#we are a stream of consciousness writing household

[specialinterestsgalore]

The M*A*S*H Time Loop

This was pretty much just a stream of consciousness writing. I haven't looked at it much since I wrote it a couple of days ago but I wanted to post it anyway.

The sitcom M*A*S*H ran from 1972 to 1983 and captured households around America. The series follows M*A*S*H (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) unit 4077 through the Korean War. Knowledgable readers might have noticed that the Korean War lasted 3 years from June 1950 to July 1953 while the M*A*S*H series ran for 11 years from September 1972 to February 1983. This significant timeline difference created an interesting effect on M*A*S*H that led to many fans discussing the ‘M*A*S*H time loop theory.’ As the name would imply, this fan theory posits that the events of M*A*S*H do not take place during the Korean War as we know it, but instead that the show follows the 4077th as they are stuck in an endless time loop and are unable to escape the war. 

Clearly, the timeline of M*A*S*H is a bit difficult to line up with the events of the actual Korean War due to the 8-year difference. Characters such as BJ Hunnicutt and Radar O’Riley were on the sitcom for 8 years but canonically it is difficult to say if they were meant to have spent the same amount of time in Korea. While the episodes were aired weekly, it is impossible to say if most of the episodes were meant to take place a week apart. There are several episodes for which we know this is not the case, for example, the season 9 episode ‘A War for All Seasons’  begins with the 4077th ringing in the new year and follows several key events throughout 1951 and ends on New Year’s Day 1952. This seems to imply that the previous 8 seasons all take place in 1950. It could also imply that subsequent episodes all take place in 1952 or later, though many assume that some episodes show events that were not seen in ‘A War for All Seasons.’ On the opposite end of the spectrum, several episodes take place over a matter of hours. The season 8 episode ‘Life Time’ happens essentially in real time as Hawkeye has only 20 minutes to complete an arterial graft on a wounded soldier. These and other episodes make creating a sensible timeline for the M*A*S*H series an incredibly complicated process. Trapper John leaves in the first episode of season 4, does this mean that he was only in Korea for 6 months? As mentioned earlier, Radar and BJ were on M*A*S*H for the same number of years, but Radar leaves before ‘A War for All Seasons,’ does this mean that Radar was enlisted for a year or less while BJ was present for 2 years? Does it matter how long any of these characters were engaged in the Korean War? The time loop theory certainly says no. 

The nature of all sitcom television lends itself very well to the concept of a time loop. The show almost always resets itself at the end of every episode and it begins the next episode in essentially the same place. The order of the episodes often doesn’t matter. Everything is always happening, nothing happens, it doesn’t matter. In M*A*S*H specifically, one of the core themes of the show is the cyclical nature of war. It intentionally pokes fun at the repetition, the monotony with lines like ‘the future’s been canceled by the war department’ and ‘Father, what do you think of purgatory so far?’ as well as with aspects such as the omnipresent PA voice. Hawkeye Pierce becomes the main focus of the show and the audience's lens in many ways and as such is one of the easiest introductions to this concept. Hawkeye complains about being stuck nearly every episode and often phrases it as though he is not just stuck as a surgeon in a war zone, but as if his whole life is stuck, as if his past and future are all contained within the war. Another character giving credence to this theory is Radar O’Riley. Radar earned his nickname due to his uncanny ability to sense incoming wounded before anyone else and to predict what his commanding officers will ask for before they open their mouths. While this is certainly a fun gag for the show, many think it shows that Radar is aware, consciously or unconsciously, of the time loop. Radar is aware of when the choppers will arrive and when Henry needs files because it has all happened before and will happen again. Many fans also point out that this could be the reason for Radar’s reaction to Henry being sent home. It is more than just realizing that he will be left in Korea while the man he has come to see as a father figure goes home to his family. On some level, Radar remembers that Henry will not make it home; he knows he can not stop it. Of course one of the biggest pieces of evidence against the idea of a time loop is the fact that it does end. Everyone goes home in the end, however, this does not entirely disprove the theory. Many pieces of media that focus on the concept of time loops end with our protagonists escaping. But they can not escape entirely. Though all of our characters leave Korea by the end of the series, those who are still alive have not left completely. They will be stuck remembering this time forever. 

While the original intention of M*A*S*H certainly was not to tell a story about a group of army doctors, nurses, and enlisted men trapped in a time loop, that is in many ways the story we got. It is the best showcase of the cycle, the monotonous horror of war in modern media. The only changes come with tragedy, death, or abandonment. It is a time loop in the only ways that matter.

[enihk-writes]

[shared body]

character: cho sam

summary: a series of what i think happened to cho sam before and after chung myung took over his body, very stream of conscious questions and headcannons i have. might not make sense.

author's note: idk if yall have read the manga called the one within the villaness where the protagonist is the og owner of the body but gets in a limbo within her own consciousness so she is very aware when someone else has possessed her body, she also sees the other person's memories before the possession etc. will get into more details below.

═══════════════

BEFORE

CHO SAM who was probably a child born into a decent household with a roof over his head and food during meals until something happened to his parents / guardians that caused him to be abandoned at a young age. young enough that he cannot defend himself but probably not so young that he doesn't know his own birthname, talk or walk. considering that he might be getting bullied by the older beggar children around him, either because CHO SAM is really easy to take advantage of since he's meek or it's easy to take advantage of him because he's grown up sheltered

CHO SAM born into a decent household means there's a chance he's learnt how to read and write at some point, so there's also a chance where he learns about history and it's there he learns about the war, cheon ma and of course, the plum blossom sword saint. if we base this on the webtoon appearance, CHO SAM might notice that he has similar physical traits as this legendary hero so i don't think it would be far off to assume that in this case, the boy might begin to look up to the plum blossom sword saint as his own personal hero or something close to that. i think it's the type of thinking that would make sense to a child.

CHO SAM who might have prayed to the sword saint and looked up to him by trying to emulate that guy's behaviour in his everyday life from what he knows about the sword saint which was not a lot and vere mostly verbal accounts of someone else's observation which would have likely been heavily embellished, but CHO SAM doesn't know that yet.

CHO SAM on the day he 'dies' finds himself on the receiving end of an older beggar child's beating for some insignificant mistake he's made. i think that CHO SAM would have prayed to anybody out there for help, salvation, anything to get him out of this place because it's worn him down so much.

when the next hit on his head comes, CHO SAM squeezes his eyes shut but when he doesn't feel the pole hit his head, he opens his eyes to see that he's not exactly in control of his body. it's moving the way he's not asking it to, he's speaking in a way that's unfamiliar to him, he's in his body and not all at the same time.

AFTER

CHO SAM learns pretty quickly that something or someone has taken over all functions of his body and he's not exactly been kicked out of living in it either so he's not too sure what to call this.

while it's not immediate, there will come a point in time when the body will assimilate and manage to accommodate the two souls living in it, CHO SAM is the only one between the two that knows of this.

CHO SAM eventually learns that the one who has possessed his body is chung myung, the same plum blossom sword saint he's looked up to like some god his whole life. and at first, he's excited, then he's confused and then now he's a little conflicted. because for what reason is it his body out of everyone else's that gets 'chosen' for this possession? he may never know the answer.

i think that CHO SAM can't do much other than to watch what chung myung does in his body, he might be in awe at chung myung's abilities and probably wonders what else he can do.

(slight tangent) while i think that all of chung myung's skills and abilities he's amassed over the years is no joke, there's another thing that i've been thinking of — did chung myung, to an extent, luck out when he possessed CHO SAM'S body instead of anybody else? like if it had been someone who had lesser potential do you think chung myung would have taken a way longer time to reach the level he is at currently? or would it not even matter because he's got a lifetime's worth of experience so something like a little bit of physical setback is nothing to him? who knows. i'm just pulling things out of my ass

when CHO SAM first glimpses at chung myung's memories, he cannot look away. they've both lived like this for so long that it's only natural that they begin to merge a little. how much of the current chung myung is him and how much of him is chung myung type of thing. it is surprising that none of CHO SAM'S own memories have surfaced to show itself to chung myung, maybe it's because it's not really chung's myung own body?

when chung myung gets injured, CHO SAM obviously cannot feel it, but the sight of blood scares him nonetheless. is it because he feels for chung myung or is it because he is looking at what used to be his physical form getting marred like it meant nothing? chung myung as someone who cares so little for his own well-being that he would push past his injuries to do what he is supposed to almost out of instinct but he holds back and tries to tend to himself every once in a while as though he is reminded of someone's nagging.

CHO SAM doesn't know how to feel in this situation, should he be angry at chung myung for treating his body, their body, so carelessly? again he wonders if this body can even be considered his anymore, or shared together, or has the roles flipped to make CHO SAM become the intruder to this body?

SPECULATIONS FOR THE END

what happens after chung myung accomplishes everything he sets out to do? does he vanish? is he granted entry into heaven where he meets his loved ones that died? will he hesitate to rest in peace?

(if cm chooses to die) : CHO SAM wakes up but for the first time in years he's back in control of his own body but so much has changed and he still feels like a child in this now grown up body so how is he going to navigate through all of that? he's seen all the feats chung myung has achieved and now how is he going to keep up with that precedent?

(if cm chooses to live) : what will CHO SAM do? will he try to make himself known to chung myung or will he accept that there isn't much he can do and goes along for the ride? say some god or spiritualist finally set CHO SAM free and let him be separated from a fate he was never destined to have, he can finally live as he wants but will he leave? nobody in the world knows who CHO SAM the beggar is, but he knows all about the people who have come into contact with 'him' in some way. do they want to know about him though?

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end thoughts: i know that it's not a very coherent post but i needed to get the thoughts out my system before i start having brain worms and stop sleeping at night

[grandhotelabyss]

Interesting essay above in Compact on "Austen's Darkness," and points for making the argument with reference to Emma rather than Mansfield Park. I wrote once about Emma myself, but I found the darkness darker still in Sense and Sensibility (David Mitchell's favorite Austen novel, apparently, since I've been on a Mitchell kick.) Ironically, the single most Compact thing I ever wrote—I wrote it two years before Compact was founded, in the midst of the lockdown but before the riot—is my essay on Sense and Sensibility. Here is the gravamen, perhaps a bit too apocalyptic, though understandably so given the circumstances of its composition:

For [Tony] Tanner, Austen commends this social arrangement by a rather punitive immuring of Marianne’s passion within the ideological architecture of the novel (“one might think that something is being vengefully stamped out”), but he praises Austen nevertheless for encoding into her fiction with an almost Freudian insight all that organized society quells and subdues. Later writers would take up the hint, for aesthetic and political purposes the reverse of Austen’s. Austen herself will develop the use of focalized narration begun in Sense and Sensibility into the free indirect discourse that makes Emma a formal paradigm of the modern novel. A century after Austen, free indirect discourse—the third-person narrator’s adoption of the inner language of the characters—will overspill the banks of reasoned storytelling to become less the proverbial streams than the spates and torrents of consciousness we find in Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and other modernists. Marianne’s revenge on her deviser is to undermine from within the narrative method meant to secure the authority of Elinor’s perspective. The passionate individual in despite all of reason commandeers the novel, and the novel’s 20th-century abandonment of the marriage plot is a concomitant of its modernist commitment to desire, this in tandem with a middle class reproduced less and less solely in the domestic sphere. By the time Toni Morrison rewrites Sense and Sensibility as Sula in 1973, neither reader nor writer doubts that the eponymous anarchic “sister” Sula is in the right, and the socially reasonable one (named Nel, a plausible diminutive of Elinor) the victim of a respectable death-in-life that has throttled all love and ardor. Today we have replaced Austen’s socio-sexual contract—rationally feeling man provides rationally feeling woman a household, in return for which she proffers the intimate superintendence that legitimizes middle-class power—with the one foretold by Woolf and codified by Morrison on the utterly sympathetic behalf of social elements Austen haughtily ignores (the queer, the colonized, the marginalized). Yet just as Austen didn’t intend for her innovation in the form of the novel—free indirect discourse—to aid the triumph of an individualism she otherwise feared, so Woolf and Morrison might hesitate before the world their own innovations have helped to materialize. Now desiring individuals, liberated from the heterosexual bourgeois household and almost from gender itself, atomized in metropolitan space, form temporary contracts in a gamified and pornified virtual marketplace that funds (where it is not funded by credit) the means of social reproduction in the academic diaspora of broader “online.” This is the state of middle-class woman now (and “middle-class woman” is more a class category than a gender one: if you’re reading this—or, indeed, writing it—the term applies to you). Marianne Dashwood (or Lily Briscoe or Sula Peace) has triumphed: today, she issues defenses of desire on podcasts and Patreon and posts pictures of her swollen ankle and putrid tonsils for the fetishists among her OnlyFans subscribers. If Elinor still functions as her conscience, she does so in the administrative bureaus of the corporation and university—human resources, diversity and equity—where her job is to intercept and interdict threats to the untrammeled unfolding of Marianne’s consciousness. This metamorphosis has undoubtedly liberated the individual from the stifling convention of bourgeois domesticity, but is the place where it has installed her now, where she must sell soul and body by algorithm just to stay alive, any less a prison?

[cisthehuman]

Cis the Human--April 21,2021

Trigger warning: Discusses loss of family member, suicide ideation, self harm, PTSD, and depression

TLDR: April 21 is a very, very bad day for me. CisLunar is heavily based upon my own grief I'm experiencing.

I have thought heavily on whether to share these things about me. However, I feel like having them out in the open will not only show more about the human running this blog and streams, but shed light on the CisLunar story as a whole. This will be a stream of consciousness type writing as most of my posts on here. So please bear with the changing topics and such. As this is personal, I won't go too in depth in some of the harder things. It is, to put lightly, a bummer to remember and rehash. But here we go.

T.S. Elliot, one of my least favorite writers, famously started one of his most famous works with the line: April is the cruelest month. Who knew I would agree with him?

April 21, 2021 is when I watched my father leave for work as usual and received a call in the middle of the day with the news of him passing away suddenly.

To put things in perspective, I was raised in a very sheltered household and some of my closest relationships are with my family. My father has his own shortcomings, as we all do as people, but he was a major part of my life.

Dealing with the heaviness of surviving him was hard. Not only that, my whole family was grieving the missing piece in our unit. As someone who has some unchecked/undiagnosed issues, it set off poorer habits I thought I left behind. I thought of different ways to end things, I used a razor to scar my skin again, and impulsively sought out to destroy things that made me happy. I forced myself into isolation because I believe it was what I deserved.

