#just abject horrible horrible absurdism

[killkaramazov]

I think about Svidraigilov positing the idea that eternity is a room full of spiders more frequently than I care to admit

[riverssongs13]

While we're all agonising over waiting for the last 2 episodes, I'd like to take this time to talk about how Lilia Calderu, seer extraordinaire, Queen of Cups, singlehandedly waged war against the harmful stereotypes witches have endured in literature, in history, and in any and all media in general. This endeavour requires a rewatch of all the episodes but I'm just going to eyeball it by what I can remember for now.

In episode 3 Through Many Miles of Tricks and Trials, Mrs. Hart, maiden bless her soul, said "A witch is really just another name for a bad girl, is that right?" Lilia immediately says, "That is extremely reductive. We are not a monolith."

Lilia is the oldest member of the coven (after Death, I guess), and it goes without saying she has lived through and experienced all the horrible things witches were subjected to throughout history. In which, I would like to posit a slight correction: she has lived through all the horrible things POWERFUL WOMEN experienced under the hands of misogyny and patriarchy.

In episode 5, Darkest Hour Wake Thy Power, the coven was being actively chased by the Salem Seven, and needed a quick escape from The Road. Teen, with his precious innocent soul, suggested they fly to escape their pursuers. After getting very negative feedback from the coven, Lilia explains how "brooms have been co-opted by the holiday industrial complex as an absurd emblem of our culture, and an obvious symbol of female domesticity."

Death's Hand In Mine, episode 7, also had Lilia commenting on how "demeaning" it was to be portrayed as wearing the typical witchy trope costumes when they got inside the Tower. Quite tongue-in-cheek as well how Lilia was Glinda the "good witch" while Jen was the Evil Queen in witch disguise.

Going back to episode 3, it was also Lilia who vehemently refused to "climb inside an oven" after completing their first Trial. She added that the same thing happened to a friend, one with a lovely house, and ended up, well, we can recall what happened to the supposed "captor" of Hansel and Gretel.

In episode 4, If I Can't Reach You…, it wasn't so much as Lilia mouthing off another witchy trope, but her inside the recording studio. The powerful image of her looking at the portraits of all the women who were persecuted during the countless witch-hunts throughout history. The abject horror of being thrown into these witch trials by mere suggestions, and these women were oft sentenced to the most horrific deaths even without evidence. Lilia looking at these women being burnt at the stake, boiled alive in a vat of tar, maimed, flayed, and I wonder how many of these scenarios are being played from memory.

Within the same episode Lilia said, "You know the worst part of being a witch? All the misconceptions and rumour mongering." And this basically sums up the experience of witches around the world -- of POWERFUL WOMEN -- present yourself with even a modicum of power, motivation, and ambition, and if that threatens the fragile ego of man, you best believe you'd be persecuted for it. (I find it even a more compelling message after having re-watched Patti's character in Penny Dreadful, burned at the stake for standing up against a man. Great show. Check that one out.)

I'm certain there are more instances I'm unable to recall and include, but right now I'm swimming in anticipation and anxiety over the last 2 episodes, I honestly do not wish to pore over the previous ones with a fine tooth comb. I may do that in the future, but today is not that day.

Which is to say, I love how Lilia has played the part of the wise sage correcting all the wrongs her kind has resolutely endured for countless centuries. I love how women are slowly being given back the power in their own narratives, without the need to insert the story of man for it to be relevant. I love how this show is very unapologetically queer, and about women, and about reclaiming that power taken away from them.

To add cherry on top, I love how Patti LuPone herself said in a recent interview, that the whole show is making it about "what we are initially: we're all witches because we are powerful women; women are powerful. The power has been robbed from them for centuries. BY MEN. Its kind of great to see a show that represents witches as women with power."

We may be lightyears away from an ideal society where women are no longer oppressed and boxed within their own existence at the insistence of men who wish to reduce them into something they could fit within their egos and minds, but it's quite nice to think that this show about a ragtag team of women and a teenage boy is taking a step into the right direction.

Thank you, Lilia Calderu and Patti LuPone, we all say in unison.

[everyonewasabird]

Brickclub 5.8.1 “The Basement Room”

This chapter is just horrifically cruel.

Valjean visits, choosing to meet Cosette in the horrible basement room, which is also the one Marius chose for him. He claims it was purely his choice (true in some sense, at least so far) and then he speaks formally to Cosette, calls her “Madame” and makes her call him “Monsieur Jean.” She protests, to no avail.

Cosette’s mannerisms are cutesy throughout, always hyper-aware of being winning and attractive and expressing her frustration with a self-conscious self-deprecation that makes it sound like she’s joking.

She’s not.

She’s just absolutely fucking powerless, and she never stops being aware that being appealing to the men in her life is the last paltry power she has. It’s insult on top of a whole lot of injury, and I can’t help feeling like the entirety of this short marriage so far (two days!) has to be spelling out to her exactly how isolated she is and how little power she has over her own life, let alone in anyone else’s. She says she’s furious, she says she’s alone--the text lets us know the tone is joking. I don’t know if Hugo understands what he’s written, but it’s clear to me that she’s joking because she can’t dare anything else without losing more than she’s already lost.

She argues with Valjean, and logic is on her side, custom is on her side, common sense is on her side, normal familial feeling is on her side, even most of Valjean’s feelings are on her side--but he’s decided to die on this cross, and I don’t know that it particularly occurs to him that her pain is real. Which is absurd; she’s literally telling him about it. But he’s got depression whispering in one ear and the social stigma against convicts (fully backed by Marius) whispering in the other, and he’s not listening to her at all.

And finally....

If this novel were pure realism I suppose it wouldn’t mean much that there happened to be a horrifying, decaying room full of spiders in the basement... but as it is, wow does that feel indicative of something about the house. The Rue Plumet wasn’t symbolic of perfect parenting, and it had some bizarre sex grottoes built by its previous owner, but I would be shocked if it had anything like this room in it. It’s such a sign of something rotten under the surface. It’s the kind of place where the Thenardiers would have made Cosette sleep when she was little. The existence of this room feels like a statement that this house is capable of that. And, of course, those giant spiderwebs are pure Fatality, which reigns here.

I keep thinking about the kid in the cellar in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas (Marius and Cosette: please walk away from this fucking house), whose hidden suffering powers the utopia above him. I think there’s some truth to that, especially when Valjean starts inhabiting that little room.

But it’s also true that we don’t need to resort to this horrible little room to find horror and abjection and exploitation in this house--it’s on display entirely in the open upstairs.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Like Lightning

Street Fighter: The Movie is a goddamn masterpiece. I said what I said. Obviously, I know the film is terrible. Just, garbage. Straight stagnant, tepid, dumpster water. But, in that awful mire of sludge and refuse, there is a certain charm to be had. Like going out to a field after a torrential downpour, and just rolling in the mud. Slumming it through the seediest dive bars with your friends, picking fights and being ridiculous. This movie has the same energy as an alleyway raccoon, looking to mug you for the rest of your half eaten, three in the morning, hangover preempting burrito. It’s just feral, chaotic, nonsense and I love every goddamn second of it! Now, before you try and say I’m just an asshole who devours schlock, that isn’t the case. I love all forms of cinema. I was one of the few people who genuinely enjoyed Tenet and actually understood Stoker, after three viewings. I am a staunch supporter of the auteur and relish the creativity in their art. I am, at heart, a lover of storytelling and kind of a snob when it comes to cinema. But, at the same time, one of my favorite Godzilla films is Goji versus Megalon and that sh*t is abject trash. I find merit in the absurd and, sometimes, something can be so bad that it comes out the other side of preposterous. The Room is a film like that. The Rock is another. Really, anything Tax Money Desperate Nic Cage is in. There is is the cinematic sweet spot where you can be just the worst, and still entertain. So bad, it’s good, in quite a few ways. Street Fighter: The Move finds that balance perfectly.

I watched this movie opening day with my uncle, way back in the mid-Nineties. Street Fighter was all the rage, absolutely tearing up the arcades. I believe Championship Edition had just come out and I was learning how to play with my darling Cammy White. But dem cheeks, tho! I was nine or ten years old and, after witnessing the glory o Bison on screen for the first time, left he theater crushed. That was the first time I distinctly remember being disappointed by a film. Even my little fifth grade ass knew that sh*t was trash. There were just SO many things wrong with that film. Ryu wasn’t the main character and Ken was just some white dude in slacks. Sagat was this old man with a goofy eye patch Who the f*ck was Captain Sawada and where the hell was Fei Long or T. Hawk? The less spoke about what they did to Blanka and Dhalsim, the better. But the worst transgression this film made, was that pitiful ass hadoken Ryu threw during the climax. It was like a little flashlight in his palms. Sh*t was mad whack! So much of this movie was wrong; just flat-out incorrect to the lore. Why would they change so much of the story? You’ve basically stripped the identity of Street Fighter, out of Street Fighter. This is before I understand what Hollywood does to thing during adaption. The horrible, terrible, things they do in adaption. Especially to Video Game narratives… But it’s not all doom and gloom. There were a few things i rather enjoyed about the film. Obviously, the fact Cammy was in really went a long way to redeeming a ton of the sh*ttiness. I was a pretty big fan of JCVD back in the day so him getting cast as Guile was a boon to me. I adored the Chun-Li trio. I’ve been in love with Ming Na Wen for years, and that probably started with this film. E. Honda was awesome, Zangief was delightfully dense, and f*cking Dee Jay stole every scene he was in. That sh*t sparked pure joy for me but all of that, everything in this film pales in comparison to Raul Julia’s purely farcical take on M. Bison!

“For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me? It was Tuesday.”

Let me tell you, even as a child, that line hit different. It was just so confident, so matter-of-fact, and the way Raul delivered it? Sir, you couldn’t anymore condescending. That smug, blisteringly callous, matter-of-fact way, he just SAID that sh*t was everything. Dude basically genocided Chun-Li’s village and was just like, “Yeah, but who are you again?.” Absolutely brilliant. Raul Julia's performance in this film, is one of the best I have ever seen in my entire f*cking life. Back when I was a kid, I just thought it was a fun time. As an adult who understands film, I know, for a fact, Raul put every ounce of his joy into that performance. It's not M. Bison, it's Raul Julia, channeling his Gomez Addams, while performing Bison for his kids and i love that. During this entire filming process, Julia was dying from cancer. He took this gig, his last acting job, because his children loved Street Fighter. This performance is a gift to them and he gave it everything. He left them something special, something that has endured for decades. Street Fighter: The Movie is bad. It is. But Raul Julia is f*cking brilliant. He outshines everything in that film and makes it more than worth a watch. I loved him as a kid and I appreciate him as an adult. If you have two hours to kill, definitely check it out. Keep in mind, it's kind of the worst, but you won't care. The second Julia saunters onscreen, you'll be lost in his apologetically hammy, scene chewing, showmanship.

[smokeybrand]

Like Lightning

Street Fighter: The Movie is a goddamn masterpiece. I said what I said. Obviously, I know the film is terrible. Just, garbage. Straight stagnant, tepid, dumpster water. But, in that awful mire of sludge and refuse, there is a certain charm to be had. Like going out to a field after a torrential downpour, and just rolling in the mud. Slumming it through the seediest dive bars with your friends, picking fights and being ridiculous. This movie has the same energy as an alleyway raccoon, looking to mug you for the rest of your half eaten, three in the morning, hangover preempting burrito. It’s just feral, chaotic, nonsense and I love every goddamn second of it! Now, before you try and say I’m just an asshole who devours schlock, that isn’t the case. I love all forms of cinema. I was one of the few people who genuinely enjoyed Tenet and actually understood Stoker, after three viewings. I am a staunch supporter of the auteur and relish the creativity in their art. I am, at heart, a lover of storytelling and kind of a snob when it comes to cinema. But, at the same time, one of my favorite Godzilla films is Goji versus Megalon and that sh*t is abject trash. I find merit in the absurd and, sometimes, something can be so bad that it comes out the other side of preposterous. The Room is a film like that. The Rock is another. Really, anything Tax Money Desperate Nic Cage is in. There is is the cinematic sweet spot where you can be just the worst, and still entertain. So bad, it’s good, in quite a few ways. Street Fighter: The Move finds that balance perfectly.

I watched this movie opening day with my uncle, way back in the mid-Nineties. Street Fighter was all the rage, absolutely tearing up the arcades. I believe Championship Edition had just come out and I was learning how to play with my darling Cammy White. But dem cheeks, tho! I was nine or ten years old and, after witnessing the glory o Bison on screen for the first time, left he theater crushed. That was the first time I distinctly remember being disappointed by a film. Even my little fifth grade ass knew that sh*t was trash. There were just SO many things wrong with that film. Ryu wasn’t the main character and Ken was just some white dude in slacks. Sagat was this old man with a goofy eye patch Who the f*ck was Captain Sawada and where the hell was Fei Long or T. Hawk? The less spoke about what they did to Blanka and Dhalsim, the better. But the worst transgression this film made, was that pitiful ass hadoken Ryu threw during the climax. It was like a little flashlight in his palms. Sh*t was mad whack! So much of this movie was wrong; just flat-out incorrect to the lore. Why would they change so much of the story? You’ve basically stripped the identity of Street Fighter, out of Street Fighter. This is before I understand what Hollywood does to thing during adaption. The horrible, terrible, things they do in adaption. Especially to Video Game narratives… But it’s not all doom and gloom. There were a few things i rather enjoyed about the film. Obviously, the fact Cammy was in really went a long way to redeeming a ton of the sh*ttiness. I was a pretty big fan of JCVD back in the day so him getting cast as Guile was a boon to me. I adored the Chun-Li trio. I’ve been in love with Ming Na Wen for years, and that probably started with this film. E. Honda was awesome, Zangief was delightfully dense, and f*cking Dee Jay stole every scene he was in. That sh*t sparked pure joy for me but all of that, everything in this film pales in comparison to Raul Julia’s purely farcical take on M. Bison!

“For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me? It was Tuesday.”

