#this second year of the pandemic has been surreal

[zukazukazuka]

Serika Toa to Retire on April 27, 2025

Long reflective navel-gazing and emotional processing under the cut.

tl;dr: If I had a nickel for every time I inadvertently planned a trip during a Soragumi taidan, I'd have two nickels.

Second nickel hurts way worse.

Inevitably, living on the opposite side of the world means I usually wake up to messages about these things before I actually see them for myself. I remember waking up on July 7, 2017 to things like "wow...hope you like Soragumi!" when her transfer was announced. It feels oddly prophetic that that year we inadvertently planned our trip to catch Asaka Manato's taidan show as well as Kiki's last Grand Theater show with Hanagumi. I cried a lot on that trip, honestly.

Once you start to immerse yourself, it's easy to get attached to your first round of top stars. We'd gotten to see Maasama and Soragumi in Elisabeth the year before, and I was sad she was leaving. Hanagumi was our home troupe, and my favorite actress was transferring. Both shows were incredible, and to this day SANTE!! remains my favorite revue of all time. I think we saw it some ridiculous amount of eight times, back when it was possible to have the privilege of satisfying your brainrot by waiting outside the Tokyo Theater at 5 AM in hopes of getting same-day tickets. I remember the utter devastation of seeing that show from the 4th row, of getting arrowed with a Kukochihiko stare from the silver bridge during her duet with Mirio that made me squirm in my seat. I remember how loud the audience was on senshuuraku in Tokyo, it felt like we were at a rock concert rather than a Takarazuka show, and how satisfying that was, despite the tears.

It's hard to believe that was seven years ago, which feels both so close (literally to a degree, as you don't have to scroll very far down this blog to get my live reaction posts lol) and somehow yet so far away (thanks COVID).

Two months ago, we bought tickets to go back to Japan in January, our first trip since 2019.

This morning I woke up to messages again.

And now apparently I've stumbled yet again into a Soragumi taidan, "my" taidan, which of course I knew ultimately was on the nearer horizon since June 2023, but could never have guessed how fraught everything in between would become.

I can't help but feel exceptionally, heartbreakingly sad.

I fell in love with Kiki from the very first time I set foot in Quatre Reves and saw her photo as Rudolf in 2014. She has always been my favorite since that day, and by the time she goes it will have been effectively 10 and a half years. 10 years, nibante under two long-running top stars, through pandemic closures and changes, and effectively 1.5 GT shows as top. In truth, I'd always prepared myself for a short run. 3 shows would've been just enough to give her 'decent' time without really feeling like they were just shoveling her off after so long as #2, although I would've been cranky about it. 4 or 5 would have been an ideal sweet spot. At this point, I'm sure 3 was always the initial plan, and I hope that had been satisfying for her going into things.

It just extra fucking sucks now.

Today I can't help but feel regret for falling off as much as I did after her transfer. I was able to see her in both of those 2019 trips, thankfully at least once on stage, but the double whammy of Mirio leaving and COVID closures made it feel a lot hard to stay connected to Takarazuka in general - which is ironic, given that I will never, ever not find it surreal to watch a raku livestream on my fucking couch at 12 AM. But I didn't watch as many as I could have. One of my favorite things had always been seeing iride photos on twitter, and it made me feel like even if I couldn't be there, I could still "keep up" with what was happening day to day. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately, given this last year) I am famously too lazy to make a lot of effort to read things in Japanese, even if Takarazuka helped improve it for a time. I have limited space and desire to buy dozens of GRAPHs or other magazines for interviews. I moved on to other interests, but always kept one finger on the pulse of things. At one point, as things went on longer and longer, I thought so many times "hey girl, if you wanna pull a MiyaRuri and bounce without making top, I fully respect and support that, even if I won't get to see you one last time."

Well.

I don't have much I want to say here about what happened last year, except that I hope such a horrendous tragedy does ultimately lead to a lot of reform at the revue. Unlike apparently most everyone, I didn't go digging around the internet for names and 'what really' happened (see: lazy, also not my fucking business). I don't know, I don't want to know, and at this point frankly I don't really care about anyone's particular opinion about the people involved, or whatever outcome they think should have happened.

But we are where we are, now.

Last week, in my naive hope that after we got through Escalier's break with no taidan announcement, I was guessing that she might yet go later next year. I'd been reading the schedule wrong and complaining about the possibility of a late summer taidan, because Japan is fucking horrendous in summer, only to realize that it would've really been October, which would be ideal, although truthfully I'm not sure I could have swung a second trip in one year. I'd been sad about not getting to see her possible ohirome during my favorite time of year, since I couldn't swing a trip last year. In hindsight, I'm glad it turned out as "lucking" into actually seeing taidan rather than potentially have booking a trip last fall and "wasting" it, and that I no longer have to worry about whether or not I get to see it. But it still really fucking sucks.

Part of what helps offset the hurt of an actress retiring, especially your actress, especially a top star, is the celebration of all that's come before. Coming in as a fan in 2014, I saw all of the photos and videos of the last day festivities of Teru and Chie, which continued through all of the others that left in subsequent years. I felt devastated for the top stars who left during the height of pandemic closures, who couldn't have that, and for fans who couldn't get to see it. I'm not even sure what taidans look like these days, as I'm sorry to say a consequence of only trailing vaguely along on the hype train for the past several years is that I haven't seen any taidan shows or bothered with social media to know if they do even a semblance of those last day activities, even for the troupe. It makes me sad to think that maybe those sorts of things are perhaps long gone, just generally. Even if they aren't, though, I doubt we'd get any of that, anyway.

So in absence of that element or really any other joy, all I can really feel is bitterly sad.

In truth, I have a lot of complex feelings about her whole run, and have for many years, but those aren't things I care to lay out here. Suffice it to say, this whole situation feels like icing on that whole cake, I guess.

As I was writing all of this, I realized that just because of timing and that we usually prioritized seeing grand theater shows over small ones, the only time I will have seen Kiki live in a lead show will be her last one. I realize that compared to many people I'm privileged to go at all, let alone the number of times I've already done so in the past, but I'm still utterly heartbroken.

At the end of Escalier last weekend, I'd been so happy to see a semblance of her old self again. Her jokes, her smile, which has always felt like sunshine to me. I can't ever know her real feelings, but I hope that maybe there is some relief for her, knowing there's an end in sight. I hope that despite everything, she can find a satisfying life after the fact, that she'll still be able to perform, if she wishes. At the end of it all, I do feel thankful for the things we do have, the experiences I've had up to this point. My one tiny silver lining is that Sakura is (supposedly, maybe, fingers crossed) hanging around, hopefully for a while, because she's an incredible powerhouse and deserves the world. I'm grateful to her for being Kiki's partner and radiating love at her on stage, and terribly looking forward to seeing that in person.

Anyway, time to go cry some more, and eventually write a letter.

[jooheonspinky]

BTS Masterlist

Welcome: Thank you for stopping by. 

*all works are complete unless otherwise stated*

OT7

Saudade [08.01.2020] {Psychological Thriller}:A group of friends try to cope with the traumatic aftermath of one tragic night. | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 

Namjoon x Female Reader:

7-Year Itch [02.06.2017] {Angst, Smut}: The idol life is taking a toll on your relationship. Can it survive the 7-Year Itch? | 1 | 2 | 3 |

Nothing on Us [12.25.2017] {Christmas!au, one shot}: Christmas decorating mishaps. This takes place a little under two months after 7-Year Itch.

Trivia: Love [09.02.2024]{idol!au, angst, smut}: A few years ago, Y/N met Namjoon while at a movie theatre. Hitting it off, they come to an agreement wherein Y/N signs a contract that entails helping Namjoon “de-stress” whenever he is in the US, even having Y/N travel to several of BTS’ stops when they are on tour. But then the pandemic hit, and it has now been almost two years since they have seen each other in person. With BTS coming to LA for several concerts and interviews, will they be able to get back to how things were before, or have the two changed too much in that time apart? 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Seokjin x Female Reader:

A Special Night [06.14.2017] {Fluff, one shot}: You’re nervous about this possibly being your first time together.

New Year’s Wish [01.01.2018] {New Year’s!au, angst, one shot}: It’s New Year’s Eve and you miss Jin.

A Cage, a Wizard, and a Potion [12.13.2022]  {Fantasy}:  The Duchess kept a beautiful gilded cage in her private bed chambers. On a visit with your mother, you happen upon this novelty whilst lost in your aunt’s palace. What you discover in the cage not only shocks you but has you making a vow that you are not able to fulfill until many years later.

Yoongi x Female Reader:

Not Alone [12.10.2016] {Apocalypse, Smut}: Sure the zombies scared me, but they were the constant to the newly created world. Being alone though…that was something that scared me more. So what happens when I’m not alone anymore? And what happens if i start finding feelings for that person? Will we make it? Or will this new world infect me like the loneliness? 01 |02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08| Side Note | Epilogue|

Melting Frost [01.09.2018] {Winter Sprite!au, Angst, one shot}: Meeting Jack Frost solidifies your belief in the fae and soon you two become friends. As the years pass, what happens when your feelings change?

Save Me [05.31.2018] {Action, one shot}: This wasn’t your first time, having helped your friend with their plot multiple times before. The surreal surroundings were almost a second home, but when you recognize the abductee is part of the scheme, you feel things may have gone too far.

Hoseok x Female Reader:

Unexpected Attraction [04.12.2017]{Angst, Fluff, Smut}: When you start to have feelings for the one person who has helped you through a bad time in your life, will your fear of losing him keep you from exploring this unexpected attraction? |Teaser | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

Cupid’s Interference [12.30.2017] {Christmas!au, Angst, one shot}: Overwhelmed by unfortunate events in her life, Y/N rents a cabin in hopes of finding a reason to live. Meanwhile, Hobi is responsible for caring for Santa’s reindeer. One mischievously brings Hobi and itself into Y/N’s path. When he explains what he’s doing out in the woods in the snow, Y/N thinks he’s crazy.

Better Together: [11.04.2020] {Angel, fantasy, angst, one shot}: He is a celestial being. A warrior for the heavenly Father. After centuries of observing humans, one in particular peaks his interest. What happens when he decides to act on his curiosity?

Jimin x Female Reader:

One Night at the Club: [06.07.2017] {one shot}A very good-looking stranger takes notice of you one night at the club.

Winner: [12.22.2017] {Christmas!AU, one shot}: Jimin loses against Jungkook and has to fulfill a dare Jungkook cooks up for him.

The Truth Untold: [03.15.2020] {angst, smut} Hiding behind a mask (literally and figuratively), a man keeps himself away in his home in the country. He spends his days tending a garden where in which blooms beautiful flowers that attract a new neighbor. Her presence forces him to face himself. Could he change for her and be the man she insists he is or will he continue to hide behind his mask? 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Catching Your Attention: [07.29.2021]  {one shot, smut} You see Jimin in a skirt for the first time and are surprised at your body’s reaction.

Taehyung x Female Reader: 

The Confession: [12.26.2016] {Fluff, one shot}:An evening at the state fair holds a little more excitement than you had expected.

Warmest Holidays [01.15.2018] {Christmas!au, fluff, one shot}: You'd given up on dating and decided to concentrate on making your first Christmas as a divorcee a happy one for you and your son. The holidays have other plans for you.