I would relive that day for months, and became extremely anxious and afraid of everything. Now, it is a complete blank space in my memory. All I can remember is feeling everything and nothing at the same time.

I have a very vague recollection of getting out of a terrible setback, and remembering a moment between my father and myself. He told me to remember to take care of myself in these bad times. I didn't know what to do take care of myself aside from doing what has always given me peace--creating.

I started writing about grief and the emptiness it brings and the weight is has on a person. This writing slowly turned into the story for CisLunar. While it has now gotten a lot more fictional parts, there are some particular details that are based in my reality.

I'm not sure why I wanted to share this aside from April being a very hard month for me. I always try to stream a lot during this month, and some how I always get something to make me go on a hiatus. Maybe the universe is telling me to take it easy during April.

Today makes 3 years since I lost my dad. Three years ago, I changed into a different person. While I'm not whole or the person I used to be, I have been able to rise out of the darkness that consumed me. I'm not saying these things to get pity points or any condolences. I guess I'm just trying to finally allow myself a little space to share this uncomfortable news.

Don't worry too much about me though, by the time you're reading this, I would be well into my at home spa day. I've been able to make positive habits to combat the bad ones.

I'm going to awkwardly end things here--my tolerance for rehashing this is going away. I'd like to think/talk about happier things now lol

For those that read--thanks. For those who understand what I'm going through--let's hope it all gets better for us.

See you on the next one.

[denimbex1986]

'25 years after The Talented Mr. Ripley turned Tom Ripley into a household name, Netflix is getting ready to bring the character back, just the latest in a long slate of revivals. Ripley, a new miniseries from the streaming juggernaut, will debut soon. The series, which will star Andrew Scott in the titular role and be filmed entirely in black and white, has been eagerly anticipated by TV lovers everywhere. And, hot on the heels of Saltburn, it will be an important reminder of where so much of that movie’s plotting and style come from. Here’s everything we know about the upcoming miniseries (which could eventually run for more seasons):

What is Ripley about?

Ripley is adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s novels about her most famous character. The first, The Talented Mr. Ripley, begins when a wealthy industrialist hires Tom Ripley to help bring his son Dickie home from Italy. As Tom becomes more and more involved with Dickie’s life, though, he becomes obsessed with him, and it isn’t long before things take a dark and sinister turn.

Ripley was followed in subsequent novels as well as he continued to manipulate and murder his way through the halls of power. It seems, though, that this entire eight-episode miniseries will focus on the events of The Talented Mr. Ripley. For those familiar with the movie, which adapted the same novel, this version of the story will likely give the story much more room to breathe. Ripley will ingratiate himself into Dickie���s world much more slowly than he does in the movie. Here’s what the official synopsis for the series explains:

“Tom Ripley, a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, is hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy to try to convince his vagabond son to return home. Tom’s acceptance of the job is the first step into a complex life of deceit, fraud, and murder. The limited series drama is based on Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling Tom Ripley novels.”

Who is in the cast of Ripley?

Andrew Scott will be starring in the series as Tom Ripley, and the cast also includes Dakota Fanning as Marge Sherwood and Johnny Flynn as Dickie Greenleaf. Those roles were played by Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law in the 1999 movie, whereas Ripley was played by Matt Damon.

In taking on the iconic character, Scott said that he tried to abandon all the expectations that come with the character.”I feel like you’re required to love and advocate for your characters, and your job is to go, Why? What’s that? You don’t play the opinions, the previous attitudes that people might have about Tom Ripley,” he explained. “You have to throw all those out, try not to listen to them, and go, Okay, well, I have to have the courage to create our own version and my own understanding of the character.”

Who are the creators of Ripley?

Steve Zaillian, the TV creator best known for his work on the 2016 HBO miniseries The Night Of with John Turturro and Riz Ahmed, wrote, directed, and produced all of Ripley. Zaillian also has writing credits on movies like The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Moneyball, and The Irishman.

“Tom Ripley is a part of our consciousness,” Zallian told Vanity Fair. “Almost 70 years after Highsmith created him, contemporary figures are still being compared to him. He won’t go away.”

Is there a trailer for Ripley?

The trailer for Ripley was released in late February and showcases the black and white cinematography that will distinguish this miniseries from the 1999 film and other adaptations. The trailer emphasizes the most familiar pieces of the Ripley story, but it’s unclear how far we’ll follow the character into subsequent Highsmith novels.

How many episodes is Ripley?

Ripley, which was originally commissioned by Showtime, will be eight episodes in total.

Will there be a second season of Ripley?

Because it has been billed as a miniseries, it seems clear that Ripley is not intended to be a multi-season series. It’s been reported, though, that Zaillian originally pitched the show as multi-season and envisioned adapting each of Highsmith’s five novels about Ripley into its own season. For now, though, it seems like the show will be just a single season, although it seems clear that Zaillian and Scott could reunite for another season if they so desired.

When does Ripley premiere?

Ripley is set to premiere on Netflix on April 4, 2024, and all eight episodes will be available on Netflix at that time. No subsequent seasons have been officially announced.'

[elegidalamsunyi]

Hello, my name is Salome,

and this isn’t my first time writing things on this page, but here I am again. Before I publish my writings; which mostly consist of my stream of consciousness and difficult emotions I experienced during my early twenties, I would like to give you my main purpose and why I started this blog. Why I decided to share whatever I think needs to be poured.

Vulnerability isn’t something i learned to embrace throughout my life. I grew up in a loving household, although we express our love in a certain way Expressing negative emotions isn’t my forte and I’ve learned to keep it hidden my whole life.

Entering my early twenties, i realized that i’m starting to go through something different. A lot of experiences in my life involve difficult emotions i have never encountered while growing up. I grew up putting my blood, sweat, and tears for my academics and i had little to no time for things outside of my education. So i’m learning to put words to those feelings, to let it out before my heart gets corrosive.

So, welcome. Welcome to my most honest form of emotional state. Please, be gentle and kind on this page.

[thepatronsaintoffilth]

Hi, newbie writer here.

How do you get passed the embarrassment of writing smut? Hell, I’m struggling to get over the embarrassment of writing, period (I’m a mega perfectionist and hate everything I do 😅)

Any advice?

I'm going to answer both (writing in general and writing smut in particular) at kind of the same time, because a lot of the principles for getting around self-consciousness and embarrassment with writing applies to ALL writing, smut or otherwise. I will add a few things toward the end about erotica specifically though.

the short, boring, oversimplified (but correct) answer: Practice, practice, practice.

the expanded version:

Seriously, get into the habit of writing A LOT and CONSISTENTLY and SHIT-ILY until you wear down the part of your brain that's worried about getting it perfect on the first, second or 12th try.

This isn't just necessary for mining good work out of raw material, its essential to getting past self-consciousness and having fun with the process. Because once you start having fun with it, you'll stop holding yourself back. Which leads to writing more, which leads to better writing, on and on; it's an upward spiral, a virtuous cycle.

I have a notebook that I handwrite my ideas and rough passages and stuff in, and I write in pen. I do that for a specific reason: It puts me in the habit of crossing and scratching things out and not being able to take back what I say in the form of erasing with a pencil or a blinking cursor in a word doc.

That really, really helped me get over my own perfectionism because once I learned to stop expecting so much from myself in the drafting and pre-writing stage, the rest of the creative process really opened up for me. Once I let my writing be "ugly", imperfect, stream-of-consciousness chicken scratch, it felt more like play than work. That's the key.

Also: write for YOURSELF first, then worry about making it fit for others. You're going to be your first reader, your first fan, and its YOUR life, subconscious, interests and desires that are going to shape what you make. I'm so serious about this. No one - and I mean, NO ONE - reads and rereads my own work more than I do and that's because I write the kind of things I wish I could see more of and I enjoy giving myself exactly what I want.

Plus on a practical level, you're going revise and edit and rewrite a lot (depending on how you define your work's "readiness" for others to see it), so its essential to enjoy what you're making because you're going to be spending SO much time with it. No one but you is entitled to ever see your first drafts, so don't be afraid to get weird with it.

These are some books I highly recommend that not only go into the creative process, but also the mentality and emotional parts of being a writer: embarrassment, perfectionism, society's influence on us, how we struggle with the creative process because it differs so wildly from how we're taught to behave normally, the reasons WHY we write, etc, etc.

(And I'm only going to recommend these two, not because they're best, be-all end-all books on the subject, but because if I recommended everything I wanted to, we'd be here all damn day)

Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes

Writing smut: This one's a little trickier.

I'm a very sexual person, have been for as long as I can remember, so I've gravitated towards erotic fiction (even before I should have been looking at that). And I tend to befriend others who feel the same way, so I'm used to not only writing about wild shit, I talk about it constantly as well. All that has given me an advantage because I'm pretty shameless.

Having said that, I was raised in a quasi-religious (don't ask) household, in the deep South as a closeted person so I'm no stranger to shame, guilt and self-disgust, as well as the self consciousness that comes with it. The cheat code for this is to eroticize the pain, turn it into a weapon for you instead of against you. It's hard to explain, but I wrote about it ... somewhere (can't find the damn link on my blog, I'll get back to you on this one)

Apart from all the advice above, I would say immerse yourself in erotic fiction and associate with others who do too. Get to know your likes and wants, seek out that kind of material and get a feel for how different writers describe and phrase things. This, in addition to writing more in general, should help you find your voice.

ALSO, ONE LAST THING (god this ask is a mess, I hope you got something from this)

As far as hating everything you do, that's totally part of the process. It sucks, but don't make it suck more by feeling guilty about it; it's natural. I know for me personally, I get to a point in my editing process where I hate everything I'm looking at, I feel like a fraud and I've tricked everyone into thinking I'm a real writer and I should just trash it all.

Aaaaand that's when I know its almost ready to post! Everything's going according to plan!

(... writing is a very weird process, if you take nothing else from all this word vomit, at least take that to heart)

Good luck and godspeed

- M.

[mimikoflamemaker]

On Me and Writing

This will be another essay/rant/consciousness stream/what have you. But this one pertains to what I hope will be the nearest future in the writing department.

If you are following my fanfic updates, you know that last one was, rather shamefully, back in July. I can say this is because life is busy when you are running a household – or that I have been busy with other stuff, like larps. Which would be true of course – we all know life happens. And when it’s also enjoyable, who we are to not go with it?

And I have been finding these changes happening in my life very enjoyable, mind you. Truth to be told, despite the world-flipping event of losing my mother and the pandemic we are all dealing with, I feel like the last two years were so much fuller and better in the general living department that the previous… ten has been, that I am not even sure where to begin being thankful for that.

I’ve met my people – who want me and my weirdness around in real life. I’ve managed to shift the way I look at the world and people around me and, most importantly, the way I look at myself. Maybe not completely just yet, but I am very close to it right now. It is such a joy to me to notice these changes – whether that would be through the way I now interact with random strangers throughout my day or by this newfound desire to just do things, even the mundane instead of putting them off and spending my days staring at the computer screen.

In short, as outlandish as it would have sounded to me not so long ago, I am happy.

And the big part of this, is because I decided to go to therapy. But, we’ve already spoke about it at length, and this was supposed to be about writing, not me complaining to my therapist take 1115.

However, as I realized lately, these two things may have been more connected than I initially wanted to admit.

Therapy gave me so much. But as it is often in life, it demanded payment. Or rather, an exchange, as we are not talking here about me spending a lot of money to set myself straight.

Truth to be told, my less than stellar update schedule, stems more from the fact that I have been struggling for a while, than from being busy as much as we have to factor this one in as well. And while I can honestly say, I’ve been struggling with writing in general, the main point of problem, has been, incidentally, Journey of Oaths, the story I’ve been the most adamant so far about continuing.

Though struggling is probably a wrong word for it, because to me it kind of implies feeling badly about not being able to do something. And I have been frustrated a bit, yes. Felt slightly guilty for not delivering to my readers. But I haven’t felt well and truly bad about not being able to write. Not like I used to feel anyway.

You see, probably in the same way it is to so many of you, writing had been kind of a “therapy” to me for as long as I can remember. It was a “feel-better” activity, a go-to when I wanted to get my mind off of things or when I wanted to work though something bothering me. It was a way to, in a way, live through my characters. Which is especially true for Lithien, who has been with me since I was twelve. She has been my wish-fulfilment first, then she was my shield, my comfort and my escape. She evolved over the years and I watched on in wonder as she became a better character and loved one at that, by more people than just me, when I put her story on the internet.

She was a companion and a friend. There are so many things I will forever be grateful for her.

But she was, ultimately, always written from the position of seeking solace. Looking back at it now, the times when I published most regularly are coincidentally times when I was struggling one way or another, last time being when my mother was sick and I have been piled with enough stuff to do to break even the most resilient camel’s back.

Lithien came to the rescue when I am feeling down. And that’s great. That’s another thing to be thankful for. But now it’s different. I am a different person. I am thinking differently. And Lithien, while still dear to me, is no longer needed as what she had always basically was – a distraction.

Therapy gave me other ways to deal with all of that unpleasant stuff. For some strange reason, I took liking to running out of my own volition. Once a week I meet up with a group of nerds that allow me to beat them purple with a stick, basically. I am getting beaten in return, but that’s part of the fun. I could go on – the point is. I have other venues to channel that anxious energy.

And Lithien as a character, kind of lost some of her appeal as well. As much as I worked to make her bigger and better, at her core, she still comes from the wish-fulfillment of a teenage girl. She was in many ways, what I wanted to be and thought, I never would be. She’s got everything I wanted to have and, thought I never get. And most importantly perhaps, when her story starts, she is… a finished product. A whole person. This is a great simplification of her arc and her story. Because if would be a lie to say that she does not change and remains unaffected by the events of JoO, but she starts her journey from the position of strength and confidence and never really loses is for too long.

As much as I love her, she does not resonate with me right now. Neve does, much more, but I have been keeping her story on the back burner in hope it will kick JoO into gear. It didn’t. And now I understand I need to stop hoping.

Lithien lost her roots – or at the very least the majority of it. And as much as I still want to one day post a finale to her story, I am not going to simply power my way through that. I tried. And I thought about it. Pushing it won’t change a thing. I need to wait and see, if Lithien will come back to me somehow, feeding on different desires this time. To see, if I will rediscover that connection. But to do that, I can’t keep idling on the story and wait for the next words to simply start falling into place once again.

