#social circle. and obviously i love my friends but it’s kind of isolating sometimes and i wish i could talk to more people without the

[vampyruic]

actually. i need to go to another function with a bunch of queer people that i don’t know to fill the gap in my life where for whatever reason i just never met any other trans or queer or autistic folks and just thought i was unloveable. need to go get drunk with more strangers who i will never see again but love forever

[punksocks]

Astrology analysis - Spider verse Edition

Came up with this idea out of nowhere but I love this movie series so much idk how I could not analyze the characters!! I’m so invested in them lol.

**Major spoilers ahead

Miles Morales/ Spider-Man:

Capricorn Rising: This was tough but I really thought about the filter that Miles sees the world through and how much of his journey has to deal with the pressure put upon him and how he has to find a way to be himself. Hes pushed to succeed and has ambitious goals in his school life. He often finds himself isolated due to how much is on his plate. He’s a ground breaking spider-man like no other.

Leo Sun: He’s a confident kid. Even if he juggles too much on his plate. He’s outgoing and kind, and actually very social and eager. He can underestimate situations because of his ego sometimes and that trips him up. He also can catch a lot of attention, for doing very well and not so well. Leos tend to catch attention when they’re showing off and when they’re messing up.

Virgo Moon: Anxious and analytical. He picks up on the details that no one else notices and often uses that to his advantage. Even when he gets passed his like Spider-Man stage fright he still gets a bit tripped up and is hard on himself. He does gain the confidence to go his own way, even if he’s still a bit vulnerable. He feels deeply even if others can’t see it. He’s a genius kid too.

Capricorn Mercury: it was the way he stood up for himself and vowed to go his own way after Miguel sent everyone after him. In my experience Capricorn/Saturn can show where you have to stand up for yourself and Miles had to write his expectations of what he would live up to in into the spiderverse then in across the spiderverse he was forced to defend himself and go his own way. He also is a clever thinker and gets under estimated as being out of his depth which is more about his Mercury being conjunct his Ascendant but I thought I’d add my two cents.

Pisces Venus: He’s an artist and a daydreamer. Super sweet towards Gwen and cute and passive about his crush. Heartbroken when she betrayed him. :/ Also he’s pretty liable to being influenced by the people in his social circles.

Virgo Mars: Okay mars can point to dexterity too, and he’s acrobatic but also awkward. He’s a teenager yes, but the other teens have a bit more grace. Miles will often move and fight in a way that’s super out of the box though. He’s also not really a confrontational kid, but he holds his own when it comes down to it. He also has a long term crush on Gwen, which I think virgo mars can become really attached when they catch feelings.

Spider-Gwen:

Scorpio Rising: she’s intense and has a lot going on. She’s perceptive. She’s alternative and expresses her intense emotions through outlets like the drums. She gives me moon rising energy of like having a world full of emotional complexity and depth. But Scorpio moon rising so it’s a world full of harsh edges that can be hard to gaze into and totally understand unless you’ve gone through a lot like she has. (Hence the whole not doing friends thing but obviously acting from an emotionally wounded place and being loyal to the people that helped her to a self sabotaging degree)

Capricorn Sun: Only because I think she’s a bit of a hardass lol. Ok let me not skip ahead. She works very hard, is intelligent, and very difficult to get close to. She tends to trust older people in power and they continue to disappoint her. I find that Capricorn placements often have a theme of being forced to come into their own because of immature/underdeveloped adults in their lives. She has a sense of humor and can come back to earth when she’s not singlemindedly focused on her duties though.

Scorpio Moon: A heavy theme of loss in her life. She has emotional scars and pent up anger about “mistakes” she’s made and friends she hasn’t been able to save. She feels deeply and emotionally. And she vows to redeem herself. (Scorpio Stellium energy too)

Capricorn Mercury: dry Wit and communication style. Always a lot going on in her head that she won’t really vocalize to people on the outside.

Scorpio Venus: All of her friends have meant so much to her. She carries their memories with her in her heart and on her mind. When she lost Peter it made such an extreme impression on her she vowed not to have friends again. Yet when she met Miles she felt closer to him than she had with anyone in a while. She betrayed him and has to work on building up trust between them again. It’s like she has a wound to repair over her friendships and relationships in general.

Libra Mars: Moves with grace and dexterity. Very angry but not very confrontational, especially when it comes down to figures wronging her personally. She has a strong sense of justice too and that drives her to action, especially when others can be harmed. She’s also into Miles because he’s kind, authentic, and has a strong sense of doing the right thing no matter what.

Peter B Parker:

Pisces Rising: I think it’s a combination of just how clearly his mood affects his appearance (he was having a rough time in the first film lest we forget) and how like he’s seen as super heroic and is our classic SpiderMan but he’s also been through a lot of emotional times but is always effected by new connections and new people coming into his life. It’s the fluidity of how much the world still effects him in his 40s for me. He’s also very sentimental.

Virgo Sun: Because he’s so smart and so tired and seemingly cynical about solving the problems that go on but he’ll still step up and save the day and help the kid that seems him to be their mentor (is it weird that he reminds me a tiny tiny bit of Kakashi? It’s that anti mentor architype but they’re still a good mentor at the end of the day.). He’s also self sacrificing, the day has to be saved no matter what. (Also the way he treated miles and tried to say it was help miles in across the spiderverse, if you’ve ever known a Virgo man you probably get what I mean lmao, a very virgo way to rationalize betrayal ngl)

Taurus Moon: He’s an older SpiderMan and he’s tired but he’s also able to bounce back despite a bunch of trauma and sadness. Not immediately, like any fixed sign it takes time, but he gets his groove back. (He was a wreck for a while though and when Taurus moons are having a rough time, they’re having the worst time) He’s also not nearly as tough as he pretends to be and he’s a softie and and a romantic. And he loves being a dad so much. Just an overall nice guy (even if he does screw up).

Virgo Mercury: He’s always too tired to explain what’s happening and what needs to be done but he will explain it! Lol

Taurus Venus: he loves May because she’s as grounded and emotionally understanding as she is beautiful. He also like really loves her and is heart broken when it doesn’t work out. He gets over his fear of having kids and they get right back together and it’s beautiful (*cry*)

Cancer Mars: He loves his family so much. He’s a burnt out husk without them. And he’s completely rejuvenated by getting back with May and becoming a dad and finding hope in being Miles mentor. He’s protective over everyone at once even if that doesn’t work out. (Also like heavy on trying to protect Miles but not be honest with him and doing that lowkey emotional manipulation thing that cancer placements can do sometimes..) also I just keep thinking of that seahorse scene from into the spiderverse and that’s his whole cancer mars vibe imo lol.

Pavitr Prabhakar/Spider-Man India:

Leo Rising: He’s like a textbook, non insecure Leo rising! He’s popular and beloved as both spider-man and Pavitr. Everyone loves him and he’s super confident and a little naive. He’s even got the luscious Leo hair.

Pisces Sun: he’s light hearted and a little naive about the whole being Spider-Man thing. But he’s bc such a sweetheart. He even immediately supports Gwen and Miles getting together. An overall cutie we appreciate it.

Cancer Moon: Immediately checks the romantic tension vibe and has that like “you can’t get anything past me” intuition thing that cancer moons and venuses usually do. He cares a lot about his friends and his family and has deep loyalty towards Miles for helping save them.

Leo Mercury: He’ll just say what’s on his mind and say it loudly. He likes to be charming but that’s not his main goal.

Leo Venus: He loves his super cool girlfriend and likes most of the attention they get together. He loves his friends too and he’s super loyal. (Also Leo stellium energy am I right?)

Gemini Mars: very tricky to figure out lol, but he’s got that similar Mercurial mars gracefulness. I feel like he moves a lot more sporadically than a Virgo mars would. He also has a lot of wit and lightheartedness to his words and actions.

Hobie Brown/Spider Punk:

(WHAT AN ICON!! I love a leftist anarchist actually getting shit done omg such a real one)

Sagittarius Rising: Sees the world uniquely, he’s able to see out of the box solutions to problems. Cracks a lot of jokes but also political ones all the time. He isn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers. A lot of people love him and a few really hate him.

Aries Sun: Charismatic and coming in with a big burst of energy. The first to call out the corruption in the spider org.

Scorpio Moon: Very alt and very cool. Careful about who he lets in. He’s good at reading everyone (immediately clocks Miguel’s bad intent and Miles’ stand out potential). He has a strong moral code and knows who to align with and against but doesn’t let anyone see his plans.

Sagittarius Mercury: Blunt and calls out a lot of shit. And like will ask the uncomfortable questions and give uncomfortable advice. Also cracks like 20 jokes in his first few minutes on screen.

Aquarius Venus: Lots of friends and lots of philosophizing with those friends. Can really irk some people and charm the rest. Thinks deeply and is reliable but in a birds eye view sort of way.

Aries Mars: unafraid to get stuff done, has that sun conjunct mars energy of putting action behind what they believe.

Miguel O’Hara:

Scorpio Rising: Have you seen him?? Fr, he’s dark and intimidating and intense. He has a cynical view of things abd can be very attached to how things are supposed to be done. He also gets intensely fixated.

Capricorn Sun: Built the whole spider organization from the ground up and he runs it according to his very strict standards. Asserts himself at the top and as the correct one in many situations.

Aries Moon: He’s independent and single minded. His anger distracts him and wholly takes over his focus. His anger gets pretty explosive as well.

Capricorn Mercury: Not a lot of small talk from this guy. Very my way or the highway.

Cancer Venus: family was the most important thing to him and he has an emotional scar over losing them.

Scorpio Mars: If you cross him he’ll hunt you down and make you pay. Even if you just disagree with him it’s a fight. He seems like he used to be softer on his loved ones but he’s acting from an emotionally selfish place now. Also strong Mars rising energy, very aggressive.

(Will follow up with SpiderWoman, Spider- Byte, Peni Parker, Spider Man Noir, and Spider Ham after the next movie if you guys want ;0)

[one-abuse-survivor]

before i start, thank you so much for doing what you do;this blog has given me good advice countless times and i really have to thank you for that.

my issues with my parents are that they don't take me seriously. i can literally go up to them and say: "mom/dad, i think i might be autistic or have ADHD (both would be quite likely) can i get that checked out" and list a bunch of examples why i think that and they'll just be "nah, that can't be, you don't seem like that at all" as of i didn't break my mind over it researching it and talking to people who have it to see if we've had similar experiences just to get some kind of reference as to why i feel the way i feel and why i struggle so much with things that so many other people find so easy.

but then, in the following weeks and months (after talking w them) they just randomly point out things about me that kinda annoy them, like me talking out of turn a LOT or me not looking at people or me having trouble focusing if there isn't also music and a movie going at the same time or mom saying that i seem hyperactive to her because i'm always moving my legs or pacing around or rubbing my hands or drumming on the table with pens. things like that (plus a lot more) were the exact things i was telling them about and they just put it off like it's nothing but as soon as it affects and annoys them it's suddenly very real. at this point i'm struggling to talk to my parents about anything even remotely more serious than generic smalltalk and i'm having a hard time believing myself that my struggles are in fact real and i'm not just making them up.

and also on a less related note; the thing i hate most about my parents: if i'm wearing headphones and couldn't understand what a parent was yelling from somewhere else in the house then it's my fault. but if it's the exact same situation but i'm the one calling and they couldn't hear me, then it's obviously my fault too (i kinda get the first one but srsly how could i not wear headphones when they're constantly arguing with my brother in the room next to mine) (either way if one of the scenarios is clearly my fault, then the other shld be clearly their fault bc that's how logic works)

hhhh, this got quite long. i would love to hear your thoughts about this

a continuation from the other ask about my parents not taking me seriously even when i ask them for help with my hardest problems. that ask didn't really go in the direction i had planned but there is so much going on between my parents and me that i really need to talk to someone about

background: i'm around 15-16 rn and have a brother who's 18. primary school was academically very easy for me (lots and lots of great and even perfect grades) but my brother didn't have it as easy (lots and lots of mediocre and meh grades) so my parents really just kinda let me do my thing while they were constantly busy with my brother. so i got really independant and did all of my stuff on my own bc a) i always had done it that way and b) my parents were already busy and stressed. but after my brother got his first computer and got into video games his grades dropped and my parents started constantly arguing with him and taking away his computer and stuff like that so there was always a lot of tension (and i got to a point where i can't handle people yelling; that's what i was referring to with the headphone thingy at the end of the last ask) i don't know if i can go that far and say that my parents kinda neglected me and my emotional needs in favour of saving my brother grades but that's pretty much the way it feels.

i'm now a sophomore (school works a bit different here but i'm the equivalent of a highschool sophomore afaik, here it's just 10th grade) and starting from about mid 8th grade (end of 2018) i've been struggling a lot with self care and upkeep of my already minimal social circle and academic stuff (i'm at the academically highest level of school you could be at my age without skipping any years) and also mental health.

i got quite depressive and started isolating myself and casting away friends and my grades went down a lot, which really disappointed me because my great grades were kind of my trademark thing. but i didn't feel safe talking to my parents because of the huge distance that we built by me "never" needing their help with stuff.

in that time (almost a year ago, our anniversary is in twenty days or so) i got a girlfriend and i'm hella glad that i can talk to her about everything but i feel like i can't just go dump trauma and parent issues on her forever

about last november or so i was at a pretty low point and was suicidal and that's kind of when i snapped and went to my parents to talk so being cast away and having my issues invalidated really really hurt then and made me spiral even deeper and my gf was the only thing keeping me afloat.

i'm kind of a bit better now but i have rebuilt my view of my parents from "idk we never really interact" to "trying to interact or talk is not worth the energy" and needless to say i don't like them that much

oh and i forgot about all the times i got panic attacks and sensory overloads @ school because there are so many people there (1700 students + 200 teachers) and it's loud everywhere and of course asking my parents for what to do if suddenly everything is too bright and too loud and you can't move or talk because of it didn't get me anywhere (and since i didn't know what it was called or how to describe it properly, i didn't really find any Information online either

and just typing this makes me think of so many more things that they did that aren't okay things to do (a lot of gender identity stuff for example because i'm also neck-deep in that) . but writing this has also helped a lot right now. thank you for being there and listening.

and just in case i'm ever gonna pop back in to say something i'm gonna drop a name for easier identifying

sincerely - 🌌 milky way anon

Hi, nonnie! Thanks for the kind words, I'm really glad my blog has been of help ❤️

I'm sorry your parents are making it hard to believe your struggles are real :( you deserve to be taken seriously and to get access to all the help you might need. Just the fact your symptoms are there and you're noticing them and they're interfering with your daily life is enough to get them checked, regardless of if you need a diagnosis/meds/anything else. No one deserves to live wondering if their struggles are worth discussing with a doctor or professional.

And you're right: if one of those things was your fault, then the other should be theirs, logically. But I don't even think it's "your fault" you didn't hear them because you were wearing headphones, to be honest. I think it's just something that happens from time to time and that doesn't warrant getting mad over; I think it's the kind of thing that simply needs to be talked about so everyone in the household knows how to communicate with everyone else without getting frustrated. It's as easy as saying "hey, whenever I put on headphones I'll just text the family group chat to let you guys know I won't hear you. If you need anything in those moments, just text me instead". I do this with my girlfriend sometimes—if we're wearing headphones and we're in the same room, we simply pat each other when we need something and wait until the other takes off their headphones to talk. It really doesn't have to be an issue where anyone is to blame. You're allowed to take steps to feel safe and comfortable in your house without getting punished for it.

But, of course, this doesn't work if the people around you choose to prioritise "being right" and proving you're wrong over a peaceful and healthy cohabitation, which is what most toxic and abusive people do.

As for your second ask, I would say if it feels like your parents neglected you and your needs because they were always focusing on your brother, then it's okay to say that they did. The fact alone that those feelings are there makes you deserving of talking about it and wanting to heal from it; the cause of those feelings doesn't have to be something major, or sound deeply traumatising when you say it out loud, in order to "count". And people whose emotional needs were consistently met don't feel like they weren't.

I've already shared this video before, but if you want some resources on identifying and healing from emotional neglect, I really recommend watching it. Please bear in mind, though, that the video says it's important to not blame parents for emotionally neglecting you, but I don't think that's the message a lot of people need to hear and I think you should allow yourself to feel angry at your parents for not meeting your needs and causing you trauma. That's pretty much the only thing I'd criticise about the video.

I'm sorry to hear you've been struggling with your grades and mental health lately, nonnie. I had a quite similar experience when I was in high school—I used to always get great grades, but my mental health and trauma put a lot of strain on them (as well as on my social life; I lost a lot of friends in those years) and it was really distressing to see the only thing that made me "worthy" crumble between my fingers like that. I'm still trying to unlearn this idea that your grades define your worth, and it's been really hard.

I'm so sorry your parents weren't there for you when you hit that low 😔 I'm glad your girlfriend could help you stay afloat in that moment, but they absolutely should've been there for you all those times you reached out to them for help with your struggles, and the fact that they didn't is emotionally neglectful of them.

I'm glad you're in a better place now ❤️ I really hope you can find out all the information you need on gender identity and sensory overload and any other issues that might be affecting you. Know that you deserve for your parents to be there for you. You shouldn't have to face any of this on your own, or even with only the support of other people your age. You deserve for them to care. You deserve to have your symptoms checked out. You deserve adult guidance to find resources to help you better understand and manage your struggles.

Sending all my virtual support your way ❤️ and happy belated anniversary to you and your girlfriend!

[bookspined]

❝ that’s all history is after all: scar tissue. ❞

{ cis-man, he/him }  huh, who’s FROY GUTIERREZ? no, you’re mistaken, that’s actually SCORPIUS MALFOY. he is a TWENTY-TWO year old PUREBLOOD wizard who is A HEALING APPRENTICE. he is known for being CAPTIOUS, RETICENT, FACETIOUS, DISMISSIVE, and DRAMATIC but also RESOURCEFUL, CONSCIENTIOUS, FERVENT, INNOVATIVE, and OBSERVANT, so that must be why he always reminds me of the song IN DREAMS BY BEN HOWARD. i hear he is aligned with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, so be sure to keep an eye on him. { merry, 24, gmt, she/they }

CHARACTER PARALLELS: Amy Santiago (B99), Claire Temple (Daredevil), Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place), Giles (Buffy TVS), Michelle Jones (MCU), Simon Tam (Firefly), Elizabeth Swan (PoTC), Spock (Star Trek), Clarke Griffin (The 100), Harley Keener (MCU), Gregory House (House) suggested honorable mention Gizmo (Gremlins) 

pinterest [blood, medical imagery tw]

wanted connection ideas

Full Name: Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy Gender/Pronouns: Cis man | he/him Age: Twenty-three Birthdate: January 20th Parents: Draco Lucius Malfoy & Astoria Céline Malfoy (née Greengrass) [Not biologically Astoria’s due to her health, if you ever point this out he’ll flay your eyeballs] Siblings: N/A. Birth place: St. Mungo’s Hospital, England Height: 5’11” Weight: 56 kg Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Demiromantic Bisexual Nationality: British Body Alterations/Marks: A ragged diamond shape scar at the base of his throat.

Blood Status: Pureblood Hogwarts House: Slytherin Wand Arm: Right Pet: His pet toad, Jarvis, recently passed away. Patronus: Arctic Fox Wand: 11 2/3 inches, Willow, Supple, Dragon Heartstring.

Willow is an uncommon wand wood with healing power, I have noted that the ideal owner for a willow wand often has some (usually unwarranted) insecurity, however well they may try and hide it. While many confident customers insist on trying a willow wand (attracted by their handsome appearance and well-founded reputation for enabling advanced, non-verbal magic) my willow wands have consistently selected those of greatest potential, rather than those who feel they have little to learn. It has always been a proverb in my family that he who has furthest to travel will go fastest with willow.

Personality Traits: Brilliance, innovative, empathetic, individuality, openness, social consciousness, inventive, logical, practical skills and self assertion; lack of attachment to people outside his circle and the “real world,” over-intellectualizing of the emotions, dismissive, anxious, crotchety tempered, facetious, rigid, prone to self-isolation, intellectual arrogance, and stubborn. Zodiac Sign: Aquarius/Capricorn Cusp Moral Alignment: Neutral Good Core values: Loyalty, Knowledge, Hope Four temperaments: Melancholic  

HOGWARTS HOUSE ANALYSIS

Slytherin Primary and a Burned Ravenclaw Secondary.

Slytherin Primaries prioritize their own selves and loved ones first. Slytherins don’t feel guilty or selfish about this– they feel righteous and moral. The most important thing is to look after your own. Abandoning or hurting one of your own is the worst thing you can do.

A Burned Ravenclaw Secondary might want to be skilled, curious, and prepared, but they feel like they are (or like people think they are) limited, clumsy, or inconstant. Gathering knowledge, hobbies, skills, or tools is the right way to achieve their goals, but Burned Ravenclaws know that’s not going to work within their capabilities. So they take other paths and use other tools– maybe a Gryffindor’s bluntness, a Slytherin’s flexibility, or a Hufflepuff’s slow and steady dedication.

You may have a Hufflepuff Secondary Model.

Hufflepuff is the House of grit, reliability, and determination, and Hufflepuffs use those values to help live, act, and succeed. If you model Hufflepuff Secondary, you also value these things and like to live by them. You like to be hardworking, dedicated, and consistent– but you wouldn’t feel guilty for abandoning those values in the service of other, higher priorities. If there’s another, easier way to get what you want– you’d take it. You think hard work provides valuable rewards– and those rewards are why you work. The work doesn’t have persuasive value in itself.

