#time stamps tell me those old posts are from 2020
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Hi :) I just wanted to ask you a silly questions ... Do galakhari have like a courtship when they are interested in their potentional partner? If so how would they do it? And if they do have a courtship would they proceed with it if they have a non-galakhar partner?
I am sorry if Its too silly, please feel free to ignore this ask 😅
Hi there!
This is not a silly ask at all!
Galahkari do indeed have courting practices. I have already written a bit about it on here, but it's been years, so the posts are buried deep, I suppose.
(Found them! Here and here)
If a Galahkar is interested in another one, they serve the other party their limeschti. The traditional welcoming tea. Each Clan has a different recipe.
It's to say "You are welcome in my life, will you consider staying?"
To accept, the tea is drunk. To decline, you push the tea cup away from you towards the other party. There are no traditional words needed, but it's considered polite form to also verbally decline (maybe with a reason for it).
If the invitation is accepted, the two parties go on public outings together. Festivals, holidays, storytellings, dances. The whole nine yards.
During that time (time span varies from couple to couple) they can start to give each other small gifts. Those gifts come in different stages.
The first gifts are to introduce yourself. Mostly these gifts are things that have to do with the gift giver's occupation. An Ostium might gift self made alcohol or other drinks. Arras tend to write poems. Ulrics gift things made from leather.
After that come gifts that are supposed to show how much you appreciate your partner. Things they might like. Basically, the longer this stage of courting lasts, the more personal the gifts get.
The next stage is going on trips together/going hunting. The intend is to spend a prolonged time alone together without (too many) distractions, to see if this relationship can last.
Afterwards you officially introduce yourself to your partner's Clan Head. Their blessing isn't needed for the courting to proceed, but proceeding without it is like eloping in the eyes of the Galahkari.
Lastly there is the Hunting Trophy. Presenting it to your partner is the official proposal to marry. If the other party agrees, they take the trophy and craft an answering gift. (In Heart of Thunder the coeurl pelt Cor gave Nyx was the Hunting Trophy and the necklace was Nyx's answering gift of acceptance.)
Couples made up of one Galahkar and one non-Galahkar are very rare, since the Galahkari are a very insular people. Cor/Nyx are one of those few. Something like this is rare enough to turn heads. So there aren't any courting proceedings tailored to this situation. Non-Galahkari however can participate in Galahkari courting.
#ask#andywinter16#ffxv#galahdian culture#courting#courting practices#time stamps tell me those old posts are from 2020#O.O#geist answers
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The Birds That Fly At Dusk 2023 Revised vs 2020 edition differences
Only one post for this because there's far fewer changes here than in Stars, just 3 scenes and a few of the epigraphs, and the changes that are here are much more minor changes too, but some stuff that really gave me a big !!!!! to compare.
Once again, new revision changes in bold and deleted old version bits in red
First, in chapter 7, "Will this angel ever stop talking?":
Revised version:
“— Still can’t believe They of all people couldn’t imagine how to fix how flaming sad Lucifer was for so long! A couple of times I even tried to tell Them like, hey girl, I mean not really girl because You have no idea what a gender is, but girl all the same—" Something else. Anything else. That river, flowing so gentle. The feel of clay in her fingers. Softness. Softness under her feet… “—girl, there are some flaws in how You’ve set things up. And They were just kind of like, shrugging with Their mirrors and fire like what’s better? I guess I thought that was rhetorical, you know how it is with Them and words, though of course you know me, or you’re getting to know me, so I did try to answer anyway but I guess my thoughts just weren’t as impressive an answer for Them as what Lucifer did, you know how it is with Them and arguments.”
The previous version read like this:
“— Still can’t believe They didn't notice how flaming sad Lucifer was for so long! A couple of times I even tried to tell Them like, hey God, my man, I mean not really man because You have no idea what a gender is, but man all the same—" Something else. Anything else. That river, flowing so gentle. The feel of clay in her fingers. Softness. Softness under her feet… “—man, there are some flaws in how You’ve set things up. And They … well, the way They are, They basically only responded by just being fire, you know how it is.
INSANE how massive a difference just a few lines makes!!!! The insufferable dehumanization (de-personing?) and 6,000-year-long stagnant incuriosity about another thinking being that Jibril displays in the first version mostly vanishes, replaced by the poignant and knotty small tragedies of miscommunication in hindsight, and more interesting/evocative, stuff to chew on. foreshadowing Lives of course, but also just generally affording G-d the dignity of personality (desire for arguments pushing against them, unsentimentality, impressedness at dramatic and prideful actions rather than useless verbal platitudes) and internal experience, and plans that change and progress linearly when They learn something they didn't know before. And the change from 'man' to 'girl' -- just a little clever jarring of expectations that defamiliarizes from the pickle juice of dominant culture.
Second, in chapter 12, "One way to change":
The interaction between Yairen and g-d is subtly different:
“Their wheels are twisting oddly, Their wings pointing to another thousand mirrors, blinding in their fire-upon-fire reflections—though not blinding enough, Yairēn can still see her room just fine—there’s people, there have been so many, saying Them and touching Them and dancing Them. Dancing? She doesn’t see how anyone could dance a person but here God is showing her images of those who have, their legs catching fire or crisping or both, the burn of Them in each cell, the nerves lit and— And that’s what she’s supposed to do, then? That’s what They’re telling her? She stands—she doesn’t know when she fell—and… and laughs, hoarsely. Because this is one more thing she can’t do, isn’t it? A different wing-twitch of irritation as if this burning, shining, searing person is hiding Their face from her. If that’s not what They meant, then what is? Tell me, she begs, show me how to let You make me better. Or haven’t They already? She should what, stamp her legs—no, that feels wrong, it’s all wrong somehow— And there's wing-pressure and fire-twitches and then there’s… words. Words from God, who almost never thinks in words. Make… you? Make? You? Make? You? Make you? [...] “Make…? Being, being, being, They are-are-are—are remembering the creation-of-expansion-of the universe and it’s—and it’s singing-so-loud-it’s-screaming like a thousand points of light all at once and she’s holding her head but her eyes work and her ears work so this isn’t her becoming Holy, this is an explanation, but of what—yes, They made that, that’s what she said—just like They made those Holies, right? Made like… being, wanting, bursting, exploding, being… yes, that’s— They shake Their head though of course They do not have a head—at least not one that contains anything other than wings and eyes, so many eyes—all shaking, eyes and flames twitching until those flame-twitches become words, words it feels like They can reach easily because they’ve been said so many times, words quoting Them: I the flame know not… But that’s why I’m telling You! But it’s like hitting a hard wall, Their wings crossing Their wings crossing Their wings into a thousand X’s meaning no— What is she not understanding? And another thought, an infinity of flame filled with chimes that feel like the meaning of two specific words, over and over again, I am, I am, I am—and how those chimes, that flame, that person, can be… brought? Called? Opened? They are, They are, and maybe They're trying to say that that’s… all it is? That somehow she was asking for more? A nothing-person and still presumptuous about what she deserves, she can’t help but laugh— A rush of wrongness and anger, wings beating out a long tumult of images that finally resolve into more words, clear as if They’ve also had to say these ones before: not-Me, not-Me.”
This is also really cool, in the emphasis on the difficulty of communication, and the subtlety of the way g-d understands holies and dislikes Yairen's inaccurate request, but most of all what hit me in a surprising hurt is the -- implied to have been repeated many times -- statement by g-d that They are being misunderstood and are having words and ideas put in Their mouth.
Third, in chapter 25, "Planning to stick around":
“You’re not completely wrong, but then, some of us never did play much to begin with, so they never got good. Speaking of Lucifer, though… I almost regret that xe fell before some of the really cool games got invented, xe was always a great opponent. It’s too bad, too, that seeing what xe once was still bothers xyr so much. Even just a chat is basically impossible, even if I made something like that manifestation I gave Celyet and gave it to xyr and talked from really, really far away—how could I be absolutely sure that a bit of God didn’t wander in, into anything I make? Then again it’s not like xe even answers letters from me, so.” Jibril sighs. “Maybe someday.”
HOW COULD I BE ABSOLUTELY SURE THAT A BIT OF GOD DIDN'T WANDER INTO ANYTHING I MAKE!!!!!!!!!???????????????????
Okay and now the epigraph changes:
Chapter 6, the epigraph about the messenger roles of angels has been deleted and changed to: “We must stop assuming the moral superiority of demons. They may be innocent victims, and they may have done countless good works, but they are still only human. —Ārpela Rel-sä, principal of Ākal-ne Northmost Secondary School, attended by some demons”
I FUCKING. LOVE DEFAMILIARIZATION. there's a similar casual one in the revision of Stalking that tickles me to an insane degree. Obviously 'demons' are those morally superior child-rescuers who run orphanages in the woods. duh!
Chapter 8: there is an entirely new epigraph that, because i guess the author likes to overachieve, a full ghazal about genesis chapter 1 from the pov of the navigationally-impaired spacefaring angel Mikha'il (previously written as michael, the english rather than arabic form of the name):
In the beginning who asked, I am?, just invited to be? You, expert here, told me there was me, You, excited to be. Even today we scream in wonder: where did You reach, with what, to call us all, so brightly not-You, here, incited to be? So distinct, I and You: such made distance clear. Time, You defined as the gap between I and am; so You, delighted to be. We were tongues to speak the concept of tongues, breath to make the air. To leave the sky caused the sky (and ground, once alighted) to be. I am became name became what’s yours? Mikha’il, I said, but You overflowed each name You chose, You, You recited: to be! —the angel Mikha’il, And It Was Good”
It's more pat than the more uh, ambiguous jewish and japanese buddhist/taoist inspired poetry in Stars but also an ideal islamic ghazal form, LMAO.
chapter 17: an epigraph from later in the book is moved to earlier, and expanded:
“A soul is easily shown to be infinite in at least complexity. But then there is the world, which each soul interacts with, and in the world, each other soul living at the same time. What is, then, the sum of infinite complexity interacting with infinite complexity—interacting with any of hundreds of millions of such other infinite complexities? And what, then, is the sum of each of these infinities changing each other as they interact? A mirror catches the light and reflects each other mirror which reflects each other mirror which reflects each—what becomes of the light? —Metinian the Old, Signposts”
this purely epistolary "Metinian the Old" figure has no autobiography, but the couple of times they've popped up in epigraphs seems to echo a buddhist type of worldview, emphasized by the fact this appears to be a clear reference to the brahma net metaphor (but additionally interesting due to the way it seems to clash on the face of it with the conception of souls laid out in Stars and Birds so far, and certainly with common in-universe cultural understanding).
chapter 19: the epigraph about Lilith's motives has been replaced by another, better epigraph about Lilith's movitves:
Interviewer: Why did you do it? Lilith: I wanted to. Interviewer: Because you wanted to help the children with no one to turn to, or because creating the first city wasn’t enough, or because becoming a more regular type of Holy wouldn't be enough, or…? Lilith: Yes. —Excerpt from the radio special Lilith Tells All!, with the demon Rihat Lilim interpreting for Lilith
(the 'i wanted to' echo of Tamar in in Stars is T_T)
#the birds that fly at dusk#sehhinah#i might. fix this up a bit better later. have been procrastinating a long time on it though so trying to get it out.#sehhinah revisions tag#coal sings
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( AMITA SUMAN. CIS WOMAN. SHE/HER ) - the new york city resident, kaneila acharya, was seen sporting a lewd tramp stamp and rejected back dermals above her low-rise jeans on park avenue today. the twenty-seven year old is a flight attendant in the city & has been here for three years on and off. since being here, she has been told to be detached from the outside world, but also a trendsetter, but who really knows! according to nycslam, she has homewrecked multiple families. anyways, guess we'll find out for ourselves!
WHO ARE YOU?
full name: kaneila acharya. nicknames: canelé, neila, nellie, kiki. will respond to anything, but goes by kaneila herself. gender: cis woman. pronouns: she/her. sexuality: complicated, but identifies as bisexual for now. aesthetics: mall rat couture, spiked detox smoothies, uneven and purposeful tan lines, paparazzi plaything, confessions of a teenage drama queen, bedazzled vape bars, bottomless mimosas to cure last night's hangover, every PR team's nightmare, tacky tattoos to cover up her exes' names. age: twenty seven (27). date of birth: 28th of july. zodiac sign: leo sun, pisces moon, scorpio rising. place of birth: miami, florida. residence: a penthouse in the heart of new york city. she lives alone, however, a few of her friends crash there so often they might as well have moved in (wanted connection). occupation: flight attendant + face of her father's airline VELOURAIR.
INTROSPECTION
(excerpts of an interview pulled from the archives of COSMOPOLITAN, the issue of 2020)
For those unfamiliar with you, tell us a little bit about your background.
Have you guys ever watched that MTV show “My Super Sweet 16”? I've been told I'm, like, a carbon copy of those girls on the show, which is, honestly, not as big of an insult as they think. Like, yeah? I'm a spoiled little brat and my daddy's little girl, sue me, bitches! Last time I checked, being rich isn't a crime (shrugs). But anyway... My dad's, like, a billionaire because his parents are crazy rich too, but he started off as a pilot and then ended up founding his own airline, which is super exclusive. He doesn't like it when I brag about him like that, but who else will if not me? I mean, it's not like we're seeing pilots on TV. I'm the face of the VELOURAIR for a reason.
What about your mother?
You know, I'm not so sure. We weren't that close growing up, but not in a depressing way; she didn't abandon me as a child or anything, she's just super hot for her age and using that to her advantage! I flew out to South America last year to see one of her bellydancing shows and then I went with her to her Botox appointment. She's probably doing something else now because she doesn't know how to stick to one thing. Like mother, like daughter! (checks instagram) OMG, that's so funny. Do you guys see that? She's posting dressed up chihuahuas and stuff. Aw, that's so cute! Wow, that's so many followers. Should I be doing this too?
Your job title is ‘flight attendant,’ but we know your role involves much more than that. How would you describe what you do to someone unfamiliar with this world?
TBH, it's not even that much. I've heard so many flight attendants be like, this job is a lot harder than you think, blah blah blah. That's just soooo dramatic. It's really not. I get to travel a lot, wear cute fits, and have sex with A-listers in the bathroom. What more could you ask for? I guess I also promote brands that sponsor us, but let's be real. All I need to do is smile, flash a little bit of thong, and suddenly, they're all wrapped around my finger (shimmies and winks).
Can you walk us through your typical day when you’re off-duty? How do you spend your free time?
Oh my God, okay, if there's one thing I hate about my job is that most of the time, I don't get to sleep in. No one should have to wake up before 3 PM, that's just torture. But if you entice me with a bit of lazy morning sex... (moans) Suddenly I'm the earliest bird, pecking every worm in sight. After that, I'm out having brunch with my girls or shopping, or at the beach, or slashing tires of an ex-boyfriend's car, or all of the above. Just, you know, the usual. Days are so boring to me. Everything comes alive at night! Before then, I'm just passing time.
What are some passions or hobbies that you’ve developed over the years? Are you doing any other side gigs apart from working at your father's airline?
I'm actually currently in the process of getting a license to be a nail technician. No one else gets my vision like I do, so I was like, why not do it myself? But I do a bunch of other things, too. A bit of modelling here and there, I do some personal shopping and styling for those who are completely tone-deaf when it comes to fashion. I can do anything once I put my mind to it, I think. It's just sooo much effort... I'd rather stay in bed and watch Sex and the City.
What's next for you after this?
A dick appointment (giggles). Oh, you mean, like, in life? Eugh, I don't know. Just hoping I'm not dead in the next few years. That's all I can ask for. But if I am, then I hope someone makes a biopic about me. I already have a journal stashed for this and it's full of juicy dirty secrets. I won't care about them once I'm dead; I just want the audience and my fans to be entertained.
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THE CANARY: KERRY "LEX" COLEMAN
So long live the car crash hearts, cry on the couch all the poets come to life- Fix me in forty-five.
"Doctor Kerry Aleksandre Coleman. Though most people call me Lex or Doc. I'm 35 years old, and while I was born in Montpellier, France, I studied psychology and law in New York City where I would quickly make a name for myself as a capable criminal psychologist in several high-profile cases. At least, I had until three years ago when the long-distance trip I was making to testify in a case took a wrong turn and stranded me in Huntsville. The night of my arrival took several things from me, including my pregnant wife and any hope I had of leaving this place ever again. While I do not fall victim to many vices, I've been described as a harsh, apathetic man who largely cares only for results. Suppose that's good news though, given I've been one of the town's only practicing psychiatric health professionals since 2020."
Name: Dr. Kerry Aleksandre Coleman
Aliases: Lex, Canary, Shrinky Dink, Doc, Ker-bear
Age: 35 (December 31st)
Sexuality/Gender: Bisexual Demiromantic Cis (?) Man he/they
Personality: Lex is a hard man to love. Apathetic, harsh, and short in temper, his tendency to tell people what they need to know but don't want to hear has made him little more than a necessary evil to the people of Huntsville. He is good at his work, sessions with him regularly setting heads back into place on shoulders in a place where it's easy to spiral. A logical, intelligent sort, it's easy to forget he's human, sometimes, speaking in large words and difficult terms when he's in 'work mode' and unwilling, truly, to let that part of him slip, he is sardonic even beneath it, blessed with a cutting wit and a head like a steel trap, mentally sound- but wounded, nonetheless, a grief looms below the surface- he suffocates it under other people's problems and the promise that someday he'll die too.
Occupation: Criminal Psychologist, currently serving as a psychotherapist in Huntsville for the... hard cases.
Affiliations: Mostly just police departments outside of Huntsville, and various reporters who use him as a source.
Scent Profile: Something expensive and musky, used sparingly as he's been stuck here for some time. The cloying smell of oil used to ensure the joints in his hand function correctly, cigar smoke, biting and sharp, flowing with sandalwood and real, rich leather. Sweet mint on teeth and tongue, fresh and bright to mask nicotine and coffee.
Aesthetic: A perfectly pressed suit and a cup of to-go coffee from the corner shop- a stop in your favorite bodega, for something bad for you from the heated cabinets. An analog watch on the wrist of a prosthetic arm, set perfectly to the second- time is money and he won't waste a dime. Man's best friend with a leather collar hand-stamped with his name, fluffy white hairs clinging to clothes betraying a harsh demeanor with something soft. Metal on metal, glass floating in the air- the screech of tires, the smell of gasoline and the whole of your world ending, right in front of you- rising to your feet and dusting off- you were not raised to quit.
The only thing I haven't done yet is die- And it's me and my plus one at the afterlife.
CHAPTER ONE: LIFE IN HUNTSVILLE POST ARRIVAL
Regarded largely as a necessary evil in town, Lex hasn't made many friends in Huntsville in his 3 years there since the car accident that inadvertently saved his life and ended three others. He is a capable doctor, with a vested interest in improving the lives of the people who come to see him, even those most others would deem hopeless, but it's at a professional distance, not friends to be helped or people to be cured, but case studies to be completed, something to sign, seal, and deliver to the desk of the next person tasked with their existence. He can't do much for some people- certain disorders would mitigate with medicine, others are tied to the town itself, but therapy sessions are oddly gentle, albeit blunt, when helping people is all he has left, it's become his entire existence, jaded and cold as he may be. He spends much of his time in the diner, drinking coffee and going over patient files, or simply people-watching, with Baguette the corgi set obediently beside his feet, the only other survivor of his arrival- the dog he 'didn't want.'
His habit of sleeping with the 'exceptionally hard cases' isn't common knowledge, but it's whispered- those he can't seek to fix in a 45 minute session, with a similar arms-length approach to others invited as temporary salvo on the ache in his heart and mind, his whole life was ripped away upon arriving, craving physical intimacy and emotional distance with the ability to read people well enough to find those just broken enough to provide. He's made his home and office in a small townhouse in the middle of Huntsville, living above his place of work, "Dr. Kerry A. Coleman Psy. D." on a front window in careful penmanship, his office hours in similar gold strict and unwavering, as are most things about Lex.
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L.s. Dunes: Pandemic "Life Preserver" And Rock's Best New Supergroup
How members of My Chem, Circa Survive, Thursday and Coheed channeled existential dread into explosive emo
Words by Mia Hughes Photo by Nicole Mago
December 13, 2022
Circa Survive and Saosin singer Anthony Green may have made his name fronting two of the most important post-hardcore bands of the Aughts, but it wasn't until the 40-year-old musician formed the new supergroup L.S. Dunes with his pals in My Chemical Romance, Coheed and Cambria and Thursday that he created something that would impress his 10-year-old self.
