#I would rather see the colour of the sky everyday than look at your fucking tumblr basecap

[comfortableskin]

Has someone already complained about the new store menu because I for sure have some things to say

[4dtk]

hello my honey bunch UMM IM NOT SURE IF IM SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE EACH ONE??? BUT IM GONNA DO IT ANW

can i request 3 from the hand holding, 16 from the hugging, 26 from the kissing and 3 from the touching with jaehyun!!!!

FUCK IDK IF I DID RIGHT I HOPE THIS IS OKAY <333

yes you did it right, dont worry! hope u enjoy this angel!! and welcome back <333 (ps holy crap this is long AHASHDHDH)

hand-holding, 3: cold hands in warm hands

hugs, 16: ‘not wanting to let go’ hugs

kisses, 26: giggling while kissing

touching, 3: hiding face in neck

“c’mon! you’re gonna miss the sunrise,” you drag jaehyun along the mountains, a clear path etched into the ground that visitors always took whenever they wanted to view the sunrise. the both of you got lucky today, being the only two people who got up early enough to catch the night sky turn into yellows and oranges, before it rests in the usual sky blue you’d see up in the sky.

well… one of you was. “do we really need to see the sunrise again, baby? i was perfectly content cuddling with you…” your husband knew better than to argue with you when you have your eyes set on something, especially with something like a sunrise. it was a by-product of why you selected this B&B atop of a mountain where you’d be freezing your asses off, but jaehyun could hardly reject your suggestion when he saw how excited you were.

“oh, i’ve always wanted to go back to a mountainside hostel! i remember the last one, ’twas so good, whatdya say?” jaehyun remembers every detail you’ve told him: from the countless cats, to the stunning trail to where you watched the sunrise with your family, the edible flower they cooked up for you. he can’t say no when your eyes are lit up like that, and so, he hauled himself out of bed to put on a simple outfit, relying on your hand to guide him.

you know he doesn’t mean it, but you pout either way, both at his words and the time on your watch. it’s dangerously close to when the staff said the sun would rise. the thought alone of missing the sky drives you to take quicker steps, struggling against the thin air the higher and higher you went.

“hah… finally,” you mumble to yourself, perching yourself near a field of crops that belonged to those living nearby. you were careful not to crush any of the sprouts, patting the space beside you as you waited for the show to start. jaehyun takes your hand wordlessly, letting out a gasp at how cold your hands were; it showed you appreciated the warmth with the way your fingers curled around his, it was natural instinct, both a result of your body reacting to warmth and to the love of your significant other.

“you’re freezing, angel,” jaehyun laughs, “maybe you made a mistake wearing fingerless gloves this morning. c’mon, take ‘em out.”

“it was dark!” you glare at him, “and no, you want me to have a frozen hand when i touch your face later?”

“i’ll warm it up for you, c’mon.” you grumble but comply either way, removing the sad excuse of protection from the cold, fingers instantly curling into your husband’s. he blows onto it, conversation falling silent as your keep your eyes trained on the sight in front of you.

it’s slow, the minutes pass, the sky barely changing. the sun decides to stop the teasing, unleashing its brilliant lights that prompt the both of you to squint. it becomes more bearable to longer you look at it, welcoming the painting of warm colours you never tire of seeing. it mixed like an impromptu painting, unknowingly presenting a magnificent piece of art despite the messiness among the clouds and skyline.

jaehyun has moved behind you by then, engulfing you in his arms while he continued to warm your hands. jokingly, he wedges his hand in between your neck, surprising you slightly with his ice cold lips that were slowly cracking.

as the colours thicken and blend, you can feel the other snuggle more into the crook of your neck, gentle and careful to not shock you again. his body fits with yours perfectly, body warmth gradually shared the more and longer you embrace. with a shift of your butt, you’re moving to stand up, but immediately gets pulled down by his strong arms.

“not yet…” he mumbles, fighting against sleepiness for you. there’s a stammer in his voice as he struggles to find the words he wants to say. you attempt to stand up a second time and this time, jaehyun lets you, ready to follow you with an arm around your waist. “why’d you wanna stand up?”

you say nothing as you place your hands on his cheeks, cold to the touch. there’s time for you to admire his face later, so you dive in to fit your lips to his. it moves without trouble, having done this countless times like how jaehyun’s arms fit around your middle. his body is pressed flush against your own, able to feeling every muscle that’s reacting to your kiss that it leaves him hungry for more.

it makes you woozy, dizzy, dopey, the way jaehyun is fondling you, lips moving in tandem with the squeezing hands on your sides. a bit of warmth creeps up from the side, signifying the last bits of the sunrise. it makes the other smile, but you’re not sure why.

you pull away curiously, mouth only an inch from his as you impatiently waited for his answer. “no… just… funny how you brought me up here to watch the sky change colours and instead you’re locking lips with me.” he says with a smirk.

“oh my god, shut up,” you’re giggling like a schoolgirl, taken back to when you’d laugh shamelessly backstage as the members teased you; including the time when the two of you were interviewed for one of korea’s slice-of-life magazines with a suggestive answer on jaehyun’s part… and also of the time when you almost slipped on cake batter that you dropped on the floor.

each day you spend with your boyfriend-turned-husband is guaranteed to be filled with laughter, and now is just one more memory to store away. jaehyun hovers over your lips this time, unifying your smiles with miscalculated kisses that never quite land. you’re struggling to contain it now, breaking contact to stretch your lips into a grin that is reciprocated by the other.

“will your cute ass stop giggling?” he wants to fake his anger, but it backfires as his own laugh fills your ears. it feels like a warm hug after a rainy day, and you give him just that while your arms encircle around his neck. you can’t care much for the colours blooming in the sky now, rather admiring the crimson appearing on his cheeks even after the many years you’ve been together. you bury your face in his chest.

“thank you, jae. for loving me,” your confession is whispered so soft that the other is convinced he wouldn’t hear it. but he does, and the softening of his eyes is something you don’t catch.

“i’m happy to do it. everyday, baby, it’s everyday that i fall deeper and deeper. i hope it’ll never end,” you’re silent, but the words make your heart and cheeks flare up and it’s a minute before you find the courage to say your part.

“likewise, jaehyun. i love you.”

[choupichoups]

Collect the stars each time I think of you [ 1 // 2 ]

Eliott 23:27 How far away are you?

Lucas 23:27 Like 2 mins

Eliott 23:28 Okay  Door’s unlocked!!  Just head straight in

Lucas jogs up the stairs, steps rapid as a wind up toy, giddy at the prospect of seeing his boyfriend after a long day apart. 

Or, well, technically, it’s only been half a day since they’d gone out for breakfast together but who’s counting anyway? He’s long accepted the fact that he misses Eliott for every minute they spend separately, seconds dragging slower than sand in an hourglass. Yes, he’s that kind of whipped bastard in love, so sue him. 

He trips over an uprooted part of the carpet on the top stair and only just manages to catch himself on the dirty flooring. Slowly, he regains his breathing and brushes a hand through his hair so as to not be too obvious about rushing up the door— Eliott would probably tease him about it right up til midnight.

Speaking of which. 

Lucas settles his hands over the doorknob, pressing his ear against the door to check if he can make out any sounds coming from the other side. It’s his birthday tomorrow and he’s not stupid. He’s dating Eliott ‘Romance the shit out of you’ Demaury, he knows his boyfriend’s got plans, okay. Not like he’d be disappointed if there aren’t any surprises in store for him, he’d honestly be content with just a kiss (or two), but his chest still flutters in anticipation as he turns the knob. 

Eliott’s invited him over for an impromptu ‘movie night’ and has been oddly quiet on the topic of Lucas’ birthday. Something’s up. He can feel it in his jellies.  

Pulling his bottom lip under his teeth, Lucas nudges the door open and promptly freezes, greeting at the tip of his tongue gone unspoken as his eyes try their best to adjust in the dark. He vaguely hears the door swing shut behind him when his hands go slack by his sides, helplessly struck by the glowing speckles of light scattered all over the walls and ceiling. He squints at them, shaking his head as his eyes grow slightly tired from staring into the white light too much. It looks impeccably like Eliott had somehow managed to bring all the stars in the sky and trap them all in this very room. A sight only for them to selfishly enjoy. 

He huffs out an incredulous laugh. “Eliott?” 

There’s a shuffling from somewhere low on his right and Lucas glances down, belatedly registering the tangled loops of fairy lights by his feet. They lead a path straight to the living room where Eliott sits on the floor, bathed in soft pinks and oranges and greys. Under the crafted stars and stringed fireflies, Eliott looks ethereal. 

“Hey,” Eliott says softly, voice matching the lovely atmosphere he’s created. “Welcome to movie night.”  

Lucas has to laugh again, this time a little louder but no less stunned. “I don’t recall movie night ever being this, um, beautiful.” 

Even in the dark, he can point out the exact moment Eliott perks up. “You think it’s beautiful?” 

“Of course,” Lucas responds, quiet, almost whispered, as he takes in the furniture pushed far along the wall, almost invisible if you weren’t looking, and in the large vacant space in the middle of the living room stands the coziest looking blanket fort Lucas’ eyes have ever been subjected to. “Wow.”

It’s Eliott’s turn to laugh. “You coming?” he asks, like Lucas has ever learned to refuse that question. 

The fairy lights gather thick around the wide perimeter of the fort Eliott’s built and then pour out artfully along the sides and the top. Lucas toes his shoes off and ducks into the mass of sheets and pillows, immediately sinking into the comfort of them as he settles down. The interior of the fort is lit up by small glowing jars of what looks like more tiny stars trapped inside and Jesus, how exactly did Eliott manage to— “How in the fuck did you do all of this? How did you even make these?”

He takes one of the jars, stares skeptically at the lights floating inside, and shakes it vigorously. 

Eliott snatches it away. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

“Okay, Mr. Etsy Demaury, sorcerer of DIY himself.” Lucas relents, scooting over to examine the jars some more but resisting the urge to play with them this time around. “Do we have snacks?”

“In the kitchen.”  

“Okay… why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“Eliott, you honestly expect me to get up and get them myself?”

“Why not?”  

“Look at me.” Lucas turns over, forcing himself to sit up so he can look Eliott square in the eye. “Look at me and tell me that this is the face of someone who will willingly leave this pillow heaven for some gummy worms.” 

Eliott, asshole that he is, actually looks like he’s considering Lucas seriously. “I don’t know, Lucas, they’re the sour neon ones you love so much.” 

Okay, that’s a dirty trick. Lucas takes back all the nice, sappy thoughts he’d had pertaining to Eliott up to this point. “Ugh, fuck, what’s your use?” 

“Hey!”

“No snacks for either of us if you’re not getting up.”

“Fuck.” 

“Yeah, anyway, what are we watching?”

“Pride and Prejudice.”

Lucas pretends to moan and groan about it as Eliott sets up the projector (because of course he’s using a projector), nitpicking until it’s angled straight onto the dark starlit wall. When Eliott actually crawls over to lay down beside him, though, Lucas forgets what he’s been complaining about, choosing instead to curl up close by Eliott’s side.

As the opening scene flashes on the screen, Lucas lets himself look away, cheek pressed soft against Eliott’s shoulder first, and then snuggling closer until he falls comfortably aligned onto Eliott’s chest. He feels the arm around him tighten, rubbing along his back in warm, gentle circles that lull him half into sleep. But he stubbornly stays awake, wanting to indulge in every second of this moment, not quite ready to face the thought of closing his eyes and opening them to the break of sunlight, their stars awashed along with the night. 

He’s conveniently angled to look up at Eliott without much effort, so he does it as much as he wants, glimpsing random bits of movie plot before his eyes inevitably slide back to his boyfriend’s slightly furrowed brows, down to the perfect slope of his nose, and lower to where his lips are pursed. It’s endearing how concentrated Eliott is considering he’s seen the same film more than once. 

“You’re missing the entire thing,” Eliott says eventually and Lucas smothers a giggle into his shirt. 

“I’d rather not miss what I’m seeing,” Lucas says, unfiltered in his sleepy daze. He realizes how cheesy that must sound but it doesn’t matter, he’s struck slightly dumb— only one coherent thought keeps running through his mind, a solemn echo of the same words he’d already spoken once, seemingly a lifetime ago. No one’s ever done this for me before. 

He’s quickly realizing that Eliott will be his first for many things. 

Eliott peels his eyes from the movie, snorting out a chuckle. “Stop being cute,” he says, running a hand through Lucas’ hair, fingers gentle as he pets along the front before gliding back down to tap at Lucas’ nose. Lucas vaguely registers that as something one would do to appease a little puppy and he doesn’t even care. “I’m trying to watch the movie.” 

“You’ve seen this a thousand times.”

“And you see me everyday.”

“So?” 

The next time Eliott looks at him, his eyes are immeasurably fond. “Happy birthday, baby.” And oh, it must’ve hit midnight while Lucas was busy admiring him. He should be excited, what with it officially being his special day, but a distant voice inside his head helpfully reminds him that there are only about four more hours left before the sun comes out to play. Before the spell they’ve put themselves under breaks. “I love you,” Eliott sighs, effectively knocking Lucas back into the present. 

Four hours carry a load of minutes. 

When put that way, it feels like they’ve got all the time in the world.

There’s a smile fighting through his fatigue and Lucas has no problem letting it win. “Thank you.” He places a kiss on Eliott’s chest over his shirt, closing his eyes to bask in the rest of their night. “I love you.”

It seems like that isn’t enough for Eliott though, and Lucas is pulled up, one hand around his arm and one firm around his waist. He accidentally breathes a huff of laughter into the kiss, not expecting to be dragged along like that. But he’s not going to complain, not even when he loses the perfect spot he’d been nestled into just seconds prior. 

“I love you so much,” Eliott repeats, voice full of emotion. Lucas’ heart flutters like it’s the first time all over. 

“Me too,” he says, their lips close, brushing at every word. “Me too,” he says, again, because once doesn’t feel adequate enough. 

They sink back into the cushions, limbs tangled and skin flush against the other as Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth fall into the background. The lights gleam a spectrum of colours around them, and Lucas watches pale shadows form over the smooth of Eliott’s skin. His fingers spider along broad shoulders, smiling as goosebumps rise in the wake of his touch. It’s bound to get really fucking hot any minute now, what with Eliott hovering over him like this, Lucas’ entire form covered under his, but Lucas wouldn’t mind the heat— not as long as Eliott’s unruly nest of hair keeps ticking at his chin like that, not when lightly stubbled cheeks keeps brushing along his skin like that, not when warm lips trail soft little kisses down his neck like that. 

And suddenly he’s not so afraid of the night ending anymore, not when Eliott’s presence is a static promise come the next day. He knows, without a seed of doubt in his mind, that he’s about to experience the absolute best birthday he’s ever had in his short life.

It’s already starting off that way. 

[whentommymetalfie]

Breathe Again -Chapter one

-The truth, the glow, the fall-

Prologue

Chapter summary: Alfie wakes up to find a guest on his doorstep. It throws  a wrench into his plan of being dead in peace. 

Pairing: Alfie/Tommy 

Warnings: suicidal themes, mental instability, mild violence, 

Wordcount: 5100 

Alfie is none too fucking pleased to be awakened by such a rude thing as knocking. And loud knocking, at that, on his bedroom door. If a man can’t get out of bed in his own fucking time even when he’s dead then what does that say about the state of the world?

”Mister Solomons-” More bloody knocking. ”Sir, I’m sorry to wake you but-”

Alright, Esther keeps fucking talking and he can barely hear it because he’s still half asleep, floating in a blissful kind of deep water and there, far below the surface all the sounds are muffled. But when the godawful knocking just continues, he’s forced to open his eyes and try to reconnect with his body. Always an unpleasant experience. Granted, it’s getting better (which truly is a strange turn of events because who would’ve thought?) and everyday his joints feel a bit less achy- but mornings are still difficult. Not to mention that most mornings half his face feels like it’s somehow stiffened throughout the night, and like he’s wearing some kind of mask made of wax on top of his own, real face.

All in all waking up is an altogether unpleasant experience and it’s not made better by that bloody knocking.

“Alright, alright, fucking hell woman-“ He sits up and rubs his one good eye as the sun pierces through the curtain to add insult to injury. “I’m awake-“

And then the door opens on top of it all. Truly no limits to overstepping boundaries today apparently-

“Bloody hell! Can a man get one moment to make himself fucking decent around here?” he grunts as if his sorry state will somehow shock her. Few things will do that once you’ve had to spend the first months of your employment helping someone in and out of a bathtub. But still, it’s a matter of principle really.

Esther, predictably, is entirely unfazed in that way only a woman closing in on sixty who’s already seen most things the world has to offer, can be.

“I’m sorry, Sir, but this really can’t wait,” she says. “There’s- Well, I don’t quite know how to say this but there’s a… man. Outside.”

Alfie blinks at her.

“A man?”

“Yes. And he appears to be in pretty bad shape-“

This is too much information to take in at this hour and during these circumstances. Unacceptable really. Alfie has half a mind to just lie back down and go back to sleep and see what happens.

“Is he some drifter eh? Some poor sod who’s just wandered off the road and ended up outside my house? Because if so, and not to sound crass here, but if so, then I think that we’ll just leave him be and see if he decides to wander off again, yeah?”

“No, he’s- There’s something wrong. I think he might be injured. Or sick.”

Alfie says a silent prayer for patience, and takes the opportunity to ask his God why he’s decided to gift him with this on this particular morning.

“Right, alright, I’m fucking coming. Just let me get some bloody clothes on first, eh? Reckon a minute or so won’t hurt him.”

With a curt nod, relief washing over her features, Esther leaves the room.

Alfie does get dressed. He just doesn’t do it particularly fast. So when Esther’s steps approach in the corridor outside, he’s just gotten his waistcoat on. But he opens the door before she can knock again, leaving the cane behind and instead shoving his revolver into the waistband of his trousers. Because fuck knows where his holster has gone. Neither Gods nor dead men have any use for a holster.

Alfie Solomons, however, might just have use for a gun when there’s a strange man apparently taking a nap outside his fucking house.

Esther takes the lead through the house to the living room. Or rather, one of the living rooms. His preferred one, with glass doors opening up towards the sea and a staircase leading right down to the beach. Esther moves out of the way when he lets out a noncommittal grunt. Then he opens the door and goes to assess the damage.

First of all, it’s a lovely day outside. Or about to be. It’s the bloody crack of dawn, innit? But the sky is a warm, pinkish orange, and the wind is just quietly rustling through the grass, leaving the sea a glossy mirror.

And at the foot of his steps lies the barely recognizable form of none other than Tommy Shelby.

He’s slumped over the last few steps, curled on his side close to the wall of the house. Dressed in nothing but an undershirt and trousers. Even his feet are bare. And it could be that Alfie’s never seen him dressed in anything but a three piece suit, but he looks absolutely tiny. Impossibly small and fragile, cheeks sunken in and with dark circles colouring the skin under his eyes. The long hair on top of his head falls in tousled curls over his face.  

“I tried talking to him but he didn’t seem to hear me-“ Esther says from behind him, clearly concerned. “Should I call someone?”

