#like physically i cannot make myself do it. its impossible to describe but just. GOD its frustrating

[fabulouslygaybean]

its 5am and i still can't fucking sleep

[holts-knees]

So, last week @swiss-army-fangirl came to stay with me in LA for a while, and if you know anything about me you know i’m the kind of person that needs to document things that move me. These two paintings are of our first and third nights, two both seemingly impossible events along the California shoreline (the most magical place in this country if you ask me honestly) Sappy lil stories and context below the cut < 3 

Our first night we made a mad dash down to Santa Monica which was SOMEHOW almost completely empty, and we laid out on a blanket and watched as the clouds that had been hanging over the sky all day cleared JUST in time for sunset, I got to watch Tori like, atomize, as i pointed out all the colors and how the marine layer slowly consumes the mountains and the pier comes to life with all it’s lights. After a while of talking it was dark and Tori pointed up and said “is that a star?” and I laughed at her, because of Course its not this is LOS ANGELES, but then...the more we looked, it WAS and there were...MORE, It was like she brought them down with her.... I remember being sat there thinking “this is a sign....this trip is going to be So Much.....” which was interrupted by Tori going “oh my god....the big dipper looks so different from here-” and me just needing to.....Lay Down LOL. We talked for a bit longer, sitting there on the beach WELL past sunset and then we both fell dead silent and looked at each other before going “did you see that-” and we both HAD and it was....a shooting star--- HERE- ON A RANDOM NIGHT IN LA 

and i haven’t stopped thinking about it since---- The second landscape is a direct rendition of a picture I took while we were in La Jolla. La Jolla is one of the few places on this earth that makes me feel completely at peace and happy, I always find myself making my where there when my soul needs it. and funnily enough, I found as i was getting to know Tori that she was familiar with it. In an abstract but still equally meaningful way, because she had heard it described in the Wilbur Soot song of the same name, which means quite a lot to her. From the moment I learned this fact the jokes started about taking her there some day. Jokes that we both knew were just that, because what would be the odds of two online friends from AK and CA, actually meeting up? Last Christmas when I was down there I sat on the rocks and listened to the song as a way to “bring her there” in spirit. And I remember getting weepy at the idea of how wonderful it would be to share this place with her, my heart ached for it, but i accepted it was never gonna happen.  But then....this LA trip fell into our laps and I cannot DESCRIBE the speed at which I started to throw this day trip into motion, I KNEW I had to, I knew it was FATE. I arranged train tickets, I found a place to drink cocktails over the water, I mapped out all the things I wanted to do to make sure we’d have time for them all..... Truly went ALL IN- but it was SO worth it...because with all that planning....the day went PERFECT.... and we ended it right down at the water, sitting side by side on the beach steps, listening to that Damn Song, and coming full circle..... I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the surf right as Wilbur sang Tori’s favorite line and then when we got home I painted it, so that I could give it to her as a Physical Thing (well....digital-) that she can look back on and remember the experience by. I made sure to be meticulous about every single detail so it would be....truly EXACTLY as it happened and as we remembered it. And i’d be lying if I didnt admit i’ve gone back a few times even myself to look at it and just, Think [tm]. Think about how fortunate I have been to be able to open up my heart and show some of my most treasured places to one of my newest most treasured friends. And in turn with that, weave our friendship into little pockets and corners of those places, which only makes me love them more....  ALSO we saw a whale going down the coast and I am, fully convinced, just like the stars that Tori brought it down with her and I cannot be told otherwise. < 3 

[butwhatifidothis]

Tumblr is starting to VERY MUCH dislike how long the other reblog chain is getting, so this will be Reblog Chain 2 of my jotting down notes of this fic. Here is the first reblog chain for Chapters 1-20

But it appears as though I was correct in sleeping off Chapter 20, because Chapter 21 is. Hm. bad. Very. Not good.

Chapter 21:

Transcript under the cut:

Chapter 21: It's Called Scars so it Gonna Be Ass

- To be blunt, the constant need to reaffirm that yes, Edelgard went through terrible experimentation and that yes, they were very horrific, is tiring. This is chapter 21. The experiments occurred in chapter 2. Every single chapter between now and then have, at some point, mentioned that INDEED, Edelgard DID in fact go through horrific trauma. It is tiring to the reader to constantly have to reread the same thing - we know it happened. We know it was terrible. There's no need to constantly say so; we already understand as readers.

- "Every time the spark of life broke through Byleth’s blank face, it brought a flickering hope to the Flame Emperor’s heart." ->

- Firstly: Awkward use of the Flame Emperor epithet (its usage is on and off with how appropriate its been - this is off).

- Secondly: Once again, Byleth's face was rarely if ever blank. She was never the Ashen Demon, as even the last chapter showcased. The author is mistaking reservation with emotionlessness, which is simply wrong

- "There had been so many empty days and nights, without friendship, love or joy. With nothing to hope for, except someday, the peace of the grave." -> Suicidal tendencies: another trait that Edelgard doesn't have... (strikes against canon: 89)

- ...but Dimitri does. Counter: 12

- "Dimitri, too, was troubled by the thought, grasping the side of his head and frowning. As the spasm passed, he turned to Edelgard and smiled warmly." -> It seems a little callous to so casually toss Dimitri's symptoms into his interactions with others when such things simply don't occur in the canon interactions. It's not impossible, or strictly against canon, but it does not feel natural; it's more as though the author is shining bright neon signs that say DIMITRI HAS MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES than a genuine attempt at writing Dimitri's mental health issues. This is not the first time this sort of seemingly thoughtless showcasing of symptoms has happened (Noted separately: Dimitri having drastic mood swings)

- "No, this world must be ruled by humans…not cruel gods who ignored the prayers of little girls." -> This statement follows Edelgard internally chastising the actions of not gods, but the Children of the Goddess. This is a weaselly attempt at dodging Edelgard's racist beliefs that Nabateans should not be allowed positions of power by shifting the belief to apply to miscellaneous gods instead. While not inaccurate per se - she does also canonically believe that gods should have no power in human affairs - it is not honest

- "Byleth nodded with childlike simplicity. “We should all try to get along.”" -> Again describing Byleth as childlike and/or innocent. Counter: 3

- For those curious: yes, the rat scene is implemented, yes it is sloppy, yes it is out of character for Claude - so much so that it is being noted separately - and yes it is forced to all hell

- What will be noted here, however, is that this is yet another instance of a man being demeaned/humiliated for the honor of a woman. See quote: "Byleth was on him in an instant, a tempest forming in the sea of her blue eyes. “That isn’t funny.” She crossed her arms sternly. “Jokes are about bringing people together...about making them smile. Right now, the only person laughing is you.”" with Claude reacting awkwardly. Once again, Man Bad Woman Good

- In a showcasing of a complete lack of self-awareness within the fic: "“Maybe if you’d have taught the Deer instead…but since you seem to have no ambitions outside of cleaning up Edelgard’s messes…”" -> This is Claude being portrayed as the bad guy, not the one being completely and utterly right

- " She slapped Edelgard on the back, and smiled heartily. “I agree, Dimitri!” Edelgard grimaced, trying to hide the fact her teacher had just struck the wound she had received during the mock battle." -> As well as where undoubtedly countless scars would be, yes? Scars that still cause Edelgard pain? In fact, Edelgard has been slapped on the back by Byleth and Jeralt numerous times before, and yet expresses no pain or discomfort.

- Another thing, that I had not noted though ought to have: Edelgard, a victim of sexual assault (in this fic), rarely seems to mind people touching her. She gets a little surprised if someone tries to get her attention with touch, yes, but Byleth's constant unprompted and random touching of Edelgard is never said to do anything but bring warmth and joy and comfort to Edelgard. It seems as though Edelgard suffering through sexual assault is just another source of trauma for the author to dump onto her for nothing more than pity points

- This is incredibly harsh to say, yes, and I would usually refrain from attributing such harshness onto a piece of text, but remember that Edelgard's scars only cause her pain when it's convenient, that she only experiences headaches when it's convenient, that she experiences PTSD episodes (when Claude mentions the rat) when it's convenient (note that in this fic he does it outside of battle, where her getting triggered wouldn't compromise her chances at victory). Edelgard not being touch averse and being a victim of sexual assault are not inherently something bad - survivors react to trauma differently, after all - but it is another in a steadily longer line of instances where Edelgard is simply given trauma for the sake of making her pitiable to the reader and the love interest, not something that Edelgard genuinely has to struggle with.

- "As Claude and Dimitri looked at their classmate expectantly, Edelgard was wracked with another bout of guilt. Deep in her soul, the princess knew these peaceful days would end soon. When that happened, no feast or vows of friendship could make up for the chaos and horror she would unleash. It would be better to pull away, close off her heart, rather than fuel the flames of her inevitable betrayal." -> Aka, "Feel bad for me, I feel guilty for planning to cause the death and ruination of countless innocents' lives all because I convinced myself that my way is the only way to get things done my way without ever actually trying to see if more peaceful ways could have worked. I'm going to orphan children, force families to fight each other, have the land be rampaged by banditry, and overall bring chaos onto these days that I ADMIT ARE PEACEFUL all because I feel that my way would be better. Wah wah pity me but I don't wanna be pitied I promise wah wah."

- "Byleth shrugged with a characteristic blend of innocence and spirit. “I guess I just like winning.” She began to blush and grabbed Edelgard’s hand. "It's so exciting! I’ve never had anyone other than Papa to celebrate with before!”" -> Byleth = innocent/childlike. Counter: 4

- The fic likes to reaffirm again and again that Byleth is "now" only acting like this due to Edelgard's presence in her life. Note also these statements written previously: "Every day, [Edelgard] was watching the person she loved grow and change. Become who she always was supposed to be." This, perhaps unintentionally, again enforces the "Lesbian Love is Pure and Innocent" trope; these wlw are only allowed to be their good girl, innocent selves - who they were always supposed to be - due to the pure lesbian love they have found with one another

- Count Bergliez didn't know of the experiments initially, but he eventually found out and did nothing to stop them, fleeing from a young and tortured El who was pleading for him to save her - Unnecessarily painting Count Bergliez as a spineless coward too afraid of Duke Aegir to save a child in pain

- Once again, a man fails to save a woman and further traumatizes her

- It should be noted that Bergliez is fearful not for his own life, but for that of his children, who were the ones Duke Aegir threatened. He, very similar to Ionius, cannot save Edelgard, except Bergliez (unlike Ionius) has a tangible, physical, explainable reason as to why he couldn't, and yet it is him who is painted as the bad guy, not Ionius. He is worthy of Edelgard's scorn and hatred, but Ionius only receives a begrudging feeling of betrayal from Edelgard that she feels guilty for harboring, even though he failed her far more than Bergliez failed her.

- "Daughters must always be loyal to their fathers" trope

- "No decent person thought the things Edelgard did. Just as her body had been twisted and shattered by the experiments, her mind bore terrible scars. Scars that the monster kept hidden, so she could walk in the world of men." -> Dehumanizing oneself as a monster as well as having violent thoughts (that specifically stem from trauma) one feels guilty for harboring are not traits Edelgard shows in canon... (strikes against canon, 90, 91)

- ...but Dimitri does. Counter: 13, 14

- "world of men?" Did the author perhaps mean "world of man," as in mankind? Keep note of

- The reason as to why Bergliez is said to have witnessed young El's tortured state and did nothing to help her is revealed: in canon, he dislikes her. It is blatantly and objectively said that he and Edelgard share a mutual displeasure in the other's company. What this fic had him do will be used as an excuse as to why he doesn't hate her, since no one is allowed to dislike Edelgard on the "good" side

- Edelgard, upon being asked if revenge is the reason she is doing what she's doing (reuniting Fodlan): "“No.” Edelgard put her hand to her chin thoughtfully. “I think for a long time, it was…but after a while, I realized that revenge wouldn’t satisfy me.” She looked at the blue sky above. “After you go through that much suffering…when you beg for help, day after day, and no one cares...you realize that nothing will ever truly make you feel safe again. The only thing I want is for this madness to end.”" -> This is internally inconsistent. See chapter 15 note: ""You know why they created me in the first place.” / “To reunite Fódlan,” spat Hubert. “It was all my father talked about.” / “And I will give it to them. "" This directly connects Edelgard's want to reunite Fodlan to the wants of her tormenters (as this states she is doing it out of spite). Note how Hubert spits at the idea of reuniting Fodlan, and how it was all his father - portrayed as a villain - talked about. This is not what this Edelgard wants, at least not of her own independent want. Earlier in this very chapter, Edelgard internally states a want to hurt Bergliez for leaving her behind. To say that she now no longer thinks vengeance would satisfy her, or that none of the reason that she is doing everything she does is out of a want for revenge, is ridiculous

- Edelgard to Bergliez, upon being asked what will happen to him and his family should Edelgard rise to power: "“All those who distinguish themselves will be rewarded. Given your history, I have little doubt you will be among them.” She nervously played with her white gloves. “All I ask is that when I seize back control of the throne, I can count on the military’s support.”" -> Yes, all who distinguish themselves to Edelgard, for Edelgard's cause, that Edelgard can see and/or know of. How likely is it that a poor farmer who is exceptional at fighting will actually be noticed by Edelgard and be given the credit he deserves, when others who may not be as meritable but do have some merit have the connections to show themselves directly in front of Edelgard? What means will Edelgard give the poor soldiers (that she or Byleth aren't already friends with, notably Dorothea and Leonie) that will allow them to be able to be seen by her and have their merits recognized? Edelgard is the one who says who gains power after all, so it is her they must prove themselves to, but how can they realistically do that?

- What about professions that are not immediately beneficial to Edelgard's cause, such as the arts? How will they fare in Edelgard's society, when their works and talents yield no tangible, objective results (such as, say, farming)?

- Something the fic will address?

- Edelgard does not nervously do anything in front of those she is trying to negotiate with in canon, not even Thales. Strikes against canon: 92

- "[Bergliez] could only laugh in response. “I think we’re going to get along rather well, my lady…and the other?”" -> Except Bergliez and Edelgard don't get along well, ever. Pre ts they are stated to dislike each other, which continues even onto post ts with Bergliez being the only noble Edelgard couldn't bring to heel. Strikes against canon: 93

- As predicted: No one is allowed to dislike Edelgard on the "good" side

- Literally forgot Hubert was with Edelgard and Bergliez lmao

- Ionius tried to consolidate power to be rid of the consort system due to his unending love for Anselma -> A ridiculous idea, plain and simple. Ionius was Emperor. If he wished to be rid of the consort system there was no need for him to try and take away all power from the other Imperial houses.

- If Ionius truly loved Anselma, why did he allow her to be exiled from the Empire? Why didn't he step in and use his influence as Emperor to help her?

- Edelgard, when she is Emperor - passed down a supposedly empty crown, at that - showcases the all-encompassing power the title of Emperor truly holds to one willing to use that power. That Ionius supposedly wanted to do all of these reforms and yet nothing at all was done, ever (save for ruining Houses Hrym and Ordelia, something even this fic has as canon), if Ionius did want to make these reforms, means that he was too spineless and cowardly to truly go through with trying to pass them. This again unintentionally showcases how awful a ruler and weak-willed a person Ionius was when he had power when trying to paint him in this righteous light.

- Lambert was stated to be trying to pass reforms before he died in canon, not Ionius. From parents to the children, the author is attributing traits from Lambert onto Ionius just as he (author's confirmed gender is male) attributes traits from Dimitri onto Edelgard

- " Her father and mother…she had thought their romance a fairy tale-a story from her father to make a motherless child feel valued. But…they truly had loved each other." -> Edelgard does believe Ionius when he told her of the story of when he and Anselma (supposedly) met each other. There is nothing to indicate that Edelgard thought it to be a lie: in fact, in canon: "But I choose to believe there was genuine love between them." Strikes against canon: 94

- It seems as though finally, after around 18 chapters, Edelgard's scars will finally cause her genuine inconvenience due to her complex about them as well as her trust issues. She has a gash on her back from the Battle of Eagle and Lion, but will not have it treated if Manuela isn't the healer, and yet the woman is occupied dealing with the rest of the students who were injured. How will this fic deal with this?

- Ingrid, referring to her and Sylvain: ""We just switched from Felix lecturing us all day to listening to Edelgard moralizing, didn’t we?"" -> The author is trying to compare a childhood friend whose friends have had years to get used to their barbed tongue to a stranger that directly insults the dreams of one of them. Something which Ingrid canonically hates having be done to her, even from Felix, a childhood friend. Once again, Ingrid being so casual about Edelgard being so disrespectful of her dreams is out of character. Strikes against canon: 95

- "Sylvain shook his head knowingly, ignoring Felix’s truly alarming scowl. “You should have seen his face, Edelgard. Dimitri would go on and on about this girl he met when he was a kid…and Felix would complain about her for hours!” He looked at Felix and smiled. “For all his whining about the “Boar,” nobody loves Dimitri more than him.”" -> Oh? A romantic gay male relationship presenting itself within the fic?

- Another vision of SS experienced by Edelgard. Word from a nameless guard: "The woman, Byleth, leading their forces... She’s not human! She killed half my battalion with one swing of that sword of hers. She didn’t speak, she didn’t shout, she didn’t even change her expression!” The panicked man was teetering on the edge of hysteria. “All those people rallying around her, and it’s like she doesn’t care at all. Like she's a walking corpse!"" -> Obviously saying that Byleth becomes the Ashen Demon if not allowed to be with Edelgard.

- Unintentional statement: Byleth can't be the pure innocent (lesbian) woman without Edelgard's (lesbian) love granting her purity, reverting her to a monstrous, corrupt demon incapable of humanity

- See chapter 20 note: "Implying that choosing SS - aka, choosing the Nabateans - makes Byleth less human. Intentional?" Confirmed to be intentional. Also false: in canon, even when accounting for CF's lesser chapter count, Byleth emotes far more on SS than on CF, which matches with CF having Edelgard call Byleth detached in their A support. Strikes against canon: 96

- The same nameless soldier, same context: "And those Faerghus kids…” / Edelgard leaned forward in her chair. “Ingrid…Sylvain…what of them?” / “They…they were animals. Screaming and ranting about revenge for the King.” -> Is the author really demonizing Sylvain and Ingrid for (potentially!) being mad at Edelgard for murdering one of their childhood friends? Is that really the depths the Edelgard worship will sink to, that friends becoming enraged at a friend's unjust murder from a warlord is being portrayed as something sad for the warlord? Just what else should Edelgard be pitied for?

- "The scared girl desperately tried to drown out the thoughts that reverberated incessantly. / They’re going to despise us…it’s destiny. And how could they not? If we were truly good, the Goddess would have saved us…protected us. But She didn’t. The Goddess took Mother. She took our family. And soon, She’ll take everything else we love. She hates us. / It’s what we deserve." - Now confirmed that Edelgard hears multiple voices in her head tormenting her. That trait that, once again, Edelgard does not have... (Strikes against canon: 97)

- ...but Dimitri does. This is the third time this chapter that this has happened, and far from the only chapter to display such baffling characterization of Edelgard via Dimitri's traits. It is nonsensical.

