#people really projecting wildly onto the article so they can be like 'fucked up that tumblr doesn't know about *conflict resolution*'

[unopenablebox]

cw abuse cw popular relationship thinkpieces

completely unconvinced by the ~normal marital hatred article apologia people are circulating. like, idk, people seem to be successfully projecting their own circumstances and thoughts on conflict resolution onto it and then arguing that therefore it’s good? maybe there is a secret good book the article is poorly excerpted from or whatever. but

the actual content of the article is:

you should unlearn the boundary-setting and self-assertion skills you currently have when talking to your spouse. i’ll imply that all i mean by this is "use a non-oppositional tone when making your point, don’t bring up unrelated topics during a disagreement, and try to keep your spouse’s interests in mind”, but i never actually specify what the limits of “forgetting about boundaries” are supposed to be, so it does still come across like you’re supposed to martyr yourself on the cross of not revealing that you feel anger or distress ever. half of the article is about extremely basic obvious communication skills, and the other half is about being filled with hatred at your spouse in conditions and contexts that are never described, and how that’s fine and you shouldn’t respond to it in any way. these are linked only by a sort of broad gesture at the idea that feeling hatred (?) toward your spouse comes from being bad at arguing and if you just fixed your speech patterns and stopped asserting yourself you wouldn’t have any problems.

oh unless it’s an abuse situation, tee hee! then you should still have boundaries obviously. you know how easy it is for a person to tell the difference between normal, healthy suppression of all efforts to defend yourself in a fight with your spouse and abuse. you’d know if you were being abused, silly, they would put up the neon sign that says “it’s abuse” on it! that’s how you know you’re allowed to leave! otherwise you’d better hang in there because it’s normal marital hatred

[complicatedandstained]

Rules of Engagement: Fake It ‘Til You Make It

The road is still rough along the side streets of Radiant Garden, the concrete pathways lined with cracks and crevices deep-set as Yen Sid’s frown lines and rough with rubble and particularly stubborn weeds that spring up against all odds—dandelions, mostly. The Restoration Committee has higher priorities. So, Roxas has become something of an expert at curving his skateboard around the worst of it, coaxing his wheels out of divots and dips without stopping his progress entirely. 

He’s cleared some of the alleyways around Axel’s forge of debris himself, and now glides from the main thoroughfare onto one such side street to avoid running into anyone else and making himself any later than he already is. 

Although, he thinks, as he glances up to the suns, climbing higher toward midday, and readjusts the bags beneath his arm, at this rate another half hour won’t make a huge difference. 

Roxas inhales a mouthful of charcoal and jumps his winged board over the most jagged pothole in the alley, his wheels rattling their objections as he sticks the landing and slows. The forge’s back door, which they all keep meaning to replace, is a hastily hammered together collection of boards, painted black with fire-retardant and sprayed with a jagged white 813 by whoever does that sort of thing. 

Probably Demy, Roxas supposes, trying to mark the spot for his wildly erratic delivery route.  

Like many of the recompleted Organization members who had been reunited with their own bodies, (or else given the Radiant Garden scientists quite a shock when they had awoken in the replicas’ chamber), Demy had chosen to take advantage of Leon’s offer to help repopulate and rehabilitate the world many of them had been born in. In doing so, the members had to prove themselves a benefit to society through hard work, education, and community service. 

Jiminy Cricket offered them each regular therapy sessions, and they were required to pass a psychiatric evaluation before permanently moving to any other worlds. So far, rumor had it, only Isa had managed, but he had chosen to stay. They were each assigned “Sponsors of Light” to aid them in their progress. 

Xigbar likened the entire situation to house arrest on more than one occasion, but the former Org members mainly kept their grumbling to themselves. There were certainly worse arrangements to be had than being allowed to carry out their new lives in exile on their former home world. They’d all died enough times to know that. 

They were held accountable by both the Restoration Committee Leaders and the new Council of Keyblade Masters, who, with the assistance of keyblade armor, were able to make their rounds through the worlds faster than Sora’s Gummi Ship ever had and keep the peace. Roxas, Axel, and Xion had been asked to join them on their peace-keeping journeys, and, maybe, probably, eventually, they would. But, after being forced to exchange so much of their youth so far for fighting Heartless 24/7, they had decided to live as close to normal lives as they were able, for the time being, (and the Keyblade Masters had likely breathed a private sigh of relief, especially since Axel’s exact initial response had been ‘Fuck that’). 

Roxas hops off his skateboard, pops his board up into his waiting hand, and sets it against the aged brick wall beside another rebellious pack of wispy white dandelions that he and Axel haven’t found it in their hearts to uproot.  

Roxas doesn’t—hasn’t ever—knocked on the door to Axel’s forge, and he doesn’t today. Still, he can’t stop himself from thinking of it as Axel’s, even though Axel considers it theirs—even though Roxas has spent many long, sweaty days, helping Leon and his crew construct the thing and harnessing his fire magic to learn the basics of the trade at his boyfriend’s side. 

At the end of the day, it’s Axel’s peace time passion project, something besides finishing up his education and keyblade training, something that’s entirely his own. So, at Roxas’ insistence, it’s Axel’s name on the sign out front, and the deed, and the contracts with the Restoration Committee.

And he’d had to fight for it. 

Most of the former members of the Organization weren’t permitted to take up quite such dangerous lines of work. Isa, for example, had been in charge of coordinating gardening, landscaping, and agriculture with Laurium for several months before The Council of Keyblade Masters (Aqua, Terra, and Riku) permitted him to take up a management position at Leon’s side, allocating human resources for the Restoration Committee. 