Let me tell you, even as a child, that line hit different. It was just so confident, so matter-of-fact, and the way Raul delivered it? Sir, you couldn’t anymore condescending. That smug, blisteringly callous, matter-of-fact way, he just SAID that sh*t was everything. Dude basically genocided Chun-Li’s village and was just like, “Yeah, but who are you again?.” Absolutely brilliant. Raul Julia's performance in this film, is one of the best I have ever seen in my entire f*cking life. Back when I was a kid, I just thought it was a fun time. As an adult who understands film, I know, for a fact, Raul put every ounce of his joy into that performance. It's not M. Bison, it's Raul Julia, channeling his Gomez Addams, while performing Bison for his kids and i love that. During this entire filming process, Julia was dying from cancer. He took this gig, his last acting job, because his children loved Street Fighter. This performance is a gift to them and he gave it everything. He left them something special, something that has endured for decades. Street Fighter: The Movie is bad. It is. But Raul Julia is f*cking brilliant. He outshines everything in that film and makes it more than worth a watch. I loved him as a kid and I appreciate him as an adult. If you have two hours to kill, definitely check it out. Keep in mind, it's kind of the worst, but you won't care. The second Julia saunters onscreen, you'll be lost in his apologetically hammy, scene chewing, showmanship.

[googledocsdyke]

gonna do some unadorned sincerity rn because it’s been five full months and all that. this year has like obviously been insane and horrible and i took a year out from school which like objectively was a good idea for my brain but also left me feeling Lonely & Unmoored & Academically Unfulfilled and all that and like. being in this ~digital space~ kicking up kinetic sand with all of you sharing article links building off each other’s art and fic and graphics and meta collectively creating investigating digging into frustrating things abt the show making funnie posts..... genuinely has pushed me to do more reading for reading’s sake, has reminded me how much i genuinely adore writing and pushed me to work on personal projects both spn/fic related and original fiction/articles/poetry, has had me laughing harder than i have in months [dean in ftbyam voice], and also like. have met some very dear online friends who despite being pixels on my screen are joys to talk to and i feel very much cared for an understood by and like. Fuck! online life cannot replace everything i’ve lost and i do have a life outside of supernatural tumblr but at the same time my brain’s been buzzing in ways not related to, yknow, abject misery and that’s something!!!! it’s so much something!!!! it’s absurd and mesmerising and so not where i expected my life to go but very much i am happier than i thought i could be !! like yeah i take supernatural too serious and this is all just a bit of fun but that’s something ! and i will carry a lot of these things and people with me for a very long time

[treksickfic]

The City on the Edge of Forever

I’m so excited to share this with you, anonymous requester! After you sent in your prompt, I had another anonymous reader get in touch with me to let me know they’d already written a story that matched your wishes exactly. 

The author of this story is French, not a native English speaker, and they’ve written a beautifully touching story that expands on the TOS episode, City on the Edge of Forever.  I am posting it here on my blog, with their permission, because they do not wish to have an account nor have their identity attached to the story. This writer has already become dear to me and I’m honored that they trusted me with their writing. I hope you enjoy it!

It’s a long story, nearly 3,000 words, so RIP to your dash if you’re on mobile.  I didn’t want to post it on AO3 or anywhere else except my blog, which feels safer.

Trigger warning for panic attack and trigger warning for some mild emeto, if you’re sensitive to that. It’s not very graphic.

“James Kirk, I demand an explanation!”

Scotty, Uhura, the teleportation technicians, and the security guards were completely dumbfounded by the doctor's explosion. They watched the captain stagger off, livid, as if he had been punched in the stomach. He disappeared without a word, with long stiff steps, from the room.

“Jim!” yelled McCoy.

 “Not now, doctor.” Spock's cold, dry voice stopped him.

Spock squeezed McCoy’s arm firmly and Scott was sure to read in his black eyes a burst of fury. McCoy noticed it too, because despite the storm of his own eyes, he remained silent.

“Everyone, at your posts,” declared the Vulcan. “Scott, you are in charge for now.”

“Yes, sir.” Scotty nodded, refraining from asking any questions.

As soon as they had come through the Time Gate, seconds after they left, it seemed, but many weeks later for them, he had seen that they were not fine at all. The captain was pale, deaf to their questions, obviously struggling with the tears that filled his eyes. The doctor was just as white, his face contracted with a terrible anger. As for Spock, he kept his eyes fixed on Jim, his usual indifference altered by deep and obvious concern.

What the hell had happened?

This is precisely the question McCoy yelled at Spock, pulling himself brutally out of his grip as they entered his office, safe from prying ears:

“Damn it, Spock!”

 “If you calm down, doctor, maybe I could explain.”

 “Calm down? CALM DOWN? Shit, Spock! How do you want me to calm down?”

 “Breathing. Deep, and slowly. Start by sitting down.”

 “Don't fuck with me!”

 “The Vulcans don't fuck with people. Now, please calm down.”

 Jim killed someone without thought. There's no way I can calm down. Shit!”

Spock gritted his teeth and an aura of icy disappointment emanated from him:

“Jim killed someone without thought...do you get along, doctor? You've been aboard this ship for over a year. You even pretend to be the captain's friend. How can you accuse him of this without thinking for two seconds?”

 “I saw it ! He prevented me from—"

“--and your poor little mind preferred to give in to this abject emotion rather than try to find a logical explanation. Jim, the most compassionate man we know…would he have acted like this for no reason?”

These words had the effect of a cold shower on McCoy. He shook his head, gradually coming to himself. He hadn't actually thought for a single moment, mired in a nauseating fury that he hadn't even tried to control. Shame replaced anger and he sagged in his seat and closed his eyes for a moment.

The past few weeks had been a total blur. He had woken up in a room with antique furniture, with an adorable woman at his bedside: Edith Keeler. It had taken him some time to realize that she was neither a hallucination nor a very good actress, but that he was indeed in a different era. Back in the 1930s. And he had barely had time to figure it out and come out of the bedroom to find answers before Jim and Spock, overjoyed, fell on him.

The next second Edith was dead. And it was Kirk's fault., He had kept him from coming to her aid. It had been too much emotion, too quickly and too soon. He had not managed to digest it, even less to understand anything other than what he had seen:

Jim had killed Edith.

But now that Spock had brought him back to reality, it all seemed absurd. And he noticed certain details: His friend's trembling when he held him; the tears in his green eyes when he leaned against the wall; Spock's unusually soft words when he had defended Jim, "he knows doctor, he knows."

How could he have seen nothing? Holding back a moan, he confronted Spock's stern face again:

“Explain it to me.”

“I'll do it quickly. In the timeline of our current story, Edith Keeler dies in 1930. In the one you walked through, paranoid after the cordrazine syringe accident, her ideals of peace and openness reach Roosevelt's ears and America becomes a peaceful country. That prevents its involvement in the second world war. Germany wins and dominates the world. Our time, therefore, does not exist.”

“Oh.”

“By the time you got there, after roughly locating your destination, we got to know Edith. A very charming woman, particularly intelligent.”

“And, Jim—"

“Was deeply in love with her. But for the good of a whole world and not solely himself, he let her die and prevented you from committing irreparable damage.”

“My god.”

McCoy put his head in his hands, overcome with excruciating guilt. Spock watched him, suppressing the harsh words that itched on his lips. The man had realized his mistake. It was useless to add more in the current state. He sighed for a long time, feeling unpleasantly empathetic towards Jim. He admired the way the man had managed to silence all of his instincts to save everyone:

“You should go see him, doctor. I think leaving him alone right now is not the best solution. Especially since he slept and ate very little while we were on earth, and even less after he realized that Edith had to die. He was ill several times during the night. He needs help.”

“Perhaps it is better ... Chapel—”

“No, Leonard,” Spock said, as kindly as he could. “He needs you.”

McCoy let out a deep sigh. He felt silly, and unforgivable. But for the sake of his friend, and indirectly, the sake of the crew, he knew Spock was right. Grabbing his medical equipment, he left in the direction of the captain's quarters.

 *****

Jim rested his forehead against the cool edge of the toilet. The doctor's words were circling in his mind, adding further weight to his overwhelming grief. He felt sick, his stomach as tight as his chest. A discomfort that had become familiar over the past few days. The intense nausea that rolled and rolled, threatening at every moment to overflow was a most unpleasant physical manifestation of his stress.

Despite his efforts to conserve food that was already scarce in their daily life in 1930, there were times when he couldn't do anything about it. Nightmares woke him in an agonizing sweat, on the verge of ruining the atrocious coarse cover of their flop.

He managed each time to sneak into the bathroom before returning the meager pittance with spasms he tried to silence. He also appreciated the discretion of Spock, who had the delicacy of pretending to sleep when Jim returned to his bed several minutes later, breathless and exhausted. But now that he was alone, aboard the Enterprise, he had no reason to contain himself, and did not fight the gagging that came out violently, like revenge for being held back so long. His stomach, however empty, kept revolting, replacing his sobs with endless contractions.

He had barely activated the door to his quarters when they had started, and he had yielded to the spasms with some relief. As unpleasant as vomiting was, his whole body tense and sore as he curled up over the toilet, at least it kept him from thinking about it. Being sick kept his mind on constant alert, focusing his attention on the spasms, gasps, bile, burning and kept the fear away. Unbearable, interminable, but ... secondary.

He coughed cautiously, catching his breath, feeling even sicker from the pungent smell that hung around him…the smell as horrible as the way he felt. This place of suffering and abandonment suited him.

He leaned over awkwardly when the bile passed his throat for the umpteenth time and spilled out in a long convulsion. He grabbed his stomach and closed his eyes so he couldn’t see the mess coloring the water again. The dizziness began to build, the light becoming unbearable as a migraine took hold of his temples, seeping through to his sinuses. He shivered, trying to reach for the chase to vent some of his weakness, when a hand rested on his forehead. Incredibly cool, it brought such comfort that he could not suppress a fragile sigh.

Tenderly the hand placed a damp cloth on the back of his neck and then finally came to cover his eyes. There was the terribly aggressive sound of the toilet flushing, then a voice whispering for the light to drop to 20%.

That voice ...

His comfort immediately ceased, replaced by anguish. He coughed sharply, spitting out more bile in an effort to shake off the impending grief. He could do nothing against the intense tremors that made him gasp, nor the panicked sob that burst through the vomiting.

“Shhh, Jim.” The voice was a broken whisper. “Shhh, everything is fine.”

Kirk wanted to yell at him to go away, to leave him, not to hurt him anymore. Irrationally afraid of the anger that had rained over him earlier at the prospect of having to face reality. Instead he could only moan, shaken by a horrible, nauseating cough.

Feeling Jim shake and panic under his fingers, McCoy was crushed by an intense wave of guilt. He had seen Jim gripped with grief, stress, drunkenness, anger... but never so completely. It was the first time he seemed ... broken ... and it was largely his fault.

The abnormal heat radiating from his skin indicated a high fever and explained his lack of self control. McCoy took a syringe out of his bag and spoke in a very soft voice so as not to hurt his friend's headaches.

“Jim, I'm going to inject you with a painkiller, it'll help you relax.”

He had no other answer than a small hiccup and a burst of bile.

Nervous vomiting, McCoy noticed. It was serious. He was going to have to play it safe to get the captain to calm down enough to free himself from his sadness and he hoped the hypo would act quickly. He thrust the syringe into his biceps and took advantage of the slight respite that followed to quickly run the medical tricorder over Jim’s upper body.

The latter told him what he already knew: extreme stress, high fever, deficiencies in iron and magnesium, low blood pressure...nothing to indicate a gastric bug apart from weakness due to deficiencies, which reinforced his theory of psychogenic nausea.

McCoy was relieved to find that the sedative had done its work: Jim was shaking less and seemed more lucid.

“Bones...what--?”

Bones. So he didn't blame him. This man's empathy would kill him eventually, the doctor thought. He put a protective arm around the Jim’s shoulders and another under his chest to support him. He could feel the angry stomach muscles that continued to struggle and tighten. He gave a sad little smile.

“We are going to talk about all this. But first, we are going to get out of this horrible room. You need to lie down.”

“Um, that's not safe,” Jim grimaced with a little hiccup.

“I'll take a bucket, but I want you to lie down. Doctor's orders.”

 “If it's an o-order,” he stammered, in a slight attempt at humor.

Jim allowed himself to be helped without opening his eyes, too ill to protest, and too weak to fend for himself. Bones almost carried him to his bed.

Once lying down, McCoy carefully removed Jim’s boots and socks, pulled up a wonderfully warm blanket and put a cloth on his forehead. Then Jim heard the familiar whirr of the tricorder passing once more over his body and finally the sound of several mixes. Careful fingers rested on his right temple.

“Can you open your eyes?”

“Urgh, Bones, I'll throw up if I open them.”

“There is a bucket, don't hold back. I need you to look at me.”

Jim groaned but obeyed. The light, even though very dim, made him moan in pain. It penetrated his head like a blade and triggered, as announced, a violent nausea.

McCoy held him very gently as he threw up a thin trickle of bilious saliva. He fell completely exhausted on the pillow once the attack was over. The doctor muttered something unintelligible and wiped his face.

“I should send you to the infirmary, Jim. You have serious deficiencies and that added to the stress...this is a perfect combination for a migraine in due form. I'll put you on an IV to regulate your sugar levels and give you a strong pain reliever. It should help you feel better.”

Once everything was in place, a tactical, hesitant silence settled between them. Jim could feel his presence, sitting on the edge of the bed rather than a chair, and the warm, warm hand pressed to his shoulder. The exhaustion and sadness rose in power now that the disease could no longer build its walls around his mind. He saw Edith again. Edith and her sweetness, her love, her joy, her magnificent ideas.

"She's fair ... but not at the right time," Spock had said, trying to make her listen to reason when he...he told her that she had to...die. He had desperately looked for another way but...but—

He clenched his teeth, overtaken by the intensity of the pain. By the gesture. He had even been unable to look at her body. He had not turned around, refusing to see what he had just done, struck head-on by the horror and disgust emanating from the doctor.

He swallowed, feeling the tremors start again, the despair skyrocketing. McCoy, hearing the gasps in his friend's tight breath, tightened his grip on his shoulder.

“I ... I loved her...Bones—"

A tear gathered in the corner of his eye and he sniffled, trying to pull himself together:

“Jim,” McCoy whispered, his own emotions rising. “I ... I don't even know how to apologize.”

“You have nothing to excuse. You are right. I ... killed her.”

“No. You saved our world. You did what you had to.”

