#just a collection of symptoms and a pleasure to have in class

[watermelinoe]

pediatric circadian rhythm disorder is comorbid with autism and ocd. fascinating.

[qqueenofhades]

as a starting history major i wanna ask how do you read/evaluate academic history papers/books? i'm trying to avoid just blindly agreeing with whatever the author is writing because it seems correct. how can you tell what is good scholarship and what is more shaky?

This is a great question for you as a freshman history major to ask (many of my toiling colleagues and I can attest that we wish more of you would!) and shows that you're already taking initiative and investment in your studies and want to be the best prepared you can. So truly -- thank you! Us on the faculty/staff/administrative end of academia can feel as if we are pouring into an empty bucket at times, and it's always gratifying to hear otherwise. We really appreciate it.

As a college freshman and/or underclassman (or so I'm assuming) your first job is learning how to collect basic information from the things you read, collate and cite them accurately, and make them converse intelligently with each other in an entry-level piece of academic writing (such as an essay responding to an assigned prompt). So before you have to worry about understanding complex nuance and granular-level fact-checking, the first step is just getting comfortable with academic forms, styles, and conventions. There's an occasional anti-intellectual strand of thinking that pops up on Tumblr, basically insisting that everyone everywhere should be able to understand everything in fifth-grade words and if not then it's Elitist Gatekeeping, but this is a symptom of TikTok brainrot where people's brains have been literally rewired to only process spoon-fed chunks of incredibly simplistic (and uh, often wrong) information, and literally can't parse anything longer, even if it's written in accessible language. Yes, many academics are not necessarily great writers, but you also have to let go of the mindset that you can speed-read once and understand everything. You will need to slow down, take your time, and make a note of concepts that are confusing or that you want to double-check, words you need to look up, and things that make you say "hmm I should look into that more," whether because you're interested or they seem questionable. I always read academic texts or papers (I prefer hard copy, because I am Fucking Old) with a pen in hand, because if I don't, I often feel like I didn't read it at all.

Basically, this is an interactive process between you and the text, and requires you to develop a different kind of reading mentality than just buzzing through a novel or fanfic for pleasure. You have to expect that it will take time and that if you regularly skive off the readings, you won't be prepared for class, your professors will be annoyed, and you won't be able to write good essays, because you haven't engaged with the material. In your case, it sounds like that will be less of a problem, because you are eager to know how to do it right, but I can tell you from my experience that nothing frustrates us more than students who just won't do the reading (and you know, use ChatGPT to write their essays) because then what are you even DOING here? What do you want to get out of this? Why are you wasting your precious tuition money like this? Yes, you probably have to fill a requirement, but STILL. It's disrespectful to your teacher, who has invested a lot of effort in being here to help you with this and doesn't want you to just quit because it looks hard, and your peers, and to you. So anyway, /Captain Holt voice/ apparently that's a trigger for me. Basically, if you learn nothing else from this ask: please do the reading. Even if it's only to admit you need more help or want to talk about this concept in class or otherwise take advantage of all the structures that are in fact there to help you understand it! Thankee.

Likewise, because you're an underclassman, you have an advantage in that your teacher will select the class readings for you ahead of time. That means you will be receiving things that a professional has already checked, decided are useful and trustworthy, and you don't have to do independent research and vetting yourself (that will come if you decide for some godforsaken reason to pursue graduate and/or doctoral study). So you don't need to spend tons of extra time and effort deciding if the sources given to you in class are reliable on a basic and functional level; your professor has already done the work for you to make sure that they are. Your job is now to read those sources, keep a record of what they say (hence the aforementioned pen or other way to make quick notes) and figure out how to put them together in an essay. For example, if Author A cites Factor A as, say, the main cause of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and Author B insists that Factor B was in fact more critical, what is your best approach to reconciling that information? You would search in the rest of those texts to see what else they say in support of their position, and you would probably end up with a qualified statement to the effect of, "While Author A argues A, Author B thinks B, representing the lack of consensus and the difficulty in attributing one single cause to an event as complicated as the fall of Rome." (And then because you're smart, you would go on to mention Byzantium and the Eastern Roman Empire and show that you are aware of the further context.) All of which is true! Historians do that all the time! You don't need to select THE RIGHT ANSWER and vigorously discredit all other theories, ever, and we tend to look suspiciously on people who do (cough cough Philippa Langley).

In other words, we are certainly not expecting you as a freshman, and even as a more advanced student, to be able to pick out ONE ANSWER from the material. We just want to see evidence that you have in fact read it, are able to evaluate and place theories side by side and possibly make a judgment as to which one you find more compelling, and also to properly cite where you got that information. We've seen a lot recently about plagiarism and that being the pretext on which Harvard president Claudine Gay was forced to resign (which is a whole other can of worms, but never mind). A lot of professors think that saying "Don't Do Plagiarism" is enough, but then don't explain what it is and the different forms it can take. It's not just a matter of copying verbatim chunks of someone else's work (or you know, ALL OF IT, like certain recently discredited YouTube scumbags) and acting like it's your own. If you are relying substantially on someone else's work, whether in their wording, arguments, conclusions, structure, or anything else, even if you've changed some of the words (yep, still plagiarism!), that needs to be cited appropriately according to the relevant style guide. Direct quotes from anyone need to go in quotation marks or indented blocks and have the author cited immediately afterward. History usually uses Chicago, MLA, or MHRA, and you can find cheat sheets for how to do that online. It's a pretty simple and straightforward style, and your professor will be extra impressed.

If you're expected to do an independent project or a senior research thesis, as some undergraduate history students do, then it will come when you have already had three years of experience in reading, evaluating, and writing historical scholarship, you will probably have a faculty member assigned to you for one-on-one mentoring and personalized feedback sessions, and they will be able to provide suggestions and support for useful sources. So even then, you still don't have to do it entirely on your own. They'll probably also be MORE than happy to debate with you which ones are good and which ones are suspect, because it's all a part of developing your ability to flex that muscle for yourself. (And as noted, faculty members Will Have Strong Opinions.) That likewise doesn't mean you just have to copy whatever they say (at least if you have a good teacher who wants you to think for yourself and not just be a mini-clone of their pet theories), but it means that by the time you reach that stage, you will have been prepared enough to feel confident in taking more steps on your own. I think not enough people realize that studying history (or anything, really) isn't just throwing you out there and being like "tough luck sucker, do it all yourself."

That's why academia is so collaborative, why plenty of historians with doctorates and tenure will still have to say "I don't know, let me get back to you" when someone asks them a question at a conference, and you don't have to fear that if you don't have The One Right Answer, you will be immediately exposed as a fraud and thrown out. History as a discipline is also moving away from the 19th-century German approach that attempted to systematize it as a singular social science with One Right Answer, and to focus more on multiple perspectives and incomplete answers. That's why the goal is not necessarily to know everything (which alas, is impossible), but to make better sense of what we can know and search for ways in which the existing record is flawed and needs to be revised, expanded, or reworked with new perspectives (which have existed all this time, but haven't been privileged by the white male western academy for the obvious reasons). And that work is fun and important! I don't want you to be scared of getting to that point, because someone will be there to support you the whole way and by the time you do, it will make sense to you in a way it probably doesn't right now, just because it's a new skill and like any new skill, it takes a long time to learn and to be able to apply confidently, consistently, and at a high level. And plenty of us who do it as a career still often have to say "I don't know, let me ask Dr. So-and-so who specializes in this," so yeah. It's a process of becoming comfortable with both learning how to answer what we can, and to ask others for help with that, and it never really ends. Which is the fun part. There's so much more to do.

Good luck!

[tipsycad147]

Nourishing the Soul: Milky Oat Plant Profile

Alexis J. Cunningfolk

I’m not exactly sure when I met Milky Oats as plant medicine. I feel like it was probably during my first few herbs classes, but it took a few rounds of meeting them for me to recognize how profoundly healing their gifts are. Milky Oats grow abundantly and are easy to harvest making them a great and versatile ally for many plant folk, especially those just starting our on the path. I find endless inspiration with Milky Oat and some of my most beloved memories of making herbal remedies are with Milky Oat.

So let’s meet the remedy for the soul known as Milky Oat.

Milky Oats Avena sativa

Folk Names : Dousar, haver

Element : Water, Earth

Moon Phase : New Moon

Zodiac Signs : Cancer, Capricorn

Planets : Moon, Venus, Jupiter

Parts used : Unripe seeds (milky oats) and stem (oatstraw)

Habitat : An annual grass that has naturalized throughout much of North America and is indigenous to Europe, Asia, and northern Africa.

Growing conditions : Full sun and rich soil with moderate water.

Collection : Collect the Milky Oat tops in early spring, when they excrete “milk” when squeezed. My favorite time to harvest Milky Oats is on the Spring Equinox or a New Moon (better it be when both are happening at the same time!).

Flavor : Sweet

Temperature : Neutral to Warm

Moisture : Moist

Tissue State : Cold/Depression, Dry/Atrophy

Constituents : Beta-carotene, B vitamins, calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, selenium, silicon, zinc, lipids, alkaloids, vitamin E

Actions : Antidepressant, alterative, demulcent, diaphoretic, nervine, nutritive, reproductive tonic, diuretic, endocrine tonic

Main Uses : Milky Oats are the best example of a trophorestorative for the nervous system found in traditional western herbalism. I love them because not only are the nourishing to the nervous system, but nourishing to the soul. Milky Oat is best used over a long period and even when you stop using the herb they body remembers the medicine, continuing to act as if it were still taking it. Rich in calcium, iron, manganese, and zinc, Milky Oats are very nourishing when the body feels depleted and exhausted. The herb is a great ally for convalescence and recovery after a period of debilitation whether from the flu or longterm illness or from a heightened period of stress and anxiety (like living through a global pandemic).

Milky Oats have a combination of qualities that make them useful for folks suffering from nervous tension whether brought on by anxiety, depression, injury, overwork or excess stress from a variety of life circumstances. They are mildly anti-depressant, helping to increase energy without being overstimulating which is great as insomnia is often a symptom of nervous tension. The herb can be very useful for those who are recovering from drug and alcohol addiction as it will help to rebalance their damaged nervous systems. Seniors benefit from Milky Oats, especially if they are experiencing paralysis and wasting diseases. In general, Milky Oats helps the frazzled personality who have become oversensitive to life. Oats are helpful, too, in increasing stamina and helping with overall endurance.

They relieve tension headaches and melancholic states that might occur before and during menstruation and also help to relieve menopausal symptoms as they are gently balancing to the hormonal system. High in silicon, Milky Oats are strengthening to hair, nails, teeth, and bones when used internally and externally. Deeply healing to the nervous system, Milky Oats help us to experience life through a more pleasurable filter. The herbs are great postpartum, helping support the big life transitions that happen in the fourth trimester. 

Milky Oats can help with digestion as many restorative herbs are, and especially useful when constipation is present, as they are mucilaginous and can help with the passage of stools. Oat meal can help with the regulation of blood sugar as well as assist with digestion and being an overall good choice for folks looking to increase energy.

We’ve been using Milky Oats for a long time in traditional western herbalism and I wanted to share an interesting historical description of their use. Hildegard of Bingen was a 12th century herbalist, writer, composer, and mystic amongst many other things, wrote about Oats in her book on health, Physica. Using the limiting language of the time, Hildegard describes using Oats within a sweat bath for those suffering from mental illness which has brought on feelings of emptiness and a “split mind.” Her advice is:

“But let whoever is worn out with paralysis and as a result has a split mind and empty thoughts, so that the person is somewhat insane, be in a sweat bath when the wheat in the hot water in which it has been cooked is poured over the hot stones. Let them do this often; they will return to themselves and gain sanity.” (Hildegard’s Healing Plants, 7)

Her description aligns with modern understandings of Milky Oats usefulness: it is rebalancing to the nervous system, helps in recovering energy after a period of debilitation, and is a general restorative. Would a sweat bath as Hildegard described it be useful today for supporting someone struggling with nervous exhaustion? Probably - sweat baths used to be much more common in traditional western herbalism and eclectic medicine and I support their re-emergence. A bath of Milky Oat would be useful, too. Use Milky Oats in baths or as part of an herbal oil blend to relieve itchiness (eczema, psoriasis), lessen pain, and strengthen the skin’s elasticity. Neuralgia, rheumatism, eczema, and fibromyalgia are all helped by Milky Oats.

Milky Oats can be prepared in many ways and its mild flavor make it easy to add to most blends. As I look back on my time training and working as an herbalist, it is Milky Oat which has taught me a lot about how one plant can be prepared in a multitude of ways to bring about healing. I don’t use a lot of alcohol-based remedies for myself, but I always make sure to have Milky Oat tincture around because it is so effective in helping to settle the nerves and restore a sense of peace. You can prepare Milky Oat as a standard tea infusion, but it really shines as a decoction, helping to draw out its nourishing qualities. It is great in baths (either as an infusion or grinding up oatmeal). Oatmeal is also a great topical treatment for a variety of skin complaints and I like to combine ground oatmeal with Milky Oat tea to make a healing paste. Homemade oat milk can be wonderfully healing, too. Of course, you can also get a lot of similar benefits of Milky Oat by eating Oats as oatmeal or in other baked goods. Milky Oat is a versatile plant to befriend and I hope you’re feeling inspired to welcome them into your healing practice.

Magickal uses : Milky Oats are not generally associated with the moon, but as a warming nutritive tonic that builds the blood and alleviates nervous exhaustion, I find Milky Oats to have a special affinity for the New Moon. The white milk of fresh green Oat seeds makes me think of magickal Moon milk and the herb helps us to deal with the ever-changing experiences of life, much as we learn when working with the lunar rhythms. As the New Moon calls us to begin a cycle of emergence and to slowly expand our energy after a period of waning contraction, Milky Oats are richly nutritious lending us foundational strength for the work ahead. The generous nutritive qualities of Milky Oats give us a hint to its magickal uses, which are primarily for prosperity and abundance rituals. 

The Oat Personality : The Milky Oat person is exhausted. Completely and utterly. They feel debilitated and lacking in energy, unable to sleep and struggling to wake. It is as if they move through a waking, blurry dream. Unable to focus for long on any one thing, Milky Oat folks struggle to determine their sense of purpose in life. Their energy seems to be flung far and wide with little to harvest in return. Even though they are exhausted they can be excessive in the way that they expend energy and fine themselves prone to regular burnout. Part of the struggle of Milky Oat folks is that they are interested and good at many things, yet fall prey to the idea of having a singular and sudden epiphany of their purpose and calling that they might even over-use drugs in an attempt to access such a “instant breakthrough.” The beauty of Milky Oat folks, though, is that they are good at so many things! Milky Oat medicine will help them learn to embrace the diversity of their passions into an interconnected melody of calling.

Contraindications : Generally regarded as safe. Be cautious with the use of oats if you have a gluten allergy.

Dosage : Standard dosage. Decoction is one of the best ways to enjoy Milky Oats. Decoct 1 tablespoon of oats per 2 cups of water for at least 15 minutes.

🌿

Milky Oat is one of my favorite herbs for eclipse season and during the summer months I like to use Oat milk it to my rainbow lattes. And if you want to explore more about the connections between plants and the Moon, here’s a good place to start.

[scientific-tricorder]

A while back, this post happened and I mentioned an excessively detailed response, and here it is, presenting a (more or less) physiologically reasonable process for the entire function and breakdown of Garak's implant in “The Wire”. This breaks down into three main parts: how the implant is supposed to function, what went wrong, and how it's fixed. I'll add a TLDR as well. There's a lot of assumptions made (namely that Cardassian physiology is more or less functioning like Earth mammalian physiology), determinations that characters don't necessarily know exactly what they're talking about, simplification of exceedingly complicated things, and terminology.

Before we get into headcanoning and speculating, let's cover what we know of the implant from the episode. The implant is situated in the “postcentral gyrus and has filaments that connect it to [the] entire central nervous system” and “was designed to stimulate the pleasure centres of [the] brain to trigger the production of vast amounts of natural endorphins” in case of torture. The first symptoms include clammy skin*, dyspnea (difficulty breathing), miosis (contracted pupils), high level of pain (specifically a headache, although potentially in other areas as well), and “some type of seizure”. Later on, there is mention of deterioration of the “cranial nerve cluster”, bradycardia (a slow heart rate, likely since treatment was a stimulant and cardiostimulator), and toxins accumulating in lymphatic tissues caused by an altered leukocyte molecular structure. After turning off the implant, synthetic leukocytes are required to cure lingering effects (the aforementioned toxins and altered leukocytes). (*Clammy skin refers to cool, pale, and sweaty skin, so if one is looking at a purely canon view, this does mean that Cardassians sweat. However, the idea of ectothermic Cardassians that thus don't sweat is pretty common, so it's possible that one could interpret this as thus referring solely to cool and pale skin, or, since Bashir is basing his assessment on solely visual examination, just paleness, likely in the mucous membranes of the conjunctiva and gum tissue)

Let's break this down a little, starting by getting some of the nonsense out of the way. Endorphins (which are by definition natural) aren't produced by any 'pleasure centers' of the brain, they come from the pituitary gland; 'cranial nerve cluster' is essentially meaningless (although I suppose that the brain could be considered a nerve cluster); and, unlike the episode suggests, leukocytes aren't molecules – they're cells and thus made out of countless molecules. Moving onto breaking down terminology that has actual meaning, the postcentral gyrus is a part of the brain (roughly the middle top) that contains the primary somatosensory cortex, which helps the brain know where sensory signals are coming from, including pain. So, good job writers, you did mention a brain region associated with pain sensing! The central nervous system (CNS) is the brain and spinal cord. Endorphins are a type of what are called endogenous opioids, opioids produced by the body itself. They have more or less the same effects as other opioids like morphine, so that's probably the best starting point for research on side-effects and withdrawal symptoms for anyone who wants to look into that. Most relevant is that they're an analgesic (pain killer) and increase the production and release of dopamine, the “happy chemical”. Lymphatic tissues are just the tissues of the lymphatic system, which is kind of like an extra liquid collection system and aids in immune responses by producing, processing, and storing immune cells (and fat transport, but that's extraneous here). Leukocyte is a generic umbrella term equivalent to 'white blood cell' and thus contains a lot of different types of cells doing different things. Dr. Bashir really should have been more specific there.

That's what we get from canon, so from here on out it's pure headcanoning based on science. Let's tackle the first part: how does the implant work in the first place?

