#art will Definitely be forthcoming

[philcoulsonismyhero]

I found a new book series a while ago, btw, and I'm planning to be obnoxious about it now that I'm caught up, or at least I will be when I have some actual spare time. Feel free to blacklist 'rivers of london' if you don't care, I'll be tagging all posting after this with that.

[pinkrelish]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐲𝐞𝐬" 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲.

singledad!mechanic!eddie x fem!reader

✶What happens when Eddie tries to hide the less-than-fun side of being a single parent from you, and you discover Miss Mouse can't always save the day?✶

NSFW — angst with a happy ending, reader wears eddie's hoodie, comfort, kissing, 18+ overall for smut, drug/alcohol mention/use

chapter: 11/20 [wc: 14.2k]

↳ part 01 / 02 / 03 / 04 / 05 / 06 / 07 / 08 / 09 / 10 / 11 / 12

AO3

Chapter 11: In the Beginning...

——Then——

In the beginning…

It was January 31st, 1988, and Wayne had come in to check on him again. And maybe he had a reason to when Eddie continued to stare at the pockmarked ceiling, dressed in the same clothes as three days prior, laying on the same bedsheets last washed by well-meaning, pre-aged, liver-spotted, wrinkled hands gnarled from factory work after being tanned on a big rig’s steering wheel for decades.

No music played from the stereo record player; The Doors still sat with the album art turned, stopped mid-spin. The paperback on the nightstand remained unfinished, its dog-eared page trapped as a placeholder from New Year’s Eve. Dust and cigarette ash clung to the room as if saving it in a time capsule of the morning he was arrested, and any movement would disturb the illusion.

“Eddie?” Wayne called out to him with his Free name; one that shouldn’t hold a stigma, because Eddie was a free man, wasn’t he? He was innocent. Even if they hadn’t caught the other guy yet. “You okay if I go?”

Tracing the bumpy lines of the most recent tattoo on his stomach, he answered, “Yeah, I’m fine,” and his uncle breathed as he usually did when he was wringing his mouth with indecision.

Wayne twisted the doorknob, uncertain. “If you’re sure.. And, uh, I’ll stop by the hardware store and pick up somethin’ for the spray paint on the trailer if the cookin’ oil trick doesn’t work, don’t you worry about it.”

Whatever rude thing someone wrote this time, Eddie hadn’t gone outside in days to know.

After a long silence, Wayne cleared his throat and gave a gruff, “I’ll see ya after work,” and left, as foretold by his rackety truck fading further into the night, and the deadness of winter taking over. A staleness of midnight inactivity in the crisp air invading the guitars and amps and magazines Eddie never touched anymore; the ceramic of his bedside lamp, the model car next to his lighter, the binders stacked on his desk with a pencil he hadn’t sharpened since it broke six weeks ago. He didn't get much relief from his routine of ignoring, shutting down, isolating, and desperately trying to get tears to form when he had none left to give, so he wept agape and dry, spiraling downward.

The phone rang.

He wasn’t going to answer—he hadn’t since December unless under obligation—but in case it was Wayne, he did.

“Hello?” The other end of the line was equally hesitant to answer his unrecognizable voice, gone hoarse from disuse. “Hello?” he repeated.

“Eddie?” A beat. “I guess I’ll get this over with. Look, uh, do you remember selling to a girl at Brad’s party a couple months back? Not the Halloween one,” they said, definitely a young woman’s voice, but with each word spoken she lost her fluttery nervous edge and replaced it with a direct tone, leaving no time for him to dawdle.

He hurled his mind into searching his memories before the ones made in the weeks prior, only grazing past the details which haunted him, and registering the question he was asked. “Uh, yeah, yeah I think so. Ah, Sarah? Something generic like that. Sold to her a couple times before. Why?”

Her severe silence loaded the chamber. His forthcoming nature pulled the trigger, never learning when to shut his mouth and keep information to himself. There was no telling who he was speaking to, or what happened to the girl he sold to, or why he was the subject of interest. His stomach clenched in knots at the whiff of gunpowder. He was too relaxed at the prospect of a normal conversation. He said too much. It was happening again. The police sirens would wail any minute now. Whatever happened to Sarah—or whoever—was bad, and he incriminated himself. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.

But it was her next words that fired the shot. Rang in his ears. And he knew then, as the cold sweat took over his body and bile stung his throat quicker than his heart leapt black spots to his vision, life as he knew it was over.

“I’m pregnant, and it’s yours.”

————

In the beginning…

It was March 7th, 1988, and Eddie walked out.

It was better than listening to Wayne blame himself for not doing enough, or being involved enough, or whateverthefuck he was saying about failing Eddie, because soon those judgments would turn into nags about how Eddie’s irresponsibility got himself into this mess, and those arguments would become shouting matches about his lack of preparedness for raising a baby, and Eddie would end the fight with his fist through the hallway closet door, where his piece of shit father’s jacket swung on the hanger and fell to the floor.

Following the Munson name.

————

In the beginning…

It was April 29th, 1988, and Eddie left his motel room to drive forty-five minutes outside of Hawkins to sit across from a woman in a dimly lit restaurant with her hand laid atop her round belly, and his cold chicken alfredo. The cheese in his oval shaped dish had coagulated, but he wasn’t hungry anyway.

The entire time his mouth ran sentences, he kept his gaze focused on a crumb dirtying the white tablecloth as the candle flickered shadows through their untouched water glasses. Yet, his tone remained animated and optimistic, though a bit hollow. “—So, uh, with the money from workin’ at the gas station, and what I have saved from that graveyard shift I picked up at the laundromat, I can afford the crib no problem. Maybe you could, ah, come with me to pick it out! I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be looking for, but whatever you want, you got it. And—And I’ll start stocking up on diapers, and stuff. Y’know, different sizes. Some clothes. Could even get a nice baby blanket, or somethin’. I guess cribs have those teeny mattresses, so we’ll need sheets for that, too. Um, one of those, y’know, things that hangs over it and spins, puts them to sleep.” His lips hinted at his first smile in weeks at his dumb explanation for a mobile. “And with your job, you have health insurance, don’t you? That’ll.. That’ll really help us out,” he emphasized by bugging his eyes, and nodding. “There’s a position open at an auto shop in town that I’m gonna apply for, but I don’t think insurance will kick in until I work there for a certain number of days. Sucks, but it’s decent money. Better than what I make now, anyway. Um..” Thinking, he sorted through his plan for the future in his head, making sure he didn’t forget anything important—

That’s when he made the mistake of looking up, and a different type of heartache wrung his chest.

Indifference powdered her shimmery beige eyelids, darkening to smoky apathy at the outer corners with a touch of heavy mascara weighing her eyes half-closed. She appeared bored—he wished she appeared bored—but in the eternity he glanced at her, she resembled a loaded chamber moments from cutting him off.

Continuing, he said, “I can also handle the small stuff like bottles, and bibs, and pacifiers. Depending on how much the crib is, I can probably swing the carseat too, just gotta sell my other guitar, and—”

“Eddie,” she stated. He winced.

There was no trace of his smile left on his lips; trembling and licking at the sore metallic-tasting spot he bit out of habit. The first sign of rejection welled behind his eyes. A sense of shame clogged his throat, but he tried, “Are people still bothering you about me?” he asked, so meek and defeated.

Her words were a merciless killing, “Does it matter?” He shrugged, running the side of his hand along the table’s edge, concentrating on the crumb. “And don’t bother buying anything.”

“Why not?” he faltered. “I’m not gonna be some deadbeat who doesn’t provide, okay? I’m good on my word.”

“You know why.”

The cruelty, the truth he denied, struck him.

“You don’t want to try?” His voice went watery, and the candles swam in his vision. “We’re having a baby together, and you don’t want to try and work something out between us?” There was a reason he avoided addressing where the crib would go, or what the arrangement was after coming home from the hospital. In the first few calls they had, she seemed interested when he rattled off the list of cheap apartments he found around Hawkins scribbled into his notebook, and when he lightened the bleak mood with a joke, she laughed, sort of.

Though, he was always the one to call her, and her answers were refined to short words such as yeah, or no. And she did pick up the phone less often, but she was busy with University or her career or there was a family thing that had come up or she was just headed out the door, so he stuck with planning their future by himself, aware of the ugly reality twisting his stomach with dread.

Maybe he was being naive, but he thought she’d come around by now. See how responsible he was being, and maybe.. maybe..

“I’m not interested,” she dismissed him in monotonously stern frankness.

“I thought you said you liked me,” he reminded her, on the verge of something pathetic, “at the party.”

The corner of her jaw twitched from an emotion she ground between her teeth.

That was the final straw.

She swung her gaze around the restaurant, releasing a hard sigh of frustration, and shaking her head. Dropping her hand to the bottom of her belly, she leaned forward, and eviscerated any hope he had for them being together. “I’m not interested,” she hissed under the susurration of nearby tables, “in raising a baby with someone whose reputation is for giving girls discounts when they flirt with him.”

Eddie shrunk into himself, not expecting the hit below the belt.

“You’re just the loser dealer that all the guys send their girls to because they know you’re too lonely to turn them down. I wish I stuck with flirting, because let me tell you, having a couple of smarties to get me through last semester wasn’t fucking worth it.” She motioned at her stomach, he assumed. “I almost missed my finals because I couldn’t stop puking.”

Fat drops wobbled his vision. Anxious sweat from holding his breath prickled his hot face. His knuckles hurt from clacking them against one another, punching bone-on-bone in his lap to distract himself from letting the venom win. Biting impressions of his teeth into tongue from the weight of his one chance at normalcy slipping through his fingers.

The ache of deep-seated rejection stung worse, built worse, escalated worse with every heartbeat echoing in his head: not even someone who’s having your kid wants to be with you.

Chairs skid across the tiles behind him, and a family stood to leave. Eddie faced the stained glass window as they passed, pretending to admire the intricate details while warm tears spilled over the dam, and onto his cheeks in steady drops like rain. Drip, drop, drip, drop..

Embarrassment, failure, freak..

Even before he was wrongfully arrested, his reputation was trash.

Pathetic loser not good enough for his dad, his uncle. Can’t pass fucking high school, or get a girl to stick around for more than a few weeks; just long enough to feel the safety of attachment, learn their likes and dislikes, what their favorite flowers were, and then they’d leave too..

“Doesn’t matter,” she exhaled. One, two—she took two calming breaths through her nose while his was running, and he was trying to not sniffle through the grossness of crying.

Composed and diplomatic, she sat up, smoothed the buttons of her burgundy maternity blouse stretched across her swollen middle, and informed him “I’m giving her up for adoption.”

Eddie froze.

Her.

Tiny tines of salad forks ceased clinking on plates. Silly dull knives unworthy of much else sank into whipped butter, and stopped. Pretty laughter faded, leaving red lipstick kisses staining the rims of wine glasses.

Her.

He froze. A strange cliche to explain how his body reacted. How his heart pounded, and tears splashed onto his clenched fists. How his brain latched onto one word, one word only, and the blood drained from his cheeks to pool liquid rage in his empty belly. How his temper surged like a wave, and crashed, again and again on the shore of fate. How he was thinking sharper, seeing clearer, smelling the raw flame of the candle being snuffed out from his sudden movement.

The tableware rattled when he planted his elbow next to his forgotten dinner, and pointed a stern finger at her stomach. “That’s my daughter, and you will not—”

“C’mon, Ed—”

“No,” he cut her off. He didn’t give a damn if another tear rolled from his wide eyes when he said it, he put conviction behind his voice even when it cracked, “That’s my daughter, and you are not giving her up for adoption.”

“Be serious,” she spat back. “You don’t have the means to take care of a baby. I’m doing this as a favor for the both of us. Mostly for you.”

Eddie sucked his bottom lip inward and chewed the flesh. Shivers of indignation trembled his body, and his nostrils flared from the absolute power he invoked to rein his voice from the snap, bite, snarl his upper lip suggested. “I don’t care what you think is best,” he maintained through the viscous tar coating his refusal in the abhorrence she deserved. “That baby.. She’s mine.” He nodded until the motion was ingrained, and her expression changed. Pointing to himself, now. “She’s mine, and I want her.”

There wasn’t much thought put behind his decision. It was done. It was innate. It was automatic, and her soft warning—”You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,”—was as heeded as the candle’s flame.

He paid for the date. It cost five hours of his minimum wage. That was all his money. He was hungry when he got back to his shitty motel; opening the door to darkness, and a suitcase of dirty clothes he’d need to sort before going to work at the gas station at the edge of town where his boss cut his hours last week because it was making customers uncomfortable to see a criminal serve them at the till, and a new sound replaced the ding of the cash register: loser, loser, loser..

Already, he couldn’t afford diapers.

Already, he failed.

Already, he was worthless.

Already, he was alone.

Not even the woman he was having a baby with wanted to be with him.

——Now——

Eddie hung up the phone, and you watched his shoulders rise and fall for long moments, listening to the rain pattern shift above. The storm spilled its sorrows on the tin roof, uncaring if the structure could handle the stress of another trial when it was weak and susceptible. It poured, and poured. Ruthless. Vicious and brutal as nature could be, targeting the vulnerable and strong alike.

His back broadened with a breath, and finally, he dropped his hand from the yellowed plastic, staring at the dial pad as his arm went limp at his side. Absorbed by his thoughts as the old night rolled into another low growl of thunder, and whatever was on his mind reflected heavily in his vacant appearance.

“Ed?” You waited for him with a kind lift to your brows, but as soon as his glance landed, your chest tightened.

The emotion in Eddie’s eyes was heavily guarded, communicating little as to what caused the tenseness in his jaw when he averted his gaze to the floor, walking fast and purposefully away from you standing half-dressed in his kitchen, and stopping at the front door with his head down. Going through the motions of buttoning his pants, and buckling his belt, rigid and rough, snapping the leather against itself.

“Is Adrie okay?” you asked, voice coming out painfully shallow, like when you were using it to diffuse a customer service issue with the breeze of happiness and a plastered smile.

Leaned over, he shoved his feet into his boots, and began lacing. “She’s fine.”

Blunt, and closed off. Not like your Eddie from an hour ago. And you didn’t know how to navigate asking him what was wrong, and easing him into opening up to you, coaxing him back to that place of union and understanding.

Left feeling confused, you gleaned that this wasn’t the time to bother him about it, and mumbled, “Okay,” and assumed the rest. You dragged the whispery ends of the blanket across the floor, and picked your sweater off the carpet, having that particular sense of embarrassment as if you’d missed a cue, and should’ve read the room sooner, and been clothed and leaving without him asking.

You dressed in silence, doing up the buttons on the cardigan he so skillfully slipped you out of. Treading over linoleum to wash the evening off your hands and mouth. Making yourself small to fit next to him in the entryway, and putting on your shoes in a state of quiet obedience, missing the warmth of his hands and the comfort of his lovesick grin. Wilting under the coldness of his attitude, and wanting nothing more than to reach out, and soothe that bit of regret knotted between his eyebrows.

He regarded the exposed skin of your upper chest, and handed you his black hoodie from where it hung next to his canvas work jacket. “Here.”

Here wasn’t much of a break in the distance he resurrected between you, but you pulled the heavy scent of cigarettes and cologne over your head, and he almost found himself braving eye contact to tell you, “I’m dropping you off first.”

“What? No,” you blurted, “I’m going with you to pick her up. She’s just scared of thunderstorms, right? No big deal, you can drop me off after.” Which seemed like the right thing to say; that you were fine with Adrie crying, but when he set his gaze on you, a small image of yourself swam in his endless pupils, and your stomach clenched at the animal warning in his unbreakable stare.

Eddie shook his head an imperceptible amount, only enough to loosen the curtain of curls tucked beneath his jacket’s collar, and shift the lamp’s glare at the edge of his bitter coffee eyes. It was a threat to back off. Leave well enough alone. Stop encroaching on the parts of his life he hid, and keep the illusion intact.

“I wanna go,” you assured gently.

However, your support fell short when challenged against the aggressive shine swallowing you whole. He looked at you. Really looked at you with the same intensity as when his hands were on your hips and you rocked yourself in his lap, chests flush together with a lazy prayer of your name on his tongue; when nothing mattered more than honoring each other with lips and teeth, tasting sweat on necks and sucking bruises until moans were spilled from heads thrown back. But instead of unraveling you in shocks of pleasure, the ignorance of your child-free lifestyle softened the harsh lines of his face, and slowly, slowly, the shine dulled. The fight left him.

He saved his apology until his back was turned, and the squeaky doorknob gave under his heavy palm—turning it with too much force—and he cracked open the world beyond the two of you, dousing the lingering tenderness of your affection on his skin with frigid mist. “Sorry tonight ended this way.” The door banged open on the rusted iron handrail, caught on a gust.

The trailer park was bright with daylight. Flash, after flash.

Eddie’s silhouette eclipsed the doorway, outlined in lightning. He stood impossibly taller—like the animal threat still lurked within his structure, and caution stayed within your subconscious, altering how you perceived his lanky frame into something more imposing. His shoulders carried many burdens, bulked from five years of hard labor, possessing strengths you couldn’t imagine. He stepped to the side, insisting the door stay open with the spread of five fingers only, and his body no longer shielded you. You were exposed to the cold splash of rain on your shins. His palm was firm at your lower back, and you peered up at the hard set of his jaw feathering the muscle at the corner, sweeping the bone in a mature edge of stubble. Strands of his frizzy hair whipped in the wind. Droplets speckled his nose like freckles. His gaze, anchored on his car through the downpour, brewed with resentment.

His deep timber resonated in your chest beneath the safety of his hoodie, “Car door’s open, I’ll lock up behind you.”

And you were pushed.