Similarly, Xemnas’ venture into penning New Radiant Garden’s first newspaper were heavily criticized, and his articles and e-newsletters regularly vetted for ‘Dark Propaganda,’ so that the first twenty editions were nothing more than tremendously, intrusively accurate gossip rags, and, when that didn’t fly, painstakingly, comically accurate accounts of the town’s most mundane events, including an in depth feature report on Leon’s favorite sandwich toppings, complete with quotes and multiple eye witness accounts. 

It took half a year (and some nudging from Isa) before Xemnas was allowed to print anything remotely political or consequential, though once he began, he quickly proved himself just as capable of factual, unbiased journalism as he had been at penning a wickedly witty exposé on Xigbar’s brief but passionate on-and-off-again romantic trysts. (This was, of course, before Xigbar got himself tossed in the castle dungeon for allegedly attempting to portal his Sponsor of Light off a cliff. Although his sentence is up for appeal, last Roxas heard, because Xigbar claims he thought ducks could fly.) 

Axel’s fortunate that he didn’t have to spend a year proving himself (and has been told so—repeatedly.) 

The town needed a forge, and Axel was uniquely qualified for the position. (And the Council had wanted him out of their hair. He had proved quite persistent.) So, Axel had gotten what he wanted. Seventeen petition speeches later. 

Isa warned them it was a lot to take on in addition to classes, keeping up with their keyblade training, and community service, but Axel enjoyed using his fire for something constructive and Roxas saw the peace it brought him, so they made it work.  

“Yo, Axel! ‘M back!” Roxas calls, pushing his way inside with the ridge of his hip and scuffing his sneakers against the mat to remove the excess construction dirt. “I know I said I was gonna be, like, ten minutes tops, but, I mighta gotten distracted…”   

“In here, Roxas…” Axel answers from inside the shop, above the clang of metal on metal and hiss of sparks. “Come in here where I can see you.” 

Roxas passes through the back hallways, neatly lined with the stray supplies and freshly forged weapons and tools, in styles and cuts inspired by a variety of worlds, and enters the central workshop. Large windows allow breaths of fresh air and cast white light that’s hard to look at and doesn’t do as good a job at illuminating the large open space as the orange and yellow blazes of the large central fire burning at the heart of the forge beneath its stone chimney. 

Everything is cast in flickering shades of flame and shadow: the mounted anvil, racks of tools, barrels of water and sand, carts bearing hunks of metal needing repurposed and the neatly arranged shelves toward the entrance, mounting wares to be sold. Even Axel in his tight, light fabric britches, tunic, and heavy leather apron is cast in gold, white, and crimson as he works, stretching gleaming white molten metal between his bare fingertips with the ease of a sculptor shaping clay. 

“Well, hey, sexy.” Axel grins, head cocking to get a better view of Roxas, as carelessly attractive as ever, his hair windswept and his cheeks and ears slightly flushed from his skateboarding, or maybe just the rising temperature of the shop.

Roxas’ smile broadens in spite of himself. “Hey…” 

“That errand took seven hundred times longer than anticipated.” Axel shapes the hot metal between his fingers, and it looks sticky and elastic, like dough. He flicks his wrist, causing flames to engulf all of it once more, and begins to swirl it into an elaborate spiral before balling it up again.

“Sorry, Axel.” Roxas winces, chagrinned. “First, I had to wait for Leon to get out of a meeting, so I could give him the supplies and explain what was what. Then we delivered them, and then he wanted me to lend him a hand with a quick project, only it wasn’t actually a quick project, in reality. 

“Then I was on my way back here, swear to the gods, but I stopped into Aerith’s house for just a minute to say hello to Xion, and she wanted me to taste-test her cupcakes, and she was so excited, I couldn’t say no, and then, on my way out, I ran into Xemnas, and you know how much Xemnas likes to talk, and I just kinda lost track of time….” Roxas scuffs his foot sheepishly, the arm that’s not laden with bags stretching behind his head, ringed fingers rubbing at the back of his neck, a habit of Axel’s he’s picked up for himself. “Again.”

Axel chuckles, a sultry purr that Roxas only ever hears him use when there’s no one else around, deeper and less controlled than his usual mocking, lilting laugh. “It’s okay, Roxas, I don’t need the whole mission report. I wasn’t really expecting anything less after the last five times.” He turns toward the chimney so the piece he’s working on won’t drip molten steel to the floor, and flicks a hand carelessly over his shoulder, spraying sparks, as he teases, “I know you don’t know how to say no to people.” 

In actuality, Axel knows no force in the universe could make the powerful keyblade wielder do anything he didn’t want to do—not any more.  But, the guy is far too helpful for his own good. 

“Well,” one of Roxas’ brows rises, and his smile tilts, as he draws closer and deadpans, “I was raised by a cult.”

Axel snorts, catching Roxas’ eye before turning toward the anvil, shifting the shape of the steel in his hand into something more distinctly sword-shaped, as he steps and then setting it down, dismissing the fire engulfing his hands. “Is that why I’m doing all these orders for Leon?” Axel hefts a large hammer from the ground and props it against his shoulder, before turning to glance at Roxas again. “And here I thought I was just a good guy.”

 Axel brings the hammer down on the sword with a harsh clang that sends up sparks that remind Roxas of the fireflies the pair of them chased the time they tried camping on the edge of town. 

 “You are a good guy,” Roxas assures him firmly, stepping up to the other side of the anvil to watch Axel’s progress and to see his face, glowing golden bronze in the light. A black smudge of ash on one of his cheeks reminds Roxas of the tattoos he used to wear. Roxas feels an unexpected pang, something to the left of nostalgia. 