If the implant's purpose is to make one immune to pain, it needs to accomplish two main things: first, detect when pain is happening, and second, do something to stop that pain from being sensed. We're going to need to cover some basic nociception (pain sensing) here. The first step in pain detection is that a neuron called a nociceptor detects something pain causing, namely temperature (fun fact: spicy foods feel hot because some chemicals in them activate heat pain nociceptors in the mouth), chemicals (particularly chemicals released by damaged cells), and getting damaged itself. The nociceptor then releases a neurotransmitter (chemical that neurons use to communicate with each other) called Substance P. Substance P is then picked up by a secondary neuron in the spinal cord that sends the message of pain up to various parts of the brain that spread the message around and eventually cause effects, include the actual sensing of the pain, telling the brain where the pain is (that's where the primary somatosensory cortex and postcentral gyrus come in), and inducing the fight-or-flight response. One part of the brain that gets the 'we're hurting!' signal and sends a message that eventually results in the release of endogenous opioids like endorphins, which in turn prevent Substance P from being released, thus cutting off the pain signal, as well as do the other opioid things.

To accomplish the first task of detecting pain, the implant most probably has sensors for Substance P. These would probably be those filaments connecting to the entire CNS – since the Substance P is released in the spinal cord, these sensing filaments kind of need to be covering it all to detect any incoming Substance P. The second task of cutting off that pain signal then functions simply by flooding the body with endorphins (and probably other endogenous opioids). These endorphins could be sourced in three ways: via some sort of storage within the implant, via the implant causing the body to produce more, or via the implant itself producing and releasing more. Having enough stored for constant release for multiple years seems unlikely, so we'll scratch off that possibility. Garak's dialogue does suggest that the implant causes the body itself to produce more endorphins, but I'm going to go with the third option because we're going to need truly excessive amounts of endorphins to fully kill off pain signals (and it'd likely be hard to get the body to produce that much) and because it makes it easier to explain what might go wrong.

And speaking of what might go wrong, let's now look at that. The first noticeable symptoms are pale/clammy skin, dyspnea, extreme pain, and miosis. Miosis is caused by opioids, and would thus be induced by the implant and extreme pain. The pale skin and dyspnea are consistent with the heart not pumping enough blood to all the tissues. Other related symptoms include fatigue and anxiety, which are consistent with Garak's behavior. This is also consistent with the later bradycardia. This sort of heart issue is generally associated with heart attacks and other failures of the heart muscles itself, but could be caused by anything interfering with the heart's function. Since heart rate is largely controlled by the CNS, disruptions to it (such as by, say, a malfunctioning cranial implant), could induce these symptoms. We later learn that there is also deterioration of neural tissue (or at least that's how I'm interpreting Garak's 'cranial nerve cluster' comment) and damage to the lymphatic system due to toxins caused by altered leukocytes. It seems logical that these toxins are also responsible for the neural tissue deterioration and the CNS effects on the heart.

The next obvious question then is what are these toxins? Here comes the most speculative bit: the toxins are an autoimmune response caused by the implant producing malformed endorphins that bind to and affect the receptors of mature cytotoxic T-cells and cause them to bind to Class I MHC molecules in the absence of foreign antigens and result in the destruction of healthy cells. That's a lot of terminology and concepts that I just threw out, so let's break all that down. Malformed endorphins would be just what they say on the tin – after working for so long, the implant starts making making mistakes when producing and releasing the endorphins. Cytotoxic T-cells are a subtype of a subtype of leukocytes that work by destroying any cells presenting the 'red flag' that they've been invaded: a bit of something foreign to the body held out by what are called Class I MHCs, which are found on all cells. They sometimes accidentally respond and bind to plain Class I MHCs, thus resulting in an autoimmune reaction wherein the immune system attacks the body it's supposed to be protecting. Normally, these malfunctioning cytotoxic T-cells are taken care of before they mature and actually go to work, but if mature T-cells are being modified (there's your 'altered molecular structure of leukocytes'), the main bulwark against this type of autoimmune attack is side-stepped. And thus we have a malfunctioning implant killing Garak, and being able to continue to do so even when deactivated – the modified cytotoxic T-cells are still there, doing damage, even if no more new ones are being created.

This brings us to the third and final part: aside form turning off the implant, how are all its ill effects stopped? The big issue here would be the modified cytotoxic T-cells still running around, killing cells. There is one other mechanism for stopping self-attacking T-cells: regulatory T-cells. In the proposed situation, the body just doesn't have enough circulating regulatory T-cells to take care of the modified cytotoxic T-cells. Thus, the synthesized Cardassian leukocytes are specifically Cardassian regulatory T-cells that then help get rid of all the dangerous cytotoxic T-cells, thus stopping the toxins they produce from continuing to damage and kill tissues and effectively curing Garak.

So that's a lot, covering the very complicated and not entirely understood areas of neurology and immunology, so there's an amount of oversimplification, and I wouldn't be surprised if I mixed up or missed something that completely topples this entire thing.

But the TLDR is: Garak's implant makes opioids, but then it malfunctions and starts to instead make toxins that cause Garak's body to attack itself. Turning off the implant stops the production of the toxins, but Garak's body is still attacking itself until the synthesized Cardassian leukocytes are administered and fix things.

[manie-sans-delire-x]

My thoughts/analysis of We Need to talk about Kevin

From abnormal psych class paper:

The character I chose to analyze and diagnose is Kevin Khatchadourian from the 2011 film, We Need to Talk about Kevin. Brilliantly depicted by star Ezra Miller and various other child actors, Kevin is an angry, emotionally detached boy who struggles in his complex relationship with his mother. We see the unhealthy relationship develop between the two through-out the film as Kevin grows from a baby to a young man, ending in tragedy as Kevin achieves his ultimate revenge against his mother by massacring the rest of their family as well as several classmates in a school shooting.  

After carefully noting Kevin’s behavior and the way he and his mother Eva interact when he is a young child, I have decided to diagnose Kevin with reactive attachment disorder (RAD). The diagnostic criteria from the current Diagnostic and Statistical manual (DSM-5) for RAD reads as follows: 

A. A consistent pattern of inhibited, emotionally withdrawn behavior toward adult caregivers, manifested by both of the following: 

1. The child rarely or minimally seeks comfort when distressed. 

2. The child rarely or minimally responds to comfort when distressed. 

B. A persistent social or emotional disturbance characterized by at least two of the following: 

Minimal social and emotional responsiveness to others 

Limited positive affect 

Episodes of unexplained irritability, sadness, or fearfulness that are evident even during nonthreatening interactions with adult caregivers. 

C. The child has experienced a pattern of extremes of insufficient care as evidenced by at least one of the following: 

Social neglect or deprivation in the form of persistent lack of having basic emotional needs for comfort, stimulation, and affection met by caring adults 

Repeated changes of primary caregivers that limit opportunities to form stable attachments (e.g., frequent changes in foster care) 

Rearing in unusual settings that severely limit opportunities to form selective attachments (e.g., institutions with high child to caregiver ratios) 

D. The care in Criterion C is presumed to be responsible for the disturbed behavior in Criterion A (e.g., the disturbances in Criterion A began following the lack of adequate care in Criterion C). 

E. The criteria are not met for autism spectrum disorder. 

F. The disturbance is evident before age 5 years. 

G. The child has a developmental age of at least nine months. 

Specify if Persistent: The disorder has been present for more than 12 months. 

Specify current severity: Reactive Attachment Disorder is specified as severe when a child exhibits all symptoms of the disorder, with each symptom manifesting at relatively high levels. 

Kevin displays behavior that meets both criteria A and B. As a baby he cried constantly, reportedly even when held, showing an inability or unwillingness to be soothed. As a toddler he shows defiance, disinterest in social interaction, and a refusal to engage in play, such as when his mother is attempting to play with a ball with him and he refuses to roll the ball back or respond in any way, instead staring at her with a sullen expression. Kevin also refuses his mother’s pleas to say the word “Mommy”. As a slightly older child, Kevin continues to act defiantly and shows anger, ripping up the paper when his mother attempts to school him, immediately soiling his newly changed diapers on purpose, throwing food against the wall and onto tables, breaking his crayons, making nonsensical noises to irritate his mother, and destroying his mother’s artfully decorated room. When he is taken to the doctor to be examined, he shows no expression, does not speak, and stiffens his body. When his baby sister is born, he purposefully sprinkles water onto the newborn, causing her to cry. It should be noted however that in one instance Kevin seems to relax his cold exterior and accept comfort from his mother, shown by the scene in which he falls ill and cuddles with his mother while she reads him a story. He even apologizes for her having to clean up his throw-up. Unfortunately, as soon as he is feeling well again he is back to being rude and rejecting any attempt of hers to take care of him, refusing her help to change his clothes.  

As for criteria C, although Kevin has not experienced extreme abuse or neglect, I believe Kevin suffered from a traumatic birth as it was mentioned that his mother was resisting. His mother Eva did not desire a child, especially not one as difficult as Kevin, so she emotionally neglects him and is cold to him. Eva makes it very clear to him that he is unwanted, telling him straight to his face that she was happy before she gave birth to him and not correcting him when Kevin mentions that Eva does not like him. In one instance, she is accidentally too rough with him and breaks his arm, which Kevin later refers to as being the most honest thing she ever did. Kevin also meets the criteria of D through G, and his symptoms are persistent. I would say Kevin has moderate to severe symptoms as he does exhibit all listed symptoms quite regularly.  

I believe Kevin’s psychological problems may also have developed into conduct disorder (CD) as an adolescent and then antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) or psychopathy in adulthood, especially after taking into consideration the mutilation of his sister’s eye and the killing of his sister’s guinea pig, his father, his sister, and several classmates. He shows no guilt or empathy, appears to have shallow emotions besides anger, and shows no evidence of having affection or emotional bonds to anyone. He is also very manipulative; putting on a fake act of normalcy for his father, turning his parents against each other, and navigating the legal system to get his best outcome. However, I know that children with RAD can also be violent and if not treated, behave in a way very similar to conduct disorder in adolescence and ASPD or psychopathy in adulthood. The main reason I chose to focus on RAD over CD or ASPD is because I believe the root of Kevin’s problem is immense pain at being rejected and unloved as a child and that he harbors a deep desire to have that connection but is unable to accept affection.  He is so focused on and consumed by his anger towards his mother, while someone with true psychopathy may be more detached and indifferent. I also leaned more towards RAD given that he showed symptoms from such a young age and did not seem to have any problems outside of his issues with his mother, such as acting out in school or engaging in petty, impulsive crime. I do wish that the film showed more of his interaction with his peers. Lastly, I felt RAD was a more accurate choice because of the subtle signs of it that are associated more with RAD than CD, such as stiffening his body when others try to hug him, making nonsensical sounds, and not making eye contact as an infant, although that may not have been intentionally put in the film. Either way, his parents certainly needed to talk to professionals about Kevin when he was a child. Had they done so, perhaps they could have prevented the tragedy of both his life and the pain he inflicted on others.  

Response to tumblr ask:

I agree! I would have loved to see how he interacts at school, what he does when he’s alone and has spare time, and more of his childhood.

I think he had multiple reasons:

1- To make his mother suffer since he obviously has a lot of anger and resentment towards her

2- Because he doesn’t feel much positive emotion and gave up on ever feeling pleasure or enjoyment from regular life. Normal life is incredibly boring for him. He wanted to DO something- real, meaningful, make something happen. He wanted to Live. I very much relate.

3- He enjoys the attention he gets from it.

We talked about this in my forensic psych club- whether we should give interviews and all this attention to violent criminals. Our society is fascinated by them to the point where we make movies and books. People sell and collect memorabilia. They have fan-girls writing love letters and showing up to their court sessions, even fighting each other over them. It’s pretty crazy. But on the other hand, it’s important that we study them. Or is it? There’s a debate about everything.

4- His philosophy and world view. 

He is very nihilistic, he doesn’t believe life “means” anything and right/wrong doesn’t exist/is just a matter of opinion or viewpoint. His actions don’t really matter either, nothing does. I used to think exactly like he did when I was a teen, and I still do in a way.

As for your last question, it’s easy to forget one way of thinking when you’re in another. It’s hard to remember how one state was when you’re in a different one. Also, as shitty as outside life can be, life in prison is even shittier. Makes you appreciate the ability of choice and being able to do things, even just to walk around outside or buy an icecream cone. He was also only 15 at the time of the crime, and in the last scene he’s 18. A lot of chemical changes and neural development happens in that time. He matured- his way of thinking about himself, the world, and the others around him changed.

[iliveiloveiwrite]

Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

A/N: A Draco fic no-one asked for! I’m rereading A Discovery of Witches so it’s got me inspired. I don’t plan to post anything over the weekend, I want a couple of days off before I post every day next week. This wasn't requested but I was inspired, so I hope you enjoy!

Title: Macbeth, Act 4: Scene 1

Summary: Draco needs a new stockist.

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Fem!Reader

Warnings: FLUFF - SO MUCH FLUFF.

Word count: 2.2k

Of all the avenues of employment open to Draco Malfoy after his graduation from Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, he surprised everyone by staying on at the school to apprentice under Professor Slughorn.

Horace Slughorn had retired once before and was eager to do so again; already fantasising about his golden years in the countryside. Draco Malfoy was his first and only choice for successor to his post – his grades in class rivalling those of Hermione Granger.

Draco’s training took two years where in that time he became able to rattle off ever potion ingredient and method just from hearing the very name of the potion.

Three years into his career and his first year teaching without Slughorn at his side, Draco’s stockist retires – also desiring a life in the country.

It leaves him in a lurch. 

He spends an entire month of his summer holiday researching potion shops before discovering one off the beaten track in Diagon Alley – closer to muggle London than the rest of the shops. So much so that the shop wasn’t protected by the enchantments surrounding Diagon Alley and as a result, the shop seemed to have a steady stream of muggle customers.

Draco enters Cauldron Bubble and is immediately taken back by the sheer amount of stock. Potion ingredients, materials for poppets, prayer candles are just a few of the items that catch his attention. The intoxicating scent of myrrh and sweet orange washes over him. A heady smell that soon opens up to more delicate notes such as vanilla and tansy.

Draco doesn’t immediately seek out the items on his list, but instead walks slowly around the shop, committing it all to memory. There are shelves of books dedicated to the craft of potion brewing but also in the art of divination; particularly tarot readings and palmistry. The entire back wall of the shop is dedicated to what could be hundreds of small draws; each filled with their named herb or plant.

He wanders through the store, feeling entirely at ease with the idea of spending the rest of his day here, discovering the shop’s deepest secrets.

A voice greets him as he finishes his circuit of the small shop, “How can I help you today?”

Draco smiles in greeting, “I’m hoping you have these ingredients,” he says, handing you his long list.

You read over the list, “I do. I have all of these – would you like to take them now or would you like them delivered…” you trail off, looking at him for his name.

“Draco Malfoy. I’m the Potions Professor at Hogwarts.”

“Draco,” You confirm, “I can get these for you now unless you’d like them sent to Hogwarts?”

“Now is fine,” he smiles, “I’m intrigued by your collection if I’m honest.”

You laugh, nodding knowingly, “It’s my pride and joy.”

Draco agrees, leaning on the counter, “It’s bigger than my stockroom if I’m being honest.”

“Now that makes me even happier.” You declare, pointing at the Professor.

The ingredients take time to be collected, but the silence that should be awkward, isn’t. It’s filled with conversation after conversation about the curriculum at Hogwarts and how long Cauldron Bubble has been open.

Draco admits to himself, as you finish tying the final string bow on his parcels, that he feels a little sad about leaving. He had enjoyed his time with you regardless of how short it had been; he felt as if he knew you. He felt as if he could form a friendship with you.

You hand him his parcels in a paper bag, smiling, “I hope to see you again soon,” you say in goodbye.

Draco smiles at you, “I hope to come back soon.” He offers as his parting.

---------------

On a bleak January morning, Draco walks into your shop, stamping his feet to get the last of the sharp, winter cold out of his body.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” You smile.

Draco grins in reply, handing over his list, “Another stock up.”

“Another? You came in before Christmas as I remember.” You smirk at the blonde-haired man, “Did someone miss me?”

Draco blushes, stuttering out his answer, “The… the students have had a few weeks off, they’ll have fallen into old habits with potion ingredients.”

You laugh, “You are one smoother thinker, Draco. It’s a good job I knew you were coming; I have your usual stock set aside.” You read down his list, checking you have everything put away, but you stop at one item. “Agrimony?”

“It’s coming up to Valentine’s Day.” Draco offers as explanation.

One of the properties of Agrimony is that it can break enchantments. Draco uses the yellow flower in his antidote for love potions. He frowns at the thought of how much antidote he would have to brew for those on the receiving end of an unwanted love potion. If he could ban any potion, it would be Amortentia. Not that he didn’t believe in love or anything along those lines, but the effects of Amortentia are never real and the aftermath is often worse than being under its spell.

Through his last two Valentine’s Days at Hogwarts as Potions Professor, he had to comfort countless students through the aftermath of the potion as well as deduct house points and hand out detentions to the students who think it funny to unknowingly drug a fellow student.

In his antidote for students, Draco also sprinkles in the petals of Feverfew and Boneset to ensure protection from enchantments or a broken heart, Draco never knows but he makes sure that his students are protected, nonetheless.

You nod at Draco, understanding the need for a potion to break enchantments through this particular holiday. “Here’s your Agrimony as well as your usual stock, is there anything else you need?”

Draco thinks it over, “I better stock up on Boneset, Feverfew, and Adder’s Tongue too.”

You raise an eyebrow, “It’s a very thorough potion you’re making here, Draco.”

He nods, “Too many students are drugged with the Amortentia potion and little is done to control it so I do what I can to protect any student I can.”

“That’s a wonderful thing to do, Draco.” You say quietly; touched by his words.

“I don’t just make potions with the plants and herbs. I make charms to go in their bags and to hang in their rooms too. Anything to protect.” Draco states; thinking back to a group of fifth year girls who had become targets by a group of sixth year boys; each girl suffering through a love potion before coming down from its high. Draco had made sure they each had a charm to carry in their bag as well as a vial of the antidote should one of them ingest the potion again.

You nod silently; overcome by the emotion in his words. You know then and there just how dedicated Draco was to his profession and the students he sees every day. You hand him his bag of herbs and plants with a smile which he returns before walking to the door.

He’s almost out the door when your voice calls out again, “Draco, I know we don’t know each other very well except for when you need to fill your stockroom, but you’re a good teacher and a good man – you know that right?”

He turns to you with his hand on the door handle; silver lining his eyes, “Thank you.” He whispers before opening the door and leaving.

-----

Your words play on his mind through the week leading up to Valentine’s Day and the week after the holiday too. He spends all of his spare time in the hospital wing with Madame Pomfrey; offering the antidote and words of comfort to each and every student that come in with symptoms of being drugged with Amortentia.

From Madame Pomfrey’s ceaseless ranting through those two weeks, Draco knows that she feels just as strongly about the need to rid the world of a potion like Amortentia.