Beaten down to a hunch, you took careful strides in your heeled shoes down the concrete steps and into the soft mud, covering your head as best you could from the cloud’s assault, and flinching at the closeness of the strikes darting around the boundary of treetops surrounding the trailer park. You tried the handle, and the car welcomed you into its dry insides. Guilt followed your tracks of caked on mud, leaves, and dead weeds on his nice red interior, but when you shivered to the bone, you didn’t care as much. Curled in on yourself, you spied Eddie’s vague shape through the waterfall blurring the windshield, and listened to his heavy boots trudge up to the door, and soon, the car sank with his weight too.

The engine roared to life. Heat wouldn’t come from the tiny AC units for some time, but the promise of such gave you hope. Eddie, beside you, drenched beyond measure, did not match your enthusiasm. Shadowed streams snaked across his pinched expression, swimming down his heavy brow, and splitting his raw lips. His bangs stuck to his forehead, and his cheeks trembled from his clacking teeth.

Soft music played from the radio station.

Riders on the Storm.

Two booms of thunder ended your small attempt at a smile from the timing.

Leftover adrenaline pulsed in your veins, fumbling your grip on the seatbelt. Wet earth and unease stroked your skin like skeletal hands, muddying your tights, and soaking his hoodie, weighing it down to your crushed sweater beneath. You wanted to speak; to poke, to prod, to press him to talk to you. The questions were there. On your tongue. At the ready; inviting him to tell you why his mood soured over a situation out of his control, other than the obvious weather.

But Eddie’s face was carved with irritation, baring his teeth as he attempted to buff circles into the icy fog on the windshield, only for it to cloud over in an instant. “C’mon..”

The wipers couldn’t keep up with the powerful current, and the tires struggled to find traction. “Fucking—damnit,” he said, interrupted by him slapping the steering wheel, cascading water off his work jacket, and onto every surface around him.

You twisted your hands in your lap at his mild slip in temper.

Now was not the time to bother him.

In a lurch, your shoulder bumped the door, and your head rocked side to side from the car backing over the swell of mud behind the tires. With another frustrated stomp on the gas, it evened out on paved road, and though the visibility was low, you were off towards the nicer side of Hawkins.

For once, he drove responsibly. Street signs could be read before he passed them. Fallen limbs in the road could be avoided, not ran over. His rings tinked off the glass when he rubbed at the thin fog, and the music was dialed to a somber ambiance behind the deep sighs through his nose. Dark stretches of treetops bent to the wind’s will. Short buildings sat so dim beyond the faint streetlights, they might as well have been deserted. Each red light was a necessary break for him to shove his fingers in the air vents to thaw them.

He never spoke. Never looked at you. He kept himself busy with tasks, and when those tasks were over and his hands were defrosted and the windshield was mostly clear, he regressed within himself. Unnervingly quiet. Turning onto streets with heavier regrets sagging his features the longer he crawled in front of white picket fence houses, and stopped.

The two story home was lit beautifully by the ornate sconces placed on either side of the doorway. Their lawn was manicured, and the sidewalk was free of weeds. No cars were at the mercy of the storm, they were parked inside the two-door garages. There was activity behind the embossed curtains hung in the living room of the residence. Presumably, the biggest shape was the father who called over the phone.

Someone who wore a business suit to the preschool’s Thanksgiving play lived here.

Eddie stalled. He remained seated forward, hands gripped at 10 and 2, squeezing the steering wheel as rain echoed in the belly of the car, battering the roof inches above your damp hair. There was a pause in his movements, his breathing. An awareness in his silence at the questions you didn’t ask. Tension in his pursed lips, rubbing them together as he surveyed the street.

He opened his mouth. Then, he thought better of it, and got out.

Your earnest call of his name was swallowed by the sea cleansing his body of your night together.

Leaping up the bullnose brick stairs, Eddie raised his hand, but before he could knock, the artisanal stained glass shimmered with movement. The immaculate door opened to a winced face. The man’s glasses were askew on his aged eyes, and his peppered hair hung over his eyebrows, no longer gelled back. He exchanged a few tight words with Eddie as Adrie was handed over, and Eddie, of course, shuffled into a meek posture, dipping his head, apologizing profusely. Almost bowing to this man dressed in matching pajamas and a robe. In horror, you watched the door close during one such apology. You could tell it happened in the middle of him speaking, because you had to sit through the agony of Eddie animatedly explaining something only for him to look up, straighten at the realization, and stand there for a few more seconds until the sconces dimmed off.

Worse, still, he cowered in the nook as cruel rain belted his back, doing his best to bundle Adrie in her tattered quilt and securing her on his hip, keeping all of her dry except her little legs wrapped around his middle. She buried her face in his neck, and he hesitated on the balls of his feet, judging the distance between the house and the car. His large palm covered the blanket over her head. All he had was his jacket.

Lightning revealed his weary frown.

At the clap of thunder, he sprinted.

Back in New York, at the going away party your friends threw in your and Robin’s honor, they warned you about moving to the Tornado Alley, and what to look for if one were to appear—green skies and all—but most importantly, they told you an incoming tornado sounded like a train. Being city dwellers, they wouldn’t actually know, but Robin confirmed it. And now you could too, because the piercing wail coming towards you could only belong to a natural disaster, not a four-year-old girl.

Murky water flooded to Eddie’s ankles from where it rushed against the sidewalk, sloshing in with his boot stomped to the floorboard for balance as he ducked inside amidst the fuss. He got Adrie into her carseat as quickly as possible. In the chaos, her overnight backpack fell somewhere in the dark, her quilt was chucked aside, and he cursed when the buckle bit into his thumb. She had a fistful of his hair, tangling it, making it harder to see what he was doing. He may have even threatened her full name to let go. It was hard to hear on account of the shrieking.

“Daddy!” The vowels were elongated, broken by hiccups. He shut the door, and in the small space with no escape, her big emotions rang louder. “Daddy!” Again, the y was screamed with the full power of her lungs, which would be impressive for their tiny size if it wasn’t for the pounding in your skull. She hollered louder when he sat heavily behind the wheel, “Daddy!” He didn’t shush her fourth tantrum spilt on his name; he accepted it, knowing it was futile.

It took all your strength to blink. Sat half-turned in your seat, frozen, gaze unfocused, marveling at your brain’s ability to function. You shifted your attention to Eddie’s face, a surprising few inches from yours.

The heat of his concentration scorched shame to your cheeks.

Avoidant no longer, your reaction to Adrie’s meltdown was the sole subject of his interest. Zeroed in on, dissected, and picked apart by just his eyes alone. Didn’t matter which eye you shied from, you were pinned in both, your discomfort blatant for him to witness. Your clamped mouth, your apologetic withdrawal, your fidgety fingers on your skirt; all of it. All of it was captured in his periphery because he didn’t dare break sight as he turned the key in the ignition, and started a raucous engine you couldn’t remember being turned off.

Humbled by the girl assaulting your senses, your questions were answered.

This was why he didn’t want you to come. This was why he slighted you with a pointed look from the recesses of his annoyance when you trivialized his daughter’s behavior as ‘No big deal.’ This was why he kept you separate from his parental sphere where everything wasn’t made of sunshine and rainbows. This—coming to terms with your inexperience staining each uncontrollable contortion of your unprepared expression—was why he never let anyone near his heart.

Adrie could no longer form his name through her open-mouthed cries, resorting to plain, wet screams which trilled past your eardrums, resulting in a throbbing headache.

At that, he grasped the gear shift, put his boot to the gas, and cut fat lines through the river overflowing the pampered neighborhood streets.

Eddie’s anger was a presence. His embarrassment, too. Just like at the auto shop when problems stacked and stacked into an unbearable weight on top of his sleepless nights and long mornings, he turned inward to delay his outburst. To feel everything so fully in his fists wringing the leather covered steering wheel until it creaked, and teeth gritted until they begged no more. Just that one second to release his frustration, and then it was suppressed from sight. But you felt it. His ire rested below your braced muscles, beneath your clammy palms and in your shallow breath. It invaded the tidy home you kept behind your ribs, taking up residence in your hammering heart.

The humiliation of having the date end when it did paid its dues in his bad mood. Disappointment radiated off his narrowed eyes, and slack frown. “Adrie,” he warned in a low tone.

She bawled louder, shriller than the crack of lightning.

The immense pressure to adapt was upon you. There was no sense in parsing what he expected you to do in this situation, it was clear he was soured by your ineptitude the moment you let it show on your face, but.. Only two short weeks ago, he relied on you to divert Adrie’s meltdown before DND night. And sure, she had already stopped crying by the time you got there, but you could come to his rescue again, couldn’t you?

You twisted around in your seat, proud of yourself for thinking of a solution, and showed him you could handle a modicum of parenthood. “Adrie, look!” you tamped down your children’s television host voice to a delightful, excited cheer, “I’m here. Miss Mouse is—!” Shocked with your hand reaching towards her, shooting pain traveled up your arm from her swift kick to your wrist. You recoiled, rubbing at your forearm without blame. It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t even looking at you. Her fit was directed at the window she couldn’t peel her attention from, dropping tear after tear from her swollen eyes at the thunder shaking the car. “Adrie?” you tried softer, but she beat her hands on the carseat harder. Wailed until you were defeated to a wince. Yelled until you accepted a unique heartbreak you weren’t prepared for.

Miss Mouse couldn’t always save the day.

Acute twists of rejection wrung your chest. Eddie wasn’t the type to say I told you so, he wasn’t mean like that, but when you sat forward and your gazes moved past one another, never quite meeting, you knew what he was thinking.

Little else stung worse than his obvious cynicism at how this date was concluding.

Exacerbating the issue, Adrie escalated to screeching her distress. Every open sob of hers pulled your focus, invaded your brainspace, overpowered any thought before it began, and set your teeth on edge from the high-pitched squeals you swore vibrated in your bones. Her behavior seeped into your nerves, winding them up, scratching them with the very tip of a brittle nail, inciting a riot. The need to flee crawled under your skin. Breathing was uncomfortable. Your ankle hurt. There was to break in between the blinding pulses of your headache. The car was too hot, too cold, too swerving from the high winds buffeting it sideways. Your tights were too tight. His hoodie too stifling. Itchy yarn from your sweater chafed your damp neck. Alarms of panic battled inside. Louder, louder, louder—Adrie cried louder. Eddie’s lips tugged down at the corners, chin wrinkled, tensing his face from a sadder response. Your lashes fluttered from the chokehold his frown had on you. Fingernails bit your palms. You tried to bide your time, to resist snapping. Dug down deep for something, something you could do, something.. innate. Some answer within you to fix it all. To get her to stop. To get him to relax. Something, something, something—instinctual.

“Pull over!” you barked; Eddie had every right to whip his head around at your sudden demand, but in your panicked state you only cared about the road ahead. “Ju-Just—just—” You scanned the dark parking lot outside the hardware store, and stabbed your finger on the cold window, pointing past it. “The gas station! Under the roof-thing.”

When it wasn’t clear he heard you, you turned towards him at the same time he leaned forward to catch your eye. Justifiable skepticism burdened his brow, tightening the edges of his crow’s feet. His lips hung parted with a confirmation hesitating between them; however, it was silenced after you maintained your need, and the fight against the wind won.

Soppy pebbles scraped wet asphalt, muddied in the bump and grind from Eddie turning too sharply into the sloped driveway, banging into a pothole, and rattling the innards of his already rocky cargo. He careened towards the closed convenience store with its row of dim fluorescent lights inside. Pulling up alongside the gas pumps, he slammed the breaks. A second later, he slapped the windshield wipers OFF, violently shushing their grating squeak.

His patience strained thinner. Working through the sensory overload festering like infected wounds on blistered skin, he rumbled a shallow apology past his aching teeth. Quickly, it devolved into a barrage of doubt. “Look, I’m sorry she—Wait, where’re you—?” The instant fear of rejection shot past his octave. “Wait! Please don’t—”

Cruelly, he thought; heartlessly, he knew; the sun-faded black cotton draped about your shoulders was the last image his adrenaline latched onto, playing it over, and over, door slam and all. He wasn’t parked for more than a clock tick, and you hurled yourself out into the storm, leaving him behind. His first assumption was gentle. Kind whispers stroked the angst in his chest, telling him you needed a break from the noise, that was all. Then the hatred of abandonment gutted his center.

“Giving up already?” he asked aloud in a conclusion only meant to hurt himself when no one was there to answer.

As if sensing his hopelessness, Adrie sniffled into the worst of her hyperventilated cries. Broken disjointed things. Sinking him deeper, deeper into his seat, crossing his arms over his caved chest, shuddering at the hot sting wobbling his vision at his own inadequacy.

Never good enough for anyone to stay.

Tremors of repressed memories wakened the churn of nausea making him sick.

“Baby, baby, it’s okay,” soothed a voice behind him, trickling in with the splash of faraway drops. “It’s okay, sweet baby, I’m here. I’ve got you. I’m here.”

Eddie jerked his chin up and stretched his neck to see into the rearview mirror. The wall of water teetering on his lash line made everything blur, so he tugged down the slick skin beneath his eyes to suck back the tears, and almost allowed them to spill at the scene behind him anyway.

In the reflection, you crawled across the backseat and unbuckled Adrie’s carseat, learning how to maneuver the straps from watching him. She reached for you, your hair, your clothes; small fists belying their strength. You didn’t care. You calmed her struggles with pretty words. “It’s okay, yeah, you can hold on to me, baby. Let’s get you wrapped up nice and warm. There we go.” Shhh. “Let me see your face, so I can clean you up.” Shhh.

“M–M-Mizz Mou—se,” Adrie got out between body-wracked sobs.

“Mhm, I’m here.” Shhh. “Miss Mouse is here.”

—Oh.

“Baby..” So modest was his whisper when so resolute was his yearn.

He leapt into motion, flushed with adrenaline.

The ripple effect of your actions caused tidal waves to swell and crash over him; body hitched in the place where his past convinced him he lost it all, only to collapse into a stuttered exhale of acceptance, understanding there was someone out there who cared about him to this degree; throat constricting with gratitude he could only express by stumbling out into the foggy cold, throwing open the door, and sliding into the backseat with you.

His fingers grazed the baby hairs at your nape on their way to the side of your head, using his wide palm which took up too much room to cradle you steady with a gentleness unknown to his tough skin. He trusted you to forgive him for how hard he knocked his forehead to your temple, and smashed his nose to the soft of your cheek. He need not worry. Beautifully, you adjusted to the bulky arm behind your neck, leaned into the crook of his body he hollowed out for you, and filled the familiar place at his side. You worked diligently to clear his daughter’s face while he passed a strong hand over her back and dropped it to shape his grip at the end of your thigh, curving his fingers in and slotting them to the underside, behind your knee.

“S’okay, Adrie,” you cooed, wiping at the sticky grossness clinging to her nose. “I’ve got you,” you continued the mantra, albeit with a lapse in motherly tenderness as a result of trying not to gag too hard.

Outside the car, the gas station’s tall canopy provided enough coverage to stop the rain from pounding the roof. Harsh winds howled past, encouraging the woeful sobs dropped onto your breasts, but the lightning stayed within the clouds, and the thunder faded in the distance. “Look at me,” you guided, sweeping the hoodie’s cuff over her puffy cheeks glowing splotchy red from the neon beer signs in the postered up convenience store windows. “We’ve got you. Nothing bad can happen when we’re here.”

Eddie lips pulled thin against your skin, breath stuttering damp and thick on your neck like a smothered cry.

“Nothing bad can happen when we’re here, okay?” Repeating the union of you and him, you went on, “We’ve got you. You’re safe with us. Nothing bad can happen when we’re here. Right, sweet bean?” You tucked the quilt around her feet, and held her close. “We won’t let anything bad happen to you, ever.”

With her hands latched into the folds of fabric around your neck—cotton, yarn, and canvas—her big coughs were cushioned by your arms snuggling her to your front while Eddie’s chest was at her back, embracing her between your two bodies converging to protect her in a toasty nest. Warm air hummed from the vents, shooing off the stale chill clinging to the backseat, now disturbed by activity and plucky guitar strings playing over the radio.

Across the Universe.

Undertaking the complexities of the man rubbing his forehead into your hair with the same sort of neediness as his little girl wringing your clothes, you assumed the responsibility of consoling them both. “Nothings gonna change my world,” you mumbled the lyrics into the patchwork quilt covering Adrie’s curls. “Nothings gonna change my world,” you sang to Eddie, face tipped up and eyes falling closed, seeking out his nose to trace the tip of yours along the soft bumps in a devoted offering after the turbulent events causing you both inner strife.

His fingertips became an imposing force spread across the scope of your cheek, turning you toward him, capturing you in a deeper kiss than you were ready for. It was demanding, hard with desperation, misaligned and urgent. Born out of necessity in the moment. He kissed you in front of his daughter, where she could see if she picked her face up from your chest, and a dart of surprise lit your heart at the recklessness. You kept a level hand atop her head in case he’d come to regret the decision, but he didn’t seem to notice, or care. He sighed into a second helping, and at the sound of the wet smack, she stirred.

Adrienne hooked her fingers into your collar and sniffled hard, soothing herself from further cries by hugging you tight, huddling into your comfort, oblivious to what was happening around her.

Easily, you fell into the third kiss. Became what he needed, mouths mashing together at the odd angle, your lower lip plush between his. Dizzying amounts of reverence manifested in his spontaneity. He packed a lifetime’s worth of bottled up feelings into the affection he was privileged to. Giving, and taking. But his impulses were still a puzzle. When he’d drank his fill, he squeezed your leg, broke apart from your lips in a silent slick slide, and drew a deserved breath.

“Sorry, no one’s ever just.. done that for me before.” He shrugged his hand off your thigh at the poor summary of the millions of things on his mind, and left it at that.