Call who? Yeah sure, Alfie could potentially call some of his men in London to have them take care of it, but it’d be hours before they’d arrive. Could call Tommy’s fucking family, but then he’d have the premises swarming with Shelbys and that would be a fate worse than death.

“Nah, just go put the kettle on,” Alfie grunts and steps outside. Esther hesitates but then disappears into the house.

Tommy remains motionless.

“Tommy?” Alfie says as he approaches, gaining no reaction. “Oi, Tommy! Fancy calling before you just decide to drop by like this?”

He halts on the steps where Tommy lies and kicks him. Not hard. Not at all, he’s not cruel. Well, not when it comes to Tommy at least. That does the trick, though. Tommy lets out a pitiful little whimper which for some strange bloody reason sends a pang right through his chest. Won’t do anyone any good to look further into that, so Alfie just kicks him again. But it’s more just a prod with his toe.

“Go on sleeping beauty. Do you mind waking up and telling me why you’ve decided to crash on my doorstep?”

Finally Tommy opens those ice blue eyes. Just a sliver. But Alfie gets the pleasure of watching the long eyelashes flutter and he’s not ashamed to admit that it’s a lovely sight.

Tommy looks up at him. Just looks. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Just gazes listlessly at him. And that, that unsettles him, doesn’t it? Because even when Tommy stood in his doorway all those weeks ago, with that look of absolute dejection at having a gun pointed at his face, there was some semblance of… somethingbehind his eyes. Perhaps not that sharp spark that usually resided in them, but at least there was more than this complete emptiness.  

“If you wanted to come visit you could’ve just said so,” Alfie says. “No need to be so dramatic about it. Then again I do suppose you have a flare for that, don’t you? Trying to assassinate someone on stage- Figured that wouldn’t work, you silly boy. Is that why you’ve been hiding from everyone this past month? Yeah, don’t think I haven’t heard about it-“

As he talks he stares Tommy straight in the eye. Or at least tries to, because after just two sentences or so, Tommy’s gaze slips down to the pillars bordering staircase instead. Perhaps he’s looking out at the sea?

Alfie throws his hands up in defeat.

“Alright, since you’ve made it perfectly clear you’re not planning to move, or even fucking answer me, I suppose I’ll just go inside. Because I don’t really feel like standing around out here.”

That’s a lie, he absolutely doesn’t mind being outside. Quite prefers it actually. His best past time these days is sitting in his armchair with the glass doors open and read.

He fully expects Tommy to follow him. Or say something. Or just… do anything.

But Tommy doesn’t follow him. Alfie goes inside anyway, because he’s got to at least attempt to keep up appearances.

Esther enters the room carrying a tray with tea, her eyes instantly drawn to the door.

“How is he?”

“He’s just fine,” Alfie mutters, seats himself in his favourite armchair and reaches for his book. “Just sulking a bit, isn’t he?”

Esther furrows her brow and sets the tray down in front of him, before going to look out the door.

“Mister, there’s tea if you’d like some?”

“Just leave him be,” Alfie huffs and pours himself a cup. “Go do something useful instead. He’ll come inside when he feels like it.”

Esther furrows her brow, a huffed breath escaping her. But she leaves.

For a long while, Alfie just sits there waiting. Admittedly there’s some element of excitement to this whole thing. Being dead is peaceful but can get a bit boring at times. So for now, he views this as simply a little break in his daily routine, waiting for Tommy to come inside. Perhaps reveal he’s had some kind of plan all along, that for some reason involved putting on this show…

But Tommy doesn’t come inside.

Alfie drinks two cups of tea and reads not two but three chapters of his book. Or rather, tries to tell himself that he’s reading, while actually just sitting like on pins and needles waiting.

If this is some kind of game, it’s a strange one, but he wouldn’t put it past Tommy…

But then he thinks about it. Really thinks about it; The fragile appearance, the dishevelled clothing... Tommy wouldn’t let anyone see him like that, not even if it was part of some elaborate scheme. The bare feet somehow bother him the most. Those, and the empty look in his eyes.

So once the third chapter is finished, he finds himself closing the book and getting out of his chair without having consciously made the decision.

And Tommy… Tommy is still on the fucking steps. Curled right where Alfie left him, close to the wall, gaze fastened on the opposite pillars. He’s shaking now. Fuck. It’s fucking cold outside, and for some bloody reason Alfie feels guilty for not having considered that.

Leave it to Tommy fucking Shelby to stir up those kinds of strange emotions by merely existing on his steps.

“Alright, enough’s enough, Tommy,” Alfie grunts and ambles towards him. “How about you come inside for a bit, hm? While I call and get a car to come pick you up. How the fuck did you get here by the way-“ He looks up and down the beach, scratching his beard. Not very likely that Tommy would’ve left his fucking car on the beach now though, is it? “Can’t have walked all the way from fucking Birmingham. Or is this some new idea you’ve had? Make a pilgrimage on foot to the newly instated deity, eh?”

Tommy just keeps staring at- yeah at whatexactly? The sea? Granted it’s a nice view, but Tommy isn’t the type to stare at the sea for two fucking hours straight.

Suddenly Tommy’s head jerks a little and he shakes it erratically, eyes wide… Alright, either he’s putting on one hell of an act, or something is seriously wrong. And Tommy may be a scheming little cunt -a scheming little cunt with eyes men could drown in and a face chiselled by God himself, but a cunt nonetheless. But Alfie would like to think the two of them have some kind of understanding. And included in that understanding is that they’re upfront about their schemes and betrayals. This -the bare feet, the haunted look in his eyes, the fucking… sitting on Alfie’s steps for two goddamn hours without moving- this doesn’t seem like something Tommy would do.

Which leaves Alfie with the conclusion that something truly is very wrong. And it’s not very nice conclusion.

“Alright, Tommy, up you go,” he says and crosses his arms over his chest hoping to signal finality. “Get that scrawny arse inside and onto the sofa and I’ll have Esther make you a cuppa. Get you warmed up a bit. And then, like the truly saintly person I am, I’m going to call one of my men and get them to drive you home-“ That word, home, seems to register, even if none of the others do. Tommy shakes his head again, that erratic little shake. Still without looking at Alfie. “Yeah, sweetie, home. To that batshit crazy family of yours-“

That does it. Tommy’s entire body jerks as he stares up at Alfie, terrified. Clutches the arms tightly over his  chest.

“No.”

So he can in fact still talk…

“Sure. Bet they’re wondering where you’ve run off to-“

Tommy shakes his head so fervently that Alfie loses his train of thought. And then he grabs onto his trouser leg which, yeah, just seals the deal alright, something’s definitely wrong with him.

“No,” he repeats, “Please, please- they’ll- let them- Please I can’t- can’t be somewhere like that-“

Alfie decides that he’ll stop trying all together to make sense of what Tommy is saying. Besides, at the moment he’s thoroughly distracted by the fucking scar on the side of his head. He’s kept that side hidden, pressed close to the steps, but now he sees it. A red, angry line. Ridges and rivulets all along it. His hair has grown but that somehow just makes it all the more jarring.

Tommy grips harder onto his trouser leg and continues shaking his head and the thoughts about the scar will have to wait.

“Alright, alright, fucking hell I won’t call,” Alfie says, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “ Let’s just go inside. How about that? You just come inside and sit there for a bit?”

God, why does he bother?

Because he’s bored.

And because he’s always had a week spot for pretty men, with pretty, blue eyes.

And empty, haunted blue eyes are still blue.

Those blue eyes are staring straight at his knee now, glazed over again, as Tommy keeps mouthing the word ‘no’ over and over. A cold gust of wind passes right through Alfie’s waistcoat and that settles it, he’s done standing here waiting. None to gently, he grabs onto Tommy’s upper arms and hauls him to his feet. He couldn’t have done that a year ago, but it’s a miracle what doing fuck all, getting plenty of sleep, and just generally being dead will do to a man. And Tommy was small to begin with, and has by now turned into the size of an injured bird. He sways precariously so Alfie pulls one of his arms over his shoulders. Tommy goes along with it as some kind of puppet with its strings cut.

“In we go, come on. Do you remember how to walk eh?” Alfie mutters and starts walking up the few steps to the front door. Tommy looks back at that spot again, between the two pillars. Because apparently two hours of staring at it wasn’t enough. But he does follow without a fight.

After a worryingly easy walk into the living room, Alfie deposits his precious cargo onto the sofa. Tommy pulls his knees up to his chest and curls himself into a corner, looking almost provocatively vulnerable. Alfie digs out several blankets from a chest he only now remembers he owns, and spreads them out over him without gaining much of a reaction at all.

He pops his head out in the corridor to get an excuse to look away from the unsettling sight, and calls for Esther. She appears moments later at the end of the corridor, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel.

“Make us another cuppa if you don’t mind, Esther. Strong and piping hot.”

With a nod she goes to carry the order out, and Alfie is forced to turn and face Tommy again.  

Tommy is looking right at him, eyes large and feral. They follow him warily as Alfie goes over to his armchair and slumps down in it.

“So, while we’re waiting, do you mind telling me where exactly you got that?” he says in obvious reference to the scar. He grins and gestures to his own, objectively much more gruesome one. “Did you feel a sudden urge to get a matching one, eh?”

Tommy blinks and his eyebrows draw together -second to his outburst a minute ago that’s the first sign he’s given of hearing Alfie at all. His eyes slip to the floor as he reaches up and runs the tips of his fingers over the scar. Patience isn’t Alfie’s strong suit and these interactions are quickly beginning to grate on him. And the thing is, usually this abject vulnerability would fucking provoke him. It doesn’t do to turn up at someone’s house in this state, least of all if that someone is a man like Alfie. Clearly Tommy has stopped viewing him as a possible threat. Silly boy should know better after so many years of this life -you can’t show weakness like that. People will exploit it.

But most of all, Alfie feels some bone deep fucking urge to… hurt whoever did this to Tommy. The list is long so finding someone to pin this on wouldn’t really be a problem.

The problem is that it’s entirely possible he did it to himself.

Tommy is still running his fingers along the scar. Over and over again, the same movement.

His eyes however have turned to one of the corners of the room. Alfie turns to look, it’s a in instinct really, but all he finds are the bookcases and the globe. Then again the bookcases are full of books and objects so there’s no trouble finding something to rest one’s eyes on. He thinks that Tommy might be looking at the stuffed crow.

“Yeah, got a funny story about that crow, don’t I? See that bird, that fucking bird had taken to waking me up every single morning by cawing real bloody loud,” he says and ignores that Tommy isn’t listening. “Drove me near mad. So one day I opened the window and shot it. Mind you it was an impressive fucking shot. Had a friend of mine stuff it to remind me that sleep’s important and all that, and that anyone who disturbs it might meet a quick and violent fate.“ It’s a lie of course, the thing about the crow. It belonged to a departed friend who thought it’d be funny to leave it to Alfie. “Which you have done by the way. Disturbed my sleep. So do you mind at least having the curtsey of answering my question?” He tries catching Tommy’s gaze but it’s hopeless. “Where did you get that scar?”

“I know,” Tommy mumbles to the crow. Or to the corner. Still touching the scar. “I’m sorry. I tried- I did-“

Alfie feels fucking queasy now. He should be used to seeing displays of human fragility, but this is making even him uneasy. When Tommy suddenly takes to violently scratching the scar, he shoots out of his armchair quicker than he’d like to admit, crashes down on the sofa and grabs his wrist. Staring at him with those wide eyes, Tommy fights him, weak as a kitten.

“Fucking hell, enough of this bloody nonsense, Tommy!“ He grabs onto his other wrist and holds it without much struggle, but Tommy just continues squirming, making terrified little noises behind closed lips. His breathing grows erratic, coming in quick bursts and Alfie can feel his pulse race underneath his fingertips.

“Tommy, no, fucking enough!” he barks and tries to somehow latch onto something in those terrified eyes. Tommy keeps fighting him, more of those little noises bubbling up his throat. It’s all wordless and feral and his breathing is so quick and shallow that he must be close to fucking passing out. He knows it’s physically impossible for a human heart to burst through a ribcage but still-

When Tommy pushes a foot out in a badly aimed kick at his ribs, a burst of hot rage swells behind Alfie’s temples- And he lets go of the bony wrists in pure shock.

“Enough!” he roars and when the growl does nothing except elicit another whimper from Tommy, he slaps him across the face. Hard. Seems to do the trick though. But instead of fighting and making those godawful noises, Tommy flings himself off the sofa and scoots backwards over the floor until he’s backed into a corner. There, he curls up into a tightly wound ball of limbs, arms over his head and head tucked in behind his knees.

Alfie just sits there on the sofa. Waits. But Tommy doesn’t move. Doesn’t try to hurt himself, but his entire fucking body is trembling and- Yeah, that’s… that’s not right, is it? Scratching his beard, he tries to swallow down the feeling of guilt bubbling up in his stomach. It’s as unexpected as it is unfamiliar.

It’s at that moment, Esther choses to show up with the tea.

“Oh dear,” she says, as she sets the tray down, eyeing Tommy with wide, worried eyes. “He’s in a bad way, isn’t he?”

Alfie only grunts in response.

“Would you like me to call the doctor? I could call Mr. Adelman-“

He shakes his head and staggers to his feet. “Nah, no fucking doctor. Don’t want to be dragging people out here until-“ Until what? Until he’s figured out what the fuck to do with this broken mess of a person who’s just decided to show up on his doorstep? Until he’s figured out what’s wrong with him? How he even got here… Why the fuck he’s here… Fuck, this is all together too much for one person to handle.

“Tommy? You planning on joining us anytime fucking soon, mate?” he asks and eyes the pitiful figure curled up in the corner. “Oi, I’m fucking talking to you.”

It’s useless, of course. It’s obvious Tommy can’t hear him, that he’s not all together there.

Not there at all.

“Oh for fucks sake!” Alfie exclaims. “All I fucking wanted was to live in peace and quiet, yeah? It was all going fucking brilliantly. And I let you into my house one fucking time and this is what happens? You just decide show up here like some kind of lost fucking dog-“

Esther hushes him. Fucking hushes him. But it takes him aback enough to quit yelling and stare at her instead. She takes a step back, eyes growing wide and he reckons he makes for quite a terrifying sight- the scar and hazy eye has added to that look. But then she squares her jaw.

“Apologies, Sir,” she says firmly. “But I really don’t think you should be yelling at him. That has rarely helped anyone calm down.”

He just stares at her. Bites his teeth together so hard that his molars fucking creak. And she stares back.

“May I?” she asks after several tense seconds have passed, nodding in Tommy’s direction. Tommy, who is still curled up into his protective little ball in the corner, trembling and now back to making those terrible little whimpering sounds again. Fuck, Alfie could shoot him right then and there for walking into his house and overturning everything.

For making him feel… whatever this feeling is.

But all he does is throw his hands up in defeat at Esther’s question and stomp across the room to retrieve his pipe just to have something to occupy himself with.

Esther meanwhile wastes no time, but slowly walks up to Tommy’s quivering form.

“Wouldn’t get too close if I were you,” Alfie mutters and shoves tobacco into the pipe with unnecessary force. “Might not look it but he’s a violent little thing.” And Esther has the guts to fucking huff at him, before she crouches down in front of Tommy.

That woman is all together insane.

Then again there was a reason he hired her out of all people.

“Hi there, love,” she says, gently, without touching him. “Did all that yelling scare you? Well, I promise that his bark is worse than his bite.”

Alfie rolls his one good eye -can’t really tell if his bad one rolls too, it tends to do whatever it pleases. Which Esther obviously can’t see so she continues, undeterred.

“You seem awfully cold. How about we get you over to that armchair, and I’ll give you a cup of tea…”

Alfie holds his breath when she reaches out and gently touches Tommy’s shoulder. He twitches, but does nothing else.

“You poor thing… Seems like you’ve been through enough as it is. But I promise you’re safe here. And I’ve told mister Solomons he can’t be yelling at you like that, so he won’t do that again-“

The fucking nerve. Why does he surround himself with these people willingly?

Esther has started rubbing Tommy’s shoulder and lo and behold, the shaking seems to subside. For some reason it incites more of that guilt, because clearly it’s not fucking impossible to calm him down, it’s just impossible for Alfie.

Underneath it there’s something else. Some unidentified feeling he refuses to acknowledge or put a label on right now, but it’s dangerously close to jealousy.

He focuses on lighting his pipe and looks out at the sea for a while, dreams of calmer, less complicated times when he was just a dead man minding his own business. Times like just yesterday.

Over in the corner, Esther has helped Tommy up on his feet and is now leading him to one of the armchairs. The softest one, with big plush cushions. Tommy’s eyes are flickering around the room, never in one spot for too long, but he obediently sits down and pulls his feet off the floor.

It’s strange, that. Tommy’s always had this rather reserved body language, preferring to cross one leg over the other instead of putting both feet on the floor in that wide stance and lean back in his seat as most men tend to. Not that Alfie pays any extra attention to Tommy or the way he likes to sit, but it’s impossible not to notice things like that and one must always be observant in this business… Point is, even though he always sits like he’s got a stick up his arse, Tommy never consciously makes himself smaller the way he is now.

“Here you go, dear,” Esther says and holds out a cup of tea for Tommy to take. “I don’t know how you take it, but I put a bit of milk in. And it’s not too hot, so you shouldn’t burn yourself.”

Tommy just stares at the cup, blinking. Esther waits patiently, but when he just keeps staring at it, she gently puts it down on the table next to the armchair.

“It’s alright, love, you go ahead and drink it in your own time,” she says softly, but there’s a concerned wrinkle between her eyebrows. “I’m going to go see if I can find you a pair of socks. And a jumper of some sort, you look awfully cold…” And with that she hurries out of the room with a somewhat admonishing look in Alfie’s direction.

Alone with Tommy again, Alfie finds himself at a loss. Clearly he doesn’t know how to handle this, so what is he supposed to do? But gentle and firm seems to be the route to go and he’s fucking capable of that isn’t he?  He’s not an animal. He takes a drag of smoke and watches Tommy, trying to figure out what to do now.

Tommy’s gaze has caught on something on the sofa and Alfie realises he’s staring at the blankets.

“You want them back, hm? Yeah, figure you do, you seem to be fucking freezing.”

He picks up the lot of them and goes over to the armchair. Of course Tommy doesn’t reach out for the blankets. Seems like he’s incapable of making decisions of his own if they don’t involve huddling in a corner. So Alfie picks out the softest one and unceremoniously drapes it over Tommy’s lap, trying to not get too close. But when Tommy doesn’t flinch, he actually takes care to drape the second one over his shoulders with a bit more precision. The last one he drapes across him too.

“There we go. Bet just warming up a bit will help. Never does anyone any good being that cold.”

He goes over to his own armchair and seats himself there; Tommy has gone back to emptily gazing at nothing in particular in that unsettling way, but his shoulders have dropped a bit.

Alfie decides to go back to the book he’s currently working on in an attempt to distract himself from this whole situation for a moment. There are about a million things he should be doing right now: Figure out what the hell is wrong with Tommy, where that scar came from, how he ended up here, why he ended up here... The list goes on, doesn’t it? But just thinking about it all makes him question this whole thing. What right does Tommy have to just fucking show up here and create all these questions? Granted, Alfie could call some people. Try to get some intel about what the hell has actually been happening in Birmingham this past month. But the thing is he was perfectly fine with just being dead. Sure, it may not be the most exciting or riveting of lifestyles but at least he got some fucking peace and quiet…

He’s honestly about to give up and demand that Tommy gets out of his fucking house. And he looks up to tell him that.  