Draco starts to think of you more and more, especially after each visit to Cauldron Bubbles where you go through his ingredient list with the practiced precision of a Potioneer.

His feelings for you really do take him by surprise. It comes with elation as he finally has a name for the butterflies in his stomach and the racing of his heart whenever he thinks of your smile or your focused look as you check and recheck the ingredients on the list.

He starts to visit Cauldron Bubble more often; making his way through the Professors at Hogwarts to see if they may possibly need something for their class. Professor Trelawney always has something for him to pick up, and Draco feels the urge to apologise to her for every time he was rude to her when he was a teenager.

Draco’s feelings for you only increase with each visit. He craves to see your face light up when he walks in the door; the bell above the door announcing his arrival. The light flirting with each visit was pushing him towards something more.

If only he could think of how to tell you.

---------------------

Draco ropes Madame Pomfrey into his plans to woo you; though she doesn’t necessarily know that

“Please, Poppy, you must have something you need to stock up on… I mean Madame Pomfrey,” Draco corrects when he meets her glare.

She raises an eyebrow, unimpressed with the former student, “You’re awfully interested in my stock cupboard, Mr. Malfoy. Whatever for?”

“Call it my New Year’s Resolution.”

“It’s May,” Madame Pomfrey nonchalantly reminds him, replacing the water jugs at the side of each hospital bed.

“Of the New Year,” Draco emphasises, following her, “And mine is to help more. So are you sure there is nothing I can’t get you?”

Madame Pomfrey sighs, bustling back to her desk. She notes down a few ingredients, “I’m running low on these herbs and plants for a tea I brew so you can get these for me.”

Draco beams, taking the list, even going so far as to kiss Madame Pomfrey on the cheek before sprinting back to his private quarters where he can floo to Diagon Alley… and to you.

--------------------

“Draco!” You call, “Back already? You aren’t due another visit for oh… another week or so.” Your eyes alight with mirth as you pick fun at the Professor.

He blushes, waving his list in the air, “Sent on an errand by Madame Pomfrey.”

“Don’t keep it to yourself! Hand it over, let’s see what Madame Pomfrey needs.” You cover your mouth to stifle the laugh as you read over the list from Draco, “Madame Pomfrey gave you this list did she?”

“Handed it to me herself, why?”

“Draco, to say you’re a Potions Professor, you can be quite dense.”

He frowns; you laugh at his puzzled expression. “Madame Pomfrey sent you to get the ingredients for a tea that curbs the menstrual cycle. A form of contraception.”

Draco doesn’t need to look into a mirror to know he’s blushing; he can feel the heat radiating from his cheeks – he’s sure it could heat his own cauldron. “Ah,” he begins, “Well, that’s a very responsible thing to have in a school like Hogwarts, wouldn’t you say?”

You nod, “Very much so. Madame Pomfrey to be admired.”

“Yes, I agree.”

“And you as well. For being her humble servant for this task.”

Draco rubs his hand across the back of his neck. “It was nothing. Truthfully, I pestered her until she gave me a list of ingredients.”

“Now why would you do that?”

“To see you,” He admits, eyes shining with truth.

“You pestered the Matron of Hogwarts for a list of ingredients… all to see me?”

He nods silently. Your eyes crinkle with your smile, “That has to be the cutest thing anyone has ever done for me. How long have you been coming here to see me as well as to get potion ingredients?”

Some part of Draco wants to scream as he admits, “Since January.”

“That long?” You ask, eyes wide.

He nods again.

“Why didn’t you just ask me to dinner?”

“I didn’t want to offend you and lose you as my stockist.”

You laugh, “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me out since January you know?”

“No, I didn’t know.” He almost shouts; hating the fact that he could have been dating you all this time but was too scared to make a move.

“And you wouldn’t lose me as your stockist even if we did date.”

“No?”

“Haven’t you noticed that I’ve been undercharging you for your ingredients?”

Draco does the quick math in his head; thinking of how healthy his department budget had been when he handed it in to McGonagall back in March. “No… I didn’t notice.”

You nod your head slowly, “That was my way of flirting as well as the open ended questions.”

Draco rubs a hand over his face, “I can’t believe we’ve been dancing around each other for this long.”

Laughing you make your way from behind the counter. You pull his hands from his face, keeping them in yours, “Hey Draco, want to go to dinner with me?”

He grins down at you; letting the joy run through his body, “I’d love to.”

******

General (HP) taglist: @chaotic-fae-queen​ @obsessedwithrandomthings​ @harrypotter289​ @dreamer821​ @kalimagik​ @heloisedaphnebrightmore​ @nebulablakemurphy​ @the-hufflefluffwriter​ @figlia--della--luna​ @bforbroadway​ @idont-knowrn​

Draco Malfoy taglist: @the--queen-of-hell​ @obxmxybxnk​ @obx-beach​

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #501

“my mind is like a puzzle or a rubik’s cube, but figuring me out is something that you shouldn’t do”

How many cars have you ever owned? I personally have never owned a vehicle. Mom, since I've been alive, has had uhhhh I think three total? When Dad still lived with us, he went through two or three, I think. He's been a mailman my whole life, so his cars always saw a shitload of use. Can you do math in your head well? I literally can't do even simple math in my head. And I mean simple. What's your favorite flavor of potato chip? If you're not including plain salted (which is my favorite), then sour cream and onion, probs. Who is your favorite Star Wars character? I don't watch it. What kind of cheese do you put on your sandwiches? Only ever American. Did you ever collect beanie babies? "Collect," no, but I had one or two as a little kid. Where are you most ticklish on your body? My feet. Have you ever cheated on a test? Not in-class. On tests where I had notes or could just look it up, I'd sometimes cheat via the Internet if it was an online course. Have you ever bailed anyone out of jail? No. What's the last board game you played? It's called "Pretty Pretty Princess," which I played with my niece. It's from my childhood (it was really Nicole's, but I'd play with her), and with just how obsessed Aubree is with princesses, it was a gift from me to her. Have you ever given someone a fake phone number? No. Do you actually eat three meals a day? Usually. If there was a real Jurassic Park, would you visit it? Well, it would be an AWFUL idea for it to exist, but with how much I adore dinos, I know I'd go, lol. Have you ever gone golfing? Just mini-golfing. Did you have a swingset in your yard when you were a child? Yes. Have you ever played poker for money? No. When you were a kid, were you ever afraid of cooties? No, I knew it was just a goof. Do you feel the need to be popular? It'd be a dream come true to be a popular photographer, but that's it. To what store would you like a $50 giftcard? Hot Topic or Rebel's Market. At what hour do you begin to feel tired? It greatly varies and usually comes twice a day. At night, I'd say I first start feeling tired around 7:00 (I sometimes even go to bed that early, rip), and I almost always take a nap literally only a couple hours after waking up in the morning. I call the little while before I nap like my "trial" of consciousness, ha ha. I can occasionally get super tired again. It's all likely related to my sleep apnea; sudden and heavy exhaustion is a symptom. I fight napping a whole lot, but most times, it's literally impossible to win. Recently I even blacked out for a moment trying so hard. Head just dropped and I saw a really, really dark black before jerking back up. Do you think a lot? I think way, way, WAY too fucking much. Have you ever played Battleship? For someone who doesn't tend to enjoy board games, I actually quite like Battleship. Do you like to record yourself? Heeeell no. Do you like watching wrestling? No. You're free to like whatever you want, but to me personally, it's pretty stupid. Like how the fuck do you get pleasure from hurting another person "for fun." What kind of class would you like to take? I've actually been really regretting lately not snagging up a massive deal on an online photography course awhile back. I really should kick my ass into gear and aim to improve on something I know I'm capable of. Are you prescribed any kind of meds? Two mood stabilizers (they cover my depression as well), two anxiety meds (one is as needed), one for OCD that I don't even think I need anymore, one for my hand tremors and another for chronic heartburn, a vitamin I take once weekly, birth control, and I think my final one is the one that helps in subduing my nightmares/terrors. Basically, a lot. What kind of cookie do you want right now? 'Tis the season, I really want a gingerbread cookie. What color is your shower curtain? Or is it glass/plastic? It's just white. Do you feed the strays in your neighborhood? I've never seen a stray here. Do you think old houses are creepy? No; they intrigue me far more than anything! Do you type home row or with two fingers? I type in the proper form. Do you wear a watch? No, never. Do you read poetry? Not really anymore. Do you feel connected to any certain celeb in some weird way? Not "in some weird way." I relate to some, but I don't feel like a soul connection or something like that. What is a website you cannot live without? I would be SO lost without YouTube. What kind of outdoor activities do you like? Photography, swimming, and if my legs were actually worth shit, I'd love to still go on walks. If it's cool out, it's also nice to sit in the shade and just listen to the sounds of nature. Do you like fish? To eat, no. To observe, yes. Do you type in all caps, lowercase only, or normal usually? Normally, in most cases, but it can vary depending on the tone I want to have, aesthetics, and how fast I want to get a message across. When was the last time you didn’t want to get out of bed? I pretty much live in my bed, so... Do you save cards from your birthday/x-mas, etc? Some. If given the chance, would you go to Ireland? Certainly! Are you currently in a relationship? If so, how long have you been dating? Yeah. It's been three months. What was the last video game you played, if any? Girt has the remaster of Shadow of the Colossus on his PS4 (which he keeps here for now), and we played it together recently. I was freaking the FUCK out in excitement, like you have no idea. I'd wanted to play it for years. Out of biology, chemistry, and physics, which are you the best at? Biology. Do you like your nose? I don't have an opinion on it? It's fine ig. Is there a movie that makes you cry every single time you watch it? The Notebook comes to mind. Do you like strawberries? They're my favorite fruit. What brand of face wash do you use? I actually don't really use any. I just wash my face with a wet cloth. Would you ever use an online dating service? Never again. Do you have a large dog? We have a chihuahua, my man. Literally the antithesis, lol. Do you like walking places? I used to. :/ I literally can't anymore. Walking to the other end of my small house is very painful because of the muscle atrophy I've endured. I CANNOT walk far at all before I literally feel like collapsing. When’s the last time you wore goggles? During a science class the last time I was in college. Are “school friends” and friends different to you? Yes. What bothers you the most about your town? Its intense association with crime. What part of your body are you most insecure about? Literally everything, but I guess my stomach tops the list. Actually, unshaven, my legs are more embarrassing. What’s one food you would be surprised to hear that someone doesn’t like? Pizza, for one. How long is your mother’s hair? Don't you dare tell her I said this, but it's pretty much "old lady hair" now. Y'know, the short, curly haircut. It's even dyed to complete it, haha... She doesn't like it and complains it looks too much like an afro, but she doesn't really care to let it grow out because she knows that realistically, she will probably have to go through chemo again eventually. Did you share a bed with anyone last night? Just my cat. Do you know anyone who volunteers regularly? Yeah; my mom's cleaning of the local church is a volunteer effort, though they eventually came to pay her because they loved how thorough and dedicated she was. Our landlord also works with LOTS of volunteer groups; she's even a leader figure in one of them. Have you ever played Cards Against Humanity? Yep. How many chairs are in the room you’re currently in? Zero. Do you have a lot in common with your significant other? Yeah. Do you like to go to the farmer’s market? Yeah! You can get some great stuff. Have you ever been told you have an annoying laugh? No, thankfully. That would make me so self-conscious. What motivates you? I think my greatest motivation is me wanting Girt and me to work out; I don't want to disappoint him and have him leave for similar reasons to Jason. I want a happy future together. I know this is a bad answer, like motivation should primarily come from within, buuuut yeah. I struggle with that. What will (or was) the color of your wedding dress be? I'm quite sure it will be black. Possibly ivory. What’s your favorite melon? I don't really like melons. Whose Facebook password do you have? Nobody's but my own. How often do you and your significant other argue? We've never argued in our entire 10+ years of knowing one another. What is a situation that makes you feel especially confident? Educating others about meerkats. What was the subject of your most recent conversation? Dad called a couple days back (my mom is in NY, so I'm home alone) just to check up on me, and we talked about various stuff, mainly his upcoming spinal surgery. We chatted for a good 30 minutes, which was nice. Do you consider internet friendships as important as offline friendships, or do you view them differently? They are absolutely just as important; in my personal case, I hold most of my online relationships dearer because these people know me better and have actually made efforts to stay in touch, despite never physically meeting. What was the last series you finished watching? Do you have any plans to begin another? The last series I actually finished was re-watching Fullmetal Alchemist with Sara. Girt and I began Attack on Titan a couple months ago, but we haven't watched an episode in a while. I'd be willing to, though. I'm into it. Have you ever lived on a university campus? No. What colour is your front door? White. Do you take the stairs or the elevator? My legs have it so in almost any imaginable case, I have to use the elevator. I both walk up and down stairs very, very slowly. Like I mean it, I can only go up a few steps before I physically can't anymore, my knees just give out. What was the last vaccination you got? Moderna for COVID. What was the last food you put syrup on? Pancakes at Cracker Barrel months ago when Tobey took Mom and me out to lunch. Ever had paranormal experiences with a Ouija board? I don't fuck with those. I don't know if I believe in their mystical abilities, but I believe enough in the paranormal to really not want to find out. Funnily enough though, I would LOVE to frame and hang a nice Ouija board in my future home just as decor. Does your refrigerator have one or two doors? Two: fridge is on the right, freezer is on the left. Are you allergic to any animals? Possibly dogs. Are you into politics at all? I should be, but I'm really just not that into them and am VERY ignorant of current goings on. Like I have opinions, some being very strong, but in the big picture, I'm not involved nearly enough. Do you know anyone who has a pet bunny? Not off the top of my head. I still wish I had and could properly care for a lop-eared rabbit. :( Name your top 3 favorite musical instruments. Violin, piano, electric guitar. Do you like Indian food? I don't think I've ever tried Indian cuisine before. Where is your favorite place to get fries? Bojangle's, an NC-exclusive food chain. It's like, worshiped here, including by me, lol. Their fries are magically seasoned, stg. Do you have a strong opinion for or against Justin Bieber? I know nothing about him as a person, but I don't like his music. I don't have a strong opinion, though. He's just another pop artist I don't listen to. Do you have a hyphenated name or know anyone with one? (eg. Carter-Brown) I know many, but mine isn't. If I hypothetically marry my current partner, though, I hate his last name so very much that I would actually hyphenate my last name. I don't like my last name either, but his is worse lol. Have you ever been camping in the wilderness? I have not. Have you ever lived in a house with a pool in the yard? Not a built-in pool, no. We've always just bought our pools. Do you have gluten intolerance or know anyone who does? I don't, but I know at least four people who do.

[groundnul]

The Call: Modern! Kyojuro X Depressed Reader

Request: Hi there, fam! 💖 May i ask you a scenario of Kyōjurō helping a depressed y/n? Thank you ~

Title: The Call 

Pairing: Kyojuro X Reader 

Words: 3580

Warnings: depression, brief mentions of suicide (the mentions of suicide are put between a set of bolded asterisks, so if you are sensitive to this type of material, you can skip that portion without missing much of the story)

Notes: this is set in the modern AU! history teacher kyojuro rocks my socks off

Summary: Reader gives fellow teacher and longtime crush Kyojuro Rengoku a late-night call. What will come of it? 

Impatient eyes stared at the clock across the room, waiting for the final bell. This day, like so many others in the past month, seemed to pass agonizingly slow. Lately, this is how time has felt for you. If you tried, you couldn’t remember what you were doing this time last week. Part of you is convinced it never even happened, like you’re just floating through a nonlinear collection of experiences independent of one another. What is a memory, anyway? 

Nevermind, that’s too deep. 

Eventually, the final school bell rang, signaling the end of the day. You reminded your homeroom students of their upcoming homework assignments and told them to travel safe and stay warm. After the last few students trickled out of your classroom, done with their cleaning duties, you closed the door and lay your head down on your desk in defeat. 

This rut you’ve been in isn’t exactly new to you, but that doesn’t make it suck any less. You’ve learned to live with your depression and manage the symptoms, but knowing how to take care of yourself and actually doing it are two very different things. 

You don’t know the last time you got a full night’s sleep, or had any time to yourself. You’ve eaten nothing but fast food for the past week because you can’t bring yourself to make a trip to the store, much less cook yourself an actual meal. Clothes are piling up around your apartment along with dirty dishes and miscellaneous school work. You know this isn’t how your life should be, but it is, and you’re too exhausted to fix it. 

It’s not like there’s anyone at home to clean up for, anyway. Clutter is your cat’s paradise, and you do well enough in your own filth that it doesn’t really matter to you right now. When you’re feeling up to it, you’ll take the time to get things in order. That time is just not right now. 

You startle at a loud knock on your door. Perking up in your seat, you smooth out your probably frizzy hair and preemptively plaster on a smile for the guest. Turning to the door, your smile becomes genuine. Tired, but genuine. 

The bright eyes of Kyojuro Rengoku peered through the small window of your door, his signature smile beaming. Ignoring the beating in your chest, you chuckle, gesturing for him to come in. He swiftly opens the door, striding over to your desk with a stack of papers in his hands.

“Hello, (L/N)-san!” he announces, holding out the papers to you. “Kocho-san asked me to drop these off.” 

“Thank you,” you say, accepting the papers from him. 

“My pleasure!” he assures, crossing his arms over his chest. “How was your day?” 

“Oh, it was good,” you say automatically, flipping through the papers. Resisting a sigh at the sheer amount of papers, you set them onto the desk, giving him your attention. “Thanks for asking. What about you?” 

“My day was great!” he exclaims, pumping a fist halfway up in enthusiasm. “My students are excited to learn more about the Muromachi period!” 

You let out a tired laugh at his show of passion, crossing one leg over the other. 

“I don’t blame them,” you say earnestly, smiling at him. “You’re very good at what you do, Rengoku-san.” 

He beams at the praise.

“Allow me to say the same about you!” he insists, his grin growing. “My students always look forward to your class.” 

Your face flushes at his praise, eyes looking anywhere but him. 

“Thank you,” you say quietly, adjusting in your seat. Is it hot in here? “That’s very kind of you to say.” 

He nods, his expression dipping into something softer. As you cover a yawn, he crosses his arms back over his chest. 

“It’s true,” he says, eyes looking over you carefully. “Have you been getting enough sleep? You seem tired.” 

Your eyes widen at his unexpected question, stilling in your seat. What are you supposed to say to that? 

“Oh, well, I- um…” you stutter out, cursing his directness. “It’s just been one of those weeks, y’know.” 

You laugh half-heartedly, intertwining your fingers in front of you. It’s not really a lie, but it’s not the whole truth, either. “But thank you for your concern.” 

He nods understandingly, seemingly lost in thought for a moment. His eyes meet yours again. 

