#than about most other media in this godforsaken world | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dazzlegradual · 2 years ago

Text

What Makes a Good Romance?

I’ve been thinking lately about my gripes with the romance genre. I'm a romantic girlie who is simultaneously critical of “women’s media”, but I don't want to condemn something just because women enjoy it. I have a hard time achieving balance between these competing beliefs. Let us then begin with a disclaimer: while I am, in my heart, a hater, I am a girls’ girl who loves girly things. That said, I take issue with the many expected tropes in the romance genre, and that it doesn't try hard enough to produce good writing.

Overall, I believe romance relies too heavily on tropes, which are now weakening the genre's ability to encourage writers to challenge themselves, banking instead on normative design and predictable plots. The romance genre is evolving into a capitalistic, polished, lush-pink echo chamber, filled more-so with archetypes and the wide swath 'vibe' of a book than actual substantive passion projects. Authors who can punt out puff pieces one after the other get big contracts, forgettable book covers, and slapped into Godforsaken BookTok recommendation kiosks at Barns and Noble.

I’ve cared about books and reading for my entire life — and my favorite books have always been (in one way or another) about love. How it precludes us, beckons us, dismays us. How despite causing our most gut-wrenching, lonely, and devastating life experiences, it's also the catalyst of all of our most powerful, ecstatic moments of joy.

Romance is thus, unsurprisingly, an incredible popular book genre: being that it's solely dedicated to exploring people's romantic relationships. And given that it's such a popular genre, there's a lot of money to be made and authors trying their hat at romance. The genre right now is so overpopulated with a wide breath of sub-genres, tropes, and storylines, and there's also a large variety in the quality of writing that gets published. Some of romances' most popular genre writers, like Colleen Hoover, Ali Hazelwood, and Sally Thorne, for example, are talented enough in that their writing is readable, but their writing is not (in my opinion) all that good. I could write a lot more about why I think these authors aren't that great, but right now, in my first blog post about my Issues with the Romance Genre, I'm going to first focus on an author who I really, really adore. I want to talk about Emily Henry, who exemplifies the potential of romance, and keeps me optimistically crawling back to the genre, hoping other authors are half as good as her.

I’m currently revisiting an old favorite romance book: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry. Henry is definitely one of the most popular voices in the romance genre. She’s published three books in her short writing career spanning just five years thus far, and has another book coming out this month. Her books are funny, smart, and easily digestible. The outline of the main characters are always recognizable archetypes, but they still feel flushed out. It feels like she more so uses tropes as a starting point, then she explores how a trope might actually be a real, breathing human. And while all of her books are about two people falling in love, they're also about people in their 30's undergoing some kind of existential life crisis. It's a refreshing balance: both in the age of the characters and how well Henry expands the inner world of her main characters. (It honestly reminds me a lot of what people love about Nora Efron movies!)

People We Meet on Vacation (which came out in May of 2021) is about what to do after you accomplish your biggest goal and lose your sense of purpose. It's also about how the timing of our life choices can be consequential, but we can always change our mind. Mostly, though, it’s a book about how messy it is fall love with your decade-long best friend.

After an exhilarating best-selling debut with Beach Read in 2020, Emily Henry returned just a year later with an unexpected book about going on vacation. People We Meet on Vacation (hereafter PWMOV) introduces us to Poppy and Alex, two people who seemingly have nothing common besides their love of cheap travel and, of course, each other. I was so excited to read this book. When Henry described PWMOV on her instagram, she teased that it would span the entire 12 years of Poppy and Alex's friendship. I love books with flashbacks: I find that novels work as a good medium for large time jumps in storytelling -- more so than film or plays because novels allow for immersive yet clear time differentiations in the way other mediums can't. For example, Henry starts chapters of PWMOV with chonicalizing titles like "10 summers ago" "7 years ago" etc. It's quick, effective, and nondisruptive to the reading experience. And in my opinion, no matter how well it's cast, this couldn't be replicated on film. Aging characters never works that well. Anyone who's watched Daisy Jones & The Six can tell you that. (A notable exemption here is the movie Moonlight).

Another example of this time-bending storytelling working well is in Attachments by Rainbow Rowell, where each chapter opens with an email correspondence, each dated with their time/date. I particularly love this example of Attachments because the use of email time stamps also tells us when the emails are being sent, and thus which characters might be things like night owls. It's an adorable element of characterization. I'll probably talk about Attachments another time, because I truly think it's the best love story ever written.

Anyway -- I loved PWMOV and finished it in two days. I recommended it widely and without reservation to all my friends who asked for a good book to read that summer. It superseded my already high opinion of Emily Henry's previous book, Beach Read. "This book is even better than her first!" I remember saying to people, not realizing then that I was espousing a hot take.

I have many friends who also love Emily Henry’s books, but PWMOV tends to be their least favorite. So many people, based on my conversations and cursory glances at GoodReads reviews (which I do not recommend), seem to prefer Book Lovers (which came out after PWMOV) or her first book Beach Read.

But PWMOV is by far my favorite of Henry’s, and is likely to remain so. Though I can understand why certain aspects of the book might not appeal to people, especially given the convoluted time-jumping Henry employs. Maybe it makes the book hard to follow for other people. but this book really works for me.

I love the non-chronological flashbacks in PWMOV and how much the narrative moves around. When you’ve known someone for so long, like our two main characters in PWMOV, your memories tend to get muddled and messy. Things get jumbled and you forget who said what or what happened when. I loved that Henry chose to write the book this way. The intersection of time and space made the relationship between Poppy and Alex feel very real, and I got the sense that these were two people who had both known each other a long time and truly care about each other. While they were, on the surface, extraordinarily different and seemingly incompatible, their shared history contextualized their undying loyalty and mutual connection.

This is different from a lot of romance novels, where the two leads share nothing in common besides a undeniable, unshakable attraction, despite having nothing in common, and sometimes even hating each other. Sure, this dynamic makes for great sex scenes and biting dialogue. But I'm always left thinking that this kind of relationship is going to crash and burn in two weeks, which makes the inevitable 'happily ever after' all the more unconvincing. Plus, romantic leads are always sexually insatiable with one another, and I sometimes get reminded of having to awkwardly evade that one couple in high school who couldn't go an hour without making out. I don't want to be that couple, and I don't really want to read that couple. They were the worst!

But People We Meet on Vacation is a romance about two people realizing that it's not enough to fall in love. Poppy and Alex are pretty immature in the flashbacks, especially in their college years. Poppy is impulsive in a way that feels nearly reckless on their first vacations, following random dudes back to tents and showing literally no self preservation skills. She comes across as a lot more tender, vulnerable, and sincere in later years and subsequent chapters. When she's younger, she gets frustrated with Alex's reserved approach to life, and has to get better at empathizing with his perspective. Throughout the book, Poppy learns to not only understand Alex's life philosophy, she values how his experiences shaped him into the person she loves. She sees all of him, and it makes her love him more.

This novel spans 12 years, and it genuinely felt like you were watching two people get through an entire decade with the other at their side. When they fall in love, I buy it.

I think this book is something special. It affirmed for me my stance that 'friends to lovers' is the best of the romance genres, if there is to be any kind of ranking system, and if genres have to exist. But much to my dismay, it often feels like ‘friends to lovers’ is an underestimated storytelling device in the romance genre, despite being the most realistic depiction of how organic romantic connections can be formed in the real world.

'Friends to lovers' romance books often start with one or more of the main characters in another long term relationship. Or maybe they’re getting over a bad breakup. Maybe the two friends don’t realize their feelings until it feels too late. Maybe they're scared to admit their feelings, choosing to prioritize the friendship. Maybe they misread their mutual love for one another for years. Regardless of the particular story arc, the 'friends to lovers' sub-genre is always shaped around two people who (regardless of any romantic attraction) genuinely love and understand one another.

Personally, I’m much more enchanted by the idea of someone seeing me, really seeing me, and choosing to love me. I’m skeptical of passionate, fast paced love affairs (though I’ve had my fair share) that burn brightly and quickly. I do suppose some people want a love that makes them feel like they’re on fire, and I suppose in some ways I want to burn, too. But mostly, I want love to feel like something I can come home to — over, and over, and over again. I don't want to fall in love with my enemy. I want to fall in love with someone who loves me.

Perhaps what I most love about People We Meet on Vacation is that it doesn’t feel like falls under the umbrella of a typical ‘romance’ book. I do love romance as a narrative device, but as I've said, I get irritated by romance as a genre. Many of the tropes considered typical for romance strike me as cliched, over-played, and honestly sexist: the male-lead is always withdrawn, physically domineering, and jealous, while the leading lady is oh-so-tiny, self doubting, and extraordinarily clumsy. There’s always a grand miscommunication towards the end of the second act, over something that is so minute and excusable that it forces the main characters to act with the emotional maturity of 14 year olds. And as the end of the third act draws to a close and we approach our inevitable climax, one of the leads leaps into a romantic, larger than life gesture to pronounce their love, which leads immediately into the denouement, where everything is resolved and our happily ever after is guaranteed.

I personally dislike this approach to writing for how prescriptive and overly simple it is. Most romance books these days read like like a mad-libs. Switch out the main character’s jobs, the quirky-but-wise neighbor, the sassy best friend, the montages, and the chapter 22 sex scene, the mis-read text, and BOOM, a U.S.A. Today best seller. While pulp fiction has basically always existed, but with mediums like BookTok, the swelling monster known as the Romance Book Industrial Complex has been exploited and exacerbated. It means a lot of shitty books get published. It allows mediocre authors like Colleen Hoover to rise to stardom for their abilities to showcase incompatible and boring people doing terrible things to each other because Hoover is able to follow a formula that people will read.

In defense of the genre, there aren’t a lot of gatekeepers in the romance genre. Since the tropes are so pronounced, a new author can write a relatively sound story with very few original ideas. I imagine it's a good way to get started as a writer, or get out of a writers block. There’s a reason there’s such a huge overlap in authors of romance and fan fiction. People come to expect certain things from a genre — and authors learn to deliver exactly what the people want. It's a self replenishing ecosystem.

I can appreciate, too, that a lot of people who love romance and read it to escape: to revel in guaranteed happy endings. People read for all kinds of reasons — and a valid reason is to escape into a blissful cocoon of hot, slicked, angsty abs on a dude named Theodore (or some shit) galloping on horseback through a moonlit beach, straight into the path of an unsuspecting lady’s companion named Carolina who's real passion is knitting yarn rose-bouquets for kittens. (I actually just made this last bit up, but if this isn’t a book yet, it should be. It probably is. I’m not that original.)

My friends who like romance don’t tend to like PWMOV because it doesn’t follow the prescriptive tropes of romance. And I like all the more because it doesn’t. Poppy and Alex feel real, and this book should receive more recognition for its subversive approach to the romance genre. The two leads already know and love each other when the book starts, and they love each other for the entire book. That's never the problem. Miscommunications do happen, but they are the messy, real, human kind.

I especially love that the grand ‘miscommunication’ in PWMOV happens before the narration occurs, but that we don’t know what it is until the book is almost over. It builds great suspense: in the first chapter, we are told something terrible happened two summers ago that ripped Alex and Poppy apart, and they haven't spoken since. Thus, when chapter 32 arrives with the title "Two Summers Ago" and we finally get to read about Croatia, we know something big is coming, because it already did. And when the Croatia fuck-up happens, you’ve spent over half a book with these two characters who have spent 12 years chasing each other around the world on vacations. They know each other inside and out. You know they're going to get through Croatia. And, even still, what happens in Croatia is a miscommunication that makes sense: they both freaked out over something they weren't ready for and then built it up in their heads for two years. I do that! We all do that!

And while PWMOV doesn't grant us with the grand, explosive miscommunication trop so indicative of the romance genre, I would have bought it if it did happen. This is the kind of person you have a blow up argument with — not someone you met 6 weeks ago when they accidentally stepped on your foot at a Belle and Sebastian concert and subsequently joined your effort to stop cruise ships from selling a specific and exploitative brand of bird earrings that are coincidentally made by your long-lost twin sister. (I’m just giving these ideas out for free, people!)

On the first page of The Secret History, Tartt tells you that Bunny will die, and who killed him. In the first chapter of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, we learn Sam and Sadie will not be speaking to each other in their early thirties. And in People We Meet on Vacation, we know that the Croatia trip will be a disaster. I love stories that reveal details early on but make you wait to understand how they happened. We get the spoiler early on. We read anyway, and we can’t help but care. So many books in the romance genre are essentially ruined if you're told the spoilers because the emotional attachments to the book are only as good as the gotcha's. But life isn't made up of big, surprising 'aha!'s. We hurt each other in predictable ways. We say things we don't mean, we do things before we're ready.

When my friends hurt my feelings, I forgive them. Maybe I already even know things will blow up with certain people in my life. But I can't help but care. I can't help but keep them around. I care about the history I have with people, and even if it makes me more vulnerable, I can't help but forgive them. I am lucky to have my life filled with friends who I've known for years and years. For some of them, I don't remember how I met them or even really why we're friends. What did we originally bond about? Did we meet during class or through other people? Where is that inside joke from? But I don't need to recall all of our shared moments together to remember why I love them -- all I need to know is that they've shown up again, and again, and again.

I'll end this with a slight (but not altogether surprising revelation given that this IS a romance book) spoiler: the first time that Alex and Poppy (FINALLY) sleep together in their awful Palm Springs hotel, Poppy is aghast. Apparently, the sex is mind-altering amazing. This is always true in romance books, but unlike so many romance books, I believe that this first time could be as amazing as Poppy thinks. She herself is in disbelief. The first time isn't supposed to be this good. Why was it this good? How is it this good?

And Alex responses to her incredulity, “because I know you, and I remember what you sound like when you like something.” And you know what! That is an incredibly hot thing to say, and I believe him.

That's what I love most about People We Meet on Vacation. When Emily Henry shows us that Poppy and Alex take care of each other when they're sick, know about each other's parental trauma, talk about their shared hometown, and imagine their lives with the other person always being there, I believe her when she says these people are best friends. I believe that these two people, who know each other inside and out, could fall in love, and stay in love. It's one of the only 'Happily Ever Afters' I've ever bought, and it's probably because it was 12 years in the making.

#people we meet on vacation #emily henry #dazzlegradual

11 notes · View notes

diracsea · 2 years ago

Text

on this very random fucking day, since my brain cannot absorb any more Chinese, I’m gonna list out some of my fav VNF Wattpad authors.

da_River, once D_LittleStar (D.): The absolute favorite, totally unmatched. The one and only author that can wreck me with every single one of her stories. Qua chơi cùng mình? So pure so wholesome. Let’s pretend the world stops turning? Also really wholesome with no shipping content whatsover. Em giấu điều gì trong đôi mắt? Damn girl you bet how many times I’ve cried reading this one. Take me home, country road (unpublished)? I think of this one every time I pass by my hometown river. Trúng số? Nguyễn Ngọc Tư’s level of emotional depth. Cách để chạm đến mặt trời? I feel like this one is the one story that will carry me through my bumpy young adult days. Hình người tâm ma? Holy fucking shit the sheer level of eroticism I can’t...

wreckedworld, once nine19enth (A.): I love her. I love reading everything she writes, no matter if they’re fanfiction, original stories, book reviews, diaries recording her days in Japan, or just random rants after a long tiresome day - most of which she has now hidden (or deleted, idk). I dedicated a story of mine (Hai đứa trẻ) to her, once, and these days I wonder if she still remembers it, after all those years. In my closet there’s still a Vietnam NT 2020 shirt with the name N. QUANG HAI that I bought to give her when I learned that she intended to return to Vietnam in Jan 2020 (oh yeah and since we’re mentioning that shirt, fuck you Quang Hải and fuck your misogyny). I never had the chance, as the pandemic struck.

Minbadend, also known as whereialive (N.): The 314 ficdom was great, and N. used to be one of its most prolific writer. She’s someone who never hesitates to try out new ideas, most of which are really breathtaking when executed. I loved her Hồn Hoang collection so much that I even commissioned her to write another collection in that exact format. She gave me Lặng (on the very first day of the Lunar Year 4 years ago), and while it was not as poetically written as Hồn Hoang, I feel like Lặng has a more solid structure and a more coherent plot. She still writes fanfic, as far as I know (we’re still friends on Facebook), and in fact I would gladly read everything she writes, even when I have no idea who the characters are, and even though I don’t always agree with her extreme views on fandom stuffs. Some writers’ styles are just that addictive

nolastgoodbye, once linnervard (M.): She didn’t write much, but most of her stories melted my heart with their sweetness. My favorite story by her would be Cingulomania, but I really enjoy her Felix Felicis as well, even though I’ve never touched a single Harry Potter book in my entire godforsaken life. Fun story time, I kinda know her irl through one of my closest friends, who participated in the University Club where M. used to be the chairman. Can’t spill all the details, but according to my friend, irl M. seems to be wildly different from her Wattpad persona.

Hojua5 (T.): This person wrote a 500-fucking-page novel in the form of fanfiction over the span of less than one year, and that’s not to mention her other works (written during the same period, also impossibly long), as well as the fact that she still worked full-time and traveled a lot. Yes, I’m talking about the famous Đủ dũng khí để trân trọng cậu. Tell you what, I can never imagine myself with that level of dedication, productivity, or perseverance. T.’s stories never wrecked me the way D.’s or M.’s did (I guess this is mostly due to our generation gap - T. is 9 years older than me); nevertheless, they are always entertaining enough to keep me turning the pages. And now that I’m thinking about T., I’m assuming that incorporating friendship into fanfic is one of the things I learned from her, many many years ago.

smoothxcriminal (N.): Every single one of her social media account has this quote stamped under the profile picture: “I do exactly what you tell me not to.” Somehow, her stories generate that exact vibe: always unexpected, a bit unhinged, a little rebellious. For me, her most impressive work is Thick and thin ‘til our last day (turn my soul into a raging fire), a rather atypical collection that depicts the footballers as people with special abilities who just want to live their lives in peace yet always get pulled into dangerous situations (Stranger Things, anyone?): a Thành Chung who can switch between human and dog form, a Tiến Linh who can understand animals’ languages, a Xuân Trường who has psychokinetic abilities, etc. etc. Her Em chẳng có gì also left a really deep impression on me, especially that one shot in which Công Phượng commits suicide and his closest friends’ thoughts are brought to light.

andiethecheesetea, also known as the3rdandy (where’s the second Andie?) (T.): Olympia girl. Reading her story is like riding a rollercoaster. One moment you laugh your ass off, the very next moment you just want to crawl into a corner to contemplate life. I feel like she put that much humor in her stories just to mask the fact that she takes them all very, very seriously. Is this how having BPD feels like?

#storytelling #wattpad authors #vnf ficdom

3 notes · View notes

folkloreguk · 4 years ago

Text

Punch Confessions🎄

A/N: Happy December! I didn’t do an advent calendar this year but I thought you should at least have one Christmas themed thing...and maybe I also really wanted to write something that’ll get me into the spirit...

genre: optional bias (male) x reader, fluff

words: ~ 2k

If I leave now, I’ll be there like twenty minutes early, you told yourself. But if you sat around any longer, waiting, you were sure to go crazy. Your stomach was flipping, and you had the desire to check your appearance in the mirror for what felt like the 100th time within the last ten minutes. There was really no need for you to be this nervous. You were going to get on the bus, arrive at the Christmas market, find your friends, hug them hello and have a great time. Had it not been for the godforsaken crush you had developed on one of those friends. Now you couldn’t go anywhere you knew you’d see him without feeling like having a heart attack. And, worst of all, you didn’t even think he felt the same about you. In fact, you had been trying vigorously to distract yourself, asking the web how to undo a crush and even stalking your ex on social media, convincing yourself that another relationship like your previous one was the last thing you could wish for. And yet you wanted him. He was on your mind from the moment you woke up to the time you closed your eyes at night. Sometimes, when it was especially bad, he followed you into your dreams. You’d hear the melody of his laughter, see the way his eyes change shape when he smiled and every time you awoke, you were alone in your bed, longing for something you thought would never be yours.

So now, when you finally caught the bus, you put in your earphones. You found your Christmas playlist and emerged in a world of bells and whistle notes, hopefully distracting you enough to make it to the Christmas market without having a nervous breakdown.