Spurred by the praise, you seized the opportunity for communication. “Remember how before we played DND that night, I told you to call me first next time you needed help?” you reminded him, and something vulnerable, maybe even pleadful, entered your tone. “I want to be someone you can rely on, Eddie.”

An unfortunate amount of complicated emotions passed in his eyes. There wasn’t much to garner from them, nor his soft grunt when he dropped his nose to the column of your neck, above Adrie’s head, and regressed into his quiet self. Reserved. Hard to decipher. He did speak up once to warn you she would fall asleep with how you were holding her—same as he did most nights on the couch while Late Night with David Letterman aired—and you embellished your promise to him with a kiss to the stringy curls frizzing at his scalp, “That’s okay.”

And it was okay, truly, when the storm raged heaves of rain against the car, spraying the windows with shocks of water. You dabbed Adrie’s cheeks. Wiped her nose. Rocked her in the same tempo as the backs of Eddie’s fingers stroking your cheekbone, flexed bicep behind your neck. Thunder occurred. Lightning happened. But with your quick thinking, lulling gestures, and genuine effort to speak past the fondness clogging your throat, you calmed her. Calmed her so well, in fact, her hands went limp and her body relaxed, fatigue claiming her victim to the numbered sheep hopping over fences in her dreams. After her tantrums, she was taxed out. Drained.

Stuck in the cramped middle between Eddie and the carseat, you rearranged your legs before they went tingly numb from her weight on your lap, and shifted the pressure off your heels. It was sweet having her fall asleep on you. Her slow breaths filled your arms as a reward for your efforts to hush her. The quilt smelled of their home, cozying itself in your lungs and sweeping you in a sense of longing for the humidity in his kitchen after making soup.

Though, as much as you thrived on the temporary role you played as parent—taking over for Eddie and dwelling on the fact Adrie slept propped on your chest like the many times she napped on his stained coveralls—you could do without the additional pain of him leaning on you too.

You groaned at the sharp twinge in your spine from slouching sideways, and conveniently, your movement roused his consciousness. He launched into a sleepy inhale. Robust, filling his lungs to the brim, too loud, too silly and sweet. He primed you for a solid press of the bridge of his nose to your jaw by thumbing you towards him, after which he pulled away, separating himself from you fully.

Eddie rolled his shoulders, stretching out from the uncomfortable position, and faced the window. He commented in a sincere tone, “You’re good with kids.”

“I know how to entertain kids,” you corrected him. “I don’t know how to do any of the hard shit you do.”

The streetlights painted strokes of dotted orange on his complexion cast in shadow. He played with the tips of his fingers, squishing each one in a line as he ruminated, staring elsewhere, perspiration blurring the outerworld, sealing yourselves in this crowded car together. “You do a good job,” he reassured, petering out in a hoarse whisper.

Ceaseless nerves gnawed at his absent-minded ring spinning. Not a big production like when he wrung his hands or bit his nails, but enough to show he was getting anxious. You’d expected his leg to be bouncing by now, but it was laying softly against yours. Something big was on his mind.

You bumped your knee into his. “Talk to me.”

Talk to me. Yes, you asked the world of him. You knew it, too. Encouraging his gaze to flick to Adrie bundled in your arms, and back to the window. His eyes weren’t wide with fear, just larger than normal at the subtle confrontation. It was time he opened up to you. There wasn’t a concrete ultimatum if he didn’t, but there was a mutual understanding that if this were to continue, he needed to trust you to be there for him. No more reluctance.

He extended his hand towards your knee, patting twice before claiming it in the great breadth of his palm, stroking his thumb over the thin pantyhose; bridging the gap from his earlier behavior, but not yet apologizing for the soreness he caused.

Sorting his thoughts, his throat bobbed twice on the swallow.

And of all the questions he could ask, of all things he could say, of all the topics he could choose, he picked, “Did you ever want kids?”

Heat swam to your cheeks, blood rushed to your ears. Buds of true belonging bloomed at the question, adorning stems of untended longing first planted during the Christmas party at work, ever growing. Your heart pumped faster at the inherent past and implied future of the subject. His curiosity was a mild prod, perhaps not meant to encourage these leaps in logic considering he announced it in the same buckled cadence of someone who was asking about the weather—and yet, the hold it had on you was impossible to deny. A blend of you, Adrie, and him, just like now, but in different contexts—different meanings other than sitting in the back of his car—something domestic, like being piled together on the couch watching Disney movies; that’s what was pushed to the forefront of your mind.

But, despite those instantaneous fantasies, this was a place for honesty, and the significance of your pause between his question and yours was an entity of its own, stiff like his posture.

“Are you ready for this conversation?” you checked. He fostered an anxious glance and nod. “Having kids is not something I ever saw for myself, no.”  The consequence of your answer marked his immediate dropped eye contact, but ever patient with him, you continued strongly, “With how I dated and moved around, I didn’t think it was for me, that sort of lifestyle. It’s just not something I put a lot of thought into except when my friends were having kids, and really, they kinda turned me off of the idea. Pregnancy sounds.. daunting. Or—you know—really fucking scary. They’d always talk about how awful it is, all the complications you could have, the risks, the near death experience in one case,” you broke off in a squirm. “And then you don’t even get the relief once the baby comes. Like, seriously, taking care of a newborn sounds straight up terrifying.”

Eddie cracked. His hiss of laughter was a welcomed reprieve, especially when it sank to his chest, gripping his shoulders in a hearty shake. “Y-Yeah,” he got out, face crinkled in all the ways you adored, “it is straight up terrifying.”

You giggled in the softest way, careful to not disturb Adrie’s shallow breaths, and careful to not swoon too head-over-heels over the image of him rocking a baby. “It seems easier when they’re older, though,” you said, broaching the real crux of the conversation with your chin dipped to the top of her head. “Like it’s not as bad when they can actually communicate why they’re crying, or tell you what’s bothering them.”

“Not necessarily easier, just different,” he clarified. “It’s less about making sure this little tiny thing that can choke on its own snot survives the night, and more about the emotionally draining problems like her telling you about her day at preschool, explaining a situation where a group of kids kept giving her tasks to do that sent her away, and she’s smiling so big when she’s telling you, thinking it was a game, but deep down you’re just waiting for the heartbreak years down the line when she realizes they gave her errands to run because they were excluding her, and the reason they were laughing every time she came back was because they took joy in being mean to her.”

Wilt tinted your faint, “Oh..”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He upped the pressure he used to pat and rub your knee. “S’part of life.”

Consumed by his side profile, you studied the scope of his impassive expression set on the premature lines edging his face. The urge to find the right thing to say amidst the convoluted churn of anger on his behalf, and sadness on Adrie’s, itched something fierce beneath your skin. Ultimately, no words of inspiration came.

Eddie took an anticipatory breath.

The radio garbled advertisements for the station’s sponsors.

“Still wouldn’t trade it for those first months when she was a newborn, though.” Pursing his mouth thin, he rolled his lips inward with a hardened brow, releasing and scrunching tension around his nose as he shook his head slowly, addressing the memories of those days with a shine of pain to his eyes, and a loud smack of his tongue. “The moment I found out Adrie’s mom was pregnant, I wanted to do the right thing—y’know?” He took his hand off your leg to demonstrate the narrow path he followed. “Kept my head down, stayed focused, didn’t bother anybody, got a real job, and kept my mouth shut. Lotta places didn’t wanna hire me, obviously, but I applied anywhere I could, and when I got the job, I’d go get another one on a different shift, and another one on a graveyard shift. Sold whatever I had—guitars, ‘nd shit—bought what I could with the money. I wanted to be a good man. Be a provider. Be worth something.” Scrubbing his shaky fingers over the stubble on his chin, he aimed to calm himself, but when bringing up the Hell he went through during those times, there was little to stop his pitch from wavering. “Still wasn’t good enough.”

A verdict aimed at him flippantly, yet the impact on his self-esteem was immeasurable.

Gathering himself, he licked the inside of his cheek, and explained, “In the beginning, when Adrie was born, I tried to make it on my own. Locked in this little motel room with a crying baby. Couldn’t go to work. Didn’t have anyone to call to watch her for me, y’know, didn’t.. didn’t have anyone to rely on after walking out on my uncle, and isolating myself from my friends. The people at the bullshit resource center said I wasn’t eligible for benefits because they were for single moms, not dads. And child support was taking too long to kick in. Not like it mattered when it couldn’t pay for a single canister of Similac. I didn’t have fucking anything. Or know anything.”

His shame was only beginning to unravel.

“There were these free classes at a clinic for expecting parents, but I..” He dropped his knuckles to his thigh and fed them along the coarse cotton, using the friction to burn away the guilt. “I-I didn’t go. I didn’t want to go alone. Be the only guy there, by myself. Have all these people w-who might know who I am fucking.. fucking staring at me.” With how he was looking down at his lap, rocking slightly with his movement, he stood no chance against the wall of tears damming at his lashes. “I didn’t want to go because of my sense of pride, and my baby suffered because of it.”

“Eddie, that’s not true—” you stepped in.

Three effective beats of his fist on his leg, and you were left to witness his face crumple from the utter contempt he had for himself.

“It is true,” his volume fluctuated in jumps. “She wouldn’t eat. She wouldn’t fucking eat and keep it down.” Droplets splashed his jeans in unyielding splats. Drip, drop, drip, drop.. They slipped and spread in splotches of salty remorse he couldn’t wipe away quick enough. “Nothing worked. Couldn’t get her to latch onto a bottle, and, and—I didn’t know, I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to microwave the formula, but she wouldn’t take it room temp, so if it was too hot she’d just scream at me until it wasn’t, and I–I just—I was having these breakdowns, I don’t know. I blacked out, and next thing I knew, I was at Harrington’s, and Nancy was taking care of her for me.” The emphasis alluded to much, though the fact their son was only a year older, and Nancy would still be producing milk said it all. 

Frantic breaths which wouldn’t catch were pulled past grimaced lips parted on the unrefined sob his confession emerged on. “I never wanted to be with Adrie’s mom, but proving what she said was right, th-that I was a fucking loser who didn’t know what he was doing, it-it-it.” In a desperate flourish, he pointed at his temple, It lives in here, and another tear clung to the tip of his nose, smeared by the back of his wrist.

Stunned useless by the suffocating urge to help him, you blanked. Sat still while your favorite mechanic reduced himself to the wrong opinion of others; the same person who showed his gentle nature by picking worms out of the garage after a heavy rain so they didn’t dry out. Remaining frozen while silent pain wracked your friend’s held breath, heaved and shuddered out as a cough into the same palm he used to catch your ankle when he challenged you to a race on the creepers, and he had to cheat to win before you beat him to the service door. Saying, “Baby, no,” to the man who snuck a smirk over his daughter’s head when he caught you doting over her as she sat on his hip, and the smell of Christmas potluck embedded itself into the memory of Eddie’s eyes hinting at a deeper glint than the tease on his grin.

“I am a fucking failure,” he seeped out his regret. “C-Couldn’t give her what she needed. I still can’t. Still can’t give her what she wants, ever. T-T-Tellin’ her I can’t get her something when she asks for it—and the disappointment. Just a piece of shit who disappoints her. Never good enough—” There was another high-pitched stutter, but it was muffled behind his trembling hands covering his face, and smothered by your intervention.

“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,” you shot out, hand and voice working together to untangle the trauma his knotted fingers attempted to hide. “Listen to me.” No please, but no lack of kindness, either. “You are not a disappointment. Not then, not now, not ever. Do you hear me? You’re not any of those things.” You tugged at the canvas jacket around his stiff arms tucked tight to his body, and rocked him away from his huddle against the door.

In the aftermath of your scramble to comfort him, Adrienne startled awake. Her soft hmm? became a grunty whine when the sensation of slipping backwards disoriented her. “Daddy?” One of her fists found your hoodie for balance, but her groggy curiosity dealt a heartbreaking blow.

She traced the wet trail on his cheek, encountered a tear in its path, and broke the droplet’s surface tension on her finger, wondering aloud, “Why’s Daddy crying?”

Thinking quickly, you used your muscles earned through unloading car parts from delivery trucks, and scooped her from your lap onto his, diverting the nuance of grown-up-problems by fumbling out, “Daddies cry sometimes, too. Have you told him you love him today? Can you tell him? It’ll make him feel better. Please, Miss Adrie?” Whether or not it was the perfect phrasing wasn’t important. What mattered was the unsuspecting gratitude laden at the base of his frown.

“I love you, Daddy,” Adrie said, latching her arms around his neck. “I love you.”

“You’re a good man,” you added, and rolled onto your hip, fitting your body to his side. You nosed through his long, frazzly curls, and spoke earnestly, but softly into his ear, “You’re a good man, Eddie. Look at how well you take care of her. Look at how well fed, clothed, and happy she is. You make her so happy.. You make me happy, too. You’re the best dad I’ve ever met. No one else compares.”

He dragged a sniffle from his last sob into an unintelligible mumble.

“I’m here.” Shh. “I’m here.” You included Adrie in your hug as you brought your hand up to the other side of his flustered hot face, blending your fingers through the hair stuck to the sweat and stubble on his jaw. “We’re here for you. We’ve got you. Nothing bad can happen when we’re here.” Sweet with conviction, “It’s okay, handsome, I’ve got you.”

Overwhelmed by the small I love you, Daddy, on one side, followed by You’re a good man, on the other, his inhale shivered, and he cuddled Adrie to him for a watery, “I love you, too.” Croaky and real, and mouth agape on an ugly cry he let you witness until his needy reach cupped the back of your head, and smushed you to his wet cheek, scratching the same sentiment into your nape, just like you were rubbing it into his scalp, exchanging the affection without words.

Us and Them funneled through the car, mellowing the heightened emotions with its dreamy saxophone opener.

“I’m so glad to have met you,” you prized in tender sweeps of whispers and thumbs. “I actually look forward to coming into work because of you, even when you hide my pen cup, and tickle me when I go to reach for it on top of the Coke machine. Which is unfair, by the way.”

“Yeah?” he asked for dear reassurance, and distraction.

Humming against the intimate corner of his jaw, you nudged the prickly scruff, and melted into his uncoordinated pets over your ear. “I see your sacrifices, and trust me, Eddie, you’re doing a great job at raising your daughter. Stuff like buying her toys, or cookies, or whatever doesn’t matter. The love you show her is better than any of that. She’s so lucky to have you.”

Another tear dropped to the tattered quilt. Another, another dropped. He squeezed his eyes shut and more fell. Hindered breaths let go in stuttered huffs shook his chest, swayed his damp hair. You circled your thumb over the rivers on his sensitive skin, and found a dry section of your sleeve to clean the price he paid for being a good father without the proper support he needed. Soothing him with fond shushes and feather touches. Forming a ball of comfort around him: cramped in the tiny car, a cast of solid fog on the windows for privacy, Adrie’s blanket draped about your jumbled legs, and her lanky arms wrapped around his neck where precious words were stoked from the embers of a fire which he built. “I wanna color with you to-mah-rrow,” she pronounced. “You can have the dinosaur book, because I want the kitty cats. Deal?” Deal, he nodded.

Your bottom lip introduced a blessing at his sideburn, “You deserve to see yourself how we see you.”

Recovering from the unbearable throb his stuffed sinuses drove to his headache, he tried—“Thank you, baby,”—though the letters were mashed together, and further pulped by the thickness in his throat. Loud, however, was his hug. Crushing you both to him with honed strength; flexed forearms demonstrating the power lying dormant in the track of muscle he snaked around your waist. Groans were earned from his expertise. Bones protested the gesture, begging to be released. It took several seconds of your heartbeat pumping visibly at the edge of your vision, but he let go. Afterall, there was no praise to be had by flattened lungs.

“That hurt,” Adrie complained.

“Ow,” you agreed.

“Sorry,” he said in non-apology.

At a change in tone, you fawned, “But that was a nice hug.”

Adrie rated it, “An 8 out of 10.”

Crowded together, the bond was unmatched. His arms were spread like a greedy dragon hoarding its wealth. Chest open, collecting his most remarkable treasures to the roaring furnace locked within the confines of his body, ready to share the warmth to those who could appreciate its value. Clasped in your hand was Adrie’s ankle, gaining squirmy kicks for each smile and giggle traded under Eddie’s chin. Dressed in his well-loved hoodie, the crook of his elbow fit to your figure, and the backs of his fingers strummed your bicep in a trained motion. None of it was perfect, no. The hoodie could smell less like cigarettes, his forearm stuffed behind you meant you couldn’t recline comfortably, and when he patted your hip, he awakened the dull throb of the bruising grip he left during earlier events.

Those weren’t bad things, though. They were as real as human flaws. Accepted as such, too.

“Are you feeling better?”

Sporting a grin favoring one cheek more than the other, Eddie’s eyes were framed by clumped together lashes after being stripped to his barest self and given the grace he needed. “Yeah,” he answered Adrie in fondness, “I’m feeling better now.” Not forever. He wasn’t cured. But with time, he guided his gaze to the velcro shoe you were wiggling back and forth onto her heel, and climbed his soft study up to the plump concentration on your bottom lip after you released it from between your teeth.

Perceiving his attention, you clocked him with a sneaky grin. “We’re a sardine family.” Brightening at the bewildered noise he made, you tapped Adrie’s knee, and imparted your wisdom as if he should know it too. “Yeah, you know, you, me, and Adrie. Jammed packed back here like a tin of sardines. All squished together.”

They blinked at you. You blinked back.

“And I thought I was supposed to be the one with bad jokes,” Eddie offered after some thought. You cut him a look. “But I like the image,” he amended.

“I like sardines,” Adrie chimed. She didn’t know what sardines were, but you appreciated her enthusiasm.