Despite his very best resistance he’s always been pretty empathetic in nature, he tries to rule his emotions as well as he can but fails more often than not. He was always one of those toddlers that if another kid started crying he’d be right along with them, not because he wanted attention but because he just couldn’t not. A bit of a crybaby, has researched how to magically seal up his tear ducts. Obviously managed to keep the family’s flair for the dramatic there as well. After a few years he leant into the sarcastic vague-snobbishness to hide the core of overwhelming anxiety.

Just managed to scrape through his schooling with nearly all top grades, this isn’t really due to him being a model student. He has always accrued information with a voracious appetite. Any knowledge he could find, even if most people would consider it entirely useless. His mind clicks into that place? You can’t keep him away. However, when there is not an immediate stir of interest on his approach to a topic he has to fight with himself tooth and nail to carry on. 

Predictably found exam season highly stressful, was never open about it but was quietly competitive and silently smug over his good grades. Could comprehend well above his reading level from an early age and would often look into experimental research and complicated magic but found himself lost in OWL level History of Magic when chapter upon chapter lay ahead of him about something that didn’t catch his interest. Some people he beat just to spite cause he hates them. It worked, whatever.

Tends toward introversion and finds himself tired sometimes quite easily by a large amount of social interaction. Witty and big-mouthed when he feels comfortable or is in the presence of those that embolden him and very likely to get flustered and snap at people when things are becoming a bit too much. Especially if he feels however unjustly that someone is blocking his escape. Has matured slightly in this since leaving school but it happens still, he’s just anxious. Quite fickle and can at the drop of a hat decide that he’s done with you for the day once his Give Me Attention Meter is maxed. Could be an absolute bloody brat when he felt like it but feels he has grown out of it, which he mostly has.

Always been very, very aware of many people’s distrust of him and his family, he used to sneer and play it up if anyone tried to bring up his dad and go on the offensive but was genuinely affected quite deeply by it all. In his early school years, despite his weakness to the cold, he constantly had his sleeves rolled up to the elbow so that his blank forearm was bared as a statement to just about everyone. I am not marked, I never will be. Now he’s older he has more of a handle on things and can be diplomatic in situations where people are clearly discomforted by his presence and his family history.

Even though the war culminated far earlier in this verse I imagine Scor would have had to have been relatively sheltered as a child if not for how emotionally sensitive and prone to periods of ill-health he was, it was definitely for his own safety. He is still the grandson of a known high-ranking Death Eater and that made him a media target and put one on his back for anyone else that might happen to be watching. 

Never produced much of a talent for offensive magic and wouldn’t resort to those methods unless he had literally no other choice, not a front line fighter by any means. His talents with strategy, potion-making, healing and his perseverance with defensive magic are what define him to the Order. While everyone kind of knows who he hung out with at school and who his friends are he is deliberately very mischievous with releasing rumours and misleading people. He deliberately keeps his cards very close to his chest so most people don’t know that he is aligned with anyone, he usually uses glamours or a scarf to conceal his identity if he has to. 

While he is knowledgeable about healing and anatomy, he is the WORST at taking care of himself. The literal embodiment of Healers make the worst patients, tends to forgo sleep and basic bodily needs if he’s locked into what he’s focusing on. Sometimes needs reminders to sleep and eat, like a child. 

Healing is the most satisfying part of his life and he would never give it up, he likes to experiment as he has a fascination with magic and muggle science and where they might intersect. A fucking nerd honestly. While he thinks he’s being fairly subtle about it a large part of his academic life has been doused in research into blood maledictions, for obvious reasons. He does his best not to flutter too obviously around his Mum. She is capable and ten times stronger than he is. 

Lives in a small studio flat in Diagon Alley that is mostly stacks of books and makeshift shelves.

the stillness of the world the moment you take the first step into fresh snow, cashmere and fine wool, the pearlescence of dreamless sleep draught, the scratch of a quill on parchment, faintly tremoring fingers, a shiver up your spine in a warm room, the exhilaration of a problem solved, a thunderous grey overcast sky, the bite of a stitching charm, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, petrichor, the burn in your eyes before a well of tears.

Always had somewhat fragile health tending toward sickly. Hands are never warm, his existence is an endless heat seeking mission. 

Went to one Slug Club meeting and used his time to verbally berate and or challenge most of the contacts in attendance, he was not asked to return. 

Potions Club, Charms Club, used to sometimes be willing to be dragged to Dueling Club but didn’t enjoy himself. 

Plays quite a bit of chess.

Bruises like a fucking peach and scars so easily.

Views quidditch as a good fly spoiled. 

Is a very skilled pianist almost entirely due to his Grandmother’s tutelage. 

Surprisingly great with children/toddlers/babies, no one including himself expected this, he mostly feared them beforehand. 

Bit of a mummy’s boy in that he practically GLOWS when people talk of Astoria’s achievements. 

When he has time off from healing he will have chipped black nail varnish on. 

Highly intelligent but rarely manages to match a pair of socks, chews his quills but no one else’s. 

While very eloquent and well spoken, he is markedly less posh than when he first arrived at Hogwarts.

When he isn’t prone to bouts of insomnia he can take a nap pretty much anywhere. He was once found in a tree after several frantic hours search.

[ CREDIT : CHARACTER PSD template by @karmahelper (defunct url) I tried to find a current social this week by messaging around but couldn’t find anything unfortunately. Forgot to copy this over from the google doc! ]

[grubbyduck]

quite funny, quite scary

Just finishes Donna Tartt’s The Secret History - read it in a fever over the last 14 hours because I am desperately avoiding having to write my essay this week on Morte D’Arthur. I really enjoyed this book - obviously the plot, structure and references are impressively clever, but what struck me most was the way that Tartt absolutely nailed a type of student that I come across a lot at university. I go to Cambridge, and while the circles I hang out with are mostly artistic, chaotic and passionate about current affairs, that type of student that is focused on in The Secret History abounds.

Let me tell you about that type. 

In essence, they are children dressed up like grown-ups. I call them Blushing Babies in Suits; they have this quite intimidating conviction in their own superiority. And the fact that most of us think they are the worst only adds to this - they love the idea that ‘most people don’t get it’, they love being whispered about - they especially love the rumours about the terrible things they do when they are drunk. I am talking specifically about the Pitt club (a gentleman’s club that basically is a corrupt, disgusting cult for the ultra rich and social climbers that spawns a great deal of our country’s leaders), but this also pertains to the (overwhelmingly male) demographic of students who are bewitched by prestige, who think that knowing more makes them a better person - the kind of person who is ‘up in arms’ about the waning of precious Cambridge traditions that are exclusionary and elitist. 

They can be intoxicating - they can make you feel very important if you happen to say something they find interesting, or bother to present yourself as ‘not like the others’. I do not find it difficult to understand why freshers get caught up in these circles of people who talk casually about Dante with a self-satisfied curl of the lip in cafes; it feels, sometimes, like the reason we are here studying so hard. They want to know how much you’ve read, if you’ve read what they’ve read, what critics you like etc... they want to glorify drinking copious amounts of expensive alcohol under the guise of being Serious Thinkers, and laugh unkindly about people who drink and go dancing with their friends. They think they have life figured out because they have mastered how to manufacture a glint in the eye. 

When I searched The Secret History up on Tumblr, I found mostly posts talking wistfully about how they want to be like the students that the book follows. They romanticise them, they talk about this ‘dark academic’ aesthetic. Well... I found that pretty funny, because it just shows how radically these people have (in my opinion) misread the text. Either that, or they are just worryingly attracted to deeply problematic dynamics.

Donna Tartt is not romanticising elitism in academia, or drinking ‘intellectually’, or losing touch with the world to shut yourself off in obscure, inaccessible academia. Quite the opposite: this is a story about a ‘normal’ boy (not extortionately wealthy, not particularly enamoured with any one academic concern) who is seduced into this elitist group of people who utterly isolate themselves and gradually, nightmarishly lose touch with their empathy, boundaries and morals. What starts as a group of clever young people lounging in the sun and drinking wine at a country house becomes suicidal young people devolving into paranoid, alcoholic and abusive relationships. They idolise Julian, they idolise each other, and most dangerously, the idolise themselves - and ultimately, this is why this group of people in particular (despite that fact that many others at the college live a drug-heavy lifestyle) are believably primed to wind up involved in murder. Henry, the most academically obsessed of all of them, is the instigator of the worst crimes in the book. This ain’t an accident, folks! Donna knows what she’s doing!

This book had lines that made me laugh out loud, because they so beautifully conveyed the self-importance of these students that makes it egoically possible for them to interfere with life and death, and possible for them to shrug off brutally killing a man in their narcissistic academic exercise. This is not... romantic? This is a clear message about the dangers of academic elitism. Richard spends most of the book compulsively lying about his own wealth in order to feel welcome - the teacher that they all idolise explicitly doesn’t allow students into his tiny class unless he believes them to be wealthy. That manufactured ‘glint in the eye’ that I was talking about is his entire facade - a man who has mastered seeming charismatic and ‘warm’, but only enables tragedy, and at his core is self-serving and devoid of empathy. It’s deeply, deeply sad.

Trust aesthetes on Tumblr to find this a ‘mood’. Funny, but scary!

[shireness-says]

skating in circles (with no way to stop)

Summary: Anne Elliot likes her life just the way it is. The last thing she needs is her handsome, charming, professional hockey player ex... something to show up during lockdown and prove just how wrong she is about that. ~7.9K. Rated T for language. Also on AO3.

~~~~~

A/N: For @welllpthisishappening, who is going a little stir-crazy during the NHL break. Also because it is absolutely her fault I ever thought “What would a hockey-flavored Persuasion AU look like?” 

Special thanks to @snidgetsafan for her beta skills. Any mistakes, hockey-type or otherwise, are absolutely my own. 

Tagging the potentially interested parties: @profdanglaisstuff, @thisonesatellite, @ohmightydevviepuu, @thejollyroger-writer, @snowbellewells. 

Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

~~~~~

Social distancing almost doesn’t seem so bad in weather like this, the snow outside Anne’s window falling in huge flakes more furiously each second. Weather like this is designed for staying inside, curled up in an armchair with a cup of tea and a soft knitted afghan. It’s almost enough to soothe the little voice in her head that chides her for not working; there’s genuinely little for Anne to do from home as a school nurse, beyond writing and filing the reports she usually puts off until the end of the year, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling guilty at not doing more. Even if she isn’t expected to. Even if she is actually supposed to bunker down. 

It’s been odd, adjusting to a life of jigsaw puzzles and overly involved embroidery projects and all the books she swore she’d read two years ago and never did. Hell, she’s even taken up online archiving projects after an old friend from school sent her a link, just for something to do. Her social life hasn’t particularly suffered; she’s a transplant to this town, anyways, drawn back by the memories of one beautiful, peaceful year, only really meeting with folks from work or her old roommate, and infrequently at that. Every few days, she’ll go through the motions of calling her sister Mary just so the younger woman can chatter away about all her own complaints; truthfully, that’s all the socializing she can handle. Anne has always kept to herself, and usually even likes it; the only difference now is that it’s by governor’s decree, not by her own introverted preferences. 

Way out here, it’s not surprising that the power eventually goes out; it’s not uncommon, when the snow gets too heavy on the power lines in heavy storms like this. This is exactly why she has a generator - it’s all but a necessity when you’re living here year-round. Sure enough, the generator roars to life a moment later - an auditory nuisance, for sure, but a necessary one when you like such things as central electric heating and wifi and refrigerated items not spoiling. 

The crunch of snow under tires outside her little cottage is more surprising, however,  especially under the circumstances. She hasn’t ordered takeout, or grocery delivery; there’s no reason anyone should be pulling up to her house, especially in this weather. Peeking out the window reveals the kind of SUV only people with money buy, and the last person in the world she ever expected to see climbing out of it; she’d almost think it a hallucination brought on by isolation, if she hadn’t already seen him from a distance at the grocery store, earlier in the week. 

Anne barely has a chance to pull herself together before the knock at the door sounds, bouncing off the walls of her little house. Opening the door reveals Frederick Wentworth, the dream she put away nigh on nine years ago, standing on her stoop in a ridiculous hat and a peacoat that’s not remotely suited to the practicalities of winter in rural New Hampshire. 

“Believe me, I hate this just as much, if not more, than you do,” he begins, plowing forward before Anne can even remember to reassure him that it’s not true, “but my power’s out, and I need your help.”

As it turns out, Frederick - her handsome, charming, professional hockey player ex… something - is all that’s required to upset any equilibrium the snow might have brought. 

———

Frederick Wentworth hadn’t intended to return to Kellynch, New Hampshire. Then again, he hadn’t intended to be sitting out indefinitely with the rest of the league because of the current pandemic.

New York just feels odd like this, the tourists all gone, the streets practically empty. Fred has never credited himself as one of those maniacs who claim that New York is the only city in the world, and there’s nothing like it; he’d been happy in a small town, and he’ll be happy in a different city if the worst happens and he ends up traded. That’s the way these things work. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t formed opinions over the last years about how this city is supposed to feel, and it sure as hell ain’t this. 

So he gets in his car, arranges for a rental house, and drives up to Kellynch. If nothing else, he hopes it will be easier to look outside in a place he’d expect to see barely a soul even under the best conditions. Nothing ever happens in Kellynch, after all; maybe that will include the virus too.

(Well, that’s a lie. Exactly two things have ever happened to Kellynch, and he’s one of them. The other… if they’re very, very lucky, they’ll never have to deal with egotistical directors and their ilk again. Even pretty, quiet brunettes aren’t worth that trouble; in fact, sometimes, they make things worse.)

The irony to all this is that usually, Frederick craves a little bit of solitude. He spends essentially his entire life around the same group of guys, at practice and in games and especially on the road, when he’s got to share a hotel room to boot. Hell, he even lived with them for years, sharing an apartment with Harville and Benwick. A man can be forgiven for wanting some time to himself.

And he’d gotten it, at least for a while. Harvey had met his now-wife and moved out, and now Benwick’s got a girlfriend who giggles and his own place to giggle with her in or whatever. Fred can finally come home and just collapse in the closest thing to silence one ever gets in New York, and truthfully, he’s been enjoying every moment of it.

There’s a difference, though, in solitude on your own terms and solitude on others’ terms, and Frederick can’t help but feel lonely as he remembers that in the middle of all this, his friends and teammates are cozied up with those they love, and he’s all by himself in the empty apartment he once yearned for. In Kellynch, at least, it’s a solitude of his own making; his parents are long gone, Sophie out in Virginia with her husband, and for the most part, he hasn’t talked to his old school friends in years. There won’t be this constant awareness of all the people he can’t see if there’s no one about that he’d want to. 

Maybe he ought to try dating again, he thinks as he drives. Obviously, there’s nothing to be done in the moment, what with social distancing and impending stay-at-home orders, but maybe later. Maybe Harvey’s wife has friends he’d like - he’s always liked Amelia and her steady personality and good-natured humor, so unlike Benwick’s high-maintenance Louisa and her ear-piercing squeals. Her friends have got to be similar, and Amelia would probably even be kind enough not to make him sound completely desperate. 

It’s not that he hasn’t found anyone interested in the past years; he’s got a decent face, after all, and a better paycheck. But the thing about that face and that paycheck is that it’s hard to trust that any woman is interested in him, him alone, the person he is without all that. It’s not a great way to live, but it’s hard to move past. 

There’s also the matter of the pretty quiet brunette who came to Kellynch when he was 16, seized his heart, and never really gave it back. Walter Eliot may have been an asshole - every cliche of the self-absorbed Hollywood director, convinced that their town was “quaint” and “just what he needed” to spark inspiration while demanding kowtowing and wrecking havoc wherever he went - but his daughter, Anne, had been of a different mold altogether. He’d met her at the annual Fourth of July parade, of all places. It was obvious she hadn’t intended to be noticed; indeed, she’d blushed and done her best to fade into the background while her father and older sister had made some kind of scene that Frederick can’t honestly remember anymore. He’d been too intrigued - and later, enchanted - by Anne to pay much attention to the rest of the fiasco she’d called a family. 

She’d probably felt then the same as he feels about people now - some strange boy coming up to her out of nowhere with mini-donuts, someone she’s never met but undoubtedly knows her and her family, stuck wondering if he was interested in her or all the rest of it. But it had always been her; she’d initially been fascinating just in the contrast, but as he’d talked to her Fred had gotten to see her sense of humor and her brilliant mind and caring heart, and been smitten with the whole package. 

That was, until she’d ended things between them, insisting that they’d never work across such a long distance, that she didn’t want to try. Maybe they’d only had 8 months, but he’d been all in, with all the conviction of youth that this was it for them, in some kind star-crossed true love way. She was the first thing, besides his family, that he’d loved more than hockey; truthfully, he still hasn’t found anything or anyone else to match that. It’s hard to move on from that kind of heartbreak. Maybe it’s finally time he tried. 

The house he’s rented proves to be up a winding, hilly road lined with pine trees stretching in every direction. The seclusion is its own kind of calming - exactly what he needs, when the rest of the world feels like it’s going to hell in a handbasket. There’s something about  being alone amongst the trees that feels comforting in a way that being alone in the city can never touch - almost like a hug. Or something else less weird-sounding. English was never his thing. The house itself is just a little two-bedroom cottage, but that’s more than enough space for just him. What’s more important is that there’s a TV and WiFi and plenty of blankets to bunker down with for however long this lasts. 

What he doesn’t expect is to see Anne Eliot - the same Anne Eliot who he thought had left Kellynch for good, who’d broken his heart - at the supermarket like any other local, presumably looking to stock up on supplies just like he is. He doesn’t think she spots him - Frederick ducks into another aisle as soon as he spots her - but just the briefest sight of her sets his heart beating faster in a way that he doesn’t really want to examine closer. 

(It would be ridiculous to still have feelings for her after all this time, even if that’s sure what it seems like.)

He tells himself that it’s just a fluke; that they won’t run into each other again; that they can avoid each other without any problems, given the situation. He is wrong on all counts. The cottage sits at the top of a hill, and on days where the fog hasn’t settled around the tops of the trees, he can see just a peek of a few houses and driveways down below. 

And just who should he happen to see wrestling with her trash bin one evening, but the woman herself?

(Some higher power really has it in for him, he’s certain of it.)

Still, they don’t call it social distancing for nothing. It’s easy to avoid the people you don’t want to see when you don’t even leave your house. He naps a lot and catches up on Netflix and even attempts a puzzle that he finds in the hall closet (though it just winds up abandoned on the dining table). 

In eight years, though, he’d forgotten about the weather up here. It’s late March, technically spring; the worst of the snow should be over. Should be over isn’t the same as is over, though, and he’d forgotten about the late-March snowstorms that pop up more years than not. They’d had them in Minnesota, too; the locals there had always joked it was because of the college basketball tournament. Well, the NCAA tournament may have been cancelled, but the weather sure didn’t get that memo, as the flakes start falling huge, heavy, and fast just outside the windows, almost pretty in a way that’s only possible when you know you don’t have to go outside in the storm. 

Fate has other ideas, though. At least, Frederick has to believe it’s fate, otherwise this is all a cruel, cruel trick, and he doesn’t like to think about what he might have done to deserve that. Where he’s going with this is that the power goes out, knocking out the heat and the lights, as well as all those systems he’d been so thankful for until now. There’s a fireplace, but he hadn’t planned for this, and there’s not enough logs and he doesn’t know where or how to chop more and as much of his life as he spends at an ice rink he is not prepared to spend the night in these kind of temperatures without heat and —

— and when he looks out his window, he can just see a hint of light from Anne’s house, just hear the hum of a generator.

And he really doesn’t have any option at all but to throw himself on the mercy of the last woman he wants to see. 

———

Anne’s house is neat, from what Frederick can see - small, but cozy, with everything obviously in its very particular place. It reminds him of her, in a way, or at least the her he remembers - quietly comforting and well turned out. It’s exactly what he expected, somehow - just the kind of house he’d expect her to inhabit.

The woman herself, on the other hand, looks tired - vastly different than what he remembered. Anne is worn down, somehow, in a way that makes her look older than she is. Frederick supposes that’s what happens when she’s undoubtedly been carrying her family members in the way she always has; it would exhaust anyone, especially under pandemic circumstances. 

“Nice place,” he comments as Anne leads him towards a promised spare bedroom once he’s retrieved his bag - more out of an effort to fill the empty space than anything. Anne was always quiet, but this is just unnerving in its discomfort. They’d always been able to talk, or at least exist contentedly in the quiet; this is the opposite of all that. 

“Thanks,” she replies. “I like it.” Just the kind of response a person makes when they don’t know what the hell else to say. 

And maybe that’s what makes Fred dive straight into topics they should politely ignore - the absolute blandness of everything else they could say. 

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” he tells her foolishly. 

“In my own home, during quarantine?” She says it with a slight smile and the tone of voice she’s always used to hide her sense of humor, and suddenly Frederick is hit with a powerful wave of nostalgia. 

“No, here. Kellynch here.”

The amusement flits away just as quickly as it had appeared, the smile turning polite and wooden. Another look he vividly remembers. “I didn’t plan to come back, either,” she tells him softly, “but I like it here. I got out of school and there was a position open and… it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I’m a school nurse,” she clarifies. “Over at the elementary.” 