"I spent a lot of time as a kid listening to music and imagining myself in the band," he tells Revolver today. "I can remember being in the backseat of my mom's car and listening to Core by Stone Temple Pilots and fantasizing that I was the drummer or the guitar player. If I went back in time and played my younger self the L.S. Dunes album my heart would have just exploded with joy. My younger self would be so proud of me."
Indeed, the project's debut album, Past Lives, is the sound of five music lifers rediscovering the joy of rocking out at a time when that pursuit had been cruelly halted. Formed remotely in 2020 after the pandemic stamped out everyone's touring plans, vocalist Green is joined by My Chem's Frank Iero (guitar), Coheed's Travis Stever (guitar) and Thursday's Tim Payne and Tucker Rule (bass and drums, respectively). Across the album, they veer from mathy experimentalism and urgent hardcore heaviness to unabashed rock-star riffing. "It reminds me of everything I love about rock & roll," says Green, "from At the Drive-In to PJ Harvey to Nirvana and the Breeders and Queens of the Stone Age."
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The band members' paths have intertwined for more than two decades, when they all began to dominate the East Coast post-hardcore scene around the turn of the millennium. They've toured together, shared rehearsal spaces and attended each other's kids' birthday parties. Thanks to all of this shared history, L.S. Dunes felt natural and easy from the outset. "We skipped all of the weirdness behind figuring out how everything's gonna work," Green explains, "and everybody just jumped in headfirst."
"To start a band with people that you wanna hang out with regardless is an awesome thing," adds Iero, calling in from the Oakland stop of MCR's massive reunion tour. "Those types of bands are normally ones that you start when you're young, like in high school, and that's what this felt like." Green sums up the feeling with an apt analogy: "It's like when you go on a first date with somebody, and you just expect it to be like, OK, we'll see how this goes … and then you're like, Holy shit, I'm fucking in love. I'm ready to propose!"
L.S. Dunes was also a much-needed source of support and catharsis for the musicians as they all dealt with the myriad uncertainties of the pandemic. "Circa Survive was due to go on tour in three weeks when the [lockdowns started]," Green says. "I was devastated. I have four children, and I didn't know how I was gonna provide for my family. I tried to keep my cool as much as I could, but I really had a breakdown. I couldn't fathom having any hope."
"There was definitely a sense of depression and desperation," confirms Iero, who had been days away from the My Chem tour kickoff in Australia when everything was canceled. "This project was very much like someone throwing [us] a life preserver — [we] clung to it." With no expectations beyond the vital need to make something, the band were able to indulge in pure creativity and freely channel their turbulent emotions into the music. "It was like hitting rock bottom," explains Iero, "and when you hit the bottom, it opens the door to freedom."
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Green recalls the recording of the ripping lead single "Permanent Rebellion" as a key turning point. The singer had initially planned to write a melody for the chorus, but instead he just let loose an intense barrage of screams. It worked perfectly, and the rest of the band was onboard. "Everybody [was] just championing each other's ideas, and that just makes you wanna go even harder," he says of the creation of Past Lives, which was recorded with producer Will Yip (Turnstile, Code Orange).
"I know that I desperately needed a project that was heavier and more aggressive, just because I was feeling all these emotions. It's nice to have a place where I can yell and scream and go wild." Meanwhile, Iero was similarly branching out, incorporating mathy guitar techniques like tapping that he had never used in previous bands. "Something really, really special about this band was that risks we were taking that normally wouldn't end up on a record ended up on this record," he says.
Lyrically, Green explored the panic, mistrust and denial he saw bubbling all across the country as the pandemic became a divisive political issue. "We needed illumination — we needed light being shone on all this fear and hatred around us," he says. Meanwhile, Green describes the record's most personal song, the blistering opener "2022," as "the most fucked-up song I ever wrote." Penned in 2021, it presents Green's grim vision of the future ("If I can't make it 'till 2022/Least we'll see how much I can take") and also refers directly to when he survived an overdose: "I sometimes wish she hadn't found me on the night/I tried to disappear."
"That's a heavy statement, but it's true — and sometimes the truth weighs a ton," says Green. "I feel bad for my family who has to hear that song. Before the song came out, I sat with my kids and I told them, 'Hey, listen, this song is coming out, and I want you to know that you can always talk to me about anything, and that we can get through anything together.' It's really important for me to make sure that they realize that I love them, and that they're worth it."
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Now that Green has reached the year he once feared he wouldn't, "2022" has become a triumphant anthem for the singer. "I'm in such a different place than I was when I wrote that song," he reveals. "So to sing it now feels very victorious." L.S. Dunes realized that celebration at this year's Riot Fest. It was their first show — and only the sixth time they had ever played together in-person as a band, including rehearsals.
"I was so nervous beforehand," says Green of the show, the attendance of which rivaled the singer's set with Circa Survive the previous year. "[But] when I got up there, it felt like our hundredth show. It felt like we had been a band for 10 years. When we played 'Permanent Rebellion,' everybody went nuts, and people were screaming along to the chorus. It's more than you can hope for. I feel so lucky."
"It was, hands down, the best first show I've ever played with any band," adds Iero. "It felt magical."
And as far as L.S. Dunes are concerned, this is just the beginning. Now that the world has opened back up, Green, Iero, Stever, Payne and Rule are all busy as ever with their respective projects, but there are no plans to leave L.S. Dunes behind. "We haven't even begun to experience and experiment with what we have," says Green. "Once we get together in a room to actually write songs or to jam — which we've never done as a band — that shit is going to explode."
#ls dunes#l.s. dunes#m: anthony green#m: frank iero#m: tim payne#m: travis stever#m: tucker rule#t: text#t: photo#misc: interview#ph: nicole mago#p: revolver#lsd: 2022#in: dec/22#archive[ane]
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A fandom I'm in that lasted a decade ended in 2020, I wasn't there from the very start but around season 3 and onward. It's recently has found a resurgence of sorts. (as in a year after it came to an end I saw the decline in gifs, posts, content and then out of nowhere all these reblogs and likes are happening to my posts from like 2015! It's amazing!)
I personally have had the roller coaster ride with TV shows because I know they're at the mercy of whoever's making them and how great shows get axed and leave us with cliff hangers and it sometimes feels so disheartening to even enter a show, even if I'm sure I'll love it, because of the fear of being given an untold story. But I've been learning to embrace what there is...and that's only made me love and appreciate fanfic even more. Somewhere on ao3 someone will take it upon themselves to finish a version of an untold story. Or share a story that canon doesn't have time to tell anymore. I won't got into a complete tangent but tv show seasons used to be 22-24 episodes! Filler episodes were allowed without feeling like a waste of time to allow characters to breathe and react to all the insane shit that's been happening! Episodes going down to like 10ish if we're lucky leaves no room for the much needed breathing room...and that's where fanfics are becoming so much more important to me.
To have something that acknowledges the trauma of an event, the consequences of actions, long and short term, giving us insight on how other characters react to decisions or to give us reunions and all the things that canon doesn't have time for!
Back to my original point about the resurge in fandom. I've been rereading some old faves. And bc of the time stamp I remember what was going on that season, and it felt like going through an old photo album. How specific certain worries were to the main characters, the biggest threats, the biggest delights that canon gave us. It's very fun to see fics from way back when, and even new fans or old fans who have been reignited with desire to come back and write again, write specific season fics and then because of stuff that happened in canon that we didn't like have the canon divergence tag pointing out from which season and episode.
AO3 also has the "Not X Character Friendly" tag you can add, and edit at any time should canon change. Sometimes people get very upset with that character and would like to read fics with this tag. Other times people will love a character and would use this tag to filter out fics that aren't kind. This tag is there for those who want it and don't want it. Author notes are also very helpful.
To me, as a reader and a writer, writing fics of ongoing fandom is a lot like living history that once canon is finished, can be like an archeology site! At one point, that was just the way of life for both readers and writers.
i've usually been in fandoms where the series (or movie, whatever media) has been over for a while, but my current fandom is still ongoing. i'm nervous about writing fanfic for this fandom, since the canon isn't "solid" yet. good characters could turn out terrible, scenes can change entire perceptions and perspectives, stuff like that makes me nervous about writing fic. i don't want to villainize a character that turns out to get a redemption arc, i don't want to write a ship fic about a ship i might end up hating later. idk if i'm explaining this right. essentially, writing fic about a fandom with an ongoing canon makes me nervous, but i want to write for this fandom. what do i do?
Remember that posting a work to AO3 comes with a built in date stamp. It'll be clear to anyone reading the story a year from now or two years from now that you wrote it at a certain point in canon.
If you enjoy writing canon compliant fics, you can even add a tag like "post-ep for s02e04" or "missing moment from s01e12" or whatever it might be. You could provide that content in an author's note or your summary instead, if you prefer.
A lot of fic is written while canon is still up in the air and people are used to things changing. If you write for a ship you end up hating, you can always delete the fic later or orphan it if you want folks to still have access to it but remove your own name. You can villainize a character in one story and proclaim them heroic in another. Unless you put your work into a series, there's no need for every story you write to follow on from each other. Each one can be an independent world all on its own.
And that raises another point: write AUs. You don't have to stick to canon compliant works if that stresses you out. An AU can be as simple as "everything is the same, but these characters met before canon started" and as complex as "these people are now aliens living on a different planet".
Will there be people who point out canon inconsistencies when they read your fic years later? Sure. It's happened to me. But at the same time, they were reading my fic years later. That's a compliment in and of itself.
What do the rest of you think? Have you had to deal with these worries before? How did you manage it?
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Alt-pop newcomer LVRA (pronounced loo-rah, real name Rachel Lu) has shared her first new track of 2021, ‘DEAD’. Following up on 2020’s debut EP LVCID, she explains: “There’s a unique power you gain when you stop caring about what people think of you. It’s an ongoing battle, though, and ‘DEAD’ is about the conflict between the fantasy of not caring and how you feel in reality. The video captures that, with a version of myself who has her shit together and another that is fighting to survive.The use of red represents fear in the human condition, but in Chinese culture it also symbolises happiness. One rarely comes without the other.” The track – a cultural mix that matches LVRA’s heritage with bleeding edge ultra HD pop – is the first taster of a second EP, which is set to follow later this summer. You can check out an Oscar McNab (Lacuna Common, Oscar Lang). directed video above. [via Dork]
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Los Angeles artist Wallice follows debut single 'Punching Bag' with new coming of age anthem, '23'. Wallice finds herself caught between two places on fresh cut, '23'. “Too old to be a runaway”, but also too young to consider herself as grown up, the 22-year old yearns for a past that still has not happened yet. Working with producer David Marinelli since her return to California, Wallice has crafted a sound that is unique without taking itself too seriously. An angst-driven remonstration at the powerlessness of her age, '23' is also the clearest stamp of her musical identity to date. The expression of this purgatory is a cathartic garage-rock headbanger complemented beautifully by Wallice’s playful lyrics. “I just can't wait to be / all grown up and 23,” she admits in the song’s irresistible chorus. “Tell me what is wrong with me / I miss my Ohio fake ID”. In artfully portraying the limbo state of the age, Wallice describes the events in her life that have led to her own disaffection. “It’s hard not to compare your own professional success to that of your similarly aged peers. I dropped out of university in New York after studying Jazz Voice for a year, and my dad was VERY disappointed, to say the least, so it was hard not to feel like a loser in that sense. “The specific age 23 doesn’t have any milestones associated with it, but it’s more the idea of just looking forward to the future,” Wallice continues on the meaning of the track. "Much like how people ‘reset’ every new year, it’s comparable to be ‘older and wiser’ with each birthday, but instead of constantly looking to the future, it is important to be happy with where you are”. [via Line Of Best Fit]
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Coach Party have shared their new single 'Everybody Hates Me'. The Isle of Wight group are gearing up to release their incoming EP, with After Party pitting their potent indie pop influences against bittersweet lyricism. Out shortly, the EP is teased by new thumper 'Everybody Hates Me', with Coach Party adding a neat gloss to their guitar pop sound. Out now, 'Everybody Hates Me' comes equipped with a neat video steered by Daniel Broadley. Vocalist Jess Eastwood comments: “‘Everybody Hates Me’ isn’t a metaphor for anything; it’s literally about those times when you convince yourself that everyone, including your best friends don’t actually like you, and your self-confidence is so low that you don’t even blame them. Disguise that sentiment in an up-beat singalong, and there you have the third single from our new record. The video is a direct extension of the song. It swings between the insecurities of feeling like you’re not good enough amongst your friends, and the sense of unity you get from those same people when you finally wake up from your rut. Everyone feels that way from time to time, but you gotta remember that sometimes your irrational self is going to take over. And when it does, try to remember that you’re awesome, and your friends really are your friends.” [via Clash]
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Pussy Riot have gone hyperpop on their latest song 'Toxic'. The Dorian Electra collaboration features glitched out production by Dylan Brady of 100 gecs and tackles a relationship gone bad. Written, directed, and edited by Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, the music video features jarring, bloody imagery matching Brady’s production. “Care about yourself, cherish your mental health, and stay away from relationships that poison you!” Tolokonnikova writes in the YouTube description. “Amen.” In the song’s lyrics, Tolokonnikova tells off an ex. “You are my daily poison so annoying,” she sings. “You’re even more toxic than my employer.” The hook continues the theme. “This combo is deadly — ’cause we used to be friendly,” Electra laments. “And now my heart is a weapon / You made me… toxic.” [via Consequence of Sound]
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Baby Queen has dropped a brand new track, ‘These Drugs’. Bella Latham’s second new track of the year – following up on the anthemic ‘Raw Thoughts’ – she explains in an Instagram post: “This is a story I really needed to tell you and I didn’t know how to for a long time. When I first wrote this song, I honestly didn’t think I was going to be allowed to release it or that releasing it would be a particularly good idea. It just felt really important and that’s all I’ve ever wanted music to be; so I knew I had to share it with you.I was in a very bad place at the time… very depressed and convinced I wasn’t a good person and didn’t deserve good things. Life is different now. I’m happy. I’ve learnt that the antidote to my misery is gratitude and caring about myself even when I don’t want to, until it becomes a habit. It’s natural to look for escapism but there’s more freedom in working to build a life you like… and by that I literally just mean learning to love yourself. You, with all your scars and all your regrets, are home to an actual life! You’ve been through so much and you’ve come out the other side stronger because of it – it’s remarkable really. You’ve got to invite the sad parts of yourself in to have a tea party with you. Don’t ignore them and cover them up. If you don’t look at them, they’ll make themselves seen! You are so worthy of love and I hope that if you don’t see that yet, you will learn to in time. Anyways guys,” she finishes, “this is all very intense. I love you very much and I hope you can understand and relate in some way.” [via Dork]
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Greentea Peng has shared her new single 'Nah It Ain’t The Same'. The UK neo-soul voice is an outstanding talent, someone who pushes herself further into that hip-hop / jazz nexus with each release. Produced by Earbuds, new single 'Nah It Ain't The Same' is out now, one that reflects the chemistry she has with her live band The Seng Seng Family. Dipping into drum 'n' bass, her vocals have a calming, beatific feel, with 'Nah It Ain't The Same' tugging at matters personal. She comments: “Deliberations of a (hu) MAN, subject to the pendulum's swing, I give you ‘Nah It Aint The Same’ off my album MAN MADE. An expression and exploration of my utter confusion and inner conflicts amidst shifting paradigms.” Greentea Peng stars in the new video, with Machine Operated sculpting the video. [via Clash]
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renforshort has debuted a brand new single, ‘virtual reality’. The first taster of a forthcoming second EP, the track sees her “connect” with Kellen Pomeranz (Pom Pom), Jesse Fink and Beabadoobee collaborator Pete Robertson. “’virtual reality’ is a song that tackles many topics. But at its core, it really is about anxiety, routine, boredom, isolation, loneliness, and fear,” she explains. “I think a lot of people have a very unhealthy relationship with technology because it’s never really been restricted enough to consider mental health and overall health, and that has fucked so many people up, now more than ever. Ever since I was young, social media has played a major role in my mental wellbeing, and I became so accustomed to it, it became a part of my routine and it came before everything else. The moment I wake up, almost instinctively, I check my phone. Depending on what I see in the morning, basically determines how I’m gonna feel for the rest of the day. I hate it. But I can’t stop. And what’s most ironic about this all is you’re likely going to read this on social media or listen to the song on some sort of electronic device…” [via Dork]
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Flock of Dimes has shared the second single from her forthcoming album Head of Roses, out April 2 via Sub Pop. Following recent single, 'Two', 'Price of Blue' is another standout from Wasner’s second solo LP, an album that showcases her ability to embrace new levels of vulnerability, honesty and openness, combined with the self-assuredness that comes with a decade-plus career as a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and prolific collaborator. It comes accompanied by an unearthly new video filmed in black and white, co-directed by Wasner with Graham Tolbert. Wasner says: “This song is about trying, and failing, to connect. It’s about the ways in which, despite our best efforts, we misunderstand each other, and become so attached to stories that we’re unable to see the truth that’s right in front of us. And it’s about the invisible mark that another person can leave on your body, heart and mind long after their absence. It can be difficult to make sense of the memory of your experience when the reality on the surface is always shifting—when the story you’re telling, or the story you’ve been told, unravels, leaving you with a handful of pieces and no idea how they used to fit together.”
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Berlin-based indie-soul five-piece, People Club, announce their new EP Take Me Home, which is due May 7 and the band are sharing the title-track and new video. The title track 'Take Me Home' is a song about the realisation of mortality in old age and the cynicism that often plights the elderly after losing their loved ones and being left alone with their regrets. It is accompanied by a music video shot by long standing collaborator, Felix Spitta. Speaking of the process the band say, “Once again we worked with our very talented friend, Felix Spitta, who also shot the video for our last single Francine. We basically spent a day fooling around at his house with a smoke machine and an old tape TV camera with a red filter. The result is hazy and disorientating, just like this year has been so far.”
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Introducing MARY., the dreamy alter-ego of musician and songwriter Stef T. The self-produced debut track, ‘Day to Day’, interlaces elements of electro-pop and R&B with a voice that enchants, along with an official video filmed, edited and directed by David Risdon and Charlie Rose Creative. Reading like a page in a diary, ‘Day to Day’ offers a candid and emotionally raw glance at being overlooked as a woman in a man’s world. She is put together, glamorous and poised on the outside, but on the inside she is simmering like a pot ready to boil over, fed-up and on the brink of snapping. Speaking of the track, Stef T explains, “’Day to Day’ is a reflection on what it is to be a woman in a role where you are always unseen; constantly giving yet never receiving. As woman, we are often undervalued for our day to day work in all aspects - as mothers, in relationships, in our careers; having to push extra hard to get the basic recognition and thanks that we are entitled to. This song is a commentary of a large part of my life where I settled, sacrificed and worked, only to be used and taken for granted. It is about learning to survive a toxic relationship, discover your own individual worth again and reclaim the power that you gave away to someone else. Producing this song myself is the only thing that made sense in context with the intention of MARY. as a project. She is an entirely self made, independent woman, who does it all and doesn't need a man to confirm that she's doing a good job. This is something I have personally struggled with, so I created the MARY. persona to feel more empowered in my storytelling as an artist, in an industry without a large visible number of female-identifying producers.”
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Los Angeles based dream pop trio Tashaki Miyaki have just released a single and video of the title song from their forthcoming second album, Castaway, which will be released on April 23 via Metropolis Records. Singer, drummer and producer Paige Stark states that the song “is about the challenges of romantic love and how we are all bad at it in one way or another. The idea of a castaway in all this is that no one understands the relationship except the people in it, so you really are stuck on an island alone together there. Maybe you make it back to the mainland, or maybe you stay on the island.” Stark also shot the Sofia Coppola-inspired video on film, adding: "I wanted to tap into all the feelings that can come up in love relationships: anger, sadness, loneliness, vulnerability, stillness, joy, romance, longing. The actress in it has a beautifully expressive face and I've known her for a long time. I knew we would be able to create those moments together. I wanted it to feel like the camera was her lover, capturing her in various private moments, moods and feelings.”