The conversation waned from there. Drowsiness from the old night seeped into your collective huddle, slouching you all towards one another. Heavy limbs went boneless. Tender brushes of thumbs came to an end. The sound of deep breaths were heard between the local ads for Indiana’s finest antique mall and an uptick in the rain smacking the paved street. Near the edge of sleep, you convinced yourself to get Adrie up and into her carseat. Eddie sat back and watched you go through the steps of buckling her in, listening to her plea for Fluff in her backpack, tucking the quilt around her just right, and hitting your head on the roof in pursuit of making her happy. Taking care of his kid. You collapsed beside him, far closer than would be proper for coworkers, and basked in his approval, noting the pride in his charged gaze. The emotional rollercoaster of the evening took its toll on his swollen face—nevertheless, romance novels could learn a thing or two from the way his stare rendered you weak.

“Should get you home before the storm gets worse,” he warned in an attractive thrum of sternness. He might call you lil’ lady next. Or remind you he promised your father he’d have you back on time.

Floating in the fizzy pool of your crush's attention, you nodded your dizzy head, and observed without need, “Yeah, should get home before it gets worse.”

He laughed. You swam in his laugh, in the instinctual desire based in his mood after watching someone nurture his young. A silly thing to rock you into a sultry sweat considering the outcome of your second date. Luckily, when you stepped out of the car, the frigid mist stole your focus, hosing you down and keeping you from reading too much into the odd chemical imbalance that must be happening in your brain.

The night was really fucking long.

Driving with the radio on low, Eddie drifted his ringed fingers over your forearm whenever they weren’t being used on the stick shift. A small gesture letting you know he was thinking about you when there wasn’t anything to talk about, not that it was needed. The calm was nice. The storm behaved en route to the Buckley’s, avoiding the occasional tree limb blocking a lane. He removed his touch from your person, and with a glance, you were assured it wasn’t the last.

“You didn’t have to walk me to my door,” you gasped, posing with your arms stuck out, useless against mother nature sagging your soaked clothes.

A puddle formed on the wood planks where he wrung his hair. “And make you do this run all by yourself? C’mon, sweet stuff. I’m a gentleman.”

Shivering on the covered porch, your shoes were partially to blame for the slipping incident(s) in the muddy driveway. The lack of the house lights on was another, slowing down your sprint into a crawl. A yellow cast from a lamp in the back room lit the hallway, but other than its soft glow, that was it. Clearly, no one expected you to come home.

“Is it okay if, uh,” you began, “Is it okay if we kiss in front of Adrie?” Oh, how your awkward pointing from yourself to the car came to a charming halt, fingers caught in the stiff fabric of his jacket, under his spell.

Plush pink lips warmed by vented heat promised your worries away.

“I think she’s asleep anyway.” His voice was playful, tugging syllables in the way his lopsided grin ought. “But,” he softened, “yeah, we can kiss in front of her.”

The permission washed over you. Weeks and months in the making. Brewing tension under the surface in your daily interactions—and now? You kissed him. Just for fun, just to show off. You kissed him again. Gentle, pretty brushes. Tame, refined, and for the sake of exploring the lack of boundary before saying goodbye.

Working man arms defined your waist.

Fingers calloused from gripping pens grazed his steady throat.

He swallowed, and spoke endearments with his busy mouth, “Could kiss you all day, baby.” Your lips kicked into a smile which he devoured, kiss after kiss. Neat little things. Virtues, maybe.

“Could’ve kissed me since the day we met,” you answered, feeling the squeeze around your back when his belly pressed you into his embrace. Though, his dismissive snort caused you to frown. “I’m serious. Coulda had me back then. Or at least you could’ve kissed me when we were slow dancing in the garage, or standing under the mistletoe at the Christmas party. Like, seriously, way to make me feel rejected.”

His wide passionate eyes shared common ground with his genuine smirk at your feigned agony. “Excuse you, but I am not having our first kiss be at work.”

“Then why not at DND when everyone left?”

“Because, sweetheart,“ his cadence loved those two words most of all, “I knew I only had a few minutes with you. And I needed a helluva lot more than a few minutes with you.”

“Or, what about when—”

Crazy how you strove to be silenced by his mouth. Craved it like no other, provoking him into eager unions, fulfilling the itch and providing the scratch with your bottom lip between his, just how he liked.

You shifted. Your inner thighs rubbed through your ripped tights. The untimely circumstances bringing you to Robin’s door lived on the surface of your chilly skin; ushering you to reality, and he as well.

“I’m sorry for how all this turned out.” Eddie’s sincere apology pitched his voice to something sorrowful, something deeper, and maybe you underestimated how much the night ending when it did upset him as a man.

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

He shuffled his stance, scraping his boots in dissatisfaction. “Baby, you didn’t even get anything,” and you knew what he meant. And it annoyed you he’d even brought it up.

Combing your fingers up from his nape through his hair, you drove him into you, chasing the molten ooze pooling at your center in effort to shut him up. Wet, hard, nipping kisses at his plump lips until they were raw like his tear-stained cheeks. You forwent air. Mouths melding as one, then apart as two, then one, then a set of awake eyes boring into his drunk ones. “Our date was perfect. We needed this.” The trust, the experience, the uncomfortable glimpse into his life and how you handled it. His breakdown, his shame, his face when he finally let go and ugly cried in front of you. “I don’t regret how our night turned out.”

Nodding into a nudge of his nose stroking the side of yours, he was honest with himself, “I don’t regret it, either.”

“Well, you might regret it in the next half-hour if this storm keeps up, and you’re stranded with Adrie in the car because a tree fell across the road.”

“Shit.” Indeed, the weather was turning again. If luck were on his side, he could deal with the high winds and sheets of rain until he got home, but, more likely, he drained his luck over the course of the date, and lightning was about to start again.

Eyeing the sky with hesitance, he asked, “Can I call you tomorrow? Or—today?”

“I’d be upset if you didn’t.” Acting as an endorsement to get going before things worsened, thick forest branches creaked in the distance, popping like warnings. You followed it with snappier affections doled between your palms fitted to his jaw. “Please be safe, Eddie.”

“I will, I will. Kay?” Urgency swept him from kiss to kiss—needy, and intense, treating them as the last. “I adore you, baby. Tell me you adore me.”

Mushy under his tender affirmations, your body went pliant and he accepted your weighty lean on his chest, making it harder than it already was for him to leave his sweetheart behind. “—dore you too, handsome,” you moaned into his mouth, sending him off on a proper goodbye.

“Jesus Christ, woman.”

Ever the lovestruck fool, he stayed rooted on the porch watching your figure move from shadow to light within the home, eyes glued to sways and curves as you met the hallway and bent to peep inside Robin’s room. It was the single lamp being turned off which broke his greedy gaze, and ended his fun. Oh well. His Monday morning was booked with penciled in meetings for his admiration and your assets.

Eddie spun on his heel and stopped stalling. He didn’t bother throwing his arms over his head, he accepted his fate, and ran. Sloshing through puddles, slipping in mud. He wrenched open the door, and fell inside the car. The heater made him sticky warm in the gross way, so he turned it down, and got comfortable behind the wheel, adjusting, adjusting.

Pulling oxygen into his outkissed lungs, he heaved a solid breath, and sank into his seat, unable to comprehend the recent events carving out a new path for him to consider where there wasn’t one before.

——Then——

In the beginning…

Summer died to autumn, and it was time to move on from Steve's. Eddie tried to make it on his own in the motel room over the three day weekend break from work, but his wallet was empty, his baby was dressed in another family's blue sailboat onesie, and come Tuesday morning at 7AM, he needed someone to watch Adrie who wasn't an overworked Nancy Harrington.

Infant in hand, pride left behind in his boyhood, Eddie knocked on his uncle's door, and in Wayne's usual manner, he answered by clearing his throat when neither words nor greetings failed to repair the strained relationship.

“Can I live with you?”

Taking in the marks of fatigue under his nephew's averted eyes, Wayne said, “Of course, son,” and welcomed him inside with a swung gesture.

The walk to the single bedroom humbled what spirit Eddie had remaining. Or, crushed what was left of it. He passed by the kitchen table which still had his chair cocked out, noticed the patched-up hole in the closet door, and flicked on the lightswitch, grazing the curled edge of a poster he hung over a decade ago. His stomach sank at the familiarity.

Blazed by the ornate lamp hung in the corner, standing out like a behemoth beside his white desk, was the crib he was never able to afford.

Adrie grunted awake in her carseat. Looking down at her would spill his tears, so he cranked his head back to stare at the ceiling, steeling himself after spotting the new bedsheets stretched across his mattress, and he knew—he knew—if he turned around, the pullout bed in the living room would still be set up.

His uncle never took his room back.

Defeated by the routine pang of worthlessness, impressed to have any self-esteem left to be stolen from him at the point, Eddie sank to his childhood mattress with his three-month-old daughter at his feet, undressed himself from his boots, and made a clear spot for them both on the bed, away from blankets or pillows. He laid on his side, legs crossed and knees bent with an arm beneath his head. Same position he assumed on the motel’s carpeted floor yesterday when Adrie experienced a milestone: rolling over. Not from her back to her stomach, she wasn’t coordinated enough for that yet, but with enough powerful kicks and wiggling, his paranoia coaxed his other arm around her.

He molded himself to be her protector. Chest sunken on a shallow breath, forearm spooned to her side closest to the edge, and gaze trained on her chubby cheek. Her babbly noise of happiness brought him a sense of reward, and though the newborn smell had faded in the weeks where motor oil stung his nostrils, he put his nose to the top of her head for a whiff of a sweet scent that wasn’t there, and felt the peace it brought him anyway.

Wayne shuffled into the room with a sizable stack of chunky hardcover books between his hands. “I, uh, checked these out from the library. Been doin’ some readin’ while you were gone.” He set them down on the bedside table, and pointed at a few of them. “Learned a lot from the one on the bottom, but they were all, ah, educational, I s’pose.. Some lean more religious than others,” he grumbled. “But, uhm..”

The expectant pause in his uncle’s speech drew Eddie’s awareness.

“Can I hold her?” Wayne asked.

“Yeah.” He almost had the strength to clear the rasp from his throat. “You can hold her.”

Putting his new knowledge to good use, Wayne first worked his palm under Adrie’s head before scooping her into his folded arms. Eddie took his shame in small doses, glancing at his uncle meeting his grandchild for the first time, and looking away when he cooed over her. Three months and his only family member had yet to meet his baby. Three months spent avoiding this trailer, and depriving his uncle from making these memories.

Self-loathing boiled under Eddie’s skin, and still, there was a fleeting desire to brag about Adrie’s neck strength, and how it wasn’t so necessary to be wary of her head falling back.

But he stayed quiet. He pushed his overgrown bangs out of his eyes, and read the book’s titles, wondering what sparked enough interest for Wayne to stuff receipts between the pages, or mark them with paper clips if they were particularly interesting.

Speaking in his gruff smoker’s voice with an edge of seldom heard unease, Wayne introduced a conversation, “I read in that yellow book there that babies shouldn’t sleep in the same bed as the parent. Dangerous, with how tired you are, ‘nd all. Should I put her in the crib?”

As gingerly and delicately as one could be when discussing the reality of a child suffocating to a parent who was well aware of the risks, Eddie regarded him with an annoyed expression, and Wayne shut his mouth in apology.

“I’ve gotta do her night routine again, so I’ll be up for a bit.”

“Yep.” A solid statement, and conclusion, to the conversation.

Bending down, Wayne positioned Adrie in the hollow Eddie created for her, and mentioned there were leftovers in the fridge on his way out. He shut the door behind him. It didn’t take long for tiny fists and tinier fingers to find a lock of his hair, and pull it into a drooly mouth. Didn’t take long, either, for his exhaustion to kick in and for the emotions to crash through his walls.

Tears slipped sideways along his features. Cresting over the bridge of his nose, colliding with his other eye, and joining the wetness at his hairline, dotting the bedsheet. He pressed his face to his baby who was too innocent for this world. “Daddy loves you,” he whispered, tasting the word for the first time. Daddy. It didn’t feel right when Steve stepped in as a father figure, but he could acknowledge it now. He was a dad. A momentous occasion followed by, “I’m so sorry you’re mine.” An apology uttered on a wet hiccup—borderline unintelligible—but after coming back to this trailer, and enduring his memories trapped between its thin walls, he promised, words slurring to a constricted squeak in his throat, “Daddy’s gonna get us a nice house, okay? Your own room. Your own bed. Daddy’s gonna do it. Just give me some time, okay? I’ll do it, I swear. Daddy loves you so much. So fucking much.” The promises bred dread even then, living in the pit of his stomach as future disappointments, knowing he would fail.

Perhaps sensing his distress, his little girl used the last of her energy to kick his arm in a fair warning before her face scrunched, and the wet coughs preluding her wail for food began.

He dried his face on the bedsheet. In this moment, it was hard to continue crying when he had another human relying on him. It was time to move on. Time to bury the pain, and move on. Time to neglect himself, and move on. Time to give up, and move on. Kiss her chubby cheeks so fucking much he feared he’d never be able to stop, and move on.

——Now——

Now, he checked the rearview mirror and Adrie was looking back at him, possessing a curious pinch between her brows at his reflection.

“You were kissing Miss Mouse,” she accused and questioned.

“I was,” he confirmed.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, ah,” he filled the pause with another ah while he searched, “It means we’ll be seeing more of each other. She’ll be coming around more, and stuff. Hanging out with us.”

Ever ponderous, ever candid, ever blunt, she asked, “Does that mean she’s my–”

Crazy Little Thing Called Love blasted their eardrums.

Eddie’s fingers slipped over the volume dial by accident—totally by accident—as he reached for the stick shift, turning the music on high and drowning out the last word of her sentence.

—Mom.

No way in hell was he ready for that conversation after the emotionally grueling night he’d had.

“Whoops,” he pretended, “Sorry, couldn’t hear you—but, uh! Hey, do you wanna start our bedtime story early? Should I go with the princess one, or the Sesame Street gang running their own bakery? Hmm.." He drew out his hum until he was in the clear of the Buckley's mailbox, swearing he wasn't the reason it was laying flat in a ditch. "How about we pick up where the princess one left off? So! The firbolgs have declared alliances with Toadstool Kingdom, and.." Throwing it into first gear, Eddie raced home as quickly, but responsibly, as possible, talking non-stop. His parched throat begged for a drink by the time he pulled into the trailer park—a scratchy pain made worse by his nervous chatter in the elusive quiet of his parked car.

He wrapped Adrie in her quilt as best he could while securing her on his hip and booked it through the rain, unlocking the front door and ducking inside right as an unlucky flash of lightning came.

And when nature’s nightlight died, he blinked and blinked at the spots in his vision.

It was unfathomably dark in his living room.

Stumbling over a small shoe in his way, he patted the wall for the lightswitch, and flipped it. And flipped it again. And harassed it some more. Sighing heavily in defeat, he grabbed the giant flashlight on the kitchen counter, and lit the way. "Looks like we're camping tonight." (Their codeword for when the power was knocked out.)

"Okie dokie," she said, ignorant to the cruel world of no pancakes for Sunday breakfast when the electric stovetop was out of commission.

In the meantime, he got them both ready for bed with the added pain of doing it by a single wobbly light source, ready to pass out the second his body sank to the mattress and his head hit the flat pillow—

But of course, Adrie rocked his shoulder incessantly, goading him into giving her attention at her whim, sanity be damned. "Mm?" he grunted, coating the noise in mild annoyance.

"Daddy?" she checked.

The wait for her question grew excruciatingly long.

He almost wasted an eye roll. "Yes, my child?"

"I wish Miss Mouse was here."

Surprised more so by his yawn than the request itself—and then surprised again when his heartbeat remained calm when confronted with the reality of Adrie noticing too much—he struggled to stay awake in his best interest, perhaps giving an inappropriate answer, and unwittingly feeding into her inner wishes, "I do too." He was fading, and quick. The hard rain had returned, droning white noise on the roof, soothing his eyelids closed over the dry sting they drew. Rolling, fighting the stiff sheets tucked around them both, he threw an arm over her before the doom-roll of thunder came. Sweet dreams greeted him in a pair of tiny arms folded to his chest. Brain shutting down. Night, night. Asleep.

"I wish she was my mom."

"Goodnight, Adrie," he stressed.

[zot3-flopped]

Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this! When Taylor Swift took the Grammys stage last month to claim her award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, she saw that spotlight as an opportunity to announce her 11th studio album: The Tortured Poets Department. The follow-up cut to audience members—Swift’s music industry peers, mind you—told us all that we would ever need to know, and the collective disinterest across the crowd echoed through our TVs.

Folks from all walks of life took to social media to express a multitude of reactions. Swifties clamored to their beloved monarch’s forthcoming era, while others lambasted the terminally cringe title and artwork and ridiculed Swift for making a night recognizing musical achievements across an entire industry about herself—knowing perfectly well that it would send her fanbase into a surge that would, no doubt, overpower the excitement around the ceremony itself.

Quite a few people questioned whether or not that moment suggested that a critical—definitely not commercial—tide would turn against the world’s most-famous pop star. And, perhaps it has—but, to most, it will look like nothing more than a single ripple in Swift’s ocean of successes.

Swift remained relatively hush-hush about The Tortured Poets Department up until its release, leaving her fans, admirers and haters alike with nothing but an album title to ponder about. And it’s a bad title.

If you have never been in Swift’s corner, her taking the route of labeling her next “era” as “tortured” was likely catnip for your disinterest. If you are a fan—not necessarily a Swiftie, but even just a casual lover of her best and brightest work—you might be beside yourself about the first Swift album title longer than one word in 14 years.

In terms of popularity—certainly not always in terms of quality—no musician has been bigger this century than Swift, which makes it impossible to really buy into the “torture” of it all.

This is not to say that Swift being the most famous person in the world makes her immune to having multi-dimensional feelings of heartbreak, mental illness or what-have-you.