“Oh, you spoke to Spock,” Jim whispered with a bitter smile.

“Yes.”

Despite the darkness, McCoy could see the paleness growing and the captain's face tightening with the effort to hold back the sobs. He searched for a moment for words he could say to alleviate the pain. Not finding them, he shook his head.

Jim tried to speak, with difficulty. “I shouldn't—”

“You have the right to be sad. You just lost the one you love in an act of unimaginable courage. Jim, I'm an overly impulsive old fool, I can't even imagine what you've been through and I sincerely ask forgiveness for this unjustified anger.”

“Please, Bones—"

“No, let me finish. Thank you for your understanding, but you don't have to. I acted like an idiot.”

“You couldn't have known.”

“That's no excuse. I know you and should have taken a step back.”

“What is done is done.”

“Jim, what I'm trying to say is that you must not let my emotionally spoken words get to you. You didn't deserve it.”

“I...I searched and searched...and searched again. I couldn't get away from her even when I knew that—”

“You were in love.”

“No, Bones. I'm in love. A selfish person who regrets choices that he shouldn't regret.”

“You are human, and you are suffering. Let it go.”

Another tear rolled down, then another, and finally it was a torrent that poured into the pillow. The captain put a hand over his mouth to silence the gasps of despair and the overwhelming agony of loss. Bones gripped his shoulder, patting it in a comforting gesture. He watched Jim sob like a child, breathing laboriously through exhaustion and mourning. Then he gradually calmed down until he fell into a deep sleep.

The doctor sighed and wiped away his own tears that had started at the same time as his friend's, and that he had not tried to stop. He readjusted the IVs and scanned Jim’s body for the third time. His fever was still high from a mild viral infection after several weeks in the cold and fatigue undernourishment. Jim would be off for a few days and stay in bed.

When he left the room, the doctor was not surprised to find Spock standing and waiting with arched eyebrows.

“How is he?”

 “Exhausted and cold, but fine.”

 “Has he been able to express his sorrow?”

 “I guess, yes.” McCoy smiled, thinking of his friend's relaxed face as he left the room.

“And were you able to express yours?”

The doctor jumped slightly, not at all prepared for this question, much less for Spock to say it. He was sometimes pleasantly surprised by the well-hidden sensitivity of his Vulcan friend. A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed it.

“You are about to cry.”

“Damned be your insight, Mister Spock,” the doctor growled, a little annoyed.

“Humans all must cry at one time or another to get better, doctor. I do not understand why you put a manly bulwark in front of this natural mechanism.”

Bones laughed. “Wouldn't you find it embarrassing for me to break down in tears right now in your arms?”

He expected Spock to answer him, "Vulcans don't know the gene, doctor." Instead he replied, in his usual relaxed and serene tone, “If that makes you feel better, no.”

Such compassion was so strange that it almost seemed out of place. Leonard burst out into a frank laugh that turned without realizing it into a flood of tears. Tears of his own sadness this time, not empathy or guilt. Sadness he didn't think he had. Maybe he was also a little in love with Edith after all. And that the Vulcan understood it well before him.

Spock, moreover, did not pretend to leave, contenting himself to stay by his side until McCoy’s tears turned back into laughter.

“Why are you laughing?” the first officer asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, Mister Spock, because I’m thinking of the absurd spectacle we would have made if someone had been there. The ship's doctor weeping like a baby in front of a motionless Vulcan and their captain's closed door.”

Spock coughed and McCoy would swear to anyone who wanted to hear it that he was blushing.

“Well, you're not a hopeless case,” he said with a smirk, patting him on the shoulder. “Thanks, Spock.”

Then he turned on his heel towards the infirmary without hearing the relieved sigh of his alien friend.

[rosequartzstarswrites]

The Last Farewell

Summary: It is July of 1997, and it's been a year since Sirius slipped beyond the veil. Tomorrow, in the midst of a Wizarding War, Remus is getting married to Tonks, but there's something he must do first: he has to say one last goodbye to Sirius, and he has to ask for his blessing (and his forgiveness) for this next chapter of his life. (Wolfstar oneshot)

Some Wolfstar angst for the soul, because sometimes you just need to hurt. :)

Find it on: AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478989 FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13651855/1/The-Last-Farewell

The only sound breaking the still calm of the early-summer afternoon is of his soft feet padding on the leaves, rustling them up into whirlwinds like memories in an idle mind. Around him, at a far distance, the voices of playing children rise from the neighboring cottages, and Remus can't help but smile to himself: despite the war, despite everything, the riot of childhood continues to be an ingredient in the recipe for a July day. He continues treading lightly along the cobblestone street, careful to stay as quiet as he possibly can. He's shrouded himself in protective spells, but even then, the trek he's making is reckless, so it never hurts to take additional precautions.

Tonks begged him not to come. She ran him through the risks over and over again, her voice rising, pleading with him to stay, to play it safe. But he had to come. In his mind, there was never an option. Even as fear ripples down his spine and every bone in his body seems to whisper a silent command to go back, to turn around, because this is a bad idea.

But he had to come.

And as the small, nondescript stone comes into view, the eleven letters and eight numbers carved simply onto it, he's glad he did.

Sirius hadn't wanted a luxurious funeral. He'd told him that, whispered it, when one of their late night talks had bled into the wee hours and into the realm of the heart's deepest chasms. They'd talked about death, and dying, and what came next, and Remus remembers clearly how adamant Sirius had been about straying from anything pompous. "It'd be my mother's greatest joy," Sirius had scoffed, "to have her son buried like a king. And I can't please her, not even —literally— over my dead body."

He'd wanted to be cremated (an absurdity for any self-respecting member of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, with its own mausoleum), his ashes scattered in a place he loved. But his time had run out before he could pinpoint the place. Which was just as well, because there hadn't been a body to burn anyway. Which makes it all the more stupid that he's kneeling here, in front of the symbolic stone he had placed for him in Godric's Hollow, because the truth is Sirius isn't anywhere near, not even six feet under, and there's nothing to tangibly justify his being here.

But he had to come.

"Hello, my love," he mumbles as he kneels in front of the stone. The grass in front of it has sprouted nicely, and even boasts a few assorted flowers. He'd have liked that, Remus thinks, because as dark a portrayal as Sirius liked to paint of himself, he was one to pick out beauty wherever it bloomed, however small it may be. He'd certainly done it with Remus. "It's been a while since we've talked."

He looks now at the taller, wider gravestone next to Sirius's, and the size difference is more than understandable, because it's Lily and James's in the flesh (or in the bones, by now, rather) that actually rest beneath it. "I hope you don't mind," he tries to justify himself to Sirius now. "We couldn't get a body, and I thought this was a good substitute." The corner of his mouth twitches up in sad amusement. "Padfoot and Prongs, side by side even in the great beyond. And it's just as well, really, because— well, you could use some company, because in all likelihood I won't end up here next to you."

He swallows now, and it's hard, and it's not only saliva that goes down his throat but also the sorrow of knowing what comes next, mixing with the pooling guilty in a gloomy cocktail at the pit of his stomach. This is stupid. Sirius can't hear him, of course he can't, because there's nothing to assure him that there's an afterlife, and even if there were, Sirius would probably have much better things to do in the beyond than follow Remus's every step. Wouldn't he? And even without an afterlife, his body isn't even resting here. This is stupid.

But he had to come.

He braces himself for what comes next, and he blurts it out clumsily, the words spilling out as if somehow their hurry will steamroll over the guilt they carry: "Because I'm getting married, Sirius. I'm getting married tomorrow." His eyes flood with tears, but he lets them flow, because these are tears he can't allow himself to cry in front of anyone else. "I'm getting married, and it's not to you. And I need..." he wipes furiously at the tears now, angry at himself for breaking down before he's even really gotten into it. "It'll be a small affair. Just a few members of the Order, if they can make it, and nothing larger than a regular dinner. But still, I... I need your blessing."

He laughs bitterly now, aware of how ridiculous it is. But Sirius's headstone, and his name etched on it, the name under which he was sure his would eventually be carved as well, stares him in the face. So he makes himself continue.

"I hope it's alright with you," he sighs. "It's Tonks. But that probably doesn't surprise you. She was there for me in the most wonderful way after you..." he can't bring himself to say it, because even a year later, the image of Sirius's last, gaunt smile as he falls back through the veil haunts him, and it's too painful to muster up again. "Anyway, she was a tremendous help. And she was respectful, too. She hurt for you, too, and I suppose we found each other along the way. But I can promise you, there was never anything there before..." And there it is, again! That horrible knot in his throat! He wills it untied and forces himself onward. "It all happened after, and it happened so fast. I suppose it's the war that's got us living in the moment. So I will be marrying into the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, after all," he chuckles dryly, but all the humor drains from his voice as he ekes out the next words, "just not in the way I'd originally thought."

His thighs are burning with tension now, and he allows himself some relief, sitting down with his legs crossed before the gravestone. He reaches a hand out and touches it gently to the top of the stone, brushing it lightly, as he did so many times with Sirius's cheek. He feels the tears coming on again at the mere memory of his touch, at the slight rasp of Sirius's stubble tickling at his fingertips, which he'll never feel again. He pushes himself through it, and ventures to speak with a choked voice.

"I think I love her. I think I might, in time." He thinks about the words, and they ring true in his head. And yet he feels like he's just made a confession, and his chest doesn't feel any lighter. He finds what's weighing it down, and he pushes it out, his words quivering with the tears he's holding back. "But never as much as you. Please, Sirius, I need you to know that." And he fully breaks now, his voice crashing down in an ocean of tears, struggling to get the words out through the sobs that rack his thin frame. "It's always been you, and it always will be. And... and however much I may come to love her, just know that it will always, always be you."

And now it all bears down on him, the weight of time lost and time wasted. The years they spent tiptoeing around each other at Hogwarts, that were years they could've spent together; the years Sirius spent rotting in Azkaban and Remus spent wandering in abject, solitary misery, twelve years they will never get back now; the months he spent in hiding, far from him, unreachable, when he could've returned to his arms. The insufficient nights spent that final summer in a shared bed at Grimmauld Place, arms around each other as if they'd forgotten what it was supposed to feel like. If only they'd had more time to melt back into one another's comfort! If only they'd had more time to relearn their ways around each other's bodies, to stop shivering at the lightest brush of a hand, to remember what a good, long kiss was supposed to feel like. If only they'd had more time to rediscover, truly, what it meant to love.

"Please forgive me," Remus whispers desperately, and his words shake out laden with the deepest, blackest guilt. Sirius would get it, Sirius wouldn't want to live out the rest of his life alone, and he would've been glad that it's Tonks. But still the guilt claws at him, eats at him, scratches him from the inside out. "Please forgive me, Sirius," he pleads again so softly it almost goes unheard, almost gets lost in the murmur of the dying afternoon.

He falls forward and presses his head to the soft earth, wishing ardently it would swallow him. Because he loves Tonks, or at least he might, but it gets harder and harder each day to exist in a world without Sirius. Because he'd give anything to see Sirius flash him another one of his roguish grins, with a toss of the hair over the shoulder and a wink to match. Because he'd give anything for a last exchange of shaky breaths before their lips collide, for the instant of tension where everything seems to hang on who's going to lean forward first and satisfy the desire pounding in their chests. Because he'd give anything for a last time, a last time of anything, a last time that would make their parting easier, that would eradicate the reality that Sirius was brutally ripped from him without a chance to say a proper farewell.

This is, he supposes, the most proper farewell he's getting to bid him. And it can't end like this, with him weeping onto the earth, a crumpled heap of a miserable soul, with no desire to keep going. But, ever the fighter, Sirius would want him to. And that's the thought that pulls him upright again, like a marionette on slow strings, that Sirius would want him to move on, to push through. And in his honor, he must.

"Goodbye, Padfoot," he says slowly, his voice wavering with the last resides of his desolated cry. He brings two trembling fingers up to his tearstained lips and sends a shaky hand forward, to press the most final kiss he gets to give him onto the surface of a gravestone he's not even under. "We'll meet again," he promises, and he feels his chest constrict with the weight of his oath. "Not in this life, but in the next."

He can't bring himself to say the words. They might just be the thing to destruct him. So he must content himself with mouthing them, hoping the breath he puts into them will carry them to the place beyond the veil. I love you. His mouth forms the rings and slopes, the necessary motions, and he allows himself one last glance at the tombstone before he turns around to trudge back up the street, back to life, back to Tonks— away from Sirius.

[mummer]

unfortunately i also have an evil mind so like. i desperately want to hear your take on jojo rabbit. i've never seen it because i only willingly watch movies every five to seven months but i want to know your Thots, especially if they're contrarian. (tho if you don't want to open yourself up to Discourse Machine) i understand

sure i mean my jojo rabbit hot take is that it sucks. i also think it has weird pacing problems nd just like... a bizarre vibe. like if you’re gonna imitate wes anderson just go all the way. but more than that i think that even though taika waititi is jewish, the film is made for goyische consumption first and foremost and that informs most of its thematic ideas around nazism. basically it’s about how nazis are in their essence absurd clownish buffoons. to me this is a horrible take that downplays the actual insidiousness and ideology of nazis and the abject horror of what they did and why they persist today. also for a film about nazism it barely addresses the holocaust like, at all, it’s very weird. it’s like.. Nazi Germany 4 Kids. i also think the Sam Rockwell, Gay Nazi thing was just a terrible idea i mean people are still making cutesy fanart of him and theon greyjoy making out or whatever which makes me want to vom. i think it’s horrible that he gets like.. a redeeming moment at the end and wears like a sparkly cape with pink triangles on it or whatever the fuck. why. like whats the joke???? some nazis.... were gay????? what are you talking about, taika? what’s the point of this? AND the fact that the little kid only starts seeing the jewish girl as human once he sees her as romantic object. i know it doesnt end in romance but Man what the fuck. i just hate it, it’s so surface level and flat and is an idiotic neoliberal “if we joke about it, it loses its power <3” way of potraying nazism

[rayne-storm]

To Get To The Other Side

‘Twas a dark and stormy night, the kind your mother always warned you about. There were certainly villains and ne’er-do-wells out and about, eager to prey on poor old you. But you tried not to think about that. Instead, you chose to focus on the fact that your ride home ditched you for a party you weren’t invited to, but will most likely be told about at length until you swear (not for the first time) that you will find a new roommate if they don’t shut the hell up.