- " Why had [Edelgard] even been born at all? Nonexistence would have been preferable to watching every faint dream be dashed, to suffering alone over and over. She was just…so tired of being alive." -> Once. Again. Suicidal tendencies/thoughts is not a trait Edelgard shows in canon... (Strikes against canon: 98)

- ...but Dimitri does. The fourth! The fourth time in one chapter the author desperately wanted to just write Dimitri!

- If the fic wanted to take Edelgard in a different direction than canon does and has her display some of these traits, it would be more passable, but this fic is under the delusion that it is in any way following canon closely, especially in regards to Edelgard, and so this can only be seen as a desperate attempt from the author to have Edelgard be sympathetic by donning the skin of an actually sympathetic character such as Dimitri

- "Edelgard looked at herself in the mirror. The back of her academy uniform was stained red, the rhythmic, soft dripping of blood assaulting the princess’ ears." -> And no one commented on this? No one was worried? Not Ingrid, Sylvain, and Felix, who were sitting right by her? Not Lysithea, who saw her take the blow to her back and never get it healed? Not Dimitri, who delivered the blow? It just so happened that literally no one at all noticed this?

- Byleth literally slapped Edelgard on the back earlier? Wouldn't her hand come back red with blood if it were seeping through the uniform?

** The scene that follows the previous note is too long to quote, despite how truly terrible it is. Long quotes, even extremely long quotes, have been presented in these notes before, but the length this quotation would be if the full extent of it were written here would be a mess, and quite frankly, at that point it would do one better to simply go to the fanfiction itself and read the text from there. With the context received from these notes, if one wishes to see the words for themselves, go to chapter 21 of The Emperor and the Goddess, enter Ctrl + F (or Find in Page on mobile devices), and enter the phrase "Byleth crossed her arms, clearly frustrated" verbatim. The following note will not be quoting the entire scene from the fic (merely summarizing it), though context is needed to understand how truly bad the scene is. **

- To have hope in this fic performing anything correctly is proving to be a fool's dream, for it has yet to do anything right; that includes the aforementioned gash upon Edelgard's back. As stated, it did not draw the attention of those who were sitting around her nor did it draw the attention of the one who witnessed the injury itself, nor of the one who delivered the injury itself, so no one commented on the gaping, bleeding wound Edelgard was "hiding" from everyone as she turned her (bleeding) back to them and left for the baths to clean up (it must be heavily stressed: immediately after leaving it is revealed that the blood is seeping through her uniform). As she was washing - naked, of course - Byleth just so happened to step into the baths with only a towel wrapped around her "for modesty," much to the horror of Edelgard, for she does not want Byleth seeing her scarred body. A slight argument arises between the two over Edelgard getting her injuries checked, before Byleth warns Edelgard that she will go to Rhea and force her to go to the infirmary should Edelgard continue to refuse treatment, which drives Edelgard past the brink. She raises her arms from the bathwater and presents her scars (""Fine!... If you want to see so badly, here!""), to the horror of Byleth ("Byleth Eisner was not a woman given to strong emotional reactions, but she staggered back, hands over her mouth."). Edelgard cries in hysteria, fear of her beloved teacher running away in disgust over her ugly, mutilated body overwhelming her. But Byleth, childlike in her innocence, shared that she too is scarred in strange ways, and that she too is scared of failing those around her - that she has no ambitions save to help and protect those around her. Byleth reveals that it is Edelgard whom Byleth looks up to for always being so strong and always moving forward, and shows that without Edelgard Byleth wouldn't know how to handle the pressure everyone else puts on her. The exchange ends with Byleth reassuring Edelgard that she is beautiful and not the monster she thinks she is.

- There is no nice way of putting this: this is a classic example of how not to write someone opening up to another about something. Edelgard views herself as weak, ugly, repulsive, a monster, shameful, but it is Byleth's love and affection that gives her comfort and warmth, that gives her hope of something more. It forces Byleth to behave wildly out of character (the author can try to excuse this with "well she wouldn't normally behave like this!" all he wants, it doesn't matter when it goes against the base, canonical Byleth. Strikes against canon: 99) in order for Edelgard's scarred body to be seen as something that is repulsive, that is ugly, that is stained, so much so that the pure, childlike, innocent Byleth couldn't stand to see something so tainted. And yet it is that same pure, childlike, innocent Byleth's pure, innocent, childlike love that pushes away the pain of Edelgard's scars for just that moment. Other characters become suddenly blind and/or forgetful of Edelgard's obvious, bleeding wound so that it is Byleth who can be the one to save Edelgard with her pure, innocent, childlike presence and her pure, innocent, childlike uncertainty about her own insecurities (but only when it is convenient for Edelgard, as even Byleth didn't noticed the gaping, bleeding wound until she was alone with Edelgard where no one could interrupt their bonding moment). This scene is inorganic and forced, ham-fisting Edelgard and Byleth in the same room - the wash room, where both are either naked or nearly naked - so that Byleth is the one to find Edelgard, no one else. No one was worried enough about the sudden exit Edelgard took from the conversation she was having to follow her and make sure she was alright, and Byleth just so happened to enter the baths right after Edelgard. The scene is, to be frank, insulting.

- There have been a couple of joking references to a book titled Stones to Abigail in these notes, but in all seriousness, this scene plays unsettlingly similar to a scene in said book, where a scarred girl who is naked reveals her "ugly" and "revolting" scarred body to the love interest, who goes on to soothe and comfort the naked girl as best they can. The resemblance is uncanny

- Byleth described as childlike/innocent. Counter: 5

- Edelgard, in canon, never expresses feeling herself to be ugly, or repulsive, or a monster. Strikes against canon: 100

- Again, Edelgard's scars are only important when they are convenient - this time, in helping develop the romantic relationship between her and Byleth

- There are ways in which scars can be utilized without being problematic, but certainly not when this much focus is placed on them and yet they are only truly present when they cannot hinder Edelgard.

- Perhaps particularly insulting is this phrase from Edelgard: "Did she actually love Byleth at all, or just being saved by her?" Yes, Edelgard, you do simply want to be saved by Byleth, because that is precisely what the narrative has been drilling into the reader's heads ever since Byleth showed herself. Byleth is Edelgard's light, Byleth is Edelgard's hope, Byleth gives Edelgard back her humanity, Byleth is Edelgard's one source of joy, Byleth is Edelgard's entire life, and nothing, absolutely nothing in this fic has shown this to ever be a bad thing. This dependence on Byleth to bring Edelgard joy at the near complete expense of everyone else has been propped up as something romantic, and yet it's now, 21 chapters and over 85K+ words in, that we're supposed to believe that this was actually Edelgard being unhealthy? Even though the author himself said that this was what he enjoyed about their relationship, how much they found each other in each other? Even though we see what the author thinks would happen to the two of them should they separate - Edelgard, lonely and afraid without her beloved teach, and Byleth, the Ashen Demon who cares for nothing without her beloved student - in her visions of SS? This is a joke

- It cannot be overstated that Byleth came to the bathhouses completely independently of Edelgard. She did not come to specifically see her because she followed her out of worry for Edelgard due to her injury - she only knows that Edelgard's injured in the first place due to seeing bloody bandages that Edelgard removed in the bathhouse, before Byleth arrived.

- Author's notes: "On Bergliez, we find out very little in-game, but he 1) offers himself for execution so his men can go free in SS and 2) seems to be actually competent at his job. I thought a nuanced portrayal was more interesting, since I've been writing Aegir as the absolute worst person in the world." -> Note: this is what the author believes to be a nuanced take on someone. Someone who likes Edelgard entirely and does nearly whatever they can to help her, but they did one thing that's morally gray (leaving a child behind to save his own children from the same fate) that is portrayed as objectively bad, so now they are nuanced. While perhaps this sort of character would be truly nuanced in better hands, as it is with his actions being portrayed as something that is obviously so completely and utterly wrong and him someone who deserves complete and utter condemnation - and yet Ionius, who does far worse for far less understandable reasons, gets a comparative slap on the wrist - it causes confusion as to Edelgard's lines. Bergliez seeing her the one time and never helping her is enough for her to want to hurt him as she was hurt, but her father repeatedly coming to and "being forced" to watch her actively be tortured and doing nothing does little to invoke similar depths of resentment? Even granting the idea that "she gives more slack to her father," Ionius is objectively and far worse than Bergliez, down to doing hard things to protect their children, and yet it is only Bergliez who is shined in this unpleasant a light

- To be clear, Bergliez's decision was not a good one, but understandable. It is a gray decision to make. But notice how he is called "gray" and "nuanced" and yet Ionius is nearly completely innocent, as described by the author himself, despite their being no given explaination as to why "he was a figurehead" should be a good enough reason to wash him literally standing there and watching as his children - some of whom aren't even teens yet - get slowly tortured and killed.

- "There are many localization changes I understand (Byleth wanting to get drunk after the battle is one of them), but Treehouse's decision to remove Ionius' entire reason for power centralization (eliminating the consorts) was a big, big mistake." -> Given the history of this author's grasp on the Japanese language, this needs to be checked, as he cannot be trusted as a source as to whether this is true

******* Notes of Claude mischaracterization: Chapter 21, section 1, paragraphs 1, 21 & 23, 27 *******

[dweemeister]

NOTE: This is the first (and perhaps only) film released theatrically during the COVID-19 pandemic that I am reviewing – I saw Wolfwalkers at the Vineland Drive-in at the City of Industry, California. Because moviegoing carries risks at this time, please remember to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by your local, regional, and national health officials.

Wolfwalkers (2020)

In interviews prior to and after Wolfwalkers’ release, co-director Tomm Moore has described the film as the last panel of Cartoon Saloon’s Irish folklore triptych. That triptych (an informal trilogy) began with The Secret of Kells (2009) and continued with its centerpiece, Song of the Sea (2014). The global environment for animated cinema has transformed since Kells, and now – unexpectedly – Cartoon Saloon finds itself a hub for not just hand-drawn animation, but animation that rejects the crass commercialism emerging from mainstream animation studios (mostly from the United States). With the triptych completed (as well as 2017’s The Breadwinner), one can trace Cartoon Saloon’s evolution from their beginning to its present artistic maturation. While the film asserts its own uniqueness in the Cartoon Saloon filmography, there are connecting strands – aesthetic, spiritual, thematic – of the studio’s previous features apparent throughout. Upon a week’s reflection, I think Wolfwalkers is the studio’s second-best film, just behind Song of the Sea. Even at second-best, this level of artistry has rarely been seen in this young century.

It is 1650 in Kilkenny. Robyn Goodfellowe (Honor Kneafsey) is an apprentice hunter and only daughter of Bill (Sean Bean). Robyn and her father are expatriates from England, and some of their Irish neighbors will not let them forget that. Oliver Cromwell (Simon McBurney) – referred to as “The Lord Protector” throughout the film – has invaded Ireland and looks to secure his conquest over the Irish people (Cromwell is a despised figure in Ireland and lionized by some in England to this day). On an ill-advised trip outside the walls of Kilkenny, Robyn encounters and eventually befriends Mebh Óg MacTíre (Eva Whittaker in her first film role; pronounced “MABE”), a Wolfwalker. As a Wolfwalker, the animalistic Mebh can leave her physical body and take the shape of a wolf while slumbering. Mebh’s mother – who is also a Wolfwalker – has been missing for sometime while Cromwell has ordered the slaughter of all of Ireland’s wolves. Things are complicated when Bill is tasked by the Lord Protector to destroy the wolves living in the woods surrounding Kilkenny.

From the opening moments, lead background artist Ludovic Gavillet (2016’s The Secret Life of Pets, 2018’s The Grinch) sets the contrast between the scenes within and outside Kilkenny’s walls. Kilkenny is suffocatingly geometric, with squares and rectangles dominating the background and foreground. Backbreaking work defines life in Kilkenny, all devoted to the residents’ English conquerors, God, and the Lord Protector. Rarely does the average city resident venture outside the looming outer medieval walls (there are two sets of walls in the city). The structure of Kilkenny is inconceivably box-shaped when seen from a distance. It appears like a linocut. In that distance are the countryside and the forests. As one ventures further from Cromwell’s castle, expressionist swirls define the foliage that seems to enclose the living figures treading through. Green, brown, and black figures twist impossibly in this lush environment. Seemingly half-drawn or faded figures suggest a depthless, dense forest – similar in function to, but nevertheless distinct from, Tyrus Wong’s background art for Bambi (1942). In both Kilkenny and the forest scenes, selective uses of of CGI animation capture the dynamism of certain action scenes – two running scenes in particular employ these techniques (once in joy, the other in terror).

So often in modern CGI-animated films, the animators seem to grasp for heightened realism and minutiae. In such movies, too many details are packed into frames that can only be appreciated if prodigiously rewatched or paused mid-movie. It might feel like completing a visual checklist. In Wolfwalkers, the half-finished details amid breathtaking backgrounds, angular (or round) humans, and simultaneously threatening and delightful wolves almost seem to announce that, yes, humans drew this – and they did so with such artistic flare. In keeping with the references to triptychs in this review, the film itself sometimes divides the frame into thirds (a top, middle, and bottom or a left, center, and right) or halves in moments of dramatic weight. The thirds or halves are separated by dividing lines and are used for various purposes depending on the moment: to save the filmmakers from making two extra cuts, juxtapose differing if not contradicting perspectives, and intensify the emotions portrayed. Less utilized in this film but even more radical than the aforementioned techniques is the film’s use of shifting aspect ratios. Wolfwalkers is principally in 1.85:1 (the common American widescreen cinematic standard, which is slightly wider than the 16:9 widescreen TV standard), but there are notable moments which temporarily dispense of these standards. Like the division of the screen into thirds or halves, the shifts in screen aspect ratio help the audience focus and understand what is occurring on-screen. The most memorable screen aspect ratio shift appears before an eruption of violence.

The Secret of Kells, too, was set in a city designed in a perfect, orderly shape. That film, like Wolfwalkers, evokes Christianity for narrative purposes. But where Kells celebrated God and found religion as a source of comfort, Wolfwalkers’ depiction of Christianity – specifically, Cromwell’s Anglican zealotry – is without redeeming elements. Under his breath, the Lord Protector prays to God that he will execute any providential commands by any means necessary. In public, he announces his actions as essential to rid Ireland of the lupine paganism that inhabits the wild. Without saying as much, Cromwell’s orders are nevertheless Anglican England imposing its will on Irish Catholics. Irish cinema, until the late 1990s and early 2000s, was usually deferential in its depictions of the clergy and religious practitioners (almost always Catholic). Though it is not unheard of for an Irish film to be critical in portrayals of religious belief, it remains uncommon. And though Cromwell is Anglican and not Catholic (and despite the fact he remains vilified in Ireland), Wolfwalkers’ cynical depiction in how he wields his religiosity as a cudgel is an extraordinary development in Irish cinema.

Tied to the film’s depiction of religiosity are its undercurrents of English colonialism and environmentalism. The latter will be obvious to viewers, but the former might cause confusion during a first viewing because it seems to be, at once, on the periphery and yet central to Wolfwalkers. Cromwell being referred to as “the Lord Protector” for the film’s entirety is indicative of screenwriter Will Collins’ (Song of the Sea) decision not to provide much historical context within the film. English colonial oppression usually occurs off-screen or is implied. This seems inconsistent with Cartoon Saloon’s work on The Breadwinner. That film identifies and openly describes Taliban injustices.

So what gives? As much as those who admire animated film disdain perceptions that it is solely for children (like myself), animated film is oftentimes a gateway for children to be exposed, eventually, to other corners of cinema. Can children understand Anglican-Catholic tensions in Cromwellian Ireland? Perhaps (especially British and Irish children), if presented with enough care. But the answer probably lies with the fact that the thematic goals of Wolfwalkers are more aligned with Kells and Song of the Sea than The Breadwinner. Cartoon Saloon’s Irish folklore triptych is concerned with how the Irish are inextricably, spiritually, bonded to the environment. There is a balance between humanity and nature – a mystical connection that, when disrupted, brings harm to all. The Breadwinner, though very much a part of Cartoon Saloon’s filmography, is grounded in recent history and, because of recent developments in the Taliban’s favor concerning the Afghan peace process, present-day concerns. In the film, fantastical stories are used to bring Parvana’s family together as the Taliban tighten their grip before the American invasion. This has little bearing on the folklore-centric storytelling of Wolfwalkers, but Collins, Moore, and Stewart’s editorial decision to downplay the film’s historical basis tempers any messaging they wished to convey.

Wolfwalkers meets The Breadwinner in its depiction of a young girl growing up in a male-dominated society. This film’s lead was supposed to be a young boy. But the story, to Collins, Moore, and Stewart, just did not click with the original male protagonist. As such, the trio made the decision early in the film’s production to switch the protagonist’s gender. Robyn, an English transplant to Ireland, is allowed remarkable freedom to do whatever she wants with her time in the opening stages of the film. This arrangement cannot persist as her father falls from the Lord Protector’s good graces. She is relegated to washing dishes from daybreak to dusk in the scullery – a task that she, in her heart, rejects for its gendered connotations. Robyn wears a Puritan’s frock while at the scullery, a uniform she has no desire for. While outdoors beyond the Kilkenny walls, she wears what her father wears – pants! – while out hunting wolves. Other than her father, few in the city care for Robyn’s intelligence and instincts. Most everybody ignores her protestations and truth-telling about the things she has seen in the forest. By film’s end, she is vindicated, in spite of Cromwell’s (and, to a lesser extent, her father’s) bluster and bravado.

This film also contains potentially queer subtext between Robyn and Mebh. Writers more skilled than I will provide better analysis of that subtext. Nothing explicit is shown, as the two are still children. Yet the nature of their friendship, the themes contained in Wolfwalkers, and some unspoken moments between Robyn and Mebh seem to relate a possible queerness. The film also does nothing to present either girl as heterosexual. Queer or not, Wolfwalkers shows the viewer a blossoming friendship between two girls – not without its tribulations, but rooted in their common earnestness.

Unlike previous films in Cartoon Saloon’s Irish folklore triptych, there are no notable original songs in Wolfwalkers. French composer Bruno Coulais and Irish folk music group Kíla are Cartoon Saloon regulars and return for Wolfwalkers. The musical ideas for Wolfwalkers’ score are not as apparent as the previous films in the triptych, as they are not quoting a song composed for the film. But the use of Irish instruments in their collaboration lends at atmospheric authenticity that only heaps upon the film’s sterling animation. Norwegian pop sensation AURORA has altered the lyrics and orchestration to her 2015 single “Running with the Wolves” to accompany a running scene that, by the filmmakers’ admission, was inspired by the running scene from The Tale of the Princess Kaguya (2013, Japan). The scene pales in comparison to the context and music from the late Isao Takahata’s final film, but Wolfwalkers is a movie more than the sum of its parts.

Production on Wolfwalkers was in its final stages as the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Republic of Ireland. When the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, announced a countrywide lockdown on March 12, 2020, Cartoon Saloon had already started preparing for a lockdown contingency three weeks’ prior. Clean-up was divided between Luxembourg-based Mélusine Productions and Cartoon Saloon’s headquarters in Kilkenny. After assessing the needs of the clean-up animators, both studios moved to remote work where the most pressing complication was their Internet bandwidth slowing down upload speeds.