I need to move forward, search for different purpose and inspiration. It the end, this is something she would do as well. And just as Lithien always ended up returning to Loth Lόrien and her brother. I hope I will to, eventually return to the pages of Journey of Oaths.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep pursuing. And we will see where that will get me.

[dreamscapesin1582]

videndum.

for sebastian’s birthday that should have been posted days ago but apparently it wasnt and i only realized it now alksndihsab

Oh dear…

He sat up groggily, glancing at his window to see the sun was still up. It seems it wasn’t that long when he took a nap.

“I better get up—”

Sebastian snapped his head to the direction of the door to look at the disheveled woman that blasted it open. For a moment, he was too dumbfounded to process what happened.

“I heard you collapsed!”

“…What?” His brain finally resumed working as he pondered who would say such an exaggerated idea. Sir Arthur perhaps? “Who told you that?”

“Comte!”

Comte. Of course. Despite the gentlemanly aura he exuded, his sire still had a streak of a jester. And perhaps borne out of his affection for the both of them that he played the joke.

“I just got a cold. Nothing as serious as what you’re imagining… or what you’ve been told.” He explained. “I was told to rest for the day without leaving my room. I’m afraid the residents are disgruntled by my absence, so I should just—”

“Nope.” She quickly strode towards him and pushed him back by the shoulders. “It’s okay. I can handle this—we can handle this. Come on, Sebastian. We’re adults.”

“But—” He understood why she could be optimistic about it. She hasn’t seen the disasters it could cause before—Vincent’s soup, for example—but who knew if things would change? She was a new addition, perhaps even the dark horse that could turn that certain nightmare around. “Are you sure about this?”

“Please trust me! You’ve probably been working yourself to the bone. Gosh, I wonder how you survived all this time…” She muttered until she turned to him again with a smile so bright he was convinced that everything was going to be alright. He nodded absentmindedly. “Rest well, Sebastian.”

Once she left the room, there was change in her eyes. She immediately charged to the place where the big man was currently sipping tea.

“…Before you get angry at me, ma cherie, I sincerely apologize.” Comte presented a wry smile as he placed the cup down the table. “I must say, you still look magnificent, even with the pout on your lips.”

“…Comte, as much as I’m grateful for your hospitality and kindness, you can’t just play a bad joke and call me pretty afterwards.”

“Oh? It seems I took it too far.” He straightened his posture from his seat as he faced her. Hands on her hips, she wondered if he thought telling her that Sebastian lost consciousness and had to be carried to his room wasn’t liable to cause her a heart attack. “How can I be forgiven, my beauty?”

Her eyes lit up at a sudden thought, letting her forget about the count’s supposedly heavy crime entirely.

“Well, there is something I would love your help with…”

Meanwhile, Sebastian felt uneasy in his own room. He sighed, massaging his temples as a throbbing headache kept him from leaving his bed. But despite that, he heard the faint noises of the residents’ movements from outside. From there, he assumed most of them were in the same area.

He tried to reach for his coat, the one pocketing his diary, when the door suddenly opened. He immediately turned back. Leonardo casually entered, disposing his cigarillo as he did. “You okay here, Sebas?”

“Yes, Master Leonardo.” Sebastian pressed his lips together, especially after Leonardo chuckled, knowing the truth. “I don’t suppose I could ask why there is a gathering downstairs…?”

“Ah. Don’t worry, you’re not missing out on anything.” He sat down on the chair near the foot of the bed, Sebastian just watching him. “…just that cara mia took the others to the kitchen for some cooking lessons. You know how that one goes.”

“It’s what I was worried about.” Slumping against the headboard, he hesitated on entrusting her with the rest of the day. But then another laugh escaped Leonardo, and after a few seconds there was applause. “Hm?”

“…guess she succeeded.”

A satisfied smirk on his face, Leonardo leaned back against the chair. Eyes closed. Soon, Sebastian was left with himself again, only then there was a sleeping man in front of him.  He sighed, gaze falling down his open palm, and finally reached out for the glorious pocketbook.

But instead of writing anything, he went back to the very first page.

“Well, this is interesting…” He mumbled to himself as he skimmed through his oldest entries. The excitement from then never really died, no matter how many years have passed. A smile naturally appeared on his face. “Fortunate, indeed.”

Living for oneself is beautiful. It was what he told himself when he cast his identity as Satou Akihiko to start anew. As Sebastian, he saw history come to life. And his heart came alive with it. Each and every day, there was not a dull moment.

…and to share this life with another—?

Sebastian closed the diary as the door opened once more, revealing the van Gogh brothers and Arthur. Curiously (with a touch of horror) Vincent was carrying a tray. “Hi, Sebastian. We prepared lunch.”

“Before you hesitate, I can guarantee as a doctor that it is edible.” Arthur chirped from behind, only to be whacked by the younger brother. “What?”

“Just stop talking.” Theo took the tray and marched towards the bedside, placing it gently on the nightstand. “Hondje kept barking that we should do something so here you go.”

“Thank you, but… don’t you have work today, Master Theodorus?”

“Yeah, I just came to check in.” He nodded to Sebastian. “…Word snel beter.”

And he left. Arthur and Vincent remained, paying no attention to Leonardo as they made conversation with Sebastian. He was more than glad to engage, oblivious to the fact that they were just distractions.

Theo met with Napoleon and left the mansion together, on a mission given by the current woman in charge. The others had busied themselves on prettifying the dining room, taking turns on visiting the poor oblivious man.

But in spite of that, he may have cared less. It was almost as if his woes were miniscule to the joy brought by actually being able to converse with the people he had looked up to.

And the day ended like that. Sebastian had given up trying to write an entry because of the constant stream of visitors and the headache brought by his cold. He slept soundly through the night, hoping that more than enough rest could allow him to spring back up in top shape.

His condition wasn’t the only thing that surprised him that morning.

“Happy birthday, Sebastian!”

The residents were all there, their presence alone showing him the sincere appreciation. A hearty meal course, perhaps the hard work of Napoleon and the woman who was now making her way towards him.

“Surprised?”

“…Of course. How were you able to gather them all together like this?”

“How else?” She giggled, nodding to the head of the household who only chuckled at the recognition.

“Oh, but you should have seen the look of dedication in her.” Comte smiled, especially after the disagreeing and exasperated expressions on some of the residents’ faces. “Not once have I seen someone champion over great men like that.”

“A-Anyway,” she pushed something towards his direction, as Sebastian caught it in his hands. A leather-bound notebook. “I had them get this for you.”

He opened it to find that something was already written on the first few pages. Actually, in varied handwriting.

“…You had them write for me?”

“I didn’t force it out of them! They were more than happy to, despite the grumbling of others…” She laughed, proud of herself. But eventually it softened to the beaming smile he had come to like so much. “I knew how much being here means to you. And it makes me happy to see that you are living the best out of your life. So, today, we are going to celebrate that life!”

“I think that was the signal!”

Everyone raised their glasses. “To another year!”

He heard the loud beats of his heart. The same way he found himself being face to face with them for the first time—happy to be there, at that spot.

Was he really seeing this right now? Some of the greatest men of history, raising their glass in cheers for another year of his life. In his hands were letters in dedication to him. Beside him was the one who made it all happen.

“How fortunate I am to be alive right now…” He bowed and stepped forward, entering the inner circle as they finally went on and ate together.

To spend days not knowing what would happen next. The joy of witnessing it. The years ahead seem worth it… knowing that they would be there, too.    

[chickensarentcheap]

I Found- Chapter 1

A/N: Hey folks!  This is little visit to the past in honour of the one year anniversary of Extraction and this fic itself.  As of tomorrow, I will post two to three chapters A DAY until all are up.  I know they’re a mess on my blog right now and people who don’t want to go to Ao3 can’t find all the chapters. I was going to thoroughly edit, but I thought ‘why not leave it as is?’.  It’s a little more than 365 days old now and a lot has changed for both the characters and my writing itself. As my long time readers and supporters can tell you :).  So keep in mind, this was my first foray into writing Tyler and it’s rough and it’s a little...not the me I am now...but it’s a fun ride, IMO.

Fandom: Extraction

Pairing: Tyler Rake and Esme Rake (Original Female Character)

Face Claims: Chris Hemsworth (obviously) and Rachel Bilson

Premise: Broken and bleeding. Weathered and in tatters. Two damaged and weary souls find one another when they least expect it. Wrong place, wrong time. Yet both powerless to stop it.

Summary: Eleven months after the events in Dhaka and his near death experience, Tyler Rake is a new man. A different man. Struggling with the demons of his past while balancing being a husband and a father.

AO3 Link:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/23945782/chapters/57587218

It's been just shy of twelve months and his instincts are still keen; nerves rash and fresh, body and mind always on high alert. The proof to the old adage that old habits really do die hard.

A journey to the very brink of death. Weeks of lying in a hospital bed teetering on the threshold of this life and the next. Countless agonizing hours of rehab and physical therapy just to relearn the basics and get back onto his weary and battered feet. Once he was home nothing had been able to slow him down. He threw everything he had into healing. Every ounce of mind, body, and spirit. Pushing himself past the warnings and the limits that the doctors and specialists had set for him. Ignoring the advice on not to push himself too hard, too fast. He felt as if he didn't have a choice. He no longer just had himself to worry about; another human being with one on the way that was relying on him. Depending on him to take care of them. Provide for them. Protect them. So he had pushed himself to the brink of both exhaustion and physical and emotional collapse. Eventually finding himself back at at the gym and packing on the weight and muscle. Anxious for some semblance of the man he used to be.

He hears the soft rustle of blankets though the monitor on the nightstand and his eyes immediately snap open. Sleep was a strange beast for him these days. Nights where he could fall into a peaceful slumber and stay there until sunlight was streaming through the window, others where the pain was all encompassing and nauseating and he couldn't get comfortable, and those where he was haunted by the demons of his past. The latter didn't come nearly as often as they did before; managing to find some hint of internal peace with the things he had done and witnessed. Once in a while he'd find himself back on that bridge; assaulted by the smells of gun powder and lead. The acrid taste of blood on his lips. And he'd hear her voice and feel her hands; the way she cradled his face in them, the way she'd pulled his nearly lifeless body tight against her, felt those tears that fell on his skin. Thankfully he'd awaken and quickly discover that he was in the safety and comfort of his own home. His own bed. And he'd watch her as she slept; the way the moonlight painted her smooth skin in an ethereal glow and the slight smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. He'd watch her and listen to her breathe and he'd remind himself of just how far he had come. Gratitude spreading through him like a slow burning fire. Thankful for the second chance that he'd been given. For the love that he'd found during one of the darkest and most difficult periods of his life. She'd given him a reason. A purpose. And he wasn't going to take that for granted.

He groans as he rolls over onto his back. The pain isn't as bad tonight. There were times he could barely even move. Where the agony made him dizzy and nauseous and even the simplest of tasks seemed impossible to preform. Tonight it's a dull ache; a nagging pain that has settled deep into his bones and his joints but he has learned to deal with. Placing his hands behind his head, he waits and listens. The lights from the monitor dancing across the ceiling as life stirs in the room across the hall. He's gotten used to it; the little noises, the soft sighs, the slight fussing before she settles herself back to sleep. It wasn't his first rodeo after all; not his first foray into fatherhood. But it is the first time he's been able to be more hands on. Put his be all and end all into the nurturing. And this time he knows he will get it right. He's determined to make amends for the mistakes of his past. Moving on didn't mean forgetting. It didn't mean that the love and regret and the guilt weren't still there, lingering just under the surface. Sometimes the greatest homage to the dead was how the living continued. How they made up for the bad decisions they made and how those decisions had...in the end...helped shape them into a better person.

The sounds through the monitor continue and he sits up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and giving his body and brain time to adjust to full consciousness. Running his hands through his hair and over his tired face, fingers brushing against the various scars that serve as a lasting memory of his former life. A pair of sweats sit in a discarded pile by the bed and he reaches for them; softly muttering profanities at the various cracks and pops that his body makes at the simple task of pulling on his pants. Scar tissue, arthritis, remnants of shrapnel and bullets that couldn't safely be removed. All working together to be a complete pain in his ass. His wife moves behind him. Sighing loudly and contently as she rolls over onto her side. Not waking as her hand instinctively reaching out for him; finger tips brushing against his back just as he stands up.

He is out the door and in the hall before the first shrill cry erupts. Yawning and stretching noisily as he steps into the nursery. A cheerful room with soft yellow walls, pink, white, and purple stripped curtains and natural wood furniture. Teddy bears and dolls staring down at him from the perches on the shelves on the wall, accompanied by framed photos of baby animals and Disney characters. He'd never pictured himself a 'girl dad'; frilly dresses and the tiny socks with the lace around the ankles, and the little headbands that served no other purpose than being cute. He was rough and tumble. Always had been, even from an early age. So when he'd found out he was having a daughter he'd been terrified. He didn't know the first thing about taking care of little girls and doing their hair and healing their broken hearts. And for the first time in his life was actually scared of something. Or someone. A being that hadn't even been born yet but was already making a huge impact on his life.

“You'll be fine,” his wife had assured him when he'd expressed his concern. Watching from the couch as she stood at the kitchen table folding laundry. Including a newly purchased outfit and those tiny teeny socks that she had purchased just hours ago. She was so beautiful. Standing there with that chestnut hair tumbling down to her waist, her belly swollen with their child. HIS child. A child that had been conceived in the midst of all the chaos and uncertainty. “You've ridden this particular bike before,” she'd reminded him. “This isn't your first time going through this.”

“That was different. That was a boy. This is a girl. This is dresses and pig tails and tea parties and make up and other boys.”

“Tyler, that's years down the road. You can't worry about that stuff. Make up and boys? You can't dwell on what she's going to be like when she's a teenager.”

“I sure bloody well can. Because knowing my luck she'll end up just like her mother. Full of piss and vinegar and all kinds of trouble.”

“You always did know how to get yourself into heaps of it,” she'd smirked, and tossed a pair of balled up socks in his direction, just missing his head. “But you always managed to get yourself out of it too.”

“I knew you were trouble from the very second I met you, you know,” he'd said, as he got off the couch and wandered over to where she was so diligently working. Liking the way that simple white gold wedding band looked on her finger. He still hadn't gotten used to; it had only been a few months and even with that life growing in her belly, they were still very much enjoying being newlyweds. He liked it. Being a husband. He liked the simplicity and the comforts that came with the little things that took up their new life. Household chores and preparing meals and sharing a bed with the same warm body and beautiful face each and every day. Mundane to some. A welcome change and relief to him.