Axel brings the hammer down hard again with a grunt and then wastes a couple precious seconds to grin back. “I love it when you lie to me.”

“Axel…” Roxas’ tone grows exasperated, his smile thinner, more wry. He hopes Axel doesn’t mean that, but admires his blatant refusal to stay in line with whatever overstepping behaviors the powers that be demand of him in the name of what’s “right.”

 “Roxas…”  Axel mimics his tone, and then huffs and keeps swinging. It’s a conversation they’ve had a hundred times before in one form of another. 

Another few blows pass in silence broken only by the song of metal and hiss of smoke and embers, and then Axel lifts the sword-to-be by the hilt, reshaping the metal with the heat of his palm as he does, smoothing out the jutting upper ridges of the hand guards under his thumb while inspecting his handiwork. 

 Roxas follows his movements in quiet admiration. Axel’s swift motions have a practiced ease and fluidity not unlike the way he fights, slicing through Heartless with his chakram… 

Axel frowns a bit at a flaw Roxas’ eyes can’t detect, and jerking his head to indicate Roxas step back, dunks the sword into a barrel of cold water and then raises it, steaming and silver, into the air with a single sizzling swipe. 

Roxas hums in admiration as Axel sets the weapon down to cool atop the anvil with a mild sigh, the steam around his hands evaporating quickly to reveal his face, tired but unflushed. “I’ll fix it later. Think it’s time for a breather.” 

Roxas nods, and Axel sets his tools to rights and steps up to join him. Without discussion, they seat themselves on a wrought iron bench below one of the wide, open bell-shaped windows at the front of the shop. From there they can feel the breeze breathe against their flushed faces and listen to the birds calling out to each other in the park a few blocks down. 

Once they’ve settled themselves, their thighs pressed against each other, ankles linking, Roxas licks his thumb and reaches out to rub at the smudge of ash on Axel’s cheek. “You are doing a good job,” Roxas reiterates. “You know that, right? Like, fucking…” his words fade off, vulnerable and fragile in their quietness, “incredible.”

“Roxas…” Axel catches Roxas’ hand in his and closes his eyes above the gentle brush of Roxas’ calloused thumb. With his hand wrapped in Axel’s, Roxas can feel the racing of Axel’s pulse and the sticky heat and ash coating his skin. Axel inhales deeply, trying to relax and smiles, lazy, superficial. “Roxas, Roxas, Roxas… You’re the good guy. I’m just along for the ride.” 

Axel lowers their hands into his lap, though Roxas hasn’t quite fixed the smudge on his cheek so much as streaked it into the teardrop shape it had reminded him of in the first place. Axel wraps both of his hands around Roxas’ and pats it in a way that feels both condescending and sweet. 

Roxas laughs, a short skeptical bark. “You’re the one always bragging about being made a Guardian of Light.” 

Axel exhales through his nose, somewhere between amused and frustrated. Roxas feels his pulse start to simmer down.

“Yeah, well, you weren’t there.” Axel half smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, though they seem to glow, Heartless-like, in the dark space. He jabs Roxas in the arm with his elbow to lighten the gravity of the accusation. “The standards were fairly low.” 

Roxas huffs and is about to elbow him back, when Axel leans in and rests his cheek in Roxas’ hair, a gesture which makes Roxas’ insides so gooey he can’t think of a response right away, except to curl his hand tighter into Axel’s.  

“I was selfish. I just wanted to get you back,” Axel continues. “You, and Isa, and the others… That’s all I thought of while I was training. You, especially. I mean, they’d told me you were as good as…”

The feel of Axel’s entire body shivering makes Roxas’ spine go rigid, especially in the pervasive heat of the smoky room with its still merrily burning hearth.  

“But I didn’t, couldn’t, believe them,” his voice cracks, fingers tracing the bones of Roxas’. “Not for a second. I mean,” his voice starts to get shallow, so he pushes for playful and misses the mark, “what kind of gods would bring back me and not you, right?” His laughter reminds Roxas of glass breaking.

“Hey,” Roxas’ words take on an edge, flat and blunt, “don’t. Don’t do that. We saved the fucking worlds, you and me,” he reminds him. He’s had to remind himself on more than one occasion since, when the other Keyblade wielders had lost patience with him, and when he had lost patience with himself.   

Axel shakes his head slightly, further mussing Roxas’ soft hair, still warm from the noon rays of the Radiant Garden suns. “Honestly, after I saved you, the rest of the worlds didn’t matter so much.”

Roxas wishes he could meet Axel’s eyes, but doesn’t want to jolt him and interrupt the soft, warm, exhales ruffling his hair. “But you did it anyway,” Roxas insists, raising their folded hands until he can press his lips against Axel’s knuckles. 

“Well, yeah,” Axel scoffs at himself, his bravado and hypocrisy and desperation, “but…” He trails off, distracted as Roxas’ lips dampen his skin, and then Roxas lowers their hands again, as if Roxas has finally started to forget such a casually intimate gesture could have gotten them killed once upon a time.  

“Why?” Roxas coaxes.

Axel scoffs again, thinking of everything that had been riding on those moments in the Keyblade Graveyard. He remembers the blinding white glow of Kingdom Hearts overhead burning his eyes even when he shut them—the electric pull of its gravity, threatening to encompass every place he had ever known and every place he and Roxas could have, like the Darkness that had swallowed his childhood home whole, alive, and squirming. 