Stigma: [03.26.2018] {Angst, smut}: An important project at work throws together Y/N, a no-nonsense hard worker, with Taehyung, the office prankster. As they spend more time together Y/N begins to see him with a fresh pair of eyes and a friendship starts to grow between the two. When horrible details about Taehyung’s life come to light, will it prove to be too much for their blossoming relationship to survive?:1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |

A Cage, a Wizard, and a Potion [12.13.2022] {Fantasy}:  The Duchess kept a beautiful gilded cage in her private bed chambers. On a visit with your mother, you happen upon this novelty whilst lost in your aunt’s palace. What you discover in the cage not only shocks you but has you making a vow that you are not able to fulfill until many years later.

Jungkook x Female Reader:

The Business Partner [07.24.2016] {Angst, Fluff, Smut}: Jungkook and you are sent to Hawaii on a business trip. You are still trying to cope with the recent death of your father and having Jungkook, international playboy, as the business partner sent by the sister company in S. Korea to help close the deal does not make it any easier for you. Will he ruin everything or have you got Jungkook all wrong?01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 |

Summer Date [06.21.2017] {Fluff, one shot}: Your boyfriend is back from tour and takes you on a summer date.

Elf on a Shelf [12.20.2017] {Christmas!AU, slight angst, one shot}: What happens when a gift basket that includes something similar to an Elf on a Shelf anonymously shows up at your door?

From the Ashes [10.13.2023]{Fantasy!au, angst}: I am ready to confess my feelings to Jungkook, but his older brother, a wizard, has other plans. Plans with devastating consequences that I could never have prepared for. 01|02|03|

Jungkook x OC (Celeste Greene) ft Namjoon

From the Stars: [10.21.2020] { Fantasy, Alien and human, smut, one shot}: This was written using the following prompt: His body aches as he lay on the ground, bleeding. The asphalt was hard and cold at his back, and noise came through staticky and broken like a voice through a bad phone line. He could just vaguely hear footsteps thudding toward him accompanied by shouting. Still, his vision refused to focus, and the only thing he could identify was the grey expanse of the sky above as rain began to fall.

[fieldofdaisiies]

Ultima Ex Nobis | ch. XVI

-all rights reserved-

Nessian AU word count: ~2,8k words warnings: mentions of bad mental health, violence summary: Six years into a global pandemic which was caused by a mass fungal infection that turns hosts into zombie-like creatures and makes the whole of Prythian collapse, the former army general Cassian Cadell is tasked with one very special mission – escorting Nesta Archeron, one of the few immune survivors, across a post-apocalyptic Prythian to a group of people of the name L. Their identity  is unknown but they can make an antidote.

masterlist

A shot strikes the hunter behind her — bull’s eye. But it did not come from Cassian’s gun. It came from a red-haired woman with a fierce expression on her face. She is right behind Cassian, jumped forward from behind the corner a second before. “Bull’s eye,” she says with a wicked grin on her face and steps up to Cassian. Nesta is finally able to see her fully. But she does not know her, has never seen her before. Or has she?

She slips out of Briallyn’s hold when the woman lively slumps down behind her. The red-haired woman catches Nesta in her arms, hoisting her up so she won’t fall to the ground as well. Cassian is still rooted to the ground, his heart hammering in his throat, his eyes wide open, hands trembling around his gun.

Another woman enters the scene, blowing a bullet right through the head of the man that holds Eris down and then rushes to aid Azriel. 

The silence that fills the empty school corridors afterwards is almost unreal, almost unbelievable. Nesta shudders, shaking, rocking back and forth, clawing onto the woman that holds her up. Her mouth opens, but no words leave her. Her breaths are ragged, air whooshing in and out of her lungs and then woman squeezes her tightly.

“I…I…th-tha-tha—“

“Gwyn. And you are welcome.” The woman’s— Gwyn’s— voice is almost like a song, soft and gentle in the chaos around them. Nesta manages to glimpse up at her and finally brings out a real thank you. Gwyn smiles in return and when Nesta finally feels steady again she holds herself up and  lets go of Gwyn. “This is my colleague Emerie,” she introduces and points at the woman who helps Eris up from the ground. 

“We are part of the Starfall. Rhysand told us that we should keep an eye on Keir and Briallyn. And when we saw the latter talk to the hunter siblings, Bogge and Naga, we got suspicious,” Emerie explains and straps her gun to her belt again and wipes her palms down her thighs.

“Especially when they suddenly left the security area,” Gwyn adds and Emerie continues and says, “We followed them. And look who they brought us to.” A little smile that does not really reach her eyes appears on her face and she releases a loud breath. “More hunters are on the way. We are going to make sure they don’t get to you. But you need to leave, be quick and don’t leave a trace again.” “What trace?”

Emerie points at Nesta. “She must have had a beeper, a tracker, somewhere. On her clothing or shoes or so. They knew where they had to go. The signal is gone now, has been gone for a few days, so you have a good chance to escape now. But be quick.”

They all nod, thanking them for their help. Stepping over the bodies of the dead infected and hunters, Emerie pushes open the big doors, letting some greyish light fill the inside. She exhales loudly. The rain has cleared a little, now smaller drops fall down onto the wet concrete. 

“Thank you,” Nesta says again, not quite believing everything that has just happened. It feels absolutely surreal and scary. She shudders at the memories of the past minutes, of everything that has happened in this highschool. Her blood runs cold when images of the big fungus being flash in front of her mind, of how helpfless she felt and that Cassian stood there and did nothing. She is not angry, she is…disappointed. Why did he not shoot? Was he afraid to hit her? Was he afraid— “Thank you, Gwyneth Berdara.” Azriel’s deep rumble sounds behind Nesta and she looks over her shoulder. How does he know her full name?

“Nothing to thank me for. I will never forget that you saved my life in Sangravah, Azriel Gomez.” A smile spreads over Gwny’s lips when the young woman inclines her head at Azriel and then catches up with Emerie who already mounts her bike, Gwyn climbing on top of it after her. “Be safe, you lot!” And with that they head off, dashing away in the pouring rain. 

∙ ∙ • ◦ • ◦ ∙ ∙

Cassian is still in shock. Even minutes after they left the building. He is shuddering a little, his head propped up on his hand, his elbow braced on the car door. He stares outside, his gaze empty. Just like his brain. He should have shot. He should have been the one to safe her. He should have killed the hunter. But he couldn’t. Having his gun pointed at Nesta…it brought back all the memories. He feels how his throat constricts, how the back of his mouth starts to ache fiercely, tears burning behind his eyes. Cassian brings a hand up, rubs it over his face and brushes his fingers through his hair, removing the hair tie and ruffling through them. It is too much, the inside of the car feels too narrow. It is almost like he is getting suffocated, like he can’t breathe anymore. He needs to get out, he needs to leave this place. The tension between him and Nesta is almost as dreadful as the memories as he knows he has hurt her. That she is disappointed and sad. That she expected him to act, to do something. But even in the tumult in his head, the chaos created through his actions, it is her voice that calms him, that grounds him. 

“What was this? This being…this huge fungus being?” Nesta asks out of the blue and into the silence of the car. It somehow calms Cassian, her voice does, her presence and even though he knows how much he upset her with what he did �� or rather with what he didn’t do— it is her presence that brings him comfort and makes his rapid heart beat slow down a little. He will explain it all to her, hoping she can somehow understand. 

Cassian turns his head, lifts his gaze a little and looks at her. But Nesta does not deign him a look, her gaze is straight forward, focused on Eris, her jaw clenched, her fingers intertwined in her lap. She stares straight ahead almost as if it pains her to look at Cassian. And that hurts, hurts nearly as much as him knowing he was the cause for her disappointment, her sadness. 

“The call this thing…the Rat King.” Eris’s throat sounds dry when he speaks and bringing one hand up, he wipes his palm over his face and inhales. “The Rat King?” Nesta asks in a breathy voice, her tone so unbelievable. She leans forward a little, braces one hand on the arm rest between the two front seats. “What the hell is the Rat King?”

Eris’ inhales, slowly lets his hand move to Azriel’s thigh which he squeezes gently and then he turns his head so he can look at Nesta. “It is a super-organism composed of multiple Stalker, Clicker, and a Bloater that have been connected together. The Cordyceps Virus does that. It can create those super organisms that connects them all.” He swallows thickly before he continues. “It is a phenomenon that was first discovered with real rats. Their tails get intertwined and from then on the start to grow together, they are constrained together.” 

“That’s…gross…” A gloomy grimace spreads over Nesta’s face and she gives her head a shake when goosebumps appear on her skin. The sheer thought of this makes the content of her stomach sour. Her disappointment about Cassian is not forgotten, but right now disgust gains the upper hand. 

“The Rat King is said to possess incredible strength and resilience, so using the Molotov Cocktail was technically the only way to destroy him. I mean I am not surprised you had one on you, Az, but at the same time I am.”

“I made it the other day at the house, thought it wouldn’t be stupid to have one at hand.” There is a small smile on Azriel’s lips. Eris squeezes his thigh once again while averting his gaze from Nesta and looking at his partner for a long moment. Nesta can see the love in his eyes, can see how happy he is too have Azriel, how much he has been longing for him. And this…this makes her sad. She wants to be happy for them, she really does, but she has to look away as tears start to climb into her eyes. For a small moment, when they woke up that morning, she let herself think and hope that her and Cassian could have something like that. That they could be lovers, partners, maybe husband and wife at some point in the future. But she summarises that this was wrong. This thought was stupid, as she now knows that Cassian…well, she doesn’t actually know. Why did he not shoot? Why didn’t he do anything? Was he scared? These thoughts start to cloud her mind once again and Nesta is tired of thinking about them, of pondering about Cassian and everything he did and did not do. She wants to leave her mind, just shut her brain up. “Can we turn on the music?” she asks, a little hint of hope in her voice. Maybe music would help her shut her brain off. Eris inclines his head and opens the glovebox. He fishes out some old CD, blows the dust away and pushes it into the slit of the radio. (bon jovi - you give love a bad name)

She almost rolls her eyes when she hears the song and what it is about, but she does not want to complain nor tell Eris to change to the next tune. She is tired, and has no energy to talk again.

Her chin rests in her palm, her gaze moving to the outside world where it is still raining a little bit. And then she starts thinking…she thinks about many things. She thinks about the high school again. About the time she got her first car, and could finally drive to high school. She wasn’t specifically popular, she also wasn’t an outsider. Nesta was always somewhere in between. She never really fit in anywhere. And she also never really wanted to fit in with one specific group, somehow. Nesta tilts her head. Her eyes follow one small drop sliding down the whole length of the window. She thinks about how she drove her sisters to school. How Feyre always did her homework in the car on the way to school. How they always had to turn because Elain forgot something at home. How— Oh, Elain. Her thoughts wander and she thinks about Eris having to go through the same, not knowing where his brother is. His brother. She wonders if his brother is nearly as old as Eris, or more like her. How old is Eris actually? she then wonders, only realising then that she doesn’t really know much about her companions. In one of their nights in the tent Cassian told her his age, he is quite some years older, but looks rather young for his age and—

She does not want to think about Cassian, so she directs her thoughts back to Eris and…what is his brother’s name? His name is…Lucien. Lu-cien. L—

“Your brother’s name is Lucien!” Nesta blurts out, her head whipping to Eris who startles a little and then turns. “Yes?” he questions, his eyes wide open. “Yes, it is.” “And you said he wanted to become a doctor just like you?”