And that… fits, in a way he should have realized. She’d talked about going into nursing way back when, back when they were still practically kids, but this makes a lot more sense than trying to imagine Anne in some busy hospital. More tender, more stable. 

“I bet you’re great at that.”

“Thanks. I like it. You’re… good at your job, too,” she finishes awkwardly. 

(Even if the words are halting, uncomfortable, they send a little thrill through Frederick’s veins. Does that mean she’s watched, sometime in these past couple of years? They’re decidedly out of Rangers country and New York broadcasting range, way up here, but there are ways around that and she’d said…

Had she watched? For him?)

“Just doing my best,” he replies, just as uncomfortably. What a pair they make now. 

“I don’t know if you’ve eaten already, but I was about to make up some dinner,” Anne tells him - an abrupt, but welcome, change of subject. “I’d be happy to do up another serving if you like.”

“That’d be great, thanks.” He has no idea what kind of meal he’s committed to, but who the fuck cares; right now, it’s a way to get a moment to collect himself. 

“I’ll see you in a little bit then.” 

(If he’s not mistaken, Anne flees the room with just as much relief as he feels watching her go.)

(Kellynch was supposed to be his getaway, his haven - but right now, all it seems like is a terrible mistake as Frederick wonders what the fuck kind of situation he’s gotten himself into.) 

———

Dinner isn’t exactly an illustrious start to this whole thing, to say the least. Anne stresses about every step of making spaghetti - spaghetti, for goodness sakes, jarred sauce and boxed noodles, nothing a normal person could possibly find a way to stress about - only to realize as soon as they sit down that this is what they really should have worried about: what in the world two people who have unwillingly been forced into the same space have to discuss. 

(“How’s your family?” he asks at one point - probably a subtle dig, if he’s remembering the same uncomfortable dinner that she is, in which her father had done his best to treat Frederick like an utter idiot. Fred had always thought she’d let them walk all over her, anyways - an accusation that isn’t far off.

“Mary is fine. She just got engaged to a lawyer,” Anne relates as neutrally as she can. “I don’t much talk with Walter or Elizabeth anymore.” There’s a variety of reasons for that - especially their tendency to never listen to a single word she’s ever said in her life and making snide comments about how she’d rather live in some backwoods nowhere than in someplace with civilization like LA or New York - but the memory of the way they’d treated Frederick, and everyone else not like them had contributed too. “And your sister?” That’s a safer topic; Sophie and Anne had liked each other. 

“She’s good. She lives down in Virginia now - her husband’s some big shot in the Navy.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”)

(And that had been the end of that feeble attempt at discussion.)

Anne thinks a lot that night about what she must have done to deserve this. Clearly, something terrible in some past life to have earned this particular variety of torment. Frederick is everything she remembered, only colder - not that she can blame him. After what she did, all those years ago, the way she broke them… she’s more than earned it. 

Still. She can be strong, Anne tells herself. She can remain detached, and collected, and unaffected by his presence. She’s had years of practice, after all, pretending that she still isn’t carrying a torch. 

(It was always a foolish idea to watch him play online - but then again, she’s always been a fool.)

It’s a little harder to keep up that calm facade, however, when Frederick is walking out of the bathroom in the morning with nothing more than sweatpants and wet hair. God, but he’s handsome, between that face and that wonderful smile and the fit frame he must be displaying just to taunt her, like a reminder of all she rejected. Naturally. It’s no more than she deserves. Her relief is near palpable when he emerges from the spare room in another bright blue t-shirt. 

It gets easier as the hours pass and one day bleeds into another. It’s not Frederick’s fault that she’s so shaken by his very presence, and he really is trying to be a good houseguest. He picks up after himself and helps with the dishes and doesn’t argue with whatever she puts on TV. It could be worse. 

Still, she can’t help but feel like everything from their past sits between them, unspoken, in every interaction. It’s the elephant in the room, the loudly unspoken words in every little mundane interaction they share. They can reach a point where they’re able to converse without the overt distrust and borderline hostility of where they started this, but comfort is too much to ask.

(Does he feel it too - the pressure of all the what-might-have-beens, pressing down upon them? Or is she the only one that’s haunted?)

She can do this - survive Frederick’s presence when every moment is a reminder of all she threw away. But that doesn’t mean it won’t just crush and kill her. 

———

Frederick finds that he doesn’t mind being cooped up with Anne, likes it much more than he anticipated or planned. It’s not that they do much of anything - there’s limits in a small cottage like hers - but the companionship is nice. As it turns out, he was maybe lonelier than he’d wanted to admit. Even the stupid jigsaw puzzles go easier in her company; she’s got a system of sorting that Fred never would have had the patience to implement. 

Really, Anne is better equipped, literally and emotionally, for this whole isolation situation. Frederick has always needed to be out and active and doing, little planning involved; Anne, on the other hand, has all the supplies she needs, and the temperament for these kinds of quiet, time-wasting tasks to boot. It’s so entirely in character; he should probably have guessed. Then again, he was trying very hard not to think of Anne until he was forced to show up at her door, practically begging for shelter. 

Anne, of course, has plenty of firewood, unlike him, stacked neatly under a tarp at the side of her garage where it’s protected from the elements. She lives here year-round, after all; unlike his own dumb ass, she obviously remembers that it’s not uncommon to receive snow all the way through March and into April, and planned accordingly. Her central heating works fine, obviously, but there’s something about this weather that calls for a roaring fire. Plus, retrieving the firewood gives Frederick a chance to think away from Anne and all her distraction.

He’s not sure what he expected of her - tears? Begging? Apologies? The kind of aloofness the rest of her family has so perfected? None of that is Anne; she’s always been too accepting of her circumstances, even to her own detriment. Once upon a time, Frederick had viewed that tendency with a kind of fond exasperation, had wanted to help her understand that she deserved more than she had always settled for; now it just makes him sad, and angry. She should feel more than this, should be angry or distraught or anything now that he’s here.

He should be paying more attention to the task at hand than the woman in the other room, unfortunately, as the end of a twig clipped off a log slices the skin of his palm as he deposits his load by the hearth, causing Frederick to hiss in surprise at the mild pain. It’s not a deep cut, or hurt that badly - he plays a contact sport for a living, for fuck’s sake, this is nothing - but he can already see blood starting to bead. After making sure the logs are stacked as best as he can one handed, Fred quickly crosses to the kitchen sink to rinse it out. Anne finds him moments later as he examines his hand for splinters. 

“Are you alright?” she asks, that soft voice filled with the kind of concern that sends a pang through his heart. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just scratched myself on one of the logs. No biggie.”

Still, Anne pulls his hand closer to examine the little cut herself - gently enough that he could easily pull away, but somehow, too tenderly for him to ever want to. This is her life now, Frederick realizes suddenly - scrapes and bruises and doubtless all other kinds of minor playground injuries that need more tenderness than true care. School nurse, after all. 

“I’ll get you something for that.”

“Oh, you don’t have to —” but it’s too late; Anne is already walking down the hall with her determined pace, disappearing into the bathroom. Resistance is futile, or something. Faintly, he hears the squeal of a cabinet hinge before Anne pads back into sight in her stockinged feet, carrying something he can’t quite make out clutched in her hand.

“Just a bit of neosporin,” she explains, tugging his hand back towards her to apply the cream before peeling open the wrapper of a band-aid - the skin-toned butterfly kind.

He nods towards the little adhesive. “What, no fun prints? I’m appalled.”

“Left all my princesses and superheroes back in my office at school,” she smiles back. “You’ll just have to make do, I suppose.”

“I guess I’ll make it, somehow.”

(When she smiles, the ridiculous urge to ask her to kiss it better pops into his head with an ease that nearly frightens him. With a care that would impress even her, he shoves it back down.)

———

It gets easier  to share the same space as the days drag on - to learn to expect another person in her space, to expect that other person to be him. It would be overstating the matter to say that she’s not affected by him anymore; indeed, Anne is almost painfully aware of his presence at every moment. But she can prepare to face it when she’s come to expect him, and that feels like a victory all its own. She is braced and ready, long since versed in ignoring and minimizing those feelings that still linger from so long ago. Frederick’s physical presence in her space is a complicating factor, but certainly one that she can overcome. 

If she can ignore the way her heart aches, it’s almost kind of nice, having him around. They fall into a pattern of meals and Netflix and quietly finding their own distraction in between. It’s the kind of mundane existence she could almost dream of sharing with him if she was foolish enough to entertain those thoughts.

(She can’t afford to be such a fool - not when it’s only a matter of time until the snow stops and the roads clear and he leaves once again. She likes her life as it is, and that will have to be enough.)

It’s probably inevitable that, on the fourth night, when the snow has finally let up but the temperatures have turned bitter and icy, they find themselves huddled up next to the fireplace with a strong drink apiece. Frederick sips on a glass of the nice whiskey Anne keeps in the back of a cabinet for occasions that call for a little something stronger, barely kissed with enough soda to call it a mixed drink; Anne, at least, pours the same stuff into a whole cup of tea. She’s never been much for liquor, especially straight, but there are occasions that call for it, and being cooped up with a man she never expected to see again is certainly one of them.

“What are the fucking odds?” Frederick declares after his second glass. “I come out here, trying to get away, and I find you. What are the odds.”

“Well, the last couple of years, I’d say pretty good. Since I live here and all.” He’s kind of cute like this - drunk and verbose. It’s something she never had a chance to see, before.

“Oh. Yeah. That.” He takes another swig. “Still. What are the odds that I came back while you’re here?”

“It’s a mystery, I guess.” Maybe it’s the last few days; more likely, it’s the drink. Whatever the case, Anne finds herself telling Frederick something she should never admit. “I’m glad you’re here,” she tells him softly. “I… missed you.”

He tenses up at the words; not the reaction she expected, honestly. A feeling of dread starts to bloom in her stomach instead. “Really,” he comments, utterly flat. 

“Well… yes. Is that so hard to believe?”

“A little bit,” he tells her bluntly. “Especially since you’re the one that wanted me gone in the first place.”

“It was for the best.” For him, that is; this was never about her, anyways. 

“Was it now?” His laugh is bitter, utterly devoid of joy. 

“Frederick…”

“I just want to know what the hell is going on here,” Frederick demands, a liquored slur rounding out his consonants. “Because I’ve been here for days, and I can’t get my feet underneath me where you’re concerned. You sit there with that sad smile and you say it’s for the best and yet you don’t seem happy. And I don’t fucking get it. You’re the one who wanted to break up, but you don’t seem happy that we did.”

“I wasn’t,” Anne admits softly. “I’m not.”

“Then why? Because I’ve been trying to figure it out for nearly nine years, and all I’ve ever figured out is that you must not have felt anything. And after a week spent here, I don’t know that that’s true. So tell me, why?”

“I did it for you!” Anne finally bursts out, more a plea that a shout. “And I know that sounds like a lie and an excuse, but that’s why. We were so young, but God, I loved you. And you loved me, so much that you were about to throw away your chance at everything, ready to find some lesser school near Kellynch rather than taking Minnesota’s offer just so we’d be closer to each other. And I wanted it too - God, Frederick, you don’t know how much I wanted it, how close I was to letting you do that, because I wanted that too. I wanted you close. I loved you.

“But then… it wasn’t even some big game, but you wanted me there, so I went. And you looked alive out there on the ice, throwing insults and elbows and grinning like a maniac. I realized… that’s who you were supposed to be. I couldn’t hold you back from that, just to keep you close to me. Minnesota was your path to the kind of career that would last. How could I ask you to throw away your future?”

“Why didn’t you just say that? We could have figured something out. Done the long distance thing, I don’t know.”

“And you would have been hopelessly distracted from the start. Your mind would have been halfway across the country when you needed to be focusing on hockey and classes and everything else.”

He doesn’t have any response to that, not that Anne expected one. Frederick has never been great at admitting to things he doesn’t like.

“It was never because I didn’t care enough, because I didn’t love you,” she finishes softly. “I did it because I could see everything you could be, and I love - I loved you too much to let you waste that.” God, Anne hopes he didn’t hear that slip of the tongue, even if it’s true. “We were seventeen, Frederick. Kids. There was so much still ahead for you. I couldn’t be the reason you hindered your own dream, or even let it slip away. And you made it, didn’t you? You’ve reached that dream. No matter what I wanted for myself… I had to. For you, so you could have this.”

“I wanted you more than any dream.” Frederick has practically collapsed in on himself in the armchair, the very same one Anne was occupying when he’d showed up and shattered her quiet little world. It seems almost fitting that he sit there while she does the same. 

There’s no words for this; nothing that could make it better. Telling him I wanted that too won’t fix what’s already been done, even if she wishes that was the case, even if that’s true. “Frederick…” she finally whispers for lack of anything else to say. 

It’s too late, though - though that’s not quite the right phrase, not when it was already too late before this conversation even started, before he even showed up at her door in the snow. Now is just when he pries himself out of her armchair, standing with a finality that’s impossible to miss. “I’m tired, Anne,” he tells her. Anne doesn’t think she imagines an extra level of meaning to his words. “Goodnight.”

There’s nothing left to say - and no use saying it to an empty room anyways as she hears the spare bedroom door click shut down the hall. 

There’s no changing the past, but not enough words to explain it either.

———

The next morning, the roads are finally clear, and Frederick can go back up the road to his own cottage. Anne watches silently as Frederick emerges from the guest bedroom, his duffle bag in hand. The silence only becomes more tense as they stare at each other, the luggage a physical barrier between them, both blessed and cursed. 

“I suppose I should thank you,” Frederick finally says, breaking the silence. 

Anne shakes her head. “It was nothing. Basic kindness. You don’t need to thank me.”

(Can he see the way this pains her? Read the plea in her eyes - for forgiveness, for understanding?)

After another beat of silence, Frederick finally nods decisively, turning towards the door. “Take care, Anne.”

“You too, Frederick.” It feels final; it feels like a farewell, of a permanent kind. 

And then, with a last soft click of the door, he’s gone.

And Anne is left to herself again. 

———

He should feel peace, now that he’s back in his own space, away from Anne and every memory that she’s dredged up.

He doesn’t.

Because now, back alone in the little house at the top of the hill, Frederick once again has to face the particular kind of loneliness that comes with knowing that it doesn’t have to be this way.

What it all circles back to is this: he should feel smug. After all, this is everything he’d wished for in his most bitter moments over the years: Anne, all alone, with no real support system, just living a quiet little life of little note and, to all appearances, little true happiness. 

But it doesn’t feel good - not even remotely. How has he suffered? Sure, he hasn’t had her, but he got drafted, went to a top rate school, wound up playing hockey for a living in the NHL. By any measure, it’s a damn good life - all while Anne has been left to become the shell of herself he found four days ago. 

And that shouldn’t be his problem. Technically, you could argue that she brought this upon herself; dug a hole of her own making. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel… sad, he supposes, to see what she’s resigned herself to. Maybe a little guilty, even. 

And still, he can’t help but feel like there’s questions left unanswered. They’d talked plenty about the past, how they’d felt and why they’d acted the way they had, but that hadn’t touched on where they stand now. If there’s one thing he’s learned in these last few days, it’s that his own feelings aren’t nearly as dormant as he’s tried to convince himself all these years. If there’s any chance Anne might still feel the same… well, he owes it to them both to find out. 

This chapter of their history doesn’t seem quite finished yet, and Frederick knows exactly what he has to do. 

———

This time, she should have expected the knock on the door - social distancing be damned. 

It’s been three days since the storm’s finally stopped - three days since snowplows had cleared everything out, three days since Frederick had left, back to his own little house up the road.

She’d been content by herself for so long - happy with her plants and her books and all the little hobbies that take up her time in the evenings and weekends. Anne had even found a new kind of solitary contentment in the pandemic, discovering tasks to give her days purpose and goals. Frederick was here for a matter of days, not even a week; it’s absurd to think he could change any of that.

And yet somehow, he has.

Because Anne had been… content by herself for so long - not happy, per se, but satisfied - but the house feels empty now without him. Even when they’d barely talked, or were in separate rooms, he’d been there, the energy of another person making the whole house feel full. She’d grown used to him, she supposes; allowed herself to remember, for once, all the reasons she had loved him, and all the dreams she once had had of what a life together could have been like . 

She chose this life - here, in Kellynch, by herself. But for the first time in the only place that’s ever really been hers, she feels not just alone, but lonely. As much as she’s always claimed to like her life, just as it is, there’s no denying that the past days have illuminated all the ways that she’s been lying to herself. She tries to pass the time the same way she always has, but it’s just not the same; she even calls Mary at one point, hoping her sister’s dour moods might be an efficient distraction, but Mary is even more snippy than usual. It’s been days since Anne last called, and her sister feels an outsized outrage about the so-called abandonment; truthfully, Anne hadn’t even noticed it had been a week since her last call. Moreover, she finds that she doesn’t really care about Mary’s bad mood the way she always has, doesn’t feel the need to fix it or blame herself for the outburst. It’s easier just to hang up the phone. 

(Maybe this is the first step in moving on: accepting that you deserve more than you’ve ever settled for. That doesn’t stop the yearning; moving on isn’t the work of a couple days, especially when the man himself has only just exited her life again, and is staying just up the road.)

As if she’s summoned him, tires crunch on the drive outside, heralding his reappearance. It isn’t right, the way her heart lurches with happiness and hope and excitement when she peeks out the window to once again see his SUV, once again see him climbing out in that ridiculous blue hat and shuffle to her front door without once slipping on her icy walk. There’s a sense of déjà vu as Anne draws a deep breath before she opens the door. There’s only so many times she can go through this, be subjected to such a blast from the past, before it will eventually break her. And yet, like a fool, she keeps opening the door. 

“Can we talk?” Frederick asks. His hands are shoved deep in his pockets and his shoulders are hunched inwards, but there’s a look in his eyes that Anne is afraid to name. 

(It almost looks tender - almost looks like hope - but it will hurt far worse to be proved wrong if she allows herself to believe that.)

“Of course,” Anne says softly, stepping aside just enough to let him in. It touches a special little bit of her heart to see the way that Frederick carefully knocks the snow off his boots at the threshold as he pulls his hat off his head, trying his best not to track anything in to her rug and floors. It’s such a simple little thing, but it’s care for her home - and, in a way, care for her. More than she ever expected again from Frederick Wentworth. 

“Anne…” he begins, reaching out a hand for her, but she quickly takes a step back. Touch will be too much, too permanent a memory if this is the end. 

“I think we ought to keep a bit of distance,” she explains at his odd look. 

If anything, that only serves to confuse him further, his brow crinkling up in that endearing way she remembers. “We already spent days together. I think social distancing is kind of a lost cause, at least where we’re concerned.”

Anne shakes her head. “It’s not about the virus.”

She can see the moment it hits him, just exactly what she means by distance, as he physically flinches with the realization. She can also see the moment he decides to plow forwards anyways with whatever he came to say. 

“I’ve been thinking, these last couple of days,” he tells her, “and I’ve had a lot of time to consider things. Everything you said and did, the other night and way back when. And I realized… I did a lot of talking about what I wanted, and what I felt. And in the middle of all that shouting, I never asked about what you wanted, or want, or how you felt. And you never told me, because that’s what you’re used to - people not caring enough to ask. That’s on me, and I’m sorry. But —” he swallows heavily, as if he’s forcing down the nerves he evidently feels — “but I’m asking now. I want to know what our break-up meant to you. Because the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to believe you did all this because you didn’t care.”

Anne fights the urge to turn away from Frederick; he deserves that much, after everything. Meeting his eyes is too much to ask, however, and she fixes her gaze instead just over his right shoulder, crossing her arms over her body protectively. “I loved you,” she tells him quietly. “I knew what I had to do, but I loved you. I hated every word that came out of my mouth.” Anne smiles sadly. “You weren’t the only one who wanted. You were the first person - the only person to look at me and see something wonderful and worthwhile, and it killed me to throw that away. I’ve had to live with that ever since.”

“And now?”

Anne turns pleading eyes upon him, sure that every emotion is now splashed across her face and too distraught to care. How dare he do this? How dare he make her speak this into existence if he’s only about to crush it all? “Don’t make me say it,” she begs. 

“Please, Anne.” His voice is nearly as desperate - and that’s, ultimately, what breaks her, leaving the words to spill forth almost without her permission.

“And now… that doesn’t go away, you know. A love as big as that. You got to go be this success story, doubtless had all kinds of… distractions over the years, but when you have a quiet little life like mine, you don’t forget. It doesn’t go away. There’s a large part of my heart that is still yours - probably always will be - and I have to find a way to deal with that.”

“You still love me?”

Anne nods, whispering her response. “I do.”

She suddenly feels his hand trail down her arm, causing Anne to jerk abruptly to meet his eyes again. “Well that’s lucky,” he smiles down at her, achingly gentle, “because I haven’t forgotten either.”

Even as Anne’s heart lurches with hope, she shakes her head. “Don’t tease, Frederick. Don’t be that cruel.”

“I’m not,” he assures her, twining their fingers together. “Because you’re right, I’ve tried to distract myself, but… you have no idea just how unforgettable you are, Anne. How could anyone ever compare? And I tried so hard for so long to move on, to hate you, but I never could. You were a little spark in my heart that I could never quite stamp out. And now…” Frederick pauses as if to gather his breath, squeezing her hand as he does so. “And now, I hope I won’t have to.”