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With her Vanilla Shell EP celebrating its one-year anniversary last month, Danish-Chilean composer Molina is back with another abbreviated record in the form of the new single 'Cold,' featuring vocalist Jonas Bjerre, arriving with a pair of B-sides. The brief collection of songs continues her simultaneous journey inward toward the roots of Chilean music and outward into her own unique vision of the future. The project lands with a video for the A-side, which dreams up bizarre fantasy iconography in the tradition of Grimes and Björk to complement her subdued take on these artists’ out-there recordings. Blending ambiguous electronic sounds with the familiar drone of cello and Bjerre’s backing vocals, the track’s distinct persona may have more in common with the experimental soundscapes of artists like Jenny Hval or Julia Holter. [via Flood]
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Maisie Peters has debuted her brand new single, ‘John Hughes Movie’. Described as the first single from her soon to be announced debut album, it’s a song about unrequited love, inspired by the legendary film producer and his classic coming-of-age teen comedies like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles. The track comes alongside a video co-written by Maisie and director Louis Bhose (Loyle Carner, Arlo Parks, Lewis Capaldi). Maisie explains: “I wrote ‘John Hughes Movie’ when I was 17 about a house party that I had gone to. It’s a really honest depiction of being a hopeless, melodramatic teenager, being awkward and drunk and getting your heart broken by people you don’t even remember anymore. John Hughes films encapsulate that foolish romantic energy of high school and everything that I, a small town English wannabe Molly Ringwald wanted to be, but was not.” [via Dork]
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Chloe x Halle have shared the music video for their song 'Ungodly Hour.' The video was debuted on Wedneday night's episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and shows the Bailey sisters going underwater for a sci-fi-style visual filled with choreography and elaborate adventures at the bottom of the ocean. Watch the Alfred Marroquín-directed video above. [via The FADER]
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South London's Josie Man has returned with sentimental new single 'Cuts & Bruise', marking her first release of 2021. 'Cuts & Bruises' follows October 2020's 'Grow' single, and is accompanied by a Andrea Mae-directed video that shows couples enjoying tender moments, including Josie Man and her boyfriend. [via Line Of Best Fit]
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Jessie Ware has shared a new short film for her song 'Remember Where You Are'. Her album What's Your Pleasure? arrived last year, a disco-fuelled missile that presented some much-needed good vibes amid lockdown. The songwriter returns to the record for her song 'Remember Where You Are', a soulful and uplifting slice of UK songwriting. There's now a full video for the song and it's steered by BAFTA winning director Dominic Savage. Starring British actress Gemma Arterton, it opens on Valentine's Day and finds the star wandering through deserted London streets. A glimpse of hope and renewal, it taps into the growing feeling that this time, lockdown might be coming to a permanent end. "It was a real pleasure to collaborate with Jessie and Gemma on this short film that is inspired by Jessie Ware’s beautiful music. It was also inspired by the real feeling that was felt when we filmed in the deserted streets of eerily strange lockdown London on a Saturday night/Sunday morning,” Dominic said. “The feelings and emotions in the film are a true reflection of what that felt like, and what this time invokes. Sadness, nostalgia, pain and defiance. But when we climbed Primrose Hill and the sun started to rise above the city, there was real hope and joy for a future that will surely be ours. Listening to Jessie’s music. There is no doubt of that." Jessie adds... "This song has always meant a lot to me and I was determined for other people to hear it and for it to be single. I am so touched by how many people have embraced this song, particularly when it's one of your favourite actresses and an acclaimed film director. Working with Gemma, Dominic and their team has been an absolute joy. To have them realise my song with a beautiful ode to London and the longing for human touch and interaction couldn't be more of a compliment. It's a truly cherished piece of work." [via Clash]
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Jaguar Jonze has shared her new single and video 'CURLED IN' ahead of the release of her second EP ANTIHERO on April 16, both via Nettwerk Records. 'CURLED IN' presents all her best qualities at its outset. From the track’s rip-roaring, slicing guitar to her perfectly forceful, omnipresent vocals, 'CURLED IN' is a pure cathartic release. "Tear me apart, just tear me apart," she all but demands: "I've never seen wrong be done right." She's fulfilling her simplest needs, and it's freeing. "It's a bit of a twist for me to be a masochist." As a survivor of abuse, these words' unafraid power is all too apparent and an engaging statement to hear expressed.
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Following the release of eclectic and impressive debut singles 'ASOS,' 'Right Time,' and 'Papercut,' rising left-of-center pop singer and songwriter Dava returns with a fresh and bold new single 'New Ceilings' available now via Sony Music's Disruptor Records. The moody anti-pop record was co-written by Dava and Mike Adubato (Del Water Gap, Grace VanderWaal) who also produced the track, and is the latest off the Los Angeles-based musician's forthcoming debut EP, Sticky, due out later this year. On the inspiration behind her new single, Dava shares, "This song was written about survival and staying true to yourself. I was having a hard time financially after moving to LA and my phone was shut off while on my way to this session. I was upset with myself for prioritizing music when I really needed the money from driving Uber to stay afloat." She continues, "The day I wrote 'New Ceilings' I was angry and I wanted a song that felt empowering and validated all the work I had put in up to that point. I ended up choosing different songs for my project but when I revisited this one year later, I felt it needed to be heard because of how authentically it embodies my struggle."
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London-based Fifi Rong, a multi-talented avant-pop songstress, has shared the video for her stunning single, ‘Another Me’. Directed by Rok Pat, the video for ‘Another Me’ is stylistically simplistic, as Fifi Rong uses her own body as a medium of art, painting herself and inviting the simple imagery of waterside reeds and plants. A tranquil mysticism embraces the single as Fifi Rong acts as a gentle siren, luring the unsuspecting in yet known the inevitable outcome of the relationship. Speaking of the concept behind the single and video, Fifi Rong tells us: “In any doomed romance, timing is always mysteriously wrong. This is my first full CGI music video and it visually portrays the elusive nature of the character surrounding the key message: 'you won't find another me'. The undertone of the song displays a sense of pride and confidence in the character’s melancholy. Dressed in nothing but petals, I wanted my character to symbolise purity, nature, truthfulness, vulnerability and the divine feminine form. Acting as a rotating statue, I wanted to mark the passing of time and seasons as if a unique and lonely piece of art on display.”
#lvra#wallice#videos of the week#coach party#baby queen#pussy riot#dorian electra#greentea peng#renforshort#flock of dimes#people club#mary.#tashaki miyaki#molina#maisie peters#chloe x halle#josie man#jessie ware#jaguar jonze#dava#fifi rong
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By: Catherynne M. Valente
Art by: Thais Leiros
Issue: 7 September 2020
9199 words
Listen to the podcast
Variations in Luminance
Big Edie was a useless piece of shit.
Johanna Telle found the most significant relationship of her life on a Saturday afternoon in late May, sitting on one of those excruciatingly handmade quilts crafty stay-at-homes used to make out of their precious baby’s old clothes and putting a deep, damp dent in the buttercup-infested lawn of 11 Buckthorn Drive, Ossining, New York. A four-pointed Arkansas Traveler star radiated out around her, each of the four diamond patches so exquisitely nailing the era of the quilter’s pax materna that Johanna pulled out her Leica and snapped a shot before the homeowners could stop her: The Pretenders, Captain Planet Says No Nukes, Got Milk? and a Hypercolor tee subjected, as so many had been, to the indignity of a commercial dryer until it finally gave up the thermochromic ghost, its worn cotton-poly blend permanently stuck on a sad blown-out pink.
And Big Edie in the middle, ugly as all the sins of man, with a box of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Second Edition modules on the eastern point of the compass, a mint condition Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sewer Lair Playset to the west, a working laserdisc player up north, and down south, one beefy hardcase Samsonite in Executive Silver with a handwritten sign on it promising a complete set of signed first edition Danielle Steel hardbacks inside. A steal at $300, suitcase included.
Still life with late 80's/early 90's. Johanna loved it.
But she only had eyes for Big Edie. The absolute and utter trashbeast technological abortion winking up cheekily at her from within a nest of vanished childhoods.
She’d driven all the way out into the golden calcified time-bubble of the Hudson Valley after the ephemeral promises of an estate sale. The people here had so much money they never had to grow or change or evolve past the approximate epoch of their children’s most precocious years. That’s how Johanna had gotten a Hasselblad for $90 and a fake phone number a couple of years ago at a fuck-Gam-Gam-just-get-rid-of-this-junk free-for-all in Stonybrook. You just crossed your eyes and hoped the kids were the type to tell everyone who never asked that social media was a disease and didn’t sully themselves with Google or eBay.
This was clearly the case on that late-May Ossining afternoon. The card balanced against Big Edie’s case read:
Does Not Work. $50 OBO.
Johanna Telle smiled in the perfect post-processed sun. The EDC-55 ED-Beta Camcorder retailed for a cool $7700 in 1987. Just over sixteen grand in 2015 funbucks. It could produce over 550 lines of resolution in an age where high definition was barely even a phrase. Automatic iris control, dual 2-3 inch precision CCD imaging, Fujinon f1.7 range macro zoom, on-the-fly audio/video editing, capable of recording in hi-fi stereo and most impressively for its time, native video playback. Angular black and matte silver bug-ugly design. The last glorious 13.5-kilogram gasp of the Betamax world, still in its hardcase shell, that particular shade of tan that meant Serious Business for the Terminally 80's Man.
In digital terms, Big Edie was prehistoric. Big Edie was fucking Cretaceous. If there was a camera set up on a tripod to record what happened when the primordial soup stopped being polite and started getting real, Big Edie would have been a top-tier choice for the discerning prosumer.
Big Edie was archaeology.
Johanna whipped her faded seafoam-green hair to one side and hefted that machine corpse onto her dark brown shoulder. She was comically heavy. The weight of a dead world, its concerns long quieted.
Johanna Telle, when she was paying attention, when she was happy, in those moments when she was most definitively Johanna, saw down to the deeps of things. It was all she was really good at, in her estimation. She saw that world, le regime ancien, projected onto the back of her skull like a drive-in theater screen.
When she was little, she’d sat criss-cross applesauce in her mother’s lap in a kind of mute blue nirvana, watching a crew send an unmanned submersible in a metal cage down the icy miles to find the HMS Titanic. Before her father left them, before they lost the house, before the hundred little fatal cuts of getting from one end of childhood to the other. Long beams of light broke the black water of forgetting and scattered across that ghostly bow and found what had been lost. Impossibly lost. Forever. Johanna had barely been able to breathe. She knew herself then, in that terrifying way you know things when you are small. The warmth of her mother’s chest rose and fell behind her, an entire universe of protection and presence. A gentle little prick of the aquamarine pendant she always wore against Johanna’s scalp. The familiar smell of Pink Window, her mother’s signature Red Door knockoff, pulsing off her clavicle. The tinny voice of a rich man floating out of the blue ocean. Later, when the neighborhood kids played games on their unforgivably Spielbergian suburban streets, hollering I’m the Incredible Hulk or I’m the Pink Ranger or I’m Tenderheart Bear, Johanna would call out something nominally culturally appropriate but whisper the truth to herself, which never changed, no matter the game or the streets: I am the exterior lighting array on Robert Ballard’s Argo ROV unit.
Johanna put her eye to Big Edie’s viewfinder. The black cup pocked gently against her cheekbone. Such a nice feeling. Like holding a girl’s hand for the first time. She stared into inert darkness.
“It only takes these weird old tapes,” someone said from outside Edie’s warm lightless innards. A friendly, well-hydrated, nicely-brought-up male voice, full of solicitude, exhausted, heartbroken, hanging in there, like the orange kitten in the old poster.
Johanna didn’t look up. She amused herself picturing the kitten putting its paws on its hips and whistling regretfully through its sharp teeth at the $50 OBO paperweight before them. She suppressed her not-very-inner snob. Yes, dear, ED Super Beta II and III series cassettes. You can still get them, anywhere between $35 and $50 a pop. You can still get anything if you don’t care what it costs.
“There’s one stuck in there. Made a nasty sound when I tried to lever it out. I don’t have any others, though. Dad didn’t stick with this one for very long. I put his digital cameras around by the hydrangeas, way better. You want me to show you?”
“Does it turn on?”
“Nope. Well, not unless it’s a Tuesday and the moon is in Pisces and you’re standing on one foot or some shit. I keep the battery charged up, though. I heard you have to do that or it degrades. I’m Jeff, by the way.”
Of course you are. That’s what they always name soft orange kittens like you.
Johanna’s fingers slid down Big Edie’s flank and found the raised plastic goose-pimple that marked the power button as easily as a practiced accordionist settling onto C Major. She pointed the lens at the bereaved child of its former owner and hit the big red square.
A firehose of light white-watered through the generous 1.5” black and white viewfinder into her cerebral cortex. In the middle of it stood, not the hang in there kitten, but a tall handsome guy in his late twenties or early thirties. Big emotive eyes, tennis shorts, dark polo shirt, with a shimmer of beard-stubble six or seven hours deep, hair the cut and style of debate team and law school and firm handshakes and warm decades ahead in a secure center-right Senate seat.
A shard of glass punched through his chest. Black monochrome blood sheeted down over his shorts and his long, grey, summer-muscled legs. His neck whipped hard to the side, like he’d suddenly seen an old girlfriend and was about to call her name, but when he opened his mouth, a jet of dark liquid spurted onto the quilt of his so-loved childhood clothes. It cut across the white block-print Pretenders in a clean spattered line.
“What’s the verdict?” Jeff asked. That voice like a clean fingernail cut through Johanna’s attention. She yanked her face up off the viewfinder. Jeff’s fine blond eyebrows arched curiously before her in full color, waiting to find out if that old Betamax monster still had juice. If the moon was, in fact, in Pisces. He shoved his hands in the pockets of a paint-splattered pair of jeans.
Johanna glanced back down into Big Edie’s gullet. It was waiting down there, that death-image of silver and ichor.
“I like your shirt,” she said. The walls of her throat stuck together. Inside the camera, that charcoal polo dripped silent-film blood onto his new white tennis shoes. Outside, he wore a slim-cut celery-green tee with Newport Folk Festival 2010 stamped across his chest in a faux-rustic font. She could look back and forth between them. Back and forth. Black and white. Color. Black and white. Grey and green. Green and grey. And wet, dripping jet-onyx blood. All that faded thermochromicity blazing back onto the scene to react with the not live but definitely Memorex heat-death of Jeff from Ossining.
Big Edie went down for the count.
The image guttered out like a pilot light, a sound both grinding and whining shook through her, and she rather ungracefully peaced out.
“$30?”
“All yours,” Jeff grinned.
He took Johanna Telle’s money and strode off across the mown lawn, through the labyrinth of his late father’s obsessions, the sun on his shoulders as though it would never leave him.
Aliasing
It’s much easier to pry a stuck tape out of a machine when you’re not that bothered if you break it. Get a screwdriver and a Sharpie and believe in yourself. It came free with significant but impotent protest, trailing a tangled mess of ropy ED Supra Beta II behind it. Johanna wound the mistreated tape back through the cartridge with the pen the way kids would never do again, and she would have been perfectly content for the rest of her days on this maudlin, over-saturated planet if she could have said the stupid suburban sun got in her eyes and that’s all she really saw.
But Betamax tells no lies.
Johanna sat on the floor of her apartment like the kid from Poltergeist all grown up, heavily medicated, and a cog in the gig economy. A massive daisy chain of converter cables hooked Big Edie up to the living room flatscreen, each one coaxing the signal five or six years forward from 1987 to the slick shiny present day.
The reflected video image washed her face in color. A forgotten pleasure, like the taste of ancient Egyptian beer. You used to always see your shot in black and white when you looked through the viewfinder. You only got to see the colors when you reviewed the footage. Inside the camera was another planet. Color was a side effect of traveling from that world to this one. Step from Kansas into Oz, cross your fingers for fidelity, saturation, hue, hope those shoes still look as red as they did before you crammed them through a lens.
So. No more black and white artsy viewfinder image. Now it was straight outta Kodachrome. But this tape sat in Big Edie’s time-out box for thirty years. Chromatic degradation slipped and popped all over the image, sickly green blooms, hot orange halos, compression artefacts, uncanny edging that rimmed this and that object in weird chemical colors.
Johanna watched a factory-direct 70's mustache-dad with tennis socks up to God’s chin helping his small, yet unmistakably Jeff, son unwrap a record player on Christmas morning. Big Edie came standard automatic fade-in and fade-out, so everything transitioned elegantly, creating a subtle sense of deliberate editing where none truly existed. Fade to black, then a slow melt into a hopeless lacrosse game, small children running nowhere, hitting each other with sticks too big for them to hold properly.
Another bloom of darkness.
A school play, reedy, vulnerable pre-adolescent Jeff dressed as a cloud fringed with silver tinsel rain, twirling and twirling, technique-free, his arms stretched out. Then another and Johanna presumed this was Jeff’s mother, the maker of the T-shirt quilt, 80% Diane Keaton, 20% Shelley Duvall, a white-wine flush on her cheeks, smiling up at the man with the camera in frank, unguarded affection and not a little desire, her shoulders bare above a strapless summer dress the color of the hydrangeas she probably hadn’t even planted yet.
Such wildly un-special moments, clichés of heart-beggaring authenticity, carefully cut out of the flow of time and pasted into the future, selected for immortality for no particular reason, random access memories transfigured into light that cannot die—but can get stuck in a metal cage for want of a Sharpie and a flathead.
Time travel. The only real time travel, unnoticed and uncredited because it was so unbearably slow. In the present, you use this astonishing machine to freeze the past. And you send it to the future. One second per second.
The image cut to black and then it was 2015 and Jeff selling off a lifetime of his father’s lovingly dragon-hoarded objets d’American masculinity. Standing on a lawn with catalogue-ready light and dark green stripes in the grass. Talking not to the man who produced and directed his childhood but to Johanna. She can hear her own voice on the recording.
Does it turn on?
He makes a joke about the moon and tells her his name. Sitting alone in the dark, Johanna realizes he was flirting with her, and she has a second to wonder what his mustached father’s name was before the glass smashes through his sternum again and blood streams down to soak a just out-of-frame blanket stitched together from mass-marketed polyester and lost time.
Johanna ran the tape back. Then she watched it again.
Back. And again.
She was still doing it when the morning broke into her apartment without announcing itself.
Five weeks later, she’ll be down to two or three run-throughs a day. An article will swim across her feed.
Late Night Four-Car Pile Up on I-84 Leaves Two Dead, Seven Injured.
Jeffrey Havemeyer of Westchester County, NY, 34, remains in critical care.
Johanna will feel nothing. She’s seen it a thousand times already.
Overclocking
“Sit there,” Johanna tells her cousin’s daughter, pointing at a cracked leather barstool.
Anika is nineteen, in her second year at Columbia. She is everything Johanna is not: mentally stable, tall, good hair, vegan, grounded by parental encouragement and affection, prone to healthy relationships, able to commit to an exercise regimen. The twenty-first-century girl. Johanna has always found her fascinating. Scientifically. It’s like hanging out with an alien. Your whole ecosystem is based in carbon and abandonment and trash, and you just always assumed those were the essential building blocks of life, but it turns out they’re totally unnecessary and sentient beings can just as well be made out of palladium and love and sensible choices instead, look at this actual good person right here, you have the same nose.
Johanna’s arthritic Great Dane watches them coolly from his massive fluffy bed.
“Your hair looks like a badger,” Anika says.
It’s been some time since Ossining and quilt and the hydrangeas and what Johanna has come to think of as the glitch. Technical difficulties. Runtime error. It’s late summer. Sweat darkens Anika’s hairline under the expected carefully messy topknot. The boroughs are one long incessant screech of twelve million window-mounted air conditioners and the smell of warm garbage bags, round and shiny on every doorstep.
Seafoam green softheart mermaid look out; icicle-white collarbone-length brutalist bob with black tips in.
“I like to think of it as ermine. You know, royal cloaks and all that.”
“Did you know ermines are just regular stoats with their winter coats on?” Anika helpfully informs her. “Not special at all. Fancy weasels. Glam weasels.”
“That’s perfect. I myself am a decidedly unspecial glam weasel.”
Johanna adjusts the tripod under Big Edie. It took Johanna weeks to gut the old girl, order parts, and convince her that modern life truly was worth living. Nothing really wrong with her at all, other than the audio-visual equivalent of osteoporosis and a bad back. Johanna loved the work. Data was invisible now. Stored on sand, transferred on air, transcending physical form. Light talking to light. But not Big Edie. She was very visible. Gross and awkward and tangible. The girl would never be good as new again. But she was good enough.
“No you’re not, you’re amazing,” Anika says softly, and Johanna can hear the little girl she’s known in that grown-up, gonna-save-the-world-with-believing-it-can-be-saved voice.
Johanna ignores this obvious lie.
They’ve already done a few shots with the Hasselblad, the Leica, a couple with her phone. She doesn’t really know why she’s putting on a show. Anika wouldn’t question just sitting in front of an old Betamax camcorder for a few minutes and then heading off for Hungarian pastries and a good full-body-cleanse political rant. But it feels important that today has the appearance of a plausibly professional kind of thing. Not that Johanna is using her.
Which she is.
Johanna doesn’t have access to a lot of people at the moment. They find her offputting. Not user-friendly. An unintuitive interface. Carbon-based.