Eris inclines his head and then furrows his brows. “Has it ever crossed your mind that he might be L?” Saying it out loud sounds odd, but at the same time would make so much sense. It has caught Cassian’s attention, his gaze ping-ponging between Nesta and Eris. 

“You might be onto something, Nesta,” Eris contemplates. “Christ, how did I never think of that.” Awe laces his features when he lets his eyes travel over Nesta and then slowly shakes his head. “That might really be it, Nesta. How was I so blind?” “Well,” Nesta says and shrugs her shoulder. “I heard that most men only think with two brain cells. One is focused on food, the other on…other primal needs.” There is a small smile on her lips, it does not reach her eyes, but it is there. Azriel releases a low chuckle. Eris bits his lower lip, grinning and shaking his head and even Cassian, in his miserable state, can’t avoid the smirk that appears on his lips. Nesta and her feisty mouth.

“Well,” Eris drawls. “I assume you are right.” With this revelation and the new knowledge, Eris fishes out some notebooks and a pencil and starts taking notes and writing things down. Music is still playing in the background while they drive on until they arrive at some sort of trailer park. Nesta only knows these places form the TV, has never been to one in real life. 

This time the men do not go so blindly into it, and rather set out to investigate, their guns in their hands and they make sure no one is there. They search the whole places, securing everything and make out that the place is safe — they are going to stay here over night. Nesta isn't too happy about staying, but they were driving for hours, they all need rest. And amongst other cars and trailers, their car wouldn’t be so noticeable. One could hardly catch them here. The sun starts to set when Eris and Azriel start to carry a few things into a trailer. It is in close proximity to another which Nesta gathers will be hers and Cassian’s. And as much as the tension between them is killing her, she needs him to tell her what is going on. What happened at the high school. She has to know. 

“Are you alright?” Azriel asks when she passes him. “Is this alright. You two and us—“ “It is,” Nesta quickly answers and forces a smile to her lips. “Of course. Good night, and inform us if something is up!” Azriel nods and closes the door behind him, leaving Nesta alone outside with Cassian. He does not turn to look at her, just opens the door to the trailer, climbing up the stairs. Nesta passes the rusted lawn furniture, the garbage cans with rotten items in them. She does not let her thoughts stray to the people who lived here once. There is only one thing on her mind and that is Cassian. She does no longer know if she wants to talk to him, to discuss what has happened. Can’t they just ignore each other for the rest of the night? She knows if they discuss that now she will mostly likely cry. And she does not want to cry. She wants to—

“We need to talk.” Cassian lifts his gaze to her when she closes the door. His eyes red, and one single tears slides down his cheek.

tags: @helhjertet @moonlightazriel @aayo-whatt@crushedcloudsx @brekkershadowsinger  @girasoli-e-sorrisi @ignite-me @swifti-ed @cassiansbigwingspan @burningsnowleopard @headcanonheadcase @banasheefan56 @a-frog-with-a-laptop

[mkpenvs3000w23]

My Relationship with Nature

Hello everyone, I am excited to get this blog started and would love to welcome everyone on this journey with me!

I consider myself a nature loving person. Although the fast-paced lives I am sure most of us are living do not allow us to spend every second outdoors, it is something that I personally enjoy doing. My love for nature started when my parents would take me back to our village in Punjab, India, where most people lived farmer’s lives. The open fields, fresh vegetables, spending most of the time there outdoors was something I looked forward to every year. Walking through one of our familiar fields with my grandfather as he broke me a sugarcane and told me to eat it, is a memory that I always seem to associate with nature when I think of crops and fields in Punjab. My grandfather is the reason I feel I am connected to nature the way I am. All the animals he had, the tractors rides through the village, the pointing out specific crops and his favourites is what started my fondness of nature. Growing up in a Canadian-Punjabi household, farming has always been a crucial part of my life, specifically the summers. Whether this means growing our own fruits and vegetables or going out to local farms to see what we can collect. Due to COVID, my yearly visits back home to Punjab have been on a hold so one way I get to see the life I am missing out on over there is by video calling my cousins or doing similar tasks here in my home.

Now that I am older, I find I appreciate the little things in nature a lot more. Whether that be something as little as the squirrel that visits my backyard daily, sunsets, sunrises, hikes, apple picking, having tea with my mom outdoors, watering the plants and flowers with my dad, taking care of the indoor plants in my home, afternoon strolls in the neighbourhood, camping trips, playing soccer outdoors in the summers, skating outdoors in the winters and so much more.

I try to go camping with my family every summer and last summer we went to the provincial park: Algonquin. The view of the stars was surreal. I definitely will never forget the excitement I felt liking up at the big dipper that night. I also had the opportunity to take a nature walk in the dark and it was truly an amazing experience that ended with a nice stroll by the beach with he people I love.

I also had the opportunity to go to a farm in Caledon with my mom where we got to go into their open field of spinach and collect as much as we would like. The photo below was taken by me while my mom yelled at me to hurry up!

As my grandparents and parents are getting older, I really enjoy reminiscing with them about the times we spent when my siblings and I were younger. Somehow, no matter what the conversation is about, it ends up with us planning something outdoors which can really be anything from going on a walk spontaneously, to having a get together/ picnic in a park, to booking flights back home.

I would love to hear about your experiences with nature! Did the pandemic have an effect on your relationship with nature?

[x----tine]

But what’s a girl to do?: On Cristine Brache’s Goodnight Sweet Thing By Jacqueline Lucente | Expat Press

October 21, 2024

But who are these gods

that replay my life and question it?

All along I thought I was safe.

I thought god knew I was a very good girl;

idly begging for an overdose,

a final movement of peace—

god, let’s settle it, let’s make a truce:

There’s no rapture like the body,

no war like the mind.

—Cristine Brache, “Gone Girl Summer”

Goodnight Sweet Thing, writer and multimedia artist Cristine Brache’s second collection of poetry, works through the dichotomies of womanhood—how it feels to slip along the spectrum of object and subject, navigate the bliss of fantasy against the texture of reality, strive for perfection and fall short of it. The collection gathers over two decades of work—the eponymous group, written over the last five years, and Poems, Brache’s out-of-print debut, written between 2008-2018. The poems are dramas that maneuver between the fickle and often volatile power dynamics that determine societal roles and dictate the rules of the game. Brache often identifies as the speaker of her poems—like her visual art, she treats her writing like a diary, a record of desires, memories, fantasies. She writes from the illusory and devastating space between longing and disappointment—the first poem, “Happy New Year,” is a wish, a prayer, or a joke: “Please don’t hurt me. / Please don’t hurt me. / Please don’t hurt me.”

        Brache began writing the Goodnight Sweet Thing poems during the pandemic, when mortality was front of mind. A poem of Dorothy Stratten’s—a Playmate who was killed in 1980—serves as the collection’s epigraph, situating the work in a surreal “Disneyland” with a glimmer that shields its secrets. The collection has a found footage feel—like developing a forgotten roll of film or clicking through an old handycam’s library, memory flooding through each frame. Some of the things you’ll run into in Brache’s universe: animatronic dolls, UFOs, tabloid headlines, high school foreplay, spins on Girls Gone Wild, near death experiences. The poems are clever, with titles like “Always Such a Doll, Always Ready to Be Played With” and “Some People Use You??” The humor (what else can you do but laugh at yourself?) is balanced by a meditation on life and death that cuts away the noise to the prime denominator of love.

        What Brache does brilliantly is show the duality of the performance of femininity—the story you’ve been fed will fail you, and you know better, but you try anyway. You try anyway, because there isn’t a clear way out (contradictions abound!). You try anyway, because maybe you will win, and don’t you want to know what the prize tastes like? There’s the mask with the lipstick mouth, and then there’s the face underneath. There’s the action, and then there’s the time between the acts, which lacks stage directions. These  liminal moments are the most revealing—take “Self-Reflection Figure,” where she writes: “I organize my delusions / and wonder if I’m haunting myself” and “I move through life like symbols in a painting / But what do I signify?”

        I read the collection in a couple of sittings. My copy is dog-eared and annotated, because so much of the work felt familiar. I remember the big yellow letters on tabloid weeklies, announcing scandals and overdoses over grainy paparazzi photos, ways to lose weight fast, tips for better sex (guaranteed!) at checkout lines as a child, a teenager. Turning myself into an object was once the go-to coping mechanism, consoling any rejection or disappointment until, tired enough, the facade crumbled: I would walk home alone, wipe away the mascara smudged beneath my eyes, and ask: What am I even doing? The poems reminded me of film scenes where the performance begins to crack, betraying the truth: the final sequence of Cronenberg’s Crash, when James finds Catherine by her wrecked convertible moments after he runs her off the highway—I think I’m alright, she says, bruised and bloodied, looking in the opposite direction as James, disappointed, kisses her neck and feels up her shirt; Laura Palmer swaying in the hazy light of the Pink Room, playing the bad girl with wet eyes, days before Pete discovers her blue body in plastic.

        If the world, as Brache writes, is a “thief,” maybe it’s because meaning is slick and elusive. Fewer things are guaranteed. Were they ever certain? Nothing—not beauty (“the Eighth Deadly Sin”), not a person, not a story—will save you. Thinking again of Stratten, she reflects: “The thousands and thousands of lives you could have lived. / Time is knowing you can never go back to a place / That can make you feel whole again.” Maybe the point is for all of this matter a little less—“the only thing / I can say I’ll truly / miss is my skin.” Maybe what matters are the things you can promise “Even when existence is a dark / and godless hole,” as Brache suggests in “God is the Space Between You and Me”:

        An owl’s flight is silent sometimes like

        I love you

        in broad daylight and 

        I love you behind your back.

        Have trust;

        have faith—

        not in god, but in love

        (with me).

[inumakifriedoreos]

My Sister

Sisterhood is something that many don’t get to experience. I luckily have, with my little sister by my side. Although she might be the person I fight with the most, she is also the person I talk to the most and who I think understands me genuinely without judgment. I love my sister. She is my favorite person, and I treasure our shared experiences. I was born March 2nd, and my sister March 5th, two years after me. I love this because I have always hated being the center of attention, but because our birthdays fall three days apart, we have always shared birthday parties and this has given me the relief of not being the main center of attention. But also the pleasure of standing next to my little sister and smiling at her as everyone sang happy birthday to us; I realized then how much we are both growing up.  

The first picture shows part of our heads but mainly the walls of the doctor’s office as we wait for our yearly checkup, which happens during the month of our birthdays. We were bored, looking at the superhero stickers on the wall, choosing which was our favorite, and fighting over who was the best. 

The second photo is of both of us holding kombucha. It’s supposedly a healthy drink. My sister had seen many TikToks about it, so when we went to Target one day and saw them on the shelves, she asked me if we could try them together. We did end up liking the drink. One thing I love about having a sister is we learn about new things and convince each other to try them, just like I convinced her to join the soccer team with me.

The third photo is of my sister and I’s shadow while walking on the beach the last Saturday before the school year started. She would be starting her sophomore year of high school without me, and as we walked around the beach, she talked about all the things that made her nervous, and I tried to reassure her that she would be fine. Having a sister is great because when we want to talk about something that is bothering us, we always have each other to talk to and help each other through bad and good.