While pleasant thoughts of strangulation swam through your overworked mind, you failed to notice something directly in front of you, and tripped over it, landing face-first in a puddle far too deep to have come from anywhere save the bowels of Hell. You are still certain that Satan himself had sent it to torment you for that thing you did in fourth grade that you always knew would catch up to you someday. Regardless of where it came from, however, it had soaked you to the bone, and not even your backpack had been spared the indignity of the gutter-water.

You managed to pull your drenched form from the Hell-puddle and glanced at what had so thoroughly ruined your already awful night. It was a chicken. A beautiful thing, to be sure, with the most pristine white plumage puffing majestically from its chest, and a comb of the purest cherry. The creature in the middle of the sidewalk left you speechless for several moments, but soon the pondering had finished and you decided that, since the poor poultry was nearly as soaked as you, you would take it home. And maybe, just maybe, it would somehow create excellent vengeance against Asshole Partyboy.

As you reached to get it, however, the thing moved, its fowl legs carrying it frighteningly fast for the middle of the road. The sheer absurdity of the situation escaped you at the time, as you were far more concerned about a hen in the highway. You watched in abject horror as the beautiful bird came to rest in the middle of the suicide lane, pecking something, the honking of cars a surreal orchestra for the situation.

Getting the rest of the way to your feet, you were able to see just what it was eating: a two-tier cake. The cake was of magnificent craftsmanship – pastel blue with navy icing decorating the tiers, and a small figurine of a man holding a baby atop it. Your best guess was that the letters you could not make out read something along the lines of “it’s a boy,” and the realization broke your heart a little bit. Something had gone terribly, tragically wrong and the best-case scenario was that dessert did not make it to a party.

It was at this point you decided to stop and take stock of the insanity your life had become. You had tripped over a beautiful chicken and fallen into the largest puddle you had ever seen. Said chicken then darted across two lanes of fast-moving traffic to eat a cake. The cake was sad.

After the brief review, you decided that you did not care to stick around and find out which “other side” your fowl friend would end up on. Your guess was the metaphoric one.

Turning away from the scene, you began to head home, only to hear a panicked clucking. It seemed that the chicken had finished its feast, and now realized its predicament. The cake, proving unsatisfactory to the poor beast (which only served to make the whole thing sadder) was in wet shambles around its feet, and it could find no way across the suddenly busy road. All the headlights and honking only served to frighten it further.

