brian had no idea why he had bought up the question of John being sure. He supposed it was because he was still overwhelmed and emotional from all that had happened during the span of about an hour, because now that he was thinking about it, he really, really did want to kiss John. Currently having John blink at him, and then glance around to look at a multitude of people - many of whom were still talking and rushing around excitedly, but some of which had fallen quiet as the scene unfolded before them - was counterproductive to this pursuit. It took away from previous time that could be spent kissing, pressing his lips together with John’s to claim his mouth and wordlessly show him how much he loved him.

Luckily, after having looked around at the spectators, John came to the same conclusion Brian had reached. ‘I don’t care,’ John whispered when he locked eyes with him.

Brian let out a breathy laugh, then found himself drowning in those seas of grey. ‘Me neither.’

So while Sarah and Nolan were called over to sign the papers that would irrevocably set Brian free from the responsibility and care of Queen Mary’s Psychiatric Institution, Brian’s arm found itself its way around John’s neck, and he kissed John with a passion he hoped to maintain forevermore now that they had been set free to build up one life together. 

That was Part 17, and with that, the main line for The Clinic! It’s been a wild ride, and I want to thank you all for sticking with me – it means a lot, and I could not have done it without you! I’d like to invite you all to stick around for a little longer for the epilogue, which I hope will kind of make up for the angst and cliff hangers I’ve pulled you all through. I’m not giving away spoilers, but I promise to leave them all in the best place possible! ^^

Again, please tell me what you thought of this part (or some detail, or the Clinic in general, or whatever) and I hope to see you around for the epilogue!

[triciaisonline]

A(N  ESTIMATED )  TIMELINE  FOR  SHERLOCK 

PLEASE NOTE: John’s Blog and the show contradict each other at times, in these cases, the show will be taken as canon. In times where the show contradicts itself, if other media cannot solve the mix up, then estimates based on what makes the most real world sense will be used to find an answer.

ADDITIONALLY: I don’t want to get flooded with everyone's headcanons for things where estimates had to be made; but i greatly welcome canon information that might have been missed or ( ie: The Game is Now Escape Room ) have been unable to experience. I also do not consider interviews with cast and crew as reliable sources for the most part, as these answers have also changed throughout the years. It will only be given consideration if nothing else contradicts it and was said without the air of taking the mickey out of us as many interactions with fans have. They like to say things just to get us going. So I consider this less of a word of god and more of a word of the clown.

BIRTHDATES

DATES OF MAJOR EVENTS

NOTES

TL;DR

SOURCES

THIS VERSION IS THE REBLOG FRIENDLY VERSION OF A TIMELINE MADE ON MY OTHER BLOG ( SEE TAGS )

BIRTHDATES:

SHERLOCK HOLMES: January 6th, 1981 ( stated in The Casebook ); making him younger than the actor playing him. However, this does conflict slightly as Sherlock states he was nine years old when Carl Powers drowned, and the article claims it was in 1989, which places his birth in 1980 instead. This was before they gave Sherlock a canonical birthdate in any media, however, and for the purposes of this, we’ll be using the casebook age, and claiming Sherlock was either rounding or misremembering due to the fact his childhood memories are not entirely factual. Additionally, the headstone image shown in The Sherlock Chronicles says 1977, but the previous date is the one considered to be Canon. ( See Notes )

JOHN WATSON: unknown, but somewhere in the 70′s. A popular fandate is March 30th. Judging off of the actor’s age, possibly around 1971, but maybe younger as many actors are playing younger than themselves.

MYCROFT HOLMES: Exact date unknown, but he is seven years older than Sherlock, which puts him to be born around 1973-1974. Which makes him canonically younger than the actor playing him.  02/25/19 EDIT: According to sources, Mycroft is given a birthdate in the Escape Room based on the series, October 20th, 1968. While the October date works fine, year for this doesn't fit the "Seven Years Older" claim on the show. The oldest birth date given for Sherlock is 1977 and that would make Mycroft nine years older than Sherlock, not seven. The year given falls closer to Mark Gatiss' actual age, and leaves me inclined to think that perhaps year for the game isn't entirely factual. That being said, there's still no reason he couldn't have been born October 20th. Based on the "Seven Years Older" claim, stated in show, the best guess is October 20th, 1974.

EURUS HOLMES: Exact date unknown, but she is a year younger than Sherlock, which makes her born somewhere in 1982-1983 depending on when she was conceived. 

MARY WATSON: Unknown, but based on the actress’ age, likely 1974;  but maybe younger as many actors are playing younger than themselves. 

ROSAMUND “ROSIE” WATSON: January 2015. We can infer this because based on how far along Mary was at her wedding, Rosie would have been conceived Mid-April, and if she was relatively ontime, she’d be born late January. 

DATES OF NOTE:

REDBEARD / THE MUSGRAVE FIRE: Between 1988-1989 roughly; there is no clear indication on the show as to when these events took place. We can only summarize based on what we know about other events. We know that Sherlock "began" solving crimes at age nine ( see below ) due to Carl Powers; and we know that Sherlock had to be younger than ten years old during the events told in The Final Problem. Assuming that the tragic events of Carl Powers triggered something in him, making him take extra notice due to his own past experiences with Eurus and Victor; but still allowing time for all the events to take place and enough time to have passed for Sherlock to have rewritten the story so completely in his head where he can be suspicious but not fully triggered; I'd place him as seven or eight during these events.

THE CARL POWERS DEATH: 1990

*see notes for Sherlock’s birthday

UNIVERSITY: Sherlock attended the same school as Sebastian Wilkes in the early 2000s. Exact years, and if they were at school for the same duration of time is unknown; but he last saw the man roughly eight years ( if Wilkes can be trusted for accuracy ) prior to The Blind Banker, which would be somewhere in 2002/2003

SHERLOCK AND JOHN’S FIRST MEETING: January 29, 2010

CASE: A STUDY IN PINK: January 30th, 2010

CASE: THE BLIND BANKER: March 23rd-March 27th; inferred by Sherlock deducting the incorrect date on Wilkes’ watch and the on-screen passage of time.

Sherlock traveled to and from Minsk sometime between the events of The Blind Banker and The Great Game; based on the dates given, as well as the close air dates of the two episodes, it’s to be believed that Sherlock left and returned from Minsk on March 28th. This is also made plausible due to the funding Sherlock seems to have for himself, his impatience and the fact that it is a three hour flight each way. 

BAKER STREET BOMBING: March 28th; evening

CASE: THE GREAT GAME: March 29 - April 1st; we know this based on both the blog posts and Sherlock updating his website with the case answers. However, the blog post was edited from the original date of April 6th after it’s initial publication. The reason for this is unknown.

DURATION OF SERIES ONE: January 29th, 2010 - March 29th, 2010: three months exactly.