“Just let me know if there’s anything I can do to help!” he offers, hands shifting down to rest on his waist. But unprovoked, his eyes light up, as if he has a brilliant idea. “Actually, let me-” 

He digs into his pocket, pulling out a small pad of sticky notes. He feels for the pen in his front pocket, stepping forward towards your desk. He sets the notepad down on the edge, leaning over to scribble down several numbers. At this proximity, you can smell the subtle hint of his cologne. 

God, he smells so good. What you wouldn’t give to- 

At the recognition of your thoughts, you feel your face grow hot again. No. Absolutely not. You can’t think like that about a fellow teacher who is right fucking-

“Here,” he says, pulling the note off the pad and handing it to you. “My phone number, in case you need anything.” 

You can tell he doesn’t have any ulterior motives, no secret reason for doing this, but it makes your whole body feel flushed nonetheless. Hesitantly, you reach forward, gingerly taking the slip of paper from his hands. 

“Thank you,” you say softly with a gentle smile. He smiles back, murmuring a soft “mhm” as he straightens back up to his full height. A silence falls over the room, and as your eyes meet again, you can’t help but notice how intimate this interaction suddenly feels. 

Averting your eyes, you clear your throat, opting to grab the stack of papers in front of you. 

“W-well, I better get-” you start awkwardly. 

“Of course, of course, I’ll leave you to it,” he says, turning to walk back to the door. On his way out, he pauses to look back at you. 

“Have a good evening, (L/N)-san,” he says happily, grabbing the door knob. 

“Thank you,” you answer almost too quickly, internally scolding yourself. “You too, Rengoku-san.”  

With one final smile he pulls the door to, exiting your room. 

Once he’s definitely out of sight, you shyly cover your very red face, elbows propped onto the desk. 

To make a long story short, you’ve been into a certain history teacher for a very long time. After teaching here for two years, you were promoted to teach in the same grade as Kyojuro. Despite only getting to actually get to know him this year, you’ve admired him from afar during faculty meetings and assemblies. He’s the life of the party, the heart of this school. His unbreakable spirit and passion for what he does makes him a wonderful teacher and role model. And somewhere, in the midst of your admiration, you fell for him. Hard. 

He, of course, hadn’t noticed. If he noticed every girl that fell for his charm and good looks, he wouldn’t have enough hours in the day -- in your opinion, at least. Maybe you’re a little biased. Even so, you’re certain that if he did know of your feelings towards him, he wouldn’t reciprocate them. A guy like him would go for an outgoing, model-wife type of girl, someone who can confidently host a cocktail party. 

You sighed, tracing over the numbers on the note with your fingers. That’s why what just happened was so shocking to you. That brief moment you shared may have been nothing out of the ordinary for him, but for you, it made you feel on fire, setting off alarms inside your soul telling you to take hold of this man and never let go. 

Perhaps you were being a little dramatic. Regardless, that’s how you felt. 

Your head was still reeling. You got his number! Were you really going to call him? You had to, right? You instantly felt anxious at the thought, unsure of what you’d even talk about. You’d have to come up with something beforehand, a list of questions or maybe a topic area of interest. You could talk about school, if nothing else. He did say call if you ever need help, after all. 

Calming your nerves, you folded up the slip of paper, sliding it securely into your bag. Once you were home, you could think more about this latest turn of events, but for now you needed to get some work done.

. . . 

The remainder of your day passed easily enough. You finished up most of the grading you needed to get done as well as some paperwork that had been piling up. The walk home was uneventful, but you did grab some takeout. You ate while you watched the news, pushing your stubborn cat away from your food. For most of the night, you were fine. You didn’t clean up any of the mess in your apartment, but you weren’t stuck in your head for once, so you took the opportunity to indulge a little and watch your favorite show. 

But eventually, it seemed the high from your interaction with Kyojuro finally dissipated, leaving you feeling just as hollow as before. Doubts swirled your mind, assuring you had no chance at winning his affections, that you were unworthy of him. You found it hard to disagree as you lay in bed, tossing and turning. It was only around 10 p.m., which was rather early for you, but you figured it would be better to try and get more rest. You body was having none of it. 

You frustratedly sat up out of bed, shoving your feet into your slippers as you made your way into the kitchen. Rummaging through the fridge, you found nothing of interest, so you just made some tea to sip on solemnly at the kitchen table. Staring at the wall across from you, you were barraged with a series of intrusive thoughts. 

*******************************************************************************************

Thoughts about bad things you’ve done in the past, the people you’ve hurt. Thoughts about the people who hurt you, used you and humiliated you. Thoughts about yourself, everything you don’t like, everything you wish were different. Your heart sunk as memory after painful memory flooded into your brain, tainting the calm atmosphere of the night with sadness and disappointment. 

Soon enough, you were crying over your cup of tea, wondering just what in the hell is wrong with your brain. Why can’t you just be happy like everyone else? Why can’t you just take pride in who you are and what you do? Why isn’t that enough? 

Will it ever be enough? Would you be better off dead? Would that be easier than enduring this-

 No, you scold yourself, not everyone is happy. Everyone has their own issues. You can’t let this temporary lapse in judgement permanently alter your life. This pain is temporary, and it will pass just as it has before. You wouldn’t be better off dead. You would leave behind the people who love you, your family, your students. You couldn’t do that to them. And shit, what if there is a chance with Kyojuro? Are you just going to throw that away? 

*******************************************************************************************

You sigh, sniffling as you wipe the stray tears from your face. Across from you on the table is your bag, left haphazardly in your exhaustion. You see the corner of the sticky note Kyojuro gave you sticking out from the interior pocket. You stare at it for a long time. 

Should you call him right now? You look at the time on your phone -- 10:33. It’s disrespectful to call someone so late. But it is a Friday, and... 

You’d like to hear his voice right now. Listen to whatever he’s willing to say. Slowly, you reach across the table, digging into your bag for the note. Pulling it out, you study the numbers again. You muster a sad smile as you examine his handwriting. It’s cute. 

Unlocking your phone, you dial in his number, holding your finger over the call button. Should you really be doing this? 

On the upside, if you call and he doesn’t pick up, you can just hang up. He won’t know it’s you that called him. On the other hand, if he does pick up… oh, fuck it. What’s the worst thing that could happen? 

In a moment of surprising boldness, you hit the call button as your phone rests on the table. Part of you is so unbelievably shocked you actually pressed the button, and the other part is running through every possible worst-case-scenario. It’s the familiar “hello?” coming through your speaker that breaks you from your shock, sending you scrambling to pick up your phone from the table. You manage to put the phone to your ear as he says a second “hello?”, this time more confused. Damnit, he must have heard your scrambling. Oh well. 

“Hello?” you say into the speaker, trying to mask your anxiousness. You clear your throat quietly, trying to eliminate the scratchiness from your earlier crying. 

“(L/N)-san?” he asks, sounding a little lost.  

“Y-yeah!” you manage in a soft, yet cheery tone. “Sorry for calling so late. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” 

You turn your head and sniffle, trying to mute the sounds of your previous sadness. You hear shuffling on the other end of the line, the sound of blankets moving. 

“No, I was just winding down for the night,” he explains, but there’s a touch of either concern or alarm in his voice. You can’t really tell which without seeing his face. “Is everything alright? You sound like you’ve been crying.” 

You chuckle humorlessly, pinching the bridge of your nose at your foolishness. Why did you think this would be a good idea, again? 

“No, no, everything’s okay,” you say dismissively, waving a hand even though he can’t see you. “It’s, um…” 

You choose your words carefully, cautious of telling him too much. 

“It’s just been a rough night, is all,” you finish honestly, sniffling again. 

“Oh,” he responds quietly. There’s a pause before he speaks again, like he’s deciding what to say. “... Do you want to talk about it? I’m happy to listen.” 

You sigh, clearing your throat again. These crying noises are probably annoying, you should stop doing that. 

“That’s okay, I just…” you trail, unsure. “Actually, I don’t really know why I called you… so this is probably kind of weird…”

Regret wells up within you. You shouldn’t have called. 

“You know what, I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t have called, I should just-” you begin, frustrated with yourself for thinking this was a good idea. 

“Don’t worry,” he interrupts your rambling, cutting off your negative thoughts with the warmth of his words. “We all have nights like that.” 

A beat of silence passes. You feel yourself relax a little. 

“I’m glad you called, actually,” he admits, and you hear more shuffling on the other side of the line. It sounds like he’s in bed, judging from the slight creaking of the bed. 

“Really?” you ask in playful disbelief, fully aware of how fast your heart was starting to beat as you sipped your tea. 

“Mhm,” he says, and you can hear his smile as he speaks. “I forgot to ask for your number earlier.” 

You just about spat out the liquid in your mouth, but instead, swallowed roughly, coughing for a moment before letting out a haggard laugh. 

“What was that?” he asks curiously. 

“You just about killed me is all,” you chuckle, wiping up tea drips that did manage to escape your mouth. You cough again into your sleeve, laughing. You hear his pleasant laugh from the other side of the line, and will the blush on your cheeks to die down. 

“I’m glad I didn’t,” he says, and you can’t quite tell if he’s being genuine or playful. Maybe both. 

“Me too,” you reply with a breathy giggle, standing up from your chair to walk around your house. You were beginning to feel antsy. You wracked your brain for something to talk about, your mind eventually thinking back to earlier in the day. 

“Actually, I did have something I wanted to ask you,” you admit, dodging your cat as it ran through your legs. 

“What’s that?” he asks, sounding intrigued. 

“Earlier today, you mentioned something about the Muromachi period,” you say, hoping you didn’t sound like too much of a bore. You shouldn’t, right? This is his thing. “... Could you tell me a little bit about it? Or- or anything, really… I just… I just like hearing your voice.” 

The latter part of your sentence was so quiet that if he wasn’t listening as hard as he was, Kyojuro would have missed it. Luckily, listening was a specialty of his, and he took your compliment to heart.  

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” he replies cheerily. “But if you’d like an in-depth explanation, we might need to arrange a coffee date.” 

You were quiet for so long Kyojuro worried he said something wrong, but really, your mind was just racing, your feet glued to the floor. He proposed it so casually, like it was no big deal. Did he usually do this? Either way, you were absolutely floored. 

“(Y/N)?” you heard him ask through the speaker, forcing you from your thoughts. You’re too flustered to realize he used your first name. 

“Y-yeah!” you say a little too loudly, wincing at your volume. “That sounds great.” 

“Great,” he comments confidently. “How about tomorrow around noon? We could meet at that little cafe near the school.” 

You can’t help the stupid grin on your features. 

“That sounds perfect,” you say, contemplating your next words. “But… I do have a question.” 

“Hm?” he hums attentively. 

“... Do you take out all of your fellow teachers on coffee dates?” your voice is quiet, hesitant. In truth, you’re afraid he’ll say yes, that all of this is just normal to him. You’re praying this date is what you think it is. 

“You’d be the first,” he confesses openly, sensing what you’re getting at. 

You bite your lip to contain your excitement, sealing away the tsunami of screeches building within you. 

“Good to know,” you say bashfully, letting out the breath you were holding. 

“Now, about the Muromachi period…” he begins, sounding awfully scholarly all of a sudden. You laugh at his abrupt change of topic, but listen quietly as he runs you through the story of Ashikaga Takauji’s fight against the Kenmu Restoration. Part of you thinks you should be taking notes, but the other part of you just enjoys hearing him speak. Nestling into bed, you snuggle up under the covers to the sound of his voice, occasionally asking questions. Right now, it felt like he was a friend you’d known for years. 

“Wait, so people would get punished for showing this Takauji guy in a good light?” you ask for clarification, wondering if you really heard him right.

“Mhm,” Kyojuro affirmed, surprised you were actually listening-- or, rather, still awake. “It was only in the last fifty years that we were able to appropriately evaluate Takauji’s influence in context. Before then, it was considered a form of slander against the state.” 

“Wow,” you mused, staring up to the ceiling. “That’s wild. It’s so crazy how people in power can basically rewrite history.” 

You move your phone away from you, checking the time for the first time since you laid down. 

“Wha-It’s almost one in the morning!” you tiredly exclaim, embarrassed you kept him up this long. “I’m so sorry, Rengoku-san. I wasn’t keeping track of time. I didn’t mean to keep you up so late!” 

He chuckles at your apologies, shifting in his own bed. 

“It’s fine,” he reassures you, a touch of humor still in his voice. “I enjoyed talking with you. You’re a very good listener.” 

His honest words struck a chord within you, bringing back your bashfulness from earlier. 

“Well, you’re very interesting to listen to,” you say truthfully, expression soft as you consider what to say next. “But I guess we can continue this conversation tomorrow.” 

“Right,” he says.

The silence between the two of you is comfortable, neither wanting to hang up. You’re the first to break the quiet. 

“Thank you, Rengoku-san, for everything,” you say gratefully, hoping he gets what you mean. 

“It was my pleasure,” he says warmly. “And (Y/N)--” 

You breath gets caught in your throat at the sound of your first name coming from his lips. 

“Mhm?” you inquire wordlessly, not trusting your voice at the moment. 

“You can call me Kyojuro,” he finishes, voice soft. 

Cue that giant, stupid, silly grin of yours again. 

“Okay,” you reply, hoping he can’t hear the pure joy in your tone. “Goodnight, Kyojuro. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

He chuckles, and your heart flutters in adoration and embarrassment. He could totally tell how happy that made you. 

“Goodnight, (Y/N). See you tomorrow.” 

As the call ends, you can’t help but yell out in excitement, startling your cat. With a soft apology and a laugh, your turn to put your face into your pillow, yelling and kicking your feet like a school girl. 

A date with Kyojuro Rengoku. 

Perhaps calling him was a good idea after all.

[grandpasessions]

'There was nothing left for us here, everyone I knew felt reluctantly guilty for feeling lost, as if being lost was hesitantly, but most definitively, part of who they were.' 'The atomization had gone further than anyone ever thought it would, our own identities had fragmented into various abstractions of consumption; brands, shops, sexualities, traits, habits, software stacks, video games, TV series, cinematic universes, foreign food, reading lists, alternative spiritualities, ironic adherence to tradition, theological LARPing, this is what remained, ashes of reality scattered into the simulacrum for us to pick and choose from. Every morsel of personality and ego had become tethered to a commodifiable life-choice. I no longer knew any-one, only assemblages of pithy statements, purchases, and vices; what was anyone except a culmination of their hedonistic desires and shallowly pronounced social virtues?' 'Once your understanding has been replaced everything else falters rather sharply; meaning in general collapses and everything is transferred into a system of third-party checking, as opposed to personal investigation and belief. Nothing felt as if it were ever mine, nor as if I'd ever earned it, and that's because what was earned was backed by nothing.' '... It just did not stop, not for a moment; the clearest symptom of modernity is that all time was to be filled, and it didn't matter what filled it, as long as there was continual noise, static to be utilized as ignorance of [a] cosmic predicament.' 'Can it be considered sleepwalking if it encapsulates one's entire life? If one is asleep for the entire [e.d], then that quickly becomes one's reality.' 'The reason people purchased things relied on another abstract reason ad infinitum; the reason people did anything likewise relied on the will of another, rarely did one witness a man take it upon himself to act, buy or say something which arose from his wellspring of authenticity, there was always something else controlling his strings. And that's what modernity is, a material labyrinth of puppet-masters who are all interconnected and cordial, a multiplicity of effects trying to hide their causes, because once you get to the cause you can start to question it, until that moment of apprehension, anything you attempt to grasp immediately disappears. At all turns, man is left with another turn.' 'There is a difference between knowledge and understanding and the academy laps up the former without paying a moment's notice to the latter. To understand something is to take one's time, it is to draw its breath, and potentially act in accordance; the academy is bodies without souls, vessels to be filled, and upgraded. Graduate, post-graduate, and lecturer are beings of their own kind, molded by the suffocating atmosphere of strict interpretation. How can one talk of interpretation if there is only one?' 'I could not stand the paths I needed to take to supposedly acquire that which I desired, what I desired among all things, or so I believe at the time, was to gain an understanding of the world which allowed contentment, a teleology towards a personal peace. ... into the heart of familiarity I desired to go.' 'To think for oneself had become increasingly difficult, every structure and institution since birth had been constructed in such a way as to covertly remove all personal responsibility for individuals, and from there had since set up a monopoly where a heart and vision once laid.' 'The plan was a form of neo-asceticism, strip it all back; throw it back in their faces by way of refusal.' 'And therefore those who took interest were these [weird, odd, strange, peculiar] things also, and as such, status did the rest; eventually, all that came of the academy was an acceptance of those alike those accepting, dry, strained, professional and meek; I could call it a racket, but that would be too exciting, for its reality was one of a waiting room, the texts I once loved became cheap magazines strewn over its floor whilst I waited for my bureaucratically monitored acceptability rating.' '... one should only laugh at those who proclaim that truth is on the side of misery, for what can misery be but only understood as a solely human affair; the cosmos doesn't understand misery as much as we don't understand the passions of a boulder. To align misery, suffering, and decay with an abstract bleaker-than-thou truth is to make the same anthropocentric errors as those which you proclaim to hate. Many, myself included, wish there was more horror, for at least then there would be interest in the world.' 'To betray the pro-herd is to revere the anti-herd.' 'What the herd yearns for is not a life, but a pen. Who could blame them? With a pen comes purpose, something easy to moan about. Lyotard was right in Libidinal Economy when he declared that the working-class desire their subjugation - 'the English unemployed did not become workers to survive, they - hand me tight and spit on me - enjoyed the hysterical, masochistic, whatever exhaustion it was of hanging on in the mines, in the foundaries, in the factories, in hell, they enjoyed it, enjoyed the mad destruction of their organic body which was indeed imposed upon them, they enjoyed the decomposition of their personal identity. ... man finds his meaning in the collective in the very same way he finds meaning in masochism, by perpetually perusing his mandatory service, he seeks a greater and greater denial of his desire and potential. Yet, even if he were to go looking for it he'd be too scared to confront it.' 'This is what is comforting about the collective for your common drone, the ongoing, incessant, and indulgent whining and moaning, the oh-so-cumbersome depressions and anxieties brought about by the most minor of stresses and tensions, the adherence to a blank slate of tranquility and extravagance a priori. Lo-and-behold the user finds a shit-smeared socius, bulging at the seams with repressions, constraints, containments, rules, laws, taxes, usury, masters, cutbacks, limitations, diminutions, and attentuations, all of which are gorged upon by willing individuals, not in moments of begrudging compliance, but as purpose, as meaning.' 'I had no connection to nature, to family, to tradition, to root or stem, I was -- as all are now -- my own personal atom of modern ecstasy, economics, and envy. You could state with ease that this was some form of nihilism personal to me, or my immediate surroundings, except it wasn't, that's not how nihilism works. Nihilism is behind it all, there is the gloss of objects and apparel and the illusion of the subject. ... If there is such a thing as nihilism it's so indiscernible from the actions of the average modern man that it eventually begs no division of definition.' 'Where everyone was headed was precisely nowhere, but this too was an empty truism that helped precisely no one.' 'Also, one must cast off all material pleasures, a feat easily achieved for it feels like a virtue, but one must too cast off all material sufferings, the ones they most enjoy, depression, anxiety, malaise, melancholy and despair, those sufferings which are so indulged in on an almost constant basis, so much so that they covertly become pleasures; there's little meaning for modern man other than a common depression; Oh, the suffering! Oh, the despair! Oh spare me your shivers and whines and submit your body to all that is chthonic.' 'I found nothing that could offer me suffering, let alone relief or contentment.' 'I had burned through life's most basic settings at the rate of modern man in overdrive; I wanted more of the more. This had left me feeling alienated and lonely and listless. People who want something have a direction, those who have lost something do too, any cessation can give man meaning rather quickly, but what about an apathetic cessation of apathy brought about by apathy?'

