#clearly I am an Emily Dickinson STAN

[billdenbrough]

stan’s nineteen when he first thinks to himself that he might want to kiss a guy. it’s not the first time he kisses one (fifteen, richie tozier, all nervous energy and unwieldy glasses knocking against noses and a best friend who’s desperate to be Good at kissing and wants to practice on someone he trusts, someone who he knows would never use it against him, and stanley will be that for richie until the day he dies) but it’s the first time that he wants to for himself.

his name is mike hanlon, he’s best friends with stan’s dormmate eddie, and rooms with both richie and eddie’s other best friend, bill. he also talks about emily dickinson when he’s high, brings bev coffee to their social theory classes, and helped richie steal a goat when they were both drunk and neither of them died. stan looks at his fingers—calloused and thick and strong, steadily drumming against his thigh as he thinks, nails uneven from being bitten—and imagines what they’d look like twined with his.

stan’s twenty when he thinks to himself he might want to kiss patty blum. she’s sweet, a little shy, and the way her eyes light up when she talks about translated poetry makes stan want to reach out and tuck her hair behind her ear. so he does. and she blushes, and it’s the prettiest thing he’s ever seen.

he doesn’t ask for her number that night, but she and richie turn out to be in the same poetry class (about the beats; they disagree on the work—richie is fascinated by the techniques and phraseologies they invent, patty is a bit too aware of what misogyny sounds like in the mouths of men convinced of their own aptitude to ignore it—but agree that while the beats kinda went Off in anti-war sentiment, they were by and large Awful People) and stan sees her again in a coffee shop with richie after class one day. this time, after speaking for another six hours, stan does ask for her number. she bites her lip, glances down, smiles. holds her hand out for his phone. stan looks at her fingers as they skitter across his screen, tapping in her number—they’re soft and rounded, moving quickly and precisely, lavender nail polish chipped. he doesn’t have to imagine what her fingers would look like intertwined with his. he finds out three nights later.

bill and richie throw a party in their dorm (it’s mike’s dorm too, but best as stan can tell, he mostly just let them do it in trade off for not having to clean it up the next day. somehow, stan thinks he’ll still end up helping clean. bill and richie are many excellent things, but competent with cleanliness is not one of them) and stan invites patty. he feels warm watching richie light up when he spots them, barrelling over and completely ignoring stan to spin patty in a delighted hug. he can’t help his grin when eddie and ben pop up, polite and welcoming and engaging. what he’s not prepared for, however, is the feeling that blossoms in his chest when patty and mike start talking. mike’s an english major, and possibly the best person in the world, and patty’s also an english major, and also possibly the best person in the world, so stan’s not surprised they get along. he’s just startled at how much it feels like having the wind knocked out of him. how breathless he feels.

he and patty aren’t dating, exactly. or, they are, but it’s early days. stan thinks she makes everything better, though. like the world is brighter with her laughter in it. so it’s not doing anything wrong to feel his heartbeat quicken sometimes when he feels mike’s eyes on his, to have a rare slow smile spread across his face when it’s two am and mike is talking sleepily to him, but it’s not exactly ideal, either. and stan’s not entirely sure what to do. he likes to think he’s well-equipped for life—an entire childhood with richie tozier will do that to you—but nothing has prepared him for this.

to make matters worse—or maybe better? stan’s never sure whether that tightness in his chest is panic or want or something in between—mike and patty keep hanging out. sometimes with stan, sometimes with richie or bev, but sometimes just by themselves. which obviously is fine. it’s just another thing for stan to have to try contend with.

he and mike kiss at a party, and it’s just a game, just truth or dare, and patty’s not playing—she’s sitting in the kitchen with eddie, the two of them carefully guarding their cups from the hot sauce richie is pouring into unsuspecting party-goers’ drinks, trading quiet observations and making each other giggle—but she doesn’t care that stan is, so that’s not what’s weighing on his mind, exactly. it’s the way his stomach swooped. the way his chest warmed. the way all he could think of was what it would be like to do that again, just for themselves, fingers entwined.

he stumbles away, and he probably looks drunk, but he’s not. he’s simply dealing with feelings that don’t make sense with the world he’s built for himself. so. like he always does when he’s not sure what to do, he finds richie.

richie has stopped pouring hot sauce into people’s drinks by now—why he was doing that, stan has no idea—so stan tugs him by the sleeve into a spare bedroom. “kinky,” richie starts, laughing, before catching sight of stan’s expression, and sobering up immediately. “all right,” he says, “lay it on me”

it all sort of tumbles out, mostly a mess of frustrated gesturing and alternating between heart eyes when talking about mike and patty & his voice cracking when he tries to explain the confusion. richie listens, brow furrowed, eyes intent. whatever anyone says about richie—and stan might say it himself, but there’s nobody he wouldn’t fight for richie, nobody he wouldn’t defend his best friend from—he cares, listens, tries.