The fourth photo shows my nail set (blue) and my sister’s nails(white). I learned how to do my nails using acrylic powders and gel nail polish during the pandemic, and as I was trying to learn, my sister wanted to too but then said it was too hard and gave up. So only I know how to do acrylic nails, which is fun, but because my sister also likes having her nails done, I have to spend some hours doing her nails every month. This is annoying because she is the pickiest person, but I like having that alone time with her, talking about anything and everything. I also like being able to do her nails almost precisely as she wants them and seeing her happy smile when she looks at her nails all done. 

The fifth photo is of my sister and me at an Ivan Cornejo concert. She listened to his music first and would force me to listen to him. So now he is one of my favorite artists and her favorite artist. She was very excited about attending his concert, which excited me, too. She spent a whole month planning her outfit because of how nervous she was, and in the end, she didn’t wear any of the potential outfits planned. Right when the first song started playing at the concert, my sister started crying. I’m not sure if it was because she was thrilled or because she felt surreal to listen to her favorite artist in person. But seeing her cry made me emotional, too. I’ve always been very protective of my sister and hate to see her sad or crying. I got a little emotional, but overall, the concert was fun.

I love my sister and learning and experiencing new things with her, like our first concert, growing together, sharing secrets, and overall appreciating life together.

[qnewsau]

HIV Long Term Survivors Awareness Day

New Post has been published on https://qnews.com.au/hiv-long-term-survivors-awareness-day/

HIV Long Term Survivors Awareness Day

June 5 is HIV Long Term Survivors Awareness Day. Former Sydney resident Tim tells his story of surviving his diagnosis of the virus for decades longer than he was told he would live.

WORDS Tim Alderman

In early 1994, I had a huge 40th birthday party at the Stronghold Bar, in the basement of the Clock Hotel in Surry Hills. At the same time, I dumped the beautiful man who had been my boyfriend.

With declining health, I thought it would be my last big birthday party. I hoped I might get another year… maybe two.

I did not want my boyfriend to be lumbered with the care of a dying man. There were others better equipped to do that.

At that stage, I had no inkling that my guess would almost come to fruition, and that within those two years, HAART (Highly active combination antiretroviral therapy) would appear. It whisked me… literally… from the arms of death.

Battered and bruised from my encounter with AIDS, I was thrown unceremoniously back into society.

Even at that stage I was already, along with others who walked similar though divergent paths, a long term survivor. According to the HIV/AIDS statistics, I should have departed this life around 1987.

Four years would have been considered a good run, let alone thirteen! That I had survived that long… longer than most of my social circle…filled me with a strange mix of guilt, thanks, and hope. Having been given a second chance, nothing was going to be the same again! And it wasn’t!

Now at 70, way past the self-imposed 40 deadline, and as a 41-year long term survivor, the trepidation of those earlier days is way back in the dark past. Though I still get a jolt when I fully realise the implication of those two figures… 70… 41! It seems surreal.

I did grab the opportunity, and reinvented myself. Completing a university degree in writing, and two TAFE degrees in both cooking (chef) and fitness, have positively changed my life direction.

As a long term HIV survivor, I wear the badge with modest pride, having beaten the odds.

The other significant aspect of having been where I have, is the knowing that I have lived, and continue to, through the entirety of a pandemic.

What irks me is that, as a valuable historical resource, my knowledge is overlooked, pushed into the background of history.

COVID-19 was nasty… and still is… but was treated as though it was the worst thing to happen to mankind.

Yet only 40 years earlier, one of the worst pandemics of modern times had started to run its course, and over 40 million people have died as a result of it. We have short memories!

The annual HIV Long Term Survivors Awareness Day is on 5 June.

-Get in touch with Positive Life NSW for support from others living with HIV, on (02) 8357 8386, 1800 245 677 (freecall in NSW) or contact@positivelife.org.au

For the latest LGBTIQA+ Sister Girl and Brother Boy news, entertainment, community stories in Australia, visit qnews.com.au. Check out our latest magazines or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

[oacaactcf]

‘Tammy Chen Fund a “Godsend”’

—

The Tammy Chen Postgraduate Studentship is transforming the lives of postgraduates at Caius.

—

One of the first recipients of the Tammy Chen Postgraduate Studentship says she would have probably quit the University of Cambridge, had it not been for the support she obtained from Caius.

Tiéphaine Thomason (History 2017) says the help she received during her undergraduate study at Gonville & Caius College was “pretty amazing” — and getting the funding to study for an MPhil in Early Modern History was “an absolute godsend”. Tiéphaine said: “I’d had a bit of an odd second year, and applied with my grades from then. I ended up getting a starred first in my third year, topping the College for History. Getting funding meant that I could do the MPhil work and that my grades from third year were acknowledged.”

The Tammy Chen Postgraduate Studentship provides financial support to postgraduate students studying Humanities subjects at Caius. It was established in memory of Tammy Chen, a PhD candidate at Caius killed in a terrorist attack in Burkina Faso in August 2017. Tiéphaine says she felt humbled to receive funding from such tragic circumstances. Had the bursary not come through, she would have had to defer her studies.

Tiéphaine ended up getting the joint-highest MPhil grade in her cohort, and was jointly awarded the Members' History Prize for the best MPhil dissertation in Early Modern History submitted in 2020/21. She largely credited the support she received from the College, particularly her Directors of Studies Prof Peter Mandler and Dr Melissa Calaresu. She says: “The College has been so supportive in every single way. I would not have made it through Cambridge at all, had it not been for Caius.”

—

“The College has been so supportive in every single way. I would not have made it through Cambridge at all, had it not been for Caius.”

—

One of her most surreal memories of College was during the first Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020, towards the end of her third year and going into her MPhil year. Tiéphaine says: “The whole University was in the ‘red phase’, which meant that everyone had gone home, apart from a select group of us, who couldn’t go home.”

She adds that being cut off from their families was a “very odd” experience, and thanked Senior Tutor Dr Andrew Spencer for his support during this strange period. Tiéphaine says: “In my case, my dad lives in Hong Kong. You couldn’t fly back to Hong Kong during that time. The same with a few friends of mine. We were all revising for exams, so that’s quite intense. Town was absolutely silent during this period. It was a very eerie feeling but it was also very exciting because you were left in an empty Cambridge to your own devices.” The students relaxed by having sing-a-longs to Simon & Garfunkel songs in the evenings and cooking international meals from their home countries, using the limited ingredients available at the time.

Growing up in Hong King, Singapore and Zurich, Tiéphaine, who is half-French, half-English, said she was “sent to the UK to straighten out my English” at the age of thirteen, having previously studied in French. Becoming a boarder at Oakham School in Rutland, one of England’s smallest counties, was a culture shock, so finding a multicultural community at Caius was a big relief, she says. She adds: “Caius itself is a wonderful environment, we’re one of the few colleges with very regular formals in the evenings, which means we go to them quite casually. When you go to formals at other colleges, people are always dressed in a very fancy way, whereas at Caius we’re all desperately trying not to get tomato soup on our gowns.”

She also enjoyed helping out in the College Archives and now volunteers through mentorship schemes such as Zero Gravity and Insight Outreach, encouraging other students to apply to university.

Tiéphaine has a final message to those who contributed towards her bursary, saying: “Thank you so much for all the support that you give to Caius and to students here. It makes a real impact and difference to our lives and on the future careers that we can have and hopefully we’ll be able to give something back at some point through the research that we do or what we end up producing.”

Tiéphaine recently discovered that she has been successful in receiving full funding from the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholarships Programme to study for a PhD in Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge, based at Murray Edwards College, from 2022/23. There, she will be looking at the spread of spoken French across the early modern Francophone Atlantic. While the College is sorry to see Tiéphaine leave, we know she will stay in touch with the fellows and students at Caius.

Outstanding students like Tiéphaine continue to require funding, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences, for which financial support is increasingly difficult to access. The appointment of Dr Calaresu as the new Deputy Senior Tutor for Postgraduates is indicative of the College directing focus on our postgraduate community and creating additional sources of funding to attract the best postgraduate students.

—

written up by Tali Iserles | ‘Once a Caian’, Issue 22, p. 355 (15 November 2022) | ‘Caius News’ (22 May 2022)

[proxylynn]

Buckle up, this is a long one.

The Death of a Park: My Encounter With Liminal Space

I never quite understood the concept of it, until I witnessed it firsthand.

It was 2021, a year after the beginning of the pandemic…The panic had died down, to where it was alright to go outside…for as short as possible.

I remember going to get dinner from a fast food place within walking distance from my house, and the quickest way there is on the sidewalk next to the family park. Now, I grew up playing in that park, it was always full of life, kids on the playground, a tennis court with adults practicing, a separate section was a skate park, along with benches where teens would sit and talk (the park was right next to a high school). It had a family building with a parking lot, usually filled with cars that belonged to the city volunteers. Some adults walked their dogs through the park's sidewalks, in between a large amount of pine trees, some with doves, squirrels, raccoons and even a few rabbits, making the park almost look like a small piece of the woods.

However, when I passed the park: I stopped and stared in shock: The park was completely barren: No kids playing at the playground, the courts were empty, no skaters, dog walkers, the parking lot was deserted. Not even any animals were around…you couldn’t even hear birds chirping. The sky was filled with thick gray clouds, which made the bright colors of the children’s play place have a darker shade.

Everything felt so…dead.

I’ve haven’t been more unsettled in my life. I’d heard descriptions of liminal spaces, and yeah, it sounded (and the pictures taken looked) really weird, but this? This was surreal. So much so, it gave me a small chill up my spine, making me even more uncomfortable than I already was. And yet, I couldn’t look away. I just stood there scanning the bleak landscape in pure disbelief. I never thought I’d see something that actually made me feel somewhat depressed. It was like a funeral of a piece of my childhood that I was forced to attend to. Thankfully after a good 30 seconds, I was able to snap myself out of it and continue to go get dinner. But I still had the image fresh in my mind for the rest of the day, and even the next.

Three years later in 2024, the park has been put back to life, everyone’s back, and I still go there to walk through the pine trees section, and if no one’s there, I’ll go to the children’s playground and go on the swings. (Everyone loves the swings, even the teens go to play on them and talk.) It’s still empty, but the parking lot is full, people still walk and go to the skate park. I’m happy it’s gone back to normal.

But I’ll never forget that day when the park died, and I was the only witness to its brief state as a corpse of a childhood.

[Sorry if this was a bit overdramatic, it was just very startling to me, and I just felt like I should say it to someone. So thanks for reading :) ]

[Oh no, no worries here about it sounding overdramatic. Going to a place that was once abundant with life and it being completely devoid triggers our old animal brain. "Empty space means danger. Unsettle. Must go where others are for safety." It's so interesting and haunting.]

[bmaxwell]

Monster Train

Every once in a while, a game comes along that tickles my brain in some kind of way. Looking back, these are the games I’ve poured hundreds of hours into: Dungeons of Dredmor. Slay the Spire. Darkest Dungeon. Stardew Valley. Games with a strong sense of progression and satisfying gameplay loop can make the hours just melt away for me. Every year has at least one or two of these that land for me, at least to an extent. Monster Train might be at the top of that list. It certainly is by hours played. Steam says I have 944 hours logged, and I played a whole hell of a lot on Xbox too. 