“I wasn't the one with the reputation for being difficult,” she'd reminded him. “I wasn't the one who was like a bear with a sole asshole even on his best days.”

“Yet here you are. Playing house with me. A good little wife. Giving me babies. So I must have done something right, huh?” he'd playfully nudged her with his elbow. “You stuck around. Through thick or thin. I put you through a lot of shit and agony and here you are. Here WE are.”

“You can't get rid of me that easily, Tyler Rake. You think you would have realized that by now.”

“Getting rid of you is the last thing I ever want.”

They'd stood in companionable silence; working quickly and efficiently together. Little boring tasks that they almost never got to experience. He'd never take things like that for granted again. And he'd grabbed a pair of her underwear from the fresh pile and hooking them around his finger, grinned as he swung them around.

“How'd we ever graduate to these, huh? These are not what I remember you wearing. You weren't wearing any the first time we...well...you know...”

“You're such a pig,” she'd grumbled, and tried to snatch them away. Frowning when he held them high above his head. Not an easy reach for a woman that only stood five foot three. “What is wrong with you? Seriously.”

“I thought you were trouble the second I met you. The way you shook my hand. The way you smiled at me. But I knew it for sure when I had you pinned against that wall and I put my hand down your shorts and realized that you weren't any underwear. Remember that? That first time? I knew I was in trouble but I didn't want to stop. I couldn't stop. I was surprised you were such a kinky little thing.”

“You've got issues. What is your major malfunction?”

“Nothing wrong with a little visit to the past. Especially when it involves being naked.”

“Would you stop?” she'd perched herself on her tip toes and frantically tried to grab the offending piece of clothing from his grasp. “What's gotten into you?”

“It's what hasn't gotten into you in a while,” he'd retorted, laughing when she'd directed a slap to his gut, his arms circling her waist when she'd lost her balance and tumbled into him. And they'd stood like that; her head against his chest, his eyes closed and his chin resting on the top of her head. Loving all those things about her that had become so familiar and comforting to him. The lingering scent of coconut shampoo that clung to her hair, the feel of her heart beating against him, those small and soft hands stroking up and down his back. This woman...the one that had seen him at his most fragile...who he owed his life to.

Her hands were on the back of his shoulders when she'd pulled away and looked up at him. Her eyes sparkling as she smiled. A smile he had once thought he'd never see again.

“I love you,” he'd told her. Three words that he had always hesitated on uttering before but now couldn't say enough. If Gaspar was still around he'd call him soft. Tell him he was whipped and a pussy and needed to get his balls back. But he wasn't around anymore.

A lot of people weren't.

“I know,” she'd said. “But not nearly as much as I love you.”

“Hey, this isn't a competition. And if it was, I'd win. I always do.”

“You have a very overinflated sense of yourself,” she'd chided.

He was her rock. He knew that. Even when he was still recovering and he was nothing more than a mere fraction of the man he once was. Even when she had to help nurse him back to health and he'd had to trust her completely with even the mundane things like feeding himself and brushing his teeth. But she'd stuck by him. Even when he felt humiliated that he even needed help with such things. Embarrassed that she was seeing him so vulnerable. Allowing her to see his tears of anger, frustration, and pain. She'd always said that he was the only one that made her feel safe and secure. Protected. Even when he wasn't at his best.

“Shit...” She'd grimaced when the baby had kicked her especially hard. Eyes closing and her forehead falling onto his chest.

“Even I felt that one.” He’d e'd move one hand from her waist to her ever growing stomach. Marvelling at the way he could feel their baby...his baby...moving inside of her. It may not have been his first time. Not his first child. But he was determined to enjoy every second of it and not take a single moment for granted. “See what I mean? Trouble just like her mom. Feisty as all hell. A boy wouldn't cause this many issues.”

“Boys come with a whole shit load of issues. After all, it was a boy that got me into this situation in the first place.”

“Come on now, I wasn't the only one that was having all the fun. You seemed to be enjoying yourself too. I didn't make this baby all on my own, you know.”

“It was fun,” she'd admitted. “It always is.”

“Yeah. It most definitely is.”

One of her hands came down to rest on top of his and they stood there together, feeling their child moving inside of her. Marvelling at all the kicks and wriggles. At the miracle that they had created. All because two people fell in love during the entirely wrong time and in the entirely wrong place.

“You need to take it easy there, sweetheart,” he'd spoken to his daughter, his hand moving in slow, comforting circles. “Go easy on your mum, okay? Daddy's already put her through enough to last a lifetime.”

“She listens to you already. She likes your voice.”

“Already takes after her mother. Isn't that one of the first things you said you liked about me? My voice?”

“It does funny things to my insides. Even now.”

“I like doing funny things to your insides,” he'd dropped a kiss on the top of her head and she'd looked up at him once again.

“I think we should go to bed.”

“It's only eight thirty.”

“I don't mean to sleep. I mean to do other things. Fun things. Things that help you sleep better.”

A slow grin had spread across his face.

He didn't need to be told twice.

*******

“What's going on in here?” he asks as he steps alongside the crib, where his tiny baby girl has managed to to shed herself of her tight swaddling and was preparing to whip herself up into a frenzy. She has his temper already; slow to anger but almost impossible to control once the fuse was fully lit. “What kind of trouble are you getting up to in here? How'd you get yourself into such a mess? Clever little thing, aren't you.”

The crying dies down. Settling down to a mere whimper. She recognizes her daddy's voice. His face. And she knows she's in good hands. The wailing replaced by an impossibly dramatic pout on someone so young.

“You really are your mother's daughter,” he says. “I recognize that look anywhere. How does a little one like you get yourself into trouble? Look at you...” he untangles the receiving blanket from between her legs and scoops her up from the crib. Lifting her to the safe and warm confines of his chest. A forearm supporting her bum, his palm on the back of her head. “It's okay now,” he croons, and presses a kiss to the side of her head. She has his hair; same texture and colour. His eyes. Even his nose and lips. He can hear his wife now. Complaining about doing all the leg work and going through all the pain, only to have the baby coming out looking just like him. “Daddy's here now. Everything is fine. You're okay now.”

After a quick diaper change, he carries her through the apartment and into the kitchen. That tiny little body laying perfectly along his forearm as he warms a bottle from the fridge. She fits so perfect in the crook of his arm; head nestled into the valley on his elbow, feet by his wrist. She's long. Lanky. Just like he'd been as a kid. “You're probably wondering why I'm out here doing this,” he speaks as he waits for the bottle to warm. “You know this is usually your mummy's thing. Getting up in the middle of the night. And I know she doesn't exactly use these silly things to feed you. But I thought we'd be nice and let her sleep. She does a lot for us, you know. She deserves to sleep.”

He sits on the couch as he feeds her; both feet on the coffee table, knees bent with her lying along his thighs. One hand holding the bottle and the fingers of the other exploring every inch of her. She is wondrous; big blue eyes and impossibly long dark lashes and freckles across the bridge of her nose. And has he talks to her in a deep and soothing tone, her gaze is focused intently on him. Eyes never leaving his, one of her tiny hands reaching for the hand that holds the bottle, all fingers curling around just one of his. He had forgotten what this was like. The pure magic of being a father. Knowing that you had helped create something so incredible. That you had played a part in bringing another human being into this world.

As crazy and fucked up as the world could be, that is. It gave him a sense of peace. The knowledge that when the end came, he'd go knowing that he had done something truly good and valuable with his life.

He stands and carries her over to the balcony window. Once again holding her with a forearm under her bum and a firm hand on the back of his head. “You see that out there...” he nods towards the skyline; twinkling lights of skyscrapers and glowing street lights and blazing stars. “...that can be a real scary place. There's a lot of really bad people out there. But there's a lot of really good people too. People that would protect you, no questions asked. People that already love you without even really knowing you. And somewhere out there, is some guy that's going to come into your life and probably break your heart. And you know what? That's okay. It's okay to get your heart broken. Because it makes you a better person. It makes you stronger. Even if you think it's going to kill you at the time.”

She stares up at him with those huge blue eyes. With so much wonder and trust that it it causes a lump of emotion to gather in his throat and blur his vision.

“You know, there was almost a time where this might not have happened. Where I might not have been here. Where it might have just been you and your mom. And if it wasn't for your mom, I probably wouldn't be here. She's something else, you know. She's the bravest and strongest person I've ever met in my entire life. And there were so many times where this could have been too much for her...where I could have been too much for her...and she could have just walked away. But she never did. She never gave up on me. Even when I was ready to give up on myself. She's the one you need to worry about, you know. She jokes around that I'm going to be the one that scares all the boys away but I have a feeling it's going to be her. She doesn't let anyone mess with the people she loves. She's a momma bear. She's ferocious and she's loyal and she will f...” he bites his tongue “...mess someone up if she needs to. I was even kind of scared of her when I first meet her. Not because she's scary looking or I was afraid she'd hurt me. Mind you, she probably could if she got mad enough. Like how she gets when I leave the toilet seat up in the middle of the night. She scared me because I'd never felt that way about anyone. At least not that quickly. You can be the strongest person in the world, but when that one person comes along, you can't stop it. No matter if the timing isn't right. No matter how screwed up things are. Even if it is the wrong place, wrong time. You're powerless. Your heart just takes over. The important thing you have to remember is that you let your heart and your head work at the same time. That's the only way things will be okay. Or at least that's how it worked for your mom and I.”

He adjusts his hold on her, bringing her up to rest against his chest. Fingers combing through her thick, silky hair, his other hand softly stroking her back.

“Your mom came into my life when I'd pretty much given up on everything. When I didn't even feel human any more. Where nothing mattered. She came into my life and rescued me. In every way a person can rescue someone. And I know she'll probably deny that if you ask her. She'd say that I'm the brave one. That I'm the one that rescues people. But she had the toughest job out of them all. I'm not the easiest person to love. And she knew that. Yet here she is. A year later and she's still sticking around. Still putting up with my crap. So I must be doing something right, yeah? She hasn't smothered me with a pillow in my sleep or put poison in my food or put a hit out on me.”

“You just had to ruin the moment,” that soft voice says from behind, and he watches her reflection through the window as she journeys over to them. Chestnut hair messy from sleep and falling loose to the middle of her back. She is heavier now; softer and curvier in all the right places. Having a baby will do that to you. But she's still the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Even more so decked out in one of his shirts; the fabric hanging to well below her knees, sleeves rolled and bunched just about her elbows. “What are you two doing? It's late. Or really early. Depending on how you look at it.”

“We're just having a little daddy daughter bonding time.”

She squints her eyes and peers at the clock on the nearby wall. “It's ten after three.”

“Time means nothing when you have a baby. She doesn't know what time it is. And I barely sleep, so...”

“So what does this bonding time consist of? Shit talking me?”

“I only said that last part because I knew you were behind me. I said all good things, I swear. And I was telling her all my best stories.”

“Lord I really hope not,” she rubs his shoulders and presses a kiss to his back before sidling up beside him. “All your best stories are gory.”

“I'm saving those ones for when she's old enough to be able to kick someone in the balls if they're bothering her. So she doesn't have to rely on a brother to do it.”

“Not even two months into this and you're already contemplating another? Good luck doing that yourself. Let me know how it works out for you.”

The subject had come up once or twice. About whether or not this was a one off or there were other children in their future. After he'd lost his son and given up on life, he hadn't thought there'd be any other kids. It wasn't as if he lived the kind of life he'd be proud to bring a child into it. She'd been a complete surprise. They thought they'd been careful. Apparently they hadn't been careful enough.. But she wasn't a mistake. Far from it. A happy accident was more like it. Now that he'd gotten his feet wet again in the parenting pool, he was open to having more kids. He craved it, actually. Another two or three. And a modest house on a good parcel of land. Somewhere close to the beach. With a window that looked into the backyard that he could watch his children through. Where he could grow old and gray with the love of his life.

But he still had a lot of shit to deal with before any of that could happen.

She yawns loudly and steps in front of him; both arms wrapping around his waist she lays her head against him. “Are you okay?”

“Best I can be, I guess. Little sore. But what else is new.”

She just nods. She knows it goes beyond being 'a little sore'. She had seen the extent of his injuries. She'd lived out the horror right alongside of him. It had been his blood that soaked her that day on the bridge. But she also knows he isn't the type you fawn over. He doesn't like the attention. Feeling as if he's weak. Or that he may be a burden. He was still trying to get that confidence back. The ego takes a serious beating when you're left unable to do even the smallest of tasks for yourself. “You're having trouble sleeping?”

“When haven't I had trouble sleeping?”

“But it's worse now, isn't it. I know how many times you get up in the middle of the night. It's worse now.”

“Just a stage,” he assures her. “I'll be fine. How many times have we been through this, huh? How many times do I have to tell you not to worry about me?”

“A million. But I still won't listen.”

“That's never going to change,” he teases. “You didn't listen to me a year ago and you don't listen to me now. And you wonder why I say your daughter is going to be trouble.”

She grins up at him. “Why does she become just my daughter when you talk about trouble?”

“Because we both know who the real trouble maker is in this relationship,” he retorts, and presses a kiss to her forehead.

In silence they watch their daughter; the way her eyes shift between the two of them before slowing beginning to close, a yawn escaping her mouth. A surprisingly large one that ends in a tiny squeak. He's in awe of her. Of how tiny and fragile she is. How he'd managed to make something so amazing.

“She's beautiful,” he speaks around a lump of emotion that sits square in his throat. His emotions have been raw since that day in Dhaka. And even more so since becoming a father for a second time. He can hear Gaspar in his head again. Talking about how soft he was becoming. That he didn't even recognize him any more. That growing a heart this late in the game was going to be his biggest downfall and his most relentless enemy. “Like her mother.”

“She looks just like you.”

“I honestly don't see it,” he hopes he sounds a least a tad sincere.

His wife gives a derisive snort. “You have some seriously strong genes, Tyler Rake. Imagine if we had a boy? Probably be your splitting image. By the way...” she rubs his stomach and smiles up at him. “...you do the really big, strong man with a tiny baby thing very well. It's kind of sexy.”

“Just kind of? I was going for totally sexy. Insanely sexy. You might as well said mediocre sexy.”

“Don't expect me to stroke your ego at three in the morning.”

“Why not? Not like you've been stroking anything else lately.”

“Shhhh...” she places a finger over her lips. “...there's innocent ears in this room.”

“She's asleep. And even if she wasn't, she wouldn't understand what I was saying anyway. Besides, she's going to end up learning where she come from sooner or later.”