You had a choice to make. Turn back around and pretend you were hallucinating this entire thing, or somehow attempt to help the chicken. Both would only make your night immeasurably more awful, but only one would (hopefully) earn you good karma. Taking a deep breath, you waited for a gap in the cars, and ran.

~~~~~~~

So here you are. In the middle of a highway, during the worst storm of the year. You’re holding an incredibly angry chicken and standing in the very sad remnants of a tragically destroyed cake. You’re terrified, and all you want right now is to be in bend, blatantly ignoring the sounds coming from next door, made by your roommate Asshat McDouche and whatever “friend” he’s brought home from the party who’s clearly more important than your well-being.

Sadly, you are not home, hiding from the noises. You’re here, and honestly you don’t know what choices you’ve made in your life to end up tediously close to a horrible headline, but hey, nothing can change it. You need to focus on getting to the punchline.

[doyouwanttoseeabug]

The Lock In by Phoebe Luckhurst - Review

Have you ever found yourself stuck listening to someone tell a long, desperately unfunny story? Maybe even something that, wrestled from the hands of this comedy blackhole, might have been interesting? Something with the bones of a pithy anecdote, but plumped up beyond all recognition by tedious backstory pseudo-‘drama’ about people you’ve never met? I feel for those people. God, I’ve been those people, and if you haven’t I salute you on your superhuman charisma/sobriety. But dear god, I’ve never tried to package those moments of abject social misery and sell one as a book.

Jennifer Probst, author of the fantastic guide to romance writing Write Naked, said that the hardest task any contemporary romance writer faced was answering the question why aren’t they together yet? With historical settings, this is always going to be intrinsically easier – whether it’s class, gender, race, a family feud or a history as a rake, the wrong romance meant that your life would be completely over. Contemporary romance has an uphill battle in creating something in the battle against love. Some go big – Clara in The Roommate has a company, a fledging PR career and a family terrified of scandal weighing against her relationship with porn star Josh, while Red, White and Royal Blue puts a whole US election at stake. Others, such as You and Me on Vacation (People We Meet On Vacation in the US), take our intimate, personal dilemmas and elevate them on the page until they feel exactly as urgent and awful as they do to us in real life.

There are no stakes in The Lock-In. Nada. None.

Oh, I guess they’re stuck in an attic. And yes, there is technically a flood in the kitchen while they’re stuck there. But you don’t read romance for other people’s real estate disasters. You read it for the romance and the humour, and this book has precious little of either.

Here’s the plot: Housemates Alexa, Ellen and Jack get stuck in the attic of their horrible rented house with Alexa’s hinge date, Ben. The book spends a tedious amount of time getting there, and the characters display very little urgency to leave once there. Alexa and Ben met on Hinge, had a few good dates and then he seemed to lose interest in each other until he suddenly texted her the night before attic-gate for a perfect date. She’s crazy into him, he seems crazy into her, Jack is busy having a subplot that goes absolutely nowhere. Ellen has to pee a bunch of times. I wait with bated breath for either joke or plot.

And then suddenly, during a conversation about their past, Ellen and Ben realise they grew up in the same place. At which point Ellen announces that she remembers him now, and he’s a total arsehole!

Fucking finally! I was on the edge of my seat. What dramatic break-up story happened here? Did he promise to run away with her and never appear? Cheat on her? Say something truly terrible?

He ghosted her on MSM ten years ago.

They never even met in person.

And (forgive me for spoiling the plot here) it turns out it wasn’t even Ben, in a ‘twist’ ending one could see coming from a mile away and has absolutely nothing to do with that bit where he semi-ghosted Alex. That detail was just included to be a faintly pink herring, I guess.

Look, I tend to switch between hard sci-fi, political fantasy and contemporary romance, and of the three contemporary romance is always going to have the fluffier problems. But these people? They have no problems. Oh, Ellen is worried she might have said mildly awkward in front of her boss at the CBD Tampon start-up, and Jack is feeling a little bit lonely in London, and Alex feels a slightly embarrassed by her civil service co-workers and really hopes this thing with Ben works out. Problems so slight that they could at best sustain three minutes of pub conversation, and even then only in the hands of a talented raconteur or the absurdly self-obsessed. 378 pages? Jesus wept.

It’s frustrating, reading this book. You can see the bones of a good idea for a novel in there. The desperation of the four of them, the wacky antics they might get up to trying to get out. The pressure-cooker tension building and building. Simmering grudges and old fights coming to the fore between Alex and Ellen, a millennial Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? full of absurd declarations and emotional clawing. Even the slightness of Ellen’s gripe with Ben could have become part of the joke. Instead we have this; a book where three people have a conversation that makes them slightly uncomfortable, while a fourth checks Twitter.

So much for the rom, but what of the com? There’s honestly not much to say here. If Phoebe Luckhurst did attempt any actual jokes, they flew under my radar. At any moment where there could be humour, Luckhurst dispenses of it with the ruthless efficiency of a kitten-drowner. There there, amusing-example-of-human-folly. Just stay under till the bubbles stop.

I ‘like’ Alex, Ellen and Ben, in that they’re fine. Nice, even. If they were real, I’d probably spend a happy twenty minutes chatting to them at a party before I left to find some people I actually clicked with. But if they told me this story? In the words of my braver self, the one who doesn’t just rictus-grin it through fifteen-minute recounting of someone’s sister’s break-up – I’m sorry, I just don’t give a fuck.

(Oh, the Jack subplot? Words cannot convey my fucking exhaustion. Don’t. Just don’t.)

[marinschoolssuper]

Let’s Check Our Thought Process

MAKING A COMMITMENT TO CRITICAL THINKING

“When we are not given reasons, you must understand the natural human response is to form our own conclusions. And I feel that is what we have done.”

                                        -Comment recorded at a school board meeting

Recently, as part of a group exercise, I was asked to reflect on my “greatest professional learning” during the pandemic. We were given a few weeks to think and then were asked to share our responses when we met.    

A cynical answer popped into my mind: People don’t practice critical thinking very well and are either unconscious of that or are willing to flaunt it without shame.

The quotation at the top of the page is verbatim;  It was spoken during a well-attended public meeting. It was not taken out of context; it was offered plainly in an effort to explain peoples’ actions by framing the thought process that guided them.

More outrageous than the statement itself (which argues openly in favor of prejudice and justifies acting without understanding relevant facts) was the lack of response from others in the on-line meeting.  No one pushed back. No one questioned the premise, a premise that would be flatly rejected by any competent scientist, logician, academic publication or court of law.  It hardly needs dissecting; its potential consequences are so obvious. And yet, 40 people remained silent.  In a governance meeting of an institution dedicated to learning, dedicated to teaching children how to think rationally and independently, someone was able to say something so irrational and receive no response other than some nodding agreement from the audience.

To be fair, emotions were running high and arguing a logical counterpoint (even an argument that nearly makes itself simply by repeating what was said slowly) would probably come across as aggressive and partisan.  But later on, when the emotional tenor of the meeting had subsided, shouldn’t the entire group, including the person who said it, have taken a moment to reflect and consider the foolishness of such thinking?  Are we so concerned with the fragility of others’ egos that we don’t have the collective will to set and reinforce norms for rational thinking like we do for other elements of public discourse?

Unfortunately, I believe we do not. The year of the pandemic has provided many examples of our cultural tendency to avoid being critical of others’ reasoning in favor of avoiding hurt feelings or of “just moving on”.  In board meetings, task force gatherings and during the every-day interactions in our schools, I have observed the abject failure of critical thinking coupled with the social failure to respond.  (In some cases people have even applauded fundamentally flawed thinking.)

Maybe, like a man with a hammer to whom the world appears to be a nail, I am seeing the failure of critical thinking everywhere I look.  However, it may not be that the pandemic has diminished peoples’ capacity to think critically; perhaps this widely-shared social deficit was just as bad before COVID-19 and the crisis has simply made it more plain.

COMMON POPULAR LAPSES IN CRITICAL THINKING

Your Truth, Best Practices, Trauma, Words are Violence and Speaking from the Heart.

“Thank you for telling your truth.” I heard someone say recently when another person shared a perspective and a set of supporting facts that could have brought about reasonable disagreement.  I had to check my own thinking because I happened to agree with the person’s perspective. But that doesn’t mean she was sharing the truth. If my “truth” were different from hers and mutually exclusive, would that mean that there are two contradictory truths?  If that is the case, doesn’t that mean that truth and perspective have become synonymous? Doesn’t that  give Kellyanne Conway license to develop “alternative facts” when the actual facts don’t support her perspective or opinion?   Doesn’t that mean Donald Trump is still the President or that at least has reasonable claim to the office?

I have running joke with a colleague: During a discussion or debate, whomever declares “best practice” first, wins.  We’ve even begun team meetings by entering the room and shouting “best practice!” before anyone else can talk.  It actually gets funny when you start listening for it at work.  By beginning your proposition thus: “Best practice says….” one automatically ties a potentially controversial statement (fairly easy to debate) to one’s own professional judgement and reputation, which others are usually more hesitant to question.  An idea is somewhat independent of the person but a judgement is not, and people in polite company generally prefer to debate ideas rather than question others’ judgement.  

For example, if I were to say that giving 3rd graders timed multiplication fact tests in large groups is “best practice” anyone who argues with me not only objects to the tests but also insults me by questioning my judgement.

On the other hand if I were to make the proposition without judgement: “I’m thinking of giving my 3rd grade class a timed whole group multiplication test on Friday.” It is more socially acceptable for my colleagues to give me candid feedback. I’m not hitching my wagon to the practice but expressing an idea.  The obvious advantage to that is it gives one better access to the wisdom of one’s colleagues, helps one clarify his or her thinking and act in a more effective and humane manner.

I’ve heard the word “trauma” abused to the point that feel traumatized when I hear it.  I’m exactly half kidding.  Hearing the word trauma does not cause me trauma but the term trauma has been weakened substantially by overuse.  Last week I was in a meeting and the host said, “I understand all of our kids have suffered trauma over the last year.” Being polite, and not wanting to disrupt her flow as the meeting began, I resisted the temptation to speak up and say, “No, they have not. Some kids are happier and more resilient now than they were before the pandemic and we should not expect them to suffer long term psychological harm. Others have had a hard time but have not suffered trauma. Maybe some (I would guess a small number) have gone through trauma but certainly not all of them. 

Trauma indicates the need for a serious response either medically or psychologically. To claim that all children have suffered trauma when common sense and probability would argue otherwise is doubly problematic.  First, diagnosing all children with trauma might lead us to implement an uneven distribution of resources, reducing timely access for legitimately traumatized children. Secondly, declaring universal trauma weakens the term itself.  For example, if my child is presumed to have had trauma (absent a serious medical or psychological event that can be reasonably predicted to cause long-term problems) he is put on the same footing as another child who actually did suffer a serious medical or psychological event. Should he not then be treated with the same urgency? After a while because everyone is traumatized, no one is traumatized.

“There are different kinds of violence, words are violence!” An audience member asserted during the public comment period in a recent school board meeting. Others nodded. Words can be violent metaphorically but in and of themselves words are never violent. Similar to trauma, the entire concept of violence (and its attendant appropriate responses) are weakened by misuse. Words can certainly be powerful. They can encourage, perhaps even cause violence, but alone, they do not constitute violence.  

It is important to make that distinction.  For example, if someone were to say to me, I am going to say some really horrible words to you or if you prefer, I am going to do something physically violent to you, which would you choose?  I’m pretty sure, I’d opt for the words even if I didn’t have the details about the kind of violence being planned.  If a guy in the next car yells a nasty name at me, I would certainly prefer that to him punching me in the mouth.  We can ignore words. We can tune them out. We can consider them and respond.  Lumping words together with real violence lessens the outrage we should feel about violence and increases the outrage we should be able to control about words.

Okay, I am going to speak from the heart: I have learned that when I speak from the heart it is acceptable to say anything no matter how irrational, absurd or self-serving without fear that others will question it.  Speaking from the heart gets my audience to pause and understand that my forthcoming statement is deeply attached to my emotional composition and that challenging it will go beyond questioning my logic and into the realm of hurting my feelings. I know that questioning my logic is socially appropriate and professionally desirable but hurting my feelings goes too far! If I speak from the heart well enough, I might even choke up a little letting everyone know a line has been drawn that should not be crossed.  Real speaking from the heart also signals my virtue because it shows I have the courage to be vulnerable in public. What brute would argue with someone who has the courage to be vulnerable, to speak from the heart?

I actually spoke from the heart accidentally a few weeks ago. I was in a meeting and was accused of something I thought was particularly unfair.  When I responded, I choked up a little,  something I try to avoid in my professional life, but it happens from time to time.  Anyway, the people who had said the thing I didn’t appreciate changed their tone and were suddenly very polite to me and even thanked me for being vulnerable.  They assured me that they understood my perspective and knew my intentions were positive. So I know speaking from the heart works but I’ll still try to avoid it.  (I know when it comes up naturally it works better than when you just declare it in advacne.)

Kidding aside, wrapping one’s opinion or perspective in emotional language or gestures is problematic.  It squelches honest inquiry and may discourage others from sharing important information that will help everyone concerned. Emotions are important and worth our attention but they should not be used as a tool to override reason.  Emotions arise in all of us and deserve consideration but they also deserve time to settle so that we can think straight. We need to allow others that courtesy as well. When someone speaks “from the heart”, including oneself, it’s worth listening, maybe even acting. But the words that come from that kind of speaking need time to cool off and be tempered by dispassionate critical thinking.

We Can Work on This... and we should!

A cultural tendency to avoid critical thinking was not, it turns out, my greatest learning from the pandemic. A deeper recognition of our ability to consider any situation, let emotions arise and eventually choose our response was. This isn’t a new lesson but a deepening of an old one. It gives me the optimism to get back to the work of advocating for critical thinking for ourselves and for our children. It isn’t easy. It can make people angry. I think its what got Socrates killed. But it is, I believe, the core of our work: Critical thinking is the foundation for all the subjects kids learn in school. And it’s time to re-commit to making it a central feature of our work and discourse.

To that end I propose a community-wide, long term study of the topic.  I’d like to start by recommending the adoption of a definition of critical thinking, the one offered by The Foundation for Critical Thinking: The art of analyzing and evaluating thought processes with a view to improving them. Critical Thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored and self-corrective thinking. (Linda Elder, 2020)

From here, I hope we can make it fun and interesting. We need to get comfortable with being wrong about things and re-thinking our positions.  It’s not about winning individually but improving as a community of learners. That’s an important part of our mission.

[abakersquest]

CHAPTER TWENTY – BARON OF THE BARREN

When you’re young, you learn as much as you can as fast as you can. This involves a considerably rigorous phase of interrogation and experimentation. In that time, no question or action is absurd or improper, you are filled with ceaseless and unchecked curiosity about everything. The same could, of course, be said of young wallabies like Wally. When he was a child, he was curious to see just how strong his legs were. So, girded by the logic all children possess, he climbed to the highest place he could think of at the time and proceeded to jump off it. Of course, the roof of his house was only about six feet up, but when you can jump that high naturally, Wally came at the ground from a fall of twelve feet. A bloodied nose and some bruises later, Wally learned two things.

One, falling hurts and should be avoided whenever possible.

Two, that the worst part about falling wasn’t the impact; it was seeing the ground coming and having nothing better to do than just wait until you hit it.

It was the anticipation he hated most.

Right now, plummeting toward a sprawling expanse of flat white terrain certainly seemed better than hitting the open sea in a metal suit of armor; he wouldn’t horribly drown at the very least. But it certainly wasn’t a welcome sight. Neither was the one of the God’s Fortune dropping from the sky beside him along with all his friends. Thankfully, something besides their sudden and deadly decent caught his attention, a flash of red and blue speeding downward past them all.

Rozzi, upon realizing what’d happened, shifted in the air to narrow her profile and race toward the ground ahead of all the others. The sandy earth blasted in every direction as a forceful cushion of air removed all momentum and gave its creator a safe landing. She planted her feet and pooled magic into both palms, her mystically intoned voice cutting through the rush of air past all their ears. “Eight forms to one shape, from heart to hand and defend! GALE RIVER!” she shot her hands toward her tumbling friends and a visible stream of air spiraled up from her palms. It willfully sought out its targets and set to tug them on a safe course to the ground with rough, yet survivable, landings.