His back was the first thing you saw when you stepped out of the bus in front of the market. And to your dismay, he was the first one there. For some reason he had arrived even earlier than you had. You called his name and he spun around with a million-dollar smile on his face. Oh god. Mentally you prepared yourself to go to war against the butterflies raging in your stomach. He gave you a hug and the way his scent lingered in your nose for a moment only made your longing a million times worse.

“How have you been?” he asked. You were glad he was so good at making conversation. While you told him about your previous week, you realized exactly how he had taken your heart by storm. Although you had felt flustered at first, talking to him was the easiest thing in the world. It was the way he made you laugh without having to try, and how he didn’t just hear what you told him – he listened. He found interest in every part of your life, always wanting to know more and remembering the littlest things that seemed like nothingness to you. So, while originally you had wished your friends would be here as quickly as possible, with every second you spent alone around him you were more okay if they would be later to the meeting than discussed.

But eventually they arrived too, and as much as you had wished to be alone with him, you had missed your friends dearly. You caught up with each other’s lives quickly, while you strolled around the market and checked the little booths for potential Christmas gifts for your loved ones. It was a whirlwind of admiring little figurines, smelling scented candles and singing along to the cheesy songs playing over the speakers at every corner.

When you had seen everything, you found yourself at one of the booths selling punch and other hot drinks. While you laughed at your friends’ funny story, you were drinking, perhaps getting a little tipsy. A small fire was burning in the middle of the round wooden table, meant to keep the people standing there warm, but it wasn’t doing much for your freezing cold hands.

Instead of holding them towards the flame, you opted for rubbing them against each other, trying to create some warmth in your too thin gloves. That’s when you noticed him looking over at you. At first, he grinned at your behavior, but then he reached across the table.

“Here, this will keep your warm,” he said. Gently, he took your hands and put them around his mug, which he had just gotten refilled. To say your heart skipped a beat didn’t even sound like an exaggeration to you anymore. He kept his hands on yours, watching for your reaction. And he was right, it really did do wonders for your cold skin. Not knowing what to do with yourself, you smiled thankfully at him. He smiled back at you and your stomach dropped and flipped at the same time. There was really no denying how completely and utterly in love you were with him.

And then the all too familiar feeing set in. The doubts and worries about how he felt about you. He had always been a rather touchy person, so it wasn’t like you could take his sudden advances as anything but normal behavior. He was single, you knew that. But what if one day he broke news to you? What if he told you he had found somebody he wanted to be with? Someone who would always look out for him, and someone he would count all the sky’s stars for? And what if that someone wasn’t you? Although that wasn’t reality, the mere idea made you want to cry.

Your friend had encouraged you to take your chances. Just tell him, she would always say. But how did she not realize? With the chance of having your love reciprocated also came the horrible dread of having your fragile heart broken by the one you loved most in the world – and it wouldn’t even be his fault. It would mess up your entire friendship, and you weren’t ready to take that chance.

“I think I’ll hit the trail soon,” one of your friends announced, pulling you out of your train of thoughts.

“Yeah, me too, it’s getting quite cold,” the other one said. “We should definitely do this again soon!”

You could only agree. Especially if it would involve seeing H/N. Speaking of…he was smiling at you again and it was making your cheeks heat up even in this cold.

“Can I bring you home? It’s dark and you had some drinks,” he said. “We can’t have some creeps trying to talk to you. Not when you look this pretty. The taxi ride from your place will be cheaper than if I take one from here, anyway.”

You thought you were dreaming. Did he just call you pretty? But then you watched his eyes and his goofy smile, and you realized. He was drunk - a lot more drunk than you were - and it was bringing out his flirty side. It wasn’t you who made him compliment you, it was the alcohol. You had seen it before on him. He liked complimenting anyone, boys as much as girls, when he was drunk. Your heart sank at the realization.

“Okay. Thank you,” you said, nonetheless. After all, you wouldn’t reject the opportunity to be alone with him. The bus ride home was quiet, except for the usual small talk shared between good friends. When he softly touched your hand, it should have made you happy. Instead, you only felt an emptiness, knowing he would have probably done the same to your other girl friend, had he brought her home instead.

When you walked up to your front porch, you couldn’t wait to get inside. Just before you put your keys into the lock, he said your name. You spun around, and he was standing so much closer than you had anticipated. His eyes were sparkling, your Christmas lights around your door reflecting in them. One of his hands came to touch your cheek, and your heartbeat had never quickened so fast.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked. YES, your heart shouted. NO, your head said. He’s just drunk, not in love with you. So you had to make a decision you prayed you wouldn’t have to regret.

“H/N, you’re drunk. If you still want to kiss me tomorrow when you’re sober, I promise I will say yes. But now, I can’t,” you said. His eyes read a little disappointment, but more empathy.

“Alright, I’m sorry,” he said, slowly retracting his hand from your cheek. You wouldn’t have minded it staying there longer. “Can I give you a hug, at least?”

“Yes,” you laughed, pulling him into your arms. You waited with him, until his taxi had arrived there, and then sent him off. The whole evening you were conflicted. Should you have kissed him? You know it would have hurt you, knowing he didn’t mean it the way you did. But was it selfish to wish you had him, even if only for a few fleeting seconds, in the palm of your hand? No, you did the right thing, you told yourself. Don’t break your own heart like that. That’s what other people are here for. The thoughts didn’t stop until late at night, when you finally drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Your next morning was busy. It was a weekend, but you needed to go grocery shopping and clean some rooms in your home, so you could relax in the afternoon. You were so lost in work, that you almost forgot about what happened the previous evening. Almost. Because when the doorbell rang at 3 in the afternoon, your heart ached for it to be him, standing outside your door.

“Hi.” And there he was. In front of your door, almost like it was imagination. You couldn’t stop the child-like grin that spread on your face at his sight.

“Hey, come in,” you offered, stepping aside for him. He removed his hand from behind his back. And handed you…a scarf?

“I found this at my place today. It’s yours, isn’t it?” he said. “I just dropped by to bring it back.”

And that’s the exact time it took for your brittle hope to be crushed beneath his words.

“That is mine. I’ve been wondering where it was. Thank you,” you said in a robot-kind-of-way. “Where are you off to?”

You didn’t want him to go. He had to stay, so that the last little flicker of Esperance would be kept alive.

“Oh, I just need to get some milk from the store, that’s all,” he said. His smile was too handsome for you to be okay with looking at it. Especially now.

“But actually, there’s something you have for me too, don’t you?” he said.

“What?” you asked, confused. Did he forget something at your place, as well? His lips curled into a cheeky smirk, and your heartbeat picked up pace.

“Yesterday you were worried I wouldn’t remember. Now it seems like I’ll have to remind you of what you said,” he spoke. “You said I can kiss you if I still want to.”

At that moment, you stopped functioning for a few solid seconds. With a wide-eyed gaze you stared at him in disbelief.

“And I do,” he said. “I do still want to kiss you. How could I not, when that’s all I’ve wanted to do for months?”

And then he was there, so close to you, you worried he might hear your heartbeat through your chest. Finally, you understood. A smile spread on your face, completely out of your control. You touched his face, and his beautiful eyes were the last thing you saw before you closed your own and your lips touched. His skin was cold from the temperature outside, so you only pulled him closer. A perfectly comfortable warmth spread in your chest, one that felt as if it had been there, locked up in a small box for months, only waiting to be unleashed. And he had been the key. His gentle kiss and his oh-so familiar scent was all you could think about. You had gotten your Christmas miracle, after all.

125 notes · View notes

kenyizsuartblog · 4 years ago

Text

Xenoblade Chronicles - Nopon design ideas

- Commission Info

Not a fast sketch, but a couple of months-old pencil sketches prettied up digitally.

I have watched Chuggaaconroy's lets play of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and in my boredom, I began messing around with Nopon character ideas, the three most flashed out making it here.

Now, I'll be honest. I... I have no idea what people see in that game. It's an absolute mess. A proper, overblown, over-twisted, overly-emotional Japanese RPG mess at its finest.

The worldbuilding looks cool at first, but makes no real sense, the Titans are constantly called "living beings" but they are nothing more than moving statues with zero survival instincts or... or any kind of instincts for that matter. Plants, basically.

The state of the world also makes no sense, ESPECIALLY in the last hour of the game or so when you realize the planet could have been "created" in any other normal way with a literal wave of a hand. I am not kidding, that is actually what happens in the end.

The fight choreography is hilariously bad. People get constantly frozen in animation, until the moment they are needed on scene, nobody exists outside of the camera.

The dialogue is often cheesy and it has that nerve-breakingly annoying trope of "repeating what the last person said as a question". That's not good dialogue writing, people. Japanese media loves to do it, I know, but it's not good.

Rex's voice actor LOOOOOL

The bad guys are also pretty damn lame. Mr. "Nothing Personelll Kid" Himself, especially...

All around terrible pacing. I especially love the parts where a character's tragic backstory is frontloaded in actual 15 minutes, THEN they switch sides without a proper reason THEN die immediately. And then the game acts like I was supposed to care about that guy.

Pyra's motivation and goal. She can go straight to hell with that bull-. Everyone's tripping over themselves to say how good and precious she is, but in that moment when it all comes out, I have hated her with all of my heart, that selfish lying bastard. It got slightly better by the end, I admit.

Godforsaken JRPG game mechanics.

Occasional questionable Blade design choices. And I'm saying this as a huge anti-SJW, just putting it out there. The usual argument of "woman looks slightly attractive and showing her ankle THEREFORE SEXIST DESIGN" is not something I subscribe to. That is not the issue here.

Now, it has its moments (that bait-n-switch with Gramps was on point, yeah). I fully and readily admit there were story- and character moments that truly got me. I loved those. But I have far, FFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAR more to complain about, which is a damn damn shame.

Nopons are cool, tho. Tora is the actual precious boi, at least he wears his every screwed up trait on his sleeve unlike some others. If there was a spinoff with only Nopon heroes screwing around, savign the world on the side while making jokes, I would at least try to play that one.

Also Zeke. Zeke and Pandoria are cool as hell in my book! The CMHB (Crouching Moron - Hidden Badass) trope gives me lllife.

Anyway, have some Nopons, guys! Sorry about the rant.

2021.06.07.

#xenoblade chronicles #nopon #nopon designs #xenoblade chronicles 2 #pencil sketch #original design #screwing around more like #kenyizsu art

34 notes · View notes

strangersontheelevator · 3 years ago

Text

Je Ne Sais Pas Qui Je Suis

C’est ironique que j’ai nommé cet article en Français. Parce que, pour le majorité de ma vie, j’ai tellement pensé que Français est un facteur de mon identité très importante. Mais, après l’entrée d’université, j’ai perdu ce facteur.

This was just a very convoluted way for me to say that I don’t know who the fuck I am. I think the version that I have of myself in my head is very much in conflict with who I actually am--who I want to be is also very far from who I actually am. I have no idea what this means. I know that as a 19-going-on-20 female girl it’s probably not the end of the world if I still don’t know definitively who I am, but I feel as though this is something I’ve really been struggling with the past few days. I’ve been getting insomnia a lot. I’m not sure why. It’s definitely partially anxiety-induced, also probably because I’m experiencing some withdrawal from a drug I became somewhat dependent on. But during these sleepless nights, all I can think about is how much I don’t know about myself. Who do I like? Who do I dislike? What do I like? What do I dislike? What do I want to do? What do I think I want to do, and how much of this is influenced by other people? I’m actually at such a loss. And this should be fine, but for some godforsaken reason I feel stuck as a result. I’m constantly anxious and second-guessing myself because I don’t know what I want to do. I spent this whole semester trying to find myself, but as a result I ended up making matters a lot worse. There are things that I know I really, really enjoy: making deep connections with people, academic validation, romance, music, sunsets, coffee, journalling, and writing. Is this enough? How do I become fulfilled knowing this?

Sometimes I think that having full control of your life is both a blessing and a curse. For someone as indecisive as me, someone who can’t even make up her mind which color is her favorite color so she says “pastels” as a cop-out, I feel as if I could literally choose to do anything, and this terrifies me. What if I’m making the wrong choices? Some people, especially those who believe in God, think that no matter what decisions we make, we will always end up in the same place regardless. Sometimes I wish I was religious so that I could have this belief. In contrast, I see every decision that I make as something that will lead me to a different future. Today, I was visiting the place that I will be working this summer and I passed by the hospital that was next to the lab. This hospital was actually where I was going to work my summer before junior year of high school, but I turned it down for a research experience. Why? Because of my dad. If I had gone with my gut, would I be somewhere else right now? Would I have gotten into the same college? Would junior year have been any different for me? Would my friends have been different as a result? Would I have met my first boyfriend? I definitely wouldn’t have met this guy at the lab who is still my friend to this day. So much could have changed just from one simple decision that I made literally 4 years ago. Thinking about the implications of this makes my head hurt.

We have so much autonomy as human beings to do whatever the fuck we want. We could shave our heads, go running naked down the street, call our exes and tell them that we still love them (lol), block everyone on social media, be rude to people we don’t like, and yet we sit in our homes complacent with where we are. I could go and attempt to rob a bank today. I would obviously fail miserably to do so, but this is still an option. Why do I feel so trapped in my life when I have the full and complete autonomy to do whatever I want? This is a debacle of the human nature. We are so lucky as creatures to have been granted consciousness and intelligence and knowledge deep enough for us to have a better understanding of the world than most others on this planet. So why do we waste this potential? Why do we, even when we know of all of the wonderful and terrible things that this world holds, remain slaves to our 9-to-5′s, never go out of our comfort zone and explore, and wonder why we are unhappy?

I wasn’t trying to make this a journal entry--I was actually going for something more profound than this, but alas, my streams of consciousness always make zero sense. Anyways, I am going to continue studying for the MCAT and go back to my silly, meaningless little life.

#personal

1 note · View note

bondsmagii · 4 years ago

Note

(cw: I'm about to get real crass about CSA because it makes me real mad and that's how I cope)

the cultural reaction to cuties is infuriating to me, especially how even defenders feel the need to criticise the hypersexualised camera shots for ""normalising sexualistion of children in film"". Like, this is a thing that is happening in real life, right now, folks! Real Life Kids commonly do dances like these, in clothes like these, in an attempt to copy adult women being framed in shots like that! That's basically a good fifth of Tik Tok! The shots being of kids instead of adults is intentionally horrific, because it's trying to highlight that that kind of societal gaze is what pressured them to do the dances and wear the clothes and everything else; to take a thing that we've all come to accept as normal (8 year olds online twerking to songs explicitly about sex) and make us see how horrific it is, so people might give a shit for once. (A real shit, not that Pizzagate-adjacent thing where people only bring it up in service of criticising something/someone they already didn't like, and never exploring why it's so prevalent to begin with). You know, the filmic opposite of normalisation?? It's incredibly disappointing that people's takeaway appears to be: "ew gross, look at how horny this camera is for literal children. Glad this absolutely isn't a thing that happens in real life that I will go straight back to ignoring while patting myself on the back for identifying this media as Problematic

And the idea that "a pedophile could get off to this" makes any sense as criticism! I guess pedophiles only get off to children in revealing clothing, huh? So all children need to do to avoid pedophiles is, uh... *checks notes* "dress less slutty". I *wish* I lived in a world where pedophiles were genuinely waiting on feature films to deliver them a few shots of children in revealing clothing, instead of trading real CP that has caused untold suffering. Sometimes it really feels like people are more invested in weaponising the idea of suffering children in rhetoric, rather than the welfare of real children. It's the same disconnect that makes it impossible to bring up things like early intervention programs for pedophiles without being called a pedophile yourself (a rich thing to call someone who was on the receiving end, and takes about a year off my lifespan every time).

Every time someone brings this movie up, I feel like I'm losing my marbles. Otherwise smart and insightful people seem completely willing to misread it in the most infuriating way possible. It's like it's the Asch conformity test, and I'm the rube in the last chair wondering whether I even watched the same movie as them. It's comforting to see at least one other person on this godforsaken planet comprehending that The Sexualised Children Shots Are Horrific On Purpose in this movie trying to push people out of complacency

honestly go off like I could not have said this better myself. this is exactly what's been pissing me off about the response to this movie and my post about it in general.

this is what I cannot get my head around. like, people are freaking out over how this movie normalises the sexualisation of young children, but somehow miss the point that it's already been normalised. the movie would not be necessary if this hadn't already become a completely normal part of society. even walking around the shops in town I see children maybe 10 or 11 years old dressed like Instagram models, faces full of makeup, revealing clothing... it's honestly disturbing. these kids think that's acceptable, they think that's what they need to do in order to have worth, and it's terrifying. if I had my own children, I would be terrified for them. the movie is not the problem. why people can't direct this anger and outrage to websites like TikTok instead, I have no idea. probably because that would require actual work, and we all know these people are addicted to outrage and self-righteousness and absolutely allergic to any kind of effort to create real change.

It's incredibly disappointing that people's takeaway appears to be: "ew gross, look at how horny this camera is for literal children. Glad this absolutely isn't a thing that happens in real life that I will go straight back to ignoring while patting myself on the back for identifying this media as Problematic"

people get so offended when they're made to feel uncomfortable. I have no idea why. I'm trying to work out this thought process but it's simply beyond me. it baffles me that people can see something that's actually happening in the world, and instead of getting angry about the actual issue, they decide to attack the female director of the movie about said issue, who is writing from her own experience. like, how in god's name these people managed to miss the point so badly, I do not know. the manoeuvres they had to do to miss a point that big and obvious should make them all automatic gold medal winners in Olympic gymnastics.

(I do think that a lot of people yelling the loudest about Cuties have probably only seen the Netflix promotional poster and then devoured a bunch of Twitter threads highlighting the apparent problems and possibly a view video essays on YouTube showing the most dramatic and out of context shots of the girls, however.)

right? like. this point is so fucking useless. by this logic, we should ban everything with photos of children in it. if a paedophile is going to waste time going to see a full feature movie just to see some young girls twerking-- I mean, why would they in the first place? why would a paedophile do that when they can just sign on to TikTok and see thousands of hours of footage of young girls twerking? and if "revealing clothing" is all it takes, what's stopping this paedophile from going to the local pool and watching the kids in swimwear? what's stopping this paedophile from going and picking up a clothing catalogue and flipping to the pictures of little girls in dresses? the fact that people can compare the content of a feature-length film to actual CP fucking baffles me. like. it's actually insulting to compare things like that -- and by extension, any child on the street in a t-shirt or a dress or a skirt or a swimsuit -- to actual CP. like, who looks at a kid and thinks like that? if you want to stop paedophiles being creeps, you'd have to lock kids up in the house until they're 18 and ban all depictions of kids forever. paedophiles are gonna be creeps no matter what, and they're not going to bother with a full film when they can log onto TikTok and comment something creepy on footage of a real life child who might even message back and enter into communication with them. like, damn. why aren't more people getting mad and outraged about that?

Sometimes it really feels like people are more invested in weaponising the idea of suffering children in rhetoric, rather than the welfare of real children.

they are. "somebody please think of the children" is now the rallying cry of the right (all leading Democrats are secret paedophiles, the LGBT agenda is making Our Innocent Christian Children into perverts) and the left (problematic media is Harming Our Innocent Children, everything needs to be censored and squeaky clean so the Metaphorical Children don't stumble across it and think it's acceptable). it's the quickest way to get people outraged and it works like a charm. as soon as somebody starts rallying under the flag of protecting kids, it gives them a fast pass to power and influence. who wants to be seen to not care about kids? who wants to risk being called a paedophile or a child abuser? unfortunately their eagerness to declare everybody such has resulted in it losing its meaning. now when I see someone accused of paedophilia I no longer feel the usual revulsion but instead a tired suspicion followed by hours of research to determine if they are actually abusing children, or if they ship the wrong thing. to put the numbers into perspective, the one and only time I found out somebody was actually abusing minors, I was genuinely shocked because I had never found a true accusation before in oh, six years? which is unsurprising, seems I have been called a paedophile and told I shouldn't be around children because I like a villain from a YA series. as for real children, none of these people give a shit.