But, she has made the choice—as a 34-year-old adult—to take those complex, universal familiars and monetize them into a wardrobe she can wear for whatever portion of her Eras Tour setlist she opts to dedicate to the material.

Torture is fashion to Taylor Swift, and she wears her milieu dully. This album will surely get comparisons to Rupi Kaur’s poetry, either for its simplicity, empty language, commodification or all of the above.

And, sure, there are parallels there, especially in how The Tortured Poets Department, too, is going to set the art of poetry back another decade—as Swift’s naive call-to-arms of her own milky-white sorrow rings in like some quintessential “I am going to take pictures of a typewriter on my desk and have a Pinterest mood-board of Courier New font” iPhone fodder. 2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!

Soaking our book reports in coffee or having our moms burn the edges with a kitchen lighter cannot come back into fashion; the cyclical notions of culture cannot make the space for such retreads.

There is nothing poetic about a billionaire—who, mind you, threatens legal action against a Twitter account for tracking her destructive private jet paths—telling stadiums of thousands of people every night that she sees and adores them.

Tavi Gevinson says it well in her Fan Fiction zine: “When 80,000 people are also crying, you become less special, too.” If Swift can return to one of her dozen beach houses across the world, kick up her feet and say “I’m a poet of struggle,” then who is to say that millions—maybe billions—of people with access to a notes app and a social media account won’t dream that dream, too?

Maybe that looks like a net-positive, but it’s inherently damning and destructive to take an art form that has long stood on the shoulders of resistance, of love and of opposition to power, systematic injustice and climate warfare and boil it down to the new defining era of your own 10-digit revenue empire. “My culture is not your costume,” yada, etc.

The Tortured Poets Department does begin with a shred of hope that, just maybe, Swift knows what she’s talking about—as she sneaks in a cheeky “all of this to say,” textbook transitional phrasing for poets, on opening track “Fortnight.”

But “Fortnight” unmasks itself quickly as a heady vat of pop nothingness, though it isn’t all Swift’s fault. “I was a functioning alcoholic, ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic,” she muses, attempting to bridge the gap between a behind-the-scenes life and on-stage performance—only for it to occur while propped up against the most dog-water, uninspired synth arrangement you could possibly imagine.

Between producer Jack Antonoff’s atrocious backing instrumental and the Y2K-era, teen dramedy echo chamber of a vocal harmony provided by out-of-place guest performer Post Malone, “Fortnight” chokes on the vomit of its own opaqueness.

“I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary,” Swift muses, and it sounds like satire. This is your songwriter of the century? Open the schools.

The Tortured Poets Department title-track features some of Swift’s worst lyricism to-date, including the irredeemable, relentlessly cringe “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever” lines glazed atop some synthesizers and drums that just ring in as hollow, unfascinating costuming.

Aside from the Puth nod, which I can only discern as a joke (given the fact that he is one of the 150-most streamed artists in the world and is one of the blandest pop practitioners alive—I don’t care if he can figure out the pitch of any sound you throw at him), I think Antonoff should stick to guitar-playing. Get that man away from a keyboard, I’m begging you.

Synths can be, if you use them correctly, one of the most emotional and provocative instruments in any musician’s tool-box. There’s a reason why keyboards defined the 1980s; they rebelled against the very oppressive nature existing outside of the cultural company they kept. There’s resistance in electronic music that, while they brandish an aesthetic that, to a layman’s ears, seems like technicolor hues for any infectious pop track, it’s a genre that aches to tell its own story. That is simply not the case here, and that electronica hangs Swift out to dry when she drags us through the lukewarm “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith’ / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots” lines, only to hit us with a softly sung F-bomb that sounds like a billionaire’s rendition of that one Miranda Cosgrove podcast clip.

I used to rag pretty heavily on Reputation—mostly because I thought (and still do, mostly) that it sounded like Swift had given up on making interesting, progressive pop music; that, in the wake of her (arguably) best album, 1989, it seemed like she’d lost the plot on where to go next. But as she’s put out Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department back-to-back, I find myself clamoring for the Reputation-era more than ever—at least seven years ago, Swift wrote songs like she had something to prove and even more to lose.

That was the always-obvious charm of Reputation, even despite the downsides—that she took a big swing from the echelons of her own musical immortality, that the comforts of winning every award and selling out the biggest venues in the world were no longer pillowing her aspirations. Even though that swing didn’t land, she still made it in the first place—and Swift is at her best either when she is clawing upwards (Reputation) or faced with nowhere to go but into the studio and noodle with the bare-bones of her own sensibilities (folklore).

You get something like The Tortured Poets Department when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.

The mid-ness of The Tortured Poets Department will not be a net-loss for Swift. She will sell out arenas and get her streams until she elects to quit this business (a phrase decidedly not in her vocabulary, surely).

She will sell more merch bundles than vinyl plants have the capacity to make, and rows of variant LP copies will haunt the record aisles of Target stores just as long as Midnights has—if not longer.

Perhaps, in five or six years’ time, we will speak of this record just as we now do of Reputation. But right now, it is obvious that Swift no longer feels challenged to be good. The Tortured Poets Department is the mark of an artist now interested in seeing how much their empire can atone for the sins of mediocrity.

Can Swift win another Album of the Year Grammy simply because she released a record during the eligibility period? The Tortured Poets Department reeks of “because I can,” not “because I should.”

On “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” Swift tries stepping into the shoes of the country renegades who came before her—the Tammy Wynettes and Loretta Lynns of the world. But her self-aggrandizing inflation of importance, glinting through via a seismically-bland bridge, is backed by a minimal set dressing of guitar, drum machine and keys.

“Good boy, that’s right, come close,” she sings. “I’ll show you Heaven if you’ll be an angel—all mine. Trust me, I can handle me a dangerous man. No, really, I can.” On “Florida!!!,” Swift calls upon Florence + the Machine to help her sing the worst chorus of 2024: “Florida is one hell of a drug / Florida, can I use you up?”

Even Welch, who is a fantastic pop singer-songwriter in her own right, delivers a grossly watery verse: “The hurricane with my name, when it came I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away.”

Not even the typos on the Spotify promotional materials for this album could have foretold such offenses. I won’t even get into the sonics, because Antonoff just rewrites the same soulless patterns every time.

What separates The Tortured Poets Department from something like Reputation is that, on the latter, Swift made it known what was at stake and who she was making that album for—herself, in the aftermath of her greatest long-standing criticisms (“Look What You Made Me Do” triumphs exactly because of this).

On The Tortured Poets Department, there is a striking level of moral nothingness. The stakes are practically non-existent, and the album sounds like it was made by someone who believes that they had no other choice but to finish it, as if Swift fundamentally believes that her creative measures are firmly embedded in the massive monopoly her name and brand currently hold on popular music. That’s how you get meandering pop songs about hookups, wine moms, Stevie Nicks comparisons, Jehovah’s Witness suit mentions, hollowed-out, tone-deaf nods to white-collar crime in lieu of empowerment and, topically, Barbie dolls.

(Don’t even get me started on the Anthology lyrics, which feature these absolute barn-burners: “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” and “My friends used to play a game where / We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I’d say the 1830s, but without all the racists / And getting married off for the highest bid.”) This album and its hackneyed grasps at relevance exist as “Did I just hear that?” personified, but in the most derogatory sense of the notion.

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” features another low-point in Swift’s lyrical oeuvre, as she sings “I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens, ‘cause he took me out of my box”—perhaps a measure of her capitalizing on the Barbenheimer mania that none of us could escape, not even the musician who spent most of 2023 flying across the world from one country to another.

But you, us, the listener—we want to believe that Swift makes these records because she has the artistic will, drive and interest to continue giving us parts of her story in such ways that they exist as an archival of her life.

But the problem is that, on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift is packaging her life into a form that is easily consumable for the 17 or 18 years olds who pour over her music. Just because her Eras Tour film is on Disney+ doesn’t mean she has to strip her songwriting (which we know can be, and has been, phenomenal) down for the sake of it being digestible by a wide spectrum of ages.

And, sure, maybe that makes the work accessible. But on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift makes Zoomer jargon her bag—titling a song after one of the most popular video games in the world and conjuring flickers of “down bad” and “I can fix him”—and it feels like she’s cosplaying because the Fountain of Youth was out of order.

Now that Swift is in her 30s, it sounds like she is infantilizing her own audience more than ever before—that singing to them at a level that could force them to reckon with something more akin with adulthood would be some kind of kink in the coil or her consumeristic threshold, that writing lyrics that sound like they were penned by a 30-year-old would, somehow, deter the interests of the billions of people who adore her.

If making one, continuous coming-of-age album is what Swift has been doing for 15 years, folklore and evermore were hiccups in the timeline—existing as the most fully-formed renderings of Swift’s own insecurities and concerns. They mirrored our platitudes towards an uncertain future with sweet, stirring remarks about isolation and heartbreak and the unavoidable, hard-worn truth about getting older. On those records, her larger-than-life living seemed, for once, to truly feel as close to the ground as ours.

Now, though, Taylor Swift is at the top of the mountain. Far better artists have made far worse records than The Tortured Poets Department, but you can’t read between the lines of this project. There is nothing to decipher from a place of quality.

Sure, Swift’s fan base will pour over these lyrics for the rest of their lives—insisting they know, for certain, which song is about who. But you cannot place a bad album on the shoulders of lore and expect it to be rectified.

We are now left at a crossroads. Women can’t critique Swift because they’ll run the risk of being labeled a “gender traitor” for doing so. Men can’t critique her because they’ll be touted as “sexist.”

And, sure, Swift is probably too easy a punching bag in this case—and most of the time, I would argue she is undeserving of being a victim of such barbs. But, you cannot write about someone being a “tattooed golden retriever” and get away with it and still retain your title as the best songwriter of your generation. You just cannot.

Sisyphus should be glad he never got the boulder to the top of the mountain—because Taylor Swift is showing us that such immortality and success ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And, when you’re standing on the peak alone, who else is there left to hit?

In a recent interview with The Standard, Courtney Love said that Swift is “not interesting as an artist,” and I think The Tortured Poets Department proves as much. She has nothing to fight for, no doubters left to drown.

So where does she turn? Well, to boredoms of celebrity thinly veiled as sorrow everyone and their mother can latch onto—because we’ve all had to “ditch the clowns, get the crown” at some point in our lives, right?

The billionaire is having an identity crisis, but there are no social media apps for her to buy up. So she sings like Lana Del Rey and writes meta-self-referential songs about looking like Stevie Nicks.

What’s hollow about The Tortured Poets Department is that the real torture is just how unlivable these songs really are. No one can resonate with “So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record, scratch as I scream ‘Who’s afraid of little old me?’ You should be.” And normally, that wouldn’t be an end-all-be-all for a pop record—but when your brand is built on copious levels of “I’m just like you!” as the demigod saying it to their fans does so from a multi-million-dollar production set, it’s hard to not feel nauseated by the overlording, overbearing sense of heavy-handed detritus we’re tasked with sifting through on The Tortured Poets Department.

Love’s words to Lana, her advice to “take seven years off,” should be applied to Swift. Now, that doesn’t mean that, to make a good album, you must sit on material for years and labor extensively through the sketching, shaping and recording in order for it to be transcendentally landmark. But it’s obvious now that not even Taylor Swift wants to be the head of an empire—that she, too, can’t outrun the damning fate of being plum out of ideas by hopping in her jet and skirting off to God knows where.

See you at the Grammys.

****

[imagineastrology]

What the Moon signs are best at! 🥇

To celebrate the beginning of the 2024 Paris Olympics! 🥇

Aries Moon: the best at putting yourself first, selective listening and ignoring your neighbour’s pleas when you blast heavy metal

Taurus Moon: the best at ALWAYS knowing what you want, organising, and ultimately having your shit together

Gemini Moon: the best at comedic timing, lightening the mood, and having a tremendous gift of the gab

Cancer Moon: the best at being passive-aggressive, positively reigniting the meaning of ‘home’, and being forthcoming with their thoughts

Leo Moon: the best at empowering others, standing your ground, channelling anger into art, and looking exquisite whilst dying inside

Virgo Moon: the best at the clean gal aesthetic, managing stress like it’s their profession, and staying true to their words and actions

Libra Moon: the best at mediating tense situations, critiquing art, considering and understanding all points of views

Scorpio Moon: the best at overcoming insane situations, living to your own definitions, and listening to your gut feelings

Sagittarius Moon: the best at adapting to anything, finding the silver lining in life, and helping others to find their own joy

Capricorn Moon: the best at working and playing hard, having tenacity to stay in positions of power as they have earned it, and living with humility

Aquarius Moon: the best at self-confidence, actively making a positive difference in the world, and giving others a subconscious boost to be themselves

Pisces Moon: the best at reminding us that sensitivity is a strength, being mindful, always knowing the best things to say, and living out the motto: “go with the flow”

[podcastenthusiast]

"Here should be safe to set up camp," Geralt says, scanning the treeline with his eyes in that odd witcher way. Like he's seeing much more than a mere mortal could.

"Thank the gods," sighs Jaskier, who's been really starting to regret skiving off those physical fitness courses at Oxenfurt.

"Get a fire started while I tend to Roach."

"Oh Geralt, I'd love to, I would. Truly it's colder than a sorceress' shapely—"

"Jaskier."

"Well, as they say: you can lead a bard to timber, but you can't make him—"

"Just do it, Jaskier."

"I don't know how! All right? I've never built a fire in the middle of nowhere before! It's not one of the seven liberal arts, and I much prefer my fires stoked by comely barmaids in taverns."

Geralt looks at him for a long moment. It's a complicated look—frustration and amusement and a hint of regret. Mostly it's a look that says Jaskier is an idiot for joining him on the Path.

"Right," Geralt says slowly. He begins building the campfire himself.

"I imagine they teach wilderness survival to baby witchers at witcher school."

Geralt looks at him again and there's something different in his expression. The ghost of a smile? Jaskier doesn't quite know how to read it.

"Kaer Morhen," he says. "And yeah. Something like that."

"Oh?" Jaskier has to rein in his enthusiasm, his curious questions. Geralt so rarely reveals anything personal about himself or his past. Not that Jaskier has been forthcoming in that regard either. They live in the moment, day by day, but some context would help his creative process.

Besides all that, he genuinely wants to get to know Geralt a little better.

"Vesemir took me out into the forest one day. Gave me a knife and left me there for a month."

There is no bitterness in his words. If anything, the witcher sounds...almost fond. Nostalgic. Proud of his younger self for overcoming the challenges his mentors set before him.

It takes a moment for the true meaning of that to sink in and, once it does, Jaskier is horrified. His own parents weren't great, but even they would never simply abandon him.

"He just— like as a test— what—?"

"Real eloquent, bard. I doubt he had any choice. Probably wasn't even supposed to give me anything."

"How old were you?" he demands, unsure if any answer will make this revelation less abhorrent.

"Six? Seven? Maybe eight. I don't know." Geralt makes a gesture with his fingers and the pile of wood beneath his hand sparks with flame. "Not old enough to have learned Igni yet."

He can picture it, too, so vividly. Curse his dammed artist's imagination. Geralt, just a kid, alone and scared and definitely cold—because no one bothered to teach him how to start a fire.

"Stop it," the witcher snaps.

"What?"

"Looking at me like that. I'm fine. I was fine back then. Wasn't so bad at all compared to the Grasses. Vesemir came back for me like he said he would. I survived the trial—no, I didn't just survive; I exceeded all expectations, which is why they..." The witcher trails off. Takes a breath.

All of that... It's quite a lot of words for Geralt. Honest words, even.

It's his job to talk, to sing, to commit the most painful and difficult experiences to beautiful poetic verse. But Jaskier doesn't know what to say to his friend right now. Surely he has to say something.

"Geralt..."

"Don't waste your pity. Save it for the ones who didn't make it through. I did."

"Okay," the bard replies, careful and tentative. He isn't a brave man, nor a particularly kind one. But Jaskier considers himself an honest fellow so he adds, "Just because you made it through, you know, that doesn't mean what happened to you was all right, Geralt. Children aren't supposed to be left alone to fend for themselves."

The witcher laughs—a humorless, wretched sound. He doesn't say anything at all to that. Which is okay, really; Jaskier just needed him to hear it.

There is a long silence. The fire crackles. Jaskier absently strums his lute.

"You're gonna write a ballad about this, aren't you," Geralt says after a while.

"No!" Maybe. Yes. He won't perform it.

"Hm."

The fire crackles.

Quite out of the blue, Geralt tells him, "I befriended a wolf back then."

"What? You're joking!"

"Witchers don't have a sense of humor. Common knowledge."

"Common misconception. Most people are just stupid. No, hang on, stop distracting me—You had a pet wolf?!"

"Not a pet," the witcher corrects, smiling faintly. "Fangtooth was her own wolf."

"Fangtooth?" Jaskier repeats, struggling to contain his amusement. "Not Roach?"

"No."

"Forgive me, but that's adorable."

"I was just a child. I wanted to stay with her in the wilderness. Be a wolf, too. Or a knight." He shakes his head dismissively. Silly childish dreams.

"But you didn't," Jaskier says. And feels stupid for saying something so obvious.

"Too late for that," Geralt replies without reproach. "I was already a witcher."

"As a child, I wanted to run away and join the circus," the bard offers.

"Of course you did."

They're quiet for a moment then. Comfortable, shared silence. Just the sounds of birds and forest creatures, and Roach contentedly eating grass. The fire crackles.

"Geralt, will you teach me to light a fire? Without witcher magic, obviously, since I don't have any."

"Why?"

"Because...well, because I could be a more useful traveling companion. Like Fangtooth must've been."

"...Fine," Geralt agrees after some thought.