“Well let's make that later. Much later. And mediocre sexy? Really? As if you could ever be anything other than out of the world sexy.”

“You're lucky. I was going to have to file for divorce if you called me 'average sexy'.”

“You're too much,” she giggles, and dropping one of her arms from around his waist, runs the palm of her hand along the baby's hair. “And you're right. She is beautiful. She is perfect.”

“It's hard to believe sometimes, isn't it? That we made her? During all that craziness and all that madness, we actually made a life together. Surreal, huh? That something so beautiful could come out of all of that?”

“A lot of beautiful things came out of that. We just have a hard time recognizing what they are sometimes.”

He nods in agreement. Sniffling noisily and swallowing heavily when the weight of emotion becomes almost too much to bear. He's never had to hide this side of himself when it came to her. After all, she was the one who'd successfully bulldozed all of his walls to the ground. So it comes as no surprise to either of them when the tears finally do come; blazing hot against his skin, the taste of salt stinging his lips.

“Baby...” she turns to face him, reaching up to take his face in her hands. “...what's wrong? What...?”

“Nothing's wrong. I just...” he struggles to find the words, inhaling deeply and releasing a shaky breath. “...thank you...” he says. “...for her. For you. For us.”

“I think you played a pretty big part in her being here,” she reminds him. “It's not like I did this alone.”

“I don't deserve all of this. I don't deserve her. I don't deserve you. This...this life...” he shakes his head. “...this was meant for someone else. A better man than me.”

She chews pensively on her bottom lip and regards him through her own tears. He knows she won't let them come. She's been the one holding back lately. When they'd met, she'd been the high strung and overly emotional one. Always on edge. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. He'd been that calm, cool, and collected one. The one that held shit together when it threatened to blow apart. Talking her down off the ledge while trying to keep both of them...and eventually Ovi...alive. Since the baby she'd changed. Her motherly instincts and her love for their child could never be matched by anyone else. But she had closed herself off in other ways. She became the strong and silent one. The one who always held her emotions in check. He figured it was all that time she spent helping him get back on his feet. What she'd seen and had to endure would harden anyone.

But he'd be lying if he didn't say he wasn't concerned. If he didn't find himself wishing for that emotional and broken girl she'd once been.

She was out there. And he knew where.

She was still back in Dhaka.

Still standing on that bridge.

[whoisbxcky]

Old Friend

request: Hi love! Would you mind writing an imagine with peter Parker where the avengers rescue you from HYDRA and you’re the same age as peter and he remembers you from when y’all were kids and so do you and he helps you deal with the trauma and y’all fall in love?

pairing: Peter Parker x Reader (!!reader and peter both 17 in this fic!!)

word count: 1700

warnings: fluuuuuuuff. mentions of captivity, medical torture and hella anxiety + ptsd. but FLUUUUUUUFF.

author’s note: After almost a week of writer’s block and 0 content, I gift to you all, an Easter miracle: two fics in one day. 

In all seriousness, thank you heaps to anon for the request, this was a sweet one to write for and I hope I did your vision justice! We love wholesome Spidey content in this household. ~ Toria <3

The first thing you became aware of, as you slipped back into consciousness, was the sensation of movement. Not the usual, fluid motion of the gurney you would be strapped to on your way to the main medical auditorium. No, this time, you were being carried.

Carried? Why on earth would they be carrying me?

You were unaware of falling unconscious once more until the second time you managed to fight your way through the familiar haze of sedative-induced sleep. Now, you could make out a blur of unfamiliar voices around you as the movement continued, making a wave of particularly aggressive nausea wash over you.

“… Another Hydra experiment…”

“… Get her to the Tower…”

“… Fading fast…”

You half-giggled to yourself, lost in a sea of euphoria and confusion. You remembered now; you were a lab rat. Hydra’s new plaything. Nothing more than a weapon to be poked, prodded and shaped by your captors.

Your bleary eyes fluttered open just long enough to make out shapes and faces. There was a shock of red and gold to your left, and a flash of blonde above you. You vaguely noted the change of scenery as the sound of footsteps on metal rung out around you, and what might have been an engine started off in the distance.

“Y/N!?”

The last thing you heard before the comforting darkness washed over you once more, taking you under, was a familiar voice, calling out to you from afar, stirring up memories you were unaware you still had the capacity to reach.

… Peter…

Three days later, and you found yourself, once again, restrained to a hospital bed and staring blankly at the glaring white wall ahead of you. Sunlight trickled in through gaps in the curtains, casting patterns on your body like rain drops. But you did not feel its warmth.

For three days, people had come into the room to poke you, prod you, try and shape your mind with their narrative. And for three days, you had refused to comply.

You had been told by a man with an eye patch, who if memory served you correctly, had called himself Fury, that they were the good guys, and you had been saved.

However, you found it relatively difficult to make a distinction between one radical group and another, when lodging with both had seen you bound and used as a science project.

You hadn’t trusted the last lot, and you certainly weren’t about to change your approach now.

Today looked to be another day of mutinous silence as ‘medical professionals’ tried to pick apart your brain, as the handle to your hospital room door twisted with a squeak, and the door flew open, revealing an unfamiliar face.

To your surprise, the boy stood in the doorway could not have been much older than you. At the very least, he was a lot younger than the others that had come. He was dressed casually, in sneakers, jeans and a comfy pullover, a stark contrast to the lab coats and suits that had been your company thus-far.

He offered you a wide, toothy grin that somehow made your barren heart twitch to life ever so slightly, and strode into the room, making a b-line for your bed.

“Y/N! It really is you!”

You gawked at him, recalling the voice from the day you were found. You had thought that you must have been hallucinating then, absolutely sure that there was no way your childhood best friend could be there in that moment.

But sure enough, the longer you stared at the boy, the more familiarity washed over you like an ice-cold shower. Same mess of mousy brown hair, and deep, oak eyes that seemed to reflect every light in the room. Even the charming smile he offered you was like an echo of boyish grin he used to fix you with, when the two of you would plot to do something that was sure to end in you both being grounded.

It felt as if your heart was being crushed inside your chest, a flood of emotions practically drowning you as you lay there, unblinking, as if afraid that taking your eyes off that familiar face for even a second would make it disappear for good.

When the capacity to speak finally returned to you, all you could muster was his name, your voice a breathy sigh as tears streamed down your cheeks, and you lost the battle with years-worth of pent up fear, anger, confusion and pain.

“Peter…”

Your face split into a weak smile then, and Peter beamed so brightly at you, you were sure you’d be blinded from the brilliance. He made his way to your bed side in a few short strides, plopping himself haphazardly on the mattress beside you and pulling you into his sturdy embrace.

After a moment of stunned silence, you found yourself flinging your arms around your old friend’s shoulders, revelling in the familiarity, as well as the first pleasant human contact you’d had in God knows how long.

“I can’t believe it’s really you, after all this time.”

He mumbled into the crook of your neck where his face was pressed, making you shiver slightly at the unexpected, yet not unwelcome, contact. After a moment, he pulled back, gleaming eyes meeting yours as he continued.

“What happened to you, Y/N? How the hell did you end up there?”

You paused for a moment, racking your brain for an answer. But none came to you. When you spoke once again, you discovered your voice was thick and horse, likely due to the fact you’d been fed and watered through a tube for years, now that you thought about it.

“I… I have no idea. I remember life before, I remember you; I remember going to school and hating Math class; I even remember playing superheroes in the apartment building on 5th …”

You bit your lip, closing your eyes as you frantically searched for a memory that did not seem to exist anymore.

“But that’s it… Then there’s just nothingness… Then, hell.”

You shuddered rather animatedly as memories of your time in captivity came flooding back to you. For better or worse, you’d been kept in a drug-addled haze for the majority off it. But there were flashes. Coloured serums delivered through rusty IVs; clanging metal and the whirring of machinery; the screams of the others…

You fought back a retch as the room around you tilted sickeningly, and Peter’s grip around your waist tightened, holding you upright as you bit back sobs.

“It was really bad, Pete…”

More tears streamed down your cheeks as your whole body trembled. A mixture of relief at finally being free of that place, and fear of the memories you knew would come back to haunt you every time you closed your eyes battled inside you as your breath hitched in your throat.

A gentle hand on your cheek, deftly wiping tears from the bruised and bloodied flesh there made you jump, and your eyes snapped up to find Peter’s steady gaze holding your own. When he spoke, his voice was as gentle as a spring breeze, sending a wave of calm coursing throughout your broken, shivering from.

“Hey… It’s going to be alright, Y/N. You’re going to be alright.”

You sniffed, swallowing hard as you dropped your gaze and slipped your hands from around his neck. He followed suit, releasing you from his sturdy grasp, but proceeded to take you cold, quivering hands in his own, running his thumbs soothingly over your bloodied knuckles. Your voice was a barely-there whisper in the silence of the hospital room, save the constant beating of your heart rate monitor.

“How can you be so sure, Peter?”

A finger hooked under your chin, the touch so delicate and warm, you thought you might have imagined it. Then Peter lifted your head, forcing you to look up at him once more, the sincerity in his eyes entirely unmistakable as he whispered back to you.

“Because I’m going to make it alright. I’m going to be by your side the whole time, and you are going to have brighter days again, Y/N, I promise.”

You stifled a sob then, eyes watering yet again as his words stirred something inside of you, something you’d almost entirely forgotten how to feel.

Hope.

“Why would you do that for me? I mean… It’s been years…”

You searched his face for an explanation, you voice becoming even more horse as emotion wracked you whole body. All you found was a smile holding the warmth of a setting sun, and eyes practically twinkling with… What was it? Humour? Happiness? You weren’t sure. What you were sure of, was that Peter’s cheeks had become a curious shade of crimson as he murmured his reply.

“That’s what you do for the people you love, isn’t it?”

You stared at him for a second, completely floored by his words. You knew when the two of you were younger he used to declare to the entire damn apartment building that ‘you were the love of his life’ and that one day ‘he’d marry you’, but you’d never thought there was any merit to the words. Up until now, that was. The sincerity in his gaze was unmistakable, and despite your shock, you found yourself smiling shyly back to match his boyish grin.

Despite the uncertainty of the future that lay before you, you found comfort in the assurance that despite all that you’d been through, all you’d lost and may never regain, Peter Parker loved you. And as the two of you sat, lost in each other’s eyes in the growing dimness of your hospital room, you were quite sure that you did in fact love him, too. And for now, that was all you needed.

[travelleroflands]

My review of Virginia’s Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse’

Out of all the extraordinary gifts that books bestow upon our lives, the one that awes me the most is their ability to preserve thoughts, sentiments and ideas and safely ferry them across the expansive reaches of time to stimulate our own minds in a process that seems almost magical. Especially when, while reading a certain book, you cannot help but think: How can this author, born more than a century before the shape of me was even conceived by the universe, know what is in my heart, and know it so well? How do her characters articulate so many feelings that were, until now, ineffable to me? And once you have had this thought, your wonderment can only multiply. You might highlight numerous paragraphs, and still feel as though you haven’t highlighted everything that truly mattered to you in the story. You wish you could highlight every single word, because they are all equally impactful. You are torn between rereading each chapter and setting the book aside to mull over all that you read, all that seemed to overwhelm your mind and flood your senses. And when you have finished, you know that attempting to thoroughly articulate every emotion that you feel is a futile endeavor.

Virginia Woolf’s exquisitely woven modernist story ‘To the lighthouse’, masterfully employing stream of consciousness and free indirect discourse to provide an insight into the rich inner lives of her characters, is indubitably one such book. Effortlessly, she explores complex themes like love, life, mortality and even the agony of artistry. In her capable hands, she manipulates time, expanding brief moments and contracting long years. By magnifying the minutest of details in the lives of the Ramsay family and their guests, she illumines the intricacy of relationships between woman and man, wife and husband, children and their parents and even her characters’ perceived relations with the world itself. Against the eternity of the cosmos, she highlights both the despair and the beauty of ephemerality. The lighthouse, the waves tossing in the sea, the sand dunes in the distance, the wind, geraniums in an urn, a lone shawl flapping in a deserted house, all convey some greater meaning. There is beauty, there are treasures of meaning buried deeply within each word that Virginia writes, enough to pierce one through the chest and clench the heart with force enough to induce profound emotion. As one reads, one soon becomes a part of the Ramsay household, goes down to the beach with their guests and anticipates a visit to the lighthouse.

With her beauteous prose, Virginia establishes the distinctiveness of each of her characters. Mrs. Ramsay, the paragon of loveliness, the reservoir of sympathy and the conductor of familial harmony. She is honoured for her strange severity, her extreme courtesy, like a queen’s raising from the mud a beggar’s dirty foot and washing it. She has the power to influence everyone she knows, directly or indirectly, and generously lends a piece of her own vitality to them. But, beneath it is all dark, she contemplates, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by. Her horizon seemed to her limitless. There is so much about her that the world does not see, that which gives her boundless liberty when she manages to snatch a moment of respite in her life, from all the roles that she must play. Even when she does not wish for time to pass quickly, and to take from her all that she values, she finds solace in the fact that even if the moments she cherished would soon pass, they would live forever as pristine memory in her guests’ minds. And this belief of hers is validated when Lily Briscoe, one of her guests, reminisces about her years later, the clarion image of her beauty, her powerful presence and the impact that she had on everyone still persisting in her thoughts.

Lily Briscoe is a painter, an artist who agonizes over the inadequacy of her art, which she views as a formidable, ancient enemy of hers- this other thing, this truth, this reality, which suddenly laid hands on her, emerged stark at the back of appearances and commanded her attention. She is insecure, and uncertain about her own talent, an uncertainty that is compounded by others’ estimation (women can’t paint, women can’t write) and her own belief that her work would, anyhow, end up hung in a servant’s bedroom or rolled up to keep underneath a sofa. It will not, she thinks, make much of a difference. It is through her point of view that the author gives voice to every artist or creator’s dubiety and misgivings. It is also through her perspective and her thoughts that Virginia contemplates love and its numerous forms- Yet, she said to herself, from the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreaths heaped and roses; if you asked nine people out of ten they would say they wanted nothing but this; while the women, judging from her own experience, would all the time be feeling, This is not what we want; there is nothing more tedious, puerile and inhumane than love; yet it is also beautiful and necessary. Or even, It rose like a fire sent up in token of some celebration by savages on a distant beach. She heard the roar and the crackle. The whole sea for miles round ran red and gold. Some winy smell mixed with it and intoxicated her, for she felt again her own headlong desire to throw herself off the cliff and be drowned looking for a pearl brooch on a beach. And the roar and the crackle repelled her with fear and disgust, as if while she saw its splendour and power she saw too how it fed on the treasure of the house, greedily, disgustingly, and she loathed it. But for a sight, for a glory, it surpassed everything in her experience, and burnt year after year like a signal fire on a desert island at the edge of the sea, and one had only to say ‘in love’ and instantly, as happened now, up rose Paul’s fire again. She also ruminates over the meaning of existence-The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one. This, that and the other………In the midst of chaos, there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability or What did it mean? Could things thrust their hands and grip one; could the blade cut; the fist grasp? Was there no safety? No learning by heart the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life? Even the creative process is given unique form in her musings- All that in idea seemed simple became in practice immediately complex; as the waves shape themselves symmetrically from the cliff top, but to the swimmer among them are divided by steep gulfs and foaming crests. Still the risk must be run; the mark made………And so pausing, and so flickering, she attained a dancing rhythmical movement, as if the pauses were one part of the rhythm and the strokes another, and all were related….