It's comforting to see at least one other person on this godforsaken planet comprehending that The Sexualised Children Shots Are Horrific On Purpose in this movie trying to push people out of complacency

that's exactly it right there -- it's horrific on purpose, but these people can't understand that. to them, literature and art and film is supposed to always make you feel good, and if it doesn't it's mean and abusive and you should have warned for it and also you're an asshole for making it in the first place. for people who only consume media to feel good, and only create it to feel progressive and wholesome, it's inconceivable why people would create something depressing or disturbing. because they're consuming media of only things they like, they assume everyone else is. ergo, if you make something nasty, it's because you're into something nasty. if you write about a murderous villain, it's because you want to be a murderous villain. if you direct a movie about children being sexually exploited, you must want to sexually exploit children.

these people cannot understand that art is supposed to teach and inform as well as comfort and coddle. some art is there to make you feel good, and other art is there to make you take notice of injustice and suffering and make you angry and upset enough to want to do something about it. these people do not understand that at all, and with this kind of logic they would try to ban Holocaust survivors from speaking at schools because it's too upsetting to think about, rather than paying attention to the message that such things get across. we cannot change society without empathy, and to experience empathy for something outside our own understanding and experience, we need to come into contact with people who have lived through it. we need to see it depicted. that's how we learn to feel for others. it puts a face to the suffering and makes it easier to stay motivated and stay mad.

but no. these people just want to be nice and fuzzy and safe. that's all that matters to them, and anyone who thinks they're wrong for doing it must be a paedophile or something. right. gotcha.

#long post #anon #asks

12 notes · View notes

moonstarfem · 3 years ago

Text

I’m so so tired of the beauty standards that exist for black women. I’ve watched a few YouTube video essays about it recently and reading the comments made me so sad. I just feel like black women dedicate way too much time, energy and money on this shit and it’s not doing anything for us. A lot of women were talking about how they just want to be “seen”…but why is the need to be validated more important than feeling comfortable and secure within yourself? Maybe I’m just growing up and realising how useless it is to want to be seen as beautiful by everyone in the world. I just want black women to reject all of this shit. I feel like we’ve long gone past the stage of being predominantly influenced by society's eurocentric standards. It’s transitioned from that to us creating our own (still harmful) standards which are then continually enforced amongst the black community. Especially when it comes to hair. Even the natural hair movement was sabotaged by the obsession with curl definition and wanting to avoid “dry-looking” hair. Like, these standards aren’t any better than the ones society enforces just because it was us that created them. It’s all rooted in anti-blackness no matter who it comes from.

I also hate hate HATE people buying into the notion that everyone just so happens to think that black women are undesirable. I've seen people say things like, "black women are always seen as masculine" which confuses the hell out of me. I'm sorry but what does that even mean? Where has this sentiment come from? Because this could not be further from the truth. I refuse to download that godforsaken app, but I've seen tik tok videos shared of young black girls complaining about their "masculine" faces when they couldn't look any more female. White TRAs love this shit too. They LOVE to claim that black women aren't always "seen" as women and have had to "fight" to be recognised as female. And it's hella convenient for them when black women buy into that rhetoric and start to believe that they have to work harder to have their beauty recognised. We already have so much going against us that we have to fight to overcome, to then have to worry about the way that we look.

To some extent, I feel as though some responsibility has to be taken for what we dedicate our energy towards. I feel like waaaaay too much attention is given to how much value we are seen to have and whether this is externally validated or not. Social media really isn't helping with all this shit either. People make it seem like black women have to do the most to have an existence that's worth living. Too much importance is placed on the acceptance of others. It's really not worth it though. In a world where black women aren't made to feel beautiful by society and sometimes our own people, the most freeing thing you can do is live for yourself and reject all these stupid beauty standards.

I do recognise how challenging it is to do this though. They say representation is important, but when all of our representation in the media is of flawless, made-up, glamorous black women with perfect straight/wavy wigs, it is difficult to turn around and say, "fuck it. I don't care about any of this shit anymore". It’s a huge thing to do and it’s particularly difficult when it comes to hair. Compared to non-black women, this is the one thing that is considerably more challenging for us to reconcile. It's something that I've yet to make peace with myself, tbh.

I have extremely dense, 4C hair that has been natural for around 5 years now. I've had TWAs, braid outs, twist outs, wigs, braids, crotchet & head wraps. My hair still ends up being the bane of my life though lol. I love my natural hair and have enjoyed seeing my coils flourish, but as someone who is not good at/hates spending a lot of time doing my hair, it's hard to find a good balance. I've been doing lots of research on different types of locs though and think that they're the right choice for me. Unlike many of the hairstyles popularised in the natural hair community (which are more easily achievable for type 3 naturals), locs are pretty much perfect for 4C hair. I can’t even explain the joy I felt when I came across several resources confirming that MY hair type was actually ideal for once.

Anyway, this post was a bit of a mess and I’m not sure how to conclude…but I've just had all of this on my mind for a while now and wanted to air it out.

#beauty standards #black women #long ass rant #black hair

4 notes · View notes

is-it-art-tho · 4 years ago

Link

Summary: After a truly crappy week, Bats and Jim decide they could both use a breather.

Jim Gordon sighed as he leaned back heavily against the brick wall, slick with freezing rain that had just begun to fall. He popped his collar as a bitter wind sliced through his duster to cut straight to the bone. His old joints ached in protest against the cold and he hissed a cursed, rubbing his eyes under his glasses.

It had been an exceptionally rough week, the kind that made him long for the early days, back when the worst things he had to worry about were petty drug dealers and domestic assault cases. Back then, most officers didn’t even wear Kevlar half the time. They walked the streets armed with a badge and a rarely used gun and felt invincible, wholly confident in their ability to stand between the public and those who meant to do harm. Back then, the uniform and the badge had been enough – more than enough to discourage most crime, and where the uniform and badge failed, it didn’t take much more to straighten things out.

But now as he watched as a dozen officers struggled to drag Killer Croc’s unconscious body out of the harbor, he couldn’t help but scoff at the hellish circus the city had become. Now most officers didn’t wear Kevlar, not out of a sense of safety, but rather a sense of futility. Standing against Croc or Bane or even Freeze, Kevlar would only slow the inevitable.

Some time not too long ago, a new darkness had spilled over the city like rain, and a wicked breed of evil had crept up from the sewers in its wake, ushering a new, horrible era that even now he couldn’t begin to explain, let alone accept. It was the stuff of nightmares; the sort of horrors that now plagued the city on a near constant basis used to be considered “once in a lifetime.”

But this week - this godforsaken week - had been one for the books, even in Gotham.

Jim’s phone chimed and he spared a glance from the scene in front of him to peek at the notification. It was a confirmation message letting him know that Harley and the Penguin had been safely returned to Arkham. Croc was basically as good as done at this point, which left only Ivy to worry about. Last he’d heard, his guys had her cornered in a plant nursery at the natural sciences museum. It was by no means an ideal location for a standoff with her, but Batman was there too, which just about evened the odds as much as anything anyone could hope for. It was the only reason he wasn’t on his way there now. That, and the fact that he was fairly certain that even if he left now and blew through every stop on the way there, he’d get there long after the fight was over, for better or worse. Fights with Ivy were fierce, but rarely very long.

Jim sighed again and tapped a cigarette free from the pack. The gentle thump and scuff of boots on damp pavement behind him only proved his point, and he said without turning around, “Ivy?”

“Neutralized.” Batman stepped forward so that they were side by side, coughing slightly, his eyes on Croc.

The officers had been trying to work by sheer manpower alone for nearly twenty minutes before Bullock, sweating an irritated, finally shouted, “For the love of– just rig ‘im up to one of the trucks already!” Now a few chains were looped onto Croc’s pants, the other ends hooked onto the back of a fire engine, and they were slowly backing him out of the water.

Jim noticed Batman’s arm wrapped around his torso, clutching his side. He assumed the gesture was meant to be inconspicuous, hidden almost entirely under the thick cape, and knowing Batman, it could mean anything from a simple bruise to a punctured lung. Or worse.

Without another word, he shook free a second cigarette and held it out.

“I don’t smoke,” Batman said.

“Humor me.”

To Jim’s mild surprise, and perhaps underscoring his belief that this had in fact been a spectacularly awful week, Batman took the cigarette and held it while Jim lit both of them.

It didn’t escape the older man’s notice that the black gloved hand trembled slightly, and Jim knew enough about the insulation of the suit, having seen Batman stand comfortably in significantly harsher conditions, to know that it wasn’t from the cold.

Batman took a slow drag, the butt flaring then fading again in the darkness, and exhaled a cloud of smoke and condensation into the frosty air.

They stood like that for a while, wrapped in silence as they watched the officers work. Well, to be fair Jim was only half-watching the officers, one eye glued to Batman. He smelled faintly botanical, sweet like nectar but also bitter and sharp like vinegar and acid. Small patches of his cape were missing, ragged holes that looked reminiscent of burn marks, and a light dusting of gold covered most of his body. Pollen, Jim assumed.

So, she’d put up a hell of a fight then.

“You’re staring, Jim.”

The older man jumped like a child caught stealing a cookie and redirected his gaze to the scene. “Christ,” he muttered, rubbing his neck somewhat sheepishly. “Here I thought I was being slick.”

Batman dropped the cigarette and snuffed it into the wet pavement. “Was there anything else?”

“No, thank God. I think that’s everything.”

“Then you should get home. Get some rest,” Batman said, turning to leave.

It was one of the few times Jim had had the chance to actually watch Batman leave rather than be left talking to the open air. He watched the man reach for a grapple beneath his cape and felt something drop into the pit of his stomach as he thought about the ride home.

No, he couldn’t go home. It was something Jim had learned soon after he’d gotten married, back when he was still new to the job. He couldn’t go straight home after a rough night. No matter how much he might want to, he knew he needed to get his head on straight before he walked through the door. Make sure he was ready to interact, to be a father and a husband, to be with his family. Otherwise, the events of the night clung to him like smoke, wafting with him from room to room and turning him into something dour and unapproachable. It wasn’t fair to his family or anyone around him, and he’d learned that the hard way, but he’d learned it all the same.

But this was one of those unique nights where the thought of being alone was almost worse. The way his mind was racing, had been racing for the past few days, the last thing he wanted was to be left to his own devices. To think about all the ways he’d screwed up, all the people who had been endangered or worse because of a clue he’d missed, a decision he’d made too slowly or blown all together. He would sit and he would think and he would descend into self-flagellation until he was just about ready to hand in his letter of resignation and fling himself into the harbor. It was a well-trodden path at this point, and one he didn’t want to revisit.

So, in a last-ditch attempt to salvage what was left of the night, Jim found himself asking, “Where are you headed?”

Batman paused and tossed a curious look over his shoulder. It was hard to tell through the mask, but Jim got the feeling he had an eyebrow raised.

“Is something wrong,” Batman asked.

“No, no, I was just…” Jim took a breath and jammed his half-frozen hands into his pockets, feeling impossibly foolish. What was he doing? “It’s been a rough week,” he continued. “And I was just…” His sentence trailed off with another deep sigh. “Eh, never mind. It was nothing.”

Batman kept his eyes on him, appraising him the way Jim had seen him study countless crime scenes. It made him feel strangely vulnerable, almost nude.

“Are you hungry?” Batman asked suddenly.

And even though he was one of the most infuriatingly inscrutable men in the world, Jim knew him well enough by now to recognize this for what it was. A small lifeline.

“Starving,” Jim grinned, dropping his cigarette to crush it underfoot. “There’s a little hole in the wall on 4th.”

“McLaren’s?”

“That’s the one.” Jim was beyond amused by the idea that Batman might be familiar with the little mom & pop health code violation they called a diner. He imagined him strolling in for a milkshake at 2 in the morning, cowl and all, and having an autographed portrait added to the wall of celebrity customers.

Jim glanced back at the scene. They’d finally hauled Croc into one of the armored vans and were just beginning to clear out.

“We’re just about done here,” he said. “Give me about 10 minutes and I should– Goddammit.” He was talking to himself again. Perhaps the first time had been a fluke.

About thirty minutes later, Jim was pulling up in front of the little diner, the windows papered with sun damaged menu items and flashing neon lights, and the only place still open at this ungodly hour. A bell chimed as he stepped in, immediately blinded by the contrast from wintry night to bright fluorescent interior.

“Gordy!” the round man at the grill shouted by way of greeting.

“Pauly.” Jim was too tired to return the same vigor, but he offered a smile, tugging off his coat that was now heavy with rain and stiff with cold.

Without another word between them, Pauly threw a few extra ingredients on the flat-top grill to start preparing Jim’s usual.

In the back, a dark figure was hunched in the corner booth by a window, completely incongruous with the otherwise ordinary setting, like a Tesla in a Norman Rockwell painting.

He caught Pauly’s eye then, and Pauly shot him wary half-raise of an eyebrow as if to say, What the hell you got going on here? and Am I gonna have to update my insurance policy on this place? and Do you think he’ll sign a photo?

Jim just shrugged in a way he hoped was reassuring then made his way back to the booth and slipped in. Batman was leaning over a half-drained mug of coffee, his head in his hand, and though Jim couldn’t see his eyes through the white lenses in the mask, he could’ve sworn the other man was dozing off.

“Surprised you’re sitting with your back to the door,” Jim noted. “Thought you were too paranoid for that sort of thing.”

Batman simply gestured toward the chrome napkin holder, angled in such a way that he had a clear view of the entire restaurant behind him. Of course.

Jim chuckled and shook his head as Pauly came over with a glass of Coke. He held up a coffee pot, offering to refill Batman’s cup, but Batman held up a tired hand and Pauly returned to the kitchen.

“So,” Jim began, tapping his straw against the table to open it, “made it through another one.”

“Hn.” Batman rubbed his face in an exhausted and somewhat startlingly human gesture and coughed, groaning a little.

Jim was fairly certain he’d never seen Batman so openly… human before. Even after some of their worst scrapes when Batman was practically bleeding out or loaded with some sort of toxin, he had always stood tall, stoic, betraying not even a hint of weakness. After a while, it had only added to the legend of it all.

Batman: the man who did not sleep, who bled but did not feel pain.

He’d taken on a mythos, became something larger than himself. Jim had watched the transformation with his own two eyes, had seen the way the conversation shifted around him in the precinct and on the streets. In the months after Batman’s first appearance, he went from being the crazy man in a costume to the lurking force that hung over the city the same way clouds always seemed to – at once haunting and familiar.

He’d known all along that the stories of his exploits were overblown, but he’d let them grow anyway because he also knew how necessary it was that the city believed them, that they saw Batman as this otherworldly entity. It was the only way for any of it to work. Batman’s very name, the signal in the sky, they had to be backed by an unshakeable belief that he was something more than a man.

Because it wasn’t enough to be a good man. Not here; not anymore. Good men didn’t scare criminals, not the kind that stalked the streets of Gotham. And good men didn’t last long in these parts, besides. Harvey Dent’s presence in Arkham was a painful, permanent reminder of that fact. And it was Harvey Dent, along with other fallen or corrupted good men, who solidified the cynicism that clung to the hearts of most Gothamites like a parasite and made it nearly impossible for them to take any solace in the efforts or words of simple good men.

In a battle against devils, men simply did not do.

No, they needed something more, something greater. They needed a legend, a story whispered over barrel fires and on street corners, an ever-present threat to those who prowled the shadows and a hope for those searching for the light.

They needed Batman.

And Jim was mature enough to admit that he needed it, too. He clung to the stories, craved them the same way a child might cling to Santa Clause – a desperate last attempt at hope in this city that seemed to try its damnedest to crush it.

But now, sitting across from Batman and getting a chance to really look at him up close in something other than the dim lit of a rooftop or back alley, and seeing the drawn lines in his face and the weary drag in his voice, Jim couldn’t help but kick himself for being so foolish, so selfish. It was one thing for the city to believe the stories, but he didn’t have that luxury. He couldn’t. Because at the end of the day there needed to be at least one person out there who saw Batman for who he really was: just a good man trying to save the city from itself.

Someone had to see that – had to know that.

Otherwise, who would save the Batman from the city?

And when Batman coughed again and stretched his neck painfully from side to side, wincing as he did, Jim kicked himself again. He’d noticed from the first moment that Batman seemed worse for wear, yet never once had he suggested any medical intervention, however futile the offer might be. And he vowed in that moment to do better at remembering that this man before him was just that.

A man.

“You all right?” Jim asked in a belated attempt to do what he should’ve done almost an hour ago. And many times, before that. “If you want, I can get one of the guys to give you a once over.”

“I’m fine,” Batman said, his eyes scrunched.

Sitting here, Batman’s chest and arms were visible beneath the cape, and Jim could get a better read on the extent of the damage. The burns he’d noticed in the cape itself were also on his torso, leaving holes in the fabric that revealed the tough, lightweight armor beneath, and Jim recognized the telltale slashes across his chest and biceps left by Ivy’s thorny vines, some of them slicing clean through to the skin. There was a particularly deep gash across Batman’s left side, and when he noticed Jim staring, he let the cape fall a bit more to cover himself.

“Really,” he added with a slight edge in his voice.

Jim put up his hands in surrender. “Hey, listen. I’m not your mother. If you say you’re fine,” he shrugged, taking a swig from his Coke, and he could’ve sworn he saw some tension seep out of Batman’s shoulders, as if he’d been bracing himself for a battle on this issue.

Jim was a caring man, and he could worry and nag with the best of them, but he was also an old man, and tired. And the last thing he intended to do tonight on top of everything else was argue with another grown man about a damn checkup.

“What do you usually do after nights like this?” he asked, pivoting easily. “I’m assuming by the nervous sweats on Pauly’s collar that you’re not exactly a regular here.”

“No,” Batman granted. “Usually, I go for a drive.”

“Huh. I would’ve thought you’d just go right home. Crawl into bed and pass out.”

“Sometimes, but not always. Nights like this… I need to be alone for a while. Clear my head, wait for the adrenaline to wear off.”

It hadn’t occurred to Jim that the Batman might live with other people. He wondered what that looked like. A wife? A family? He found himself imagining the Christmas card – a smiling family in matching sweaters and then… Batman. His lips curled into a smile around the straw in his mouth.

But he also understood the sentiment exactly, and he nodded, saying, “I hear ya,” while suppressing the million questions burning at the back of his throat about Batman’s home life. Not the time, not the place, and not his business.

“Do you want to, uh… Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after a brief pause. “What happened, I mean?” Jim’s eyes flicked back and forth between his Coke and Batman’s face, suddenly feeling wildly out of his depth. He figured it was a necessary question to ask, especially given everything that had happened, but he felt impossibly unqualified to have the conversation with this man in particular.

“No,” Batman said after another moment, staring out the window at the sparse, pre-dawn traffic. If Jim were anybody else or any younger, he might have flushed with embarrassment.

Because of course Batman didn’t want to talk about it with him. What could he possibly offer by way of advice or comfort to the man who had saved the entire city – hell, the world – on multiple occasions; who had fought battles in different solar systems and gone toe to toe with aliens and demigods? Comparatively, Jim was a nobody, practically irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Self-pity wasn’t a familiar sensation for him, and he shifted uncomfortably in the overstuffed seat, cringing as the plastic covering whined beneath him.

“Not about tonight,” Batman continued.

Jim blinked, confused, and Batman went on a little hesitantly. “Let’s just… talk.”

“Oh.” The response felt incredibly lame coming out of his mouth and seemed to plop onto the table between them, but he was so caught off guard that he didn’t know what else to say.

It looked almost like Batman was suddenly unsure, because he immediately straightened in his seat, and his expression became more guarded, that familiar stoicism returning to his mouth and all of the apparent exhaustion evaporating in an instant.

“You’re right,” he said quickly, even though Jim hadn’t said anything. “It’s unnecessary. And you’re probably tired. You should go.”

Batman had just begun to slide out of the booth – wincing in pain as he went – when Jim reached out a hand.

“Hey, hey, wait a second. At this point I won’t be getting to sleep anytime soon, and I’ll bet the same goes for you. Now, I plan to sit here, eat my roast beef sandwich and maybe get an extra order of fries. I can’t force you, but if you wanna sit here with me and talk about something other than criminally insane meta humans and murder and armed robberies, I’d like that quite a bit.”

Batman held his gaze for a moment, still halfway between sitting and standing as Pauly returned and set two plates down on the table. A hefty roast beef sandwich pierced with a toothpick and topped with a pickle for Jim and a Philly cheesesteak for Batman. Jim couldn’t tell if it was his little speech or the food that pushed him over the edge, but Batman settled back into the seat, a little stiff, but apparently ready to stay for at least as long as it took to finish the sandwich.

Jim grinned as he watched him drag over a ketchup and squirt it into the center of the sandwich. The whole image was just so surreal he wouldn’t have been surprised if his alarm went off in a minute and he woke up only to realize the whole thing had been a dream.