“You’d want that? You’d want to…” Even with new-found hope singing through her veins, Anne still hesitates to finish the sentence. This all feels like a wonderful dream; she’d hate to wake up and discover that’s all it was. 

“To try again?” he finishes. “Yeah. Yeah, I want that. The real question is… do you?”

And she does, she wants that so terribly much, so badly that it aches, even as she hesitates. How could he want that, after everything she’s done? When their separation was her fault in the first place?

“I don’t deserve you,” Anne murmurs into the miniscule space between them, caving to the urge to brush his hair back from his face. It makes him smile, just a little bit, just a twitch of his lips, but that more than anything else sends a flood of peace rushing through her soul. 

“I think we deserve each other,” Frederick tells her in return, his voice almost unbearably soft. “I believe that, and somehow, I’m going to make you believe that too. We deserve this, Annie.”

And he kisses her, like he wants to, like he’s thought about it just as much as she has. His lips are soft against hers - just like she remembers, all those years ago - but there’s a surety to his hands now that wasn’t there before, in the way he pulls at her waist to bring her closer and his fingers thread through her hair with purpose. There’d been a handful of ill-advised attempts at dating in the past eight years, but nothing ever came close to this joyful swooping sensation in her stomach or the feelings of safety and love and home. That’s something only he can manage; something that only exists between the two of them. 

Her hands find their way to his chest as the kiss deepens, becomes more passionate, heads adjusting their position to allow tongues to tentatively begin to prod and search. Anne had known the difference 8 years had made on Frederick’s body, had seen with her own two eyes the way he’d filled out with more muscle, but feeling it is something else altogether, even through his shirt where his coat gaps open. It’s a reminder that they’re not the same - they’re older and more mature and have experienced different things than they had at 17. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, change can be good; it’s brought them here, together, at what otherwise feels like the end of the world. 

Even as they break apart - to get a breath of air, to process what just happened - Frederick continues to stroke his thumb across the round of her cheek, like he can’t bear to stop touching her. It warms her heart in a whole new way, like it’s proof that he meant every word he told her - as if she needs any more after that kiss. It would be easy to let herself get swept away on that little touch, perhaps into another wonderful kiss, but Anne forces herself to meet his eyes. 

“Stay.” It’s more than a question, but less than a demand - a plea, the dearest wish of her heart that she’s never admitted, now given voice. 

“For as long as you want me, Annie.” His voice is tender and husky as he smiles down at her. “Because I really don’t want to ever leave you again.”

And that’s awfully lucky, as Anne doesn’t ever intend to let him go again. 

[scarlettsabetlondongirl]

Read Full article here or below

Poet Scarlett Sabet talks isolation, inspiration and working with her partner, Jimmy Page

Scarlett Sabet’s spoken word album Catalyst grapples with love, politics and isolation – and features production by Jimmy Page

By Thomas Barrie

19 April 2020

Envy Jimmy Page: one of the most compelling, passionate poems of recent years was written about him. It was penned by his partner, the poet Scarlett Sabet, and it appears on Sabet’s latest spoken-word album Catalyst – which Page produced. Seems like a fair deal.

Sabet, who was born in Surrey but now lives in London, has been working with Page since they first met in 2014. She now has four written collections to her name, alongside the album. Her work is often political and, enhanced by Page’s production on the spoken-word tracks, sensual and otherworldly. Sabet names William S Burroughs and the beat poets as influences, and Jack Kerouac in particular – one track on Catalyst is named “For Jack” – though she is just as likely to write about the immigration crisis or the Bataclan massacre as she is to embrace the fluidity and experiential language of the Beats.

GQ spoke to Sabet, who elaborated on Catalyst, her relationship and collaboration with Page and how she has been working during the coronavirus lockdown.

How are you and Jimmy spending time in the pandemic? What’s it like?

Scarlett Sabet: I think, as a writer, I’ve always been a bit of a lone wolf. Social distancing has come naturally to me. From a very young age I would always read my parents’ books; my mother would have a lot of Margaret Atwood. I would kind of dive into my parents’ bookshelf and obviously that has spilled out into writing.

I think with the virus it's different, because there's this unfolding tragedy every day, so it's nothing to be glib about. I get up in the morning, have a green tea and try to meditate. I try to do yoga in the morning, something physical, and I’ve been watching the five or six o'clock news to check in with it. This is the fine line I think everyone's trying to balance at the moment – wanting to know what's going on, because things change by the hour and it's massively life-changing, but I think you need to balance your intake. So I definitely watch the news and then read and write and experiment.

We were scheduled to do a slot at Hay Festival. Jimmy was asked to talk about Catalyst. And then I'd also been asked by Van Morrison to read some of his lyrics – he's got a book of his lyrics coming out. The first one came out in 2016, so I read “The Way Young Lovers Do” at a festival in Belfast in 2016. He was going to do a similar event here as well, so that would have been nice. But I think it's going to be taken to the internet, as it were. I'm recording a video for Van at some point.

How do you keep writing during isolation? Is it hard to find inspiration?

Scarlett Sabet: Sometimes, with writing, I’ve found that discipline works – doing it every day and treating it like a job. I also have had amazing moments of inspiration. One of the poems on Catalyst was called “Fifth Circle Of Hell”. I wrote that here at home and it was about the refugee crisis. I remember seeing a tent in the rain in Calais and thinking, “Jesus.” I wrote a couple of lines down in my Moleskine notebook. And then I remember thinking like, “OK, I'm going to write more about that tomorrow.” The next day, Jimmy had a meeting in the house. So he was in one room and I just went off into a small room and I couldn't go anywhere else in the house. I had a green tea. I was in front of my computer. I typed that one up. And it just came out – it was like a channelling: these images and just a sense of, “What the hell is going on?”

My father was born in Iran, so I'm half-Persian and that made a big impact. I’m very lucky. My parents sent me to a private school and my father was studying architecture in Italy and then the UK, prior to the Iranian Revolution. But nonetheless, that changed his life, and the whole country. On the other side of my family, my great-grandfather was in the French Resistance and his life definitely would have been different if his country hadn’t been occupied by the Nazis. So this is one of the things I was saying to Jimmy: stuff has been cancelled, but it's bigger than us. It's all in perspective. So I'm definitely trying to be positive, keep a routine and check in with friends and family. It's a good time to be grateful for what you do have.

Your work seems very connected to the outside world, though – is it hard to work when you’re stuck indoors?

Scarlett Sabet: I wrote ���Rocking Underground” – the first track on Catalyst – on the Tube. My computer broke and it was a deadend Sunday. I grew up in Dorking in Surrey and I love London, but any big city, whether it's New York or London, the effort it takes, sometimes, just to exist is hard. This particular Sunday, I was on the Tube and my computer broke and I just had this “Urgh” feeling. I had Walt Whitman’s Leaves Of Grass in my bag and I was reading that and I had trouble connecting to his world. I thought “This is beautiful, but this is not my reality today.” And so I put down the book and I got out my Moleskine again, and I wrote “Rocking Underground”. There weren't rewrites of that. That's how it came out the first time I wrote it. It was definitely channelling something coming through me.

How has Jimmy influenced your poetry?

Scarlett Sabet: The first poetry reading I ever did was in 2013, at the World’s End Bookshop in Chelsea. I had an apartment in Knightsbridge and Jimmy lived [near] High Street Kensington, so we bumped into each other. We had a mutual friend; we both went to this bookshop. I waitressed for my whole twenties – I only stopped waitressing last August because I knew Catalyst was coming up and I knew we'd be doing stuff for that. So Jimmy came to the first poetry reading, which I organised, and a friend of mine from waitressing, Alice, designed the poster. I just felt compelled to share my work and I invited other people. That was in November 2013. And Jimmy came along. I think that really resonated with him.

And so, our relationship started at the end of August 2014. I self-published my first book in November 2014. I was so young and I was flattered that [a publisher] wanted to publish me – I took that as a good endorsement, but I wasn't quite sure. And I mentioned to Jimmy and said, “What do you think? Do you think I should do it with them?” And he said he thought they were kind of playing me around and he said, “Are you ready to publish?” I said yes. And he said, “Well, then you should self-publish.” And I was like, “Oh, OK.” I didn't really think of that. The parallel he used was that he had been in The Yardbirds. He’d been a session musician and when The Yardbirds ended, he went back to being a session musician. He knew he wanted to create a band, but seeing how the record label’s demand for producing hit single, hit single, hit single had broken The Yardbirds, he thought “I'm not going to do that.” Instead of going to a record company and saying, “I would like to write some songs in the studio, please can I have some money?” he produced and paid for Led Zeppelin’s first album – and then went to them and said, “This is what we’ve got and this is what we’re going to do.” So in the spirit of that, I self-published. Waitressing paid for that.

Around the time my first book came out – and this was before people found out Jimmy and I were together – that was when Jimmy first brought up the idea that we might do something together. He said, “We should do that at some point.” Part of Jimmy’s genius is timing. We felt it would be best to announce [our relationship] and release [our collaboration] on the same day. And Jimmy said, “Look, some people are going to love it. Some people are not. But at least that way it could speak for itself.” Instead of there being chatter about it, people could just listen to it, make up their own minds. So we did it that way. And it was really very magical working with Jimmy. He’s really believed in me before anyone else and at times more then I believe in myself.

Tell me about “Possession”, which you’ve read for us from home.

Scarlett Sabet: It seems very sensual and it's about being in love. And it's about the divinity of our passion together and my desire for him. I know, to a lot of people, our relationship looks a certain way on paper, but to me I just can't believe it – it's like we were pulled together and it's been this amazing love and [he’s] this amazing person who's been my mentor as well. “Possession” was written trying to understand what it is that we… As soon as we came together, it was like this collision.

Jimmy didn’t really do anything to it on Catalyst. There are no effects applied to it like there were to “Fifth Circle Of Hell”. It's definitely very intimate. I remember saying I would whisper it to him. There's so much tragedy and death and I just felt like, “You know what? I'm grateful for the love I have.” Let's focus on something loving, as it were, and something a bit more intimate, because the global landscape at the moment is very brutal and sad

Catalyst can be purchased here

[allegrafitzgerald]

BASICS

Name: Allegra Genevieve Fitzgerald

Gender & pronouns: nonbinary, they/them and she/her

Species: wereworlf

Age: 27, October 28th

PERSONALITY

Traits: resourceful, cautious, cynical, organized, wary

Moral alignment / MBTI / enneagram: lawful neutral /  istj /  8

Values: order, loyalty, compassion

Flaws: unforgiving, pride, envy

TLDR

Just to jumpstart plotting: Allegra is relatively (a few months) new to town. A wolf that was bitten at 18 and shunned by her family of hunters. She doesn’t trust anyone, doesn’t want to do anything other than survive, and Blackrock’s her best bet for that. Secretive and closed off, craving stability and secretly longing for a home! Very similar to my original take on Allegra from when I was here briefly at the start, but with minor adjustments

HISTORY

TW: Minor Violence, Suicide references

You are Allegra Fitzgerald, the first daughter of Richard and Emilia Fitzgerald, both prominent members of their social circles. They are sure, they are confident, they are icons. You are to be the same when you’re of age. And so, they teach you. They teach you to read and write, they teach you how to speak and how to listen. Tutors and teachers are brought in. You sing, you write, you dance. You also learn archery. A funny thing for someone so light and airy, but your parents insist on it and no questions their word.

Despite the oddity of the bow and arrow placed in your small hands, you think that this is your favorite of your lessons. You don’t know why but it feels right when you pull the string taut, arrow notched and carefully aimed. You feel like you were born for this. One day, you’re certain, your aim will be true every time.

Your parents take a lot of trips when you are young, leaving you alone with nannies or with friends. When you are older, around fifteen, you find out why. Your parents are not the benevolent socialites they always made themselves out to be. They are hunters. At first, you were confused, but they continued to explain. Werewolves, apparently, existed. Your parents were heroes to humankind still, defending others from monsters that could tear them limb from limb.

You are to be just like them, an heir to a monster-hunting throne.

You do not object. 

You learned young that you’re meant to be the person your parents are trying to shape you to be. There’s no room for disobedience, for questioning their edicts. The idea of rebelling has never occurred to you. 

But you’re still training, three years later, when, the unthinkable happens. You are in the woods, not too far astray from your parents and their fellow hunters. It is the first time your parents brought you on a hunt with them, the first time you’re expected to truly do your part. You might have been dawdling a little, nervous and wondering if this is right,  but a beast rushes out of the woods and the next thing you know you are on your back. There is a wound to your middle, rough and tearing. You cry for your parents, but when they come, you don’t recognize the looks on their face. It’s disgust. It’s hatred. It’s because of you.

They give you a gun and tell you to do what needs to be done.

Then they leave you.

Had one of them been in your shoes, things would have ended differently. But you? You hesitate instead. You can’t kill yourself for the betterment of humanity.

Instead, you run.

You run and you run and you run.

You find home in the mountains, cold enough year round that you can be a wolf full time. It’s easier that way. You don’t have to think about your family, you don’t have to think about their abandonment. All that matters is hunt, eat, and rest. That becomes your cycle. Hunt. Eat. Rest. There is nothing more to you.

You are, at  your core, a wolf.

You’ve lost count of the years in your wandering. You stay near those mountains, but sometimes you like to stretch your limbs, pace the woods and explore. You avoid humans. They make you think, which is something you refuse to do. 

But sometimes you wander too close to town, catch sight of families and even your wolf starts to long for that. You can only be a lone wolf for so long before something snaps, and one day, you shifted back.

This exploring comes back to bite you. One day, you are only minding yourself, when you feel the sharp sting of a bullet grazing your side. Hunters, like your family had been, like you were supposed to be. They found you. So you do what you do best. You run. 

It is safer to hide in plain sight, so against everything in you screaming to do the opposite, you follow your instincts and find a town. You’re human again for the first time in a decade.

You hate this.

You were not meant to be human, not since you were eighteen, not since your family turned you away.

Blackrock is name that tugs at your memories, ones you’ve carefully buried in the years you’ve been a wolf. It’s familiar because it’s where Spruce is, the only person from your old life that feels anything close to safe. It’s a risk, still, but you arrive in town half off instinct, desperate to survive in this world.

Desperate to live. 

Blackrock is what you expected. You  keep yourself as isolated as you can, distrusting any kindness that you encounter. People aren’t good. You learned that the hard way already.

You do not want to be a part of this pack. It feels wrong. It’s not right. You are jealous of them all, these people, these wolves, who have close ties with others. They have family. You don’t have that, not anymore. You were cursed with a bite, and with just one moment in the wrong place at the wrong time, everything was stolen from you. Of all the paths your life could have gone, of all the choices you could have made, this wouldn’t have been the one you picked for yourself. But there’s safety in numbers, so you ended up here. They don’t know much about you, they don’t know your past or your family. You are just a wolf who needs a safe place to rest.

DEVELOPMENT

So obviously this is a minor rework of Allegra from when I was previously in Shiver, and the long-term plan for Allegra is the same-that eventually she will come to terms with the fact that, just because her family rejected her and didn’t want her, not everyone will. She could come to admire, maybe even love, this new pack that has allowed her a safe haven. However, that won’t come soon, and I think the added dynamics with Spruce and Reed will build on that struggle to find peace, to make herself a home here. Even once she does find her place within the pack, she is always going to have a sense of paranoia to her, a sense that maybe being alone and by herself in the woods will be better than --- than this. She still has a sinking feeling that she needs to run.

She isn’t as grounded as she likes to present herself to be, too skittish the second anyone gets in her space. Not even close to her-just close enough for her to perceive them as a threat. As she slowly starts to let members of the pack in, her defenses are slowly going to calm down for those few people. She’ll likely never be one to go for physical contact, but eventually she won’t tense if someone is within an arm’s length of her.

CONNECTIONS

[ ZACH ] seems to want something from me, why else would they be this kind? I don’t trust it ( Allegra hasn’t known kindness in far too many years, and they can’t accept anyone doing anything out of the goodness of their heart )

My past is the past, it shouldn’t matter to anyone here. So why does [ OPEN ] ask so many questions ( They were supposed to be a hunter. Allegra might never have killed a wolf, but that was the path they were on and they’re scared of how that will impact things with the pack if it gets out. This person is pushing, asking too many questions, making them scared they’ll have to run again )

Something about [ SOLA ] makes me feel at ease. I don’t understand why, but I’m drawn to them. I’ll do my best to avoid them. ( Friend or family or loved one, it does’t matter. Allegra has only had themselves since the moment they were bitten, and they didn’t have much prior to that to begin with. Closed off she might be, Allegra wants to let this person in, they just don’t know where to start )

[ OPEN ] doesn’t know how to mind their business, and it’ll come back to bite them one day ( Allegra is going to fight someone, wound too tightly to relax and finally snapping )

I was young when I turned, and I never got to experience some aspects of my humanity while I was living as a wolf. [ OPEN ] is part of that ( Allegra spent almost a decade after turning 18 as a wolf, and it turns out that hooking up is fun and good and the only form of contact that doens’t immediately set them on edge )

[sobdasha]

some (very long) Hiro metas and a Kisa-n-Tohru tangent

seeing the "Hiro is a brat!" "Hiro just has trauma!" debate has made me ponder…

Like, not to compare trauma and argue who had what worse and invalidate suffering, but my immediate reaction was kind of, "Wait, what? I mean, okay, I guess Hiro did just have some trauma re: Kisa, but like, overall…???"

So it's time for some scrutiny!

I’mma talk myself through this in a post.

Here we have Hiro. He's a Souma, which is pretty damn traumatic in its own right, and possessed by a Zodiac spirit, which is even worse. He's part of an elite inner circle, privileged with status and wealth; but on the flip side, there's still people in the family who look down on the Zodiac, and Hiro's looking at a future of isolation (afraid of looking like a monster, afraid to betray the family secret, not properly free to pick his own job, may or may not be able to live outside the estate, love life is gonna be a disaster when puberty hits). And Akito, whom the possessed part of him loves deeply and desperately, tends to weaponize his own love and withhold it when someone displeases him, or turn hurtful when someone needs punishment.

Okay, so that's bad. But Hiro shares that with all of the Zodiac members, that's just the baseline trauma, and there's some compounding issues at play that Hiro lacks:

- Hiro, as the Sheep, isn't especially hated. Kyou, for instance, has a bad attitude that's partly due to the entire clan ragging on him for being a horrible abomination of a monster, comparing him unfavorably to Idealized Yuki, and telling him he's gonna be locked up in a one-room house on the estate to suffer out his life--and that's not even counting how being the Cat affected how his immediate family treated him. Haru, as the Ox, got ~harmlessly teased~ about being a big dumb slow stupid ox by the family so much that he started flipping over to a Black personality to violently vent his feelings.

- Hiro's family life is, as far as I can tell, actually ideal. His parents didn't reject him (Momiji, Kyou re: his sperm donor, Rin), split up over him (I suspect this is what happened for Kagura, because her parents argued a lot when she was young, and I wonder about the fact that Ritsu's dad isn't at the onsen? And there's no mention of Kisa's dad? But then again, we're told repeatedly that Yuki and Ayame have a father and he lives in the same house as their mother and I've never seen proof of this man's existence), be coolly indifferent to him (Ayame after Yuki was born and he got off the hook but honestly I think that was a blessing to him, Yuki, Hatori), or get extremely overprotective (Kyou re: his mom, I'd argue this is partly why Ritsu's mom is so stressed out, and also I'd argue this may be why Kisa's mom hits her limit). In fact, Hiro's the only one who we can definitely say has two parents, who live together, and have a good relationship, and actively enjoy nurturing their child. Also Satsuki's completely adorkable. (This puts strain on Hiro in other ways, lol, but at least he shares that feeling with his dad.)

- Hiro, as the Sheep, probably doesn't particularly stand out. I'm guessing his hair color isn't particularly notable? So he probably hasn't been singled out for teasing from people who don't even know about the curse, like Kyou and Haru and Kisa. (No one's not-thirsty enough to have teased Ayame or Yuki for their looks, I'm pretty sure, and Momiji can pull the biracial card, even if that wouldn't stop people, and went to international school, where people probably found other ways to pick on you.)

So where, for Hiro, does his particular extremely combative, condescending, scathing, sarcastic attitude come from?

That's not to say none of those things above could be factors. It's extremely possible that the family found dumb things to say to him because, y'know, clearly it's impossible to hurt a kid's feelings if you're arrogant enough about it. And like Kyouko says, you can't really judge someone's family situation based on their behavior, and vice versa. I'd expect Hiro to be super well-adjusted, coming from a loving nuclear family, but kids are people and they will turn out how they turn out both because of and in spite of how they're raised. And maybe Hiro's experienced some bullying about whatever, and his instant sharp-tongued retorts became the default in response to that. Hiro didn't tell us any of this, but who knows!

Or maybe Hiro's difficult phase is just a phase. Maybe that's how all his classmates talk to each other?? I can easily see that being a thing, especially with boys, both friendly with friends or aggressive with people you want to treat badly, and maybe Hiro's so much in the habit of it that he doesn't think first (and doesn't care enough about Tohru and her feelings to exercise a little self-control). Like this post that points out how it's a Definite Thing that part of Hiro's lording-little-brat arrogance is because he's in his final year of elementary school and he's everyone's senpai and that sort of thing is indulged because adults know he'll get cruelly humbled next year when he's a baby kouhai.