People, and how one views them, and how one attempts to estimate their merit, are also inextricably entwined in her thoughts.

Mr. Ramsay, who is venerable and laughable at one and the same time, searches for, reaches for greatness he knows he can never hope to find. He wishes to make a tangible impression upon the world, and yet finds himself unable to make any great progression in thought beyond what he has already attained, the gradations of which he likens to the alphabet. What is the point of the journey he made, he thinks, if he couldn’t even immortalize his name? What was the purpose to all that he had done? His own frail luminosity would soon be extinguished, or swallowed up in the presence of some bigger, greater star. Even at the pinnacle of his achievement, he feels like he hasn’t done enough, and his desolation and hopelessness prompt him, from time to time, to seek solace in the all accepting sympathy that Mrs. Ramsay has to offer to him. He demands sympathy, devours it almost, to the extent that it makes Lily loathe him for it. His reliance upon her for that which only she can truly give him both exhausts and exhilarates Mrs. Ramsay. Mr. Ramsay, who seeks truth with the coldest clarity, still needs his wife to soften the blow of reality, and even as he scorns her, or looks down upon her, he reveres her and respects her. Similarly, even as she pities him, she admires him. It is through the multi-layered dynamic of their relationship that Virginia Woolf explores the interdependence of woman and man.

With characters as convoluted as these, and vast themes that are applicable even to the seemingly simple, Virginia takes her readers on a journey that colours their perspective and stimulates the depths of their own thoughts. Just as the lighthouse in the story is both a silvery enigma and a stark white entity to James, all that Virginia writes can be interpreted in more ways than one, with each meaning replete with its own significance. For, nothing was simply one thing. Reading this book can be likened to a treasure hunt of sorts, where gold nuggets of understanding can be extricated every time one rereads a sentence or revisits a chapter. Virginia’s descriptions, that bear her own sui generis style, are delightful to read. In my opinion, it makes her work singular and unlike anybody else’s. It is also what, in addition to her skilful use of stream of consciousness to connect readers to the core of her characters’ motivations and actions, made me love this book so much. I do not think any amount of praise or recommendation adequate to express my love, but I truly hope that everyone who reads it finds all that I found, and much more, to take away from it.  

Note: Excerpts from the book in italics.

[alexandrasavior]

Alexandra Savior AMA !!

COMING IN HOT BITCHES!!!!

Hi Alex! How much of the instrumentation was figured out before heading into the studio? Did you just bring in bare minimum demos and then fleshed them out in the studio? Or did you have most of it prepared and just recorded it? I really loved the album by the way!

Thank you! It was different for each track. A lot of the songs I had full fleshed demos that my band and I had recorded in Portland, and Sam Cohen and I worked around those. Some of the tracks like "But You" I had some Garage band demos I made on my own that we worked around, and some of the tracks like "Soft Currents" were just raw iPhone recordings of me playing and singing, and Sam and I worked out together in the studio.

Your music has some really interesting chord progressions and melodic phrases. To what extent do you consciously apply music theory to your songwriting, and how much just comes naturally from ear and instinct?

To no extent :/ I am not super skilled in music theory, I just play around until it seems like it makes sense to me

You described your desire for Belladonna of Sadness to sound "murderous", and I thought that darkness and dangerous feeling really shone through. What adjectives would you powerfully ascribe to your sophomore album? What tonal differences were important to you while recording?

I like this question! hmmmmmm. “honest"

I'm pretty new to your music, but, everyday I can't stop myself from liking it more. My two current favorite songs are “The Phantom” and “Bad Disease”. I've seen that many people prefer other songs from the album, so that made me think. What is your personal favorite song from your new album? Thanks!

“But You”!

Hypothetical: You’re making a new album and need to assemble your dream band. Anyone dead/alive. Who are you choosing?

My best friend Emma, my boyfriend, Mel, and like my therapist

Is there anything that you do in terms of practice when it comes to vocals/guitar/songwriting to improve yourself? Interested to hear

Try to play everyday

I'd love to know if you've got any cool, hidden talents that you haven't shown in public. Also I badly want to know who's done the cover for both “Saving Grace” and “Crying All the Time”.

ME! I painted them

What are your tips for marketing your music and getting more people to stream/buy your music?

I am lucky because I have a team that guides me through social posts, and a publicist. But don't post pics of your butt

Your music and music videos have so many cinematic elements to them. Does an affinity for film influence your music? If so, do you have some favorite films you can mention?

yes! Bonnie and Clyde, Rosemary's Baby, Don't Look Now, Fargo, Daisies

I've seen a few people comparing your latest work with Lana del Rey's. Do you listen to her? Was she really an inspiration for the record?

I like Lana she's talented, I understand the comparison in some ways , people tend to compare things naturally. But, no she wasn't my personal inspiration in any conscious way

Did you make a conscious effort to distance yourself from the sound of Belladonna of Sadness with this new album?

No, I have gotten mixed feedback some people say its the exact same sound, some say it is different, I just created what came naturally to me and used sounds that I am personally drawn to.

If you were to try to make someone a fan of your music, but could only show them three of your songs, what songs would you show them?

oooooh! hmmmmm. “But You”, “Audeline”, “Crying All The Time”.

Excuse me Ms. Savior - I fell in love with your duet "We're Just Making It Worse" many moons ago. What can you tell us about that song?

Thanks! Well my homie Cameron Avery wrote that tune, he just asked me to sing on it and I was glad to!

What do you think was the biggest difference between writing The Archer and Belladonna of Sadness?

i was alone

What advice would you give to up and coming musicians in the LA scene? Any Dos or Don’ts? Thank you :)

Don’t be gross and creepy! Don't worry about that hipsta shit. Do be nice and make your own shit!

What is the most unusual thing that you do to help you write or to help you get some inspiration?

Stalk all my exes’ new gfs on insta and then eat an entire chocolate cake

Will we ever get to hear your version of “Miracle Aligner”?

probs not

When does the vinyl for The Archer ship? I am hoping to get one of you drawings with mine!

First batch tomorrow 1/17/2020. Second batch Tuesday 1/21/2020. Thank You!

I saw a clip from a concert you gave recently. It was you with a couple of bandmates singing something acapella. What's that song? Is it yours? It was gooorgeous. Any chance you're coming to Barcelona?

"The Oak and The Ash", an old celtic song. I will be playing Sala Nau May 13th!!!!!!!!

Can you talk about the differences in recording your first album while signed to a major label and this album while signed to a indie label? I know you’ve spoken about why you left Columbia, but I was wondering how your personal process differed this time around, especially with different resources and personnel?

Yeah it was a lot less pressure making this record, I had more say and more freedom of expression.

You said in an interview that you wrote the songs for The Archer on piano or guitar and brought them to the studio recorded on your phone. Would you ever consider releasing these as bonus tracks? 

I might ya! They’re probably a lot less interesting than you think

Do you have any tips on how to overcome writers block/find new ways to approach writing ? I've been struggling a bit lately... Have you been reading lately? If so, what books would you recommend ? :)

Just be kind to yourself, do what is natural, don't beat yourself up. I just re-read "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" by Otessa Moshfegh, now I am ready " Conversations With Friends" by Sally Rooney. I would recommend any Joan Didion, also I enjoy Salingers "Nine Stories"

This album feels a lot more personal than the first one. How would you say it compares in relation to how you expressed yourself as an artist?

I was very insecure while writing my first record, and I was co-writing so I used a lot of techniques to shelter my own opinions and feelings, in The Archer it was just me, so it was more of a journal entry than a big fancy record

Which artists did you grow up admiring, and inspired your style? Also, do you have any poetry recommendations, seeing how all your lyrics are poems in their own right?

hmmmm. ok Hilary Duff, Elvis, The White Stripes, Billie Holiday. Poetry: I don’t read much poetry but I like Rimbaud and Sylvia Plath

How did you feel when you found out “Risk” played on True Detective?

I cried

On Belladonna, what inspired the lyrics and melody for “Till You're Mine”? That song is always on repeat in my household.

Thanks! I would say my own insecurities and jealousy towards a specific woman in my life

Do you write the melodies as well as the lyrics or is it a collaborative effort?

For this record I wrote the melodies, lyrics, and chords for every song aside from "The Phantom" which was a collaboration with Sam Cohen.

What inspired you to make this new album?

I just make songs, and each song was inspired by something different, but mostly I needed to show people I WRITE MY SONGS

Do you have plans to sell more merch? I would really love to get my hands on signed stuff or one of your drawings/crafts.

yes workin' on merch now! <3

As a budding songwriter and musician myself is there any advice or wisdom you could pass on when it comes to making a career out of it?

I think writing as much as you can and trying to write honestly is important. I was lucky in a strange string of events that started my career, and every dream is different, but I suppose just keep writing and releasing your songs wherever you can

Often when I listen to music I tend to relate the song to places I've been to or places I'm at while listening. Is it the same for you when you write your songs? Do you think about a specific place for each song?

Yeah totally!

Would you ever be interested in collaborating with another artist on their record?

Yeah! Depends on who, I have always wanted to sing on a rap song.

Collab with Weyes Blood coming anytime soon?

i wish brah

Any tips on staying sane with dating apps?

don’t do dating apps

Romance is a topic which you touch upon in both of your albums. Do you have any words or phrases that have helped you through a difficult time, both in dealing with or exploring relationships past or present, if so what are they? What is your favorite set of lyrics ever, i.e. phrases etc.

"fuck hem he's a deck", "Kathy's Song" Simon and Garfunkel, "I Remember" Molly Drake

Do you use more real life experience or do you use more imagination/creativity when writing lyrics?

Depends how boring my personal life is at the time haha

What's your favorite Beatle, favorite Beatle album and favorite Beatle song?

Georgie boy <333333333

Are there any plans to record/release that “political song” with the violin that you played at Homiefest last year? For a third album maybe? Thanks, loved you since 2015 when I first heard that “Risk” demo for True Detective. The Archer is a masterpiece no bullshit.

maybe! lol

Where is the love for Chicago? How come we haven't had any shows yet?

Give me a break homie I don't plan this stuff! Would love to come to Chicago! It all depends on timing and $$$$

What was the most challenging song to write on this record?

maybe bad disease

Will there be more music videos?

I dont think so :/

I noticed for both of your releases, theres been a decent amount of time.. between when they were recorded and released. Have you found this frustrating more than anything or is it nice to have time to sit with the album?

Well, sometimes it is hard to move on and write more, with so much time between the final touches of the record and the actual release.... But, it ebs and flows and its out now so its no difference to me now

Who are some artists/bands that you personally enjoy listening to?

Jessica Pratt, The Jhamels, Molly Drake

You also seem like a prolific painter, who would you point to as inspiration/muse? My best guess would be Picasso.

Alice Neel 100%

When you feel like you’re stuck when you’re writing a song, what do you do to get around it?

I stop writing for a while, don't force it. Everyone's process is different so I try not to beat myself up too much about it

When Kevin Parker hit reddit someone asked him about if he can upload a new song and he did so... Can we hear a new song ?

If Kevin Parker jumped off a bridge WOULD YOU ?!

Who's your dream musical collab? If you were to make a soundtrack what director would you work with?

dream collab: Snoop Dogg, director: Quentin

Can you say a little bit about the creation of the album art? It's understated but there is definitely a mood there!

my dear friend Dana Trippe took the photos, and my dear friend Aaron Mitchell did the fonts

Noticed your music has a very “old horror movie/spaghetti western” vibe to them. Any films/soundtracks that inform your sound you’d recommend?

ooooh Anything Coen Brothers or Wes Anderson

How much was growing up in Portland an influence on your music?

I would say the rain had a lot to do with my melancholy, but also the music scene in Portland has always been very DIY and rock-based so “ guess that influenced me in some way.

What’s your favorite song of your’s lyrically and your favorite song to perform?

fave lyrically: Bad Disease, fave to perform: But You or Mystery Girl

The whole record was amazing but “Soft Currents” keyboards are really something else, are you planning to write more on the piano?

thank you! yes been writing a lot on the ole ivories

I love how a lot of your songs sound very cinematic - would you like to get into movie music in some capacity? Either scoring or soundtrack?

Awh hell yeuh

Is there a particular song that you're most proud of?

But YOu!

What would you say is your favorite guitar that you own and what is your dream guitar to own?

I am not much of a gear-head though I would love and old nylon string

Do you think that “Risk” will ever be made available on Spotify and Apple Music?

Unfortunately, because it was released on T-Bone Brunette's label, there was a legal situation that made me unable to release it separately. :/

Will you be making more of those amazingly weird embroidered underwear for your new tour? Obvs need some Savior swag on this tush.

I wish! I don’t have a sewing machine anymore but I will be selling my lil boxes online soon

Any chance for a show in Toronto? I'm a big fan, and I introduced my mom to your music and she absolutely loves you (her words) so I'd love to take her to one of your shows

hahah awh <3 None planned at the moment :(

What song on The Archer was a struggle to finish? Or were they all easy?

easy peasy lemon squeezy

Don't want to take away from your latest release (because it is an amazing album) but was there a reason you decided to not work with Alex Turner or James Ford for any of the new songs, writing or producing?

-__-

Since both your albums have been about relationships mostly, would you ever consider making a political song/album? What is your stance on that old debate?

I write what comes naturally to me

What should I name my snail stuffed animal?

gail

Why didn’t you get a proper promotional run from Columbia for Belladonna? It’s an amazing album but I just found out about you through The Archer (which is equally amazing).