Monster Train was my pandemic game. It was a warm, cozy blanket on my second monitor to take my mind off the surreal world news. At a glance, Monster Train looks like a dime-a-dozen “deckbuilder but with a twist!” games we’ve been seeing since Slay the Spire came out. Maybe a little worse. The visuals are, uh, well...it looks like a mobile game. Cartoony art style, cards that look like they fell out of the beta for Hearthstone...I half expected to see images of scantily clad anime ladies covering the screenshots. Play now milord!

But as Chris Berman used to say way back when I was a big pro football fan and loved to watch ESPN’s Sunday night recap oh god I miss caring about things: “THAT...is why they play the games!”

Monster Train feels immediately familiar. You are progressing along a map with forking branches, engaging in combats, shopping for new cards or abilities, and stopping for little mini events. The biggest differentiator is that rather than battles being just win/lose, you have a 4-tier TRAIN where the combat takes place. Enemies generally enter on the bottom floor and, if they survive the round, they move up to the next floor. The top floor is your heart furnace thing, and baddies that make it up there do damage to your life pool. When that reaches 0, you lose, and make some meta progress by way of unlocking more relics and more cards for your faction. 

You are placing your own monsters down to defend the train. In each round, you play cards, end your turn, then the combatants on each floor of the train attack each other. Any baddies that survive will ascend a floor and the next round begins. You have a champion and card selection based on the faction you choose. 

The factions are the thing that really gave the game legs for me, they’re why I played the game for 1000 hours rather than 100 hours. Monster Train offers 5 factions (6 if you include the Last Divinity DLC). Each faction has its own pool of cards, and 2 champions to choose from - these are powerful fighters with unique mechanics that speak to the theme of their faction. 

You have the Hellhorned faction that is very aggressive with lots of high attack monsters, direct-damage cards and abilities. The Awoken is a nature themed clan, full of plants with strong defense, spikes to hurt attackers, and cards that heal. The Stygian Guard is your icy blue faction, full of freezing magic and trickery. 

The first 3 clans feel like what you’d expect them to be. Fire, nature, ice magic. The last 2 factions really feel creative and unusual. The Umbra is a faction built around summoning little weak creatures and feeding them to your stronger ones. And the Melting Remnant is a clan of candle folk who are powerful but melt away within a set number of rounds. The DLC adds the Wurmkin clan that features echoes, and egg creatures, adding a small layer of complexity that feels appropriate for a DLC release. 

This is already a lot of content, but what truly makes the game endlessly replayable is that at the beginning of each run you choose your faction and champion, and also a second faction whose cards are added to the pool for that run. Being forced to work with whatever the game randomly handed me, and finding synergies between factions was an absolute blast for me. 

I would just tell the game to give me 2 random factions and start my run. Once I’d had a successful run with each faction, I started ratcheting up the difficulty - there are 25 tiers of difficulty you can slowly pile on. No single one of these is overwhelming but reducing your income AND increasing the costs of things AND increasing the health pool of the bosses AND the attack rating of all enemies AND starting with less health AND a bunch of dead cards in your deck...well, you get the idea. 

After unlocking everything I kept playing until I’d beaten the game on the highest challenge level with each faction. And then I kept playing. And started over when the game released on PC game pass. Even when These Games resonate with me, after I’ve unlocked everything it’s time to move on. I’m not sure if it was the heaviness of the pandemic, or just Monster Train’s special sauce, or some combination of the two, but it’s one of those rare evergreen games that I am perfectly happy to play again and again with no carrot at the end of the stick.

[continuing-studies]

Go to Asia with your family - Part 1

I've been keeping a journal since we left Berlin just over a month ago, on the 3rd of January. It's in my Apple Notes and the plan is to print it out and put it all in the time capsule we are preparing for our younger kid (currently 3 1/2 months) to open on his 18th birthday in the year 2040. Our older daughter was a Corona kid, born in August 2020, and I had a similar journal going during the height of the pandemic that I printed for her to read (maybe?) when she's older. One thing about having second kids is that you only up the ante for yourself if you did cool stuff for the first one.

So far most of the entries are a combination of travel observations and descriptions of what it's like to be in these places with our son and his sister right now. But like - what if he doesn't actually think this is that cool? What if he's not interested in reading what his out-of-touch dad wrote about traveling to Asia almost 20 years ago? Will this travel journal have any relevance to his teenage life at the dawn of the 2040s?

These questions have been gnawing at me with each journal entry I write. Is this really for him, or for me? Since my real anxiety is obviously that no one else will ever read or care about most of these journal entries as much as I do, I've decided to send a few of the ones that I'm proud of into the void so that the internet might provide me with some validation in case the teenage versions of my children can't.

Below is one of my first journal entries, as we were wrapping up a 4 day stopover in Doha. It's not a place we would have thought to visit ordinarily, but with a flight itinerary on Qatar Airways and the amped up experience of going anywhere far away with children, taking a break seemed like a good idea. Being in Qatar right after a controversial World Cup was surreal, but also in some ways illuminating.

Keep reading for a deeper dive.

Friday 6 Jan 2023 

Doha

Yesterday we took the gleaming Doha metro system up to Lusail, a new development area north of the city based around the stadium where they just had the World Cup Final.  We encountered a sea of new skyscrapers built on an unnecessarily large amount of land, connected by wide empty streets and a massive highway to the rest of Doha.  With more new buildings on the way and mysteriously few people around who might actually occupy, visit, or work in all of this newly conjured urban real estate, Lusail exemplifies so much of what feels strange about this city generally.  Particularly with all of the World Cup signage still up, it has the feel of a place that was purpose-built over the past decade and is now grasping around in search of its next purpose. 

One of the common Western criticisms of the 2022 World Cup (and, by extension, of Doha and of Qatar) is that the atmosphere at the tournament was “artificial”. Insofar as Qatar built most of the infrastructure for the tournament in 12 years essentially from scratch, doubled its population over that time almost entirely with migrant workers, and even imported fans for its national team from elsewhere in the Middle East, that criticism is tempting. But as relevant as it might be to the World Cup itself, zooming out I think it misses the mark. I might describe Doha in other ways - sterile, incongruous, held back by its religious conservatism - but this city and the role it plays at this particular moment in global history is very very real.  

Consider this: there are 2.6 million people in Qatar, just 300,000 of whom are Qataris.  That means there are well over 2 million people in this country, the overwhelming amount from developing parts of South Asia and Africa, nearly all of whom are here because the Gulf offers a level of economic opportunity far enough beyond than what they could find at home that they are willing to give up everything in order to move here and send back money.  Most are men and most come without their families - the demographics of Qatar are so heavily skewed towards male migrant workers that 75% of the current population are men.

Like many world cities, Doha is full of migrants and dreamers - but without any of the romanticism.  From professionals to peasants, it’s a place where people come to get as big a piece as they can of a small desert peninsula’s incredibly lucrative oil and gas hustle.  The economic engine, apart from Qatar’s role in helping the world feed its ongoing addiction to fossil fuels, is the Qatari government’s continuing effort to make Qatar relevant (beyond its natural resources).  That’s what the World Cup was about, it’s what Lusail is about, and it’s what all the other tall buildings and shiny infrastructure are about.  Qatar is not satisfied with just being the rich kid whose family has all the money they could ever need.  It wants recognition.  It wants to tell its story and it wants to matter.  

Whether Doha would be nicer if it were more compact, whether it would be more entertaining if it were less conservative — none of this is actually important.  What is important to the people that choose to come live and work here is that a fabulously wealthy country in Western Asia is spending billions to put itself on the map, and that they need to import 90% of the human capacity required in order to do it.  It doesn’t matter that the result looks and feels a little bit like what would happen if Las Vegas and Saudi Arabia had a baby.  This is simply what Middle Eastern oil money buys in the 21st century.

Doha’s economic magnetism highlights so much of what is contradictory about our times - here is a giant city in a desert climate where it’s literally too hot to go outside in the summer, designed for a far greater number of people than will ever live here, financed by the very thing that is making this part of the world hotter and more uninhabitable every year, built up and managed at a low cost by hiring international workers who are willing to do the job for as little money as possible.  So much of this is so obviously wrong and bizarre but as long as the money keeps flowing, there will be people from less fortunate corners of the world who see places like Doha as their genuine best opportunity.

On our last full day here, a rare rainy day kept us in the hotel until 2pm.  We decided to go for a shorter walk in the afternoon - about 30 minutes from our hotel to a park with a playground.  As we did for most of our journey in Doha, our family of four stood out walking through some of the more local back streets.  A brown woman not wearing a hijab, pushing a stroller next to a white guy wearing a toddler on his back…. in a city without much of a pedestrian culture, this must have looked genuinely strange.  I felt a few eyes on us, though fewer than I was expecting.  

We spent an hour or so at the playground and as darkness fell and the call to prayer rang out throughout the city, the rain started to come again, first as drizzle and then crescendoing with the sounds of the Azzam.  If I were less immediately concerned with the welfare of two small children, it would have been quite a beautiful moment, but with Maya’s clothes getting increasingly soaked and rain starting to seep through into Camino’s stroller, we looked for the first place we could take cover, which happened to be the entrance to the men’s park toilet and prayer room.  

So there we were, our multicultural family of four, looking every bit the part of a Western caricature as we stood with our stroller and toddler backpack with Zara wearing a low cut shirt and stylish green blazer in a hallway crammed entirely with modestly dressed men coming from their evening prayers.  They were dressed like South Asians rather than Qataris or other Arabs - migrants, most likely, as opposed to locals, coming together to pray in the park prayer room.  Aware of how awkward Zara was probably feeling, I held Maya and tried to keep Camino warm in the stroller.  Her presence would likely have raised quite a few eyebrows in any other situation, but it seemed there was a tacit understanding that this was an OK reason for her to be in the entrance to the men’s prayer room given the weather outside.

Still, I knew she felt weird and at some point we decided to make a break for it.  We got pretty wet again leaving the park and took shelter in the first restaurant we could find, a South Indian place that called us an Uber and helped us dry Maya off.  The driver came and brought us home for a stated price of 9 Qatari rials (3 euros).  I thanked him and gave him two 10 rial bills, to which he seemed a bit confused why.  I’ve been trying to tip well.

A city full of transplants from all over the Global South, many of them everyday Muslims, stitched together by the common experience of hustling for opportunity in this center of Arab wealth and cultural ambition - I went back into the hotel thinking that this is the real story of Doha.

In a lot of ways, this place is as representative of the 21st century as any Western city.  

I’m still not really sure how I feel about all this.  But I’m glad I saw it.

[ashenlights]

Thank you @rose-nebulijia @aheartfullofjolllly and @manhasetardis for tagging me! Instead of choosing my favourite creations this year, I thought I’d just do an art summary ^^

This year I managed to consistently draw at least one thing a month - 28 in total! I continued to push myself out of my comfort zone and drew more figures and backgrounds than ever before.

I also got into 山河令/word of honor, and gosh has that been a rollercoaster of emotions. It’s brought me so much joy and grief and I feel like something in me has just fundamentally changed. It’s been such a surreal year full of big changes for me too but I’m happy with how far I’ve come and where I am now. Thank you all for following along with my art journey and being here! I really am grateful for every kind tag and comment - it means the world to me!