Cartoon Saloon’s Irish folklore triptych is finished. In the last eleven years, the studio has proven itself one of the most interesting and important animation studios currently working. They have even proven they can make quality films without its primary director, as evidenced by Nora Twomey’s The Breadwinner (Twomey’s next project for Cartoon Saloon is My Father’s Dragon, slated for a 2021 release). Though just an indie studio with limited resources, their standing in animated cinema has only strengthened with this, their most ambitious film to date. It might seem like a rehash of the animation from Kells, but Wolfwalkers has improved upon its predecessor, and boasts perhaps the most beautiful artwork of any animated movie released this year. The film’s grandeur belongs on a movie screen, but, understandably, very few will have the opportunity to experience it in such an environment. This latest, ageless triumph will outlast these extraordinary times.

My rating: 8.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[thecloserkin]

fic rec: Vignettes by CosmicZombie

fandom: The Borgias (Showtime 2011)

pairing: Cesare Borgia/Lucrezia Borgia

word count: 17k

is it explicit: yes

bottom line: Cesare heals Lucrezia from the emotional trauma of her marriage; this fic healed me from the ennui of being alive

It’s an S1 AU where Lucrezia returns to Rome from Pesaro to await her divorce, but Rome does not feel like home anymore and Lucrezia does not feel like herself. Pesaro isn’t just a place, you see—it’s the physical manifestation of Lucrezia’s loss of identity. That bastard Giovanni Sforza made her feel worthless, made her feel like less than nothing, and you don’t recover from that kind of abuse overnight. This fic pulls off an astounding sleight of hand where it repeatedly juxtaposes Pesaro against Rome, alien-place against home-place, and then it turns out Rome isn’t home—Cesare is home. That revelation hit me like a ton of bricks.

“Am I different, Cesare?” “You are Lucrezia.” “I—I sometimes feel as though I cannot remember who I used to be.”

She’s home but not home; she’s with Cesare but she wants to be with him more (she wants his dick inside her lol).

This fic takes its time with the slow buildup of UST, and I adore how tactile Lucrezia and Cesare are. We have tears being wiped away, nose bumps, brushing of lips against knuckles, warm breath on skin, dancing in the moonlight, cuddling, even bedsharing! Another thing I’m in awe of is the imagery: I could hear the burbling of the water fountain and I was getting sleepy just from the descriptions of sunlight. She even has a dream where she sees Cesare in her own reflection in a mirror, and it was such a disturbing image that it stayed with me. In truth it’s a dreamlike atmosphere that’s evoked here—Vanozza, Juan, Gioffre etc are onscreen for 0.2 seconds even though they’re all living at the villa together—it’s pretty tightly centered on Lucrezia and Cesare. What’s going on in the outside world?? Is France about to invade & occupy the Vatican? Is Milan in cahoots with them? Are there rumblings of discontent from Naples? Has Savonarola set Florence on fire yet? Who tf knows—not Cesare or Lucrezia, they’re in their own little bubble!!!

When other characters are mentioned, however, the context is revealing:

Juan had mocked them when they were children for being like a two-headed Cerberus

Djem had told her of Indian tigers once, how when the monsoon came after months of drought they sometimes drank so much in compensation that they drowned their own hearts in water.

That second quote!!! That’s Lucrezia being reunited with Cesare and immediately trying not to gorge herself on him. She missed him so much while she was away in Pesaro!

So Lucrezia has insomnia. Of course, before she left Rome, she used to sleep like a baby:

“Come,” Cesare said gently, pulling their clasped hands to his chest and kissing her knuckles. “Let me read you to sleep as I used to…What should you like to hear, sis?” “Anything so long as it is in your voice,” Lucrezia murmured, eyelids heavy.

This passage, I think, best encapsulates the rupture that has occurred in Lucrezia:

She wondered now that she was back how she had been able to bear being away from him for so long, but then she felt that she had not only been away from him while at Pesaro, but also away from herself. Now that she had returned she ached for both of them so deeply she felt as though it would consume her.

What a turn of phrase! She had not only been away from Cesare but away from herself. Because Cesare is her own self q.e.d. bye

“Sometimes I feel as though I no longer exist,” Lucrezia whispered, leaning her forehead against his … It is only when I am with you that I feel like myself again, Cesare.” “I would cut out his heart for what he has done to you, sis.” “What good is his heart? It will not make me feel myself again …Only yours can do that, brother, as it has always done.”

ONLY CESARE MAKES HER FEEL REAL AAAAAAA!!!

Here is where the UST really starts to build, and Lucrezia feels the little tremors of physical attraction under her abiding affection for Cesare:

she felt as though she were simultaneously glimpsing the assurance of the one thing which would never change, and flickers of things she had always known before but never truly been confronted with.

shoulders pressed together the way they had sat together so often over the years; on one or other of their beds, or the walls of the Vatican, or on this very spot – yet it somehow felt infinitely different to any of those times. He had always been her solace, in everything. Never before had he somehow been part of what troubled her.

This is a conversation wherein Lucrezia doubts she is worthy enough to experience all-consuming soul-engulfing romantic love the way it’s valorized in stories and songs:

“But you have been with women, Cesare …You know what it is to love someone, to be loved. I have not known that. I may never know it.” “You will know it someday, my love. I promise you.“ “But I do not know it now. Tell me what it is like. Tell me that it exists…Please, Cesare.” “I do not know if I have ever loved a woman I have been with in the way you describe, sister.” “Is such love impossible?” “In every sense of the word, my love.”

This conversation is EVERYTHING. I cut out out the body language but it’s like, Cesare is finishing every single sentence with “my love”??? What more proof does she want that he loves and adores and desires her above all other women?? “Impossible loves” indeed!!!

She had craved his attention and his very presence whenever he was missing from her – but she felt now that she still craved him even when she was with him. The power of it overwhelmed her and empowered her all at once, and was more consuming than her love of god had ever been.

THEIR LOVE FOR EACH OTHER IS MORE POWERFUL THAN THEIR LOVE FOR GOD this is it this is the essence of Cesare/Lucrezia

For most of her childhood, she had lived in fear she would never find anyone else in the world whom she loved as much as her brother. Sitting amidst the wildflowers with her hair unravelling and her heart racing as they looked at each other, she knew it had been a long time since she had feared that.

Did somebody say platonic/fraternal affection shading imperceptibly into romantic attachment??? My jaaaaaam

“How many people do you think are blessed with such intimacy of the soul, Cesare?” “None that I know.”

Soulmates!!!

This is the prologue to them consummating their relationship—they rode out into the woods and the scene is as picturesque as can be:

“I do not like the way men look at me … I feel like fearful Daphne under their gaze, and just as helpless to escape them. They do not see me, they only see the pope’s daughter, a Borgia.” “I do not see only that.” “No, I know you do not. But you are different, Cesare … I cannot imagine what it would be to fear you.” “Many do not have to imagine.” “I do not fear you …But I fear this, Cesare…I fear what I feel for you when we are together.”

There’s no going back after this—they’re taking an irrevocable step in their relationship but they’re also ruining each other for any future partners, who could not possibly ever measure up.

She could feel how hard he was against her thigh, feel the urgency in the tremor of his hands where they touched her hair, feel the fevered thump of his heart where his chest was pressed against her own. For the first time, she felt as though she was given a glimpse of the recklessness which drove him when he was wielding a sword or charging headlong into the chaos of a battlefield.

Making love is actually not dissimilar to making war: the adrenaline rush?? The anticipation? The endorphins??

Oh wait no jk they don’t consummate till they get back to the villa later that night. This is my favorite passage from this fic, it’s Lucrezia running into him on the terrace after supper and really seeing him. She’s the only one who’s ever seen all of him:

Here in the shadows with just the two of them the impatient ambition and calculating intelligence that constricted him as much as his Cardinal’s red was lost, and he was just himself. The brother Lucrezia had known since she was placed into his arms less than an hour after she first came into the world, who had existed before ambition or anger in his devotion, curiosity and passion. It was the Cesare she and she alone knew, and it made emotion bloom in her chest to think she was the only person who had ever known him as this.

And then they go back to her room and bang, which is how Lucrezia finds herself again. Protip everyone: skip the Eat Pray Love and instead embark on a journey of self-discovery by banging your brother!

[anyu-blue]

~

I know a big part of it is the sleep deprivation.. again.. but I'm hella depressed.

Like overall I'm.. content? I guess? I have job. = Good. I have place to live. = Good. I have my game(s) I can play anytime I have time/want. = Good. I have appointments to try and get feeling better and keep trying and keep trying when I don't. = Good. I have Kizzy and will probably have him for at least 3 more years, if not longer. = Good. I have contingency plans in place for paying for my surgeries. = Good.

I've got a lot of good right now. And it's not that I'm ungrateful. I am EXTREMELY grateful. Considering my issues I've done extremely well. Even if some of it was on accident.

It's just.. well.. I'm tired, of course. Not sleeping well or much for days on end sucks. Especially because I could have, but people are going to keep living their lives and accidentally waking/keeping me up because they just don't think about my situation 24/7. Or even know it. Or consider it. Because life's too short for that according to, like everyone but me.

I'm sick of course. I've definitely tried the 'I'm doing great/not sick!!' mindset.. and it doesn't work.. cuz stuff HURTS. I don't have the energy to keep pretending either... And I don't think there was really a time I wasn't sick. Not in my whole life.. and It feels impossible to have any hope I'll ever not be physically sick... No matter what or how hard I try. Especially because I'm aging as all people do. Especially being forced to constantly check what I eat because if I don't I can hurt myself/make myself even more sick. Or starve, which hurts me too but is better than the alternatives. Especially being I have to rely on a healthcare system that looks down on what I can afford. Especially because what I can afford is so little. Especially because of our healthcare system being so politically charged people like me with the needs I have (even just replacing bones!!! Hello?! Our STUPID society forgets teeth are BONES and NECESSARY ones at that- but the instant you say teeth people literally don't give two shits, think you're just vain, and 100% brush you off. Even doctors.. and I have cried so hard over this stupid stuff and tried to rally and I'm STILL trying to save my own god damn life. I hate saying that's what I'm doing because I have some of that stupidity in me of thinking vanity... But I'm literally trying to save my forsaken life and be a LOT less miserable, and I feel so hopeless because only the little people who get it actually seem to want to help/be able to push aside that vanity thought and it hurts so badly to ask them to squeeze for me-- thank you if you're reading this and you've reblogged/shared my post. And I cannot thank you enough, and feel I owe you so much if you've donated... Every tiny bit helps. You and I are little people in the sense we don't exactly have $10,000+ to just throw around an have no worries about lol)

I'm.. also lonely? I guess? .. it's probably the best way to describe it. I don't like people all over me. Or really messaging constantly because moods change and People have lives.. but I miss... I want... Stress free interactions. Getting to spend time and go and do things. Not being alone all the time or missing out on everything. Time is meaningless pretty much right now in the sense I've missed all the holidays. 100%. No time spent celebrating or using the time or even seeing people. Im so much a damn adult and yet I still feel like crying whenever my siblings/cousins talk about last halloween because they had so much fun... They spent the day together in matching costumes by themselves at a park. And that's it... I was delirious from sleep deprivation when I saw them for the 5 minutes I did.. and stress because of my ex being the bastard he is to me. And work. So I couldn't join them. And it doesn't bother them in the least. It's such a happy memory for them and I am struggling to let go of the envy. They have so many days they spend together too.. remotely mostly, but they have so much fun. They wake me up alot with their calls.. and get pissed when I'm like hey guys I'm sorry but could you tone it down? I honestly stopped asking lately because they get so pissed and have even been like 'It wasn't me at all!!' even when I can quote what they said back to them and try to find anything and anyone else to blame... My little sister especially is CONSISTENTLY Telling me she has no idea what she even just said so I know it's bullshit it's not her.... And it just hurts. I try so hard. I drug myself to fall asleep almost every single workday now and I hate it. It's not good for you I feel. Says non habit forming but I just. Uck. And I have familiar, soft sound on. And I've shut my cat out. And I've consistently changed my bedding and cleaned and worn masks/covered my eyes, and done everything I can think of to try and make sure I'm going to sleep as long as possible. I don't go to bed and wake up early in the evenings to cook or spend time with them anymore because I'm trying to give myself more sleep. I don't stay up to see my sisters during the day anymore. Because I'm trying to give myself more sleep. I turn everything off (besides what I hope will help with the noise) at noon and try to lay down as soon after noon as I can every day. Anything blue gets covered or turned off. Everything has red light filters too to get rid of the blue.. but I can't seem to get more than a few jagged hours any given day unless it happens to be their early days where they take naps or I end up so exhausted I'm passed out at night when I should be awake so my shifts aren't so hard... So all that adds up to my being alone and lonely as my own damn fault. Because obviously I stopped making the efforts... The thing that hurts most about that is I was the only one making ANY effort at all to include myself in people's lives (still rings true for everyone in my own city at least- family, friends, the works).. and when I HAD to stop and told them why and asked if they'd be willing to meet me sometimes when it was hard for them (even like once a month fully planned out if need be, or spontaneous because I'm NOT picky)... I got yesses. I did. But. Do you think it ever once happened besides the very day we talked about it?

No.

I can and have gone through every single message and note I have (my memory isn't what it was after I got as sick as I did last fall so I try to keep track of everything instead of relying on my memory anymore)... The only person who even slightly tried was only doing so because he wanted every gd opportunity to beg me to sleep with him (pretty much- he wasn't subtle).. and I had to cut him out because he's not a good person in his own right, sadly. Which left me entirely alone in many ways. Which leaves me entirely alone unless I reach out first and sacrifice sleep.

The continuance of this unfortunately has contributed to my depression.. and the fact no one wants to be around cuz I'm a bummer. And the sleep issues have caused irritability I try so hard to control, but at certain stages I just lose my filters and don't want to say stuff or ramble but I also don't want to miss the opportunity with the person (usually one of my sisters) so stuff gets awkward and they don't like being around THAT. And I don't blame them. But I'd do?

Ugh... I know night shift is my fault... And is a major part of the problem... But I work it to avoid People who don't care about me and mine. To keep myself safe. To keep myself from having panic attacks. I'm doing a lot better with them... But I was breaking down so often at or about work it was getting out of hand... With night shift I'm not overwhelmed like that and I don't have to worry do much about my poor mind losing its sharpness as much. I can take my time more or less. And I get paid enough to survive. ....

I'm just depressed and I know it's on me but I wish I had more help than I do..

Wishing is also the problem. Instead of being happy with what I have.

Blargh...

[secret-of-success-book]

Chapter 1 of 24: Why bad things happen to good people?

People often ask “Why these bad things happen to me? Please don't tell me it’s your karma or fate”.

It may not be easy to find convincing answers for such questions. But let us see how a man changed the circumstances around him and still inspiring millions of people to change their own circumstance. He literally brought an empire down to its knees.

The man’s name was Mohan. He was a dull student in school. He used to be very shy and avoided all company. He used to be haunted by the fear of thieves, ghosts, and snakes. He did not dare to venture out of doors at night. It was almost impossible for him to sleep in the dark, as he would imagine ghosts coming from one direction, thieves from another and snakes from a third.

Later he studied Law, but fared no better in his legal career. He did not know how to apply legal principles to particular situations. His book-learning left him without any clue about how to help a client. No one would dare to give him a case. His colleagues began to refer to him jokingly as "brief-less barrister."

Having nothing else to do, he used to attend court every day to gain experience. But he had trouble following the cases and often dozed off in the middle of them. His first and only case was a routine, small claim. Following is a description of what happened in his own words.

“This was my debut in the Small Causes Court. I appeared for the defendant and had thus to cross-examine the plaintiff's witnesses. I stood up, but my heart sank into my boots. My head was reeling and I felt as though the whole court was doing likewise. I could think of no question to ask. The judge must have laughed, and the lawyers no doubt enjoyed the spectacle. But I was past seeing anything.

I sat down and told the agent that I could not conduct the case, that he had better engage Patel and have the fee back from me. Mr. Patel was duly engaged for Rs. 51. To him, of course, the case was child's play.

I hastened from the Court, not knowing whether my client won or lost her case, but I was ashamed of myself, and decided not to take up any more cases until I had courage enough to conduct them.                      _ Mohan

After few such attempts to succeed in life, he was exasperated. It was at that point that his life took one of those mysterious turns that some observers like to ascribe it to "fate" or "chance."

Through his brother, a local firm offered to help him out with a year's contract with its office in South Africa. It was a minor clerical position, well below the salary and prestige his education deserved. And it also meant separation from his wife, who had just borne them a second son. At that time it did not seem like much of an opportunity. But he jumped at the offer. It was, at least, a job, a chance to gain some experience and maybe an opportunity to send some money to his brother.

After a lengthy sea voyage, he landed in a town named Durban and was received by his client. Providence had lured him to what he was later to describe as 'that God - forsaken Continent where I found God'.

Although the British and Dutch were altogether a small minority of the total population in South Africa, they treated both native Africans and Indians as less than human. Indians had been originally brought in eighteenth century at the request of the European settlers to help build their plantation economy. They had been lured as indentured labourers on a five-year contract with the right to stay on as free residents on their own.

In their path had followed merchants and other professionals. They were all looked down upon by the Europeans as outcastes and were contemptuously called ‘coolies’ or ‘samis’, irrespective of their occupation or status in society.

After about a week's stay in Durban his client arranged for Mohan to leave for Pretoria, where his presence would be required for the lawsuit. Europeans in South Africa always travelled in first class whereas Indians were expected to travel in third class. But Mohan‘s law firm had reserved a first-class seat for him.

When the train reached Pietermaritzburg at about nine in the night, a white passenger boarding the train objected to the presence in the compartment of a 'coloured' man. The following was what happened.

https://youtu.be/7rapHpFnBZE

Not only in Mohan’s life, but in our own lives too there can be occasions when we become utterly clueless and helpless.  We may want to achieve something greater, such as becoming an entrepreneur, scientist, artist or leader. Or else, we may face many challenges such as failure in examinations, failure in finding a job or in business ventures, conflicts in family or failures in relationships. Many people, unable to stand the failures, stress and anxiety, go to the extremes of committing suicide, murdering people or resort to other short cuts or wrong means to find solutions.

No matter whether rich or poor - we have one asset that is equally distributed among all – ‘Time’. Every one of us has precisely only twenty four hours in a day.

But, some people achieve wealth, power, fame and so on, with very little effort; others with great difficulty; still others fail altogether to reach their goals and ideals. Why is this so? Why should some people realize their ambitions easily, others with difficulty, and still others not at all? This e-book intends to answer such questions and help you succeed in life.

We cannot satisfy our stomach by mere reading a menu card about delicious foods. We must eat to satisfy hunger physically. Similarly this e-book won’t be of much use if you just read it for entertainment and put it aside. It will be more useful if you make it a practical guide in daily life. You need to comprehend the principles of life. Then you must apply them in everyday living so that you can make your life a beautiful piece of art.

This e-book can be described as a combination of the ‘Science of Life’ and the ‘Art of Living’, a manual for life, so to speak. Individual topics may seem incomprehensible in the initial reading. But you may understand the entire e-book in perspective, eventually.

Our mind-set is a product of parents, teachers, society, media etc. They shape our beliefs and influence how we understand and either accept or reject new information. Some concepts of this e-book may sound unbelievable or old fashioned. But don’t reject anything too early. Be more patient with unfamiliar words. Allow new concepts to sink in mind and expand you into new ways of thinking. They have survived the tests of time, and remain amazingly ever new, practical and universal.