“so you don’t like either of them better than the other...” richie muses, and stan hadn’t really thought of it in those terms, but that’s it, that’s true, that’s the crux of it. he could make a pros & cons list for both if he tried, but there’d be no point: the only thing on either con list would be the way he feels about the other. “have you considered that you like both?” richie asks, and stan. blinks

“that’s the problem, rich,” he says, and richie gives him a Look. “i mean,” richie says. “is it?” and stan doesn’t exactly know what to do with that. which richie clearly can tell, because he barrels on, “look, i’m just saying... you’re allowed to like both. especially if both like you. and... i know you better than either of them, but like, maybe they like each other too?” and it’s just. a lot. for stan to try unravel, but he thinks richie’s saying... it might not be either/or, and feeling like someone’s missing for the rest of his days. he thinks richie’s saying it could be and.

“like... a trio?” stan ventures, and richie clicks his tongue. “call it whatever the fuck you want, my dude. polyamory. ménage a trois. personally, i fuck with throuple.” (stan, in some part of his mind that is not currently trying to process everything else richie is making him aware of right now, decides immediately that he will never say throuple.)

they sit and talk for another ten minutes, and then bev pops up to say bill’s challenging richie to karaoke, and stan sends him off. he stays, sitting, thinking. dreaming. imagining what it would be like, patty’s hand in one of his, mike’s in the other. their other hands entwined too. his chest hurts. he thinks maybe it’s from sheer wanting.

patty finds him not that long after. she sits beside him, cocks a quizzical brow, half smile playing at her lips. “you disappeared,” she notes. stan looks at her, in her knit cardigan and pleated skirt at a house party, and thinks maybe he’s in love with her. it makes the next words both utterly terrifying and as easy as breathing. “do you like mike?” he asks. patty blinks at him, mouth dropping open slightly. “i like you,” she says after a moment, sounding confused, but also... maybe slightly panicked. or guilty? stan doesn’t know how to decipher that note, but it bolsters him. “i know,” he says softly, and it’s true. he does. he cares a lot about her, and he knows she cares about him, otherwise he’d never try ask her this. “i meant... as well.” he can’t believe he’s saying this. the power of richie tozier.

she just blinks at him, something complicated passing across her face. “do... you?” she asks, so hesitant that stan feels it scrape slowly across his heart, just like mike’s teeth did across his lips earlier, and, wow, he didn’t need that reminder. “i—” he starts, and she suddenly holds up her hand. “i think maybe mike should be here,” she says, and stan is freaking out a little, but she’s right, so he nods, and she just pulls out her phone and... does she have him on speed dial? who even uses speed dial?

mike comes up, glances in and steps into the room, looking shy and a little confused. “hey,” he says, “patty said you need to talk to me? what’s up?” stan’s heart is beating faster, but something about it feels. solid. steady, even. like all ground was invented simply to exist between the three of them, a meeting of the hearts and minds.

“stanley asked me an interesting question,” patty says at the same time that stan blurts out, “i think a lot about your hands.” mike blinks, patty throws stan a scandalised look before bursting into peals of laughter, and stan groans at himself. “i don’t know if i understand what’s happening here,” mike says. polyamory negotiations, stan thinks, but he’s not saying that out loud until at least three years after this is all dealt with.

“i’ve been having a crisis up here for two hours,” he says in the end, deciding to bite the bullet. if richie ever calls him a pussy again when stan’s had this conversation and richie can’t even ask out eddie despite having made a very embarrassing and frankly bizarre playlist about him, stan’s pushing him into a fountain. “because i keep thinking about you kissing me, but also patty kissing me, and also both of your hands, and it’s just a lot, and richie kept saying words, some of which i truly believe he made up, like what the fuck is a throuple—” and, hm. he did not mean for all of that to come out. eddie’s the motormouth and richie’s the trashmouth. stan’s mouth is meant to obey him. outrageous.