Still a few more hours to go here, but happy new year everyone! I hope 2022 treats you all kindly and that you’re all safe and well ^^ Tagging:

am going to tag @auriond @fismoll7secinv @psychic-waffles and @alphabetotter! art or fic or any creation(s) you were proud of this year! I’d love to see them! :D

 the original tag prompt was “With the year ending, let's look back at what we did! What are your favorite creations you did or the ones you think deserve more love? Send this to 5 other creators to share the love”

[secretlywritingstories]

I go to concerts alone. Not often and I do really like going with my friends as well, but I don’t mind going alone either. If there is an artist I want to see in and I know none of my friends know their music well, I’ll just go on my own. 

Because from the second I arrive at the venue, I’m not truly alone anymore. I am surrounded by other people who like this artist and their music. There will often be an overlap of interests elsewhere but even if the only thing similar about me and the person standing next to me was our love for this music that would also be alright. 

Two musicians who started out on YouTube, both whom I’ve followed for many years by now, have come to my city a couple of times after they broke through and became more mainstream artists. None of my friends properly listen to them, so I go alone. I’ve seen both multiple times. When they come to my city, I go. 

It puts me in a room full of people that I somehow vibe with without ever having spoken to them. I know some of them too must watched YouTube in that era and fell in love with these artists and stuck around to see their talents bloom and grow. I know for sure a lot of queer people will be in the audience since both of these artists are openly queer and well, we tend to find each other. 

It made tonight feel like a safe space. When the singer shouted out to ask how many queer people were in the house, so many hands went up, so many shouts were heard. I don’t know many openly queer people personally irl but I was in a sea of them. I too shouting and raising my hand because no one knows me there. No friends at my side who might throw me a questioning glance. I’m not questioning anymore and I don’t hide my queerness but I don’t flaunt it either. I just exist and breathe and I got to do that in that venue. 

And the songs, man, hearing the songs you’ve had on repeated actually sung live by the artist is something so magical. Most musicians adore and enjoy the stage and performing in front of their audience and it radiates off of them. I sang along to every song, clapped and shouted, stamped my feet. The air was electric. We all moved as one. It’s a magical experience. 

I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed it. It has been over 2,5 years since I’ve been at an actual concert because of the pandemic. It felt surreal to stand surrounded by people again, even in a relatively small venue. Shouting and singing. A part in the back of my brain was worried, a bit cautious, but I still managed to enjoy it. 

I had booked my ticket months ago, in the autumn when the concert was announced. On the day itself, I had a bit of a grey day, brain kind of heavy. Tired after a long week and processing an upcoming job shift that required a lot of mental processing. I did nothing much all day other than watch YouTube and read fic and then I got ready in the evening. 

Feeling the beat vibrate in my chest and adored lyrics sung so sweetly, I felt pulled back into the present. I felt alive. During the set, it felt like my fatigue melted away. I was abuzz, jumping and having a great time. All by myself and yet not alone in a crowd of people who were feeling the same as I. I’m so glad I don’t mind going to concerts on my own. It has always been an awesome experience. 

(Thanks for tonight, dodie. It was truly a blast. I hope to see you again in the future.)

[gucciwins]

Three Time

The one where Harry, Atticus, and Y/N celebrate. 

Word Count: 2,988

A/N: Hello friends, this is a little continuation to my story Adore You.  Harry is now a three time grammy nominated artist and i think that is beautiful. This is something short and i really do hope you enjoy it. 

There is a lot that happened this year that she never saw coming. 

First, a worldwide pandemic that would keep everyone locked indoors and having to wear masks. Secondly, Harry's Love on Tour getting rescheduled to 2021, but even that isn't looking good now. And lastly, being in Los Angeles in November as Harry is filming a movie as the lead male actor. 

Ever since Fine Line was released in December, time seemed to fly by for them.

Harry was overjoyed at how loved Fine Line was by his fans. He was getting support left and right. He was a humble man, never letting it go to his head, always saying he couldn't do it without the help of the people on his team. 

There have been rumors flying around speculating Harry having a girlfriend, a famous songwriter, but they have learned to ignore it. Harry doesn't feel the need to address his relationships because it's theirs. He would love to shout his love for Y/N to the world, but as long as she knows, he's content. 

They celebrated their one year anniversary in Italy for a week before flying back home, they would have stayed longer, but they missed Atticus too much to do that. As soon as they got home, it felt like everything changed. Not between them, but with the world. It was madness to see a lockdown, fear had spiked, but safety was a priority that they took seriously. Meaning they had to take it day by day.

Ever since the worldwide lockdown in March, Harry discussed staying in Los Angeles with Mitch and Sarah for a few months. Atticus was quick to agree, but Y/N really wanted to go home. Harry reminded her it was better to be surrounded by a good group of friends than to be distanced from everyone in London's separate homes. She was quick to agree after. 

Y/N didn't mind it much after; they all always helped each other out. There was also a lot of music playing, as well as creating. Harry said they might just have to get Mitch to release a quarantine album, which got Harry hit in the head with a pillow. 

The one who was taking this the hardest was Atticus, missing Anne and Gemma, who was back in London. He missed going to the park to play, he missed running around free, and honestly, she did as well. They would go hiking and on walks, but it was not as open as before. 

This is why, by June, they returned back home to London, and after a week of quarantine and negative test results, they went on the journey to visit both families. Y/N separated from them to visit her mother and step-dad even though Harry tried to convince her they could go together, but honestly, as much as she loved Anne and had started to see her as a second mother, she really needed a hug from her own. She promised Harry and Atticus she would see them the day after as she was coming to see Anne and they would stay the week with her. 

During this time, Y/n started knitting, something she learned at a young age but would only do when she was stressed. She began teaching Atticus, but he could only keep still for a little bit before he had to run off and do a new activity. She knitted socks, hats, and blankets for their family and friends and shipped them off to them. Y/N even made Atticus and herself the JW Anderson Cardigan. It was a lot of work, but it came out lovely. Harry made them do a little backyard photoshoot because he loved it so much.  

Harry had even surprised her when he told her it would be on the cover of Vogue. She was in shock, but she never stopped hugging him, telling Harry how proud of him she was. The day of the shoot was gorgeous, she had to remind herself to breathe a few times, or she would have passed out. Atticus was in the shoot with Gemma and Harry as they did a family shoot to surprise Anne. Harry kept asking her if she was enjoying it, and honestly, her smile said everything. That she was proud of him, that he was doing fantastic but most importantly, that she loved him. The skirt had a lot of filthy thoughts floating through her head, and she really hoped they'd lend it to Harry if she told him everything she wanted to do with him, specifically her under that skirt touching him. 

Harry had her join for a few photos, Lambert pulling out a surprising look just for her. Harry promised these photos were just for them, even if he wanted to have them put one in just so the world could know how much he loved his family. 

It's November now, and they are in Y/N's Malibu home, which they have been staying at since October. Harry has started filming "Don't Worry Darling," in Olivia Wilde's film. It was surreal when they found out; she couldn't be any prouder. Staying in her home was an easy choice; not many knowing where she lives, only a few friends, and Atticus loves having the beach so close even if it is a little too cold to go in now. 

Y/N and Atticus can't go to set due to safety and regulations, but Harry calls and facetime them every time he gets a break in his trailer. He lets them know he misses them, but he really loves everyone he's working with. That the cast is incredible and kind. Harry would not stop teasing Y/N for her reaction when she saw the wedding ring on his left hand. It made her stop mid-sentence. Husband Harry is something she wishes to one day get because Dad Harry is an angel to his sweet son. 

Harry has recently gone back to filming as it was postponed for two weeks because someone on set came out positive to make up for the lost time they started filming on weekends, which bummed out Atticus. Still, Harry quickly told him it wasn't his choice and that they would watch movies of his options as soon as he was back. Atticus loves Y/N a lot, but he's never going to love anyone more than his dad, even though Atticus does push Harry second sometimes. 

More times than not, Harry will get home and find Y/N and Atticus napping in a new place of the house; the last time was outback in a little tent Y/N set up with fairy lights and had many pillows and blankets to stay warm. Harry was quick to climb in and wrap his arms around Y/N, who quickly woke up due to his cold hands, but he apologized quickly with kisses. She's a sucker for his kisses.

Every moment together is special for them. 

Atticus called her 'Mum' a week ago and ran off, feeling embarrassed would not talk to her all day. Which was hard to do, seeing that they were the only three people in the house. Harry saw how sulky she was and talked with Atticus because neither would tell him what happened. Harry was surprised when Atticus told him what he said, but he was mostly filled with joy and a bit of fear. A fear that she could leave any day and not only would he be left heartbroken but so would his son, but he knows Y/N and the love she has for them. She's here forever, she might not say it, but her actions say enough for her. How she tucks in Atticus to bed with a kiss and an 'I love you.' Asking Anne and her mother on first time parenting tips when she thinks Harry isn't around. How much she cried when he got a scrape on his knee for the time in her care. There isn't anything stopping her from leaving, but she stays because she loves all she has. In the end, Atticus apologized for not speaking with her, and she hugged him and cuddled him all night long. Harry told Atticus that Y/N wasn't his mother, but she loved him like one and that it was okay with him if she called her that. Y/N was fearful of being a mom, but she loved Atticus like her own; even if she hadn't watched and cared for him since he was born, she was here known and would do so for as long as Harry and Atticus let her. 

November 24th, a long-awaited day for artists in the music industry. Harry has to be on set at 11AM today, meaning they will be watching the live stream together. Jeff is with Glenne and is on facetime with Harry. He has his phone perched up against a candle. Harry is sitting in the middle, Atticus to his left and Y/N to his right. He's in sweats and a plain white tee, not needing to be dressed up, seeing as it only is nine in the morning. 

The live stream is an hour-long. Y/N truly forgets how many categories they have until she watches. They woke up at eight am, had pancakes for breakfast, and spoke of their daily plans letting time go by them, allowing them to enjoy breakfast together as they do each morning. 

Atticus can barely sit still, just wanting to hear his daddy's name being called. Harry is surprisingly quiet, just sitting back with his arms crossed as the live stream goes on. Honestly, Y/N is the only one showing emotion. She cheers as she hears HAIM and Phoebe Bridgers get nominated. She itches to grab her phone to shoot them a congratulations message but fears she'll miss something, so she just gives herself a silent reminder to do it after. 

Sharon Osbourne had just begun to say the nominees for Best Comedy Album, and Y/N knows what is coming up soon. She isn't even listening to the nominees, just waiting for her to name the Best Music Video nominees. 

As soon as she says, "Brown Skin Girl, Beyoncé," Y/N feels Harry's hand on her thigh tighten, and she feels for him. His nerves must be out of the roof, but he tries his best not to show it. Y/N shuts her eyes tight, putting her hand over his to let him know she's there for him. 

When she hears the words "Adore You, Harry Styles," she feels her heart speed up. She opens her eyes wide and looks at Harry; his face is blank. Atticus is running circles around the couch, just cheering and yelling nonsense. Jeff and Glenne are cheering from the phone. 

Harry lets out a big smile when he finally meets her eyes. "Adore you did it, angel." She whispers.