Tommy is asleep in the armchair, blanket pulled up to his nose, bony fingers grasping the fabric. That fit must’ve drained the last bit of energy out of him. Not that he seemed to have much to begin with.

Alfie should wake him up. He should wake him up, drag him out of that chair, out the door and tell him to go back where he came from. So Alfie can go back to being a dead man in peace.

Long, dark eyelashes flutter slightly over the pale skin marred with dark circles. Tommy shifts the tiniest bit under the blankets and sinks a bit further into the cushions.

Alfie should wake him up.

Should throw him out.

But instead he just sits there watching him.

Fucking hell, what’s he gotten himself into... 

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Sarah Monette, the Victim Dilemma, the Aesthetic of Suffering and the Uncanny Valley of Arse Rape

by Wardog

Monday, 27 April 2009

Wardog fails to finish Sarah Monette's Corambis.~

Massive massive massive massive spoilers for about 1/3 of the book. Also, as the title suggests, this article is about nasty things so don’t read if you’re likely to be upset

Preramble (like a preamble but … d’you see?)

This is a bleak day indeed. I just got my hands on a copy of Corambis, the much-anticipated (by me at least) concluding part to Sarah Monette’s Doctrine of Labyrinths quartet and the truth of it is, I don’t think I can finish it.

Oh, Sarah, what happened? I do still love you, I just don’t think it’s working out.

I think it’s partially problems associated with reading through a series over a lengthy period of time. When I read Melusine, The Virtu was already out in hardback and I tore through at them enthusiastically, so drawn into the world and the characters that I barely noticed they were so heavily saturated in angst and woe that one could drown in it by simply opening the book a little recklessly. There was a bit of a wait for The Mirador – which I seem to recall I felt slightly less positively about but still adored – and I fell upon Mehitabel Parr’s I’m sure welcoming bosom to save me from the tidal waves of A&W. As much as I love Felix and Mildmay, it was Mehitabel’s narrative voice that made The Mirador bearable for me. It was such a necessary contrast to the boys: someone with some redeeming sense of self-irony, hurrah!

Of course, Mehitabel isn’t in Corambis. And, God, I miss her. There is a new viewpoint character, Kay Brightmore, blinded and imprisoned and weighed down by the terrible military failure that kicks off the book. He’s basically lost everything that ever mattered to him, can no longer fight on account of being blind and, needless to say, he has angst out the wazoo about it. I was broken and crying by Chapter three.

And, quite frankly, I just can’t take it. I know there is redemption in the future of these characters (characters I really care about, having spent three books with them), I know there is self-actualisation and the potential for happiness, I know because I cheated and looked, but I’ve really really struggled with Corambis. The worst of it is, I’m sure it will be a triumphant and satisfying conclusion to the quartet. Sarah Monette is an excellent writer, I love her world, I love the way she uses language, I love her characters, I love everything about her but I think I’m going to have to accept the fact I simply can’t read her.

Oh, Sarah, what happened? I do still love you, it’s not you, it’s me.

Maybe in a couple of years we’ll be able to work something out.

I think circumstances might be playing into this unhappy state of affairs as well. When I read the early books, there wasn’t a cloud in my sky. But having emerged from a rather bleak year, there’s something a little too close in all that guilt and grief and self-loathing and despair, and I can’t distance myself enough from it to enjoy it. There is a systematic aestheticisation of suffering to be found in all of Monette’s books. I’m not going to try and argue that as either a positive or negative quality in her work. I think it’s probably neutral: it’s

something

art

does

sometimes

. I acknowledge the difference between literary suffering and real suffering, in that there can be a romance in the former which is impossible in the latter. Also literary suffering exists in a wider, symbolic and allegorical sphere than that of an individual having shitty things done to them by life or others, mainly, I suspect, because it’s not real. Take madness – there is something deeply attractive and romantic about the artistic representation of madness (like Felix’s madness in Melusine) and it’s perfectly possible to appreciate that, and to find in it a kind of beauty, without ignoring the genuine distress suffered by the mentally ill. In short, Ophelia is not my friend who killed herself last year.

But the boundaries between the fictional and the real are not comprehensively signposted. There isn’t a traceable spectrum between Lavinia, daughter of Titus Andronicus, and Elizabeth Short. And ultimately I think there comes an impossible point when the literary and the real collide, corrupt each other and prove they are utterly irreconcilable and yet simultaneously inseparable. Yes, they must be understood as different things operating in a different way – a painting of St Sebastian is not the same as footage of the prisoners at Guantanamo bay – but there comes a point when it is necessary to remember what it is that’s being aestheticised and ask yourself why.

Page 152

Okay, so, there’s a gang-rape scene in Corambis.

Felix – former prostitute, broken gay wizard with ex-cruel master and traumatic past - ends up subjecting himself a thaumaturgic orgy in order to earn money to pay for his ailing brother’s medicine.

It’s awful.

It’s not that it’s explicit, just awful.

And I’m no wuss, okay. I’ve read Last Exit to Brooklyn. I’ve read The Wasp Factory. I’ve read American Psycho.

But something about this scene in this book bought me a first class ticket on the ARGH! Train and whizzed me straight out of my comfort zone.

It’s strange to say that something is “outside your comfort zone” in that it feels like a confession of personal failure (also something that’s outside my comfort zone). And then I thought about it more, and I thought: hey, so what, gang-rape is outside my comfort zone. Surely that’s normal. Gang-rape is absolutely something that should be outside all our comfort zones. But here’s where it gets complicated: in fact, fictional gang-rape is not outside my comfort zone. I play H-games, for God’s sake, where they’re ten a penny. You can’t take two steps in an H-game without stubbing your toe on a gang rape. So it’s something more specific than that. It was something about this particular portrayal of it.

It’s not shock value. Felix gets himself sexually abused on a pretty regular basis, so much so, in fact, that it’s kind of part of the fun, and it’s very much tied into Monette’s aesthetic of suffering.

I could not see, and I could barely hear, save for my own harsh breathing. But I could feel. I could Malkar’s hands like silk, running up and down my back, tracing the scars, the old palimpsest of pain. I could feel his body arching against me, his bulk, his heat. I felt his hands slide under my hips, stroking, exciting, felt the stiffness of him against my thigh. Pain, then, but not too much. Pain … and arousal all woven together like a tapestry. I was moaning, gasping; the only word I could form were “Please, Malkar, please, lease,” and I didn’ tknow if I was begging him to stop or continue. Not that it would made the slightest difference either way.

Let’s pin our colours to the mast here. That’s beautiful. Terrible, but beautiful and absolutely literary in its unrealness. It’s also about as accurate a portrayal of sexual abuse than St Sebastian up there is of martyrdom. Perhaps I’m just an irredeemable sicko but I’m pretty sure it’s there, to an extent, to be enjoyed, partially as spectacle (straight women do not generally write about beautiful gay boys sexing each other manipulatively because it’s a Serious Social Issue) and, also, partially as vindication for all the crappy things that have been done to innumerable female characters in a seventy years of fantasy fiction. I’m not, of course, advocating backlash (more manrape!) but there is something compelling and, even perhaps comforting, in characters like Felix, Alec and friends, these beautiful men, who are as sexually vulnerable as women, suffer and fear the sort of things women suffer and fear, and are very much created to be subjects of an extra-textual female gaze and the intra-textual male gaze. I’m not saying that men don’t get raped and looked at, but the sheer saturation is demonstrably less. I am not trying to say that what happens to Felix at the start of Melusine isn’t dreadful. It is. But it’s a literary violation, and it reduces him to a literary madness that is as terrible and as beautiful as the horror that creates it.

But let’s talk about gang rape. Now there’s something you don’t say everyday.

The scene itself written in a very similar style – opulent, not too explicit although more explicit than above, and contains the same awkward issues of dubious consent. In Melusine, Felix chooses to go to Malkar in a fit of self loathing. In Corambis he agrees theoretically to an orgy in order to raise money for Mildmay’s medical treatment. In both cases what ends up happening to him is far more devastating than what he originally signed up for but, equally, there’s an element of complicity to it. If you return to your abusive master, expect to get abused. If you agree to be the centerpiece of an orgy, expect to get fucked. This abject stupidity is granted a psychological plausibility because Felix is a messed up little bunny, with a supposedly tragic conviction of his own profound worthlessness.

Obviously I don’t want to get into real issues here, but I think the reason the dubious consent became one of the bothering aspects of the scene in Corambis is that the sex abuse came plot-approved. I mean, if Felix was walking down the street and happened to get jumped and gang raped by a bunch of guys I think many a reader might rightly cry “Sarah Monette, what the fuck?” as there are very few occasions in which it is either appropriate or necessary to get one of your characters gang raped. But this way he has a “real” reason to put himself voluntarily into a position where he might be. It’s even, perhaps, meant to be on some level noble – in a hopelessly fucked up way, of course. So what you end up with is a deeply uncomfortable situation in which everything conspires, including (conveniently) Felix himself, to create a scenario in which a horrible but beautifully written gang rape is, to an extent, okay. And this is where the aesthetic of suffering starts to come apart at the seams.

Essentially this scene falls right into the uncanny valley. If it was purely designed for titillation I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but as it is there are elements are titillation and elements of horror. We are meant to be shocked and appalled – and it is shocking and appalling – but it’s framed in such a way that we are simultaneously liberated to relish the aesthetic. And quite frankly that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I think there’s something profoundly hypocritical and, indeed, deeply disturbing in the idea of enjoying both moral outrage and illicit sexual excitement (see Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse). The scene bears all the hallmarks of erotic non-con (there are elements of psychological exposure as well as physical, the victim is physically aroused throughout, the abusers are appreciative of his beauty and his apparent eagerness, and so on and so forth) but worked through a guilt-appeasing filter of “oh gosh, isn’t this terrible.”

My ankles were still chained and somebody had me scruffed like a kitten; I was keening in protest, but I was dragged upright, forced to straddle someone’s thighs, while he continued fucking me with the same relentless steadiness. I was displayed for all of them, my arousal jutting out shamelessly, the tear tracks on my face attesting to my weakness.

Now, I know that, unlike erotic non-con, Felix is not secretly into what’s being done to him and that he’s breaking and being broken here but you still have a scene that’s running in two directions simultaneously and trying to have its cake and eat it. It goes out of its way to tick the non-con wink-wink boxes but then slaps you face in the face with its insistence that this a terrible and traumatic event. Essentially you can’t have a gorgeously written gang rape that positions itself within a carefully constructed aesthetic framework and a psychologically accurate and traumatic portrait of a terrible ordeal.

And, ultimately, I guess you have to ask yourself if it’s okay to have an aesthetic gang rape scene full stop. The idea bothers me less as pornography but here, I would argue, that it gains an added erotic piquancy from the fact it really is annihilating Felix, which, again is troublesome. Essentially it’s why raping Clarissa is so much more interesting than raping Justine, and why it’s all right to get off on the latter and not the former.

The more I’ve thought about this and tried to articulate my issues with it, the more complex and convoluted it has become. There is, of course, an element of the purely personal about – I didn’t like it and it upset me – as well as these more abstract, intellectualizations of it. I dug around on Monette’s Livejournal – on which is usually charming and sensible – to see what I could find and, lo and behold, she has written quite comprehensively on the subject, which I shall now quote pretty much in its entirety:

I knew from very early on that Felix was going to turn back to prostitution to get the money for a doctor for someone he loved (I knew this was going to happen before I knew Mildmay existed), and I knew that he was going to end up in a situation that was completely out of his control and that hurt him badly. Because Felix is reckless and self-destructive and because under all his vanity, he doesn't think he's worth protecting. And because it is a kind of answering horror to his being raped by Malkar at the beginning of Mélusine. And because he needed something that would force him to confront these issues--force him to see that he doesn't deserve to be abused--and it had to be something superlatively unbearable if it was going to get through to him, because Felix has way too much experience at ignoring his own pain.

Say what? So it’s redemptive gang rape, the sort makes you a stronger and better person? What … the … fuck? It’s like those Hollywood amnesia plotlines (one blow to the head gives you amnesia, another blow cures it) except with sexual abuse. I know, again, we’re operating in a fictional sphere but this is so made of wrong that I’ll just content myself with linking to Dan’s article on

the victim dilemma

and throw my hands up in despair.

I quite enjoy Monette’s aestheticisation of suffering, I could probably navigate the uncanny valley if I really had to but I am sick to death of male fantasy writers using sexual abuse as a textual shortcut for character development and I’m damned if I’m going to deal with women doing the same thing. Sarah Monette, you are better than this.

Sexual abuse is not good for you. It happens and people react. Constantly depicting characters who react to it in courageous and life-enhancing ways is not empowering, it’s fucking demeaning to people who struggle along every day as best they can.

I’m sure in a different time in a different mood I’ll pick up Corambis again and I’ll get to page 152 and I’ll shrug and go “gang rape, meh” and read right on.

But not today.Themes:

Damage Report

,

Books

,

Sarah Monette

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

~

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~Comments (

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)

Arthur B

at 14:44 on 2009-04-27It's depressing when series go south like this. It's especially annoying when they burn down the virtues of the earlier volumes. I was looking at your first Monette review and you were saying how you were impressed by the fact that Felix was gay, but it kind of wasn't a big deal; I'm getting the impression that as the series goes on that becomes less true, since that LJ extract makes it sounds like Monette intended all along to reduce Felix to a weepy gay man being abused by angry gay men. (If I'm interpreting that right - if Felix pimping himself out predates the existence of Mildmay, that means that Monette was planning to make this happen since before the first book, right?)

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Wardog

at 15:11 on 2009-04-27Mmm, that's part of the problem though. I don't actually think it's "gone south" - despite the Xtreme angst I was quite absorbed until page 152. It was merely that scene that tripped me out. I'm sure if I could put it behind me and just get on with the book, I'd probably really like it.

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Rude Cyrus

at 20:32 on 2009-04-27Great, now I need a shower.

While I suppose rape can be presented as being aesthetically pleasing, like in erotic non-con, I still don't like it. I've always found consenting sex between happy, willing partners infinitely more pleasurable -- don't ask me why. This sort of stuff just makes my skin crawl.

What's funny is that I can make it through The 120 Days of Sodom without blinking, but I think that's because De Sade insisted on using the driest, most tortured language possible.

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Wardog

at 21:15 on 2009-04-27Sorry Cyrus. I'm not sure but I think it's probably easier to be into erotic non-con / rape fantasy if you're a woman than a man, either because you're more likely to imagine yourself as the rapee rather than the rapist which is slightly easier to deal with morally speaking or because the world seems generally reluctant to admit that women can rape people too. Whereas if you're a man who fantasies about forcing women to have sex with him ... well ... hostility many ensue from quarters unwilling to concede the very real difference between fantasy, reality and simulated non-con.

Hmm, I think the thing about 120 Days of Sodom is that, as you say, it's incredibly dull. And de Sade is a terrible writer. There's only one thing worse than a rape scene and that's a badly written rape scene!

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Arthur B

at 21:18 on 2009-04-27I do wonder sometimes whether deSade was an early pen-and-paper troll. Most of his books seem to be the literary equivalent of telling someone a particular link goes to an interesting and thought-provoking philosophy website when actually it points to goatse or 2girls1cup.

I mean, he went to jail for it, but you have to make sacrifices for "the lulz", as I believe the young people call it these days.

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http://roisindubh211.livejournal.com/

at 02:43 on 2009-04-28"Constantly depicting characters who react to it in courageous and life-enhancing ways is not empowering, it’s fucking demeaning to people who struggle along every day as best they can."

I have to disagree here- not with the point you make, but with the accusation being levelled at Monette. Felix has spent three books getting abused and every reaction to it has been, basically, "I was right all along, I am worthless. Hmmm, should I hurt myself again or just re-alienate everyone who cares about me tonight?" The enormity of the gang-rape is something he's not prepared to consider his just desserts, and it isn't the only influence on his growth as a person. A lot has to do with having Mildmay -who has been developing his own self-confidence, on his own, without the help of shitty things happening to him- be there for him and push and push to get him (Felix) not to hurt himself any more.

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Wardog

at 09:13 on 2009-04-28

The enormity of the gang-rape is something he's not prepared to consider his just desserts, and it isn't the only influence on his growth as a person.

I do see your point and I wasn't really dissing Monette, who I actually adore. There was just something about this scene, or the way it was presented, or *something* that was a bridge too far for me. And at first I was inclined to just ignore it and tell myself to stop being a wuss and then I got interested in *why* this scene was so problematic and, secondarily, I realised that, on a wider level, it should probably be okay to stand up and say "for me, this gang rape is not okay."

I will at some point finish Corambis, because I have *hugely* enjoyed the Doctrine of Labyrinths quartet (I have some reviews knocking around here in which I give much sweet sweet love), I think I just need some time to get away from the gang rape.

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Wardog

at 09:29 on 2009-04-28

I do wonder sometimes whether deSade was an early pen-and-paper troll

Dan and I like the idea of historical trolls, and also explains the Marquis far more than most of pop-psych nonsense I've read does =P

Lucifer, of course, would be the first troll - complaining about the mods.

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http://miss-morland.livejournal.com/

at 11:54 on 2009-04-28*giggles at the thought of de Sade and Lucifer as trolls*

I haven't read Monette's books, but I still found this post very interesting - it articulates my issues with non-con and dub-con in fiction very well. (I do wonder, though, if ambiguous portrayals of rape scenes are sometimes meant to make the readers think and question their own attitudes, instead of jumping to the safe reaction of 'OMG so horrible'?)

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Dan H

at 14:25 on 2009-04-28

I do wonder, though, if ambiguous portrayals of rape scenes are sometimes meant to make the readers think and question their own attitudes, instead of jumping to the safe reaction of 'OMG so horrible'?)

You might well be right, but even if that is the intent, it's a deeply flawed one.

Perhaps I'm just an arrogant shit, but I really hate it when people try to make me think about stuff unless it's in a medium *specifically designed* for that.

If you want to challenge my preconceptions about rape, write a book that is *about* challenging my preconcieved notions about rape. Don't try to do it in the middle of a fantasy series that is mostly about hot gay wizards gettin' it on.

If I want to have my ideas about absuse challenged, I'll read Lolita, or possibly I'll track down some abuse-survivors' weblogs. I won't read an otherwise ordinary fantasy novel or, for that matter, watch

Dollhouse

.

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Dan H

at 16:05 on 2009-04-28

The enormity of the gang-rape is something he's not prepared to consider his just desserts

I can't speak for Kyra, but the problem I have with this is that it suggests, falsely, that the more traumatic an experience is the less likely you are to blame yourself for it. I'm by no means an expert on the subject of abuse survival but from my limited experience people's tendency to self-blame for things is wholly unrelated to the severity of the abuse suffered. For that matter, the whole idea of rating abuse experiences in order of severity is a bit of a dodgy precedent.