“Whaddya mean, why?” Axel sputters, voice growing louder with indignance. “There wasn’t a why.” He laughs at the absurdity of it, shaking his head again, sounding more than a little manic. “I only did it ‘cause I was there and it was the right thing, the only thing to… Oh.” 

Axel lifts his head from Roxas’ hair, and Roxas twists his neck to meet widened green eyes. 

“Oh,” Axel repeats more softly, as Roxas’ lips curl into a satisfied grin. 

“The right thing to do. Huh.” Axel reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “Faked it ‘til I made it, I guess.”   

Roxas rolls his eyes, but his tight-lipped grin splits open into a real smile. “Idiot.” He reaches up to cup Axel’s cheek in his palm. “I am so fucking hopelessly in love with you.”

“Yeah,” Axel mumbles and bites his lip, eyes darting to the side in embarrassment, and then back to Roxas’ because he can’t help himself. “I know. Sucks to be you.” 

The pair lean in for a kiss, but Roxas falters and pulls back, arm caught on the three bags weighing it down. 

“Oh!” His eyes widen, glancing down and then back up. “I forgot. I brought you something to apologize for being gone so long.” 

Axel’s eyes narrow, lips pursing skeptically, his fingertips tracing Roxas’ jaw. “Is it a kiss?”

Roxas shrugs the handles of a paper bag from his forearm and lifts the still warm parcel onto his lap. “Ta-da.”

“Ah, Roxas.” Axel’s nose crinkles, as he leans back, and his free hand reaches to unfold the paper bag. “You didn’t need to go to any trouble...”

“It’s freshly baked, flaky, crescent-wrapped jalapeño poppers from Lar—Elrena’s tavern.” 

Axel peers into the bag to see the savory pastries and inhales a whiff of the buttery, spicy morsels, which sets his mouth watering. 

“You brought me pub food? See? I knew you cared,” Axel teases, his thumb stretching to the edge of Roxas’ thin smile, and giving it a tug up that makes Roxas cackle and glare, his golden brows dipping down below the bangs he gets when his hair starts to fall flat. Axel’s hand curls around the bag, folding it closed again with a crinkling sound. “Apology accepted. But I also want...” His free hand rises to catch the neck of Roxas’ tee and draw him closer, until his nose near brushes Roxas’ again. 

Roxas hums, their lips a breath apart. He can’t hold up the glare, smiles again, a softer thing, his heart beating a slow anthem against Axel’s palm on his chest. “Guess I can do that.” He tilts his head. His pale, unwavering blue eyes burn when they’re so close, like matchsticks held to Axel’s bare skin, but he doesn’t mind. “Forgive me?” Roxas asks on a breath.

“Nothing to forgive,” Axel dismisses, and then their lips slip together. All tension and fear and stress and insecurity evaporates as their hearts beat against each other. Roxas tastes like frosting and smells like spring, wind and petals, and when Axel’s tongue wraps his, it burns like salt and smoke. Axel lifts Roxas into his lap, their mouths moving together and their hands snagging at fabric, tugging each other closer, harder, holding tight, muscle sliding against muscle. Their desperation makes it as impossibly clear as ever that they haven’t forgotten for a moment what separation tastes like, the way it rent hollow, echoing chambers in their chests. But pressed together, kissing, they feel like they are home.

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [567]

The video call opens and Malika sees the Iron Bull’s broad chest and jaw as he turns his steering wheel, the sound of his turn signal clicking persistently in the background.

“Sorry,” he says, “Running late. Almost home. Ellana’s already there. I don’t know how but she beat me in this traffic. I was literally only twenty minutes away from home and she was driving in from the fucking airport and she somehow beat me. On a Friday afternoon. This is why we have to move to the Marches. Forget that the major studios are here. I wouldn’t be dealing with this kind of traffic in the Marches. You went to college in Markham? Starkhaven?”

“Starkhaven,” Malika answers, nervously checking the window where she has all her notes.

She’s been fans of the Iron Bull and Ellana Lavellan since she was a kid. She’s pretty sure she knows pretty much everything on their wiki pages, but she’d rather not forget and ask a dumb question because’s she’s nervous. She shouldn’t be.

The Iron Bull is a friend of her uncles and she’s known him since she was a kid. Well. Been kind of tangentially around him. He’s not as intimidating as he would be if she didn’t know him at all. Still. He’s the Iron Bull, it’s hard not to geek out over him.

And it’s Ellana Lavellan, it’s impossible not to want to burst out into wild screams of excitement. Malika swears she has no idea how she’s keeping herself composed right now. She’s met the woman in person a few times before — briefly — and she’s fairly certain the only thing that kept her from doing something wildly inappropriate was the overwhelming joy that made her pretty short-circuited her everything.

There’s a part of her mind that’s chanting this is for work, this is for work, this is for work and another part of her mind that’s just yelling.

“Thanks again for agreeing to do the interview with me,” Malika says. “Not a lot of people really care to do interviews for Humfeed.”

It’s not exactly the best media outlet. It’s mostly youtube and clickbait articles on this side of it, actually. But if Malika gets a solid portfolio of work going she can probably get transferred to the serious side of the business, covering stuff like elections and laws and international situations and stuff. She might even get to go freelance someday.

“No problem," Bull says, “You’re a good kid. Edric doesn’t shut up about you. In a good way.”

He gives the camera a distracted smile and she stays quiet as he parks, picking up his phone.

Malika takes a few moments to just breath and collect herself and push down on all her urges to squeal.

Bull sits down in his living room, setting up the phone somewhere on a table nearby, yelling out into the house, “Ellana, I’ve got Malika on my phone.”