It is a skill he will be very grateful to have on freezing nights in the coming years, especially whenever the witcher is too injured or ill from those dreadful potions to help set up camp. He will try not to think of the child Geralt once was, subjected to horrific tests of his ability to survive all on his own.

Except he hadn't been on his own back then, not completely. And he isn't alone anymore, either.

[emotionalsupporthufflefluff]

fancy sticks that guide us all

Ominis Gaunt x GN!Hufflepuff!Reader (Not MC)

[Table of Contents]

Summary: Always having admired Ominis Gaunt from afar, you were a muggleborn Hufflepuff with no hope of ever gaining his attention. Until, one day, you were the only one he paid any attention to. (just pure blushy fluff/ no beta, we die like Soloman Sallow)

Of course, you knew about him. You had been in Hogwarts this whole time, you were in the same year as him, no matter that he was Slytherin and you were just a ‘lowly’ Hufflepuff (though everyone else who said that could scoot on with themselves, you had so much pride in your house). There was also the matter that he was a rather special case, being pureblood and a Gaunt, and blind. Even those who had never even heard of the Gaunt name would see him out of the corner of their eyes, the pulsing red light at the end of his wand almost signalling that everyone should pay attention. And you definitely paid attention.

You couldn’t help but be selfishly grateful for his blindness at times, when your staring had become so apparent that other classmates, or friends- let’s not mention the teachers- had to gain your attention back and raise their eyebrows at you. “Oh, just staring off into space,” You’d tell them, as if you weren’t always looking directly at a particular space every time. Even your best friend Poppy, as lovely as she could be, teased you mercilessly about your ‘daydreaming.’ It’s already been seven years, and you could only play your admiration off so many times before someone got suspicious.

Poppy had figured it out eventually, though you had been surprised it took her so long. Your crush on one Ominis Gaunt was indeed obvious, as loath as you were to admit it. Though, granted, Poppy had some other things in mind. Rather, creatures in mind. However, once she finally followed your line of sight one too many times, her gasp was so loud it disturbed the entire Charms class, and you had blushed so brightly that Professor Ronen had almost sent you to see the nurse. After assurances that everything was okay and no, you did not need to see the nurse, you really were okay, the professor finally continued on with his lecture.

So, yes, of course, you knew Ominis Gaunt. But that didn’t mean he knew you. At least, that’s what you believed.

You were just exiting the rarely-used side door out of the Central Hall, leading to the bridge that ran above the Transfiguration courtyard toward the Defense Against the Dark Arts building, when you decided that you’d settle on the nearby bench and work on your potions homework that was due later in the week. Since it was your last year here at Hogwarts, all the professors were handing out their hardest assignments yet, and you still weren’t exactly sure how Professor Sharp expected you to write forty inches on the improper uses of dittany.

You were just settling your bookbag on the rough stone bench, digging through for your books and parchment when you heard a noise nearby. Curious, you turned your head and noticed someone standing behind a statue near the corner of the castle, coughing lightly as if trying to be discreet. You tilted your head in confusion, leaving your bookbag and approaching the statue slowly.

“Hello? Are you sick?” When no response was forthcoming, you continued on, “I could help escort you to the nurse if you need it?”

“No, I’m just fine, thank you.” His voice came from behind the statue- and, wait- it was his voice and you couldn’t stop yourself from sucking in a gasp. You could only hope he hadn’t heard the quick inhale. However, his response really didn’t answer any questions. You took a few more steps, circling around to be able to see the side of the statue, and there he was. Ominis Gaunt was sitting on the statue's pedestal, his head in his hands and no pulsing red glow in sight. You felt frozen in your spot, studying the man with your eyes and wondering what had happened to cause the hunch to his shoulders.

“Well, if you’re not sick, then- well, that is to say-” You hesitated, unsure how to phrase your question. Once you pause, not fully finishing the thought you had tried to start, Ominis finally lowers his hands in defeat, turning his head slightly in your direction. You took that as an indication that he was listening, and took another step forward. “It’s just that I frequent this courtyard often, and I’ve never seen you here?”

“You come here often?” He asked, his tone incredulous, and you couldn’t keep your laugh back.

“Well, it’s quiet.”

“Not as quiet as some other places. I can practically hear all the conversations happening down in the transfiguration courtyard.” Once he finished his sentence, you remained quiet for a moment, tilting your head as if this would help you listen. You could hear slight mumbling from the yard below, but likely nowhere near as well as he could.

“Well, some of us aren’t so gifted in the hearing department,” You muttered, shrugging despite the fact that he couldn’t see it. You almost felt bad for the statement until Ominis’ smile slowly grew across his face. “Anyway, sorry to bother. I just wanted to see if you needed any help, but since you’re fine-”

“Actually!” His outburst startled you, causing you to turn back toward him after almost heading back to your bookbag. You noticed he held a hand out toward you, slightly to the right of where you stood, and you tilted your head, taking a few more steps toward him. You could tell his course correction as you walked, moving his hand toward you directly before finally dropping it. “I do- well, I happen to have, uh,” He hesitates, picking at his nails as he stares off in a random direction, “Well, I’ve dropped my wand.”

At this, you felt another gasp well up, studying Ominis a bit more thoroughly before turning and searching the ground of the courtyard with your eyes. Not seeing a wand laying around, you finally took the last few steps toward him and sat next to him on the stone. “Was it out here?”

“Yes,” Ominis answered as you got distracted by the lovely blush lighting up the top of his cheeks and the tips of his ears. He really was charming, and the blush only highlighted the fact. Your eyes kept darting between his milky blue eyes, down to the blush- and hells, he must be embarrassed- and finally to his hands before circling back up. After a few beats too long, he speaks up again hesitantly, “Do you see it?”

Keeping yourself from yelling out ‘Oh!’ you immediately turn your head and scan the surrounding area again. “Out here- what, in this spot?” You jump off the stone, crouching down onto your knees and scooting around to search the area more thoroughly.

“Well, not exactly here. I had been walking from the Defense Against the Dark Arts tower when a strong wind blew, practically knocking me down. I lost hold of my wand and heard it clatter in this direction. I tried Accio but it didn’t return so I tried to search for it.”

You lifted your head at this, intending to look up and ask where exactly he had been standing when you realized where exactly you were kneeling. You were practically right in front of his lap, and honestly, if anyone walked by at this moment they would probably get the wrong idea. If you hadn’t been blushing before you certainly were now, your face emanating heat like a furnace. You clear your throat and stand, nodding and looking anywhere but at him.

“Right! Right, okay, so you were on the bridge when you dropped it?”

“Am I-” Ominis hesitates, scrunching his eyebrows together, before continuing in a quieter voice, “Am I no longer on the bridge now?”

You finally look back to his concerned expression, blinking a few times. You were surprised at his question, he had always seemed so capable. Yet, you supposed, he likely depended on his wand to know where he was and how to get around. This only made you even more determined. You placed your hands on your hips and began a circle, studying more intently before walking closer toward the bridge, looking both ways. Hesitating, and fearing the worst, you approached the edge of the bridge and looked downward.

“Wait, I see it!”

“You do? Can you bring it-”

“Well, not exactly-”

“What?”

“It fell off the bridge toward the Transfiguration courtyard, wait, just-” You withdraw your wand and perform your own Accio to watch the wand wiggle in place, caught on some sort of edge on a statue down in the courtyard below. You sigh, shaking your head with a smile. “Well, that explains it. It got caught on the statue down there, I tried to summon it but all it did was a little jig.”

“A little jig?” Ominis questions you, a smile playing on his lips, as you begin to approach him once more.

“Yeah, y’know,” You began to wiggle yourself before stopping, sighing and approaching before grabbing his hand and wiggling it. “Like that.”

“Oh,” He whispered, almost like an exhalation of breath than anything, but his fingers curled around your own instead of pulling away. You swallow roughly for a moment before he tugs on your hand, looking up from his sitting position. “Could you lead me down to it?”

You were holding his hand, you were holding his hand, okay, don’t panic. You nod before, once again, stopping yourself and speaking. “Yeah, I mean, of course!” You take a firmer hold on his hand and pull until he stands, blushing at the fond smile on his face.

“Thanks, Y/N,” He mumbles, and you felt a burst of butterflies flood your stomach. He knew your name? “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t come around.”

“Oh, aha,” You chuckle breathlessly, trying to brush it off, “It’s fine, of course, no problem. Every Slytherin needs their emotional support Hufflepuff.” You kick yourself in your mind, shaking your head, but begin to pull Ominis in the direction of the door to the Central Hall.

“Oh, is that the rule? I hadn’t been aware.” He mumbled, his head low as he walked. “I guess that means you’re stuck with me, then.”

Travelling the staircases of the Central Hall ended up easier than you had thought it’d be, really you only had to tell him when the stairs were beginning and ending and he was able to correct himself accordingly. It had been a little crowded, but you managed to keep him from knocking into anybody as you traversed the hall. Finally making it through to the Transfiguration courtyard, you pulled him over toward the statue that you had seen.

“Here, wait just a second,” You began to climb the statue, pulling yourself upward until you could finally reach and nudge the wand. You pushed it a few times before it finally slid from its perch, clattering down onto the ground. You heard a mumbled spell from Ominis as you tried to climb down, slipping halfway through and beginning the short descent with a wince, your heart spiking.

Except, you never felt the impact, and belatedly registered Ominis yelling out the levitation charm quickly. You opened your eyes, looking around to notice Omiinis’ wand glowing lightly, pulsing as if he was still using his normal charm, and you were slowly lowered to the ground. As he began to approach you snapped your mouth shut after having been hanging it open in astonishment, and watch as he offers a hand down to you. You take it once again, and he helps haul you up to your feet once more.

“Thank you,” You whisper, standing a little too close to him, though neither makes a move to back away.

“I should be the one thanking you,” He mutters back, his voice quiet like yours as if he didn’t want to break whatever was happening between you two. “I’m practically useless without my wand.”

“Aren’t we all though?” You watched his eyebrows raise in surprise, and suck in a breath, attempting to explain, “Well, I just mean-”

“No, I get it. I know what you’re saying it’s just- no one has ever agreed before. Everyone always tries to say that it’s untrue, that I don’t need to rely on my wand.”

“But,” You hesitate, biting your lip as you stare into his milky eyes from so close, “Don’t we all? I mean, especially here, no? In the school that teaches us magic, we literally use these sticks every day and-” You’re cut off by his loud laugh, and you couldn’t help but copy his smile.

“Sticks?”

“Oh, well, you know. Before I came here I had no clue wands even existed. They- well, they really do just look like fancy sticks.”

“Fancy sticks,” He repeats to you once more, shaking his head slowly, his large grin softening to a fond smile once more. You both remained quiet once more before you suddenly felt a touch at your hand, looking down to notice him taking your hand once more. “You wouldn’t happen to want to lead me to our next class?”

“I-” You hesitate, and he seems to get the wrong message, pulling away before you reach forward with your hand, taking his now, “No, I just- I left my bookbag upstairs when I went to talk to you. I forgot to grab it on the way down here.”

“Then, we go fetch your bookbag, and head to potions?” Your smile widens, squeezing his hand gently and receiving a squeeze back in kind.

“I wouldn’t want to make you go out of your way.”

“You went out of your way for me,” He replies easily, tugging on your hand once more. “If you stay indecisive for very much longer, I have a feeling we’ll be late.”

“Then I guess we better get a move on,” You whisper, your chest filling with sparks and sunlight, and you feel almost so giddy you couldn’t contain it. You began to lead him away, and despite having his wand pulsing in one hand, you led him around the castle with his other.

A/N: I meant this to be a cute little one shot but now I have an idea for another fluff piece as maybe a part two to this so maybe I’ll write that if y’all want??

[daresplaining]

Mattea Murdock, the Daredevil Drummer of Philly

In celebration of the forthcoming new Spider-Punk: Arms Race series (not to mention Hobie stealing scenes in "Across the Spider-Verse" last year), I wanted to finally write up my long-overdue overview post on Mattea Murdock! If you haven't read her introductory run yet, check it out here.

Mattea truly stands on her own in the wide canon of alternate universe DDs. She is a female Daredevil, she is Latina, and she somehow managed to escape Marvel's NYC gravity and base herself in Philadelphia, where she defends its citizens from violence and exploitation. Hobie and his self-styled Spider-Band encounter her in Spider-Punk (2022) #3, when they make a detour to fix the busted Spider-Van. They are all immediately-- and correctly-- impressed.

Mattea: "Yo, Kam!" Hobie: "Wait, you know each other?!" Kamala: "Duh! You think I wouldn't know the Daredevil Drummer of Philly?" Hobie: "You're a drummer too?" Mattea: "Best in town." Hobie: "Oh man, my friend Gwen is a pretty dope drummer too. I think y'all would definitely get along." Mattea: "Hope they're ready to get outplayed by a pretty, blind girl." Spider-Punk vol. 1 #3 by Cody Ziglar, Justin Mason, Jim Charalampidis, and Travis Lanham

I talked a little about her killer character/costume design when she was first introduced (I was a fool; of course she's blind), and my love for her look has only grown. It's badass, distinctive, and it slots her beautifully into Hobie's punk rock world while still evoking that trademark Daredevil image (red, sticks, pointy bits...). Her irises are red, which is a visual choice I enjoy in more heightened, fantastical DD stories/art styles, and I think it works for Mattea. Heck, I could even imagine them being colored contact lenses she's chosen to wear for the aesthetic. Also, one detail that wasn't in the previews is the fun little laughing devil face on the back of her jacket (I'm not punk rock enough to get the reference if it is one, but it reminds me of Darkdevil):

Of course, always a big priority for me is Daredevil's power-set, and Mattea provides a quick primer on her unique perspective, mostly focused on hearing and the radar sense:

Mattea: "What? You think just 'cause I'm a blind girl, I can't see? Echolocation, my abuelas used to call it. But it's more intimate. Instinctual. Can hear a kick drum from ten blocks away. Can see it too. If I think hard enough, I can even see what the garage it's being played in looks like." Hobie: "Yo, are you doing it right now?" Riri: "She's definitely doing it right now."

This is not my favorite description of Daredevil's powers, nor-- to be honest-- a particularly informative one. She can gather spatial information through walls...from ten blocks away? I also never love an overuse of visual language in any explanation of these powers, especially as it's implied that Mattea, like Matt, is completely blind. Surprisingly, no direct mention is made here of the hypersenses as a whole, beyond the reference to hearing a kick drum from ten blocks away. Even her hearing doesn't receive that much attention in the story overall, which feels like a missed opportunity for such a musical character. Her blindness, too, is pretty much irrelevant to the story, and never comes up again. But I do LOVE that she uses the term "echolocation", though is still very clearly the radar sense, in all its vague, undefined, semi-magic glory.

And visually? This is great. I'm always a fan of the cross-hatching visual, especially against a black background, and artist Justin Mason doesn't go too overboard on the detail, which is another preference of mine. And thematically, I love the ways in which Mattea's drummer identity is tied into her superheroics-- not just for laying a beatdown on bad guys, but also for channelling and enhancing her echolocation/radar sense. One of my favorite scenes in the comic is when she plays a drum solo on a roof edge to scope out the Kingpin's lair. I'm willing, in that moment, to ignore any gripes about radar sense irregularities out of respect for the coolness and thematic heft of the concept. I mean, this rocks:

Mattea: "Come on, show me the good stuff."

At the end of the day, though, this is not a Daredevil comic and Mattea is not the main character. Plus, it's only five issues long, and introduces a bunch of other new characters as well. There was only ever going to be room for the creative team to offer a cursory introduction, hopefully generating enough interest to prompt these characters to appear again in other comics. In that, I think they fully succeeded with Mattea; we get a cursory sense of her powers (or at least, enough to show that they're the normal DD set), her personality (delightfully cocky, playful, tough, fearless), a few hints of her backstory, and some truly kickass fight scenes. There's a bit of suspension of disbelief required to believe she can use drumsticks as a stand-in for billy clubs (unless her drumsticks are made of something really hefty-- and hey, maybe they are), but this is Spider-Punk. Hobie killed Norman Osborn with a guitar--twice. It's not about realism, it's about style.

Mattea: "Been waiting for this for a long time, Fisk. Real long time." Fisk: "I'm going to break you, li'l girl--AWGGH!" Mattea: "Big, strong man who sends out his band of wackos to push over people too weak to fight back." Fisk: "Wouldn't get too cocky, girlie...you're not the only one who's fast! I'm gonna hurt ya. A lot. Then I'm gonna kill ya. And I'm gonna love every second of it. You know, this is the same look you had when I had your old band clapped a few years back. I like it. Brings out your eyes--GAAAH!" Mattea: "There's something you need to understand about me, papi. I'm not the kinda girl who goes down without a fight."

I can't wait to see more of Mattea and learn more about her, her world, her friends, and her enemies. In particular, she seems to have a history (possibly romantic?) with this world's Kamala Khan, and I would love to see more of that relationship. While Mattea Murdock clearly has a lot in common with Matt Murdock, she also seems happy to be a team player, unlike Matt, and I really enjoy that. Though I guess it's not that surprising a distinction. After all, every drummer needs a band.

[maniculum]

Bestiaryposting Plan

So the poll is still running, but I think I'm safe in saying there's sufficient interest, so I'm going ahead and typing up a "how we're going to do this" thing, which I will schedule to post after the poll ends properly. As of the time I'm writing this, over 500 people have voted for the "yes I want to draw things" option, and I had been expecting to get maybe a dozen, so we definitely have enough participants. Let's get started then:

Our Source

I had originally planned to translate an Old or Middle English bestiary, but haven't been able to find a good one -- the best option I was able to dig up only has thirteen critters, which I feel like isn't enough to really have fun with. I was debating the idea of translating a Latin one -- this would have been far more time-consuming since my Latin is terrible, but also I do need to practice it, so I figured it evens out -- when I found a solution that doesn't involve me spending hours and hours on translating.