“Can you let the blinds down halfway?” she asks.
Anika does. Slats of August light and dark slash down her face and torso (like glass slicing through skin) like an old pre-lapsarian end-of-programming test screen. It would be a gorgeous shot even if the shot was the point.
“I mean it. This apartment, your work. Margot. Mapplethorpe.” The Great Dane’s floppy black ears perk up at the sound of his name. “I love it here. You’re living the dream.”
Johanna hesitates with her forefinger over the record button. God, she remembers how much she hated it when people told her college wasn’t the real world and she had no idea what it was like out there, as if studying and working full-time wasn’t more work and less fun than the barren salt flats of adulthood between your twenties and death. But she wanted badly to shovel the same shit for Anika now. The only way you could look at this place and see a dream was through a lens that had never touched reality.
This is fine, she tells herself. The Havemeyer Glitch is not a thing. Just a shill for Big Coincidence. It’s not like he died. And besides, nothing bad can ever happen to Anika. She is a palladium-based life form. So this is fine. It’s for science. You will take beautiful footage of your beautiful niece-once-removed, and buy her a walnut kolachi, and she will tell her mother what a nice time she had.
“Margot moved out last week,” Johanna says without emotion. Margot moved out three months ago. She left a purple brush in the bathroom. Long black hair still tangled up in it. Johanna can’t bring herself to move the last cells of Margot that exist in proximity to Johanna’s cells.
“Oh,” Anika replies gently. “So that’s why you changed your hair.”
Johanna hits record.
For eighty-seven seconds, the only thing Big Edie has to say is that Anika Telle was born for the camera, a portrait of her generation, artlessly artful, a corkscrew of loose dark hair hanging forward to catch the light, one grey bare leg tucked up beneath a billowy sack dress with small elephants printed on it, the other not quite long enough to touch the peeling floor. Her expression genuinely, infinitely, but entirely temporarily sad for the misfortunes of someone else. See? This is fine. Tell her to say something. Recite Shakespeare. Or Seinfeld.
Deep in Big Edie’s viewfinder, Anika’s left eye crumples in a wet gush of pearl and black. Her head rockets back, shrouded in mist. She coughs, gags, tears streaming from her remaining eye. She’s still sitting on the barstool in Johanna’s apartment with silvery botanical wallpaper behind her, the tall window, the August sun, the half-drawn blinds. But the Anika in the camera wears black leggings, a puffy black winter coat, a black surgical mask. White duct tape criss-crosses the back of her jacket to form the words: #NOJUSTICE. She’s older, the lingering baby softness in her jaw gone, her hair a buzzed undercut. The cords on her neck stand out as she runs, her face ruined, blind with pain, stumbling, looking over her shoulder as she bolts on the video feed from one end of the living room to the other. Out of nothing, a cop in riot gear steps out of Johanna’s kitchenette, grabs the back of Anika’s skull in one hand and shoves her down. Anika-in-black falls to her knees, sobbing, puking into her mask, holding one hand to the hole where her eye used to be, screaming silently into Johanna’s (Margot’s) red paisley rug.
Johanna yanks her head up out of the sucking desaturated pit of the camera.
Mapplethorpe snores loudly. Trucks beep in reverse outside the apartment building. Anika sighs softly, bored but not rude. She scratches a mosquito bite on her knee. “I really am sorry. I liked Margot. She was good for you, I think. Got you out of the house.”
All the blood has either rushed to or drained from Johanna’s head. She can’t tell which. All she can hear or feel is her own pulse slamming itself against her eardrums.
“Do you … want me to do something?” Anika asks uncertainly.
Johanna shuts the camera down quickly. The image at the bottom of the viewfinder clicks out of existence. She tries to talk, but there’s no talk to be found. Just the burning hot green-on-red afterimage of a crystal brown eye collapsing in its socket, over and over.
“Come on, Auntie J,” Anika says finally, hopping lightly off the stool and bending down, scratching Mapplethorpe between his spotted shoulder blades. “Dinner’s on me. Malaysian okay? Maps can have a curry puff, can’t you, baby?”
Test Pattern
An experiment that cannot be repeated is evidence of nothing.
Johanna establishes a beachhead in Owl’s Head Park. Back supported by a black walnut tree. Bare toes clenched in a sea of tiny white flowers and clover-infiltrated grass. Big Edie propped against her breastbone, lens stabilized by knees on either side. Mapplethorpe’s yellow lead loops around her ankle, but the big fellow has long passed his days of running off after unsuspecting children. He munches philosophically on a pricey organic broth-basted rawhide shaped like a braided ring.
She finds a target, hits the button, rolls footage for a few minutes, tracking them as they throw frisbees for far-inferior dogs or kick soccer balls or kiss on picnic blankets or drag giant wooden chess pieces across a giant board or just walk aimlessly, whatever Saturday afternoon moves them to do. She doesn’t look through the viewfinder into that hellworld of black and white. Just presses buttons.
Turn it on.
Shut it off.
Find someone new.
Repeat.
She chooses at random. No more Anikas. No one is special, or unspecial. It doesn’t matter who they are or what they look like. They’re just data. That man, that woman, that child, that set of twin babies, those skaters, that guy sleeping with a James Patterson book over his eyes. Compressed data to be converted later.
Johanna’s brain checks out and begins a speed run through the five stages of grief over the death of a reliable reality. Denial: you’re losing it, change up your medication, girl, it’s not real, it’s not anything, just a stupid old camera that you bought because you are stupid, at best it’s old footage coming through on an old tape.
Stop recording. New person. Girl in green skinny jeans with a sketchbook.
Anger: fuck this, fuck you, fuck estate sales, fuck Robert Ballard, fuck the Columbia School of Law, fuck sad elephant print fabric, fuck hydrangeas, fuck curry puffs that make my dog poop out his soul, fuck Betamax you dumb drooling obsolete idiot tech, fuck me, fuck my dad, fuck Jeff Havemeyer’s dad, fuck I-84, fuck Margot, fuck the linear flow of time, fuck everything, life is garbage and this is proof. Why is this happening to me?
Stop. Scan. Record. Lanky white-dude dreds fuckboy in a vest but no shirt.
Depression: Of course it’s happening to me, because I am garbage and this is proof, and whatever cosmic hazmat disposal dump site got its back end trapped in my camera would only open the gates to a warped maladjust like me.
Stop. Scan. Record. Old man on the bench with god-tier eyebrows and a yellow plastic sunflower in his lapel.
Bargaining: I’ll just watch this back tonight and whatever happens, afterward I’ll tip Big Edie in the bin and never tell anyone. And then I will straighten up and clean my apartment and go on Tinder and eat leafy greens five times a day and see Anika more often and make amends and buy an exercise bike. Okay, Elder AV Club Gods? Deal?
Stop. Scan. Record. Kid on a dirt bike with (elephants) puffins on her dress.
Acceptance.
Acceptance.
Acceptance is Johanna sitting cross-legged (criss-cross applesauce) on Mapplethorpe’s bed while he snoozes jowlfully on the couch. She braces herself for red slicks of gore and bone. For Jeff and Anika redux. Once is luck, two is coincidence, three is a pattern … or at least time to wake up and smell what your inevitable descent into psychosis is cooking.
But that’s not what Big Edie has for her.
Not entirely, anyway.
Entropic Coding
Gloppy August sunlight washes out the image. Everything is overexposed, too bright, unforgiving. His thin chest rises and falls with his breath. He watches a small blue and white bird hop nervously down the iron rail of his park bench. A cerulean warbler, Johanna notes with supreme irrelevance. Closer to him, then further away, then close again. He crumbles a crust of brown bread on his tweedy knee and waits knowingly. This goes on long enough that Johanna starts to relax. It isn’t going to happen again. The bird will give in, and eat, and Johanna’s life will resume the program already in progress.
Then the sunlight cools, then it darkens, then it is a dim nothing-watt lamp with a tacky early 60's cherry pattern on the shade. The branches of black oak and Dutch elm in Owl’s Head Park still reach into the frame like kids who’ve spotted a news crew, showing off in the background, dying to get on TV. But the bench and the octogenarian perched on it have become a mustard-colored corduroy sofa and a young man with his head in his hands. Vaguely Scandinavian mid-century wooden end tables bookend the couch. A clock with thin brass spikes radiating out around it ticks over a clearly decorative fireplace. Above the man hangs a proto-Bob Ross painting of standard-issue lake/pines/mountain/lonely boat in a dizzying array of shades from brown to brown. Children’s toys cover the floor. At least one boy and one girl. Maybe more. Wooden blocks, a rocking horse with yellow yarn hair, green plastic army men. Donald Duck and Bugs Bunny and Snoopy staring lifelessly at the ceiling in a triple rictus of frozen grimaces. A book of Connie Francis paper dolls with most of the smiling valium-glazed Connies already carefully cut out hiding under the formica coffee table. A Funflowers Vac-U-Form Maker-Pak Johanna recognizes from a box of crap her grandmother let her play with the year they had to live with her because, no matter how she tried to pretend it was an adventure, her mother had no options left. You squeezed out perfumed lucite goo into molds and made “Daffy Dills” and “Tuffy Tulips” that looked like crystals in the sun until you got bored and broke a vase just to get some attention. A Spirograph and stacks of spiralled paper, scattered across the avocado shag carpet like ticker tape after the parade has gone. Like mystic offerings before the massive, inert cabinet television that probably weighs more than everyone who lives here put together. The kinds of toys you lift off a flea market shelf with joy and reverence, despite the peeling paint and chipped edges and missing vital organs.
But these are all new.
A wind moves through Owl’s Head Park and dappled shadows in the jaundiced light of the living room move across the man, the sofa, the table, the TV, the toys, the cherry lampshade.
The man on the yellow sofa looks up.
He is so young. Perhaps thirty-five, perhaps not even that. His incredible, architectural eyebrows are dark brown now; he has all his hair. He’s still wearing a suit, but this one has wide lapels, no tie, a plaid pattern that will crown endcaps in Goodwill until the sun burns out. He looks exhausted. Someone’s been smoking all night and it was probably him. maybe not just him. Butts overflow a pink pearlescent ashtray under the cherry lamp. About a third have frosted coral lipstick prints glowing on their filters, each one fainter than the last.
Johanna braces herself for the shard of glass or the ruination of his eye or gunshot or gas leak, whatever is about to break this poor soul in half. Her heart rate spins up into the rhythm of a jet propeller carrying her into nothing and nowhere. Her stomach muscles clench for impact.
But: the man gets up. Wipes his palms on his wrinkled pants. Walks across the room. Stops. Bends down to pull one perfect yellow Vac-U-Form Funflower out of the pile of misshapen attempts. Slides it into his lapel. The man leaves the house. He closes the door behind him so gently it doesn’t even click. No sound at all until his car engine starts outside, and then that’s gone too.
In the margins of the image, the cerulean warbler flies off with a cry. The shadow of his little body flickers over the empty room.
Fade out.
Fade in on the girl in the green skinny jeans and peasant blouse lying with her sketchbook under the willow tree.
Johanna makes it five people and ten minutes sixteen seconds deep by the overlarge alarm-clock-style timestamp before she scrambles off the dog bed and shuts the whole rig off.
An hour later, she gets out of bed and pads back to the living room on tiptoe, as if afraid to wake Margot’s brush. Blue light washes her cheeks and her hands and her walls and Johanna doesn’t move until it’s over.
Then she hits rewind and starts over from the beginning.
Image Burn
Mapplethorpe makes it another year before turning his creaky back on that big dog life. Since Johanna got to keep him through the quiet post-apocalypse of their union, they agreed Margot could have his ashes.
She looks the same. Just the same. As if Margot stepped out of the day she left and into today with no interruption in continuity. Johanna knows that dress, the navy blue vintagey thing with white piping and a little too much room in the torso, but that she refused to take in or give up on, because at thirty-seven, she might still have some growing left in her.
“Your hair,” Margot says softly. She steps gingerly over the map of cables and playback devices that have replaced living breathing life for Johanna and sits uncomfortably in the old bisque-colored armchair (falls asleep re-reading Harry Potter in it during a snowstorm five years ago; Johanna drapes a crocheted blanket over her and squeezes the bare foot hanging over the overstuffed arm gently, fondly). She sits as though she is trying to hover, as thought it might burn her to stay.
“What about my hair?”
“It’s … shocking.”
“It’s my hair.”
“I assumed you would have gone puce or checkerboard by now. Your actual hair hasn’t seen the light of day since high school as far as I know.”
Johanna only dimly recalls that she used to care about things like wilding her hair. It seems like a fact about a stranger. Like something she would see on Big Edie and use to pinpoint a date.
They make small talk. Margot is leaving the city soon. She’s bought a house in Providence with her wife, two blows Johanna absorbs expressionlessly as a cascade of words concerning Victorian architectural flourishes and small, private ceremonies patter down around her ears like raindrops. Mrs. Margot was apparently called Juniper, because of course she was, bet you call her June-bug too, gross. She was joining the obstetrics team at Rhode Island Hospital. Margot would teach very well-scrubbed scions of the even-better scrubbed at a private prep academy in the fall. Plant heirloom squash. Adopt three-legged rescue Labradors.
What are Johanna’s plans? If she has a gallery show before September, Margot would love to come. Anyone new in her life? How is Anika?
Well, Marge, I plan to shoot weddings and graduations and bar mitzvahs in which the cakes have significantly more artistic value than my entire self until I die alone pitched face-first into my takeout massaman with no dog and no stomach lining and no friends except a magic camera, can I get you a 40%-off Pinnacle buttered-popcorn-flavor vodka straight up, because that’s where I am right now.
But she doesn’t say that. She would never say that.
Instead, she decides to ruin Margot’s life. And in that moment, she genuinely believes it’ll work.
“Can I show you something?” Johanna says.
“Of course. Always.” Margot brushes her hair out of her eyes, now and a hundred thousand times in that chair, in this light. “New work?” Miss M was always her first audience, first viewer, the only other eye she trusted.
“Sort of. Mostly I just want you to tell me I’m not crazy.” And she doesn’t realize how entirely true that is until it’s out of her mouth and loosed on the dusty air.
Margot frowns. “You don’t look well. I didn’t want to say. Are you still drinking?”
Johanna laughs bitterly as she flips through the input options on the flatscreen. “Why would I not be drinking? Drink is friend.” She shoves delivery detritus off the couch to make a space: receipts, plastic bags, black takeout containers, breath mints and fortune cookies and after-dinner toffees.
And they watch together. Side by side. Just the same. Like it is before. Like she will pick up her purple brush again tonight and run it through her hair and come to bed and tomorrow will be years ago and the film of them will run forward from the splice.
Rather, Margot watches. And Johanna watches Margot.
The colors waver on her face like she’s underwater, staring up at the parade of strangers fading in and out before her.
The old man/young man on the park bench and the mustard-corduroy sofa.
The girl in the green skinny jeans under the willow and sitting at a bistro table with fake electronic candles as a man walks in, says her name uncertainly, kisses her cheek, orders an old-fashioned.
The guy with white-boy dreds and a vest with no shirt steps off a bike path and into a gorgeous apartment in no way decorated by a man who would wear a vest with no shirt even once, all minimalist monochrome, and a woman in pajama pants and jade chip earrings sobbing get out get out not one more minute I’m done get out.
A kid in a Spider-Man hoodie swinging upside down from a jungle gym and lying on his couch, a teenager, playing Madden on XBox, yelling to an invisible mother that he’ll mow the lawn, yeah yeah, just one more game.
And worse. A boy’s face fades into his forties on the subway. He asks why he’s being pulled over. A gash blooms on his beautiful brown neck. A student drinking alone in a bar ages fifteen years and loses twenty pounds between sips of house red. She waits for someone with frantic energy and when somebody shows up, gives her a little wax paper packet, leaves her to it, her fingers start to turn the color of corpses on the wine glass. A volunteer museum docent grows red rings and bags around his eyes but loses his wrinkles. Somewhere between the Ancient Greeks and Mesopotamian pottery, gets out of a Camry, locks it, and runs toward an appointment, wholly unseeing the baby in the backseat, asleep in a puffy lavender knitted hat.
“What is this?” Margot says. “Glitch art? Datamoshing? Like Planes and Jacquemin? What program did you use? It’s really seamless.”
“No program.”
“What do you mean ‘no program’? This is a practical effect?” Johanna chuckles mirthlessly. The screen shimmers. “Where did you find all these actors?”
“No, look, you’re not seeing. You have to look. The calendar in the apartment. The clothes the girl in the bistro is wearing. Do you recognize any of the players in that Madden game?”
“You know I don’t care about sports. I wouldn’t recognize any player’s name five minutes after I heard it.”
“Okay, fine. The song on the radio when the guy gets stuck in traffic.” She pauses it, waits for Margot to catch up, to see the faint cursive 2026-At-A-Glance calendar on the inside of the pantry door in that perfect sleek flat, the unfamiliar controls on the car dash. “I’ve never heard that song. You’ve never heard that song. Because that song doesn’t exist, on any service, in any catalogue, anywhere.”
“I’m sure that’s not true. Come on, you couldn’t possibly know that for certain, Jo.”
But Margot doesn’t see. Margot isn’t Robert Ballard’s submersible lighting array. She doesn’t know how to crawl into an image and live there. What she does glimpse in Johanna’s pleading eyes is the weight of time. Time she has spent searching for these things, for connections, hoping, honestly hoping, to find that song buried on some indie compilation CD with some revoltingly photoshopped jacket art and a discount sticker. And a thousand other objects like it. Books on televisions, limited edition toys, tie-widths, license plates, worse, more scattered, atomized, randomized information that never coalesced into anything but Johanna’s increasing silence and solitude. She vibrates so intensely it looks like she is sitting still.
And so, slowly, knowing how it sounds, hating how it sounds, Johanna explains about Big Edie as more strange moments unfold before the not-really-that-long-lost love of her life; naked bodies, and there are a lot of them, in embraces violent and lovely or both or neither, strangers meeting, over and over, in different clothes, different hairstyles, different seasons, a child abandoned in an airport in Reno, calling for her mother, surrounded by slot machines ringing in cherries and oranges, tears rolling down her face. And at the end of the reel, Jeff and his glass heart, Anika and her shattered eye, the long staircase into images that has become Johanna’s life.
Margot says nothing for some time. It is a terrible, sour nothing that lingers far too long in the air between them.
“So you think your camera shows … what? Death?”
“Maybe. Sometimes. But not always, not even often, really.”
“Then what if not that? The future? Like the calendar.”
“That’s closer, I think. Better. But at least a third of them are the past.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, the man in the living room is 1970. You can tell by the Updike book on top of the TV. That was the first edition cover, and it’s pristine. You can figure it out, sometimes. If you care about these things. If you know too much about garbage. And you know I know too much about garbage, M.”
Margot smiles faintly, but it is very faint.
“But also I went back to the park and talked to the guy. His name is Antony.” Johanna scratches at the back of her hand. “Antony left his family. In 1970. Just up and walked out on Grace, Walt, Irene, and Amelia, who he’d married when she was fucking seventeen. The proverbial running out for a pack of cigarettes. Left them like they were just … a skin he was molting.”
Margot looks for a way to shut it off, but Johanna doesn’t help her find it. Why should Margot get to turn away from it? Why should she escape?
“Fine,” she says coldly. “What is it then?”
Johanna takes a deep breath. “So whenever you transfer or transmit or store data, especially a lot of data, like audio or video or both, it gets compressed, and in the process, you lose a little bit of it. Maybe a lot, like MP3s were always straight garbage compactors for sound. Maybe only a little bit. Maybe so little you wouldn’t even notice. But in order to fit the storage device or the bandwidth, in order to save information or share it, you have to … you have to harm it. And that creates distortion. Halos. Noise. Warping. Busy regions in the image. Blocky deformations called quilting, and visual echoes called ghosts. They’re called compression artefacts, and that’s … that’s what I think these are. Distortions created by the present and everything else getting compressed, crushed into one stream. Halos and noise and warps and quilts and ghosts. A lot of words for damage. Just damage.
“But the answer is: I don’t really know what it does. Technically speaking, it’s a problem of parallax. Catastrophic parallax. A vast difference between the apparent object and the actual object. And for awhile, I thought it showed the worst day of your life. Which, odds are, for some percentage of people, is going to be the day you die. But not for everyone. Not for Antony. See, nothing ever went right for him after he left. Two more divorces and a dried-up retirement fund. Grandkids he isn’t allowed to meet. Lung cancer he picked up working a big gorgeous free man’s HVAC repair shop. But it took him almost his whole life to understand any of it. To process where he fucked up. What he lost when he thought he was barreling down the highway to a big gorgeous free man’s life. Big Edie knew it in an instant. She had his number faster than a speeding therapist, and that number was 1970. So it seemed to make enough sense. When I shot old people, Big Edie usually spat out the past. Young people mostly turned up older on playback. The future. That kid playing Madden. Madden 23, to be exact.” She points to him on the projection. The hole in his sock. The length of his hair. The name on the Patriots’ QB jersey.