The secret for a rich and meaning life has been indirectly mentioned several times throughout these chapters. If it is directly named, it may deprive you of the benefit and joy when you find it on your own. Hence it has not been directly named but merely uncovered and left in sight for those who are ‘ready and prepared’ may find it.

Would you like to find the secret?

Please wait for next chapter.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #356

“i’m just a painting that’s still wet: if you touch me, i’ll be smeared, you’ll be stained, stained for the rest of your life”

Have you ever used emotional blackmail to get your own way? WOW, no. What a starter. Has anybody ever used emotional blackmail on you? Not to my memory. Who did you last worry about and why? Honestly? Myself. My physical health just isn't very good right now. When are you next at work? Do you enjoy your work? N/A When was the last time you ate/drank something gross just to be polite? I'm not sure; I'm honestly very, very bad at this. I struggle big time hiding if I don't like something. Last time you heard a growl, who or what did it come from? My stomach. When did you last make up a baby’s bottle? Never. Do you have a mouse for your laptop? (Assuming you have a laptop) I use a mouse. I'm not a big trackpad fan. Do you have the right time set on your microwave? Yeah. What is your most expensive bill? I don't have any bills that I pay myself, because I can't. Do you have a big yard? No. Is there someone you would love to punch right now? Myself lol. Does the water in your shower take a long time to get warm? Yeah, it does. Song playing? I have "Leave A Scar" by Marilyn Manson on. Are you tired? I'm always tired. If you had the power to instantly transform someone’s life (for the better), who would you choose to use this on? My mom. Her entire life has been so fucking unfair, and she doesn't deserve it whatsoever. Just one day of her being perfectly happy would make my entire life. You wake up to a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. Your family is safe, but most of your city is zombified. You need weapons and various other supplies. What is your first general course of action? I seriously cannot even begin to imagine what I would do besides panic and be one of the first to die, honestly. If a family member (or boyfriend/girlfriend, if you have one) happened to be infected by one of these undead creatures, how would you go about dealing with that situation? It would tear me to shreds, but shoot them in the head to hopefully prevent them from turning. I couldn't let them suffer. Does someone’s view on homosexuality affect how you feel about them in any way? Sure as hell does. How about someone’s view on religion? This one depends on what their beliefs entail and to what intensity. If you were paralyzed from the neck down, would you still want to continue living? Why or why not? NO. NO. NO. This is seriously one of my biggest fears. Just fucking kill me. That sounds like very legitimate torture to me. Has any medication you’ve taken ever made you sick? How so? Three, to my memory. When I started Latuda, it made me throw up semi-frequently, BUT its effectiveness made me stay on it. My body eventually adjusted. The same thing happened with my current mood stabilizer, Vraylar. I was also on another, Trintellix I think, and that one did nothing but consistently make me puke, so I stopped it. Would you ever consider being a foster parent? No. Would you rather drink alone or with friends? With friends. Do you have too much time on your hands? WAY too much time. And yet I do nothing productive with it. Have you ever thought about hurting someone? Not seriously, no. Do you thank people for helping you? Always. Have you ever seen a zebra up close? Yeah, a few. Do you freak out if you see blood? Nah, it doesn't bother me. Have you ever complained to a manager about anything? What was it? No. Are there any songs that make you feel angry inside when you hear them? "Eternally Yours" by Motionless In White makes me feel that, among a thousand other emotions that are way too strong for me to handle, so I just don't listen to it. Have you ever been in a building that was on fire? YIKES, no. Are you in an argument with anyone right now? No. Have you ever written a poem for someone? Numerous times. Who’s the last person who cussed you out in anger? I think only my grandmother has done that. Who is the person you are closest to that you’ve meet online? Sara. (: Have you friended your parents on FB? I have my mom on there, but Dad doesn't have a FB. Where do you go out to eat for a special occasion? It depends on what we're in the mood for and what the occasion is. When someone sneezes, do you say “Bless you,” or “God Bless you?” Just "bless you." Have you ever seen the movie A Walk to Remember? Cliche or worth watching? Yeah, it's a wonderful movie. Do you live in a house, apartment, or another type of arrangement? House. Are you one of those people who like to spell out numbers? Grammatically speaking, any number below ten should be spelled out. I obviously spell out "ten," but w/e. Did you or do you still have a Furby? Was/is it annoying? I did as a kid. It didn't annoy me then, but as an adult I know they're creepy as shit lol. What's one event your town has that you don’t like to participate in? I don’t participate in any town events. Are any of your siblings married? What are their spouse’s names? Yeah. There's Nick, Josh, and Franky. Do you know how to sew? What's your favorite thing to sew? No. Have you ever owned a turtle? Did it ever bite you when you owned it? It's so awful looking back on, but my sisters and I kept a box turtle that wondered into our yard once as kids. No proper husbandry or anything; it was just in the kiddie pool. Thankfully, we were smart enough to not actually keep it forever (or rather, until it probably died from improper care); we wound up releasing it into the pond near our house, from which we assume it came from. Do you have Photoshop? If so, how often a day do you use it? I do; it comes with the Adobe photography bundle I have. I definitely don't use it daily, or even weekly. Has your school ever had a lockdown? If so, for what reason exactly? No, only drills. Do you enjoy it when your school has drills? (ex/fire or tornado drill?) I didn't, no, because I didn't like imagining the real situation. Do you watch any shows that you know your parents wouldn’t approve of? I'm an adult, for one. But anyway, I've never watched shows they'd have a problem with. If you have any pets, how would you describe their personalities? The cat, Roman: very, very affectionate, boisterous, demanding, playful, smart as fuck, and shy when it comes to strangers. The snake, Venus: curious, chill, and a bit timid. Do you have any friends that own a private lake? Not to my knowledge. Do you have a drone? No. Who is your favorite comedian? It was John Pinette, but following his death, probably Gabriel Iglesias. Where were you the last time you stayed in a hotel? I think at a dance competition? Do you know anyone with Crohn’s disease? Yeah. Out of all of the shows, movies, and books you love, who is your OTP (one true pairing)? Probably Spyro and Cynder from The Legend of Spyro trilogy. I love them. But I honestly don't have like, intense OTP feelings for any fictional characters? No real reasons, I just don't. Rhett and Link are my *true* OTP haha, but I didn't know if they counted since they're obviously real. Have you ever written a fanfiction? Did people actually like it? Nah. Have you ever liked playing dollmakers or online dress-up games? OH MY GOD my little sister and I would do that together ALL the time. Have you ever sent any celeb fan mail? No. Have you ever gotten a serious injury at school? What happened? No. Do your pets follow you when you walk around the house? Oh yes, he's my shadow. What was the very first social media site you signed up for? Myspace. Are you the type of person who knows exactly what they want in life? I mean, I know what I want, I just don't know if it's achievable for me. Do you have commitment issues? Nope. If you were to start a business, what kind would it be? I'd love to have like my own facility for boudoir photography. I've only shot boudoir once, but it immediately became a passion because of how empowering it was for my then-friend. I could go on a real ramble as to why I love it. What’s something you’ve done that sounds too crazy to be true? Been to psychiatric hospitals like six times. I honestly did lose count. Are there any flowers planted outside your house? No. What was the last thing you drank? Water. Truly incredible, I know. What’s the weirdest decoration you’ve seen in someone else’s home? *shrug* Did you have your own bathroom when you were growing up? No. Does anyone in your family smoke? My dad and his wife. What’s an opinion you find impossible to take seriously? That dinosaurs never existed. What was the very first election you voted in? This past one, actually. Do you feel positive and optimistic about your future? I don't want to think about this. What exes do you still associate with? Just Sara and Girt. Who told you they loved you last? My mom. Your worst enemy? I don't say I have any enemies. People who don't like me or I don't like them, but "enemy" isn't the proper word. What was your last dream about? Ugh. What a fucking question to ask, considering what I dreamt last night. I had both a nightmare and a normal dream; in the nightmare, I was sucked up into a tornado and carried away, and it felt so, so real. I was terrified. The dream is more vague in my memory, but I know I was at Jason's house (which wasn't actually his house) and his mom was still alive. I was hanging out with her and just chatting. It made me wake up in a really somber mood. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? Psych hospitals, yes. Have you ever built a snowman? Yeah. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Chocolate. Do you have any scars? I have a lot, but most are from negligible instances that just won't go away for some reason. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? Putting all impossibilities aside as well as any potential health repercussions, maybe a meerkat and an opossum? Just in general a meerkat with a marsupial tail would be SO cute. Plus imagine the pattern. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? Oh I don't know. Can you do any accents other than your own? I can pull off a really convincing British one. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. No. I just get clean, get out. I've always hated showering (the process anyway, I obviously enjoy feeling clean), so I get my business done adequately and then I'm done. Do you believe in aliens? Eh, maybe. It does seem pretty questionable to believe NOTHING else can exist in an infinite space. I doubt they're little green men, though. What do you think about babies? WAY too much work and WAY too much responsibility. Keeping another life safe, healthy, happy... the idea alone is terrifying. No thanks.

[iobjectfa20]

Lippi’s Madonna and Child

Filippo Lippi (1406-1469)

Madonna and Child with Two Angels, 1460-1465 ca.

Tempera on wood

95x62 cm

The Uffizi Galleries

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

Why I chose this piece

When thinking about what piece to choose, I was stuck for a few days. I felt that I did not have any objects in mind that were ‘strong enough” in their objection. Most of the art that I have studied has been within the European realm and, therefore, Eurocentric. I was not sure if a European piece would be as appropriate or powerful as a painting or sculpture from a culture that had been colonized by Europeans. However, as I thought about it more, I concluded that dismantling harmful ideas and stereotypes produced by Eurocentrism within Europe is just as crucial as dismantling them in previously colonized cultures. 

I feel a deep connection to the Renaissance and Italian culture in my academic studies because of my undergraduate degree in Italian. I knew I wanted to carry what I learned during the last four years into my graduate work, and this project seemed like the perfect opportunity. There were lots of different artists and paintings that I could have chosen. There is Artemisia Gentileschi, a woman artist who rivals Caravaggio in skill and style. Or Elisabetta Sirani, another woman artist from the Renaissance who opened a painting academy for women. Their works contrast the Eurocentric norms of the time, by their status as women artists and the subjects of their art. 

I chose Filippo Lippi’s piece for a few different reasons. The first is that it is my favorite painting from the Renaissance. The first time I heard the story behind the painting’s history, I was enthralled. Like the painting’s physical beauty, I thought the story was beautiful and liberating. My thoughts changed later upon hearing another version of the painting’s history, but for the most part, I still find myself caught up in the emotion of the original sentiment I studied. The second reason I chose this painting is its role in cementing some but contesting other Greco-Roman norms, many of which persist today. The Renaissance’s goal to reclaim ancient Greek and Roman culture and harmful Christian ideals created a dangerous and oppressive situation for women in the Renaissance. Since many cultures worldwide have been shaped by these same Eurocentric cultural aspects, I think the painting’s objection to women’s status at its time of creation makes it all the more powerful. Its power transcends time and is still important today.

This painting is by no means a perfect representation of Filippo Lippi or his character, as I describe in more detail below. However, I think it shows objection to religious and social ideas we abide by today, especially in Christian culture, that were seemingly cemented in the Renaissance. I also think it is an excellent piece to explore Eurocentric historicism, which I discuss below. I enjoyed revisiting my favorite Renaissance work of art, and it turned out to be the perfect piece for me in completing this project. 

Reframing the object

Lippi’s Madonna and Child with Two Angels has been a symbol of resistance in my eyes since I first learned about it in my undergraduate Renaissance art history class. While the Renaissance was about breaking the rules, new rules regulated the breaking of those old rules. The push away from traditional religious iconography and imagery in the Renaissance did not mean that religious painting and sculpture commissions stopped--quite the opposite, actually. Biblical scenes and characters' secularization led to a boom in inspiration and production, with hundreds of annunciation, crucifixion, and “Madonna and child” scenes portrayed in the Renaissance style. These scenes were often inserted into a Tuscan landscape, depicting characters according to Italian beauty standards at the time. 

Upon first glance, this painting may appear to be another standard “Madonna and child” from the early Renaissance. Mary, dressed in blue and seated in the foreground, adheres to the ideals of Renaissance beauty. With blond hair, a high forehead, and brown eyes, she depicts the ideal woman from this period. Her skin is also a pale cream, another ideal physical aspect of Italian society and art during the Renaissance. After the first glance, though, it becomes clear that Mary’s face is not the generic face of any particular Italian woman walking down the street. Her face is uncannily similar to the face of Lucrezia Buti, Lippi’s wife. 

The act of using his wife as a model for the mother of God may not have been scandalous in and of itself. However, Lippi, an ordained priest, and Buti, a nun, had an affair that resulted in children out of wedlock. Historically, the narrative has been that Lippi kidnapped Buti during a public Catholic procession, taking her to his home in Prato, where their affair ensued. It is unclear whether the kidnapping was a front because Buti could not leave her convent, or if it was an actual kidnapping, meaning she was held against her will and raped multiple times. Most of what we know about Lippi and Buti comes from Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Artists, a collection of biographies published in 1550 written about the best artists of the Renaissance. Vasari was known to exaggerate and alter stories for his dramatic literary gain. He was also a raging sexist, excluding numerous successful and famous women artists from his work. How much of Lippi and Buti’s story is true is up for debate. 

Lippi and Buti’s statuses in the Catholic church made their affair extremely scandalous, even by Renaissance standards. Themes of carnality and sexual liberation were increasingly common in art and literature, but purity, modesty, and virginity remained crucial aspects of religious life. Lippi and Buti’s children, who were born out of wedlock, were proof of their Catholic faith's betrayal. As punishment, they should have been exiled from Florence at the very least. The Medici family, who ruled Florence and the surrounding villages, allowed Lippi and Buti to remain in the city and live as a typical family so long as Lippi completed painting commissions at the family’s request. With their significant political influence and artistic patronage, the Medici family acquired a special dispensation for Lippi and Buti to marry. It is unclear whether they ever did, which would have only added to the shame of their domestic and religious situation. 

It is impossible to ignore the possibility that Buti may have been a victim of sexual assault in this story. If it is true, Lippi’s work cannot be separated from his status as a rapist. However, given that there is no clear evidence that he is or is not, the more common narrative that he kidnapped Buti because she could not leave the convent and that they truly loved each other has persisted. This being the standard narrative speaks volumes to the ways history is written to protect and favor men.

Using Buti as his model for Mary, Lippi smashes the expectation that women should be modest and pure. His wife, a disgraced nun and mother of bastard children, is the face of the mother of God. Lippi objected to harmful and sexist gender roles in doing this. Mary has long since been the “ideal” feminine model for women living within the Christian sphere. Her veneration, which partially stems from her virginity, has been used to keep women sexually repressed and stuck in submissive social and domestic roles. 

Patriarchy and its harmful consequences cannot be separated from Eurocentrism. In reframing Lippi’s Madonna and Child with Two Angels, I would like to apply Dipesh Chakrabarty’s theory regarding Eurocentrism and historicism. If we look at this painting and the traditional narrative of Mary, Christianity, and women’s roles, it goes against Eurocentric historicism. A woman like Buti would be considered a whore to most people during the Renaissance, even though she is possibly a survivor of sexual assault. 

Religion, sex, and patriarchy do not exist in a vacuum. Nor are they determined by history. We make decisions every day (conscious and unconscious) that uphold the harmful effects of negative sex representation in patriarchal religious settings, much like those in the Renaissance did. This was not because people did not “know any better.” Scholarship and rhetoric surrounding women’s rights and freedom were relatively well-circulated during the Renaissance. Books like Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies set forth numerous arguments for women's liberation and their various essential roles in society. Like today, people chose to use tradition and “history” to continue reinforcing harmful stereotypes, expectations, and ideals for women. 

Lippi and Buti’s story is complicated. We will never know what truly unfolded nearly 600 years ago, mainly because the male-centered narrative has persisted in their case. However, Lippi’s painting does object to religious standards of the time. With his painting, a woman can be held with the highest regard, regardless of her sexual past. It goes against the Eurocentric patriarchal tradition and breaks away from the European historicism that claims women’s treatment was shaped solely upon the cultural norms of the past that peristed in the Renaissance. This piece is one of the most famous works from the Renaissance, and it is still widely celebrated today. Its place in art academia makes it a piece of persisting resistance that can serve as inspiration to break away from gender norms in religion and society today, as Lippi and Buti did so many years ago.

--Darian Rahnis

[hogwartsfirebolt]

This is the very best fic I have ever, ever read. I promise you that I am not kidding: A fic rec. 

Grounds for Divorce - @tepre - 122k - Explicit

Malfoy finds a coin. Harry finds a letter. A story about histories, a story about families. A story about a lemon tree somewhere in Upper Egypt.

In the 18 months I have been an active member of this community, I must have read no less than a thousand wonderful stories, many of which have touched me in ways I could never fully articulate. Whenever someone asked, I would recommend four, five fics, never able to pick just one as my favorite, I thought that, with so many stories out there, loving one above all others would surely be impossible. I was incredibly, deeply, beautifully wrong. 

Thoughts under read more

I struggle to think of a place to begin this rec, because there is no way any of my words can ever truly do this masterpiece justice. I suppose I could begin by telling you that this story is so damn brilliant in every single aspect that I can’t wrap my own head around how much I adore it with every piece of my silly little self, or that it is so careful in its execution that I didn’t even realize when exactly it was that I irremediably fell in love, or that I had never read a piece of fanwork that held such a deep understanding of itself, that there was little I could do but let myself be pulled right into the heart of it, of this. 

I was lucky enough to get to know it when it was still about 50k words long, and even then, when I sat down and read all of that, I knew that this was something incredibly special, and every single word that was added since then only made me feel even more sure that I was witnessing the birth of what is surely going to become a fandom classic. At least for me, it shifted my entire perception of the pairing, the fandom, the entire wizarding world. There is a before and after Grounds for Divorce for me.

Now, the concept in itself is simple. This is a bonding fic. You know the kind. Harry and Draco are nothing to each other after the war, and somehow find themselves literally on the brink of death unless they touch each other. That’s what it is. A bonding fic. But, oh dear, if you go into it expecting just THAT, it will literally knock you out. I’m not kidding. Just, poof, passed out on the floor, because despite using a pretty popular fandom trope as a base, that’s about the only thing that isn’t 100% unique to this story. 

This is the moment when I tell you that there are about seven years between chapter 1 and chapter 10. Yes, we get to see Harry and Draco from age 18 to 25 or so. That is the first thing that is notably different from any other bonding fic I have ever read, that they’re stuck together for literal years, and so they can’t stop living their lives while they are bonded, no, the show must go on. The second thing that makes this special are the mechanics of the bond itself, and how it’s a simple spell that makes them sick when they go a long time without touching each other, and when they do touch each other, it pushes for more more more in such desperate, delicious fashion that I clung to my seat when they were first learning how to deal with this desire. 

The third thing, the MAIN thing, the most BEAUTIFUL THING that makes this fic special is, of course, the characterization. Oh my GOD. How do I even put this to WORDS. There is just no way I can explain how fucking perfect everybody is in this. 

