chdarling

[chdarling]

People have written a lot of touchy-feely pieces on this subject but I thought I’d get right to the heart of the matter

[chdarling]

I‘m pretty sure you already answered this but how old are you exactly???

I‘m confused because of your 2003 reblog because I always thought you were around 22 but…..

Also I just finished rereading TLE and I am so excited for 2026 when you hopefully publish part 3!!!

(but take your time to make it as perfect as you can!!)

Lol no, I’m not 22. I’m not going to give my exact age, because internet privacy and all that, but I was in my twenties when I wrote TLE1…I’m older now. 🙃

(And thanks for reading! I’m so glad you enjoyed it! 🥰)

[chdarling]

It really is 2003 again Jesus Tapdancing Christ.

Like, all Republicans did was replace Iraq and gay people with Iran and trans people.

[chdarling]

This is going to sound so "oldie yells at cloud" of me but the radicalisation of the young into black and white, zero shades of grey thinking, both in the media they consume and in real life situations, is genuinely terrifying.

The world is complex. The world is grey. There is infinite nuance in everything. No amount of trying to shove it all into neatly labeled boxes is ever going to work.

[chdarling]

[chdarling]

weird cultural shift detected

Fam, be careful with your time online. I highly recommend sinking some time and energy into offline pursuits.

Try: knitting or crochet; gentle movement, stretching, walking if you can; playing a musical instrument, whether it's piano or penny whistle; and especially reading.

I do not mean performative BookTok reading that we do for likes because our neurotransmitters have been nerfed by modern life.

I mean actual reading that we do for ourselves alone.

If reading is hard, if attention or energy or memory are operating at a deficit, I get it. Nevertheless, please try. If you notice you're skipping across big chunks of text like a river stone, if you can't finish a paragraph, slow down, pronounce the words out loud. Stop sometimes and ask yourself what you just read. Explain the story or article or poem to your blorbo or your cat or a stuffed animal.

If your head feels scrambled up, no judgment. We may have incredibly intractable neurochemical reasons that this is hard. Just tell the blorbo, "That's hilarious, I don't remember any of what I just read. Let's read it again, together."

(Please don't ask A.I. to do this for you. Please. It's your right to read and think about it your own way. A.I. doesn't actually understand anything. Please don't assume it will guide you safely through this next weird phase of our human culture.)

If reading longform, offline, makes you feel bored or anxious, be gentle and patient with yourself. Start with stories you remember well, reliable sources of well-being. But please know you will need to put some backbone into it in the long run.

I think we are going to need to rebuild our ability to think, to process experience. This will be an unsupported activity. In fact, most of the really powerful cultural forces are making it very hard for us to notice, feel, perceive, or think clearly.

Not sure what, but something's happened quite recently that is making this situation much worse, some kind of tipping point.

Please read something every day.

Your friend, greenjudy

[chdarling]

Oh my GOD. This just made my day, thank you 😭😭😭😭

me after a long, stressful day at work: maybe l’ll read TLE2 while I wait for the train. I’m sure that will cheer me up.

TLE2:

[chdarling]

Aaaaaand scene. Reread is complete 🥲

Here, have some random moments while I process my emotions about this insane 400,000 word journey through the last few years of my life.

fun fact that I probably shouldn’t own up to, but I had just bought a new tv (baby’s first tv!) around this time. It came in an enormous box — like seriously they could’ve fit three TVs in there — and due to a number of factors, the main one being chronic fatigue, that box lived in my apartment for way longer than I care to admit. Which came in handy when I was trying to write this scene and couldn’t figure out the physicality of it. Did I lie down on the floor and drop an enormous tv box on top of me? I’m not going to tell you, but I’m also not going to say that that didn’t happen.

Thank you for your service, giant tv box that made my life hell for months. 🫡

and then everyone clapped.

no commentary just :)

You know me, I love a good parallel. 😌

🥲🥲🥲

This scene was important to me. Sister dynamics are complicated and occasionally toxic but they love each other!! Deep down!!

That’s pretty much the crux of it, isn’t it Sev?