The Methodology of Possession // James Ellis

[jaune-chat]

If this is too many just pick those that you feel like answering haha but here goes:

1, 4, 13, 15, 24, 30, 36, 37, 40, 43, 51, 57, 62 (could be 7 characters, could be more depending on your mood ig lol), 64, 73, 78, 80, 83, 92, and 97

Cheers! ^^

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans? Yes.  All of the above.  Depends on what I’m drinking. But I like mugs for their warmth and solidity.

4. how did your elementary school teachers describe you? Quiet and a good student. I was/am good at memorizing, so I could pick up things quickly, and I didn’t talk a lot due to shyness + a speech impediment.

13. lanyard or key ring? Key ring. I had literal dozens in high school, most of them on a backpack rather than my keys, but even now I have a few key chains on my key rings.

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment? All Quiet on the Western Front. It was the only one I remember that was assigned that actually moved and interested me and that I actually reread periodically to this day.

24. favorite crystal? Ooo, that’s tough, because I like a lot, but amethyst is probably my favorite.

30. places that you find sacred? Green spaces. There was an outdoor chapel in a Y camp I went to as a kid that they called the Green Cathedral, due to the tall trees, and that was one of my first meaningful religious experiences.  (I’ve been in a few lovely churches too, where it’s clear the builders really cared about expressing their love for their spirituality, and those are beautiful and sacred too.)

36. what is the first meme you remember ever seeing? While memes certainly existed before the internet (as did I, I grew up without it because it didn’t exist yet), the first I really remember seeing was Cheezburger Cat, “I can haz cheesburger?”

37. suitcase or duffel bag? Suitcase. I like the stuff I folded to be in the same place when I get to where I’m going.

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school? We once had a fire at my high school, started in the woodshop, by a guy who threw an illegal cigarette (he was underage to smoke and smoking wasn’t allowed on school grounds) into a garbage can full of sawdust... on Stamp Out Smoking Day. Which I recall was during cold weather and the school officials didn’t allow us to have our jackets in class, nor let us get our jackets, so we all huddled outside and froze for a long while before they let us go inside (it still stank of smoke everywhere) to get our stuff before letting the whole school go home.

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket? Hoodie. If you’re going to have casual outerwear it might as well have a head covering attached so I don’t have one more thing to juggle.

51. current stresses? Other than the pandemic, political and social inequality, and climate catastrophe?  Idiots at work, lack of motivation to get writing done, upswing in my depression symptoms due to the pandemic et al, and possibly a dose of anxiety to top it off.

57. the three biggest struggles you’ve overcome? My suicidal college depression (still ongoing, but has been more manageable), being able to find and keep a job after being fired from one I had spent nearly ten years working towards, and finding and maintaining friendships once away from school.

62. seven characters you relate to? Herald Talia from Mercedes Lackey’s Heralds of Valdemar series.  Jazz from the novel Artemis by Andy Weir.  Sandra Bennett from the TV show Heroes.  Dumery from The Blood of a Dragon novel by Lawrence Watt-Evans.  Cassandra from the Touchstone series by  Andrea K Höst. Mhera the ottermaid from the novel The Taggerung from the Redwall series by Brian Jacques.  And Resti from the short story Death and the Ugly Woman by Bruce D. Arthurs in the short story collection Sword and Sorceress IV (1987).  (If anyone manages to find this book and this story, trigger warning for sexual assault and death - I did not know this coming into the story, as content warnings were not a thing at that time/and in novels, period. It’s a powerful and well-written story, but it does have dark material.)

64. favorite website from your childhood? Again I grew up pre-internet so I didn’t start surfing the web until I was nearly 12, and the internet was still pretty new to all and sundry. The I Can Has Cheezburger site had the funny memes of the day, so I’ll go with that.

73. favorite weird flavor combo? When the parents would take us to a buffet, I and my sister were allowed to get what we wanted.  We had to get salad first, though, and as I wasn’t a fan of lettuce or a lot of salad vegetables, I would make what I call “cheese salad” (in the best American Midwest/South tradition). It was a combination of cottage cheese, cheese shreds, pepperoni or bacon pieces, hot cheese sauce, and ranch dressing.  Yum!  (I still make a version of this for when I need tasty food in a hurry and can’t be arsed to prepare anything else.)

78. coffee from a gas station or sushi from a grocery store? I don’t like coffee at all, and have never had sushi. But as I understand that the quality of fish and preparation really matters in sushi, I am supposing that a specialist sushi restaurant would give a far better experience. Whereas coffee can be drunk for pleasure, but when sufficiently doctored just works for the caffeine boost.  So I’d rather have bad coffee that I can doctor, rather than bad raw fish that can only be doctored so much.

80. earth tones or jewel tones? Jewel Tones. If I could get away with it, I’d decorate my whole house and body with jewel tones.

83. writing or drawing? Writing. My ability to describe something in words far surpasses my ability to recreate it with drawing.

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights? For pure ambiance in a room?  At night, lamps.  By day, sunlight.  For a magical feel or to uplift myself? Fairy lights.  To find whatever the heck it is I just dropped?  Overhead lights.

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized? When I was a kid, pre-cell phones?  Probably over a dozen.  Now?  Two, mine and the husband’s. I also have a few old phone numbers rattling around in my skull, and a couple from ads that have burned themselves into my brain.

[lokiondisneyplus]

Today I left the house wearing a face mask for the first time.

I had woken up to the sound of heavy rain, which is always surreal in Los Angeles, and when I look out of the window to the hauntingly dehumanising sight of bandana-clad dog walkers, an eerie weight settles as I remember: this is our reality now.

I’m standing in the supermarket queue, a line dotted by crosses taped on the floor of the underground car park to signify our designated 6ft distance. Easily 50 people long and snaking around the perimeter of the building, I make my way to the last available X-marks-the-spot and join the other masked Bandits. I haven’t food shopped for over a week and am in need of supplies.

There is an obnoxiously loud man two crosses ahead of me ranting into his phone with such a high energy, the surrounding Bandits have allowed an extended social distance of a cross on either side of him. I sigh, remembering I’ve left my headphones at home, so am unable to tune him out, I wait and exhale, wondering how I am going to get used to the claustrophobic sensation of hot air and fabric condensing on my face.

Loud Phone Man is not wearing a mask and it's clear we’ve passed the tipping point of mild judgement, at least here in LA, where Bandits exchange a raised eyebrow, (about the only non-verbal Bandit communication available) which somehow magnifies the annoyance of this shopper - not only loud, but breathing indiscriminately all over us in this confined space… what does he think this is? Last week??

It’s Monday on #Week4 of Covid-19 lockdown in La La Land and as I shuffle to the next X I reflect on the journey so far.

After a whirlwind press tour to promote the release of Misbehaviour in UK cinemas (sadly cinemas were shuttered just days after the film's theatrical release – but it's available to watch online at home from April 15th!) I returned to work in Atlanta for Loki, the Marvel limited series for Disney Plus I’ve been working on, so am on set when I get the news that we are going on hiatus as a precaution due to the accelerating coronavirus, initially for one week. Thinking it would be longer, but still unsure at that point, I book a flight to LA to sit things out there for the time being. The next day Trump imposes a travel ban on travelling in or out of the US for 30 days, and with my visa situation and the pace at which everything is moving, it feels risky to fly to the UK in case I cannot get back into the country when filming recommences, whenever that will be.

So, with my housemate and her dog for company, we embark on social distancing, self-isolation and Lady Macbeth-level hand-washing.

Managing a constant low-level anxiety about my parents and loved ones, and friends in New York, London, Johannesburg and all over the world, I become consumed by the news, glued to the BBC website and KCRW talk radio for the latest figures. Like families gathered around “the wireless” in wartime, everything is unfolding so rapidly and the news, never this dramatic in my lifetime, takes on disaster-movie proportions.

FaceTime and WhatsApp become my lifelines as the reality of the pandemic is tinged with a weird detachment… a numbness I later realise was a form of shock that lasts for nearly two weeks and puts me into a hyper-focused state as I race to keep up, stay informed and learn how to adapt to this new rhythm.

I am of course aware that I am so privileged to be safe and personally unaffected thus far, but grasping the truth from what is overblown, and fact from politics and propaganda, give everything an out-of-body zero gravity quality; a new normal we are all united in.

Things are kicking off in the food line as my attention is caught by an exasperated Valley Girl three Xs ahead who finally explodes at Loud Phone Man, “ OH MY GAAAAD, USE YOUR INSIDE VOICE, CANT YOU SEEEEE EVERYONE IS LOOKING AT YOU CAUSE YOU’RE TALKING SO LOUD… WE ALL HAVE TO STAND HERE, OHMYGAAAD!” As she stomps her Ugged feet to the next X the security guard and smiling store employee (no mask) approach and I can feel a repressed inside-voice-cheer emanate from the rest of the line in applause.

The Bandit Couple ahead of me raise another eyebrow in solidarity and Female Bandit begins to capture a video of Loud Phone Man on her iPhone. The air gets thin, the energy tightens, “Hey Man,” Smiling Store Employee intercepts, Security guard flanking, “You wanna keep it down a bit, people are stressed, y’know? Thanks Man.” Valley Girl scowls, Bandit couple exchange glances, while still filming, Loud Phone Man defends, “I WASN’T EVEN TALKING THAT LOUUUUUD!!!” (Collective Bandit eyeroll) “YESSSSS YOU WERE!!!” Hisses Valley Girl, “Yeah Man, sorry you were,” Store Employee placates. taking the referee stance. I notice Loud Phone Man is wearing flip-flops, on a rainy day. He continues his conversation into his device, phone held to his lips, like a dictaphone, barely any quieter. “We have to be prepared…”

I sigh and feel warm breath on my cheeks. Mouth drying I look at my phone for escape and see that Boris Johnson has been admitted into intensive care for persistent and worsening Covid-19 symptoms. I suddenly feel very far from home and very sad.

I remember the things I’ve been doing to keep grounded and my spirits up. One of the benefits of turning out old cupboards was rediscovering my long dormant art materials. Painting, such an absorbing and transporting activity for me in childhood, was once something I considered doing instead of acting, but found it a little socially isolating - so acting won because it felt more collaborative. Now, of course, painting in isolation is perfect and becomes the most comforting of pastimes and a creative channel as I make images of my family and feel like I am spending time with them.

Understanding how superfluous actors are in a crisis such as this, I come to terms with the fact that staying at home, as passive as it may seem, is my contribution for now. Having the luxury of not having to home-school any children and knowing my work is pretty much on pause until social distancing recedes, I try to reframe this time as a chance to rest and refill the creative well. I read novels for pleasure, something I rarely find time for beyond work-related reads. I take my first Zoom yoga class (alexdawsonyoga.com), I join a 21-day online meditation experience (chopracentermediation.com), I take local hikes for fresh air and make first ever batches of banana bread and chicken soup. I even buy a mini trampoline online which, after a mildly challenging self-assembly, I’ve been sweating it out on to streamed classes online (lekfit.com) with a friend in Toronto, followed by accountability FaceTime coffee dates to virtually high five!

By the end of week two, the adrenalin crash truly hits and I’m exhausted from the constant rhythm shifting, news consumption and uncertainty. I’m an eternal optimist and good at self-motivating, but even when you’re Keeping Calm and Carrying on, you need to crash at some point. I nearly cry when I get my mum an Ocado food delivery slot - nothing has been available for weeks - and the “what ifs” that I have been keeping at bay with all my other activities release with relief and gratitude.

That’s when I discover Brené Brown’s new podcast Unlocking Us and find such solace in her calm and thoroughly researched words and conversations. Since her TED talk fame as a charismatic shame and vulnerability researcher, I’ve read all of her books and there is always something practical and nourishing in her work, told with humour and in a deeply relatable way - which I’ve found comfort in while in the midst of folding laundry, cleaning the bath or chopping vegetables.

Back in the food line and things are moving; the tension of the Loud Phone Man Vs Valley Girl dispute still simmers but everyone relaxes as they get closer to the front-door finish line. Smiling Store Employee does his speech on the new system: no reusable bags allowed, sanitised trollies and a one-way system in the aisles inside marked by arrows on the floor, to minimise contact with other customers. It all feels so surreal and regimented, but the Bandits, already drained from the 30-minute wait, constant Loud Phone Man soundtrack, near car park fight and everything else they’re all adjusting to, nod wearily behind their moist makeshift masks. It’s a bizarre sight.

Still chatting, Loud Phone Man makes it in and there’s a collective “phew” eye-contact exchanged between Smiling Store Employee and the remaining Bandits. Then his smile drops and crinkles for a second. “Yeah, he’s been in every day this week. It’s kinda sad. There’s no one on the phone.” The Bandits' brows knot quizzically. “Yeah, I think he has mental health issues, he just talks but the phone’s not on and he has no ear pieces, he just talks into it… 'They’re coming, we have to be prepared.'… I don’t know what to do.”

The reality breaks my heart. It seems to highlight the collective insanity we’ve all been processing and in that moment I just feel so frustrated at the state of the world and how this pandemic has exposed so many cracks in our society - from mental health to healthcare to privilege and poverty, everything just feels so raw.

I try to look for the silver linings and, among all the fear and anxiety and loss, I’ve been so inspired by human resilience, adaptability and creativity. I’m hopeful this great pandemic leveller will bring a new era of authenticity. An opportunity to shift mentality from Me to We.

Week three in self-isolation felt almost normal, which feels weird to admit. I’m getting lots of sleep and take regular meditative baths, which I’ve renamed Home Spa. I’ve found ways to safely contribute in my local community. When the shelves were bare from panic buying, I chatted with the manager of our local grocery store, who seemed so overwhelmed, so my housemate and I volunteered to stack shelves after hours. Although not exactly the front lines, we have fun and it feels good to give something back in our small way.

We of course negotiated to be paid in baked beans and toilet paper.

[downeystarkjr]

ALREADY GONE - CAPTAIN SWAN AU - CHAPTER 10

Emma Swan was never one to believe in ghosts or in any superstitions of the kind. However, her beliefs are soon to be tested when she moves into the beautiful yet mysterious Jewel Cottage. The manor known to be the home haunted by Captain Killian Jones. 

The story can also be read on AO3 here

(This is one of the two stories I was working on for the Captain Swan Big Bang 2017 - it’s still a WIP but I have quite a few chapters complete that I really wanted to share)

(PS. Thank you to @ab-normality for your priceless help in being my beta for this story so far!)

Other chapters found here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Chapter 10

When Emma first arrived in Storybrooke, she had never expected she would find herself writing a ghost’s memoirs to help bring him justice. Life was quite different from America, it was far more peaceful in the seaside town, quieter with more beautiful views of the countryside. The American also loved Jewel Cottage, especially now that it had been furnished with a combination of Killian’s furniture and Emma’s.  

There she was by the fire in the living room that evening, curled up on the couch with her notebook in hand to take notes on what Killian was telling her. The ghost opted to sit in his usual dark red arm chair near the fireplace, watching Emma with nothing but fondness in his eyes while Buckley sat down on the carpet in the middle of the room.

“So that’s the facts of your childhood finished, like where you were born, who your parents were and how you had a brother called Liam. Why don’t we include some things about what it was like for you as a child? Like some memories to allow the readers to relate to you and-…”

“Make me seem more human?” Killian asked, finishing Emma’s sentence by making an assumption regarding what she was about to suggest.

“I just think that the purpose behind your memoirs could make more of an impact if we ensure that the readers care about who you are and the man you were while you were still alive?” Emma expressed, giving a small shrug. She knew Killian wanted to out those who wronged him to help with his unfinished business. However, Emma was still oblivious to the identity of those who Killian sought revenge against but figured that the apparition she had befriended  would open up to her more about his past as they worked more on his memoirs.

“You are the author after all, Swan,” the ghost shrugged in agreement to Emma’s suggestion. He was rather enjoying Emma’s company and found himself able to trust her with learning about his past. Hence why Killian chose Emma, the new inhabitant to his home, to write his memoirs. It did come as an advantage that the American blonde was already an established writer. “You could talk about how my mother was an unpublished writer who used to tell us stories while my brother would snuggle up to her at night with the fire burning in the fireplace,” Killian smiled fondly, reminiscing on the past. His happy childhood with his darling mother. “My brother Liam and I were always closer with our mother but at the same time we knew our father loved us even if he didn’t know how to express it towards us  often,” he explained, glancing at the very fireplace he had been talking about which was  providing heat to the room.

Emma wrote down her notes with a kind smile on her face as Killian continued to talk about some of the memories he had of his mother and brother. It was clear he adored his family growing up just by the way he was retelling the events of his past. She chuckled hearing the ghost tell her of a Jones family picnic to the beach for Liam’s birthday  and felt her heart warm at the image of Killian’s mother tucking him into bed and tending to him during an illness as a child in the winter months. Killian made sure to tell Emma of his education, first with his governess and how upset he had been to start his education in public school.

“It must have been difficult to adjust to, having spent your childhood at home,” Emma said with sympathy, speaking of when Killian was sent to study at Eton. As had his brother a couple of years prior.

“Aye…Homesickness is blasted thing to be inflicted with,” Killian explained, recalling how much of a challenge it had been to get used to living in school boarding rooms which was quite a stark contrast to dwelling among the comfort of his mother’s love. “I was always quite studious and wanted to make my parents proud, but quite early on I became closed off,” he sighed with an uncomfortable frown. The poor child had spent nights crying for his mother which the other boys inevitably noticed and didn’t hesitate to bully him for.

“I can imagine,” Emma nodded and offered her acquaintance a smile. She could tell the story of his initial year in Eton wasn’t something he looked back on with great enthusiasm. “Wasn’t there anyone who you could confide in for help? Maybe your housemaster?