mike’s open-mouthed, and then he turns to stare at patty, who stares back at him. stan can’t decide if this is more or less nerve-wracking than them staring at him. but then their eyes are shifting. it looks like there’s a question in mike’s. stan wonders if he can find an answer in patty’s, the way stan always does. from the way mike’s eyes shine when he turns back to stan, he thinks yes. there’s an expression on his face, open and hopeful and earnest, and it’s so fucking beautiful that stan just... wants to kiss him again. and he’s resisted doing it for so long. literally over a year. and it’s hard, so hard, especially when mike looks like that, when he looks at stan like that, and stan’s tired. so this time, he doesn’t resist. he leans forward, and presses his lips to mike’s.

when he pulls away, mike’s smile is blinding. so is patty’s, for that matter. stan blinks at her, unsure if he should apologise, when she leans forward and kisses him. then, with a flush high in her cheeks, she glances at mike, and gently presses a kiss to the side of his mouth as well. it twists in stan’s chest, and this time he knows it for what it is: explosive, unrestrained happiness and want. like maybe this is what it feels like to see the rest of your life in front of you. to see everything you never even knew you wanted.

stan doesn’t have to imagine what it would be like to entwine his fingers with mike’s anymore, what it would be like to have patty hand-in-hand on his other side. it’s better than he’d ever dreamed, anyway.

[raspberrymilkteas]

1-50 Gracie! Gotta do 'em!! 💖💖💖(Or pick your favourite ones but 🎶I wanna know🎶)

EM! You’ve blessed me and also I hope you had a good day 💞

1. what’s the best thing that happened to you today?

Well, in my Hawaiian class we had a quiz that pretty much everyone did bad on so our professor let people do free retakes and I got a 19/20 so I didn’t have to take it again and I got to leave early. I also have like 102% in that class so that’s pretty cool

2. where do you see yourself living in 10 years?

Honestly, no clue, things feel so up in the air but I’m very excited about it!

3. apartment or house?

Honestly stan houses 

4. has your aesthetic changed at all in the last year?

I think so like I wear a lot more yellows and also wear a lot of anklets and also always cuff my jeans 

5. what is something you’re proud of?

I’m doing really well in my classes and I feel like I’ve really started to build my own life kind of like I’m in the beginning stages of it and that’s very exciting

6. name three books that changed your life.

1. Where I live

2. Where I see myself going

3. How I understand the world

7. do you have a favorite podcast?

oooh this is really hard because I listen to a lot. I’ve only listened to liek two episode of taz but it’s good. I also love the podcast ologies as well as the astrology podcast

8. what three songs can you not get enough of right now?

1. Polly Pocket by Daniela Andrade

2. Prophet by King Princess

3. Flaming Hot Cheetos by Clairo

9. favorite quote?

All things that are done in love are done well (Vincent van Gogh)

10. state an unpopular opinion that you have.

idk if this is unpopular but I think making fun of anyone’s appearance whether they are a bad person or not is wrong and especially if it has to do with weight because there’s people who are good people who are fat or look like that and you are in turn hurting them when you use those things to attack people when really their ideologies and the fact that they are bad people is just enough. 

Also milk is gross

11. if you could live in any other decade, when & where would you choose?

honestly I think it would be cool to see what the first humans were like, like prehistory whew

12. describe your ideal date?

I think just doing fun things and walking around like maybe going to the zoo or the aquarium, something I would also do with a friend because I prefer people I date to be friends first anyway ksjhsk

13. are you currently crushing on anybody?

Not really I don’t think

14. if you could have dinner with anybody, who would it be?

not to be sappy but to have dinner with you and like Emily and Nicole and Caroline would be cool cause I miss y’all so much

15. what time do you usually go to sleep & wake up?

uhhhh like 2am then I wake up at like 9 or 10 depending on the day

16. what’s your favorite instrument?

Piano

17. what song do you love dancing to?

The Less I Know the Better by Tame Impala

18. what’s a topic that you wish you knew more about?

Bees

19. got a random fact you’ve been holding on to?

Whoville is where Horton Hears a Who and How the Grinch Stole Christmas are set, so basically, there’s a Dr. Seuss Cinematic Universe

Also, tea was basically why the opium war was started 

20. favorite fruit & vegetable?

Oranges or guava and Asparagus

21. what’s your favorite dish to cook?

Salmon

22. favorite beverage?

Black tea or passionfruit orange guava juice

23. how are you feeling in this moment?

Pretty chill kinda stressed cause exams but ksjhskjh

24. are you reading a book at the moment? what do you like about it?

I’m reading a collection of Emily Dickinson’s poems and I just love the gay like this woman was clearly not straight and I just love poetry

25. name three songs that stir up the deepest emotions.

1. Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

2. Get Well Soon by Ariana Grande

3. Gallo Pinto by Daniela Andrade

26. what’s your favorite season & why?

Spring because my birthday is the first day

27. when is your birthday?

March 20

28. what do you do when you need to de-stress?

I watch greys anatomy and drink tea or I write poems

29. do you prefer spontaneous or pre-arranged plans?

uhhh if they’re casual spontaneous is chill but I do also love planning things like whew

30. name an experience in your life you wish you could do over?

this isn’t a specific experience but I think being so insecure about how likable or unlikable I am because it ruined a lot of friendships ultimately

31. do you like the name you were given? if not, is there a different one you’d prefer?

Yeah it’s pretty chill

32. what’s your favorite weather?

Breezy and sunny or like a light drizzle 

33. are you satisfied with how your life is going right now?

Very!

34. describe a time that you were brave.

One time my grandmother accidentally double dosed herself on her insulin and I was very calm and collected and got her to where she needed to be

35. is there a movie you like better than the book it was based on?

the entire harry potter franchise ngl

36. do you have a place you go to when you feel stressed/sad?

the shower

37. what was the last thing that made you laugh?

well, this is weird to explain, but in my dorm room, we have a wall with pride flags lube and condoms on it and we tap the lube and condoms before we go anywhere for like good luck anyway earlier my roomate slapped the anal lube and was like “oh I love slapping anal lube” and then I was like “Honestly, if you don’t slap anal lube you’re a heathen” and I just really enjoyed that exchange

38. what time is it where you are?

11:11pm (make a wish)

39. what is something you’re excited for?

I might be renting an apartment or house here and I think that’s cool and exciting

40. got any summer plans?

uhhh I mean I have my grandmother’s memorial (also hopefully pride with you em)

41. when was the last time you intentionally went out to see the sunrise?

I ain’t never been up that early on purpose

42. favorite film genre?

Romcoms 🤧

43. coffee or tea?

TEAAAAAA

44. describe your body without using any negative adjectives.

well- uhhhhh kjshskjhskjsh I guess my skin is pretty clear and let me get back to you skjhskjsh

45. is there a cover song that you like better than the original?

Most of Daniela Andrade's covers

46. are you on good terms with your parents?

This is such a complicated question oh boy

47. are you in a relationship? if not, are you looking to be?

No, and yes but also absolutely not

48. do you typically look for a partner with the same traits as you or someone to complement yours?

Both! 

49. describe your aesthetic.

Anklets, sunset, soft pink, lace, denim, stars, lab equipment, soft blush, campfires

50. put your music on shuffle and list the first 10 songs to play.

1. Why don’t we go there by One Direction

2. Preach by Keiynan Lonsdale

3. MerryGoRound by Fitz and The Tantrums

4. Kakamora - Score Demo by Mark Mancina (from Moana)

5. Slow Hands by Niall Horan

6. You - Remastered by Coasts

7. Potential Break Up Song by Aly & AJ

8. Cocaine by Pink Sweat$

9. like i need u by keshi

10. Can I Call You Tonight? by Dayglow

[lilad10]

tibetan pop stars / feminist reclamations of selfhood / imagination & disguise

so here’s the t, the real t is that i haven’t been able to spend a single day in my life without listening to this song at least once since my first listen. so in honor of the incredible moment we are experiencing as mitski stans, i’m going to try to describe why this song has unexpectedly been the precursor to the success of radical, unflinching vulnerable songs written by women. in this case, frances quinlan of hop along and “tibetan pop stars” from their sophomore release “get disowned” (march 2012). 

we begin with a whistle, and then: a flood of unsuppressed guitar on E, the most achey major, followed swiftly by the discordant and lovely C#m. we have a conversation. a question: how content are the ones with simple demands? 

we know, to a degree, they must be more content than those with more complex, perhaps darker, requests. and these requests, the evidence of them, point to our dissatisfaction in uncomfortable clarity--this belies the interrogative nature of the question, but it also provides a level of distance from completely admitting to our desire. because desire is weak, is fragile. what is simple: cherry-picking. Canadian vacations. 

but even what appears simple has its own demands, manifesting in the disembodiment of the only named male-figure in the song: he is seven-fingered, he is the picture of disappoint, maritally and emotionally. something about this quick-draw stick-figure man is missing, causing us all to despair of whatever notions we imagined may cease if only we could be more content. 