“So then,” Jim said around a mouthful of bread and meat, “seen any good movies lately?”

#batman whump #mild hurt/comfort #batman #jim gordon #batman fic #batman fanfic #batman fanfiction #batman and jim gordon #whump

8 notes · View notes

antiadvil · 4 years ago

Text

Friends With (Tax) Benefits

summary: After same-sex marriage is legalized in the UK, Phil suggests he and Dan get married to save money on their taxes. Dan initially rejects his proposal, but after some thought, he changes his mind. Except then he starts to… feel things. Things he really shouldn’t be feeling about his best friend and platonic husband. And all of the sudden, what was supposed to be a simple arrangement between friends has the potential to get much, much more complicated.

Surely Dan can keep his feelings repressed for a little bit longer.

rating: PG-13

wc: 7.4k

notes: for the @phandomreversebang! art provided by @artlessdynamite and betaing provided by @dansstripedsweater. they were both super helpful and great to work with!

also, warnings for unhealthy alcohol usage if you’re not into that.

read under the cut or on ao3!

“Let’s get married,” Phil said.

Dan snorted. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, I heard you,” Dan said. “I just have a few questions first. Like, what the actual fuck.”

Phil shrugged. “I just mean, it makes sense. It’s legal now. We live together and will for the foreseeable future. We have a lot of joint assets. We’d save a lot on taxes.”

Dan stared. “You want to get married. For tax purposes.”

Phil shrugged, cheeks pinkening.

Dan shook his head in disbelief.

“No pressure,” Phil said. “It was just an idea.”

“It was a dumb idea,” Dan snorted.

It was a dumb idea. It was a really, really dumb idea. Dan couldn’t believe he was thinking about it for longer than three seconds. Dan definitely couldn’t believe he was still thinking about it that night while lying in bed.

It was such a dumb idea. Why would Phil even suggest it? Especially considering...

Dan closed his eyes. He hadn’t thought about it in years. He hadn’t had any reason to.

When Dan and Phil had first met, Dan had maybe liked Phil a little bit. And maybe he had mentioned something to Phil to that effect, and maybe Phil had gently shut him down, reminded him how much younger he was, how much less experience he had with relationships that were more than just awkward fumbling in dark rooms.

But that was years ago, and Dan was over it. He had been over it for years. It was so long ago it shouldn’t even factor into this decision. Why was he still thinking about it?

His bed did feel empty. He wondered what it would be like to have someone lying next to him, close enough to touch.

Dan shook himself. Even if he and Phil did get married, it wouldn’t have to change anything about their relationship. They would still sleep in separate beds. They would still be friends. Nothing less, and nothing more.

That thought sent a slight twinge through Dan’s heart. He resolutely ignored it, turning over to his side. He was done thinking about this. It was a bad idea, and dwelling on it wouldn’t do him any good.

***

Dan slept badly. His dreams were fragmented; the kind that vanished when you woke up and left you with a weird sense of fatigue for the rest of the day, as if you hadn’t slept at all.

He made himself coffee with his breakfast that morning, and Phil noticed. Of course Phil noticed. Phil knew Dan better than anyone in the world, maybe better even than Dan himself. Was it even possible for anyone to ever get to know Dan better than Phil already did?

“Coffee?” Phil asked, glancing at Dan’s mug. “Rough night?”

“You could say that,” Dan muttered.

Phil nodded, turning his head back to his phone, and a sudden need burned through Dan.

“Hey,” he said. “I was, um, thinking about what you said last night.”

“Oh,” Phil said, putting his phone down. He looked sheepish. “I’m sorry, you can just forget about that if-”

Dan interrupted. “What would we even tell our friends? Our families?”

Phil shrugged, carefully setting his cup of coffee down. “We could tell them the truth. If you think they could handle it.”

“What if they can’t?”

“Then we tell them something that isn’t the truth. We’ve been living together for four years, I’m sure some of them already think we’re dating.”

Dan’s face grew warm. He hesitated.

“Or we don’t have to tell them anything. It’s up to you. I don’t really care.”

Phil said it with such flippant ease that it felt like a stab to Dan’s gut. Of course he didn’t care. Why would he? It was just a business arrangement, really, just something to do for tax purposes.

“I’ll have to think about it,” Dan said.

Phil looked surprised. “Okay,” he said.

Dan thought about it again that night. He thought about how he always slept on one side of the bed, as if he was leaving the other half for another person he expected to come in in the middle of the night after a late shift at work. He thought about how the other half of his bed was going to be empty for the rest of the night.

He didn’t sleep well that night either.

***

Dan made a pro-con list the next morning. He didn’t label it at the top- that would have felt too real. He just divided it into two sides and wrote “Pro” on one side and “Con” on the other.

He tapped his pen against the paper. “Weird,” he scribbled on the Con side, quickly followed by “Can’t get real married later.”

As if that was looking likely. The last person Dan had dated was in high school, and it could not have been more of a disaster.

The Pro side was looking a bit lonely. “Taxes,” he scribbled, to humor Phil. He couldn’t help but smile a bit. Only Phil would say something like that.

Well, actually, there had to be more than that. There were all sorts of legal benefits to marriage, weren’t there? He crossed that out and added “legal benefits” instead.

The rest of the pros and cons came more quickly. In a lot of ways, they were basically married already. It would make it easier to come out in some ways. He could fend off unwanted suitors more easily. Because he got so many of those, he thought wryly.

Dan looked down at his paper. The pro side was almost full- mostly of small, stupid things, but Dan just kept thinking of small, stupid things to add.

Even if not all of the reasons for doing it were as good as the reasons for not doing it, just looking at the shape of his chart, it was clear what he wanted. He took a deep breath.

Maybe it was stupid, but it was what he wanted, for whatever godforsaken reason. What was the point in denying it? He had spent so long ignoring what he wanted. Didn’t he deserve something he wanted for once?

He crumpled the piece of paper to throw in the trash, but hesitated. He didn’t want Phil to find it. He smoothed it out, then put it at the very bottom of his dresser drawer.

There. Now it would never be seen again.

He left his room. He had to find Phil and tell him something.

Phil was in the living room this time, on his laptop, completely absorbed in a word document. Scripting, probably.

Dan hated to disturb Phil when he looked like this. He really was beautiful when he wasn’t paying attention to it- though Dan supposed it was the kind of beauty one learned to appreciate rather than the kind that was innate. The kind of beauty that only existed in people you loved.

“Hey Phil?” he asked, and Phil looked up, the illusion shattering. “I think I’m done thinking. About the thing.” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, but luckily, Phil seemed to know what he meant.

“And?”

“I want to do it.”

Phil raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

Dan nodded. “I’m sure.”

“Okay then.” Phil smiled. “Have you decided what to tell people?”

***

Dan came out to his parents on Skype, and told them he and Phil were getting married in the same conversation. It was easier that way. He didn’t have to buy a ticket home, or awkwardly stick around after he made his big revelation, acting like everything was normal.

His mother said she was proud of him and she loved him no matter what, and couldn’t wait to meet Phil again as her son-in-law. His dad didn’t say anything.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Phil asked when it was over. He had been sitting on the couch in the other room while Dan talked to his parents. Dan wasn’t sure how much he had overheard.

Dan shrugged. “My mom was fine. My dad…”

Phil’s face crumpled. “I’m sorry.” He stood up, wrapping Dan in a hug.

“It’s okay,” Dan said, trying to force his tears back. His voice still came out tight and watery. He buried his head deeper in Phil’s neck, and Phil held him tighter.

His brother was about as accepting as he expected any sixteen-year-old boy to be. When Dan called him to explain, he just kind of grunted and said he didn’t care.

Phil’s parents already knew he was gay, so all that was left was to explain was his relationship with Dan. They had decided not to explain to anyone that their marriage wasn’t really real, but Dan wasn’t sure exactly what Phil had said to his parents. Phil had asked Dan to leave the flat while he talked to them, and Dan had done so. He had a rather nice day wandering around London, and when he returned to the flat, Phil was stiff and composed, and told Dan that it went fine when he asked. Dan wasn’t sure whether or not he believed him, but he didn’t question it.

Explaining to their friends was tricky. Most of them already knew Dan and Phil were gay, and were confused about why they would hide a relationship from them for so long. Dan awkwardly fumbled explanations about the subscribers, and privacy, and the media, while Phil nodded, playing an excellent version of someone who was saying things that made sense.

They didn’t come out to their fans. Marriage was a matter of public record in the UK; they were just going to have to hope that no one actually cared enough to look.

The marriage ceremony was short and simple, nothing more than going down to the courthouse to sign some paperwork. Dan’s mum tried to get them to do some kind of ceremony, but Dan refused. That would have felt too much like a lie.

He couldn’t stop her from insisting on a visit, though, to congratulate the newlyweds.

Her train arrived on a cold, slightly rainy day- the usual in London. Still, Dan couldn’t help but take it as a sign justifying the dread growing in his stomach.

Phil had offered to come with Dan to meet his mum, but Dan had refused. He didn’t want to deal with the weirdness of pretending to be a couple that was pretending to not be a couple in public in front of his mum. It was way too many layers of weirdness to deal with. Dan would rather stick with just one.

“Mum!” he said, sweeping her into a hug. His worries lessened a bit as she hugged him back.

“Dan!” she said. “It’s been too long.”

Dan didn’t visit his family a lot. It probably had been too long. “I missed you,” he said, and it was mostly true.

She smiled, pulling back. “I missed you too.”

Dan knew she was coming alone, but he felt the absence of the rest of his family as an acute pain in his side. “Why didn’t Dad want to come?” he asked.

His mum pressed her lips into a thin line, and for a moment, Dan thought she wasn’t going to answer. “Oh, you know how busy he is,” she said lightly.

Dan nodded. “I’ll have to visit sometime,” he said.

He wouldn’t. They both knew it.

“But look at you!” His mum beamed, saving the mood. “My Daniel, all grown up. You’re married! Let me see the- Oh,” she said, looking at his hand, sounding disappointed. “No ring?”

Shit. If they were trying to pass this off as real, they probably should have gotten rings. “It didn’t make sense,” Dan explained. “Since we couldn’t wear them out anyway, with the fans and all.”

She nodded, still looking sad. “It’d be nice for you two to have something, though.”

“Maybe,” Dan said noncommittally, flagging down a taxi. He couldn’t help but think that it would be nice, but he hoped her badgering would die down once they got in the cab, or once they got back to the flat and he could talk to Phil.

Phil was so much better at lying than Dan was. He’d be able to handle this.

***

“Karen!” Phil said, sweeping her into a hug. He towered over her. Why were the two of them so tall?

“How’s my favorite son-in-law?” She hugged him back just as tightly as she had hugged Dan at the train station.

“He’s your only son-in-law,” Dan interrupted, “Unless Adrian also has some news he’d like to share?”

“Even if I had a million son-in-laws, Phil would still be my favorite,” Dan’s mum smiled.

“Aww,” Phil said.

Dan rolled his eyes. “Suck up,” he muttered.

“Where should I put my suitcase?” his mum asked.

“Oh,” Dan said. He hadn’t really thought about where she would sleep. “Um, there’s the gaming room? Or the sofa, but-”

“I thought I could just sleep in the guest room,” his mum interrupted.

Dan stared.

“Oh, come on, Dan,” his mum winked. “I know you two don’t really sleep in different rooms.”

Phil turned completely red. Dan suspected his face was a similar shade.

“Right,” Phil said, still blushing furiously. Hopefully, his mum would think it was because she had mentioned Dan and Phil’s supposed sex life and not because Phil was lying. “You can sleep in my room. Just give us a bit to set up, we completely forgot to.”

Dan wasn’t sure if it was possible to pass Phil’s incredibly messy room off as a guest room, but he supposed it’d be easier than handling the dirty laundry piled up in Dan’s closet.

Phil pulled Dan into his room after distracting Karen with the wall of pictures they had set up about six months ago, some time after her last visit.

“Change the sheets,” Phil said. “I’ll take care of-” he waved his hand at the mess. “All this.”

Dan couldn’t help but feel a bit sad as he stripped Phil’s sheets off his bed. They were so bright and colorful- Dan had always loved them. It felt wrong to put them away.

Phil managed to get most of his junk into boxes that he moved to Dan’s room while Dan’s mum was distracted. His room still looked a little bit lived in, but hopefully not excessively so.

“The room’s all ready, Mum!” Dan said.

“Finally,” she said. “You know, if my parents were visiting me-”

“Yes, mum,” Dan cut in, rolling his eyes. “You would never treat them with such disrespect. I’m a shame on the family. I deserve to be-”

“Oh, shush, Dan, you know I was only teasing.” His mum swatted his shoulder with the back of her hand.

Dan ducked away, cheeks burning. It was hard sometimes to remember that his mum was proud of him. “I know,” he said.

She hugged him. “Thank you for inviting me,” she said. “And I’m proud of you. I really am.”

“I know,” he said, and this time he even believed it a little bit.

***

“Are you ready for dinner?” Phil asked.

“I’m ready.” In an astonishing display of adulthood, Dan had called ahead to get a reservation. He had ironed a button-down shirt. He had found a suit jacket that sort of matched his pants. He had even scheduled a cab ahead of time so they wouldn’t be late.

It was exhausting. Dan didn’t know how other people did it. “You and Mum are already ready, I assume?”

“Yep,” Phil said. “The cab should be here in a few minutes.”

Dan was half expecting something to go terribly wrong, but to his surprise, they arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early, and when they entered the restaurant, a waitress ushered them straight to their table with no problems, handing them menus and setting down glasses of water and a basket of bread.

Dan turned immediately to the wine menu as Phil attacked the bread basket. He scanned the list- he didn’t really recognize anything, so he fixated in on the cheapest.

“Can we get a bottle of-” Dan started when the waitress finally came back.

Phil nudged Dan’s foot under the table. “I don’t think we need an entire bottle of wine.”

“I want an entire bottle of wine though,” Dan pouted.

His mum looked up, her brow wrinkling.

Dan bit the inside of his cheek. “I’ll just take a glass then.”

The waitress nodded, writing Dan’s order down. She took everyone else’s orders too- Dan was the only one who got any alcohol, which suddenly made him feel very self-conscious.

Luckily, it was nothing that a few refills of his wine glass couldn’t fix. Dan noticed Phil eyeing him after his second glass, but he ignored him. Dan was an adult, if he needed three glasses of wine to get through a dinner with his mum and his pretend husband, that was his business.

His mum had noticed too, Dan realized with a slight pang of guilt. He forced it down with another sip of wine.

“So,” Dan said, trying to distract her. “How’s Dad? And Adrian?”

She relaxed a bit. “Oh, they’re fine.” She filled him in on his dad’s work and Adrian’s school. Dan nodded along, doing his best to keep up. He noticed Phil doing the same out of the corner of his eye.

“But enough about me,” she said. “I feel like I’m behind on years of life updates. What have you two been up to?”

Dan looked at Phil, pleading wordlessly for him to take over.

Phil hesitated, his eyes falling on Dan’s fourth half drained glass of wine. “What do you want to know?” he finally asked, his eyes flicking back to Dan’s mum.

“Everything,” Dan’s mum said. “I don’t know anything about your relationship.”

A laugh spilled nervously from Phil’s mouth. “There’s a lot to tell.”

“Well then, not everything,” she said. “But- the basics. How you met. When you knew. How long.”

“We met the way Dan’s told you. Internet strangers, that whole thing.” Phil glanced at Dan, choosing his next words carefully. “And, well, we started out just friends.”

Dan nodded, and Phil seemed to take that as encouragement. “But, well, we started to get to know each other better, and we thought we’d be better in a relationship, so we decided to go for it. We were already living together, and that kind of intensified things, I think. We were pretty serious from the beginning, but of course, marriage wasn’t really a possibility until recently. And then all of the sudden it was, and, I mean, it just made sense. Why wouldn’t we, you know?”

Dan’s mum nodded.

“And, well, now we’re here.” Phil smiled at Dan. Dan returned the smile gratefully.

Dan’s mum looked like she was about to ask another question, but luckily, before she could, their food arrived. Dan took the opportunity to sink into his plate, grateful for an excuse not to talk. “This is delicious,” he said, changing the subject.

Phil relaxed. He squeezed Dan’s hand under the table in gratitude. “It’s so good,” he said.

“It really is,” Dan’s mum agreed. “You have excellent taste in restaurants, Dan.”

Dan inflated under the praise- he couldn’t help it.

Phil kicked him under the table. “Don’t get too full of yourself.”

Dan sat back in his chair, sulking, but he couldn’t for too long. His plate drew him back in- this food really was good.

Phil steered the conversation away from their personal life and towards a series of stories about his childhood, and Dan was able to breathe again.

Phil really was amazing. Dan was lucky to have him, whatever form having him might take.

***

Dan was definitely drunk when they got back. He wandered to the kitchen, downing a glass of water. He didn’t feel thirsty, but he forced himself to drink another. If he got hungover from drinking too much wine at a nice restaurant, he might never live it down.

He dragged himself through a nightly routine, getting into his pajamas, brushing his teeth, and returning to his room, where he froze.

Phil was there.

Of course Phil was there. Where else would he be? Dan’s mum was sleeping in his room. If Dan had spent more than thirty seconds thinking about it, he would have realized, but he hadn’t.

He wished Phil would say something, do something, acknowledge how fucking bizarre this situation was, but he didn’t. He looked so normal that Dan was almost convinced this was normal.

“I’m going to bed,” Dan mumbled, and Phil nodded.

Dan climbed into his bed clumsily, rolling over on his side to stare at Phil.

Phil. He should do something about Phil, but he wasn’t sure what.

Dan swallowed. Should he ask Phil to sleep on the floor? No, that was incredibly rude, if anything, he should offer. But he was already in his bed, and Phil was climbing into it with him, and the bed dipped, and if Dan let his hand fall out, it would be brushing against Phil’s arm.

Dan let his hand fall. He held his breath. Phil’s skin was warm and soft and not moving away. Emboldened, he rolled himself a little bit closer.

He didn’t know why he was acting like this. Dan and Phil had shared beds before. It wasn’t that big of a deal. But lately, everything felt different.

Phil rolled himself closer too. “I get really cuddly when I sleep,” he whispered. “I hope that’s okay.”

Dan swallowed. His mouth was dry. Maybe he should go get more water. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Good,” Phil said, wrapping his arm around Dan and pulling him closer.

Dan stiffened slightly, surprised.

Phil frowned, lifting his head. “Are you okay?”

Dan forced himself to relax. “Yeah, sorry. You just startled me.”

Phil put his head down, snuggling closer. “Oh. Sorry.”

“You’re good,” Dan murmured. He closed his eyes, and let the weight of Phil’s warm body gently lull him to sleep.

***

Dan woke up to an empty bed the next morning, with no headache, thank god. He peeked at the clock, then immediately rolled over and tried to fall back asleep. He succeeded in working himself back into a light slumber, but just as he began to get comfortable, someone yanked his blanket off of him.

“Hey,” he mumbled, rolling over onto his back.

“Wake up,” Phil said, still holding Dan’s blanket in one hand. “You’ve been asleep for almost twelve hours.”

Dan rolled back onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow. It smelled like Phil, and Dan realized with a start that this was not, in fact, his pillow. It was Phil’s. He stayed there anyway. “I’m tired.”

“Dan. Sleeping for twelve hours isn’t normal.”

“You should try it sometime,” Dan mumbled into the pillow.

“No thanks,” Phil said. “Now get up. I’ve been entertaining your mother for the past three hours and I’m going to go insane.”

Dan sighed, rolling and stumbling out of bed. “Oi. Watch what you say about my mum.”

“What’ll you do about it? Sleep more?”

“Maybe,” Dan grumbled, rifling through his dresser for clothes. He found a black T-shirt that seemed clean and tossed the shirt he had worn to bed to the side before putting it on.

He noticed Phil staring. “Whatcha looking at, mate?” he asked.

“Hurry up,” Phil said.

“I am hurrying,” Dan said, pulling a pair of jeans on.

“Hurry faster,” Phil said, closing the door behind him.

Dan would have liked some time to straighten his hair, but it didn’t look like that was happening today. He had straightened it yesterday; that would have to do. He stumbled out of his room and down the hall, squinting against the sudden light.

“Dan! You’re up!” His mum was way too cheery.

Dan managed a smile. “I’m up.”

“Took you long enough. How late were you up last night?”