He nods. "That's unreal. To hear my name." 

She leans in to give him a quick kiss as they settle back down, ready to listen for the upcoming categories. Megan the Stallion is starting the new section of categories, and Y/N isn't sure how to feel because she won't be able to take it if they don't name Harry again. 

"Best Pop Solo Performance, Watermelon Sugar." This time they all break out into cheers as soon as they hear them call Harry's name after Dua Lipa's. "Watermelon Sugar" had been a hit from the day of its release. Now it has been nominated for a Grammy feels unreal to Harry. Two nominations, he would have never believed it. 

Y/N's buzzing waiting for Megan to announce Best Pop Vocal Album. Harry is now leaning forward, knowing this is another category he could potentially be nominated for. 

"Fine Line Harry Styles" As soon as she hears those words, the tears start running down her face; he did this. His album was nominated. Harry can't stop smiling as Atticus hugs him tight around his neck. He lets out a small chuckle as he sees her tears. He pulls her in, kissing her head repeatedly, smiling at Jeff's congratulations but mostly basking in the joy of three nominations and that he has the opportunity to share it with those he loves. 

Harvey Mason JR. is here once again to announce the general field categories. Harry and Y/N nod along as the names of the nominees are called out. Jeff let out a cheer hearing HAIM nominated for album of the year. Y/N sighs, not hearing Harry being nominated but continues ready to hear Adore You for record of the year. Only it doesn't happen. Harvey Mason JR. bids everyone goodbye, and just like that, it's over. 

Jeff breaks the silence, congratulating Harry before hanging up. Harry sits back with Atticus in his lap, a big smile on his face. 

Harry is happy. Extremely happy, this has always been a dream of his, one he never knew would come true. 

His second album got him three Grammy nominations. Atticus has no clue what these awards mean, but he's happy just seeing Harry and Y/N happy.  Atticus climbs off Harry's lap, kissing Harry and Y/N's cheek, saying he's going to his room now. 

Harry turns to look at Y/N, and the smile she had has now left her face, and now she sits there, lost in thought. This worries Harry; she was fine moments ago. He's got to go soon, so he needs to figure this out now. 

"Honey, you alright?" Harry places his hand on her thigh, and she looks at him, nodding. 

"Fine." She kisses his cheek. "Really happy for you." 

Harry knows she is, but there's something else. "Spill." 

She sighs, knowing nothing gets past him. "You weren't named for any general category. I'm proud of the three you got, but I was sure you would be at least nominated for record of the year." Awards don't mean much to Y/N anymore, but she knows how important this is for Harry. "I'm sorry, ruining your mood." 

"You didn't. Thank you for caring so much." His smile is sincere, and she knows he wouldn't lie to her. 

"It's okay," Harry tells her, wanting her to repeat it with him.

"But Harry," He puts his hands on her cheeks to get her to stop and look at him. 

"Honey, it's okay. Three nominations are amazing, and I couldn't be happier." 

"I know," She deflates. "3-time Grammy Nominated Artist Harry Styles has a nice ring to it." She smirks, noting the blush on his cheek. 

"Dork." He leans in to kiss her nose. 

"Fine Line is still my favorite album, you know, from everything released, named number one." 

"You're just saying that." 

Y/N shakes her head no, "Of course not. Yours is the one album I had on repeat the most. My Spotify wrapped will prove just that." 

Harry snorts, "You're too much." 

He pulls her in to lay on his chest, her arms snake around his waist. They hold each other tight. 

"I'm proud of you," Harry whispers in her ear. 

Y.N leans back, but Harry's hold is tight. "I did nothing; you just got nominated. For your second album, you deserve all the praise today." 

"Honey, will you let me continue." Harry laughs. 

"Sorry, H." 

"I'm proud of you because, without you, this album would have never been finished. I would have never had the inspiration to finish Adore You. Would have never had the idea to make a fake island and promote it without ever adding my name to it. I would have never thought to film using a CGI fish, as my friend in the story. I would have never had the released "Lights Up," the song that started this new era for me but most importantly, I would have never found love. A love that is bigger than me that fills me with so much joy. A love that leaves me scared. A love that will forever keep on growing." Harry smiles as he wipes away her tears. 

Harry loves Y/N with all he has. This album was his, but it was also hers. It's what truly brought them together. 

"You made me cry, you jerk." She says, laying her head in the crook of his neck.

Harry laughs. "I just poured my heart out to you, and I'm the jerk." 

"I love you." Harry grins. That's all he wants to hear. "I'll love you, today, tomorrow, forever for as long as you let me. 

Harry can't contain his happiness and needs to show her. He connects their lips. It's a hard, fast kiss full of passion. They pull away because their smiles don't let them continue much. 

"You've got to go." Y/N reminds him as he continues to press kisses all over her face and neck. 

Harry settles down, smiling down at her. "I know." She leans forward, kissing him quickly. "We'll celebrate more when I get home tonight." 

"Three nominations, wow!" Y/N says, standing up. "We're in for a long celebration once we get Atticus down to sleep." She wags her eyebrows at him.

Harry very quickly gets the hint. "I can't wait, honey." 

Atticus comes bouncing down the steps giving his dad a kiss goodbye, walking him to the door, barefoot. Y/N follows Harry, giving her one last kiss goodbye as he walks to his car. 

As he gets in and pulls out of the driveway, he sees Y/N and Atticus waving goodbye to him. Harry has a big smile on his face that no one can see. He's thankful to now be a 3-time Grammy-nominated artist, but what he is most grateful for is getting to be the person who gets to love Y/N and Atticus forever.

Thank you for reading! This was just a small little piece for a beloved piece I wrote. If inspiration strikes, I shall be revisiting this story. 

Please let me know what you thought!

[neko-rogers]

hey!! I’m not sure if your inbox is still open but I thought I’d send this just in case! what would you think abt a dark!peter who’s obsessed w s/o and offers to have her stay with him during like the stay-at-home pet of covid so she’s not alone then when it’s lifted he’s like lol you’re not leaving. sorry that’s kinda long and super specific. i absolutely love your writing though!!💗

Jamie All Over

words: 2,040 (no, i should be sorry bc this was chaotic)

tags: didn’t expect it to be this LONG, manipulative!peter parker, grooming, overprotectiveness, slight mentions of sex, don’t expect too much lmao its a headcanon

a/n: hi babe! i wasn’t entirely sure if you wanted this as a one shot (but if u do let me know!)

so you’re pretty unaware of every move peter is trying to do with you, you know? you were not really sure if it was a kind gesture, as the gentleman he seemed to be, or was it just a special treatment

ever since second year and until now as both of you were on your fourth year, he was consistent with his efforts

these moves were moments like when he would carry your books to your next class or confidently invite you to a study ‘date’ at the library after – often times he tells that his friends were invited, but would never show up later on

sometimes he would bring you lunch. you tried to turn it down kindly, but he insists that it was purposely packed as an extra for when he stays late around the university.

it was a lie though. anyone could tell by the way it was prepared looking very appetizing and tasted just as amazing at it was presented. 

and as peter had mentioned that he lived alone, you also assumed he was the one to make his meals. you were so sure he doesn’t pack for an extra and intentionally wants to impress you with his skills.

“hey, y/n!,” he calls, “look this eggroll has a cute design!”

he honestly was an epitome of a walking sunshine. his smile seemed so pure and you never felt any ill-intent for every gesture he had done for you

his friends seemed very welcoming the moment he introduced you to his group

you got along with ned who seemed to be just as joyful and funny as peter. meanwhile mj was a bit more of a tough cookie, nevertheless you both eventually got a long better than you expected

however, it came to one point wherein your own group of friends started being disheartened with your lack of communication

“you’ve been spending more time with that parker boy, huh?” “yeah, kinda?” “are you two like... dating?” “oh no! no... no... nooo!”

the moment they frowned at you was then that you realized and felt a little more guilty. you always remembered that friends were supposed to be friends despite the lack of time and effort, right?

somehow you tried to compensate for the lack of time with your friends. but every minute you spend felt more awkward than before

they weren’t sharing the same vibe with you and you were starting to question if it had been always like it – were you only adjusting to them?

you reached out for peter, considering that he became one of the closest and trusted people around the university. plus, he seemed to have genuinely great friends

“do you feel happy when you’re spending time with them?”

“well i used to but recently–”

“then you should stop being friends with them.”

you were upset for a second. the way he instantly told you that cutting ties with them would be the (only) option

he sounded serious on the other end of the line and you were just speechless for a moment. the dead air between lines was evident, but you didn’t know what to say

“sorry,” peter makes up, “i didn’t mean to sound too serious. i just don’t like people who are rude, especially to you.”

“oh, it’s fine. i totally get it.” you felt a batch of butterflies around your stomach. someone actually cared for you!!!

the moment you didn’t hesitate on losing your friendship with your past friends and moved on with joining peter’s group, things felt lighter.

somehow you felt more expressive than you realized. they were open to your ideas and thoughts, just as you were with them. you felt super comfortable and realized that you weren’t holding back on anything anymore

that’s why you had expected your winter break to be better than your past ones

everyone agreed to skate around the ice rink in rockefeller for christmas. along with it, also spending new year’s eve at the time square

news flash: you finally had the cliche new year’s eve kiss, with none other than peter parker!!! hooray!!!

for anyone who had common sense, your feelings for peter had accentuated. you weren’t denying it either, and the boy wasn’t oblivious to it too

he was just so irresistible and kind to you, like, all the time – to surreal, honestly

you felt and KNEW you were spoiled with peter (and his friends, who liked to spend time with you outside too, just not as much as him)

just as you were planning your spring break activities, it had to be postponed for another time

a lockdown had to be implemented around the country as it was under the state of a pandemic

mj and ned told the group that they’ll be with their families since lectures had to be concluded for the mean time

you planned to do the same, but you expected that this situation wouldn’t last long. so you chose to stay in your dorm rather than return to your hometown

completely sucks since you not only don’t get to hang out with your friends, but you weren’t able to see anyone in person...

until you got a text from peter

he was literally inviting you over his apartment since he explained that he wasn’t returning home either

you practically rushed to pack a small amount of clothes for a sleepover whilst not forgetting to wear a mask (bc it’s fucking important ok)

you arrived at his address and a big warm hug ensues 

his unit was so tidy and you were convinced he did it to impress you

peter was so happy to see you, acknowledging that you’re also spending a few nights with him

the nights mostly consisted of eating snacks and binge watching movies

however during one of those nights, both of you got a bonus – making out on his couch and further, completely forgetting the television

making out with peter wasn’t awkward at all. most of the time he was the one in control, which you didn’t mind

his hands treated you so gently but the way he teased you made you crave for more than what he was offering

a lot of whining, swearing, and begging – you weren’t aware but he was enjoying it a lot

on his side, he did praise you from time to time, but most of it consisted of raw tension and actions. the room was full of grunts and short breaths 

just want to include how sexy peter would be while he moans all over you. like his whole sunshine personality just drained away the moment he places his hands on either sides of your waist

the next day you felt like a princess even though you know it shouldn’t be???

apparently peter prepared breakfast for you and you felt embarrassed walking around his place only in the shirt you wore yesterday and underwear

just when you thought the extra lunch he packs for you was already amazing, the breakfast he prepared whilst being fresh and hot was just incredible

“you really like it?”