It seems that when Aberdeen University created their digitized version of the famous Aberdeen Bestiary, they released it under a Creative Commons license. (Assuming I'm reading their copyright policy correctly; I'm not a lawyer.) It does not seem to specify whether the transcriptions and translations they attach to the scanned images are also covered by Creative Commons, but since all of those are already freely available online through their website, I can't imagine they would have a problem with me posting them here as long as I provide attribution (which I am hereby doing right here on this post) and am not using it for commercial purposes (which I am not).

The Aberdeen Bestiary is missing a few pages, but there exists a very similar manuscript, the Ashmole Bestiary (they're sometimes called "sister" manuscripts), which is not missing those pages. And I happen to have a translation of the Ashmole Bestiary in hardcopy on my bookshelf, so I can just use it to fill in the gaps. Edit: whoops, the one I have is the Bodley Bestiary. They are in the same bestiary "family", though, so it still works well enough. (I think that should qualify as "fair use", since I'm only taking excerpts and not using them commercially.)

The upside of using the Aberdeen Bestiary is that it means when I round up all the art of each critter, I can include their very nice illustrations alongside the reveal of what animal was being described.

The downside of using the Aberdeen Bestiary is that since it already is free online, people might be tempted to "cheat" by looking up the entries and finding out what animal they describe. For that, please see the next section...

Guessing the Animal

Guessing what animal is being described is not the point of the exercise. (Feel free to have theories and whatnot, but please keep them to yourself so as not to influence the artists.) If you see an entry and think, e.g., "oh that's describing a raccoon"*, and then you create a picture of a raccoon... well, you could have done a perfectly good raccoon at any point and didn't need this framework to do it. So just don't worry about what animal is meant, and do your best to draw (or paint or stitch or whatever else) based on the description! You're not getting ranked on accuracy and there are no prizes forthcoming, so... just have fun with it.

*Example chosen as something that will, for obvious reasons, definitely not be in a 13th-century European bestiary.

Edit after starting to type these things up: some of these are going to be super easy to guess, though, to the point where I don't know how possible it'll be to block out prior knowledge. Sorry about that.

General Procedure

I'm going to schedule a post every Monday (I'm thinking of queuing them for 6pm Eastern Time) with a new entry. It will be the translation of an entry from the Aberdeen Bestiary with all references to the animal's name replaced by a randomly-generated nonsense word. (Henceforth to be referred to as "nonsense-names". I'm Googling* each one before using them so I don't accidentally generate one that actually means something.) These posts will all be tagged maniculum bestiaryposting, so you can follow that tag if you want to make sure you see them.'

*Later Note: Did you know that if you search dozens of nonsense words within a short span of time, Google makes you prove you're not a robot? Repeatedly?

Anyone who wants to draw the critter being described should do so. (You are encouraged to describe your thought process re: why you've depicted it the way you have.) You can put it in its own post, or reblog the description with an image, or however you want to do it. Then tag your art with the nonsense-name I've given to the animal.This will let me and others find it. (You should probably employ copy/paste there to make sure the spelling is the same, since nonsense words are hard to spellcheck.)

A week after posting the bestiary entry, I'll go through that tag and round up all of the art contributed. Then I'll put the images in a big post (or series thereof, considering how many people might participate), along with an @ and a link to your original post.

If you want...

to not have your work included in the round-up post

to have only a link to your post included and not an image

to have me include a link to your website / other social media / etsy shop in addition to or instead of your tumblr

to have other information included alongside your work

anything else along those lines

... then just say so in your post and I will follow your instructions to the best of my ability.

I will also include, at the end of the round-up post, an image of the creature as depicted in the Aberdeen Bestiary and what it is actually called.

All posts I make on this will be collected at https://maniculum.tumblr.com/bestiaryposting so that people can look at previous ones without scrolling through the tag.

Various Notes

I'm going to trim out any religious digressions in the original entries -- bestiary authors had a habit of adding stuff like "and the raccoon is symbolic of god in such-and-such fashion, which teaches us...", and I just don't think that's relevant here.

The entries will also be presented in a random order. This is because they're sorted into categories in the original text, so if I don't change the order we're going to get stuck with, e.g., a few months of All Birds All The Time.

You should all be aware that the animals described are not guaranteed to be, you know, real. There are several entries describing animals that straight up do not exist -- some of which are mythical creatures familiar to most people, others of which are extremely obscure.

Explanations of the animal's name within the entries will be redacted.

If other animals are mentioned within the entries, they will not get replaced with nonsense-names. Originally, I was going to make the switch globally, so that if, e.g., the entry for "raccoon" read "a raccoon is about the size of a possum", and the random generator had decided that a raccoon was a balzikhear and a possum was a flunggrish, the "raccoon" entry would now read "a balzikhear is about the size of a flunggrish". However, I decided that it will cause more problems than it solves to obscure any comparisons to other animals -- so the name-switch is now localized only to the specific entry. A possum is a flunggrish only in its own entry, and remains a possum everywhere else.

I was originally going to do one post for every single entry, but there are a lot of them and they vary wildly in length & quality. So I've cut it down to exactly 52 posts, meaning that if I queue them up for once a week, this will run for roughly a full year.

Most of that cutting-down mentioned above was done by combining a bunch of the really short entries into categories -- the last half-dozen posts in this series will be group entries. You can choose to make art of any of them that strike your fancy, or do a group portrait, or just ignore them --I dunno, I'm not a cop, do what you want.

I did also directly cut some, mostly domesticated animals because there's a somewhat different approach to them based on author and audience familiarity.

So yeah, that should cover everything.

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

I’ve seen people on Twitter talk about how Hazbin Hotel was snubbed since it wasn’t nominated for an Emmy and talking about how people who don’t like the show are happy about it and like.

Idk I can only speak for myself, but tbh I’m kinda sad that the show, from the beginning, just…wasn’t good. Not Emmy good, at the very least. (more below)

There’s this weird expectation that, if you are at all critical or dissatisfied with what the Hazbin show ended up being, that you’re a horrible person who is obsessed with seeing everyone who worked on the project fail, and have just hated the show and its creator since the beginning of time and like…

I did not want the show to be bad!! I was really hoping that I’d be wrong, that I’d be pleasantly surprised, that the show would be entertaining and well written and paced. But, for me, it just wasn’t.

I have tried to be very forthcoming about the things I liked and what I wished the show would have focused on more. I wanted to like the show!!! I would have LOVED the show if its writing and animation were on par with other adult animated shows.

However when it came out, it had a LOT of problems, and it seems really clear to me that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences picked up on them, just as I did.

It’s so odd to me that a lot of Hazbin “super-fans” think that if you’re critical of the show you must hate it, because the majority of people I’ve spoken to who are very critical of the series ARE fans of the series who felt disappointed by it when it actually came out.

Switching gears a bit—It’s genuinely kind of disheartening to see so many people prop the show up as if it was the best most perfect best show ever when, in reality, Hazbin is a perfectly serviceable and fun show, but is not as deep or as well-crafted as it claims to be, and as a lot of other adult animation that’s out right now.

Recently, I’ve seen this belief develop in some fandoms that what you love needs to be somehow validated or “proven” to be good by winning an award or receiving accolades.

And while I definitely understand the desire to see something you love be recognized for the artistry that’s put into it, the truth is that sometimes there are really really good pieces of art and media that don’t get the recognition they deserve, and there are really really bad pieces of art and media that are treated like holy grails.

Like I’m saying all of this as someone who’s favorite movie is fucking Tron: Legacy. I LOVE Tron Legacy. It’s so fun and I love the characters and environment. But it’s also bad!!! It’s a very convoluted plot, and characters don’t get a lot of development and it has the “born sexy yesterday” trope which I hate and it’s one of my favorite movies of all time!!! I love it!!

But it doesn’t have to be a perfect masterpiece for it to be a masterpiece to me personally. I can recognize that while I love it, it’s not particularly amazing by any means. It’s kind of a shit show. The story and writing and cinematography don’t deserve any big awards. But I love it and that’s all that matters!

I do not think that Hazbin Hotel deserves any awards for being an excellent television show, and I can also really see why the people who decide Emmy nominations did not nominate it.

But who cares what I think!! My favorite movie is Tron Legacy! And I completely unironically love the 1993 Super Mario Bros. Movie!!!

The point I’m trying to make is that, while yes, it can be disappointing when something you love isn’t recognized, but that shouldn’t take away the value the show has to you if you love it.

Hazbin Hotel can be a bad show, and it can still be your favorite show that you love more than anything. Tron Legacy can be a bad movie and I can still love it and think it’s peak cinema. It’s okay. It’s okay to like and love media that isn’t perfect. It’s okay to criticize the media you love.

[serial-serializednovelreader]

Nova’s Notes - Dracula Daily - July 20

In which Seward completes his thought (it only took him *checks notes* TWELVE days to cook it up but it’s here)…

Again, Seward uses a lot of ableist language in this entry that I do not relish. There is also implied animal death (not “shown”, just said to have happened) and mention of drugging someone. To get around this, I won’t quote these parts and will only describe them as little as I can (under the cut). I’ll also post this with the appropriate tags. If I don’t see you in this one, I hope to see you in a bit of a lighter entry! Your mental health matters <3

“Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his fly-catching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away.”

I know we have a lot to get to, but at least I finally have an answer as to how he’s catching flies — sugar! That makes sense! (Yes, that is what I’m focusing on, no I’m not sorry about it — I’ve been asking Seward about methodology for WEEKS and he just got back to me with this /j) I do wonder where he gets the sugar to spread though…I suppose if Seward is supporting his “pet endeavors” to this end, he is probably allowing him to keep sugar for this purpose. I guess that makes sense. I’m also just imagining Renfield dancing around and humming while spreading sugar…a fun image, to be sure.

Here’s where it gets bad. Last warning, y’all!

What’s not fun is that we can’t see where the birds went. And Renfield isn’t forthcoming on where they went….the fact he won’t turn around while speaking to Seward is telling in and of itself.

So Seward looks further about the room and sees two signs that point to Renfield lying about the birds flying away: feathers scattered about the room, and a drop of blood on his pillow.

Not a good sign!!! Not a good sign at all!!!! I knew this was coming, but I do love that Stoker *evokes* the message of what happened, rather than outright saying it by showing the image of blood and feathers. The art of show don’t tell comes into play once more.

A bit later in the day at 11 a.m., an attendant affirms what Seward already knows: those birds did not just “fly away”. How do they know? Well, Renfield is now sick and is…throwing up feathers. Yeah, this isn’t good.

Twelve hours later, we get an update: that Renfield was given some medication to put him to sleep and Seward took his notebook to read.

Ok, so initially when I read this I was like, “he drugged him without his consent???? To take his notebook???? How DARE he????” And yes, we can definitely look at it in that light, but before doing so, I’d recommend reading this post with the note at the bottom by @rosetyler42 (and also has really good points by @animate-mush for the later points in this post, which I’ll also address). TL;DR, the point raised is that there’s a good chance Seward actually gave Renfield the medicine to help him go to sleep because of his illness. I agree that he likely has food poisoning after what he’s eaten and, as someone who’s had this, you do not feel very good! It would make sense that Seward — as a doctor — would give him medication to treat it, though in this case, the treatment would likely mean putting him to sleep for a time. With all of the nausea and pain he’s in, that actually has some sense to it.

Of course, in the meantime, Seward *will* take the opportunity to read Renfield’s journal. He may be treating his patient (and whether you believe he actually is treating him, or that he solely drugged him to get the notebook is your choice — I know he hasn’t being the most ethical person lately), but he’s not going to miss the chance to peek through the personal belongings while he can! That’s just how Seward is.

Note: this next part is where he uses the majority of his ableist language. I don’t mention it in my thoughts, but wanted to give a heads up for anyone who hasn’t read the entry yet and was wondering where this starts.

Seward finally completes his thought (and I can’t really skate around the implications, so apologies for this): Renfield is setting out to absorb as much life as he can, and he intends to do this by way of a mini food chain, with him as the top predator. Seward is quite interested in what would have been his later steps, and if anything scientifically important could be achieved by this.

Yes, this is where he brings up vivisection, but as the post I linked states, this is more of an example of what was considered to be a strange scientific method that turned out to be useful, rather than him wanting to perform this on Renfield. Don’t get me wrong, the fact that he brings up vivisection as his first thought is…strange, I won’t deny that. But I think it’s more his brain nerding out on science things, rather than wanting to do a vivisection. What he does what to do is get to the heart of what Renfield’s science could be capable of, if anything. However, and this is important to note, he won’t do that because he is not willing to go this far into unethical territory by continuing the experiment. Why? There’s not enough sufficient evidence to indicate positive results, as evidenced by this passage:

“If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally?”

(Lol, yes Seward you’re smart too <— edit: he actually means out of the norm/neurodivergent here, not smart) He also speculates on the value Renfield places on a human life — many or just one. I do think this is interesting to consider, as some of us humans do eat meat! I don’t like where Seward is going with this though!!!

I do like where he closes this train of thought with:

“He has closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives?”

That…that is very profound, Seward. You didn’t have to put that in your musings about Renfield, but you did. Something that I enjoy about Seward’s character is that he likes to get lost in philosophical musings and this is a good example of that.

“To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! work!”

Oh, Seward! And here we reach the root of the problem, one he’s been avoiding talking about for a long time: Lucy. After all, this whole experiment-fiasco has been a distraction to keep himself from thinking of her. But what has that done for him, truly? He still ends up thinking about her, regardless. It breaks my heart a bit that he called her his new hope and that he had to begin anew after that 🥺 it’s never good to put hope as a person but…I understand what he means and it hurts!

Seward comparing God to a “Great Recorder” who will “sum up his account” is so interesting to me! It’s cool to get an insight as to his perspective on religion and how he thinks of it in a more “logical” way (and I do understand he could just be using a metaphor here, but I do think this is his logic and that’s fun to think about lol).

Finally, I love that while he still feels hopeless and bogged down by the fact that all he has to look forward to is his work, he emphasizes that he’s not angry at Lucy *or* Arthur. He wants them to be happy! It doesn’t mean he won’t still be sad, though :(

In the end, he wants a cause like Renfield has — a “strong” one he can turn to that will give him “happiness”. Will that give him real happiness though? Because Renfield sure doesn’t seem happy after his illness today. I’m just saying…

That’s all for this one! Will be putting out the others soon — sorry for the late entry on this one.

[girls--complex]

Been enjoying your art for quite a while now! I really need to see and know more about transgender warriorprince, it almost could be a drawing of current me irl, and i'm amab. Definitely one of my goals in a sense, long story. Thanks!

Well I was actually going to do a lore sheet of the current character "within" that archetype soon I'll do this later I'll say a few things though...

First I have a Tezuka star system or Fate/like saber face type way of looking at this where there's the visual archetype that forms the basis of different mind soldiers... So maybe the more interesting thing to you is the archetype versus the specific guy.

Also that I think amab Tboy can be a real gender if you want. It also doesn't matter if you're a real thing or if someone else tells you you're a real thing or not bt I want to put it out there the reality that sometimes a Tboy is a Tboy regardless of the mundane realities we consider essential to Tboy izm

Transgender warrior prince guy as an archetype is someone who Has kind of an earthen perspective and an emphasis on well-being and balance that can translate to pragmatism or to reductive worldview. A great capacity for nobility and valor and also like greed and reactionary patterns and violence. He's broadly solar. If I want to learn more about his medicne I have to let him ferment longer in my mind bunker I think. Here's some of the "in character" knowledge:

In his capacity as Michal's yaoi consort (momentary scizzoring and crying based yaoi that collapses amicably due to incompatible goals/both being stone (?)) he functions as both relational ground to reinvent herself after first 20ish years of her life overshadowed by weapons grade socially fuckin shattering mental illness and also an initial object of compassion that disrupts tha cluster B malicious destroyer patterns. Conversely she as his yaoi consort demonstrates a human soul with ready access to the absolute fucking depth of misery and despair and the golden gleaming heights of ecstasy and genius which disrupts his sort of comfortably narrow affect N points him to inward spiritual portal ....

Oh his name is Gregory "Gory" Slaughter with the baptismal name "Ataraxio", selected by Michal as translation of masculine Sanskrit name Ananda, one of her hobbies is pretending to understand linguistics. Begins to practice syncretic woodland catholicism on tail end of 1st saturn return.

Helping? Interesting? Maybe. It's a cartoon so modular glyph that can be ensouled by spirits peculiar to each viewer (grimoire on metaphysics of cartooning forthcoming). Interested in your response or elaboration but it's allowed to be secret. More pictures?

Playfighting with lunar syzygy (want to do a real version of this pic sometime)

Girl and boy forms, as Gory

Thank you for aksing me ? Love excuse to rant and rave

[akatsukicross]

Suddenly, I Became A God || Prologue

Summary:

You're the twin of Athanasia de Alger Obelia. Instead of being born with a healthy body, you were born sick and frail. The one day you're able to at least go outside and spend time with your sister... Athanasia goes into a mana shock. Due to how powerful and the properties of her mana, you ended up passing out from the sheer pressure.

So, when you wake up in a bed of unknown origins with people saying that you were their God. Rightfully, you are confused and afraid of the current situation, and income hacking gold blood from your mouth.

Thus shenanigans and misunderstanding happen!

Each route is different but have similar experiences.

Choose wisely, reader.

Tag list: @hamdehlesmis, @d3sperate-enuf, @mizu-san, @god-is-disappointed, @mirrorimegi, @ihonestlydontknowwhattonamethisnamethis, @jennyzyn, @xiaosprettygf, @runassimp, @probablynoposts, @jcrml

If you want to be tagged in the next part of the story please comment.