Essentially I think there's an important, and worrying, difference between "Felix has experienced things like this before but, because he has grown as a person, and because of the influence of Mildmay, he does not blame himself for this experience" and "Felix has experienced things like this before but, because this experience is so much worse than the others, he cannot blame himself for it".

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http://sistermagpie.livejournal.com/

at 21:38 on 2009-05-01I haven't read this last book yet, but I'm glad for the heads-up. Having read the other 3 I can definitely see how this kind of thing would play, and I'm not surprised that she'd planned something like this from the beginning. It does make you think thought, about the idea that this character is constantly going through situations like this, and it's finally when he acheives the kind of abuse he might have always thought would be what he deserved, that he realizes he didn't deserve it. Even if Mildmay and other experiences are also part of his turnaround, I don't know whether that kind of catalyst will click for me the way another one might.

Like, rather than having him be in a situatio that's the same as before, but with one clear difference that makes him see it clearly, it's almost like Helen Keller at the well. Repeated fingerspelling over and over and finally he gets it.

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Wardog

at 15:28 on 2009-05-11I lost this temporarily in the deluge of comments about other things.

It is possible I've over-reacted to the gang rape; I suppose responses to these sort of motifs are always going to be extremely personal. I feel almost hypocritical because, as you say, there's plenty of indication previously that we were on the Sex Abuse Superhighway and something like this was probably bound to happen. But the way it's framed and written, combinated with its narrative function as a catalyst for change really really squicked me out. I know it's not necessarily meant to be psychologically plausible but there's something deeply worrying in the idea that there is a scale of sexual abuse, the extreme end of which teaches you self respect.

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valse de la lune

at 14:04 on 2011-07-12I tracked down

this interview

and I'm now extremely, thoroughly grossed out with Sarah Monette:

I think this does happen to gay male protagonists (the most obvious example is Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald-Mage books). And I think Felix does fall into this trap to a certain extent, although in my defense I will say that the reason he gets raped is because I was interested in the tension inherent in a character who could be both rapist and victim. Which could have been a woman, or a heterosexual man, but it was most obvious and easiest to mobilize with a gay man. I also chose a gay male protagonist because my abiding interest is in the power dynamics of human relationships, especially sexual relationships, and it is VERY VERY HARD to write about that with a heterosexual female protagonist without pigeon-holing her and yourself into either a re-inscription of patriarchal gender roles (male dominant, female submissive) or a simple gender reversal (female dominant, male submissive) (which I did work with some in my novella, "A Gift of Wings," in The Queen in Winter). A lesbian relationship is also a possibility, but it's far more interesting and attention-grabbing to take power away from a man than it is to give power to a woman. [...] Also, because we live in a patriarchal society and have for several thousand years, there's nothing new or shocking about the idea that women are victims. (I'm not saying this is a good thing, mind you.) You can get more narrative charge out of victimizing a man and you aren't reinscribing the same old gender role patterns into that ever deeper groove of men act and women suffer.

What the fuck, Monette? My word, lesbian relationships aren't just ~hawt~ enough unlike slender

yaoi stereotypes

wizards sexing it up and... female empowerment is just too boring? Female victimization is just too

banal

to write about so gay men being degraded (and in this case, often raped by women) has more "narrative charge"? There's also something toward the end that basically goes "well, if you are writing about male rape it's super

titillating

shocking so people will recognize RAPE IS HORRIBLE whereas women being raped is just so

every day

so... hey, manpain! That'll get people

thinking

, right? Right!"

I don't know, all of this reads like the slash fangirl's justification why she's not interested in writing girls but wants to write hot boys instead, all disguised under a pretend layer of ~*soshul justeese*~.

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Wardog

at 23:33 on 2011-07-12Oh dear. I'm actually really annoyed with myself that it took me to Book IV to unpack what was going on with the, err, sexay mainpain and all the arse rape. I did quite like Monette initially - I think partially because when I first read Melusine I was still under the impression that gay characters were pretty rare in fantasy. To give Monette credit, when she actually bothers to be interested in them, she does write interesting female characters - I mean I *loved* Mehitabel from this series.

I think what freaks me out the most is that, as you observe, it's blatant titillation under the label of trangression. I have no problems with people getting their kicks from whatever they get their kicks from, as long as it's a carefully demarcated fantasy space, but pretending it's anything else is deeply toxic.

Also that interview was just awful :(

Maybe it's just because it doesn't apply to me but I don't understand why so many women find two dudes so unbelievably hawt but two women apparently tedious. Ho hum.

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valse de la lune

at 05:06 on 2011-07-13I think gay characters are still pretty rare in fantasy, but the gay dudes all seem to come from the same wellspring of fanfic tropes. I've read all the arguments as to why dudeslash is a female-positive space that enables women to explore their sexuality and I do get some of it, but I can't shake the feeling that so much of that is hot air; no matter how hard a slash fan argues I can't really see how spamming rape at gay dudes is particularly, y'know, feminist. Maybe it plays with power dynamics and whatnot but, on the other hand,

rape culture

.

I don't get the thing with YAY HAWT BOYS EWW GIRLS ARE BORING either, though it's been explained to me that most female characters aren't decently written so people'd sooner generate fanfic about boys instead. But that doesn't fly because fandom churns out great volumes of fanfic dedicated to minor male characters, even though some of them barely have a presence in the book/show/movie--see Figwit of the LOTR movies fame--whereas women, primary or tertiary, still get written out or villified. There are even

bingo cards

. Somewhere in that

is

a valid clause regarding how we're trained to look at media through male gateways thanks to patriarchy and we internalize that. Still don't get it on a personal level because I've always preferred female characters over male, but there it goes.

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Melissa G.

at 06:30 on 2011-07-13

Maybe it's just because it doesn't apply to me but I don't understand why so many women find two dudes so unbelievably hawt but two women apparently tedious. Ho hum.

Speaking as a straight woman who gets paid to translate yaoi, I can understand that pretty well. :-) It's not that I find girls boring as characters, but as someone who isn't sexually attracted to women, I find myself gravitating toward situations where I can look at/write about two sexy boys instead if I'm looking for smexy times. (Though I'm very, very picky these days about yaoi because of tropes I'm sure I've mentioned before.)

I feel some sympathy for Monette because I do have a hard time verbalizing my tastes without resorting to those same basic arguments about power play or feeling the need to judge the female character and how she is portrayed specifically because she's female (which I wish I didn't, but I do so...). What I find odd is the fact that everyone insists on asking me *why* I find male-on-male romance so appealing, and then I'm stuck in this hem-hawing, putting-on-airs defense because I'm too embarrassed to just go, "Two guys doing stuff to each other is hot?"

(Uh-oh, now I'm having Dorian Gray flashbacks. Oh, Ben Barnes, you scamp, you!!)

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Steve Stirling at 07:07 on 2011-07-13

I don't get the thing with YAY HAWT BOYS EWW GIRLS ARE BORING either

-- you get exactly the same in reverse from male writers a lot, so I don't see that there's any mystery about it.

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valse de la lune

at 07:20 on 2011-07-13I don't think Kyra's asking "why male-on-male?" but more "why do people find women inexplicably boring?"

but as someone who isn't sexually attracted to women, I find myself gravitating toward situations where I can look at/write about two sexy boys instead if I'm looking for smexy times.

That doesn't make sense to me because, even outside of sexual context, a lot of slashers just don't want to write women period and I'm sure we don't always only write about what's sexually/romantically attractive to us (or no straight man would ever write male characters).

It also doesn't really answer why women are so villified and hated by fandom at large: why people like Monette believe "it's more interesting to take power away from a man than to give power to a woman," or why slash is passed off as some wonderful female-positive space when it involves a lot of female-negative things, including but not limited to slut-shaming and othering women. Ogle hot boys, whatever (but even so, why so much fucking rape all the fucking time? Why the infantilizing tropes?). But I think you can do that without contributing to misogyny and rape culture.

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Steve Stirling at 07:24 on 2011-07-13

I don't think Kyra's asking "why male-on-male?" but more "why do people find women inexplicably boring?"

-- I don't. I actually had to start flipping coins at one point to make sure my characters weren't predominantly female.

Maybe it's because I was in single-sex schools for a lot of my adolescence, but I just find women more interesting than men. More complex and variable, on average.

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Steve Stirling at 07:38 on 2011-07-13

Ogle hot boys, whatever (but even so, why so much fucking rape all the fucking time? Why the infantilizing tropes?). But I think you can do that without contributing to misogyny and rape culture.

-- I don't read much (any, really) slash, but the actually-published equivalents like the book described here don't seem particularly misogynist to me. Just obsessed with Hot Boys in Chains.

As for the rape and stuff, a lot of people get off on that. Trying to tell people that the sexual fantasies which ring their chimes aren't permissible is roughly equivalent to trying to scold water until it voluntarily runs uphill. Much effort, little result.

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valse de la lune

at 07:45 on 2011-07-13

I don't. I actually had to start flipping coins at one point to make sure my characters weren't predominantly female.

Thank you, Minority Warrior, but if you are a bloke that's not exactly addressed to you.

I don't read much (any, really) slash, but the actually-published equivalents like the book described here don't seem particularly misogynist to me. Just obsessed with Hot Boys in Chains.

I've only read the first book and the gang-rape scene in the fourth, but a lot of the women in this series like to rape gay men for some strange reason.

Melusine

opens with an anecdote about the pure, true love between men. Two women get between it; one proceeds to rape one of the men repeatedly until he wants to kill himself. So, yes, both fandom slash and published slash perpetuate a lot of the same crap. Then there's Monette's interview and strange leaps of illogic which read sexist as hell to me.

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Melissa G.

at 08:48 on 2011-07-13

That doesn't make sense to me because, even outside of sexual context, a lot of slashers just don't want to write women period and I'm sure we don't always only write about what's sexually/romantically attractive to us (or no straight man would ever write male characters).

I can't speak to that. I don't know why so many writers are so anti-female characters, and it would take me pages of musing to try and come to a conclusion. I was referring specifically to sexual situations (by which I mean stories centering on sex) because the comment I was particularly responding to was "why do so many women find two dudes so unbelievably hot but two women apparently tedious". Which I read as "why do so many women love writing about two guys (sexually) but find writing about two women so boring (sexually)". Perhaps I misinterpreted what Kyra was saying. I stated clearly that I don't find women boring as characters to read and write about, but that I understand why many women gravitate toward male homosexual relationships and why they might find it arousing when they are writing merely to titillate themselves/others.

I haven't read the series in question so I take everyone's word for it that the rape isn't handled well and misogyny abounds. And trust me, I'm the first person to get fed up with the kind of tropes male-on-male stuff tends to come with - especially when written by someone who's probably never even spoken to a gay man before. I got fed up with one author in particular because her protagonists kept falling for their rapists, yuck. But just because a lot of it sucks and perpetuates some seriously shitty stuff doesn't mean that it's not okay to find guy-on-guy stuff hot. And I really don't appreciate being made to feel like because I like it, I am somehow in danger of losing my feminist card.

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valse de la lune

at 09:57 on 2011-07-13I don't think I have been suggesting that if you like slash, you're in danger of losing your feminist cred; being a feminist doesn't exactly mean everything you consume must be feminist, after all, and we all enjoy things that are problematic to some degree. I just don't like how it's put forward as a YAY WOMEN field when it's not really. Likewise, I've been shouted down in fandom spaces for calling out misogyny in slash, something along the line of

you will find it is you who is misogyny

.

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valse de la lune

at 10:06 on 2011-07-13(Sorry that I'm coming down harshly such that you feel you're being discredited as a feminist, though.)

One more thing--I've been told over and over that there is a strong presence of queer women in slash circles, so for some it's not so much a matter of "I'm straight so more cocks yay!!!" In fact, with so many queer women around--so many lesbians even--you'd think there would be more F/F fanfic. But there isn't, so...

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Melissa G.

at 10:23 on 2011-07-13

I don't think I have been suggesting that if you like slash, you're in danger of losing your feminist cred

I think I was responding defensively to this comment:

Ogle hot boys, whatever (but even so, why so much fucking rape all the fucking time? Why the infantilizing tropes?). But I think you can do that without contributing to misogyny and rape culture.

It basically felt to me like my entire sexual preference/fetish/whatever was being boiled down to "ogling hot boys". It’s those kinds of dismissive, judgmental comments that make me feel like I need to somehow justify what I find arousing. That’s why you have people arguing that it’s pro-women or empowering or whatever to write and read man-on-man love stories. When an attraction is called into question, I think often women in particular feel the need to base that attraction in something intellectual and philosophical. Because it would be wrong for a woman to just find something titillating or arousing. Because women aren’t supposed to like sex just for sex.

I think there are ways that it can be empowering (I wouldn't go so far as to say 'feminist'), but most of it fails in this regard. For me, when I read a story with a male bottom that I can relate to as far as sexual behavior, it makes me feel less weird. There's something freeing about the behavior being related to the position and not the gender, for me anyway. I think that also relates to why an author might find it more interesting (and by interesting I mean because they find it hot) to take power away from men. For some women who are attracted to men, there is something very fascinating and seductive about a man submitting (either sexually or emotionally), probably because it's something so commonly associated with female behavior. So again, it becomes less of a gender thing and more of a relationship role thing. If that makes any sense....

I just don't like how it's put forward as a YAY WOMEN field when it's not really.

I totally understand that. I actually avoid fan written slash like the plague because most of it is just not good. Most of it is (I think) influenced by yaoi, which oh dear god, has such problems. There is so much rape and questionable consent and a lot of "I'm only gay for that guy" and such overly traditional female behavior (even though one of them is male, go figure). And the kind of people you've probably argued with are likely the kind of people who make me afraid to admit I'm part of the yaoi subculture.

But there is good stuff out there. I promise. :-)

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Melissa G.

at 10:26 on 2011-07-13

One more thing--I've been told over and over that there is a strong presence of queer women in slash circles, so for some it's not so much a matter of "I'm straight so more cocks yay!!!" In fact, with so many queer women around--so many lesbians even--you'd think there would be more F/F fanfic. But there isn't, so...

Sorry, I made my long post before I saw this! That is odd. Why don't they focus on yuri? Yuri is slowly becoming a more female dominated genre. It's kind of cool actually that the female authors are slowly co-opting a genre that was once basically male-written lesbian porn for men. To each their own, I guess?

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valse de la lune

at 10:59 on 2011-07-13

It basically felt to me like my entire sexual preference/fetish/whatever was being boiled down to "ogling hot boys".

But... I said that because I think it's pretty dandy if you're just in it for the ogling of hot boys, or balls being cupped gently, or even self-lubing anuses. I don't think you, or anyone else, need to justify it any further than that. Think it's hot? Go for it! That's excellent. Objectifying

men

in and of itself, separate from the concern over straight people fetishizing homosexuality, doesn't really bother me. I'm not questioning the appeal of slash: I'm questioning some of the tropes, the homophobia, the misogyny. Which certainly aren't universal, but there sure is a lot of them to go around. Hell, gay male characters written by straight men also get raped an awful lot (hi Richard Morgan, thank you for that graphic schoolboy gang rape).

Disclosure: I think lesbians are awesome. I'd like to read more stuff with lesbian representation. Being homoromantic does have something to do with it, though.

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Melissa G.

at 11:11 on 2011-07-13

But... I said that because I think it's pretty dandy if you're just in it for the ogling of hot boys, or balls being cupped gently, or even self-lubing anuses. I don't think you, or anyone else, need to justify it any further than that.

:-) I think it just came off as hostile because of the swearing, lol. To be honest, I was probably overly defensive because it's kind of a touchy thing for me.

I'm not questioning the appeal of slash: I'm questioning some of the tropes, the homophobia, the misogyny.

Yes, I'm with you here. I have a lot of trouble with a lot of boy/boy stuff that's out there.

Re: Lesbians

If you're looking to try out some yuri, I can lead you to some scanlation sites. I haven't read much yuri so I can't totally vouch for the content, but these are sites that I know of:

Lililicious

Payapaya

Just be sure to check for ratings and such. There was one on Lilicious I read years ago that I was enjoying.

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valse de la lune

at 11:14 on 2011-07-13OMG yay :D :D :D Thanks for the links. My friend's been sending me some too. I'm also quite pleased to see that a lot of yuri writers are female. Awesome.

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Cammalot

at 15:23 on 2011-07-13I JUST WANNA WATCH DUDES EMOTE. ;-)

I actually got into yaoi (not slash for whatever reason) because I was attracted to what I thought was the innate equality in such a a relationship. There are a variety of reasons I don't really seek out much fanfic anymore (one of which is the decade-plus that has gone by) but one of them is that I don't really see that equality getting embraced. (I'm necessarily truncating this, I have to imitate being a productive employee at the moment.)

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Melissa G.

at 19:40 on 2011-07-13

I JUST WANNA WATCH DUDES EMOTE. ;-)

Ooh, yes, good observation. I like that too.

I actually got into yaoi (not slash for whatever reason) because I was attracted to what I thought was the innate equality in such a a relationship.

Ditto. That's what I really like about it too, which is why I hate when they skew the power dynamic too far in one direction without somehow compensating for it in another way. I've never been into fanfic, but I do love doujinshi.

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Cammalot

at 19:48 on 2011-07-13I wrote up this whole long comment yesterday, but today with you guys' further conversation I realized I was addressing something that Pyro was not talking about, so I'm tweaking, but I don't think I'll have a chance to get to it today.

The extremely short version is that there's a very definite blockage that some women seem to have about writing women, and I had it myself for some time (and that some more extreme versions of it outright baffle me), and have spent a lot of time trying to process, discuss, and debate what the fuck that is about. With theories. I have theories.

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Melissa G.

at 19:53 on 2011-07-13

The extremely short version is that there's a very definite blockage that some women seem to have about writing women,

Definitely noticed this myself at times. I gravitate toward writing male characters, or at least I used to. I'm very interested to hear your theories whenever you find the time to write them up. :-)

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Sister Magpie

at 20:07 on 2011-07-13

Sorry, I made my long post before I saw this! That is odd. Why don't they focus on yuri? Yuri is slowly becoming a more female dominated genre. It's kind of cool actually that the female authors are slowly co-opting a genre that was once basically male-written lesbian porn for men. To each their own, I guess?

I would guess that that's probably not all that related to the whole "that's my kink" thing, only not all kinks are sexual. That is, expecting them to explain it would probably be similar to having anybody explain why they find one thing more hot than another.

For instance, I like het and I like slash, but there are certain kinds of stories that could definitely be considered non-sexual kinks that I am more likely to read about in a m/m pairing than a f/m pairing or f/f pairing. I suppose I could try to relate it to power issues with gender IRL, but it's probably more just a kink if it's something I've pretty much always been drawn to.

I don't find that rape or "I'm only gay for that guy" seems to dominate most of the slash I come across, but I think that might often come down to different pairings leaning towards different dynamics. Or else also some authors being better than most.

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Steve Stirling at 22:44 on 2011-07-13Pyrofennec:

-of the women in this series like to rape gay men for some strange reason.Melusine opens with an anecdote about the pure, true love between men. Two women get between it; one proceeds to rape one of the men repeatedly until he wants to kill himself.