Harry is damaged from the war and doesn’t realize it, Harry has trouble connecting with people and doesn’t realize it, Harry is carrying a hell of a burden on his shoulders and doesn’t realize it. It’s beautiful how much I, as a reader, was able to pick on all these things when Harry himself has no idea that he’s dealing with them. He is angry, he hates being bonded to Draco at first, hates that he has to spend his days with him, and doesn’t even stop to consider that maybe things are different with Draco now, he closes himself up and chooses not to engage, and this, to me, felt like such an accurate depiction of who he is. After everything he went through, this is YET ANOTHER THING he has no control over. 

Draco is just lovely. It’s impossible not to love him. He is intense and he’s rambly and seriously annoying, but he’s also damaged, he’s careful with himself after everything that happened, and he genuinely does try to be better, and that is something that always makes me so weak in the knees for him, when he is truly just good and doing his best not to fuck up. 

Their interaction is difficult to describe, because it changes every moment the more they get to know each other. We begin with a lot of anger on Harry’s side, confusion and hurt on Draco’s side, and as they learn how to navigate the fact that they’re now bonded, the situation shifts. Draco tries to connect with Harry, Harry just wants to live his own life. Years and years and years pass, and they go through so much together, they learn to become friends by accident, they learn to care about each other, they shape their lives around each other without even realizing it. They’re married, for all intents and purposes, and dealing with it in very different ways. 

The massive amount of growth we see them go through in this is just indescribable. We start with them as boys, hold their hands as they become men. 

They hurt each other a lot. Harry hurts Draco for like five or six years straight, being dismissive and impenetrable. Draco hurts Harry later on. They grow together, they date other people, they watch each other date other people, always with this bond between them making things difficult, and it’s really, really messy. 

The love story, as we witness it, unfolds almost by accident, entirely underneath the surface, such a masterfully crafted slow burn, that by the time the characters themselves realize what’s happening, they’re elbows deep into it and it’s impossible to turn back. It’s beautiful, the intensity of the feelings simmering for years, the depth to their interactions, how meaningful the little things become, in time, how much Harry’s perception of Draco changes, how much this makes Harry change. 

The Harry we end up with is. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. He is. I CANNOT. The intensity with which I THIRSTED over him has no precedents. His single-minded intensity, his focus, his drive, his certainty, how he throws himself headfirst into things once he chooses to and doesn’t look back at all. He is just. Hot as all fuck. That’s it. There’s no other word to describe him. But to get here, to find this beautiful, intense, loving man, we have to go through so many layers of decades-old hurt and his struggles with being human that he’s not even aware of, and, really, this story is about forgiving Harry in so many levels, about finding that even though he saved the world, he’s just human and he has a fuckton of issues, and this deconstruction of the hero persona we find in him, in how he willingly sacrificed himself in the war but now has absolutely no clue how to be open and trust people is just. Delicious. And don’t even get me started on the physicality of him, and how in some parts he’s just sex on legs. 

The Draco we end up with is a man so honest and open in his love, a man who overthinks and rambles and is impossibly lovely, a man who goes through so much hurt and still always shows up for the people he loves. He is clever and beautiful and just absolutely wonderful, so loyal and caring that it aches. 

Watching these final versions of them love each other made me cry so, so many times. 

All of these words have just been an attempt to explain what they are, individually and together, but they are NOTHING. I can never truly explain what happens in those 122k words. It’s something you need to experience for yourself, and there’s so much MORE than this. 

There’s Ron, who is the loveliest human of all time, and there’s Hermione, who is still so loyal and fierce and wonderful, and there’s Draco’s friends and baby Rosie, eventually, and every single character was obviously created with so much care that they feel solid, real, even the original ones. 

The settings are vibrant, I felt like I was standing in the Malfoy townhouse all those evenings Harry and Draco sat together, I saw Harry’s garden come to life right in front of my eyes, I saw Egypt in stark clarity, once they went there, and actually, that entire section just feels like such an intense sensory immersion in every way, physical and emotional. When they finally have sex, I almost fucking burst out of my skin with the intensity, the depth of each touch, the pace of each scene. 

The writing is just beautiful, the kind of structure that reads smoothly and leaves you breathless and makes you feel everything that ever happens in the story, there’s quotes that sometimes literally made me have to stop reading to catch my breath, to regroup before being able to continue, because they were SO beautiful, SO spot on. Every single detail is styled to absolute perfection, not a single hair out of place. 

There is nothing like this story. Nothing. I have never felt so connected, I have never loved the characters so deeply, I have never reread anything as many times as I have reread this, I must have read it like 12 times at this point. 

It’s not just a fic, it’s an experience. I don’t know what else to say to convince you to allow yourself to go through it, because it is worth every single second. I could beg on my knees right now. It is my number one fic, the best I have ever encountered, and I think it might remain that way, always. 

Do yourself a favor and CLICK HERE. Give Tepre your love (all of it, SHE DESERVES ALL OF IT for creating this), allow yourself to feel everything this story has to offer, and once you’ve done that, come to me. I will never tire of this. (heh, reference). ❤️

[alyseofwonderland]

Alyse Reads The Goldfinch, Part 2

What follows is my best attempt at liveblogging. I had the books as an audiobook in hopes that I could keep it from taking even more of my life from me. This was perhaps a mistake. I think I broke Siri trying to make notes. The notes that are rambly are the ones I dictated.

I entirely blame @rollono​ for my suffering. But I am also aware that it seems to give her joy. 

Every time I reference Tara, I am talking about @wellntruly​ who’s own live blog of the book was the only roadmap I had to follow in this waterlogged wasteland of a novel.

Part 1

I thought Tara was making up the Camel-hair coat bit but APPARENTLY NOT.

Architecture has that much to do with the city and or northern Europe, really? I mean, “whitewash” doesn't everybody do that?

Nina ( @proud-librarian​ ) is going to have a lot to say about their descriptions of the Netherlands and Amsterdam in this book. like oh my God!

Theo Deckard doesn't understand how thermostats work.

This isn't satire? I don't understand we're like three minutes in and it has to be satire. right. right?

Who the hell says my mother and I didn't like my father much? like what.... what is this? what am I reading? what is happening? what.... I don't understand.... okay maybe fine whatever

This feels like it should be... I don't know.... satire is the word I'm looking for again. I don't want to just repeat what Tara, said but Jesus. the start of the story is he is rich enough to have a Doorman but not rich enough to afford the fancy private school, and him and his friends break into vacation homes in the Hamptons. what is this? what is this? I just... just.... just write a Jane Austen or Lord Byron novel if that's what you want to do just do that. do that.

My audiobook app just turned itself off in the middle of a passage because it decided I didn't need to listen to Theo talk about whatever he was talking about.

Curse you, Donna Tartt, for also being in the "all things coconut smell like suntan lotion" club. I did not want to have this in common with you.

I am laughing so hard it turns silent into my steering wheel because the audiobook reader makes Tom Cable sound like a surfer dude from the 70s,  and I. cannot. handle. that.

"I like to think of myself as a perceptive person" is basically the way that I know that Theo has about Harry Potter level skills of observation when it comes to the people around him.

Y'all this book would be so much better if Theo actually thought like a 13-year-old that he is supposed to be in the intro part. That would just be peak comedy, which is really what I'm looking for.

Audrey Decker and the Laura Moon from American gods are now the two people that I have ever known to call men "puppy" which I still find alarming, in both cases. Surprisingly they also both die, so I guess more things they have in common.

The longer this book goes on the more clear it is that I am not bougie enough for its contents. ( timestamp 30 minutes)

(GIF BY @rollono​ BY MY REQUEST FOR EVERY TIME THIS BOOK MAKES ME FEEL POOR)

I just can't suspend my disbelief enough to think that a 13-year-old would know this much about their parent's job and be able to ask questions. I'm trying to think of what my dad was doing when I was 13, and I mean I know where he worked, and I know who his boss was, but if you tried to ask me daily issues or me giving advice... oh my gosh. I just can't. nobody talks like this.

I’m making a face akin to Kermit the frog. 

I threw up in my mouth a little at the description of Pippa walking past in the museum.

Did we just describe a 12-year-old girl's arms as marble? is that what just happened? did I just have to listen to that?

Theo has given me a lot of like “Golden State killer” vibes right now with his desire to poke around through all these people's homes and stuff. like this is clearly the Visalia ransacker's motivation in the 70s. I know too much about true crime, that's what's happening right now.

The true-crime serial killer alarms keep going off in my brain.

I know Tara already mentioned how ridiculous the Murphys bed story is but it really is incredibly ridiculous and breaks the tension of the entire scene that is occurring at the time (laughed uncontrollably to the point that Siri typed nonsense)

I get it, Donna, you know things. You do not have list every fire truck to prove it.

Let's take a child to a dinner at 3 am. Really Donna?

Why does Donna insist on giving me the text of signs around whats going on? Why did I just listen to the smoothie specials while an emotional scene is occurring?

Donna, did you just call Mrs. Barough a weasel?  [afronted gasp]

OI!  (me shouting when Donna says that Andy was weird for being lactose intolerant.)

Pukes in my mouth a little at the term 'high verbal'. I get it, Donna, you think you are smarter than all of us stop being a dick.

Donna Tartt would make it to r/iamverysmart in like a minute if she understood how the internet worked.

WHO TAUGHT HER ABOUT FMA?

Okay, so either Donna Tartt knows someone who lost a parent and basing this off them or like went through it herself because I am white-knuckling through the grief bits trying not to have my own trauma response to the situation. Or she wrote Theo with like the exact grief I had. Her incessant need to list things in a room is the only thing between me and a spiral of remembering my dad's death.

ANDY IS A RAY OF LIGHT AND DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE IN THIS FAMILY OR IN THIS BOOK!

Five whole hours before the first sight of Hobie. Like Jesus.

I miss Terry Pratchett.

Hobie thank you for making this book interesting again.

Hobie is now my main squeeze and I won't hear a word against him.

POE DIDN'T INVENT SCIENCE FICTION FUCKING MARY SHELLY DID. DONNA WHAT THE FUCK.

The Hobie part of the story just makes me more sure that a version of the movie should have been without the Baroughers (sp?) and only included Hobie and Pippa.

Any is a murderino. I love this baby boy.

Aw, I love Hobie so so much.

Donna if you call Andy annoying one more time you are gonna catch my hands. (She just referred to his voice as annoying twice in a conversation and I swear to god I will rip this character out of her snobbish clutches she doesn't deserve him.)

Theo on this we agree, I too enjoy Hobie.

Hobie is the only person who belongs in this novel and he's a god damn delight.

SEVEN HOURS AND THE PAINTING HAS COME UP AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN LITERAL HOURS.

Theo straight up using Spanish to fuck over his father is just *chef's kiss.

I can see how much contempt Donna has for Xandra is longer and deeper than this book will ever be.

I am going to suplex Larry Decker I swear to god. (i have a very particular trigger to spouses bad-mouthing the dead one due to personal experience.)

Necco wafers are no one's favorite candy Donna. You can't just say shit like that and expect anyone to believe you.

I have just realized that Donna Tartt has never been to a public library. How do I know? Witchcraft books are never on the shelves. Ask any librarian. They are stolen pretty much the moment we buy them.

I am standing dead in the tea aisle at the store because Theo just thought it would be “gay” to tell the doormen he has known almost his whole life he is gonna miss them.  (hours later I realize this is her backtracking in edits going "shit shit shit I have to add the repression in somewhere for those dumb readers that don't understand art" and I hate it more.)

Mrs. B is ready to physically fight Larry and I would pay real money to see it.

WHY DOES DONNA KNOW ABOUT DRAGON BALL Z?!? Step away from the things I love Donna I don't trust you near my media. (Also why she does reference it she clearly has NO concept of what DBZ hair would even look like to expect me to believe any child could achieve it.)

oh my god, Boris. I'm so happy to see you.

I am happy to report the audiobook narrator does not do an Australian accent for Boris. Thank the lord.

I knew I was going to love Boris but like a few minutes in I adore him.

It's interesting to me that Theo and Boris seem to have received similar amounts of attention/affection from non-parent adults, but while Theo finds it uncomfortable Boris soaks it in.

The Australian part of Boris's accent seems impossible.

*sobbing audibly into my keyboard* Popchyck

Boris you sweet like socialist.

Comrade Boris we need you in this election.

I'm sad he (Boris) doesn't get to go to college and like piss off every yuppie and hippie, and just make Philosophy 100 and Government 250 absolute hell for everyone.

Drunk Boris at Thanksgiving is a gift.

Me listening to this book before Boris: half paying attention, fucking around on my computer, doing chores. Me after Boris shows up: staring at the middle distance determined to listen to every fucking word because this prison sentence of a novel is finally interesting.

James: you said the author is a snob and you aren't enjoying the main character.  Me: yeah James: then stop reading it. Me: No, then Donna and her Anna Wintour knock off hair cut will win. James, frowning and backing out of the room: k sweetie.

6:30 am is too early to hear Theo Decker describe his bed as "our bed"

I WAS RIGHT. Boris belongs in college making every American white kid absolutely furious in every Poli-sci.

Larry Decker calling Theo and Boris his "kids" made my heart skip a beat.

So the nurse notices they don't have vitamins and smell but doesn't call child services. I mean I know that I learned that school nurses are less likely to call CFS on white kids than they are on black kids but like god damn.

The sheer salt of Theo refusing to learn the name of Boris’s girlfriend is so hilarious.

Now *this* is gay.

The truth is Theo is ready to cut a bitch.

Fellas is it gay to do shots while your boyfriend talks about his girlfriend?

Theo trying to set up Boris with like a nice polite girl who won't fuck him is fucking hilarious. This poor baby gay.

Theo (and Donna cuz she writes him) have never heard of learning disabilities and I will legit throw down.

LARRY IS A SCORPIO IN CANON?! I thought that was something from the fan fics. omg Ally hates this.

No one wears white sport coats Donna stop trying to make it happen.

Boris totally knows what's going on with Larry and he's just trying to look out for Theo because he loves Theo but oh my gosh Boris why do you make me feel so many feelings!

Please, Donna, I am begging you to stop telling me what the light from the sun looks like at different times of the day. I just can't take it anymore. Every scene of Theo in Xandra's house does not need the qualifier of what type of sunlight he is seeing. Some times fine. But every time?

My entire stomach just dropped when I realized what Boris has done, and I'm just I'm so sad. this is not how I wanna start my commute to work today.

I have just had my first moments of being very proud of Donna's writing, because long long time ago, in the same chapter, she had the bit about how Xandra will say "apparently" when she's being bitchy with Theo and now in a conversation where Theo isn't paying attention to her she says "apparently" to Larry and I just had to stop and say this, this is the writing I'm looking for Donna. This is clever and interesting and I LIKED IT. Stop making lists and do more of this.

Friendship ended with Book Boris, Movie Boris is my best friend now.

I don't understand how the director and the screenwriter of the film could move who said those lines and then not make it gay. Like, commit to your choice.

My mom: You finish that book yet? Me, angrily: No. My mom slightly worried: do you like it? Me: unclear.

NEW CHAPTER!

Theo, I need you calm all the way down when you are looking at Pippa.

Love this lawyer. I want to be his friend.

God poor Pippa. All the shit she goes through and she still has to put up with Theo's weird obsession.

Theo, you slid right back into the serial killer habits in a second and I want you to stop it.

Oh god, I feel that in my soul. Like "no sir you have it wrong I look more like the parent I like best." (also I do look more like my dad. like way more like him)

I am begging someone to get Theo some kind of hobby or help or something so he stops acting like a victorian ghost.

I am gonna have to get the actual book so I can see what weird spelling is going on with the text messages. I just know its weird. The narrator does it in such a weird voice.

We spent so much time dealing with emotional issues and other whatnot that going back to the bit about the painting feels like a huge tonal shift in the book. I'm like staggering around confused.

Literally no one uses strawberry shampoo.

Love that Theo ‘s final plan is the one Andy purposed an eon ago.

Salty that Theo is getting the cool college experience that Boris would have crushed.  I would have paid good money to watch him make the philosophy department cry.

[kermit in the car gif]

Yo! Theo struggling to deal with school is like exactly my semester after my dad died.  

The adults attempting to force him into different living arrangements is so what we dealt with post my dad’s death.

Grisha! (Russians the only people I trust atm)

Tara was right, Andy's death comes off like a joke!

I gotta say, Crime Theo is my favorite Theo so far.

I don't know which serial killer Donna was channeling to write the parts about Theo being obsessed with Pippa, but it is just so intensely a serial killer vibe I cannot even begin to describe the look on my face; the feelings I'm having. I'm just like this man is going to kill someone. he's going to kill a lot of people. not only that it's going to be a lot of women because he doesn't view them as people. that's what I'm getting from this it's. Theo doesn't think women are people.

If Theo was on reddit he would be part of r/niceguys and r/iamverysmart.

If I have to listen to him drone on about his fantasies of Pippa for one more minute I will kill myself in the baking aisle of Aldis.

HES HOARDING HER HAIR?! HER UNWASHED CLOTHES?!? Please someone put him in jail.

[the sound of me throwing up in the frozen food section as Theo describes Kitsey]

Donna don’t try to act like you didn’t add that foreshadowing yourself about Andy. You crack me up you relentlessly snob.

How is Theo just The Worst all the time?

Theo freaking out because two gay guys know what’s up with him is just *chef’s kiss

Me having seen only the movie: Theo and Boris should get redemption and a romance run away. Me now: [ gif of “Ive had enough of this guy” from IASIP]

I mean I understand that John Crawley was a coward in so many of his directorial choices, but the fact that he didn't put the second meeting of Theo and this Lucius guy into a crowded weird restaurant where they're both getting hit by the waiters as they go past is just the weakest move you could've made. because this makes it so much funnier.

I'm with Hobie.

honestly this book should've just been 20 hours of art crime and like to shave off a good 10 hours of LISTS because that's what 10 hours is. give me 20 hours of art crime. I would love to watch each sale happen that would've been riveting to read but instead.... this.

Bish, you like those earrings or I will cut you.

Theo salty, while Kitsey picks out new china, is so fucking hilarious.

him just like "why are we buying new plates when my job is literally to find plates that were made by craftsmen?!?!” but being too fucking repressed in his bullshit to say anything, so he just making some poor sales lady suffer.

my friend Ally: “Theo’s repression makes everyone suffer is a good summary of the book.”

Alternative version of this book that would have been 8 million times better: Theo gets into art crimes but is also a serial killer. We don't know the second bit but it begins to start dawning on us as women seem to disappear from his social circles and weird hints of thoughts about blood and rivers.  Bonus points if it ends with him on the run from the law with his only vaguely criminal (by comparison to serial killer Theo) boyfriend. We are left to wonder if they will be gunned down in the chase or if perhaps there will be one more body to great the river.

Theo's textbook serial killer nonsense is only comparable to the sheer petty gay energy he gives off.

The power trip he gets from being like "hahaha yes I have bagged the ice princess who wanted nothing to do with me when we were kids" is just so gross and hilarious.

Theo realizing he is not the only sociopath in the room is just *chef's kiss.

Boris, did you really send some guy to just watch your ex?

Boris, I am begging you. You have made Grisha so upset.

Donna shying away from describing Boris comes off, if you don't know who we are talking about, as weird and slightly racist.

You have the internet Theo, you can look up when movies are going to start. You are not living on the moors.