Unfortunately the same could not be said for the mighty sailing vessel. Though Rozzi’s wind had coiled beneath it like a spring, it lost almost no speed and deflected off to the side of her effort, where it crashed with a violent displacement of abrasive granules and an organ trembling thud. The ivory white dust launched by their many graceless landings settled slowly around them as they collected themselves. When it had mostly settled, they could finally see that the Fortune now lied in a crater on its side, its foremast snapped off by the force of the impact, the glass in every porthole shattered, deep fractures all along it’s keel,  and the rudder cracked in half.

Everyone’s attention slowly turned to her captain, sitting in the dust, cradling his surrogate granddaughter. Wistea and Hyla quickly rushed over, almost bumping into each other as they both set on attending to the wounded Icthyite girl.

“Captain,” Hyla barely managed a remorseful murmur. “I’m… I’m so-”

“Belay that,” Blackeye interrupted, his tone fatherly and kind. “You and Wally gave that old toad the bell ringin’ of a lifetime and got us all outta danger. We’re alive if a bit displaced. Better than dead any day of the week, I’d say.”

The captain’s words and demeanor seemed to do little to assuage her feelings of guilt as she reached up and placed her soft rounded fingers against Polly’s forehead. From them came a rainbow shimmer that moved like a wave across her skin. “She’ll be alright,” Hyla said quietly. “All that effort just exhausted her.”

Wistea followed her statement with a small tincture of something indigo colored from her bag. “Runner’s Grass solution, it should help her rebuild her stamina when she wakes up. The markets in Galaga really did have everything I needed.”

“Thank y’ both,” Blackeye replied, pocketing the small glass bottle.

Wistea smiled at Hyla, who could not fully respond in kind. The effort was there, but it was clear her heart wasn’t. She stood and walked away from the group, settling where she no doubt thought she’d be out of earshot.

Rozzi watched her go before she approached Wally. “Think we should talk to her?”

His thoughts on the matter turned toward what he’d seen in the mess of visions that occurred when he held Hyla’s hands. A young and starving Sauroian girl, moving from one dilapidated building to the next, always in search of shelter and food. She was brazen in the face of menacing, desperate adults and competing with other starving children for every scrap. Hyla Areo, a survivor in the worst of it. Even now, Wally could sense she’d taken every blow suffered and squared the blame on a lack of effort on her part. A feeling he was all too familiar with. He finally nodded to Rozzi and the pair headed toward the unhappy Hyla.

She called out as they came close, “I don’t need you to coddle me.”

“No coddling, merely a statement of absolute facts.” Wally spoke as he sat in a spot near her, removing his helmet and resting it beside himself.

“And you can believe that,” Rozzi added. “After all, our Flarebearer’s an abysmal liar.” She took her own place on the other side of Hyla.

Hyla crossed her arms and rested them on her knees, perching her chin on her forearms. All her missteps made her feel small, so her body took on a posture to match. “Fine, facts. At some point, I must have lost my focus and allowed Kota to know your position, she sent Bulfo and the Peerless Knight and now there’s every chance Master Tetsudin is dead because of it and we’re lost!”

“Not lost!” called out Blackeye as he carried Polly over to the toppled Fortune. “These’re the southern Salt Barrens of Insicai, meanin’ our closest bit of civilization is Chidulas. Ain’t a friendly place, but then no place in Insicai’s friendly.”

Wistea piped up. “What the captain means is that Insicai has been historically xenophobic. Their soldiers barely participated in the war, primarily providing weapons, armor, and other materials while keeping the bulk of their forces on their own borders. They have even gone so far as to refuse re-entry to any citizen that leaves without explicit order from their senate hierarchy. It is a very strange set of legal practices…”

She trailed off as she saw Rozzi was giving her the all too common ‘too much lecture’ stare, setting after the captain instead.

“Okay, so we’re not lost. Just someplace very dangerous,” Wally concluded. “Par for the course with us, really.”

“Just another afternoon,” Rozzi added with a nod.

Wally scratched at the back of his ear. “We haven’t exactly been the most successful band of heroes the world has ever known. In fact, we’re only just now finding out what our opponents are after. But we still don’t know why.”

“Apart from them bein’ a pack of violent loonies,” Rozzi joked.

“We’re all just going as hard as we can as fast as we can to try and catch up to someone stronger, faster, more prepared, and willing to sacrifice anything to succeed.”

“But then that’s just life, innit?” Rozzi smiled.

Hyla looked them both over calmly, her expression a hard read even for Wally. “Do you two rehearse this sort of thing?”

“Oh yeah, in the mirror every mornin’ before I met him,” Rozzi pointed at Wally. “Now I get him to say the other parts so I don’t look as stupid.”

“I don’t think you’ve looked stupid a day in your life,” Wally hopped onto his feet and picked up his helmet. “And that’s from someone who has.”

Rozzi chided him playfully. “Be charmin’ when we ain’t givin’ a pep talk.”

“Talk’s over.” Wally closed the distance between himself and Hyla, offering his hand with a warm smile right after it. “You’re as ready to start winning as the rest of us.”

Hyla’s own smile was slow growing, but it eventually reached her eyes as she took Wally’s hand to help her stand.

---

Captain Blackeye was unwilling to move on without giving Polly at least a full night’s rest. He’d taken a bunk for her from inside and set it down by the deck of the overturned Fortune where everyone else had set camp for the coming night. Hector helped Wally take stock of everything from the ship’s hold that they’d absolutely need for the journey across the Salt Barrens while Blackeye started assembling a sled to carry them on, using the spare timber and metal plate bands intended for repairing leaks and various other damages on ship. Some of the unused timbers went into setting up a fire, and the unused metal plating became a platform to set a pot on for dinner. Rozzi, meanwhile, watched in abject fascination as the concoction Wally had created only moments ago shifted from one color to the next as it slowly burbled and boiled.

“Wally!” She called out, not daring to look away from the pot. “How long do I keep stirring this?”

Eventually, a wallaby head popped up from a broken porthole. “Has it turned blue yet?”

Rozzi had to take exactly a full minute to not only register the question but take full stock of her most recent memories. “No?”

“Then keep going until it does. Then when it turns green, take it off the fire.”

“What in Mondia is this supposed to even be?!”

“Bread!”

Rozzi recoiled in surprise at his answer, and then gave the strange liquid the most suspicious eyebrow her face could manage. “You better not make a liar out of that baker now, whatever you are.”

A large bubble formed then popped in a way someone looking for that sort of thing would interpret as sassy.

Rozzi stirred a little harder.

Hammering another nail into place, Blackeye caught Hyla moving in the corner of his vision. “So Miss Areo,” he spoke to the open air ahead of him. “Iffin you don’t mind answerin’ what could be a fool question. How exactly did we end up here and not back on the water.”

“I missed,” she said, not looking the captain’s way. “Dark Vaults require considerable concentration… Even more so with more things traveling through them. Like a whole ship and its crew freefalling.” She carved something into the ground with her feet and continued walking.

“… And what is it you’re doin’ right this moment?”

She walked a few more steps, cut her toes into the salt pan’s surface then tapped her sole over the mark. The air recoiled and produced an otherworldly hum as a rainbow of light slithered into a circle around the campsite. The moons above changed color for a few seconds before everything returned to normal. “Just making sure we’re safe for the night.”

Blackeye gestured at the mild shimmer above him, “That so the witch can’t see us?”

“She can see Wally wherever he is; we can only make him a little harder to see. Even then, I can only do it when we aren’t moving. In Sauro, I was acting as an extension of Master Tetsudin’s magic.” She unconsciously gripped her right arm and turned her gaze toward a distant bit of nothing. “But my concentration must’ve faltered and she knew where to send Bulfo and the Knight.”

“So sure it’s your doin’ Lil’ Miss?” Blackeye looked over his work on the sled as he continued. “Seems to me, you’re ready to jump on the chance to be at fault over bein’ outplayed.”

She finally turned to face him and sighed. “… I have been, haven’t I?  I’m not normally like this. But then, I’m not normally in the company of… People like him.”

Wally came out with four barrels stacked onto his shoulder, Hector helping to set them down outside.

“You’re all as kind and brave as he is… And that’s something I’ve only ever seen in Master Tetsudin. I suppose it’s all very overwhelming, considering everything I’ve been through.”

Blackeye chuckled softly. “I’m thinkin’ you got quite a story to tell us, eh?”

She nodded, “Once we all settle in for dinner…”

The night rolled on and Polly slept. The heroes gathered around the campfire as Wally gave it a boost to fend off the Salt Barren’s chill before moving on to serve dinner. He carefully ladled the green liquid into everyone’s bowls where it dolloped and hardened into an unmistakable, if strangely colored, bread roll. ‘Panprima’ he called it; a kind of bread where every bite was a different flavor and a different color, he’d spent years perfecting it, which was difficult as it was his first original recipe.

As the assembled fighters ate, they felt the warmth of the freshly baked bread spread through their bodies and rob them of any sense of fatigue or soreness.

“Mm! Wally this is amazing!” Hector exclaimed, gleefully taking another bite. “With something like this, you should’ve been famous across Animana!”

“It’s the first time I ever got it right.” His voice was distant and thoughtful as he looked down at the bread roll in his hands. “It always used to turn brown whenever I served it. Perfectly passable taste of course, but never what I was aiming for.”

Rozzi laughed. “Ain’t enough it goes from ugly soup to tasty bread before your very eyes, it’s gotta be every color of the rainbow. Here I was thinking you were humble.”

“Wally,” Hyla spoke up. “You used your magic to start the fire, right?”

Wistea gasped. “THAT’S IT! Wally, magic is an extension of ones will manifested as power! You wanted it to work this time, so your flames made it happen! That is absolutely astonishing!”

Wally finally took a bite himself. He hummed as the flavors of the green layer played out over his tongue. There was a fruity sweetness to it and a crispness that was everything he’d hoped it would be. He smiled at the thought of how many recipes he could change and innovate with the help of his newfound mystical abilities. For the first time in a long time, going back to his little bakery didn’t seem like some impossible task.

Wistea sighed wistfully. “I have so much new material for new entries into Arborledan’s library. I do not know where I will start when I get home, if I can even stand to be in the library after all this… I can hardly imagine what going back will be like.”

“I have no doubt everything will feel smaller to us all,” Hector said as he quickly scarfed down his last crimson bite of bread and almost finished his reply with a bit of chewed food before swallowing hard. “But… I’m sure we’ll all be better for it somehow.”

Wally felt a sudden weight added to his side and saw Rozzi had not only snuck up to sit beside him, but had settled in and rested her head on his shoulder without him noticing. He tried very hard not to look or feel bashful at the subtle yet intimate gesture in front of the others, and failed not quite as hard as all the other times. Desperate for anything else to think about, his innate insight picked up on something from Rozzi he couldn’t quite place in that moment. However, he was certain she’d bring it up if it were anything important, so he simply let her rest her head.

“I don’t know what will become of Sauro after the end of this quest,” Hyla said. “Maybe it will finally change for the better.”

She looked up at the attentive faces of her new allies, all clearly ready to listen. She found it all a bit intimidating at first, but she swallowed her doubt and fear. If she couldn’t trust and share with these people, then she never could at all.

“The war on the nations of Mondia… Was an extension of Sauro’s own civil war. Mount Elcon and Lizzet’s regular eruptions make it hard to grow and manage crops, so control of the successful ones was always a concern. One day, hunger and rage outpaced order and will and sides were taken on how our food was to be distributed. Protest turned violent and soon enough, the arguing factions became armies. Amidst the conflict, Vizier Bulfo, who was Master Tetsudin’s student at the time, rose to a seat of power and turned the people’s rage outward onto the world.”

“Why?” Wally asked.

“I was born after the war, so I only know what Master Tetsudin told me. When I asked the same of him he said that Bulfo had been working to perfect the power of his foresight and beheld a vision that drove him to it. What Bulfo saw is something only he knows… Whatever the reason, it was enough to lead the people of Sauro into a global war. Under Bulfo’s leadership, every able bodied citizen was made to either build warships and weapons or train to use them. It was then that Kota was discovered.”

“So Kota started neither conflict?” Hector remarked.

Hyla shook her head. “Bulfo turned her into a figurehead at first, a shining example of Sauroian strength and ability… That ended quickly when she asserted herself as leader of our people. She manifested her generals and kept Bulfo as one of their number, a slave to her whims. Kota was not only a powerful sorceress, but a brilliant military leader… How she came about these gifts no one knows. If anyone did, they were made to either forget or be forgotten.”

“So,” began Wistea. “Have you any idea what her current goal is?”

“Not exactly… But… Um…”

“Go on, Miss Areo. Ain’t nothin’ t’ fear here.” Blackeye confided.

“If everyone would please… Close their eyes?”

She was a bit shocked at how readily they all did as she asked, without pause or doubt. She exhaled to focus, banished those feelings from her thoughts, and closed her own eyes. In the swirling miasma of an active mind a fortress was built with several gates. These gates were Hyla’s to open and close as she saw fit. As they opened, the thoughts of those around her streamed in like rivers of smoke. In this non-corporeal place she took hold of the streams and tugged them to her, drawing in their owners.

‘There,’ she thought in all their minds. ‘It will be easier to explain this way.’

A vision of a strangely shaped hourglass became known to them all by way of Hyla.

‘This is a Mobius Glass.’ Hyla’s voice was like a memory in their heads, but far clearer. ‘It is designed to collect and trap vast amounts of shaped magical energy.’

The image of the strange hourglass turned and filled with ephemeral light, a concentrated bead of it dancing from one end of the artifacts structure to the other. The frame was made from an unusual stone, and the glass possessed an otherworldly sheen to its curved form.

‘They can only be made from Moonshards, rare stones said to have fallen from the four moons. Part of the Moonshard is ground into powder and heated into glass, while the remainder is its frame.’ An image of the molten glass seemingly moving of its own will over a brilliant heat appeared in all their thoughts. ‘They take a long time to make, and use up the entire shard for just one. That is all Master Tetsudin could learn, their ultimate purpose is a mystery’

Everyone suddenly felt a gentle push of consciousness and returned to the waking world beneath moonlight and campfire. Rozzi was the first to say anything out loud. “Saw a Moonshard Shower when we did our first show in Orni’Hu. Hard to believe anythin’ could survive bein’ burnt up like that.”

Hector hummed thoughtfully before turning to Wistea. “If I remember right… Didn’t Elder Ygg say he saw the Stellar Flare first fall from the sky? Could it and the Moonshards be related, Wistea?”

She shook her head and replied, “I do not know, Elder Ygg chose to share only vague details of that day in written record. That he even saw it arrive was a surprise to me.”

Wally instinctively looked to the hilt over his shoulder, the brilliant red gem that passed through it still possessing its mystical sheen. That strange feeling that he was looking at something alive had continued over the course of the entire journey. Now with everything he’d learned he knew it was alive, but asleep. What prolific and frightening consciousness there could possibly be in a godly weapon was something he tried very hard not to think about.

“Alright,” called out Hector. “That was an impossibly weighty amount of information we should take the night to digest. Good night’s sleep should make everything straighten out in our heads.” He stood and stretched.

There were various sounds of agreement followed by unfurled bedrolls and blankets.

---

The sun beamed down on them hard from the second it rose to the potentially deadly midday. Wally easily dragged the makeshift sled of water barrels, supplies and armor that he and Hector decided were far to stifling in this dry heat. Polly was still asleep, carried in a bit of the Fortune’s sail slung to the captain’s back. They moved in a line to keep their heading and limit the risk of any possible pitfalls that may lie ahead. The crust of the salt pan could hide pockets of moisture and leave one in a thick and dangerous quagmire. Wally was reminded of Torch Pudding, a kind of custard served inside a burnt outer shell. But since all the thought did was make him hungry, he kept it to himself.

Blackeye, Wistea, and Hyla suffered from the arid atmosphere the most, needing twice the water of the others. Rozzi joked about shaving off her fur and going naked for a bit for some relief, no doubt because she sensed that the flat sameness of the salt pan as well as dire thirst would eventually strain them all past their limits.

As the afternoon sun continued to drill down on them with no goal or landmark in sight, Blackeye held up his hand and gave a sharp whistle to call everyone attention. The absolutely arid air had dulled his sense of danger slightly, but there was definitely something ahead.

Several black cables that shimmered oddly in the sunlight burst from the ground ahead, binding Hector, Wally and Blackeye to something enormous that slowly emerged from the salt pan. Its hide was something akin to a rocky mountainside and it rose to a height of twenty feet on eight long legs. As eyes followed the black cables to their source, they could see this titanic creature bore several handmade huts and various riggings, making this bizarrely enormous spider out to be someone’s tamed beast of burden.

“What did I tell, tell, tell you Baron? Four female, three male, one on a male back, with a supply sled, armed.” The strangely raspy voice came down from the central hut structure on the flat body of the gargantuan spider.

Out of the hut stepped a tall scorpion Insicai, his hard shelled body a dull stone grey, his primary arms ending in dangerous pincers, with a massive scar right down the middle of his face. A strangely angular tail with a deadly skewer on the end twitched behind him as he looked over his newfound quarry. He squinted and lowered his head to get a better look at Wally, easily making out the Stellar Flare on his back.

“The little, little, little one. Reel him up!”

A razor sharp crescent of air roared toward and cut across the black cables, severing them. “FAT CHANCE!” Rozzi shouted, spinning her sickle at the end of its chain at her side, a small spiral of disturbed salt spinning at her feet. “TYPHOON CUTTER!”

Several more shots of accelerated air flew off her spinning blade toward the threatening commander of this creature.

Unintimidated he shouted, “XYLO! VYLO!”