“I’ll be right there!” Malika hears from somewhere off screen and then Ellana Lavellan, legend and favorite of the world itself, comes into view, sitting next to Bull on their lovely sofa, beaming.

“Hi, Malika,” Ellana says, “Is this good?”

“Yeah, it’s not a video, it’ll be an article so I’m mostly going to use transcripts,” Malika answers. “Thank you for agreeing to this.”

“Anything for the fans,” Ellana deadpans, “Also for the youth pursuing the ever noble passion of journalism. I’ve read some of your pieces and you’re going to be amazing.”

Ellana Lavellan has read some of her articles, Malika thinks to herself. She’s going to die. Malika is going to straight up die.

Her voice cracks when she talks, but hopefully that can be attributed to a poor connection or something.

“Alright, so. Let’s get started. Um. First off, congratulations on the engagement.”

“Thank you,” Ellana and the Iron Bull say, giving each other brief, but fond, glances before returning their focus to the camera.

“This question is for the both of you. How do the two of you manage your busy schedules, considering how high in demand both of you are? Everyone knows that the two of you have been dating for almost four years now, so obviously you guys have figured out some kind of time management system. But how do you guys determine how you balance out your projects and coordinate with each other?”

“High demand?” Bull and Ellana both ask at the same time.

“Yes,” Malika nods, hand ready to jot down notes on the separate notepad she has. “For example — Ellana, you were just announced to take part in the highly anticipated follow up movie to Hard in Hightown, and you’ve just come off of working Mountain’s Nine. Both of these take place in extremely different filming locations, I imagine, and both sound like they’re huge time sucks. And you, the Iron Bull, are currently scheduled to be in two upcoming video games as well as commentating on the Ferelden Men’s championship.”

“The what?” Ellana says, turning to the Iron Bull at the same time the Iron Bull is staring at Ellana like he’s never seen her before. “You’re going to be in what and commentating on what?”

She turns to Malika, looking a little helpless.

Malika stares between the two.

“Do you guys…not talk about your projects?”

“Projects,” Bull repeats, slowly. “You have projects?”

Ellana turns to stare at Bull. “You have projects?”

Malika just stares at the both of them. “You…you two have been dating for four years and recently got engaged. Do you…did either of you ever google each other?”

“You’re famous?” Ellana whispers.

“You’ve been in movies?” The Iron Bull replies, sounding dazed.

Ellana quickly pulls out her phone, even as Malika starts to carefully attempt to jog Ellana’s memory.

“He’s a world champion weight lifter,” Malika says, “He’s got world records that still haven’t been broken to this day. He’s won gold more times than should be possible and he didn’t even retire because of an injury or anything. He just retired because he wanted to. Then immediately after that, he entered competitive chess. He’s also got a world record for chess, and he’s a recognized chess master. He was the champion of chess for five years running. He’s…he’s literally a champion of so many things and he’s always asked to commentate and teach and — you didn’t know?”

“Oh my god,” Ellana sounds like she’s dying as she looks at something on her phone. She reaches out, not looking up and starts hitting Bull’s leg. “You — you’re a tetris champion? You — oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. This is you! You’re in a fucking leotard. Oh my god, you had hair. What is this, how come I’ve — “

“You didn’t know?” Bull asks, incredulous. “You said you recognized me when we first met.”

“From the underwear ad!” Ellana blurts out, eyes widening as she scrolls through something on her phone. “I though you were an underwear model!”

“Ellana, that shoot was to promote my cologne.”

“It was your cologne?!?”

“Yes,” Bull says, “Of course it’s mine. Why else would I have done a photo shoot for it?”

“Because you’re a model!”

“No, I only started modeling after I retired from weight lifting,” Bull says. “Babe, the only reason I became a popular model was because I was a popular athlete first.”

“Why would I know this? You know I don’t…sports!”

“They literally stop playing all news and television every time the Olympics comes around and somehow you’ve never seen me? Wait — hold on. You. You’re famous. You’re in movies.”

Ellana starts crying. Well. Laughing and crying hysterically, clutching onto the back of their couch as she leans back, stomping her leg on the ground, phone clutched to her chest as she shrieks with laughter.

“Oh my god,” She cries. “Holy shit. You’re famous. You’re famous!”

“So are you?” the Iron Bull, and it sounds like a question.

“She’s…an award winning actress,” Malika says weakly. This is not how she thought this interview was going to go. “She’s won actress of the year six times. She’s been in internationally acclaimed movies. Just name dropping her can shoot a movie’s popularity up with the critics.”

The Iron Bull stares at Malika.

“She’s been in a million movies,” Malika continues. “You’ve seen them.”

“I have?”

“The Lady of the Lake? Emperor of the Rings? Jude Bravo and the Void Thief? Empire Raider? Derelict Wars? The Lovelace series? The Good-Mother? Thieves of the Lost Arc? The Shape of You? Dreams?”

The Iron Bull looks more lost with each movie she names and Malika could go on for another half hour or more just listing Ellana’s greatest hits.

He slowly turns back to the woman who’s slowly started to slide off the couch as she shrieks with laughter.

“You don’t own any movies,” he says dumbly. “We had to fucking rent The Lady of the Lake. You were in it and you didn’t even say anything. Who the fuck were you?”

“To be fair, I play a lot of characters with heavy prosthetics,” Ellana says as she attempts to compose herself, face red as she hiccups. “Besides, you don’t like the kind of stuff I’m in. You like TV shows more than movies.”

“You’re in TV shows,” Malika feels the needs to point out.