-- that is odd. I'd say it was evidence of misogyny if a guy wrote it, but I have trouble -imagining- a guy writing it, even a gay man. You'd need a very strange set of quirks to do so.

[unrequited--desires-blog]

To all the things left unsaid:

Believe it or not, even remotely finding the courage to write this took a lot; considering that there would be the slightest possibility of giving this to you, of course. Anyway I guess you could say I fucking took my chances , I mean this is your fault and you said you always wanted to read my writing. So here goes nothing… See at the start I saw the world as a utopia of only blacks and whites , rights and wrongs, many fucks and more fuck-ups. I was blinded by all the perfectly ensembled things that I saw; nothing was ever unbalanced or bent. I was so devoid of colour that I had no fucking idea what it was like to exist around anything faintly tinted. It was like I was wearing a fucking visor 24/7 on my head - but between you and me I secretly knew that it was my way of protecting myself; Ignorance was fucking bliss. So I isolated myself from the real world and chose to avoid it. I built a house around me with 4 walls, two black and two white. The house had doors obviously, people could open them and enter, and we would exchange our gifts on special occasions. But it wasn’t that simple with me , I had conditions you see; once you enter you inevitably have to leave and you were never allowed to stay. That didn’t tend to work well with people. Even the ones who visited multiple times, they certainly never came back. I was always told that people come and go, so normally I simply let them come and fucking go. Imprudently, the mere realisation that some people tend to leave things behind didn’t occur to me. Yes, people do come and go but they never truly leave you. The ones that get the furthest away from you, ironically end up being the closest to your heart . Guess who learnt that the hard way? Fucking guarded, I built gates around my house after that, just for extra reinforcement. And then I met you. Now let me be frank, when I first saw you, holy-fucking-shit didn’t you look like a nerd? You were wearing the fucking school blazer and you were quite reserved and you had nice hand-wiring and a resting bitch-face even though your smirk didn’t pass by me - but whatever. At the same time I found you intriguing (weirdly enough I know). Now , keeping in mind, this was before I screamed at you for being and intrusive twat.( I felt bad about that). Any-fucking-way after that I came to the conclusion that I hated you. I wish I remember how I got over that but who knows? For all I remember I made a bet and me being a competitive twat, I never like to lose. Easily enough, I accidently pulled you and as I was pulling I saw you for the first time. You were sweet , endearing and something about you was extremely earnest. Oddly enough, we were more alike than I thought. We both needed something, an entertainer. I’d fuck with you and you’d make me laugh and we were both so fucking good at the game. We lied to each other and disguised the truth because we knew that we had our own personal rules that we obliged to. You had morals; I kissed you, your lips were cold and bitter. I had none- (obviously) -and when I tasted you, I never gave in and I made sure I was hot and sweet. The perfect fucking balance. Perfection. Glorified? Probably. According to the laws of physics, both opposite forces of any kind must be equally distributed to become balanced at all times. That’s pretty hard. We weren’t very good at that. I blame fucking oestrogen and testosterone. The lust was pretty surreal. We were practically governed by our hormones that we ignored all of rationality that could possibly exist around us. Fun wasn’t it? I have a confession. Now if you’ve ever read about love in science’s perspective you’d know that it’s nothing but chemicals and coincidence. It makes perfect sense, you have coincidence, where you meet the person. Here you get hit with like instantaneous lust. So chemically speaking your body releases hormones, high levels of sex hormones and fucking dopamine and its fucking pleasure followed by the lovely low levels of serotonin( literally decodes into chemical obsession). That translates into attraction. Then the enemy of any normal, rational human; oxytocin. This fucking bitch provides you with unwanted attachment issues and any hopes for long-term relationships (probably your biggest fear). So my confession is that I never believed in love and to this day (although I am not as much a love atheist as I previously was) still question it. I believed in science and observations. From what I saw, at first, people seemed almost high of love (fucking hormones) at the beginning and then slowly and painfully it fades until it just becomes ordinary. Or worse, you end up resenting your significant other. Either way there was never a happily ever after. Consequently, I chose to trust in lust, attraction, companionship and symbiotic relationships. This hopefully explains my promiscuous tendencies. Whilst we were lost in our sexual era, I think we forgot how to communicate (besides physically) and you lost all communication as a whole. Many conversations without destinations was always our problem. That wasn’t great for me. Previously, my only moral in the so called love shit was use and abuse (I know horrible, but its what helped me survive and meet my-uncalled-for selfish needs). Not abuse physically-rather emotionally. How-fucking-ever, I was not used to being treated in the same way back in return. The universe and its irony. But you, I have to say, you fucking excelled. I had the withdrawal symptoms of taking heroine away from a junkie. Fuck. I got granted the epiphany of a lifetime. This fucking intruder broke down the walls I built for my lovely home and left me vagrant. I was a naked mess, really. So I did what any normal junkie would do. I searched for an alternate recreation and it was way too fucking easy. Once I got my first hit in a while, it punched me straight in the fucking face. It was worthless, empty and so fucking hollow. It wasn’t what I needed but what I wanted. Far from it honestly. Pathetically, I cried and I cried like a little bitch. Worst-of-fucking-all-for-some-fucking-reason I felt these things I’ve never quite encountered giving the circumstances, such as guilt and regret and exposed with a hint of humiliation. I was truly bewildered. Touching isn’t it, feeling for the first time? Since I lost my house , I had nothing left to lose. With that came this loss for caring followed by the lingering fear of being completely liberated. That’s why society made rules to follow because once your free it becomes quite arduous to actually give a single fuck. Me being me, I was unconventional in my situation and I told you the truth about everything expecting nothing in return. I spat little bits of my pride with every word. Did I give a shit? No. And I let go. I wasn’t shaded from all the things we never said because like I mentioned before, I didn’t believe in love. But the irony of life always slaps in you in the face because I saw it; love. I saw it when I looked at you and I heard in our silence and felt in everyday that I spent without you in every way of the word. Did I become a believer? No. Seeing is believing they say-but I only saw you. When you have nothing left to lose you why should you start to give a fuck? With loss come the evitable lost. Lost is defined as denoting something that has been taken away or cannot be recovered. What’s lost can always be found; recovery is hard when it comes to an addict and just when I managed to tremble my way out of it, you came back. You know that feeling when you find something after losing it for what feels like forever? Ingratiating really is the true definition of that. I was back to my void with you. I wasn’t seeing black and white anymore. I saw you. You were blue and I was red; the primary bases of the colour spectrum. You were the colour of a newly formed bluebell that consumed my crimson soul. Every day I was whirled into your pool and into your myriad shades of blue sinking deeper and deeper into your vacuum completely free of gravity. The thing about sinking is that you slowly start to lose your consciousness as you painfully become deprived of breathing. Oblivion never scared me though. So I let myself sink and deteriorate into you. Here, where each sound is different, every shade of blue was so iridescent and every laugh became a spiral of translucent bubbles, I felt safe-contrary to the popular apprehension accompanied with that of aquaphobia. Our game of desire was toxic. Wrapping your arms around me, your mouth accentuated the gratifying chaos that the colour of your breath created, destroying the inflamed-red, atmosphere that shielded me. Every touch was enticing and you captivated me. I let you. I was so caught up in your vehement blue that I loved you with my eyes as much as my body. In white light, when red and blue collide you get a frequency of 750 THz , until you reach the longest and intimate end of the spectrum. Unequivocal and fated, when you touched me I became a lilac sky and you just simply decided purple just wasn’t for you, pulling apart my seams with every intoxicating trace of your fingertips. Drowning. At the bottom of every ocean its always pitch black and the presence of the deafening silence creates a lingering sense of discomfort. You left me there and what I felt was used. I wasn’t a stranger to the solitude you always create. So if anything you left me where you found me. I can’t say that I didn’t see it coming; love isn’t blind, it’s more like the creator of shaded faith and high expectation. Science never found a definition for love. Innocent until proven guilty? There is no proof. To me, love is nothing but a natural muse, nothing but a physical tactility that leaves you lost in thought and hormones. Were you the lost clarity of it or simply the missing proof? I found some parts of you eventually and I realized that fear is your demagogue. It provokes you and giving in, no, actually giving up is the only way to avoid it for you. Neglecting the things you need is just a coping mechanism because you are so afraid to feel something real. It has this hold over you that is almost inexplicable.  You think that you’re winning, you indulge in it, almost obey it and in return you get what you want and the rewarding fortification that comes with it devours you. You never seized your gaze long enough or held me for too long and I get it. The sheer thought of loss frightens you because it aches. I know it does. No one likes to lose a game, especially you. All the ups and downs and the highs and lows for nothing. Nothing isn’t a deficit. The problem with nothing is that it leaves you hollow and bare. I’ve learnt that no entity in the world compares to the pain of being empty. It makes perfect sense; not a single thing hurts worse than not hurting at all. So in this game of two we were both defeated. Is ignorance really bliss or is it just an aid in forgetting the things that you don’t want to occupy your mind with right now? You helped in rebuilding my walls and I’m settled back home again on my blank street in my opaque world, this time I don’t have doors. On the same street, in a different world with different colours and shattered pieces that I failed to amend, is where you stay. 

[artificialqueens]

Cupid’s Blind Arrow (Group Fic) Chapter 3 - Ginger Nut

As Katya wandered down the corridors bumping into every second person she couldn’t help but look for Trixie, her beloved dance partner from Friday night. The pair had taken up most of the so-called dance floor and boogied the night away. Trixie taught her how to jive and Katya even taught Trixie a traditional Russian folk dance claiming it looked better with the traditional outfits opposed to an astronaut and a Viking. They hadn’t spoken since, but they never really did out with School. Still, Katya found herself scanning the halls for the girl, or rather searched for her big blonde hair which would probably be easier to notice. “Katya” Flipping her head round hoping it was Trixie, Katya’s smile dropped when she realised it was Adore. “Have you seen Sharon?” Adore asked, leaning against a couple of lockers. “haven’t saw her since Vi’s party. Why?” “Was wondering if we’d get another episode of the show we saw in English” Katya let out a laugh, remembering the scene last week. “I mean it’s a Monday morning, so she’s probably out on a smoke break” Adore shook her head; “nah, she’s not there I’ve just been out” Katya shrugged before waving goodbye to Adore and walking to her first class.

Violet sat doodling in her notebook; it was design class so she could get away with it. She was meant to be designing a fashion forward item for fall, something that was functional but still looked good. The whole class was going to be creating a piece to go in a fashion show, organised by the events committee. For weeks Violet had been exhilarated, ecstatic at the idea that her designs were going to be shown to the whole School. Finally they’ll realise that I’m really talented at this. But for some reason Violet had no motivation today, that was unheard of. The most determined person on the planet was currently sitting cross legged on a stool – which was pretty uncomfortable considering her long legs – sketching and colouring in pictures of knights and medieval princesses, she just couldn’t get the image of Pearl from Friday night out of her head. She looked so stunning, like a work of art. Violet sighed as she drew geometric shoulder blades curving the ends like Pearl had done. “Violet dear” Miss Velour came up behind the girl causing her to jump slightly before doing her best to cover up the doodles with her arms. “Hi, Miss. I’m kind of still in the thinking process, the stuff I’ve got isn’t ready for critiquing yet.” Unfortunately violet knew Miss Velour wouldn’t take that for an answer and the teacher proceeded to give her a knowing look before extending her hand out to Violets half-hindered sketch pad. “May I?” Knowing she would have taken it one way or another Violet reluctantly gave her teacher the paper, wanting to hide in her hands for the lack of work she had to offer. Miss Velour stayed silent for a moment, analysing the tiny doodles that had been shaded and given such detail and attention. “Well, I , uh, this is very different Miss Chachki, especially from you” Shaking her head Violet tried to save herself, “Yeah I um, don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll get something better, don’t worry I-“ “I didn’t say I didn’t like the idea” Dumbfounded, Violet blinked multiple times before finding her words “Wait, you…like this?” Miss Velour held the pad at different angles considering all the elements and potential it had. “I mean I’m not letting you send someone out in armour or petticoats but, it’s a good stimulus. Very original. You could take a more avant-garde approach. It would really stand out from all the fringe jackets and denim blazers.” Politely yet firmly Violet retrieved her sketch book from her teacher's’ hand and her brain started to work at one hundred miles per hour again. I’ve got this she thought.

When the bell went for break Bianca make her way outside, unable to bear the loud and meaningless chatter today. She’d had a pounding headache and couldn’t seem to shake it no matter how many paracetamol she took. As she made her way over to one of the back walls she spotted a friendly face. “You out for another drag?” Quizzed the newly green-haired girl. Not an ugly green, but almost like a seaweed green enhancing the girls’ mermaid persona. She stood against the wall with a joint in between her fingers and a sly smirk on her face. “No. I think I may be dying.” Bianca stood opposite Adore with her arms crossed “What after one night?” She started giggling and it made Bianca embarrassed, “Stop it I’m serious, my head feels like a Rocky movie. Boxing match after boxing match.” Bianca mimicked punching her head on either side before whimpering and squeezing her eyes shut. “What’s the pot equivalent of a lightweight?” Adore jokingly questioned. and Bianca scowled, “come over here you big baby” Bianca did as she was told and walked over to Adore laying her head on the girl’s soft and surprisingly warm shoulder. “How can you do this everyday chola, I seriously feel like I’m dying.” Adore pulled the joint to her lips and took a smoke before blowing it out, up to the sky so Bianca wouldn’t have to smell it. “Have you ever wondered if it’s everything else in your life giving you a headache and not the one bit of weed you smoked?” Adore offered, gazing down at Bianca, who looked back up at her. “No because schools never made me ill before so why would it now?” “Because it’s so much more now. More homework, more classes, higher standards,” Adore thought her list could go on but she finished with “and all in less time.” Bianca nodded in agreement as she massaged her temples. Adore looked at her for a minute, admiring the girl for everything she was. You have a cute face too she thought, smiling to herself. She once again held out her joint and offered it to Bianca; “it’ll calm you down” At that Bianca opened her eyes and removed her hands from her temples looking up at Adore with the biggest look of confusion possible. “No” she exclaimed, “you’re not turning me into Stoner Pearl!” Adore laughed, bright and wholesome causing a smile to graze over Bianca’s face and the pair continued to laugh and talk until the bell went for the next class.

Sitting in math class was Pearl, not taking in any of the information her teacher was giving. She rested her head in her hand, staring into space; her free hand traced the equations in the textbook. “Pearl!” Looking up Pearl found all eyes on her including the one person on her mind, Violet, who was sat at the opposite side of the class smirking and staring directly at her. Flustered, partly because she realised she’d been asked a question and partly because Violet was staring at her, she let out a noise while her eyes quickly scanned the board searching for any values that could lead to the question asked. After a moment her teacher, who everyone just knew as Bob, exhaled a sigh and crossed her arms. “Okay, new plan class. Pearls gonna tell us all a story about what she was thinking about, it must be so much more exciting than my teaching.” Pearl bit her lip, “I’m sorry I uh wasn’t thinking of anything” the girl wanted the ground to swallow her up. Giving up Bob turned back to the board before scribbling the answer Pearl was supposed to give on the board; “Sorry guys, no story time today I guess” A general laugh emitted from the rest of the class and Pearl turned around to face Violet who had checked her watch and began to pack up her things, putting everything in her bag in an organised manner so it would fit just right. Watching Violet do anything calmed Pearl in a way that even she herself found a bit odd. Everything else faded away and Pearl got to learn the other girl’s body language and study her physique. The whole class then proceeded to pack up and Violet pulled out a compact mirror, checking her makeup and hair. Pearl smiled, and Violets eyes moved from her own reflection to Pearl’s behind her. The pair had a mini stare off, before Pearl winked, causing Violet to raise her eyebrows and then blow a kiss in Pearls direction. Subtle Pearl thought. Real subtle

“I’m soaking weeeettttt” Alaska moaned as she walked over to the lunch table Willam had claimed. It was only her and Willam but they took up a whole table. Standing in her normal, but now drenched clothes, Alaska motioned to her hair which looked like a birds nest that had been struck by lightning. A mess. Willam pursed her lips together but started laughing. “The hell happened to you? Go for a swim?” Alaska mocked her laugh and sat down, evidently uncomfortable in her tight denim jeans. “No. It’s basically a fucking hurricane outside and they made us do cross country. CROSS FUCKING COUNTRY WILLAM” Willam started pawing at the blonde’s hair still giggling. “So i was about to die of hypothesis and then-“ “Wait what” willam interrupted. “Hypothesis, like when you die because you’re really cold” answered Alaska plainly. Shaking her head Willam start laughing again, “I think you’re looking for hypothermia, dumbass” Alaska sighed, sat down and pulled out a compact. Gasping at her reflection, she pulled out a brush and tried to fix the mess on her head. “Anyway I went to shower and phi phi was sitting on the floor balling her eyes out so I wasn’t up to deal with that. Then I changed back into my clothes that were dry, then I had to fucking run across the goddamn yard to get in here. So once again I’m gonna die of…” her voice trailed off. “Hypothermia,” supplied Willam. “That.” Willam pulled out her phone and started scrolling through her Instagram and checking snapchat while Alaska cautiously looked over the entirety of the canteen, checking for Sharon. There’s no chance in hell she can see me like this! “Hey, look at this filter! Look how cute I am” said Willam not taking her eyes off of herself and tilting her head from side to side. “Ooh a pair one, come on ‘laska get in this one” shoving her phone into Alaska face Willam posed once again and took the photo. She looked at Alaska, first in the picture the in real life and sighed; “Why didn’t you smile or pose or do something cute? Damn now I’ve got nothing to put on my story.” Alaska gave no excuse, shook her head and rolled her eyes as she leaned back in her seat. “Don’t roll your fucking eyes at me bitch. I’m not the one resembling one of the seven dwarves right now.” “What one?” Alaska questioned, half expecting to hear grumpy. “Mopey.” For the first time today Alaska started laughing, hard. Her whole body was moving up and down in time with her giggling causing Willam to question this strange turn of events, is this the mental breakdown stage? “What?” Alaska said nothing and continued to laugh, squeezing her eyes shut. “What?” Willam hit her on the arm now, eager to know what had the moany and usually heartbroken girl all laughs and giggles all of a sudden. Alaska wiped the stray tears that had fallen, “it’s dopey you fuckin moron” “Dopey? The hell’s he? Some stoner dwarf?” “No he’s just like stupid.” Willam returned back to her phone not accepting the fact that someone thought it would be a better idea to call a dwarf dopey rather than mopey. After she regained her composure Alaska sat upright again and sighed, “Have you heard anything recently from Courtney?” Willam froze. Not too sure how to answer this, she reminded herself that Alaska knew the pair were close but didn’t know just how close they’d gotten. “Uhh, no not really. Have you?” Alaska shook her head and leaned into Willam; “Get her insta up, she might’ve posted something.” Willam looked at Alaska almost questioning her, she did kind of want to find out what Court had gotten up to. Find out if she’d made any plans to come back. Begrudgingly she typed in the aussie’s username into the search bar, each button pressed was decorated with the sound of Willam’s acrylics touching the screen. “Got it.” Alaska leaned in further and recognised the blonde beauty on the screen. Willam started to go through her posts starting with the most recent one. It was posted just this morning; the picture depicted Courtney sitting on a beach facing away from the camera and towards the sun and the sea. She wore a floral bikini and her hair reached to halfway down her back, it looked like it was slightly blowing as if there was a light breeze in the air. My god she’s beautiful. Willam looked at the location tag and it read: Sydney, Australia. Oh how Willam wished she was there as well, wished that they could share the beach and play in the sun. Moving onto the next one. This time it was Courtney and a guy, a candid shot from some nightclub and the pair were laughing. Gritting her teeth Willam felt a churning in her stomach, what is this? Alaska took the phone out of Willams hand and started to scroll at a faster pace, “Oh look Willam it’s you.” Alaska said, focusing on one of the pictures that was posted around 3 weeks ago. #tbt Missing this one, please come over to Aus so I can see your face ☺️☺️ P.S how’re English lessons without me? #MissingAmerica #EspeciallyTheFood #MyWillam Willam tried to wipe the huge grin off of her face but was unsuccessful, from ear to ear she was all smiles and giggles My Willam she thought. Alaska noticed this and smiled back at her; “Do you miss her?” “All the time” Willam mumbled staring at the photo in front of her, not really intending for Alaska to hear. “All the time eh?” Alaska said in her Mae-West impression, she had to play a character like her in her drama class and used every opportunity to practice. Willams lip quivered, trying to hide any emotion. “I never said all the time!” Willam said defensively, “I said sometime” Alaska continued in her impression; “Playing hard to get, I see” Willam wanted to change the subject, she would look again at the photo and revel in all of Courtney’s beauty later. “Did you do the chem homeowork?” Raising her eyebrows meaning she’d caught onto what Willam was trying to do Alaska pulled the folder out of her handbag, throwing it onto their table. Willam brought hers out and started scribbling condensed versions of Alaska perfectly written answers. “Man, you’re such a fuckin nerd,” Willam joked as she read through one of the answers; “like how do you know all of this.” “Uh maybe because I listen in class instead of swiping right on every second guy on tinder” Willam opened her mouth wide in shock, her brain was producing so many good comebacks but they were all to do with Sharon. Willam decided against it, she didn’t want to break Alaska’s first good mood in what felt like forever. And Alaska’s mascara had already suffered enough today in cross country. “Hurtful, i’ll have you know my standards are much higher than tinder” Alaska chuckled before pointing back at the homework. “Come on, bell’s about to go for class. Write!” Instead Willam decided to pack up her stuff, ignoring more than half of the questions. “Nah it’s fine, Miss Davis owes me one anyway” “What do you mean she “owes you one”?” “I set her up with Mr Rice in the art department” Alaska gave an impressed nod and put her folder back into her pink sequinned bag.