“Do you actually expect me to believe your camera recorded something in 2023? Jo, come on. I’m really busy, and frankly, I’m not in the mood.”
“Just listen. Because then there was this. A wedding. Mr. and Mrs. Nathaniel and Lucy Vaclavik.” She fast-forwards through scene after scene. Johanna can tell just the sheer number of them is starting to look bad on her, and the manic sizzle in her voice isn’t helping, but she can’t stop herself.
The creams and golds and pops of understated rose-shades of a high-end matrimonial spread flood the screen. The bride waves her lily-dripping bouquet in the air. The Hudson River throbs with sunset behind her. Her hair sparkles with carefully applied glitter. Eyeliner and brows that date her nuptials as surely as a library stamp. Her new husband, in a grey tux, bends down to kiss her expertly neutral-frosted lips and their unified families clap like a gentle river of approval. The picture flows smoothly to the edge of the frame. No ghostly picture-in-picture. No shadows cast from other places, other times.
Margot smiles politely. Johanna knows she is losing her (has lost her). “I don’t get it.”
“I didn’t either,” she confesses softly. “I shot this no differently than the others. But what you see is what I saw. What Big Edie saw. No parallax. No difference in images. I rolled tape and the wedding marched right through the lens and back out again and it was just a wedding, no more or less. Nothing else has been like that. And the next day we got right back to business-as-horrible. I couldn’t figure it out. Why was it special? What was different? The thing is … he killed her. It made the news for about thirty seconds in April. They found her in the woods in Connecticut. But, you know, hedge fund guys aren’t that good at forensics, even if they’re 100% current on all CSI franchises, so they caught him pretty fast. So maybe … maybe Big Edie doesn’t record the worst thing that ever happened to you. Maybe it’s something so much smaller than that. The moment when the worst thing that ever happens to you sees you coming. Turns toward you in the dark. I think, once she married him, he was always going to hurt her. Because that was in him, an egg or a seed or a tumor, whatever you want to call it, a future that no longer has the option of not happening. The flowchart flows until you meet that person at that conference and then there’s no more choose your own adventure, you’re going to fall in love and they’re going to bankrupt you or betray you or just … disappoint you until there’s nothing left but cynicism swirling around at the bottom of your heart like tea leaves. Or leave you in the woods in Connecticut. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a huge ugly regret machine. And mostly I will never understand these. What happened to the Madden kid or the girl in the bar or why getting stuck in traffic on that particular day was so important to that man’s whole trajectory, or any of them, because that stuff doesn’t come across the AP like Mrs. Vaclavik. They’re just moments, unconnected, pulled free of every other moment.”
The wedding fades out and the two women wince together as a man they do not know pushes a woman they have never met against a wall. Blood trickles down her temple where she hit a picture frame and she looks up at him with unbelieving eyes.
“Enough,” Margot says. She grabs the remote. Shuts it all down. Turns to Johanna and touches her face. Touches her. No one has touched Johanna in a year. It is an alien burn. It is Margot. It is the past and the future and death, stroking her hair and making enormous eyes at her while the constituent atoms of their dog look on from the coffee table.
“I miss you so much,” Johanna whispers, and wishes she could have thought of something better, more elegant, more memorable, but her need banishes pretty words.
“Don’t,” Margot answers with finality. The finality of Providence, Rhode Island and heirloom squash varietals and Harrington Preparatory School and June-Bug and poor Mapplethorpe in a box.
“What do you think?” She cannot help that either, the need for her approval, her regard, the perfect full absent moon of her gaze on Johanna’s work, Johanna’s self.
“Honey … I think you need help. This is … this is nothing, J. It’s a bunch of slice of life shots of nothing in particular and three or four gory jump-scares. You taped over some movie of the week with a lot of nonsense. And I’m supposed to believe it’s what, magic? It’s you stalking strangers. Listen to yourself. Catastrophic parallax? You’re manic, you need care.”
But Johanna can’t hear that. “Okay, but that’s just exactly what I mean. Do you know what catastrophe means? It’s Greek. It just means a turn. A turn down or a turn under or a turn inside. A turn away.”
“Jo, this is basically a conspiracy theorist wall and you’re unspooling more red yarn. This is not an X-File. This is you not coping. As usual.”
“No, you don’t understand. I’ll show you. Just stand over there, I’ll shoot you for a few minutes, a few seconds, and you’ll see.” And what will Big Edie see? Margot leaving that hot, humid, unretrievable night, Margot packing up boxes for Providence, Margot right now, right here, telling Johanna she will never believe her? One of them, maybe, surely. What else was even possible?
“No,” Margot whispers firmly. “You don’t need me. And you definitely don’t need to ride that camera any harder. I’m not going to enable this. You just need help, baby. Professional help. That’s all. I have to go.”
“Wait—”
“I have to go.”
There is a disentangling, a hurry to go back, edit, remove even the idea that physical contact was made. Margot excuses herself to splash water on her face and Johanna sees herself in the mute black monitor, sees as the ex-moon of her night sees: a woman so thin her clothes don’t fit, who smells sour, whose hair hangs limp and unwashed, whose face has grown lines it didn’t have even a few weeks ago, degradation lines, juddering through the frame of her face.
Margot emerges awkwardly, chagrined, her familiar elfin face not one cell altered from the day she left, her voice echoing against every surface: I’m so fucking lonely, Jo, I’m lonely even when you’re here. Especially when you’re here. I’m lonely right the fuck now and I’m looking at you.
She holds up something in her hand. Something purple. Something precious.
“Forgot my brush,” she says softly.
And then she is gone.
Ghosts
Johanna puts it off for a long time.
Why bother? What use could it possibly be to her? What use is any of this? You couldn’t do one single thing with it. The shot was too tight to predict the future. Fight crime? Protect the innocent? No. The camera crowded the subject, an unbearable idiot intimacy that took away everything but the seeing itself.
But eventually, she was always going to do it.
Johanna watches herself on the flatscreen. Watches herself get up in Big Edie’s face. Fix the focus, back up to sit on the same barstool that held Anika all those ages ago, shifting awkwardly as she looks into the lens like an actor breaking the fourth wall.
She knows what she will see. She is calmly certain of it. She shouldn’t have bothered running the tape back for this little screening. She saw it the first time, when she was seven. When she was thirsty in the middle of the night and padded quietly out of her room to get a glass of water. Out of her room and past her father sitting alone in his armchair, the moonlight crawling in after him through the window, grasping at him just before he shot himself and her life … turned. There never was any hope for her. She was turned before she got one foot in the world. It wouldn’t be a prettier shot now.
The compression artefact burns out from the center of her nuclear-powered selfie. Her stomach muscles seize up the way they do when she just barely reaches the tipping point of a roller coaster and enters freefall, down the rails into her old house, the rugs, the stain on the ceiling, the off-kilter hang of her bedroom door. Her father’s face. Her mother’s soft snoring from the bedroom.
But that’s not what she sees.
No moonlight. No armchair. No 3 a.m. drink of water in a seven-year-old girl’s hand. It is just Johanna, seafoam green hair and all, walking on the lovely light and dark stripes of green on a lawn in Ossining, in sunlight direct from a photography lab, approaching a quilt made of old T-shirts and the objects it carries. She bends down and presses her warm thumb into the patch of Hypercolor shirt, waiting for the fabric to change color, to unsuffer the damage of too-constant exposure to the very thing that it was designed to react with, which of course it will not, can not, ever again.
Johanna touches her own face on the television, that seafoam green girl who still had Margot and Mapplethorpe and opinons about everything, that familiar face, yet better-fed and better-loved and almost obscenely untroubled. An ancient version of herself, suddenly unearthed at the bottom of the sea.
Finite State Machine
Johanna puts Big Edie up on Craigslist, all her specs laid out like a personal ad: enjoys long walks on the beach, getting lost in the rain, composite video output, and turning everything you point me at into an avant-garde film-school short. If you can’t handle me being haunted, you don’t deserve me being way more work than the camera app on your phone.
She lowballs the price. She means it. She can change her artefact. She can let it all go, like Margot said. Get care. Be normal. Cope. She can take that moment in Ossining and make it nothing. Make it just another random memory on a compilation tape of the decades fading in and out, like the little tinseled cloud boy turning and turning on his forgotten school stage, meaningless, untethered, beautiful and sad and without connection to anything before or after.
And then anyone could. The boy who doesn’t want to mow the lawn. The girl meeting that man at the bistro. Lucy Vaclavik. Antony. Jeff. Anika. Anyone. The long white beam of the Argo’s exterior lighting array sweeping through that dark and missing the great hulking skeleton in the blackness, brushing gently by, just barely, just by inches, finding nothing but open water.
She doesn’t answer a single query.
Six months later, Johanna doesn’t even remember what it’s like to leave the house without Big Edie. The pockets of her original-issue carrying case bulge with new tapes.
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here's looking at you, kid
written for the 2020 Sugar Bowl Tournament organized by @asoue-network for the prompt: "Beatrice/Bertrand/Lemony & Violet, pre-canon. B/B/L watching Violet grow over the years".
ao3 link eng || ao3 link rus
Violet Baudelaire was a couple of minutes old, and Beatrice, exhausted and happy, was holding her in her arms.
“See, and you were worried,” remarked the midwife good-naturedly. She wasn’t a volunteer – as far as Bertrand and Beatrice had learned, no one among the staff there had any connection to VFD. That played a critical role when choosing the clinic. It was a stroke of luck, and Beatrice was almost sure that if at some point in the future she got pregnant again, they wouldn’t have the same luck the second time. “A strong and healthy baby!”
“She must be taking after her father,” Beatrice replied, gently rocking her daughter to sleep. Strictly speaking, it was too early to judge whom Violet was taking after, because all infants, objectively, only looked like one another. It was what Beatrice used to think before, and even now, already feeling a sharp, scorching influx of love for this little warm bundle in her arms, the kind of love that made, in her eyes, this baby different from all the other babies in the world once and for all, she still found it hard to argue about. But Violet had brown eyes. Not green like Beatrice’s, and not blue like Bertrand’s.
Well, that settled all doubts related to paternity.
“He left us her to remember him by,” she thought, and instantly felt angry with herself. Violet was no souvenir, no lock of hair in a locket or something of that sort. She was not a part of Lemony or Bertrand, not even a part of Beatrice – not anymore. She was a living being on her own, with a tiny red puckered face and long dark eyelashes, and Beatrice was positive that she would grow up to be kind, clever, and loved. At least she and Bertrand were going to do their utmost to make sure it happened.
“Should I invite her father in?” the midwife asked, and Beatrice’s heart stung for a second, because he could not be invited, could not be summoned with a letter or a call or a telegram or by crying on the floor at three o’clock in the morning – but only for a second. Violet had a father, she reminded herself. It was just that once they used to hope she’d have two of them.
“Yes,” she nodded. “Please do.”
In her arms, Violet wrinkled up her nose and yawned.
***
Violet Baudelaire was two years old and sleeping on the sofa in the living room, and Beatrice, who just came back from the nursery where Klaus was sleeping, was standing in the doorway and watching her. More precisely, she was watching her daughter, then shifting her gaze to Kit Snicket, seated in an armchair with a cup of already cooled-down coffee in hands, and then looking at her daughter again.
“Has she noticed?” Beatrice thought. “Has she figured it out?”
Kit must have sensed her presence, for she turned around and looked at her closely without saying a word. Her lips pressed together tightly, her eyes sad. Her brown eyes.
Beatrice walked into the living room and quietly sat down on the other side of the sofa, next to Kit.
“You know, he used to sleep like that as a child,” Kit said in a soft voice and smiled slightly. “Put his thumb in his mouth, curl up, and sleep.”
So she had noticed then. Beatrice sighed. “I am going to tell you something now, something that might upset you. But I have to say it, just to be on the safe side.”
“I am listening”.
“The fact that his blood flows through her veins doesn’t change anything. He wouldn’t want her… taken either. The three of us discussed that more than once.”
Kit tilted the cup to one side, then to another, as if she was going to read coffee grounds.
“I respect your choice,” she said slowly. “I was just watching her and thinking… I’d be glad if she had a quieter childhood than he did.”
“And you and Jacques did?”
“We were grown.”
Like hell they were, just two years older than he was. Beatrice gritted her teeth.
“He would have adored her,” Kit told her, and Beatrice found herself on the verge of tears but could hold them in – the joint effort of her acting skills and of some other, the ones acquired in VFD. Lemony’s death still felt like a fresh wound. She loved Bertrand with all her heart, but that heart had room for two, and Lemony, for that matter, took his place there earlier, back when they still were funny, self-assured kids. What was that thing Emily Brontë said? ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’ Truth be told, Beatrice didn’t like that book much – something in that story about the children who suffered a lot and grew up to make others suffer was too relatable for it to be enjoyed. It reminded her of that poem O loved to quote, possibly the only poem he ever really liked. Yet that one quote was priceless, because there was no better way to describe what she and Lemony had. Her soul was still alive, but something in it had changed irretrievably.
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
***
Violet Baudelaire was five years old, and she had just proudly demonstrated Bertrand the tent she had built of several pillows, a mop, two blankets, and an old umbrella.
“It’s not a tent, Dad,” she said reproachfully when he complimented her on her architectural talent. “It’s a palace!”
Naturally, Bertrand apologized at once for such a glaring mistake, and both of them climbed into the palace to check how comfortable it would be for her and Klaus when he came back – Beatrice took him to the dentist’s.
“This will be our living room,” Violet explained. “You and Mom have a whole separate room for receiving your guests, but we will receive ours here.”
“And who will you invite first?” Bertrand asked. Violet paused to think.
“I don’t know,” she drawled. “Yesterday a girl at the playground told Klaus she had a book about dinosaurs. Maybe we’ll invite her? If she brings the book for us to see.”
Bertrand smiled – and then, as it sometimes happened when he was looking at his daughter, joy gave way to nostalgia.
Violet resembled Lemony. A lot. At times, it caused him pain, but that pain had nothing in common with the kind another man might have experienced in such a situation. He always thought of Violet as of his own daughter and did not doubt Beatrice thought the same – fine, perhaps he doubted it a little at first, but rather due to not being sure that he, an orphan raised by three siblings who were far too young when they took him in, could be a good father. These fears, however, had become history by now. The only reason why it pained him to recognize Lemony Snicket in Violet’s features was that he loved Lemony Snicket – still loved him – and would give an arm and a leg for him to be there, to be able to watch his daughter grow, learn, create and invent too – and his son as well, for just like Violet was Bertrand’s daughter, Klaus would’ve been Lemony’s son.
“Dad?” Violet’s voice broke his train of thought. “Are you all right?”
Bertrand looked at her and smiled again; the way she looked like Lemony might have caused him pain, but it also made him love her even more.
“I’m fine, dear. Just got lost in thought. Hey,” he winked at her. “Will you help me make some sandwiches? I think we have to hold a welcome party to celebrate the opening of the palace when Mom and Klaus are back.”
“Yes! Hooray!” Violet jumped to her feet in glee. The palace shook, but remained standing.
***
Violet Baudelaire was ten years old, and Bertrand, standing on the veranda, was watching her swing Klaus on a swing that Beatrice and he had hung for them on the strongest tree in the garden. The Baudelaires could afford a decent wooden swing, even several if desired, but Beatrice had set her heart on showing the children how to make a swing out of a car tire. So presently, Klaus was sitting on a tire and trying to hold on to the rope and hold his glasses in place at the same time, while Violet kept pushing the tire every time it flew up to her.
“Klaus,” Bertrand called, putting the phone aside for a moment, “Take off your glasses; you’re going to drop them! Violet, take the glasses from him and put them on the bench!”
“What are they doing?” Lemony asked at the other end of the line. Bertrand pressed the handset to his ear snugly.
“Riding on a swing. We put a tire on a rope in the garden for them, and now we have to watch out all the time lest they kill themselves on it.”
Lemony gave a short soft laugh. Bertrand could not describe how precious that sound was to him – until recently, he believed he would never hear it again.
“Come visit us someday. Meet them,” he said. It was not that he really had any hopes on that point, but it was worth trying once more. Sooner or later Lemony might simply get tired of saying ‘no’. “Please”.
Lemony heaved a sigh. “The last time Beatrice and I talked I got the impression she did not want to see me.”
“She wants to. Trust me. She just needs to process it all properly. She believed you were gone – we believed you were gone – and then it turned out there was no need for all those tears, for all that pain… I can see why you acted that way, but that does not change the fact that you lied to us. Give her some time. I will tell you when you can come – of course, if you deign to leave the number for calling you back.”
“Bertrand, this might be dangerous. As a matter of fact, I am certain this is dangerous.”
“You know, Violet has your eyes,” Bertrand said. He imagined that was a sucker punch but he decided he had a right to it since Lemony let him and Beatrice mourn him for ten years.
“And your habit of tying her hair up in a ribbon,” Lemony replied. If the remark about the eyes struck home, it was not obvious from his voice. “I saw you at the post office recently.”
“Right. Beatrice accidentally dropped a letter without a stamp into the post box, and Violet was trying to invent a way to fish it out without asking the post office employees for help. I do not tie my hair up anymore, though: I always get it cut short these days.”
“Understandably. You are a serious adult person now, and a family man, not some youth in flared pants.”
“I’ve never had any flared pants.”
“Well, a youth without any pants, then. That is even better.”
Bertrand rolled his eyes. “Please,” he said once again. “Consider my invitation.”
“All right,” Lemony agreed – perhaps to change the subject, or perhaps because he was actually going to consider it.
Violet still kept swinging Klaus, and both of them were laughing loudly. Bertrand stepped closer, as far as the phone cord allowed it.
“Can you hear them?” he asked and turned the handset in their direction, hoping that the noise the kids were making would be possible to hear. If he had switched over to sucker punches, he had to go all the way. Then he put the handset to his ear again.
“I can,” Lemony told him. His voice sounded chokingly.
Perhaps, Bertrand thought, he could bring him round in the end.
***
Violet Baudelaire was fifteen years old, and Lemony was looking at her photo cut out of a newspaper.
He didn’t like thinking that from the point of view of biology, he was her father. He did not consider himself one – hadn’t earned the right to be called one. Bertrand, who had more than earned that right, might have objected (if only for the sake of debate – even after both of them had outgrown the unfounded feeling that they must oppose each other in everything, they still liked to engage into debates, though for fun only), but Bertrand, unfortunately, could not debate with anyone about anything anymore. Lemony couldn’t deny that Violet had his eye colour and his facial contours, but he had no doubt there was nothing of him in her personality: there was no reason for it to be. By contrast, she, just like her siblings, probably had inherited a lot of qualities, habits, tics, and junk words from Beatrice and Bertrand. Probably – because while he described every word and every thought of those children in his books, he did not know them personally, though he had seen them on numerous occasions.
The Baudelaire orphans in his books were not, of course, the completely faithful images of the real Baudelaire orphans, more like a combination of what he had learned about them from the people who had met them, and what he imagined them to be like based on the things he knew about them. So Sunny Baudelaire, who looked like her father, was described as having her mother’s fearless heart, and Klaus Baudelaire, who took after his mother in terms of appearance, had the same quiet rage in him that his father had often experienced and meticulously concealed. As to Violet, she had inherited Beatrice’s unwavering urge to protect the ones she loved, and Bertrand’s inquisitive mind and talent for inventing. Beyond all doubt, her parents would have been proud of her if they knew how she acted throughout the series of unfortunate events that had befallen their family, though first and foremost they would have definitely been sorry that she had to grow up so fast, that all of their children had to grow up so fast.
Lemony Snicket was not sure if he had any right to be proud of Violet Baudelaire, yet he was proud nonetheless.
***
Violet Baudelaire was twenty-six years old, and she was sitting across from Lemony at the table.
“Don’t be mad at Klaus,” she told him, her fingers smoothing out a candy wrapper reflexively. Sunny and Beatrice weren’t there because the hour was already late and the elders had sent them to bed (no one, however, could be sure they were really sleeping and not being occupied with any mysterious pre-teen business). Klaus wasn’t there either because about half an hour ago he retired to his room under the pretext of a headache. His countenance and demeanour had given Lemony the idea it had not been about a headache or, if it had, the cause of the said headache had been he, Lemony Snicket. “Don’t take it to heart, but he has never liked your books. Not so much your style or linguistic choices as the very fact of their existence.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t think it is of any importance. Firstly, you helped Beatrice find us. And secondly,” she smiled wryly, “I am older and I can hold my emotions in check.”