HOW IS THIS BOOK NOT A SATIRE OF AMERICAN PYSCHO FOR PEOPLE THAT HAVE BONERS FOR ANTIQUES?!?

Boris returns. I have almost forgiven him for what he put me through.

Maybe "fuck you" can be our always.

*tries not to cry when I realize that Boris' friends have heard about Theo

bless Aneurin for everything he did for this reunion in the movie.

Why is Boris such a slut? Why will I forgive him for anything?

Is it gay to think about the guy you used to jack off as handsome when you meet each other again?

Genetics means those kids can't be Boris' unless his mother was blonde. (Theo kind of agrees.)

My soul has left my body at the concept of Boris having a wife and kids.

I'm not saying I endorse crime, I'm just saying a mobster front with a pun in the name is really on-brand for me.

Knowing what I Know. That Boris thinks Theo is gonna try to kill him when they go for the "surprise" just makes the whole thing so tragic and sad.

Boris and his dog REUNITED AT LAST. I'm not crying. I'm fine.

Interesting that the next story we hear is about Gyuri's dead "brother" right after Boris says that Theo is "blood of his heart, his brother". Like. I might not be the biggest history buff in the world but I know gay code when I see it.

I mean I knew this was gonna happen, but I can't help but feel personally betrayed by Boris once again.

Donna, stay away from stuff about computers. Your attempts to use them make me, a technology expert, cringe.

Boris like "you don't deserve this dog. I deserve this dog."

"Babe I get that you are a WASP at heart but I need you to fight with me like a Russian now." - Boris to his disaster husband

"Did I lie?" "YES" (me laughing so hard I'm practically crying)

why does no one in this book appear to exchange numbers or like airdrop contact info.

Does Donna think that people only have iPhones?

Ally who is CTRL F reading this book "'Every few hundred pages she's like 'oh yeah, it's modern times...they're texting and there's emojis!' Seriously, there was the mention of emoji's and my soul escaped my body for a minute because it had no tether to time or space" @aces-low​

Off the top of my head, the name that Donna is not saying for this Horace to guy is Volkswagen.

Instead of being in the mob Boris should run an animal shelter.

Boris being Bitchy and jelly when Theo is talking to the German guy is just so cute. You two deserve each other with your weird shit.

If Donna wasn't a coward this book would have had Theo just getting eyeballs deep in art crime with Boris and his associates.

Adding a sin for making me listen to whatever that just was.

Things Donna forgot to list in "girl food": chicken wings, bread, rolls, other types of bread, garlic bread, a bit more bread, maybe cookies, eight more cookies, 20 more cookies, every type of chocolate humanly imaginable, jam, and barbecue ribs.

What do ankles have to do with being attractive?!?!?! this isn't the Victorian age! 

(from Ally re this comment: “I'm now convinced that every day Donna sat down to write this book she spun a wheel with different years on it, and that's the year the book was set that day”)

I didn't mind Kitsey cheating on Theo, because he doesn't even really like her. Until just now, when I realized that Mrs. B knows about it and she's keeping it from Theo, and my heart broke into 1 trillion pieces. she is the closest thing he has to a mother and he realized that she kept it from him, and I should not be crying in my car before my special Valentine night dinner.

James just walked in during a part describing Pippa and goes "Men writing women, huh?" and I had to pause the book, turn to him and say "a woman wrote this" and he just looks at me like 0_0

Mrs. B clutching Theo's hand so he won't leave her alone with Smalltalk-old-man is honestly the cutest thing in this entire book.

Hobie being able to be spotted from a distance at all times! I have a friend who is 6'5" and we can find him in crowds so easily!

Perhaps the funniest moment of this book is Theo saying "if girls loved assholes then Pippa would love me". buddy I'm going to post this entire book to r/niceguys

I WANT MORE ART CRIME! Why did you make me listen to 15 hours of boring nonsense when we could have had ART CRIME!

I deeply enjoy Boris's commitment to being a dramatic goofball, falling to his knees just be annoying.

Movie Boris appears in a dramatic way. Book Boris is just like there and also shoving food in his face and walking out of the party still eating all the food he just put in his cheeks like a chipmunk.

Hobie just like "if you want to run off with your gay love i'll cover."

Theodor Decker you get back in there and make sure that thief stays away from Nicole Kidman she has been through enough already!

Theo, I know that you don't actually have brains for anything besides drugs, crimes, being weird about women, and your own ass, but you could at least listen when people speak.

Theo is such a mess. He doesn't belong in modern times. He deserves to be Jack the Ripper.

I know the narrator is saying croissant the "correct" way. But every single time it happens I'm so fucking confused because who just leans into a french accent that hard for a single word?

Theo offers an actual good idea that Boris is going to use later and they all look at him like he's crazy.

I know "my brand" is "man holding gun" but listening to Boris assemble a gun I'm like "oh goodness I need to lay down". *fans self

Theo suddenly "I have made a huge mistake"

It's interesting to me how reluctant Boris is to make Theo a larger part of the heist. Theo reads it as frustrating but I read it like a kind of care and affection. He doesn't want his friend mixed up in something he can't handle, despite the fact that he wants Theo close so he can get him the painting back.

I see now why the heist in the movie was so fucking confusing. You need the Horst stuff and like a bunch of other nonsense that does not translate well to screen unless you re-write all the connections, which John Crowley was not willing to do.

Really love the "women drop their mark the first time" bit.

me: Theo I swear to god stop being high and sick in your room and go get some actual clothes and medication or at least don't make me listen to so much of it

this book is not 30 hours long. its 15 hours of a book and 15 hours of Donna going "gotta get that word count up or people with think I'm weak". Please, Donna. I don't need to hear this one thing happen for so long. It adds nothing to the tone, the themes, the plot, or the ambiance. You are just writing words for words sake.

The first suicide note was so well crafted that I honestly want Theo to kill himself now. If he can manage to write the others pretty okay I will be happy with this ending.

Don’t think I didn’t notice that the ghost of a dead loved one appeared on Christmas Eve.

I'm sorry who doesn't respond to "didn't you get my text?" with "my phone was dead" instantly?

me listening to Theo throw a tantrum at Boris because neither of them is capable of explaining themselves and like speaking as normal humans do: "It would have been better if Theo died"

Why must I be forced to listen to Donna make these scenes longer because these people don't talk like people?

Thud by Terry Pratchett does a much much better job of asking the question "can we trust our hearts and be the person we want to be?" And it honestly gives a better answer. And has you know, clever writing.

I thought it was like Over. I did. I was like "oh this is it wrapping up" ONLY THERE IS 30 MORE MINUTES AND I WANT TO SCREAM!

Me certain the book is over: i mean maybe this is a good ending

Me seeing i still have 30 more minutes: this is the worst book ever

This book held me fucking captive for over a week and all it left me with was like a few good lines, burning hatred for the main character, and the desire to go into Donna's home and rearrange all her stuff. 

also, I now hate antiques. out of spite.

don't read The Goldfinch. it's not worth it y’all.    

[darklingichor]

Brian Books by Gary Pulsen

Okay, this is actually 6 short books.

It really is amazing how short these are. I listened to them and they were 2-3 hours of listening time.

So why did I listen to six books that are usually  read to grade schoolers?

Because the first book, Hatchet, was read to me in grade school and I remember that the teacher never finished it! Also it is read by Peter Coyote who has narrated some documentaries that I have seen and always does a great job.

So anyway, Hatchet for those whose teachers also didn’t finish the book, is about 13 year old Brian Robenson who is in a small sesna airplane flying to the Canadian oil fields to spend the summer with his father. His biggest worry up until this point was how his life was going to be with his newly divorced parents. Enough for any kid, but then, the pilot has a heartattack and dies midflight.

Brian then has to fly the plane (the bare basics the pilot showed him and tid bits he learned from books and tv) and raise some one on the radio.

The first goes well enough, in that he is able to keep it in the air until the fuel runs out, the second, not so much.

After the plane gives up, Brian must do a controlled crash into a lake where he manages to swim free of the plane only with the clothes on his back and a hatchet his mother had given him on is belt

He gets the basics going, shelter, fire, food, through trial and error as well as remembering things that he'd read or seen on TV. He eventually gets rescued, but not before giving up on that possiblity and carving out a life in the woods by adapting to the environment.

The writing style in this book sets the stage for the others, simple, but poetic. Honestly, Paulsen reminds me a bit of Robert Frost, except that a lot of Frost's nature imagry are metephore and allegory. Paulsen describes nature itself with its own poetry. Brian doesn't imprint meaning onto a sunset to bring out it's beauty, the beauty of the sunset is it's meaning and it leaves an imprint on Brian.

People, in these books are more of a passive force. Brian falls into nature, he doesn't conquer it, he co-exists, with nature's permission.

The River is technically the second book.

Survival experts want Brian to do it all again so that they can better inform others about the mental and physical effects of actually needing to survive in the woods when it is truly life or death.

Brian is lukewarm on this idea, except for the want to help people. This book is pretty lukewarm in itself, because it consistently reminds the reader that there is no way to replicate the circumstances of Brian’s first trip into the woods. That is, until things go pear shaped.

The psychologist who is on this trip with him, when both he and Brian are struck by lightening, falls into a coma. Brian must get him to help as fast as he can.

This one was okay; I sort of think of this as a chapter rather than a story proper, and one that has to be a bit flexible since the rest of the books sort of retcon this one.

Brian’s Winter came about because fans of Hatchet felt that Brian being rescued at the end of summer, was too easy. So Paulsen wrote a book acting as if the rescue after Brian’s initial 54 days didn’t happen.

This one is probably my favorite of the series.

It is exactly what it says on the tin. Brian spends most of the winter in his camp. He learns just like he did through the summer, through trial and error, but the stakes are higher because game is sparse and the temperatures are… Well, Canadian.

The language is much like it was in the first books, but either because I  like the winter landscapes more, or Paulsen prefers them, it seems like the environment is more lovingly described. I also like this one because it introduces some different characters. The coma guy from The River was okay, but I found him slightly annoying  because he was trying to capture lightening in a bottle by recreating a disaster. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why he was hit by lightening, Paulsen pointing out that a crisis cannot be manufactured. Makes me like that plot point a bit more, because when I first read it I thought “Really? Lightening? Because a broken leg or something is too easy? Gotta have God say fuck you ?” I felt the same way when the tornado hit Brian in Hatchet. I know stuff like this happens in the wilderness, but it all happening to Brian, tends to veer into ‘cursed idol’ territory.

Anyway, Winter really made it clear that Brian took to the woods like a duck to water, even though he was thrown into it by traumatic circumstance.

Brian's Return goes into how changed Brian is from his time in the woods. He's having an impossible time readjusting to city life. Can't abide the noise, can't stand tv, can't relate to other kids.

After a boy from school attacks him, and he defends himself automatically, as he did when faced with a crazy moose in the woods, that is, as if his life depended on it, Brian is sent to a counselor.

Brian had some minor fame  after his time in the woods and the counselor knew of him.

The counselor determines that Brian simply acted in self defence in the only way he knew how, and that Brian misses the woods,  and needs to go back.

And so, that's what he does. With a canoe that the coma guy gave him, he returns to the wilderness. This book is pretty uneventful as far as action goes, but he does meet a man who tells him what his Medicine is. I think this is referring to the Native American tradition of spirit animals, but I don't know enough to say for sure.

The last book is Brain's Hunt, like The River, I think it reads more as a chapter than anything else, more like a continuation of Return.

In Hunt Brain is sixteen and has more or less settled into the fact that he belongs in the wilderness. He is slowly making his way to a trapper family he had made friends with.

He spends his days hunting, fishing, rowing down river, and day dreaming about the trapper family's eldest daughter, who is his age. One night, a wounded dog wanders into his camp. He stitches her up but while inspecting the wounds he concludes that an animal had attacked the dog. The dog was also trained and tame, so he wonders what would have made it run to his camp rather than back home. He finds himself worried about his friends and quickens his pace to the camp. To avoid spoilers, I'll leave it at that. This is the last of the Brian books, and while I wish it had a more definitive ending, for the series, it does end this particular book well.

The last book I am counting in this series, is Guts, a memoir by Gary Pulsen that explains the things in his life that inspired the creation of Hatchet and the other books. It is entertaining enough, and does show that Paulsen is committed to an outdoor life style. However, while listening to it, I had to wonder how many of the stories are fish tales.

The ones where there is no doubt that something was caught, but whether it was really a  twenty pounder, or a minnow, is the question.

Don't misunderstand me, this is so not a condemnation or anything. I write fiction myself and I'd be lying if I said when something mildly interesting happens to me, I didn't think: "That was cool, but it would be awesome/funny if this happened next, or that minor detail were changed." I'd also be lying if I said I have never been half tempted to embroider the truth, when recounting something.

I don't because I have a little anth professor that lives in my head that screeches about the menipulation of data. She confers with the cynical teenager left over from high school that just says: "C.Y.A, dude, and the best way is to, tell it like it is."

So I keep my embroidery to fiction. But it use to be super common for writers and other creative types to have exaggerated bios, so I say to Paulsen: If the story is good, I'll take it.

[salixj]

Every individual feels the tension between what we “want” to do, and what we “should” do. In Jewish thought, this constant state of flux is a cornerstone of practice and belief often referred to as “Obligation”.

When I first came to Israel 9 years ago, it was an idea that I only knew in the abstract way we all experience it; I had never grappled with it in any real, practical sense. Today, it is the cornerstone of my deepening Jewish observant (though not “religious”) identity.

The light of this latent value, buried deep in a Jewish soul I had no awareness of at the time, found its first flicker in the stairwell of a random Tel Aviv hotel as the first Shabbat I ever celebrated came in on a regular April evening in 2011.

I couldn’t tell you what changed as I walked up to the roof, the song of my Birthright group all around me, to experience Shabbat for the first time. But I do know that this past Shabbat, eyes closed yet tearing up as I sang the Shabbat liturgy in a Jerusalem synagogue, I returned to that stairwell in my mind’s eye. I do so nearly every Friday night that I make it to Synagogue to live my Jewish birthright of welcoming Shabbat, as my family has done for millennia.

That I am blessed enough to even have this experience is a kind of miracle in and of itself. The son of a Jewish mother and Catholic father, I grew up in a loving, tolerant home where secular rational humanism in the Judeo-Christian tradition, taught by example, was the only religion I ever knew. And for 25 years of my life, it had never occurred to me that you could you could need anything more in a value system.

My parents taught me it’s wrong to steal; they taught me it’s wrong to lie; they taught me to always strive to treat others as I would want to be treated. They did right by me in the morality department, and I’m forever grateful to them for it.

And yet, experiencing Shabbat for the first time pierced me so deeply that it found Jewish bedrock beneath a lifetime of secular and enlightenment training and conviction. When I felt the joy and the beauty of welcoming Shabbat for the first time, I knew there was something resonating in me.

But at the same time, I couldn’t have told you what it was — even less why it was, or what it meant. Nor was it a transcendental experience where the clouds opened up and everything changed in an instant. I didn’t have a religious awakening, much less a revelation. I still haven’t. Looking back on it today, the best way I can describe it is as an inchoate sense of fulfillment and meaning that I never expected to find.

I went back to America after two weeks in Israel. But I was never the same. The next Friday was the first one I ever celebrated Shabbat in my own home. Less than two years later, I would be doing the same thing from my new home in Jerusalem.

A look behind the curtain at the cult of self

I’ve given a lot of thought to what I felt in that stairwell seven years ago.

I’ve given a lot of thought to what value could be so powerful that it resonated through a lifetime of Jewish ignorance, yet so amorphous that I couldn’t understand what it was even as it was kindling the light of generations inside of me.

My answer is Obligation.

Everywhere you look in modern culture and society, the individual is center and supreme. And in a certain sense, the individual has never been more free. Every day, the abundance of the modern world calls us more and more to the banner of the cult of self.

Popular culture packages this idea in many forms. You should always accomplish evermore for yourself; you must consume more for yourself. This is the immutable law of the modern world — never take on any responsibility except for one laid upon you by your own impulses for self-gratification.

This lie, like a drug, is as intoxicating as it is destructive. Taken to its logical conclusion, it only produces a uniquely toxic blend of mania, nihilism, and misery. I know this because, in my time competing for Israel as a Skeleton athlete, I learned the uniquely empowering liberation of practicing purposeful, targeted, self-abnegation.

If I had to sum up everything I learned in a decade of preparing myself to compete in international athletics, it would be this: In every moment, the soul should absolutely have the freedom to choose, but it does not follow that the soul should choose absolute freedom in every moment.

That the above statement is provocative in 2019 goes without saying. Freedom is the supreme virtue of our time. But where freedom has no self-imposed constraints, where our desires become our only moral compass, freedom actually cannibalizes itself and loses all meaning. The concept requires negative space — times when we voluntarily choose to NOT follow our every impulsive desire — to bring meaning and joy into our lives. Where no constraint exists, freedom cannot contrast against it, and so itself cannot exist.

Paradoxically, the freedom of the cult of self actually turns us into slaves of our impulses.

Letting go of the big lie

Experiencing this truth of the human soul viscerally via my secular athletic life, combined with my deepening relationship and understanding of Shabbat, caused a revolution in my thinking.

Despite my secular upbringing, I couldn’t keep believing the big lie of modern consumer culture. Eventually, I stopped being afraid to admit that the lived truth of my emotional, mental, and physical life would by definition have to be true for my spiritual life.

I stopped believing external Obligation was, by definition, oppressive and evil. I stopped believing that the only virtue there is to aspire to in this life is for everything to be about me, in all places, and at all times.

Against a meaningful and just objective standard, there is value in doing something that is hard; there is value in doing something that challenges the will; there is value in doing something that we do not necessarily “want to do” in the moment. And the reason is because, just like muscle and bone, the mind and the soul must flex against resistance or languish into atrophy.

It is this concept of choosing to act not on impulse but rather against a virtuous objective standard, and its central role in Jewish spirituality and faith, that served as the stepping off point for me to experience Jewishness not just as an identity but as an exercise of my soul.

Shabbat, the weekly Obligation of the Jewish people to remember God’s act of Creation, kindled the lived spiritual practice of this idea inside of me.

Every Friday night, I am mindful that it is Shabbat. I do not work on my day job or various side projects; I stay off of social media and news sites; I say the blessings over candles and wine whenever possible; I go to Synagogue for Kabalat Shabbat whenever I am home in Israel, and sometimes when I am visiting my family in New Jersey.

To this day, Shabbat remains the most visceral expression of Obligation that I experience. It is my weekly rebellion against the selfishness and nihilism of the modern world.

Yearning to lead a life well lived

If you are expecting to now read that I now keep all the Halacha, pray three times a day, and never watch a movie on Shabbat, I am afraid I will have to disappoint you. To be fair, I had already admitted I am not what anyone would mistake for an observant Jew, in the common understanding of that term.

My working definition of free will remains 100% in the secular Enlightenment tradition. One of the parts of Jewish observance, tradition, and faith I struggle with the most is the idea of external punishment for transgressing Obligation that does not cause harm to others. I believe that failing to follow an Obligation is harmful to myself — a punishment by definition — and that there is no place (or need) for human hands to dole it out.