It was last period and Trixie hadn’t seen Katya all day. She’d been purposely trying to run into her, taking different and longer routes to her classes but had no luck. She was now sitting in music and stared out the window. Man that storm is pretty bad, maybe school will get cancelled tomorrow. Strumming a few chords on her guitar, Trixie wished she could just get home. “Miss Mattel” called her teacher, Trixie looked up and waited for more. “The internet’s down, can you take this to reception please?” Trixie lazily stood up, taking her time to get to the teacher before accepting the note and heading out the door. Better make the most of this time out she thought. Making her way out of the music department Trixie walked down the main set of stairs and onto the floor below, the physics base. She leisurely waltzed past classrooms, not having a clue as to what anything on the boards meant. She found a side set of stairs and ventured down them but halfway down she heard footsteps coming towards her. “Trixie?” Called a thick, Russian accent. Instinctively Trixie smiled, “Hey dancing partner” Katya blushed at the memory, then smacked her head remembering how awful she must’ve been dancing considering she wasn’t at all sober added to the fact that she couldn’t dance to start with. “I didn’t show you the folk dance, did I?” Trixie laughed, warm and pure. “You did.” Once again Katya smacked herself. “Don’t worry Katya, you weren’t terrible” “Good, I’ll add that to my resume. “Not a terrible dancer”” both of them smiled and looked at each other for the first time since the party. Katya didn’t have the guts to kiss her on Saturday when she was drunk so she sure didn’t have the guts to now.

[eglantinian]

So i got tagged by @eponineinthebarricade, @bisexual-eponine, @kugirocks, @eponinexenjolras​ for this, and i decided i’ll just drop them all here for fun. i put in all my questions and those i tagged above, so if it’s not their thing to read the answers of other people, they don’t need to check mine out.

mechanics:

answer 11 questions

create 11 questions (for those i’ll be tagging) 1. What can cheer you up no matter how sad you are feeling? 2. How are you, really? (if you’re up for sharing, go ahead. if not, well, then, just say pass, and move on from this one) 3. Whose face do you think of when you hear the word humble? 4. What do you generally dislike about a certain fandom you are in? 5. If you can create a word, what would that be? 6. Was there something you said that you wish you could take back? 7. What irritates you? 8. What cultural norm do you wish wasn’the norm? 9. What’s one thing you would sacrifice everything for? 10. Would you want to die in Mars? 11. If you were in a zombie apocalypse, what weapon would you use, and why?

tag 11 persons: 1/ @ladywolfmd, 2/ @tomorrowatdawn, 3/ @xreyoflight, 4/ @skip-is-tired, 5/ @astoryinred, 6/ @courageandbravery 7/ @thesovereignempress, 8/ @eponinetdaae, 9/ @eponniia, 10/ @encarnalise, & 11/ @kotagula

questions from eponineinthebarricade:

What would you do if you went to space?

Probably spend gawking at Earth from the space station for a bit before bonding with other astronauts/cosmonauts over our mutual love for space. I’d probably be a space liaison.

What is “love” to you? Reason and passion entwined.

What is your hobby? Writing. Editing some photos. Reading. Watching videos about film and script analyses.

A food one must taste before they die? There’s this noodle we call palabok in my country, and it’s really filling. It has shrimp, eggs, and some vegetables thrown in, and the sauce in it is just… ah-mazing. I love this food.

Your way of coping with stress? I sometimes sing all the stress out. Or sleep. I like sleeping. Sometimes, I write. Or exercise eskrima.

What do you think would happen if music was not invented ever? Life would go on, albeit a little less interestingly. We’d make certain sounds from objects and we’d use our voice for purely practical reasons, but always wonder why is there something missing. We’d wonder why is spending time on this earth always a little empty. Literature would be less potent, less inspiring, even if it maintains a certain beauty with how it’s written. Any song would just be mostly poetry read aloud. Political propaganda as well as the market would use more visuals. Films and anything on screen would lack the drama and vividness of our imagination. Basically, our life would remain the same, but we’d have more boring lives.

Sleeping all day or being productive the moment you wake up? I prefer sleeping all day, but reality often denies it, so by circumstance and by duty, I am inclined to chooose to be productive. It makes me feel like I have a purpose, anyway.

Coffee or tea? I like both, but tend to buy more coffee because tea is a tad bit pricier.

What is your favourite literature movement? Realist and transcentalist movements.

Your favourite author? I have a ton, but for this one, I’ll say Sylvia Plath (for fiction) and Nick Joaquin (for non-fiction).

A line from your favourite poem and why you chose that line? ‘The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.’ - Tonight, I Can Write the Saddest Lines, Pablo Neruda It’s one of the most visually appealing and symbolic lines ever. And I memorise this poem a lot, but I keep forgetting this line. It’s the most different one from the whole set, and it joggles my pattern of recollection. But I really like it a lot.

questions from kugirocks: 

Favorite T.V show? I don’t have one I particularly like, but for the moment I am invested in watching The Flash.

Favorite movie? For this one, I’ll say Trance (2013) and Inglorious Basterds.

Favorite book? For this one, I’ll say Jonathan Tepperman’s The Fix.

Dogs or cats? Both are adorable, but I’m not inclined to adopt either.

An actor/actress you wish to meet? Leonardo DiCaprio because of his advocacy for the environment. Or, hmm, Asia Argento. She’s vastly underrated, and I’d really like to say she did amazing as Éponine in the 2000/2001 French mini series of Les Mis.

Grab the closest book to you. Turn to page 11. Read the first line from that page. What is it? ‘The Atoan system four days later.’ - Star Wars: Darth Vader and the Lost Command, Issue #1 (2011) Written by: W. Haden Blackman; Atist: Rick Leonardi

Favorite sport? Eskrima/Arnis. Savate.

Favorite musical artist? Too many. But I’ll say Freddie Mercury for this one.

Color or no color? Colour.

Favorite season? Autumn.

Favorite musical? LES MISÉRABLES

questions from eponinexenjolras: 

Are you afraid to die? No.

Introvert or extrovert? I’m an ambivert.

Dream job? Consul general / Human Rights Commissioner / Writer

What would you do with 1 million dollars? Keep half in bank. The other, I’ll divide to pay for my family’s needs, while some shall go to a select chairty, and a bit for some business.

Imagine you’re a celebrity. Would you want to be married to another star or rather to someone ordinary? I don’t like sharing, but I’d learn to make sure I could make that someone ordinary feel happy, safe, and never doubtful of my relationship with them.

Which royal person would you want to be (past or present)? Rajah Soliman. Or Nefertiti.

Where do you want to travel? Everywhere.

In which era would you like to live? Every era has its harms, but if I could visit a particular era, I’d want to see pre-WW1 or pre-WW2..

Favorite hobby? Making art.

Have you ever done something illegal? Yup. But would I tell? No.

questions from bisexual-eponine (who tagged me thrice lol)

set 1:

favourite musical? LES MISÉRABLES

what is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you? A shit ton that I’m not ready to share, but I’ll settle to oversimplify it with traumatic childhood episodes and psychologically being manipulated by people I thought I could trust.

“Thinking Out Loud” or “Perfect”? I’m inclined to be partial to Perfect. I understand that TOL is sweet, but this one is just more poignant for me.

most embarrassing childhood memory? I had a fistfight with a guy playmate in front of the church when I was ten. I won. But I suffered quite the embarrassment.

have you ever been in a serious accident? Mild opening of the scalp because I was reckless once. Got 2-3 stitches. I can’t fall asleep unless it’s sideways, but I’m trying to sleep on my back more.

Bill Skarsgård: smash or pass? I didn’t know who this guy was, so when I searched who he acted as, I just can’t. I’ll pass.

do you think people can get too old for Halloween? Nah.

how often do you sin? Everyday………..

are pandas useless? (trying to prove a point to my friend philip) No. There is such a thing as Panda Diplomacy by China, who owns all the pandas in the world, so they get a lot of cash and ‘fans’ because they are adorable af.

are you flexible? To a certain degree.

if you wanted to get married, where would you do it? If. Well, there’s a beautiful place up north in my country. I’d pick that.

set 2:

what’s one headcanon you’ve always had for your otp? Okay, I have a lot, and some of my otps aren’t here, but here are some I’d like to share my thoughts on. Enjonine: They always don’t fall in love right away. It’s like the lowest priority they could ever have, and when they do, it’s one amazing collision. Anidala: They would have ruled the galaxy well. Anakin is a genius, and Padme is one feisty diplomat. They would have motivated more to know more about the balance of the Force, and ended slavery (gradually). Ugh. They could have had it all. Sifki: They brought out so much growth from each other. In ALL aspects. Seriously. Sif would be nearly invincible in wars with Loki’s help, but she would temper his… well, mischief. Dramione: Same thing with Sifki, but they would be more amazing role models, especially with being intellectual equals. They would show the younger generation what Sirius really meant about being people with a little bit of light and darkness within. Carl Jung’s Animus/Anima plays in a lot here.

did you ever have that one teacher that just hated your guts for seemingly no particular reason? My general psych prof. Ah well, the feeling is mutual.

on a scale of 1-10, how strict are/were your parents? A mild 8 on a daily basis because of how fucked up my country is, a strong 15 when anyone in my family fucks up.

what do you think will finally break the internet? The moment Harambe returns.

which fictional character would you most like to marry and why? Enjolras. He is reason and passion entwined. Certainly imperfect in his own ways, but I feel like I could bring out his empathy in a more grounded way while he would make sure to challenge me to be better without making me feel a lesser person. 

what’s the worst purchase you’ve ever made and why? Hmm. SOME BLACK SHOES WITH CRISS-CROSS BINDINGS. It does more damage for my feet.

which character did you hate at first but don’t anymore? Sansa Stark. I didn’t realise I had too much internalised misogyny until I analysed her character, and finally realised that one could be dainty yet deadly. She’s an amazing character.

which character did you like at first but don’t anymore? Dumbledore. Look, he’s great and all, but he had a lot of mistakes that usually go unnoticed because of his Wizengamot status. He compromised a lot of things.

what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever gotten away with? I’d rather not speak of it.

who’s the messiest person you know? That would be… me.

what quote or saying do people spout but is complete bullshit? ‘Someone may have it worse than you. Please try to understand whoever did this to you.’ Casse-toi. Who, then, would understand me? Must I deny my own pain to give way for others so they could feel less guilty? Or you could feel better? Fuck off.

set 3:

what do you consider to be the three best things about yourself? Uh… curiosity. Ingenuity. Feeling too much.

if you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be and why? Caring too much.

what’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever been to? The Venetian.

what do you think is the “right age” to get married? 30-35 years old.

opinions on the concept of marriage? It’s how state and the market exploits love.

what are three things you’d ask your pet if they could talk? - what do you really call yourself? - do you have a nickname for me? - what is really your favourite thing to do with me?

when should we get a great comet revival? 2 years from now. They need to re-organise, re-plan their marketing strategy without sacrificing their cast, and re-structure their management model.

do you have a poor relationship with your family? (i sure do) i love my family, and they love me too, but sometimes they can be a little insufferable.

favourite time of day? 3 am. 7 am. 3 pm. 12 mn.

favourite person (real or fictional, dead or alive)? my guy bff. we argue once in a while, but i’m so fond of him a lot. i literally relax more when i see him.

favourite movie quote? ' Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. It's the only way to become what you were meant to be.' - Kylo Ren/Ben Solo Star Wars: The Last Jedi

[surveysonfleek]

596.

What kind of makeup do you think is appropriate for church? just simple makeup i guess. or whatever you feel tbh. What would you wear to church? just normal, neat clothing? Would/Do you like having brown eyes? it’s okay. nothing exciting. Do you spend a lot of time on the internet? probably at least an hour a day. Could you live without the internet? haha tbh probably not. i’d be incredibly bored but i’d find a way to get over it eventually.

Have you bought anyone a Christmas gift? yes. i’ve started but i need to keep it going before it gets too busy. Do you have a Christmas tree in your house now? yes. How do you feel when someone hates on Apple? i don’t care. you do you. Do you have an Iphone? If so, which one? yes. iphone 7. Favorite flavor of jello? strawberry or raspberry. I see. Do you have long toes? nope. What’s something someone said to you that bothered you? probably insults. What is one of your favorite compliments to recieve? something unexpected. Do you compliment other random people? sometimes. Could you see yourself buying a truck as your go to vehicle? haha neverrrr. What kind of car do you want? Something less than $100,000. are teslas under 100k? What kind of gift would you appreciate for your birthday? perfume, makeup, something i can use idk lol. Can you type fast? i can but not as fast as office workers i’m assuming. Can you type without looking at the letters? kinda. it’s not perfect though. Did you take typing classes? not officially but i had those typing classes as a pc game. What do you use Facebook for? just to stay up to date with friends and family. oh, and memes lol. What do you look like in your profile picture? i’m in mid laughter a coachella lol. Do you love cartoons? i don’t love it. but i don’t hate it. Name a band that you like. boyz ii men. Name a band you don’t like. coldplay. lol sorry. Name a genre of music you don’t like? country. What genre of music do you listen to around the house? rnb.

You think it’s wrong to tell a person ____. something that will hurt them. What kind of compliments have you given? personality traits, physical stuff. Would you rather give or receive? both haha. Do you paint your own nails? yes. Do you like acrylic nails? no i hate them. every time i get them it totally ruins my nails. What is your favorite red lipstick? ruby woo or lady danger by mac. What are your favorite colors to wear? black or dark colours. What colors do you NOT wear? neon colours lol. Where do you shop for most of clothes? usually h&m. What are your favorite clothing stores/shops? h&m, myer, boohoo, kmart, cotton on etc. What kind of shoes do you like? sneakers. Describe your style in one word. comfy. Describe your current personality in one or two words. bored. What is your opinion on weed? i’m not against it, i just don’t do it. australia has really strict rules against it, it’s annoying. Are you afraid of child birth/pregnancy? slightly. just scared of any complications etc. What are your favorite bottoms to wear? leggings. Do you like dresses? yes. it’s all i wear in summer. Would you rather be called a geek, a nerd or a dork? whatever i don’t care lol. Do you eat cake with a spoon or a fork? spoon. What age will you be next? 27. Did you graduate high school? 2008. Do you make youtube videos? If so, leave your URL i do but i’m not leaving my url lol. Do you flat iron your hair? sometimes. What physical features do you wish you had? ( name 2 ). nicer lips, toned body. Would you ever get plastic cosmetic surgery? probably not. Ever broken a bone? no. What are your favorite youtube videos to watch? travel vlogs, beauty videos, documentaries. What is your favorite sex position? ;) missionary haha. yeah, i’m boring. Do you like red lipstick? yes. What color will you paint your nails next? idk, whatever i feel on the day. What is one of your favorite Disney movies? mulan, aladdin and the lion king. If you could meet a real life Disney character who would it be? jasmine. Are you afraid of ghosts/hauntings? kinda lol. Do you like to play computer games a lot? no. Are you a sore loser? sometimes but i keep it to myself haha. What is your favorite game to play with family/friends? a lot of stuff. the resistance, codenames, monopoly etc. What is your beer of choice? pear cider. What do you plan to buy next? clothes. Do you like shopping? yes. What is one of your favorite things to do on the weekend? hang out with friends. Here, I’m giving you $500 dollars to one store, where would you spend it? any clothing store. Would you look good in a Beatle car? no. Do you play slug bug? idk what that is. What kind of computer are on? macbook pro. You are attracted to ___. nice guys. Do you like glitter? sometimes. Have you ever owned a Quija board? nope. Do you like to text? eh, kinda. it’s not something i aim to do daily but it happens. If you had to be an animal for Halloween, what would it be? a panda lol. Do you have more dry skin or oily skin? oily. i hate it. What kind of shampoo do you use? Be specific. heads and shoulders. apple fresh. Do you have acne? no, just random zits every once in awhile. You’re glad that you don’t ___. have work today. You’re glad that you do ___. get to chill right now. Your favorite cuss word? fuck. Are you obsessed with any superheros? nope lol. Do you read comic books? no. Do you like the Sunday paper and why or why not? nah, i haven’t read the newspaper in forever. Do you have cable? no. What’s a show you wish that was still on air? the office. Do you listen to the radio at all? sometimes. Do you like hip hop? yes. Do you like pretzels? yes! Do you like snow? i don’t mind it. i’ve only seen it twice. What’s your favorite thing about your favorite season? Name the season. autumn: the weather, fashion and makeup. Name something that starts with the first letter of your first name. dandelion. Name something that starts with the first letter of your middle name? varsity. And your lastname. diamonds. Do you have pets? If so, what and what are their names? yes, a dog named sky. You want your next pet to be what? idk if i’ll want another one anymore. Are you a religious person? nope. Do you like pina coladas? yes. Do you like coconut scents? yes! What is your favorite Bath and Body Works candles? any. i like all their scents. Would you spend 20 dollars on a candle? yes lol. What is the goriest thing you’ve seen in real life? idk, don’t wna think about it. Do you look in the mirror a lot? yes. Do you brush your teeth twice a day everyday? yes. What brand of toothpaste do you use? colgate. What is a dessert that you DON’T like? fruit salad. And one that you love? waffles. Twilight or Harry Potter? harry potter hands down. Would you rather be a vampire or a mermaid? mermaid. About how many times do you fart in a day? quite a lot hahaha. I see… well… what is your favorite angry music? emo. Do you have a favorite number? yes. Had a crush on somebody that every1 around u thought was ugly? hmm idk. Are you happy with your physical features? not entirely. P.E or Math? maths. Math or Science? science. Creative Writing or Art? art. When you doodle, what are you usually doodling? stars, eyes, my signature lol. What is something that you like that is really cheap in price? chinese food. What is something that you like that is kind of expensive? perfume. What do you do when someone is really rude to you in public? ignore it or give it back to them. Do you argue with your significant other a lot? no. Have you ever had a really painful breakup? no. Which is better smoking or vaping? lol smoking. Do you write in print or cursive? i do both. Do you have neat handwriting? it’s legible. What do you like to write with? pen. Do you keep a journal/diary? no. You should. Do you eat salads? yes. What do you like in your salad? If you do. If not, what is 1+1? everything in a greek salad except olives. If you HAD to change your eyecolor, what would you change it to? green or blue. What would you not change it to? black. What is one of your favorite colors? turquoise. Do you prefer to be pale or tan? Don’t say in between. tan. Favorite thing to do on your phone? social media. What magazines do you like? i haven’t read magazines in forever. What is your favorite book? the harry potter series. What is your favorite thing about Christmas? food, family time, gifts. I’m giving a ticket to wherever you want, where would you go? japan. Here’s $5, what do you do with it? idk, save it for a random buy. Cool. Cool. Favorite flavor of Ice Cream? cookie dough. Least favorite flavor of ice cream? chocolate. Do you prefer white or black electronics? black. What is your favorite deodorant? lady speedstick. Are you a good kisser ( make out )? i guess so. A stranger comes up to you and gives you a big hug, what do you do? lightly pat them back. Do your eyes tear up when you’re nervous? no. Have you ever gotten the shakes in public? no. What do you like to order from Starbucks? iced coffee or a caramel frappe. Vanilla or Chocolate? vanilla. Apples or Bananas? bananas. Fruit or Veggies? veggies. Water or Milk? water. Regular Milk or Chocolate Milk? chocolate. Would you milk a cow given the chance? i guess so. What kind of underwear do you like? boy shorts. Where do you shop for your underwear? bonds. Chicken or Fish? chicken. Firm pillow or soft pillow? in between. What are you wearing when you go to sleep? old tees or pyjamas. Do you take any meds? If so which and why? birth control. Do you like this survey? meh. a bit long.