But I think maybe, what's most relevant with Hiro, is that because of his lack of obvious outside factors to fight against for personal growth, his growing pains as a character are internal. He's fighting against himself. AKA, it's only logical that he's a tiny little shit and his character arc is about growing into someone who isn't a jerkface. Which can be just as difficult and traumatic as standing up to your parents, or Akito, or society, or your classmates. Hiro has to assert himself against himself, and himself won't punch him in the face or lock him in his room but it's so easy to just put the blame elsewhere and let himself get away with it and give him a pass and stop trying to improve.

Now I wanna analyze the timeline!

Aside from a few select Zodiac members, Akito hasn't really done anything super terrible that we've heard about until Hiro's in 3rd grade. That's when Hatori and Kana ask to get married, and Hatori gets injured. Akito has been a jerk before, and Akito is very clearly in favor of a hierarchy that puts God at the top getting all the love. But Shigure and Ayame have talked about their sexcapades with no issue, and Kagura's always going on about her undying love for and future marriage with Kyou, and this is the first incident that says those things aren't allowed.

Sometime not terribly long after that, Shigure gets kicked out of the Main House. This ramps up Akito's hatred of women, though Hiro wouldn't know the betrayal behind it and might not have a clue about Akito's vendetta.

Right about the time Hiro starts 6th grade, he feels compelled to tell Akito that he has feelings for Kisa. (I'm pulling this from the Collector's Edition timeline. In the actual story I keep seeing the English being like "I always thought Hiro hated me / I thought Hiro hated me for a long time" with Kisa then immediately turning around and saying "We were bffs all through my elementary school years / Hiro always played with me until this year", so I heavily suspect the translators keep getting a modifier in the wrong place or something because wtf.) Akito kicks Kisa's ass and Kisa takes two weeks to heal. (This isn't Akito's fault. It's also not Kisa's fault, obviously, because Hiro didn't even tell her yet that he liked her. So that means it's all Hiro's fault.) Hiro's horrified, because he could have had an idea this would be bad but he probably didn't expect it to all be taken out on Kisa. After all, Hatori got hurt, not Kana, and Rin hasn't been pushed out a window yet.

Hiro abruptly cuts off his interaction with Kisa, to protect her from getting punished by Akito again. Kisa goes back to 7th grade, where she's just transitioned from Top Of The Heap Senpai and Just A Child So We Can Let Things Slide to Lowly Kouhai Who Needs To Learn Proper Social Behaviors, and she's being bullied, and her bff won't talk to her, and her Talking Things Out skills are having zero effect, so she just stops talking, and now her mom is upset, and then she starts skipping school, and now her mom is really upset. And Hiro was probably unaware of a lot of this, until it got really bad several months in, since he stopped seeing his bff.

And Hiro's agonizing and worrying about it, when suddenly Tohru swoops in and magically saves the day, bringing hope where there was none and erasing suffering, right when Hiro was probably nerving himself up to try to help somehow without bringing Akito's wrath back down on Kisa.

Oh I wanna have a tangent about Kisa!

Timeline again, but from Kisa's point of view:

Kisa and Hiro are only a year apart, so they've always been super close. Hiro is her bff.

Now Kisa is starting 7th grade.

Kisa does something Bad. It's not clear what, but it's Bad Enough to make Akito hate her and also seriously beat her up, so that's Pretty Bad.

Actually it's Really Very Bad, because after that Hiro hates her too.

Anyway Kisa's starting 7th grade! Yay! New school, new girls, new pressures. In my personal experience, middle school is when girls are at their nastiest (after they hit high school, they start to chill out. Obviously you still get jerks, because people, but there was a little more "live and let live" attitude), so I always assume this is part of the problem. Kisa's classmates start to bully her. Kisa tries out her conflict resolution skills, like the adult she's expected to be becoming, and it only causes the situation to escalate. Her self-esteem has already had the crap kicked out of it, and hasn't healed in 2+ weeks. Her bff hates her and won't talk to her.

And then Kisa just gives up without telling anyone why.

Tohru's got a very valid point, that it's hard to talk about the things that actually bother you. It's hard to ask for help. I can complain all day long about little things, but I can't put big issues into words without spontaneously bawling? Which is really fricken embarrassing???

But I think the reason Tohru strikes such a chord with Kisa, and is able to instantly win her over, is because she talks with such quiet feeling about being scared her mom wouldn't love her anymore. Because that feeling was very, very real for Tohru--grounded in the fact that Kyouko actually did abandon her once.

And Kisa recognized that, and realized that Tohru--unlike everyone else--actually got it, because that's exactly what Kisa's feeling. Because Kisa's gotten along with her mother very well all her life, if what we see of her with Hiro is any indication. Except that suddenly Akito hates her. Suddenly Hiro hates her. It's a very real fear, once Kisa's mom starts getting stressed about the not-talking, that Kisa's mom is going to stop loving her just like everyone else is suddenly doing. Because that's literally what's happening to Kisa.

Tohru's not just a warm, loving, accepting, motherly presence. Tohru's someone who can very viscerally relate to Kisa's terror. Of course Kisa clings to her.

Back to Hiro though!

I think we could also stand to apply to Hiro the tried-and-true, "The things you hate most in other people are the things you hate most about yourself," because it is both true in general and a definite thing Fruits Basket does (for a quick example, see Yuki saying he hates dependent people [while Kyou's like "that's you tho"] and Rin hating Yuki [because he's dependent on Haru the way she is guiltly dependent on Haru]).

I went to rewatch the episode to look at all the specific things Hiro says about Tohru and other people, only to realize the obvious flaw that like everything he says is an insult and there's too much there for me to unpack here, so I chose just a few statements that were really specifically phrased (I can't stand people who X).

I can't stand people who let themselves be pushed around so easily

Hiro also talks a couple times about Tohru having no sense of identity or agency, or not having thoughts of her own. So this reveals Hiro's inner struggle with his own complacency. He's got that bond with Akito, he's got a life that's at least partly set in stone already for him, and he's not doing anything to fight it. He didn't hide his feelings for Kisa from Akito, and then when Kisa got hurt Hiro never told her why ("It's my fault because I told Akito I like you and that made him mad, it's nothing you did") and never called Akito out on it (he can't blame Akito but when he talks about it you can tell he also knows he should blame Akito because Hiro can figure out that that was wrong. Maybe because, unlike so many others of the Zodiac, he was raised in a sensible and loving family and he knows that Akito's behavior isn't normal, isn't right, isn't acceptable).

This is probably why, even while using "I'm just a kid" to get away with his behavior, he's so frustrated with not being an adult. Because, to him, an adult wouldn't just let these things happen. He's wrong, on one hand, but on the other hand the maturity that will come with his personal growth will let him be the kind of adult he envisions.

I can't stand inconsiderate people

Hiro knows he's a jerk. He knows his snappy retorts piss people off--he enjoys that. He's super jealous about Tohru and doesn't care about her feelings, and him taking his anger out on Tohru has been hurting Kisa's feelings and that hasn't caused Hiro to check himself yet either.

He knows this, he hates this, he's not ready to deal with it yet and exercise self-control, so he's the niceness police about other people being rude.

(I think it's interesting that, when Hiro starts maturing, even though he still has that tendency to rudeness, there's also a hint that it will one day turn into a frankness that isn't just "a blunt insult is the same as honesty right?" That time when Hiro realizes that Kyou and Tohru have Feelings and he's like "Um, wait, is that okay? Are we just not going to talk about the fact that Kyou is going to be locked up alone in a room for the rest of his life???" He asks the tough questions lol. I won't give him credit for bringing up Tohru's dad issues because he was just doing that to be a dick, there was zero maturity there. In another world, though, he would've been the only other person besides Kyou [who already knew the details] to think to question Tohru about it.)

People who whine about their situation while accepting no responsibility are so irritating

Again...Hiro hates the whole situation that happened with Kisa, and hates his part in it, and didn't do anything to fix it before Tohru came along. And even then, he still hasn't fessed up to Kisa about the real circumstances. He knows he owes Kisa that, and he hasn't taken responsibility yet.

This ties into the complacency issue, but with the added fact that Hiro's said it's shitty and unfair but still is going along with it without trying to stop it. So he's an extra jerk, but he still hasn't stepped up yet.

I think maybe this is why Tohru's speech touches him, even after he just called her out on magical Mary Sue emotional healing powers. He's been nothing but his worst self around Tohru--bad enough that it's not only just Tohru but Kisa he's been upsetting as well--he's been bratty and insulting and pushed Tohru around and stolen her property and treated her like shit and--

And instead of rolling her eyes, or getting fed up and firing back, or any other response that show her low expectations for Hiro…

Tohru just stands there and says it's brave, to admit you have flaws, and that she has faith that he can and will make good on his responsibilities. Even though nothing at all that Hiro's done--and he's very well aware of this--gives any indication that he would even try. Let alone succeed.

The way that Hiro, when people call him a brat, tends to then embrace it and get even brattier--this makes me think he's the kind of kid who lives down to people's expectations, rather than trying to prove them wrong. So when Tohru without hesitation sets the bar high like that, and it pisses Hiro off--

He's gonna show you, stupid woman. You think he's a prince? You're gonna be floored at the kind of prince he'll be.

(Eventually. Much later.)

[heartsofstrangers]

What has been one of the most challenging things you’ve experienced or are currently experiencing?

“Probably drug addiction.”

Tell me about that.

“Since I was fourteen years old, the first time I ever tried it, I’ve been intermittently addicted to crystal meth. The past four years, it’s been pretty consecutive other than the four months that I spent in jail two years ago. I guess that’s the gist of it.”

When did you start using it?

“I was about fourteen years old. I used to do it every other weekend with a group of shitty friends that I had made.”

What was going on in your life at that time?

“I had just lost my best friend, who was like my brother; we grew up together. He died from complications due to diabetes. I saw that they were using it and I had taken Adderall before. I thought it was like Adderall, except you could snort it or smoke it, and I thought that’s always fun. I recognized that they were carefree on it, and I wanted to be like that, so I did it.”

What was it like the first time you got high?

“It was sketchy and I was on edge. I don’t know if you’ve done any sort of upper, but it’s intense. It actually made me feel disgusting for a while. I felt really gross the entire time and then coming down was awful, but something inside me wanted to do it again, so I did. It disconnected me from the world. All that really mattered was scribbling on a piece of paper for hours on end. I guess it was really getting lost in reality.”

How did your life unfold—were you in school at that time?

“It kind of caused me to ‘fail out’ of high school; I didn’t drop out, but failed out pretty bad. I had to retake my sophomore year on the computer and graduated at the bottom of my class because of it, or the choices I made while on it. I don’t really know if I was in control or not then.”

You talked about jail—how did you end up there?

“I got arrested leaving a drug deal in June 2015 and then, after my parents bailed me out, I stopped going to court for the probation sentence and a year and a half later, they picked me up at my older brother’s apartment at 11:00 p.m. Six bounty hunters apprehended me and  then I spent the next four months in Montgomery County. I was there for Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, New Year’s, and almost my birthday, all behind bars.”

What was that like?

“Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. It was pretty shitty and I was very confined. I was in a sixteen-man room for the most part. It was me and fifteen other people, all in a big-ass room full of bunk beds, having to stare at each other all day.”

Where did that lead you to mentally? Did you process anything in your mind about where you had been, where you wanted to go, where you were?

“I just wanted out. It kind of made me feel like an animal. In Texas, I don’t know what it’s like anywhere else, but you become state property when you’re incarcerated; you lose all your rights. Basically, you’re a body with a name. You’re not a human in there. It’s weird.”

How long ago was that?

“It was January 2017.”

Where did you end up when you were released?

“Back to my older brother’s, and he does dope too. I went right back to where I started, or stopped at midway.”

So, you were sober and clean in jail?

“Yes, while I was there.”

Did you go through withdrawal?

“I slept for the first four days. I didn’t eat or use the restroom; I just slept.”

So, you get out, move back in with your brother, and get right back into it?

“The night that I got out, I used.”

What’s your relationship like with your family, aside from your brother?

“I don’t talk to them, only whenever they speak to me and, even then, it’s usually just my mom, and it’s like once every two weeks, sometimes twice.”

What are those conversations like?

“I love you, I miss you. I love you too, I miss you too.”

Do they live locally?

“They live about two hours away.”

Do they kind of push you away due to your addiction?

“I alienated myself because I knew I’m not anyone a parent could be proud of—that’s how I feel. Because of my problem, and I don’t want them to see me like this and I won’t let them. So, I pushed myself away from them.”

Have you done that with close friends as well?

“I’ve done it with everyone.”

So, who are you associating with, dealers and other users?

“Yeah. I dated this dude for almost a year and he basically isolated himself away from me recently because of it. That really fucked me up a little bit because I feel like I put so much into it, but really it was just me high as hell, overthinking everything, all the time, slowly dissipating into nothing.”

It’s got to be a pretty lonely feeling to be that isolated.

“Yeah, but you’re never really alone when you’re a drug addict.”

Because you’re connecting with your substance.

“I’m perfectly fine with being alone, but I’m not okay with how lonely I am most times.”

Are you scared at all to continue down this path?

“Yeah, because I don’t know where my life’s going. So, I just get high and it’s like ‘where are you going now?’ to go get high.”

How can you afford to get high?

“My best friend sells it. My only friend just happens to be a drug dealer.”

Are you performing any sort of acts or anything in exchange?

“No, no, no; we’re just really good friends and misery loves company. He’s basically in the same spot I’m in.”

What are some of the things you’ve lost along the way through these years of addiction?

“Honestly, I lost my sanity, a lot of good friends, and a close tie with my family. I lost my car. I lost my license. Somehow I lost my social security card, but I don’t think that had anything to do with drugs. I lost my apartment, but that was at the beginning so that’s not a big deal.”

Where are you living now?

“I live with my friend, Pat, who is also a drug addict, but he’s a more functioning one, I should say. He’s held a job for four years and his addiction is kind of new and, ironically enough, I’m the first one he ever tried it with, which is kind of funny or fucked up.”

Have you ever been in any situations where you felt like your life was being threatened?

“No, not really. Not that I can think of, but I don’t know . . . no.”

How’s your judgment when you’re high?

“You can rationalize just about anything. For the most part, I would say it’s pretty good. There are dumb people who get addicted to drugs and there are people who are addicted to drugs who already have a good grip on reality and are able to make the right decisions or rational ones at least, but I’ve done some pretty stupid stuff.”

What are some of the stupid things that you’ve done?

“Not put the filter on a vacuum cleaner and small things like that. I’ve never done anything really stupid like rob anyone. I did, however, one time throw a brick through a window. I was super pissed off at the person who lived at the apartment and, in a fit of rage due to addiction or substance use, I picked up what was closest to me, which happed to be a chipped piece of concrete by the curb and chucked it threw the window. I don’t know how’s that going to fix it, but it made me feel better. It was really stupid.”

Prior to losing your friend, had you experienced any sort of obstacles early on in your life that taught you some coping skills to deal with grief, pain, or challenging experiences?

“To isolate; that’s all I’ve ever really known. Get over it and, if you can’t, shut up about it. That’s what I was basically taught.”

Do you want to stop?

“Yes and no. Crystal meth is the only thing that’s kept a roof over my head while, at the same time, it’s kept me on the edge of losing that. It’s the only thing that sort of keeps me connected with the real world because I have friends and acquaintances who use and who keep me from going insane living alone. At the same time, those people come and go. Those people aren’t necessarily friends you want to keep around; they’re people who are just going to bring you down because they’re going to keep you high. I’m aware of that but, at the same time, I can’t stop. So, yes and no. I was sober for about a month and moved to New Mexico with my ex. That didn’t turn out well, obviously. He flew me back here on a last-minute, overnight flight and I started using again.”

How old are you now?

“Twenty-four.”

So, you’ve been using for ten years?

“Just about.”

Any issues with your health?

“No, not that I know of. I probably have shaky hands, but so does everybody.”

Do you sleep?

“Yeah, every night, which is kind of an achievement really if you’re a crackhead like me. I’ve kind of plateaued. I’ve reached a level of tolerance that makes me have a normal sleeping schedule, which is something you really don’t want to be but, at the same time, I’m glad I’m there because now I’m normal-ish. I don’t look cracked out.”

What’s your biggest fear?

“Dying—not from drug use, though I guess that would suck too, but just dying in general, because I don’t know what’s going to happen after that. Maybe my biggest fear is actually not knowing and being unaware.”

In contrast, do you feel like you’re living?

“I feel like I’ve been dead since I was about twelve, but I don’t think that had anything to do with drugs, but the realization of how fucked up the world really is. I think I’m living in a way—I get to do shit that not everybody gets to do, like not have to work, I’m able to explore the city, and that’s what I do every day. I go to different parts of the city and sketch around, but I’m probably not really living, not in a way that’s (I guess) savory.”

Did you grow up here?

“No. I grew up two hours northeast, in a little town, Cold Springs, with about 900 people, and that’s consolidated because it’s a bunch of small towns put together.”

What brought you to Houston?

“Drugs. I bounced from circle of users to circle of users to circle of users until I ended up in Kingwood. Kingwood is right on the outskirts of Houston. I just migrated over here, made friends wherever I could, and now I’m here.”

When you agreed to do the interview, did you have any idea that you’d be talking about this?

“No, not at all. I honestly had no idea what it would be about. I was just like ‘an interview, okay, that’s fine.’ I thought maybe it was going to be ‘how do you feel about Houston’ or some sort of typical bullshit interview, but I didn’t think it would make me open my eyes to shit I’ve been closing them to or haven’t said out loud in a while. I’ve said this stuff before, ‘I don’t want to do this.’”

How does it feel to hear yourself expressing these things?

“It kind of pisses me off.”

In what way?  You’re pissed at yourself?

“Yeah, because I know I’m just going to go get high afterwards.”

Are you high now?

“No. I used, but I’m not high. I guess that’s high; I don’t really know. The last time I used was about six hours ago. I get high and then there’s other days where I just get by and, today, is a just a get by day because I didn’t do too much of it.”

What happens if you don’t use?

“I sleep and I’m dead to the world basically, which is probably what I am now, but in a different way because I’m asleep. I’ve slept for thirty-six hours straight before and my friends have asked if I had a bladder infection, and I said that I was good, just tired. When I woke up, I had muscular atrophy, where I couldn’t really feel much, and then I’d just waddle around until I found food, and then I was good.”

Would you say you’re depressed?

“Probably clinically. I used to take Pristiq, but it didn’t mix well with my meth use, so I cold turkey stopped taking it after about six months. It’s a serotonin replacement or something, but I thought it was kind of bullshit. I’ve been told before by friends that I’ve been manic; they would say ‘wow, you’re pretty manic’ and I’d say ‘yeah, I know.’”

Do you think you were like that before the drugs or has that manifested since?

“Half and half. I’ve always been kind of bipolar-ish, but this has really intensified it or brought it to a meniscus versus overflowing. If it was overflowed, I’d probably be in prison, but it’s definitely got to that point.”

What keeps you in that elevated state?

“Being aware that I’d probably go to prison, so to stay at a constant ‘that’s okay.’ It’s not necessarily the way anybody would want to live.”

What were you like as a child?

“I didn’t take ‘no’ as an answer. I wasn’t a spoiled brat or handed everything I wanted, but I didn’t have to ask for much. I never really had to go without anything. My parents weren’t wealthy, but they were comfortable, and have been that way as long as I can remember. For the most part, I’d say I was a pretty happy kid.”

How did you meet your friend who died?

“We were neighbors. He was like my brother. I don’t have close ties or close relationships with anybody like I did with him. He was the first person I could ever really say was my best friend. When you’re a kid, grandparents, aunts, uncles, parents’ and grandparents’ friends die, and  you say ‘oh, that’s sad.’ But, when your fourteen-year-old best friend dies, basically out of the blue, he just wakes up one morning and then he’s dead . . . That shit really happens, people die, people who you know die, people you’re close with die, and it’s hard. It sucks pretty bad, especially when you’re that young and you don’t really know how to take it in. You know how you’re supposed to take it in, you know how people do it, and you see it in movies, but there’s something inside of you that dies too, and you can’t wake it up. Josh was my best friend and was like a brother to me. We did just about everything together.”

What would you say to him if he was here now?

“That I’m sorry. I would tell him that I’m sorry because, at this point, I would have probably alienated myself from him too. I guess given if he had left and came back. Yeah, I would tell him that I was sorry because I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted to see me like this.”

What do you think he would say to you?

“I don’t know. He’d probably call me an idiot, but I’m not sure.”

If you could go back to your twelve- or fourteen-year-old self in that time in your life, as the adult you are now, what would you say to that child?

“Don’t do it. You’re going to fuck up. Don’t do it, but that twelve- or fourteen-year-old probably wouldn’t listen anyway. He’d probably think that I was stupid because ‘no’ is not an answer and ‘don’t’ is not a reason.”

What were you passionate about at that age?

“I really liked art and liked to draw. I haven’t actually picked up a pen or pencil and drawn anything since I was about seventeen. My senior year of high school was a pretty heavy usage year. I was focused on doing that versus something that made me happy.”

How does it feel when you’re drawing or creating something?

“It’s instant gratification, kind of like vacuuming is to me now. I did it, it’s there, that’s something I did, it’s something I completed on my own, other people get to see it, I get to see it, know that it’s done, know that I did it, and I like it. It’s a successful feeling, but I haven’t felt that in a minute.”