Two blue and black blurs shot out from the hut on the spider’s back, with barely visible metallic shimmers to them as they raced in to block the attack. The air was filled with long droning chimes as Rozzi’s magic clashed with large strangely shaped shields the flying Insicai bore. Concave and brass in color, they bore a resemblance to cymbals that were almost as broad as their wielders were tall.

Xylo and Vylo hovered freely in the air like leaves in an updraft, if leaves were stocky violet bee Insicai and produced a loud buzzing. Wally watched them carefully as he tossed aside the now loose heavy cable.

“You’ve got some thick chitin if you’re here, here, here, Flarebearer!” The scorpion’s tone was as venomous as his tail as he leered down at the stalwart knight. “Don’t you know who rules this place?!”

“This is the part where he shouts his name at us like it means something, and then sends his thugs our way,” grumbled Hector.

“BARON HADO!” He threw his primary arms upward and clacked his pincers loudly, as the unseen number of his followers cheered.

“Why do they always have to make some ridiculous noise after they shout their names,” Blackeye huffed.

“Attention, I suppose,” Hector remarked. “It’s all, ‘look at me, I’m somebody, my name will-”

“Echo through history,” Blackeye said at the same time as Hector.

Wally spared a glance back at the two of them, “Both of you need better hobbies.”

“ATTACK!” Baron Hado’s shout saw four tall mantis Insicai leap into view from behind him, long natural blades on the end of their primary arms coming straight down at the three of them.

“Wally! Boost Please!”

The wallaby quickly spun on his heels to face Rozzi, now running straight toward him. He quickly clasped his hands together and acted as a makeshift springboard, sending her flying upward to engage one of the blade bearing warriors mid-fall with a kick to the chest.

Blackeye caught the blades of another with his harpoon and tossed him away from the group just as a Dark Vault appeared behind him along with the top halves of Hyla and Wistea.

“Captain!” Hyla shouted. “Take a step back, we’ll get Polly!”

“A Dark Mage,” murmured the Baron as he saw the portal form. “They fetch high, high, high bounty. Raphi, you keep on that one…”

An exceedingly long pair of antenna twitched then went rigid, pointing at Hyla, at the end of them the squat body and spindly limbs of a cave cricket. “Female, Sauroian, she won’t escape me. No, no, no.”

While Hector had fallen back to avoid the plummeting threat of an Insicai, Wally had managed to catch his with a brief burst of flame, it threw the assailant off course, but clearly the heat of the flames were an afterthought as it landed and charged at Wally without delay.

The Stellar Flare drawn at last, Wally moved to engage. His opponent was fast and hard to read, earning glancing blows and nicks on him with its bizarre style of combat. What Hector had taught him in cases such as this was, ‘where training fails, improvisation reigns.’ He drove his tail hard into the salt pan, dug up a chunk, and hurled it at his opponent. The mantis moved to block the mass of salt, only to have it disintegrate against its blades, a cloud of it rushing into their face, and more importantly, their eyes.

Recoiling in pain and hissing what was no doubt and ugly swear; the mantis gave Wally his chance to end the fight with a straight right to the midsection. As it crumpled to a pile of pain and unconsciousness, Wally looked up to see Baron Hado’s menacing glare.

The baron held up one of his pincers and clacked it once.

The several parts of the titanic spider threw off parts of their salty crust and revealed a series of strange cannons that, somehow, repositioned and aimed at them all.

Hector and Blackeye’s fights had just ended in victory as the cannons all fired their initial volley.

There was an odd sound no one could understand or source.

The cannonballs fell harmlessly to the ground, only a few feet from where they’d been launched.

“FIRE AGAIN!” Hado howled.

A strange mechanism rotated behind every cannon they could see, and once again great shunts of exploding powder and plumes of smoke erupted, pushing the massive spheres of metal out of the cannon barrels, only to drop stone dead almost on top of their formers with the same bizarre sound following suite.

“Baron, baron, BARON!” The cave cricket shouted, voice quaking with fear.

With boiling frustration he turned to face Raphi and loudly replied, “WHAT?!”

The cave cricket pointed every pointable extremity he had in the direction of the Dark Mage he’d been ordered to keep track of. The Baron’s eyes slowly made their way over to behold a large mass of inky blackness hovering above the outstretched palm of the Sauroian.

With the sweetest smile on her face she announced, “I borrowed this from you all, only polite that I should give it back!”

The pulsing ball shrank down into her palm which she pulled back and pitched it forward with incredible speed, trailed by the mystically tinged words “IMPACT REJECT!” Inches from the spider’s head it popped like a balloon and incredible force erupted forth, knocking the dire beast backward, and clearly wounding it. The Baron, thrown clean off his perch by what could only be the force of every cannon shot at once, now dangled precariously on the spider’s salty carapace

“NOW!” A female voice suddenly called out from across the expanse of the Salt Barrens. As the heroes turned to face it, a brilliant yellow streak of lightning raced over their heads and towards the sand spider, plunging into the central hut and coming back out with a large shimmering object.

“THIS WAY! HURRY HURRY HURRY!” The voice called out once more, pulling everyone’s attention. As the bright yellow streak rushed past her, a small Insicai with brilliant blue but damaged wings held open a clearly metallic hatch that lead to a passage underground, she desperately waved all her free hands at everyone to beckon them closer.

Wally was already running toward her when everyone looked to see his response.

Imagine her shock as he dashed right past her, into the blind spot created by the hatch. As she babbled a few half confused words a shrill noise approached from where the wallaby had run off to. Suddenly he skidded back into view, the team’s supply sled held above his head, its cargo now including the sleeping Polly and the entirely panicked Wistea who was guarding her, clinging to both for dear life.

As everyone else approached, the stranger shook her surprise and confusion, hefted a vase shaped object, and tossed it out behind the trailing runners. As the vase dashed against the ground, a thick plume of glittering smoke erupted from it. Once inside the blue winged Insicai slammed the hatch shut behind them, leaving them in the warm glow of the previously stolen item.

The tiny blue Insicai breathed a relieved sigh. “That was entirely, entirely, entirely unexpected… But we still succeeded!”

Her aide in the theft, a much taller Insicai with a yellow and orange carapace nodded in agreement. “The brightstone is intact and we can, can, can return it to its rightful place.”

“Oh, well that’s nice, glad we could help,” Rozzi chimed in with a cheery tone. “Now would you mind terrible telling us what the hell is going on?!”

<[Chapter 19]–[Index]–[Chapter 21]>

[where-ls-my-mlnd]

You ever just randomly get in the mood to partake in self-destructive behavior? Wait, shit. Let me rephrase that. Make it sound less deranged. You ever sunk into a vicious sorrow, like, the worst, most agonizing, screaming sorrow you’ve ever felt in your entire life, spend a week being consumed by this horrible unrelenting pain, and then develop the urge to do things that are deleterious to your well-being in order to cope? Holy fuck that sounds even worse. Ah, son of a bitch— don’t go thinking I’m insane now, alright? ‘Cause I’m not. Severely insane, anyway. I’ve always had a couple screws loose, but that’s okay, and hardly the point, anyways. The point is quite simple at its core. Allow me break it down for you. Ever since I was young, I have been terribly, dangerously, and inexorably fond of self-destruction. That’s not a secret. Never has been. You don’t develop a drug addiction because you like the feeling of safety, you know what I’m sayin’? It stems from a profound inner sense of chaos, a desire to escape; whether it be from your emotions, your life circumstances, or the world at large, that is so strong, and so fucking undefeatable, it becomes larger than you are. Even the strong-willed can be absolutely wrecked by addiction. No one is exempt. Addiction doesn’t give a fuck who you are, where you’re from, what your aspirations are. It just wants to break you, and then build you back up again, and have you walking around half-alive for years and years so it can feed on the last of your life force. It doesn’t want you too strong, but not too weak, either. The ideal is for you to be slowly decomposing over the course of half your life or sometimes more so that it can drag out the torturous process for as long as possible. If you’re lucky, you’ll hit bottom, a massive part of you will die, and you’ll be reborn. What you choose to do with your second chance at life is entirely up to you, and that’s the tricky part. I’ve seen many people carelessly waste their chances, as if they thought God was just doling them out for free. I’m rueful to say that I have wasted my own chances before. A gross disregard for the life I was so blessed to still have. But maybe I should go easy on myself. Why should I take such care of my life— when I did not even want to live it? That’s a question for the ages, ain’t it? Psychologists would love to pick that shit apart. Well, anyway, what I am incredibly happy to say is this: I was one of the lucky ones, and after countless failed attempts, I was able to kill that monster once and for all, and in its death I found a brand new life for myself. It’s not an easy life, but nothing is ever easy with me. All that matters is it’s my life, I fucking made it for myself, and I am so damn grateful and elated to be living it. What I am hesitant, and slightly anxious to say is this: in my heart resides the same fondness for self-destruction that got me into so much trouble as a teenager. I’d like to say I’m not surprised— and if I did, it would be at least half-true. I have always had an unadulterated, skin-crawling need to be free. And I’ve always gladly done whatever I thought was necessary to achieve that freedom, even if it was illegal, stupid, morally bankrupt, or just absurd. That’s the thing with me. I can’t fucking stop, ever. If used for different purposes, it may even be called admirable: that furious, unyielding drive. I like to think I can still channel that energy, in my career specifically, but these days I’m honestly not sure. But there is a difference. Back in the day, I would start shit just for fun. I was seeking something, for sure— something that I still don’t feel like I’ve found. Beyond the classic premise of a teenager’s quest for self-discovery, there was no greater goal, or purpose for my antics. I did it because I could, and because after a while I began to fall in love with destruction. Raising hell was my religion. In an otherwise Godless world— that was always the altar at which I worshipped. Now, I find myself self-imploding because of so, so many violent, turbulent emotions to which I cannot put a name. It’s just like, my fucking mind, man...it’s a hell zone. That animal urge to unleash all inhibitions and just say fuck it is only ever activated by deeply unpleasant feelings. It’s almost like I’m...acting out. I‘ll be overcome by a wave of melancholy, or hit by sudden, thrashing anxiety, and I’ll get so overwhelmed that I feel like I need to do something to let it out. Something drastic. Something impulsive. Something absolutely fucking insane. Something like what I’m doing right now. Driving in my car, vibrating with excitement in my seat, to pick up J, who’s waiting for me in that damn park so we can go to a fucking club. A club! I literally just passed three years of sobriety, fuck, what is this? Am I trying to relapse? Well, no— I’m not an alcoholic, what the fuck? You know, I mean, can I handle my alcohol? No. But like, if I start drinking, can I stop? Uh...yeah! I’m only a drug addict, it’s fine! Holy fuck that was the most disturbing sentence I ever said. Well, whatever, I don’t think anyone’s gonna whip out any fuckin’ shards in the middle of a nightclub. Coke, that’s a given. But like, I can avoid it probably, also I barely like it! So who cares?! Imagine someone offers me a bump— I’m not gonna whore myself out for it. Not gonna hold out my hands and beg oh yes, please, PLEASE give me some coke! You know what I’m gonna say? WHAT THEY TEACH YOU TO IN SCHOOLS, BABY! N-O! NO...no thank you, not a big fan of the booger sugar, I’m a member of the elite, I only like amphetamines. OOPSIE I forgot to use past tense. Used to like amphetamines. There we go. Oh mother of fuck, what am I doing? God— I hardly remember getting in my car. See, this is what I mean! When the pain gets real bad, I start to act fucking chaotic! And lord knows the pain has been abject as of late. To this day I don’t know how I even survived Sunday night. In that dark, sinister park, and in J’s brutally honest words, I was met with a feeling of despair I can only describe as deadly. I don’t know how I didn’t do something to myself. I’m sure I wanted to. After a certain point I think I just blacked out. System overloaded or something. I got home, by some fucking miracle— I know because I woke up in my bed around 3 am because I had been crying in my sleep, which is just fucking neat. After that, I don’t know. I really wish I could remember. Perhaps some things are too horrific to remember. The days that followed were even worse. I spent my time floating in and out of sadness, then to bitter, uncontrollable anger, back into sadness again, then for the grand finale there’d be a thick feeling of complete numbness, and that would be what followed me throughout the day. Sometimes I’d see her in my dreams, and still miss, love, and need her desperately— other times I’d feel disgusted by the vile creature she has become and want to forget we ever shared a moment so sacred. It was mostly the first one though, and that’s what made it so hard. You should’ve seen me, flipping through old photos of her like a fucking weirdo and clutching them to my heart, like if I held them close enough, she would hear how loud it beats for her. I was lovesick for the very first time since I was twenty one years old and discovering that bad boys, if given the chance, will treat you bad every damn time. I was never under any illusions that this was healthy, but I knew something was seriously fucked when I abruptly stood up and almost passed out, and later realized it was because I hadn’t eaten in two days. Thank God for fast food and its obscene amounts of fat otherwise I might still be a touch too skinny. Before I knew it, the week had passed me by, and this brings us to tonight. Tonight. It’s kind of a funny story how my spirits got so lifted. I was in the shower, which is a story in itself. I don’t know how I forced myself to take a shower in that state— I can’t even get out of bed most days. I get out of that bitch, right? I bury myself in my towel like a blanket ‘cause it was colder than my father’s stare in there. I wipe the steam from the mirror. And my breath was stolen away. I actually looked good. Fuck, I looked amazing. My eyes were bloodshot from crying, yeah, but my eyelashes looked darker, longer, little tiny beads of water dripping off them, and my complexion looked so fresh and healthy, and my lips had somehow turned a perfect shade of pink like I just blew a cherry popsicle or something. Was I sort of...pretty when I cried? Is it just like Lana Del Rey said? Oh my god, I thought. It was. I watched as my eyes brightened and my face was lit up by a smile at the realization. I broke into this demented cackle, and stayed there five minutes longer than I should have, gripping the edge of the sink and laughing gleefully. By the time I got back up to my apartment I was still in disbelief. Did I look that good all the time? Had I always been sexy? I couldn’t stop looking at myself. It was like I had been given a whole new face, a whole new body. I tried to just sit and quietly watch TV but it felt too wrong. It’s a Friday night. I live in the heart of the city. I’m not emotionally attached to anyone anymore. I have exceptional looks all of the sudden. I have more pent-up sexual frustration than I know what to do with. It just seemed too...perfect... And so, I decided, with a slightly manic sense of determination, that I was going to go get laid. Got a little dressed up because, yes, it’s true, my closet does consist of more than just hoodies. Fluffed up my hair a bit, stared into the mirror some more, then I hit up J. Man did he sound jittery when he answered the phone. Never in my life did I think that J would ever ask me, under any circumstances, for any reason, “What...what’s up?” I was too enchanted by my own reflection to analyze it at the time. “LISTEN, are you busy?” I demanded, trying out different poses in the mirror. He wasn’t. This pleased me immensely. “I wanna go fucking clubbing, J. You wanna go clubbing?! Let’s go clubbing! I ONLY WANT TO GO IF YOU COME WITH.” A heavy sigh from the other line. “I don’t know, man...” Panic instantly arose and began to frazzle my mind. Oh, god, it all seemed so clear now. He was gearing up to leave me. That was all there was to it. I had been too clingy, too emotional, too inconsiderate before; I had expected too much of him, and for that he was pulling away from me. That sigh held the leaden weight of our previous interaction and it was palpable, even over the phone. It was obvious I had to do something. “Come on, J...there’s money in it for you.” Needless to say, he was suddenly very eager to agree when I told him to wait for me in the park and that I’d pick him up in one hour. All the while I’m fucking hauling ass to collect his ounce of coke that I promised him, splitting it up into several different amounts and agonizing over how best to organize it. I figured it out eventually— because I fucking worked my brain half to death. The attention to detail was painstaking but it had to be done. And now, here I am, riding around the city, glorious night air blowing in through the open window, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of Uptown Funk, feeling that same wild, intoxicating rush as if it never went away. Perhaps I’m going a little crazy, perhaps I’ve never been saner. But I haven’t felt this good about myself, or anything, in a long time. Honestly, I don’t know that I’ve felt very confident since I entered my twenties. Something about all the self-introspection makes it hard to view myself in a positive light. But I’ve done enough of that, enough self-introspection for ten lifetimes. If there was ever a time where I deserved to go fucking ape shit, and have fun, and act like a normal twenty-something year old...it would be now. Spring break, bitch. May as well bask in my freedom while I still have it. Lush, gorgeous greenery juxtaposed with tall, steely, glittering buildings and the sudden feeling of quietude that being surrounded by nature brings: that’s how I know I’ve made it to the park. Almost out of respect for the calm, solitary setting, I instinctively go to turn down my music, drowning out the sounds of saxophones and terrifically catchy guitar riffs and Bruno Mars’ bright, joyous voice in favor of comfortable, worshipful silence. I wouldn’t mind driving around this place for a while, but I don’t have to look very long to find him. He’s standing on the sidewalk, looking as close to peaceful as he can probably get, cigarette in hand; never without his crutch, his trademark accessory. A shadowy figure in the near-dark, an apparition, an enigma, as always. I find myself breaking into a smile as I pull up and then subsequently stop the car, sliding out of my seat and nudging the door closed with my hip. I can see him very well now that I’ve gotten closer and— oh! What the fuck— okay, J! Giving me a little shirt-half-unbuttoned moment! He’s...okay, wow, he’s kind of serving. He’s really serving. He’s dressed in this sleek little black shirt that matches his hair just divinely and dark jeans and he looks so good I can’t help but raise my eyebrows and widen my eyes in surprise. “JAMES DEAN! How’s it going?!” I exclaim in lieu of a proper greeting. “What’s this little number? Did you get all dressed up just for ME?!” I let out a laugh, “Goddamn, man! Who the fuck told you to show out like that?! You are giving me so much life right now, J. I swear to God—you look so fucking good! What the hell?!”