Dan didn’t want to tell her that he had actually gone to bed early last night, he was just a mess. “I dunno,” he said instead. “Pretty late, probably.”

She rolled her eyes fondly. “When will you start sleeping at normal times, Dan?”

Dan shrugged, grabbing a box of cereal from the kitchen cabinets. It was still full- Dan supposed there were upsides to sharing a bed with Phil. He couldn’t sneak out at night to eat his cereal anymore. “I guess I’m still a teenager at heart.”

***

When Dan’s mum left, Phil didn’t move back into his own room. They never really discussed it- the first night after, Phil just came into Dan’s room at the normal time, and they fell asleep comfortably tangled together, just like normal.

When did their current arrangement become anything remotely resembling normal?

You could adjust to pretty much anything, Dan figured. Besides, it wasn’t like it was… bad. It was actually kind of nice. Just weird.

It was almost like they were a couple. It made sense, in a way. When people visited, it’d look suspicious if they slept in separate rooms, and if they were trying to pass off Phil’s room as a guest room, it’d be easier if Phil just didn’t sleep in it.

The easiest way to convince people of this lie was to live it, as much as possible.

Phil’s parents were the next to visit. Phil’s relationship with his parents had always been better than Dan’s, which made this trickier in some ways. Dan hated to admit it, but his mother barely knew him anymore. It made her easier to lie to.

Phil’s parents, though- they doted on him. They loved Phil with a ferocity that had always made Dan just a little bit jealous. And this meant they could see through him with a clarity that did not make Dan jealous at all.

They had Phil’s room prepared as a guest room ahead of time this time, at least. That saved them some awkwardness at the beginning of the visit.

They got a few minutes alone together while Phil’s parents unpacked.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Dan asked.

“Yes,” Phil said. “Don’t worry, Dan, they love you. This’ll be fine.” He grabbed Dan’s hand, lacing their fingers together.

It didn’t make Dan feel any better.

After a dinner Kath insisted on cooking for them, they discussed what to do for the rest of the evening.

“Cards?” Nigel offered.

Phil snorted. “Dan doesn’t know any card games but go fish.”

“Hey!” Dan elbowed Phil. “I know lots of card games.”

“Like?” Phil asked.

“Um,” Dan said. Phil’s eyes were twinkling. It was distracting. “Go fish. War. Poker-”

“You don’t know how to play poker,” Phil said delightedly.

“Shut up!” Dan said. “You don’t know how to play poker either-”

“I never claimed to.”

“We can teach you!” Kath beamed excitedly.

“Mum, that’s not the point-”

“It’ll be fun,” she insisted.

Phil gave in. “Okay, we can play poker.”

Poker wasn’t as hard as Dan had expected, though Kath was still easily winning almost every round. At least, it wasn’t hard until Phil’s parents started asking questions.

“Are you two going to Amanda’s wedding?” Nigel asked.

Phil’s eyes darted to Dan. “Maybe. I hadn’t decided yet.”

“You didn’t tell me Amanda was getting married,” Dan said, surprised. Amanda was Phil’s cousin- they had only met a few times, and briefly. Dan wouldn’t have expected to be invited to her wedding, though of course Phil probably would be, and since he and Phil were supposedly married now...

“She and her girlfriend have been engaged for a while,” Phil said. “As soon as it was legal, they started planning.”

Dan nodded.

“You should come, Phil. She’d like to see you,” Kath said, placing her cards down on the table.

“Gay solidarity,” Dan joked, bumping Phil’s shoulder.

He smiled stiffly, putting his own cards down. “We’ll see.”

“It would be so nice to be able to introduce Dan to the rest of the family,” Kath persisted.

“We’ll think about it,” Phil repeated.

Kath switched tactics. “Dan, won’t you two come? It’d be so nice to see you again, and it’s in London, you wouldn’t even have to-”

Phil interrupted. “I said, we’ll think about it.”

Kath sounded disapproving now. “Phil-”

Phil interrupted. “Mum! For the last time, we’ll think about it!”

“All right!” Kath raised her hands in defense. “I’m just saying-”

Phil stood up. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Phil-” Nigel said.

“I said I don’t want to talk about this.” Phil pushed his chair in and walked out.

Nigel put his cards down, and Dan did too. “You should follow him,” Kath said quietly to Dan.

Dan shook his head. “I think he’d rather be alone.” Dan didn’t really want to get involved in whatever Phil’s issue was with Amanda and her wedding. He cleared his throat. “Shall we play another round?”

Kath and Nigel shared a glance. “Sure,” Kath said finally, collecting everyone’s cards so she could shuffle them back into the deck. Dan handed his to her gratefully, hoping Phil was alright. He idly wondered what exactly had made Phil so upset.

Phil would probably talk to him about it later if it was important, and later, he didn’t, so it must not be important.

The night after Phil’s parents left, Dan half expected Phil to return to his own room, but he didn’t. He kept coming back to Dan’s, and Dan was grateful. The only time he could sleep well was with Phil curled up beside him, solid and warm.

And he had been sleeping a lot. Despite Phil’s constant bickering about how eight hours should be enough for any healthy human, it was rare for Dan to sleep less than ten, and most days he slept for at least twelve. He had gotten used to crawling into an empty bed and waking up an hour or so later to Phil crawling in after him. Phil would lie next to him, they would cuddle, and Dan would wake up again in the morning (well, afternoon) to an empty bed. And then he would get up, and then he would find Phil, and they would talk about something completely unimportant, and Dan would pretend to do work until he could go back to bed, the cycle complete.

Some days they had important conversations, arguments, really. Dan hated those days, but he had to admit a break from the monotony was nice sometimes. Maybe that was why he brought up Amanda’s wedding again.

“We shouldn’t go,” Phil said, for the millionth time. “I don’t want to have to keep up this performance all night.”

Dan shrugged. “It’s not much of a performance. We just need to go together and-”

“And what?” Phil said. “And act like a couple?”

“I think you’re overestimating how bad it’ll be,” Dan said. “No one is looking for reasons to not believe us.”

“Maybe not. But they’re looking.”

“Phil. You’re blowing this out of proportion. What do you think they’ll see?”

Phil shrugged. “Look, it’s just safer this way.”

“Are you planning to hide me from the rest of your family for the rest of our lives?”

Phil didn’t answer.

Dan didn’t know how it was possible to sleep as much as him and still be so unbelievably tired all the time. “If we’re always avoiding people, it’ll just cause even more questions. When does it end?”

“I don’t know,” Phil admitted. He looked so small in that moment; the one inch of height Dan had on him felt like a massive gulf.

Dan sighed. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’d like to go.”

Phil didn’t answer.

“Think about it?” Dan pleaded.

Phil nodded, short and stiff.

“Thank you,” Dan said.

***

Amanda and her wife were sickeningly sweet together. They couldn’t stop grinning at each other like lovesick fools, and all Dan wanted was to wipe that smile off their faces.

He couldn’t, so he just kept ordering more drinks from the open bar.

“Whoa, Dan. Slow it down.” Phil gently eased the glass of champagne out of Dan’s hand. “I think you’ve had enough already.”

Dan made a grab for it back. “No I haven’t.”

“Dan!” Phil held the glass back. It sloshed over the table. “You’re making a scene.”

“You’re making a scene,” Dan argued back.

“Dan, seriously.” Phil’s voice was a lot sharper than usual. If Dan had been sober, he probably would have backed down now, but he wasn’t.

“Give it.” Dan made another grab.

Phil set down the glass of champagne. “Dan.”

“What?” Dan whined.

“We need to go,” Phil said, standing up.

“But-” Dan protested.

“We’re leaving,” Phil said firmly. His hand on Dan’s wrist was even firmer as he pulled him up and towed him away.

Dan finally quieted down. He let Phil pull him away from the reception and towards the street.

“Aren’t we going to say bye to-”

“No,” Phil snapped.

“But- Isn’t it rude to-”

“Oh?” Phil turned to face him. “You want to talk about being rude?”

Dan stayed quiet until they climbed into their cab. “Phil-” he said.

“Not now, Dan,” Phil snapped.

Dan quieted down, spending the rest of the cab ride sulking and staring out the window.

Phil remained in stony silence when their cab arrived at their flat, and as they climbed their stairs. It was only once they were in their room that he finally spoke.

“What the fuck were you thinking tonight?” Phil shouted.

“I-” Dan interrupted.

“Be quiet,” Phil said. “For once in your life, be quiet for ten fucking minutes and let me talk.”

Dan rolled his eyes, but he shut up. Exactly how angry Phil was with him was finally starting to sink into his alcohol-sodden brain.

“We were at a wedding, Dan. A wedding for my cousin. I know you have your issues, but for fuck’s sake, Dan, you can’t act like this.”

Dan pouted. “But-”

Phil wheeled around with startling ferocity. “No. I don’t want to hear it.”

Dan cringed back.

“I’m not interested in your excuses right now. I’m sure you have a reason. I’m sure you have lots of reasons! Take care of them. You can’t act like this.”

Dan stared at the floor sullenly. “I just-” his voice broke.

Phil sat down on Dan’s bed. Their bed. When did it become their bed? “You just what?” he asked. He didn’t sound mad anymore. He just sounded tired.

How could Dan even explain it? What even was “it”?

He was miserable. He could barely wake up in the mornings. Something was wrong. Something had been wrong ever since he had married Phil.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Dan said, swaying and flopping down next to Phil.

“Do… what?”

“Any of this.” Suddenly, through his drunken haze, he knew what he had to do. “Phil, I’m sorry, I know we didn’t even make it to April-”

“What’s in April?” Phil asked, confused.

Dan groaned. “Taxes, Phil.”

That didn’t seem to clear things up. “Dan, why are you talking about taxes?” Phil was smiling a bit, at least, even if it was a very confused smile.

“Because half the reason I even agreed to this was for the fucking taxes!” Dan shouted, but he dissolved into giggles by the end of his sentence. “It’s not funny,” he muttered, swiping at his eyes, still laughing.

“Agreed to what?” Phil asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

“This,” Dan exclaimed, throwing his arm wide.

Phil frowned, looking where Dan seemed to be pointing.

Dan shook his head. “No, Phil,” he said, clumsily grabbing onto Phil’s hand. “This.”

Phil’s hand fit in his so perfectly. Dan never wanted to let go.

What was left of Phil’s smile slipped away. “Oh,” he said. “Us.”

“Yes.” Dan seized Phil’s other hand. “Us.”

Phil pulled his hands away. “Dan, I don’t know if we should-”

Dan might regret these words in the morning, but if he didn’t say them now, he probably never would. “I love you, Phil,” Dan said, reaching for him desperately. “Phil, please don’t go-” He reached too far and fell over.

“I think you need to go to bed,” Phil said carefully, patting Dan’s shoulder.

“No I don’t,” Dan muttered into his pillow. “I’m not tired.”

“You’re always tired.” Phil’s voice was flat. He was the one who sounded tired, Dan thought irritably.

Still, Dan couldn’t argue with that. “I’m not that tired.”

“You’re drunk. Go to sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Phil’s face was stony and impassive, but that couldn’t stop the bloom of relief spreading through his body.

Dan sat up. “I already feel good, Phil. I don’t know why I didn’t say anything for so long-”

Phil winced. “We can talk in the morning.”

Dan’s heart deflated as Phil walked to the door.

“Come back,” Dan said sadly. “Wanna be with you.”

Phil turned around, hesitating in the doorway. “Dan, you’re drunk.”

“I’m not that drunk,” he said. “You’re drunk too,” he added as an afterthought, though he had no idea how much Phil had drunk at the wedding.

Phil shook his head. “Go to sleep, Dan.”

“But I want-”

“We can talk tomorrow. Okay, Dan?” Phil closed the door before Dan could reply, leaving Dan alone in the dark.

***

Dan woke up with a killer headache. He cracked his eyes open to check the time.

How the fuck had he managed to wake up at seven in the morning? Especially after last night? He opened his eyes a little bit further, and the light stabbed through his corneas to the back of his brain.

That was probably how. Got to love waking up in pain.

Someone (probably Phil, Dan would have guessed if he was in any sort of state to be making guesses) had left a glass of water and a few aspirins on his bedside table. He swallowed them quickly, draining the glass of water before curling up on his bed and waiting for his headache to subside.

It did, a bit. He wasn’t completely pain-free, but eventually, he was pain-free enough that he could think again.

He tried to remember last night. Phil was mad at him, he was pretty sure- he had gotten way too drunk at the wedding. Phil had yelled at him, and then they had talked and then Dan had-

Oh god. What had he done?

Told Phil he loved him, apparently, if his memory served him correctly.

Oh god. Their friendship was probably over. Their marriage definitely was. Why did Dan have to tell him in the worst possible way? Curse his stupid brain and the fact that he couldn’t talk about his feelings without a blood alcohol concentration of at least 0.1%.

Dan pulled the sheets back over his head, hoping the darkness would make it possible to fall back asleep and forget his problems, but his headache wouldn’t let him.

Well, there was nothing left to do then but face his problems. Dan pulled the sheets off of his head and sat up.

He hadn’t noticed at first, too preoccupied with his headache, but next to the glass of water on his bedside table, there was a box, with a piece of paper next to it. He grabbed it.

“Love you, spork,” the note read, in Phil’s scribbled, messy handwriting. Confused, he grabbed for the box. It was a small black jewelry box, and Dan stared at it. Still confused, he opened it.

A thin metal circlet, with a black diamond in the center. A ring. Dan didn’t know why he was surprised. What else would fit in a jewelry box that size?

He slipped it onto his left ring finger. It fit perfectly.

There was a soft knock at his door. “Dan?” Phil asked. “Can I come in?”

There was no point putting this off, was there? “Yeah,” Dan said.

Phil cracked the door open, peeking in. “I thought I heard you up.” He took a step forward, closing the door behind him. “You saw the ring?”

Dan nodded, mute.

Phil blushed, looking away. “I guess you’ve figured out what that’s about. I, um. I know we’re already kind of married, but I thought it might be nice to do it again. The right way.” He walked over to Dan, sitting next to him on the bed. He carefully removed the ring from Dan’s finger, putting it back in the box.

Dan rolled his eyes. “Phil, I’ve already seen it. You don’t need to-”

“Shh,” Phil said. He opened the box again, tilting it so Dan could see in. “Daniel James Howell, will you marry me?”

“Phil, we’re already-”

“For real this time,” Phil said. “I wasn’t brave enough to ask you properly the last time, and I’m sorry.”

Dan looked at the ring, hesitating. “I don’t- I’m confused, Phil.”

Phil lowered the box, looking down. “That’s... understandable.”

“I have questions.”

“I can answer them,” Phil promised.

“Did you really want to get married for the taxes?” Dan’s voice sounded small.

“No,” Phil admitted. “I didn’t expect you to go along with it, honestly. I thought… I don’t know, I thought I could make this into a real relationship without having to talk about it.” He paused, looking up, meeting Dan’s gaze. “Why did you go along with it?”

“I don’t know,” Dan said slowly. “It just… felt right. I didn’t think too much about it.” He maybe should have thought a little more, but it was too late for that now. “When did you get the ring?”

“I’ve had it for a few weeks now.”

“Why?”

Phil looked back down. “I was going to tell you eventually. Really.” When Dan didn’t answer, he continued. “I’m not good at this. I’m sorry.”

Dan smiled weakly. “I’m not very good at this either.”

“My parents thought it was a bad idea.”

Dan was surprised. “Did they know?”

Phil cleared his throat, embarrassed. “I didn’t exactly tell them, but I think they might have suspected. I’ve… liked you for a while.”

Dan frowned. “But-”

“What?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Dan said, brow still furrowed. He buried his head in his hands. “When we first met. I asked you out. You said you weren’t interested.” It felt weird to talk about now. Neither of them had mentioned it in almost five years.

“I thought- I don’t know.” Phil sighed. “I liked you, but I just couldn’t see a way it could work.”

“So you lied,” Dan said.

“I didn’t-” Phil started, but his protest died down under Dan’s cold stare. “I guess it could be seen that way,” he admitted, “But I don’t think I said anything that wasn’t technically true.”

Dan shrugged. “Still,” he muttered. A five-year-old rejection shouldn’t still sting, he knew, but it did.

“I’m sorry,” Phil said. “But- I think it could work now. If you’ll give me another chance.” Phil lifted the box back up. “Please?” he whispered.

Dan took the ring out of the box and slipped it on his ring finger.

Phil let the box drop to his side. “Dan, I’m the one who’s supposed to-”

“Shut up,” Dan said. “Yes, Phillip Michael Lester. I will marry you.” He leaned across towards Phil, and kissed him.

***

“Are you nervous?” his mum asked.

“No,” he lied. “Why would I be nervous?”

“It’s a big day.” She smiled and straightened his black tie, but Dan could tell from the way her fingers were shaking that she was just as nervous as he was, if not more so.

“I’m not nervous,” he insisted.

“All right,” his mum said, still smiling. She hugged him. “Are you ready?”

Dan nodded, straightening up. “Yes.” He wasn’t lying this time. He was ready for this; he had been for years.

Music started playing. That was his cue to start walking down the aisle.

“Hurry up!” his mum said, pushing him forward.

“Mum!” Dan said. “Calm down.” He took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders before moving forward. He opened the doors, and saw Phil waiting at the other end of the aisle.

Phil looked amazing, as always, in a pure white suit and tie. His dark hair stood out against his pale skin and white suit, and Dan swore he could see the blue of his eyes from where he was standing.

Phil’s face lit up as he made eye contact with Dan. Dan started walking down the aisle towards his husband, every step bringing him closer to the man he loved and the future he dreamed of.

#phanfic #phan #phanfiction #my writing

19 notes · View notes

clexa--warrior · 4 years ago

Text

There’s a new group of villains on Fear The Walking Dead.

Well not entirely new. These are the same people who’ve been scrawling “The end is the beginning” everywhere. The same people with the submarine who are looking for Morgan who took the Magical Key from the bounty hunter way back at the beginning of Season 6.

I admit, I’m just kind of tired at this point. Tired of all the bullshit and bad writing and the tedious characters and the predictable stories. Tired of the parade of mediocre villains. Bone weary. And yet here I am, still reviewing this damn show.

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane, shall we?

TV’s Greatest Villains

At the beginning of Season 5, after the Most Horrible Villain Of Any Walking Dead Show was taken care of at long last, we got a new group of bad guys who . . . just wanted their warehouse back? And directions to an oil refinery?

Truly, these were now The Most Horrible Villains Of Any Walking Dead Show Ever.

Logan (played by a woefully underutilized Matt Frewer) was the head honcho of these bad apples and he fooled Morgan’s group into flying a plane they didn’t know how to fly far, far away to help some strangers in another part of the vast continent of Texas. Then he . . . moved back into his warehouse! The bastard.

After half a season of trying to fix the plane so they could fly back across the Pacific Ocean (which we all know separates the two halves of Texas) Logan tries to pretend like he’s a decent guy and fools the Morganites into showing him where the oil refinery is. Dastardly Logan! Then, just when Morgan and Logan decide that their names are similar enough that they might as well be friends, the Rangers show up!

They show up on horses with rifles and expertly kill Logan and every single member of his crew but for reasons (reasons!) they spare Morgan and the Morganites. It turns out that Logan was working for the evil witch queen of Lawton, Virginia—Truly The Most Horrible Villain Of Any Walking Dead Show Ever (Seriously). She is so evil that she kills the people working for her, who helped lead her to the oil refinery, and spared some people she didn’t know who weren’t loyal to her at all for reasons.

Yes, you heard me. Reasons! You don’t get to know the reasons. That’s not how scripts work. Scripts are supposed to be confusing, opaque and riddled with plot holes and inexplicable character choices.

Anyways, Virginia and the Rangers with their horses and their cowboy hats and their idyllic Texas aesthetic become the new Big Bads sometime in the second half of Season 5. Morgan and Friends make a PSA documentary to make sure anyone wandering from gas station to gas station is able to know who to call (GHOSTBUSTERS!) if they’re in trouble (which, like, yeah it’s a zombie apocalypse) because Morgan really wants to make up for all the bad things he’s done and so do all his friends.

Virginia is very mean, though, and so she makes a PSA, too, and that pisses Morgan off so bad that he takes his people far, far away to an abandoned Western-themed park-town filled with zombies and they make another PSA on the way that’s even more amazing and magical but a dude dies making it, marking the Best Walking Dead Death of All Time in the process. Seriously a dude decides it’s so important to film a selfie shot for the PSA that he dies when a bridge that’s collapsing surprisingly collapses! And then everyone is very sad!