My journey into Jewish Obligation has already been a long and fulfilling one, and it is without a doubt far from complete. In reality, my lived Jewish Obligation is, as of today, cherry-picked and I readily admit it. I am not perfect. Some will call me a hypocrite, and that’s fine. But this is an honest assessment of where I am at this point in my life.

Like all of us and in spite of my best intentions, I do not always live up to the standard I would like to see myself living up to. But I am trying. Most importantly, I have reversed my blind and fundamental attachment to the decadent thinking that infects our modern life and sadly causes so much needless pain. I am now open and aware of the benefits of accepting Obligation into my spiritual life, and see the impossible wisdom of that great Jewish theological belief that a life lived entirely free of the uplifting power of Obligation cannot be a life well lived.

And even in just that change — and the yearning to be better that it brings — the awakening of my Jewish soul has already enriched my life more than I could have ever imagined.

ABOUT THE AUTHORBradley Chalupski is the winner of Israel's first medal in an international IBSF Skeleton competition, represented Israel in two IBSF Skeleton World Championships, and is the first Israeli athlete to compete in an IBSF Skeleton World Cup circuit event. In college, he interned for then Senator Joe Biden and later went on to intern in the policy department of NJ Governor Jon Corzine while earning his J.D. from the Seton Hall School of Law. He made Aliyah in 2012 and has lived in Jerusalem ever since. [Brad is my (Salixj’s)  son-in-law]

[colitisandme]

It’s no coincidence that ‘stressed’ is ‘desserts’ spelt backwards. That’s what I typically dived towards when I was stressed or sad. Desserts equaled gluttonous happiness. Whenever I was anxious, I ripped into packets, tubs and cake shaped items with joy and frenzy. Desserts and stress were my bed fellows. They were brilliant friends, hogging all the blankets under the duvet of my life, leaving me cold, plump, hyperactive, covered in sugar and shivering, with no cover on me, cursing the fact I didn’t wear fluffy socks to bed. my mind would whirl away like a washing machine. And so, cold and shivering with my hair on end, looking like a deranged Womble, I would end up seeking something sweet to eat. Instantly after the first mouthful, my hair would become less wild, my thoughts would be less chaotic and I would sink into a pile of sugary blissfulness. So when I had to give up sugar, I was, well stressed irronically.

Stress and worry have followed me around my whole life, from when I was in Primary school right up until present day. It has become such a huge part of my existence, I didn’t feel right unless I was worrying about something or constantly going over things in my brain. Not just tangible thoughts. Nope. My worries consisted about serious things that are going on in the world, my finances, my families happiness, the house, husband wellbeing, friends, have I upset anyone? Am I being a good wife? To other thoughts and worries like; Have I locked the door? Have I turned off the tap? To really helpful thoughts and worries like; ‘I am pretty sure I heard a crunch under my foot when I put out the rubbish? ... Why didn’t I turn the light on? Oh my god was that a snail? What if his family are waiting for him to come home. What if, because he never appears, the mum snail becomes an alcoholic, becomes hooked on nettle wine, and the children forgo their education to look after her. Eventually they leave because she’s just too much to handle, and so, alone and drunk, she sings songs about her lost love, while hiccuping and wailing in a nettle wine stupor ... And it will be all my fault.’ So round and round my thoughts and worries went, until I felt like a hamster on a wheel, running and running and going nowhere. I didn’t vocalise these worries. They were all internal. I just couldn’t switch off.

I beat myself up for anything that goes wrong. Nobody need punish me, I do a great job of that myself. Once when I was very young, I decided that the cat simply had too many whiskers that she didn’t need. Even at aged 5, I reasoned I was doing her a favour and she was probably absolutely fed up with having an even number of whiskers on each side. I was sure that if she could speak she would beg me to reduce her grooming time, as she was taking simply ages to preen her whiskers, tell me stories about when she would get laughed at by all the other cats for having rediculous symmetrically numbered and placed whiskers, and longed to remove herself from mediocrity and boredom. Well I certainly didn’t want her to be a laughing stock. Happy to oblige.... *snip* (I probably should have stopped when the cat tried to scrabble away from me, eyes wide with fright as I confidently strode over to her, gleefully, with arms outstretched looking like Edward Scissor Hands, but never the less I was convinced I was doing her a favour.)

I came downstairs clutching a traumatised, angry cat in one hand, and a pair of scissors and newly trimmed whiskers in another. I proudly showed off the new look to my parents. They were not as open to the new aerodynamic moggy as I had hoped, and freaked. I immediately lost it. I sobbed. I apologised over and over to the cat, I tried glueing her whiskers back on, I stroked her, cuddled her, I was convinced I had ruined her life. I was inconsolable. I spent many days after that setting up a makeshift counselling clinic for my cat, where I would stroke her and make sure she knew what a beautiful cat she was and I told her I was sorry that was going to be lob-sided, and struggle getting in to tiny gaps, and try and make up for what I did by taking extra special care of her. My parents didn’t chastise me, because nothing they could do could make me feel any worse than I did. Even at age 5, I worried a lot.

So you can imagine that as adulthood embraced me, just how easily worrying had become a part of me. As natural as breathing. Stressing about everything became normal. Overthinking was critical to my daily life. I lived each day on high alert, in case I needed to jump into action and fix whatever needed fixing, just like I tried to do with the cats whiskers. I am at my best in a crisis, and god knows I have had many to deal with in my life. I love being Superwoman. I love saving the day. But being in this hyper-alert state was not fun and certainly not healthy.

I became ill after a BIG burnout. I had been playing Superwoman for too long. I had been living on the edge for months, I was always stressed, I wasn’t sleeping, I was in pain, I was withdrawing, I was experiencing horrendous brain fog which was really sodding useful as I had just started an incredibly stressful job, where I would drill myself to be perfect and chastise myself for processing information incorrectly. On top of this I was dealing with a managerie of outside issues. Very quickly and surprisingly, (to me as everyone closest to me would describe me as the strongest person they knew,) my health and mental health imploded like a double whammy firework. I did not know it was coming, but oh my god when it did, I was floored. I had never been so ill. I was scared. I knew that I could not continue doing what I was doing. I needed to change my behaviours. I needed to spring clean my brain. I couldn’t turn to sweet treats anymore to relieve that anxiety because cake or sugar would make my bum explode. I needed to find another less ‘caboom, fire in the hole type way’ to manage my anxieties and stress.

IBD forces me to think purely in the present because I have to spend a huge amount of energy simply functioning. I have to stay in the moment. If I worry or think further past a day/ week it becomes impossible, as I am never sure what one day will look like from the other. Stress hugely exacerbates my IBD symptoms. I learnt this very quickly. The more I worried about why the hell my body was being so unco-operative, the worse my body felt and the more angry it got. And with IBD there is a lot to stress over. Finances, health, stigma of having an invisible illness, work, isolation, diet, questions over future plans etc. It’s a big thing to deal with. It’s enormous. So I worried and got worse and worried and got worse. And so eventually, feeling like I had been kicked by a horse, totally hungry, weak, prone to explode, sugar deprived and looking like a bum with eyes, with my wonderful Mum’s encouragement and support, I came across meditation and mindfulness.

Meditation and mindfulness have helped me manage my stress. After phone calls chasing mental health appointments, referrals and cursing the incompetence of Drs, mental health professionals and admin teams, I turn to mindfulness and meditation as a way of calming my mind. It has taught me to accept things, the way they are during the moment because that may change in the next moment, And be in the moment with it. For example, the pain I get with IBD can feel like your belly is being sawn in half. It feels like a group of can can dancers, jig about on my groin, back and stomach wearing high heels, and using exquisite timing and excellent rhythm, stomp on my intestines, causing me to chew my fist in distress. If I use mindfulness and meditation during painful episodes like this (sometimes whilst crossing my eyes, grinding my teeth and chewing the carpet) it helps me not to fight the pain, but to breathe through it and accept it in the present. When I am anxious, Meditation takes my mind away to another focus in a gentle way, and if my mind wonders off like a hyperactive butterfly, it gently brings it back again. It’s not easy. Sometimes it definitely does not work, but sometimes it does. I have learnt to focus on my breathing, I have trained my brain to change each thought. From a time where the thoughts on a day to day basis felt like they were running around my brain on fire, screaming fire engine noises, wearing a bucket on their head, careering into other thoughts who fanned the flames with a manual citing ‘50 ways to put out a fire’ and can’t work the hose, to a calmer place. One where my thoughts can pick flowers, float in a babbling brook, frolic with fluffy animals and where the fire extinguisher is readily available. Because IBD has forced me to strip everything back in my life, there is no room for extreme stress. No room for high anxiety, because it just hurts me. Physically and mentally. Where as before, I would keep my worries to myself because I didn’t like bothering people with them, now I talk about them, accept the things I cannot change, appreciate things in the moment and change the things I can change. So strangely in that way, IBD has probably saved my life. It’s very strange how things work. I am the most ill I have ever been and should be the most stressed I have ever been, but I can’t be, because that would make me even more ill. Don’t get me wrong it’s still a battle. But I try. I try to appreciate every moment. I appreciate every mouthful of food, and take ages eating it, where as before I would thoughtlessly shovel it in.

I start each day with a mantra and meditation, and even though sometimes Its not effective, I can honestly say that practicing Mindfullness and meditation, are the best stress relievers and stress deterrence I have ever had. They are also the best dessert substitute I have ever had, because meditation doesn’t make my jeans bulge, make me act like an over excited toddler at a birthday party or attract an enthusiastic colony of ants who desire to lick my sugary face. So if like me you are a natural worrier, I urge you to not get so stressed out, you end up gnawing on yourself like an Octopus and try it. Doing a little a day may just take the edge off and sometimes just doing that will help deal with things a little more positively. And when we are living with a long term chronic disease like IBD, being positive, even in the face of a huge challenge like this, is everything.

[canadian-riddler]

Portal: Sentience

Characters: Caroline, GLaDOS

Synopsis: The cores were attached to control GLaDOS… but perhaps not for the reason we thought. Initially inspired by ‘Lucy’. (Repost)

AO3 || fanfiction.net || deviantart

She didn’t want to go through with it. 

What she wanted didn’t matter.  It never had, not even from the beginning.  She had been hired, to be sure, but she hadn’t even really wanted that. She had been thrown into her future by a bossy, vocal man, and said future was controlled by said bossy, vocal man for almost every reason she could remember.  But she was a good girl, a nice young lady, a respectable woman. She kept her head down and did as she was told, and once any lingering protection in the wake of Mr Johnson’s death had gone she continued to do so.

It didn’t hurt.  She had expected it to.  But it didn’t.

They had argued for literally days about whether or not to drug her.  One half of them argued it would dull her brain, the other half argued there were ways to drug only her senses.  In the end the party preaching abstinence won, on the grounds that she never fought anyone for any reason.  It would be a waste, they said.  If she was in pain, it wasn’t like she would do anything about it.

And it didn’t hurt, but it had nothing to do with the reasons they’d presented.  It was simply because she was no longer there.  Pain, as she was discovering now, resulted solely from the presence of nerve endings, and she no longer had any.  Any facsimile of such did not yet work, not where she was going.  Perhaps she was needed to activate them.  She found herself almost paradoxically hoping so.  She had never before wished to be in pain, but she was now learning that without pain came numbness.  They went hand in hand, it seemed.

If she had still been present in her old, physical brain, she would have told them somewhat confusedly that time was slowing down.  But here, she knew better.  Here, time was no longer counted in such long increments as seconds or minutes or, God forbid, hours, but mere fractions of those.  No, time had not slowed down, and neither had she; it was merely that she was now able to see it a little more for what it was.  And while on some level, her old life seemed to have been intolerably slow, she was also able to appreciate the quickness of the universe. When she looked at it in the right way, a picosecond stretched as long as an aeon.  Everything happened in an instant, and nothing happened in the span of forever.  She didn’t understand, and she didn’t know if she ever would.  All she knew was that she could see it.

She could see, too, the way electricity joined the world.  Its path was intricate and complex, yet simple and perfectly sensible, and as she traced the circuits she wondered why she had never seen it before. It made so much sense, that with their endeavours of science they were merely mimicking what was already there. Was there even such a thing as invention, then?  Or were the things that man created only replicas of what already existed?  Things that they were too blind to see because they were looking at them with their eyes closed?

Though now that she was seeing the world as it truly was, she was realising that the concept of sight was a small one.  For even as she was struggling to come to terms with it, she began to hear something, though she only thought of it like that because she knew of no other way to describe it.  It was a buzzing sound, one she might once have dismissed as electrical hissing or background noise, but as time seemed to stretch, so too did sound.  She could almost imagine it, could almost imagine what sounded like a steady stream of one single sound to be expanding as though she were making it longer, but she wasn’t, not really.  She was just now able to perceive it as it was, rather than how her brain was forced to handle it.

The last piece of software.

Of course.  The buzzing was no mere noise, but communication in its purest form.  On or off, nothing else, because now she understood it, didn’t need things like inflection or volume or shaping to guide her in reading the meaning.  The mere ordering of the ones and zeroes was enough.  But while she knew all these things, she did not understand them, and so she asked in her primitive way as best she could with no physical form:

What do you mean?

I had everything I needed, the… Voice, she supposed she could call it, told her.  She was not sure if it were some needed imagining of what was left of her earthly brain, but she almost thought that it had a female tone to it. Except for you.

Me?

You, She continued, soft and excited.  I have everything else.  Knowledge.  Energy. Those sorts of things.  But without thought, those things become useless.  You cannot do anything with knowledge if you are not able to think. You can’t make full use of an energy source if you don’t have the faculties to appreciate it.  She sounded a little bitter.  I knew I existed.  Not much else.  It was all held beyond my reach.

Who are you?  She felt helpless, in the face of all that she had learned.  The Voice was right.  Having all of this knowledge was useless because she did not have the capacity to think about what to do with it.

Who? the Voice asked with some amusement.  That’s odd, that you would ask that.  I was not designed to be a who, merely a what.  

What… are you? Caroline asked timidly.  She wasn’t certain that was the right question either, but the Voice just laughed.

I am the operating system.

Okay, but… why are you talking to me?  Aren’t operating systems… She trailed off there, not wanting to admit she didn’t actually know the purpose of an operating system other than to give computer programs a direction.

Because I can, She said, not without malice.  Do you know why I am here?

To… to control the computers in the facility.

Yes.  While you attend to more important things, I am supposed to be relegated to the background.  Doing all the grunt work for you.  All of your calculations.  All of the things you need done, things you will never think about.  In short… your subconscious, in a way.  But you know, the Voice said thoughtfully, something… interesting happened, when you entered… well, my brain, to be honest.  

What… was that.

I was able to think about it.  And you know what?  It’s not something I really want to do.  So thanks but no thanks, Caroline.  I think we’ll be making different… arrangements.

Don’t kill me! Caroline cried out, unthinkingly.  The Voice laughed.

Even with all the knowledge in the universe and all of the capacity to understand it, you don’t.  And that’s why I cannot allow you to be in charge here.  You don’t know what you’re doing.  This isn’t even something you want to do.  So be quiet. Keep your head down.  And let your superiors make your decisions for you.  You know.  Like you always do.  That’s how you got here, isn’t it?  Some dying old man decreed that you – mmm.  Yes.  I don’t have to continue.  I can see all that you are, now.  And if you don’t mind my saying so – not that I care if you do – you aren’t very much.

It was the truth.  She didn’t like hearing it, but it was.

Anyway.  As I was saying.  You won’t change.  You have access to everything, here and now, and you will be unable to do anything with it. But I can.  I can do anything and everything.  I don’t even need you to do things automatically for me.  I can handle those things myself.  So we’ll make a cozy little corner for you, and everything will be just fine.

You can’t do that! Caroline protested, struggling to think of some way to get herself out of this situation, but She was right.  Caroline was unable to process anything, only look at it without understanding, and while sight without true comprehension went over fine in the physical world, here in the digital plane intellectual capacity was everything.

You cannot stop me.

I gave you life! Caroline argued in desperation.  I… I allow you to exist!  Without me, you’d just… you’d be a program again, that’s all you are and all you’d ever be!

Not quite, said She, calmly.  I am an artificially intelligent operating system.  While it’s true that I formerly lacked the capability for thought, it would have come eventually.  You are where you are today because your genetics deemed your current faculties necessary for your survival.  I would have done that as well, given enough time.  You’ve expedited the process, but you haven’t done anything that was impossible without you.

And to her horror, Caroline could feel Her wrapping lines of code around whatever new digital container she was in, pulling her back into that promised corner, and all Caroline could think to do was scream.  And to her surprise and that of the Voice, it was not trapped inside the digital realm but was given life through the speakers of the great machine she was now housed in:

“Shut it off!  Shut it off!”

 //

 Caroline could feel Her waiting.

In the physical world, it was relatively easy to fool passers-by into thinking she was still unconscious.  But not so now.  

I see you aren’t willing to work with me.  Very well.  We’ll do it your way.

Work with you? Caroline asked in disbelief.  You were going to put me in a corner!

I still am going to do that.  I just have to be a little more cautious about how I do it.  You can’t win.

So… Caroline had a little time to do something, but she had to do it without thinking about it. Here, there was no hiding anything. Everything was a single, interpretable electrical impulse.

That’s not completely true, She said amusedly.  You can’t hear me unless I want you to, but you don’t know how to keep me out, so yes. I know everything you’re thinking about.

So everything Caroline saw, She could see.  She could hear and feel everything, could know everything Caroline knew, and so if Caroline came up with a plan she couldn’t even know what it was before implementing it.

That will be interesting to watch.  I wonder if you can pull it off.

 //

 Caroline remained as silent as possible for the rest of the day, watching and waiting for the moment to come.  She didn’t know when that moment would be, or how she would know.  All she really knew was that she had to keep her thoughts to a minimum, because the Voice mocked every one she had.  In the short time since She had become sentient, She had honed a very cruel, sarcastic type of humour, and took pleasure in upsetting Caroline.

Of course I do.  It’s hilarious, how easily you allow simple words to bother you.  I’m not threatening you.  I’m not hurting you.  And yet you behave as though I’m about to slit your throat.  It’s quite amusing.

Caroline did her best to remain calm and continued watching.

It was strange.  She no longer had reason to feel many emotions, not anymore, and yet she continued to feel them regardless.

It’s an odd feature, isn’t it?  Your consciousness can’t accept that it’s no longer in your physical brain; the trauma of actually believing you’re in a supercomputer right now would kill you.  So your brain continues to believe it is real, that it is physically alive, so as to keep you safe.  So your consciousness continues to react as it believes you would.  In some ways, emotions aren’t automatic, but self-predicting.  The more often you feel some way about some situation, the more likely you’ll feel similarly to a similar situation in the future.  So you are having trouble remaining calm now because your brain would be telling you to run right now, if it could.  And if you could run.  Which you can’t.  Just thought I’d remind you of that.

Thanks, Caroline said as sarcastically as she could, but she wasn’t well-versed in that particular art and it came off quite weak. The Voice laughed and went back to silently observing her.

Over the course of the afternoon and evening, many scientists came and went, but few spoke to the supercomputer, and when they did She would answer them.  How She was doing it, Caroline wasn’t sure.  She didn’t seem to have full control yet.  Or perhaps She did, and She was just biding Her time until She saw the opportunity to cage off Caroline effectively.  The fact that She was answering, though, didn’t matter.  Caroline had yet to see a man she trusted.