[riedoesrecovery-blog]

Naming (Or How I Got There)

The thing about recovery is that today I think it's possible, but yesterday I was lukewarm about it and six months ago I didn't think it was possible at all. I’m all over the place about recovery and whether I believe in it or not. 

Part of the reluctance is that I’ve had an eating disorder for thirteen of the twenty-five years I’ve been alive. Which means I’ve had one for longer than I haven’t. Which is pretty depressing. 

Especially because for a good eleven of those thirteen years I was trying to stop having an eating disorder. 

I mean, yes, there was a period of about six months were I thought I’d discovered this amazing secret. I went about using my assorted behaviors, felt less anxious, received some compliments and thought the whole thing was kind of fun. 

Other things I though were kind of fun at that time include: fart jokes, Rocket Power, velour track suits and saying the word “spoon” at random times. It was 2004. I was twelve. I had no idea about anything and unwittingly tripped the eating disorder switch in my biology. 

It stopped being fun when I realized the thoughts weren’t something that shut off. Living with an ever-growing number of unwieldy superstitions around food was tedious. I spent the majority of my time attempting to either manage my many, illogical but obsessive fears or making considerable efforts to try to seem normal despite the elaborate rituals said fears required.

For your sake I wish I found my disorder as enthralling and scintillating as the people in recovery memoirs say theirs were. But my eating disorder didn’t inspire much of anything.

All I felt about it was ashamed and vaguely nauseated. 

Between the counting, the fear and the repetition there was oppressive sameness that caused everything to stagnate. It was literally the least interesting experience I can imagine. It wasn’t romantic. It was just really fucking boring. 

Well, boring and kind of gross like dedicating an entire week to watching fruit decay. Only, this fun little experiment went on for years and it wasn’t fruit I got to watch decay, it was myself. Even worse, the whole time I felt that I could possibly maybe stop it and part of me wanted to but I was terrified and got so overwhelmed by the idea of trying that I didn’t try. And not I get to spend a lot of time doing mental Circ De Sole to convince myself to not regret not stopping sooner.   

Anyway, it wasn’t interesting. Everything, right down to my thoughts, was the same day after day. Basically, I spent a lot of time feeling ashamed, disliking my disorder and wishing it would just go away. And the rest of the time I spent feeling terrified and hating myself. 

None of this was fun. 

And I knew I couldn’t keep going with the whole eating disorder thing for every long, especially since it was all life-suckingly, soul-crushingly boring and what-not. 

And so, now, for over a decade I’ve been trying to get well and failing miserably. In this time, I have made it many weeks and even the occasional month without behaviors. However, each time I’ve failed. 

Pretty much each time I give in to seductive whispers saying how half measures are possible. Smoke-smooth they tell me how it is possible to be just a little sick, to teeter between life and non-life, and how it would be okay to use behaviors only sometimes, to maybe use them just enough to be skinny but not enough to be sick. They say it is possible to use behaviors with discipline so that they'll never get out of hand. 

Time and time again I listened to those goddamn whispers. And they lie each and every time.

Anyway, by this point I am pretty aware of what I am up against. 

Sadly, this doesn't make things magically easier or better. To my deep and perpetual annoyance, knowing something is a lie doesn't help with the part of oneself that wishes with every fiber of its disordered soul that that lie were true. 

Nor does help with the maelstrom of irritation that crops up every time my disordered self goes on and on about how it's totally possible to do x or y and literally will not shut up. Not to mention how incredibly annoying it is when my disordered self realizes that I'm not having its bullshit so it starts being mean. 

It is deeply irritating have part of oneself that sucks. And it is highly problematic when this part not just normal, negativity-Nancy-level sucks, but full, terrorist-that-you-really-fucking-better-not-negotiate-with-level sucks. 

It's especially irritating when, like an irrational child, that part of oneself goes off and tries to wage a full-on war of attrition against the rest of oneself. And it’s literally the worst when it pulls that shit once every three to six weeks. 

Lucky for me, thirteen years of dealing with my asshole of a disordered self does help the non-disordered parts recognized its nonsense. It also theoretically makes it easier to deal with said nonsense but I haven’t reached the getting easier part yet and am beginning to doubt its existence. 

See, my disordered self has a unoriginal but winning strategy. It’s basically good cop/ bad cop. Only it's weirdly sociopathic Disney villain/ syrupy used car salesman that gave up selling things that have no business being called cars and now sells that, "causal bulimia" is a thing and that it's, "TOTALLY POSSIBLE to be a little anorexic." 

It’s the worst. Also I hate the number of times I’ve fallen for that shit, but I’ll admit that it’s an excellent strategy. They clearly use in Law & Order for a reason. 

Anyway, despite, or perhaps, because of all that aggressive failing to recover, I've basically been studying my disorder for a decade. And by this point I know it pretty well. I have also tried a lot of things that didn’t work.

In a perverse way it’s like my oldest and dearest chess partner. I know its strategies, strengths and favorite ammunition. Unfortunately, it also knows me pretty well. 

So, I know my disorder well enough to know which discarded core beliefs it will dredge up. That it will build it’s base camp in the corners where the scaffolding of my self loathing still more or less intact. I know it will redact my joys until I am ashamed of them and that it will retell my triumphs until they are failures or better yet, jokes that only a fool would celebrate. 

It knows me well enough to chant that I am worthless and that no one will ever love me because I, like most sitcom character, am not-so-secretly terrified both are true. And I know that it will use every event (be it lucky or unlucky), every action (be it a failure or success), and every interaction (be it awkward or suave) against me. I know it will try to distill or twist every moment, memory and murmur into evidence of my fundamental brokenness. 

For all it's meanness, my disorder isn't creative. We all know it will say that I am fat, because it's an eating disorder and calling me fat is basically its favorite thing. And it will say the normal things; declaring my person big, dumb and utterly ridiculous. It will tell me that my friends are just pretending to like me out of pity or as part of an elaborate joke I was too dull to pick up on. It will say everyone is laughing at my pathetic attempts to live a life of substance. Then it will return to belittling my joys and lampooning my triumphs because those are easy targets. Then it will say that I am the worlds biggest joke before it soliloquizes how incredibly conceited I must be to believe I am the worlds biggest anything. Basically my disorder rarely does anything a Hollywood intern wouldn’t put in their screenplay but is still a horrible, mean thing to have in my head.

It will turn pretty much any memory into ammunition. When it is done, my life is just a dreary narrative that asserts abject futility of any and all of my efforts. 

My decade of failure taught me that this is a game I can never win once I’m playing. 

On healthy days I laugh because all of this absurd. 

On bad days I don’t laugh. I try to fight it and end up feeling small. My hopeful, brilliant self doubts and is reduced to uncertain flickering. My disordered self all crooning and smooth whispers that I don't deserve happiness, and worse, am not even capable of it. It says this is because I am no good and because I am fundamentally broken. It will sing with a voice like a lullaby that there's no point trying because at the end of the day I'm as incapable of change as I am of happiness. On bad days this gives me pause. And on the worst days I come close to believing it.

I've been fighting this for most of my life. I tried battle plans, mind games and every war strategy I could think of. It never worked. So at some point I had to try something else. 

Now, somedays I might almost believe it when it tells me horrible things, but then the next day comes and day after day comes after that. 

And eventually in the blue morning I remember this isn’t me. I remember that this is a demon of sorts and that, as is the case with demons and hungry ghosts, naming gives me power. Naming it means I no longer have to fight myself. 

So I take a deep breath and remember the name. 

I tell myself it’s my eating disorder. I say it over and over, until I remember the name. When I finally remember, I say it loud like a war cry but it doesn’t feel right. So I make my voice soft like a lullaby, and my disordered self ceases fire. 

I take a deep breath and continue my song. I coo and croon to my disordered self. With sorrow, I remember she that has been my companion for all these long years. She had been with me through it all. I realize that at times she has carried me, and at others she absorbed my pain. I sing to her like I would a wounded thing and then, with love, I  whisper, “Hush now, old friend.” 

This name is right, and all the fight goes from her. So I rock my old friend to sleep and I thank her for getting me through hard times. As horrible and boring as those years were, she protected me when I needed protection. 

I cry because it is hard to tell her how thankful I am when there is still so much pain tied up in what she did. Through tears I tell her I am thankful. I tell her the story of how she was there for me when I needed her. I rock her back and forth, and I call her my old friend because that is her true name. 

As I would with a friend I tell her about my life. I tell her that things are better and that it’s okay for me to feel now. I explain that she no longer has to carry the weight of my pain for me, because I have grown and am strong enough to carry it myself. I tell her about the things I have done and the fears I have faced. I tell her about my little black cat and how silly he is. I tell her I will never forgot all that she has done. I tell her she served nobly and that her service is now complete. I thank her once more and tell her she has earned the right to rest. And then I sing her the lullaby my mother sang to me and finally, after all these long year, she rests. 

And then I start the work of recovery. 

I needed to love and forgive my way there. Others need to fight. Some laugh, some play. Others get angry. A great many get sad. Some need to set boundaries, others need to tear their boundaries down. We all have a different way of getting there and there’s no right or wrong path. There’s no time limit. No magic potion. We each find our way or we don’t. It’s all just a shot in the dark but after a decade I hit something, so there’s at least anecdotal evidence in favor of continuing to try despite failing more times than you can remember. 

[readbookywooks]

"So this is it, this is it at last - contact with real life," I muttered as I ran headlong downstairs. "This is very different from the Pope's leaving Rome and going to Brazil, very different from the ball on Lake Como!" "You are a scoundrel," a thought flashed through my mind, "if you laugh at this now." "No matter!" I cried, answering myself. "Now everything is lost!" There was no trace to be seen of them, but that made no difference - I knew where they had gone. At the steps was standing a solitary night sledge-driver in a rough peasant coat, powdered over with the still falling, wet, and as it were warm, snow. It was hot and steamy. The little shaggy piebald horse was also covered with snow and coughing, I remember that very well. I made a rush for the roughly made sledge; but as soon as I raised my foot to get into it, the recollection of how Simonov had just given me six roubles seemed to double me up and I tumbled into the sledge like a sack. "No, I must do a great deal to make up for all that," I cried. "But I will make up for it or perish on the spot this very night. Start!" We set off. There was a perfect whirl in my head. "They won't go down on their knees to beg for my friendship. That is a mirage, cheap mirage, revolting, romantic and fantastical - that's another ball on Lake Como. And so I am bound to slap Zverkov's face! It is my duty to. And so it is settled; I am flying to give him a slap in the face. Hurry up!" The driver tugged at the reins. "As soon as I go in I'll give it him. Ought I before giving him the slap to say a few words by way of preface? No. I'll simply go in and give it him. They will all be sitting in the drawing-room, and he with Olympia on the sofa. That damned Olympia! She laughed at my looks on one occasion and refused me. I'll pull Olympia's hair, pull Zverkov's ears! No, better one ear, and pull him by it round the room. Maybe they will all begin beating me and will kick me out. That's most likely, indeed. No matter! Anyway, I shall first slap him; the initiative will be mine; and by the laws of honour that is everything: he will be branded and cannot wipe off the slap by any blows, by nothing but a duel. He will be forced to fight. And let them beat me now. Let them, the ungrateful wretches! Trudolyubov will beat me hardest, he is so strong; Ferfitchkin will be sure to catch hold sideways and tug at my hair. But no matter, no matter! That's what I am going for. The blockheads will be forced at last to see the tragedy of it all! When they drag me to the door I shall call out to them that in reality they are not worth my little finger. Get on, driver, get on!" I cried to the driver. He started and flicked his whip, I shouted so savagely. "We shall fight at daybreak, that's a settled thing. I've done with the office. Ferfitchkin made a joke about it just now. But where can I get pistols? Nonsense! I'll get my salary in advance and buy them. And powder, and bullets? That's the second's business. And how can it all be done by daybreak? and where am I to get a second? I have no friends. Nonsense!" I cried, lashing myself up more and more. "It's of no consequence! The first person I meet in the street is bound to be my second, just as he would be bound to pull a drowning man out of water. The most eccentric things may happen. Even if I were to ask the director himself to be my second tomorrow, he would be bound to consent, if only from a feeling of chivalry, and to keep the secret! Anton Antonitch ...." The fact is, that at that very minute the disgusting absurdity of my plan and the other side of the question was clearer and more vivid to my imagination than it could be to anyone on earth. But .... "Get on, driver, get on, you rascal, get on!" "Ugh, sir!" said the son of toil. Cold shivers suddenly ran down me. Wouldn't it be better ... to go straight home? My God, my God! Why did I invite myself to this dinner yesterday? But no, it's impossible. And my walking up and down for three hours from the table to the stove? No, they, they and no one else must pay for my walking up and down! They must wipe out this dishonour! Drive on! And what if they give me into custody? They won't dare! They'll be afraid of the scandal. And what if Zverkov is so contemptuous that he refuses to fight a duel? He is sure to; but in that case I'll show them ... I will turn up at the posting station when he's setting off tomorrow, I'll catch him by the leg, I'll pull off his coat when he gets into the carriage. I'll get my teeth into his hand, I'll bite him. "See what lengths you can drive a desperate man to!" He may hit me on the head and they may belabour me from behind. I will shout to the assembled multitude: "Look at this young puppy who is driving off to captivate the Circassian girls after letting me spit in his face!" Of course, after that everything will be over! The office will have vanished off the face of the earth. I shall be arrested, I shall be tried, I shall be dismissed from the service, thrown in prison, sent to Siberia. Never mind! In fifteen years when they let me out of prison I will trudge off to him, a beggar, in rags. I shall find him in some provincial town. He will be married and happy. He will have a grown-up daughter .... I shall say to him: "Look, monster, at my hollow cheeks and my rags! I've lost everything - my career, my happiness, art, science, THE WOMAN I LOVED, and all through you. Here are pistols. I have come to discharge my pistol and ... and I ... forgive you. Then I shall fire into the air and he will hear nothing more of me ...." I was actually on the point of tears, though I knew perfectly well at that moment that all this was out of Pushkin's SILVIO and Lermontov's MASQUERADE. And all at once I felt horribly ashamed, so ashamed that I stopped the horse, got out of the sledge, and stood still in the snow in the middle of the street. The driver gazed at me, sighing and astonished. What was I to do? I could not go on there - it was evidently stupid, and I could not leave things as they were, because that would seem as though ... Heavens, how could I leave things! And after such insults! "No!" I cried, throwing myself into the sledge again. "It is ordained! It is fate! Drive on, drive on!" And in my impatience I punched the sledge-driver on the back of the neck. "What are you up to? What are you hitting me for?" the peasant shouted, but he whipped up his nag so that it began kicking. The wet snow was falling in big flakes; I unbuttoned myself, regardless of it. I forgot everything else, for I had finally decided on the slap, and felt with horror that it was going to happen NOW, AT ONCE, and that NO FORCE COULD STOP IT. The deserted street lamps gleamed sullenly in the snowy darkness like torches at a funeral. The snow drifted under my great-coat, under my coat, under my cravat, and melted there. I did not wrap myself up - all was lost, anyway. At last we arrived. I jumped out, almost unconscious, ran up the steps and began knocking and kicking at the door. I felt fearfully weak, particularly in my legs and knees. The door was opened quickly as though they knew I was coming. As a fact, Simonov had warned them that perhaps another gentleman would arrive, and this was a place in which one had to give notice and to observe certain precautions. It was one of those "millinery establishments" which were abolished by the police a good time ago. By day it really was a shop; but at night, if one had an introduction, one might visit it for other purposes. I walked rapidly through the dark shop into the familiar drawingroom, where there was only one candle burning, and stood still in amazement: there was no one there. "Where are they?" I asked somebody. But by now, of course, they had separated. Before me was standing a person with a stupid smile, the "madam" herself, who had seen me before. A minute later a door opened and another person came in. Taking no notice of anything I strode about the room, and, I believe, I talked to myself. I felt as though I had been saved from death and was conscious of this, joyfully, all over: I should have given that slap, I should certainly, certainly have given it! But now they were not here and ... everything had vanished and changed! I looked round. I could not realise my condition yet. I looked mechanically at the girl who had come in: and had a glimpse of a fresh, young, rather pale face, with straight, dark eyebrows, and with grave, as it were wondering, eyes that attracted me at once; I should have hated her if she had been smiling. I began looking at her more intently and, as it were, with effort. I had not fully collected my thoughts. There was something simple and good-natured in her face, but something strangely grave. I am sure that this stood in her way here, and no one of those fools had noticed her. She could not, however, have been called a beauty, though she was tall, strong-looking, and well built. She was very simply dressed. Something loathsome stirred within me. I went straight up to her. I chanced to look into the glass. My harassed face struck me as revolting in the extreme, pale, angry, abject, with dishevelled hair. "No matter, I am glad of it," I thought; "I am glad that I shall seem repulsive to her; I like that."