Then, uh, after a spell at the new town that has no resources or water because it’s a theme park town instead of a real town, Wes and Alicia paint some stuff and June and John Dorie get married and Daniel plays some guitar and sings and Frank Dillane is like “Holy shit I’m so glad I bailed on this show” and then Virginia comes because Morgan calls her because instead of walking somewhere else they decide they should call the Evil Witch Queen Of Lawton so she can rescue them by splitting them all up (even Skidmark the cat!) and then the season ends with Morgan getting swarmed by zombies but don’t worry he’s still alive and they’ll tell us as much in a trailer that comes out before Season 6 because AMC is criminally addicted to spoiling their own shows for no reason on social media and . . . and . . .

Somewhere between Season 5’s finale and Season 6’s premiere AMC and showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss must have put their heads together with Scott Gimple and decided that the Rangers and Virginia were actually super dull villains, just like the last few villains (I skipped the whole Vultures plot because they were actually so stupid they put the stadium under siege but still let Madison and co. go out scavenging because somehow they never read the Siege 101 manual or something).

Anyways, for reasons that must be obvious by now, somebody must have pointed out that Virginia is not a very good villain after all, partly because she’s just not that convincing but mostly because she made a goddamn copycat PSA and someone thought that was actually a cool story because there is no God and life’s not fair and this is also why we can’t have nice things, son.

And they must have realized that the Rangers are a like a cartoon version of what might happen in Texas after a zombie outbreak (just compare this clown show to the far more realistic Vatos gang from Season 1 of The Walking Dead). All these realizations must have felt strangely repetitive after what I can only imagine were similar revelations about Martha, the Vultures and Logan. So many revelations, so little useful insight or meaningful changes!

The Believers

In any case, they had June kill Virginia after a weird series of events that also saw one of the only good characters left on this godforsaken show get killed by yet another brat, and came up with The Believers, a group almost entirely inspired by The Monkees. These totally realistic folk live underground where they grow crops and embalm zombies and talk about how you need to be able to “see” when you look at this one creepy zombie they have entwined in vines in their basement. They’re led by a guy named Teddy played by John Glover who must really be down on his luck to take a role on this ridiculous show, though he’s actually creepy as a villain so that’s something. But no, I’m not going to feel any hope or optimism because fool me once shame on me, fool me again and George W. Bush, man. He has something to say about this.

Wes and Alicia and Al and Luciana all find their way to these people. I honestly can’t remember how they found them, but they show up to scout things out. They get interviewed like we’re back in Alexandria. Things go bad when Wes runs into his long-lost brother and ends up killing him after a scuffle over a gun. Wes’s brother has had a little too much of that Kool-Aid if you know what I mean. Wes isn’t too shook up about it. Remember when the entire brothers Dixon conflict between Merle and Daryl played out over the course of one single episode of The Walking Dead? Yeah, me neither.

Luciana says stuff because she’s still on this show for some reason. She says stuff a few times and people say stuff back to her. Al checks an embalmed zombie with a helmet on thinking it might be her lover girl from Season 5, because you totally embalm zombies with their helmets still on, but it’s not. Boy I was really worried there for a second!

Alicia sets the embalmed zombies on fire so they can get away and the others escape but Alicia doesn’t and then she has to have a whole entire conversation with Teddy and it’s pretty damn awkward when she tells him “You wanna kill me? That’s not gonna happen.”

Teddy’s like “whoa damn I was going to kill you but now that’s not going to happen crap” and Alicia’s like “So there, Teddy. You jerk face with your crazy-man beard.”

He knows something about Madison somehow. And he wants to “save you, Alicia” but “I don’t need saving” she tells him and then he talks in more cryptic circles. Teddy’s been looking for someone like Alicia for a long, long time and she’s like “listen old man at least I got some lines this episode!” which, to be fair, is true.

THE END. CREDITS ROLL.

Verdict

Yes, I am clearly mocking just about everything about this show. But I didn’t come up with this crap. I didn’t come up with Martha and the ethanol, or the plane and the beer-balloon, or Totally Pointless Logan, or Ginny and her boring ass cowboys. Maybe Teddy will be a better villain than all these. To be fair, he is a better villain already in a lot of ways. Then again, the bar set by the Vultures, Martha, Logan and Virginia is not very high. It’s so low, it’s less a bar and more of a speed bump.

So while Teddy is far more intriguing than the rest, and it’s even possible that Glover’s brief appearance here in this episode was better than the sum of all the other villains in this show since Season 4, I imagine they’ll find a way to screw him up also and then, as soon as he’s worn out his welcome, replace him with some other group of bad guys. The Shouters, a group of post-apocalyptic crazy people who wear zombie faces and shout at each other really loud, led by a bald woman named Alphapha.

Here’s the thing.

We need more than just Good Guys vs Bad Guys. There are other struggles to work with in fiction. Friction between the group that causes realistic, compelling internal strife. Survival against the elements and just the struggle of surviving in a world laid low by a pandemic, maybe without creature comforts like walkie-goddamn-talkies. Or perhaps a compelling story about a survivalist group at odds with a Native American tribe over water rights, whose intertwined family histories are marred by murder and revenge, where our heroes find themselves torn between both sides of a bloody fight they know very little about.

Yeah, what a notion.

Like I said at the very top of this review, I’m tired. I’m tired of Fear The Walking Dead. I’m tired of the same crap happening over and over again, another absurd bad guys who ultimately make the same fatal choice: They mess with Morgan Jones. NOBODY messes with Morgan Jones.

Maybe Morgan can make a PSA about how mean and delusional Teddy is and then Teddy can make a PSA about how The End Is The Beginning, Actually, Morgan You Twit. It’s just all nonsense at this point and it has been since the end of Season 3. We aren’t dealing with actual stories about real people. We’re watching a cartoon with two-dimensional cartoon villains and a bunch of uninteresting flat characters. Except a cartoon would be more fun.

What is the point of this show now? It’s like a goofier version of The Walking Dead, which also suffers from too many villain groups at this point and too many characters but not this level of crappy writing (usually).

Let me predict the plot for the remainder of Season 6 and likely part of Season 7 if AMC is actually going to let the current showrunners continue driving this show into the ground:

Teddy wants the key from Morgan so he can use it to activate the nuclear bombs on the nuclear sub that’s in the middle of Texas (because Texas, you recall, is separated by the Pacific Ocean which has dried up because ZOMBIES and the sub is there now). He wants to nuke the planet because he wants to save everyone because they’re weak probably. From this nuclear wasteland, new life will spring eternal and his cult—well protected in their underground parking garage with their cute little gardens—will be the new rulers of the world. Or at least of Texas which—we know because of geography class—accounts for approximately 57% of Earth’s land mass.

Look, I’m sorry. I’m really truly sorry but if this show continues to be a joke I don’t know why we should take it seriously. A mocking review if only fitting for a show that continues to make a mockery of itself. AMC has the resources and the wherewithal to produce a better zombie show and quite frankly audiences deserve one. There was nothing fundamentally awful about “The Holding” so I’m honestly not fully sure why I’m in such a snarky mind frame, but there was nothing very good about, either, and it’s just plain as day to me that they’re already falling into the same traps they keep falling into over and over and over again. Meet the new bad guy, same as the old bad guy. It’s all so predictable.

Because they don’t really learn from their mistakes, or because even if they do they just don’t know how to course correct. That’s the problem when you just don’t have much talent but nobody steps in and says “enough is enough!”

Because seriously, my droogies, enough is enough already.

#ftwd #erik kain #i just read the reviews #i may watch this one because reasons and adc

1 note · View note

michellemagic · 5 years ago

Text

WMMAP Prompts: Volleyball

Once again, written for @athy-n-lucas and their weekly prompt event! Big thanks to @nights-of-fire who inspired the ending :)

SUMMARY: Lucas is grumpy and doesn’t know how to talk to people, Jennette has a giant crush and freaks out. This leads to getting hit by volleyballs for some reason.

WARNING: SLIGHT LANGUAGE AND I HAVE NO ACTUALLY KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE OLYMPICS SO PLEASE KEEP THAT IN MIND (Also the ships are definitely Athy x Kiel and Lucas x Jenny, you've been warned)

It started, of course, due to Lucas’ own sour personality.

After finishing his marathon practice- and thoroughly crushing the other swimmers- he had walked by olympic runner, Jennette Margaritta on his way back to the Olympic Village. She was a kind girl, known for being as graceful in her running as she was fast. He noted dully that she seemed to be coming back from a training set herself as he walked by her. She then waved and smiled sweetly at some unknown who was standing somewhere in his general direction and the three time gold medal swimming champion already in an awful mood walked straight past her without a second thought.

This would turn out to be a major mistake.

Athanasia de Alger Obelia, Obelian volleyball champion, Jennette’s cousin and Lucas’ best friend texted him later that night. She sent him the link to an article boldly titled “The Drama Brewing Between Olympic Athletes Lucas and Jennette!” which had a picture of him walked by Jennette with a sour look on his face and talked about how he had deliberately ignored his fellow athlete, she also sent several question marks and an inquiry about why he hated her cousin.

He texted back dryly that he didn’t even know her cousin and that this was all a misunderstanding before throwing he phone hazardously to his bedside table, missing Athanasia’s string of laughing emojis. Cursing the media and their rather amazing ability to ignore any sense, he elected to ignore the entire situation until it eventually just died down.

But of course his luck sucked and one gutsy journalist decided to ask Athanasia for her opinion on the rumors surrounding her cousin and friend. The blue eyed girl, born and raised by a literal king, gave a vague answer that went along the lines of it was really none of the media’s business what was happening between Jenny and Lucas, the two didn’t know each other for that matter.

In every article published the next day, the press quickly twisted them not knowing each other to them calling bad blood between each other. The world now believes that Lucas hated Jennette.

Lucas dejectedly resigned himself to the idea that life was against him.

Jennette had a crush. Actually, it was worse than that, Jennette had a CrushTM.

She’s always been surrounded by attractive people, even from a young age. Her cousin was probably the prettiest person on the face of the planet and Ezekiel, fellow runner and her best friend, has eyes that could melt the heart of anyone who saw him. She was honestly under the impression that the two of them together would create the most powerful power couple known to man. She knew what pretty people looked like, and she honestly liked looking at them. So it was honestly only a matter of time before she became smitten with the aloof swimmer that was dominating his scene.

She first saw him years before, warming up for his first meet of the season. He had a towel slung over his shoulders and was still dripping with water. She’s not ashamed to admit that her first thought when she saw him was Lord he’s hot

Yes, technically it didn’t fit her typically stereotypical personality, but she knew beauty when she saw it.

She doesn’t know how long she stood there staring at Lucas (she knew it was longer than what was considered socially acceptable) but when she snapped out of it she immediately went looking for her best friend.

“Kiel! Kiel!”

Ezekiel Alpheus, Jeanettes best friend and fellow runner, was smart. More than just book smart, he was people smart. Coming from a rich family meant he needed to know who everyone was, which was perfect for Jeanette at the moment.

After some search, Jennette was able to find her best friend doing some light jogging at a nearby park.

“Kiel!” Jennette called once more, causing him to turn to her. Taking out his earbuds, he inquired, “Jenny?”

Jennette went straight to the point, “ Do you know this guy with black hair and red eyes? He is one of the swimming athletes, or maybe water polo- I’m not really sure.”

Used to Jeanette’s loud personality Ezekiel was quick to answer, ” Black hair and red eyes?”

Jennette nodded in response. Ezekiel looked thoughtful,” You’re probably talking about Lucas.”

“So you know him?” Ezekiel hummed his agreement.

“Well yeah,” he paused to pull out his phone, swiping through the small divide before turning it to her. “He has a pretty decent social media following and we swim together sometimes.”

Jennette zero’d in on the picture Ezekiel was showing her. Good lord that man was beautiful, “This picture, I want it.”

Her friend blanched, “I’m sorry, what.”

“I want it.”

“What do you want for it,” Ezekiel watched baffled as a fire lit in Jennette. There was no stopping her now, he’s known her long enough to know that. Well, if she was going to push anyways….

“I mean…”

….

After leaving Ezekiel, Jennette was able to find Athanasia quickly. It honestly wasn’t hard, her cousin was almost always at one of the gyms close to the olympic village practicing her sets or serves. There was a small crowd watching her, mostly die hard fans but there were a few journalists as well. Perfect for her.

“Athy!”

Athanasia turned, breathing heavily but happily surprised at the appearance of her cousin. “Jenny! Hi, what are you doing here.”

“I needed to make a confession to you, and I couldn’t wait.”

Her cousin blinked,” Uh- Ok? What’s up?”

“Ezekiel is not just my very attentive best friend. He’s the best male runner in the competition," Jennette spoke to her cousin, her words loud and clear for the paparazzi that she knew was following them. “His abilities are truly unmatchable and you two would made beautiful babies together.”

Athanasia dropped her volleyball.

Later that night Ezekiel texted her. Going into a long rant about how he wanted her to tell Athanasia that he was interested in her and maybe brag about his skills a little bit not tell her that he wanted to have her kids. Oh well, his fault for not being more clear.

Athanasia has also texted her, her cousin’s message much shorter than Ezekiel’s. Jenny, I don’t know what you sold your soul for, but I hope it was worth it, she followed the message using no less then five nauseous emojis. It was better than her reaction that afternoon considering she turned bright red, threw her volleyball (at Jennette! Her cousin! The nerve!), and ran away.

Blushing lightly at the picture of a smirking, bathing suit wearing Lucas, Jennette decided that, yes, it was worth it.

Lucas blamed Athanasia for all of this. He knew, realistically, that it wasn’t her fault the media sucked, but he was told he couldn’t call bs on the media so ignoring his best friend was the next best option.

That didn’t deter Athanasia at all, she lovingly told him to stop sulking (he wasn’t sulking!) and sent him the link to one of her cousin’s more popular fan cites claiming that if he wanted to fix the situation the best place to start was learning more about Jennette … and he spent more time on the page than he cared to admit.

The homepage was actually really well designed if too cutesy and bright for his taste. Lucas quickly learned that Jennette lived with Athanasia’s family most of her life (due to her parents walking out on her), her average running and qual times, her (rather decorated) track record, and that she was apparently the most adorable thing know to man - the last item didn’t actually come from an interview or study but several highly detailed fan posts that had numorous pictures and clips of Jennette doing things deemed “adorable”, all the posts ended with a comment along the lines of “BABY!” “WE MUST PROTECT THE CHILD” “PROTECT MY BABY AT ALL COSTS!!!!!” Lucas quickly realized that this was an expression of affection, not the girl’s mother under several different pseudonyms. Apparently, Jennette attracted the cute and adorable in this brutal world.

Well, Lucas wasn’t cute or adorable, but he was definitely attracted.

Jennette was having a crisis.

She made a major mistake and now the boy she had a crush on hated her. She was just trying to be nice to a fan! That was it! She didn’t know the press would catch the exact moment her eyes zero’d in on Lucas’ instead, or that they would take picture, she didn’t look that long! Afterwards, her cousin told her that of course they noticed Jenny, you’re so obvious when you stare. Cute, but obvious. (She was not!) Of course Athanasia also said it was all a big misunderstanding and that Lucas didn’t actually hate her, but Athanasia always ended to baby things down for her. Protecting her unconsciously like when they were little kids and Jennette would cry over anything and everything.

But… her cousin wouldn’t lie to her. Yeah, she seemed in a rush, something about practicing some sets with Ezekiel. They’ve been dating for several months now- and for the record, she did that thank you very much- and Athanasia’s head always went buzzy when she was thinking about Ezekiel. So maybe her cousin just wasn’t thinking when she told Jennette that the boy she had a massive crush on didn’t walk straight past her without a second thought and then proceed to hate Jennette for the rest of her miserable life to the point where the shame would make her have to change her name and disappear to some godforsaken place-

Buzz

Jennette groaned, stopping her mental torture, and went to check her who texted her. It was her cousin, of course.

Heads up, I think Lucas wants to meet with you. If you wanna hid out you can come join Kiel and me at the volleyball court :)))))

That was it. Jennette was going to change her name and move to Greenland. She could probably hid from her shame in Greenland.

—

Lucas had no idea where to start. He isn’t known as a loner among his group for no reason- Hell, he was only friends with Athanasia because she was a force of nature- but other than that… he has acquaintances, not friends.

How did Athanasia socialize? She threw volleyballs at people, and that helped him not at all. He could throw water at Jennette maybe, but that would probably only make things worse. Dang it, why was his only friend a damn volleyball player. Why did that volleyball player have to be his only example of how to interact with humanity. Fuck, he was getting ahead of himself. He needed to find the girl first, thinking about volleyball and Athanasia wasn’t helping.

So of course he found Jennette at the volleyball court with Athanasia. Why volleyball? Why did everything in his life always come back to volleyball. She was sitting next to Ezekiel, spinning a volleyball and chatting absentmindedly with the fellow athlete as they watched Athanasia practice.

“Lucas!”

He turned away from the two runners at Athanasia’s call. His blonde best friend was waving cheekily from where she was practicing her serves. “Go sit will Kiel and Jenny! I’m almost done!”

Yes, Opening! Lucas nodded at his friend before walking over where Ezekiel and Jennette were sitting.

Ezekiel nodded at him, as charming and sociable as usual. “Lucas.”

“Ezekiel.” Thank god for acquaintances. He’d have no idea what people startedd conversations with without them. He then zero’d in on the jewel eyed girl sitting next to him, she looked slightly petrified.

“You’re Jennette right? I’m Lucas.” Introductions. You were supposed to start with introductions. He took a deep breath before he continued,” Guess we’ve been a popular subject in the paper recently huh?”

“I’m sorry,” She suddenly blurted out, looking like she could burst into tears, “I know you probably hate me but I promise-“

Lucas suddenly felt a migraine coming on. How did he mess up introductions? This is why he didn’t talk to people he couldn’t help but think as he interrupted the trembling girl. “I don’t hate you”

“The press thinks you hate me.” The press also thought Lucas hated Athanasia when they first became friends, it didn’t make that true.

“I don’t.”

“But-“ Lord did this girl like to press on issues.

“If you’re so worried about the damn rumor,” Lucas stated dryly,” How about I take you out for lunch and we give the paparazzi a reason to stop thinking we hate each other.”

Jennette, absolutely fluster by this boy -who is definitely hotter when he’s a few feet in front of her-, completely panicked at the implications of his offer. Impulsively, she threw the volleyball in her hands straight at him. Her aim rang true and the ball smacked him right in his forehead.

Somewhere in the court, the bright sound of Athanasia’s laughter rang out and next to them Ezekiel gave a panicked yelp. That didn’t matter though as the only thing ringing in Lucas’ head was the sound of Jennette’s stuttering apology and the fact that he got hit by a damned volleyball again.

…

The next day, Athanasia sent an article titled Jennette vs Lucas: Assault with Volleyballs? to Jennette, Ezekiel sent her numerous texts questioning her on her mental help, and the young runner’s main coach was definitely setting off her phone of with inquiries on what in the world is happening Jennette. Jennette, shyly sitting across from Lucas in a quaint cafe ignored all of them.

#wmmap #sbapod #who made me a princess #suddenly became a princess one day #jennette margarita #Athanasia #ezekiel alpheus #i wrote about spots without knowing anything about sports again #au #sports au #no beta #we die like men

18 notes · View notes

qqueenofhades · 6 years ago

Text

So, it’s Friday evening, and it turns out I have more thoughts about things that happened this week. I almost never do Discourse on this blog, on whatever subject, but sometimes even your friendly local depressed historian gotta say things. If you’re not in the mood for a long-ass meta-y text post, just keep on scrolling, no hard feelings.

In the wake of the Notre Dame fire, which obviously a lot of us were upset about, and profoundly relieved that it did not end up being completely catastrophic, the usual spate of posts began to pop up, alleging that people only cared about Notre Dame because of the loss to Western/European/Christian history, that nobody had been this upset about the National Museum of Brazil or the outbreak of arson at three black churches in Louisiana in the same week, and so on. I don’t blame anyone for making those posts, because I know they cared about those issues and wanted to ensure that their importance was communicated, especially when something major like Notre Dame was getting all the airtime. However, I couldn’t help but notice how that followed the same pattern as all Woke Tumblr Discourse (tm). An event happens, people express reactions to it, and are then attacked or indirectly shamed for not expressing reactions to another event. Or there’s the usual cycle of “nobody will care about this because it’s not happening in America”-style posts, or passive-aggressive insinuations that “you don’t care if you don’t reblog this.” And -- I say this with the greatest kindness possible, because I know, I know you guys care -- it’s... not helpful.