“Alas, Swan, my housemaster wasn’t exactly the most pleasant of souls,” the ghost noted after clearing his throat, “he would excuse the boys’ actions as being methods of toughening me up when my father and mother questioned my weight loss and bruises when he arrived to collect me for the winter holidays,” Killian continued and turned his gaze from the fire to Emma. “I couldn’t have been more relieved to be back home. My family were substantially wealthy as you can imagine with my father, Lord Brennan Jones, as a judge. My  brother and I were fortunate to have toys, train sets and extensive collection of books to entertain ourselves with” he smile, remembering the games he and Liam would invent as children. Some of the toys, including Killian’s favourite childhood train set, were still preserved in the attic of Jewel Cottage.

“It was due to my family being in the higher ranks of the social class that allowed me the pleasure of meeting my most cherished friend James, whom you know as JM Barrie.” Killian went on to talk of his and James’ reluctance to adhere to the rules of the society in which they found themselves. They found nothing wrong with mingling with or befriending  those who were from lower ranks. Killian credited his mother for being the one to embed such morals into his heart.  

Emma had seen enough films and read several books to know that Victorian schools weren’t always the most pleasant of places  for the young boys they provided education for. Especially those boys who showed even the slightest hint of weakness.

“Going back to your time at school, didn’t your parents do something to help you?” The author asked. From the way Killian spoke of his parents, Emma could tell he had been lucky to have a strong bond with them and that he had been raised in a loving household. “Surely their position could have impacted your school life? Making a more positive change for you?”

“Aye, they did, but it wasn’t as straightforward as that love,” Killian sighed with a sad smile gracing his features. He never liked boarding school and to this day he still had qualms against it. “I had to endure months of punishment before my parents realised there was something wrong with  their second son,” he explained.

“Oh Killian...” Emma spoke out in a whisper. It broke her heart to try and imagine how life must have been for Killian and the other boys of his time who went through a similar ordeal.

“Aye, but don’t feel sorry for me Swan, I was fortunate to experience much happiness once I departed from Eton at the age of sixteen,” Killian replied, waving his hook in an assuring gesture. He chuckled a little, rather amused, at the look of confusion Emma gave towards him at the revelation of the age he left school.

“So you only went to Eton for five years? You didn’t stay on for college studies?” she asked with a tilt of her head, her blonde locks tied in ponytail like they always were while Emma worked on a writing project.

“Alas no, but let me explain,” Killian began and stood up to casually pace around the room as he told his tale. He always thought he was destined to live his life as a ghost alone trying to fend off anyone who dared set foot in his home. That was until he met Emma. It surprised the Captain how her very presence made him feel less alone than he was with just Buckley and his previous animal companions he looked after. He only realised the craving in his heart for the company of another person with whom he could spend time and share experiences and conversations with after kindling a friendship with Emma. She made Killian happy to be around her.

“The teachers and my housemaster mistook my symptoms of homesickness as me being a recalcitrant student, and deserving of the birch,” the ghost explained, placing his one hand on the  sofa Emma was sitting on as he stopped behind it.  “Don’t mistake it as a birch rod, it was rather like a cluster of birch branches that were bound together that resembled the head of a besom.”

“Ouch..” Emma took a sharp breath, imagining how painful it would have been to be hit with such a cruel piece of equipment. It still baffled the blonde as to how schools in the past used such extreme measures to instil discipline into their students. “Killian that’s awful, how schools could deliver punishments like that is just shocking. It’s a relief it doesn’t happen in this day and age but you did nothing to deserve that sort of treatment.”

“That’s true, children need help and support rather than being beaten if they are struggling, and you’re right, it’s a good thing that the school system has changed drastically since my childhood,” Killian nodded, sitting down on the couch as Emma moved her feet to give him space to sit down. “But I was lucky Swan, after seeing the school had not improved with their treatment and that my hands and back were scarred and bruised with the birch instead of providing me with the help I needed, my parents moved to London during the Easter holidays and my father used his position to his advantage by persuading the school to allow me to live with them but still remain a student. For my own sanity.”

Emma nodded slowly, gradually starting to understand, she couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the apparition. Biting her lip, she hesitantly reached out a hand to Killian and was surprised to actually feel his hand in hers. It wasn’t like holding another human’s hand, one of the biggest differences was how cold he felt to touch, not so much as cold as ice but like a cool breeze. Even for Emma, the sensation was complicated for her to describe with accuracy.

“Hey it’s alright, I know I wouldn’t have been able to cope as an eleven year old, torn apart from my home to live without my parents in a boarding school,” Emma offered as a way of her giving Killian comfort. It couldn’t be easy reliving the particularly painful memories Killian had experienced. “But what about college? Why didn’t you stay at Eton past the age of sixteen ?” she asked in a kind tone, looking up to Killian’s ocean blue eyes.

Killian was stunned by Emma’s actions but didn’t pull his one hand away. He felt the kindness of her touch and was reluctant to be apart from it as he gently held onto her hand in return. It shouldn’t have surprised him since he was able to pet Buckley, but this was the first time Killian had encountered human contact since becoming a ghost. “Oh Swan…” he whispered beneath his breath. The apparition couldn’t deny it any longer, the blonde American in his home filled his heart with a warm feeling Killian had been a stranger to for so long. Why else was he able to trust her with his house and the secrets of his past? However, Killian knew that he couldn’t express these new feelings to Emma.

Emma had made it clear she was not interested in starting a new relationship with a living man. He couldn’t expect her to harbour feelings for a ghost. Although, at the same time, Killian was confused by the emotions in his heart. Was it just fondness he had for her? Or his heart playing tricks on him and trying to fool him into thinking he was slowly developing feelings for the first human he had welcomed into his life since his death?

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Killian cleared his throat and smiled to try and hide that he was bothered by his thoughts. “When I turned sixteen, I was still living with my parents, and my mother missed living here in Storybrooke, and I was more than willing to move back here with my parents,” he explained, seeing Emma was still holding his hand. “Instead of attending college, my father hired a governess,” the ghost clarified with a fond expression in his eyes. “Moving back to Storybrooke was one of the happiest times in my life, for when I returned that summer at the end of my final year at Eton, I fell in love with my Milah, my childhood sweetheart.”

“Oh that’s adorable, so you were with your wife since you were teenagers to when she passed?” Emma asked in admiration for how faithful Killian was to his wife. If only she could have found a love like that. However, Neal was more interested in cheating on her than trying to make their relationship work. “Out of curiosity… when did you realise you had fallen for Milah? How did you know for sure she was the one?” Emma asked and closed her notebook. This wasn’t for the memoirs but a personal question Emma had. Clearly Killian was the one with more success in finding love, something Emma convinced herself she lost faith in. She couldn’t be hurt that way again, not by someone she loved and cared about. Being betrayed by Neal was enough.

“I knew quite early on that Milah was special, which was why I made sure to court her and impress her parents before anyone else could have the chance,” Killian chuckled and went on to explain to Emma of the measures he took to court his future bride, by taking her dancing, horse riding and sailing. He also mentioned of his correspondence with Milah during their courtship via written letters and of the day her father finally accepted for his only daughter to be intended for Killian once the two reached the age of nineteen. “We understood each other and wanted the same things, which only made our love grow stronger. I still recall how heart breaking it was for me to leave my Milah when I was deployed by the navy,” the ghost added, glancing over to see the time on the antique dark pine grandfather clock.

“I was actually going to ask you about that, your military career I mean,” Emma tilted her head curiously with her book open again. She didn’t care that it was getting late, she was far more interested in Killian’s tale than in sleeping at the moment. “With the medals I found in the attic, you must have been a celebrated Captain,” she smiled, wanting Killian to know she was impressed by what she had found. When she discovered the medals, Emma was keen to do her research what the different medals were. For an apparition who always seemed quite proud, Emma was surprised by how humble Killian was about his time in the Royal Navy. She had never heard him talk of his time as a Captain and it was a time of his life that Emma was quite interested about.

“There’s quite a lot I could say about my time in the Navy, but I’m afraid it will need more than a night to mention everything, and we’ve already discussed quite a lot about my past,” Killian explained, seeing Emma trying to stifle a few yawns. “Besides you need you rest,” he offered, not wanting the blonde to be too exhausted especially in her condition.

“Alright, we can pick this up again another time,” Emma reluctantly agreed, not bothering to hide her yawns anymore. With how tired she was, she was glad when Killian helped to put a blanket over her as she snuggled up on the sofa, laughing when Buckley jumped onto the sofa to join her for the night. “Goodnight Killian, and again, I promise we will bring those who’ve wronged you to justice,” she said tiredly, resting her head on the pillow.

“I have no doubt about that Swan, but for now you need to sleep,” Killian insisted kindly and crouched down by the couch. “Goodnight, love,” he smiled, resting a hand on Emma’s cheek as she fell asleep. “Sleep well darling,” the ghost whispered and kissed the back of her hand before making sure Emma was comfortable in her sleep and left the room, heading to his private library for the night.

Tagging a few users who might like the story. I’d love to know what you think! @yayimallamaagain @phiralovesloki @lenfaz @flipperbrain @cocohook38@hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @xhookswenchx @teamhook @resident-of-storybrooke @fairytalesandtimetravel @aye-captn  @captainswanbookclub @captainswanbigbang @goldengirlschildhood @themilahskillybear @the-corsair-and-her-quill @clockadile @wellhellotragic @killian-whump

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 4485 Summary: Hanahaki disease is a condition which causes the victim of unrequited love to grow flowers in their lungs, ending in death when the roots grow too deep and eventually suffocating them if the feelings are never returned.For Tobirama it begins with a single petal.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

I’ll Breathe You A Garden

When they meet for the first time it is not a problem. Of course not, they are on opposing sides of a generation’s long feud, the reason for which has been lost to time. The moment Tobirama and Madara meet for the first time they barely even spare a glance for each other and their thoughts are nothing but derogatory and prejudiced, typical progenies of the environments they were raised in.

More than a decade passes before Madara and Tobirama are properly introduced and it is done by the one thing the two of them have in common: Hashirama. As part of the peace their clans have agreed upon, Hashirama insists that all of his special persons must know each other and get along. It is to his disappointment to discover that his brother and his best friend do not get along in the slightest, trading heated glares and pointed insults at every available opportunity. Others quickly learn to never leave the two of them alone in a room together.

Once construction of the village is completed and the two clans have separate areas to which they can retreat and stare suspiciously from behind proverbial curtains, things improve. Only barely but it still counts. Tobirama and Madara avoid each other as much as possible and both fall in to the habit of pretending the other does not exist when they are forced in to close proximity. Meetings are frequently made awkward by the tension between them but since all agree that it’s better than violence, nothing is ever done about it lest the pair of them fall back in to those undesired violent patterns. The less blood shed between two such prominent figures, the easier the peace between the rest of their kin.

It isn’t until the second anniversary of the village founding that things begin to change. As others beging to recognize the safety inherent in trading their clan pride for pride in a village, infrastructure in Konohagakure grows in necessary ways. Among the new additions is the academy which is Tobirama’s pride and joy.

And among the complications is finding teachers for the academy who have three very important qualifications. Those who have both the skill and the temperament do not always have the approval of each clan head. As it draws close to the time when they hope to begin holding classes, a snap decision is made to have the clan heads themselves all take turns giving lessons to the children of the village. The hope is that the experience will help them better understand the requirements of the position so that they may better judge who to allow in those roles.

The results are both exactly what one might expect and nothing at all like what one might expect. With Hashirama having been named Hokage, the title of clan Head falls technically on Tobirama’s shoulders and he is the only person of the group who goes to this duty with any amount of pleasure. That much might have been expected since his fondness for teaching the next generation is well known. What is not expected is Tobirama’s reaction to seeing Madara forced in to a teaching roll as well, surprisingly gentle with the children of many clans.

It is seeing Madara crouched on his heels and scowling deeply even as his hands oh-so-softly correct a young girl’s dragon seal that brings about the beginning of a sickness Tobirama has heard of only in legends. The first symptom is a strange palpitation of the heart, an off-beat thumping in his chest when Madara grumpily praises the young child and receives a beaming smile in return. Unsure what it is that caused the odd sensation or the even odder images suddenly running through his mind, Tobirama vows to leave Madara be during his shifts with the academy class. A healthy dose of suspicion is all well and good when it comes to the well-being of the children but it’s obvious that it is his own health he should be worried about.

Symptoms progress quite slowly at first. Madara is still a mule-headed ass with too much pride and Tobirama still avoids him when possible. Except that isn’t completely true. A mere week after he makes his vow Tobirama breaks it and returns to the academy to watch the older man navigate the trials of imparting wisdom on to a roomful of children from all different backgrounds. Despite having witnessed it before it still surprises him how well Madara fares in a duty none would have thought him to excel at.

When his heart skips a beat Tobirama tries hard to put it down as another fluke even as he wraps his chakra closer in to himself and settles in to continue watching. He tell himself that it is in the children’s interest that he comes back the next week and also the week after that. When they pass in the hallways and ignore each other during meetings he pretends it is only keeping the peace and not because he suddenly has the urge to hide until these strange feelings go away. As his interest grows so does his awareness of the chaos which would result should anyone know of this fascination which he cannot seem to shake.

Four months later the first petal appears.

He is in a tea house with his sister-in-law listening to Mito complain about how often her husband will stay out late to waste his pocket money in gambling dens. When she asks him a question he opens his mouth to reply only for his breath to catch on something and set off a coughing fit.

Mito waits patiently for him to catch him breath and then looks at him strangely when he uncovers his mouth to reveal a pale lavender flower petal. Tobirama looks at it strangely too; what an odd this to find in one’s throat. But it is only one petal and spring is in full bloom, so a blossom on the wind seems much more likely than some fairy tale disease of which neither of them have ever seen a real case. That he might have produced the flower himself doesn’t even occur to either one of them at the time. Conversation carries on and the incident is forgotten.

A week later he is sitting alone in his office, working on anything and everything he can to put off his visit to Hashirama’s office. His senses tell him that his brother is not alone in there and he almost has avoiding Madara down to an actual art form. So for once instead of doing his duties he is whiling away the time putting the finishing touches on a project which will not be reviewed by the council for another three weeks, his inner eye focused on the two men who he is certain aren’t actually doing anything productive. The tickle in the back of his throat doesn’t really draw his attention in any particular way. He gives a quiet cough to clear it and sets brush to parchment again, still focused on other things.

Choking on what feels like nothing but air, however, does get his attention rather quickly. Tobirama balls one fist in front of his mouth as he coughs and coughs until he’s begun to wonder about a possible allergic reaction to something. When the obstruction finally clears he spits out three petals of the prettiest blue he’s ever seen.

Tobirama looks at them in horror, a thought forming in his mind and immediately being dismissed as being fanciful. Yet he cannot deny that there is no open window for a breeze to come in through, no current in the stale air of the tower which might have blown something in to his mouth. He doesn’t remember eating any flowers or for that matter consuming anything more today than a slice of toast for breakfast. There is no logical way for these petals to have come to be inside his throat, lodged deeply enough to give him trouble breathing, yet here they are. Slowly, carefully, he opens the drawer of his desk and sets the three petals down inside then closes away the evidence.

No need to bother anyone about this yet, he thinks. Obviously his fanciful thoughts are wrong and there will be no more incidents like this one so why should he bother someone else with something so ridiculous?

Still, Tobirama leaves the tower that day without ever having gone to see his brother, important documents left with the man’s secretary to be delivered later while he leaves to head a few blocks over where a library has only recently been opened to the public. He thinks that surely research will calm his irrational fears; he even feels a faint shadow of excitement for being able to finally see what new books the other clans have brought with them.

A month later the desk in his office has a tiny collection of flower petals in a small but beautiful heap hidden away from the rest of the world. They come in every color imaginable, showing up in patterns he can’t begin to unravel, and he hate them almost as much as he loves them. Each petal causes pain now as they tear themselves up out of his lungs and force their way up his esophagus. They are impossible to breathe around and he knows that it is only by some extreme force of luck that none but Mito have yet witnessed one of his attacks. A smarter man might have thrown away the evidence but Tobirama finds himself attached to them in some strange way he can’t explain.

Hanahaki disease, he knows, is born of when one person develops unrequited feelings for another. He’s read all the symptoms and each of the legends, studied the progression of the illness, and he knows the future suffering that he is faced with. And yet he cannot help but to stroke each petal as it appears, admiring the softness and the shade. Just as he cannot help but the follow Madara with his eyes each time they are in the same room together, loving from afar a man who it seems would prefer that he did not exist.

Life is cruel in its ironies and Tobirama has always known that. Only, he had thought that he had seen all the ironies he deserved already, isn’t sure what he has done to earn this beautiful yet painful death sentence.

His final irony is as gentle as it is difficult to bear and it begins on the day Hashirama finally notices that something is wrong. For so long he has been able to keep his malady a secret – a coughing fit here or there can be written off for so many reasons – but the day he finally brings up his first flower it feels as though suddenly death is knocking at his door, leering through the windows with a patient grin. Hashirama looks at the full blossom in his hand with something akin to terror in his eyes but he doesn’t have to say anything. Tobirama knows.

Flowers mean that roots have begun to grow. Soon his lungs will be filled with them and there will be no room for air in his body, no way for him to breathe blessed oxygen around the wood and the flora growing within.

“Brother?” Hashirama’s voice is small as he plucks the gardenia from his fingers and cradles it between shaking palms. “Tobirama…since when?”

“Long enough,” he replies, unable to look at anything but flower. Gardenia for secret love. How appropriate, he thinks. But he has brought up petals of endless variety and he knows that this is only the beginning. Some part of him hopes that not all of them with have such heavy handed symbolism; he would hate to be so boring.

Across the room, Madara and Izuna watch them with looks which he has no wish to decipher. Certainly there are hints of sympathy but he has no desire to see the pity that is surely hidden close behind. The last thing he wants is Madara’s pity when it is him that Tobirama is dying for, him that he dreams of in the moments when he allows his mind to drift away and settle where it will. No, he would much rather keep to himself and allow Madara to go on pretending he does not exist. It will be easier on everyone if he simply fades away that they might forgets he was ever here.

At first it is much easier to fade away than he thought it would be, although he isn’t sure if that pleases him or not. Obviously concerned for his well-being, Hashirama is more than willing to grant him as much rest as he wishes and Tobirama spends many days working from home, avoiding the world but not the pains that it has caused him. He spends more time with both Mito and Touka than he ever thought he would and it shocks him to discover just how poorly they are both handling the situation. His cousin is nearly as devastated as his brother at the impending loss hanging over their heads and Mito – dear Mito – for all her grace, her bedside manner is utterly deplorable.