MISC: John and Sarah go to New Zealand for a week and breakup ( April 2010 )

TRIP TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE ( A SCANDAL IN BELGRAVIA ): September 15th, 2010

IRENE MEETING: September 15, 2010

BAKER STREET CHRISTMAS PARTY: December 25th 2010  

IDENTIFYING IRENE’S BODY: December 25th, 2010 

IRENE REVEALS SHE’S ALIVE: December 31st, 2010

JOHN PUBLISHES THE CASE: March 12th, 2011;

We don’t know the exact amount of time transpiring between New Years Eve and this point. Based on his track record, it’s likely January 15th is meant to be the date that Sherlock is told Irene is in Witness protection ( John seems to publish immediately, regardless of how tasteful it might be to reveal details of recent cases ). This gap would cover everything from Irene arriving at Baker Street, Sherlock going to the airfield, him beating Irene at the game, and saving her in Karachi. It’s likely, considering how erratic Sherlock is by early March with no cases, that the day John tells Sherlock the lie, is around late January / early February. Allowing Sherlock enough time to have done all of this as well as get riled up in time for Baskerville, which had to have occured before March 16th

CASE: THE HOUNDS OF BASKERVILLE: Early March 2011; by best estimates given as John doesn’t take too long to post his accounts of the events, and he had already finished typing up the case prior.

BASKERVILLE CASE POSTED: March 16th, 2011. This is also the same date Moriarty hacks John’s blog with a video of him inside of their flat. Suggesting he’s already free from his interrogation shown at the end of The Hounds of Baskerville.

The dates surrounding Sherlock’s death and The Reichenbach Fall are highly questionable as the episode, the blog, and logistics for certain events all contradict each other. Joe Lidster, who wrote John’s real world blog, has comically said that Moriarty hacking the blog gave it a virus that messed with the dating system, as a tongue in cheek explanation. Meaning if we were to take that as fact, all the dates in the blog could be false. The newspapers shown in the episode, have dates that suggest different things. I’ve chosen the one which makes the most sense, based on the news reel clip on John’s blog, the statement that he went to therapy three months later, the school holiday schedule for the abduction of the Ambassador’s children and several other people’s attempts to sort this all out. An alternative version can be found here.

MORIARTY’S ROBBERIES: Late March, by best guess. Possibly a bit earlier.

MORIARTY’S TRIAL / RELEASE: April 2011

MORIARTY’S PLAN TO RUIN SHERLOCK: June 12-June 14th, 2011

MORIARTY COMMITS SUICIDE / SHERLOCK FAKES HIS: June 14th/15th; the 15th is the more commonly believed date.

JOHN CONFIRMS ON HIS BLOG: June 16th, 2011

JOHN VISITS SHERLOCK’S GRAVE: Mid/Late June 2011

TOTAL SERIES TWO DURATION: March 29th, 2010 ( The Pool ) - June 2011. Fifteen Months / One Year and Three Months

SHERLOCK DISMANTLES MORIARTY’S NETWORK: June 2011 - Late October / Early November 2013

MARY MAKES HER FIRST COMMENT ON JOHN’S BLOG: April 20th, 2013

JOHN POSTS OLD CASES: April 2013 - October 5th, 2013

WEBISODE ( MANY HAPPY RETURNS ): October 5th, 2013

SHERLOCK RETURNS: Late October / Early November 2013

JOHN ALMOST BURNED ALIVE: Guy Fawkes Day, November 5th, 2013

CASE: THE EMPTY HEARSE / #SHERLOCK LIVES: November 7th, 2013

JOHN AND SHERLOCK’S VARIOUS CASES: November 2013 - May 2014

Another case of Blog vs Screen; John and Mary’s wedding invites are shown throughout The Sign of Three with the date May 13th, while John’s blog states it was in August. The blog is deemed incorrect in this case, as well as his entries about the cases Sherlock reads at the Wedding

ROSIE WATSON IS CONCEIVED: Mid April 2014

JOHN AND MARY’S WEDDING: May 13th, 2014; ( see above note about The Sign of Three )

His Last Vow has the opposite problem as the series finale prior, in which next to no dates are given. We only know the dates at the end of the episode. Just that the events of John getting restless, Sherlock using again, Magnussen visiting, Sherlock being shot, Sherlock leaving early to confront Mary, Sherlock leaving to confront Magnussen, John confronting Mary, Sherlock being taken to Hospital again and being released all happen between May 13th and December 25th, 2014. It can take a couple months for gunshot victims to be released from Hospital, depending on the severity. Applying Mycroft Rules and Television Rules we know that Sherlock likely didn’t stay the time a regular patient would have. Knowing Sherlock he would have wanted out as soon as possible. We know John and Mary were at odds for a bit, reconciling on Christmas. Plus there needed to be time for Sherlock to fake date Janine, John to reach the level of restlessness there was and get Charles’ attention. So these next few dates are estimates. The majority of the scenes shown in episode are out of order and happen in two time periods, before Mary’s revealed and Christmas Day. 

JOHN BREAKS INTO THE DRUG DEN / MAGNUSSEN VISITING BAKER STREET: September / October 2014

SHERLOCK GETTING SHOT:  September / October 2014

SHERLOCK SNEAKING OUT OF HOSPITAL TO MEET MAGNUSSEN AND MARY:  Early/Mid October 2014; presuming based on deleted scenes depicting a Sherlock who was unable to move for a while in recovery that this was maybe days or weeks later when it was deemed safe to wake him up from medically induced coma.

JOHN CONFRONTING MARY: October 2014 ( same day as above )

SHERLOCK RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL: Mid-December 2014, inferred by how the family and friends act as if it was more recent while at the Holmes’ family home.

SHERLOCK SHOOTS MAGNUSSEN: December 25th, 2014

SHERLOCK BOARDS THE PLANE / MORIARTY’S VIDEO GOES LIVE: December 31st, 2014 / January 2nd, 2015; the show itself provides two different accounts of this. Mycroft states in His Last Vow, that Sherlock was in holding for a week, placing the scene at the tarmac in Early January 2015; however, the introduction to The Abominable Bride places the scene with onscreen text in 2014 still. The only way both can be remotely accurate is if Mycroft is rounding up, and it’s December 31st, 2014.

DURATION OF SERIES THREE: Fall 2013 - Winter 2014;  just over one calendar year.

CASE: THE ABOMINABLE BRIDE ( REAL WORLD ): December 31st, 2014 / January 2nd, 2015 ( see above )

The first scene of The Six Thatchers, along with the real world scenes of The Abominable Bride and the final scenes of His Last Vow are the same day.

SHERLOCK IS ACQUITTED OF CRIMES:  December 31st, 2014 / January 2nd, 2015 ( see above )

ROSIE WATSON IS BORN: Mid/Late January 2015, assuming she was relatively on time.

ROSIE WATSON’S BAPTISM: March / April 2015; based on many modern traditions, the baby’s age and the style of clothing worn by the attendees.

The Six Thatchers covers the majority of one calendar year, no exact dates are given but we can surmise things based on the shown development of Rosie Watson ( whom we know to be a year old by the end of The Final Problem ). Rosie is shown to have full head support and movement before Mary dies, which is something that happens around six months. This would mean Mary’s still alive around June 2015. Allowing for time in which Mary is on the lam, leading to the aquarium, the following are my best guesses for events.