Bull gestures at Malika helplessly. “And I’ve never seen you once?”

“You don’t like the kind of shows I’m in,” Ellana says. “You only watch cop procedural shows and true crime stuff.”

“You were the star in the hit series remake of Carmine as the notorious cannibal Dr. Carmine Flescher,” Malika says.

Ellana, by this point, has fallen off the couch. Malika sees her stumbling up and walk off frame, bursting into laughter as she goes again.  The Iron Bull puts his head in his hands.

“Is the interview still going?” Bull asks, voice slightly muffled.

“No,” Malika says, because this is definitely not something she’s going to write about. Yeah, it would get a lot of attention, but it’s not the kind of attention Malika thinks any of the three of them present want. “Are you okay?”

“My fiancé is an actress with an IMDB page longer than my entire arm,” Bull says. “Not really.”

Ellana suddenly reappears in frame, holding her hand out. “I want my ring back.”

Malika swears she’s lost sensation in most of her body parts and her heart is beating faster than healthy.

Bull stares up at Ellana. “What?”

“I proposed to you when I thought you were some cute model. You’re actually a literal genius with world records,” Ellana says, wiggling her hand. “I’ve got to do this over again. Give me that ring so I can propose to you with all the flair that you deserve.”

Bull’s expression turns from stunned to fond.

“You’re an actress with more gold than I ever won,” he says, “I should be the one getting down to propose to you this time.”

“With your bad knee? Forget it,” Ellana says, reaching down and taking his hand and pulling the ring off herself. She sticks it in her pocket. “Okay. Give me like. A few days and I’ll think up of a better proposal. Fit for a world fucking champion, holy shit. I can’t believe I married up — hold on. Wait a minute. All those times you said you were busy — were you doing world champion stuff?””

[vacationcalendar]

7/18/21

Good morning Max!

So.

We are steadfastly embarking here on a blogging journey only about 3 entire weeks after we had this fantastic idea. One might argue that a *start* to an endeavor can’t be steadfast; steadfast is a pace that is maintained over a period of time, it indicates a consistency that can’t be identified after mere seconds of typing. But I would argue that that steadfast pace is going a certain speed, and we as a society have a collective idea of how fast that speed is, whether we’ve ever said it out loud or not. And I believe it is that speed at which I am embarking. So there. You bear with me and try to visualize THAT idea, and I’ll try and learn more words so we don’t have to keep having these little thought experiments every paragraph or so.

OK GREAT! WE’RE OFF! I have literally taken two full length breaks since I’ve started writing this. Why was I so scared to get this thing started anyway? Writing comes so naturally to me, like breathing, or shitting. I can’t believe people actually get paid to do this.

Alright, in all honesty, I know this is going to be wildly difficult for me to do with any consistency at all, much less DAILY (good lord...). So in order to make this a more surmountable task, we are going to make the topics and form that the blog takes on a little more free flowing than I might initially want them to be. We don’t care how the river is shaped at this very moment, just so long as there is water flowing down it.

Here are some creative writing projects constantly hanging over my head that might just rear their ugly heads in some form or another during these posts: Comedy Sketches Stand-up bits Segments/ideas for my eternally unfinished novel Standalone essays that I think would work as a youtube video, because of course an introverted depressed guy who thinks he’s interesting in 2021 wants to have a youtube channel. Etc.(?)

There, I finished the list with etc., even though I had no more concrete ideas for creative writing projects. That makes the list instantly 300% more official, and doesn’t paint me as wildly unconfident in my own personality AT ALL. I did mention to my mother that I was working on assorted creative writing projects to keep busy, and she immediately asked, “Oh! Like a [auto]biography?”

She’s pretty confident that I’ve got a bestseller on my hands if I just recounted the sad and lonely details of my life up until this point. She also called it a biography as indicated in my direct quote there, and I tried to fix it in post like any good editor would. But now I’m noticing that “fixing” the quote to say autobiography like she *meant* to say changes the proper article before the word from “a” to “an,” and I have no idea what the protocol for that correction would be...

Maybe it’s [an auto]biography? An [auto]biography? Maybe it’s [an autobiography], but then it’s much less clear what my mother’s initial mistake in vocabulary was, and I don’t want to let her off the hook so easily. Maybe I google this later, if I can think of what the hell you would type into google to find an answer to this. I guess my point bringing this up at all, is maybe I do actually try and use this space occasionally for a journal. Wading through the slimy, fetid bog of my younger days sounds extremely unfun, and, to a point of contention with my well-meaning mother, distinctly unprofitable. But unpacking my current self’s thoughts onto this page periodically does actually sound nice.

And this is a trade secret between you and me (you’re the only one reading this Max, sorry), I think it would behoove you to include several autobiographical moments in your perpetually ethereal novel. You need all the cheat codes you can get to get this wretched thing off the ground. We should lock the name in on that sucker by the way, just to help save you some keystrokes at least. I know I wrote down ‘Elements of War’ a loooong time ago as a placeholder. And I can confirm as of Sunday, July 18 2021, I don’t like it. It’s no good. I look at other titles of other stories, looking for inspiration, and they all seem to work just fine for the story their attached to. Harry Potter is just the name of the main guy, and that worked INCREDIBLY well. “Harry Potter and the [insert magic themed adventure keywords here].” Foolproof.