When they ask him one day if there is no chance Tobirama sips his tea and turns his head away. The roots expanding inside his lungs is nothing compared to the shriveling of his heart and there is nothing he wants less than to talk about it.

Hashirama’s questions are more pointed and his responses harder to explain.

“I’ve read up on this disease,” he says. Tobirama does not look at him.

“As have I.”

“Then you know there is a cure! A surgery! I could save your life so why won’t you let me!?”

Tobirama does not flinch as a large tanned fist comes down on table littered with dainty little blossoms, yellow daffodils for unrequited love. Still so boring and predictable but he counts himself lucky to never have choked on a rose.

“If you know what the cure is,” he murmurs, “then you know what it will do to me. Better to die than to never feel love again.”

“You can’t be serious!”

Had he meant to answer that at all he still would not have been able to. His next breath catches in his chest and Tobirama curls in to himself, wracked with a severe coughing fit that shakes his body leaves him red in the face with lack of proper oxygen. Hashirama pats his back and apologizes for yelling, tears welling in his eyes. There are almost always tears in his eyes now.

Even after he opens his mouth and spits up two full daisies, the subject is not brought up again. Tobirama is relieved, not only to be spared the embarrassment of being so obvious about his emotions but also that he will not have to struggle for the words to express them. How to explain that he fears a world in which he cares for nothing, a world where not even the tether of familial love exists to stop him from following the darkest of his thoughts? In the secret places inside him, the shadows he does not share, he knows that Hashirama is the light which keeps his feet marching along the correct path. Without the love he carries for his older brother, Tobirama knows he would not be good for this world.

The next day Hashirama brings to him his final irony and Tobirama goes to his fate with a scowl which completely disguises both the pleasure and the distaste he takes in this new change. As Touka leaves the village on a mission with great reluctance, Mito finally throws up her hands and admits that she has no skill as a caretaker.

“I can’t stand the thought of you alone,” Hashirama tells him.

He wonders what ever possessed his sibling to think that Madara, of all people, was the right man to keep him company. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they are best friends and no matter what others say Hashirama will always think of Madara as the soft children they were when they met at the riverside. There is nothing soft about that face as Madara watches him settle on the couch, curled beneath a blanket and feeling disgustingly frail.

Getting a shinobi’s recommended daily exercise is abominably difficult when one cannot breathe through the motions.

At first Tobirama refuses to speak to his new ward, uninterested in knowing what kind of blackmail convinced him to agree to this duty. Not that he speaks very much anyway these days. More than half the time when he opens his mouth it is to vomit another blossom of red or yellow or the palest blue. Some of them have stems now that trigger his gag reflex and always have him reaching for the bucket he keeps nearby. In the end that which drives him to speak is the same thing which drove him to create some of his most infamous jutsu: boredom.

Madara retains a neutral expression most of the time and unless necessary he rarely gets up from the seat which has been turned in to his temporary workspace, where paperwork is completed during the long stretches when neither of them say anything. But when they do speak he is disturbingly gentle and Tobirama hates it, hates being treated softly.

Hates that he needs it, dying for something so stupid the way he is.

Their conversations aren’t momentous in anyway. He doesn’t truly learn anything life changing nor does he give away any information about himself that he wouldn’t reveal to another stranger. Madara grumbles about the content of this letter or stupidity of that budget request. He makes endless pots of tea and they discuss their favorite flavors, arguing the merits of black against green. In return Tobirama makes an attempt to do as much paperwork as he can without exhausting himself in between feeding Madara as many embarrassing stories as he recalls of Hashirama during their childhood. If there is anything he wants to leave behind when he passes it is the ability to remind Hashirama that he was once – and still is – the world’s biggest dork.

It feels as though time passes so much slower in the last two months of his suffering, for which Tobirama is both grateful and annoyed. It certainly isn’t pleasant to have one’s death prolonged. But after thinking about the issue perhaps a bit too much he finally admits that he is through with running and accepts every moment he can soak up of Madara’s presence, thinking it his final parting gift. Hashirama takes as much time as he can spare to be here at home but he has a village to run and it is Madara with whom Tobirama spends most of his time.

At almost exactly noon on a perfectly sunny day, Tobirama coughs up several flowers and a handful of blood.

Madara’s first reaction is to send a clone for Hashirama, of course. He helps Tobirama recline on the mountain of pillows piled up on the couch, knowing that it feels best when he uncurls his chest to make room around the roots growing inside of him. Each breath wheezes in his throat and when he tries to speak his words break on another coughing fit that brings up nearly half a bouquet.

When Hashirama arrives the handkerchief that Madara has pressed to his lips is soaked in blood.

“Do something you idiot,” the Uchiha snaps. Hashirama kneels with shining eyes and drops his head on to Tobirama’s shoulder, the very picture of helplessness.

“There’s nothing to do,” he whispers, flinching when Madara snarls.

“Bullshit! You’re a healer!”

“I’m not the one who can heal him.”

“Then who is!?”

“I don’t know!” A broken sob escapes Hashirama as he feels the body underneath his embrace shudder and writhe, struggling to breathe. “You’ve heard the legends, haven’t you? Hanahaki disease can only be cured if the person he is in love with returns his feelings.”

Brought up short, Madara frowns and turns away to pace a circuit around the living room. From his spot on the couch, Tobirama follows the man with his eyes, committing the sight of him to memory one last time. It isn’t a memory he will get to keep but it is precious just the same.

When he comes storming back over to crack a fist against Hashirama’s shoulder, Madara’s face is set in to a rictus of determination he usually saves for battle.

“How can you not know who it is?”

Rather than answer, Hashirama sighs. It isn’t for asking that he doesn’t know; he has asked a dozen times, a hundred times, but Tobirama has always believed he would prefer to go to his grave with pride. In this moment now he wonders at his own folly. What harm could it do grant them at least the peace of knowing there was nothing they could do? It wasn’t as though it would matter very much to him by tomorrow. The dead feel no embarrassment.

His mouth, when he opens it, is so full of petals that no sound comes through and they do not fall out as they always have. At long last the roots have grown too long and too wide and the short unsatisfactory breaths that he is stealing through his nose will be his last. Weakly, he looks down the garden in his lap. There are so many buds of so many colors and Madara’s attention is drawn to him as he lifts one hand to pick through them.

The tulip that he holds out is a perfect ruby red but at least it’s not a rose – still much too cliché. He knows Madara can read his intentions as he slowly lifts it and offers it to the older man, the head of the flower drooping in his lax grip. Before it can fall from between his fingers Madara catches it, cradles it gently, and stares back at him in wonder.

A tulip, in the language of flowers as he has been taught, is used as a declaration of love.

Madara looks between him and the red bloom with unfathomable eyes and for a moment Tobirama thinks that at least he will have the amusement of that confused face as the last sight he sees. His chest spasms as even his nose fails to draw breath, his vitals racing in protest. The human body can survive for two minutes without oxygen before suffocating; he regrets having spent so much time researching the effects of it.

While Hashirama’s fists tighten in the material of his shirt, Tobirama is seconds away from giving himself over to fate when Madara furrows his brow in determination once more and, against every expectation, leans down to plant a kiss right across on his lips.

Despite his genius and his over-large vocabulary, Tobirama does not have words to describe the sensation when he opens his mouth, dripping petals like a tree in spring, and takes his first proper breath in more than a year. Inside his chest he can feel his lungs expanding as though they had never been filled to bursting with roots and stems. His heart races, thunders, skips for joy as his mind struggles to keep up with both the information and the stimulation that it is receiving.

He can breathe.

Madara kissed him and now he can breathe.

Kneeling on the floor still, Hashirama sobs like a newborn child, blubbering his way through prayers of thanks to every god he could think of. Tobirama pays him no mind since it isn’t truly all that different from his usual behavior. Instead he keeps his eyes on Madara while he gulps in giant breaths, nearly high from taking in more oxygen than he is used to now.

“So…” Madara ventures. “How come that worked but me having feelings for you for months now didn’t?”

“For how long?” he gasps in return. Tobirama feels his eyebrows attempting to merge themselves with his hairline, shocked to his very core. Madara gives him an unimpressed look that, after so much time spent in each other’s presence, he understands means that the other is hiding his embarrassment.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” Madara growls.

Tobirama pauses for a moment before without warning he bursts in to laughter. He can’t say anything at all, can he? Considering the fact that he almost allowed himself to go quietly in to the next life rather than say something to the man he loved, he is the last person who should lecture another on their reticence. It feels like the first time he has laughed in an entire lifetime and he doesn’t bother to hold back even as both Hashirama and Madara look at him with wonder showing openly on their faces.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he hears Madara say. Before he can answer, Hashirama does so for him, wiping at his eyes with the corner of one sleeve.

“Hanahaki disease is born of the victim’s feelings. Just returning his affection wasn’t enough; Tobi couldn’t be cured until he knew about the way you felt.” In the next moment he is on his feet with both arms wrapped around a loudly protesting best friend. “But you did it, you saved him! Thank you! I owe you everything I have!”

“Get off me you overgrown fool!”

Without the two of them hovering over him, Tobirama slowly sits up and closes his eyes, filling his lungs and enjoying the sensation of having no obstructions in his throat. It feels amazing.

He stands up and with gentle hands he pushes the other two men apart. Then he pulls Madara to him by the collar of his shirt and drags him down in to another kiss, this time full of all the fire and feelings he very nearly died for. Caught up in each other, neither of them pay any attention to the way Hashirama can’t decide whether he wants to watch with a dreamy expression or close his eyes and tell them to get a room.

“You saved my life,” he murmurs after they finally part. “How disappointingly cliché. A terrible ending to a story.” Madara snorts and rolls his eyes.

“Only you would think of a story which ends with everyone alive as terrible.”

“Even worse: I think I owe you one. That absolutely won’t do.”

“I can think of several things you can do to make it up to me.”

Pulling up one corner of his mouth, Tobirama smirks. “I hope I hate all of them just as much as I hate you.”

They both know he means not at all. 

[samosoapsoup]

Living with a Visionary

For more than fifty years, my wife and I shared a world. Then, as Diana’s health declined, her hallucinations became her own reality.

By John Matthias

January 25, 2021

You would think it was a performance of some kind. When she wakes up, if she has slept at all, she tells me about the giants carrying trees and bushes on what she calls zip lines, which I am able to identify as telephone wires. Beneath the busy giants, she explains, there is a marching band playing familiar tunes by John Philip Sousa. She is not especially impressed by either of these things, and the various children playing games in the bedroom annoy her. “Out you go,” she says to them. Then she describes the man with no legs who spent the night lying beside her in bed. He had been mumbling in pain, but nobody would come to help him. She remembers her own pain, too. “I could hardly move,” she says.

And she can hardly move now. Her legs are stiff, her back is cracking as I lift her out of bed. Although still clearly in pain, she gives me a sly look and gestures with her chin toward the flowerpot in the hallway. “The Flowery Man,” she says. “He’s very nice.”

She is fully articulate, in many ways her familiar self. She asks me if I saw the opera. I’m not sure which opera she means; we’ve seen many over the fifty years that we’ve been married. She means the one last night in our back yard. She describes it in detail—the stage set, the costumes, the “really amazing” lighting, the beautiful voices. I ask her what opera was performed. Now I get another look, not a sly one but a suspicious one.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

I say that it’s not a matter of belief but of perception. I can’t see what she sees. She tells me that this is a great pity. I miss so much of life. I used to have something of an imagination, but I’ve evidently lost it. Maybe she should start spending time with someone else. Also, she knows about my girlfriend. The one in the red jacket. There is no girlfriend, but there is a red jacket hanging over the back of her walker. Suddenly, she forgets the girlfriend and remembers the opera. “Oh,” she says. “It was ‘La Traviata,’ and we went together with Anna Netrebko before she sang.”

Now I have my own brief vision. Diana is only twenty-one, I am twenty-five. We have just arrived in South Bend, where I am teaching English at Notre Dame. A friend wrote about us in those days as having appeared to him like two fawns in the grove of our local Arcadia. Diana wore the clothes she had brought from England, including her miniskirt, and people in cars would honk their horns and stare. In London, where we had met, it had been the middle of the nineteen-sixties; at our Midwestern college, it was more like the fifties. A former student told me that when I held classes at home, for a change of scene, he and his classmates took bets on who would be lucky enough to talk to her.

I see her walking in from the kitchen with tea and her homemade scones. College boys—only boys were admitted back then—lift china cups balanced on wafer-thin saucers. Some have never eaten a crumbly scone or sipped tea out of such a delicate cup. Diana is often told she looks like Julie Christie, and my students all want to be Omar Sharif, Christie’s co-star in “Doctor Zhivago.” Some write poems inspired by Lara, Zhivago’s muse. Diana smiles at them, greeting those whose names she remembers. Hello, Vince. Hi there, Richard. She dazzles them. She dazzles me.

Art was her passion. Later, she earned an art-history degree and became the curator of education at our university’s museum. She devised a program of what she called “curriculum-structured tours,” ambitiously proposing to organize museum tours that would be relevant to any class. This she did—chemistry students learned about the properties of seventeenth-century paint, psychology majors studied portraits for signs of their subjects’ mental health—and eventually she exported her innovations to other college campuses. Because of her, students began looking seriously at paintings and sculptures. They followed her hand, pointing out some luminous detail; they listened to the music of her voice, her British accent slowly becoming Americanized over the decades.

Diana trained a new set of gallery interns each year, teaching them about all there was to see and find in the museum’s art. She loved them dearly, and they loved her back. She had been conducting tours for thirty years when a former intern, Maria, came by the house—ostensibly on an errand to collect some of Diana’s library books. Really, she wanted to talk to me. She explained that Diana had started seeing things. The first time Maria noticed it, Diana was showing a class of French students a reduction of Charles Louis-Lucien Müller’s “The Roll Call of the Last Victims of the Reign of Terror,” from 1860. It’s a very busy painting, with dozens of figures waiting to be transported to the guillotine. Diana told the students that at the center of “The Roll Call” was a man named General Marius. But General Marius wasn’t there; he was around the corner, in a painting called “Marius and the Gaul,” about which Diana had written her thesis, many years before. She was speaking in French, and at first Maria thought that Diana had got tangled up in the language. Surely it was her words, not her reality, that had become so confused.

Not too long after Maria’s visit, Diana returned home one day looking tired and depressed. She sat down on the sofa next to me, took my hand, and said, “The students tell me that I’m seeing things that aren’t there.” I admitted that Maria had already told me about this. By then, Diana had begun treatment for Parkinson’s disease, taking a standard cocktail of medicines in small amounts: levodopa combined with carbidopa, in a drug called Sinemet. She had received the diagnosis only because her doctor couldn’t otherwise explain her onset of general weakness. Aside from fatigue, she had virtually no symptoms, and her behavior had been absolutely normal while taking Sinemet. Now she confessed that she was seeing things at home as well. She pointed at a wadded-up sweater on a chair across the room. “That’s not really a cat, is it?”

I asked her what else she saw. “Little people,” she explained, “like Gulliver’s Lilliputians.” Objects had been changing shape—“morphing” was her word—for some time, but recently things had begun appearing out of nowhere. We saw a specialist in Chicago, who, like the neurologists Eric Ahlskog and Oliver Sacks, called these “illusions.” We suspected that the hallucinations were a side effect of Sinemet, and, after consulting many books and articles, Diana and I began to titrate her medication ourselves. Most Parkinson’s patients end up doing this, experimenting with how much they take of each medicine and at what time. There were new delivery systems for the basic mix of levodopa and carbidopa, and we tried them all, along with a number of adjuvant therapies.

At first, Diana could identify her illusions as such, and sometimes even dismiss them. (“Scat!” got rid of the cat.) The things she saw were not always frightening. Many of them seemed inspired by her work in the visual arts. Visiting a neighbor, Diana enthusiastically described a painting on a blank wall where, we later learned, one had been hanging until several days before. Her knowledge of eighteenth-century art may in part explain her delight in seeing topiary figures cut into very large trees, where I saw nothing but leaves. Some of the visions she told me about were clearly breathtaking. “If only you could see this,” she said.

I couldn’t see what she saw, but I could see her. She was somehow growing more beautiful—or beautiful in a new way. Everyone noticed this. Never one to use much makeup or even visit a hair stylist, she would wash her face in the morning, put up her hair or let it hang at shoulder length, and come downstairs to start her day. Her striking good looks belied the condition that would bring her down. It was Julie Christie all over again, but not from “Doctor Zhivago”; she was the aging Christie of Sarah Polley’s movie “Away from Her.” Adapted from Alice Munro’s story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” the film is about a woman with Alzheimer’s disease. Her decline is slow, until it is suddenly fast. Diana watched the movie without anxiety. She had not, so far, suffered any significant memory loss. When I reminded her that decades earlier my students had compared her to the actress, she laughed. During a trip to Chicago to see her doctor, we had been approached by a man on the street, who said, “I just have to tell you how beautiful you are. Forgive me for intruding on your day.” We got into a taxi, and Diana growled to me, “I sure don’t feel very beautiful.”

For two or three years, Diana’s condition was manageable through modifications in her medications, and through her ability to recognize the hallucinations for what they were. At the art gallery, she avoided confusion by writing out scripts for her tours. She managed to retire when she was scheduled to, not before. It was shortly afterward that her hallucinations began to increase in frequency and intensity. She insisted that the topiary trees were the work of giants, and she described the giants’ elaborate uniforms. Plays and operas were staged in our back yard, spontaneous parades appeared in the streets.

It became harder and harder for her to understand that her visions were not real. She sometimes asked me why these events were not written about in the paper or covered in the news on television. In the house, nothing held still: objects danced on the mantel, the ideograms on our hanging scroll of Chinese calligraphy flew around like butterflies. At the beginning, many of these transformations had given her pleasure. More and more, however, they annoyed and alarmed her. Three women were “hanging” in her closet and refused to leave. The Flowery Man roamed the house. There were rude people who masturbated into a dresser drawer and had sex on the living-room sofa.

When Diana could no longer shake these things off, she began to surrender to them. She slowly ceased to see them as hallucinations. I had read that it did not help to deny the reality of these visions, so I stopped doing that. I began trying to deal with them as if I could see what she did. Friends were encouraged to make the same allowances. For a while this helped. A fifth person at a dinner for four did not pose a big problem once you got used to this kind of thing. I informed the members of Diana’s reading group that she might refer to people who weren’t there, and they, too, made the adjustment.

One day, she shouted for my help. A housepainter in white overalls, she told me, was painting over the portrait of one of our daughters that hung on the living-room wall. The man didn’t speak; none of Diana’s human apparitions ever spoke, though their mouths would move without sound, and sometimes they would respond to stern rebukes. I could say things like “I’ll see the painter to the door.” But often the damage had been done. In the case of our daughter’s portrait, it continued to exist, for Diana, partially erased. She referred to the painting as “the half-faced child.”