The culture of Tumblr and other left-wing sections of social media often rests on enacting performative wokeness, on showing that you care about the most Progressive (tm) issues, or that you have thoroughly scrutinized your fandom tastes or political beliefs for anything Problematic and/or can prove yourself to an imagined moral standard (and there have been some great metas written on how this essentially replicates conservative evangelical purity culture, with the goalposts switched). This is why we keep having to circulate (and doubtless will have to do so with increasing frequency) those posts reminding the left not to eat its young and flame all prospective Democratic challengers to Trump in 2020 to a crisp before the right wing, which is only too happy to let us do the work of sabotaging ourselves, even gets a chance. This is also why you see the posts responding to said angry “nobody cares about this!” posts, in which people mention the fact that not visibly reacting to all the (vast and terrible) injustice in the world does not mean they don’t care. The world is a big place. So is the internet. I can guarantee you that people do care, and just because you didn’t see immediate evidence and response to it when you opened up your Tumblr dash is not proof of a collective nefarious conspiracy.

Take me, for example. I am a thirty-ish academic and historian who considers myself well-informed and literate in current events. I read national and international news every day to find out what’s going on (because I live in England, the answer is Brexit, and the status is Failed). And yet, there are plenty of things that I only hear about for the first time on Tumblr, often attached to one of those “nobody cares about this!” posts. And you know what? I do care. I care a lot. And I’m guessing that most other people do as well, because no matter how it may feel, the majority of individuals are fundamentally decent people with basic empathy for others, even if our whole system is a nightmare. But the urge to demand why nobody is Discoursing about this issue (again, among a vast and exhausting sea of them) needs to take a few fundamental things into account.

First, the American media (as a large portion of readers are relying on) simply does not report this stuff. Look at what’s happening in that godforsaken country right now; does it really seem like the kind of place that’s eager to tell you about Brazilian museum fires or black-church arson? I’m someone who makes a conscious effort to read the news no matter how depressed it makes me, and I still miss tons of stuff, because it’s not there. The Western media reported on Notre Dame, people knew about it, and were upset. But when those of them who did not know about the National Museum of Brazil learned about it, they were also upset. We can definitively say now that the National Museum was a bigger and more irreplaceable tragedy in terms of what burned. But we were also apparently 15-30 minutes away from losing all of Notre Dame. You can be upset about both these things. You can express empathy for the history lost in both cases. There is not a greater moral value attached, and you’re not racist for caring about Notre Dame if you heard about it first (unless you’re only upset about Notre Dame for reasons related to race or perceived cultural superiority and are peddling vile conspiracy theories about Jews and Muslims intentionally burning it down, in which case you are a racist). Almost everyone who learned about the National Museum fire was just as horrified.

2019 is a hard and monstrously unfair and tremendously difficult place to live. The internet has made exposure to both all the information and no real information at all simultaneously possible. Not everyone can display active engagement and empathy with every tragedy everywhere. People have jobs, lives, kids, work, school, other commitments, mental and physical health to look after and even when they read the damn news, there’s no guarantee whatsoever the news is going to report it. If they haven’t made the conscious effort to search out every scrap of terribleness that exists in this hellworld, they.... really should not be shamed for that. If they don’t care even after they learn, that’s another debate. But again, in my experience, most people do. But if they are first exposed to it by someone claiming they won’t care, that makes them less likely to engage with it, and to want to enact meaningful change. Firing wittily sarcastic takedowns at easy targets on echo-chamber liberal Twitter is one thing. We all enjoy a good roast and venting our frustration at times. But as a long-term engagement strategy, it’s going to actively backfire.

I talk a lot about being a teacher, and my experiences with my students, but it’s relevant again, so here goes. The kids in my classes come in believing some pretty strange things, or they flat out don’t have a clue even about what I consider basic historical knowledge. If my reaction was to shame them for not knowing, when they have expressly come to me to learn better, I’m pretty sure I’d be a bad teacher. My strategy, whenever a student can actually be nudged to answer a question, is to pick out whatever correct thing they said. Even if the rest of the answer is wrong and we need to work through it, I start by highlighting the part of it that was right, and to build their confidence that I’m not just going to tear them down when they respond. Freshmen are scared of not knowing things and to be made to look like an idiot, so I try to assure them that I’m not going to do that and I will constructively engage with their contribution and treat it seriously. You can then move to dealing with the other parts of it that may not be right, or even Mmm Whatcha Say side-eye. It is a long and often frustrating process and sometimes after reading their essays, you wonder how much of an impression you made. But if you actually want to get people to care about things, you can’t mistake Ultimate Wokeness or Look How Progressive/Anti-establishment/Enlightened I Personally Am for the simple requirement of being a decent person. You can have the greatest and most necessary beliefs or value systems in the world, but if your response to people is to lash out at them even before they begin the conversation, you’re setting yourself back. And I know that’s not really what you want to do.

This should not be interpreted as some wishy-washy “everyone just needs to be nice to each other!!!” kindergarten-playground-rule. I frankly think the whole system could use a good nefarious dismantle, and you sure as hell don’t get there by mistaking insipid moral equivalence for necessary action. But accepting the existence of people different from you, and considering how you want to engage with them, and understanding that issues are complicated and people are flawed, is a fundamental part of being a mature adult (and this has nothing to do with chronological age; there are 15-year-olds who are plenty more mature adults than 50-year-olds). I honestly do love the desperate desire to make people care, and that, for the most part, is why people who identify as liberal or left-wing do so, because they want to (and they do) care. But it’s also why they can be bad at winning elections and getting into meaningful positions to enact this change. The right wing stays on message and sticks together. Even if they absolutely hated Trump, plenty of Republicans held their noses and voted for him anyway. The left did not do that. The greatest virtue of liberal thought, i.e. its determination to include multiple perspectives, has increasingly reduced it to smaller and smaller camps where only the purest survive, like some kind of ideological Hunger Games. It might be great for making yourself look good to your hall of mirrors, but.... not so good for actually doing something long-term.

Once again, this is not to blame anyone for being upset and worried about things, for wanting people to know about them, and so forth. But I am gently-but-firmly suggesting, in my capacity as old, salty, queer spinster academic aunt, that perhaps you consider how you start the conversation. Once again, it’s my experience that most people want to know and want to care, but there are countless factors that mean not every bad thing in the world will be acknowledged everywhere by everyone at all times. You can care about different things for different reasons. That is okay. You can care about something because you have a personal connection to it. That is also okay. You can not care about something because you just don’t have the capacity and are emotionally exhausted and there’s so much shit in this world that you have to compartmentalize and set boundaries. That is also okay.

For example, I was obviously very upset about Notre Dame, and still am, though I’m relieved it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Am I happy it’s going to be restored? Yes. Am I unbelievably angry that a half-dozen of the elite uber-rich could just suddenly throw billions of euros at it for its restoration, when it had to struggle for years to get funding for crucial renovations? Yes. Do I feel as if that if the vaults have suddenly been opened to restore one major European Christian landmark, it’s incredibly heartbreaking that that level of instant capital just won’t be addressed to actual endemic, long-term issues like global warming and social inequality and the Flint water crisis and whatever else, and that this is a sad and troubling message for our society in many ways? Yes. All of these things exist together. And I imagine most people feel the same way.

In short: I realize this is the internet, and therefore just is not designed to do that, but maybe we can give each other a little bit more of the benefit of the doubt, and think about how we would like to educate and engage those we come in contact with, whether virtually or in reality. We can do it wherever and whoever we are, with anyone that we meet, and I wonder what it would be like if we did.

#hilary for ts #history #notre dame #Le Discourse #anyway yes #i just felt like it needed to be said #nothing particularly original perhaps #and it has been said before #but still #long post

490 notes · View notes

chiseler · 5 years ago

Text

Nick Tosches’ Final Interview

On Sunday, October 20th, 2019, three days before his seventieth birthday, Nick Tosches died in his TriBeCa apartment. As of this writing, no cause of death has been specified. It represents an Immeasurable loss to the world of literature. The below, conducted this past July, was the last full interview Tosches ever gave.

***

In Where Dead Voices Gather, his peripatetic 2001 anti-biography of minstrel singer Emmett Miller, Nick Tosches wrote: “The deeper we seek, the more we descend from knowledge to mystery, which is the only place where true wisdom abides.” It’s an apt summation of Tosches’ own life and work.

Journalist, poet, novelist, biographer and historian Nick Tosches has been called the last of our literary outlaws, thanks in part to his reputation as a hardboiled character with a history of personal excesses. But he’s far more than that—he’s one of those writers other writers wish they could be. He’s seen it all first-hand, moved in some of the most dangerous circles on earth, and is blessed with the genius to put it down with a sharp elegance that’s earned him a seat in the Pantheon.

Born in 1949, Tosches was raised in the working class neighborhoods of Newark and Jersey City, where his father ran a bar. Despite barely finishing high school, he fell into the writing game at nineteen, shortly after relocating to New York. He quickly earned a reputation as a brilliant music journalist, writing for Rolling Stone and authoring Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock ’N Roll (1977), the Jerry Lee Lewis biography Hellfire (1982) and Unsung Heroes of Rock ’N Roll (1984). After that he staked out his own territory, exploring and illuminating the deeply-shadowed corners of the culture and the human spirit. He’s written biographies of sinister Italian financier Michele Sindona, Sonny Liston, Dean Martin and near-mythical crime boss Arnold Rothstein. He’s published poetry and books about opium. His debut novel, Cut Numbers (1988) focused on the numbers racket, and his most recent, Under Tiberius (2015) presented Jesus as a con artist with a good p.r. man.

While often citing Faulkner, Charles Olsen, Dante and the Greeks as his primary literary influences, over the past fifty years Tosches’ own style has evolved from the flash and swagger of his early music writing into a singular and inimitable prose which blends the two-fisted nihilism of the crime pulps with an elegant and lyrical formalism. Like Joyce, Tosches takes clear joy in the measured, poetic flow of language, and like Dostoevsky, his writing, regardless of the topic at hand, wrestles with the Big Issues: Good and Evil, Truth and Falsehood, the Sacred and the Profane, and our pathetic place in a universe gone mad.

For years now, Tosches’ official bio has stated he “lives in what used to be New York.” It only makes sense then that we would meet amid the tangled web of tiny sidestreets that make up SoHo at what remains one of the last bars in New York where we could smoke. Tosches, now sixty-nine, smoked a cigar and drank a bottle of forty-year-old tawny port as we discussed his work, publishing, religion, the Internet, this godforsaken city, fear, and how a confirmed heretic goes about obtaining Vatican credentials.

Jim Knipfel: When I initially contacted you about an interview last year, my first question was going to be about retirement. You’d been hinting for awhile, at least since Me and the Devil in 2012, that you planned to retire from writing at sixty-five. And since Under Tiberius came out, there’d been silence. But shortly after I got in touch, we had to put things on hold because you’d started working on a new project. As you put it then, “I find myself becoming lost again in the cursed woods of words and writing.”

Nick Tosches: It is unlike any other project. I am indulging myself, knowing nobody has paid me money up front. Is it a project? Yeah, I guess anything that’s not come to a recognizable fruition is a project. So yeah. I do consider the actual writing of books to be behind me.

JK: Did thinking about retirement have anything to do with what we’ll generously call the dispiriting nature of contemporary publishing?

NT: Oh, very much so. Very much.

JK: There’s a remarkable section in the middle of In The Hand of Dante, it just comes out of nowhere, in which you launch into this frontal attack on what’s become of the industry. I went back and read it again last week, and it’s so beautiful and so perfect, and as I was reading I couldn’t help but think, “Who the hell else could get away with this?” Dropping a very personal screed like that in the middle of a novel? And a novel released by a major publisher, in this case Little, Brown. Was there any kind of reaction from your editor?

NT: Okay, is this the same passage where I talk about all these people with fat asses?

JK: Yeah, that’s part of it.

NT: Okay, my agent at the time, Russ Galen, said he heard from {Michael} Pietsch, the editor who’s now the Chief Executive Officer of North America. And the moment he became so, he went from being my lifelong friend to “yeah, I heard of him.” He complained about the fat ass comment, and my agent told him, “If you go for a walk with Nick Tosches, you might get rained on.” Apart from that, no. And I have to say, he considers that one of his favorite novels, ever. When I tried to get the rights back because of a movie deal, he said “no I won’t do that.” I said “Why?” And he said because it was one of his favorite books. So no, there was no real backlash. A lot of comments like your own. A lot of people saying “Boy, that was great.”

JK: As we both know, marketing departments make all the editorial decisions at publishing houses nowadays, and over the years you must have driven them nuts. There’s no easy label to slap on you. You hear there’s a new Nick Tosches book coming out, it could be a novel, it could be poetry, it could be a biography or history or anything at all. I’m trying to imagine all these marketing people sitting around asking, “So what’s our targeted demographic for The Last Opium Den?”

NT: I just set out to do what I wanted to do. If they wanted to cling to the delusion that they could somehow control sales or predict the future of taste, fine, let them go ahead and do it. I’ve always found it’s the books that gather the attention, they just try to coordinate things. All they’re doing is covering their own jobs. If they can wrangle you an interview with Modern Farming, well, there’s something to put on a list they hand out at one of their meetings… They’re all illiterate. Thirty years ago there was still a sense of independence among publishers. Now they’re just vestigial remnants that mean nothing because they’re all owned by these huge media conglomerates.

JK: To whom publishing is irrelevant.

NT: Right. It’s all just a joke.

JK: I guess what matters is that the people who read you will read whatever you put out. If you put out a book of cake decorating tips, I’d be the first in line to buy it. Actually I’d love to see what you could do with Nick’s Best Cakes Ever, right? It’s something to consider.

NT: Maybe not that particular instance, but what you have so kindly referred to as my current project, which is very…eccentric. It’s the herd of my obsessions that will not remain corralled as I intended.

JK: What brought you back to writing? You’ve said in the past that writing is a very tough habit to kick.

NT: Well, what brought me back? I have no idea. Maybe just actual, utter, desperate boredom. There was none of this Romantic need to express myself. Just a lot of little obsessions, that’s all. As I said…well, I didn’t say this at all. There’s nothing at stake. There’s no money, there’s not going to be any money. There’s no one I need to give a second thought of offending or pleasing. But that having been said, I’m taking as much care with it as I have with everything else. I’ve always thought of myself as the only editor. And having had the good fortune to work with good titular editors, which means their job consists of perhaps making a suggestion or stating a preference or notifying me that they do not understand certain things, and beyond that leaving it be. As I told one editor,I forget when or where or why, “Why don’t you go write you’re own fuckin’ book and leave mine be?” He had all these great ideas. The best editors are the ones that aren’t frustrated authors.

JK: I was lucky enough to work with two editors like that. One had a nervous breakdown and is out of the business, the other just vanished one day.

NT: Well, you’re fortunate. Not only do most editors, a majority of editors, which are bad editors, like the majority of anything, really. If they don’t interfere with something, and nine times out of ten make it worse, they’re not justifying their jobs. The other thing is, we’re recently at the point where the new type of writers, which are the writers who are willing to do it for free, think the editor’s the chief mark of the whole racket. But it’s not—he’s not, she’s not. Their job is to get you paid and leave you alone. That’s the thing. Now you got pseudo editors, pseudo writers. If you think of a writer such as William Faulkner. Now there’s a guy who just screamed out to be edited. Fortunately the editors were willing to publish him and leave him alone, which is why we have William Faulkner. That was the editor’s great contribution, protecting William Faulkner from that nonsense. People speak about, what’s that phrase applied to Maxwell Perkins? “Editor of Genius.” Well, the genius was you find someone who can write really well, and don’t fuck with ‘em. There’s something to be said about that. It’s to Perkins’ credit.

JK: If I can step back a ways to your early years. You were a streetwise kid who grew up in Jersey City and Newark. Your father discouraged you from reading, but you read anyway. So what was the attraction to books? Or was it simple contrariness on your part because you’d been told to avoid them?

NT: I got lost in them. It was dope before I copped dope. I used to love to drift away, in my mind, my imagination. I loved books. My father was not an anti-book person, but he was the first generation of our family to be born in this country. A working class neighborhood where okay, this guy worked in this factory, and that guy owned a bar, and that guy delivered the mail. Nobody was going any further than this. And I remember my father saying, “These books are gonna put ideas in your head.” I guess I enjoyed that they did. Terrible books, some of them. Terrible books, but it didn’t matter.

JK: You’ve also said that very early on you wanted to be a writer.

NT: Yes.

JK: Or a farmer.

NT: Or a garbage man or an archaeologist. Those were my childhood aspirations.

JK: Considering the environment you were coming out of, three of those seem counterintuitive.

NT: Garbage men got to ride on the side of the truck, and that looked great. Archaeologists, wow. I didn’t know they were spending years just coming up with little splintered shards of urns. Yeah, writer. Writing had a great attraction for me, because writing seemed a great coward’s way out. You can communicate anything while facing a corner, with no one seeing you, no one hearing you, you didn’t have to look anyone in the eye. It’s a great coward’s form of expressing yourself. That coupled with the fact that what I felt a need to express was inchoate. I didn’t even understand what it was I wanted to express. Sometimes I still don’t.

JK: You’ve also said that in your teens you started to listen to country music, which given the time and place also seems counterintuitive.

NT: Did I say my teens? Maybe I was nineteen or twenty. Yeah, I never listened to country music until the jukebox at the place on Park Avenue and West Side Avenue in Jersey City.

JK: It was right around that time, when you were nineteen, twenty, that you published your first story in the music magazine Fusion. Which means we’re right around the fiftieth anniversary of your start in this racket.

NT: Let’s see…that was 1969, so yeah, I guess so. Fifty years ago.

JK: Then for the next fifteen-plus years you wrote mainly about music. You were at Rolling Stone and other magazines, and you put out Country, Hellfire and Unsung Heroes of Rock ’n Roll. So How early on were you thinking about branching out? About writing about the mob, or the Vatican, or anything else that interested you?

NT: Before I ever wrote anything. You have to understand, these so-called rock’n’roll magazines provided two great things. First as an outlet for young writers whose phone calls to The New Yorker would not be accepted. And they all, back then before they caught the capitalist disease, offered complete freedom of speech. So yes, in the course of writing about music you could…or actually, forget about writing about music, because nobody even knew anything about music. We were just fucking around.

JK: I remember an early piece you did for Rolling Stone back in 1971. It was a review of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid album, but all it was was a description of a blasphemous Satanic orgy straight out of De Sade.

NT: Yeah, I remember that one.

JK: It was pretty amazing, and even that early, your writing was several steps beyond everything else that was happening at the time. But from an outsider’s perspective, your first big step away from music journalism was actually a huge fucking leap, and a potentially deadly one. So how do you go from Unsung Heroes of Rock ’N Roll to Power on Earth, about Italian financier Michele Sindona?

NT: After Hellfire, someone wanted to pay me a lot of money to write another biography. But I realized there was absolutely no one on the face of the earth whom I found interesting enough to write about other than Jerry Lee Lewis. I’d caught sort of a glimpse of Sindona on television. My friend Judith suggested “Why don’t you write about him?” But how am I gonna get in touch with a guy like that? And she said I should write him a letter.

JK: He was in prison at that point?

NT: Yes, he was in prison the entire time I knew him, until his death. He died before the book was published. I met him in prison here in New York, then they shipped him back to Italy to be imprisoned, and I went over there.

JK: You were dealing with The Vatican, the mob, and the shadowy world of international high finance. Were there moments while you were working on the book when you found yourself thinking, “What the fuck have I gotten myself into?”

NT: Well, yes, because the story was too immense and too complicated to be told.

JK: Something I’ve always been curious about. Publishing house libel lawyers have been the bane of my existence. Whenever I write non-fiction, they set upon the manuscript like jackals, tearing it apart line-by-line in search of anything that anyone anywhere might conceivably consider suing over. And I wasn’t writing about the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin, or Michele Sindona.

NT: “Conceivably” is the key word in this country, where anyone can sue anyone without punitive repercussions. That’s the key phrase. What these libel lawyers are also doing above all else is protecting their own jobs.