I’ve been accused many times and on many platforms of being a Snape hater (snater?) and I’ve never really thought that was true — although if fandom has taught me one thing, it’s that one fan’s hater is another fan’s stan. In fact I have a deep well of empathy for Snape. He’s absolutely responsible for his own decisions, and frankly he’s going to make some more bad ones before the end of the story, but this a kid who was failed by every single figure of authority in his life (and I include Dumbledore in that). Small wonder this troubled young man sought approval and connection in a fascist group that told him he was special... *looks around bleakly at the world* Tale as old as time, huh?

wait wtf do you mean if I want to read what happens next I have to write it???

ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[chdarling]

Circling back to this chapter for a minute because I’ve been zooming through my reread without much commentary, but having (almost) finished, I’m pretty sure this is my favorite chapter of TLE2. I know, I know, I always pick the depressing ones. (“The Beast” remains my favorite chapter of TLE1, and I think that chapter can pretty much be summed up with one word: oof.)

I thought I’d have a lot of commentary on this one, but I think I mostly said everything I wanted to say, which is probably why I like it so much.

One thing I will say is that I had this chapter planned from the very beginning — George Evans was always going to die in a car crash — but shortly before I sat down to draft it, my family suffered a very sudden and unexpected death. Upon reread I can definitely see the ways that experience infiltrated the prose. I like the chapter better for it, but woof, it was a doozy for me.

The actual writing experience was different from other chapters, in that I did most of it in one frenetic writing session — through which I sobbed the entire time — and once finished, I posted it to AO3 and then laid down on the floor for a good thirty minutes. It was a brutal but cathartic experience.

I amused myself by unearthing this text from August 12, 2023:

A few passages just for fun:

This paragraph always makes me very emotional. Something something the grief of growing up something something.

No real comment, I just love writing flashbacks in which James and Sirius suck :)

Reason #2842 I really need to properly learn how to draw: Snape in a flower crown. It’s important to me.

Damn ok.

me after a long, stressful day at work: maybe l’ll read TLE2 while I wait for the train. I’m sure that will cheer me up.

TLE2:

[chdarling]

Books on Libby have started disappearing.

My friend pointed it out first, and then I started noticing too. Why would books that multiple libraries definitely, 100% had digital access to a couple of months/weeks/days ago disappear?

Amazon is getting exclusive rights to them.

Ebooks that the public library once had digital copies of are now only available through Amazon. Audible boasts on their covers about Audible-exclusive audiobooks that did not used to be Audible-exclusive. Entire series and collections are disappearing overnight.

Keep your eyes on the privatization of media and your libraries.

[chdarling]

[chdarling]

Popping back into my reread on chapter 67 for some jily…this chapter was admittedly a bit of a rough read for me, and I very well might break out the proverbial machete to fix some of the prose (probably no one cares but me but why is every sentence in the past perfect tense, CH? Whyyyyyy?), HOWEVER, unsurprisingly I started having fun again once James showed up.

Also, crybaby Lily is important to me. Canonically that girl is always crying and I love it about her. Yes girl feel your feelings!!!!

I don’t think I did this on purpose, per se, but upon reread I feel like this line from James is basically the thesis of TLE2. Thanks for summing it up bb!

And finally, I feel the need to point out that I KNOW Sirius has the worst effing timing, but in this instance it’s absolutely not his fault. You see, the characters were fighting me. The jily was too strong. I could think of absolutely no way to wrap up that scene without them making out, and canonically that can’t happen yet!!! So I had to throw Sirius under the bus. Oh well!!!

[chdarling]

[chdarling]

[chdarling]

the problem with watching buffy the vampire slayer for the first time when you're 13 is that it will fundamentally reshape your brain chemistry to the point where literally all fiction becomes buffy the vampire slayer in different fonts. "watch another show!" you might say, and believe me i have! i promise i've watched many other shows since i was 13. but the problem is that all those other shows as well as films, books, podcasts etc. are simply deviations of buffy the vampire slayer to me. it's the holy text, the primary source. everything else is just commentary.

[chdarling]

How come you're all about "feminism" until it's time to protest? We haven't seen you make a single fucking post about the LA riots and it's really disappointing.

Hi friends. This is your reminder not to reply to questions like this. You do not need to self-report your behavior. This is a guilt trip designed to make you violate your own Miranda rights.

Also, they are not riots (Freudian slip, fed?), they're peaceful protests and are a democratic right under the first amendment.

where to find your local protest donate to legal funds my local immigrant support network

be safe out there, i love you.

[chdarling]

Musician: Jesse Welles

Posted 11Dec2024