Some medications work for Parkinson’s patients with hallucinations, but for Diana they all seemed to make things worse. In November of 2019, a new kind of confusion about both space and time took hold. One morning, I found her with her suitcase packed, ready to travel. When I asked where she was going, she wasn’t sure. “Away,” she said. She wasn’t sure why. But, she insisted, “we certainly can’t stay any longer in this person’s house, in a place where we don’t even speak the language.”

Christmas approaches, and I return to the present tense. Everything that happens after this feels like it’s still happening now. Slowly, through the winter, Diana’s benign hallucinations become terrible and threatening presences. (Meanwhile, in China, a new and deadly virus is unleashed on the world.) Diana loses her ability to sleep, a common and debilitating feature of Parkinson’s. Because she is either sleepless or tormented by nightmares, I am also unable to sleep. For a while, I am able to soothe her and offer comfort, but often her dreams continue unabated when she wakes up. Eventually, I am simply incorporated into them. When I ask her if she is awake, she says she does not know.

Her eating also becomes a problem, and I know that she is not getting proper nutrition. I use the blender again and again, counting calories, mixing in anything containing protein. She is getting very thin. I sleep only when she sleeps and eat a quick sandwich as I cook for her. She looks at me one morning and says, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Because Diana hides things, then promptly forgets where they are, I often find myself searching for her medical-insurance cards, her driver’s license, some kind of I.D. with her picture on it. She sends me on a wild-goose chase all over the house. This drawer. That closet. But I can never find what we need. The hallucinated people begin to take on more life than the living. And they have names. Not generic and rather charming names like the Flowery Man but monosyllabic American names like Bob, Pete, Dick, George, Jack. No one seems to have a surname. “Jack who?” I ask her. She gives me a straight look and says, “Jack the Ripper.” She keeps asking, “Who’s in charge?” I wish I knew.

In March, as the pandemic descends on the Midwest, I try to explain why she cannot go out or see friends. She doesn’t understand. I don’t dare leave her alone, even for a short trip to the grocery store. She begins going outside when my back is turned, and she frightens some of the neighbors with things she claims to see. I make rules. No phoning friends after 10 p.m. No going outdoors after bed or going downstairs for breakfast in the middle of the night. I finally move to a bed in a separate room.

With the country in lockdown, I can no longer reach Diana’s neurologist in Chicago. Local doctors help us refill some of her medications over the telephone, but have nothing to offer that might help the dementia that is now clearly part of the picture. My most recent reading makes me wonder whether she might have not Parkinson’s but something called Lewy body dementia, which produces vivid hallucinations. Its terrifying symptoms are believed to have led to the suicide of the actor Robin Williams. Diana talks about “jumping in the river.” (The St. Joseph River is only a few hundred yards from our front door.) Neighbors offer to do some shopping for us, but as the pandemic gets worse I hesitate to ask them for more help. When I finally make contact with two or three “senior helper” organizations, I am told that all their programs are on hold. I can do nothing but try to continue on my own. I begin taking pills myself—sedatives washed down with glasses of Merlot. We are living on cans of beans and prescription drugs.

There are still moments when Diana is very happy. Sometimes, she seems to be in a state of bliss. She stands at the open doorway and gazes into the sky. I stand behind her. “Look!” she says. “Why can’t you see?” I tell her that I’m trying, but maybe need some help. She becomes angry and shouts, “The gods! The gods!”

One day, I find Diana clutching a balled-up blanket to her breast. “What have you got?” I ask her. “A dead baby,” she says. I have never seen such terror in her eyes. I have never seen it in anybody’s eyes.

At some point—a day later, two days later—police arrive at the door. In the street, an ambulance is flashing its colored lights. The three policemen at the door have masks on, and I’m initially frightened by this, because I don’t know that many people are now wearing them. Someone has called the police about a lady who lives here who may need to go to the hospital. I stand there gazing stupidly at the policemen. They ask if they can talk to the lady. I tell them she’s my wife. Diana is on the sofa, more or less catatonic.

When I step onto the front porch, I notice some of our neighbors watching from their yards. I am asked questions about Diana and who has been looking after her. I begin to fear that I’m about to be arrested. Someone suggests that maybe it would be good for her to be completely checked out in the E.R., and possibly admitted for a day or so. The next thing I know, two of the ambulance men are bringing a stretcher up to the porch. One of them asks if he can talk to my wife. Finally, I’m able to say something. I say no. They are immediately suspicious. To my amazement, I hear Diana saying, “I’ll talk to them. It’s O.K.” They ask her what’s wrong. She describes a few of her hallucinations. She’s worried about what’s happened to the dead baby. What dead baby? I try to intervene, but already she’s explaining that she had the dead baby in her arms just a moment ago. Perhaps it has rolled away. She gets down on one knee and reaches under the sofa. “Oh, good,” she says, reappearing with the blanket. “Here it is.”

While the medics are conferring with one another, Diana suddenly says, “I think I should go to the hospital.” The ambulance guys seem delighted by this. Diana is put on the stretcher, and the ambulance disappears. No one asks what I think should be done. No one asks me to come along. In the confusion, the blanket has been left on the front porch. When everyone is gone, I take it inside.

That night, Diana is admitted to the hospital for observation. I won’t be able to visit her, because of covid restrictions. I am frantic: they’ll get all the Parkinson’s meds mixed up, they don’t know her schedule. What will happen if she misses a dose of Sinemet?

What transpires in the next days and weeks is sometimes vividly clear and sometimes swirling in a surrealistic fog. At some point, it is decided that I, too, should be examined in the hospital. In the E.R., I am told that I am suffering from exhaustion, malnutrition, and dehydration. I end up on the same floor as Diana. By the time I arrive, she has told everyone that she is a movie director working on a documentary about art therapy in hospitals. From my bed, I explain to her doctors, who are different from my own, as much of her medical history as I can. I am allowed to talk to Diana only by phone.

Social workers keep appearing with documents for me to sign. My daughter Laura and I have agreed, in theory, that eventually Diana will have to move into an assisted-living community. A new facility for patients with dementia has recently been built near Laura’s house, in Worthington, Ohio. Laura wants to take Diana there, and I have to admit that I am no longer able to look after her. I am barely able to look after myself. I sign the papers giving Laura power of attorney for Diana and me. There are decisions to be made, bills to be paid, and I am flat on my back in the hospital.

Covid is tearing through the country. The hospital is filling up with patients, my bed is in demand. My doctors ask if I want to be sent home or to spend three days in the psychiatric hospital associated with the general hospital where I am being treated. They talk about rest, recovery.

Where I end up is not a health spa but more like a boot camp. Before I am moved, all my possessions are taken away. No shoelaces, no belt. At the new facility, I am given a handful of large and small pills every three hours. At night, all patients are on suicide watch. I barely sleep. While I am in the psych ward, Diana is driven in a long-distance ambulance to the care facility in Ohio, where, after a fourteen-day quarantine, she will now live. How Diana deals with this news, what she understands and doesn’t understand, I do not know. She still thinks she is directing a documentary film. I am not allowed to see her before she leaves.

In the second psych ward where I find myself remanded, I am the oldest patient by far. The program of endless group therapies seems designed for adolescents. At seventy-nine, I am too weak to do many of the things demanded of me. When I do not immediately respond to the pills I’m given, there is talk of electroconvulsive therapy. I object, and an online hearing is convened, where a judge concludes that, although I must stay beyond the hospital’s mandatory seventy-two-hour observation period, I do not have to undergo shock therapy.

Meanwhile, I am terrified of covid. Locked out of our rooms for most of the day, we are all in one another’s way, and patients share a common bathroom. One day, I am required to cut off my beard. Looking at myself in the mirror, I discover the corners of my mouth locked in a permanent grimace. The beard has hidden this from me: I can’t smile.

I try to explain to the staff that there has been some kind of mistake, that I need to rescue my wife, who has been taken to Ohio. The things I say to the nurses and therapists must sound mad. When I am finally allowed to see the chief psychiatrist, I hear the desperation in my voice. I watch the unbelieving faces of everyone around me, and wonder how often Diana saw the same incredulity in my own face.

Somehow, our family lawyer gets in touch with a woman named Mary, a registered nurse and “personal health-care advocate,” who is the one to finally secure my release from the psychiatric facility. I am asked to sign some papers that I haven’t read, and then I am free. On the way home in an ambulance, driving back the same way Diana came, I consider asking the attendants riding alongside me if they have heard of the Flowery Man, the topiary trees, the little people—any of Diana’s hallucinated cast of characters. For years I have tried as hard as I could to see these things, to share Diana’s view of the passing world. In her absence, returning to the home where I must now begin to live by myself, I long all the more to understand the reality that she inhabits.

When covid insinuated itself into the facility in Worthington, Ohio, in November, I had been at home for five months. For a couple of weeks, I had managed to communicate with Diana through screens. This confused her, though, so we started using the telephone instead. The last time I saw her face was on Zoom. She told me that she had something beginning with the letter “C.” Then she suddenly smiled her wonderful smile. “What a sweet little girl,” she said, following a hallucination with a sharp turn of her head.

Diana almost survived covid. After testing positive, she spent several nights at the hospital, but was sent back to her facility with a normal temperature and a negative test result. For a few days, I was able to imagine seeing her again, even touching her. I had it all figured out. I would be among the first in line to be vaccinated, among the first to embrace a loved one who had been unreachable for so long. I didn’t care how many hallucinated people came along, as long as Diana was around to see them.

Then her blood-oxygen level dropped. She was not likely to live through the night. Laura put the phone to Diana’s ear, and I read the first poem I ever wrote for her—about waking together in a small Left Bank hotel in Paris before we were married. Finally, I started reading from a book of poetry I had written about her struggle. The dedicatory poem is about the Greek goddess Artemis, known by the Romans as Diana. Its final lines return to Diana the mortal, my wife:

If she could change, she Might be like the woman called by her Roman name Reading in a book beside the fire in my own house. She has come down all these years with me

I couldn’t continue. “You’re doing great, Dad,” my daughter said, “but she wants to know about the Flowery Man.” So I told her everything I knew. ♦

John Matthias, a professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, has published some thirty books of poetry, fiction, memoir, translation, and criticism.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/01/living-with-a-visionary

[manymanythoughts]

Plans for February monthly spread

This is the current plan, we'll see if I change things.

The aesthetic/theme is those candy hearts with phrases on them! The center of the dutch door is heart-shaped, I'm drawing out 28 of them for the mood tracker that I'll be filling in. It's simple again, but I'm still not comfortable with my art skills to do something more complicated.

I'm doing a four page spread instead of three like in January. Back of one page, dutch door on the front and back of the next page, and front of the next page.

The first page is going to be a habit tracker. I'm collecting a list of habits I want to do at the moment, but the for-sure ones are waking up on time, going to bed on time, taking my meds, taking vitamins and supplements, reading for pleasure daily, and brushing my teeth. I have super not been as diligent about brushing my teeth during the pandemic, and that has to change.

The dutch door page is gonna be similar as January. Just a design on card stock glued to the front, with the mood tracker on the back. At least I think it'll fit? The heart is smaller than the circle for the snowflake in January, but there are 3 less days, and the color scheme has been established (pink being the best mood, orange and green and blue trending down, purple as crisis days) so I don't have to put that in.

Keeping up with the IBS stuff is going to be a little different- I'm gonna use three different colored dots to denote severity of symptoms. Period is still gonna be red dots.

Goals in the middle still seems like a good plan. Making those goals gave me a suprising amount of momentum, and a few things definitely got done in January because of it. It's not much space, so it limits me a bit to prioritize goals.

The last page, I'm not sure about. In January I had a tiny calendar on the side. Like, literally an inch and a half in width. Numbers were either circled or highlighted depending on the type of event it was denoting. But between the start of classes, more doctor's visits, and wanting to schedule out my assignments, I might make a full page or two page calendar. I've got another day to decide it, I guess.

[yumeka36]

Fandom and the death of adulthood

A few years ago, The New York Times published an article that I found very relevant to all manner of fandoms. It’s called “The Death of Adulthood in American Culture” and it involves a film critic for The Times discussing how American society has changed over the decades in terms of what it means to be an adult; he cites popular TV shows, movies, and books that reflect how the old view of adulthood – being part of an authority-following, gender role-centered society – has been losing popularity in favor of a freer and more rebellious idea of adulthood, most notably one that embraces childhood and supposedly childish things rather than cast them off.

The majority of the article talks about American TV shows, celebrities, books, etc., that I’m not too familiar with, but the basic idea of this “death of adulthood” is something that extends to all branches of pop culture and fandoms of the past 20-30 years, all over the world. A perfect example is an incident the author of the article, A.O. Scott, mentions about how a journalist named Rush Graham published an essay on the topic of how adults between the ages of 30-44 should feel ashamed for buying young adult literature (for themselves, not for their kids). Readers of her essay were furious of course, and Scott described their sentiment as “‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ as if Graham were a bossy, uncomprehending parent warning the kids away from sugary snacks toward more nutritious, chewier stuff.” He goes on to say that “It was not an argument she was in a position to win, however persuasive her points. To oppose the juvenile pleasures of empowered cultural consumers is to assume, wittingly or not, the role of scold, snob or curmudgeon.”

So if “young adult literature” should be for “young adults (older kids/teenagers) only”, then so should most video games, anime/manga, and so-called children’s literature like Harry Potter, and certainly My Little Pony, Disney movies, and any work of fiction that doesn’t scream “For adults only!” So for those of us who are a part of these fandoms, should we feel embarrassed? I’m sure most of you will say “no,” which is great, and it definitely shows how times have changed.

To illustrate further, my mom (who’s currently 72 years old) doesn’t have a problem with my hobbies. But it does puzzle her at times and I can understand why. After all, when she was growing up in the 1950s-1960s, what it meant to be an adult was simpler, but also limited: men and women would get married and have kids, with the men having full-time jobs and supporting the family while the women would take care of the home and the kids. In addition to these societal roles, there were also personality expectations: men were supposed to be masculine and authoritative, and like manly things like sports and cars, while women were supposed to be motherly and into womanly things like fashion, romance, and raising children. Men and women who indulged in childish things like collecting toys and reading comic books were basically unheard of, or if they did exist, they kept themselves hidden. So you can imagine how someone from those times must feel when they see grown men make a fuss over the cute little Pokemon plushie they just bought, or women who spend their free time playing PS4 games together over Skype instead of raising a family.

Going back to the article, Scott continues on this topic by saying that “In my main line of work as a film critic, I have watched over the past 15 years as the studios committed their vast financial and imaginative resources to the cultivation of franchises (some of them based on those same Young Adult novels) that advance an essentially juvenile vision of the world. Comic-book movies, family-friendly animated adventures, tales of adolescent heroism and comedies of arrested development do not only make up the commercial center of 21st-century Hollywood. They are its artistic heart.” I certainly agree with this as all one has to do is look at the most popular movies of the past two decades to see that they’re not the standard adult fare of Hollywood romances and dramas from yesteryear, but the very kinds of “juvenile” stories that Scott described: they’re the animated adventures from Disney and Dreamworks, the comic book sagas like Iron Man and The Avengers, and the fantasy epics like Harry Potter and Star Wars…the young adult stories that are marketed for a younger audience yet keep garnering a noticeable adult demographic. And there’s no denying that the main consumers of anime products, video games, and comic books are adults. I would even claim that the majority of Pokemon fans nowadays are adults rather than kids, evidence being that every Pokemon tournament I’ve been to in the past few years has had more adult participants than kids.

So, should we mourn this death of adulthood? I’m biased of course, but I’m definitely happy to embrace a more free and open-minded idea of adulthood than we had before. To me, being an adult simply means being responsible, thoughtful, intelligent, and self sufficient…if one is able to be in these tough times of course. And that could be another, less positive reason for this so-called death of adulthood: a lot of the current generation can’t afford to live like adults. I can’t speak for other countries, but here in the US, a young person being able to “move out and start their own life,” with that life entailing the ability to pursue pleasure and luxury while still being financially secure, is becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish when the cost of living is always going up and salaries never seem to keep up. So it’s no wonder that those in their late 20s or older who are still living like they did in their teen years, not necessarily by choice, feel no rush to grow up when adulthood has become synonymous with debt, overwork, and stress. There’s no avoiding at least some adult responsibilities, like holding down a job and paying bills, but being able to indulge in the fictional worlds of TV shows, movies, and video games is becoming increasingly attractive for adults to escape a stressful and unsatisfying life rather than just a playground for children’s’ imaginations.

Regardless of whether you’re over 30 and still living with your parents, or whether you’re one of the lucky ones who found a great job right out of college and are living happily on your own, adulthood shouldn’t be defined by how one chooses to live their life or the kinds of things they’re interested in. I’m glad that in every college class I’ve taken and every job I’ve had, there’s always been at least a few people (adults mind you) who like anime, video games, or other of these so-called childish hobbies. And at the recent fan conventions I’ve been to, I’ve been seeing more and more couples with children attending, obviously because the parents like this stuff and not just their kids. So they can now pass on this idea to the next generation that it’s perfectly fine for adults to indulge in cartoons and games as well. As Scott says near the end of his article, “It is now possible to conceive of adulthood as the state of being forever young. Childhood, once a condition of limited autonomy and deferred pleasure (“wait until you’re older”), is now a zone of perpetual freedom and delight. Grown people feel no compulsion to put away childish things: We can live with our parents, go to summer camp, play dodge ball, collect dolls and action figures and watch cartoons to our hearts’ content. These symptoms of arrested development will also be signs that we are freer, more honest and happier than the uptight fools who let go of such pastimes.”

It’s a very, very different world than it was 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago. A lot of things have changed for the worse unfortunately, but what I’ve discussed here is something that I feel has changed for the better. So to wrap up this post, I’ll give you one last quote from Scott’s article that sums up our fandom-consuming, Internet-inspired generation very well: “A crisis of authority is not for the faint of heart. It can be scary and weird and ambiguous. But it can be a lot of fun, too. The best and most authentic cultural products of our time manage to be all of those things. They imagine a world where no one is in charge and no one necessarily knows what’s going on, where identities are in perpetual flux. Mothers and fathers act like teenagers; little children are wise beyond their years. Girls light out for the territory and boys cloister themselves in secret gardens. We have more stories, pictures and arguments than we know what to do with, and each one of them presses on our attention with a claim of uniqueness, a demand to be recognized as special. The world is our playground, without a dad or a mom in sight.”

*This is a revision of a previous post I wrote on my old anime blog. You can also comment on the revised post here*

*Crossposted from my main blog, Yume Dimension*