Kit, he couldn’t help thinking as he shook up at the familiar irony, the familiar look of the brown Snicket eyes. But Violet Baudelaire wasn’t Kit or Jacques or Beatrice or Bertrand, all the more not himself. She was purely herself, no matter how stubbornly his eyes kept catching hold of those features of hers that reminded him of the people long gone. She was purely herself, and there was no place for him in her life, or in Klaus’s life, or in Sunny’s, and now that the four orphans had reunited again, he could not help doubting if there was any place for him in Beatrice’s.
But Violet asked him, “Will you stay? At least for a couple of days. I guess since you’ve become a bestselling author thanks to us, we have a right to question you properly about our parents. And about our guardians. About everything.”
“Has she noticed?” he thought. “Has she figured it out?”
“Of course,” he agreed. He didn’t know if he was ready to reveal every single secret to them. Perhaps it would be cruel to swamp them with so much information inconsistent with a lot of what they had known before. Perhaps he was just looking for excuses beforehand. Perhaps he should think about it tomorrow, after all of them would have had enough sleep. “I should be very glad to.”
So Violet Baudelaire smiled at him, and for a moment he forgot what doubt was.
#asoue#a series of unfortunate events#beatrice baudelaire#bertrand baudelaire#lemony snicket#lemonberry ice#violet baudelaire#kit snicket#snicketverse#talk talk talk#gella talks snicketverse#my fic#i was so nervous writing this bc: 1) i didn't think i'd make in in time#2) when i had almost finished translating it i realized that it might not really be what the prompter wanted#and then the formatting got messed up when i posted it so i was almost sure no one would read this lol#so the positive comments almost made me cry from joy
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An Ode to 2020
Not really sure why I’m awake right now. If this was pre-marriage, I would have taken out my laptop to start typing, but it’s not and Bri is knocked tf out, so here we are. I guess this is the ode to 2020 post that I’ve been meaning to annotate for a while now.
This has been the most transformative year of my life. So many changes in more ways than one. Way more ways. Try like 20. A lot of crying (which I never do.... or maybe i just don’t admit to, lmao), a lot of introspection, a lot of uncomfortability (is that a word?), and a lot of change. A whole lot.
The year started off with optimism and ended with the same notion. Full of hope and wonder for the year set before me, I couldn’t wait for 2020 - it was supposed to be the year all my dreams came true.. and in a weird way, it was! It was the year I got married to the love of my life(!!!!!!), reached 5 years at my corporate job, relocated to a new home in a new city and area code. It was all that - but it wouldn’t be my life if it wasn’t that, plus a little pizzazz, lol.
It’s hard for me to give myself grace. Truly I think I am the hardest on myself. Always empathetic of others and their experiences, but always giving myself the short end of the stick. Living in a pandemic has been wild - but living through my huge life changes in the middle of a pandemic has proven to be even more wild. As a person who doesn’t necessarily love change, I’ve struggled to give myself grace in the midst of the huge life changes I’ve experienced. I’m damn proud of how far I’ve come and how strong I’ve been to withstand the trials that I battle without me really saying a word to a single soul. As a person, me typing this stuff out is me telling the world my story - even if no one reads it. This year changed my life.
Marriage.
I became a wife and entered the covenant of marriage. It really is true that you enter into a marital bliss that is full of love you don’t experience until you get married. It’s unlocking a next level of your relationship and discovering a new version of yourself ... yourself plus another human. There really are different levels of love that you are surprised to find out that you are capable of. It’s different than just being in a relationship with one another. Now we’re bound to each other under a different covenant - before the eyes of God, our family, our friends and the law. It’s weird filling out paperwork and realizing that legally I am no longer a Villaflor. Well technically I’ll always be a Villaflor (Melanie Rose Villaflor Argamaso to be exact, okurrrttttt). I stepped into this role of being a wife and all the “responsibilities” that came with it and also fully embraced the fact that I have a person to do life with who loves me more than himself, who is always thinking of me, always taking care of me, always looking out for me, and who genuinely takes responsibility for me. It’s weird. It’s things I knew of during our relationship, but in marriage it’s somehow personified.. magnified. Marriage is so cool. Maybe it’s cool for me because there’s been such an emphasis and importance placed on it ever since I was a little girl. Bri and I didn’t have the “modern relationship” where we lived together prior to marriage. Yea we slept over and had our own respective places, but to really enter into marriage where everyday it’s me and you, and we have a whole ass home and life together is really wild. I love it. Doing life with Bri is me truly seeing that this man really would give me the world if I asked for it. Anything I could ever want or need, he fulfills it. Everyone always asks me what I’ve learned about him since we got married, or what’s something new about Bri that I’ve discovered ... one thing is that this man and his hobbies are unmatched, bro loves him some cars, any moving vehicle really, lmao. But mostly, I see his heart. He always wants the best - for me and for himself and anyone he cares about, sometimes to a fault when he can’t attain perfection but so badly wants to achieve it. But most times he can .. and then some. I’ve never met someone so naturally good at so many things. Tactically advanced, street smart as hell, a risk taker with the ability to fix just about anything, a people person with an infectious personality who could probably resell a piece of lint if he had to. We’re a family now. A little family of two but we’re both at a place where we really wouldn’t mind unlocking another level of love if it were time to. (He asks me for a “grey” from @greyandmama on IG almost weekly 🥺🥴😂).
Wedding.
It seemed like I waited so, so long for our wedding - for it to come and go like the wind. But instead of a nice sea breeze, it came and went like a tropical storm (... literally 😂but more on that later!) I remember being so excited on New Years Day at the start of 2020 ... the anticipation of our wedding in the next five months and really the start of all of our wedding festivities would begin within the next month ... or so I thought.
I remember hearing about the coronavirus making landfall in the US around the holidays in 2019 and it was already steadily spreading across the US, but not quite as widespread as it currently is. I was going on a work trip to Florida towards the end of January and I remember wearing a mask in the airport and on the flight and I conducted my usual Lysol-ing of my entire space. Everyone was looking at me like I was insane but I really didn’t care, haha. A flight attendant asked me why I was wearing a mask and I replied that I just wanted to stay healthy for my family. (...Still true, lol.) I had no idea at this moment how significantly the coronavirus was going to disrupt our world, how normal mask wearing would be, and how disinfectant wipes would soon be the most prized commodity in 21st century homes.
February came like a rush - I started designing our wedding invitation suite which was something I had literally dreamed about. I had a vision from the very beginning and new exactly how I wanted everything to look down to the postage stamp. It reinforced a love for stationery design that I knew I had, but damn was I proud of the finished product. I was so meticulous about everything - from the fonts I used, the colors and hues of the paper, the thickness of the paper, the envelopes, the ink I used. It was so intricate, but it was the most fun I ever had while designing something. It didn’t feel like work at all, but it was pure love that I poured into those invitations. Bri’s bachelor party happened in early March and my bachelorette in Chicago (!!!) was supposed to happen at the end of March. The boys went to Jacksonville, Florida and were able to stay with Bri’s old roommate, Ace in his beautiful home. Coronavirus cases were on the upswing, especially in Florida and Atlanta. I was so freaked out. N95′s were no where to be found, but since Bri is a painter, he was able to score some through work. He wore one on the flight and literally got light headed due to lack of oxygen, lol. He had the time of his life in Florida while I poured my whole self into our invitations, lol. And as soon as the boys got back, the US started to shut down.
Everyone began to work from home and businesses started closing up shop. Star couldn’t make it to my bachelorette, so she schemed her way into getting me to pole dance with all the girls, hahaha. It was literally the night before everything was supposed to shut down. No indoor dining or bars were going to be open at midnight the following Monday, so I was super thankful that I was able to have a mini bachelorette experience in our own little backyard.
It was an anomaly to fly anywhere and airports became ghost towns. Each day we got a little closer to my bachelorette and myself and the girls were so excited. Itineraries were made, bickering ensued, flights were purchased, I bought outfits for every outing (... so much white, lol) Literally the only thing left for us to do was to actually fly to Chicago. Probably a week to a week and a half before we were supposed to fly out, Chicago issued a stay at home order and everything shut down. We had to make the difficult decision to cancel my bachelorette trip to Chicago and try to rebound and think of a plan B. The girls were so gracious. I’m so thankful for all the work they put in to try and make things work out for me. We tried to do a weekend trip to Ashville, NC but everything was so risky and there was so much unknown at this point. Covid mandates varied from state to state and things were quite literally changing by the day, the hour even. It just didn’t work out. Till this day I’m sad that I didn’t get to have the full bachelorette experience, but I’m still so, so thankfulI for my friends and the work that they put in to make everything feel as normal as possible.
Home.
Careers.
Relationships.
Ok I’ll reflect on these things later. I’m sleepy, lol.
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Writebr Intro
Writeblr Intro Time!
Hiya! This is so overdue and I apologize for that lol. I’ve been meaning to write this but school seems to always be getting in the way of just that. Writing. But here I am finally writing this! And yes my username is a pun of my own last name but I just couldn’t resist.
So basically, I really want to surround myself with other writers and have stumbled across tons of writeblr’s (I think that’s what they’re called lol). Instantly I was in love and wanted more of what the community had to offer. I’ve been a self-proclaimed “author” or writer since my early years of grade school. I was that child in the back of the class with ADHD that couldn’t sit still (the cliche bouncing leg and always chewed down nails) and had what my mother called an “overactive imagination”. My notebooks in high school were often filled with wild stories about “galaxies far far away” or dystopias with cruel governments ruled by dictators. Now I’m in my second year of college swamped with classes about the Psychology of criminals (or I like to call the science of murder), and trying to find time to write a novel. So the struggle is real my dudes.
A little about Me:
Hana
20
She/Her
Pisces
Asexual
Forensic Psychology Major and English with a concentration in Writing Minor
Book hoarder
Dog Mom
Vintage AF
Low Key Emo Punk because I’m no average white girl!
History nerd (Love learning about the old wars and cultures)
Movie nerd (There’s an endless stack of DVDs in my house)
Fandoms:
The Mandolorian (or the ManDADolorian)
Star Trek
Star Wars
Hannibal
X-Files
King Falls Am
Welcome to Nightvale
Transformers (Obviously not the bad movies lol. Bumblebee is baby and must be protected always.)
Good Omens
Sherlock
Lord of the Rings
Marvel (There are so many shows and movies in this category we would be here all day if I tried to list them.)
Timeless (Not sure if the fandom is still alive after what the writers did to one of our ships lol)
DC (I’m a huge Batman geek and adore Wonderwoman, but I take the good with the bad when it comes to this fandom. Especially movie-wise anymore.)
And there’s probably more but my memory isn’t working currently.
Goals?. . . maybe:
Get my novel finished (This has literally been on my To-Do List for who knows how long.)
Meet more writers/new writers.
Improve my poetry (I suck at poetry so I bad I never let it see the light of day, so I need to work on it.)
Start my bullet journal.
Wips:
Okay by now you all know I have at least 1 Wip because I mentioned getting a freaking novel done, but just as a precaution as to what I mean by Wip or Wips. I get distracted quite easily, for some odd reason my brain absolutely loves to jump from one idea to another for no absolute reason. Like WTF dude we already have an idea we’re working on why do you keep bringing all these new ones to me like stray dogs. And like any good dog Mom or distracted writer, I want to keep all the ideas/stray dogs. So, when I say Wip I mean “Look at this cool idea I came up with” and I’ll make sure to specify which one is hogging most of my time.
Renegade: Dystopian, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction.
This is my baby. Most of my free time is dedicated to adjusting plotlines, character arc’s, fixing freaking plot holes, and other important stuff other than just plain writing. I’m hoping to finish this also monster of a story by 2020 and get it published. So big stuff!
“So tell me little wolf do you want to punish those who have wronged you?” An assassin known as the Crimson Ghost makes their way through the corrupt city-state of Ashton completing a job given to them by the Black Rose. What is a seemingly normal job though turns into something far more complicated when they stumble upon the fractions of an abandoned notebook from the past. A past the Republic is trying to desperately hide and bury no matter what. On the other side of the world in the Republic’s capital Eshar, plainly referred to as “The Prodigy” or “machine” by his superiors, Eric Coalwood has built a life upon the ashes of his family, striving to meet the high expectations set before him by his mentor General Wolfheart. However, his life falls out of its normal day to day routine when the unexpected is asked of him. Command a task force made up of the Republic’s most wanted or his life is over. Eric doesn’t need reasons for why he must do what he has to, all he needs are orders and the Republic is more than happy to give them. Either way the clock is ticking for both the Crimson Ghost and the Republic’s prodigy and with time running out they both have two options. Either get over their different beliefs concerning the Republic or allow the world to once again succumb to war but this time nobody is going to survive it. “Legends are slippery things. For the glory that coats them hides the pain, suffering and death that created them.”
The Trouville Files: Dystopian, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction.
Not my biggest priority but definitely one of them considering the plot of this story. I mainly use this wip as a reference for Renegade because it’s actually the prequel to it. Also, it’s great to use as writing practice when I’m plagued with writer’s block for Renegade or frustrated with a plot hole. So this is my double-edged sword that does a lot of good.
“Death in these black days is neither kind nor quick.” The year is 2153, the world we know is nothing more than a wasteland strewn with the dead and a sky being choked by their ashes, not glorious and thriving but desolate and starving. The Red Death, a pandemic with a steady progression and a gruesome countdown to the demise of those infected. No one outruns it or survives it. “United we stand, divided we fall.” The Allied Nations, a totalitarian superpower, promised a united people but all they gave this world was more death and destruction. The Red Death isn’t the only thing slowly killing humanity anymore, we are in the form of the War of Broken Pacts. The spark of revolution is lit, but if it will remain so is a question asked by everyone. Does it stand a chance against the iron-fisted government holding the people in shackles? “Rebel with a cause.” Genius Medical Officer for The People’s Republic, Cyprus Ramiro works day and night in search of a cure for the Red Death exterminating hundreds, at least before this war kills him first. But he is also a man on the run and the rebellion can only shelter him for so long. “Duty over pain.” Cunning Spy and Soldier, Orion Ultor is ordered by the Allied Nations to infiltrate and gather information on the ever-growing People’s Republic. In bold letters is Search and Destroy; make a ruin of the rebellion and ensure the Allied Nations remains as it should -- unquestionably in power. No matter the cost unless he wants to suffer the consequences again. “If we fall we shall rise from the ashes like a phoenix.” They should have never met, battlefields don't make good friends. It wasn't fate, it wasn't destiny, only war throwing people together. The Allied Nations is trying to stamp out something they fear, but can they before the Red Plague? Or will humanity find itself extinct.
Beyond his point is where I house my stray dogs/ideas
Hiraeth: Paranormal, Horror, Mystery, and Thriller.
Scooby-doo who?
Hiraeth means a homesickness for a home which you cannot return. That is how Arcane feels like she’ll never be home no matter how hard she tries to connect with her family. The closest she feels to being home is with her friends and in the worn leather seats of the van they all pitched in to buy. It all started out as a way to pass time and for all of them to escape their families because to be honest parents never understand, but it all turned sideways when a simple “ghost hunting trip” stirred something that was meant to remain buried. The truth never remains buried though, not really, somehow it will always creep back in ugly and twisted. Arcane has never felt “at home” but she’ll do whatever it takes to keep what she considers her family safe.
Sweet Dreams: Historical Fiction, Thriller, and Romance.
A literal dream turned into story plot and no I’m not kidding.
The Red String of Fate, The Lovers, and War. These are the three elements intertwined within the plot of Sweet Dreams but before anyone makes any assumptions this isn’t some chummy rom-com. There will be tears and heart strings may get yanked clean out because the angst is real. War and love never mix well, it leaves a sour taste in ones mouth and makes the mind question things it shouldn’t. Like is the woman in his dreams the same woman he sees in all his dreams? Constantly he somehow ends up spotting that same ruby red lipstick, honey golden eyes, and brunette hair laying in perfect curls. She’s everywhere except in his actual life. They say you and your soulmate share dreams, living proof of how intertwined souls are. She doesn’t believe in love or the idea of souls, not with the monsters roaming around the countryside and battlefield carrying assault rifles. Society tells her where her place is, but she disagrees and rather create her own destiny.
The Prophet: Paranormal, Thriller, Post-Apocalypse, and Science Fiction.
A short story I can’t seem to let go or it doesn’t want to let me go, but either way, this story has the makings for something great. It also at times seems strikingly similar to Good Omens, so don’t be surprised.
There’s no anti-christ in this story, he already has a book about himself so let’s not make another one besides there are other stories that need to be told. Such as, have you ever heard of modern day prophets and I’m not talking about those people with cardboard signs saying “the end is near!” or giant churches with people preaching about the end times. No, I’m talking about a kid with messy hair and dark circles under their eyes because sleep is no longer a choice due to migraines that plague them every night. Migraines that bring weird cryptic messages that make one question their own sanity. And what happens when strange people start asking about said migraines and messages?
Virago: Fantasy, Thriller, Historical Fiction, and Romance.
I’m not a huge fantasy reader, for some reason I can’t stay invested in them, but here I am with a fantasy story in my wips. It has mages, knights, assasination plots, and one super badass general who takes zero shit from her king. That’s right women empowerment, my dudes! I don’t really have much of a synopsis inline or a plot because this is only of those wips I let rattle around in my brain from time to time. But I will say it does give me that LOTR vibe but also Game of Thrones.
Don’t be surprised if you see my stray doggos from time to time because I will admit I love to play around with storyboards. Even if I don’t have a fully planned out plot put together for it.
And that concludes this what was supposed to be short Writeblr Intro. I hope I have peaked some of your guys’ interests because the community definitely got a hold of minee. Feel free to send me a message about anything I mentioned (even if it’s just fandom shit I don’t care) and don’t be shy. I’m a huge introvert but somehow love talking, so don’t worry it won’t be awkward and odds are I’m equally nervous about conversation lol. Also, feel free to add me to any taglist and reblog/like if you’re active and would like more Writeblr mutuals!
Happy Writing,
Writings-from-the-Hart
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Headlines
Climate change makes freak Siberian heat 600 times likelier (AP) This year’s freak Siberian heat wave is producing climate change’s most flagrant footprint of extreme weather, a new flash study says. International scientists released a study Wednesday that found the greenhouse effect multiplied the chance of the region’s prolonged heat by at least 600 times, and maybe tens of thousands of times. In the study, which has not yet gone through peer review, the team looked at Siberia from January to June, including a day that hit 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) for a new Arctic record.
Mail delays likely as new postal boss pushes cost-cutting (AP) Mail deliveries could be delayed by a day or more under cost-cutting efforts being imposed by the new postmaster general. The plan eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and says employees must adopt a “different mindset” to ensure the Postal Service’s survival during the coronavirus pandemic. Late trips will no longer be authorized. If postal distribution centers are running late, “they will keep the mail for the next day,″ Postal Service leaders say in a document obtained by The Associated Press. “One aspect of these changes that may be difficult for employees is that—temporarily—we may see mail left behind or mail on the workroom floor or docks,″ another document says. The changes come a month after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major donor to President Donald Trump, took over the sprawling mail service. In a memo titled “PMG Expectations and Plan,″ the agency said the changes are aimed at “making the USPS fundamentally solvent which we are not at this time.″ Postal Service officials, bracing for steep losses from the nationwide shutdown caused by the virus, have warned they will run out of money by the end of September without help from Congress. The service reported a $4.5 billion loss for the quarter ending in March, before the full effects of the shutdown sank in.
Twitter Hack Exposes Frailty of the Digital Public Square (Foreign Policy) Twitter accounts belonging to high-profile business leaders and politicians were hacked yesterday in the biggest security breach in the website’s 14-year history. Fortunately, the goal of the hackers was more con artist than saboteur. Accounts belonging to business leaders such as Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates as well as Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and former U.S. President Barack Obama all posted a version of the same message: A call to donate money to a cryptocurrency account in return for your money back twice over. Despite the millions of followers these accounts have, the scam seems to have convinced very few of them. Only about $120,000 in bitcoin has been deposited to the hacker’s accounts, according to Reuters. Although the refrain “Twitter is not real life” is often used as a putdown toward the social media-addled masses, the website can have an outsized grip on reality. In 2013, a hacker took control of the Associated Press Twitter account and wrote a hoax tweet describing explosions at the White House. The tweet was quickly deleted, but not before tricking high-frequency trading algorithms—sending the U.S. stock market into a flash crash.