The main problem I have with a title is simply the fact that I know so little about the contents of my book at this point. It stands to reason that the book should find a title for itself as part of the process of actually writing the book. Seeing the events transpire in the story from a bird’s eye view would give you just about everything you could possibly need to title your book. Choosing a title for a story BEFORE the story really exists feels a bit like working backwards, even though the title would technically be the first thing anyone reads. I guess I could see it plausibly being created in either order. You don’t necessarily need to know the entire story you are setting out to tell to understand the story you’ve shown up to tell. Breaking Bad ostensibly didn’t know many of the finer details of its story before Vince Gilligan picked its title. Hell, it didn’t know many of its details before literally airing on TV. And there was never any consideration of changing the title of the show retroactively, once the showrunners figured out the ending, right? Stories need a title. And I don’t think I’m making some irredeemable authorial error by picking out a title before getting too far into my story-writing process. Although I’m often reminded of the They Might be Giants song “Experimental Film” when I dream up things like titles or dramatic plot points or the like:

“I already know the ending, It’s the part that makes your face implode, I don’t know what makes your fact implode, But that’s the way the movie ends.”

We all want that awesome moment. We all want to create that life changing piece of art. But creating is hard, and dreaming is easy. Or rather, dreaming is natural. We all have a dream at night, we get one simply by virtue of being awake. Understanding the dream, communicating the dream is hard. Hell, communicating anything can be hard. Part of me thinks that creative project that will define my legacy (wow, try unpacking that sentence later buddy) will be an interview show where I work with my guest to try and manifest the story they dream of telling in there head, but have never tried to tell it. Tell me that’s not a million dollar idea! If Ira Glass announced that show next week and Barack Obama was his first guest, you better believe that thing’s taking off like the fucking Quinjet from the Avengers. But you wouldn’t even need a big celebrity guest! I believe that literally everyone has the ingredients of a completely unique story kicking around in their heads. And to conclude this thought, I will often times pretend I’m the guest on this podcast (of course it’s a podcast), and I’ll try to play out what that interview would sound like. And I’ll be honest, that show would need a VERY smart host to keep the flow going. And in my interview fantasy, I’m also the host; so it’s admittedly hard. I think the “Experimental Film” song would be the theme song for that show for SO MANY reasons.

Ok, I’ll be honest. I took yet another break in the middle of that last paragraph, and I may have lost the thread a teeny-tiny bit. So I’m going to try and finish out any relevant thoughts and then I’m going to do a hard break and just move on to a completely new thought.

I actually had an idea of what my (at least for now) title should be. ~The Franz Lion~ This is the name of the ship in the story that all the main characters travel on. This is the primary setting for the majority of AT LEAST the first series of events in the book. I imagine if my story moved far away from the boat, by that point I could that “Part 2,” or it could be like a whole second book. Like the first book is called The Franz Lion, but then a new book comes out and you find out the series is called like “The Greatest Windybilly”; and Book 2 is like “The Drowned.” I don’t know, and I don’t care at this moment. I just know that all signs point to “The Franz Lion” as a fine title for this book. I admittedly can see a world where it’s more of a phrase, like “Aboard the Franz Lion” or “Weaver and the Franz Lion”, but right now, I don’t see something like that being better than just “The Franz Lion”. 

The Franz Lion is one of the VERY FEW things that I feel like I’ve hit a home run on. That to me is a fucking great name for a boat. It’s memorable, unique, easy to get on board with. I am aware that the boat from Legend of Zelda: Windwaker was named “the King of Red Lions”, so it’s not COMPLETELY unique. But I’m pretty confident that there is plenty of real estate in the Lions + Boats territory. So confident, in fact, that I’m locking that name in HARD. And then the name of the boat just works great as a title. Literally no one would be confused or lost or tempted to look too far into it. AND THEN, if they did look into it, I think there would be puh-lenty of symbolism and theming to pull out of the boat’s significance in the characters’ lives. And man, I know we talked about autobiographical elements, that’s unmistakable; which I am legitimately happy about. Fran Lyon was a HUGE figure in my life. Our relationship signified a change in my life that I literally was never able to come back from. And using that as inspiration for a ship that literally carries the main character away on a life-changing adventure seems like as great a place as any in trying to tell MY story. One day I can be Kurt Vonnegat-like good at writing stories, and I won’t have to borrow from real life to make convincing plots and characters, but for now this makes all the sense in the world to me. So, yeah, The Franz Lion. It exists in my head and one day it will exist on paper. And then I can die I guess. Wouldn’t that be nice? I look forward to trying to bring a teensy bit to you on your calendar here. Wish me luck!

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

Ok that was the break. This wasn’t THAT hard. Thank God. Cuz we have to do a lot more than this to be satisfied. We quit our job on my 30th birthday in part because the notion that I was missing the chance to do *this* was constantly gnawing at the back of our head. Honestly the fact that I literally forgot that this was the writing project I was supposed to be doing for like 18 days may just be a testament to how hard I had been trying to just read. 

I bundled writing with reading when I decided that I needed to be writing more. I said, well writing IS reading, and I can’t just sit down and read for shit. So if I’m going to really put writing at the forefront of my brain, I’m going to have to read too, dammit. And then I tried to sit down and read for, no joke, 2 entire weeks. And it fucking killed me. Unbelievable. Unbelievable how hard it was to incorporate into my life. I still don’t get it. So I quit with the intention of picking up these habits. And then I would evaluate how fulfilling it all felt, before I continued onto my path of adult life. You know, working, trying to meet new people, idk what else.... etc. And now that I can confirm how hard it has been to really stick to this and grind out being creative, all I know at this point is I’m not ready to go back. I can tell I want to be more competent at all this before I can make an assessment on what role being creative will play for my future. Seemingly my whole life I have teetered back and forth between wanting to be creative and being too scared to really try, and wanting to have the full life that hard work gets you; you know, the life that society sculpts for you. A wife, kids, vacations, cooking, friends, parties, movies. It’s not a matter of figuring out how it all works, it’s just a matter of going out grinding it all out. Securing it all piece by piece by putting in the requisite work. It’s not easy, but it’s also not complicated. And I guess ultimately I like to think I’m not someone who’s afraid of hard work. But if I’m not afraid of hard work, then why have I not put in the work to secure a career or friends or a partner or physical fitness or anything? Because I don’t want to? Do I really not want to? Or maybe I AM afraid of hard work. 