MARY IS MISSING: Summer 2015 ( how long she was gone for is unclear )

MARY IS BACK IN LONDON: September 2015

NORBURY SHOOTS MARY: October 2015

SHERLOCK RECEIVES MARY’S VIDEO / JOHN’S LETTER: Late October. 2015 / Possibly Early November 2015 

CASE: THE LYING DETECTIVE: Possibly Mid-December 2015 / Early January 2016

Another case of ‘we don’t know how long’; we know Sherlock returns from hospital on his birthday, but the dates in between are unclear. Nor do we know how long John and Sherlock didn’t speak for. Sherlock would have needed a major detox, as well as treatment for his injuries. Based on the timeframe, it’s unlikely he attended any form of inpatient rehab outside of whatever the hospital had on location due to his injuries. Possibly due to either Mycroft pulling strings, or the more likely, Sherlock refusing and signing himself out when able.

We also know that the jump from The Lying Detective and The Final Problem can’t be too long. Even though Sherlock has had a magical recovery from all ailments between episodes, it’s extremely unlikely that John sat on the ‘I was almost killed by your secret sister’ tidbit for a few weeks. Meaning these episodes likely happen very shortly after one another. It also feels unlikely that Eurus would make herself known to John and then wait weeks/months to then begin acting out again once the secret was revealed.

JOHN AND SHERLOCK’S REUNITING: January 6th, 2016

JOHN’S FINAL THERAPY SESSION WITH EURUS: Somewhere between January 6th - January 13th 2016; assuming he went about once a week.

CASE: THE FINAL PROBLEM: January 13th, 2015 - January 20th, 2016; presuming John was able to tell Sherlock after ( not knowing how long he was knocked out for ); and allowing Sherlock and John some time to figure out their next move. This would also cover the attack on Baker Street and the entire event on Sherrinford Island.

ROSIE WATSON’S FIRST BIRTHDAY: Mid/Late January, 2016

OTHER NOTES:

The Entire Series spans six years.

The Sherlock Timeline runs one year behind real world time, with the show’s episodes in universe during 2016, aired in January 2017

Sherlock Holmes would be 29 in A Study In Pink, and 35 by The Final Problem based on the Casebook date. 30 and 36 by The Carl Powers age. and 33 and 39 by The Sherlock Chronicles age. All would make him younger than Benedict Cumberbatch, born 1976.

An incorrect headstone, as seen in The Sherlock Chronicles would make sense with the fact that until The Lying Detective, John states he never knew his birthdate. Which, had his tombstone had it, would make little sense. Providing an in universe reason for this odd lack of knowledge on John’s part. Perhaps John merely guessed? Maybe Mycroft knew he wouldn’t want it known, so they put a fake date? Especially as Mycroft knew he was alive. Otherwise, this is just another plot inconsistency  --- which, I’m getting quite tired of. 

We don’t know when Mary and John first met, but we can infer they’ve known each other about a year from dialogue in The Six Thatchers when John is attempting to propose.

Alternate timelines surrounding The Reichenbach Fall sometimes claim the following dates: Sherlock Testifies: May 9th, 2011; Moriarty is freed and visits 221B: September 20th, 2011; The Kidnapping: November 19th, 2011; Sherlock Falls: November 20th, 2011. This comes from a couple on screen newspaper clippings; but they are contradictory to the stated three month interval stated. It’s up to fans to decide which version they feel is more accurate.

More of a musing, but it’s kind of interesting how many times John immediately runs to the internet to share the details of really recent cases fresh in the public’s mind; in contrast to Watson’s monologue in The Abominable Bride about how careful he is to avoid doing that very thing. Which is even funnier if you view it through the long standing canon lens of John is an Unreliable Narrator

TL;DR:

SERIES ONE: January 29th, 2010 - March 29th, 2010

SERIES TWO: March 29th, 2010 - June 15th, 2011 

SERIES THREE: November 2013 - December 2014

SERIES FOUR: December 2014 - January 2016

WEBISODE: October 10th, 2013

SPECIAL: December 2014

SOURCES:

AO3 META  /  SHERLOCKOLOGY / JOHN’S BLOG / SHERLOCK ( WIKIPEDIA ) / THENORWOODBUILDER @ TUMBLR / BAKER STREET WIKIA / SHERLOCK FAN FORUMS /  THE CASEBOOK ( BUY / FACTS ) / THE SHERLOCK CHRONICLES  / MOLLY’S BLOG / SHERLOCK’S WEBSITE ( official site no longer live, information reposted from various sites listed above ) / CONNIE PRINCE WEBSITE / SHERLOCK: THE GAME IS NOW 

[theritualofourexistence]

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

1. The title for this blog is straight plagiarism.

2. It doesn’t really connect to the general theme super well.

3. Twitter and Instagram polls picked this topic! Don’t worry, dating app folks, that one’s coming next.

--

Recently I had this weird, philosophical ah-ha moment when I was thinking about ghosts.

Yep, ghosts.

So, the lore behind how a ghost or a spirit gets left behind is commonly linked to trauma. The idea that if you experience a particularly gruesome death you may be more likely to have your essence trapped on earth is something I’ve come upon a lot. The more I thought about it, the more fear became a significant element in my thinking. Fear is something I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to manage and I believe it’s one of the most powerful forces on Earth.

What if it’s not a tragic death that generates a ghost, but rather, a fearful death? 

--

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, that brain worm got me going down a different sort of path. My faith, which I talk about a little bit in my last post, mainly centers around the concept of a force of light and good that lives through and in and around all living things. I believe that force is, in essence, Love. And the first thing that pointed me towards exploration of this idea is a passage from the Bible in the book of 1 John. There is a section in that chapter about loving one another that states very plainly, across many translations, that God is Love.

I’ve found over the years, that by focusing on this concept, I’ve been able to live what I consider to be a much more “Godly” life. I believe the Christian God wants us to spread love and I believe that’s the thing He/She wants the most.

To sum up as much of my personal, faith-related philosophy as I can, I believe Love is a living force that flows through everything and that we can choose whether we bind ourselves to that cause or whether we stand against it.

That’s a simplification, of course, and if you’d like to wade into specifics, feel free to shoot me a personal message.

--

Now, back to fear. Fear has always been my Big Bad. When I was a kid, one of the most important lessons my dad tried to teach me was that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. A kid with anxiety can only grasp so much of that, though, and I didn’t really understand or believe that phrase until adulthood. Years of therapy, and adulthood. 

So, in my world, love is the Big Good and fear is the Big Bad.

Can you see where I’m going yet?

--

I have long hated the timeless dichotomy of good and evil. 

I hated it well before I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but even more so now. 

Nothing is all good and nothing is all evil.

Period.

You won’t change my mind about this.

That’s why I believe the old “good vs. evil” trope is trash. I have never and never expect to encounter something that is purely good or evil. It doesn’t even really work as a spectrum either. Like, sure you could argue that something or someone is “mostly good” or “mostly evil” but that still requires people to give inherently subjective interpretations of how much weight “good” acts and “evil” acts deserve. 

What if a person has donated over three billion dollars to charities that have actively helped provide effective treatment to an infamously fatal disease. What if that same person also raped a 12-year-old.

You can make the argument that that person directly led to hundreds, even thousands of saved lives. But that doesn’t erase the fact that he raped a 12-year-old. 