Barbados wants you to work from its beaches during the pandemic (NYT) In the first half of 2020, governments around the world imposed entry restrictions or strict quarantine procedures; flight traffic fell to its lowest level in decades. Many are confined not just to their countries, but also to their homes, as offices were shut down along with travel. But even as the pandemic continues to rage, the government of Barbados, a country in the eastern Caribbean, is sending a very different message: Come here, not just for a holiday, but for up to a year. Bring your laptop. Soak up the sun, the sea, the sand—and forget about the coronavirus. Dubbed the “Barbados Welcome Stamp” and launching this week, the program will allow visitors to stay on the Caribbean island visa-free for up to one year. The aim is to attract remote workers, with a bill to be introduced in Parliament by the government that will remove the local income taxes that normally kick in after six months. The program has unsurprisingly sparked global interest. Considered from a cramped apartment in London or New York, working remotely on a beach has an appeal even to those who know little about Barbados. Barbados is not the only country trying to open up to laptop-toting foreigners. Estonia is to launch its own long-awaited “Digital Nomad” visa program in the coming months, and countries including Georgia, Germany and Costa Rica already have visa programs geared toward freelancers.
A fight over nude swimming marks return of pre-coronavirus banalities in Europe (Washington Post) LYCHEN, Germany—There is perhaps no better sign that people are eager to move on from the coronavirus than the fact that this German lake district town is embroiled in a heated debate about nude swimming, and it has drawn national attention. The local council’s ban on naked swimming—and other activities such as naked yoga—has returned the town to the banalities of pre-coronavirus summers and earned it a spot on the national public broadcaster’s nightly newscast, where it received more airtime than the United States’ spiraling coronavirus outbreak that day. Nude swimming has long been socially acceptable in other parts of eastern Germany and in Lychen, a town of about 3,000 people nestled between glassy lakes. “Whoever wants to swim naked swims naked. And those who don’t, do not,” said vacation home landlord Martin Hansen, 60, who opposes the ban. But in May, after it became apparent that the first wave of the coronavirus had largely bypassed the region, the Lychen town council turned its attention from social distancing restrictions to bathing rules. To some council members, naked fellow residents swimming, doing yoga and playing volleyball had been a growing annoyance. The mayor and council moved to ban all nude activity at popular public bathing spots. The outrage that followed included an anonymous letter to the mayor, threatening to poison the town’s lakes if nudist swimming rights were infringed upon. The police announced an investigation. TV crews and newspaper journalists descended on Lychen. Mayor Karola Gundlach declined an interview request from The Washington Post, citing the excessive media coverage and adding, “It does not help if people from around the world send me emails and tell me or the town what to do, what is right and wrong.”
Minorities under attack as PM pushes ‘tolerant’ Pakistan (AP) It’s been a tough month for religious minorities in Pakistan, and observers warn of even tougher times ahead as Prime Minister Imran Khan vacillates between trying to forge a pluralistic nation and his conservative Islamic beliefs. A Christian was gunned down because he rented in a Muslim neighborhood in northwest Peshawar, not far from the border with Afghanistan. Another Christian, pastor Haroon Sadiq Cheeda, his wife and 12-year-old son were beaten by their Muslim neighbors in eastern Punjab and told to leave their village. The attackers screamed “you are infidels.” An opposition politician was charged this week with blasphemy after declaring all religions were equal. A senior political figure, allied with the government and backed by Islamic extremists, stopped construction of a Hindu temple in the capital Islamabad. Analysts and activists blame an increase in attacks on an indecisive Khan. They say he preaches a vision of a tolerant Pakistan where its religious minorities thrive as equals among an overwhelming Muslim majority. They say that at the same time he cedes power to extreme Islamic clerics, bowing to their demands and turning to them for the final say, even on matters of state.
India virus cases surge nearly 32,700, beach state shut anew (AP) India’s virus cases surged another 32,695 as of Thursday, taking the nation closer to 1 million and forcing a new lockdown in the popular western beach state of Goa two weeks after it was reopened to tourists. The new confirmed cases took the national total to 968,876. The Health Ministry also reported a record number of 606 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking total fatalities up to 24,915. About a dozen states, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Assam, have put high-risk areas under lockdowns, only allowing essential food supplies and health services. Goa state’s top elected official, Pramod Sawant, announced a three-day lockdown and a night curfew in the popular backpacking tourist destination, beginning Thursday night. He said people were flouting social distancing norms. Nearly 40,000 people were fined 100 rupees ($1.3) each in the past two weeks for not wearing masks.
Flooding in Bangladesh (Foreign Policy) As much as one-third of Bangladesh is now underwater after the country’s heaviest rainfall in a decade, according to Al Jazeera. As we reported last week, the floods began in part because of the overflowing of the Brahmaputra River. In the neighboring Indian state of Assam, at least 50 people have been killed as a result of the flooding.
Mysterious Fires Scorch Iran (Foreign Policy) Iran, already ravaged by U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic, now faces another scourge: A wave of mysterious fires torching the country, including a blaze that burned seven ships in Bushehr, a major port city, on Wednesday. The fires include a July 2 explosion at an underground fuel enrichment plant in Natanz that the New York Times reported was part of a covert effort to undermine the Iranian nuclear program. The incidents have sparked fears in Iran that the United States and Israel are increasing sabotage operations directed at Tehran. No deaths were reported from Wednesday’s fire. Officials in Iran have blamed some of the fires on sabotage, but others appear to have been caused by accidents, equipment failures, and inclement weather, the Times reported. The fires may raise fears of military miscalculation between the United States and Iran. The blazes come as the United States failed to convince allies on the U.N. Security Council to extend an arms embargo against Iran set to expire in October, as Foreign Policy reported. The Trump administration faces opposition from allies in its efforts to continue its so-called “maximum pressure” campaign—a definitive effort to scupper the 2015 nuclear deal. A website close to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Nournews, said this month that an attack on Natanz could cross a “red line” and lead to “fundamental changes” in the Middle East.
China becomes first economy to grow since virus pandemic (AP) China became the first major economy to grow since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, recording an unexpectedly strong 3.2% expansion in the latest quarter after anti-virus lockdowns were lifted and factories and stores reopened. Growth reported Thursday for the three months ending in June was a dramatic improvement over the previous quarter’s 6.8% contraction —China’s worst performance since at least the mid-1960s. But it still was the weakest positive figure since China started reporting quarterly growth in the early 1990s. China, where the coronavirus pandemic began in December, was the first economy to shut down and the first to start the drawn-out process of recovery in March after the ruling Communist Party declared the disease under control.
Taiwan holds military drills against potential China threat (AP) Taiwan’s military fired missiles from the air and the island’s shore facing China on Thursday in a live-fire exercise to demonstrate its ability to defend against any Chinese invasion. Assault helicopters launched missiles and fighter jets dropped bombs on targets at sea, while tanks and missile trucks fired from a beach to deter a simulated invading force. The drill was part of a five-day annual exercise that ends Friday. China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that is part of its territory. The self-governing island of 24 million people lies 160 kilometers (100 miles) off China’s southeast coast across the Taiwan Strait.
Japan “extremely concerned” as 136 COVID cases reported on U.S. bases (CBS News) The biggest coronavirus outbreak within the U.S. military anywhere in the world continues to grow. U.S. Forces Japan confirmed Wednesday another 36 infections among troops on the Japanese island of Okinawa, bringing the total to at least 136 since the U.S. military reported its first cases there last week. Until then, all of Okinawa had seen only 148 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since February, with Japanese authorities managing to contain the spread of the virus that causes the disease. In a sign of the growing tension between Japanese officials and the U.S. military in Okinawa, Defense Minister Taro Kono has pointed to “several problems” with the U.S. response to the pandemic. He notably avoided giving specifics when pressed by reporters earlier this week. “Okinawa residents are extremely anxious” about the spread of infection at U.S. military bases, said Okinawa governor Denny Tamaki, who flew to Tokyo Wednesday for a meeting with Defense Minister Kono to air his island’s grievances.
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Lenny McGurr, better known as the multidisciplinary artist Futura (fka Futura 2000) started in the world of graffiti before branching out to the world of fine art, street art, and beyond. A certified “old head,” he’s designed some of the most covetable sneakers to date (forget the Dunkles, all praises to the FLOMs) and during NYC streetwear’s late-’90s heyday, was behind labels like Project Dragon, Subware, and the seminal Nort/Recon outpost done with Stash.
These days, he’s busier than ever. Supreme’s updating some of their collaborative work from the vault, Futura Laboratories is cooking up new products on a more consistent basis, and he’s got high-fashion collabs like last year’s Off-White™ collection and this year’s capsule with COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT.
He’s also on deck as the art director for one of NTWRK’s upcoming digital events, creating community online during the Covid-19 crisis. We took some time with the artist to discuss his breakout year, and his unexpected connection to the U.S. Postal Service.
The following interview has been edited and condensed.
Jian DeLeon: You’ve had a busy year. This week alone you’ve got your latest Supreme collab and your first collection with COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT hitting Dover Street Market. What haven’t you released yet that you’re stoked on?
Futura: Wow, yeah. I mean, there’s still projects…as you can imagine, everything has been delayed and pushed back due to the situation at hand, but last year was incredible, and a lot of that was the buildup to what’s happening now.
What Supreme is doing is just re-releasing something I did years ago — the handwritten Supreme — and we added the “Justice For All” messaging on the back which is relevant to the time. One thing you didn’t mention is the BMW, which was going to be the main thing of 2020. We were actually in Munich in mid-March. I was hand-painting the interiors before we had to get out of Europe.
JD: Right, it’s the Futura edition M2, which looks absolutely insane. Is this the first time you’ve worked with a major automobile company?
Futura: Yeah, that’s probably one of the most unbelievable jobs I’ve had, simply because I’ve been driving a BMW for more than ten years,.
JD: Yeah, I’ve seen your car parked around Brooklyn a couple times. It has a pretty recognizable license plate.
Futura: Absolutely! I got that vanity plate. So yeah — it’s a real thing; it’s not a stretch — and the fact that they came to me with the M2, plus the history of BMW’s art cars dating back to the ’60s, it’s great to be part of that catalog. For other companies, you might get to paint a vehicle and they put in on display then have it somewhere in a garage, but BMW actually wanted to go into production.
I painted a car that’s the 1-of-1 art car, but then we got a team of artisans who were able to replicate what I did on the outside, and translated that to a catalog of 500 cars. That’s why I was in Munich, I was painting the interiors — like the dashboard trim where the gearbox is. There are maybe over 1,200 pieces I physically painted. Those original pieces go onto every car. That’s a very cool thing about this project.
JD: As a BMW enthusiast, why did you gravitate towards the M2?
Futura: It’s the car I always wanted. I always wanted an M5, but the M2 hit and I was like: “Oh man, that’s really it.” There’s just something about that car. It’s about performance. It’s not meant for New York streets, but I would love to drive that car in, Utah, Montana, or on the Autobahn, obviously.
JD: Back in February when the BMW collaboration was announced, your capsule collection with COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT was also making its runway debut in Paris. While it’s not the first time your work’s been on the runway, this is the first time you’ve collaborated with CDG. That label occupies a special place in culture. It can touch sneakers, streetwear, and high fashion without losing its appeal. What’s been your perception of the. brand?
Futura: I can recall a CDG show in the ’80s where Basquiat was a runway model. It was like: “Oh, Jean’s here. Wear this shirt please, and have him walk down the runway.” I remember him telling me the price. Even back then, Japan was always expensive as an import and had a level of quality that you knew was above perhaps what Americans and Europeans were doing. Certainly Americans.
Later they did interpretations of Jean’s work in their collections. So for it to all come around in full-circle like this is great, and I mentioned that to Rei [Kawakubo]. I don’t know if I had met her in the past, but it’s a cool story for me…It connects very strongly to all the things that I’m really into. Japan’s been very good to me, not in my experiences there, but how I feel about working with my Japanese collaborators, contemporaries, and homies.
JD: The U.S. Postal Service is a hot topic right now for some very good reasons. Besides the slap history of post office stickers in graffiti, I understand you have a more personal connection?
Futura: I used to work for postal service back in the day…’88 or ’89. The ’80s were amazing, but for the graffiti guys there was only about five years before people were kind of over it because now you had [Basquiat]. You had other artists emerging that were much more important, and I was looking for any kind of job. I was a bike messenger, but then I got injured. We were independent, freelance guys with no benefits, and my son Timothy would’ve been three or four. So I got a job in Long Island City at the post office right across from PS1.
The crazy thing about that was in 1981 I was part of a huge show called “New York New Wave” at PS1. It was a seminal show of the era. We were all in it, and then six years later here I am working at the post office across the street. But luckily I recovered. It was Agnès B. in 1989 that helped me leave that job because I had an exhibition. Someone was very supportive of my work and offered me a show.I sold four paintings — two of which were bought by Agnès B. — and that was the beginning of my. life as a wannabe artist.
JD: I don’t think you’re a “wannabe artist” at this point.
Futura: Well, I think you’re right and I appreciate that, but I was really wanting to be one back then. So, yeah man, I went from USPS to having an atelier — which even sounded cooler than a studio.
JD: Since everyone’s buying. stamps right now to help support the post office, if you could design a stamp, what would it be?
Futura: That’s a great question. Well…let’s just say that’s TBD, because given my own personal history with them, I wouldn’t be against that at all. I mean, that’s the dream. First of all, as a child, stamps were one of the biggest visual inspirations of my life, along. with television. But I come from a visual stimulation culture revolving around things you could tangibly look at and touch — like stamps and money, the design of money. So yeah, designing a stamp would be crazy.
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I haven't really updated in a really long time. I think once I left my husband and moved in with my boyfriend and tried to have some semblance of normalcy I had wanted to be pretty private. for a decade I've always communicated my feelings by blogging here and now that I'm older I kind of wanted some privacy.
I am 16 weeks and two days pregnant depending when this post's it'll probably be 3 days. And I feel really fucking alone. I have no family here in Utah, his sister-in-law is the biggest fucking cunt I have ever met, his nephew as one of the most spoiled motherfukers I have ever met and his niece is the spitting image of his sister-in-law and very very fucking spoiled.
His sister-in-law has fucking balls. She has no common decency, she clearly doesn't want us living with her which is really fucking ironic considering almost two decades ago she was in the same position that we are in. The only difference? She doesn't have to fucking be quarantined while pregnant she doesn't have to struggle looking for a job while being fucking quarantined and more importantly she doesn't have someone who has a huge distain for family living with her and her husband.
I was going up the stairs earlier to throw away a bag of trash and she came through the door of the garage and she fucking saw me coming up those motherfuking stairs and instead of holding the door open she fucking closed it while I was 3/4 of the way up the stairs and I'm like are you fucking kidding me?
Later that day, I was waiting to put a fork in the dishwasher and she was already there getting silverware because she was making dinner for her family and instead of opening it for me she fucking closed it when I was literally fucking behind her and I'm like what the fuck is your damage I know you don't like me there I know I'm just another number I know I'm just another girl in his life
but have some commented fucking decency if I wasn't pregnant and if I wasn't in the situation where this is the only place we were living and if we had more options I would fucking confront her and I would State what the fuck is your damage why are you treating us like for fucking second-class citizens? Do you not remember 15 + years ago you were in the same fucking situation and my boyfriend never ever treated you the way you treat us he was never in your fucking face about almost $400 he was not in your face about eating too much fucking yogurt he was always nice and kind to you
I know times are really freaking hard right now but what the fuck is her problem? She doesn't talk to me she clearly doesn't like me sitting in her kitchen I don't fucking get it I know we come from different backgrounds but my vision of family is if I was in the position of having all of my responsibilities taking care of and my brother came to me and was in a position of I really need help I would be like pack your shit and get over here now I wouldn't treat them like shit because they aren't working due to this fucking pandemic I wouldn't treat them differently because I don't want anyone living with me
it's going to get to a point where we have our shit together and I will fucking say something to her because I'm not the type of person to hold back and I've been holding my tongue for almost two fucking months . . .
In other news I am 16 weeks and pregnant with a girl my soon-to-be-ex-husband decided his health problems are so significant that he can't work anymore even though his company was willing to work with him and he quit his motherfuking job and you know what that means for me? It means I get to look for fucking state health insurance I get to be on fucking food stamps and on cash assistance because of the situation I'm currently in I don't regret quitting my shit job because I would walk through fucken fire for my boyfriend and I wouldn't have a second guess about it
I just think it's so hilarious that the year 2020 continuously is fucking with me and shiting on me I don't get it like this is supposed to be the happiest time of my life and instead of being able to do the things I used to be able to do like go on a walk or you no go to fucking work I'm basically 16 living with my dad walking on fucking eggshells in the fucking basement
I feel like I'm a fucking number to them like I'm just another girl for my boyfriend. He got married pretty young at 22 and his marriage dissolved because his wife at the time was such a fucking child. with his second marriage she completely used him he was worth at least six figures and she fucking used him and cheated on him and was okay with cheating on him because of how she was raised. They have two kids together and I can't tell you how many times over the last year he has cried with me as I held him and he is like I wanted these babies
but I married a fucking whore not knowing she was a fucking whore and she fucking used me and he keeps asking me over and over why are you here, Suzanne? I told him because I want to be here because I believe I truly wholeheartedly believe I can raise him up to be better than what he is right now and he can do the same for me . I'm not saying this is a mistake and I know I jumped in head-first but I waited to be with him while my marriage fell apart and I talked to him daily and I'm not scared that it's not going to work I just want some fucking normalcy!
I want to live in a house where I don't have someone giving me a fucking dirty look for using their dishes or not even being fucking considerate or coming at me in my face over fucking money and I hate saying it but she is a miser and a fucking do and she wasn't like this before according to him and he told me the other night he's like I'm just done with her she's changed and I think he kind of hopes that get divorced they were going to last year but I don't know why he fucking stayed I don't know why his brother stayed I know his brother loves her but from my perspective and from what I know sometimes love is not enough sometimes people change and they really show you their true colors in the beginning and you're so dumb about being head over heels in love with them and having kids with them that you fucking ignore it
I don't think his current wife ever supported him the way I emotionally support him. It takes him to drink for all of his walls to come down I can't tell you how many times I've held him in our old house and let him cry and just because they're trying to hold him up. and that's what I've wanted all along is someone to understand the fucking hell I went through when I lost my mom or trying to figure out why my brother raped me are trying to figure out why my dad believed my brother and not me I'm trying to understand addiction when it came to my mother but I haven't really like cried in front of him but I've really been to it to him about my upbringing and he fucking hates my family for the shit they put me through and he's like he just need to fucking forget them because they're pieces of shit and they are continually dragging you down and you're still living in the past and everyday when you talk to me it's always about your dead mother or your brother or your dad died and he's like you're not going to do this to our kid you're not going to be living in the past pining over family thought you had when I'm here family and this baby is your family and I knew he was right and I'm just right now so busy trying to keep my head above water and trying to grow this baby and it's really difficult being in the situation Im in
It's really gotten to the point to where even though his sister-in-law works from home because of the quarantine I wait until the last possible moment to where I can't wait any longer and I go upstairs and eat. I don't do it on purpose but I don't want to be around this batch. I don't want to have the fucking dirty look I mean she doesn't even do that to her own kids because they're her own kids or her even her husband and I know she doesn't want us to live in there but she's a fucking hypocrite
like I just I don't get it I don't have parents alive anymore both of my parents are dead and I don't get to share the joy of this pregnancy with them and it's fucking killing me that I can't call my mom and ask her what she did when she was pregnant what to do when the baby won't stop crying and I have to figure it out on my own I don't have a good relationship with my three oldest Brothers with the first and the third
I haven't really spoken to them since my mom died I haven't seen them since my mom died and even though we follow each other on social media and we have each other's numbers they don't fucking call one of them said all I promise to do better and he's such a fucking liar and a flake and the oldest one his wife just had a baby a month ago and I still haven't seen any pictures besides the one of him being first born and I even asked him can you send me pictures but I just find it so fucking ironic that he can go on Facebook live and bitch about what's going on
but he can't send me fucking pictures of his family talk about motherfuking priorities and my second oldest brother I saw him before I moved and it was really good seeing him I can't we all have families and we all have fucking lives but at the end of the day how hard is it to pick up the fucking phone and to call your sister?