& just listen to her voice. i recently read a pitchfork (fuck i know) article that put it perfectly: 

If you listen to Frances Quinlan sing long enough, you will attempt to describe her voice. This is a trap, and you should not do this. The frontwoman for Philadelphia indie rock band Hop Along doesn’t have one voice—she might have 10. Listing them would yield no insight, only a deranged sommelier’s tasting notes: cat, bugle, Rod Stewart, roaring motorcycle. 

when it is time to leave, you just know. you can feel the dread of non-escape creep against your legs, begging you to get a move on before the unknowable tomorrow sucks you into a pattern you’re trapped by. so you leave for some action: you are pursuing so you cannot be pursued. running toward something looks the same as running away from something, the body performing the same, the mind and heart saying different things nonetheless. having admitted that every single one of us is searching, we go out into the world with our feet bare and our pockets empty. the reminders of civilization, of obligation, become distant cousins to the gnawing sensation of nobody having asked you, “hey, where are you going? why are you alone? what about your other?”

because we’d like to answer them, wouldn’t we? 

we become each other’s gazes, each other’s strangers, and therefore we become strange to ourselves. you have an easy time othering that which you do not understand. the glamour of being watched and sought-after comes at the price of losing power over whoever is gazing at you. so goes the history of music written about fantasy, face-less, strangered women from the minds of men who only want to seduce them in the same careless fashion of car wrecks, of unaccountability for masculinity. 

am i saying the speaker of this song is subverting this tradition because she is a woman? no, and in fact, the desperate desire to have this capacity for detachment and objectification is exactly this imbalance of power in action. behaviors that society have permitted cis men to exhibit at no cost come at a much higher a price for the speaker, an unfairness she clearly understands--she admits, yes, me too. i wish i was you, maybe. i wish to be your stranger. 

ok this is the verse right here that clutches everything in its hands and whispers and cries and carries it to the tallest hill in an abandoned town just for a glimpse of the sunset and i don’t have much to add to that except:

I wanted to hurt you but the victory is that I could not stomach it. We have swallowed him up, they said. It's beautiful. It really is. I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want. 

- Richard Siken, “Snow and Dirty Rain”

listen to frances quinlan’s gasp between “India” and the return to “i’m gonna be creeping on you” on the hook. you can feel her revving herself up to fess up, confront, scream, fight. this song is anthemic in so many ways: its meter, its explosive progressions, its unremitting melody. and the way she soars above the phrase “pop stars”!!! none of us, not a single one of us listening, are left to wonder about what’s happened to the speaker’s heart. its cracks are on full display, accompanied by the full energy and distortion of a perfect indie punk act. 

at this point, we may begin to wonder: what’s so fantastic about this dream? you’re either a stranger or a stalker, you’re a waiting game or a disappointing statistic, you’re on hold with life & unfulfilled either way. is this song actually steeped in too much despair? 

NO & fuck you! we’re doing OK so far!!!! despite everything, despite it all. the only criminality of heartbreak is in its misunderstanding and contortion. as it exists, as it impacts us all in its most simple manifestations, we are united. 

and not only that, but in this whole wide world, yes, you. you are still the only one. you are. 

Of all the Souls that stand create — I have elected — One — When Sense from Spirit — files away — And Subterfuge — is done — When that which is — and that which was — Apart — intrinsic — stand — And this brief Drama in the flesh — Is shifted — like a Sand — When Figures show their royal Front — And Mists — are carved away, Behold the Atom — I preferred — To all the lists of Clay!

- Emily Dickinson, #664

from here until the close, there is not a single second spared for the doubt that shelters us all from truly expressing what we are, who we are made of, because after all the love, there is the difficult, crushing, invisible struggle of...waiting. this whole song the speaker has convinced us she has the patience, she has the measured rage necessary to hold on in the face of a firestorm of impossibility. but what can become of that waiting if someone never returns? wouldn’t it be worse to offer a home and have someone reject it? if you never have to ask for someone to return, you never have to admit you missed them. and she misses them, fuck. who else sings “india” like that? someone in deep, passionate ecstasy, someone living in the sublime trap of finding and losing and wanting. 

so that’s the reason why we have looped. we are discontent, we are content, we are tibetan pop stars. we are waiting for home to come back to us, a home that has metamorphosed into a symbol of potential consequence, failure, another round of brokenness. here she is, at the mic. here she is, asking. here we are, in the gold room, where everyone finally gets what they want. 

a coda: a hand, outstretched. can you hear everyone singing along now? can you hear us all sharing in this desperate, beautiful noise? isn’t this love so average, and aren’t we all the more powerful for it?