Did you have any other outlets that you felt a connection to?

“I listened to music a lot. Even now, I listen to music all the time. I never played any instruments and I’m not really talented in any other way, but I like music.”

Do you write at all?

“No, not at all. I don’t even remember the last time I wrote something down. My handwriting probably looks like someone trying to write with their left hand. I’m not used to a pencil or pen; it’s unfamiliar.”

What’s the first thing you do in the morning when you wake up?

“I drink coffee sometimes; that or Coke, which is terrible for you. I eat, smoke a cigarette, and then smoke dope (I guess use).”

Have you ever felt hopeless and suicidal?

“Yes, at least twice a week. I feel like I’ve reached a point where there’s no way of turning around. I’m twenty-four years old and I already hold a drug possession felony. No one’s going to want to hire me, so I haven’t tried to look anymore. I have basically no friends, especially if I were to stop. My family and I aren’t really close and they don’t want to help me anyway. I feel like there’s not a good enough reason to want to keep living but, at the same time, I’m kind of too much of a pussy to kill myself.”

So, you’re just kind of slowly and passively doing it through using drugs every day and not taking care of yourself.

“Pretty much.”

Is this what you thought you’d be doing tonight?

“No. I knew I was going to be doing an interview, but didn’t think it would be such a reflective one.”

If there was someone else out there listening to this or reading this who could relate to where you are in your life and where you’ve been, and possibly feeling hopeless or numb, or even just alone, what message would you want them to hear and know?

“That they’re not alone. There are other people just as fucked up as you are. I have a really bad mouth, it’s probably just another side effect of drug use. They’re not the only ones who feel nothing or like they are that.”

Is there any part of you that sees a different future for yourself other than your situation right now?

“Yeah, but it’s all sort of hazy. If I were to try to picture it, I couldn’t put the pieces together. It’s more like an audio clip. I can hear myself ‘all right, you’re sober, you’re good, life’s okay,’ but I can’t actually see it. It’s like there’s someone with my voice telling me that, but I don’t see it with my own eyes or inside my own head. I can’t picture it and to me that just tells me it’s not a thing. If you can see it, you can achieve it, and I can’t see it.”

Is it possible that that’s faith? Do you have faith?

“I have something; I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if I’m pessimistic or I’m realistic, but I don’t think I have faith in myself; that’s what it is.”

Why?

“Why should I? Maybe I just doubt myself more than I have faith in myself.”

All the various skills you’ve developed to sustain what you’re doing today could be used in the opposite direction to sustain you in a way that you might thrive.

“I’ve managed to be able to live without any sort of resources other than the kindness of strangers for the past three years, so that’s good; that makes me something.”

That’s strength.

“I’m probably evil. I don’t think I’m a bad person for it—surviving strictly on the kindness of others. It sounds terrible when you say it like that. I’m just getting by how I can.”

What would give you hope?

“Probably better resources. If I knew there would be something to catch me whenever I fell off this horrible plane ride of whatever it is I’m going through now. If there was a safety net that would give me hope. Now knowing that I would hit rock bottom and fall to my death if I were to stop, I won’t stop because of that. If there was something to catch me, and if I knew it would be okay and there was a better support system other than the people who are constantly throwing dope in my pipe, then I probably would stop.”

It’s hard to see that in any situation. I can only speak for myself, but for me, I could never see what was going to catch me either, whether I continued to perpetuate self-destruction and didn’t want to not feel pain anymore, but didn’t know how to end it without inflicting more pain on myself, or to follow my heart and intuition and move in the other direction. My life started to change when I listened to my heart and moved in the other direction, but it was just as scary because I couldn’t see how I was going to have the resources I needed and somehow (and I’m not a believer in your traditional God or any type of religion) miraculously I had what I needed when I needed it. It didn’t ever come in the way I expected it to, and yet it was there, some sort of ground beneath my feet, and that gave me faith and restored my faith that if I had enough courage to continue to be vulnerable, enough to step out of my old behaviors, to step out of the routine, and step out of the comfort, even if it is perpetuating discomfort—somehow it’s familiar so it’s comfortable—if I had the vulnerability and courage to do that, something would catch me. I remember early on looking for people who were going to save me or thinking that all these various opportunities that presented themselves were going to be the quick fix that would save me. What I continued to learn, and to repeat over and over again through making that mistake of thinking someone else was going to save me, is that I had the power to save myself all the while. All the resources I needed were within me. I had to think them into reality: thought, action, reality. Yet somehow, we train ourselves to think it’s going to come the opposite way, that it comes from the outside in, but that wasn’t my experience. I don’t know if that makes any sense to you.

“It does.”

I can relate to that feeling of being stuck. You know you want to get off that ride, but you don’t know if there will be anything to catch you if you’re to get off. So, you stay stuck.

“I made up this fun little terminology of being plateaued. You’ve reached a level where there’s nothing much around other than the great distance between you and the ground and it’s not high enough to put you up in the clouds where you need to be. So, you’re there, drifting above the surface of rock bottom and normalcy.”

It’s like being in limbo.

“Yeah, or purgatory. I live in purgatory. Actually, it might be hell. I live in gray, very gray, not a whole lot of color there.”

Are there moments where you see or feel color in your life?

“There’s a lot of blue and, when it’s not blue, it’s red but, for the most part, it’s gray. I don’t really feel much but, whenever I do, it’s usually just sadness. I get so sad and I feel like I can’t do much about it, so again, I get angry, then I get so mad that I cry and that makes me even more sad, and then I’m mad that I’m crying, so it’s purple or gray. It’s not really a colorful journey—this life. It’s like an old-school comic book, it’s all grayscale with a little blue and a little red.”

What do you know about the process of grieving?

“I don’t. I know that it sucks. I don’t know how to get over it. You can either sweep it under the rug or you can actually deal with it, and I’ve just been sweeping it under the rug. Anything that I’ve ever lost, I’ve been ‘all right, shut that down, shut that down’ and only ever pick up where I left off, which is having it suck basically, whenever someone lifts that rug up for me ‘thanks.’ So, I guess I don’t know much about the process of grieving.”

I’m not particularly sure about the order, but there are five stages of grief. I think you’ve mentioned a few of them, like the deep sadness, the anger, and there’s a stage of blame, transferring that uncomfortable feeling onto someone else, making them responsible for your suffering. There’s also acceptance, which I think is a hard one to come to; we avoid a lot by repressing. As long as we can keep it stuffed down, we don’t have to look at it or accept that it happened. Until we do that, we’re not truly moving on, whether it’s grief or trauma. I had a woman tell me in an interview, and it’s very profound, she said when she started to heal the trauma, the addictions started to go away, and that really stuck with me. I believe that we continue to connect with whatever our substance is, whether it’s our phones, drugs, alcohol, money, or sex, to avoid looking at the wound, but the only way to heal a wound is to treat it with compassion and kindness.

“Not a big band aid?”

No. I know in our culture and in our families, we’re taught to discharge pain, to move away from it, and stuff it down.

“The sun gives you a sunburn, stay away from it kind of thing.”

Yes, but growth, transformation, awareness, wisdom, empathy, joy, and love are all qualities that are developed through leaning into pain and discomfort, not from running away from it. Everything that we long for—that sense of real meaningful connection, fulfillment, sustenance in our life, and purpose—is on the other side of that pain, and there’s no way to skip over it or go around it.

“You got to go through it and deal with it.”

Yeah. It’s shitty. I don’t know what’s worse, spending your lifetime running away from it or feeling shitty for a period of time, then having some relief, and maybe recognizing that you’re resilient, you do have potential, and there is more to life than this grayscale and constant fear of when is the bottom going to drop out.

“I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom a couple of times, like literally scraping my teeth on its surface is where I’ll probably want to stop but, at the same time, I’ve probably hit that part too. It seems like chilling at the mantle.”

Do you have a favorite song lyric, mantra, or something that someone has said to you, maybe even your friend or your parents, that has stuck with you that you’d like to share?

“There are lyrics to a song that says ‘if you talk me out of my needs and stitch me up at the seams then I can live in my dreams’.”

What’s that mean to you?

“It’s kind of sad, if you think about it. If I didn’t have to do the things I have to do, then I’d be happy. If I didn’t have to wake up and get high, I’d probably be okay or if I didn’t require x amount of blah, blah, blah then I’d be cool, things would be okay, and life would be a dream. But, that’s not how it is and I’m living a nightmare. Yeah, talk me out of my needs and stitch me up at the seams, I can live in my dreams.”

Do you think it’s possible to heal?

“Yeah. You just got to rip off that band aid I was telling you about. I don’t know. I feel like, metaphorically, my band aid is waterproof and I don’t want to pull it off because it really hurts, and I don’t want to deal with it, so I slowly pick at it, but eventually I just stick it back on. Yeah, it’s possible to heal; tons of people do it, right?”

Yes. It’s a matter of surrendering. It’s like showing up and saying ‘I don’t know how this is going to turn out.’

“But doing it anyway.”

Yeah. That’s courage, right?

“Yeah. I don’t think I have much of that. Like I said earlier, the fear of the unknown, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do it, so I don’t try it.”

What’s worse? It seems like you have more to lose by continuing and knowing that the rest of your life may look like it does right now or there’s a risk that you may feel some discomfort for a while, but there’s a chance that things could get better.

“I don’t know. I should probably stop using, because it’s not helping me. I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s hurting me either, but that’s probably the drugs talking.”

Who would be the first person you would call, if you were to make that choice?

“I’d probably call my mom. Yeah, that’s probably who I’d call. I’d probably tell her to come get me. I’ve done it before. I’ve told her ‘I need you to come get me. I need you to fuckin’ stop what you’re doing and come get me’ and she has; she would do it in a heartbeat. The last time I called her and said that was about three years ago. I’m not too sure how or if she would be okay with it or how she would go about it, but I’d call her. I need to call her actually.

“Not only for that, but I miss my family a little bit, a lot. I haven’t seen them. I spent that one Christmas in jail, but the two after that—I didn’t go, the one before that—I didn’t go. I haven’t been home in so long. I haven’t actually seen my mom in a year—that sucks. For a long time, she was my best friend. She was always a shoulder and an ear. It’s been a while, a long time.”

I hope you do make that phone call.

“We Snapchat sometimes, which is kind of weird. We’re actually Snapchat friends, but I haven’t snapchatted her in about six months. I sent her a text about two weeks ago, and that’s about it. I haven’t heard her voice in a long time. I can still remember what she sounds like, which is kind of surprising. Usually whenever I cut things off like that, I completely disconnect from it. I don’t know what they look like. I don’t know what they feel like. I remember her and her voice; it’s weird.”

Do you think she would answer the phone now if you called?

“She’s probably asleep right now, but yeah she might answer. If not, she would text me ‘what?’, but I think she would answer.”

I hope you make that call after this interview. How has it felt to talk about these thoughts, feelings, and experiences with me tonight?

“Surprisingly, not bad. Like I said, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. At the beginning, I thought it was probably going to be annoying, but I didn’t find it that annoying because there was a level of comfort versus judgment. I didn’t feel very judged at all.”

It’s a beautiful thing, you being vulnerable.

“Is that what this is?”

Yeah, and you being met with empathy. It kind of kills shame, which I think feeds addiction.

“Probably, yeah, needing to hide something.”

It’s a heavy weight.

“It will suffocate you. That’s always good.”

It’s lethal; it really is.  Do you think it’s possible by sharing your thoughts, feelings, and experiences so courageously tonight, as you are, that someone on the receiving end gains some hope, inspiration, or at least a sense that they’re not alone?

“I would hope so, because this wasn’t that easy to do. Yeah, I think they probably could if they aren’t stubborn assholes like me, and listen all the way through. Because if I were handed this to listen to, read, or watch, I’d probably stop paying attention halfway through; depending on my state of mind I might say ‘I don’t want to hear that.’ If I actually listened to it or if someone like me listened to it from A to B, they’d probably like it; they’d probably get it.”

Yeah.  Thank you.

“Thank you. You’re welcome.”

I’m really proud of you. This was a really courageous thing to do and you skipped right into it.

“I ripped the band aid off that time.”

You did. I hope you’ll continue to do that.

“There’s a bunch of open blisters and sores here—this sounds so weird.”

Thanks.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

@uberoll-oystercrackers late night (early morning?) posting here but this is super nice ty and also again retroactively thank you additionally for all the long replies & kind tags you give

like really yeah it’s like, on the one hand, it’s fairly sucky having to have this thing where im always jumping the gun on considering someone Maybe An Friend and then having to remind myself / be reminded of the fact that like no probably not, which is true and yet sucks, which is just how some stuff is!! like sometimes stuff just is Not Good and is not ever going to Not Hurt, despite the fact you can kinda get better at living with it. and like this one isnt a huge deal even tho the larger problem of when ur like, lonely &/or isolated is kind of a whole real deal……

like it’s strange having these contradictory problems with it…..like, Being Myself has never really just been something i can Naturally do, so even just trying to be nice is like oh lord am i being ~manipulative~, and im always too prone to treat interactions like ive got to placate the other person, and then also just like….not having amazing social skills anyways in the sense that i know a lot of times i come across ~off~ to people and can’t really do a lot about that, but also, i feel like i’m always overcompensating for like, enthusiasm and just the fact i like to Get Silly and maybe i’ll act too cool~n~collected or come off like im trying to be all Smart and Smarmy and like jeez no……it doesnt help that when i was younger i generally preferred interacting with adults and so probably was trying to come across as clever and when i was wanting someone to like me i’d be real nervous and try to go too hard in seeming the opposite lol……oh the legacy of the time i found out my mom’s childhood friend who was funny and cool to us thought i was bookish (true) but like also snobby or something lmao like ah jeez i probably made too many sarcastic jokes about things….but oh well i was just like 10-ish at the time.

anyways tho i feel like that still kicks in and when i get the sense someone is cool and it’d be cool if they thought i was cool too i’m like Well So Then i gotta PLAY it cool!! and then like oh no am i coming across as a jerk? or an trying-to-be-an-intellectual?? i always have a lot of thoughts and i do go off when its like, also tied in to Opinions of mine, so im like, oh no am i coming across as trying to tell someone i think they should think exactly this?? or if i try to Be Witty and Tell Jokes are they just coming off as snarky b/c i hope not especially since a lot of times my actual Lighthearted Snark gets read as “i hate this and think its dumb af” lol. ahhhh i just do not know!! like, i wanna sort of dial back my Warmth b/c i can get enthused fast and i have a tendency to get too attached to ppl too fast, which really only sucks for me, but still!! yet i dont wanna rein it in too much and try to overcompensate and come off like im Eternally Unimpressed and don’t really care and etc etc and just…..idk its wild it’s hard to tell how i may be socializing awkwardly lmao ahhh….and on top of it all, i manage to be godawful at realizing when other ppl actually like me. like, that sort of sounds like The Opposite but i guess its just more of that problem of thinking that im going to always bother people….a lot of times it takes me like, months or a year (or two or three) to realize that someone who willingly interacts w me during that time probably does genuinely like me and is maybe a friend. wrow

uhhhh anyways lord that was all just. tangentially related. im Tangents

UH more to the point!!!! the good news is that yeah i don’t have to think “oh we’re totally real bffs” about anyone to really enjoy and appreciate Our Interactions…..and like i do have real appreciation and gratitude for basically all nice attention lol like, if a single reblog of smthing has kind comments, if someone cool just Likes a few posts, talking on occasion or like, ever at all. cuz for real The Little Stuff has always been a really good thing for years now, especially since there’s been plenty of times i havent really had anything happening In Person that was like….good interactions or ppl who were able to hear my actual thoughts and feelings about whatever and still be interested in interacting with me. cuz in terms of not being isolated and in what i find it easy to talk about and how, Online Interactions have been genuinely important and impactful in a positive way for like a solid decade now since i was able to be consistently Online and have my own accounts and stuff in the first place

so like yeah totally i really do appreciate stuff like that. i think its pretty incredible whenever anybody just like, thinks of me, and likes me. having None Of That Feeling is supremely trash and i so appreciate that i don’t have to feel like there’s nothing and that nobody out there in the world is aware of me, and yet i don’t need it to be that like, anyone is Constantly aware of me and like, intensely invested, cuz that’s just not how it goes lol and even kinda meaning a little bit to someone and having my tiny presence in their life be a positive one is a great thought and i really do appreciate it. Unfortunately for like….my entire life, The Contempt Of Others has been a consistent #thing i’m dealing with and it’s not great!! like yeah fortunately ive had the “felt so bad about myself that it eventually circled back around and now self loathing isnt too much of an issue for me” thing, but it still sucks experiencing it lol…..having any testimonials that like, whatever shit im talking about @ myself is fun to read, or i seem okay, or its fun to talk, etc etc, like thats fantastic really

and the kinds of leaf thoughts too, yeah, that kind of thing is nice to know too lol. i was hoping you were ok like, ten hours before i saw you posting again lol…..we’re out here……..

like yeah ldmbgglh whatever my weird problems are with being overexcited abt any Potential Friendship, and also being bad at realizing if people do like me, and also just being Weird and not great at talking, and overcompensating for whatever and maybe coming across too Coldly when rly im a fiery dumbass, wanting friends but also wanting not to be burned by getting ahead of things and being reminded that most ppl aren’t like, as starved for even just friendly interactions……..i’m better at navigating and handling it in some ways but c’est a m’ess!!! aaaggbfg

really what im trying to say is i do appreciate that sort of thing a lot yeah. i could very well Not be thought of by anybody and that would suck and the fact that i get to know that i am is a really great thing. maybe i couldve said this all better last night cuz i was kinda in my feelings abt Life a little but then also it was in a sort of déspresso way so, maybe this is okay lol….

also i worry i don’t express affection and appreciation enough!!! it’s not that i’m like Oh i don’t want to Commit to Being Friends ew…..it’s that i don’t wanna be the one pressuring someone else into being like uh oh i have to play up being invested in milo!! but then maybe my playing-it-cool just makes other ppl do the same thing or think i don’t care or something. like oh i appreciate this person a ton and think they’re great and they’ve been kind to me but if we only talk so often and obviously im not There for them and involved in their life in the way a ~real friend~ would be, maybe it would just ring hollow to say i love them, for example. lord lol……. it’s all “oh don’t dial down your kindness and affection” and yet also “but don’t wanna inadvertently push other people or Be Weird or get myself invested in something where i don’t mean as much to the other person not cuz they suck but because like, of course im just a fun internet acquaintance, which is fine!!” ahhhhhh the challenges. anyways!!!!!!!

the point is well i do like ppl yeah and i really appreciate ppl liking me. every now and then they do it online or even in person and thats just a Joy and i wish things were more secure!!! i also have to not even necessarily want ppl to get invested in me in case things go to shit too soon or whatever and it doesnt help that ~being open~ means talking abt depressingass stuff sometimes that like, i don’t mind being open about, but i also don’t want to put on other ppl. which, sidenote on that, im feeling relatively alright all these recent months even if im not technically thriving; it’s okay. it’s a hot mess! but that’s just How It Is sometimes!! it’s what it is. and ive had support from ppl in big and small ways that i know i could have had to go without and all the ways ppl are nice to me count for a whole lot and i have appreciated it, and do appreciate it, and will continue to appreciate it.

tldr 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

[biayahlife]

Becky and the No Good Terrible Tabs

I have a lot on my mind lately. As much as I’d wished 2021 was better than 2020, so far it has not proved to be so. In my last therapy appointment I’d mentioned right off the bat that I felt like I had 185 tabs open in my brain and at any given moment I wasn’t sure which one needed my attention and as such, I didn’t know what I could close or which ones I should prioritize. 185 tabs is too many. It’s overwhelming and exhausting. It causes executive dysfunction to the worst degree. My therapist suggested a simple exercise: write out every single tab so I can see them in one place and maybe set them down for a minute instead of carrying them constantly.

I spent some time writing down all my “tabs”; these tabs ranged anywhere from “I am constantly worried about Cinnamon” to “WORK” to “I fucking miss my friends.” I counted the lines after I felt that I was done: 120 tabs. That’s more and less than I expected. A bit overwhelming even once laid out given that it is 120, however putting them on paper felt akin to actually setting them down and reducing the heavy load on my brain. With them laid out in a visual manner I have been able to spend some time thinking about what I can do to alleviate my concerns and which solutions would be best to prioritize first.

I decided to start with “I fucking miss my friends.” There are clear steps that I can take to make sure I can see my friends again and start operating in a pre-pandemic social fashion. 

Work on getting a covid vaccine

Schedule time with Miayah and her boyfriend

These two are in the bubble (Miayah obviously lives with me) and they’re my closest friends so it makes sense to schedule actual activities together to make the most of our hang outs. 

Reach out to my friends that I haven’t seen in a while and make sure they know I’m still thinking about them and that my love for them hasn’t dissipated with the time apart. 

I’ve been really bad about reaching out to my circle of friends and have become increasingly isolated as the months have dragged on. 

This doesn’t mean that I’d see all of them as that wouldn’t be safe - I could text and call and Zoom various people to let them know that they’re on my mind and that when everyone in the circle is vaccinated then we can get together again.