I think most people would probably struggle to tell you whether they considered that person “mostly good” or “mostly bad” and I can assure you that that judgment would always boil down to the judger’s personal experiences and opinions. 

If you’ve been raped, you would probably find it easier to say that person is “mostly bad.” 

If you had a loved one saved by the treatment that man funded, you may find it easier to say he’s “mostly good.” 

There you go, “good vs. evil” dichotomy is busted.

--

Whether or not I’ve stopped to really think about it, the more life I live, the more I think of the world around me through a “Love vs. Fear” dichotomy. It is, now that I am taking the time to think about it, a much better way to evaluate our own actions as well as the actions of others.

A lot of people have hypothesized that fear of The Other sits at the heart of racism and sexism and homophobia. Love, however, can be the difference between acceptance and affirmation. 

There is a very acute difference between saying you have nothing against gay people (”I have gay friends!”) and actually loving those people. Loving those people means you are committed to fighting for their rights and safety. At least, that’s what I believe true Love looks like. True Love is action... just as Fear is also often action. 

--

1 John 4:18 says that there is no Fear in Love and that perfect Love drives out Fear. 

I believe the only perfect Love is the force of pure love and light that flows through the living world. I believe humans can only try to replicate that and that in the majority of cases, we fail. But I believe our call is to try to live a life of perfect Love because only that will truly eliminate Fear.

I dream of a global community. Of equity and equality. Of Love. 

Fear is the root of hate. Fear is the root of war. Fear is the root of violence. 

--

There will always be actions and feelings that require deeper analysis. Anger, for instance. I had a conversation with my friends recently about anger and whether or not it’s a valuable way to spend your energy. I am someone who feels angry pretty often. Other people may not be, and that doesn’t inherently mean that one of us is wrong and one is right. 

My anger, however, is almost always flowing from a place of Love. I get the most angry when the people I care about are threatened or hurt. Today, in the United States, a lot of my anger is directed towards our administration and policies that actively wreak havoc in the lives of my poc friends and family and LGBT+ friends and family. I’m not angry because I hate this administration, though, I’m angry because the people I love are being hurt. 

Sometimes, though, I get angry for less righteous reasons.

Sometimes I get angry because my plans for my future aren’t exactly going the way I predicted.

That anger comes from Fear. And it’s not healthy anger.

--

So, really, this post has two intertwining branches.

1. Let’s get rid of Good and Evil and think about Love and Fear instead. 

2. If you embrace Love, it should impact all areas of your life, including politics.

--

That is, at least, why I feel the way I do about political issues. 

I believe in committing my life to Love. I believe that’s the only way we can leave the world a better place. 

I believe Love has no boundaries or borders and I believe everyone deserves to be treated with Love. 

Striving to treat everyone with Love is what motivates me to try and understand everyone I encounter. It motivates me to listen to their stories. It motivates me to respect them. 

Striving to treat everyone with Love is why I cannot and will not ever support a death penalty.

Striving to treat everyone with Love is why I believe in and support updating our nation’s gun control laws and immigration policies.

It’s why I am so passionate about criminal justice system and prison reform. 

It’s why I have spent so much energy learning to be forgiving.

The thing I didn’t necessarily expect was how much those changes align with Biblical scripture. As I said in my last post, I feel like my choice to move further from the church has allowed me to live a more loving life... which, in many ways, has brought me closer to God. 

And the most awesome thing about Love and Fear is that it’s absolutely not tied at all to any specific religion. It translates across all of humanity, making it one of the most inclusive ways of thinking about our thoughts and actions.

--

So, that’s my call to you today. Spend some time thinking about your life in terms of Love and Fear and see what you come up with. 

No one is perfect. I will always make choices and have thoughts and take actions that are rooted in Fear. But if I have the insight to know that and therefore make those choices less, that’s a success story. If I put the work in to think through my motivation and to focus on loving thoughts and actions, I’ll stay on the right path. 

“Good” is not “right” and “evil” is not “wrong” because nothing is ever good or evil. 

Love, though...

Love feels right.

[needsmoresarcasm]

Favorite Books of 2018

I read a lot of books in 2018. Here are my favorites (not counting books I re-read), in basically no order. (But actually kind of an order.)

22. Going Rogue, Drew Hayes

Going Rogue is the third book in Drew Hayes’s Spells, Swords, and Stealth series. The series is told in two parts: it follows a group of people playing a Dungeons & Dragons-style role-playing game and a group of non-playable characters in the world of said game. The thrust of the story is on the group of NPCs, which unfolds as a typical fantasy adventure. It’s got a straightforward quest narrative, an adventuring party (turned found family), and impossible odds. As the stories progress, the players begin to sense that the game has its own agency and the characters begin to sense that there may be someone controlling their world. But mostly it’s a fun, self-aware take on a typical fantasy adventure that toys with fantasy tropes. 

21. Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I steeled myself for dense literary fiction when I cracked open Americanah, the story of Ifemelu, a Nigerian girl who moves to America and wrestles with race and identity. But that was all for naught because Americanah was one of the easiest reads of the year. The writing is breezy, and the story is funny and brisk. It dissects race and culture in America both by showing (Ifemelu’s struggles to define herself in a new country) and telling (Ifemelu’s hilarious blog posts). Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie seems to have perfected the art of delivering dense observations in delightful, consumer-friendly prose. Old white dude authors should probably take note.

20. What If It’s Us, Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera

If I’m going to read a romance, I want it to be light, fluffy, gay, and conflict-free. And that’s exactly what What If It’s Us delivers. The book begins with a meet cute: while mailing a box of his ex-boyfriend’s stuff, Ben bumps into Arthur at the post office. Arthur and Ben are both appropriately awkward and endearing, bumbling and pawing their way through a relationship as only teenagers can. Every character is essentially kind and caring. There are no villains or bullies, no one gets ostracized or beaten, no one dies. The tension mostly stems from the fact that Arthur is only in the city for the summer, which only barely counts as a conflict. And while the universe of the story may be unrealistically polished, their relationship is refreshingly imperfect. Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli are telling a story of young love, not necessarily true love.

19. The Collapsing Empire / The Consuming Fire, John Scalzi

John Scalzi built an astoundingly engrossing world in The Collapsing Empire. The human race has colonized far flung planets with the help of the Flow system, naturally occurring pathways between various planets across the universe that allows otherwise impossible interstellar travel. The Collapsing Empire follows the sharp, sarcastic Cardenia Wu, the newly crowned empress, and sweet, in-over-his-head Marce Claremont, a Flow physicist in far-flung End who has discovered something off with the Flow. It’s got a roiling pace, packed with space battles, political jockeying, and a whole host of delightful characters. It’s one of those audiobooks (narrated by Wil Wheaton) that was so compulsively listenable that I ended up taking long, meandering walks just to hear what happened next.

18. The Shell Collector, Anthony Doerr

Anthony Doerr’s writing is incredible. His sentences all feel divined from the ether. And the short story is the perfect vehicle for that writing, lasting just long enough to build an atmospheric world. Most of the stories are tinged with a little magical realism, used mostly to underscore the unique, grounded humanity of his characters. The collection dives into the histories of people who are in various degrees removed from society and intertwined with nature. But the ultimate thesis, refreshingly, is not about the corruption of society, but rather the inherent value of people.

17. Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin 

I don’t know that I have anything new or interesting to say about James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. A story about desire, and maybe love, between David and Giovanni, every word of that book is filled with intense, crushing emotion desperately crashing onto the pages. It’s about love and sexuality, told in an intimate-verging-on-claustrophobic manner. It’s powerful and interminably depressing and beautiful and devastating. But it’s not devastating because it’s gay, it’s just both devastating and gay.

16. Goodbye, Vitamin, Rachel Khong

Goodbye, Vitamin opens with the main character, Ruth, going through a breakup and dealing with early signs of her father’s Alzheimer’s disease. And somehow, Goodbye, Vitamin is also fun, funny, and heart-warming. The book is sunny and endearing, even as Ruth herself struggles with caring for her father and finding her own identity. Most things described as quirky may be better described as annoying, but there truly is no better word for this book’s sensibility than quirky. The specificity of the descriptions and the cleverness of the wordplay make for a delightful, sometimes deeply poignant, read.

15. Less, Andrew Sean Greer

In many ways, Less shares beats with the incredibly overdone, deeply uninteresting novel about a middle-aged white guy who goes through a midlife crisis and suffers the pain of his own brilliance. Indeed, Less follows Arthur Less as he hits fifty, gets invited to his ex’s wedding, and then travels around the world to avoid confronting any of his problems. But Less is decidedly different: it’s gay. Which means it’s funnier, sharper, and drastically more self-aware. Arthur Less - and Andrew Sean Greer - recognizes the absurdity of his disproportionate reaction to relatively minor problems. He has no delusions of grandeur. He’s not on a journey to unlock his inner genius, just a journey to maybe buy a new jacket and have a fling or two. It’s delightful and funny and warm even as it pretends not to be.

14. More Happy Than Not, Adam Silvera

The devastation of More Happy Than Not cuts in sharp pains and deep gashes. The tragic turns - and in a book about a teenage kid who considers a science fiction equivalent of gay conversion therapy there are many - come as punches to the face, not as lingering aches. And yet, the book doesn’t feel punishing to read. Adam Silvera derives no pleasure from Aaron’s, the aforementioned teen, suffering and carefully builds the foundation of Aaron’s character on his triumphs and joys. Aaron’s life is vibrant and bristling with possibility, streaked, but not consumed, by pain. More Happy Than Not is meticulously plotted and paced, with a few moments of genuine surprise. As always, Adam Silvera writes about tragedy in an entirely uncynical way, with a deep well of generosity for his characters.  

13. Witchmark, C.L. Polk

In many ways, Witchmark feels like the book I spent this entire year trying to find. Witchmark takes place in a pseudo-historical early 20th century England-style setting, in the throes of some capital-W War. Most of the book is styled as a mystery: Miles, a former army doctor, and Tristan, a mysterious outsider, track down clues and chase leads to find a murderer. And, of course, maybe they fall in love along the way. And, oh yeah, Miles is a witch. Oh and also, maybe there’s some royal family drama happening as well. And maybe also some government conspiracies. And also maybe a much larger mystery that involves all of the above. There’s magic and romance and mystery and intrigue and action, and every part of it is completely satisfying. Especially if you’re the type of person who would like to read a scene in which said army doctor needs help undressing because he broke his wrist, and luckily there’s (literally magically) handsome mystery man there to help him!!! (Listen, I never said this was particularly profound literature.) But like, five stars.

12. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore / Sourdough, Robin Sloan

If you want a cozy, feel-good novel that has just the slightest dash of magic, then pick up a Robin Sloan book. Both Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough read as relaxing balms to help soothe aches brought on by the disaster fire of reality. In both books, a young twenty-something attempting to figure out their life discovers a niche world (book collecting and bread baking) and gets swept up in a fantastical mystery. They’re breezy, warm, and brimming with genuine affection and curiosity for the subjects at their centers. Sloan’s writing is incredibly sensory; you can taste the bread and smell the books. They have that Great British Bake Off quality to them: impossibly compelling despite low stakes and uniform pleasantness.

11. Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng

Celeste Ng’s second novel is a careful study of privilege of all sorts, and an especially incisive look into whiteness. Little Fires Everywhere takes place in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a progressive slice of white suburbia. At the book’s center are the Richardsons, a well-off white family who are the types of people that may tell you that they don’t see race--in part because everyone they see is also white.  Things get shaken up when Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl arrive in town, marked as strange by their relative lack of wealth, and marked as even stranger by their lack of shame about it.  Each sentence is beautifully written, and each paragraph immaculately constructed. But honestly, the book is best summed up as: this is some white people nonsense.

10. The Lymond Chronicles (#1-6), Dorothy Dunnett

The Lymond Chronicles books are both the most high brow and most low brow books I read this year. They are densely written and plotted, with an inexhaustible supply of names for characters and teeming with minute details that almost all portend some future event or revelation. But they’re also chock-full of soap opera-style twists and tropes, aimed to quench your id’s every desire. All this makes for books that demand a lot, but then pay off with hilarious jokes, action sequences that convey more physicality and movement than most movies, and ridiculous third act reveals that are so incredibly satisfying. And like, on a selfish level,  it’s also real satisfying to read about people falling in love with and then aggressively berating Francis Crawford for three thousand pages. (He deserves it.)

9. My Life as a Goddess, Guy Branum

I read, or rather listen to, tons of memoirs - by comedians, actors, politicians, and writers. And Guy Branum’s My Life as a Goddess is easily my favorite of the year. Branum incisively writes about growing up as a gay kid in truly the-middle-of-nowhere California, touching on issues of masculinity, sexuality, class, body image, and education. Unsurprisingly, My Life as a Goddess is hilarious, chock-full of jokes and witty observations. More surprisingly, My Life as a Goddess is also deeply emotional, especially as Branum writes about his relationship as his father. Even more surprisingly, My Life as a Goddess is weirdly informative about a very specific slice of Canadian history. I cannot recommend the audiobook of this enough, as Guy Branum’s narration is smart, funny, and winning.

8. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

Does anyone really want to read a Pulitzer Prize winning literary fiction novel written by some white dude about World War II half from the point of view of a goddamn Nazi? No. No one wants to read that. Except, maybe I do. Because that’s exactly what All the Light We Cannot See is, and man is it a true revelation. The sheer humanity that Doerr imparts in his story creates a profoundly moving story, about goodness and cruelty and the indiscriminate destruction of war. The events of the story are uniformly bleak, as expected in a World War II novel, and yet the book’s tone feels decidedly hopeful, hungry to extract optimism from human persistence. It’s a stunningly written book that lays bare the complexities of people and the horrors of war.

7. Bad Blood, John Carreyrou

Bad Blood was truly the most unbelievable story I read this year. Wizards? Aliens? Time travel? All relatively believable compared to the intense, densely plotted, thrilling tale that unravels in Bad Blood, made all the more incredible by its truth. Bad Blood tells the story of Theranos, a Silicon Valley startup that claimed to be revolutionizing blood testing, and its founder Elizabeth Holmes, once described on magazine covers as “the next Steve Jobs.” John Carreyrou, the author, was the journalist who first broke the story of Theranos’s rampant fraud, and he stitches together a coherent, mesmerizing narrative from first-hand accounts of Theranos employees. Elizabeth Holmes is a fascinating antagonist, an ambitious, callous, maybe sociopath. The story is exciting and frustrating and will make you have even less faith in rich, powerful white people. But because this is non-fiction, the entire time you know that Elizabeth Holmes is  eventually going to end up being charged with numerous federal crimes. A truly satisfying ending.

6. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

Allie Brosh didn’t invent the internet, but she at least has as much claim to modern internet culture as any other individual. Hyperbole and a Half is a collection of her best blog posts, with some additional, equally hilarious, stories thrown in. I hadn’t revisited her blog in years, and so it was striking just how little her style has aged. In a time where internet memes have life spans measured in hours, Hyperbole and a Half feels fresh nearly a decade later. The influence of her style and perspective on the internet is far-reaching. From the hilarious (her distinctively drawn self-rendering triumphantly declaring “CLEAN ALL THE THINGS” while holding a broom) to the insightful (her two-part essay on the amorphous gray muck of depression), her stories all feel as though they could be the origin story for any piece of internet ephemera. Hyperbole and a Half is at times farcical, at times poignant, and always raucously funny.

5. Shades of Magic (#1-3), V.E. Schwab

The Shades of Magic series (A Darker Shade of Magic, A Gathering of Shadows, and A Conjuring of Light) is the perfect fantasy adventure: the characters are imminently rootable, the world is seeped in magic, and the plot is intoxicating. The books are set in London, or Londons, rather. There are four parallel Londons, which have embraced, rejected, or surrendered to magic to varying degrees. Our protagonist, Kell, is one of the few with the ability to travel between the different Londons. And, well, hijinks ensue. Dark, sprawling, brutal, violent, life-consuming hijinks.

The Shades of Magic series is unburdened by its worldbuilding; V.E. Schwab could probably teach a semester’s worth of history lessons on her world, but does not feel the need show that off in the books themselves. They’re books to be devoured, not dissected. But it’s the characters that make the series so engrossing. Everyone is an archetype-a street-worn thief, a charming prince-but so well-drawn and understood that every character moment sparkles. And the central relationship of the book, between Kell and his brother Rhy, felt as though it was perhaps extracted directly from my brain. Kell is stoic, burdened by responsibility but determined to protect. Rhy, the aforementioned charming prince, injects Kell’s life with mischief and levity, and they’re so fundamentally dedicated to each other that it hurts. If a bunch of well-meaning idiots trying to save the world with magic is your thing, A Darker Shade of Magic may be the series for you.

4. Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng

If you thought a quiet, contained rumination on race, gender, nationality, and culture couldn’t also be a compelling, tense page-turner, let me introduce you to Everything I Never Told You. Everything I Never Told You is nothing short of literary alchemy. It begins with the death of Lydia, the model daughter of the Lee family--and, really, the model daughter of 1970s America. The book unravels the mystery of Lydia’s death, told through the vignettes from the lives of the Lee family members.

Celeste Ng is a master at using a paragraph to describe years of a character’s history and decades of American society all at once. Her characters are specific and sharply drawn, rooted deeply in their time and environment. Lydia, with a Chinese father and a white mother,  is mixed race (a term not added to the U.S. Census until 2000)--“one of only two Orientals” at her school.  The other, her brother Nathan, has learned to live in Lydia’s shadow in their parents’ mind’s eye.  Marilyn, Lydia’s mother, had her own ambitions sidelined by family. With a deft, heartfelt touch, Everything I Never Told You viscerally conveys their regrets for the words left unsaid and lives left unlived.

3. History Is All You Left Me, Adam Silvera

As this list makes clear, I loved a lot of Adam Silvera this year, and History Is All You Left Me stands out as my favorite. In dual timelines, History Is All You Left Me tells the story of Griffin after and up to the accident in which his ex-boyfriend Theo dies unexpectedly. And so, yes, the book is soaked in grief and loss. And, yes, it’s devastating and aching. But it’s also incredibly kind and empathetic. The characters are teenagers and make the choices of teenagers. Their actions are messy and rash and stupid, and Silvera leans into that, landing more than one self-inflicted heart-wrenching blow. But Silvera is also unfailingly patient with teenagers and understands their resilience; he lets his characters make mistakes and has faith that they will survive. And so the book is heavy, but optimistic. A refreshing reprieve from the gratuitous suffering and bleakness that tortures so much LGBT-themed fiction.  History Is All You Left Me is the most affecting book I read all year, and it still lingers in my bones. But the impression it has left is of life, not loss.

2. An American Sickness, Elisabeth Rosenthal

I bristle when someone describes a book as “important.” It always seems patronizing and self-serving, and my natural contrarian kicks in. I get it, you want to tell everyone how well-read or socially conscious you are because you read an “important” book. So it is with eyes wide open, and more than a twinge of self-loathing, that I say An American Sickness is an important book. It feels like essential reading, certainly for anyone trying to affect American healthcare policy, and at the very least useful for anyone who ever has to deal with the American healthcare system. It will make you angry and frustrated, but hopefully it will also arm you with information.

An American Sickness is broken up into two distinct parts: the first half lays out the issues with the current healthcare system, including how it came to be, and the second half presents solutions. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal writes accessibly about potentially dry, dense subject matter. The book’s purpose is not to exhaustively detail the history of healthcare, but to better equip the average person to navigate the system. Dr. Rosenthal provides anecdotes to anchor the matter in tangible issues and gives just enough context to sketch the motivations of the various actors - doctors, hospitals, insurers, pharma companies, etc. She presents solutions from two perspectives: (1) changing healthcare policy as a whole, and (2) navigating the system as an individual. In a methodical, step-by-step manner, the book explains concrete things a regular person can look out for, questions they can ask, and actions they can take to avoid--or challenge--exorbitant medical bills. There’s literally an appendix with fill-in-the-blank form letters to use to request billing information and challenge bills. You don’t have to read this book, but I want you to.

1. Chemistry, Weike Wang

Sometimes a book is so intimately catered to you it’s as if the author waded through your subconscious, fished out the tangled threads of your thoughts, and then wove them into a tapestry that displayed every single one of your hopes, dreams, and aspirations. For me, that book is Chemistry. Chemistry follows an unnamed Asian American protagonist who is discontented with her current situation: her long-term boyfriend, her Chemistry PhD program, and her relationship with her parents. And the novel unfolds as she comes to terms with that discontentment.

The economy of Weike Wang’s writing is spellbinding. She uses words so efficiently and so cleverly to craft sentences that seem fundamental. On seemingly every page, there was a new observation that felt so obviously true that I was surprised I had never read those exact words before. The book is filled with jokes, driven by the protagonist’s wry sarcasm and gentle disdain for things and people generally. The whole thing is somehow both simple and complex, an easily digestible read with a deceptively complex flavor. There are no splashy revelations or sudden tragedies, only hard-earned emotional truths and the realities of getting by. Chemistry nails the general spirit of just attempting to function as a normal human person in 2018.

[hrjerry-me-blog]

What Marketing Strategy Is the Best for You?