But let’s take a second to unpack that. I put in hard work at Olivia’s. I truly did. I worked hard enough there to qualify as working hard, period. And it felt good. I know this. I shouldn’t forget that. I worked hard, it wasn’t impossible; it wasn’t unsustainable. And it felt good. This is mostly why I tell myself I’m not afraid of hard work. Because it’s not some dark mysterious unknown entity. I’ve been on the other side of it now. It’s the main reason I didn’t think I HAD to be creative anymore. I’ve seen the whole path of hard work, and it actually looked traversable. I sometimes wonder if I had been so drawn to being creative because I was so afraid of travelling on the path of hard honest work. It would explain why it felt so good to actually work hard for once. It would explain why the idea of abandoning the creative path felt so good once I had it. I would imagine the idea of quitting “comedy” would be a pretty mournful one, to someone like me who had clung so desperately to that dream for so long. But it wasn’t. It was a relief in a way. To know that I didn’t have to pull out some wild success in this tumultuous field to be ok; it felt like taking off a heavy backpack. I just felt more capable, more free. The simple act of allowing myself to “quit” felt ok simply by virtue of spending years of my life thinking I couldn’t do ANYTHING, and that being creative was the only way to be ok with the prospect of being alive. Thinking about abandoning that dream told me I was more normal than I had managed to be for over a decade at this point. I looked up for the first time since I had been in college and had the thought that I could work hard and succeed, whatever that might mean. College was the place I first realized I was useless, and now Olivia’s was where I realized that that wasn’t true, I just wasn’t old enough yet. I am aging much slower than the average population; I haven’t exactly figure out why yet. But it’s clear that I am. And for better or worse, this is THE factor that has cast me aside from the le person. Figuring out why would be nice, but the truly important thing to do clearly is to use this to my advantage. Get my leg up the world with my unique vantage point. And as far as I can tell, in fact it seems quite obvious to me, my leg up is going to come from a creative outlet. A twenty year old having his 30th birthday is only going to have diminishing returns in the traditional American dream. It’s like getting paid 70% of what my peers are making. Part of me knows that even 70% of the full salary isn’t that bad. It’s plenty if you’re a hard worker and know how to live in the moment; but another part of me knows that only a fool should take less than he’s earned. I don’t actually know if I can make up all this time I’ve lost, being the proverbial time traveler that I am. I don’t know how on earth I would ACTUALLY go about recouping my salary back to its rightful 100%. I can’t manifest lifelong friends; I can’t rewrite my relationship to my parents and siblings; I can’t pick up 10+ years of romantic experiences from a youtube video. I could technically go back to college, but I don’t really want to. I only want to do that as much as I want to hop in a time machine and actually be the age I’m supposed to. 

Now that I think about it, if there was a story about a man who accidentally travels to the future and the finds out the world moved on without him (I mean there is, it’s called Rip Van Winkle). Yeah, now that I think about it, my story is very similar to a Coma patient’s. I just seemingly was given less time than I was promised. And I have to deal with that. But, what I’m saying is, it stands to reason that if this WERE a story, that character wouldn’t shine under those circumstances. They would wilt. They would lament and diminish. Only the rarest and most inspiring would rise up and overcome their disadvantage. Because it is a disadvantage. It’s not a unique vantage point. It’s not a matter of optimism vs pessimism. The glass is not half-full or half-empty; it is considerably less full than halfway. 

Right?

Hmm. What is my point here? I have suffered. Unequivocally. And to suffer is to be alive. Again, unequivocally. So maybe my time-travelling has actually gone the other way. I’ve lived far longer than the scant 30 years my birth certificate claims. It certainly feels like longer than 30 years, even though the activity log of my life would disagree. Maybe that’s it. I’ve replaced my life with dreams. I’ve suffered in places where I was meant to thrive. And in doing so I’ve gone far under my quota of accomplishments and memories, and gone far over my quota of misery and regrets. In that sense I’ve lived out less of my life that I was meant to in some ways and lived out substantially more of my life in other ways. And I can’t say that unhappy (or rather that I don’t love myself as I am), but I can see why I never ever heard anybody recommend living your life this way. 

“I am young. I am old”

Why can’t I be the age I am? Why was that so hard to accomplish? What did I need to do to fix that? And why do people think I should enjoy my birthday? Can’t they see I’ve been time-traveling? This birthday was for someone else. I don’t actually know when my birthday is. I only know when it isn’t.

Now that I’ve thought about it, I think a time-traveler is a perfectly fine person to be a creative type. He might not be the smartest or the fastest, and he’ll never be the happiest; but it’s safe to say he cheated and got wiser than his peers will ever get a chance to. At least if he was paying attention he got wiser. We all know what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But then we all go spending our life trying to get stronger, and rarely do we ever get close enough to getting killed. So I have to show up like the man that survived the fatal disease, and got stronger than anyone should have to, without even really trying*.

Ok calling it here. Day 1 in the books. The daily blog is still at 100% completion rate! Nice

Love you, be good.