And so I started taking actionable steps to address this “tab” this week. I scheduled my first Moderna vaccination with the City of Austin, spent 90 minutes in line at the activity center, and got a shot in the arm. This is the first, most important, most significant step that I can take to make sure that I don’t continue to be so isolated. I know that the covid vaccines are a bit controversial and that not everyone is confident in their safety or necessity but for me and especially for Miayah they’re essential. They’ve been cleared for emergency use, there are multiple variations that have been tested by multiple agencies, and the side effects are minimal if anything at all.

I’m terrified of long haul covid. I don’t think with my immune system being as strong as it is that I would end up being hospitalized (I mean we really don’t know though) but there have been perfectly healthy people that end up with significant complications lasting months and months and months with no end in sight and that scares me so much. I’m also scared of Miayah being hospitalized. At my previous job there was a particular employee that would show up sick constantly. He was a great dude but was one of those people that said “oh I’ll power through it, I’m not that sick, I don’t want to miss work, I’ll just stay in my office and not infect anyone.” Inevitably he would leave his office and infect people. I know for a fact that sometimes I would bring things home and Miayah would get sick (even if I didn’t) and she’d be down for weeks. There was a time that I got sick for about 3 days and Miayah caught the cold and she was down for almost a month solid. If she got covid we don’t know what would happen and it’s too much of a risk to try and see a lot of people without her vaccinated.

My next step was to schedule time with Miayah and her boyfriend (who is really my friend too). Side note, I met her boyfriend first on a dating app and we went on a couple dates. He’s a wonderful, funny man and I’m glad we met. Miayah saw his profile on another dating site and decided, since I wasn’t particularly attracted to him, to go on a date with him. They hit it off and started dating and it’s been peachy ever since. We’ve discussed the fact that even if they break up at some point that we’re keeping him as a friend because he’s too cool to let go. He gets no choice XD. As you’ve probably seen in other posts, Miayah and I have been sorting out the backyard and since we have furniture now the three of us have been hanging out together in the nice weather we’ve been having. Additionally we’ll watch movies together, have light cocktails together, and bitch about work. We even made pawprint paintings with the dogs one night; Miayah’s boyfriend was kind enough to take photos. These moments together have been refreshing and oh so needed. I’m glad I have multiple people in my bubble and that I don’t live alone. That would be unbearable.

Third, I started reaching out to friends that I haven’t talked to in a while. I sent messages to a throuple that Miayah and I met years ago that we absolutely adore, our friends that have 4 kids together (our godkids!), and a couple other people in my social circles that I would consider close. I let them know that I love them dearly, that they’re still on my mind, and that I look forward to seeing them again soon. We set up a Zoom call with some of them and had tea together for an hour or so. There was fancy tea in lovely buddha glasses we found at Big Lots of all places; much laughter happened with the purchase of these molded glasses. We reminisced about old parties we have thrown and attended in the past and rekindled our desires to party again.

As I’m sure we’ve mentioned, Miayah and I love to throw parties, especially in fourth quarter. We have a Halloween party (the biggest of the year!), a Black Friday party, and a Christmas pajama party and cookie exchange. We throw tea parties in the beginning of the year, sometimes throw a birthday party or two, and do dinner parties all the time. Speaking with my friends again, that I have isolated from, was a good way to remind everyone that in the future, with more people vaccinated, that we can gather like that again and have a celebration of life. Even when things are difficult the parties, large and small, really bolster my spirit and I’m sure that’s the same for many people in our lives.

Ultimately these steps addressing the singular tab in my brain have been worth it and a good suggestion from my therapist. I know I have 119 tabs left but since this one, “I fucking miss my friends,” has been looked at, turned over, and addressed, the 119 don’t feel so heavy. I know that slowly with social support things are going to become less of a burden and I won’t feel so lonely. Many of these tabs would still be issues with or without the pandemic but this way with outside support I’ll feel like I can address them all.

How do you reach out for support when you have lots of things on your plate?

[spamzineglasgow]

(HOT TAKE) Notes on a Conditional Form by The 1975, part 2

In the second instalment of a two part HOT TAKE (read part one here) on The 1975′s latest LP, Notes on a Conditional Form (Dirty Hit, 2020), Scott Morrison ponders the tricksterish art of writing about music, before riffing on the history of the album as form, questions around genre, nostalgia and a sense of the contemporary, not to mention that saxophone solo and why Stravinsky would love this album.

Dear Maria,

> How pleasant it feels to begin a review with a note to a friend.

> Shoutout/cc:/@FrankO’Hara – I always liked his idea to write a poem like it’s addressed to just one other person. It strikes me as interesting to begin a piece of criticism in the same way. So, this is the mode I will try to inhabit throughout.

> As I read your words, and pondered, and learned, I was caught in the twin state of delighting each time you hit upon something already identified in my own thoughts – some of which I will expand upon here - and equally delighted every time you wrote something I could or would not. Such is the joy of conversation.

> I suppose in this preamble between speakers, which keeps up the pretence of our characters conversing - which will, inevitably, lapse as the form of this review gives way to a longer, more oneiristic, probably, onanistic, possibly, enquiry into the album (an act impossible in real conversation, by the way, imagine, imagine someone actually speaking for this long, how boring and alienating that would be, and yet that is usually what criticism is). Anyway, before all that, to help set the scene, I should mention a few ‘real world’ details. All of which happened either online, of course, or in isolation, because that, as you mention, is the real world now, during the violent interlude of Covid-19.

> I was delighted – that word again, repetitions and patterns begin anew already – to be asked to write this review. Firstly, because, like you say, I am a fan of The 1975. But also, because I am a writer and I am a musician and I am trying just now to forge a new mode of writing about music, one that can be both analytical (technically, socially, historically) and expressive (personally, lyrically, emotionally). And, most of all because I have always been, at best, suspicious, and, at worst, dismissive, of album reviews.

> I wrote, in our Messenger chat, ‘I usually find music reviews unhelpful’, which makes me sound like a bit of a dick, really. But what I meant is, what I meant is.

> There’s a saying I think about a lot, as the aforementioned writer and musician who writes about music: ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’ (Martin Mull, Frank Zappa, or Elvis Costello, or any of the other people that sharp quote is blurrily misattributed to.)

> Incidentally, I would love to see a dance about architecture. But sometimes I think the sentiment of the statement is true. Will writing about music always be missing the point? Will it, through words, ever really be able to get to the essentially wordless essence of music? But I am a writer. And I am a musician. And I like writing about music. (Incidentally, I like making music about writing less). Yet I do feel there is some truth to the saying, I guess. Twists and turns. Try again. Here is another way of saying what I am trying to say.

> Music reviews make me hate adjectives. And I love adjectives. But often commercial reviews – for dozens of reasons, many of them valid, most of them related to that capital prefix – become attempts to describe a sound, invariably an artist’s ‘new sound’, again related to that capital prefix. Often, the goal is to generate press, to entice people to listen – or not – and so feed the music industry and the market. And to describe these new sounds, adjectives are piled-up like car crashes. Trying to describe a sound at any great length is, I think, ultimately fated to fail. Adjectives, up to a point, can provide greater and ever-more strident clarity. But, after a certain point – that appears very quickly in most pop reviews - saturation point is reached, and the clarity disappears, and we are left very far away from the music we were originally trying to pile word upon word to reach. ‘Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied’, you might say, if you were into foreshadowing. Which I am (obviously).

> So, I suppose, to continue thinking out loud (in silence, at my keyboard) I am interested in writing around music. Not describing the sounds (‘Let sounds be themselves’, says John Cage, whispering in my memory’s ear), but I am interested in writing that can tease out some of the ideas in and around the music and extend them in new directions. That, I think, is a different and interesting kind of dance worth attempting.

> We understand a review, then, as this kind of dance: as a record of the reviewer’s experience of listening to a record, which will accept that it will largely take as its subject the listening, and not the record. Even better if it’s a dialogue between two. So, here’s what I think about the album.

*

> Ok, before I talk about the album, actually, I would like to talk about a book. I hope that’s alright. There is no objective correlation between the album and the book except the proximity in time in which I experienced them. Let’s get that out of the way at the very beginning. The book has nothing to do with the album. But it does have something to do with how I heard it.

> The book is called An Experiment with Time. I mentioned this to you once already over Zoom. It was written in 1927. My copy belonged to my grandfather, in fact, and his writing – and so his pen and then his hand and then his whole vanished being – appeared occasionally at marginal or pivotal points throughout the text. That was part of what I liked about it, I guess.

> The book – which I allowed Wikipedia to tell me only after I had pushed my way through it – is regarded as an imaginative curiosity, but one which science has never taken seriously. That’s fine for me, because I am far more familiar, fluid and fluent in the language and implications of the imagination that I am of science.

> The book, broadly in two halves, sets out in its first strange span experiences of premonitions in dreams. That will give you the idea of the kind of science book it is. The second half is an attempt at a logical, philosophical, and occasionally mathematical explanation of Time that can account for these premonitory fissures.

> It posits that, in addition to the three dimensions of space (height, breadth and depth, I suppose), that time is a fourth dimension in our universe. I’ve heard that said, but I never really got it before. I do now, and it is very beautiful, because it begins to make me imagine, how, like a sculptor, I can ply, fold and shape with this new dimension. You can imagine how this might be useful to a musician, music being an art that can only exist through time.

> Anyway, the book then goes on to posit that a fourth dimension in which something can be observed to travel (our consciousness), must necessarily imply an observer in a fifth dimension to observe that travel, and then one in a sixth dimension, and so on, ad inifitum, infinite regress, serial time.

> I confess this somewhat surpassed the boundaries of my metaphysics (and/or silently slipped over my head), but the image of the infinite regress has stayed with me, the clickanddrag of old Windows windows ossified and pulled to leave twisting, spiralling trails; the gold-tipped rhythm of tenement window embrasures, repeating, far off, clickanddragged up a hill (hints and twists of Escher), on my daily walks.

> Wikipedia later told me that an infinite regress is a shaky ground on which to base a philosophical proof. Again, this is fine for me: I am a bad philosopher, because I am not competitive, and so this does not bother me very much.

> The infinite regress is a beautiful image, with lots of possibility in it for further imaginings, and it entrances me. So, keep this idea of serial observers and the limitless extension it implies close, please (foreshadowing again, you’re welcome).

*

> I will switch now, briefly, too briefly, from critic to fanboy (I contain multitudes, etc.).  

> Notes on a Conditional Form as an album title made me smile a smile that was very close to a wince or wink. Classic Matty, was probably the thought that came next. You have already summarised dastardly, dear, endearing, calamitous Matty, so I will move on assuming that, Matty Healy, yeah, I know.

> Back to the critic. The conditional form, in this review has already been (drumroll, eyeroll) music reviews themselves. See part one.

> Now I would like to take the album as the form in question – not this album, but albums generally, as this album is an exploration of the album form. The Album, capitalised.

> Albums have become normalised. But let’s play dumb for a moment – one of the cleverest things we can do - and we’ll see that albums are anything but inevitable, especially in the boundless age of streaming.

> Before this, albums used to be defined as collections with physical bounds. The capacity of a CD; before that, a length of magnetic tape; before that, the edge of a vinyl, a shellac, a wax cylinder. That about takes us back to the start of recorded audio media, I think.

> After Edison’s initial, waxy curiosities, albums began - like most things we love and hate - as a product. The form of the album was a circle. The music was a line. The edge of the line was the end of time. Marcel Duchamp’s Rotoreliefs, as a fun aside. And, as another, did you know that there’s a funny B-plot in all of this to do with Beethoven. (It’s always to do with fucking Beethoven.) Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony became the arbitrary marker for the desired length of the CD. It had never before been possible to fit the symphony onto a single, uninterrupted piece of media. And so, the B-plot goes, this is why the standard CD holds the amount of time that it does.

> Anyway, regardless of who shaped them, physical recorded media have, since their staggered births, profoundly shaped culture. Pop songs, especially singles, are still 3 and a half minutes long because that was the maximum amount of time that could be squeezed onto a 78, in the shellac days. Time was short and simple then, seemingly.

> Notes on a Conditional Form is 81 minutes long. It had 8 singles leading up to it, released over a span of ten months. Clearly, physical boundaries and marketing timelines, are not being treated in the usual way. You could just release singles forever now. But the fact this ended up as an album shows some belief in the concept beyond the physical and, yes, the commercial. Let’s press on, look elsewhere.

> Since we’ve started talking about classical music – ok, since I started talking about classical music – I’d like to dwell there for a moment, because there are foreshadows of The Album, conceptually speaking (and this album specifically) several layers up, several parenthesis ago, criticism as serial digression, in classical music.

> Collecting songs as albums was a favourite pastime of the Romantics, early emos. @FranzSchubert, @ClaraSchumann, @JohannesBrahms – there’s another B-plot in that trio if you want to look it up, by the way. Also, Clara Schumann is overlooked, like all female composers, because the classical music world is deeply patriarchal. It’s important to say that whenever we can.

> Anyway, the Romantics did not develop the album as a physical form – the only available recording medium at that time was sheet music, which they did sell in a big way, actually. But really, they helped develop the album as a conceptual form. They collected a group of shorter songs to make a larger statement – Schubert especially. In the 19th century, this was known as a song cycle, a lovely phrase, that makes me think of cycling through meadows, which I have done more than usual recently, as part of my state-sanctioned exercises, though the meadow was in fact an overgrown golf course, and no less lovely for it.

> Schubert’s Die Winterreise is a classic example of the song cycle – and another example of the emo-Romantic - a cycle of poems set to music that take the listener on a journey over time. Sound familiar? Albums. Song cycles. Song spokes. Meadows. Grasses and wildflowers. Meandering journeys.

> Anyway, here we finally return to Notes on a Conditional Form. Collecting songs together allows for an exploration of ideas that can evolve or expand over time – a Brief Inquiry, you might say. Art as a tool of investigation. Process. And this album certainly does that. You already touched on some of the ideas in the album: the climate crisis, the Anthropocene, digital communication, social unrest, calls to action, my favourite lyric on that theme, while we’re here:

Wake up, wake up, wake up, we are appalling

And we need to stop just watching shit in bed

And I know it sounds boring and we like things that are funny

But we need to get this in our fucking heads-

> You explore these ideas well so I will not pursue them more for now. Thank you!

> The other effect of collecting songs – or anything together – is that it gives birth to form. (Gasp, he said the title of the movie!)

> Yes, collecting things together as an album is what creates the form in all senses of the word – physical, commercial, conceptual. Form, pure form, is not the things, or the arrangement of the things, but the relationship between the arranged things. Glimpsing this is like getting a delicious glimpse of time as a fourth dimension. As I may have already let slip, I am very interested in time. And so, I am naturally interested in musical forms, which can only be apprehended through time, with time, thanks to time – thank you, time. We don’t often say that.

*

> This is where I will, at last - god, imagine I had been speaking at you this whole time - this is where I will at last get into the main topic of this review. The remarkable form of this album.

> Wait, sorry, one more thing before I do. A really quick one. As well as time, musical form also needs contrast. For sections to appear as distinct, and thus for us to clearly apprehend the difference between them, and thus get a glimpse of Form, they must contrast with one another, for how else would we apprehend change, notice borders, know we are somewhere else. (An interesting digression here is process music, which I love dearly, and which has an entirely different relationship with form. Look it up, if you like.)

> Anyway, for our purposes now, musical form requires contrast. This could be achieved in many ways: traditionally, it was done with different melodies or harmonies; but it could be done with volume, instrumentation, tempo, texture etc. etc.

> The main way that this album delineates its striking – and, to my mind, for what it’s worth, unique and new – form, how it creates its contrast, is using all of the above tricks, but, even more so, by contrasting styles/genres. This was immediately what struck me and thrilled me about this album, and it’s kind of funny – for me as the annoying writer, perhaps less so for you, the reader, I mean listener – that it’s taken me 2,534 words to mention it. This I think is the brilliance of this record. This is why we can call it not just contemporary, but new.

> The 1975 have always been shifting, but never like this. This album contains, sometimes literally right next to each other: punk, orchestral music, UK garage, Americana, shoegaze, folk, dancehall, 80s power ballads – and, of course, pop, whatever that means. Stravinsky became famous for sharp juxtapositions of distinct musical blocks. He would fucking love this.

> I messaged you, after my first listen, to say that the album reminded me of one of Sophia Coppola’s soundtracks. That was an instinctive, emotional response, but, having thought about it, I can now demonstrate the reason for the similarity. The stylistically varied end products are similar to one another because the methodology is similar: soundtracks select music practically to achieve emotional affects. Soundtrack albums use music as a tool to heighten ideas that lie elsewhere, in their case, in the filmed scenes they accompany. If you believe Matty Healy, this is also what The 1975 do. They use beauty, in whatever style or genre they find it:

‘Beauty is the sharpest tool that we have - if you want someone to pay attention, make it beautiful’.

> What do you make of that, @Keats? No, really, I would love to know.

> I think this is a remarkable musical strategy, that requires flexibility, knowledge and skill. That there is such a high level of all these things in the band is what allows it the strategy to be successful.

> I would like to pause here and consider the implications of this strategy on a personal, social and cultural level.

*

> Musical genre and personal identity have been as fused for as long as pop music has existed. This could be a trick of the market, or it could be a need of the individual psyche, or both. I think there is some truth in theory that in the increasingly widespread absence of God – by which I mean organised religion – people need to find both a guide for their metaphysics and morals, and a structure for their community, as these are some of the most effective tools we have discovered for constructing our Selves, making sense of our lives and the world. Art can provide the guide for many people. It also provides community. These communities, collections – albums? - of political, moral and aesthetic views, then become subcultures.

> Until very recently, subcultures were fixed. ‘Hardcore till I die’, ageing ravers, old punks. Interestingly one never really sees ageing emos. But that’s a subject for another essay.

> This, I think, is perhaps what is so striking here: musical genres are normally culminations (or roots, depending on how you look at it) of lived sub or counter cultures. These usually result from a fixed viewpoint about life and society, shared by the individuals that comprise them. The individuals identify with what the music says, how it is presented and how it looks as much – or perhaps even more - than how it sounds.

> Before now, it would have been shocking to imagine a band switching effortlessly from one style to another – this occasionally happens over the course of a career, between albums, but almost never in the same album itself - because it would feel like a betrayal, if we accept that bands and styles represent fixed ways of life and viewpoints and that neither lives nor viewpoints can change. Which, obviously they can. And which, obviously, they do, nowadays, with increasing speed, @Coronavirus.

> Matty’s appearance is a perfect demonstration of this. Minging Matty, Hearthrob Matty, Matty in vintage jeans, in a skirt, in a pinstripe suit. If we accept the old association of musical style/subculture and the clothing/uniform each produces, what would the ideal garb of a The 1975 listener be? A screen. A real, working search engine, fused with their body.

> Previously, the model was that bands had ‘influences’ which they ‘blended’ to create a ‘new’ sound. Here, The 1975 don’t really focus on blending sounds at the level of individual songs: the blend, boldly, happens at the level of the album. If the album is like a soundtrack, it is the soundtrack to the algorithmic age of effortless consumption of media.

> And I would like an examination of that idea to be the final track on this album. I mean, review. I mean conversation.

*

> The 1975 are inseparable from recorded media. Not just their own, but recorded media from the past. They are not able to invoke and inhabit this startling panoply of styles, to my knowledge, because they have studied in individual places or with masters of each craft or tradition – they are able to do it because they, like us, are able to consume recordings of these styles, and they, like us, have done so all their lives.

> When The 1975 invoke these styles, they are not evoking a tradition, or a way of doing things, or even seeing things. They are invoking personal memories of experiencing recordings, encountering media. We can take a look at a few examples of this.

> Let’s start with the classical stuff. The orchestral interludes do not sound like they are written by classical composers, or even composers of film soundtracks - the use of orchestration is different. It sounds, to my ear, like acoustic instruments playing what were originally MIDI parts. Which, I imagine, is what happened. That would usually be called bad orchestration. I am not interested in saying that. I am slightly interested in the effect of getting classical musicians, with their classical training, to play music written by people without classical training on a computer. What are the implications of writing for the flute as a soundfont, rather than a person, instrument or tradition?

> And what is the significance of placing an orchestra, playing instrumental compositions, on a pop record. These are not backing arrangements in an existing pop song, as we commonly encounter; nor are they classical arrangements of a pop song (see Hacienda Classical et al).

> These are standalone orchestral compositions on a record that also includes shoegaze, UK garage, two-step, Americana, punk. What, then, is the significance of this? The instruments, I believe, are being chosen less for their own sonic timbres, and more for their social or cultural timbres. I will try to explain this thought.

> Matty has often spoken about ‘Disneyfication’; he said he wanted ‘The Man Who Married a Robot / Love Theme’ on A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships to sound like a Disney movie. What does that mean? It means, I think, he wants it to sound like old movies, childhood, nostalgia. The orchestra is a sinecure for the ‘symphonic’, the cinematic, the dramatic; the orchestra is used like a banjo, which is, elsewhere on the album, used to conjure the exoticism of Americana as heard by someone listening to it in the UK, to paraphrase Matty’s words.  

> The stylistic references in the album are as much references to media as much as they are to music. Disney: orchestral sounds, likely filtered and wobbled through VHS cassettes. The orchestra, already made symbolic by its association with movies, made a double symbol, a reflection of a shadow, being invoked through the original sound not really for this sound but for our associations with it. The banjo invoked as both an instrument of yesteryear and over there. The music constructs frames of otherness to facilitate wistfulness, longing, memory.