[thedrowsydoormouse]

If you could make any household pet enormous what would it be? My dog is already pretty big (he sat on my throat the other day and I almost blacked out).

Favourite mythology/fairy tale etc? I don’t know if this really counts but I really love hearing ghost stories from the Disney parks. I love the contrast between the super clean, family friendly, safe image Disney prides themselves on in the parks versus the darker underbelly of the hauntings showing the not so safe and family friendly side.

If you could design a planet what colours would you choose? Every color of the rainbow, made metallic/sparkly, with a black background so they really pop.

Sentient plants or sentient machines? Machines. I’m basically vegetarian so sentient plants would be a nightmare.

Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks? Disney who also owns Pixar so I guess both of those!

Ice cream or soup? It depends on the weather and what I feel like having because I love both.

If you could live in any TV show/film/book which would you choose? Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist because I would love to know what songs are playing in my head so I can make a playlist.

Futuristic or steampunk? Steampunk. Give me corsets and top hats and all that crazy shit any day!

Space travel or time travel? Time travel because eventually, if you travel far enough into the future, you wind up in space anyway.

Superhero or sidekick? Hero. I hate being told what to do.

Favourite guilty pleasure? I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you like something just own up to it and own your truth instead of feeling like it has to be at all shameful.

Best comfort food? I live in Southern California and grew up eating a lot of asian food so my comfort foods have become Chinese takeout, sushi, thai food, and stuff like that.

Least favourite school subject? Biology. My teacher was the worst and it was so boring.

Weird quirks/actions you’ve noticed you do since rp? I don’t rp nearly often enough to have developed any quirks.

Favourite scene from any book/show and why? I have way too many but in the most recent episode of Zoey’s her powers were glitching and she was singing all her inner most thoughts out loud and that entire episode was fucking brilliant!

If you could come back as an undead being which would you choose? Vampire. I’m already basically nocturnal, I’m inhumanly pale, and I can totally get behind the aesthetic.

Rp scene that was the most difficult to film. See previous rp question.

Oddest things you’ve used to make a costume or film stand? When I was in college I had to make a ball gag out of a couple headbands and a dog toy for a student film I worked on. It was a very fun, interesting Halloween.

Favourite type of chocolate? Milk chocolate.

Do you think you’re best known for fluff, angst or crack? I haven’t actually published any of my writing yet but a lot of it is very angst-y.

Favourite hot drink? Tea. I could drink nothing but hot tea all year because there’s so many variations and flavors to suit my moods.

Outfit aesthetic you aspire for? “Is she a witch, a vampire, or a rock star. Or maybe she’s a pirate. I honestly can’t tell but I wish I was her because she is fabulous.”

Sun, moon or stars? Moon AND stars.

If you could master any five languages which would you choose? French, Irish, German, Spanish, and Italian.

Favourite place? It depends. My favorite place here in California is New Orleans Square in Disneyland. But my two favorite places to travel to are New York and New Orleans.

Something that’s bothering you at the moment? I can’t tell if I’m bored or hungry.

Favourite headcanon? Jimmy Palmer (NCIS) is openly bi but completely forgot to come out at work which is why it’s never mentioned or talked about.

Plot of a story/show you wish had been completed? I wish we had actually seen the Tiva reunion in Paris instead of just hearing about it second hand through the notes Senior had Jimmy deliver.

Favourite trope? Sexual tension you could cut with a knife.

Favourite flavour of crisps/chips? Zapp’s Spicy Cajun Crawtators.

Sweet or sour? Both

Spicy or savoury? Both again.

What would be the theme tune to your life? Monster by dodie

Favourite breakfast food? I hate breakfast.

If you could live in any historical era which would you choose? Sometime between the late 60′s (Vietnam Conflict era) and the 80′s when punk and goth were just starting out and counterculture was becoming more of a thing.

Premise of memorable childhood TV shows? I grew up watching a lot of Food Network more than actual kids tv and my favorite show was about how various sack foods are made.

If you could be any shape what shape would you be? I’m already pretty close to an hourglass shape.

If you could switch lives with any character who would it be? Breena Palmer from NCIS. I want a husband who loves me and our kid as much as Jimmy does and it would be kind of awesome to work as a mortician!

If you could switch the limb of one animal with another (e.g a spider leg to a fish tail) what would you choose? I would swap out my dog’s paws with cat paws because his nails hurt like a mother fucker when he steps on me.

If you could create a country what would you name it? Addamsland.

Do you make ny resolutions? Never have, never will.

Season you’re most looking forward to? Fall. I’m ready for Halloween.

Fish scales or reptile scales? Fish. They tend to be more metallic or holographic!

Paper or parchment? Paper because I’m not pretentious.

Paperback or ebook? Paperback. 

Warm tones or cool tones? I am painfully cool toned.

Creative subjects or analytical subjects? Subjects that require creative analysis.

Fog or snow? Fog. Give me those horror movie vibes!

Make up a premise for a TV show you’d want to see. Everyday life of a Chosen One post revolution in the style of B99 or Parks and Rec.

Any unpopular headcanons? Sam never actually got his soul back, he just got better at hiding it.

Favourite story genre? Urban fantasy. Give me magic in a big city like modern day New York and show how it seamlessly weaves into everyday life.

Trope that is most overrated in your opinion? Enemies to lovers but only if it’s done wrong like with (this is gunna piss off a lot of people) Reylo. Don’t have a girl fall in love with her abuser. If it’s done right in a way that doesn’t promote domestic abuse then I’m fine with it and sometimes even enjoy it. But it’s done wrong too often for me to ignore.

City lights or candle light? City lights. I want to bathe in neon.

Which element do you think best represents you. Fire. I can be really useful and helpful but I can very easily get out of control and destroy everything.

Opinions on valentine’s? Fucking hate it.

If you could feasibly live on one other planet, which would you choose?

Wood or marble? Wood. Marble, to me, is a little too Kardashian. I’d rather see an ornately carved wooden entrance way than one with giant marble staircases and marble pillars and the walls painted to match the marble.

Are you a spontaneous planner or an in advance planner? I like to have some idea of what I’m getting myself into but I also enjoy being able to go with the flow the day of and seeing where my moods take me.

Did you have any weird beliefs as a kid? The mirror in my bedroom was a portal to a different universe.

Any famous historical figures you think don’t deserve it? 90% of the famous white men. Like fuck Elvis and fuck the Beatles.

If you could be any plant which would you be? Mistletoe because of my red hair and my love of poison!

Any weird facts? Teeth are actually closer to calcified skin than bone.

Did you have a treehouse as a kid? No.

Rabbits or ferrets? Rabbits.

If you could switch lives with someone you know for a day, who would you choose? My dog. He does basically the same shit I do all day but he doesn’t know what’s going on so he never stresses about anything.

Opinions on nicknames? Some are fine. It depends on who gave it to you and their reason behind it. 

If you could become instantly skilled in one new skill, what would you choose? Fixing computers.

Ink wells or biros? normal pens.

If you had to switch one: fish in the sky or birds in the sea, which would you switch? Birds in the sea. 

Cheesecake or sponge cake? Both.

Weirdest deja vu moment? Last night watching TOWIE and talking with my mom.

Field of wildflowers or a forest? Forest. Weird shit happens in forests.

Nymph or merperson? Nymph.

Funniest story behind an inside joke? My freshman year of high school I was in the fall play and during my costume fitting they had me try on a dress that fit me like a second skin. The problem was they put it on me backwards so I had to rush to get it back on the right way. At the same time, one of the guys in the cast was trying to get into the wardrobe room and was pounding on the door telling us to hurry up which led to my friend, who was helping me with the dress, yelling at me to suck in my boobs (which were shockingly big for my 90 lb., 14 year old self) while twisting the dress around and another friend stopping the guy from opening the door. The whole thing gave off very B99 cold open vibes and it was great! Every time my friend saw me after that she’d yell “suck in your boobs” and we’d both die laughing, much to everyone else’s confusion!

If you could, would you choose to erase any of your memories permanently? I would erase all my memories from 9/11. Hopefully that makes me not as depressed and anxious.

@anangelamuse-castiel-spnfam I don’t know how I finished mine first because that never happens but now it’s your turn!

[itsleafourie]

My little Endgame.

There is a type of paradoxical creature inside of me.

One second I want to devote my entire life to studying the academics and subjects such as law. Then the next second, my mind wanders off to a destination such as art, literature, philosophy, history and all the shit in our reality that makes us basically question our entire existence. When people ask, “What is your ultimate dream in life?” It always comes down to me wanting to leave the same feeling of questioning and examination of our interpretations of reality, in the minds of our society behind. Basically, I would love to mind-fuck people. For me, the ultimate indication of a wealthy individual is education, intelligence, emotional growth and how great our ability is of interpreting others’ situations and circumstances are, and then implementing this new found wisdom into our everyday lives.

So basically, what I’m trying to say is, I deal with a shit ton of thinking each and every day. For example, asking someone of my age a simple question such as, “How are you feeling?” And then replying with the most simple and common answer of, well, pretty great. For me, it becomes a full on class discussion inside my mind. Every Lea Fourie that every existed starts to debate about different responses. They take things further like, “Why did they ask that? Is it because of my body language? Is body language a natural occurrence or did humans trick themselves into thinking that there is something to look in how a person is sitting? Does this suggest self-centeredness that we naturally assume people are continuously lying to our faces, thus we feel the need to search for a lie? Is the way I’m reacting to this body-language debate initiating anxiety? Is this reaction an indication of my childhood trauma of feeling isolated from my fellow peers? There must be some phycological explanation…” And the discussion never seems to stop.

Listen, I’m not a self-breed mess of anxiety and stress. In fact, I respond the same exact way that this average individual would respond. I just have an extra little hidden equation at the end of my answer. Something only I can see. There’s this constant conversation that I’m having with my consciousness. Some breaking-the-third-wall-of-my-personality shit. It doesn’t make me more fucked up than the rest of the world, it just makes me a little more entuned with my nature, emotions, and thought process.

Or maybe I’ll be one of those adults at the reunions who speaks frantically about the world ending in 13 hours because of some government based disease being bred on the Antarctica plate or some shit. You know, one of those individuals who spits some freaky truth about the capitalistic system messing up our society, environment and phycological selves, even though the original conversation was only about the prices being lifted at our school’s tuckshop. I take a mundane complaint like an expensive muffin to the next level. Hell, to the 87th level. Within a minute of that convo being born, I’ve got you questioning your entire contribution within this system and shaping you into a conspiracist against the world economy. Just like that, an average muffin goes from being, well, average to some universal weed infused mind-fuck potion that got you hating yourself and every person you’ve ever encountered. Within an instant, opinions and this magical train of thought that I experience, gets shared with another individual.

Shit, now that I think of it, maybe a life as a conspiracy-theory ambassador seems quite fitting for me.

Just a PSA, I’m kidding. Or am I? I could be making this entire interpretation of my brain up as we’re going along. Hell, I could be manipulating you into thinking I’m some profound individual who’s constantly philosophising about the meaning of life. You know, someone who just casually discovers what the meaning of the universe is while collecting my Ice Gelado at our local Vida E Caffe as a study break, with almond milk of course, being lactose intolerant. (Now that’s some next level capitalistic first world problem.) Got your train of thought speeding now, don’t I? Relax, I can confirm that I am, in fact, a truthful and over-analysing bitch (with a huge diary allergy problem.)

And discovering the meaning of the universe is more of a bedtime self-care activity.

I’d rather be some mentally-confused goose who’s constantly on a wild chase for some new profound intelligence than some fucktard that refuses to accept any possibility of an opinion or statistic or story or reality that might challenge his precious values and viewpoints of life. I say it’s against our nature to live such shallow and empty lives. Let us live lives with constant pain, disappointment, change, arguments and discoveries. Let us live lives full of experiences.

To come back to the original message of this discussion: I am a living paradox. It is because of these constant conversations inside of me that I am like this. It feels like the parliament of South Africa throwing around chairs and yelling out insignificant remarks up there. But somehow, it all works. Somehow, I’m sitting in the chair enjoy this wonderful scene of word violence going on. It amuses, frightens and excites me, all at the same time. Maybe the comparison to the parliament isn’t quite accurate, considering that my version is more a continuous friendly (but violent) banter about newer and more improved versions of opinions and ideas. It’s liberating, it’s empowering and it’s wonderful. Less than a negative parliament attacking each other and more like the legendary fight scene in Endgame. My friend, I am not a person who gets emotional about Marvel films, but that scene got me feeling some type of way. It’s this fight inside of my brain about better and newer ideologies that excites me, because that means growth and change is coming. This debate got me sitting on the edge of the seat, throwing my popcorn everywhere and admiring how these empowering women are fighting together for a common goal of a better future. Did Lea Fourie just compare the biggest blockbuster movie of 2019 to her own imaginative reality of self-growth? You sure right I did.

You see, if I wasn’t challenging myself by writing this piece, I would have never made this ground-breaking discovering of my own little Endgame. And, to be honest, I developed a little insecurity about my writing over the years. It started in grade 7, when I realized that a noticeably amount of 13-year-olds were getting a lot better marks for their essays about the Colourful Caterpillar than I was. It was because of this, that the fear of putting myself out there and improving my writing became something I avoided. Even though I loved reading and telling stories, it scared the living poop out of me to phantom my thought constellations  into physical words. I’d rather prefer them hanging up in the night sky, than ever physically exanimating and studying them. I acknowledged that they were there, but I just kept looking at the ground whenever they would come say hi. So here’s this one side of little Lea, anxious about writing stories trying to drown out to other Lea, who is in love with the idea of writing stories. What a bittersweet tragedy.

Because of this fear and weird paradox inside of me, I just decided to ignore all confrontation. I ignored everything that could possibly produce some type of outcome or conclusion surrounding my writing skills, because I was scared that it would threaten what I already know. I was so sure of my poor writing skills, that the idea of improving or discovering a further love for writing, scared me. The idea of challenging what I thought and how I thought others viewed my writing, really made me curl into a small anxious ball. It’s like believing that strawberry milkshakes are the best flavour, like, ever. But then you taste the chocolate flavour and you got yourself questioning your trust in your taste buds. Then shit gets even more wacko and you get introduced to the love of your life, coffee. You lived your entire childhood almost religiously knowing chocolate and strawberry milkshakes are the dominant drink, and now with this new founded caffeine addiction, your entire meaning of existence is falling apart. On top of that, you realize you’re fucking lactose intolerant. Thanks universe, now I’ve got a Romeo and Juliet vibe happening between me and my childhood crush, and I’ve got an addiction. (Sometimes, even a working stomach)

This paradox stretches to whenever I should focus on my school work or on my artistic elements. Should I care what others think or should I focus on what I think of myself? Do I like genuinely like the trend of Netflix and YouTube or am I forcing myself to enjoy this act of staring at a screen for some temporary distraction, just so that I can fit in with my peers? Do I actually enjoy Instagram or am I just using it because people deem it as a necessity? Is Nickelback actually a good band or does the only reason why I avoid listening to their music is because of that godforsaken vine. I mean, according to countless graphs (tehe), our generation is the most entuned with other’s opinions or stories. But does this mean that we should implement these elements onto our own personalities? Must we accept this as constructive feedback? Or should we see it as a negative factor, something that is destroying our self-assurances and negatively influential our daily choices? Got the train of thought working at full-speed again.

This paradox-mess is the fuel behind the fire that sparks these weird ass debates inside my head. And I love it. This paradox enfuses different interests and opinions to form inside of me. This paradox is confirmation that no matter how hard I try, I am always going to be on the search for change or for something new. I think, the reason why I’m so hesitant to embrace this paradoxical mess is because our modern society despise indifferences and the feeling of the unknown. We are all programmed to think that we are equally special, equally constructed, equally wired and just equal in every single way possible. But, it’s honestly just a façade to ensure economic and capitalistic success, if you ask me. Equality does not mean that everyone in our society has the exact same contributes and attributes, it just means that even though we have such a vast diversity of qualities in our genetic codes, we still need to treat everyone with the same equal amount of respect.