It has been a current theme in my life for the past ten fucking years of wandering why don't they call me? If I cross your mind why don't they text me? but at the end of the day I have been the one that's reached out and taking pictures of their family and their kids I have spent my own fucking money on baby showers and on birthday gifts and when I'm looking for the same in return I'm probably going to get dead fucking silence I bet you that now
He'd even discussing this on social media because at the end of the day my brothers aren't going to fucking change and they're going to be like why I don't receive pictures of your baby? Why can't I see my niece? Well motherfucker why haven't you sent me pictures of your kids when I've been nothing but good to them why I have traded them like my own and I think they tend to forget that one of their wives did everything and want her pregnancies to not have a child?
when I begged and pleaded God to give me a child and it took me leaving my marriage and getting with my boyfriend to get fucking pregnant I mean yes I'm living the dream but I shouldn't be 16 weeks pregnant and fucking in tears articulating my feelings because my immediate family is complete dogshit and it has nothing to do with politics has everything to do with her fucking character and I know men are different than women and pain at the end of the day why the fuck don't they reach out when I literally have no fucking family here in Utah? The only person I have is my best friend and her husband and her six-month-old and I'm only going to have them for a couple more months because at the end of the year they're moving to Texas and that's when I know for fucking sure I will be alone
I don't get it. I am one of the most loving, kind, considerate people in the universe and when I expect them to have the same part as I do to have the same vision of family as I do it's like I can't even be met halfway and I don't know what's worse being pregnant and feeling alone with no family or suffering several horrible miscarriages or watching your mom take her last breath two two stage for right adrenal cancer or even having your own brother rape you and not being fucking believed for a decade and being treated like dog shed I really don't know what's worse
Please, universe if you hear me GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK.
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Old Clothes Part 6
Masterlist
Word Count: 2846
Warnings: Mentions of death and survivors guilt
Author’s Note: God, guys, I feel so bad about this. I don’t even actually know when part 5 was posted, but no matter what, I feel awful. I lost my direction for the story for a little and I’ve been… struggling with some things recently. But I’m back. Don’t know how consistent I will be or how this is all going to play out, but I figure y’all are here to help a little with that. So, enjoy the first part of Old Clothes of 2020.
Old clothes would help you to stick out in a crowd. Seldom if the correct outfit was chosen, but there were always those instances. A single mistake, one misstep while dressing, and you’re outed, done for. But there were assurances one could take. The chest buried under the motley coats in the attic was always a good place to start, but one must be wary of their findings. Games of dress-up weren’t the same as hiding in plain sight. My mother burned the chest once I had found it.
Was I supposed to be in the attic that day? Yes, I was. But I wasn’t supposed to go beyond the wicker basket that held my mother’s sewing supplies. I’d seen something, though, something that was amiss in the dusty space. Rays of golden sunlight shone upon an old chest beneath the round window. Plumes of dust floated into the sun as old folds of fabrics fell to the ground at the cause of my curiosity. A lock caused my childish curse to come forth as my eyes laid sight upon the blockade. My gut commanded an attempt anyway, just to be sure.
The hinges cried with age as my fingers pried the lid away from the box. The contents were all mismatched and random, but all were surprising to me. None of these items should be with us. There were books and letters and keepsakes that were supposed to have been burned years prior. Ribbons from the old country were neatly rolled and placed in boxes along with the jewellery from generations ago. It was like a glimpse into times long before the Davenports became what they were.
My pockets sagged as an array of artefacts found their way inside. The steps of my mother sent my heart racing and I jumped away from the box. The lid slammed shut and my lungs sharply collapsed in a violent cough at the dusty cloud that filled the atmosphere. A lie was lost in a maze on the way to my lips and I was caught red-handed.
The scraping of the box on the floor still echoed from time to time, when my mind was at its quietest and there was no better time to ruin my false sense of security. My skin prickles with searing heat and during the summer, I can only hope for a rainstorm to cool the pain. She forced me to watch. Forced me to watch the consequences of another mistake I had made. All those ties back to our family, gone. The memories from my parents’ previous lives, gone. Everything and every one of the items still in there vanished into the night sky in flakes of ash. Except for the stowaways that were in my pillowcase.
My pocket held many small things. A crumpled sketch of London was dated back to 1743 when America was still a colony and pleased about it. My gran must’ve drawn it. She was always the artist of the family, so my father said. There were some stamps contained in a small coin purse that jingled as it swayed from side to side. They were from the Stamp Act and dated the day of the Boston Tea Party! Incredible detail was put into the small drawings. Tiny notebooks were chock-full of random notes and ideas and appointments and thoughts, different handwritings on each page muddling the narrative further.
The other pocket held one item that turned multitudinous. An ornate tiara lay resting in blue silk. When could that have been from? Why was it here? Pressed flowers were held between thin wax pages. Delicate strings of pearls twisted and curled among the contents. Stubs of charcoal were wrapped in tissue from burns before. I guess the charcoal tradition was older than I thought. And a golden ring, whose one side had been flattened and carved, was carefully stowed in a smaller box inside the first. Initials were worn away from decades of existence and I had no clue who this had come from. All I knew was that it was important.
I could feel a nervous and surprised energy radiate off of Sean. He’d heard of me already. Word travels fast between the boys, it seemed, “Huh, Odette?” He nodded slowly, lips pursed in thought. My hands found their way into my pockets and I twirled the ring around my finger, my mind mulling over the ancestors that it could’ve once belonged to. “Pretty name. That’s from that show or whatever with the birds and stuff, right?”
"Swan Lake?“ My tone was a mix of surprises. One that he forgot the name of the ballet and the second that he had even heard of it. "You know Swan Lake?”
"Now, don’t act oh so surprised, Miss Odette. We Newsies know ‘bout more than all youse people.“ He gestured to my outfit as if making the point I was wealthy in some way.
I floundered for a moment, my mouth opening and closing like a fish in the Fraser, "You’re right, I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge. My deepest apologies to you.”
"Nah, I understand where it’s comin’ from. Just don’t do it again, you here? Else you ain’t 'llowed here anymore.“ The tone he used was almost threatening, but I could tell by the slight upturn of the corners of his mouth that it was a joke.
I shrugged, a grin spreading across my face like butter on bread, "I suppose I should keep my belongs on my person for a quick getaway whenever I’m here. Just in case I cause a revolution.”
Spot took a step closer to me. The smell of rain and mud wafted off him and I could hear his breathing, “I wouldn’t doubt a lady like you causin’ trouble.”
"Well, I am British. That can cause quite a controversy when I voice my opinion on this country’s state of affairs, even if I grew up here.“ An exaggerated frown made its way to my face, "Though many of the crazy old men that run this country say a woman shouldn’t have those sorts of opinions.”
A voice from up the stairs startled me and I jumped, looking up to see a boy standing there, “You a reporta?” Almighty forces of the universe, the boy was practically naked! I know I was intruding on the home at night, but his undershirt looked as if it had been worn as his only shirt. Coordination between his suspenders and blue bandana weren’t helping his case either. And the way he eyed me, stared me down as if choosing how to fight me best.
Spot moved to stand between the boy and me, “Now, Myron, don’t be lookin’ for a fight.”
"No, Sean. It’s fine.“ I placed my hand on his shoulder and lightly applied pressure to move him, "He has every right to ask questions as the others do.” My gaze locked with Myron’s, the tension growing with an impending silence, “What does it matter to you if I’m a reporter or not, Myron? Unless you have something to hide, my presence shouldn’t bother you in the slightest.”
"So you are a reporta.“ The whites of his eyes flickered as they rolled and he mosied down the creaking steps. He was only the slightest bit taller than I was, but I was hardly intimidated. I had faced worse in much more stressful situations.
"No, you misunderstand. I said if I were a reporter, not that I am a reporter. I wasn’t quite clear though, so I can understand your confusion.”
"Ay, no, you said it don’t matter whether or not you a reporta. And I should only be bothered if I’m hidin’ somethin’.“ He stood before me, a dirty musk his cologne and arms crossed in defiance, "Now, I ain’t hidin’ nothin’, but I don’t much like reportas.”
"That’s a bold opinion of an entire career. Might I know why?“
"They’re never lookin’ out for the little guy. Never caring about anything but the story that’ll make their name get out into the world. An’ once they’re done with you, you’re dirt.” His face was in mine now, our noses just brushing, giving me a good look at his face. Dirt coated his face, filling crevasses created from scars. They were in strange patterns, the markings. And they were so pale too, his flesh like marbling. I looked into his eyes and saw my pain staring back at me. It was too much for such a short lifetime.
I raised my hand slowly, the sight of it in his peripheral causing a flinch as if I were to strike him across the face. My fingers lightly met his cheek, which was burning to my cold skin. He pressed into my palm, savouring the gentle human touch. “Oh, little darling, what did they do to you?”
His walls crumbled at my words, every emotion flowing over the rubble, “They’re gone 'cause a me. An’ those bums in their clean shirts and with all their money, they treated me like a criminal.” Tears were forming in the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall at a moment’s notice, “I swear the fire wasn’t my fault, but I know that they were.”
"Why would it be your fault?“
Myron wiped at his eyes, hoping the tears would go away, but new ones replaced the old and started running down his face in a race to the ground, "I-I was stuck an’ they came back in for me. All I remember is being pulled from underneath the ceiling and her holding me as she moved me to the exit.” He sniffed as he stuttered and choked on his words, “But they-they didn’t come out after me. I swore I could see them through that door I was pushed outta. They was so close.”
"Who did you lose, little darling?“ Myron shook his head in response, knowing the words will only make his state worse, "Was it your parents?” He nodded vigorously, turning away from me. “It’s alright. It wasn’t your fault. It will never be your fault.”
"B-bu-but it was. It still is.“
"No. It was the fire, not you.” My hand came to rest on his shoulder and I turned him back to me. I gave him a soft, understanding smile, one I would’ve wished to have been presented to me when I was coming to terms with my losses. A little bit of pressure from my hand moved the fragile boy to the staircase, where I sat beside him with my arm around his shoulders. The boys around us watched on before I moved my head to send them away. The two didn’t question anything and left without words.
"Have you mourned?“ I asked out of the silence. I could feel his confusion at the idea, "I hadn’t mourned when I lost my family. I suppose I’m still avoiding it.” I stared at my shoes as I thought of all my adventures, all my distractions from the truth.
"You lost your folks?“
"Not just them. I lost my brother and sister too that day.”
"What happened? If you don’t mind.“
"Not at all. We moved a lot when I was younger, going from place to place, never settling for too long. During one of those moves, I got separated in the woods. I searched for hours and hours, all through the night and into the morning. All I could find was some of the family heirlooms scattered on the ground in a clearing. No sign of them or the rest of our belongings. They had just vanished.” I felt awful lying about my past to this boy, but it was difficult to explain the immortality when it’s to be a secret.
"Boy, that is awful.“ There was a sad chuckle as he spoke, which I returned as an agreement. "So, you’re an orphan like the lot of us and you’re still a reporta?” He turned his head and looked at me, some form of shock and respect on his sad face.
"I am not a reporter.“ I pulled my handkerchief from my pocket and dabbed cleaned the tears from his face. I wasn’t too attached to the fabric. I had stolen it from a man’s coat pocket when I 'accidentally’ fell into him while on the trolley. I swiftly left after the incident, escaping my mark and the fact I hadn’t paid for the transportation.
"Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Press.”
I rolled my eyes at the boy, “My name is Odette.”
"Nah, Imma still call you Press. It’s your Newsie name. The lot of us have all got 'em. You should too.“
"Oh, I’m one of you now? Why’s that?”
"I dunno. Just feels like you get us. Understand our side an’ all. And, hey,“ I could feel his tough-guy façade being put back on, "Brooklyn is the best neighbourhood in all a New York. Who wouldn’t wanna be one of us?” Myron’s walls were back up, but I could feel that they were a little shorter, not as strong. That’s progress.
"I couldn’t think of anyone if you gave me all of Time to think.“ I laughed, bumping his shoulder. This kid, I don’t know what it was about him, but he felt like my own. He felt like my responsibility, almost as if I had adopted him.
"Exactly.”
"You should get to sleep. You’ve got a day and a half ahead of you.“ I motioned up the staircase with my head, indicating exactly what I meant.
"What about you?” He asked as I stood up, eyes following me.
I shrugged a little, looking into their common room of sorts, “I’m going to make sure everyone else is resting as well.” I looked back at him, “I guess I’m never not going to be a big sister.” A small giggle escaped me against my better judgement. I pressed a kiss to the boy’s slightly damp and dirty hair, ruffling it up before walking away from him. “Go sleep, Myron.”
"I’ll see you in the morning?“ The look of hope he gave me reminded me of my little Elijah and my heart hurt just a little. That was why he mattered all of a sudden. He was another version of my brother.
I nodded, "Bright and early.” He grinned at my response and ran up to the rooms as I went to herd the stragglers upstairs. Surprisingly, it was only Sean sitting by the fire, watching it with an intense stare. I stood and waited for him to acknowledge my presence. It only felt right since he was the leader.
"I ain’t never seen Myron cry, you know.“ Spot broke the silence. I moved to sit across from him as he continued, "Not when he first came here, not even when he gets hurt. Never. Then you show up, Odette,” his eyes met mine, the fire reflecting in his dark irises, “and it’s like he’s a whole other person. You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence, 'cause the way you handled that and acted like a mother to a kid you ain’t never met is suspicious. And I ain’t fond of suspicious people.”
"It’s a gift of mine, I suppose.“ I looked to the fire, faint images of my past projecting themselves on my mind’s eye, "When you’ve seen what I’ve seen and lost everything, you get good at recognizing it in others.” I met Sean’s gaze again, “And when you get good at seeing it, people get good at letting it out.”
"I dunno, you’re seventeen. How can you have had so much happen to you in those years?“
"How can there be so many Newsies like you all in such a small area? The world isn’t inherently good, Sean. I learnt that the hard way and all too early.” I leaned back and the two of us had a game of wills, a contest of resilience. For what felt like hours, we held one another’s gaze, waiting for the other to give in. “You should go to sleep, Sean. These kids are counting on you.”
"Some of them are counting on you too, now.“
"But you’ll stay with them,” I admitted, refusing to let any form of guilt creep up on me.
He nodded thoughtfully at my response before rising and moving silently to the stairs. I heard him stop for a moment, a pause in his thinking and planning. “Thank you, Odette. Thank you for helpin’ him.”
"He needed it. He deserved it.“ At my reply, he mounted the steps, leaving me to watch the fire die out the darkness from the streets outside slowly seeped into the dwelling. I was left with my inner-monologue as my eyelids grew heavy and my mind went blank in exhaustion. Sleep came after a futile attempt to stay awake. For only a few hours was I a willing casualty in the battle for rest. To others, it looked peaceful, how I slept. But the inner machinations of my mind always had other plans.
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Is there anybody out there.
Oh my goodness. I’m on Tumblr. I never thought I would be back. But to be honest I miss blogging. Even though hardly anyone, if anyone at all, read my text posts, its nice to get things out of my head and down on to paper. I have a journal that I write in by hand but nowadays I rarely write it that either. Its been a little over a year and a lot has happened. I started my new job and I love it. The first six months were a little bumpy as I didn’t know anyone, I felt lonely and I constantly questioned whether I’d done the right thing. I went way out of my comfort zone, from being in a job where my auntie was my manager and I worked alongside my mum, to going where I knew one person and not that very well. No one knew about how I struggle with anxiety, confidence and esteem so I was scared that what if I had a breakdown at work and they would be mean to be about it. Luckily, all that seems to have calmed down at work. At work I have gained a little bit of confidence because now I have to interact with people more. It kills me inside every time I have to since but its a tiny bit easier each time. Other a tiny bit though! My self esteem has grown slightly because I’m not constantly comparing myself to the achievements my family members make that I worked alongside with. I don’t work with anyone in my family now and it seems to be working out better for me now to be quite frank. Also I get a lot of praise from my seniors and managers about how well I work so that's helped too. Not to toot my own horn but I am good at what I do and I get a lot of rewards from it but in my old job they took me for granted. They knew I was good at what I did and thought I knew too enough to hardly ever give me the praise I needed to feel appreciated. Its nice to be appreciated. Anyways, I’ve been there for a year and a half nearly and still love it. So I now know I definitely made the right choice.
The end of 2018 I said 2019 was going to be my year and it certainly was.
After years of stress and upset while saving to buy an house and thinking it would never happen, it finally happened! We started viewing house at the end of January. We kind of knew what we wanted but didn’t at the same time. The most certain think we knew was that we wanted a drive and two bedrooms at the least. The first few houses we liked but not enough. Then we happened to come across the house I am sit in right now. We both fell in love straight away and decided we NEEDED to own this house. We put in an offer half an hour after viewing and they accepted. I can not even tell you unless, you have bought a house yourself, how stressful the next few months were! I took charge, because I am a control freak, and I wish I would have asked Sean for more help because it near damn broke me. Because I was so stressed I was snapping at everyone all the time, I was constantly tired, constantly emotional, it was awful . But then I think that if I hadn’t experienced and given up, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Obviously once we did move in we saw A LOT that needed doing that you don’t see when there's furniture in the way and you have rose tinted viewing glasses on. But its OUR home and we are in the process of putting our big stamp on it. Another BIG thing that happened in 2019 is that we finally got engaged! I could not believe it. Its so bad the story of it because we had a massive argument the day before! We were on holiday in Sicily, the house sale was just complete and we had a moving day for like two days after we came back off holiday so I was beyond stressed by this point. Then on the first day of the holiday we were on the beach and a guy dies in the sea in front of us. So I was traumatised then. And because I suffer with anxiety about death anyways, I couldn’t stop thinking about it/stressing about it. It all built up, I was snapping at Sean all the time and rightly so, he’d had enough. So we ended up arguing but we then sorted it out the next day and everything was a bit better. A couple of days later we went on a trip up Mount Etna. And while up there, he got down on one and asked me to marry him. I obviously said, “are you being serious. Shut up”! I didn’t believe him because he messed about before saying stuff about getting engaged so I thought he was pissing about again! haha. I eventually said yes. We don’t really have any concrete plans for a wedding yet as we want to get loads done on the house and weddings can be pricey, but now I know its definitely going to happen now in the not too distant future. And I think I have now finally accepted that he loves me now and isn’t going anywhere soon.
What can I say about 2020. Its been the worse. Not just because of this virus taking over the world but for what happened just before all that. Right at the end of 2019 we found out that one of the strongest, bravest man I know had lung cancer. To be honest, we shouldn’t have been that surprised. He smoked almost all his life, had the worst diet and drank loads. But it still was a shock. You hear ‘cancer’ and you fear the worst even while still hanging on to that tiny bit of hope that they will get through it. At first it didn’t look great and then it sounded better when they found out it was the slow growing type and he could have chemo. So we all got optimistic and off he went for chemo. The first time, he bounced back fine. The second time, it took him longer. He seemed to be poorly for ages. Then the third time, he almost died. It triggered a heart attack. He already had a bad heart before all this so it wasn’t good. He was in hospital for ages. We thought he would end up in there on Christmas. But he managed to get a little better again and came out. After that they decided chemo wasn’t going to be the best option for him anymore and that he had would have about a month to live. We wanted to make his last bit of time on Earth special so asked him what he would like to do and planned small trips he would be able to manage. But they never happened. Wish is soul destroying. He never got to do his last wishes because cancer had other ideas. He ended back in hospital and was there for weeks. A couple of weeks before his birthday in March they decided that they wasn’t anything else they could do for him in the hospital so he could go home to die comfortably. Those were the worse few weeks. He changed physically so much. He always use to be this big larger than life type of men, strong, lairy, always spoke his mind and he’d become this frail, weak old looking man I didn’t recognise. He couldn’t speak because the cancer had taken over his lungs and it exhausted him trying to catch his breath. The day before he passed away I sat at his bedside and said goodbye. He was in and out of consciousness at this point and his eyes were closed at lot. When I told him how much I loved him, he opened his eyes and looked straight at me, as if to say he knew and that he loved me too. I’ve never felt so sad at that moment ever in my life. I hate that this happened just before lockdown because the funeral was terrible. The service was lovely but I mean we couldn’t go near each other, we couldn’t comfort each other and I still haven’t been able to give my Grandma a hug. It kills me. It kills me hearing her cry on the phone because she's so lonely and just needs a hug. Its the first time she's really been on her own without my Grandad in sixty odd years. I can’t even imagine how she feels. I hate not being able to hug my parents too. I miss them. I lived with them for a long time and I need that familiar lovely feeling I get by just chatting with them in the kitchen over a cup of coffee. One good thing about this whole thing is that its made me realise. Never take anything so small for granted ever again.
Ahh its all down in the virtual world. It feels so cathartic.
#life#life update#2019#2020 sucks#covid19#cancer#enagement#house buying#its been a while#nobodies going to read all this
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