> The chart success of ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’ is that it’s a modern bop that sounds like 80s bangers. Its artistic success is that it contrasts the feeling of halcyon safety created by its imitation of 80s bangers (experienced for millennials usually as triumphant climaxes in movies, jubilant moments on oldies stations), and rubs this up against some of the disturbing parts of the present: the angst of online relationships, nudity with people you don’t know and have not and may never meet. This is a simple but highly effective juxtaposition.

> ‘Bagsy Not In Net’ does this too: a quotidian, painful experience of childhood (not wanting to play in goal in a football game), expressed as a yearning and grand orchestral statement. This is true, too, of ‘Streaming’. This is pop music Pop Art: the contemporary quotidian expressed in the language of an old tradition and invested with the significance of an Art it simultaneously questions the power and validity of.

> And, to linger on ‘If You’re Too Shy’ for just a little longer, what is the meaning of a saxophone solo in pop music in 2020? It is symbolic: a shortcut, practically a meme. Saxophone solos exist in a present in contemporary jazz - they are a living history making new futures. But saxophone solos almost always only exist in pop music as ghosts (careless whispers) of the past. This particular sax solo is so euphoric to us less because of its musical content and more because of the emotions we have learned to associate with sax solos through other media.

> The final, most perfect example of this, of everything I have been getting at, really, is the UK garage references. These are themselves references to artists like The Streets, and Burial, who, themselves, were referencing the primary records of UK garage which they (The Streets and Burial) never experienced in clubs, but as recordings. And The 1975 experienced these recordings of recordings. Layers and layers of reference. And here, abruptly, we find ourselves back at the opening image of the infinite regress.

> At times, this album wants to express the present moment back at itself, and so prompt reflection and action. The fright of the zeitgeist. In this we can include Greta Thunberg, ‘People’, and the overtly socio-political statements on the album. I hope these tracks will be successful. In the future, they will take on the significance of historic artefacts: preserved truths from a vanished time, fixed and rich, like amber.

> But there are long swathes of the album, that do not have this intent, and which will, I believe, have a different longevity. These are the (often wordless) lyrical sections: the abstract, the vague, the instrumental sections – in all senses of the word. Records of the individual imagination listening to another individual imagination listening to another individual imagination. What will these tracks become in time, in Time?

> There is something ethereally delicious about the thought of people in the future coming across people in the past’s nostalgia of another past, now three links distant to their present, compoundly insubstantial, glittering, compelling. Fifth, sixth, seventh dimensions - serial nostalgias.

Notes on a Conditional Form is out now and available to order.

~

Text: Scott Morrison

Published: 26/6/20

[head-and-heart]

This is a bit speculation, but since we're talking about C and her being an INTJ and all of that, how do picture her back in the day, before all the shit happened and came down to Earth and before her imprisonment? Like, how do you imagine her as a character, as a student, as a teenager and her relationships with Jake, Abby, Wells and Jaha? How do you imagine the whole picture?

Omg, I freaking love this ask.

I realize now that you’ve brought it up that I’ve never actually taken time to consider my impression of Clarke while she was on the Ark. I mean, I’ve never consciously mulled over my thoughts on that, but I definitely HAVE an image of the way that Clarke interacted with others up on the Ark and functioned in a “normal” environment.

And you know what just occurred to me? I’ve basically just been imagining myself in high school this entire time (which, really isn’t all that surprising considering I, too, am an INTJ).

I imagine Clarke as being a very strong student (which we have canon evidence for this, considering Pike’s “if only all my students could be as good as Clarke Griffin). Naturally smart, but also an overachiever. Clarke seems like the kind of person who strives for perfection in all aspects of her life, especially in her studies (back when that was her main concern) and put a lot of time and effort into her schoolwork. I think that, if Clarke was still on the Ark, she probably would have ended up following in Abby’s footsteps and ending up on the council, since she’s very opinionated and has natural leadership capabilities, and maybe she would have trained as a medical apprentice too (like in the books) since she seems to have a natural talent for that kind of thing.

Since Clarke is pretty much known for isolating herself on the show, I get the impression that she didn’t really have many friends other than Wells. She knew Wells because they were family friends and they were both privileged so it just made sense. Their friendship was born out of the fact that their parents were both on the council and they were in the same social orbit. Its also an INTJ characteristic to come off as being kind of cold, distant, and arrogant and I think that Clarke’s strong personality and drive may have been off-putting for some of the other kids in her age bracket. 

Not to mention, there’s the whole class issue. From what we’ve seen on the show, the privileged take up a very, very small portion of the Ark’s population and there’s a lot of resentment among the people who aren’t part of that small social circle. We saw this on the ground - people didn’t respect Clarke because of her privilege. They thought she was snotty and a spoiled “princess” who was used to everything being handed to her on a silver platter. Now that’s not necessarily true for Clarke, but I would say that - based on her completely misjudged and mostly unsuccessful early interactions with the delinquents - Clarke did, to a certain extent, take her privilege for granted and didn’t really know how to interact with people who didn’t have the same background/opportunities as she did. That’s what made it so difficult for Clarke to reach the delinquent’s at the start of Season 1, and a large part why she needed Bellamy’s help. (Obviously, things are different now, as the class structure has kind of shifted and fallen apart on the ground.) 

So basically, I think Wells was Clarke’s only good friend, and that she may have had a few other less-close friends (like Riley), who were also in the upper class.

As for family life, I think she was probably a pretty obedient daughter. Not very rebellious, but still with a strong sense of what’s right or wrong. I just don’t think she actively exercised that part of her personality until the whole Jake ordeal.

I’ve always kind of headcanoned Clarke as being a total father’s daughter kind of girl. In the flashbacks that we saw, it looked like she was really close to her dad and they spent a lot of time together. They had a very tight-knit and comfortable relationship and I really got the vibe that Clarke was closer to her dad than to Abby on the Ark. Abby and Clarke have had many problems in their relationship, probably because they’re very similar and have extremely strong personalities and are stubborn. They’re a lot alike, when it comes to certain characteristics and I think that sometimes leads them to clash with each other.

But, that being said, they obviously love each other a lot. I actually imagine their current relationship on the ground last we saw it to be a lot closer than they were on the Ark. Kind of weird how that is. Jake dying, the thing that first tore them apart, now appears to be the thing that has brought them closer together. If he was still alive, I wonder if Clarke’s relationship to her mom would be as close as it is now? Or if she would just revert back to turning to her father first when she had problems. (Remember, this is all headcanon.)

I have a pretty clear image for her relationships to her family and Wells and the general Ark population but her relationship to Jaha is a lot harder for me to visualize. Whenever they have interactions on the show, I often forget that Clarke knew him on the Ark - maybe even knew him well. Their families got together often, he’s the dad of her best friend, but he is also the Chancellor. She’s seen him in a way different context than pretty much any other character on the show (with the exception of maybe Abby) has. She’s seen him when he’s letting loose and having a good time with his friends. She’s seen him with his son.

I honestly think that Clarke probably has mostly positive memories of Jaha on the Ark, in the events before her father’s execution. The thing with Clarke’s privilege is that it left her a bit ignorant of the more twisted, less pleasant ways of the Ark, and she didn’t really get to see the darker nature of the council for herself until it affected her personally (with her dad). I think that was a large wake-up call for Clarke - it showed her that the Council she’d grown up with perhaps wasn’t as good or correct as she’d been taught to believe it was. And maybe the man who ran it wasn’t the same person her parents watched football games and joked with after all. 

But, when Clarke came to the ground, she started to understand that side of Jaha too (along with the neater, more innocent version of him she knew on the Ark) and we see her not only understand it, but empathize with it in a big way in Season 4. 

I often like to look at Jaha as the kind of leader Clarke could become when she’s older, without the proper guidance (or, on the contrary, with the wrong guidance). 

It’s kind of bizarre to think of Clarke leaving a normal, carefree life in the upper echelon of society back on the Ark. Back when things were simple, before her family was torn apart and she became a product of war and a symbol of death. Her experiences since she got arrested have shaped her in drastic ways, and yet the version I have of her in my head on the Ark is still recognizable as Clarke Griffin. It’s just different.

It’s fascinating to think about for sure. People have so many headcanons about Bellamy and Octavia’s childhood (which isn’t suprising, since it’s a MASSIVE part of their story) but I think Clarke’s is interesting to consider, too. Thanks for sending this in. I’m enjoying all the Clarke asks I’ve been receiving lately.

[imaginemycroftholmes]

Le Submission

Name: Olga

Nationality: German

Age (note that if you below 21 your scores may be lower until age of legality): 18

Personality Type: ENTP (according to the Meyer-Briggs personality test)

Level of Education: soon to be high-school-graduator with a Abitur

Best Subject: English and History

Worst Subject: Chemistry

Favorite Subject: Latin and History

5 Hobbies (if applicable): music (composing, piano, singing), occasional fencing and horseback riding, jogging/hiking, drawing

Favorite Genre of Music/Movies/Books:

Music –> Classical, Rock ‘n Roll, Rock, Indie, Irish Punk, Folk, sometimes Country. My taste of music depends of the quality of the song rather than its genres

Movies: –> Usually Adventure/Fantasy but I also enjoy Period Dramas and good vintage movies and Comedies

Books: –> Fantasy, Biographies

Last song you listened to on repeat: “Once upon a December” from Anastia

Last phrase you said to another living person: “She’s at the summerhouse.”

How many blankets do you sleep with: One

7 note worthy skills: I’m pretty eloquent (whether it be during conversations, presentations or just telling a decent story), Social, Intuitive, Passionate about everything I do and thing/people I care about and able to be convincing when I need to be, I see good in people and situations, You can always count on me developing a plan and sticking to it

7 noticeable sins: I can be lazy, Intuitive (sometimes it brings trouble with it), I act on emotions after repressing them for a long time, I can be tactless, I love life but I often need to remind myself that I do, Isolation myself when I actually should ask for help, when stepping on for people or standing up for those who don’t stand up for themselves I get myself into trouble

Allergies/impairments/illnesses: I’m allergic to horses (main reason why don’t go horseback riding as often as I used to as a kid), I’m also allergic to my favourite flower (sunflower)

Level of Intelligence on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being dumb, 2 being below average, 3 being average, 4 being above average and 5 being genius): 4

Level of Fitness on a scale of 1 to 5( 1 being obese, 2 being overweight, 3 being average, 4 being fit and 5 being skinny): ¾

Level of Attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being Anderson, 2 being below average, 3 being average, 4 being above average and 5 being Mycroft): Attractiveness is a very relative term. Some might say I’m and Anderson while others might think I’m above average.

Feline, canine or both: Canine

Confidence Level on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 being nonexistent, 2 low, 3 average, 4 above average and 5 Sherlock): I definitely carry myself with a Sherlock-like level of confidence

Position in the Family (oldest, youngest, middle): Youngest

Eye Color: Green (people question the colour because it tends to change depending on the weather or the colour of clothes or eye-makeup I am wearing)

Hair Color and Length: Brown, pretty long (now reaching the mid of my back) I want it to grow longer though

Height: 5'7”

Combat level on a scale 1 to 5 (1 being useless, 2 being somewhat capable, 3 being average, 4 being more than capable and 5 being expert): 3

Your normal dress: Usually it’s black jeans and some kind of t-shirt. I don’t care much for dressing up everyday so I wear men-shirts/t-shirts. I pair my outfit with leather boots (brown or black). If I decide to look rather presentable I throw on a dress that shows my shoulders and is tighter at the waist. When it’s getting colder I always wear long coats paired with a shawl.

How well you take rejection on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being temper tantrum, 2 being vindictive, 3 being average, 4 being can take it like a man, and 5 being like water off of a duck’s back): I take it like man. No need to throw a tantrum if nothing can be done about it. I will be upset though.

Languages known: My first language is Russian but I speak it with a little accent because I don’t roll the “R” because I grew up in Germany. German is my best language which I talk accent-free. I’m also fluent in English. I am currently teaching myself some French and Icelandic

Cleanliness of your bathroom on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being a crime scene, 2 being messy, 3 being average, 4 being pretty clean and 5 being perfectly spotless): It’s rather messy

How big is your circle of friends on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being nonexistent, 2 being very small, 3 being average, 4 being large, and 5 being a massive social network): I have one best friend I know I can always rely on. I know a lot of people who I consider to be my friends. I have no problems getting to know new people so I would say that I do have a large circle of friends.

How would you rate your mental health on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being very poor, 2 being poor, 3 being average, 4 being good, and 5 being prefect): 3. Highs and lows

Opinions on the current Holmes family members ( Siger Holmes, Violet Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and Eurus Holmes):

Sherlock can be a pain in the ass. He is very inconsiderate of other people’s feelings but we all know that he means well.

Eurus is a troubled child with a troubled mind. Her intelligence drover her to madness so she can’t be blamed for the things she does. However she is a dangerous person and should be kept locked away.

Siger Holmes is a precious and kind man who deserves to be loved by family and friends. I’m sure he was a great father. He seems to be very passive when it comes to communication between the family members though.

Violet Holmes is a strong woman that keeps everything and everyone together. She can be harsh when needed and, like every parent, often has high expectations in her children (especially in Mycroft). I do like her nevertheless.

Please bold the following below that applies toward your submission:

Friendship

Mentorship

Relationship

Partnership

The Question portion:

Please note that you do not have to submit the pictures within your submission (save the puzzle)  but you must answer them honestly and do so without cheating.

1)

The rectangle is devided into 3 equal pieces. Three angles lead up to the same point. Since the distance of the angles A and B and C always stays the same and angle C is the one that’s the clostest to the point where all the lines meet up A+B equals C.

2)

July 16 4

3)

I think it would be smarter not to shoot at someone at all because he hits his shot only 1/3 of the time. If he misses the shot he still has spare ones. Plus I’m thinking that this is a trick questions since it’s saying „where should you shoot first“ and not „who should you shoot first“

4)

5+5+5+5 =/= 555

5)

This text indicates that the man needs some kind of help from other people to get to the 10th floor. That means that something hinders him from doing so when he’s alone. He either has a germ phobia and can’t touch the buttons by himself (in the morning he is able to convince himself to do it because “new day, new start” or he is simply too short to reach the buttons in the elevator and can only reach the first seven ones.

6)

I would set two switches. The possibility that both of them are OFF switches would allow me to determine which one is the ON one.

7) He brings her the ring himself.

8) Obviously 87

9) Nobody

10) He could build something from the wood to get on the other side of the fire where everything is already burnt down. That way the westwind would continue to blow and the fire would spread out but something that is burnt can’t be affected by fire another time so even if the wind would change Alexander would be safe.

11) C) –> It’s not being said whether Anne is married or not

12) 679

13) All of them are wrong?

14) I’m too bad at stochastic and an answer I know would be wrong is too embarrassing to give

15) Sally did it

16) Where does the English horn (Cor Anglais) come from? France

17) What is brass composed of? Copper and zinc

18) Who was the FIRST great artist that contributed to the Italian Renaissance? Michelangelo

19) 2

20) 12

21) 2

22) White and gold

Mycroft’s answer:

Dear Olga, it would seem that you’re a rather bright child for your age aren't you? It shows in your answers and the way you carry yourself when you write that reminds me of a younger, if not more pleasant, Sherlock that wouldn't go around bringing muck into the house or worse, hide it under my duvet. I find it rather rare that you can compose and play your own music, I think Sherlock started it was a turbulent period as he wanted to go faster than his instructors intended which lead to many pay outs for damaged property and emotional damages. I also see that you have some sympathies for my little sister which is understandable. Eurus is an exceptionally bright young woman working faster than the rest of us and I'm sure its killing her everyday that she can't seem to find anyone for whom she wants to be an equal (as we all know she pretty much snubbed me in favor of Sherlock-someone she could easily mold at her will.) Although I recognize her dangerous nature I still love my siblings-both of them, even if they have tried to kill me on more than one occasion. I have no doubts that under my mentorship you can only flourish more so than Sherlock did at your age with less of my pocket book going toward covering up any of your misgivings. I only ask that you take a bit more pride in tiding up your living space because one cannot function at 100% in chaos. Yes, I do know this for a fact because I have seen my baby brother go on a rampage at Baker street because he could not locate an article that would prove his intelligence and then proceeded to shoot the wall up again in agitation. As for your state of dress as long as you keep it professional looking I have no qualms. We can proceed at your earliest convenience. 

Friendship: 7.7/10 Mentorship: 9/10

[kewltie]

there’s a recurring theme in many of my fics... ok there’s always a recurring them in my fics bc im that predictable but two of them are isolation and loneliness.

this is most painfully obvious in cd wherein donghae spent years locked up and isolated by his own half bro and then later found himself alone in foreign country with no friends or allies (eunhyuk promised him safety abut he can’t find himself to trust eunhyuk yet) even though he constantly around ppl but they’re not his friends, they’re not his anything (the journey in cd has always been donghae finding a home and family in esse). hyukjae carried part of the theme bc he too is surrounded by ppl and they’re his friends, family, and close allies but bc of his position it’s hard for them to cross the line and treat him as somebody equal, somebody normal bc the concept of regis is so ingrained in their society and mores that it’s super hard for them to break it. so for these two their loneliness draw them together even when their politics, philosophy, and doubts pulls them apart. 

another fic that come to my mind is tumblr au (which always been v v personal to me) bc as someone who has anxiety and is petrified in interacting w/ others so prefer to spend her time alone, my social circle is regretfully v v small. anxiety, specifically social anxiety, can drive you to isolation even when you dont want to! like donghae want to make friends, want to go out, want to be ‘normal’!!! but his fear keep him from accepting invitation, from making the first move, so eventually it get so tiring that you give up and accept your fate. it can really cripple your life experience when you rarely leave your home and interact w/ others so life seem to pass you by. i think coming on tumblr is a gateway of a sort for donghae bc even when you open up to ppl and share something personal or of yourself the anonymity of the internet is a powerful thing, you can engage the public and when it get too much you disengage whenever you want. that’s something i think donghae is v drawn to by tumblr bc he can dump his feelings--his resentment, his fears, his sadness, his loneliness--and he will be heard but he doesn't have to respond not if he doesn’t wants to. w/ anxiety i sometime dont feel like i have a voice in the world but tumblr is a tool that amplified it and make me heard even if what i said is unnecessary or useless and i think for donghae it’s very much the same thing. 

but it isnt always such a depressing theme i think! like in regency au after havig his family disgrace and being vilified for marrying a commoner for money , regency!donghae is ostracized and isolated by all his former friends and associates. once he was the life of the party and everyboy would hang on his every words now that he had fallen... he found out he got nothing except his pretty face and prettier smile and at first he got really depressed bc not only did everyone he thought as friends left him bc of his bad rep now even his own husband rather give him all the money and live outside than with donghae!!! that was a serious blow to his pride and eventually he doesn’t give a fuck anymore lmao. not when he’s too busy seducing/wooing hyukjae and to make his marriage a real thing. 

and now we’re getting to the real point of all this nonsense in goong au bc i watch to many historical/costume c/kdramas and goong is one of my fav manhwas i read till this day. im really drawn the idea of here is this fairty tale romance presented to you but it’s all a lie and that the royal family isn’t picture perfect when t’s actually fill with cracks and holes. i mean the things you see on TV and read about in school or in the news are just barely scrape the surface of it. at the end of the day the idea of an ordinary person marrying a prince sounds like a modern day cinderella but than you have to think about them having to separate from their family bc obviously they can’t live in their old home now, their every words and actions are now scrutinized by the entire world, there will be people who make use of them bc of their new position as prince(ss) consort, and just imagine having to uproot your entire life just bc you marry someone and having to give up a lot of  your freedom (things you often take for granted like hey walking out of your home to get milk or something now you cant do it bc of security issue & they have someone to do that for you). and make it even more difficult is that you dont EVEN LOVE THEM so here you are isolated from the world and the life you previously held, the palace that you once dream is now your prison... that’s just a harsh and lonely existence. for donghae is only reprieve is that hyukjae is there with him and that above all else that even though he doesn’t love donghae, hyukjae will support him 100000% bc they’re in this together. 3 years of marriage, 3 years stuck in this awful palace, 3 years he must give himself to this country and hyukjae so he cement his position as heir and donghae will be free, he just need to last that long but 3 years is v v long time and sometimes duty pull hyukjae away from him and that’s when donghae realizes that he thought the palace was cold and empty already but now that’s hyukjae is away... everything seems dead w/o hyukjae. i think about the psychological and emotional toll that donghae suffers and it break my heart bc hyukjae is aware of it and the guilt eats him alive :////. Hyukjae suffers the same ordeal but not to donghae's degree bc he least had an entire life to get used to it. Je doesn't like it but its the only world he has ever known despite the unconventional childhood he must have (to grow up in the public eye, to have ur bday celebrated as a national holiday, to be scrutinized even that young, to be taught duty before personal feelings, and that u are not one person but made up of millions who u bare the symbol for). So hyukjae grew up w/ limited freedom and the expectation of an entire nation of ppl on his shoulders... that kind of pressure is a cross too heavy to bare for most ppl. But hyukjae knew of his situation early on while donghae is thrown into this harsh enviroment and has to quick think on his feet bc if he doesnt adapt the palace will eat him alive. i think goong au may be draw worst on this theme tbh ///o\\\\... even more than cd. 

SO YEA basically my points is i have a lot of thoughts about being isolated and alone.