I say embrace  your paradox. Embrace your uncertainty and your questioning. Never stop asking questions and never stop admiring the wonderful parliament fighting inside of you. It’s what makes us human, after all.

[survey1000]

76. Your life isn’t yours if you constantly care about what others think.

What’s the latest you’ve woken up? How about the earliest? The latest I think was almost noon, and the earliest was a bit after midnight I think.

In general, what has the weather been like? Is this good or bad for you? It’s been pretty muggy lately, which sucks because I work in a coffee shop that doesn’t have a working AC ...

Have you been out for a meal? Where did you go and what did you eat? Not for a bit, but I think the last time was Subway.

Have you been under the influence of alcohol/drugs? Yup.

Have you spent more of your time indoors or outdoors? Indoors.

What’s the most interesting day you’ve had? How about the most boring? Good question, I think the most interesting was my high school graduation, and the most boring would have to be any slow day at work.

What’s the earliest you’ve gone to bed? How about the latest? The earliest I would say was around 7pm and the latest was a bit after 2am.

Have you gone shopping for anything aside from groceries in the past week? Yeah, Thursday I went to the mall and got a few different makeup things, and then I went to Staples to buy more instax film.

Have you discovered any new bands or TV shows that you like? No not lately.

Have you finished a book, or are you currently reading one? I just finished one a few days ago, and I have quite a few on the go still lol.

What’s the most interesting thing that’s happened to you? Not many things really.

Who have you spoken to most on the phone/online/by text? My mom I would think lol.

Do you actually think it’s gross to talk about body functions? If you’re not my friend lol.

Would you rather sleep alone or next to your SO? Well I can really only say alone lol.

Are you trying to forget about something? Always.

Have you ever sent a love letter? Nope.

When you look up at the sky do you ever NOT see a plane or vapor trail? Rarely lol.

Have you dated someone of another race? No, but to be fair I’ve only been in one relationship before.

Do you wear any shoes with holes because you can’t give them up? Not at the moment, but I have done this plenty of times before lol.

When you go out to breakfast, what do you order? Depends on where I go, but something with eggs.

Have you ever had a job that required a uniform? Yeah, that’s where I work now lol.

What are you most envious of? People who can find happiness wherever they go.

Would you rather have coffee, cocoa, tea, or soda? Pop, and I’m not much of a pop drinker either lol.

When you walk into your best friend’s room, what do you smell? Idk, them I guess? Lol.

Have you ever purposely broken something that belonged to a sibling? I don’t think so, but I wouldn’t put it past me though lol.

Do you have any hipster friends? Nope.

Have you ever worked at the same place as your best friend? No.

Do you take days off from shaving when you can get away with it? Always lol.

Has anyone ever baked you cookies? Yeah.

Do you ever wear socks with holes in them? I have, but I throw them out as soon as I realize the hole.

Is there anything hanging on your bathroom walls? I don’t think so.

If your SO agreed, would you want an open relationship? Oh fuck no.

Have you ever slept with three people in the same bed? When? Why? Yes, it was at a sleepover when I was younger, when we could all fit on the same bed haha.

Does your family regularly eat sit down meals together? No, the only time is when we plan a supper for an event, like Christmas, Easter, a birthday, etc.

Have you ever used the change counting machine at a store or mall? I have no idea what that is lol.

How do you dress when you’re not at work Usually in a t-shirt or a tank top, with leggings.

Tell me about the shirt you’re wearing? Its black with the Superman logo on it, and its from the men’s section from Warehouse One lol.

What was the first thing you thought this morning? Fuck... I don’t wanna go to work lol.

Are you wearing shorts? Nope.

Ever had a boy best friend? Yeah when I was little.

Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby? If I’m in a relationship with him, then yes.

Do your parents actually knock on your door before entering your room? No lol.

Do you ‘dress to impress’? Sometimes, depending on where I’m going.

Have you ever thought a man over 40 was attractive? Yeah.

Would you rather get cash or a gift card? Depending on what store the gift card is from, if its from the bookstore, then I’d rather have the gift card lol.

Would you prefer to date someone taller, shorter, or the same height as you? Same height or taller.

Can you honestly say you’re okay right now? No.

What time did you get up today? A little bit before 5:30am.

Where does most of your family live? Nova Scotia, Canada.

What can’t you wait for? Tomorrow at 2pm, so I can go to the gym, and not have to worry about work the next day.

Are you ticklish? Some places.

What brand of digital camera do you own? I don’t have one. The only actual camera I have is the Instax mini 9.

Have you ever seen a Broadway show in New York? Nope.

How long is your hair? Maybe an inch and a half past my shoulders.

Do you like facial hair on a guy? If it’s not long, I like scruff better than an actual beard lol.

Have you ever tried the cinnamon challenge? Nope, and never plan to lol.

How long would it take to walk to the nearest McDonald’s? Less than 20 minutes.

Do you get drunk every weekend? No, I wouldn’t be able to afford that lol.

What did you do today? I worked for eight hours, and planned to go to the gym after until I realized I had left my gym sneakers and pants at home ...

Are you listening to music right now? No surprisingly, I have the TV on in the background.

Your last ex died today, how would you feel? I mean I’m not heartless, I would feel upset, but we were only going out for less than a week, and it was five years ago so I’m definitely not close to him.

Do you like maxi dresses? Yeah, I have one but that’s the only one I’ve seen that I like on me.

Have any organic makeup? I don’t think I do.

Do you worry about guys thinking you’re hot? No, I know that they don’t think that way lol.

Are you healthy? Not as healthy as I should be lol.

Do you know anyone that used to be or is homeless? Not that I know of.

Does it always seem like you’re always buying stuff for friends? Not really.

Did you wear sunglasses today? No, its been cloudy all day.

What’s the next movie you’ll watch in theaters? Not sure.

If you straighten your hair, how long does it take? Anywhere between 15 to 25 minutes.

Does it annoy you when people can’t think of their own answers to questions on surveys and use yours? No lol, I don’t pay attention really.

How many people are you talking to online right now? None lol.

Are you currently wearing anything containing polyester? Probably.

Have you ever been to Comic-Con? No, but I would like to.

Do you have a commercial jingle stuck in your head? Nope.

Would you date someone 8 years older than you? He would have to treat me right, and we would both have to care about each other a lot. The oldest that I plan to go for is five years, but you never know.

Do you have a friend of the opposite sex you can talk to? Not really. I have guys that I consider friends, but not that close to talk about personal things.

Do you have a friend of the same sex you can talk to? Yeah.

Did you go out or stay in last night? Stayed in.

What does your last received text message say? ‘I’m here at Tim’s now’.

How old is the last person you texted? 37, she’s my Momma lol.

What do you want to get accomplished today/tonight? To get some good sleep.

You’re single, right? Yup lol.

Are you easy to make mad? If I’m in a cranky mood already, yes lol.

Have you ever punched a hole in the wall? Yeah like roughly seven years ago lol.

What are you doing right now? This and watching Forensic Files.

Do you smoke weed everyday? I had only smoked it twice and that was almost six years ago I think.

Are you wearing jeans, shorts, sweatpants, or pajamas? Leggings.

Do you like the dentist? Not really lol.

Do you like the snow? Yeah, as long as its not too much lol.

Where is your phone Beside me.

Would you rather date someone older than you or younger? Same age or older.

When was the last time you were told you were cute? I don’t really remember, maybe a few weeks ago?

Would you ever smile at a stranger? I do it all the time at work. The privileges of working in a coffee shop lol.

Do you button your shirt from the top or the bottom? Top.

Do you make collages often? No, its been a few years since I’ve made one.

How much have you changed in the last year or so? Not that much I don’t think.

Have you ever wished to erase something from your memory? What? A lot of things that I rather not speak of.

Do you keep things that most people would throw away? I don’t think so.

What is your favourite thing to wear when you feel like crap? Comfy clothes.

Do you look forward to going to sleep at night? Usually.

What was the last song you listened to? Nowhere Fast - Eminem.

Do you own an Etch-A-Sketch? I did when I was a kid!

What does your bedspread look like? Leopard print.

What colour is your suitcase? I don’t own one.

Are you any good at tongue twisters? Not really lo.

Do you wrap up warm in the cold weather? Always.

Do you care overly about other people? If I like them lol.

Do you still live with your parents? When are you planning to move out? Yeah, and I’m 20 and single so I can’t really afford to live on my own, and I at least want to be able to drive legally and have a car before I move out.

If you’ve moved out already, what age were you? -

Have you ever been told your aspirations are unrealistic? I don’t think so.

[artificialqueens]

lost and found - shalaska - pureCAMP

A/N - :)

It had been five weeks. Five weeks of not knowing where Alaska was. Five weeks of bitterly wishing she had woken up before Alaska could have left, out of the college campus and into the quiet danger of the early morning. Five weeks of spending the daytime arguing with police officers, college professors, parents, students and anyone who would listen. Five weeks of spending the night-time crying, drinking too much, lashing out at poor Jinkx when she tried to help, sobbing into Jinkx’s shoulder when the fits of rage went away.

Sharon sat on her bed, knees tucked into her chest, staring at the pictures she’d tacked onto the wall opposite her. In reality, her eyes were glassy, gazing into thin air rather than the pictures, but they made a nice excuse as to why she was sitting still and alone. Night had fallen a long time ago, the only light in the room coming from the curtains which she hadn’t touched since Jinkx had opened them that morning. It was blue, the feeble light that came in. The colour of the night and Alaska’s favourite dress and Sharon’s mood. It was so dark that Sharon couldn’t even see the pictures before her, but she didn’t need to look to be able to describe each one. All of them had Alaska in, so all of them were committed to her memory.

What had once been a beautiful display of memories had been turned into a frenzy of what looked like utter nonsense, but made perfect sense to Sharon. Her entire wall had been transformed, scribbled on with red and black markers, with pictures, notes, scraps of writing, parking tickets and everything else she could find pinned up there. Every night she would study her evidence, read through her annotations, scribble more on when she found connections between them. Once it had been dedicated to pictures of her and her girlfriend. These days it held Alaska, car registrations, local snaps of the town and the campus. The circles and arrows and question marks made her seem crazy. Maybe she was.

Jinkx pushed open the door to the room gingerly, clearly expecting Sharon to be asleep. When she saw that the room was filled with the inky blue of night, the curtains parted and the window open, she sighed deeply. With a series of quick movements, she switched on the lamp and moved to close the window and curtains, shutting the outside world down. Then she sat on the end of Sharon’s bed, watching her forlornly.

“Sharon. Come on. It’s one in the morning, you need to be getting some sleep.” She murmured softly.

“Can’t.” Was Sharon’s brusque, quiet reply. “Can’t stop thinking about her.”

Jinkx swallowed. “I know, Needles. I know.”

“She’s out there, Jinkx. I know it. She’s out there. And all this – ” She gestured helplessly at her evidence. “It all means something. If I can just connect the dots, I can find her. She’s out there.”

Jinkx reached over and pulled Sharon into her arms, holding her tight. “The police will find her, Sharon. If she’s out there, they’ll find her.”

Sharon went rigid. She wrenched herself out of Jinkx’s grip, hugging her knees even tighter to her chest and refusing to look anywhere but straight ahead as her eyes filled with tears. She sat still, frozen, trying her best not to allow her brimming eyes to spill.

“No, they won’t.” She whispered, a lump in her throat. “They called off the search today.”

Sharon was crushed. As if it wasn’t enough – as if it wasn’t fucking enough that Alaska had gone missing in the early hours of the morning with seemingly no traces – the police had ended their search. Mumbles about insufficient evidence and tragedies were all Sharon remembered about the conversation. She knew she had screamed down the phone, yelling words that were horribly inappropriate and feeling her throat going hoarse and raw as she let it all out, hurling abuse into the speaker. How fucking dare they give up. How dare they discount everything she had done, worked hours to put together, as a teenager desperately looking for nothing. She had screamed so loudly down the phone that every girl in the dormitory had opened their doors to watch her, red in the face and bawling angrily. Teachers rushed in, three professors and the councillor too. All watched, stunned, not sure how to react, as Sharon screamed at the officers. How dare they give up. How dare they declare the case closed. The case would never be closed.

“I have to find her.” Sharon whispered once more, angrily swiping at her tears. “They’re not looking. And I’m so close, Jinkx. Look at this. It’s in here somewhere. It’s-”

Jinkx cut her off, the level-headed ginger now crying too. “Please, Sharon.” She begged. “You have to stop this. This is killing you. It’s been five weeks. I-If Alaska was alive, we’d know. I don’t want to say that’s she’s – say that she’s…d-”

“Then don’t.” Sharon growled sharply. “Don’t say it if it isn’t true. I know I’m going to find her.”

Jinkx relented. She missed Alaska too, one of her best friends since she’d joined the college. Alaska was one of those people you couldn’t help but love. Her smile and her laugh made the sun appear on even the darkest of days. It was clear to everyone in the college that an eternity of winters had descended upon them. If the heavy clouds that lingered in the sky everyday were anything to go off, it meant that the sunshine really had disappeared from everyone’s lives.

“I’m going out.” Sharon said suddenly, the lack of hope and life in her voice sending Jinkx over the edge of her tears. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“For the love of God, Sharon.” Jinkx sniffed, trying to take hold of the girl’s sleeve as she stood up. “Just to smoke?”

Sharon shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. Hopefully I’ll go missing like Alaska did.”

“Don’t!” Jinkx hissed, her voice pitching. “Don’t say that, Sharon. Please. You’d break me. You can’t say that.”

“I can. If she’s disappeared, I can too. I don’t wanna be here. I can’t be here. Everything reminds me of her.”

Jinkx drew in a shuddering breath. “Come back soon. If you’re not back by six am, I’m going to call the police. You can’t do this to me.”

Sharon’s bottom lip trembled, but she left without another word.

The dormitory corridor, like her room had been, was dark and cast in shades of blue from the night. Outside Alaska’s dorm, police tape sealed the door. On the floor, flowers, cards and wishes for her safe return took up most of the space. Sharon knew half of them had been written by her own hand. Despite the fact that everyone was mourning her presence, it was Sharon who had  insisted she was still alive. Many had withdrawn themselves to the thought that Alaska was dead, and had done their best to move on. Not Sharon.

She carried on through campus, exiting the dormitory and heading towards the parking lot. There was a wall near there that was the perfect height for sitting on and swinging your legs whilst you smoked, although plenty of shadier business had gone down there too. It wasn’t unusual to find used needles and syringes amongst the bushes. You had to watch your step.

Finally at the wall, Sharon lit her cigarette and took a drag in, staring up at the moon as it glowed upon the campus. Everywhere, the trees, the fountain, the paved slabs and the exterior walls, were plastered with missing posters. Alaska’s bright smile was all over the school, her name and information underneath. The numbers listed were the police and Sharon’s. Each one had been printed by Sharon herself, and distributed by Sharon and Jinkx. It had taken days, and both had truanted from their lessons to put them up.

As the smoke left her lips, Sharon bent down to pick up the one that lay near her foot. A dark footstep marred the centre, right where Alaska’s grinning face was. With some care, she straightened it out, stroking the picture and wishing it were the real Alaska, right in front of her. Someone had stepped on the poster. Someone had already forgotten about her. Someone no longer cared.

Rage blinded her. Without thinking of anything else, she started to walk towards the road leading into the town. It was far too late for a college girl to be safe, out at night on her own, but she didn’t fucking care. Alaska was out there somewhere and Sharon was going to find her. If the police had given up, that only gave Sharon more reasons to go looking.

-

She hardly realized how far she’d walked until she recognized the upcoming bridge, one of her favourite hang-out spots in the pre-Alaska days. Sharon and the rest of the punks used to take refuge under the bridge, on the bank of the river, smoking and shooting up away from prying eyes. It was better than the wall in the parking lot, but as of late the place had felt too sinister for anyone to visit, and it had fallen into misuse. Not even needing a second thought, Sharon immediately started to approach it. A feeling of foreboding washed over her, her instinct screaming at her to continue on. Something was off about that place. She needed to see it.

It didn’t take long once she had broken into a run, her long legs ambling through the night and skirting round until she reached the footpath leading to the river bank. She didn’t need a torch, the pure white moonlight serving as light enough to see. At least, fractured light reflected on the broken beer bottles and pointed syringes enough that she could see where her feet were stepping.

Within a few seconds, she stood underneath the bridge, on the bank, gazing down at her face in the river. Then she was walking, not looking where. She just walked away from civilisation, following the river as it flowed silently past. Watching her pale, tear-stained face in the reflection.

Alaska had never been to the river. She was new to the area, only joining when she joined the college. Sharon had plans to take her everywhere, even had a list of places they needed to go, but not even half of them had been completed yet. That fateful night had been so perfect, so wonderful, that the juxtaposition of her disappearance only served to feel like it had to happen. Nothing so good, so amazing, could happen without consequence. Alaska had looked so beautiful, her eyes sparkling and her blonde hair styled in a way she never usually wore to class. Sharon hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away from her, save for when they kissed. They had kissed a lot. Sharon’s strange music had played in the background, songs that Alaska had grown to love over time, and they spent most of the evening after their meal just kissing. It didn’t need to escalate. The moment had been tender and sweet enough to tide them over.

Then it all went wrong, Sharon fell asleep with Alaska slumbering in her arms, then Alaska awoke in the early morning and had presumably taken a walk, then a phone call told the school and Sharon that she was missing, and then five weeks passed with no signs of her, no leads, no evidence, nothing that indicated she had ever even existed except the broken hearts of those who knew her. It was devastating.

Sharon stared down at her face in the water, her legs finally collapsing from tiredness. As it turned out, she wasn’t too far from the town, the river doubling back as she unconsciously followed it. She looked exhausted, and sick. Her eyes held the lost, shattered look of a girl on the brink of destruction. But then, her vision tunnelled.

Alaska.

She wasn’t just staring at her own face. In the water, as beautiful as the day she had disappeared, was Alaska. The sound that pierced the night after that, the sound that roused many from their sleep, was that of a horrified scream. A scream so hollow and broken that it could have shattered windows and brought even the coldest of hearts to a standstill. Sharon fell to her knees, wailing in anguish, and plunged as much of her body as she could into the freezing depths of the water. Had to get her out. Had to save Alaska. Had to find her.

The second she dragged her onto the bank, she lurched to the side and retched, gagging and spitting as the smell hit her. This couldn’t be Alaska. It couldn’t. The foul stench was that of a body that was rotting, but Alaska couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. No one would kill her. No one would dump her in a river. This wasn’t Alaska. It couldn’t be.

After the contents of her stomach had been thoroughly emptied, Sharon’s retching was nothing but dry and empty. She clamped her lips shut and, with as much courage as she could muster with her tear-filled eyes and churning stomach, knelt beside Alaska.

“No,” She whispered, cradling Alaska’s cold face. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were blue.

“No.” She whispered again. “NO! ALASKA!”

It couldn’t be her. She couldn’t be dead. This was fake. A prank. A dream.

She screamed again. “Alaska! Alaska, no! No, please, please not her! It can’t be her, please don’t be her!”

Fate cared about no one. It didn’t care how much she begged.