I can't really say, but I don’t think I was ever gonna make the kind of $$$ Columbia wanted

Would you like to tour South America at some point in your career?

awh hell yeuh!

Is there any particular era/motive which inspires your music visuals (album covers, music videos)? All the best from Split, Croatia!

70s!

Based on your Spotify stats, what are the countries that listen to you the most?

IDK! France seems to be very supportive

Any artist that you like that you could recommend?

Jessica Pratt, Sudan Archives, Vagabon

What's your favorite thing to draw/paint?

women

Who is your favorite artist / what is your favorite album at the moment, and how would you say this impacted on how The Archer sounds? Also please come to the North of England 😂

I AM!!! CHECK MY TOUR SCHEDULE AND COME BB!! favorite album rn "The Colour Green" by Sibylle Baier

What’s playing in your head now?

the click clacking of a mac keyboard

How do you like your coffee?

a lil bit of almond milk

Will The Archer be getting a cd release?

no :(

That's all folks! Thank for all of the questions, and most of all thank you so much for listening to my songs, it is a dream come true <3 Come see me play at my upcoming shows ! Can't wait to see you there <33333 amour my homies

[lailaliquorice]

some memories never leave your bones

AO3 link

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five | part six

It’s angst time babeyyyyyyy

Jane’s turn in the SiX hurt/comfort series. Oh this one hurt my heart at times but it’s so soft, I love writing mother-hen type characters get taken care of themselves. Didn’t expect Aragon to appear in this one but I guess I’m just a sucker for soft Aragon. But Cathy Parr gets all the gold stars <3 Could be interpreted as a bit Seymour/Parr but was intended as just friendship.

To say that Jane was the mother of the Queens’ household was an understatement. The housework chart that Parr had drawn up soon after they all moved in together hadn’t lasted long before Jane ended up doing a bit of everything, though of course the other girls did their bit to help whenever she asked them too. Her days off were always spent catching up on the housework that always got forgotten during with their busy show schedules, and to be perfectly honest she didn’t trust any of the other girls to go food shopping after sending Anne and Kat one time ended up in the pair buying so many sweets that they were on a sugar high for the next 24 hours. They were allowed to come with her, but under no circumstances were they allowed to go alone.

Since it was mostly her in charge of the food, she pretty much trusted blindly that anything in the house was safe to eat. So she didn’t think twice about eating the corner shop sandwich that Anne handed her just before a matinee show upon realising she’d forgotten to bring herself a packed lunch, and it was only after she’d finished it did she catch sight of the package and realise it was three days out of date.

Without thinking she rushed into the other dressing room, waving her hands frantically when she saw Anne just about to tuck into her own sandwich. “Anne, don’t! They’ve gone off!” she shouted.

Anne just blinked at her for a moment, before putting the sandwich down and checking the packaging for herself. “Oh yeah, good save Jane,” she laughed, resealing the wrapper before throwing it across the dressing room into the bin. “I usually stock up on lunches at the start of the week, must’ve not realised they had short dates on them. Guess we’ll have to put up with stealing Cathy’s biscuits ‘til we get home then ‘cos I don’t think we’ve got time to do another food run.”

Jane hummed in agreement, not telling Anne that she hadn’t noticed in time to stop herself from eating it. It would only make the other girl feel guilty, and she was pretty confident that nothing would come of it. She’d read somewhere that most use-by-dates were overly cautious for most foods anyway. If they’d survived before refrigerators in their old lives then a single sandwich wasn’t about to bring her down.

After getting home and eating a proper dinner as normal, she was even surer of her conclusion. And after nearly two days with no symptoms at all she’d pretty much forgotten about it altogether.

When she was woken at 6am by uncomfortable cramps in her abdomen she just assumed that it was an early warning of her period approaching; Anna suffered the same and had described it as ‘her uterus playing the Jaws theme song’, which Jane had thought was a good analogy after Anna explained what the Jaws theme song was. Groaning, she sat up slowly and gave herself a minute of breathing deeply before pulling on her dressing gown to head downstairs. The morning sun was already streaming through her window but there was a chill in the air she couldn’t ignore.

As expected the kitchen was deserted – even on a show day when everyone was awake promptly she was usually the first one up. After shuffling over to the kettle to make herself a coffee to wake herself up and take some painkillers with, she rummaged around the cupboards for a hot water bottle to ease her stomach. It was usually Anne who needed one the most during that time of the month but with six girls living together they were in no short supply. Once armed with caffeine and her hot water bottle she sat down gingerly at the kitchen table to wait for the painkillers to kick in, unable to stop herself from shivering as she pulled her dressing gown tight around herself.

She was feeling no better when the first set of footsteps sounded above her, making no effort to turn towards the door as she tried to work out who it was. “Hey Jane,” said Parr’s voice a moment later.

“Morning love,” Jane said, a tight smile on her face as she looked over at her friend. “You’re up early.”

Cathy shrugged, flicking the kettle back on before leaning against the counter as she talked. “Fell asleep early so woke up early I guess. You know I don’t need much sleep,” she explained, though her yawn a second later did little to support her statement. Her sleepy smile quickly turned into a frown as Jane shivered violently, pressing the hot water bottle as close to her skin as possible. “Are you alright?” she asked, concern in her voice.

Jane nodded, arms wrapped tightly around her stomach. “I’m fine, just woke up with bad cramps that’s all.”

“Ah,” Cathy said, pulling a pitying expression. “Let me make us some breakfast then, since it’s usually you running around whenever one of us is under the weather.”

“Thanks love,” Jane sighed, unwilling to move for as long as she didn’t have to.

Aragon had joined them by the time Parr sat down with two plates of toast, giving Jane a sympathetic smile when she noticed the hot water bottle she was clutching. She was always a little softer first thing in the morning, a side of her that usually only Jane ever got to see. “Not having a good morning huh?” she asked, emptying the kettle to make her typical green tea.

“It’ll pass, don’t worry about me,” Jane said, just about returning the smile as she nibbled on her toast.

But her confidence was short-lived, as she barely managed the first slice before her stomach suddenly churned and she realised with horrible clarity that she was about to be sick. Before Parr or Aragon even had time to react she was on her feet and sprinting, just about making it to the downstairs bathroom before she was throwing up into the toilet.

Gentle hands pulling her hair back alerted her to Parr’s presence beside her, tying it out of the way as Jane continued to heave. When it was over she slumped back into Parr’s arms, breathing heavily and shaking with chills. “You’re alright, I’ve got you,” Parr murmured, taking most of Jane’s weight since she was too weak to hold herself up.

“Try and have some water,” sounded another voice, as Aragon crouched down beside them with a glass in her hands. Jane’s hands were trembling as she reached to take it, grateful for Aragon’s hands either side of hers to support her as she took a few sips.

“Do you think you can stand up?” Parr asked, and when Jane gave a tiny nod she shifted so that one hand was under her arm and the other around her back. Aragon took her other arm and together they managed to get Jane on her feet despite how much she was shaking, exhaustion tugging at her limbs now that the adrenaline had worn off. For a moment she leaned heavily on the sink, glancing briefly at her pale and miserable reflection as Parr continued to speak gently. “That’s it, take it slow. Do you want to lie down on the sofa?”

Jane shook her head, fighting her tiredness to support as much of her own weight as she could. “I’ll just go back to bed, I’ll be fine,” she said quietly.

“Are you sure? We’ll make sure the other girls can’t-“

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Aragon didn’t try to protest again after Jane’s quick interruption, only nodding as Jane took a few shaky steps away from her and Parr. Without their reassuring forms by her side she felt suddenly vulnerable but forced herself to carry on, repeating “I’ll be fine,” as she gave them an empty smile. With that she carried on away from them, clinging onto the banister with a white-knuckled grip as she climbed the stairs towards her bedroom.

The second she was across the threshold she shut the door, fighting the urge to sink to her knees until she was curled up on her mattress. Only then did she give in to the panic that had been creeping up on her since the first feeling of nausea. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she hugged her middle and sobbed silently, shaking from both fever and terror. All she could think about was the last time she could remember feeling like that, when all she wanted was to hold her son but she couldn’t do anything for the fever wracking her body and the pain in her stomach. The same pain she could feel now, twisting her insides every time she moved. In the back of her head she could hear the screams of her son and the pleas of her ladies in waiting, the memories growing stronger as her fever worsened.

It was easy to feign sleep when she heard Kat checking on her before they left for the theatre, as she’d been slipping in and out of consciousness all day and was barely coherent when the younger girl’s voice roused her out of a fitful sleep. She was unconscious again before the front door shut, dreams filled with agony and fear that were hardly lessened upon waking. The room was so hot it was almost suffocating but whenever she kicked the duvet back the air was like ice on her clammy skin. Even sitting up to drink sips of water made her feel nauseatingly dizzy, and all she could do was lie down and pray that the bed would stop spinning. Then she’d end up falling asleep again after fighting it desperately for fear she wouldn’t wake up again, and the hellish cycle would continue.

She had no idea how much time had passed before she heard her door open again, trying to still her shivers so that whoever it was would leave her to sleep again. The thought of hearing her friends crying over her now as they’d done back then was what kept her from making any movement, but as soon as the door shut she couldn’t contain the sobs that shook her frame as she curled up tighter. As much as she didn’t want anyone there she was too scared to be alone in the dark place her mind had gone to.

The mattress dipping hardly registered with her, until she felt someone press up close to her back with one hand on her arm and the other on her forehead. “Breathe with me Jane, I’ve got you,” Parr’s voice said softly, rubbing soothing circles into her shoulder as Jane continued to cry. “You’re here, you’re going to be ok.”

Jane knew she was right deep down, but panic and fear had her shaking her head as she rolled onto her back to look up at Cathy. “But this- this is how I felt when- when I-“ she choked out between frantic breaths, unable to add ‘when I died.’

But she didn’t need to finish those words for Cathy to nod, murmuring sweet nothings as Jane covered her face with her hands and let out another sob. “Shh, I know love, I thought you would,” she murmured. There was a moment of hesitation, so unlike Cathy’s usual self, before she swallowed hard and added “It’s how I died too, so believe me I know.”

The reveal was enough for Jane to look at her properly, struggling to focus her gaze on Cathy’s haunted expression. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, because she didn’t know what else to say. Cathy was the most private of them all by far, keeping secret most of the details from her past life other than what she sang about during the show, so while Jane knew she’d had a daughter and died during her infancy she had never intruded by asking how.

“It’s ok,” Cathy said, the shadows gone from her behind her eyes as if they’d never existed. Gentle fingers swept a few strands of blonde hair from her sweat-slicked forehead, a thumb rubbing over her cheek to wipe away tears as she continued. “Don’t think about that. It’s just a stomach bug, it’ll pass soon and you’re going to be fine. Nothing that happened then can hurt you now.”

That was what Jane always said to Anne and Kat when night terrors left them screaming during the night, the words familiar enough to calm the fear in her racing heart. “Sorry,” she said, sniffing again, “I just feel bad.”

Cathy’s hand disappeared for a moment before it was replaced by a damp flannel, and Jane sighed and closed her eyes with how blissfully cool it was against her fever-hot skin. “I know you do. But it won’t last, I promise.”

Jane nodded slightly. After several moments of quiet other than the sound of Cathy’s breathing, she asked “Can you stay here? I don’t think I want to be alone again.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Cathy said, her hand finding its way into Jane’s and squeezing gently.

With their linked hands anchoring her into the present and her memories banished back to where they belonged, Jane exhaled quietly as she let her friend’s reassuring presence lull her into a peaceful sleep.

[mykniverse]

17

TW// self harm, beatings, suicide, death

i remember storming home first, leaving family members behind. my thighs were pinched with thongs and i was dragged and locked out of the house in the cold. i was given a jug of water, some fruits and my schoolbag.

when sh did the same, he was lectured and was told not to do it again. 

i remember accidentally lashing out and i was forced to eat cili padi at 10 pm. 

when sh and iq did it, they were only shouted at.

i remember the day you found my goodbye card for my guy friend in primary school. i was scolded and shouted at and also beaten up.

when sh and iq exchanged love letters with girls, nothing was said or done.

i remember asking if i could go out with my friend at 9. i wasnt allowed to because i failed my exams.

sh and iq are able to go out even when their results are bad.

i remember wanting to go to a level camp so bad i wrote a note, begging to be allowed to go. but i got scolded for writing the note and i wasnt allowed to go. i wasnt allowed to go to camps till i was 13.

sh was able to go to camps between ages 11 and 12 with no problems.

i remember being told that if i failed PSLE i will be married off to a random guy. i was told to aim for 200. i scored 199. i didnt get to hear any “good job” or “you did well” as we had to rush to KL as someone passed on. in fact i didnt get to hear anything even after the trip. 

i remember sunday practices. waking up to reciting the timetable at the door no matter who was passing by. no breakfast till youre satisfied. and on weekdays after school, i’d have to recite them on a stool in front of the window where the sun was merciless. i remember when i collapsed due to the heat. i was in pain when i regained consciousness. i was asked to eat but while i was getting food i was slapped. i was laughed at by sh and iq.

i joined netball at 8. i was forced to quit at 9 because i didnt do well for my exams. i wasnt in any ccas till i was 13. but i couldnt choose what i wanted. i was forced to join a uniformed group. 

sh joined a dance cca and it was approved. iq joined badminton but quit. then he joined malay dance. both times it was approved. he was in the prefect team too. you kept giving him chances after chances even though he keeps failing. why couldnt i get the same amount of chances?

it was sh’s turn to take PSLE. when i texted about his results (i was out), you told me he did better than me. i was shocked as to how he could get 200 and above. he dropped out of the normal stream to foundation. he only scored 130. you were so proud of him. he went into a technical school and you supported him so much. i couldnt even choose which school i wanted to go to. “choose a school where you dont have to spend 5 years studying” but the first choice that you put would have led me to spend 5 years in secondary school. in the end i got the last choice that you put.

i remember you finding out that i was talking to a guy when i was 10. we were just talking. you found out and beat me up. i couldnt walk properly for the rest of the day. 

sh and iq are saying upfront that they have girlfriends but nothing is happening to them.

i got my first tiny phone that barely works at 13. i got my first actual, second hand phone at 14. and an actual phone that wasnt passed down at 15

they got their first brand new phones at 8 and 12 respectively.

i remember entering a new school with an old bag that sags while they continued being in the same school with new bags.