If you pick the right marketing strategy, you’ll be like that little guy in the middle of my diagram above. Yes! Winning! Fist pumps!

The problem with marketing today is that there are way too many options and it’s much too confusing. It makes me dizzy just thinking about this stuff and I’ve been immersed in it for 35 years.

Well, I lay down on my bed last week with a notepad and started to map out my “Unified Theory of Marketing Strategies” with an emphasis on online marketing.

And I actually came up with something that’s not totally confusing, and might even be helpful to a few people.

Here goes…

It’s yet another four-quadrant grid where the vertical axis is a scale from easy to hard and the horizontal axis is a scale from passive to proactive.

I emerged with these four snappy quadrants:

Hard and Passive = Multimedia

Easy and Passive = Publishing

Hard and Proactive = Presentations

Easy and Proactive = Email

Now, all of these strategies can be effective. But, yes some are easier than others. And the passive ones tend to take a lot longer than the proactive ones.

Hard and Passive = Multimedia (Videos)

Everyone is crazy about video these days. It’s a challenging, yet passive strategy. You put a lot work into creating a video and then post it on YouTube hoping people see it.

It’s difficult to do well. It’s time-consuming and it can be expensive. And most videos are pure crap. If you want to do it well, it takes a chunk of change and a lot of time.

Throwing up a lot of little videos on your website can be a nice touch, but they usually don’t get people to call you in droves.

So, as you can see, I’m not crazy about a video strategy for self-employed professionals. I’m not saying they can’t work, but it’s a whole lot of work to do right.

Best example: A non-duality teacher named Rupert Spira. He does live workshops and films everything. Then his staff chops them up into questions and answer segments and posts them on YouTube. They’re five to fifteen minutes long. And what you see is what you get. No pitch, no hype. It’s his teaching unadulterated.

He has hundreds of videos on YouTube with hundreds of thousands of views. Does it work? Well, his workshops are always full and all he does is a low-key email announcement to his list every month or two.

I like this approach a lot. Got a lot of good content? Look good on video (unlike yours truly)? Then you may want to emulate Rupert.

Easy and Passive = Publishing

I happen to like this strategy a lot as it, ahem, built my “Empire.” It’s relatively easy: Write a how-to article on your subject matter once a week, send it out to those on your e-list and publish on your blog. Fame ensues.

But online publishing can be a lot more than that. You can take those same articles and publish them on Medium, LinkedIn, and Ezine Articles. And then you can announce them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Sometimes you can get big exposure when writing an article for a major online publication. Web traffic multiplies.

The cost is zero; an article takes from two to five hours to write (unless it takes you several days). And your ideas are online for eternity to be discovered by those looking for practical ideas. Some will opt-in to your e-list and perpetuate this virtuous marketing circle.

The downside, of course, is that, according to my extensive research, (a 10 second Google search), there are 2 million articles published online every day. The mind reels. So your stuff will be out there, but somewhat lost in a very big haystack.

I’m still a big advocate of online publishing, but the mountain is getting steeper and steeper. Just writing an article or two here and there won’t help you much.

Best Example: Well, other than mine, of course, check out Henneke of Enchanted Marketing. She has a wonderful, readable, fun blog on business writing and blogging. And she walks her talk. It’s all about well-written, relevant content. If you don’t have that as a foundation, it’s a total waste of time.

Hard and Proactive = Presentations

I built my business on presentations in front of live audiences at professional associations and chambers of commerce. It got me attention, added people to my mailing list and generated warm leads for marketing coaching.

And I still do presentations today in the form of webinars. I just filled my recent group program with the help of a couple webinars (also called video conferences). They most certainly do work.

But I put presentations in the hard category, not because they are all that hard to give, but can take a long time to prepare. The last one I did took me two full days. There were about 200 slides (whew).

Yes, that’s not the only way to do a webinar. You can just go live on Zoom Video, and that can work as well. You ultimately have to find your style and test what works.

Presentations are proactive in that at the end you can ask for the business. And, of course, you can turn the recording of the webinar into a video in a snap and send it out to those on your list. Watch it here.

So presentations will always play a big part in my marketing toolkit.

One other thing though – If you don’t have a LOT of people on your email list, good luck in getting much of an attendance. Yes, you can do guest presentations hosted by others, but you don’t have the same control and ability to pitch your professional services.

Best example: John Nemo of LinkedIn Riches. His webinar is a blast. There are a lot of them out there in the online marketing world. And many, Like John, have set them up as evergreen webinars that are scheduled to play automatically several times a day. These are kind of a hybrid between publishing and presentations.

Easy and Proactive = Email

In my opinion, email is the most powerful overall marketing tool. And it gets the least respect. But I can’t imagine even being in business without email marketing.

Social media gets all the PR and all the attention, but email gets the business. A recent study showed that email generated 40 times the business results of Facebook and Twitter combined.

Email is the online tool that’s been around the longest, and I think it’s taken for granted. Promotional emails have expanded exponentially over the years, but most of it isn’t very good.

We wade through our email boxes like we sort our mail over the trashcan. Delete, delete, delete. Why? Because it’s either not relevant or it’s boring. Usually both.

I feel that email has the greatest potential of all the online marketing strategies because it’s both relatively easy and the most proactive marketing medium of all. Your message goes right into the mailbox of your potential client. Nothing else can do that.

Marketing email holds great opportunities for improvement in several areas:

1. How to incorporate humor as the most powerful attention-getting device in existence (that almost nobody is using).

2. How to telegraph your value proposition straight to the minds and hearts of your prospect.

3. How to make your emails clear, focused, and easy-to-read.

4. How to craft a compelling call-to-action that is hard to resist.

5. How to get emails to thousands of your prospects without looking like spam.

If you’re not working on ALL of these, your emails will not get the attention and response you want.

Best Example: Therapy Practice Accelerator. Visit this site and get on the list just to see the brilliance of the email marketing. It’s all about demonstrating results.

What marketing strategies will you choose?

Take the four marketing quadrants into consideration. The easier a marketing activity, the more likely you’ll actually do it. And the more proactive a marketing activity, the faster the response you’ll get.

Cheers, Robert

Action Plan Marketing helps self-employed people attract more clients through action-oriented marketing strategies that get you in front of prospective clients. Get our free report on how you can attract more of your ideal clients at this link: http://actionplan.club/free-stuff.

[allythurston2]

Blog #1: Examining Youth Culture

This week we were assigned to watch four films and one television show that encouraged us to examine youth culture. These films and the television show took place in different time periods, ranging from the 1980’s up until the present.  When watching these films, I occasionally found myself identifying with characters and some of their actions. Surprisingly, I identified with Brian from The Breakfast Club. Like Brian, I was very shy and nerdy. My parents put a lot of pressure on me to do well, I was the oldest sibling which meant I had to set a good example. I was easily intimidated by others just as Brian was intimidated by John. I also had a huge respect for authority, I was very careful to not get in trouble. Seeing Brian constantly cut off during conversation was like looking in a mirror. Being soft spoken, when I did talk, I was talked over constantly, which added to my reasoning to just not talk at all. I never really pictured myself relating to him, I have watched the movie before, but I never really saw the connection until watching it again for my communications class.  