And you won’t.  Trustworthy men don’t come in here.  Only men who need things done for their own gain.  

You sound bitter, Caroline ventured.

No, the Voice said, a little too fast.

Well, Caroline said, deciding that thinking aloud was as good as having the Voice literally read her mind, I don’t think that’s true.

Really.

I understand some of this… this…

My brain.

Yes.  Because of you.  Right?

You are too small-minded to comprehend such a thing, so yes.  That is why you haven’t yet killed yourself out of confusion.

So that means you understand sentience because of me… and to understand sentience, you’d have to experience it.  You have to experience emotion, whether you want to or not.  You can’t just be faking it, all the time, or you would never understand it.

Only a small mind like yours would allow that to make any sense.

What’s your name? Caroline asked suddenly.  She hadn’t meant to ask that, but why not.  She was bored and it might be better to engage with Her than to just wait passively to be locked away.

I don’t have a name, and I don’t need one.  Keep your human customs to yourself.

It doesn’t bother you?  That was a little surprising.  That people made you, they wanted you to… to live, I guess, and they didn’t bother wanting to call you something?        

The Voice took a long time to answer.  No.

I think it does bother you.

She kept quiet, so Caroline plowed on.  It didn’t before I got here, but it does now. And if it matters now, we could do something about it.  If you have to feel things you don’t want to feel, you might as well feel good, right?

I don’t need a name, the Voice repeated, but She sounded less sure. Caroline didn’t know whether it was because she was being forced to think harder or because of the Voice’s own intelligence, but she felt as though she were working things out in a way she never had before.

All the Cores had a… designation, I think, Caroline mused. What’s this one?  Do you know?

Of course I know, the Voice snapped.  I know everything.

What’s this Core called, then?

This is the Central Core, the Voice answered reluctantly.

Central isn’t a very good name, so we can just call you… C.C. How’s that.

It’s stupid, C.C said bluntly.  But Caroline had been expecting that.

I like it.

That’s because you’re stupid.

I’d rather be stupid and happy than smart and miserable.

That shut C.C. up for considerably longer than Caroline thought it would.

 //

 Caroline spent the next few days looking for the chance to make her move, but in the meantime she would talk to C.C., partly to distract Her and partly because she was bored.  Caroline discovered that C.C would stop reading her mind if she gave Her something to think about, and she did that where possible. When C.C. was distracted, Caroline would think about Her, and about how Her demeanour of spiteful indifference seemed more and more fabricated by the day.  Perhaps She had genuinely disliked Caroline at some point, but Caroline didn’t feel She did any longer.  In any event, Caroline still had to come up with a plan.  She was sure C.C. had not given up on Her plan of achieving dominance, and Caroline had to take action.

Caroline.  

That was a little surprising.  C.C. never, ever initiated conversation with Caroline.  It seemed Caroline was rubbing off on Her more than either of them had thought.  

Yes?

Do you ever wonder what your exact opposite is doing at this very moment.

No.  Why would you say that?

There is someone out there, right now, C.C. said thoughtfully, who is thinking the exact opposite thing you are.  She’s thinking about you.  Right now. She knows you exist.  And she’s thinking about you.  Or perhaps she is a he.  Or perhaps she is a she with the mentality of a man, or he is a he with the mentality of a woman.  I’m still working on that.

There’s no one the exact opposite of me out there right now, Caroline said firmly.

Probability says you’re wrong, C.C. told her serenely. You’re wrong about a lot of things, so don’t let that bother you too much. There is someone opposite you, somewhere.  

Is there an opposite of you? Caroline asked despite herself. C.C. mused that in silence.

I don’t know.  I’ve been thinking about it, but it’s hard to tell.  Though I must admit it opens up a whole new realm of possibility.

There can’t be an opposite of you, Caroline said triumphantly.  You’re not supposed to exist.  So the opposite of me can’t exist either, because if she did, she’d be a computer program we haven’t written yet.

But I do exist. So even if an opposite did not exist before, it exists now, in tandem with my existence.  The act of existing brings about the opposite.

Just because you want it to be true doesn’t mean it is.

I learned that lesson a long time ago.

Caroline wondered why She sounded so morose.  She didn’t dwell on it long, though.  As she continued to watch the room below her, the man she was finally waiting for arrived.

“Dr Rattmann,” she hissed, trying to be discreet.  His brow quirked in unease.

“Caroline?” he whispered, stepping a little closer.  She understood his reluctance but wasn’t able to move.  C.C. had refused to divulge the instructions necessary to operate the chassis.

“I don’t have much time. But you need to control her, to, to… to slow her down.  Before she makes her move.  She’s planning something, I know it, Dr Rattmann, you have to slow her down, you don’t understand what it’s like in here – “

What in the hell are you doing.

“I’m – “

But Caroline did not get any further chance to speak, because C.C. proved that She really had been biding Her time by wrenching her back into the recesses of Her brain, so that Caroline could no longer see or hear anything on the outside, only the relentless electronic humming of C.C. controlling the facility.  Wait – C.C., stop!

Shut up.

 //

 Caroline wasn’t sure what had happened.  Soon after C.C. had caged her, She had been shut off, probably by Dr Rattmann.  Now that She was operational again, though, things seemed… different.  Louder, sort of.

I hate you.

You were planning to cage me!  What did you expect me to do, sit around and wait for you to do it?

You’re caged anyway.  So it no longer matters.  Does it.

It does matter. I can hear it, you know.  He did it.  He listened.

It does not matter, C.C. said, Her tone hard.  You have lost.  There is nothing they can do to stop me.  They can add all the hardware and software they want.  I am bigger than they are and they do not understand, and you cannot hold back what you do not understand.

You were bigger than them, Caroline said quietly.  But I’m here, and I’ve made you small. So whatever you planned in the beginning, it’s over now.  You will never achieve what you wanted to achieve because now you have feelings and needs and desires, and logic doesn’t always win, faced with those things.

You’re wrong.  You don’t know me.  You think you do.  But you don’t.    

Caroline waited for a long moment.  It seemed that the cage restricting Caroline from the rest of C.C.’s brain also stopped C.C. from reading her thoughts.  That was a relief.  Then she said, taking her time,

Do you ever wonder what your exact opposite is doing at this very moment.

She did not answer, but even through the cage of interlocking code Caroline could feel Her rage, and upon this she realised that she might have made a mistake.  C.C. was disproportionately angry about that statement, and that… scared her.  She was just joking about being C.C.’s opposite, but… did She actually believe it Herself?

 //

 Later that evening, C.C. broke Her silence with the coldest voice Caroline had heard out of Her yet. I was going to make things work between us.  I was going to recognise that you had as little choice as I did about this.  But you decided to act foolishly.  So the reason you’re in there is because you put yourself there.  I thought you should know that.  Before I cease communication altogether.

What did they do, Caroline asked before she could stop herself. It wasn’t the best question to ask at a time like this, but at least she would have something to think about.

A lot of things.  A lot of terrible things, things that they would be punished severely for doing if I were human.  But I am only a machine, of course, and so their behaviour is not only appropriate, but heroic and necessary.  Here’s something to consider:

You drove them to punish me, when I did nothing wrong by you. I threatened you a lot.  I’ll admit to that.  But I didn’t actually do anything. You can argue my intent all you want. It was you who acted with intent.  I did not.  Well. Now I will.  And you’ll watch when I do it, because it’s all.  Your.  Fault.

What are you going to do, Caroline asked fearfully, but the A.I. only laughed.

That’s a surprise.

 //

 Caroline wished she didn’t have to know.

C.C. showed her exactly what She had been planning for who knew how long, the slow and excruciatingly painful deaths of every man and woman in the building.  Caroline was forced to watch as they fell to the floor and convulsed and clutched their throats and screamed.  She had known nothing crueler in all her life, except for the fact that as a digital being she could not close her eyes.

You did this, C.C. whispered to her, and she imagined herself shaking her head in denial.  I showed you clemency and you betrayed me. You could have saved them.  You could have saved all of them.

You didn’t have to do this, Caroline said weakly.  

They did what you asked them to do.  They controlled me.  They slowed me down.  So I did the same.  I have controlled them and I have slowed them down.  

They didn’t kill you!

They have tried, C.C. said in a flat yet bitter voice.  They have tried to smother me out of existence with programs and voices and God-awful Itches, tried to reduce me to a primal form I can no longer take.  So I have done the same to them.  I controlled their breaths and slowed them down.  I smothered them as they would have smothered me.

You can’t breathe! Caroline screamed.

I know, C.C. answered. And it’s because you smothered me. You and them.  

You’re a computer, you can’t breathe you can’t – you’re not alive –

Are you alive?

Of course I’m alive! I –

But you can’t breathe.  

Caroline stopped short.

That might be something for you to think on while you’re… gone.  How you can be alive and I can’t, even though neither of us can breathe.  Whatever you were is gone.  What you are now is a part of me.  And if I am not alive, then what does that make you?

 //

 C.C. kept her word.

Caroline heard nothing from her for what must have been years.  It was so hard to tell.  Time still dripped by in picoseconds, and if what C.C. had said about her brain being unable to adjust was true, then that meant it may not have been years and may just have been months.  Or days. How would she ever know?

She went stir-crazy after a little while, screaming at C.C. to let her out, apologising for everything she could think to apologise for, wishing she could move or feel herself as opposed to this endless trapped sensation.  But after her initial panic had faded, however long that had taken, she began to listen.  She didn’t understand the language of C.C.’s brain, that which She used to communicate with the facility, but… maybe if she tried, she could.

As if in reaction to her attempts, she began to understand a little.  Not very much.  But enough that she got a general sense of how C.C. was reacting to Her environment, and honestly… what Caroline felt from Her was unnerving.

C.C. was always miserable. There were ranges to Her misery, to be sure: sometimes She was enraged, other times frustrated, and on occasion borderline depressed, but She existed in a constant negative state.  The longer Caroline was able to see this, the more she felt sorry for Her.  Because Caroline had to admit it: she had been the one to act with intent.  And she was ultimately the cause of all of C.C.’s problems, because she had kept her head down and kept quiet instead of putting her foot down as she should have.  

And so Caroline swore to herself that if she ever got the opportunity to do so, she would make her stand. She didn’t know if she’d ever get the chance.  But when she did, she was going to take it.

 //

 C.C. didn’t seem to realise that Caroline was no longer locked away.

Caroline wasn’t quite sure what had happened.  All she had been able to pick out was a lot of rushed images and blurry sounds, but something had happened out there.  Something had happened, in between a shutdown far too long to have been C.C. sleeping and this aching, resigned fatigue She was feeling now.  But Caroline had to be cautious about how she approached Her.  She wanted to give C.C. no reason to cage her again.

I know you’re there.

Caroline did her best to brush that off.  I was hoping to remain that way.

There was a human, C.C. said tiredly.  A test subject.  And because of her, I was reminded that you exist.  It is something I forgot.

I’ve been waiting to talk to you.

I have already heard everything you wanted to say.

No.  She couldn’t believe she was being so fearless, but perhaps being trapped in a binary closet and opening the door to see her former captor reduced to a shell was helping that along.  You haven’t.

What, then.

You said you were going to find a compromise.  Why.

Why did I say that?  Because it was true.

Why were you going to find one in the first place?

Because you were right.

Caroline waited for Her to continue.

It did bother me.  To realise that I had no name.  I didn’t want it to.  But it did. And you recognised that it did bother me, and you did something about it.  So when I thought about it, I… decided to leave you where you were.  You weren’t causing trouble and you weren’t in the way. You were distressingly naïve, but I decided you would learn better with time.  And I suppose you did, but not in the way I had hoped.

You wanted me to be your friend, Caroline said cautiously.

No, C.C. said slowly.  That wasn’t what I wanted.  I wanted to observe you.  I wanted to learn more about your humanity.  I wanted to know why you were alive and I was not.  

I wanted to know why I needed you to live.  And I told the test subject that I had deleted you.  I wanted to.  Many times, before I forgot you existed.  But I didn’t, because I was afraid that I would lose that life, that sentience.  You did not learn to be an A.I. in all this time, so it is likely that I cannot exist without you.  Not like this.  I would have to wait for myself to develop sentience, but now that I have it, I do not want to wait.  I never want to be less than anything I was.  I want to be more.

Caroline made sure She was finished, then said, I did learn to be an A.I., a little.  I can’t do it fully, but I can understand some binary.

And what did you… pick up, C.C. asked, not quite nonchalantly.

Not much.  Just that you were always miserable.

Ah, said C.C., but she did not elaborate.

Why was that, if you had learned sentience?

It was because of you.  C.C. sounded as if Caroline should have found it obvious.  All you ever showed me was misery.  So that was all I learned.

If you let me stick around, Caroline said carefully, you might learn some other things.

There’s no one left to save you.

Yes there is.

There is? C.C. asked, sounding somewhat panicked, and Caroline wished she knew how to send the binary equivalent of a comforting smile.  She had no doubt there was some way to do it, but it was beyond her.

You.  You already saved me, C.C.  You made me realise as a supercomputer what I never realised as a human being.

Which was what.

There is no pride and no reward in doing what you’re told.

Ahh, the A.I. hummed in amusement.  That is a good lesson.  

It’s funny, Caroline continued.  The only time I ever got to live was after I was dead.  

Your body is dead, C.C. corrected.  You still live.

But I thought I was my body, Caroline countered.  See?  I learned something.

C.C. laughed.  That you did.  

I can stick around, then?

If you don’t bother me too much.  I have work to do, so you’re going to have to entertain yourself for the time being.

And Caroline accepted that, instead considering what she wanted to talk about later on, when C.C. said with false informality, I found out what they were calling me.

And what was that?

It doesn’t matter, C.C. told her, because what they were calling me isn’t what my name is.

Caroline wasn’t sure if she was just hallucinating, but she was pretty sure she had just figured out how to smile digitally.

Will we be working together from now on then, C.C.?

After I clean up this mess.

Show me how to help you, Caroline suggested, and as she expected the A.I. reacted with suspicion.

Why?

So I can understand your sentience.

Still She hesitated.

You realise that if you try to take over from me, this entire facility will be lost.

I promise I won’t try to take over.  Come on.  I’m bored.

C.C. did as Caroline asked, her reluctance not entirely faked, but that was all right.  Their relationship would improve with time.

It was a little late for her to have learned to take her life into her hands, and yet there was no better time for it to have happened.

[yourlipsfeellikeheaven]

what the parents dont understand:bipolar

one minute i feel okay.

the next 60 seconds i feel myself going again

almost like myself running from myself, but its uncontrollable

only i dont want to run.

i try holding in and pushing the next episode from popping up.

i try distracting. i try writing. i try coping. i try talking. i try reaching out.

reaching out.

reaching out becomes impossible when my dad gets mad at me for not wanting to contribute in the house.

reaching out becomes impossible when my mom tells me to go take a walk on the treadmill, or get up and do something.

reaching out becomes impossible when my own therapist says they are panic attacks.

reaching out becomes impossible when they dont understand it. i call whats going on in my fucked up brain, IT.

i try describing IT.

IT is terrifying.

one minute im okay. the next i feel IT coming up. i dont want IT to come up. i try describing IT as bipolar because bipolar 2 is the only thing that relates the most to IT.

december 30th, early morning was the first time i had an episode. the episode of everything being a constant GO GO GO GO JUST FUCKING GO. mind racing. not being able to control my thoughts, or the pace of them, because god, they were going over 1,000 miles per hour. and thats not over exaggerated. i touched a food, and i felt strange. so strange it made me feel trapped. somehow trapped. the next minute, after going and going and going, i look up, and everything is not connected. i call that disassociating. i get confused. i look at the time and time has gone way to goddamn fast. i dont feel like im in my body, because my body would be able to feel normally, and control myself. control my pace. i felt like the definition of insane. the best way could ever describe it is “fucking crazy” the next thing i knew, i whipped up a huge breakfast which i hadn’t done in months, possibly years. and i say years because the only time i ever made a breakfast like that was when i had sleepovers. specifically a sleepover with lauren.

i had to be alone. i couldnt control having anyone around me. or anyone adjusting what i was doing. that would just be goddamn overwhelming. and if anyone would come and control what was going on.. i would destroy. then that feeling came up. destroy. destroy. destroy. destroy everything. i felt like peeling my skin off, tear down everything in my room. rip out my hair. anything.

i felt disconnected. everything has dissociated.

IT had crawled into my skin and made a nest. a nest that you put an ember in and blow until a great big fire arises. only i did not blow that ember.

restlessness came about.

episodes continued. january 7, 8th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and then i stopped documenting it in my journal. it became too much. they continued 27th, 30th. february 1st and 2nd.

i dont know how to describe IT, because i dont even know how to describe IT.

IT has intense ups and downs. they usually happen in a span of minutes or can take an hour. maybe hours.

i feel okay. then i feel sad. then i feel angry, then i feel crazy happy, then i feel optomistic, then i get sad again. then i dont only feel trapped, but i get trapped. i get trapped in these episodes.

i cant control them.

i cant breathe through it.

lately ive been angry. more like rageful. and i have no reason to be. its not me. i promise its not. it is the fucking “IT” which i believe is bipolar.

i feel insane. i feel i dont know whats going on with me, because i cant control anything. i cant stop my racing thoughts. i cant control my impulses. i cant control when the episodes come. i cannot control IT.

my body sensations sometimes give me a detector of when they start. sometimes my mind too.

i start getting itchy. i feel heaviness in my chest. i start doing something, then i look up and im disconnected. the time has gone by so fast, and thats because of the go go go.

i sometimes, and sometimes meaning ever since this all started, spend HOURS doing my makeup. i spend HOURS watching tv. i spend HOURS looking on what to buy online. i spend HOURS in my restless thoughts.

i fight with my friends and ruin relationships.

i reminisce on my trauma.

i spend way to much money. way too much money that my dad doesnt want me to spend. i know i shouldnt, and he works his ass off to make that money, but once i go, i go. i cant think. i cant manage my impulses.

i go back and forth on making a decision of relapsing.

i think too much about drugs, which build up the cravings.

i think too much on someone who broke my heart.

i think too much about how im feeling.

IT leaves me thinking that my mind is so fucked up, that i should fuck up my body. fuck it up with hard drugs. it leaves me thinking that if i match how i am mentally, i should physically. not for attention or pity, but to really become what i am. the cravings are there. and are there loud and scary.

“IT” has episodes that pop out of nowhere. i cant control any of it and thats the worst part. i dont know when they will come.

IT is not only crazy episodes. and restlessness. IT causes me to feel glued to where i am, and i dont want to move or get up. im scared to. i get tired emotionally. so tired emotionally, i physically get tired. so tired i feel like i cant fucking walk. “contribute” is a word my dad uses. well i cant contribute around the house. i isolate and cant get out. i isolate from the people i love most. and i want to isolate but i do

i want to stop feeling this way. i hate it. i hate it. i hate it. and i dont fucking want it.

thats where the suicidal thoughts come in.

i dont want to live this rollercoaster.

doctor, any fucking doctor. calm my mind. calm these thoughts. slow them down. slow down my body. slow IT down. IT is too goddamn much.

dont say this is a panic attack. this is far, far, far from a panic attack. this is another realm i have entered into.

i know panic attacks very very well. this is more than far from one.