 

— ❝ Genius ❞ — the characteristic of exceptional insight in performances of some art of endeavor that surpasses beliefs. It creates new benchmarks for the future and establishes better operations, or remains outside the competences of contenders. 

The most beloved princess, the golden child of the mightiest of Emperors, the grandeur of the imperial blood, and the forthcoming of the Obelian Empire. Your genius twin sister, Athanasia de Alger Obelia, was loved by the common and noble folks with just a radiant smile. Her poise was elegant and lovely, there are no bound of her eminence.

Truthfully, you continuously ponder on how can someone, so flawless, be your twin? 

The quiet stillness of the wanning genesis bled through the settings, small rays of light of dawn peer from the darkness, chirps of bird’s resonate, those asleep were now rouse. As the bells of the Obelian Empire chimes for the common folk finish their early labor. Ballads of the heavens and prayers of the Church beg for their God bless them on this wonderous day. 

Today marks the beginning of the founding of Obelian, and soon the official festive will begin with the God’s blessing the imperial bloodline.

“Your Royal Highness, your bath is ready, let us help you undress.” A couple of servants guided you towards the lavatory. The nightrobe you wore was places elsewhere as you submerged in the petaled waters. 

You hear shuffling along the marble flooring, a couple of servants began to do their duties, gently raising your arms and legs to scrub clean of any grime. They washed your hair with the highest of quality of soaps that the greatest Emperor could buy and the common envy. 

The smell of selected roses from your personal garden was pleasant. You ignore their idle chats that held no consequential themes. After a while, a thin bathrobe clothed your naked bod that’s been wiped clean of impurities. Then they bring out a bowl filled with water, blessed by the Gods and their apostles; wringing a towel, a servant began to cleanse the impure magic from out of your precious bod. 

“Your Royal Highness, Princess Athanasia and the Emperor have bestowed you these...” A maid smiles, holding a few you gave the jewelries a tiny glimpse, beautiful trinkets encased with delicate gold-leaves. From a glance, you could tell that these crystals were from a conquered country. The luminous shades were far different than the usual season.

For some reason, a certain ornament had caught your eye. It took a while for the servants to doll you up, knowing the situation you’ve faced. It was alright though, you knew that.

“(Y/N)!” You heard your name being called out from your genius twin. Athanasia de Alger Obelia, the heiress, and most beloved daughter of the Obelian Empire and beyond; the definition of being the most, lovely princess in this entire world. She wore a gown that matched with a blue-ribbon, in the center, there’s a lovely sapphire cut gem. 

She hugs you, disregarding noble etiquette with such excitement. Her loveliness had no bounds with her gentleness.

 “Ah... jamae, you’re here early.” You spoke softly, patting her back in the hug. You realized that design of floral that accompanied the dress. It was one of the few dresses you both had matching attires as twins. 

“I’m glad that you’ll be able to attend this tea party with me even if it’s just for introductions.” Athanasia exhales, her cerulean-blue eyes soften at the trinket of your choice. 

Her hand hovering over your own. “You know, the family painting will be finished soon... so let’s look at it together after the Founding Festival and papa’s birthday.” 

“Jamae, I have to get ready.” You scratch your cheek sheepishly as you’re still in a robe. “I’ll be there in a bit, so don’t worry too much.” You watch your genius sister wave her good-byes as the doors closed once more.

It’ll take a while to get ready but the weather was ideal and perfect for outdoor tea parties. Oh, you see the other gathering nobles that your dearest sister invited personally. 

It seems like the God’s decided to have mercy on you. For now. 

“It marks the day of the founding of the Obelian Empire.” The mages and priests sigh in relief at the stone sculpture of the beloved God. Ancient scriptures were written around that bled into the purified waters that were sanctified by the Pope.

 “The sun and little stars of the Obelian Empire will soon arrive in advanced this afternoon for tomorrows festive, we must finish ours before everything else.”

They all are dressed in the finest satins, and took a few steps forward. Their face covered and body covered in modesty, everyone gapes at the fading moon. 

“We will meet again, your Grace.” It was familiar sight to see, and the cordiality that shrouded the kindred souls of the people around the sculpture.

The beautiful shawls that were crafted around the God showed their perfect stature. 

Truly, a God among mortals to have such a benevolent smile even when it was just grit. 

Which route will you choose?

Male, Female, Gender-Neutral

[power-chords]

apologies if you've explained this already, but tumblr search is trash, so I have to ask... why the obsession with michael mann, how did that start?

Oh, man. It’s a long story! In the early days of the pandemic I got a call from my favorite rock musician that he had read a short essay I’d written on his solo album, and he wanted me to contribute a piece to his band’s forthcoming box set. Dream come true obviously, couldn’t say no, so I immediately buckled down on the research end, which for me involved a deeper dive into said musician’s love of film. Mann was on the list of suspects alongside more definitive entries like Coppola and Scorsese, but that turned out to be a happy accident of misreading. (Major shout out to Adam here, by the way, because without his guidance I would have been working with a much more meandering home-brewed syllabus.)

I enjoy movies like any properly adjusted American but they don’t tend to put a spell on me the way music does, or make me want to disassemble the whole contraption piece by piece like a good written story. And Mann’s work was the first time I’d ever encountered films that could have the same effect on me as music and literature. They were hypnotic and enchanting and propulsive, like my favorite records, but they also suggested this dense subterranean architecture of potential meaning, obscured from immediate view but very much there and carefully, deliberately encoded. In other words, these films were like texts imploring (really, daring) you to interpret them.

That’s Mann’s methodology in a nutshell, basically — it’s a seduction gambit, and on me it worked spectacularly! It tapped into my grotesque hedonic animal brain and sparked an intellectual curiosity as well. For me that combination has a narcotic quality that’s hard to explain, but I have an addictive personality. And the more I watched his work, the more it ensnared me like The Footage.* (“WHAT is going on? What is this film doing to me??” Etc.) You have to understand I have no prior experiential basis for this, so as far as I’m concerned it’s witchcraft. By the time I turn in my piece for the box set I have this collateral situation developing, ha ha, oh no, and here I am three years later.

Initially I had wondered if Mann had been an influence on Dulli, but it turned out to be a case of convergent evolution. Or something akin to it. I think they’re just similar in terms of what subject matter they’re attracted to, maybe in their modes of perception and how they make aesthetic/narrative sense of the world. And there is some part of me that keys into that sensibility — whichever part precedes organized expression, maybe even conscious comprehension — and finds it cathartic and liberating and all that good stuff. (I’m a Safety First adrenaline junkie these days so I try to limit my habits to art and pop culture.)

And then he and Meg Gardiner co-wrote an actual book which provoked further investigations, escalations, whatever you want to call them. It turns out that the abyss really DOES stare back into you in the form of numerous spooky historical coincidences. I’m like afraid of Heat 2 at this point because the more I go trawling around in there the more it becomes an eldritch object, LOL. I’m the closest anyone has come to living the film Jumanji, let me put it that way. But the experience has been a blast. And I feel fortunate to have found yet another creator on par with Dulli and Townshend whose work I will be able to take with me and return to over the course of my life, and seek shelter in in that way.

*EVERYBODY READ PATTERN RECOGNITION BY WILLIAM GIBSON!

[talonabraxas]

I greet thee, thou that fillest the whole structure of the air, spirit that stretchest from heaven to earth... and to the confines of the abyss... spirit that also penetratest myself and leavest me again. Thou, the servant of the rays of the sun, that enlightenest the world... a great circular mysterious form of the universe, heavenly spirit, ethereal spirit, earthy, fiery, windy, light... dark spirit, that shinest like a star... Lord, god of the Aions... Ruler of everything.

'Zurvan Akarana' Talon Abraxas

ON ZURVAN AND SORCERY from my forthcoming book on the Black Mass.

Magic and Sorcery are two different knowledge traditions, where Sorcery by definition implies black magic, or perhaps even more red magic. It is the magic of fire, eroticism and blood, directly linked to what India is referred to as tantra and kundalini yoga. The word has etymological connections to "blood" and the color red, but is derived from the Latin sors, "fate", and is the knowledge to free oneself from the web of Fate and learn to rule over the cosmic web.

The goal of the LHP has its roots in the Persian Zurvan religion in part. Zurvan is a First Principle, the primordial creator deity who put the principles of good and evil, the twins, and Angra Mainyu and Ahura Mazda, also known as Ormudz and Ahriman (who has little to do with Rudolf Steiner's concept of Ahriman). By putting these principles in place, Mankind could choose to do good or harm. This is the manifestation of Karma, or Cosmic Law. Ordinary people are either connecting to good or evil. This is not pretending to be good, but doing good in actions. Zurvan is beyond time and space, beyond good and evil. Zurvan is the "one", the "alone, the Singularity with all multifold inside. The name Zurvan derives from the Middle Persian name derives from Avestan zruvan-, "time". Zurvan is Time but also because of that not under the control of Time. Zurvan is like Kali, or the gnostic Aeon and Abraxas, it is Sorath, also spelt Zurath, The Deity whose number is 666. When reaching the aura of Zurvan you become a True Sorcerer that is not trapped by the Web of Fate, but becomes The Spider. This is in the Draconian Tradition known as the mysterious NOXXON: Zurvan is The Ultimate Twin, but with the dualism united, and thus a form of both Thaumiel and Thagirion.

While white Magicians work with the circles of nature, the Sorcerer goes beyond black and white, into the Royal Color of Atlantis, the color Red that transcend beyond the dualism of our common world. The Sorcerer is on a a journey to the Existence free from the influence of The Zodiac, The Zodiac keep us in chains, but can be used by The Sorcerer. Red is also synonym to Gold,and this is an Golden Alchemical Art. Both the name Zurvan and Sorcery derive from words with connotations “time”, “fate” and “red” although perhaps from different etymological sources. To emphasize the connection Dragon Rouge sometime spell it Zorcery.

In the mysteries of Hellas Zurvan is associated with Saturn and Pluto, and to some extent Chronos , He lives in primordial Chaos, in Bythos ("depth or profundity", Greek βυθός), Proarkhe ("before the beginning", Greek προαρχή), the Arkhe ("the beginning", Greek ἀρχή), "Sophia" (wisdom). Another name for him is Zoe, which means “life” itself. Zurvan is the pure “Existence”, “Vital Force”, what is known as Kundalini by the Indians and the same as Vril and Odic Force. Zurvan is however not an abstract principle, but one of the most advanced, powerful Intelligences in Existence, far beyond anything we humans normally can grasp. A famous picture of Zuravn/Aeon/Abaxas is Leontocephaline, The Winged Lion-Serpent Son, the being that rules Thagirion, The Black Sun.

When I was in my twenties I woke up one night and as a physical manifestation Zurvan, or Abraxas as I knew the name, was rising above me. The wings were raised and the serpent around him was black and red and coiling around him looking at me. The serpent wound around the body seven turns and was radiating with the colors of the seven planets and chakras. The lower one was connected to wrought iron, which shows Zurvan's role as a figure who gives man knowledge and tools, like the Fallen Angels. At his feet I saw a rod of Caduceus shining with the light of the kundalini. He carried a staff and two keys, behind him he had a stone tablet that I could not read. The face was surrounded by a blinding strong light and I heard a weird sound as it came from the depth of the Universe and beyond. Zurvan spoke straight into my consciousness:

“You've seen me before, I have chosen you, but you do not remember our first meeting. You have entered my hall in the Black Sun with its 12 rays and 1001 gates. Take my staff, my keys and the stone tablet. In time, you will know how to use it.”

“The Fire that I am, burns all the debts and mistakes of Mankind, all guilt and all the burdens of Time. I am Fire! I only serve The Red Dragon, no one else. I am the key bearer and The Angel and Beast in one, and my number is 666. My appearance you know from ancient statues and drawings, but I am the Primal Picture, The Winged Lion-Serpent Son. That is the riddle to know me.”

“People must gather to fulfill the Prophecies, otherwise Mankind will end itself without my help. Then they are devoured by Angra Mainyu and lost in a Hell that is forever pain. Do good! Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you! Never forget The Golden Rule.

“Free yourself from both good and evil, from my angels Angra Mainyu and Ahura Mazda. Be free. Do good. Be a warrior. And I will show you how to use these keys and open the Door of Knowledge and the Door of Life. Go forward into The NIght and gather the lost and scattered people and help them find their True Self. Direct the path to the Black Sun and The Daemon with this staff. And follow the Sacred Law. It is The Law written by Lucifer.”

I was surrounded by a cloud of light in all colors and Zurvans words were absorbed right into my heart. I proclaimed: This is a Path with a Heart”

Zurvan was gone and the rest of the night I was in a state of half-sleep and lucid dreams about the objects Survan had handled over to me.

[bluescreening]

Hey, wanted to ask how you are stirring up pro-immigrant sentiments? Looking for things I could do here

What I've been spending most of my time doing is various "craftivism" graffiti art pieces. My village has a tradition of hiding painted rocks around, so I've been painting a lot of rocks with things like "all welcome here", "x village loves our immigrant neighbours" and "x village loves our trans neighbours", and leaving them around the place. Hopefully it's starting people talking - I've definitely seen a few more people in local forums being more comfortable to speak up and show support. Projects like that are a risk-free way of spreading some positivity.

Of course, the best way you can show support is by keeping an eye out for local protests and actions and taking part. However, when those aren't forthcoming (i.e. you live in the middle of nowhere) this is a good way to get involved.

Not to mention, doing art and craft is seen as a thing done by middle aged women, and the white men seeing that will think twice before defacing something they could see their wives making.

[usakizades]

📍Monica Bellucci graces the cover of Vogue Arabia, photographed by Nima Benati for their March issue themed 'Beauties of the World'

Italian Actor Monica Bellucci on Continuing to Transfix Audiences Around the World at 59

An eternal muse, the beloved Italian actor continues to transfix audiences around the world. She also inspired the world’s greatest directors, most recently Tim Burton.

The most beautiful woman in Italy. The sexiest woman alive. World class bombshell. Since her first on-screen appearance in the early Nineties, Monica Bellucci has been showered with accolades related to her looks. Now, at 59, praises continue to rain down on her, showing a definitive shift in the global mindset: a woman’s beauty evolves with time; and when led by magnetic charisma and talent that speaks to people across cultures and generations, it endures.

“Things are changing because women today are talking out loud. They’re less scared to talk,” offers Bellucci. “I’m in Paris and I see all these incredible actors like Isabelle Huppert, Charlotte Rampling, Fanny Ardant…women who still have the possibility to play leading roles and they’re still amazing. It really proves how things are different compared to before, where after 40 years old, women didn’t have the chance to work anymore–even though they were still talented, it was impossible. I can’t say that everything is done–the evolution is still there and it’s really changing.”

Of course, Bellucci is far more than a beautiful woman. While her entertainment industry debuts were as a muse and model for photographers like Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton and fashion and jewelry houses like Dolce & Gabbana and Cartier, she has evolved into an artist with an expansive career spanning film and theater. A polyglot, who can act in many languages, Bellucci has worked with the likes of Sam Mendes for whom she made headlines as the oldest Bond girl in history in Spectre; with Giuseppe Tornatore in the role of a war widow in Malena, and with Gaspar Noé who directed one of her most remarkable performances in the dark art film Irréversible alongside her former husband Vincent Cassel.

“Each director gave me the possibility for me to evolve as an actor, and many of them come from different countries and different cultures,” she says. Her experiences with female directors remain sparse but special. “I like it very much because there is an intimacy between women. Sometimes we look at each other and without words, we can have the same feeling about things. There is something very spontaneous and distinctive and natural, and I like this very much,” she says.

Bellucci is also a woman in love. She made her first red carpet appearance hand-in-hand with legendary director Tim Burton at the Rome Film Festival, in October of last year. “It’s so interesting and beautiful to share the experience of work with someone that is also the person that you love,” she says of the time spent on set as an actor in Burton’s forthcoming film Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. And while she shares that she is at her happiest when she is with her children, she expresses that she is equally joyful when she is in love. “When I have the possibility to feel alive as a woman,” she expresses of her current state of bliss.

The Burton movie is not the only film forthcoming for Bellucci. The actor’s warm and melodic voice rhymes off her recent work. She is presently shooting a TV series in France and has just wrapped a film with Iranian director Marjane Satrapi, the woman behind Persopolis. “When I make a movie, more than feeling nervous, I’m excited, especially in the first few days,” remarks Bellucci of her feelings on-set. She notes that cinema is a completely different experience to theater, an art she dedicated the past three years of her life to, performing across Europe in the one-woman show Maria Callas’ Letters and Memoirs. “This was really something that made me very nervous,” she says of her experience before a live audience. There is something very sincere and artisanal in the process of making a show. But at the same time, it’s very intense because you can’t really make any mistakes, and the public can really feel what you feel. This relationship is very beautiful, but also very intense.”

Bellucci describes herself as “very feminine,” but is not fixated on anything beauty-related. She practices pilates and eats well. “I’m not obsessed with anything. I like to live and to have a real life. If I want to go and buy things, I want to feel free to go.” Bellucci’s self-confidence, sophistication, and warmth emanate from her hazel eyes. It is perhaps her curiosity that is the essence of her decidedly youthful spirit. “My job, I really think that it’s a kind of job that you never stop learning,” she says. “And I’m still enjoying doing that. I’m really full of passion for my work.”

Originally published in the March 2024 issue of Vogue Arabia

Style: Barbara Baumel
Fashion director: Amine Jreissati
Hair: John Nollet for Maison de Beauté Carita
Makeup: Letizia Carnevale
Nails: Nafissa Djabi
Digital operator: Massimo Fusardi
Hair assistant: Pierrick Sellenet
Lighting assistant: Pierre Cathala
Producer: Sam Allison
Talent: Monia