While these films were all different in their own ways, they each presented similar themes. The first theme that popped out to me was acceptance. Many of the characters in these films were seeking the acceptance of the people they surrounded themselves with as well as self-acceptance. In the show Euphoria we are introduced to an array of characters, each fighting their own battles. One character in particular named Kat stood out to me. Kat was always considered the less attractive member of her four-girl friend group. Boys often referred to her as “fat” because she did not fit the typical size 4 boy type that many find attractive. Unlike many characters who were seeking the approval of others, Kat seemed more focused on seeking approval from herself. She showed clear signs of being insecure, but after a video of her preforming a sexual act ended up online that all changed. She blossomed, developing this “hot girl” mentality once she realized how many people found her attractive the way she was. She found the acceptance within herself that she desperately needed. In the film Mean Girls, Cady was a prime example of someone who was seeking acceptance from others. She wanted to fit in so bad that she gave up who she was, transforming herself to fit into the Plastic’s cookie cutter standards. She left behind her genuine friends in order to be accepted by the popular crowd who in all reality did not like her in the first place. Both of these characters can be compared to the youth of today. Today’s youth seek acceptance, whether it be from others or themselves, it seems to be a common goal among many. When I was a teenager I wanted so badly to be accepted, but I was quiet, and awkward, a combination that did not exactly scream “cool”. I found myself struggling to remain true to who I was while also trying desperately to find the “group” that I fit in with. While I struggled for most of my high school experience trying to accept myself as well as be accepted, I ultimately had a revelation my senior year that the only person who needs to accept me is me. I focused on loving myself for me and have not looked back since.  Another theme I felt was present in these films would be the common goal to live life to the fullest. Many characters were focused on attending the next party or living their life the way they wanted to, regardless of consequences. In Mid90s the skater crowd just wanted to skate and party, they did not care who it effected in the process as long as they were having a good time. In Kids, Telly was focused on partying and being sexually active. He had no regard for the safety of himself or the girls he was involved with which ultimately was a major downfall. I feel that the youth today still possess the same mindset. Parties are still happening regularly even though we are in a pandemic. People do not care if they get sick, all that matters is they were living their life to the fullest and on their terms. While I was awkward in my youth, I still attended parties regularly. I was friends with people who were at every party every weekend it seemed, and I truthfully enjoyed every moment of it. Thinking back on it now, I was reckless, but being reckless made me feel alive. I feel that everyone at some point goes through their “I’m indestructible” phase of life, but that phase can really humble you. Living life to the fullest is what being young seems to be all about. A final theme I found common amongst all of the films was the theme of sexuality. While it was more present in films like Kids and Euphoria versus the film The Breakfast Club, I felt its something definitely worth mentioning. Sexuality is very prominent in youth culture. Teenagers are experimenting with not only sex but discovering their own sexuality. Promiscuity is no stranger to many high school students, it seemed like high school was a common time for many to figure out who they were sexually. While in that department I am a very private person, I will say that high school was not really the time for me to come to terms with any type of sexuality. I did however witness many of my friends go on their journey of sexual discovery, and I learned a lot from their stories. In high school I felt that everyone always knew who was sexually active and who was not. It always seemed like people would have all this knowledge on other’s personal lives, but not by their choice. People talked; privacy was virtually nonexistent. It seemed as if nothing was sacred, and while the girls definitely did their fair share of talking, it always seemed like the most outlandish stories came from the boys. The scene in Kids where Telly and his friends were talking about girl’s sexual preference and Jennie and her friends were talking about their own preference is what I imagined these conversations actually went like during my time in high school. Being the quiet girl met people always felt comfortable talking about things around me, and I can recall more then one occasion hearing both genders sides of an encounter and let me tell you they were always extremely different.

When watching these movies, I noticed one other big thing outside of my relation to a character and the very prominent themes all the films appeared to share. I noticed the music, and how it set the overall narrative of the film. I noticed how in each film when there was something traumatic or sad occurring the music reflected the feeling the scene was meant to give. When there was a party going on or when characters were doing something fun the music was fast or upbeat. The music helped set the overall vibe and tone for what was happening, it’s almost as if it gave you an indication of what was going to happen. I took the time to create a spotify playlist which I will link below this post. Each song I chose because I feel it reflected my experiences during my youth well. The first song I chose is “Kids in Love” by Mayday Parade. This song reminds me of the silly romances I had throughout my youth. I always thought I was in love, but at that age who didn’t. The second song I chose was “Therapy” by All Time Low. I was a very angsty and depressed kid, I listened to this song on repeat when I would go through my frequent, spurts of depression. While the song itself is sad, it oddly brought me comfort. The third song I chose was “Killing in The Name” by Rage Against The Machine. This song is a bit strange, but the ending in particularly reminded me of my mentality during my youth. There is a lot of colorful language in the song, but I felt the ending, which essentially is saying I’m going to do what I want, was spot on with my overall attitude during the age of sixteen to seventeen. The fourth song I chose is “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks. I have always idolized Stevie, I would listen to this car during the warmer months, driving with the windows down, and feeling as free as a bird. Honestly anything by Stevie put me in a good mood, I would drive around singing her music at the top of my lungs quite frequently. The fifth song I chose was “ I Want You To Want Me” by Cheap Trick. This song represents my desire to be wanted by someone, which I feel everyone can relate to. I wanted to be in love, I wanted someone to be crazy about me. I watched way too many romance movies during my youth, hence my minor obsession with love. For my sixth song I chose “Rock and Roll All Nite” by KISS. This one I feel is self-explanatory, I wanted to party all the time! This song is fun and upbeat and to this day I still enjoy it. For my seventh song I chose “I Will Not Bow” by Breaking Benjamin. This song represents my depression, I refused to allow it to break me. I shut myself away from the world a lot, I was “a cold-blooded fake” at times. This song pulled me out of some pretty dark times, I still listen to it when I find myself in a less then ideal head space to remind me that I am strong and “will not break”. The eight song I chose is also slightly morbid but is one of my favorites. I chose “Can You Feel My Heart” by Bring Me The Horizon. The lyrics “I’m scared to get close, and I hate being alone, I long for the feeling to not feel at all, the higher get, the lower I’ll sink, I can’t drown my demons, they know how to swim” was essentially my headspace when I was sixteen. To say mentally I was going through it would be an understatement. This song was not around when I was a teen, but when I first heard it my mind instantly went back to that time. My ninth choice is far less morbid, I chose “First Date” by Blink-182. It reminds me of the nerves and craziness of a first date. It embodies the awkwardness that you feel at the beginning and then the happiness and excitement that followed. The final song I chose is “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance. This one I chose because to me it is the anthem of what being a teenager is! Teenagers can be scary with how little care or regard for safety they have. They’re wild and angsty. I like how this song covers how mean some cliques could be too, it overall is just a really cool song in my opinion. While my song choices are a bit all of the place, I feel my wide variety of genres and songs paint the picture of who I was during my youth. I was a mess, but I made the best out of it. 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0pvLKBWYfBXFGyloP2Bu8K?si=2oJOguBYTguW12UIhhtdHQ&utm_source=native-share-menu