“of course! you really have to teach me to cook sometimes”

peter laughs and jokes, “yeah, don’t worry. i feel like we’ve got a lot of time ahead.”

ok fast forward to a few more days when you were beginning to feel like a freeloader. he lets you borrow a few of his clothes as yours were in the laundry

by the time you wanted to stop by your place, peter started to be more... clingy

at first he didn’t want you to go but after a few more debates, he felt defeated and instead insisted on going with you

eventually you caved and let him. it wasn’t that bad either, he talked to you about a lot of things on the way leaving you entertained the whole walk without realizing how far it had been

he helped you ‘pack’ more stuff so you wouldn’t be going back and forth from his place and yours. you felt like you were going out of town for a month with the amount of clothes and products

both of you returned to his place around late afternoon. you felt pretty tired and didn’t hesitate to pass out on the living room couch

when you woke up you sensed that you were in peter’s bedroom, meaning he carried and tucked you during the night

plus! an arm was wrapped around your midriff and you could feel peter’s breathing against your side

you closed your eyes and appreciated the moment. it was cute and made butterflies flutter around your stomach, and you tried not to move much to not wake him up

anyways apparently the pandemic lasted longer, and more serious, than expected (fuck the government and their incompetency) 

you spent more time with peter and was thankful that you didn’t spend this quarantine alone

within a blink of an eye, a month and a half already had passed. you couldn’t deny that most, or all, days have been unproductive

eat, cook, watch tv, cuddle, fuck, repeatedly get spoiled??? yeah sounds like the dream

weird though because you haven’t completely brought up to peter if you’re actually in a relationship with him. oh no were you just friends with (a lot) of benefits??

but you also felt like it wasn’t the time to bring it up. neither of you were saying anything so it was best to let it be for the fear that things might go downhill from there

anyways this continued for more weeks, especially since the ‘stay-at-home’ policy was deemed necessary

you started to help him do errands around the apartment just to feel like you weren’t an actual freeloader – but it wasn’t a surprise when he kept insisting that you should relax

more cute moments

more sexy times

and more cuddles during night (peter’s grip became tighter every night, but you shrugged it off assuming that it was just you getting homesick and overthinking)

ok but when you brought up being homesick and mentioned that you planned peter wasn’t entirely happy about it

the way he acted wasn’t just clingy. he insisted that he’d be the one to go and that you were staying

“ok but i’m not a dog, peter?” “i know, honey, but it’s too dangerous outside. i wouldn’t want you to be at risk.” “i wear a mask?? i follow health protocols?? i’ll be fine??” “you don’t understand–”

oh god he was becoming controlling

you tried not to argue anymore, rather ignoring and pushing past him to proceed to the door

and peter instinctively wrapped an arm around your waist and prevented you from walking further

there was a lot of struggling, but you didn’t know he was this strong. literally what the hell.

you tried to scream too but he pretty much threatened you to your core

“let’s talk this out,” he grunts as he secures his grip around you

“the hell? let me go!”

things got more complicated. he did convince you to talk with him (by means of tying your arms and legs to incapacitate you from running and righting)

it was a nightmare. he was really soft and sweet with you, even getting teary eyed after stating, “i only want what’s best for you... for us”

however you could sense the manipulativeness through it despite being making everything else look convincing

“trust me, sweetie, i wouldn’t want to hurt you. it would crush me” “please don’t cry. i’m only protecting you” “people are disgusting, they don’t deserve an angel like you” “don’t worry, i can protect you”

it terrified you to your nerves, sending shivers across your spine

at first you didn’t realize it, but eventually after days of being trapped, you figured he had been grooming you the whole time

he tried to make you dependent of him and somehow he did a fine job. just not enough to completely exploit you

though, it made you question what would have been better in your situation: being conscious of his sly nature with the hope of escaping or being unaware and completely wrapped around his finger whereas letting him continue how greatly he had been caring for you?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Dead, broke

Of all the moving, wrenching accounts of death during the pandemic, Molly McGhee’s “America’s Dead Souls,” for The Paris Review stands out: haunting, furious and sad, an rude awakening of the status quo that denies any possibility of inaction.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/05/17/americas-dead-souls/

I’ve known McGhee a long time, since she worked on my book INFORMATION DOESN’T WANT TO BE FREE from McSweeneys, a professional association we renewed when she landed at Tor.

During the pandemic crisis, I’ve had two different connections to her: on the one hand, the consummate professionalism of her emails as we published my novel ATTACK SURFACE in the middle of the lockdown.

On the other hand, I knew her through her wrenching and deeply personal Twitter account of the personal tragedies she’s endured over the same period. Her Paris Review essay brings those tragedies into sharp focus and uses them to pin a huge and heretofore ill-defined feeling.

McGhee’s mother died during the crisis, but the death was the culmination of years of hardship: “[earning] less than $10,000 a year. Suffering from debilitating depression while caring for her aging parents…chronically unemployed, undermedicated, and overstressed.”

Her mother’s debts were on public display through searchable databases, and her life was haunted by both con artists and bill collectors who carpet-bombed her with calls, letters and emails.

She was too poor to fight back: her wages were garnished by the IRS “for back taxes calculated from a years-old misfiling they refused to correct.” McGhee sent her months of her salary, but it wasn’t enough.

She had no answer for her mother’s rhetorical questions, “Why are these people harassing me? What good does it do them?”

Because the answer is obvious and insufficient: “The people in power don’t care if we live or die, as long as they get paid.”

It only took two days after McGhee’s mother died for her creditors to begin harassing her for her mother’s debts. The state of Tennessee seized the house, but Wells Fargo expected her to make good on the mortgage.

The hospital where McGhee’s mother died wanted a quarter of a million dollars. McGhee, not even 26, was staring down the barrel of the weapon that had been trained on her mother, the inheritor of nothing but debt.

The debt-machine is efficient. Bill collectors found out about McGhee’s mother’s death before McGhee’s own family got word. And they’re remorseless, immune to McGhee’s “pleading, bargaining, reasoning, denying, uploading, scanning, begging, faxing, and crying.”

McGhee compares it to Gogol’s “Dead Souls,” a surreal tale of a grifter named Chichikov who buys dead serfs’ souls to sell for profit.

It’s only surreal if you’ve never been in the debt system’s crosshairs, “where one day of lost wages can compound into houselessness.”

We live in a system of winners and losers. The winners’ winnings come from debt, shielded from the system’s cruelty by “professionalism and bureaucracy” that insulate them — and their functionaries — from “feelings of culpability, not to mention empathy or curiosity.”

Poor people have less money, but the system is firmly focused poor people, because people with money can defend themselves. When McGhee went into debt to hire a lawyer, a single letter on official letterhead instantly reduced all that debt by 90% — more than $250k, poof.

It’s expensive to be poor. Take Community Health Systems, one of the largest hospital chains in America. It sues the shit out of poor people. When those people can afford lawyers, CHS loses, because it is chasing debts it is not entitled to collect.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/18/unhealthy-balance-sheet/#health-usury

CHS itself owes $7.6 billion. It turned its first profit in 2020, thanks to hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal subsidies, and its executives pocketed millions in “performance bonuses” for a performance that consisted of getting bailed out by the public.

The Trump stimulus handed trillions to the richest people and biggest companies in America. Those companies “leveraged up” their handouts to raise trillions more and went on spending sprees, buying up struggling businesses.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/17/divi-recaps/#graebers-ghost

They loaded these companies up with debt, declared “divi recaps” (where you take out a loan on a company you bought on credit and put that money in your own pocket as a “special dividend”) and crashed the companies, destroying jobs and communities.

Plutes know there are three kinds of debt: workers’ debts (which must be repaid), owners’ debts (to be “restructured” away) and government debt (not debt at all, but still handy for terrifying normies with stories of “mortgaging our kids’ futures”).

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/17/disgracenote/#false-consciousness

Forty years of this approach has turned the economy into a shambling zombie, dependent on the fiction that “consumer” debts — repackaged as bonds through financialization — will be repaid, somehow.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

As an ever-larger share of the world’s wealth has shifted from the workers’ side of the balance sheet to the owners’, the ability of workers to buy things to keep businesses afloat as vehicles for debt-leveraging has only declined.

Wage-theft and stagnation, unions in retreat, monopoly, monopsony, tax-preferencing for home-owners over renters, for capital gains over wages, spiraling housing, health and education costs, worker misclassification — wages are annihilated before they’re even deposited.

With no wages left over to fund consumption, there’s only debt, and as Michael Hudson says, “Debts that can’t be repaid, won’t be repaid.” CHS can comfortably carry billions in debts, but the sick people it sues for $201 have to choose between rent and medical debt.

Every loan-shark knows how this works. The chump with $500 who owes you $500 and owes the bank $500 needs an incentive to pay you ahead of the bank. To assert the primacy of your claims, you need an arm-breaker.

The digital world has given us all kinds of fantastic new arm-breakers: digital repo men who can brick your car or your phone. It’s automated the once rare practice of evictions, creating eviction mills that run with devastating efficiency.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/02/innovation-unlocks-markets/#digital-arm-breakers

Creating a debt-instrument — a bond grounded in the payments from other peoples’ debts — requires that you convince investors and bond-rating agencies that your arm-breaker will terrorize the debtors into paying you instead of child-support or grocery bills.

“The cruelty is the point” isn’t ideology, it’s pure description. The system — an artificial life-form constituted as immortal colony organism that uses us as gut flora — runs on competing claims to your debt, and victory consists of terrorizing you more than any rival.

The financiers who practice leveraged buyouts destroy real businesses, ruin lives and hollow out communities. They are feted as “job creators.” The workers who must borrow to close the gap they leave are “deadbeats.” Leveraged buyouts are back, baby.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/14/billionaire-class-solidarity/#club-deals

If you fret that forgiving student loans and making college free will “saddle our kids with debt,” then you’ve been suckered.

Look. Replacing a system that starts all but the richest children with unserviceable debt with one that doesn’t is liberation, not bondage.

Since Reagan, we’ve been hiking tuition, killing deductions for interest, and shielding student debt from bankruptcy.That’s how you can borrow $79k, pay $190k, still owe $236k, and have 25% taken from every paycheck AND Social Security until you die.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/04/kawaski-trawick/#strike-debt

Debts that can’t be paid, won’t be paid. Student debts do get forgiven, but only for those highly educated, (potentially) highly productive people who can prove that they have been so thoroughly destroyed by debt that they have no future.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/20/sovkitsch/#student-debt

And as McGhee reminds us, the tragedy isn’t merely that we educate people on the pretense of betting on America’s future, but really, the principle use that the system makes of the educated is as collateral for securitized loans.

If the arm-breakers who chased her mother wanted to understand that woman’s humanity, McGhee says they should start here:

“Her humor and her rage were unmatched. In the evenings, against the setting Tennessee sun, she liked to drink red can Cokes in the garden while snuffing cigarettes out against the yard’s ant colonies. She could reckon with anyone just by looking them in the eye. Men were terrified of her, rightfully so. She was sweet. In the last week of her life, when she couldn’t understand where she was or who she was talking to, she greeted everyone the same: ‘Hi, pal. Hope you’re doing okay. When can you come pick me up?’”

Take a second. Re-read that.