JK: Were you forced to cut a lot of material for legal reasons?

NT: Yes, including proven, irrefutable facts. So yes I did. And it’s not because it was libelous, but because it was subject to being accused of being libelous. It’s a shame. Some of the things were just outrageous. I once threw a fictive element into a description that involved a black dog. “Well, how do you know there was a black dog there?” I said there probably wasn’t, that it was just creating a mood. “Well, we gotta cut that out.” So what’s offensive about a black dog? It sets a precedent. Misrepresentative facts? Morality? I don’t know. These guys.

JK: I don’t know if this was the case with you as well, but I found out I could write exactly the same thing, and just as honestly, but if I called it a novel instead of nom-fiction. They didn’t touch a word. Didn’t even want to look at it. As it happens, your first novel, Cut Numbers, came out next. Had that been written before Power on Earth?

NT: Let me think for a moment…Well, the order in which my books were published is the order in which they were written. The only putative exception may be Where Dead Voices Gather, because that was written over a span of years with no intention of it being a book. So yeah, Cut Numbers. What year was that?

JK: I think that was 1988. I love that novel. There’s a 1948 John Garfield picture about the numbers racket, Force of Evil.

NT: Yeah, I’ve seen that.

JK: But of course they had to glamorize it, because it was Hollywood and it was John Garfield.

NT: I like John Garfield. Terrible movies, but a great actor.

JK: What I love about Cut Numbers is that it’s so un-glamorous. It’s not The Godfather. It’s very street-level. And I’ve always had the sense it was very autobiographical.

NT: I’ve never written anything that wasn’t autobiographical in some way, shape or form. The world in which Cut Numbers is set was my auto-biographical world. “Auto,” self and “bio,” life. My auto-biographical world. The world I lived in and the world I knew. It’s a world that no longer exists. Like every other aspect of the world I once knew. Except taxes. Which I found is a really great upside to having no income. I’m serious.

JK: Oh. I know all too well.

NT: I mean, but It comes with “Jeeze, I wish I could afford another case of this tawny port.”

JK: A few years later, after Dino, you released your second novel, Trinities. While Cut Numbers took place on a very small scale. Trinities was epic—the story spans the globe and pulls in the mob, the Vatican, high finance. You crammed an awful lot of material in there. It almost feels like a culmination.

NT: I wanted to capture the whole sweep of that vanishing, dying world. It was written during a dark period of my life, and I was drawn to a beautifully profound but unanswerable question, which had first been voiced by a Chinese philosopher—sounds like a joke but it’s true: “What if what man believes is good, God believes is evil?” Or vice versa. And we can go from there, the whole mythology, the concept of the need for God. To what extend is our idea of evil just a device? We don’t want anybody to fuck our wives. So God says thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. We don’t want to be killed, so thou shalt not kill. It’s a bunch of “don’t do this, because I don’t want to suffer that.” I don’t want to get robbed. I dunno, what the hell. Yeah, this has something to do with Trinities, and I somehow knew as I wrote Trinities I was saying goodbye to a whole world, not because I was leaving it. It was basically half memory, as opposed to present day reality.

JK: I remember when I first read it, recognizing so many locales and situations and characters. At least from the New York scenes. That was right at the cusp, when all these things began disappearing.

NT: Yes, and now it has to such an extent that I walk past all these locales, and it’s a walk among the ghosts. That was a club, now it’s a Korean laundry. This was another place I used to go, now it’s Tibetan handicrafts.

JK: I don’t even recognize the Village anymore. I used to work in the Puck Building at Lafayette and Houston. Landmark building, right? It’s since been gutted completely and turned into some kind of high-end fashion store.

NT: Yeah, it’s all dead.

JK: Now, when Trinities was released, I was astonished to see the publisher was marketing it like a mainstream pop thriller. You even got the mass market paperback with the embossed cover treatment. I love the idea of some middle management type on his way to a convention in Scranton picking it up at the airport thinking he was getting something like Robert Ludlum,, and diving headlong into, well, you.

NT: I can explain why all that was. It was volume. It was the same publisher as Dino. They were happy with Dino. Dino was a great success. I think that was 1992, because that was when my father died. This is now, what, 2019? There has not been a single day where that book has not sold. Not that I could buy a bottle of tawny port with it. So whereas with Cut Numbers I was paid a small amount and eagerly accepted it. Eagerly. In fact it’s one of the few times I told the editor, ran into him at a bar, and said all I want is this, and he said “Nah, that’s not enough, we’ll pay you twice that.” Then Dino was double that. And look, I really want to do this book Trinities and be paid a small fortune for it. They had to say yes. They had to believe this was going to be the next, I dunno. Yeah, mainstream. Most of these things are ancillary and coincidental to the actual writing.

JK: There were a lot of strings dangling at the end of the novel, and I remember reading rumors you were working on a sequel. You don’t seem much the sequel type. So was there any truth to that?

NT: Not that I was aware of. I’m sure that if they’d come back and said, “Well, we pulled it off,” and offered twice that, there would’ve been a sequel. Because I loved that book, so if they were going to offer me more to write more, I would have. I hated saying good bye to that world and the past.

JK: Maybe you’ve noticed this, but the people who read you often tend to make a very sharp distinction between your fiction and your non-fiction, which never made a lot of sense to me. To me they’re a continuum, and any line dividing them is a very porous, fuzzy one. Do you approach them in different ways?

NT: Oh, god. Do I approach them differently? Yes. In a way, I approach the fiction with a sense of unbounded freedom. But parallel to that, that blank page is scarier knowing that there is not a single datum you can place on it that will gain or achieve balance. With non-fiction, I am constrained by truth to a certain extent. That’s also true in fiction. They just use different forms of writing. There are poems that have more cuttingly diligent actuality than most history works. It comes down to wielding words. Tools being appointed with different weights and cutting edges and colors. Words, beautiful words. Without the words, no writing in prose is gonna be worth a damn. Used to be, I get in a cab, and back then cab drivers were from New York, and they’d ask me what I did. Now I don’t think they really know what city they’re in. They know it’s not Bangladesh. But if I told them what I did, it was always, “Oh, I could write a book.” Yeah, you’re gonna write a book. Your life is interesting. So what’re you gonna write about? Great tippers, great fares? Become a reader first. Read the Greeks sometime. I decided next time a cab driver asks me what I do for a living. I’m gonna tell him I’m a plumber. “Oh, my brother-in-law’s a plumber!”

JK: As varied as your published works are, there are two I’ve always been curious about. Two complete anomalies. The first was the Hall and Oates book, Dangerous Dances, which always struck me—and correct me if I’m wromg—as the result of a whopping check for services rendered. And the other. From thirty years later, is Johnny’s First Cigarette. Which is, what would you call it? A children’s book? A young adult book?

NT: Right. Of course they’re many years apart. Okay, Hall and Oates, Dangerous Dances. I knew a woman who was what you’d call a book packager. I owed money to the government. Tommy Mottola, who was at the time the manager of Hall and Oates, wanted a Hall and Oates book. She asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said yeah, but it’s gonna cost this much. And Tommy Mottola, in one of the great moments of literary judgment, was like, “How come he costs more than the other people?” She said something very nice about me. He has got on his desk a paperweight that’s a check for a million dollars in lucite. We weren’t talking nearly that much. So I came up with the title Dangerous Dances. I had never heard a Hall and Oates record. So I met them. It was over the course of a summer. So I did that and made the government happy. That’s one book I try not to espouse. But everyone knows I wrote that, it has my name on it. As I wanted, as my ex-agent says.

Now. Johnny’s Last Cigarette, which as I said was many years later. I don’t even think that was ten years ago.

JK: I think that came out in 2014, between Me and the Devil and Under Tiberius.

NT: I get so sick of all this political correctness. I mean, every man. Every woman was once a child. And there are all these good. Beautiful childhood moments and feelings. Which is the greatest step on earth that we lose. It’s not a nefarious book like Kill Your mother—which may not be a bad idea—but sweet. Why do we rob these kids of the dreaminess of the truth? So Johnny’s first Cigarette, Johnny’s First whatever. I was living in Paris at the time when I wrote that.. I knew a woman who was one of my best translators into French. We put the idea together with a publisher I knew in Marseilles and a wonderful artist-illustrator we found and were so excited about.

To tell you the truth I think the idea of legislating feeling is like…How the fuck do you legislate feeling? And forbidden words. It may have been Aristotle who said, when men fear words, times are dark. You and I have spoken about this. Sometimes we don’t even understand what it is about this or that word. It’s like that joke—a guy goes in for a Rorschach test, and the psychologist tells him. “Has anyone ever told you you have a sexually obsessed mind?” And the guy says, “Well, what about you, showing me all these dirty pictures?” What do these words mean? I don’t know. Why is it a crime to call a black man a crocodile? I have always consciously stood against performing any kind of political correctness. And I have written some long letters to people I felt deserved an explanation of my feelings.

JK: Whenever people get outraged because some comedian cracked an “inappropriate” joke, and they say, “How could he say such a thing?” I always respond, “Well, someone has to, right?”

NT: Yeah. So one book came from the government’s desire to have their share of what I’m making. We’re all government employees. The other was, why can’t I write something that’s soft and sweet with a child’s vocabulary that’s not politically correct?

JK: If Dangerous Dances and Johnny’s First Cigarette were anomalies, I’ve always considered another two of your books companion pieces. Or at least cousins. King of the Jews an Where Dead Voices Gather are both biographies, or maybe anti-biographies, of men about whom very little—or at least very little that’s credible—is known: Arnold Rothstein and Emmett Miller. And that gives you the freedom to run in a thousand directions at once. They’re books made up of detours and parentheticals and digressions, and what we end up with are essentially compact histories of the world with these figures at the center. They strike me as your purest works, and certainly very personal works. More than any of your other books, it’s these two that allow readers to take a peek inside your head. Does that make any sense to you?

NT: Yes, it makes perfect sense. In fact I couldn’t have put it any better myself. This whole myth of what they called the Mafia in the United States—there’s no mafia outside of Sicily. Or called organized crime, was always Italians. The Italians dressed the part, but the Jews made the shirts. It was always an Italian-Jewish consortium. And this Irish mayor wants to play ball? So now it’s Irish. Total equal opportunity. It was basically…Well, Arnold Rothstein was the son of shirt makers. Not only did he control, but he invented what was organized crime in New York. He had the whole political system of New York in his pocket. Emmet Miller was this guy who made these old records that went on to be so influential without his being known. Nobody even knew where or when he was born. The appeal to me was as both an investigator and then to proceed forward with other perspicuities, musings and theories. I never thought of them before as companion works until you mentioned it, but they are.

JK: People have tended to focus on the amount of obsessive research you do. Which is on full display in these books, but what they too often overlook, which is also on full display here, is that you contain a vast storehouse of arcane knowledge. It’s like you’ve fully absorbed everything you’ve ever read, and it just spills out of you. These forgotten histories and unexpected connections.

NT: I’ve always kept very strange notebooks. I still do, except now it’s on the computer. There’s no rhyme or reason to these notebooks, it’s just,”don’t want to forget this one.”

JK: Speaking of research, has your methodology changed in the Internet Age? I’m trying to imagine you working on Under Tiberius and looking up”First Century Judea” on Wikipedia.

NT: The Internet demands master navigation. There are sites which have reproduced great scholarly, as opposed to academic, works. There’s also every lie and untruth brought to you by the Such-and Such Authority of North America. This is what they call themselves. I experienced this within the past week. It was not only complete misinformation, but presented in the shoddiest fashion, such as “Historians agree…” I mean, what historians? I couldn’t find a one of them.

So my methodology. I love Ezra Pound’s phrase, “the luminous detail.” Something you find somewhere or learn somewhere…They don’t even have a card catalog at New York Public Library anymore, let alone books. You want an actual book, they have to bring it in from New Jersey. Who cares anymore? What they care about is who’s in a TV series, and they whip out their Mickey Mouse toys and, “look, there he is!”

JK: I was thinking about this on the way over. You and I both remember a time when if you were looking for a specific record or book or bit of information, you could spend months or years searching, scouring used bookstores an libraries. There was a challenge to it.

NT: It was not just a challenge. It was a whole illuminating process unto itself, because of what you come to by accident. So in looking for one fact or one insight, you would gather an untold amount. That is what it’s about.

JK: Nowadays if I’m looking for, say, a specific edition of a specific book, I take two minutes, go online, and there it is. I hit a button, and it’s mailed to me at my home. Somehow it diminishes the value, as opposed to finally finding something I’d been searching for for years. Nothing has any value anymore.

NT: No, definitely not. When I was living down in Tennessee, all those Sunday drives, guys selling stuff out of their garages. Every once in awhile you hit on something, or find something you didn’t even know existed. Now education on every level, especially on the institutional, but even on a personal level, is diminished. People are getting stupider, and that probably includes myself.

JK: And me too. Now, if I could change course here, you’re a man of many contradictions. Maybe dichotomies is a better term. A streetwise Italian kid who’s a bookworm. A misanthrope who seeks out the company of others. A libertine who is also a highly disciplined, self-educated man of letters. It’s even reflected in your prose—someone who is always swinging between the stars and the gutter. It’s led some people to say there are two Nick Tosches. Is this something you recognize in yourself?

NT: Yes. It’s never been a goal, it’s just…

JK: How you are?

NT: Yeah. I’ve noticed it, and much to my consternation and displeasure and inconvenience, yeah. But there’s no reward in seeking to explain or justify it.

JK: One of the most intriguing and complex of these is the savage heretic who keeps returning to religious themes, the secrets of the Church and the sacred texts. And of course the devil in one guise or another is lurking through much of your work. Again it’s led some people to argue that since you were raised Catholic, this may represent some kind of striving for redemption. You give any credence to that?

NT: No. Absolutely not.

JK: Yeah, it would seem Under Tiberius would’ve put the kibosh on that idea.

NT: I don’t even consider myself having been raised Catholic, in the modern made-for-TV sense of that phrase. I was told to go to church on Sundays and confession on Saturdays, and I usually went to the candy store instead. I was confirmed, I had communion. To me, it was a much deeper, much more experiential passage when I came to the conclusion that there was no Santa Clause than when I came to the conclusion there was no God. I remember emotionally expressing my suspicions about Santa Claus to my mother. Toward the end of his life, I was talking to my father one day, and I said, “By the way, do you believe in God?” And he said no. I said me neither. And that was about the only real religious conversation we ever had. I think religion, without a doubt since its invention—and God was an invention of man—is a huge indefensible evil force in this world. When people believe in a religion which calls for vengeance upon those whose beliefs are different, it’s not a good sign. Not a good sign.

JK: This is something I’ve been curious about. Two of your novels—In the Hand of Dante and Under Tiberius—are predicated on the idea that you come into possession of manuscripts pilfered from the Vatican library. The library comes up a few other times as well. You write about it in such detail and with an insider’s knowledge. Either I was fooled by your skills as a convincing fiction writer, or you’ve spent your share of time there. And if the latter, how does a heretic like you end up with Vatican credentials?

NT: Okay. You go buy yourself a very beautiful, very important let’s say, leather portfolio with silk ribbon corner stays that keeps the documents there. Then you set about…Well, my friend Jim Merlis’ father-in-law, for instance, won the Nobel Prize in physics right around then. So I went to Jim and said, “Hey Jim, do you suppose you could get your father-in-law to write me a letter of recommendation? I know I never met the man.” Had a tough life, but won the Nobel Prize. Did a beautiful letter for me. I don’t even know that I kept it. You put together five letters that only Jesus Christ could’ve gathered. And he probably couldn’t have because he was unwashed. It was twice as difficult for me, because I had no academic affiliation, not even a college degree. But the Vatican was so nice. There are two libraries. One involves a photo I.D. and the other one doesn’t. They gave me two cards, and they made me a doctor. That’s how you get in. So what do you do once you’re in? They have the greatest retrieval library I’ve ever seen. The people that you meet. One guy was a composer. Wanted to see this exact original musical manuscript because he wanted to make sure of one note that may have changed. So this was all real—I just hallucinated the rest. If you can use a real setting, you’re one step closer to gaining credibility with the person who reads you. I still have my membership cards, though I think they must’ve expired. They were great. You go to a hotel and they ask you to show them photo ID? “Ohhh…”

JK: One of the themes that runs throughout your work is fear. Fear as maybe the most fundamental motivating human emotion.

NT: Any man who thinks he’s a tough guy is either a fool or a liar. Fear is I think one of the fundamental formative elements. And I’m just speaking of myself becoming a writer. Choosing to express yourself with great subtlety in some cases, when what you want to express is so inchoate. But that was a long time ago. I still believed in the great charade. These days I’m just living the lie. But it’s so much better than fear. To convey fear. The more universal the feeling, the easier it is to convey powerful emotions. There was a line in Cut Numbers; “He thought the worst thing a man can think.” Michael Pietsch my editor said, “What is that thing?” And I said “Michael, every person who reads that will have a different idea.” It’s an invocation of the Worst Thing. One woman might read it and think of raping her two-year-old son. Some guy might think of robbing his father. To you or I it might not be that bad a thing, but to that person it’s the Worst Thing.

JK: That’s the magic of reading.

NT: That is the magic of reading. That’s the bottom line. Writing is a two-man job. It takes someone to write it and Someone to read it who’s not yourself.

JK: Exactly. Readers bring what they have to a book, and take away from it what they need, what interpretation has meaning for them.

NT: It’s also possible to write certain very exact phrases and have them be evocative of nothing but a thirst for an answer that the person who wrote them doesn’t know. Readers never give themselves enough credit. Now all the experiential and soulful depths of all our finite wanderings, roaming imaginations and questions thereof are relegated to a Mickey Mouse toy. That’s what I see, people who interact with these toys instead of another person. I don’t care. I was here for the good times.

JK: There’s another idea that’s come up a few times in various forms and various contexts in your work, where you say, in essence, “once you give up hope, life becomes more pleasant,” which is a wonderful twist on Dante.

NT: It’s true!

JK: I know, and I’m in full agreement with you. Hope, faith, belief, are all great destroyers. But I’m wonderinh, when did you come to that conclusion?

NT: A lot of the things I write or think I do put in that notebook I mentioned, and I usually put the date. That was one where I did not put down the date. I do believe it’s true. People say, “never give up hope.” Why the hell not? If you don’t give up hope, it leads you, at a craps table, betting you’re aunt’s car. Where did hope ever get anybody? It’s terrible.

JK: Now, there are two quotes which have appeared and reappeared throughout your work, and I think you know which two I’m talking about. The first is from Pound’s Canto CXX: “I have tried to write Paradise// Do not move/ Let the wind speak/ that is paradise.” And the other’s from the Gospel of Thomas: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” As you look at your life and work now, and look back over the last half century, do you think you’re closing in on that point where Pound and Thomas finally come together?

NT: Yes. I never thought of that phrase you choose, “come together,” but yes. They’ve become more and more deeply a part of my consciousness. Yes, every day I pause. And I still hold the 120th Canto to be the final one. It was just one person who insisted no, this is not how he would have ended. Which is why the current modern edition of the Cantos goes two cantos more. There’s this line that is so bad. It’s hilariously bad. The joke of history. The line that Pound was supposed to have written to go beyond that beautiful line was, “Courage, thy name is Olga.” The other of course, the meaning of that line, that line being the one you were referring to, if you bring forth what is within you it will save you, if you do not bring forth it will destroy you. Of a hundred translations from the Coptic, that, to me, is the perfect translation. What is that thing? That’s what everybody wants to know. That’s me. That thing is just the truth of yourself. If you do live in fear, that will destroy you. If I speak the truth, the worst it’s going to do is frighten another. That will save you. That will set you free. Those two things, yes. And there’s another element, if I can add it unsolicited. I’ve noticed this pattern with people such as Pound and people such as Samuel Beckett. The greatest depth, the most majestic wielders of language as a communication form, slowly trail off to silence. Which is what Pound refers to in what I know is the last Canto. Be still. Paradise. Ezra Pound’s own daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, translated The Cantos into Italian. Her translation had moments when it was an improvement on his phraseology. In Italian, “Non ti muovere” is much better than “be still.” Books, reading, writing, lend themselves to interpretive subtleties which are by no means pointless. What can people get out of an app?

by Jim Knipfel

#Nick Tosches' Final Interview #The Chiseler #Jim Knipfel #Nick Tosches

19 notes · View notes