i remember you asking me to choose a new bag and i asked about them. you said they wont be getting the same. i felt special. till you asked them to get new bags too.

you gave me an anello bag for school once. i felt special again because i was the only one who had it. but a week later they have it too.

i remember only going out with my friends at 15. but my curfew was before dusk. 

iq went out at 9. sh went out at 13.  you gave sh a curfew. he came home hours later and didnt even get scolded. i brought it up and you acknowledged it but nothing happened.

i remember going home late after school. im a teen am i not supposed to have fun with my friends? but you brought it up to one of the upper ups in school. i was put on probation for months. it was embarrassing. teachers thought that i committed a crime. an innocent me is getting probation? why? because i go home late. i cant say that i have things after school at the last minute because you say its ridiculous and bullshit.

sh goes home late. you caught him at the playground, mall, void decks. you scold him. and he does it again. but nothing major happens. iq calls or texts you that he is staying in school and you allow him to. 

i remember self harming between ages 12 to 15. i was asked to go counselling. now i realised that the counselling was nothing. it didnt help at all. they put the blame on me. when you found out about this, i remember you scolding me. “what is there to be depressed about? youre only 14. all you have to do is study” i was scolded so much for being depressed and for self harming. you had to go for some parents counselling thingy too. i remember that one time i hit an all time low and self harmed again. sh snitched on me and told you about my scars. you got so mad when you saw the scars. i remember what you said to me. “why dont you do it deeper? end the burden once and for all. it’s so burdening and tiring to go to counselling after work?” i remember crying non stop. till we meet him. i was crying in the train. sh and iq was pointing at me and laughing. what you didnt know was that i was typing my suicide notes. i planned my suicide. when we met him, you told him and he glared at me so hard. i was given the silent treatment for so long. when you asked me why, i lied and say that im hated by people. how do i tell the cause of my depression that they are the cause of my depression?

i remember when i stopped self harming and counselling sessions are done. you got new piercings and i asked you if it hurts. you would always retaliate by saying that me self harming hurts more than getting pierced. you consistently did this while i was trying to heal. i remember when jonghyun passed on. i broke down a lot. i cried a lot. i revealed my vulnerable side. but i was mocked. “when a celebrity dies, she’s crying her eyes out. i wonder if she would even cry when her mom passes away.” i literally had to excuse myself so i dont break down in front of you.

i remember that you talked to me before i went on to pursue my tertiary education. you said you were disappointed in me. you said you didnt understand why i was content with my shitty results. i was content because the entire of 2018 was peak depression period. i could barely study because it was so overwhelming. the fact that i managed to even go somewhere was huge to me. i knew i disappointed you a lot because i was the only one who managed to maintain the standard and express stream. you didnt expect me to be where i am now. i put some money from my salary to pay my school fees and uniform for the first term. i already disappointed you so i didnt want to burden you. but you took it the wrong way. you thought i was trying to overthrow your responsibilities as a parent. you said that i was excited to grow up and get rid of you from my life. i remember being so shocked. yes i want to grow up so i leave this household but i have never once thought of getting rid of you.  

i remember and i know that you are very against what im doing now and what i want to do in the future. but im 17 now. im turning 18 soon. how long more are you gonna make my decisions for me? why cant i choose what i want to be? 

why do you assume that my depression is gone just because i dont have to go for counselling? why do you still joke about me self harming? why do you blame whatever sh and iq do on me? “monkey see, monkey do” what did i do? im still harming myself in a way. i picked up smoking at 13. and i started drinking recently. i have no idea where im gonna end up. a successful writer? at the void deck passed out? on the road surrounded by my own blood? i really dont know where i’ll end up. i dont know how long more i can take your hostile words. i hear that im useless every day. i hear that im hopeless every day. you always say that you dont understand us. why dont you try? why dont you try to put down your ego for a bit and try to understand us? try to understand me. try to talk to me. dont you notice that i never talk about how im doing? all i say is that im tired. and you scold me. “if youre tired then dont go to school” you dont even know when i get sick unless its the holidays. we stay under the same roof yet you dont know me at all. and you didnt raise me. for almost 10 years of my life, i was raised by my grandparents. please for once. stop talking and listen. understand. comfort instead of scolding. please. im losing my mind.

[jane-ways]

The Love of Small Things, Ch 4

Read it on AO3 & SWG!

Many thanks to @nerdvnel for beta reading!

It was morning in Valinor, and the sun was shining. Well, the sun was almost always shining in Valinor, but right now it happened to be shining directly into Fingon’s eyes. He sat, resolute, at the little dining table in his breakfast nook. Fingon loved the breakfast nook for the way it caught the early morning light, but it was now closer to mid-day, and the angle was all wrong—alright, if Fingon was being honest, everything was all wrong. He sighed in frustration, tossing his quill onto the pile of parchment scattered across the table.

‘Whatever am I supposed to say?’ he thought to himself hopelessly. And yet, he felt he ought to say something. It would be awkward if he didn’t say something, wouldn’t it? He was the son of Fingolfin, after all; he had been raised to take duty to family very seriously. But what sort of duty does one have to the fully-grown, adopted son of one’s lover? He laughed aloud at the sheer absurdity of it all. ‘Only in the House of Finwë,’ he thought.

A squirrel clambered up on the tree branch near the window. Sniffing the air, it looked through the window and chirped at him. He smiled encouragingly, and it considered him for a moment before scampering away, fluffy tail bouncing.

‘Perhaps the best thing is to stop thinking over-much about it,’ Fingon thought, and, picking up his quill once more, he began to write.

To the High King Gil-galad Ereinion, from Findekáno Ñolofinwion

My good sir,

It is a pleasure to finally begin a formal correspondence—well, any correspondence!—with you. I felt given my close—

“Um,” said Fingon aloud. How much of Maedhros’s personal life was known to the lad? Maedhros was a private sort of man; Fingon would hate to speak out of turn to someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a perfect stranger. Amongst the Noldor, he and Maedhros were something of an open secret—well, considering they were currently building a house together, Fingon doubted they were even a secret anymore—but Fingon did not know how much First Age gossip had passed down to Gil-galad about the High Kings and their love lives. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘Erestor can fill him in,’ and continued on:

—relationship with Nelyo—that is, Maedhros—it was only appropriate for me to make your acquaintance. I would not be so presumptuous as to write to you under the pretense of offering advice on king-ing—considering I was only High King for about five minutes, compared to you, it really ought to be the other way around! No, but what I can offer you is plenty of embarrassing stories about Maedhros when he was young and foolish. Well, compared to myself and my siblings, or even compared to most of his, really, he was never terribly foolish, but still, every young person has their folly.

I was, of course, hopelessly in love with him from the moment I saw him. Everyone was, but me especially. I was only a child; he was my tutor, and I loved him before I understood what that was. All I knew was I wanted so desperately to be around him, to make him proud, to see him smile. And what a smile! All the more beautiful for being rare, even in those days.

As I grew out of childhood, I began to realize my feelings for what they were, which, may I say, was an absolutely mortifying experience. I think I spent the entirety of my “in-between” years being tortuously self-aware of every ungraceful action or word—and at that age, there are so many. At the time, I thought Maedhros was merely being polite in not acknowledging what seemed to me a glaringly obvious crush, but the extraordinary thing is I think he really had no idea! Lucky for me.

By the time I reached the age of ascension, I had convinced myself we were nothing more than friends. By this point I had returned to my own household, and for many years saw Maedhros very rarely. Apparently, this had little effect; as soon as I felt mature enough to strike up a correspondence, we were often in each other’s company, now as companions and equals and no more as student and teacher. We were genuine friends, just two men enjoying each other’s’ company—that’s what I told myself. Enjoying each other’s’ company, indeed! Still, I thank myself—if I hadn’t so doggedly pursued a friendship with him, he never would have gotten to know me as a person—an individual, an equal, not only as a pupil, if you understand my meaning.

Fingon paused, his first break in a steady stream of consciousness. The memory of his old body was faint, but he still remembered in his muscles the ache in his chest of those years he spent apart from Maedhros. (Sometimes, in Beleriand, he had felt the echo of that ache, and for a long time, he had not understood it.) He had been happy, of course. He was Fingon; he was always happy, even when he wasn’t. He had been happy, but not fulfilled—not entirely.

He picked up his quill again.

I won’t bore you with all the details—this was done as much to spare Maedhros as Gil-galad—but suffice it to say that slowly, our relationship grew deeper and more intimate—

Abruptly, Fingon stopped short, and then snorted, before continuing—

—and before we knew it, we were, well, “together,” as they say. I was still a young man then, and for all that I was brash, and still tripping over my own feet, Maedhros was elegant, and considerate, and intelligent. And tall. Very tall. It utterly escaped me what this handsome, well-spoken, thoughtful man (the most sought-after bachelor in all of Aman!) saw in me. It still does! He called me “valiant” when all I ever felt in those days was foolhardy.

My very first memory of him is this: I arrived at my uncle Feanor’s household, scared out of my wits, homesick before my tutelage had even begun. And Maedhros had come out to greet us, and when he saw me, he smiled. He was perfect, and I have never loved another since.

*

Maedhros tapped the tip of his quill against the inkpot. He always did that when he was thinking; it helped him focus. He was writing Gil-galad to “introduce” him, as it were, to the family—not who they were, of course, that was in any history book, but a little of what they were like as people, their interests. His memories of them. The sort of thing one was unlikely to find in a history book.

Or so he hoped.

He had always been reserved, no less princely than his father, but more reticent to share the intimate parts of himself. Thus, emphasis on the intimate, his current dilemma. Maedhros had made it fairly easily through his immediate family, devoting much time to his mother and making it through a discussion of his father and brothers mostly without incident—which he considered a notable feat—before beginning the Ñolofinwean section. Uncle Fingolfin’s paragraph had gone smoothly: the two of them had always had a strong connection, being closer in age and disposition to brothers than uncle and nephew. (And closer in disposition than Maedhros ever was to Fëanor, whispered a voice in the back of his mind.)

And then, next in the neat little genealogical exercise Maedhros had laid out, was Fingon.

It wasn’t that Maedhros was concerned how Gil might view the relationship; Beleriand had been, in his experience, more liberal in both thought and practice than the Valinor of his youth when it came to intimate relationships, half-cousins or no. (‘Well,’ he considered, ‘maybe not in Turgon’s house.’ It was unlikely anything had been liberal there.) Even in Aman people more or less shrugged their shoulders and carried on when they encountered such things nowadays. It wasn’t fear of judgment, it was just—

He simply didn’t know how to do it.

Maedhros was not regarded as one of the more emotional members of his family—not, of course, that this was particularly difficult given some people he was related to—and in general felt a great discomfort when speaking of, dealing with, or indeed acknowledging emotions more complex than, say, hunger. Being a prince, he had learned to mask this discomfort with a heavy dose of Fëanorian Charm, but the truth was that Maedhros had never felt he was any good at talking about his feelings.

And so he hadn’t talked about his feelings to Gil, not really. He had written about what he knew of people, what he admired, what he remembered. Little stories and anecdotes he felt encapsulated the nature of that person, and of his relationship with them. But with Fingon, it felt impossible to share so many of those moments without first some explanation as to who Fingon really was to him. Perhaps if he related only the facts of their relationship—how they met, how they became what they were to each other—it would spare them both: Maedhros, the embarrassment of writing what he considered lurid and saccharine details, and Gil-galad, the embarrassment of reading them.

I first met my half-cousin Fingon when he was a boy, sent to study in our household. He spent many years with us, mostly under my tutelage, and by the time he left, he was a man in his own right, poised to assume the duties of a prince. I thought him particularly well-suited for the job: cheerful and polite, but intelligent and determined. He shortly began a correspondence, which pleased me, and thereafter we were rarely apart, for, having come into full manhood, I found him a pleasing companion and friend. It is gratifying for those of us who have been teachers to watch our students grow into adults, and to come to know and respect them as equals, as they have respected us.

Thus, a relationship of some intimacy developed. Pleased though I was at the attention Fingon bestowed upon me, especially in beginning our correspondence, I was also surprised—not only that he should seek the friendship of his former teacher, but that a gallant and popular young man would seek the attention of someone so reserved and bookish as myself. But I found he brought out the best in me, as I came to know him better—my humility, my humor, my kindness.

And so, when he first confessed his feelings to me, I realized I had quite accidentally fallen in love with him.

It was suggested that my uncle had sent my cousin to study in our household as a sort of peace offering, an appeal to my father—a way to bridge our two families. It certainly worked, although perhaps not in the manner intended. We had been friends—true friends—for so long I hardly remembered the boy I had known centuries before. He had grown into a person whom I cared for, yes, but more importantly, whom I respected as a prince and a leader. Someone I admired.

In all things he has been my partner, and it has been my great privilege to share my life with him.

Maedhros paused, feeling like he had caught his breath for the first time since he had started writing that passage. He purposefully untensed his muscles, picked up his quill again, and, setting it to the page once more, continued:

Turgon.

He sighed.

*

Gil-galad looked up from his letters at Elrond. They sat, as they often did, with Erestor and Maglor in a small, semi-private chamber Gil had begun calling his “family room.” (Amused, Maglor had informed him that Celegorm had often called such rooms “dens.”) A crackling fire illuminated Elrond’s face, reflecting in his eyes, which were now raised to meet Gil-galad’s.

“Did you know about Adar and King Fingon?” he asked quietly. Across the room, Erestor’s eyes widened, and Maglor’s face spread into a wicked grin.

“Everyone in wider Beleriand knew about my brother and Fingon,” interjected Maglor, with a laugh. “There were at least a dozen drinking songs about the two of them.”

“You ought to know,” sniffed Erestor, who was pointedly refusing to look up from his book. “You wrote half of them.” Maglor was positively beaming.

Elrond ignored them; having gotten up to stand behind Gil-galad’s chair, he was too engrossed in attempting to read over the king’s shoulder. Skimming the page, he said, “I knew a little, but this tells me nothing new, save that Fingon was the one who confessed to Adar.”

“I always knew it would be Fingon,” said Maglor. “Moryo was running bets—on who would confess first, and when—and I won the whole pool,” he finished proudly. Holding up a finger, he recalled, “‘Fingon, at sunset, by the beech tree, in summer.’ Oh, don’t look so aghast, Erestor; you bet, too, you’re just still upset you didn’t win.” Quirking his eyebrow, Elrond turned his gaze to Gil-galad. This is what you’re getting yourself into, his expression seemed to say. Are you sure you’re prepared?

Gil-galad just smiled.